Page 237 - SELECTED WORKS OF DENG XIAOPING Volume III

WE SHALL SPEED UP REFORM 235
relations between the two parties and two countries will steadily improve.
China is now carrying out a reform. I am all in favour of that. There is
no other solution for us. After several decades of practice it turned out that
the old ways didn’t work. We used to copy foreign models mechanically,
which only hampered the development of our productive forces, induced
ideological rigidity and kept the people and grass-roots units from taking any
initiative. We made some mistakes of our own as well, such as the Great Leap
Forward and the “cultural revolution”, which were our own inventions. I
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would say that since 1957 our major mistakes have been “Left” ones. The
“cultural revolution” was an ultra-Left mistake. In fact, during the 20 years
from 1958 through 1978, China was hesitating, virtually at a standstill.
There was little economic growth and not much of a rise in the standard of
living. How could we go on like that without introducing reforms? So in
1978, at the Third Plenary Session of the Eleventh Central Committee, we
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formulated a new basic political line: to give first priority to the drive for
modernization and strive to develop the productive forces. In accordance
with that line, we drew up a series of new principles and policies, the major
ones being reform and the open policy. By reform we mean something
comprehensive, including reform of both the economic structure and the
political structure and corresponding changes in all other areas. By the open
policy we mean opening to all other countries, irrespective of their social
systems.
We introduced reform and the open policy first in the economic sphere,
beginning with the countryside. Why did we start there? Because that is
where 80 per cent of China’s population lives. An unstable situation in the
countryside would lead to an unstable political situation throughout the
country. If the peasants did not shake off poverty, it would mean that China
remained poor. Frankly, before the reform the majority of the peasants were
extremely poor, hardly able to afford enough food, clothing, shelter and
transportation. After the Third Plenary Session of the Eleventh Central
Committee, we decided to carry out rural reform, giving more decision-
making power to the peasants and the grass-roots units. By so doing we
immediately brought their initiative into play, and great changes took place.
By diversifying agriculture in accordance with local conditions, the peasants
have grown grain and cash crops in places suited to them and have
substantially increased the output of both.
The rural reform has achieved much faster results than we had antici-
pated. Of course, not everyone was in favour of reform at the outset. Two
provinces took the lead: Sichuan—my home province—and Anhui, led by
Comrade Wan Li. It was on the basis of the experience accumulated by
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