Speech at Conference of Provincial, Municipal,
and Autonomous Region Party Secretaries
(January 18, 1957)

Source: Version I: Xuanji, V, pp. 330–339. Available English Translation: SW,
V, pp. 350–359. Version II: Wansui (n.d. 3), pp. 118–120.

Sometime in January 1957 Mao was present at a conference of secretaries of Party
committees from the provinces, municipalities, and autonomous regions. The dates of this
conference have not been traced, although this speech made by Mao on January 18 and
another on January 27 (texts Jan. 27, 1957 [1] and [2]) suggest that the conference might
have been held in the second half of the month. In particular, the January 18 speech here
might have been an opening address or remarks made near the beginning of the conference.
For information on this conference, see K. Lieberthal (1989), pp. 47–48. There are five
different documents relating to Mao’s participation at the conference. One, entitled “Inter-jections at the Conference of Provincial and Municipal Party Secretaries” ( Wansui [1969],
pp. 73–81), presented here at the end of January 1957, is a Red Guard collection of Mao’s
various interjections at the conference. The second and third are presented here as Version

I and Version II of Mao’s January 18 speech at the conference. These two versions are
generally similar in content. In organization and often in syntax, however, there are a large
number of appreciable differences. Again, it is almost certain that the Xuanji, V version is
the “official release” version of 1977, whereas the Wansui (n.d. 3) version, which is labeled
as a collection of the “main points of the speech,” is an earlier publication. A sense of how
substantially edited and changed Mao’s writings and speeches may have been in Xuanji, V
can be obtained by comparing the two versions of the speech here. In the Xuanji, V version,
Mao’s statements are much more elaborate, and in some cases are more easily understood
by the reader. In particular, the last parts of the Wansui (n.d. 3) version, which contain some
terse remarks, are excised from the Xuanji, V version. Because the variations are so profuse,
however, for the most part we leave it to the reader to make his or her textual comparison
of the two versions. The last two documents, one a Red Guard version (Wansui [1969], pp.
81–90) and one an official version (Xuanji, V, pp. 339–362), are different records of the
same speech Mao gave on January 27 and are presented in our translation here as texts
Jan. 27, 1957(1), and Jan. 27, 1957(2).

These speeches and versions of speeches, in the main, touch on the same themes:
ideological struggle, or contending and blooming; the Chinese position on the debate
in the international Communist movement; the problem of mental preparation to
forestall events in China taking the course of those in Hungary, Poland, and the Soviet
Union, etc. Interestingly, Mao also spoke at length about issues of leadership, falling
back on his fundamental philosophy of contradiction, but elucidating its practical
application within the context of the dictatorship of the proletariat. Here we have
solid pronouncements of the principle of following the mass line, identifying and
consolidating the interest of the proletariat, and the epistemology of unity of opposites
and its practical expression in unity-criticism-unity, things that eventually became
critical ingredients of Mao Zedong Thought.
These five articles therefore ought to be studied together. “The Interjections,”
presented at the end of January 1957, is the most clearly organized of the four, though
brief and sometimes textually garbled. The January 18 speech that we have here seems
to set the mood for the conference, and the January 27 speech appears to be a
summing up.
Furthermore, there are many arguments in Mao’s comments made at this conference that hark back to his thesis some nine months earlier, i.e., the “Ten Major
Relationships” article (see text April 25, 1956), as well as cast forward to his thesis
“On Correctly Handling the Contradictions Among the People” (see text Feb. 27,
1957) and his speech at the National Conference on Propaganda Work (see text Mar.
12, 1957). All these speeches and articles appear to be interlocked and ought to be
studied together. The line of progression followed by these speeches may be generally
summed up in the following way. In response to the events on the international scene
and particularly in the Communist movement worldwide in the latter part of 1956
(i.e., Khrushchev’s criticism of Stalin at the Twentieth Congress of the CPSU, and
the Hungarian and Polish incidents), and to the reaction on the part of some people
in the CPC and in China (especially in the democratic parties) to these events, Mao
and the CPC leadership perceived the need to affirm that the ideological trend
followed by the CPC and its major policies of socialist transformation since 1954–
1955 (e.g., agricultural cooperativization) were correct. At the same time, taking a
lesson from the CPSU, Mao believed that the Communist Party was not in itself
unassailable and was, in fact, susceptible to a number of weaknesses in its work style
(e.g., bureaucratism) that were liable to alienate the Party from the masses. The
conference of Party secretaries in January 1957 was convened to communicate these
points and to inaugurate a general policy to deal with the situation. The two major

speeches on January 18 and January 27 (the latter with two versions here) reflect
that. By late February, Mao had already consolidated that general policy, which was
essentially a rearticulation of the “Hundred Flowers” formula, but at the same time
had escalated it to become a full-fledged policy for Party rectification. In the same
period, Mao had also come to perceive more forcefully the position adopted by some
people in the democratic parties or simply outside the CPC. The February 27, 1957,
speech at the Supreme State Conference, a major theoretical and policy announcement by all accounts, dealt primarily with these two issues. Finally, by early March,
the policies were to be launched into the implementation stage, and this was to be
done by and within the Propaganda Department of the CPC first; hence the significance of the March 2 speech.

Version I

This conference will discuss primarily three problems: the problem of ideological
trends, the problem of the rural areas, and the problem of the economy. Today I’d
like to talk a bit about the problem of ideological trends.
The problem of ideological trends is something that we must firmly grasp. Here,
I’ll raise it as the first problem [to be discussed]. At present, many problems have
emerged in connection with the ideological trends in our Party and in the society
which deserve our close attention.
There is one type of problem that has emerged from our own household. For
instance, some comrades are now fighting for fame and fortune, and profit is
foremost in their minds. In the process of making assessments and assigning grades,
there are some people who were not satisfied with being promoted one grade and
who still lay in their beds and cried even after they were promoted two grades; it
would probably take a three-grade promotion to get them out of bed.¹ The problem
is solved: we just don’t assess and assign grades for cadres [any more], but [simply]
let the wages be generally equalized with slight differences, and that’s it. In the
past, in the Beiyang warlord government,² there was a prime minister called Tang
Shaoyi, who later became the magistrate of Zhongshan xian in Guangdong Province.³ If a prime minister in the old society could become a xian magistrate, why
can’t our department heads do the same? As I see it, those people who make a fuss
about grade differences and who can accept promotions but not demotions are even
worse in this regard than this bureaucrat of the old [society]. They are competing
with one another not on the basis of hardships suffered or on the basis of doing
more work and enjoying fewer luxuries, but on the basis of pomposity, grade
differentials, and status. There is a great increase of such ideas within the Party at
present, and it demands our attention.
Is there or is there not, after all, hope for the cooperativization of agriculture?
Is the cooperative better, or is the individual economy better? This question has
also been raised once again. Last year there were no problems in the areas with
bumper harvests, nor were there problems in areas of serious disasters. It was in
cooperatives where the calamities, if there were any, were not serious, or in cooperatives where the harvest was not particularly good that problems arose. In cooperatives
of this sort, the promises made at the start about the value of work points were too

ambitious.4 These later turned out to be not as great [as anticipated], and [not only]
did the income of the members of the cooperatives not increase, but it actually
decreased. Thus, criticism has come up: Is the cooperative still a good thing?
Should it be retained? This sort of discussion is also reflected among some of our
cadres in the Party. Some cadres say that the cooperatives don’t have any superior
qualities. Some heads of departments and ministries went to the countryside to take
a look and, when they returned to Beijing, spread a disturbing view, saying that the
peasants were in low spirits, that they were no longer doing their farming enthusiastically, and that it looked as if there was a tendency for the cooperatives to
collapse and become extinct. Some directors of cooperatives find it difficult to hold
their heads high, and they are scolded everywhere they go. They are criticized from
above as well as in the newspapers. In some Party committees, the directors of the
propaganda department do not dare to propagandize about the superiority of the
cooperatives. According to Liao Luyan, minister of agriculture and deputy director
of the Rural Work Department of the Party Center,5 he himself is disheartened, and
the cadres in positions of responsibility beneath him are also deflated. [They feel
that] nothing is working and that the Forty-Article Program for Agricultural
Development is no longer valid.6 What can we do about this deflation [of spirit]?
It’s simple: if you lack spirit we can give you a little encouragement.7 The
propaganda in the newspapers has now switched to talking at length about the
superiority of the cooperatives, concentrating on the good points and not mentioning the bad ones. Let’s do that for a few months; [everybody] will gain some
encouragement from it.
The year before last we opposed Right deviation; last year we opposed “adventurist advance,” and as a result of our opposition to “adventurist advance” the Right
deviation has reemerged.8 The Right deviation that I’m talking about is the Right
deviation with regard to the question of the socialist revolution, primarily the
question of the socialist transformation of the countryside. A gust of wind like a
typhoon has blown up from among our cadres, and it especially requires our
attention. A considerable number of our ministers, deputy ministers, department
and bureau heads, and cadres at the provincial level have come from landlord, rich
peasant, or well-to-do middle peasant families. Some have fathers who were
landlords and they still do not have the right to vote.9 When these cadres go home,
their families say bad things [about the cooperatives], and say nothing except that
the cooperatives are no good and cannot develop. The well-to-do middle peasants
are a vacillating stratum; their idea of going-it-alone is once again rearing its head.
Some people want to withdraw from the cooperatives. This gust of wind among
our cadres reflects the ideology of these classes and strata.10
Cooperativization can certainly be developed well, but this cannot be fully
accomplished in a year or two. We must explain this to the comrades in the various
circles—the Party, the government, the military, and the people. The cooperatives
have been around only for a short while; most cooperatives have a history of no
more than a year or a year and a half and have acquired very little experience. Even
people who have been engaged in revolution for their entire lives can make
mistakes, so how can you expect those who have been on the job for only a year

or a year and a half to be completely free of mistakes? Saying that the cooperatives
will not work whenever there is a little bit of wind and rain is itself a great mistake.
In fact, most cooperatives are well-managed, or relatively well-managed. As long
as we can cite a single cooperative that is well-managed we can defeat all the absurd
arguments raised against cooperativization. If this cooperative can be well-managed, why can’t others? If this cooperative can have superior qualities, why can’t
others? You can then go everywhere and talk a lot about the experience of this
cooperative. Each province should be able to find one such typical model. [We]
should look for a cooperative that began with the worst conditions, the worst
geography, one that had a very low yield in the past and that was very poor; [we]
should not look for the cooperative that had very good conditions to begin with.
Of course, it’s all right if you can run a few dozen [successful cooperatives], but
even if you can only run one successfully, we’ll count that as a victory.11
Problems have emerged in the schools as well. In many places the students are
causing trouble. In one school in Shijiazhuang, a number of the graduating students
could not get jobs for the time being, so their studies have been extended for an
extra year.12 This has caused [these] students to become dissatisfied, and so a few
counterrevolutionaries have taken the opportunity to fan the flames and organize
a demonstration and parade, saying that they wanted to take over the radio station
in Shijiazhuang and proclaim a “Hungary.”13 They put up many posters, and among
them were these three slogans that were the most outstanding: “Down with the
fascists!” “We want war, not peace!” “There’s nothing superior about socialism!”
According to them, the Communists are fascists, and people like ourselves must
all be brought down. The slogans that they proposed were so reactionary that they
did not win the sympathy of either the workers, the peasants, or the masses in any
sector [of society]. There’s a student at Qinghua University in Beijing who publicly
announced, “One of these days I will kill thousands or tens of thousands of
people!”14 When the hundred flowers bloomed and the hundred schools contended,
even this “school of thought” emerged.15 Comrade Deng Xiaoping16 once went to
that university to speak and said that if they wanted to kill thousands and tens of
thousands of people, we will have to install a dictatorship.
According to the survey done by the city of Beijing, most of the students in our
institutions of higher learning are children of landlords, rich peasants, bourgeoisie,
and well-to-do middle peasants. Less than 20 per cent come from worker or poor-and lower-middle peasant backgrounds. The whole country, probably, must be in
more or less the same situation. This situation has to change, but it will take time.
Gomulka is rather popular among most of the students. Tito and Kardelj, too, are
rather popular.17 On the other hand, it’s the landlords and rich peasants in the
countryside, and the bourgeoisie and the democratic parties and groups in the cities
who, for the most part, are relatively obedient and compliant with the rules. Even
during the time of the upheaval in Poland and Hungary they didn’t cause trouble,
and did not jump out and declare that they would kill thousands or tens of thousands
of people. We should analyze their obedience and compliance. [They are obedient
and compliant] because they no longer have any [political] capital; the working
class and the poor- and lower-middle peasants do not listen to them, and there is

nothing solid under their feet. [But] if there is a great change in the world, if an
atom bomb were to blow Beijing or Shanghai to smithereens, wouldn’t these people
then change? That would be difficult to say. At that time, the landlords, rich
peasants, the bourgeoisie, and the democratic parties will split up [and form new
alignments]. They are experienced in the ways of the world, and most of them are,
for the time being, in hiding. Their offspring, these school kids, do not have
experience, and so they bring out into the open such [slogans] as “I’ll kill thousands
and tens of thousands of people,” and “There are no superior qualities in socialism.”
There are also various kinds of strange arguments among some of the professors;
for instance, [they say] they don’t want the Communist Party, the Communist Party
cannot lead them, socialism is no good, and so forth.18 They have these ideas which
they did not talk about in the past, but, with the contending of a hundred schools
of thought allowing them to speak out, these remarks have emerged. Have you seen
the movie Wu Xun zhuan [The Life of Wu Xun]?19 There’s a writing brush in that
movie that was several zhang long20 symbolizing the “literati.” The sweep of that
brush was really something! Now they want to come out; I think they want to sweep
us away. Isn’t that a desire for a restoration?
Last year several great storms raged in the international sphere. The Twentieth
Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union kicked up a row against
Stalin.21 Following that, the imperialists cooked up two major anti-Communist
storms, and in the international Communist movement also there were two big
storms of debate.22 Some of the [Communist] parties in Europe and America felt
the impact of these upheavals and suffered considerable damage, but the damage
sustained and the degree to which the [Communist] parties in the countries in the
East were affected was relatively small. With the convocation of the “Twentieth
Congress” of the CPSU, some people who had supported Stalin enthusiastically in
the past have now become very vigorous in their opposition [to him]. I don’t think
these people are practicing Marxism-Leninism; they do not analyze problems, and
they are also lacking in revolutionary ethics. Marxism-Leninism also includes [the
code of] revolutionary ethics of the proletariat. You supported [Stalin] so very
enthusiastically in the past; before making such a big switch now, you must at least
give some reason [for doing so]. [Instead,] you offered no reason at all, but made
such a sudden 180-degree turn and acted as if you had never supported Stalin,
although actually you supported him very strongly in the past. The Stalin problem
involves the entire international Communist movement, and the parties in all
countries have become involved.23
With regard to the “Twentieth Congress” of the CPSU, the overwhelming
majority of the cadres in our Party are dissatisfied with it, believing that it was too
harsh in its treatment of Stalin. This is a normal feeling and a normal reaction.
Among a minority, however, there is stirring. Whenever a typhoon approaches, the
ants will leave their holes before the rain comes. They have very sharp “noses,”
and they understand meteorology. When the typhoon of the CPSU’s Twentieth
Congress approached, in China too, some ants left their holes. These are the
vacillating elements in the Party; they vacillate whenever they get the chance.
When they heard that Stalin was knocked off with a single blow, they felt very

comfortable about it and swung over to the [other] side, shouting “Long live
[Khrushchev]!” and saying that everything about Khrushchev was good and that
they’d always held that view. Later, when the imperialists hit back with a few
blows, and a few blows were delivered from within the international Communist
movement itself, even Khrushchev had to change his tune, and they again swung
back over to this side. Compelled by the general trend, they had no choice but to
swing back. [It’s like] a tuft of grass on a wall; when the wind blows it sways to
one side and then the other.24 To swing back was not their true intention; their true
intention was to swing over to the other side. Those people within the Party and
outside it who gloated about the Polish affair and the Hungarian affair made a good
show of it! They talked about Poznan one moment and about Hungary the next. In
this way they exposed themselves; the ants left their holes, and even the turtles have
come out.25 They followed Gomulka’s baton. When Gomulka said [he wanted] big
democracy, they too said that [they wanted] big democracy.26 The situation has
changed now, and they do not utter a sound. Silence [,however,] is not their true
intention; their true intention is to make a lot of noise.
Whenever a typhoon blows, the vacillating elements who cannot stand up to it
will sway back and forth; this is a law. I advise everybody to pay attention to this
problem. Some people, after swaying a few times and gaining some experience,
will not sway again. There are those people who will always sway; they are like
crops such as rice which, because they have slender stalks, will sway whenever the
wind blows. Sorghum and corn are better because their stalks are thicker. Only a
big tree can stand straight and not budge. There are typhoons every year; similarly,
there are ideological typhoons and political typhoons both at home and abroad
every year. This is a natural social phenomenon. Political parties are a type of
society; they are a political type of society. The primary category in political society
is the political party. A [political] party is a class organization. Our Chinese
Communist Party is the political party of the proletariat, formed primarily by
workers and by people who came from a semiproletariat poor-peasant background.
But there are also many Party members who come from landlord, rich peasant, or
bourgeois families, or from well-to-do middle peasant and urban petty-bourgeois
backgrounds. Quite a few of them, although they have been through many years
of hard and bitter struggle and have undergone forging and tempering, still haven’t
learned much Marxism; in terms of ideology and spirit they are still like rice, and
will sway whenever the wind blows.
Some comrades have passed various [“]gates[”] in the past,27 but find it difficult
to pass this gate of socialism. There are people typical of that; Xue Xun28 was one.
She was originally the deputy secretary of Hebei’s provincial [Party] committee
and its deputy governor. When did she sway? It was when the implementation of
unified purchasing and unified marketing by the state began.29 Unified purchasing
and marketing is an important step in the implementation of socialism. However,
she resolutely opposed it, and insisted on opposing it no matter what happened.
Another example is Meng Yongqian, the deputy director of the All-China Federa-tion of Supply and Marketing Cooperatives.30 He wrote a letter of petition, in which
he also firmly opposed unified purchasing and marketing. When we carried out the

cooperativization of agriculture, some people in the Party also rose in opposition.
In short, there are high-ranking cadres in the Party who cannot pass the gate of
socialism and are vacillating. Have such things come to an end? No. In ten years
will these people become resolute and truly believe in socialism? Not necessarily.
Ten years from now, if any problem crops up, they might still say that they had
foreseen that long ago.
We are distributing [some] material to you comrades that reflects the ideological
trends of some cadres in our armed forces. Although there are some reasonable
things contained in the opinions of these cadres—for instance, [their criticism] that
some cadres’ wages are too high and the peasants cannot tolerate it—nevertheless
the general orientation of their opinion is not correct, and their fundamental line is
wrong. They make the criticism that our Party’s policy has become too Left in the
countryside and too Right in the cities. Although China has [a territory of] 9.6
million square kilometers, in all, there are only two pieces of land, one called the
countryside, the other called the city. According to what they say, [we] have been
wrong in both.
By saying that our policy in the countryside has become too “Left” they mean
that the income of the peasants isn’t much and is less than that of the workers. We
should apply some analysis to this issue; we cannot go by [the size of] income
alone. Indeed, generally speaking, the income of the workers is larger than that of
the peasants, but the value of what they produce is also greater than that of what
the peasants produce, and their necessary living expenses are also higher than those
of the peasants. The improvement in the standards of living of the peasants mainly
depends on the peasants’ own efforts in developing production. The government,
also, is giving the peasants a lot of help, such as constructing water conservation
[projects] and issuing loans to the peasants, etc. Our agricultural taxes, including
taxes on [the products of] side-line occupations, are approximately 8 per cent of
the gross value of the peasants’ production, and on many side-line occupations
there is no tax at all. When the state purchases grain, the purchase is made in
accordance with the normal price; also the profit derived by the state from the
peasants in the exchange of industrial for agricultural products is very small. We
do not have a system of obligatory sale such as in the Soviet Union;31 our [principle]
with regard to the exchange of industrial and agricultural products is to reduce the
“scissors” differential32 and not to expand it like the Soviet Union has done. Our
policy is very different from that of the Soviet Union. Therefore, it can’t be said
that our policy in the countryside has become too “Left.”
Among the high-ranking cadres in our military forces, some people, either when
they themselves went home or [when they] invited relatives to stay with them, have
listened to the well-to-do middle peasants, the rich peasants, and the landlords.
They have been affected by these words, and they are [“]voicing grievances on
behalf of the peasants.[”] In the first half of 1955, quite a few people in the Party
[“]voiced grievances on the peasants’ behalf,[”] echoing the clamor of people like
Liang Shuming,33 as if only these two groups of people represented the peasants
and only they recognized the suffering of the peasants. In their eyes, our Party
Center does not represent the peasants, nor do the provincial [Party] committees,

nor do the majority of our Party members. In Jiangsu an investigation showed that
in some areas, among the cadres at the three levels of xian, district, and xiang, about
30 per cent voiced grievances on behalf of the peasants.34 Later, upon investigation,
it was discovered that most of these people who [“]voiced grievances for the
peasants[”] came from relatively wealthy families who had surplus grain to sell.
What actually was meant by their so-called “grievances” was that they had surplus
grain. By “helping the peasants,” “taking care of the peasants,” they actually meant
that they didn’t want to sell the surplus grain to the state. Who do these people who
voice grievances actually represent? They do not represent the broad peasant
masses; they actually represent the minority of rich peasants.

As for saying that our policy in the cities has become too Right, it does look a
bit like that too since we have tolerated the capitalists, and, what’s more, we’ve
paid them fixed interest for seven years.35 What will we do after the seven years?
That remains to be seen. It’s better to drag a tail along36 and still give them some
fixed interest. By spending a little bit of money we’ve bought over this entire class.
The [Party] Center has given this policy very careful consideration. The capitalists,
plus the democratic personages and intellectuals connected with them, have, in
general, a higher cultural, technical, and intellectual level. We’ve bought this class
over and deprived them of their political capital so that they can’t say anything.
The methods by which we deprived them [of their political capital] are, first,
spending money to buy them out, and, second, making arrangements to assign them
jobs.37 By doing this, political capital is no longer in their hands but in ours. We
must strip them clean of their political capital, and if there’s anything left that hasn’t
yet been stripped away, it must still be stripped. Therefore, neither can it be said
that our urban policy is too Right.

Our policy in the countryside is correct, and so is our policy in the urban areas.
Therefore, big, nationwide trouble such as the Hungarian affair cannot be stirred
up here. There can be nothing but a few people stirring up some trouble here and
there, wanting to launch the so-called big democracy. Big democracy is actually
not that frightening. I differ with you on this matter; some comrades among you
seem to be very afraid. I say should there be a big democracy, first let’s not be
afraid; second let’s do some analysis; see what they say and do. When they are
engaged in big democracy, those bad people will certainly do some wrong things
and say some wrong things and thereby expose and isolate themselves. Is “killing
thousands and tens of thousands of people” a way to solve the contradictions among
the people? Can it gain the sympathy of the majority of the people? They say:
“Down with fascists” and “There’s nothing superior about socialism”, isn’t this in
flagrant violation of the Constitution? The Communist Party and the state power
under its leadership are revolutionary; socialism is superior; this is all stated in the
Constitution and acknowledged by all the people in the country. They say: “We
want war, not peace.” Fine, so let them call the people to arms! With the few people
you have altogether, you don’t have enough soldiers, and your officers are also not
well-trained. These kids have gone crazy! At that school in Shijiazhuang, when
they put those three slogans to a discussion, only about a dozen of the seventy
delegates agreed with them, and more than fifty opposed them. Later, these slogans

were brought to the four thousand students for discussion, and in the end nobody
approved them. The dozen or so people then became isolated. Those ultra-reactionaries who proposed and firmly supported these slogans were only a
handful. Had they not engaged in “big democracy,” had they not gone about posting
slogans, we wouldn’t have even known what they intended to do. Once they
engaged in big democracy they got caught by their tails. One of the benefits of the
Hungarian Incident is that it lured these ants in China out from their holes.
In Hungary, with the coming of the big democracy, the Party, the government,
and the military were all toppled. This will not happen in China. Unless we are all
good-for-nothings, the Party, the government, and the military will not fall apart
just because some school kids attack us. Therefore, don’t be afraid of big democracy. Trouble being stirred up will help to cure the inflamed sore. This is a good
thing. We weren’t afraid of imperialism before, nor are we afraid of it now. We’ve
also never been afraid of Chiang Kai-shek. Should we now be afraid of big
democracy? I don’t think we need to be afraid. If any people use what they call big
democracy to oppose the socialist system and to overthrow the leadership of the
Communist Party, we will impose the dictatorship of the proletariat on them.
On the problem of the intellectuals, there is now a tendency to emphasize
arranging [positions] for them and not to emphasize reforming them. More [work]
has been done about making arrangements [for jobs] but less about reforming [these
people]. With the blooming of the hundred flowers and the contending of the
hundred schools, people no longer dare to reform the intellectuals. We dared to
reform the capitalists, why don’t we dare to reform the intellectuals and the
democratic personages?
A hundred flowers are blooming, and I think they should continue to bloom.
Some comrades think that we can only let the fragrant flowers bloom, and not the
poisonous weeds.38 This point of view shows that they really understand very little
about the principle of letting a hundred flowers bloom and a hundred schools
contend. Generally speaking, counterrevolutionary speeches and arguments naturally must not be allowed to bloom. However, since they don’t appear in the guise
of counterrevolutionary [ideas] but rather in the guise of revolutionary [ideas],
there’s nothing [we] can do but let them bloom; only that would help us to
differentiate them [from the others] and struggle against them. Two things grow in
a field; one is grain, the other is weeds. Weeds have to be dug up every year, several
times a year. If you say that we want only the fragrant flowers to bloom and not
the poisonous weeds, then that’s equivalent to saying that there can be only grain
growing in the field and not a single weed. Although you can say things like that,
anyone who has been in a field knows that as long as you don’t take the trouble to
dig them out, there actually will always be a lot of weeds. There is one good thing
about weeds, which is that if you turn them over they become fertilizer. Do you
say that they are useless? We can change what is useless into something useful.
The peasants have to struggle against the weeds in the fields every year. The writers,
artists, critics, and professors in our Party also have to struggle against the weeds
in the realm of ideology every year. By people who are forged and tempered we
mean people who have weathered the struggle. When you weeds grow, we’ll dig

you out. These opposites [in the contradiction] will appear continuously. There will
still be weeds ten thousand years from now, and that’s why we’ll have to be
prepared to struggle for ten thousand years.
In short, last year was a very eventful period of time. On the international scene
it was a year in which Khrushchev and Gomulka stirred up storms. Domestically
it was a year of very vigorous socialist transformation. It is still a very eventful
season right now, and all sorts of ideas will continue to be exposed. I hope that our
comrades here will pay attention to them.

Notes

1. Up to this time, according to the CPC Constitution, Party cadres were assigned to
one of twenty-four grades. See also text Mar. 18, 1957, note 3.
2. See text May–June 1955, vol. I, note 55.
3. Tang Shaoyi (1860–1938), was a consultant to Yuan Shikai in 1895 when Yuan was
assigned to train the “New Army” for the Qing monarchy at Xiaozhan, near Tianjin. Later
Tang served in the Qing government in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and in the Board of
Communications and Postage, as well as in the capacity of provincial governor (xunfu) of
Fengtian. When Yuan became provisional president of the republic after the Revolution of
1911, Tang became the first prime minister of Yuan’s cabinet. In 1917, he left the Beiyang
clique to align himself with Sun Yat-sen’s “Government of the Army to Defend the
Constitution” in Guangzhou, and served as its minister of finance. In 1931, he served in
major posts in the KMT government and from 1931 to 1934 was appointed by Chiang
Kai-shek to be nominally the magistrate of his native district of Zhongshan xian in
Guangdong. Tang was assassinated in Shanghai in 1938. For more biographical information
on Tang, see H. Boorman et al., eds. (1970), III, pp. 232–236.
4. See text Dec. 27, 1955(2), vol. I, note 53.
5. Liao Luyan (b. 1908) was the deputy director of the Rural Work Department of the
CPC Central Committee from 1953 to 1955 and in September 1955 became the minister of
agriculture of the State Council. His divergence from Mao’s views on cooperativization
began to show around the time that Mao, in early 1956, defended the continued upsurge of
socialism (i.e., cooperativization) in China’s agricultural plans, an “upsurge” that Mao had
observed, endorsed, and written most favorably about at the end of 1955 (see texts Oct. 11,
1955[1] and [2], Dec. 6, 1955, and Dec. 27, 1955[1] and [2], in volume I). In 1965, Liao
was removed from his post and labeled as a “Three-Anti’s element.” For more biographical
information on Liao, see D. Klein and A. Clark, eds. (1971), I, pp. 552–553.
6. See text Dec. 6, 1955, vol. I, note 3.
7. The Chinese text here translates more literally as “if you are deflated, we will pump
some air into you.”
8. See text Aug. 12, 1953(1), vol. I, note 22, and text Dec. 6, 1955, vol. I, note 10.
9. In the early years of the PRC, especially in the land reform program, landlords and
people considered “bad elements” who had gravely exploited or previously treated the
peasant masses very badly were deprived of their civil rights, exemplified chiefly by their
right to vote. It was stipulated that they could regain their right to vote when their
performance in labor had convinced the people that they had changed their ways. What Mao
appears to be saying here does not merely refer to a legal status, but to people who have not
yet convinced the masses that they have turned over a new leaf.
10. For definitions of peasant classifications mentioned in this paragraph, see text Mar.
12, 1950, vol. I, note 1. For Mao’s views specifically on the classes that can and cannot be
relied upon in the process of cooperativization, see text Sept. 7, 1955; text Oct. 11, 1955(1),
section 5; and text Dec. 27, 1955(2), especially p. 731, of volume I.

11. Mao is here reviving the argument made in late 1955 for the exemplary influence of
“poor peasant cooperatives” that turned themselves into model cooperatives in what Mao
considered the general “upsurge of socialism in China’s countryside” at the time. See text
Dec. 27, 1955(2), vol. I, note 5.
12. Shijiazhuang is the capital of Hebei Province. See Version II, note 8.
13. See text Nov. 15, 1956, Version I, note 27.
14. Qinghua University, established in 1908, is one of the oldest universities in
China. It is located in the western suburbs of Beijing. It was founded on the funds
returned to China by the United States government from the Boxer indemnity paid by
China to the various nations who claimed damages from the Boxer (Yihetuan) rebellion.
(See text Jan. 28, 1955, vol. I, note 3.) In its early years it was primarily an institution
training Chinese students for study abroad in the United States. It was not until 1925
that Qinghua became a full-fledged university. In 1928, it was nationalized. Today it is
a premier university in China, with emphasis on the engineering sciences and polytechnical and industrial studies. There is no indication of who the student is. However,
in much the same way that Qinghua before 1949 was an institution enrolling mostly the
children of important government officials and the financial elite, from 1949 up to the
mid-1960s it mostly enrolled the children of high-ranking cadres in the CPC and officers
of the PRC government apparatus. There is no information available on the action of
the student mentioned here, or on Deng Xiaoping’s speech.
15. See text Autumn 1956, note 3.
16. Deng was at this time general secretary of the Central Committee of the CPC.
17. For Gomulka, see text Nov. 15, 1956, note 31. Tito (Josip Broz, 1892–1980) was
president of the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia from 1953 to his death. In 1948,
Tito refused to submit Yugoslavia to the economic and political directives of the Soviet
Union, and Yugoslavia was expelled from the “Soviet bloc” and an economic and political
blockade was imposed on it by the USSR and other Eastern European socialist countries.
Tito continued to defend Yugoslavia’s nationalist independence throughout and after the
Stalin era, aided by Western arms and economic support, insisting on Yugoslavia’s right to
find its own “path to socialism.” In 1955, full diplomatic relations were established between
China and Yugoslavia, but Tito was critical of Chinese subservience to the Soviet Union. It
was not until 1958, however, that severe mutual criticism between the two countries came
to the forefront.
Edvard Kardelj was vice-president of the Federal Executive Council of Yugoslavia,
member of the Central Executive Committee, secretary of the Secretariat of the League of
Communists, and secretary general of the Socialist Alliance of the Working People of
Yugoslavia.
18. Mao appears to be harking back to problems discussed at the conference on the
problem of dealing with intellectuals; see text Jan. 20, 1956.
19. See text May 20, 1951, vol. I. The part of the film to which Mao refers in the following
passage is the episode in which Wu Xun gets involved in an altercation with a character
named Zhang, who is a scholar with the imperial-period standing of <i>juren</i>.
20. The <i>zhang</i> is a Chinese measure of length approximately equivalent to 3.33
meters.
21. See text Feb. 9, 1956, source note.
22. By the two major anti-Communist storms, Mao is certainly referring to the Polish
and Hungarian incidents (see text Nov. 15, 1956, note 27). By the two debates, Mao is
probably referring to those reflected in the writing of the two essays “On the Historical
Experience of the Dictatorship of the Proletariat” and “Once More on the Historical
Experience of the Dictatorship of the Proletariat.” The first of these was published as a
<i>RMRB</i> editorial on April 5, 1956, and the second one appeared on December 29 of that
year. See text April 1956, source note, and note 26; also text Nov. 15, 1956, Version I,
notes 43, 44, 45.

23. For reference, see Mao’s own evaluatory comments on Stalin in 1956, in text April
[6], 1956; text Aug. 30, 1956; text Oct. 23, 1956; text Nov. 30, 1956, and, most importantly,
text Nov. 15, 1956, Version II.
24. This is a saying (of untraceable origin) that Mao came to use often in his description
of vacillators.
25. The term for “turtles” here, wugui wangba, is an insulting term in Chinese slang
alluding to the uncertainty of the ancestry of the subject.
26. See text Nov. 15, 1956, section 4 in both versions, for what appears to be an operative
description for the term “big democracy” in Mao’s mind at this time.
27. The term here is guoguan, or “pass the gate,” but it has the connotation of passing
tests. See text June 23, 1950, vol. I, note 8.
28. Xue Xun was a member of the people’s government council of Hebei in 1948
and in 1949 became the director of the Organization Department of the Hebei provincial
committee of the CPC. In 1952, she became the vice-chairman of the Hebei provincial
people’s government. In 1959 she was the vice-principal of the Normal University of
Beijing.
29. The policy of having the state take charge of planned purchasing of important
commodities, particularly raw materials, and supplying them either to the consumers as
collectives or to processing units for remanufacturing was stipulated in the Common
Program, Article 28. It was applied to cotton yarn, grain, edible oils and cotton cloth between
1953 and 1954. In August 1957, a formal classification system for categorizing agricultural
products to be submitted to this policy was drawn up, and further streamlining into three
major categories was done in February 1959. We can see, therefore, that here Mao is talking
about a developing situation and a policy still in the early stages of its evolution, rather than
a completely consolidated policy. The policy of tonggou tongxiao (Mao here breaks up the
two component phrases) is often translated as “unified purchasing and unified marketing.”
See also text Nov. 4, 1953, vol. I, note 16.
30. Meng was a member of the Finance and Economic Commission of the GAC and
director of the Bureau of Cooperative Enterprises of the Central Committee of the CPC in
1949. He assumed the post of deputy director of the All-China Federation of Supply and
Marketing Cooperatives in 1954. (For this type of cooperative, see text Oct. 15, 1953, vol.
I, note 15.) He was also vice-chairman and a member of the Standing Committee of the
Chinese People’s Commission on Defense of World Peace, and a vice-president of the
Association for Friendly Relations with Foreign Countries. He was an accepted specialist
on industrial organizations and on the United States economy. For more biographical
information on Meng, see D. Klein and A. Clark, eds. (1971), II, pp. 690–692.
31. From 1932 to 1958, the policy of obligatory sales of agricultural products by the
peasant units to the state was implemented in the Soviet Union. Under this system, the
collective farms and other peasant organizations and individual peasants were obliged
regularly to sell to the state various types of agricultural products at a price and quantity
stipulated by the state; these products were in turn provided by the state to the industrial
sectors of the population. This is understood as an agricultural in-kind taxation. Over
25 per cent of agricultural products were requisitioned in this manner. The price was
often too low to defray agricultural costs and the quantity too high to leave enough for
the agricultural population to expand and thrive. Another complementary method was
for the state to require the peasant units to pay for the use of tractors provided by the
state in kind, again at a very high rate of exchange. Together these methods established
direct state control over more than 50 per cent of agricultural production.
32. See text April 1956, note 23.
33. See text Sept. 16–18, 1953, vol. I, note 1.
34. See text May 17, 1958.
35. See text July 9, 1953, source note; text Nov. 17, 1955, note 4, (both in volume I);
text Jan. 20, 1956, note 13; text Dec. 8, 1956, source note, notes 6 and 46. See also text Feb.
27, 1957, note 39.

36. See text Dec. 8, 1956, note 37.
37. See texts Jan. 20, 1956, and Dec. 8, 1956.
38. The terms “fragrant flowers” (xianghua) and “poisonous weeds” (duchao) were
derived from the poem “Li sao” by the ancient poet Qu Yuan (343–277? B.C.). Here, and
frequently in his own writings, Mao uses the terms to denote things that are either beneficial
or harmful to the people. A footnote written on this by Takeuchi Minoru in Mo Takuto senshu,
dai-go-ken (the Japanese-annotated translation of volume 5, Selected Works of Mao Tse-tung), pp. 149–150, ingeniously connects this subject to other things in Mao’s life. He points
out, for instance, that the phrases wei, liuyi, and jiecao, referring to the “fragrant flowers”
in the locus classicus here, the long poem “Li sao” in the Chu ci collection of poems by Qu
Yuan are names of plants indigenous to Mao’s home province of Hunan. Qu Yuan is
described as one of Mao’s favorite poets in the Chinese classical tradition, and one often
quoted by Mao in his own writings. According to this note, a tattered volume of Qu Yuan’s
Chu ci can be found among the relics of Mao from his days of youth at the First Normal
School of Hunan Province. The note also mentions that on the occasion of the establishment
of normal diplomatic relations between the PRC and Japan in 1972, Mao presented then
Japanese Prime Minister Tanaka, who was visiting China, with an annotated copy of Chu
ci. The issue of distinguishing between the “fragrant flowers” and “poisonous weeds” was
particularly significant during the rectification and anti-Rightist campaigns of 1957, and
Mao proposed standards for the distinction in his article “On Correctly Handling Contradic-tions Among the People” (see text Feb. 27, 1957, section 8). During the Cultural Revolution
period these terms were further extended to indicate actual people whose records were either
acceptable or unacceptable to the Red Guards.

Version II

This conference will study primarily three problems: the problem of ideological
trends, the problem of rural work, and the problem of economic work. We will
study some other problems as well, such as the questions of increasing production
and practicing economy, of the legal system (including suppressing counterrevolutionaries), of organizational structuring (primarily streamlining), of the
division of authority between the Center and the localities, of taxation, of the United
Front, of minority nationalities, of areas hit by calamities, of students ([including]
college and university [students], middle school [students], and primary school
[students]), of thinking of every possible method to resolve the difficulties of the
current year, of food grains, of the mountainous areas, and of the rectification of
work style, and so on.1
The problem of ideological trends: [both] the ideological trends in the Party and
the ideological trends in the society ought to be firmly grasped.
Some are matters in [our] own household. [The phenomena of people] fighting
for fame and fortune and having “profit foremost in their minds” have experienced
a very great development in the Party. [There are those] who would not rise from

their beds [even if] they were promoted by one grade; [and even if they were]
promoted by two grades [they] still cried; only when [they were] promoted by three
grades [did they] rise from their beds.2 In the Party [people] are competing [with
one another] not on the basis of hardships suffered and the arduousness of the
struggle, or on the basis of doing more work, but on the basis of how well they are
paid, and status. In the past, there was in the Kuomintang a Tang Shaoyi who went
from being a prime minister to becoming a magistrate of Zhongshan xian in
Guangdong Province.3 Our Communist Party has not yet had a department director
become a xian magistrate. In any case, it’s just that [people] can accept promotions,
but cannot take demotions; [they are] comparing [themselves to those who are]
better off [than they are,] but not comparing [themselves to those who are] worse
off; [they are] competing on the basis of [their] lavishness, but not on the basis of
[their ability to endure] hardships.
Another issue: A question of how [people] look at the socialist transformation.
Is there, after all, hope for the [agricultural producers’] cooperative? After all, is
cooperativization better, or is it better [to have] the individual economy? I hear that
there are no problems either in areas of serious disasters or in areas with bumper
harvests; it is in those areas where there have been calamities, but not serious ones,
and where there has been [a decent but] not a bumper harvest that the problems
have arisen. Some people have not had an increase in income but [in fact have
suffered a] reduction, and therefore criticism has come up. This is reflected inside
the Party as well. Some of the directors in Beijing went down to the countryside,
and, coming back, said: “The peasants are in low spirits; they don’t have a high
enthusiasm for production.” Some cadres criticized: “It is highly likely that
cooperativization will become extinct and collapse”; [or] “There is nothing
much superior about cooperativization.” Some of the directors of propaganda
at the localities don’t even dare to make propaganda about the superiority of
cooperativization. The directors of cooperatives can’t hold their heads high,
and they are encountering criticism wherever they go, suffering scolding from
all three sides. The Department of Agriculture convened a meeting; the two
systems—the Rural Work Department and the Department of Agriculture—became deflated.4 Even the need for the Forty Articles, and their practicality, came
into question.5
The year before last we opposed Right deviation, and adventurist advance6
appeared. Last year we opposed adventurist advance, and Right deviation reappeared. (By Right deviation I am primarily referring to [the situation in] the
countryside; I have not studied other aspects [of the matter as yet].)7 Here there is
a gust of wind; it could be in all the areas, just that there are differences in
magnitude; just as there are, in the case of typhoons, some that are of the eighth
grade and some that are of the twelfth grade.8 There is one thing among the cadres
that deserves our attention: most of the families of cadres are landlord [families, or
families of] rich peasants and well-to-do middle peasants. (The well-to-do middle
peasants are a vacillating class.)9 After they hear what people at home have to say,
they say that the cooperativization is no good. No matter what, cooperativization is going
to develop well. However, it would be impossible to accomplish it well in a year

or two. In fact, we have had only a year and a half of history of cooperativization;
we need three years of history, and if we have five years of history, then it would
be impossible for [cooperativization] to be blown down.
[In some places] schools have been set up, [but] it has not been possible to allot
jobs to the graduates, [and so they are] dissatisfied. The geology department has a
school of geological studies in Zhengding xian of Shijiazhuang special district.10
There are more than a thousand people there who, because they were not given
jobs, held strikes and made trouble. They want to come to Beijing. Among their
placards and slogans there are several that say: “Down with the fascists!” “We want
war, not peace!” and “Socialism is backward; It has no superiority!” One student
at Beijing University openly declared: “One of these days I will kill thousands and
tens of thousands of people.”11 Comrade XXX went there to speak and said: “You
want to kill people; I’ll have [to impose] a dictatorship.”12 Over 80 per cent of the
students in the institutions of higher learning in Beijing are children of landlords,
rich peasants, well-to-do middle peasants, and big, medium-sized, and smaller
capitalists. Less than 20 per cent are children of workers and poor peasants.
Gomulka used to be an opponent of dogmatism. His words are quite popular among
the students. However, now that [he’s] turned around to oppose Right deviation,
it’s not working so well [for him]. Tito’s speeches, and Kardelj’s, are also
welcomed by some people.13 I hear that in the countryside the landlords and the
rich peasants are in fact rather compliant and obedient with the rules, and in the
cities the [people of the] democratic parties and the capitalists are also more
obedient and compliant. That’s because these people have nothing under their feet;
they have no [political] capital. If, however, there is [a great] change in the world;
if an atom bomb were to fall on Shanghai, or Beijing, it would be difficult to predict
if these people would not change. Right now these kids have no experience, and
they are not as well-versed in the ways of the world as their fathers are, and that is
why they have stuck their heads out and are making a big scene yelling and
screaming.
After the Twentieth Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union,14
the great majority of the people in our Party [remained] normal and secure, [but]
there was a tremor among a small number of people. Before it rains, there are bound
to be ants leaving their holes. In China, too, a small number of ants wanted to leave
their holes to engage in some activity. Now Khrushchev has changed, and the ants
have withdrawn, gone back [into the holes]. After the Twentieth Congress of the
Communist Party of the Soviet Union, two big storms came up. The [Communist]
parties in many countries suffered damage: The British Party lost one-fourth [of its
membership], the Swiss [Party] half; and the United States made chaos throughout
the world. The Eastern parties and the Party in China were not quite so severely
affected. The problem of Stalin has involved the entire Communist movement.
Some people criticize Stalin without making any analysis. The people who were
most staunchly supportive of Stalin in the past are precisely the most vehemently
opposed to Stalin now. They have suddenly turned around 180 degrees; they no
longer talk of Marxism-Leninism, or of ethics. In the Party, some people begin to
teeter as soon as there is any rustling in the wind. Some sway once or twice and

then stop swaying; some will go on swaying forever. Saplings, the stalks of rice,
barley, corn, and the grass on the wall always sway when they see the wind
coming;15 only the big tree will not sway. There are typhoons every year, but there
is not necessarily a political typhoon every year. This phenomenon is a natural
phenomenon in society and politics.
The Chinese Party is a proletarian [and] semiproletarian party, but many
members come from rich peasant, landlord, and capitalist family backgrounds.
Some Party members, even though they have struggled hard and arduously for
many years, have not learned Marxism-Leninism well, and cannot endure typhoons
ideologically and politically; they ought to pay attention. Some people in the Party
have passed every gate except this gate of socialism.16 Xue Xun, deputy secretary
of the Hebei Provincial [Party] Committee, was a representative in the petition
delegation of students who went south after the “September 18 [Incident].”17 In
[the period of the implementation of] unified purchasing and unified marketing she
vacillated, and she resolutely opposed unified purchasing and unified marketing.18
Meng Yongqian, deputy director of the All-China Federation of Supply and
Marketing, also submitted a letter discussing the matter; he also resolutely opposed
unified purchasing and unified marketing.19 In fact, unified purchasing and unified
marketing is a major step toward the realization of socialism. These people just
can’t pass the gate of socialism. In our Party, this phenomenon has not yet come
to an end, and it may not have come to an end in ten years’ time. We can’t tell
whether in ten years’ time all the people will have become true believers of
socialism. Whenever we encounter a problem, someone will say that he had already
anticipated that long ago.
We must be analytical about the reflection on the lives of the peasants among
cadres in the army. There are parts that are reasonable (for example, [the issue of]
salaries being [too] high), and there are also parts that are inaccurate. It is possible
that some people are voicing grievances on behalf of the peasants [because] they
have been listening to [people] at home. In the early half of 1955 Liang Shuming
also voiced grievances on behalf of the peasants.20 There are people inside the Party
who are making that kind of noise, as if the Party Center and the provincial [Party]
committees do not represent the peasants, and only they represent the peasants. In
Jiangsu [Province] an investigation was made, [and it was discovered that] most
of those who voiced grievances were people who have surplus grain at home that
they would not sell [to the state].21 A comrade in the army reflected: “[The Party’s
policy has become] too Left in the countryside, and too Right in the cities.” This
argument is fundamentally wrong. Let’s take an example. Say a peasant has an
income of 60 rmb a year, and a worker has an income of 60 rmb a month, but a
worker feeds four people, an average of 15 rmb per person. If we go by household,
a worker [household] earns 720 rmb a year, and the peasant [household] earns 240
rmb a year. However, the expenses in the urban areas are great while the expenses
in the countryside are small. The peasants must rely on their own production to
improve their lives; the state cannot issue wages to them. In the countryside, many
side-line productions have been exempted from taxation; taxation has taken from
the peasants 8 per cent of their income, and the scissors differential has taken away

a bit more from the peasants,22 [but] not quite 12 per cent; altogether, combining
the two, it is not quite 20 per cent, which is much lower than the 45 per cent in the
Soviet Union. As for unified purchasing, it is done according to the market price.
The ways in which the state assists the peasants are primarily in such things as
fertilizers and water conservancy (the smaller-scale water conservancy [projects] are left to the peasants; the large-scale and medium-scale water conservancy [projects] are handled by the state). It would appear as if [the policy] has
become a bit too Right in the cities. In the past, the capitalists have taken 150
million rmb each year, and over six years have taken 900 million rmb. Now we
are setting fixed interest23 at seven years, and we will give them [another] 800
million, making a total of 1.7 billion rmb. When the time comes we will still
have to see what the situation then looks like. This involves an issue of
international relations. We are putting up this bit of money to buy over this class
(including its intellectuals and [people in the] democratic parties—about eight
million people altogether). They represent a class with more knowledge and
intellect. If we are to strip them clear of their political capital, one method is to
buy them out with money, and the other method is to create [political] positions
and arrange jobs for them.24 The Communist Party plus the Leftists add up to
two-thirds; [then] there is [the other] one-third, and they have to raise their
hands [to vote]; otherwise they would not have rice to eat. Their children want
to emulate [the situation in] Hungary[?]25 Bring them over to their fathers and
their asses would be whacked.

We give the university students scholarships and financial assistance; we ask
you to [devote yourselves] to studying. You want big democracy; I am not
afraid.26 When I encounter big democracy, I first welcome it, and then secondly
I analyze it. That which is correct I accept; that which is wrong I shall expose.
If I have been unreasonable I shall admit my mistake and resolutely amend
the mistake. [But if] you have been unreasonable I shall grab hold of your
little queue.27 There were strikes and trouble at that geological school, but
as soon as there was discussion [the ranks of the protesters] separated. Among
the seventy delegates only a dozen or so supported the three slogans, and more
than fifty opposed them, and then these issues were put to a discussion among
some four thousand people and they all disagreed [with the slogans]. So the
dozen or so became isolated. Expanded democracy is a good thing. Without big
democracy it would not be possible to suppress the counterrevolution in
Hungary. It is a good thing for trouble to erupt. When the sore, things will
be resolved when the pus breaks out. Don’t be afraid of trouble; in the past we
weren’t afraid of the imperialists or Chiang Kai-shek; should we be afraid of
big democracy [now]? How would it look for the Communist Party to be afraid
of big democracy? We wouldn’t look as good as Duan Qirui!28 Today, the Party
and the government are a revolutionary party and a revolutionary government;
this is something that has been included in the Constitution.29 The kids have
gone crazy yelling: “Down with the fascists!” “We want war”—that is in
violation of the Constitution. The Chinese Party, China’s government, and the
armed forces will not be toppled by these kids. If we allow several student kids

to topple us, then we would be good-for-nothing idiots.
Last year was a very eventful period of time; it was the most intense and dramatic
year in China’s socialist transformation.
I have spoken only on this one problem.30
On other problems: [about] increasing production and practicing economy there
is [already] a document.
The suppression of counterrevolutionaries must be resolutely upheld. Wherever
there is a counterrevolutionary, he must be suppressed. It won’t do [for us] to be
hesitant, but the legal system must be obeyed.31
We must promote the streamlining [of the government organization] determinedly.32 The first item [there] is to reduce the number of personnel, and the
second is to make [proper] arrangements [for jobs and positions]. We simply must
first make proper [job] arrangements for people before sending them out of the
organs.
With the center and the localities sharing power you do not feel too happy. [You
say:] “First there is no money; second there is no power.” What do you want? Please
speak up, by all means.
There is a tendency toward emphasizing making [position] arrangements and
not emphasizing the reform [of the democratic parties] in the area of United Front
work.33
In the blooming of the hundred flowers and the contending of the hundred
schools34 we didn’t have the courage to reform the intellectuals. The opinions
expressed about the work of art and literature by Ma Hanbing and three other
comrades are not good.35 In the Soviet Union, [while] down below people were
approving of [the policy of] letting a hundred flowers bloom and letting a hundred
schools contend, someone up top said: “Only fragrant flowers can be allowed to
bloom; but we cannot let poisonous weeds bloom.”36 Our opinion is we will only
not let the counterrevolutionary flower bloom; but if it employs a revolutionary
outlook, then we have to let it bloom. There are rice stalks in the field, as well as
weeds and grass. If we were to say we would only let the rice grow, and not the
grass, in reality it simply could not be accomplished. When the grass and weeds
are hoed over, they become good fertilizer. The task for our writers is to struggle
against the weeds.37 Every year weeds will grow, and every year they have to be
eliminated. Without the Kuomintang, we can’t show how good the Communist
Party is. Without idealism, we can’t show how good materialism is. Without
opposition, there will not be struggle. Only that which emerges from struggle
can withstand the test. Contradictions continuously occur; there must be continuous struggle, and the continuous resolution [of contradictions]; in a billion
years, this will remain so. After one learns about the positive things, one must
also learn about the negative things. If we only talked about materialism and
didn’t say anything about idealism, or if we only talked about dialectics and
said nothing about metaphysics, you wouldn’t know anything from the negative
side, and the things on the positive side would also not be consolidated.
Therefore, not only do we have to publish a collection of Sun Yat-sen’s works,
but we have to publish a collection of Chiang Kai-shek’s works as well.38 We’ll

talk about Hegel, Kant, Confucius, Mencius, Lao Zi, the two Cheng [brothers],
Zhu [Xi], Wang [Yangming]; we’ll talk about all of them.39 If you hadn’t read
anything written by Chiang Kai-shek, you wouldn’t be able to do a good job of
opposing him. Someone said that since we proposed letting a hundred flowers
bloom and a hundred schools contend, [the standards of] literature have declined. Comrade XXX’s report has been out only for five months, and literature
has declined?40 How can it be so fast? A major work takes a long time to
prepare; it cannot be written over a short time. Writers have to work; if they do
not work we won’t give them rice to eat. If the writers sat home without going
to the lower levels, they would have no substance in their bellies; how can they
write good things then?
The question of not promoting cadres and of reducing their salaries has to be studied.
In the problem of the students there are two questions; one of entering [the
universities] and one of employment [on graduation].
The problem of the minority nationalities is rather serious.
I am very much in agreement on the question of thinking of every possible
method [to resolve the difficulties of the current year]. ([This is] a great invention
on the part of Ke Qingshi.)41

Notes

1. The latter part of this paragraph, starting with “we will study some other problems
as well,” does not appear in Version I.
2. See Version I, note 1.
3. See Version I, notes 2 and 3.
4. See Version I, note 5, and surrounding text.
5. See Version I, note 6.
6. See Version I, note 8.
7. See Version I, note 8.
8. See text Nov. 4, 1953, vol. I, note 3, and text May 15, 1957, note 21.
9. See Version I, note 10.
10. Version I does not identify either the xian or the school. See Version I, note 12.
11. See Version I, note 14. Version I has Qinghua University instead of Beijing
University here.
12. Version I identifies Comrade XXX as Deng Xiaoping. See Version I, note 16.
13. See Version I, note 17.
14. See Version I, note 21.
15. See Version I, note 24, and surrounding text.
16. See Version I, note 27.
17. See Version I, note 28. The “September 18 Incident” here possibly refers to the
so-called Mukden Incident, which took place on September 18, 1931, when Japanese
troops, trumping up the charge that a Mukden (Changchun) section of the South
Manchurian Railroad had been bombed by Chinese troops, sent forces into Manchuria
and quickly overran the region. This is often considered the beginning of the Sino-Jap-anese War, which would last until the surrender of Japan in 1945. After the Mukden
Incident, many Chinese students in northern China formed groups who went south to
petition the government of the Kuomintang to take stronger action against the Japanese
in the north.
18. See Version I, note 29.

19. See Version I, note 30.
20. See Version I, note 33.
21. See Version I, note 34.
22. See Version I, note 32.
23. See Version I, note 35.
24. See Version I, note 37.
25. See Version I, note 13.
26. See Version I, note 26.
27. See text Mar. 31, 1955, vol. I, note 17.
28. See text May–June, 1955, vol. I, note 25.
29. For reference to the Constitution of the PRC, see text June 14, 1954, vol. I, note 1.
30. The remainder of this speech in Version II does not appear in Version I.
31. Here we believe Mao is referring simply to the system of maintaining lawful order
in the country, and the legal system that functions through law enforcement organs and the
people’s court system. In this situation Mao is not using the term sarcastically as he does in
text Jan. 27, 1957(1). (See text Jan. 27, 1957[1], note 84.)
32. See text Nov. 15, 1956, Version II, note 50. See also final paragraph in text Jan.
1957.
33. See text Feb. 18, 1951, vol. I, note 13.
34. See text Autumn 1956, note 3.
35. We have not been able to find biographical information on Ma Hanbing, but for
reference to this article, see text April 10, 1957, note 2 and surrounding text.
36. See Version I, note 38.
37. See text Feb. 26, 1957, paragraph 5.
38. See last part of text Jan. 27, 1957(1), note 42, and text Jan. 27, 1957(2), text
surrounding note 35.
39. On Hegel, Kant, Confucius, and Lao Zi, see text Jan. 27, 1957(1), notes 42, 45, and
46. Mencius is the Latinized name for Meng Ke (ca. 370–290 B.C.), a pupil of Zi Si
(Confucius’s grandson) and arguably the most illustrious developer of the system of
Confucianism. For that he is revered by Confucianist scholars as “Yasheng” (Second Sage).
The two Cheng brothers refer to Cheng Hao (a.k.a. Cheng Mingdao, 1032–1085) and
Cheng Yi (a.k.a. Cheng Yichuan, 1033–1107), philosophers of the Northern Song
dynasty who played a major role in laying the foundations of the school of thought
known generally as “neo-Confucianism.” Both Cheng brothers held that the dao, or
cosmic principle inherent in all things, is spiritual and metaphysical, whereas things
themselves (described as qi, or “vessels”) are physical. It is probably in this context,
then, that Mao mentions them here. Zhu Xi (1130–1200) succeeded to the ideas of the
Cheng brothers and developed them into the orthodox mainstream of neo-Confucianism.
In particular he advocated the presence and dominance of an inherent principle (li) in
all things. From this philosophy he developed the “school of principle” (lixue), which
remained the largest and most powerful school of Confucianist teaching for centuries.
In the late Southern Song dynasty, however, some philosophers such as Lu Jiuyuan
began to challenge and critically modify the philosophy of principle and the criticism
culminated during the Ming dynasty in the advocacy of the philosophy of the mind
(xinxue) by Wang Yangming (a.k.a. Wang Shouren, 1474–1528).
40. It is most likely that Mao is referring to Lu Dingyi’s speech at Huairen Hall on
May 26, 1956. (See text Autumn 1956, note 3.) Lu’s speech, or “report,” was not
officially published until June 13, 1956, in RMRB. Even so, it makes the time between
the publication of Lu’s speech and Mao’s speech here longer than the five months that
Mao mentions.
41. See text Jan. 27, 1957(1), note 13, and text.