The struggle must be civilized. We are the dictatorship of the proletariat. We must maintain
a high profile and a high style. The slogans on the streets of Beijing are not very
sophisticated. Everywhere there are slogans like "Down with" and "Smash the Dogheads."
There aren't that many dogheads; they're just human heads. It's hard to understand how to
engage the masses this way. They took photos of jet plane positions3, posted them in
newspapers and posted them on the streets, and foreign journalists took them down. We
must raise the level of our struggle now; it's too low.
In early August, it wasn't this fierce. The struggle to overthrow and discredit the people must
be political, and we must educate our descendants. Otherwise, when they come to power,
they'll do the same thing. That would be too simplistic. They think this is discrediting the
people, and they also think that exposing other people's problems in their lives is also
discrediting the people. I don't think that's appropriate. The main focus should be on
political discrediting.

[1] This is a passage of instruction from Mao Zedong to Zhou Enlai on the issue of struggle.













3 A number of people were subjected to mass criticism at rallies where they were forced to stand for long
periods with their bodies bent at the waist, heads bowed, and each arm pulled backward by their interrogators
so that they looked like a jet plane.