Comments on the Opinions Regarding Specific Methods [1]
(November 26, 1964)
[1]
Refers to certain views put forward by Wang Renzhong, First Secretary of the Hubei Provincial Committee of the CPC, at the province’s rural socialist education work conference held on November 15, 1964, concerning the specific methods for carrying out the “Four Cleansings” in organs at the county, district, and commune levels. These views were as follows:

First, we must persist in sending work teams. Strong and effective work teams should be dispatched to all three levels—county, district, and commune—to conduct the campaign.

Second, we need to take root and expand the ranks of activists. Initially, select about 10 percent of active elements from among clerks, administrative staff, general service personnel, and a few newly promoted deputy section chiefs. As the struggle progresses, further mobilize one or two additional groups until the total reaches 20 to 30 percent.

Third, adopt a threefold approach: combine mass mobilization with leading cadres’ self-criticism and accountability, and with auditing and investigation.

Fourth, employ flexible and adaptable methods. Conduct both back-to-back denunciations and face-to-face criticism and struggle, paying particular attention to extensive individual work and small-scale meetings. In addition, wall newspapers, big-character posters, and displays of physical evidence may be utilized.

Fifth, hold well-organized meetings of representatives of poor and lower-middle peasants. Such meetings should be primarily composed of poor and lower-middle peasants, with cadres invited to attend as observers to account for their actions and accept criticism, thereby establishing during the campaign a system and atmosphere whereby the masses have the right to supervise cadres and cadres are obligated to accept such supervision. At the same time, through these representative meetings, associations of poor and lower-middle peasants at the county, district, and commune levels should be gradually established.

Sixth, throughout the course of the campaign, Party and government organs at all levels must reorganize and strengthen their leading core bodies, with substantial adjustments to the cadre ranks. The new leading core will generally consist of three types of personnel: original good and relatively capable cadres; newly promoted cadres; and cadres transferred in from elsewhere. Through this campaign, a group of truly outstanding, young, and promising cadres should be promoted from among clerks and section-level officials, cultivating revolutionary successors in practice rather than merely in words. Moreover, during this campaign, a firm resolve should be made to completely reorganize county committees, district committees, and commune Party committees—regardless of their previous performance.

Cadres at the district and commune levels must all be transferred away from their own districts and communes to work in other localities.

Reviewed by Liu, Zhou, Deng, Peng, Fuchun, and Yibo III.
I find these opinions sound. If you have already examined this document, you may review it again.
Mao Zedong
November 26th
[I]
Liu refers to Liu Shaoqi. Zhou refers to Zhou Enlai. Deng refers to Deng Xiaoping, who at that time served as General Secretary of the CPC Central Committee.
Peng refers to Peng Zhen, who was then a member of the CPC Central Political Bureau and a secretary of the Secretariat of the CPC Central Committee.
Fuchun is Li Fuchun, who at that time was a secretary of the CPC Central Secretariat and a vice premier of the State Council. Yibo is Bo Yibo, who was then an alternate member of the CPC Central Political Bureau and a vice premier of the State Council.