Scientific System of Mao Zedong Thought

The main contents of Mao Zedong Thought and its living soul constitute the scientific system of Mao Zedong Thought. The “Resolution of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China on Certain Historical Issues of the Party since the Founding of the People's Republic of China”, adopted at the Sixth Plenary Session of the Eleventh Central Committee of the Party on 27 June 1981, gives a systematic and comprehensive overview of this. The resolution stated: “Mao Zedong Thought is wide-ranging in content. It is an original theory which has enriched and developed Marxism-Leninism in the following respects.”

(1) On the New-Democratic Revolution. Proceeding from China’s historical and social conditions, Comrade Mao Zedong made a profound study of the characteristics and laws of the Chinese revolution, applied and developed the Marxist-Leninist thesis of the leadership of the proletariat in the democratic revolution, and established the theory of New-Democratic Revolution — a revolution against imperialism, feudalism and bureaucrat-capitalism waged by the masses of the people on the basis of the worker-peasant alliance under the leadership of the proletariat. His main works on this subject include: “Analysis of the Classes in Chinese Society”, “Report on an Investigation of the Peasant Movement in Hunan”, “A Single Spark Can Start a Prairie Fire”, “Introducing The Communist", “On New Democracy”, “On Coalition Government and the Present Situation and Our Tasks”. The basic points of this theory are:

Firstly, China’s bourgeoisie consisted of two sections, the big bourgeoisie (that is, the comprador bourgeoisie, or the bureaucrat-bourgeoisie) which was dependent on imperialism, and the national bourgeoisie which had revolutionary leanings but wavered. The proletariat should endeavor win the national bourgeoisie to the united front under its leadership and in special circumstances to include even part of the big bourgeoisie in the united front, so as to isolate the main enemy to the greatest possible extent. When forming a united front with the bourgeoisie, the proletariat should preserve its own independence and pursue the policy of “unity, struggle, unity through struggle"; when forced to split with the bourgeoisie, chiefly the big bourgeoisie, it should have the courage and ability to wage a resolute armed struggle against the big bourgeoisie, while continuing to win the sympathy of the national bourgeoisie or keep it neutral.

Secondly, since there was no bourgeois democracy in China and the reactionary ruling classes enforced their terroristic dictatorship over the people by armed force, the revolution could not but essentially take the form of protracted armed struggle. China’s armed struggle was a revolutionary war led by the proletariat with the peasants as the principal force. The peasantry was the most reliable ally of the proletariat. Through its vanguard, it was possible and necessary for the proletariat, with its progressive ideology and its sense of organization and discipline, to raise the political consciousness of the peasant masses, establish rural base areas, wage a protracted revolutionary war and build up and expand the revolutionary forces. Comrade Mao Zedong pointed out that “the united front and armed struggle are the two basic weapons for defeating the enemy". Together with Party building, they constituted the “three magic weapons” of the revolution. They were the essential basis which enabled the Communist Party China to become the core of leadership of the whole nation and to chart the course of encircling the cities from the countryside and finally winning countrywide victory.

(2) On the socialist revolution and socialist construction. On the basis of the economic and political conditions for the transition to socialism ensuing on victory in the New-Democratic Revolution, Comrade Mao Zedong and the Communist Party of China followed the path of effecting socialist industrialization simultaneously with socialist transformation and adopted concrete policies for the gradual transformation of the private ownership of the means of production, thereby providing a theoretical as well as practical solution to the difficult task of building socialism in a large country such as China, a country which was economically and culturally backward, with a population accounting for nearly one-fourth of the world’s total. By putting forward the thesis that the combination of democracy for the people and dictatorship over the reactionaries constitutes the people’s democratic dictatorship, Comrade Mao Zedong enriched the Marxist-Leninist theory of the dictatorship of the proletariat. After the establishment of the socialist system, Comrade Mao Zedong pointed out that, under socialism, the people had the same fundamental interests, but that all kinds of contradictions still existed among them, and that contradictions between the enemy and the people and contradictions among the people should be strictly distinguished from each other and correctly handled. He proposed that among the people we should follow a set of correct policies. We should follow the policy of “unity-criticism-unity” in political matters, the policy of “long-term coexistence and mutual supervision” in the Party’s relations with the democratic parties, the policy of “let a hundred flowers blossom, let a hundred schools of thought contend” in science and culture, and, in the economic sphere the policy of over-all arrangement with regard to the different strata in town and country and of consideration for the interests of the state, the collective, and the individual, all three. He repeatedly stressed that we should not mechanically transplant the experience of foreign countries, but should find our own way to industrialization, a way suited to China’s conditions, by proceeding from the fact that China is a large agricultural country, taking agriculture as the foundation of the economy, correctly handling the relationship between heavy industry on the one hand and agriculture and light industry on the other, and attaching due importance to the development of the latter. He stressed that in socialist construction we should properly handle the relationships between economic construction and building up defense, between large-scale enterprises and small and medium scale enterprises, between the Han nationality and the ethnic groups, between the coastal regions and the interior, between the central and the local authorities, and between self-reliance and learning from foreign countries, and that we should properly handle the relationship between accumulation and consumption and pay attention to over-all balance. Moreover, he stressed that the workers were the masters of the enterprises and that cadres must take part in physical labor and workers must take part in management, that irrational rules and regulations must be reformed and that the three-in-one combination of technical personnel, workers and cadres should be implemented. And he formulated the strategic idea of bringing all positive factors into play and turning negative factors into positive ones so as to unite the whole Chinese people and build a powerful socialist country.

(3) On the building of the revolutionary army and military strategy. Comrade Mao Zedong methodically solved the problem of how to turn a revolutionary army chiefly made up of peasants into a new type of people’s army which is proletarian in character, observes strict discipline and forms close ties with the masses. He laid it down that the sole purpose of the people’s army is to serve the people whole-heartedly, put forward the principle that the Party commands the gun and not the other way round, advanced the Three Main Rules of Discipline and the Eight Points for Attention and stressed the practice of political, economic and military democracy and the principles of the unity of officers and soldiers, the unity of army and people and the disintegration of the enemy forces, thus formulating by way of summation a set of policies and methods concerning political work in the army. In his military writings such as “On Correcting Mistaken Ideas in the Party”, “Problems of Strategy in China’s Revolutionary War”, “Problems of Strategy in Guerrilla War Against Japan”, “On Protracted War and Problems of War and Strategy”, Comrade Mao Zedong summed up the experience of China’s protracted revolutionary wars and advanced the comprehensive concept of building a people’s army and of building rural base areas and waging People's War by employing the people’s army as the main force and relying on the masses. Raising guerrilla war to the strategic plane, he maintained that guerrilla warfare and mobile warfare of a guerrilla character would for a long time be the main forms of operation in China’s revolutionary wars. He explained that it would be necessary to effect an appropriate change in military strategy simultaneously with the changing balance of forces between the enemy and ourselves and with the progress of the war. He worked out a set of strategies and tactics for the revolutionary army to wage People's War in conditions when the enemy was strong and we were weak. These strategies and tactics include fighting a protracted war strategically and campaigns and battles of quick decision, turning strategic inferiority into superiority in campaigns and battles and concentrating a superior force to destroy the enemy forces one by one. During the War of Liberation, he formulated the celebrated ten major principles of operation. All these ideas constitute Comrade Mao Zedong’s outstanding contribution to the military theory of Marxism-Leninism.

After the founding of the People’s Republic, he put forward the important guideline that we must strengthen our national defense and build modern revolutionary armed forces (including the navy, the air force and technical branches) and develop modern defense technology (including the making of nuclear weapons for self-defense).

(4) On policy and tactics. Comrade Mao Zedong penetratingly elucidated the vital importance of policy and tactics in revolutionary struggles. He pointed out that policy and tactics are the life of the Party, that they are both the starting-point and the end-result of all the practical activities of a revolutionary party and that the Party must formulate its policies in the light of the existing political situation, class relations, actual circumstances and the changes in them, combining principle and flexibility. He made many valuable suggestions concerning policy and tactics in the struggle against the enemy, in the united front and other questions. He pointed out among other things that, under changing subjective and objective conditions, a weak revolutionary force could ultimately defeat a strong reactionary force; that we should despise the enemy strategically and take him seriously tactically; that we should keep our eyes on the main target of struggle and not hit out in all directions; that we should differentiate between and disintegrate our enemies, and adopt the tactic of making use of contradictions, winning over the many, opposing the few and crushing our enemies one by one; that in areas under reactionary rule, we should combine legal and illegal struggle and, organizationally, adopt the policy of assigning picked cadres to work underground; that, as for members of the defeated reactionary classes and reactionary elements, we should give them a chance to earn a living and to become working people living by their own labor, so long as they do not rebel or create trouble; and that the proletariat and its party must fulfill two conditions in order to exercise leadership over their allies: Firstly, Lead their followers in waging resolute struggles against the common enemy and achieving victories; secondly, bring material benefits to their followers or at least avoid damaging their interests and at the same time give them political education.

(5) On ideological and political work and cultural work. In his “On New Democracy”, Comrade Mao Zedong stated: “Any given culture (as an ideological form) is a reflection of the politics and economics of a given society, and the former in turn has a tremendous influence and effect upon the latter; economics is the base and politics the concentrated expression of economics.” In accordance with this basic view, he put forward many important ideas of far-reaching and long-term significance. For instance, the theses that ideological and political work is the life-blood of economic and all other work and that it is necessary to unite politics and economics and to unite politics and professional skills, and to be both red and expert; the policy of developing a national, scientific and mass culture and of letting a hundred flowers blossom, weeding through the old to bring forth the new, and making the past serve the present and foreign things serve China; and the thesis that intellectuals have an important role to play in revolution and construction, that intellectuals should identify themselves with the workers and peasants and that they should acquire the proletarian world views by studying Marxism-Leninism, by studying society and through practical work. He pointed out that “this question of ‘for whom?’ is fundamental; it is a question of principle” and stressed that we should serve the people whole-heartedly, be highly responsible in revolutionary work, wage arduous struggle and fear no sacrifice.

(6) On Party Building. It was a most difficult task to build a Marxist, proletarian Party of a mass character in a country where the peasantry and other sections of the petty bourgeoisie constituted the majority of the population, while the proletariat was small in number yet strong in combat effectiveness. Comrade Mao Zedong’s theory on Party building provided a successful solution to this question. His main works in this area include “Combat Liberalism”, “The Role of the Communist Party of China in the National War”, “Reform Our Study, Rectify the Party’s Style of Work”, “Oppose Stereotyped Party Writing”, “Our Study and the Current Situation”, “On Strengthening the Party Committee System and Methods of Work of Party Committees”. He laid particular stress on building the Party ideologically, saying that a Party member should join the Party not only organizationally but also ideologically and should constantly try to reform his non-proletarian ideas and replace them with proletarian ideas. He indicated that the style of work which entailed integrating theory with practice, forging close links with the masses and practicing self-criticism was the hallmark distinguishing the Communist Party of China from all other political parties in China. In order to counter the erroneous “Left” policy of “ruthless struggle and merciless blows” once followed in inner-Party struggle, he proposed the correct policy of “learning from past mistakes to avoid future ones and curing the sickness to save the patient”, emphasizing the need to achieve the objective of clarity in ideology and unity among comrades in inner-Party struggle. He initiated the rectification campaign as a form of ideological education in Marxism-Leninism throughout the Party, which applied the method of criticism and self-criticism. In view of the fact that our Party was about to become and then became a party in power leading the whole country, Comrade Mao Zedong urged time and again, first on the eve of the founding of the People’s Republic and then later, that we should remain modest and prudent, guard against arrogance and rashness and keep to plain living and hard struggle in our style of work, and that we should be on the lookout against the corrosive influence of bourgeois ideology and should oppose bureaucratism which would alienate us from the masses.

In addition to the above aspects, the scientific system of Mao Zedong’s thought also includes theories on international strategy and diplomatic work, on ideological study methods and working methods of the Party, and so on.