Central Committee of the Communist Party of China Telegram to the Northeast Bureau on the Policy Toward National Capitalists[1]

(May 31, 1949)

Northeast Bureau:

Recently, Zou Dapeng sent a letter to Comrade Shaoqi stating that our Party’s policy toward private capitalism and the national bourgeoisie in the Northeast, despite prolonged debate, has yet to be correctly resolved. We believe this issue concerns an extremely important aspect of the Party’s general line and must be resolved completely, correctly, and swiftly. We now relay Zou Dapeng’s letter to you by telegram and hope the Northeast Bureau will convene a meeting, with Comrade Luofu participating and expressing his views, and then report the results of the Northeast Bureau’s discussions to the Central Committee. Recently, Comrade Shaoqi inspected Tianjin and discovered that our responsible comrades there completely ignored the capitalists, while some cadres believed that contact with capitalists signified a wavering stance. The trading companies exercised control over raw materials and markets, failing to give due consideration to capitalist production. Tax authorities likewise did not provide proper consideration for private production. In labor-capital relations, workers made excessive demands and took overly leftist actions, which were not resolutely corrected. Capitalists were forced to resume operations, but after reopening, their various practical difficulties were not helped to be overcome. In newspapers, only the faults of capitalists were mentioned, with no acknowledgment of any merits they might have. Within the Party’s ideology, there was an overemphasis on the speculative and disruptive nature of private capitalism (this nature pertains to private capital harmful to the national economy and people’s livelihood, such as speculative commerce, and not all private capital possesses speculative and disruptive traits), stressing the restriction of capitalism while failing to emphasize the progressive, constructive, and necessary character of all private capitalist production beneficial to the national economy and people’s livelihood at present and for a long period to come. There was no emphasis on utilizing the initiative of private capitalism to develop production, only an emphasis on struggling against capitalists without stressing unity with those willing to cooperate with us. As a result, capitalists became panicked and passive, falling into a semi-paralyzed state, completely devoid of productive initiative, with many preparing to shut down, cease operations, or flee. This represents a tendency to immediately eliminate the bourgeoisie in practice, an erroneous line of "Left" adventurism in actual work, fundamentally contrary to the Party’s principles and policies. It is reported that such tendencies also exist in urban work in the Northeast, and we hope the Northeast Bureau will promptly review and correct them. Because we are concerned about the aforementioned deviations within the Party, we have not yet approved the issuance of the document *Outline of the Economic Structure and Economic Construction Policy in the Northeast*. We believe that a passage refuting the above deviations must be added to this document before it can be distributed.

Central Committee

Chenshi