Introduction to Mao Zedong's Ten Major Relationships | Generated by AI
Question: Give an introduction to 《论十大关系》 in English.
Answer:
On the Ten Major Relationships (Chinese: 《论十大关系》, pinyin: Lùn Shí Dà Guānxi) is one of the most important early theoretical works by Mao Zedong after the founding of the People’s Republic of China.
Basic Information
- Date: Delivered as a speech on April 25, 1956 at an enlarged meeting of the Politburo of the CPC Central Committee.
- Official publication: The text was first publicly released in 1976 (after Mao’s death) and later included in Volume 5 of Selected Works of Mao Zedong.
- Historical context: The speech came shortly after the 20th Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (1956), where Khrushchev criticized Stalin. China was in the process of completing socialist transformation (agriculture, handicrafts, and capitalist industry/commerce) and beginning large-scale socialist construction. Mao wanted to summarize China’s own experience and avoid mechanically copying the Soviet model.
Core Content and Significance
In the speech, Mao systematically discussed ten major contradictions/relationships that needed proper handling during socialist construction in China. The central idea is to correctly handle contradictions among the people, mobilize all positive factors, and explore a socialist road suited to China’s national conditions — different from the Soviet path.
The ten major relationships are:
- The relationship between heavy industry on the one hand and light industry and agriculture on the other
- The relationship between industry in the coastal regions and industry in the interior
- The relationship between economic construction and construction of national defense
- The relationship between the state, the units of production, and the individual producers
- The relationship between the central and local authorities
- The relationship between the Party and the non-Party personages (united front work)
- The relationship between revolution and counter-revolution
- The relationship between right and wrong (handling contradictions among the people)
- The relationship between China and other countries (mainly learning from foreign countries)
- The relationship between the Han nationality and the minority nationalities
Key Ideas and Influence
- Mao emphasized “walking on both legs” (using two methods simultaneously) rather than one-sided development — for example, developing both heavy and light industry, both coastal and inland areas, both central and local initiative.
- He advocated learning critically from the Soviet Union and other countries, but not copying blindly: “We must learn from the good experiences of foreign countries, and we must also learn from their bad experiences.”
- The speech is regarded as Mao’s first major attempt to outline a Chinese path to socialism, laying important ideological groundwork for later policies.
- It is frequently cited in official CPC documents as an early expression of “seeking truth from facts” and exploring socialism with Chinese characteristics.
Today, the work is still studied in China as part of Mao Zedong Thought and as an important document showing early efforts to combine Marxist principles with China’s concrete reality.
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