Correct understanding and handling of the class struggle that still exists in China today is the key to guaranteeing the democratic rights of the overwhelming majority of the people and exercising effective dictatorship over the handful of hostile elements. Hostile elements of different shades are still attempting to undermine or overthrow our socialist system in the economic, political, ideological, cultural and other social spheres. The class struggle at the present stage chiefly takes the form of struggle by the people against these hostile elements. The Central Committee has repeatedly pointed out that following the elimination of the exploiting classes as such, most contradictions in our society do not have the nature of class struggle, and class struggle no longer constitutes the principal contradiction. It is wrong, in a socialist society where the system of exploitation has been abolished and the exploiting classes have been eliminated, to declare and act on the principle of "taking class struggle as the key link." We must be very careful in distinguishing and handling contradictions between the enemy and the people and those within the ranks of the people, so as to avoid repeating the past mistake of enlarging the scope of class struggle. However, within certain limits, class struggle will continue to exist for a long time and may even sharpen under certain conditions. This is not only because pernicious influences left over by the exploitative systems and classes cannot be eradicated within a short time, but also because we have not yet achieved our goal of reunifying our motherland and still live in a complicated international environment in which the capitalist forces and other forces hostile to our socialist cause will seek to corrupt us and harm our country. Our economy and culture are still quite backward and our young socialist system is imperfect in many ways, so that it is not yet possible to prevent in all cases the degeneration of some members of our society and Party or block the emergence of a few exploiting and hostile elements. Therefore, we must prepare ourselves mentally for a long-term struggle, see to it that the state of the people's democratic dictatorship exercises its function of dictatorship over enemies, and uphold the Marxist class viewpoint in handling the current social contradictions and other social phenomena that have the nature of class struggle. This is the basic principle of the Central Committee with regard to the question of the class struggle in China at the present stage.

Our struggle against grave criminal offences in the economic sphere is now being intensified. Among those guilty of such crimes, apart from law-breakers in society at large, are a tiny number of degenerates in Party and government organizations and in the armed forces who have been corrupted by capitalist ideology. They cause tremendous damage to economic construction, upset social stability, debase the standards of social conduct and corrupt people's minds and life. They are termites undermining the edifice of socialism. Similar destructive activities occur in the political and cultural spheres as well. We must on no account rank all these things with the common run of offences or anti-social acts, because they are important manifestations of class struggle under the new historical conditions in which we are pursuing a policy of opening to the outside and taking flexible measures to invigorate our economy domestically. Such destructive elements must be severely punished by law. We have won some initial successes in this struggle. The whole Party must enhance its understanding of this struggle, take a firm stand in it and unswervingly carry it through to the end. This will be an important guarantee for our adherence to the socialist road.

In the new period of the development of our socialist cause, we must attend, both in ideology and in action, to two aspects. On the one hand, we must persist in the policy of opening to the outside as well as in our policies for invigorating the economy domestically and, on the other, we must resolutely strike at the grave criminal activities in the economic, political and cultural spheres that endanger socialism. It would be wrong to attend only to the latter aspect and be skeptical about the former, and it would be dangerous to stress the former aspect to the neglect of the latter. All Party comrades must have a clear understanding of this principle without the slightest ambiguity.

Our socialist construction is taking place in a very unstable world in which our national security is under grave threat. In these circumstances, we must never relax our vigilance, but must strengthen our national defence on the basis of vigorous economic development. We must work hard to turn the People's Liberation Army into a regular, modern and powerful revolutionary armed force and enhance its defence capabilities in modern warfare. We must continue to maintain and carry forward the fine traditions of our people's armed forces, and strengthen and improve their ideological and political work, so that every member will have a lofty spirit of self-sacrifice, strong sense of discipline and revolutionary style of work and that our army will serve not only as a great wall of steel guarding our socialist motherland but also as an important force in building our socialist material and spiritual civilization. We must continue to strengthen the militia. The Chinese People's Liberation Army is a people's armed force created and led by the Chinese Communist Party. After the new draft Constitution is discussed and adopted by the forthcoming National People's Congress, the Central Committee will continue to exercise leadership over our armed forces through the state Central Military Commission which is due to be set up, We must stick to the successful practices which the Party has long followed in leading the armed forces. This conforms to the supreme interests of the whole nation. We are convinced that, under the leadership of the Central Committee and through the efforts of all the commanders and fighters and the people of all nationalities, our national defence will become still stronger, thus providing a surer guarantee that the whole nation will be able to devote its full energy to socialist construction.