Both democracy and freedom are relative, not absolute, and they come into being and develop in specific historical conditions. Within the ranks of th… - Mao Zedong

"You are dictatorial." My dear sirs, you are right, that is just what we are. All the experience the Chinese people have accumulated through several decades teaches us to enforce the people's democratic dictatorship, that is, to deprive the reactionaries of the right to speak and let the people alone have that right.

共产主义是无产阶级的整个思想体系，同时又是一种新的社会制度。这种思想体系和社会制度，是区别于任何别的思想体系和任何别的社会制度的，是自有人类历史以来，最完全最进步最革命最合理的。封建主义的思想体系和社会制度，是进了历史博物馆的东西了。资本主义的思想体系和社会制度，已有一部分进了博物馆（在苏联）；其余部分，也已“日薄西山，气息奄奄，人命危浅，朝不虑夕”，快进博物馆了。惟独共产主义的思想体系和社会制度，正以排山倒海之势，雷霆万钧之力，磅礴于全世界，而葆其美妙之青春。中国自有科学的共产主义以来，人们的眼界是提高了，中国革命也改变了面目。中国的民主革命，没有共产主义去指导是决不能成功的，更不必说革命的后一阶段了。这也就是资产阶级顽固派为什么要那样叫嚣和要求“收起”它的原因。其实，这是“收起”不得的，一收起，中国就会亡国。现在的世界，依靠共产主义做救星；现在的中国，也正是这样。

Our Party has laid down the general line and general policy of the Chinese revolution as well as various specific lines for work and specific policies. However, while many comrades remember our Party’s specific lines for work and specific policies, they often forget its general line and general policy. If we actually forget the Party’s general line and general policy, then we shall be blind, half-baked, muddle-headed revolutionaries, and when we carry out a specific line for work and a specific policy, we shall lose our bearings and vacillate now to the left and now to the right, and the work will suffer.