Speech at the National Conference on Propaganda Work
(March 12, 1957)

Source: Kau & Leung, The Writings of Mao Zedong 1949-1976, Vol. II
Pages 375-390
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Speech at the National Conference on Propaganda Work
(March 12, 1957)

Source: Xuanji, V, pp. 403-418. Other Chinese Texts: Xuandu A, pp. 365-380:
Buyt, pp. 130-142; Wubian zhexue zhyzuo, pp. 193-224; excerpts in Jiaoyu
geming, p. 10; in Jiaoyu yulu, pp. 10, 16; 20, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29; in Mao liang,
pp. 43-44, 245-246; quoted in HO (Aug. 25, 1968), 13. Available English Translations: SW, V, pp. 422-435; K. Fan (1972), pp. 197-209; SR, pp. 480-498:
excerpts in J. Chen (1970), p. 114; in CB, 888 (Aug. 22, 1969), p. 7; in NCNA,
Daily Bulletin, 6786 (Aug. 14, 1967); NCNA, Daily Bulletin, 6803 (Aug. 31, 1967):
NCNA, Daily Bulletin, 6809 (Sept. 6, 1967); NCNA, Daily Bulletin, 7012 (Mar.
27, 1968); NCNA, Daily Bulletin, 7095 (June 18, 1968); NCNA, Daily Bulletin,
7125 (July 18, 1968); NCNA, Daily Bulletin, 7285 (Dec. 25, 1968): in PR, 11:37
(Sept. 13, 1968), 22; in SCMP, 3770 (Aug. 29, 1966), 5-6; SCMP, 4000 (Aug. 14,
1967), 17-18; SCMP, 4195 (June 11, 1968), 13-14.

A National Conference on Propaganda Work was convened by the CPC from March 6 to
March 13, 1957, in Beijing. Over 380 people involved in propaganda and cultural and
educational work at two levels—the Center and the province (and municipality }—attended
the meeting. AS suggested by texts March 6, 7 and 10, the conference held many committee
and subcommittee meetings as well as plenary sessions. In all, over 100 speeches and
discussions were given, and more than 120 people outside the CPC who were involved in
work in science, culture, arts, journalism, and publishing as well as education were also
heard from.

Mao delivered this speech at a critical stage of the Party rectification campaign
in the spring of 1957. The subject of a new CPC rectification campaign had been
broached in late 1956 and was clearly, if not expressly, put on the agenda at the
January 1957 Conference of Party secretaries. By the time of the Supreme State
Conference in late February, the campaign was underway, guided by the principles
and policies suggested by Mao in the February 27 speech. The connection between
the current Conference on Propaganda Work and this context of Party rectification
1s rendered especially clear by the fact that on March 5, the day before the convening
of this conference, Lu Dingyi, director of the Propaganda Department of the Central
Committee of the CPC, published an essay in RMRB commemorating the fifteenth
anniversary of the Party rectification campaign in Yanan in 1942. Thus Party
rectification was clearly the focus of the Propaganda Work Conference here, and
also, by reflection, at the center of Mao's thought at this time. All this led up to the
promulgation of the CPC Central Committee's “Instruction on the Rectification
Campaign” of April 27, 1957 (see RMRB, May I, 1957, and RMSC [1958], pp.
29-30), which denoted the high point of this campaign.

Throughout the course of this rectification campaign, and, as we have seen, in
almost all his significant speeches and writings of the period, Mao evinced a concern
for the subject of how intellectuals fit into the picture of socialist transformation and
construction. Nowhere is it clearer and more explicit than in this speech at the
Propaganda Work Conference. This ts probably partly because the people at this

ee


376 { MAO ZEDONG

meeting were mostly intellectuals, being personnel in charge of propaganda work,
which included education and literacy, journalistic, and publishing matters, at the
central as well as local levels. Another facet of this connection between the intellectual
issue and the Party rectification is historical. In January 1956 a conference of CPC
Party secretaries at the Center and the provincial, municipal, and autonomous region
levels was convened to discuss and study the question of the CPC’ s relationship to
intellectuals (see text Jan. 20, 1956, source note), At this conference, the ways in
which the intellectuals of China fit or did not fit into the plans of socialist construction
were discussed, as were the subjects of the improvement of the treatment of intellectuals by the Party, the relationship of the Party leadership to Party-member intellectuals as well as to intellectuals outside the Party. From that point on, the intellectuals’
issue became part of the subject of the CPC’s work style, and hence, at this time, of
Party rectification. Furthermore, by the February 27, 1957, speech, Mao had himself
made the idea of “Letting a hundred flowers bloom and letting a hundred schools
contend” —which he himself had broached in a speech to a Supreme State Conference
on May 2, 1956,! and which Lu Dingyi had made into a slogan by way of a title of a
report delivered on May 26 of that same year—the semi-official guiding ideology
behind the rectification policy. In other words, the idea was to let the intended
“Hundred Flowers” -type of liberating of diverse opinions outside the Party serve as
a test for the CPC as it went through the current rectification, as well as some kind
of a teaching instrument for the Party ttself.

At the same time, however, it is also clear that in addition to letting this subject
play its part in the CPC’ s rectification, Mao was also concerned about the intellectuals as a group in its own right. There is clearly a deep concern about how the CPC
membership, the Chinese people, the democratic parties (whose membership was in
many cases largely made up of intellectuals), and particularly the intelligentsia
reacted to the problems that shook the international Communist movement in
1956. Atthe same time that the CPC was undergoing a critical test in early 195 7—the
test of whether or not, through rectification, it was storm-worthy and would weather
the dangers of 1956—there was also a test for the intellectuals—whether they would
come out on the side of socialism. In a sense, the connection between the two issues
was obvious: By suggesting that the CPC must at this time rectify itself to overcome
such things as bureaucratism, dogmatism, and a “commandist” work style, and that
in so doing it must learn to relate to the people outside the Party, and to intellectuals
in particular, in a conciliatory and “gentle-winds-and-fine-rains” fashion, Mao
hoped to firm up the confidence of some “middle-of-the-road” intellectuals who might
not otherwise pass that test the way Mao hoped they would, and pull them to the side
of the socialist revolutionary cause while making it obvious to them, as he does in
this speech, that the question of whether they are on the side of socialism and the
proletariat or on the side of capitalism and the bourgeoisie is an either-or question,
with little room for vacillators.

This was pretty much the course followed in early 1957, until May. (The turning
point, one might say, is reflected in Mao's May 15 essay—see text May 15, 1957.)
From that point on, the conciliatory policy began to recede rapidly, and the idea of
Party rectification for the CPC itself (which was still quite obvious in the April 27
“Instructions” ) began to give way to the idea that it was not just the CPC but the
“whole people” (i.e., including, and perhaps in particular, the intellectuals outside
the CPC) who needed to undergo rectification. The so-called entire people rectification campaign (quanmin zhengfeng yundong) was launched, and the Hundred
Flowers effectively came to an end.

This speech therefore must be read in this context. The conciliatory tone of the
speech and its focus on the feasibility of uniting with the bourgeois intellectuals to
build socialism are quite consistent with Mao's approach to the issue throughout this
period.


JANUARY -—- MARCH 1957 /{ 377

However, within this continuing spirit of conciliation toward the national bourgeoisie, certain changes in Mao’s thought arealso apparent. His statement that the
changes associated with the socialist transition were much more profound than those
associated with the War of Resistance Against Japan and the War of Liberation
represents a change from his earlier position. And, although he continues to argue,
as he did in his February “Correctly Handling” speech, that the period of “large-scale, stormy, and turbulent class struggle” was basically at an end, his stress on
class struggle in the ideological realm and on the as yet undetermined outcome of
that struggle are harbingers of future developments in his thought.

Mao’s stress on class struggle in the ideological realm and the methods for such
struggle are the key issues here. For Mao, the unwillingness or inability to recognize
class struggle in the ideological realm was one of the key factors defining revisionism,
which he was beginning to see as an increasingly dangerous tendency at this time.
In this context, it is instructive to note that Mao mentioned “revisionism” in the
February 27, 1957, speech precisely in the context of the claim made by the
democratic parties to “coexist on the long term [with the CPC] and to exercise mutual
supervision [with the CPC].” (See text Feb. 27, 1957, note 82 and surrounding text.)
Ultimately, this issue would be spelled out ina speech given by Mao on May I5, 1957,
(see text May 15, 1957), at the height of the Hundred Flowers Campaign. Interestingly, the Hundred Flowers campaign in 1957 was mostly handled by the Propaganda
Department of the CPC Central Committee, then under the directorship of Lu Dingyt.
This provides us with an additional note on the significance of the current speech.
Mao’s recognition at this particular time of the need to encourage criticism from
outside the Party, to recognize the multiplicity of interests among the people; and to
persuade, rather than coerce, the people into accepting Marxism and the leadership
of the Party represented an important break with Stalinist Marxism and, not surprisingly, aroused significant opposition within the Party. Indeed, Mao’s suggestion for
a policy of collaboration with bourgeois intellectuals through persuasion and ° gentile
breezes and fine rain” brought him under attack as a Rightist during this period.
Exactly when it was that Mao began to turn against this principle is not certain,
although by the summer of 1957 the CPC leadership apparently already had to turn
its attention to the perhaps unexpectedly severe criticism of the Party and of socialism
that emerged from this policy of “gentle winds and fine rain” and letting the
“Hundred Flowers” bloom. In the remainder of 1957 and into 1958 and 1959 during
the period of the Great Leap Forward, Mao became much more occupied with the
idea of combating revisionism and the attendant pessimism for socialist achievements
that revisionism “inherently entailed,” and the issue of dealing with bourgeois
intellectuals gently with persuasion rather than coercion receded. It quite naturally
continued to recede as the “struggle between two lines” took shape and developed.
By the time of the Cultural Revolution, the apex of this struggle, Mao was clearly no longer
of the view that large-scale, turbulent, violent class struggle was over, and he had adopted
policies of dealing with bourgeois intellectuals, and even Party members, that were far
more coercive (indeed, one may say exactly opposite) than the ones he had recommended
in the mid-1950s.1twould not be until the late 1970s and the 1980s that the CPC leadership
would once more adopt as conciliatory and liberal a policy toward bourgeois intellectuais
as the ones suggested by Mao in his speech here.

Comrades!

This has been a very good conference. At the conference many questions have
been brought up that have acquainted us with many things. I would now like to
offer a few opinions with regard to the questions the comrades have been discussing. We are now in a period of great social change. Chinese society has long been


378 {/ MAO ZEDONG

in the midst of great change. The period of the War of Resistance Against Japan was
one of great change and so was the period of the War of Liberation. However, in terms
of the nature [of the change], the change we are now undergoing is much more profound
than those we went through previously. We are now engaged in socialist construction,
with hundreds of millions of people taking part in the movement of socialist transformation. Interrelations among the various classes throughout the country are undergoing
a change. The petty bourgeoisie in agriculture and the handicraft industries and also
the bourgeoisie in industry and commerce have undergone changes. The social and
economic systems have changed; the individual economy is changing into a collective
economy and the system of capitalist private ownership is being transformed into one
of socialist public ownership.‘ A [social] change of this magnitude must, of course, be
reflected in people’s thinking. [One’s social] being determines [one’s] consciousness.
This great change of social system 1s reflected differently among the people of different
classes, [social] strata, and social groups. The broad masses of the people are enthusiastic in their support of this great change, for real life itself has proven that socialism
is the only way out for China. Toppling the old social system and establishing a new
one, namely, the system of socialism, is a great struggle involving a tremendous change
in the social system and in the relationship among people. It should be said that the
situation is basically healthy. But as the new social system has just been set up, it still
needs time for consolidation. We should not think that the new [social] system is fully
consolidated once it has been set up; that is impossible. It has to be consolidated step
by step, and in order to [fully] consolidate it eventually, we must bring about the
socialist industrialization of the country, persevere in making socialist revolution on
the economic front, and carry on the constant and arduous socialist revolutionary
struggles and socialist education on the political and ideological fronts. In addition, we
still would need various [specific] international conditions to complement this. In our
country the struggle to consolidate the socialist system as well as the struggle to decide
whether socialism or capitalism will be victorious will still take a very long historical
period. However, we should all realize that this new socialist system is bound to be
consolidated. We are bound to build our country into a socialist state with modern
industry, modem agriculture, and modern science and culture. This is the first point I
want to make.

The second point: The situation regarding the intellectuals in our country. There
are no accurate statistics available of the exact number of intellectuals in China.
Someone has estimated that there are about five million intellectuals of various
types, including both the higher and ordinary intellectuals. Among these five
million intellectuals, the overwhelming majority are patriotic, love our People’s
Republic of China, and are willing to serve the people and the socialist state. A few
intellectuals are not so happy about the socialist system and do not really welcome
it. [hey are as yet skeptical about socialism, but still, when confronted with the
imperialists, they are patriotic. Intellectuals who bear hostile sentiments toward our
State are extremely few. These people do not like our state with its dictatorship of
the proletariat and have a lingering fondness for the old society. They stir up trouble
at the first opportunity and want to overthrow the Communist Party and restore the
old China. These are the people who, [faced with a choice] between the proletarian


JANUARY — MARCH i957 / 379

line and the bourgeois line, between the socialist line and the capitalist line,
stubbornly choose to follow the latter. This latter line is in fact impracticable, so
actually they are those who are prepared to capitulate to imperialism, feudalism,
and bureaucratic capitalism.° Such people can be found tn political circles, in the
circles of industry and commerce, education and culture, science and technology,
as well as in religious circles. They are the extreme reactionaries. Such people
account for only approximately 1, 2, or 3 per cent of the total number of five
million.6 The overwhelming majority of intellectuals who account for well over 90
per cent of the five million support the socialist system to varying degrees.
[However,] many of these people who are supportive of the socialist system are
still not quite clear on how to work under the socialist system and on how to
understand, handle, and answer many of the new problems.

As far as their attitude toward Marxism is concerned, it might be said that out
of the approximately five million intellectuals, a bit more than 10 per cent,
including Communist Party members and sympathizers outside the Party, are
relatively familiar with Marxism and have taken a firm stand, that 1s, the stand of
the proletariat. Among the five million, these people are a minority, but they are
the core and have strength. The majority [of intellectuals] have the desire to study
Marxism and have learned a bit, but are still not familiar with it. Some of them still
have doubts and have not yet taken a firm stand. They will vacillate whenever they
come up against a storm; these intellectuals who comprise the majority of the total
of five million are still in the middle of the road. Those who are dead set against
Marxism and have an attitude of hostility toward Marxism are an extremely small
minority. There are some people who do not openly show their disapproval of
Marxism, but in fact they do disapprove. There will be people of this type for a
long time to come, and we should allow them to disapprove. For instance, some
idealists may agree with the socialist political and economic system but disagree
with the Marxist world view. This holds true for the patriotic personages in the
religious circles as well: they are theists and we are atheists. We cannot force these
people to accept the Marxist world view. In short, the attitude of the approximately
five million intellectuals toward Marxism [can be described] this way: Those who
support and are relatively familiar [with Marxism] are a minority; those who are
opposed to it are also a minority; the majority support it but are not familiar with
it, and their support comes in varying degrees. There are three different stands
involved here: the firm, the wavering, and the opposed. It should be acknowledged
that such a situation will exist fora very long time. Failure to recognize this situation
will cause us to impose too great a demand on others while lowering the task we
set for ourselves. Our comrades who are engaged in propaganda work have the task
of disseminating Marxism. This is a gradual [task of] propaganda and should be
done well so that people are willing to accept it.’ We cannot force people to accept
Marxism; we can only persuade them to accept it. If, ina period of several five-year
plans from now, a fairly large number of our intellectuals can accept Marxism and
understand more about Marxism through their practice in work and living, through
their practice of class struggle, of production, and through scientific practice, that
will be fine. And that is our hope.


The third point: The question of remolding the intellectuals. Ours is a culturally
underdeveloped country.® For a country of our size, approximately five million
intellectuals are too few in number. Without intellectuals, our work cannot be done
well; therefore we must do a good job of uniting with them. In a socialist society,
the major components of society are three kinds of people: workers, peasants, and
intellectuals. Intellectuals are mental laborers; their work is to serve the people,
that 1s, to serve the workers and peasants. The majority of intellectuals were able
to serve old China and they can serve new China; they were able to serve the
bourgeoisie and they can serve the proletariat. At the time when they were serving
old China, the left wing of the intellectuals were in resistance, the middle-of-theroaders wavered, and only the right wing stood fast. Now that they have switched
over to serve the new society, the situation ts reversed. Their left wing stands fast,
the middle-of-the-roaders waver (this is wavering in the new society and is different
from that in the past), and the right wing is in resistance. Intellectuals are also
educators. Our newspapers educate the people every day. Our writers and artists,
our scientists and technicians, and our professors and teachers are educating the
people and the students. Because they are educators, people who teach others, they
are obligated to first be educated [themselves]. This is especially so during the
current period of great change in the social system. In the past few years they have
had some education in Marxism; some of them have even studied hard and have
made remarkable progress. But the majority of them are still far from [the goal of]
completely replacing their bourgeois world view with a proletarian world view.
Some people have studied a few Marxist books and consider themselves as learned
[in this regard], but they have failed to absorb what they have studied; the things
they have read are not implanted in their minds. They are unable to apply them,
and their class feelings remain as before. There are still other people who are very
conceited; having studied a few sentences, they swell with pride and are strutting
around with their tails in the air.? However, once a storm blows up, their standpoint
will show a glaring difference from that of the workers and the great majority of
laboring peasants. The former will waver while the latter will stand firm; the former
will equivocate while the latter will take a clear-cut stand. Therefore it is wrong to
assume that those who educate others need not be educated themselves and no
longer have the need to study, or to regard socialist transformation as restricted to
the remolding of others, of the landlords, the capitalists, and the individual
producers, but not of the intellectuals.!° Intellectuals need to be remolded; not only
do those whose basic stand has not been changed over need to be remolded, but
everybody should study and be remolded. When I say everybody, I am including
us who are here. The situation is constantly changing. We need to study in order
to adapt our thinking to the new situation. Even people who already understand
quite a bit about Marxism and who take a relatively firm stand on the side of the
proletariat still have to go on studying, to absorb new things and to look into new
problems. If intellectuals do not rid their minds of unsound things, they will not be
able to shoulder the task of educating others. Of course, we can only teach and learn
at the same time and be both a teacher and a student. To become a good teacher,
one must first be a good student. Many things cannot be learned from books alone;

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ae JANUARY - MARCH 1957 / 381

they must be learned from the producers, the workers, and the peasants.!! In schools,
one has to learn from one’s students, from the objects of one’s own teaching. As I see
it, the majority of intellectuals in our country are willing to learn. Based on their
willingness to study, itis incumbent upon us to help them with good intentions, to study,
to help them in an appropriate way and not to force them with coercive methods.
The fourth point: The question of intellectuals integrating with the worker and
peasant masses. Since the intellectuals are to serve the worker and peasant masses,
they must first of all learn to understand them and get acquainted with their lives,
their work, and their ideas. We advocate that intellectuals go among the masses
and go to the factories and countryside. It is very bad if they never meet any workers
or peasants all] their lives. All the personnel in our state organs, our writers, artists,
teachers, and scientific researchers should do the best they can to avail themselves
of all kinds of opportunities to get closer to the workers and peasants.!* Some of
them may just tour around the factories and villages to have a look; this is called
“looking at flowers while passing by on horseback.””!> In any case it is better than
not going and not looking at all. Others can stay for a few months in the factories
and villages, where they can make friends and conduct investigations; this is called
‘‘dismounting to look at flowers.” There are still others who can stay on there for
a long time, two or three years for instance, or even longer, and Just live there; this
is called “settling down.”!4 As a matter of fact, there are some intellectuals who
already live among the workers and peasants; for instance, industrial technical
personnel already [live] in factories, and agricultural technical personnel and
teachers of rural schools already [live] in the rural areas. These people should do
their work well and become one with the workers and peasants. We should make
ita common practice to get into close contact with the worker and peasant masses;
this is to say that we must have a great number of intellectuals doing this. Of course,
it cannot be 100 per cent; some intellectuals cannot go down for this or that reason.
Nonetheless, we hope that as many people as possible will go. Nor can everyone
so at once; they can go there gradually and in groups. Previously, in the Yanan
days, we had the intellectuals make direct contact with the workers and peasants. !°
At that time many intellectuals in Yanan had confused ideas and came up with all
sorts of weird arguments. We held a conference to urge them all to go among the
masses. Subsequently a great number of them did and achieved very good results.
Before it is integrated with practice, the knowledge that intellectuals gain from
books is incomplete, or very incomplete. It is mainly by reading books that
intellectuals absorb the experience of people before their time. Naturally books
have to be read. However, problems still cannot be solved by reading books alone.
One has to study the current situation, study practical experience and data, and
make friends with the workers and peasants. It is no easy job to make friends with
the workers and peasants. Now there are some people who are going to factories
and villages, and in terms of consequences some of them have achieved good results
but others have not. What is involved here is a question of one’s standpoint or a
question of one’s attitude, that is, the question of one’s world view. We advocate
letting a hundred schools [of thought] contend.!© There can be many schools or
trends in each branch of learning, but as far as world view is concerned, there are


basically only two schools in our time; the proletarian school and the bourgeois
school. It is either the proletarian world view or the bourgeois world view. The
communist world view is simply the world view of the proletariat; it is not the world
view of any other class. Most of the intellectuals we have today came over from
the old society and have a nonlaboring [class] family background. Even those who
came from worker or peasant families received a bourgeois education before
Liberation, and their world view is basically that of the bourgeoisie; they still fall
into the category of bourgeois intellectuals. These people, if they do not discard
what they have acquired in the past and replace it with a proletarian world view,
will remain different from the workers and peasants in terms of viewpoint,
standpoint, and feelings. They will find themselves incompatible with the workers
and peasants, and the workers and peasants will not speak their minds to them. If
the intellectuals integrate themselves with the workers and peasants, and once-the
become their friends, they will be able to make the Marxism that they have learned
from books truly their own. When studying Marxism, one must not only learn it
from books, but, most importantly, one can acquire a real understanding of it only
through class struggle, through practice in one’s work, and through close contact
with the worker and peasant masses in order to acquire a real grasp of it. If our
intellectuals have studied a few Marxist works and have acquired a certain
understanding [about them] through their contact with the worker and peasant
masses and through the practice in their work, we may then have a common
language, not only the common language of patriotism, the common language of
the socialist system, but possibly also the common language of a communist world
view.!/ If that is the case, our work can certainly be done much better.

The fifth point: Concerning rectification. By rectification we mean rectifying
our thinking style and our work style. Rectification campaigns were launched
within the Communist Party during the War of Resistance Against Japan, then
during the War of Liberation, and once again in the early period of the People’s
Republic of China.!8 Now the Central Committee of the Communist Party has
decided to launch an intra-Party rectification campaign this year.!9 Non-Party
personages are free to participate or can stay out if they don’t wish to take part.20
This rectification is primarily to criticize a few incorrect ways of thinking and styles
of work; one is subjectivism; another is bureaucratism: and yet another is sectarianism.
The method for the current rectification campaign is the same as the one we used in
the rectification campaign during the War of Resistance Against Japan. That is to
Say, we are first to study a number of documents; then, based on the studying of
the documents, each person is to examine his or her own thinking and work and
to unfold criticism and self-criticism so that shortcomings and mistakes can be
exposed and what is good and right can be promoted. In the course of rectification,
we must be strict and earnest, on the one hand: we must conduct serious and not
perfunctory criticism and self-criticism with regard to shortcomings and mistakes,
and we must correct them. On the other hand, we must [adopt the policy of] gentle
breeze and fine rain and learning from past mistakes to avoid future ones and
curing the illness to save the patient.21 We oppose the method of “finishing people
off with one blow.”’22


Ours is a great, glorious, and correct Party. This is what must be affirmed.
Nevertheless, we still have shortcomings; this fact must also be affirmed. We
should not affirm everything about ourselves, only that which is correct; at the same
time, we should not negate everything about ourselves, only that which is mistaken.
Accomplishment ts the major aspect of our work, but there are also still quite a few
shortcomings and mistakes [in it]. Therefore we need to conduct a rectification.
We will criticize our own subjectivism, bureaucratism, and sectarianism. Will this
damage our Party’s prestige? I don’t think so. On the contrary, this will only serve
to enhance the Party’s prestige. The rectification campaign launched during the
War of Resistance Against Japan was proof [of this]. It enhanced the prestige of
the Party, the prestige of the comrades, the prestige of the veteran cadres, and also
helped the new cadres make great progress. By comparison, which of the two
parties, the Communist Party or the Kuomintang, is more fearful of criticism? It is
the Kuomintang that fears criticism. It prohibited criticism, but that did not help to
save it from being defeated. The Communist Party 1s not afraid of criticism because

we are Marxists. The truth is on our side, and so are the basic masses, the workers

andpeasants. As we have said before, the rectification campaign 1s a “widespread
movement of education in Marxism.’’? Rectification means that the whole Party
learns Marxism through criticism and self-criticism. In the course of the rectification campaign, we certainly can learn more about Marxism.

The transformation and construction of China depend on us for leadership. If
we rectify our work style, we will be able to have more initiative in our work and
can become more capable and do a still better job. Our country needs a great many
people who sincerely serve the people and the cause of socialism and are determined to carry out reforms. We Communists should all be people of this kind. In
the past, in old China, it was acrime to talk about reform, [and those who did] were
either beheaded or taken to prison. During that time, however, there were some
people who were determined to initiate reform. Dauntlessly, they published books
and journals, educated the people, organized the people, and carried on indomitable
struggles under all kinds of difficult conditions. The state power of the people’s
democratic dictatorship opened up the way for rapid development in our country’s
economy and culture. It has only been a short few years since our state power was
established, yet people can already see that unprecedented prosperity has emerged
in the areas of culture, education, and science. To achieve the goal of building the
New China, we Communists are undaunted by any difficulty. But it is not enough
to rely on our own strength alone; we need to have a group of people with high
aspirations and noble intentions2* outside the Party who can follow the socialist
and communist orientation and join us in a fearless struggle to reform and build
Our society. It is a huge task to ensure that the several hundred million Chinese
people live a better life and to build this economically and culturally backward
country of ours into a rich and powerful state with a high level of culture. It is
precisely to enable us to shoulder this task better and work better together with all
those people outside the Party with high ideals and noble intentions and who are
determined to institute reforms that we must have rectification, now and in the
future, to continuously rid ourselves of mistakes. Those who are materialists


through and through are fearless. We wish that all those who join us in the common
struggle can courageously take up responsibilities and overcome difficulties, being
unafraid of setbacks, or critical opinions and ridicule from other people. Nor should
they be afraid of criticizing us Communists or giving us their proposals. ‘““Whoever
is not afraid of death by a thousand mutilations dares to pull the emperor from his
horse.’ This is the fearless spirit that we need to have in our struggle for socialism
and communism. For our part, we Communists should create favorable conditions
for these people who cooperate with us, establish good comradely relations with
them in our common work, and unite with them in our joint struggle.

The sixth point: the question of one-sidedness. One-sidedness means tending
toward absolutes in one’s thinking, in other words, viewing problems from a
metaphysical perspective. When evaluating our work, it is to be equally one-sided
to affirm everything or to negate everything. There are now still quite a few people
within the Communist Party and a good many outside the Party who take
approach to problems. To affirm everything is to see only the good and not the bad,
only to praise and not criticize. To say everything in ourwork seems good does not
conform to the facts. Not everything is good; thefe are still shortcomings and
mistakes. However, not everything is bad either; that is also inconsistent with the
facts. Here analysis is necessary. To negate everything means to think, without
analysis, that nothing has been done well, that the great undertaking of building
socialism, the great struggle in which hundreds of millions of people are engaged,
seems to be a complete mess and something for which nothing good can be
mentioned. Though many of those who hold such views are still different from
those who harbor hostile feelings toward the socialist system, these views, nevertheless, are very mistaken, very harmful, and can only discourage people. It is
equally mistaken to assess our work either from a viewpoint of affirming everything
or from a viewpoint of negating everything. We should criticize such people who
hold a one-sided view of problems; of course, they are to be criticized and helped
in the spirit of learning from past mistakes to avoid future ones, and curing the
illness to save the patient.

Some people argue that since the rectification is to be conducted and everyone
is asked to express their opinions, one-sidedness will be unavoidable, so it seems
you don’t really want people to speak up when you mention overcoming one-sidedness. Is this argument correct? It is difficult to require everyone to be completely
free from one-sidedness. People always examine problems, handle problems, and
express opinions in the light of their own experience; unavoidably they show a bit
of one-sidedness sometimes. But is it possible to demand that people gradually
overcome one-sidedness and demand that they acquire a relatively comprehensive
approach to problems? I think we should demand that people do so. If we don’t, if
we don’t demand that more people, day after day, year after year, take a more
comprehensive approach to problems, we would stagnate, and would be affirming
one-sidedness, which runs precisely counter to our purpose in launching the
rectification. By one-sidedness we mean simply the violation of dialectics. We call
for a gradual popularization of dialectics and demand that everyone gradually learn
to apply this scientific method of dialectics. Some of our articles today are


extremely spirited but are devoid of substance; they neither analyze problems nor
give reasoned arguments, and thus carry no conviction. The number of articles of
this type should be gradually reduced. When writing an article, one should not
always think, “How brilliant Iam!” but should adopt an attitude of placing oneself
on acompletely equal footing with the readers. Even though you have taken part
in the revolution for a long time, you will still be refuted by others if you say
something wrong. The more you put on airs, the less people will pay attention to
your stuff and the less they will care to read your articles. We should do our work
in an honest way, analyze things, write with conviction, and not strike a pose in
order to intimidate people.

Some people say that one-sidedness can be avoided in writing lengthy articles
but not in short essays.2° Is a short essay necessarily one-sided? As I mentioned
earlier, one-sidedness is usually unavoidable; a bit of one-sidedness is nothing to
be afraid of. To demand that everyone take a very comprehensive approach when
looking at problems would hamper the development of criticism. However, we still
have to strive for a relatively comprehensive approach to problems and try to avoid
one-sidedness, whether in lengthy articles or short ones, including short essays.
Some people argue, how can an analysis be made tn a short essay of a few hundred
or acouple of thousand words? I say, why not? Didn’t Lu Xun do it? The analytical
method is a dialectical method. By analysis we mean analyzing the contradictions
in things. A sound analysis would be impossible if [we] lacked knowledge of life
and had no real understanding of the contradiction being discussed. Lu Aun’s later
short essays were most penetrating and powerful and were free from one-sidedness.27 This is because by then he had learned to use dialectics. Some of Lenin’s
articles can also be called short essays; they were satirical and very pointed, but
they were not one-sided. The overwhelming majority of Lu Aun’s essays were
directed at the enemy; some of Lenin’s essays were directed at the enemy and some
at comrades. Can Lu Xun’s type of essay be used to cope with shortcomings and
mistakes among the people? I think it can. Of course, a distinction should be made
between the enemy and ourselves, and we should not adopt an antagonistic standpoint
toward comrades and treat them as we would an enemy. We must speak sincerely and
warmly with an attitude of protecting the cause of the people and raising the consciousness of the people; we must not speak with an attitude of ridicule or attack.

What if one does not dare to write? Some people say that they do not dare to
write even when they have things to say, for fear that they might offend others and
be criticized. As I see it, such apprehension can be dispensed with. Our form of
government is a people’s democracy, which provides an environment conducive
to writing for the people. The policy of letting a hundred flowers bloom and a
hundred schools of thought contend gives new assurance to the development of
science and art. If what you write is correct, then you needn’t fear any criticism;
you can further explain your correct opinion through debate. If what you write is
wrong, then criticism can help you correct [the mistakes], and there is nothing bad
about it. In our society a revolutionary and combative criticism and countercriticism is a good device to expose contradictions, solve contradictions, develop science
and art, and enable us to do a good job in ail our work.


The seventh point: “To give free rein” or “to impose restrictions’? This is a
question of principle. Letting a hundred flowers bloom and a hundred schools of
thought contend 1s a fundamental as well as a long-term policy. It is not a temporary
policy. During the discussion, the comrades were against “imposing restrictions,”
which IJ think ts quite correct. The opinion of the Party Center is that we can only
“give free rein” and not “impose restrictions.”

In leading our country we can adopt two different methods, or in other words,
two different policies; that is, either to give free rein or to impose restrictions. To
give free rein is simply to allow everyone to express his or her opinion freely so
that he or she would dare to speak up, dare to criticize and dare to contend; it means
being unafraid of mistaken arguments or poisonous things; it means promoting
argument and mutual criticism among all sorts of different opinions, allowing
freedom for both criticis countercriticism; and it means not coercing people
with wrong views intosubmission, but rather convincing them through reasoning.
To impose restriction means not allowing others to air different views or to express
mistaken opinions; and if they do, to “finish them off in one stroke.” This is not a
method of solving contradictions, but one that widens contradictions. To give free
rein or to impose restrictions? We must choose one of these two alternative policies.
We choose the policy of giving free rein, for it is a policy that will facilitate the
consolidation of our country and the development of our culture.

We plan to use this policy of giving free rein to unite with the several million
intellectuals and change their current outlook. As I said previously, the overwhelming majority of intellectuals in our country want to make progress and are willing
to remold themselves, and they are capable of remolding. The policy we adopt will
play a very important role in this. The problem with the intellectuals is first and
foremost a problem of thought.28 To adopt crude measures or coercive methods to
deal with problems of thought is harmful rather than beneficial. The remolding of
the intellectuals, especially the transformation of their world view, is a process that
takes a long period of time. Our comrades must understand that ideological
remolding involves long-term, patient, and careful work. We cannot expect to
change people’s ideology that they have formed over decades of their lives by just
holding a few classes or holding a few meetings. To convince people you can only
use persuasion and not coercion. The result of coercion is always that while people
may be reduced to submission, they are nevertheless not convinced. To forcibly
make people submit simply won’t work. It is permissible to use this method when
dealing with the enemy, but it is absolutely impermissible to use it in dealing with
comrades and friends. What if we don’t know how to use persuasion? Then we
have to learn. We have to learn to overcome the various mistaken ideas through
the methods of debate and reasoning.

Letting a hundred flowers bloom is a way to develop art, while letting a hundred
schools of thought contend is a way to develop science. This policy of letting a
hundred flowers bloom and letting a hundred schools contend is not only a good
way to develop science and art, but, when applied more widely, is also a good way
to carry out all our work. It can help us commit fewer mistakes. There are many
things we don’t know and therefore do not know how to handle; but through debate


and struggle we can acquire an understanding of these things and will understand
how to resolve these problems. As a result of debate between all sorts of different
opinions, truth can develop. The same method can be used to deal with venomous,
anti- Marxist things, because in struggling against these anti-Marxist things, Marxism can develop. This is development through the struggle of opposites, development that conforms with dialectics.

Haven't people always talked about the true, the good, and the beautiful?29 The
opposites of the true, the good, and the beautiful are the false, the evil, and the ugly.
Without the false, evil, and ugly, there cannot be the true, good, and beautiful. Truth
stands in opposition to falsehood.29 In human society and in the realm of nature,
unity invariably divides into different parts; it’s just that under different concrete
conditions the contents and form [of such a division] may differ. Erroneous things
and ugly phenomena will always exist at any time. And at any time there will always
be such opposites as between right and wrong, between the good and the evil, and
between the beautiful and the ugly. The same holds for fragrant flowers and
poisonous weeds.?! The relationship between them is one of a unity of opposites
and a struggle of opposites. Distinction is possible only when there is comparison.
And only when there is distinction and struggle can there be development. Truth
develops in its struggle with falsehood. This is the way that Marxism develops.
Marxism develops in its struggle against bourgeois and petty-bourgeois ideologies
and can only develop through struggle.

We are for the policy of “giving free rein’; so far, rather than being too free, it
has not been free enough; we should not be afraid of giving free rein, nor should
we be afraid of criticism or poisonous weeds. Marxism is scientific truth, it is not
afraid of criticism and cannot be overturned by criticism. The same is true of the
Communist Party and the People’s Government; they too, are unafraid of criticism
and cannot be overturned by criticism. There will always be things that are wrong,
and they are nothing to be afraid of. In the recent period a number of demons and
ogres have been put on the stage.34 On seeing this situation some comrades feel
greatly worried. I say it is all right to have a little of this, for a few decades from
now such demons and ogres as those who are now on the stage will disappear
altogether and you won’t be able to see them even if you want to. We ought to
promote what is right and oppose what is wrong; nevertheless, we should not be
afraid of people coming into contact with things that are wrong. Merely issuing
executive orders, forbidding people to have contact with abnormal or ugly phenomena, forbidding them to be exposed to mistaken ideas, or to watch demons and
Ogres, cannot solve the problem. Of course, I am not advocating that we promote
demons and ogres; what J am saying is “it is all right to have a little.” It is not
unusual for certain erroneous things to exist, and there is also no need to be fearful
of them. This can help people to learn better how to fight them. Even great storms
are nothing to be dreaded. It is in the midst of great storms that human society
moves forward.

In our country, bourgeois and petty-bourgeois ideology and anti-Marxist ideology will continue to exist for a long period of time. The socialist system has already
been basically established in our country, and we have won a basic victory in


transforming the ownership of the means of production. But we have not yet
achieved complete victory on the political and ideological fronts. The question of
who will win out in the realm of ideology, the proletariat or the bourgeoisie, has
not yet been really solved. We still have to wage a protracted struggle against
bourgeois and petty-bourgeois ideologies. It would be a mistake not to understand
this situation and to abandon the ideological struggle. All mistaken ideas, all
poisonous weeds, and all demons and ogres must be criticized, and under no
circumstances should they be allowed to spread unchecked. However, such criticism should be fully reasoned, analytical, and convincing; it should not be crude
and bureaucratic, or metaphysical and dogmatic.

F ong Ti ow people have leveled a great deal of criticism against
dogmatism; this is how itshould be. But they have tended to neglect criticizing
revisionism.?> Both dogmatismrand revisionism run counter to Marxism, Marxism
must move forward and develop aspractice develops. It must not stagnate and stop
moving; once it comes to a standstilK\and repeats the same old stuff, it loses its
vitality. However, the fundamental principles of Marxism cannot be violated; once
they are violated, an error is bound to\be made. It 1s dogmatism to take a
metaphysical approach toward Marxism and see it as something rigid. It is
revisionism to negate the fundamental principles of Marxism, to negate its
universal truth. Revisionism is one type of bourgeois ideology. Revisionists
obliterate the distinction between socialism and capitalism, between the dictatorship of the proletariat and the dictatorship of the bourgeoisie. What the
revisionists advocate is actually a capitalist line rather than a socialist line.
Under the present circumstances, revisionism is more harmful than dogmatism.
One of our major tasks on the ideological front right now is to launch a criticism
against revisionism.

Eighth, the last point: Party committees in every province, municipality, and
autonomous region should take hold of the problem of ideology. This is the point
that some comrades present here wish me to take up. At present Party committees
in many places have directed no effort, or very little effort, to taking hold of the
problem of ideology, mainly because they are too busy. However, this problem
must be taken hold of. By “taking hold” I mean that this problem should be put on
the agenda and studied. The large-scale, stormy, and turbulent class struggles
waged by the masses during the revolutionary period within our country have
basically already come to an end, yet there is still class struggle, mainly the class
Struggle on the political and ideological fronts, and it is still very acute.34 The
question of ideology has now become an extremely important issue. The first
secretaries of Party committees in every locality should personally take the problem
of ideology in hand; only when they pay serious attention to this problem and study
it can it be correctly solved. All these places should hold conferences such as this
propaganda conference to discuss local ideological work and the problems related
to all its aspects. Not only Party comrades but also people from outside the Party
should participate in the conferences, including people who hold different opinions
[from us]. The experience of our present conference has demonstrated that this will
only do good and not harm to these meetings.


Notes

I. No text of this speech has ever been made available.

2. For a detailed history of this period and the struggles associated with the Hundred
Flowers policy, see R. MacFarguhar (1974); see also the writings of M. Goldman on this
period and on the Party policy toward intellectuals. See also text Jan. 18, 1957, Version I,
note 15; text Jan. 27, 1957(1), note 3; text Jan. 27, 1957(2), note 28; text Mar. 1, 1957, note
22; and text Feb, 27, 1957, note 81, for references to recent allusions to this subject in Mao’s
speeches and writings.

3. See text Feb. 27, 1957, notes 5 and 7.

4. See text Mar. 5, 1956, note 12.

>. Mao appears to be invoking the notion that these delinquent intellectuals who prefer
the capitalist line and favor the restoration of the old China are capitulating to the so-called
Three Big Mountains that stand athwart the path to success in the socialist transformation
of the Chinese people. These three things that Mao mentions here—feudalism, imperialism,
and bureaucratic capitalism-——are identified by Mao as the essential “enemies to be overthrown in this [1.e., the new democratic] revolution” in April 1948 (see SW, IV, p. 235).
Interestingly, Mao speaks of these three ttems tn his major speech of this period, the Feb.
27 “On Correctly Handling” speech (see section 1, paragraph 5), and he would also speak
more specifically of the “Three Big Mountains” (a phrase derived by way of his coinage of
the term “The T'Wo Mountains” in his 1945 essay “The Foolish Old Man Who Moved the
Mountains’) in July 1957 (see text July 9, 1957).

6. This low estimate of the number of diehard reactionary intellectuals who oppose
socialism was an estimate that Mao came increasingly to accept in the last half of 1956. It
was, however, a controversial assessment, and Mao's expectations here, together with his
earlier assessment that the majority of China’s petty-bourgeois elements were ready to make
the transition to state-controlled, socialism-oriented enterprises, were harshly challenged in
the latter half of 1957.

7. See text Feb. 27, 1957, section 1, paragraphs 6 and 9.

8. See Mao’s formulation of the theory of “poor and blank,” text Jan. 20, 1956, note 31.

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

10. See text Feb. 27, 1957, section 4, paragraph 4.

11. Here the Xuandu A, edition reads: ““The poor peasants and the lower-middle peasants.”

12. See text Jan. 27, 1957(1), note 83 and surrounding text.

13. See text Mar. 16, 1953, vol. I, note 1.

14. The phrase that Mao uses here (and in quotation marks), “av jia le hu,” literally
means to settle one’s family down and put down a household, or homestead.

15. See text Oct. 26, 1949, vol. I, note 1.

16. See text Autumn 1956, note 1.

17. See text Feb. 27, 1957, section 4, paragraph 4.

18. The first of these rectification campaigns was the rectification campaign in Yanan
in the various CPC-held bases of resistance against Japan in 1942. The targets were
subjectivism, sectarianism, and the “eight-legged” writing style in the CPC. It attacked the
Wang Ming line. (Sce text June 30, 1953, vol. I, note 9, and text Aug. 12, 1953(1), vol. I,
note 24.) The second one, the one conducted during the War of Liberation, refers to the
intra-CPC rectification in 1948, which was conducted in conjunction with the land reform
movement in the various liberated areas. This was also known as the san cha san zheng
(Three Investigations—class distinction, ideology, and work style—and Three Rectifications—organization, ideology, and work style) movement. The third rectification campaign
was carried out in the CPC in 1950. [ts main purpose was to strengthen the revolutionary
ideological education of the large numbers of new Party members while also dispelling the
sense of complacency that might otherwise have affected veteran Party members in the
euphoria of victory and the possibility of their developing a coercive and “commandist”


work style. Apparently, from early 1957 the issue of commandism and coercive work style
indeed developed and remained a problem to be dealt with. Mao discussed the purposes of
this rectification at the Third Plenum of the Seventh Central Committee. (See text June 6,
1950, vol. I; see also text Feb. 18, 1951, vol. I, note 10.)

19. The fourth rectification campaign was ultimately launched following the promulgation of its guidelines by the Central Committee of the CPC on April 27, 1957, and affirmed
by the Supreme State Conference on April 30, 1957. See K. Lieberthal (1976), p. 96, and
RMSC (1958), pp. 29-30. It should be noted, as we have pointed out in the source note
comments here, that when the directive was issued in April 1957, it was described as a
directive for an intra-Party rectification campaign. However, by the second half of 1957,
this had developed into an “all-people” (quanmin) rectification campaign, which is how
the campaign is described (with the directive coming under it as a heading) in RMSC
(1958).

20. See RMSC (1958), p. 29, section 3, last paragraph.

21. See text Aug. 24, 1956(2), note 29, and text Aug. 12, 1953(1), vol. I, note 25. See
also text Feb. 27, 1957, note 43 and text Mar. 1, 1957, note 11, on the first aphorism here;
text Feb. 27, 1957, note 26, on the second.

22. This is a not-so-oblique reference to the manner in which the Khrushchev-led CPSU
leadership handled the case of assessing and criticizing Stalin. Mao had used precisely this
phrase to describe the conduct of the CPSU on this matter m 1956 and 1957. See text Jan.
18, 1957, paragraph 11, and text Jan. 27, 1957(1), paragraph 37.

23. The SW, V (p. 435) note for this reads: “ ‘On Production by the Army for its Own
Support and on the Importance of the Great Movements for Rectification and for Production,’
Selected Works of Mao Tse-tung, Vol. UI.” More specifically, this essay is on pp. 275—279
of SW, IIL.

24. The term Mao uses here ts zhishi renren, which, strictly speaking, refers to something
more than people with determination and aspiration, but to people who are completely
devoted to a cause and ready to lay down their lives (sheshen chengren) for it. Itis equivalent,
both semantically and historically, to the term shishi in Japanese. The saying is derived from
the chapter “Weiling gong” in the book Lun yu (Analects of Confucius).

25. See text Nov. 15, 1956, note 50; see also text Mar. 1, 1957, note 38.

26. The term here is za wen, or writings of miscellaneous forms. This and another term,
san wen (scattered writings or miscellaneous essays), were popularized during the mid-1920s
and the 1930s as genre, usually describing shorter, topical essay-type writings that are often
in a much more vernacular language, and are set apart from classical writing in that they
do not conform to the patterns and forms previously prescribed for classical poems, fu,
or novels. The notion-of being “miscellaneous” (za) or “scattered” (san) derives from
this juxtaposition.

27. For Lu Xun, see text Apr. 25, 1956, note 15. Lu Xun began to devote himself to the
writing of shorter, topical essays, often satirical in character, after 1926, especially in
response to the criticism and attack of some members, such as Cheng Fangwu and Li
Tiesheng, of the Chuangzao she (Creation Society) in the debate over “revolutionary
literature” and the “‘literature of the proletariat” (puluo wenxue) in Shanghai literary circles
of the time. See also text Mar. 12, 1957, note 24.

--- Notes

28. See text Sept. 16—18, 1953, vol. I, note 32.

29. The significance of Mao’s mentioning these three qualities here is that not only are
truth, goodness, and beauty (zhen, shan, mei) basic goals of life and philosophical entities,
but, in the modern Chinese tradition, they are often held up as the fundamental objectives
as well as the key principles of artistic and literary (i.e., “intellectual’’) creativity.

30. See text Jan. 27, 1957(1), paragraph 18.

31. See text Jan. 18, 1957, Version I, note 38.

32. See text Jan. 27, 1957(1), note 54.

33. See text Feb. 27, 1957, section 8, paragraph 7.

34. See text Feb. 27, 1957, section 1, paragraph 18.