Central Committee’s Instruction Forwarding Wu Zhifu’s[1] Report on Convening Commune Member Representative Assemblies in Batches by Stages and Other Issues
(April 16, 1959)

This document[2] is to be forwarded immediately to all provincial Party committees, Party committees of directly administered municipalities, and Party committees of autonomous regions for handling accordingly.

Central Committee
April 16

[1]
Wu Zhifu, then First Secretary of the Henan Provincial Committee of the Communist Party of China and Governor of Henan Province.
[2]
Wu Zhifu’s report of April 15, 1959, conveyed via Comrade Wang Renzhong, First Secretary of the Hubei Provincial Committee of the Communist Party of China, and others to Mao Zedong, stated: Regarding the Chairman’s opinions on convening commune member representative assemblies and other issues as conveyed by Comrade Renzhong, we have communicated, studied, and made arrangements at the provincial Party committee plenary session:
(1) Agree to convene, from now on, in batches by stages, general meetings of cadres at all levels of the people’s communes; commune member representative assemblies shall generally be convened after accounts have been basically settled and the county-level five-level cadre meetings have been held.
(2) Cadres of the people’s communes, administrative districts, and production teams who have committed relatively serious errors or are incapable of performing their duties generally account for 5% to 6%; in some places, they account for 8% to 10%, or even more, and need to be removed or disciplined during the commune rectification.
(3) Cadres who have seriously violated laws and discipline and should be given criminal punishment generally number 3 to 4 per county, and around 10 in a few more serious counties. After serious handling, this has both educated the cadres and quelled public anger, with excellent results.