Comments on Resolving the Grain Shortage During the Spring Famine (April 17, 1959)

Premier: I have read this document [1] in its entirety. Recommendations: (1) Immediately print thirty copies of this document—actually two documents, one being a table for fifteen provinces and the other detailing the grain shortage situation and proposed measures in five provinces—and dispatch fifteen copies by air within three days directly to the first secretaries of the fifteen provincial Party committees. They should be instructed to act without delay to avert a temporary (two-month) emergency affecting tens of thousands of people. I believe that some localities have already begun or are in the process of taking action, such as the Jining and Liaocheng administrative areas in Shandong Province; while in other cases, local leaders may not yet be aware of the situation and thus have not yet taken steps. (2) You should convene a meeting with the deputies to the National People’s Congress from the fifteen provinces who are currently in Beijing (with particular emphasis on the five provinces), distributing one copy of the documents to each. If you agree, please proceed immediately. A general title could be adopted for the documents: “The Major Problem of 25.17 Million People in Fifteen Provinces Lacking Food.”

Mao Zedong, April 17, 1959, 11:00 p.m., printed from the manuscript. The bracketed note refers to the report dated April 6, 1959, from the Secretariat of the State Council to Secretary-General Xi Zhongxun and to the Premier and Vice Premiers, concerning the grain shortage situation and proposed measures in the five provinces of Shandong, Jiangsu, Henan, Hebei, and Anhui, as well as to the statistical table on the spring famine situation in fifteen provinces, prepared by the Office of the Central Disaster Relief Committee and dated April 9, 1959.