(September 5 and 7, 1955)

Comrades Zhou and Boda[1]: After reading, immediately send to Comrade Deng Xiaoping[2]:

Have Comrade Xiao Ping consult with Comrade Shaoqi on this document, deliberate and revise it, print and distribute it to all members of the Political Bureau, immediately convene a Political Bureau meeting to discuss and approve it, and send it by telegram. It is advisable that all provinces, municipalities, and prefectural committees receive it before September 11.

Shanghai Bureau, all provincial and municipal committees, all autonomous region party committees, all prefectural committees:

Mao Zedong
September 5

(1) The Central Political Bureau has decided to convene the Sixth Plenary Session (Enlarged) of the Seventh Central Committee, with two items on the agenda:

[1]
Refers to Zhou Enlai. Boda, i.e., Chen Boda, then serving as Deputy Director of the Rural Work Department of the CPC Central Committee.
[2]
Deng Xiaoping, then serving as Secretary-General of the CPC Central Committee.

(A) Discuss and adopt the resolution on agricultural cooperation;
(B) Discuss and adopt the resolution on convening the Party’s Eighth National Congress and the work of electing delegates.

(2) The Sixth Plenary Session is an enlarged meeting. It is decided that Comrade Ke Qingshi, Secretary of the Shanghai Bureau; Comrade Liu Ren, Second Secretary of the Beijing Municipal Committee; Comrade Huang Huoqing, Secretary of the Tianjin Municipal Committee; Comrade Chen Pixian, Second Secretary of the Shanghai Municipal Committee; the secretaries of all provincial committees, all autonomous region party committees, all major municipal committees (Shenyang, Wuhan, Guangzhou, Chongqing, Xi’an), all district party committees, and all prefectural committees (if the first secretary is unable to attend due to illness or other matters, the second secretary or deputy secretary shall attend); the directors of the rural work departments of all provincial committees and autonomous region party committees; and the responsible comrades from all central ministries and commissions and central state organs who should attend, shall participate in this central meeting. The comrades participating shall attend the meeting as non-voting delegates, with the right to speak but without the right to vote. The total number of attending and non-voting comrades shall be over three hundred.

(3) At the meeting, Comrade Chen Boda shall report on the significance and content of the resolution on the question of agricultural cooperation, and Comrade Deng Xiaoping shall report on the significance and content of the resolution on the question of the Eighth Party Congress.

(4) Meeting dates: October 3 to 7, five days in total.

(5) All attending members of the Central Committee, alternate members of the Central Committee, non-voting secretaries or deputy secretaries of the Shanghai Bureau, all provincial committees, municipal committees, autonomous region party committees, all district party committees, and all prefectural committees, and directors of the rural work departments of all provincial committees and autonomous region party committees, must arrive in Beijing by September 27 and report to the General Office of the Central Committee, so as to have a few days to exchange views in advance, read documents, and participate in the National Day celebrations.

(6) The speeches at this plenary session by members of the Central Committee and alternate members of the Central Committee (including members of the Political Bureau) shall be arranged separately.

(7) The secretaries of the Shanghai Bureau, all provincial committees, municipal committees, autonomous region party committees, district party committees, and prefectural committees shall immediately begin preparing their speeches, all of which must be written out as speech drafts. For these speech drafts, those of the Secretary of the Shanghai Bureau, all provincial committee secretaries, all secretaries of municipalities directly under the Central Government, and all autonomous region party committee secretaries may be around 4,000 characters; for provinces with rich experience in cooperation and large provinces, they may be around 5,000 characters; for small provinces, they may be only around 3,000 characters. The speech drafts of the secretaries of all major municipal committees, district party committees, and prefectural committees may be around 3,000 characters; for prefectural committees with rich experience in cooperation, they may be around 4,000 characters; for those with insufficient experience, they may be only around 1,000 to 2,000 characters. The content of the speeches shall mainly address cooperation, which should account for about seven- to eight-tenths of the character count, and may incidentally touch upon opinions on work such as the "Three Fixes" for grain, social suppression of counterrevolutionaries, and Party building and Party consolidation; together with the issue of convening the Eighth Congress, these shall in total account for about two- to three-tenths of the character count. The content of the speeches should, as far as possible, possess relatively profound ideological character, substantiated and demonstrated with concrete experience and planned figures. Because the session lasts only five days, it is impossible for everyone to read their speech drafts aloud. It is planned that a portion of representative regions will read their speech drafts aloud, while the speech drafts from another portion of regions will be printed and distributed for everyone to read. Therefore, although not all local comrades may be able to speak, everyone must prepare a written speech draft. Depending on their content, these speech drafts are to be prepared for slight revision (including the removal of certain parts beyond the question of cooperation), turned into article form, and published in newspapers, so as to exchange experience and promote the cooperative movement.

The Central Committee
September 7, 1955