[This issue of Peking Review is from massline.org. Massline.org has kindly given us permission to to place these documents on the MIA. We made only some formatting changes to make them congruent with our style sheets.]
[This article is reprinted from Peking Review, Vol. 11, #44, Nov. 1, 1968, pp. 11-14.]
This is the second and concluding instalment of the article.
The first instalment appeared in our last (No. 43) issue. —Ed.
OUR great leader Chairman Mao teaches us: Politics is the commander, the soul in everything.
Vice-Chairman Lin Piao points out: “We must let the hundreds of millions of the people grasp Mao Tse-tung’s thought, put Mao Tse-tung’s thought in occupation of all ideological positions and use Mao Tse-tung’s thought to transform the outlook of the whole society.”
The great proletarian cultural revolution has stirred the proletarian sentiments of the revolutionary masses in their hundreds of millions — their boundless love and esteem for, boundless faith in and boundless loyalty to the great leader Chairman Mao. Activities expressing boundless loyalty to Chairman Mao, to Mao Tse-tung’s thought and to Chairman Mao’s revolutionary line are being widely carried out throughout the nation. From snow-bound vastnesses and forest expanses to frontier regions and off-shore islands, from the cities to remotest mountain villages, the revolutionary people of all nationalities have hung portraits of Chairman Mao in their homes and covered the walls with quotations from Chairman Mao. Every day they read the treasured works of Chairman Mao and sing revolutionary songs. Conscientiously studying and applying Chairman Mao’s works and his latest instructions, they have carried the great mass movement for the creative study and application of Mao Tse-tung’s thought to a new stage.
Chairman Mao teaches: “Running study classes is a good method and many problems can be solved in them.” The whole nation, from the national down to the grass-roots levels, is making a big effort running Mao Tse-tung’s thought study classes of all types, not only in factories, schools and colleges, government and state organs and P.L.A. companies, but also in neighbourhood groups and families. Many white-haired elders and teenagers have become study class activists. Taking Chairman Mao’s latest instructions as their guiding principle in these classes, the broad revolutionary masses and revolutionary cadres fight self and repudiate revisionism and continuously raise their level of consciousness in class struggle and the struggle between the two lines. They have turned their study classes into “furnaces” for tempering their boundless loyalty to Chairman Mao, into classrooms for implementing Chairman Mao’s latest instructions and into battlefields for carrying out revolutionary mass criticism and launching fierce attacks against the class enemies.
The wide popularization of Mao Tse-tung’s thought gives a great impetus to people’s ideological revolutionization. Using the “three constantly read articles” as their maxims, the revolutionary masses consciously put the elimination of self-interest and the fostering of public interest on the plane of the struggle between the two lines and carry the revolution into the depth of their being. Following the examples of Li Wen-chung, “Model in Helping the Left and Cherishing the People,” and Comrade Men Ho, “Good Cadre Boundlessly Loyal to Chairman Mao’s Revolutionary Line,” they display a dauntless spirit and defend Chairman Mao’s revolutionary line and Mao Tse-tung’s thought in action even at the cost of their lives. The spring breeze of Mao Tse-tung’s thought has reached into all families and a new socialist practice is being vigorously developed.
The great leader Chairman Mao has called on us to “Carry out the tasks of struggle-criticism-transformation conscientiously.” He has also pointed out: “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.”
The universal establishment of revolutionary committees in the various provinces, municipalities and autonomous regions across the land marks the entrance of the whole movement of the great proletarian cultural revolution into the stage of struggle-criticism-transformation on a nationwide scale. Acting in accordance with Chairman Mao’s teachings, the revolutionary masses on all fronts are conscientiously carrying out the tasks of struggle-criticism-transformation. On the basis of deep-going revolutionary mass criticism and repudiation, they are purifying the class ranks, reforming education, literature and art and all parts of the superstructure that do not conform with the socialist economic base, changing irrational rules and regulations, merging offices, reducing the number of personnel and strengthening the front-line of production.
During this great high tide of struggle-criticism-transformation, the working class, as the main force, has mounted the stage of struggle-criticism-transformation in the superstructure; it is promoting the revolution in education and struggle-criticism-transformation in all spheres of the superstructure. This is Chairman Mao’s great strategic plan. It is a great revolutionary creation and embodies the great historic mission of the working class.
Chairman Mao says: “Our country has 700 million people, and the working class is the leading class. It is essential to bring into full play the leading role of the working class in the great cultural revolution and in all fields of work. On its part, the working class should always raise its political consciousness in the course of struggle.”
The working class is most far-sighted, most selfless and most thoroughly revolutionary. Drawing a clear-cut line of distinction between what it loves and what it hates, it is most loyal to Chairman Mao, has the deepest love for the socialist cause and the deepest hatred for all counter-revolutionary words and deeds that oppose socialism and Mao Tse-tung’s thought. The working class has the richest fund of practical experience in the three great revolutionary movements of class struggle, the struggle for production and scientific experiment. The practice of the great cultural revolution has proved that the revolution in education and the struggle-criticism-transformation in all spheres of the superstructure cannot be accomplished by relying solely on students and intellectuals; it is essential to have the participation of the worker masses and to uphold working-class leadership. Only by so doing can we ensure that every militant order from the proletarian headquarters is promptly carried out.
Recently, large numbers of Mao Tse-tung’s thought propaganda teams formed in all parts of the country with the industrial workers as the main body and with the participation of P.L.A. commanders and fighters have, in a planned way and with leadership, entered schools and colleges and all units where struggle-criticism-transformation has not been carried out well. They are giving leadership to the educational revolution in schools and colleges and to struggle-criticism-transformation in all spheres of the superstructure. They are making big efforts to propagate Mao Tse-tung’s thought and forcefully spur the victorious development of the revolutionary great alliance, the revolutionary “three-in-one” combination and struggle-criticism-transformation in these units. As a result, many long-standing and difficult problems have been solved and a vigorous revolutionary atmosphere prevails. All this fully demonstrates the tremendous power of the workers’ Mao Tse-tung’s thought propaganda teams which are a new creation.
Chairman Mao teaches us: “The majority or the vast majority of the students trained in the old schools and colleges can integrate themselves with the workers, peasants and soldiers, and some have made inventions or innovations; they must, however, be re-educated by the workers, peasants and soldiers under the guidance of the correct line, and thoroughly change their old ideology. Such intellectuals will be welcomed by the workers, peasants and soldiers.”
After seizing political power, the proletariat must remould intellectuals according to its own image and build up a contingent of proletarian intellectuals serving the interests of the proletariat. This is essential in consolidating and developing the dictatorship of the proletariat and preventing a capitalist restoration; it is essential in order that the proletariat shall establish a completely dominant position in all fields of ideology and culture. In building such a contingent of proletarian intellectuals, it is imperative to carry out a thoroughgoing proletarian revolution in education, take the revolutionary road of training technical personnel and other intellectuals from among the workers, peasants and soldiers and select students from among the workers, peasants and Liberation Army fighters with practical experience in production. Meanwhile, it is also essential to re-educate the large numbers of intellectuals trained in the old schools and colleges in the past and to win over and unite with the broad masses of intellectuals. Intellectuals can make their contributions in serving the workers, peasants and soldiers only when they advance along Chairman Mao’s proletarian revolutionary line, receive re-education from the workers, peasants and soldiers and integrate with them, completely wipe out the pernicious influence of China’s Khrushchov’s revisionist line on education and thoroughly repudiate and make constant efforts to change the old bourgeois ideas which they have brought with them from their families and schools.
The great proletarian cultural revolution has opened up broader prospects for the intellectuals to integrate themselves with the workers, peasants and soldiers, remould their world outlook and serve the people still better. The working class stepping on to the stage of struggle-criticism-transformation in the superstructure has ushered in a new phase in the proletarian revolution in education. This will certainly accelerate the process by which China’s working class remoulds the intellectuals according to its own image.
The great proletarian cultural revolution has smashed the sinister counter-revolutionary revisionist line on literature and art backed by China’s Khrushchov and has upheld Chairman Mao’s proletarian revolutionary line on literature and art. Guided by Chairman Mao’s revolutionary line on literature and art and under the direct care of and nurtured by Comrade Chiang Ching, revolutionary artists have created the fine revolutionary modern Peking operas The Red Lantern, Taking the Bandit’s Stronghold, Shachiapang, On the Docks and Raid on the White Tiger Regiment, the revolutionary modern ballets The Red Detachment of Women and The White-Haired Girl and the revolutionary symphonic work Shachiapang. These have all been warmly welcomed and highly praised by the worker, peasant and soldier masses of China. In the wake of these eight model revolutionary theatrical works, two more gems of proletarian revolutionary art were born this year — the piano music The Red Lantern with Peking opera singing and the revolutionary oil painting Chairman Mao Goes to Anyuan. Glittering with the radiance of Mao Tse-tung’s thought, these model revolutionary theatrical works and this revolutionary oil painting, new in content and artistically of a high standard, mark the start of a new epoch of China’s proletarian literature and art in which a hundred flowers are blossoming. They usher in a new era of growth in the world’s new, proletarian literature and art.
The great leader Chairman Mao teaches us: Revolution means liberating the productive forces and promoting their growth. “Grasp revolution and promote production.”
The upsurge in revolution promotes the upsurge in production. During the great proletarian cultural revolution, the great thought of Mao Tse-tung has further armed the hundreds of millions of the people and speeded up people’s ideological revolutionization. A tremendous spiritual force has been transformed into an enormous material force, and a thriving situation has emerged in China’s industrial and agricultural production.
On the industrial front, full of a high sense of revolutionary responsibility and political enthusiasm stemming from the realization that “the working class is the leading class,” the revolutionary workers and staff have vigorously grasped revolution and promoted production. A large number of industrial and mining enterprises in Peking, Shanghai and other cities have increased output month by month and many factories have created new production records.
Many workers-turned-technicians, young revolutionary technical personnel and revolutionary cadres of the Shanghai Machine Tools Plant are scaling new heights in technology. In the first half of 1968 alone, they successfully trial produced ten new types of precision grinders, four of which were on an advanced international level. The speed with which these were made and their quality are both unprecedented in this plant.
Following Chairman Mao’s great teachings, “Do away with all fetishes and superstitions and emancipate the mind” and “catch up with and surpass advanced world levels,” China’s iron and steel workers have vigorously thrown off the fetters of the “philosophy of crawling” pushed by China’s Khrushchov, shattered foreign stereotypes and dogmas, and greatly improved the quality and increased the output and number of varieties of steel ingots and rolled steel. In the first three quarters of this year, the Anshan Iron and Steel Company alone introduced 1,000 technical innovations and turned out many new varieties of rolled steel urgently needed by the state. In Shanghai’s steel plants, ontput of steel ingots and rolled steel rose steadily quarter by quarter. These plants, while successfully trial-producing a batch of important new products, have also raised the quality of many products to the world’s advanced levels.
Since the start of this year, reports of new successes have continued to come in from the nation’s coal industry. A succession of new production records and technical innovations have been reported. Compared with April, the average daily output of coal increased in August by 39 per cent. Marked increases were also recorded in development and tunnel-driving.
In 1968, new peak production levels have been created in the textile industries of Peking, Shanghai, Tientsin and the provinces of Hopei, Shantung, Kiangsi and Heilungkiang. These account for nearly one half of China’s textile capacity.
Tested in the class struggle, China’s rural people’s communes are better consolidated and stronger than ever before. On the agricultural front, a vigorous upsurge in grasping revolution and promoting production has taken shape. Resolutely responding to Chairman Mao’s great teaching, “In agriculture, learn from Tachai,” and carrying forward the revolutionary spirit of hard work and self-reliance, China’s hundreds of millions of poor and lower-middle peasants and rural revolutionary cadres, while struggling against the class enemies, have at the same time heroically and tenaciously overcome natural calamities and all sorts of difficulties in production. In the wake of the bumper harvests of the past few years, they have again reaped rich harvests of summer crops and early rice this year. Autumn crops are everywhere growing well and in certain districts prospects are the best for many years. Another rich harvest has been won in such crops and farm products as grain, cotton, cured tobacco, bast fibre, tea, fruit and silkworm cocoons.
China has made tremendous achievements in scientific research and in its national defence industries during the great proletarian cultural revolution. We not only have the atom bomb and guided missile, but the hydrogen bomb as well. Armed with Mao Tse-tung’s thought, the Chinese people have enormous creative powers and they will continue to scale new heights in science, and technology and perform earth-shaking miracles.
On the basis of the vigorous development of industrial and agricultural production, prices remain stable and markets are brisk all over the country. There are thriving scenes everywhere.
The deep and far-reaching influence exercised by the great proletarian cultural revolution in every field is just being revealed. This will certainly create the requisite conditions for China’s new industrial revolution and bring about a still bigger leap forward in the work of socialist construction.
Vice-Chairman Lin Piao says: “All our achievements and successes are gained under the brilliant leadership of Chairman Mao and are victories of Mao Tse-tung’s thought.”
Reviewing the militant course of the great proletarian cultural revolution in the past two years and more, we deeply realize that every one of our achievements shines with the thought of Mao Tse-tung. All of our successes are the great fruits of all-round implementation of Chairman Mao’s latest instructions and of resolutely carrying out the militant orders of the proletarian headquarters headed by Chairman Mao and with Vice-Chairman Lin Piao as its deputy leader.
“Sailing the seas depends on the helmsman; making revolution depends on Mao Tse-tung’s thought.” This is an incontrovertible truth.
Holding high the great red banner of Mao Tse-tung’s thought, the hundreds of millions of revolutionary people of the country are now united more firmly than ever before around the proletarian headquarters headed by Chairman Mao and with Vice-Chairman Lin Piao as its deputy leader, and are forging ahead to win all-round victory in the great proletarian cultural revolution.
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