Opinions on the Experimental Establishment of Collective Farms
(December 17, 1951)
Comrade Wang Zhen,[1] with copies to Comrades Zhongxun and Zongxun,[2] all central bureaus, and all greater military regions:

(1) Comrade Wang Zhen's report of December 14[3] has been received. I consider this report to be correct. Except for the last item, it may be presented to the branch bureau enlarged meeting and the military region production representative conference.
(2) Your plan includes using the experience of collective labor in the army to experimentally establish ten collective farms for peasants. This plan is very good. In the draft resolution on developing agricultural mutual aid and cooperation to be issued soon by the Central Committee, the point about each province experimentally establishing one or several collective farms has already been added. Such collective farms, of course, can only be few in number at present, meaning each province can only establish one to several. Since Xinjiang has part of the land reclaimed by the army and part of the water...

[1] Wang Zhen, then Secretary of the Xinjiang Sub-Bureau of the CPC Central Committee and Acting Commander and Acting Political Commissar of the Xinjiang Military Region of the People's Liberation Army.

[2] Zhongxun, i.e., Xi Zhongxun, then First Secretary of the Northwest Bureau of the CPC Central Committee and Political Commissar of the Northwest Military Region of the People's Liberation Army. Zongxun, i.e., Zhang Zongxun (1908–1998), a native of Weinan, Shaanxi, then First Deputy Commander of the Northwest Military Region of the People's Liberation Army.
[3] Refers to Wang Zhen's report of December 14, 1951, to Mao Zedong, Xi Zhongxun, and Zhang Zongxun on the content of the Xinjiang Military Region production conference and the production plan for the following year. The report stated that during the land reform to be implemented in the winter of 1952, the military region planned to transfer the small water channels built, the tens of thousands of mu of land cultivated, and the houses constructed by dispersed production units over the past two years, and send military Party members and cadres to assist local peasants in organizing 10 collective farms (each covering 10,000 to 15,000 mu of land), using the experience of collective labor in the army to earnestly experiment with peasant collective farms. The army, apart from undertaking garrison duties, would concentrate on cultivating large state farms.