Annotations on the Speech [1]
(February 6 and 12, 1966)

Comrade Peng Zhen:
Please consult the comrades of the Standing Committee in Beijing as well as Comrades Kang Sheng, Ding Yi, and Boda, revise it once more, and consider whether, in response to the request of the Central-South Bureau, it should be printed and distributed to comrades at the county and regimental levels for reading (only distributed to the Central-South Bureau, as a trial, and not distributed elsewhere). It seems this issue is very significant. To truly realize democratic centralism, it must undergo serious education, experimentation, and promotion, and be carried out repeatedly over a long period before it can be achieved; otherwise, among the majority of comrades, it will ultimately remain nothing more than empty words. Comrade Wang Renzhong's revisions are good.

Mao Zedong
February 6, 1966

Comrade Peng Zhen:
All have been reviewed. Proceed accordingly.

Mao Zedong
February 12, 2:40 a.m.

The Seven Thousand Cadres Conference refers to the enlarged working conference held by the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China in Beijing from January 11 to February 7, 1962. Over 7,000 leading cadres attended the conference, including those from the Central Committee, various Central Bureaus, Party committees of provinces, municipalities, and autonomous regions, as well as prefectural and county Party committees, Party committees of important factories, mines, and enterprises, and military units. Mao Zedong delivered an important speech at this conference on issues such as democratic centralism. This speech was printed and distributed as Central Document Zhongfa [62] No. 147, classified as top secret.
On February 4, 1966, Wang Renzhong, Second Secretary of the Central-South Bureau of the CPC Central Committee and First Secretary of the Hubei Provincial Party Committee, wrote to Mao Zedong, stating: "I have read the Chairman's speech at the Seven Thousand Cadres Conference once. I believe that reprinting and distributing it to the county Party committee level, with county Party committees organizing leading cadres above the commune Party committee secretary level to study it, is of urgent significance. At present, a new upsurge has emerged in China's socialist revolution and socialist construction. Correctly implementing democratic centralism is an important guarantee for guiding this upsurge to develop healthily." This first annotation was written on Wang Renzhong's letter. The second annotation is a comment on the revised draft of Mao Zedong's speech at the Seven Thousand Cadres Conference, submitted on February 11, 1966, by Peng Zhen, member of the Political Bureau of the CPC Central Committee and Secretary of the Central Secretariat. In his submission report, Peng Zhen wrote: "All of us (with Comrade Renzhong participating) discussed it twice and proposed some minor revision suggestions for reference. Please review and approve." This speech was issued by the CPC Central Committee on February 12, 1966, to Party committees at the county and regimental levels, and was publicly published in the People's Daily on July 1, 1978.

In his letter to Mao Zedong on February 4, 1966, Wang Renzhong proposed six purely textual revision suggestions for Mao's speech draft. These revision suggestions by Wang Renzhong were incorporated into the revised draft of the speech submitted by Peng Zhen for review on February 11.