The present Congress has a character similar to that of the Seventh Congress.




On that occasion, in order to achieve nationwide victory for the revolution, we convened a congress of unity.




On that occasion, the settlement of political issues and of questions concerning the Party’s history, as well as the elections, served to unite the whole Party and to secure nationwide victory for the revolution.




Our democratic revolution took a very long time – from 1921 to 1949, a total of twenty‑eight years.




During those twenty‑eight years we traversed many tortuous paths, committed many line errors that caused the revolution to suffer great damage, endured much hardship, and lost many lives – how many revolutionary people, how many Party members and cadres were sacrificed.




When errors are committed and damage is suffered, not only those who err bear responsibility; those who do not err also bear a share.




Why is that?

If we had all been awakened, if everyone in our Party had been awakened, if the cadres had been awakened, then those erroneous lines could not have prevailed.




The fact that erroneous lines could hold sway for a time proves that at those moments we were not yet awakened; not until an erroneous line had developed so unmistakably and so clearly were we able to see things clearly and draw conclusions.




Yet even after drawing a conclusion, one can still err.




Thus there was the error of Chen Duxiu’s Right‑opportunist line, the errors of the three “Left” lines, the error of Zhang Guotao’s line, and also the error of Wang Ming’s Right‑opportunist line.




From 1921 to the Zunyi Conference in 1935, a period of fourteen years elapsed before the domination of the whole Party by repeated erroneous lines was ended.




Only after the Yan’an Rectification Movement did the whole Party become awakened.




Our democratic revolution took that long, we fought war for that many years, we committed that many errors, and only then did we work out a correct political line, a correct military line and a correct organizational line.




Only then did we gradually learn how to handle inner‑Party relations, how to handle the relationship between the Party and people outside the Party, how to conduct the united front, how to work along the mass line, and so on.




That is to say, it was only because we had accumulated experience that we were able to write certain essays.




For instance, it would have been impossible for me to write those essays of mine without having gone through the Northern Expedition War, the Agrarian Revolutionary War and the War of Resistance Against Japan, because I had no experience.




Hence those failures and setbacks gave us a great education; without those setbacks, our Party could not have been educated.




Now we are engaged in construction, and construction is a relatively new undertaking for us.




A few years ago we already discussed within the central leadership our hope that the errors committed in construction would not be as numerous as those committed in revolution, nor would they last as long.




Will it take another fourteen years of twists and turns, and will we have to suffer just as many falls, in pursuing construction?

I say we can avoid such a large number of falls.




For in the past the falls were mainly a question of ideology – a question of not understanding and not being awakened.




In pursuing economic work we also have some experience now, but with regard to these new scientific and technological fields we still have no experience.




We have already learned, comparatively speaking, how to arrange the economy, how to work with people, with capitalists, with the democratic parties and with intellectuals; we have twenty‑two years of experience in the base areas.




We have not yet mastered the world’s new industrial techniques and agricultural techniques; although we already have six years’ experience and have learned many things, fundamentally we must still make very great efforts, relying mainly on the Second Five‑Year Plan and the Third Five‑Year Plan to learn more things.




We must train intellectuals.




At present we have only very few intellectuals.




Old China bequeathed us only 100,000 senior intellectuals; we plan to train between one million and one‑and‑a‑half million senior intellectuals (including university graduates and specialized college graduates) in the course of three Five‑Year Plans.




By that time we shall have eighteen years of work experience in this field, and we shall have many scientists and many engineers.




Then the composition of the Party’s Central Committee will also change; the Central Committee should include many engineers and many scientists.




Looking at the present Central Committee, I would say that it is still a political Central Committee; it is not yet a scientific Central Committee.




Therefore, there is some truth in the doubts entertained by some people as to whether our Party is capable of leading scientific work or of leading health work, because in those fields you really do not know and really do not understand.




Our present Central Committee truly has this shortcoming – it does not have many scientists, nor does it have many experts.




I believe we should avoid, and we can avoid, traversing so many tortuous paths; subjectivism can largely be cleaned out and sectarianism can also be reduced to some extent.




In the most recent years, as far as the central level is concerned and as far as the senior cadres are concerned, our Party is one in which sectarianism is relatively slight and subjectivism is also relatively slight.




If subjectivism really were so widespread, you would not be able to explain why the revolution has been won and why there are now also achievements in construction.




If sectarianism really were so widespread, then why have we not become isolated?

We were not isolated in the revolutionary period, nor are we isolated in the construction period.




It is thus evident that our subjectivism is not so widespread and our sectarianism is rather slight.




Nevertheless, we do still have subjectivism and sectarianism, even in documents issued by the Central Committee.




For example, regarding the system of one‑person management, the Central Committee once transmitted certain regions’ experience and expressed the opinion that it might be tried out.




At that time we had no experience with this matter and could not render a definitive verdict that the system of one‑person management was no good.




It was not until very recently that we reached the conclusion that the system of one‑person management is no good and that the system combining collective leadership with individual responsibility is good.




Now let me turn to relations within the Party.




The state of inner‑Party relations is of the utmost importance; they determine whether the whole Chinese people and the whole people of the world can be united.




Therefore, there is one thing in which this Congress resembles the Seventh Congress: it must become a congress of unity.




As for the list of members of the Central Committee, Comrade Chen Yun just explained, and several other comrades also said, that this list reflects the course of our revolution.




In this list there are few workers; there are almost no workers from Shanghai, nor from Tianjin, nor from Wuhan, Chongqing, Guangzhou, Shenyang, Anshan, Dalian or Qingdao, nor from Beijing.




Well then, is this Central Committee a Marxist Central Committee?

Is it a proletarian Central Committee?

Our Central Committee has always had very few members of proletarian origin.




Now that we are holding the Eighth Congress and the whole country is engaged in industrialization, why is the proportion of proletarian origin still so small?

Because the Chinese revolution followed the path of the rural areas encircling the cities; the revolution first developed and first triumphed in the rural areas.




Many comrades worked in the base areas for a long time, over twenty years, and some comrades struggled in the white‑area, some of them spending long periods in prison.




These people accumulated experience through struggle, learned Marxism, had their thinking matured, and some of them entered the Central Committee.




Yet in the cities where industrial workers were concentrated, the revolution came to victory only at the very end, just a few years ago.




Hence at present, and perhaps even by the Ninth Congress or the Tenth Congress, it may not be possible to elect many workers to the Central Committee.




As Comrade Chen Yun said just now, when some workers develop in the future, assume some responsible posts, and become engineers or factory directors, demonstrating their ability, then the composition of our Central Committee will have to change.




Therefore, we cannot say that our Central Committee is not a Marxist Central Committee simply because it contains few workers.




One cannot say that our Party is great, glorious and correct and yet not Marxist.




Our Central Committee is a Marxist Central Committee.




If it were not a Marxist Central Committee, why would we oppose imperialism?

Why would we engage in socialism?

The leaders of the world proletariat – Marx, Engels, Lenin and Stalin – none of them were of worker origin either.




In terms of class composition, our Party is one whose principal components are the proletariat and the former semi‑proletariat, plus one part of the middle peasantry and the intellectuals.




It should be affirmed that our Central Committee is a Marxist Central Committee and that our Party is a Marxist Party.




That our Party could lead the democratic revolution has already been proved in history; that it can also lead the socialist revolution has now also been proved – our socialist revolution has basically achieved victory.




That our Party can lead economic construction has not yet been fully proved; three Five‑Year Plans will be needed.




We have now already virtually completed the First Five‑Year Plan, and counting the three years of national economic recovery, we have been pursuing economic construction for seven years.




Based on the self‑awakening we achieved during the revolutionary period – that is, the awakening to what mistakes we committed in the past and how one should go about correcting them afterwards – our present subjectivism, sectarianism and bureaucratism, though still lingering, can probably be reduced.




It is difficult to say they can be completely eliminated – even clean‑swept, remnants may reappear – yet they can be reduced, greatly reduced.




Regarding this list of 170 members for the Central Committee, there are many comrades who excel both in talent and in virtue and have committed relatively few errors; judging by talent, by virtue and by the record of errors, they are all very fine, yet they have not been included. Is that not unfair?

Comrade Chen Yun addressed this, as have other comrades. The point is that if we wanted to enlarge this list, we would have to increase it to over 200, perhaps 250 or 260, and once we went to 250 or 260, it would swell to over 300.




It has been only seven years since we won revolution. If we were to follow the Soviet model, by the time forty years had passed after the victory of the revolution, we might have to form a Central Committee of two or three thousand people!

In that case we could simply hold Central Committee plenums and dispense with Party congresses altogether.




I also think of one more reason, which should be explained further.




There are many examples concerning others, but I think I myself can also serve as an example.




Some things I have never spoken about before, and I should like to talk to you about them today.




At the Fifth National Congress I had only the right to speak, not the right to vote.




I, too, have committed not a few mistakes, but at that time they never pointed out specifically where my mistakes lay; they made me only an alternate delegate.




I attended the First National Congress.




I did not attend the Second National Congress.




The Third National Congress was held in Guangzhou; I attended and was elected a member of the Central Committee.




I missed the Fourth National Congress and lost my seat on the Central Committee.




It seems whenever the ordinal number is even, it is unlucky for me.




I attended the Fifth National Congress as an alternate delegate, which was also fine, and was elected an alternate member of the Central Committee.




Was this bad for me?

I say it was beneficial, not bad at all.




As for other matters, especially during the period of the three “Left” lines, the various disciplinary measures and attacks directed at me – including “expulsion from the Party,” dismissal as an alternate member of the Political Bureau, and being driven out of the Red Army – how many times did such things happen?

The ones I can recall amount to twenty times.




For instance, I was not elected a member of the Central Committee, given only the right to speak but denied the right to vote; some of my posts were revoked, such as secretary of the Central Peasants’ Committee, Party representative (during the Jinggangshan period), and secretary of the Front Committee.




When I was “expelled from the Party,” they could not avoid assigning me some position, so they made me a division commander.




As a division commander I was not terribly capable; I had never studied military affairs. But since you had become a non‑Party democratic personage, there was no alternative – so I served for a while as a division commander.




Do you imagine a person would be happy about being expelled from the Party? I do not believe it; I was not happy.




During the Jinggangshan period a mistaken report arrived saying that the Central Committee had expelled me from the Party. That meant I could no longer lead Party life, could only serve as a division commander, and could not even attend branch meetings.




Later it was said to be a false rumor – that I had been removed from the Political Bureau, not expelled from the Party.




Ah! Only then could I breathe a sigh of relief!

At that time they pinned a label on me: “the gun‑barrel doctrine,” because I had said, “Political power grows out of the barrel of a gun.”




They said, How can political power possibly come out of the barrel of a gun?

Marx never said that; no book contains such a ready‑made phrase. So they concluded I had erred and dubbed me a believer in “the gun‑barrel doctrine.”

Indeed, Marx never said this, but he did speak of "seizing political power by armed force." What I meant was also about seizing political power by armed force, not that a regime would somehow leap out of rifles or machine guns.

Later, I was labeled a "consistent opportunist."

The most beneficial thing to me was being branded a "narrow empiricist."

In my book "Strategic Problems of China's Revolutionary War," I followed Lu Xun's approach and "retaliated" by criticizing those who called "narrow empiricism" erroneous.

The so-called "narrow empiricism" is not Marxism.

At that time, they thought there was no Marxism in the mountains, because we were in the mountains, while Marxism was in the cities.

They forgot that they too had come to the mountains, and that we had previously been in the city as well.

Because we had gone to the mountains two or three years earlier, suddenly we had no Marxism.

They had just arrived, and because they had spent a long time in the cities, they supposedly had so much Marxism.

When filling out forms, aren't you supposed to list past punishments? These days, I don't fill in any of that on forms anymore, because there are too many, and I would have to list a whole pile, and moreover, not a single one of them do I admit to.

I did make mistakes.

For instance, in war, I commanded the defeat at Gaoxingwei; I commanded the defeat at Nanxiong; the Tucheng battle during the Long March was under my command, and the fight at Maotai was also under my command.

The land law I proposed in Jinggangshan was very clumsy, not a thorough land program.

During the purge of counterrevolutionaries, I made mistakes; the first purge wrongly targeted individuals.

And so on and so forth.

These real mistakes they did not punish, but those roughly twenty or so punishments and blows were all without solid basis.

Especially the label of "narrow empiricism" stung me. It seemed as if Marxism had only one shop, no other branches. Couldn’t branch shops also engage in a bit of Marxism?

I didn’t know any foreign languages and had never been abroad, only read some translated books. I always tell some comrades that Marxism-Leninism can be learned; even if one cannot learn that much, one can always learn a little.

I think among comrades, there may be quite a few who have been wronged or suffered grievances to varying degrees. Toward those wrongs and grievances, toward those inappropriate punishments and erroneous treatments—such as being labeled some sort of "opportunist," being removed from one’s post, being transferred away from one’s post, and so on—there can be two attitudes.

One attitude is to become negative thereafter, very angry and dissatisfied; the other is to regard it as a beneficial lesson, treating it as a form of tempering. You know, this world is just this kind of world; wanting matters to be completely fair is impossible—impossible now, and forever impossible.

I see it this way; perhaps I’m rather pessimistic. There are some people who are very optimistic, saying that in a communist society there will be no contradictions at all; I don’t believe it. Where there are contradictions, there will be subjectivism, and mistakes will be made. Those people did not have grudges with us in past lives or enmity in this life; we didn’t know each other before. Why would they want to persecute you? It’s simply because of differing thinking, different views on issues.

Later it was proven that when thinking is unified on policy issues, complete unity is achieved. So-called disunity is all about gaps in thinking, disputes over political and policy issues. Apart from a very small number of hostile elements who infiltrate the Party with ulterior motives to cause sabotage, all those who make mistakes—no matter how serious the mistakes, even errors of line—simply have incorrect thinking.

Since it is a matter of thinking, correcting mistakes means correcting thinking; it is a question of rectification study and discussion and research. And all sorts of unfair things are unavoidable in any society. What then should be done? We strive to achieve a comparative fairness. It should be said that the election at the Party’s Seventh National Congress, and from after the Seventh Congress until now, things have been somewhat fairer within the Party.

Everything is relative, not absolute; absolute fairness or absolute unfairness is impossible. If local comrades say the center isn’t doing well, then have local comrades’ affairs been handled perfectly, without a single bit of unfairness? I don’t believe it. Some things are unforeseen, some things are thought erroneously, some arrangements are improper—all this is unavoidable. Matters often have great contingency.

Here is a story: Some people went to take an exam. A man named Sun Shan came back after checking the results. Others asked him whether his own son had passed. He said, "At the very end of the list is Sun Shan; your son is even beyond Sun Shan." Meaning that the last on the list is me, Sun Shan, and your son is ranked behind me, having failed. This is the origin of the classical allusion "failing the exam." I say that comrades not listed today—that is, comrades who "fall behind Sun Shan"—are very likely to be comrades who will play a very great role in China’s future. Of course, I say it is possible, not necessarily so. Perhaps those within the scope of "Sun Shan" will play a very great role in the future. There are two possibilities. As for what happens decades from now, that is a matter for the twenty-first century; we need not concern ourselves with it. Our list cannot govern that. Our list probably governs only up through the twentieth century.

Comrades, I am not making promises, nor am I saying it is somewhat better that you are not elected now. I am saying we must deliberate, must balance things in every way. As to who will play a somewhat greater role and who a somewhat lesser role, there is great contingency in this. For example, on the list just mentioned, workers from Shanghai, Tianjin, and large cities are very few; this is a kind of contingency. Necessity is expressed through contingency. Because after the failure of the Great Revolution, China’s revolution was first carried out in the countryside, and those engaged in the revolution there learned Marxism.

You say there is no Marxism in the mountains; I think indeed there is Marxism in the mountains, for everyone has gone up to the mountains, and there are so many base areas! Just now the Political Bureau consulted with the responsible comrades of the various delegations and felt that a small number of people could be added; if it fails to pass, a few people could also be reduced. The Seventh Congress was like this: There were two comrades whose names were repeatedly placed on the candidate list, but in the end they were simply not elected. This time it’s possible some individual comrades, though proposed on the list, will still not be elected. We can make suggestions, but we cannot force things on others, cannot force them on the delegates; the rights rest entirely in the hands of the delegates.

Therefore, during the preliminary election, delegates may swap out some people from this roster of 170, may reduce some people—just do not exceed this total number. For ease of counting the ballots without mixing things up, you can write on a separate piece of paper the names of those you think could be added—adding a few is fine, adding a dozen or so is also fine; you can add however many you like. What benefit does doing it this way bring? It can provide information for the central committee to consider whether to add several comrades to the formal list. In this way, the central committee can, based on the number of votes obtained and considering all different situations, deliberate and produce a formal candidate list, and separately identify candidates for full members and alternate members of the Central Committee, presenting the finally determined quota. For example, not 170 people, but 170-some; or perhaps still 170; or if many names are crossed off, then reduce it by a few more. These are all matters I ask comrades to consider.

Printed based on the transcript of the speech preserved in the Central Archives.

Note 〔1〕 This is Mao Zedong’s speech at the second plenary session of the Preparatory Meeting for the Eighth National Congress of the Communist Party of China.

〔2〕 The Seventh Congress refers to the Seventh National Congress of the Communist Party of China. See note 〔3〕 on page 98 of this volume.

〔3〕 The errors of Chen Duxiu’s right opportunist line: see note 〔3〕 on page 56 of this volume.

〔4〕 The errors of the three “Left” deviationist lines refer to the “Left” putschist errors represented by Qu Qiubai from November 1927 to April 1928, the “Left” adventurist errors represented by Li Lisan from June to September 1930, and the “Left” adventurist errors represented by Wang Ming from January 1931 to the Zunyi Conference in January 1935.

〔5〕 The errors of the Zhang Guotao line: see note 〔12〕 on page 58 of this volume.

〔6〕 The errors of the Wang Ming right deviationist line: see note 〔19〕 on page 48 of this volume.

〔7〕 The Zunyi Conference refers to the enlarged meeting of the Political Bureau of the CPC Central Committee held in Zunyi, Guizhou, from January 15 to 17, 1935, during the Long March. This conference focused on discussing and rectifying errors in military and organizational affairs, ending the dominance of Wang Ming’s “Left” adventurism in the Party Central Committee, establishing the correct leadership of the new central committee with Mao Zedong as its representative, and saving the Red Army and the Party at the most critical juncture.

〔8〕 The Yan’an Rectification Movement: see note 〔13〕 on page 59 of this volume.

〔9〕 Yizhangzhi (one-man management system) was an important production management system then implemented in the Soviet Union, whose core content was vesting the chief administrative responsible persons of each enterprise with full authority to make decisions in the performance of their duties.

〔10〕 Chen Yun (1905–1995), a native of Qingpu, Jiangsu (now part of Shanghai). At the time, he was a member of the Political Bureau of the CPC Central Committee and secretary of the Central Secretariat.

〔11〕 The First Five-Year Plan: see note 〔3〕 on page 3 of this volume.