The report from the Hunan Provincial Party Committee dated March 8 was received at noon on March 9.
It is better to hold the conference of cadres at all six levels sooner rather than later.
Arranging production first is entirely correct.
In each county, commune, brigade, and team, there should be one or two strong leaders remaining locally to direct agricultural work; we must not miss the farming season under any circumstances.
However, the provincial-level conference should be convened as early as possible. Delegates could come in two groups: the first group consisting of cadres at the fourth level, and the second group comprising those at the fifth and sixth levels. The meeting should begin immediately as a plenary session, just as it was conducted in Henan Province.
If cadres from communes at all three levels attend the conference and the guiding principles are laid out, the situation will quickly become clear, revealing underlying problems—this would be the most effective form of investigation.
There is no need to conduct a preliminary survey beforehand, so as to save time.


Many comrades have spent several months carrying out investigations and holding numerous large and small meetings, yet they remain blind to and deaf about the widespread realities that are right before their eyes and ears.
The root cause lies in an incorrect methodology; they have been unable to identify where the principal contradiction resides.
Although everyone has studied Marxist philosophy and political economy, when it comes to practical work, for a long period of time they failed to recognize that the collective ownership system within the people’s communes requires a process of development—from small to large, and from quantitative change to qualitative transformation. Almost universally, they denied the economic laws governing value, price, and equivalent exchange.
Is this not quite strange? Yet it is precisely what happened.


Now that the guidelines adopted at the Zhengzhou Conference [2] are already available, all that remains is to bring together several thousand cadres from all six levels, present these guidelines, and within a few days the situation will become clear and minds will be set straight.
Holding the conference early and concluding it promptly would also be beneficial for the agricultural calendar.


Mao Zedong, Zhengzhou, 1:00 p.m., March 9, 1959.
Printed from the manuscript.


Notes [1] This is a note written by Mao Zedong on a brief report submitted by the CPC Hunan Provincial Committee to the Central Committee on March 8, 1959, concerning the implementation of the instructions from the Zhengzhou Conference. The report mainly outlined several decisions made by the Provincial Committee: (1) To organize current production work in accordance with the Central Committee’s principle of hierarchical division of power and decentralization. (2) All counties were in the process of disseminating this year’s plan for a great leap forward in agricultural production, beginning with the vigorous mobilization of labor through drumbeats and gongs. (3) A province-wide conference of cadres at all six levels would be held on March 13, with the first three days reserved for secretaries of county party committees, followed by the plenary session starting on the 16th. (4) The Provincial Committee and the municipal party committees in various localities were to immediately establish one or two pilot units each to assess the ideological state of cadres and the general public and to formulate concrete plans for thoroughly implementing the spirit of the Zhengzhou Conference. [2] Refers to the fourteen-point policy on the current rectification and development of the people’s communes, as stipulated at the enlarged meeting of the Political Bureau of the CPC Central Committee held in Zhengzhou from February 27 to March 5, 1959. See page 14 of this volume.