Now our reputation is very bad. Last year we made a big splash; this year it is no good—they say we are paper tigers and do not keep our word.

This is very good. Not only the enemy, but even our friends feel we are no good. Last year our reputation was huge, everyone feared us—not only the United States and Britain feared us, they were very alarmed, but our friends also feared us and felt the pressure: how could we leap forward so fast? Now they are not so afraid. Britain says that within thirty years China will not be a force worth taking seriously. Our friends also say that China is not developing at high speed, and they speak less guardedly now. We ourselves are not so cocky.

Last March, in Chengdu, I said: Do not seek empty fame and thereby reap real disaster.

Last year, from September on, we were passive all along. Everyone’s heads were swelling; we wanted to produce 400 million tons of steel and talked grandly about communism. It was only when we arrived in Zhengzhou last November that we discovered the problem, and I sharply criticized it once. When everyone is riding the crest, even to drop from 30 million tons to 20 million tons is difficult. At the Wuhan conference I suggested that it would be fine not to aim for 18 million tons, and 15 million tons would also do. It has been one hundred years since Marx wrote *Capital*; it seems experience must be gained by oneself. Laws cannot be violated; we must study the third edition of political economy. In the past we studied it and then let it go; no one paid attention to the law of value, and when we violated it, we got our heads bashed and bled.

Now we have lost credibility—it does not matter. Struggle bitterly for one year, then add another year. At that time announce the achievements of the leap forward; do not make corrections now, speak of it later.

The *People’s Daily* is run better than before; the old pedantic tone is gone. But it boasts too much; there is a danger of its becoming the *Central Daily News*, and Xinhua News Agency also runs the danger of becoming the Central News Agency.

As for the *People’s Daily*, I read some of the news, but *Reference Materials* and *Internal Reference* I read every day without fail. *Internal Reference* is a good publication; it should be improved, and one should not look only at surface phenomena. The overall situation lies in *Internal Reference*. How to turn *Internal Reference* into a newspaper is your job.

*Trends in Journalism Work* is a good publication. One issue reflected the opinions of Japanese experts; this is very good. Being overly considerate of the audience is also not good. You must attract people to read, attract people to listen. The problems raised by local newspapers in *Trends in Journalism Work*—these problems should be reflected more. Some readers oppose the editors of *Liberation Daily*; the readers are right. The tone is inconsistent—is *Liberation Daily* right, or is Chairman Mao right? (Note: The materials mentioned here are all in Issue No. 45 of *Trends in Journalism Work*.)

In journalism work, one must see whether it is run by statesmen or by scholars. Some people are scholars, and their greatest shortcoming is being full of schemes but lacking decisiveness. Liu Bei, Sun Quan, and Yuan Shao all had this shortcoming; Cao Cao was full of schemes and good at decision-making.

Many schemes but grasping no essentials—having no key points, speaking without touching on the cardinal meaning. One must see at a glance where the problem lies. Cao Cao criticized Yuan Shao: “Great in ambition but meager in wisdom, fierce in appearance but cowardly at heart”—no brains. Yuan Shao had other shortcomings too: many troops but unclear division of labor, inconsistent decrees and orders among generals and officers; though the territory was broad and grain plentiful, they could completely be used by me. —*Records of the Three Kingdoms*, Cao Cao’s appraisal of Yuan Shao.

To engage in journalism work, one must run the newspaper as a statesman.

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You must run the newspaper as statesmen, not as scholars.