Comrades First Secretaries of Provincial, Municipal, and Regional Party Committees: On the Question of County and Commune Meetings.

The six-level cadre conferences of various provinces, municipalities, and regions are about to conclude. Should we convene four-level or five-level cadre conferences at the county level? My opinion is that we should convene them, and convene them with great fanfare, but without exception, do not publish them in newspapers.

Henan's counties are currently holding four-level cadre conferences, which are lively and beneficial.

Responsible comrades at the provincial level in Henan are directly leading several counties, using their experience to guide other counties.

Hubei, Guangdong, and Jiangsu have all arranged for all counties in the province to hold meetings.

The Jiangyin County Party Committee of Jiangsu Province has already arranged to hold a ten-thousand-person meeting.

In Henan, two counties have ten-thousand-person meetings, and most counties have four to five thousand people.

I suggest that counties convene five-level cadre conferences, namely, the county committee level, the commune party committee level, the production brigade (or management area) level, the production team (i.e., the original advanced cooperative) level, and the production group (i.e., the production team, also known as the work group) level. Each level should have representatives participating, so that all the small team leaders, all the branch secretaries and production team leaders of the communes, all the general branch secretaries and production brigade leaders of the management areas, and some cadres at the commune level participate in the meeting.

It is imperative to have people with dissenting views, those of the "wait-and-see" faction and the "accounting" faction, participate, preferably accounting for one-tenth.

A small number of activists among the commune members can also be invited to the meeting.

Ensure that all these people hear the speech of the first secretary of the county party committee, because his speech is at a higher level than that of the average first secretary of the commune.

Then, start a discussion, where speakers are not to be blamed, and there should be great airing of views and great debates. In a few days, unify thinking.

It is necessary to have three opposing sides clash at the meeting: one, a clash between grassroots cadres and their superiors (communes and counties); two, a clash between people with dissenting views and people who have already reached a consensus; and three, a clash between the one-tenth of the "wait-and-see" faction and the "accounting" faction (many people who are considered to be of the "wait-and-see" faction and the "accounting" faction are actually not of the "wait-and-see" faction and the "accounting" faction; they are misunderstood) and the nine-tenths of the positive figures.

Three to four days of debate should be enough.

Then, spend another three to four days solving specific problems. A total of seven or eight days should be sufficient.

The county's five-level conference will definitely be more lively and active than the province's six-level conference.

It is necessary to tell the first secretaries of the commune party committees and the first secretaries of the county party committees how to work.

During the meeting, specifically convene these comrades to speak once, so that they can learn from the sharp lesson of temporarily separating from the masses in the past few months due to certain improper measures, blowing the "communist wind," "leveling and transferring," and "collecting payments" [1], and gain experience.

In the future, they should be good at thinking about problems and good at doing work, so that they can integrate with the masses.

It is necessary to discuss the issue of the partial ownership of the production team (production group or work group) in addition to the three-level ownership, three-level management, and three-level accounting of the commune, management area (i.e., production brigade), and production team (i.e., the original advanced cooperative). This issue was raised by Comrades Wang Renzhong and Tao Lujia [2].

I think it is reasonable and worth discussing.

The county's conference can be completed in late March. In April, the commune's representative conference can be suspended for a whole month. Focus on production for a month, hold some small meetings, solve some specific problems, and have each production team convene party member meetings and then mass meetings in their spare time to form a nationwide discussion.

Because hundreds of people from each commune have attended the meeting in the county, and the issues have been thoroughly discussed, they can directly conduct a nationwide discussion in their spare time.

Some counties in Hubei are already conducting nationwide discussions.

In May, all communes across the country should take three days (three days is enough) to hold the first commune member representative conference of the people's commune. The representatives should include men, women, old, young, positive, and negative (do not include landlords, rich peasants, counter-revolutionaries, and bad elements, but include well-to-do middle peasants), discuss some issues, and elect the commune management committee.

It is suggested that this kind of representative conference be held four times a year, each time for one day, two days, or at most three days.

The first secretary of the commune must learn to be good at leading this kind of meeting.

Our commune party committee secretaries must be concerned about the interests of the masses every day and every hour, and always think about whether their policies and measures are suitable for the current level of awareness of the masses and the current urgent demands of the masses.

Anything that violates these two points will definitely not work and will definitely fail.

The county party committees and the prefectural party committees should pay attention to strengthening the leadership of the communes, and send politically strong comrades to help the politically weaker commune comrades.

The prefectural party committees should pay attention to sending people to help lead the weaker county party committees.

Both the county and the commune should pay attention to strengthening the leading backbone of the production team (generally the original advanced cooperative) as the basic accounting unit.

The above is only intended as a suggestion. Please consider and decide how to handle it more appropriately, and implement it promptly.

When the county holds a meeting, all levels of the commune must leave people to lead production, or attend the meeting in shifts, so as not to delay agricultural work.

Mao Zedong, 7:00 a.m., March 17, 1959, in Wuchang.

Printed according to the manuscript.

Notes:
[1] "Leveling and transferring" were the main manifestations of the "communist wind" in the people's commune movement, that is: implementing leveling of wealth and equal distribution within the scope of the commune; counties and communes transferred certain properties of production teams (including individual commune members) without compensation. "Collecting payments" refers to the bank's unified recovery of all loans previously issued to rural areas.
[2] Wang Renzhong was then the First Secretary of the Hubei Provincial Party Committee of the Communist Party of China. Tao Lujia, born in 1918, from Liyang, Jiangsu, was then the First Secretary of the Shanxi Provincial Party Committee of the Communist Party of China.