--- Notes



Telegram on Spring Ploughing, Drafting a Land Law, and Other Matters (April 28, 1950)

Comrades Shushi, Zikui, Xiaoping, and Dewei [1]: Please reply by telegram on the following points:  (1) What is the current situation regarding spring ploughing? Have the party committees in the various provinces and regions concentrated their main attention on organizing and leading spring farming production? Can the problems of farmers’ shortages of seeds, fertilizers, and food be resolved? Is there any prospect of a bumper harvest this year? This matter is of utmost importance; please pay close attention.  (2) The East China Bureau and the Central-South Bureau have each been assigned to draft a land law. Have you already begun work on these drafts? We hope that you can complete the drafts by May 10 and submit them to the Central Committee before May 15. Can this be done? In addition to a general land law, is it also necessary to issue an instruction on land reform, setting out numerous specific measures for carrying out the land-reform campaign? Are you preparing to draft such an instruction? Furthermore, would it be preferable for each regional military-government commission to issue this instruction separately, or for the Government Administration Council to issue it uniformly? In any case, whether it is the land law or the land-reform instruction, we hope that you can submit both to the Central Committee before May 15, so that the Central Committee and the Government Administration Council may make a decision in the second half of May and promulgate them on June 1.  Moreover, the East China Bureau has already prepared 72,000 cadres for use in the land-reform campaign and plans to concentrate them for intensive training and study of land reform within a few months after the land law is announced.  What is the situation regarding preparations for such cadres in the Central-South Bureau and the Northwest Bureau?  (3) The retraining of cadres has become an extremely urgent task. There is fairly widespread dissatisfaction among all social strata with the coercive, commandist, and other undesirable practices of many of our cadres, particularly as manifested in grain requisition, tax collection, and the collection of public bonds. If these practices are not promptly rectified, we risk losing touch with the masses. Are you making plans for this retraining work? Do you have any plans (specific steps) and instructions concerning the streamlining and retraining of cadres?

Mao Zedong April 28 Printed from the manuscript. Notes [1] Shushi refers to Rao Shushi, then First Secretary of the East China Bureau of the CPC Central Committee. Zikui refers to Deng Zikui, then Third Secretary of the Central-South Bureau of the CPC Central Committee. Xiaoping refers to Deng Xiaoping, then First Secretary of the Southwest Bureau of the CPC Central Committee. Dewei refers to Peng Dehuai, then First Secretary of the Northwest Bureau of the CPC Central Committee.