Comments on Forwarding the Hubei Provincial Party Committee’s Draft Resolution on the People’s Communes and Other Materials (March 15, 1959)

Comrade Xiaoping [1]: The Hubei Provincial Party Committee’s “Resolution (Draft) on the Management System of the People’s Communes and Certain Specific Policy Issues” [2], together with Comrade Wang Renzhong’s report [3], were sent to Beijing this morning. Please review them without delay to determine whether they may be circulated to various localities for reference. The main document is the “Resolution,” which advocates taking the original advanced cooperatives as the basic accounting units, a departure from the Henan approach [4]. If you deem it appropriate to circulate these materials, please arrange for their dispatch either tonight or tomorrow (the 16th)—by telephone, telegraph, or air courier. Mao Zedong, year month, 6:00 p.m.

Printed from the manuscript. Notes [1] Xiaoping refers to Deng Xiaoping, who at that time served as General Secretary of the CPC Central Committee and Vice Premier of the State Council.

[2] The principal content of this draft resolution adopted by the CPC Hubei Provincial Committee on March 8, 1959, is as follows: First, resolutely establish production teams or administrative districts equivalent to the former advanced agricultural production cooperatives as the basic accounting units. This is because the people’s communes were founded and developed on the basis of the original advanced cooperatives; adopting this approach will help resolve the contradictions between large and small collectives, stimulate the enthusiasm of the broad masses of peasants, and contribute to unity, production, and the consolidation and construction of the people’s communes. Second, those former advanced agricultural production cooperatives that, after the establishment of the people’s commune, had been divided into several production teams should be merged into a single basic accounting unit. Third, a small number of the original advanced cooperatives were so small in scale that they had already been combined into a single production team; provided that the cadres and members of such cooperatives are willing, they may continue to serve as a single basic accounting unit. Fourth, the commune should strengthen its leadership over the production teams (or administrative districts) functioning as basic accounting units and assign leading personnel to key posts there. Fifth, the commune should set up a special task force to thoroughly audit and settle all accounts since the commune was established.

[3] Refers to the report delivered by Wang Renzhong, First Secretary of the CPC Hubei Provincial Committee, at the province-wide meeting of cadres at all six levels held on March 11, 1959.

[4] The “Provisions (Draft) of the CPC Henan Provincial Committee on the Management System and Certain Policies of the People’s Communes” stipulates that, given the current conditions in our province, we should implement decentralization of power under the unified leadership of the commune, basing management on the brigade level, adopting a three-tier accounting system with separate profit-and-loss calculations at each level. See note [2] on page 97 of this volume.