Conversation with Chinese Students and Trainees in Moscow (Excerpts)
(November 17, 1957)

Source: Kau & Leung, The Writings of Mao Zedong 1949-1976, Vol. II
Pages 779-780
============================================================

in the rectification campaign. See text April 1957, and text Jan. 12, 1958, note 26.

Conversation with Chinese Students and Trainees in Moscow
[Excerpts |

(November 17, 1957)

Source: RMRB (Nov. 20, 1957), 1; and Yao Xitang, “Zai Lieningshan shang
huijian Mao zhux1” (Meeting Chairman Mao on Lenin Hill), in Mao guanhuai, pp.
83-87.

See source note to preceding document in this volume. The Yao article contains certain
passages that are not found in the RMRB (Nov. 20, 1957) article. We include only the more
important passages from these two articles here. At the end of each paragraph in the text


we have indicated the source of that paragraph. For other Chinese texts or appearances,
and available English translations of the RMRB article, see the source note of the preceding
document. None is available for the Yao article, which is a reprint from Zhongguo qingnian,
24 (1957). This document repeats, or duplicates, some passages of text Nov. 17, 1957(7).

[have only three sentences to say to you: First, young people must be courageous
and modest. Second, I wish you good health, study well, and work well in the future.
Third, be closely united with our friends of the Soviet Union.

The world belongs to the younger generation. The Soviet Union is the leader of
the socialist countries and the head of the socialist camp.

The peoples of China and the Soviet Union should be closely united. China and
the Soviet Union are [two] great countries; as long as we are united as one, the
enemy will fear us.

[The above, RMRB. |

Twelve socialist countries have arrived at anew agreement for solidarity among
themselves, and the delegates from the Communist parties of sixty-four countries,
too, will soon arrive at an agreement for solidarity.! Are you happy about this?

In another fifteen years, the Soviet Union will catch up with and surpass the
United States, and we, China, will also catch up with or surpass Britain. Then
imperialism will have nothing to be so fierce about.

The Chinese people are resolved to catch up with and surpass imperialism. The
[task of implementing] the next several five-year plans in China? and the responsibility of transforming the world fall upon the shoulders of this generation of young
people of yours... . You have a much easier [task of] learning now than we had in
the past; we learned about Marx only very lately. In the beginning all we learned
was the stuff of the bourgeoisie. It was only through decades of effort that we
transformed ourselves and came around, and only then did we slowly come to grasp
Marxism. It is not easy to learn something. Therefore modesty is absolutely
necessary ....

You are probably very relaxed now, because you have not yet done anything.
When you become an engineer, or a factory director, or a secretary of a Party
committee, then you will know that there are many difficulties.

... You lack tempering, and therefore you must earnestly undergo protracted
tempering.* Do not be in the least arrogant, and don’t strut around with your tails
cocked in the air.

... 1 can go into the water and swim at twenty-two degrees centigrade. Can you?
I swam across the Yangtze River and twice swam across the Qiantang River... .6
Are any of you from Hunan? I swam across the Xiang River three times’ and
climbed many high mountains in Hunan as well as in Jiangxi.

[The above, Yao.|]

Notes


--- Notes

1. See text Nov. 2, 1957, source note, and text Nov. 17, 1957(€1), note 10. See also text Nov.
6, 1957, note 10, for the declaration that embodies the solidarity that Mao speaks of here.

2. This appears to be an echo of the “peaceful competition” platform of the congresses
at this time; see text Nov. 6, 1957, note 11.


21. See text Autumn 1956, note 3.

22. The passage here, and particularly the last sentence, resembles the last half of the
fourth paragraph of Excerpt 2. There is also a section here, beginning with “You have not
done any work [yet],” that resembles a passage of what has been identified as a conversation
that Mao had with these students and trainees. See text Nov. 17, 1957(2), paragraph 8.

23. The term here is da cheng yi pian. See text Mar. 18, 1957, note 59.

24. On the history of the Eighth Route Army, see text Sept. 12, 1953(1), vol. I, note 13.

25. On the Forty Articles, or the National Program for Agricultural Development,
1956-1957, see text Oct. 11, 1955, vol. I, note 56; text Oct. 11, 1955(2), vol. I, note 18: and
text Dec. 6, 1955, vol. I, note 3. Here Mao is referring to the First Revised Draft of the Forty
Articles, which was adopted by the Third Plenum of the Eighth Central Committee of the
CPC in September 1957 and promulgated on October 26, 1957. (The original Forty Articles
was published on January 26, 1956.) Subsequently the programs would go through a second
revision in May 1958 at the Second Session of the Eighth CPC Congress.

26. See text Mar. 20, 1957, note 20.

27. See text Dec. 27, 1955(2), vol. 1, note 117, and text Aug. 30, 1956, note 8.

28. The expression that Mao uses here is wang kai yi mian (literally, leave one side of
a net open). The aphorism is derived from the saying wang kai san mian (leaving three sides
of the net open), which 1s from the “Di wang benji” (Chronicle of Ancient Emperors and
Kings) in the book Siiji (Historical Record) by Sima Qian. On the subject of eliminating the
Four Pests, see text Dec. 21, 1955, vol. I, note 9; on including the elimination of the Four
Pests in the Forty Articles, see text Oct. 13, 1957, note 134.

29. The context here does not provide evidence of who XXX may be.

30. This passage resembles the fifth paragraph of the “conversation” version. See text
Nov. 17, 1957(2), paragraph 5. The idea of surpassing Britain is picked up again by Mao
in early 1958. See text Jan. 28-30, 1958, note 2.

31. Mao is using here the very common saying, tian you bu ce zhi fengyun, ren you dan
xt zhi huo fu (literally, There are unfathomable winds and clouds in the sky; there are, ina
person’s life, calamities and good fortunes that change from day to night). We have been
unable to trace the classical source of this aphorism.

32. This final paragraph is similar to the first paragraph of the “conversation” version,
i.e., of text Nov. 17, 1957(2). Also, Excerpt 2 ends with a sentence that is not in the present
document: “‘The world is yours; the future of China is yours.”