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Chapter Six ‖ Exploration and Tortuous Development of Socialist Construction

Editorial Group of This Book

January 1, 2021

第六章 社会主义建设的探索和曲折发展

本书编写组

Chapter Six ‖ Exploration and Tortuous Development of Socialist Construction第六章 社会主义建设的探索和曲折发展

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Originally Written By
Editorial Group of This Book本书编写组
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CPC History Press中共党史出版社

Chapter Six ‖ Exploration and Tortuous Development of Socialist Construction

第六章 ‖ 社会主义建设的探索和曲折发展

From September 15 to 27, 1956, the Eighth National Congress of the Communist Party of China was held in Beijing. This was the first national congress convened by the Party after it came to power nationwide. In his opening address, Mao Zedong stated plainly that the congress’s task was to “sum up the experience gained since the Seventh Congress, unite the whole Party, and unite all forces at home and abroad that can possibly be united, in order to struggle for the building of a great socialist China.” He declared with confidence: “The strength of the Chinese people, now liberated, is inexhaustible,” and that they would “certainly be able, step by step, to build our country into a great socialist industrialized state.” People felt keenly that a new, comprehensive, and large-scale period of socialist construction had begun in Chinese history.

I. The Eighth Party Congress and the Auspicious Beginning of China’s Socialist Construction

The Proposal of the “Ten Major Relationships” and a Series of New Guidelines

The year 1956 entered the Party’s historical record both for the basic completion of the socialist transformation of the private ownership of the means of production and the establishment of the socialist system in China, and for the beginning of the exploration of China’s own path of socialist construction.

How to build socialism in China was an entirely new question facing our Party after it came to power. At first, we studied Soviet experience. But through practice, our Party quickly perceived the limitations of the Soviet model and recognized certain shortcomings and errors in the Soviet approach to socialist construction. After careful deliberation, Mao Zedong proposed taking the lessons of Soviet experience as a mirror and independently exploring a path of socialist construction suited to China’s conditions. The convening of the Eighth Party Congress marked the initial fruits of the Party’s exploration of China’s path of socialist construction. The proposal of “On the Ten Major Relationships” was the beginning of this exploration.

In preparation for the Eighth Party Congress and in anticipation of large-scale economic construction, from late 1955 to the spring of 1956, Mao Zedong and other central leaders conducted extensive, careful, and systematic investigations and research. Between February and April 1956, Mao Zedong separately heard reports from 35 ministries and commissions of the State Council on industrial production and economic work, gradually forming a series of views with guiding significance for China’s socialist construction. Mao Zedong explicitly proposed: “The most important thing is to think independently and integrate the basic principles of Marxism-Leninism with the concrete realities of China’s revolution and construction. During the period of the democratic revolution, we succeeded in achieving this integration only after suffering great setbacks, and thereby won victory in the New Democratic Revolution. Now we are in the period of socialist revolution and construction. We must carry out a second integration and find a path for building socialism in China.” On April 25, he delivered his speech “On the Ten Major Relationships” at an enlarged session of the Political Bureau of the Central Committee, and on May 2 he delivered a report to the Supreme State Conference.

★ Mao Zedong delivers the report “On the Ten Major Relationships” at the Supreme State Conference with the concrete realities of China’s revolution and construction. During the period of the democratic revolution, it was only after suffering great setbacks that we successfully achieved this integration and won victory in the New Democratic Revolution. Now, in the period of socialist revolution and construction, we must carry out a second integration—finding the path for how to build socialism in China.” On April 25, he delivered the speech “On the Ten Major Relationships” at an enlarged session of the Political Bureau of the Central Committee, and on May 2 he delivered the report again to the Supreme State Conference.

The basic guideline put forward in “On the Ten Major Relationships” was: “We must make every effort to mobilize all positive factors, direct and indirect, both inside and outside the Party, both at home and abroad, to serve the cause of building our country into a great socialist state.” This was Mao Zedong’s fundamental guiding thought on how to build socialism. On the basis of summing up problems in our state’s economic construction and drawing lessons from Soviet experience, the report discussed ten issues—the “Ten Major Relationships.”

The first five of the “Ten Major Relationships” dealt primarily with economic questions, mobilizing various positive factors across all aspects of economic work. The first three addressed the relationship between heavy industry and light industry and agriculture, the relationship between coastal industry and inland industry, and the relationship between economic construction and national defense construction. The report stressed that in the future, more attention should be paid to developing agriculture and light industry, to making greater use of and developing coastal industry, and to reducing as much as possible the proportion of military and administrative expenditures so as to devote more resources to economic construction. What was actually at stake here was the opening of a path of Chinese industrialization that differed in certain respects from the Soviet path. The fourth and fifth points addressed the relationship between the state, production units, and individual producers, and the relationship between the center and the localities. They began to touch on reform of the economic system, proposing that the initiative of all parties be fully mobilized and that, on the premise of consolidating unified central leadership, local authorities be granted somewhat expanded powers.

The last five of the “Ten Major Relationships” dealt primarily with political relations: the relationship between the Han nationality and the ethnic minorities, between the Party and non-party elements, between revolution and counter-revolution, between right and wrong, and between China and foreign countries—all questions concerning the mobilization of various positive factors in political life and in intellectual and cultural life. The report proposed implementing the guideline of “long-term coexistence and mutual oversight” in relations between the Communist Party and the democratic parties, affirming that the united front under Communist Party leadership and multi-party cooperation should continue to exist and play their role. In relations between China and foreign countries, it called for learning the advanced science and technology of capitalist countries and those aspects of their enterprise management methods that conform to scientific principles, while also resisting and criticizing all the corrupt institutions and ideological tendencies of the bourgeoisie.

“On the Ten Major Relationships” preliminarily put forward a number of new guidelines for China’s socialist economic and political construction. It marked the fact that our Party had arrived at its own new and important understanding of how to build socialism, and it had strong practical relevance and theoretical guiding significance for socialist construction both at the time and afterward. Mao Zedong said on multiple occasions: in the preceding years, economic construction had mainly followed foreign experience, but “On the Ten Major Relationships” began to put forward our own construction line, with our own set of content.

Around this same period, the Party also put forward a series of new guidelines in other areas, in response to the new domestic and international situation and the new tasks of state construction. In January 1956, the Center convened a conference on the question of intellectuals. In his report, Zhou Enlai fully affirmed the status and role of intellectuals in socialist construction, holding that the great majority of them “had already become part of the working class,” and issued a call to “march toward modern science.” Following the conference, the State Council established the Science Planning Commission and formulated the “Outline of the Long-Range Plan for the Development of Science and Technology, 1956–1967.” To promote and develop socialist scientific and cultural undertakings, the Party Central Committee put forward the “Hundred Flowers, Hundred Schools” policy of “letting a hundred flowers bloom and a hundred schools of thought contend.” Around 1956, the Party also proposed striving to liberate Taiwan by peaceful means, and called on the Communist Party of China and the Kuomintang to achieve a third period of cooperation in the interests of the nation and the motherland.

The proposal of “On the Ten Major Relationships” and the series of new guidelines vividly demonstrated the Party’s emancipation of thought and wide-ranging exploration in its search for a path of socialist construction suited to China’s conditions, and provided important ideological and theoretical preparation for the convening of the Eighth Party Congress.

The Eighth Party Congress

From September 15 to 27, 1956, the Eighth National Congress of the Communist Party of China was held in Beijing. Mao Zedong delivered the opening address, Liu Shaoqi delivered the political report, Zhou Enlai delivered a report on proposals for the Second Five-Year Plan for the development of the national economy, and Deng Xiaoping delivered a report on the revision of the Party constitution.

The Eighth Party Congress correctly analyzed the domestic situation and the changes in the principal domestic contradiction, and clearly set out the principal tasks facing the Party and the people of the whole country under the new circumstances. The congress declared: the contradiction between the proletariat and the bourgeoisie in our state had been basically resolved; the history of class exploitation stretching back thousands of years had basically come to an end; and the socialist social system had been basically established in our state. The principal domestic contradiction had now become the contradiction between the people’s demand to establish an advanced industrial state and the reality of a backward agricultural state, and the contradiction between the people’s need for rapid economic and cultural development and the current state of the economy and culture, which was unable to meet the people’s needs. The principal current task of the Party and the people of the whole country was to concentrate their efforts on resolving this contradiction and to transform our state as quickly as possible from a backward agricultural country into an advanced industrial country. The core viewpoint of these formulations was that under socialist conditions, the whole Party must concentrate its efforts on developing the productive forces.

The Eighth Party Congress upheld the guideline for economic construction put forward by the Party Central Committee—opposing both conservatism and reckless advance, that is, making steady progress through comprehensive balance. The congress affirmed the idea of “three principals and three supplements”—that is, state operation and collective operation, planned production, and the state market as the three principals, with individual operation, free production, and the free market as the three supplements. This was an important attempt to theoretically break through the Soviet planned economy model and explore reform of the economic system. The congress proposed the strategic vision of building a basically complete industrial system in our state within three five-year plans or somewhat longer, painting a magnificent blueprint of socialist development for the people of the whole country.

Chapter Six Exploration and Tortuous Development of Socialist Construction

★ The venue of the Eighth Party Congress

The new Party constitution adopted by the Eighth Party Congress was the first Party constitution formulated by the Communist Party of China after it came to power nationwide. The new Party constitution, taking into account the characteristics of a ruling party, set out the task of comprehensively launching socialist construction. The new Party constitution made many new provisions for implementing the fundamental principle of the Party’s democratic centralism, requiring that “the Party must adopt effective methods to promote inner-party democracy,” while also emphasizing that “the democratic principle of the Party cannot be separated from the principle of Party centralism. The Party is a unified fighting organization bound together by the discipline that all party members must observe.” The new Party constitution added to the obligations of party members such content as “safeguarding Party unity and consolidating Party cohesion” and “being loyal and honest toward the Party.”

The First Plenary Session of the Eighth Central Committee elected Mao Zedong as Chairman of the Central Committee; Liu Shaoqi, Zhou Enlai, Zhu De, and Chen Yun as Vice Chairmen; and Deng Xiaoping as General Secretary. These six individuals formed the Standing Committee of the Political Bureau of the Central Committee.

The Eighth Party Congress proclaimed the basic completion of the socialist revolution and the basic establishment of the socialist system. The line formulated by the congress was correct, and many of the new guidelines and new ideas it put forward were rich in creative spirit. This congress’s exploration of the path of socialist construction in China started from a comparatively high historical vantage point, achieved initial results, and held lasting and important significance for the development of the Party’s and the state’s undertakings.

After the Eighth Party Congress, in order to resolve problems left over from the socialist transformation, the Center adjusted economic relations in accordance with the “three principals and three supplements” guideline, achieving initial progress and generating some new thinking on invigorating the economy. At the same time, the Party adjusted the internal relations of the agricultural collective economy, and reforms centered on streamlining administration and delegating power gradually got underway.

Marked by “On the Ten Major Relationships” and the Eighth Party Congress, the Party’s exploration of China’s path of socialist construction had made an auspicious beginning.

II. The Arduous Exploration of the Socialist Path

The Proposal of the Theory of Correctly Handling Contradictions Among the People, the Rectification Campaign Throughout the Party, and the Anti-Rightist Struggle

In February 1956, the Twentieth Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union was convened. At the congress, Khrushchev delivered a secret report that repudiated Stalin wholesale, causing enormous shock and ideological confusion throughout the socialist camp. The international communist movement experienced a major setback. This served as a warning that if the various contradictions of socialist society—and especially contradictions among the people—could not be correctly recognized and handled, the socialist system would be difficult to consolidate and socialist construction would be difficult to carry forward. Domestically, the rapid completion of the socialist transformation, combined with the lingering effects of reckless advance in economic construction and the persistence of bureaucratism and other problems in leadership work, had led to instability in some localities, where small numbers of people were causing disturbances. Confronted with these complex new circumstances, the Party Central Committee and Mao Zedong thought deeply about the contradictions of socialist society and put forward the theory of correctly handling contradictions among the people.

In February 1957, Mao Zedong delivered a speech at the Supreme State Conference entitled “How to Handle Contradictions Among the People” (later revised as “On the Correct Handling of Contradictions Among the People”). He pointed out: contradictions exist universally; socialist society too is full of contradictions; and it is precisely these contradictions that drive socialist society to advance unceasingly. The basic contradictions of socialist society remain those between the productive forces and the relations of production, and between the economic base and the superstructure. These contradictions can be continuously resolved through the self-adjustment and improvement of the socialist system itself. This thesis scientifically revealed for the first time the motive force behind the development of socialist society, and also laid the theoretical foundation for the socialist reforms that came later.

Mao Zedong further pointed out: socialist society contains two fundamentally different types of contradictions—contradictions between ourselves and the enemy, and contradictions among the people. The former must be resolved by coercive, dictatorial methods; the latter can only be resolved by democratic methods, by persuasion and education, and by the method of “unity—criticism—unity.” He elevated the correct handling of contradictions among the people to the level of the central theme of the state’s political life, emphasizing: the large-scale, storm-and-stress-style mass class struggle of the revolutionary period had basically concluded; “our fundamental task has changed from unleashing the productive forces to protecting and developing the productive forces under the new relations of production.”

“On the Correct Handling of Contradictions Among the People” holds pioneering significance in the history of Marxist development. Mao Zedong’s in-depth study of the question of contradictions in socialist society produced a systematic body of doctrine on contradictions in socialist society, enriching and developing the theory of scientific socialism, and holding lasting guiding significance for the Party and the cause of socialist construction.

In accordance with the spirit of the Eighth Party Congress and the new circumstances and problems that had emerged both within and outside the Party, the Center decided to begin by rectifying the Party’s work style, overcoming bureaucratism, sectarianism, and subjectivism, and correctly handling contradictions among the people. On April 27, 1957, the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China issued the “Directive on the Rectification Campaign.” Mao Zedong later pointed out that the Party hoped through rectification to achieve the following goal: to create a political situation that is at once centralized and democratic, disciplined and free, unified in will and personally at ease—a lively and vigorous political situation. Broad masses of cadres and the people, including many influential non-party figures, actively responded to the call, putting forward large numbers of criticisms and suggestions regarding the work of the Party and the government and the ideological work style of party and government cadres. The great majority of these opinions were fairly pertinent and constructive, and were of great benefit to our Party’s rectification and correction of shortcomings and errors.

However, as the rectification campaign developed, many complex situations emerged. A very small number of people seized the opportunity to launch attacks on the Party and the newly established socialist system. They attacked the Communist Party’s leading position in the state’s political life as “the Party’s world,” demanded “taking turns in power,” and characterized the system of people’s democratic dictatorship as the root cause of bureaucratism, sectarianism, and subjectivism. This abnormal phenomenon aroused the Party’s vigilance. In June, the Center called for organizing forces to strike back against the attacks of rightist elements.

Striking back against the attacks of a very small number of rightist elements and criticizing the ideological trend of opposing Party leadership and the socialist path was entirely necessary and correct. However, because the class struggle situation was assessed as excessively grave, large numbers of contradictions among the people were treated as contradictions between ourselves and the enemy, and large numbers of ideological and cognitive questions were treated as political questions. The Anti-Rightist Struggle was thus seriously expanded beyond its proper scope. This was a major lesson in the Party’s history, and caused the auspicious beginning of the Party’s exploration of China’s path of socialist construction to suffer a setback.

The “Great Leap Forward,” the People’s Commune Movement, and Efforts to Correct “Leftist” Errors

In order to change China’s impoverished and backward appearance as quickly as possible, the Party strove to open up an entirely new situation in its exploration of the path of socialist construction. As early as the beginning of 1956, a tendency toward reckless advance had already appeared in our state’s economic construction. As some factories and rural areas began to display signs of rapid production growth in 1957, the enthusiasm of the people for building socialism rose greatly, and the Party believed that economic construction should proceed at a faster pace. Internationally, the Communist Party of China had won great prestige at the November 1957 Moscow Conference of Communist and Workers’ Parties, and the Soviet Union’s successful launch of the first artificial earth satellite, combined with its proposal to catch up with and surpass the United States in fifteen years, gave enormous encouragement to socialists throughout the world, including in China.

In the winter of 1957, a nationwide upsurge in agricultural production centered on water conservancy construction, pig-raising and manure accumulation, and soil improvement was launched, setting the stage for the “Great Leap Forward.” In May 1958, the Second Session of the Eighth Party Congress adopted the General Line of “going all out, aiming high, and achieving greater, faster, better, and more economical results in building socialism.” This reflected the universal desire of the Party and the broad masses of the people to urgently change the backward state of our country’s economy and culture, but it violated the objective laws that must be followed in economic construction. After the congress, the “Great Leap Forward” movement was launched across the country in all areas. In agriculture, the slogan “take grain as the key link” was put forward, demanding that specified grain output targets be reached within five years, three years, or even one or two years, which triggered a serious wind of exaggeration. In industry, the slogan “take steel as the key link” was put forward, demanding that the fifteen-year target of surpassing Britain’s steel output be achieved ahead of schedule within a few years, setting off a mass movement of backyard steel smelting.

Simultaneously with the rapid development of the “Great Leap Forward,” a high tide of the People’s Commune movement swept through the countryside. In August 1958, the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China adopted the “Resolution on the Establishment of People’s Communes in the Rural Areas.” Subsequently, the entire rural countryside basically completed communization in just over a month. The People’s Communes established in the early period of the “Great Leap Forward” were characterized as “large in size and a high degree of public ownership.” In practice, this meant whipping up a “communist wind” of “leveling and transferring,” practicing egalitarianism, and commandeering without compensation the property and labor of production teams and individual commune members, seriously damaging the enthusiasm of the peasants for production.

Making every possible effort to push construction forward at a faster pace, so as to seize greater initiative,

was the urgent desire of the entire Party and the people of the whole country at the time. However, because the Party lacked experience in large-scale socialist construction, and because it had departed from the principle of seeking truth from facts that the Party had always advocated—acting instead on the basis of subjective wishes and willpower—the results were the opposite of what was intended.

In the autumn and winter of 1958, the Party Central Committee began to discover that the “Great Leap Forward” and the People’s Commune movement had caused considerable disorder. From the First Zhengzhou Conference in November 1958 to the early stage of the Lushan Conference in July 1959, the Party Central Committee led the rectification of the People’s Communes and the adjustment of excessively high targets, making initial efforts to correct “leftist” errors. The “communist wind,” the wind of exaggeration, high targets, and blind commands were initially curbed, and the situation began to improve somewhat. During this period, the Party Central Committee and Mao Zedong arrived at some new understandings of the laws of socialist construction. These included: the relations of production must necessarily conform to the nature of the productive forces; the law of value is a great school and must be utilized to serve socialism; socialist construction should proceed in the sequence of “agriculture, light industry, heavy industry”; and comprehensive balance is the fundamental issue of all economic work, with the national economy developing in a planned and proportionate manner. These understandings were an important reason for the initial success of the effort to correct “leftist” errors, and were also important fruits of the Party’s exploration of China’s path of socialist construction. However, the correction of “leftist” errors was carried out within the premise and framework of affirming the “Great Leap Forward” and the People’s Communes, and the initial improvement in the situation was still very fragile. The “anti-right deviation” struggle that subsequently emerged interrupted the process of correcting “leftist” errors. Combined with natural disasters and the Soviet government’s perfidious tearing up of contracts, the Party and the people faced the most serious economic difficulties since the founding of the People’s Republic.

The Adjustment of the National Economy and the Proposal of the Strategic Goal of the “Four Modernizations”

Confronted with serious economic difficulties, the Party Central Committee and Mao Zedong resolved to earnestly investigate and study the situation, correct errors, and adjust policies. In November 1960, the Center issued the “Emergency Directive Letter on Current Policy Questions Concerning Rural People’s Communes,” requiring the whole Party to make every effort to resolutely correct the “communist wind.” In January 1961, the Ninth Plenary Session of the Eighth Central Committee decided to implement the eight-character guideline of “adjustment, consolidation, filling out, and raising standards” for the national economy. Marked by these two events, the “Great Leap Forward” movement was in practice brought to a halt, and the national economy began to shift onto a new track of adjustment.

At the Ninth Plenary Session of the Eighth Central Committee and at the central work conference convened in preparation for that session, Mao Zedong called on the whole Party to restore the work style of seeking truth from facts and conducting investigations and research. Thereafter, central leaders including Mao Zedong, Liu Shaoqi, Zhou Enlai, Zhu De, Chen Yun, and Deng Xiaoping took the lead in going deep into the grassroots to conduct investigations and research. In order to systematically resolve the problems existing in the rural People’s Communes, Mao Zedong presided over the drafting of the “Draft Regulations on the Work of Rural People’s Communes” (the Sixty Articles on Agriculture) in March 1961. During the drafting and revision of the regulations, the understanding of the whole Party deepened continuously, and a start was made on gradually resolving problems that the peasants had strongly raised, such as the public mess halls.

The Party-wide promotion of investigation and research provided an important ideological foundation for adjustment across all areas. Adjustment in the industrial sphere centered on reducing targets such as steel output and rectifying enterprise order. In September 1961, the Center issued the “Directive on Current Industrial Questions,”

★ Mao Zedong calls on the whole Party to promote investigation and research at the Ninth Plenary Session of the Eighth Central Committee emphasizing that a decisive decision must be made to bring industrial production and capital construction targets down to a level that was genuinely reliable and left room for maneuver. At the same time, the Center promulgated the “Draft Regulations on the Work of State-Owned Industrial Enterprises” (the Seventy Articles on Industry) for trial implementation, which played a positive role in restoring and establishing normal production order in enterprises.

In coordination with the adjustment of economic work, adjustments were also carried out in the spheres of science, education, and culture. The central content of these adjustments was to adjust the relationship between the Party and intellectuals and implement policies toward intellectuals; to uphold the guideline of “letting a hundred flowers bloom and a hundred schools of thought contend”; and to improve necessary rules and regulations so as to restore normal order and ensure the smooth conduct of work in all areas. In order to further mobilize the enthusiasm of intellectuals, in March 1962 Zhou Enlai, in his report “On the Question of Intellectuals,” affirmed that the great majority of our state’s intellectuals had already become intellectuals belonging to the laboring people, and stressed the need to give full play to the role of science and scientists in socialist construction, greatly encouraging intellectuals.

In order to further sum up the lessons of experience since the “Great Leap Forward,” unify understanding, and strengthen unity, from January 11 to February 7, 1962, the Party Central Committee convened an enlarged central work conference in Beijing (the Conference of Seven Thousand Cadres). The draft written report submitted by Liu Shaoqi on behalf of the Center summed up the lessons of experience in economic construction work since the “Great Leap Forward” and analyzed the causes of the shortcomings and errors. On January 30, Mao Zedong delivered a speech at the conference in which he engaged in self-criticism, emphasizing that in socialist construction we still had a great deal of ignorance, and that in the future we must work hard to investigate and study, and to clarify the laws of the socialist economy. To enable China to catch up with and surpass the world’s most advanced capitalist countries would require more than a hundred years. This represented a further recognition by the Party Central Committee and Mao Zedong of the long-term nature of socialist construction. Deng Xiaoping and Zhou Enlai, representing the Central Secretariat and the State Council respectively, engaged in self-criticism at the conference and put forward the principal methods for restoring the Party’s fine traditions and overcoming the current difficulties.

The Conference of Seven Thousand Cadres achieved important results under the historical conditions of the time. Although the conference was unable to fundamentally clear up the errors of the “Great Leap Forward” and the “anti-right deviation” campaign in terms of guiding thought, the comparatively truth-seeking attitude toward shortcomings and errors, and the spirit of promoting democracy and engaging in self-criticism, encouraged the whole Party, strengthened the Party’s cohesion, and played a positive role in mobilizing the whole Party to unite and struggle to overcome difficulties.

After the Conference of Seven Thousand Cadres, the principal measures taken to adjust the national economy were: vigorously reducing the workforce and the urban population; cutting back the scale of capital construction and suspending or postponing large numbers of capital construction projects; shortening the industrial front and implementing necessary closures, suspensions, mergers, and conversions; and strengthening and supporting the agricultural front in terms of manpower, material resources, and financial resources, while reinforcing the leadership forces at the rural grassroots level. In the adjustment of agricultural policy, some localities experimented with various forms of agricultural production responsibility systems, including output quotas contracted to households, achieving comparatively good results.

★ During the Conference of Seven Thousand Cadres, Mao Zedong, Liu Shaoqi, Zhou Enlai, Zhu De, Chen Yun, and Deng Xiaoping together. After nearly two years of adjustment centered on the Conference of Seven Thousand Cadres, from the summer of 1963 onward, all areas of construction began to show clear signs of healthy development. By the end of 1965, the task of adjusting the national economy had been comprehensively completed. The total output value of industry and agriculture surpassed the highest historical level; the proportional relationship among agriculture, light industry, and heavy industry was improved; the proportional relationship between accumulation and consumption was basically restored to normal; fiscal revenues and expenditures were balanced, the market was stable, and the people’s standard of living improved somewhat. The serious difficulties brought about by the “Great Leap Forward” and the People’s Commune movement were finally overcome through the arduous and painstaking efforts of the Party and the people.

When the adjustment of the national economy had achieved great results, the Party put forward new goals for struggle at an opportune moment. At the end of 1964, Zhou Enlai solemnly proposed at the First Session of the Third National People’s Congress the historic task of realizing the “Four Modernizations”—that is, “within a not-too-long historical period, to build our state into a socialist power with modern agriculture, modern industry, modern national defense, and modern science and technology, catching up with and surpassing the world’s advanced levels.” The Center also determined a two-step strategic vision for realizing modernization: beginning with the Third Five-Year Plan, the first step would be to establish an independent and relatively complete industrial system and national economic system over the course of three five-year plan periods; the second step would be to comprehensively realize the modernization of agriculture, industry, national defense, and science and technology, bringing China’s economy to the forefront of the world. From that point on, the “Four Modernizations” became the common goal of struggle for the Party and the people of all ethnic groups throughout the country, and became a powerful spiritual force that rallied and united the people of all ethnic groups throughout the country in unceasing struggle.

Upholding Independence and Autonomy, Opposing Hegemonism

From the mid-1950s to the mid-1960s, the world situation was turbulent. Within the Cold War configuration of the world dominated by the two superpowers, the United States and the Soviet Union, China faced overt and latent threats of aggression, military provocations, and military pressure from multiple directions. How to uphold independence and autonomy, oppose hegemonism from all quarters, and thereby safeguard national dignity and state interests was the central concern of the Party in its thinking on questions of international relations.

From the late 1950s to the early 1960s, in response to the development of the situation, Mao Zedong raised anew the question of the “intermediate zone,” holding that the intermediate zone had two parts: one part consisted of the vast economically underdeveloped countries of Asia, Africa, and Latin America; the other part consisted of the imperialist countries and developed capitalist countries represented by Europe. Both parts opposed American control, while in the Eastern European countries the problem of opposition to Soviet control had arisen. Winning over the “intermediate zone” and developing relations with Asian, African, and Latin American countries became an important component of China’s foreign policy at the time. The establishment of diplomatic relations between China and France in 1964 was a major achievement in opening up China’s diplomatic situation with Western developed countries.

During this period, China and the United States engaged in confrontation over such issues as the United States’ armed intervention in Taiwan and interference in China’s internal affairs, and the United States’ armed aggression against Vietnam and its threat to China’s security. In August 1958, the Party Central Committee and Mao Zedong raised the Taiwan question by shelling Jinmen, dealing a heavy blow to the Chiang Kai-shek clique’s clamor for “counterattacking the mainland” and to the United States’ scheme to create “two Chinas,” and powerfully demonstrating the Chinese people’s position and determination to oppose American interference in China’s internal affairs and to safeguard national unification. The struggle to aid Vietnam and resist America that began in 1965 embodied the dauntless spirit of the Chinese people in opposing the threat of aggression and safeguarding world peace.

Beginning in the late 1950s, the contradictions and conflicts between China and the Soviet Union intensified day by day. The Soviet Party assumed the posture of a “parent party,” demanding that the Communist Party of China subordinate itself in military and diplomatic affairs to the Soviet strategy of Sino-Soviet cooperation to dominate the world. As Deng Xiaoping put it: “The real substantive issue is inequality; the Chinese people feel humiliated.” The Communist Party of China upheld independence and autonomy, resolutely withstood the enormous pressure from the Soviet Union, and safeguarded state sovereignty, national dignity, and the dignity of the Party.

The Achievements of Ten Years of Socialist Construction and the Pioneering Spirit of Arduous Struggle and Self-Reliant Striving

The ten years of comprehensive socialist construction from 1956 to 1966 were ten years of arduous exploration by the Party of China’s path of socialist construction. Although the path was tortuous, undeniable and enormous achievements were nonetheless made. The development of industrial construction, scientific research, cutting-edge national defense technology, and much of the work on farmland water conservancy construction and the mechanization and modernization of agriculture all had their foundations laid during those years.

In industrial construction, comparing 1966 with 1956, the nation’s industrial fixed assets, calculated at original prices, increased threefold. In the steel industry, in addition to the further development of the Anshan Iron and Steel complex—our state’s largest steel base—the two major inland steel bases at Wuhan and Baotou were built primarily during these ten years. In the machinery industry, more than a dozen basic sectors took shape, including the manufacture of industrial equipment for metallurgy, mining, power stations, and petrochemicals, as well as the manufacture of aircraft, automobiles, and engineering machinery. The capacity to independently design and manufacture some large-scale modern equipment was also developed. By 1964, our state’s self-sufficiency rate for major machinery and equipment had reached over 90 percent.

Particularly outstanding was the development of the petroleum industry into a pillar industry of our state’s national economy during this period. The Daqing Oilfield was built and completed, followed by the development of the Shengli Oilfield and the Dagang Oilfield. By 1965, all of the petroleum needed domestically was being produced domestically, enabling us to proudly declare: the era of China living on “foreign oil” had come to an end!

Transportation made great strides. From 1958 to 1965, more than 9,000 kilometers of new railway lines were opened to traffic nationwide. Lines including the Yingtan-Xiamen, Baotou-Lanzhou, Lanzhou-Qinghai, Lanzhou-Xinjiang, Sichuan-Guizhou, and Guizhou-Guangxi railways were completed and opened. Every province, autonomous region, and directly administered municipality in the country except Tibet had railways, and Fujian, Ningxia, Qinghai, and Xinjiang had trains for the first time. Road transport, water transport, and civil aviation also developed considerably.

Major achievements were made in farmland water conservancy construction. Large-scale key backbone projects and various types of reservoirs played an important role both at the time and for a considerable period thereafter.

Significant progress was made in science and technology. On October 16, 1964, our state successfully detonated its first atomic bomb, powerfully breaking the nuclear monopoly and nuclear blackmail of the great powers and raising our state’s international standing. Breakthroughs were also made in the development of missiles and artificial satellites. In basic scientific research, in 1965 our state became the first in the world to artificially synthesize crystalline bovine insulin.

★ On October 16, 1964, our state’s first atomic bomb was successfully detonated

Considerable achievements were made in education and public health. From 1957 to 1966, nearly 1.4 million students graduated from institutions of higher education and approximately 2.11 million from secondary specialized schools—4.9 times and 2.4 times, respectively, the figures for 1950 to 1956. Medical and health institutions increased substantially, and a basic nationwide urban-rural health care network took shape. Diseases that had seriously endangered the people’s health—including smallpox, cholera, schistosomiasis, malaria, and plague—were either eradicated or effectively brought under control. Mao Zedong wrote the lines “May I ask where the plague god is headed? / Paper boats and burning candles illuminate the sky” to express his admiration for the miracle of eliminating schistosomiasis.

Large numbers of outstanding literary and artistic works emerged, including the novels Song of Youth and History of Entrepreneurship, the films and stage productions The Red Detachment of Women and Sentinel Under the Neon Lights,

and the opera Sister Jiang. The large-scale musical dance epic The East Is Red was a classic of this period.

Economic and cultural construction in ethnic minority areas took significant strides forward. In many localities, large-scale modern industrial bases were established, ending the history of ethnic minority areas having no modern industry. A number of institutions of higher education were established in ethnic minority areas, and various types of specialized personnel needed for local construction were cultivated.

Over the course of the decade, our state cultivated a large number of specialized personnel needed for governing the Party, the state, and the military, and for the cause of socialist construction. The great majority of these individuals later became the backbone forces in all areas of the reform and opening up and modernization drive. Party building was strengthened, and the Party’s ranks were further developed. The number of party members nationwide grew from 10.73 million in 1956 to 18.95 million in 1965.

As the “Resolution on Certain Historical Questions of the Party Since the Founding of the People’s Republic of China” pointed out: “A large part of the material and technical foundation on which we now rely to carry out modernization was built during that period; the backbone forces in the nation’s economic, cultural, and other areas of construction, and their accumulated work experience, were for the most part also cultivated and built up during that period. This was the predominant aspect of the Party’s work during that period.”

What is worthy of pride is that while the Party led the people through arduous exploration and achieved enormous results in socialist construction, it also reaped an enormous harvest in terms of spiritual strength. The people of all ethnic groups in our state threw themselves with high spirits into the red-hot socialist construction, producing large numbers of advanced models and heroic exemplary figures, writing countless magnificent poems of transforming heaven and earth, and forging a spirit of the times that transcends time and space and grows ever fresher with the passage of years.

The Daqing petroleum workers, represented by the “Iron Man” Wang Jinxi, in order to shed China’s label as a country “poor in oil” as quickly as possible, worked with the passion of “I’d rather live twenty years less and fight to bring in the big oilfield,” and with the determination of “if conditions are there, go ahead; if conditions aren’t there, create them and go ahead.” In just over three years, they built Daqing Oilfield—our state’s largest petroleum base—forging the Daqing Spirit and the Iron Man Spirit of patriotism, entrepreneurship, pragmatism, and dedication.

Jiao Yulu, secretary of the Lankao County Party Committee in Henan, in order to change the impoverished and backward appearance of the Lankao people, led the people of the entire county in combating sand, controlling water, and improving land, dragging his body afflicted with chronic liver disease. With the sincerity of “born on the sand dunes, dying on the sand dunes, bound to the life and death of the common people,” and with the servant-of-the-people sentiment of “keeping the entire people in his heart while leaving no room for himself,” he gave expression to the Jiao Yulu Spirit of loving and being close to the people, working hard and struggling arduously, seeking truth through science, facing difficulties head-on, and selfless dedication.

The people of Linxian County in Henan, under the leadership of the county Party committee, spent ten years crossing mountains and valleys in the Taihang Mountains—boring through mountains wherever they encountered them, building bridges wherever they encountered gullies—leveling 1,250 mountain peaks, boring through 211 tunnels, and constructing 152 aqueducts, completing the Red Flag Canal, an “artificial river in the sky” stretching 1,500 kilometers. In the process, 81 people gave their lives. With the boldness of “the people of Linxian County have great aspirations—they vow to rearrange the rivers and mountains,” they created the legend of a generation of Chinese peasants transforming heaven and earth.

Lei Feng, a soldier of the People’s Liberation Army, was content to serve as a screw in an ordinary work post, willing to contribute and eager to help others, displaying lofty communist sentiments, and becoming the most resounding name of that era. In August 1962, he died in the line of duty at the age of only 22. Mao Zedong inscribed the words: “Learn from Comrade Lei Feng.” The Lei Feng Spirit became a hallmark of the social ethos of New China.

In the course of New China’s development, the successful development of the “Two Bombs and One Satellite” was a great achievement of which the Chinese nation is proud. Scientists including Qian Xuesen, Qian Sanqiang, and Deng Jiaxian linked their personal ideals tightly to the fate of the motherland, and their personal aspirations tightly to the rejuvenation of the nation. “Doing earth-shaking deeds while living as nameless people.” They shed their blood on the Gobi Desert, dedicating their youth and lives to the cause of New China’s national defense construction, and permanently inscribed on Chinese soil the “Two Bombs and One Satellite” Spirit of loving the motherland, selfless dedication, self-reliance, arduous struggle, vigorous coordination, and the courage to scale new heights—making it a precious spiritual treasure and an inexhaustible source of motivation for the people of all ethnic groups throughout the country.

There are many more such heroic models and spirits that inspire later generations. This was an era of immense difficulties and arduous struggle in the construction of New China—an era that produced heroes in abundance and was filled with soaring spirit. In order to build a prosperous and powerful New China, the Chinese people, who had stood up as masters of their own fate, raced against time, painted the newest and most beautiful pictures with their lives and blood, and proved through their actions: the struggle against difficulties is a contest of material strength, but also a contest of spiritual strength. Spirit is the soul upon which a nation relies for its long-term survival; only when a nation reaches a certain height in spirit can it stand firm and press forward courageously in the torrent of history.

III. Socialist Construction Developing Amid Twists and Turns

The Outbreak of the “Cultural Revolution” and the Arduous Progress of Work in All Areas

In 1966, just as our state had overcome the serious difficulties of the national economy, completed the task of economic adjustment, and begun to implement the Third Five-Year Plan for the development of the national economy, the “Cultural Revolution” broke out.

The outbreak of the “Cultural Revolution” had complex social and historical causes, both international and domestic. After the founding of New China, for a long period we continuously faced a severe external environment. Imperialism engaged in long-term hostility and blockade, pinning its hopes for “peaceful evolution” on China’s third and fourth generations. The Soviet Union exerted enormous pressure on China after the deterioration of Sino-Soviet relations. This external environment had an enormous influence on the Party’s scientific assessment of the domestic political situation and its determination of the central tasks and guidelines and policies of the Party and the state. Our Party had rapidly entered the socialist historical stage after a prolonged and brutal war, and lacked a scientific understanding of how to build socialism in an economically and culturally backward country, nor was it sufficiently mentally prepared. The successful experience of class struggle accumulated during the past revolutionary war period made it easy for people, when observing and handling the many new contradictions of socialist construction, to apply and mechanically copy those methods—treating problems that did not belong to the realm of class struggle as class struggle, treating class struggle that existed only within a certain scope as still the principal contradiction of society, and employing the method of large-scale mass political movements to resolve it.

In May 1966, an enlarged session of the Political Bureau of the Central Committee adopted the “May 16th Circular,” which stated: “The representatives of the bourgeoisie who have sneaked into the Party, the government, the army, and various cultural circles are a bunch of counter-revolutionary revisionists. Once conditions are ripe, they will seize political power and turn the dictatorship of the proletariat into a dictatorship of the bourgeoisie.” In August, the Eleventh Plenary Session of the Eighth Central Committee adopted the “Decision of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China Concerning the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution,” proposing that “the focus of this movement is to struggle against those within the Party who are in authority and taking the capitalist road.” The convening of these two meetings marked the full-scale launching of the “Cultural Revolution.” Thereafter, the Red Guard movement rose rapidly. From January 1967 onward, the “Cultural Revolution” entered the stage of “comprehensive seizure of power,” quickly developing into the grave situation of “overthrowing everything” and even “all-out civil war.” Around February, veteran revolutionaries including Tan Zhenlin, Chen Yi, Ye Jianying, Li Fuchun, Li Xiannian, Xu Xiangqian, and Nie Rongzhen raised strong criticisms of the erroneous practices of the “Cultural Revolution” at various meetings, but were denounced as the “February Countercurrent” and subjected to suppression and attack. By September 1968, revolutionary committees had been established successively throughout the country, to some extent ending the anarchic state of the early period of the “Cultural Revolution.” In October, under conditions of extreme abnormality in inner-party life, the enlarged Twelfth Plenary Session of the Eighth Central Committee announced “the permanent expulsion of Liu Shaoqi from the Party and the removal of all his positions inside and outside the Party.” The Ninth Congress convened in April 1969 further systematized and legitimized the theory and practice of the “Cultural Revolution.” Between 1970 and 1971, the Lin Biao counter-revolutionary clique plotted to seize supreme power and instigated a counter-revolutionary armed coup, which objectively proclaimed the failure of the theory and practice of the “Cultural Revolution.” In 1972, Zhou Enlai proposed criticizing the ultra-leftist ideological trend, which led to a marked improvement in work in all areas. The Tenth Congress convened in August 1973 continued to affirm the political and organizational lines of the Ninth Congress. After the Tenth Party Congress, Jiang Qing formed the “Gang of Four” with Wang Hongwen, Zhang Chunqiao, and Yao Wenyuan, scheming to comprehensively seize the supreme power of the Party and the state. In January 1975, the First Session of the Fourth National People’s Congress reaffirmed the goal of struggle to realize the Four Modernizations, and appointed Zhou Enlai as Premier and Deng Xiaoping as First Vice Premier. This gave the broad masses of cadres and people, who had been living through repeated turmoil, renewed hope for the Party and the state.

The primary considerations behind launching the “Cultural Revolution” were to prevent the restoration of capitalism and to seek China’s own path of building socialism. As the leader of a ruling proletarian party, Mao Zedong unceasingly observed and pondered the problems of real life in the newly emerging socialist society. He was extremely concerned about the consolidation of the Party and the people’s political power that had been so arduously created, and was highly vigilant against the danger of capitalist restoration. He engaged in unceasing exploration and unrelenting struggle to eliminate corruption, privilege, bureaucratism, and other such phenomena within the Party and the government. However, because the laws governing the construction and development of socialist society were not clearly understood, and because “leftist” errors had accumulated and developed in theory and practice, many correct ideas about socialist construction were not implemented, ultimately giving rise to internal turmoil.

The “Cultural Revolution” lasted ten years, causing the Party, the state, and the people of all ethnic groups to suffer the longest, most wide-ranging, and most damaging setback since the founding of the People’s Republic. Party organizations and state power were greatly weakened, large numbers of cadres and people were cruelly persecuted, democracy and the legal system were trampled upon wantonly, and the entire country fell into a serious political and social crisis. The “Cultural Revolution” was not a revolution or social progress in any sense. It was an internal turmoil launched by erroneous decisions of the leadership, exploited by counter-revolutionary cliques, that brought serious disaster to the Party, the state, and the people of all ethnic groups, leaving behind extremely painful lessons.

Throughout the “Cultural Revolution,” the Party and the people never ceased their struggle against “leftist” errors. It was precisely the resistance and struggle of the whole Party and the broad masses of workers, peasants, commanders and fighters of the People’s Liberation Army, intellectuals, and cadres at all levels that limited to some degree the destruction wrought by the “Cultural Revolution,” allowed socialist construction to continue making certain progress in some important areas, and ensured that the nature of the Party, the people’s political power, the people’s army, and society as a whole did not change.

There is a distinction between the “Cultural Revolution” as a political movement and the historical period of the “Cultural Revolution.” During this period, our state’s national economy experienced considerable fluctuations, but through the joint efforts of the Party and the people, important progress was still made in all areas of work under difficult conditions. In the early period of the “Cultural Revolution,” the turmoil was concentrated mainly in the cultural and educational sectors and in party and government organs; the great majority of the production system was not disrupted. In particular, the five years of adjustment had laid a comparatively good foundation for the development of the national economy, so that in 1966 the various production and construction undertakings still achieved comparatively good results. After 1969, as the domestic situation became somewhat more stable, Zhou Enlai and other leaders who presided over government work seized the opportunity to begin restoring the work of the major industrial departments and other comprehensive economic departments, and strengthened the planned management of the economy. The national economy in 1969 reversed the consecutive decline of the previous two years and began to recover. In the economic construction of 1970, the construction of strategic rear bases in the interior (with the focus on national defense industry construction) rapidly and comprehensively expanded, and the local “five small industries” (small iron and steel, small machinery, small chemical fertilizer, small coal mines, and small cement) developed rapidly. By year’s end, the economic targets for that year and the principal targets of the Third Five-Year Plan were basically fulfilled.

In 1971, our state began implementing the Fourth Five-Year Plan. Due to neglect of the contradictions existing in economic work and the continued pursuit of high targets, the reckless advance in economic construction showed no sign of abating. From 1972 to 1973, in accordance with Zhou Enlai’s instructions, the State Council adopted various measures to adjust the national economy. In the second half of 1973, the economic situation improved markedly, and the principal targets of the national economic plan were fulfilled or overfulfilled. During this period, our state for the first time incorporated population control targets into the national economic development plan, formulated the first comprehensive document on environmental protection, and successively imported from abroad a number of technologically advanced complete sets of equipment and individual machines, which played an important role in promoting our state’s subsequent economic development and technological progress.

During this period, the achievements of the Third Front construction were noteworthy. In May and June 1964, considering the strategic layout of economic construction and national defense construction, Mao Zedong divided the country into first, second, and third fronts and raised the question of Third Front construction, which was subsequently launched. From July 1970 to October 1973, under extremely harsh conditions, commanders and fighters of the Railway Corps and railway engineering construction personnel overcame one difficulty after another in the remote mountains and deep valleys, successively completing the Chengdu-Kunming Railway, the Hunan-Guizhou Railway, and the Xiangfan-Chongqing Railway, transforming the long-standing situation of blocked and backward transportation in the southwest region. In addition, large enterprises under construction or completed included large coal mines such as Liupanshui in Guizhou and Baodingshan in Sichuan, and medium and large hydroelectric power stations such as Liujiaxia in Gansu, Danjiangkou in Hubei, and Gezhouba in Hubei. On the banks of the Jinsha River, builders “set up a pot on three stones and pitched tents in mountain hollows,” relying on human labor to transport tens of thousands of tons of large machinery, and ultimately built the modern large-scale enterprise carved like ivory miniature work—the Panzhihua Iron and Steel Base in Sichuan. Third Front construction to a great extent changed the unbalanced industrial layout of old China, bringing a large number of then-cutting-edge military enterprises, state-owned enterprises, and scientific research institutes to the western region, providing the western region with rare opportunities for development.

A number of transportation lines and oil pipeline facilities were successively completed. The Nanjing Yangtze River Bridge, completed in 1968, was at the time the largest combined railway and highway bridge designed and built independently by our state. The renovated Baoji-Chengdu Railway became our state’s first electrified railway. In 1974, our state completed the first long-distance oil pipeline from Daqing to Qinhuangdao.

National defense science and technology achieved notable results, and civilian science and technology also made breakthroughs. In October 1966, our state successfully conducted its first test of launching a nuclear-armed missile. In June 1967, the first hydrogen bomb was successfully detonated. In April 1970, the first artificial earth satellite, “Dongfanghong-1,” was successfully launched. Our state’s first recoverable remote-sensing artificial earth satellite was successfully launched in November 1975. In biotechnology, in 1972 the China Academy of Traditional Chinese Medicine successfully extracted a new antimalarial drug, artemisinin, which has saved millions of lives globally, particularly in developing countries. In 1973, our state became the first in the world to successfully cultivate a strongly dominant indica hybrid rice.

These major achievements on the science and technology front—especially those in cutting-edge national defense technology—not only strengthened our state’s composite national strength and strategic national defense capabilities, but also held great political significance. Deng Xiaoping later said: “If China had not developed atomic bombs, hydrogen bombs, and launched satellites since the 1960s, China could not be called a country with important influence, and would not have the international standing it has today.” These achievements were the result of the broad masses of party members, cadres, and the people overcoming interference and struggling together.

Opening Up a New Situation in External Work

After the founding of New China, our Party upheld an independent and autonomous peaceful foreign policy. In the early period of the “Cultural Revolution,” foreign affairs work was subjected to interference and disruption. In the early 1970s, the international situation, after more than twenty years of development since the Second World War, underwent major changes, and the outlines of a new international configuration began to emerge. This provided an opportunity for the transformation of China’s foreign strategy. Through efforts on multiple fronts, by the early 1970s our state’s foreign affairs work had opened up a new situation, ushering in the second high tide of diplomatic recognition since the founding of the People’s Republic.

The key link in the shift in the situation was the easing of relations between China and the United States. The United States needed to eliminate as quickly as possible the impact of its defeat in the Vietnam War and maintain its hegemonic position in the world, and needed to respond to the Soviet challenge—it urgently needed to improve relations with China. On China’s part, the need to primarily address the direct and serious threat that the Soviet Union then posed to our state’s security, to resolve the Taiwan question and realize the great cause of national unification, and to restore and expand international contacts and actively participate in international affairs also required an easing of relations with the United States.

In 1969, after Nixon assumed the presidency of the United States, he indicated a desire to improve Sino-American relations. In April 1971, Mao Zedong agreed to invite the American table tennis team to visit China. This “ping-pong diplomacy” of “a small ball moving a big ball” unexpectedly promoted the development of Sino-American relations and changes in the world situation. In July, Henry Kissinger, the U.S. President’s National Security Advisor, made a secret visit to China. This news shook the world. In February 1972, U.S. President Nixon visited China. After talks between the two sides, the “Joint Communiqué of the United States of America and the People’s Republic of China” was issued in Shanghai on February 28, marking the beginning of the process of normalization of relations between the two countries.

On October 25, 1971, the Twenty-Sixth Session of the United Nations General Assembly adopted Resolution 2758 by an overwhelming majority, restoring all the lawful rights of the People’s Republic of China in the United Nations and immediately expelling the representatives of the Chiang Kai-shek clique of Taiwan from all the organs of the United Nations. On November 1, the five-starred red flag of the People’s Republic of China was raised at the United Nations for the first time. This was a major victory on China’s diplomatic front. From that point on, China, as a permanent member of the United Nations Security Council, has made unceasing efforts within the United Nations organization to realize the purposes of the United Nations Charter, safeguard world peace, strengthen friendly cooperation among nations, and promote the cause of human progress.

The easing of Sino-American relations directly promoted the improvement of Sino-Japanese relations. Japanese Prime Minister Tanaka Kakuei came to China for a visit on September 25, 1972. The two sides signed the “Joint Statement” establishing diplomatic relations on September 29. By the end of 1973, our state had basically completed the process of establishing diplomatic relations with all developed capitalist countries except the United States, and had also established formal relations with the European Community. China’s cooperation with these countries in the areas of economics, trade, science and technology, and culture all developed favorably. China’s relations with the Eastern European countries were also restored, improved, and developed to varying degrees.

Another notable achievement of China’s external work during this period was the development of friendly cooperative relations with ★ On February 21, 1972, Mao Zedong received Nixon at Zhongnanhai countries of various types throughout the world, including the normalization of relations with the United States, in which all played an important role.

Many countries in Asia, Africa, and Latin America developed friendly cooperative relations, forming yet another high tide of diplomatic recognition on an even larger scale. China successively established diplomatic relations with more than 40 Asian, African, and Latin American countries, resolutely supporting in all respects these countries’ just struggles to defend their national independence and state sovereignty, oppose foreign aggression and interference, and safeguard peace in their regions and in the world. China sincerely safeguarded and strove to promote solidarity among these countries, and joined them in the common struggle to break the old international order in which great powers bullied small countries and rich countries exploited poor countries, and to establish a new international order based on the Five Principles of Peaceful Coexistence.

In the early 1970s, Mao Zedong gradually formed his assessment of the international situation in terms of the division of the Three Worlds. He held that the two superpowers, the Soviet Union and the United States, constituted the First World; the developed Western countries other than the Soviet Union and the United States, and the Eastern European countries, constituted the Second World; and the vast developing countries of Asia, Africa, and Latin America constituted the Third World. Under the historical conditions of the time, this thinking played a guiding role in our state’s foreign affairs work, in upholding opposition to the hegemonism and war threats of the superpowers, and in striving to establish and develop relations with the Third

The first half of the 1970s was a period of breakthrough and major development in Chinese diplomacy. By 1976, more than 110 countries had established diplomatic relations with China, encompassing the great majority of the world’s countries at the time. The achievements of our state’s diplomacy greatly improved China’s security environment, expanded the stage for China’s diplomatic activities, and also created favorable preconditions and laid the foundation for China’s reform and opening up and more active participation in international affairs after the end of the “Cultural Revolution.”

The Comprehensive Rectification of 1975

In early 1975, after the close of the First Session of the Fourth National People’s Congress, Deng Xiaoping, with the support of Mao Zedong and Zhou Enlai, took comprehensive charge of the day-to-day work of the Center and the State Council, and carried out rectification with bold and decisive strokes.

In accordance with Mao Zedong’s instructions to achieve stability and unity and to develop the national economy, Deng Xiaoping clearly and steadfastly put forward the guiding thought for rectification. He emphasized: all areas of work throughout the country must be rectified—industry, agriculture, commerce, finance and trade, culture and education, science and technology, and the military all needed rectification, with the core being the rectification of the Party and the key being the leadership bodies. Through rectification, a strong leadership body with the courage to act must be established. Stability and unity must be achieved and the socialist economy developed. Party leadership must be strengthened and the Party’s fine work style promoted. He also put forward the important Marxist proposition that science and technology are productive forces, and demanded that scientific and technological work must be done well, and so on.

Rectifying the railway sector was Deng Xiaoping’s breakthrough point for reversing the chaotic situation in the economic sphere. On March 5, 1975, the Party Central Committee issued a decision focusing on resolving the problem of railway transportation, and dispatched work teams to carry out focused rectification of certain seriously problematic railway bureaus in conjunction with the relevant local party committees. The work teams removed a number of factional ringleaders who were seriously factionalist and constantly causing trouble in certain units, redressed unjust cases, resolutely adjusted leadership bodies, and restored and improved rules and regulations. The rectification of the railways drove the rectification of the entire industrial sector, beginning with the steel industry. After several months of rectification, the economic situation improved day by day.

During this period, the Party Central Committee took a number of important organizational measures, further implementing cadre policies so that veteran cadres who had been overthrown could resume work as quickly as possible. Military rectification made great progress in resolving the problems of being “bloated, lax, arrogant, extravagant, and indolent,” adjusting the leadership bodies of major units, and implementing cadre policies. In the area of literary and artistic work, the Party’s “Hundred Flowers” guideline was re-emphasized, and restrictions on the publication and performance of certain outstanding works were lifted. In particular, “Several Questions on Accelerating Industrial Development” and the “Report Outline on the Work of the Academy of Sciences” were important documents that systematically proposed correcting “leftist” errors and restoring and establishing correct policies in the industrial and scientific and technological spheres. On certain questions, they put forward with considerable foresight important ideas for reforming industrial and scientific and technological work, providing a degree of ideological preparation for the subsequent reforms in these two areas.

After comprehensive rectification, the situation improved markedly. Social order in most regions tended toward stability, and the national economy recovered rapidly. The targets for total industrial and agricultural output value and for most product output in 1975 were basically fulfilled in accordance with the Fourth Five-Year Plan. Deng Xiaoping later said: “The work of setting things right began in 1975.” “Speaking of reform, we actually experimented for a period from 1974 to 1975. … The reform of that time went by the name of rectification, with the emphasis on developing the economy, and first of all on restoring production order. Wherever this was done, results were achieved.”

The End of the “Cultural Revolution”

On January 8, 1976, Premier Zhou Enlai, beloved by the people of all ethnic groups throughout the country, passed away. The “Gang of Four” issued various prohibitions, doing everything in their power to obstruct and slander the mass mourning activities, arousing the extreme indignation of the broad masses of cadres and people throughout the country. From late March onward, people throughout the country overcame resistance and held activities to mourn Zhou Enlai, with the spearhead directed squarely at the “Gang of Four”—a concentrated expression of the opposition of the people of the whole country to the reactionary acts of the “Gang of Four.”

On July 6, 1976, the highly respected Zhu De passed away.

On September 9, 1976, Mao Zedong, the principal leader of the Party and the state, passed away. Comrade Mao Zedong was a great Marxist, a great proletarian revolutionary, strategist, and theorist, a great pioneer of the Sinicization of Marxism, a great patriot and national hero of China in modern times, the core of the first generation of the Party’s central leadership collective, and a great man who led the Chinese people to completely transform their own destiny and the face of their country.

Within the space of just nine months, three outstanding leaders of the Party and the state passed away in succession. The whole Party and the people of the whole country were plunged into immense grief, and thought deeply about the future destiny of the Party and the state.

Before and after Mao Zedong’s death, the “Gang of Four” intensified their activities to seize the supreme leadership power of the Party and the state, causing deep anxiety among many veteran revolutionaries. On the evening of October 6, Hua Guofeng, Ye Jianying, and others, representing the Political Bureau of the Central Committee and executing the will of the Party and the people, placed the “Gang of Four” and their factional core members in Beijing under isolation and investigation. On October 14, the Party Central Committee announced the news of the smashing of the “Gang of Four,” and people spread the news with joy and jubilation.

The smashing of the “Gang of Four” brought the “Cultural Revolution” to an end. Social order in our state was restored, and the work of the Party and the state began once again to move onto a track of healthy development.

The “Cultural Revolution” was a serious setback encountered in the course of seeking China’s own socialist path. The Communist Party of China relied on its own strength to ultimately correct this serious error by itself. History once again proved that the Chinese people are a great people, that the Communist Party of China has the ability to correct its own errors through its own strength, and that the Communist ★ The masses of the capital hold a rally and parade in Tiananmen Square to celebrate the great victory of smashing the “Gang of Four” effectively safeguarded state sovereignty and security, became a country with important influence in the world, and accumulated important experience in carrying out socialist construction in an Eastern great country like China with a very backward level of social productive forces. Our Party strove to explore a path of socialist construction suited to China’s conditions, and gradually formed a number of very important understandings: the proposal to shift the focus of the Party’s and the state’s work to socialist construction and the technological revolution; the proposal to take our own path and explore a path of socialist construction suited to China’s conditions; the proposal regarding the basic contradiction and principal contradiction of socialist society, with the development of the productive forces as the fundamental task; the proposal that socialist modernization construction be carried out in two steps, and further the proposal that China’s socialist development be divided into two stages; the proposal that commodity production and commodity exchange still exist in socialist society, that the law of value must be respected, and that commodity production must be vigorously developed; the proposal that contradictions between ourselves and the enemy and contradictions among the people must be correctly distinguished and handled; and so on. These original theoretical achievements and enormous accomplishments provided precious experience, theoretical preparation, and a material foundation for opening up socialism with Chinese characteristics in the new historical period.

Party and the socialist system possess powerful vitality. The “Cultural Revolution” lasted ten years and, in an unforeseen manner, exposed the serious deficiencies that then existed in the system, policies, and work of the Party and the state. As Deng Xiaoping pointed out in summing up the historical experience since 1957: “The experience of twenty years, and especially the lessons of the ‘Cultural Revolution,’ tell us that without reform it will not do, and without formulating new political, economic, and social policies it will not do.”

From the founding of the People’s Republic to the end of the “Cultural Revolution” was a historical period in which our Party led the people in the arduous exploration of the path of socialist revolution and construction. Although serious twists and turns were experienced, original theoretical achievements and enormous accomplishments were nonetheless made. Our Party led the people in carrying out socialist construction of a kind never before seen in Chinese history, starting from the impoverished and blank slate of old China. In a short period of time, our society underwent earth-shaking changes: an independent and relatively complete industrial system and national economic system was established; the “Two Bombs and One Satellite” were independently developed;

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