To Comrade Rao Shushi, with copy to Zi Hui, Xiao Ping, De Huai, and Gao Gang [2]:  1. Your oral views, conveyed back through Liao Luyan [3], have been received; they are all correct.  It is stated that both the Central Committee’s and the Central Financial and Economic Commission’s policies and plans are sound, but that the specific tasks and work arrangements assigned by the Central authorities to local organs are often excessively heavy and impracticable. Please enumerate the concrete instances involved and report them by telegraph so that corrective measures may be taken.

3. Hereafter, whenever any task or plan prescribed by a Central authority proves difficult or impossible to implement at the local level, the responsible comrades in each region are requested, upon discovery, to report it immediately by telegraph for rectification.

4. The principal leading comrades of each Central Bureau must personally take firm hold of fiscal, financial, and economic work. Meetings of the Central Bureaus must regularly deliberate on financial and economic matters; there must be no slackening of vigilance under the misconception that these are merely the responsibilities of the specialized financial and economic organs. The same applies to the Sub-bureaus, Major Municipal Committees, Provincial Committees, and Regional Party Committees. At present, the Political Bureau of the Central Committee discusses financial and economic affairs at almost every meeting.

5. This telegram is to be forwarded to the Sub-bureaus, the Major Municipal Committees, the Provincial Committees, and the Regional Party Committees.

Mao Zedong, May 20th, printed from the manuscript.

Notes [1] This telegram from Mao Zedong to Rao Shushi, First Secretary of the East China Bureau of the CPC Central Committee, and others, consists of five points. The second point has been omitted in the present edition.

[2] Zi Hui refers to Deng Zihui, who at the time served as Third Secretary of the Central South Bureau of the CPC Central Committee. Xiao Ping refers to Deng Xiaoping, then First Secretary of the Southwest Bureau of the CPC Central Committee. De Huai refers to Peng Dehuai, then First Secretary of the Northwest Bureau of the CPC Central Committee. Gao Gang was, at the time, Secretary of the Northeast Bureau of the CPC Central Committee.

[3] Liao Luyan (1913–1972), from Nanjing, Jiangsu Province, was then Deputy Director and Secretary-General of the Policy Research Office of the CPC Central Committee.