Comments on the Notice Regarding Special-Topic Studies to Be Conducted by Theoretical Educators
(March 15, 1958)


This document may be read. Please have comrades in the secretariats of the party committees of all provinces, municipalities directly under the central government, and autonomous regions study it and formulate a set of topics to be distributed to a number of cadres; at the same time, send one copy to the Secretariat of the CPC Central Committee.


Mao Zedong
May 1, 1958


[1] Refers to the notice issued by the Shaanxi Provincial Committee of the CPC on February 16, 1958, concerning the organization of county-level and higher-ranking leading cadres and theoretical educators to undertake special-topic studies. The notice stated that, in order to enable all party leading cadres and theoretical workers to conduct relatively systematic research on the new problems raised during the Rectification Campaign and the upsurge in industrial and agricultural production—so as to effectively improve practical work, promote the Great Leap Forward in industry and agriculture, and encourage leading cadres to adopt a method centered on studying the concrete problems of the Chinese revolution while deeply studying Marxist–Leninist theory and gradually raising their theoretical and professional levels—the provincial committee decided that all leading cadres at the county level and above who had the conditions to engage in theoretical research, together with theoretical educators possessing a certain amount of practical experience, should, whenever possible, use the method of special-topic study, either individually or in groups, to investigate at least one major issue related to current practical work each year and to write a special paper or report. The notice also listed fifty research topics for reference by secretaries of prefectural-level party committees and higher-ranking officials. Mao Zedong’s comments and the Shaanxi Provincial Committee’s notice were printed as documents of the Chengdu Conference and distributed at the meeting.