Table Of ContentVolume II
(1975-1982)
THE ARMY NEEDS TO BE CONSOLIDATED
January 25, 1975
THE WHOLE PARTY SHOULD TAKE THE OVERALL INTEREST INTO ACCOUNT
AND PUSH THE ECONOMY FORWARD
March 5, 1975
SOME PROBLEMS OUTSTANDING IN THE IRON AND STEEL INDUSTRY
May 29, 1975
STRENGTHEN PARTY LEADERSHIP AND RECTIFY THE PARTY'S STYLE OF
WORK
July 4, 1975
THE TASK OF CONSOLIDATING THE ARMY
July 14, 1975
ON CONSOLIDATING NATIONAL DEFENCE ENTERPRISES
August 3, 1975
SOME COMMENTS ON INDUSTRIAL DEVELOPMENT
August 18, 1975
PRIORITY SHOULD BE GIVEN TO SCIENTIFIC RESEARCH
September 26, 1975
THINGS MUST BE PUT IN ORDER IN ALL FIELDS
September 27 and October 4, 1975
THE ``TWO WHATEVERS'' DO NOT ACCORD WITH MARXISM
May 24, 1977
RESPECT KNOWLEDGE, RESPECT TRAINED PERSONNEL
May 24, 1977
MAO ZEDONG THOUGHT MUST BE CORRECTLY UNDERSTOOD AS AN
INTEGRAL WHOLE
July 21, 1977
SOME COMMENTS ON WORK IN SCIENCE AND EDUCATION
August 8, 1977
THE ARMY SHOULD ATTACH STRATEGIC IMPORTANCE TO EDUCATION AND
TRAINING
August 23, 1977
SETTING THINGS RIGHT IN EDUCATION
September 19, 1977
SPEECH AT A PLENARY MEETING OF THE MILITARY COMMISSION OF THE
CENTRAL COMMITTEE OF THE CPC
December 28, 1977
SPEECH AT THE OPENING CEREMONY OF THE NATIONAL CONFERENCE ON
SCIENCE
March 18, 1978
ADHERE TO THE PRINCIPLE ``TO EACH ACCORDING TO HIS WORK''
March 28, 1978
SPEECH AT THE NATIONAL CONFERENCE ON EDUCATION
April 22, 1978
REALIZE THE FOUR MODERNIZATIONS AND NEVER SEEK HEGEMONY
May 7, 1978
SPEECH AT THE ALL-ARMY CONFERENCE ON POLITICAL WORK
June 2, 1978
HOLD HIGH THE BANNER OF MAO ZEDONG THOUGHT AND ADHERE TO THE
PRINCIPLE OF SEEKING TRUTH FROM FACTS
September 16, 1978
UPDATE ENTERPRISES WITH ADVANCED TECHNOLOGY AND MANAGERIAL
EXPERTISE
September 18, 1978
CARRY OUT THE POLICY OF OPENING TO THE OUTSIDE WORLD AND LEARN
ADVANCED SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY FROM OTHER COUNTRIES
October 10, 1978
THE WORKING CLASS SHOULD MAKE OUTSTANDING CONTRIBUTIONS TO
THE FOUR MODERNIZATIONS
October 11, 1978
EMANCIPATE THE MIND, SEEK TRUTH FROM FACTS AND UNITE AS ONE IN
LOOKING TO THE FUTURE
December 13, 1978
PUT ON THE AGENDA SETTLEMENT OF THE TAIWAN QUESTION FOR THE
REUNIFICATION OF THE MOTHERLAND
January 1, 1979
WE SHOULD MAKE USE OF FOREIGN FUNDS AND LET FORMER CAPITALIST
INDUSTRIALISTS AND BUSINESSMEN PLAY THEIR ROLE IN DEVELOPING THE
ECONOMY
January 17, 1979
UPHOLD THE FOUR CARDINAL PRINCIPLES
March 30, 1979
THE UNITED FRONT AND THE TASKS OF THE CHINESE PEOPLE'S POLITICAL
CONSULTATIVE CONFERENCE IN THE NEW PERIOD
June 15, 1979
NEITHER DEMOCRACY NOR THE LEGAL SYSTEM SHOULD BE WEAKENED
June 28, 1979
THE ORGANIZATIONAL LINE GUARANTEES THE IMPLEMENTATION OF THE
IDEOLOGICAL AND POLITICAL LINES
July 29, 1979
SOME COMMENTS ON ECONOMIC WORK
October 4, 1979
ALL DEMOCRATIC PARTIES AND FEDERATIONS OF INDUSTRY AND
COMMERCE ARE POLITICAL FORCES SERVING SOCIALISM
October 19, 1979
SPEECH GREETING THE FOURTH CONGRESS OF CHINESE WRITERS AND
ARTISTS
October 30, 1979
SENIOR CADRES SHOULD TAKE THE LEAD IN MAINTAINING AND ENRICHING
THE PARTY'S FINE TRADITIONS
November 2, 1979
WE CAN DEVELOP A MARKET ECONOMY UNDER SOCIALISM
November 26, 1979
CHINA'S GOAL IS TO ACHIEVE COMPARATIVE PROSPERITY BY THE END OF
THE CENTURY
December 6, 1979
THE PRESENT SITUATION AND THE TASKS BEFORE US
January 16, 1980
ADHERE TO THE PARTY LINE AND IMPROVE METHODS OF WORK
February 29, 1980
STREAMLINE THE ARMY AND RAISE ITS COMBAT EFFECTIVENESS
March 12, 1980
REMARKS ON SUCCESSIVE DRAFTS OF THE ``RESOLUTION ON CERTAIN
QUESTIONS IN THE HISTORY OF OUR PARTY SINCE THE FOUNDING OF THE
PEOPLE'S REPUBLIC OF CHINA''
March 1980-June 1981
TO BUILD SOCIALISM WE MUST FIRST DEVELOP THE PRODUCTIVE FORCES
April-May 1980
ON QUESTIONS OF RURAL POLICY
May 31, 1980
AN IMPORTANT PRINCIPLE FOR HANDLING RELATIONS BETWEEN
FRATERNAL PARTIES
May 31, 1980
ON THE REFORM OF THE SYSTEM OF PARTY AND STATE LEADERSHIP
August 18, 1980
ANSWERS TO THE ITALIAN JOURNALIST ORIANA FALLACI
August 21 and 23, 1980
IMPLEMENT THE POLICY OF READJUSTMENT, ENSURE STABILITY AND
UNITY
December 25, 1980
OUR PRINCIPLED POSITION ON THE DEVELOPMENT OF SINO-U.S.
RELATIONS
January 4, 1981
ON OPPOSING WRONG IDEOLOGICAL TENDENCIES
March 27, 1981
CLOSING SPEECH AT THE SIXTH PLENARY SESSION OF THE ELEVENTH
CENTRAL COMMITTEE OF THE CPC
June 29, 1981
THE PRIMARY TASK OF VETERAN CADRES IS TO SELECT YOUNG AND
MIDDLE-AGED CADRES FOR PROMOTION
July 2, 1981
CONCERNING PROBLEMS ON THE IDEOLOGICAL FRONT
July 17, 1981
BUILD POWERFUL, MODERN AND REGULARIZED REVOLUTIONARY ARMED
FORCES
September 19, 1981
STREAMLINING ORGANIZATIONS CONSTITUTES A REVOLUTION
January 13, 1982
COMBAT ECONOMIC CRIME
April 10, 1982
CHINA'S HISTORICAL EXPERIENCE IN ECONOMIC CONSTRUCTION
May 6, 1982
SPEECH AT A FORUM OF THE MILITARY COMMISSION OF THE CENTRAL
COMMITTEE OF THE CPC
July 4, 1982
ADVISORY COMMISSIONS WILL BE A TRANSITIONAL MEASURE FOR THE
ABOLITION OF LIFE TENURE IN LEADING POSTS
July 30, 1982
CHINA'S FOREIGN POLICY
August 21, 1982
THE ARMY NEEDS TO BE CONSOLIDATED
January 25, 1975
Our army has fine traditions. Comrade Mao Zedong established an excellent system and a
fine style of work for it as early as the period of struggle in the Jinggang Mountains. With
this army of ours, the Party commands the gun, and not vice versa. Through protracted
struggles against warlordism, the army achieved unity in its own ranks and formed close
ties with the masses. However, it was thrown into considerable chaos after Lin Biao was
put in charge of army work in 1959, and especially in the later period under him. Now,
many fine traditions have been discarded and the army is seriously bloated
organizationally. The size of the armed forces has increased substantially and military
expenditures take up a larger proportion of the state budget than before, with a lot of
money being spent just on food and clothing. What is more important is that an over-
expanded and inefficient army is not combat-worthy. I think that the overwhelming
majority of our army comrades are dissatisfied with the present state of affairs. It is for
this reason that Comrade Mao Zedong has called for the consolidation of the army. We
must reduce the size of our armed forces, confront the problem of extensive overstaffing
and restore the army's fine traditions. This will involve a great deal of work. Since the
Headquarters of the General Staff, the General Political Department and the General
Logistics Department bear major responsibility, they should be the first to be
consolidated.
We must set things right in the armed forces in accordance with Comrade Mao Zedong's
instructions on stability and unity. In recent years, our army has been confronted with a
major new problem, factionalism, which is quite serious in some units. It is mainly the
officers who are involved. The overwhelming majority of our officers are good, but there
is indeed a small handful who are bent on factionalism. They engage in factional
activities both inside the army and in the civilian units where they go to work. In order to
achieve stability and unity, we must eliminate factionalism and enhance Party spirit. In
the past, during the protracted and scattered guerrilla wars our army fought in the
countryside, many separate ``mountain strongholds'' came into being. After the Red
Army's arrival in northern Shaanxi in the Long March and during the subsequent War of
Resistance Against Japan [1937-45], Comrade Mao Zedong set before the whole Party
and army the task of overcoming the tendency towards the ``mountain-stronghold''
mentality. After the Yan'an rectification movement, which among other things, opposed
sectarianism, the whole Party achieved a new level of unity, and this provided the basic
guarantee for our victories in the War of Resistance and the War of Liberation [1946-49].
Recently, factionalism has been reasserting itself; this is something to which we must
certainly pay attention. Unless factionalism is eliminated, stability and unity cannot be
achieved and the army's fighting capacity is sure to be weakened. Each cadre is required
to put Party spirit above everything else. Those who are pleased to engage in factionalism
should wake up and correct their mistakes. If they do so, everything will be all right. But
one of the important principles to be observed in the future appointment and promotion of
army officers is that those who are seriously involved in factional activities or who cling
stubbornly to factional ways should not be given leading posts.
Another problem is discipline in the army. Why did Comrade Mao Zedong propose the
singing of The Three Main Rules of Discipline and the Eight Points for Attention, with
special emphasis on the rule ``obey orders in all your actions''? Precisely to stress
discipline. An army should act like an army. If we want to strengthen the sense of
discipline, we must start with the general headquarters and units in Beijing. We simply
cannot allow things to remain as they are. So to consolidate the army we must both
enhance Party spirit and eliminate factionalism, and strengthen discipline.
There are other problems which should also be dealt with -- for instance, the
implementation of Party policies. Many have not yet been carried out. Every unit should
study this problem conscientiously and carry out Party policies properly, because only
thus can we help arouse people's enthusiasm and achieve stability and unity.
The Headquarters of the General Staff is expected and required to advise the Central
Committee of the Party, its Military Commission, and Chairman Mao, the commander of
our armed forces. Comrade Mao Zedong used to criticize the Headquarters of the General
Staff for failing to offer advice. This situation should be changed. A lot needs to be done.
Problems have piled up. The Headquarters of the General Staff must thoroughly
straighten things out according to the military line and the principles for building the
army formulated by Comrade Mao Zedong, so that we can really fulfil our advisory
function.
Today I have just come to meet you. We will need to have further discussions on ways to
improve work in the army. But I think there can be no mistake about the principles I have
just mentioned, namely, the need to achieve consolidation, stability and unity, and the
need to ensure implementation of Party policies. To accomplish these tasks, we must
enhance Party spirit, eliminate factionalism, heighten the sense of discipline and improve
efficiency. I hope that all cadres in the Headquarters of the General Staff will unite in this
spirit and that they will do their work well.
(Speech at a meeting of officers of regimental level and above at the Headquarters of the
General Staff of the Chinese People's Liberation Army. Comrade Deng Xiaoping became
Vice-Chairman of the Military Commission of the Central Committee of the Communist
Party of China and concurrently Chief of the General Staff on January 5, 1975.)
THE WHOLE PARTY SHOULD TAKE THE
OVERALL INTEREST INTO ACCOUNT AND
PUSH THE ECONOMY FORWARD
March 5, 1975
The whole Party must now give serious thought to our country's overall interest. What is
that interest? The Reports on the Work of the Government at the First Sessions of the
Third and Fourth National People's Congresses both envisaged a two-stage development
of our economy: The first stage is to build an independent and relatively comprehensive
industrial and economic system by 1980. The second will be to turn China into a
powerful socialist country with modern agriculture, industry, national defence and
science and technology by the end of this century, that is, within the next 25 years. The
entire Party and nation must strive for the attainment of this great objective. This
constitutes the overall national interest.
Chairman Mao has said that it is necessary to make revolution, promote production and
other work and ensure preparedness in the event of war. I am told that some comrades
nowadays only dare to make revolution but not to promote production. They say that the
former is safe but the latter dangerous. This is utterly wrong. What is the actual situation
in production? Agriculture appears to be doing comparatively well, but the per-capita
grain yield is only 304.5 kilogrammes, grain reserves are small and the income of the
peasants is pretty low. As for industry, it deserves our serious attention. Its existing
capacity is not fully utilized, and its output last year was inadequate. This is the final year
of the Fourth Five-Year Plan, and if production doesn't increase, we are sure to have
difficulties in carrying out the Fifth Five-Year Plan. We must foresee that possibility and
earnestly address this problem.
How can we give a boost to the economy? Analysis shows that the weak link at the
moment is the railways. If the problems in railway transport are not solved, our
production schedules will be disrupted and the entire plan will be nullified. So the Central
Committee is determined to solve this problem; today we shall issue a ``Decision of the
Central Committee of the Communist Party of China on Improving Railway Work''.
To solve the problems of the railways, it is essential to strengthen centralized and unified
leadership. The Central Committee has always stressed the importance of such leadership
in railway work, but in recent years it has been weakened. Although over these years
there has been an increase in the number of railway personnel, and in rolling stock, track
and other equipment, yet because centralized and unified leadership has been weakened,
railway transport has consistently failed to improve. Only a little more than 40,000
freight cars are loaded per day. According to some comrades, however, given our actual
loading capacity, we should be able to handle 55,000 cars per day. Therefore the Central
Committee has decided to reaffirm centralized and unified leadership in accordance with
the special characteristics of railway work. Of course, this will not reduce the
responsibility of the localities. The central and regional railway departments cannot
perform their task well without support from them. So both sides must try to co-ordinate
their efforts more closely.
The decision of the Central Committee also covers the formulation of essential rules and
regulations, and a strengthening of the sense of organization and discipline. The present
number of railway accidents is alarming. There were 755 major ones last year, some of
them extremely serious. This is many times greater than the figure of 88 accidents for
1964, the year with the lowest rate. Many of the accidents were caused by negligence,
including negligence in maintaining rolling stock. This indicates that there are no proper
rules and that discipline is poor. It is now time to reimpose some rules and regulations.
One of the old rules was that engine drivers had to bring their lunch boxes to their
locomotives and were not allowed to leave the train for meals. There were good reasons
for this. But now engine drivers go off to eat whenever they like, and this means the
trains frequently run behind schedule. The long-standing rule prohibiting the
consumption of alcohol while on duty is not strictly observed now either. If someone gets
drunk and pulls the wrong switch, he can cause a collision. For these reasons, essential
rules and regulations must be restored and improved and the sense of organization and
discipline enhanced. This problem concerns not only the railway departments, but the
localities and other departments as well.
The decision of the Central Committee also includes instructions on combating
factionalism. Factionalism now seriously jeopardizes our overall interest. This question
must be brought before all personnel and explained to them clearly as a major issue of
right and wrong. It is no use tackling specific problems unless we have first settled this
general issue. Persons engaging in factional activities should be re-educated and their
leaders opposed. Generally speaking, such leaders can be divided into two categories.
One category consists of persons who are obsessed by factionalism, have engaged in
factional activities for several years and have lost their sense of right and wrong. For
them, Marxism, Mao Zedong Thought and the Communist Party have all disappeared.
They should be educated. If they correct their mistakes, then we will let bygones be
bygones, but if they refuse to mend their ways, they will be sternly dealt with. The
second category consists of a few bad elements. They can be found in all lines of work in
every province and city. They fish in troubled waters by capitalizing on factionalism and
undermining socialist public order and economic construction. They take advantage of
the resulting confusion to speculate and profiteer, grabbing power and money. Something
must be done about such people. Take for instance that ringleader in Xuzhou who has
been creating disturbances. He is so ``capable'' that he exercises a virtual dictatorship
over the place. If we don't take action against this sort of person now, how much longer
are we going to wait? As I see it, we should only give him one month, that is, till the end
of March, to mend his ways. If he fails to do so and stubbornly stands in opposition to the
proletariat, then his misdeeds will be treated as crimes.
Factionalists in the railway departments have ties with those in the localities. We must
cut these ties. Such people know how to seek out vital spots. They obstructed railway
transport, and this soon came to the attention of Beijing. The trouble that occurred along
the line under the jurisdiction of the Nanchang Railway Bureau was partly attributable to
some of the Jiangxi provincial authorities. It is imperative to cut the internal and external
connections of individuals who engage in factional activities in the railway departments.
This meeting has decided that the transfer of personnel in these departments will be
conducted under the unified administration of the Ministry of Railways. The power rests
with the Ministry. Factional problems in the railways that the local governments are
unable to handle will be dealt with by the Ministry. Active factionalists must be
transferred to other posts. Of course, I am referring to the ringleaders. What if a new
