Interjections at a Meeting During the Qingdao Conference
(July 20, 1957)

Source: Kau & Leung, The Writings of Mao Zedong 1949-1976, Vol. II
Pages 646-650
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646 { MAO ZEDONG

Notes

1. We are not exactly sure of what Mao meant by these figures. A tentative guess Is
that he was referring to the number of “counterrevolutionary bourgeois elements” who had
been exposed in (“came out of”) the anti-Rightist campaign, and that he wanted to have the
experience repeated elsewhere throughout the nation.

2. We are unable to identify Liu-Sha-He. The characters here do not resemble a rea!
naine, but appear to be a pseudonym.

3. The phrases di shu and xian shu here refer, we believe, to short forms of di wei shuji
(special district Party committee secretaries) and vian wei shuji (xian Party committee
secretaries). We do not know exactly what Mao means in an overall sense.

4. See text Mar. 20, 1957(1), note 119; text July 8, 1957(2), note 2.

5. See text Autumn 1956, note 3.

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

7. On the meaning of “removing rocks,” see text Feb. 18, 1951, vol. I, note 11.

8. The term ku cu (stockpiled) also has the meaning of “hold in reserve.” The original
has XX vi, in which yi is the word for “a hundred million.” Following our custom, however,
we have opted to render all indeterminable numbers in the text as simply X in our translation.
In this case, XX merely means that two characters were changed to X in the text, but it does
not give us any clue to the exact figures used in the original. The same applies to the number
in the next sentence. The phrase there is XXX 1.

9. We believe that XXX here refers to Stalin.

10. See text Jan. 1957, note 38, and text Jan. 27, 1957(2), note |.

11. See text Mar. 12, 1957, source note, and text May 15, 1957, source note and note 31.

12. We cannot tell what Mao meant by the phrase gongchan zhuyi che xiehut, which we
have translated as “the Association of Communists.”

13. See text Dec. 8, 1956, note 33, for the meaning of “hats.”

14. In the novel Xi you ji, when the Buddha and the Boddhisattva Guanyin subdue the
Monkey King (Sun Wukong), a golden headband is placed on his skull. This 1s no ordinary
ornament, but can contract in response to a chanted curse that the Monk of Tang
(Xuanzhuang) can use to control and tame the Monkey King. See text July 17, 1957, note
8. On the character Zhu Bajie in the novel, often known as “The Pig,” see text Oct. 11,
1955(2), vol. I, note 15.

15. See text Sept. 21, 1949, vol. I, note I.

Interjections at a Meeting During the Qingdao Conference
(July 20, 1957)

Source: Wansui (n.d. 3), pp. 194-195.
See text July 17, 1957, source note.
It would no longer do for us not to do some work solidly and earnestly with the

countryside. The countryside is a weak spot [in our situation]; it would only work
if everybody loved their country. Let’s make this principle clear.


JULY ~ SEPTEMBER 1957 / 647

One [thing] is that [our] economic foundation is very weak; another [thing] is
that [our] politics are not secure. It will take five years before cooperativization can
be consolidated; and it will take at least ten years to let everyone get gradually
accustomed to the socialist system. The military and the people, and the Party and
the people, must be forged into one.! Right now, the British and the Americans are
interfering with us, and that is to our disadvantage. It brings more trouble [for us],
and we don’t have anything to do business with.

It is not good to emphasize the seasons, and let’s not get so much involved in things
of formalism.* They can fight over them; we will not fight, not in a hundred years.

The grain consumption in the countryside has to be greatly reduced.

The October Revolution, the Second World War, the victory of the Chinese
Revolution—all these victories took place under conditions when there wasn’t an
“International.’* What good did the nine-nation intelligence bureau accomplish?5
What harm is there in not promoting it? Just [tell us] when there is a meeting and
we will come, and that should be enough. Meet with the lords, and resolve problems
individually.6 The economic conference invited us to take part.? Some comrades
seem to think that we just have to participate. Why? What it did was to bring about
an industrial Europe and an agrarian Asia.8 In general international conferences,
we only send observers to take part.

It may not be to our advantage that XXXX is holding power [in the Soviet
Union].? The first [problem] is international tension: Their “Marxism” is really
strong, [so strong] that they take your money in one hand and release merchandise
in the other. |

Don't just listen to the negative side [of things]. Since the Twentieth
Congress of the CPSU, the problem of what attitude we should adopt toward
XXXX has been raised. XX XX does have shortcomings, and [his] work style
is not correct; to have several dozen Central Committee members rush right in
fall at once] is unprecedented.!° XX XX said there is no collective leadership,
such as deciding on holding (?)!! [There are] the questions of the delegation of
industrial management power and [authority over] trade. In trade, Eastern
Europe is adequately taken care of. Right now, without the Soviet Union, we
can’t get any industry accomplished. These are the things that XX XX and
people on his side would say.

In terms of comparing policies, XX XX 1s a bit better.!¢ In work style they are
the same; six of one, half a dozen of the other.!

XXX wouldn’t sign the Sino-Soviet Treaty of Friendship and Alliance.!4 It was
not until the Chinese scolded and the British lent a hand that it was done.

Four companies—two colonies (the Northeast and Xinjiang). XX XX did good
things about these, but there are still two pieces that have not been resolved.!>

It was Nehru who proposed the abolition of the intelligence bureau, and
Roosevelt who proposed to abolish the Third International.!© Now they want to
establish an international organization again; what’s the rush? [It’s like having] a
special group waiting to start a [new] magazine—you ve got to listen to him on all
things; [his ideas are] forcibly imposed on others, and there is no exchanging of
opinions,!?


I talked with Mikoyan for eight hours.!8 We said; we hope you are stable. If you
are not stable, things will not be easy to accomplish. He said, too, that he hoped we
would be stable. He said that we should be cautious and careful, [because] we have
Rightists. Many things just cannot be anticipated.

One time Bulganin said something not quite properly.!? Khrushchev? pointed
out that there were errors of principle [there], and that displeased Bulganin.*!
Furthermore, when Bulganin went abroad, Khrushchev was always tagging along,
feeling that he too was an “attendant” premier; this is the reason for Bulganin’s
opposition to Khrushchev.

Tito is very shrewd. It is hard to tell whether or not Khrushchev is going to
get the best of him in the game. Right now things are to Tito’s advantage; Tito’s
double-facedness is incorrigible.

Our contradiction with Khrushchev is [over] the problem of Stalin’s supporters,
and [over] the ways in which we view the contradictions among the people.*?

In the past, for several decades, they have not gone down to take a look around;
right now, they are criticizing XXXX for looking at flowers on horseback,** but
looking at flowers on horseback is still better than not going down at all. Shepilov
approved of [the idea of] internal contradiction, and wrote a draft resolution on
stripping Khrushchev of his positions.*> Things have got to the point of irreconcilability between them; Molotov2® and others criticize Khrushchev for being a
“Frotskyist,” and for being “Rightist deviationist.”

We have absorbed the experience of the international Communist movement;
we will not promote mortal struggle inside the Party.

In the Song dynasty there was erected a monument—don’t kill cadres indiscriminately.“? Even among feudal dynasties there are some who are smarter than others;
and indeed, after that, fewer were killed.

Notes

1. See text Mar. 18, 1957, note 59.

2. We are not sure of Mao’s point of reference when he speaks of U.S. and British
interference. The language, though not garbled, ts somewhat ambiguous. The final part of
the sentence appears, however, to allude to some trade-policy problems, and that would
suggest the continued debate on the U.S. ban on trade and travel to China, a matter of some
controversy in June and July 1957. See text June 8, 1957(2), note &.

3. Again, Mao’s meaning here is unclear. The term /reqi, translated as “the seasons,” Is
ambiguous. However, Mao’s statements here appear to have some connection with paraeraph 5 of text July 1957(1).

4. The reference here, we believe, is to the Communist International (Konuninisticheskii Internatstonal), or the “Third International,” commonly known as the
Comintern. The organization, especially under Stalin, had in the 1930s become largely
an instrument for Soviet interference with the affairs of other Communist parties. In
May 1943, the Presidium voted to dissolve the Communist International, and the
member parties ratified the decision.

5. Mao is referring to the Communist Information Bureau (aformatsionnoe Butro
Kommunisticheskikh Partii), generally known as the Cominform. It was set up in September
1947 by representatives of the Communist parties of Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia, France,
Hungary, Italy, Poland, Romania, the Soviet Union, and Yugoslavia. In 1948~—1949 the


organization effectively broke up over the dispute between the Soviet Union and Tito’s
Yugoslavia. Finally, in April 1956, the dissolution of the Cominform was announced.

6. Mao is referring to a political form in the late-Zhou dynasty, the Spring and Autumn
period, and the Warring States period during which “China” was divided into many feudal
States and principalities, and the leader of the nobility (sometimes known as the “hegemon”
in the Warring States period) would try to settle disputes among factions or individual feudal
lords (known as the zhu hou, the term Mao uses here) by convening a mediating conference.

7, Mao ts referring to the Council for Mutual Economic Aid, or the Comecon. This
organization was founded in 1948 (as a response, of sorts, to the launching of the Marshall
Plan by the United States) by Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Poland, Romania, and
the Soviet Union. Albania and the German Democratic Republic joined subsequently.
Interest in expanding membership and making policy concrete was enhanced after the
Hungarian and Polish crises tin 1956 (see text Nov. 15, 1956, note 27); hence Mao’s
comments here that Chinese membership in the Comecon was discussed at this time.

8. Mao’s sarcastic remark stands in front of a very deep-seated problem of perspective
on the theory and strategy of revolution in the Communist movement as a whole. The dispute
stems from “classical” Marxist theory, in that Marx himself held the view that non-European
countries, and particularly Asian societies, were culturally characterized by a socioeconomic
system that differed from that which European societies had gone through in their stages of
historical development. In the preface to Critique of Political Economy, ina list of historical
ages (or stages) that included “classical antiquity,” “the feudal mode of production,” and
“the capitalistic mode of production,” Marx included the designation “the Asiatic mode of
production,” which he regarded as a very early stage in the development of humanity, closest
ta tribal society, which grew out of primitive communism. Marx argued that the European
societies of the classical period had bypassed this stage, whereas the Asian countries had yet
to grow out of this stage. During Marx’s own lifetime, and in the writings of Engels, the
problem was developed. With the passage of trme, Marx and Engels tended to draw a less
rigid dichotomy between Asian and European socteties, and to see a role for the Asian
countries in the world revolutionary transformation. (For example, writing of the Taiping
Rebellion in China in 1853 in “Revolution in China and in Europe” in the May 20, 1853
edition of the New York Daily Tribune, Marx argued that capitalism was developing as a
single world economic system, and that upheavals in the non-European parts of this system
could have repercussions that would bring about revolutions in Europe itself.) Nonetheless,
In general, Marx and Engels seemed to hold to a “Eurocentric” view of revolution and a
view that, no matter what the revolutionary role for Asian societies might be, as societies,
in the scheme of the broad stages of history, they were backward. (For example, India’s
progress would depend on its becoming “Europeanized.’’) This view had a profound effect
on “orthodox” Marxists suchas Karl Kautsky, who tended to emphasize economic and social
determinism in their interpretation of Marx’s ideas. Eventually, it would be up to Lenin, who
shifted the emphasis from determinism to revolutionary voluntarism, to suggest theories of
a “noncapitalist path of development” for societies previously considered backward, and to
award to these societies, in his theory, a more direct and even vanguard role in the revolution.

In 1914, Lenin wrote the article “Backward Europe, Advanced Asia,” which spelled out
some of these ideas. Even here, however, Lenin still assumed that the European proletariat
would play the critical role in world revolution, and it was the victory of the European
industrial working class that would set free “both the peoples of Europe and the peoples of
Asia.” It was not until the outbreak of the First World War that Lenin further developed his
ideas on the role of the colonial world (under imperialism) in the world revolution. Yet the
problem lingered on, right down to the debate at the Second Congress of the Communist
International in 1920 between Lenin and M. N. Roy, who held the quintessential “Asiacentric” position, and even down to Stalin’s time. On the whole, the burden of Marxist-Leninist
theory going back to the mid-nineteenth century tends to expose an attitude that Mao
sarcastically puts here as “industrial (advanced?) Europe, agrarian (backward?) Asia.” The
importance of this to Mao, who seeks to identify a “Chinese road to socialism” that


nonetheless is consistent, in his mind, with Marxism-Leninism, should not be lost. dncidentally, the issue of whether Marx considered China as an example of the Asiatic mode of
production was a subject of a heated debate in the pages of The China Quarterly, nos. 11,
12, and 16, between Karl Wittfogel and Maurice Meisner.)

9. XXXX here quite clearly refers to Khrushchev. Mao is being sarcastic in the
remainder of this paragraph.

10. On the Twentieth Congress of the CPSU, see text Feb. 9, 1956, source note. We
believe the reference to XXXX here may be a reference to Trotsky.

11. The question mark is in the original text. This may indicate that some words are
missing here.

12. The comparison that Mao makes here, we believe, is implicitly a comparison
between Khrushchev and Stalin. Ostensibly Mao would retain this guarded approval of
Khrushchev until the end of 1957. On this subject, see text Nov. 17, 1957, source note.

13. The Chinese saying that Mao uses here, ban jin ba liang, literally means “half a
cattie, or eight Jiang” (liang being a Chinese weight measure sometimes translated as a tael;
there are sixteen Jiang to a jin, or cattie). The idiomatic translation here is therefore apt.

14. On the treaty, see text Jan. 2, 1950, vol. I, note 1. It is our own speculation that XXX
here stands for Stalin, who did take a tough bargaining stance at the time of the treaty. This
would then be, in our memory, the first time that Mao semipublicly accuses Stalin of having
taken an obstructive posture toward Sino-Soviet relations in the earliest years of the PRC.
This would be a serious matter, both in international relations and in Mao’s assessment of
Stalin, which was deteriorating in 1957.

15. Mao is referring, we believe, to the “joint corporations” that were set up by the Soviet
Union as a result of the treaty agreements (see note 14). The critical tone that Mao adopts
here, and his linking of these “corporations” to “‘the two colonies,” stem from the fact that
while ostensibly these “corporations” were established to “assist China’s development in
construction,” they were concessions that Stalin had wrenched from Mao at the treaty
negotiations, and they symbolized continuous Soviet domination of the PRC in the early |
years of the republic’s history. Moreover, they were located in Xinjiang, one of the two
regions that, in Mao’s mind, became semicolonies of the Soviet Union. XXXX here refers,
we believe, to Khrushchev again.

16. We do not know for sure how it is that Roosevelt proposed the abolition of the
Comintern, although it is understood that the dissolution of the Comintern, or Third
International, after Hitler’s attack on the Soviet Union in June 1941 and the Soviet
Union’s becoming a member of the Allied Powers were at least in part motivated by
Stalin’s eagerness to demonstrate to his new allies (Roosevelt and Churchill) that the
Soviet Union had no intention to interfere with the affairs of other countries. The
question of the Comintern as an “instrument for the exportation of revolution” was at
stake. Similarly, we have no specific information on how Nehru may have proposed the
abolition of the Cominform, but, incidentally, at the time of the dissolution of the
Cominform, Moscow had a growing interest in cultivating Nehru as an advocate of
neutralism and, perhaps, as a spokesperson for anti-Western sentiments in the nonaligned movement.

17. Weare uncertain about Mao’s point of reference here. We cannot tell if he is speaking
metaphorically, or of a specific plan for a specific magazine.

18. Anastas Mikoyan, then first vice-chairman of the Council of Ministers of the USSR,
headed a delegation that visited China on April 6 and 7, 1956. See text April [6], 1956,
source note.

19. Nikolai Bulganin was chairman of the Council of Ministers of the USSR at this time.

20. The Chinese in this paragraph has the abbreviation Ke for Khrushchev, instead of
the full Ke-du-xtao-fu. ,

21. Similarly, the Chinese in this paragraph has the abbreviation bu for Bu-er-jia-ning.

22. See text Jan. 18, 1957, note 17.

23. See text Feb. 27, 1957, source note and note 3.