Talk on "Political Economics Textbook of the Soviet Union”

During the first Zhengzhou Conference in November 1958, in order to make the leading cadres at all levels study more on the basic economic theory of Marxism and better grasp and correct some wrong tendencies at that time, Mao Zedong wrote a letter to the Party committees at the central, provincial, prefectural and county levels, which proposed that members should read and study Modern Communism: Marx, Engels, Lenin and Stalin, also Stalin's book Economic Problems of Socialism in the C.P.S.U., as well as, study the Political Economics Textbook of the Soviet Union compiled by the Institute of Economics of the Academy of Sciences of the Soviet Union.

From winter 1959 to spring 1960, Mao Zedong, Liu Shaoqi and Zhou Enlai organized reading groups respectively. From December 10, 1959 to February 9, 1960, the reading group organized by Mao Zedong read the second volume of the revised third edition of Political Economics Textbook of the Soviet Union, People’s Press, 1959 edition in Hangzhou, Shanghai and Guangzhou.

Chen Boda, Hu Sheng, Deng Liqun, Tian Jiaying and others participated in Mao Zedong's reading group.

The reading group adopted the method of reading while discussing, discussing chapter by chapter and section by section. Mao Zedong published many talks, and the reading group organized the talks into notes.

The conversation in reading the Political Economics Textbook of the Soviet Union reflects Mao Zedong's arduous exploration of China's socialist economic construction by himself and the Party Central Committee, and is an important document reflecting Mao Zedong's and the CPC's socialist construction thoughts.

Excerpts from the talks are included in the Collected Works of Mao Zedong, Volume 8.

(1) About integral worldview and methodology. Mao Zedong stressed that the law is objective and can be understood. The law of people's subjective movement is the same as that of the objective movement of the outside world.

It needs a process for Mao Zedong to criticize textbooks for not talking about people's understanding of laws. In his view, the textbook says that with the socialist public ownership of the means of production, "we can fully consciously grasp and use the law", which is too easy to say.

The understanding of laws always begins with the understanding of a minority before it becomes the knowledge of the majority. It is necessary to go through a process of practice and study to go from ignorance to knowledge. Mao Zedong emphasized duality and contradiction; criticized textbooks for not using these two methods.

Mao Zedong thought that textbooks did not use the world view and methodology of unity of opposites to analyze things. He criticized that the contradictions under the socialist system advocated by textbooks were not irreconcilable. He thought that only antagonistic and non-antagonistic contradictions could be said under the socialist system.

Mao Zedong emphasized quantitative development of change to qualitative change and the exertion of subjective initiative. He believed that quantitative change and qualitative change are a unity of opposites. In any lengthy process of change, before entering the final qualitative change, the subject must pass through uninterrupted quantitative changes and a good many partial qualitative changes. At that time there will be things of the socialist stage that will have to die out. And, too, in the period of communism there will still be uninterrupted development.

(2) From the democratic revolution and the socialist revolution. Mao Zedong believed that “the historical experience of China and Russia proves that to win the revolution having a mature party is a most important condition.” The main reason why the Communist Party of China could persist in the long-term war and win is that it has adopted correct policies towards the peasants, implemented different agrarian reform policies in different periods, and closely relied on the peasants in the war.

Mao talked about the difference between the Chinese bourgeoisie and the Russian bourgeoisie. China united the peasants against the capitalists, while the Soviet Union preferred to deal with the capitalists to deal with the spontaneous forces of the petty bourgeoisie. He pointed out that different policies arise in different historical conditions.

(3) On socialist construction. Mao Zedong put forward the idea that socialism may be divided into two stages: underdeveloped socialism and relatively developed socialism and pointed out that the latter stage may take longer; he also initially put forward the concept of "Four Modernizations", namely industrial modernization, agricultural modernization, scientific and cultural modernization, and national defense modernization.

For the issue of proportionality and comprehensive balance in economic development, Mao Zedong thought that imbalance was absolute and balanced was relative. Criticism of textbooks only focused on balance and did not speak of imbalance. It denied some balance under capitalist system and some imbalance under socialist system.

As for the relationship between industry and agriculture, Mao Zedong believed that the law of giving priority to the growth of means of production was the common law of all social expansion and reproduction. Stalin's shortcoming was that he overemphasized the priority of the growth of heavy industry, resulting in the neglect of agriculture in the plan.

China has embodied this law as follows: under the condition of giving priority to the development of heavy industry, industry and agriculture were developed simultaneously, and each of them having its own leading aspect.

On the issue of industrialization, Mao Zedong believed that the speed of China's industrialization is also a very acute problem. Improving labor productivity depends on material technology, culture and education, and political and ideological work. The latter two are both spiritual functions.

As for agricultural development, Mao Zedong emphasized that agricultural mechanization should be gradually realized mainly by building water conservancy projects.

(4) Some questions on political economy. Mao Zedong put forward some important theoretical points, such as: the balance and imbalance between the productive forces and the relations of production, and the balance and imbalance between the relations of production and the superstructure should be used as an outline to study the economic problems of socialist society; the contradiction and imbalance between the productive forces and the relations of production, and between the relations of production and the superstructure are absolute, the superstructure adapts to the relations of production, and the relations of production adapt to the productive forces, which are relative. The revolution in the relations of production is caused by the development of the productive forces, and the great development of the productive forces always comes after the change in the relations of production; it is a general rule to first create public opinion and seize power, then solve the problem of ownership, and then develop the productive forces; after the basic solution of the problem of ownership, the most important problem is the problem of management, that is, the problem of human relations; emphasis should be placed on hard struggle, on expanding reproduction, on Communist future, vision, to educate the people, not for the individual, but for the collective, for future generations, and for the future of society to struggle hard.

(5) How to write socialist political economics. Mao Zedong believed that it is still a difficult task to write a textbook of Socialist Communist political economy, which is mainly restricted by social practice.

Mao Zedong criticized the poor writing of Soviet textbooks, not from the contradiction between productive forces and relations of production, the contradiction between economic base and superstructure to study the problem, not from the historical narration and analysis to draw a natural conclusion, but from the law to deduce; only talking about the material premise, rarely involving the superstructure, first defining, not reasoning.

Mao Zedong thought that the writing of socialist political economy can start from ownership, from the contradiction between ownership revolution and two kinds of socialist public ownership, as well as the development trend and solution of this contradiction and how to transition from socialist collective ownership to socialist ownership by the whole people.