Fifty Years of Reflection - A Chronicle of the 8th National Congress of the CCP - Memories of Eyewitnesses

Author: Yang Shengqun
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2006-09-01
Features: On September 15th, the Eight Greats opened grandly in the newly completed Great Hall of the National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference. Mao Zedong delivered the opening speech, where he pointed out: "The main task of this conference is to sum up the experience since the seventh conference, to unite the entire Party, and to unite all possible forces at home and abroad in order to strive for building a great socialist China." In his opening speech, Mao Zedong also spoke of the profound saying, "Humility leads to progress, while arrogance leads to decline," leaving a deep impression. Subsequently, the conference heard the political report by Liu Shaoqi, the report by Zhou Enlai on the proposal for the second five-year plan for national economic development, and the report by Deng Xiaoping on the revision of the Party Constitution.
The Central Committee of the Party summarized the historical experience of our Party since the seventh conference in the,, the establishment of New China, the socialist transformation, and the socialist construction. It pointed out that the main contradiction in the current stage of our country is "the contradiction between the people's urgent need for rapid economic and cultural development and the current situation where economic and cultural development cannot meet the people's needs." It proposed that the current main task of the Party and the people is to concentrate efforts to resolve this contradiction and transform our country from a backward agricultural nation into an advanced industrial nation as soon as possible. The line formulated by the Eight Greats was correct, as it aligned with the conditions of China, fully reflected the Party's and people's will, and was unanimously supported and adopted by the attending delegates. Unfortunately, the correct line decided by the Eight Greats was not fully implemented later.
The new Party Constitution stipulated that the National Congress of the Party should be held on a regular basis, with a term of five years. According to the regulations, a national conference should be held once a year. However, in fact, after the second session of the Eight Greats was held in May 1958, no further sessions were held. It was precisely at the second session of the Eight Greats that Mao Zedong spoke four times. He said: "The political report of the Eight Greats is good, but the analysis of the main social contradiction at home is wrong. The main contradiction in the current stage should still be the contradiction between the working class and the bourgeoisie, and the contradiction between socialism and capitalism." This changed the correct analysis of the class relations in our society and the correct conclusion about the main social contradiction at the first session of the Eight Greats, leading the Party's guiding ideology to deviate "leftward" and causing it to gradually drift away from the spirit of the Eight Greats.
On the afternoon of September 17th, the Eight Greats held the third plenary session. The meeting entered the first session of the conference speeches. First, Dong Biwu delivered the report on the review of the qualifications of the delegates, followed by speeches from 10 delegates, including Zhu De, Li Jingquan, and others. Among these 10 speaking delegates, there was me. My speech draft was prepared in advance by the Revolutionary Committee of the Liangshan Autonomous Prefecture. After arriving in Beijing, the provincial leadership, including Li Jingquan, Liao Zhigao, and Yan Hongyan, further revised and finalized the speech draft. When the executive chairperson of the conference asked me to speak, I was deeply moved.