Commentary on Tan Zhenlin’s Report Concerning the Implementation of Democratic Management in Cooperatives and the Rectification Campaign in You County, Hunan Province (June 27, 1957)

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

Based on the manuscript. Notes [1] Tan Zhenlin was then a secretary of the Secretariat of the CPC Central Committee. [2] Xiaoping refers to Deng Xiaoping, who at that time served as General Secretary of the CPC Central Committee. [3] This refers to Tan Zhenlin’s report dated June 24, 1957, addressed to Mao Zedong and the CPC Central Committee, on the implementation of democratic management in cooperatives and the rectification campaign in You County, Hunan Province.

The report states that he spent more than forty days in his native You County, Hunan Province, where, in accordance with the policy of democratic management, he personally led the reorganization of five agricultural production cooperatives. During this process, it was found that the issue most concerning to the cooperative members—and the main source of conflict between them and the cooperative cadres—was undemocratic financial management and the lack of transparency in accounting records, which had engendered 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 greatly strengthened. With regard to the rectification campaign within county-level organs, the report notes that the principal problems exposed during the campaign are: first, a relatively serious tendency toward privilege among cadres; second, the persistence of a narrow class-based outlook in work; and third, a degree of bureaucratic inertia so pronounced that officials have come to rely almost entirely on secretaries and clerical staff even for routine writing, while county-level cadres spend very little time working directly among the rural population. To remedy this situation, it is recommended that the central authorities stipulate that county-level cadres should devote at least six months each year to intensive grassroots work, and that the rectification campaign in county-level organs should include symposiums involving non-Party figures.