"On the Correct Handling of Contradictions Among the People"

In 1956, new problems and new trends were becoming apparent in China and in the international situation. To gain a correct understanding of and properly address the conflicts and challenges facing Chinese society was a major issue for the CPC Central Committee headed by Mao Zedong.

At the Supreme State Conference in February 1957, Mao Zedong delivered a speech entitled "On the Correct Handling of Contradictions Among the People." He pointed out: Socialist society is also full of contradictions, and the basic contradictions are still those between the relations of production and the productive forces and between the superstructure and the economic base. But they are fundamentally different in character and have different features from the contradictions in the old societies. These contradictions can be constantly resolved through the self-readjustment and improvement of the socialist system itself.

He also pointed out: In a socialist society, there exist two types of social contradiction – those between ourselves and the enemy and those among the people. The two are totally different in nature. The former should be resolved through methods of coercion and dictatorship, while the latter can only be resolved through democratic methods, persuasion and the formula of "unity-criticism-unity." We should never handle contradictions among the people with methods used to resolve contradictions between ourselves and the enemy.

Mao's speech summarized the experience in building socialism, analyzed the new problems emerging after socialist transformation was basically completed, proposed a method of differentiating two contradictions different in nature and a means of handling these, and expounded on the contradictions in a socialist society. This added important value to the theory of scientific socialism.

《關于正確處理人民內部矛盾的問題》

1956年，國際社會和中國國內都出現了一些新的矛盾和動向。正確認識和處理中國社會主義社會的各種矛盾，成為以毛澤東為核心的中共中央著重思考的重大課題。1957年2月，毛澤東在最高國務會議上發表《關于正確處理人民內部矛盾的問題》的講話，指出社會主義社會充滿著矛盾，社會主義社會的基本矛盾仍然是生產力和生產關系、經濟基礎和上層建筑之間的矛盾，不過社會主義社會的這些矛盾同舊社會的這些矛盾具有根本不同的性質和情況，可以通過社會主義制度本身的自我調整和完善，不斷地得到解決。毛澤東還指出，社會主義社會存在著敵我之間和人民內部兩類性質根本不同的矛盾，前者需要用強制的、專政的方法去解決，后者只能用民主的、說服教育的方法，即“團結―批評―團結”的方法去解決，決不能用解決敵我矛盾的方法解決人民內部的矛盾。

《關于正確處理人民內部矛盾的問題》總結了社會主義事業發展中的歷史經驗，研究回答了中國社會主義改造基本完成后出現的新問題，提出了嚴格區分兩類不同性質矛盾、正確處理人民內部矛盾的理論，科學闡明了社會主義社會的矛盾問題，是對科學社會主義理論的重要發展，具有重大的理論和實踐意義。