Let Us Put the Past Behind Us and Open up a New Era

May 16, 1989. Contained in in Vol. 3 of Selected Works of Deng Xiaoping. Part of Deng Xiaoping's conversation on May 16, 1989, when he met with Mikhail Gorbachev, Chairman of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet Union and General Secretary of the Central Committee of the Soviet Communist Party. The Chinese people sincerely hope that Sino-Soviet relations will improve. I suggest that we take this opportunity to declare that henceforth our relations will return to normal. For many years there has been a question of how to understand Marxism and socialism. The conversation pointed out: "We cannot expect Marx to provide ready answers to questions that arise a hundred or several hundred years after his death, nor can we ask Lenin to give answers to questions that arise fifty or a hundred years after his death." A true Marxist-Leninist must understand, carry on and develop Marxism-Leninism in light of the current situation. Then, the question was how to make revolution. But the same is true when the question is how to build up a country. After a successful revolution each country must build socialism according to its own conditions. There are not and cannot be fixed models. Sticking to conventions can only lead to backwardness or even failure.

Therefore, if we do not inherit and develop Marxism with new ideas and viewpoints, we are not true Marxists. Spelling out our views may help solve problems left over by history and clarify what I mean by opening up a new era. The talks pointed out that starting from the Opium War, due to the corruption of the Qing Dynasty, China was subjected to aggression and enslavement by foreign powers and reduced to a semi-colonial, semi-feudal status. Altogether, about a dozen powers bullied China, chief among them being Britain. And before Britain, Portugal had compelled China to lease its territory of Macao. The countries that took greatest advantage of China were Japan and czarist Russia — and at certain times and concerning certain questions, the Soviet Union. Considering the historical and realistic situation, the talks put forward the idea of solving historical problems: After the People’s Republic of China was founded, it signed a new treaty with the Soviet Union. It established diplomatic relations with the People’s Republic of Mongolia and reached an agreement on the boundaries between the two countries. Later, China held negotiations on borders with the Soviet Union, asking the Soviet Union to recognize the historical fact that the treaties between czarist Russia and the Qing Dynasty rulers were unequal and had permitted Russia to encroach upon Chinese territory. Nevertheless, since more than 1.5 million square kilometres were seized under the treaties, and in view of past and present realities, we are still willing to settle border disputes on the basis of those treaties; to Japan, the only outstanding issue is Diaoyu Island, a small and uninhabited island. When I visited Japan, reporters asked me about it. I replied that the problem could be shelved and that if our generation could not solve it, the next generation would be wiser and would eventually find a way to do so. To settle similar disputes, we proposed later that such places be exploited jointly.

Where did the major threats come from? As soon as it was founded, the PRC was confronted with this question. At that time, the threat came from the United States. Glaring examples were the Korean War and then the Vietnam War. In the 1960s the Soviet Union strengthened its military presence all along the borders between China and the Soviet Union and Mongolia. I should say that starting from the mid-1960s, our relations deteriorated to the point where they were practically broken off. I don’t mean it was because of the ideological disputes; we no longer think that everything we said at that time was right. The basic problem was that the Chinese were not treated as equals and felt humiliated. However, we have never forgotten that in the period of our First Five-Year Plan the Soviet Union helped us lay an industrial foundation. More contacts are being made between our two countries. After bilateral relations are normalized, our exchanges will increase in depth and scope. I have an important suggestion to make in this regard: we should do more practical things and indulge in less empty talk. The talks provided a theoretical basis for China's internal and external policies in the new period of Reform and Opening-up, and had a far-reaching impact.