Direct Reply to Telegrams Drafted by the Central Committee: A Marginal Note[1]
(August 26, 1955)

Comrades Xiaoping and Shangkun[2]:

Please notify the Central Rural Work Department by telephone: In the coming few months, telegrams from provincial, municipal, and regional Party committees concerning agricultural cooperativization shall be replied to directly by the Central Committee through telegrams drafted by it; and inform comrades distributing such incoming telegrams not to write the instruction “Request the Rural Work Department to handle.” However, for other incoming telegrams, such as the Qinghai Provincial Party Committee’s request for instructions on livestock issues, the instruction “To be handled by the Rural Work Department” should still be written.

Mao Zedong
August 26

[1] This note was written on the Qinghai Provincial Party Committee’s August 20, 1955 report to the Central Committee requesting instructions on promoting the original forms of mutual-aid and cooperative organization in livestock production in pastoral areas.
[2] Xiaoping refers to Deng Xiaoping, then Secretary-General of the CPC Central Committee and Vice Premier of the State Council. Shangkun refers to Yang Shangkun, then Deputy Secretary-General of the CPC Central Committee and Director of the General Office of the Central Committee.