October 15, 1952

[Source: Selections from Mao Zedong's Letters, pp. 450-451.]


Comrade Zhenlin: [1]

The [information that] Comrade Chen Yun[2] has
acquired on conditions in Xiaozhen xiang, Qingpu
xian,[3] is quite worthy of attention. I
enclose it here for your perusal; please make a copy of it and send to the
Party committee of the South Jiangsu district.

According to Comrade Bo Yibo,[4] when he was in
Shanghai, he already knew that last year's grain requisition in the Zhejiang
and South Jiangsu districts has been too heavy and that the East China Bureau
has resolved to return part [of that] to the peasants. I wonder what the
results have been in this matter? How much, in total, has been returned [to
the peasants] in the two districts? How many people's problems have been
resolved [by the action]? What is this year's harvest like? Has the quantity
of the [state] grain requisition been greatly reduced?

In order to resolve this problem, I suggest that you convene at the East
China Bureau a special conference of the people responsible for the two districts
and the secretaries of the xian [party] committees of some characteristic
xian in the two districts. Before the meeting is held, you can dispatch
two investigation teams, one to go to Zhejiang and the other to South Jiangsu;
let them go directly to the villages in several xian and investigate
[the conditions] in a dozen or so xiang, focusing especially on
investigating the real situations with regard to the peasant’s'
[contributions to] public grain and other
burdens¾ this then can be the basis for
discussion at the meeting.

In short, we must earnestly and solidly resolve the problem of giving relief
to those peasants who in the past have had little to live on because the
[public] burdens have been too heavy. The grain requisition this year must
not exceed the rate stipulated by the
Centre[5]. [We must] greatly reduce the burden
of the people.

I hope that you will notify me your opinions.

In comrade's salute!


Mao Zedong

October 15, 1952


  NOTES

1.  Tan was at the time of this letter, third secretary
of the East China Bureau of the CC or the CPC.

2.  Chen was at this time a vice-premier of the Government
Administration Council and director of the Financial and Economic Commission
of the Central People's Government.

3.  This locality is within the municipality of Shanghai.

4.  Bo was at this time deputy director of the Financial
and Economic Commission and deputy minister of finance.

5.  In February 1950, when the Government Administration
Council [GAC-MDP] drew up regulations for the
requisition of public grain in the "new liberated areas," it stipulated that
such requisition "should not exceed seventeen percent of the gross agricultural
income, and the added public grain requisition done by the local people's
government must not exceed, fifteen percent of the official grain requisition."
In its "Directive on the Work of Agricultural Taxation and Requisition in
1952" the GAC stipulated: "In those parts of the late liberated areas where
land reforms has been completed, a unified system of accumulative progressive
tax on the basis of a total combined rate will be followed in 1952. The
accumulative progressive tax rate will start at seven percent and end at
thirty percent. As a rule no additional surtax will be allowed." In this
way the burden of the peasants was somewhat alleviated.

Transcription by the Maoist Documentation Project.