Develop A Standard Criticism And Self-Criticism That Is
Based On Proper Reasons And Proper Evidence. By Com. Fu Che-Yang.
We must be reasonable, concrete and honest when we are making criticism and self criticism. We must not think that we lose reputation. We must forget it. We must not allow the idea whom we are criticizing to enter our mind. ‘Like every tree will have an outer layer, all would have a dignity’- this is an old saying. It is related to the philosophy of old social relations. The proletariat is an open-hearted and genuine class. It is a class that acts frankly. It strives to grasp the truth from the matters. Com Mao taught us that “we must cut off the tail i.e. mistakes with no hesitation what so ever”. Our comrades must not flatter and flaunt themselves. Admitting your mistakes does not mean that you are totally rotten. You will only gain, not lose and will not be harmed by admitting the mistakes and by informing the same in your militant group and your closer group. Not only you will not lose your dignity because of this, but your “dignity” and prestige would grow. Your relation with people would grow stronger with an open hearted admission of your mistakes. Therefore, it is a fact that the people would welcome the open heartedness.
A comrade who tries absolutely to conceal his mistakes or who tries to argue that he has committed no mistakes or who excludes himself from the mistakes will ultimately alienate himself from the people. The people would get dissatisfied by these comrades. They lose confidence in him. His credibility among the people will get destroyed.One must not adopt a fickle minded and irresponsible attitude towards criticism and self criticism. He must not take a middle road. He must not adopt an attitude of a spectator. As against all this, we must adopt a definite attitude. We must keep in mind the well being of all the comrades and the entire group. So the comrades who are committing the mistakes are having the tendencies harmful to the revolutionary aim.
Therefore, this is a question that concerns all. The attitude of ‘why should I be bothered about the mistakes of others’ is totally wrong. His mistakes will not harm him alone. They are harmful to the collective and the entire group. The comrades must develop self criticism. They must pay attention to the criticism of collective team. Comrades must not differentiate the mistakes of their own from the mistakes of others. A comrade showing the tolerance towards the mistakes of others means he is destroying those comrades. Similarly, if one shows lenience towards his own mistakes, it means he is committing suicide in terms of ideas. Supporting the mistakes or tolerating the mistakes only amounts to adding one mistake to other mistake and patronizing the mistakes.
What type of mistakes the comrades must be saved from committing and what are to be ignored? The questions can be dealt only by upholding principle? A larger interest of the working class is our guiding principle. Party objectives, Party policies, Party path and people’s well being alone are our best guiding principle. We can benefit from the criticism and self criticism only by upholding this principle. We can find proper solutions for the problems only by following this way. Small things like those concerning the daily routine i.e. why a particular person brushes his teeth four times a day? Why a particular woman tied her hair in such a way? Why that man talks so loudly? The things such as this which have no relation what so ever to the principles are not fit for team’s criticism. These things must not be raised to the level of principle.
What happens if we concentrate only on the mistakes of the comrade, do not recognize of refuse to recognize the good qualities in him and if we portray him as totally bad? What happens is, firstly, he will not be able to admit even a small particle of the criticism, irrespective of the nature of our criticism. Our criticism becomes bitter for him. Not only this, we would be creating a feeling in him that he is good for nothing. Dissatisfaction and despair would develop in him. What we should do? Does it mean that we must go on listing out his good qualities every time before we criticize his mistakes? No. Then, what is its meaning? It means we must also keep in mind his good qualities while criticizing his weaknesses. We must not confine our criticism and self criticism to those comrades who have committed more mistakes. It means, we must also apply our criticism and self criticism to those who have committed fewer mistakes.
A good comrade is rarely criticized as compared to the comrade who has committed more mistakes. Because of this, carelessness and arrogance would develop in that comrade. So the comrade must occasionally be warned. It saves him from falling prey to arrogance. The criticism and self criticism is a process that must be taken part by everyone with no exception.The comrades must not be emotional while making criticism and self criticism. They must realists and good natured. They must be rational in their criticism. They must be elaborative. They must not make discriminatory, thoughtless and slanderous accusations. It means the criticism and self criticism must be in proportion to the mistakes. Some would attribute certain trends and attach labels to others. It is a consequence of not knowing the things in all their aspects, subjectivism and narrowness.
The persons coming from a petty bourgeoisie class origin would often do not show the farsightedness. While making a criticism, one must be able to differentiate what is principal and what is non principal in a thing. They must be able to identify what is a mistake committed consciously and what is the mistake committed unconsciously. This is most important. We can make others to accept our criticisms happily and unconditionally only when we search and grasp the truth from the things. We must also show him the way to overcome the mistakes. The objective of our criticism must be to help the comrade to ge rid off the influences of the feudal or petty bourgeoisie ideas and imbibe him with the proletarian ideology and communist ideas.
The criticism must be aimed at criticizing the unwanted tendencies in a comrade, helping him to overcome them and make him to work better in the future. Wrong tendencies in a comrade are our enemy. Our struggle, therefore, is not against him as a person but against his mistaken ideas.One needs courage to make the self criticism. One must also need courage to criticize others. Some comrades carry on the battle fearlessly in the battle field. They would be ready to sacrifice their lives. But they cannot hold the weapon of self criticism. They shiver. Some comrades try to be always in the forefront in work. They would be challenging others to compete with them. But when they required to make self criticism, they would hide somewhere behind. Instead of cleaning the dirt in them, they would conceal it. They would keep their cloths and rooms clean. They would take bath thrice a day and wear clean dresses. But they do not try and show special attention to wash away the wrong and mistaken ideas that have crept into their understandings and views.
One must not resort to petty bourgeoisie tactics in the struggle against the wrong ideas. We cannot carry on the struggle against the wrong ideas and wrong orientations as long as we persist in the attitude of remaining silent and wrong orientations.At the end, we e must understand: the criticism and self criticism must be based on proper reasons. There must be strength in them. There must a proper point in them. They must have a guiding principle. True, we must not be casual, but be serious while criticizing a person. But we must keep in mind that ‘reckless methods, ostentatious shows, boastings and pretensions’ won’t work when we are in a struggle concerning the understandings. ===================================================================
