Yan’an Rectification Movement

Yan’an Rectification Movement is the first large-scale Rectification Campaign in the history of the Communist Party of China. During the Anti-Japanese War, the Communist Party of China conducted a campaign to rectify the Party's style and educate Marxism-Leninism in Yan'an and the anti-Japanese base areas. In order to raise the level of Marxism-Leninism in the Party and correct various non-proletarian ideas in the Party, Mao Zedong made reports on “Reform Our Study”, “Rectify the Party's Style of Work” and “Oppose Stereotyped Party Writing” in May 1941 and February 1942 respectively. In those writings, he called on the Party to oppose subjectivism to rectify the study, sectarianism to rectify the Party's style of work, and to oppose stereotyped Party writing to rectify the literary style. In June of the same year, the Publicity Department of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China issued the "Instruction on Rectifying the Three Styles of Study Campaign in the Whole Party", which began the Party-wide Rectification Campaign.

The Yan'an Rectification Movement started in February 1942 and ended in the spring of 1945, a total of more than three years, and was carried out in two phases. The cadres who participated in the Rectification Study were roughly divided into three parts: Firstly, the central and military systems; secondly, the Northwest Bureau and the Shaanxi-Gansu-Ningxia Border Region system; and third, the Central Party School system.

The first period lasted from February 1942 to July 1943, about a year and a half. The first Rectification Study had a character of a prototype. A total of about four or five thousand cadres participated in this Rectification Study.

The second period was from July and August 1943 to April 1945, nearly two years, which was the period when all Party members and cadres in the Yan'an area and the Shaanxi-Gansu-Ningxia Border Region generally participated in the Rectification Campaign.

The cadres who participated in this period of Rectification and study totaled more than 120,000, including senior and middle-ranking leading cadres of the entire Party. Among them, 6,000 to 7,000 were concentrated in the Central Party School, accounting for more than two-thirds of the total number.

In April 1945, the Sixth Plenary Session of the Seventh Central Committee of the Party adopted the important “Resolution on Certain Historical Issues of the Party”, which made correct conclusions on several major historical issues in the Party after the defeat of the Revolution. Through the Rectification Movement, the level of Marxist-Leninist theory of Party members improved, and the Party reached unprecedented unity and solidarity. This laid the ideological foundation for the victory of the Anti-Japanese War and the Democratic Revolution.

The Yan'an Rectification in the 1940s was a Party-wide general Marxist education movement and a great ideological liberation movement in the history of the Communist Party of China. Through the Yan'an Rectification, the CPC not only initially established the ideological line of seeking truth from facts and broke the dogmatism of the sanctification of the Soviet experience and the instructions of the Communist International, but also established Mao Zedong Thought, the first theoretical achievement of building Marxism with Chinese characteristics, as the guiding ideology of the Party. Thus, it greatly promoted the process of building Marxism with Chinese characteristics and exerted a profound influence on the cause of the Chinese revolution and construction. Reviewing the Yan'an Rectification under new historical conditions and drawing valuable experience from it is of great significance for us to deepen our understanding of the necessity of building Marxism with Chinese characteristics today.