To indulge in personal attacks, pick quarrels, vent personal spite
or seek revenge instead of entering into an argument and struggling against
incorrect views for the sake of unity or progress or getting the work done
properly. This is a fifth type.
To hear incorrect views without rebutting them and even to hear
counter-revolutionary remarks without reporting them, but instead to take them
calmly as if nothing had happened. This is a sixth type.
To be among the masses and fail to conduct propaganda and
agitation or speak at meetings or conduct investigations and inquiries among
them, and instead to be indifferent to them and show no concern for their
well-being, forgetting that one is a Communist and behaving as if one were an
ordinary non-Communist. This is a seventh type.
To see someone harming the interests of the masses and yet not
feel indignant, or dissuade or stop him or reason with him, but to allow him to
continue. This is an eighth type.
To work half-heartedly without a definite plan or direction; to
work perfunctorily and muddle along--"So long as one remains a monk, one
goes on tolling the bell." This is a ninth type.
To regard oneself as having rendered great service to the
revolution, to pride oneself on being a veteran, to disdain minor assignments
while being quite unequal to major tasks, to be slipshod in work and slack in
study. This is a tenth type.
To be aware of one's own mistakes and yet make no attempt to
correct them, taking a liberal attitude towards oneself. This is an eleventh
type.
We could name more. But these eleven are the principal types.
They are all manifestations of liberalism.
Liberalism is extremely harmful in a revolutionary collective. It
is a corrosive which eats away unity, undermines cohesion, causes apathy and
creates dissension. It robs the revolutionary ranks of compact organization and
strict discipline, prevents policies from being carried through and alienates
the Party organizations from the masses which the Party leads. It is an
extremely bad tendency.
Liberalism stems from petty-bourgeois selfishness, it places
personal interests first and the interests of the revolution second, and this
gives rise to ideological, political and organizational liberalism.
People who are liberals look upon the principles of Marxism as
abstract dogma. They approve of Marxism, but are not prepared to practice it or
to practice it in full; they are not prepared to replace their liberalism by
Marxism. These people have their Marxism, but they have their liberalism as
well--they talk Marxism but practice liberalism; they apply Marxism to others
but liberalism to themselves. They keep both kinds of goods in stock and find a
use for each. This is how the minds of certain people work.
