A Quotation From Chairman Mao Tse-tung
We should encourage comrades to take the interests of the whole into account. Every Party member, every branch of work, every statement and every action must proceed from the interests of the whole Party; it is absolutely impermissible to violate this principle.
— Rectify the Party’s Style of Work
Take Firm Hold of the Revolution, Promote
Production and Utterly Smash the New Counter-Attack
Launched by the Bourgeois Reactionary Line— Message to All Shanghai People
[This article is reprinted from Peking Review, Vol. 10, #3, Jan. 13,
1967, pp. 5-7. Thanks are due to the WWW.WENGEWANG.ORG
web site for some of the work done for this posting.]
“Renmin Ribao” editor’s note: The “Message to All Shanghai People,” published in the Shanghai “Wenhui Bao” on January 5, is an extremely important document. It holds high the great red banner of the proletarian revolutionary line represented by Chairman Mao and sounds a clarion call to continue the vigorous counter-offensive upon the bourgeois reactionary line. It resolutely responds to Chairman Mao’s great call to take firm hold of the revolution and promote production and raises the current key question in the great proletarian cultural revolution. This question does not just concern Shanghai alone but the whole country as well.
With the growth of the revolutionary forces in Shanghai, the “Wenhui Bao” and “Jiefang Ribao” have appeared as two completely new and revolutionary newspapers. They are products of the victory of the proletarian revolutionary line over the bourgeois reactionary line. This is a great event in the history of the development of the great proletarian cultural revolution in China. This is a great revolution. This great event will certainly play a tremendous role in pushing ahead the development of the movement of the great proletarian cultural revolution throughout east China and in all the cities and provinces in other parts of the country.
“Renmin Ribao” on January 9 gave its whole front page to the important editorial note which we print above and the message addressed to all Shanghai people by the Shanghai Workers’ Revolutionary Rebel General Headquarters and ten other revolutionary mass organizations, the full text of which follows. — “P.R.” Ed.
Under the guidance of the proletarian revolutionary line represented by Chairman Mao, the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution has won tremendous victories in the mass movement over the last few months to criticize the bourgeois reactionary line. We have entered the year 1967 to the sound of militant songs of triumph. It was pointed out in the New Year’s Day editorial of the Renmin Ribao [People’s Daily] and the journal Hongqi [Red Flag]: “1967 will be a year of all-round development of class struggle throughout China. It will be a year in which the proletariat, united with other sections of the revolutionary masses, will launch a general attack on the handful of persons within the Party who are in authority and are taking the capitalist road, and on the ghosts and monsters in society. It will be a year of even more penetrating criticism and repudiation of the bourgeois reactionary line and elimination of its influence. It will be a year of decisive victory in carrying out the struggle [to overthrow those persons in authority who are taking the capitalist road], the criticism and repudiation [of the reactionary bourgeois academic ‘authorities’ and the ideology of the bourgeoisie and all other exploiting classes], and the transformation [of education, literature and art, and all other parts of the superstructure not in correspondence with the socialist economic base].” In other words, it will be a year in which the bourgeois reactionary line will totally collapse and disintegrate completely, a year in which the great proletarian cultural revolution will win a great victory of decisive importance.
The broad revolutionary masses of Shanghai have also won an initial victory in the struggle to criticize and repudiate the bourgeois reactionary line followed by a handful of people within the Party in the Shanghai area and have carried the struggle to a deeper and broader new stage.
The mass movement of the great proletarian cultural revolution in our Shanghai factories is surging forward vigorously, smashing through all resistance with the might of an avalanche and the force of a thunderbolt. We, workers of the revolutionary rebel groups, follow Chairman Mao’s teachings most closely and resolutely carry out the policy of “taking firm hold of the revolution and promoting production” advanced by Chairman Mao himself. Chairman Mao teaches us: “Political work is the life-blood of all economic work.” We of the revolutionary rebel groups clearly understand that if the great proletarian cultural revolution is not carried out well, we will lose our orientation in production and slide back in the direction of capitalism. What we ourselves have experienced in the course of the great proletarian cultural revolution has increasingly proved to us that only if the great proletarian cultural revolution is carried out well, will production develop on a still greater scale. Any idea of counterposing the great cultural revolution to the development of production is erroneous.
However, a handful of persons within the Party who are in authority and taking the capitalist road and those who obstinately follow the bourgeois reactionary line have a bitter hatred for the great proletarian cultural revolution. They have been trying by every means to resist the policy of “taking firm hold of the revolution and promoting production” put forward by Chairman Mao. Their schemes and devices may be summarized in the following ways:
At the beginning of the movement, they used the pretext of “taking firm hold of production” to repress the revolution and oppose taking firm hold of the revolution. When we workers of the revolutionary rebel groups wanted to rise up in revolution and criticize and repudiate the bourgeois reactionary line, they used the tasks of production to bring pressure to bear on the workers and tagged us with the label of “sabotaging production.” Did they really want to “take firm hold of production”? No, they wanted to defend their own positions and attempted to obstruct our revolution. We exposed their schemes and rose up bravely in rebellion.
Then they resorted to another trick, that is, they played with high-sounding revolutionary words, giving the appearance of being ultra “Left” in order to incite large numbers of members of the Workers’ Red Militia Detachments whom they had hoodwinked to undermine production and sabotage transport and communications under the pretext of going north to “lodge complaints.” They did this to attain their aim of undermining the great proletarian cultural revolution and the dictatorship of the proletariat. More recently, a handful of reactionary elements were even plotting to cut off water and electricity supplies and bring public transport to a standstill. We must drag out these reactionary elements and exercise proletarian dictatorship over them, punish them severely, and never allow them to succeed in their criminal schemes.
Comrade revolutionary workers! Go into action at once! Resolutely carry out the policy of “taking firm hold of the revolution and promoting production” advanced by Chairman Mao! We, workers of the revolutionary rebel groups, must become models in “taking firm hold of the revolution and promoting production.” We must serve as the vanguards and the backbone not only in taking firm hold of the revolution, but also in promoting production. Our city of Shanghai, China’s biggest industrial producer, plays an extremely important role in the overall economic life of the country. But lately, in many factories and plants, it has occurred that some or even the majority of the members of the Red Militia Detachments have suspended production and deserted their posts in production. This runs directly counter to the stipulation by the Party Central Committee on taking firm hold of the revolution and promoting production and directly affects the people’s livelihood and the development of national economic construction. We, workers of the revolutionary rebel groups, bearing in mind the teachings of Chairman Mao, have stood our ground in the face of this adverse current, have given proof of our high sense of revolutionary responsibility, and, under extremely difficult conditions, have shouldered all the production tasks of our factories and plants, thus dealing a telling blow against the handful of people within the Party who are in authority and taking the capitalist road, and smashing the big plot whereby they have attempted to thwart the revolution by sabotaging production. The actions of these workers are correct and splendid! All of us comrades of the revolutionary rebel groups should learn from them. Chairman Mao teaches us: “We should support whatever the enemy opposes and oppose whatever the enemy supports.” We, workers of the revolutionary rebel groups, have the lofty aspiration, the determination and the strength to do still better in both the revolution and production and to carry out Chairman Mao’s great call for “taking firm hold of the revolution and promoting production.”
Masses of class brothers of the Workers’ Red Militia Detachments who want to make revolution! “Taking firm hold of the revolution and promoting production” is a policy put forward by Chairman Mao, a policy stressed time and again by the Party Central Committee, an important policy which guarantees the carrying through to the end of the great proletarian cultural revolution. To support or not to support, to carry out or not to carry out this policy is itself a matter of principle, a cardinal issue of right and wrong. In allowing yourselves to be incited by those people and by deserting your posts in production, whose interests are you serving? By acting in this way, whose hearts, after all, are you gladdening and whose are you saddening? We hope that you will follow Chairman Mao’s teachings, that, on this important question of principle, you will see things more clearly, make a clear distinction between right and wrong, stop being deceived, wake up quickly, return to your posts in production, and return to the proletarian revolutionary line. We, comrades of the revolutionary rebel groups, will certainly welcome you back warmly to make revolution along with us and improve production with us. There is no question of our reprimanding you, because we are all close class brothers, and because the overwhelming majority of you are victims of the poison of the bourgeois reactionary line, are revolutionary masses who have been hoodwinked by those within the Party who are in authority and taking the capitalist road and by those who are stubbornly following the bourgeois reactionary line.
All revolutionary students and revolutionary government cadres of the city! Let us closely unite with the masses of revolutionary workers, and in order to carry out resolutely the policy of “taking firm hold of the revolution and promoting production” put forward by Chairman Mao, let us undertake widespread propaganda work and struggle, open fire fiercely and with still greater resolve at the bourgeois reactionary line, crush all new counterattacks by the bourgeois reactionary line, and launch a new upsurge in the great proletarian cultural revolution in the factories and plants!
In the radiance of the boundless brilliance of the great thought of Mao Tse-tung, we look towards the future and see the splendid and magnificent prospect of the revolution. We the working class, poor and lower-middle peasants, and all working people must unite with the revolutionary students, revolutionary intellectuals, and revolutionary cadres, must make a common effort, fight shoulder to shoulder and continue our victorious advance so as to carry the great proletarian cultural revolution through to the end!
Long live the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution!
Long live the red sun in our hearts, the greatest leader Chairman Mao and long life, long, long life to him!
The Shanghai Workers’ Revolutionary Rebel General Headquarters
The Red Guards’ Revolutionary Committee of the Colleges and Universities of Shanghai
The “Rebel to the End” General Liaison Headquarters of Shanghai
The Revolutionary Rebel Committee of the Shanghai Journalists
The “Bombard the Headquarters” United Corps of Shanghai
“The East Is Red” Corps of Tongji University
The “Rebel to the End” Corps of the Shanghai Jiaotong University
The Shanghai Liaison Center of the Third Headquarters of the Red Guards of the Capital (Peking)
The Shanghai Liaison Centre of the Red Flag Fighting Detachment of the Peking Aeronautical Engineering Institute
The Shanghai Liaison Centre of the Red Rebel Regiment of the Harbin Military Engineering Institute
The Shanghai Liaison Centre of the Provisional Cultural Revolutionary Committee of the Sian Military Telecommunications Engineering Institute
January 4, 1967
Contents page for this Peking Review issue.
Peking Review article list (in date order).
Peking Review article list (by subject).