Letter from the First Secretary of the Party Committee
(February 2, 1959)

Comrades First Secretaries of the provinces, municipalities, and autonomous regions:

You are leaving today. I would like to keep you for one more day to discuss some philosophical questions, issues concerning the General Line and the Great Leap Forward. I feel it is necessary. What is your opinion? Yesterday I expressed some viewpoints [1], but the meaning was not fully elaborated, not deep or fluent enough, unable to speak freely to my heart's content. I feel the matter is unfinished, it weighs on my mind, I keep thinking about it, and cannot fall asleep. Therefore, I want to pull you back; do not leave today, how about it? Stay one day. Although your hearts are flying home like arrows, it won't be too terrible, will it! You must stay. I am going to sleep now. Meeting at three, four, or five in the afternoon. Devote one day to the abstract, the time won't be long! There are still quite a few days before the Spring Festival; staying just one day should probably be alright! There are several profound dialectical problems to discuss, which have a great bearing on the General Line and the Great Leap Forward. Please spend the morning discussing the dialectics of current practical problems, to lay some groundwork. If this problem is not thought through, not clarified, not framed properly, the General Line will be impossible, bound to fail, or half-fail. The Great Leap Forward, with cadres greatly advancing a step and the masses also greatly advancing a step, may create in our country a unity and endeavor beneficial to the socialist camp and the kind-hearted working people of the whole world, greatly beneficial. If you agree, please act accordingly. After reading, immediately send this to Comrades Shaoqi, Xiaoping [3], and other central comrades attending the meeting; circulate it, finish circulating by twelve noon, and ask Xiaoping to handle it.
Written leaning on my pillow, Mao Zedong
6:00 AM, February 2, 1959

Good morning!

[1] The main content of Mao Zedong's speech at the meeting of Party Committee Secretaries of provinces, municipalities, and autonomous regions on the afternoon of February 1, 1959, was:
(1) Some people have doubts during the high tide; this is not surprising and will happen every year. There are two kinds of people: one part is well-intentioned and concerned, the other is hostile. We must differentiate between them and not assume all are bad. When undertaking such great tasks, there will always be some shortcomings. Some strange remarks are not surprising. In November and December last year, the air was compressed; the masses also need to rest a bit, loosen up a bit, it doesn't matter, we can rouse their干劲 (drive) again.
(2) There are imbalances in several areas, including non-staple foods, daily-use sundry goods, raw materials, etc., and some agricultural products have not been collected, nor has all the cotton been gathered. Efforts must be made to overcome these imbalances and deficiencies so that the planned targets for 1959 are not affected.
(3) Li Fuchun suggested making a long-term plan; I agree. We can start now, but the basis is insufficient. We can work on it for another year next year, and add the year after, to see exactly what scale can be achieved. This year, a Great Leap Forward situation has already unfolded. A country like ours, with conditions such as a large population, a big country, resources, and the Soviet experience, cannot but leap forward. We have previously proposed some inappropriate targets, myself included, which were already corrected at the Wuchang Conference, i.e., reducing steel from 30 million tons to 20 million tons. The agricultural cooperatives launched some satellites, and the newspapers exaggerated a lot, which was unrealistic. In reality, it was not that high, nor that much; some were achieved by merging dozens of mu of fields into one mu for reporting.
(4) Attention must be paid to arrangements in several areas; what comes to mind now includes labor power, raw materials, means of livelihood, and cadre education. If these areas are not arranged, it won't work just for us few to take command. For pursuing the Great Leap Forward in the future, we have several conditions:
(1) The masses' drive and labor enthusiasm, prepared for us over the past few years, especially through rectification and anti-rightist campaigns.
(2) The experience of the past few years, especially last year, including both positive and negative experiences.
(3) The targets now set are not extremely frightening and can be reached through effort.
(4) There are still 11 months this year; we are starting early. Last year we devoted ourselves exclusively to the abstract; starting now this year, we focus on the practical.
(5) This year we have the people's communes, which we did not have for most of last year.
(6) We can grasp the work several times a year. Sending cadres down to lower levels and having cadres participate in labor—these two measures must still be pursued this year.

[2] The main content of Mao Zedong's speech at the meeting of First Secretaries of the Party Committees of provinces, municipalities, and autonomous regions on the afternoon of February 2, 1959, was:
The work methods, ways of viewing problems, and ways of doing things we speak of are dialectics. When talking about planned, proportional development, we must also talk about subjective initiative; it is best to combine the two. Now, when some people talk about last year's shortcomings, they list dozens of items and find nothing good; this is a metaphysical way of viewing problems. No matter how many shortcomings we have, in the final analysis, it is merely a matter of nine fingers versus one finger. We, the high and middle-ranking cadres present and not present, all want to do good deeds. As for the results turning out bad, that is another matter; subjective things can only take effect in objective practice. The Beidaihe Conference stated that communism "is not a matter of the distant future," and added a paragraph below explaining the two different transitions: from collective ownership to ownership by the whole people, and from socialist ownership by the whole people to communism, listing five conditions for the transition to communism. But people did not pay attention to this paragraph, only noticing the sentence "not a matter of the distant future," thus exposing all sorts of ideas. Within two months, so many chickens and ducks were slaughtered. As for private furniture like tables, chairs, and benches, it is still better to borrow them temporarily, to be repaid in installments at a fixed price in the future. Expropriating landlords and rich peasants is just and confident; expropriating well-to-do middle peasants is neither just nor confident. The poor peasants and lower-middle peasants in our country have always been eager to take advantage of the middle peasants, itching to try, and whenever there is an opportunity, they preach egalitarianism. Do not treat the well-to-do middle peasants as landlords, rich peasants, counter-revolutionaries, or bad elements to be expropriated. The plan worked out this time is relatively comprehensive, with less metaphysics, seeing the interconnections within. For instance, the connections between industry and agriculture, means of production and means of livelihood, heavy industry and light industry, raw materials industry and processing industry, daily-use sundry goods and non-staple foods, etc., have all received attention and arrangement, with relatively more comprehensive consideration. We should praise this plan and propagate this method—walking on two legs while having focal points. Economic work is very complex, with mutual cause and effect; if mishandled, there will be chain reactions. We must delve in, investigate and study, discover problems, expose problems, and solve problems. Problems are contradictions. In the past, when we fought wars, we always investigated the situation; every victorious battle was fought when conditions were ripe. Now, engaging in construction, waging war against nature, we must also investigate and study. We have no experience in construction. I and the provincial first secretaries only began to grasp this in the second half of last year; previously, we mainly focused on agriculture and did not grasp industry. The labor enthusiasm of cadres and the working people must be protected. Even for cadres who violate laws and discipline within the 5 percent, we must differentiate based on circumstances, treat them differently, educate them, and help them correct their mistakes. It is not good to exaggerate this problem. Conclusions must be drawn appropriately, otherwise mistakes will be made. Our Party has decades of experience on this issue. Regarding the issue of planned, proportional development of the national economy, I do not understand it very well and need to study it. How exactly can the subjective conform to objective laws? Stalin once proposed unifying Russian revolutionary enthusiasm with American pragmatic spirit. We speak of integrating the universal truth of Marxism-Leninism with the concrete practice of the Chinese revolution. The universal and the specific are the unity of opposites. Objective laws are reflected differently in each country due to different historical conditions. Objective laws must be studied, recognized, grasped, and skillfully applied. Whatever can be accomplished through effort must be striven for; not striving is conservatism. What cannot be accomplished should not be attempted; insisting on accomplishing it is subjectivism. When the subjective reflects the objective, it becomes subjective initiative. There are also two kinds of subjective initiative: one is divorced from reality, which is subjectivism; the other conforms to objective laws and reality. These two situations must be distinguished. Whatever violates objective laws will suffer setbacks. The current lack of vegetables to eat and the severe shortage of non-staple foods and daily-use sundry goods are precisely because we deviated from objective laws, and past arrangements were not made properly.