The Forty-Article Program for Agricultural Development has been revised and will be issued soon.
I ask comrades to organize a thorough debate and discussion in the rural areas.
I have consulted some comrades: Should agricultural plans be made at the prefectural level? They said yes.
Should they be made at the district level? They said yes.
Should they be made at the township level? They said yes.
The cooperatives should also make them.
Thus, there are several levels: province, prefecture, county, district, township, and cooperative—six levels in all.
Please pay close attention to pushing forward this agricultural planning.
Planning and programs are essentially the same thing; if it has become a habit, calling it a program is fine too.
We must persist in comprehensive planning, strengthen leadership, have Party secretaries take charge personally, and have the whole Party run the cooperatives.
It seems that in the latter half of last year, the whole Party was not running the cooperatives, and Party secretaries were not taking much personal charge.
This year, we must persist in doing so.
When exactly can the plans be completed? I asked some comrades, and in some places they have already been completed, while in others they have not yet been fully completed.
The focus now is on the three levels of province, prefecture, and county. Can they be completed this winter or next spring? If not, they must be completed within the coming year, and all six levels must be completed.
Because we have several years of experience now, and the Forty-Article National Program for Agricultural Development is nearly finished.
The Forty-Article Program for Agricultural Development, the provincial plans, and the plans at other levels must all be taken to the countryside for discussion.
However, discussing seven plans all at once would be too much; they should be brought to the masses in stages and batches for airing views and debate.
This concerns long-term planning.
What if the plans become unsuitable in the future? With a few more years of experience, they will still need to be revised.
For example, the Forty Articles will need revision in a few years.
It is impossible not to revise them.
I think it will probably be a minor revision every three years and a major revision every five years.
Having a plan is always better than having none.
There are twelve years in total, and two have already passed, leaving only ten. If we do not act urgently, the planned targets set in the Forty Articles—achieving per-mu grain yields of 400 jin, 500 jin, and 800 jin respectively in the three types of regions—risk falling through.
If we act urgently, they can be accomplished.
I believe China relies on intensive and meticulous farming for its food.
In the future, China will become the world’s highest-yielding country.
Some counties are already achieving a per-mu yield of 1,000 jin. Can we reach 2,000 jin per mu in half a century? In the future, will it be possible to achieve 800 jin per mu north of the Yellow River, 1,000 jin per mu north of the Huai River, and 2,000 jin per mu south of the Huai River? To reach these targets by the early 21st century, there are still several decades—perhaps not that much time will be needed.
We rely on intensive and meticulous farming for our food; even with a slightly larger population, there will still be food to eat.
I think an average of three mu of land per person is too much; in the future, just a fraction of a mu will be more than enough.
Of course, we must still practice birth control; I am not advocating for encouraging births.
I ask comrades to investigate the actual grain consumption of the peasants.
We must advocate diligence and thrift in managing households and economize on grain so as to have accumulation.
When the state has accumulation, the cooperatives have accumulation, and families have accumulation—with these three types of accumulation, we will become prosperous.
Otherwise, if everything is consumed entirely, what prosperity can there be?
This year, in all places with bumper harvests and no disaster-affected areas, accumulation should be increased somewhat.
Using surplus to make up for shortages is very necessary.
In the cooperatives of some provinces, apart from the public accumulation fund (5 percent), the public welfare fund (5 percent), and management expenses, production costs account for 20 percent of the total output value, and within that, capital construction expenses account for 20 percent of production costs.
I discussed this with comrades from other provinces, and they said the capital construction expenses might be a bit too high.
What I am discussing with you today is all in the nature of suggestions; adopt them if feasible, and do not if they are not. Moreover, do not apply them uniformly across all provinces and counties—you should study them yourselves.
In some places, the management expenses of cooperatives used to account for too large a proportion and should be reduced to 1 percent.
Management expenses refer to subsidies for cooperative cadres and office expenses.
Management expenses should be reduced, and spending on farmland capital construction should be increased.
The Chinese people must have ambition.
We should educate every person in cities and villages across the country to have lofty goals and ambition.
Does eating and drinking extravagantly, consuming everything completely, count as ambition? That does not count as ambition.
We must practice diligence and thrift in managing households and make long-term plans.
For events like weddings and funerals—marrying off a daughter-in-law or burying the dead—holding lavish banquets is truly unnecessary.
We should economize in these areas and avoid waste.
This is reforming old customs.
To change these customs, we must go through extensive airing of views, or perhaps limited airing of views, and engage in debate.
There is also gambling. In the past, such problems could not be prohibited; only through extensive airing of views and debate can they be reformed.
I believe reforming old customs should also be included in the plans.
There is also the elimination of the four pests—flies, mosquitoes, rats, and sparrows—and promoting hygiene.
I pay great attention to eliminating these four things.
We have only ten years left. Can we make preparations this year, mobilize, and launch the campaign next spring? Because flies emerge at that time.
I think we must eliminate these pests and make the whole country highly hygienic.
This is culture, and we must greatly enhance this culture.
We must launch a competition and resolutely eliminate these pests so that everyone maintains cleanliness and hygiene.
Provinces can vary, and counties can vary; in the end, we will see who the heroes are.
China must become a country free of the four pests: no rats, no sparrows, no flies, and no mosquitoes.
For family planning, let us also devise a ten-year plan.
Do not promote it in minority nationality areas or in sparsely populated areas.
Even in densely populated areas, pilot projects should be conducted first, gradually expanding and achieving universal family planning step by step.
Family planning must be openly taught; it is simply a matter of extensive airing of views and great debate.
In human reproduction, there is currently complete anarchy; we cannot control ourselves.
In the future, we must achieve fully planned reproduction. Without a social force, without everyone’s agreement, and without everyone acting together, it will not work.
There is also the issue of comprehensive planning.
What I just discussed was agricultural planning; there are also industrial plans, commercial plans, and cultural and educational plans.
A comprehensive plan integrating industry, agriculture, commerce, and education is absolutely necessary, bringing them together to coordinate with one another.
The experience of cultivating experimental fields is worth promoting widely.
Leading cadres at the county, district, township, and cooperative levels should all cultivate a small plot of land to test whether high yields can be achieved and by what methods.
We must thoroughly understand agricultural technology.
Engaging in agriculture without learning technology will no longer do.
Politics and professional work are a unity of opposites; politics is primary and comes first, and we must resolutely oppose the tendency to disregard politics. However, engaging solely in politics without understanding technology or professional work is also unacceptable.
Our comrades, whether engaged in industry, agriculture, commerce, or culture and education, must all learn some technology and professional skills.
I think we should also devise a ten-year plan for this.
Cadres in all trades and professions must strive to master technology and professional work, making themselves experts who are both red and expert.
The so-called "first expert, then red" is actually "first white, then red," and it is wrong. Because such people truly intend to remain white, and "later becoming red" is nothing but an empty phrase.
Now, some cadres are no longer red; they have adopted rich peasant thinking.
Some people are white—for example, the Rightists within the Party are politically white and technically not expert.
Some people are gray, and some are pinkish.
The truly red, like the red of our Five-Starred Red Flag, are the Leftists.
But being red alone is not enough; one must also understand professional work and technology.
Now, many cadres are merely red but not expert; they do not understand professional work or technology.
The Rightists say we cannot lead, that "laymen cannot lead experts."
We refute the Rightists by saying we can lead.
Our capability lies in politics.
As for technology, there is much we do not yet understand, but that technology can be learned and mastered.
Without a massive technical and theoretical contingent of the proletariat, socialism cannot be built.
We must, within these ten years (the scientific plan is also twelve years, with ten remaining), establish a contingent of proletarian intellectuals.
Our Party members and non-Party activists must all strive to become proletarian intellectuals.
At all levels, especially the three levels of province, prefecture, and county, there must be plans for training proletarian intellectuals; otherwise, time will pass, and the people will not have been trained.
There is an old Chinese saying: "It takes ten years to grow a tree, but a hundred years to cultivate a person."
For cultivating a person, reduce the hundred years by ninety, and it takes ten years.
Saying it takes ten years to grow a tree is incorrect; in the south, it takes twenty-five years, and in the north, even longer.
But ten years to cultivate a person is feasible.
We have already passed eight years; adding ten more makes eighteen years. It is estimated that we can basically build a contingent of experts from the working class with Marxist thinking.
After ten years, we will expand this contingent and enhance its quality.
Speaking of the relationship between agriculture and industry, of course, taking heavy industry as the center and giving priority to its development is beyond question and unshakable.
However, under this condition, we must simultaneously develop industry and agriculture and gradually establish modernized industry and modernized agriculture.
In the past, we often spoke of building our country into an industrial nation, which actually also included the modernization of agriculture.
Now, we must emphasize publicizing agriculture.
Comrade Xiaoping has also spoken on this issue.
Printed based on the transcript of the speech preserved in the Central Archives.

**Notes**
〔1〕 This is part of Mao Zedong’s speech at the Third Plenary Session of the Eighth Central Committee of the Communist Party of China.
〔2〕 Refers to the *National Program for Agricultural Development from 1956 to 1967 (Draft)*. See note 〔4〕 on p. 3 of this volume.
〔3〕 The *National Program for Agricultural Development from 1956 to 1967 (Draft)* stipulated: "Starting from 1956, within twelve years, the average annual per-mu grain yield shall be increased from over 150 jin in 1955 to 400 jin in the areas north of the Yellow River, the Qinling Mountains, the Bailong River, and the Yellow River (within Qinghai Province); from 208 jin in 1955 to 500 jin in the areas south of the Yellow River and north of the Huai River; and from 400 jin in 1955 to 800 jin in the areas south of the Huai River, the Qinling Mountains, and the Bailong River."
〔4〕 In March 1960, Mao Zedong, in an instruction on health work drafted for the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China, replaced sparrows with bedbugs.
〔5〕 Xiaoping, i.e., Deng Xiaoping, then General Secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China and Vice Premier of the State Council.