Learn from Past Mistakes to Avoid Future Ones and Cure the Sickness to Save the Patient

In 1944, during the Yan'an Rectification Movement, Mao Zedong, on behalf of the Political Bureau of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China, pointed out: “On the question of what attitude to adopt in studying our historical experience.” “At the same time we should adopt a lenient policy in arriving at decisions about comrades who formerly committed errors.” “This time, in dealing with questions of Party history we should lay the stress not on the responsibility of certain individual comrades but on the analysis of the circumstances in which the errors were committed, on the content of the errors and on their social, historical and ideological roots, and this should be done in the spirit of ‘learning from past mistakes to avoid future ones’ and ‘curing the sickness to save the patient’, in order to achieve the twofold objective of clarity in ideology and unity among comrades.”

It was not only the guiding principle used in the Rectification Movement, but also the correct policy needed to be continuously adopted in the inner-Party conflicts and struggles within the Party. When explaining this policy, Mao Zedong said: while we are exposing the mistakes of the past, we should not be emotional or overweening. The mistakes of the past must be exposed without sparing anyone's sensibilities; it is necessary to analyse and criticize what was bad in the past with a scientific attitude so that work in the future will be done more carefully and done better. This is what is meant by "learn from past mistakes to avoid future ones". But our aim in exposing errors and criticizing shortcomings, like that of a doctor curing a sickness, is solely to save the patient and not to doctor him to death. A person with appendicitis is saved when the surgeon removes his appendix. So long as a person who has made mistakes does not hide his sickness for fear of treatment or persist in his mistakes until he is beyond cure, so long as he honestly and sincerely wishes to be cured and to mend his ways, we should welcome him and cure his sickness so that he can become a good comrade. This policy has not only drawn a clear line of demarcation with both liberalism and reconciliationism that rejects ideological struggle and neglects the principled thinking which obscures the difference between right and wrong, but also different from the irrational policy of wanton punishment doctrine which engages in "ruthless struggle and merciless blows" within the Party.

Mao Zedong later pointed out, "This method was created and established during the Rectification Movement which began in 1942. It was absolutely correct beneficial to adopt the policy of "learning from the past mistakes to avoid future ones and curing the disease to save the patient" in order to benignly approach the inner-Party struggles. “After a few years, the Seventh National Congress of the Communist Party of China which convened in 1945, achieved the goal of unity and solidarity within the whole party, which led to the great victory of the people's revolution.” Historical experience has proved that the establishment and implementation of this policy has been conductive for strengthening the Party's ideological construction, and played an important role in consolidating and developing the unity and solidarity within the Party.