On the positive side, the situation is very promising; that is the main point. On the negative side, the most striking features are the “five excesses and five deficiencies.” Namely: too many meetings and too little contact with the masses; too many documents and reports yet too little summarizing of experience; too much routine work and too little study; too many general appeals and too little meticulous organizational work; and officials spending far too much time holed up in offices while conducting far too few serious investigations and studies.  Take a look at this document they have issued—it offers some commentary on the matter. It points out the excessive number of meetings and the flood of documents and reports. Just how excessive are they? According to the document, from January 1 to March 10 of this year—over a period of seventy days—the county Party committee and its various departments convened a total of 184 meetings attended by secretaries of the people’s communes and heads of relevant units, held 56 teleconferences, distributed 1,074 official documents, and issued 599 forms and reports. Comrades, this state of affairs cannot go on any longer. When things reach an extreme, they will reverse course. We must create the conditions to turn this bureaucratic style of work completely around. Licheng County has already formulated measures to overcome the “five excesses and five deficiencies,” and the Shandong Provincial Party Committee has now extended these measures throughout the entire province.  But do such bureaucratic practices exist only in Licheng County or in Shandong Province alone? Not necessarily. It is quite likely that they are widespread everywhere. I urge each of you to conduct your own investigation in one county or one city (and in large cities, in one district) to get a clear picture of the actual situation. The approach taken in Licheng can serve as a model for addressing the “five excesses and five deficiencies.”

The measures are as follows:

1. Leave the office and hold meetings directly in the fields.
2. Implement the “three togethers” and “three guarantees” principles.
3. Adopt a coordinated approach under the unified leadership of the Party committee, integrating vertical, horizontal, and regional lines of work, so as to both accomplish central tasks and effectively carry out assigned responsibilities.
4. Immediately streamline meetings and reduce the volume of documents and reports.