Comments on the Report on the Question
(September 3, 1955)

Shanghai Bureau, provincial and municipal Party committees, and Party committees of autonomous regions:

The report of the Shanxi Provincial Party Committee dated August 22 on the question of agricultural cooperation [1], along with an attached plan [2], is hereby issued to you all for reference. The Central Committee holds that the orientation of the Shanxi Provincial Party Committee is correct.

The Central Committee
September 3, 1955

After Zhou and Boda [1] have reviewed it, immediately send it to Liu, Zhu, Chen, and Deng [2] for review, and have Shangkun [3] transmit it by telegram.

Mao Zedong
September 3

[1]
1. Development targets should be set with different control figures determined according to different areas.
2. Do not rush to establish large cooperatives; it is appropriate to set up cooperatives based on single villages within natural villages.
3. Mountainous hamlets and scattered dwellings where residence is extremely dispersed are not suitable for establishing cooperatives.
4. The valuation of draft animals for entry into the cooperative or their collective penning and rental should preferably be delayed for one or two years.
5. Newly established cooperatives should temporarily not admit well-to-do middle peasants (individuals who voluntarily apply for membership may be admitted), and must resolutely not admit landlords and rich peasants. In order to consolidate and expand the positions of the cooperatives, it is necessary to improve the methods and style of leadership to meet the demands of large-scale mass movements. The meeting determined that the consolidation and establishment of cooperatives should be integrated with the consolidation and building of the Party. Within this year, the work of transforming backward villages and rectifying backward Party branches must be completed, and simultaneously, the 1955 rural Party-building plan must be fulfilled.

[2]
[1]
[2]
[3]

--- Notes

The report of the Shanxi Provincial Party Committee of the CPC states: We convened a meeting of prefectural and municipal Party committee secretaries from August 12 to 14. The comrades attending the meeting studied Mao Zedong's report on the question of agricultural cooperation and unanimously felt immensely encouraged and deeply enlightened. The meeting set the pace of development for province-wide cooperation from 1955 to 1957, and pointed out that in the future construction of agricultural cooperatives, attention should be paid to the following points:

Zhou refers to Zhou Enlai. Boda, i.e., Chen Boda, then Deputy Director of the Rural Work Department of the CPC Central Committee.


Refers to the plan of the Shanxi Provincial Party Committee of the CPC, dated August 20, 1955, on developing and consolidating agricultural producers' cooperatives.


Liu refers to Liu Shaoqi. Zhu refers to Zhu De. Chen refers to Chen Yun, then Secretary of the Secretariat of the CPC Central Committee and Vice Premier of the State Council. Deng refers to Deng Xiaoping, then Secretary-General of the CPC Central Committee and Vice Premier of the State Council.


Shangkun, i.e., Yang Shangkun, then Deputy Secretary-General of the CPC Central Committee and Director of the General Office of the Central Committee.