Comment on a Situation Report

(February 26, 1960)

Premier Zhou:

This summary is very good. This is a new method and should be continued. Summarize six times a year, once every two months, and after approval by the Central Committee, circulate it. It will certainly provide a great impetus. After you have read it, let the comrades of your reading group [1] read it, then send it to Comrade Bo Yibo [2] to read. Let Shaoqi, Xiaoping, and Peng Zhen [3] read it.

Vigorously develop small-scale thermal power generation. [4]

Mao Zedong

February 26

Strive for 22 million tons of steel. [5]

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**Notes**

[1] Refers to the reading group organized by Zhou Enlai in Conghua, Guangdong, from mid-February to early March 1960, based on Mao Zedong's suggestion that leading cadres study the Soviet textbook *Political Economy*. The reading group included leading comrades from some ministries and commissions of the State Council and the Central-South Bureau of the CPC Central Committee.

[2] Bo Yibo, then alternate member of the Political Bureau of the CPC Central Committee, Vice Premier of the State Council, and Director of the State Economic Commission.

[3] Xiaoping, i.e., Deng Xiaoping, then General Secretary of the CPC Central Committee and Vice Premier of the State Council. Peng Zhen, then member of the Political Bureau of the CPC Central Committee and Secretary of the Central Secretariat.

[4] The oral briefing outline of the State Economic Commission Party Group stated: "Although electricity generation has been rising steadily, it still cannot meet demand. Among the forty power supply regions nationwide, sixteen regions, including Beijing-Tianjin-Tangshan, Anhui, Chongqing, Central Hunan, and Zhengzhou, are currently experiencing power shortages, totaling approximately 300,000 kilowatts." Mao Zedong wrote this comment next to this passage.

[5] The oral briefing outline of the State Economic Commission Party Group stated: "Judging from the current production situation, the overall situation is very good, but the task of fulfilling the first-quarter plan for major products such as steel and chemicals, and striving to achieve the annual target of 20 million tons of steel or slightly more, remains very arduous." Under the phrase "the target of 20 million tons of steel or slightly more" in the text, Mao Zedong added emphasis marks and wrote this comment beside it.