On Correcting Mistaken Ideas in the Party

This work is the first part of the resolution written by Mao Zedong in December 1929 for the Ninth Party Congress (Gutian Conference) of the Fourth Army attached to the Chinese Workers' and Peasants' Red Army. Included in the Selected Works of Mao Zedong, Volume 1.

The full text of the resolution of Gutian Conference is included in the Collected Works of Mao Zedong, Volume 1.

The Chinese Red Army (which became the Eighth Route and New Fourth Armies during the Anti-Japanese War and is now the People's Liberation Army) was created on August 1, 1927, during the Nanchang Uprising.

During this period the Communist Party organization in the Red Army learned a great deal and gained quite a rich store of experience in the course of combating various mistaken ideas. In accordance with the spirit of the letter of instruction from the CPC Central Committee to the front Committee of the Fourth Army attached to the Chinese Workers' and Peasants' Red Army, in September 1929 and evaluating the actual situation of the Fourth Red Army, Mao Zedong summed up the past experiences. At the same time, he analyzed all kinds of erroneous ideas in the Party Committee of the Fourth Red Army and put forward concrete measures to correct them. The resolution consists of eight parts, and among the eight parts, and the core of the resolution deals with correcting the mistaken ideas within the party. In the resolution, Mao Zedong first pointed out that there were all kinds of non-proletarian thoughts in the Fourth Red Army, mainly including purely military viewpoint, ultra-democracy, disregard of organizational discipline, absolute equalitarianism, subjectivism, individualism, ideology of roving rebel bands and the remnants of putschism.

Secondly, Mao Zedong analyzed the sources of these erroneous ideas, " of course, source of them lies in the fact that its basic units are composed largely of peasants and other elements of petty-bourgeois origin; yet the failure of the Party's leading bodies to wage a concerted and determined struggle against these incorrect ideas and to educate the members in the Party's correct line is also an important cause of their existence and growth.”

Thirdly, Mao Zedong pointed out that we should resolutely correct and overcome the erroneous ideas existing in the Party, because "they would greatly hinder the implementation of the Party's correct line.”

Unless these ideas are thoroughly corrected, the Fourth Army cannot possibly shoulder the tasks assigned to it in China's great revolutionary struggle. How to correct the wrong ideas in the Party and build the Red Army into a new type of people's army? Mao Zedong put forward the following propositions:

(1) Politically, we should resolutely implement the Party's correct line and overcome the purely military viewpoint and the ideology of roving rebel bands. We should understand that “The Chinese Red Army is an armed body for carrying out the political tasks of the revolution.”,“The Red Army fights not merely for the sake of fighting but in order to conduct publicity among the masses, organize them, arm them, and help them to establish revolutionary political power.” (2) Ideologically, we should adhere to the scientific attitude of seeking truth from facts, oppose subjectivism, strengthen the education of proletarian ideology, so that a political and scientific spirit pervades in the thinking of the Party members and in their Party life. To correct individualism and absolute equalitarianism, it is necessary to educate Party members to learn to use Marxist methods to analyze the political situation and correctly estimate class forces, so as to make Party members pay attention to social and economic investigation and research, so as to determine the strategies and working methods of struggle, criticism within the Party should be based on facts and criticism should centre on politics. (3) Organizationally, we should strengthen the Party's leadership over the army, establish the Party's leadership status in the Red Army, strictly implement democracy under centralized guidance, establish strict proletarian discipline, and oppose ultra-democracy and disregard of organizational discipline. In the resolution, Mao Zedong made special mention of the problem of overcoming the mistake of putschism ideology which caused blind action.

He pointed out that the Party organization in the Red Army has already waged struggles against putschism,but not yet to a sufficient extent. Thus, the remnants of this ideology still exist, such as: firstly, blind action regardless of subjective and objective conditions; secondly, inadequate and irresolute application of the Party's policies for the cities; thirdly, slack military discipline, especially in moments of defeat; fourthly, acts of house-burning by some units; fifthly, the practices of shooting deserters and of inflicting corporal punishment, both of which smack of putschism.

In its social origins, putschism is a combination of lumpen-proletarian and petty-bourgeois ideology. The ways to correct it are as follows: firstly, to eradicate putschism ideologically; secondly, correct putschist behaviour through rules, regulations and policies. The resolution of Gutian Conference stipulated that the Red Army should eliminate the ideological remnants and conduct remnants of the old style armies, it enabled the Red Army to build itself entirely on the basis of Marxism-Leninism and it has made an important contribution to solve the problem of how to build the revolutionary army with peasants as the main component into a new type of people's army with proletarian nature and with strict discipline and which forges close contact with the people, the decisions of the resolution constitutes a valuable programmatic documents for the construction of the CPC and the Red Army.