Speech at a CPC Cadres Meeting in Shanghai
(March 20, 1957)

Source: Kau & Leung, The Writings of Mao Zedong 1949-1976, Vol. II
Pages 454-473
============================================================

He said: ‘““We have already exercised dictatorship for several years; can we now
allow people to exercise dictatorship over us for a week? It was all right for us to
give the commands for lo, these many years. Is it now all right for the [people of
the] lower ranks to say some things to us, to criticize us for a bit, for a week—Just
one week?” His idea was that it should be all right. I agree with this. [Let’s] toughen
our scalps!20 and let the [people in the] lower ranks criticize us for a week. Before
they criticize, let’s do some preparations; make some reports. [Let’s examine] what
shortcomings we have. It’s no more than one, two, three, or four. . . those three or
four items. Then let comrades speak. Let them supplement [our reports] and do
some criticism. [We have] achievements to [our] credit; the people will not simply
throw away our history. Give the soldiers a chance at the company and platoon
commanders. [I think] It would be best if we can have such a thing once a year,
have a few days of a criticism meeting. We’ve done that before, and the results
were beneficial. [We must have] democracy in military affairs, in the armed forces.
This way, we will not harm the close relationship between the higher ranks and the
lower ranks, between the officers and the soldiers, between the military and the
people, between the military and the local [people], just because we now have a
military ranking system and other types of systems. Without a single doubt, the
higher and lower ranks ought to be closely linked; there should be a comradely
relationship between them. The officers and the soldiers, the military cadres and
the fighting personnel ought to be intimately forged as one; there should [also] be
an intimate, close relationship between the armed forces and the people, and with
the Party and government in the localities.

Ideological work must be emphasized throughout the entire Party. The general
topic I am speaking of today is the work of ideology, the problem of ideology. This
is because this problem has been particularly outstanding recently. In particular,
with the [proposals of] “letting a hundred flowers bloom, and letting a hundred
schools contend” and “long-term coexistence and mutual supervision,” people
have asked: Are we still going to let go some more? We're afraid it might be
dangerous. [You say:] Long-term coexistence? Why must we have long-term
coexistence? “You, the democratic parties; where were you when we were making
revolution?” As soon as we bring that up, they’ll have nothing to say; they'll be
doomed. We say: Let’s not bring that up at this time. Let’s not rely on our official
position in the government, or on your high position and status for a living. Don’t
rely on your veteran status for a living. [You may say you] have veteran status,
[you have] made revolution for so many years. These credentials are reliable, but
don’t rely on them. You may have a veteran status, [you may have been making
revolution for] several decades; all this is true, but come the day when you did a
stupid thing, said something foolish, and at such a time people would not understand or forgive. If you didn’t resolve a matter properly, you may have done many
things in the past and you may have a high position, but because you didn’t do
things properly today you may have harmed the people, and on this point they
cannot forgive you. Therefore, we must not rely on old veteran status for our living;
we must rely on resolving problems correctly for a living. Rely on correctness, not
on status. What do you rely on, correctness, or status? If you rely on status you

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can’t make a living, because the things you are engaged in may not be correct; you
may not be correct in resolving a problem. Even though you may have status, people
cannot forgive you. That’s why, let’s just simply not rely on status at all. [Let’s
make as if] we have not become any kind of an official at all, and [let’s] not put on
an air of a master.!¢! The air of a master we should not display, but should pack it
up. Let’s meet the people face to face, meet the [people in the] lower levels face to
face. Let’s not strike a bureaucrat’s pose and not rely on old veteran status for a
living. This is something to which veteran cadres must pay particular attention. The
new cadres don’t have this baggage; they are freer. They say: “Old doesn’t
[necessarily] mean that you are better. You may have engaged in revolution for
several decades, but at that time, when you were engaged in revolution, I was still
crawling on the floor!” On this, [to be sure,] they can’t argue with us. That’s why
they don’t have this baggage.

With regard to those new cadres, we have to treat them on an equal footing [with
ourselves]. In many things we are not as good as they are. For instance, in terms of
knowledge, we must learn from them. The generation of today are the only people
who can educate the working class and the peasants in terms of knowledge. That’s
because, what intellectuals do we have now? None! Right now, about 80 per cent
of the university [students] are children of landlords, rich peasants, and capitalists.
In the middle schools—according to statistics from Jiangsu, 60 per cent of upper
middle school [students] are children of landlords, rich peasants, and capitalists,
and even in the lower middle schools, 40 per cent [of the students] are children of
landlords, rich peasants, and capitalists. Only in the primary schools is the situation
reversed, {There,] the children of landlords, rich peasants, and capitalists make up
approximately 20 to 30 per cent, and there may be 70 or 80 [per cent] who are
workers’ and peasants’ children. It will take a very long time, probably ten or
twenty years, before this situation can be changed. That is why the intellectual today
is a bourgeois intellectual. That is why we must patiently win them over. On the
one hand, we must persuade them and make them progressive, let them accept
Marxism—that is to say, educate them. If they are to be teachers, they must
[themselves] learn. On the other hand, we must learn from them, learn from today’s
bourgeois intellectuals, because there are no other intellectuals but them.

The proletariat must have its own intellectuals. Our country is led by the
proletariat; only it has a future; all other classes are making transitions toward it.
For example, the peasants must in the future transform into agricultural workers.
After several decades, the cooperatives will become state farms,!22 and the
cooperatives’ members will become agricultural workers. The capitalists are
undergoing transformation right now, and in a number of years they will also have
transformed into workers. The whole society will be one of workers, and that is
why only the worker has a future, and all others are transitional classes. The
proletariat must have its own intellectuals; it must have intellectuals who will serve
it wholeheartedly, not halfheartedly. Our rough estimate is that by the completion
of three five-year plans!23 we may, out of the five million intellectuals,!24 expand
the number that we have won over from the dozen or so per cent, or the 15 per cent,
or 17 per cent of the present time, to about one-third. (These figures [of 15 or 17


per cent] do not include some who have joined the Communist Party and are not
counted here. Joining the Communist Party does not necessarily mean that the
person has completely accepted a Marxist world view. Some people who have not
joined the Communist Party, on the other hand, have in fact accepted a Marxist
world view. For example, Lu Xun was such a person. Was Lu Xun better, or was
Chen Duxiu better? Or was Zhang Guotao better? Or was Gao Gang better?!2> |
think Lu Xun was better. One was a Communist; the other was a personage without
party affiliations. On an individual basis, joining the Communist Party does not
necessarily make a person better than those outside the Party; some personages
outside the Party are better than Communist Party members.) [We'll win over
one-third of the intellectuals; ] they may join the Party, or they may accept a Marxist
world view outside the Party and draw close to the workers and peasants. Then
there will still be the other two-thirds. In these dozen or so years, they, too, will
undergo some change. From being halfhearted, [they may] become a bit more [full
hearted]. [There may] be a thirty-seventy split.!2¢ [They may] drop off some more
of their [bourgeois] tail and make some progress. We must strive for this future.
Because I am talking of the problem of ideology, I got connected to the problems
of the intellectuals.

As for the many problems of cooperativization,!2/ I’1] not speak [of them today].
Cooperativization is a good thing; we can affirm that it has superiority. This is
because many of our cooperatives have proven this point; of that there can be no
doubt. But some comrades have doubts, and among the personages outside the
Party there is some difference of opinion. On this point we must make explanations
to them.

Notes

Liang was supposed to have used this phrase to comment on the geographical features of
Jinling (as Nanjing was once known). The same idea about Jinling has also been conveyed
in a line in the poem “Yong wang dong xun ge” (Ballad on the Eastern Inspection tour of
Prince Yong), written by the famous Tang-dynasty poet, Li Bai (Li Bo).

political ideas, he was quite conservative on cultural and literary matters, and throughout his
life, he promoted classical learning. For more biographical information on Zhang, see H.
Boorman et al., eds. (1967), pp. 92-98.

8. See text Mar. 12, 1957, note 5.

9, See text Oct. 8, 1950, vol. I, note 1, and text Oct. 23, 1951, vol. I.

10. See text Dec. 19, 1950, vol. I, and text Jan. 17, 1951, vol. I.

11. The term Mao uses here is dipan; see text Feb. 27, 1957, note 97.

12. As we mentioned briefly in the source note, the question of the transformation of the
relations of production is a critical theoretical issue of contention between Mao’s viewpoint
and that of others in the CPC, e.g., Liu Shaoqi. Mao seems to suggest here that he (at this
time) saw the relations of production as part of the superstructure. This would be inconsistent
with what seemed to be his prevailing idea in these years. See text Jan. 20, 1956, note 5; text
Feb. 27, 1957, note 42; and text July 8, 1957(2), note 38. See also text Oct. 7, 1957, note 16.

13. Mao seems to be alluding tangentially to the contest of strategies within the CPC
from the late 1920s to the mid-1930s, over the question of whether the Party should attempt
to rebuild the Communist revolutionary movement in the cities or focus on the revolution
in the countryside. From 1927 (and especially after Mao’s victory in the intra-Party contest
of strategies in 1934—1935) to practically 1949, the Communist revolutionary movement
had been organized primarily in the rural areas, and not in the cities, much less the large
cities in China, which were controlled by either the KMT or the Japanese. See also text Aug.
12, 19531), vol. I, note 30.


458 {/ MAO ZEDONG

14. The Communist Party of China was formed with the convening of its first congress
in July 1921. See text Mar. 18, 1957, note 39.

15. The Opium War (Yapian zhanzheng) refers to the First Anglo-Chinese War in
1839-1841, triggered by Lin Zexu’s burning of British-owned opium sold to Chinese people.
Often the Second Anglo-Chinese War of 1856—1860 is also known as the Opium War, or
part of the Opium Wars. See also text Feb. 14, 1957, note 1. See also text Mar. 17, 1957(2),
paragraph 5.

16. See text Mar. 12, 1950, vol. I, source note, notes | and 2.

17. See text Feb. 27, 1957, notes 3 and 4.

18. See text Mar. 12, 1950, vol. I, note 3.

19. The term 1s lin shi gong, which translates as “temporary employment.” This refers,
we believe, to people with no steady employment in the urban-industrial sector.

20. The term fuyu zhongnong (well-to-do middle peasants) refers to the economically
upper layer of the general peasant stratum known as “middle peasants.” (See text Mar. 12,
1950, vol. I, note 1.) By the terms of Mao’s October 1933 essay on class distinctions in the
countryside (see SW, I, p. 138), this layer was described as “practicing exploitation to a small
extent.” This was affirmed by the Central People’s Government resolutions on class
distinctions published in 1950 (RMRB [Aug. 21, 1950], 1). By definition in the latter, the
term applied to those within the “middle peasant” stratum that derived not more than 15 per
cent of total annual family income from exploitative means. This layer is distinguished from
the other two layers of middle peasants, namely, the average middle peasant (zhong
zhongnong) and the lower-middle peasant (xia zhongnong). In the early 1960s, they became
known as shang zhongnong (upper-middle peasant) or /ao shang zhongnong (old uppermiddle peasant).

21. See text Feb. 27, 1957, note 3.

22. The term Mao uses here is wenhua, which also often has the more specific connotation of “literacy.” (See text May 1955, vol. I, note 1.) Here we think Mao means primarily
“book learning.”

23. See text Sept. 15, 1956, source note. Mao is referring to both the political report
made by Liu Shaoqi to the Eighth Congress and the Resolution of the Central Committee in
response to that report. See RMSC (1957), pp. 9-26, for the report itself, and pp. 55-58, for
the resolutions on the report. See also R. Bowie and J. Fairbank, eds. (1962), pp. 164-203,
for an English translation of the report. On the controversy that developed later in 1957 on
the interpretations in this political report and in the resolutions, and especially on the point
that Mao speaks of here, see text Oct. 7, 1957, and text Oct. 9, 1957(1).

24. These last few sentences, starting with “As for production,” appear only in the
Wansui (n.d. 3) text.

25. The remainder of this paragraph, starting with “the people,” and also the entire next
paragraph, do not appear in the Wansui (n.d.) source, and are found only in the Wansui (n.d.
3) text. In the Wansui (n.d.) source the words bu ging (not clear) appear in parentheses.

26. The official release on grain production in the PRC in 1956 was made by the National
Bureau of Statistics (Guojia tongji ju) on August 1, 1957, and published in RMRB (Aug. 2,
1957). The amount cited in this report is 365 billion catties (not including soybeans). See
RMSC (1958), p. 457. Note also that, according to RMSC (1957), p. 422, the grain output
of 1955 already reached 368 billion catties.

27. Mao is referring to the Forty-Article National Program for Agricultural Development. See text Dec. 6, 1955, vol. I, note 3; text Oct. 11, 1955(1), vol. I, note 56. Mao,
however, is extending this to other areas of production and development as well, and so far,
we do not know of specific twelve-year plans formulated for production in these other areas
(besides agriculture) at this time. See, however, text Oct. 13, 1957, and text Dec. 1, 1958,
note 3.

28. The aphorism here, whose classical source we have not been able to trace, is bai
shou qi jia, which refers to people making their own (family) fortunes without any bequest
or assistance from their ancestors. Literally, it means “raising a family with empty hands.”


JANUARY ~ MARCH 1957 / 459

29. The Chinese here 1s different in the two texts. The Wansui (n.d. 3) source has jiu shi
ba renmin shenshang de rou guaxue liao, whereas the Wansui (n.d.) source has dang instead
of rou. We have translated from the Wansui (n.d. 3) source, which, we believe, conveys a
clearer, more sensible meaning.

30. The Pamir Plateau is located where China’s and Afghanistan’s borders meet. The
term Kunlun Mountains here refers to the mountain range north of the Himalayas, which is
separated from the Himalayas by the Qinghai-Tibetan plateau. It is the largest mountain
range in China and originates in the Pamir Plateau. There are also other mountains and smal]
ranges (e.g., one in Guangxi Province, and another in Fujian Province) that are called Kunlun,
but these are not what Mao is referring to here.

31. See text Autumn 1956, note 3.

32. See text Jan. 18, 1957, note 38.

33. The words Mao uses here are feng cui cao dong; see text April 1957, note 10,

34. See text Mar. 18, 1957, note 44.

35. Xu Jiatun (b. 1915) became the secretary of the CPC Party Committee of Nanjing
Municipality in November 1954, and the Party secretary of Jiangsu Province in July
1956, On April 20, 1957, shortly after this speech, Xu attended the Third Plenary Session
of the First Committee of the CPPCC of Jiangsu Province, at which he made a speech on
Mao’s viewpoint on the Hundred Flowers Campaign. For more biographical information on
Au, see Zhonggong renming lu, p. 636, and W. Bartke (1981), p. 439.

36. Peng Chong (b. 1915) was a veteran CPC member who joined the Youth League in
1933 and the CPC in 1934. In the early 1930s he was engaged in underground organization
work for the CPC, and he made his mark as a political organizer in the military during the
Wer of Resistance Against Japan. In 1938 he became a regimental commissar in the New
Fourth Army. After the establishment of the PRC, Peng served primarily in the Fujian area
(his native province) for a few years. In August 1954, he became second Party secretary of
Nanjing Municipality and deputy mayor. In July 1955, he became mayor of Nanjing. Peng’s
highest political post, subsequently, was as member of the Political Bureau of the CPC’s
Eleventh Central Committee and member of the Secretariat of the CPC Central Committee,
starting in August 1977. For more biographical information on Peng, see Zhonggong
renming lu, pp. 721-722, and W. Bartke (1981), p. 285.

37. Bureaucratism was one of the three major targets of the CPC rectification campaign
at this time, the others being sectarianism and subjectivism. See text Mar. 17, 1957(2), note
77,

38. The Chinese text here differs in the two sources. We have translated from the Wansui
(n.d. 3) source. The Wansui (n.d.) source would translate as: “[We should] resolve the
problem of bureaucratism a bit.”

39. The term here is huagiao xuesheng (see text Oct. 23, 1951, vol. I, note 3), by which,
we think, Mao meant Chinese students who have returned from abroad, or students studying
in China who came from overseas—Chinese family backgrounds (which tend to be more
affluent than the average Chinese rural household). This is the first indication that the
petitions and disturbances of early 1957 (in the Nanjing area anyway) involved primarily
huagiao students.

40. Zeng Xisheng (b. 1905) was first secretary of the Anhui Provincial Party Committee
irom 1956 to 1962. Zeng joined the CPC in 1926 and was an active CPC special agent in
Shanghai in the critical years 1927-1931. In 1931, he went to the Jiangxi Soviet area, and
throughout the periods of the First and Second Revolutionary Civil Wars and the War of
Resistance Against Japan he was a key intelligence officer of the CPC.

From 1952 to 1955, Zeng was chairman of the Anhui Fecple’s Government. During
1957-1958, Zeng was very active in the anti-Rightist campaign and in the promotion of the
Great Leap Forward policies. He was a key figure in the ousting of Li Shinong as
vice-chairman of the Anhui People’s Government and as secretary of the Anhui Provincial
Committee of the CPC (see text May 17, 1958, note 63). In 1962, when Li’s case was
reviewed, Zeng was transferred to the post of second secretary of the East China Bureau of


the CPC Central Committee. After 1962, he was more in the background, although in 1966
he was appointed secretary of the Southwestern Bureau of the CPC Central Committee. In
August 1967, in the Cultural Revolution, Zeng was purged as a “capitalist roader.” For more
biographical information on Zeng, see D. Klein and A. Clark, eds. (1971), II, pp. 860-862;
and Zhonggong renming lu, p. 713.

41. The term here is yi gu gi, in which gi can be “spirit” or “air.” The more common
expression for this would be yi gu feng (gust of wind). See text Feb. 27, 1957, note 51.

42. Although Sun Yat-sen (see text Aug. 4, 1952, vol. I, note 7, and text Nov. 12, 1956,
source note) died in Beijing in April 1925, he was ultimately interred in a state burial
ceremony in June 1929 in Nanjing, where a large tomb was built for him. (At that time
Nanjing was the capital of the republic and seat of the KMT government of Chiang Kai-shek.)
This tomb is located on the slopes of Zijingshan, which is east of Nanjing city proper.

43. The aphorism is yi lin wei ao. The word ao originally means an empty moat or ditch,
and the adage refers to the practice of people allowing their dirty water to flow over into a
neighbor’s low ground, thus forming an undesired ditch. It is derived from the chapter “Gao
zi’ in the book Meng zi (Mencius).

44, See text Sept. 21, 1949, vol. I, note 1, and text Winter 1949, vol. I, source note and text.

45. See text Sept. 21, 1949, vol. I, note 1.

46. The term here, ban fang, refers originally to the “squadroom” or the holding cell in
police precincts.

47. See text Nov. 15, 1956, note 27.

48. The remainder of this paragraph and the next six paragraphs do not appear in the
Wansui (n.d.) version. There the omission is indicated by the words, in parentheses, bu ging
(not clear).

49. See text Mar. 1, 1957, note 19.

50. See text Mar. 17, 1957(2), note 77.

51. The term Mao uses here is /ao zi. See text Mar. 17, 1957(2), note 33.

52. The aphorism here is shu shou wu ce (literally: “with their hands tied up, and without
a single strategy”). The expression shu shou is derived from the “Chunshen jun zhuan”
(Biography of Prince Chunshen) in the Shiji (Historical Record) and from “Guangwu di ji”
(Chronicle of Emperor Guangwu di) in the Hou Han shu (History of the Later Han Dynasty).
The full expression can be found in the classical novels Pai an jingqi (Thumping the Desk
in Astonishment) and Jinghua yuan (Romance of the Mirror and the Flower).

53. See text Jan. 28, 1955(2), vol. I, note 5.

54. The term here is /ao baixing, which refers to the common people, or common folk
in imperial times. The word /ao (literally, “old”) has the connotation of “honest,” whereas
the term baixing (literally, “a hundred names’”-—-or families) has both the connotation of
“people” and “subjects” —that is, subjects of the ruler, whose “name” is above all the others.

55. Mao is obviously referring here to the struggle in the countryside during the land
reform period from 1949 to 1951. See text Feb. 18, 1951, vol. I, note 2, and text Jan. 17,
1951, vol. I, note 1.

56. See text Jan. 27, 1957(1), note 6, for the first half of this “slogan.”

57. On the “rich peasant” category, see text Mar. 12, 1950, vol. I, source note and note
1, and text Oct. 11, 1955(1), vol. I, note 2. On the “national bourgeoisie,” see text Mar. 12,
1950, vol. I, note 3.

58. See text Mar. 12, 1957, paragraph 4, and text Mar. 18, 1957.

59. The expression that Mao uses here is gong nong hua, which is very difficult to
translate directly. It does not necessarily mean that the intellectuals have actually become
workers and peasants, but more likely that they have come to be identified with workers and
peasants.

60. We have taken some lhberty with the translation here. Mao’s words are Dan shi,
metyou du jingu, jiushi du zai zhege shangmian, meiyou jin dao litou qu. (In both cases, du
literally means “read.” Thus the literal meaning of this is “However, they did not read [the
stuff] inside; they only read on this [the forehead], but not inside.”


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JANUARY ~— MARCH 1957 / 461

61. See text Dec. 8, 1956, note 33.

62. See text Jan. 27, 1957(1), note 45.

63. See text Mar. 18, 1957, note 59.

64. See text Jan. 14, 1954, vol. I, note 13.

65. Mao’s words here are ji ju shu (literally, “A few sentences in the books”).

66. See text Feb. 10, 1953, vol. I, note 2. See also text Feb. 27, 1957, note 37 and
surrounding text on the steel output problem.

67. See text Aug. 24, 1956(1), note 2.

68. See text Sept. 16-18, 1953, vol. I, note 18; text Mar. 18, 1957, note 61.

69. We believe that Zhou XX refers to Zhou Xinfang, and Yuan XX to Yuan Xuefen.
We do not have much information on Zhou. Yuan (b. 1922), was a prominent performer of
the of the Yue opera genre, and was particularly well known for her performance of the play
Xtanglin sao (Sister-in-law Xiang Lin) adopted from Lu Xun’s original work Zhufu (Benediction). She and most of the other people mentioned here based their acting careers mainly
in Shanghai, where they founded and ran acting schools. For more biographical information
on Yuan, see Zhonggong renming lu, pp. 478-479.

70. Cheng Yangiu (1904-1958) was another popular Beijing opera actor, having made
his reputation, as Mei Lanfang did, in the pre-World War II era. Cheng was vice-president
of the Chinese Drama Research Institute. For more biographical information on Cheng, see
text May 17, 1958, note 6, and H. Boorman, et al., eds. (1967), I, pp. 292-293.

71. The Wansui (n.d.) source has jiu bai wan zhishi fenzi (nine million intellectuals). We
dismiss this as a typographical error. Mao had been estimating the number of intellectuals
in China to be about five million (in texts Mar. 12, 1957; Mar. 17, 1957; Mar. 18, 1957; and
here in this speech). See text Mar. 12, 1957, especially paragraph 4. The simplified character
for ji (several) is similar to the character for jiu (nine).

72. The term Mao used here is caichan, which translates more literally as “property.”
see, however, text Feb. 27, 1957, note 80.

73. The term here is wei chengfen lun. Here the expression chengfen refers to jieji
chengfen (class composition). The theory is one in which a person’s class background (or a
thing’s class composition) is all-important and determines or even predetermines his or her
behavior (and/or its nature), in such a way that things cannot be changed and cannot be
expected to change in terms of class character. While Mao has always emphasized the need
to do a class analysis of any situation, he appears here to refute this particular theory which
is an inflexible, dogmatic, extremist application of the class analysis idea.

74. For Lu Xun, see text April 25, 1956, note 15.

75. This appears to forecast Mao’s theory of the need for people to adhere, like hair, to
skin. See text April 1957(2), note 14, and text July 1957(2), paragraph 11.

76. The words Mao used here are chi bu xiao, yao bu lan (literally, “If eaten, cannot be
digested; if chewed, cannot break into pieces”).

77, See text June 14, 1954, vol. I, note 13.

78. See text Sept. 21, 1949, vol. I, note 1. The term Mao uses here for the Revolutionary
Committee of the KMT is Min ge; see text June 8, 1957(3), note 2, for this organization. For
the Democratic League, Mao has Min meng; see text July 1, 1957, note 10, on this
organization. For what Mao here refers to as Min jian (namely, the Democratic Association
for National Construction), see text Nov. 1951-Mar. 1952, vol. I, note 7, and text Jan. 27,
1957(2), note 59. For the Peasant-Worker Democratic Party, see text April 1957(2), note
37. The Jiusan xueshe (September Third Study Society), like the others in the list here, is
one of the democratic parties represented in the CPPCC. It was formed out of discussion
group meetings of democratic people in scientific and educational circles in Chongqing
during the last part of the War of Resistance Against Japan, and was established as the
Minzhu kexue she (Democratic Society of Scientists) in November 1944. On September 3,
1945, to commemorate the victory over Fascism, it changed its name to the current one. By
that time, it had become more of a political association, and in the period after the victory
over Japan, it continued to speak out on opposing a KMT dictatorship. Thus it played an


462 {/ MAO ZEDONG

important role in propagandizing the cause of “socialist democracy” among the intellectuals,
particularly among scientists and people in the medical professions. In June 1946, it resolved
to join the CPPCC as a democratic party. For more information on the society, see RMSC
— (1957), p. 256.

79. See text Feb. 27, 1957, section 8, and note 82.

80. This sentence does not appear in the Wansui (n.d.) source. Instead, this source has
ellipses. Mao was quite possibly referring to Jiang Weiqing, who was first secretary of the
Jiangsu Provincial Party Committee at this time. A native of Yangzhou, Jiangsu, Jiang (b.
1907) was at first active in the Communist armed units and became deputy political
commissar of the Nanjing garrison in 1949. From 1952 onward, he became involved with
the Jiangsu People’s Government. He later opposed the Cultural Revolution and was
criticized as a capitalist roader. In 1973 he was rehabilitated, and from 1975 onwarc he was
reactivated in political positions in Jiangxi province. For more biographical information on
Jiang, see Zhonggong renming lu, pp. 144-145, and D. Klein and A. Clark, eds. (1971), pp.
178-179.

81. The terms here are fang and shou, each of which has various meanings and, therefore,
various translations. The primary one here, however, is “bloom” forfang, since that 1s derived
directly from the “hundred flowers bloom” slogan. The others are derivatives of that. Shou,
as opposed to fang in that primary sense, would have the connotation of “wither.” However,
here Mao’s usages for shou are more active, and therefore call for the translations of
“retrench, “curtail,” “holding back,” etc. See text April 1957(2), notes 4 and 17, and text
April 10, 1957, note 1; text Mar. 12, 1957, paragraph 14; and text Oct. 9, 1957(1), note 3.

82. See text Feb. 27, 1957, section 9, paragraph 3.

83. The Second Plenum of the Eighth Central Committee of the CPC was held November
10-15, 1956: see text Jan. 27, 1957(1), note 4. The other reference is to the conference at
which Mao made two major speeches. See text Jan. 18, 1957, source note.

84. See text Feb. 27, 1957, section 1. See also note | here.

85. See text Mar. 17, 1957(2), paragraph 9.

86. Mao’s remarks here echo the classical adage: ““The way of the true king is to bring
people to submission by his virtue; the way of the hegemon ts to bring people to submission
by his might.” If there is any intended connection here, Mao would be invoking the
traditionally honored and respected sense of wang zheng (kingly politics) for the policies of
the CPC.

87. Mao was probably referring in his mind to important former KMTF generals who had
been won over to the side of the CPC. See, for instance, text May 5, 1951, vol. I, source note,
and text Mar. 17, 1955, vol. J, source note.

88. The term here is gao ya, which literally would have been translated as “high
pressure,” which does not make sense in the idiomatic usage of the term in English.

89. See text Feb. 27, 1957, section 8, paragraph 2.

90. See text Jan. 18, 1957, paragraphs 5, 11,and 12. See also text Feb. 27, 1957, section
3, paragraph 3, and text May 15, 1957, note 21.

91. See text Jan. 18, 1957, note 38.

92. This article appears as an editorial in RVRB (Dec. 29, 1956). It is described as an
article completed by the Editorial Department of RMRB “based on discussions of an enlarged
meeting of the Politburo of the Central Committee of the CPC.” It is also carried in RMSC
(1957), pp. 151-159. An English translation can be found in R. Bowie and J. Fairbank, eds.
(1962), pp. 257-272.

93. This passage is found in the penultimate paragraph of section 3 of the article. See
RMSC (1957), p. 157, and R. Bowie and J. Fairbank, eds. (1962), p. 268.

94. Here the Wansui (n.d. 3) source has Peng X and Xu XX.

95. The opera’s Chinese title is Limao huan taizi. This is a popularized and vulgarized
Beijing opera version of the Yuan-dynasty opera Limao huan zhu, which involves the story
of Emperor Renzong of the Song dynasty who was born of an imperial concubine Li Shen
fei, and yet, through a sequence of mistakes and happenstances, believed himself to be the


son of the queen consort Zhang Xian hou. He does not discover the real identity of his mother
until after many years. The operatic and dramatic versions of this story incorporate a large
number of supernatural and superstitious references.

96. The terms used here are yao mo gui guai, which is more elaborate than the term
that we often translate as demons and ogres. See text Jan. 27, 1957(1), note 45.

97. The term Mao uses here, jian shimian, also has the connotation of “enrich one’s
experience.” The Wansui (n.d.) text is garbled here. It reads: wei liao zai shi, ren ke bu kan,
which does not make sense in the context.

98. This is an operatic or dramatic rendition based on the story of the Monkey King’s
(Sun Wukong) disruption of the order of the heavenly palace at the birthday gathering for
Xi Wang Mu (Queen Mother of the West); a story derived from the novel Xi you ji (Journey
to the West). See also text July 8, 1957(2), note 9, The Wansui (n.d.) source here mistakenly
puts the character kong for the character gong in the title.

99. These are all popular operas in the common repertoire, but each also involves a
fairy tale of some sort. The first, Pi shan jiu mu, is derived from the Buddhist story of a
Buddhist novice, Mu Lian, who strives to save his mother from the clutches of hungry
demons. The second, Shui man jinshan, is derived from the popular romance Story of the
White Serpent (Baishe zhuan) in which a white snake transforms herself into a beautiful
woman and falls in love with a young man. The marriage is broken up by the monk of
Jinshansi (Golden Mountain Temple), who exposes the White Snake Lady for what she
really is and suppresses her beneath the pagoda of the temple. She is ultimately saved by a
torrent that overwhelms the temple.

Mao’s comments here foreshadow the controversy in 1961 over whether it is all right to

have characterizations of supernatural things, such as ghosts and deities and spirits, in drama.

The opera Li Huiniang, a kunju production written by Meng Chao based on the Ming

novelette Hongmei ji (Tale of the Red Plum) by Zhou Yiyu, was performed in 1961 and

gained popularity. There was also, however, criticism against it for portraying supernatural

subjects, and it was branded as an “opera of ghosts” (gui xi). To defend the drama, Liao

4 Mosha (a.k.a. Fan Xing) wrote an essay in Beijing wan bao (Aug. 31, 1961) entitled

. “Tr’s-All-Right-To-Have-Ghosts Theory” (You gui wu hai lun). In ithe claims that the reason

there are portrayals of such things as ghosts in dramatic performances is that such things did

enter people’s thoughts in the past, and the existence of these things in the literature of past

ages was an objective existence that could not be helped. Instead of worrying about their

presence, the socialist should be concerned about the social messages imiplicit in the portrayal

and the idea of struggling against the oppression of superstition. In a way, then, we can see

Mao’s viewpoint here as in general agreement with that advanced by Liao Mosha. However,

after a period of criticism in late 1961 and early 1962, Liao, together with Deng Tuo and Ma

Nancun, was heavily criticized for his literary views. The opera Li Huiniang was also

discredited, and the theory of “it’s all right to have ghosts” came under severe criticism and
was repudiated. See also text Jan. 27, 1957(1), note 62.

100. The Wansui (n.d.) source here has a blank space for the number of years.

101. The remainder of this speech does not appear in the Wansui (n.d.} source and 1s
found only in the Wansui (n.d. 3) source. As indicated in the source note, a few paragraphs
here are very similar to text Mar. 19, 1957.

102. See text June 14, 1954, vol. I, note 1.

103. See text Nov. 1951-Mar. 1952, vol. I, source note and text.

104. See text Jan. 18, 1957, paragraph 11.

105. Mao is referring to the Third Session of the National Committee of the Second
CPPCC, which was held March 5-20, 1957, in Beijing. We have no other record that Mao
made a speech to the conference, however. For more on this conference, see K. Lieberthal
(1976), pp. 93-94.

106. The slogan of “utilization, restriction, and transformation” (liyong, xlanzht, gaizao)
of private capital was proposed in the movement of the socialist transformation of the
capitalist enterprises in 1953. See text Aug. 12, 1953(1), vol. I, note 14.


464 {/ MAO ZEDONG

107. See text Mar. 12, 1957, source note.

108. See text Mar. 18, 1957, source note. This slogan was put into the title of the March
18 speech by the editors of Xuanji; therefore it can be considered one of Mao’s major themes
in this cluster of speeches.

109. See text Mar. 17, 1957(2), paragraph 8.

110. See text Mar. 18, 1957, note 56.

111. See SW, IV, pp. 411-424. The essay was written on June 30, 1949, in commemoration of the twenty-eighth anniversary of the founding of the CPC. See particularly pp.
422-423.

112. See text Mar. 19, 1957, note 1.

113. See text Jan. 18, 1957, Version I, note 1, and text Mar. 18, 1957, note 76.

114. See, in general, text Mar. 18, 1957, paragraph 14.

115. The text here has XXX. Since the number of Xs does not actually give any real
clues to the original figure which is omitted, but only tells how many characters are omitted,
we have, aS iS our custom, reduced it to one X.

116. The term that Mao uses here, chu /u, refers in this context more specifically to job
arrangements and assignments. See text Jan. 1957, note 40.

117. See text Oct. 5, 1952, vol. I, source note, and text Sept. 5, 1956, note 1.

118. See text Mar. 18, 1957, note 59.

119. See text Feb. 27; 1957, source note, and text Mar. 17, 1957(2), source note, and
many passages in texts Mar. 12, 1957, Mar. 17, 1957(2), and Mar. 18, 1957.

also text Mar. 17, 1957, paragraph 11.

--- Notes

1. The words that Mao uses here are youshuo xiansheng. The term youshuo refers to the
historical practice, especially common in the classical period of the Warring States (..e., the
times of Confucius, Mencius, and other classical philosophers), when teachers of schools of
thought and strategies for organizing society and running governments took their ideas
around to “‘sell” to the courts of many of the “warring states,” hoping that these ideas would
be adopted by some ruler. We recognize that the translation here, “lobbyist,” 1s somewhat
anachronistic. There is a subtle echo between Mao’s self-description and his admonition to
cadres in the CPC at this time (which he repeats later in this speech) that they must adopt
the method of shuo (persuasion) rather than coercion in dealing with people who offer
criticism.

2. See texts Mar. 17, 1957(2), Mar. 18, 1957, and Mar. 19, 1957. Wehave no knowledge
of the full extent of Mao’s itinerary.

3. Mao is probably referring, a bit facetiously, to the period of negotiations with the
KMT which were held in Nanjing in late 1946. See text Sept. 16-18, 1953, vol. I, note 5.

4. The term is long pan hu ju. It originally referred to conditions that make a place
Strategically (primarily in the military sense) important. In time, with the reference to the
dragon here, the political significance took over, and the term became relevant particularly
to places that are or have been tmperial capitals. The phrase eventually also came to be used
in the jargon of geomancy. Mao uses this description for Nanjing because it had been the
site (under different names) of several imperial capitals of older times. This is also a reference
to a passage in the book Liu chao shiji (The Exploits of the Six Dynasties) in which Zhuge


3. Zhang Tatyan (a.k.a. Zhang Binglin) (1868-1936) was a prominent philologist, as
well as a late Qing-dynasty republican revolutionary. Zhang fostered the ideas of democratic
revolution in the 1890s through his work as correspondent for Shiwu bao (Current Affairs)
and Changyan bao (Advocate For Free Speech). To avoid prosecution by the Qing government, he was forced to go to Taiwan, and subsequently Japan, where he met Sun Yat-sen.
On returning to China, he organized, with Cai Yuanpei, the Aiguo xueshe (Patriotic Study
Society) and became an editor of Su bao (Jiangsu journal), which became a chief mouthpiece
for the radical anti-Qing revolutionaries at the turn of the century. For publishing Zou Rong’s
essay “Geming jun” (The Revolutionary Army), Zhang and others on the Su bao staff were
persecuted and arrested in June 1903. Released from prison in 1906, he went to Japan and
continued to participate in revolutionary activities, joining Sun Yat-sen’s revolutionary
organization, the Tongmenghui. Zhang later became editor of the organ of that association,
the Min bao (People’s journal). After the Republic of China was formed in 1911-1912,
Zhang for a time served as a political counselor for Yuan Shikai, but he opposed Yuan’s
monarchy-restoration scheme and was piaced under house arrest until Yuan’s death in
1916. After that, Zhang spent most of his time in scholarly pursuits. Although he held radical

6. Chiang Kai-shek established a government of his wing of the Kuomintang in Nanjing in
April 1927. Subsequently, with the success of Chiang’s Second Northem Expedition in 1928,
and as the northern warlords were quelled, the Nanjing government was established as the central
government. Thus there were twenty years from 1928 to 1949 when Chiang Kai-shek, defeated
in the civil war, fled from Nanjing when the PRC was founded. In a sense it was not entirely
correct on Mao’s part to think of the KMT as having been in power in Nanjing for all these twenty
years. The period was interrupted by the period of the War of Resistance Against Japan
(1937-1945), during much of which the KMT wartime government was in Chongqing.

7. See text Feb. 27, 1957, text surrounding note 43. See also text Mar. 17, 1957(2),
paragraph 8, and text Mar. 18, 1957, paragraph 2. However, we should pay particular
attention to the qualifications that Mao made in the middle part of paragraph 7 of the March
17 speech, and, even more elaborately and specifically, toward the end of paragraph 2 of the
March 18 speech.

120. See text July 8, 1957(2), note 2.

121. The term Mao uses here is /ao ye, which has the connotation of the master of a
household, or master over domestic servants and tenant peasants who are little better than
serfs. The expression is certainly representative of the old, feudalistic traditional society of
China. Mao also uses the expression bai jiazi, which we have translated here as “put on an
air” and elsewhere as “strike a pose.” See text Mar. 17, 1957(2), note 38.

122. See text Mar. 19, 1953, vol. I, note 4.

123. See text Mar. 17, 1957, paragraph 8. See also text Nov. 11, 1956, note 4.

124. See note 71.

125. On Chen, see text Aug. 12, 1953, vol. I, note 23, and text Aug. 30, 1956, note 16;
on Zhang, see also text Aug. 12, 1953, vol. I, note 23. On Gao, see text Mar. 31, 1955, vol.
], source note, and note 7.

126. See, text Aug. 30, 1956, note 12.

127. See texts Jan. 18, 1957 (both versions), and Jan. 27, 1957(1) and (2). See