What Is This For?
(June 8, 1957)

Source: RMRB (June 8, 1957), 1. Other Chinese Texts: RMSC (1958), p. 73–74;
Shengping ziliao, pp. 362–363, (excerpt).

This is an RMRB editorial that was not published under Mao’s signature, but is alleged to
have been written by Mao. For some of the impact of the Rightist attacks on the CPC that
prompted this article, see text July 1, 1957. This article is often considered the first salvo
in the anti-Rightist campaign of the CPC in 1957.

APRIL – JUNE 1957 / 565

Because Lu Yuwen,¹ member of the Central Committee of the Revolutionary
Committee of the Chinese Kuomintang and aide to the general secretary of the State
Council, expressed some dissenting views at the Enlarged Meeting of the Central
Committee Group of the “Revolutionary KMT”² on May 25 when the meeting was
discussing how that Party could assist the Communist party in its rectification
campaign,³ some people wrote an unsigned letter to him to threaten him. The letter
read, in part, “In the newspapers we read your speech at the Enlarged Meeting of
the Central Committee of the Revolutionary Kuomintang and we are very angry at
you about it. We are opposed to your views; we are in total agreement with the
opinions of Tan Tiwu xiansheng.⁴ We think that you are precisely the type
described by Tan xiansheng as a person without shame. You have now climbed
onto the throne of being an aide to the general secretary of the State Council. In the
past you have contributed greatly to erecting the wall and digging the gulch between
the Communist Party and non-Party people, and now you even have the audacity
to act as [the Communist Party’s] jackal.⁵ You are really without shame. We are
warning you, turn back while you still have the chance, or the people will not
forgive you.”

It is a very grave thing for such an incident to occur in the midst of the
Communist Party’s rectification campaign. Each of us should give it a thought:
What is this about anyway?

What did Lu Yuwen actually say at the May 25 meeting? In summary, [what he
said was this]: (1) He told people that they should not confuse bourgeois democracy
with socialist democracy and must not weaken or eliminate the leadership of the
Communist Party; (2) He said that when the State Council met it should have
documents well-prepared for it beforehand so that in its discussions it may avoid
following the style of the assemblies in bourgeois countries—quarreling all day
long, discussing but not making any decisions—and that we must not use the excuse
of formalism to stop people from discussing; (3) He said that he personally got
along very well with Communist Party members and there was no wall or gulch
[between him and them]; that if there were walls and gulches between some people
and some [Communist] Party members, then these should be “taken down, or filled
up, from both sides,” with both sides taking the initiative; (4) He said that with
regard to certain criticisms, the Communists were entitled to a chance for rebuttal,
and that such responses should not be considered as acts of vengeance or counterattack; (5) He suggested some specific opinions regarding the issue of how it is
possible for people outside the [Communist] Party to hold [official] positions and
also hold commensurate power.⁶ We, like many of our readers, feel compelled to
ask: In what way is expressing these realistic and reasonable opinions “playing the
role of a jackal” and “having no shame”? Why must he “turn back while he has a
chance” or “face the wrath of the people”?

When people describe Lu Yuwen’s speech as “being a jackal,” naturally, in the
minds of the letter writers, they consider the Communist Party as the “tiger.”
Indeed, in leading the Chinese people in the battle against their mortal enemies—
imperialism and the forces of feudalism,⁷ the Communist Party has been as
ferocious as a tiger, and no power can daunt it or make it give way. To the Chinese


people, however, the Communist Party is their best friend. It has helped the people
in overthrowing the counterrevolutionary forces that had been riding on the
people’s backs, helped them take back such means of production as land and
factories, thus allowing the people to shake the brutal yoke of the exploiting classes
and to take back control of their own historic destiny in their own hands, and, at
this very moment, to march in the direction of the long-range goals of socialism
and communism—the enrichment and happiness of the people. The broadest
majority of the people have never in the past been filled with as bright a hope or
as great a joy in living as they have in the period of Communist leadership. [Of
course], the Communist Party has had its mistakes and weaknesses; the Communist
Party’s rectification campaign is precisely intended to rectify these mistakes and
weaknesses. All people who hold sincerely good intentions toward the [Communist] Party and toward the cause of socialism are actively proposing opinions to
help the Communist Party in its rectification so as to strengthen the cause of
socialism and to consolidate the [Communist] Party’s leadership of the people’s
masses.8 And yet, precisely at such a time, some people are branding speeches that
defend socialist democracy and the Communist Party’s right to leadership as
“shameless to the extreme” and “playing the role of a jackal,” and comparing
Communists to fear-inspiring and man-eating “tigers.” Doesn’t the political countenance of such people cause us to sit up and be vigilant? These people warn Lu
Yuwen to “turn back while there is time”; just think—what do they mean? Where,
in what direction, is he supposed to “turn back?”9 Naturally, such people are apt to
claim, in other places, that they are the ones who are truly supportive of socialism
and of the Communist Party. Nevertheless, can we possibly believe that people
who harbor such deep hatred for the vanguard of the laboring people can actually
be helping the Communist Party in its rectification and supporting the cause of
socialism?

The reason that we believe this threatening to be a major incident in current
political life is that this letter indeed is a warning to the broad masses of the people.
It is a signal that some people are taking advantage of the [Communist] Party’s
rectification campaign to carry out severe class struggle. This letter tells us that
although the large-scale class struggle in the country has become a thing of the past,
class struggle itself as a whole has not yet died down and that this is particularly
true on the ideological front.10 [Comrade] He Xiangning,11 an old alumna of the
revolution, has put it well: “Today we are in a new age; under the leadership of the
Communist Party and Chairman Mao, we are stepping toward socialism. [However], is it true that at such a time everything will be all of the same color?12 That
there will no longer be Left, Right, and the center? No. That will not be.” She points
out that a very small minority of the people are dishonest about their attitude toward
socialism; their hearts in fact hanker for capitalism; the vision in their minds is that
of a European or American style of politics, and these people are today’s Rightists.
Under the pretext of “helping the Communist Party in its rectification,” this small
minority of Rightists is challenging the leadership of the Communist Party and the
working class, or even blatantly clamoring for the Communist Party to “step down.”
They attempt to seize this opportunity to overthrow the Communist Party and the

APRIL – JUNE 1957 / 567

working class, and to topple the great cause of socialism. They want to drag history
backward, back to a bourgeois dictatorship—in fact backward to the situation of
semicolonialism that existed before the revolution—and to resubjugate the Chinese
people to the reactionary rule of imperialism and its running dogs. However, they
have forgotten that today’s China is no longer the China of the past. The broad
masses of the people will never permit history to be dragged backward. In every
place in the country where the rectification campaign is being carried out, these
Rightist elements are seeking to take advantage of the rectification campaign to
isolate the Communist Party and people who support socialism, but it is they who
are actually isolated as a result. In the various democratic parties and among the
high-level intellectuals, there are a few Rightist elements who, as Lu Yuwen
described, are hoping to use the methods of maligning and threatening and
“confining people’s speech by pretending to have a ‘fair’ attitude,” or even to adopt
the means of writing a threatening letter to achieve their goals. But isn’t this
overdoing it too much? Things, when they reach their extreme, will take a reverse
course;13 don’t they help us to understand this truth?
It is very obvious that albeit that some people are calling for the Communist
Party to “step down” and others are writing threatening letters to those who support
the Communist Party, such things cannot shake the Communist Party and the
people’s masses in the slightest. The Communist Party will persist in its rectification and in listening to all the well-intentioned criticism of the people outside the
Party, and the people’s masses will persist in following the road of socialism under
the Communist Party’s leadership. The threats and insults serve only to remind us
that class struggle is still going on in our country, and that we must still use the
viewpoint of class struggle to perceive all current phenomena, so as to reach
accurate conclusions.

Notes

1. For more biographical information on Lu Yuwen (1900–1968), see URI (1969), I, p.
482.
2. The Zhongguo guomindang geming weiyuanhui (Revolutionary Committee of the
Chinese Kuomintang) was formed in Hong Kong in January 1948; its charter membership
comprised splinter groups of the KMT who were opposed to Chiang Kai-shek’s policies—
e.g., the Sanmin zhuyi tongzhi lianhe hui (League of Comrades of the Three People’s
Principles) and the Zhongguo guomindang minzhu cujin hui (Association of the Chinese
Kuomintang to Promote Democracy). In 1949, the group joined the CPPCC and became one
of the largest “democratic parties” in the PRC. (See text Sept. 21, 1949, vol. I, note 1, and
text Winter 1949, vol. I, note 2.) For the conditions of the organization in 1956–1957, see
RMSC (1957), pp. 249–250. The name of the organization is abbreviated to Min ge, which
we have translated as “Revolutionary KMT” here.
3. The official line of the CPC rectification campaign was to have the non-CPC
personages, parties, and organizations “assist the CPC in its rectification.” At the first of
thirteen forums of democratic parties convened by the United Front Department of the
Central Committee of the CPC, May 8–June 3, 1957 (see text June 8, 1957[2], source note),
Director Li Weihan announced that the purpose of the forums was to “Ask all of you to help
us [i.e., the CPC] carry out rectification, help us correct our shortcomings and amend
mistakes, and to promote our rectification through the form of the United Front.” (See RMSC


[1958], p. 30.) However, it is also noteworthy that by the time of this document, i.e., by early
June, Mao himself had already called for the democratic parties to carry out their own rectification
(see text June 8, 1957[2], source note) and had spoken about the CPC helping non-CPC people
with their rectification instead of the other way around (see text May 15, 1957, note 31).
4. Tan Tiwu was a member of the Standing Committee of the Central Committee of
the Revolutionary Committee of the Chinese Kuomintang. She was also a delegate, from
Hunan Province, to the National People’s Congress and a member of the GAC. The title
used here in referring to Tan is xiansheng, a common term of respect that usually, but not
necessarily, refers to a male, and is translated as “Mr.” In this case, since Tan is a woman,
that would be inappropriate. The term becomes more one of respect and honor when it applies
to a female, since then it reverts to its literal meaning: “earlier born,” i.e., “elder.” Since we
cannot use “Mr.” here, we have chosen to keep the transliteration rather than force an
inappropriate translation.
5. We have, in this translation, taken some liberties with the language to render the
meaning in a more familiar Western metaphor. The Chinese here, and in other parts of the
text where the word “jackal” is used, reads wei hu zuo chang, or “being a chang for a tiger.”
This is derived from a superstition, explained in the book Zheng zi tong (A Compendium of
the Meaning of Words), that when a person is eaten by a tiger, his soul dares not depart, but
becomes a ghost known as chang. This spirit would then follow the tiger wherever it roams
and act as its herald, seeking vulnerable bodies for it to devour further.
6. This refers to the criticism raised at the May 8 (the first) forum convened by the
United Front Department (see note 3) by Zhang Bojun, chairman of the Chinese Peasant-
Worker Democratic Party (Zhongguo nonggong minzhu dang) and a vice-chairman of the
Chinese Democratic League (Zhongguo minzhu tongmeng). Zhang claimed that while the
democratic parties had “official” positions in the PRC system of government, they had no
real power, thus their position is rendered merely titular. On May 13, 1957, Zhang and Luo
Longji, another vice-chairman of the Democratic League, convened a forum of the Central
Committee of the Democratic League at which several “work groups” were established to
study problems of working out a modus vivendi with the CPC, in which the Democratic
League would have a greater role in political matters, and greater power to go with it. One
of the problems specifically had to do with you zhi you quan (having commensurate power
to go with titles and positions). See also text May 15, 1957, paragraph 6.
7. Here Mao invokes two of the so-called Three Big Mountains. See text Mar. 12, 1957,
note 5.
8. This was articulated as the goal of the policy of the CPC in the area of United Front
work at the time. See note 3.
9. Mao’s rhetorical question is obviously directed against the possible swing toward
revisionism (see text May 15, 1957, source note), or a restoration of capitalism.
10. See text Feb. 27, 1957, text surrounding note 43.
11. The honorific term used here for He is xiansheng, as in the case of Tan Tiwu earlier
in this document (see note 4). He Xiangning also is a woman, and the title “Mr.” would be
inappropriate. In this case, however, because the editorial speaks favorably of He (which it
does not of Tan), we have put “Comrade” as a substitute for xiansheng. He Xiangning
(1880–1972) was the wife of Liao Zhongkai, a prominent member of the KMT who was the
chief architect of the KMT-CPC alliance of the early 1920s. Liao was a good friend of Sun
Yat-sen and helped him greatly in the effort to reorganize the KMT along Leninist lines. He
was assassinated in 1925. He Xiangning, his widow, and Liao Chengzhi, his son, were also
been very active in the PRC government and in the CPPCC, representing the Revolutionary
Committee of the KMT. He Xiangning was also chairman of the Overseas Chinese Affairs
Commission from 1949 to 1959. For more biographical information on He, see H. Boorman
et al., eds. (1968), pp. 67–68. Also see text Sept. 4, 1956, note 7.
12. The Chinese term here is qing yi se. For the meaning, see text June 14, 1954, vol. I,
note 12; see also text Jan. 27, 1957(2), note 55.
13. See text Sept. 25, 1956, note 14; see also text May 15, 1957, note 8.

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