Chapter 10 To unite all forces that can be united[1]

(April 29, 1956) I am very happy to meet comrades.It is not easy to meet comrades. North and South America are far away from China, and there is a Pacific Ocean in between, plus the artificial obstacles of the United States.At present, China has not yet established diplomatic relations with many countries in the world, especially with countries in North and South America, and there are few business and cultural exchanges.However, we believe that diplomatic relations can be built gradually. China used to be a semi-colonial country, and now it is still a country with a relatively backward economy.The imperialists are the most stingy, and they are not willing to help other countries build industries at all. When they left, they left us nothing.

Fighting for the middle power is important.In China, and in North and South America, the national bourgeoisie plays a major role.They were few in number, but their influence was great, in some cases even greater than that of the working class.So it is very important to fight for jobs for these people.Now, we must not only fight against the national bourgeoisie, but also unite them and give them benefits so that they can support socialist transformation.What benefits should be given? One is to give them jobs, and the other is to give them the right to vote. The transformation of national capitalists cannot be completed at once, we give them time.It has been six years since the founding of the People's Republic of China, and we plan to give them another three years, a total of nine years.This is beneficial to the workers and peasants, production is not interrupted, there is no shortage of goods needed by the masses in the market, prices are stable, and the purchasing power of money is stable.Now we are against the national bourgeoisie and abolished their private ownership of the means of production.Our method is to educate capitalists, give them classes, hold meetings, let them criticize themselves, and we also help them with criticism, encourage their positive side, and open their minds.The capitalists did not take the road of socialism without pain and without struggle.We mobilized a wide range of social forces to help them carry out transformation work.Not only do workers fight against capitalists, but progressive children of capitalist families also fight against their parents.Thus, today, six years later, capitalist industry and commerce have basically been brought into the track of socialist transformation.

When we carried out socialist transformation, we arranged the capitalists well so that they gradually became part of the working class.At present, in some factories, the factory director is a capitalist, and the deputy factory director is our comrade.They are asked to be factory directors because they understand technology, but their enterprises are gradually becoming state-owned enterprises.A capitalist is much more useful than a feudal landlord.We only give some land to the landlords, let them cultivate the land themselves, and become farmers. Now we do not give them the right to vote.But it is different for capitalists. They have technology and management ability. In these respects, the proletariat must learn from them.

China's policy towards the national bourgeoisie can serve as a reference for the fraternal parties in Central and South America.You can consider doing more work with the national bourgeoisie before the revolution to win them against imperialism.They are dissatisfied with imperialism, you can unite with them, win over them, or keep them neutral.If you can get all the peasants to accept the leadership of the proletariat, and if you win over the bourgeoisie, your work will be done well, and your hopes will be great in the current national liberation movement and in the future social liberation movement.The proletariat must unite with the petty bourgeoisie, mainly with the petty bourgeoisie who do not exploit others, that is, the independently productive peasants and handicraftsmen.It is an alliance of the exploited with independent producers who do not exploit others.This alliance is important.In addition, the proletariat needs another alliance, that is, an alliance with the national bourgeoisie, the enlightened religious people and the enlightened landowners.It is impossible for semi-colonial countries to strive for independence and liberation without such an alliance.

In a word, we must unite with all who can be united, so that we can reduce the enemy to the minimum, leaving only imperialism and a few pro-imperialist elements in the country, that is, the big capitalists and big landowners who have close ties with imperialism.For us, the more friends the better and the few enemies the better. For this purpose, our party must make full use of all available forces.Comrades who have made mistakes in the party must have correct policies to help them, not to kill them.Criticism does not mean pushing things away.People always make mistakes.The difference is that some commit more crimes, some commit less; some are corrected earlier, and some are corrected later.There used to be a tendency in our Party to "ruthlessly attack" comrades who made mistakes.People are always affectionate, let alone comrades? "Ruthless blows" will only cause confrontation and disunity within the party. If I hit you today, you will hit me tomorrow. Comrades are not happy if the cause is not prosperous or developed.Later, our party corrected this bias and helped comrades who were correcting their mistakes. The more forces we can unite, the better.

Comrades who have made mistakes have learned from experience, and in this regard they may be better than comrades who have not made mistakes.Comrades who have never made mistakes may make mistakes next time. In the face of the great enemy, we must mobilize all forces that can be mobilized, including all forces that can be united in society and within the party. Internationally, too, our revolution cannot be victorious without the support of international progressive forces.Imperialism is worldwide, so it is necessary for us to mobilize all international progressive forces, including those in South America, Central America, North America, Asia, Europe, and Africa.We can cooperate with you to contain part of the forces of imperialism.Imperialism has a hand everywhere, and we have to grab a little bit of it everywhere, so that it will be difficult for it to act.Our victory also depends on the support of progressive forces all over the world.For example, during the Korean War[2], the United States could only place one-third of its forces in North Korea and the East, another third in Europe, and one-third in the Americas.It has to.This helps us, otherwise how could we have won? How could there have been a truce on the 38th parallel[3]? In the struggle against the rule of Chiang Kai-shek, in the struggle to build socialism, we have won countries in this way helpful.

You have helped us a lot, maybe you haven't felt it yet.The United States is worried about Central and South America, for fear that you will rebel.There are powder magazines everywhere in the United States, one in Asia, one in Europe, one in Africa, and one in Central and South America. Some Chinese who were expelled from mainland China are in Brazil.For the Chinese outside, our policy is to win over all those who are willing to turn back and not help the US imperialists. No matter how big the crimes they have committed in the past, we can forgive them.We hope that they will come back, come back and have a look before leaving, or come back to find a job.Chiang Kai-shek could come back if he wanted, but he was stubborn and refused to come back.

The same is true for some countries, no matter how reactionary they are, as long as they are willing to do business with us and establish diplomatic relations with us, we will fight for them, no matter whether they are small or large capitalist countries.We also try our best to fight for Japan, no matter how great our hatred for its past aggression against China is, we also fight for Japanese capitalists and former senior Japanese military officers.A group of Japanese soldiers who had invaded China in the past asked to visit China, and we said yes.They have already organized a delegation of more than a dozen people to come after May Day.This is because the status of Japan today is very different from that of the past. It is actually a semi-colonial country now.In the past, Japan bullied others, but today the United States bullies it.Although the United States has signed military agreements with Japan, the Philippines, Thailand and Pakistan, its position in these countries is extremely unstable.

China is still very backward economically and culturally. It will take a long time to achieve true independence, national prosperity and industrial modernization, and the support of comrades and people of all countries is needed. One thing I want to make clear to everyone is that China's experience can only be used as a reference, not copying.Each country should decide on guidelines and policies according to its own national characteristics, and combine Marxism with its own national characteristics.China's experience has both good and bad, successful and failed.Even good experiences may not necessarily be compatible with specific conditions in other countries.Copying is very dangerous. Successful experience is successful in this country, but if it is not combined with its own situation and copied exactly in another country, it will lead to failure.Copying the experience of other countries will suffer, and copying will definitely be fooled.This is an important international experience.

I heard that the comrades here are very serious and willing to delve into it.It is very good to study hard, which is a guarantee of success in defeating the enemy.Analyze everything and figure out what is right and what is not because there is a good bright side and a bad dark side.We should show these two aspects of China to foreigners.You have seen the good side, you should also look at the bad side. The lessons of failure are also worth studying, it can make people avoid detours.Wang Ming's dogmatic mistakes[4] have caused great losses to our revolution.But his mistakes helped us, educated the party, educated the people, and from this point of view, I am his student.Our teachers are not just Marx, Engels, Lenin, Stalin.Imperialism is our teacher, Chiang Kai-shek is our teacher, and comrades who have made mistakes are also our teachers.Without them, we would not learn to get things done.

Stalin was right and wrong.Wang Ming's "Left" opportunism error was learned from Stalin.He advocated the overthrow of everything and denied unity with the bourgeoisie.In society, everything is overthrown, but within the party, there is disunity.Later, he also learned his rightist mistakes[5] from Stalin.We did not announce this because we are also responsible for it.Stalin generally gave seven points of credit and three points of error.If it is said that he has eight points of credit and two points of mistakes, comrades will not pass; if he is said to be six points of credit and four points of mistakes, he will not be passed.But it would be wrong to deny his right stuff. The Stalin question is not a matter of individual people or countries, but a matter of the entire cause of the international proletariat.Everyone will feel bad about Stalin's mistakes. The article[6] by the editorial department of "People's Daily" was discussed at an enlarged meeting of our Politburo, and it was published after six or seven revisions. Mistakes are inevitable.Who doesn't make mistakes? Doesn't imperialism make fewer mistakes? There are always positives and negatives in accounting, and the mistakes that are negative must be criticized, and the successful experiences that are positive must be protected.Mistakes are often caused by inexperience, and Marxism in total has only a hundred years of history.Mistakes are bound to be made, and mistakes will occur in the revolution and construction of every country.China will certainly make mistakes in the future.If you are serious, you will make fewer mistakes and make fewer national mistakes, and even if you make national mistakes, you will correct them early.It is impossible not to make mistakes, if we believe in materialism.It is impossible for human thinking to completely and accurately reflect objective reality.Human beings can only gradually overcome their lack of knowledge in the process of knowing things, and there is no way around it.Things are very complicated, and they are also developing and changing. If the reflection of human thinking cannot keep up with the objective reality, they will definitely make mistakes. If we believe in dialectics. Contradictions will always exist, and they will still exist after 10,000 years.When one contradiction is overcome, another contradiction arises.At any time, anywhere, and in anyone, there are always contradictions. Without contradictions, there would be no world.Some people think that once we reach a socialist society, the country will be very beautiful and there will be nothing bad about it. This is actually a kind of superstition. Published based on the transcript of the conversation kept by the Central Archives. -------------------------------------------------- ------------------------------ note [1] This is the main part of Mao Zedong's conversation with representatives of some national parties in Latin America. [2] In June 1950, a war broke out between the north and the south (Democratic People's Republic of Korea and South Korea) on the 38th parallel of the Korean peninsula.Subsequently, the United States sent troops to intervene under the banner of the United Nations, and crossed the 38th parallel to aggressively invade the border between China and North Korea, seriously threatening China's security.To resist U.S. aggression, aid Korea and defend the country, the Chinese People's Volunteers fought side by side with the Korean People's Army, which dealt a heavy blow to U.S. aggression and forced it to sign the Korean Armistice Agreement in July 1953. [3] At the end of World War II, the United States and the Soviet Union agreed to use the 38th parallel north latitude on North Korea as a temporary demarcation line for military operations against Japan and the scope of surrender. This line is commonly known as the "38th Parallel". . [4] Wang Ming's dogmatic error refers to Wang Ming's "Left" adventurism error.See note [18] on page 47 of this volume. [5] For Wang Ming’s right-leaning mistakes, see Note [19] on page 48 of this volume. [6] Refers to "Historical Experience on the Dictatorship of the Proletariat".