Comment on the Notice Regarding Inviting to Dinners, Taking Photographs, and Sending Off Cadres
(26 May 1955)

Liu, Deng:[1]
Shanxi’s decision on this matter[2] is very good and may be forwarded to the entire Party. Draft a directive for the Central Committee to be placed at the beginning.

Mao Zedong
26 May 1955

[1] Liu refers to Liu Shaoqi. Deng refers to Deng Xiaoping, then serving as Secretary-General of the CPC Central Committee.
[2] Refers to the notice of 22 May 1955 from the CPC Shanxi Provincial Committee, sent to subordinate bodies and reported to the Central Committee, forbidding inviting to dinners, taking photographs, and giving gifts when cadres are transferred. The notice stated that up to now, when cadres are transferred, many units have followed the decadent practices of the landlord and bourgeois classes by inviting to dinners, taking photographs, and giving gifts. This not only wastes state property but also has a serious corrosive effect on the ideological consciousness of cadres and has created a vile influence among cadres and the masses. Therefore, the Provincial Committee has decided: henceforth, no government organs, organizations, factories, mines, or enterprises of any kind shall, when cadres are transferred, be permitted to invite to dinners, take photographs, or give gifts.