Instructions on the “Five Excesses” Problem
(March 19, 1953)

To all Central Bureaus and Sub-bureaus, with copy to provincial and municipal Party committees, prefectural Party committees, and county Party committees; to all departments of the CPC Central Committee and to the Party leadership groups of the various organs of the Central People’s Government:

(1) The report submitted in December 1952 by the Northwest Bureau Inspection Team concerning the “five excesses” in district and township work is very well written. This report vividly brings to light certain serious problems within our Party and government organizations in rural work—problems that have led to a growing estrangement from the peasant masses and to the impairment of the interests of both the peasants themselves and their active elements. These are what are known as the “five excesses”: too many tasks, too many meetings and training sessions, too many official documents, reports, and forms, too many organizational bodies, and excessive overlapping responsibilities among grassroots activists. Such issues have long existed. The Central Committee has previously issued directives on some of these matters, urging Party committees at all levels to attach great importance to them and find solutions. However, not only have these problems remained unresolved, but they have actually become increasingly severe. The root cause lies in the failure to address the entire problem systematically and, more importantly, in the lack of a concerted campaign against decentralism and bureaucratism at the five levels of Party and government leadership: central, major regional, provincial (municipal), prefectural, and county. For the most part, the “five excesses” at the district and township levels do not originate there; rather, they are imposed from above, stemming from serious manifestations of decentralism and bureaucratism in the higher-level Party and government organs. Some of these practices even date back to the period of the revolutionary wars and the land reform, remaining unchanged and persisting to this day. Therefore, during 1953, in implementing the Central Committee’s directive of January 5, 1953, on combating bureaucracy, commandism, and violations of law and discipline, it is imperative to vigorously overcome bureaucracy and decentralism within the leading organs and to revise or abolish those systems and procedures that were once necessary but are now superfluous. Only in this way can the problem be effectively solved. Henceforth, with regard to setting tasks, convening meetings and organizing personnel for training, issuing official documents and forms, demanding reports from lower-level units, determining the organizational structure of districts and townships, and utilizing rural activists, the principal officials of Party and government committees at or above the county level must, according to actual conditions and feasibility, formulate appropriate regulations; where necessary, uniform standards should be established at the central level. The past practice whereby numerous working departments of Party, government, and mass organizations at various levels independently assigned tasks to lower levels, arbitrarily convened meetings or training sessions for lower-level cadres and rural activists, and indiscriminately issued official documents and demanded reports must be resolutely abolished and replaced by a system of centralized, unified, and contextually appropriate measures. As for the situation in rural areas, where each township often has dozens of different committees and grassroots activists hold multiple concurrent posts—both of which hinder production and alienate the masses—it is likewise essential to undertake thorough yet gradual reforms.

(2) The relevant departments of the Party, government, and mass organizations at the central level are hereby entrusted, through the respective Central Organization Department and the Administrative Council of the Central People’s Government together with its three subordinate committees on finance and economics, culture and education, and politics and law, to the chief officials responsible for these areas, who are charged with promptly reviewing and rectifying all matters that have historically given rise to the “five excesses,” formulating appropriate systems and procedures, and reporting their findings to the Central Committee.

(3) All major regions and provinces/municipalities are instructed to dispatch inspection teams specifically tasked with studying the “five excesses” problem, following the example set by the Northwest Bureau. These teams are to examine the conditions prevailing in one or two districts or townships under their jurisdiction (or, in urban areas, one or two wards or subdistricts) so as to gather reference material for developing effective solutions. This responsibility falls upon the heads of the respective Central Bureaus, Sub-bureaus, provincial and municipal Party committees, and administrative authorities at those levels.

(4) The task of guiding and resolving the “five excesses” problem at the prefectural and county levels is assigned to the provincial Party committees.

(5) The recommendations contained in the Northwest Bureau Inspection Team’s report regarding methods for addressing the “five excesses” are, in essence, sound and may be piloted in various localities.

(6) Agricultural production is the paramount concern in the countryside; all other activities there are secondary and exist solely to serve agriculture. Any tasks or working methods that impede farmers’ productive efforts must be avoided. At present, China’s agriculture remains largely characterized by small-scale, decentralized farming employing traditional tools, which differs markedly from the mechanized, collectivized agriculture practiced in the Soviet Union. Consequently, during our current transitional period, apart from state-owned farms, it is not yet feasible to implement unified, planned production or to exert excessive control over individual farmers. Instead, we can only guide agricultural production—and coordinate it with industry and integrate it into the national economic plan—through price policies and such economic and political measures as are deemed necessary and practicable. Any attempts to impose an overly rigid “plan” on agriculture or to burden farmers with excessive “tasks” are bound to fail and will inevitably provoke resistance among the peasantry, potentially severing our Party’s ties with the vast majority of the population, who constitute over 80 percent of the nation’s total. The “five excesses” in district and township work contain a significant element of precisely this kind of undue interference with farmers’ affairs (another component stems from practices developed and left over from the revolutionary wars and the land reform). Such interference has already aroused widespread discontent among the peasantry and must therefore be corrected. Even with respect to the rapidly expanding agricultural mutual aid teams and the still relatively few agricultural production cooperatives, these remain small-scale organizations comprising only a handful or several dozen households, founded on private property; most are unstable and continue to rely on traditional farming implements. Accordingly, while it is entirely appropriate to actively promote and provide suitable guidance to these mutual aid teams and cooperatives in accordance with existing central decisions, they must never be equated with socialist collective farms, nor should excessive intervention be exercised. In my view, the primary dangerous tendency currently prevalent in the countryside is for some comrades to conflate decentralized farming with collectivized agriculture and to engage in overbearing interference. The “five excesses” problem, in part, reflects just such erroneous thinking.

(7) This directive, together with the attached report of the Northwest Bureau Inspection Team, should be published in the Party journal.

The CPC Central Committee
March 19, 1953