Comments and Revisions on the Outline for Reports
[1]
(March 30, 1956)

To be reviewed by Liu, Zhou, Peng Zhen, and Xiaoping [2]; to be handled by Shangkun [3].

Mao Zedong
March 30

The Central Committee has recently heard reports separately from the Party groups of the ministries of industry, transportation, agriculture-forestry-water conservancy, and finance-gold-trade. In the coming months, the Central Committee plans to hear reports separately from the provincial Party committees, municipal Party committees, and regional Party committees on work related to industry, transportation, agriculture-forestry-water conservancy, and finance-gold-trade.

[1] Parts two and three of this text are revisions made by Mao Zedong to the outline for local economic work reports drafted by the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China. The text printed in Song typeface represents words added or rewritten by Mao Zedong.

[2] Liu refers to Liu Shaoqi. Zhou refers to Zhou Enlai. Peng Zhen was then an alternate secretary of the Secretariat of the CPC Central Committee. Xiaoping, namely Deng Xiaoping, was then secretary-general of the CPC Central Committee.

[3] Shangkun, namely Yang Shangkun, was then deputy secretary-general of the CPC Central Committee and director of the General Office of the CPC Central Committee.

Such reports should contain vivid materials, make comparisons, include discussions, and put forward propositions. They must not be dull and stereotyped. At the same time, they should be written as documents to be submitted to the Central Committee, with a word count of around 15,000 characters being appropriate. However, this depends on the content. If the content is good, written with substance and vitality, it may be somewhat longer; otherwise, it should be shorter—a few thousand characters will also do. If the ten items listed above [1] cannot be completed in one sitting, submitting them as several separate reports is also acceptable. If it is temporarily difficult to address many issues well, addressing two or three, or three or four issues first is also permissible.

[1] The outline for local economic work reports drafted by the CPC Central Committee contained ten items: (1) The current main economic conditions of each province, municipality, and region. (2) The projected fulfillment of the First Five-Year Plan in each province, municipality, and region, along with experiences and lessons learned. (3) Main opinions on the national and the respective province’s, municipality’s, and region’s Second Five-Year Plan and Third Five-Year Plan, as well as the main resource conditions and main development directions of each province, municipality, and region. (4) The current upsurge in socialist competition among the masses of workers; where the potential lies in industry, agriculture, transportation, commerce, and finance; and how to specifically tap potential in production, capital construction, transportation, and circulation. (5) How to bring local initiative into play under the unified leadership of the Central Committee, and opinions on the division of authority between the central and local levels in undertakings, finance, and planning systems. (6) How local Party committees can better strengthen leadership over various local enterprises and central state-operated enterprises, and how to carry out overall planning and arrangements. (7) The situation and problems arising in the implementation of the National Program for Agricultural Development (Draft). (8) Problems and opinions in the socialist transformation of private industry and commerce, private transportation, and the cooperative transformation of handicrafts. (9) Opinions on the division of labor between state-operated commerce and supply and marketing cooperatives, and opinions on the price policies for industrial and agricultural products. (10) Opinions on capital accumulation, burden policies, and improving the people’s livelihood. The outline required that reports submitted to the Central Committee by each province, autonomous region, and directly administered municipality should, based on their respective economic characteristics, conduct concrete analyses of the main issues in their financial and economic work and make historical comparisons. This outline for reports by the Central Committee was issued on March 30, 1956, to the Shanghai Bureau and the Party committees of all provinces, municipalities, and autonomous regions.