Comment on Liu Shaoqi's Letter Regarding the Forwarding of Two Documents from Hunan and Jiangsu on the Socialist Education Movement[1]
(August 27, 1964)

Comrade Xiaoping[2]:

Please print and distribute to all comrades attending the meeting[3].

Mao Zedong
August 27th

Published based on the manuscript.

Notes

[1] In his letter to Mao Zedong and the Central Committee on August 19, 1964, Liu Shaoqi said: "Regarding the two documents from Hunan and Jiangsu, it is proposed to forward them to all localities. The Central Committee has now drafted a comment, please review and approve for distribution." The two documents were: one, the "Report by the CCP Yiyang Prefectural Committee on the Situation and Handling Recommendations Regarding the Counter-attack Against the Socialist Education Movement Headed by Commune Party Secretary Kuang Aiguo in Yingfeng Commune, Yiyang County," and the Hunan Provincial Committee's comment forwarding this report; the other was the "Speech by Comrade Zhang Jingliang, Secretary-General of the Huaiyin Prefectural Committee, at the Fourth Plenary Session (Enlarged) of the Fourth CCP Jiangsu Provincial Committee," the content of which was the dispute that occurred between the Party committee and the work team during the Socialist Education Movement in Gaogou Commune, Lianshui County, and its lessons. The CCP Central Committee forwarded these two documents on August 20, requesting that they be printed and distributed for reading by Party committees at the county level and above and all members of the Socialist Education work teams in rural and urban areas. In its comment for forwarding, the Central Committee pointed out that although Yingfeng Commune and Gaogou Commune had conducted pilot projects for socialist education, the work teams and the prefectural and county committees did not have a spirit of thorough revolution or were not firm enough, the poor and lower-middle peasants and other peasant masses were not fully mobilized, and the movement was not carried out deeply or thoroughly. Therefore, after the work teams left, great chaos occurred, and significant sequelae were left behind.
[2] Xiaoping refers to Deng Xiaoping, who was then General Secretary of the CCP Central Committee.
[3] Refers to the comrades who were then in Beijing attending the meeting of secretaries of the greater administrative regions.