To the Shanghai Bureau, the Party Committees of all provinces and municipalities directly under the central government, the Party Committees of autonomous regions, and the Party Leadership Groups of all departments at the central level and state organs: The question of correctly handling contradictions among the people is currently being discussed throughout the country.


Please submit reports detailing both pro and con views within and outside the Party, your own opinions, your assessment of the overall situation, the attitudes prevailing at the prefectural and county levels, whether your committees and secretariats or Party Leadership Groups have thoroughly and repeatedly deliberated this issue; whether the first secretaries and Party-member ministers or vice ministers at the central level (particularly in ministries headed by non-Party figures) 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 remaining as unengaged as before; whether the first secretaries, other secretaries, and Party-member ministers or vice ministers have assumed responsibility for overseeing newspapers, periodicals, and educational institutions, whether they have read articles on these matters in the press, whether they have reviewed major editorials prior to publication and made substantive revisions, and whether the abnormal tension between Party members and non-Party elements—primarily intellectuals—has eased in any measure. Also report on the measures you have adopted in response to popular unrest. Furthermore, indicate whether the Kuomintang-style tendencies still present among certain Party members (i.e., regarding the people as enemies and resorting to repression and intimidation; for such individuals, so-called people’s democracy, the mass line, “being one with the masses,” and “concern for the people’s hardships” are merely deceptive slogans)—in other words, whether the reactionary, anti-people ideology and practices prevalent among a segment of the Party are beginning to change. Finally, please specify how many lectures you have delivered to students and factory workers, how often, and what the results have been. With regard to all these matters, please prepare a written report and transmit it by telegraph within fifteen days of receipt of this message.


Reports from departments in Beijing should be submitted in writing.
Printed by the Central Committee on April 19, 1957, based on Mao Zedong’s manuscript.