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I need to make sure the translated text is in English while keeping the formatting intact. It’s crucial to preserve HTML and Markdown tags, especially the initial > line and any empty lines. I must be aware of the potential risk of losing these elements during translation. My goal is to match the translation as closely as possible to the original content. Time to proceed with translating the entire content!> Excerpt from the conference report read at the 2025 fourth congress of the Proletarian Liberation Struggle Association, for everyone’s reference and study; the portion mentioning the specific names of comrades has been handled separately to avoid involving matters of the Association’s security.\n\n
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\n\n\n\nThe main content of this report is a summary of the development of the Proletarian Liberation Struggle Association (hereinafter referred to as the Association) and the content of its activities since the Association’s third mass assembly this year. The whole document is mainly divided into two major parts: 1. Association Activity Report (Overview); 2. Activity Reports of Each Subgroup.\n\nOverall, during this period, our Association has continued to develop by big strides, achieving many new accomplishments, gaining many new understandings, exposing many new contradictions, and solving many new problems. Especially regarding the issue of the bourgeois romantic outlook, our Association conducted a profound and thorough exposure and criticism of the petty-bourgeois romantic outlook, laying the foundation for later, more effectively resolving the bourgeois romantic outlook issue. On the other hand, the line of bai-zhuan bureaucratism was also subjected to harsh criticism, further cleansing many comrades’ superstitious thoughts of “the theory of producing work (churning out results),” correcting many comrades’ errors of allowing the bai-zhuan line to develop unchecked and allowing the expansion of bourgeois legal power (bourgeois privileges). For the thoughts in the organization that belittle the masses of the people and worship intellectuals, there was also a serious criticism. After several fierce class struggles, our Association’s entire body of comrades has gained a deeper understanding of the class enemy, breaking through the compromising surrender thinking that harbored illusions about the enemy. Many comrades who had not properly taken their class position were given serious education and criticism. In addition, the male-chauvinist ideas that had long existed in the Association and remained concealed were also exposed and dealt with to a certain extent, safeguarding unity within the organization. In particular, Comrade Fenghuo, in the supplemental section of , from the height of theory, explained clearly through historical facts the roots of patriarchy and gender oppression, and once again emphasized the importance of the women’s liberation movement to the proletarian revolutionary cause. In organizational terms, the Association carried out an adjustment of the regrouping of its basic formal members; it strengthened close links among comrades, exposed many new problems that had not yet been exposed by certain comrades. Under Comrade Fenghuo’s leadership, the relationship between the outer organizations and the formal organizations also became even tighter; the outer organizations likewise展开ed fierce ideological struggles, with many problems being resolved and new developments taking shape. The situation in which overseas base areas became detached from domestic base areas was clearly pointed out by Comrade Fenghuo, and it also received broad attention and sustained criticism from other comrades in the Association; to a certain extent, it checked the spread of decadent trends in overseas base areas and brought about many new changes in overseas base areas.\n\nThese achievements are real, but we must remain clear-eyed: because we have not fundamentally recognized the objective conditions for the existence of bourgeois legal power within the Association, and because we have not set limits and eliminated it; and because the ideological struggle of Marxism is long-term and complex—after a certain stage, the revisionist line still rises again in new forms. Therefore, this period was also one of extremely sharp and complex struggle, with many repeated ideological problems and concentrated exposure of the revisionist line. Especially in the middle stage of this period, comrades in the various subgroups commonly showed slackness in thought; ideological struggle clearly stalled, and propaganda activities and writing activities also fell into a standstill. This was not a casual phenomenon, nor the fault of one or two individuals; it was the result of the revisionist line’s resurgence—individualism, liberalism, formalism, bai-zhuan bureaucratism, bourgeois romantic ideas, and other reactionary ideological currents all being restored within the organization. Yet precisely this shows the general law of dialectics: we need not lose heart, nor become discouraged or pessimistic. The development of our Association, of course, is not a smooth road; it advances in a wave-like way and rises in a spiral through the process of negation of negation. We must wage repeated struggles against petty-bourgeois and bourgeois thoughts, and repeated contests against the revisionist line, in order to push ideological struggle into wider fields and onto higher stages. “Conclusion: The future is bright, and the road is winding—still, it’s these two old sayings.”\[①\]\n\nThe last congress this year—our third mass congress—was held on the basis of the stage achievements of this year’s rectification campaign. Since this year March, our Association has launched a rectification campaign. Through two congresses—one at the end of May and another at the beginning of September—our rectification campaign, although it experienced twists and turns, continued to develop and achieve increasingly large results, pushing ideological struggle into deeper and broader domains. During this period’s rectification campaign, the enthusiasm of the broad membership of our Association increased. They became more familiar with ideological struggle as the basic form of class struggle. They gained more experience in opposing revisionism, and their understanding of Marxism’s theory of continuing revolution became deeper. In the course of the rectification campaign, we finally understood what constitutes the soil for the restoration of capitalism—bourgeois legal power. The core of bourgeois legal power is the idea of hierarchy. And in the concept of small private ownership acknowledged by the petty bourgeoisie, the idea of hierarchy always occupies a very important place. Because our Association’s members are mostly petty-bourgeois in origin, and although they participate in the Association’s revolutionary activities, they still retain a certain degree of private-ownership thinking, it is inevitable that hierarchical ideas will arise. They treat factors such as status, ability, knowledge, and contributions as a kind of “personal capital,” rationalizing actions that seek privileged status for oneself within the collective organization. If such an idea is not changed through ideological struggle, it exists widely within our organization; in the end, it is bound to lead to using “personal capital” toward bureaucratism and revisionism, toward degeneration and transformation for the worse. During this period, in the struggle against revisionist trends—especially in safeguarding against revisionism and fighting it—we paid particular attention to two important manifestations of revisionism: the problems of bai-zhuan bureaucratism and the problems of the bourgeois romantic outlook. To put it this way, up to the beginning of September, our rectification campaign achieved basically a great victory, and our Association made substantial progress in all aspects.\n\nWe must remain clear-eyed that this kind of “going in a good direction” is not solid. “Victory also has its dark side—especially when it is obtained ‘too easily,’ so to speak, obtained ‘unexpectedly.’”\[②\] Because the main component of the Association’s membership is intellectuals originating from the petty bourgeoisie, the roots of old thinking have not been completely uprooted; the petty-bourgeois shortcomings and weaknesses still exist. After some comrades obtain stage-by-stage results in ideological struggle, petty-bourgeois moods of being hot and cold and drifting freely flare up again. They gradually develop thoughts of “exhaling and relaxing” and “taking a break,” taking the rectification campaign as a “movement,” rather than a long-term revolutionary task. They think: the report is in hand, rectification is over; swords and guns are stored away; horses stand in the south field; there is no need to continue revolution. A trend arises toward the vulgarization and superficiality of ideological struggle. Comrades who make mistakes often engage in some superficial self-reflection—“ideological struggle in one’s own head”—or take the attitude of “in principle, in the middle, and as a neutral matter” (reasoning that avoids stands and stances): they talk only about problems, without touching the soul, without stating positions, and without making explicit commitments. Sometimes contradictions within the Association break out fiercely, but often it is “thunder is loud, but rain is small,” and “something is raised high, but put down lightly.” Afterward, there is a lack of actual change, and everything remains the same. Sometimes the subgroups of the Association also appear to be “getting along harmoniously,” as if the well is undisturbed; in reality, subcurrents are surging. On the one hand, this is the restoration of formalism. Comrades lack genuine concern for one another; each person is limited to their own “little circle, little thoughts, little day-to-day life.” Therefore, they treat collective affairs and ideological struggle as tasks to get through. When a comrade makes a mistake, they either fail to fight mercilessly and strike brutally, or—on the contrary—they are “all smiles,” conducting suffocating struggles. On the other hand, this is the restoration of liberalism: because there is a lack of discipline consciousness, they do not want to persist in changing their way of life and engaging in long-term ideological struggle. As a result, many problems end up fizzling out. Ideological struggle is not institutionalized, not made a daily practice, and is not truly implemented into ways of life and organizational discipline—this lays the groundwork for a concentrated outbreak of problems later. Under precisely such circumstances, the revisionist line begins to rise again in a more concealed form.\n\nFrom an overall perspective, the development of the Association in this period went through a wave-like process. First came the victorious convening of the third congress at the beginning of September. The Association correctly summed up both successful and unsuccessful experiences of the past, raising comrades’ understanding of class struggle issues. Next came the low tide period from mid-September to mid-November. During this time, comrades’ class character as petty bourgeoisie hindered persisting in continuing revolution. Because objective differences and the boundary between us and them still existed, seedlings of individualism and a tendency toward slackness of thought appeared within the organization. Although within a certain range and to a certain extent ideological struggle was still maintained, overall the revisionist line had begun to revive gradually. Finally, Comrade Fenghuo detected the crisis facing the Association and made up his mind to restart the rectification campaign, grasping ideological struggle as the central program of class struggle, truly restoring ideological struggle as the central task of all work in the Association. Comrade Fenghuo’s initiative was arranged beginning in mid-November and officially kicked off in late November. It swept away the dull spirits from the previous two months, bringing the Association back its fighting spirit. It laid the foundation for comrades’ later reflection on problems, active progress, and the timely, efficient, and high-quality completion of the congress report work.\n\nAll the problems that existed in the Association during this period, in the final analysis, stem from conditions under which differences in social relations and ideology existed within the organization: bourgeois legal power and bourgeois legal-power ideology were not correctly recognized and limited, which caused the continuous restoration of petty-bourgeois ways of life and petty-bourgeois thinking. Specifically, this problem is manifested in three aspects:\n\nFirst, the revival of individualism and liberalism. Under conditions in which collective life is relatively stable, some comrades’ personal lives are comfortable and easy; they slip back into the state of being detached from labor, detached from practice, detached from society, and detached from the people—growing increasingly far from class struggle—living worry-free lives, and plunging into “little circles, little thoughts, little day-to-day lives.” In this state, some comrades treat revolutionary organizations as “warm little nests,” “workers’ warm clubs,” forgetting that our main business is revolution. In daily life, they neither care about the revolutionary cause nor understand current social affairs. They lack care and assistance for comrades’ lives and thinking; relations among comrades gradually become distant, as does comrades’ feelings toward the collective and toward one another. These comrades do not prioritize collective interests, nor do they prioritize the interests of the Party and the people; everywhere they take care of personal interests and personal moods, gradually forgetting organizational discipline and revolutionary principles. The formalization and superficiality of activity forms in the subgroups, the suspension of propaganda and writing work, and the slow progress of preparation for the congress report—these are clear manifestations of petty-bourgeois anarchist thinking that ignores organizational discipline and revolutionary principles. And we all know that “the proletariat’s unconditional democratic centralism and extremely strict discipline are one of the basic conditions for defeating the bourgeoisie.”\n\n“The spontaneous forces of the petty bourgeoisie surround the proletariat from all directions, infect the proletariat, and corrode the proletariat, often causing old diseases such as the petty bourgeoisie’s weakness, dispersion, individualism, and everything shifting from fanaticism to discouragement to recur within the proletariat. Within a proletarian party, the need to implement extremely strict democratic centralism and extremely strict discipline is what can resist this pernicious influence, and what can ensure that the proletariat can correctly, effectively, and victoriously bring its organizational role into full play (and this is precisely its main function). The proletarian dictatorship is a stubborn struggle against the forces and traditions of the old society—bloody and bloodless, violent and peaceful, military and economic, educational and administrative. The habitual power of millions of people is the most terrifying power. Without a party tempered in struggle like iron, without a party trusted by faithful people of the entire proletarian class, without a party skilled in examining and influencing the sentiments of the masses, it is impossible to carry out this struggle successfully. Defeating the concentrated big bourgeoisie is infinitely easier than ‘defeating’ millions of petty owners; but these petty owners, with their daily, petty, corrupting activities that cannot be seen or touched, produce the evil consequences needed by the bourgeoisie—enabling the bourgeoisie to restore itself. Whoever weakens the iron discipline of a proletarian party, even slightly (especially in the period of proletarian dictatorship), in fact is helping the bourgeoisie to oppose the proletariat.”\[③\]\n\nSecond, the atmosphere of formalism pervades; ideological struggle falls into a standstill; organizational work basically grinds to a halt. The inevitable result of individualism developing within revolutionary organizations is formalism, which is manifested as subjectivism, sectarianism, and the party’s eight-legged essay style (Party “baguwen”). Vulgar formalism is a major feature of the spontaneous revisionist line. After individualist thinking arises in many comrades, it usually does not immediately change their class stand for a certain period; rather, in their stances and feelings they still detest the bourgeoisie, and in language they oppose the bourgeoisie. They still consider themselves “Marxists” and “revolutionaries,” and they keep quoting Marxist theoretical systems to express their ideas. But in reality, these people have gradually detached from labor, from practice, from society, and from the people. They enjoy the personal conveniences brought by revolution and organization (bourgeois legal power). They enjoy a comfortable life premised on the appropriation of other people’s labor. In actual action, these people must inevitably defend personal interests and, without noticing, draw closer to the bourgeoisie. Inevitably, they transform revolution into something that does not touch their own interests, their own ways of life, or the depths of their own souls. While preserving the shell and form of Marxism, they resist Marxism’s struggle philosophy and the spirit of continuous revolution; they resist Marxism’s revolution against old thinking, old culture, old customs, and old habits, “preserving” Marxism by castrating its revolutionary spirit and soul. For these people, revolutionary mentors become “harmless idols,” revolutionary theory becomes “useless talk,” and revolutionary discipline becomes a “meaningless burden.” Thus, formalism is nothing less than revisionism to the core.\n\nOn the personal level, formalism inevitably takes the form of vulgarized self-criticism: it takes an attitude of “acknowledging in principle, resisting in emotion, remaining indifferent in action” toward ideological struggle. It uses empty and false words to cover up the essence of bourgeois thinking and capitalist ways of life. The spread of formalism inevitably leads to alternating situations in which pessimism and reformism appear in the realm of thought. The former is pessimistic disappointment among petty-bourgeois intellectuals. In order to safeguard personal or small-group interests, they arrogate the label of revolutionaries and condemn the revolution to death. This is a passive and filthy, despicable act; it emerges from within the ranks of the revolution to undermine morale and strike down proletarian revolutionary effort. The latter is anarchism masquerading as Marxism, demanding that the petty-bourgeois status, way of life, and the entire private ownership system remain completely unchanged, while decorating this putrid corpse with revolutionary wreaths. The inevitable outcome of reformism is that it transforms from spontaneous revisionism into conscious revisionism, and finally restores the worst form of capitalism.\n\nOn the organizational level, formalism inevitably results in conciliators and revenge-seekers in class struggle. Since formalism abolishes the essential content of revolutionary activities, comrades cannot carry out ideological struggle with the correct attitude, and it is impossible to observe problems seriously, raise questions, analyze problems, and solve problems with Marxist methods. As a result, either they maintain hypocritical peace that is off-putting, neither criticize nor stop incorrect words, thoughts, and actions within the organization; or else they deliver some impractical empty talk, clichés, and set-phrases—getting by and letting things slide—allowing bourgeois ideas to spread everywhere and allowing relations among comrades to grow increasingly disintegrated. Or, they take a crude attitude of “cruel struggle and merciless blows” toward comrades’ mistakes, without patiently persuading and educating them, without giving comrades who have erred an exit, and without expounding Marxist principles and theory to prevent small problems from becoming big ones. This too can only seriously damage comrades’ relations and produce soil for the restoration of revisionism. Formalism also brings with it a bureaucratic atmosphere in the organization. Without revolutionary collective activities and principle-based criticism and self-criticism, empiricists and dogmatists can easily pass through ideological struggle checks and seize power. For bureaucrats, formalism is the most effortless—it requires no Marxist observation, analysis, and solution of problems; it only requires transporting experience or memorizing dogma. In this way, formalism opens a real channel for revisionists to seize power and restore themselves through the form of bureaucratism.\n\nThird, there is an obvious tendency toward the restoration of bai-zhuan bureaucratism. It is precisely under the dual effect of individualism and formalism that, within the Association, organizational discipline, revolutionary principles, and collective activities have not been implemented in practice. The proletarian revolutionary organization of unity and concerted action has become a loose “brotherhood” or “gang of heroes” of the petty bourgeoisie. In such a situation, the bai-zhuan bureaucratism line that deeply reflects petty-bourgeois private-ownership ideas, hierarchy, and idealist hero-worship is gradually revived.\n\nAmong some comrades, political command has been replaced by the already thoroughly condemned “the idea that ideological struggle is useless” and “the theory of producing work.” When cadres waste their time and comrades are detached from each other, “producing work” becomes a kind of performance/technical bureaucrat’s capital used to cover up the collective’s degradation. Thus, whether or not one adheres to the correct line of the Association, whether or not one bases oneself on collective revolutionary practice, and whether or not one promotes the transformation of comrades’ thinking gradually ceases to be the core standard for evaluating revolutionary work; in its place are: “how much has been written,” “how much has been done,” and “whether it looks like there have been results.” When the Association is detached from normal collective life and there is no actual ideological struggle, a minority of comrades who have errors of empiricism and dogmatism are likely, in the absence of supervision, to take the path toward bureaucratism. And empiricists always yield to dogmatists; therefore, bai-zhuan bureaucratism takes the upper hand.\n\nThis “theory of producing work” that suffocates ideological struggle is essentially not a matter of being responsible for the revolution; rather, it uses technical achievements and surface performance to cover up the stagnation of ideological struggle and the growing trend of formalism. This thinking has nothing in common with ideology and Marxism. It denies that revolution is the highest form of class struggle; it denies the decisive role of the masses of the people as the subject of class struggle in the revolution. It distorts revolution into personal activities of a few “supermen” who are supposedly “born exceptionally brilliant,” standing above the masses. It places individual intelligence above collective intelligence, and belittles organizational discipline and revolutionary principles as restraints on individual talent. Thus, it can be seen that the essence of bai-zhuan bureaucratism and the “theory of producing work” is Nietzsche’s “superman philosophy,” which reduces the people to a mass of rabble and elevates the exploiting class as the creator. It is thoroughly fascist philosophy. One must know that Lenin once said: “Revolution is the grand festival of the oppressed and exploited. At no time can the masses of people appear—anywhere else—except as the active creators of a new social order in revolutionary periods.”\[④\] The masses of the people are the creators of world history, and the driving force of world revolution. From their social practice, the masses generate revolutionary genius without end; capitalist society is nothing but the grave of the revolutionary genius of the people. The popularity of the bai-zhuan bureaucratism line shows that, on the fundamental question of historical materialism—“Do slaves create history, or do heroes create history?”—many people have muddled themselves; they deny the revolutionary role of the masses of the people, completely violating the basic principles of Marxism. In essence, this line is a denial of the system of public ownership, a denial that collective wisdom is greater than individual wisdom, and a denial that collective interests are greater than individual interests—the revisionist line.\n\nBesides these three basic aspects of problems, the issue of the romantic outlook, as one of the central problems of ideological struggle that the Association always emphasizes, also underwent development and change during this period. Thanks to the Association’s long-standing emphasis on women’s liberation and its tradition of criticizing reactionary male-chauvinist ideas, the romantic outlook issue has always been given high priority within our Association, and it was the earliest issue where we absorbed the lessons of failure and corrected erroneous understandings. Since the rectification campaign in March this year, the Association’s understanding of the romantic outlook issue has become even deeper. During this period, by learning through the actual actions of Fenghuo and by criticizing , comrades in the Association enriched their perceptual experience regarding the romantic outlook issue, and specifically grasped the differences between proletarian love and bourgeois love and the characteristics of each. However, in the past rectification campaign, due to insufficient understanding and analysis of petty-bourgeois romantic love, there was a tendency to exaggerate petty-bourgeois romantic love and to merely disparage bourgeois romantic love. This split petty-bourgeois romantic outlook from bourgeois romantic outlook. In theory, what is wrong tends to be harmful in practice. The result was a tendency that masked one another: a violent criticism of the bourgeois romantic outlook and ideas of eroticism masked the petty-bourgeois romantic outlook’s poverty, vulgarity, decay, and narrowness—its essence. This caused the petty-bourgeois romantic outlook to spread harmful influence within the Association; at the same time, bourgeois romantic outlook also revived partly under the cloak of petty-bourgeois romantic outlook. In the process of seeking personal enjoyment, many comrades continued to breed romantic ideas, and they used the banner of petty-bourgeois romance to sabotage normal collective life, severely disrupting organizational discipline and damaging comrades’ friendship. Some comrades even issued reactionary declarations like “once transformed into a petty-bourgeois romantic outlook, one can date (fall in love).” After petty-bourgeois romantic outlook was criticized, male-chauvinist ideas began to grow again. Some comrades transformed into male-chauvinists to launch a counterattack and pay a protective cover for bourgeois romantic outlook. It shows that the essence of both petty-bourgeois romantic outlook and bourgeois romantic outlook is private-ownership thinking; their common foundation is private ownership, closely connected. Only by correctly recognizing the contradictory unity between these two romantic outlooks can we correctly resolve the romantic outlook issue.\n\nSince late November, the Association has again launched a new round of rectification campaign. Under Comrade Fenghuo’s leadership, there was a comprehensive counterattack against revisionism. A fierce criticism was launched against problems of the bourgeois romantic outlook, problems of individualism and liberalism, problems of formalism, and problems of bai-zhuan bureaucratism. Comrade Fenghuo not only set an example and began ideological struggle from self-criticism, but also insisted on always keeping eyes on collective interests. Using Marxist stands, viewpoints, and methods, he observed, raised, analyzed, and solved comrades’ problems within the Association. At the key moment when various problems in the Association were exposed one after another and contradictions concentratedly erupted, Comrade Fenghuo did not fall into pessimistic emotions. On the contrary, he was in high spirits and greatly inspired all comrades to launch uncompromising struggles against bourgeois thinking within the Association. To take care of collective interests, Comrade Fenghuo has consistently upheld the principle of seeking truth from facts. Starting from actual conditions, he based ideological struggle on comrades’ real situations, used changes in comrades’ actions as the criterion for judgment, and persistently exchanged views on ideological problems with comrades, offering ideas and advice for improving the Association’s activity situation. Most importantly, since the new round of rectification campaign began, while Comrade Fenghuo has worked to invigorate ideological struggle in each subgroup, he has also, together with the Association’s actual experience and collective wisdom, summarized the Association’s positive and negative experiences during this period from the political and theoretical heights. He pointed out, sharply and incisively, the class roots and practical roots behind various problems existing in the Association. He has repeatedly and in-depth, yet understandable, explained the issue of revisionism’s restoration, and philosophically thoroughly criticized revisionism, laying the theoretical foundation for correcting the “left” and “right” opportunism problems existing in our Association.\n\nWe are Marxists. We must look at problems with historical materialism. We cannot fall into mechanical materialism that denies the role of individuals; nor can we shift into historical idealism that exaggerates the role of individuals, cuts off the connection between leaders, organizations, and the masses, and blindly advocates individual worship. What the masses are like, the leaders are like. Our Association is a proletarian revolutionary organization that is developing and gradually becoming mature. It is mainly composed of petty-bourgeois intellectuals, and inevitably it carries the imprint of the petty bourgeoisie. Comrade Fenghuo also has many shortcomings and errors, and it is inevitable that, arising from a certain way of life, he too will develop a tendency toward slackness in thought and toward bourgeois-right ideas. But, ultimately, our Association is a revolutionary Marxist group—a group of revolutionary intellectuals organized with the purpose of building the Party. This is why Comrade Fenghuo can always stand up when the Association encounters difficulties, solving practical problems with the most skilled Marxist theory and turning danger into safety. Since our Association is a revolutionary group of intellectuals, it is inevitable that our leaders and our masses reflect the two-sided nature of a group of revolutionary intellectuals; this is nothing strange. The future is bright, and the road is winding. Under the conditions of upholding the principles of proletarian dictatorship and democratic centralism, we will surely go from one victory to another victory!\n\nStarting from this new rectification campaign in late November, the first issue the Association resolved was the romantic outlook. First, comrades’ understanding of the romantic outlook issue underwent a process of development. As mentioned above, during the rectification campaign from March to September this year, Comrade Fenghuo launched a relatively vivid, profound, and thorough criticism of the bourgeois romantic outlook; comrades carried out reflections on and struggles against the bourgeois romantic outlook. At the same time, however, the reactionary character of the petty-bourgeois romantic outlook was concealed. Petty-bourgeois romance was mystified and sanctified; many comrades explained it in an idealist way as “sincere” and “beautiful,” while ignoring its selfish essence founded on petty private ownership. This tendency had a very bad impact on the Association, spreading the atmosphere of petty-bourgeois individualism and also obstructing the Association’s criticism of the bourgeois romantic outlook. But practice produces truth, and struggle builds real ability. As the Association’s ideological struggle continued to deepen—especially on the romantic outlook issue—it finally touched the reactionary essence of petty-bourgeois romance. Beginning with the XX going-home incident and the XX defection incident in early September, the reactionary nature of petty-bourgeois romance was initially exposed, alerting many comrades and breaking the myth that petty-bourgeois romance is sacred and beautiful. Later, many comrades’ tendencies toward individualism and liberalism revived again. Under conditions where the bourgeois romantic outlook was thoroughly criticized, bourgeois romantic love aimed at restoring reaction in the organization under the cloak of petty-bourgeois romance met with Comrade Fenghuo’s harsh criticism. As the impact of this reactionary petty-bourgeois romantic outlook on normal collective activities increasingly intensified, everyone gradually recognized the reactionary character of petty-bourgeois romance.\n\nIn late November, at an evening meeting of the philosophy group, Comrade Fenghuo analyzed and criticized the thoughts of the XXX traitor. Using the plot of the film Homebody Man (居家男人) as an example, he provided a penetrating analysis of the reactionary nature of petty-bourgeois romance. He exposed the vulgarity, hypocrisy, and narrowness of petty-bourgeois romance, pointing out that petty-bourgeois romance has in fact played the role of promoting class conciliation, extinguishing class struggle, and defending the order of capitalist rule. Through this concrete and vivid analysis, comrades gradually realized that petty-bourgeois romance is not some “intermediate form between bourgeois romance and the proletarian revolutionary struggle,” but is founded on the same basis of private ownership as bourgeois romance. It is simply two different expressions of individualism. The reason petty-bourgeois romance has long existed in our revolutionary ranks—besides class roots—is precisely that it does not appear in the form of naked gender oppression. Instead, it appears in seemingly neutral, even “positive” forms such as “meant to be,” “affectionate and noble feelings,” “self-sacrifice,” and “love above all else,” numbing comrades’ class consciousness and dissolving everyone’s will to struggle. \n\nTherefore, Comrade Fenghuo first pointed out that it is necessary to connect petty-bourgeois romantic outlook with bourgeois romantic outlook and observe, analyze, and criticize them together. The bourgeois romantic outlook is based on bourgeois private ownership; its core is naked money exchange, founded on pursuing sexual stimulation and material interests, often accompanied by men’s oppression of women. The petty-bourgeois romantic outlook is based on petty private ownership. Even the tender and affectionate cloak cannot cover up the essence of its commodity-exchange logic; in reality, it is also centered on self-interest—only, based on the petty-bourgeois outlook, it thinks that the love it carefully manages and the sacrifices it makes are what can obtain full-value returns. The purpose of giving is to obtain returns, fully exposing that the essence of the petty-bourgeois romantic outlook is still private-ownership thinking.\n\nThis petty-bourgeois romantic outlook, wrapped in an apparently harmless cloak, is extremely damaging to revolutionary organizations. One important characteristic is that it spreads the romantic supremacy fantasy that “love can eliminate all oppression and exploitation, and realize personal freedom and liberation.” It packages petty-bourgeois romance as pure, romantic, and beautiful feelings, as if the principle of petty-bourgeois romance is equality and mutual aid. Its result is “the lovers end up together happily.” It seeks to make people believe: “There is real love in the world; there is true love in the world.” It tells people that it does not matter if life is bitter, exhausting, or poor—just as if capitalism’s oppression and exploitation are kept out behind the door of the family. This is a reactionary class conciliationism that attempts to make people content with the status quo and abandon class struggle. It reduces life’s happiness and pursuit to the illusory and elusive “love.” It tells people that happiness comes from vulgar and petty-bourgeois life of selfish intimacy. Likewise, it must also deceive people that all suffering comes from “romantic setbacks,” “choosing the wrong person,” and “not cherishing the person in front of you,” thereby covering up capitalism’s exploitative system. This reactionary idea, in essence, forces people to accept an unequal capitalist society; it advocates that social injustice is unchangeable, and that one can only seek spiritual comfort in love and in the small family.\n\nThis reactionary petty-bourgeois romantic outlook is one that strives to corrupt working people with vulgar petty-bourgeois ideas. It shifts people’s attention away from the social contradictions, class oppression, and labor torment in capitalist society, placing it instead on the “happy two-person world” and the “warm little nest.” What it mythologizes is merely the extremely selfish, narrow, and vulgar life of mediocre petty townspeople. It amounts to “daily necessities like firewood, rice, cooking oil, and salt,” “children’s diapers,” “a warm embrace,” and “affectionate companionship.” It encourages people to abandon revolutionary ideals and abandon communism, to become petty-bourgeois individualists who follow the principle of “Each takes care of their own doorstep snow, and lets other people’s roof-tiles snow fall however they may.”\n\nAlthough petty-bourgeois romance wears the cloak of romantic supremacy and claims to pursue sincere feelings, and dismisses money and material interests, in reality it is still the most vulgar and narrow commodity exchange relationship. Unlike bourgeois romance, it does not use power, money, and status as chips; instead it substitutes “true feelings,” “trust,” and “dependence.” But in essence, it is still full of calculations, always coveting the advantage over the other. In fact, it treats “sacrifice” and “giving” as a kind of investment, demanding that the other side give returns to satisfy humble personal interests. This romantic outlook has a devastating role in revolutionary organizations, because at any time it can treat class interests and collective interests as chips to be sold. There are many comrades in our Association who brandish the slogans “I struggle for you” and “I transform you,” engaging in petty-bourgeois romance; in reality, they sell collective interests and enrich themselves at public expense. This thinking, in reality, treats the revolutionary cause as something that can be sacrificed, and collective interests as something that can be exchanged; and the inevitable result is that it leads from petty-bourgeois romance toward counterrevolution.\n\nMoreover, we must see that the spread of petty-bourgeois and bourgeois romantic outlooks within our organization has its class basis. Both the petty-bourgeois romantic outlook and the bourgeois romantic outlook are expressions of individualist thinking. They oppose collective interests and collective discipline among the petty bourgeoisie, pursuing personal interests and personal freedom. Comrades in our Association live lives that differ greatly from one another. Without strengthening unity in collective life, it is easy for various individualist thoughts to revive. Precisely because of this, when ideological struggle within the Association slackens for a time and collective life is weakened, petty-bourgeois romantic outlook quickly takes root and becomes an important protective cloak for bourgeois romantic outlook and the thoughts of individualism and liberalism. Certain comrades are precisely those who, under the banner of “petty-bourgeois romance can also be transformed” and “as long as we don’t do bourgeois romance, there’s no problem,” place personal interests above organizational discipline, objectively sabotaging normal collective life and revolutionary order.\n\nOn the other hand, Comrade Fenghuo also explained the romantic outlook issue by repeatedly and in various ways discussing the novels of Xiao Lin Duoqi Er— (《工厂细胞》) and (《组织者》). He criticized the vile faces of traitors Suzuki and Morimoto who went from indulging in petty-bourgeois romance to betraying the revolution. He praised the courage of poor female worker A Fangke to overcome difficulties and persist in struggle, as well as her spirit of self-sacrifice for the revolution. He praised the firm revolutionary stance of the advanced female worker A Jun, who always insisted that revolutionary interests come first, scorned petty-bourgeois romance, and angrily criticized Morimoto’s betrayal. At the same time, Comrade Fenghuo presided over a series of reading salons studying <The Family, Private Property and the Origin of the State> (《家庭、私有制和国家的起源》), once again explaining the historical process by which patriarchy arose and replaced matriarchy. He clarified the historical achievements of working women and the importance of the women’s liberation movement, and angrily criticized the oppression of women by reactionary male-chauvinist society from time immemorial. Following that, Comrade Fenghuo also added these important revolutionary principles to the latest chapter of —thereby enriching our revolutionary programmatic documents. In this process, comrades also actively studied the revolutionary theory of women’s liberation, holding lively discussions about criticizing reactionary male-chauvinist ideas, exposing and deeply criticizing the wrong romantic outlook of some comrades.\n\nTo thoroughly clarify the romantic outlook issue and resolve it, Comrade Fenghuo also analyzed the issue from its class essence. He criticized the supra-class “romantic supremacy,” “friendship supremacy,” and “kinship supremacy,” pointing out that this is nothing but using petty-bourgeois humanity to pose as universal humanity, and it can only ultimately serve to beautify bourgeois humanity. Comrade Fenghuo said that all petty-bourgeois relationships and feelings are founded upon their actual life. For left-wing petty-bourgeois people who are oppressed within the petty bourgeoisie, life in class society is not smooth; they have a side that opposes oppression and pursues liberation. Therefore, their relationships and feelings also have a sincere, united side that opposes capitalist oppression. But the essence of all petty-bourgeois people is bourgeois: they are private owners, and they are bound to differentiate toward the proletariat and toward the bourgeoisie. Once petty-bourgeois people achieve their individual purpose of eliminating oppression, they will immediately transform into oppressors and exploiters. The so-called petty-bourgeois relationships of mutual help and mutual rescue will become again relationships of oppressor and oppressed. All petty-bourgeois romantic relationships follow this law as well. Wearing the cloak of “mutual dependence” and “mutual redemption,” they ultimately turn into relations of oppressor and oppressed, moving toward polarization, inevitably becoming “the husband is a capitalist, while the wife is equivalent to the proletariat.”\[⑤\] Not only petty-bourgeois romantic relations are like this—other interpersonal relations and feelings are likewise the same. Comrade Fenghuo gave a vivid example: “Five people play games together. Those with good ‘technique’ suppress and discriminate against those with poor ‘technique’—it is also a relation of oppressor and oppressed.” All this shows that as an intermediate class, the petty bourgeoisie’s progressive role is limited. Unless one changes their stand and realizes proletarianization, they can only in the process of social-historical development “arrive at their stop, get off, and get on,” and degenerate into counterrevolutionary elements. Any person’s relations and feelings are established on certain practical foundations. There has never been anything like “lasting forever”; that is the viewpoint of metaphysics that advocates absolute immobility. Especially petty-bourgeois relations and feelings are based on the narrow life of petty producers and on temporary common interests; they are extremely fragile. Even if they show a nature that opposes capitalist oppression, they will quickly change in essence when the personal interests of one side are realized. Comrade Fenghuo humorously compared this to “smelling sweet while eating foul”—desirable in the imagination but out of reach, impractical for revolution, and very harmful.\n\nRegarding the problems of individualism and liberalism—which are the most harmful within the Association, have the widest spread, and are the most recurrent—Comrade Fenghuo also carried out analysis and criticism. In our Association, there often exists an atmosphere of “big work, big play; small work, small play.” Each time a congress ends, comrades feel they “can finally relax,” entering a state of “restoring normal life.” After the last congress, it was the same: comrades quickly thought that the task was done, and they felt light as a feather. Even the politics and economics group didn’t finish even the congress report, causing the last congress to end unnaturally. Yet they did not feel ashamed. Instead of making up for the losses as soon as possible, they were indifferent and kept delaying; to this day, the drafting work for the report of the last congress has not yet been completed. In reality, such behavior and mindset are completely not what a Marxist and revolutionary should have. It is the embodiment of the whole-hearted philosophy of a loafer. Comrade Fenghuo gave serious criticism to this irresponsible and selfish thinking, and pointed out that: Communists should take revolution as their own mission. They must always put collective interests and revolutionary interests first, and strive unremittingly for the cause of liberating all humankind. They must keep themselves under strict demands at all times. As Marx said, people who have chosen the road of communism are like this: “A person who has chosen a career which he treasures above all others will, when he thinks that he might be incompetent, tremble with fear. Such a person, simply because of his noble social position, will preserve nobility in his conduct.”\[⑥\]\n\nAt the innermost depths of many comrades’ hearts, there is always a stubborn thought of restoration. Deep down, a voice comes: “Don’t interfere with us living according to our habits!”\[⑦\] These habits are habits of only seeing personal interests and the situation right around them—living in their narrow world. Under the domination of such habits, comrades often regard tranquil life without struggle as daily life, forgetting that we still live in a society full of oppression, exploitation, and injustice. Only the bourgeoisie and their lackeys can live in peace and comfort; we fundamentally do not have the right to stop struggling. “If anyone who wants to be a revolutionary forgets that revolutionary order is the most normal order in history, then things are really bad.”\[⑧\]\n\nIn the course of Comrade Fenghuo’s struggle with individualism and liberalism within our Association, he not only strongly opposed such thinking that disintegrates the collective with intense class feelings—playing a model role by taking personal initiative to be responsible for improving all organizational activities—but more importantly, Comrade Fenghuo explained in depth, yet in a way that is understandable, the class and practical roots of these reactionary thoughts that keep appearing within our Association, pointing comrades’ direction for transforming their thinking. Comrade Fenghuo pointed out that this mindset of forgetting one’s own responsibility and being accustomed to considering individual interests and personal life, and identifying oneself as a vulgar petty-bourgeois—this is determined by the entire way of life of the petty bourgeoisie, and it is determined by all the habits that intellectuals develop when they detach from the people. In essence, the continuous restoration of individualism and liberalism is an expression of petty-bourgeoisness in comrades themselves. As Comrade Fenghuo said earlier, the characteristic of petty-bourgeois democratic people is “being close to the people while being detached from them.” But comrades in our Association are mostly intellectuals from petty-bourgeois backgrounds. They have long been detached from labor, from practice, from the people, and from society. Naturally, they need to go through a period of hard, persistent ideological struggle and practical transformation in order to achieve proletarianization. One must know that our revolutionary base areas cannot automatically provide an environment for practical transformation; on the contrary, under spontaneous conditions, it is also easy for all kinds of petty-bourgeois psychology to grow and revive, re-producing capitalism and the bourgeoisie.\n\nComrade Fenghuo emphasized and analyzed: Although our revolutionary base areas implement the St.库 system (holy warehouse system)—rejecting and criticizing capitalist private ownership and private-ownership ideas—they are still surrounded by the ocean-like expanse of capitalist society. The revolutionary base areas provide comrades with the material conditions for collective life, offering convenience for launching revolutionary activities, and strengthening everyday exchanges of life and thought among comrades. But on the other hand, we do not have our own independent social-economic system; we live within capitalist society, and like capitalist society, in the organization the distinction between mental and manual labor still exists. Differences among comrades in income capacity, theoretical literacy, and ideological awareness exist objectively. Therefore, differences among comrades in ways of life, labor conditions, and activity responsibilities are also inevitable. All this makes it easy for comrades in the organization to become, in fact, petty bourgeoisie—each person living a drastically different life, shouldering different hired labor and organizational activities, dealing each day with different people, caring each about their own narrow circle of life. All this produces a centripetal force that disintegrates revolutionary collectives, and it sends those comrades who care about their own personal lives onto the revisionist path that infringes collective interests to satisfy personal interests. The only way to overcome this is to realize the revolutionization of ways of life. As Comrade Fenghuo once said, “For revolutionaries, revolution is their life,” meaning that one integrates with labor, with practice, with the people, and with society. These four integrations are both methods for eliminating the “us and them” boundary that exists between us as petty-bourgeois intellectuals and other comrades within the organization, and methods for eliminating the class differences between us as petty-bourgeois intellectuals and the broad masses of workers, peasants, and laboring people. “The final dividing line between revolutionary and non-revolutionary (or counterrevolutionary) intellectuals is to see whether they are willing and actually implement combining with the workers and peasants.”\[⑨\] Specifically, what distinguishes comrades in our organization is each person’s way of life; what connects comrades in our organization is collective revolutionary activities. Only by placing collective revolutionary activities above individual life, placing collective interests first and individual interests second, can we truly narrow and eliminate the “you and I” boundary among comrades, and realize unity within the revolutionary organization. What distinguishes us from the broad masses of workers, peasants, and workers is the way of life of petty-bourgeois people and that of the proletariat and peasant class. Only by participating in the three major social practices, going into workers and peasants’ labor and life, and establishing close ties with them can we reform ourselves among them, thereby realizing the great revolutionary unity between our revolutionary intellectuals and the masses of workers, peasants, and laboring people.\n\nComrades must not forget that, “A communist revolution is the most thorough break with all traditional relations of ownership; needless to say, in its course of development it must make the most thorough break with all traditional ideas.”\[⑩\] “Socialism is the announcement of continual revolution. It is the proletarian class dictatorship. This dictatorship is designed to eliminate all class differences, and all the relations of production that give rise to these differences; to eliminate all social relations that correspond to those relations of production, and bring about a transitional stage necessary for changing all the ideas that arise from these social relations.”\[⑪\]\n\nWhether within revolutionary organizations or throughout the whole society, we must consciously oppose all kinds of differences and the “you and I” boundary, and be promoters of eliminating the three big differences, the four ‘alls,’ and bourgeois legal power.\n\nTo rectify the problems of formalism and truly achieve unity of revolutionary ranks on the basis of ideological struggle and develop the revolutionary cause, Comrade Fenghuo also proposed practical solutions targeting the phenomenon of “loud thunder, but small rain” that appeared in our Association’s past ideological struggle. In the past, ideological struggle in the Association often fell into the situation of having more talk than concrete action, and afterward there was a lack of actual changes in action and effective supervision. Therefore, Comrade Fenghuo proposed: each subgroup’s activities should be carried out with ideological struggle as the core. In subgroup meetings, each comrade should take turns to report the daily activity situation. The reporting must be concise and to the point, centered on collective life. The main things to talk about are: your attitude toward collective work and your completion of tasks; your understanding of comrades’ ideological situations; and your understanding of the collective’s development. During this process, comrades fully carry out discussion, enhance mutual understanding, and conduct criticism and self-criticism regarding the erroneous thoughts and behaviors that exist in each individual. After this method was implemented, the results were immediate and obvious: each subgroup meeting exposed more new contradictions, resolved more new problems, and pushed the Association’s ideological struggle up to a higher stage.\n\nDuring this period, the bai-zhuan bureaucratism line within the Association was fully exposed, drawing the attention and widespread discussion of all comrades. The struggle around the problem of bai-zhuan bureaucratism is one of the most important class struggles for our Association in this period. As described earlier, bai-zhuan bureaucratism is the product of the dual effect of individualism and formalism within the Association at this period. It not only reinforces the tendency for revolutionary work to fall into formalism, splitting up the revolutionary ranks, but also causes serious consequences—seedlings of a newly emerging exploiting class growing inside our Association. Moreover, a portion of comrades in the Association have long recognized and accepted the bai-zhuan bureaucratism line, recognizing knowledge-privatization ideas and bourgeois hierarchy. Their class position has seriously deviated from the laboring people, sliding onto the dangerous road of betraying the revolution. Faced with such a situation, Comrade Fenghuo mobilized comrades to patiently persuade and educate those comrades who made these mistakes. During this process, he also made a penetrating analysis of the essence of these reactionary ideas, uprooting the root in our Association of worship of bai-zhuan, knowledge-privatization ideas, and hierarchy ideas.\n\nComrade Fenghuo sharply exposed: The essence of bai-zhuan bureaucratism is worship of the bourgeoisie and belittling the laboring masses. It advocates the lifestyle of the exploiting class, propagates the ideas of the exploiting class, and opposes the masses of the people’s creation of history. These ideas first amount to a thoroughly bourgeois hierarchical idea. It propagates worship of intellectuals, placing intellectuals above the people. In fact, it acknowledges that knowledge is privately owned—knowledge belongs to individuals as personal property—and it holds that intellectuals are omnipotent, while the laboring people are ignorant and stupid. The essence of these ideas is nothing more than acknowledging private ownership. It asserts that having knowledge means being moral, and not having knowledge means lacking morality. But knowledge belongs to individuals as personal property. In other words, owning private property is moral, and not owning private property is immoral. Isn’t that precisely the bourgeois logic that “money is morality”? The bourgeoisie claims that all their wealth comes from their own personal efforts in奋斗. They wrap their exploitative activities in the shell of supervising labor and managing labor, and they rationalize their exploitation proceeds. The bourgeoisie instills into people an idealist theory of genius, forcing them to believe that it is precisely because they possess superior abilities for management and supervision—that is, because they are born with exceptional talent—that they have obtained what they deserve, their wealth far surpassing that of ordinary people. Bai-zhuan bureaucratism, by replacing capital with knowledge, merely rationalizes exploitative and oppressive behavior.\n\nHolding onto the notion of private ownership of knowledge inevitably produces a tendency to detach from labor and an aversion to it, and further divides labor into “low-level labor” and “high-level labor,” acknowledging the reactionary Confucian order of “those who labor the mind govern; those who labor with their hands are governed.” This kind of thinking drives people to pursue the exploitative life of “work less, get more, exploit others,” to stand on the side of the reactionary camp of the bourgeoisie and its lackeys, and ultimately betray the revolution.\n\nIn this class society where there are differences between mental and manual labor, intellectuals are produced by laboring people’s blood and sweat—just as the bourgeoisie, as if it extracts laboring people’s blood and sweat and then possesses capital. Therefore, acknowledging private ownership of knowledge, like acknowledging private ownership of property, in fact maintains the existing capitalist system of exploitation.\n\nThe danger of this set of reactionary ideas is even greater within revolutionary organizations. We know that personal abilities are always limited; a person’s abilities are forged through practice and struggle. Detached from social practice and detached from the people, it is fundamentally impossible to possess any knowledge. But intellectuals have long engaged in individual, scattered mental labor. They easily come to believe that knowledge is the result of individual creation, and they cannot see the complete process of the movement of knowledge. They do not know that sensuous knowledge is the basis for rational knowledge. Thus, they erase the role of the laboring people. All old knowledge of old-style intellectuals comes from summarizing the practical experience of the laboring people, yet they take knowledge as capital and steal the people’s achievements. All new knowledge stemming from Marxism comes from the revolutionary practice of revolutionary organizations, and without exception it is collective wisdom. Yet some muddleheads forget that the Party and the people educate them. True understanding “from the inside” belongs to those who practice it. When promoting a bai-zhuan line within a revolutionary organization, it appears to be serving collective interests; in fact, it harms public interests and enriches private ones, turning collective wisdom into private property, attributing achievements to individuals, using these as capital to demand high prices from the Party. In reality, this is opposing the revolution, opposing collective interests, opposing Marxism, and opposing proletarian politics.\n\nAs Marxists, we must admit: world history is created by the people; all material wealth is created by the people; and all spiritual wealth is also created by the people. Any individual’s wisdom originates from the collective. The reason a collective leader has abilities that surpass those of the masses is purely because he has concentrated the collective’s interests—because it has combined the masses’ revolutionary experience and brought into play the masses’ collective wisdom, applying Marxist theory to practice.\n\nThe inevitable outcome of a bai-zhuan line that acknowledges private ownership of knowledge and individual genius is the re-creation within us of a newly emerging exploiting class. It is the re-creation of exploiters who take pleasure in possessing other people’s labor, who dislike labor and detach from the people, who consume collectively gathered blood and sweat materially, and in thought accept the collective’s education, who appropriate collective wisdom for themselves, steal others’ glory, and use this as capital to seize power—demanding high prices from the Party and the people—seriously damaging revolutionary interests and completely betraying the revolution.\n\nAfter Comrade Fenghuo thoroughly exposed and criticized the essence of bai-zhuan bureaucratism—especially after he broke down the knowledge-privatization ideas within the Association—comrades’ awareness has been raised. Many comrades have condemned knowledge-privatization and criticized bourgeois legal power. Many comrades who previously made the same kinds of mistakes have also reflected on their erroneous mentality regarding knowledge-privatization. They have once again emphasized collective education and cultivation of oneself, expressing a firm determination to safeguard collective interests. Many comrades whose thoughts had not yet turned over have also received widespread attention and continuous supervision from other comrades, and their ideological transformation is gradually taking place.\n\nIn summary, the development of the Association in this stage unfolded amid the contradictory motion of achievements and problems interweaving, and progress and setbacks repeating. In resolving the romantic outlook issue, opposing individualism and liberalism, opposing formalism, opposing bai-zhuan bureaucratism, and so on, we achieved important results—solving many old problems and exposing many new ones—while clarifying at a historical-materialist height the roots of all ideological problems. The restoration of revisionist trends is not the fault of a few individuals; it is the struggle process that an organization of revolutionary intellectuals with the petty-bourgeois as the main subject is necessarily bound to experience in order to persist in proletarianization and persist in continuing the revolution while surrounded by a vast ocean of capitalism.\n\nFacts have repeatedly proved: as soon as ideological struggle becomes lax, individualism and liberalism are bound to revive; as soon as collective life is weakened, bourgeois legal power is bound to expand; as soon as revolutionary discipline relaxes even slightly, formalism, the bai-zhuan line, and bureaucratism will certainly come back again. Conversely, whenever the Association insists on political command, insists on ideological struggle, insists on collective life, and insists on the mass line, the Association can restore its fighting spirit; comrades can get tempered; erroneous ideas can be exposed; and the revolutionary cause can be advanced.\n\nTherefore, we must clearly recognize: rectification is not a stage-by-stage “task”; it is a long-term revolutionary process. We must take ideological struggle as the center of all work in the Association. We must thoroughly criticize and discard the thinking that treats revolution as a “sideline,” and implement revolutionary principles into ways of life and organizational discipline. In the future, we must still put safeguarding against revisionism and fighting against revisionism as the first priority, constantly limiting and eliminating bourgeois legal power, and turning the sharp point of struggle against repeatedly emerging and extremely harmful problems such as individualism, liberalism, formalism, bureaucratism, and the romantic outlooks of the bourgeoisie and petty bourgeoisie. Moreover, we must rely closely on the strength of the collective, uphold the principle of democratic centralism, and realize a mass movement from the bottom up; carry out criticism and self-criticism; practice unity and mutual assistance among comrades; supervise and help one another; learn together; and improve together—turning ideological progress into reality.\n\nWe must see that although class struggle is extremely sharp and complex, the fundamental direction of the Association is correct. The wishes of the broad comrades to seek progress, to seek struggle, and to seek revolution are real and strong. As long as we persist in Marxist stands, persist in proletarian politics, persist in the mass line, and persist in continuing revolution, we will surely be able, through repeated struggles, to clear out the poison of revisionism, and forge the Association into a revolutionary force that is firm in politics, unified in thought, tight in organization, and tough in style—completing preparations for the establishment of the revolutionary proletarian party in China.\n\nThe future is bright, and the road is winding.**\n\nBut precisely along this winding road, in our stubborn struggle against all old ideas, old culture, old customs, and old habits, we will surely move step by step toward a truly proletarianization—and toward new victories!\n\n—\n\n\[①\] Mao Zedong: “A Letter to Jiang Qing,” Selected Documents of Mao Zedong Since the Founding of the State, Volume 12.\n\n\[②\] Stalin: “Victory Has Gone to Their Heads (On Several Problems Concerning the Collective Farm Movement),” Collected Works of Stalin, Volume 12.\n\n\[③\] Lenin: “The ‘Left’—Wing Infantilism of Communism,” Selected Works of Lenin, Volume 4, People’s Publishing House, 1972.\n\n\[④\] Lenin: “Two Tactics of Social-Democracy in the Democratic Revolution,” Collected Works of Lenin, Volume 9, first Chinese edition, People’s Publishing House, 1959.\n\n\[⑤\] Engels: The Origin of the Family, Private Property and the State, Selected Works of Marx and Engels, Volume 4, People’s Publishing House, 1972.\n\n\[⑥\] Marx: “Considerations by a Youth Choosing a Vocation,” Collected Works of Marx and Engels, Volume 1, Second Book.\n\n\[⑦\] Gorky: “Lenin,” Reminiscences of Lenin, China Youth Publishing House, 1957.\n\n\[⑧\] Lenin’s words, quoted from Stalin: “On Lenin,” Collected Works of Stalin, Volume 6.\n\n\[⑨\] Mao Zedong: “The May Fourth Movement,” Selected Works of Mao Zedong, Volume 2.\n\n\[⑩\] Marx and Engels: The Communist Manifesto, Selected Works of Marx and Engels, Volume 1, first Chinese edition, People’s Publishing House, 1972.\n\n\[⑪\] Marx: “The Class Struggles in France from 1848 to 1850,” Selected Works of Marx and Engels, Volume 1, People’s Publishing House, 1972.\n\n
