This material was fabricated by Comrade Chen Boda [2], and it deceived many comrades.
First, there are no quotes from Marx. Second, only one sentence from Engels was found [3],
and The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte is not Marx's primary work. Third, five
excerpts from Lenin were found [4]. The fifth of these excerpts states that we must have
leaders who have been tested, received specialized training and long-term education, and
who can coordinate well with one another. These four conditions are listed. Putting aside
others, even among our Central Committee comrades, not many meet these requirements.
For example, Chen Boda, a brilliant theorist, and I worked together for over 30 years, but we
never cooperated on major issues, let alone very well. Take, for example, the three Lushan
Conferences [5]. During the first, he went to Peng Dehuai's [6] place. The second time,
during the discussion of the Seventy Articles on Industry [7], he went up the mountain for a
few days and then came down. No one knows why he went down, or where he went after
that. This time, he cooperated perfectly, launching a surprise attack and fanning the flames,
desperate for chaos, as if he was going to blow up Mount Lushan and stop the Earth's
rotation. These words of mine are merely an attempt to describe the vastness of the heart
(what kind of heart, I don't know; it's probably conscience, but definitely not ambition) of
our genius theorist. As for whether the proletariat will bring chaos to the world, whether
Mount Lushan will be flattened by bombs, or whether the earth will stop rotating, I doubt it
will happen. An ancient man [8] who visited Mount Lushan once said, "The Qi people worry
about the sky collapsing when there's nothing to worry about." "We should not learn from
that Qi countryman. My last words [9] certainly would not help him much. I said that the rise
and fall of people is not due to their genius, but to their social practice [10]. I exchanged
views with Comrade Lin Biao [11], and we both agreed that this issue, which historians and
philosophers have been arguing about endlessly, is usually said to be whether heroes create
history or slaves create history, whether human knowledge (talent also belongs to the
category of knowledge) is innate or acquired, whether it is the idealist a priori theory or the
materialist reflection theory, we can only stand on the position of Marxism-Leninism and
must not be mixed up with Chen Boda's rumours and sophistry. At the same time, we both
believe that we need to continue studying this issue of Marxist epistemology and do not
consider the matter to be concluded. We hope that comrades will adopt this attitude with
us, unite together, strive for greater victory, and not be deceived by those who claim to
understand Marx but in fact do not understand him at all.
Mao Zedong
August 31, 1970