Volume 1, No. 5, July 2000

In my recent study of Chairman Mao’s important instruction on the question of theory, I got a deeper understanding of the importance of cadres adhering to the May 7 road. On the basis of my personal experience of being tempered in a May 7 cadre school, I realized that it is an important base for training and educating cadres. Running the May 7 cadre schools well is indeed an important measure for combating and preventing revisionism and consolidating the dictatorship of the proletariat. Vast numbers of cadres going down to do manual labour and study again is conducive to restricting bourgeois right, criticizing the ideology of bourgeois right, resisting corrosion by bourgeois ideas and preventing Party members and personnel of state and other organs from taking to the bourgeois style of life.

For a long time I did not make enough conscious efforts to remould my world outlook and had an indifferent attitude towards the May 7 cadre schools. Since I had done farm work in my childhood and was a mason for many years, I used to consider myself a cadre of worker-peasant origin and blindly believed there was no need for me to go in for ideological remoulding. However, I changed my attitude after I had tempered myself for a period in a cadre school.

Immediately after I entered the cadre school, the leadership made me leader of a pig-raising squad. Relying on my past experience I thought there would be no difficulty for me to lead the squad well. But problems arose after a few days. Many of our squad members were young comrades, active and full of energy, and I was not accustomed to living together with them. I also felt it was not easy to lead them. I thought: "In my own unit I was a leading member, but I’m an ordinary student in the cadre school. In dealing with problems it might be useless if I said something vaguely. If I expressed my opinion strongly, they might not listen. What should I do? If they were to quarrel with me how could a leading cadre like myself keep my face?" In such difficult circumstances I thought it was harder for me to be a squad leader than a vice-chairman of the revolutionary committee in my office. This brought out a problem in the hidden recesses of my mind, namely, I had always considered myself a leader giving orders, and I regarded myself as being above the masses and not one of them. Wasn’t this exactly a reflection of the ideology of bourgeois right in my mind?

As a result of studying works by Marx, Engels, Lenin and Stalin and Chairman Mao’s works while taking part in physical labour I have gained a new understanding of such bourgeois ideas as seeking fame and position long implanted in my mind. I began paying attention to overcoming them and remoulding my world outlook. I kept questioning myself and looking for where I lagged behind ideologically. For instance, why wasn’t I accustomed to living together with young comrades? All the other comrades did things like transporting coal, fetching water and cleaning and sweeping, but why couldn’t I take an active part too? Linking these with changes in my thinking and feeling, I traced the reasons to my world outlook. When I was a mason, I lived in a dormitory with other comrades. We worked together during the day and fetched water, swept the floor and did all sorts of things in the evening. We talked and laughed and I never felt ill at ease with that kind of life. Now conditions in the cadre school were much better than in those days. Why should I feel unaccustomed and out of place? I tried to find the reason and finally realized that it was because I had put on bureaucratic airs after becoming a leading cadre and had become detached from the masses in thinking and feeling and style of life. I realized this could lead me to a dangerous point unless I made conscious efforts to remould my world outlook.

Chairman Mao has taught us: "We Communists seek not official posts, but revolution. Everyone of us must be a thoroughgoing revolutionary in spirit and we must never for a moment divorce ourselves from the masses." I made up my mind to do away with my airs, integrate with the masses, do a good job together with the young comrades in raising pigs and remould my world outlook through practical work. I took the initiative to be in close touch with the young comrades and learn from their good points. When there were grubby and heavy jobs, I always took an active part. And when we were together, we talked about work and what was on our minds, and our relations became increasingly close. Instead of feeling uneasy in the presence of the young comrades, I have established a deep friendship with them. Educated in this process, I have thrown my bureaucratic airs overboard, added to my vigour and improved my style of work.

I have gained much through study and tempering in the May 7 cadre school. One of the major ones is that I have begun paying attention to criticizing the hierarchy concept arising from bourgeois right, resisting corruption by bourgeois ideas and making conscious efforts to remould my world outlook.

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