A Comment on the Method of Implementing Assigned Purchasing [1]
(October 23, 1959)

Comrade Li Xiannian [2]:
Please study the method of assigned purchasing adopted by Guangdong and see whether it can be popularized. Are there any meetings being held at your place? If there is a meeting, you may study it together with a larger number of comrades.

Mao Zedong
October 23

[1] This comment was written on Issue No. 2889 of the *Internal Reference* compiled and printed by the Xinhua News Agency on October 17, 1959. The article carried in that issue, entitled "Guangdong Implements the Method of Assigned Purchasing, Resulting in a Great Increase in the Purchase of Pigs and Poultry," stated that after the commercial departments in Guangdong implemented, in August and September, the directive of the CPC Guangdong Provincial Committee and the Guangdong Provincial People's Committee on implementing the method of assigned purchasing for pigs, chickens, ducks, geese, and egg products, the purchase volume of these non-staple foods greatly increased. The implementation of the assigned purchasing method means, based on market conditions and the needs of the state, assigning the purchase of a certain quantity of pigs, chickens, ducks, geese, and egg products to the collective economic organizations at all levels of the people's communes and to commune members, requiring the people's communes and commune members to fulfill certain delivery tasks to the state. Assigned purchasing generally accounts for only a very small portion of the output, with the majority of the products still at the disposal of the collective raising units and individual commune members. Because this method gives consideration to the interests of the state, the commune, and the individual, it has received widespread support from the commune members.

[2] Li Xiannian, then serving as Secretary of the Secretariat of the CPC Central Committee, Deputy Head of the Central Financial and Economic Group, Vice Premier of the State Council, and Minister of Finance.