To the Shanghai Bureau, the committees of various cooperative zones, the provincial, municipal, and autonomous regional party committees, and the central-level ministries and commissions as well as their leading party groups:  One copy each of “The Report of the Leading Party Group of the All-China Federation of Trade Unions on the Current Situation of Technological Renovation and the Technological Revolution” [2] and “Economic News,” Issue No. 10, “On the Great Harvest of the Technological Revolution,” make a total of two documents. These are now being forwarded to you, with instructions that you in turn circulate them to all city party committees, industrial and mining party committees, and rural commune party committees for study and reference without exception.  These are two important summary documents; please accord them due attention.  The All-China Federation of Trade Unions has summarized the experiences of seven major cities—Shanghai, Tianjin, Shenyang, Lüda [3], Harbin, Taiyuan, and Chongqing. However, this remains far from sufficient. Wuhan, Guangzhou, Xi’an, Lanzhou, the provincial capitals, and numerous medium-sized cities throughout the country—for example, Tangshan, Shijiazhuang, Qingdao, Luoyang, Huangshi, Zhuzhou, Wuxi, Zhanjiang, and Pingxiang—should all promptly draw up their own summaries and swiftly disseminate them. County-run industries and commune industries likewise need to prepare selective summaries and promote their application more widely.  The movement for technological renovation and the technological revolution has now become a massive nationwide undertaking. There is an urgent need to summarize experience, strengthen leadership, and promptly resolve the problems arising within the movement, so as to steer it onto a correct, scientific, and all-people-oriented track.  The work of surveying, researching, and summarizing should be substantially completed during the months of March, April, and May this year. This task is to be undertaken separately by the leading party groups of the central ministries and commissions, by party committees at all levels, and by the leading party groups of various departments, with large-scale on-site meetings to be convened. In January of this year, the Ministry of Machine-Building Industry held an on-site meeting in Harbin to which most cities were not invited, not even such major centers as Wuhan and Guangzhou, thereby missing a valuable opportunity to ensure broad and rapid dissemination of the results—an unfortunate oversight. Henceforth, relevant departments should take particular care to avoid repeating this mistake; this is of paramount importance.  Printed on March 18, 1960, by the Central Committee, based on Mao Zedong’s manuscript.

2. Comrade Nie Rongzhen’s letter to the Central Committee provides an excellent and systematic summary of the current technological revolution movement and is hereby circulated for comrades’ study, reference, and emulation.  On China’s industrial and transportation front, the agricultural, forestry, pastoral, sideline, and fishery front, the finance, trade, and circulation front, the cultural, educational, and health front, and the national defense front, the all-people’s movements of technological and cultural revolution are rapidly gaining momentum, with new people and new deeds constantly emerging. You are urged to observe these developments carefully, to summarize them regularly, and to promote their wider adoption.  Printed on March 25, 1960, by Mao Zedong, based on his manuscript.

Notes [1] This first document consists of Mao Zedong’s annotations written for the Central Committee of the CPC when forwarding “The Report of the Leading Party Group of the All-China Federation of Trade Unions on the Current Situation of Technological Renovation and the Technological Revolution” and the article “The Technological Revolution Movement Has Achieved a Wide-Area Bountiful Harvest.”  This second document comprises Mao Zedong’s annotations accompanying the forwarding of Vice Premier of the State Council and Director of the State Science and Technology Commission Nie Rongzhen’s report dated March 16, 1960, concerning certain aspects of the mass movement for technological revolution in factories in the cities of Guangzhou and Chongqing, addressed to both the Central Committee of the CPC and to Mao Zedong himself.  [2] The “Report of the Leading Party Group of the All-China Federation of Trade Unions on the Current Situation of Technological Renovation and the Technological Revolution” points out that a technological renovation and revolution centered on mechanization and semi-mechanization has become a vigorous, nationwide mass movement. The rapid improvement in levels of mechanization and semi-mechanization has already demonstrated tremendous effectiveness in production, significantly boosting labor productivity, freeing up substantial manpower for expanded output, and relieving workers from heavy physical labor. To ensure even better results from this movement, it remains necessary to address issues related to materials supply, enterprise management, and worker education.  [3] Lüda refers to present-day Dalian City.