2. We must be good at carrying forward Marxism-Leninism and Mao Zedong Thought in the light of the new historical conditions.

We have obtained great successes in revolution and construction in the past under the guidance of Marxism-Leninism and Mao Zedong Thought. We will obtain new and greater successes in our long march into the future by relying on Marxism-Leninism and Mao Zedong Thought for guidance. If we Communists have any family heirlooms to speak of, by far the most important one is Marxism-Leninism and Mao Zedong Thought. It has always been our basic and unshakable principle to uphold Marxism-Leninism and Mao Zedong Thought and persist in taking the tenets of Marxism as our guideline.

Marxism is the crystallization of scientific thinking on proletarian revolution; it is our most powerful weapon for understanding and transforming the objective world. Its tenets are truths that have been repeatedly verified in practice. However, it does not embrace all the truths in the unending course of human history, nor can it possibly do so. Fdr us revolutionaries, the theory of Marxism is the guide to action and by no means a rigid dogma to be followed unthinkingly. All revolutionaries true to Marxism have the responsibility to ensure that it does not become divorced from social life and does not stagnate, wither or ossify; they must enrich it with fresh revolutionary experiences so that it will remain full of vitality. Therefore, our fundamental approach to Marxism is that we should apply and advance Marxism-Leninism and Mao Zedong Thought; such is our unshirkable historical duty as Chinese Communists. This is not easy of course. It requires us to make an arduous, lifelong effort to achieve a better integration of the tenets of Marxism with the concrete practice of China's socialist modernization.

We must continue to apply ourselves to the study and investigation of the history of the Chinese revolution. For the China of today has grown out of the China of yesterday, a China about which we know, not too much, but too little. We should especially study present-day China because our efforts to create a radiant future must first of all be based on a comparatively correct understanding of the present. And the trouble is that we don't know much; in fact we still know very little, about Chinese realities today and the objective laws governing the building of socialism.

Our cause is an integral whole and has a single goal. Yet, ours is a vast country with extremely diverse conditions. Therefore our study and understanding of the overall situation and of the situation in different regions must be closely co-ordinated. If we overlook the whole and disregard uniformity, we shall make the mistake of acting blindly and thoughtlessly and with no consideration for the whole in directing the work in specific regions. If we ignore the regions' specific conditions in directing the work of the whole country, we shall make the mistake of being guided by our own conjectures and fancies which may have no relation to reality. We Chinese Communists should be revolutionaries who are at once far-sighted and realistic in our approach.

We lay stress on self-reliance and strive to solve our problems by our own efforts and treasure our own experience. But we must never be conceited and underrate the experience of others. We should through analysis absorb whatever is useful in others' experience and lessons. We must therefore earnestly study and analyse the experience of other countries, other regions and other people while studying and summing up our own.

The integration of the universal truth of Marxism with Chinese reality is a long process of repeated cycles of practice, knowledge, again practice and again knowledge. In the new historical period, we should emancipate our minds and constantly identify and grapple with the new conditions and problems in our practice and thus equip ourselves with rich, varied and living perceptual knowledge. At the same time, we must set our minds to work and learn more social and natural sciences and their methods in order to raise perceptual knowledge to the plane of rational knowledge, logical knowledge that is more or less systematic, and verify it again and again in practice. We must therefore study diligently, learn from specialists and heed differing views and opinions and, at the same time, delve deep into reality and carry out thorough, systematic investigation and study so as to successfully synthesize our direct and indirect experience.

So long as we proceed in study and work in accordance with this stand, viewpoint and method, we shall be able to put all our Party work on a scientific foundation, make discoveries and function creatively for socialist modernization, thus ensuring the triumphant advance of our great cause.