On Correcting Mistaken Ideas in the Party

Within the Communist Party in the Fourth Red Army there exist various kinds of non-proletarian thinking, which hinder greatly the carrying out of the Party's correct line. If they are not thoroughly corrected, the Fourth Red Army will certainly be unable to shoulder the tasks which the great revolutionary struggle in China assigns to it. The sources of the various wrong ideas in the Party of the Fourth Army lie naturally in the fact that the greatest part of the Party's organisational base is composed of peasants and of other elements of petty-bourgeois origin; but another important reason why these wrong ideas exist and develop is that the Party's leading organs have failed to wage a consistent and resolute struggle against them, and have failed to educate the members in the correct line. Acting in the spirit of the September letter of the Central Committee, this congress points out the manifestations and sources of the various non-proletarian ideas within the army Party organisation and the methods of correcting them, and calls upon the comrades to rise and wipe them out thoroughly.

The purely military viewpoint is very highly developed among certain comrades in the Red Army. Its manifestations are as follows:

(1) To hold that military and political affairs stand opposed to each other, and to refuse to admit that military affairs are only one of the instruments for accomplishing the political task. Some go further and say “if the military side is good, politics will naturally be good; if the military side is not good, politics cannot be good” — thus holding that the military should lead the political.

(2) To imagine that the task of the Red Army, like that of the White armies, is merely to fight. They do not know that the Chinese Red Army is an armed body carrying out the political tasks of the revolution. Especially at the present time, the Red Army is by no means an army that merely fights; besides fighting to destroy the enemy's military strength, it must shoulder such important tasks as doing propaganda among the masses, organising the masses, arming them, helping them to establish revolutionary political power, and even establishing Party organisations. The Red Army fights not for fighting's sake, but in order to do propaganda among the masses, to organise them, to arm them, and to help them set up revolutionary political power; apart from such aims as propaganda, organisation, arming the masses and building revolutionary power, fighting loses its meaning, and the Red Army loses its reason for existence.

(3) Hence, in organisation, subordinating the Red Army's political-work organs to its military-work organs, and putting forward the slogan “the headquarters speaks to the outside.” If this thinking develops, there is the danger of drifting into separation from the masses, of the army controlling the government, and of departing from the leadership of the proletariat — the warlord road taken by the Kuomintang armies.

(4) At the same time, in propaganda work, to neglect the importance of the propaganda detachments; and in mass organisation, to neglect the organisation of soldiers' councils〔1〕 within the army and the organisation of the local workers' and peasants' masses. The result is that propaganda and organisation alike fall into a state of suspension.

(6) Departmentalism — knowing only how to reckon for the Fourth Army, and not knowing that the arming of the local masses is one of the Red Army's important tasks. This is clannishness writ large.

(7) A few comrades, confined within the narrow environment of the Fourth Army, imagine that outside it there is no other revolutionary force. Hence the thinking of conserving one's strength and avoiding struggle is very thick among them. It is a remnant of opportunism.

(8) Disregarding subjective and objective conditions, suffering from revolutionary impatience, unwilling to do the small, close, laborious work among the masses, wanting only to act big and full of fantasies. This is a remnant of putschism〔2〕.

(1) A low political level. Hence they do not recognise the role of political leadership in the army, and do not recognise that the Red Army and the White armies are fundamentally different.

(2) The mentality of a mercenary army. Because the captured soldiers taken in successive campaigns have been very numerous, such elements, entering the Red Army, have brought with them a thick mercenary mentality, giving the purely military viewpoint a base below.

(3) From the two causes above arises a third: placing excessive faith in military force and no faith in the strength of the people.

The base text follows the resolution of the Ninth Congress of the Fourth Red Army. The body carries five editor's notes on the soldiers' council, the local militia, and the allusions to Huang Chao and Li Zicheng. These notes are preserved with the original; the two on Huang Chao and Li Zicheng are the longest.

(4) The Party's failure to pay active attention and give discussion to military work is also a cause of the purely military viewpoint among some comrades.

(1) Raise the political level within the Party by education, wipe out the theoretical roots of the purely military viewpoint, and see clearly the fundamental difference between the Red Army and the White armies. At the same time, wipe out the remnants of opportunism and putschism, and break down departmentalism in the Fourth Army.

(2) Intensify the political training of officers and men, and above all intensify the education of captured elements. At the same time, so far as possible, have the local political organs select workers and peasants with experience of struggle to join the Red Army, weakening organisationally, and eventually removing, the roots of the purely military viewpoint.

(3) Set in motion criticism of the army's Party organisation by the local Party, and of the Red Army by the local organs of mass political power, so as to influence the army's Party and its officers and men.

(4) The Party must pay active attention and give discussion to military work. All work, after discussion and decision by the Party, is to be carried out through the masses.

(5) Draw up regulations for the Red Army, clearly defining the Red Army's tasks, the relations between the military-work system and the political-work system, the relations between the Red Army and the people, and the powers of the soldiers' councils and their relations with the military and political organs.

After the Fourth Red Army accepted the Central Committee's directives, the phenomena of ultra-democracy were greatly reduced — Party decisions, for example, could be comparatively well carried out, and no one any longer urged such erroneous propositions as the so-called “democratic centralism from below upward” or “first submit to the lower levels for discussion, then decision by the higher levels.” In fact, however, this reduction was only a temporary and surface phenomenon; it was not the wiping out of ultra-democratic thinking. That is to say, the roots of ultra-democracy are still deeply planted in the minds of many comrades — the various half-hearted attitudes shown in carrying out resolutions are proof.

(1) Uproot ultra-democracy ideologically. First, it must be pointed out that the danger of ultra-democracy lies in its damaging, and even utterly destroying, the Party's organisation, weakening and even utterly destroying the Party's fighting strength, so that the Party cannot shoulder its responsibility to struggle — and this means defeat for the revolution. Second, it must be pointed out that the source of ultra-democracy lies in the free-and-easy indiscipline of the petty bourgeoisie; carried into the Party, it becomes ultra-democratic thinking in politics and in organisation. This thinking is fundamentally incompatible with the fighting tasks of the proletariat.

(2) Organisationally, enforce democratic life under centralised guidance. The line is:

1. The Party's leading organs must have a correct line of guidance, and on every matter must produce solutions, so as to establish a centre of leadership.

2. The higher organs must understand the situation of the lower organs and of mass life, so as to have an objective basis for correct guidance.

The text repeatedly mentions the 'Central Committee's September letter', meaning an earlier instruction from the CCP centre. The section 'On the purely military viewpoint' is developed precisely on the spirit of that letter. The resolution has eight parts; this edition carries the first.

3. The Party's organs at every level, in settling questions, must not act too casually; once a decision is made, it must be resolutely carried out.

4. Decisions of the higher organs, whenever they are of any importance, must be rapidly transmitted to the lower organs and to the mass of Party members. The method is to call meetings of activists, or Party meetings of branches and even of whole columns (as circumstances permit), sending people to attend and give reports.

5. The lower organs and the mass of Party members, on receiving the directives of the higher organs, must discuss them in detail, so as to understand their meaning thoroughly and decide on the methods of carrying them out.

The unorganised viewpoints existing in the Party of the Fourth Army show themselves as follows:

A. The minority not obeying the majority. For example, when a proposal made by a minority is voted down, they do not carry out the Party's decision in good faith.

(1) At meetings, let those present express their opinions as fully as possible. On disputed questions, get the rights and wrongs clear; do not paper over them with compromise. If a question cannot be settled at one meeting, take it up again at the next (provided work is not held up), so as to reach a clear conclusion.

(2) One of the Party's disciplines is that the minority obeys the majority. After their opinions have been voted down, the minority must uphold the decision passed by the majority. Apart from raising the matter again for discussion at the next meeting when necessary, they must make no show of opposition whatever in action.

(1) Criticism within the Party is a weapon for strengthening the Party's organisation and increasing its fighting strength. But criticism in the Red Army's Party does not always take this form; it has turned into personal attack. The result is that not only are individuals damaged, the Party's organisation is damaged too. This is a manifestation of petty-bourgeois individualism. The remedy is to make members understand that the aim of criticism is to increase the Party's fighting strength so as to win the class struggle, and that criticism must not be used as an instrument for attacking individuals.

(2) Many members criticise not inside the Party but outside it. The reason is that members in general do not yet understand the importance of the Party's organisation (meetings and the like), and imagine there is no difference between criticism made inside the organisation and outside. The remedy is to educate members to understand the importance of the Party's organisation, and that criticism of a Party committee or of a comrade should be raised at a Party meeting.

Absolute egalitarianism in the Red Army was for a time very rampant. For example: in paying allowances to the wounded, there was opposition to distinguishing light wounds from heavy, and a demand for equal payments. Officers riding on horseback were held to be not a necessity of work but an unequal institution. In distributing articles, absolute equality was demanded, and there was unwillingness to let the part with special circumstances receive a little more. In carrying rice, no account was taken of adult or child, strong or weak — all were to carry the same. In billeting, quarters had to be exactly even, and there was an outcry because the headquarters occupied one room a little larger. In assigning orderlies, evenness was again demanded, and no one would do a little more than the rest. Where one stretcher carried two wounded men, people would rather that neither be carried than that one be taken. All this shows that absolute egalitarianism among the officers and men of the Red Army is still very serious.

The source of absolute egalitarianism, like that of political ultra-democracy, is the product of handicraft economy and small-peasant economy — only that one shows itself in political life, the other in material life.

The structure throughout is threefold: first the manifestation, then the source, then the corrective. The words 'method of correction' recur as a fixed formula; the eighth section, on survivals of putschism, closes the piece.

The remedy: point out that absolute egalitarianism, so long as capitalism is not abolished, is merely a fantasy of the peasant small proprietor; and that even in the socialist period the distribution of material goods must follow the principle “to each according to his work, remuneration according to labour” and the needs of work, and there can be no such thing as absolute equality. In the distribution of material goods to Red Army personnel, rough equality should be achieved — equality of pay between officers and men, for instance, because the present circumstances of struggle require it. But absolute egalitarianism regardless of all reasons must be opposed, for it is not a need of the struggle; quite the contrary, it obstructs the struggle.

Subjectivism exists thickly among certain members, and it is most unfavourable both for analysing the political situation and for directing work. For the inevitable result of a subjectivist analysis of the political situation and subjectivist direction of work is either opportunism or putschism. As for subjectivist criticism inside the Party — wild assertions without evidence, or mutual suspicion — it often breeds unprincipled disputes and wrecks the Party's organisation.

On the question of criticism within the Party there is one further point to make: the criticism of some comrades pays no attention to the large aspects but only to the small. They do not understand that the chief task of criticism is to point out political and organisational errors. As for personal shortcomings, unless they are connected with political and organisational errors, there is no need to make much of them and leave comrades at a loss what to do. Moreover, if such criticism develops, the Party's whole attention becomes fixed on trivial faults, everyone becomes a cautious little gentleman, and the Party's political tasks are forgotten — a great danger.

The remedy: principally to educate the members, so that their thinking and the life of the Party become politicalised and scientific. To attain this, it is necessary: (1) to educate members to use the method of Marxism-Leninism in analysing the political situation and appraising class forces, in place of subjectivist analysis and appraisal; (2) to make members pay attention to the investigation and study of social and economic conditions, and on this basis decide the tactics of struggle and the methods of work, so that comrades understand that without the investigation of actual conditions they will fall into the pit of fantasy and putschism; (3) in criticism inside the Party, guard against subjective arbitrariness and the vulgarising of criticism — statements must be based on evidence, and criticism must attend to politics.

(1) The spirit of revenge. A member who receives criticism from a soldier comrade inside the Party looks outside the Party for a chance to get back at him — cursing and blows are one means of revenge. He seeks revenge inside the Party too: “you mentioned me at this meeting, I will pick faults at the next.” Such revenge-thinking proceeds wholly from a personal standpoint, knowing neither the class interest nor the interest of the Party as a whole. Its target is not the hostile class but other individuals in one's own ranks. It is a corroding agent that weakens the organisation and weakens the fighting strength.

(2) Clannishness. Attending only to the interests of one's own little group and not to the interest of the whole — on the surface not for oneself, but in reality containing the narrowest individualism, it has likewise a great corrosive and centrifugal effect. The clannish spirit has always been strong in the Red Army; through criticism it is better now, but its remnants still exist and effort is still needed to overcome them.

(3) The hired-hand mentality. Not recognising that the Party and the Red Army are instruments for carrying out the revolutionary task, and that oneself is one member of them; not recognising that oneself is a subject of the revolution, but imagining that one is responsible merely to some superior person and not responsible to the revolution. This passive hired-hand attitude toward the revolution is likewise a manifestation of individualism. It is the reason why activists who strive unconditionally are not very many. Until the hired-hand mentality is wiped out, activists cannot increase, and the heavy burden of the revolution will forever rest on the shoulders of a few — most unfavourable to the struggle.

(4) The pleasure-seeking mentality. Individualism showing itself in the pursuit of pleasure is found in no small number of people in the Red Army. They are always hoping the column will move to the big cities; they want to go to the big cities not to work but to enjoy themselves. What they dislike most is to work in the Red areas where life is hard.

(5) Passive malingering. At the least disappointment, people turn passive and will not work. The cause is mainly lack of education; but sometimes it is also the leaders' improper handling of problems, improper assignment of work, or improper enforcement of discipline.

(6) The desire to leave the ranks. Those working in the Red Army who ask to leave it for local work increase day by day. The causes are not entirely personal: there is, first, the Red Army's material life being too hard; second, the fatigue felt after long years of struggle; and third, the leaders' improper handling of problems, assignment of work or enforcement of discipline.

The remedy: principally to strengthen education and correct individualism in thinking. Further, problems must be handled, work assigned and discipline enforced with proper judgment. And means must be found to improve the Red Army's material life, using every possible opportunity for rest and consolidation to better material conditions. The social source of individualism is the reflection, within the Party, of petty-bourgeois and bourgeois thinking, and this must be explained in carrying on the education.

Because vagabond elements make up a very large proportion of the Red Army, and because there exist broad masses of vagabonds throughout the country and especially in the southern provinces, a political thinking of roving-rebel ways has arisen in the Red Army. This thinking shows itself in: first, an unwillingness to do the laborious work of building base areas and building political power among the people and so extending political influence, and a desire only to extend political influence by roving guerrilla methods; second, in expanding the Red Army, taking not the road of expanding the local Red Guards〔3〕 and local Red Army forces up to the expansion of the main-force Red Army, but the road of “recruiting men and buying horses” and “enlisting the surrendered and the rebel”; third, impatience with the laborious struggle alongside the masses, and a desire only to run off to the big cities to eat and drink one's fill. All such manifestations of roving-rebel thinking greatly hinder the Red Army from carrying out its correct tasks; the wiping out of roving-rebel thinking is therefore an important objective in the ideological struggle within the army Party. It should be recognised that the roving-rebel ways of the Huang Chao〔4〕 and Li Chuang〔5〕 type in history are not permitted by today's circumstances.

(1) Intensify education, criticise wrong thinking, and wipe out roving-rebel ways.

(2) For the existing basic ranks of the Red Army and for the newly arrived captured soldiers, intensify the education against hooligan consciousness.

(3) Win over activists among the workers and peasants with experience of struggle to join the Red Army's ranks, changing its composition.

(4) Create new Red Army units from among the struggling worker and peasant masses.

Struggle has been waged against putschism in the army Party, but it is not yet sufficient. Hence remnants of putschist thinking still exist in the Red Army. Its manifestations are: first, blind action regardless of subjective and objective conditions; second, inadequate and irresolute execution of the urban policy; third, lax military discipline, especially in defeat; fourth, the burning of houses still practised by certain units; fifth, the system of shooting deserters and the system of corporal punishment, both of which bear the character of putschism. The social source of putschism is a combination of the thinking of the lumpen-proletarian and of the petty bourgeoisie.

〔1〕 The soldiers' representative assemblies and soldiers' committees in the Red Army were institutions established to foster democracy within the army. This system was later abolished. After the new-type army consolidation movement began in 1947, the People's Liberation Army, drawing on the experience of the Red Army period and of the new-type consolidation, again established in the companies a system of soldiers' councils and soldiers' committees under the leadership of the cadres.

〔2〕 In the short period after the defeat of the revolution in 1927 there appeared within the Communist Party a “Left” putschist tendency which held that the Chinese revolution was a so-called “permanent revolution” and its situation one of “continual upsurge”; it refused to organise an orderly retreat, wrongly used commandist methods, and attempted, relying on a few Party members and a few of the masses, to organise throughout the country many local uprisings that had no hope of victory. Such putschist actions were current at the end of 1927 and gradually ceased early in 1928, though the mood lingered in some Party members. Putschism is adventurism.

〔3〕 The Red Guards were the armed organisations of the masses in the revolutionary base areas; their members did not leave production.

〔4〕 Huang Chao (?–884), a native of Yuanju in Caozhou (present-day Heze, Shandong), was a leader of the peasant uprisings at the end of the Tang dynasty. In 875, the second year of the Qianfu reign of Emperor Xizong of Tang, Huang Chao gathered a following in response to the uprising led by Wang Xianzhi. After Wang Xianzhi was killed in 878, Huang Chao gathered up his remaining forces and was chosen leader, taking the title “General Reaching Heaven.” The insurgent army he led marched out of Shandong many times to fight in mobile warfare, campaigning across Shandong, Henan, Anhui, Jiangsu, Hubei, Hunan, Jiangxi, Zhejiang, Fujian, Guangdong, Guangxi, Shaanxi and other provinces. In 880 Huang Chao broke through the Tong Pass, soon occupied Chang'an and founded the state of Qi, proclaiming himself emperor. Later, because of internal splits (the general Zhu Wen went over to the Tang) and under the attacks of the Shatuo forces of Li Keyong and the armies of the various circuits, he was forced to abandon Chang'an, withdrew into Henan and returned from Henan to Shandong, where in 884 he was defeated and took his own life. The peasant war Huang Chao led lasted ten years and is one of the famous peasant wars in Chinese history; it struck heavily at the feudal ruling class of the time and won the support of the poor peasants. Because Huang Chao's insurgent army waged only a simple mobile war and never built a relatively stable base area, the feudal rulers called it “roving bandits.”

〔5〕 Li Chuang is Li Zicheng (1606–1645), a native of Mizhi, Shaanxi, and a leader of the peasant uprisings at the end of the Ming dynasty. In 1628, the first year of the Chongzhen reign of Emperor Sizong of Ming, a current of peasant uprising formed in northern Shaanxi. Li Zicheng joined the insurgent force of Gao Yingxiang, went from Shaanxi into Henan and Anhui, and turned back to Shaanxi. When Gao Yingxiang died in 1636, Li Zicheng was chosen the “Dashing King.” His main slogan among the masses was “Welcome the Dashing King, pay no grain tax”; at the same time he forbade his men to molest the people, and laid on his troops the slogan “To kill one man is as if to kill my father; to violate one woman is as if to violate my mother.” For this reason he won many supporters and became one of the main currents of the peasant uprisings of the time. But he too never built a relatively stable base area and always fought on the move. After being chosen Dashing King he led his forces into Sichuan, turned back to southern Shaanxi, went through Hubei into Sichuan again, then through Hubei into Henan, took Xiangyang and Anlu in Hubei, then through Henan attacked Shaanxi and took Xi'an, and in 1644 marched through Shanxi into Beijing. Not long after, he was defeated by the joint attack of the Ming general Wu Sangui, who brought in the Qing forces.

(This is the first part of the resolution written by Mao Zedong for the Ninth Congress of the Party in the Fourth Red Army of the Chinese Communist Party. The building of the Chinese people's army has gone through a hard road. The Chinese Red Army — the Eighth Route and New Fourth Armies in the war of resistance, the People's Liberation Army today — was founded with the Nanchang uprising of 1 August 1927, and by December 1929 more than two years had passed. In this period the Party within the Red Army fought against all kinds of wrong thinking, learned much, and accumulated fairly rich experience. This resolution written by Mao Zedong is the summing-up of that experience. It enabled the Red Army to wipe out the influence of the old-type armies and to build itself wholly on the foundation of Marxism-Leninism. The resolution was put into effect in the Fourth Red Army, and later the other parts of the Red Army all applied it to a greater or less degree, so that the Chinese Red Army as a whole became a true people's army. The Party work and political work in the Chinese people's army have since had great development and creation, and its present face differs greatly from the past; but the basic line still inherits the line of this resolution.)