Comment on the Report of the Party Group of the Head Office of the People's Bank of China on the Inspection of Problems Arising from the Recovery of Agricultural Loans
(March 29, 1959)

This document (I) is very well written, with appropriate analysis. Almost every issue is addressed, making it easy to understand and not headache-inducing.

Mao Zedong
March 29

[Note]
The report submitted by the Party Group of the Head Office of the People's Bank of China on March 25, 1959, to Vice Premier Li Xiannian of the State Council, with copies to the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China and Mao Zedong, stated: Since the winter of 1958, banks have indeed committed many errors and shortcomings in the work of recovering agricultural loans. In some areas, excessive loan recovery has affected the normal turnover of commune funds, causing certain difficulties in commune production and the livelihood arrangements of commune members. The reasons for these problems are: First, in some places last year, loans were recovered in the manner of "launching satellites" during the process of purchasing agricultural products. Second, in some areas, the method of "integrating deposits and loans" was implemented during the reform of rules and regulations, so that whenever a commune deposited money in the bank, it was automatically treated as loan repayment, leading to the recovery of some loans that should not have been recovered. Examining the occurrence of the above errors from an ideological perspective, the main issue is that we considered too many business factors and too few political factors. To rectify these problems, we have agreed upon the following four measures:
(1) For agricultural loans to communes, abolish the method of integrating deposits and loans, and separate the commune's deposit account from its loan account.
(2) For agricultural loans recovered since December last year, those that are not yet due or should not have been recovered may be refunded to the people's communes.
(3) In the future, agricultural loans that are due and should be recovered will continue to be recovered; those facing difficulties may be recovered in installments.
(4) It is recommended that agricultural loan quotas be used only for agricultural production (including commune-run industries).