COMMUNIST PARTY OF CHINA

November 15, 1956

I am going to speak on four questions: the economy, the international situation,
Sino-Soviet relations and the question of great and small democracy.

I

We must make a comprehensive analysis of a problem before it can be properly
solved. Whether to advance or to retreat, whether to get on or get off the
horse, must accord with dialectics. In this world there are always cases
of getting on or off the horse, of advancing or retreating. How is it possible
to ride all day without getting off? When we walk, our two feet do not move
forward together, but always one after the other. When we take a step, one
foot moves forward, the other stays behind, and when we take the next, the
latter moves forward, leaving the former behind. We see in a movie that the
figures are continually in motion on the screen, but when we look at the
filmstrip, we see they are all motionless in each frame. The essay "Under
Heaven" in Chuang Tzu says, "The shadow of a flying bird is not
in motion." All things are at once in motion and not in motion -- such is
the dialectics of our world. Pure motionlessness does not exist, neither
does pure motion. Motion is absolute while rest is temporary and conditional.

Our planned economy is at once in equilibrium and in disequilibrium. Equilibrium
is temporary and conditional. After equilibrium is temporarily established,
changes will take place. Equilibrium in the first half of the year will become
disequilibrium in the second half; equilibrium in the current year will change
into disequilibrium in the next. It is impossible to have equilibrium all
the time without having it upset. We Marxists hold that disequilibrium,
contradiction, struggle and development are absolute, while equilibrium and
rest are relative. Relative means temporary, conditional. Viewed in this
light, is our economy advancing or retreating? We should tell the cadres
and the masses that it is both advancing and retreating, but mainly advancing,
though not in a straight line but in a wave-like manner. Although there are
times when we get off the horse, as a rule we get on more often. Are our
Party committees at all levels, the various central departments and the
governments at all levels promoting progress or promoting retrogression?
Fundamentally speaking, they are promoting progress. Society is always advancing,
for to advance, to develop, is the general trend.

Is the First Five-Year Plan correct? I support the opinion that it is essentially
correct, as is clearly shown by the first four years of its implementation.
True, there have been mistakes, but this is hardly avoidable because we lack
experience. Shall we still make mistakes in the future when we have gained
experience after several five-year plans? Yes, we shall. One can never acquire
enough experience. Will it be possible to make no mistakes at all in planning
ten thousand years hence? Things happening ten thousand years hence will
no longer be our business, but one thing is certain, mistakes will be made
even then. Young people will make mistakes, but won't older people? Confucius
said that at the age of seventy whatever he did was in conformity with objective
law [1] but I don't believe it, he was just bragging.
Some of the construction projects above the norm in our First Five-Year Plan
have been designed for us by the Soviet Union, but most of them have been
of our own designing. Do you think the Chinese are incompetent? Why, we are
competent too. However, it must be admitted that we are still not so competent,
for we cannot as yet design some of the projects ourselves. There has been
a problem in our construction in the last few years. As some comrades put
it, attention has been paid only to the "bones" but very little to the "flesh".
Factory buildings have been put up and machinery and other equipment installed
without the municipal construction and service facilities to go with them,
and this will become a big problem in the future. In my view, its effects
will be felt not during the First Five-Year Plan, but during the Second, or
perhaps the Third. As to whether the First Five-Year Plan is correct, we
can draw a partial conclusion now and another one next year, but I think
a comprehensive conclusion will have to wait till the last phase of the Second
Five-Year Plan. It is impossible to avoid some degree of subjectivism in
planning. To make a few mistakes is not so bad. Achievements have a dual
character and so have mistakes. Achievements encourage people but at the
same time are liable to turn their heads; mistakes depress people and cause
anxiety, hence they are an enemy, but at the same time a good teacher. On
the whole, nothing seriously or fundamentally wrong has been found in the
First Five-Year Plan so far.

We must protect the enthusiasm of the cadres and the masses and not pour
cold water on them. Once some people did pour cold water on the socialist
transformation of agriculture, and there was then, as it were, a "committee
for promoting retrogression". We pointed out later that it was not right
to pour cold water, so we countered with a committee for promoting progress.
According to the original plan, the socialist transformation of ownership
was to be basically completed in eighteen years, but with this promotion
it has been greatly speeded up. The Draft Programme for Agricultural Development
stipulates that higher-stage agricultural co-operation should be completed
in 1958, and now it seems that we can achieve the aim this winter or next
spring. There may be quite a few flaws in the process, but this is better
than that committee for promoting retrogression; the peasants are pleased
and there has been an increase in agricultural production. But for this
co-operative transformation, the grain output could not have increased this
year by over 20,000 million catties in the face of such severe natural
calamities. In the stricken areas, the existence of co-operatives also helps
relief work through production. The shortcomings of the cadres and the masses
as well as our own are to be criticized on the premise that their enthusiasm
is protected, and in this way they will have plenty of push. When the masses
want something done which is impossible for the time being, matters should
be clearly explained to them, and this can certainly be done.

There should be three rounds of discussion before the annual state budget
is decided. That is to say, comrades on our Central Committee and other comrades
concerned should hold three meetings to discuss it and make the decision.
This will enable all of us to get to understand the contents of the budget.
Otherwise it will always be the comrades in charge who know them better while
we on Our part will just raise our hands. Yet don't we know anything about
the contents? Well, I would say yes and no, we don't know very much about
them. With this method of decision after three rounds of discussion, can
you say you will know them very well? Not likely, and there will still be
a gap between us and the comrades in charge. They are like opera singers
on the stage, they know how to sing; we are like the audience, we don't know
how to sing. But if we go to the opera often enough, we shall be able to
tell good singers from poor ones more or less correctly. After all, it is
up to the audience to pass judgment on the singer's performance. And it is
with its help that the singer corrects his mistakes. This is where the audience
is superior. An opera can continue to run if people like to see it over and
over again. Operas which people don't like very much have to be changed.
Therefore, inside our Central Committee there is the contradiction between
experts and non-experts. Experts have their strong points, and so do non-experts.
Non-experts can tell what is right from what is wrong.

In the report on the state budget for 1956 the expression "safely reliable"
was used, and I suggest that from now on it should be changed into "fully
reliable". At the meeting held last January on the question of the intellectuals,
I used the expression "fully reliable". "Safe" and "reliable" are tautological.
To use "safely" to modify "reliable" neither adds nor qualifies anything.
A modifier both describes and qualifies. To say something is "fully reliable"
is to qualify reliability as to degree, meaning that it is not just reliable
in a general sense but reliable to the full. It is not easy to make things
fully reliable. When the budget was adopted at the National People's Congress
last June, everybody said it was reliable. Now it seems that a portion of
the budget, less than 10 per cent, is unreliable, because some of the items
are not given due priority and others are allocated too much money. So in
the future we must pay attention to the priorities of the items in the budget.
Whether the priorities are correct or not requires the experts' attention,
but it also requires our attention, and particularly that of the comrades
at the provincial level. Of course, everybody should give it his attention.

Both we and the secretaries of the provincial, municipal and autonomous region
Party committees should attend to finance and planning. In the past some
comrades failed to do so seriously. I would like to call your attention,
comrades, to the questions of grain, pork, eggs, vegetables and so on, since
they present quite a big problem. Beginning from last winter, efforts were
concentrated on grain to the neglect of side-lines and industrial crops.
This deviation has now been corrected, and efforts have been shifted to them;
particularly since there are fixed price ratios between grain and twenty
or thirty other items such as cotton, edible oil, pigs and tobacco, the peasants
have become very much interested in side-lines and industrial crops at the
expense of grain. Lop-sided stress first on grain, and then on side-lines
and industrial crops. Low prices for grain hurt the peasants; now that you
have set such low prices for grain, the peasants will simply stop growing
it. This problem merits close attention.

We must build the country through diligence and thrift, combat extravagance
and waste, and encourage hard work and plain living and sharing weal and
woe with the masses. Some comrades have suggested that factory directors
and heads of schools and colleges might live in sheds, and this, I think,
is a good idea, especially in hard times. There were no houses whatsoever
when we crossed the marshlands on the Long March, we just slept where we
could, and Commander-in-Chief Chu Teh did so too when he walked for forty
days across the marshlands. We all came through. Our troops had no food and
ate the bark and leaves of trees. To share happiness and suffering with the
people -- we did this in the past, why can't we do it now? As long as we
keep on doing so, we shall not alienate ourselves from the masses.

We must attend to the newspapers. Where newspapers are published, the Central
Committee and the Party committees at all levels should take the running
of newspapers as a matter of major importance. Since the beginning of this
year there has been one-sided and unrealistic propaganda in the press for
improving the people's livelihood, but very little publicity has been given
to building the country through diligence and thrift, combating extravagance
and waste and encouraging hard work, plain living and sharing weal and woe
with the masses, which should from now on be the focus of our propaganda
in the press. Probably what is broadcast by the radio stations also comes
from the newspapers. Therefore it is necessary to call meetings of reporters,
newspaper staffs and radio personnel to exchange views with them and inform
them of the guiding principles in our propaganda.

Here I would like to touch on another question, the question of suppressing
counter-revolutionaries. Should the local tyrants and evil gentry, despots
and counter-revolutionaries who have committed heinous crimes be put to death?
Yes, they should. Some democratic personages say it is bad to execute them
and we say it is fine -- we are singing different tunes, that's all. On this
theme, we can never sing in tune with the democratic personages. Those we
executed were "little Chiang Kai-sheks". As for the "big Chiang Kai-sheks"
such as Emperor Pu Yi, Wang Yao-wu and Tu Yu-ming, we will execute none of
them. But if the "little Chiang Kai-sheks" were not done away with, there
would be an "earthquake" under our feet every day, the productive forces
would not be set free nor the working people liberated. The productive forces
consist of two factors, labourers and tools. If we did not suppress
counter-revolutionaries, the working people would be unhappy. So would the
oxen and the hoes, and even the land would feel uncomfortable, all because
the peasants who put the oxen and hoes and the land to use would be unhappy.
Therefore, some counter-revolutionaries must be executed, others arrested
and still others put under public supervision.

II

On the whole, the international situation is fine. There are a few imperialist
powers, but what of it? Nothing terrifying even if there were a few dozen
more.

Now troubles have occurred in two areas, Eastern Europe and the Middle East.
Disturbances have taken place in Poland and
Hungary,[2] and Britain and France have launched
an armed aggression against Egypt. I think these bad things are good things
too. In the eyes of a Marxist, a bad thing has a dual character; on the one
hand it is bad and on the other it is good. When people see the word "bad"
before the word "thing", many think that it's nothing but bad. But we say
there is another aspect to it, that is, a bad thing is at the same time a
good thing, and this is what is meant by "failure is the mother of success".
Every failure, every reverse, or every mistake, may lead to good results
under given conditions. Since there is fire in Poland and Hungary, it will
blaze up sooner or later. Which is better, to let the fire blaze, or not
to let it? Fire cannot be wrapped up in paper. Now that fires have blazed
up, that's just fine. In this way numerous counter-revolutionaries in Hungary
have exposed themselves. The Hungarian incident has educated the Hungarian
people and at the same time some comrades in the Soviet Union as well as
us Chinese comrades. It was such a shock when Beria was uncovered. How could
a socialist country produce a Beria? It was another big shock when Kao Kang
was exposed. It is precisely through such phenomena that we learn. They are
in the nature of things and will always happen.

Will there still be revolutions in the future when all the imperialists in
the world are overthrown and classes eliminated? What do you say? In my view,
there will still be the need for revolution. The social system will still
need to be changed and the term "revolution" will still be in use. Of course,
revolutions then will not be of the same nature as those in the era of class
struggle. But there will still be contradictions between the relations of
production and the productive forces, between the superstructure and the
economic base. When the relations of production become unsuitable, they will
have to be overthrown. If the superstructure (ideology and public opinion
included) protects the kind of relations of production the people dislike,
they will transform it. The superstructure itself constitutes social relations
of another kind. It rests on the economic base. By the economic base we mean
the relations of production, chiefly ownership. The productive forces are
the most revolutionary factor. When the productive forces have developed,
there is bound to be a revolution. The productive forces consist of two factors:
one is man and the other tools. Tools are made by men. When tools call for
a revolution, they will speak through men, through the labourers, who will
destroy the old relations of production and the old social relations. "A
gentleman uses his tongue, not his fists," and the best way is to reason
things out. But if reasoning goes unheeded, arms will have to speak. What
if there aren't any arms? The labourers have tools in their hands and those
without can use rocks, and if there aren't any rocks even, there are always
one's two fists.

Our state organs are organs of the dictatorship of the proletariat. Take
the courts for instance, their function is to deal with counter-revolutionaries,
but that is not all, for they have to settle numerous disputes among the
people. It looks as if courts will still be needed ten thousand years from
now. For when classes are eliminated, there will still be contradictions
between the advanced and the backward, there will still be struggles and
scuffles among people, and there will still be all sorts of disturbances.
What a mess there would be without a court! However, the struggles will then
be of a different nature, different from class struggle. The court will be
different in nature too. The superstructure may then still go wrong. For
instance, people like us may make mistakes, lose out in struggle and be ousted
from office, so that a Gomulka may come to power or a Jao Shu-shih be propped
up. Would you say such things will not happen? I think they will, even a
thousand or ten thousand years from now.

III

Everything in the world is a unity of opposites. By the unity of opposites
we mean the unity of opposite things differing in nature. For instance, water
is a combination of two elements, hydrogen and oxygen. If there were only
hydrogen and no oxygen, or vice versa, water could not be formed. Over a
million compounds are said to have already been named and no one knows how
many have not yet been. All compounds are unities of opposites differing
in nature. Likewise with things in society. The relationship between the
central and the local authorities is a unity of opposites, and so is that
between one department and another.

The relationship between two countries is also a unity of opposites. China
and the Soviet Union are both socialist countries. Are there any differences
between them? Yes, there are. The two countries are different in nationality.
Thirty-nine years have gone by since the October Revolution took place, whereas
it is only seven years since we won state power throughout the country. As
for the things each has done, they are different in many ways. For instance,
unlike theirs our agricultural collectivization has gone through several
stages, our policy towards the capitalists is different from theirs, so are
our market price policy and the way we handle the relationship between
agriculture and light industry on the one hand and heavy industry on the
other, and so are our army system and Party system. We have told them: We
don't agree with some of the things you have done, nor do we approve of some
of the ways you handle matters.

Some comrades simply don't pay attention to dialectics and are not analytical.
They say all things Soviet are good and they transplant them mechanically.
In fact, all things, whether Chinese or foreign, admit of analysis, some
being good and some bad. This is true of the work in each province, there
are both achievements and shortcomings. And it is also true of every one
of us, for we all have not just one but two aspects, strong points and weak
points. The doctrine that everything has only one aspect has existed ever
since ancient times, and so has the doctrine that everything has two aspects.
They are known as metaphysics and dialectics respectively. An ancient Chinese
said: "The yin and the yang make up the Tao."
[3] It is impossible to have only the
yin without the yang, or vice versa. This was a doctrine in ancient
times affirming two aspects. Metaphysics is a doctrine affirming only one
aspect. And it still persists among a considerable number of comrades. They
take a one-sided view of things and think everything Soviet is good and
transplant it indiscriminately, bringing in quite a few things which should
not have been transplanted. Where things are wrongly transplanted and unsuited
to this land of ours, there must be changes.

Here I'll speak on the question of "having illicit relations with foreign
countries". Are there such people in our country who provide foreigners with
information behind the back of the Central Committee? I think there are.
Kao Kang is a case in point. Many facts have proved this.

On December 24, 1953, at an enlarged meeting of the Political Bureau of the
Central Committee to unmask Kao Kang, I declared that there were two headquarters
in the city of Peking, one comprised all of us present and it stirred up
an open wind and lit an open fire, whereas the other was an underground
headquarters, and it also stirred up a kind of wind and lit a kind of fire,
a sinister wind and a sinister fire. Lin Tai-yu, a character in a classical
Chinese novel, said: "Either the east wind prevails over the west wind, or
the west wind prevails over the east wind." As for the present day, either
the open wind and open fire prevail over the sinister wind and sinister fire,
or the sinister wind and sinister fire prevail over the open wind and open
fire. The purpose of the other headquarters in stirring up the sinister wind
and lighting the sinister fire was to overpower the open wind and put out
the open fire, that is, to overthrow a large number of people.

Among our cadres of higher and middle rank there are a few (not many) who
maintain illicit relations with foreign countries. This is not good. I hope
you comrades will make it clear to everybody in the leading Party groups
and Party committees of the central departments as well as in the Party
committees at the provincial, municipal and autonomous region level that
this kind of business must stop. We don't approve of some of the things done
in the Soviet Union, and the Central Committee has already said this to the
Soviet leaders several times; some questions on which we have not touched
will be taken up later. If they are to be taken up, it should be done by
the Central Committee. As for information, don't try to pass it on. Such
information is of no use at all, it can only cause harm. It undermines the
relations between the two Parties and the two countries. Moreover, those
engaged in such activities put themselves in an awkward position. Since they
do this behind the Party's back, they always have a guilty conscience. Those
who have passed on information should make a clean breast of it and be done
with it, or else there will be an investigation and they will be duly punished
if found out.

I would like to say a few words about the Twentieth Congress of the Communist
Party of the Soviet Union. I think there are two "swords": one is Lenin and
the other Stalin. The sword of Stalin has now been discarded by the Russians.
Gomulka and some people in Hungary have picked it up to stab at the Soviet
Union and oppose so-called Stalinism. The Communist Parties of many European
countries are also criticizing the Soviet Union, and their leader is Togliatti.
The imperialists also use this sword to slay people with. Dulles, for instance,
has brandished it for some time. This sword has not been lent out, it has
been thrown out. We Chinese have not thrown it away. First, we protect Stalin,
and, second, we at the same time criticize his mistakes, and we have written
the article "On the Historical Experience of the Dictatorship of the
Proletariat". Unlike some people who have tried to defame and destroy Stalin,
we are acting in accordance with objective reality.

As for the sword of Lenin, hasn't it too been discarded to a certain extent
by some Soviet leaders? In my view, it has been discarded to a considerable
extent. Is the October Revolution still valid? Can it still serve as the
example for all countries? Khrushchov's report at the Twentieth Congress
of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union says it is possible to seize state
power by the parliamentary road, that is to say, it is no longer necessary
for all countries to learn from the October Revolution. Once this gate is
opened, by and large Leninism is thrown away.

The doctrine of Leninism has developed Marxism. In what respects has it done
so? First, in world outlook, that is, in materialism and dialectics; and
second, in revolutionary theory and tactics, particularly on the questions
of class struggle, the dictatorship of the proletariat and the political
party of the proletariat. And then there are Lenin's teachings on socialist
construction. Beginning from the October Revolution of 1917, construction
went on in the midst of revolution, and thus Lenin had seven years of practical
experience in construction, something denied to Marx. It is precisely these
fundamental principles of Marxism-Leninism that we have been learning.

In both our democratic revolution and our socialist revolution, we have mobilized
the masses to wage class struggle in the course of which we have educated
the people. It is from the October Revolution that we have learned to wage
class struggle. During the October Revolution, the masses in the cities and
villages were fully mobilized to wage class struggle. Those who are now sent
by the Soviet Union as experts to various countries were but children or
teenagers at the time of the October Revolution, and many of them have forgotten
about this practice. Comrades in some countries say that China's mass line
is not right, and they are only too happy to pick up the paternalistic approach.
There is no stopping them if they want to do so; in any case, we adhere to
the Five Principles of Peaceful Coexistence, with non-interference in each
other's internal affairs and mutual non-aggression. We have no intention
of exercising leadership over any country save our own, that is, the People's
Republic of China.

The fundamental problem with some East European countries is that they have
not done a good job of waging class struggle and have left so many
counter-revolutionaries at large, nor have they trained their proletariat
in class struggle to help them learn how to draw a clear distinction between
the people and the enemy, between right and wrong and between materialism
and idealism. And now they have to reap what they have sown, they have brought
the fire upon their own heads.

How much capital do you have? Just Lenin and Stalin. Now you have abandoned
Stalin and practically all of Lenin as well, with Lenin's feet gone, or perhaps
with only his head left, or with one of his hands cut off. We, on our part,
stick to studying Marxism-Leninism and learning from the October Revolution.
Marx has left us a great many writings, and so has Lenin. To rely on the
masses, to follow the mass line -- this is what we have learned from them.
Not to rely on the masses in waging class struggle and not to make a clear
distinction between the people and the enemy -- that would be very dangerous.

IV

A few cadres with an intellectual background at the level of department or
bureau head advocate great democracy, saying that small democracy is not
satisfying enough. Their "great democracy" means the adoption of the bourgeois
parliamentary system of the West and the imitation of such Western stuff
as "parliamentary democracy", "freedom of the press" and "freedom of speech".
Their advocacy is wrong, for they lack the Marxist viewpoint, the class
viewpoint. However, the terms great democracy and small democracy are quite
graphic, so we have borrowed them.

Democracy is a method, and it all depends on to whom it is applied and for
what purpose. We are in favour of great democracy. And what we favour is
great democracy under the leadership of the proletariat. We mobilized the
masses to fight Chiang Kai-shek and licked him after a struggle lasting more
than twenty years. In the agrarian reform movement, the peasant masses rose
against the landlord class and got land after three years of struggle. These
were instances of great democracy. The movement against the "three evils"
was a struggle against those of our personnel who had been corrupted by the
bourgeoisie. The movement against the "five evils" was a struggle against
the bourgeoisie. In both movements relentless blows were dealt. These were
all vigorous mass movements and instances of great democracy. A few days
ago, masses of people held a demonstration in front of the Office of the
British Chargé d'Affaires in China, and several hundred thousand people
held a rally at Tien An Men Square in Peking in support of Egypt's resistance
to Anglo-French aggression. This was also an instance of great democracy,
aimed at imperialism. Why shouldn't we cherish this great democracy? We do
in fact cherish it. Who is this great democracy directed against? Against
imperialism, feudalism and bureaucrat-capitalism, and against capitalism.
The socialist transformation of private industry and commerce was directed
against capitalism. The socialist transformation of agriculture, which was
designed to abolish the private ownership of small producers, was by its
nature also directed against capitalism. It was by means of the mass movement
that we carried out the socialist transformation of agriculture, mobilizing
the peasants, principally the poor and lower-middle peasants first, to organize
themselves, so that the upper-middle peasants could not but agree. As for
the fact that the capitalists beat drums and struck gongs to welcome the
socialist transformation, it was because they had no alternative with the
advent of the socialist upsurge in the countryside and with the pressure
from the masses of workers under them.

If great democracy is now to be practiced again, I am for it. You are afraid
of the masses taking to the streets, I am not, not even if hundreds of thousands
should do so. "He who is not afraid of death by a thousand cuts dares to
unhorse the emperor." This was a saying of a character in a classical Chinese
novel, Wang Hsi-feng, otherwise called Sister Feng. She it was who said this.
The great democracy set in motion by the proletariat is directed against
class enemies. Enemies of the nation (who are none other than the imperialists
and the foreign monopoly capitalists) are class enemies also. Great democracy
can be directed against bureaucrats too. I just said that there would still
be revolutions ten thousand years from now, so possibly great democracy will
have to be practiced then. If some people grow tired of life and so become
bureaucratic, if, when meeting the masses, they have not a single kind word
for them but only take them to task, and if they don't bother to solve any
of the problems the masses may have, they are destined to be overthrown.
Now this danger does exist. If you alienate yourself from the masses and
fail to solve their problems, the peasants will wield their carrying-poles,
the workers will demonstrate in the streets and the students will create
disturbances. Whenever such things happen, they must in the first place be
taken as good things, and that is how I look at the matter.

Several years ago, an airfield was to be built somewhere in Honan Province,
but no proper arrangements were made beforehand for the peasants living there
nor any adequate explanations offered them when they were compelled to move
out. The peasants of the village affected said, even the birds will make
a few squawks if you go poking with your pole at their nest in a tree and
try to bring it down. Teng Hsiao-ping, you, too, have a nest, and if I destroyed
it, wouldn't you make a few squawks? So the local people set up three lines
of defence: the first line was composed of children, the second of women,
and the third of able-bodied young men. All who went there to do the surveying
were driven away and the peasants won out in the end. Later, when satisfactory
explanations were given and arrangements made, they agreed to move and the
airfield was built. There are quite a few similar cases. Now there are people
who seem to think that, as state power has been won, they can sleep soundly
without any worry and play the tyrant at will. The masses will oppose such
persons, throw stones at them and strike at them with their hoes, which will,
I think, serve them right and will please me immensely. Moreover, sometimes
to fight is the only way to solve a problem. The Communist Party needs to
learn a lesson. Whenever students and workers take to the streets, you comrades
should regard it as a good thing. There were over a hundred students from
Chengtu who wanted to come to Peking to present a petition, but those in
one train were halted at the Kuangyuan station in Szechuan Province, while
those in another train got as far as Loyang but failed to reach Peking. It
is my opinion and Premier Chou's too that the students should have been allowed
to come to Peking and call on the departments concerned. The workers should
be allowed to go on strike and the masses to hold demonstrations. Processions
and demonstrations are provided for in our Constitution. In the future when
the Constitution is revised, I suggest that the freedom to strike be added,
so that the workers shall be allowed to go on strike. This will help resolve
the contradictions between the state and the factory director on the one
hand and the masses of workers on the other. After all they are nothing but
contradictions. The world is full of contradictions. The democratic revolution
resolved the set of contradictions with imperialism, feudalism and
bureaucrat-capitalism. At present, when the contradictions with national
capitalism and small production with respect to ownership have been basically
resolved, contradictions in other respects have come to the fore, and new
contradictions have arisen. There are several hundred thousand cadres at
the level of the county Party committee and above who hold the destiny of
the country in their hands. If they fail to do a good job, alienate themselves
from the masses and do not live plainly and work hard, the workers, peasants
and students will have good reason to disapprove of them. We must watch out
lest we foster the bureaucratic style of work and grow into an aristocratic
stratum divorced from the people. The masses will have good reason to remove
from office whoever practices bureaucracy, makes no effort to solve their
problems, scolds them, tyrannizes over them and never tries to make amends.
I say it is fine to remove such fellows, and they ought to be removed.

Now the democratic parties and the bourgeoisie are against the great democracy
of the proletariat. If we were to start a second movement against the "five
evils", they would not like it. They are very much afraid that the democratic
parties will be eliminated and will not enjoy long-term coexistence if great
democracy is put into practice. Do professors like great democracy? It is
hard to say, but I think they are on their guard, they too are afraid of
proletarian great democracy. If they want to practice bourgeois great democracy,
I will propose a rectification, that is, ideological remoulding. All the
students will be mobilized to criticize them, and in every college a checkpoint,
so to speak, will be set up which they must pass through before the whole
matter can be considered closed. So professors, too, are afraid of proletarian
great democracy.

Here I will take up another topic, the question of the Dalai. Buddha has
been dead for 2,500 years, and now the Dalai and his followers want to go
to India and pay homage to him. Shall we let him go or not? The Central Committee
thinks that it is better to let him go than not. He will set out in a few
days. We advised him to go by air, but he refused, preferring to travel by
car via Kalimpong, [4] where there are spies from
various countries as well as Kuomintang secret agents. It must be anticipated
that the Dalai may not come back, that, in addition, he may abuse us every
day, making allegations such as "the Communists have invaded Tibet", and
that he may go so far as to declare "the independence of Tibet" in India.
It must also be anticipated that he may incite the Tibetan upper-stratum
reactionaries to issue a call for major disturbances in the hope of driving
us out, while using his absence as an alibi to shirk responsibility. This
is possible, if the worst comes to the worst. I would still be glad even
if this bad situation occurred. Our Working Committee and our troops in Tibet
must make preparations, build fortifications and store up plenty of food
and water. All we have there is only a few soldiers; anyway, each party is
free to act as he chooses. If you want to fight, we shall be on our guard;
if you make an attack, we shall defend ourselves. We should never attack
first but let them do so, and then we shall launch a counter-attack and crush
the attackers with relentless blows. Shall I feel aggrieved at the desertion
of one Dalai? Not at all, even if you throw in nine more and make it ten
Dalais. It was our experience that Chang Kuo-tao's desertion did not turn
out to be a bad thing. You cannot bind a man and a woman together to make
them husband and wife. When someone stops caring for your place and wants
to leave it, just let him go. What harm will his departure do us? None
whatsoever. He can't do more than curse us. Our Communist Party has been
cursed for thirty-five years. And the curses have been just such hackneyed
nonsense as that the Communist Party "is extremely ferocious", "communizes
property and women" and "is brutal and inhuman". What difference will it
make if a Dalai or anyone else should be added to the number of abusers?
If the abusing goes on for another thirty-five years, that will amount to
only seventy years. I don't consider it good for a person to be afraid of
being abused. Some people are worried that confidential information may be
divulged. Didn't Chang Kuo-tao possess a lot of confidential information?
Never heard that our affairs went amiss as a result of Chang Kuo-tao divulging
confidential information.

Our Party has millions of experienced cadres. Most of them are good cadres,
born and brought up on our native soil, linked to the masses and tested in
the course of long struggles. We have a whole body of cadres--those who joined
the revolution in the period of the founding of the Party, in the period
of the Northern Expedition, during the War of the Agrarian Revolution, the
War of Resistance Against Japan, and the War of Liberation and those who
joined after nationwide liberation. They are all valuable assets to our country.
The situation in some East European countries is not very stable, and one
major reason is that they lack such a body of experienced cadres. With such
cadres as ours who have been tested in different periods of the revolution,
we are able to "sit tight in the fishing boat despite the rising wind and
waves". We must have this much confidence. We are not even afraid of imperialism,
so why should we be afraid of great democracy? Why should we be afraid of
students taking to the streets? Yet among our Party members there are some
who are afraid of great democracy, and this is not good. Those bureaucrats
who are afraid of great democracy must study Marxism hard and mend their
ways.

We are to carry out a rectification movement next year. Three bad styles
are to be rectified: (1) subjectivism, (2) sectarianism and (3)
bureaucracy. After the Central Committee has made the decision, a circular
will first be issued, in which different items will be listed. For instance,
bureaucracy consists of several items, such as failure to make contact with
cadres and the masses, failure to go down and find out about the situation
below and failure to share weal and woe with the masses, plus corruption,
waste and so on. If a circular is issued in the first half of the year, the
rectification movement is to begin in the second, with a period of several
months in between. Whoever has embezzled public money must confess and return
it during that interval, or pay it back later in instalments, or if he cannot
possibly manage it even in instalments, he will have to be exempted from
repaying it ; each of these three ways is all right. But in any case he must
admit his mistake and of his own accord state the amount taken. This is to
provide him, so to speak, with a staircase by which he can come down step
by step. This method is also to be adopted in dealing with other mistakes.
Rather than meting out "punishment without prior warning", make an announcement
beforehand and then start the rectification movement at the specified time--this
is a method of applying small democracy. Some say, if this method is adopted,
there probably won't be much left to rectify in the second half of the year.
That is precisely the end we hope to achieve. Our hope is that by the time
the rectification movement formally starts, subjectivism, sectarianism and
bureaucracy will have been considerably reduced. In our history the rectification
movement has proved to be an effective method. From now on, all problems
among the people or inside the Party are to be solved by means of rectification,
by means of criticism and self-criticism, and not by force. We are in favour
of the method of the "gentle breeze and mild rain", and though it is hardly
avoidable that in a few cases things may get a little too rough, the over-all
intention is to cure the sickness and save the patient, and truly to achieve
this end instead of merely paying lip-service to it. The first principle
is to protect a person, and the second one is to criticize him. First he
is to be protected because he is not a counter-revolutionary. This means
to start from the desire for unity and, through criticism and self-criticism,
arrive at a new unity on a new basis. Within the ranks of the people, if
we adopt the method of both protecting and criticizing a person who has made
mistakes, we shall win people's hearts, be able to unite the entire people
and bring into play all the positive factors among our 600 million people
for building socialism.

I am in favour of the idea that in peace-time the wage gap between cadres
in the army and those outside it should be gradually narrowed, but this does
not mean absolute egalitarianism. I have always been of the opinion that
the army should live plainly and work hard and be a model. At a meeting held
here in 1949, one of our generals proposed that the pay in the army should
be raised, and many comrades were for his proposal, but I was against it.
The illustration he used was that a capitalist ate a meal of five courses
whereas a PLA soldier had only salt water plus some pickled cabbage at a
meal, and this, he said, wouldn't do. I said, on the contrary, this was just
fine. They had five courses while we ate pickles. There was politics in these
pickles, out of which models would emerge. The PLA won people's hearts precisely
because of these pickles, but, of course, there were other factors too. Now
the army meals have improved and are already rather different from having
only pickles to eat. But what is most essential is that we must advocate
plain living and hard work, which is our intrinsic political quality. Chinchow
is an apple-growing area. At the time of the Liaohsi campaign, it was autumn,
and there were plenty of apples in the villagers' homes, but our fighters
did not take a single apple. I was deeply moved when I read about this. Here
the fighters themselves were conscious that not to eat the apples was noble,
whereas to eat them would have been ignoble, for the apples belonged to the
people. Our discipline rests on such consciousness. It is the result of
leadership and education by our Party. Man must have some spirit, and the
revolutionary spirit of the proletariat stems from this consciousness. Did
anyone starve to death from not eating an apple? No, for there was millet
plus pickles. In times of necessity, you comrades present here will have
to live in sheds. When we crossed the marshlands, we had no sheds to sleep
in and yet we managed without. Why can't we live in sheds now that we have
them? The army people have been in session these few days, and they have
expressed with deep feelings and enthusiasm their readiness to exercise
self-denial and practice economy. Now that the army is doing this, there
is all the more reason for other people to live plainly and work hard. Otherwise
they would be challenged by the army people. There are both civilians and
army people present here, so we'll let the army people challenge the civilians.
The PLA is a good army, and I like it very much.

Political work must be strengthened. It must be greatly strengthened in every
sphere, whether among civilians or army people, whether in factories, villages,
shops, schools or army units, whether in Party and government organs or people's
organizations, so as to raise the political level of the cadres and the masses.

NOTES


1. This refers to a saying of Confucius, "At seventy, I
can follow my heart's desire, without transgressing what is right."
Confucian Inflects, Book II, "Wed Cheng".

2. They refer to the riot that occurred in Poznan, Poland,
in June 1956 and to the counter-revolutionary rebellion that took place in
Hungary in October of the same year.

3. The Book of Changes, "Hsi Tzu", Part 1.


4. Kalimpong is a border town in northeastern India near
Yatung in Tibet, China.

Transcription by the Maoist Documentation Project.