Comrade Li Jingquan of the Sichuan Provincial Party Committee, and to be forwarded to Comrade Chen Zhengren of the Pingquan Commune in Jianyang:

Comrade Chen Zhengren, I received your letter of May 1 and was very pleased. Going again to Jianyang to conduct investigations for one week, or preferably two weeks, will be extremely beneficial.

Comrade Jingquan: Why haven’t you written to me? I am eager for your letter. Have you gone to conduct investigations? The Central Committee has listed a batch of investigation topics [2], which were notified to you on April 25. On May 4, another notice was issued, postponing the meeting date to May 20, so as to allow ample time for investigation and research, to delve deeply and thoroughly into those issues, so that by the time of the Beijing Conference [3], a major step forward can be made compared to the Guangzhou Conference [4].

I have one more request here: I request the first secretary comrades of all central bureaus and all provincial, municipal, and regional party committees to please, during this half-month, go down to the countryside, work painstakingly, and earnestly conduct a round of investigation and research work, and correspond with me at any time. Write your letters casually, without standing on ceremony. I hope to receive a letter from each of you during this half-month. If you show kindness and write to me, I will certainly write back to you.

This letter is also to be communicated to the Central Committee.

Mao Zedong
May 6, 1961, in Shanghai

When you send letters, use the secure telephone line directly to my residence and train; do not delay, this is essential.

Published based on the Selected Letters of Mao Zedong, People’s Publishing House, 1983.

Notes

--- Notes

[1] Li Jingquan (1909–1989), a native of Linchuan, Jiangxi. At the time, he served as First Secretary of the Southwest Bureau of the CPC Central Committee and First Secretary of the Sichuan Provincial Party Committee. Chen Zhengren (1907–1972), a native of Suichuan, Jiangxi. At the time, he served as Minister of Agricultural Machinery.
[2] Refers to the investigation topics on several key issues in rural work raised in the CPC Central Committee’s notice of April 25, 1961. These topics included the issue of mess halls, the grain issue, the supply system issue, the issue of graded management of mountain forests, the issue of leaving peasants a certain amount of firewood mountains as private plots, the issue of the “three guarantees and one reward,” the issue of whether it is better for draft cattle and farm tools to be owned by the brigade or the production team, the issue of comprehensive rectification of work style and resolute restitution in counties, communes, and brigades of the first and second categories, the issue of restoring handicrafts, the issue of restoring supply and marketing cooperatives, etc.
[3] See note [2] on p. 269 of this volume.
[4] See note [3] on p. 269 of this volume.