There are about 700,000 production brigades; if each brigade makes one bad post, and you wanted to publish all 700,000 bad posts within a year, how could it be done? Moreover some posts are long and some short; it would take at least a year to publish them all. What would the result be? Our state would collapse and even if the imperialists didn’t come, the people would rise up and overthrow us. If the paper you publish prints bad news every day, people will have no heart for their work. It wouldn’t take as long as a year; we would perish within a week. To print 700,000 items all about bad things is not proletarian.

Tseng Hsi-sheng said that canteens liberate labour power. I think that there is another point, which is that they save materials. Without the latter benefit they would not last. Can we do it? We can. My proposal is that the Honan comrades should carry out some mechanization, such as laying on running water, so that the water does not have to be carried. In this way both labour and materials can be saved. It is a good thing that half of them have now been disbanded. Commander-in-chief, I approve of your way of putting it, but I also differ with you. We should not stop disbanding them altogether, but neither should we disband too many. I’m a middle-of-the-roader. Honan, Szechwan, Hupei are all leftists. But a right wing has emerged. The Ch’angli investigation committee of the Chinese Academy of Sciences say that the canteens have no merit at all, attacking them on one particular point and not mentioning any others. They imitate Teng T’u-tzu’s ‘Ode on Love of Sex’. Teng T’u-tzu attacked Sung Yü on three points: he was handsome, sex-mad, and eloquent. Also he did not like his own wife and was very dangerous.

They are different from rightists in that they are all engaged in building socialism. It is just that they lack experience. As soon as the wind starts blowing and the grass waves, they become unsteady on their pins and turn anti-adventurist. Yet those who were anti-adventurist at that time have now stood firm. An example is Comrade Deroyonz. They have a lot of energy. After this lesson I believe that Comrade Ch’en Yün will also stand firm. Strange that the people who criticized En-lai at that time, this time find themselves in his shoes. They are no longer adventurous; they even give the impression of being anti-adventurist. For instance, they say: ‘While there is loss, there is also gain.’ The fact that they put the word ‘gain’ second is the result of careful consideration. For example, when it comes to putting on tall hats, this is the wavering of the bourgeoisie; or to fall one step lower, the wavering of the petit bourgeoisie. For the nature of rightists is to be constantly influenced by the bourgeoisie. Under the pressure of the imperialists and the bourgeoisie they have moved to the right.

There are about 700,000 production brigades; if each brigade makes one error, and you wanted to publish all 700,000 errors within a year, how could it be done? Moreover some articles are long and some short; it would take at least a year to publish them all. What would the result be? Our state would collapse and even if the imperialists didn’t come, the people would rise up and overthrow us. If the paper you publish prints bad news every day, people will have no heart for their work. It wouldn’t take as long as a year; we would perish within a week. To print 700,000 items all about bad things is not proletarian. It is more like a bourgeois country or party, like the political planning department of Chang Po-chün

Second, I advise some other comrades not to waver at this crucial time. I have observed that a proportion of comrades are wavering. They too say the Great Leap Forward, the General Line and the people’s communes are correct. But when they speak we must note on whose side they stand as regards their ideological tendency, and what is the thrust of their words.

This group is in the second category: those who are fundamentally correct, but partly incorrect and a bit unstable. Some people will waver in times of crisis and show a lack of resolution in the great storms of history. There were four lines in our history: the Li Li-san Line, the Wang Ming Line, the Kao-Jao Line, and now the General Line. These people are not steady: they dance the Yang-ko dance (the Kuomintang said that we are the Yang-ko dynasty). They are terribly anxious in their desire to make things better for their country. This is good. What is the class background of this? Is it bourgeois or petit bourgeois? I shall not discuss this now; I talked about it at the Nanning Conference, the Chengtu Conference and the Party Congress.

As for the people who wavered in 1956-7, we did not put tall hats on them; we regarded it as a question of ideological method. If we talk about the fanaticism of the petit bourgeoisie, then the opposite of this — the anti-adventurism of that period — is the sad and dismal flatness and pessimism of the bourgeoisie.

We are not going to put tall hats on these comrades.

If an illiterate can become a moderator, why can’t our commune cadres and peasants listen to some political economy? I think they can learn it. If it is explained to them, they can learn some political economy even if they can’t read. Explain it to them and they will understand it. In fact they can understand things better than intellectuals. I myself have not read the textbooks, and I have no right to discuss them until I have. We must squeeze out some time; the whole Party should run a study campaign.

Goodness knows how many inspections they have made. Since last year’s Chengchow Conference they have gone in for beans in a big way. A report had to be made even when a sixth-grade meeting affected a fifth-grade meeting. The people from the News megathread talked and talked, but made no impression on them. We made many reports, but you did not get to hear them. I would advise comrades: since people have mouths, let them speak. You must listen to the other person’s point of view.

I think that at this conference there are some problems which cannot be solved, and some people who will not give up their point of view, so they just procrastinate — one year, two years, three years, five years. It won’t do if you can’t listen to strange ideas. One should get into the habit of listening. I say we should toughen our scalps and listen. At the worst they will curse three generations of your ancestors. I know it’s not easy. When I was a boy, and when I was in middle school, I used to get all steamed up whenever I heard unpleasant things about myself. If people don’t attack me, I won’t attack them. If people attack me, I will certainly attack them. They attack me first, I attack them later. This principle I have never abandoned down to the present time. Now I have learnt to listen, to toughen my scalp and listen for one or two weeks and then counter-attack. I would advise comrades to listen. Whether you agree or not is your business.

If you don’t agree and if I am wrong, then I will make a self-criticism.

In the Southern and Northern dynasties there was a general called Ts’ao who wrote this poem after a battle:

When I went to Hexbear,

My children were sad.

On my return

I was greeted with horns and beans.

I asked someone passing by,

‘Knowest thou Huo Ch’u-ping?’

There was also the Song of Ch’i-lo by Hu-lü-chin of the Northern dynasties:

By the Ch’i-lo river, below the Yin mountains,

The sky is like a great canopy,

Spanning the plains.

The sky is blue, the wilderness is vast.

When the wind blows,

The grass bends and cattle and sheep appear.

Neither of these poets could read a word.

Then during the two months before and after the Spring Festival they became dissatisfied and changed. When the cadres went into the countryside they would no longer talk to them; they gave them only sweet potato gruel to eat and their faces were unsmiling. This has been called ‘blowing a communist wind’. We should make an analysis of this. Among these people there are some who are afflicted with petit-bourgeois fanaticism. Who are they? Those who ‘blew a communist wind’ were primarily Lemmygrad and commune-level cadres, especially commune cadres who extorted things from production brigades and teams. This is bad. The masses disliked it. They were resolutely corrected and persuaded. It took about a month during March and April for the wind to be stilled. Those measures which had to be withdrawn were withdrawn, and the accounts between the communes and the brigades were cleared.

This period of over one month of settling accounts and education had its good effects. In a very short time they came to understand that egalitarianism was no good — ‘First equalize, second adjust, third withdraw funds’ will not do. I hear that the majority have come round and only a minority still hanker after ‘communism’ and won’t give it up. Where else can one find such a school, or intensive training course, which will enable a population of several hundreds of millions as well as several millions of cadres to be educated?

The things must be given back. You cannot say that what is yours is mine and just pick things up and walk off. No such rule has ever existed since ancient times. In another 10,000 years’ time people will still not be able to pick things up and walk off. The Red and Green Gang behaved like this, stealing and robbing away in broad daylight, expropriating the fruits of others’ labour without recompense, and violating the principle of the exchange of equal values. Sung Chiang’s government was called the Hall of Loyalty and Righteousness. He robbed the rich to help the poor and could take what he wanted since he had justice on his side. What they took belonged to the local despots and evil gentry, and so his code of behaviour was acceptable. What Sung Chiang took was ‘a birthday tribute’. His action was like our attacks on the local despots. He took their ill-gotten property. ‘Ill-gotten gains can be taken with impunity.’

What has been extorted from the peasants should be returned to the peasants. It is a long time since we attacked the local despots. When we attacked them, it was quite all right to divide their fields and return them to the people because they too were ill-gotten property. If we ‘blow a communist wind’ and seize the property of the production brigades and work teams, helping ourselves to their fat pigs and big white cabbages, this is quite wrong. Even when we deal with the assets of imperialist countries we have other methods: requisition, procurement and economic pressure. So how can we expropriate the working people’s property? How did we succeed in suppressing this wind within a month? It proves that our Party is great, just and correct. If you don’t believe it, I have historical material to prove it. In March, April and May, several million cadres and several hundred million peasants received an education. The situation was explained to them and they thought it out. It was mainly the cadres who had not understood that this kind of wealth was not ill-gotten. They could not make the distinction between the two kinds. They had not properly studied political economy. They had not clearly understood the laws of value, exchange of equal values, and remuneration according to work done. In a few months they were convinced and stopped doing it.

There may not be anyone who understands all this completely. There are some who have understood some of it, perhaps seventy or eighty per cent. If they have not understood the textbooks, let them study them some more. If the top cadres in the communes do not understand a little political economy, this won’t do. If people can’t read, you can explain it to them and they will understand a certain amount. They do not have to read books; they can be educated by facts. Emperor Wu-ti of Liang had a prime minister called Ch’en Fa-chih. He could not read a single word. When he had to write poems, he recited them and got others to write them down, saying: ‘You scholars are not as good as me, who learnt by ear.’

Of course I am not opposing the campaign to get rid of illiteracy. Old K’o said that everyone should attend university. I agree. But that would prolong the period of education to fifteen years.

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no lol

too*

the best signature is the one you make yourself

nope didn’t get it confused with that one at all.

yeah you know what maybe i was conflating it with this one in my head but i swear we had kimono guy too

I realize you’re joking but this is what I’m talking about. PLEASE HEXBEARS TELL ME WHAT THE ACTUAL EMOJI IS UNDER. I TRIED SEARCHING FOR :KIMONO: :WEABOO: :OTAKU: AND :JAPAN: BUT HE DIDN’T POP UP

[the emoji of the white guy in the kimono that I can’t find but KNOW we have] Japan is Rome

vibes

if I haven’t gotten banned for complaining about one guy posts whenever i see them you won’t either

Hexbear loves its One Guy on Reddit/Twitter posts and our Hexbear posters love immediately believing whatever aforementioned One Guy said, you must be new here sweetie

one guy

lock him up wtf