Memorandum of Conversation between Chairman Mao Zedong and Comrades Hysni Kapo and Beqir Balluku

Top Secret

Memorandum of conversation between Chairman Mao Zedong and comrades Hysni Kapo and Beqir Balluku. (According to an unverified stenogram.)

Time of meeting: 3 February 1967, starting at 17:20 until 19:00

Place of meeting: Room nr. 118, Assembly Hall

Participants: Behar Shtylla, Hito Çiko, and Vasil Nathanaili

Translator: Fan Tzen Xuo [sic]

Ahead of the conversation, comrade Mao Zedong greeted the comrades Hysni Kapo, Beqir Balluku, Behar Shtylla, Hito Çako and the other members of the Albanian military delegation, led by comrade Hysni Kapo and Hito Çako.

Comrade Mao Zedong warmly greeted the Albanian comrades and vigorously shook their hands. The Albanian comrades greeted comrade Mao Zedong with thunderous applause. While pictures were being taken, comrade Mao told the comrades that they should be captured smiling, that they should appear full of life in photographs, not dead—that the proletariat must be shown full of live in photographs.

After the pictures were taken, comrade Mao Zedong called out:

Down with imperialism!

Down with revisionism!

Down with the reactionaries of all countries!

Let us unite! Let us unite all the revolutionary people of the world!

Comrade Mao Zedong asked the comrades Hysni Kapo, Beqir Balluku, and the others, to communicate the most heartfelt greetings to comrade Enver Hoxha, to comrade Mehmet Shehu, and the other leaders of the Central Committee of the Party of Labor of Albania.

Comrade Mao Zedong asked with great interest comrade Hysni Kapo about his health and inspected both hands of comrade Hysni Kapo.

After this, comrade Mao Zedong conducted a truly heartfelt and sincere conversation with the comrades Hysni Kapo, Beqir Balluku, Behar Shtylla, Hito Çako, and others.

Chairman Mao: When will you be leaving?

Comrade Beqir Balluku: Comrade Hysni will be leaving the day after tomorrow.

Chairman Mao: We think that we should keep you here for three months (turning to comrade Hysni). We would like for you to help us, to provide us with advice, but you will be leaving us. We are sorry about this; we cannot keep you here.

Comrade Hysni Kapo: Comrade Mao Zedong, even before the delegation led by comrade Beqir Balluku and us, comrade Enver and the Central Committee requested that we communicate to the friendly Chinese people and especially to you, comrade Mao Zedong, the greetings of the Albanian people and the Party of Labor of Albania led by comrade Enver Hoxha, that you may live as long as the mountains of Albania, for the benefit of the Chinese people, for the benefit of the people across the world, for the benefit of the whole mankind!

Chairman Mao: Thank you very much.

Comrade Hysni: Moreover, our Central Committee, and especially comrade Enver, has asked me to communicate our heartfelt thanks for your personal message to the Fifth Congress of the Party of Labor of Albania, brought to us by comrade Kang Sheng. This message is of extraordinary importance in the history of our party and our people. It serves to inspire our party and people, led by comrade Enver Hoxha in the struggle to defend Marxism-Leninism, in the victory of socialism and communism. I want to repeat this fact—this message is very important; a great lesson for us, an inspiration in fulfilling our obligations. We brought this message to the farthest reaches of our country; men, women, elderly people and young people got to hear it. This message is an enormous inspiration in the ongoing struggle in our country. This message furnished us with strength. We will continue our struggle under the guidance of our party and comrade Enver Hoxha.

Chairman Mao: Does it really play such a big role? It does not really play such a big role; how can it be so? You have overstated this. I think that you are promoting the cult of the individual.

Comrade Hysni: No. We are not afraid from the cult of the individual, comrade Mao Zedong. As far as our party and people are concerned, this is a fact.

Comrade Beqir: We thank you very much for the high esteem and the support shown to us.

Chairman Mao: I am not very capable and you know this, comrades. Just look at what kind of mess China is in. Things are not going well. There is great confusion everywhere. When was comrade Mehmet Shehu here in China?

Comrade Zhou Enlai: In May of last year.

Chairman Mao: In May of last year, I told him that the issue of whether revisionism will succeed, or whether it will be Marxism-Leninism, is the issue of the two roads and the two classes. Who will win? Will it the bourgeoise or the proletariat? Marxism-Leninism or revisionism? I told him that we cannot say yet; we cannot yet draw any conclusion about who will win. There are two possibilities: The first is that the bourgeoise emerges victorious, that revisionism takes over. The second possibility is that we overthrow revisionism and the bourgeoise. Why did I mention the possibility of our defeat first? I believe that it is more favorable for us to look at things in this fashion. This means that we must not underestimate the enemy.

The war inside our party has remained hidden for many years. For example, in January 1962 we called an extensive meeting in which more than 7,000 of our cadres participated, including party secretaries from the district level and up. I delivered a speech in this meeting. I said that the revisionists wanted to overthrow us and if we did not pay attention, if we do not fight back, then in at least a few years, or maybe ten, and at most a few decades, China would become a fascist dictatorship. This speech was not published; it was kept as an internal document. We will look at it again because there might be some things there that need to be corrected. Nevertheless, already at that time I pointed out this issue. Five years went by – 1962, 1963, 1964, 1965, 1966. Why did we fail to carry out some of our tasks correctly? This is not a matter of modesty; these are true words. In the past, we only focused on certain issues and certain people, such, as for example, over the past 17 years, the struggle against the Kao Kang and Jao Shu-shih group, which we overthrew. This happened in the winter of 1953 and in spring of 1954. Then, in 1959, we overthrew the group of Peng Dehuai, Huang Kecheng, and Zhang Wentian. Apart from these, we mounted a struggle in the cultural circles, in villages, and in factories - this was the campaign for socialist education. You know some of these things. All of this could not actually solve the problem; we have not found a way, a method to uncover our darkest side in an open and all-encompassing manner, from the bottom up.

We needed a period of preparation for this struggle. Two years ago, in November, we published a critical article against an historian, Wu Han. It was impossible for this article to be written in Beijing; we could not organize a group of writers there, so the group was organized in Shanghai, including Yao Wenyuan and other comrades, and therefore they wrote this article.

Comrade Hysni: According to the instructions of comrade Mao Zedong.

Chairman Mao: I do not know how involved Jiang Qing and the others were when they started to write this. After they finished it, they gave it to me to read. In the beginning, they told me that it was necessary to come out with some criticism. I also did not know about the fact that they could not organize the group of writers in Beijing, which is the reason they went to Shanghai. So, after they prepared the article, they gave it to me to read. They told me: We are only giving it to you, but we are not giving it to Zhou Enlai and Kang Sheng, and the others, because if we give it to them, then we also have to give it to Liu Shaoqi, Deng Xiaoping, Peng Zhen, Lu Dingyi, and so on. Liu Shaoqi and Deng Xiaoping and others were against the publication of this article. After the article was published, with the exception of Beijing, the newspapers in the provinces republished it. I was in Shanghai at the time, and later on, I said that the article should also be published in brochures. All of the provinces affirmed that they would subscribe to it, except for Beijing. Because some people were not sure! The party committee in Beijing was in such a state that it was completely impenetrable – you could not even get a needle’s tip or a drop of water in there. Was it not reorganized? Even the reorganized party committee was not in order, so that reorganization is necessary again. When the reorganization of the Beijing party committee was publicly announced, we added two divisions to the Beijing garrison. There are three land divisions now in Beijing and one motorized division, so four divisions in total. Therefore, both you and I can go wherever we want to go. The first two divisions are good but they were very scattered; they handled defense everywhere.

There are untrustworthy people among the Red Guards too: monarchists who are quiet during the day but go into action at night.  They wear glasses and masks and are armed with sticks and knives. They have caused disorder and have tried to kill a number of good people. They have killed several and wounded several hundreds. The majority of those who commit these kinds of crimes are the children of high-ranking cadres, for example the children of He Long, Lu Dingyi, Luo Ruiqing, and others. This is also the reason there are problems in the army. He Long is a member of the Politburo, whereas Luo Ruiqing is a member of the Secretariat and chief of the General Staff. We solved Luo Ruiqing’s case already two years ago, in December. We solved the case of the people in the Beijing party committee in May of last year. We developed the dazibao campaign starting from 1 June of last year. Starting in August, we activated the Red Guards. Some of you, comrades, met with Nie Yuanzi at Peking University. Who was in the meeting?

Comrade Hysni: Comrade Behar Shtylla.

Chairman Mao: She wrote a dazibao on 25 May of last year. I was in Hangzhou at the time and I only read it around noon on 1 June. I read it and I immediately called Kang Sheng and Chen Boda, and I told them to broadcast it on the radio. Soon thereafter, the dazibaos popped up everywhere!

Comrade Beqir: The dazibaos gave the signal.

Chairman Mao: I did not write it; it was written by Nie Yuanzi and six other comrades. The Red Guards were organized in the schools attached to Tsinghua University and Peking University. They sent a document to me. I wrote to the Red Guards of these two schools on 1 June, and, as a consequence, the Red Guards expanded vigorously across the whole country. On 18 August I held a meeting with several hundreds of thousands Red Guards. The 11th Plenum of the Central Committee was held from the first ten days until the middle of August. At this time, I myself wrote a dazibao of around 200 characters, which pointed out that some important people ranging from the base all the way to the Central Committee, acting from a bourgeois standpoint, were fighting back against the students and the pupils, against the proletariat, and that they were conducting white terror. This is how we unmasked the activity of Liu Shaoqi and Deng Xiaoping. But the final confrontation between the two sides has not yet ended. More or less, the months February, March, and April will be the definite time that will determine victory or defeat. As far as the complete solution of the problem is concerned, we need until February, March, and April of next year, and perhaps even longer than that. Do not think that all members of our party are good people. Already a few years ago, I said that we needed to purge several millions of them. Were these perhaps empty words? There was nothing you could do! The solution to the problem required mass mobilization, but the masses cannot do anything. They do not understand. Renmin ribao, the newspaper of the Central Committee, does not listen to me. At the newspaper, they took over twice: once on 1 June of last year, and then again in January. I have publicly declared that I will not read Renmin ribao. I also told this to the editor-in-chief there: I will not read your newspaper! I told him this several time but he would not listen. These thoughts of mine do not go well here in China; they do not accept them in the universities and in the high schools, because they were controlled by Liu Shaoqi, Deng Xiaoping, Lu Dingyi’s Propaganda Department, Zhou Yang’s Ministry of Culture, as well as all the others in the Ministry of Higher Education and in general education. There is nothing one can do.

Many people have been unmasked in our party, and these can be distinguished according to several types: The first type consists of those who want a democratic revolution, so we could cooperate with these people during the stage of the democratic revolution. They want to achieve a democratic revolution and the establishment of capitalism. They want the overthrow of imperialism and feudalism, and they also want the overthrow of bureaucratic capitalism. But in reality they do not want the overthrow of national capitalism. They agree on the distribution of land, that this land may be given to peasants, but they do not agree with the establishment of cooperative farms. This type of people consists of a group of so-called old cadres.

The second type consists of people who joined the party after liberation; 80 percent of these people joined the party after 1949. Some of these people became cadres, secretaries of the ground organizations of the party, secretaries of the party committees, even party secretaries at the district-level, at the regional level, at the province level, and even some members of the Central Committee. This is who these people are.

The third type consists of those people whom we inherited from the Kuomintang. Some of these were communists captured by the Kuomintang, and who became traitors and made anti-communist declarations in the newspapers. At the time, we did not know that they were anti-communists. We did not know the kind of “formal arrangements” they had made. Now, after looking into these things, it turns out that they were with the Kuomintang and against the Communist Party.

The fourth type consists of the children of the bourgeoise, of the feudalists, of the kulaks. After liberation, they entered into schools, even in the universities, and they obtained some power. These people are not all bad; some of them are on our side but some of them are counterrevolutionaries.

So, more or less, these people are divided into these categories. In short, they do not constitute a large proportion of the population in China, just a few percent of it. Their class base consists of only a few percent of feudalists, kulaks, capitalists, Kuomintangists, and so on. They are, at most, five percent. Thus, out of 700 million of inhabitants, these people comprise not more than 35 million. They are dispersed in villages, cities, and neighborhoods. If 35 million people were to come together in one place, and obtain weapons, then they would make a big army.

Comrade Beqir: Even if they were to come together, they would constitute an army lacking in ideas.

Chairman Mao: They are a disappearing class. From these more than 30 million people, their representatives consist of no more than hundreds of thousands and they are dispersed in cities, neighborhoods, villages, schools, and various institutions. This is why as soon as the dazibao showed up, as soon as the mass movement began, as soon as the Red Guard emerged, they were scared to death.

In addition to this, there were some other irregularities. They started using and abusing the expression “Mao Zedong Thought,” “Maoism” … I do not like this “-ism.”

Zhou Enlai: We say that the expression “Mao Zedong Thought” will continue to be used in the future.

Chairman Mao: They have also attached some epithets to me, like “great teacher,” “great leader,” “great strategist,” and “great helmsman.” I do not like these. But there is nothing I can do. They are doing this everywhere. Some people propose to just keep the epithet “teacher.” I used to be a teacher in an elementary school – how nice to just be a simple teacher! But in terms of being a “professor,” this is out of question. I did not attend university. Did you attend any universities?

Comrade Hysni: None.

Chairman Mao: And you? (turning to comrade Beqir Balluku)

Comrade Beqir: Neither have I.

Chairman Mao: You have not either? (turning to comrade Hysni Kapo)

Comrade Hysni: I only attended high school.

Chairman Mao: Marx attended university, and so did Lenin. Stalin finished high school, as did I. I am suspicious of a good part of the university students, especially those who have studied social sciences. If these people are not educated, if there is no cultural revolution, then they become very dangerous. They become revisionists further down the road. Those who have studied literature cannot write their novels and poems. Those who have studied philosophy cannot write philosophical articles, and neither can they explain social phenomena. The political and legal studies that they have undertaken are entirely a product of the bourgeoise. We do not yet have a proper textbook. Those who have studied economics also fall under this. There are many revisionist elements. But we are hopeful again now that this brutal struggle is going on.

Comrade Beqir: It is brutal, but it is good. It is good a thing to carry out this kind of purge.

Comrade Hysni: After the people are mobilized, everyone can be purged. Perhaps what we have seen so far is very limited, but these are our impressions: all of the Chinese people have risen to their feet.

Chairman Mao: Not all of them, not yet.

Comrade Hysni: From what we have seen, all the Chinese people have risen with the Great Cultural Revolution, in the struggle against internal enemies, to march forward in the construction of socialism, in the defense of the socialist revolution and the strengthening of the dictatorship of the proletariat. We are very enthusiastic. Perhaps we have not seen enough, but we are optimistic.

Chairman Mao: It looks like we are more optimistic now than the last time I talked to comrade Mehmet Shehu last year.

Comrade Hysni: Back then we did not know certain things, compared to what we know now. We have now learned that you were right: the enemy sleeps besides us. This has been proven now. They have been unmasked; this is a great victory. This is of great importance not only for China, but also for our country, and for all of the progressive mankind. The enemies of the Chinese people and the Communist Party of China have been unmasked, and the line represented by comrade Mao Zedong has triumphed.

Chairman Mao: We achieved a certain kind of victory but it is not yet a great victory. You can say this after one year. But we still cannot determine it. It is possible that we may be defeated, and I am always prepared for such an outcome, in the event that we are defeated. Even then, there will be people who will rise and fight. There are people in China who proclaim that they are “pacifists.” This is absolutely not true – we always want to fight, and I am one of these people. (Laughter.)

Comrade Hysni: How can it be done without fighting? How can we otherwise reach our objective?

Chairman Mao: That is correct.

Comrade Beqir: Along this path, we have achieved our victory.

Chairman Mao: That is why the pursuit of a revisionist line in China is not as easy as in the Soviet Union. The Soviet Union was born on the foundation of tsarist imperialism, whereas China used to be a semi-colonial and oppressed state, enslaved by the imperialists for more than 100 years. The people were very unhappy. Only the bourgeois were happy, as well as the feudalists and the bourgeois intellectuals.^[1] We carried out the revolution in our country with sustained warfare. After we took control of large cities, people were sent to some of the centers, administrative institutions, factories, and enterprises. Was Peng Zhen not one of these people? Was Cao Diqiu not sent to Shanghai? Chen Pixian was also sent. And these people, who were sent there, were later elected. The so-called elections actually consisted in everybody voting for the presented lists of people! This is why I do not believe in elections. For example, China has more than 2,400 districts. If every district elects one representative, then it would be 2,400 representatives. If every district elects four representatives, then it would be 10,000 representatives, which would fill the Assembly Hall to capacity.

One large district has over one million inhabitants. A medium-sized one has several hundreds of thousands. A small one has several tens of thousands up to several hundreds of thousands of people. How can they possibly know these four individuals? For example, I am an elected representative from the city of Beijing, but most of the people of Beijing have never seen me. They have seen my picture, or they have read my name in the newspaper. The city of Beijing has four million inhabitants, not including the outskirts.

Comrade Zhou Enlai: In Beijing there are people who say the Red Guards have seen Chairman Mao, at a time when they themselves have never seen him.

Chairman Mao: People in the other provinces have seen me, but these people have not seen me, and yet they elected me. This happened because I am well known. They have heard my name for a while now, but they have never seen me. People like me, like the Chairman of the State Council, are well known. But there are many other people, whose names ordinary people do not know yet they elect them. I think that this is worse than the democracy of the Red Guards, who have seen their leaders and have talked to them.

Comrade Hysni: That is correct.

Chairman Mao: Among the Red Guards, too, we can observe some differentiation. Last summer, the leftist wing was only a small minority. They stood on our side but they were suppressed. They were targeted as “rightists,” “counterrevolutionaries,” and so on. By winter, the situation had changed. The minority turned into a majority. Have you been to Tsinghua University?

Comrade Hysni: Yes, we have been there.

Chairman Mao: The Chingkangshan organization was a minority in the past, and it was under attack. At Peking University, Nie Yuanzi was also in a minority and was under attack. But now they are in the majority. In the past they have been suppressed, but as soon as winter came, the revolutionary minority turned into a majority. Last December and this January, some differentiation emerged among them. Some of these people who were revolutionaries in the summertime, turned into counterrevolutionaries in the wintertime. Of course, we are working to convince people like this, like Nie Yuanzi and Kuai Dafu. But we must still wait to see if these people are reliable or not. Be that as it may, in this wave of events decent people might also turn up.  

We are now seeing certain anarchical thoughts spreading. This is reflected in the slogan “Let us be suspicious of everything and overthrow everything!” As a result, they ended badly themselves. So, you are suspicious of everything, but what about yourself? You overthrow everything, but what about yourself? So, the bourgeoise must be overthrown, but what about the proletariat? Their theory does not hold up. But judging from the current of events as a whole, after the struggle, the wrong people cannot continue to stand. Look around the streets of Beijing and you will see slogans calling for my overthrow, calling for the overthrow of comrade Lin Biao. Others are calling for the overthrow of Zhou Enlai, Kang Sheng, Chen Boda, comrade Jiang Qing, and so on. And there are many slogans calling for the overthrow of Li Fuchun, Tan Zhenlin, Li Xiannian, Chen Yi, Ye Jianying, Nie Rongzhen^[2], and Xiao Hua. For example, Yang Chengwu has been tasked with the position of Chief of the General Staff; the General Staff has many departments under it. Among others, the chief and the deputy chief of the War^[3] Department wrote a dazibao and they want to overthrow him. He Long provoked all of this. Whereas a member of the Beijing Military Region command quickly asked for the overthrow and liquidation of Xiao Hua, but two days later this person was overthrown himself. And this is the second largest Military Region in China! Everyone was overthrown there: the commander was overthrown, the commissar, as well as the deputy commissar. But the truth always remains the truth. The sky will not fall. The vast majority of the people, the workers, the peasants, the intelligentsia, the cadres, the party members, and the youth are good; we will seriously believe in this truth.

Comrade Beqir: They are a lively force.

Chairman Mao: Even though there are some people who have made mistakes and have shortcomings. We should not defend some of the shortcomings of Ye Jianying, Yang Chengwu, Xiao Hua, and Wang Shuseng. But, at the core, they are good people.

Comrade Beqir: One can make mistakes at work, but these can be corrected.

Chairman Mao: They can be corrected! I have also made some mistakes. Is it perhaps the case that only others make mistakes, and I do not? I have made some mistakes. I have made some military and political mistakes. We do not have time to go more concretely into the kind of mistakes that I have made, but if you will be staying a few days longer, I can share them with you. I do not hide my mistakes. Some people proclaim that they have not made any mistakes, but I do not believe this and it does not please me. I do not believe what these people say; do I perhaps not yet know myself? I am able enough to know myself.

Even if China’s sky and earth were to darken, do not be afraid but keep some faith because not everything can be darkened. Emperor Qin Shi Huang reigned for 16 years and was overthrown. The first who rebelled were two people named Chen Sheng and Wu Guang. Those two were serfs at that time. Now, the Red Guards who write a dazibao in China, these people who were attacked last summer as counterrevolutionaries, are precisely Chen Shengs and Wu Gangs. We all used to be Spartans. We did not have any social standing. We used to be low-level folk, ignored and suppressed, but who organized the Communist Party. Why do you call yours the Party of Labor? In the beginning it was called the Communist Party.

Comrade Hysni: Yes, this is correct. After the war, our party changed its name to Party of Labor. At the time, we took into consideration the fact that our party membership was comprised mostly of individuals from a peasant background. Therefore, we consulted with the Communist Party of the Soviet Union and comrade Stalin, and we decided to do this. Given the fact that the majority consisted of peasants and we never had a developed proletariat, let us call it this. During the recent Fifth Congress, there were some people who proposed to call it Communist Party again. Comrade Enver Hoxha said that we can analyze this during the next congress of the party.

Chairman Mao: In the past, the Soviet party was called Social-Democratic Party and later, after the victory, Lenin changed the name of the party.

Since Marx’s time, over more than 100 years, the First International was broken, and then the Second International was born. The Second International was also broken and then the Third International was born. That was also broken and there is no International anymore, but we have the communist parties in the various countries. Now many of these parties have embraced revisionism. But there are some parties that are referred to as “dogmatic.” We are all “dogmatic.” Nevertheless, there are still some Marxist parties. In Italy, France and in some of the other European countries some groups and Marxist-Leninist parties have emerged. There are also parties like these in Latin America and Asia. They also exist in Oceania, like the parties in New Zealand and Australia.

Comrade Hysni: We are not few in number.

Chairman Mao: We are not.

Comrade Hysni: And we are increasing in number all the time.

Chairman Mao: Yes! Especially following Engels’ death, the whole Second International disintegrated. Not even Marx was able to predict this, and neither did Engels. But the Bolsheviks came around, and they achieved victory in the Soviet Union. What do we do now?

Comrade Zhou Enlai: Enough for now.

Chairman Mao: Perhaps you are busy?

Comrade Zhou Enlai: They need to attend a banquet.

Chairman Mao: Well, then, we shall meet again.

Comrade Hysni: Thank you. Comrade Mao Zedong, I will communicate your wish to the Central Committee and comrade Enver Hoxha. Comrade Kang Sheng told me yesterday that our comrade leaders ought to come more often to China in the future. We shall give the opportunity to the other comrades to come here too. This time around, we can say that we got a great education here in China. This is a privilege that we have been granted by our party.

Once again, we thank the Communist Party of China, its Central Committee, and comrade Mao Zedong personally, for facilitating everything for us. Once again we would like to communicate the wishes of our party and our people, our leadership and comrade Enver, for a decisive victory in this great struggle. We wish that this Great Cultural Revolution, led by the Communist Party of China and yourself, may achieve a grandiose victory. As I said in the beginning, this is in the interest of your country, but also in the interest of our country and the progressive people of the world, in the interest of the international communist movement. This is the desire of our people, of our party.

Chairman Mao: Thank you. Who is the ambassador?

The ambassador: I am.

Chairman Mao: You must travel everywhere. Not only in Beijing but also in other places, like Shanghai, Harbin, Tianjin, and so on.   

The ambassador: Thank you very much.

Chairman Mao: Will you be coming to Shanghai?

Comrade Hysni: When we came to Shanghai, we talked to the comrades there and met the workers. We were there precisely at the time when the rebelling workers of Shanghai took over.

Chairman Mao: During the first ten days of last November, the rebelling workers of Shanghai numbered somewhat more than 1,000 people. After a bit more than two months, they number more than a million. Where will you be going now?

Comrade Zhou Enlai: They will be going back south. Comrade Balluku will visit the Victory oilfields in Shandong and then the naval fleet in Shanghai.

Chairman Mao: (turning to comrade Beqir Balluku) In Shanghai, you can ask to speak with comrades Zhang Chunqiao, Yao Wenyuan, and others.

^[1] Trans. note—“Bourgeois” has been added, by hand, to the typed text

^[2] Trans. note—In the Albanian-language text, the transliteration of this name appears to be incorrect.

^[3] Trans. note—This word has been added to the text by hand.