Report to an Enlarged Working Conference of the Central Committee
Written report presented by Liu Shaoqi on behalf of the CPC Central Committee to the Enlarged Working Conference of the Central Committee on 27 January 1962. It is included in the Selected Works of Liu Shaoqi (Part II) published by People's Publishing House in 1985 with abridgement.
The report begins by pointing out that the main purpose of the Central Committee in convening this Enlarged Working Conference as to sum up experience, unify understandings, further close the ranks, tighten the discipline, strengthen democratic centralism under a unified, centralized leadership and encourage people to go all out to achieve better results and surmount all difficulties, so as to win new victories in the socialist construction under the great banner of Mao Zedong Thought. The conference was aimed at mobilizing the entire Party membership to fulfill the 1962 construction tasks and reach the long-range goals set forth in the ten-year programme.
The main contents of the report are as follows: (1) The current situation and the Party’s tasks. It is pointed out that since the founding of the People's Republic of China, we passed through a period of rehabilitation of the national economy and two Five-Year Plan periods of economic development. During these relatively short periods, we scored tremendous achievements in socialist transformation and construction. During the twelve years, China underwent tremendous changes in all fields. While confirming the great achievements, it is necessary to point out the shortcomings and errors in the work done in those years and their consequences, which caused great losses to our economic life. These shortcomings and errors were caused, on the one hand, by natural disasters, and on the other hand, to a greater extent by mistakes in the work and the defective conduct. Part of the shortcomings and mistakes were due to lack of experience of the central government, which accounted for the failure or, in some cases, the impossibility to formulate all necessary and specific policies in the due course of time. Consequently, they failed to form correct judgements regarding some issues in their practical work. The problem here is that experience and lessons must have been seriously summed up. So that the report summarizes the basic experience and lessons on the socialist economic construction in China from 16 aspects, and points out that the whole Party must have done a solid work in readjusting the national economy. (2) Strengthening democratic centralism and unified, centralized leadership. It is pointed out that to strengthen democratic centralism and a unified, centralized leadership, we need to practice full democracy among the people and all Party members, cement the ties between the Party and the people, improve the unified, centralized leadership of the Central Committee and work for Party-wide unity of thought, policy, planning, command and action. It also discusses the relationship between centralization and decentralization, including the relationship between strengthening the unified, centralized leadership of the central government and giving full play to local initiatives, and the relationship between local conditions and local management and its relationship with central management. In order to strengthen unified, centralized leadership and combat decentralism, the most important thing for all the cadres of the Party is to sum up experience and enhance political awareness, so that they all have a clear understanding of the harmfulness of decentralism, conscientiously safeguard Party policies and state plans, and fight to forestall and overcome decentralist deviations. (3) Problems concerning the Party. It is pointed out that the Communist Party is a political party armed with Marxism-Leninism, the most revolutionary, militant party of the proletariat. The Communist Party of China is precisely a revolutionary party that espouses the lofty aspirations of the proletariat. Only by relying on the leadership of the Communist Party can China switch from poverty to prosperity and from backwardness to advancement and become a great, powerful socialist state capable of contributing increasingly to the cause of human progress. When summing up the experience in the past years and conscientiously improving the work done, it is necessary to greatly enhance the fighting capacity of the Party by getting rid of undesirable ideology and practices that smack of subjectivism, bureaucratism, authoritarianism and decentralism and, therefore, run counter to the people's interests. All Party members should consciously carry forward the fine traditions of the Party, so that the Party will always be the vanguard of the proletariat with a strong sense of organization and discipline and will always cherish the lofty ideals characteristic of the revolutionary party of the proletariat. On this basis, the report focuses on problems concerning the conduct of seeking-truth-from-facts conduct, the mass line and inner-Party life.
It emphasizes that all Party members must stick to and establish the conduct of seeking-truth-from-facts conduct as the first criterion to strengthen the Party spirit.
They must uphold the Marxist-Leninist attitude of seeking truth from facts, that is, they should proceed from actual reality, take full account of objective possibilities and avoid doing the impossible. However, they must work hard and try by every means to overcome difficulties and fulfill all tasks that should and can be accomplished.
It emphasizes that all the great achievements of the Party are inseparable from the efforts to carry out the mass line.
In those years new ground had been opened in the execution of the Party's mass line which, at the same time, had suffered distortion. Some comrades regarded the mass movement as the only pattern for the mass line. To them, it seemed, the mass line could not do without the mass movement. Obviously, that was a false concept.
Even more erroneous was the idea held by some comrades that beating drums and gongs, producing much fanfare, holding meaningless rallies and delivering long-winded, empty speeches were part and parcel of the mass movement and mass line.
Actually, none of these pretentious activities had anything to do with the mass movement or mass line. These so-called mass movements ran counter to the mass line and did not reflect the people's real opinions and demands; they dampened the people's enthusiasm and impaired the Party's prestige.
One of the most important problems in the ongoing inner-Party life is the relationship between Party committees at higher levels and those at lower levels, especially between local Party committees and the Central Committee.
In order to normalize inner-Party life and stimulate the initiative of the entire membership, all Party organizations must adopt truly effective measures to extend democracy in the Party and improve the regular activities of the Party organization. The Party's unified, centralized leadership must be based on democracy. It can be truly strengthened only by actively promoting democracy in the Party, by enhancing the initiative of its vast membership and cadres and by heightening their sense of responsibility towards the cause of the Party and the people.
The key to the extension of inner-Party democracy lies in the Party's full-scale practice of criticism and self-criticism. The Party Constitution represents the Party's statute governing the entire Party membership, a code of conduct for inner-Party life. All Party organizations and members are required to act in accordance with the Party Constitution unconditionally and without reservation. All Party members without exception, including those holding responsible positions, should adhere to Party discipline and play an exemplary role in observing state laws. They should not turn a blind eye to any undesirable phenomena inside or outside the Party or adopt a laissez-faire attitude. Instead, they should fight against all kinds of evildoers and evil deeds. The report was warmly welcomed and highly recognized by the participants.