November 18, 1957

[Excerpts from a speech at the Moscow Meeting of Representatives of the Communist
and Workers' Parties.]


With regard to the question of unity I'd like to say something about the
approach. I think our attitude should be one of unity towards every comrade,
no matter who, provided he is not a hostile element or a saboteur. We should
adopt a dialectical, not a metaphysical, approach towards him. What is meant
by a dialectical approach? It means being analytical about everything,
acknowledging that human beings all make mistakes and not negating a person
completely just because he has made mistakes. Lenin once said that there
is not a single person in the world who does not make mistakes. Everyone
needs support. An able fellow needs the help of three other people, a fence
needs the support of three stakes. With all its beauty the lotus needs the
green of its leaves to set it off. These are Chinese proverbs. Still another
Chinese proverb says three cobblers with their wits combined equal Chukeh
Liang the master mind. Chukeh Liang by himself can never be perfect, he has
his limitations. Look at this declaration of our twelve countries. We have
gone through a first, second, third and fourth draft and have not yet finished
polishing it. I think it would be presumptuous for anyone to claim God-like
omniscience and omnipotence. So what attitude should we adopt towards a comrade
who has made mistakes? We should be analytical and adopt a dialectical, rather
than a metaphysical, approach. Our Party once got bogged down in metaphysics,
in dogmatism, which totally destroyed anyone not to its liking. Later, we
repudiated dogmatism and came to learn a little more dialectics. The unity
of opposites is the fundamental concept of dialectics. In accordance with
this concept, what should we do with a comrade who has made mistakes? We
should first wage a struggle to rid him of his wrong ideas. Second, we should
also help him. Point one, struggle, and point two, help. We should proceed
from good intentions to help him correct his mistakes so that he will have
a way out.

However, dealing with persons of another type is different. Towards persons
like Trotsky and like Chen Tu-hsiu, Chang Kuo-tao and Kao Kang in China,
it was impossible to adopt a helpful attitude, for they were incorrigible.
And there were individuals like Hitler, Chiang Kai-shek and the tsar, who
were likewise incorrigible and had to be overthrown because we and they were
absolutely exclusive of each other. In this sense, there is only one aspect
to their nature, not two. In the final analysis, this is also true of the
imperialist and capitalist systems, which are bound to be replaced in the
end by the socialist system. The same applies to ideology, idealism will
be replaced by materialism and theism by atheism. Here we are speaking of
the strategic objective. But the case is different with tactical stages,
where compromises may be made. Didn't we compromise with the Americans on
the 38th Parallel in Korea? Wasn't there a compromise with the French in
Viet Nam?

At each tactical stage, it is necessary to be good at making compromises
as well as at waging struggles. Now let us return to the relations between
comrades. I would suggest that talks be held by comrades where there has
been some misunderstanding between them. Some seem to think that, once in
the Communist Party, people all become saints with no differences or
misunderstandings, and that the Party is not subject to analysis, that is
to say, it is monolithic and uniform, hence there is no need for talks. It
seems as if people have to be 100 per cent Marxists once they are in the
Party. Actually there are Marxists of all degrees, those who are 100 per
cent, 90, 80, 70, 60 or 50 per cent Marxist, and some who are only 10 or
20 per cent Marxist. Can't two or more of us have talks together in a small
room? Can't we proceed from the desire for unity and hold talks in the spirit
of helping each other? Of course I'm referring to talks within the Communist
ranks, and not to talks with the imperialists (though we do hold talks with
them as well). Let me give an example. Aren't our twelve countries holding
talks on the present occasion? Aren't the more than sixty Parties holding
talks too? As a matter of fact they are. In other words, provided that no
damage is done to the principles of Marxism-Leninism, we accept from others
certain views that are acceptable and give up certain of our own views that
can be given up. Thus we have two hands to deal with a comrade who has made
mistakes, one hand to struggle with him and the other to unite with him.
The aim of struggle is to uphold the principles of Marxism, which means being
principled; that is one hand. The other hand is to unite with him. The aim
of unity is to provide him with a way out, to compromise with him, which
means being flexible. The integration of principle with flexibility is a
Marxist-Leninist principle, and it is a unity of opposites.

Any kind of world, and of course class society in particular, teems with
contradictions. Some say that there are contradictions to be "found" in socialist
society, but I think this is a wrong way of putting it. The point is not
that there are contradictions to be found, but that it teems with contradictions.
There is no place where contradictions do not exist, nor is there any person
who cannot be analysed. To think that he cannot is being metaphysical. You
see, an atom is a complex of unities of opposites. There is a unity of the
two opposites, the nucleus and the electrons. In a nucleus there is again
a unity of opposites, the protons and the neutrons. Speaking of the proton,
there are protons and anti-protons, and as for the neutron, there are neutrons
and anti-neutrons. In short, the unity of opposites is present everywhere.
The concept of the unity of opposites, dialectics, must be widely propagated.
I say dialectics should move from the small circle of philosophers to the
broad masses of the people. I suggest that this question be discussed at
meetings of the political bureaus and at the plenary sessions of the central
committees of the various Parties and also at meetings of their Party committees
at all levels. As a matter of fact, the secretaries of our Party branches
understand dialectics, for when they prepare reports to branch meetings,
they usually write down two items in their notebooks, first, the achievements
and, second, the shortcomings. One divides into two -- this is a universal
phenomenon, and this is dialectics.


Transcription by the Maoist Documentation Project.