Comments and Revisions on the Investigative Report “The Educational Revolution in the Countryside Must Rely on the Poor and Lower-Middle Peasants”
(August 1968)


Carry out as instructed.
Printed from Mao Zedong’s handwritten manuscript.


The educational revolution carried out by the various schools of the Shuiyuan People’s Commune in Yingkou County, Liaoning Province, has been quite outstanding. Their most important experience is that the revolutionary teachers and students of the schools have joined forces with the poor and lower-middle peasants, closely relying on them to launch a mass movement for the educational revolution, thereby implementing a system in which the poor and lower-middle peasants take the lead, together with the school’s teachers and students, in managing the schools.


Printed from Mao Zedong’s revised version.


Notes
[1] This investigative report by the Criticism Group of the People’s Daily appeared in the fifty-ninth issue of the “Compilation of Information on the Cultural Revolution,” compiled and printed by the General Editorial Office of the People’s Daily on August 24, 1968. On August 31, Yao Wenyuan, a member of the Central Committee’s Cultural Revolution Leading Group, submitted this report to Mao Zedong, writing: “I think this investigative report is quite good; it contains some very valuable experiences, especially in two areas: placing power in the hands of the poor and lower-middle peasants, and revolutionizing the educational system. Might it be published in the next issue of ‘Red Flag’ with a foreword?” Upon reviewing the report, Mao Zedong changed its subtitle to “A Record of the Experience of Carrying Out the Educational Revolution in the Shuiyuan People’s Commune of Yingkou County” and added a comment, which constitutes Section One of this text. Section Two consists of revisions made to the investigative report; the passages typeset in Song typeface are those added by Mao Zedong. The article was published in the third issue of the journal “Red Flag” on September 10, 1968, and in the People’s Daily on September 16, under the joint byline of investigators from the People’s Daily and Red Flag magazine.