How We Can Gain a More Correct Understanding

Excerpt from the speech delivered by Chen Yun at the meeting of cadres from Shaanxi Province who attended the enlarged working conference of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China on February 8, 1962. It is included in Volume 3 of the Collected Works of Chen Yun.

Chen Yun emphasized the importance of developing inner-Party democracy in his speech. It is pointed out that it is not enough to rely only on a few leading cadres to discover problems, shortcomings and mistakes in our work. The Party must promote democracy and encourage the cadres and the masses to air their opinions on our work. As far as leading cadres are concerned, they should develop the good habit of patiently listening to different opinions.

Chen Yun called on leading cadres to pay special attention to listening to contrary views. Anyone who has the same opinion dares to speak and is easy to hear; different opinions are often difficult to hear because some leaders are not open-minded so that others are afraid to speak. “Therefore, we must be open-minded and be more open to opposing opinions. We must also understand that things are very complex, thus requiring that we listen to different opinions and sum them up through careful and detailed analysis in order to arrive at a comparatively comprehensive and correct understanding. There are many different ways to conduct investigation and study. Exchanging opinions with people who hold opposing views is one important way. We Communists should strengthen self-cultivation and should develop the good habit of being ready to listen to opinions.” In his speech, Chen Yun introduced the methods to make our understanding more correct, namely the methods of "exchange of views", "comparison" and "reconsideration”. First is exchange of views. Each person sees a different side, so neither of them has a comprehensive view. If these two persons "exchange" their views, they will then achieve a comprehensive picture. When the leading organs formulate policies, they should spend more than 90% of their time in investigation and study. It is sufficient to spend less than 10% of the time for final discussions and decisions. Second is comparison. We should compare different courses of action in studying problems, formulating policies and making plans. We should not only consider the present, but also the past, and we should also make comparisons with similar policies and plans made in foreign countries. Such all-sided comparisons help to clarify matters and facilitate accurate judgements. Third is reconsideration. Decisions on some issues may seem to be correct at the time, but after a while we might discover that they were incorrect, or not completely correct. Therefore, we should not make decisions rashly, and we should allow ample time for reconsideration.

This speech embodies the democratic spirit of the "7,000 Cadres Conference" and is a positive result of the Party's initial exploration of inner-Party democracy after it came to power, which had a certain role in promoting the adjustment of inner-Party relations at that time.