Guarantee key projects. Next year, achieve ×× to ×× million tons of steel and ×× thousand machine tools. Accomplishing these will be a victory. Therefore, we must work with desperate energy, grasp the situation once a week, and with nineteen weeks remaining, we must grasp it nineteen times. On the 24th, convene a meeting of industrial secretaries and factory Party committee secretaries to see if there is confidence. Repeated orders and injunctions: anyone who fails to contribute shall face disciplinary action. For those engaging in decentralism: first, a warning; second, a demerit; third, removal from office with retention in post; fourth, dismissal; fifth, probation within the Party; sixth, expulsion from the Party. Otherwise, it will be counterproductive. I see a risk that 11 million tons of steel may not be completed. In June, I asked ××× whether steel production could double. The issue was raised by me; if it cannot be realized, I must make a self-criticism. Some people do not understand. Failing to complete 11 million tons of steel is a matter of great importance concerning the interests of the entire nation.

We must work with desperate energy. Shanghai has over 100,000 tons of scrap steel and iron for remelting. We must vigorously collect scrap steel and iron. Railways of no immediate economic value, such as the Ningbo and Jiaodong lines, can be dismantled or relocated to key sites. First, guarantee key equipment—blast furnaces, open-hearth furnaces, rolling mills, electric motors—and key railway projects, lathes, and cranes. We must clearly explain to cadres and the people that ensuring these few major tasks first is the path to enduring happiness. Every grievance has its source, every debt its debtor. Each province can have only one head; see whether they agree or not. If they agree, not a single person may run around recklessly. Beyond the state plan, some mutual adjustments can still be made among cooperative regions and between provinces. There are still 133 days, nineteen weeks; grasp it once every week, and we must grasp it well.

Our people are highly disciplined, which has left a deep impression on me. When I visited Tianjin, tens of thousands of people surrounded me; with a wave of my hand, they all dispersed. In Xiuwu County, Henan, the entire county—over 29,000 households and 130,000 people—established a large commune with four levels: commune, joint brigade, squadron, and combat group. Being large makes it easy to manage and integrate into plans; labor is concentrated, land is centrally managed, and the strength becomes entirely different. When the autumn harvest doubles, the masses will see the benefits. The Tao River diversion project in Gansu, bringing water up the mountains—such a massive undertaking—was accomplished through Party leadership and the people’s communist spirit. Why is the people’s drive so immense? The reason is that we take little from the people; we do not have a compulsory sales system, unlike the Soviet Union. We have one Party, one doctrine, and the masses support us. We are integrated with the people; after the great rectification, we are of one heart. The Hong’an experience is a typical example.

We must help comrades understand that Marx, Engels, Lenin, and Stalin touched upon the interrelations among the three components of production relations—ownership, mutual relations, and distribution—but did not elaborate on them. In my view, economics has not clarified this point. The Soviet Union also failed to resolve this after the October Revolution. Mutual relations among people in labor are the principal part of production relations. To engage in production relations without addressing mutual relations is impossible. After changes in ownership, egalitarian relations among people will not emerge spontaneously. If China does not resolve the relations among people, a great leap forward is impossible.

After the resolution of ownership, bourgeois legal systems still persist, such as hierarchical systems and the relationship between leaders and the masses. Since the rectification, bourgeois legal systems have been nearly completely dismantled. Leading cadres no longer rely on authority or bureaucratic airs but on serving the people, working for their welfare, and persuasion. We must consider abolishing the salary system and restoring the supply system. In the past, when we ran the army, there were no salaries, no Sundays, no eight-hour workday. Superiors and subordinates were united, officers and soldiers were united, and the military and civilians were integrated. Hundreds of thousands were mobilized, and this communist spirit was excellent. If a person lives only to earn a bit of food, isn’t that like a dog scrabbling for a bit of excrement? Without helping others, without engaging in communism, what meaning is there? Without a salary system, one condition is having food to eat and not dying; another is good health. When I was in Yan’an, my health was not very good. When Hu Zongnan attacked, I lived in two cave dwellings with six people—Premier Zhou, Hu ××, Jiang Qing, and others—and my health improved. In Xibaipo, it was also a small room. After entering Beijing, the housing improved step by step, but my health deteriorated, and I caught more colds. When the great leap forward began, my health improved again. For three or four days, I might go one day without sleep. Some ideals of utopian socialism, we must put into practice. The Puritans of Christianity lived austerely; when Buddhism was founded, Shakyamuni also emerged from an oppressed nationality. The Tang dynasty Buddhist text, the Platform Sutra of the Sixth Patriarch, records that the monk Huineng, a man from Hebei who was illiterate but highly learned, propagated the sutras in Guangdong. He advocated that all is emptiness—a thoroughgoing idealism—but he highlighted subjective initiative, which was a great leap forward in the history of Chinese philosophy. Huineng dared to negate everything. Someone asked him: Is it certain that one will ascend to the Western Paradise after death? He said it is not certain. If everyone ascended to the Western Paradise, what would happen to the Westerners? He lived during the reign of Emperor Taizong of Tang, and his teachings flourished under Empress Wu Zetian. In the chaotic late Tang period, when the people’s thoughts had no anchor, his teachings became widely popular.

Marx’s ideas on equality, democracy, persuasion, mutual relations among people, and integration were not fully developed. Relations among people in labor are egalitarian relations, relations of integration. Mental and manual labor are separated; education and production are separated. Lenin once said that standing armies should be abolished and people’s armed forces implemented. As long as imperialism exists, standing armies are necessary, but the hierarchical system and officer-soldier relations in the Soviet army have been influenced to some extent by the tsarist era. The majority of Soviet Communist Party members are children of cadres; ordinary workers and peasants cannot rise. Therefore, we need to find our own path. We must resolutely drive the children of cadres into the masses; there can be no favored access. Our military officers—like a division commander in Yunnan who serves as a soldier for one month each year—I see this as a good method. Whether it should be widely promoted, this way, our army will forever be an invincible army.

The Charter of the Chayashan Commune is to be published in *Red Flag* magazine. Not every locality must follow it exactly—various forms can be created. We must give it a good boost, with each province finding about ten people to promote it. Large communes must integrate natural conditions, population, culture, and other factors. Comrade ××× from Hebei Province gathered about ten people to promote the communist ideological style, and it was very dynamic. When you return, do the same. After entering the cities, some said we had a "rural style" and "guerrilla style." This is bourgeois ideology eroding us, causing us to discard some of our good practices. The rural style became unpopular, the cities demanded regularization, government offices grew larger, and we became more distant from the people. We must integrate with the masses, persuade rather than coerce—this has been our way for many years. How did these become problems? The reason lies in detachment from the masses and in seeking special privileges. We have always emphasized: unity between superiors and subordinates, unity between officers and soldiers, supporting the government and cherishing the people, supporting the army and giving preferential treatment to their families. The supply system was relatively egalitarian, with clothing being much the same. But after entering the cities, things changed. Through rectification, the masses said, "The Eighth Route Army has returned." This shows we had once departed. The cities precisely need to promote the "rural style and guerrilla habits." Chiang Kai-shek's specter still lingers in the cities, and the stench of the bourgeoisie taints us. When meeting with them, we had to shave our heads, trim our beards, adopt gentlemanly airs, and put on bourgeois pretensions—truly tasteless. Why must we shave our beards? Isn't it fine to cut our hair four times a year and shave four times a year? Zhou Hui, Secretary of the Hunan Provincial Party Committee, said that when working at the county level, he could integrate with the masses; at the prefectural level, he could still stay close to the people; but after three years at the provincial level, it became hard to find cadres and the masses. Last year's rectification brought changes. In the past, millions of us, tempered in class struggle, became communist fighters supported by the masses. Implementing the supply system and living a communist life represents the opposition between Marxist style and bourgeois style. I believe the rural style and guerrilla habits are better. We won twenty-two years of war—why can't we build communism? Why adopt a wage system? This is a concession to the bourgeoisie, using the rural style and guerrilla habits to disparage us, which has led to the growth of individualism. The principle of persuasion over coercion has been forgotten. Shouldn't cadres take the lead in restoring the supply system? The old base areas in East China conducted tunnel warfare, and the North was tempered by war—cadres raised in those places have somewhat different living habits. Even among cadres who endured the 25,000-li Long March, there emerged scoundrels, such as ×× and ××. ××'s consciousness was extremely backward, deeply concealed, and his thoughts were impenetrable. It seems the supervisory committees were ineffective—Gao Gang and Rao Shushi were not "supervised" out. All they did was inspect "Qingsen No. 5" (japonica rice) in Hunan and Hubei. What truly worked was this 1,400-person meeting of the Military Commission.

We have already considerably undermined the bourgeois legal system, but not yet thoroughly. We must continue this effort. Do not immediately advocate abolishing the wage system, but it will be eliminated in the future. Emphasize the rural style and guerrilla habits. Participate in one month of labor each year, going to the countryside in batches. Lenin wrote an article on the eve of the October Revolution. He visited a worker's family as a guest. The worker could not find bread, but when he finally did, he was overjoyed: "At last, I've found the bread!" From this, Lenin understood the importance of the bread issue. Our comrades, through a year of labor and integrating with the masses, will see a great impact on their mental state. This time, we must restore the military tradition—the tradition of the Red Army, the Eighth Route Army, and the People's Liberation Army—and restore the Marxist tradition. We must dissolve that set of bourgeois ideological styles. Our "roughness" is sincere and the most civilized; the bourgeoisie may appear civilized, but in reality, they are hypocritical and uncivilized. Restoring the supply system may seem like a "retreat." But "retreat" is progress, because we retreated after entering the cities. Now we must restore progress and take the lead in guiding the 600 million people toward a communist style.

The people's commune contains the sprouts of communism. Products are extremely abundant. Grain, cotton, and oil-bearing crops are to be communized. At that time, morality will greatly advance, labor will require no supervision, and people will refuse to rest even when told to. The Jianhua Machinery Factory has achieved the "Eight Nothings." The people's communes engage in large-scale cooperation, bringing their own tools and grain. Workers beat drums and gongs, rejecting piecework wages. These are all sprouts of communism and the undermining of bourgeois legal rights. I hope everyone will discuss these issues and also highlight the growing factors of communist morality in practice.

In the past, revolutions cost many lives without demanding compensation. Why can't we do the same now? If we achieve free meals, that will be a transformation. In about × years, products may become extremely abundant, and morality extremely noble. We can then implement communism in food, clothing, and housing. Free meals in public canteens are communism. In the future, everything will be called a commune, not a factory—for example, the Anshan Steel Plant will be called the Anshan Commune. Both cities and villages will uniformly be called communes. Universities and streets will all be organized into communes. Townships and communes will merge, and government and commune will merge, temporarily hanging two signboards. A "Ministry of Internal Affairs" (administrative section) will be established in the commune to handle birth and death registration, marriage, population, and civil affairs.

Someone asked: After unification, will there still be flexibility? Flexibility is still necessary. Beyond ensuring 11 million tons of steel, some flexibility is allowed. For example, fruit trees and cotton need pruning, while others do not. Unification mainly concerns steel and machinery. Prepare 10 billion yuan for impact, so that the cooperatives have something to channel their momentum into. The state guarantees ×× million tons of steel, and the remaining ×× million tons will be arranged by provinces, prefectures, and counties. Exceeding the target slightly is even better. Plans cannot be perfectly accurate, and not everything can be planned in advance. Some things are hard to predict, and blindness is unavoidable. There is a bit of chaos, but the achievements are immense and unprecedented. In the past, we did not manage this, but now the entire Party must take charge. The first secretary should grasp industry with the right hand and agriculture with the left. Party committees at all levels must appoint several secretaries.