Comments on the Distribution of a Document Concerning the Resentment Expressed by a Small Number of Battalion and Regimental-Level Cadres over Difficult Economic Conditions (July 5, 1959) Comrade Shangkun [1]: Please have this document [2] circulated to all comrades.
Mao Zedong July 5 Based on the manuscript copy.
Notes [1] Shangkun refers to Yang Shangkun, who at that time served as an alternate member of the Secretariat of the CPC Central Committee and Director of the General Office of the CPC Central Committee. [2] This document, reprinted in No. 124 of the Political Work Briefing compiled and published on June 24, 1959, by the Secretariat of the General Political Department of the People’s Liberation Army, states that, according to reports from the Political Department of the 42nd Army and the Political Department of the Hainan Military Region, a small number of battalion and regimental-level cadres have shown resistance and dissatisfaction with the difficult economic conditions, viewing them as pervasive and long-term problems that cannot be resolved.
They deny the inevitability and superiority of establishing people’s communes, attack local cadres, and express discontent with the Party’s various regulations concerning economic life, attributing the economic hardship to errors in the Party’s line.
Similar sentiments have also been observed among a minority of company and platoon-level cadres.