With the open attacks by “Red Guards” upon the organs of the Communist Party throughout China – attacks incited by the “Central Committee” of the Party – it became clear to all politically conscious Party members that this “Central Committee” was no longer the highest organ of the Party but a mere agency of the class enemy. Accordingly, the provincial and local organs of the Party which opposed the counter-revolutionary “Central Committee” became for the time being the highest organs of the Communist Party.
According to Article 14 of the Constitution of the Communist Party of China
Each individual Party member shall submit to the decisions of the Party organisations to which he belongs; minorities shall submit to the decision of the majority; the lower Party organisation’s shall submit to the higher Party organisations. (Constitution of the Communist Party of China, in: Liu Shao-chi: “On the Party”; Peking;. 1950; p. 171).
Accordingly, it became imperative for the counter-revolutionaries to try and destroy these organisational principles of the Party. They did so by attacking them as “bourgeois discipline”, as “counter-revolutionary discipline”.
Diehards who take the capitalist road have absurdly identified the leadership in their own units with the Party’s Central Committee and the entire Party. Making use of the great love which the broad masses of workers, peasants and soldiers have for the Party, and making use of some among the masses who did not know the truth, they have raised such slogans as: defend the Party Committee in your own locality, and of your own department, and if there were revolutionary students who criticised them and rose in rebellion against them, these revolutionary students were said to be ’anti-Party’. (“Workers, Peasants and Soldiers Must Firmly Support the Revolutionary Students”, editorial in “Renmin Ribao”, August 23rd, 1966; in: “Peking Review”, No. 35, 1966; p. 18).
An important weapon of these reactionary elements for preserving their reactionary rule is to illegally use the name of the Party and turn Party discipline into bourgeois discipline to repress the masses and oppose revolution. This counter-revolutionary discipline must be thoroughly smashed. (“On Revolutionary Discipline and Revolutionary Authority of the Proletariat”, in: “Hongqi”, No. 3, 1967; in: “Peking Review”, No. 7, 1967; p. 18).
And, attacking the Party Constitution under the guise of attacking Liu Shao-Chi:
Obedience! Absolute obedience! Unconditional obedience! The minority, though correct, must subordinate to the majority that is wrong; the subordinate, though correct, must absolutely submit to the organisation that is wrong. This is nothing but counter-revolutionary discipline imposed on the revolutionary masses by the No. 1 Party person in authority taking the capitalist road in order to maintain his reactionary role. (Red Guards’ Regiment in the Mao Tse-tung’s Thought Philosophy and Social Sciences Department of the Chinese Academy of Sciences: “Bury the Slave Mentality advocated by China’s Khrushchov”, in “Renmin Ribao”, April 6th, 1967; in: “Peking Review” No. 16, 1967; p. 14).
Thus, Party members and “the masses” must reject this “bourgeois discipline”, this “counter-revolutionary discipline”, that is, they must obey the instructions of the “Central Committee” of the Party headed by Mao Tse-tung:
As for us proletarian revolutionary ..fighters, ...what we accept unconditionally is the correct leadership of the Party’s Central Committee headed by Chairman Mao”. (“Red Guards’ Regiment... etc.”; cp. cit.; p. 14).
The proletarian revolutionary line that Chairman Mao represents is the highest authority in the great proletarian cultural revolution. All provisional organs of power that carry out this correct line in .... directing the struggle to seize power should have authority and do have it, as a matter of course. Proletarian revolutionaries should take...it as their obligation to assume such authority. This is the authority of the proletariat. (“On Revolutionary Discipline... etc’.”; op. cit.; p. 19).
Strengthen the dictatorship of the proletariat. Those who oppose Chairman Mao, Vice-Chairman Lin Piao, the Party Central Committee’s Cultural-Revolution Group, and those who undermine the great cultural revolution or sabotage production shall be immediately arrested by the Public Security Bureau. (“Urgent Notice” of the “Shanghai Workers’ Revolutionary Rebel General Headquarters” and 31 other “Revolutionary Rebel” organisations; Hsinhua News Agency, Jan. 11th, in: “Peking Review”, No. 4, 1967; p. 9).