The Protracted Nature of the Struggle in the Ideological Field

In September 1956, the Eighth National Congress of the CPC correctly analyzed the domestic situation and pointed out that the main contradiction in the country was between the people's need for rapid economic and cultural development and the current economic and cultural failure to meet the needs of the people, and that the main task of the state had changed from the liberation of the productive forces to the protection and development of the productive forces.

However, this conference did not deny that class struggle still existed. It proposed: "After the completion of the socialist transformation, the struggle between the positions, views and methods of socialism and capitalism will continue for a long time.” Here the question of the struggle in the ideological field was actually raised.

In 1957, Mao Zedong pointed out in "On the Correct Handling of the Contradictions Among the People": "In China, although socialist transformation has in the main been completed as regards the system of ownership, and although the large-scale, turbulent class struggles of the masses characteristic of times of revolution have in the main come to an end, there are still remnants of the overthrown landlord and comprador classes, there is still a bourgeoisie, and the remoulding of the petty bourgeoisie has only just started. Class struggle is by no means over. The class struggle is not over. The class struggle between the proletariat and the bourgeoisie, the class struggle between the various political forces, and the class struggle between the proletariat and the bourgeoisie in the ideological field will still be protracted and tortuous and at times even very sharp. The proletariat seeks to transform the world according to its own world view, and so does the bourgeoisie. In this respect, the question of which will win out, socialism or capitalism, is not really settled yet.”

In the same year, in his speech at the Party's National Publicity Conference, he further pointed out: "We have a long struggle ahead of us with the ideology of the bourgeoisie and petty bourgeoisie. It would be a mistake not to understand this situation and to give up the ideological struggle.”