Report to the 10th National Congress of the Communist Party of China

Delivered on August 24 and adopted on August 28, 1973

By CHOU EN-LAI

Comrades!

The Tenth National Congress of the Communist Party of China is convened at a time when the Lin Piao anti-Party clique has been smashed, the line of the Party's Ninth National Congress has won great victories and the situation both at home and abroad is excellent.

On behalf of the Central Committee, I am making this report to the Tenth National Congress. The main subjects are: On the line of the Ninth National Congress, on the victory of smashing the Lin Piao anti-Party clique and on the situation and our tasks.

On the Line of the Ninth National Congress

The Party's Ninth Congress was held when great victories had been won in the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution personally initiated and led by Chairman Mao.

In accordance with the theory of Marxism-Leninism-Mao Tsetung Thought on continuing the revolution under the dictatorship of the proletariat, the Ninth Congress summed up the experience of history as well as the new experience of the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution, criticized Liu Shao-chi's revisionist line and reaffirmed the basic line and policies of the Party for the entire historical period of socialism. As comrades may recall, when the Ninth Congress opened on April 1, 1969, Chairman Mao issued the great call, "Unite to win still greater victories." At the First Plenary Session-of the Ninth Central Committee on April 28 of the same year, Chairman Mao once again clearly stated: "Unite for one purpose, that is, the consolidation of the dictatorship of the proletariat." "We must ensure that the people throughout the country are united to win victory under the leadership of the proletariat." In addition he predicted: "Probably another revolution will have to be carried out after several years." Chairman Mao's speeches and the political report of the Central Committtee adopted at the congress formulated a Marxist-Leninist line for our Party.

As we all know, the political report to the Ninth Congress was drawn up under Chairman Mao's personal guidance. Prior to the congress, Lin Piao had produced a draft political report in collaboration with Chen Po-ta. They were opposed to continuing the revolution under the dictatorship of the proletariat, contending that the main task after the Ninth Congress was to develop production. This was a refurbished version under new conditions of the same revisionist trash that Liu Shao-chi and Chen Po-ta had smuggled into the resolution of the Eighth Congress, which alleged that the major contradiction in our country was not the contradiction between the proletariat and the bourgeoisie, but that "between the advanced socialist system and the backward productive forces of society." Naturally, this draft by Lin Piao and Chen Po-ta was rejected by the Central Committee. Lin Piao secretly supported Chen Po-ta in the latter's open opposition to the political report drawn up under Chairman Mao's guidance, and it was only after his attempts were frustrated that Lin Piao grudgingly accepted the political line of the Central Committee and read its political report to the congress. However, during and after the Ninth Congress, Lin Piao continued with his conspiracy and sabotage in spite of the admonishments, rebuffs and efforts to save him by Chairman Mao and the Party's Central Committee. He went further to start a counter-revolutionary coup d'etat, which was aborted, at the Second Plenary Session of the Ninth Central Committee in August 1970, then in March 1971 he drew up the plan for an armed counterrevolutionary coup d'etat entitled Outline of Project "571", and on September 8, he launched the coup in a wild attempt to assassinate our great leader Chairman Mao and set up a rival central committee. On September 13, after his conspiracy had collapsed, Lin Piao surreptitiously boarded a plane, fled as a defector to the Soviet revisionists in betrayal of the Party and country and died in a crash at Undur Khan in the People's Republic of Mongolia.

The shattering of the Lin Piao anti-Party clique is our Party's greatest victory since the Ninth Congress and a heavy blow dealt to enemies at home and abroad. After the September 13th incident, the whole Party, the whole Army and the hundreds of millions of people of all nationalities in our country seriously discussed the matter and expressed their intense proletarian indignation at the bourgeois careerist, conspirator, double-dealer, renegade and traitor Lin Piao and his sworn followers, and pledged resolute support for our great leader Chairman Mao and the Party's Central Committee which he headed. A movement to criticize Lin Piao and rectify style of work has been launched throughout the country. The whole Party, Army and people have been conscientiously studying Marxism-Leninism-Mao Tsetung Thought, conducting revolutionary mass criticism of Lin Piao and other swindlers like him, and. settling accounts with the counter-revolutionary crimes of these swindlers ideologically, politically and organizationally, and have raised their own ability to distinguish genuine from sham Marxism. As facts showed, the Lin Piao anti-Party clique was only a tiny group which was extremely isolated in the midst of the whole Party, Army and people and could not affect the situation as a whole. The Lin Piao anti-Party clique has not stemmed, nor could it possibly have stemmed the rolling torrent of the Chinese people's revolution. On the contrary, what it did further aroused the whole Party, Army and people to "unite to win still greater victories."

Thanks to the movement to criticize Lin Piao and rectify style of work, the line of the Ninth Congress is more deeply rooted among the people. The line of the Ninth Congress and the proletarian policies of the Party have been implemented better than before. New achievements have been made in struggle-criticism-transformation in all realms of the superstructure. The working style of seeking truth from facts and following the mass line and the glorious tradition of modesty, prudence and hard work, which were for a time impaired by Lin Piao, have been further developed. The Chinese People's Liberation Army, which won fresh merit in the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution, has made new contributions in strengthening the preparations against war and in taking part in revolution and construction together with the people. The great revolutionary unity of the people of all nationalities led by the proletariat and based on the worker-peasant alliance is stronger than ever. Having rid itself of the stale and taken in the fresh, our Party, with a membership of twenty-eight million, is now an even more vigorous vanguard of the proletariat.

Spurred by the movement to criticize Lin Piao and rectify style of work, the people of our country overcame the sabotage by the Lin Piao anti-Party clique, surmounted serious natural disasters and scored new victories in socialist construction. Our country's industry, agriculture, transportation, finance and trade are doing well. We have neither external nor internal debts. Prices are stable and the market is flourishing. There are many new achievements in culture, education, public health, science and technology.

In the international sphere, our Party and Government have firmly implemented the foreign policy laid down by the Ninth Congress. Our revolutionary friendship with fraternal socialist countries and with the genuine Marxist-Leninist Parties and organizations of various countries and our cooperation with friendly countries have been further strengthened. Our country has established diplomatic relations with an increasing number of countries on the basis of the Five Principles of Peaceful Coexistence. The legitimate status of our country in the United Nations has been restored. The policy of isolating China has gone bankrupt; Sino-U.S. relations have been improved to some extent. China and Japan have normalized their relations. Friendly contacts between our people and the people of other countries are more extensive than ever; we assist and support each other, impelling the world situation to continue to develop in the direction favourable to the people of all countries.

Revolutionary practice since the Ninth Congress and chiefly the practice of the struggle against the Lin Piao anti-Party clique have proved that the political and organizational lines of the Ninth Congress are both correct and that the leadership given by the Party's Central Committee headed by Chair-; man Mao is correct.

On the Victory of Smashing the Lin Piao Anti-Party Clique

The course of the struggle to smash the Lin Piao anti-Party clique and the crimes of the clique are already known to the whole Party, Army and people. So, there is no need to dwell on it here.

Marxism-Leninism holds that inner-Party struggle is the' reflection within the Party of class struggle in society. The Liu Shao-chi renegade clique collapsed and the Lin Piao anti-Party clique sprang out to continue the trial of strength with the proletariat. This was an acute expression of the intense domestic and international class struggles.

As early as January 13, 1967, when the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution was at high tide, Brezhnev, the chief of the Soviet revisionist renegade clique, frantically attacked China's Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution in his speech at a mass rally in Gorky Region and openly declared that they stood on the side of the Liu Shao-chi renegade clique, saying that the downfall of this clique was "a big tragedy for all real communists in China, and we express our deep sympathy to them." At the same time, Brezhnev publicly announced continuation of the policy of subverting the leadership of the Chinese Communist Party, and ranted about "struggling . . . for bringing it back to the road of internationalism." (Pravda, January 14, 1967) In March 1967 another chief of the Soviet revisionists said even more brazenly at mass rallies in Moscow that "sooner or later the healthy forces expressing the true interests of China will have their decisive say," "and achieve the victory of Marxist-Leninist ideas in their great country." (Pravda, March 4 and 10, 1967) What they called "healthy forces" are nothing but the decadent forces representing the interests of social-imperialism and all the exploiting classes; what they meant by "their decisive say" is the usurpation of the supreme power of the Party and the state; what they meant by "victory of ideas" is the reign of sham Marxism-Leninism and real revisionism over China; and what they meant by the "road of internationalism" is the road of reducing China to a colony of Soviet revisionist social-imperialism. The Brezhnev renegade clique has impetuously voiced the common wish of the reactionaries and blurted out the ultra-Rightist nature of the Lin Piao anti-Party clique.