Chapter 98 Speech at the Closing Meeting of the Fourth Session of the First National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference

(February 7, 1953) Dear members and comrades: This meeting is coming to a close, and the reports, discussions, and resolutions are good.I congratulate you on the success of the meeting. Now I would like to make a few comments. First, on the question of defeating US imperialism.We have to prepare to fight for a longer period of time, and finally we must defeat it. The future is victorious.We have been fighting for more than two years. Some people in the society may feel impatient and think that it is better to end the armistice negotiations. How should we persevere? This is not just a question of 10,000 to 20,000 captives. Because of our large population, we should not think that it does not matter if we lose tens of thousands of people. We must not lose a single captive.How long this battle will last, I don't think we should make a decision.It was decided by Truman[1] in the past, and later by Eisenhower[2] or some future president of the United States.That is to say, we will fight as long as they want to fight until we are completely victorious! [3] Second, on the question of learning from the Soviet Union.We have to carry out the construction of the great five-year plan. The work is very hard and we don't have enough experience. Therefore, we must learn from the advanced experience of the Soviet Union.On this issue, there are resistance among some people inside and outside the Communist Party, old and new cadres, technicians, intellectuals, workers and peasants.They should understand that our nation has always accepted the advanced experience and excellent culture of foreign countries.In the feudal era, when the Tang Dynasty was prosperous, our country had a close relationship with India.Our master Tang Sanzang[4] traveled thousands of miles to learn Buddhist scriptures, and it was much more difficult for our descendants to learn from foreign countries.It has been proved that most of the musical instruments we use now come from the Western Regions, that is, from the area west of Xinjiang.Our nation has never refused to accept the fine traditions of other nations.When imperialism was oppressing us, especially during the period from my country's defeat in the Sino-Japanese War to the Revolution of 1911, that is to say, from 1894 to 1911, the whole country learned the culture of Western capitalism and capitalism. Class democratism, learning their science, has a great climax.At that time, our ancestors (and some of you present here) enthusiastically participated in the activities of studying the West, and many international students went to Japan and the West.That study was of great help to the progress of our country, especially in the natural sciences, and now it has left us a large number of natural science workers and a valuable legacy.However, the two times I talked about learning from foreign countries in ancient times and modern times are far behind when compared with the scale of learning from the Soviet Union and the effectiveness of learning from the advanced experience of the Soviet Union.So, now we learn from the Soviet Union, extensively study their advanced experience in various departments, invite their advisers, and send our students abroad. What attitude should we adopt? We should adopt a sincere attitude and learn all their strengths Therefore, we should study not only the theories of Marxism-Leninism, but also their advanced science and technology. We should learn everything we can use with an open mind.Those who are resistant to ignorance on this subject should be persuaded.That is to say, a climax of learning from the Soviet Union should be set off throughout the country to build our country.

Third, on the issue of fighting against bureaucracy.There are some very unhealthy phenomena among our party and government organs, which are serious bureaucratism, commandism, violation of law and discipline, and these bad people and bad things.Comrade An Ziwen's [5] report today was very good.What I want to focus on now is the situation of bureaucracy in the central government.There are dozens of departments in our central government, including the party, government, and military.The party is the Communist Party, the democratic parties, and people's organizations.Zheng means the various committees, ministries, and committees of the Central People's Government. When calculated, there are more than a hundred units.It should be said that many departments, not a few, have bureaucracy.They divorced themselves from the masses and the actual situation below, and closed themselves in their houses to write resolutions and instructions.Resolutions and instructions fly out like snowflakes. Don't care about the situation below and whether they can be implemented.It's just sitting in the house, not going down to check, just paying attention to the so-called arrangement work, but not paying attention to the inspection work.It should be said that there are many departments in the central government agencies that are doing relatively well.As far as I know, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, for example, engaged in discussions and criticisms during the "Three Antis" campaign for more than a month, and ambassadors stationed in various countries came back to participate. In the past six months, work has made great progress and bureaucracy has been greatly reduced.Another example is the Ministry of Public Security, which has made great progress in its work after the "three antis" movement.Another example is the reorganized Ministry of Heavy Industry, which is now divided into three departments, a Ministry of Heavy Industry, a Ministry of Machinery Industry No. 1, and a Ministry of Machinery Industry No. 2. It is much better than the old Ministry of Heavy Industry.In addition, the Ministry of Water Resources and the Ministry of Higher Education have relatively little bureaucracy, and the General Administration of Information and the General Administration of Publishing have also improved.Are there other units? For example, the Ministry of Posts and Telecommunications, they have done a lot of work, this is the first; second, they also made mistakes, that is, to use methods that violate the policy to increase the so-called production.As early as the 30th anniversary of the founding of the Communist Party of China the year before last, some director of the Ministry of Posts and Telecommunications issued an order to solicit business, asking everyone to send tribute telegrams and write tribute letters to the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China. As a result, hundreds of thousands of telegrams came in at once. It is necessary to find out how many calls are from the people's heart and how many are from people who are forced to call.This makes the Communist Party look bad in front of the people and greatly damages the prestige of the Communist Party.There are other departments that have done a lot of work, but there are also serious problems.Is it so, I have not checked in detail.I think you can criticize me if I'm wrong.Where is my shortcoming? My shortcoming is that I have not gone through detailed inspection.In the past, it was not specifically pointed out at such conferences.This is what you can criticize and shoot at me.I plan to check each department once in the three seasons of summer, autumn and winter this year.Of the departments I mentioned above, which ones are better, which ones are relatively poor, and which ones are in the middle state, I may not be so accurate, because I have not gone through careful inspection and analysis, and have not absorbed the masses and cadres of those departments to participate in the work. examine.All in all, dozens of departments of our government, whether it is financial, cultural and educational departments, or political and legal departments, all have bureaucratic problems to varying degrees.To carry out such onerous tasks as the first five-year plan, bureaucracy should be overcome.We must know that the following commandism and violation of laws and regulations are inseparable from our bureaucracy, because we did not ask, did not check, or lacked checks.I think this work should start from the Central People's Government, from the Central Committee of the Communist Party, from the Military Commission and various departments.Each department of the central government has ministers, deputy ministers, directors of the general office, directors, and bureau chiefs. There are as few as eight or nine of these main cadres, and as many as dozens.They should take turns to check below, and there are always people below.Those who have been inspected come back, and those who have not gone down go down again, come back, go down again, so that everyone, including the ministers, has gone down to the end, and the inspection has been carried out to the grassroots units.For example, the industrial sector should inspect factories, the agricultural sector should inspect villages; the military commission system, such as the navy should inspect the Changshan Islands, Zhoushan Islands, Wanshan Islands, and Hainan Island, the army should inspect companies; the post and telecommunications departments should inspect villages postal agencies; the public security department should check the public security officers in the countryside and the police stations in the cities.The minister went down in person, not asking you to check all the police stations and postal agencies, but asking you to check several departments and grassroots units.

After this meeting, we should start with the Central Committee and take the lead in inspections.Only in this way can the level of large administrative regions, provinces and cities, special districts and counties be promoted, and only then can we be qualified to blame the lower levels and truly solve the problem.I am not saying that every minister should go down. Some old and weak people cannot go there, which is not within this scope, but the young and strong must go. You are the young and strong! The focus is on opposing bureaucracy.Once bureaucracy has been overcome, commandism and violations of law and discipline below will surely be overcome.Once these defects are removed, our five-year plan will surely succeed, the democratic system will definitely develop, imperialism will definitely be defeated, and we will win complete victory.

Published based on the transcript of the speech kept by the Central Archives. -------------------------------------------------- ------------------------------ note [1] Truman (1884-1972), American Democrat.President of the United States from 1945 to 1953. [2] Eisenhower, a Republican of the United States, was the President of the United States at the time. [3] This speech was reported in a press release published by the "People's Daily" on February 8, 1953.Regarding the first point in the speech, the text of the press release reads: "First, we must strengthen the struggle to resist U.S. aggression and aid Korea. Since U.S. imperialism insists on detaining Chinese and North Korean prisoners of war, sabotaging the armistice negotiations, and attempting to expand the war of aggression against Korea, the struggle to resist U.S. aggression and aid Korea must continue to be strengthened. We want peace, but as long as the U.S. Imperialism will not give up its outrageous and unreasonable demands and plots of expanding aggression for a day. The determination of the Chinese people is to continue to fight with the Korean people. This is not because we are warlike. We are willing to stop the war immediately. We will solve it in the future. But U.S. imperialism is unwilling to do so, so well, let’s continue the fight. We are prepared to fight it for as many years as U.S. imperialism is willing to fight until the time when U.S. imperialism is willing to stop , until the time when the Chinese and North Korean people are completely victorious."

[4] Tang Sanzang, that is, Xuanzang (602-664), a famous eminent monk in the Tang Dynasty, commonly known as Tang Seng.In the third year of Tang Zhenguan (629 A.D.), he went to India to study Buddhist classics. After more than ten years, he returned to China and translated 75 Buddhist scriptures, totaling 1,335 volumes. [5] An Ziwen, then Minister of the Personnel Department of the Central People's Government and Deputy Minister of the Organization Department of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China.