A Comment on a Letter Regarding the Formulation of a Certain Issue in the "Nine Commentaries" [1]
(January 26, 1965)

Send to Comrade Kang Sheng [3] for perusal. If there is time, please discuss it among yourselves.

Mao Zedong
January 26

[1] Refers to the editorial published on July 14, 1964, by the Editorial Departments of Renmin Ribao (People's Daily) and Hongqi (Red Flag) magazine, the Nine Commentaries on the Open Letter of the Central Committee of the CPSU, "On Khrushchev's Phony Communism and Its Historical Lessons for the World."

[2] Refers to a letter written by Gao Jieping, First Deputy Chief Editor of the Editorial Department of the General Office of the Ministry of Construction Engineering, to Jiang Qing on January 25, 1965, concerning an issue mentioned in the "Nine Commentaries." The letter stated that in our published "Nine Commentaries," it was said that "socialist society is a society emerging from the womb of capitalist society," immediately followed by a quotation from Marx's Critique of the Gotha Programme, stating that socialist society "has just emerged from capitalist society..." I believe both formulations are inappropriate. Because in capitalist society, regardless of whether it is in its early or late stage, it is impossible for the economic factors of socialist society to exist. Socialist society emerges only after the proletariat (under the leadership of the Communist Party) has overthrown the rule of the landlord and bourgeois classes and seized political power. It can only be established after the conclusion of capitalist society, and cannot emerge within capitalist society. Under the current excellent situation of opposing revisionism, quoting and putting forward such statements in such an important article of ours is inappropriate. First, because the formulation is imprecise, it is easily distorted. Second, it is very likely to give people the false impression that "capitalism can peacefully grow into socialism," easily causing ideological confusion. Third, as a universal law of development for the whole of society, this formulation also does not conform to the current actual situation.

[3] Kang Sheng, then Alternate Member of the Political Bureau of the CPC Central Committee and Secretary of the Secretariat of the CPC Central Committee.