Comments on the Report Concerning the Implementation of Democratic Management in Cooperatives and the Rectification Campaign
(June 27, 1957)


Comrade Xiaoping:
This document⑴ is worth reading. In addition to circulating it to the Politburo, the Secretariat, and the Central Committee members stationed in Beijing, please consider whether it might also be forwarded to party committees at all levels throughout the country for their reference.
Mao Zedong
June 27


[1] Refers to Tan Zhenlin’s report dated June 24, 1957, addressed to Mao Zedong and the CPC Central Committee, concerning the implementation of democratic management in cooperatives and the rectification campaign in You County, Hunan Province. The report states that he had spent more than forty days in his native You County, Hunan, where, guided by the principle of democratic management, he personally led the reorganization of five agricultural production cooperatives. During this process, it was found that the issue most pressing to the members—and the principal source of tension between them and the cooperative cadres—was undemocratic financial management and a lack of transparency in accounting records, which had bred considerable suspicion among the members toward the cooperative leadership. Following a financial audit, the public disclosure of accounts, and appropriate criticism and disciplinary action against a small number of cadres guilty of embezzlement or petty self-interest, the members’ suspicions were dispelled, their morale improved, and relations with the cadres were significantly strengthened. With regard to the rectification of county-level organs, the report notes that the main problems revealed during the campaign were: first, a relatively serious tendency toward privileged thinking among cadres; second, the persistence of narrow class-based perspectives in work; and third, an extreme form of bureaucratic inertia, to the point where officials delegated even routine writing tasks to secretaries and clerical staff, and county-level cadres rarely went down to the countryside. To remedy this situation, it was recommended that the Central Committee stipulate that county-level cadres should spend at least six months each year working directly among the masses, and that the rectification drive in county-level organs should include symposiums with non-Party figures.