I. Holding High and Defending The Great Banner of Chairman Mao

The draft of the revised Party Constitution records the monumental contributions of our great leader and teacher Chairman Mao in the General Programme which includes the sentence, "The banner of Chairman Mao is the great banner guiding our Party to victory through united struggle." This reflects the common wish of the whole Party, the whole army and the people of all nationalities.

Chairman Mao was the great founder of the Chinese Communist Party, the Chinese People's Liberation Army and the People's Republic of China. Through 28 years of revolutionary struggles and wars, he led the whole Party, the whole army and the people of all nationalities in overthrowing the reactionary rule of imperialism, feudalism and bureaucrat-capitalism, winning complete victory in the new-democratic revolution and founding the People's Republic of China, a state of the dictatorship of the proletariat. He then went on to lead us, through fierce and complex struggles between the proletariat and the bourgeoisie and through the unparalleled Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution, in scoring tremendous victories in the socialist revolution and construction and transforming China from a poor, backward semi-colonial and semi-feudal country into a socialist state with the beginnings of prosperity. Having summed up the experience of the dictatorship of the proletariat, international as well as domestic and negative as well as positive, Chairman Mao, with the courage and vision of a proletarian revolutionary, personally initiated and led the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution and boldly aroused the masses openly to expose and repudiate Party persons in power taking the capitalist road. This political revolution spelt the doom of the three bourgeois headquarters of Liu Shao-chi, Lin Piao and the Wang-Chang-Chiang-Yao "gang of four," disseminated Marxism-Leninism-Mao Tsetung Thought on an unprecedented scale, very much heightened the consciousness of the cadres and the masses concerning class struggle, the two-line struggle and the continued revolution, consolidated and strengthened the dictatorship of the proletariat and promoted China's socialist cause.

This political revolution has shattered the fond dream of restoring capitalism in China entertained by imperialism and social-imperialism, prevented the tragedy of capitalist restoration in the Soviet Union from being repeated in our country, and provided fresh experience for the proletarian revolution and the dictatorship of the proletariat; it has thus immensely inspired Marxists and revolutionary people the world over.

Chairman Mao was the greatest Marxist-Leninist of our time. Integrating the universal truth of Marxism-Leninism with the concrete practice of the revolution, Chairman Mao inherited, defended and developed Marxism-Leninism in the realms of philosophy, political economy and scientific socialism in the course of struggles against imperialism and the domestic reactionary classes, against Right and "Left" opportunist lines within the Party and against modern revisionism with the Soviet revisionist renegade clique as its centre. His theory of the new-democratic revolution has blazed a new trail for the liberation of oppressed nations and people throughout the world. His theory of continuing the revolution under the dictatorship of the proletariat charts the true road for consolidating the dictatorship of the proletariat, preventing capitalist restoration and building socialism; this is his greatest contribution to Marxism in the period of the socialist revolution and construction.

Chairman Mao's monumental contributions will stand for ever in the annals of the Chinese people's revolution and the revolution of the people of the world. The banner of Chairman Mao is a banner of revolution, a banner of victory. To hold high and defend Chairman Mao's banner is vital not only to the success of the revolutionary cause in China but also to the common destiny of the people of the world. The draft of the revised Party Constitution clearly stipulates: "The whole Party must always hold high and resolutely defend the great banner of Marxism-Leninism-Mao Tsetung Thought and ensure that our Party's cause will continue to advance triumphantly along the Marxist line."