Commentary by the Central Committee on a Brief Report Regarding the Enlarged Meeting of the Standing Committee of the Jiangsu Provincial Party Committee (August 27, 1960) This document [1] is hereby circulated to all Central Bureaus, as well as to the party committees of provinces, municipalities, and autonomous regions, for their reference, and also to all party leading groups at the central level. Printed by the Central Committee on August 27, based on Mao Zedong’s handwritten draft.

Note [1]: Refers to the report submitted by the CPC Jiangsu Provincial Committee on August 24, 1960, to the Central Committee and the Shanghai Bureau, concerning the first phase of the enlarged meeting of its standing committee. The report states that the enlarged meeting of the standing committee was convened starting on August 16, with the initial phase devoted to discussing the international situation. After hearing an account of the spirit of the Beidaihe Conference, the participants were deeply shaken, taken by surprise, and filled with indignation. They unanimously agreed that the delegation of our Party, at the Bucharest Conference, had clearly set forth our Party’s principles and stance on a series of issues within the international communist movement, raised the banner against the revisionist line, exposed the true nature of revisionism, and achieved a major victory in the first round of struggle. Everyone expressed satisfaction with and support for the delegation’s serious yet flexible tactics, resolving to rally even more closely around the CPC Central Committee, withstand the rampant offensive of revisionism, and secure greater victories on all fronts.

The meeting concluded that the current revisionist backlash in the international communist movement is neither accidental nor simply a matter of individual ideological shortcomings; rather, it has deep class and ideological roots. In the Soviet Union and several other socialist countries in Eastern Europe, there has long been a relaxation of the struggle against bourgeois ideological influence, accompanied by a complacent acceptance of bourgeois rights and privileges, which has gradually given rise to a high-income elite. In the countryside of these countries, owing to the incomplete nature of the socialist revolution, a stratum of prosperous peasants has not only been preserved but has even continued to grow. Meanwhile, in certain old colonial powers of Western Europe, a labor aristocracy has emerged. All these classes are primarily concerned with safeguarding their vested interests; they fear war and revolution. Such social layers constitute the class basis for the emergence of revisionism. On a global scale, a fifteen-year period of peace has already passed. Imperialism and the revisionists have been intensifying their use of nuclear terror to intimidate the masses and propagating pacifism, thereby fostering a widespread fear of war among certain segments of the less conscious population. This fear serves as the ideological foundation upon which the revisionists rely in their appeals for peace. Our struggle against revisionism will be long, arduous, and complex. We must draw the following lessons: First, carry the socialist revolution through to completion, properly handle contradictions among the people, and adjust relations of production to suit the level of productive forces, as well as the superstructure to match the economic base. Second, intensify study of Marxism–Leninism and Mao Zedong Thought; cultivate and expand the ranks of theoretical cadres; resolutely combat revisionism; and strengthen ideological education for the second and third generations, training successors. Third, adhere to annual rectification campaigns. Fourth, reinforce the Party’s organizational building, uphold democratic centralism, and enhance the Party’s fighting capacity. On September 4, 1960, the CPC Central Committee forwarded this document.