Speech at the Enlarged Working Conference of Central Committee

Mao Zedong's speech at the enlarged working conference of the CPC Central Committee on January 30, 1962 is one of Mao Zedong's main works in the period of socialist construction.

There are six points in Mao Zedong's speech. The first, second, fourth and sixth points are included in the Collected Works of Mao Zedong, Volume 8. To sum up the experience and lessons of the three-year Great Leap Forward Movement, carry out inner-Party criticism and self-criticism, and clean up the errors of the “Left” relatively centrally, so as to quickly reverse the serious economic difficulties at that time, the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China convened an enlarged Central Working Conference (i.e., the 7.000 Cadres Conference) from January 11 to February 7, 1962.

Mao Zedong made an important speech at the meeting. Mao Zedong highlighted and systematically expounded that socialist construction must adhere to the principle of democratic centralism. He pointed out that "both inside and outside the Party there must be a full democratic life, which means conscientiously putting democratic centralism into effect."

The speech profoundly expounded the dialectical relationship between democracy and centralization, and pointed out that “Our centralism is built on democratic foundations. Without democracy there cannot be any correct centralism.” Our leading organs merely play the role of a processing plant in the establishment of a good line and good general and specific policies and methods. The leadership of the Party committees is a collective leadership; matters cannot be decided arbitrarily by the first secretary alone. Within Party committees democratic centralism should be the sole mode of operation. The relationship between the first secretary and the other secretaries and committee members is one of the minority obeying the majority.

Mao Zedong also elaborated systematically on how to implement democratic centralism. Firstly, leaders should let the people speak and not be afraid of criticism. "Our attitude is to uphold the truth and correct mistakes at any time."

Mao Zedong also systematically expounded how to implement democratic centralism: first, leaders should let the people speak and not be afraid of mass criticism. “Our attitude is to hold fast to the truth and be ready at any time to correct our mistakes." “We advocate not to grasp at others’ faults, not to put hats on people, not to flourish the big stick.” As long as they do not break discipline, as long as they are not carrying on any secret factional activities, we should always allow them to speak and even if they should say the wrong things we should not punish them. Both within and outside the Party there is advantage in allowing the minority to reserve their opinions.

Thirdly, carry out criticism and self-criticism. Mao Zedong took the initiative to take responsibility for the shortcomings and mistakes in the work of the Central Committee over the past few years, pointing out that “Any mistakes that the Centre has made ought to be my direct responsibility, and I also have an indirect share in the blame because I am the Chairman of the Central Committee. I don’t want other people to shirk their responsibility. There are some other comrades who also bear responsibility, but the person primarily responsible should be me."

The speech profoundly expounded the problem of gradually understanding the objective law of socialist construction in practice. Mao Zedong believed that we still have great blindness in socialist construction. For us the socialist economy is still in many respects a realm of necessity not yet understood. We should from now on spend a period of time in summarizing our experiences and in hard study, and in the course of practice gradually deepen our understanding of it through clarifying its laws.

The speech pointed out the long-term and arduous nature of socialist construction, emphasizing that China has a large population, our resources are meagre, and our economy backward so that in my opinion, it will be impossible to develop our productive power so rapidly as to catch up with, and overtake, the most advanced capitalist countries in less than one hundred years. “We must do our very best to combine the universal truth of Marxism-Leninism with the concrete reality of Chinese socialist construction and with the concrete reality of future world revolution and, through practice, gradually come to understand the objective laws of the struggle.”

The principle of democratic centralism put forward in the speech and the thought of combining Marxism with the reality of China's socialist construction still have important guiding significance for the construction of socialism with Chinese characteristics.