(September 20, 1952)
Comrade Bo Yibo III:
This document No. 121 is worthy of attention. Please instruct the Party Leadership Group of the Ministry of Food to collect and study this document together with the “two-step warehousing method” referred to therein as directed by the Central-South Bureau, as well as Henan’s “small-warehouse construction plan” mentioned at the end of the document, and to formulate a comprehensive set of procedures to be issued nationwide for implementation.
[I)


Bo Yibo was then Deputy Director of the Financial and Economic Commission of the Administrative Council.
Mao Zedong
September 20th
[2]


Refers to the directive dated September 8, 1952, from the Henan Provincial Committee and Provincial People’s Government, forwarded by the Central-South Bureau of the CPC Central Committee on September 17, 1952, to various prefectural committees and administrative offices regarding the implementation of a small-warehouse system. The directive stated that in Henan Province, over the years, due to factors such as centralized warehouses, concentrated grain-delivery periods, long distances for grain transport, inadequate delivery schedules, poor organization of labor teams, and hot summer weather during the harvest tax collection, there had been serious casualties among both people and livestock, extensive rehandling of grain after it entered the warehouses, and delays in agricultural production. The root cause lay in fundamental flaws in the existing grain-acceptance system. The two-step warehousing method recommended by the Central-South Bureau was seen as the key to resolving these problems. Based on this guidance and taking into account local conditions, Henan Province decided to make full use of its more than 300 larger warehouses: in townships within a 30-li radius where farmers could complete round-trip deliveries on the same day, grain would be received directly by these large warehouses without establishing additional small warehouses. In other townships, a two-stage process would be adopted: first, grain would be collected at the township level and stored in small warehouses; subsequently, according to the grain-allocation plan, voluntary transport would be organized during farmers’ spare time to move the grain to the larger warehouses. The maximum distance for such voluntary transport was set at 50 li; for distances exceeding 50 li, transportation allowances would be provided as prescribed.