Notes and Amendments by Mao Zedong to Liao Luyan’s [1] Explanatory Draft of the National Outline for Agricultural Development [2] (January 25, 1956)

I. Comrade Shangkun [3]: Please have this document [4] printed immediately. Ensure accurate proofreading; produce fifty copies and bring them to the Qinzheng Hall at three o’clock in the afternoon of January 25th to be distributed one copy to each attendee (there will be approximately so many people in total). Mao Zedong, midnight on January 25th. Printed from the handwritten draft.

II. This forty-point draft outline for agricultural development will remain a draft for the next few months. It should be discussed by workers, peasants, intellectuals, and patriotic persons from all walks of life across the country, who are invited to offer their views. Printed from Mao Zedong’s handwritten draft.

III. Regarding the problem of over one million urban unemployed, which many had long considered difficult to resolve in the short term, new developments have now emerged. The Jiaxing Special Administrative Region in Zhejiang Province has requested the transfer of 100,000 laborers from Shanghai, while Jiangxi Province has likewise asked Shanghai to relocate 500,000 unemployed individuals capable of agricultural work to that province. As for the remote border areas, where land is abundant but labor is scarce and urgently needed, the situation goes without saying. By making arrangements through both urban and rural channels, this legacy of more than one million unemployed persons left over from before the Liberation can be absorbed into employment within a few years. Printed from Mao Zedong’s revised text. Published in the People’s Daily on January 26, 1956.

Notes [ ] Liao Luyan was then Deputy Minister of the CPC Central Committee’s Rural Work Department and Minister of Agriculture. [ ] Sections (II) and (III) of this document represent two concentrated passages in which Mao Zedong made substantial revisions to Liao Luyan’s explanatory draft. The text typeset in Song typeface indicates material he added or altered. [3] Shangkun refers to Yang Shangkun, who at the time served as Deputy Secretary-General of the CPC Central Committee and Director of the Central Office. [4] Refers to Liao Luyan’s “Explanation on the National Outline for Agricultural Development from 1956 to 1967,” delivered at the sixth meeting of the Supreme State Council on January 25, 1956, as revised by Mao Zedong. It was published in the People’s Daily on January 26, 1956.