The first of July 1949 marks the fact that the Communist Party of China has already lived through twenty-eight years. Like a man, a political party has its childhood, youth, manhood and old age. The Communist Party of China is no longer a child or a lad in his teens but has become an adult. When a man reaches old age, he will die; the same is true of a party. When classes disappear, all instruments of class struggle–parties and the state machinery–will lose their function, cease to be necessary, therefore gradually wither away and end their historical mission; and human society will move to a higher stage.