The Working Class Must Breed Its Own Contingent of Intellectuals

Mao Zedong's judgement on the status and role of intellectuals in China's revolution and construction period which was more fully discussed in his work "Have Firm Faith in the Majority of the People” which was delivered as a speech by Mao Zedong on October 13, 1957. The question of intellectuals is an important issue concerning the success or failure of China's revolution and construction, Mao Zedong attached great importance to the status and role of intellectuals in China's revolution and construction periods. In December 1939, Mao Zedong drafted a decision for the Central Committee of the Communist Party on recruiting large numbers of intellectuals to the Party, which clearly pointed out: "Without the participation of the intellectuals, the victory of the revolution is impossible."

In his view, intellectuals are the first social group which embraced revolutionary awakening, “the proletariat cannot produce intellectuals of its own without the help of the existing intellectuals” therefore from the day of its birth, the CPC has made considerable efforts to recruit students and intellectuals. For Mao Zedong, intellectuals and young students often play a vanguard and bridge role in the present stage of revolution, "The organization of revolutionary forces and carrying out Party’s revolutionary undertakings cannot succeed without the participation of revolutionary intellectuals." During the period of socialist construction, Mao Zedong put forward the strategic task of cultivating a large contingent of working class intellectuals.

In July 1957, Mao Zedong pointed out in his article “The Situation in the Summer of 1957”: "In order to build socialism, the working class must have its own army of technical cadres, professors, teachers, scientists, journalists, writers, artists and Marxist theorists.” “The revolutionary cause of the working class will not be fully consolidated until this vast new army of working-class intellectuals comes into being.” He also stressed: " To build socialism, the working class must have its own army of intellectuals—technical people and theorists— it must be a vast army; a small number of people will not suffice”. In October 1957, Mao Zedong clearly pointed out: “The proletariat must build up its own army of intellectuals, just as the bourgeoisie does. The regime of a given class cannot do without its own intellectuals. How could bourgeois dictatorship be possible in the United States without its intellectuals? Ours is a dictatorship of the proletariat, and the proletariat must build its own army of intellectuals, including all those intellectuals from the old society who truly take a firm working-class stand after being remoulded. Intellectuals, together with the workers and peasants, constitute the foundation of the people's democratic dictatorship and the basic force of building socialism, without the support of the intellectuals, the people's democratic dictatorship cannot be consolidated, nor can socialism be built and developed.”

In order to cultivate a large contingent of working-class intellectuals, the CPC adopted a policy of "unity, education and remolding” towards them. In January 1956, the Central Committee of the CPC held a conference on intellectuals in Beijing. Zhou Enlai expounded three specific policies of the Party towards intellectuals: firstly, strengthen leadership, adopt effective measures to mobilize intellectuals and take advantage of their skills, and give full play to their expertise for the benefit of the state; secondly, to try to understand them well, their strong points in knowledge, give them due confidence and support they deserve, so that they can work with enthusiasm; thirdly, provide them with the necessary working conditions and proper material benefits, so that they can expend more time and energy for our socialist construction cause.

The above-mentioned thoughts and policies of the Party not only greatly mobilized the enthusiasm and initiative of the majority of the domestic intellectuals to devote themselves to the cause of socialist construction, but also enable a large number of Chinese intellectuals living abroad to return to the motherland to serve the nation and socialism by overcoming many difficulties to realize this return. During the ten-year period of socialist construction, tens of thousands of various kinds of talented experts were cultivated and gained practical experience, endured hard tests in the various fields of socialist construction, in this process many of them have become the backbone cadres of the Party committees and government departments at all levels, besides they were employed in the spheres of economic work, education, science and technology, literature and art, medical and health care, sports and in other branches, especially after the Reform and Opening-up period which started in the late 1970s their contribution was greatly improved.

Since the new period of Reform and Opening-up, the Party has summed up the experience and lessons learned in dealing with the problem of intellectuals in the whole period after the founding of New China, established the idea that intellectuals are an important part of the working class, and upheld the idea that: the Chinese working class, including intellectuals, is the basic force for the expansion of the advanced productive forces in China. The peasant class and other laboring people, closely united with the working class, constitute an important force for the development of the country's social productive forces. These three classes, the working class, peasants, and intellectuals, are the fundamental forces in building socialism with Chinese characteristics.