Deng Xiaoping

Respect Knowledge,
Respect Trained
Personnel
1977

Spoken: May 24, 1977

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

The key to achieving modernization is the development of

science and technology. And unless we pay special attention
to education, it will be impossible to develop science and
technology. Empty talk will get our modernization
programme nowhere; we must have knowledge and trained
personnel. Without them, how can we develop our science
and technology? And if we are backward in those areas, how
can we advance? We must recognize our backwardness,
because only such recognition offers hope. Now it appears
that China is fully 20 years behind the developed countries in
science, technology and education. So far as scientific
research personnel are concerned, the United States has
1,200,000 and the Soviet Union 900,000, while we have only
some 200,000. The figure for China includes the old, the
weak, the sick and the disabled. There are not too many who
are really competent and can work regularly. As early as
the Meiji Restoration, the Japanese began to expend a great
deal of effort on science, technology and education. The Meiji
Restoration was a kind of modernization drive undertaken by
the emerging Japanese bourgeoisie. As proletarians, we
should, and can, do better.

To promote scientific and technological work, it is

necessary to improve education at every level simultaneously,
from primary to secondary and higher education. I hope that
we will set about this task now so that we will see initial
results within five years, further results within 10 years, and
major results within 15 to 20 years. To improve education, we
must walk on two legs, that is, we must raise the standards of
education at the same time as we make it available to more
and more people. It is necessary to establish key primary
schools, key secondary schools and key colleges and
universities. It is necessary to bring together, through stiff
examinations, the outstanding people in the key secondary
schools and the key colleges and universities.

We should select several thousand of our most qualified

personnel from within the scientific and technological
establishment and create conditions that will allow them to
devote their undivided attention to research. Those who have
financial difficulties should be given allowances and
subsidies. Some now have their children and aged parents
living with them, earn well under 100 yuan a month, and
must spend a lot of time doing housework. They can’t even
find a quiet place to read in the evening. How can this state of
affairs be allowed to continue? The political requirements set
for these people must be appropriate: they should love the
motherland, love socialism and accept the leadership of the
Party. If they do their research work well and achieve results,
that will be helpful politically and will benefit China.

We must create within the Party an atmosphere of respect

for knowledge and respect for trained personnel. The
erroneous attitude of not respecting intellectuals must be
opposed. All work, be it mental or manual, is labour. Those
who engage in mental work are also workers. As time goes by,
it will become increasingly hard to differentiate between
mental and manual labour. In developed capitalist countries,
the job of a good number of workers is just to stand and press
buttons for hours on end. This is intense and concentrated
mental labour as well as toilsome manual labour. Great
importance should be attached to knowledge and to those
who engage in mental labour, and they should be recognized
as workers.

In the army as well, it is necessary to encourage scientific

research and education at the same time. Without knowledge
of modern warfare, how can we fight a modern war? Leading
army cadres should become knowledgeable and respect
knowledge. We should establish schools at various levels to
enable leading army cadres to master modern science,
culture and modern warfare in the course of training. At the
same time, we should lower the average age of our army
cadre corps. Sixty-year-olds should not be serving as
commanders at the army level.

All trades and professions should promote science,

technology and education. Large enterprises should all have
their own scientific and technological research organs and
personnel. Every professional department should conduct
scientific research.

(Excerpt from a talk with two leading comrades of the

Central Committee of the Communist Party of China.)