(I)

Never fall for the tricks of that book, “On Self-Cultivation” again. “On Self-Cultivation” is a pack of lies; it divorces itself from the class struggle in reality, from revolution, and from political struggle. It says not a word about the fundamental revolutionary question—the question of state power—and not a single word about the dictatorship of the proletariat. Instead, it propagates an idealist theory of self-cultivation, subtly advocating bourgeois individualism and servility, while opposing Marxism-Leninism and Mao Zedong Thought. If one were to “cultivate oneself” according to this book, one would only become more and more “refined” in a revisionist sense, growing ever more revisionist with each day of such “cultivation.”

(Reprinted from an editorial article in the fifth issue of Hongqi magazine, 1967)

(II)

This book is nothing but a deception. The basic question of revolution is the question of state power. Whether or not to seize power, whether it is possible to seize power, and how to seize power—on these fundamental issues, this little pamphlet (i.e., “On Self-Cultivation”) remains completely silent. It makes no mention whatsoever of seizing power or of the dictatorship of the proletariat. Stripped of any reference to state power, to classes, to class analysis, and to class struggle, it is nothing more than a reactionary, bourgeois-idealist tract that does not even scratch Chiang Kai-shek. It is a virulent weed of the bourgeoisie.

(Speech by Comrade Kang Sheng at the Expanded Meeting of the Central Military Commission on April 13)

(III)

I have read Liu Shaoqi’s “On the Self-Cultivation of Communist Party Members” several times. It is anti-Marxist and anti-Leninist. I believe university students should study it more thoroughly and select certain passages to write critical essays. We must criticize both Liu Shaoqi’s “On the Self-Cultivation of Communist Party Members” and Deng Xiaoping’s speeches over many years.

(IV)

On April 7, the very day the editorial “Down with the Reactionary ‘Tool Theory’” was published in the Beijing Daily, Chairman Mao said: “I have never agreed with the ‘tool theory.’”

(Communicated on April 9)