The feelings aroused among the revolutionary young fighters at the two-day reception when their hearts were filled with boundless happiness are best described in these words: Chairman Mao, you are the red sun in our hearts! Only a great Marxist-Leninist like you, a great genius like you, could have the tremendous courage and determination to launch this great world-shaking revolutionary mass movement. You are the greatest proletarian revolutionary in the world. You love the masses, trust them, and support their revolutionary initiative more than does anybody else. You are of one heart with them. You have set the most brilliant example for our generation of young people and for the Marxist-Leninists the world over.

      Although temperatures were almost sub-zero on the 25th, the happy news that Chairman Mao was going to receive them warmed the hearts of our young fighters. Organized into Red Guard divisions and regiments, more than 600,000 revolutionary students and teachers and Red Guards assembled at Tien An Men Square and in the avenues to the east. They recited aloud from the red-covered Quotations From Chairman Mao Tse-tung and heartily sang revolutionary songs.

      At 11:30 a.m. the music of The East Is Red sounded. Walking with firm steps, Chairman Mao and Comrade Lin Piao mounted the Tien An Men rostrum amid tidal waves of cheers of “Long live Chairman Mao!” Together with them were other leaders of the Central Committee of the Chinese Communist Party and the state, as well as leading members of various departments, including Chou En-lai, Tao Chu, Chen Po-ta, Teng Hsiao-ping, Kang Sheng, Liu Shao-chi, Chu Teh, Li Fu-chun, Soong Ching Ling, Chen Yi, Ho Lung, Li Hsien-nien, Tan Chen-lin, Hsu Hsiang-chien, Yeh Chien-ying, Hsieh Fu-chih, Liu Ning-I, Hsiao Hua, Chiang Ching and Wu Teh. Kang Sheng, Member of the Standing Committee of the Political Bureau of the Central Committee of the Chinese Communist Party and adviser to the cultural revolution group of the Central Committee, announced the opening of the reception. On behalf of Chairman Mao, the Party’s Central Committee and the cultural revolution group, he extended to the young revolutionary fighters militant greetings in the name of the great proletarian cultural revolution. He said: “Chairman Mao is here to receive us all. This is the greatest inspiration and the greatest honour for us!”

      Following this, the mammoth parade began. It continued for more than four hours. As they passed through the square in formation, the young revolutionary fighters cheered with all their hearts: “Long live Chairman Mao!” Chairman Mao kept on waving to them, smiling warmly as he did so.

      When the march past ended, the mighty cultural revolutionary contingents which had assembled in the square surged towards the Tien An Men gate. They danced for joy and wished Chairman Mao long, long life. Chairman Mao walked to both the east and west ends of the gate tower and waved to the cheering crowd. All around, both on and below the reviewing stands, there was a sea of mass rejoicing, as applause and cheers resounded to the skies.

Chairman Mao and his close comrade-in-arms Comrade
Lin Piao on the Tien An Men rostrum on November 25

      The next day, the 26th, Chairman Mao received and reviewed more than 1,800,000 revolutionary students and teachers and Red Guard fighters who were gathered in the Tien An Men Square, along the main thoroughfare leading westward from the square and at the airport to the west of the city.

      Starting at 2:30 p.m. Chairman Mao and his close comrade-in-arms Comrade Lin Piao and other leading comrades of the Party’s Central Committee and from other fields, drove slowly past the revolutionary young fighters in open cars while The East Is Red was played.

      Wearing an olive-green uniform and glowing with health and in excellent spirits, Chairman Mao stood up in the lead car and waved cordially to the cheering young revolutionaries who lined the route. All the way there was thunderous applause and shouts of “Long live Chairman Mao!” as the revolutionary youngsters looked up at Chairman Mao with deep feelings.

      Among them were members of more than 500 Red Guard long march detachments who had walked the entire distance to the capital from Hopei, Shansi, Shantung, Liaoning, Honan, Anhwei, Hupeh, Hunan, Shensi, Kiangsu, Kirin and Kiangsi Provinces and the Inner Mongolian Autonomous Region. They had seen the great leader Chairman Mao, something they had long wished to do. Attracting special attention among the paraders were several long march detachments made up entirely of girl Red Guards.

      In the contingents there were also revolutionary young fighters from the native place of the communist hero Tsai Yung-hsiang, Feitung County, Anhwei Province. (Tsai Yung-hsiang is a P.L.A. fighter who gave his life to save a train full of Red Guards from derailment last October. See p. 16. — Ed.) When these young fighters saw Chairman Mao, they declared with deep emotion: “The fact that Tsai Yung-hsiang was able to be a communist fighter devoted heart and soul to the public interest is due to the nourishment of Mao Tse-tung’s thought. The people of our whole county are resolved to be like Tsai Yung-hsiang and to study and apply creatively the ‘three constantly read articles’ (Chairman Mao’s Serve the People, In Memory of Norman Bethune, The Foolish Old Man Who Removed the Mountains — Ed.) and to consciously establish a communist world outlook wholly devoted to the public interest.”

      Revolutionary students and teachers of military academies attached to the Chinese People’s Liberation Army came to report to Chairman Mao on victories won by them in upholding Mao Tse-tung’s thought in the cultural revolution. Resolutely responding to Comrade Lin Piao’s call to carry the mass movement of studying and applying Chairman Mao’s works creatively to a new high point, they vowed to study the “three constantly read articles” as maxims, take Tsai Yung-hsiang as their example, and hasten their ideological remoulding so as to let Mao Tse-tung’s thought take deep root in their minds.

      Towards the end of the rally on the 25th, beaming with great pleasure, Chairman Mao and Comrade Lin Piao went over to greet foreign guests who were present. Gathered around Chairman Mao, the foreign friends asked him to autograph their copies of Quotations from Chairman Mao Tse-tung. With great excitement, they shouted time and again: “Long live Mao Tse-tung’s thought!” “Long live Chairman Mao! Long, long life to him!”

      The foreign guests who were on the Tien An Men rostrum attending the rally included:

      The members of the delegation of the Albania-China Friendship Association headed by Petro Dode, Member of the Central Committee of the Albanian Party of Labour and Chairman of the Executive Committee of the Korea Regional People’s Council;

      The Japanese guests, Takaji Nishizawa and his wife;

      Ray Nunes, Member of the Political Committee of the National Committee of the New Zealand Communist Party;

      Francois Marty, National Secretary of the Central Committee, and Georges Gauthier, Member of the Political Bureau of the Central Committee of the French Communist Movement (Marxist-Leninist);

      Giuseppe Regis, Director of Orientamenti of Italy.

      There were also other leading members from various Chinese Party and state offices present at the rally on the 25th.

      As the great news of Chairman Mao’s eighth reception of young revolutionaries spread far and wide, the revolutionary people of various nationalities throughout the land and the commanders and fighters of the P.L.A. unanimously gave high praise to our great proletarian revolutionary Chairman Mao and the great victory of the proletarian revolutionary line represented by Chairman Mao. Their thoughts, expressed with deep emotion, can be summed up as follows: In his continuous receptions, Chairman Mao has given us the greatest support and encouragement to speed forward the surging torrent of the great proletarian cultural revolution, to make each wave higher than the previous one. They pledged themselves to always follow Chairman Mao’s teachings, to race to any place he directed even if there be a mountain of swords or a sea of fire. They pledged loyalty to Chairman Mao for themselves and for generations to come.

      The millions of revolutionary young fighters who had been received by Chairman Mao previously and who are now scattered over the country were also filled with boundless excitement. They said that Chairman Mao’s continuous receptions of revolutionary students and teachers had, at a crucial moment in the struggle, made clear to them the orientation of the revolution, raised their revolutionary courage, instilled in them more faith in the revolution, and helped expand the revolutionary ranks. They too declared they would always be loyal to Chairman Mao, be young red fighters loyal to Mao Tse-tung’s thought.

      The broad masses of the P.L.A. commanders and fighters are also fully agreed to closely follow Chairman Mao for ever, resolutely implement and carry out his correct line, thoroughly repudiate the bourgeois reactionary line, and to win better, new and greater victories for the great proletarian cultural revolution.

Chairman Mao in the open car from which he reviewed the revolutionary
students and teachers and young Red Guard fighters on November 26