Do Not Blindly Believe That Everything Is Good

Date: 1956-06-28
Source: en:FLP-Diplomacy
DO NOT BLINDLY BELIEVE THAT
EVERYTHING IS GOOD
IN A SOCIALIST COUNTRY*
(June 28, 1956)
You may have discussions with responsible personnel of our government
departments, armed forces, Party committees and mass organizations. You can
ask to meet with whomever you wish to talk with. If the persons talking with
you speak only about achievements and do not speak about mistakes and
shortcomings, they are not giving an account of the real conditions. People
with experience will not believe their assertions. We should not blindly believe
that everything is good in a socialist country. There are two aspects to
everything; the good and the bad. In our society we certainly have good things,
but we also have bad things; we have good people and also bad people; we
have advanced things as well as backward things. It is precisely because of this
that we are carrying out reforms, to reform the bad into the good. We must
be prepared to find bad things; otherwise, if a problem crops up, one will
think it is terrifying. In the past, the Soviet Union was believed to be free of
mistakes; now that the question of Stalin has surfaced, many people are taken
aback. The world is beautiful and also not so beautiful, and there are conflicts
and contradictions in the world. To hope that everything is well and good is
our subjective wish, but the reality is something objective. Since ancient times
there have been good things and bad things in the world, and it will be like
that 10,000 years hence. As there are bad things in the world, we need to work
and carry out reforms. However, we can not do everything well, or our
offspring will have no work to do.
We should not do anything to excess, as excessiveness invariably leads to
mistakes. Stalin was basically correct and had great meritorious achievements,
but he also committed very big mistakes and did many things wrong. Stalin
* These are excerpts from Mao Zedong's talk with Nicolae Cioroiu, ambassador of
Romania to China.
erred on the side of excessiveness. The suppression of counterrevolutionaries
was originally a good thing, but doing it to excess and regarding revolutionary
comrades as counterrevolutionaries was a big mistake. I told the Soviet
comrades that they had committed mistakes in the past and would commit
mistakes in future. They were not inclined to believe this. We in China have
also committed many mistakes, including grave mistakes. In our Party there
have been mistakes of Chen Duxiu's Right opportunism,'^" Li Lisan's "Left"
opportunism,'^' Wang Ming's "Left" opportunism, Zhang Guotao's Right
opportunism,'" Wang Ming's Right opportunism, and Gao Gang's Anti Party Right Opportunism.'33 In future there certainly will be mistakes and
there will be persons like Gao Gang and the others. We will try to confine the
extent of mistakes, and that is possible. But it is unrealistic to deny we can
commit mistakes. That will not be the situation of this world or of the earth,
but of planet Mars.
(From the verbatim record)