Comrade Zhou Enlai:

A Comment on the Handling of the Document Drafted by Gao Gang [1] to Be Sent to the Soviet Government

(27 September 1953)

This document [2] is a communication to the Soviet Government drafted by Comrade Gao Gang on the basis of his conversations with the Soviet authorities during his visit to the Soviet Union this year. Please review it and, in the form of a memorandum, deliver it to Ambassador Kuznetsov [3] before you go on leave, requesting him to forward it to the Soviet Government.

Mao Zedong
27 September

[1] Gao Gang, then Chairman of the State Planning Commission of the Central People’s Government.
[2] Refers to the document drafted by Gao Gang to be sent to the Soviet Government. Its main content is to present our views on the design and equipment delivery schedules stipulated in the “Protocol on the Technical Assistance to Be Provided by the Soviet Union to the People’s Republic of China in the Restoration and Reconstruction of the Anshan Iron and Steel Company from 1953 to 1955,” signed on 11 August 1952, and to request the Soviet Government to give them consideration, so that our country may considerably increase its steel rolling capacity in 1956 and 1957 and basically eliminate the imbalance between steelmaking capacity and steel rolling capacity, thereby ensuring the supply of rolled steel under our First Five-Year Plan.
[3] Refers to V. V. Kuznetsov, then Soviet Ambassador to China.