Explanations Regarding 'The Situation in the Summer of 1957'
(July 1957)

Source: Kau & Leung, The Writings of Mao Zedong 1949-1976, Vol. II
Pages 665-669
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I


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

A2. See text June 12, 1957, note 4.

43. The Third Plenum of the Eighth Central Committee of the CPC was eventually held
September 20—October 9, 1957. Deng Xiaoping presented the main summary and Report
on the Rectification Campaign at this meeting. For more details on this plenum, see K.
Lieberthal (1976), pp. 99-101.

44. See text Dec. 6, 1955, vol. I, note 3. Also note that a major outcome of the Third
Plenum of the Eighth Central Committee of the CPC was a final decision on this Forty-Article
Program, also known as the Twelve-Year Program.

45. Fei Xiaotong (b. 1911) is a prominent Chinese ethnologist and anthropologist. He was
a member of the Standing Committee of the Democratic League (see text July 1, 1957, note 10),
director of the Division of Culture of the Democratic League; deputy director of the Specialists
Bureau of the State Council, and vice-president of the Chinese Institute of Ethnic Studies. He
was educated at Qinghua, the London School of Economics, and later in the United States. During
the War of Resistance he taught at Southwest Associated University and at Yunnan University,
Kunming. He was an adherent of the so-called Zhang Bojun-Luo Longji clique (see text July 1,
1957, source note). The article cited here, ““Zhishi fenzi de zaochun tianqi” (The Early Spring Atmosphere of the Intellectuals), was published in RMRB on March 22, 1957. In addition Fei also
published, in 1957, the article’ “Zaochun’ qian hou’ (Before and After [the] ‘“Zaochun” [Article});
for these he was labeled a Rightist, a label which he carried until 1959. For more biographical
information on Fel, see Zhonggong renning lu, p. 113, and W. Bartke (1981), p. 69.

46. Jian Bozan (b. 1897) was an eminent Chinese historian. Jian was involved in Republican
politics early in his career during the period of the Northern Expedition and was sent abroad to
Europe in the 1930s. During the War of Resistance Against Japan, however, he began to devote
himself to historical study. While his political involvement and career resumed after 1949, when
he returned to the mainland of China from Hong Kong, he was primarily known as a professional
historian. He taught first at Yanjing University and later at Beijing University, where he eventually
became chairperson of the history department in 1954. In subsequent years he was also
instrumental in the establishment of the Philosophy and Social Sciences Faculty of the Chinese
Academy of Sciences. He was a prolific writer and can easily be identified as one of the two (the
other being Wu Han) most politically influential leaders in the circle of professional historians.
Like Wu Han, he was identified as a Rightist, and denounced during the Cultural Revolution, as
a culprit who had led historical studies toward idealism, bourgeois and even feudal ideology. The
reference here may be to Jian’s role in organizing a forum on “contending and blooming” at the
Academy of Sciences on April 30, 1957, at which he made a speech denigrating the influence of
politics on young intellectuals. For more biographical information on Jian, see Zhonggong
renming lu, pp. 974-975, and URI (1969), I, p. 142.

47. See text Jan. 27, 1957(1), note 29.

Explanations Regarding “The Situation in the Summer of 1957”
[July 1957]

Source: Wansui (n.d. 3), pp. 191-192.

According to the source, this is a set of explanations that Mao made regarding the speech
he gave at the Qingdao Conference (see text July 1957[1]}. The source indicates that Mao


made these explanations during a “report” session. No specific date is provided. “July
1957” is in brackets here because it is a conjecture.

Many people are not clear [about the meaning] of the first paragraph [of this
speech]!

Zhang Bojun is the same as Trotsky, but different from Zinoviev.* This is a
[matter of] class antagonism. It is [also] different from [the conflict] within the
bourgeoisie of the United States. What we fought against during the period of the
“Leftist” deviation was the oppositional faction within the Party.

[It was an] extraordinary oppositional faction; it was an oppositional faction
[that came from] an antagonistic class.

I have exercised dictatorship for one year, for several years. Why can’t you
exercise dictatorship for a week? What would be wrong with that? If we did not
give [people] an opportunity, who would dare to criticize [us]? There is democracy
in the Soviet Union, but there is a little too much centralism, and not enough
democracy.‘ Is it possible to have a bit more democracy? Centralism and discipline
are primary during wartime, but [the relationships between] the two, [i.e., between
centralism and democracy,] should be a bit more well-adjusted in peacetime. They
are a unity of opposites,> not a one-sided matter. We'll have to wait for a decade,
or fifteen years. There should not be any material foundation.®

It is feasible to ban gambling, but not to prohibit dancing and playing cards.

Our estimate regarding the bourgeois intellectuals refers to the majority who are
allies of the working class.’

Some comrades just won’t ever understand. ([Like] Chen Qitong.)> With regard
to units that just will never develop, what is there to fear that there are several tens
of thousands of Rightists in a population of 600 million? It is like fighting a war,
because we expect to win, but we do not [totally] wipe out [the enemy ].? There is
also [a matter of our] not having too much confidence. However, this time, the fight
against Rightists has hit the nail on the head. When things began to change in May,!®
that was the beginning. Now it is time to draw a conclusion.

When we attack people, we have to draw a distinction. With some people, there
is no reason that they should not be attacked. With some others, they should not be
attacked. [There are] reports of cadres being attacked; we must be analytical [about
this]. [What we want is to attack them like the story of] the beating of yinzhi.!! That
is exactly what we are doing now.

In the matter of blooming and contending,!* we must have the [authorities of]
upper level's send [down] work groups. There must first be spot experiments,!* and
then things can be done in an orderly and methodical way.

The experience from Yuci of Shanxi Province!4 [indicates that things] in a
cooperative become easier to cope with when there is big blooming and big
contending and big debate.!5 (Of course, this has to be [done] with the [proper]
leadership, and in an orderly fashion.) [As the saying goes,] “a lamp will not
brighten up unless it is lit; [an idea] will not be clear unless it is spoken.”!® Unified
purchasing and unified marketing!’ did not go through a vote by the citizens.

There was trouble in Hungary because they did not [pay attention to] dealing


pO


with the superstructure.!® Our regime was established under the condition of an
anti-imperialist and antifeudal revolution. Those bastards!9 also sneaked into [our
regime]. The representatives left behind by abolished classes remain unconvinced
by us and won't take their defeat lying down.

Socialism will not triumph unless [we] win the war. [An incident like that] in
Hungary will [also] happen [in China] if there are two million [bourgeoisie] in [the
field of] education, two million in the economic sector, one million in the government, and two million among the bourgeoisie.*° There are thirty million bourgeoisie. Emperor Shihuang of the Qin [dynasty] came out on the short end because he
only buried 460 Confucian scholars.4! Zhang Liang and Chen Ping, who were used
by Emperor Gaozu of the Han [dynasty] later, were not pulled down in the
rectification.22 It was “a lack of thoroughness in suppressing counterrevolutionaries.”

{The argument that] we have no shortcomings, that in the past it was the mass
line [that was followed,] are false claims.23 We have to fight for a [true] mass line.

We should send cadres into the literary circle and the circle of education in order
to develop new Party members.

It is very bad for the provinces and municipalities consistently to have no
interaction with one another and not to exchange experiences among themselves.
You should read five sets of newspapers; one of them should be from a neighboring
province. Only then can you make comparisons. The provinces should send
delegates to take part in each other’s congresses.

The big-character posters are just like acting in a play.2* We can’t bring them
back [since they are already posted].

When we talk of tactics, they are [made] for the sake of reaching a strategic aim.
Depending on the extent of the masses’ [political] consciousness and experience,
the policies that are adopted are called tactics. Big blooming and big contending
develop in a wave-like pattern; there are ups and downs.*>

We will carry out two rectifications in every five-year plan period.2© That way
we can avoid having [too] many problems piling up.

What causes more gambling is primarily that the situation has become peaceful
after the Five Major Movements and the Three Major Transformations.*? Don’t
ban dancing and playing cards, but gambling, as well as the drama of the retribution
of killing one’s son, have to be banned.

Notes

1. See text July 1957(1).

2. On Zhang Bojun, see text July 1, 1957, notes 3 and 28. Gngori Zinoviev (who
operated in the Communist International under the pseudonym Apfelbaum) was one of the
old Bolsheviks, having been at the founding of the Russian Social Democratic Labor Party
[Bolshevik] in 1912, as one of Lenin’s chief assistants. During the time of Lenin’s illness in
1923, and even after Lenin’s death in January 1924, Zinoviev was a member of the
triumvirate that assumed control in the Soviet Union—the others being Joseph Stalin and
Lev Kamenev. By January 1925, Stalin had denounced “Trotskyism” and had Trotsky
removed from his post as commissar of war. As Stalin’s own personal power began to grow


to excess, his colleagues began to align themselves with Trotsky. This did not stop Stalin's
march to supreme power, however. Zinoviev was removed from his position as chief of the
CPSU organization of Leningrad in February 1926 and was expelled from the Politburo in
July 1926. Trotsky and Kamenev were expelled from the same body in October of that year.
In 1927, this “Leftist” opposition attempted to discredit Stalin but without success. In
October 1927, both Trotsky and Zinoviev were expelled from the Central Committee of the
CPSU, and in November, after a series of anti-Stalinist demonstrations were crushed, they
were expelled from the Party. Trotsky was removed to Kazakhstan, where he resided for a
year before he was expelled from the country in January 1929. In 1935, following the
mysterious assassination of Sergei Kirov, Stalin unleashed mass purges against what he saw
to be the disturbing remnant of the Leftist opposition. After show trials in August 1936,
January 1937, and March 1938, many prominent old-guard Bolsheviks who had come to
oppose Stalin’s regime were executed, among them Zinoviev, Kamenev, and Bukharin.

3. According to an earlier document in 1957, this way of putting things (i.e., that it
should be all right for someone other than the Communists “exercising dictatorship” for a
while) was ascribed to Chen Yi. See text Mar. 20, 1957(1), paragraph 37.

4. Mao is alluding to the principle of “democratic centralism’; see text Jan. 27, 1957(1),
note 80. See also text Mar. 20, 1957(1), paragraph 27, and text July 8, 1957, note 35.

5. See text Nov. 15, 1956, note 33, and text Feb. 27, 1957(1), note 34.

6. Mao’s meaning in this passage is unclear. It appears, however, to correspond to
paragraph 15 in the speech “The Situation in the Summer of 1957” (text July 1957[1])
where Mao said: “Only after undergoing a fairly complete development of the socialist
forces of production over a ten- to fifteen-year period can our socialist economic and
political system be considered to have acquired a fairly adequate material foundation of
its own (at present, this material foundation is far from adequate).” It is possible that
the language of the transcript of Mao’s “explanatory remarks” here was garbled, and
that there are words missing in the transcript. For example, it would make better sense
if the transcript had read: Yingdang shuo meiyou wuzhi jichu (the word shuo added by
conjecture here), in which case we would translate the sentence as: “We should say that
there is no material foundation [yet].”

7. See text July 1957(1), paragraphs 4 and 13. See also text Mar. 12, 1957, paragraph
4 and note 6, and text Mar. 20, 1957, note 41.

8. On Chen Qitong, see text April 10, 1957, note 2. Mao is playing on words here. His
comment, which we have translated as “just won’t ever understand, ” is, in Chinese, a slangish
si bu tong, which rhymes with “Chen Qitong,” which is in parentheses.

9. The rather odd juxtaposition of “because” and “but” here is in the original Chinese.
It does appear to us that the sentence is somewhat garbled.

10. This could also be a reference to the article of that title, “The Situation is Changing,”
written by Mao in mid-May 1957. See text May 15, 1957.

11. This is an allusion to the opera Da jinzhi, which is based on the story of a princess
of the Tang dynasty. According to the story, the daughter of Emperor Shuzong of the Tang
dynasty (r. 756-762) was married to a zhuangyuan (the number-one candidate in the imperial
examinations). Used to having her way with things, the princess offended her husband, who
feigned drunkenness and struck her. The princess complained to her grandmother, the
empress dowager, who chastised her son, the emperor, for allowing such a thing to happen.
The emperor’s response was that while the princess may be of exalted place as jinzhi yuye
(a golden branch and a leaf of jade), i.e., royal blood, as a wife she was also obliged to obey
her husband. Moreover, since she had misbehaved to begin with, the action of the emperor's
son-in-law was justified. Here Mao’s meaning appears to be that the attack on the cadres
should be made, and taken in the spirit that even though they may be cadres, they nonetheless
deserve and need to be attacked or reprimanded out of a sense of loving them and giving
them a chance to learn to mend their ways.

12. See text Autumn 1956, note 3.

13. See text Winter 1954, vol. I, note 2 for the meaning of the term shi dian (spot


experimentation). See also text Oct. 13, 1957, note 139, for Mao’s comment that the
rectification should start with three years of spot experimenting.

14, Yuci is in central Shanxi Province, about 18 km southeast of the provincial capital
of Taiyuan. We have no information regarding Mao’s reference to Yuci’s experience, but
Mao did speak of the rectification in the rural cooperatives (the agricultural producers’
cooperatives) and especially the so-called third-category cooperatives, in paragraph 5 of text
July 1957(1).

15. See text Oct. 9, 1957(1), note 4.

16. The “saying” that Mao quotes here is deng bu bo bu liang; hua bu shuo bu tou,
apparently a slangish and probably local vernacular aphorism. We have not been able to
trace or to specify its meaning.

17. See text Nov. 4, 1953, vol. I, note 16, and text Jan. 18, 1957, note 29.

18. On the reference to the Hungarian Incident, see text Nov. 15, 1956, note 27.

i9. The term Mao uses here is the extremely vulgar wugui wangba dan; see text Jan.
18, 1957, note 25.

20. The Chinese here does not use the term “bourgeoisie” (zichan jieji) twice. It does
not appear in the first part of the sentence. However, it appears clear that what Mao is referring
to in this context is the bourgeoisie (or, more specifically, to “bourgeois Rightists”). Mao
does use the term zichan in the second instance (i.e., “two million among the bourgeoisie”),
which is what makes for the possible confusion here.

21. Emperor Shihuang (sometimes “Shihuangd?”) (259-210 B.c.) was the founder of the
Qin dynasty. He unified the warring states and established China’s first centralized absolutist
bureaucratic state system, ruling as Chinese history’s first “emperor.” While traditionally
vilified as a tyrant by Chinese historiography for his harsh policies of unification and
centralism, Emperor Shihuang is something of a cultural hero in the historiography of the
Chinese Communist regime and in Mao’s mind. One of the emperor’s policies, instigated
by his “Legalist” chief adviser and minister Li Si, was to ban Confucian teaching by burning
classical texts and writings of Confucian scholars that were circulated privately in the society
(copies were preserved by the government’s official archives in a magnificent library in
Xianyang, the imperial capital) and burying alive “offensive” Confucian scholars. The exact
number of scholars thus executed is not known, but Sima Qian, the renowned historian of
the succeeding Han dynasty, suggests that some 460 were killed, This is known in Chinese
history as the infamous fen shu kang ru (book burning and burying alive of scholars).

22. Zhang Liang (d. 189 B.C.) was a grand minister of the early Han dynasty. He was a
descendent of the nobility of the state of Han. When the state was conquered and destroyed
by the Qin, he made several unsuccessful attempts to assassinate Emperor Shihuang. Legend
has it that eventually he received from a mysterious hermit Huang Shi Gong (The Old Man
of Huangshi) a legendary book on the military-strategy teachings of Jiang Tai Gong (the
chief strategist of the ancient Zhou emperor, King Wu) and used his knowledge to assist Liu
Bang in overthrowing the Qin dynasty. Liu eventually became the founder of the Han
dynasty, Emperor Gaozu. Zhang was made one of his chief ministers. Chen Ping (d. 178
B.C.) was another of Liu Bang’s chief lieutenants in the war to overthrow the Qin dynasty
and also in the war against Liu’s archrival Xiang Yu, whom Chen had at one time served.
Chen was made the Marquis of Quyi by Emperor Gaozu and Gaozu’s successor. He also
plotted to overthrow the usurping Empress Lu’s cabal and was instrumental in putting
Emperor Wendi on the throne in 180 B.c.

Here Mao is using the term “rectification” in an obviously anachronistic, but humorously
interesting, way.

23. See text April 1957(2), text surrounding note 21; text July 8, 1957, note 56; and text
July 1957(1), note 7.

24. See text July 8, 1957(2), note 40.

25. See text Nov. 15, 1956, versions I and II, and text Jan. 27, 1957(1), note 88.

26. See text July 8, 1957, paragraph 8.

27. See text Oct. 9, 1957, note 5, and text Oct. 23, 1951, vol. I.

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