Report on Understandings of the People’s Communes [I]’s Comment
(August 7, 1959)

The report from the Party Committee of the Jiangxi Provincial Party School of the CPC to the Jiangxi Provincial Committee states: After the divergent understandings among the school’s trainees regarding the People’s Communes came to light, we conscientiously analyzed the reasons for the wavering that had arisen. Under the guidance of the Provincial Committee, we decided to adopt the methods of debate, reading, tutoring, and summation to resolve the trainees’ ideological issues. The process of resolving the issues was broadly divided into three stages. In the first stage, after the debate began, those holding negative views further raised many sharp questions, while those holding affirmative views, based on their own firsthand experience, enumerated examples to illustrate the situation of the Great Leap Forward in industrial and agricultural production and to demonstrate the superiority of the People’s Communes. On this basis, the school organized the trainees to intensively read the works of Marx, Engels, Lenin, and Stalin, to theoretically clarify issues such as the socialist nature of the People’s Communes. During the study, responsible comrades from the Provincial Committee came to deliver five summative reports integrating theory and practice, pointing out the present role and far-reaching significance of the People’s Communes. The second stage involved studying and debating practical work issues, such as how the subjective reflects the objective and how inappropriate work methods prevent the realization of the Party’s principles and policies. The third stage further debated practical issues within the People’s Communes, such as production policies and distribution principles. After more than two months of study, significant changes occurred in the thinking of all trainees. According to a survey and statistics conducted among 82 people in one general branch, at the beginning, nearly two-thirds had vague and unclear understandings, and 6 people believed our work had been botched. After the study, those holding affirmative views became firmer, those with vague understandings became clear and enlightened, and those holding negative views were no more. From this term’s teaching, we have come to realize: First, judging from the trainees’ ideological situation, doubts about the Great Leap Forward, the People’s Communes, and the General Line exist to varying degrees. This is not merely a matter of individual understanding but a microcosm of the thinking of a segment of people both inside and outside the Party. Second, achieving a comprehensive and correct understanding of new situations and new things in the socialist revolution and construction requires a process, and confusion easily arises before such understanding is reached. Third, the divergent understandings among these cadres can definitely be unified.
August 1959
On the 11th, Issue No. 2843 of the *Internal Reference* compiled and printed by the Xinhua News Agency published a summary of this report from the Party Committee of the Jiangxi Provincial Party School.

Distribute to all comrades. The debate we discussed at the Jiangxi Party School on the two major issues of the Great Leap Forward and the People’s Communes has now been resolved. It began with a patch of dark clouds and ended with a stretch of clear sky. How similar was the situation of the debate at the Lushan Conference [1] to that at the Jiangxi Party School? At the Jiangxi Party School, those holding a negative attitude numbered six out of eighty-two people; here, too, it was five or six people. Here, those holding an affirmative attitude are far more numerous than at the Jiangxi Party School, and those holding a vague attitude are also somewhat fewer—these two points are different. The issues debated in both places are entirely the same: both concern the Great Leap Forward and the People’s Communes. The battle lines are also the same, both divided into Left, Center, and Right. Comrades may take a look. The report is well-written and can be read through in one breath. Comrades are asked to follow the example of Jiangxi and hold such sessions in batches at the provincial, prefectural, and county levels, uniformly conducting a great debate in this manner. The time can be autumn, winter, or spring, with each batch lasting two months, combining reading and debate, to carry out a new rectification movement, which will surely be of immense benefit.

Mao Zedong
August 7

[1] Refers to the enlarged meeting of the Political Bureau of the CPC Central Committee and the Eighth Plenary Session of the Eighth Central Committee held successively at Lushan at that time.