On the Ten Major Relationships

The consolidated draft of Mao Zedong's speech at the enlarged meeting of the Political Bureau of the CPC Central Committee on April 25, 1956. This article was first published in People's Daily on December 26, 1976. It was included in the Collected Works of Mao Zedong, Volume 7.

Since the beginning of 1956, the Chinese Communists with Mao Zedong as the main representative have made arduous explorations on the road of China's socialist construction and achieved positive results. In preparation for the Eighth National Congress of the Communist Party of China, Mao Zedong, Liu Shaoqi and other leaders conducted a large-scale investigation and research work.

From February to April 1956, Mao Zedong and others successively listened to the work reports of 34 Departments of Industry, Agriculture, Transportation,Commerce, Finance and Planning of the State Council. This is an extensive and in-depth investigation and study on economic work carried out by the collective leadership of the CPC Central Committee since the founding of New China. On the basis of listening to the reports, Mao Zedong gradually formed the basic idea of "On the Ten Major Relations", and successively made the reports "On the Ten Major Relations" at the enlarged meeting of the Political Bureau of the CPC Central Committee on April 25 and the Highest State Conference on May 2.

This report summarizes the preliminary experience of economic construction, draws lessons from the experience and lessons of the Soviet Union's construction, and puts forward ten major relations. The ten relationships explained in the speech include: the relationship between heavy industry and light industry, agriculture, the relationship between coastal industry and inland industry, the relationship between economic construction and national defense construction, the relationship between the state, production units and individual producers, the relationship between the central and local governments, the relationship between the Han nationality and ethnic minorities, the relationship between the Party and non-Party, the relationship between revolution and counter revolution, the relationship between right and wrong, and the relationship between China and the other countries.

“The Ten Major Relationships” involve all aspects of productive forces and production relations, economic base and superstructure, but they are not parallel. They focus on discussing economic issues.

These ten major relationships revolve around a basic principle, that is, “we should mobilize all forces, whether direct or indirect, and strive to make China a powerful socialist country." This became the guiding ideology of the Eighth National Congress of the Communist Party of China held in September of the same year. Socialism is the cause of the broad masses of the people.

Mao Zedong stressed that workers and peasants are the main body of the people. To build socialism, we must first rely on the workers and peasants and fully mobilize their enthusiasm; at the same time, we must consolidate the unity of all ethnic groups and help ethnic minorities develop economic and cultural construction; we should also "coexist for a long time and supervise each other" with democratic parties and strengthen the work of the United Front.

He also proposed that we should try our best to turn negative factors into positive ones. Mao Zedong pointed out that while taking heavy industry as the focus of domestic construction, we should develop more agriculture and light industry, and properly handle the relationship between coastal industry and inland industry, economic construction and national defense construction, so as to make a creative discussion on China's industrialization road.

He also began to put forward the issue of system reform, believing that we should not concentrate everything on the central government as the Soviet Union did, but should have the initiative of both the central and local governments, and should make each production unit independent in connection with unity.

When discussing the relationship between China and foreign countries, Mao Zedong put forward the slogan of "learning from other countries", emphasizing that all nations and countries should learn from each other, but not copy everything.

"On the Ten Major Relationships" is a sign that the Chinese Communists with Mao Zedong as the main representative began to explore China's own road of socialist construction. Under the new historical conditions, it put forward new guidelines from the economic (this is the main) and political aspects, and provided guidance for the Eighth National Congress of the Communist Party of China.

We have made theoretical preparations for the opening of the conference. Later, Mao Zedong recalled: “We have copied foreign experience in the first eight years.” And since 1956, when the “Ten Major Relationships” were discussed and put forward by Mao Zedong, CPC began to find its own route suitable for China.