Instructions on the Experience of Rectifying the Unified Marketing of Grain
(May 26, 1955)

Comrades Shaoqi and Xiaoping[1]:

A brief directive may be written in the name of the Central Committee, forwarding this experience of Anhui[2] and instructing all localities to generally emulate it; and urge and supervise all localities to ensure that the entire Party is mobilized, to properly carry out the work of fixed marketing in all townships, to reduce the total supply volume, and to fully supply the small number of households truly short of grain.

Mao Zedong
May 26

1. Rely on activists to line up and ascertain the situation, so that cadres have a clear picture in mind.
2. Conduct thorough and meticulous education. First, convene a general meeting of commune members in the central cooperative to carry out mobilization, clearly explain the benefits of unified purchase and unified marketing, expose the activities of bad elements, and commend the masses who save grain. Then, separately hold small-scale informal discussions, calculate detailed accounts, find ways to increase production and economize, and concretely resolve ideological problems.
3. After the problems of the central cooperative are resolved, convene a township-wide cadres’ conference to introduce the experience and extend it to the entire township. As a result, peasants voluntarily sold their surplus grain, which set the masses’ minds at ease and gave them drive in production.

--- Notes

[1] Xiaoping refers to Deng Xiaoping, then serving as Secretary-General of the CPC Central Committee and Vice Premier of the State Council.
[2] Refers to the experience of rectifying the unified marketing of grain in Mofan Township, Qianshan County, which the CPC Anhui Provincial Committee reported to its subordinate units on April 29, 1955. The main points were: