The Workers Are Speaking Up
(June 10, 1957)

Source: RMRB (June 10, 1957), 1. Other Chinese Text: Shengping ziliao, p. 364
(excerpt).

This is an RMRB editorial that was not published under Mao’s signature but is alleged to
be Mao’s writing.


In the last couple of days, many workers in Beijing, Shanghai, Tianjin,
Shenyang, Anshan, and so on have held forums1 at which they have angrily
reprimanded the small minority of Rightist elements for their anti-Communist,
antisocialist opinions. The public opinion of the working class is attracting increasingly intense attention on the part of the people throughout the country. Prior to
this, some workers have expressed opinions about issues such as the request on the
part of some elements that the terms of fixed-interest payment be extended2 and
the state’s representatives [in the joint state-private enterprises] be withdrawn. At
the moment, what has provoked the workers to speak up is a political topic that is
of more major significance and involves a broader area of problems. This time, at
the various localities, the workers are very active in speaking up, and their mood
is one of great enthusiasm. Many workers have asked to be allowed to speak and
to write letters to the newspapers. What has been printed in the newspapers is but
a small portion of the workers’ opinions. It is obvious that the broad masses of the
workers have discerned that an evil wind has blown up in the political life of our nation.3
This evil wind threatens the position of leadership occupied by the working class, so
the [politically] conscious workers’ masses have no choice but to rise to the challenge.

Of the opinions published in recent days by people in the various democratic
parties4 and people with no party affiliation, by industrialists and business people
and by intellectuals, the vast majority are accurate criticisms made, with good
intentions, toward the Communist Party and the People’s Government. However,
there are some, a minority, which are not so. This minority of incorrect opinions
attempts to lead people away from the direction of socialism, and seeks to weaken
the people’s democratic dictatorship,5 the system of democratic centralism,6 and the
leadership of the [Communist] Party. Moreover, people who have published such
incorrect opinions have also sought to create an atmosphere forbidding people to offer
rebuttal or even carrying out threats against those who do offer rebuttal.7 It is precisely
such a set of conditions that has provoked the workers’ masses’ anger and made it
impossible for them to remain silent even in the midst of their intense laboring.

The broad masses of the workers see very clearly that if these Rightist careerists
were allowed to have their way, the state led by the working class would be
endangered and the cause of socialism would be injured. The workers’ masses
realize what the bloody struggle conducted by the working class of our country in
the last few decades under the leadership of the Communist Party was all about.
They know that in the protracted struggle of the past, different people have taken
different attitudes, and they know who those are who are deserving of the greatest
trust as well as who those are who deserve the least confidence. They also know
what overthrowing the leadership of the Communist Party will mean to the
workers’ masses, no matter how nicely people put it.

From the speeches made at the various workers’ forums in the localities, we can
be fully cognizant of the sincere support that the leadership class in our country—
the working class—gives to its own vanguard, the Communist Party of China, and
its unbounded love for the socialist system. It, too, has opinions concerning the
work of the [Communist] Party and the People’s Government; it, too, wants to help
the Party in its rectification and to help Party organizations correct their mistakes

APRIL - JUNE 1957 / 575

and overcome their weaknesses. However, it also realizes that when there are
people who are carrying out activities opposing the socialist system and the
leadership of the Communist Party, the priority is to unite solidly and repel the
attack of such people. Therefore, it has expressed a resolute determination to
struggle against all opinions and speech that oppose and slander the Communist
Party and socialism.

Most recently an argument has appeared that seems to say that after the
transformation of capitalist industry and commerce has been basically accomplished the bourgeoisie will have lost its dual character and will no longer be in
need of further transformation. From this argument [those who adopt it] conclude
that the bourgeoisie no longer needs to learn from the working class, and the
working class has nothing worth learning either. Rather it is the working class who
ought to emulate the many good qualities of the capitalists. However, no sooner is
this said than the test of reality is upon us. As regards the various antisocialist
opinions and arguments of the present, who, after all, is the more discerning? Who
has a more resolute and uncompromising attitude? The resolute standpoint adopted
by the working classes has a profound educational effect on the intellectuals
throughout the country. Why is it that, with regard to the same thing, some
university students and professors may hold one opinion whereas the workers hold
another, quite different one? A certain anarchistic fanaticism may indeed sweep a
minority of the intellectuals off their feet for a time, but among the workers and the
laboring people it has become completely isolated. The fervor of the working class
is expressed not only in its heroic labor in construction, but also in its resolute struggle
against antisocialist opinions and speeches. This fact not only proves that our country
needs to be led by the working class, but also that the working class is fully equipped
with the necessary consciousness and determination to lead our country.

There is also currently another argument that since we have given freedom to
the bourgeois ideas to “contend,” we cannot at the same time allow the working
class to “contend.” Allegedly, if the working class “contended,” it would hinder
other people’s “contending.” Strange indeed! That in a country led by the working
class, the working class should need to be given freedom of speech by others.
Naturally such an argument has no leg upon which to stand. To begin with, when
the working class “contends,” it does not mean that others are thereby not allowed
to “contend.” The working class is entirely entitled to disagree with others, just as
others are entitled to disagree with the working class. Within the framework of the
Constitution and the law, nobody interferes with anyone else. Second, if the
working class “contends” and thereby topples some incorrect views and opinions,
so that the bourgeoisie no longer has any reason to “contend” on such matters, then
in what way would such “hindrance” for incorrect views and opinions be harmful
to the state or to the people?

Notes

1. At about the same time that the United Front Department of the Central Committee
of the CPC held forums to discuss the rectification campaign with democratic parties, the


same department, in conjunction with the No. Eight Office of the State Council, also
convened forums of people of industrial and commercial circles. (These were held May
15–June 8, 1957, whereas the forums with the democratic parties were held May 8–June 3;
see text June 8, 1957[3], note 3.) Here the text suggests that while those were going on, or
perhaps immediately after those forums were held, the workers of certain regions held their
own forums locally and separately.
2. See text Feb. 27, 1957, note 39.
3. See text Feb. 27, 1957, note 51.
4. See text July 1, 1957, and text July 1957.
5. See text Feb. 27, 1957, note 13.
6. See text Jan. 27, 1957(1), note 80.
7. See texts June 8, 1957(2), paragraph 1, and June 9, 1957, paragraph 5.
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