During the anti-Japanese war, the Party conducted a rectification movement, a movement of Marxist education. Launched in 1942, it was a tremendous success. It was on this basis that the Enlarged Seventh Plenary Session of the Sixth Central Committee of the Party in 1945 adopted the Resolution on Certain Questions in the History of Our Party and soon afterwards the Party's Seventh National Congress was convened. These meetings summed up our historical experience and laid down our correct line, principles and policies for building a new-democratic New China, enabling the Party to attain an unprecedented ideological, political and organizational unity and solidarity. After the conclusion of the War of Resistance Against Japan, the Chiang Kai-shek government, with the aid of US imperialism, flagrantly launched an all-out civil war, disregarding the just demand of our Party and the people of the whole country for peace and democracy. With the wholehearted support of the people in all the liberated areas, with the powerful backing of the students' and workers' movements and the struggles of the people of various strata in the Kuomintang areas and with the active cooperation of the democratic parties and nonparty democrats, our Party led the People's Liberation Army in fighting the three-year War of Liberation and, after the Liaoxi-Shenyang, Beiping-Tianjin and Huai-Hai campaigns and the successful crossing of the Changjiang (Yangtze) River, in wiping out a total of 8 million Chiang Kai-shek troops. The end result was the overthrow of the reactionary Kuomintang government and the establishment of the great People's Republic of China. The Chinese people had stood up.

4. The victories gained in the 28 years of struggle fully show that:

1) Victory in the Chinese revolution was won under the guidance of Marxism-Leninism. Our Party had creatively applied the basic tenets of Marxism-Leninism and integrated them with the concrete practice of the Chinese revolution. In this way, the great system of Mao Zedong Thought came into being and the correct path to victory for the Chinese revolution was charted. This is a major contribution to the development of Marxism-Leninism.

2) As the vanguard of the Chinese proletariat, the Communist Party of China is a party serving the people wholeheartedly, with no selfish aim of its own. It is a party with both the courage and the ability to lead the people in their indomitable struggle against any enemy. Convinced of all this through their own experience, the Chinese people of whatever nationality came to rally around the Party and form a broad united front, thus forging a strong political unity unparalleled in Chinese history.

3) The Chinese revolution was victorious mainly because we relied on a people's army led by the Party, an army of a completely new type and enjoying flesh-and-blood ties with the people, to defeat a formidable enemy through protracted people's war. Without such an army, it would have been impossible to achieve the liberation of our people and the independence of our country.

4) The Chinese revolution had the support of the revolutionary forces in other countries at every stage, a fact which the Chinese people will never forget. Yet it must be said that, fundamentally, victory in the Chinese revolution was won because the Chinese Communist Party adhered to the principle of independence and self-reliance and depended on the efforts of the whole Chinese people, whatever their nationality, after they underwent untold hardships and surmounted innumerable difficulties and obstacles together.

5) The victorious Chinese revolution put an end to the rule of a handful of exploiters over the masses of the working people and to the enslavement of the Chinese people of all nationalities by the imperialists and colonialists. The working people have become the masters of the new state and the new society. While changing the balance of forces in world politics, the people's victory in so large a country having nearly one-quarter of the world's population has inspired the people in countries similarly subjected to imperialist and colonialist exploitation and oppression with heightened confidence in their forward march. The triumph of the Chinese revolution is the most important political event since World War II and has exerted a profound and far-reaching impact on the international situation and the development of the people's struggle throughout the world.

5. Victory in the new-democratic revolution was won through long years of struggle and sacrifice by countless martyrs, Party members and people of all nationalities. We should by no means give all the credit to the leaders of the revolution, but at the same time we should not underrate the significant role these leaders have played. Among the many outstanding leaders of the Party, Comrade Mao Zedong was the most prominent. Prior to the failure of the revolution in 1927, he had clearly pointed out the paramount importance of the leadership of the proletariat over the peasants' struggle and the danger of a Right deviation in this regard. After its failure, he was the chief representative of those who succeeded in shifting the emphasis in the Party's work from the city to the countryside and in preserving, restoring and promoting the revolutionary forces in the countryside. In the 22 years from 1927 to 1949, Comrade Mao Zedong and other Party leaders managed to overcome innumerable difficulties and gradually worked out an overall strategy and specific policies and directed their implementation, so that the revolution was able to switch from staggering defeats to great victory. Our Party and people would have had to grope in the dark much longer had it not been for Comrade Mao Zedong, who more than once rescued the Chinese revolution from grave danger, and for the Central Committee of the Party which was headed by him and which charted the firm, correct political course for the whole Party, the whole people and the people's army. Just as the Communist Party of China is recognized as the central force leading the entire people forward, so Comrade Mao Zedong is recognized as the great leader of the Chinese Communist Party and the whole Chinese people, and Mao Zedong Thought, which came into being through the collective struggle of the Party and the people, is recognized as the guiding ideology of the Party. This is the inevitable outcome of the 28 years of historical development preceding the founding of the People's Republic of China.