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IV. The Correct Handling of Contradictions Among the People
We are confronted by two types of social contradictions -- those
between ourselves and the enemy and those among the people themselves.
The two are totally different in their nature.
--- On the Correct Handling of Contradictions Among the People (February
27, 1957), 1st pocket ed., p. 2. [Selected Works, Vol. V, p. 384.]
To understand these two different types of contradictions correctly,
we must first be clear on what is meant by "the people" and what
is meant by "the enemy". . . . At the present stage, the period
of building socialism, the classes, strata and social groups which
favour, support and work for the cause of socialist construction
all come within the category of the people, while the social forces
and groups which resist the socialist revolution and are hostile
to or sabotage socialist construction are all enemies of the people.
--- ibid., pp. 2-3.
In the conditions prevailing in China today, the contradictions
among the people comprise the contradictions within the working
class, the contradictions within the peasantry, the contradictions
within the intelligentsia, the contradictions between the working
class and the peasantry, the contradictions between the workers
and peasants on the one hand and the intellectuals on the other,
the contradictions between the working class and other sections
of the working people on the one hand and the national bourgeoisie
on the other, the contradictions within the national bourgeoisie,
and so on. Our People's Government is one that genuinely represents
the people's interests, it is a government that serves the people.
Nevertheless, there are still certain contradictions between the
government and the people. These include contradictions among the
interests of the state, the interests of the collective and the
interests of the individual; between democracy and centralism; between
the leadership and the led; and the contradiction arising from the
bureaucratic style of work of certain government workers in their
relations with the masses. All these are also contradictions among
the people. Generally speaking, the people's basic identity of interests
underlies the contradictions among the people.
--- ibid., pp. 3-4.
In the political life of our people, how should right be distinguished
from wrong in one's words and actions? On the basis of the principles
of our Constitution, the will of the overwhelming majority of our
people and the common political positions which have been proclaimed
on various occasions by our political parties and groups, we consider
that, broadly speaking, the criteria should be as follows:
(1) Words and actions should help to unite, and not divide, the
people of our various nationalities.
(2) They should be beneficial, and not harmful, to socialist transformation
and socialist construction.
(3) They should help to consolidate, and not undermine or weaken,
the people's democratic dictatorship.
(4) They should help to consolidate, and not undermine or weaken,
democratic centralism.
(5) They should help to strengthen, and not discard or weaken, the
leadership of the Communist Party.
(6) They should be beneficial, and not harmful, to international
socialist unity and the unity of the peace-loving people of the
world. Of these six criteria, the most important are the socialist
path and the leadership of the Party.
--- Ibid., pp. 57-58.
The only way to settle questions of an ideological nature or controversial
issues among the people is by the democratic method, the method
of discussion, of criticism, of persuasion and education, and not
by the method of coercion or repression.
--- Ibid., p. 11.
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