毛泽东选集/一九五七年夏季的形势

#§Article written during the conference of the secretaries of provincial and municipal Party committees held in Tsingtao in July 1957 and printed and distributed at the conference. # It was circulated among the leading cadres of the Party in August of the same year.

#§During the period of socialist revolution in our country the contradiction between the people and the bourgeois Rightists, who oppose the Communist Party, the people and socialism, is one between ourselves and the enemy, that is, an antagonistic, irreconcilable, life-and-death contradiction.

#§The bourgeois Rightists who have launched wild attacks against the working class and the Communist Party are reactionaries or counter-revolutionaries.

# They are not so labelled but are instead called Rightists because, first, this will make it easier to win over the middle and, second, it will help split the Rightists and enable some of them to change and come over.

#§Those bourgeois Rightists who remain unchanged to the bitter end are die-herds, but they too will be given work and not deprived of their civil rights, unless they act as secret agents or carry on sabotage.

# This line of action is being taken because, judging from many events in the past, extreme policies produce bad results.

# We should take a long view, and decades from now when we look back on the present events we shall see how this treatment of the bourgeois Rightists profoundly influenced and greatly benefited the revolutionary cause of the proletariat.

#§Our aim is to create a political situation in which we have both centralism and democracy, both discipline and freedom, both unity of will and personal ease of mind and liveliness, and thus to promote our socialist revolution and socialist construction, make it easier to overcome difficulties, build a modern industry and modern agriculture more rapidly and make our Party and state more secure and better able to weather storm and stress.

# The general subject here is the correct handling of contradictions among the people and those between ourselves and the enemy.

# The method is to seek truth from facts and follow the mass line.

# The derivative methods are those of holding meetings attended by both Party and non-Party people to discuss major policies, conducting the rectification movement publicly, and criticizing many of the Party's and the government's shortcomings and mistakes in the press.

# The rectification and the socialist education movement should proceed by batches and stages in the democratic parties, in the various circles comprising education, the press, science and technology, literature and art, public health, industry and commerce, and among the working class, the different strata of the peasantry, handicraftsmen and other urban and rural working people.

# With regard to the bourgeoisie and bourgeois intellectuals, the problem is to get them to accept socialist transformation, and the same holds for the petty bourgeoisie (including the peasants and the urban and rural self-employed working people), and especially the well-to-do middle peasants; but where the basic ranks of the working class and the Communist Party are concerned, the problem is to rectify their style of work.

# These are problems concerning two social categories that are different in character.

# This being the case, why is rectification used as a slogan for both?

# We can say to people: Since the Communist Party and the working class are undergoing rectification, do you think you can do without it?

# Thus the initiative will be completely in our hands.

# The method of rectification is to make criticism and self-criticism, present the facts and reason things out.

# The aim of rectification is to guide the struggle in such a way as to set right the political orientation, raise the ideological level, overcome shortcomings in work, unite with the broad masses, and isolate and split the bourgeois Rightists and all other anti-socialist elements.

# The bourgeois Rightists referred to here include those who have sneaked into the Party and the Youth League and whose political complexion is exactly the same as that of the Rightists outside; they have betrayed the revolutionary cause of the proletariat and launched wild attacks against the Party, and therefore must be fully exposed and expelled in order to preserve the purity of the ranks of the Party and the Youth League.

#§Firm faith in the majority of the masses, and first and foremost in the majority of the basic masses, the workers and peasants -- this is our fundamental point of departure.

# Even in the case of industrialists and businessmen and intellectuals, most people, who may have been deceived for a time and wavered during the period of the Rightists' frenzied attack.

-1#regained their bearings and came over to our side a few weeks later when the counter-attack against the Rightists started.

# Therefore, the majority in these circles are trustworthy in the long run, they can accept socialist transformation.