Talk at the Forum of Heads of Propaganda,
Culture, and Education Departments from
Nine Provinces and Municipalities
6 MARCH 1957
[44] [XX:] (With regard to how to hold meetings, we've listened to
the recordings of the Chairman’s report;! [there's] substantial content
[in it]; [we] should digest it well; it’s best to hold more small meetings
[and] fewer large conferences.)?
Sources: 9:44-55; alternate text, 7:18-28.
1 This almost certainly refers to Mao’s “Contradictions” speech of a week earlier, tape recordings of which were played to selected audiences across the country; see Robert Loh and
Humphrey Evans, Escape from Red China (London, Michael Joseph, 1963), pp. 218-22.
“This paragraph was evidently spoken by an official chairing this session for Mao, perhaps
Zhou Yang, deputy head of the CC’s Propaganda Department. We have interpreted many
subsequent paragraphs, which are printed within parentheses in the original Chinese texts,
as being interjections, with responses by the Chairman. Accordingly, whenever there is an
apparent change in speaker, we have provided the word Chairman or names where the
speaker can be identified and XX where they cannot.