This analysis significantly narrowed the class basis for agricultural collectivization. These errors were concrete manifestations of idealism in practical work and reflected, within the Party, the ideological resistance of prosperous farmers to socialist transformation. The root cause of this mistake lay first in the failure to conduct investigations and studies of the political and ideological trends among the various classes and strata in the countryside using the Marxist method of class analysis; as a result, there was no clear understanding, only a focus on surface phenomena without grasping the underlying essence. Secondly, instructions from the central administrative departments were mistakenly regarded as directives from the Central Committee itself. Undertaking such a major undertaking without the Central Committee’s approval was, from an organizational standpoint, seriously lacking in seriousness.

2. Plan for the Development and Consolidation of Agricultural Production Cooperatives in Zhejiang Province: From the autumn of 1955 to before the autumn of 1956, the number of cooperatives was to be increased to 65,000, with member households accounting for approximately 40 percent of the province’s total number of farming households; by the autumn of 1957, the number of cooperatives was to reach 100,000, and the proportion of member households was to rise to around 70 percent; before the autumn of 1958, following the principle of prioritizing the expansion of existing cooperatives while supplementing with new ones, roughly 3,000 to 5,000 new cooperatives were to be established, bringing the share of member households up to 85 percent; and by the autumn of 1960, the proportion of member households was to exceed 90 percent, thereby essentially completing the semi-socialist transformation of agriculture. The report stated that the key to implementing the comprehensive plan for agricultural collectivization lay in strengthening Party leadership, particularly in rectifying and developing primary-level Party organizations. To this end, it was imperative to mobilize the entire Party—top down and inside out—to thoroughly criticize and overcome the ideology representing prosperous farmers and to foster socialist thought. [2] See note [1] on page [ ] of this volume.