Marginal note on a telegram from the Chinese Embassy in the German Democratic Republic to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs [1] (January 1960): An eighty-year-old East German professor (and university president) said that our country’s Resolution on People’s Communes clearly sets forth the tasks and long-term prospects for the first and second stages of communism, which greatly pleased him. Printed according to Mao Zedong’s manuscript.

Note [1]: This telegram, dated November 4, 1959, from the Chinese Embassy in the GDR, reported that leading officials of the GDR’s Party and government, as well as representatives of the various democratic parties, had, in their separate replies thanking our embassy for its congratulations on the tenth anniversary of the founding of their state, unanimously praised the tremendous achievements China had made over the preceding decade. Among them, Professor Heinz Döcker, one of the founders of the German Spartacus League—the predecessor of the Communist Party of Germany (KPD)—who was also the president of a certain higher education institution and in his eighties, specifically commended the CPC Central Committee’s December 1958 Resolution on Several Questions Concerning People’s Communes. In his letter, he wrote: “I believe this resolution is the only document I know of in the international workers’ movement that clearly distinguishes between the first and second stages of communist society, while at the same time offering important guidance on the fundamental principles governing development during the second stage. This is particularly significant to me, because both in the past and now I have consistently held that, as we tackle the enormous tasks facing us in the first stage of communist society, we must never lose sight of our ultimate goal and our grand long-term vision. The fact that our Chinese comrades have substantially enriched Marxist–Leninist science, especially in sections four and five of the resolution, is of great importance. Although I am already advanced in age, I continue to follow with keen interest the highly effective path you are pursuing.”  Beside these words, Mao Zedong underlined them and added the instruction: “From here on, use medium-sized bold type” when the text was circulated. The document was distributed to those attending the enlarged meeting of the CPC Central Political Bureau then being held in Shanghai.