Chapter 16 Regarding the election of the Eighth Central Committee [1]

(September 10, 1956) Our conference this time has the same nature as the Seventh National Congress[2].At that time, for the victory of the revolution in the whole country, we held a rally of unity.The resolution of political issues, the resolution of historical issues within the party, and the election achieved the goal of uniting the entire party and enabling the revolution to win across the country. Our democratic revolution took a long time, from 1921 to 1949, a total of 28 years.In the past twenty-eight years, we have traveled many tortuous roads, made many mistakes in the line, caused great losses to the revolution, suffered a lot, killed many people, sacrificed many revolutionary people, and sacrificed many party members. and cadres.Mistakes and losses are not only responsible for those who make mistakes, but also for those who do not make mistakes.Why? If we are all awakened, all the people in our party, and all the cadres are awakened, then the wrong line will not work.The fact that the erroneous line can prevail for a while proves that we were not enlightened at that time, and it was not until the erroneous line developed very clearly and clearly that we understood it and drew conclusions.But it is still wrong to draw a conclusion.Therefore, there are mistakes of Chen Duxiu's right-leaning opportunist line[3], mistakes of three "left"-leaning lines[4], mistakes of Zhang Guotao's line[5] and mistakes of Wang Ming's right-leaning line[6].From 1921 to the Zunyi Conference in 1935[7], it took 14 years to end the rule of the whole party by many wrong lines.Only after the Yan'an rectification movement[8] did our entire Party wake up.Our democratic revolution took so long, we fought so long and made so many mistakes before we came up with a set of correct political, military and organizational lines.Only then did we gradually learn how to handle relations within the party, how to handle the relationship between party and non-party personnel, how to engage in the united front, how to engage in the mass line, and so on.That is to say, we have experience before we can write some articles.For example, my articles could not have been written without going through the Northern Expedition, the Agrarian Revolutionary War, and the Anti-Japanese War, because I had no experience.Therefore, those failures and setbacks have given us a lot of education. Without those setbacks, our party would not have been educated.

Now we are engaged in construction, which is relatively new to us.It was discussed in the Central Committee a few years ago that we hope that the mistakes made in the construction will not be as many as the mistakes made in the revolution, and the time will not last as long.Are we going to go through 14 years of twists and turns and fall into so many somersaults when we engage in construction? I say we can avoid so many somersaults.Because somersaulting in the past was mainly a matter of thinking, a matter of ignorance and awareness. We have some experience in economics, but we have no experience in these new technologies.We have relatively learned how to arrange the economy, work with people, capitalists, democratic parties, and intellectuals. We have 22 years of experience in the base areas.We have not yet mastered the world's new industrial and agricultural technologies. Although we have gained six years of experience and learned many things, fundamentally speaking, we still have to make great efforts, mainly relying on the second five-year period. Year plan and the third five-year plan to learn more.

We must cultivate intellectuals.Now we have very few intellectuals.There are only 100,000 high-level intellectuals left in old China, and we plan to create 1 million to 1.5 million high-level intellectuals (including university graduates and college graduates) within the three five-year plans.By then, we will have 18 years of work experience in this field, with many scientists and many engineers.At that time, the composition of the Party Central Committee will also change. There should be many engineers and many scientists in the Central Committee.In my opinion, the current Central Committee is still a political Central Committee, not a scientific one.Therefore, some people doubt that our party can lead scientific work and health work. There is also a part of reason, because you just don’t know, you just don’t understand.Now our center does have this shortcoming. There are not many scientists and experts.

I think we should avoid and can avoid taking so many devious paths, subjectivism can be more eliminated, and sectarianism can be less.In recent years, our Party has been a party with relatively little sectarianism and relatively little subjectivism as far as the Central Committee and senior cadres are concerned.You say that there are so many subjectivisms, but you can’t explain why the revolution has won victory, and now construction has achieved results.You say there is so much sectarianism, so why are we not isolated? We were not isolated during the revolution, and we were not isolated during the construction period.It can be seen that our subjectivism is not so much, and our sectarianism is also relatively small.But we still have subjectivism and sectarianism, including in the documents issued by the central government.For example, the one-management system[9], the central government has passed on the experience of certain areas and believes that it can be tried.At that time, we had no experience with this issue, so we could not make an assertion that the one-man system was not good.It was not until recently that we concluded that the one-management system is not good, and that a system combining collective leadership with individual responsibility is good.

Now let’s talk about relations within the party.How the relationship within the party is is very important, it is related to whether we can unite the people of the whole country and the people of the world.Therefore, one thing about this conference is the same as that of the Seventh National Congress, that is, it will be a united conference. Regarding the list of the Central Committee, Comrade Chen Yun [10] said just now, and several comrades also said that this list reflects our revolutionary process.In this list, there are few workers. There are almost no workers in Shanghai, no workers in Tianjin, no workers in Wuhan, Chongqing, Guangzhou, Shenyang, Anshan, Dalian, and Qingdao, and no workers in Beijing.Well, is your center a Marxist center? Is it a proletarian center? Our center has always had very little proletarian content.Now that the Eighth National Congress is held, the whole country is engaged in industrialization, and there are still so few proletarian elements. Why? Because the Chinese revolution is following the road of encircling the cities from the countryside, and the revolution will first develop and win in the countryside.Many comrades have worked in the base areas for a long time, more than 20 years, and some comrades have struggled in the white areas, and some have been in prison for a long time.These people accumulated experience in the struggle, learned Marxism, matured their thinking, and some of them joined the Central Committee.However, in cities where industrial workers are concentrated, the revolution was finally victorious, and it has only been a few years until now.So now, perhaps by the Ninth or Tenth National Congress, it is impossible for many workers to be elected to the Central Committee.Comrade Chen Yun just said that some workers will develop in the future, do some responsible work, become engineers or factory managers, and show their ability. At that time, the composition of our Central Committee will change.Therefore, we cannot say that our center is not a Marxist center just because there are few workers.It cannot be said that our party is great, glorious, and correct, but it is not Marxist.Our center is a Marxist center.You say it is not the center of Marxism, so why do we oppose imperialism? Why do we engage in socialism? The leaders of the world proletariat, Marx, Engels, Lenin, and Stalin, were not born as workers.In terms of composition, our party is a party with the proletariat and the former semi-proletariat as the main components, and there are also some middle peasants and intellectuals.It should be affirmed that our Central Committee is a Marxist Central Committee and our Party is a Marxist Party.Our party can lead the democratic revolution, which has been proven in history, and it can lead the socialist revolution, and now it has also been proved that our socialist revolution has basically won.Our party is able to lead economic construction, this point has not been fully proved, need to go through three five-year plans.Now we have almost completed the first Five-Year Plan[11], and even the three years of national economic recovery and seven years of economic construction.According to our own awareness during the revolutionary period, that is, awareness of what mistakes we made in the past, and how we should correct the mistakes later, although we still have remnants of subjectivism, sectarianism, and bureaucracy, these things can be reduced.It is hard to say that it will be completely eliminated, and there will still be more after it is eliminated, but it can be reduced, and it can be greatly reduced.

Regarding the list of the 170 members of the Central Committee, there are many comrades who are good in talent and morality and have made relatively few mistakes. They are all good in terms of talent, morality and mistakes, but they are not listed. Is it unreasonable? Comrade Chen Yun has said this, and other comrades have also said this. The problem is that if the list is to be expanded, it must be expanded to more than two hundred, two hundred and fifty-six, and once it is expanded to two hundred and fifty-six Ten, it will be expanded to more than three hundred.It is only seven years since we achieved the victory of the revolution. If we count according to the Soviet Union, by the 40th year of the victory of the revolution, we may have to set up a Central Committee with two to three thousand people! Then only the Central Committee meeting will be held, and no congress will be held. .

I also think of a reason, which should be explained again.There are many examples of others, and I think I can also serve as an example.There are some things I haven’t said in the past, and I want to talk to you today.I have only the right to speak at the Fifth Congress, but not to vote.I also made a lot of mistakes, but at that time they didn't tell me where my mistakes were, and they only let me be an alternate representative.Here I am at the first congress.The Second Congress did not come.The third congress was held in Guangzhou, and it came again and was elected as a member of the Central Committee.The Fourth Congress did not come again, and we lost members of the Central Committee.I'm probably an unlucky couple.The Fifth Congress has arrived, and it is also very good to be an alternate representative, being elected as an alternate member of the Central Committee.Is this bad for me? I say it is good, there is no harm.As for the others, it was mainly three times during the period of the "Left" leaning line. How many times were there various punishments and blows given to me, including "expulsion from the party", expulsion of alternate members of the Politburo, and expulsion from the Red Army? I remember twenty Second-rate.For example, if they are not elected as members of the Central Committee, they are only given the right to speak but not to vote, and some positions are removed, such as the secretary of the Central Peasant Committee, the party representative (in Jinggangshan), and the secretary of the former party committee. I was "expelled from the party" and couldn't afford to lose my position, so I was made a teacher.As a division commander, I am not so capable. I have never studied military affairs, because you are a non-Party democrat, so I have no choice but to be a division commander for a while.You say that being expelled from the party is happy for a person, but I don't believe it, and I'm not happy.During the Jinggangshan period, a misinformation came, saying that the central government had expelled me from the party, so I could no longer live in the party. I could only be a teacher, and I could not go to the expenditure department meeting.Later, he said that this was a rumor, that he was expelled from the Politburo, not from the party.Ah, I was so relieved! At that time, I was given the name "Gun-barism", because I said "Government grows out of the barrel of a gun".Where do they say that political power comes out of the barrel of a gun? Marx never said it, and there is no such sentence ready-made in the book, so they said that I made a mistake and called me a "gun-barism".Indeed, Marx did not say that, but when Marx talked about "seizure of political power by armed forces," what I meant was the seizure of political power by armed forces, not that a political power would come out of rifles or machine guns.Later, he was named "consistent opportunism".What is most beneficial to me is to call me "narrow empiricism".In the book "Strategic Issues in China's Revolutionary War", I followed Lu Xun's method and "revenged" and criticized those who criticized "narrow empiricism" as wrong. The so-called "narrow empiricism" is not Marxism. At that time they thought that there was no Marxism in the mountains, because we were in the mountains, and there was Marxism in the cities. They forgot that they also came to the mountains, and we were in the cities before. We went to the mountains two or three times earlier In 2010, there was no Marxism. They just came, because they stayed in the city for a long time, so there is so much Marxism. When filling out the form, don’t you have to fill in what punishment you have received in the past? These things, I fill out the form now. Don’t fill in, because there are so many, I have to fill in a lot, and none of these are admitted by me. I have made mistakes. For example, in wars, Gao Xingwei lost the battle, which was my command; Nanxiong lost the battle, I commanded it; I commanded the battle of Tucheng during the Long March, and I also commanded the battle at Moutai. The land law I proposed in Jinggangshan was lame, not a thorough land program. I made a mistake during the elimination of counterrevolutionaries Mistake, the first time the counter-revolutionary campaign was launched against the wrong person. And so on and so forth. They did not punish these real mistakes, and the punishments and punishments of about 20 times had no real basis. Especially the "narrow empiricism" It stimulated me. It seems that there is only one branch of Marxism, and there is no other branch. Is it possible to have a little bit of Marxism in the branch? I don’t know foreign languages, and I have never been to a foreign country. I just read some translated books. I always talk to Some comrades said that Marxism-Leninism can be learned, even if you can't learn that much, you can always learn a little bit.

I think there may be more or less comrades who have been wronged and wronged.There are two attitudes towards those who have been wronged and wronged, and those inappropriate punishments and wrong disposals, such as labeling themselves as "opportunistic", revoking their positions, and being transferred from their positions.One attitude is to be negative, angry and dissatisfied from now on; the other attitude is to regard it as a kind of beneficial education, as a kind of exercise.You know, the world is such a world, and it's impossible, not now, never to be that perfectly fair.That's how I see it, maybe I'm pessimistic.There are some people who are very optimistic. When they say that there will be no contradictions in a communist society, I don't believe it.Where there are contradictions, subjectivism will emerge and mistakes will be made.Those people didn’t have grievances with us in the previous life, but in this life, they didn’t know each other before, so why would they punish you? It’s because they think differently and have different views on issues.It was later proved that once there is unity of thought on policy issues, there is complete unity.The so-called disunity refers to ideological distance and disputes on political and policy issues.Except for a very few hostile elements who sneak into the party with ulterior motives to sabotage, all those who make mistakes, no matter how serious they are, and even if they are wrong in line, are only wrong in their thinking.Since it is a matter of thinking, then correcting mistakes is a matter of correcting thoughts, rectifying study, discussing and researching.And all kinds of unfair things are inevitable in any society.So what should we do? We are trying to achieve a fair comparison.It should be said that the election for the Seventh National Congress of our party has been relatively fair within the party since the Seventh National Congress.Everything is compared, not absolute, absolutely fair or absolutely unfair, it is impossible.If the local comrades say that the central government is not doing well, then are the affairs of the local comrades running perfectly and without any unfairness? I don't believe it.Some things are unexpected, some things are wrongly thought out, and some things are not properly arranged. It is inevitable.

Things often have great chance.There is such a story, some people went to take the exam, and a man named Sun Shan came back after reading the list. Others asked him if his son passed the exam, and he said, "It is Sun Shan who knows his name, and the virtuous man is in Sun Shan." outside".It means that the last one is my Sun Shan, and your son is behind my Sun Shan, so he did not pass the exam.This is the allusion of the so-called "Famous Sun Shan".I said that the comrades who are not on the list today, that is, the comrades who have lost their names in Sun Shan, are likely to be comrades who will play a big role in China in the future.Of course, this is possible, but not necessarily so.Perhaps people within Sun Shan will play a big role in the future.There are two possibilities.As for what will happen in the next few decades, that is a matter of the 21st century, and we can leave it alone.We can't manage this list.Our list probably only covers the twentieth century.Comrades, I am not making a wish, and I am not saying that it would be better for you not to be elected now. I am saying that it is necessary to consider and balance all aspects.As for which has a greater effect and which has a lesser effect, there is a great deal of chance here.For example, there are very few workers in Shanghai, Tianjin, and big cities in the list just mentioned. This is a kind of accident.Inevitability is expressed through chance.Because after the failure of the Great Revolution, the revolution in China was carried out first in the villages, and the revolutionaries in the villages learned Marxism.You said that there is no Marxism on the mountain, but I think there is Marxism on the mountain, because everyone has gone to the mountain, so there are so many bases!

Just now the Politburo discussed with the comrades in charge of the delegations, and felt that a small number of people could be added, and if it failed, it could also be reduced by a few people.This is the case at the Seventh National Congress. Two comrades were mentioned on the candidate list several times, but they were not selected in the end.This time there may also be individual comrades who were put forward on the list but were not selected.We can make suggestions, but we cannot impose them on others or on the representatives. The rights are entirely in the hands of the representatives.Therefore, when the representatives are in the preliminary election, some people can be replaced or some people can be reduced in this list of 170 people, but the total number should not exceed this total number.In order to be easy to calculate when billing, and not mixed together, you can write on another piece of paper the candidates you think can be added, you can add a few, you can add a dozen, you can add as much as you like.What are the benefits of doing this? It can provide some information for the central government to consider whether to add some comrades to the official list.In this way, the central government can, according to the number of votes obtained and according to various circumstances, consider a formal list of candidates, and separate the candidates for the official central committee and the alternate candidates for the central committee, and put forward the final number of candidates.For example, not one hundred and seventy people, but one hundred and seventy, or still one hundred and seventy, or if there are many crossed out, reduce a few more.Comrades please consider all these.

Published based on the transcript of the speech kept by the Central Archives. -------------------------------------------------- ------------------------------ note [1] This is Mao Zedong's speech at the second plenary meeting of the preparatory meeting for the Eighth National Congress of the Communist Party of China. [2] The Seventh National Congress, the Seventh National Congress of the Communist Party of China.See note [3] on page 98 of this volume. [3] For Chen Duxiu’s errors in the right opportunist line, see note [3] on page 56 of this volume. [4] The three mistakes of the "Left" leaning line refer to the mistakes of "Left" putschism represented by Qu Qiubai from November 1927 to April 1928, and from June 1930 to April 1928. The mistakes of "Left" adventurism represented by Li Lisan in September and the mistakes of "Left" adventurism represented by Wang Ming before the Zunyi Conference from January 1931 to January 1935. [5] For mistakes in Zhang Guotao’s line, see Note [12] on page 58 of this volume. [6] For the mistakes of Wang Ming’s right-leaning line, see note [19] on page 48 of this volume. [7] The Zunyi meeting refers to the enlarged meeting of the Political Bureau of the CPC Central Committee held in Zunyi, Guizhou from January 15 to 17, 1935 during the Long March.This meeting focused on discussing and correcting military and organizational mistakes, ended the rule of Wang Ming's "Left" adventurism in the Party Central Committee, and established the correct leadership of the new Central Committee represented by Mao Zedong. At the critical moment, the Red Army was saved and the Party was saved. [8] Yan'an Rectification Movement, see note [13] on page 59 of this volume. [9] The one-manager system was an important production management system implemented in the Soviet Union at that time. Its main content was to give the chief executives of each enterprise full power to make decisions in the process of performing their duties. [10] Chen Yun (1905-1995), a native of Qingpu, Jiangsu (now part of Shanghai).At that time, he was a member of the Political Bureau of the CPC Central Committee and secretary of the Secretariat of the CPC Central Committee. [11] The first five-year plan, see note [3] on page 3 of this volume.