The "identity of public opinion," as Hu Feng insists, means nothing more than prohibiting counterrevolutionaries from coming out with counterrevolutionary opinions. Indeed, our system deprives all counter-revolutionaries of freedom of speech and allows it to be used only within the people. Within the people, we admit non-identity of opinions, in other words, freedom of criticism, freedom of expression of different opinions, freedom of theistic and atheistic (that is, materialistic) propaganda. In any society at any time there are two categories of people, two kinds of views - progressive and backward, which are in contradiction and fight among themselves, moreover, progressive views somehow prevail over the regressive ones, and it is impossible to make "public opinion identical", and do not do it. Only the all-round development of everything that is progressive, advanced and the overcoming regressive things ones move society forward.

And in an era when classes and class struggle still exist outside and inside the country, the working class and the broad masses of the people who have seized state power must suppress the resistance offered to the revolution by all and all counter-revolutionary classes, groups and individuals, suppress their restoration activities, not to give any of the counter-revolutionaries the opportunity to use freedom of speech for counter-revolutionary purposes.

That is why the Khufenites and counterrevolutionaries like them feel uncomfortable with the "identity of public opinion." And the inconvenience for them is exactly what we are trying to achieve, it is just convenient for us. Our public opinion is identical and at the same time not identical. Among the people, progressive and more conservative people are allowed to speak freely on the pages of our newspapers and magazines, from our tribunes, etc. for competition among themselves, so that progressive people, through the democratic method, through the method of persuasion, educate the conservative and regressive part, so that regressive views are overcome and the old order is eliminated.

After overcoming some contradictions, other, new contradictions arise, and competition begins again in the same spirit. In this way, society is continuously moving forward. The presence of a contradiction in itself means non-identity. After overcoming the contradiction, a temporary identity sets in; but soon a new contradiction appears, which means a new non-identity, and again it must be overcome. As for the contradictions between the people and the counter-revolutionaries, the matter here comes down to a dictatorship over the counter-revolutionaries carried out by the people under the leadership of the working class and the Communist Party. Here, not democratic methods are used, but the methods of dictatorship, or dictatorship, in other words, counter-revolutionaries are allowed to behave only quietly and peacefully and are not allowed to go over the boundaries of what is permissible in words and actions.

In this respect, not only public opinion is identical, but also the law. On this occasion, the Khufenites and counterrevolutionaries like them indulged in specious rhetoric, and some simpletons, having heard enough of their counterrevolutionary chatter, feel as if they were not entirely right. Listen, don't "identity of public opinion" or "lack of public opinion" or "suppression of freedom" sound bad? These people do not distinguish between two such different categories, both within the people and outside the people. Within the people, it would be a crime to suppress freedom, to suppress criticism of the mistakes and shortcomings of the Party and the government from the people, to prohibit free discussions among scientific workers — this is our system. In capitalist countries, on the contrary, all this is considered legal. Outside the people, in relation to counter-revolutionaries, it would be a crime to provide freedom to cross the border of what is permissible in words and actions, the dictatorship is legal here - this is our system. In capitalist countries, the situation is exactly the opposite: there is a dictatorship of the bourgeoisie, under which the revolutionary people are not allowed to go beyond what is permitted in words and actions, they are allowed to behave only quietly and peacefully. The exploiters and counter-revolutionaries are always and everywhere in the minority, and the exploited and the revolutionaries are in the majority, therefore the dictatorship of the latter is quite fair, while the dictatorship of the former is not justified by anything.

Mao Zedong