(April 2, 1958)
We want to learn from you. You achieved industrialization earlier than we did. China is a very poor country; one might say it has almost nothing. We should learn whatever is good from all countries and all places. This is a good thing. Why shouldn’t we learn from others if they have something worthwhile? After all, does such learning bring more benefits or more harm? I am referring here to learning the good things— including the Soviet experience—namely, their positive experiences and those aspects that are useful to us. However, at times we have also adopted certain practices that were not suitable for our own conditions. The responsibility for this does not lie with the Soviet experts, but with ourselves. By “blindly copying” the Soviet experience, I mean that out of ten points, perhaps only one was applied incorrectly. Our slogan has been to learn from advanced experiences, yet we have also absorbed some elements that were not well-suited to China. There is, however, an advantage to this: by further refining those unsuitable practices, we can arrive at a relatively more accurate approach. Every country has its own unique characteristics; if a practice does not align with these characteristics, it will simply not work.


Learning from advanced experiences applies to every nation. At the same time, there is always a small portion of experience that is not universally applicable, and attempting to impose such practices on different countries can be harmful. Lenin cautioned against rigidly copying the words of Marxist texts. Even the fundamental principles of Marxism should serve as a guide for action, rather than being treated as dogma. Communist parties in various countries ought to apply these principles creatively, adapting them to their respective national circumstances and putting them into practice.


It is now a positive development that a conference was held in Moscow, where representatives of many communist parties decided upon a fundamental program. As mentioned earlier, this program explicitly states that the universal truths of Marxism must be combined with the specific conditions of each country, and that internationalism and patriotism are unified. For a long period in the past, no such program existed; now, however, we have one that has been accepted by communist parties worldwide.


On April 2, 1958, Mao Zedong received the entire Polish government delegation, headed by Jaroszewicz, Deputy Chairman of the Council of Ministers of the Polish People’s Republic, at the Donghu Guesthouse in Wuhan. In the front row, fourth from the right, stands Jaroszewicz; in the back row, first from the right, is Liu Huinong, Mayor of Wuhan.