Comments on Three Materials Including "A Great Debate"
(December 1959)

This document is worth reading.

The article "A Great Debate on Socialist Thought in a Company" points out that the Propaganda Department of the Political Department of the Lanzhou Military Region, in coordination with the Political Department of the 61st Division, conducted a pilot project for socialist ideological education in early November in the 6th Company of the 2nd Battalion of the 181st Regiment. In order to lay a solid foundation for the entire education, they first provided soldiers with education on the issue of the people's communes. The method was to first give lectures and then hold debates. During the lectures, two issues were thoroughly explained: (1) The people's commune is an inevitable product of China's social development, criticizing the view that the communes were "established too early"; (2) The commune system possesses incomparable superiority, criticizing the view that the communes were "messed up." On this basis, soldiers were then mobilized to debate these two issues separately. After the debates, mass self-summaries were conducted, discussing experiences and progress. The soldiers generally believed that this education yielded great results.

After reading, Lin Ke[1] should send it to Comrade Chen Boda[2] for review,
and return it to Mao.

--- Notes

[1] Refers to *Situation Bulletin* No. 214, compiled and printed by the General Office of the CPC Central Committee on December 4, 1959. This issue of the bulletin contains three materials. Among them, the article "A Great Debate on the Issue of Grain Distribution Launched in the Rural Areas of Guangdong" points out that the Guangdong Provincial Party Committee this year has defined the policy for grain distribution as: planned grain consumption, monthly economizing on grain, rational grain use, overfulfilling the public grain and purchased grain tasks, retaining as much feed and reserves as possible, and using bumper harvests to make up for shortfalls. Various localities used the method of settling accounts and making comparisons to sum up the experience and lessons of grain distribution and use over the past few years, calculating the benefits of planned grain consumption, economizing on grain, and rational grain use, as well as the harms of not implementing this policy. They used facts to educate the masses and launched debates, enabling the broad masses to truly and consciously implement the provincial party committee's policy. Within 20 days, the tasks for public grain and purchased grain were overfulfilled. The main content of the article "Several Situations Regarding the Work of Rectifying Communes in the Rural Areas of Henan" is: 1. On the basis of extensively and deeply mobilizing the masses, all localities paid special attention to conducting comparative education through the method of organizing exhibitions. 2. Regarding the determination of targets for focused criticism, all localities were very cautious. 3. Regarding the proportion of targets for focused criticism, all localities earnestly implemented the provincial party committee's instructions, generally controlling it at around 1% of the total commune members.


[1] Lin Ke, then served as a secretary in Mao Zedong's office.
[2] Chen Boda, then served as an alternate member of the Political Bureau of the CPC Central Committee and Director of the Central Political Research Office.