Chapter 9 Intra-Party Correspondence

(March 17, 1959) Comrades, the first secretaries of the party committees of various provinces, cities and districts: Questions about meetings of counties and communes. The six-level cadre conferences at the provincial, city and district levels are coming to an end. Should there be county-level cadre conferences at the fourth or fifth levels? My opinion should be held, and it should be held with great fanfare, but nothing should be published in the newspapers.All counties in Henan are holding four-level cadre meetings, which are very lively and beneficial.The comrades in charge at the provincial level in Henan are directly leading several counties and are guiding the counties with their experience.Hubei, Guangdong, and Jiangsu have arranged for all counties in the province to hold meetings.The Jiangyin County Party Committee in Jiangsu Province has arranged for a meeting of ten thousand people.There are two counties in Henan where there are 10,000 people, and most counties have 4,000 to 5,000 people.I suggest that the county should hold a meeting of cadres at five levels, that is, the county party committee level, the commune party committee level, the production brigade (or management area) level, the production team (that is, the former high-level society) level, and the production team (that is, the production team, also known as Each level must have representatives to participate in the meeting, so that all small team leaders, all branch secretaries and production team leaders of the commune, general branch secretaries and production team leaders of all management areas, and several cadres at the commune level will participate in the meeting.There must be people with different ideas, people from the tide-watching school and the accounting school, preferably one-tenth of them.Activists among commune members can also find a small number of people to attend the meeting.Let all these people hear the speech of the first secretary of the county party committee, because his speech is higher than that of the first secretary of the general commune.Then start a discussion, the speaker is innocent, speak loudly, and for a few days, unify the thoughts.Three kinds of opposites should be confronted at the meeting: one, between grassroots cadres and their superiors (communes and counties); There is a confrontation between the tide-watching faction and account-settling faction (there are many people who are considered to be the tide-watching faction and account-settling faction, but they are not the tide-watching faction and account-settling faction, they have been misunderstood) and nine out of ten positive figures.Three to four days of debate are enough.Then, take three to four days to solve specific problems, and a total of seven or eight days is enough.The county's fifth-level assembly will definitely be more lively and active than the provincial six-level assembly.We should tell the first secretary of the commune party committee and the first secretary of the county party committee how to do their work.In the meeting, these comrades were specially convened to give a speech, so that they were temporarily separated from the masses because of some improper measures in the past few months, promoting the "communist style", collecting money for one level, two adjustments and three collections[1]. In lessons, gain experience.In the future, if you are good at thinking about problems and doing work well, you will be able to mingle with the masses.In addition to the three-level ownership, three-level management, and three-level accounting of communes, management areas (i.e., production brigades), and production teams (i.e., former high-level cooperatives), the issue of partial ownership of production teams (production groups or operation groups) should be discussed. This question was raised by Comrades Wang Renzhong and Tao Lujia[2].I think it makes sense and is worth discussing.The county assembly will be completed in late March, and the commune’s representative assembly will not be held for the whole month of April. During the busy month of production, small meetings will be held to solve specific problems. The production teams will hold party members’ meetings during their spare time. , and then hold a mass meeting to form a national discussion.Because hundreds of people from each commune have held meetings in the county, and the problems have been explained thoroughly, and they can be directly discussed by the whole people during work and leisure.Some counties in Hubei are already conducting nationwide discussions.By May, all communes across the country set aside three days (three days is enough) to hold the first congress of members of the people's communes. The representatives must be men, women, old and young, positive and negative (Don't be rich to turn bad, but have rich middle peasants), discuss some issues, and elect commune management committees.It is recommended that this kind of congress be held four times a year, each time for one day, two days, or at most three days.The first secretary of the commune must learn to be good at leading such meetings.Comrades, our commune party committee secretaries must care about the interests of the masses every day and every day, and always think that their policies and measures must meet the current level of consciousness of the masses and the urgent needs of the masses.Anyone who violates these two rules will definitely not work and will definitely fail.Both the county and prefectural committees should pay attention to strengthening the leadership of the commune, sending politically strong comrades to help the politically weaker commune comrades.Prefectural committees should pay attention to sending people to help lead weaker county committees.Both counties and communes should pay attention to strengthening the leading backbone of the production team (usually the former high-level commune) as the basic accounting unit.The above is just a suggestion. How to deal with it is more appropriate. Please consider and decide and implement it immediately.When the county holds a meeting, all levels of the commune must retain people to lead production, or attend the meeting alternately, so as not to miss the farming season.

Mao Zedong At 7:00 am on March 17, 1959, in Wuchang. Printed from manuscript. -------------------------------------------------- ------------------------------ note [1] One leveling and two adjustments are the main manifestations of the "communist style" in the people's commune movement, that is, equalizing the distribution of the rich and the poor within the scope of the commune; some belongings.3. Receipt means that the bank will take back all the loans issued to the rural areas in the past. [2] Wang Renzhong, then the first secretary of the CPC Hubei Provincial Committee.Tao Lujia, born in Liyang, Jiangsu in 1918, was the first secretary of the Shanxi Provincial Committee of the Communist Party of China at that time.