Opening Speech of the Twelfth National Congress of the Communist Party of China

On September 1, 1982, Deng Xiaoping delivered a speech at the opening of the 12th National Congress of the CPC. Contained in Vol. 3 of Selected Works of Deng Xiaoping. This National Congress is the most important one since the 7th National Congress of the Party. Deng Xiaoping reviewed the history since the 7th National Congress of the Party and said: the 7th Congress, held in 1945 and presided over by Comrade Mao Zedong, was the most important in the period of democratic revolution after the founding of our Party. The delegates summed up the historically significant experience gained in the course of the twists and turns of that revolution during the preceding quarter of a century, formulated a correct programme and correct tactics and straightened out the wrong ideas inside the Party. They thus achieved a unity of understanding based on Marxism-Leninism and Mao Zedong Thought, and as a result, the Party became more united than ever before. It was the 7th Congress that laid the foundation for our nationwide victory in the New-Democratic Revolution. He pointed out that the Eighth National Congress of the Party was on the right track. After the Eighth National Congress of the CPC, we achieved many successes in socialist construction, but we also suffered grave setbacks.

Since the Third Plenary Session of the Eleventh Central Committee, the Party has returned to its correct policies in the economic, political, cultural and other fields. In addition, after a study of the new situation and new experience, it has adopted a series of correct new policies. We have every reason to believe that the correct programme that will be decided on at this congress will create a new situation in all fields of socialist modernization and bring prosperity to our Party, our socialist cause, our country and the people of all our nationalities. He clearly put forward the important proposition of “building socialism with Chinese characteristics”, pointing out: “In carrying out our modernization programme we must proceed from Chinese realities. Both in revolution and in construction we should also learn from foreign countries and draw on their experience, but mechanical application of foreign experience and copying of foreign models will get us nowhere. We have had many lessons in this respect. We must integrate the universal truth of Marxism with the concrete realities of China, blaze a path of our own and build a socialism with Chinese characteristics — that is the basic conclusion we have reached after reviewing our long history.” In this speech, Deng Xiaoping emphasized the foothold of China's modernization in the new period of Reform and Opening-up.

China’s affairs should be run according to China’s specific conditions and by the Chinese people themselves.  Independence and self-reliance have always been and will always be their basic stand. While the Chinese people value their friendship and cooperation with other countries and other peoples, they value even more their hard-won independence and sovereign rights. No foreign country should expect China to be its vassal or to accept anything that is damaging to China’s own interests.

He said: The 1980s will be an important decade in the history of our Party and state. To accelerate socialist modernization, to strive for China’s reunification and particularly for the return of Taiwan to the motherland, and to oppose hegemonism and work to safeguard world peace — these are the three major tasks of our people in this decade. Economic development is at the core of these tasks; it is the basis for the solution of our external and internal problems. For a long time to come, at least for the 18 years till the end of the century, we must devote every effort to the following four undertakings: to restructure the administration and the economy and make our ranks of cadres more revolutionary, younger, better educated and more competent professionally; to build a socialist society that is culturally and ideologically advanced; to combat economic and other crimes that undermine socialism; and to rectify the Party’s style of work and consolidate its organization on the basis of a conscientious study of the new Party Constitution. These will be the most important guarantees that we shall keep to the socialist path and concentrate on modernization. This speech answered the important question of what kind of a path will China take after entering the new period of Reform and Opening-up, and became the important guiding ideology of Reform and Opening-up and socialist modernization construction in the new period.