(Not Reviewed by the Speaker)

(February 3, 1967)

[Hysni Kapo (1915–1979), former member of the Political Bureau of the Central Committee, Secretary of the Secretariat, and First Vice Chairman of the Council of Ministers of the Party of Labour of Albania. Beqir Balluku (1912–1975), former member of the Political Bureau of the Central Committee of the Party of Labour of Albania, and Vice Chairman of the Council of Ministers and Minister of National Defense of the Republic.]

Time: February 3, 1967, from 17:20 to 19:00

Location: Meeting Room 118, Great Hall of the People

Participants:

Albanian side: Behar Shtylla, Hito Çako, and Ambassador Natali

Chinese side: Zhou Enlai, Kang Sheng, Ye Jianying, Xiao Hua, Yang Chengwu, Wang Shusheng

Interpreter: Fan Chengzuo

Note-taker: Xu Ruixin

Prior to the talks, Chairman Mao received and met with Hysni Kapo, Beqir Balluku, Behar Shtylla, Hito Çako, and all members of the Albanian military delegation led by Balluku and Çako.

Chairman Mao warmly shook hands with the Albanian guests and met with them cordially. The Albanian guests warmly applauded, welcoming Chairman Mao. While having their photographs taken, Chairman Mao said to everyone: Smile for the photo, take a lively photo, not a stiff one. The proletariat should take lively photos.

After the photographs, Chairman Mao called out loudly:

Down with imperialism!

Down with modern revisionism!

Down with reactionaries of all countries!

Let us unite, and let the revolutionary peoples of the world unite!

Chairman Mao asked Kapo and Balluku to convey his most cordial greetings to Enver Hoxha, Mehmet Shehu, and other leaders of the Central Committee of the Party of Labour of Albania.

Chairman Mao also asked after Kapo’s health with concern and personally examined the ailment affecting Kapo’s hands.

Afterward, Chairman Mao engaged in extremely cordial and sincere talks with Kapo, Balluku, Shtylla, Çako, and the others.

Chairman Mao (hereafter referred to as “Chairman”): When do you leave?

Balluku (hereafter “B”): Comrade Kapo is leaving the day after tomorrow.

Chairman: We planned to have you (referring to Kapo) stay for three months, to help us and give us some advice, but now you are leaving again. I am very disappointed; we cannot persuade you to stay.

Kapo (hereafter “K”): Comrade Mao Zedong, before the arrival of the delegation led by Comrade Balluku and our visit, Comrade Hoxha and our Central Committee instructed us to convey to the friendly Chinese people, and especially to you, Comrade Mao Zedong, the best wishes of the Albanian people and of the Party of Labour of Albania led by Comrade Hoxha. May you enjoy boundless longevity, for the benefit of the Chinese people, the peoples of the world, and all progressive humanity.

Chairman: Thank you very much.

K: At the same time, our Central Committee, especially Comrade Hoxha, has asked me to express to you, Comrade Mao Zedong, deep gratitude for the message of congratulations you personally signed and sent to our Party of Labour’s Fifth Congress through Comrade Kang Sheng. This congratulatory message is of special significance, of extraordinary importance in the history of our Party and people. It has inspired our whole Party and all our people, spurring the Party of Labour, under Comrade Enver Hoxha’s leadership, and all our people to defend Marxism-Leninism and strive for the victory of socialism and communism. I say again, this congratulatory message is of special significance; it has greatly educated and inspired us to fulfill the obligations incumbent upon us even faster. The message reached the most remote areas of our country, and young and old throughout the nation know this congratulatory message. It has immensely encouraged struggle across our country, enabling us to draw strength from it to carry on our struggle under the leadership of the Party headed by Comrade Enver Hoxha.

Chairman: Such a great effect? I never expected that. It couldn’t have that big an effect—how could it? You are exaggerating too much. I think you, my friend, are engaging in a cult of personality.

K: Not at all. We are not afraid of a cult of personality, Comrade Mao Zedong. For our Party and people, this is a fact.

B: Many thanks for this high appraisal and tremendous support of yours.

Chairman: I, myself, am not all that capable, as you comrades well know. Just look—China is in such chaos, we haven’t managed things well. Now the world under heaven is in great disorder.

When did Comrade Shehu come to China?

Zhou Enlai (hereafter “Zhou”): Last May.

Chairman: When he was here last May, I raised this question with him: In the end, will revisionism win, or will Marxism-Leninism win? These two roads, these two classes—will the bourgeoisie win, or will the proletariat win? Will Marxism-Leninism win, or will revisionism win? I also said that it is still impossible to tell which side will win, and no conclusion can yet be drawn. There are two possibilities. The first is that the bourgeoisie wins, revisionism wins, and we are overthrown. The second is that we overthrow revisionism and the bourgeoisie. Why do I give first place to the possibility that we might fail? I feel it is more beneficial to look at it this way. That is, we must not belittle the enemy.

Over many years, the struggles within our Party were not brought into the open. For instance, in January 1962, we convened a meeting of 7,000 leading cadres above the county Party secretary level. At that time, I gave a speech in which I said that revisionism wants to overthrow us, and if we don’t pay attention now and refuse to wage struggle, China could, in as few as a few years or a dozen years, or as many as several decades, turn into a fascist dictatorship. That speech was not published openly but was circulated internally. We still need to see; perhaps some parts of it will require revision later. But by then, the problems were already discernible.

1962, then ’63, ’64, ’65, ’66—five years in all. Why do I say we haven’t done a great deal of our work well? I’m not just being polite; I’m telling you the truth. In the past, we only dealt with some isolated problems, with specific figures. For instance, over the past 17 years, there was the struggle against the Gao Gang–Rao Shushi clique—they were a group, and we got rid of them. That was from the winter of 1953 through the spring of 1954. Then, in 1959, we got rid of the Peng Dehuai–Huang Kecheng–Zhang Wentian clique. Beyond those, we also conducted some struggles in cultural circles, in the countryside, and in the factories—the Socialist Education Movement. You comrades know something of that situation. But none of these solved the problem; we hadn’t found a form, a way, to expose the dark side among us openly, comprehensively, and from the bottom up.

Preparations for this struggle also took some time. In November the year before last, we published an article criticizing a historian, Wu Han. It couldn’t be written in Beijing; a team couldn’t be organized there. We had to go to Shanghai and find Yao Wenyuan and others to organize a team and write that article.

K: Written under Comrade Mao Zedong’s instruction.

Chairman: At first, even I didn’t know it was being written; it was Jiang Qing and the others who worked on it. Once it was done, they gave it to me to read. They first told me they intended to publish a criticism. They couldn’t organize it in Beijing and went to Shanghai to do so—I wasn’t even aware of that. After the article was finished, they showed it to me, saying I was the only one allowed to read it; not even Zhou Enlai or Kang Sheng could see it, because if they saw it, then Liu Shaoqi, Deng Xiaoping, Peng Zhen, and Lu Dingyi would also see it—and Liu and Deng were opposed to publishing it. After the article came out, all the provinces reprinted it but not Beijing. At the time, I was in Shanghai. Later I said we should print it as a booklet. All the provinces agreed to distribute it, but the distribution agencies in Beijing refused. Because some people are not reliable! The Beijing Municipal Party Committee was an impenetrable and watertight committee. Hasn’t it been reorganized now? But the reorganized committee still won’t do; it has to be reorganized again. When we publicly announced the reorganization of the Beijing Municipal Party Committee, we added two garrison divisions. Now Beijing has three Army divisions and one mechanized division—four divisions in all. That’s why you comrades could travel around, and we could too. The two divisions originally stationed here were good, but they were scattered terribly, providing security everywhere.

Among the Red Guards now, there are also unreliable elements—royalists—who are inactive by day but active at night. Wearing glasses and face masks, with clubs and knives in hand, they go around causing trouble, killing some good people. A few have been killed, and several hundred wounded. Most of them are children of high-ranking cadres—people like He Long, Lu Dingyi, and Luo Ruiqing. So, our army is not without problems either. He Long is a member of the Political Bureau, and Luo Ruiqing was a secretary of the Secretariat and the Chief of General Staff. Luo Ruiqing’s case was dealt with in December the year before last; those in the Beijing Municipal Party Committee were dealt with last May. The big-character-poster movement was launched on June 1 of last year. The Red Guards were launched last August. Didn’t one of your people meet Nie Yuanzi of Peking University? Who went to meet her?

K: Comrade Shtylla.

Chairman: On May 25 of last year, she put up a big-character poster. I was in Hangzhou at the time, and I only got to read it on June 1. I immediately phoned Kang Sheng and Chen Boda, saying it must be broadcast. And then big-character posters flew all over the sky!

B: The big-character poster gave the signal.

Chairman: It wasn’t written by me; it was written by Nie Yuanzi and six other people. The Red Guards were started by the middle school attached to Tsinghua University and the one attached to Peking University. I saw some materials they produced. On August 1, I wrote a letter to the Red Guards of those two schools, and after that, the movement really took off. On August 8, I received several hundred thousand Red Guards. Then, from early to mid-August, the Eleventh Plenary Session of the Eighth Central Committee was convened. At that point, I personally wrote a big-character poster of about 200 Chinese characters, saying that some leading personnel from the central to the local level had taken a bourgeois stand, opposing the students and the proletariat, and were practicing white terror. It was then that the problems of Liu Shaoqi and Deng Xiaoping were exposed. Now the decisive battle between the two sides has not yet concluded. Probably the next three months—February, March, and April—will decide victory or defeat. As for thoroughly resolving the issue, that might have to wait until next year’s February, March, or April, or perhaps even longer. Don’t be under the illusion that everyone in our Party is a good person. Several years ago, I already said we’d have to purge several million. Were those empty words? What methods could we use? We had no methods whatsoever. Only by mobilizing the masses do we have any method. Without the masses, we are utterly helpless. They won’t listen. Take *Renmin Ribao* (the central Party organ)—it wouldn’t listen to me. *Renmin Ribao*’s authority has been seized twice: the first time on June 1 last year; the second time was recently, in January. In the past, I declared openly: I don’t read *Renmin Ribao*. I even said to its editor-in-chief: I don’t read your newspaper. I said it many times, but he just wouldn’t listen. This kind of approach from me just didn’t work in China. We couldn’t get into any of the universities or middle schools, because they were under the control of people like Liu Shaoqi, Deng Xiaoping, and Lu Dingyi in the Propaganda Department, and Zhou Yang in the Ministry of Culture, as well as those in the Ministry of Higher Education and the Ministry of General Education. We were utterly helpless.

Many people within our Party have been exposed, and they can roughly be divided into several categories. One group consists of those who joined in the democratic revolution; they could cooperate during that stage because their goal was the democratic revolution, and they wanted to pursue capitalism. They were for overthrowing imperialism and feudalism; they were for overthrowing bureaucratic capitalism; but in practice they were against overthrowing national capitalism. They favored distributing land; but once land was in the hands of the peasants and it came time to organize cooperatives, they were against it. This group is made up of so-called veteran cadres.

The second group comprises those who joined the Party only after liberation—80 percent entered after 1949. Some among them have become cadres—Party branch secretaries, Party committee secretaries, or even higher, county Party secretaries, prefectural Party secretaries, provincial Party secretaries, and central committee members—a whole batch of such people.

The third group consists of those we took in from the Nationalists. Some among them were formerly Communists who had been captured by the Nationalists, then betrayed the Party and published anti-Communist statements in the newspapers. At the time, we had no idea they were anti-Communist, and we didn’t know what these so-called “procedures” they underwent really involved. Now that it has been uncovered, we see they had sided with the Nationalists and opposed the Communist Party.

The fourth group consists of children of the bourgeoisie, landlords, and rich peasants. After liberation, they went to school, some even entering universities; they’ve seized a measure of power. Not all of them are bad; many stand on our side. But there is a segment that are counter-revolutionaries.

These are the general categories of people. All told, their numbers in China are not great—just a few percent. Their class base is only a few percent—for instance, landlords, rich peasants, capitalists, the Nationalists, and so on—at most 5 percent. So out of a population of 700 million, that amounts to only 35 million. They are also scattered throughout every village, every city, every neighborhood. If those 35 million people were gathered together and armed, they would indeed be a large army.

B: Even joined together, it would be an army without ideology.

Chairman: He belongs to a dying class. Their representatives, out of more than 30 million people, number at most a few hundred thousand, and they are scattered across cities, streets, villages, schools, and institutions. So when the big-character posters appeared, when the mass movement emerged, when the Red Guards came forward, they were scared to death.

There are also some other things that have caused great confusion—like Mao Zedong Thought and Mao Zedong-ism. I don’t like this “ism,” I don’t like this “ism.”

Zhou: We say that even in the future we will use Mao Zedong Thought; it is, after all, a system.

Chairman: They’ve also conferred many titles on me—Great Teacher, Great Leader, Great Commander, Great Helmsman—and I’m not happy about it. But what can be done? They go around doing this everywhere. Someone suggested keeping just “teacher.” I was a primary school teacher, and being just an ordinary teacher would be fine. As for “Professor,” that’s not applicable—I never attended university. You all went to university, didn’t you?

Hysni Kapo (hereafter: Kapo): None of us did.

Chairman: Not even you (referring to Beqir Balluku)?

Balluku: No.

Chairman: You (referring to Kapo) didn’t either?

Kapo: No, I only attended middle school.

Chairman: Marx was a university student, Lenin was a university student, Stalin attended middle school, and I only attended middle school. I have doubts about a large number of university students, especially those studying humanities and social sciences. If these people are not educated and the Cultural Revolution is not carried out, it will be very dangerous—they will all become revisionists in the future. Those studying literature cannot write novels or poems; those studying philosophy cannot write philosophical articles or explain social phenomena. The same goes for those studying politics and law—they are full of bourgeois ideas. We have not produced any good textbooks. And then there are those studying economics—there are so many revisionists among them. But now things look somewhat hopeful; the struggle is fierce.

Balluku: A fierce struggle is good, a thorough purge is good.

Kapo: Once the people are mobilized, everything can be swept clean. Although what we have seen may be limited, we have the impression that the entire Chinese people have been mobilized.

Chairman: Not yet the whole people.

Kapo: From what we have seen, they are all mobilized, participating in the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution, opposing domestic enemies, promoting socialist construction, defending the socialist revolution, and consolidating the dictatorship of the proletariat. We are heartened and inspired. Perhaps what we have seen is insufficient, but we are optimistic.

Chairman: It seems more optimistic than when I spoke with Comrade Hysni last year.

Kapo: We compare the past with the present because we didn’t fully understand some situations before. Now we know that what you said at the time was correct—the enemy was still sleeping by our side. This has now been proven, and they have been exposed. This is a great victory. Not only is it important for China, but it is also very significant for our country and for all progressive humanity. That is to say, the enemies of the Chinese people and the Chinese Communist Party have been exposed, and the line represented by Comrade Mao Zedong has achieved a tremendous victory.

Chairman: A considerable victory has been achieved; a tremendous one is yet to come. Maybe we can talk about it at this time next year, but we cannot be certain. Perhaps some of us will be defeated, but I am always prepared for that. If defeated, so be it—someone will rise to continue the struggle. There are people in this country who boast about “loving peace.” That is not true at all. We love struggle and are ready to fight at any time. I am one of those people. (Laughter)

Kapo: How can we not engage in struggle? How can our goals be achieved?

Chairman: Exactly!

Balluku: We achieved victory precisely through this path.

Chairman: That’s why it’s not as easy to promote revisionism in China as it is in the Soviet Union.

The foundation of the Soviet Union is Tsarist imperialism. China, on the other hand, is a semi-colonial country that was oppressed by imperialism. For over a hundred years, we were enslaved by imperialism, and the people were deeply unhappy in their hearts. The only ones who were happy in their hearts were the bourgeoisie, the feudal class, and bourgeois intellectuals. But our country’s revolution was managed by the military. All major cities were taken over, and many institutions, administrative organs, factories, and enterprises were staffed with appointed personnel. As for schools, they were left untouched as they were. And these appointed people—for example, wasn’t Peng Zhen one of them? Wasn’t Cao Diqiu in Shanghai one as well? Chen Pixian was also appointed and later elected. So-called elections were just lists presented for everyone to choose from! That’s why I don’t really trust elections. For instance, China has over 2,400 counties. If each county elected one representative, that would mean 2,400; if each county elected four representatives, that would mean 10,000 people—this Great Hall of the People would be full. But in a large county with over a million people, a medium-sized county with several hundred thousand, or a small county with tens of thousands to hundreds of thousands—how could they possibly know these four individuals? For example, I am a people’s representative elected by Beijing, and most Beijing residents have never seen me in person. They’ve seen photos or read my name in the newspapers. Beijing has an urban population of four million, plus the suburbs.

Zhou: Some people in Beijing say the Red Guards have seen the Chairman, but they haven’t yet.

Chairman: When people from other provinces saw me, those in Beijing hadn’t. They hadn’t even seen me, yet they elected me. It’s just fame. Long known by reputation, never seen in person. People like me, the Premier, and others—we are all famous, and they’ve long heard of us. But there are many whose names they don’t even know, yet they vote. In my view, they’re not as democratic as the Red Guards. The Red Guards at least know their leaders—they’ve seen them and spoken with them.

Kapo: Yes!

Chairman: But the Red Guards are also constantly dividing. Last summer, the leftists were a very small minority. They stood on our side, were oppressed, and were labeled “rightists,” “counter-revolutionaries,” and so on. By winter, things changed, and the minority became the majority. Have you been to Tsinghua University?

Kapo: Yes, we have.

Chairman: “Jinggangshan” was a minority faction and was persecuted. Nie Yuanzi of Peking University was also a minority faction and persecuted. Now they have become the majority. In the past, they were oppressed, and as a minority, they were very revolutionary. But by winter, after becoming the majority last December, some of them split in January this year. Some who were revolutionary in summer became counter-revolutionary in winter. Of course, we have worked with Nie Yuanzi and Kuai Dafu to persuade them. But whether such people are truly reliable remains to be seen. However, when things flare up, there are always good people among them.

There is now an anarchist trend circulating, with slogans like “doubt everything, overthrow everything.” But in the end, it boomerangs on them. If you doubt everything, what about yourself? If you overthrow everything, what about yourself? The bourgeoisie must be overthrown; what about the proletariat? Their reasoning doesn’t hold water. But overall, looking at the broader trend, those who are wrong always fail to hold their ground in the end. Look, on the streets of Beijing, there are slogans calling for my overthrow and for the overthrow of Comrade Lin Biao. Slogans like “Down with Zhou Enlai, Kang Sheng, Chen Boda, Jiang Qing” and others are also there. As for slogans like “Down with Li Fuchun, Tan Zhenlin, Li Xiannian, Chen Yi, Ye Jianying, Nie Rongzhen, Xiao Hua,” there are even more. Take Yang Chengwu, for example—he is the acting chief of the general staff. The General Staff Department oversees several sub-departments, and the head and deputy head of one of its operational departments put up big-character posters calling for his overthrow. That was instigated by He Long. The call to overthrow Xiao Hua was instigated by the commander of the Beijing Military Region, who wanted to target him. Yesterday, they provoked the call to overthrow Xiao Hua, but within a day or two, they themselves were overthrown. This is China’s second-largest military region! A regional commander, a regional political commissar, and a deputy political commissar, Zhang Nansheng—several of them have fallen. However, one truth will always remain a truth: the sky will not fall. The vast majority of the people—workers, peasants, intellectuals, cadres, Party members, and Youth League members—are good. We must firmly believe in this truth.

Balluku: They are all living sources of strength.

Chairman: Although some have made mistakes and have shortcomings. I won’t shield Ye Jianying, Yang Chengwu, Xiao Hua, or Wang Shusheng. They have some shortcomings, but fundamentally, they are good people.

Balluku: Mistakes can be made at work, and they can be corrected!

Chairman: They can be corrected! I’ve also made some mistakes, haven’t I? Can it be that others make mistakes but I don’t? I’ve made mistakes in politics and military affairs alike. If you stay a few more days, I can tell you about them—I don’t hide my mistakes. Some people boast that I’ve made no mistakes at all. I don’t believe it, and I’m not happy about it. If you exaggerate like that, I don’t believe it. What kind of person am I? Don’t I know myself? I have some self-awareness.

If China’s sky darkens and its earth darkens, don’t be afraid. Believe one thing: it won’t be completely dark. Qin Shi Huang ruled for 16 years before being toppled, and two people were the first to rise up: one named Chen Sheng, another named Wu Guang. They were serfs of that time. The Red Guards in China today—the ones who put up big-character posters and were persecuted last summer, branded as “counter-revolutionaries”—are the modern-day Chen Shengs and Wu Guangs. We are all Spartacus. In society, we were nobodies, insignificant figures, oppressed—and we organized the Communist Party. Why are you called the Labor Party? Originally, it was the Communist Party, wasn’t it?

Kapo: That’s right. After the war, our party changed its name to the Labor Party. At the time, we considered that our party members were mainly from peasant backgrounds. So, after discussing with the Soviet Communist Party and Comrade Stalin, we settled on the name. Given that it was mainly peasants and few proletarians, we adopted the current name. At the Fifth Congress, someone proposed restoring the name to the Communist Party. Comrade Hoxha said it could be considered at the next party congress.

Chairman: The Soviet Union used to be called the “Social Democratic Labour Party.” After the victory, Lenin changed the name.

Over the past century since Marx, there was the First International, which collapsed, then the Second International, which also collapsed, and then the Third International, which was dissolved. Now there is no International, only the various Communist Parties. Many parties have now become revisionist parties. But there are always some so-called “dogmatic” parties—we are all “dogmatic” ones. There will always be a few Marxist parties. Right now, in Italy, France, and many other European countries, small Marxist-Leninist groups or parties have emerged. In Latin America, in Asia, and in Oceania—New Zealand and Australia—there are also such parties.

Kapo: We are not few in number.

Chairman: Not few.

Kapo: And their numbers are increasing.

Chairman: Indeed! Especially after Engels died, the entire Second International degenerated. Neither Marx nor Engels foresaw this. But then the Bolsheviks emerged and achieved victory in the Soviet Union.

What else?

Zhou: That’s all for now.

Chairman: Do you still have matters to attend to?

Zhou: They have a banquet.

Chairman: Let’s leave it here, then, and meet again next time.

Kapo: Thank you. Comrade Mao Zedong, I will convey your sentiments to our Central Committee and Comrade Hoxha. Yesterday, Comrade Kang Sheng already told us that our leading comrades will visit China even more frequently in the future, and we will also enable other comrades to have the opportunity. Coming to China is like attending a university—it’s a privilege granted to us by the Party.

Once again, I thank the Chinese Party, the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China, and Comrade Mao Zedong personally for all the many accommodations provided to us. On behalf of our Party, our people, our leadership, and Comrade Hoxha, I also wish you total victory in this great struggle. May this Great Cultural Revolution, under the leadership of the Chinese Communist Party, headed by you, achieve great victory. As I said at the beginning, this will benefit your country and all progressive humanity. May you enjoy a long life, for the sake of your country, our country, and all progressive humanity; for the benefit of the international communist movement. These are the wishes of our people and our Party for you.

Chairman: Thank you. Who is the ambassador?

Natanaili (hereafter: Nata): It is me.

Chairman: You should travel around a bit. Not just Beijing; go to other places like Shanghai, Harbin, Taiyuan.

Nata: Thank you very much.

Chairman: Are you going to Shanghai?

Kapo: We were in Shanghai on the way here and talked with relevant comrades, meeting with workers. It was when the Shanghai Workers’ Rebel Faction seized power.

Chairman: By early November last year, the Shanghai Rebel Faction had only about a thousand members. In just over two months, it grew to over a million. Where are you heading now?

Zhou: They will take the southern route back. Comrade Balluku will also visit the Shengli Oilfield in Shandong, and then go to Shanghai to see the navy.

Chairman: When you go to Shanghai, you can talk with people like Zhang Chunqiao and Yao Wenyuan. Good!