Talks at the First Zhengzhou Conference

Date: 1958-11-06
Source: Secret Speeches of Chairman Mao: From the Hundred Flowers to the Great Leap Forward
        (Harvard University Press, 1989), ed. Roderick MacFarquhar, Timothy Cheek, Eugene Wu

---

TEXT EIGHT TEEN
Talks at the First Zhengzhou Conference
6-10 NOVEMBER 1958
[173] 6 NOVEMBER 1958
We've been going at it for only two months and have already
achieved something. If next year we go at it another year, we'll have
the knack. For next year the most important things are to take steel
as the main link, the three big marshals, and the two advance guards. '
What is meant by “completing the construction of socialism’?
What is the “transition to communism’? Definitions are needed.
transition to communism]. That’s perhaps a bit short; double it,
eight years. Fan county [in Shandong province] talks about making
the transition to communism after two years of hard struggle.
One has to look at the things Stalin wrote. His strong point is that
he alone talks about a socialist economy, but his greatest shortcoming is that he sets up a rigid framework, saying that the kolkhozy are
willing to exchange commodities but won't go for allocations [of
goods and capital by planning authorities]. This was because [he] did
not want uninterrupted revolution, but wanted to consolidate the
socialist order. The Russian peasants cannot be that selfish; it cannot
be that they don’t want uninterrupted revolution. Russia has built up
a socialist order, but this type of order cannot be consolidated. With
us it’s the other way round. We disrupt a part of the socialist order;
the supply system [i.e., payment in kind] is what disrupts that order.
Public grain, accumulation and labor power are allocable; they are
owned by the whole people. A million soldiers went south of the
[Yangtze] river—why can’t we similarly allocate people to [manual]
labor? For the moment allocations can only be partial; this cannot be
done for whole provinces or the entire country. For instance, Anguo
plans to give 500 pounds of wheat to each person in Fuping next
Anshan Steel Works. In Anshan, apart from the capital depreciation
of 7,200 yuan, the remaining [value produced per worker] is 10,800
yuan [of which] the worker gets 800 yuan, and accumulates 10,000
yuan for the state. That’s the way we should allocate.
(XX: We have to mechanize and diversify the economy.)
[175] [Chairman:] This transition seemed immensely difficult to
Stalin and he didn’t set a deadline [specifying] how many years would
be needed. This is the first transition [i.e., that from collective ownership to ownership by the whole people]. The second transition 1s
that from “To each according to his work” to “To each according to
his need.” Now we have already begun to prepare for the second tran-brags [about entering communism] but you only hear a noise on the
staircase, you don’t see anyone coming down. Our [system of] food 4%
without pay is the sprout of “To each according to his need.” At
present we eat too little oil, normally not even four /iang; some have am
one, some two, some three, some four, and some five /iang; but nor- a
mally it is between three and five. Nourishment is got from grain,
therefore people eat a lot of rice but that could be changed [to include
more oil]. Don’t go about it rashly; all that can be done should be done
gradually. This certainly can be said to be an element of communism.
Self-sufficiency, the supply system, and internal allocation within
the people’s communes on the one side and commodity exchange on
the other have to be developed simultaneously. Without a development of the commodity economy, no wages can be paid. A professor
visiting the Xushui University found that the monthly wage paid
[there] was 15 yuan, and that wasn’t even enough to pay for two
packs of Qianmen brand cigarettes a day—can you call that superiority [of the socialist system]?”? There are three counties in Hebei in
need of emergency aid; [in] some ten counties [people] have only rice
to eat; the third type pays wages, between a couple of dimes and a few
bucks.’ Beijing and Shanghai have a lot of money. In the villages
water and fuel is not counted in monetary terms. One has to discuss
a standard.°
In the womb of the mother is the baby, and socialism contains the
sprouts of communism. Stalin failed to see this dialectical law.
We cannot do [everything we want to do for] agriculture within
two or three years; at present we have to manage industry and continue to develop agriculture, although we are also concerned about
lagging behind with agriculture.
(Tan:!° Use 50 percent of the labor force in agriculture, 25 percent
in commodity crops, 20 percent in steel making, coal mining, and so
on, and 5 percent in the service trades.)
[Chairman:] One has to encourage each people’s commune to produce commodities, and one shouldn’t always [just] talk about the
word commodity.
China has extremely irrational production methods: 500 million
people are engaged in producing foodstuffs, [but] producing only
this much—370 billion catties of grain. We have obtained from this
two experiences: to promote mechanization and to decrease the sown
[area] while increasing output, [in order] to save labor power, [and
thus to be able to] run industry in a big way.!! If we could achieve
this during the next two years it would be good. Hebei province
intends to plant 10 million mow next year [and get] 10,000 catties per
mou, which would give 100 billion catties. Last year they [planted]
88 million mou but [harvested] only 25 billion catties, and this year
they also [176] will have only 45 billion catties. Using power machinery, planting a smaller area will yield more grain.
Don’t brag about it so loudly. The result might be as Huang
Yanpei!? says, that in Zhengzhou you can only eat vegetables. Having blown one’s trumpet, but when there’s only 1.5 liang of oil per
month, what kind of superiority is that?
(XX: Communism mustn’t mean lower standards.)
(Chairman:] Of such lowered standards there still are several gradations. According to the standard of Fan county, 95 percent industry
connotes communism. The present cannot be called communism, the
level is too low; one can only talk about elements and sprouts of communism, and one shouldn't lower the high standards of communism.
'SFvidently Tan Zhenlin, who was in charge of agriculture during the GLF; see Origins 2,
pp. 82-5.
[We] have to reread Stalin's Economic Problems of Socialism and
look at the Collection of Articles on the Problem of Bourgeois Right.3
There ought to be a discussion on the nature of the people’s communes, on how the transition will go, how much time will be
needed, and on the Forty-Point Program [for Agriculture].!* How are
we to run urban people’s communes?!> Should we not lower standards for different kinds of people as a matter of principle? Cadres
within the party [may] make slight adjustments [with regard to standards], but this [should] not be publicly communicated. When
shelved after the CC’s 6th plenum in December 1958 and revived after the 8th (Lushan) plenum in August 1959; see Origins 2, pp. 305-6.
Lhengzpou Conference
professors [already] have their salary reduced and can smoke only a
few Qianmen brand cigarettes, [if] standards are still to be lowered,
what superiority is there? Shouldn’t we go about [making such adjustments] step by step? Only if [the level] is raised can this be counted as
“superiority.” The workers, Pm afraid, will have to have their wages
increased, the [living standards] of the peasants have already risen.
We should also institute the supply system in the cities.
On the first of January next year the change will take effect, a full
eight hours of sleep, four hours for eating and recreation, two hours
for study. The system for the peasants is 8-4-2-10 [hours of work]; for
the workers the best is 8-4-2: make a timetable for work and rest;
otherwise it cannot be sustained. Sunday [177] is for rest.16
Not to rest, that is the communist spirit. Work is not done for
money [renminbi]. It has already stopped being only a means of life,
and has become a necessity of life As for me, I don’t [work] for the
530 yuan [I get] but because it’s a necessity.‘7 One should make an
investigation.
(XX: It’s mainly manifested in a disregard of pay and time, and
going to the opposite [extreme, of resting only] six hours. With the
abolition of piece-rate wages, [earnings] dropped by 20 percent, yet it
wasn't considered a fabulous thing. [One has to} manage it so that no
money is needed for food; pay somewhat lower wages. When those
with few members in the family have somewhat lower wages, they
“will not worry about their sons and daughters.”)1®
[Chairman:] Worrying about sons and daughters, [or] about oneself, will [then] change into worrying about the cause of society.
During this year there have been so many good things: trails have
been blazed, many things have been realized about which we did not
‘Unless there is a misprint here, it is not clear what contrast Mao is making between rural
and urban work schedules.
'’This figure of 530 yuan was presumably Mao’s official monthly salary as party and state
Chairman. The average annual wage for workers and staff in 1958 was about 650 yuan; see
Christopher Howe, Wage Patterns and Wage Policy in Modern China, 1919-1972 (Cambridge, Cambridge Univ. Press, 1973), p. 31.
'8The full meaning of this intervention is unclear; the gist seems to be that the communist
spirit has been manifested in long work hours in disregard of remuneration, and that, as
long as people get free food, they will not worry too much about money wages. For a discussion of “shock” work during the GLE, see Origins 2, pp. 119-20.
G4OU TEXT EIGHTEEN
even dare to dream earlier. Therefore we dare dream about people's lej. 4
sure time, a leisure time of one-third.!9
Forestry 1s quite amazing; one shouldn't look down on. it. 4
Viliams*° says, “Agriculture, forestry, and livestock-raising must be §
combined. One shouldn't think of afforestation just in terms of mak. 4
ing a place green.” In the South fifteen to twenty-five years will be 4
needed, in the North forty to fifty years. In planting trees, too, close 4
planting is needed. With company they grow easily; when they all 4
grow together, they will be comfortable; a lone tree doesn’t grow, 4
There is a way to planting trees. Raising fish is like raising pigs; plant- am
ing trees is like sowing grain: you have to dig one zhang deep”! and “@
apply fertilizer to each layer.
This year we are emphasizing doing [things in] the small, native, }
and mass manner. Some people say that there is considerable waste of “4
wood and coal, but there’s also a great saving. Several tens of millions
of people have gone into the mountains and identified resources [i.e.,
fuel], and [in the process] have got themselves some experience: that’s
a net gain,??
You cannot talk entirely in terms of living standards, otherwise
those rotten emperors and nobles would have been in communism a
long time ago. You have to talk about needs, and quantities of heat
[1.e., energy available to the body}: 2500 calories should be adequate;
even an emperor or a duke couldn’t take more, and less wouldn’t do,
either. Foodstuffs contain seventeen kinds of elements, like nitrogen, jam
‘Mao is presumably envisioning leisure time doubling from the currently mandated four 3
hours discussed above, with the extra hours coming from working hours when modernization makes that possible.
2°Vailii Robertovich Vil'iams (1863-1939): Soviet soil specialist and founder of agronomical -
soil sciences in the USSR, who set the standard for range land agricultural planning there -
and now has a scientific medal for achievement in agriculture named after him. His Principles of Agronomy and Soil Science emphasized an agronomical system of combining agriculture, forestry, and animal husbandry. Translated into Chinese, it had a great influence in
China in the 1950s. See Great Soviet Encyclopedia, vol. 5, (New York, Macmillan, 1974), pp-
464-5.
214 zhang is about 3.3 meters, as advocated for deep ploughing at the time.
*2The phrase “small, native, and mass” (xiao, tu, qun), as contrasted with large-scale, foreign
or modern, and capital-intensive, reflected a key element of the GLE the desire to increase
output without massive new investment in large factories by using what China had plenty
of: surplus labor and native ingenuity. Mao was apparently referring here to the 1958 “backyard” steel campaign, in which millions of Chinese smelted iron in small, homemade furnaces to help reach the national target of doubling output. In 1959, it was admitted that this
locally produced metal could not really be called steel.
Lhengzhou Conjerence
hydrogen, carbon, oxygen, potassium, magnesium, sodium, german-
4m, phosphorus, and sulphur; and communism, too, will just have a
certain number of elements to make up its nourishment; [but] it
shouldn’t have too many.
The Forty Points will be achieved in fifteen or ten years, this year
‘ncluded.?3
1178] 7 NOVEMBER 1958, AFTERNOON
Ownership by the whole people [as instituted] in Xushui** cannot be
counted as the completion of the building of socialism. There is little
(ownership by] the whole people; a lot [belongs to the] collective
labor power, financial and material resources; none of them can be
allocated. This point has to be made quite clear: to mix up the two is
not advantageous. At present quite a few cadres are confused about
this, [and] if one says this is not [the completion of socialism] that’s
a “rightist tendency.”
There are two systems of ownership, that by the whole people and
that by the collective; but what is of decisive importance here 1s
whether things can be allocated. Things that cannot be allocated by
the state cannot count as being owned by the whole people. [Things]
allocated under ownership by the whole people are not “commodities’ any more as defined in political economy. If the “two transformations” are not completed, there can be no abundance of products,
there cannot be direct exchange, and there cannot be any abolition of
the exchange of commodities.
To the three differences (between industry and agriculture, city
and countryside, physical and mental labor) still needs to be added
that between skilled and unskilled.
At present the relations of production are still [developing] from
the small collective to the big collective; the mutual aid team?* bore
*2For the 40-Point or 12-Year Agricultural Program, see n. 14. What is extraordinary in this
remark is that by this point in 1958, most provinces were vowing to fulfill the program long
before the 12 years were up in 1967. Mao had earlier shown signs of wanting to moderate
excessively ambitious projections (see Origins 2, pp. 42-3), but this is the first indication of
his envisioning the program taking much longer than the original time scale.
24S ee above, n. 7.
*°Mutual aid teams were the rural organizations set up by the CCP in the early 1950s to
accustom peasants to working together in order to make them more amenable to collectithe sprouts of socialism within itself. From the lower-stage APC to
the higher-stage APC, from the higher-stage APC to the people’s com- a 4
mune, private plots have been reduced; the sphere of management “dam
[by the collective] has widened; [the responsibility tor] education, 4 :
communal mess halls [gonggong shitang], and child care has been 4
taken on by the communes; the patriarchal [family] system has been ;
abolished; and one can eat without paying—these are great changes,
but all of them are within the confines of a single commune or a sin- “@@
gle county and do not go beyond the commune. From the viewpoint —
of the state as a whole, they don’t represent a fundamental change.
This does not compare with the Anshan Steel Works. [Only] on the
question of eating without paying is this more advanced than 3
Anshan. At present there are some places that have abolished [produc- ° :
tion] norms, [and instead] fix norms on the basis of labor intensity,
technical level, and on whether one’s attitude is good or bad, so that
in both norms and salaries there have been changes.
The essence of the commune is to be the basic unit of socialist
social structure, combining industry, agriculture, commerce, education, and military [affairs]. Its main function is to be the organizer of
production and life while at the same time embodying some functions of political [1.e., state] power, which it must retain. At present
there are people who don’t understand that the functions of political
power are the supervision and remolding of landlords, rich peasants,
counterrevolutionaries, and bad elements as well as the protection of
socialist [179] construction vis-a-vis the outside [world], but that it
cannot be used to deal with and solve problems among the people.
Currently some people mistakenly use political power to handle
[matters] among the people, in the way a battalion commander hits a
company commander, but that is resorting to coercion and commandism. The commune is a product of the Great Leap Forward. It 1s
not fortuitous. It is the best form for the two transitions [guodu].¢ It
is both big and public, and advantageous for the realization of the
vization in due course. See Franz Schurmann, Ideology and Organization in Communist
China, rev. ed. (Berkeley, Univ. of California Press, 1968), pp. 439, 447-51.
26The two transitions were from collective ownership to ownership by the whole people
(i.e., the state), and from a socialist distribution system (“to each according to his work”) to
a communist one (“to each according to his need”).
Lhengzhou Conference
-wo transitions. It is also the basic unit of the future communist
society. The law of value [jzazhi faze] is an instrument; it only has calculating functions, but not the function of regulating production.
Sralin’s writings contain a lot of good things.
Ownership by the whole people means there must be product allocation.
Go back and hold meetings; solicit comments; don’t say there has
been a meeting in Zhengzhou. Can what [they have] be considered
ownership by whole people? Have they already reached communism
or not? Have the elements that make up communism been taken
into consideration? Don’t take upon yourself right away to extend
(the meaning of] the resolution [of this meeting]. [To talk about] abolishing the family is not really telling the truth. It would sound very
leftist [as if we intended to] chop off the head and cut away the tail,
[forcing] the separation of children from their parents.?
As to county federations of communes and one commune [comprising] one [whole] county, each county’s different; one commune
[comprising] one whole county [can] easily produce a Qin Shihuang
while county federations of communes do not easily produce Qin
Shihuang; it’s not easy to play the role of Qin Shihuang.”® Xushu1
county is an independent kingdom, a lot of things are not being discussed with the provincial and prefectural committees; these two
can't handle [Xushui county].
Xushui is no match for Anguo: from now on [we] must propagandize Anguo, not Xushui.?? Xushui concentrated the good pigs [in one
place] for people to see; that is not seeking truth from facts.°° The
“Sputnik” figures for steel [production] releases in some places are
also not accurate. Such methods are no good; one has to stop them,
to oppose exaggeration. One has to seek truth from facts, not make
?/The final portion of this paragraph is somewhat obscure.
*8During the leftist “high tide” of September 1958 it was thought that the larger a commune, the nearer it would be to communism. Thus some counties converted themselves
into communes. But the preferred form was to have a number of smaller communes in each
county linked up “federally.”
*9 Anpuo, like Xushui, is a county in Baoding prefecture, Hebei; see n. 4. Mao referred
approvingly to the “Anguo documents” (presumably for propaganda purposes) at the 2nd
Zhengzhou Conference in February-March 1959; see Chinese Law & Government 9.4:66.
Xushu1’s device was presumably designed to convince visiting officials that pigs produced
by many units had been produced by just one.
the sprouts of socialism within itself. From the lower-stage APC to 7
the higher-stage APC, from the higher-stage APC to the people’s com. ‘4
mune, private plots have been reduced; the sphere of management 4q
[by the collective] has widened; [the responsibility for] education, a
communal mess halls [gonggong shitang], and child care has been sam
taken on by the communes; the patriarchal [family] system has been 4 : i
abolished; and one can eat without paying—these are great changes 7
but all of them are within the confines of a single commune or a sin. 4
gle county and do not go beyond the commune. From the viewpoint ‘Ma
of the state as a whole, they don’t represent a fundamental change, jar
This does not compare with the Anshan Steel Works. [Only] on the ‘#
question of eating without paying is this more advanced than @
Anshan. At present there are some places that have abolished [produc- “4
tion] norms, [and instead] fix norms on the basis of labor intensity,
technical level, and on whether one’s attitude is good or bad, so that
in both norms and salaries there have been changes.
The essence of the commune is to be the basic unit of socialist
social structure, combining industry, agriculture, commerce, education, and military [affairs]. Its main function is to be the organizer of
production and life while at the same time embodying some functions of political [i.e., state] power, which it must retain. At present —
there are people who don’t understand that the functions of political
power are the supervision and remolding of landlords, rich peasants,
counterrevolutionaries, and bad elements as well as the protection of
socialist [179] construction vis-a-vis the outside [world], but that it
cannot be used to deal with and solve problems among the people.
Currently some people mistakenly use political power to handle
[matters] among the people, in the way a battalion commander hits a
company commander, but that is resorting to coercion and comman- |
dism. The commune is a product of the Great Leap Forward. It 1s |
not fortuitous. It is the best form for the two transitions [guodu].?6 It
is both big and public, and advantageous for the realization of the
vization in due course. See Franz Schurmann, Ideology and Organization in Communist
China, rev. ed. (Berkeley, Univ. of California Press, 1968), pp. 439, 447-51.
26The two transitions were from collective ownership to ownership by the whole people
(i.e., the state), and from a socialist distribution system (“to each according to his work”) to
a communist one (“to each according to his need”).
Lhengzhou Conference
-wo transitions. It is also the basic unit of the future communist
society. The law of value [jzazhz faze] is an instrument; it only has calculating functions, but not the function of regulating production.
Stalin’s writings contain a lot of good things.
Ownership by the whole people means there must be product allocation.
Go back and hold meetings; solicit comments; don’t say there has
been a meeting in Zhengzhou. Can what [they have] be considered
ownership by whole people? Have they already reached communism
or not? Have the elements that make up communism been taken
into consideration? Don’t take upon yourself right away to extend
(the meaning of] the resolution [of this meeting]. [To talk about] abolishing the family is not really telling the truth. It would sound very
leftist [as if we intended to] chop off the head and cut away the tail,
[forcing] the separation of children from their parents.27
As to county federations of communes and one commune [comprising] one [whole] county, each county’s different; one commune
[comprising] one whole county [can] easily produce a Qin Shihuang
while county federations of communes do not easily produce Qin
Shihuang; it’s not easy to play the role of Qin Shihuang.?* Xushu1
county is an independent kingdom, a lot of things are not being discussed with the provincial and prefectural committees; these two
can't handle [Xushui county].
Xushui is no match for Anguo: from now on [we] must propagandize Anguo, not Xushui.2? Xushui concentrated the good pigs [in one
place] for people to see; that is not seeking truth from facts.2° The
“Sputnik” figures for steel [production] releases in some places are
also not accurate. Such methods are no good; one has to stop them,
to oppose exaggeration. One has to seek truth from facts, not make
?’The final portion of this paragraph is somewhat obscure.
*8During the leftist “high tide” of September 1958 it was thought that the larger a commune, the nearer it would be to communism. Thus some counties converted themselves
into communes. But the preferred form was to have a number of smaller communes in each
county linked up “federally.”
29 Anguo, like Xushui, is a county in Baoding prefecture, Hebei; see n. 4. Mao referred
approvingly to the “Anguo documents” (presumably for propaganda purposes) at the 2nd
Zhengzhou Conference in February-March 1959; see Chinese Law & Government 9.4:66.
*Xushui’s device was presumably designed to convince visiting officials that pigs produced
by many units had been produced by just one.
454 TEXT FIGHTEEN a Lhengzpoun Conference FIO
; a ;
ek
"9 ‘
Stalin’s last letter is nearly entirely wrong; he thought that giving
empty reports. On matters of major orientations and policies there’?
machinery to the kolkhoz was a step backward.35
should be some discussion; the leadership organs should be sober. 14
In [agricultural] field management, it is not good if no one is §
responsible. Institute a responsibility system; don’t let chaos reign; |
arrange things under a unified plan. .
In the future, [we] will select the “three-thirds system” for the dis-4
tribution of products.>2 Urban communes have to be organized,
some earlier, some later, [and] organized very well. In Beijing and 4
Shanghai they should be organized slowly—if they went about it fast, J
what would Huang Yanpei?} do? One city, one commune—I’m afraid
that here, too, [we'll have to have] federations of communes. Each #
will certainly need its own economic base. XXX praises our com: 4
munes, saying that the communes which the Soviet Union had earlier 4
[180] handled only consumption. Our people’s communes are an |
organizational form with production at its center. The cities divide %
into two types: in a city with big industry, where citizens are after a
things, welfare should be open to all. The big factories and the univer- ‘4m
sities belong to the state. But while their employees can join the [ur- 4
ban] communes, their cadres and products cannot be transferred [to a
the communes]. They can be assigned some welfare benefits, help to 4
set up “Sputnik” factories, and enjoy rights as commune members, ‘4
while also fulfilling obligations. These are the relationships between ©
state-owned factories and [urban] communes. [These relationships] are
the same [between] the army [and the urban communes].4
7'Mao is being a bit disingenuous (see also n. 47). Carol Lee Hamrin argues that the “hotheadedness” which produced such “Sputnik” figures came out of the August 1958 Beidaihe
conference, (see Text 17); and that even three months after what Mao says here, it was impossible for the director of the CCP’s Central Party School, Yang Xianzhen, to speak honestly
on inflated reports from Henan discovered by his field group; see “Yang Xianzhen: Upholding Orthodox Leninist Theory,” in Carol Lee Hamrin and Timothy Cheek, eds., China’s
Establishment Intellectuals (Armonk, N.Y., M. E. Sharpe, 1986), p. 67.
°2The term “three-thirds system” was normally used to describe the base-area political system around Yan’an in the 1940s, dividing nominal power among the CCP, non-party lef
tists, and middle-of-the-roaders. Perhaps Mao means that goods will be distributed partly
freely, partly on a ration system, partly in return for payment; or perhaps that the peasant
will retain one third, the commune another third, with the final third going to the state, as
is implied on p. 459.
*5See n. 12. Mao is evidently using Huang Yanpei as a symbol of the bourgeoisie whose
cooperation in running urban commerce and industry he does not want to lose by hasty
“leftism.”
°4Mao evidently forgot or did not bother to mention the second type, presumably smaller
cities,
The communes are not to assign all sorts of tasks to the factories;
‘ndustries and schools that serve the state or the province as a whole
generally should not be handed down to ownership by the communes. If things are not handled this way, troubles could come about
; in the pharmaceutical factory in Shijiazhuang where work came
almost to a halt when personnel were dragged off to do deep ploughing and make steel.*¢
The value created by workers is very large, [so] they should [have
an income] slightly higher than that of the peasants. Next year [we]
should think about making small [wage] increases to make up for the
losses due to the abolition of piece-rate wages.
[There should be some] small freedoms [within] the great collectives. Each family does some cooking;>” while the historical role of
the family has been destroyed, consumption [in the framework of
the family] continues in part, as does bearing and raising children.
The patriarchal system and monetary relations [within the family]
are destroyed, [because there is] widespread social security. The old
Chinese family is family communism—in each family one ate without paying—but there was no equality.
As for times of work and rest, commune members should have at
least two days [rest] per month (women need five days; during their
menstruation they should be compelled to rest). In the future there
will be a six-hour work system with four hours for study; there
should be some variation for capitalists, professors, democratic personages, actors, and athletes.
Fixed interest [payments] to capitalists will not be abolished (if
they don’t want them, that’s fine; but this should not be made
public),3* and [their] entering communes should be according to the
*>This refers to Stalin’s reply to A. V. Sanina and V. A. Venzher, which is appended to his
Economic Problems of Socialism in the U.S.S.R. The Peking Foreign Languages Press
reprinted Moscow’s English-language edition in 1972. Stalin’s discussion of the disadvantages of giving machinery to the collectives (kolkbozy) is on pp. 90-9 of this edition.
©The example seems to imply that Shijiazhuang, a city in Hebei approaching a million
inhabitants, had already formed an urban commune.
>7 Literally, ' “handles some pots and pans.” By small freedoms, Mao means things like cook-
Ing occasionally at home rather than eating always in a public mess hall as collecttvistminded cadres were encouraging at this time.
“When the socialist high tide engulfed private industry and commerce in early 1956, the
principle of voluntariness. The problem of cadres’ wages has to be
handled with great care: first some experiments, don’t publish [decj. “@
sions] too early. (Wage reductions for party members should also not
be made publicly.)
[181] 9 NOVEMBER 1958
Abolish the patriarchal [family] system [that derives] from history, a
Ensure that homes are built which are conducive to men and §
women, old and young living together; when [work] is intense, they 4a
may be separated. Building homes without proper arrangements is a “a
coercive method.*? Abolish only the patriarchal [family] system [de- a |
riving] from history. At present a family still needs a head, namely 4 q
the most capable, not necessarily the most senior.
[We] generally avoid this aspect [when discussing] the problem of
commodities and commerce: it seems as though if it is not handled
this way, it will not resemble communism. The people’s communes
have to produce socialist commodities suitable for exchange in order
to promote the gradual increase of individual wages. As far as the
means of subsistence are concerned, socialist commerce has to be
developed. Furthermore, making use of the form of the law of value
is an instrument of economic accounting during the transitional period, and beneficial for the gradual transition to communism. Presentday economists don’t appreciate economics. Shortly before his death,
Stalin said, “Whoever talks about the law of value is not
appreciated’—he said that in a letter to Yaroshenko.*° Some people in
government announced that it would recompense businessmen by paying 5% of their
invested capital annually for 7 years; see Barry M. Richman, Industrial Soctety in Communist China (New York, Random House, 1969), pp. 897-8. Though the valuations of the businesses were typically on the low side, these “fixed interest” payments were sometimes very
large, and during the GLF they seemed to some firebrands like capitalist “tails” which
should be eliminated. Hence Mao's warning.
7In the early commune period, cadres in some areas wished to promote collective living
by building single-sex dormitories.
49Mao’s reference does not seem to be correct; see Stalin's comments on Yaroshenko’s
errors, in Economic Problems of Socialism in the U.S.S.R. (Moscow, 1952), pp. 59-86. In this
pamphlet, Stalin does talk of planners who are poorly acquainted with and tend to ignore
the laws of value (p. 20). L. D. Yaroshenko was a Soviet economist who survived Stalin's
strictures only to be criticized later by Khrushchev! See Robert Conquest, Power and Policy
in the U.S.S.R. (London, Macmillan, 1961), p. 110.
LAN EENOGH SONIC TOHMCE
che Soviet Union don’t come out in favor of commodity production,
-hinking communism has already come, while in fact they are quite
fay away from it; we've been at it for just a few years, so that we are
even further away.
Lenin in his time vigorously promoted the development of commerce, because city and countryside were cut off from each other. In
the year 195X that happened to us, too. At present transportation 1s
not in good shape, so that there is a situation of a semi-cutoff and I
think things have to be developed in two directions: one is to expand
allocation and transfer; the other is to expand commodity production.
[f not, we will not be able to pay wages, nor to raise living [standards.]
Bourgeois right has to be demolished in part. For instance, strict
hierarchy, lording it over those below, separation from the masses,
not treating others as one’s equal, not earning a living on the basis of
capacity but on the basis of seniority or power—all these things have
to be abolished day by day. Once smashed, they regenerate; once they
regenerate they have to be smashed again. After Liberation, we didn’t
make use of the advantages of the supply system, but switched to a
wage system. It seemed that we had no choice but to switch in 1953,
because the people from the liberated areas were in the minority
[and] the working class was also on a wage system. The personnel
newly added to government organs and industries were very numerous; they had all been under the influence of the bourgeoisie, and it
would not have been easy to require them to switch to the supply system, and so it was necessary at the time to make a concession. [182]
But there were shortcomings. We accepted a rank system with a strict
hierarchy, and too many ranks: There were over thirty ranks to be
evaluated, and [they caused] struggles over ranks and remuneration.
These concessions were not right. Through the Rectification [Campaign] this tendency was reduced. This type of unequal relationships
between cadres and the masses—[similar to] relationships between
cats and mice or fathers and sons—has to be abolished: such relationships are completely unnecessary. From last year to this year we
fought a major battle against bourgeois right. Last year we introduced experimental fields; the cadres were transferred down [to the
grass roots], and we correctly solved contradictions among the people by using persuasion and not coercion. As a consequence the climate improved greatly; without this change, the GLF would not
have been possible. Why else don’t the masses sleep and rest, but work
eat fs
TIO
IEAL EIGHIEEN
over ten hours? Because party members are together with them; in @
Hong’an county [Hubei province] the cadres had quite lordly airs in
the past, and they were cursed by the masses. A change came about in
the second half of 1956; they made much progress, and the masses gm '
welcomed them.
Another part [of bourgeois right] must be preserved. One has to |
preserve an appropriate wage system, some necessary [income] ‘a ]
differentials, and something of the principle [that] he who works a g
more earns more. Then there is one part which has the character of | -
a deal, such as the maintenance of a system of high salaries for the :
bourgeoisie, bourgeois intellectuals, and democratic personages. One “3
can allow a bourgeois to be a member of a commune, but he will stil] 4
wear his bourgeois hat (no concession is to be made [on the question]
of the hat). Commune members are divided into two kinds: first the 4
worker and peasant members, second the bourgeois members.
For purposes of unity the three levels of the Center, the provinces,
and the prefectures should have a program. How would things work
out if [those responsible for] the provincial committees and above are
not clear about the production targets and interrelationships? At
present there are some problems which are rather chaotic. Once
something is transmitted [to lower levels], it is transmitted all the
way. Down to what level [things] are to be published has to be a matter for political judgment. People are not nervous about grain [quotas]. It is the four items—steel, machinery, coal, and electricity—that
make them nervous. As for the time [needed for the achievement of
this program] one might suggest “fifteen years or a little bit more”s*4
as to the target, fix XX, and just explain orally: Forestry will become
one of the basic problems. After forestry it’s the turn of animal husbandry and fisheries; sericulture and soybean [production] also have
to be added. Forestry is the basis of the chemical and construction
industries. [When talking about] eliminating floods and droughts,
[we] have to add “to the maximum degree”; for the most part these
things fall into man’s domain, but they are partially caused by nature,
*1Mao is presumably referring here to the commitment he made a year earlier to overtaking Britain in the output of major industrial products within 15 years; see Origins 2, pp.
16-7. But later in this passage, he seems to be referring to the 12-Year Agricultural Program,
probably to the version never published, circulated at the CC’s 3rd plenum in September-October 1957; see Origins 1, pp. 27-9, 314-5; 2, p. 305. This may have had references
to urban communes. See also n. 14.
Lhengzpou Conjerence
and this is still going to be so after ten thousand years. As to fertilizer,
organic fertilizer is the main thing. [Concerning] the elimination of
the four pests‘? and other major [agricultural] pests, one should add
also “to the maximum degree.” As for labor, sleeping and rest is not
to be reduced below twelve hours per day, plus two hours for study;
the maximum labor time is not to exceed ten [183] hours. This is a
big problem throughout the country. Service work in the mess halls
has to be regarded as a noble task in the service of the people, as has
service work in nurseries and kindergartens. Every laborer is a state
worker.
I fully agree with Article 36 [on] commodity production and allocation and transfer.*? [If] the communes can practice a system of contracts with each other, why can’t contracts be made between the state
and the communes? Perhaps this would offend the “left” faction. Our
present commodity production is not regulated by the law of value,
but by the plan—or can you say steel, grain, and cotton 1n our country are regulated by the law of value? Copper and aluminum were
not [so] regulated in the past; from now on we have to devote some
energy to managing [these items under the plan].
In the past we said, “First on behalf of the state, second on behalf
of the commune, third on behalf of oneself.” But the producers turn
this around: [For them] the self comes first, the commune comes
second, and the state third, even when we use slogans like “Protect
the family, guard the state”; “To prosper, plant cotton”; “Plant more
cotton for love of the state and family.”
In Article 38, [we] should add, “In order to be prepared utterly to
defeat an invader in the event of an invasion, [we] must implement an
everyone-a-soldier system.”
On Article 39: Because, on the one hand, they are pleased [if capitalists] (become commune members), and on the other they are
concerned** [in view of the capitalists having] (housekeepers and
high salaries), it has to be made clear to the workers that preferential
*2See Text 15, n. 2.
*3 Again, Mao seems to be referring to a revised version of the 40 Points, since Article 36 in
the available published text concerns rural credit cooperatives, not commodity production,
etc. See Communist China 1955-1959, p. 126. Or he may be referring to an unpublished 40
Points on urban communes. His subsequent reference to Article 39 suggests this.
**Mao is taking the literal meaning of a classical quotation from the Analects of Confucius
out of its original context: “yize yixi, yize yiju,” from Chapter 21 of Liren. Legge translates
treatment for the capitalists serves the purpose of isolating them,
allows them to be something special, where they stand out individ.
ually. The small [capitalists] should enter [communes] early; as for .
the middle ones, it’s not certain.
As to Article 40, [it’s just] a heap of viewpoints.‘ [I am] dis. @
satisfied. No one will bother to read the seven viewpoints.** The
crux [of the matter] is [how] to solve [the problem of] work methods
by implementing the mass line. One shouldn't tie people up, beat
them, curse them, argue with them, or punish them with hard labor;
even battalion commanders are treating company commanders in
this manner, “{I’ll] argue the hell out of you, you villain.” Xushui is
not alone in tying up, beating, shouting at, and disputing with company commanders. Therefore each and every one 1s afraid of debates,
which they have turned into struggle meetings, into some kind of
punishment. [For the] two kinds of contradictions [there are] two different kinds of debates: the first is directed against the rightists, serving to isolate them; the other kind is among the people, designed to
persuade.
[We should] encourage seeking truth from facts: [people] should
not give false reports, shouldn’t give out someone else’s report on pig
[raising] as their own; [184] and 300 catties of wheat should not be
reported as 400.4” This year’s [reported] 900 billion catties of grain are
at most 740 billion catties; that should be taken as the [real]-figure. It
would be more appropriate to consider the remaining 160 billion catties as being falsely reported. The enemy can’t be fooled; in the old
days, false reporting in battle news could only fool the people, not
the enemy. The enemy just had a good laugh when they saw them.
On the Fujian front the loss in aircraft is six of ours as against fourteen of the enemy, a ratio of 1 to 2.33. But the Nationalist party blew
the full sentence as “The years of the parents may by no means not be kept in the memory,
as an occasion at once for joy and for fear.” See James Legge, The Chinese Classics, vol. 1
(Taipei, Southern Materials Center, 1983), p. 171. For another example of this rhetorical
habit of Mao’s, see Text 16, n. 5.
4°The original point 40 refers to the exchange of experiences between workers and peasants
to reduce the subjective side of their differences. The text in the present form here is not
comprehensible.
*6There is no indication of what the seven viewpoints are.
*7This is Mao’s second admonition to moderation in reporting gains in the GLF in this
speech, and, again, seems a bit disingenuous; see n. 31.
17 nated
EAICTE RAI NOTE CPEEELE
‘ts own trumpet; there is some truth, but there is also falsehood, so
that they mixed up the true and the false.** Yanshi county [Henan
province] originally intended to hide its production and underreort. But we also have cases of overreporting. The People’s Daily
would do best to take things a bit more coolly. Some problems they
have become accustomed to talking about should be handled in a
manner more appropriate to the present. The main emphasis has to
be on solving problems of work style, [that is] party leadership, the
mass line, seeking truth from facts.
oh of Ok OF oF Ob ok oe ob ob ob oe oe me of 49
Stalin’s book on the economic problems of socialism*° has to be
reread. The cadres from the standing committees of the prefectural
and provincial [level] and above should study it; they all have to
study the economic problems of socialism. Reading the first three
chapters in the past may not have been very interesting, [but] now it’s
different. In Chapters One, Two, and Three, there are many things
deserving attention. There are some inappropriate things, and then
there are some about which he himself was not quite clear. The first
chapter on objective laws postulates the antithesis between a planned
economy and an anarchic situation. He says there is a difference
between the laws of planning and [specific] policies; that’s very good.
He brings up the issue of subjective planning striving to match the
objective laws, but he does not pursue this; perhaps he was not quite
clear about that himself. In his mind he felt that Soviet planning basically corresponded to the objective laws; but to what extent deserves
study. For instance, the relationship between heavy and light industry, the problem of agriculture—they [the objective laws] were not
entirely reflected, and he had to pay for that. People cannot see from
this [Soviet experience how to] combine long- and short-term
benefits. Down to the very present, they [the Russians] have fewer
commodities than we have; [the Soviet economy] walks like Iron
Crutch Li, one leg long, one leg short, the hands holding the
*8Mao is referring here to the air duels over the Taiwan Strait during the confrontation
there in August-September 1958.
A row of stars appears at this point in the original text.
For Stalin’s book, see n. 13.
“TU 2b
TOL
IPAL EPIGHIEEN
crutches, quite out of balance.5! At present, what we advocate ie
[this]: on the premise of assigned priority to the development of’
heavy industry, [we say] the development of industry and agriculture
[should be] simultaneous, [in other words] walking on two legs.
Which [of the two methods] is in the final analysis better adapted to}
the objective laws? Not having any [interest in the] masses or in pol- i
itics, [Stalin] talks only about technology and specialists; that also is $
[walking on] one leg. [185] In the internal relations between heavy 4
and light industry, [Stalin] did not bring out the main aspect of the 4
contradiction; this dialectical law we, too, have mastered only very i
recently—to take steel as the key link—this brings out the main @
contradiction. He didn’t bring that out. 4
ai
or >
: tte let Eo mr an
oa Sie i a leet Hiatt Ce Le oo -
ie ral pe ng ote
oe
Se eT ee
rd ae
(XX: He only attached importance to machinery, and suggested .
that machines were the centerpiece.)> |
“ =k
[Chairman:] Without steel, you can’t have machines; but with ‘
steel you have machines, coal, electricity, oil, transport, and [equip- 4
ment for] the Navy, Army, and Air Force. In a lot of areas, Stalin just. q
raised the questions, but didn’t provide the answers. q
In the second and third chapters he talks about commodities and &
the law of value. Have you any comments? | pretty well go along 4 |
with many of the views in these [two chapters]. It is really necessary 4
to get a clear understanding of these problems. “Means of production
are not commodities,” [Stalin says], and we say, “They are and they — q |
are not.” With us, means of production are still in part commodities. ee
We sell agricultural machinery to the APCs [sic]. The last letter [of
Stalin’s}> is fundamentally wrong, setting the state and the masses
against each other, distrustful of the peasants, and rigidly holding
onto the machines without letting go. The reasons [he gives] are
paste
>!Tron Crutch Li is one of the legendary “Eight Immortals” (ba xian). Once, while his
spirit was roaming outside his body, his disciples, mistaking him for dead, cremated his
body. His spirit therefore attached to the corpse of a beggar who had just died of hunger;
thus he had a different (and ugly) incarnation. By his magic, he changed the beggar’s bamboo stick into an iron crutch. The subject of many literary works, from Yuan drama to
Ming novels, he is a figure in a Peking Opera, The Eight Immortals Crossing the Sea (Ba xian
guo hai), which is most likely the origin of Mao’s reference.
>The printed text includes the phrase mei you gang inside the parentheses. Linguistic sense
moves that phrase outside and into the following sentence, as it is rendered here.
Reply to Sanina and Venzher in Stalin, (Moscow, 1952), pp. 63ff.
Zhengzhou Conference
ynconvincing; he deceived himself. [He says he] is not afraid [of the
consequences], but he also did not want to let go. He did not want to
sell the tractors to the peasants. He finally said that the peasants who
bought them might not be able to cover their losses, but that the
state could absorb those losses.** In sum, he has not found a method
of the two transitions, has not found a way out from the system of
collective ownership to that of the entire people.
(XX: He didn’t understand that before receiving, there must be giving.)°>
[Chairman:] Exactly! If you go for rigid control over the peasants,
the peasants also will want to control you. It may be as he says [that]
as the differences between workers and peasants, and city and countryside are eliminated, these essential distinctions are also eliminated.
However, [despite] thirty years of experience he did not find a way
out, and from his letter one can see that he was very frustrated. Nevertheless, he said he would not preserve the [form of] commodity
handed down from the old society. The main regulator is planning,
not the law of value—there he is quite right. This has become very
clear [to us] during the last few years. The Great Leap Forward has
the [party] secretary taking command, has politics taking command.
(XX: He [Stalin] only saw the contradiction between workers and
peasants. }
[Chairman:] His criticism of Yaroshenko is correct. He does not,
however, talk about the relationship between superstructure and
base, nor about how the superstructure adapts to the economic base,
[yet] that is a very big problem. We run rectification [campaigns]; we
send cadres down [to the lower levels, and promote] the two participations and the one reform; the cadres participate in physical labor;
and we eliminate inappropriate rules and systems and so on.*
5471:
Ibid., p. 94.
>> This is a version of a saying in Chapter 36 of the Dao de jing: “He who is to be taken away
from, Must first be given;” see Lin Yutang, The Wisdom of Laotse (London, Michael Joseph,
1958), p. 183.
°Mao refers to the “one reform” (of inappropriate rules) and to one of the “participations”
(in physical labor). The other “participation” was of workers in management.
[The Soviet] Political Economyf: A Textbook] only talks about eco.
nomic relations, not about politics. The newspapers talk about “self.
less labor,” but in fact [people] do not forget themselves for a single
hour. In his economics, everything is cold [186] and cheerless
wretched and miserable, and totally gloomy. The strong point is that
he brings up problems. Lenin did the same, but his slogan “Attack on
the entire front” when the New Economic Policy had just been
implemented for one year was a bit rash. In the Soviet Union, people —
like [the businessman] Rong Yiren>” were all driven into the sea,
[Stalin] does not discuss bourgeois right, the ideology of rights, and
the system of rights, and so forth. The educational organization, too,
is bourgeois in form. How does one get to communism without a
communist movement? Stalin saw material things, not people; he
saw only the cadres, and not the masses. |
(XX: One group thinks of going for communism, another of stopping at socialism, and a third of returning to capitalism.)
[Chairman:] One group (the landlords, rich peasants, counterrevolutionaries, bad elements and rightists, some cadres, and those who
want to preserve bourgeois right) think of turning back [to capitalism]; the majority want to build communism.
The entry into communism must be step by step. [We must]
expand in two directions, on the one hand in developing production
[for] self-sufficiency, and on the other in developing commodity production. At present [we] have to make use of commodity production, commodity exchange, and the law of value as useful tools.
Stalin gave many reasons. Are there no negative aspects? Refute him!
Ours is a state with a very undeveloped commodity production.
Last year we had 370 billion catties: 30 billion catties were tax grain;
50 billion catties were sold to the state as a commodity, which means
not even a third was commodity grain. Apart from grain, cash crops
are also very undeveloped, like tea and silk, neither of which has
regained its historically highest production level. There has to be a
stage during which commodity production is developed, otherwise
we cannot pay wages. As an example, Hebei province is divided into
three kinds of county: in one group [people] have just rice to eat; 1n
°7See Text 1, n. 6.
2 as
fat Phe PERC hatinatiled Mend FereLl
another they need relief [grain]; in a third they can pay wages. The
last category divides again into different groups, one of which pays
just a few jiao.°* Therefore each commune has to develop some things
besides grain, which it can sell for money. On steel they lose money.
First, [money will pay for] school fees; second, it will support the
states industrialization.
[We have to] develop socialist commodity production and commodity exchange. Unequal wages will have to remain for a whole. We
must affirm that socialist commodity production and commodity
exchange still have positive uses. Only a portion [of commodities] 1s
to be allocated and transferred, the great part [is exchanged through]
buying and selling. We have to expand socialist commodity circulation. At present there is a deviation, as if the more communism, the
better. Communism has to come step by step. We have to investigate
Fan county’s [plan to] achieve communism within two years.
[187] In short, commodities are not developed in our country, and
to enter communism one has first to eliminate the attitude of being
the overlord and the three kinds of [work] styles and the five airs;5?
and second to maintain wage differentials. At present a few people persist in wanting to achieve communism in a matter of three to five years.
The economists are “left”; they get by under false pretences, and
thereby expose their vulnerable side. The Forty Point draft program
is the proof.
AFTERNOON, 10 NOVEMBER 1958
Change the minutes [of this meeting] into a resolution of the Politburo. When you go back to the lower levels, carry it out. The Politburo will reaffirm it retroactively according to legal procedure.°
>8 jiao was worth roughly a dime in the 1950s.
59+ere Mao is citing the Shanghai First Secretary, Ke Qingshi, a leading advocate of the
GLE who had been raised to the Politburo in May 1958. Early in the year Ke Qingshi had
attacked military cadres for exhibiting the “three [work] styles and five airs” (san feng wu
gi). The three bad work styles were those criticized in the 1957 Rectification Campaign:
bureaucratism, subjectivism, and sectarianism. The five airs were arrogance, bureaucratism,
extravagance, laziness, and apathy. To counteract these sins, an order was issued in September for officers to spend spells in the ranks as ordinary soldiers. See Warren Kuo, ed., A
Comprehensive Glossary of Chinese Communist Terminology (Taipei: Institute of International Relations, 1978), p. 428; Origins 2, p. 67.
©0Tt is not clear which session’s minutes are to become a resolution.
me td
OO
IRAL BING BIN
What the newspapers report is pure poetry. The Great Leap For.
ward has something about it which makes people dazed and befuddled. [I] can’t sleep, and want to talk a bit, try to copy Stalin,*! and go
on and try a little persuasion on some comrades. I believe Pm right,
But if my opponent is right, I would obey [him].
First there’s the question of whether or not one has to draw boundaries. Then there’s the question of blending these various forms of |
ownership. As for collective ownership, some forms left behind b
the bourgeoisie have to be used. At present this is still the peasant
question. Some comrades suddenly rate the peasants very highly: .
they think the peasants are number one, the workers number two:
the peasantry is thus superior even to the working class, they’re the
elder brothers! On some questions the villages are ahead, but this is
just appearance, not substance. In the last analysis, is Anshan Steel
the elder brother or is it Xushui? Some people think that the Chinese proletariat is in the villages, while Anshan Steel with its eighttiered wage system and not even having established a people’s commune, has fallen behind. Some comrades have run about Xushui for
two days, and then conclude that Xushui is the elder brother. It’s as
if the peasants were the proletarians and the workers were the petty-.
bourgeoisie—is such a view Marxism? Some comrades are Marxists
when they are reading Marxist textbooks; but once they run into real
problems, [their belief in Marxism] is discounted. This is quite a
tashion. Among the cadres there are some hundreds of thousands or
even some millions whose thinking is muddled; the masses, too, are
quite confused. So you are careful and cautious, shunning the use of
capitalist concepts that still have a positive meaning—commodity
production, commodity circulation, law of value, and the like—to
serve socialism. [188] Based on Article 36,6? you make utmost use of
this unclear wording to get by under false pretenses in order to make
it seem as if the peasants had entered communism. That is an attitude
lacking in thoroughness and seriousness towards Marxism. It is an
°!Mao may mean he is copying Stalin in liking to work late; see Milovan Djilas, Conversations with Stalin (London, Hart-Davis, 1962), pp. 72-3.
®7 Although this Article 36 does not correspond to any such article in published versions of
the 40-point ‘Twelve-Year Agricultural Program, it, like the Article 36 mentioned on the previous day (see n. 43), seems to be concerned with commodity production and may appear
in a revised, unpublished version of the Program.
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Lhengzhou Conference
affair concerning several hundred million peasants. The reasons Stalin
gave why one could not expropriate the peasants are as follows:®
(1.) The peasant’s labor power belongs to the commune in the same
manner as seeds; that is different from Anshan where they produce
for the entire people. The collective village or commune not only
owns the seeds, but also fertilizer and products, the ownership of
which is with the peasant; and if you don’t give him things, don’t
trade on the basis of equal value, he will not deliver to you. Should
this problem be treated rashly or cautiously? On the surface, it looks
as if whatever is needed is given, but in reality there is much pain [in
the giving]. The first secretary of the county [party] committee of
Xiuwu* did not dare to proclaim ownership by the whole people,
first because he was afraid he might not be able to pay wages if there
were a natural disaster and a decrease in production, as the state
would neither guarantee nor subsidize; second he was afraid that after
a rich harvest the state might take [the surplus] away. This comrade
thought about things and did not get into frenzy; he did not rush
madly forward in the manner of Xushui. We have not proclaimed
state ownership of the land but commune ownership of the land, the
seeds, the animals, and the large and small agricultural implements.
In this period it is only through commodity production and circulation that we can get the peasants to develop production and to enter
ownership by the whole people.
In the second paragraph on page four of the first chapter of Economic Problems of Socialism in the U.S.S.R.,© it says “Freedom is the
appreciation of necessity.”6* Objective laws exist independently of
human consciousness; objective laws are the opposite of human subjective understanding. Only by understanding objective laws can one
control them.’” As to the laws of the political economy of socialism, one has to study their necessity. The suggestions made at the
°>The text gives no second numbered point.
**Xiuwu county is in Henan province.
©>Stalin (Moscow, 1952), p. 4.
°61t was clearly Mao's citation of Stalin’s use of this quotation from Engels’ Anti-Dihring
that emboldened Chen Yun to refer to it when he was called on by Mao to restore order to
the Chinese economy in 1959. See Origins 2, p. 164, where (not having seen the text of the
present speech) I mistakenly suggested that Mao picked up this quotation from Chen
Yun.
. . . : . ct o
°”Mao uses the term, jiashi,as in piloting an airplane, which we translate here as “control.
Chengdu conference seem to have had positive results when enacted.
At the second session of the [party’s] Eighth Congress there was a
report made which still seems efficacious,* but do they [1e., the sug.
gestions and this report] accord with [objective] laws or do they not?
And are these all that was [needed]? Will they tumble head over
heels? [We] still need to continue to test them in practice. Some years,
even a decade, will be needed for this. I once said to Gomulka, look
again after ten years. In our own past the revolution was doubted by
people: did China need a revolution or not? did political power have
to be seized or not? Internationally some people resolutely opposed
it; but the revolution itself has proved that our course was correct,
practice has provided its rightness. But that was still only proof for
one phase. Collectivization, joint state-private enterprises, production increases are [further] proof of it. Increase there was indeed; but
after eight years of [economic] construction, [189] we only did 370
billion catties of grain. This year [we'll] do a bit more—[who] knows
how next year will be? Comrade Tan Zhenlin has suggested that during the four months from December this year through January, February, March next year, the first secretaries should again take
agriculture into their hands, which would influence the wheat harvests.”° Please, would everybody think about this. Grasp agriculture at
the same time as grasping steel. The first secretaries should call meetings to distribute labor power, make some announcements, give
some orders, and hand the responsibility over to the agricultural [department] secretaries. The provinces, prefectures, and counties all
have to take responsibility; and bad performances won't do. Otherwise nobody is going to take responsibility; each one will say he himself is right, [with the result] that everyone is going to turn to
steel-making [and agriculture will be neglected]. Shanxi province talks
®8Mao’s March 1958 speeches at the Chengdu conference are in Wansui (1969), pp. 159-80;
and translated in Issues and Studies, November, December 1973. The report referred to is
presumably Liu Shaoqi’s political report to the 2nd session of the 8th Party Congress (May
1958); see Communist China, 1955-1959, pp. 164-203.
©?The only time Mao is known to have met the Polish Communist leader Gomulka, who
was rehabilitated in August 1956 and made first secretary that October in the face of Soviet
objections, was at the 40th anniversary celebrations of the Bolshevik revolution in Moscow
in November 1957.
”°For Tan Zhenlin, see Text 17, n. 3. The 1958 autumn harvest had been neglected in favor
of steel-making with calamitous consequences for grain output; see Origins 2, pp. 113-21.
Tan was presumably trying to ensure that there was no repetition of this in 1959.
. ram "
Lhengzpou Conference
about three victories: in industry, agriculture, and ideology. That 1s a
ood slogan. Going at it by leaving out one would be like Iron-
Crutch Li. Neglect agriculture and you become a Stalin. Those doing
agriculture must be hell-bent on doing agriculture. Write it down
again in the resolution that agriculture is not to be thrown out.”! The
first secretaries must put their minds to two, three, or four tasks and
acquire many-sided abilities. One day a month, four days in four
months, is too little [for taking care of any one task]. “Industry, agriculture, and ideology” was [a slogan] suggested at the Chengdu conference; this time it’s a creation of the people from Shanxi, just like
people from Henan suggesting “Three years of hard struggle,” which
has now become a national slogan; “Making experimental fields” was
a slogan from Hubei. Nothing comes out of the brains of the few of
us. All we do is to put together the experiences of the different
regions and then popularize them to bring forth a few products [Le.,
ideas] like those from the Chengdu and Beidaihe meetings. This time
we came up with two products; one will be implemented immediately, and the other will [be held] in draft form.
Do our measures entirely correspond to objective laws? If they by
and large correspond, that is already all right. Stalin said: “The Soviet
power at that time had to create new, socialist forms of economy,
‘starting from scratch,’ so to speak. That was undoubtedly a difhcult,
complex and unprecedented task.””? We have a precedent; we have
the experience of the Soviet Union’s successes and failures. This book
of Stalin’s is exceedingly useful; he has put together a text book [for
us]. I have not looked at it in detail, and at present I am forced to read
it; the more I read, the more interesting it becomes. Chen Yun and
[Li] Fuchun are more knowledgeable [from practical experience], but
have not yet learned from the Soviet experience.”? It’s useful, and we
have to do a bit better than they. If we make a mess of it, China's
Marxists aren't of much use.
This book says in the second paragraphs of pages six and seven
”1Mao is presumably referring to the resolution on the communes which would be passed
at the CC’s 6th plenum in December 1958 and which might have by this time been in the
drafting stage. For the resolution, see Communist China, 1955-59, pp. 488-502.
”2Stalin (Moscow, 1952), p. 5. Mao’s version does not correspond precisely to the oficial version,
’ ’ ’ . : +9
dhist scriptures,” but now meaning “learning from others’ experiences.
"3 Qujing is a popular PRC idiom, drawn from the idea of “making a pilgrimage for Bud-
Zhengzhou Conference
that [talk about] eliminating and creating [economic] laws is wrong, 4
objective laws and policy directives should not be talked about in the aa
same breath, the law of planned development [190] has arisen as the M
antithesis to capitalist competition and anarchy. There there’s anar- (a
chy, here there’s governance. We, too, do planning, and we, too, have - E
reached a certain point, contradictions will not manifest themselves:
they will not be reflected in people’s brains, and [therefore] cannot be
understood. For eight years [we] didn’t understand [we had] to take
steel as the main link, and in September this year we finally got that
point, and grasped the main aspect of the contradiction. This is monexperience: a spate of mobilization, and there’s too much coal; a
another mobilization, and there’s too much sugar; yet another mobil- 4
ization, and there’s too much steel so that we are forced to sell it to a
the Soviet Union, but the next day we scrap the contract because
again we don't have enough. Last month it was said there’s too much; —
the following month the word is it’s not enough. We are frustrated,
We don’t know how to handle it properly. Like a fly in a glass house,
blindly banging against the glass. Having experienced the twists and
turns of the small leap forward in 1956 and the leap backward in
1957, we compared [them] and came up with a way, calling it the general line. The Forty Points for agriculture also experienced twists and
turns; at one time we called them operative, at another time inoperative; but in the last analysis they are operative and have already been
basically accomplished, and in general cannot be said to be wrong.
Are the new Forty Points operative or not?’* I still have my doubts.
[We should] prepare to talk about it again. Will we be able to catch
up with England in per capita [production] within fifteen years?”> To
avoid frightening people to death, don’t broadcast [the concept of]
three years of hard struggle. Once that time comes, we will shock
ism, not pluralism. Once we have grasped the main contradiction,
everything else will follow. Coal, iron, and machinery don’t stand as
equals next to each other. Large, middle-sized and small [factories?]
have the large ones as the main link [yz da wet gang]; and in the case
of the Center and the regions, the Center is the main link. It’s the same
as in dancing. When a man and a woman dance together, how could it
work if the woman fights for independence? She has to achieve independence in the process of following; if she doesn’t follow the man,
there’s no independence. [If] you don’t dance, you are culturally
impoverished, and I have no language in common with you.’
Stalin’s statement, “One has to study this economic law [of
balanced development of the national economy], has to master it, to
learn to apply it with full understanding, and to compile such plans
as fully reflect the requirements of this law,” is excellent.”” We still
have not fully mastered this economic law nor have we learned to
apply it with full understanding. [191] It can’t be said that during the
past eight years we have carried out the planning of production in a
fully correct manner, in a way which completely reflects the requirements of economic laws. Of course, there are achievements; and they
imperialism, and also our friends. Ten million, 30 million [tons of Dl are the main thing, while the defects and mistakes are secondary.
steel]—after a couple of years they'll get used to the shock and won't no What are the planning organs? The Central Committee, the large
be afraid anymore. | regions, each province and each level are all planning organs, not just
Does the general line package reflect objective law pretty well over- _ s the Planning Commission. There is a potential for good planning,
all, or has it been wrongly devised? Steel gets made and there’s no but one should not confuse potential with realization. In order to
coal. In Shanghai and Wuhan there is nothing to eat. An understand- a transform [potential] into reality, you have to study [this economic
ing of the objective world has to come gradually. Until things have
74This is the clearest indication that at the Zhengzhou conference a radically new, supercharged version of the Twelve-Year Program for Agriculture was discussed. Mao's subsequent expression of caution is a typical example of his preference for seeming sober while
implicitly spurring on his colleagues to more extravagant objectives, because he always
shrank from damping enthusiasm. See text above and n. 31; his remarks at the Chengdu
conference earlier in 1958 (for which, see n. 68); and Origins 2, pp. 42-3.
”>Mao apparently misremembers that the goal of the leap was to overtake the UK in gross
output not per capita output, a totally fanciful idea. This may be a slip of the tongue, but
it illustrates that for Mao targets were more for mobilization than for implementation.
law], have to learn to apply it with full understanding, and compile
plans that fully reflect objective law. You have to pay attention. The
small, native, mass [-run blast furnaces need] 10 tons of coal for 1 ton
’©There are a number of reports of Mao's fondness for Western-style ballroom dancing in
Yan’an; see, for instance Harrison Forman, Report from Red China (New York, Henry
Holt, 1945), p. 97; Dick Wilson, Mao: The People’s Emperor (London, Hutchinson, 1979),
Pp. 185, 462 (notes). Mao apparently had occasional dance parties in Lushan during summer visits in the 1950s and 1960s.
”7See Stalin (Moscow, 1952), pp. 7-8.
of iron—is that a law? Foreign [i-e., modern, ones] need only between
1.7 and 2 tons of coal for a ton of iron. Here there’s a problem of
laws.78 One ton of steel needs 2 percent of copper and aluminum.
can't be said that the plans of the past eight years have completely
penny—are you willing to do that? [If we] don't understand the five
hundred million peasants or what kind of attitude the proletariat
should adopt towards the peasantry, would it be possible to allocate
without recompense the cotton of Qiliying?®° You'd instantly get
reflected the law, and you can’t say that this year’s fully reflects the
requirements of this economic law.
Stalin stops here and does not develop this question further. I have
my doubts as to what level he reached in his studies. Why didn’t he
walk on two legs? Why does heavy industry need so many rules and
regulations? The problem is, have we studied [this law], mastered it,
and applied it with full understanding? At least this has not been
done fully. Our plans, like theirs, don’t fully reflect objective law, and
therefore we have to study it.
Chapter Two [of Stalin’s book deals with] commodity production.
At present, some people are big on abolishing commodity production. Not a few people get all worried on their march towards communism whenever commodity production is brought up, because
they think this to be something capitalist. They disregard the essential difference between capitalist and socialist commodities and have
not understood the importance of making use of their [respective]
functions. This is a symptom of not recognizing objective law, and
not understanding the problem of 500 million peasants. During the
initial phase of socialism [we] must make use of commodity production in order to unite the several hundred million peasants. I think
that during the period of socialist construction, once there are
people’s communes, commodity production and commodity exchange
must be ever more developed; socialist commodity production must
be developed massively in a planned way, like livestock, soy beans,
jute, casings [for sausages], sausages, fruit trees, skins and furs. At the
moment, Yunnan ham no longer tastes good. While destroying superstition, [we] also restore superstition. Some people lean to [the idea]
that [we] don’t need commodities, [and] there are at least several hundred thousand people who think we no longer need commerce. That
1S an incorrect standpoint, which disregards objective law. Take
Zhang Desheng’s’? [192] walnuts and eat them without paying a
’®Here Mao is clearly beginning to rethink his grandiose steel targets, a process he completed at Wuchang later in the month, see Origins 2, p. 128.
”*Zhang Desheng was first secretary of Shaanxi province, where the valley of the Wei River
your head cracked open. In the old society, products had a controlling function over men. We [the state] own only a small traction of
the means of production and the social product. Stalin's analysis of
Engels’ statement is correct.*? Our [sphere] of ownership by the
whole people is very small; [and] only when all means of production
are [thus] owned and the social product has become abundant will
we be able to abolish commerce. It seems our economists have failed
to understand this point. I use dead Stalin to bear down on the living,
Stalin still retained his reservations on the question of the abolition
of commodity production after [eventual] success of the English revolution,®2 and I think it would be best if England and Canada got
together to form one state (page 10, para2). ’'m afraid at least a part
[of commodity production] can't be abolished; Stalin, however, does
not arbitrarily decide the question; he does not give a conclusion.
Page eleven, paragraph three says there are some “half-baked Marxists” who want to expropriate the middle and small producers in the
villages—in China, too, there are such people. Some comrades are
impatient to proclaim ownership by the whole people. It isn’t necessary to talk of expropriating the small producers, you just have to
talk about abolishing commerce and implementing allocation and
transfer, which amounts to expropriation, to get Taiwan all elated. In
1954 we made some mistakes, compulsory purchase [zheng gou] was
too high—93 billion catties of grain—and the entire peasantry was
against us; everybody was talking about grain, each household was
talking about compulsory purchase.® This, too, was {the work of]
OO
is noted for its walnuts; see T. R. Tregear, A Geography of China (London, Univ. of London
Press, 1965), p. 215.
®°Oiliying: a pioneer commune in pioneering Henan province; see Origins 2, pp. 80-1.
*\stalin (Moscow, 1952), pp. 9-11.
*2 Ibid.
®3Compulsory grain procurement was introduced in 1953, partly to enable the government
librium between its current acquisitions and its essential disbursements; see Kenneth R.
Walker, Food Grain Procurement and Consumption in China (Cambridge, Cambridge Univ.
Press, 1984), pp. 42-3. Mao's figure of 93 million catties equals 46.5 million tons.
to control a key commodity as the 1st FYP got under way, partly to eliminate the disequi-
4/4 TEXT EIGHTEEN
“hali-baked Marxists,” because they did not know how much grain .
the peasants had in their hands. Having gone through this experience “4
once and made that mistake, we later decreased [our procurement] 4
and fixed it at 83 billion catties. The first to oppose [this change] wag 4
Zhang Naiqi, which shows that the capitalists only desire to see our a
world plunged into chaos.** In sum, we had not hitherto figured out :}
this law. The Chinese peasants are the owners of their labor, land,
[and] means of production (seeds, tools, irrigation works, forests, fer.
tilizer, etc.) and therefore of their products. For whatever reason, our.
philosophers and economists have suddenly forgotten these things
and we are again in danger of becoming separated from the peasants.
Therefore to achieve the “ThreeThirds System” with one-third deliyered to higher levels (including adjustments within the counties)
might require ten years. You (Tan)*> want to leave [only] 25 percent
[for the peasantry]; if the peasants come to blows [with us], [193] you
[certainly] won’t win. The Chinese workers are used to poverty; once
they get to work, they work very hard. Furthermore, when cadres go
down and become one with them, they work for twelve hours, and
when called upon to go home, no one goes. After smelting iron and
steel, the peasants said, “Our elder brothers, the workers, are quite
extraordinary.” The peasants are too poor, wages are too low; to take
more from them now would not be good. [Taking the whole population], those who make an average of 5 yuan are in the minority.®
Lenin's answer, “The political power expropriates industry,” has
been accomplished by us.8”? The communes are a step ahead of the
Walker gives two figures, both over 52 million tons, for gross procurement (i.e., compulsory
purchases and taxes) for 1954; Lardy’s figure is 45.1 million tons; see Nicholas R. Lardy,
Agriculture in China’s Modern Economic Development (Cambridge, Cambridge Univ. Press,
1983), p. 34. Whatever the correct figure, Mao is clearly referring to gross procurement, not
just to compulsory purchase, though he may not have been clear about that. The reaction
of the peasants was sharp and this made a strong impression on the Chairman, for this was
not the first time he had referred to this crisis; see Walker, pp. 56-67.
®47hang Naiqi was a prominent non-Communist former businessman who was Minister
of Food from 1952 to 1958, when he was dismissed for “rightist” remarks made in 1957; see
Origins 1, pp. 282, 284. Presumably he opposed reducing grain procurements because of its
negative impact on the food supplies for which his ministry was responsible.
8>Presumably Tan Zhenlin; see n. 10.
86Mao is presumably referring to cash income distributed by the collective; see Lardy, p.
160, where the average figure for 1958 works out at 3.45 yuan.
87Stalin (Moscow, 1952), p. 12.
Zhengzhou Conference
Soviet Union. Develop industry, strengthen the villages**—we are
doing that, too. We should not expropriate the villages. [Having] the
communes run industries is bolder than Stalin. Will that lead to cap-
‘talism? No. Because there is the political power that depends on the
poor and lower middle peasants, there is the party, there are the
county [party] committees, and hundreds of thousands of party members. In the past [we] though that profit-making industries should be
run by the township government, and shouldn’t be given over to the
APCs. In this there was some lingering influence of Stalinism. To
merge the political administration and the communes into one, and
to permit them to run industries under the administration of the district committee, so that there is development everywhere and there
are flowers opening all around—this does not diminish money, but
increases it. Li Xiannian®? has also become convinced of this. At
present the communes are too poor; beyond providing food, wages
are very small. Some pay only a few jtao; food, too, is very poor, substandard. It’s still a case of poor and blank.°° I say that’s a good thing.
[But] people are not enthusiastic about [going back to] the old base
areas [days]. “Don’t think about the future; don’t think of the past:
think only about pre-higher-level APC and the post-land-reform period.” [This is their saying, and they] consider that the Golden Age.”!
“Revolution has come to a head, but what gets revolutionized is not
the leadership’s but our own head,” they say in Shanxi. We didn’t go
for uninterrupted revolution [buduan geming], [and the revolution]
has come to a standstill. I say [we] have to reach out to the middle
peasants, and get them moving. “If the monk paws you, why can't
[292 Lenin said commodity production (exchange through purchase and sale) should be preserved for a certain period, it alone
881 bid. p. 13. |
8°Li Xiannian, see Text 8, n. 24. His Finance Ministry had been attacked for conservativism by Mao in January 1958; see Origins 2, pp. 25-7. a |
?°Mao first formulated this phrase in his speech on the ten great relationships in April
1956; see SW5, p. 306. His conception was that China’s backward economic (“poor”) and
cultural (“blank”) state was an advantage because it made the people eager for revolutionary
change. |
1 The period in question is roughly 1953-5. Mao’s remark is very revealing of peasant happiness with land reform and dissatisfaction with collectivization.
°2Mao is quoting a rather vulgar line from the anti-hero of Lu Xun’s famous short story,
“The True Story of Ah Q.” We use the translation by Yang Xianyi and Gladys Yang in
Selected Stories of Lu Hsun, 3rd ed. (Peking, Foreign Languages Press, 1972), p. 78.
being acceptable to the peasants, and trade should be developed to 4
the full.*> Once we made a big fanfare out of this phrase [saying] that 4
this was trade with a socialist essence. When Stalin says this is the §
only appropriate way, I think he is right. You can only trade, not ’
expropriate. In 1954 we nevertheless still resorted to [compulsory] 4
purchase and overdid it, which the peasants opposed.
We have followed all of Lenin’s five points, and moreover estab- q
lished the people’s communes, and exerted all our energy to develop
industry, agriculture, and commerce. The question is still the peasant
question, [and] we have to be prudent and cautious. The root of the
mistake in 1956 basically was that we did not look at the peasant question. Now [194] again it’s a case of not understanding the peasant
question. Once the heaven-storming enthusiasm of the peasants
emerges, it’s easy to think of them as workers, [and] to consider the
peasants to be superior to the workers. This is a transformation of a
rightist [deviation] into a leftist [deviation].
Commodity production should not be confused with capitalism.
Why fear commodities if not from fear of capitalism? At present it’s
the state that is doing business with the people’s communes, capitalism has long been discarded—why are [we] afraid of commodities?
Don't be afraid: I think [commodity production] has to be greatly
expanded. China is a state with an extremely undeveloped commodity production, even further behind than India and Brazil. India’s railways and textiles are more developed than China’s. Is there the
exploitation of workers by capitalists in our state? No. Why be
atraid? One cannot look at commodity production in an isolated
manner: Stalin is entirely right (p. 13).% Commodity production
depends on the kind of economy to which it is linked. Commodities
linked to capitalism give rise to capitalism, whereas linked to socialism they give rise not to capitalism, but to socialism. Commodity
production has existed since olden times; the Shang dynasty conveys
the idea of doing business.% To regard King Zhou, Qin Shihuang,
and Cao Cao as bad people is completely wrong.” King Zhou
”>See Stalin (Moscow, 1952), p. 13 for the precise quotations.
741 enin’s five points are cited in Stalin (Moscow, 1952), pp. 12-3.
*Ibid., p. 14 (p. 13 in the Chinese edition).
©The character for the “Shang” dynasty is the same as that for “commerce” (shang).
””For King Zhou, see n. 6. For the tyrannical Qin Shihuang di, see n. 5. For Cao Cao, see
Text 17, n. 39.
Zhengzhou Conference
attacked the barbarians of Xuzhou and scored a victory, losing cadres
(ganbu] and having all too many prisoners of war, “the stream of
blood making the poles float (flag poles).” Mencius says: “To have
complete faith in the Book [of History] is worse than having no Book
fof History/ at all.” Which is to say he didn’t believe in this incident of
“the stream of blood making the poles float.”9* The slave society”?
did not lead to capitalism, [but] in the last stage of feudalism’ the
embryo of capitalism had already formed; on that point Stalin was
not correct.!°! In the womb of capitalism, the proletariat and Marxism were already being bred, socialist ideology was already being
produced. | |
At the second plenum [of the Seventh Central Committee] in
1949 we spoke about restricting [capitalism], and capitalism did not
go beyond these restrictions. In 1950 we started to let them [the capitalists] expand for a period of six years, but already ‘we were giving
them state orders for processing; and when in 1956 It came to joint
state-private ownership, actually we had already gained control.1°
Mao's ramblings here about ancient Chinese history were obviously triggered by his
remark on commerce and the Shang dynasty, the last of whose emperors was King Zhou.
Digression is typical of a Mao speech. The incident he cites is irrelevant to his point about
the need for commodity production, but one of his concerns is evidently to rehabilitate
these three negative characters in traditional historiography, King Zhou, Qin Shihuang i,
and Cao Cao, with the latter two of whom he from time to time gave evidence of identitying. Here he clearly derives much support from the revisionist historiography of Guo
Moruo, the intellectual with whom he seems to have had the closest relationship after 1949;
see Guo Moruo quanji (Collected works of Guo Moruo), “Lishi pian” (Historical section),
vol. 1, 454; vol. 3, pp. 457~76, 486-8. | | uc
In the case of King Zhou, Mao evidently agrees with Mencius that no large-scale S aug
tering of enemy troops was committed by King Zhou’s troops, though his explanation s dif.
ferent; see Legge, vol. 2, The Works of Menctus, p. 479. Mao seems to be arguing that ine
Zhou’s magnanimity is evidenced by his failure to slaughter all his prisoners despite the oss
of his officers (i.e, gabu) in a battle. In fact, this whole episode can be interpreted quite differently; see Legge, vol. 3, The Shoo King [The Book of History], p. 315. |
According to a standard Communist Chinese text, “Shang society was a slave society
divided into slave, peasants, and nobles”; see An Outline History of China (Beijing, Foreign
Languages Press, 1958), p. 15. The text goes on to state that the nobles made slaves of their
Prisoners of war, which suggests a more ignoble motive for King Zhou sparing his prisoners than that implied by Mao. a ,
°° According to ofhcial Communist Chinese analysis, the “feudal” period lasted from the
unification of the country under the Qin until the collapse of the last dynasty, the Qing,
in 1912; ibid., pp. 39, 293.
°1Stalin (Moscow, 1952), p. 14. | a
'°2This translation is based on the assumption that kongzi (opening) is a misprint for
kongzhi (control).
4/8 TEXT EIGHTEEN LPENEZNOK Lonference 4/7
without patience? Without patience it won’t work. We have already
fonce] patiently awaited victory. With Taiwan it’s the same thing. Is it
better to have [John Foster] Dulles and Chiang [Kai-shek] supporting
each other, or to win over one part to our side? We are cautious and
careful; Chiang, too, is cautious and careful. We constantly warn the
United States, making it clear that we are suffering wrongs.!°° A lot
of people don’t understand our warnings. I think we have to warn
“The decisive economic conditions”!°3—we have all of them. May | ae
ask how [commodity production] can lead to capitalism? This ques. a
tion is very important. Having swallowed up the ghost already am
should one still be afraid of it? Don’t be afraid; [commodity produc. “i
tion] cannot lead to capitalism, because the material base of capital. ae
ism has already ceased to exist. Commodity production can obedi. 3
ently serve socialism and lead the five hundred million peasants ‘%
toward the system of ownership by the whole people. Is commodity :
production a useful instrument? On behalf of the five hundred million peasants, the all-out use of this instrument [195] for the develo
ment of socialist production must be reaffirmed and this problem
has to be on the agenda for discussion among cadres.
Labor, land, and the other means of production belong altogether
to the peasants, and belong to the people’s communes; therefore the
commodities belong to the communes, too. Simply exchange commodity for commodity, no other linkage will be accepted by the peasants. We must not consider the Chinese peasants to be particularly
progressive. The secretary of Xiuwu county committee was quite
right in his assumptions.!°* The necessity of commodity exchange is
something communists have to think about. Only after the abundant development of products would the liquidation of commodity
circulation be made possible. Comrades, it’s been just nine years, and
already [we're] pressing [to say] we don’t need commodities. Only
when the central authority has the power to allocate all products
might we get to the point where the commodity economy is not
needed anymore and dissolves. Comrade Wu XX also does not have
to manage [to get to communism] at the same time as comrade Chen
XX.105 [They are imbued with] too much Marxism. One does not
have to rush to achieve it within four years. Don’t think that after
four years the peasants will be like the workers of Zhengzhou. Guerrilla war took twenty-two years—how can socialism be managed
I
105Stalin (Moscow, 1952), p. 14. These “decisive economic conditions’—social ownership of
the means of production, the abolition of the system of wage labor, and the elimination of
the system of exploitation—are said to be sufficient to prevent commodity production from
being strictly confined and to make it incapable of producing capitalism.
104See n. 64.
'©>Comrade Wu XX could well be Wu Zhipu, the leftist first secretary of Henan province
at this time; but if so, it is not clear who Comrade Chen XX was, since there was no provincial first secretary in 1958 with that surname.
thirty-six hundred times. At present the Americans are doing
nothing, which shows the effectiveness [of our warnings].
As long as two systems of ownership persist, commodity production is extremely necessary and extremely useful. Are you going to
refute Stalin? The question of how to make the transition from one
form of ownership to the other was not solved by Stalin himself. He
was very clear, saying it required separate discussion.'°? In many
places [in his booklet] you just have to change “our land” into
“China” and things get interesting. [Stalin’s statement that “our,” Le.,
Soviet, commodity production] “is confined to items of personal consumption” does not work.! Agricultural implements and handicraft
tools, are also commodities, and can this lead to capitalism? It cannot. Hasn’t Khrushchev sold machinery to the Rolkbozy?!°? Historically there was commodity production, and now a kind of socialist
commodity production is being added.

--- Notes

Source: 13:173-95. An alternate version (2:195-214) has expurgated certain names and numbers found in the primary source. Shorter versions are found in 9:181-4, and Wansu: (1969),
PP. 247-51, from which extracts were translated in JPRS 61269-1 (1974), pp. 129-32.
Marshals: grain, steel, machinery. Advance guards: railways, electric power.
Three years of hard struggle, and then twelve more years, fifteen
years is the transition to communism. Don’t publish that, but it
won't be good if we don’t do it.
[174] How long will the transition from collective ownership to
ownership by the whole people take? Three, four, five, six years or a
bit more—isn’t that a bit short? Or is it too long? Sometimes [I] feel
it’s too long, at other times worry that it’s [too] short. [’m] more
often worried that it’s too short. When will the people’s communes
be able to reach a [level] akin to the Anshan Steel Works?? Is it possible to transform agriculture into a factory? [When] products and
accumulation can be allocated—we are not going to allocate accumulation completely, but products that have to be transferred should be
transferred unconditionally—then it can be considered ownership by
the whole people. Henan province talks about four years [for the

Anshan Steel Works: the major steel complex owned by the state (or “the whole people”),
located in the Northeast.
*Kolkbozy: collective farms—Mao calls them collective villages—in the Soviet Union.
Zhengzhou Conference
year;* that kind of thing has never before happened [anywhere] in
the world. For allocation there must be feasibility as well as necessity; one shouldn’t allocate disruptively. Qin Shihuang [conscripted
and] allocated 700,000 people to build a tomb for him; as a result [his
dynasty] was toppled. Sui Yangdi also fell because of the disruptive
allocation of the labor force.®
When King Wu attacked Zhou, didn’t he [carry out the] three
transformations [saz hua}? From the oldest times on there were three
transformations, and they started with military affairs.°
How many years are needed for the transition from collective
ownership to ownership by the whole people? Will four years do?
Henan says four years; Fan county says two. The standard is the

*Anguo and Fuping are two counties, fairly close to each other, in Hebei province. Fuping
is More mountainous and poorer.
Qin Shihuang unified the warring Chinese states into a single empire in 221 sc, but the
Qin dynasty collapsed under his son only fifteen years later. Yangdi was the second of the
two major emperors of the Sui dynasty, which reunified the Chinese empire in ap 589 but
then collapsed after only twenty-nine years. Both the Qin and the Sui dynasties have traditionally epitomized oppressive dynasties. The construction of the Great Wall in the case
of the Qin and the Grand Canal in the case of the Sui are seen as the principal examples of
their brutal use of mass labor.
°King Wu overthrew Zhou Xin, the last, wicked ruler of the Shang dynasty in 1122 ac. The
“three transformations” (san hua) refers to the GLF slogan “Organize along military lines,
work as if fighting a battle, live in the collective way” or “Organization militarized, action
martialized, and life collectivized” (zuzhi junshibua, xingdong zhandoubua shenghuo jitibua).
See Text 17, n. 83. It is not clear how Mao links these transformations to King Wu, except
that the latter did overthrow Zhou Xin by military means.
sition, one doesn’t have to pay for one’s food. The Soviet Union also ‘4

7Xushui county in Hebei was the site of one of the earliest communes, formally inaugurated after Mao's inspection tour on 4 August 1958; see Origins 2, p. 80. Commune “universities” were effectively technical schools of rather variable quality. Qianmen was at that
time one of the best native brand of cigarettes, and very popular among intellectuals.
’Literally, two mao (about 20¢) and a couple of kuai (the measure word used with yuan in
formal speech and substituted for it colloquially).
?Mao presumably means a standard for comparing rural and urban living standards; it was
a habitual complaint that rural standards lagged far behind. Mao seems here to be implying
that rural living standards include many unquantified elements, which brought them closer
to the urban level.
mo 1
ta
ALS
weg,
rl
wage
Zhengzhou Conference

”For a discussion of the attempt to obtain greater output from a smaller sown acreage, see
Origins 2, pp. 119-28.
“Huang Yanpei, a prominent educator prior to 1949, was a leading “democratic personage”
at this time, a former Vice-Premier and Minister of Light Industry (1949-54), and currently
active in two non-Communist “democratic parties,” the China Democratic League and the
China Democratic National Construction Association; see BDRC 2, pp. 210-13.
The supply system is a form adapted for the transition; it does not
create an obstacle. Completing the building of socialism is designed
to lay the basis for the transition to communism.
The Soviet collective villages don’t engage in industry; they only
do agriculture, an agriculture, furthermore, that goes with planting
large areas and [garnering] small harvests. That’s why they don’t manage to make the transition. Soviet socialism has collective ownership
and ownership of the whole people. Stalin’s transition to communism was hardly possible; there was no transition to the ownership
by the whole people; he did not promote the elements of communism at all, split heavy and light industry, and openly advocated putting but small emphasis on the production of consumer goods.
Various differences became greater.

15For discussions of Mao's study of Soviet economic ideas, and of the issues of “bourgeois
right” during the GLF, see Origins 2, pp. 106-8, 295-7. Mao's notes on the Soviet Political
Economy: A ‘Textbook are translated in Mao Tse-tung, A Critigue of Soviet Economics (New
York, Monthly Review Press, 1977). Stalin’s book appears in English as Economic Problems
of Soctalism in the U.S.S.R. (Moscow, Foreign Languages Press, 1952).
14The 40-point Program, also known as the 12-Year Agricultural Program, was launched in
January 1956, shelved in mid 1956, and revived for the GLE It was characterized by overambitious targets; see Origins 1, pp. 27-9, 90-1, 314-5. It had thus been a barometer of
Mao's attempts to achieve leaping progress from January 1956 on. When moderation prevailed, the program was shelved; see Parris H. Chang, Power and Policy in China (Univer
sity Park, Pennsylvania State Univ. Press, 1975), pp. 9-40, 122-5. Mao’s comments later in
this speech suggest that there was at least one other version of this plan, perhaps under consideration at this meeting; we do not have that version. The text of the 12-Year Agricultural
Program we do have is “The Draft Program for Agricultural Development in the People’s
Republic of China, 1956-1967,” passed by the CCP Central Committee in January 1956 10
the form of 40 articles or points, see Communist China 1955-1959: Policy documents with
Analysis (Cambridge, Harvard Univ. Press, 1962), pp. 119-26.
15 At this time there were no urban communes, apart from a few experiments. The idea was

The PRC had started issuing “serious warnings” to the US during the Taiwan Straits
crisis in August-September 1958.
'©7Stalin (Moscow, 1952).
8 Ibid.
10°Under Stalin, agricultural machinery was under the control of the Machine Tractor Stations (MTS), which additionally exercised surveillance over the collectives (kolkbozy). In
January 1958, Khrushchev abolished the MTS and forced the kolkhozy to buy the machinery; see Martin McCauley, Khrushchev and the Development of Soviet Agriculture (London,
Macmillan, 1978), pp. 109-13.