毛泽东选集/关于中华人民共和国宪法草案

#§Speech at the Thirtieth Session of the Central People's Government Council.

# From the discussions by more than five hundred people in Peking and by activists from various circles in the provinces and municipalities, that is, from the extensive discussions by over eight thousand people representative of the whole country, we can tell that the preliminary text was quite good and won general approval and support.

#§Why organize these extensive discussions?

# There are several advantages.

# First, will what has been worked out by the few meet the approval of the many?

# The discussions indicate that there is general approval of the main provisions and the basic principles of the preliminary text.

# All that is sound in the preliminary text has been retained.

# The fact that the ideas of a few leaders have won the approval of several thousand people shows that these ideas are well grounded, suitable and feasible.

# Second, in the discussions over 5,900 suggestions (not including queries) have been collected.

# They are of three kinds.

# The first consists of suggestions that are incorrect.

# The second consists of suggestions that are not so much wrong as unsuitable and that had better not be adopted.

# If they are not going to be adopted, why collect them?

# Does it do any good to collect these suggestions?

# It enables us to know that such views about the constitution exist among the eight thousand people and to make comparisons.

# The third consists of those suggestions that have been adopted.

# These are of course very good and necessary.# But for these suggestions, the preliminary text, although basically sound, would have remained imperfect, faulty and not well thought out.

# The draft in its present form may still have faults and imperfections, and we shall have to ask the people throughout the country for their opinions.

# As far as we can tell now, this draft is relatively free from imperfections, and that is the result of adopting rational suggestions.

#§Why has the Draft Constitution won popular support?

# I think one reason is that in drafting it we adopted the method of integrating the ideas of the leading body with those of the masses.

# This Draft Constitution combines the ideas of a few leaders with those of more than eight thousand people and, after publication, it will be discussed by the entire nation so that the ideas of the Central Committee will be integrated with those of the whole people.

# This is the way to integrate the leadership with the masses and with the large numbers of activists.

# We adopted this method in the past, and we shall do so in future.