ficulties. To persuade them remains our current policy and requires us to engage in direct dialogue with them. The last time our delegation visited the Soviet Union, [we] openly talked about some [controversial] issues. I told Comrade Zhou Enlai over the phone that, as those people are blinded by lust for gain, the best way to deal with them is to give them a tongue-lashing. What is [their] asset? It involves nothing more than 50 million tons of steel, 400 million tons of coal, and 80 million tons of oil. How much does this count? It does not count for a thing. With this asset, however, their heads have gotten really big. How can they be Communists [by being so cocky]? How can they be Marxists? Let me stress, even ten times or a hundred times bigger, these things do not count for a thing. They have achieved nothing but digging a few things out of the earth, turning them into steel, thereby manufacturing some airplanes and automobiles. This is nothing to be proud of! They, however, turn these [achievements] into huge burdens on their back and hardly care about revolutionary principles. If this cannot be described as being blinded by lust for gain, what else could this be? Taking the office of the first secretary can also become a source for being blinded by lust for gain, making it easy for one to be out of one's mind. Whenever one is out of his mind, there must be a way to bring him back to his senses. This time Comrade [Zhou] Enlai no longer maintained a modest attitude but quarreled with them and, of course, they argued back. This is a correct attitude, because it is always better to make every [controversial] issue clear face to face. As much as they intend to influence us, we want to influence them too. However, we did not unveil everything this time, because we must save some magic weapons [in reserve]. Conflict will always exist. All we hope for at present is to avoid major clashes so as to seek common ground while reserving differences. Let these differences be dealt with in the future. Should they stick to the current path, one day, we will have to expose everything.
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As for us, our external propaganda must not contain any exaggeration. In the future, we shall always remain cautious and modest, and shall tightly tuck our tails between our legs. We still need to learn from the Soviet Union. However, we shall learn from them rather selectively: only accept the good stuff, while at the same avoiding picking up the bad stuff. There is a way to deal with the bad stuff, that is, we shall not learn from it. As long as we are aware of their mistakes, [we] can avoid committing the same mistakes. We, however, must learn from anything that is useful to us and, at the same time, we must grasp useful things all over the world. One ought to seek knowledge in all parts of the world. It would be monotonous if one only sticks to one place to receive education.
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Source: Zhonghua renmin gongheguo waijiaobu and Zhonggong zhongyang wenxian yanjiusuo, eds.,
Mao Zedong waijiao wenxuan
[Selected Mao Zedong works on foreign affairs] (Beijing: Zhongyang wenxian, 1994), 280-3.
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