Does anyone have any opinions? If you do, please speak up. I have nothing more to say.
Comrade Lin Biao has already spoken, and many comrades have spoken. I think this meeting
has been very successful. It has been very good! Perhaps some comrades were not familiar
with the ‘February Countercurrent’ incident, but after eighteen days, they now understand it
better than before. In the past, even senior cadres were unclear about it, and we did not
disclose any information. In the past, when provinces came to resolve issues, there was no
time to discuss these matters. At this meeting, comrades who made mistakes explained the
issues, and comrades questioned them and received responses. Through questioning and
responses, the matters became clearer. This matter is not insignificant, but it is also not
particularly remarkable, in my opinion. It is a natural phenomenon. They have opinions, and
they will inevitably express them. When several people are together, including members of
the Political Bureau,  vice-premier, and vice-chairman of the Central Military Commission, so
it’s permissible for them to speak out. Party life also permits this; it’s done openly. The two
major incidents were also discussed openly. Some details, I wasn’t very clear about in the
past. Details like how many times they met, what kind of interactions they had—don’t dwell
too much on these details; don’t let party life get bogged down in trivialities. Not paying
attention to major issues is problematic. This isn’t a minor matter. Are you saying the sky will
fall?! The Earth won’t spin?! It will still spin—how could it not spin?! I admire Comrade Deng
for standing firm. If it were me, I wouldn’t have responded, but you still wrote a selfcriticism. He had already engaged in self-criticism, for example, at the Beidaihe meeting.
Some old comrades may be able to work in the future. Tan Qilong and Jiang Weiqing [1]
were overthrown, but after a few years, when everyone has calmed down, they can also do
some work. They may not do major work, but there are other people who are strong and
healthy, and they will have to be given something to do in the future! Deng Hua [2] has
arrived, hasn't he? (Deng stood up) It's been a long time since we last saw him. In Sichuan,
no one said anything bad about him,  but I don't know if the Red Guards have locked him up
again. You made a mistake with Peng Dehuai, but correcting your mistake is enough. In
Beijing, there are Huang Kecheng, Tan Zheng, and others who made mistakes. Allow them
time to correct their mistakes, even if it takes many years. Because the masses still need to
see their performance.
We are currently conducting a major criticism campaign to purge the ranks of the class. This
task must be carried out swiftly and with careful attention to policy. We must be steady,
accurate, and ruthless, right? Steady, but if there are rightists, then being steady means not
being steady. Ruthless means going too far to the left and overdoing it. The key is to be
accurate. Otherwise, without accuracy, neither stability nor decisiveness can be achieved.



We must conduct investigations and research, focus on evidence, and avoid hanging black
signs, forcing people to do the jet plane, or beating people. In 1927, I wrote an article about
Hunan Province, where wealthy landlords and corrupt officials were forced to wear high hats
and parade through the countryside, but this practice has not been used for decades. The
Red Guards gradually escalated their tactics, hanging black signs, conducting jet-style
beatings, and engaging in various other activities. For spies, traitors, and unrepentant
capitalists, investigations should be conducted with a focus on evidence, without relying on
confessions, beatings, wearing high hats, or jet-style beatings. This approach did not yield
good results. In Beijing, there were Du Zhangming and Wang Yaowu [3]. Even prisoners of
war were not treated this way in the past.
Some people are unrepentant. No matter how much you punish them, they will not repent.
Feng Youlan [4], if you don't call him out on his idealism, I don't think it will be easy. There is
also a certain professor at Peking University, a historian, a bourgeois authority on history. It
is difficult to prevent him from discussing emperors and generals. For these people, do not
use methods that disrespect their dignity. For example, pay them only twenty-four yuan a
month, with a maximum of forty yuan, and do not deduct too much. These people are no
longer of much use. There is also Wu Han, who may still have some use. If you want to ask
about idealism, or about emperors and generals, you should ask them. Among those
present, Fan Lao [4] also deals with emperors and generals, and Guo Lao [5] can be counted
as one as well. At that time, there were no other books to read, only the Twenty-Four
Histories and the like. To oppose emperors and generals, one must first understand what
emperors and generals are. Otherwise, when people ask you, you won't be able to answer.
I'm not advising you all here to study emperors and ministers. You should follow what the
Premier said and follow those documents. I also don't agree that young students should
study it. Only a few people should study it. For example, Fan Lao, if you don't study it, won't
emperors and ministers become extinct? It's not about producing more emperors and
ministers, but about history needing people to study it.
When cleaning up the ranks, you should pay attention to these people. There are three
types: the good, the middle, and the extreme right. I am talking about the right wing. How
should we treat them? There will always be left, middle, and right in the world. Without the
right, where would the left come from? It's not that extreme. I don't agree with everyone
being left-wing. That’s not the case. Such purity isn’t necessarily good either. Our party
has become more pure through this Cultural Revolution, I think. We’ve never done it this
way before. But too much purity isn’t good either. For example, for the delegates to the
Ninth National Congress, it would be a shortcoming for the comrades who participated in
the February Counter-current not to participate. So we still recommend that they be elected
as representatives in various regions. Comrade Chen Yi said he wasn’t qualified, but I think
you are qualified—as the right-wing representative of the left, centre, and right. You don't
fully meet the second of the three criteria for the Ninth National Congress delegates, but we
can negotiate. Having a few people participate is beneficial.



The situation now is very different from what it was two years ago at the 11th Plenary
Session of the Central Committee. The movement is not over yet, even though the big
events have passed, and it is unlikely to end immediately. This is because it involves every
factory, every school, and every government agency. That is all I have to say today.
Pay attention to policy, and pay attention to the word ‘accurate’ in ‘accurate, precise, and
ruthless.’ There are still some who are not so accurate, who are too ruthless, and who are
too cautious to be ruthless.
For example, Shanghai comrades say that there are still some ‘difficult’ issues. In a city of
several million people, imbalance exists everywhere. Imbalance is a natural phenomenon,
and Beijing is no exception.
Don't be overly concerned with academic authority.
For older comrades who have made mistakes and do not fully meet the criteria, we should
use consultation to select them as representatives to the Ninth Congress. It is a good thing
for a congress to have different opinions. As long as the basic part reflects the opinions of
the workers, peasants, and soldiers, that is fine. If any of you have something to say, please
speak up. (At the time, Li, Zhu, and Chen expressed their views, but the details are omitted.)
Teng Dayuan led the peasant movement in Hunan. What kind of county chairman are you?
As the county chairman, you were the one who ordered the execution of the head of the
Japanese-affiliated organisation. This person was a former imperial scholar. For such a
prominent intellectual, I believe execution was not the most appropriate course of action.
Each province has such cases, and I have always wanted to find an opportunity to discuss
this with the comrades. Let us discuss it this time.
We must give intellectuals a way out. Ruan Bozan and Feng Youlan are poisonous, so we
must criticise them. Criticism is necessary, but we must also protect them, give them a bowl
of rice to eat, and re-educate them through the workers, peasants and soldiers.
There are also the "XXX", who are also authorities. We protect these people. Don't go too far
with them. Just talk about them at meetings. Don't talk about them individually, and don't
write editorials about them in newspapers, because once you do, they will pass muster. You
can't criticise them, but you still have to criticise them, and you still have to protect them.
The principal may not necessarily remain in office,but he can still be a professor and receive
a salary. In Guangdong, there are Yang Guorong and Zhao Jianan,  who are both
Confucianists. Among those present, Guo Lao also supports Confucius. I believe Fan Lao is
also a Confucianist, as there is an image of Confucius in your book. Feng Youlan also
supports Confucius. I am somewhat of a representative of the emerging class. He represents
the slave owners. I disagree with Guo Lao on this point. I do not agree with your "Ten
Criticisms Book." Fan Lao regards Confucius as a representative of the emerging class. This is
outdated. I advise comrades not to study this stuff.



People say that Laozi was a materialist, but I disagree. There is a man named Yang XX in
Tianjin who says that Laozi was an idealist, so I took note of this person and investigated
who he was. It turns out that he is a big right-wing figure. Zhou Gucheng and Liu Dajie in
Shanghai, Liu wrote a history of Chinese literature, and Zhou wrote a general history of
China. Tan Jiazhen is a geneticist. You must have fought him fiercely, right? This person is
from the Morgan school. If he can be reformed, that's fine; if not, that's fine too. There are
not many bourgeois geneticists in the whole country. Su Buqing, a professor at Fudan
University and a mathematician, should not be treated too harshly either. That is my point.
Clean up the ranks, pay attention to investigation and research, and pay attention to
accuracy. For old comrades, first criticise, second protect, third observe. Protect means help,
observe means observe his performance. I think it can be changed, but it can also be left
unchanged. You can't force people to change. The earth will still turn, and you can't pull the
strings too tight. Pay attention to academic authorities; if you give students seven or eight
dou, they will lose their lives. After salary deductions, some receive only twenty yuan, others
forty yuan. They have families to feed. The proletariat must still support a group of
intellectuals with reputations from the old society.
As for the democratic parties, some have suggested that they should be abolished. Why
should they be abolished? It would be better to retain some of them. This is because the
problem does not lie with the democratic parties, but with the Communist Party. Even if the
democratic parties have problems, they are secondary. If the Communist Party does not
produce figures like Liu, Deng, and Tao, the democratic parties cannot even stage a rebellion.
Rather than having them operate secretly, it is better to allow them to operate openly. The
CPPCC and the democratic parties have not yet been abolished. As for whether to abolish
them, there is no time to discuss this now. Some have suggested abolishing them, so
consider it and discuss it at the next meeting. If you do not want to abolish them, consider it.
The people we send to do the work are not very good either. For example, Li Weihan and Xu
Bing from the United Front Work Department. A few people study emperors and generals,
and in order to oppose emperors and generals, they need to do something, such as the
Academy of Sciences and universities. The issue of opening social science disciplines in
universities has not yet been resolved. Political economics, philosophy, literature, etc., these
things have not been solved for 18 or 19 years, and there is no good result. After studying
for four or five years in college, studying social sciences but not understanding Marxism-
Leninism and class struggle, it is better to work and train for a few years. First engage in class
struggle, and then go back to study for two years. There are still two or three years in
college, not five years? It's already two years, and if you do it for another two or three years,
they will be gone. I quite agree with struggle, criticism, and departure. They have to leave
anyway. This is their method of criticism. They didn't work, nor did they farm. The university
didn't recruit students for two years so that they could be transformed among the workers
and peasants.



What are the opinions of the comrades from Shanghai? And Beijing?
This person is Wang Hongwen. Please stand up. He is the head of the Shanghai Federation of
Trade Unions and the chairman of the Shanghai Revolutionary Committee. He was behind
the Anning incident two years ago. It is good that young comrades are participating in this
meeting, but there are too few of them. There is also Wei Fengying (Wei stood up and was
asked his age). Which one is Liu Dianying? (Liu stood up.) How old are you? (Liu answered:
32 years old.) You seem to be a soldier, but he is still young. You three are the
representatives of the young ones. Are there any other young people? (Zhou Enlai: There is
also Daluo from Qinghai, 38 years old, Tibetan.) Can you speak Mandarin? (Daluo stood up
and answered: Yes.) Are you a real Tibetan or a fake Tibetan? (Daluo answered: A real
Tibetan.)
Xinjiang, I've told you that your place is closed off, and there are still some issues there.
Which one is Long Shujin? (Long stands up) You're still my fellow villager. And Wang Enmao.
Some of your methods are very clumsy. Why did you go to the airport to do that welcome
thing? As a result, some people agreed, and some disagreed. There are always people giving
you advice, waving their goose feather fans 22.
There was also Chen Yonggui (Chen immediately stood up). Your attire still reflects your
peasant roots. Dazhai also experienced disasters. With 10,000 visitors daily, does this not
impact grain production? (Chen replied: It is beneficial; it promotes our efforts.)
Xi Henghan, you're from Guangxi, right? Do you know Wei Guqing? (Xi replied: I don't know
him.) You are all from the Red Seventh Army, how come you don't know each other? (Xi
replied: We are all soldiers.) Don't just keep to yourselves.
Zhang Jianglin from Qinghai, I have heard of your name, but have never met you. Where are
you from? (Zhang replied: Daxian, Sichuan.) How old are you? (Zhang replied: Fifty-two.) You
can't be that old, you're lying about your age.
Don't think that just because the Fourth Army produced a Zhang Guotao, there are no good
people in the Fourth Army. Who said there are no good people in the Fourth Army? There
are many members of the Fourth Army here at this meeting, so that is not the case.
Don't think that just because Chen Duxiu appeared in the central government, there are no
good people. Just because Gao Gang appeared in Shaanxi, there are no good people. Many
people knew Chen Duxiu when he appeared in the Communist Party, and the Premier knew
him too. (Zhou Enlai: Kang Lao also knew him.) It would not be good to omit Chen Duxiu's
name when writing the history of the Party in the future.

22 "Shaking a goose feather fan" is an idiom used in Chinese to metaphorically plan and strategize behind the
scenes, derived from the legend of Zhuge Liang of the Three Kingdoms period holding a feather fan to
command the battles.



It started with him, but later things went wrong. His entire ideology was that of the Social
Democratic Party. Do not think that because our party produced Chen Duxiu, Qu Qiubai,
Wang Ming, Li Lisan, Zhang Guoquan, Gao Gang, Rao Shushi, Peng Dehuai, Zhang Wentian,
He Long, and others, we are not honourable, great, or correct. I don't think we can say that.
There are bad people, but they didn't start out as bad people. The two division commanders
Fan XX and Yang XX on Jinggangshan, along with two other division commanders, all
defected. With so many defections, did Jinggangshan become any less significant? No. I
visited there a few years ago, and it was still the same as before, still as significant as ever.
This time, Liu, Deng, Tao, Peng, Lu, and Yang were purged again. Everyone wants to expel
Deng Xiaoping, but I have some reservations. It should be said that Deng Xiaoping is
different from Liu Shaoqi. In fact, there is some difference.  It is easy to expel someone; it is
not difficult for us to raise our hands! If you want to expel him, you can do so later. I have
reservations. As for fearing he might rebel, I don’t think we should be afraid. He can’t stir up
a rebellion. Deng Xiaoping’s characteristic is that he is too detached from the masses. My
thoughts may be a bit conservative and not to your liking. I'll say a few good things about
him. Deng is just waving a feather fan; the real decision-maker is Liu Shaoqi. At the Eighth
Congress, they recruited defectors, and at the Seventh Congress, they reviewed delegates.  It
was Liu Shaoqi and Peng Zhen who did that. They held a white zone work meeting in Yan'an.
In the past, we said that He Long was a second-rate leader because he was a representative
of the Second Front Army. Now it seems that we cannot protect him 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 that he was undermining our army. He did
have plans to usurp the army and oppose the Party behind the scenes, but he did not have
time to carry them out. There are He Long, Liu Zhen, Wang Shangrong, and Xu Guangda
among them. Let's not stray too far from the topic; we'll stop here. The meeting is
adjourned.

[1] Tan Qilong, after his return in 1970, served as Deputy Director of the Fujian Provincial
Grassroots Committee, Provincial Party Secretary, and from April 1972, served as Zhejiang
Provincial Party Secretary (in charge of work), Deputy Director of the Provincial Grassroots
Committee, Zhejiang Provincial Party First Secretary, Director of the Provincial Revolutionary
Committee, and First Political Commissar of the Provincial Military Region. Jiang Weqing
returned to active duty at the end of 1974. The Central Committee assigned Jiang Weqing to
work in Jiangxi Province, where he served as First Secretary of the Jiangxi Provincial Party
Committee, Director of the Provincial Revolutionary Committee, Political Commissar of the
Fuzhou Military Region, and First Political Commissar of the Jiangxi Provincial Military
Region.



[2] Deng Hua, in August 1959, at the Lushan Conference, was stripped of all his party and
government positions due to the Peng Dehuai case. In 1960, he transferred to local
government and served as deputy governor of Sichuan Province, in charge of agricultural
machinery.
[3] Huang Kecheng, in August 1959, at the Lushan Conference, Huang Kecheng and Peng
Dehuai were labelled as members of the ‘anti-Party group’ and removed from their positions
as Chief of the General Staff of the Central Military Commission. In 1965, Huang Kecheng
served as Deputy Governor of Shanxi Province, in charge of agriculture. Tan Zheng, formerly
Director of the General Political Department of the Chinese People's Liberation Army, was
subject to a resolution passed at an expanded meeting of the Central Military Commission in
September-October 1960 titled ‘Resolution of the Expanded Meeting of the Central Military
Commission of the Communist Party of China on the Errors of Comrade Tan Zheng,’ which
characterised him as having ‘formed an anti-Party factional group within the General
Political Department.’ After January 1961, he was stripped of his positions as a member of
the Standing Committee of the Central Military Commission and Secretary of the Central
Secretariat. In November 1965, he was appointed Deputy Governor of Fujian Province, and
in August 1975, he was reinstated as an advisor to the Central Military Commission of the
Communist Party of China.
[4] Du Xingming, a renowned senior Nationalist Party general, was captured during the
Huaihai Campaign in January 1949. He was granted amnesty in 1959, and his son-in-law is
Dr. Yang Zhenning, a Chinese-American Nobel laureate. Wang Yaowu, a prominent
Nationalist Party general with outstanding military talent, was captured during the Battle of
Jinan and granted amnesty in 1959. Both were captured by General Su Yu.
[5] Feng Youlan, courtesy name Zisheng, was born in Tanghe, Henan Province. In 1912, he
enrolled in the preparatory programme at the University of Shanghai. In 1915, he entered
the Department of Chinese Philosophy at Peking University. In 1919, he went to the United
States to study abroad, and in 1924, he obtained a doctoral degree from Columbia
University. Upon his return to China, he served as a professor at Zhongzhou University,
Guangdong University, and Yenching University, and as Dean of the College of Arts and
Sciences and Head of the Department of Philosophy at Tsinghua University. During the War
of Resistance Against Japan, he served as a professor in the Department of Philosophy and
Dean of the College of Arts 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 University Council at Tsinghua University. He received honorary Doctor of Letters
degrees from Princeton University in the United States, Delhi University in India, and
Columbia University in the United States. From 1952, he served as a professor in the
Department of Philosophy at Peking University. During his tenure at Yenching University,
Feng Youlan taught the history of Chinese philosophy, completing the two volumes of A
History of Chinese Philosophy in 1931 and 1934, respectively. These works were later



adopted as university textbooks, making a significant contribution to the development of the
discipline of Chinese philosophy. From 1939 to 1946, Feng Youlan published six books in
succession, collectively known as the ‘Works Written During the Zhenyuan Period’: *New
Neo-Confucianism* (1937), *New Worldly Instructions* (1940), *New Discourse on Affairs*
(1940), *New Original Man* (1942), *New Original Doctrine* (1945), and *New Words of
Knowledge* (1946). Through the ‘Zhenyuan Six Books,’ Feng Youlan established the New
Neo-Confucianism philosophical system, becoming the most influential philosopher in China
at the time. After the founding of the People's Republic of China, Feng Youlan abandoned his
New Neo-Confucianism system, embraced Marxism, and began to study the history of
Chinese philosophy guided by Marxism. His works include *Essays on the History of Chinese
Philosophy*, *Essays on the History of Chinese Philosophy, Volume II*, *Preliminary Draft of
the History of Chinese Philosophy*, *A Retrospective of Forty Years*, and the seven-volume
*New Compilation of the History of Chinese Philosophy*.
[6] Fan Lao refers to Fan Wenlan.
[7] Guo Lao refers to Guo Moruo.