Speech at the Beidaihe Central Committee Work Conference
(August 6, 1962)
We will first hold the work conference to prepare documents for the Central Committee plenum. Starting tomorrow, we will begin discussions. Comrade Liu [ ] suggests establishing a core group, along with many small groups, to resolve issues that the six large groups cannot discuss freely. The core group will include the Standing Committee, the Secretariat, plus the first secretaries of the greater administrative regions and responsible comrades from various central departments, totaling 23 people: Mao, Liu [ ], Zhou, Zhu [ ], Deng [ ], Peng [ ], Fuchun, Xiannian, Tan [ ], Boda, Lu [ ], Fuzhi, Gu Mu, Luo [ ], Chen Yi, Yang [ ], plus the first secretaries of the greater administrative regions.
First, do classes still exist in socialist countries? Some people abroad say there are no more classes, and therefore the party is a party of the whole people, not a tool of a class, not a party of the proletariat. They say the dictatorship of the proletariat no longer exists, that a dictatorship of the whole people has no object, and only external contradictions remain. Does this apply to a country like ours? Should we discuss this issue? I have spoken with comrades from several greater administrative regions and learned that some people were greatly astonished when they heard that classes still exist domestically. The bourgeois rightists never admit the existence of classes; they believe there are no more classes, no need for remolding, and they do not recognize class struggle, saying that class struggle was fabricated by Marx.