Comments and Revisions on the Article “The Crux of ‘The Cultivation of Communist
Morality’ Lies in Its Betrayal of the Dictatorship of the Proletariat” (2)
(May 4, 6, and 7, 1967)

Some suggestions are written within the text; please consider them as you see fit.
Mao Zedong
May 4

After revision, it should be submitted to the Small Group [3] and the Standing Committee Meeting for discussion and approval. One more thing:

Return to the Cultural Revolution Leading Group.

On page 7, a few sentences have been added [4]; please examine whether they are appropriate. Once the final draft is ready, I would appreciate it if a formal clean copy could be printed and circulated for review!

Mao Zedong
May 6

Publish as is.
Mao Zedong
7:00 p.m., May 7

Printed from the manuscript.
Four
This kind of depiction of a communist society is nothing new; it has existed since ancient times. In China, there is “The Chapter on Great Harmony” from The Book of Rites [5], Tao Yuanming’s “Record of the Peach Blossom Spring” [6], and Kang Youwei’s “Book of Great Peace” [7]. Abroad, there are numerous works by French and British utopian socialists—all of the same ilk.
Five
According to the author’s view, in a communist society everything is perfect: there is no darkness, no contradictions; all is good, with no opposites remaining. Society thus comes to a halt—its qualitative nature never changes, and even its quantitative size seems to remain constant forever. Social development comes to an end, and society remains forever unchanged. Here, the author has discarded a fundamental law of Marxism—that any thing, any human society, is propelled forward by struggle between opposites, by contradiction. By doing so, the author espouses metaphysics while abandoning the great doctrines of dialectical materialism and historical materialism.
Notes
Printed according to the sixth issue of the magazine Red Flag for 1967. (Based on Mao Zedong’s manuscript)
[1] Refers to the book On the Cultivation of Communist Morality. This consists of the first two parts of Liu Shaoqi’s lecture on the cultivation of communist morality, delivered at the Marx–Lenin Institute in Yan’an in July 1939. It was originally published in issues 81 through 84 of Jiefang, the central organ of the CPC, in 1939, and was also issued as a separate booklet by the Xinhua Bookstore in Yan’an. In 1949, after being reviewed and slightly revised by the author, a revised first edition was published by the Liberation Press (the predecessor of the People’s Publishing House). In 1962, the author again reviewed the work, making some textual revisions and adding new content, reorganizing the original two parts into nine sections, and a revised second edition was published by the People’s Publishing House. This work, which played an important role in the history of the CPC’s self-construction, was wrongly criticized during the Cultural Revolution along with Liu Shaoqi. See note [1] on page 90 of this volume for information on Liu Shaoqi.
[2] The article “The Crux of ‘The Cultivation of Communist Morality’ Lies in Its Betrayal of the Dictatorship of the Proletariat” was drafted by Wang Li and Guan Feng, members of the CPC Central Cultural Revolution Leading Group and deputy editors-in-chief of Red Flag magazine, and revised by Chen Boda, head of the Leading Group and editor-in-chief of Red Flag. It was published as an editorial jointly authored by the editorial departments of Red Flag and People’s Daily in the sixth issue of Red Flag magazine and in the May 8 edition of People’s Daily, both issued on May 8, 1967. The article was submitted to Mao Zedong for review on several occasions. This piece one contains Mao’s comments on the draft submitted on May 2; piece two contains his comments on the draft submitted on May 5; piece three contains his comments on the draft submitted on May 7; and pieces four and five consist of two passages that Mao added directly into the draft.
[3] Refers to the CPC Central Cultural Revolution Leading Group.
[4] Namely, this fourth passage.
[5] “Li Yun” is a chapter from The Book of Rites, a collection of Confucian texts on ritual and propriety compiled from the Warring States period to the early Han dynasty. The “Great Harmony” discussed therein refers to an ideal society where “the world belongs to all.”
[6] Tao Qian, also known as Tao Yuanming, was a poet of the Eastern Jin dynasty. His prose piece “Record of the Peach Blossom Spring” describes a secluded, peaceful “utopia” free from turmoil.
[7] Kang Youwei was a modern Chinese politician and thinker, a leader of the bourgeois reformist movement. In his “Book of Great Peace,” he combined the concept of “Great Harmony” from “Li Yun” with the Confucian Gongyang School’s theory of the “Three Ages,” developing his own vision of “Great Harmony”: a future era in which “the world belongs to all, there are no classes, and everyone is equal.”