Initiating History and Important Role of the Party's Literature Work

WAN Jianwu
Institute of Chinese History, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, Beijing 100101, China

Abstract:
[Purpose/Significance] By reviewing the history of the Party's literature work led by Mao Zedong, this paper aims to deeply understand that this work constitutes an important component of the Party's ideological and theoretical construction, and to further strengthen the sense of responsibility and mission in archival and documentary work. [Method/Process] This study examines the Party's history during the Yan'an period, consults archival materials on Mao Zedong's compilation of Since the Sixth CPC National Congress and other documentary collections, particularly Hu Qiaomu's memoirs, and analyzes and summarizes the main functions, editing principles, and great significance of the Party's literature work. [Result/Conclusion] The Party's documents and archives truly record the Party's history, reflect its experiences, and scientifically explain its ideology, thus possessing special historical, political, and theoretical functions that play an irreplaceable role in the development of the Party and the state.

Keywords: Mao Zedong; Party Literature; Literature Editing; Since the Sixth CPC National Congress
Classification: D239
DOI: 10.31193/SSAP.J.ISSN.2096-6695.2021.03.01

Editing, researching, and publicizing the Party's literature represents crucial foundational work for strengthening the Party's ideological and theoretical construction. As General Secretary Xi Jinping has pointed out: "The Party's literature records the Party's history." He further emphasizes that "in the great practice of China's revolution, construction, and reform, our Party has led the people to create a glorious history and accumulated rich experience. This arduous journey requires detailed, abundant, coherent, and systematic documentary collections to record and reflect upon it" [1]. In carrying out Party history learning and education activities, and in deeply studying and understanding General Secretary Xi Jinping's important speech at the celebration of the 100th anniversary of the founding of the Communist Party of China—learning from history to create the future—the Party's literature work plays an irreplaceable role. Studying the history of Mao Zedong's leadership in pioneering the Party's literature work allows us to more profoundly understand the important mission undertaken by archival and documentary work in the development of the Party and the state from this unique perspective.

1. Why Mao Zedong Edited Since the Sixth CPC National Congress

Editing the Party's literature is not simply about collecting and organizing archival documents; rather, it involves systematically compiling relevant documents around specific themes for study, research, and use. The Communist Party of China began to conduct organized, systematic literature editing and closely integrated this work with the Party's ideological and political education starting from Mao Zedong's organization of the compilation of Since the Sixth CPC National Congress—Secret Party Documents and other documentary collections during the Yan'an period.

As the title Since the Sixth CPC National Congress indicates, this documentary collection primarily includes various archival documents and materials that record and reflect the central line, principles, and policies since the Party's Sixth National Congress. The Sixth National Congress of the Communist Party of China, held in 1928, took place under extremely harsh circumstances following the failure of the Great Revolution. The fact that this congress was held in Moscow, outside China's borders, demonstrates how severe the revolutionary situation was at the time. According to A Brief History of the Communist Party of China, the Sixth Congress criticized both the "rightist" Chen Duxiu-ism and the "leftist" putschism, leading to a noticeable improvement in China's revolutionary situation. However, because the Sixth Congress failed to thoroughly eliminate the "leftist" ideology that had emerged since the August 7th Conference, this "leftist" thinking later developed one-sidedly and expanded to extremes. Li Lisan's "leftist" adventurist errors and the "leftist" dogmatism represented mainly by Wang Ming subsequently gained dominant positions in the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China. Within the Party, the correct line represented by Mao Zedong stood in complete opposition to these "leftist" lines and waged resolute and arduous struggles against them. The Zunyi Conference held in January 1935 successfully ended the dominance of the "leftist" line in the Central Committee and saved the Party at its most critical moment. In October of that year, Mao Zedong led the First Front Red Army to northern Shaanxi, where they joined forces victoriously with the Shaanxi Red Army. In October 1936, the Second and Fourth Front Red Armies arrived in the Huining area of Gansu Province, joining forces with the First Front Red Army, thus concluding the 25,000-li Long March victoriously and turning the tide for the Chinese revolution.

Struggling against Wang Ming's "leftist" erroneous line was an important challenge Mao Zedong faced after arriving in Yan'an. During the Agrarian Revolutionary War period, the failures caused by Wang Ming's "leftist" errors inflicted tremendous losses on both the revolutionary base areas and the revolutionary forces in the White areas. This had been proven by bloody facts. Nevertheless, the Party had not yet formed a unified opinion on the nature of his errors, and some comrades even disagreed with characterizing the errors of the later Soviet period as line errors [2]. Wang Ming, already under criticism in Yan'an, still posed as the Party's theoretician and reprinted his pamphlet Struggle for the Further Bolshevization of the Communist Party of China, further disseminating his "leftist" erroneous views. In the preface to the third edition of this book, he wrote: "The facts recorded in this book represent a fairly important stage in the development history of the Communist Party of China. Therefore, many people need to understand these historical facts, especially when studying Party construction and the history of the Communist Party of China in various schools in Yan'an, where such materials are particularly needed" [3]. Wang Ming's book created a very negative influence within the Party. As Hu Qiaomu recalled: "This raised the question of what kind of person Wang Ming really was and whether what he did was right or wrong. To clarify this, we needed to settle historical accounts" [4].

How should we study and evaluate the Party's history? How should we view the right and wrong of historical lines? What constitutes the correct line and policies, and what constitutes erroneous ones? These sharp questions had been urgently placed before the entire Party. In response, Mao Zedong undertook extensive theoretical work aimed at establishing the correct attitude toward Marxism-Leninism, upholding seeking truth from facts, and opposing subjectivism and dogmatism. Facts speak louder than words. Using the Party's history and each individual's own revolutionary path to study, analyze, and judge what was correct and what was erroneous would be most convincing. Based on this, Mao Zedong proposed conducting in-depth research on the history of the Communist Party of China, systematically collecting historical materials of the Party, and first launching study sessions among senior Party cadres to raise their awareness of the line and then unify the entire Party's understanding. This proposal received approval from the Central Political Bureau. Starting from the second half of 1940, Mao Zedong personally organized the collection, editing, and research of important historical documents since the Party's Sixth National Congress. After more than a year of effort, Since the Sixth CPC National Congress was officially published in December 1941, becoming an important textbook for intra-Party study.

After the publication of Since the Sixth CPC National Congress, Mao Zedong's leadership in editing the Party's literature did not stop; instead, it continued to advance and deepen according to the needs of the Party's political and theoretical study. He subsequently edited two important documentary collections: Before the Sixth CPC National Congress and Two Lines. Before the Sixth CPC National Congress mainly includes important Party documents from the founding of the Party in 1921 to before the Sixth National Congress. Together with Since the Sixth CPC National Congress, this collection provides a relatively comprehensive reflection of the Party's history since its founding. After the publication of Since the Sixth CPC National Congress, a wave of studying and researching Party history swept across the entire Party. Many comrades proposed that the Central Committee should compile a documentary collection of documents before the Sixth Congress, similar to Since the Sixth CPC National Congress, starting from the Party's First National Congress. To meet everyone's study needs, Mao Zedong began organizing the compilation of Before the Sixth CPC National Congress in early 1942 [5]. Because there were very few intra-Party documents from this period, the collection mainly compiled signed articles by early Party leaders. Before the Sixth CPC National Congress includes 184 documents, arranged in chronological order, divided into two volumes: the first volume contains 121 documents, the second volume contains 63 documents, and there are also 4 documents in the "appendix" [5]. This documentary collection was published in Yan'an in October 1942.

Two Lines is a thematic documentary collection edited on the basis of Since the Sixth CPC National Congress and Before the Sixth CPC National Congress, focusing on collecting central documents and speeches and articles by Party leaders regarding the struggle between the two lines in various historical periods. Two Lines is divided into two volumes, including 131 documents, and was published in October 1943 [6]. After its publication, the distribution scope was very broad, with virtually all senior cadres in Yan'an and leading comrades in various base areas receiving copies. It effectively replaced Since the Sixth CPC National Congress as the main material for senior cadres' line study and played an important role in the later stage of the Yan'an Rectification Movement [7].

Looking back at this history, we can see that the most fundamental starting point for editing the Party's literature was to present the Party's history more clearly and completely through these documents, providing a historical basis for summarizing experiences. This is precisely what General Secretary Xi Jinping emphasized in his "July 1st" important speech about the role of "learning from history to create the future."

2. How Mao Zedong Led the Editing of Party Literature

Editing the Party's literature is not only highly political but also highly professional. Faced with a vast sea of documents and archives, carrying out this work is extremely challenging, requiring high political sensitivity, profound theoretical thinking, and rigorous and meticulous editing capabilities. Broadly speaking, two basic questions must be resolved: "what to edit" and "how to edit."

First is the question of "what to edit." This means clarifying the theme of the documentary collection and what problems it aims to solve. This is the most significant distinction between the Party's literature editing work and archival collection work. The theme of Since the Sixth CPC National Congress was to focus on the "struggle between two lines," to recognize the essence and crux of the erroneous line represented by Wang Ming through historical review and comparison, to strengthen confidence in the correct line represented by Mao Zedong, to summarize the experiences and lessons of the Chinese revolution, and to ensure the correct direction for the Chinese revolution's advance. Hu Qiaomu, who participated in editing Since the Sixth CPC National Congress and experienced the Yan'an Rectification period, explained this issue very thoroughly and clearly. He said: "At that time, no one had proposed that there existed a 'leftist' line in the Central Committee after the Fourth Plenary Session. Now, compiling these documents provides reliable evidence that some central leaders at that time had subjectivism and dogmatism. Some people were rendered speechless. Comparing Mao Zedong's struggle against the 'leftist' line with the two types of leadership made it clear that Mao Zedong indeed represented the correct line, thereby further consolidating his leadership position in the Party. Starting from Since the Sixth CPC National Congress, the Rectification Movement led to the study of Party history and the drafting of the resolution on Party history. Since the Sixth CPC National Congress became the basic weapon for the Party's rectification" [8].

After resolving the question of "what to edit," the next step is "how to edit." This can be roughly divided into three steps.

The first step is to organize specialized institutions responsible for editing. Editing the Party's literature is a major political task, not something that any individual or department can undertake at will, nor can it be done arbitrarily. According to Hu Qiaomu's recollection, the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China decided to compile and print Since the Sixth CPC National Congress at a Central Committee meeting in August-September 1941. "Chairman Mao suggested compiling the historical documents since the Sixth Congress, which he was reviewing for the Seventh Congress, into a volume for senior cadres to study and research Party history. The meeting agreed with Chairman Mao's suggestion" [8]. According to the division of labor by the Central Committee, this work was initially the responsibility of Ren Bishi, but the collection of documents did not proceed smoothly. Later, the Central Political Bureau meeting decided that Chen Yun, Wang Ming, Wang Jiaxiang, Zhang Wentian, Deng Fa, and others would separately take charge of collecting relevant documents. As members of the Political Bureau, they were very busy with work and could not actually attend to this task. Therefore, the Central Committee decided to transfer the responsibility for collecting documents to the Central Secretariat, with Mao Zedong responsible for supervision and review. Thus, Mao Zedong began to personally lead the editing work of Since the Sixth CPC National Congress.

It was from that time that our Party made it clear that editing important Party documents, especially the works of the Party's main leaders, must be approved by the Central Committee and assigned to specialized institutions. After the founding of the People's Republic of China, the Central Committee decided to establish the "Editorial and Publishing Committee for Chairman Mao Zedong's Works of the CPC Central Committee" to specifically take charge of editing and publishing Selected Works of Mao Zedong. After the reform and opening up, the Central Committee decided to establish the "Central Committee for Document Editing" and its daily working body, the "Central Document Research Office," to ensure high-quality completion of the Party's literature editing work. On March 21, 2018, the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China issued the Plan for Deepening the Reform of Party and State Institutions, which included an important reform measure: integrating the responsibilities of the Party History Research Office, the Central Document Research Office, and the Central Compilation and Translation Bureau to form the Central Institute of Party History and Literature, with editing and publishing important Party documents as one of its important responsibilities.

The second step is to collect and sort archival documents and materials. This is the foundation of editing the Party's literature. When editing Since the Sixth CPC National Congress, this work progressed with great difficulty. During the period from the Party's Sixth Congress to 1941, central organs were relocated multiple times, and many documents were destroyed or lost during the Long March, making collection extremely challenging. At that time, there were five main channels for collecting historical materials: first, documents brought from the Central Soviet Area to Yan'an; second, manuscripts preserved by Mao Zedong himself; third, searching in Party newspapers and periodicals of the time; fourth, transferring a batch of documents from the Central Document Repository established in Shanghai; and fifth, searching in Kuomintang newspapers, periodicals, and books. The first four channels yielded limited documentary materials; ironically, many documents from the Party's history were discovered in a set of Compilation of Red Bandit Reactionary Documents edited by the Kuomintang for anti-communist purposes.

Documents collected through various channels, especially important Party resolutions, orders, and directives, required careful screening and verification. The documents in the Compilation of Red Bandit Reactionary Documents were particularly difficult to authenticate and required individual examination to see if they had been tampered with by the enemy. Mao Zedong personally checked the proofs of every manuscript included in Since the Sixth CPC National Congress, revised the titles of some manuscripts, and wrote explanatory notes for others. For example, after the title Central Committee Resolution on Opposing the Enemy's Fifth "Encirclement and Suppression" Campaign, he added in parentheses the words "Zunyi Conference Resolution," making the background and content of the document immediately clear from its title. This work alone took a full seven months.

The third step is to classify and edit documents according to themes. The theme and editing principles of Since the Sixth CPC National Congress were determined by the Central Committee: to collect and sort important documents since the Party's Sixth Congress according to eight topics—political issues, organizational issues, military issues, anti-espionage issues, workers' movement, youth movement, women's movement, and propaganda and education—divided into two volumes. Mao Zedong classified and edited the collected documents using a method combining topics and chronological order, and also compiled a "chronological catalog."

Among the eight topics of Since the Sixth CPC National Congress, "political issues" reflects the general line, principles, and policies of the Party during this period and constitutes the main body of the documentary collection, forming the main content of the first volume. The other topics reflect various aspects of the Party's work during this period and constitute the main content of the second volume. The "political issues" section includes 333 documents, with the opening piece being the Resolution of the Sixth National Congress of the Communist Party of China dated July 9, 1928. Through these documents, one can clearly see how the "leftist" erroneous line represented mainly by Wang Ming formed and developed on the basis of previous "leftist" errors and brought serious harm to the Chinese revolution, and how the Chinese Communists represented mainly by Mao Zedong continuously summarized and explored the practical experience and objective laws of the Chinese revolution in the struggle against the "leftist" erroneous line, gradually forming a correct line.

Since the Sixth CPC National Congress was published in two versions: a complete collection and a selected collection. The complete collection includes 519 Party documents from the Sixth National Congress to November 1941, totaling approximately 2.8 million words, covering Party meeting minutes, resolutions, announcements, statements, telegrams, directives, as well as Party newspaper editorials, articles, and letters by main leaders [5]. The complete collection was only distributed to major units such as central ministries, central bureaus, the military commission, and military sub-districts, not to individuals. The selected collection was streamlined by Mao Zedong from the complete collection to facilitate cadre study and research, including 86 documents [5]. The selected collection was distributed to both units and individuals, but individual distribution was limited to senior Party cadres. The selected collection was only published once in Yan'an and was never reprinted. The complete collection was revised and republished twice in April 1952 and February 1980 by the General Office of the Central Committee and the Central Archives respectively, for internal distribution.

This history fully demonstrates that Mao Zedong was the pioneer of the Party's literature work. The important work of editing the Party's literature was first proposed by Mao Zedong and approved by the Central Committee, and was carried out under his personal leadership. Many of the guiding principles, basic requirements, and stylistic norms for the Party's literature editing work were established by Mao Zedong at that time and continue to be used to this day.

3. The Important Role Played by Documentary Collections Such as Since the Sixth CPC National Congress

After the publication of Since the Sixth CPC National Congress, Before the Sixth CPC National Congress, and Two Lines, they caused tremendous repercussions within the Party and became the main teaching materials for the entire Party's study during the Yan'an Rectification Movement. In Mao Zedong's words: "After comrades read them, they suddenly saw the light and were inspired in their thinking" [9]. The words "suddenly saw the light" and "inspired thinking" very vividly, authentically, and profoundly reflect the important political role these three documentary collections played at that time.

First, they clarified the Party's history and became important teaching materials for Party history study. Attaching great importance to studying Party history was an important task Mao Zedong put forward to the entire Party during the Yan'an period. He profoundly pointed out that the road was walked step by step, and when taking each step, one must consider how yesterday was walked and how tomorrow should be walked. "If we do not clarify the Party's history and the road the Party has taken in history, we cannot do things better." "If we do not study the development of the Communist Party of China's history, the Party's ideological struggles and political struggles, our research will not yield results." "We must study which were past successes and victories, and which were failures, so that the overturned cart in front can serve as a warning to the carts behind." "This is necessary for studying today's line and policies, strengthening intra-Party education, and advancing work in all areas" [9]. Mao Zedong believed that after the publication of Since the Sixth CPC National Congress, it played this important role very well. The entire Party, especially senior cadres, began to study seriously. "This is a good thing, and today we are beginning to see good results," and the whole Party set off an upsurge in studying Party history.

Second, they clarified the Party's correct political line and played a role in setting things right and returning to the original source. Speaking out clearly about politics is a distinctive feature of Marxist political parties and a prominent characteristic and advantage of the Communist Party of China. After the Communist Party of China arrived in Yan'an, it faced many theoretical confusions and practical challenges regarding political direction that required answers from historical review. Mao Zedong profoundly pointed out: "How should we build our Party today? How can we build a 'nationwide, mass-based, ideologically, politically, and organizationally fully consolidated Bolshevik-style Communist Party of China'?" "Solving this problem cannot be separated from our Party's history, from our Party's eighteen-year history of struggle" [10]. However, the reality was that the Communist Party of China had not yet conducted systematic and thorough research on its own history. After the publication of Since the Sixth CPC National Congress, Before the Sixth CPC National Congress, and Two Lines, they provided conditions for the entire Party, especially senior cadres, to deeply contemplate this issue. From a political and historical height, the entire Party began to systematically review and analyze the "development path of the Chinese revolution and the Communist Party of China" [11], to correctly understand various erroneous viewpoints both inside and outside the Party, and to profoundly summarize the experiences and laws of the Communist Party of China's leadership in revolution, promoting the Communist Party of China to rapidly mature from its infancy.

Third, they established a scientific attitude toward Marxism and the ideological line of seeking truth from facts. Marxism is the fundamental guiding ideology of the Communist Party of China and the soul and banner of the Party. General Secretary Xi Jinping pointed out in his "July 1st" important speech: "Learning from history to create the future, we must continue to advance the sinicization of Marxism." The key is to establish a scientific attitude toward Marxism, adhere to the integration of the basic principles of Marxism with China's specific realities and with China's excellent traditional culture, and continuously advance the sinicization and modernization of Marxism. Fundamentally speaking, Mao Zedong's editing of Since the Sixth CPC National Congress and other documentary collections was precisely aimed at helping the entire Party form a correct attitude toward Marxism-Leninism by summarizing the historical lessons of the Chinese revolution, seeing through the dogmatic essence of Wang Ming's "leftist" erroneous line. At the Sixth Plenary Session of the Sixth Central Committee, Mao Zedong solemnly put forward the theoretical task of "making Marxism concrete in China," emphasizing that the theories of Marx, Engels, Lenin, and Stalin should not be regarded as dogmas but as guides to action, and that we should learn their positions and methods for observing and solving problems. He had already anticipated that this understanding might not be widely accepted within the Party, so he particularly emphasized in his speech that this was a "major problem that urgently needs to be solved and must be focused on to be solved." The method to solve this ideological problem was to study the Party's history. He pointed out: "I hope that after this plenary session of the Central Committee, we will launch a study competition throughout the Party to see who has truly learned something, who has learned more, and who has learned better." "If our Party has 100 to 200 comrades who have systematically rather than fragmentarily, and practically rather than emptily learned Marxism-Leninism, it will greatly enhance our Party's combat effectiveness" [12].

Through studying Since the Sixth CPC National Congress, Before the Sixth CPC National Congress, and Two Lines, and on the basis of in-depth research into Party history, the Party gradually established the ideological line of seeking truth from facts and formed a scientific attitude toward Marxism. With such a cognitive foundation and this scientific spirit, the entire Party's thinking broke free from the shackles of dogmatism, used the Marxist standpoint, viewpoint, and method to study and solve China's own revolutionary problems, and ultimately achieved the first leap in the sinicization of Marxism by establishing Mao Zedong Thought.

Fourth, they achieved high-level ideological unity throughout the Party and promoted the establishment of Mao Zedong's core leadership position in the entire Party. Documentary collections such as Since the Sixth CPC National Congress played the role of a "basic weapon" in the rectification movement, enabling the entire Party to reach consensus on the major political issue of the struggle between two lines. If this problem could not be fundamentally solved and it was unclear which line was correct and which was erroneous, achieving ideological unity within the Party would become empty talk. After studying and researching Party history, the entire Party, especially senior cadres, developed a comprehensive evaluation of Mao Zedong, recognizing that he represented the correct line within the Party and also recognizing the true nature of various erroneous lines.

This cognitive formation underwent a transformation process that advanced continuously with the successive publication of the three documentary collections. After the publication of Since the Sixth CPC National Congress, the understanding of senior Party cadres began to change. Mao Zedong said: "In May 1941, I delivered the report 'Reform Our Study' with no effect. After June, the Party book (referring to Since the Sixth CPC National Congress—author's note) was compiled. Once the Party book came out, many comrades were disarmed, making it possible to hold the September Conference" [13]. The "September Conference" refers to the enlarged meeting of the Central Political Bureau of the Communist Party of China held from September 10 to October 22, 1941. This was an extremely important meeting for the Communist Party of China during its preparation for the rectification movement. The Central Committee distributed Since the Sixth CPC National Congress, edited under Mao Zedong's supervision, to the participating comrades, asking them to read carefully and conduct comparative analysis in combination with reality to see what was right and what was wrong. This meeting enabled the Party's leadership to basically reach consensus on the fundamental issue of opposing subjectivism and sectarianism. Mao Zedong later evaluated: "The September Conference was crucial; otherwise, I would not have dared to go to the Party School to report on rectification, and my books such as Rural Investigations could not have been published," and "the rectification would not have been possible" [14].

After two years of study, especially after the publication of Two Lines, the entire Party's cognitive orientation underwent fundamental changes. Particularly among senior Party cadres, they thoroughly saw through the essence and harm of Wang Ming's erroneous line from its ideological roots and strengthened their political trust and support for Mao Zedong. At the "September Conference" of 1943, this cognitive issue was basically resolved at the senior level of the Party. Zhu De's Chronology records Zhu De's speech on October 6, focusing on his study experience [15]. He sharply pointed out that the essence of Wang Ming's erroneous line was dogmatism, which seriously deviated from China's reality. He stated: "Through study and objective examination of those documents, some issues become easier to understand. Wang Ming's dogmatism is now clearly evident; they only knew foreign countries, not the Central Committee. We also need foreign countries and China—starting from actual conditions is correct, starting from dogmas is wrong. Empiricists understand little theory and naturally become captives of dogmatism." In his speech, he explicitly expressed support for Mao Zedong, believing that "Mao Zedong works in a down-to-earth manner, has courage and ability, and can always come up with solutions when encountering difficulties. He can persist in acting according to actual conditions even when others oppose him. At the same time, he has read no fewer books than others, but he can understand them thoroughly and integrate theory with practice. Practice has proven that with Mao Zedong's leadership, all aspects have developed; by following Mao Zedong's methods, the Chinese revolution is certain to achieve victory. In this study session, each of us must learn a set of skills, mainly learning Mao Zedong's way of doing things."

Lin Boqu, one of the "Five Elders in the Party" with high prestige in the Communist Party of China, stated in his speech that Wang Ming was a "foreign communist" who quoted many words of Marx, Engels, Lenin, and Stalin to bully us "native communists." He was a "foreign imperial envoy" who rigidly applied foreign experience to guide the Chinese revolution, which was a tactic of neo-Chen Duxiu-ism [16].

Zhou Enlai, who had participated in and presided over the work of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China since the Sixth Congress, profoundly pointed out in his speech the extreme harm of Wang Ming's line errors, while also strongly expressing his trust and support for Mao Zedong based on his own experience. He said: "The Party's 22-year history proves that only Comrade Zedong's opinions run through the entire historical period and have developed into a line of Marxism-Leninism sinicized, that is, the line of Chinese communism. Comrade Mao Zedong's direction is the direction of the Communist Party of China." "The line that Comrade Mao Zedong's thought runs through is the line of Chinese Bolshevism" [17].

The high evaluation and firm support for Mao Zedong and the correct line he represented by senior Party cadres such as Zhou Enlai and Zhu De represented the voice of the vast majority within the Party. This cognitive transformation was crucial and very important, representing an important achievement of the Yan'an Rectification Movement. This fully demonstrates that after the struggle against the "leftist" erroneous line, the entire Party's thinking finally achieved unity, laying a solid political foundation for the subsequent adoption of the Resolution on Certain Questions in the History of Our Party at the Seventh Plenary Session of the Sixth Central Committee, for the correct evaluation and analysis of Party history, for the formal establishment of Mao Zedong Thought as the guiding ideology at the Seventh National Congress of the Communist Party of China, and for the clear establishment of Mao Zedong's core leadership position in the Party and the formation of core consciousness.

The successful experience of editing, researching, and using documentary collections such as Since the Sixth CPC National Congress in the Yan'an Rectification Movement demonstrates that the Party's literature work possesses special historical, political, and theoretical functions and plays an irreplaceable role in Party construction, particularly in ideological and theoretical construction.

History serves as a mirror illuminating a thousand generations, while literature preserves truth for ten thousand generations. The Party's literature editing work is historically and inevitably linked to studying and researching Party history, summarizing Party experiences, advancing the sinicization and modernization of Marxism, and strengthening the Party's self-construction. The Communist Party of China's century-long history of unremitting struggle, sacrifice, theoretical exploration, benefiting the people, and self-construction is all condensed and frozen in the Party's literature. The Communist Party of China's scientific understanding and summary of experience regarding the laws of communist party governance, socialist construction, and human social development are all concentrated and contained in the Party's literature. The Communist Party of China's original aspiration and mission, its spiritual genealogy, and its basic theories, lines, and strategies are all centrally reflected in the Party's literature. Alongside the development of socialism with Chinese characteristics in the new era and facing the new journey toward achieving the second centenary goal, the Party's literature work will undoubtedly continue to play an irreplaceable role in writing history, enlightening the present, and heralding the future.

References

[1] XI Jinping. Speech at the symposium on the publication of Selected Important Documents of the Party Since Its Founding (1921-1949) (June 16, 2011) [J]. Party Literature, 2011(5): 3.

[2] JIN Chongji. Biography of Mao Zedong (1893-1949) [M]. Beijing: Central Party Literature Press, 2004: 128.

[3] CHEN Shaoyu. Struggle for the Further Bolshevization of the Communist Party of China [M]. Beijing: Reproduced by the Chinese Revolutionary History Teaching and Research Office of Peking University, 1957: 1.

[4] HU Qiaomu. Hu Qiaomu's Recollections of Mao Zedong [M]. Beijing: People's Publishing House, 1994: 45.

[5] Editorial Group for Hu Qiaomu's Biography. Biography of Hu Qiaomu: Volume I [M]. Beijing: People's Publishing House, 2015: 60.

[6] Ibid., 61.

[7] PANG Xianzhi. Chronology of Mao Zedong (1893-1949): Volume II [M]. Beijing: Central Party Literature Press, 2013: 478.

[8] Same as [4], 48.

[9] MAO Zedong. Selected Works of Mao Zedong: Volume II [M]. Beijing: People's Publishing House, 1993: 399.

[10] MAO Zedong. Selected Works of Mao Zedong: Volume II [M]. Beijing: People's Publishing House, 1991: 603.

[11] Ibid., 604.

[12] Ibid., 533.

[13] Same as [2], 655.

[14] Same as [2], 659.

[15] Central Party Literature Research Office. Chronology of Zhu De (1886-1976) [M]. New edition. Beijing: Central Party Literature Press, 2006: 1142-1143.

[16] Same as [4], 284-285.

[17] Central Party Literature Research Office. Chronology of Zhou Enlai (1898-1949) [M]. Revised edition. Beijing: Central Party Literature Press, 1998: 572-573.