Reinforce the Unity of the Party and
Carry Forward the Party Traditions

(August 30, 1956)

Source: Xuanji, V, pp. 293-304. Available English Translations: SW, V, pp.
312-323; JPRS, Selections, pp. 30-38; CLG, X:2 (Summer 1977), 19-34.

According to the Xuanji source note, and as indicated in Mao's first sentence in this
document, this is a speech that Mao made at the first preparatory meeting for the Eighth
National Congress of the CPC. The Congress was held September 15-27, 1956 (see Mao's
opening speech, text Sept. 15, 1956). It dealt with many significant issues, including the
formulation of a Party constitution and making proposals for the Second Five-Year Plan
for the development of the national economy. In the speech here, three things, at least, are
worthy of special attention. First, we can see hints of how Mao’s ideas of socialist
development and what would eventually be known as Mao Zedong Thought (i.e., Mao’s
fundamental theory of socialist revolution) affected the formulation of the Party Constitution. Second, we see also the Maoist position in the ‘‘de-Stalinization’’ debate, and third,
Mao spoke at length here, from the perspective of Party unity, about the CPC treatment of
people who had made mistakes in the past. This last point reflected Mao’ s confidence in the
Struggle against counterrevolutionary activities in the first half of the 1950s and the Party
rectification during that period. In some ways, this is a reinforcement of what Mao spoke of
in the article ‘‘On the Ten Major Relationships’ (see text Apr. 25, 1956).

Today we are holding a preparatory conference for the Eighth Party Congress.!
This preparatory conference will have to continue for a couple of weeks. The main
things to be done [here] are first, to prepare the documents for the Congress; second,
to carry out preliminary elections for the Central Committee; and, third, to prepare

Pe


the drafts of the addresses to be given at the Congress.

Now I am going to present a few ideas.

The first concerns the goals and purposes of the Congress. What problems does
this Congress aim to solve? What goals does it aim to achieve? Generally speaking,
[the goal] is to sum up our experiences since the “‘Seventh Congress,’’2 to unite
the whole Party, and to unite all the forces that can be united, both at home and
abroad, in order to struggle for the building of a great socialist China.

On the matter of summing up experiences: our experience has been very rich
and abundant, but we cannot [just] list a lot of things; rather we must seize upon
[only] the important points and, proceeding from reality, sum them up from a
Marxist point of view. Such a summing up will lend momentum to our entire Party,
so that our work will be even better than before.

Our Party is a great, glorious, and correct Party. This is generally acknowledged
by the whole world. In the past some foreign comrades were suspicious; [they
asked] ‘*What are you really doing?’’ Many people didn’t understand our policy
with regard to the treatment of the national bourgeoisie and don’t quite comprehend
our rectification campaigns.? Today, as I see it, the number of people who
understand [us] has increased, and we can say that people in general now understand. Of course there will still be some people who don’t understand. At home,
even within the Party, there are still some people who don’t understand and who
believe that the line [we have followed] since the “Seventh Congress’’ has not
been that correct. However, when the facts are put in front of us, [we can see that]
we undertook two revolutions: one [was] a bourgeois democratic revolution that
seized political power throughout the country; and the other is the proletarian
socialist revolution, carrying out the socialist transformation and the building of a
socialist nation.‘ In the eleven years since the *‘Seventh Congress,’’ our achievements have been very great. The whole country acknowledges this, the whole world
acknowledges this, even the bourgeoisie in foreign countries can’t do anything but
acknowledge this. The two revolutions prove that the line followed by the Party
Center since the ‘‘Seventh Congress’’ is correct.

When the October Revolution overthrew the bourgeoisie, it was an event
unprecedented in the world. The [reaction] of the international bourgeoisie to this
revolution has mainly been to curse it, no matter what. They’re constantly saying
that it’s no good. The Russian bourgeoisie is a counterrevolutionary class. At the
time [of the October Revolution] they refused to play [their role in] state capitalism;
instead they slowed down production, carried out sabotage, and took up guns to
fight [the revolution].> There was nothing that the Russian proletariat could do but
get rid of them. This aroused the anger of the bourgeoisie of the various countries,
and they started cursing. In our case, we treat the national bourgeoisie a bit more
moderately, and so they feel somewhat more comfortable; they feel that there is
still some good [in our revolution]. At the moment, Eisenhower and Dulles forbid
American reporters from coming to China; this in fact is an acknowledgment [of
the fact] that our policy has these good points. If we were in a mess over here, they
would have allowed those people to come here; in any case, [they merely want to]
write articles that curse us. What they are afraid of are articles that are not


JULY—SEPTEMBER 1956 / III

exclusively devoted to cursing us but may even say something good [about us]:
then things would become difficult [for them].

In the past people called China ‘‘a great and ancient empire,”’ the sick man of
East Asia. Its economy was backward, and so was its culture. No one paid attention
to hygiene; they were no good at ball games, or at swimming. The women had
bound feet, men wore their hair in queues, and there were eunuchs. [There was also
the attitude that] in China the moonlight was not that good and that the moon was
always brighter in foreign countries.® All in all, there were a lot of bad things [about
China], but we have changed the face of China with the reforms carried out in the
last six years. Nobody can deny our achievements. |

The nucleus that leads our revolutionary cause is our Party. In summing up our
experience at this Congress, the first thing we must do is make the entire Party even
more united. As of June, our Party had 10.73 million members. We must carry out
on a broad scale the work of education, of persuasion, and of creating unity among
these more than ten million Party members, so that they can play the role of a
nucleus among the people even more proficiently. It is not enough just to have the
Party; the Party is [only] a nucleus, and it must have the masses [around it]. Ninety
per cent of our concrete work in various endeavors, including work in industry, in
agriculture, in trade, in culture and education, and so forth, is done not by Party
members but by people who are not Party members. Therefore it is necessary to
unite well with the masses, to unite with all those people with whom unity is
possible, and to work together [with them]. In the past, we still had many problems
in uniting the Party and in uniting with people outside the Party. We must push
forward propaganda and education [work] during and after this Congress and
solidly improve our work in this area.

Internationally, we must unite with all the forces with which it is possible to
unite; first of all we must unite with the Soviet Union and unite with fraternal parties
and fraternal nations and peoples; we must also unite with all peace-loving nations
and peoples and rely on all useful forces. This time, representatives from the
Communist parties of more than fifty countries will take part in our Congress; this
is a very good thing. In the past, we hadn’t attained political power throughout the
entire country, we hadn’t achieved victory in the two revolutions, and we hadn’t
attained any success in our [national] construction. But things are different now.
Foreign comrades have more respect for us.

What is the purpose of our uniting with all the forces, both within the Party and
outside of it, both at home and abroad, with which we can unite? The goal is to
build a great socialist country. For such a country as ours, the word ‘‘great’’ can
and ought to be used. Our Party is a great party, our people are a great people, our
revolution is a great revolution, and the cause which we are building is a great
cause. There is only one country on earth that has a population of 600 million, and
that is ours. In the past when people looked down on us there was reason for it. It
was because we didn’t have a contribution to make. We produced only a few
hundred thousand tons of steel each year, and even that was controlled by the
Japanese. The Kuomintang dictatorship of Chiang Kai-shek [ruled the country for]
twenty-two years, and each year [steel] production was merely a few tens of


thousands of tons. Even now we still don’t have a lot, but things are picking up a
bit. This year [steel production] is more than 4 million tons. Next year we will break
through the 5-million-ton [mark], in the Second Five-Year Plan® we will exceed
10 million tons, and in the Third Five-Year Plan we may exceed 20 million tons.
We must strive to realize that goal. Although there are some hundred or more
countries in the world, there are only a few that [produce] more than 20 million
tons of steel.? For that reason, when our country has been built up, it will be a great
socialist country. The backward conditions of the last century or so, the conditions
of being despised by others, all those miserable conditions will be thoroughly
changed. Moreover, we will catch up with the most powerful capitalist country in
the world, the United States. The United States has a population of only 170 million
people, and the population of our country is several times that; we also have rich
resources, and our climatic conditions are similar to theirs, [so] catching up with
them is possible. Should we or should we not catch up? We definitely should. What
are you doing with your population of 600 million people, sleeping? Should we be
sleeping or should we be working? If you say that we ought to be working, then,
since they have 170 million people and 100 million tons of steel, can we not produce
200 or 300 million tons of steel? If we cannot catch up [with them], we will have
no reason for not [being able to do so]; and we will not be so glorious or so great.
The United States has been established for only 180 years. Sixty years ago they
also had only 4 million tons of steel, so we are sixty years behind them. If we have
another fifty or sixty years, we definitely ought to surpass them; this is a kind of
responsibility. You have such a large population, such a big piece of territory, and
such rich and abundant resources; moreover, I hear that you’ ve established socialism and supposedly that is superior. Therefore, if you develop for fifty or sixty
years and are still unable to surpass the United States, how will you look? In that
case you should be deprived of your right to live on this earth! Therefore, surpassing
the United States is not only possible, but it is absolutely necessary and obligatory.
If that does not happen, we, the Chinese people, will have let down all the peoples
of the world, and our contribution to humanity will not be a great one.

The second point has to do with carrying forward the traditions of the Party. At
this Congress we should continue to promote the superior traditions of our Party
in the areas of ideology and work-style and firmly oppose both subjectivism and
factionalism; and beyond that, we should also oppose bureaucratism. I’m not going
to talk about that matter, bureaucratism, today, I'll just talk about subjectivism and
factionalism. These two thing recur [even] after they have been swept away [once],
and whenever they recur they have to be swept away again.

When we talk about committing errors we mean committing errors in subjective
[perception] and mistakes in thinking. The many articles that we have seen
criticizing Stalin’s errors either don’t mention this issue at all, or mention this issue
only very infrequently. Why did Stalin commit errors? It’s because on some
questions his subjective [perception] did not correspond to objective reality. At
present, things like this still [occur] frequently in our work. To be subjective is to
proceed not from objective reality or from realistic possibility but rather from
subjective desires. The things that are stipulated in the documents and the things


that we [will] discuss at this Congress must be in conformity with and be as close
as possible to the realities of China. At the same time, on the basis of [our] past
experience, we must criticize those views that do not conform to reality; we must
criticize this subjectivism and attack it. This is a task that we proposed several years
ago. Right now, what we are opposing is subjectivism in the socialist revolution
and in socialist construction. In the past, during the democratic revolution, we were
hurt by subjectivism for a long time, and we suffered severe penalties [for it]. We
almost lost all our bases and more than 90 per cent of our revolutionary forces,!0
Only then did we begin to realize [our error]. The problem was made clear only
after the rectification [campaign] at Yanan,!! in which emphasis was placed on
investigation and study and on proceeding from reality. The universal truths of
Marxism must definitely be integrated with the concrete practice of the Chinese
Revolution; if they aren’t integrated it simply won't work. This is to say that theory
and practice must be united. The unity of theory and practice is one of the most
fundamental principles of Marxism. According to dialectical materialism, ideology
must reflect objective reality, must be examined [in light of] objective practice and
proven to be true before it can be considered as truth; otherwise, it doesn’t count
[as truth]. We have had achievements in our work over the last few years, but there
are problems of subjectivism everywhere. Not only do we have them now, but we
will still have them in the future. There will always be subjectivism, in ten thousand
years, in a hundred million years; there will be [subjectivism] as long as the human
race is not destroyed. [And] as long as there is subjectivism, there will always be
error.

There is another thing; it is called factionalism. Every region has its own overall
situation, every country has its own overall situation, every planet has its own
overall situation. At the moment, we won’t talk about [planets] beyond the Earth,
because lines of communications have not yet been set up. If we discover that there
are human beings on Mars or Venus, then at that time we will negotiate the question
of uniting with them and establishing a united front. Right now we are talking about
the problem of unity within the Party, within the country, and within the whole
world. Our principle is that no matter who you are, whether you are [a member of]
a foreign [Communist] party, or [simply] a foreigner without a party affiliation, as
long as you are of any help to the cause of world peace and human progress, then
we should unite with you. The first thing is to unite with the several dozen
Communist parties and with the Soviet Union. Since some mistakes have occurred
in the Soviet Union and those things have been much talked about, they have been
exaggerated, and now there is the impression that mistakes of that kind are really
terrible. There is something wrong with such an outlook. It is impossible for any
nation not to commit any mistakes at all, and [since] the Soviet Union was the first
socialist country in the world, and has had such a long experience, it is impossible
for it not to have made some mistakes. Where are the mistakes of the Soviet Union,
such as Stalin’s mistakes, located [in the scheme of things]? They are partial and
temporary. Although we hear that some [of these] things have been around for
twenty years already, they are nevertheless still temporary and partial and can be
corrected. The main current in the Soviet Union, its principal aspect, the majority


[of its people], was correct. Russia gave birth to Leninism, and after the October
Revolution, it became the first socialist country. It built socialism, defeated fascism,
and became a great industrial state. It has many things from which we can learn.
Of course, we should study the advanced experiences, and not the backward
experiences. We have always proposed the slogan of studying the advanced
experience of the Soviet Union. Who asked you to learn the backward experiences?
Some people say that no matter what, even the farts of the Russians smell good;
that too is subjectivism. Even the Russians themselves would admit that they stink!
Therefore, things must be analyzed. We’ ve said before that with regard to Stalin,
we should [see him as having been] three parts [bad] and seven parts [good].!2 Their
main things, and the greater portion of their things, are good and useful; [only]
some of their things are wrong. We too have some things that are no good, and we
should discard them ourselves: we certainly don’t want other countries to learn
these bad things. Nevertheless, even bad things count as a type of experience and
are very useful. In our case, we had people like Chen Duxiu, Li Lisan, Wang Ming,
Zhang Guotao, Gao Gang, and Rao Shushi: they have been our teachers.!3 Besides
them, we have had other teachers too. On the domestic scene our best teacher has
been Chiang Kai-shek. People whom we could not convince were persuaded as
soon as Chiang Kai-shek gave them a lesson. What methods did Chiang use to
teach? He used machine guns, cannons, and airplanes to teach. Then there was
imperialism, the [other] teacher that educated our 600 million people. For more
than a century various imperialist powers have oppressed us and [thereby] educated
us. Thus, bad things have had an educational effect and have had the effect of
allowing people to learn from them.

[With regard to] opposing factionalism, one thing especially worth mentioning
is [the problem of] uniting with those who have struggled against you. They fought
with you and knocked you to the ground, so you suffered a beating and were
humiliated, and even though you were not that bad, they give you the ‘‘official
title’’ of opportunist. [In cases] where it is correct to beat [somebody], there should
be a beating. [If] you really were an opportunist, why shouldn’t you be beaten?
Here, [however,] I am talking about beatings that were wrong, and struggles that
were wrong. If those people later change their attitude and recognize that they were
wrong to beat you, that it was not right to give you the title of King of the Kingdom
of Opportunists—as long as there is this [recognition], things will be all right. If
there are individuals who still do not recognize this, can we wait? We can wait. By
uniting, we mean uniting with those who hold opinions different from ours, those
who look down on us, those who do not respect us, those who have quarreled with
us, those who have struggled against us, and those at whose hands we have suffered
defeats. As for those people whose opinions are similar to ours, they are already
united [with us], and with them there is no problem of unity. The problem is with
regard to those with whom there is still no unity. By those with whom there is still
no unity we mean [people] whose ideas are different from ours or those with gross
shortcomings. Now, for instance, there are many people in our Party who have
joined the Party organizationally, but who have not yet joined the Party ideologically. Although they have not fought with you or tangled with you yet, since they


haven't yet joined the Party ideologically it is inevitable that the things they do will
not be quite right, that there will be some defects [in their work], or that they may
do some bad things. We must unite with these people, educate and help them. I said
before, that with regard to all those people with shortcomings, with those who have
committed mistakes, we mustn’t just [watch] to see if they change or not, but must
also help them change. One [part of the correct approach] is to watch, and the other
is to help. If you only watch and just stand there without moving, [simply waiting
to] see what happens [to them] and [thinking that] if they were to do something
well that would be good but that if they fouled things up then they would deserve
any disaster [that might befall them], that attitude is a negative attitude, and not a
positive attitude. Marxists should adopt a positive attitude; we must not only watch
but must also help.

The third point has to do with the election of the Central Committee. Just now
Comrade [Deng] Xiaoping'4 said that the number of members of the Eighth Central
Committee will be between 150 and 170. The Seventh Central Committee was 77
people, and this time we have increased it by a little more than 100 per cent: I think
this will probably be a little better. It will probably be more advantageous for us to
wait a few years, say five years, before we enlarge it again. At present, [there are
still many] good and useful people whose talent was cultivated during the period
of the War of Resistance against Japan; these are the cadres who have what we call
the “‘Three-eight style [of work].’715 They form a very important foundation for
our work at present, and we can’t do without them. The number of these cadres is
very large, however, and if we arranged [to put them all on the Central Committee],
the number of members of the Central Committee would have to be increased to
several hundred. For that reason we will not consider arranging [to put them on the
Central Committee] this time. Comrades, please think the matter over, whether the
number suggested by the Party Center, between 150 and 170, is a suitable one or
what the best number actually is.

It should be confirmed that the last Central Committee has done its work and
has not let the Seventh [Party] Congress down. Over the past eleven years they
have correctly led the democratic revolution in China, and they have correctly led
the socialist revolution and socialist construction; they have not committed any
great errors, and moreover they have combated ail sorts of opportunism and error,
and have overcome all kinds of elements harmful to the revolution and to the [cause
of] construction. They have had their accomplishments, and that includes even
some of the comrades who have made errors. This refers to the Central Committee
as a whole. As far as individual comrades are concerned, we cannot make this kind
of estimation. In particular, there was Wang Ming who, in order to cope with [the
Situation], wrote a statement at the Seventh [Party] Congress acknowledging that
the line of the Party Center was correct. acknowledging [the accuracy of] the
Political report of the Seventh [Party] Congress, and [announcing his] willingness
to abide by the decisions of the Congress. Yet when I talked with him later, he had
changed [his position] and had already forgotten what [he had written]. He went
home and thought about it, and then the next day he said, ‘‘I [already] wrote
something admitting my mistake.” I said, *‘ You admitted your mistake then, if you


do not admit it now, you can take it back.’’ He didn’t, however. Later, at the Second
Plenum [of the Seventh Central Committee],!© we hoped that he would talk a bit
about his own mistakes, but instead he talked about other things; he just talked
about how good people like us were. We said, ‘‘You needn’t say these things;
please talk a bit about what errors you, Wang Ming, have committed.’’ But he
wouldn’t do it. He promised to write [an essay of] self-criticism after the Second
Plenum, but afterward he said that he was sick and couldn’t use his brain. He said
that the moment he started to write, he would get sick. Perhaps that was deliberate
on his part, but it’s hard to say. He’s been ill ever since and cannot attend this
Congress either. Should we elect him [to the Central Committee]? Then there is
Comrade Li Lisan. Should he be elected? There are more people who understand
Li Lisan, but fewer who understand Wang Ming. As Comrade [Deng] Xiaoping
said, if we elect them, the significance would be the same as [when we] elected
them [to the Central Committee] at the Seventh Congress. At the Seventh Congress
many representatives were reluctant to elect them (not only Wang Ming but quite
a few other comrades as well). At the time, we said that if we adopted such a policy
we would be committing an error. Why do we say that it is an error for us not to
elect people who have committed mistakes? Because then we would be doing
things their way. Their method [of struggle] is that, whether you have truly
committed an error or not, once you are declared an opportunist, they will abandon
you. If we do things this way then we are following their line, that is, following
Wang Ming’s line or [Li] Lisan’s line. We will not do such a thing; we will not do
things that lead us to follow Wang Ming’s line or [Li] Lisan’s line. The intra-Party
relations that they developed were precisely relations of that kind. They want to
get rid of anybody who had made errors, or who had struggled against them, or
who had called them opportunists. They called themselves 100 per cent Bolsheviks.
Later we checked and they turned out to be 100 per cent opportunists, while people
like ourselves whom they had labeled ‘‘opportunists’’ turned out to be at least
somewhat Marxist.

The most fundamental reason for [our policy] is that they, i.e., [Wang Ming and
Li Lisan] are not isolated individuals, but rather represent quite a large portion of
the petty bourgeoisie. China is a country with large masses of petty bourgeoisie.
- Quite a large proportion of the petty bourgeoisie is wavering. Take the well-to-do
middle peasants, for example. Everybody can see that they always waver and are
unsteady in any revolution. When they are happy they can be delirious, and when
they are pessimistic they can become forlorn. Their eyes are always fixed on what
little bit of property they have, and this is nothing more than one or two draft
animals, a big cart, and a dozen or so mu of land. They are worried about keeping
what they have and worried, too, about what they might lose; they are afraid that
they may lose these things. These people are different from poor peasants. Poor
peasants in China make up 50 per cent [of the population] in the North and 70 per
cent in the South. In terms of class background, our Party is basically made up of
workers and poor peasants, that is, of the proletariat and the semiproletariat. The
semiproletariat is also petty bourgeois, but its steadfastness is much greater than
that of the middle peasants. Our Party also has taken some intellectuals [into its


ranks]. Approximately one million out of the more than ten million Party members
are intellectuals, higher, middle, and petty. It isn’t easy to say that these one million
intellectuals represent the imperialists, or that they represent the landlord class, or
the bureaucratic bourgeoisie, or even the national bourgeoisie. It would be more
appropriate to consider them in the category of petty bourgeoisie. Within the
category of the petty bourgeoisie, which segment do they primarily represent?
[They represent] those people who, in the cities and in the countryside, [own] a
relatively large proportion of the means of production, such as the well-to-do
middle peasants. These Party members who are intellectuals are scared of dragons
in front of them and tigers behind them. They vacillate frequently, they are fraught
with subjectivism, and there is quite a bit of factionalism [among them]. What does
our electing these two representatives of the Wang Ming line and the [Li] Lisan
line signify? It signifies that there is a difference in our treatment of these people,
who have committed ideological mistakes, and our treatment of those counterrevolutionaries and splitters (such as Chen Duxiu, Zhang Guotao, Gao Gang,
and Rao Shushi). When they engage in subjectivism and factionalism, they hold
up torches and brandish their weapons, they beat their gongs and sound their drums,
and they bring out their political program to vanquish other people. Wang Ming
had his political program; Li Lisan, too, had his political program. Of course, Chen
Duxiu also had a political program, but he was engaging in Trotskyism,!? in
splitting [the Party], and in carrying out anti-Party activities outside the Party.
Zhang Guotao was engaged in conspiracies and in splitting [the Party] and went
over to the side of the Kuomintang. The problem of Wang Ming and Li Lisan,
therefore, is not only a problem [that concerns] them as individuals; rather, what
is important is that it has a social origin. Within our Party, this social origin is
reflected [in the fact] that there are quite a few people in the Party who will waver
at important junctures. These wavering elements are just opportunists. What we
call opportunism is simply doing a thing if it is expedient to do so here and doing
another thing if it is expedient to do so there, without fixed principles, without
definite rules, and without a definite direction; [an opportunist] may be one thing
one day and something else the next. Wang Ming, for instance, is just like that. He
was once terribly “‘Leftist,’’ and later he became terribly Rightist.

At the Seventh Congress we persuaded those comrades and elected Wang Ming
and Li Lisan. So, have we lost anything in the eleven years since the *‘Seventh
Congress’’ because of this? Not at all; our revolution didn’t suffer defeat; nor was
victory delayed by [even] a few months because Wang Ming and Li Lisan were
elected.

Because we elected them [to the Central Committee], does that mean that people
who committed mistakes are to be rewarded? Since those who committed mistakes
have become Central Committee members, let us all commit mistakes together,
whatever may happen. There is still a chance of becoming a Central Committee
member—would this happen? No, this wouldn’t happen. Take a look, the more _
than seventy Central Committee members that we have [now]: they didn’t deliberately commit a few mistakes so they could be members of the Central Committee
again. Will those who have not been members of the Central Committee, whether


Li8 / MAO ZEDONG

they [joined the leadership] before, during, or after the [campaign to promote] the
‘‘Three-eight style [of work],’’ emulate Wang Ming and Li Lisan and develop two
more lines of their own, thus creating four lines [altogether], in order to struggle to
be appointed to the Central Committee? No, this will not happen, nobody is like
that. On the contrary, they will observe and reflect on the mistakes of [Wang Ming
and Li Lisan] and will be more cautious themselves.

Moreover, in the past, people have said such things as ‘‘it’s better to be a
revolutionary-come-lately than to be an early revolutionary, and it’s better not to
be a revolutionary than to be a revolutionary.’’ If such is the case, will the election
of these people [who have committed mistakes] raise the problem of *‘it’s better
to commit mistakes than to be correct, and it’s better to commit big mistakes than
to commit small mistakes?’’ Wang Ming and Li Lisan have committed mistakes.
If they were elected Central Committee members, the result would be that two seats
would have to be vacated by people who have been correct, or who have committed
[only] small mistakes, so that they could climb onto the stage. Isn’t such an
arrangement the most unjust in the world? From this point of view, it is very unjust:
Look, those who are correct or who have committed only small mistakes have to
relinquish their seats to people who have committed a big mistake; this is very
obviously unfair; there is no justice in this. If we compare things in this manner,
then we will have to admit that *‘it’s better to commit mistakes than to be correct,
and it’s better to commit big mistakes than to commit small mistakes.’’ But from
another point of view, such is not the case. It is well known throughout the country
and the world that they have committed errors of line, and the reason for electing
them is precisely because they are well known. What can you do? They are famous,
and those of you who have not made mistakes or who made [only] small mistakes
do not have as big a reputation as they do. In our country, which has such a large
petty bourgeoisie, they are [its] banner and standard. If we elect them, many people
will say that the Communist Party is still waiting for them [to change] and would
rather vacate two seats for them to help them correct their mistakes. Whether or
not they do change is another problem; that is a very small matter, [since there are]
only the two of them. The [larger] problem is that in our country there is such a
large petty bourgeoisie, and in our Party there are so many petty bourgeois wavering
elements, and among the intellectuals there are many people who waver like that.
They all want to watch this example. If they see that the two banners are still
standing, they will feel at ease; they will be able to sleep, and they will be happy.
Once you topple these two banners they will panic. Therefore the question is not
whether or not Wang Ming and Li Lisan change; whether or not they change is
insignificant. What is significant is that a million [people] in our Party who waver
easily and who have come from a petty bourgeois background, especially the
intellectuals, are watching to see what attitude we take toward Wang Ming and Li
Lisan. This is just like our treatment of rich peasants during the land reform; we
didn’t touch the rich peasants, and so the middle peasants felt at ease.!8 If in the
‘“Eighth Congress’’ we adopt the same attitude toward these two people as the one
we did in the “‘Seventh Congress,’’ our Party will reap a benefit, an advantage,
which is that it will be somewhat easier [for us] to transform the broad [masses] of


the petty bourgeoisie throughout the country. This will even have ramifications
throughout the world. In foreign countries, it is very rarely, virtually never, that an
attitude such as ours is adopted toward people who have made errors.

This preparatory meeting for our Congress will only last a couple of weeks or
so, starting today. If the arrangements are made well, however, it is entirely possible
for the preparatory work to be accomplished. We believe that this Congress can be
a good one; the level [of political consciousness] of the representatives is sufficient
to ensure a good Congress. We must, however, be cautious and alert, and everybody
must work hard.

Notes

1. The Eighth Congress of the CPC was held Sept. 15-27, 1956. It is significant in
that it was the first Party Congress held since Liberation (1949) and took on the task of
affirming and consolidating the Party line set forth by the Seventh Congress some eleven
years earlier. For an outline of the Congress, see K. Lieberthal (1976), pp. 85-87.

2. The Seventh CPC Congress was held in April-June 1945 at Yanan.

3. Mao is referring to the policies set forth in the early 1950s (see text Mar. 12, 1950, vol.
I, note 3) and the “‘third’’ Party rectification movement, which began in 1950. This should not
be confused with the first rectification in 1942 and the second rectification in 1947-1948.

4. For Mao’s differentiation between these stages of revolution, see text June 15, 1953,
vol. I, note 2, and text Aug. 12, 1953(1), note 26.

5. For the early formulation of Soviet policy vis-a-vis the bourgeoisie, see text Aug.
24, 1956, note 20. According to Communist interpretation, this policy of redemption and
transformation, proposed by Lenin in 1918, was aborted because of the eruption of the civil
war in the USSR, and thereupon the Russian bourgeoisie as a whole turned against the
revolution, thus giving the proposed policy no chance for implementation and success.

6. See text Mar. 1, 1957, note 29.

7. This idea of ‘‘uniting with all these people with whom unity is possible’” becomes
an almost sloganistic preoccupation with Mao in this part of 1956. It was suggested, in an
earlier part of this document, as one of the goals of the Eighth Congress of the CPC, which
would be held in mid-September, and Mao would go on to reiterate the same notion a few
times in this document. It then reappears, as anticipated, in the early paragraphs of Mao’s
Opening speech at the Eighth CPC Congress (text Sept. 15, 1956).

8. The Second Five-Year Plan for the Development of the National Economy was to
follow the First Five-Year Plan (1953-1957) and was to cover the period 1958-1962. The
proposal for this development plan was made at the subsequent Party Congress and was
Officially announced on Sept. 27, 1956. See text Dec. 27, 1955(2), vol. I, note 117.

9. According to statistics released by the United Nations in 1963, those countries that
produced more than 20 million tons of raw steel in 1955 included the United States (106.17
million), the Soviet Union (45.27 million), West Germany (21.33 million), and Great Britain
(20.1 million). Also, according to Chinese statistics, the 20-million-ton plateau in steel
Production was not achieved by China until 1971.

10. See text Aug. 24, 1956, note 7.

1. See text June 30, 1953, vol. I, note 9, and text Aug. 12, 1953(1), vol. I, note 24.

12. This is probably the first public articulation of this formula of assessing Stalin’s faults
versus his merits, a formula that became quite ubiquitous in Mao’s own writings and °
Speeches in subsequent years. See text Apr. [6], 1956, for an earlier statement by Mao on
Stalin, Although the issue of assessing Stalin’s record came up and was, up to this point,
Perhaps most extensively elaborated in the RMRB editorial of Apr. 5, 1956—an editorial
based on the discussions of the enlarged meeting of the Political Bureau and titled **On the