“There are a lot of things we can learn from the Soviet Union. Naturally, we should learn from its advanced and not its backward experience. The slogan we have advocated all along is to draw on the advanced Soviet experience. Who told you to pick up its backward experience? Some people are so undiscriminating that they say a Russian fart is fragrant. That too is subjectivism. The Russians themselves say it stinks. Therefore, we should be analytical.”

—  Mao Zedong

Strengthen Party Unity and Carry Forward Party Traditions http://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/mao/selected-works/volume-5/mswv5_53.htm (30 August 1956)

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Chairman of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of… 1893–1976

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