The publication of the Communique of the Enlarged 12th Plenary Session of the Eighth Central Committee of the Communist Party of China has given the greatest inspiration to the working class, the poor and lower-middle peasants, the commanders and fighters of the People's Liberation Army, the revolutionary cadres, the revolutionary Red Guards, the revolutionary intellectuals, and the broad masses of the revolutionary people of all nationalities throughout China. They voiced their firm support for the Plenary Session's decision to convene the Ninth National Congress of the Communist Party of China at an appropriate time.; They gave firm support to the session's resolution to expel the renegade, traitor and scab Liu Shao-chi from the Party once and for all, to dismiss him from all posts both inside and outside the Party and to continue to settle accounts with him and his accomplices for their crimes in betraying the Party and the country. They expressed firm support for the session's serious criticism and repudiation of the "adverse February current" of 1967 and of the sinister trend last spring to reverse the correct verdict on the "adverse February current." They declared that they would resolutely implement the various great calls issued by the session, unite even more closely around the proletarian headquarters with Chairman Mao as its leader and Vice-Chairman Lin Piao as its deputy leader, closely follow the great leader Chairman Mao and courageously march forward, and seize all-round victory in the great proletarian cultural revolution.

News of the publication of the communique, like the powerful East Wind, has swiftly swept across the length and breadth of the motherland. With profound proletarian class sentiments of boundless loyalty to the great leader Chairman Mao, armymen and civilians in their hundreds of millions have, in the past few days, held big mass rallies and celebration demonstrations enthusiastically hailing the victorious convening of the session, the publication of its communique and the great and decisive victory that has been won in the great proletarian cultural revolution personally initiated and led by Chairman Mao.

In the big and medium-sized cities where the revolutionary committees of the various provinces, municipalities and autonomous regions are located, over 20 million armymen and civilians gathered joyously in the streets and on the squares to acclaim the publication of the communique. In the capital Peking, in Shanghai and Tientsin, celebration rallies and parades were held by armymen and civilians numbering from over one million to five million and more. In Shenyang, Wuhan, Sian, Chungking, and Foochow on the coastal defence front, crowds of 400,000 to 500,000 each streamed through the streets hailing the publication of the communique. In Lhasa on the Tibetan Plateau, 50,000 people of various nationalities held a torchlight celebration parade. In Nanchang, Sining, Chengtu, Changsha and Huhehot, rallies and demonstrations of from over 100,000 to 500,000 armymen and civilians each were held despite rain or snow. In other big and medium-sized cities, too, parades of from over 100,000 to several hundred thousand people were held. When the happy news reached China's vast countryside, the hundreds of millions of poor and lower-middle peasants were exultant. Many old people holding their grandchildren by the hand and women carrying their babies on their backs gathered around the loudspeakers in the villages and at the sides of the fields to listen again and again to the communique of the 12th Plenary Session of the Eighth Central Committee of the Party.

The whole People's Liberation Army was jubilant. Big celebration rallies and demonstrations were held in the past few days by the various General Departments of the P.L.A., the Science and Technology Commission for National Defence, the General Office of National Defence Industry, the headquarters of the various services and arms of the P.L.A. and the leading departments of the P.L.A. Peking Command.

Responsible comrades of various units and departments and veteran Red Army fighters who followed Chairman Mao in fighting on many fronts north and south during the past several decades marched alongside P.L.A. commanders and fighters cheering again and again "Long live Chairman Mao! A long, long life to him!" Carrying huge portraits of Chairman Mao, they marched on to the Tien An Men Square and to the headquarters of the Party Central Committee to express their loyalty to the great leader Chairman Mao.

P.L.A. commanders and fighters stationed at the outposts in the border regions and on the coastal defence fronts, in the revolutionary spirit of "seizing the day, seizing the hour," hastened to spread the happy news to the revolutionary masses. Commanders and fighters of a frontier cavalry guard unit stationed in Heilungkiang copied down the communique from radio broadcasts and then taking the script along with them, rode post-haste to bring it to the mountain villages of the Olunchun people. Commanders and fighters of a unit stationed on an offshore island immediately sailed out to the neighbouring islands to spread the news to the fishermen's families, visiting each in turn.

The great leader Chairman Mao points out: "The current great proletarian cultural revolution is absolutely necessary and most timely for consolidating the dictatorship of the proletariat, preventing capitalist restoration and building socialism." Reviewing with feelings of boundless happiness the militant course of the great proletarian cultural revolution over the past two years and more, the masses of revolutionary people said: The great proletarian cultural revolution personally initiated and led by Chairman Mao has utterly smashed the bourgeois headquarters represented by Liu Shao-chi, shattered its criminal plots to restore capitalism, and very greatly strengthened the dictatorship of the proletariat. This is a great victory for Mao Tse-tung's thought and a great victory for Chairman Mao's proletarian revolutionary line. The communique of this Plenary Session relays the latest instructions of the great leader Chairman Mao, deeply analyses the current excellent situation at home and abroad, sums up the great revolutionary practice since the 11th Plenary Session of the Eighth Central Committee of the Party in a scientific, comprehensive and incisive way, and charts the course for the whole Party, the whole army and the people of the whole country to win all-round victory in the great proletarian cultural revolution. Revolutionary workers of the Peking General Knitwear Mill declared with enthusiasm: The communique is a document calling on the people of the whole country to carry on the fight for seizing all-round victory in the great proletarian cultural revolution; it is an order mobilizing the people of the whole nation to start a new upsurge of struggle-criticism-transformation; it is a verdict declaring the complete bankruptcy of Liu Shao-chi's counter-revolutionary plot and the counter-revolutionary revisionist line pushed by him; the communique is a beacon guiding the people of the whole country to advance with mighty strides along Chairman Mao's revolutionary line; it is a spiritual atom bomb which greatly enhances the morale of the proletariat and deflates the arrogance of the bourgeoisie.

In their study of the communique of the Plenary Session and their discussions, the broad masses of Communist Party members, industrial workers, poor and lower-middle peasants and the revolutionary people all pledged to achieve new successes to greet the convening of the Ninth National Congress of the Communist Party of China. The industrial workers were elated to hear the glad news that the 12th Plenary Session of the Eighth Central Committee of the Party had decided to convene the Ninth National Congress of the Party at an appropriate time. Worker comrades declared that Chairman Mao and the proletarian headquarters with Chairman Mao as its leader and Vice-Chairman Lin as its deputy leader best understood their wishes and that they pledged their firm support for the decision of the Party Central Committee.

Revolutionary people in various places unanimously and with elation pointed out that the expulsion of the renegade, traitor and scab Liu Shao-chi from the Party once and for all was a great victory of the great proletarian cultural revolution. Revolutionary workers of the Peking No. 1 Rolling Mill said: Chairman Mao and the Party Central Committee headed by him best understand our feelings, best represent our working class demands, and their hearts always beat as one with ours. It is a real satisfaction to expel that big scoundrel Liu Shao-chi from the Party once and for all! The poor and lower-middle peasants of the Maoshengsi brigade on the outskirts of Sining, Chinghai Province, said: The renegade, traitor and scab Liu Shao-chi is the deadly enemy of all of us poor and lower-middle peasants. His expulsion from the Party gives us deep satisfaction! With the deepest revolutionary indignation, the revolutionary masses in many places held meetings to vigorously criticize and repudiate Liu Shao-chi's counterrevolutionary crimes. The revolutionary masses in various places also firmly supported the serious criticism and repudiation made by the Plenary Session against the "adverse February current" of 1967 and the sinister trend last spring to reverse the correct verdict on the "adverse February current." They all agreed that, precisely as the communique pointed out, the shattering of the "adverse February current" was an important victory for Chairman Mao's proletarian revolutionary line in smashing the bourgeois reactionary line.

Workers, peasants and soldiers and other revolutionary people declared: The great leader Chairman Mao will always be our supreme commander, and the proletarian headquarters with Chairman Mao as its leader and Vice-Chairman Lin as its deputy leader will always be the one and only leading centre of our whole Party, whole army and whole country. They said that they resolutely responded to all the great calls issued by the Plenary Session, and that they would firmly implement Chairman Mao's teaching that the working class must exercise leadership in everything, establish the dictatorship of the proletariat in the superstructure, including all spheres of culture, and fulfil the tasks in all stages of struggle-criticism-transformation as put forward by Chairman Mao. They pledged to further bring about a new high tide in the creative study and application of

Mao Tse-tung's thought, and use Mao Tse-tung's thought to unify their thinking and co-ordinate their steps and actions, and energetically grasp revolution and promote production so as to make outstanding achievements in honour of the Ninth National Congress of the Party.

Revolutionary people and P.L.A. commanders and fighters throughout the country also declared that they would resolutely respond to the great militant call issued by the 12th Plenary Session expressing firm determination to liberate Taiwan, strengthen their preparedness against war and heighten their vigilance a hundredfold. Should the enemy dare to impose war on us, they said, we will follow Chairman Mao's teaching to wipe him out resolutely, thoroughly, wholly and completely.