Letter Saluting Chairman Mao
From the Rally to “Take Firm Hold of the Revolution and Promote
Production, and Thoroughly Smash the New Counter-Attack of the
Bourgeois Reactionary Line” at the Peking No. 1 Machine-Tool Plant
[This article is reprinted from Peking Review, Vol. 10, #4, Jan. 20,
1967, pp. 4-5. Thanks are due to the WWW.WENGEWANG.ORG
web site for some of the work done for this posting.]
Chairman Mao, Our Most, Most Respected And Beloved Great Leader:
We, all red rebels and revolutionary workers and staff of the Peking No. 1 Machine-Tool Plant, extend the loftiest salute in the great proletarian cultural revolution to you, the red sun that shines most brilliantly in our hearts!
At today’s rally “to take firm hold of the revolution and promote production, and thoroughly smash the new counter-attack of the bourgeois reactionary line” in the Peking No. 1 Machine-Tool Plant, we report to you with immense elation: Under the correct guidance of the proletarian revolutionary line represented by you, the revolutionary forces in our plant are growing ever stronger and the situation is becoming ever better; the handful of persons in the Party who are in authority and who are taking the capitalist road and the very few diehards who are stubbornly clinging to the bourgeois reactionary line are ever more isolated, and increasing numbers of the revolutionary masses have seen through their reactionary features. As in the rest of the country, the great proletarian cultural revolution in our plant is now breaking through numerous obstructions with the momentum of a landslide and the power of a thunderbolt; it is surging ahead to an even deeper and broader new stage.
“Taking firm hold of the revolution and promoting production” is a very important policy that you put forward and have repeatedly stressed. What angers us is that the handful of persons in authority who are taking the capitalist road and the very few diehards who are stubbornly clinging to the bourgeois reactionary line in our plant have tried every kind of trick to sabotage the great policy of “taking firm hold of the revolution and promoting production.” At the beginning, they used “taking firm hold of the revolution and promoting production” as a pretext and actually practised “suppression of the revolution by production” so as to sabotage the movement of the great proletarian cultural revolution! When their tricks were bared, they started using the new ones of simply dropping work and folding their arms. What is even more despicable is that they have used economic benefits and material incentives as bait in a vain attempt to lead this serious political struggle on to the evil road of economism so as to shift the general orientation of struggle, sabotage production and attain their criminal goal of undermining the great proletarian cultural revolution in our plant.
In the face of the schemes of the new counter-attack of the bourgeois reactionary line, we, the revolutionary rebels of the No. 1 Machine-Tool Plant, firmly reply: We’ll bring about their doom! “The world is ours, the country is ours and society is ours. If we don’t speak, then who will? If we don’t act then who will?” We can hold up heaven even if it falls! We can fill in the earth even if it caves in! We are dauntless revolutionary rebels! There has never been a saviour, we depend solely on ourselves to liberate ourselves!
We, the revolutionary rebels, are most clear-minded and sharp-sighted and we most faithfully follow the instructions given by the Party’s Central Committee and by you!
No “white terror” can frighten us, nor can any “sugar-coated bullets” topple us. Who cares for their stinking money? We want socialism!
We know very well that, unless the bourgeois reactionary line is repudiated, unless the very roots of revisionism are dug out and unless the great proletarian cultural revolution is carried through to the end, our plant might slide down the capitalist road, our country might change colour, we ourselves might be plunged again into the sea of suffering, and the revolutionary people of the world might suffer disaster!
“When we raise our heads we see the lodestar; day and night we think of Mao Tse-tung.” It is you who gave us courage in struggle when our plant was under a reign of white terror; it is you who pointed out to us the direction of advance at every crucial moment in the course of the revolution. Today, the bourgeois reactionary line, in utter fury when faced with a complete fiasco, is wilfully disrupting production, unscrupulously practising economism and frantically launching an all-out counter-attack on the proletarian revolutionary line represented by you. We will never remain under the same roof as the enemy! Respected and beloved Chairman Mao: You are supporting us and we will not disappoint you! We will never rest in peace until we smash the wild counter-attack of the bourgeois reactionary line.
We are determined to resolutely carry out the principle advanced by you, making big efforts to take firm hold of the revolution and promote production. We firmly pledge to take an active part in the great cultural revolution, on the one hand, and remain at our posts in production and construction, on the other, persevering in the eight-hour workday, striving to fulfil or overfulfil production plans and working hard for high quality in output.
Our slogan is: While acting as the pioneers in the revolution we shall also be path-breakers in production. We pledge to be models in “taking firm hold of the revolution and promoting production”! We pledge to win a twin victory, in the revolution and in production, in 1967!
Respected and beloved Chairman Mao, no amount of words can convey our feelings today. We vow to you in all solemnity: We will study your writings, follow your teachings and act according to your instructions all our lives. We will follow you in marching forward valiantly in the teeth of the great storms and waves of class struggle all our lives. We will always remain red rebels loyal to the Party, loyal to the people and loyal to you!
Finally, we heartily wish you long life, a long, long life!
Rally to “Take Firm Hold of the Revolution and Promote Production, and Thoroughly Smash the New Counter-Attack of the Bourgeois Reactionary Line” at the Peking No. 1 Machine-Tool Plant
January 12, 1967
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