Annotations and Revisions to the Article “The Socialist Revolution”
(September 15, 1957)
To Comrade Hu Qiaomu⑵: This document is suitable for use. Please forward it to Liu, Deng, Bodha, and Dingyi for further consideration.
Mao Zedong
September 15th
[1] This second version was produced during Mao Zedong’s review of the People’s Daily editorial titled “This Is a Socialist Revolution on the Political and Ideological Fronts.” The text typeset in Song typeface represents additions and revisions made by Mao Zedong. The editorial was published in the People’s Daily on September 18, 1957.
[2] Hu Qiaomu was, at that time, an alternate member of the Secretariat of the CPC Central Committee and Mao Zedong’s secretary.
[3] Liu refers to Liu Shaoqi. Deng refers to Deng Xiaoping, who served as General Secretary of the CPC Central Committee at the time. Bodha is Chen Boda, then Director of the CPC Central Committee’s Research Office on Political Issues and also one of Mao Zedong’s secretaries. Dingyi is Lu Dingyi, who was then Minister of the CPC Central Committee’s Propaganda Department.

The task of our people’s struggle against the bourgeois rightists is to thoroughly complete the socialist revolution on both the political and ideological fronts. This revolution has not yet been accomplished. Many people have yet to recognize this fact. The rightists, however, have always opposed such a revolution, going so far as to engage in actions openly hostile to the Party and the people. This revolution serves as an indispensable complement and an inevitable continuation of the socialist revolution concerning the ownership of the means of production, which reached its peak in 1956. What we now refer to as the socialist revolution is often called socialist transformation. In 1956, the socialist transformation—primarily in terms of relations of production, especially the ownership of the means of production—was basically completed (though not entirely), whereas the transformation of people had not been achieved. The bourgeois rightists, for their part, opposed this transformation most vehemently. The Communist Party of China has repeatedly emphasized both the necessity and the possibility of transforming people; nevertheless, it has been unable to persuade the reactionary bourgeois rightists.