Remarks on a Big-Character Poster Display
(September 18, 1957)

Source: Kau & Leung, The Writings of Mao Zedong 1949-1976, Vol. II
Pages 679-679
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JULY ~ SEPTEMBER / 679

riddle will be inside the lantern. This game is most popular during festivals such as the
shangyuan festival near lunar New Year’s time. Presumably Lu had informed Mao that in
the district of Huangpu (see text July 8, 1957(2), note 76) the public put up lanterns with
riddles alluding to the behavior of certain cadres to be criticized. The people would then try
to guess to whom the riddle was referring.

3. See text July 8, 1957(2), note 13.

4. Here Mao echoes a sentiment which he iterated in the July 8 and 9 speeches of
1957. See text July 8, 1957(2), paragraph 8, and text July 9, 1957, paragraph 14.

5. Here Mao is referring to the four Shanghai Municipal Party Committee secretaries
who were accompanying him on this visit. They were Ke Qingshi, Chen Pixian, Mao
Tianshui, and Xu Jianguo. On Mao’s idea of sending cadres down to the lower levels to see
and experience things firsthand, see text Jan. 27, 1957(1), paragraph 56; text Feb. 27, 1957,
note 102 and surrounding text, and text July 8, 1957(2), notes 52 and 70.

6. Here Mao is referring to the Shanghai Mechanics Institute, of which Chou is the
principal.

7. Here Mao is referring to the story of a student at the Shanghai Mechanics Institute
by the name of Jiang who was assigned the duty of being tutor and instructor for lower-division students in a previous year and who wanted the school to continue to assign him easy
tasks so that he could prepare for university entrance examinations. According to Chou’s
report, he was very annoyed at the school for refusing to do so. Chou had suggested to him
that it would be difficult to give him a job even as a janitor, whereupon Jiang whipped up
support from some of his fellow students to criticize the school and the cadres for giving
him demeaning treatment.

8. Here Mao is referring to Chou Qiaqin.

9. Here Mao is referring to Chou, Lu, Wang Weiguang, and Liu Donghai. The latter
two were the manager and Party secretary at the Shanghai Boiler Factory. The term “old
bureaucrat” had been used as a criticism again Chou.

10. Here Mao is responding to the report made by Wang Weiguang regarding a worker,
Gu Liufa’s criticism of the CPC, and the cadres at the Shanghai Boiler Factory. Gu had been
rapidly promoted from 1950, when he entered the factory as an apprentice, to 1956, when
he became a seventh-grade worker. This paragraph also contains interesting information
regarding workers’ wages. (As an apprentice, Gu supposedly was given a stipend of 7 rmb
per month; as a seventh-grade worker, he was making 105 rmb.)

11. See text July 1957(1), note 12.

12. Here Mao is referring to the conditions reported by Wang Weiguang and Liu
Donghai.

13. This passage appears in both the Lu and Chou articles.

(September 18, 1957)

Source: Ji Yin and Xi Ping, “Mao zhuxi kan dazi bao” (Chairman Mao Reads
Big-Character Posters), in RMRB (Sept. 22, 1957), 2; and Huang Zonglin, “Mao
zhuxi lai kan dazi bao” (Chairman Mao Came to Read Big-Character Posters), in
Mao guanhuai, pp. 96-98. Available English Translation: SCMP, 1626 (Oct. 8,
1957), 27 (excerpt).
This is a composite representation of excerpts of a conversation reported aggregately in the
two articles cited above. We have selected only the more meaningful passages. The Ji Yin-Xi
Ping article also appears in Mao qunzhong, pp. 34-38. The Huang article, as cited on Mao
guanhuai, p. 98, was published originally in Zhibu shenghuo (Life at the [Party] Branch),
19(1957), Shanghai. The conversation took place during a visit to the No. 1 State-Run Cotton
Mill in Shanghai. Mao's visit to this factory was reported in FBIS, Daily Report (Sept. 19,
1957), BBB I, and in RMRB (Sept. 19, 1957), J.

This big-character poster! is very well-written.
Have the cadres who have been criticized plucked up their spirits?

(The above from the Ji Yin-Xi Ping article.)

The old workers are correct in what they are saying.
When did the contending and blooming? begin? At what stage is it now?
We must draw close to the masses more often.

(The above from the Huang article.)

Notes

1. See text July 8, 1957(2), note 40.
2. See text Autumn 1956, note 1.
3. See text July 8, 1957(2), notes 57 and 71.