……Eradicating bourgeois ideology among the Chinese people is a long-term undertaking. As for these intellectuals, we cannot do without them; without them, we would be unable to carry out our work. There would be no engineers, professors, teachers, journalists, doctors, writers, or artists. We must both make use of them and struggle against them at the same time. This is therefore a very complex task. We cannot simply employ them while neglecting the aspect of struggle; otherwise, after a certain period, they will once again turn against the Party. The Hungarian incident served as a major lesson for us. In China, we allowed thousands of “mini-Hungarians” to emerge. In Beijing alone there are thirty-four institutions of higher learning, and we let them launch a rebellion. For a time they gained the upper hand, stirring up such turmoil that it seemed the Communist Party was on the verge of collapse. It was then that we prepared to counterattack. After several months of debate, we refuted their fallacies, won over the majority, and brought them over to our side. Of course, you over there cannot do the same, because you are too close to the enemy. Here with us, in every university, middle school, factory, and government office, we allowed the rightists to act as they pleased, letting them speak as much as they wanted. For a whole month we remained silent, even publishing their statements in the newspapers. This effectively put them on record, making it impossible for them to reverse course afterward. Only then did we organize our forces, launch a counteroffensive, and seize the initiative. We had solid grounds for doing so. Without taking this approach, socialism would have been gravely endangered. Although the rightists’ political capital was thereby destroyed, there still remained some moderates who might oppose us. Whenever the world is thrown into turmoil, they could resurface. We must remain prepared.