The Complete Works of Mao Zedong
Volume 43
members to participate. Since urban people's communes are still in the experimental stage, all localities should refrain from publishing news about organizing urban people's communes in newspapers, and should not organize mass celebratory parades. The Central Committee of the Communist Party of China issued this directive on March 9.
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1. The commune was established based on the characteristics of the Xiangfang District, which has many large factories and where workers and their families constitute the vast majority of the population. It was founded on the principles of "integrating industry, agriculture, commerce, education, and military affairs," "unifying government administration with commune management," and "taking the working class as the leadership, with ownership by the whole people as the mainstay, and focusing on developing production as the central task." Within the urban area, the commune set up administrative districts and residents' committees, while in rural areas, it established production brigades and production teams.

2. Outstanding achievements were made in organizing large-scale production cooperation.

3. Commune-run industries experienced significant development.


4. Collective welfare undertakings within the commune were continuously consolidated and rapidly expanded.

5. Agricultural production achieved an unprecedented bumper harvest, creating conditions for the transition of production brigades from collective ownership to ownership by the whole people.

6. The commune had already formulated a development plan for an even greater leap forward in 1960. The main content of the Henan Provincial Committee's report is as follows:


(1) In August 1958, while rural areas were realizing people's commune-ization, all cities in our province also rapidly achieved people's commune-ization. Over the past year and more, we have carried out a series of consolidation efforts for these communes, guiding them onto a path of healthy development.


(2) Urban people's communes have already demonstrated their unparalleled superiority and powerful vitality. First, they represent a comprehensive and thorough socialist transformation of the cities, further and extensively eliminating the remnants of private ownership of the means of production. Second, they have tapped the potential of the cities, promoted significant production growth, and driven an all-around great leap forward. Third, collective welfare undertakings have been universally established, liberating vast numbers of women from tedious household labor. Fourth, the collectivist thinking and communist moral character of the masses have been rapidly enhanced, and profound changes have occurred in people's spiritual outlook. Fifth, it has become more convenient for the Party to unite, educate, and reform bourgeois elements and their families. Sixth, the people's democratic dictatorship has been further consolidated.

(3) It is necessary to further consolidate and develop urban people's communes, making them truly unified organizers of production, exchange, distribution, and people's welfare. First, developing production is the central link in running urban people's communes well. In the future, we must persistently implement the policy of taking production as the center while simultaneously focusing on both production and livelihood, and vigorously promote production. Second, extensively develop collective welfare undertakings, tap labor potential, and ensure significant production growth. Third, properly handle distribution work, set appropriate ratios between accumulation and consumption, and correctly manage the relationships among the state, the commune, and commune members.


Fourth, strengthen the socialist transformation of bourgeois elements and their families, gradually reforming them into self-reliant laborers.


Fifth, improve the form, scale, and management system of urban people's communes.


Sixth, persistently implement the Party's class line and firmly keep leadership power in the hands of the working people.


On March 9, 1960, the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China forwarded these two reports to all localities for study and reference.

--- Notes



Refers to the report of the Urban People's Commune Group of the All-China Federation of Trade Unions on February 22, 1960, regarding the development of the Xiangfang People's Commune in Harbin, and the report of the Henan Provincial Committee of the Communist Party of China on February 28 regarding the consolidation and development of urban people's communes, submitted to the Central Committee and Mao Zedong. The report of the All-China Federation of Trade Unions' Urban People's Commune Group stated: In January of this year, we conducted some investigations into the development of the Xiangfang People's Commune in Harbin. The situation is as follows: