October 23, 1951
[Opening address at the Third Session of the First National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference.]
Fellow Committee Members and Comrades,
The Third Session of the First National Committee of our People's Political Consultative Conference is now open. Besides members of the National Committee, there are present at this session specially invited representatives of the Chinese People's Volunteers and the People's Liberation Army, model workers in industry and agriculture, delegates from the old base areas, workers in education, literature and art, industrialists and businessmen, experts in various herds, representatives of religious circles, minority nationalities, overseas Chinese, women and youth, representatives from provincial and municipal consultative committees, etc., as well as many government personnel. The members attending this session and those invited to sit in include many publicly acclaimed combat heroes and model workers in industry, agriculture and other fields. The size and scope of this session amply indicate that the People's Republic of China has registered tremendous achievements and progress on every front.
Since last year we have unfolded three large-scale movements in the country, the movement to resist U.S. aggression and aid Korea, the agrarian reform movement and the movement to suppress counter-revolutionaries, and we have won great victories. By and large, the remnant counter-revolutionaries on the mainland will soon be eliminated. Agrarian reform will be completed in 1952, except in some areas inhabited by minority nationalities. In the movement to resist U.S aggression and aid Korea, the Chinese people are more broadly united than ever before and are waging a determined struggle against the U.S. imperialist forces of aggression. Embodying the mighty will of the Chinese people, the Chinese People's Volunteers have joined forces with the Korean People's Army in smashing U.S. imperialism's mad scheme to overrun and occupy the Democratic People's Republic of Korea and then to invade China's mainland; thus the peace-loving people of Korea, China, Asia and the world have been inspired and made more confident in their defence of peace and resistance to aggression. We should extend our congratulations and pay tribute to the heroic Chinese People's Volunteers and Korean People's Army!
Thanks to victories in these three mass movements and to the joint efforts of the people's governments at all levels and of every section of the population, our country has achieved unprecedented unity. The question of Tibet has been solved by peaceful means. Our national defence has been strengthened. The people's democratic dictatorship has been consolidated. Our currency and commodity prices have remained stable, and our work of rehabilitation and development in the spheres of economic construction, culture and education has also taken a big stride forward.
On the industrial and agricultural fronts the growing patriotic movement to increase production is a new phenomenon in our country which calls for rejoicing. The agrarian reform in the countryside and the democratic reform in factories and other enterprises enable our workers and peasants both to display tremendous enthusiasm in their patriotic efforts to increase production and to improve their material and cultural life. If we are good at uniting with the workers and peasants, educating and relying on them, there is bound to be a nation-wide upsurge in the patriotic movement to increase production.
On our cultural and educational front and among all types of intellectuals, a movement for self-education and self-remoulding is unfolding on a broad scale in accordance with the principles laid down by the Central People's Government, and this too is a new phenomenon in our country which calls for rejoicing. At the close of the Second Session of the National Committee I suggested the use of criticism and self-criticism in self-education and self-remoulding. This suggestion is being steadily translated into action. Ideological remoulding, primarily that of all types of intellectuals, is an important condition for the completion of democratic reforms in all fields and the gradual industrialization of our country. We therefore wish still greater successes to the movement for self-education and self-remoulding as it goes steadily forward.
All facts prove that this system of ours, the people's democratic dictatorship, is vastly superior to the political systems of the capitalist countries. Under this system, the people of our country are able to tap their inexhaustible strength. And such strength is invincible before any enemy.
The great struggle to resist U.S. aggression and aid Korea is going on and must go on until the U.S. government is willing to come to a peaceful settlement. We have no intention of encroaching on any country; it is aggression against our country by the imperialists that we oppose. As everyone knows, the Chinese people would not be fighting the U.S. forces if they had not occupied our Taiwan, invaded the Democratic People's Republic of Korea and pushed on to our northeastern borders. But since the U.S. aggressors have launched their attack against us, we cannot but raise the banner of resistance to aggression. This is absolutely necessary and perfectly just, and the whole nation understands that it is so. To press on with this struggle, which is as necessary as it is just, we must continue to stiffen our efforts in resisting U.S. aggression and aiding Korea and must increase production and practice economy to support the Chinese People's Volunteers. This is the central task of the Chinese people today and accordingly the central task of our present session.
We have long been on record as maintaining that the Korean question should be settled by peaceful means, and this is still our position. If the U.S. government is willing to settle the question on a fair and reasonable basis instead of undermining and obstructing the progress of the negotiations in various underhand ways as it has done in the past, it will be possible for the Korean armistice negotiations to be concluded successfully; otherwise it will be impossible.
In the two years since the founding of the People's Republic of China, we have won great victories in all fields of work. We have won these victories by relying on all the forces that can be united. Within the country, we have relied on the firm unity of all the nationalities, democratic classes, democratic parties, people's organizations and patriotic democrats under the leadership of the working class and the Communist Party. Internationally, we have relied on the firm unity of the camp of peace and democracy headed by the Soviet Union and on the profound sympathy of the peace loving people throughout the world. Hence our great victories in all spheres of work, which was not what our enemies had expected. Our enemies thought that since the new-born People's Republic of China was faced with a lot of difficulties and since on top of that they were launching a war of aggression against us, we would not be able to overcome our difficulties or deal counter-blows to the aggressors. Contrary to their expectation, we have proved able to overcome our difficulties, deal counter-blows to the aggressors and win great victories. Our enemies are short-sighted, they fail to realize that our great domestic and international unity is strong and that the founding of the People's Republic of China has once and for all put an end to the days when the Chinese people could be bullied by foreign imperialists. Nor do they realize that the birth of the socialist Soviet Union, the People's Republic of China and the People's Democracies, the firm unity between the two great countries of China and the Soviet Union anchored in the Treaty of Friendship, Alliance and Mutual Assistance, the firm unity of the entire camp of peace and democracy and the profound sympathy of the peace-loving people of the world for this great camp have ended for good the era in which imperialism could dominate the world. Our enemies fail to see all this and still want to bully the People's Republic of China and dominate the world. But, comrades, I can say with confidence that their design is futile, crazy, impossible of achievement. Contrary to their thinking, the People's Republic of China will brook no bullying, the great peace camp headed by the Soviet Union will brook no encroachment, and the peace-loving people of the world will not be deceived. Comrades, the victory of the great October Socialist Revolution has made it certain that the people of the world will win victory, and today this prospect becomes nearer and more certain with the birth of the People's Republic of China and the People's Democracies. It is true that, in the historical period following World War I and the October Revolution in Russia, three imperialist states -- Germany, Italy and Japan -- made attempts to dominate the world; this happened before the founding of the People's Republic of China and the People's Democracies. But what came of it? Didn't the attempts of the three imperialist states prove to be futile and crazy? Didn't the results turn out to be just the opposite of what they wanted? Didn't the imperialists who aimed at domination get struck down themselves? Today things are entirely different; the great People's Republic of China has been founded, the People's Democracies have been established, the level of political consciousness of the people of the world has been raised, the struggle for national liberation has been surging ahead all over Asia and in North Africa, the strength of the imperialist bloc as a whole has been profoundly weakened and, what is of vital importance, the strength of the Soviet Union, our closest ally, has been greatly enhanced. In these circumstances, isn't the outcome quite predictable if any imperialist country tries to follow in the footsteps of the three aggressors, Germany, Italy and Japan? In a word, the world from now on must be a world that belongs to the people, with the people of each country governing themselves, and definitely not a world where imperialism and its lackeys can continue to ride roughshod. I hope that the people of our country will closely unite, that they will closely unite with our ally the Soviet Union, with all the People's Democracies and with all nations and peoples of the world that sympathize with us, and march forward to victory in the struggle against aggression, to victory in building our great country, to victory in the defence of a lasting world peace. Comrades, I am confident that, so long as we do all this, victory will decidedly be ours.
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