Comments on the Draft Speech for the Second Session
(July 22, 1955)

Please deliver immediately to Comrade Chen Yun[2]:
Please have a look at once to see if there is anything that contradicts what you have said. After reading, return it immediately to Comrade Liao Luyan. I think this document is very good.

Mao Zedong
July 22

[1] Refers to the draft speech submitted for review on July 21, 1955, by Liao Luyan, then Deputy Director of the Rural Work Department of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China and Minister of Agriculture, to be delivered at the Second Session of the First National People's Congress. The speech mainly addressed the following issues:

1. The targets for increasing the production of grain, cotton, oil-bearing crops, as well as livestock and aquatic products, set forth in the draft of the First Five-Year Plan, are relatively reliable, can be fulfilled, and can even be exceeded. They should be ensured to be fulfilled, and every effort should be made to exceed them. This year is a crucial year for fulfilling this plan.

2. The proportion of investment in industry and agriculture stipulated in the draft of the First Five-Year Plan is appropriate. It is determined in accordance with the General Line for the Transition Period and also conforms to the specific conditions of our country's current agricultural production. Since our country is still industrially backward, it is not yet possible to widely implement agricultural mechanization, nor can larger-scale water conservancy construction be fully launched. The way to develop agricultural production still mainly relies on mutual aid and cooperation, the rational use of labor, the full utilization of land, the improvement of farming techniques, and the exertion of the superiority of collective production. The fundamental way to change the backwardness of our country's agriculture is to carry out socialist industrialization and the socialist transformation of small-scale peasant economy. We must not adopt the method of reducing industrial investment to increase agricultural investment.

3. There should be a proper assessment of the agricultural cooperative movement over the past few years. The achievements of the agricultural cooperative movement have been very great. Before this year's spring plowing, the whole country had developed 670,000 cooperatives. Mutual aid and cooperation, taking the socialist road, have become the main trend in the countryside. We do not conceal the shortcomings and mistakes in the course of development. By correcting mistakes and rectifying shortcomings, the agricultural cooperative movement will advance more healthily and with greater confidence toward victory. The next two to three years are a crucial period for the agricultural cooperative movement, during which a solid foundation must be laid for the movement.

4. On the issue of the peasants' livelihood. Since the completion of the land reform, the mutual aid and cooperative movement was immediately launched, agricultural production was developed, and the peasants' livelihood has markedly improved. The task ahead is to lead the peasants onto the socialist road and avoid capitalist exploitation. For only socialism is the broad road leading the peasants to a happy life. For a better and happier future, the peasants must, together with the people of the whole country, work hard and build socialism through arduous struggle.

[2] Chen Yun, then Secretary of the Secretariat of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China and Vice Premier of the State Council.