Comments on a Document Encountered
(July 19, 1959)

This document [1] is to be printed and distributed to all comrades for study.

Mao Zedong
July 19

[1] This material, published in *Propaganda and Education Trends*, Issue No. 58, compiled and printed by the Propaganda Department of the CPC Central Committee on July 17, 1959, states that Professor Vasyukin, Director of the Long-Range Planning Department of the USSR State Planning Committee, recently delivered several reports to our embassy in the Soviet Union on the formulation of the Soviet Seven-Year Plan, as well as some major problems encountered during its implementation and the methods for resolving them. These reports mentioned:

1. The issue of the pace of industrial development in long-range planning. In the early period of construction, the Soviet Union’s industrial development was very rapid. Later, because the actual volume represented by each annual percentage increase grew larger, the pace gradually declined. Soviet planning workers, in their long-range planning, have also been setting the development pace lower and lower, reflecting a right-deviationist way of thinking.

2. The debate on breaking balances. Some people in the Soviet Union have become accustomed to believing that the proportions among various sectors of the national economy are fixed and unchanging. This thinking, which holds that old proportions cannot be broken, was most clearly manifested in the formulation of the Sixth Five-Year Plan.

3. The issue of agricultural development. The Soviet Union’s grain problem has remained unresolved for a long time, as a result of which animal husbandry has been unable to develop, and the supply of meat remains insufficient to this day.

4. Solving the problem of labor shortages. At present, labor productivity in the Soviet Union is only half that of the United States, and 50 percent of workers are still engaged in manual labor. Moreover, after the Seven-Year Plan, production will increase by 90 percent, making the labor shortage even more acute. Therefore, it is necessary to vigorously innovate technology in order to ensure that production advances at a high speed and quickly catches up with and surpasses the United States.