(December 14, 1964)
Comrade Shaoqi:
This letter of December 11 is quite good and seems suitable for circulation; please make your own decision.
Mao Zedong
December 14
[1]
Refers to a letter dated December 6, 1964, from Zhang Pinghua, First Secretary of the Hunan Provincial Committee of the CPC, reporting to Liu Shaoqi on his stationing in Lianghu Brigade of Lianghu Commune, Xiangtan County. Attached to the letter were Zhang’s report titled “Three Months of the Socialist Education Campaign in Lianghu Brigade,” delivered at the plenary session of the provincial committee, as well as three documents concerning Lianghu Brigade that had been circulated at the same session. In his letter, Zhang stated that this particular period of on-the-ground work had been more instructive than any previous “stationing” experience. It had first and foremost revealed that he had previously had no real understanding of conditions at the grassroots level; only through this current assignment had he come to recognize just how serious those conditions were.
The materials from Lianghu Brigade, together with those from the other 69 brigades where leading officials from the provincial and prefectural committees had also been stationed, indicated that in Hunan more than one-third of the grassroots organizations had been infiltrated and taken over by hostile elements. Your letter to Jiang Weiqing applies essentially to me as well: the crux of the matter lies in a fundamental lack of understanding coupled with an unwarranted confidence in one’s own grasp of the situation, accompanied by self-righteousness and empty rhetoric. The socialist education campaign must be conducted to high standards. However, the campaign has exposed significant deficiencies in the quality of the working teams, with a severe shortage of capable cadres. We have decided that, within the already established framework of 300 communes and 4,000 brigades, we will concentrate our best personnel and launch successive focused offensives, operating on a brigade-by-brigade basis. First, we will thoroughly consolidate one commune before moving on to others in successive waves; alternatively, individual commune-level working teams may focus on perfecting one or two brigades initially, then systematically improve the remaining ones. Based on our assessment, six months will not suffice to complete the first phase across the province—likely requiring a full year. As for consolidating all sectors and levels within a single county, particularly a large county like Xiangtan, it could take as long as two years. Our guiding principle is clear: we would rather take more time than compromise standards in order to meet arbitrary deadlines. Each commune must be fully consolidated on its own merits, and each county likewise.

On December 14, 1964, Mao Zedong held talks with representatives from nine Latin American countries who were visiting China, discussing issues related to the international communist movement.
In December 1964, Mao Zedong, Liu Shaoqi, Zhu De, and delegations from various Latin American communist parties posed for a group photograph.