Commentary on the Report of the Publicity Department of the CPC Central Committee Concerning the Campaign to Criticize Hu Shi’s Thought and Future Work〔1〕 (May 29, 1955)  After Liu〔2〕 has reviewed it, please circulate as is. Mao Zedong, May 29. Printed from the manuscript.  Notes 〔1〕 In this report to the Central Committee dated May 11, 1955, the Publicity Department of the CPC Central Committee stated that the criticism of the Hu Shi school’s bourgeois idealism, which began last November and has continued to the present, has now developed into a nationwide campaign. This is the first ideological struggle of national scale led by our Party against bourgeois idealism. Through this campaign, the pernicious influence of bourgeois idealism has been preliminarily exposed, drawing people’s attention to questions of worldview and arousing interest in the study of Marxist philosophy. It has had a profound impact on China’s academic circles, played a positive role in building the Party’s theoretical contingent, and has also brought about a certain degree of education for most of the older scholars who have joined in.

Under the direct leadership of the CPC Central Committee, the campaign has generally progressed in a healthy manner from its inception to the present; however, certain problems and shortcomings remain: First, its influence among the broad ranks of cadres and intellectuals has not yet been deep or wide enough. Second, progress has been uneven across different academic disciplines. Third, owing to a weak foundation in theoretical work, although many articles have been published and their overall level has been gradually improving, there are still too few high-quality pieces; some offer scant argumentation, lack sufficient reasoning, and arrive at conclusions in an arbitrary fashion.

In light of the above situation, the following measures should be taken:

1. To broaden the campaign’s influence among the wider intellectual community, in addition to continuing to publish articles, efforts should also be made to organize lectures.

2. Attention should be paid to the erroneous views revealed among the older scholars during the course of the criticism. Specifically, those aspects of Hu Shi’s thought that are most deceptive, most misleading, and most widely influential—such as his so-called methods of scholarship—should be further analyzed and subjected to thorough critique in a series of articles.

3. For academic fields where the critique has already been sufficiently carried out, further directions for deeper investigation should be proposed; for those where the critique has not yet been fully launched, priorities should be set, plans formulated, and resolute action taken to initiate the critique.

4. The scope should be gradually expanded to include other representative figures of bourgeois thought whose ideas continue to exert an influence even in recent decades, so that they too may be subjected to critical examination.

5. When publishing papers in the press, preference should be given to concentrated analyses of single issues rather than sweeping overviews covering everything; advocacy should be given for positive, comprehensive exposition rather than mere exposure and denunciation; writing should be accessible, concise, and easy to understand; scientific rigor and accuracy should be emphasized; ample reasoning and rigorous argumentation are required; and in-depth research aimed at making theoretical contributions should be encouraged.

6. Regular discussion meetings should be maintained, but their frequency need not be excessive. They should be well planned and prepared, with focused topics, so as to genuinely raise the level of discourse, rather than engaging in discussion for its own sake.

7. Starting now, preparations should be made for several substantial summary papers to serve as the outcome of this phase of concentrated criticism. 〔2〕 Liu refers to Liu Shaoqi.