Date: April 14, 1969
First Published: Foreign Languages Press, 1969
Transcription: Maoist Documentation Project
Markup: Kenneth Higham and Mike B. for MIA, December 2004
Comrades!
The Ninth National Congress of the Communist Party of China will be a congress with a far-reaching influence in the history of our Party.
Our present congress is convened at a time when great victory has been won in the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution personally initiated and led by Chairman Mao. This great revolutionary storm has shattered the bourgeois headquarters headed December by the renegade, hidden traitor and scab Liu Shao-chi, exposed the handful of renegades, enemy agents and absolutely unrepentant persons in power taking the capitalist road within the Party, with Liu Shao-chi as their arch-representative, and smashed their plot to restore capitalism; it has tremendously strengthened the dictatorship of the proletariat in our country, tremendously strengthened our Party and thus prepared ample conditions for this congress politically, ideologically and organizationally.
China’s Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution is a genuine proletarian revolution on an immense scale.
Chairman Mao has explained the necessity of the current great revolution in concise terms:
The current Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution is absolutely necessary and most timely for consolidating the dictatorship of the proletariat, preventing capitalist restoration and building socialism.
In order to comprehend this scientific thesis of Chairman Mao’s fully, we should have a deep understanding of his theory of continuing the revolution under the dictatorship of the proletariat.
In 1957, shortly after the conclusion of the Party’s Eighth National Congress, Chairman Mao made public his great work On the Correct Handling of Contradictions Among the People, in which, following his Report to the Second Plenary Session of the Seventh Central Committee of the Communist Party of China, he comprehensively set forth the existence of contradictions, classes and class struggle under the conditions of the dictatorship of the proletariat, set forth the thesis of the existence of two different types of contradictions in socialist society, those between ourselves and the enemy and those among the people, and set forth the great theory of continuing the revolution under the dictatorship of the proletariat. This great work, like a radiant beacon, illuminates the course of China’s socialist revolution and socialist construction and it has laid the theoretical foundation for the current Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution.
In order to have a deeper understanding of Chairman Mao’s great historic contribution, it is necessary briefly to review the historical experience of the international communist movement.
In 1852, Marx said:
Long before me bourgeois historians had described the historical development of this class struggle and bourgeois economists the economic anatomy of the classes. What I did that was new was to prove: 1) that the existence of classes is only bound up with particular historical phases in the development of production, 2) that the class struggle necessarily leads to the dictatorship of the proletariat, 3) that this dictatorship itself only constitutes the transition to the abolition of all classes and to a classless society. (Marx and Engels, Selected Correspondence, Chinese ed., p. 63.)
Marx’s theory of the dictatorship of the proletariat clearly distinguished scientific socialism from utopian socialism and sham socialism of every kind. Marx and Engels fought all their lives for this theory and for its realization.
After the death of Marx and Engels, almost all the parties of the Second International betrayed Marxism, with the exception of the Bolshevik Party led by Lenin. Lenin inherited, defended and developed Marxism in the struggle against the revisionism of the Second International. The struggle focused on the question of the dictatorship of the proletariat. In denouncing the old revisionists, Lenin time and again stated:
Those who recognize only the class struggle are not yet Marxists.... Only he is a Marxist who extends the recognition of the class struggle to the recognition of the dictatorship of the proletariat. (Lenin, Collected Works, Chinese ed., Vol. 25, p. 399.)
Lenin led the proletariat of Russia in winning the victory of the Great October Socialist Revolution and founding the first socialist state. Through his great revolutionary practice in leading the dictatorship of the proletariat, Lenin perceived the danger of the restoration of capitalism and the protracted nature of class struggle:
The transition from capitalism to Communism represents an entire historical epoch. Until this epoch has terminated, the exploiters inevitably cherish the hope of restoration, and this hope is converted into attempts at restoration. (Lenin, Collected Works, Chinese ed., Vol. 28, p. 235.)
Lenin stated:
...the bourgeoisie, whose resistance is increased tenfold by its overthrow (even if only in one country), and whose power lies not only in the strength of international capital, in the strength and durability of the international connections of the bourgeoisie, but also in the force of habit, in the strength of small production. For, unfortunately, small production is still very, very widespread in the world, and small production engenders capitalism and the bourgeoisie continuously, daily, hourly, spontaneously, and on a mass scale. (Lenin, Collected Works, Chinese ed., Vol. 31, p. 6.)
His conclusion was: “For all these reasons the dictatorship of the proletariat is essential.”; (Ibid.)
Lenin also stated that “the new bourgeoisie” was “arising from among our Soviet government employees”. (Lenin, Collected Works, Chinese ed., Vol. 29, p. 162.)
He pointed out that the danger of restoration also came from capitalist encirclement: The imperialist countries “will never miss an opportunity for military intervention, as they put it, i.e., to strangle Soviet power”. (Lenin, Collected Works, Chinese ed. Vol. 31, p. 423.)
The Soviet revisionist renegade clique has completely betrayed these brilliant teachings of Lenin’s. From Khrushchov to Brezhnev and company, they are all persons in power taking the capitalist road, who had long concealed themselves in the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. As soon as they came to power, they turned the bourgeoisie’s “hope of restoration” into “attempts at restoration”, usurped the leadership of the Party of Lenin and Stalin and, through “peaceful evolution”, turned the world’s first state under the dictatorship of the proletariat into a dark fascist state under the dictatorship of the bourgeoisie.
Chairman Mao has waged a tit-for-tat struggle against modern revisionism with the Soviet revisionist renegade clique as its centre and has inherited, defended and developed the Marxist-Leninist theory of proletarian revolution and the dictatorship of the proletariat. Chairman Mao has comprehensively summed up the historical experience both positive and negative, of the dictatorship of the proletariat and, in order to prevent the restoration of capitalism, has put forward the theory of continuing the revolution under the dictatorship of the proletariat.
As early as March 1949, on the eve of the transition of the Chinese revolution from the new-democratic revolution to the socialist revolution, Chairman Mao explicitly pointed out in his report to the Second Plenary Session of the Seventh Central Committee of the Party: After the country-wide seizure of power by the proletariat, the principal internal contradiction is “the contradiction between the working class and the bourgeoisie”. The heart of the struggle is still the question of state power. Chairman Mao especially reminded us:
After the enemies with guns have been wiped out, there will still be enemies without guns; they are bound to struggle desperately against us, and we must never regard these enemies lightly. If we do not now raise and understand the problem in this way, we shall commit the gravest mistakes.
Having foreseen the protracted and complex nature of the class struggle between the proletariat and the bourgeoisie after the establishment of the dictatorship of the proletariat, Chairman Mao set the whole Party the militant task of fighting imperialism, the Kuomintang and the bourgeoisie in the political, ideological, economic, cultural and diplomatic spheres.
Our Party waged intense battles in accordance with the resolution of the Second Plenary Session of the Seventh Central Committee and the Party’s general line for the transition period formulated by Chairman Mao. By 1956, the socialist transformation of the ownership of the means of production in agriculture, handicrafts and capitalist industry and commerce had been in the main completed. That was the crucial moment for deciding whether the socialist revolution could continue to advance. In view of the rampancy of revisionism in the international communist movement and the new trends of class struggle in our country, Chairman Mao, in his great work On the Correct Handling of Contradictions Among the People, called the attention of the whole Party to the following fact:
In China, although in the main socialist transformation has been completed with respect to the system of ownership...there are still remnants of the overthrown landlord and comprador classes, there is still a bourgeoisie, and the remoulding of the petty bourgeoisie has only just started.
Countering the fallacy put forward by Liu Shao-chi in 1956 that “in China, the question of which wins out, socialism or capitalism, is already solved” Chairman Mao specifically pointed out: “The question of which will win out, socialism or capitalism, is still not really settled.” “The class struggle between the proletariat and the bourgeoisie, the class struggle between the different political forces, and the class struggle in the ideological field between the proletariat and the bourgeoisie will continue to be long and tortuous and at times will even become very acute.” Thus, for the first time in the theory and practice of the international communist movement, it was pointed out explicitly that classes and class struggle still exist after the socialist transformation of the ownership of the means of production has been in the main completed, and that the proletariat must continue the revolution.
The proletarian headquarters headed by Chairman Mao led the broad masses in carrying on the great struggle in the direction he indicated. From the struggle against the bourgeois rightists in 1957 to the struggle to uncover Peng Teh-huai’s anti-Party clique at the Lushan Meeting in 1959, from the great debate on the general line of the Party in building socialism to the struggle between the two lines in the socialist education movement--the focus of the struggle was the question of whether to take the socialist road or to take the capitalist road, whether to uphold the dictatorship of the proletariat or to restore the dictatorship of the. bourgeoisie.
Every single victory of Chairman Mao’s proletarian revolutionary line, every victory in every major campaign launched by the Party against the bourgeoisie, was gained only after smashing the revisionist line represented by Liu Shao-chi, which either was Right or was "Left" in form but Right in essence.
Now it has been proved through investigation that Liu Shao-chi betrayed the Party, capitulated to the enemy and became a hidden traitor and scab as far back as the First Revolutionary Civil War period, that he was a crime-steeped lackey of the imperialists, modern revisionists and Kuomintang reactionaries and that he was the arch-representative of the persons in power taking the capitalist road. He had a political line by which he vainly attempted to restore capitalism in China and turn her into an imperialist and revisionist colony. In addition, he had an organizational line to serve his counter-revolutionary political line. For many years, recruiting deserters and turncoats, Liu Shao-chi gathered together a gang of renegades, enemy agents and capitalist-roaders in power. They covered up their counter-revolutionary political records, shielded each other, colluded in doing evil, usurped important Party and government posts and controlled the leadership in many central and local units, thus forming an underground bourgeois headquarters in opposition to the proletarian headquarters headed by Chairman Mao. They collaborated with the imperialists, modern revisionists and Kuomintang reactionaries and played the kind of disruptive role that the U.S. imperialists, the Soviet revisionists and the reactionaries of various countries were unable to do.
In 1939, when the War of Resistance Against Japan and for National Liberation led by Chairman Mao was vigorously surging forward, Liu Shao-chi came up with his sinister book Self-Cultivation. The core of that book was the betrayal of the dictatorship of the proletariat. It did not touch at all upon the questions of defeating Japanese imperialism and of waging the struggle against the Kuomintang reactionaries, nor did it touch upon the fundamental Marxist-Leninist principle of seizing state power by armed force; on the contrary, it urged Communist Party members to depart from the great practice of revolution and indulge in idealistic "self-cultivation", which actually meant that Communists should "cultivate" themselves into willing slaves going down on their knees before the counter-revolutionary dictatorship of the imperialists and the Kuomintang reactionaries.
After the victory of the War of Resistance Against Japan, when the U.S. imperialists were arming Chiang Kai-shek’s counter-revolutionary troops in preparation for launching an all-out offensive against the liberated areas, Liu Shao-chi, catering to the needs of the U.S.-Chiang reactionaries, dished up the capitulationist line, alleging that “China has entered the new stage of peace and democracy”. It was designed to oppose Chairman Mao’s general line of “go all out to mobilize the masses, expand the people’s forces and, under the leadership of our Party, defeat the aggressor and build a new China”, and to oppose Chairman Mao’s policy of “give tit for tat and fight for every inch of land”, which was adopted to counter the offensive of the U.S.-Chiang reactionaries. Liu Shao-chi preached that “at present the main form of the struggle of the Chinese revolution has changed from armed struggle to non-armed and mass parliamentary struggle”. He tried to abolish the Party’s leadership over the people’s armed forces and to “unify” the Eighth Route Army and the New Fourth Army, predecessors of the People’s Liberation Army, into Chiang Kai-shek’s “national army” and to demobilize large numbers of worker and peasant soldiers led by the Party in a vain attempt to eradicate the people’s armed forces, strangle the Chinese revolution and obeisantly hand over to the Kuomintang the fruits of victory which the Chinese people had won in blood.
In April 1949, on the eve of the countrywide victory of China’s new-democratic revolution when the Chinese People’s Liberation Army was preparing to cross the Yangtse River, Liu Shao-chi hurried to Tientsin and threw himself into the arms of the capitalists. He fiercely opposed the policy of utilizing, restricting and transforming private capitalist industry, a policy decided upon by the Second Plenary Session of the Seventh Central Committee of the Party which had just concluded. He clamoured that “capitalism in China today is still in its youth”, that it needed an unlimited “big expansion” and that “capitalist exploitation today is no crime, it is a merit”. He shamelessly praised the capitalist class, saying that “the more they exploit, the greater their merit”, and feverishly advertised the revisionist theory of productive forces. He did all this in his futile attempt to lead China onto the capitalist road.
In short, at the many important historical junctures of the new-democratic revolution and the socialist revolution, Liu Shao-chi and his gang always wantonly opposed Chairman Mao’s proletarian revolutionary line and engaged in counter-revolutionary conspiratorial and disruptive activities. However, since they were counter-revolutionaries, their plots were bound to come to light eventually. When Khrushchov came to power, and especially when the Soviet revisionists ganged up with the U.S. imperialists and the reactionaries of India and other countries in whipping up a large-scale anti-China campaign, Liu Shao-chi and his gang became all the more rabid.
Chairman Mao was the first to perceive the danger of the counter-revolutionary plots of Liu Shao-chi and his gang. At the working conference of the Central Committee in January 1962, Chairman Mao pointed out the necessity of guarding against the emergence of revisionism. At the working conference of the Central Committee at Peitaiho in August 1962 and at the Tenth Plenary Session of the Eighth Central Committee of the Party in September of the same year, Chairman Mao put forward more comprehensively the basic line of our Party for the whole historical period of socialism. Chairman Mao pointed out:
Socialist society covers a considerably long historical period. In the historical period of socialism, there are still classes, class contradictions and class struggle, there is the struggle between the socialist road and the capitalist road, and there is the danger of capitalist restoration. We must recognize the protracted and complex nature of this struggle. We must heighten our vigilance. We must conduct socialist education. We must correctly understand and handle class contradictions and class struggle, distinguish the contradictions between ourselves and the enemy from those among the people and handle them correctly. Otherwise a socialist country like ours will turn into its opposite and degenerate, and a capitalist restoration will take place. From now on we must remind ourselves of this every year, every month and every day so that we can retain a rather sober understanding of this problem and have a Marxist-Leninist line.
This Marxist-Leninist line advanced by Chairman Mao is the lifeline of our Party. Following this, in May 1963, under the direction of Chairman Mao, the Draft Decision of the Central Committee of the Chinese Communist Party on Certain Problems in Our Present Rural Work (i.e., the 10-Point Decision) was worked out, which laid down the line, principles and policies of the Party for the socialist education movement. Chairman Mao again warned the whole Party: If classes and class struggle were forgotten and if the dictatorship of the proletariat were forgotten, “then it would not be long, perhaps only several years or a decade, or several decades at most, before a counter-revolutionary restoration on a national scale would inevitably occur, the Marxist-Leninist party would undoubtedly become a revisionist party, a fascist party, and the whole of China would change its colour. Comrades, please think it over. What a dangerous situation this would be!” Thus Chairman Mao still more sharply showed the whole Party and the people of the whole country the danger of the restoration of capitalism.
All these warnings and struggles did not and could not in the least change the reactionary class nature of Liu Shao-chi and his gang. In 1964, in the great socialist education movement, Liu Shao-chi came out and repressed the masses, shielded the capitalist-roaders in power and openly attacked the Marxist scientific method of investigating and studying social conditions initiated by Chairman Mao, branding it as “outdated”. He raved that whoever refused to carry out his line was “not qualified to hold a leading post”. He and his gang were working against time to restore capitalism. At the end of 1964, Chairman Mao convened a working conference of the Central Committee and, under his direction, the document Some Current Problems Raised in the Socialist Education Movement in the Rural Areas (i.e., the 23-Point Document) was drawn up. He denounced Liu Shao-chi’s bourgeois reactionary line which was “Left” in form but Right in essence and repudiated Liu Shao-chi’s absurdities, such as “the intertwining of the contradictions inside and outside the Party” and “the contradiction between the ‘four cleans’” and the ‘four uncleans’”. And for the first time Chairman Mao specifically indicated: “The main target of the present movement is those Party persons in power taking the capitalist road.” This new conclusion drawn by Chairman Mao after summing up the historical experience of the dictatorship of the proletariat, domestic and international, set right the course of the socialist education movement and clearly showed the orientation for the approaching Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution.
Reviewing the history of this period, we can see that the current Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution with the participation of hundreds of millions of revolutionary people has occurred by no means accidentally. It is the inevitable result of the protracted and sharp struggle between the two classes, the two roads and the two lines in socialist society. The Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution is “a great political revolution carried out by the proletariat against the bourgeoisie and all other exploiting classes; it is a continuation of the prolonged struggle waged by the Chinese Communist Party and the masses of revolutionary people under its leadership against the Kuomintang reactionaries, a continuation of the class struggle between the proletariat and the bourgeoisie.” The heroic Chinese proletariat, poor and lower-middle peasants, People’s Liberation Army, revolutionary cadres and revolutionary intellectuals, who were all determined to follow the great leader Chairman Mao closely in taking the socialist road, could no longer tolerate the restoration activities of Liu Shao-chi and his gang, and so a great class battle was unavoidable.
As Chairman Mao pointed out in his talk in February 1967:
In the past we waged struggles in rural areas, in factories, in the cultural field, and we carried out the socialist education movement. But all this failed to solve the problem because we did not find a form, a method, to arouse the broad masses to expose our dark aspect openly, in an all-round way and from below.
Now we have found this form--it is the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution. It is only by arousing the masses in their hundreds of millions to air their viewsfreely, write big-character posters and hold great debates that the renegades, enemy agents and capitalist-roaders in power who have wormed their way into the Party can be exposed and their plots to restore capitalism smashed. It was precisely with the participation of the broad masses in the examination of Liu Shao-chi’s case that his true features as an old-line counter-revolutionary, renegade, hidden traitor and scab were brought to light. The Enlarged Twelfth Plenary Session of the Eighth Central Committee of the Party decided to dismiss Liu Shao-chi from all posts both inside and outside the Party and to expel him from the Party once and for all. This was a great victory for the hundreds of millions of the people. On the basis of the theory of continuing the revolution under the dictatorship of the proletariat, our great teacher Chairman Mao has personally initiated and led the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution. This is indeed “absolutely necessary and most timely” and it is a new and great contribution to the theory and practice of Marxism-Leninism.
The Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution is a great political revolution personally initiated and led by our great leader Chairman Mao under the conditions of the dictatorship of the proletariat, a great revolution in the realm of the superstructure. Our aim is to smash revisionism, seize back that portion of power usurped by the bourgeoisie, exercise all-round dictatorship of the proletariat in the superstructure, including all spheres of culture, and strengthen and consolidate the economic base of socialism so as to ensure that our country continues to advance in giant strides along the road of socialism.
Back in 1962, at the Tenth Plenary Session of the Eighth Central Committee of the Party, Chairman Mao pointed out:
To overthrow a political power, it is always necessary first of all to create public opinion, to do work in the ideological sphere. This is true for the revolutionary class as well as for the counter-revolutionary class.
This statement of Chairman Mao’s dealt the Liu Shao-chi counter-revolutionary revisionist clique a blow at the heart. It was for the sole purpose of creating public opinion to prepare for the overthrow of the dictatorship of the proletariat that they spared no effort in seizing upon the field of ideology and the superstructure, violently exercising counter-revolutionary dictatorship over the proletariat in the various departments they controlled and wildly spreading poisonous weeds. To overthrow them politically, we must likewise first vanquish their counter-revolutionary public opinion by revolutionary public opinion.
Chairman Mao has always attached major importance to the struggle in ideology. After the liberation of our country, he initiated many criticisms including those of the film The Life of Wu Hsun, the Hu Feng counter-revolutionary clique and Studies of “The Dream of the Red Chamber”". And this time it was Chairman Mao again who led the whole Party in launching the offensive on the positions occupied by Liu Shao-chi and his gang for the bourgeoisie. Chairman Mao wrote the celebrated essay Where Do Correct Ideas Come from? and other documents, in which he criticized Liu Shao-chi’s bourgeois idealism and metaphysics, criticized the departments of literature and art under Liu Shao-chi’s control as being “still dominated by ‘the dead’”, criticized the Ministry of Culture by saying that “if it refuses to change, it should be renamed the Ministry of Emperors, Kings, Generals and Ministers, the Ministry of Talents and Beauties or the Ministry of Foreign Mummies” and said that the Ministry of Health should likewise be renamed the “Ministry of Health for Urban Overlords”. At the call of Chairman Mao, the proletariat first launched a revolution in the fields of Peking Opera, the ballet and symphonic music, fields that had been regarded as sacred and inviolable by the landlord and capitalist classes. It was a fight at close quarters. Despite every possible kind of resistance and sabotage by Liu Shao-chi and his gang, the proletariat finally scored important successes after arduous struggles. A number of splendid model revolutionary theatrical works appeared and the heroic figures of workers, peasants and soldiers finally took the centre of the stage. After that, Chairman Mao initiated the criticism of Hai Jui Dismissed from Office and other poisonous weeds, focusing the attack right on the den of the revisionist clique--that impenetrable and watertight “independent kingdom” under Liu Shao-chi’s control, the old Peking Municipal Party Committee.
The Circular of May 16, 1966 worked out under Chairman Mao’s personal guidance laid down the theory, line, principles and policies for the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution and constituted the great programme for the whole movement. The Circular thoroughly criticized the “February Outline” turned out by Liu Shao-chi’s bourgeois headquarters for the purpose of suppressing this great revolution. It called upon the whole Party and the people of the whole country to direct the spearhead of struggle against the representatives of the bourgeoisie who had sneaked into the Party and to pay special attention to unmasking “persons like Khrushchov...who are still nestling beside us”." This was a great call mobilizing the people of the whole country to unfold a great political revolution. The Cultural Revolution Group Under the Central Committee, which was set up by decision of the Circular, has firmly carried out Chairman Mao’s proletarian revolutionary line.
Under the guidance of Chairman Mao’s proletarian revolutionary line, the broad revolutionary masses plunged into the fight. In Peking University a big-character poster was written in response to the call of the Central Committee. And soon big-character posters criticizing reactionary bourgeois ideas mushroomed all over the country. Then Red Guards rose and came forward in large numbers and revolutionary young people became courageous and daring pathbreakers. Thrown into a panic, the Liu Shao-chi clique rushed out with the bourgeois reactionary line, cruelly suppressing the revolutionary movement of the student youth. However, this did not win them much time in their deathbed struggle. Chairman Mao called and presided over the Eleventh Plenary Session of the Eighth Central Committee of the Party. The Plenary Session adopted the programmatic document, Decision of the Central Committee of the Chinese Communist Party Concerning the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution (i.e., the 16-Point Decision). Chairman Mao put up his big-character poster Bombard the Headquarters, thus taking the lid off Liu Shao-chi’s bourgeois headquarters. In his letter to the Red Guards, Chairman Mao said that the revolutionary actions of the Red Guards “express your wrath against and your denunciation of the landlord class, the bourgeoisie, the imperialists, the revisionists and their running dogs, all of whom exploit and oppress the workers, peasants, revolutionary intellectuals and revolutionary parties and groups. They show that it is right to rebel against reactionaries. I warmly support you.” Afterwards, Chairman Mao received 13 million Red Guards and other revolutionary masses from all parts of the country on eight occasions at Tien An Men in the capital, which heightened the revolutionary fighting will of the people of the whole country. The revolutionary movements of the workers, peasants and revolutionary functionaries developed rapidly. Increasing numbers of big-character posters spread like a raging prairie fire and roared like guns; the slogan “It is right to rebel against reactionaries” resounded throughout the land. And the battle of the people in their hundreds of millions to bombard Liu Shao-chi’s bourgeois headquarters developed vigorously.
No reactionary class will ever step down from the stage of history of its own accord. When the revolution touched that portion of power usurped by the bourgeoisie, the class struggle became all the more acute. After Liu Shao-chi’s downfall, his revisionist clique and his agents in various places changed their tactics time and again, putting forward slogans which were “Left” in form but Right in essence such as “suspecting all” and “overthrowing all”, in a futile attempt to go on hitting hard at the many and protecting their own handful. Moreover, they created splits among the revolutionary masses and manipulated and hoodwinked a section of the masses so as to protect themselves. When these schemes were shattered by the proletarian revolutionaries, they launched another frenzied counter-attack, that is, the adverse current lasting from the winter of 1966 to the spring of 1967.
This adverse current was directed against the proletarian headquarters headed by Chairman Mao. Its general programme boiled down to this: to overthrow the decisions adopted by the Eleventh Plenary Session of the Eighth Central Committee of the Party, reversing the verdict on the overthrown bourgeois headquarters headed by Liu Shao-chi, reversing the verdict on the bourgeois reactionary line, which had already been thoroughly repudiated and discredited by the broad masses, and repressing and retaliating on the revolutionary mass movement. However, this adverse current was seriously criticized by Chairman Mao and resisted by the broad revolutionary masses; it could not prevent the main current of the revolutionary mass movement from surging forward.
The twists and reversals in the revolutionary movement further brought home to the broad masses the importance of political power: The main reason why Liu Shao-chi and his gang could do evil was that they had usurped the power of the proletariat in many units and localities, and the main reason why the revolutionary masses were repressed was that power was not in the hands of the proletariat in those places. In some units, the socialist system of ownership existed only in form, but in reality the leadership had been usurped by a handful of renegades, enemy agents and capitalist-roaders in power, or it remained in the hands of former capitalists. Especially when the capitalist-roaders in power failed in their scheme to suppress the revolution on the pretext of "grasping production" and whipped up the evil counter-revolutionary wind of economism, the broad masses came to understand still better that only by recapturing the lost power was it possible for them to defeat the capitalist-roaders in power completely. Under the leadership and with the support of Chairman Mao and the proletarian headquarters headed by him, the working class in Shanghai with its revolutionary tradition came forward courageously and, uniting with the broad revolutionary masses and revolutionary cadres, seized power from below in January 1967 from the capitalist-roaders in power in the former Municipal Party Committee and Municipal People’s Council.
Chairman Mao summed up in good time the experience of the January storm of revolution in Shanghai and issued his call to the whole country: “Proletarian revolutionaries, unite and seize power from the handful of Party persons in power taking the capitalist road!” Following that, Chairman Mao gave the instruction: “The People’s Liberation Army should support the broad masses of the Left.” He went on to sum up the experience of Heilungkiang Province and other provinces and municipalities, laid down the principles and policies for the establishment of revolutionary committees which embrace representatives of the revolutionary cadres, representatives of the People’s Liberation Army and representatives of the revolutionary masses, constituting a revolutionary three-in-one combination, and thus pushed forward the nation-wide struggle for the seizure of power.
The struggle between the proletariat and the bourgeoisie for the seizure and counter-seizure of power was a life-and-death struggle. During the year and nine months from Shanghai’s January storm of revolution in 1967 to the establishment of the revolutionary committees of Tibet and Sinkiang in September 1968, repeated trials of political strength took place between the two classes and the two lines, fierce struggles went on between proletarian and non-proletarian ideas and an extremely complicated situation emerged. As Chairman Mao has said: “In the past, we fought north and south; it was easy to fight such wars. For the enemy was obvious. The present Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution is much more difficult than that kind of war.” “The problem is that those who commit ideological errors are mixed up with those whose contradiction with us is one between ourselves and the enemy, and for a time it is hard to sort them out.” Nevertheless, relying on the wise leadership of Chairman Mao, we finally overcame this difficulty. In the summer of 1967, Chairman Mao made an inspection tour north and south of the Yangtse River and issued most important instructions, guiding the broad revolutionary masses to distinguish gradually the contradictions between ourselves and the enemy from those among the people and to further promote the revolutionary great alliance and the revolutionary three-in-one combination and guiding people with petty-bourgeois ideas onto the path of the proletarian revolution. Consequently, it was only the enemy who was thrown into disorder while the broad masses were steeled in the course of the struggle.
The handful of renegades, enemy agents, unreformed landlords, rich peasants, counter-revolutionaries, bad elements and rightists, active counter-revolutionaries, bourgeois careerists and double-dealers who had hidden themselves among the masses would not reveal their colours until the climate suited them. In the summer of 1967 and the spring of 1968, they again fanned up a reactionary evil wind both from the Right and the extreme “Left” to reverse correct verdicts. They directed their spear head against the proletarian headquarters headed by Chairman Mao, against the People’s Liberation Army and against the new-born revolutionary committees. In the meantime, they incited the masses to struggle against each other and organized counter-revolutionary conspiratorial cliques in a vain attempt to stage a counter-seizure of power from the proletariat. However, like their chieftain Liu Shao-chi, this handful of bad people was finally exposed. This was an important victory for the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution.
As in all other revolutions, the fundamental question in the current great revolution in the realm of the superstructure is the question of political power, the question of which class holds leadership. The establishment of revolutionary committees in all provinces, municipalities and autonomous regions throughout the country (with the exception of Taiwan Province) marks the great, decisive victory achieved by this revolution. However, the revolution is not yet over. The proletariat must continue to advance, “carry out the tasks of struggle-criticism-transformation conscientiously” and carry the socialist revolution in the realm of the superstructure through to the end.
Chairman Mao says:
Struggle-criticism-transformation in a factory, on the whole, goes through the following stages: Establishing a three-in-one revolutionary committee; carrying out mass criticism and repudiation; purifying the class ranks; consolidating the Party organization; and simplifying the administrative structure, changing irrational rules and regulations and sending office workers to the workshops.
We must act on Chairman Mao’s instruction and fulfil these tasks in every single factory, every single school, every single commune and every single unit in a deep-going, meticulous, down-to-earth and appropriate way.
Confronted with a thousand and one tasks, a revolutionary committee must grasp the fundamental: It must put the living study and application of Mao Tsetung Thought above all work and place Mao Tsetung Thought in command of everything. For decades, Mao Tsetung Thought has been showing the orientation of the revolution to the whole Party and the people of the whole country. However, as Liu Shao-chi and his gang of counter-revolutionary revisionists blocked Chairman Mao’s instructions, the broad revolutionary masses could hardly hear Chairman Mao’s voice directly.
The storm of the present great revolution has destroyed the big and little “palaces of hell-rulers” and has made it possible for Mao Tsetung Thought to reach the broad revolutionary masses directly. This is a great victory. This wide dissemination of Mao Tsetung Thought in a big country with a population of 700 million is the most significant achievement of the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution. In this revolution, hundreds of millions of people always carry with them Quotations from Chairman Mao Tsetung, which they study and apply conscientiously. As soon as a new instruction of Chairman Mao’s is issued, they propagate it and go into action. This most valuable practice must be maintained and persevered in. We should carry on in a deep-going way the mass movement for the living study and application of Mao Tsetung Thought, continue to run well the Mao Tsetung Thought study classes of all types and, in the light of Chairman Mao ’s May 7 Directive of 1966, truly turn the whole country into a great school of Mao Tsetung Thought.
All revolutionary comrades must be clearly aware that class struggle will by no means cease in the ideological and political spheres. The struggle between the proletariat and the bourgeoisie by no means dies out with our seizure of power. We must continue to hold high the banner of revolutionary mass criticism and use Mao Tsetung Thought to criticize the bourgeoisie, to criticize revisionism and all kinds of Right or extreme “Left” erroneous ideas which run counter to Chairman Mao’s proletarian revolutionary line and to criticize bourgeois individualism and the theory of “many centres”, that is, the theory of “no centre”. We must continue to criticize thoroughly and discredit completely the stuff of the renegade, hidden traitor and scab Liu Shao-chi such as the slavish comprador philosophy and the doctrine of trailing behind at a snail’s pace, and must firmly establish among the cadres and the masses of the people Chairman Mao’s concept of “maintaining independence and keeping the initiative in our own hands and relying on our own efforts”, so as to ensure that our cause will continue to advance in the direction indicated by Chairman Mao.
Chairman Mao points out:
The revolutionary committee should exercise unified leadership, eliminate duplication in the administrative structure, follow the policy of "better troops and simpler administration" and organize itself into a revolutionized leading group which maintains close ties with the masses.
This is a basic principle which enables the superstructure to serve its socialist economic base still better. A duplicate administrative structure divorced from the masses, scholasticism which suppresses and binds their revolutionary initiative, and a landlord and bourgeois style of going in for formality and ostentations--all these are destructive to the socialist economic base, advantageous to capitalism and harmful to socialism. In accordance with Chairman Mao’s instructions, organs of state power at all levels and other organizations must keep close ties with the masses, first of all with the basic masses--the working class and the poor and lower-middle peasants. Cadres, old and new, must constantly sweep away the dust of bureaucracy and must not fall into the bad habit of “acting as bureaucrats and overlords”. They must keep on practising frugality in carrying out revolution, run all socialist undertakings industriously and thriftily, oppose extravagance and waste and guard against bourgeois attacks with sugar-coated bullets. They must maintain the system of cadre participation in collective productive labour. They must be concerned with the well-being of the masses. They must themselves make investigation and study in accordance with Chairman Mao’s teachings, “dissect” one or several “sparrows” and constantly sum up experience. They must make criticism and self-criticism regularly and, in line with the five requirements for the successors to the revolution as set forth by Chairman Mao, “fight self, criticize revisionism” and conscientiously remould their world outlook.
The People’s Liberation Army is the mighty pillar of the dictatorship of the proletariat. Chairman Mao has pointed out many times: From the Marxist point of view the main component of the state is the army. The Chinese People’s Liberation Army personally founded and led by Chairman Mao is the army of the workers and peasants, the army of the proletariat. It has performed great historic feats in the struggle for overthrowing the three big mountains of imperialism, feudalism and bureaucrat-capitalism, and in the struggles for defending the motherland, for resisting existing U.S. aggression and aiding Korea and for smashing aggression by imperialism, revisionism and the reactionaries. In the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution, large numbers of commanders and fighters have taken part in the work of “three supports and two militaries” (i.e., support industry, support agriculture, support the broad masses of the Left, military control, political and military training) and representatives of the army have taken part in the three-in-one combination; they have tempered themselves in the class struggle, strengthened their ties with the masses, promoted the ideological revolutionization of the army, and made new contributions to the people. And this is also the best preparation against war. We must carry forward the glorious tradition of “supporting the government and cherishing the people”, “supporting the army and cherishing the people”, strengthen the unity between the army and the people, strengthen the building of the militia and of national defence and do a still better job in all our work. For the past three years, it is precisely because the people have supported the army and the army has protected the people that renegades, enemy agents, absolutely unrepentant persons in power taking the capitalist road and counter-revolutionaries have failed in their attempts to undermine this great people’s army of ours.
Departments of culture, art, education, the press, health, etc., occupy an extremely important position in the realm of the superstructure. The line “We must whole-heartedly rely on the working class” was decided upon at the Second Plenary Session of the Seventh Central Committee. And now, at Chairman Mao’s call that “The working class must exercise leadership in everything”, the working class, which is the main force in the proletarian revolution, and its staunch ally the poor and lower-middle peasants have mounted the political stage of struggle-criticism-transformation in the superstructure. From July 27, 1968, mighty contingents of the working class marched to places long dominated by the persons in power taking the capitalist road and to all places where intellectuals were predominant in number. It was a great revolutionary action. Whether the proletariat is able to take firm root in the positions of culture and education and transform them with Mao Tsetung Thought is the key question in carrying the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution through to the end. Chairman Mao has attached profound importance to our work in this connection and personally grasped typical cases, thus setting us a brilliant example. We must overcome the wrong tendency of some comrades to slight the ideological, cultural and educational front; we must closely follow Chairman Mao and consistently do hard and careful work. “On its part, the working class should always raise its political consciousness in the course of struggle”, sum up experience in leading the struggle-criticism-transformation in the superstructure and win the battle on this front.
In order to continue the revolution in the realm of the superstructure, it is imperative to carry out conscientiously all Chairman Mao’s proletarian policies.
Policies for the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution were early stipulated explicitly in the Circular of May 16, 1966 and the 16-Point Decision of August 1966. The series of Chairman Mao’s latest instructions including “Serious attention must be paid to policy in the stage of struggle-criticism-transformation in the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution” have further specified the various policies.
The main question at present is to carry them out to the letter.
The Party’s policies, including those towards the intellectuals, the cadres, “the sons and daughters that can be educated” [the sons and daughters of those who have committed crimes or mistakes--translator], the mass organizations, the struggle against the enemy and economic policy--all these policies come under the general heading of the correct handling of the two different types of contradictions, those between ourselves and the enemy and those among the people.
The majority or the vast majority of the intellectuals trained in the old type of schools and colleges are able or willing to integrate themselves with the workers, peasants and soldiers. They should be “reeducated” by the workers, peasants and soldiers under the guidance of Chairman Mao’s correct line, and encouragement should be given to those who do well in such integration and to the Red Guards and educated young people who are active in going to the countryside or mountainous areas.
Chairman Mao has taught us many times: “Help more people by educating them and narrow the target of attack” and “carry out Marx’s teaching that only by emancipating all mankind can the proletariat achieve its own final emancipation”. With regard to people who have made mistakes, stress must be laid on giving them education and reeducation, doing patient and careful ideological and political work and truly acting “on the principle of ‘learning from past mistakes to avoid future ones’ and ‘curing the sickness to save the patient’, in order to achieve the twofold objective of clarity in ideology and unity among comrades”. With regard to good people who committed the errors characteristic of the capitalist-roader in power but have now raised their political consciousness and gained the understanding of the masses, they should be promptly “liberated”, assigned to suitable work and encouraged to go among the masses of the workers and peasants to remould their world outlook. As for those who have made a little progress and become awakened to some extent, we should continue to help them, proceeding from the viewpoint of unity. Chairman Mao has recently pointed out:
The proletariat is the greatest class in the history of mankind. It is the most powerful revolutionary class ideologically, politically and in strength. It can and must unite the overwhelming majority of people around itself so as to isolate the handful of enemies to the maximum and attack them.
In the struggle against the enemy, we must carry out the policy “make use of contradictions, win over the many, oppose the few and crush our enemies one by one” which Chairman Mao has always advocated. “Stress should be laid on the weight of evidence and on investigation and study, and it is strictly forbidden to obtain confessions by compulsion and to give them credence.”
We must implement Chairman Mao’s policies of “leniency towards those who confess their crimes and severe punishment of those who refuse to do so” and of “giving a way out”. We rely mainly on the broad masses of the people in exercising dictatorship over the enemy. As for bad people or suspects ferreted out through investigation in the movement for purifying the class ranks, the policy of “killing none and not arresting most” should be applied to all except the active counter-revolutionaries against whom there is conclusive evidence of crimes such as murder, arson or poisoning, and who should be dealt with in accordance with the law.
As for the bourgeois reactionary academic authorities, we should either criticize them and see, or criticize them and give them work to do, or criticize them and provide them with a proper livelihood. In short, we should criticize their ideology and at the same time give them a way out. To handle this part of the contradictions between ourselves and the enemy in the manner of handling contradictions among the people is beneficial to the consolidation of the dictatorship of the proletariat and to the disintegration of the enemy ranks.
In carrying out the policies of the Party, all units must study their specific conditions. In places where the revolutionary great alliance has not yet been sufficiently consolidated, it is necessary to help the revolutionary masses bring about the revolutionary great alliance in accordance with revolutionary principles and on the basis of different fields of work, trades and school classes so that they will become united against the enemy. In units where the work of purifying the class ranks has not yet started or has only just started, it is imperative to grasp the work firmly and do it well in accordance with the Party’s policies. In units where the purification of the class ranks is by and large completed, it is necessary to take firm hold of other tasks in keeping with Chairman Mao’s instructions concerning the various stages of struggle-criticism-transformation. At the same time, it is necessary to pay close attention to new trends in the class struggle. What if the bad people get unruly again? Chairman Mao has a well-known saying: “Thoroughgoing materialists are fearless.” If the class enemies stir up trouble again, just arouse the masses and strike them down again.
As the 16-Point Decision indicates,
The Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution is a powerful motive force for the development of the social productive forces in our country.
Our country has seen good harvests in agricultural production for years running and there is also a thriving situation in industrial production and science and technology. The enthusiasm of the broad masses of the working people both in revolution and production has soared to unprecedented heights. Many factories, mines and other enterprises have time and again topped their production records, creating all-time highs in production. The technical revolution is making constant progress. The market is flourishing and prices are stable. By the end of 1968 we had redeemed all the national-bonds. Our country is now a socialist country with neither internal nor external debts.
“Grasp revolution, promote production”--this principle is absolutely correct. It correctly explains the relationship between revolution and production, between consciousness and matter, between the superstructure and the economic base and between the relations of production and the productive forces. Chairman Mao always teaches us: “Political work is the life-blood of all economic work.” Lenin denounced the opportunists who were opposed to approaching problems politically. “Politics cannot but have precedence over economics. To argue differently means forgetting the A B C of Marxism.” (Lenin, Collected Works, Chinese ed., Vol. 32, p. 72.) Lenin again stated: To put politics on a par with economics also means “forgetting the A B C of Marxism”. (Ibid.) Politics is the concentrated expression of economics. If we fail to make revolution in the superstructure, fail to arouse the broad masses of the workers and peasants, fail to criticize the revisionist line, fail to expose the handful of renegades, enemy agents, capitalist-roaders in power and counter-revolutionaries and fail to consolidate the leadership of the proletariat, how can we further consolidate the socialist economic base and further develop the socialist productive forces? This is not to replace production by revolution but to use revolution to command production, promote it and lead it forward. We must make investigation and study, and actively and properly solve the many problems of policy in struggle-criticism-transformation on the economic front in accordance with Chairman Mao’s general line of “Going all out, aiming high and achieving greater, faster, better and more economical results in building socialism”, in accordance with his great strategic concept “Be prepared against war, be prepared against natural disasters, and do everything for the people” and with the series of principles such as “take agriculture as the foundation and industry as the leading factor”. We must bring the revolutionary initiative and creativeness of the people of all nationalities into full play, firmly grasp revolution and energetically promote production and fulfil and overfulfil our plans for developing the national economy. It is certain that the great victory in the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution will continue to bring about new leaps forward on the economic front and in our cause of socialist construction as a whole.
The victory in the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution in our country is indeed a very great one. But we must in no way think that we may sit back and relax. Chairman Mao pointed out in his talk in October 1968:
We have won great victory. But the defeated class will still struggle. These people are still around and this class still exists. Therefore, we cannot speak of final victory. Not even for decades. We must not lose our vigilance. According to the Leninist viewpoint, the final victory of a socialist country not only requires the efforts of the proletariat and the broad masses of the people at home, but also involves the victory of the world revolution and the abolition of the system of exploitation of man by man over the whole globe, upon which all mankind will be emancipated. Therefore, it is wrong to speak lightly of the final victory of the revolution in our country; it runs counter to Leninism and does not conform to facts.
There will still be reversals in the class struggle. We must never forget class struggle and never forget the dictatorship of the proletariat. In the course of carrying out our policies at present, there still exists the struggle between the two lines and there is interference from the "Left" or the Right. Much effort is still required to accomplish the tasks for all the stages of struggle-criticism-transformation. We must closely follow Chairman Mao and steadfastly rely on the broad revolutionary masses to surmount the difficulties and twists and turns on our way forward and seize still greater victories in the cause of socialism.
The victory in the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution has provided us with valuable experience on how we should build the Party under the conditions of the dictatorship of the proletariat. As Chairman Mao has indicated to the whole Party,
The Party organization should be composed of the advanced elements of the proletariat; it should be a vigorous vanguard organization capable of leading the proletariat and the revolutionary masses in the fight against the class enemy.
Chairman Mao’s instruction has determined our political orientation for consolidating and building the Party.
The Communist Party of China has been nurtured and built up by our great leader Chairman Mao. Since its birth in 1921, our Party has gone through long years of struggle for the seizure of state power and the consolidation of the dictatorship of the proletariat by armed force. Led by Chairman Mao, our Party has always stood in the forefront of revolutionary wars and struggles. Under the guidance of Chairman Mao’s correct line, our Party has, in the face of extremely strong domestic and foreign enemies and in the most complex circumstances, led the proletariat and the broad masses of the people of China in adhering to the principle of maintaining independence and keeping the initiative in our own hands and relying on our own efforts, in upholding proletarian internationalism and in waging heroic struggles with one stepping into the breach as another fell, and it is only thus that our Party has grown from Communist groups with only a few dozen members at the outset into the great, glorious and correct Party leading the powerful People’s Republic of China today. We deeply understand that without armed struggle of the people, there would not be the Communist Party of China today and there would not be the People’s Republic of China today. We must forever bear in mind Chairman Mao’s teaching: “Comrades throughout the Party must never forget this experience for which we have paid in blood.”
The Communist Party of China owes all its achievements to the wise leadership of Chairman Mao and these achievements constitute victories for Mao Tsetung Thought. For half a century now, in leading the great struggle of the people of all the nationalities of China for accomplishing the new-democratic revolution, in leading China’s great struggle for socialist revolution and socialist construction and in the great struggle of the contemporary international communist movement against imperialism, modern revisionism and the reactionaries of various countries, Chairman Mao has integrated the universal truth of Marxism-Leninism with the concrete practice of revolution, has inherited, defended and developed Marxism-Leninism in the political, military, economic, cultural, philosophical and other spheres, and has brought Marxism-Leninism to a higher and completely new stage. Mao Tsetung Thought is Marxism-Leninism of the era in which imperialism is heading for total collapse and socialism is advancing to world-wide victory. The entire history of our Party has borne out this truth: Departing from the leadership of Chairman Mao and Mao Tsetung Thought, our Party will suffer setbacks and defeats; following Chairman Mao closely and acting on Mao Tsetung Thought, our Party will advance and triumph. We must forever remember this lesson. Whoever opposes Chairman Mao, whoever opposes Mao Tsetung Thought, at any time or under any circumstances, will be condemned and punished by the whole Party and the whole country. Discussing the consolidation and building of the Party, Chairman Mao has said:
A human being has arteries and veins through which the heart makes the blood circulate, and he breathes with his lungs, exhaling carbon dioxide and inhaling fresh oxygen, that is, getting rid of the stale and taking in the fresh. A proletarian party must also get rid of the stale and take in the fresh, for only thus can it be full of vitality. Without eliminating waste matter and absorbing fresh blood the Party has no vigour.
With this vivid analogy, Chairman Mao has expounded the dialectics of inner-Party contradiction. “The law of contradiction in things, that is, the law of the unity of opposites, is the basic law of materialist dialectics.” Opposition and struggle between the two lines within the Party are the reflection inside the Party of contradictions between classes and between the new and the old in society. If there were no contradictions in the Party and no struggles to resolve them, and if the Party did not get rid of the stale and take in the fresh, the Party’s life would come to an end. Chairman Mao’s theory on inner-Party contradiction is and will be the fundamental guiding thinking for the consolidation and building of the Party.
The history of the Communist Party of China is one in which Chairman Mao’s Marxist-Leninist line combats the Right and “Left” opportunist lines in the Party. Under the leadership of Chairman Mao, our Party defeated Chen Tu-hsiu’s Right opportunist line, defeated the “Left” opportunist lines of Chu Chiu-pai and Li Li-san, defeated Wang Ming’s first “Left” and then Right opportunist lines, defeated Chang Kuo-tao’s line of splitting the Red Army, defeated the Right opportunist anti-Party bloc of Peng Teh-huai, Kao Kang, Jao Shu-shih and others and, after long years of struggle, has shattered Liu Shaochi’s counter-revolutionary revisionist line. Our Party has consolidated itself, developed and grown in strength precisely in the struggle between the two lines, especially in the struggles to defeat the three renegade cliques of Chen Tu-hsiu, Wang Ming and Liu Shao-chi which did the gravest harm to the Party.
In the new historical period of the dictatorship of the proletariat, the proletariat enforces its dictatorship and exercises its leadership in every field of work through its vanguard the Communist Party. Departing from the dictatorship of the proletariat and from continuing the revolution under the dictatorship of the proletariat, it is impossible to solve correctly the question of Party building, the question of building what kind of Party and how to build it.
Liu Shao-chi’s revisionist line on Party building betrayed the very essence of the Marxist-Leninist teaching on the dictatorship of the proletariat and of the Marxist-Leninist theory on Party building. At the crucial moment when China’s socialist revolution was deepening and the class struggle was extraordinarily acute, Liu Shao-chi had his sinister book Self-Cultivation republished and it was precisely his aim to overthrow the dictatorship of the proletariat in our country and restore the dictatorship of the bourgeoisie. When he copied the passage from Lenin on the necessity of the dictatorship of the proletariat, which we quoted earlier in this report, Liu Shao-chi once again deliberately omitted the most important conclusion that “the dictatorship of the proletariat is essential”, thereby clearly revealing his own counter-revolutionary features as a renegade to the dictatorship of the proletariat. Moreover, Liu Shao-chi went on spreading such reactionary fallacies as the theory of “the dying out of class struggle”, the theory of “docile tools”, the theory that “the masses are backward”, the theory of “joining the Party in order to climb up”, the theory of “inner-Party peace” and the theory of “merging private and public interests” (i.e., “losing a little to gain much”), in a vain attempt to corrupt and disintegrate our Party, so that the more the Party members “cultivated” themselves, the more revisionist they would become and so that the Marxist-Leninist Party would “evolve peacefully” into a revisionist party and the dictatorship of the proletariat into the dictatorship of the bourgeoisie. We should carry on revolutionary mass criticism and repudiation and thoroughly eliminate the pernicious influence of Liu Shao-chi’s reactionary fallacies.
The Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution is the broadest and most deep-going movement for Party consolidation in the history of our Party. The Party organizations at various levels and the broad masses of Communists have experienced the acute struggle between the two lines, gone through the test in the large-scale class struggle and undergone examination by the revolutionary masses both inside and outside the Party. In this way, the Party members and cadres have faced the world and braved the storm and have raised their class consciousness and their consciousness of the struggle between the two lines. This great revolution teaches us: Under the dictatorship of the proletariat, we must educate the masses of Party members on classes, on class struggle, on the struggle between the two lines and on continuing the revolution. We must fight revisionism both inside and outside the Party, clear the Party of renegades, enemy agents and other elements representing the interests of the exploiting classes, and admit into the Party the genuine advanced elements of the proletariat who have been tested in the great storm. We must strive to ensure that the leadership of Party organizations at all levels is truly in the hands of Marxists. We must see to it that the Party members really integrate theory with practice, maintain close ties with the masses and are bold in making criticism and self-criticism. We must see to it that the Party members will always keep to the style of being modest, prudent and free from arrogance and rashness and to the style of arduous struggle and plain living. Only thus will the Party be able to lead the proletariat and the revolutionary masses in carrying the socialist revolution through to the end.
Chairman Mao teaches us:
Historical experience merits attention. A line or a viewpoint must be explained constantly and repeatedly. It won’t do to explain them only to a few people; they must be made known to the broad revolutionary masses.
The study and spread of the basic experience of the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution, the study and spread of the history of the struggle between the two lines and the study and spread of Chairman Mao’s theory of continuing the revolution under the dictatorship of the proletariat must be conducted not just once but should be repeated every year, every month, every day. Only thus will it be possible for the masses of Party members and the people to criticize and resist erroneous lines and tendencies the moment they emerge, and will it be possible to guarantee that our Party will always forge ahead victoriously along the correct course charted by Chairman Mao.
The revision of the Party Constitution is an important item on the agenda of the Ninth National Congress of the party. The Central Committee has submitted the draft Party Constitution to the congress for discussion. This draft was worked out jointly by the whole Party and the revolutionary masses throughout the country. Since November 1967 when Chairman Mao proposed that primary Party organizations take part in the revision of the Party Constitution, the Central Committee has received several thousand drafts. On this basis the Enlarged Twelfth Plenary Session of the Eighth Central Committee of the Party drew up the draft Party Constitution, upon which the whole Party, the whole army and the revolutionary masses throughout the country once again held enthusiastic and earnest discussions. It may be said that the draft of the new Party Constitution is the product of the integration of the great leader Chairman Mao’s wise leadership with the broad masses; it reflects the will of the whole Party, the whole army and the revolutionary masses throughout the country and gives a vivid demonstration of the democratic centralism and the mass line to which the Party has always adhered. Especially important is the fact that the draft Party Constitution has clearly reaffirmed that Marxism-Leninism-Mao Tsetung Thought is the theoretical basis guiding the Party’s thinking. This is a great victory for the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution in smashing Liu Shao-chi’s revisionist line on Party building, a great victory for Marxism-Leninism-Mao Tsetung Thought. The Central Committee is convinced that, after the discussion and adoption of the new Party Constitution by the congress, our Party will, in accordance with its provisions, surely be built into a still greater, still more glorious and still more correct Party.
Now we shall go on specifically to discuss China’s relations with foreign countries.
The revolutionary struggles of the proletariat and the oppressed people and nations of the world always support each other. The Albanian Party of Labour and all other genuine fraternal Marxist-Leninist Parties and organizations, the broad masses of the proletariat and revolutionary people throughout the world as well as many friendly countries, organizations and personages have all warmly acclaimed and supported the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution in our country. On behalf of the great leader Chairman Mao and the Ninth National Congress of the Party, I hereby express our heartfelt thanks to them. We firmly pledge that we the Communist Party of China and the Chinese people are determined to fulfil our proletarian internationalist duty and, together with them, carry through to the end the great struggle against imperialism, modern revisionism and the reactionaries of various countries.
The general trend of the world today is still as Chairman Mao described it: “The enemy rots with every passing day, while for us things are getting better daily.” On the one hand, the revolutionary movement of the proletariat of the world and of the people of various countries is vigorously surging forward. The armed struggles of the people of southern Vietnam, Laos, Thailand, Burma, Malaya, Indonesia, India, Palestine and other countries and regions in Asia, Africa and Latin America are steadily growing in strength. The truth that “political power grows out of the barrel of a gun” is being grasped by ever broader masses of the oppressed people and nations. An unprecedentedly gigantic revolutionary mass movement has broken out in Japan, Western Europe and North America, the “heartlands” of capitalism. More and more people are awakening. The genuine fraternal Marxist-Leninist Parties and organizations are growing steadily in the course of integrating Marxism-Leninism with the concrete practice of revolution in their own countries. On the other hand, U.S. imperialism and Soviet revisionist social-imperialism are bogged down in political and economic crises and beset with difficulties both at home and abroad and find themselves in an impasse. They collude and at the same time contend with each other in a vain attempt to redivide the world. They act in co-ordination and work hand in glove in opposing China, opposing communism and opposing the people, in suppressing the national liberation movement and in launching wars of aggression. They scheme against each other and get locked in strife for raw materials, markets, dependencies, important strategic points and spheres of influence. They are both stepping up arms expansion and war preparations, each trying to realize its own ambitions.
Lenin pointed out: Imperialism means war. “...imperialist wars are absolutely inevitable under such an economic system, as long as private property in the means of production exists.” (Lenin, Collected Works, Chinese ed., Vol. 22, p. 182.) Lenin further pointed out: “Imperialist war is the eve of socialist revolution.” (Lenin, Collected Works, Chinese ea., Vol. 25, p. 349.) These scientific theses of Lenin’s are by no means out of date.
Chairman Mao has recently pointed out,
With regard to the question of world war, there are but two possibilities: One is that the war will give rise to revolution and the other is that revolution will prevent the war.
This is because there are four major contradictions in the world today: the contradiction between the oppressed nations on the one hand and imperialism and social-imperialism on the other; the contradiction between the proletariat and the bourgeoisie in the capitalist and revisionist countries; the contradiction between imperialist and social-imperialist countries and among the imperialist countries; and the contradiction between socialist countries on the one hand and imperialism and social-imperialism on the other. The existence and development of these contradictions are bound to give rise to revolution. According to the historical experience of World War I and World War II, it can be said with certainty that if the imperialists, revisionists and reactionaries should impose a third world war on the people of the world, it would only greatly accelerate the development of these contradictions and help arouse the people of the world to rise in revolution and send the whole pack of imperialists, revisionists and reactionaries to their graves.
Chairman Mao teaches us: “All reactionaries are paper tigers.” “Strategically we should despise all our enemies, but tactically we should take them all seriously.“ This great truth enunciated by Chairman Mao heightens the revolutionary militancy of the people of the whole world and guides us from victory to victory in the struggle against imperialism, revisionism and all reaction.
The paper tiger nature of U.S. imperialism has long since been laid bare by the people throughout the world. U.S. imperialism, the most ferocious enemy of the people of the whole world, is going downhill more and more. Since he took office, Nixon has been confronted with a hopeless mess and an insoluble economic crisis, with the strong resistance of the masses of the people at home and throughout the world and with the predicament in which the imperialist countries are disintegrating and the baton of U.S. imperialism is getting ever less effective. Unable to produce any solution to these problems, Nixon, like his predecessors, cannot but continue to play the counter-revolutionary dual tactics, ostensibly assuming a “peace-loving” appearance while in fact engaging in arms expansion and war preparations on a still larger scale. The military expenditures of the United States have been increasing year by year. To date the U.S. imperialists still forcibly occupy our territory Taiwan. They have dispatched aggressor troops to many countries and have also set up hundreds upon hundreds of military bases and military installations in different parts of the world. They have made so many airplanes and guns, so many nuclear bombs and guided missiles. What is all this for? To frighten, suppress and slaughter the people and dominate the world. By doing so they make themselves the enemy of the people everywhere and find themselves besieged and battered by the broad masses of the proletariat and the people all over the world, and this will definitely lead to revolutions throughout the world on a still larger scale.
The Soviet revisionist renegade clique is a paper tiger, too. It has revealed its social-imperialist features ever more clearly. When Khrushchov revisionism was just beginning to emerge, our great leader Chairman Mao foresaw what serious harm modern revisionism would do to the cause of world revolution. Chairman Mao led the whole Party in waging resolute struggles in the ideological, theoretical and political spheres, together with the Albanian Party of Labour headed by the great Marxist-Leninist Comrade Enver Hoxha and with the genuine Marxist-Leninists of the world, against modern revisionism with Soviet revisionism as its centre. This has enabled the people all over the world to learn gradually in struggle how to distinguish genuine from sham Marxism-Leninism and genuine from sham socialism and brought about the bankruptcy of Khrushchov revisionism. At the same time, Chairman Mao led our Party in resolutely criticizing Liu Shao-chi’s revisionist line of capitulation to imperialism, revisionism and reaction and of suppression of revolutionary movements in various countries and in destroying Liu Shao-chi’s counter-revolutionary revisionist clique. All this has been done in the fulfilment of our Party’s proletarian internationalist duty.
Since Brezhnev came to power, with its baton becoming less and less effective and its difficulties at home and abroad growing more and more serious, the Soviet revisionist renegade clique has been practicing social-imperialism and social-fascism more frantically than ever. Internally, it has intensified its suppression of the Soviet people and speeded up the all-round restoration of capitalism. Externally, it has stepped up its collusion with U.S. imperialism and its suppression of the revolutionary struggles of the people of various countries, intensified its control over and its exploitation of various East European countries and the People s Republic of Mongolia, intensified its contention with U.S. imperialism over the Middle East and other regions and intensified its threat of aggression against China. Its dispatch of hundreds of thousands of troops to occupy Czechoslovakia and its armed provocations against China on our territory Chenpao Island are two foul performances staged recently by Soviet revisionism. In order to justify its aggression and plunder, the Soviet revisionist renegade clique trumpets the so-called theory of “limited sovereignty”, the theory of “international dictatorship” and the theory of “socialist community”. What does all this stuff mean? It means that your sovereignty is “limited”, while his is unlimited. You won’t obey him? He will exercise “international dictatorship” over you--dictatorship over the people of other countries, in order to form the “socialist community” ruled by the new tsars, that is, colonies of social-imperialism, just like the “New Order of Europe” of Hitler, the “Greater East Asia Co-prosperity Sphere” of Japanese militarism and the “Free World Community” of the United States. Lenin denounced the renegades of the Second International “Socialism in words, imperialism in deeds, the growth of opportunism into imperialism". (Lenin, Collected Works, Chinese ed., Vol. 29, p. 458.) This applies perfectly to the Soviet revisionist renegade clique of today which is composed of a handful of capitalist-roaders in power. We firmly believe that the proletariat and the broad masses of the people in the Soviet Union with their glorious revolutionary tradition will surely rise and overthrow this clique consisting of a handful of renegades. As Chairman Mao points out:
The Soviet Union was the first socialist state and the Communist Party of the Soviet Union was created by Lenin. Although the leadership of the Soviet Party and state has now been usurped by revisionists, I would advise comrades to remain firm in the conviction that the masses of the Soviet people and of Party members and cadres are good, that they desire revolution and that revisionist rule will not last long.
Now that the Soviet Government has created the incident of armed encroachment on the Chinese territory Chenpao Island, the Sino-Soviet boundary question has caught the attention of the whole world. Like the boundary questions between China and other neighbouring countries, the Sino-Soviet boundary question is also one left over by history. As regards these questions, our Party and Government have consistently stood for negotiations through diplomatic channels to reach a fair and reasonable settlement. Pending a settlement, the status quo of the boundary should be maintained and conflicts avoided. Proceeding from this stand, China has satisfactorily and successively settled boundary questions with neighbouring countries such as Burma, Nepal, Pakistan, the People’s Republic of Mongolia and Afghanistan. Only the boundary questions between the Soviet Union and China and between India and China remain unsettled to this day.
The Chinese Government held repeated negotiations with the Indian Government on the Sino-Indian boundary question. As the reactionary Indian Government had taken over the British imperialist policy of aggression, it insisted that we recognize the illegal "McMahon line" which even the reactionary governments of different periods in old China had not recognized, and moreover, it went a step further and vainly attempted to occupy the Aksai Chin area, which has always been under Chinese jurisdiction, thereby disrupting the Sino-Indian boundary negotiations. This is known to all.
The Sino-Soviet boundary question is the product of tsarist Russian imperialist aggression against China. In the latter half of the 19th century when power was in the hands neither of the Chinese people nor of the Russian people, the tsarist government perpetrated imperialist acts of aggression to carve up China, imposed a series of unequal treaties on her, annexed vast expanses of her territory and, moreover, crossed in many places the boundary line stipulated by the unequal treaties and occupied still more Chinese territory. This gangster behaviour was indignantly condemned by Marx, Engels and Lenin. On September 27, 1920, the Government of Soviets led by the great Lenin solemnly proclaimed: It “declares null and void all the treaties concluded with China by the former Governments of Russia, renounces all seizure of Chinese territory and all Russian concessions in China and restores to China, without any compensation and forever, all that had been predatorily seized from her by the Tsar’s Government and the Russian bourgeoisie”. (See Declaration of the Government of the Russian Socialist Federated Soviet Republic to the Chinese Government.) Owing to the historical conditions of the time, this proletarian policy of Lenin’s was not realized.
As early as August 22 and September 21, 1960, the Chinese Government, proceeding from its consistent stand on boundary questions, twice took the initiative in proposing to the Soviet Government that negotiations be held to settle the Sino-Soviet boundary question. In 1964, negotiations between the two sides started in Peking. The treaties relating to the present Sino-Soviet boundary are unequal treaties imposed on the Chinese people by the tsars, but proceeding from the desire to safeguard the revolutionary friendship between the Chinese and Soviet people, we still maintained that these treaties be taken as the basis for the settlement of the boundary question. However, betraying Lenin’s proletarian policy and clinging to its new-tsarist social-imperialist stand, the Soviet revisionist renegade clique refused to recognize these treaties as unequal and, moreover, it insisted that China recognize as belonging to the Soviet Union all the Chinese territory which they had occupied or attempted to occupy in violation of the treaties. This big-power chauvinist and social-imperialist stand of the Soviet Government led to the disruption of the negotiations.
Since Brezhnev came to power, the Soviet revisionist renegade clique has frenziedly stepped up its disruption of the status quo of the boundary and repeatedly provoked border incidents, shooting and killing our unarmed fishermen and peasants and encroaching upon China’s sovereignty. Recently it has gone further and made successive armed intrusions into our territory Chenpao Island. Driven beyond the limits of forbearance, our frontier guards have fought back in self-defence, dealing the aggressors well-deserved blows and triumphantly safeguarding our sacred territory. In an effort to extricate the Soviet revisionist renegade clique from its predicament, Kosygin asked on March 21 to communicate with our leaders by telephone. Immediately on March 22, our Government replied with a memorandum, in which it was made clear that “In view of the present relations between China and the Soviet Union, it is unsuitable to communicate by telephone. If the Soviet Government has anything to say, it is asked to put it forward officially to the Chinese Government through diplomatic channels.” On March 29, the Soviet Government issued a statement still clinging to its obstinate aggressor stand, while expressing willingness to resume “consultations.” Our Government is considering its reply to this.
The foreign policy of our Party and Government is consistent. It is: to develop relations of friendship, mutual assistance and co-operation with socialist countries on the principle of proletarian internationalism; to support and assist the revolutionary struggles of all the oppressed people and nations and to strive for peaceful coexistence with countries having different social systems on the basis of the Five Principles of mutual respect for territorial integrity and sovereignty, mutual non-aggression, non-interference in each other’s internal affairs, equality and mutual benefit, and peaceful coexistence, and to oppose the imperialist policies of aggression and war. Our proletarian foreign policy is not based on temporary expediency; it is a policy in which we have long persisted. This is what we did in the past and we will persist in doing the same in the future.
We have always held that the internal affairs of each country should be settled by its own people. The relations between all countries and between all parties, big or small, must be built on the principles of equality and non-interference in each other’s internal affairs. To safeguard these Marxist-Leninist principles, the Communist Party of China has waged a long struggle against the sinister big-power chauvinism of the Soviet revisionist renegade clique. This is a fact known to all. The Soviet revisionist renegade clique glibly talk of “fraternal parties” and “fraternal countries”, but in fact they regard themselves as the patriarchal party and as the new tsars who are free to invade and occupy the territory of other countries. They conduct sabotage and subversion against the Chinese Communist Party, the Albanian Party of Labour and other genuine Marxist-Leninist Parties. Moreover, when any party, or any country in their so-called “socialist community”, holds a slightly different view, they act ferociously and stop at nothing in suppression, sabotage and subversion and even in sending troops to invade and occupy their so-called “fraternal countries” and kidnapping members of their so-called “fraternal parties”. These fascist piratical acts have sealed their doom.
U.S. imperialism and Soviet revisionism are always trying to “isolate” China; this is China’s honour. Their rabid opposition to China cannot do us the slightest harm. On the contrary, it serves to further arouse our people’s determination to maintain independence and keep initiative in our own hands, rely on our own efforts and work hard to make our country prosperous and powerful; it serves to prove to the whole world that China has drawn a clear line between herself on the one hand and U.S. imperialism and Soviet revisionism on the other. Today, it is not imperialism, revisionism and reaction but the proletariat and the revolutionary people of all countries that determine the destiny of the world. The genuine Marxist-Leninist Parties and organizations of various countries, which are composed of the advanced elements of the proletariat, are a new rising force with infinitely broad prospects. The Communist Party of China is determined to unite and fight together with them. We firmly support the Albanian people in their struggle against imperialism and revisionism; we firmly support the Vietnamese people in carrying their war of resistance against U.S. aggression and for national salvation through to the end; we firmly support the revolutionary struggles of the people of Laos, Thailand, Burma, Malaya, Indonesia, India, Palestine and other countries and regions in Asia, Africa and Latin America; we firmly support the proletariat, the students and youth and the masses of the Black people of the United States in their just struggle against the U.S. ruling clique; we firmly support the proletariat and the labouring people of the Soviet Union in their just struggle to overthrow the Soviet revisionist renegade clique; we firmly support the people of Czechoslovakia and other countries in their just struggle against Soviet revisionist social-imperialism; we firmly support the revolutionary struggles of the people of Japan and the West European and Oceanian countries; we firmly support the revolutionary struggles of the people of all countries; and we firmly support all the just struggles of resistance against aggression and oppression by U.S. imperialism and Soviet revisionism. All countries and people subjected to aggression, control, intervention or bullying by U.S. imperialism and Soviet revisionism, let us unite and form the broadest possible united front and overthrow our common enemies!
On no account must we relax our revolutionary vigilance because of victory or ignore the danger of U.S. imperialism and Soviet revisionism launching a large-scale war of aggression. We must make full preparations. preparations against their launching a big war and against their launching a war at an early date, preparations against their launching a conventional war and against their launching a large-scale nuclear war. In short, we must be prepared. Chairman Mao said long ago: We will not attack unless we are attacked; if we are attacked, we will certainly counter-attack. If they insist on fighting, we will keep them company and fight to the finish. The Chinese revolution won out on the battlefield. Armed with Mao Tsetung Thought and tempered in the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution, the Chinese people in their hundreds of millions and the Chinese People’s Liberation Army, with full confidence in victory, are determined to liberate their sacred territory Taiwan and resolutely, thoroughly, wholly and completely wipe out all aggressors who dare to come!
Our great leader Chairman Mao points out:
Working hand in glove, Soviet revisionism and U.S. imperialism have done so many foul and evil things that the revolutionary people the world over will not let them go unpunished. The people of all countries are rising. A new historical period of struggle against U.S. imperialism and Soviet revisionism has begun.
Whether the war gives rise to revolution or revolution prevents the war, U.S. imperialism and Soviet revisionism will not last long! Workers of all countries, unite! Proletarians and oppressed people and nations of the world, unite! Bury U.S. imperialism, Soviet revisionism and their lackeys!
The Ninth National Congress of the Party is convened at an important moment in the historical development of our Party, at an important moment in the consolidation and development of the dictatorship of the proletariat in our country and at an important moment in the development of the international communist movement and world revolution. Among the delegates to the congress are proletarian revolutionaries of the older generation and also a great deal of fresh blood. In previous congresses of our Party there have never been such great numbers of delegates from the Party membership among the industrial workers, poor and lower-middle peasants, and of women delegates. Among the delegates from the Party membership in the People’s Liberation Army are veteran Red Army fighters as well as new fighters. The delegates of Party members from among the Red Guards are attending a national congress of the Party for the first time. The fact that so many delegates have come to Peking from all corners of the country and gathered around the great leader Chairman Mao to discuss and decide on the affairs of the Party and state signifies that our congress is a congress full of vitality, a congress of unity and a congress of victory.
Chairman Mao teaches us:
The unification of our country, the unity of our people and the unity of our various nationalities„these are the basic guarantees of the sure triumph of our cause.
Through the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution our motherland has become unprecedentedly unified and our people have achieved a great revolutionary unity on the broadest scale under the great red banner of Mao Tsetung Thought. This great unity is under the leadership of the proletariat and is based on the worker-peasant alliance; it embraces all the fraternal nationalities, the patriotic democrats who for a long time have done useful work for the cause of the revolution and construction in our motherland, the vast numbers of patriotic overseas Chinese and our patriotic fellow-countrymen in Hongkong and Macao, our patriotic fellow-countrymen in Taiwan who are oppressed and exploited by the U.S.-Chiang reactionaries, and all those who support socialism and love our socialist motherland. We are convinced that after the present national congress of our Party, the people of all nationalities in our country will certainly unite still more closely under the leadership of the great leader Chairman Mao and win still greater victories in the struggle against our common enemy and in the cause of building our powerful socialist motherland.
Chairman Mao said in 1962:
The next 50 to 100 years or so, beginning from now, will be a great era of radical change in the social system throughout the world, an earth-shaking era without equal in any previous historical period. Living in such an era, we must be prepared to engage in great struggles which will have many features different in form from those of the past.
This magnificent prospect far-sightedly envisioned by Chairman Mao illuminates our future path of advance and inspires all genuine Marxist-Leninists to fight valiantly for the realization of the grand ideal of communism.
Let the whole Party unite, let the people of the whole country unite, hold high the great red banner of Mao Tsetung Thought, be resolute, fear no sacrifice and surmount every difficulty to win victory!
Long live the great victory of the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution!
Long live the dictatorship of the proletariat!
Long live the Ninth National Congress of the Party!
Long live the great, glorious and correct Communist Party of China!
Long live great Marxism-Leninism-Mao Tsetung Thought!
Long live our great leader Chairman Mao! A long, long life to Chairman Mao!