Comments on Forwarding the Nangong County Experience in Implementing the Household Responsibility System (October 22–23, 1961) Comrade Yang Shangkun [1]: The Hebei Provincial Party Committee has submitted one document entitled “The Nangong County Experience” [2]. Please draft, on behalf of the Central Committee, an instruction for its circulation [3], and send it to me for review.
I would be grateful!
Mao Zedong Morning of October £², 1961 Second, after Comrades Liu Shaoqi and Deng Xiaoping [4] have read it, please have Comrade Yang Shangkun transmit it by telegram.
Mao Zedong October 23 Based on the manuscript copy.
Notes [1] Yang Shangkun, then Alternate Secretary of the Secretariat of the CPC Central Committee and Director of the General Office of the CPC Central Committee.

[2] Refers to a communiqué issued on October 6, 1961, by the Xingtai Prefectural Party Committee of the CPC concerning Nangong County’s implementation of the household responsibility system to boost grain procurement and wheat-sowing efforts.
The communiqué stated that Nangong County had convened, in two phases, meetings of cadres at four levels—team leaders and above—to disseminate the household responsibility system among the masses, thereby unleashing tremendous momentum.
Specifically: First, following the implementation of the household responsibility system, team yields were reported accurately, laying a solid material foundation for fulfilling the procurement targets.
Second, the policy mobilized the enthusiasm of production teams and individual commune members for collective production, thereby promoting the wheat-sowing campaign.
Third, the household responsibility system served as an educational tool for underperforming teams, encouraging them to emulate their more advanced counterparts.
These facts demonstrate that the adoption of the household responsibility system, combined with distribution in kind according to work contribution and due consideration for special circumstances, constitutes an important policy for further overcoming egalitarianism between teams and among individuals, and provides a powerful impetus for advancing both grain procurement and wheat sowing. [3] On October 23, 1961, Yang Shangkun drafted, on behalf of the CPC Central Committee, an instruction to be forwarded to all central bureaus and party committees of provinces, autonomous regions, and municipalities directly under the central government, transmitting the Xingtai Prefectural Party Committee’s communiqué on Nangong County’s implementation of the household responsibility system.
This second entry was written directly on Yang Shangkun’s draft of that instruction. [4] Deng Xiaoping, then General Secretary of the CPC Central Committee.