Forwarded Comment on Zhou Enlai’s Investigative Report on Public Canteens and Other Issues (May 7, 1961)

This report [1] is to be distributed to all Central Bureaus and the Party committees of all provinces, municipalities, and regions for reference.

Mao Zedong
May 7, 4:40 a.m., Shanghai
Printed based on the manuscript.

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**Note**
[1] Refers to the transcript of Zhou Enlai’s telephone report to Mao Zedong on May 7, 1961. In his report, Zhou Enlai stated: I have been in Handan for five days now. During these five days, I have spoken with some cadres and commune members from communes, production brigades, and production teams, and held forums. There are four issues that need to be reported. (1) The issue of public canteens. The overwhelming majority, even all commune members (including women and single men), wish to return home to cook their own meals. I am currently conducting a pilot project in one canteen to resolve the issue of how to properly dissolve the canteens and arrange for commune members to eat at home. (2) Commune members do not approve of the supply system; they only approve of the method of providing for the “five-guarantee” households and giving consideration to households in difficulty. (3) The commune members urgently demand the restoration of the work-point evaluation and recording method used during the period of the advanced cooperatives, with some further development. The specific practice is to fix output quotas down to the production team, determine work points based on output, and contract work tasks down to the group. Only in this way can the principle of “more pay for more work” be truly realized. This method is imperative. (4) The Handan special administrative region is suffering from severe drought. It appears that wheat yields will be very low, and in some cases there will be no harvest at all. There is still hope for cotton and autumn crops. At present, the most critical issue is the restoration of human and animal power.