Chapter 7 Investigation and research should be good at grasping the main contradiction [1]

(March 9, 1959) The report of the Hunan Provincial Party Committee on March 8 was received at twelve o'clock in the morning on the 9th.The six-level cadre meeting should be held sooner rather than later.It is right to arrange production first.Counties, communes, brigades and brigades all have one or two strong leaders staying in the local area to direct production, and the farming season must not be missed.However, the provincial general meeting should be held early, and it should be divided into two batches to the province. The first batch has four levels, and the second batch has two levels.There are three levels of cadres in the commune at the conference. Once the policy is released, it will be dismissed immediately. The situation is exposed, which is the best investigation.Save time by not having to do research beforehand.Many comrades have conducted investigations for several months and held many conferences and small meetings. As a result, they turn a blind eye to and listen to a large number of things that exist.The reason is that the method is wrong, and the main contradiction cannot be found.Everyone has read the philosophy and political economy of Marxism, but they have not understood for a long time that the collective ownership of the commune needs a change process from small to large, from quantity to quality, and almost universally deny value, price, etc. and the economic law of equivalent exchange.Isn't that weird? But it's true.Now that we have the guidelines for the Zhengzhou Conference[2], we only need to gather thousands of people from the sixth level and release the guidelines. After a few days, the situation will become clear and our thinking will become clear.The meeting starts early and ends early, which is also beneficial during farming season.

Mao Zedong March 9, 1959 in Zhengzhou at 1:00 p.m. Printed from manuscript. -------------------------------------------------- ------------------------------ note [1] These are comments written by Mao Zedong in the briefing to the Central Committee of the Hunan Provincial Committee of the Communist Party of China on March 8, 1959 on the implementation of the instructions of the Zhengzhou Conference.The briefing mainly reports several decisions of the Provincial Party Committee: (1) Arrange the current production work according to the spirit of the central government's classification and decentralization. (2) The counties are conveying their plans for a leap forward in agricultural production this year, starting with the production gongs and drums. (3) On March 13th, the provincial six-level cadre meeting was held. The first secretary of the county party committee held the meeting for three days, followed by the meeting on the 16th. (4) The provincial party committee and municipal party committees in various places immediately conduct one or two pilot projects to find out the ideological situation of cadres and the masses, and propose specific plans on how to implement the spirit of the Zhengzhou meeting.

[2] Refers to the fourteen-sentence policy for the current rectification and construction of the people's communes stipulated by the enlarged meeting of the Political Bureau of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China held in Zhengzhou from February 27 to March 5, 1959.See page 14 of this volume.