March 5, 1956

[Part of Comrade Mao Tsetung's instructions when the departments concerned
under the State Council reported their work on handicrafts.]


1. It seems to me that the pace of the socialist transformation of independent
handicrafts was a little too slow. I said so in January this year at the
conference of secretaries of provincial and municipal Party committees. By
the end of 1955 only two million handicraftsmen had been organized.
In the first two months of this year, however, three million more have been
organized, so in the main the work can be accomplished this year; that is
fine. You are contemplating an average annual increase of 10.9 per cent in
the total value of handicraft production over a period of three five-year
plans; that seems a bit too small. We set too low a target in the First Five-Year
Plan and have suffered a little in consequence; it need not be changed now,
but you should use your discretion.

2. As for the size of handicraft co-operatives, generally speaking, about
one hundred people per co-operative would be appropriate, although some may
have several hundred and others only a few dozen.

3. It is a good idea to organize co-operatives of the blacksmiths and carpenters
who make the rounds of the villages to repair farm implements and serve
agricultural production, the peasants will certainly welcome this. That is
what handicraftsmen in China have been doing for thousands of years. Organized
in co-operatives, the craftsmen can improve their skills and serve the peasants
better.

4. You have said that the masses were dissatisfied because production was
centralized in the repair and service trades and too many service stations
were closed during the high tide of the transformation of handicrafts. That
was too bad! What is to be done now? "The general trend under heaven is that
there is bound to be unification after prolonged division and division after
prolonged unification."

5. The highest labour productivity in mechanized and semi-mechanized production
is over thirty times the lowest in handicraft production. The annual value
of output per capita is 20,000 to 30,000 yuan in modernized state industry,
5,000 yuan in mechanized and semi-mechanized co-operatives, 2,000 yuan in
big co-operatives with more than 100 handicraftsmen, 1,500 yuan in small
co-operatives and 800 to 900 yuan among independent handicraftsmen. Compare
the differences in labour productivity and it becomes clear that the handicrafts
must develop in the direction of semi-mechanization and mechanization and
that labour productivity must be raised.

6. All the handicraft trades perform useful services. They provide food,
clothing and other things for daily use. They also produce arts and crafts,
such as cloisonne or the glass grapes blown by "the five spinsters of the
Chang family".[1] Besides, the technique of roasting
Peking duck is exportable. People in some service trades make their rounds
of the streets and villages, taxing all sorts of things, as in the play
Mending Jars for Aunty Wang -- these people travel around and are
well-informed. The Dawn-in-the-East Market in Peking displays more than six
thousand kinds of articles for sale.

Mind you, don't let our fine handicraft products be discarded. Pock-marked
no, not even ten thousand years from now. Anything good and characteristically
Chinese that has been discarded must be restored and even improved.

7. It is a good idea to improve the quality of arts and crafts and to look
after the old master craftsmen, and you should start now and speed
up the work. You can set up organizations, open schools and call meetings.
Yang Shih-hui, the ivory carver, is actually a very fine artist. Once he
and I ate at a table together, and while observing me he was able to carve
my likeness. I could have observed him for several days without being able
to draw a picture of him, I'm afraid.

8. The prices of equipment and materials allocated by the state to the
co-operatives should be reasonably fixed and must not be set at the normal
allocation prices. Co-operatives are not the same as state enterprises and
there is a difference between socialist collective ownership and socialist
ownership by the whole people. At the outset the economic foundations of
the co-operatives are not strong enough and they need state assistance. It
is a good idea for the state to allocate to the co-operatives at low prices
old machines which have been replaced as well as the machinery and factory
buildings rendered surplus by the amalgamation of privately owned plants
under joint state-private management. "Give in order to take." When the
foundations of the co-operatives have become strong enough, the state will
collect a larger tax from them and raise the prices of raw materials too.
By that time the co-operatives will be owned by the collective in form but
in reality by the whole people.

The state should help the co-operatives to achieve semi-mechanization and
mechanization, and they themselves should strive for the same goal. The greater
the speed of mechanization, the shorter the life of your handicraft
co-operatives. The more your "kingdom" shrinks, the better it is for our
common cause. You should exert yourselves to hasten mechanization and make
a greater contribution to the state.

9. Since the value of handicraft output forms a quarter of the total value
of the country's industrial output, why is it that the supply of raw materials
for the handicrafts as well as their production and sales have not been made
part of the state plan? The handicrafts assume such large proportions that
they should be included in the state plan.

10. In some places the Party committees are so occupied with other tasks
that they don't put handicrafts on the agenda; this is not good. Why are
some cadres rather unwilling to undertake this work? I myself would very
much like to do it, as it is very important.

11. You should select outstanding examples from among the sixty-thousand-odd
handicraft co-operatives and compile material on their typical experience.
The examples should be chosen from every locality and every trade and should
include good and bad, big and small, concentrated and scattered, as well
as semi-mechanized and mechanized co-operatives. They should be published
in book form like Socialist Upsurge in China's Countryside.

NOTES


1. This refers to the five women of Master Chang's family
in Peking famous for the glass grapes they blew.

Transcription by the Maoist Documentation Project.