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32 Shanghai Revolutionary Rebel Organizations Issue “Urgent Notice”

[This article is reprinted from Peking Review, Vol. 10, #4, Jan. 20,
1967, pp. 7-9. Thanks are due to the WWW.WENGEWANG.ORG
web site for some of the work done for this posting.]

THE Shanghai Workers‘ Revolutionary Rebel General Headquarters and 31 other revolutionary rebel organizations issued an “Urgent Notice” in the Shanghai Wenhui Bao and Jiefang Ribao on January 9, following the publication of the “Message to All Shanghai People” earlier by 11 Shanghai revolutionary rebel organizations.

Both the Shanghai newspapers printed this quotation from Chairman Mao Tse-tung alongside the Notice: “We should support whatever the enemy opposes and oppose whatever the enemy supports” and wrote introductory editorial notes.

The Wenhui Bao editorial note states:

We fully support the ten-point proposal contained in the “Urgent Notice.” We hope that all revolutionary rebels of the city will implement this ten-point proposal conscientiously.

At present, the spread of economist thinking is a question which deserves serious attention. This is a new counter-attack launched by the bourgeois reactionary line against the proletarian revolutionary line. Within the Shanghai Municipal Committee of the Chinese Communist Party, both the handful of persons in authority who are taking the capitalist road and the extremely small number of persons who obstinately cling to the bourgeois reactionary line have begun to collapse politically. It is inevitable that they should launch a new attack from the economic angle. This new attack is aimed directly at the proletarian headquarters and at the policy of “taking firm hold of the revolution and promoting production” put forward by Chairman Mao. We must most resolutely repulse this latest counter-attack launched by the bourgeois reactionary line.

Any act that disrupts production, sabotages slate finances and undermines the great cultural revolution is counter-revolutionary. Masses of the revolutionary rebels and revolutionary workers and staff members, go into action to fully implement the policy of “taking firm hold of the revolution and promoting production”! Expose the latest schemes of the handful of persons in authority who are taking the capitalist road and those who obstinately follow the bourgeois reactionary line within the Shanghai Municipal Party Committee, while remaining fast at your posts of production and construction and undertaking to do productive work well so as to seize a double victory in the cultural revolution and in production!

The Jiefang Ribao editorial note states:

Following the issue of the “Message to All Shanghai People,” the Shanghai Workers‘ Revolutionary Rebel General Headquarters and other revolutionary rebel organizations have issued an “Urgent Notice.” This Notice is extremely important. We give it our firmest support. It points out a current serious problem in the great proletarian cultural revolution: both the handful of persons in authority who are taking the capitalist road and the extremely small number of persons who obstinately cling to the bourgeois reactionary line within the Shanghai Municipal Party Committee are now playing new tricks in order to undermine the great proletarian cultural revolution. They are doing so to counter Chairman Mao‘s revolutionary line and the policy of “taking firm hold of the revolution and promoting production” which he put forward. They are attempting vainly to use material incentives to corrupt the revolutionary will of the masses. The comrades of the revolutionary rebel groups and the masses of revolutionary people promptly saw through this big plot and have smashed it. This is another great victory for Mao Tse-tung‘s thought!

Economism and material incentives are outright counter-revolutionary revisionist wares. The masses of revolutionary people who are armed with Mao Tse-tung‘s thought firmly reject such rubbish. They fully understand that the great proletarian cultural revolution aims precisely to destroy what is bourgeois and establish what is proletarian, to eradicate self-interest and foster devotion to the public interest, to transform people to the core of their being, to revolutionize people‘s thinking, so as to eliminate the source of revisionism and consolidate and develop the socialist system. The ten-point proposal contained in the “Urgent Notice” expresses precisely the common will of the revolutionary masses, and represents the highest interests of the proletariat. It once again deals a heavy blow at the latest counter-attack by the bourgeois reactionary line. All departments concerned must firmly and seriously carry it out.

The text of the “Urgent Notice” follows:

AT present, when the great proletarian cultural revolution in Shanghai is entering the moment of decisive battle between the two lines, when the Shanghai Municipal Party Committee, which stubbornly clings to the bourgeois reactionary line, is being defeated, the handful of persons in the Party who are in authority and are taking the capitalist road are once again hatching new schemes. Colluding with the capitalist forces in society, they are making use of economic benefits to divert the general orientation of the struggle and to incite one group of people against another, causing breakdowns in factory production and railway and road traffic. They have even incited dockers to stop work, causing difficulties in running the port and damaging the international prestige of China. They are making free with the state‘s money and property, arbitrarily increasing wages and material benefits, and granting all kinds of allowances and subsidies without limit, stirring people up to take over public buildings by force. These are the latest forms under which the Shanghai Municipal Party Committee perseveres in carrying out the bourgeois reactionary line.

In resorting to such base and treacherous means, the handful of persons in the Party who are in authority and are taking the capitalist road aim at none other than: (1) Setting themselves against Chairman Mao and the Party‘s Central Committee, and putting pressure on the Cultural Revolution Group under the Party‘s Central Committee, by sabotaging production, interrupting communications and jeopardizing the national economy and the livelihood of the people, to attain their purpose of undermining the great proletarian cultural revolution; 2) Making use of economic benefits to divert the general orientation of the struggle in the attempt to turn the serious political struggle into an economic struggle, and at the same time to corrupt the revolutionary will of the masses by material gains, and to promote peaceful evolution and allow bourgeois ideas to run riot.

We hereby solemnly warn the Shanghai Municipal Party Committee that no schemes aimed at shifting the line of struggle through disrupting production, interrupting communications and increasing wages and material benefits will ever succeed. The revolutionary rebels who are armed with Mao Tse-tung‘s thought firmly expose this conspiracy and resolutely repulse the attacks by the bourgeois reactionary trend of thought. We must firmly implement the policy of “taking firm hold of the revolution and promoting production” put forward by Chairman Mao and, on the one hand, take an active part in the great proletarian cultural revolution while on the other hand remain fast at our posts of production and construction, persist in the eight-hour workday, strive to fulfil and overfulfil production plans, and do our best to turn out high quality products. We believe that the masses of revolutionary workers have a high sense of political responsibility towards their great socialist motherland; they will certainly be able to put the public interest at the fore, and, proceeding from the overall interests of the state, correctly handle the questions mentioned above and seize a double victory in the cultural revolution and in production.

In order swiftly to retrieve the grave situation in social production created by the Shanghai Municipal Party Committee, we appeal to comrades-in-arms of the revolutionary rebel groups of the whole city:

1. The workers, functionaries and students of revolutionary rebel groups must firmly carry through Chairman Mao‘s instruction of “taking firm hold of the revolution and promoting production,” take an active part in the great cultural revolution, and, at the same time, remain fast at their production posts and set an example in “taking firm hold of the revolution and promoting production.”

2. They should appeal to all revolutionary rebels throughout the country to take prompt action to persuade those workers, functionaries, staff members of enterprises, and apprentices from Shanghai who are exchanging revolutionary experience in other parts of the country to return to Shanghai immediately, so that the great cultural revolution in their own units can proceed effectively and the 1967 production plans can be overfulfilled.

3. All certificates authorizing people to leave and exchange revolutionary experience in other parts of the country issued in the past by those in authority in the various organizations and enterprises are declared null and void on the day this document is published. These persons in authority should be made responsible for the return (by instalments if necessary) of the big sums of money to cover exchanges of experience (excluding transport fares) they issued.

4. Apart from necessary expenditure on production, wages, the cultural revolution, office administration and for other appropriate purposes, the circulating funds of all government offices, organizations and enterprises should be frozen as from the day of the publication of this document. This should be effected by the financial organizations at the municipal level and at all other levels under the joint supervision of the revolutionary rebel groups and the revolutionary masses, so as to ensure that the economy of the state will not suffer losses (this does not apply to personal savings accounts).

5. To avoid shifting the general orientation of the struggle, matters related to the readjustment of wages, back payment of wages and material benefits, shall in principle be dealt with at a later stage of the movement. (Special cases shall be handled otherwise after asking the central authorities for instructions.)

6. The integration of students with workers and peasants is the inevitable road by which the students will transform their world outlook and carry to success the great cultural revolution. In order to stir up dissatisfaction among the workers against the students, to sabotage the integration of the students with the workers and to practise “peaceful evolution” among the students, some persons in authority have gone to the length of paying the students relatively high wages for labour. This is entirely a revisionist practice, and should be stopped as from the day this notice is published.

7. All public buildings and houses confiscated from capitalists are the property of the whole people, and shall be handled in a unified way by the state at a later stage of the movement. No one is allowed to seize public buildings by force. After investigation, offenders shall be punished by the Public Security Bureau. Those who incite citizens to seize public buildings shall be dealt with by law in accordance with the gravity of the offence. Those who have moved into houses seized by force must move back to their original lodgings within one week.

8. Strengthen the dictatorship of the proletariat. Those who oppose Chairman Mao, Vice-Chairman Lin Piao, the Party Central Committee‘s Cultural Revolution Group, and those who undermine the great cultural revolution or sabotage production, shall be immediately arrested by the Public Security Bureau in accordance with the law. Those who in the course of the movement undermine social order, beat people up or commit atrocities, commit robbery or larceny must be dealt with by law in accordance with the gravity of the offence; stolen goods must be returned immediately. Those who repeat such offences or after repeated education, refuse to turn over a new leaf, shall be severely punished.

9. The rebel organizations of various units and the revolutionary masses of the city are expected immediately to carry out the above points, and set in motion all organs of propaganda to publicize them and educate the masses.

10. The Municipal Party Committee and the Public Security Bureau are enjoined to act upon the above points. Those who act against the above points shall, after investigations, be immediately punished on charges of undermining the great cultural revolution.

January 9, 1967
(Hsinhua News Agency, Jan. 11)

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