Send to Comrade Tian Jiaying for consideration and handling.

It must be revised today, printed tonight, and distributed to the first secretaries of each province for them to take back.

Mao

[1]
From March 25 to April 1, 1959, the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China held an enlarged meeting of the Political Bureau in Shanghai. The revised draft of the meeting's summary was originally titled "Thirteen Issues Concerning the People's Communes," and was later further revised into "Eighteen Issues Concerning the People's Communes," which was adopted at the Seventh Plenary Session of the Eighth Central Committee of the CPC held from April 2 to 5.

[2]
The text printed in Song typeface in sections three to five of this piece consists of words added and revised by Mao Zedong when he reviewed the Shanghai meeting summary.

[3]
Tian Jiaying was then deputy director of the Political Research Office of the CPC Central Committee and Mao Zedong's secretary.

Three types of targets are inappropriate; only the contracted output target and the striving (planned) target are needed.

Completing this process requires a great deal of time; rushing will not work. It must be made clear to the broad ranks of cadres and commune members that in the three-level ownership system of the commune, ownership is basically at the production team level, and this situation cannot be changed quickly. In the future, when the basic ownership by the production team is changed to basic ownership by the commune, it must be ensured economically that no production team and no individual suffers any loss, and they can only benefit more than before. Change if it benefits all production teams and individual commune members; do not change if it harms certain production teams or certain individuals. In addition to this economic condition, a political condition is also required, namely the voluntary consent of the commune members.

[1]
In the "Eighth Issue" of "Thirteen Issues Concerning the People's Communes (Revised Draft)," when discussing the grain and cotton production targets for 1959, it was pointed out: "When formulating their own planned targets, all localities and levels should be careful to leave some potential for the lower levels so that they can overfulfill the plans. In addition to the planned targets, it is also permissible to propose a striving target to mobilize the masses, but the striving target must also be based on objective possibilities; if it exceeds objective possibilities, it will not serve to mobilize the masses. As for implementing contracted output within the people's communes, under current conditions, the contracted output target should generally be about 20% lower than the actual achievable output, so that the contracting units and commune members can obtain greater benefits from the above-quota portion, which is conducive to stimulating the masses' enthusiasm for increasing production." Mao Zedong wrote this comment beside this passage. The term "striving target" in the comment may be a mistake for "planned target." When the summary was later revised into "Eighteen Issues Concerning the People's Communes," Mao's opinion was adopted, and the reference to "striving target" in the revised draft was deleted.