Comrades, the Eighth National Congress of the Communist Party of China is now open.
(All rise. Prolonged enthusiastic applause.)
During the eleven years since our Party’s Seventh National Congress, many comrades and friends, both in China and throughout the world, have given their lives in heroic struggle and tireless work for the cause of communism and the liberation of humanity. We should forever honor their memory.
(All rise. Moment of silence.)
The task of this congress is to sum up the experience gained since the Seventh Congress, to unite the whole Party, and to unite all forces at home and abroad that can be united, in the struggle to build a great socialist China.
(Enthusiastic applause.)
In the eleven years since the Seventh Congress, we have thoroughly completed the bourgeois-democratic revolution and achieved decisive victory in the socialist revolution within a vast country of immense population and complex conditions.
The practice of these two revolutions has proven that from the Seventh Congress to the present, the line of the Central Committee has been correct, and our Party is a politically mature, great Marxist-Leninist party.
(Enthusiastic applause.)
Our Party is now more united and consolidated than at any time in the past.
(Enthusiastic applause.)
Our Party has become the core force uniting the people of the whole country in socialist construction.
(Enthusiastic applause.)
We have achieved great successes in all fields of work.
Our work has been carried out correctly, but we have also made some mistakes.
At this congress, we need to sum up the principal experience gained in our work, including both successful and erroneous experience, so that useful experience may be popularized and lessons drawn from erroneous experience.
As far as domestic conditions are concerned, our victory has been won by relying on the worker-peasant alliance led by the working class and by broadly uniting all forces that can be united.
To carry out our great construction work, we are faced with extremely arduous tasks.
Although we have over ten million Party members, they still constitute only a very small minority of the nation’s population.
In our various state organs and social undertakings, a great deal of work must be done by non-Party personnel.
If we are not good at relying on the masses of the people and not good at cooperating with non-Party personnel, we cannot do our work well.
While we continue to strengthen the unity of the whole Party, we must also continue to strengthen the unity of all nationalities, democratic classes, democratic parties, and people’s organizations, continue to consolidate and expand our people’s democratic united front, and conscientiously correct any unhealthy phenomenon in any link of our work that hinders the unity between the Party and the people.
In the international sphere, our victory has been won by relying on the support of the peace-loving and democratic socialist camp headed by the Soviet Union (enthusiastic applause) and the profound sympathy of peace-loving people throughout the world. (Enthusiastic applause.)
At present, developments in the international situation are becoming even more favorable to our construction cause.
China and all socialist countries need peace, and the peoples of all countries in the world also need peace.
Only certain monopoly capitalist groups in a few imperialist countries, which profit from aggression, crave war and reject peace.
Thanks to the unremitting efforts of peace-loving countries and peoples, the international situation has been moving toward relaxation. (Applause.)
To strive for lasting world peace, we must further develop friendly cooperation with all fraternal countries in the socialist camp (enthusiastic applause) and strengthen unity with all peace-loving countries. (Enthusiastic applause.)
We must strive to establish normal diplomatic relations with all countries willing to coexist peacefully with us, on the basis of mutual respect for territorial sovereignty and equality and mutual benefit.
We must actively support the national independence and liberation movements in the countries of Asia, Africa, and Latin America, as well as the peace movements and just struggles in all countries of the world. (Enthusiastic applause.)
We firmly support the completely legitimate action of the Egyptian government in reclaiming the Suez Canal Company and firmly oppose any infringement upon Egypt’s sovereignty or any attempt at armed intervention against Egypt. (Enthusiastic applause.)
We must ensure the complete bankruptcy of the imperialist schemes to create tension and prepare for war. (Prolonged enthusiastic applause.)
The victories of our revolution and construction are all victories of Marxism-Leninism.
Closely integrating the theory of Marxism-Leninism with the practice of the Chinese revolution has been our Party’s consistent ideological principle.
Over many years, especially since the rectification movement of 1942, we have done much work to strengthen Marxist-Leninist education within the Party.
Now, compared with the period before the rectification movement, the Marxist-Leninist ideological level of our Party has been raised a step higher.
But we still have serious shortcomings.
Among many of our comrades, there still exist viewpoints and styles of work that run counter to Marxism-Leninism, namely: subjectivism in thinking, bureaucracy in work, and sectarianism in organization.
These viewpoints and styles of work are divorced from the masses and from reality, are detrimental to unity both inside and outside the Party, and hinder the progress of our cause and the progress of our comrades.
We must use the method of strengthening ideological education within the Party to vigorously overcome these serious shortcomings in our ranks. (Applause.)
After the October Revolution, Lenin set the Soviet Communist Party the task: study, and study again. The Soviet comrades and the Soviet people acted in accordance with Lenin’s instructions.
In a short period of time, they achieved extraordinarily brilliant accomplishments. (Prolonged enthusiastic applause.)
At its recently convened Twentieth Congress, the Soviet Communist Party formulated many correct policies and criticized shortcomings existing within the Party.
It can be asserted that their work will see tremendously great development in the future. (Prolonged enthusiastic applause.)
We are now faced with tasks roughly similar to those of the Soviet Union in its early years of construction.
To transform a backward agricultural China into an advanced industrialized China, the work before us is very arduous, and our experience is very insufficient.
Therefore, we must be good at learning.
We must be good at learning from our advanced teacher, the Soviet Union (applause); we must be good at learning from the people’s democracies (applause); we must be good at learning from the fraternal parties of the world (applause); and we must be good at learning from the peoples of all countries. (Applause.)
We must never adopt an arrogant great-power attitude and should never become conceited because of the victory of our revolution and some achievements in construction.
Every nation, big or small, has its strong and weak points.
Even if our work yields extremely great achievements, there is no reason whatsoever for pride and arrogance.
Modesty helps one to progress, whereas conceit makes one lag behind. We should always remember this truth. (Enthusiastic applause.)
Comrades, I, and all of us, believe that the strength of the already liberated Chinese people is inexhaustible, and that we have the assistance of our great ally, the Soviet Union, and other fraternal countries (applause), the support of all fraternal parties in the world (applause), and the support of all sympathizers throughout the world. (Applause.) We do not feel isolated. In this way, we will certainly be able, step by step, to build our country into a great socialist industrialized nation. (Enthusiastic applause.)
This congress of ours will play a very significant role in advancing our country’s construction cause. (Applause.)
Present today are representatives of the communist parties, workers’ parties, labor parties, and people’s revolutionary parties of over fifty countries. (Prolonged enthusiastic applause.)
They are all Marxist-Leninists, and they share a common language with us. (Applause.)
They have traveled great distances to come to our country and, with lofty friendship, are participating in this congress of our Party.
This is a tremendous encouragement and support to us. (Enthusiastic applause.)
We extend a warm welcome to them. (All rise. Prolonged enthusiastic applause.)
Also present today are representatives of our domestic democratic parties and democrats without party affiliation.

(Enthusiastic applause) They are close friends working together with us. (Applause) They have always given us a great deal of help. (Applause) We extend a warm welcome to them. (All rise. Prolonged enthusiastic applause)

Printed according to the text published in Renmin Ribao on September 16, 1956.

Notes
〔1〕 For the Seventh National Congress of the Communist Party of China, see p. 98, note 3 of this volume. 〔2〕 For the rectification movement, see p. 59, note 13 of this volume. 〔3〕 See V. I. Lenin, "Five Years of the Russian Revolution and the Prospects of the World Revolution": "The most important task for us today is to learn and learn again." (Selected Works of V. I. Lenin, Eng. ed., Progress Publishers, Moscow, 1971, Vol. IV, p. 728.) Also see V. I. Lenin, "Better Fewer, But Better": "In order to renovate our state apparatus we must set ourselves the task: first, to learn; second, to learn; and third, to learn."