Directive of the Central Committee on Inspecting the Discussion and Implementation of the Question of Correctly Handling Contradictions Among the People (April 19, 1957) To the Shanghai Bureau, the Party Committees of all provinces and municipalities directly under the中央 government, and the Party Committees of the autonomous regions; to all departments at the central level and to the Party leading groups of state organs:

The question of correctly handling contradictions among the people is currently being discussed throughout the country. You are requested to report on the views both within and outside the Party—those in favor as well as those opposed—along with your own opinions; your assessment of the overall situation; the attitudes prevailing at the prefectural and county levels; whether your committees and secretariats, or your Party leading groups, have thoroughly and repeatedly deliberated this issue; whether the first secretaries and the ministerial-level or vice-ministerial-level Party members (in ministries headed by non-Party ministers) have personally taken serious charge of this extremely important ideological and political task, or whether they continue to delegate it to their second or third-ranking colleagues while themselves, as in the past, remain relatively uninvolved in thoughtful consideration. Furthermore, please indicate whether the first secretaries, other secretaries, and ministerial- and vice-ministerial-level Party members have assumed responsibility for overseeing newspapers, periodicals, and educational institutions; whether they have read articles in these publications concerning this subject; whether they reviewed major editorials prior to their publication and made any revisions; and whether the abnormal tension between Party members and non-Party elements, particularly the intelligentsia, has begun to ease.

Please also report on the measures you have taken in response to popular unrest, and on whether the Kuomintang-style tendencies still present among certain Party members—the tendency to regard the people as enemies and to resort to repression and suppression—tendencies whereby so-called people’s democracy, the mass line, “being one with the masses,” and “concern for the people’s hardships” are merely deceptive slogans—are beginning to change. (In other words, a segment of the Party still harbors reactionary, anti-people ideological and behavioral patterns.) Have you delivered any lectures to students in schools or to workers in factories? If so, how many times, and with what results?

With respect to all of the above matters, please immediately prepare a report and transmit it by telegraph within fifteen days of receipt of this dispatch. Reports from departments in Beijing should be submitted in written form.

Printed according to the telegraph draft preserved in the Central Archives, dated [year and month]. (Includes a manuscript in Mao Zedong’s handwriting.)