**Critique on the Report by the Party Leadership Group of the State Capital Construction Commission on Several Major Issues in Current Capital Construction Work** (November 19, 1958)

This document [1] is very good. Print and distribute it to all comrades attending the meeting [2].
It should be approved and implemented nationwide.

Mao Zedong
November 19, 1958
Printed based on the manuscript.

**Notes**
[1] Refers to the report on several major issues in current capital construction work by the Party Leadership Group of the State Capital Construction Commission, submitted to Mao Zedong on November 17, 1958, by Chen Yun, Vice Chairman of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China and Vice Premier of the State Council. The report stated:
(1) Industrial layout should be appropriately dispersed, and enterprise types should primarily be small and medium-sized. This approach has four benefits: first, it enables early commencement of production; second, it establishes bases for large factories, facilitating future development; third, it gains construction experience; and fourth, it cultivates technical personnel. Therefore, it is suggested that the Party committees of provinces, municipalities, and autonomous regions conduct a serious review and rational adjustment of the industrial layout within their jurisdictions, dispersing enterprises that need appropriate dispersion, scaling down enterprises that should be reduced in size from large to small, and constructing in phases those already under construction whose scale is too large for convenient reduction.
(2) The sequence of construction for capital construction projects must be prioritized. The prioritization of capital construction projects for 1959 should still focus on steel as the key link, meaning equipping large, medium, and small iron and steel enterprises and the corresponding basic industries and transportation sectors to ensure the completion of the production task of 30 million tons of steel.
(3) Design work must implement the policy of combining indigenous and foreign methods. That is, designs should be created based on the needs of China's economic development, the creative initiatives of the masses, other specific conditions, and with reference to foreign experience. This is a fundamental issue in implementing the general line in design work. It is suggested that the industrial and transportation departments of the State Council and the Party committees of provinces, municipalities, and autonomous regions conduct a serious review and revision of the designs for all construction projects.
(4) Promoting rapid construction can unleash the enthusiasm and creativity of the broad masses of workers and staff, significantly shorten construction periods, rapidly complete batches of new enterprises and buildings, and reduce construction costs.
(5) Seriously organize the supply of complete sets of equipment. Various industrial departments should promptly determine the supply scope of complete sets of equipment for different types of factories and issue lists to notify provinces, municipalities, and autonomous regions so that localities are well-informed. When assigning machinery manufacturing tasks, not only should the production of main equipment be arranged, but a certain production capacity must also be reserved for the production of auxiliary equipment. Relevant departments should strengthen the organizational leadership over the nationwide supply of complete sets of equipment.
(6) Capital construction must strengthen Party leadership and vigorously launch mass movements. Several major issues in capital construction must be discussed among cadres and the masses, encouraging free airing of views and great debates, truly achieving ideological confrontation and unified understanding, to ensure that the Party's policies are correctly and promptly implemented at every link in capital construction.

[2] Refers to the enlarged meeting of the Political Bureau of the CPC Central Committee soon to be held in Wuchang.

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**Critique on Printing and Distributing "Major Revisions and Additions to the Soviet Textbook of Political Economy, Third Edition"** (November 20, 1958)

This material [1] is worth reading. Print and distribute to all comrades attending the meeting [2].

Mao Zedong
November 20, 1958
Printed based on the manuscript.

**Notes**
[1] Refers to the article "Major Revisions and Additions to the Soviet Textbook of Political Economy, Third Edition," published in the *Propaganda and Education Trends*, Issue No. XX, compiled and printed by the Propaganda Department of the CPC Central Committee on November 15, 1958. The article introduced the supplements and revisions made in the third edition of the Soviet textbook of political economy compared to the previous two editions on issues including the characteristics of the basic economic law of socialism, the law of planned, proportional development of the national economy, the discussion of commodity production and the law of value, the non-antagonistic contradiction between value and use-value, the nature of the role of the law of value under the socialist system, and the principles of material incentives and distribution according to labor.
[2] Refers to the enlarged meeting of the Political Bureau of the CPC Central Committee soon to be held in Wuchang.

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**Critique on the Article "Anguo's Thousand-Mu Wheat Field, the Number One Field Under Heaven"** (November 20, 1958)

This material [1] can be looked at.

Mao Zedong
November 20, 1958
Printed based on the manuscript.

**Notes**
[1] Refers to the report "Anguo's Thousand-Mu Wheat Field, the Number One Field Under Heaven," published in *Internal Reference*, Issue No. 2632, compiled and printed by the Xinhua News Agency on November 13, 1958. It introduced the situation of a "Thousand-Mu Number One Field Under Heaven" created by the Dongfeng People's Commune in Wurenqiao, Anguo County, Hebei Province, during the large-scale high-yield wheat campaign promoting standardized sowing, regionalized planting, and garden-style farming. It described the thousand-mu wheat field as having ridges straight as lines, plots flat as mirrors, soil particles finer than those from a sieve, and ridge edges as if cut by a knife, with a planned average yield of 20,000 jin per mu. Mao Zedong wrote after this report: "See Xinhua News Agency *Internal Reference*, November 13, 1958." Mao Zedong's critique and this report were later printed and distributed as documents for the Sixth Plenary Session of the Eighth CPC Central Committee.

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**Outline of Speech at the Enlarged Meeting of the Political Bureau of the Central Committee in Wuchang** (November 21, 1958)

(1) The issue of transitioning to communism. Which will transition to communism first, China or the Soviet Union? Must be considered carefully from all aspects. Is it possible and beneficial for China to transition earlier? Even if possible, the name of socialism could be used while implementing the reality of communism.
(2) The issue of the fifteen-year plan. Put the Forty Articles aside for two more years; do not disseminate them externally; do not seek empty reputation only to invite real disaster. Long-term plans can be set aside; only a few people need to have a consideration.
(3) The task of the plenary session. Focus on directives on people's communes and next year's targets.
(4) Whether to draw a line between socialism and communism, how to draw it, and whether to propose transitioning to ownership by the whole people in three to four or five to six years.
(5) The issue of eliminating classes. The Soviet formulation and our formulation. Economically eliminating classes does not equate to politically and ideologically eliminating classes. The lessons of the Soviet Union and the lessons of China.
(6) The issue of the commodity economy. The scope of commodities. The lifespan of commodities. Stalin's formulation and the formulation in the third edition of the political economy textbook.
(7) The issue of reducing tasks. Industrial tasks, water conservancy tasks, grain tasks should all be appropriately scaled back. Is this pouring cold water? Is this opportunism? Must be based on objective possibility. Reassess after June next year.
(8) The issue of consolidating the people's communes. Use four months to consolidate the communes. Two possibilities exist for the communes, mess halls, and nurseries: collapse or not collapse.

Printed based on the original transcript preserved by the Central Archives.

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**Critique on the Regulations of the Hubei Provincial Party Committee on Several Items of Work for Doing a Good Job in the Current People's Livelihood** (November 21 and 27, 1958)

**I**
This document [1] is very good. After Comrade Xiaoping [2] has read it, print and distribute it to all comrades attending the meeting [3] for study.

Mao Zedong
November 21, 1958

**II**
Return to Comrade Xiaoping for printing and distribution.
Mao
7:00 PM, the 27th [4]
Since it is to be promulgated after the meeting, the date should be sometime in December.

Printed based on the manuscript.

**III** [5]
Printed based on Mao Zedong's manuscript.
On Issues Concerning the People's Livelihood

**Notes**
[1] Refers to the regulations made by the CPC Hubei Provincial Committee in November 1958 on several items of work for doing a good job in the current people's livelihood. The regulations stated that the provincial committee, following repeated instructions from the Central Committee and Comrade Mao Zedong, presented a major task to all Party organizations in the province: to make efforts to do a good job in several items of work related to the current people's livelihood. The aim is not to dampen spirits but to boost them; not to promote retreat but advance; not to aim for only a small leap in industrial and agricultural production next year, but to achieve an even greater leap in industrial and agricultural production next year compared to this year. To this end, the following stipulations were made:
(1) Rhythmically integrate labor and rest. First, ensure laborers have sufficient sleep time, rest time, and a certain amount of time for cultural and recreational activities. Eight hours of sleep and four hours for meals and rest daily, totaling twelve hours, must be guaranteed. Second, improve tool reforms, enhance labor organization, gradually reduce heavy physical labor, and raise labor efficiency. Third, guarantee that members of rural people's communes have half a day of rest per week. Fourth, guarantee that female laborers do not perform heavy work, go into cold water, or stay up late during their menstrual periods. Fifth, ensure production safety, improve labor conditions as much as possible, and strive to reduce and avoid work-related injury accidents.
(2) Run public mess halls well. First, ensure people eat their fill. Second, ensure they eat well. Third, ensure food is clean and hygienic. Fourth, public mess halls should have dining rooms. Fifth, realize democratic management in public mess halls. Sixth, based on the principle of "big collective, small freedom," allow necessary flexibility for those eating in the mess halls. For example, the sick, elderly, children, and pregnant women can take their meals back home to eat, etc. Seventh, run work-site mess halls well to ensure those working at construction sites eat their fill and well. Eighth, the ratio of the number of people eating in the mess hall to mess hall staff should currently be twenty to one or twenty-five to one. Reform cooking tools as much as possible to ease and improve cooking labor and raise efficiency. Ninth, commune members eating in public mess halls who receive guests can bring the guests to dine in the mess hall; the mess hall shall not prepare additional guest dishes for entertainment. Tenth, conduct training classes for cooks in batches so that all mess hall cooks can continuously improve their culinary skills, increase their knowledge of hygiene, and foster a spirit of dedication to mess hall work. Eleventh, landlords, rich peasants, counter-revolutionaries, bad elements, and rightists are not permitted to hold any positions in public mess halls. Twelfth, establish mess halls with the production team as the unit.
(3) Housing issues. First, each commune should have one or more construction teams. Second, each commune should inspect households one by one, and promptly carry out cold-proofing and winter preparation work for residences. Third, each county committee and commune Party committee should, while carrying out town planning and land planning, simultaneously make plans for new collective villages. They should also conduct pilot projects to demonstrate standards for the scale of new villages, housing styles, landscaping, hygiene, and the construction of threshing floors, roads, public cemeteries, toilets, and livestock sheds. New residences should be convenient for the reunion of the whole family, young and old, men and women.
(4) Care for the elderly, women, and children. First, run homes of respect for the aged well, so that the elderly who have no one to rely on are cared for in their old age. Second, run nurseries and kindergartens well. Third, regarding women, besides ensuring equal pay for equal work and attending to menstrual hygiene, patience is required in helping women learn literacy and skills.
(5) Do a good job in health work. First, all cities, towns, and villages in the province should mobilize the masses to revise work plans for eliminating the five pests (flies, mosquitoes, rats, sparrows, snails) and eradicating the five diseases (schistosomiasis, malaria, active syphilis, hookworm disease, filariasis) and promoting hygiene, and act swiftly, striving to basically eliminate the five pests and eradicate the five diseases within one or two years. Second, improve medical institutions, do medical work well, simplify medical procedures, and provide patients with various conveniences whenever possible. Third, run public bathhouses well; those unwilling to bathe in public bathhouses should be allowed to take hot water home for bathing. Fourth, do a good job in cleaning and sanitation for all residences and all public places.
(6) Actively carry out mass cultural, recreational, and sports activities. First, Party committees at all levels should mobilize the masses to organize cultural and recreational activities in the fields and at work sites. Second, during the Spring Festival of 1959, organize a large-scale cultural, recreational, and sports event, hold joint performances and sports meets, allowing all laborers to enjoy themselves thoroughly. Third, actively cultivate small, self-created, self-directed, and self-performed theatre troupes in factories and rural areas that do not detach from production, and pay attention to systematically helping them gradually improve their political level and cultural and artistic level. Fourth, combine mass sports activities with the military training of the militia, and do national defense sports work well.

[2] Xiaoping, i.e., Deng Xiaoping, then General Secretary of the CPC Central Committee.
[3] Refers to the enlarged meeting of the Political Bureau of the CPC Central Committee being held in Wuchang.
[4] This instruction was written on a letter from Deng Xiaoping to Mao Zedong dated November 27, 1958, submitting the draft instruction from the CPC Central Committee forwarding the regulations of the Hubei Provincial Party Committee on doing a good job in several aspects of the current people's livelihood for his review. The letter stated: "Comrades Shaoqi and Peng Zhen have already read this document. After you review it, return it to me. If deemed usable, it is intended to print and distribute to the plenum and promulgate after the meeting." The draft instruction from the CPC Central Committee was dated November 1958; Mao Zedong changed it to December and wrote this note. When this document was published in *People's Daily* on December 20, 1958, the date of the CPC Central Committee's instruction was given as December 19, 1958.
[5] This was the title drafted by Mao Zedong for the instruction of the CPC Central Committee forwarding the Hubei Provincial Party Committee's regulations on doing a good job in several aspects of the current people's livelihood. When *People's Daily* published it on December 20, 1958, this title was also adopted.

To Li Fuchun[1]

(November 22, 1958)

Comrade Fuchun:

Regarding the 1959 targets[2], please note beneath each target figure the estimated completion figure for 1958. For example: under the first plan for steel, which is 22 million tons, note the estimated completion figure for 1958 as 11 million tons. Do the same for all other items, so that readers can make comparisons. In the second plan column, these notes need not be added to avoid repetition. After the notes have been added, please have it copied once more for me and also distributed to all comrades at the same time.

Mao Zedong
November 22, 6:00 AM

Published based on the manuscript.

**Notes**

[1] Li Fuchun then served as a member of the Political Bureau of the CPC Central Committee, Vice Premier of the State Council, and Director of the State Planning Commission.
[2] This refers to the targets for the output of various major products in 1959 listed in the draft resolution on the 1959 national economic plan, which was prepared for discussion at the Eighth Plenary Session of the Sixth CPC Central Committee. On December 10, 1958, the Eighth Plenary Session of the Sixth CPC Central Committee adopted the Resolution on the 1959 National Economic Plan.