CHINA REPORT RED FLAG

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP04-01460R000100470001-6
• Release Decision: RIFPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 98
• Document Creation Date: December 21, 2016
• Document Release Date: March 19, 2008
• Sequence Number: 1
• Publication Date: April 18, 1983
• Content Type: REPORT

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JPRS 83280
18 April 1983
China Report
RED FLAG
No. 3, I February 1983
FBIS
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18 April 1983
CHINA REPORT
RED FLAG
No. 3, 1 February 1983
Translation of the semimonthly theoretical journal of the Central
Committee of the Communist Party of China published in Beijing.
CONTENTS
The Working Class Must Resolutely Give Leadership to Reforms--
Commemorating the 60th Anniversary of the 7 February General
Strike (pp 2-5)
(RED FLAG Editorial Board) ......................................... 1
Carry Forward the Glorious Traditions and Develop New-Style
Army-Government and Army-People Relations (pp 6-8)
(Editorial) ........................................................ 8
The 'Two Supports Campaign' in the Shaanxi-Gansu-Nangxia
Border Region (p 8) ..................................................... 13
The Guiding Ideology of the New Constitution (pp 9-13)
(Zheng Hui) ........................................................ 14
Investigation on the System of Placing Counties Under the
Leadership of Citt Implemented in Liaoning Province
(pp 14-17)
(Office of the Economic Research Center of Liaoning
Province) ..........................................................
An Important Question in Ensuring Steady Economic Development--
On Controlling the Scale of Investment and Rational Use of
Construction Funds (pp 18-21)
(Cai Ninglin) ...................................................... 30
On the Current Economic Crisis of the Capitalist World
(pp 22-26)
(Wu Jixian) ........................................................ 38
- a - [III - CC - 73]
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Pay Special Attention to the Initiative of the Masses in
History (pp 27-30) 47
(He Wei) ........................................................
Having Faith in the Masses and Dependence on Them Is the
Essence of Emancipating the Mind (pp 31-33)
(Shi Youxin) ..................................................... 54
Several Incidents Showing Marx' Concern With Science and
Technology (p 33)
(Zhao Yun) ...................................................... 58
Reading 'Wreath Under a High Mountain' (p 34)
(Ding Lin) ...................................................... 59
Reality, Ideals and Heroes--On 'Wreath Under a High Mountain'
(pp 35-36)
(Wang Youqin) ................................................... 61
Writers and Artists Also Have To Acquire Greater Cultural
Accomplishment (pp 37-38)
(Xie Hong) ...................................................... 65
Outline for the Study of Important Documents Drawn up Since
the Third Plenary Session (pp 39-44)
(RED FLAG Editorial Office of Theory and Education) ............. 69
Foreword ........................................................ 69
I. Emancipate the Mind and Reestablish the Marxist
Ideological Line .............................................. 71
Is There a Contradiction Between Implementing the Contract
Responsibility System With Payment Linked to Output and
the Carrying Out of Communist Education? (pp 44-45)
(Wang Zhimin) ................................................... 79
Inspiration From 'Three Visits to the Thatched Cottage' (p 45)
(Jiang Daoyuan) ................................................. 82
Study Documents of the 12th Party Congress Together With
the Two Theoretical Books on Politics (pp 46-48)
(Shanghai Municipal Metallurgical Bureau CPC Committee) ......... 84
Copying Down a Poem by Marshal Chen Yi (inside front cover)
(Zhang Aiping) .................................................. 92
Let the World Understand China (inside back cover)
(Ke Yan) ........................................................ 93
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THE WORKING CLASS MUST RESOLUTELY GIVE LEADERSHIP TO REFORMS--COMMEMORATING
THE 60TH ANNIVERSARY OF THE 7 FEBRUARY GENERAL STRIKE
Beijing RED FLAG in Chinese No 3, 1 Feb 83 pp 2-5
[Article by RED FLAG Editorial Board]
[Text] The 7?February railway workers' strike, which took place in old
China 60 years ago, showed that after entering the political stage, the
working class of our country, with the spirit of self-sacrifice and daunt-
less heroism, fully played its vanguard role of a leading class in revolu-
tion.
The historical task of the working class is to establish a communist social
system. In the long course of accomplishing this great task, the working
class must shift the emphasis of its leadership according to changes in the
situation and tasks in different historical periods. After the victory of
the democratic revolution and the establishment of the socialist system, the
working class of China should have shifted the focus of its leadership to
the full-scale socialist construction. However, due to various reasons,
mainly the mistake made by the party in guiding ideology, the shift under-
went a long, arduous process including the 10 years of turmoil. It was not
until the 3d Plenary Session of the 11th CPC Central. Committee that the
party was able to shift the focus of its work to full-scale socialist con-
struction. Later, the party put forward the general task of building China
into a culturally advanced and highly democratic socialist modern country.
It also proposed a militant program and a series of principles and policies
to create a new situation in all fields of socialist modernization. There-
fore, the working class, which is a rank of the party, should of course
shift the focus of its leadership to the modernization of the country's
economy and to the realization of the party's militant program, principles
and policies.
The 12th party congress called on the whole party and people to carry out
structural reform and reforms in the economic system as the first of the
four important tasks that will ensure that we adhere to the socialist road
and undertake concentrated efforts in socialist modernization. Lately,
Comrade Deng Xiaoping repeatedly has emphasized that it is necessary to
adopt a series of reforms with regard to the four modernizations. Without
reforms it will be impossible to achieve the four modernizations, and the
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reforms must be pushed forward in the whole course of the four moderniza-
tions. Comrade Hu Yaobang pointed out that all the central comrades have
greeted Comrade Deng Xiaoping's view and believe that this should be taken
as the most important guideline for our party in leading the four moderniza-
tions. As to the general principles for the reforms, Comrade Hu Yaobang
told us that they should be carried out systematically, resolutely,
orderly and in an overall way in light of China's concrete conditions.
Under the leadership of its vanguard, the Communist Party, the working
class must take an active part in the reforms, give full support to the
reforms and bear leading responsibility in the reforms in accordance with
central demands and plans.
To achieve the four modernizations, it is necessary to greatly raise the
productive forces. This will inevitably require a change in certain
aspects and links of production relationship and the superstructure which
do not meet the development of the productive forces, and a change in all
management systems, rules and regulations which are incompatible with
present conditions. If we say that there are still certain obstacles to
our approach to the realization of the four modernizations, then the most
important one is that there are a number of things incompatible with the
present political and economic systems, as well as backward methods in
management. In the political and economic spheres, problems such as
bureaucratism, administrations with multitiered departments crammed full
of superfluous personnel and nominal chiefs who engage in endless haggling
and shifts of responsibility, the practice of "big pot" and "iron rice
bowl" and the separation between town and country and between departments
and regions at different levels are now confining the initiative of all
trades and professions and fettering the development of the productive
forces. All such problems result from the malady existing in the political
and economic systems. Therefore, we must carry out reforms in a syste-
matic and overall way. Making reforms means destroying the old and estab-
lishing the new, abolishing old conventions and stereotypes that are
obstacles in our advance and creating new experience and systems, which
will fully mobilize the initiative of the people in building socialism.
It is imperative for all fronts, regions, departments and units to carry
out. reforms. The main question is what aspect of reform should be empha-
sized. There is no question of the need to make reforms. Had we failed
earlier to set right our practical work on all fronts, we would not have
had such a situation as exists today. At the present stage, if we fail to
carry out a series of reforms, it will be impossible to attain the ultimate
goal of the four modernizations. The party Central Committee is now
stressing and grasping reforms as a key link in the entire strategy of the
modernization of the nation's economy. While striving to really improve
the state's financial situation, social order and party style, to attain
the strategic objective of quadrupling the total industrial and agricul-
tural output value within 20 years and to build a high level of socialist
material and spiritual civilizations, we must carry out reforms as the
first step. In short, through reforms, we take our own road and build
socialism with distinctive Chinese characteristics. This is our general
objective of transforming China at the present stage as well as the basic
feature of developing the communist movement on the basis of practice at
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the present stage. Only when reforms are carried out will a new situation
be created, will China be reinvigorated and the future explored. In the
face of such an important issue which is closely related to the future and
destiny of the motherland and the rise and decline of China's communist
cause, the working class cannot shirk its responsibility.
If reform is the basic requirement of building socialism with distinctive
Chinese characteristics, then what are the main indicators of these charac-
teristics? Through trial reforms carried out in different aspects since
the third plenary session, we have realized a lot of things on this issue.
Nevertheless, we still need to sum up further both positive and negative
experiences of the past scores of years, in particular to make further
explorations and comparison in many aspects of economic construction
because socialism is still a "realm of the need to act" to us in many
spheres. Only by so doing will we be able to deepen our understanding step
by step and advance from the "realm of the need to act" into the "realm of
freedom to act.". As a matter of fact, the 12th party congress made a pro
found analysis of the conditions of our country and made a scientific summing
up of the characteristics of socialism. In accordance with the analysis and
summation, we can at least realize that such socialism must first have dis-
tinctive Chinese characteristics in production relationship, the super-
structure and other aspects. The most principal features of such socialism
should be that we base requirements of the development of China's productive
forces to create at each developmental stage the corresponding concrete form
of production relationship which can help us continue to make progress and
the corresponding concrete form of the superstructure, and to adopt the
political and economic systems that adhere to the socialist principles and
conform to the country's conditions and are able to arouse enthusiasm in all
sectors of the country. For lack of experience in building socialism in
the past, many of the things in the old systems were copied from foreign
countries and were divorced from the concrete conditions of China. These
systems, which changed very little over many years, are now binding the
thinking of many of our comrades, restricting the development of the pro-
ductive forces and preventing the socialist system from fully displaying
its superiority. Obviously, to build socialism with distinctive Chinese
features by following the beaten track and old conventions and without
adhering to reforms and without establishing new systems is nothing but
empty talk.
To,build the socialist system with distinctive Chinese features through
reforms is without doubt a profound revolution. Yet such a revolution is
neither a revolution of one class overthrowing another, nor one of creating
turmoil in the political life of the state and society. It is a revolution
to set up scientific and economic organizations and systems of economic
management, economic regulation and supervision and the corresponding
political system in order to keep pace with the development of the produc-
tive forces. This will raise the productive forces to a new and higher
level, create more wealth and enable the country and the people to become
well-off at a quicker pace. Meanwhile, this will certainly touch on an
extremely wide sphere and many complicated issues such as the structures
of industry and enterprises, the relationships between the state and
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enterprises, between the central and local authorities, among the local
authorities themselves, between the urban and rural areas and between
production and circulation, the systems of planning, taxation, pricing,
labor, wages, administrative leadership, cadres, and politics and law.
In short, the reforms must penetrate all areas of the state's political,
economic, and social lives, and will inevitably affect people's activities,
way of life and mode of thinking. Such extensive and profound reforms will
certainly encounter resistance from all sides. Without the firm support,
active participation and staunch leadership of the working class, it is
impossible to make the reforms a complete success. However, we must put on
our thinking cap and give honest consideration to facts when carrying out
the reforms step by step and in an orderly way because we lack experience
and are not clear about many problems. The working class must have revolu-
tionary steadfastness, belief in science and courage to get rid of the old
which are obstacles in reforms and carefully breed that which is new and
advantageous to reforms so as to pave the way for the reforms.
The working class must firmly support the party and government leading
bodies at all levels to make the structural reform a success in accordance
with the requirements of the central authorities. This reform is aimed at
streamlining administration, reducing superfluous personnel, reinforcing
leadership groups and improving work efficiency. The structural reform,
which started in the central organizations at the beginning of 1982, has
basically completed the first phase of work and entered the second phase.
It will be widely pushed forward this year at the provincial, city and
regional levels. Leading groups in enterprises will also be reinforced in
the course of enterprise consolidation. The structural reform is closely
related to the success or failure of the reforms of all systems and to the
success or failure of the modernization of China's economy. There are
still many obstructions in this field of work. They are mainly misgivings
in promoting in large quantities the young and energetic cadres with
ability and political integrity to leadership groups, tendencies of under-
estimating knowledge and despising intellectuals among a large number of
comrades and hesitation in streamlining administration and reducing super-
fluous personnel. The working class must firmly support the leading bodies
at all levels to promote young talented people and to streamline administra-
tion so as to lay a solid foundation for pushing ahead the full-scale
reforms of the political and economic systems.
The working class must also warmly and earnestly support the reforms in the
agricultural system. Since the third plenary session, great successes have
been achieved in reforms in the rural areas. Such reforms in the country-
side are not only expediting agricultural development, but also have set
many new demands on industry, communications and transportation, commerce
and the undertakings of education, science, culture and public health.
Meanwhile, such reforms in the countryside are also a great motive force
to push forward the reforms in the systems of industry and commerce, culture
and education and other aspects. The working class is bound to and must
support the reforms in agricultural economic and management systems and in
technical transformation, take care of their development and meet their
demands. The working class must speed up the reforms and construction of
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industry, communications and transportation serving agriculture, as well as
commerce in the rural areas. The working class must help to transform
agriculture with modern science and techniques in line with the features
and requirements of agriculture which is now still undergoing reform. The
working class must also help to develop the entire agricultural undertaking
including farming, forestry, animal husbandry, sideline production and
fishery into specialization and socialization. Only by so doing will it be
possible to further cement the worker-peasant alliance, demonstrate the
leading role of the working class in agriculture and guide the peasant
masses to blaze a new path of agricultural development with distinctive
Chinese socialist features.
Reform of the industrial and commercial systems occupies the most important
place in the reforms of the whole economic system. It is an arduous and
difficult task. Therefore, we should not only work hard and do our own
job well to fulfill production targets on schedule and of good quality, but
we should also push ahead reforms of the industrial and commercial systems.
The great majority of the workers, technical personnel and office workers
are relatively aware of the situation in their units and in their trades or
professions because they are working on the forefront of the industrial and
commercial enterprises. They should be able to make suggestions for reforms
in a reasonable and practical way because they know well the malady existing
in the industrial and commercial systems which are incompatible with the
four modernizations. They must work hard to establish the system of economic
responsibility, the system of democratic management and other systems and
regulations which must be practical and feasible in their own units and
trades, and which must enable the units to fully display their initiative
and flexibility and enable every individual to fully display his enthusiasm
and creativeness so as to make creative investigations for the full-scale
reforms of the industrial and commercial systems. Meanwhile, we must give
full support to the work the state will be carrying out in the next few
years in three aspects: substituting taxes for delivery of profits; giving
play to the role of key cities; and reforming the system of commercial
circulation. We must resort to various means to change the situation of
"big pot" in which staff and workers of enterprise are indifferent to the
results and whether the workers work hard or not makes no difference. Such
a situation is the very soil in which breeds the way of thinking of the
sluggard. Changing such a situation fully accords with the immediate and
long-term interests of the working class. In any case, the reforms must be
made in a direction favorable to breaking through the shackles binding the
development of the productive forces, mobilizing the enthusiasm of all
sectors, making production socialized, promoting technical transformation
and progress, and developing coordination between production and circulation
departments. In addition, the reforms must be conducive to the work of
rendering support to the countryside from cities, combining industry, agri-
culture and commerce and developing new-type relationships between town and
country, and conducive to the work of streamlining administration, overcom-
ing bureaucratism and raising work efficiency. The reforms must be favor-
able to establishing a socialist system with distinctive Chinese features,
building China into a prosperous country and making the people well-off and
happy. This is the criterion of all our reforms.
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In order to give full play to the leading role of the working class in the
reforms, the workers must amply realize their position and have a high
sense of responsibility as masters of the country. At the present stage,
the working class as masters of the country must be resolved to institute
reforms for the sake of socialist modernization. This is our commitment
and duty. It is wrong to think that making-reforms is merely a matter for
the state and the party. The Communist Party is a party of our own class
and our country belongs to the whole people. All affairs of the party
and state are of prime importance to us. The party and state initiated
the reforms according to the will and interests of the working class and the
whole people. Making reforms is precisely aimed at making the political and
economic systems of our country give full expression to the will and inter-
ests of the working class and the whole people. We should not sit only as
an audience and watch the reforms, but should actively participate in the
reforms to express our high sense of responsibility as masters of the
country. All our party members, as fighters of the vanguard of the working
class, should take the lead in the reforms. Meanwhile, our mass organiza-
tions at all levels such as trade unions, the CYL and Women's Federation
also should give full play to their roles in uniting and educating the
masses of people and help the party organs to fully mobilize the enthusiasm
and the sense of responsibility as masters of the country of the working
class through political and ideological work.
The present position and duties of the working class as masters of the
country require the broad sections of the workers to acquire a high level
of ideological consciousness and knowledge. Generally speaking, our young
generation of the working class have a certain range of political con-
sciousness and knowledge. However, judging from the requirements of
socialist modernization, their political and ideological quality and their
knowledge of culture, science and technology are still insufficient.
Especially, there are still a considerable number of workers who have little
education, or are even illiterate. Such a situation must be changed.
Otherwise, the workers can hardly conform to their present tasks of carry-
ing out construction and reforms, and can hardly meet the requirements of
production and work after reforms are instituted. We must, therefore,
build our workers' contingent with communist ideology and knowledge of
modern science and technology. This is a need of the reforms and consti-
tutes an important part of the reforms. Making reforms is a revolution and
creation, so we must base it on science and respect science. Without the
guidance of Marxism-Leninism-Mao Zedong Thought and without a certain level
of knowledge, one can hardly attain anything in the reforms because his
ability falls short of his wish. Making reforms means liberating the pro-
ductive forces; yet the most powerful productive force is the working class
itself. A higher level of communist ideology and cultural, scientific and
technical knowledge for the workers means a direct liberation of the pro-
ductive forces. Making reforms is also aimed at strengthening the position
of the working class as masters of the country in the various systems and
opening up a broad way for the workers to participate in administering the
state affairs and enterprise management. To this end, every member of the
working class must spare no pains to study hard and try to become a dis-
ciplined laborer with lofty ideals, morality and abundant knowledge.
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At a meeting to commemorate the 7 February general strike in 1940, Comrade
Deng Fa, an outstanding activist in China's workers' movement, said pro-
foundly: "The workers should not brag about themselves as revolutionary
leaders. They must first of all acquire a higher level of political and
cultural knowledge and set an example in revolution, so they must ask for
help from intellectuals. Otherwise, it is impossible to raise their level
of political and cultural knowledge. Meanwhile, revolutionary intellec-
tuals should also know well how to guide the working class of China to
forge ahead." Today, when we are commemorating the 60th anniversary of
the 7 February general strike, the workers and intellectuals who have
become part of the working class should act upon Comrade Deng Fa's advice.
The workers must respect knowledge and intellectuals and struggle against
all prejudices against knowledge and intellectuals and become better
educated. At the same time, intellectuals must respect physical laborers
and integrate themselves with the workers. They must go down among the
masses, to the grassroots and to the forefront of production to learn from
the workers and to absorb spiritual nutriment from them. As long as the
workers and intellectuals, who constitute the major section of the working
class, really merge together, learn from each other, cooperative and
progress together, the working class of our country will certainly be able
to shoulder the heavy task of leading the reforms and realizing socialist
modernization. We have already transformed a dark old China into a bright
new one. We will certainly be able to transform an economically backward
China into a prosperous, strong one.
CSO: 4004/25
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CARRY FORWARD THE GLORIOUS TRADITIONS AND DEVELOP NEW-STYLE ARMY-GOVERNMENT
AND ARMY-PEOPLE RELATIONS
Beijing RED FLAG in Chinese No 3, 1 Feb 83 pp 6-8
[Editorial]
[Text] Forty years have passed since the launching of the Yanan 1943 move-
ment to support the army and give preferential treatment to its dependents
and support the government and cherish the people, known as the "two
supports movement." A major task for the army and people of the whole
country is to inherit and carry forward this glorious tradition, implement
the spirit of the 12th party congress and further build and develop new-
style army-government and army-people relations embodying socialist
spiritual civilization.
A new type of army-people relationship appeared and formed throughout the
vast land of China after our party founded the army, and a new type of
army-government relationship was produced after the establishment of our
Red regime. This is a relationship of identity of army and government and
of army and people, and their close unity and common endeavor. This new-
style relationship with the people is determined by the nature of our
People's Army and by its program of wholeheartedly serving the people. It
is one of the fundamental characteristics distinguishing our army from all
old-style armies. It played an extremely important role in winning victory
in the revolutionary war. It can be said that the Chinese revolution's
history of victory is a history of the united endeavor of the army and
people. Since the state's founding this new-style army-government and army-
people relationship not only has been a major guarantee for carrying out
socialist revolution and construction but also has become an example for the
whole field of social relations in the country and has forwarded the estab-
lishment and development of new-style social relations in the whole country.
In the past several decades this long-standing and well-established new-
style army-government and army-people relationship has taken deep root in
the hearts of the people, so that everyone is filled with deep emotion when
talking about this fish-and-water and flesh-and-blood relationship. Today
the focus of work throughout the country has shifted to building socialist
modernization. We must meet the requirements of the new period, rely on
the long revolutionary traditions and the foundation already laid in this
respect, further develop new-style army-government and army-people relations
and project them to a new stage.
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Comrade Lin Boqu wrote in his article for the "two supports movement" in
1943 that, after the sound of rifles and guns was stilled in Yanan, many
people had gradually forgotten the overall impact of the war of resistance
and developed an erroneous concept of looking down on the army. Is it true
today, when we have enjoyed a tranquil, peaceful environment for a long time
and when the work focus has been shifted, that certain people feel that the
army and army-government and army-people solidarity are not particularly
important? This merits high attention. Therefore, correctly understanding
the status and role of the army in the new period has become an issue to be
solved in developing new-style army-government and army-people relations.
We must realize that the world today is still very far from peaceful and
China's security is still gravely threatened. Only by having a powerful
army and consolidating national defense can we ensure successful progress
of the building of socialist modernization. To be prepared for danger in
time of peace must become an important strategic ideology for us. Doing a
good job in building national defense can simultaneously promote and help
do a good job in economic construction. Advanced national defense science
and technology can also serve and be applied to economic construction. We
should also be aware that our army is not only a steel Great Wall defending
the motherland but also an important force in socialist construction. In
the past 4 years, PLA units have worked 98 million days in support of local
industrial and agricultural production, while 2.64 million personnel have
taken part in rescue and relief work; in building spiritual civilization,
the Army has actively helped the local masses launch the "five stresses and
.four beauties" drive, and has done a lot of work to change the social mood
and establish new morality and atmosphere. The PLA has gained merit in
defending the country and in supporting local construction, and it is now
striving to gain still greater merit.
Since the 3d Plenary Session of the 11th CPC Central Committee, and espe-
cially since Comrade Deng Xiaoping took charge of the work of the Central
Military Commission, the PLA has achieved new and major progress in its
revolutionization, modernization and regularization, and has continually
raised its military and political quality. Ardently loving the army is
identical with ardently loving the motherland, the party and the people;
upholding the army's prestige and supporting its work are also identical
with upholding the interests of the party, the state and the people.
Supporting the army is an important content and concrete expression of
patriotic thought. Every citizen must regard supporting the army as his
glorious responsibility and duty, and make supporting the army and giving
preferential treatment to its dependents a universal social practice.
As far as the army is concerned,.now that it is engaged in modernization
and regularization, are the masses' support and army-government and army-
people solidarity no longer so important? Again, no. The degree of mod-
ernization of the army's weapons and equipment is continually rising, and
there have been great changes in the situation facing the army and in its
own building. However, the nature of the People's Army has not changed,
and the fundamental laws of people's war have not changed; future wars
against aggression will still be people's wars. Under modern conditions,
Comrade Mao Zedong's great thought on people's war remains our magic weapon
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for vanquishing the enemy. In the past, today and in the future, our army
can only win victory by closely uniting with and relying on the people.
We must also fully understand this point: The army's modernization is
determined by the development of the national economy and the modernization
of science and technology. Engels said: "Nothing is more dependent on the
economic premise than the army and navy. Arms, organization, establish-
ment, tactics and strategy first depend on the current level of production
and communications situation." ("Selected Works of Marx and Engels," Vol 3,
p 206) In modernizing the army we cannot get away for one instant from the
people; we must rely on the workers, peasants and intellectuals to provide
the material conditions. The army's building of spiritual civilization
similarly cannot get away from the people; it must absorb nourishment from
the masses. We should say that, in an environment of peace, there is a
danger that the army will become divorced from the masses. Only by closely
uniting with and learning from the masses--not getting divorced from them--
can the army maintain its identity as the People's Army. Every commander
and fighter must firmly establish the idea of supporting the government and
cherishing the people, spontaneously do a good job in this respect and take
practical action to promote army-government and army-people solidarity.
Army-government and army-people relations express party-masses relations to
a certain degree. The masses often look at our party through our army.
During the years of revolutionary war, it was from the army's performance
and its relations with people that the people recognized the party, saw
the prospects for China, and thus resolved to follow the party. Today,
under new historical conditions, the army's image is still linked to that
of the party and state. The masses will still recognize the party and
strengthen their faith in it from the army's image. The masses have very
high demands for and hopes in the army. Promoting atmosphere in the army
is very important for bringing about a fundamental turn for the better in
party work style and in the social atmosphere. Well-handled army-
government and army-people relations are bound effectively to stimulate the
building and development of new-style social relations in the whole country
and the whole of society.
The 12th party congress pointed out the orientation and put forward the
demands for building and developing new-style army-government and army-
people relations embodying socialist spiritual civilization. We must view
upholding the four basic principles and implementing the party's line,
principles and policies as the ideological basis, accomplishing the tasks
set by the 12th party congress as the goal, communist ideology as the core
and the common efforts of army and people to build socialist material and
spiritual civilization as the main way to develop close army-government and
army-people relations of solidarity, love and mutual assistance, common
endeavor and common advance. In their mutual contacts and in handling
mutual relations the PLA units, local governments and the masses must reso-
lutely act according to the party's line, principles and policies and state
laws, and support, help, learn from and stimulate one another. Carrying out
education in communist ideology and cultivating people's communist quali-
ties and values are important for strengthening army-government and army-
people solidarity. In the wake of the development and changes in the
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situation, a number of problems will be encountered in army-government and
army-people relations; these should be solved properly on the basis of the
principle of mutual concern and understanding of army and people and acting
in the interests of solidarity and the overall situation, by advocating the
communist spirit.
In the past the PLA played a major construction role in the revolutionary
bases. Today, it should and can play a still greater role in socialist
modernization. About 200 million people live around the areas where PLA
units are stationed; the units are in direct contact with 20 million of the
masses and have established ties for providing keypoint assistance to over
40,000 production teams. It is a tremendous contribution to socialist con-
struction of the whole country that the PLA tries to help promote economic
and cultural construction for 20 million and even 200 million people. In
supporting construction in the localities we should pay attention to uti-
lizing the strong points of PLA units, which should mainly take part in
public welfare undertakings, in the construction of certain infrastructure
projects, in greening the motherland and building an ecological protective
screen, in the construction of certain arduous and dangerous engineering
projects, and especially in the building of material and spiritual civiliza-
tion in the rural areas; it should also provide technical guidance and
conduct ideological mobilization. The comrades of PLA units must actively
support various reforms carried out in the localities. In recent years
notable success has been achieved in the joint efforts of army and people
to build "civilized villages," "civilized neighborhoods," "civilized
schools" and so on. This is a good form of forging still closer army-
government and army-people relations in the new situation. It is a new
creation which should be vigorously popularized.
The army's assistance for local construction and the drive for army and
people to work together to build spiritual civilization can deepen under-
standing and affection between the army and government and army and people
and play a direct part in bringing closer relations between them. The army
and people deepen their feelings for each other as they work hard and
sweat together, and the masses feel closer to the PLA units and are even
happier to support them. At the same time, this also poses still higher
demands on PLA units and is an effective stimulus for the building of the
army. Since the 3d Plenary Session of the 11th Central Committee, the
localities have implemented the party line, principles and policies and
carried out various reforms; they have scored great success and gained
many new experiences. By learning from local cadres and masses, the PLA
units can better understand the party's line, principles and policies,
more spontaneously and staunchly maintain ideological and political unity
with the CPC Central Committee and promote the revolutionization, moderniza-
tion and regularization of the units.
Supporting the army and giving preferential treatment to its dependents is
a fine tradition of the Chinese people. We must inherit and carry for-
ward this tradition in the new historical conditions.
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Local governments must enthusiastically help local PLA units to solve
problems in preparedness against war, training, duties and daily life, and
teach the masses to support PLA units in smoothly fulfilling all their
tasks. They must actively help the units to solve problems of schooling,
work and daily life for dependents, sons and daughters of armymen. Since
the 3d Plenary Session of the 11th Central Committee, the local governments
and the masses have done a lot of work in supporting the army and giving
preferential treatment to its promotion of the "two supports movement" by
the localities and the army, universal preferential treatment for soldiers'
dependents in the rural areas and so on have played a very great role in
spurring improved army-government and army-people relations. As a result
of carrying out universal preferential treatment for soldiers' dependents
in rural areas, young people join the army with ease of mind, army
dependents need not worry, the PLA units are satisfied and the masses are
happy. It is a good thing of far-reaching significance for national
defense construction.
While marking the 40th anniversary of the "two supports movement," we are
confident in prospects for the advance of solidarity of the army and our
countrymen. We will certainly be able to write a new page in the develop-
ment of army-government and army-people relations.
CSO: 4004/25
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THE 'TWO SUPPORTS CAMPAIGN' IN THE SHAANXI-GANSU-NANGXIA BORDER REGION
Beijing RED FLAG in Chinese No 3, 1 Feb 83 p 8
[Report--condensed from 19 January 1983 SHAANXI RIBAO]
[Text] On 15 January 1943, the government of the Shaanxi-Gansu-Nangxia
border region promulgated a "Decision on Supporting the Army," which desig-
nated the period from 25 January to 25 February as a "month of activities
for supporting the army." The government also revised an announced regu-
lation on "giving preferential treatment to dependents of armymen fighting
the war of resistance against Japan" and on other matters. Following that,
on 25 January the headquarters and political department of the garrison
unit of the Eighth Route Army issued a "Decision on Supporting the Govern-
ment and Cherishing the People," which designated the period from
5 February to 4 March as a "month of activities for supporting the govern-
ment and cherishing the people" thus announcing the first pact on supporting
the government and cherishing the people in the history of our army. After
that, the "two supports" activities of supporting the army and giving
preferential treatment to its dependents and supporting the government and
cherishing the people were launched in all revolutionary bases.
During the "Two-Supports Activity Month" in 1943, the party, government
and army in Yanan city jointly organized a support-army delegation which,
headed by border region government Chairman Lin Boqu, carried large
amounts of foodstuffs to the Nanniwan and Jinpenwan area to comfort the
commanders and fighters of the 359th Brigade. The masses of Yanan and
elsewhere also paid comfort visits to various army units. The army com-
manders and fighters helped the peasants carry out production and engaged
in public service labor. The leading organs of the army units organized
discipline inspection groups to check on the units' implementation of
discipline. Later, the units drew up detailed pacts on supporting the
government and cherishing the people, to make this activity a regular and
systematic thing. The "two supports" activities spurred the great soli-
darity of party, government, army and people and played a very great role
in ensuring victory in the struggle against the enemy and in production.
CSO: 4004/25
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THE GUIDING IDEOLOGY OF THE NEW CONSTITUTION
Beijing RED FLAG in Chinese No 3, 1 Feb 83 pp 9-13
[Article by Zheng Hui [6774 1920]]
[Text] The general guiding ideology of the new constitution is the four
basic principles, namely, adherence to the socialist road, to the people's
democratic dictatorship, to the leadership of the CPC and to Marxism-
Leninism-Mao Zedong Thought. These four basic principles are the political
foundation for uniting the people of all our nationalities in their march
forward and are the basic guarantee for the smooth progress of socialist
modernization. In studying the new constitution, it is necessary to find
out how it reflects these four basic principles.
In a nutshell, the four basic principles mean that the people will follow
the socialist road under the leadership of the CPC leadership and the
guidance of Marxism-Leninism-Mao Zedong Thought. The question of what
road to follow is a question of fundamental importance in the development
of contemporary Chinese history. The four major historical changes in
China in the 20th century listed in the "preamble" of the constitution
actually represented the different outcomes of the two roads. The first
major event was the 1911 revolution. It represented the revolutionary
ideal and new forces of the Chinese national bourgeoisie and had great sig-
nificance. However, history has proved that in semicolonial and semifeudal
China, taking the capitalist road under the leadership of the bourgeoisie
will get us nowhere. The other three major events were: the overthrow of
the reactionary rule and the founding of the PRC; the abolition of the
system of exploitation and the establishment of the socialist system; and
the development of socialist economy, politics and culture. They con-
vincingly show the correctness of the four basic principles and the his-
torical achievement made by the CPC in leading the people to take the
socialist road after. the stage of new democracy. These three events brought
about a fundamental change in the Chinese society and state. Therefore, it
is not without reason that the four basic principles are accepted by the
Chinese people. It is a decisive choice made by hundreds of millions of
people after protracted historical tests and repeated comparisons. It is
the natural outcome of the development of Chinese history.
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However, it is not an easy task to successfully apply the socialist prin-
ciples of scientific Marxism in China. As everyone knows, during the
period of the new democratic revolution, the party leaders made a mistake
in giving ideological guidance because they were not good at putting
Marxism into application. As a result, the revolution suffered a great
setback and failed. After summing up successful and unsuccessful experi-
ences, the party combined the universal principles of Marxism with the
concrete practice of the Chinese revolution to form Mao Zedong Thought and
found the correct path for the democratic revolution with distinctive
Chinese features. It was only then that we were able to win nationwide
victory in the revolution.
After the basic completion of the socialist transformation of the means of
production, the party found itself faced with the question of how to build
socialism in a big country. which has a rather backward economy and culture.
This was an extremely complicated and difficult question and it was com-
pletely new to us. Although the party has led the people in scoring great
successes in socialist construction in the past three decades and more, the
mistake of the "Cultural Revolution" also has caused us to make a big
detour. History has again put forward before us this question of how to
correctly apply the principles of Marxism. Through mistakes and setbacks,
we have come to understand that the "left" viewpoint of "continuing the
revolution under the dictatorship of the proletariat" does not tally with
the principles of Marxism and the reality in China. It shows deviation
from rather than adherence to the four basic principles. If we become
skeptical about the four basic principles and lose confidence in them
because of these mistakes, and thus think that we must start afresh in
our quest for socialism and even go as far as to seek a way out from out-
worn bourgeois theories, we are going the wrong way. On the other hand, if
we fail to see the development of circumstances and the changes in our
tasks and instead adhere stubbornly to certain outdated or even wrong
patterns and ideas, we will not be able to keep pace with the needs of the
times. Under the new historical condition, there are numerous problems
relating to the socialist economic and political systems and various
aspects of socialist construction that we must study and solve. We must
also find concrete means and methods that meet actual needs to implement
the basic principles. If a good job has been done in this kind of creative
work, the four basic principles not only will remain valid but will be
further developed.
In recent years, our party has made a tremendous effort to examine,
differentiate and evaluate past concepts and practices with regard to
socialism. At the same time, bold innovations have been made in connec-
tion with theory and policy to meet practical needs. After the 3d Plenary
Session of the 11th CPC Central Committee and the 12th CPC Congress, we
have set our guiding ideology to rights and formulated a correct program
for creating a new situation in all fields of socialist modernization.
Bringing about this historical change has been a process of restoring the
four basic principles and of adhering to them and developing them. The
party takes the four modernizations as the focus of all work and regards
the building of a high level of socialist spiritual civilization and a high
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level of socialist democracy as an important aspect of our fundamental
objective and task and as an important guarantee for building a high level
of socialist material civilization. Construction in these three fields are
closely interrelated and promote each other. Our socialism must be built
on the premise of highly developed productive forces. It is completely
wrong to think that we can build socialism without developing the produc-
tive forces and that all we need to do is to rely on reforming the rela-
tions of production, on spiritual encouragement and even on grasping class
struggle. Socialism of course means more than just well-developed produc-
tive forces. It is an advanced economic system in the first place. With
this economic system, we must flexibly choose an appropriate form, in
accordance with needs arising from the growth of the productive forces.
We must not depart from reality and stubbornly stick to a fixed prior
pattern. Socialism is also a democratic political system. It is incompati-
ble with totalitarianism and anarchy. Socialism must also include a high
level of education, science and culture, noble and rich spiritual life and
an enterprising revolutionary spirit. These are important features of
socialism and are basic distinguishing marks showing its superiority to
capitalism. In short, our party has made a giant step forward in its
understanding of scientific socialism after going through countless hard-
ships. This is an important reward attained by our party in combining the
universal principles of Marxism with the concrete practice in China and in
blazing a distinctively Chinese path for socialist construction.
The constitution not only affirms the four basic principles in its "pre-
amble" but reflects the spirit of these principles, which is also the
spirit of the party's road for socialist construction, in all its articles.
It is a socialist constitution with distinctive Chinese features, one that
meets the needs of the new historical period and will remain valid for a
long period of time.
Our ultimate goal in all revolutionary work is to emancipate and develop
the productive forces and to build socialist economy and communist economy
so that the people can enjoy a higher level of material and cultural life
than under capitalism. When modern economic conditions and other necessary
conditions presented themselves, we seized the opportune moment and achieved
success in the democratic revolution. We also victoriously made the shift
to socialism. This was a great pioneering move in the history of the
socialist movement. It is completely wrong to deny the significance of the
socialist revolution and the actual condition of socialism in China simply
because our economy is rather backward. However, it is equally wrong to be
content with the present low level of economic development, fail to see the
people's pressing needs for improving the status quo and think that social-
ism can be built on the basis of universal poverty. After the third
plenary session, the party reaffirmed that the principal contradiction that
China must resolve at the present stage is one between the people's growing
material and cultural needs on the one hand and the backward social produc-
tion on the other. We paid a high price before finally deciding to take the
four modernizations as the focus of all work and as the material foundation
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for building a rich and powerful country, bringing about prosperity in
society and enabling the people to live a good life. In reaffirming this
achievement, the new constitution is giving the Chinese people a firm and
unshakable goal for struggle.
In order to concentrate our forces on the modernization program, we must
pay attention to readjusting and reforming the relations of production.
The establishment of socialist economic.relations is not the end of the
process. It has to go through a process of constant creation and innova-
tion. No doubt the fundamental principles of socialist economic systems,
such as the public ownership of the means of production, distribution
according to work and the planned economy, are correct and superior. How-
ever, it is still necessary for us to find ways and means that are suited
to specific conditions for carrying out these fundamental principles.
Under the guidance of "left" ideology in the past, we paid no attention to
the actual level of the development of the productive forces, thinking that
the larger the scale and the higher the degree of public ownership the
better, the more completely the individual economy was wiped out the better,
the larger the scale and the higher the degree of centralized planned
management by the state the better and the more equal were the personal
means of subsistence distributed among the laborers the better. This kind
of oversimplistic and one-sided understanding of the socialist principle
caused us to follow a narrowing path of economic development and made it
very difficult for us to bring the superiority of the socialist economic
system into full play. As a result, both national construction and the
people suffered for a long time.
In our present work of economic readjustment and restructuring, we must
pay attention to the fact that our productive forces are unevenly developed
and are of a fairly low level on the whole. In light of this actual condi-
tion, we must adopt various concrete forms, formulate flexible principles
and policies and break down the shackles of subjective and inflexible
patterns used in the past. We recognize the different status and role of
the state-owned, collective and individual economies and give full scope
to their superiority within their respective scopes. We have explicitly.
implemented the principle of the leading role of the planned economy and
the supplementary role of market regulation and correctly.defined the
scopes and limits of the two activities. We have also extensively put
various forms of the production responsibility system into application and
appropriately combined the economic responsibilities of the state, the pro-
duction units and laborers with their respective powers and interests. New
things like these not only have not hindered the implementation of the
basic economic system of socialism but have given it a great boost.
Although we have only been doing this for a short time, the internal pro-
pelling force for economic development has been set in motion, economic life
as a whole has been enlivened and remarkable results have been achieved.
We are now blazing a new path for economic development suited to China's
conditions. The stipulations of the constitution concerning the socialist
economic system and the principles for economic construction drawn up on
the basis of summing up practical experience will open broad prospects for
the healthy development of economic work as a whole.
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Socialist construction not only has its material objectives. It also has
spiritual objectives. Socialism has never been just an economic movement.
As far as the productive forces alone are concerned, the modernization
program is a process of technological development. However, it is also a
social process and social movement at the same time. Its objectives, path,
measures and methods are bound to be socialist in character. In other
words, the development of the modernization program must accord with the
interests and demands of the people and rely on the wisdom and strength of
the people, and the fruits of success must be shared by the people. This
needs to be guaranteed by socialist spiritual civilization. When the four
modernizations have been attained in keeping with the socialist orienta-
tion, socialist spiritual life will also reach a very high level. It can
thus be seen that under the socialist system, the building of material
civilization and spiritual civilization are closely related and inseparable.
They are each other's goal and are mutually conditional. They should both
be raised to a strategic height and given ample attention.
When we concentrate our energy on the modernization program, we must not
neglect or slacken our efforts in building socialist spiritual civilization.
It is completely wrong to think that spiritual civilization will spontane-
ously go up to a higher level when material civilization is developed.
Provided that the broad masses persevere in their work for a long time
under the leadership of the party and state, it is entirely possible, while
striving to build material civilization, to improve people's spiritual out-
look and raise their level of political understanding even when technologi-
cal conditions are not so developed for the time being. This truth has been
verified by historical experiences during the revolutionary war period and
just after the founding of the PRC. The cultural and ideological aspects of
building socialist spiritual civilization are interpenetrating and promote
each other. Neither can be neglected. Cultural construction is important
to the building of material civilization, but it also occupies an important
place in the building of spiritual civilization. We must make a great
effort to eliminate erroneous ideas of looking down on culture and the
intellectuals long entertained by the cadres and the masses and must truly
make cultural construction a strategic priority for developing the economy.
Ideological construction determines the socialist character of spiritual
civilization. We must use Marxist theories to guide ideological and cul-
tural construction. We emphasize the need to carry out communist ideologi-
cal education among the people. However, this does not mean that we should
implement the economic systems and social. policies which belong to a higher
phase of communism right now and thus repeat the past mistake of effecting
the premature transition to communism. Instead, we must cultivate a revo-
lutionary world outlook and outlook on.life, correctly handle the relation-
ship between the state, the collective and the, individual, establish a new
type of socialist social relations and adopt the attitude of wholeheartedly
serving the people in labor and in work. We must use revolutionary ideas
and revolutionary spirit to arouse the enthusiasm of the masses for build-
ing socialism and imbue our socialist cause with revolutionary youth and
vitality.
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Our party has put forward the important task of building a high level of
socialist spiritual civilization. It has given us a profound theoretical
explanation on the significance and content of this construction and formu-
lated correct policies and effective measures for actual work items. This
shows an important step forward in taking the socialist road. The previous
constitutions seldom touched on spiritual civilization. The new constitu-
tion has greatly enriched its content in this area. With regard to cultural
construction, principled provisions have been made in relation to the basic
principles and tasks for developing socialist education, science, public
health, physical culture, journalism and publication. With regard to
ideological construction, well-considered and clearcut provisions have been
made for strengthening communist education in various ways and forms. All
this will provide a legal basis for our future efforts to build socialist
spiritual civilization.
Socialism is essentially democratic. Without the people's democracy, there
will be no socialism. A basic feature showing the superiority of socialism
to capitalism is that the entire people enjoy all power in running state
and social affairs on top of having different forms of ownership of the
means of production. The development of ideas of socialist democracy
within the party in recent years has given the new constitution a good deal
of new ingredients in this regard.
In order to build a high level of socialist democracy, we must first
strengthen and consolidate the state system of the people's democratic
dictatorship. The theory of the people's democratic dictatorship was a
creative development of the Marxist teaching on state made by Comrade Mao
Zedong in light of China's national condition. The people's democratic
dictatorship has different class content in different stages of development
of the revolution. In the stage of new democracy, the state under the
people's democratic dictatorship was an extremely broad alliance led by the
working class and based on the alliance of workers and peasants and which
included the national bourgeoisie. The broad basis of this state power was
an indicator of its high level of democracy. By the stage of socialism,
because the exploiting classes have been eliminated as such and most con-
tradictions in our society do not have the nature of class struggle, the
content of the people's democratic dictatorship has also changed notice-
ably. There is a substantial increase in the number of workers, peasants
and intellectuals and their political qualities have been greatly improved.
They constitute three basic social forces in socialist construction. The
overwhelming majority of the former members of the exploiting classes have
been transformed into laborers who earn their own living. The ranks of
people have been greatly strengthened and the basis of the people's demo-
cratic dictatorship has been extended. Of course class struggle still
exists within certain limits and we must not slacken our struggle against
hostile elements who sabotage China's socialist system. It is wrong to
ignore the existence of class struggle and try to abolish the function of
dictatorship of state power. However, recognizing the existence of class
struggle is quite different from "taking class struggle as the key link" and
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"all-round dictatorship." Today, class struggle is by no means the princi-
pal contradiction and the scope of dictatorship has obviously been reduced.
It is a gross violation of the people's democratic dictatorship in theory
as well as in practice to exclude large numbers of people from the circle
of masters of the country and even direct the spearhead of dictatorship
against the people as we did during the "Cultural Revolution." Our task
is to take the scientific evaluation of social and political contradictions
in the stage of socialism as the basis and restore and develop the correct
principle of the people's democratic dictatorship so that socialist
democracy can make enormous progress in the new historical period. The
provision of the new constitution which stipulates that the nature of our
state is the people's democratic dictatorship suits this historical need
and consolidates the positive results gained in recent years in setting
things to rights on the question of state structure. Thus it is of far-
reaching significance.
Building a high level of socialist democracy also has another aspect, that
is, developing various democratic systems and democratic life to a high
level. In accordance with the principle of democratic centralism, we must
continue to reform and perfect the political and leadership structure of
our state and strengthen the building of organs of political power. At the
same time, we must extend socialist democracy to all spheres of life,
political, economic, cultural and social, extend democratic management to
all enterprises and institutions and encourage self-management of community
affairs by the masses at the grassroots level. It is also necessary to
establish a relationship of equality between men and a correct relationship
between the individual and the society in accordance with the principles of
socialist democracy. All this shows that socialist democracy is incompa-
rably superior to bourgeois democracy. As far as the building of organs of
state power is concerned, a basic principle and important feature of
socialism is the unity of democracy and centralism. On the one hand, the
authority of state organs at various levels, must be built on a broad basis
of democracy. They must hold themselves responsible to the people, subject
themselves to supervision by the people and truly represent the interests
and will of the people. On the other hand, they must apply necessary
centralism on the basis of democracy. They must be authoritative, compe-
tent and orderly and capable of effectively leading and organizing socialist
construction. They must guard against and overcome bureaucracy and lib-
eralism. This is what Lenin wanted: a higher form of the democratic system
which combines the spirit of democracy with iron discipline.
The new constitution has made many new provisions regarding the basic prin-
ciple of China's political system, the fundamental rights and duties of
citizens, the structure and functions and powers of state organs, and so on.
It embodies the principles of socialist democracy and reflects the special
features of the Chinese society. It is a valuable crystallization of our
experience in building state power over the past 30 years and more and is
an important development of the switch to democracy in our country. Of
course, we do not have much practical experience in building a socialist
political system. How we are going to give full expression to the charac-
teristics of socialist democracy in our political system is still an
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important question which we must continue to study in depth. It still
requires long years of practice to accumulate experience. However, the
provisions of the new constitution have laid down the principles for con-
struction and further reform in this regard and have charted the direction
for continuous advance.
To sum up, after more than 30 years of hard work, our party has finally
found a distinctively Chinese path for socialist construction. It tells us
how we should adhere to the socialist economic and political systems and
keep to the socialist orientation in various fields of construction in the
new historical period; in other words, how we should correctly apply the
principles of Marxism to the reality of socialist construction in China and
how to exercise party leadership in the work of the state. This not only
means adherence to the four basic principles but has enriched and given new
content to these principles. These propositions of the party are supported
and endorsed by the people of the whole country and solemnly written into
the fundamental law through the supreme organ of state power. The profound
ideas about socialism embodied in the new constitution are the crystalliza-
tion of China's special experience and contain some kind of universal
theoretical significance. There is no doubt that its implementation will
greatly push forward the victorious advance of China's socialist moderniza-
tion.
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INVESTIGATIONS ON THE SYSTEM OF PLACING COUNTIES UNDER THE LEADERSHIP OF
CITIES IMPLEMENTED IN LIAONING PROVINCE
Beijing RED FLAG in Chinese No 3, 1 Feb 83 pp 14-17
[Investigation report by the Office of the Economic Research Center of
Liaoning Province]
[Text] Liaoning Province is one of the earliest industrial bases in our
country. It has a comparatively more flourishing industry and a large
population of city and nonagricultural inhabitants. At present, the
province has 106 cities and towns, including 6 cities with populations of
more than 500,000, 10 cities with populations of 100,000-500,000 and 31
cities with populations of 30,000-100,000. Some 42.3 percent of the
province's population live in cities and towns.
Since liberation, the province has experimented with different forms of
administration of counties, including direct leadership by provincial
authorities, by the commissioner's office and by the city's executive.
The system of city administration over counties was adopted after repeated
comparisons. In the,past, however, due to the interference of "leftist"
ideology, the role of this system was not brought into play. It was only
after the 3d Plenary Session of the 11th CPC Central Committee was held and
a series of correct policies were worked out through bringing order out of
chaos that the advantages of this system were better developed.
At present, 33 of the 45 counties in the.province are under the administra-
tion of 10 large and medium-sized cities. The other 12 counties and 3
county-level cities are under the administration of two commissioner's
offices, but they have also expressed their willingness to take part in the
new system. Practice shows that the system of placing counties under the
leadership of the cities directly under the,provincial government conforms
with the needs of economic development in provinces like Liaoning, which
are more developed in industry and have more cities. Right after libera-
tion Liaoning was backward in industrial and agricultural production. In
agriculture, crop growing was the main task. Even in county towns there
were only a few "blacksmiths and coffin makers" and a few "oil pressing
mills and soy sauce and vinegar shops." At that time it was feasible for
the commissioner's offices to act as agencies of the provincial authorities
to concentrate on developing agriculture. Over the past 30 years since the
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First 5-Year Plan, Liaoning has become an important industrial base of our
country and more than 400 large and medium-sized key enterprises have been
created in this province. Now it has 16,000 industrial enterprises. The
creation of these enterprises not only has promoted economic development in
the cities but also has brought about changes in rural economic structure
and a rapid development of county and commune industries and small cities
and towns. Under such circumstances the commissioner office system,
responsible mainly for agricultural production, can no longer handle both
development of rural industrial and sideline production and economic
development in both cities and the countryside. The development of county
and commune industries needs energy resources, raw materials and markets,
and the development of agriculture needs chemical fertilizers, pesticides
and farm tools. In farmland capital construction, funds and materials are
needed. These problems cannot all be solved by the countryside or by the
commissioner's offices. Once the system of city administration over coun-
ties is adopted, since ties between cities and countryside are strengthened,
many problems can be solved by cities. On the other hand, in developing
industrial production, which needs raw materials and agricultural and side-
line products, large and medium-sized cities must also strengthen their ties
with the countryside and establish their own vegetable, nonstaple food and
raw material bases. Moreover, development of the entire national economy
also requires that an overall arrangement and plan be made for production
and construction in the cities and the countryside of a specific region so
that the urban and rural economy can be developed in a more coordinated way.
Liaoning's experiences show that the system of city administration over
counties has the following advantages:
1. It is conducive to overall planning and arrangement in urban and rural
production and construction.
Cities are generally centers of industrial production, science and culture
and commodity exchanges in a region. They are very closely related to the
economies of their surrounding areas. If cities and the countryside are
separately under the leadership of city government and commissioner's
offices, ties between them can easily be broken. However, the system of
city administration over counties is conducive to the overall arrangement
of production and construction in both cities and countryside so that
urban and rural economic activities can be carried out under unified plan-
ning. For example, Yingkou is a light industrial city. Seventy percent
of its industrial raw materials come from agriculture. In 1979, the city
already suggested that an overall arrangement be made in light of actual
conditions in this area for urban and rural production so as to build the
following five bases: a commodity grain base in the lower reaches of the
Liache, Huihe and Taizi Rivers, which mainly grow rice; a forest, fruit and
silkworm base in the eastern mountainous areas; a fruit, cotton, oil crops
and other cash crops base in the central plain and hilly areas; a reed and
fishery base in the western coastal areas; and a nonstaple food base in the
suburbs of the city. According to this suggestion they have worked out a
unified development plan which'includes the development of major county,
commune and brigade industries, technical reform and scientific
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experimentation of various counties and have thus promoted the coordinated
development of both urban and rural economies in this region. In Haicheng
and Taian Counties, which are under the jurisdiction of Anshan city, some
228 industrial products were brought into line with state planning in 1982.
Of 37 farm machinery products in Anshan city, 34 were produced in these
two counties. Once a product or project is brought into line with state
planning, the supply of energy and raw materials is usually guaranteed.
Thus, duplication of a construction project and blind development can be
prevented.
The system of city administration over counties has strengthened the ties
between industrial and agricultural production, and cooperation between
cities and countryside. Dandong city has learned from Changzhou city the
experience of making industrial production in the city as well as in coun-
ties and communes a "coordinated process." The production of electronics
spare parts and accessories for TV sets and high-frequency tuners is now
conducted separately in 16 county- and commune-run factories in Donggou,
Kuandian and Fengcheng Counties. These factories produce an annual output
value of more than 1 million yuan and create 150,000 yuan in profits. They
have promoted the development of county and commune enterprises and solved
the problems of lacking workshops and equipment in developing the elec-
tronics industry. By dispersing textile production to counties and com-
munes, Dalian city has also promoted the development of the latter's tex-
tile industry. Now there are already 35 county and commune textile enter-
prises in this region. Their 14,000 staff and workers account for 27 per-
cent of the total number of staff and workers in this city, and their
printing and dyeing capacity account for 16 percent of the capacity in the
city. This form. of coordination has led contacts between cities and coun-
tryside from the sphere of circulation to that of production. As a result,
an economic zone with the city as the center has been gradually shaped.
2. It is conducive to pooling the advantages of both urban and rural areas
so that they can support each other and develop side by side.
When the counties were under the leadership of commissioner's offices, due
to the poor economic strength the commissioner's offices could only convey
the higher authorities' directives to the lower levels or report the
lower levels' opinions to the higher authorities, and play the role of
supervision and inspection. However, things are entirely different when
the counties are placed under the leadership of cities. The economic
strength of the cities can be better used to support the countryside. From
1979-1981, Dandong city allotted 6.65 million yuan from its reserve funds
(32 percent of these funds) to support agriculture. Good results were
achieved when these funds were used to exploit water resources, develop
aquatic products production and build small chemical plants and hydropower
stations. Four small chemical fertilizer plants in counties under city
administration expanded their annual production capacity from 8,000 tons to
40,000 tons; some 2,000 mu of fish ponds were built or expanded with local
financial resources; and a mechanized pig farm and chicken farm were estab-
lished. According to statistics of material supply departments, since 1976
Yingkou city has, on an average, supported agriculture with 1,487 tons of
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steel products, 15,845 tons of cement and 17,418 standard boxes of glass
each year. With these financial and material resources, the counties and
communes have done many things. Covering the fields with plastic sheeting
is an effective measure to increase agricultural output. Since the cities
have tried in a thousand and one ways to ensure the supply of plastic
sheeting, 420,000 mu of land in the province has now been covered with
plastic sheeting. Peanut production alone, not to mention others, has
been increased by 66 million jin.
Cooperation between cities and the countryside is not one-sided. The
cities also need the support of the countryside. Liaoning Province has
a large urban population. Grain, vegetables and nonstaple foodstuffs as
well as those agricultural products which are raw materials for industry are
greatly needed in the cities. The system of city administration over coun-
ties is conducive to pooling the advantages of the countryside and building
various kinds of commodity grain, vegetable, nonstaple food and industrial
raw material bases. In the past, when Shenyang city did not exercise
leadership over counties, grain for this city was allotted by the state
and most vegetables were imported from various parts of the country--includ-
ing the southern city of Quangzhou and the northern province of Heilongjiang.
It had to ask for help elsewhere and there was no room for it to make any
adjustment. Since Xinmin and Liaozhong Counties were placed under the
jurisdiction of Shenyang city--as a result of the rural economic develop-
ment over the past few years--the two counties and the city's suburbs have,
on an average, provided the city with 1.3-1.4 billion jin of commodity grain
each year. Eighty percent of grain has been self-supplied. Each year
about 1.3-1.4 billion jin of vegetables have been put on the market, and
last year the figure was 1.6 billion jin. They are now self-sufficient in
vegetables. Forty-five percent of pork is self-supplied. Besides, the
city also has been supplied with a certain quantity of milk, eggs, fish
and fruit. Anshan and Dalian cities have also strengthened the construc-
tion of rural commodity bases and greatly raised the degree of self-
sufficiency in grain, vegetables, meat and fruit.
One-half of China's tussah production is concentrated in the Dandong area.
Over the past several years, Dandong city has vigorously strengthened the
construction of tussah production bases. The usual annual output of tussah
cocoons has been kept between 500,000-600,000 dan. In 1980 it reached
710,000 dan. Thus the silk industry in this city has been greatly pro-
moted. We can see from this that the system of city administration over
counties is conducive to pooling the advantages of both rural and urban
areas and accelerating the development of both rural and urban economies.
3. It is conducive to speeding the circulation of commodities in a
rational way and bringing about brisk markets in both urban and rural
areas.
In the past, due to the coexistence of both city executives and commis-
sioner's offices, the cities and countryside were separated and the circu-
lation of commodities was impeded. Industrial products had to go through
four stages before they reached the hands of the consumers: the city's
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second-level allocation station, the prefectural second-level stations,
the third-level wholesale departments of the counties, and the rural supply
and marketing cooperatives and other retail units. As a result, commodity
circulation was seriously impeded. The same thing also happened in the
purchase and allocation of agricultural and sideline products. Since the
system of city administration over counties was adopted, the city's second-
level allocation station is no longer restricted by the administrative
regions. It can directly establish wholesale points or organize mobile
wholesale teams in the countryside according to needs for industrial
products. Rural commerce also is no longer restricted by, administrative
regions. It can directly purchase goods from second-level or third-level
stations in the city, or freely select and purchase goods from local indus-
trial commodity fairs or exhibition sales. Thus the circulation of com-
modities between cities and countryside has been speeded up. For example,
Xinmin County is a nearby county of Shenyang city. But when it was under
the jurisdiction of Tieling Prefecture its agricultural products were pur-
chased by the prefecture. Since they were not purchased in a timely
manner, many products remained in stock for a long time. Now that this
county is under the jurisdiction of Shenyang city, agricultural products
are purchased promptly. Now the goods for 85 of the 106 counties under the
jurisdiction of Shenyang city are supplied directly by this city. Thus,
since the transport distance has been shortened and many intermediate links
have been eliminated, the supply of goods for these counties is more ample
and timely. Anshan city has set up two slaughterhouses in Haicheng County
which can provide residents in this city with one-third of its fresh meat.
Pork can be sent directly to the market without being kept in cold storage.
In order to satisfy the peasants' needs for commodities that are in short
supply, some cities have even given top priority to the sale of those local
industrial products that have been retained by cities for exceeding produc-
tion quotas in the,rural markets. Over the past year or so Dalian city has
decided to supply the countryside with all the excess sewing machines,
bicycles and other durable consumer goods, in addition to the 5,000 sewing
machines and 10,000 bicycles already allotted in 1981. Thus the needs of
the countryside have been basically satisfied. The "Chun Lan" brand watches
made in Dandong city are cheap and beautiful and are liked by the peasants.
There is a great demand for this brand of watches. Bedclothing produced in
this city also enjoys good sales in the countryside. So Dandong city has
allotted several tens of thousands of "Chun Lan" watches and a lot of woolen
blankets, sheets and silk quilt covers to rural markets. The peasants are
very pleased with this supply.
Besides, the cities can ask the industrial departments to produce goods
that are urgently needed in the countryside through administrative inter-
ference or by providing subsidies. They also can adopt flexible methods to
purchase more agricultural and sideline products for urban markets in light
of developments in these markets.
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4. It is conducive to making use of the favorable conditions in the cities
to promote the construction of spiritual civilization in the countryside.
Since the cities have comparatively stronger scientific and technical
forces, after the system of city administration over counties is adopted
they can help boost the development of science and technology in the
countryside. In Dandong city, a network gradually has been established
among scientific research units and scientific and technical workers, which
covers the range of research of both industrial and agricultural production
with a clarified division of work. From 1979 to the first half of 1982 it
scored 338 important achievements in scientific research work, of which 260
achievements have been applied and popularized and 28 new agricultural
varieties have been formally named and popularized. The "No 330 hybrid
maize" even won a national first prize. With the. help of Anshan city, a
seed company with three branch offices has been established in Haicheng
County. In this way, a seed-breeding system has been developed. Over the
past decade or so, this county has thrice renewed its seeds. This is an
important reason why this county has achieved a per mu yield of 1,000 jin
in grain production.
Many cities have also taken advantage of their favorable conditions in the
cultural, educational and public health fields to help the countryside
change the backward situation in these aspects and promote the latter's
spiritual civilization construction. With universities, colleges, big
literature and art organizations and large hospitals as the mainstay,
Dandong city has taken into overall consideration rural work in the
cultural, educational and public health fields and has established a net-
work with the city as the center. Every year several large-scale educa-
tional research activities are launched, usually with the participation of
400-500 teachers from four counties, so that the fruits of educational
research in this city can be spread in various schools, and more than 30
doctors are trained for the counties and communes by two big hospitals in
the city. Last year, in order to raise the professional level of leaders
of commune hospitals, the city's public health department ran a special
training class for directors in charge of professional work from 100 com-
mune hospitals. The city's cultural and art museum has also helped,
cultural centers in various communes and brigades improve their work with
the assistance of county cultural centers. Thus, a network of mass
cultural activities has been established from above to below, and cultural
life in rural areas has been constantly improved. In Donggou County, which
has already become a national advanced unit in mass cultural activity,
every commune has a cultural center and every brigade has a cultural room,
a film projection team and a library. Dalian city sends out several medi-
cal teams a year, consisting of some 50 doctors, to various counties to
pass on experiences and carry out prevention and cure diseases in a compre-
hensive way. Over the past few years Anshan city has helped 31 communes
and 681 brigades establish cultural centers. These centers now have a
collection of 200,000 books. The city has also helped the countryside to
build 45 film stations and form 630 film projection teams.
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5. It is conducive to accelerating the reform and construction of small
towns.
Industry has been developed in Liaoning's small towns. However, due to
backward management and low economic returns, these towns have run into
debt. Since the system of city administration over counties was adopted,
various cities have allotted some of their mobile funds or funds for the
maintenance of these cities to help the construction of small towns. For
example, over the past 5 years or so, Dalian city has allotted 23 million
yuan from its maintenance funds to help county towns repair and build
roads and install water-supply and sewage pipes. As a result, the situa-
tion of the county towns has improved. Before 1979, Taian County had
mostly dirt roads. Since it was placed under the leadership of Anshan city,
slag from the Anshan iron and steel works has been used to pave the road.
Asphalt roads have been built between Anshan city and Taian County, as well
as in 17 communes of this county. Besides, 10 big buildings, including
post office building, banks, a XINHUA bookstore and department store build-
ings and a cinema, have also been established in the county town. Taian
County has thus taken on a new look. At present, the construction of some
small towns is being stepped up so that these towns can become bridges and
links between large and medium-sized cities and the broad countryside.
6. It is conducive to strengthening leadership over the countryside,
streamlining administration and achieving higher efficiency.
Some comrades are apprehensive that the system of city administration over
counties might weaken leadership over the countryside. However, facts prove
just the opposite. Leadership over the countryside has been strengthened
since the system of city administration over counties was adopted. For
example, with rich industrial and technological resources, the cities can
help county and commune enterprises carry out readjustment and reorganiza-
tion, provide them with modern science and technology and help them con-
tinuously raise technological and management levels. The progress of rural
science and culture also needs the support and leadership of the cities.
Some county comrades said: In the past, under the leadership of commis-
sioner's offices, the leaders mainly grasped political movement. In produc-
tion, they paid attention only to plowing, planting and purchasing. Now
the focal point of our party's work has been shifted to construction. A
higher demand has been set on leadership over all aspects of rural work,
including agriculture, industry, commerce, science, education and culture.
The system of city administration over counties has been proved to be
better than other systems.
Since overlapping leadership of prefectural and commissioner's offices and
separate management of urban and rural areas as well as contradictions
between cities and prefectures are eliminated after adopting the system of
city administration over counties, a higher work efficiency has been
achieved. Of course there are also some problems. Since the central task
for the commissioner's offices was doing rural work, they were able to go
all out to grasp agriculture. However, it is impossible for cities to do so,
because they have more work to do. Especially when industrial production is
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busy, rural work can easily be neglected. Moreover, some of the cities'
leading methods and work styles cannot suit the demand of rural work.
These problems can be solved well provided the leaders pay attention to
overcoming the erroneous ideas of regarding cities and industry as superior
to countryside and agriculture. Some of principal leaders are appointed to
take care of agricultural work, and an effective organization in charge of
rural work is established.
The present system of city administration over counties adopted by Liaoning
Province has yet to be perfected, and some problems need to be studied
further. For example: What is the ideal number of counties to be put
under the administration of a city, which can suit the economic strength
and leadership ability of the city? How will the city's organizations be
improved so that they can suit leadership over the countryside? These
problems must be studied further so that the system of city administration
over counties can be perfected and can better promote development of the
modernization drive.
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AN IMPORTANT QUESTION IN ENSURING STEADY ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT--ON CONTROLLING
THE SCALE OF INVESTMENT AND RATIONAL USE OF CONSTRUCTION FUNDS
Beijing RED FLAG in Chinese No 3, 1 Feb 83 pp 18-21
[Article by Cai Ninglin [5591 1380 2651]]
[Text] I
In order to achieve the strategic objective formulated by the 12th CPC
Congress, we will need fairly sizable investment in fixed assets in the
future, both in the first decade for laying the foundation and in the
second decade of vigorous economic growth. Investment planned for in the
Sixth 5-Year Plan totaled 360 billion yuan, or over 70 billion yuan a year
on average. Effective control over and proper use of these funds, the
completion of key construction projects which center on energy and trans-
port according to schedule and the attainment of outstanding results in the
technical transformation of existing enterprises will contribute enormously
to augmenting our economic strength and pushing forward the modernization
program.
Practice over the past years shows that whether or not the scale of invest-
ment in fixed assets is commensurate with our national strength is a matter
of overall importance which will determine whether or not the national
economy can strike an overall balance and develop smoothly. Comrade Chen
Yun,pointed out: "When the scale of construction exceeds the state's
financial and material resources, it becomes adventurous and economic
chaos will appear. If the two suit each other, the economy will be stable."
Economically speaking, the several setbacks we suffered in our economic con-
struction since the founding of the PRC were all inseparably linked with
excessively large scales of investment and of capital construction.
Between 1953 and 1978 investment in fixed assets grew at an average yearly
rate of 8.3 percent, while state revenue and national income only grew by
7.2 percent and 6 percent respectively. Overextension in the scale of
investment will result in'too many projects being started, the excessive
extension of the scale'of construction,.the dispersal of work force, the
lengthening of the construction cycle and the lowering of returns. Out of
a total of over 500 billion yuan invested in capital construction between
1953 and 1978, about 1/4 was wasted due to duplication or had not been
able to function after being turned into fixed assets. Overextension in
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the scale of investment is bound to affect production, maintenance and the
people's well-being and lead to disproportions in the national economy. As
a result, there is no alternative but to reduce the scale of capital con-
struction and make economic readjustments. Experience shows that although
a drastic curtailment of capital construction in the wake of excessive
extension may only take a year or a few months, it will normally take 4 or
5 years to readjust its profound aftermath. We must not forget the serious
damage and tremendous waste which our national economy was made to suffer
on account of the overextension of the scale of construction. We must not
forget the high price we paid to heal this "swelling disease."
Why is it that our national economy has been able to develop with great
vitality since 1979? Why have we been able to achieve higher returns on our
investment in capital construction? An important reason is that we have
resolutely implemented the ideological line of seeking truth from facts and
the policy of readjusting the national economy formulated by the 3d Plenary
Session of the 11th CPC Central Committee, rectified "left" mistakes in
economic work and drastically curtailed capital construction. The bold and
resolute measures adopted by various departments and localities in readjust-
ing capital construction not only contributed enormously to balancing state
revenue and stabilizing the economy but created favorable conditions for the
readjustment of heavy industry, making it possible for heavy industry to
adjust its production goal and service orientation, stress varieties and
quality and spare resources to better serve the development of the produc-
tion of consumer goods and technical transformation. Without the curtail-
ment of capital construction and the readjustment of the investment orien-
tation some years ago, we would have been unable to change the serious
disproportions between accumulation and consumption and between the.pro-
duction of the means of production and the production of the means of
subsistence into basic harmony, and the national economy would have been
unable to develop as soundly as it does today.
However, we should see that signs of a drastic growth in the scale of
investment in fixed assets and of a headlong rush into new projects are
beginning to show. In 1982, the total volume of investment topped all
past records and came close to 80 billion yuan. In particular, investment
raised by the localities, departments and enterprises themselves and
investment arranged through bank loans have greatly exceeded the state plan
for 2 years running. Many places have embarked on quite a few projects not
included in the plan and duplicated the construction of many ordinary
processing industries and energy-consuming industries. This problem
deserves serious attention. As everyone knows, the scale of construction
depends not only on the availability of cash but, also on the degree.of
material guarantee and on how much surplus products can be spared for
construction after maintaining simple reproduction, suitably increasing
the supply of consumer goods and making the necessary deductions for com-
munity use. As historical experience shows, overextension often left an
opening for an excessively high rate of accumulation. Moreover, in a year
when construction was outstretched beyond the country's capability, supply
on the market would be strained that year or in the following year. If we
do not curb the present sharp increase in investment, when things come to a
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head, we will find our financial difficulties aggravated. This will further
strain the supply of building materials and sharpen the contradictions
between general and key projects and between projects included in the state
plan and those that are not, lower the returns on investment. If we do
this, we are repeating the past mistake of creating disproportions by over-
extending the scale of capital construction. This means that we will
probably lose what we have gained in the past few years after exerting such
great efforts to readjust the national economy.
Of course, in emphasizing the need to control the scale of investment, what
we mean is that we must keep it at a reasonable level that corresponds with
our national strength. It is obviously wrong to think only of the present
and advocate unrestricted curtailment without considering long-term needs.
Social economic development objectively requires us to maintain a given,
reasonable scale of investment in fixed assets. If the scale of construc-
tion is too small, we will not be able to fully utilize the latent poten-
tial of the national economy to promote expanded reproduction. This will
affect projection and consumption and create another form of disproportion,
that is, the sagging type. What we mean by "acting according to our
capability" should include the meaning of "doing our best." In other words,
if something can be done with hard work, we should work hard on it.
We are still in a period of economic readjustment now. Under this excel-
lent situation, we must not lower our guard and fail to see the budding
signs of the extension of the scale of investment. Whether, or not we can
keep the scale of investment at a reasonable level during the Sixth 5-Year
Plan, drastically curtail the blind. construction of projects aimed at
increasing the capability of ordinary processing industries, embark on key
projects according to plan and achieve success in the technical transforma-
tion of key enterprises has an important bearing on the success or failure
of the Sixth 5-Year Plan and on whether we can maintain a sustained growth
of the national economy. Therefore, it is necessary to strictly control
the scale of investment in fixed assets and the development of ordinary
processing industries.
Proceeding from past practices and present conditions, if we want to keep
the scale of investment and the launching of new projects under control,
properly manage and use investment in fixed assets and achieve better
economic results, we must take effective measures to correct the guiding
ideology, improve planned management, readjust the economic policies and
do a good job of organizational reform. In addition, we must properly
handle the following relationships well.
First, we must properly handle the relationship between technical transfor-
mation and the launching of new projects. Our efforts to quadruple the
gross annual value of industrial and agricultural production must be based
on technological progress. The important thing is to give scope to the
potential of existing enterprises, not to build new ones. In the past when
we were laying the foundation for industrialization, it was necessary for us
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to rely mainly on new enterprises to.carry out expanded reproduction.
Today, we must switch to expanded reproduction by intension with technical
transformation as the main content. If we stick to the old practice of
developing industry simply by embarking on capital construction projects
and building new enterprises and continue to "reproduce 'antiques"' in
construction, our hope of quadrupling the industrial and agricultural output
value can never be fulfilled. The only way to attain this goal is to
firmly grasp technological improvement, use new equipment, materials, tech-
niques and technologies to transform existing enterprises and build new
ones, closely combine technical transformation with the tackling of
technology-related problems, the development of new technology, the
importing of advanced technology and the popularization and transfer of
technology and shift production and construction onto the basis of advanced
technology. Let us do some calculations here: In the 33 years since the
founding of the PRC, we invested 1,000 billion yuan in fixed assets only to
produce an output value of some 700 billion yuan a year. According to the
old practice, if we want to quadruple the gross annual value of industrial
and agricultural production to 2,800 billion in the next 20 years, we must
also quadruple investment. This means that we must increase investment by
3,000 billion yuan in the next 20 years, or 150 billion yuan each year on
average. This is impossible whether we look at it in terms of the accumu-
lation of funds or in terms of material guarantee. Only by resolutely
following the new approach which centers on achieving better economic
results and relies on. technological progress can we attain the great objec-
tive of quadrupling the gross annual value of industrial and agricultural
production with a scale of investment that suits our national strength.
Second, we must properly handle the first 10 years and the second 10 years.
The 12th CPC Congress clearly stipulated that the first decade is mainly
for laying a solid foundation, accumulating strength and creating the
necessary conditions and that the second decade will usher in a new period
of vigorous economic development. We must resolutely act in accordance
with the strategic arrangement of the 12th CPC Congress, work in a down-to-
earth manner, strive hard and act according to our capability. We must not
postpone to the second decade what must be completed in the first, neither
should we force ourselves to undertake in the first decade tasks which are
to be completed in the second. In the first 10 years, we must dedicate
ourselves to working really hard at laying the foundation, conscientiously
carry out readjustment, reform, restructuring and improvement and properly
handle relations between various aspects. If we have done well in the
construction of key energy and transport projects and in the technical
transformation of enterprises, in agriculture, education and science, in
carrying out preparatory work for the construction of a number of important
projects,.in mapping out plans for development and in carrying out the work
of management, foundation-laying, economic legislation and organization,
we will be able to achieve better results and proceed at a higher speed in
the second decade. If we ignore the objective conditions, blindly extend
the scale of construction and vie with each other for investment to launch
new projects or enlarge the existing setups, we will have a "relapse" and
repeat the past mistake of accomplishing nothing because we were overeager
for quick results. This should be avoided.
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Third, we must properly handle the relationship between concentration and
decentralization, appropriately concentrate the decisionmaking power in
investment and strictly control the overall scale of investment. In recent
years, there were quite a lot of cases when policy decisions were made by
multiple channels and new projects were launched at random. Some localities
were "unable to ensure the completion of projects included in the plan and
control projects outside the plan." Items in short supply were not
replenished and those in excessive supply were not kept under control.
Practice shows that if the power of making decisions in matters of macro-
economics is divided, the function of overall balancing is carved up and
there is disharmony between various economic levers, blind investment and
duplications will be inevitable.
As our long years of experience shows, it is necessary to suitably empha-
size the concentration of power when it comes to deciding on investment in
fixed assets and on capital construction in particular. We should not dele-
gate power freely and should not be too flexible. Bearing the interests of
the whole country in mind, we must strictly control the overall scale of
national investment and the scale of investment for different provinces,
municipalities and prefectures and for different departments as stipulated
in the state plan. This includes investments covered by the state budget,
self-collected funds and bank loans, capital construction financed by
foreign investment and special allocations and measures for renovation and
transformation.
Under the guidance of the unified plan, we must pay attention to fully
bringing into play the enthusiasm of the enterprises in speeding up tech-
nical transformation and invigorate the economy. In examining, approving
and administering plans of investment, we must exercise strict control and
at the same time give positive guidance in order to bring the initiative
of different levels into full play. Each case should be dealt with on its
own merits according to the principles of giving a certain degree of free-
dom within the framework of the plan and of division of power within the
framework of centralized control. We should attach equal importance to
strictness and flexibility and combine control with guidance. Sometimes
things got out of hand because we were not strict enough. Sometimes we did
not act flexibly when we should be more flexible and we exercised control
without giving any guidance. These problems must be solved. We must
strictly control construction which requires the unified balancing of state
revenue and credit and appropriately relax regulations for those items
which do not require the state's unified balancing. Land construction,
particularly new projects, must be strictly controlled. With regard to
technical transformation and the replacement of equipment, we must respect
the decisionmaking power of the enterprises and give them the necessary
flexibility on the premise of unified planning and unified policy in order
to fully arouse their enthusiasm in seeking technological progress. In
short, China is a vast country and it is impossible to exercise centralized
control in everything. We cannot use the same mode and method and seek
uniformity in everything. In planning investment in fixed assets, we must
also combine mandatory planning with guidance planning and give separate
guidance. We must ensure the planned and unified nature of the national
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economy while giving various departments, localities and enterprises the
necessary mobility and flexibility.
Fourth, we must properly handle the relationship between budgetary invest-
ment and funds collected through various channels and proceed to control
the overall scale of investment by balancing funds and resources in the
whole society. At present, extrabudgetary funds amount to approximately
60 percent of budgetary funds and a lot of credit funds are in circula-
tion. Quotas for rolled steel, timber and cement directly allocated by
the state only make up 2/3, 1/2 and 1/3 respectively of their planned out-
put. With regard to the huge quantity of funds and resources in the hands
of different localities and enterprises, we must work out unified financial
(credit) plans and unified materials plans to exercise the necessary super-
vision and ensure their proper use. In this way, the unified balance and
rational distribution of funds and resources in the whole society can be
guaranteed. On this basis,,we should also work out annual plans for
investment in fixed assets and fix the scale and usage orientation of
annual investment in a reasonable way. In this way, we can incorporate
all funds, resources and investment activities in the whole society into
the unified plan and make them play a positive role within the framework
of the requirements of the plan "like a bird flying within a cage," thus
avoiding lack of planning.
Fifth, we must properly handle the relationships between key and ordinary
projects, between the whole and the part and between the central and local
authorities. Comrade Chen Yun pointed out: "Owing to objective limita-
tions, when we make arrangements for construction projects and allocate
materials and equipment, there may be a contradiction between satisfying
the needs of the whole country and satisfying the needs of a locality.
The principle for resolving this contradiction is to subordinate the local
situation to the overall situation and subordinate the part to the whole.
Various provinces and autonomous regions should take the whole situation
into account and correctly formulate tasks according to their characteris-
tics to meet the needs of national and local industrial construction."
"Within a province or autonomous region, it is impractical to try to
establish an independent industrial system which is comprehensive, all-
embracing and self-containing." "If we do not take into consideration the
available resources and economic characteristics of the locality. and,
instead of making a positive effort to do what is possible and is urgently
needed by the whole country, attempt to do something which is beyond us,
it is not economically justifiable." These remarks by Comrade Chen Yun
back in 1959 are still of important practical significance. In deciding
what is the suitable scale of investment for a locality, what should be
designated as key projects, what should be designated as ordinary projects,
what should be done first, what should be done later and what should be
slashed, it is necessary to proceed from the interests of the whole, bear
in mind the economic strong points, weak points and characteristics of the
locality, look ahead and behind and make overall arrangements. In this
regard, we must pay special attention to two points. First, it is necessary
to correctly orientate the usage of local investment. It is impermissible
to weaken or hinder the construction of key energy and transport projects
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and the technical transformation of backbone enterprises because of
momentary needs in the locality or because it is "profitable" or "worth-
while" for some. Second, in arranging investment activities within its
own jurisdiction, a locality or enterprise must try to strike a balance
at all levels while subordinating itself to the overall balance of the
whole country.
Sixth, we must properly handle the relationship between support and super-
vision, give the banks greater responsibility, give full scope to the role
of the bank in examining, approving and supervising investment activities.
The economic responsibility for bank loans and their economic results in
society should be shared by the two parties concerned, the enterprises
and the bank. At present, some localities and enterprises hold back profits
and taxes to repay loans and regard bank loans as a new means for "everyone
to eat from the same big pot." This tendency must be stopped. The banks
must actively support the enterprises in their construction and transforma-
tion work. At the same time, they must actively take part in feasibility
study and in examining economic results and strengthen investigation and
supervision in the process of implementing construction plans and recover-
ing investment. The banks should take economic sanctions against fraud and
acts of evading bank supervision and extending the scale of construction
without authorization. Malfeasance must be looked into and dealt with
according to law.
Seventh, we must properly handle the relationship between the speed of
construction and following the procedure of capital construction and do a
good job of making policy decisions for important projects and carrying out
preparatory work for their construction. The procedure of capital con-
struction refers to the order of priority for all work in the entire
process of capital construction. In order to achieve better economic
results in capital construction, we must respect objective laws and follow
the proper procedure of capital construction. We must not repeat the past
mistake of carrying out prospecting, designing and construction at the
same time. If we start a project hastily without following the procedure,
we may appear to be moving fast, but actually we are not. This way of
doing things not only will lengthen the construction time but will cause
serious waste of manpower and material resources.
The key to keeping to the procedure of construction is to do preparatory
work well. As shown by the experience of other countries, preparatory work
for important projects should take up 1/2 or 1/3 of the entire construction
time (roughly 1.5 to 3 years). Appropriately lengthening the construction
progress from deliberation and feasibility studies, prospecting and design-
ing to making comparison, selection and decision is the prerequisite for
strengthening the scientific approach of capital construction, avoiding
blind acts and achieving optimum results. Many localities and departments
tend to focus their attention on actual construction work and overlook the
importance of preparatory work. They are reluctant to make an effort in
doing preparatory work. This way of doing things must be stopped. We
must attach equal importance to the feasibility studies and actual con-
struction of a project. We must finish the work of prospecting and
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verifying important programs and designing projects scheduled for the
Seventh 5-Year Plan and Eighth 5-Year Plan within the period of the Sixth
5-Year Plan so that we can choose the best plan which is technologically
advanced and economically reasonable and which promises good overall
results. When conditions are ripe, we can proceed to execute this plan.
Whether or not we can create a new situation in capital construction which
is characterized by small investment, short construction time and good
results and whether or not we can smoothly attain the objective of usher-
ing in a period of vigorous economic development depends to a large extent
on the depth, breadth and precision of our preparatory work for these
important backbone projects.
CSO: 4004/25
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ON THE CURRENT ECONOMIC CRISIS OF THE CAPITALIST WORLD
Beijing RED FLAG in Chinese No 3, 1 Feb 83 pp 22-26
[Article by Wu Jixian [0702 4764 0341]]
[Text] In the past 3 years, Western capitalist countries have been experi-
encing the worst economic crisis of the postwar period. The crisis has
also dealt a heavy blow on Third World countries. In striking contrast,
our country's economy is steadily developing in a very healthy manner and
the general situation is becoming better and better.
So far as the principal Western capitalist countries are concerned, the
length of time this crisis has lasted, the vast extent of its ill effects,
and the complex nature of the problems it has evolved were all unique
features which these countries had never experienced since the time of the
great economic catastrophe of the 1930's.
In 25 developed capitalist countries of the world, this crisis has brought
in its wake a large contingent of the unemployed numbering over 32 million
people, and the contingent is still steadily increasing in size. Accord-
ing to official figures of the United States, the country's unemployment
rate steadily rose from 7 percent in July 1981 to 10.8 percent in
November 1982 and the number of unemployed has reached 12 million, the
highest rate in the last 42 years. In 1982, the number of unemployed in
10 countries of the European Economic Community already exceeded 11 million
and the unemployment rate exceeded 10 percent. As a matter of fact,
unemployment has caused many-faceted sufferings to people of the various
Western countries. In the initial period of an economic crisis, unemployed
workers may perhaps still be able to find certain part-time jobs, but as
the crisis drags on, the ranks of the unemployed will increase in size and
the chances of finding part-time jobs will become increasingly more diffi-
cult. The life of unemployed workers will thus become harder with each
passing day. Unable to pay the rent for their houses, many people will be
driven from their homes and become vagabonds on the streets. Unemployment
brings to women great sufferings in particular. When a family loses its
means of subsistence, various kinds of disasters will occur, such as
children not being able to go to school and even the eventual breakup of
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the family. Among the ranks of the unemployed, young people constitute a
great proportion. This confirms the general phenomenon that when "one is
out of school one is out of work." Moreover, the continuous expansion of
the ranks of the unemployed weakens the bargaining power of the trade
unions in their dealings with the employers. Unemployment causes social
disorder, drunkenness, drug taking, prostitution, an increase in the num-
ber of people suffering from mental illnesses and aggravation of the
already existing serious social problems. The longer unemployment lasts,
the harder will be the sufferings of the people.
One indication of the severity of the crisis is the steady decline in
production. As of December 1982, production in the United States has
intermittently declined, or stagnated, for a period of 45 months, while
in countries of the European Economic Community, production had also
intermittently fallen over 35 months. In November 1982, the industrial
production index of the United States fell by 12 percent when compared
with July 1981. According to a report of the U.S. Federal Reserve Board,
in October 1982 the average operation rate of American industrial plants
was only 68.4 percent. It was the lowest on record since 1948. Among the
industries, the automobile industry has fared worst in the United States.
In January 1982, its operation rate was only 43.7 percent. In October of
the same year, steel production in the United States was only 40 percent
of the full production capacity of its steel industry. In certain other
countries, such as Canada and Britain, the extent of the fall in industrial
production was worse than that in the United States.
Records of bankruptcies and closures of plants and enterprises also serve
as barometers of the severity of an economic crisis. From January to
November 1982, as many as 22,587 bankruptcies and closures of enterprises
were reported in the United States. Compared with the 15,243 bankruptcies
and closures during the corresponding period in 1981, this was an increase
of 48 percent. In 1982, some 40 banks closed in the United States. In
Europe, the number of failures of enterprises in West Germany was over
12,700 cases in 1982. This was the highest record in the postwar period.
The failure of an Italian bank, the (An-bu-lu-xi-ya) [1344 1580 7627 6007
0068] Bank, caused its board chairman to commit suicide.
The economic crisis has intensified the contradictions between the-developed
capitalist countries. In the field of finance, beginning from October 1979,
the U.S. Federal Reserve Board has resorted to a policy of high interest
rates to control the increase in the money supply volume as a measure to
curb the daily increasing inflation. Meanwhile, during the period of the
crisis, the fiscal position of the United States continued to deteriorate
and the fiscal deficit grew each year at a rapid pace. In order to arrest
the aggravating effects of the fiscal deficits on inflation, the United
States Government resorted to the flotation of government bonds and
treasury notes to absorb private capital as a means of mending the budget
deficits. This caused the market interest rate in the United States to
rise further while, in comparison, interest rates in West European coun-
tries were much lower. It produced the effect of attracting to the United
States an enormous amount of short-term funds from the financial markets
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of Western European countries and a rise in interest rates in the latter
markets. Simultaneously, the value of the U.S. dollar rose in the
foreign exchange markets while, in contrast, the currencies of the West
European countries were more or less devalued. These consequences all
had depressing effects on the economies of the West European countries and
the latter could not but feel strongly dissatisfied with the United States.
Subsequently, following the slowing of inflation in the United States,
interest rates in the American money market began to fall. This served to
ease somewhat the contradictions between West Europe and the United States.
In foreign trade, due to the devastating effects of the economic crisis,
international trade has experienced a sustained period of depression for
the first time since the end of World War II. In 1982 alone, compared with
1981, the gross value of international trade registered a decline of 5.per-
cent. This was a striking contrast to the average annual growth rate of
5.5 percent in international trade during the 1970's. In lieu of expanding,
domestic markets in all the developed capitalist countries suffered from a
continuous state of increasing depression. The United States, West Germany
and Japan were all involved in violent struggles with each other for
markets. While the crisis was still raging, the economies of these three
countries were all in a state of depression. As a result, they all devoted
their utmost efforts to expand their exports and to restrict their imports,
endeavoring in this way to develop and protect production in their own
countries. In normal times, reciprocal trade between these three countries
had been rather large, but measures to restrict import trade necessarily
precipitated many contradictions between them. In the past year alone,
violent disputes often erupted between the United States and the EEC
countries on trade matters such as those concerning steel and agricultural
products. Between the United States and Japan and between the EEC countries
and Japan there were frequent disputes concerning certain trade problems.
Both of the former countries were pressing Japan to open up its markets
and to adopt a policy of "taking the initiative to restrict" exports. The
sharp conflicts between Western nations on problems of trade expansion
were even more outstandingly exhibited in the discussions at the meeting
of ministers on the General Agreement on Customs Duties and Trade convened
in the latter part of November 1982 in Geneva. Eventually, the meeting
adopted an empty declaration opposing protectionism and restating the
principle of free trade. But even in this declaration, the EEC countries
continued to make many reservations.
Recent indications seem to show that in the major Western capitalist coun-
tries, particularly the United States, their economies may possibly begin
to recover or improve sometime this year or next year, though very likely
to a very small extent, as they are also weak and unstable. This is
because of the following factors: In the principal capitalist countries,
the crisis developed when the countries were in a state of "stagflation"
(that is to say, a combination of production stagnation and inflation);
the basic industrie? hAve not yet shown any sign of a recovery since the
last crisis; shrinking internal markets have caused extremely violent
contradictions between production and the markets; persistence of a finan-
cial crisis growing out of domestic and international credit inflation;
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and inability of governments of the Western countries to tackle the problem
of "stagflation." All these factors may be pointed to, insofar as the
major capitalist countries are concerned, as forces obstructing the growth
of production and trade and making it impossible for the countries con-
cerned to find a solution.
In a word, this time the serious economic crisis affecting the major capi-
talist countries may be traced to the unconquerable contradictions inherent
in the capitalist system. The world economic crisis this time not only has
aggravated the class conflicts within the developed capitalist countries
themselves but also has further intensified the contradictions between the
principal capitalist countries.
In order to prevent an aggravation of this crisis, the principal capitalist
countries have intensified their efforts to use their monopoly control of
the world's economy to shift the ugly burden of the crisis to Third World
countries and thus to deal a heavy blow on the economies of the latter
countries.
Making use of the trade channels is an important measure resorted to by
the Western developed countries to shift the burden of the crisis. Accord-
ing to the price index of primary grade commodities compiled by the World
Bank, a decline of 14.5 percent was found in 1981 when compared with 1980,
and a further decline of 8 percent was seen for the months of January to
June, inclusive, in 1982. This index comprises commodities such as grain,
other agricultural products, metals and nonferrous mining products. These
three categories of commodities all have constituted the important export
commodities of the Third World countries. Due to the fall in the prices
of these commodities in the world market, while the prices of the industrial
products, machinery and equipment and other commodities exported by the
developed capitalist countries failed to drop concurrently, the trading
conditions (comparison between the export and import prices) of Third World
countries have thus become worse in the past few years. According to
statistics compiled by the World Bank, in the developing countries which
import crude oil for consumption, their trading conditions declined by
1 percent in 1979 when compared with the preceding year, further declined
by 11 percent in 1980 when compared with 1979, and dropped in 1982 by 2
percent. In addition, due to the adverse effects of the economic crisis,
the capacity of markets of the developed countries to absorb export com-
modities from Third World countries was reduced in size but, owing to the
difficult sales conditions within their own countries, the developed capi-
talist countries have stepped up their exports to Third World countries.
As a result, despite a drop of 1.6 percent in the gross value of the world's
export trade in 1981 when compared with 1980, accompanied by a drop of 2.1
percent in the value of exports of the developing countries relative to the
gross value of the world's export trade, an increase was made in the gross
value of exports of the developed capitalist countries to the developing
and non-oil-exporting countries. The result was that in 1981 the adverse
balance of trade between the developing countries and the developed
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capitalist countries increased to $45 billion, from $33.8 billion in 1980.
At the same time, on the part of the developed capitalist countries, under
the conditions of the economic crisis being steadily intensified and the
worsening of the internal markets, they have stepped up their protectionist
policy. They set up over 1,000 different types for customs duties and non-
customs-duty barriers, restricting entry into their markets of manufactured
products, particularly textiles and garments, of Third World countries.
This dealt a serious blow to certain Third World countries in the export
of their manufactured products, and, as a result, in the Third World coun-
tries many enterprises could not continue their production and had to close.
Measures of this kind adopted by the developed countries placed the
economies of Third World countries in a more precarious state than before.
According to statistics, the growth rate in the GNP of Third World coun-
tries dropped from 5 percent in 1980 to only 2.2 percent in 1981.
Principal Western capitalist countries also resorted to the use of inter-
national credit inflation as a measure to intensify their plunder of the
Third World countries. Since 1973, the flow of surplus funds each year
from the Western countries to the Third World amounted to about $40-$50
billion and in 1981, to $100 billion. This enormous volume of official
and private loans played a definite role in promoting the development of
the economies of Third World countries. They constituted the principal
sources of funds which the Third World countries have depended upon to meet
payments due on an adverse balance of trade and on international payments
deficits of an ordinary nature. However, the ever-increasing debt burden
has practically stifled many Third World countries. According to the 1982
report of the World Bank, in the 4 years from 1978 to 1981, the unfavorable
balance of payments of an ordinary nature of the Third World countries
totaled some $269 billion, while the amount of funds obtained from external
"official" sources (governments of various countries and international
organs) amounted to $114.7 billion and funds from private direct invest-
ments and middle and short-term loans amounted to $197 billion. By the
end of 1981, the total external debt burden of Third World countries had
already expanded to $530 billion, and, by the end of 1982, to $626 billion.
Many of the countries have.found it increasingly difficult to repay their
daily increasing external indebtedness and were obliged to ask for an
extension of the repayment period. For example, in the case of countries
like the Philippines, Zaire, Colombia and Venezuela, their international
payments due on principal and the interest of their external loans amounted
to 90-100 percent of their total receipts from their export trade, while
for countries like Chile, Peru, Ecuador and Mexico, their international
payments due on principal and interest of their external loans amounted to
110-130 percent of their total receipts from exports. In other words, the
whole of their receipts from exports was not sufficient to repay their
indebtedness.
In recent years, due to the entire capitalist world being entrapped in a
serious economic crisis, the major oil-consuming countries have cut back
on their oil consumption and, as a result, the oil export receipts of the
oil-exporting countries have greatly diminished. Compared with the preced-
ing year, the oil-exporting countries exported 18.4 percent less oil in
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1980 and 17.1 percent less in 1981. According to information from the
United Nations, a similar decline of 20'percent was made in 1982. The
Western countries, making full use of the situation of supply exceeding
demand in the world crude oil market and fully wielding their economic
power, exerted an enormous pressure on the oil market, such as dumping
their oil stock in the oil market or forcing down oil prices. They thus
brought about a drastic drop in oil prices and caused great harm to the
economic interests of the oil-exporting countries. In 1980, the latter
countries had a favorable balance of some $115 billion in their ordinary
receipts and expenditures. In 1981, the balance dropped to $71 billion
and decreased further in 1982.
By thus shifting the ugly burden of the economic crisis, the developed
capitalist countries have seriously harmed the economic development of the
Third World countries. As a result, the economic growth rate of the great
majority of these countries registered a downward trend. In the Latin
American region, the growth rate in 1981 was only 1 percent and in 1982
declined by nearly 1 percent. In countries of the Eastern alliance called
by the West the "world's senior economic students," their economies were
likewise in a depressed state in the past 2 years. The economies of the
oil-exporting countries registered a fall of 2.8 percent in 1980 and a
decline of 4.5 percent in 1981. African countries were confronted with
the worst economic difficulties since their independence. Over 20 percent
of their foreign exchange earnings must be spent on importing grain. The
international balance of payments of many of the developing countries has
drastically worsened and their foreign exchange reserves have been
virtually exhausted. In the vast number of developing countries, the
prices of consumer goods have risen and the number of unemployed youths
is nearly 300 million.
The hardships which the Third World countries have suffered because of the
world economic crisis have generally spread to various corners of the
social and economic life of the populace.. They have impoverished the
people's standard of living and aggravated social and political disorder in
certain countries. Third World countries have indeed learned a bitter
lesson from the international economic situation. Many of them are cur-
rently engaged in readjusting and reorienting their policies. They have
taken as their primary tasks augmentation of their power of regeneration
and self-reliance and realization of economic independence. They have
in general formulated social and economic development strategies conforming
to the conditions of their own countries. These vast Third World countries
have generally favored organizing their own alliances, taking the road of
collective regeneration and gradually emancipating themselves from economic
reliance on the developed countries. They have strongly demanded the revi-
sion and reform of the existing unjust and irrational international old
economic order, establishment of an international economic new order,
strengthening of their position in the world's economy, and improvement of
their foreign trade conditions. Those efforts made by and struggles
engaged in by the Third World countries will no doubt be helpful in over-
coming the adverse effects inflicted on them by the developed capitalist
countries shifting the burden of the economic crisis. They will enable
them to better protect their own interests.
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Despite the spread of the ill-effects of the world economic crisis to
various regions of the world, the economy in our country has been steadily
improving year after year. This has attracted the attention of the whole
world.
Since the 3d Plenary Session of the 11th CPC Central Committee and the
implementation in our country of the policy of readjustment, restructuring,
reorganization and upgrading, the economic situation has become better
year after year. In 1979, the gross output value of agriculture (computed
according to unchanged prices; the same for the other figures below) of the
whole country increased by 8.6 percent over the preceding year; in 1980 and
1981, the increases over the preceding years were 2.7 percent and 5.7 per-
cent, respectively; and an increase of over 5 percent has been estimated
for 1982. Output of principal agricultural products such as grain, cotton,
edible oils and sugar has also increased on a large scale. In 1979, the
national gross output value of industry increased by 8.5 percent over the
preceding year; the increase in 1980 was 8.7 percent; in 1981, due to the
readjustment of the industrial structure, the increase was 4.1 percent; and
in 1982, the increase was 7.4 percent. The country's foreign trade has also
progressed rather rapidly. In 1981, the gross values of exports and
imports, after deduction of factors caused by price changes, increased by
18 percent and 5 percent, repectively, over the preceding year. As a
result of the rapid increase in the volume of exports and in foreign
exchange earnings, in the past 2 years our foreign exchange reserves have
also increased. In 1981 and 1982, our national finance may be said to have
basically achieved a balance in receipts and expenditures. Over the past 3
years, the country has provided new jobs to some 26 million people. Follow-
ing the development of industrial and agricultural production, supplies to
the markets have noticeably improved and the people's standard of living has
likewise improved. Savings deposits of residents in urban and rural areas
have rapidly increased. By the end of July 1982, they amounted to 60
billion yuan.
In recent years, our successes in economic development have won the
approval of people of the whole world. Aiichiro Fujiyama, president of
Japan's Federation for Promotion of International Trade, said: In a situa-
tion in which the world depression is continuously developing, China's
economic development has surpassed the original target and is still
progressing. This is indeed worthy of people's attention. West Germany's
former chancellor, Schmidt, talking about the current disordered state of
the world economic situation, commented: At present, the situation in many
countries is worse than in 1931. The economic crisis has spread to various
countries of the world. Both the developed countries and the developing
countries are unable to shake off the depression. Japanese newspapers,
quoting the "Overseas Economic Reports" of the Japanese Economic Planning
Bureau, stated: "In the midst of the world's depression, China's economy
has achieved outstanding accomplishments." In France, an article in the
WORLD REVIEW pointed out: In 1982, the economic recovery which the West
had long been expecting did not appear. On the contrary, the crisis has
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expanded and greatly developed in large parts of the world. While
European countries are experiencing serious economic difficulties, China,
through the adoption of a comparatively flexible policy, has managed to
achieve great accomplishments in the field of agriculture and its indus-
trial departments have become increasingly vigorous and active. The
AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE, in a telegram reporting on an estimate made by
international financial circles on the growth of China's reserves of gold
and foreign currencies, said that in the people's opinion China is one of
the few developing countries which has not felt the ill-effects of the
crisis and the shortage of circulation funds seen in Third World countries.
This striking contrast has confronted us with a problem which is well worth
deep thinking: How is it that while certain socialist countries and the
vast number of the Third World countries cannot escape from the influences
of the world economic crisis, China, being both a socialist country and a
country of the Third World, has managed to steer its economy triumphantly
through the violent storms of the world's economic crisis to achieve growth
and development? First, this must be attributed to the superiority of the
socialist system of our country. It is because the purpose of socialist
production is, basically speaking, to fulfill the continuously increasing
demands in people's material life and spiritual life. The contradiction,
in which production is to be expanded on the one hand, while there is
insufficient demand backed by the ability to pay on the other, does not
exist. Hence, there does not exist any basis for the growth of the serious
state of overproduction customarily found in Western capitalist countries.
Nevertheless, it must conceded that replacing the capitalist private owner-
ship system with the socialist public ownership system only provides the
possibility of avoiding the effects of the economic crisis. But what is
possible may not necessarily be realized. Thus, a situation may develop
in which serious errors in policy may lead to the eruption of an economic
crisis within a country or put. it in difficulties, or prevent it from
escaping the effects of the world's economic crisis. It is clear that in
order to realize the possibility of avoiding the effects of an economic
crisis and thus truly display the superiority of the socialist system, it
is still necessary to adopt and carry out correct guidelines and policies
which conform to the national conditions of our country. Our country's
healthy economic development may be traced precisely to the formulation and
implementation, since the 3d Plenary Session of the 11th CPC Central Com-
mittee, of correct lines, principles and policies which conform to the
national conditions of our country. The basic points may be summarized as
follows: Based on the demand for the development of the productive force,
necessary readjustment and reform of production relations and the "upper-
level" structure have been made; continuous improvement of the control
over the national economy has been carried out; firm insistence has been
maintained on implementation of the policy calling for independence,
autonomy, self-reliance and regeneration, stressing construction and food
for everybody, and putting planned economy first and regulation by market
mechanism supplementary; the various relationships between agriculture,
light industry and heavy industry, between accumulation and consumption,
and between the central government and the localities have been handled
correctly; the interests of the state,'the collective and the individual
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have been cemented; the enthusiasm and incentive of the various sectors
have been fully aroused; and the benign cycle of the national economy and
its healthy development have been maintained and safeguarded. Precisely
because of all these factors, our socialist system has evolved a new and
strong vitality and the national economy has achieved an outstanding and
stabilized development. It should also be realized that our country
possesses the enormous force of regeneration and self-reliance and not only
has an independent and relatively integrated and complete industrial system
but also a vast domestic market of 1 billion people. It is true that our
per capita purchasing power is not large but, taken as a whole, potentials
are enormous and can resist partial difficulties occasioned by outside
factors. In particular, our country has adopted the open-door policy
built on a firm foundation of independence, autonomy, regneration and self-
reliance. On the one hand, we can make full use of international resources
and international markets while, on the other, we hold in our own hands the
initiative in all international economic intercourse and relations. Non-
dependence on foreign resources or foreign markets can further enable us to
guard against any serious influence from capitalist economic crisis or other
forms of economic disorder. .
The current world economic situation provides the text for a very fruitful
lesson. It clearly demonstrates that our socialist system, our planned
economy, and the series of guidelines and policies adopted since the 3d
Plenary Session of the 11th CPC Central Committee have withstood the tests
of the turbulent world economic situation. In the midst of an all-round
depression in the capitalist world, our socialist economy has blossomed.
This fact alone has greatly stimulated-our sense of dignity and pride.
We have full confidence in the lustrous prospects of our economic develop-
ment and the bright future of the socialist modernization program. In
order to strive for this future, let us all devote arduous efforts and make
even greater contributions.
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PAY SPECIAL ATTENTION TO THE INITIATIVE OF THE MASSES IN HISTORY
Beijing RED FLAG in Chinese No 3, 1 Feb 83 pp 27-30
[Article by He Wei [0419 0787]]
[Text] In one of his letters, Marx highly praised the 1871 uprising of the
Paris Commune: "What elasticity, what historical initiative, what a
capacity for sacrifice in these Parisians!" ("Selected Works of Marx and
Engels," Vol 4, p 392) Lenin pointed out: "Marx valued. most the historical
initiative of the masses." ("Selected Works of Lenin," Vol 1, p 688) It is
unquestionable that respecting the initiative of the masses should become a
basic standpoint of all our work in the building of socialist moderniza-
tion.
Historical activities are the cause of the masses. Although the slave
owner, landlord and bourgeois classes did make glorious achievements in
the slave, feudal and capitalist societies, in the final analysis, it is
the slaves, peasants and workers who are the creators of history. As the
initial stage of communism, socialism has ushered in a great epoch that the
masses have, under the leadership of the Communist Party, become masters of
the country for the first time. The reason why socialism is invincible and
has unlimited vitality is that it is a brand-new society built up for the
first time by thousands upon thousands of laborers, which have managed and
solved by themselves all kinds of difficult problems in the course of
progress, and not by a minority of people. Only when the majority of
people, that is, the majority of workers, peasants and intellectuals, have
manifested their independent creative spirit, and their full consciousness
and responsibility, can the cause of socialism rapidly advance forward and
form a mighty historical current of mass character with more and more
inhabitants converging. When all members of society have become common
conscious masters of history, due to the development of social productive
force and the heightening of communist consciousness, the gate of the
higher stage of communism will then be widely opened. As the masses become
masters of society, the law of nature and social development will also
increasingly be realized and mastered. The historical initiative of
millions of masses is the principal guarantee for effecting the profound
social change and constantly increasing labor productivity. As Lenin
pointed out: "In the final analysis, the reason why our revolution can
surpass all other revolutions is that we have, through the Soviet political
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power, mobilized millions of people, who were indifferent to state con-
struction in the past, to actively participate in our construction."
("Selected Works of Lenin," Vol 4, p 383) It was precisely on such sig-
nificance that Lenin regarded the vigorous creativity of the masses as the
basic factor of the new society.
In the long term of revolutionary struggles, our party has established pro-
found feelings and close ties with the people of all nationalities of China,
and systematically applied the principle of Marxism on the masses as
creators of history of all its activities, created and constantly enriched
the fine tradition, fine style and work method, which has the characteris-
tics of Chinese communists and the mass line. In between, the party solved
two basic problems which were related to each other. First, unswervingly
have faith in and rely on the initiative, enthusiasm and creativity of the
masses; and second, the labor masses, including the working class, cannot
spontaneously step on the road of socialism; therefore, tirelessly imbuing
the masses with Marxism and giving full play to the leading role of the
party politically, ideologically and organizationally has great significance
at all times. Without the party's fine tradition, fine style and work
method, which is of a mass line character, and without its integration with
all the specific work at various revolutionary periods, there would be no
victories in the new democratic revolution, socialist revolution and
socialist construction in China.
After our party became a political party in power, its position changed.
Objectively, this caused a possibility, that is, some comrades easily
overestimated their role. They did not pay attention to learning from the
masses or listening attentively to the voice of practice, which resulted
in commandism, favoritism and monopolizing all undertakings. The party led
the people solely to serve them and in accordance with the interests, wishes
and conscious level of the masses, and formulated and implemented the
correct line, principle and policies. The masses understood and accepted
party leadership not through administrative orders, but through actual facts
and their own personal experiences. By assuming leadership posts, it does
not mean that we have acquired the necessary knowledge and experience, what
is more, we cannot perform correct leadership by depending on the experi-
ence of leaders alone, as Stalin pointed out: "It is imperative to enrich
the experience of leaders with the experience of the masses of party mem-
bers, the working class, the labor masses and the so-called 'unimportant
persons."' ("Defects in Party Work and Measures for the Liquidation of
Trotskyites and Other Double-Dealers")
For years, the "leftist" guiding ideology, which prominently manifested
in the relations between the party and the masses, provided us with major
historical lessons. The principle, policies, measures and methods deter-
mined under the "leftist" guiding ideology did not originate from the
creation of the masses, nor are they based on consciousness. On the con-
trary, they were subjectively formulated by the best of our intentions and
under the conditions of being divorced from social practice and the masses,
and once they were formulated, we adopted the methods of issuing adminis-
trative orders, imposing uniformity and compelling its implementation
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irrespective of the specific time, locality and condition. As a result,
its scale was grand and spectacular in appearance, but in fact the
initiative spirit of the masses was suppressed and fettered, which caused
a loss to the party, state and people. We have sometimes forgotten the
general and classic thesis of Marxism, that is, "the proletariat can and
must emancipate itself." A hallmark distinguishing the Communist Party
from all other political parties is to have very close ties with the masses
of people. Only when we rely on the people, firmly believe that the crea-
tive power of the masses of people is infinite and become one with the
people can we become invincible. In order to maintain close ties with the
masses, we must proceed from the needs of the masses in accordance with
their wishes. Comrade Mao Zedong pointed out: "Unless the masses are
conscious and willing, any kind of work that requires their participation
will turn out to be a mere formality and will fail." ("Selected Works of
Mao Zedong," Vol 3, p 961) Comrade Liu Shaoqi also said: "In the struggle
for the emancipation of the people, a communist should act and can only act
as a leader or guide of the masses of the people. He should not and cannot
act as a 'hero,' taking the place of the people in the task of conquering
the world." ("Selected Works of Liu Shaoqi," Vol 1, p 352) When the masses
are not yet conscious, the party's work should be to enlighten the con-
sciousness of the masses; after the masses possess certain necessary
consciousness, our responsibility is to guide the masses in getting
organized and going into action, and further enlightening their conscious-
ness to a higher level. If, in addition to the above, we require "some
more," all mistakes may arise therefrom. This basic experience of our
party was also more or less forgotten by our comrades.
Since the downfall of the "gang of four," particularly since the 3d Plenary
Session of the 11th CPC Central Committee, one of the most distinct pro-
gressions made in the party's work was that we have, under the new histori-
cal condition, restored and carried forward the fine tradition and style
which is of a mass line character and genuinely adhered to the work method
of from the masses, to the masses. The party's line, principle and poli-
cies centrally reflected the interests, wishes and conscious level of the
people, of which the core is to fully respect the initiative spirit of the
masses and give full play to their consciousness and enthusiasm. There
were no stiff rules or rigid dogma for various concrete work here. Whether
it was the principle and policies issued by the CPC Central Committee, or
typical models and advanced experience that had universal significance, the
localities were not required to mechanically copy them, but to implement
and popularize them in integration with their practical conditions. The
correctness and wisdom of the party was shown in taking drastic measures
to end the method of "utilizing the masses in the mass movement," and
making efforts to raise the consciousness of the people, and helping them
to free themselves from all kinds of shackles, including the spiritual
shackles from the exploiting classes, the spiritual shackles formed by
making our understanding rigid and absolute and the spiritual shackles
caused by the "leftist" guiding ideology in our work, and to let the people
emancipate themselves. Our cause could have a brand-new aspect in a short
period of time because the 1 billion people had the correct direction and
were completely freed; as masters of the country they genuinely plunged into
the new creation and their wisdom and ability burst like a volcano.
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One of the most obvious examples is the destiny of the various forms of
the agricultural production responsibility system. Early in the difficult
economic period from 1959-1961, the peasants of some localities started to
practice the methods of responsible fields or other similar kinds. They
divided up the land and assigned cultivation to the peasants, so as to
ensure the supply of their minimum grain ration. In places where these
methods were practiced, rural life was rapidly stabilized and production
resumed. However, because the "leftist" mistake in the guiding ideology of
economic work was not thoroughly corrected, which, although these methods
aroused the attention of some leading comrades, they were not correctly
reflected in the party's policy decision, and properly summed up and
popularized, but were regarded as "capitalist" stuff and instead repudiated.
In order to solve the problem of agriculture, we carried out all kinds of
investigation, but we must admit that over a long time in the past we
failed to find an effective solution. When the peasants started to carry
out promising investigations, we again failed to sum up their useful crea-
tion in a timely manner and with a scientific attitude.
It is history, the masses and the positive and negative experiences of
practice that have educated us. The 3d Plenary Session of the 11th CPC
Central Committee put forward the following principle: Emancipate the
minds, seek truth from facts, unite as one and advance forward, and
emphasized that it was essential to fully arouse the production initiative
of the cadres and laborers, and above all, to arouse the socialist initia-
tive of the several million peasants. In line with this guiding ideology,
the session formulated a draft decision on the acceleration of agricul-
tural development and revised the draft regulations on the work of rural
people's communes for trial implementation. These two documents demanded
to ensure the decisionmaking rights of communes and brigades, conscien-
tiously practice the principle of distribution according to labor, estab-
lish a strict production responsibility system, fix a target for work to
work teams, determine payment according to output and reward the overful-
fillment of output. However, the system of fixing output quotas for each
household was forbidden. The 4th Plenary Session of the 11th CPC Central
Committee held in September 1979 formally adopted the decision on accel-
erating agricultural development, which was an advance made over the draft
of the previous year. The decision stipulated that, in remote mountainous
areas, because of the special needs of certain sideline occupations and
in places not conveniently located where there are only single households,
the system of fixing output quotas for each household could be practiced.
A precedent was then created. In September 1980, the CPC Central Committee
held a forum attended by the first secretaries of the CPC committees of
all provinces, municipalities and autonomous regions, which further summed
up the experiences of the year and put forward the task of regarding the
strengthening and perfecting of the production responsibility system as the
central link for consolidating the collective economy and developing
agricultural production. The forum affirmed the various forms of the
responsibility system, but allowed the system of fixing output quotas for
individual households and assigning land to each household in exchange for
fixed levies to be practiced only in the outlying mountainous areas and
poverty-stricken areas. The most convincing thing was the creative practice
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of the peasants. There was an Xiaogang production team, which was in a most
serious situation, in the poorest Liyuan commune of Fengyang County, Anhui
Province. In 1979, when the commune implemented the contract system in an
all-round way, this production team started to practice the system of fix-
ing output quotas for individual households. The year-end accounts indi-
cated that the total output of grain of the whole commune increased by 100
percent over the previous year, edible oil by 800 percent and net income
from agriculture and sideline occupation by 200 percent; whereas the
average grain output per head of Xiaogang production team was 200 jin more
than the average per head of the commune and edible oil was 200 percent
more than the commune average.
In the course of implementing the production responsibility system, there
was often such a situation: When some of our cadres were lagging behind
the situation for the time being, or even taking a doubtful and wait-and-
see attitude toward the party's agricultural economic policies, the
peasant masses were already advancing ahead of them. If a place makes
achievements in implementing the production responsibility system, news
of its experience will travel fast. The neighborhoods will first learn
of the experience and then spread it further. The peasant masses try to
overtake each other in friendly emulation and replenish and enrich the
experience already gained by integrating it with their own conditions.
When the leading organs went down to conduct investigation and after dis-
covering that it was indeed effective, they then popularized the system in
a much wider scale. Lenin said: "A fresh, vigorous and mighty movement
of the masses themselves is sweeping aside as worthless rubbish the arti-
ficial formulas hatched in government offices, and marches on and on."
("Collected Works of Lenin," Vol 18, p 518) It is precisely the influence
of the masses that changed the outdated ideas in the minds of some of our
comrades and also gradually opened up a new phase in a number of places.
The new creations of the masses were soon discovered by the CPC Central
Committee and affirmed in the documents of the CPC Central Committee. On
1 January 1982, the summary of the national rural work conference, com-
mented on and transmitted by the CPC Central Committee, pointed out that
the various forms of the responsibility system practiced at the time,
including the systems of contracting specialized jobs with payment accord-
ing to output, fixing output quotas for individual households, assigning
land to each household in exchange for fixed levies and so on, were all
production responsibility systems of the socialist collective economy.
Provided the masses do not want to make changes, whatever form they may be,
we must not make any alterations. The summary of the national rural work
conference demanded that leading cadres at all levels learn from practice
and the masses with painstaking efforts, respect the initiative spirit of
the masses and genuinely act in line with circumstances. After the trans-
mission of this document, the production responsibility system was further
developed. The report to the 12th CPC Congress, which concentrated the
aspirations of the masses, clearly pointed out: "The production responsi-
bility system set up in various forms in the countryside in recent years
has further emancipated the'productive forces and must be adhered to for a
long time to come. The thing for us to do is to gradually perfect it on
the basis of summing up the practical experience of the masses. In no case
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must we make rash changes against the will of the masses, and still less
must we backtrack." The peasants say that it is the 12th CPC Congress
that has made them prosper and they deeply feel that their hearts are
closely linked with the party.
The development of the production responsibility system raises a problem
before us, that is, how should we treat the peasants at the present stage
of China? We have no reason to regard the peasants as being more advanced
than the workers and intellectuals. Similarly, we have no reason to deny
the tremendous progress they have made. In the decades of revolutionary
struggle, the peasants of China have fought shoulder to shoulder with the
working class and have devoted their fine sons and daughters to the build-
ing and consolidation of new China. They have accepted the leadership and
received education from the party over a long time and have profoundly
realized that their destiny can only be closely linked with the CPC. After
the accomplishment of the socialist transformation of agriculture, they have
become new peasants under the cooperative system. However, this does not
mean that the peasants have all been raised to the level of the working
class. The influence of small production, private ownership, feudalism and
capitalism are still affecting them. Therefore, we still have to conduct a
great deal of work, including ideological and political work. Viewed from
the principal aspect, we cannot equate the peasants of today with those
regarded as small producers in the old society. During the "Great Cultural
Revolution," we regarded one of Lenin's quotations on practicing the new
economic policy as applicable to socialist China, that every day and hour,
small production frequently and spontaneously produces large numbers of
capitalists and bourgeoisie. In the course of setting things right, we
corrected this viewpoint. The fact at present is, every day and hour, our
peasants are frequently creating socialist new things. Why could we not
see such creativity of the peasants in the past? It was mainly because
they were bound by the erroneous ideas of "left" deviation. The peasants
say, we have been farming for several generations, now we are not likely
to know how to do it. There is only one man in the county who knows farm-
ing, that is, the so-and-so secretary. He gives orders on when to sow,
water and apply fertilizer. How can we talk about the enthusiasm of the
masses in this way? The implementation of the spirit of the 3d Plenary
Session of the 11th CPC Central Committee raised the consciousness of the
peasants to an extreme, aroused their enthusiasm and initiative, created
the various forms of the production responsibility system and opened up a
specific path for agricultural cooperation which was suited to the national
conditions of our country.
At present, the historical initiative of the masses has been and is being
brought into full play, not only in rural areas, but also at various
fronts, fields and work. The history of our party's work since the 3d
Plenary Session of the 11th CPC Central Committee is the history of fully
respecting the initiative spirit of the masses. It is the core of our
party's line, principle and policies to attach importance to the historical
initiative of the masses and is the basis of all our work. It is the
masses themselves who have created many pew things and, after proved effec-
tive in practice, the party summed up these experiences of the masses,
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raised and properly arranged them, and formulated the correct principle
and policies. While carrying out these principle and policies, the party
still emphasized respecting the wishes of the masses, fully considered
the different circumstances in different localities, provided conditions
and opened up a vast field for the masses to continue to exert their
creativity. Creation, summarization, again creation, and again summariza-
tion. This repeating process is a process of new things constantly emerg-
ing and having more and more vitality, and also a process of the historical
initiative of the masses being increasingly raised and the line, principle
and policies of the party being increasingly perfected. The leading com-
rades of the CPC Central Committee have set examples in going deep into the
masses and conducting investigations and studies. Enlightened by the
masses, many local and departmental comrades have also constantly deepened
and enriched their understanding and made achievements. As for the prob-
lems which occurred in local work, it is definite that they have deviated
from the line, principle and policies of the CPC Central Committee and
fettered and disrespected the creative spirit of the masses.
The epoch of socialism is one which has been in existence since the begin-
ning of history and reflects the radiance of the historical initiative of
the masses. We have won great victories in the past by valuing the
historical initiative of the masses. We must also strive to create a new
situation in all fields of socialist modernization and in this way win
greater victories.
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HAVING FAITH IN THE MASSES AND DEPENDENCE ON THEM IS THE ESSENCE OF
EMANCIPATING THE MIND
Beijing RED FLAG in Chinese No 3, 1 Feb 83 pp 31-33
[Article by Shi Youxin [2457 0645 2946]]
[Text] Emancipation of the mind does not come as one wishes nor is it
merely indulging in fantasy. It means that under the guidance of correct
ideology a breakthrough of the ossified or semiossified way of thinking is
made; that everything must start from reality; that theory must be related
to reality; that it is important to be practical and realistic; and that
the subjective must correspond to the objective. In order to achieve this,
we must have faith in the masses and dependence on them.
In society, the masses are the masters of history. Their actual activities
constitute the major embodiment of social life. In this context, what we
customarily talk about as objective reality principally refers to the
actual activities and the results of the masses of people transforming
nature and transforming the social structure. Hence, in order to be prac-
tical and realistic and so the subjective conforms to the objective, we
must be able to reflect the rules and essence of the activities of the
masses of people in transforming the objective world. Speaking from the
standpoint of socialist revolution and construction, in formulating a
correct guideline and policy, we must go deep into the masses, participate
in their practices, listen to their views, sum up their experiences, and
discover their creations. Comrade Mao Zedong said: "Correct leadership
comes from the people and goes to the people." ("Selected Works of Mao
Zedong," Vol 3, p 854) What he said precisely explains the above.
In the past we committed errors on many problems and caused many losses.
The important reason was that we did not have faith in the masses and
depend on them. In the past, when we committed "leftist" errors, we
frequently ascribed it to the mass line. This was not really having
faith in and dependence on the masses. In reality, we only "mobilized the
masses" in accordance with our subjective wishes. Since the 3d Plenary
Session of the 11th CPC Central Committee, the CPC Central Committee has
been able to rapidly overcome "leftist" ideology and to score great suc-
cesses in bringing order out of chaos. This may basically be ascribed to
the results of restoring and displaying the superior tradition of the
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party's mass line, really having faith in and dependence on the masses,
respecting the creative spirit of the masses and taking the actual prac-
tices of the masses as the basis for the formulation of lines, guiding
principles and policies. It is precisely because of this that today our
party has gained a relatively complete and correct understanding of the
laws governing socialist construction. Naturally, this is not the end of
this understanding, and there still necessarily exist many "kingdoms" of
unknown knowledge. Nevertheless, if only we can firmly insist on going
into the masses and going into realities, we can surely discover a road
to the building of socialism which conforms to our national conditions.
The important problem of having faith in and dependence on the masses has
not been really comprehended by all comrades. Certain comrades, after
having become cadres and obtaining their seats in the government organs,
soon produce an air of bureaucratism. Although they do talk a lot about
the mass line, in reality they rejoice in sitting high above, do not
investigate or research, but become accustomed to "drawing circles,"
writing instructions on reports, and issuing orders. Although they fre-
quently claim to have faith in the masses and dependence on them, yet when
they tackle problems and are really working, they hardly think of the
masses. They may even go to the extent of being extremely bureaucratic,
repressing and suppressing the masses. They may be in the habit of asking
other people to respect the creativeness of the masses, but they them-
selves do not study the new conditions or new problems. While the condi-
tions have already changed, they still persist in following old experiences
and old practices in their work. Or, they may actually behave like an
"official messenger or dispatcher" and transmit in entirety documents from
above. When orders from above do not agree with their wishes, they may
hesitate and delay making any decision or giving direction. The result is
that the farther they go from reality and from the masses, the more ossi-
fied their thoughts become and the more adamant they become in insisting on
established practices. It may be definitely said that if a leadership
cadre does not go into the masses and.carefully investigate and study the
new experiences and creations of the masses, then he will be unable to be
practical and realistic and to achieve the emancipation of the mind and he
cannot become a good leader.
Entering deep into the masses to conduct investigation and research is
important not only to the cadres of organizations, particularly the leader-
ship cadres, but also to comrades doing theoretical work. It is good that
comrades doing theoretical work are willing to study books and use their
brains but there is one weak point, and that is that they have compara-
tively little understanding, or even none at all, of the actual situation.
Hence, their views concerning certain problems and their analysis and judg-
ment cannot escape being subjective, one-sided and superficial and going
from abstraction to abstraction. Unfortunately, some of our comrades,
contented with the abstract theory of dealing in generalities, would just
sit tight and air their views in the belief that it was emancipation of
the mind. In reality, this 'was cutting oneself off from the masses and
from reality. Real knowledge is hardly obtainable in this way; this was
not real emancipation of the mind.
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Making a deep and real investigation and study and having deep faith in'the
masses and dependence on them is not only a problem of the method of work
but also a problem of theory of knowledge or of the line of thought. The
Marxist theory of knowledge is a theory of practice. Practice is the
foundation, source and motive power of knowledge. The basic embodiment
of practice is the struggle of the masses to transform the objective world.
If practice is alienated from the masses, then human knowledge will become
water without a source and wood without an origin. Our party's mass line
is completely in line with the Marxist theory of knowledge and is the con-
crete manifestation of precisely this type of scientific theory of knowledge
in actual work. Our party's knowledge of objective things has been derived
from a recurring process of coming from and going to the masses. And this
process is just the evolvement from not knowing to knowing, from knowing
relatively little to knowing relatively more, and ultimately to completion
of the entire process of attaining relatively complete knowledge. During
the period of democratic revolution, our party firmly insisted on adopting
the mass line, had firm faith in and depended on the masses, and emerged
triumphantly from the revolution. Compared with democratic revolution,
socialist revolution and construction are much more complex and difficult.
No past experiences of success are available to follow. Hence, to under-
stand and grasp the relevant laws governing them, it is necessary to go
deep into the masses and to take advantage of the actual practices of the
masses to enrich, strengthen and develop our own understanding. Comrade Mao
Zedong once said to Comrade Zhang Wentian that at times he had no idea how
to handle a certain situation. He would feel deeply dejected but upon
contacting the populace and contacting cadres at the grassroots level he
could soon conceive an idea for solution and he would feel relaxed. (Zhang
Wentian: "Notes on Return From a Trip," GUANGMING RIBAO, 16 November 1982)
This is not only talk about past experiences but also denotes the truth of
knowing objective things. Hence, it may be said that having faith in the
masses and depending on them is the basis for the emancipation of the mind.
The closer the approach to-the masses, the greater is the emancipation of
the mind. Alienation from the masses will surely ossify the mind.
Naturally, all that has been said above is not opposed to the study of books.
On the contrary, all along the party has repeatedly promoted and encouraged
an earnest study of books. Books contain an accumulation of past knowledge
and a summing up of past experiences. People can absorb wisdom and
strength from them. Without the study of books, one lacks the guidance of
theories and is liable to fall into the bondage of old customs and subjec-
tive prejudices. It would also be difficult to discover in time the crea-
tiveness of the masses and to correctly sum up the new experiences of the
masses. This is also a kind of ossification of the mind.
On this problem of emancipation-of the mind, certain foolish views have been
found. Recently, a relatively popular saying is as follows: Criticism of
the "left" helps in emancipation of the mind whereas criticism of the right
hinders it. In reality, this is an erroneous interpretation of the emanci-
pation of the mind. The manifestation of "left" or right is a rather
complex affair. Both of them constitute an erroneous trend of thought
emerging and branching out from the same knowledge basis and both are based
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on an erroneous estimation of the objective conditions. In other words,
both of them are the results of a split between the subjective and the
objective and of knowledge and practice breaking away from each other.
Judging from the present conditions in general, the "left" will not dare
to break through the bondage of the "Cultural Revolution" and the "leftist"
errors before it and demand the return to the original "leftist" pattern of
the past. As for the right, it frequently puts up the old rules of lib-
eralization of the capitalist class and demands the return to the former
road of the capitalist class. Criticism of the "left" and criticism of
the right both aim at making the subjective and the objective conform to
each other, except that they proceed from different angles in the
struggles.
That criticism of the "left" helps in emancipation of the mind can be more
readily understood and accepted by people who have for so many years
suffered from the hardships inflicted by the "left." That criticism of the
right also helps in emancipation of the mind may not be so readily under-
stood by the people. In solving this entangled problem, we should honestly
turn to learning from actual practices. For example, when the responsi-
bility system in agricultural production was first implemented, a minority
portion of the peasants wanted to return to the road of petty economy in
old China. But the countryside already possesses productive forces which
are socialized to a certain extent and the cultural and technical level
and the management experiences of the peasants and cadres have all improved
and they are increasingly asserting their role. Under such conditions, it
is manifestly impossible to return to the old road. It was for this reason
that in some localities the majority of the masses, after having tried out
their wishes for a period of time, became convinced and decided to return
to the road of the production responsibility system. This serves to
illustrate that repetition of the "left" pattern will not do while trying
out the pattern of the right will not do either. At present, our party
is engaged in continuously liquidating the errors of the "left," and is
also in the process of rectifying the errors of the right. It has firmly
insisted on adoption of the four basic principles and advocated the con-
struction of socialism which has China's special features, and, under the
new historical conditions, close adherence to Marxism and Mao Zedong
Thought. The new contributions made by, our party since the 3d Plenary
Session of the 11th CPC Central Committee have indeed been a true manifes-
tation of the emancipation of the mind.
The broad masses of the people are creating new things every hour and
every minute. Every day, actual practices are in a state of constant
change and development. Today we may have acquired an understanding of
certain things, but after having been alienated from the masses, or from
reality, for a year, or half a year, or for several months, our mind may
have again become ossified. Only by having full faith in and dependence
on the masses and insisting on penetrating deep into actual investigation
and study can we achieve the continuous emancipation of the mind, be
capable of being practical and realistic, and contribute in an overall
manner to the creation of a new situation in modernization.
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SEVERAL INCIDENTS SHOWING MARX' CONCERN WITH SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY
Beijing RED FLAG in Chinese No 3, 1 Feb 83 p 33
[Article by Zhao Yun [2600 0061]]
[Text] Throughout his whole life Marx was especially interested in each
and every new accomplishment in science and technology. In his opinion,
they constituted an enormous revolutionary force. In 1950, Marx saw a
model of a new electric locomotive. Extremely excited, he remarked: "This
development will certainly produce immeasurable results." Since the exten-
sive use of electric power in industrial production and in communication
and transportation brings about a great development in production and a
rapid increase in communication and. transportation capacity, it is
inevitable that vast social changes will follow. This was the reason for
the rather high evaluation given by Marx. Before the publication of
Darwin's compilation "The Source of Things," Marx already held a high esti-
mation of Darwin's contributions. After Darwin subsequently made known to
the world the results of his research work, Darwin and his discovery of
the revolutionary force were the topics of talk between Marx and his
friends, including (Li-bo-ke-nei-xi) [2621 0592 0355 6007] and other
people. In Marx' conversations with other people, the names of other
scientists like (Mo-lai-xiao-te) [2302 5475 5135 3676], (Li-be-xi) [2621
3024 1585], and (He-xu-li) [6378 5171 7812] were frequently mentioned.
This showed that Marx was well acquainted and deeply concerned with the
scientists and that he highly regarded scientific and technical accomplish-
ments.
Science and technology provide the key to the realization of socialist
modernization. Our leadership cadres at various levels must follow Marx'
example of showing deep concern with the development of science and tech-
nology and should in actual work allow the scientific and technical
personnel to fully display their role so as to make the necessary contribu-
tions for the well-being of the state and the happiness of the people.
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READING 'WREATH UNDER A HIGH MOUNTAIN'
Beijing RED FLAG in Chinese No 3, 1 Feb 83 p 34
[Literature commentary by Ding Lin [0002 3781]]
[Text] I have read recently "Wreath Under a High Mountain" as well as a
commentary by Comrade Fong Mu and an article by the writer himself on what
he gained from the literary creation.
I did not shed tears after I finished reading the story. I liked to cry
when I was in my childhood and when I was young. Tears would run down my
cheeks at even a trivial matter. However, no tears came to my eyes this
time, but that did not mean that I was not moved. Not long ago, Jiang Feng
passed away. Standing in front of his remains, I felt extremely bad but
not a tear did I shed.
I am indeed very happy to have read this story. I do not think this story
is a very successful one, but it is indeed a piece of good work. Consid-
ering the present creative work, it broadens one's mind by reading this
story. This is the sort of work we are after. Its characters are the sort
of characters we would like to have. They are our own people. That is why
I feel so delighted and tremendously delighted--because we have good stories
again. It is the victory of revolutionary realism. The developing process
of literary creation these past few years is the inevitability of history,
which cannot be done without. Even though some of the works have heaped
abuses on many people, it is not without reason that they do so, for there
are some people who do deserve those abuses. We feel good to hear them
cursed. There are stories I do not enjoy reading, not because they have.
cursed some of our cadres. There are some people who deserve that! I
honestly do not like "Fairy Tales of the Winter." How can it be written
without any sense of beauty? I enjoy reading works that have a touch of
beauty. Though it has exposed characters like Hojing, I am not in favor
of its general tendency.- If all of our writers share such spirits, then
our creative work will be in danger. There are many hideous things in
this world. Writers can and should try to expose them, but writers them-
selves should have chaste spirits. They should have chaste hearts together
with lofty ideals and styles; otherwise, how can they accomplish works
that are splendid?! "Wreath Under a High Mountain" is well written
because it not only exposes unhealthy tendencies, what is more, it sings
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the praises of a whole lot of heroic figures such as Liang Sanxi, Jin
Kailai, the "Beijing" fighter, Zhao Mengsheng, Army Commander Lei, Aunt
Liang and Han Yuxiu. The writer described them with a beautiful heart.
That is why I like it.
I am afraid that what is most inadequate about this novelette is that the
writer has not written all that should be written. He has not made suffi-
cient elaboration. He must have feared that an attempt at a novel would be
unsuccessful. Therefore, he worked out such a medium-length one. Never-
theless, taking its contents into account, it should have been developed
into a novel. It should very well be further expanded. This writer is
quite discreet and he is right to be like that because he is only 30 or so
years old. He was afraid that once he carried the story forward, he might
not do a better job. Therefore, he kept himself in check and worked. it out
to be a novelette. He should further the story with a more vigorous pen
and thicker ink. I do indeed want to read more of the deeds of the general
who tosses his cap. It is a pity that I cannot. He makes his appearance on
the stage for a while, saying a few words, and this is really far from
enough. Figures such as this should be well elaborated. Among people who
belong to the same generation as the general who tosses his cap, there are
some who are bent on seeking interests for their sons and daughters, but
there are also some who are not. In our literary works, we can, of course,
depict those "dutiful sons" who are bent on seeking interests for their
sons and daughters, yet we cannot just keep our eye on these people. We
should also depict well figures like Army Commander Lei! As for the
mother, in fact, more can be written about her. The novelette draws to an
end in a perfunctory manner. The writer failed to give us a clear picture
of how miserably the mother felt, how she was ashamed of herself and in
what way was she conscience-stricken. The writer left all these points
untouched, which makes her a blurred image. The same thing applies to the
other figures in the work. I feel they should all be further elaborated,
especially figures like that "Beijing" fighter. He wins our fondness. But
the fact that he dies young and suddenly has indeed let the readers down.
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REALITY, IDEALS AND HEROES--ON 'WREATH UNDER A HIGH MOUNTAIN'
Beijing RED FLAG in Chinese No 3, 1 Feb 83 pp 35-36
[Article by Wang Youqin [3769 0645 3830]]
[Text] The medium-length novel "Wreath Under a High Mountain" is widely
popular. Praises have swarmed in from writers, critics as well as common
readers. Many people have been moved to tears.
Why has it achieved such a success?
Its characteristics of directly confronting the contradictions of reality
will merit our attention first. "Wreath" depicts battlefield scenes. It
depicts the fierceness and cruelty of warfare--a deep-thrust battle,
storming and capturing a position and, what is more, getting.a bundle of
sugarcane at the cost of laying down one's most precious life. "Wreath"
depicts the life of the Liberation Army units, yet it does not conceal the
unhealthy tendencies in the army units: the-"curvilinear transference,"
and even "going through the back door" turn out to be heading valiantly
for the bloodshedding battlefield after all. "Wreath" depicts the differ-
ences in the ways of thinking between the sons of generals and the sons of
peasants who serve alike in the company. "Wreath" depicts grannies and
sisters in the countryside without concealing the disaster inflicted on
them by the 10 years' catastrophe.
Real life is full of contradictions and conflicts. It is filled with the
struggle between the positive side and the negative side. "Wreath," when
depicting the contradictions of reality, maintains a strictly critical
attitude toward the negative side of life. It shows the author's strong
sense of responsibility and morality for society and makes it easier to
attract readers and strike the chord of response in their hearts, which in
a way starts them to think more deeply about life and pay closer attention
to it. Writers should not hide themselves from the contradictions of
reality, nor should they keep themselves far away.from the joys and
sorrows of the people. We can have a deeper understanding of the truth
from the success of "Wreath."
However, the novel is not just a simple record of the reality of life. A
novel is life shown by a writer which is inculcated with his beliefs,
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feelings and his aesthetic standards. It usually reflects a specific
feature of life in a relatively focusing way. Without such inculcation
and concentration, it will be difficult to enter into the state of lit-
erary creation. At the same time, different aesthetic styles of novels
come into being because of such inculcation and concentration. In recent
years, a great number of novels have taken great pains to depict life
realistically, to reflect the contradictions of reality, and they have
made remarkable achievements. These novels reveal the mental scars that
the 10 years' catastrophe has inflicted upon people, and through exploring
the destiny of individuals, make a profound reflection on history and make
a deep or shallow perspective of problems that have popped up in the
course of our country's construction of modernization. Though "Wreath" has
not made any further breakthroughs in this respect, it spares no effort in
picturing the beautiful and magnificent feelings of our times and our
nation as. well as the lofty and just actions and the dear people, and it
is quite successful in this respect. This is a novel overflown with revo-
lutionary heroism. Its style is lofty and. full of ideals, just like what
is said at the end of the novel: "The most splendid stone in this world
and the most eye-dazzling colors are all collected under this towering
green mountain." We can also maintain that the writer has put them
together. "Wreath" is not only a new fruit of creation in making military
affairs the subject theme, it has also vigorously opened up a new horizon
in aesthetic style. This is something refreshing about "Wreath."
We need ideals. Though the 10 years' catastrophe has disillusioned our
beautiful dreams, yet the great historical turning point of these 6 years
has again kindled the sparkles of ideal buried deep in people's hearts.
The broad mass of people, especially the young people, cherish a lofty and
rosy life and they look forward to a road that will lead them to be heroes.
These yearnings constitute the psychological basis on which a strong
response is aroused from readers of "Wreath." In this respect, the law of
literature is the same as the law of physics--the nearer the intrinsic
frequency is, the easier it is to have "resonance."
"Wreath" displays before us a lofty and gorgeous picture of the state of
life; in it is a panorama of heroes which shine with the brilliance of
ideal: the company leader of the Dagger Company, Liang Sanxi, and the
deputy company leader, Jin Kailai; Army Commander Lei and his son Xue
Kaihua; Granny Liang from the old liberation area of Nimeng Mountain; Han
Yuxiu and the awakened Zhao Mengshen, son of a high-ranking cadre....
They have gone through the hardship of life, the mist and dust of history
and the trial of cannonballs and are approaching us. We admire heroes
because we need examples to follow. We need guidance to arouse our
courage and strength to live. They are just ordinary human beings like us.
They bear the strongest sense of responsibility for the motherland and the
people. They are valiant and indomitable and understanding. They love and
help each other and are self-sacrificing. Their characters strongly con-
trast with the wretchedness and disgrace of an indifferent, base and trivial,
selfish and timid life. They enable us to see the height of life which is
attainable by people as ordinary as we are, arousing in our hearts the keen
aspiration to catch up. The writer's overwhelming fervor and his
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interesting narrative of the episodes of life, which are shown with
brilliance and are heart-racking, make up the splendid artistic state of
"Wreath."
"Wreath" boldly manifests the contradictions of reality, providing the
heroic figures with a reliable background of activities. In "Wreath" the
hardship of life merges with the heroes' valiance and strength of over-
coming hardship, displaying a sort of heroic and indomitable beauty. It
should be admitted that the special environment of the battlefield has
supplied the novel with favorable conditions for playing up the soul-
stirring scenes and expressing vehement emotions, yet it is not that every
novel with a war theme can be so vividly and solidly written. When
depicting heroes, "Wreath" does not use hollow, "brave words." It
describes the figures with concrete and unique plots. With these depic-
tions, the writer has managed to unite the heroes' love for the motherland
and the people with their love for their families, their sons and their
wives. He has also managed to unite the spirit of sacrificing oneself for
the country with the serious considerations of one's life's responsibility
and prospect. This shows a relatively dialectic and fuller understanding
of life. Thus, heroes in "Wreath" are comparatively warmer, more well-
developed and more intact.
Heroes in "Wreath" possess both the traditional spiritual virtues as well
as the distinguishing features of the time. They are a heroic generation
as well as the thinking generation. Liang Sanxi and Jin Kailai are not
simple-minded. They bear hardship and stand hard work, fight bravely and
do not fear sacrifice. At the same time, they have their own views on a
practical life. They have their own goals as well as principles for taking
actions. The 21-year-old Xue Kaihua takes great pains to study modern
military science. He makes profound criticism at "yesterday," yet he
welcomes "tomorrow" with positive actions. He is the embodiment of the
characteristics of the younger generation of armymen.
There is another figure that deserves our attention. He is Zhao Mengshen,
the storyteller in "Wreath." He is also a hero, yet he is different from
Liang Sanxi. He is a hero growing into maturity in the blood and flame of
battles. Zhao Mengsheng is the son of a general. The problems he has come
upon are quite likely to be met with by many who are like him in the con-
temporary period. The war urges him to think over his attitude toward life
and the road of life, as well as his relation with the people. He finally
comes to realize: "There must still be something on earth which is worth
more than money and power, which deserves me to treasure and seek after
untiringly!" After the war, he remains on the forefront of the frontier
defense, the result of his own choosing, which is both initiative and
conscientiousness. This kind of thinking and exploratory spirit is the
most valuable of the contemporary youth. The war has come to an end. Zhao
Mengsheng stays behind in the mountains. He is determined to take a rela-
tively lofty road of life. Nevertheless, is he able to persist till the
end? The novel has made a significant hint: There are still many diffi-
culties. It is not easy to persevere. It is true that there are always
lots of difficulties on the road forward. However, the tide of life is
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surging forward. It will cause more young people to overcome their own
shortcomings and inadequacies and take the lofty road of doing one's bit
for the course of the people.
Anyhow, the revolutionary heroism, the strong sense of responsibility and
the valiant spirit of sacrificing for the motherland and the people shown
by the heroic figures depicted by "Wreath" will turn into a huge mental
force encouraging people to overcome difficulties and advance bravely.
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WRITERS AND ARTISTS ALSO HAVE TO ACQUIRE GREATER CULTURAL ACCOMPLISHMENT
Beijing RED FLAG in Chinese No 3, 1 Feb 83 pp 37-38
[Article by Xie Hong [6200 1347]]
[Text] Emphasizing that literary and art workers of the party should
regard themselves as ordinary party members, Comrade Chen Yun pointed out
that it was not easy to become "expert" in literary and artistic creation
and that there was no end to the road to becoming "expert." This means
that writers and artists are required to acquire greater cultural
accomplishment.
In the past few years, it has been gratifying to see that a large number
of young and middle-aged writers and artists have become key members of the
literature and art contingent. They demonstrate the hope and future of
China's literature and art through their excellent works which stem from
the depth of life. But we should also notice that some young and middle-
aged writers are feeling that their skills and ability are too low and the
contents of their works are not rich. The fact is that their cultural
accomplishment is bad. For example, their theoretical level is low and
they are short of knowledge about social life and about science and cul-
ture. Under the guidance of directors, some young actors and actresses
have played the role of "distinctive characters" in a vivid and dramatic
manner, but they are not able to play a creative role. Although it is
inevitable for such a situation to emerge in the growth of the literature
and art contingent, the problem revealed is worthy of attention. Obvi-
ously, if writers and artists want to go forward and raise the quality of
their works, they must strive to acquire greater cultural accomplishment
besides strengthening their practice in life. It concerns the ideology and
artistic achievements of these persons. Moreover, it is an important link
for guaranteeing the healthy development of socialist literature and art.
Knowledge (including knowledge about social life and knowledge about
science and culture) occupies a very important position in the composition
of cultural accomplishment. 'Knowledge,is man's valuable spiritual nourish-
ment. Like blood nourishing the human body, it helps us to develop our
ability in. various fields. Bacon said: "Studying history makes one sensi-
ble, reading poems makes one elegant, studying mathematics makes one
meticulous, studying science makes one deepgoing, studying theory makes
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one serious and studying logic and rhetoric enables one to be good at
reasoning." In other words, one is affected by what one learns. Literary
and artistic creation is a kind of spiritual labor which propagates a large
amount of knowledge among the people who are interested in it, and the role
of knowledge is more important to writers and artists. Only by relying on
knowledge can we understand human history and the whole features of social
life to break away from the narrow space of an individual; only by relying
on knowledge can we create artistic images which have historical depth and
social compound. Mao Dun said that only when we had rich life and
theoretical knowledge could we, achieve success one way or another. Gorky
maintained that literary and artistic creation comprised the most remark-
able facts, image and detail drawn from the "stock of knowledge and
impressions" and that it was summed up in the most striking, most vivid
and most comprehensible artistic images and languages. If writers and
artists only have a small stock of impressions and a small amount of
knowledge, it is very difficult for them to create valuable works. If Wu
Chengen had not been familiar with common customs, had not read some
Buddhism and had a good knowledge of myths and legends and the ways of the
world, he would not have been able to create Sun Wukong, who could go up
to the sky and into the earth with great ease and who was full of wit and
humor. If Luo Guangzhong had not accumulated knowledge about astronomy,
geography, the legal system, political power and military affairs, he would
not have been able to create Zhu Geliang, an artistic image which was so
brilliant and full of wisdom. The contents of some works are so monotonous
and their inside story is so narrow that readers often feel that they were
roughly written. One of the important reasons is that some writers are
short of knowledge.
Literary and artistic creation requires a wide range of knowledge. It
requires a theory which is extracted from knowledge. Theory can command
knowledge, deepen knowledge and open up new spheres of knowledge.. It helps
us to have a good grasp of the development of history and a keen insight
into the budding of new things. As long as this theory is combined with
the concrete feelings of writers and artists and with all their experi-
ences in life, profoundly experienced, digested and absorbed, it can light
up the road of literary and artistic creation, deepen the depth of works
and strengthen their vitality. Some comrades who are not interested in
the study of Marxist theory think that literary and artistic creation does
not require theoretical guidance. As a result, when examining and
reflecting life, they can only see the spray from life, and not the great
waves in the depths of life or the internal force in the development of
human society. Some writers regard bourgeois ideas such as existentialism,
nihilism and social Darwinism as "fashionable" viewpoints and openly
propagate them in their works. This is the reflection of theoretical
ignorance and ideological inadequacy.
Lenin said that only by enriching one's own brain with all the knowledge
wealth created by man, can we become communists. This means that knowledge
can change into consciousness, understanding ability and character. Lit-
erary and artistic works are the reflection of the realities of life as
well as the portrayal of the characters and soul of writers and artists.
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It was in just this sense that Gurnizhevsky regarded literary and artistic
creation as a kind of moral activity. Tolstoy maintained that whatever
kind of people an artist wrote about, be they saints, robbers, kings or
servants, what we looked for and saw was the soul of the artist himself.
Therefore, in the history of literature, there were such teachings of the
deceased as "know the man by his literary style," "the character of a poem"
was "the character of the poet" and "train oneself before learning to
create literary works." Lu Xun had a famous saying: "What comes out of
the spring is all water, what comes out of the veins is all blood." Some
literary and artistic works exhibitions are filthy and low in style.
This shows that the writers themselves have low taste.
The cultural accomplishment of writers and artists are outstandingly shown
in a high degree of ability to enjoy and express arts. For example, it is
shown in their sharp and meticulous observation, imaginative memories,
rich imagination and ability to select, extract, concentrate and sum up
materials for creation. Such ability should be obtained and developed
through practice in life and art. But a very important prerequisite is
that we must study the knowledge about artistic law and absorb the artistic
experience of our predecessors. Only on this basis can one create new
things and give an impetus to one's own talents through one's subjective
efforts. When talking about a famous French artist named Talma, Balzac
said that every word she said could attract the feelings of several
thousand spectators to the same excitement and that she could express all
the poetic flavor of an epic scene with one expression. Balzac said that
it was an artistic strength. He emphasized: "Artistic works can
astonishingly gather the largest amount of ideology to the smallest area."
Some people think that we must not require writers and artists to be so
perfect. They think that as long as writers and artists can compile and
write and imaginatively describe what they see and feel in life, they can
write excellent works. This is obviously a one-sided view. Of course,
literature and art is the reflection of actual life. It reflects the feel-
ings of the masses, listens to the call of the era, reveals historical
development and shows the kindness,.cruelty, beauty and ugliness of social
life. Without this, the source of literature and art will dry up. But
this is not a direct photographic reflection. Moreover, it is not some-
thing that every one can feel and reflect. In various links from observing
and going deep into life to selecting and extracting materials and creating
artistic images, writers and artists should acquire cultural accomplishment.
All excellent works in the history of literature were unique expressions
of actual life by means of their own cultural accomplishment. They were
judged with thinking, molded through the heart and melted in feelings, and
could only be created by the wisdom of writers and artists. They were "the
second reality" which bore personal characters.
Literature and art reflects life in the sense of beauty. It is a special
ideology which comprehends and propagates civilization. Fundamentally
speaking, the value of literary and artistic works is determined by the
level of civilization expressed and embodied by its sense of beauty. Lu Xun
once said that our artistic works should be the "specimen symbolizing the
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highest point of knowledge and ability of the Chinese nation," and not the
"average marks for ideology below the horizontal line," and that our
artists should be "vanguards who can guide the road and not the leaders of
'citizen's groups."' In other words, if writers and artists want to create
excellent works, they should acquire greater cultural accomplishment.
In building our socialist spiritual and material civilizations, the people
of our country and the party are expecting more writers and artists who
have a high degree of cultural accomplishment to describe more profoundly
and with more variety and artistic charm our new era which is full of
vitality and creation to devote their soul and wisdom to the development
and prosperity of our socialist literature and art.
CSO: 4004/25
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OUTLINE FOR THE STUDY OF IMPORTANT DOCUMENTS DRAWN UP SINCE THE THIRD
PLENARY SESSION
Beijing RED FLAG in Chinese No 3, 1 Feb 83 pp 39-44
[Article by RED FLAG Editorial Office of Theory and Education; passages
within slantlines published in boldface]
[Text] Foreword
The 3d Plenary Session of the 11th CPC Central Committee was an important
meeting which had far-reaching significance in the history of our party
since the founding of the PRC. After the plenary session, our party summed
up the experience and lessons in socialist construction and eradicated the
negative influence left over by the 10 years of internal disorder. Through
great efforts, it has completed the task of bringing order out of chaos in
its guiding thinking, made remarkable achievements in its work on various
fronts and realized a great historical change. From the 3d plenary session
to the 12th CPC National Congress, the party Central Committee issued a
series of important documents and the leading comrades of the party Central
Committee made many important speeches and published many important articles.
These important documents are documents in which Marxism-Leninism-Mao Zedong
Thought are applied and developed under new conditions. They are also
records of the victory of the great historical change. The principles and
tasks for socialist modernization put forward by the 12th CPC National
Congress are the enrichment and development of the party's correct line
laid down since the 3d Plenary Session of the 11th CPC Central Committee.
Therefore, it is imperative for our cadres to combine the study of these
important documents with the study of the documents drawn up at the 12th
CPC National Congress.
The theoretical articles of proletarian revolutionaries of the older gen-
eration, particularly of Comrade Deng Xiaoping, occupy a very important
position in these documents. Comrade Deng Xiaoping's speeches and articles
put forward and expounded many major principles concerning the party and
the state. For example, they reiterated the party's ideological line of
seeking truth from faqts and that we should uphold and develop Mao Zedong
Thought, establish the historical position of Comrade Mao Zedong, enliven
the country's economy, implement an open foreign policy and carry out the
reorganization of institutions and of the economic system. These speeches
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and articles proposed that the cadres' contingent should carry out revolu-
tionization, accept younger people and master intellectual and professional
work, and that we should build socialist spiritual civilization, deal heavy
blows to criminal activities that undermine socialism in the economic as
well as other spheres and rectify the party's style and organizations.
The proposition and settlement of these problems played an important role
in bringing order out of chaos in an all-round way and in realizing the
great historical change. Comrade Deng Xiaoping's theoretical articles are
typical examples of combining the universal truth of Marxism with the con-
crete practice of our country under new historical conditions and of
correctly solving problems in China's socialist revolution and construc-
tion. The study of important documents drawn up since the third plenary
session should focus on Comrade Deng Xiaoping's theoretical articles.
The
study of important documents drawn up since the third plenary session
has
CPC
important significance in further understanding the spirit of
National Congress and raising consciousness for implementing
the
the
12th
party's line, principles and policies. This will enable us to profoundly
understand how our party led the people of the whole country step by step
in bringing order out of chaos and realized the great historical change by
starting from emancipating the mind and reestablishing the Marxist ideologi-
cal line; how our party opposed the "leftist" and rightist erroneous ten-
dencies and guided the whole party and the people of the whole country in
opening up a broad road for ushering in a new situation in all-round way by
summing up historical experience and scientifically expounding many prob-
lems concerning theory and policies related to socialist construction. In
the past years, we have been experiencing this great historical change and
have, to various extents, known well about different situations and prob-
lems that have emerged in the course of this great historical change. With
regard to these situations and problems, each of us has his own under-
standing and viewpoints. Today, in the course of profoundly studying the
documents of the 12th CPC National Congress, if again we read important
documents drawn up since the 3d plenary session, review this short histori-
cal period, think over the development of our ideology, see how we under-
stand and implement the party's line, ppinciples and policies laid down
since the 3d plenary session and seriously sum up our experience and
lessons, it will be greatly beneficial toraising our understanding, to
enabling us to be more confident and to unifying our ideology under the
spirit of the 12th CPC National Congress so that we can contribute our
efforts more consciously to ushering in a new situation for carrying out
socialist modernization in an all-round way.
In the study of these important documents, we must solve some confused
ideas and correct erroneous viewpoints. For example, some people confuse
the correct principle of emancipating the mind laid down at the third
plenary session with bourgeois liberalization tendency which emerged after
the third plenary session, and therefore regard the party's reiteration
with regard to adhering to the four basic principles as the "correction of
the wrong tendency" committed by the third plenary session. Let us set
another example. Some people regard the wrong tendency that emerged in
society for a period of time in which Mao Zedong Thought was negated and
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the historical position of Comrade Mao Zedong was denied as the product of
the third plenary session and therefore maintain that the "Resolution on
Certain Questions in the History of the Party Since the Founding of the
PRC" adopted at the sixth plenary session is the "correction of the wrong
tendency" committed by the third plenary session. These erroneous view-
points have distorted the spirit of the third plenary session either from
the right or from the "left." From the documents of the party Central
Committee and from the theoretical articles of Comrade Deng Xiaoping, we
can fully understand that it was after the third plenary session that the
party Central Committee began to establish a correct ideological line,
adhere to the correct principle of emancipating the mind, carry out a two-
front ideological struggle against the "leftist" and rightist tendencies,
pay attention to preventing another erroneous tendency while overcoming
one, correctly appraise the historical position of Comrade Mao Zedong,
uphold and develop Mao Zedong Thought and reexamine and work out a series
of principles and policies that are suited to China's specific conditions.
Without all this, we could not have realized the great historical change,
could not have fulfilled the historical task of bringing order out of chaos
in our guiding thinking and could not have led our country into a new
historical period of socialist modernization. We must be good at combining
our study with irrefutable facts by which we can prove how we realized the
great historical change. We must deepen our understanding of the spirit of
the third plenary session and clear up some confused and wrong under-
standing.
In coordination with this study, we have compiled the "Outline for the
Study of Important Documents Drawn up Since the Third Plenary Session,"
in which the main contents of these documents are summarized in seven
topics: 1) Emancipate the mind and reestablish the Marxist ideological
line; 2) establish the historical position of Comrade Mao Zedong and uphold
and develop Mao Zedong Thought; 3) adhere to the four basic principles and
correctly carry out a two-front ideological struggle; 4) realize key shift-
ing and build a modernized socialist economy; 5) strengthen political con-
struction, develop socialist democracy and perfect the socialist legal
system; 6) strengthen the building of socialist spiritual civilization; and
7) strengthen party building and uphold and improve party leadership. In
accordance with the relevant contents, introduction and explanation are
given in each topic, in the hope that everyone can have a general and
brief understanding of the documents, study the documents more profoundly,
combine theory with practice and raise their understanding. Because the
documents are very long and cover a wide range of contents, it is impossi-
ble to include all the contents in the "Outline." This is only for ref-
erence, as conclusions to and summaries of some problems may not be correct.
I. Emancipate the Mind and Reestablish the Marxist Ideological Line
Emancipating the mind and reestablishing the Marxist ideological line have
been the party's greatest achievements in bringing order out of chaos in
its guiding thinking since the third plenary session. These are the most
important signs in realizing the great historical change. With regard to
this topic, it is advisable to read the "Communique of the 3d Plenary
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Session of the 11th CPC Central Committee"; Comrade Deng Xiaoping's
"Emancipate the Mind, Seek Truth From Facts and Unite To Go Forward" and
"The Organizational Line Is the Guarantee for the Realization of the
Ideological and Political Line"; Comrade Hu Yaobang's "Forewords to the
Principle-Discussion Meeting on Theoretical Work"; as well as the "Resolu-
tion on Certain Questions in the History of Our Party Since the Founding
of the PRC." When studying this topic, we should focus on the following
three main points:
1. Emancipating the mind is the prerequisite for reestablishing the Marxist
ideological line;
2. The fundamental point of the Marxist ideological line is seeking truth
from facts;
3. Correcting the ideological line is the key link in realizing the great
historical change.
/We can deepen our understanding of the first main point in three aspects:
First, why we should particularly stress the emancipation of the mind;
second, the essence and harm of the "two whatever's"; and third, the great
significance of discussing the criteria of truth./
In protracted revolutionary struggle, our party has formed a Marxist
ideological line, which is the foundation for formulating a correct line,
principles and policies and which is the most important guarantee for
achieving success in revolution and construction. However, beginning with
the late 1950's, the "leftist" tendency gradually emerged in our party's
guiding thinking, and dogmatism and personality cult of Comrade Mao Zedong
grew. In the "Cultural Revolution," the Lin Biao and Jiang Qing counter-
revolutionary cliques pushed this dogmatism and personality cult to an
extreme in a vain attempt to usurp party leadership. This greatly hampered
the ideology of our cadres, and the party's Marxist ideological line was
abandoned. It takes a long time for a river to freeze 3 feet deep. Com-
rade Deng Xiaoping, in his article "Emancipate the Mind, Seek Truth From
Facts and Unite To Go Forward," said that this situation emerged under
certain historical conditions. First, Lin Biao and the "gang of four"
created restricted areas, prohibitions and personality cult. They con-
fined the people's ideology to their confinement ring of phony Marxism and
did not allow anyone to go beyond the minefield. Second, because the system
of democratic centralism was undermined, bureaucratism emerged in the party
under which power was excessively centralized. Many problems are often
decided on by one or, two persons, others have to carry out what had been
decided. Third, there is no distinction between right and wrong and
between merits and errors, nor is there a clear understanding of rewards
and punishments. There is no difference whether one does his job or not.
Sometimes, those who do well are even repudiated and those who do nothing
can live a steady life. Fourth, because the influence of small production
is affecting some people's minds, they are conservative and are satisfied
With the present situation. They do not wish to go forward and are not
willing to accept new things. Under such circumstances, some people are
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not willing to use their brains to consider problems. As a result, a rigid
or semirigid way of thinking has emerged. Once our way of thinking becomes
rigid, we become restricted by conventions, ignore party spirit and prin-
ciples and act according to what others say, and the habit of copying,
transplanting and transmitting without considering specific conditions
becomes more and more serious. Such a spiritual status of our cadres is
not in compliance with the needs for realizing the great historical change
carried out after the smashing of the "gang of four." It has formed a sharp
contradiction against socialist modernization. In view of the situation,
Comrade Deng Xiaoping clearly pointed out that emancipating the mind is an
important political problem in our present work. He put forward the prin-
ciple of "emancipating the mind, seeking truth from facts and going forward
in unity." He emphasized: "Without breaking away from the rigid way of
thinking and without emancipating the minds of the cadres and masses,
there is no hope to realize the four modernizations." This principle of
Comrade Deng Xiaoping's was affirmed by the 3d Plenary Session of the 11th
CPC Central Committee. The communique of the third plenary session pointed
out: Comrades of the whole party and the people throughout the country must
break away from the spiritual yoke of Lin Biao and the "gang of four." In
addition, we must resolutely overcome bureaucratism under which power is
excessively concentrated, the phenomenon of making no distinction between
reward and punishment and the influence of the force of habit of small
production so as to emancipate the mind and "start the machine."
When it was imperative for the party to emancipate the mind and bring order
out of chaos after the smashing of the "gang of four," a main responsible
comrade of the CPC Central Committee put forward the slogan of "two what-
ever's," which means "we must resolutely support whatever is decided on by
Chairman Mao, and we must unswervingly follow whatever Chairman Mao
instructs." Shortly after this slogan was put forward, it was opposed by
Comrade Deng Xiaoping. In his several speeches, Comrade Deng Xiaoping
analyzed and criticized this "two whatever's" and clearly pointed out its
essence and danger, which can be summed up mainly as follows: First, the
viewpoint of "two whatever's" is to persist, without any alteration, in
the erroneous ideology of Comrade Mao Zedong in his late years. If what-
ever Comrade Mao Zedong did or said cannot be altered, Comrade Mao Zedong's
mistakes cannot be corrected. Then, the "leftist" erroneous tendency com-
mitted by our party for a long period of time must be continued. Second,
the "two whatever's" cuts, distorts and harms Mao Zedong Thought. When we
say that we must take Mao Zedong Thought as our guidance, we mean that we
must study and apply its stand, viewpoints and methods, that is, its
scientific system. If we must uphold every word Comrade Mao Zedong said,
we will break Mao Zedong Thought to pieces, and we will not be able to
consider, put forward and solve problems according to the system of Mao
Zedong Thought. Third, persisting in the "two whatever's" will inevitably
create dogmatism and a rigid way of thinking. Comrade Mao Zedong said his
words at a certain time, in a certain place and under certain conditions,
and many conditions are changeable. Take socialist modernization for
example. If we can only do what Comrade Mao Zedong said, how about our
work now? How should we solve our problems? In short, in theory, the "two
whatever's" violates Marxism-Leninism-Mao Zedong Thought. Politically, it
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hinders proletarian revolutionaries of the older generation from partici-
pating in work again, checks the great tide of emancipating the mind and
bringing order out of chaos after the smashing of the "gang of four,"
persists in the past erroneous ideological line and defends the spiritual
shackles created by the Lin Biao and Jiang Qing counterrevolutionary
cliques. In the 2 years before the 3d Plenary Session of the 11th CPC
Central Committee, our party was hesitating about bringing order out of
chaos. This had much to do with the main responsible comrade of the party
Central Committee, who upheld the slogan of the "two whatever's."
The slogan of the "two whatever's" was not only criticized by Comrade Deng
Xiaoping, but also resisted by many proletarian revolutionaries of the
older generation and opposed by the cadres and masses. It was just under
such a historical condition that the newspapers began to clarify that the
only criterion for judging truth was practice. In his "Forewords to the
Principle-Discussion Meeting on Theoretical Work," Comrade Hu Yaobang
pointed out: "The important significance of these discussions is that they
have enabled the whole party and the people throughout the country to
reunify their ideology on the basis of Comrade Mao Zedong's 'On Practice,'
to reiterate the viewpoint of practice first which was always emphasized by
Comrade Mao Zedong in the theory of knowledge in dialectical materialism
and to reiterate that the social practice of millions upon millions of
people is the only measurement for judging truth." "The reiteration of
this question hits the crucial point of Lin Biao's and the 'gang of four's'
antiscientific ideological system and carries forward the general campaign
of liquidating the phony Marxist theory advocated by Lin Biao and the 'gang
of four.' Moreover, it has deeply touched the people's fundamental atti-
tude toward Marxism." The discussions about the criteria for judging truth
were stifled by the comrades who persisted in the slogan of the "two what-
everts." They said that the discussions were something that "threw away
the knife," "downgraded Mao" and "felled the red banners." "Due to the
resistance of Taihua, the river becomes swifter after coming out of
Tongguan; and due to the separation by Wushan, the wind howls more
fiercely after coming back to the three straits." These sentences, which
were written by Comrade Mao Zedong when he was young, can be used to
describe the situation at that time. Because of obstruction, the historical
trend of emancipating the mind increased its power to sweep and resist
through upheavals and surges, and more heated and profound discussions on
the criteria for judging truth spread in the ideological circles and
throughout the country. With the support of the leading comrades of the
party Central Committee, the discussions turned out to be a success. When
talking about the discussions, Comrade Deng Xiaoping pointed out that the
argument about the criteria for judging truth was in reality an argument
about whether or not we should emancipate the mind and that it was a ques-
tion that concerned ideological line and politics and a question that had
important bearing on the future and destiny of the party and the state. The
third plenary session of the party highly appraised the discussions and
maintained that the discussions had far-reaching historic significance to
promoting the emancipation of the minds of comrades of the whole party and
of the people throughout the country and to correcting the ideological line.
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/When studying the second main point, it is advisable to focus our con-
sideration on the following three points: 1) Why do we say that empha-
sizing the principle of seeking truth from facts is the fundamental point
of Marxist ideological line? 2) By seeking truth from facts, we mean that
we must study new situations and solve new problems. 3) By seeking truth
from facts, we mean that we must combine the universal truth of Marxism-
Leninism with the concrete practice of socialist modernization./
In the course of bringing order out of chaos, our party emphasized again
and again that the fundamental point of Marxist ideological line was seek-
ing truth from facts and that we had to do all our work in line with
actual conditions and combine theory with practice. Comrade Deng Xiaoping
has talked at full length about this point. In a speech in September 1978,
he said: "The quintessence of Mao Zedong Thought is seeking truth from
facts. The greatness of Chairman Mao lay in the fact that he could lead
the Chinese revolution to victory by applying the principle of seeking
truth from facts to practice." In December of the same year, he pointed
out: "Seeking truth from facts is the basis of the proletarian world out-
look. It is the ideological basis of Marxism. In the past, we won our
victories in revolution by relying on the principle of seeking truth from
facts; now, we will still rely on the principle of seeking truth from facts
in realizing the four modernizations." At that time, why was it stressed
again and again? This was because not only the Lin Biao and Jiang Qing
counterrevolutionary cliques trampled on the fine tradition of seeking
truth from facts, but some comrades in the party also opposed it after the
smashing of the "gang of four." According to their viewpoint, it was
enough just to copy and transplant the original words of Marx, Lenin and
Comrade Mao Zedong. At the meeting on political work of the whole army
held in 1978, Comrade Deng Xiaoping seriously criticized this erroneous
viewpoint and systematically expounded the importance of upholding Marxist
ideological line and the importance of adhering to the fundamental prin-
ciple of seeking truth from facts. He clearly pointed out: "If we oppose
the principle of seeking truth from facts, oppose doing our work in line
with actual conditions and oppose combining theory with practice, how can
we say that we uphold Marxism-Leninism-Mao Zedong Thought? Where will this
lead us to? Obviously, it will only make us embark on idealism and meta-
physics, and it will only lead us to failure in work and in revolution."
Comrade Deng Xiaoping also emphasized the unanimity between emancipating
the mind and seeking truth from facts. He said: "Emancipating the mind
means adapting ideology to reality, adapting subjective thinking to objec-
tive reality. It means seeking truth from facts. From now on we must
continue to emancipate the mind to conscientiously adhere to the principle
of seeking truth from facts in all our work." Comrade Deng Xiaoping's
speeches played a very important role in reestablishing Marxist ideological
line.
By seeking truth from facts, we mean that we must study new situations and
solve new problems. Since the smashing of the Jiang Qing counterrevolu-
tionary clique, problems left over from the past have piled up like a
mountain, and the people's attention is, generally focused on these problems.
Solving well the problems left over from the past, particularly correcting
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a large number of wrong and falsified cases, are the important contents of
bringing order out of chaos. However, we should take the attitude of
having the overall situation in mind in dealing with the problems left
over from the past. It is impossible and unnecessary to analyze them in
detail. The purpose of solving the problems left over from history is to
go forward, to smoothly realize the shifting of the key work of the whole
party and to enable the party to concentrate its efforts on socialist mod-
ernization. Studying the new situation and solving new problems refer to
studying various aspects of the new situation and solving various aspects
of new problems. In this respect, particular attention should be paid to
studying and solving management methods, the management system and economic
policies. In short, our purpose is to study and solve problems in social-
ist construction with China's characteristics.
The course of studying the new situation and solving new problems is the
course of combining Marxism-Leninism-Mao Zedong Thought with socialist
modernization. The fundamental sign for examining whether we are Marxist-
Leninists and our Marxist-Leninist level is whether we combine Marxism-
Leninism-Mao Zedong Thought with socialist modernization and how we combine
the former with the latter. In his "Forewords to the Principle-Discussion
Meeting on Theoretical Work," Comrade Hu Yaobang pointed out: "If we
pigeonhole Marxism-Leninism-Mao Zedong Thought and regard it as the deity
instead of combining it with practice, it means carrying out swindles and
bluffs under the signboard of Marxism; it is phony Marxism and anti-Marxism.
If we do not closely combine Marxism-Leninism-Mao Zedong Thought with prac-
tice, it is semi-Marxism, or at least, it cannot be called complete
Marxism." To combine closely, first of all,.we must conscientiously read
the works of Marx, Lenin and Mao Zedong; second, we must conscientiously
face reality and carry out a systematic and meticulous investigation and
study; and third, we must conscientiously develop the fine study style of
combining theory with practice.
/When studying the third main point, it is advisable to deepen our under-
standing from the following two main ;aspects: 1) We must fully understand
the far-reaching significance of correcting ideological line to realizing
the great historical change; and 2) we must always remember the experience
and lessons in bringing order out of chaos in guiding thinking since the
third plenary session, continue to emancipate the mind and further correct
the ideological line./
Our party has achieved victory in the great historical change. This is
because it has brought order out of chaos in its guiding thinking and
reestablished Marxist ideological line.
Owing to this correct ideological line, we have broken away from the heavy
shackles of the "leftist" erroneous tendency, changed the political situa-
tion in which "10,000 horses were all muted" due to the wrong theory,
policies and slogans such as "continuing the revolution under the dictator-
ship of the proletariat" and "taking class struggle as the key link" and
regained vigorous creative power in various fields.
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Owing to this correct ideological line, our party has been able to solve
in a very short time many long-standing problems which have piled up over
many years. For example, it has reversed the verdicts passed on the
wronged and false cases during the "Cultural Revolution" and the verdicts
passed on wrong cases in history, fairly reappraised the merits and errors
of some important leading comrades of the party and state and thoroughly
corrected the errors of the antirightist movement and of the "campaign
against the rightist tendency." In addition, our party has removed the
labels of landlord and rich peasant from 2.78 million persons and cor-
rected the wrong classification of 700,000 small merchants, peddlers and
handicraftsmen as capitalists. The appropriate settlement of these prob-
lems has solved innumerable political knots which have piled up for a long
time and eased the contradictions within the people.
Owing to this correct ideological line, our party has been able to work out
a series of principles and policies which are suited to actual conditions,
bring into play the initiative of the cadres and the masses and gradually
restore the prestige of the party among the masses. This further shows
the superiority of the socialist system.
We still remember how great the obstructions were when we began to put for-
ward the slogans of emancipating the mind, seeking truth from facts and
correcting ideological line. Some people wanted to wait and see because
they could not understand. Some people even regarded the principles and
policies drawn up following the third plenary session as "reverting to
capitalism," and did not want to carry them out. We can say that we met
with all kinds of difficulties and obstructions in every step we took.
But our party went forward regardless of these difficulties and obstruc-
tions. With the greatest Marxist courage, our party resolutely carried out
self-criticism, eradicated the "leftist" pernicious influence, implemented
correct principles and policies and finally got rid of the stifling situa-
tion under which the party had been hesitating to take a step forward.
Most of the comrades who originally could not see why or even held resent-
ment changed their minds after being educated and after seeing what had
happened. This historical period is quite good for educating the people.
We should conscientiously sum up experiences and lessons and further
understand the importance of emancipating the mind and correcting ideologi-
cal line.
On the whole, our party has realized the task of bringing order out of chaos
in its guiding thinking, but we have completed the task of bringing order
out of chaos in our actual work. A correct ideological line has occupied
the dominant position in the whole party. However, with regard to every
comrade, we cannot say that they have completely solved this problem.
Some comrades are still influenced by the force of habit, and have not
gotten used to or even doubt the carrying out of open policies, the
enlivening of the economy and the implementation of the responsibility
system. Following the development of socialist construction, it is certain
that various new problems will meet with new obstructions. The struggle
between emancipating t1je mind and a rigid way of thinking and between
correct and wrong ideological lines will continue to exist for a long time
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to come. Whether we can carry out our work smoothly and successfully
depends, first of all, on whether we can continue to emancipate the mind
and further correct the ideological line.
The important documents drawn up since the third plenary session fully
reflect the struggle between the Marxist ideological line and the erroneous
ideological line since the smashing of the "gang of four." They have
supplied rich teaching materials for emancipating the mind and correcting
ideological line. In the past, due to various reasons, some comrades did
not study these documents well. Now, they can make up the missed lessons.
Comrades who have studied these documents are required to study again in
order to deepen their understanding. Only in this way can we understand
and implement the line, principles and policies formulated since the 3d
plenary session and, in particular, understand and implement the line,
principles and policies of the 12th CPC National Congress in order to make
new contributions to ushering in a new situation for socialist moderniza-
tion.
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IS THERE A CONTRADICTION BETWEEN IMPLEMENTING THE CONTRACT RESPONSIBILITY
SYSTEM WITH PAYMENT LINKED TO OUTPUT AND THE CARRYING OUT OF COMMUNIST
EDUCATION?
Beijing RED FLAG in Chinese No 3,
1 Feb 83 pp 44-45
[Article by Wang Zhimin [3769 5268
3046]]
[Text] Recently some comrades have had difficulty in fully understanding
how the party can on the one hand emphasize the implementation of communist
education while at the same time also giving active support to the rural
responsibility system with payment linked to output, and thus these com-
rades have felt that the two are contradictory. How, then, should this
question be correctly handled and understood?
The implementation of the responsibility system changed the older system of
collective labor and distribution according to work points but it did not
alter the socialist nature of the system of collective ownership. Land and
other essential means of production still belong to the collective and
distribution still takes place according to labor (with output standards
for all areas of land and contract regulations and producers turning in
grain quotas to the state and the collective and keeping the remainder for
himself or herself). Thus production and management still take place under
the influence of state planning. The style of management and administra-
tion is both unified and decentralized so that those things which are so
suited are under the unified management of the collective and those things
which are more suitable to individual management are distributed and
managed by individual laborers and households. The contract system is used
to ensure that both unified and distributed management are integrated into
an organic whole. In this way both the'advantages of the collective and
the enthusiasm of the individuals obtain expression and the peasants' own
decisionmaking power is increased, while at the same time the advantages
of small-scale management are able to express themselves, thereby the
drawbacks of overcentralized management, egalitarian distribution and mass
but unplanned labor are all overcome.
In this way we carry on the positive results of the previous moves to
organize cooperatives, support the system of common ownership as well as
the functions of certain kinds of unified management so that the productive
forces which have built up over so many years may gain even better
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expression. This kind of unified and decentralized system of management
has extensive applications in China and today is perfectly suited to situa-
tions in which manual labor is predominant as well as being suitable for
the characteristics of agricultural production and for the developmental
demands of the productive forces found within agriculture under moderniza-
tion. It is a new form of socialist agricultural cooperative economy,
created by the peasants of China and fully in line with the demands and
the aspirations of the broad mass of peasants and thus, having already
emerged, it very quickly demonstrated its many advantages and its vitality.
In weighing whether one style of economy or one style of management is good
or bad, advanced or backward and so on, one must examine whether or not
that style promotes the development of the productive forces or whether
it inhibits the productive forces. By using such standards we are able
to clearly see whether the vast majority of production brigades throughout
the country, which are implementing systems of responsibility with payment
linked to output, are actually advancing or regressing. Since the imple-
mentation of the responsibility system production in rural areas has
developed, the peasants' standards of living have improved and many new
trends have emerged that have not been seen for years. Agriculture is the
foundation of our national economy and thus development in agriculture will
by necessity promote development throughout the entire socialist modernized
construction program. Obviously in comparison to former collective styles
of economy of a more one-sided nature, characterized by such phrases as
"large in size and collective in nature" and "the poverty transition," this
new style is much closer to the great, true aims of communism.
Only through socialism may we eventually reach communism--and this is a
well-known fact of Marxism. In China it takes a long time to construct
socialism and today we are in the process of working hard to construct a
high degree of socialist spiritual and material civilization and it is
this which forms the solid content of our struggle toward communism. Thus
whatever is in the interests of developing the social productive forces is
also in the interests of and of benefit to raising the communist con-
sciousness of all members of society. Both conform with the great eventual
aims of communism. Thus, essentially, carrying the contract responsibility
system with payment linked to output in order,to promote the development
of the productive forces cannot be seen in opposition to the carrying out
of communist education in order to raise the ideological consciousness of
the masses; in fact the two complement each other and one promotes the
other. If we do not overcome egalitarianism, mass and unplanned labor and
blind production, then agricultural production cannot develop smoothly and
in some areas even the problems of getting enough to eat and clothing to
wear will not be solved, and under conditions such as these the natural
advantages and superiority of the socialist system will not gain expression,
and thus it would be very difficult to convince anyone of the need for
communist ideological education.
Of course, this does not mean that development of the productive forces and
improvements in standards of living will mean that the peasants' conscious-
ness also will automatically and naturally rise, without a need for
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communist education. The carrying out of communist ideological education
with the.peasants is an item of work that the party has always paid a great
deal of attention to; hence it is not something which has simply come up
very recently or today. During the period of the democratic revolution
there emerged from the peasant ranks a vast number of communist fighters
and many of them gave their life for the revolution. Since we were carry-
ing out communist ideological education with the peasants before the
period of the land reform, results of this education were very good; so
why is it that during the period of socialism, it is only when the con-
tract responsibility system appears that people feel the carrying out of
communist education is not correct?
As far as the broad mass of the peasants is concerned they listen to the
words of the party and they resolutely follow the socialist road. But
sometimes old ways of thinking left over from the old society, such as
beliefs connected with small-scale farmer economies, tend to crop up.
Thus, with the implementation of the contract responsibility system, if
work in communist education is not given ample attention, such ways of
thinking could emerge more often. If we ignore this problem then we
cannot hope to thoroughly understand and support the importance of com-
munist education and thus we will lose our grip on the party's ideological
and political work with the peasants. Only by strengthening communist
ideological education can we make the peasants look to the future and to
development, and get them to work on the basis of the state and the collec-
tive rather than being preoccupied with their own gains and losses. With
one hand we must grip the construction of material civilization and with
the other we must tackle the construction of spiritual civilization with
communist ideological education at its very heart. In this way the rural
economy will constantly develop, and the peasants' standard of living will
continue to improve while their ideological consciousness and their educa-
tional levels also rise. If all economic work in the rural areas is done
well, it will provide positive motivation for the development of ideologi-
cal and political work. Only by strengthening ideological and political
work can we guarantee healthy development of all reform work in the rural
areas. So many facts prove that as long as we carry out communist ideo-
logical education keeping in touch with reality in a bold and assured way,
while at the same time steadfastly implementing the present policies of
the party, then the peasants will place the common interests before their
own in both a spiritual and material sense, even to the extent of sacri-
ficing personal interests for the sake of the interests of the whole.
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INSPIRATION FROM 'THREE VISITS TO THE THATCHED COTTAGE'
Beijing RED FLAG in Chinese No 3, 1 Feb 83 p 45
[Article by Jiang Daoyuan [3068 6670 3293]--reprinted from LILUN YU SHIJIAN
[THEORY AND PRACTICE], issue No 12, 1982]
[Text] In the last years of the Han Dynasty, warlords overran the country.
They fought petty wars. Liu Bei, sandwiched between these warlords and
struggling for his destiny, was anxiously in search of an able assistant
in the political sphere. In Jian An, the 12th year (A.D. 207) under
Emperor Xian of the Han Dynasty, Liu made "three visits to the thatched
cottage" and invited the "Sleeping Dragon" Zhuge Liang, who was living
in seclusion in the mountains, for public service. The 47-year-old
general ultimately succeeded in obtaining the services of the young
scholar who was then only .27 years old. The scholar did not fail the
general's trust. Once in public service, he startled the world with his
strategies. In the midst of turmoil, he maneuvered skillfully among vari-
ous political groups. After the battle at Chi Bi, his plan to divide the
country into three kingdoms became a certainty and the Han Dynasty's polit-
ical power was securely established in Sichuan Province. This opened up
a new chapter in Liu Bei's career.
Liu Bei's "three visits to the thatched cottage" give us inspiration on at
least three counts:
1. Fired with enormous ambition, Liu was extremely "thirsty" for talented
people. This was exactly what Du Fu wrote in his poem "Sichuan's Premier":
"The three visits determined the country's fate." Liu Bei's wishes were
to become lord and emperor of the country and in looking for talented
people, he paid three visits to a thatched cottage. Today, we are building
a socialist country. What we plan for is a proletarian world. What we
hope for is the realization of the four modernizations and China's develop-
ment. It is thus all the more urgent that we search for,'discover, promote
and highly use talented people.
2. Lower one's dignity in searching for talented people and respect the
sagacious and the learned. Though being a descendant of the imperial
family of the Han Dynasty, in status Liu Bei was not as esteemed as an
emperor, but he was illustrious and well-known. By being able to show
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respect, speak humble words and lower his dignity before country folk in
the hills and before an ordinary person, he fully demonstrated the bearing
of a great general and the magnanimity of a sagacious ruler. Today, our
leadership cadres are all statesmen of the proletariat. They are imbued
with a wider breadth of vision and should all the more go down to the
grassroots level and seek talented people from among the masses.
3. The ability to use talented people irrespective of status or rank.
Zhuge Liang was only 27 years old, without an official status or title
and just a common scholar. Yet in his talks with Zhuge, Liu Bei dis-
covered him to be a genius, worthy of becoming a supreme commander and a
prime minister. So without hesitation, he broke all traditions and gave
him a high appointment, honoring him as prime minister and counseler of
the armed forces. "New bamboos can grow taller than old bamboos." Today,
if we can discover new bamboos of distinguished quality and higher than
that of old bamboos, then we should dispense with all the formalities of
seniority or rank and should be bold enough to appoint them to posts
commensurate with their abilities.
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STUDY DOCUMENTS OF THE 12TH PARTY CONGRESS TOGETHER WITH THE TWO THEORETICAL
BOOKS ON POLITICS
Beijing RED FLAG in Chinese No 3, 1 Feb 83 pp 46-48
[Article by Shanghai Municipal Metallurgical Bureau CPC Committee; passages
within slantlines published in boldface]
[Text] From 18 October until 11 November 1982, the Shanghai Municipal
Metallurgical Bureau CPC Committee held study classes for secretaries of
all grassroots work units and political work cadres in which the main
topic was the documents of the 12th party congress as well as integrated
study of the major documents to appear since the 3d Plenary Session of the
11th CPC Central Committee and the two books representing the work of
Comrade Chen Yun since the founding of the PRC. Concentrated study times
during the classes, as well as a solid mass of literature, well-thought-out
leadership and conscientious study on the part of the students meant that
positive results of the study classes were very much in evidence. These
results can be summarized in the following four phrases: broader frames
of thinking, deeper understanding, stronger conviction and increased study
consciousness.
Advocation of Assiduous Study
The requirements for this study class were detailed reading of the docu-
ments of the 12th party congress, integrated study of the two books, unifi-
cation of ideology and working reality, a historical overview and an
assimilation and composition of experiences so that the students may gain
a deeper understanding of the essence,of the documents of the 12th party
congress with the aim of unifying their own thinking with the spirit of
the 12th congress. Study was divided irito.three units. The first unit
involved 1 week of detailed reading of the documents of the 12th congress
as well as discussion and deep reflection in order to fully digest the
essence of the documents. The second unit involved 2 weeks of thorough
study of the two books during which importance was attached to individual
study with appropriate development of discussion, interspersed with two
sessions of exchange of knowledge gained through study, aimed at strength-
ening understanding of the documents of:the 12th congress and clarifying
how the central authorities have been leading the entire party and all the
people in completing ideological guidance for the restoration of order out
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of chaos, which has in fact brought major victories in actual work situa-
tions. The third unit of study involved 1 week of integration of personal
ideological reality with work reality with particular emphasis on under-
standing and appreciation of the party's policies, principles and guide-
lines since the third plenary session; in addition there was a review of
the process of each individual's ideological development with a truthful
and frank assimilation and summary of experiences, thus completely solving
some problems related to ideological understanding.
In addition to the requirements of a thorough grasp of the documents of the
12th congress, the study classes also demanded a great emphasis on the
integration of study of the two books but, since they are rich in content
and time was short, there were different requirements for different
students in different situations. Total study involved a selection of 50
items from important documents produced since the 3d Plenary Session of the
11th CPC Central Committee and 10 items taken from Comrade Chen Yun's work.
This total body of work was divided into three areas:
/1. Questions concerning great historical changes./ This comprised mainly
"The Bulletin of the 3d Plenary Session of the 11th CPC Central Committee,"
Chen Yun's "Statement on the Dongbei Sector Central Working Conference," .
Deng Xiaoping's "Emancipate One's Thinking, Be Truthful and Frank and Unite
in Moving Forward," Ye Jianying's "Speech at the Conference to Celebrate
the 30th Anniversary of the Founding of the PRC," Deng Xiaoping's "Views on
the Drafting of 'Concerning the Resolution of Some Historical Problems
Relating to the Party Since the Founding of the PRC."' A great deal of
emphasis was placed on understanding the central authorities' brilliant
and decisive solutions to major problems of principle since the third
plenary session, how the CPC Central Committee has led the entire party
in restoring order out of chaos and once again establishing correct
ideological fronts, political fronts and organizational fronts and through
such study the students strengthened their understanding of the occurrence
of major historical changes.
/2. Questions concerning economic construction./ Here, the main selec-
tions included Li Xiannian and Chen Yun's "Concerning a Letter From the
Financial and Economics Work Departments to the Central Authorities" and
"Readjust the National Economy and Uphold Proportional Development," Zhao
Ziyang's "Some Questions on the Readjustment of the National Economy" and
"Present Trends in the Economy and Future Directions in Economic Construc-
tion." Attention was paid to improving understanding and appreciation of
the gradual establishment of a correct path by the party for China's social-
ist modernized construction as well as clarifying some questions of policy
and principles related to economic work in direct connection with enter-
prises.
/3. Questions concerning aspects of ideological and political work./ Main
selections of writing here included Deng Xiaoping's "Present Trends and
Tasks," Hu Yaobang's "Speech at the Script Writing Forum," Deng Xiaoping's
"Reform in the Party and the State Leadership System" and "Discussion of
Questions Related to the Ideological Front," Hu Yaobang's "Some Questions
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Related to Setting Up a Good Party Style" and "Speech at Forum on Questions
on the Ideological Front," Hu Qiaomu's "Several Questions Concerning the
Present Ideological Front" as well as decisions concerning the fight against
criminal activities in the economic sector taken by the CPC Central Com-
mittee and the State Council. Here the emphasis was on understanding how,
in this new historical period, the party's ideological and political work
should be strengthened, the importance of developing ideological struggle
on two fronts and greater appreciation of the four guarantees for modernized
construction.
Clarifying Some Confusions
The most important things to be gained from study are greater understanding
of the great historical constructions of the 3d Plenary Session of the 11th
CPC Central Committee as well as increased understanding of the accuracy
of policies, principles and party lines since then.
/1. A great understanding was gained of correct principle of emancipating
one's thinking./
What is in fact emancipating one's thinking? The CPC Central Committee
accurately states that emancipating one's thinking means, first and fore-
most, liberating the cadres and the masses from the shackles created by
"leftist" mistakes during and prior to the "Cultural Revolution" as well
as liberating oneself from the shackles of the "two whatevers," and finding
once again the scientific road of Marxism-Leninism-Mao Zedong Thought.
Because in the past some comrades have been unclear about the significance
and meaning of emancipation of one's ideology, they have termed the ten-
dencies toward bourgeois liberalization that have emerged since the third
plenary session as "overemancipation of one's ideology" and they have
regarded the strong support given to the four basic principles as "recti-
fication," mixing up the correct principle of emancipating one's thinking
with rightist erroneous tendencies. Many comrades, after having carefully
studied the documents to have appeared since the third plenary session,
finally understood the principle of emancipating one's thinking as put
forward by the CPC Central Committee and understood that it did in fact
uphold the principles of Marxism-Leninism-Mao Zedong Thought. At the same
time they also gained insight into the central authorities' continuous
attention in avoiding one kind of erroneous tendency when overcoming
another kind of erroneous tendency during the entire process of implementing
the principle of emancipating one's ideology, as well as the attention given
to upholding the ideological struggle on two fronts.
/2. A deeper understanding was gained of the fact that. one constant prin-
ciple since the 3d Plenary Session of the 11th CPC Central Committee has
been the maintenance of a correct evaluation of Comrade Mao Zedong's
historical contributions during this period of restoring order out of chaos
by the central authorities, along with a preservation of Mao Zedong
Thought./
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Some comrades have said that there has been a great deal of ideological
difficulty since the third plenary session and the main problem lies in
the lack of a genuine solution on how to handle Comrade Mao Zedong and
Mao Zedong Thought. In the past the third plenary session was seen as
denouncing Comrade Mao Zedong and the four basic principles were regarded
as "rectification," while the sixth plenary session and its "decisions"
were seen as bringing Comrade Mao Zedong back again. Now, by reading the
documents to appear since the third plenary session and an appreciation
of their historical sequence, these comrades have seen that ever since
the third plenary session, the central authorities have constantly stood
to their correct principles and at no time did they denounce Comrade Mao
Zedong. There was a particularly positive and ardent reaction by everyone
to Comrade Xiaoping's ninth talk on the draft "decisions" and it was added
that during the year and 3 months that the nine talks took, the central
theme was to clarify Comrade Mao Zedong's historical position and to uphold
and develop Mao Zedong Thought. These talks were both moving and educa-
tional. In the past, "leftist" influences and the restrictions of the
"two whatevers" meant that the erroneous trends in society of denouncing
Comrade Mao Zedong and Mao Zedong Thought were incorrectly traced back to
the third plenary session. Now it is understood that in order to correctly
handle Mao Zedong and Mao Zedong Thought it is necessary to work hard at
eradicating "leftist" ideological influences and the mistaken beliefs in
the "two whatevers," as well as steadfastly resist and criticize erroneous
tendencies in bourgeois liberalization to denounce the four essential
principles.
/3. A deeper understanding of the theoretical principles of class struggle
under the new historical conditions./
Since the third plenary session, the CPC Central Committee has made the
point that the exploitative class no longer exists as a class but that the
class struggle still exists within certain spheres. However, some comrades
misunderstood this as meaning that there was no further class struggle
after the third plenary session. When one looks at the 10 or so documents
related to class struggle which have appeared since the third plenary
session, everything becomes very clear. The CPC Central Committee has
correctly solved problems related to class struggle and although bourgeois
liberalist tendencies have emerged on the ideological front along with
serious criminal activities within the economic sector, the present form
of the class struggle is not like that of before, which involved one class
against another class. The present class struggle simply gets to grips
with whatever problems arise, maintaining that political movements should
not be resorted to, but that legal procedures should be used to ensure
solid unity within politics and smooth functioning within economics. In
the past there was some confusion about some theoretical principles
involved in the class struggle and thus it was easy to either consciously
or unconsciously return to the old road of "taking class struggle as the
key." It was said by one comrade that not "taking class struggle as the
key," as the third plenary session announced, did, he felt, reduce "the
bone of contention" and that in the past when someone had come to the
factory and kicked up a fuss, one simply had to say to them "You should
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concentrate on class struggle" and thus this was apparently a means of
suppression. After studying the comrades understood that this was a case
of confusing two different kinds of contradictions. In the past both the
party and the masses had enough of "taking class struggle as the key" and
expanding the class struggle and today practice clearly illustrates that
the theoretical principles for the class struggle under the new historical
conditions, as outlined by the. party since the third plenary session, are
entirely correct.
/4. Deeper understanding of the economic policies that have been imple-
mented since the third plenary session./
Since the 3d Plenary Session of the 11th CPC Central Committee the party
has drawn up a series of economic policies. Because some comrades are
unclear about the theoretical principles that lie behind these policies,
a great deal of confused thinking has emerged and in particular there has
been a great deal of resistance to the policy, of "letting one section of
people get rich first" and comrades have mistakenly believed that it
encourages profiteering and other erroneous roads. After studying impor-
tant documents since the third plenary session, and seeing Comrade
Xiaoping's talks in entirety, comrades realized that their negative
reactions to the above formulated "getting rich" were a result of long-
term influence on their ideology by "leftism" with the result that their
understanding was only partial and biased. What Comrade Xiaoping clearly
discussed was that getting rich through labor and letting one section of
people get rich first will in turn cause a chain reaction so that the
peoples of all nationalities in China will also get rich fairly quickly.
This policy is entirely in keeping with the present situation in China.
Before study there were some comrades who displayed ideological confusion
as far as the rural implementation of the contract responsibility system
was concerned, the condoning of the individual economy in towns and cities
and the implementation of policies designed to enliven the domestic economy
as well as the open-door policy. After studying relevant passages in the
two books the comrades widened their understanding of such questions as
the 12th congress' directives to uphold the state-run economy as the domi-
nant economic style while also developing multi-variety management, to
implement a planned economy as a dominant factor and regulation by market
adjustments as supplementary and to uphold self-reliance while also
developing technological exchange with foreign countries. At the same time
everyone had a look back at the course of development since the third
plenary session and appreciated even more that the road of socialist
economic construction on which China is traveling is getting wider and
wider.
/5. Deeper understanding of the principles for upholding the implementa-
tion of all party policies./
Since the third plenary session there has been frank righting of incorrect
legal and political cases, implementation of policies for former indus-
trialists and businessmen and an eradication of the many tags of landlord
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or rich peasant throughout the country. To begin with, many comrades'
thinking failed to change. Later they understood that these policies
should be implemented but there should not be "total dismissal of the
problem" and this was especially true of attitudes toward the implementa-
tion of policies for former industrialists and businessmen. After study
the comrades understood that these policies were all based on the essen-
tial interests of the people and that the implementation of all party
policies was of benefit in consolidating and developing solid unity, in
motivating and enlivening politics and in strengthening unity between the
party and the masses as well as being of benefit in protecting the high
esteem of the party and Comrade Mao Zedong and mobilizing every individual's
enthusiasm. Furthermore, the implementation of party policies was of great
significance in the opening up of a new vista and thus problems of ideologi-
cal understanding were finally and thoroughly cleared up.
Feelings That Emerged Through Study
Through study, deeper understanding also meant that everyone gained insight
and a deeper appreciation of the following three areas:
/1. Increased faith in the leadership of the CPC Central Committee and
the central authorities./
Many comrades said that after the third plenary session the party was faced
with having to undertake all work that had been left undone before,
involving monumental problems. There was a need for overall cleaning up
of the "leftist" mistakes in the party's guiding ideology. In the last 4
years the CPC Central Committee has led the entire party and the people
without fear of problems and obstacles, and, upholding the principles of
Marxism-Leninism-Mao Zedong Thought, the committee has made use of scien-
tific methods involving concentration on major important topics which in
turn spur on other topics and thus, in a short space of time there have
been historical turnabouts. This proves that our party is rich in experi-
ences and that it is a strong and ardent party and that without its high
ideological levels of Marxism-Leninism-Mao Zedong Thought and without revo-
lutionary courage and insight we would not have the solid unity and lively
activity to be seen in today's politics, while on the economic side we
would not have good trends that we do see today. Under the present leader-
ship of the CPC Central Committee there are great hopes for our cause.
Many cadres said that through their study feelings emerged about the lead-
ing comrades in the CPC Central Committee. After reading the 16 pieces by
Comrade Xiaoping there was a feeling that Comrade Xiaoping's level of
Marxism-Leninism was very high, that his ideology was very profound and
that he displayed an admirable character. In relation to certain important
policy decisions, Comrade Xiaoping showed great insight and far-sightedness
and he had obviously made enormous contributions to the party's cause.
What especially stood out was the enormous contributions to the party's
cause. What especially stood out was the enormous amount of work he did
in protecting Comrade Mao Zedong.and Mao Zedong Thought and this gained
even more respect from the students. Some comrades said Comrade Xiaoping's
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work after the smashing of the "gang of four" was wholly endorsable. After
the third plenary session,, some problems did arise in society and these to
some extent gave rise to misunderstandings but after studying the "deci-
sions" of the sixth plenary session and repeated systematic study of the
major documents to appear since the third plenary session there was total
belief in Comrade Xiaoping. Everyone also felt that Comrade Chen Yun had
made great contributions in putting the economy back onto a steady and
developmental path. Some older comrades said that if socialist construc-
tion had begun a little earlier along the lines of Comrade Chen Yun's
economic thinking then we wouldn't have seen the emergence of the twisting
path and changing directions that did occur. Younger comrades who read
Comrade Chen Yun's works, especially "High Level Leaders Must Improve
Their Revolutionary Consciousness" felt that they had gained a great deal
educationally from Comrade Chen Yun's materialist stance. Thus everyone
felt that Hu Yaobang's evaluation of the great contributions made in recent
years by the older generation of revolutionaries of which he spoke in his
opening speech at the seventh plenary session, was entirely correct.
Everyone felt very strongly that with this group of older proletarian revo-
lutionaries formed the heart of the collective leadership of the CPC Central
Committee, our party's and the socialist cause would without doubt flourish.
/2. More confidence in the opening of a new vista in socialist modernized
construction./
The principles and tasks outlined in the 12th congress are the realization
and development of the principles, policies and lines laid down since the
third plenary session. After studying, everyone's understanding of the
accuracy of the principles, policies and lines to emerge since the third
plenary session, was considerably deepened, and thus everyone's under-
standing of the great programs outlined in the 12th congress was also
clarified while there was also an appreciation of their suitability to the
present condition of China,'their conformity with laws and the hearts of the
people and thus everyone gained more confidence in the opening up of a new
vista in socialist modernized construction. Some comrades said, "When the
party line becomes clearer, determination increases and implementation is
upheld." During study and discussion everyone linked up their thoughts
and words to reality and felt that in order to implement the tasks out-
lined in the 12th congress the most important thing to do was to strengthen
and improve party leadership and increase the party's fighting strength.
Many comrades said that on their return to their work units they wanted to
steadfastly carry out ideological and political work, upholding the imple-
mentation of the party's system of democratic centralism, fostering young
and middle-aged cadres and working well in every area so that the glorious
targets might be reached sooner.
/3. An improvement in study consciousness./
During these study classes, the classes prepared reading extracts of
around 50,000 characters a day and in actual fact many comrades wanted to
read around 80,000. Everyone felt that their reading brought out convic-
tion and certain emotions. Everyone's ardor for studying was very great,
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illustrated by the phrase "even after studying one's knowledge is incom-
plete." Many elderly comrades overcame problems and difficulties connected
with old age, weakness and eyesight and steadfastly maintained their study-
ing, reading and thinking and reading and taking notes. Some comrades who
had gained a very deep understanding said that in the past they had failed
to understand certain problems because they had not read enough, and that
during their reading they had done no thinking so that their understanding
of each problem had only been very scanty. While most comrades had in the
last few years read all the important documents and speeches to appear
since the third plenary session, a lack of thorough hard work and insuffi-
cient thinking had meant that while the documents had entered their heads
in a very clear manner, when they came up against concrete problems there
was always a great deal of confusion. Some comrades said that their
previous good study was comparable to rubbing tiger balm into the skin,
after sudden clarity there was confusion again for the problem had not been
solved at its roots. These study classes showed that only by studying
hard, eradicating "leftist" influences and raising one's own ideological
levels could one correctly understand the documents of the CPC Central
Committee and correctly implement the central authorities' principles and
policies.
CSO: 4004/25
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COPYING DOWN A POEM BY MARSHAL CHEN YI
Beijing RED FLAG in Chinese No 3, 1 Feb 83 inside front cover
[Calligraphy by Zhang Aiping [1723 1949 1627]]
[Text] When winter is.deep,
No trace of flowers can be found.
But plum trees do not submit to cold weather,
They shine with their red blossoms amid wind and snow.
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LET THE WORLD UNDERSTAND CHINA
Beijing RED FLAG in Chinese No 3, 1 Feb 83 inside back cover
[Poem by Ke Yan [2688 1484]]
[Text] Need there be any other, languages
For the world
To understand China!
Youth, willpower and beauty
Constitute her characteristics
Under the five-star red flag that rises with ease.
Of course, there are still many obstacles on the runway for her to take off.
Many highly difficult operations are also necessary.
Oh, a great smiling China
Is striving hard.
CSO: 4004/25 END
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