Deng Xiaoping

Hold High the Banner

of Mao Zedong
Thought and Adhere to
the Principle of Seeking
Truth From Facts
1978

Spoken: September 16, 1978

Translated by: Unknown
Source: Deng Xiaoping Works
Transcription for MIA: Joonas Laine

How should we hold high the banner of Mao Zedong

Thought? This is a really big question. Many people, both
inside and outside the Party, and both at home and abroad,
want the banner to be held high. What does that mean? How
are we to do so? As you all know, there is a doctrine known as
the “two whatevers”. Hasn’t it become famous? According to
this doctrine, whatever documents Comrade Mao Zedong
read and endorsed and whatever he did and said must always
determine our actions, without the slightest deviation. Can
this be called holding high the banner of Mao Zedong
Thought? Certainly not! If this goes on, it will debase Mao
Zedong Thought. The fundamental point of Mao Zedong
Thought is seeking truth from facts and integrating the
universal truth of Marxism-Leninism with the concrete
practice of the Chinese revolution. Comrade Mao Zedong
wrote a four-word motto for the Central Party School in
Yan’an: “Seek truth from facts.” These four words are the
quintessence of Mao Zedong Thought. In the final analysis,
Comrade Mao’s greatness and his success in guiding the
Chinese revolution to victory rest on just this approach. Marx
and Lenin never mentioned the encirclement of the cities
from the countryside — a strategic principle that had not
been formulated anywhere in the world in their lifetime.
Nonetheless, Comrade Mao Zedong pointed it out as the
specific road for the revolution in China’s concrete
conditions. At a time when the country was split up into
separatist warlord domains, he led the people in the fight to
establish revolutionary bases in areas where the enemy’s
control was weak, to encircle the cities from the countryside
and ultimately to seize political power. Just as the Bolshevik
Party led by Lenin made its revolution at a weak link in the
chain of the imperialist world, we made our revolution in
areas where the enemy was weak. In principle, the two
courses were the same. But instead of trying to take the cities
first, we began with the rural areas, then gradually encircled
the cities. If we had not applied the fundamental principle of
seeking truth from facts, how could we have raised and
solved this problem of strategy? How could the Chinese
revolution have been victorious?

After the founding of the People’s Republic of China,

Comrade Mao Zedong continued to lead us forward by
applying the principle of seeking truth from facts. Of course,
at that time many questions could not be raised because the
necessary conditions were absent. If we are to hold high the
banner of Mao Zedong Thought, we must always proceed
from current reality when handling questions of principle
and policy. Today, as we work to achieve China’s four
modernizations, many conditions are present which were
absent in Comrade Mao’s time. Unless the Central
Committee of the Party is prepared to rethink issues and is
determined to act in the light of present conditions, many
questions will never be posed or resolved. For example, while
Comrade Mao was still living we thought about expanding
economic and technical exchanges with other countries. We
wanted to develop economic and trade relations with certain
capitalist countries and even to absorb foreign capital and
undertake joint ventures. But the necessary conditions were
not present, because at the time an embargo was being
imposed on China. And later, the Gang of Four branded any
attempt at economic relations with other countries as
“worshipping things foreign and fawning on foreigners” or as
“national betrayal”, and so sealed China off from the outside
world. Comrade Mao Zedong’s strategic idea of
differentiating the three worlds opened up a road for us. We
have gone on opposing imperialism, hegemonism,
colonialism and racism, working to safeguard world peace,
and actively developing relations, including economic and
cultural exchanges, with other countries on the basis of
the Five Principles of Peaceful Coexistence. After several
years of effort, we have secured international conditions that
are far better than before; they enable us to make use of
capital from foreign countries and of their advanced
technology and experience in business management. These
conditions did not exist during Comrade Mao Zedong’s
lifetime. Yes, foreigners may still deceive us or take
advantage of our backwardness. For instance, when we
import complete plants, they may edge up the price or pass
off inferior goods as high-grade ones. But generally speaking,
we now have favourable conditions which weren’t there
before. If we were never supposed to do anything that
Comrade Mao hadn’t suggested, we could never have decided
on our present course of action. What does holding high the
banner of Mao Zedong Thought mean here? It means
proceeding from present realities and making full use of all
favourable conditions to attain the objective of the four
modernizations as defined by Comrade Mao Zedong and
proclaimed by Comrade Zhou Enlai. If we could only act as
Comrade Mao suggested, what could we do now? We have to
develop Marxism and also Mao Zedong Thought. Otherwise,
they will become ossified.

When we say that theory must be tested in practice, this is

what we are talking about. That the issue is still being argued
shows how rigid some people’s thinking has become. The
basic problem is still the one I’ve mentioned — that these
people’s thinking violates Comrade Mao Zedong’s principle of
seeking truth from facts and the principles of dialectical and
historical materialism. We have here, in fact, a reflection of
idealism and metaphysics. The world is changing every day,
new things are constantly emerging and new problems
continually arising. We can’t afford to lock our doors, refuse
to use our brains and remain forever backward. In today’s
world, our country is counted as poor. Even within the third
world, China still rates as relatively underdeveloped. We are
a socialist country. The basic expression of the superiority of
our socialist system is that it allows the productive forces of
our society to grow at a rapid rate unknown in old China, and
that it permits us gradually to satisfy our people’s constantly
growing material and cultural needs. After all, from the
historical materialist point of view correct political leadership
should result in the growth of the productive forces and the
improvement of the material and cultural life of the people. If
the rate of growth of the productive forces in a socialist
country lags behind that in capitalist countries over an
extended historical period, how can we talk about the
superiority of the socialist system? We should ponder the
question: What have we really done for the people? We must
make use of the favourable conditions we now enjoy to
accelerate the growth of our productive forces, improve the
people’s material and cultural life and broaden their outlook.

What does “hold high the banner of Mao Zedong Thought”

really mean? We need to answer this question. The principles
and policies now laid down by the Central Committee are
examples of truly holding the banner high. The best way is to
be resolved to advance rapidly but at the same time surely.
Otherwise one is being false or formalistic in “holding the
banner high”.

(Excerpt from remarks made on hearing a work report by

members of the Standing Committee of the Jilin Provincial
Committee of the Communist Party of China.)