IV
Mao's note:
Quite right.

V
Mao's note: This is correct. Administrative personnel and service staff will thus be restricted, preventing waste.

[1]
Mao's note: This is a major matter, concerning accumulation; it must not be treated lightly.

[2]
The fifth part of the resolution states: "In 1959, the labour power used for agriculture in our province should generally account for about 85 per cent of the existing rural labour power." After this, Mao Zedong wrote this comment in brackets.

[3]
The fifth part of the resolution states: "The administrative expenses of each commune must not exceed four-thousandths of the total annual income." After this, Mao Zedong wrote this comment in brackets.

[4]
The fifth part of the resolution states: "Non-productive expenditures must be strictly controlled, and extravagance and waste arising from bumper harvests must be prevented and opposed." After this, Mao Zedong wrote this comment in brackets.

Comments on the Question of Form [1]
(28 February 1959)

This document is to be distributed to all comrades. The policy is correct, but the reasoning has not been clearly explained. The basic ownership by the team, with partial ownership by the commune, was so not only in 1958, but will remain so in 1959 and for several years thereafter. To turn it around, to change to basic ownership by the commune and partial ownership by the team, will require many years. This is a gradual process of transition from small collective ownership (by the team) to large collective ownership (by the commune).

[1] This comment was written beside the article "Is It a Grain Shortage Problem, or an Ideological Problem?" in the ninth issue of *Economic News*, compiled and printed on 19 February 1959. The article pointed out that a working group of the Anhui Provincial Committee of the Communist Party of China had recently investigated the grain disturbances in Tongcheng County and discovered that the current so-called grain problem in the countryside was not a grain shortage problem, nor a problem of excessive state procurement quotas, but an ideological problem, especially among grassroots cadres. They feared, first, that grain would not be handled by the "three guarantees" method but would be distributed uniformly by the commune; second, that reporting actual output would lead to additional procurement quotas; third, that surplus grain would be transferred to relieve spring famine; and fourth, that other teams would not report their actual output, causing them to suffer losses. Therefore, many grassroots cadres took the lead in concealing output and dividing it privately, creating a mass wave of grain disturbances. After ascertaining the truth of the matter, the county committee and the working group immediately conducted in-depth ideological education, from within the Party to outside it, repeatedly explaining the distribution and unified procurement policies to cadres and the masses, clearly declaring that the 1958 earnings would still be distributed with the production brigade (the former agricultural cooperative) as the unit, implementing the "three guarantees," with surplus production belonging to the team, and the unified procurement tasks settled with the agricultural cooperative as the unit, that grain would absolutely not be transferred without compensation, and that privately stored grain would all be at the individual's disposal. As a result, the grain disturbance situation in many brigades underwent a fundamental change.