Page 103 - SELECTED WORKS OF DENG XIAOPING Volume Ⅰ

SPEECH AT MOBILIZATION MEETING 99

should first and foremost examine yourself to see whether or not you have
weaknesses in your thinking and what they are before you become determined
to remould yourself. In the past some comrades came to the Party School for
the purpose of listening to reports, but they were wrong there. One should
understand that rectification requires one’s own painstaking effort. Only
when one has unbounded revolutionary enthusiasm and a sense of responsi­
bility to the Party can one be open-minded and possess the mettle to reveal
one’s weaknesses and rectify one’s way of thinking. Anyone who does not
have the resolve to do so or, being reluctant to make public his mistakes,
intends to correct them only in private can absolutely not succeed in
rectifying his thinking. Some comrades who attended the previous term of
the Party School did just that, coming to grief themselves and harming the
Party.
Second, each of you should have the courage to help others in the
movement. This is the correct attitude for us to adopt towards the Party and
other comrades. We should have a spirit of both self-criticism and criticism
of others and oppose the vulgar liberalistic attitude of the petty bourgeoisie.
The rectification movement conducted during the previous term of the Party
School shows that some comrades in southern Hebei had many weaknesses,
but because they criticized themselves and each other frankly, they achieved
a great deal. In contrast, because they lacked this spirit, some comrades in
the Taihang area did not achieve such good results. Of course, criticism is
aimed at helping comrades or, in other words, curing the sickness to save the
patient, so we should be particularly open-minded in accepting criticism from
others as a piece of advice for self-examination. Even if other people only
give their impressions of us, that is still of value.
Third, rectification should be linked to the checking of your work. This
means integrating theory with practice. Checking on your work here does
not mean a special summary of your work; that can only be done when
rectification is over. The purpose of conducting the present rectification in
connection with the check on work is to make it easier for you to straighten
out your thinking. At the outset of rectification in the previous term of the
school, some comrades made a point of generally checking on their work,
thus evading the cutting edge of the rectification movement. You should also
watch out for this practice.
Fourth, during rectification you may feel weighed down with a heavy
load mentally. When a comrade places truth in conflict with his personal
interests, lacks the courage to be frank and lay bear his weaknesses and is
overwhelmed by misgivings, especially when being helped and criticized by
others, he is bound to feel depressed. In that case you should go a long way