The Situation Is Changing
(May 15, 1957)

Source: Kau & Leung, The Writings of Mao Zedong 1949-1976, Vol. II
Pages 546-554
============================================================

The Situation Is Changing
(May 15, 1957)

Source: Xuanji, V, pp. 423-429. Other Chinese Texts: Wansui (n.d. 3), pp.
175-178; URI (1976), pp. 211 (excerpts); Wansui (1967b), p. 15 (excerpt); Buyi,
p. 146 (excerpt); quoted in HQ (Aug. 25, 1968), 12-13; RMRB (Sept. 1, 1968), 1;
Jiaoyu yulu, pp. 25-26; Mao liang, pp. 313-314; Shengping ziliao, pp. 358—
359. Available English Translations: SW, V, pp. 440-446; URI (1976), pp. 213-
214; quoted in PR, 11:37 (Sept. 13, 1968), 21; CB, 891 (Oct. 8, 1969), 24: CB, 897
(Dec. 10, 1969), 48.

For an analysis of the precise date of this document, see R. MacFarquhar (1974), p. 392,
note 1. The Wansui (1967) source varies slightly from the Xuanji version and is dated May
1957. The Wansui (n.d. 3) source gives the date wu yue zhong xun (roughly translatable
as “Mid-May’" ). |

This document was written by Mao and circulated to Party cadres during the
struggle over Party rectification and the future role of bourgeois intellectuals in
China's socialist transition, In addition to providing useful information concerning
Mao's role in these struggles and his reaction to the attacks on socialism and the
Party by the bourgeois intellectuals,! it is also important for the light that it sheds on
Mao's view of Marxist theory in practice at the time. It demonstrates Mao’ s continued
recognition and emphasis of the need for controlled social conflict, in this case to test
the attitudes of the bourgeois intellectuals and the mettle of lower-level Party cadres,
a method that Mao would develop into a full-fledged strategy after the Chengdu
Conference of March 1958, and especially around the time of the Second Session of
the Eighth Congress of the CPC. Even more importantly, the document demonstrates
Mao's increasing concern at this time with the danger of revisionism.

in the very early stages of struggling against the policies of the Communist Party
of the Soviet Union in 1956, Mao and the CPC had come to the conclusion that ;
revisionism was a major danger in the world Communist movement, although as an :
imminent threat it was secondary to dogmatism. This conclusion was drawn in the ;
critical CPC document, “More on the Historical Experience of the Dictatorship of
the Proletariat,” which was published as a RMRB editorial on January 1, 1957. At :
least in public, the attitudes and policies of the CPC in the first half of 1957, and
Mao's own perceptions and announcements, were dominated by this conclusion. But |
the “aspect” of revisionism was never totally set aside. As seen in the speeches of :
January 27 and February 27, and a number of subsequent speeches and conversations, Mao had brought up the reminder that revisionism, also, had to be dealt with.

In the next few months, Mao focused more and more.on the dangers of revisionism.
See, for instance, the speech to the National Conference on Propaganda Work (text
Mar. 12, 1957). However, this document reveals the beginnings of a critical change
in Mao's thought. As a result of the attacks on the Party and the Party's response,
Mao was beginning to reevaluate the significance of the danger of revisionism. He
was beginning to see it as potentially even more dangerous than dogmatism. Mao's
transitional position at this time was understandably contradictory. On the one hand,


APRIL ~ JUNE 1957 / 547

he seemed to hold that Party revisionists were more dangerous than Party dogmatists
because they reflected bourgeois ideology and liberalism and because they were
connected with bourgeois intellectuals. But, on the other hand, because he continued
to hold the position that the dangers of Leftist errors linked to dogmatism were as
serious as Rightist dangers linked to revisionism, and because he saw the number of
revisionists as being relatively small, he did not perceive revisionism as a significant
enough social force to be the primary danger.

But the beginning of Mao's recognition of the dangers inherent in revisionism at
this time is the beginning of his struggle against revisionism, which itself would
culminate domestically in the Cultural Revolution, and, in terms of international
relations, in the Theory of the Three Worlds (see text Jan. 27, 1957(1), note 17). As
As Mao began to develop a broader understanding of what constituted revisionism and
the dangers associated with it, he not only came to see it as an increasingly serious
danger, but also saw more and more Party and state leaders practicing revisionist
policies. Therefore, for Mao, revisionism subsequently came to represent increasingly
the main danger to the Chinese Revolution. In a very real sense, one may see this as
the dominant concern for Mao in the last two decades of his life, and the underlying
influence in the development of the late stage of “Mao Zedong Thought.” Any
evaluation or reevaluation of Maoist ideology in the post-Mao era in the PRC would
have to come to terms with this influence. Although the PRC leadership of the 1980s
has yet to tackle this head-on, a number of things provide a clear enough indication
of the general orientation. For example, there is the essay “Xiuzheng zhuyi de laivuan

ji qi biaoxian xingshi” (The Origins of Revisionism and the Forms in Which It Is
Manifested) in HQ (Jan. 1980), 42-45; and the RMRB (April 12, 1982) reevaluation
of the CPC posture on the “Khrushchev line” in CPSU policies of the 1950s and

1960s, and especially of the nine polemical “open letters.”

As such, then, this piece of writing was in effect the first step taken to bring into
the open (at least within the Party) the issues that would quickly spell an end to the
Hundred Flowers Campaign by the midpoint of 1957, and turn the orientation of the
campaign against bourgeois ideology and revisionism, paving the way for the
alarmingly rapid change of direction culminating in the anti-Rightist campaign,
which was in reality also an antirevisionism campaign. A bit of strategic hesitancy is
reflected in the fact that this was an intra-Party document (i.e., not intended to be
circulated immediately outside the CPC). Another factor that might have prompted
this caution was that, as it gradually built up during the early months of 1957, the
issue of campaigning against revisionism was (and would continue to be) an issue of
great delicacy for China's relations with the Soviet Union. At the time of this essay,
Voroshilov, chairman of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR, was in between his two
rapidly sequential visits to the PRC (see text April 15, 1957, source note, and text
May 26, 1957, source note). It is understandable that Mao would have wanted to play
his hand somewhat more covertly while Voroshilov was in China.

The unity and struggle of opposites exist everywhere in the life of society.2 As
a result of the struggle, opposites are transformed into each other and a new unity
is established; [when this is done] the life of society will have moved one step
forward.

The rectification [movement] in the Communist Party? is a struggle between
two work styles [which coexist] within a single unity. Such is the situation both
within the Communist Party and among the people as a whole.

There are all kinds of people in the Communist Party. There are Marxists: they
make up the great majority. They have their shortcomings too, but these are not


548 {/ MAO ZEDONG

serious ones. There are some people who have mistaken, dogmatic thought. Most
of these people are loyal to the Party and to the country, only their method of
looking at problems has a “Left” one-sidedness. When they overcome this type of
one-sidedness, they will take a big step forward. Then there are some people who
have erroneous revisionist or Rightist opportunist thought. These people are more
dangerous because their thought is a reflection of bourgeois thought within the
Party. They long for bourgeois liberalism and negate everything; they are linked
to the bourgeois intellectuals in society in a hundred and one ways. In the past few
months, people were all repudiating dogmatism, but they have allowed revisionism
to go unchecked. Dogmatism should be repudiated; unless dogmatism is repudiated
many errors cannot be corrected. Now we should begin to pay attention to
criticizing revisionism. When dogmatism goes toward the opposite, it is either
{toward] Marxism or [toward] revisionism. In our Party’s experience, the former
makes up the majority [of the cases] while the latter only occurs in individual
[isolated] cases. This is because [the dogmatists] are an ideological faction of the
proletariat contaminated by the fanatical viewpoint of the petty bourgeoisie. Some
[things] that are attacked as “dogmatism” are, in fact, errors in work. Some [things]
that are attacked as “dogmatism” are in fact Marxist [but] come under fire because
some people have mistaken them for “dogmatism.” There is reason for the real
dogmatist to hold that “Left” is better than Right; namely, they want revolution.
But as far as losses to the revolutionary cause are concerned, the “Left” is no better
than the Right; therefore it must be firmly corrected. Some errors have resulted
from carrying out the policies of the Central Committee; [therefore] the lower levels
should not be excessively reprimanded [for these errors]. Our Party has a large
number of new members who are intellectuals (the Youth League has even more);#
a portion of them indeed have rather serious revisionist thought. They deny the
Party character and class nature of the press; they jumble up the differences of
principle between proletarian journalism and bourgeois journalism; they mix up
journalism that reflects the collective economy of socialist countries with journalism that reflects the economy of capitalist countries [which is marked by] its
anarchic situation and the competition among cliques. They admire bourgeois
liberalism and oppose Party leadership. They approve of democracy, but oppose
centralism.- They oppose the centralized leadership, planning, and control over
cultural and educational undertakings (including journalism) which are necessary
(though they should not be excessively centralized) to realize a planned economy.
They and the right-wing intellectuals in society complement and respond to each
other; [they] are linked together, as close as brothers. There are all types of people
who criticize and repudiate dogmatism. There are Communist Party members—
Marxists, and there are so-called Communist Party members, that is, rightist
elements within the Communist Party—revisionists. Then there are people in
society, among the Left, the middle-of-the-roaders, and the Right, [who criticize
dogmatism]. The middle-of-the-roaders make up the great majority of society; they
make up approximately 70 per cent of the whole body of non-Party intellectuals;
the Left makes up about 20 per cent; the Right makes up 1 per cent, 3 per cent, 5
per cent, up to 10 per cent, depending on the situation.®


In the most recent period, in the democratic parties’ and institutions of higher
education, it is the Rightists who have manifested themselves as the most determined and ferocious. They think that the middle-of-the-roaders are their people,
and that they won’t go along with the Communist Party; in fact, they are dreaming.
Among the middle-of-the-roaders there are some people who waver, who can [go
either} left or right. At present, under the influence of the ferocious attacks of the
Right, they don’t want to say anything; they want to wait a while. Right now the
attack of the Right has not yet reached its peak; right now they are in high spirits.
Neither the Rightist elements within the Party nor those outside the Party understand dialectics: When a thing reaches its extreme, inevitably it turns into its
opposite.’ We must let them rave on for a period; let them reach their peak. The
more reckless they become, the more beneficial it is to us. Some people say that
they are afraid of being hooked like a fish, others say that we are leading the enemy
deep into a trap, concentrating them in order to wipe them out.? Right now a large
number of fish are coming to the surface by themselves, so we needn't fish [for
them]. These are not ordinary fish; in all probability they are sharks. They have
sharp teeth, they like to eat people. The shark’s fin that people eat is the navigational
device used by this type of fish. The struggle between the Rightists and ourselves
will focus on the fight for the middle-of-the-roaders; the middle-of-the- roaders can
be won over. Regardless of what the Rightists say about supporting the people’s
democratic dictatorship,!° supporting the people’s government, supporting socialism, supporting the leadership of the Communist Party, it is all false; we must
remember never to believe it. Regardless of whether they are Rightists in the
democratic parties, Rightists in the educational field, Rightists in the field of
literature and art, Rightists in the field of journalism, Rightists in the scientific and
technological fields, or Rightists in the industrial and commercial circles, they are
all like this. There are two groups who are the most determined: The Left and the
Right. They fight against each other for the middle-of-the-roaders; they fight each
other over the right to lead the middle-of-the-roaders. The intent of the Rightist
elements is first to fight for a part and then to fight for the whole. First they fight
for the leadership rights over the fields of journalism, education, literature and art,
and science and technology. They know that the Communist Party is not their match
in these fields, and that indeed is the situation. They [think they] are “national
treasures,” not to be provoked. [They also think that] the “Three-Anti’s” [campaign], the suppression of counterrevolutionaries, and the ideological reform
[campaign] of the past!! were all absurd, and that these campaigns were merely
asking for trouble.!2 They also know that a large number of university students are
the sons and daughters of landlords, rich peasants, and the bourgeoisie,!? and they
believe that these people are the masses who will rise at the Rightists’ summons.
This is possible with that portion of the students who have Rightist thought. But to
imagine this of the great majority of the students is simply dreaming. There are also
signs of the Rightists in the journalistic field calling on the masses of workers and
peasants to oppose the government.

[When] people oppose labeling,'4 what they oppose is merely the Communist
Party labeling them, but it is all right for they themselves to label the Communist


Party members, and to label the Leftists and the middle-of-the-roaders in the
democratic parties and the Leftists and the middle-of-the-roaders in all walks of
life in society. In the past few months what a number of labels have been thrown
out by the Rightists and appeared in the newspapers! The opposition of the
middle-of-the-roaders to labeling is genuine. We must remove all labels that we
have inappropriately put on middle-of-the-roaders in the past, and from now on we
must not assign labels indiscriminately. During the “Three-Anti’s” [Campaign],
the suppression of counterrevolutionaries, and the ideological reform [campaign],
some real errors were made; they must all be corrected publicly, regardless of which
people [are affected].!5 Nevertheless, in the one matter of labeling, the Rightists
would have to be dealt with differently. Even so, we must label them correctly;
only those who are really Rightists should be labeled as Rightists. With a few
individual exceptions, we need not refer [to them] by name; [rather we must] give
them some leeway to turn around in order to make it easier to compromise with
them under appropriate conditions.

The above-mentioned [designation of] 1 per cent, 3 per cent, 5 per cent, or up
to 10 per cent [of the population] as being Rightists is an estimate; they could be
more, or less. Moreover, the situation in each unit is different; there must be solid
evidence; [we must act] according to facts;!® we cannot go too far. Going too far
would be an error.

The bourgeoisie and a good number of the intellectuals who once served the old
society will always stubbornly assert themselves; they would like always to hang
on to their old world, and as far as the new world is concerned, they just never fit
in. We must reform them; it will take a very long time, and [in doing this] violent
methods cannot be used; an assessment, however, must be made that the majority
of them have made great progress since the early period after Liberation. Most of
the criticisms of us that they have put forth are correct, and must be accepted. There
is only a portion that is incorrect and that must be explained. They demand [that
we have] confidence in them; they demand to be given authority [commensurate
with] their positions. This is correct. We must have confidence in them, we must
give them authority and responsibilities. Some of the criticisms of the Rightists!’
are correct. We cannot disregard them totally. Whatever is correct must be
accepted. The characteristic of the Rightists is that their political attitudes are
Rightist. They have a certain kind of cooperation with us, a cooperation in form,
but in reality they do not cooperate. There are some things on which they cooperate
and some things on which they don’t. At ordinary times they cooperate, but as soon
as there is an opening they can exploit, such as the present opportunity, then in
reality they would not want to cooperate any longer. They have broken their
promise that they are ready to accept the leadership of the Communist Party; they
attempt to shake off this leadership, and, the fact is, without this type of leadership,
it will be impossible for the building of socialism to be accomplished, and our
people will suffer an extremely great catastrophe.

Throughout our country we have several million bourgeois elements and intellectuals who once served the old society, and we need them to work for us. We
must take another step forward to improve our relations with them in order to make

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APRIL — JUNE 1957 / 55]

them serve the socialist cause even more efficiently, in order to reform them further,
to proletarianize them gradually, to transform them into the opposites of what they
are. For the great majority of them, this goal can definitely be reached. Reform
means both unity and struggle; using the method of struggle to reach the goal of
unity.!8 Struggle is mutual struggle. The present moment is one in which a large
number of people are carrying out struggles against us. The criticisms of the
majority of people are just, including [even] the sharp criticisms of Professor Fu
Ying of Beijing University,!? which haven’t been published in the newspapers. The
purpose of the criticisms of these people is that they hope to improve mutual
relations; their criticisms are well-intentioned. [However,] the criticisms of the
Rightists are frequently malicious, for they harbor hostile sentiments. Good intentions and malice are not things that [need to be] guessed at; they can be [easily]
discerned.

The current criticism campaign and rectification campaign were started by the
Communist Party. Poisonous weeds and fragrant flowers have grown together;
demons and ogres [on the one hand] and unicorns, phoenix, turtles and dragons2°
[on the other hand] have grown up together. This is what we had anticipated, and
it is also what we had hoped for. After all, good things have been in the majority
and bad things, the minority. People say [we are] angling for the big fishes; we say
[we are] hoeing up poisonous weeds; it is the same thing put in different words. In
trying to accomplish their goals, the Rightists with anti-Communist sentiments
threw caution to the winds and wanted a vicious typhoon of a force above the
seventh grade [that would] ruin crops and devastate houses to blow across the face
of this land of China.2! The more unreasonable they become, the more quickly they
will be hurled toward the opposite side of the pretenses that they have tried to keep
up in the past—the pretenses of cooperating with the Communist Party and accepting
its leadership, and that will allow the people to recognize that they are nothing more
than a small handful of anti-Communist, antipeople demons and ogres, and that’s It.
At that time, they will dig their own graves. What’s wrong with that?

The Rightists have two ways out. One is to tuck their tails tightly between their

legs and mend their ways.22 The other is to continue to make trouble and [thus]
seek their own destruction. Gentlemen of the Right, you may choose where you
want to go; the initiative (for a short time) is in your hands.
In our country, there are several criteria by which to distinguish between the
true and the false and between the well-intentioned and the malicious in the politics
of the bourgeoisie and bourgeois intellectuals.23 The principal [ones] are to see if
they truly want socialism and if they truly accept the leadership of the Communist
Party. They accepted these two points long ago. Now some people want to reverse
their decisions.24 This is not acceptable. Once they reverse their decisions on these
two points, the People’s Republic of China will no longer have places for them.
Theirs is an ideal of the Western world (the so-called free world), so I invite [such
people] to go there!

Why is it that a great deal of poisonous and polluted reactionary opinion has been
allowed to appear in our newspapers?25 This is to allow the people to become
acquainted with these poisonous weeds and gases?6 in order to dig them up and to

—

CU ESRD gt RS Be AR SERS Sle gO Ee


eliminate them. [People may ask:] “Why didn’t you say these things earlier?” [You
ask] why they weren’t said earlier? Didn't we say early on that all poisonous weeds
must be rooted out?

[Again people may ask:] “You have divided the people into Left, center, and
Right. Aren’t you out of keeping with the [real] state of things?” With the exception
of the desert, wherever there are people, there is a Left, a center, and a Right. It will
be like this even after ten thousand years. Why is this out of keeping with the state
of things? Dividing up [the people] gives the masses an orientation by which to
observe people; [this] is to [our] advantage in winning over the middle-of-theroaders and in isolating the Rightists. “Why don’t we win over the Rightists?” We
should win them over. But it is possible to win them over only when they feel
isolated. At present their tails are poking all the way into the sky, and they are vainly
trying to wipe out the Communist Party; how can we make them conform willingly?
After [they] are isolated, they will begin to become divided. We must divide the
Right. We have always divided the masses up into a Left, a center, and a Right, or
what has been called the progressives, the middle-of-the-roaders, and the backward
[elements]. This wasn’t started today; it’s just that some people are forgetful!

Do we want a major “rectification”? This will be determined by the future
conduct of the gentlemen of the Right. Poisonous weeds must be rooted out; this
is the digging up of poisonous weeds in [the realm of] ideology. To “rectify” a
person is another matter. Until a person [perpetrates a] “serious violation of the law
and disruption of order,” he will not be “rectified.”2? What do we mean by
“ {perpetrating a] serious violation of the law and disruption of order?” It means
that the interests of the nation and of the people have suffered serious damage, and
moreover that this damage was caused by a situation where [people] repeatedly ignored
warnings and pigheadedly did things their own way.?8 In cases of people who have
made ordinary mistakes, we should even more [staunchly adhere to the method of]
curing the illness to save the patient.2? This is the proper limit generally, both inside
and outside the Party. “Rectification” is also curing the illness and saving the patient.

How long must we wait to complete the task of the Party’s rectification? The
present situation is moving forward very quickly; relations between the Party and
the masses will improve rapidly. The way it looks now, in some [places] it can be
completed in a few weeks, in some [places] in a few months, and in some [places]
(for example, in the countryside) in about a year. As for studying Marxism and
raising the ideological level, this will take a longer period.*9 Our unity and struggle
with the bourgeoisie and the intellectuals will be a long-term [practice]. After the
Communist Party’s rectification movement has reached a certain stage, we will
suggest that the various democratic parties and people from all walks of life in
society carry out rectification [movements among themselves]. This will speed up
their progress and make it easier to isolate the small number of right-wing elements.
At present it is the non-Party people who are helping us with our rectification. In
a little while we will help the non-Party people with their rectification. This is what
is meant by mutual assistance.*! It will rectify incorrect tendencies, push them
toward their opposites, and turn them into correct tendencies.*- This is precisely
what the people hope of us. We should live up to the people's expectations.


Notes

|. For details of these struggles, see R. MacFarquhar (1974), pp. 224, 261-262.

2. See text Feb. 27, 1957, note 34.

3. See text Mar. 12, 1957, source note and note 19.

4. See text Feb. 27, 1957, note 74.

5. Here Mao is speaking of the expression “democratic centralism”:; see text Jan. 27,
1957(1), note 80.

6. This description may instructively be compared to Mao’s assessment in March of the
percentage of intellectuals in society who support socialism. See text Mar. 12, 1957, note 6.

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

8. See text Sept. 25, 1956, note 14.

9. See text April 1957(2), note 9.

10. See text Feb. 27, 1957, note 13.

11. On the “Three-Anti’s” Campaign, see text Nov. 1951-Mar. 1952, vol. 1, source note,
and text Aug. 12, 1953(1), vol. I, note 10; on the campaign to suppress or eliminate (liquidate)
counterrevolutionaries, see text Dec. 19, 1950, vol. I, source note. As for the campaign for
ideological reform, Mao is referring not to one specific reform, but to a general, on-going
campaign to oppose and reform bourgeois ideology in the CPC. (Up to this point, the policy
had mostly been to reform what was perceived to be lingering remnants of bourgeois
ideology in the Party, and text Aug. 12, 1953(1), vol. I, is a crucial document on the subject.
From the second half of 1957 on, however, the target of reform was expanded to focus on
the bourgeois intellectuals outside the CPC. It was deemed that there were also people within
the CPC who had close linkages with these bourgeois elements outside. Eventually, in the
early 1960s, the point of attack would revert to the “major bourgeois elements in the Party,”
leading ultimately to the Cultural Revolution.) Even so, when we look back on the history
of the “ideological reform campaign of the past” (as Mao puts it here), the question of whether
the primary target is within the CPC or outside has been as much a question of tactical timing
as of principle. After all, the key target of ideological reform and criticism in late 1953,
shortly after the announcement of the August 12, 1953 speech, was Liang Shuming, a
non-CPC intellectual, whereas the key target in 1954 was Hu Feng, a CPC intellectual.

12. The saying used here, faisui tou shang dong tu, literally translates as “breaking the
ground on Taisui day.” Because the cycle of Jupiter around the sun is eleven times greater
than that of the Earth, that planet’s “year” is known in Chinese as “the great year” (faisui).
By extension, this became a name for the planet Jupiter itself. An old superstition proscribed
ground-breaking and construction on days when Jupiter and Earth were in alignment, for to
do so was obviously to invite misfortune. This superstition was expressed in the chapter
“Nansui” (Year of Peril) in Wang Chong’s Lun heng (On Equilibrium). The phrase thus
means foolishly to create trouble for the high and mighty without considering the consequences. Mao is here saying that the Rightists consider themselves as the high and mighty,
thus the campaigns that disturbed them were bound, in their view, to bring disaster on the
CPC.

13. See text Jan. 18, 1957, paragraph 8.

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

15. See text Feb. 27, 1957, note 33.

16. The term here, shishi qiu shi (literally, “to find evidence for the truth from hard
facts”), is a phrase often used by Mao in two different contexts: (1) to exhort Communists
to be realistic about what can and cannot be done; (2) to exhort them to be careful that they
must stand on solid ground before accusing or labeling anyone of anything. The second
context is obviously applicable here.

The saying, already a common one in Chinese, derives from the “Hejian Xian Wang De
Zhuan” (Biography of Liu De, Prince Xian of Hejian) in Han shu (History of the Han
Dynasty). Much later it became the slogan of the Han xue or kaozheng (textual verification

554 {/ MAO ZEDONG

and criticism) school of philosophy and historiography of the mid-Qing dynasty, and a
favorite dictum of the great Qing scholar Zhang Xuecheng (1738-1801).

In text Jan. 27, 1957, paragraph 38, Mao says: “Realism [our translation for shishi qiu
shi there] and subjectivism are opposed to each other.”

17. Up to this point Mao had been suggesting that the opinions of the bourgeoisie and
the bourgeois intellectuals (fellow travelers of the Right) must be heeded. Here Mao seems
to make a further concession to the viewpoint of the Rightists. For the consequences of this
stand, see R. MacFarquhar (1974).

18. See text April 21, 1957, note 37.

19. Fu Ying was a professor of physical chemistry (particle physics) at Beijing University and a member of the Board of Physics, Mathematics, and Chemistry in the Chinese
Academy of Sciences. Fu remained nonaligned and never joined the CPC. In 1959 he was
invited as a special personage to serve as a member of the Third National Committee of the
CPPCC. He was reelected to the same post in 1964 and 1978.

20. For the meaning of the term niugui sheshen, translated here as demons and ogres,
see text Jan. 27, 1957(1), note 54. The term “unicorn, phoenix, tortoise, and dragon” (long,
feng, gui, lin) refers to the “four Jing” (spiritual creatures, or omens of unusual grace and
blessing) and is found in the chapter “Li yun” in Li ji (Book of Rites). Here it signifies upright
people who serve the interests of the people and are a blessing to society. The same good-bad
comparison between these two phrases applies to “fragrant flowers” and “poisonous weeds.”
(See text Jan. 18, 1957, note 38.) For Mao’s repeated argument that good things emerge out
of the struggle against bad things, and truth emerges out of the struggle against error, see
texts Jan. 27, 1957, paragraph 17, and Feb. 27, 1957, section 8, paragraph 2.

21. Typhoons, the generic name given to violent storms originating in the western
Pacific, are rated in terms of magnitude (and therefore by their potential for severity of
devastation) on a numerical scale of one to ten. A seventh-grade typhoon rates as an
exceptionally strong and ruinous wind. Mao used the term early in the year to describe the
surge of sentiments of uncertainty and dissatisfaction with CPC policies, e.g., in text Jan.
18, 1957, paragraphs 5, 11, and 12. However, it is interesting to note that while Mao
consistently spoke of the problems in early 1957 as “small typhoons” or even “miniature
typhoons” (e.g., see text Feb. 27, 1957, section 3, paragraph 3), here he escalates the severity
in speaking of a “seventh-grade typhoon.”

22. See text Jan. 27, 1957(1), note 33.

23. See text Feb. 27, 1957, section 8, paragraph 8.

24. See text Oct. 11, 1955(1), vol. I, note 65; also text Feb. 27, 1957, note 48.

25. The term Mao uses here, weyan zhanggi, is a common saying that literally means
“dark smoke and poisonous gas, or miasma.” The expression connects to Mao's criticism
of the bad things emanating from society at that time as “ill winds” (waifeng), opposed to
the zhenggi (spirit—or “gas” of justice and righteousness). See text Feb. 27, 1957, note
51. Here Mao appears to go back to the criticism of newspapers such as RMRB; see text
April 1957(1).

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

27. The character for “rectification” here is zheng, which has a double meaning. In the
formal sense (e.g., when it is used in zhengfeng, meaning rectification of work style), it means
correction, reorganization, setting aright, or completing an entirety. In the colloquial sense,
however, it also means giving out bad treatment to somebody. Here, in speaking of the
“rectification” of the individual, Mao appears to be employing the second meaning when he
says “he will not be rectified.”

28. This saying, yi yi gu xing, is derived from the characterization of Zhao Yu, an official
of the period of Emperor Wudi of the Han dynasty, in the chapter “Hao li liezhuan”
(Biographies of Stern Officials) in Shi ji (Records of the Historian).

29. See text Aug. 12, 1953(1), vol. I, note 25.

30. See text Feb. 27, 1957, section 5, paragraph 4.

31. Mao appears to be referring to the question of expanding the rectification from within