( August 5–17, 1959 )
Return to Comrade Enlai. There is a small addition.
Return to Comrade Enlai. There is a small revision.
Mao Zedong
August 5
Mao Zedong
August 6, 4:00 a.m.
[1] Sections 1, 2, and 3 of this piece were written respectively on the first draft, second draft, and third draft of the “Communiqué of the Eighth Plenary Session of the Eighth Central Committee of the Communist Party of China.” Section 4 was written on the revised draft of the communiqué submitted for review on the evening of August 16, 1959, by Hu Qiaomu, alternate secretary of the Secretariat of the CPC Central Committee and Mao Zedong’s secretary.
On August 27, 1959, *Renmin Ribao* published this communiqué.
[2] Mao Zedong added a paragraph to the first draft of the communiqué, which later underwent several revisions and was formally finalized as Section 5 of this piece. The text printed in Song typeface in the text consists of words added and rewritten by Mao Zedong.

After Zhou[1] has reviewed it,
have Shangkun[2] handle it.
IV
There is a small revision[3], on pages 3, 4, and 5 of the second part.
Mao
August 17, 4:00 a.m.
[1] Zhou refers to Zhou Enlai.
[2] Shangkun refers to Yang Shangkun, then alternate secretary of the Secretariat of the CPC Central Committee and director of the General Office of the CPC Central Committee.
[3] The main revisions made by Mao Zedong to the revised draft of the communiqué submitted for review by Hu Qiaomu on the evening of August 16 are as follows: On page 2, the phrase “the market supply situation was somewhat strained” in the first half of 1959 was changed to: “the supply situation for a small portion of commodities on the market was somewhat strained.” On page 3, the phrase “the harvesting and collecting work was carried out crudely” in 1958 was changed to: “the harvesting and collecting work was carried out somewhat crudely.” On page 4, the sentence regarding the fulfillment of the 1959 national economic plan, “thereby enabling the slogan ‘catch up with Britain in the output of major industrial products within fifteen years’ to be basically realized in about seven years,” was changed to: “thereby enabling the slogan ‘catch up with Britain in the output of major industrial products within fifteen years’ to be realized in about eight years.” In the communiqué published in *Renmin Ribao* on August 27, 1959, “about eight years” was further changed to “about ten years.” On page 5, the phrase “further develop our country’s socialist cause” was changed to: “develop our country’s great socialist cause step by step, steadily and by leaps.”

V
After analyzing the current situation, the Eighth Plenary Session of the Eighth Central Committee points out that, with regard to fulfilling this year’s continued leap forward, the main danger at present is the growth of Right opportunist thinking among certain cadres. They do not go all out to fulfill tasks that, based on objective conditions and subjective efforts, could originally have been accomplished. They underestimate the great achievements made by several hundred million working people and revolutionary intellectuals in the Great Leap Forward movement and the people’s commune movement, while overestimating the seriousness of certain shortcomings that arose in these two movements due to lack of experience and have already been rapidly overcome. They slander the vigorous and dynamic Great Leap Forward and people’s commune movement carried out by several hundred million working people under the Party’s leadership as a “petty-bourgeois fanatical movement.” This is completely wrong. They fail to see that in all the people’s undertakings under the Party’s leadership, achievements are primary, while shortcomings and mistakes are secondary, merely one finger out of ten. The Plenary Session demands that Party committees at all levels resolutely criticize and overcome this erroneous Right opportunist thinking among certain cadres, persist in putting politics in command, fully mobilize the masses, exert the utmost effort, and strive to fulfill and overfulfill this year’s leap forward plan.