Comrade Chen Boda:

This document is worth a look. I think it speaks correctly.

Return to Mao.

Mao Zedong
September 8

[1]
1. The central issue in commercial work is correctly handling our relationship with the peasants in purchasing and marketing activities. This is because the countryside constitutes the broadest and most important arena of China’s domestic market.
2. The situation on the commercial front was better last year than the year before, and this year is better than last year.
Currently, the following major and urgently pressing problems exist in commercial work:
(1) The issue of the ratio between state procurement and peasant retention in purchasing agricultural products.
(2) The issue of equivalent exchange between industrial and agricultural products.
(3) The issue of the ratio of industrial goods awarded or bartered for major agricultural products such as grain, cotton, and oilseeds during procurement.
(4) The issue of handling the relationship between collective economic units and individual commune members during the purchase of agricultural products.
(5) The issue of relations between industry and commerce.
(6) The commercial workforce is not strong, management and operations are poor, and material losses are severe.

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3. On the issue of market prices, the North China Group unanimously agrees with the third proposal, namely, adopting the policy of leaving the majority unchanged while making minor adjustments. The peasants are now urgently demanding an increase in the ratio of industrial goods that can be exchanged for major agricultural products such as grain, cotton, and oilseeds. We believe that the first step must strive to reach 50 percent, and the second step must exceed 80 percent. The fundamental key to resolving the current contradiction between the two types of markets and two types of prices also lies in developing production. We must attach importance to utilizing the law of value to promote industrial and agricultural production.
4. Opening rural market fairs can achieve the goal of "regulation without stifling, vitality without chaos." The method is: make the work of supply and marketing cooperatives more flexible, enabling them to absorb and release goods in market trade. Leadership over market trade should primarily rely on economic measures, supplemented by necessary administrative management. At the same time, political education on the struggle between the two paths must be regularly conducted among the masses to facilitate combating and preventing speculative and profiteering activities.
5. Promoting cotton production is an extremely acute issue at present, and the document should express the Central Committee’s determination to resolve this problem.
6. The document could be drafted in three possible ways:
(1) Addressing only current issues;
(2) Addressing only long-term, fundamental issues;
(3) Addressing both current and long-term issues. I advocate giving consideration to both, with an emphasis on the current ones.

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--- Notes

The key points of the speech delivered by Tao Lujia, First Secretary of the Shanxi Provincial Committee of the Communist Party of China, at the Central Work Conference on August 23, 1962, were published in Issue No. 11 of the briefing by the Commercial Document Drafting Committee. The key points state: