Introducing the Experience of Macheng [I]
(April 2 and 3, 1959)
These several documents[1] are all worth reading. Especially "The Situation of the Ten-Thousand-Person Conference in Macheng County" is worth reading; the method is very good. What should be returned by the county and commune levels has been promptly returned to the production teams, leaving them clean and clear, and then proceeding to resolve the contradictions between the teams and commune members, allowing the commune to develop greatly.
Mao Zedong
April 2, 1959

This document[2] is extremely good. Every county and commune should do likewise. Only by settling accounts can unity be achieved; only by settling accounts can cadres be helped to extricate themselves from the ocean of embezzlement and waste, leaving them clean and clear; only by settling accounts can cadres be taught how to master management methods; only by settling accounts can the 500 million peasants be taught to manage their own communes themselves, to supervise cadres at all levels of the communes to only do good deeds and not bad deeds, to realize supervision by the masses, and to realize genuine democratic centralism.
Mao Zedong
April 3, 1959

Notes
[1] Refers to the second report on the situation of the ten-thousand-person conference in Macheng County submitted to Wang Renzhong and the Hubei Provincial Party Committee on March 30, 1959, by Wang Yanchun, Jiang Yi (Secretary of the CPC Huanggang Prefectural Committee), and Wu Dejian (Secretary of the CPC Macheng County Committee). The report stated that over the past two days, the conference situation had seen new developments. In order to mobilize the masses and settle the accounts of the production teams, the county party committee decided: First, the county party committee would hold separate mobilization meetings to demonstrate the determination to settle accounts clearly. Second, separate small group meetings would be held for deliberation and preparation. Third, policies would be explained, and individual talks would be conducted to resolve the concerns of production team cadres and production squad cadres. Fourth, meetings would be combined with launching pilot projects to mobilize the masses. Fifth, a broadcast conference would be held to clearly announce that the 1958 income, apart from the agricultural tax turned over and a certain percentage turned over to the commune, the remainder would all belong to the production teams, requiring each production team to settle last year's accounts clearly, while simultaneously mobilizing commune members to participate in settling accounts. During the account-settling process, it was discovered that many production team cadres had serious problems of embezzlement and misappropriation. The county party committee demanded that cadres with problems confess at the meeting, admit their mistakes, with the detailed account-settling to be carried out after returning, and accounts to be thoroughly settled through convening member representative assemblies or general member meetings.