Benjamin Britton’s Reviews > Quotations from Chairman Mao Tsetung > Status Update

If today he integrates himself with the masses of workers and peasants, then today he is a revolutionary; if tomorrow he ceases to do so or turns round to oppress the common people, then he becomes a non-revolutionary or a counter-revolutionary.

It is wrong lightly to label people “opportunists” or lightly to begin “waging struggles” against them.

We Communists are like seeds and the people are like the soil.

If there were no contradictions in the Party and no ideological struggles to resolve them, the Party’s life would come to an end.

People who are liberals look upon the principles of Marxism as abstract dogma.

What are these people after? They are after fame and position and want to be in the limelight. Whenever they are put in charge of a branch of work, they assert their “independence”.

What we need is an enthusiastic but calm state of mind and intense but orderly work.

It is part of the art of leadership to take the whole situation into account and plan accordingly in the light of the historical conditions and existing circumstances of each locality, decide correctly on the centre of gravity and the sequence of the work for each period, steadfastly carry through the decision, and make sure that definite results are achieved.

The problem today, however, is that Rightist conservative thinking is still causing mischief in many spheres and preventing the work in these spheres from keeping pace with the development of the objective situation. The present problem is that many people consider it impossible to accomplish things which could be accomplished.

Often, correct knowledge can be arrived at only after many repetitions of the process leading from matter to consciousness and then back to matter, that is, leading from practice to knowledge and then back to practice. Such is the Marxist theory of knowledge, the dialectical materialist theory of knowledge.