Directive on Carrying the Socialist Education Movement of the Entire Party and the Entire People Through to the End [1]
(March 22, 1964)

To all Central Bureaus; Party Committees of all provinces, municipalities, and regions; all Ministries and Commissions of the Central Committee; Party Committees and Leading Party Members’ Groups of all Ministries and Commissions of state organs; Leading Party Members’ Groups of all people’s organizations; the General Political Department of the Military Commission; all local prefectural and county Party Committees; Party Committees and Leading Party Members’ Groups of all large and medium-sized factories, mines, transportation departments, enterprises, and institutions; Party Committees of all universities and secondary schools; Party Committees and Leading Party Members’ Groups of scientific and cultural institutions; and Party Committees and Leading Party Members’ Groups of governments at the provincial, prefectural, and county levels:

The Socialist Education Movement of the entire Party and the entire people, initiated by our Party in 1963, must be carried through to the end and will require several years to complete (at least three to four years). The localities must learn from the experience of the Liberation Army, and the Liberation Army must also learn from the experience of the localities. Of the Central Committee’s three documents on socialist education (the Directive on the Five Antis, the Draft Decision, and the Draft Regulations), except for the Directive on the Five Antis, which is limited to cities and organs at and above the county level, the other two (namely, the so-called “Double Ten Articles”) should, over several years and in several installments, be read aloud, explained, questioned, and answered among the entire Party and the entire people in both urban and rural areas, proceeding from the coarse to the fine, from the shallow to the deep, integrating with local actual conditions, conducting in-depth investigation and research, until problems are genuinely resolved. For this purpose, propaganda and lecture teams must be organized. Such teams should enable all comrades who are able to lecture (i.e., able to read and understand the documents) and capable of lecturing (i.e., possessing a relatively high political level and relatively high prestige among the masses) to have the opportunity to lecture. From members of the Central Committee to members of county and municipal Party committees, members of Party committees at the same level as county-level committees, and other comrades with comparable cultural and political levels, except for those who are old, weak, or ill, all must serve as readers and lecturers, at least once or twice. Those who avoid and do not go shall be called passive saboteurs. Doing so benefits both oneself and others immensely; it can enable the entire Party and the entire people to receive socialist education, and first and foremost enable cadres at all levels to receive this education, thereby avoiding the perils of bureaucratism, revisionism, and dogmatism. Two documents are hereby issued to you. One is the report of the General Political Department of the Liberation Army dated March 16, 1964 [1], and the other is the report of the Qufu County Party Committee in Shandong, the hometown of Confucius, dated February 10, 1964 [2]. Please study these two documents; you can draw much inspiration from them.

The Central Committee
March 22, 1964

[1] The report of the General Political Department of the Chinese People’s Liberation Army stated that the entire army began lecturing on the Central Committee’s two documents concerning the rural socialist education movement on December 16, 1963, and basically concluded by mid-February this year. This education roughly went through the following three steps: (1) Senior commanders and leading cadres at all levels lectured the officers and soldiers on the original texts in their entirety, allowing the Party’s policies to meet the masses directly without distortion; (2) The masses were mobilized to conduct thematic discussions, deeply resolving the officers’ and soldiers’ vague understandings and mental knots; (3) Summarization and enhancement were carried out to ensure the education was implemented concretely. Through this education movement, very good results were achieved within the troops.

[2] The report of the Qufu County Party Committee of the Communist Party of China on the situation of the socialist education movement carried out in the Yanjiacun Production Brigade stated that this brigade carried out the socialist education movement from December 1, 1963, to February this year, undergoing four stages: the “Four Clean-ups” and cadres’ “washing hands and bathing,” the struggle against the enemy, organizational construction, and production construction.

Comrades Liu [Shaoqi], Zhou [Enlai], Deng [Xiaoping], Peng [Zhen], He Long, Chen Yi, Kang Sheng, Boda [Chen Boda], Dingyi [Lu Dingyi], and Lengxi [Wu Lengxi] [1], please read and then Comrade Shangkun [Yang Shangkun] [2] handle.

[1] Liu refers to Liu Shaoqi. Zhou refers to Zhou Enlai. Deng refers to Deng Xiaoping, then General Secretary of the CPC Central Committee. Peng refers to Peng Zhen, then Member of the Political Bureau of the CPC Central Committee and Secretary of the Central Secretariat. He Long, then Member of the Political Bureau of the CPC Central Committee and Vice Premier of the State Council. Chen Yi, then Member of the Political Bureau of the CPC Central Committee, Vice Premier of the State Council, and Minister of Foreign Affairs. Kang Sheng, then Alternate Member of the Political Bureau of the CPC Central Committee and Secretary of the Central Secretariat. Boda, namely Chen Boda, then Alternate Member of the Political Bureau of the CPC Central Committee, Director of the Central Political Research Office, and Secretary to Mao Zedong. Dingyi, namely Lu Dingyi, then Alternate Member of the Political Bureau of the CPC Central Committee, Secretary of the Central Secretariat, and Head of the Central Propaganda Department. Lengxi, namely Wu Lengxi, then Director of the Xinhua News Agency and Editor-in-Chief of the People’s Daily.

[2] Shangkun, namely Yang Shangkun, then Alternate Secretary of the Central Secretariat of the CPC Central Committee and Director of the General Office of the Central Committee.