A Quotation From
Chairman Mao Tse-tung
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The current great proletarian cultural revolution is absolutely necessary and most timely for consolidating the dictatorship of the proletariat, preventing capitalist restoration and building socialism. |
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Our great leader Chairman Mao at the Enlarged 12th Plenary Session
of the Eighth Central Committee of the Communist Party of China
Communique of the Enlarged 12th Plenary Session of the
Eighth Central Committee of the Communist Party of China
(Adopted on October 31, 1968)
[This article is reprinted from Peking Review, Vol. 11, #44, Nov. 1,
1968, Supplement, pp. v-viii. Thanks are due to the WWW.WENGEWANG.ORG
web site for some of the work done for this posting.]
The Enlarged 12th Plenary Session of the Eighth Central Committee of the Communist Party of China opened in Peking on October 13, 1968 and was successfully concluded on October 31.
Comrade Mao Tse-tung, Chairman of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China, presided over this session which is of great historic significance and made a most important speech on the great proletarian cultural revolution movement since the 11th Plenary Session of the Eighth Central Committee of the Party in August 1966.
Vice-Chairman Lin Piao, Chairman Mao Tse-tung’s close comrade-in-arms, attended the session and made an important speech.
Attending the session were Members and Alternate Members of the Central Committee.
All members of the Cultural Revolution Group Under the Central Committee attended the session.
Principal responsible comrades of the revolutionary committees of the provinces, municipalities and autonomous regions attended the session.
Principal responsible comrades of the Chinese People’s Liberation Army attended the session.
The Enlarged 12th Plenary Session of the Eighth Central Committee unanimously holds that the great proletarian cultural revolution, personally initiated and led by our great leader Comrade Mao Tse-tung, is a great political revolution made by the proletariat against the bourgeoisie and all other exploiting classes under the conditions of the dictatorship of the proletariat in our country.
The Plenary Session holds that in his great revolutionary document “Bombard the Headquarters” issued at the 11th Plenary Session of the Eighth Central Committee, Chairman Mao charted the course of victory for the current great proletarian cultural revolution.
The Plenary Session holds that the “Decision Concerning the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution” drawn up under Chairman Mao’s personal guidance at the 11th Plenary Session of the Eighth Central Committee and the Communique of the 11th Plenary Session are correct.
The Plenary Session holds that Chairman Mao’s proletarian revolutionary line, his great strategic plan for the great proletarian cultural revolution and the series of important instructions he has given at various stages of this revolution, and Vice-Chairman Lin’s many speeches are all correct. The Cultural Revolution Group Under the Central Committee has played an important role in the struggle to carry out Chairman Mao’s proletarian revolutionary line.
Practice in the great proletarian cultural revolution proves that, as Comrade Mao Tse-tung has said, the current great proletarian cultural revolution is absolutely necessary and most timely for consolidating the dictatorship of the proletariat, preventing capitalist restoration and building socialism. Under the guidance of Chairman Mao’s proletarian revolutionary line and the leadership of the proletarian headquarters with Chairman Mao as its leader and Vice-Chairman Lin as its deputy leader, and in the process of extremely complicated and acute class struggle over the past two years, hundreds of millions of people have been mobilized on a scale unprecedented in breadth and depth and, with the support of the Chinese People’s Liberation Army and through repeated trials of class strength, have finally smashed the bourgeois headquarters represented by Liu Shao-chi together with its agents in various places, which vainly attempted to usurp the leadership of the Party, the Government and the army, and have seized back that portion of power they usurped. Revolutionary committees have been set up in 29 provinces, municipalities and autonomous regions, that is, throughout the country with the exception of Taiwan Province. Today this momentous proletarian cultural revolution has won great and decisive victory.
The Plenary Session holds that the victories of the great proletarian cultural revolution are further proof that the Communist Party of China with Comrade Mao Tse-tung as its leader is a great, glorious and correct Party. The Plenary Session holds that through the storms of the great proletarian cultural revolution, ample ideological, political and organizational conditions have been prepared for convening the Ninth National Congress of the Party. The Plenary Session decided that the Ninth National Congress of the Communist Party of China will be held at an appropriate time.
The Plenary Session ratified the “Report on the Examination of the Crimes of the Renegade, Traitor and Scab Liu Shao-chi” submitted by the special group under the Central Committee of the Party for the examination of his case. The report confirms with full supporting evidence that Liu Shao-chi, the No. 1 Party person in authority taking the capitalist road, is a renegade, traitor and scab hiding in the Party and is a lackey of imperialism, modern revisionism and the Kuomintang reactionaries who has committed innumerable crimes. The Plenary Session holds that the exposure of the counter-revolutionary features of Liu Shao-chi by the Party and the revolutionary masses in the great proletarian cultural revolution is a tremendous victory for Mao Tse-tung’s thought and for the great proletarian cultural revolution. The Plenary Session expressed its deepest revolutionary indignation at Liu Shao-chi’s counter-revolutionary crimes and unanimously adopted a resolution to expel Liu Shao-chi from the Party once and for all, to dismiss him from all posts both inside and outside the Party and to continue to settle accounts with him and his accomplices for their crimes in betraying the Party and the country. The Plenary Session calls on all comrades in the Party and the people of the whole country to carry on deep-going revolutionary mass criticism and repudiation and eradicate the counterrevolutionary revisionist ideas of Liu Shao-chi and the handful of other top Party persons in authority taking the capitalist road.
The Plenary Session points out that a fierce struggle between the two classes, the two roads and the two lines runs through the history of the great proletarian cultural revolution over the past two years and more. The struggle centres on the question of political power, the question of the fight for leadership between the proletariat and the bourgeoisie, and the question of whether the leadership of the Party and state is to be in the hands of Marxists or of revisionists. Unreconciled to their doom, the exploiting classes and their agents used all kinds of political and economic means both from the Right and from the extreme “Left” — that is, “Left” in form but Right in essence — in a vain attempt to confuse class alignments, sabotage the great proletarian cultural revolution and stage a counter-seizure of power from the proletariat. But all their plots have been exposed one after another by the masses of revolutionary people who have grasped Mao Tse-tung’s thought. The Plenary Session holds that it is essential to continue sharpening vigilance against sabotage by the exploiting classes and their agents.
The Plenary Session seriously criticized and repudiated the “adverse February current” of 1967 directed against the decision of the 11th Plenary Session of the Eighth Central Committee, against the great proletarian cultural revolution and against the proletarian headquarters with Chairman Mao as its leader and Vice-Chairman Lin as its deputy leader. The Plenary Session holds that the shattering of the “adverse February current” and of the sinister trend last spring to reverse the correct verdict on the “adverse February current” was an important victory for Chairman Mao’s proletarian revolutionary line in smashing the bourgeois reactionary line.
The Plenary Session holds that the tremendous victories of the great proletarian cultural revolution have further demonstrated the profound and far-reaching significance of Comrade Mao Tse-tung’s theory on continuing the revolution under the dictatorship of the proletariat. Mao Tse-tung’s thought is Marxism-Leninism of the era in which imperialism is heading for total collapse and socialism is advancing to worldwide victory; it is the thought guiding all the work of the Party, the army and the country. Once Mao Tse-tung’s thought is grasped by the masses of the people, it generates an immense material force. In the great proletarian cultural revolution, Mao Tse-tung’s thought has been rapidly disseminated among hundreds of millions of people, making its way deep into their hearts; in their struggles, the masses of workers, peasants and soldiers have eagerly and creatively studied and applied Mao Tse-tung’s thought. This is the basic guarantee for consolidating the dictatorship of the proletariat and preventing our country from ever changing its political colour. The whole Party, the whole army and the revolutionary committees at all levels must continue to hold aloft the great red banner of Mao Tse-tung’s thought, unite closely around the proletarian headquarters with Chairman Mao as its leader and Vice-Chairman Lin as its deputy leader, closely follow Chairman Mao’s great strategic plan, conscientiously carry out each and every one of Chairman Mao’s latest instructions, carry forward the mass movement for the study of Chairman Mao’s works, run Mao Tse-tung’s thought study classes well, use Mao Tse-tung’s thought to unify their thinking and co-ordinate their steps and actions and criticize and repudiate the reactionary bourgeois theory of “many centres,” so as to go on winning fresh victories in all fields of our work.
The Enlarged 12th Plenary Session of the Eighth Central Committee calls on all workers, poor and lower-middle peasants, commanders and fighters of the People’s Liberation Army, revolutionary cadres, revolutionary Red Guards and revolutionary intellectuals and on the revolutionary people of all nationalities in the country to carry out resolutely Chairman Mao’s teaching that the working class must exercise leadership in everything, to establish the dictatorship of the proletariat in the superstructure, including all spheres of culture, to fulfil the tasks in all stages of struggle-criticism-transformation put forward by Chairman Mao and to carry the great proletarian cultural revolution through to the end!
We must continue to carry out Chairman Mao’s great principle on the revolutionary great alliance and the revolutionary three-in-one combination and conscientiously implement Chairman Mao’s instructions on conducting revolutionary mass criticism and repudiation, on simplifying the administrative structure, on cadres’ going down to do manual labour and on changing irrational rules and regulations, so that our new-born revolutionary committees can forge close links with the masses, be constantly consolidated, developed and improved and perform the functions of the dictatorship of the proletariat still better.
We must continue fully to arouse the masses, conscientiously to carry out the work of purifying the class ranks in factories, people’s communes, Party and government institutions, schools, all enterprises and undertakings and neighbourhoods, etc., and to dig out the handful of counter-revolutionaries hiding among the masses.
We must carry out Chairman Mao’s directive that the Party organization should be composed of the advanced elements of the proletariat; it should be a vigorous vanguard organization capable of leading the proletariat and the revolutionary masses in the fight against the class enemy, carry out Chairman Mao’s instruction on “getting rid of the stale and taking in the fresh,” conscientiously do the work of Party consolidation and Party building, expel from the Party proved renegades, enemy agents, diehard capitalist loaders, degenerate elements and other alien class elements who have sneaked into the Party, take into the Party fresh blood from the proletariat — above all, advanced elements with communist consciousness from among industrial workers — and select outstanding Party members who are resolute in carrying out Chairman Mao’s proletarian revolutionary line for leading posts in the Party.
We must fulfil the great historic mission of the proletarian revolution in education. As regards intellectuals, they must be re-educated by the workers, peasants and soldiers so that they can integrate themselves with the workers and peasants. The workers’ propaganda teams should stay permanently in the schools and colleges, take part in all the tasks of struggle-criticism-transformation there and always lead these institutions. In the countryside, schools and colleges should be managed by the poor and lower-middle peasants — the most reliable ally of the working class. This is a question of key importance in carrying the great proletarian cultural revolution through to the end. The workers, the poor and lower-middle peasants and the commanders and fighters of the People’s Liberation Army who are undertaking this glorious task should constantly raise their political consciousness in the course of struggle.
We must grasp revolution and promote production and other work and preparedness against war, and do a still better job in building socialist industry, socialist agriculture and all other socialist undertakings in our country. The great proletarian cullural revolution is a tremendous motive force for the development of socialist production in our country. It is promoting the emergence of a new leap in our socialist construction and will continue to do so.
We must continuously strengthen the great Chinese People’s Liberation Army, further consolidate national defence, and continue to do a good job in supporting the army and cherishing the people. We are determined to liberate Taiwan. We must heighten our vigilance a hundredfold against the rapacious U.S. imperialists and the Soviet modern revisionist renegade clique. Should the enemy dare to impose war on us, we will wipe him out resolutely, thoroughly, wholly and completely.
The Plenary Session holds that, as Comrade Mao Tse-tung has pointed out, the world revolution has entered a great new era. The revolutionary movement of the people in all countries is developing vigorously.
Riddled with contradictions and beset with difficulties both at home and abroad, the imperialists headed by the United States and the modern revisionists headed by the Soviet revisionist renegade clique are disintegrating, they are at the end of their tether and are becoming more isolated than ever.
While both colluding and struggling with each other, the U.S. imperialists and the Soviet revisionists are trying in vain to redivide the world. In their war of aggression against Vietnam, the U.S. imperialists enjoy the tacit consent and support of the Soviet revisionists, while in turn the Soviet revisionist renegade clique enjoys the tacit consent and support of the U.S. imperialists in openly dispatching troops to occupy Czechoslovakia. Their dirty political deal has been thoroughly exposed before the people of the world. Their nakedly aggressive actions have deepened the internal contradictions within the imperialist and the revisionist blocs and helped promote the political consciousness of the oppressed masses in the U.S. imperialist and Soviet revisionist homelands and, at the same time, they are stirring up a great new upsurge in the struggle of the proletariat and the people throughout the world against U.S. imperialism and Soviet revisionism. No matter how tortuous the course of the struggle, no matter what rubbish the U.S. imperialists and Soviet revisionists have collected to organize an anti-China and counter-revolutionary “holy alliance,” they are inevitably “lifting a rock only to drop it on their own feet.” We are not in the least isolated, for the people who want revolution, comprising over 90 per cent of the world’s population, are our friends. The wheel of history can assuredly never be turned back, imperialism, revisionism and all other reactionary forces are bound to be smashed by the revolutionary people, and all the oppressed people and oppressed nations of the world will definitely achieve complete emancipation through their struggle!
The Chinese Communist Party and the Chinese people under the leadership of Comrade Mao Tse-tung uphold proletarian internationalist principles and policies, unite with the genuine Marxist-Leninists of all countries, firmly support the heroic Albanian people’s struggle against imperialism and revisionism, firmly support the heroic Vietnamese people in carrying their war of resistance against U.S. aggression and for national salvation through to the end, and firmly support all the just struggles of the peoples of the world against imperialism, revisionism and all other reaction. The Communist Party of China holds that all peoples oppressed by U.S. imperialism, Soviet revisionism and their lackeys should form a broad united front to smash the plots hatched by U.S. imperialism and Soviet revisionism in their vain attempt to dominate the world, so as to win victory and liberation more quickly.
The Plenary Session was convened in an excellent domestic and international situation. This was a session of mobilization for the seizure of all-round victory in the great proletarian cultural revolution, a session of unprecedented unity in the whole Party under the leadership of the proletarian headquarters with Chairman Mao as its leader and Vice-Chairman Lin as its deputy leader, a session full of proletarian revolutionary vitality. The Plenary Session is convinced that the comrades of the whole Party, the people of the whole country and the revolutionary peoples of the whole world will all rejoice over the success of our session and that those who fear this session are but the handful of imperialists headed by U.S. imperialism, modern revisionists headed by the Soviet revisionist renegade clique, and other reactionaries at home and abroad.
Let us closely follow our great leader’ Chairman Mao and courageously march forward! Victory will be ours.
Contents page for this Peking Review issue.
Peking Review article list (in date order).
Peking Review article list (by subject).