Long, Jiang Weiqing[1], after a few years, when everyone’s anger has subsided, they can also do a bit of work. Not main work, and there are some other people, strong and healthy, in the future they must be given something to do!
Deng Hua[2] has come, right? (Deng stands up) Long time no see. In Sichuan for several years, no one said he was no good, I don’t know why the Red Guards have locked him up again. You, this person, made mistakes with Peng Dehuai, it will be fine once you correct your mistakes. In Beijing there are Huang Kecheng, Tan Zheng[3], people who have made mistakes, we must allow people to correct their mistakes, we must give them time, even up to many years. Because the masses still need to see their performance.
Right now we are engaged in the great criticism, cleansing the class ranks. For this matter, one, we must grasp it firmly, and two, we must pay attention to policy. Isn’t it about being stable, accurate, and ruthless? Stable, there are rightists, if it’s stable, it’s not stable. Ruthless can become very “left,” and go too far. The key point is the word “accurate.” Otherwise, if it’s not accurate, you can’t be stable, and you can’t be ruthless. We must investigate and study, we must emphasize evidence, don’t do the hanging of black placards, the jet-plane style, don’t beat people. In 1927 I wrote an article on Hunan, about local tyrants and evil gentry, putting tall hats on them, parading them through the villages, but in fact we haven’t done that for decades. The Red Guards followed that method and escalated it step by step, hanging black placards, doing the jet-plane style, and all sorts of other things. Towards special agents, traitors, and die-hard capitalist-roaders, we must investigate and study, emphasize evidence, don’t give weight to confessions, don’t beat people, put tall hats on them, or do that jet-plane style stuff. The results of that are not good. In Beijing there are Du Yuming, Wang Yaowu[1]. In the past, we didn’t do this stuff even to captured enemies.
Some die-hard people, you struggle against them, and they still won’t repent. Feng Youlan[2], if you don’t let him do his idealism stuff, I think it would be difficult. There is also Jian Bozan, a professor at Peking University, a historian, an authority on bourgeois history. If you don’t want him to deal with emperors, kings, generals, and ministers, it would also be difficult. Towards these people, don’t use methods that disrespect their human dignity. For example, giving them a salary of only twenty-four yuan a month, at most forty yuan, don’t deduct too much. These people don’t have much use anymore. There is also Wu Han, who might still have some use. If you want to ask about idealism, if you want to ask about emperors, kings, generals, and ministers, you still have to ask them. Among those present, Old Fan[1], also deals with emperors, kings, generals, and ministers, and Old Guo[2] can be counted as one too, right? At that time there were no other books to read, all were the Twenty-Four Histories and the like. To oppose emperors, kings, generals, and ministers, you still need to know what emperors, kings, generals, and ministers are. Otherwise, if someone asks you, you can’t answer. I am certainly not advising you who are present to go and study emperors, kings, generals, and ministers. You should still follow what the Premier said, follow those few documents. I also don’t approve of young students going to study it. A small number of people can study it. For example, Old Fan, if you don’t study it, won’t emperors, kings, generals, and ministers become extinct? It’s not that we want emperors, kings, generals, and ministers to appear again, but that history needs people to study it.
In cleansing the class ranks, you must pay attention to these people, there are three types: the good, the intermediate, and the extreme right. What I am saying is about the rightists, how they should be treated. In the world there are always left, center, and right. Without the right, where does your left come from? It’s not that absolute. All are leftists, I don’t approve. How could that be? It’s not necessarily good to be that pure. Our Party, through this Cultural Revolution, I think has become purer. We have never done it like this before. But being too pure is also not so good. For example, the delegates to the Ninth Congress, it is a shortcoming that the comrades of the February Countercurrent are not participating. So we still recommend that all localities elect them as delegates. Comrade Chen Yi said he is not qualified, I think you are qualified, to represent that rightist faction of the left, center, and right. You don’t quite meet the second of the three conditions for a Ninth Congress delegate, but we can consult on it. It is beneficial to have a small number of them participate.
The situation now is different from two years ago at the time of the Eleventh Plenary Session, very different. The movement is not yet over, even after the Ninth Congress is held, the movement will not necessarily end right away. Because this involves every factory, every school, every organ. I will just say this much today.
Pay attention to policy, pay attention to the word “accurate” among stable, accurate, and ruthless. There will still be some that are not so accurate, that have been too ruthless, and also some that are too stable and cannot be ruthless.
For example, the Shanghai comrades say there still exists the problem of “long-standing, big, and difficult” issues. In a city of several million people, a state of imbalance exists everywhere, imbalance is a natural phenomenon, Beijing is also like this.
Don’t go too far with the academic authorities.
For old comrades who have made mistakes, whose conditions are not quite met, use the method of consultation to elect them as delegates to the Ninth Congress. It is a good thing for a congress to have different opinions. It is fine as long as the basic part can reflect the opinions of the workers, peasants, and soldiers. Whoever has something to say, just say it. (At that time Li, Zhu, Chen expressed their positions, omitted) Teng Daiyuan was involved in the Hunan peasant movement, what county committee chairman were you, Ye Dehui was killed at your hands. This person was a Hanlin scholar from the late Qing dynasty, for this kind of great intellectual, I think killing him was not so appropriate. You have them in all your provinces, I have always wanted to find an opportunity to talk to you comrades about this, so let’s talk about it this one time.
For the great intellectuals, we must give them a way out. Jian Bozan and Feng Youlan are poison-spreaders, we just criticize them. Criticism is necessary, but it is one part criticism, two parts protection, give them a bowl of rice to eat, let them receive re-education from the workers, peasants, and soldiers.
There is also XXX, who is also an authority. We are protecting these people. Don’t go too far with these people, just mention it at a meeting. Speaking to individuals won’t work, writing newspaper editorials also won’t work, as soon as you write one they will pass the test. Not criticizing won’t do, criticism is still necessary, protection is still necessary. They may not be principals anymore, they can’t be officials, but they must still have the title of professor, so they can draw a salary. In Guangdong there is a Yang Rongguo, a Zhao Jixian, these two revere Confucius. Among those present, Old Guo also supports Confucius. I think Old Fan, you basically revere Confucius too, your book even has a portrait of Confucius. Feng Youlan also supports Confucius. I, this person, am somewhat of a representative of the newly emerging class. He represents the slave-owning class. On this point, Old Guo and I don’t quite agree, I don’t approve of your “Ten Critiques.” Old Fan also treats Confucius as a representative of the newly emerging class. This is an antique, I advise you comrades not to study this stuff.
People say Laozi was a materialist, I don’t agree. In Tianjin there is a Yang XX who said Laozi was an idealist, so I took notice of this person, investigated what kind of person he was. Turned out to be a big rightist. In Shanghai there are Zhou Gucheng, Liu Dajie, Liu wrote a history of Chinese literature, Zhou wrote a general history of China. Tan Jiazhen is in genetics, you all struggled against him fiercely, right? This person is of the Morgan school, if he reforms he can be used, if he doesn’t reform that’s also okay. Bourgeois geneticists, there aren’t many in the whole country. Su Buqing, a professor at Fudan University, a mathematician, towards these bourgeois scholars, also don’t go too far, this is the point I am making.
In cleansing the class ranks, pay attention to investigation and study, pay attention to the word “accurate.” Towards old comrades, one part criticism, two parts protection, three parts observation. Protection means helping, observation means observing his performance. I think it’s okay if he reforms, and it’s also okay if he doesn’t. You can’t force people to reform. The earth will still turn, the bowstring cannot be pulled too tight. Pay attention to academic authorities, if you hand them over to the students for seven or eight struggles, they will lose their lives. After their salaries are deducted, some are given only twenty yuan, at most forty yuan, but his whole family, old and young, needs to eat. We the proletariat must still support a batch of well-known intellectuals from the old society.
As for the democratic parties, some have proposed to abolish them, why abolish them? It’s better to have some. Because the problem is decidedly not with the democratic parties, but within the Communist Party. Even if the democratic parties have problems, they are of secondary importance. If the Communist Party does not produce the likes of Liu, Deng, and Tao, the democratic parties cannot rebel even if they want to. It is better to let them do it openly than to have them do it secretly. The Political Consultative Conference and the democratic parties have not been abolished yet. As for whether to keep them, there is no time to discuss it this time. This time someone proposed not to keep them, consider it, and we will discuss it at the next meeting. To keep them or not, you all consider it. The people we send out to do the work are also not very good. For example, Li Weihan and Xu Bing of the United Front Work Department. A small number of people should study emperors, kings, generals, and ministers, in order to oppose emperors, kings, generals, and ministers, a little bit must be done, for example in the Academy of Sciences, universities, etc. Regarding the issue of opening social science disciplines in universities, it has not yet been resolved. Things like political economy, philosophy, literature, these things have not been resolved in eighteen or nineteen years, with no good results. Studying for four or five years in university, doing social sciences but not understanding Marxism-Leninism, not understanding class struggle, is not as good as several years of labor and tempering. First engage in class struggle, then go back and study for two years. University is still two or three years, isn’t it five years? It’s already been two years, another two or three years and they will all be gone. I quite approve of struggle, criticism, and departure. They must depart, right? This is a method for them. They haven’t worked, nor have they farmed, two years of no new admissions to university lets them go among the worker and peasant masses to be reformed.
Do the comrades from Shanghai have any opinions? And from Beijing?
This person is called Wang Hongwen, stand up and let’s have a look. Head of the Shanghai Workers’ General Headquarters, Chairman of the Shanghai Municipal Revolutionary Committee. He was the one who started the Anting Incident the year before last. It is very good that young comrades are participating in this meeting, but there are too few, there is also Wei Fengying (after Wei stands up, he asks her age). Which one is Liu Dianying? (Liu stands up) How old are you? (Liu answers: Thirty-two.) You seem to be a military man, he is still a youth, the young ones are you three representatives, are there any other young ones? (Zhou Enlai: There is also Dalo from Qinghai, thirty-eight years old, of the Tibetan nationality.) Can you speak Chinese? (Dalo stands up and answers: Yes.) Are you a real Tibetan or a fake Tibetan? (Dalo answers: A real Tibetan.)
Xinjiang, I have said that you there should unite, you still have some problems there. Which one is Long Shujin? (Long stands up) You are an old fellow-townsman of mine. There is also Wang Enmao. Some of your methods are very clumsy, why do that welcoming stuff at the airport? The result was that one faction supported it, and one faction opposed it. There is always someone giving you ideas, waving a goose-feather fan.
There is also Chen Yonggui (Chen stands up immediately), your attire is still the true character of a peasant. Dazhai also has its calamities, ten thousand people visit every day, doesn’t that affect grain production? (Chen answers: It’s very good, it’s a spur for us.)
Xian Henghan, a Guangxi fellow, right? Do you know Wei Guoqing? (Xian answers: I don’t know him.) Weren’t you both in the Red Seventh Army, how come you don’t know each other? (Xian answers: We were both soldiers.) Don’t be strangers for life.
Zhang Jianglin of Qinghai, I have long heard your great name but have not seen you in person. Where are you from? (Zhang answers: Da County, Sichuan.) How old are you? (Zhang answers: Fifty-two.) You can’t be that old, you’re misreporting your age.
Don’t think that because the Fourth Front Army produced a Zhang Guotao, there are no good people in the Fourth Front Army. Who says there are no good people in the Fourth Front Army? Many of those present at this meeting are from the Fourth Front Army, that’s not the case.
Don’t think that because the Central Committee produced a Chen Duxiu, there are no good people, or that because Shaanxi produced a Gao Gang, there are no good people. The Communist Party produced a Chen Duxiu, quite a few people know him, the Premier knows him, right? (Zhou Enlai: Old Kang also knows him.) In the future, when writing the Party history, it would not be good without Chen Duxiu’s name. In the beginning it was him, later he was no good, his entire ideology was that of the Social Democratic Party.
Don’t think that because our Party produced Chen Duxiu, Qu Qiubai, Wang Ming, Li Lisan, Zhang Guotao, Gao Gang, Rao Shushi, Peng Dehuai, Zhang Wentian, He Long and others, that our Party is not glorious, great, and correct. I think one cannot say that. There are bad people, but they did not appear with the face of a bad person in the beginning. In Jinggangshan, two division commanders, Fan XX and Yang XX, and also two regiment commanders all betrayed us, with so many betrayals, was Jinggangshan diminished? No. I went there a few years ago, it’s still the same old way, still that high.
This time, Liu, Deng, Tao, Peng, Luo, Lu, and Yang have been cleared out. Everyone wants to expel Deng Xiaoping, I have some reservations. It should be said that Deng Xiaoping is different from Liu Shaoqi. In fact, there is some difference. It is very easy to expel a person, for us here to raise our hands, isn’t that easy! If you want to expel him, then expel him in the future. I have my reservations. As for being afraid he will rebel, I think there is no need to be afraid. He cannot rebel. Deng Xiaoping’s characteristic is being too divorced from the masses. This thought of mine may be a bit conservative, not to your taste. I will say a few good words for him. Deng was merely the one waving the goose-feather fan, the real decision-maker was still Liu Shaoqi. At the Eighth Congress, it was about recruiting deserters and accepting mutineers, at the Seventh Congress, it was about vetting delegates, it was Liu Shaoqi, Peng Zhen and their group who did it, they held a White Areas Work Conference in Yan’an.
In the past, it was said about He Long that it was one part criticism, two parts protection, because he was the representative of the Second Front Army. Now it seems he cannot be protected, because we did not know about the things he did before. From the materials exposed by Cheng Jun, Xu Guangda, Liao Hansheng and others, it seems he was undermining our army. He secretly had the intention of usurping the army and opposing the Party, but he did not have time to act. There were He Long, Liu Zhen, Wang Shangrong, Xu Guangda, these people. Let’s not get too far off track, let’s end it here, meeting adjourned.

[1] Tan Qilong, after his return to public life in 1970, successively served as Vice Chairman of the Fujian Provincial Revolutionary Committee and Secretary of the Provincial Party Committee. From April 1972, he successively served as Secretary of the Zhejiang Provincial Party Committee (in charge of work), Vice Chairman of the Provincial Revolutionary Committee, First Secretary of the Zhejiang Provincial Party Committee, Chairman of the Provincial Revolutionary Committee, and First Political Commissar of the Provincial Military District. Jiang Weiqing, returned to public life at the end of 1974, the Central Committee sent Jiang Weiqing to work in Jiangxi, where he successively served as First Secretary of the Jiangxi Provincial Party Committee, Chairman of the Provincial Revolutionary Committee, Political Commissar of the Fuzhou Military Region, and First Political Commissar of the Jiangxi Provincial Military District.
[2] Deng Hua, in August 1959, at the Lushan Conference, Deng Hua was dismissed from all posts inside and outside the Party due to the Peng Dehuai case. In 1960, he was transferred to a local post, serving as Vice Governor of Sichuan Province, in charge of agricultural machinery work.
[3] Huang Kecheng, in August 1959, at the Lushan Conference, Huang Kecheng, along with Peng Dehuai and others, was designated a member of an “anti-Party clique” and was dismissed from his post as Chief of the General Staff of the Military Commission. In 1965, Huang Kecheng served as Vice Governor of Shanxi Province, in charge of agriculture. Tan Zheng, formerly Director of the General Political Department of the Chinese People’s Liberation Army, in September-October 1960, an enlarged meeting of the Military Commission passed the “Resolution of the Enlarged Meeting of the Military Commission of the CPC Central Committee on the Errors of Comrade Tan Zheng,” which characterized him as having “formed an anti-Party sectarian clique in the General Political Department.” After January 1961, he was dismissed from his posts as a Standing Committee member of the Central Military Commission, a Secretary of the Central Secretariat, etc. In November 1965, he served as Vice Governor of Fujian Province. In August 1975, he returned to public life as an advisor to the Central Military Commission of the CPC.
[1] Du Yuming, a famous high-ranking Kuomintang general, was captured in the Huaihai Campaign in January 1949 and was granted a special pardon in 1959. His son-in-law is the Chinese-American Nobel laureate Dr. Yang Chen-Ning. Wang Yaowu, a famous high-ranking Kuomintang general with outstanding military talent, was captured in the Jinan Campaign and was granted a special pardon in 1959. Both were captured by General Su Yu.
[2] Feng Youlan, style name Zhisheng, from Tanghe, Henan. In 1912, he entered the university preparatory class at the China Public School in Shanghai. In 1915, he entered the Department of Chinese Philosophy in the School of Letters at Peking University. In 1919, he went to the United States to study, and in 1924, he received his Ph.D. from Columbia University. After returning to China, he successively served as a professor at Zhongzhou University, Guangdong University, and Yenching University, and as Dean of the School of Letters and Head of the Department of Philosophy at Tsinghua University. During the War of Resistance, he served as a professor in the Department of Philosophy and Dean of the School of Letters at the Southwest Associated University. In 1946, he went to the United States as a visiting professor. From late 1948 to early 1949, he served as Chairman of the Tsinghua University Administrative Council. He received honorary Doctor of Letters degrees from Princeton University in the United States, the University of Delhi in India, and Columbia University in the United States. After 1949, he was always a professor in the Department of Philosophy at Peking University. While teaching at Yenching University, Feng Youlan taught the history of Chinese philosophy and completed the first and second volumes of “A History of Chinese Philosophy” in 1931 and 1934, respectively, which were later used as university textbooks and made a major contribution to the establishment of the discipline of the history of Chinese philosophy. From 1939 to 1946, Feng Youlan continuously published 6 books, known as the “books written during the Zhenyuan period”: “Xin Lixue” (1937), “Xin Shixun” (1940), “Xin Shilun” (1940), “Xin Yuanren” (1942), “Xin Yuandao” (1945), and “Xin Zhiyan” (1946). Through the “Six Books of Zhenyuan,” Feng Youlan established the New Neo-Confucianism ideological system, becoming the most influential philosopher in China at the time. After the founding of New China, Feng Youlan abandoned his New Neo-Confucianism system, accepted Marxism, and began to study the history of Chinese philosophy under the guidance of Marxism. His works include “Collected Essays on the History of Chinese Philosophy,” “Second Collection of Essays on the History of Chinese Philosophy,” “A Preliminary Draft of Historiography for the History of Chinese Philosophy,” “A Forty-Year Retrospective,” and the seven-volume “A New Edition of the History of Chinese Philosophy.”
[1] Old Fan, refers to Fan Wenlan.
[2] Old Guo, refers to Guo Moruo.