Comments on the Article “The Parallel Advancement of Industry and Agriculture Is an Important Law of Our Socialist Economy”
# Date: 1960-11
# Source: en:auto-trans
# Translated from: zh/1960/1960-11_dui_gong_nong_ye_bing_ju_shi_wo_guo_she_hui_zhu_yi_jing.txt

Comments on the Article “The Parallel Advancement of Industry and Agriculture Is an Important Law of Our Socialist Economy”


(November 11, 1960)


To Comrade Chen Boda:


I have read this article; it may be published.


Mao Zedong


24:00, November 11


Chuan


Refers to the draft editorial titled “The Parallel Advancement of Industry and Agriculture Is an Important Law of Our Socialist Economy,” which was intended for publication in the twenty-second issue of Red Flag magazine in 1960. The editorial stated that Comrade Mao Zedong had proposed placing agriculture at the forefront of economic issues, while also emphasizing that industrial development must proceed concurrently with agricultural development. This, it argued, represented a creative new generalization by Marxists regarding socialist construction. Prioritizing the development of heavy industry and rapidly advancing agriculture are mutually conditional, interrelated, and mutually reinforcing. The policy of simultaneously promoting industrial and agricultural development accurately reflects the important law of socialist economic development—that agriculture needs to advance closely and in tandem with industry. To better implement this policy, the Party and the state have adopted a series of vigorous measures to further address two key issues in agricultural development: one concerns agricultural productive forces, primarily involving the more rational allocation of labor across various economic sectors so as to ensure that the front lines of agricultural production maintain an adequate workforce; the other pertains to socialist relations of production in the countryside, mainly through upholding and consolidating the commune’s three-level ownership system based on production teams. This will make it possible, within a relatively short period, to reverse the current situation in which agricultural development lags behind industrial development. To this end, we should actively promote the technological transformation of agriculture, though for now such mechanization can only be gradually achieved in certain localities.


Therefore, securing a sufficient agricultural labor force is the primary factor guaranteeing agricultural development, and also the primary factor ensuring the development of industry and other undertakings. The most important aspect of the rational allocation of labor in rural areas is resolving the issue of balancing agricultural and non-agricultural work. It is impermissible to arbitrarily divert labor from agricultural production. The Central Committee’s policy of rationally distributing labor across all economic sectors to ensure that the front lines of agricultural production are adequately staffed represents a grasp of economic laws. In social production, the greatest form of economy lies in conserving labor; we must avoid wasting human resources. Properly addressing labor conservation and rational distribution, particularly in rural areas, is inseparable from upholding and consolidating the commune’s three-level ownership system based on production teams. This three-level ownership system is, at present, the best fundamental institutional arrangement for the people’s communes—a system conducive to developing agricultural production—and it must be stabilized over a long period.


The twenty-second issue of Red Flag magazine, published on November 16, 1960, carried this editorial.
[2]


Chen Boda was then the editor-in-chief of Red Flag magazine.