Revolution and Construction Must Rely on Oneself
(September 3, 1963)

Our period of difficulty lasted only two and a half years—from 1960, through 1961, to the first half of 1962. By the second half of 1962, the situation began to improve. Last year, grain output increased by over ten million tons compared to the year before. This year, the situation is even better. Although there have been floods in northern China, especially in Hebei and Henan, the national grain output is likely to increase by about ten million tons over last year. We are now concentrating our efforts on cotton, oilseeds, tobacco, and sugar crops. We have found a path. We have two kinds of experience: erroneous experience and correct experience. Correct experience has encouraged us, while erroneous experience has taught us lessons. The Soviet Union withdrew its experts and tore up contracts, which turned out to be beneficial for us. We had no choice but to rely on ourselves, on our own two hands. Later, the Soviet Union regretted it and wanted to send experts back and do business with us, but we refused. If they sent experts again, one day they would withdraw them and tear up contracts once more. They have already lost our trust. It was precisely at this time in 1960 that the Soviet Union withdrew its experts. Three years have passed since then, and we have gained much of our own experience in industrial construction. Without the teacher, the student learns on his own. Having a teacher has both advantages and disadvantages. Without a teacher, one reads, writes, and thinks for oneself. This is a truth. In the past, we learned to write with the teacher holding our hand. From the founding of the Party in 1921 to 1934, we suffered at the hands of the teacher. The program was drafted by the teacher, and the resolutions of the Central Committee plenary sessions were also drafted by the teacher. In particular, 1934 caused us great losses. After that, we understood that we had to think for ourselves. It took us decades to understand China. How could it be acceptable for Chinese people not to understand China’s conditions? True independence and self-reliance began with the Zunyi Conference, which criticized dogmatism. The dogmatists claimed that everything in the Soviet Union was correct and failed to integrate Soviet experience with China’s reality. The slogan of integrating the universal truth of Marxism-Leninism with China’s concrete practice was put forward during the Yan’an Rectification Movement. This slogan was incorporated into the 1957 Moscow Declaration, which stated that the universal truth of Marxism-Leninism must be integrated with the concrete practice of each country. Foreign experience, no matter which country it comes from, can only serve as a reference.

September 3, 1963, Chairman of the Indonesian Communist Party, D.N. Aidit