Critique and Revisions on the Draft of the "Resolution on Certain Questions Concerning the People's Communes"

( November and December 1958

Comrade Qiao Mu: [2]

I have raised a few suggestions; please discuss and decide with Xiaoping and Renzhong. [3]

Mao Zedong

November 24, 12:00

The logic here is unclear and rather confused, hence these revisions. One must adhere to a universal principle of logic, which is that "the whole is greater than the part," or put differently, "a large thing compared to a small one is large, and a small thing compared to a large one is small." In speaking and writing, one must pay attention to this.

2

Critique and Revisions on the Draft of the "Resolution on Certain Questions Concerning the People's Communes"

To accommodate the Soviet Union, the word "correct" is not to be used.

4

Send immediately to Comrades Xiaoping and Qiao Mu:

I have reviewed sections one through six once more (sections seven and eight were not read), with slight revisions. Please discuss with the comrades and see if it is usable. This draft was last reviewed on November 29, before the opinions raised by the various groups, and thus does not address them.

Mao Zedong

December 6, 10:00 AM

5

All this proves that the resolution of the Political Bureau of the CPC Central Committee at the Beidaihe Conference in August 1958, based on the creative work of the masses, on establishing people's communes in the rural areas, is correct and of historic significance.

6

At present, many capitalists and intellectuals in the cities still harbor fairly strong bourgeois ideas and have reservations about establishing communes. We should allow these people some time to adapt. Therefore, in the cities, we should continue pilot experiments and generally not rush into large-scale establishment; in large cities, we should proceed more slowly, engaging only in preparatory discussions. We must wait until more experience is gained and those who were initially unconvinced come around, before establishing them on a large scale.

7

Widely achieving national industrialization, commune industrialization, and agricultural mechanization and electrification, building a socialist country with highly developed modern industry, modern agriculture, and modern science and culture —although our pace of advance is rapid, this process will still require a long time to complete in its entirety. From now on, it will take fifteen, twenty years, or even longer.

8

The timing of the transition from collective ownership to ownership by the whole people depends on such objective conditions as the level of development of production and the level of the people's political consciousness, and cannot be subject to human desires, made early or late at will.

9

In the past, people often worried about our large population and scarce cultivable land. However, the fact of the 1958 agricultural bumper harvest has refuted this assertion. As long as we earnestly promote the experience of deep plowing and intensive cultivation, layer-by-layer fertilization, and rational close planting that has yielded extremely high bumper crops, arable land will no longer seem scarce but abundant, and the population will no longer seem excessive but will rather appear to provide an insufficient labor force. This will be a tremendous change.

10

The industrial production of the people's communes must be closely integrated with agricultural production, primarily serving the development of agriculture and the achievement of agricultural mechanization and electrification, while also meeting the daily needs of commune members and serving the nation's major industries and the socialist market. Full attention must be paid to the principle of adapting to local conditions and using local materials; industries that lack local raw materials and require materials brought from afar must not be established, so as to avoid increasing costs and wasting labor power.

11

The scope of free supply should not be too broad for the time being. Implementing a supply system does not mean uniformity in people's lives. Under the socialist and communist systems, people's needs are always broadly similar yet also individually varied. Therefore, both now and in the future, within the realm of supply, attention must be paid to ensuring, as far as possible, that commune members have appropriate freedom of choice.

12

Considerable differences in wage levels among various areas are also permissible. Currently, the wage differentials in cities, which are somewhat greater than in the countryside, are necessary. In the future, when production reaches a tremendous boom and everyone becomes well-off, such differences in wage scales will prove unnecessary and gradually disappear, whether in the cities or the countryside — that will be the era approaching communism.

13

We must properly run homes of respect for the elderly, providing a better living environment for those elderly ("five-guarantees" households) who have no children to rely on.

14

There is currently a pack of fools in the world attacking our people's communes with vicious effort, among them Mr. Dulles of the United States. This Dulles knows absolutely nothing about China's affairs, yet pretends to be an expert China-watcher, frantically opposing the people's communes. What particularly pains him, reportedly, is that we have destroyed the supposedly wonderful family system handed down over millennia. Indeed, the Chinese people have dismantled a feudal patriarchal system. It should be noted that such a patriarchal system has long since generally ceased to exist under capitalism, which represents a step forward for capitalism. We have gone even further, establishing democratic and united families, something likewise rare in capitalist societies. Only in the future, where the socialist revolution is realized and the capitalist system of human exploitation is eliminated, can such families become widespread. As for nurseries, kindergartens, and worker canteens in factories, these, too, first appeared in capitalist societies. However, there, all such undertakings run by the bourgeoisie are capitalist in nature, aimed at facilitating the capitalists' exploitation of male and female laborers. But the ones we run are socialist in nature, promoting the development of socialist enterprises, facilitating the liberation of human individuality, truly and thoroughly emancipating the mass of women, and ensuring better upbringing for children, thus winning enthusiastic support from all working people, especially women.

15

The modern industrial army was organized by the bourgeoisie: a single factory is equivalent to a military barracks. Workers stand before machines, subjected to discipline no less strict than in the army. The industrial army of socialist society is the industrial army of the working class alone, stripped of capitalists who extract surplus value, and has established, within the working class, a lively, democratic, voluntary centralism. We are now applying this system to the countryside, thus creating a socialist, democratic-centralist agricultural industrial army, free from exploitation by landlords and rich peasants and detached from petty-production conditions.

16

Militia organizations should be equipped with weapons as needed, with weapons produced by locally run arsenals. Core militiamen must undergo military training according to set schedules, and ordinary militiamen should also receive appropriate training during work breaks, so as to prepare the conditions for turning the entire population into soldiers. The broad mass of working people in our country cherish the militia system; they do so because, through the long revolutionary struggle against imperialism, feudalism, and their lackeys, the Kuomintang reactionaries, they have realized that only by arming themselves can they defeat the armed counterrevolution and become masters of this land of China. After the triumph of the revolution, they also see that there still exist imperialist bandits abroad who daily proclaim their intention to destroy this people's state. Therefore, the entire people are determined to keep themselves armed and declare: You bandits intent on robbing us, be careful, don't delude yourselves into thinking you can trifle with us, these people engaged in peaceful labor—we are prepared. Should imperialism dare to launch a war of aggression against our country, we shall then turn the entire population into soldiers, and the militia will coordinate with the People's Liberation Army, providing constant replacements to thoroughly defeat the invaders.

17

Complex class struggle exists not only abroad, in the capitalist world, severely, but also still persists domestically. The masses must be educated to heighten revolutionary vigilance and strictly guard against the sabotage activities of the enemy.

18

In the work of rectifying the communes, within each county, one or two pilot projects must first be successfully carried out, meaning that within one or two people's communes, comrades there should be aided in completing their work well within a relatively short period, gaining experience to serve as a model, and then be comprehensively extended.

[1] The "Resolution on Certain Questions Concerning the People's Communes" was drafted under the chairmanship of Mao Zedong. Its formulation was a process: On November 2–10, 1958, the First Zhengzhou Conference adopted the draft "Resolution of the Zhengzhou Conference on Certain Questions Concerning the People's Communes"; it was decided to first bring the draft back for implementation and solicit opinions, with the intention of having it approved by the Political Bureau of the CPC Central Committee before formally issuing it to Party committees at all levels. After the conference, Mao felt dissatisfied with the document and suggested that the Party committees of provinces, cities, and autonomous regions bring their discussion opinions to the Wuchang Conference for further discussion. The Wuchang Conference held November 21–27 and the subsequent Sixth Plenum of the Eighth CPC Central Committee, based on new circumstances and opinions from various localities, redrafted the "Resolution on Certain Questions Concerning the People's Communes." Mao Zedong made multiple revisions to this resolution. Items 1 through 4 in this text are critiques written by Mao during revisions; items 5 through 18 are Mao's revisions to the draft resolution. The text in Song typeface represents Mao Zedong's revised wording. Additionally, during the revision process of the draft resolution, Mao wrote two relatively long passages that were later removed from the officially adopted resolution. One passage read: "The practice of sowing sparsely and reaping bumper harvests in agriculture will spark a great revolution in agricultural production. What is the so-called basic farmland system and the concept of garden-style landscaping? It means implementing a three-thirds system of cultivation, using one-third of the currently existing 1.8 billion mu (equal to 120 million hectares) of arable land devoted to agricultural crops—roughly 600 million mu—for planting agricultural crops; leaving one-third fallow for planting grasses, green manure crops, and a wide variety of beautiful flowers and grasses for human enjoyment; and using one-third for afforestation. Everywhere there should be ponds or reservoirs, large and small, containing fish, shrimp, crabs, and various aquatic plants. The people’s communes integrate industry, agriculture, commerce, education, and military affairs, with agriculture encompassing crop farming, forestry, animal husbandry, sideline occupations, and fishery—the five occupations. Among the five, the integration of crop farming, forestry, and animal husbandry is most essential for the rational use of land. The reason why it is possible to use only one-third of total arable land for grain, cotton, and similar crops lies in securing extraordinarily high bumper yields through deep plowing and intensive cultivation, layer-by-layer fertilization, and rational close planting, such as ten thousand jin of grain or one thousand jin of cotton per mu. Therefore, it becomes possible to grass one-third and afforest one-third of the remaining land, beautifying all of China. This is a rough vision that appears feasible; however, its full realization will require a fairly long period. Doing this will greatly conserve water, fertilizer, and labor power, as well as greatly increase soil bacteria, thereby enhancing soil fertility. Planting trees and grasses must also gradually move toward deep plowing and fertilization, roughly like the practices for grain and cotton. In side-line occupations and fisheries, we must also continuously improve and strive by every means for high bumper yields. In short, a great revolution across the entire front of farming, forestry, animal husbandry, side-lines, and fisheries must be launched. This will completely change the previous view, over which people worried, of a large population but insufficient arable land. With the implementation of the three-thirds system of cultivation, arable land will appear not scarce but quite abundant, and the population will appear not excessive but to reflect a shortage of labor power. This will be a tremendous change." The other passage read: "The people's communes have already been set up in skeletal form. The current problem is to substantiate them in a few months, specifically within the four or five months of this winter and next spring, so that they become like a person who not only has a skeletal system and an integumentary system but also all other systems—flesh and blood, heart, liver, spleen, lungs, and kidneys, all five internal organs complete. This requires strengthening and improving the ideological and political work, various organizational tasks, and management operations of the communes, so that production and livelihood welfare undertakings can quickly embark on a healthy development track."

[2] Qiao Mu refers to Hu Qiaomu, then alternate secretary of the Secretariat of the CPC Central Committee and Mao Zedong's secretary.

[3] Xiaoping refers to Deng Xiaoping, then General Secretary of the CPC Central Committee. Renzhong refers to Wang Renzhong, then First Secretary of the CPC Hubei Provincial Committee.

[4] This is a note written by Mao Zedong next to a passage on November 28, 1958, when revising the draft resolution. The original draft resolution stated: "The process of transition from collective ownership to ownership by the whole people is interconnected with the processes of national industrialization, commune industrialization, and agricultural industrialization, but this does not mean that the realization of the former process must have the completion of the latter processes as its precondition." Mao revised the latter half of this paragraph to: "but this does not mean that the realization of the former process must take the extremely high development of the latter processes..."

"Proceeding from the prerequisite of absolute comprehensiveness, emphasize the matter to such a rigid degree." This note was written in the margin.
[5]
This is a comment Mao Zedong wrote on November 28, 1958, while revising the draft resolution, placed beside a passage of text. The original draft resolution stated:
"With the high-level development of industry and agriculture nationwide and the simultaneous advancement of industry and agriculture in the communes, social products will become increasingly abundant; the nationwide realization of ownership by the whole people will be comprehensively achieved; the supply component in the commune distribution system will gradually increase from little to much, and the supply standards will gradually rise from low to high; the scope of the commodity economy will gradually shrink; and during the same period, the people's communist consciousness will steadily grow, universal education will increasingly develop, the disparities between urban and rural areas, between workers and peasants, and between mental and physical labor will gradually narrow, and the internal role of state power will progressively diminish—all of these are processes of the gradual growth of communist factors and the conditions preparing for the transition to communism. To neglect or even obstruct this process of growth, and to relegate communism to the distant future, is undoubtedly incorrect." Mao changed the last phrase "incorrect" to "inappropriate" and wrote this marginal comment.
[6]
Dulles, then U.S. Secretary of State.
From November 21 to 27 and November 28 to December 10, 1958, Mao Zedong successively presided over an enlarged meeting of the Political Bureau of the CPC Central Committee and the Sixth Plenary Session of the Eighth Central Committee in Wuchang, where they discussed the "Resolution on Certain Questions Concerning the People's Communes," which he had led in drafting.