Polemic on General Line of International ... - From Marx to Mao

created by the October Revolution; it defends the glorioushistory of struggle of the CPSU; it defends the prestige of theinternational communist movement among working peoplethroughout the world. In brief, it defends the theory andpractice of Marxism-Leninism. It is not only the ChineseCommunists who are doing this; all Communists devoted toMarxism-Leninism, all staunch revolutionaries and all fairmindedpeople have been doing the same thing.While defending Stalin, we do not defend his mistakes. Longago the Chinese Communists had first-hand experience of someof his mistakes. Of the erroneous “Left” and Right opportunistlines which emerged in the Chinese Communist Party at onetime or another, some arose under the influence of certainmistakes of Stalin’s, in so far as their international sourceswere concerned. In the late twenties, the thirties and the earlyand middle forties, the Chinese Marxist-Leninists representedby Comrades Mao Tse-tung and Liu Shao-chi resistedthe influence of Stalin’s mistakes; they gradually overcamethe erroneous lines of “Left” and Right opportunism andfinally led the Chinese revolution to victory.But since some of the wrong ideas put forward by Stalinwere accepted and applied by certain Chinese comrades, weChinese should bear the responsibility. In its struggle against“Left” and Right opportunism, therefore, our Party criticizedonly its own erring comrades and never put the blame onStalin. The purpose of our criticism was to distinguish betweenright and wrong, learn the appropriate lessons andadvance the revolutionary cause. We merely asked the erringcomrades that they should correct their mistakes. If theyfailed to do so, we waited until they were gradually awakenedby their own practical experience, provided they did not organizesecret groups for clandestine and disruptive activities.Our method was the proper method of inner-Party criticismand self-criticism; we started from the desire for unity andarrived at a new unity on a new basis through criticism andstruggle, and thus good results were achieved. We held that123