Chairman: Welcome! You arrived today?

Sounsi Dechakambou (Head of the delegation, hereafter Sounsi): We arrived in Wuhan today.

Chairman: The weather here is very hot. Are you used to it?

Sounsi: Allow me to report to the Chairman that the weather here is not hot for us, because we are from the south.

May we, your descendants, send you our greetings! May we ask how the Chairman's health is?
Chairman: Just barely getting by. It looks like I won't last much longer. I'll soon be going to meet Marx. (All laugh)

Hello to you all. You are young people. Your struggle is heroic. You are on the front lines—on the front lines opposing U.S. imperialism. You have learned to follow the mass line, to unite the majority—workers, peasants, and patriots—in the common fight against U.S. imperialism. You will surely achieve victory.

To carry out mass work, you must be like the masses. To make friends with the masses, you must first share their spirit. Then you must dress like them: whatever they wear, you wear. Eat like them: whatever they eat, you eat. Labor together with them. Otherwise, they will fear you. You are intellectuals—are you their friends or their enemies? They cannot tell. If you are their friends, then in clothing, food, housing, and labor, you must be the same. In a month or two, you will become familiar. In this way, you can unite them and oppose U.S. imperialism.

I am not only speaking of your cultural troupe. The same applies to the army. If you can do this, the imperialists cannot. Reactionaries only exploit and oppress the masses. The army must fight battles, and it must also carry out mass work. Our army is exactly like this. Over several decades, we worked out the Three Main Rules of Discipline and the Eight Points for Attention. The first rule: obey orders in all your actions. If you do not obey orders, each going his own way, it won't work. Does your cultural troupe also have organizational discipline? Do you also obey commands?

××: Their discipline is very good.

Chairman: Without discipline, a cultural troupe cannot do its work well! The second rule: do not take a single needle or piece of thread from the masses. So, what is the army to do? What to wear? What to eat? You cannot go begging from workers and peasants. Apart from taking supplies from the enemy, our government must also collect some taxes—some grain tax, some commercial tax. It simply won't do without collecting some taxes. After collection, part goes to the army, and part goes back to the people, for the people’s interests. Our Party, our government, our army, are the Party of the workers and peasants, the government of the workers and peasants, the army of the workers and peasants. I see that you are the same. Yours is a cultural troupe of workers and peasants, a revolutionary cultural troupe—not a counterrevolutionary one. Your Party, your army, are a revolutionary Party and a revolutionary army. Let the majority—workers, peasants, and patriots—unite to oppose U.S. imperialism and its running dogs. Look at America, with its enormous power, having four to five hundred thousand troops in Indochina. Now even the United States is in a predicament. In South Vietnam, there is the People's Liberation Army, whose army-people relations are excellent. I wish them victory, and I also wish you victory! In another ten or ten-plus years, victory will be won.

We worked for several decades and achieved victory. But we made several mistakes. For example, we committed right-leaning errors twice, and "left"-leaning errors three times. You are fortunate; you have not made the mistakes we made.

Sounsi: It is because we absorbed the experience of comrades who made mistakes that we have not committed similar errors.

Chairman: Making mistakes—it depends on what kind of mistakes. Mistakes on the political line bring great losses. For instance, in 1927, we made a huge mistake, and the losses were enormous: of fifty thousand Party members, fewer than ten thousand remained. To correct the error, we took up guns and fought battles. That gave us a way to survive. We gained several base areas and three hundred thousand troops. Then our heads became dizzy, and we committed the error of "left" opportunism. We lost all the base areas in the south. We began the Long March of thousands of miles to the north. After that, the three hundred thousand troops were reduced to twenty thousand. At that time, we calmed down. Why did we calm down? Because those who made mistakes could not hold their heads up. We used persuasion, unifying them through the Rectification Movement. Not a single one was abandoned. In the end, we achieved today’s victory. When you come to China, you see some good things. But you must also see our mistakes. Not understanding our errors is harmful to you. We have won victory and carried out socialist construction for fifteen years, yet our cultural sector cannot compare with yours. There are several million bourgeois intellectuals left over from the Kuomintang era. In education, many university professors, middle-school teachers, and primary-school teachers are also bourgeois intellectuals. In the cultural world, there are opera performers, painters, singers, and others. The press is somewhat better; film circles also have them. Now they can’t stand it anymore. Now another Rectification is going on, targeting bourgeois intellectuals, and making them restless for a year or two. I am glad about that.

You come from the south and think everything in China is good. There is no such thing. I don’t believe it. You are young, with limited experience; you may think everything is good. A society has its dark side and its bright side. Of course, the bright side is our main one. Our army, government, and Party are relatively good. Currently, there are thirty-five million landlords and members of the bourgeoisie (including its intellectuals) nationwide—more than the entire population of your country. So it’s hard to say there are no shortcomings. You may ask: Why am I so muddleheaded? After fifteen years, why hasn't it been done well? It’s precisely because I am muddleheaded—not particularly brilliant, not more brilliant than you. Do you believe that? No?

Sounsi: I find it very difficult to understand.

Chairman: I have shortcomings and mistakes. Twenty years ago, I said that literature and art should serve the workers, peasants, and soldiers. But in these fifteen years, we haven’t focused well on this. Isn’t that my fault? Now I am correcting the mistake.

In the past, I was busy with other matters and neglected this area of work. Now I want to pay closer attention to it. This year, the cultural scene is not peaceful. The Rectification does not mean we discard them all. It suffices if they correct their errors.

What if a small number refuse to change? Then let them not change. Why can we allow that? Because they are only a few. I think even in a hundred years, some people won’t change. If they don’t change, you can’t just execute them. How do we win them over? If out of a hundred people, thirty serve the workers, peasants, and soldiers, that is enough. Currently, the rightists and counterrevolutionaries are at most five percent. Sixty-five percent are the middle-of-the-road, the great majority. We must do our work well to win them over. We also have cultural troupes, and not all of them are good. How many stage performers are there nationwide?

×××: There are about three thousand theatrical troupes across the country.

Chairman: They all perform ancient pieces. The performances are all about emperors, kings, generals, ministers, scholars, and beauties—utterly lacking in works reflecting workers, peasants, and soldiers, or opposing imperialism.

Have you watched our Peking Opera?

Sounsi: We have seen Chinese opera before. During this visit to China, we also watched it in Beijing.

Chairman: Was it Peking Opera?

Sounsi: What we saw in Beijing were modern Peking Opera plays.

Chairman: Those are a minority, just a beginning. In this regard, I do not believe everything is good.

Sounsi: I don’t easily understand.

Chairman: Such are the facts. Have you seen the old Peking Opera?

××: No, I haven’t.

Chairman: So take a look at some emperors, kings, generals, and ministers—compare them. There is also a part of painting, film, music, and photography that is good, but unfortunately not much.

Our Party is also not pure. Some people have become officials and lords—great lordly bureaucrats and petty lordly bureaucrats. Some Party branch secretaries act like local emperors in their townships, extremely overbearing! This is especially severe. We stand with the majority of peasants, not with the minority of landlords and rich peasants. But in reality, such people stand on the side of the landlords and rich peasants. Despite fifteen years of building socialism, there are still remnants of the Kuomintang. You two [indicating Sounsi and Deputy Head Baba], being older, can understand. They [indicating the lead performers], being young, find it hard to understand. Such things indeed happen—and not rarely! One out of every three fingers is like this. We are now carrying out socialist education, and we must continue for several more decades. When the old have been reformed, new ones will emerge. Some embezzlers say today that they won’t embezzle anymore and return their illicit gains, yet tomorrow they go on embezzling just the same.

Chairman: [Facing the foreign guests] Now we place our hopes on you in the south: Laos, Thailand, South Vietnam, Cambodia, Indonesia, Burma, Malaya, Japan, South Korea... You have helped us, helped us in building socialism; you have helped the people of the whole world.

What programs do you perform?

×××: Last night, ××× watched them.

××: The programs are all militant in nature.

Chairman: Good!

You should not look down on yourselves, thinking you are small countries. What does it matter if you are small? Small countries also produce heroes. Do you know the name of the Chairman of the Indonesian Communist Party?

Sounsi: Aidit.

Chairman: This comrade—I once asked him where he was from. He said he came from a small island southwest of Sumatra, from an ethnic minority. You see, the place is so small, so how could he become the Chairman of the Indonesian Party? He told me: Don’t look down on our small place. The Indonesian language takes that region’s dialect as its standard, and it is where the Indonesian Communist Party is most active. Marx was from an ethnic minority—he was a Jew. Jesus was also a Jew. In the past, the Jews were an ethnic minority. China’s Confucius lived in the State of Lu, which had only a few hundred thousand people. He founded the first school in Chinese history. Everyone ignored him; later, he traveled to various states seeking employment, and no one paid him any heed either. With no other choice, he had to wander from place to place. He propagated the feudal morality of the landlord class, and at that time, everyone called him a sage. He was China’s first educator… I’ve strayed too far, departed from the topic.

Sounsi: The issues the Chairman just raised are of great concern to us. If these examples weren’t presented, it would be difficult to understand, because this relates to the question of implementing the line on literature and art.

Chairman: Bourgeois intellectuals of the old society cannot do without being reformed. In the past, we did not firmly grasp this issue. The question of "who will defeat whom"—whether the proletariat will defeat the bourgeoisie, or the bourgeoisie will defeat the proletariat—has not yet been resolved. Some people don’t understand this; Khrushchev is exactly like that. Look at the Soviet Union: after more than forty years, capitalism has been restored. The Party founded by Lenin, the Soviet Union established by Lenin—after over forty years, capitalism was restored, and revisionism was adopted. We have only been at it for fifteen years. In the future, Marxism-Leninism will triumph. Educating youth is a major issue. If we are complacent, asleep and dreaming, self-satisfied, the bourgeoisie will rise up to seize political power and restore capitalism. If Marxism does not overcome revisionism, revisionism will overcome Marxism and carry out capitalist restoration—hanging out the signboard of communism while implementing capitalist policies. You must understand that this problem will not be easily solved even in ten or several decades.

Please convey this when you return to your Party Central Committee. We still have hope. Khrushchev is not a good person, but he has helped us: he helped us recognize how the Soviet Union—the first socialist country—turned into revisionist. He not only helped the Chinese people but also helped you and helped the revolutionary people of the whole world.

There are three kinds of bad people in the world: the first kind is the imperialists; the second is the revisionists; the third is the reactionaries in every country. In your country, the reactionaries still have strength. What are they called? Something like Phoumi Nosavan, Siho Kouprasith... Phouma seems unreliable too, but we still need to give him a helping hand. That is why Comrade Souphanouvong’s trip to Paris for the meeting was correct. I know very few of your leaders. One is Souphanouvong; another is Kaysone.

That's about it, isn't it? You speak, go ahead.

Sounsi: First, allow me to report to the Chairman that we feel immensely honored to meet you. We regard what you have said to us as a kind of education.

Chairman: What I offered was not education, but experience. When you go back, you must not mechanically copy China’s ways.

Sounsi: We regard your words just like education for our descendants.

Chairman: It is for comrades.

Sounsi: What I say comes from the bottom of my heart. Today’s opportunity to meet the Chairman is a symbol of the greatest honor in our lives. We have heard your name for a long time and have sought an opportunity to meet you. We feel that you are the leader of 650 million people and also the leader of the people struggling against colonialism for liberation.

Chairman: Not a leader, but a friend.

Sounsi: We know that imperialism is external, while revisionism is the most dangerous enemy from within.

Our opportunity to visit you today is an immense honor, and also an honor for the Laotian people. We are carrying out the struggle under the leadership of the Party Central Committee headed by Souphanouvong. We went through eight or nine years of struggle against the French. Later, U.S. imperialism stepped in, so we rose again to wage an anti-U.S. struggle. Guided by the correct line, our struggle is just. Therefore, with the support and assistance of peace-loving people around the world, of the peoples in socialist countries, and especially of the great Chinese people, we will surely achieve victory.

Chairman: Well said.

Songxi: That we have the opportunity to meet you today is thanks to the kindness earned for us through more than twenty years of struggle by our revolutionary people and revolutionary martyrs. Our comrades did not have the chance to meet the Chairman in person, but they created the conditions for us to do so. We are still very young, and we will not fail to live up to the kindness bestowed upon us by the martyrs. So here we pledge: we will be successors to the revolution!

Chairman: That is correct.

Songxi: At present, our tasks are very heavy, because U.S. imperialism is sabotaging us in every way. We are literary and art workers. We believe that literature and art represent a revolutionary front—they serve the people by waging struggle against the enemy politically and ideologically. I will do my utmost in this work.

Today I am extremely happy, because we visited the Chairman and gained much experience from the Chairman’s conversation. On the literary and art front, it will not do without carrying out revolution. For it is through art that we must carry out the work of ideological revolution. Old literature and art served the old society.

New literature and art, on the other hand, serve the new society. How can old literature and art be made to serve the new society? I think the modern Peking operas we saw in Beijing all have revolutionary content. We did not see the old operas, because those about emperors, kings, generals, ministers, and gifted scholars and beautiful ladies are art serving the old society. This is something we have just learned.

This is the new task that Chairman Mao has set before us. We feel honored to accept this new task. Why is this? Because the Chairman is busy with work—Party affairs and state affairs—yet he still finds time to pay close attention to literary and art work.

In the past in Laos, some people looked down on acting and regarded performers as no good.

Chairman: And what do you yourselves think?

Songxi: Now some among us still look down on this kind of work; even their parents will not let their own children become performers.
Chairman: It is the same here in China.

Songxi: It has been three years since our art troupe was founded. Under the leadership, care, and education of the Party Central Committee and Chairman Souphanouvong, though we are very young, we have contributed some strength. The masses praise us by saying that our art troupe has a national character, a revolutionary character, and a fighting character.

Chairman: That is good.

Songxi: Especially when we came to China to perform, we were warmly welcomed by the Chinese comrades.

Chairman: That is good, then.

Songxi: In China we have been warmly welcomed by people of all ages and both sexes. From grassroots cadres to national leaders, everyone has supported our performances.

Chairman: How long have you been here?

Songxi: We have been in China for over a month now. A few days ago, we also visited Shenyang and Anshan. Although we only performed for two evenings in Anshan, with a small venue and few tickets, many audience members listened to our broadcast outside the theater.

Chairman: Very good.

Songxi: We have seen that the Chinese people, under the leadership of the Communist Party of China and Chairman Mao, all support us.

Chairman: They should offer support. It would be wrong not to support you. Those who do not support you are none other than the imperialists, the revisionists, and the reactionaries of various countries.

Songxi: We are in the midst of fierce struggle. Nothing is more precious than close, understanding friends, and nothing is more precious than the support of friends. Therefore, we believe we should take what we feel back to Laos and spread the word among the Lao people. We will take the experiences we have learned in China back to our work, take your words back with us, and properly report them to the Party Central Committee.

XX: Well then, shall we have a photo taken as a memento?

Chairman: Very good.

(After the group photo, the Chairman asked the foreign guests to convey his regards to those troupe members who had not come to Beijing this time. When the Chairman saw the Lao comrades to the door, Songxi and the other guests held Chairman Mao’s hand tightly, reluctant to part, and said: “We wish Chairman Mao good health and long life!”)