Combat Liberalism

A short essay written by Mao Zedong, on September 7, 1937, to criticize and eliminate the liberalism tendency. It was originally published in the Liberation Daily of Yan'an on April 10, 1942 and included in the Selected Works of Mao Zedong, Volume 2.

After the Anti-Japanese War attained nation-wide character, the Communist Party of China, as the mainstay of Anti-Japanese and national salvation struggle, had to lead the people of the whole country to fight resolutely against both the Japanese imperialism and the die-hards and capitulationist faction of the KMT, under extremely complicated circumstances. To shoulder such a heavy historical mission, an ideologically united proletarian party with strong combat capacity was a must.

The Communist Party of China had been in a decentralized rural guerrilla war environment for a long time, most of its members came from peasants, small producers and other petty bourgeoisie strata, which had brought about many kind of liberal tendencies of selfishness, unprincipledness and laxity in organizational issues, which greatly hindered the Party to maintain a high degree of unity and discipline, thus hindered the successful accomplishment of its arduous historical mission. This essay made a profound analysis and discussed on the forms of manifestation, harms, origin, nature of liberalism and emphasized the great significance of opposing liberalism.

The article listed 11 common manifestations of liberalism in the Party work, and pointed out the serious harms of liberalism, saying: “Liberalism is extremely harmful in a revolutionary collective. It is a corrosive which eats away unity, undermines cohesion, causes apathy and creates dissension. It robs the revolutionary ranks of compact organization and strict discipline, prevents policies from being carried through and alienates the Party organizations from the masses which the Party leads.”

“Liberalism stems from petty-bourgeois selfishness, it places personal interests first and the interests of the revolution second, and this gives rise to ideological, political and organizational liberalism.” “Liberalism is a manifestation of opportunism and conflicts fundamentally with Marxism. It is negative and objectively has the effect of helping the enemy.”

Finally, the essay called on all Party members and revolutionary comrades: “We must use Marxism, which is positive in spirit, to overcome liberalism, which is negative.” “We should have largeness of mind and he should be staunch and active, looking upon the interests of the revolution as his very life and subordinating his personal interests to those of the revolution; always and everywhere he should adhere to principle and wage a tireless struggle against all incorrect ideas and actions.” This article later became an important study text, both before and during the Yan'an Rectification Movement and in the later period became a sharp ideological weapon of the Party and a major motto for the Party members to cultivate their Party spirit.