•

~o

PUBLISHER'S NOTE

The present English translation of Mao Tse-tung Orientation of the Youth Movement has been the Chinese text given In the second edition of the Works o1 Mao T e-tung, Volume , pub by .. .._ pie's Publishina House, Peking, in August 1952. necessary, addltion and rev· ion have been de notes by the translator.

Printed in the People' Republic of ChttiG

•

•

This is a speech delivered at a meeting to commemorate the twentieth anniversary of the May 4 Movement, held bY the youth in Yenan. Comrade Mao Tse-tung developed in

speech his ideas on the question of the Chinese .... .,olution.

Commission on the Publication of the Selected Works of Mao Tse-

• tung, Central Committee of the

Chinese Communi t Party

•

•

•

•

•

ODA Y is the twentieth an iv sary of the ay ovement, and all our you h in Y ar

.... to old this comiilemo on Ill ting; ~a ion to talk abou e g

1!1111~- tion of t ·Chinese yo th ..... ,. i is quite nght to t fo

ay the Youth Day of . v ~dy elapsed since the a.y 4 o~ e , but · t

M*mt of great significance that in tht year as designated i as the national ou or

dic&tes that China s anti-imper altst and anti-fe dal ocratic revolution ol the people soon rea · g-point. For several decades the antl-impe s an -feudal democratic revolution of the ople failed

....... e and again and this situati~n · about to take turn ot towards another fail but in the tion of

1

victory. The Chinese revolution is no it is advancing towards victory. The fail olutions in history cannot and must not be all on repeating themselves; the situation m · to o e o victory. But tb tur alr y

~ .. ch t h n t ye ta en pla But victor

e the turning- · failu~ to ....... :y Mov ent op a gove .... ~ a ov nmen~ h t Q ·red · betrayed t re ts f na ·on, op e e.d the p e. as it rong to ....... su~h a g e t? If SQ then the ay silnply rmstake. But it is perfectly cl~ gov~rnment m t be ~posed and a gove~_ ..... wt~•· o t to be overt own. An we s o~ Sun a -sen, l<>ng before he 1\(ay 4 ..... " ,.J!Eil ..

already a rebe against t e government Mane u government which he opposed an throw. as he ght h doi g that? t n ri ht. Because what he opposed was not th · impe ialis , b t goy wi h t · no~ a r volutionary gove --·~ t that s p ··-- "'" ........ t c

2

·ctory ·

•

of private property in general, and what UJ'Q

stroy is imperialisnt and feudalism - th · deDlocratic revolution of a bourgeois cha bourgeoisie is already powerless to revolution, which can be accotnplished onl efforts of the proletariat and the broad people. What is the aim to be achieved by tion? The aitn is to overthrow imperial.stn and to establish a people's democratic people's democratic republic is a republ. c revolutionary Three People's Principles. from the semi-colonial and semi-feudal and will also be different from the soc a ~ ...... tomorrow. Under the socialist system. o capitalists are needed, while under this sy·c-t-.e~ ple's den1ocracy capitalists will still be exist. Will China always need capitalists? not in the future. This is true not only o the whole world as well. All countries or the Pnited States, France or Japan Italy, will have no need of capitalists in t China can be no exception. 'fhe Sovi t country where socialism has been establish all doubt the whole world will follow it · That China will certainly develop towards~ ..... future is a law nobody can defy. Howeve · stage we are not to carry out socialisin, imperialislll and feudalism, to ch~ge the colonial and senli-feudal status of China a system of people's democracy. The yo t country hould strive for this.

..

what are the lessons . ...----~'

experiences · n th Chin se i portant pr le1n whi .o y China's bourgeois-de~nocratic

. Sun Yat-sen and has o fifty years, while for · · t countrie ha

•tting acts of aggre ·o o China for a1m t _____ dred years. During the t hundred y ~&'!'

struggles -starting i th Opi ar ain ggression whi was foll ed by the War of he Heavenly KingdoDl, the of 18 ,1

MoveJne t of 18 8, the ·on of 191 , ay MouAt'" 0

·on and the Red A 's W ....... ey too d r different circumstance , have .,..... ged fo~:eign enemi o to c ge the e · t•ng ,.,...~

. But it wa onl · h Dr. un Yat ..... -...· ely d · tinct bourgeoi e oc a tic

uring the 1 t fifty years,. e r olu ion that ith Dr. Sun th sco d uccess and me

·lures. Just consider, as not the r olu ·on f success in getting rid of the peror? And et it ..... ·lure in the en that it me ely got rid of

, that China still under he op ession r· · m and fe dalisDl and that volutionary

opposing imperialisln and feudillism was left .......... 66& ..... & .. ·..... • What was the May · ovement for?

.-~o for opposing iJnperia ism nd feu , t ......... · ed in this respect, too, with the result that China

........ erring to the Sino-Japanese War.

•

still remains under the rule of imperialism and feudalism. The same was true of the revolution of the Northern Expedition; it scored successes, but it too failed. Ever since the Kuomintang started its anti-Communist cam­paign, 1 China has again come under the domination of im­perialism and feudalism. Hence inevitably there ensued the ten years' war of the Red Army. But the ten years' struggle has accomplished the revolutionary task only in a part of China, and not in the country as a whole. In summing up the results of the revolution during the past several decades, we may say that we have won only t mporary and partial victories but not permanent and nation-wide victories. It is just as Dr. Sun Yat-sen once said: 'The revolution is not yet completed, all my com­rades must strive on.'' Now it may be asked: The Chinese revolution has been carried on for several decades and why has it not attained its goal so far? Wherein lie the causes? I think there are two causes: first, the enemy forces have been too strong and, secondly, our own forces have been too weak. Because one was strong and the other weak, the revolution did not succeed. In saying that the enemy forces are too strong we mean that the foices of imperialism (which is the principal) and of feudalism are too strong. In saying that our own forces are too weak we have in mind the weaknesses manifested by us in the Illilitary, political, economic and cultural spheres; the chief reason for our weaknesses and our failure to accomplish the anti-imperialist and anti-feudal task, however, is that the toiling masses of wor,kers and

1 Referring to the counter-revolutionary coups d'etat of 1927 staged by Chiang Kai-shek in Shanghai and Nanl{ing and by Wang Ching-wei in Wuhan.

6

peasants, constituting 90 per cent of the country's popula­tion, have not been mobilized. If we want to sum up the results of the revolution during the past several decades we can say that not all the people of the country have been fully mobilized, and that the reactionaries have always opposed and disrupted such mobilization. Only by mobilizing and organizing the broad masses of the workers and peasants, who constitute 90 per cent of the countt-y s population, is it po sible to overthrow imperial­ism and feudalism. Dr. Sun Yat-sen said in his Testament:

For fort~ years I have devoted n1yself to the cause of the national revolution with the aim of winning freedom and equality for China. My experiences during these fovty years have firmly convinced me that to achieve this aim we must arouse the masses of the people and unite in a common fight with those nations of the world who treat us on the basis of equality.

It's now more than te11 years since the death of Dr. Sun and, when the ten-odd years are added to the forty years he mentioned, the total is a good fifty years. What is the lesson of the revolution in the last fifty or more years? Fundamentally it is a lesson of ''arousing the masses of the people." You should study this carefully, and all the youth of our country should study it carefully. All our youth must know that only by mobilizing the broad masses of workers and peasants, who constitute 90 per cent of the country's population, can we defeat imperialism and feudalism. Now we want to achieve the ·aim of de­feating Japan and building up a new China; this is impossible without mobilizing the broad masses of workers ~nd peasants of the whole country.

•

''believe" in Marxism? What did he do afterwards? He went over to the counter-r volution. Didn't Chang Kuo­tao1 also ''believe'' in Marxism.? Where has he gone now? He took to his heels and plunged straight into the mire. Some people call themselves ''disciples of the Three People's Principles'' and old stalwarts of the Three Peo­ple's Principles- but what have they done? In fact their Principle of Nationalis111 IIleans precisely conspiracy with imperialism; their Principle of Democracy means pre­cisely oppression of the common people; and their Pt--inciple of People's Welfare means precisely sucking as much blood from the common people as possible. They are adherents who affirm the Three People's Principles by word of mouth but deny them i11 their hearts. Hence when we look at a person atld judge whether 11.e is a false adherent to the Three People's Principles or a true one, whether he is a false Marxist or a true one, we need only

1 Chang Kuo-tao, a renegade of the Chinese revolution, joined the Cl1inese Communist Party in its early period. He con1111itt d numerous mistal{es leading to enormous crin1es. In 1935, opposed to the nortlr~ ard march of the Red Arn1y, l1e carried out his de ~eatist and liquidationist proposal that the Red Army be witll­drawn to the regions of the llational 111inorities on th border~ of Szechuan and Sikang, tl1ereby causing heavy losses to the Fourth Front Army. At the same time, he openly rebelled a ain.:t the Party and the Central Committee by establishing a bogu=:; central committee under his own control to disrupt the unity of the Party and the Red :Army. Owing to patient educational work by Comrade Mao Tse-tung and the Central Committee, the rani( and file of the Fourth Front Army and the broad masses of its cadres soon turned to the correct leadership of the Central Com­mittee and have since played a splendid role in subsequent struggles. Chang l1imself proved incorrigible. In the spring of 1938, he fled all alone from the Sl1ensi-Kansu-Ningsia bord r r gion and joined the Kuomintang cret service.

11

•

to find out about his relationship with the broad masses of work rs and p asant and then everything will become perfectly clear. There is only this criterion and no other. I hope hat the )routh of tl1e whole country will keep in mind that they should never fall into that dark counter-current but march towards a bright future, clearly recognizing that the workers and peasants are their own friends.

Fifthly, the present Anti-Japanese War marks a new stage of the Chinese revolution, a new stage that is the gveatest, the most vigorous, the most dynamic. In this stage the youth shoulder tremendous responsibilities. The revolutionary movement in our country during the last several decades has gone through many stages of struggle, but no struggle was so wide in scope as the present Anti­Japanese War. When we say that the present revolution in China has a characteristic which distinguishes it from that of the past, namely, that it will turn from. failure to victory, we mean that the broad masses of the people in China have made progress, of which the progress of the youth is a clear proof. Hence this Anti-Japanese War should be victorious and cannot but be victorious. As everybody knows, the basic policy in the Anti-Japanese War is the policy of the Anti-Japanese National United Front, which aims at overthrowing Japanese imperialism and the collaborators, transforming old China into new China, and liberating the whole nation from its semi­colonial and semi-feudal status. The disunity in the present Chinese youth movement is a serious defect. You should continue to demand unity, because only unity is strength. You must enable the youth of the whole

1J2

country to understand the present situation and achieve unity and resist Japan to the end.

Sixthly and lastly, I want to speak about the youth movement in Yenan. The youth movement in Yenan is the model for the youth movement throughout the country. The orientation of the youth movement in Yenan is precisely the orientation for the youth move­ment throughout the country. Why? Because the line of advance of the youth movement in Yenan is correct. Just consider: the youth of Yenan have not only striven for but also achieved unity. The youth in Yenan have achieved solidarity and unity among themselves. The youth in Y enan, the young intellectuals, students, workers and peasants are all united. Hosts of revolutionary youth have come to Yenan to study from all over the country . and from among the overseas Chinese far away. Most of you who attend the meeting today hail from thousands or tens of thousands of li away; and irrespective of whether your surname is Chang or Li, whether you are a man or a woman, a worker or a peasant, all of you are of one mind. Shouldn't this be ~egarded as the model for the whole country? The youth in Yenan are not only united among themselves, but are also united with the masses of workers and peasants; this in particular serves as a model for the whole country. What have the youth in Yenan been doing? They have been learning the theory of rev-olution, studying the principles and methods of resisting Japan and of saving the nation. They have been carrying out the campaign for production and have reclaimed thousands and tens of thousands of mou of waste land. Suc_h things as reclaiming waste land and cultivating the soil were not done even by Confucius. When Confucius

13

ran his school, he l1ad quite a 11un1ber of students, "s v nt)' worthies a11d tl1r e thousa11d disciples"- how n1agnificent! But his students were much fewer than the students in Yena11 and, what is more, they did not care to have any campaign for production. When his students asked him how to plough the fields, Confucius answered, "I don't know, I an1 not so good at that as the peasants.'' When they further asked him how to grow vegetables, he again answered, "I don't know, I am not so good at that as the vegetable garde11ers." In the ancient times of China, the youth who studied with the sage neither learned revolutionary theory nor took part 4 in labour. At the present day, in the schools over vast regions of the country, little revolutionary theory is taught and a cam­paign for production is unheard of. Only our youth in Yenan and in the anti-Japanese base areas in the enemy's rear are fundamentally different; they are really the vanguards for resisting Japan and saving the nation, because tl1eit1 political orientation is correct and their .. methods of work are correct. Hence I say the youth movement in Yenan is the model for the youth moven1ent throughout the country.

Today's general meeti11g is higl1ly significant. I have said all that I wanted to say. I hope all of you will study the lessons of the Chinese revolution over the last fifty years, develop the good points and eliminate the mistakes, so as to unite the youth of the whole country with the entire people and turn the revolution from failure to success. The day when the youth and the people of the whole country are alllllobilized, organized and united will be the day when Japanese imperialism is overthrown. Every one of out-- youth must shoulder this

14

•

responsibility. Every ~one of our youth must be dif:lerent from what he was in the past and must make a great resolve to unite the youth of the whole country and organize the people of the whole country to overthrow Japanese imperialism and reconstruct the old China into a new China. This is what I expect of all of you.

May 4, 1939

I

• M-!fellllill:dllt(:lt.)

19A0~3JJ·-· .1!': (.) 1050-12

•