Central Committee of the Chinese Communist Party
August 29, 1958
1. The people’s communes are the logical result of the march of events. Large, comprehensive people’s communes have made their appearance, and in several places, they are already widespread. They have developed very rapidly in some areas. It is highly probable that there will soon be an upsurge in setting up people’s communes throughout the country and the development is irresistible. The basis for the development of the people’s communes is mainly the all-round, continuous leap forward in China’s agricultural production and the ever-rising political consciousness of the 500 million peasants. An unprecedented advance has been made in agricultural capital construction since the advocates of the capitalist road were fundamentally defeated economically, politically, and ideologically. This has created a new basis for practically eliminating flood and drought and for ensuring the comparatively stable advance of agricultural production. Agriculture has leaped forward since right conservatism has been overcome and the old technical norms in agriculture have been broken down. The output of agricultural products has doubled or increased several-fold; in some cases, more than ten times or scores of times. This has further stimulated emancipation of thought among the people. Large-scale agricultural capital construction and the application of more advanced agricultural technique are making their demands on labor power. The growth of rural industry also demands the transfer of some manpower from agriculture. The demand for mechanization and electrification has become increasingly urgent in China’s rural areas. Capital construction in agriculture and the struggle for bumper harvests involve large-scale cooperation, which cuts across the boundaries between cooperatives, townships, and counties. The people have taken to organizing themselves along military lines, to work with militancy, and to lead a collective life, and this has raised the political consciousness of the 500 million peasants still further. Community dining rooms, kindergartens, nurseries, tailoring groups, barber shops, public baths, “happy homes” for the aged, agricultural middle schools, and “red and expert” schools are leading the peasants toward a happier collective life and further fostering ideas of collectivism among the peasant masses. What all these things illustrate is that the agricultural cooperative with scores of families or several hundred families can no longer meet the needs of the changing situation. In the present circumstances, the establishment of people’s communes with all-round management of agriculture, forestry, animal husbandry, side occupations, and fishery, where industry (the worker), agriculture (the peasant), exchange (the trader), culture and education (the student), and military affairs (the militiaman) merge into one, is the fundamental policy to guide the peasants to accelerate socialist construction, complete the building of socialism ahead of time, and carry out the gradual transition to communism.
2. Concerning the organization and size of the communes, generally speaking, it is at present better to establish one commune to a township with the commune comprising about two thousand peasant households. Where a township embraces a vast area and is sparsely populated, more than one commune may be established, each with less than two thousand households. In some places, several townships may merge and form a single commune comprising about six or seven thousand households, according to topographical conditions and the needs for the development of production. As to the establishment of communes of more than ten thousand or even more than twenty thousand households, we need not oppose them, but for the present we should not take the initiative to encourage them.
As the people’s communes grow, there may be a tendency to form federations with the county as a unit. Plans should be drawn up right now on a county basis to ensure the rational distribution of people’s communes.
The size of the communes and the all-round development of agriculture, forestry, animal husbandry, subsidiary production, and fishery as well as of industry (the worker), agriculture (the peasant), exchange (the trader), culture and education (the student), and military affairs (the militiaman) demand an appropriate division of labor within the administrative organs of the communes; a number of departments, each responsible for a particular kind of work, should be set up, following the principle of compactness and efficiency in organization and of cadres taking direct part in production. The township governments and the communes should become one, with the township committee of the Party becoming the Party committee of the commune and the township People’s Council becoming the administrative committee of the commune.
3. Concerning the methods and steps to be adopted to merge small cooperatives into bigger ones and transform them into people’s communes. The merger of small cooperatives into bigger ones and their transformation into people’s communes is now a common mass demand. The poor and the lower-middle peasants firmly support it; most upper-middle peasants also favor it. We must rely on the poor and the lower-middle peasants and fully encourage the masses to air their views and argue it out, unite the majority of the upper-middle peasants who favor it, overcome vacillation among the remainder, and expose and foil rumor-mongering and sabotage by landlord and rich peasant elements, so that the mass of the peasants merge the smaller cooperatives into bigger ones and transform them into communes through ideological emancipation and on a voluntary basis, without any compulsion. As to the steps to be taken, it is of course better to complete the merger into bigger cooperatives and transformation into communes at once; but where this is not feasible, it can be done in two stages, with no compulsory or rash steps. In all counties, experiments should first be made in some selected areas and the experience gained should then be popularized gradually.
The merger of smaller cooperatives into bigger ones and their transformation into communes must be carried out in close coordination with current production to ensure not only that it has no adverse effect on current production, but also becomes a tremendous force stimulating an even greater leap forward in production. Therefore, in the early period of the merger, the method of “changing the upper structure while keeping the lower structure unchanged” may be adopted. The original, smaller cooperatives may at first jointly elect an administrative committee for the merged co-op to unify planning and the arrangement of work; and transform themselves into farming zones or production brigades. The original organization of production and system of administration may, for the time being, remain unchanged and continue as before; and then later, step by step, merge, readjust, and settle whatever needs merging or readjusting and whatever specific questions demand solution during the merger, so as to make sure there is no adverse effect on production.
The size of communes, the speed of carrying out the merger of small cooperatives into bigger ones and their transformation into communes, and the methods and steps to be taken in this connection will be decided in accordance with the local conditions by the various provinces, autonomous regions and municipalities directly under the central authorities. But no matter when the merger takes place, whether before or after autumn, in the coming winter or next spring, the small cooperatives which are prepared to merge should be brought together from now on to discuss and jointly work out unified plans for post-autumn capital construction in agriculture and to make unified arrangements of all kinds for preparatory work for an even bigger harvest next year.
4. Concerning some questions of the economic policy involved in the merger of cooperatives. In the course of the merger, education should be strengthened to prevent the growth of departmentalism among a few cooperatives, which might otherwise share out too much or all of their income and leave little or no common funds before the merger. On the other hand, it must be understood that with various agricultural cooperatives established on different foundations, the amount of their public property, their indebtedness inside and outside the cooperatives, and so on will not be completely equal when they merge into bigger cooperatives. In the course of the merger, the cadres and the masses should be educated in the spirit of communism so as to recognize these differences and not resort to minute squaring of accounts, insisting on equal shares and bothering with trifles.
When a people’s commune is established, it is not necessary to deal with the questions of reserved private plots of land, scattered fruit trees, share funds and so on in a great hurry; nor is it necessary to adopt clear-cut stipulations on these questions. Generally speaking, reserved private plots of land may perhaps be turned over to collective management in the course of the merger of cooperatives; scattered fruit trees, for the time being, may remain privately owned and be dealt with some time later. Shared funds etc. can be handled after a year or two, since the funds will automatically become publicly owned with the development of production, the increase of income, and the advance in the people’s consciousness.
5. Concerning the name, ownership, and system of distribution of the communes. All the big merged cooperatives will be called people’s communes. There is no need to change them into state-owned farms. It is not proper for farms to embrace industry, agriculture, exchange, culture and education, and military affairs at the same time.
After the establishment of people’s communes, there is no need immediately to transform collective ownership into ownership by the people as a whole. It is better at present to maintain collective ownership to avoid unnecessary complications in the course of the transformation of ownership. In fact, collective ownership in people’s communes already contains some elements of ownership by the people as a whole. These elements will grow constantly in the course of the continuous development of people’s communes and will gradually replace collective ownership. The transition from collective ownership to ownership by the people as a whole is a process, the completion of which may take less time—three or four years—in some places, and longer—five or six years or even longer—elsewhere. Even with the completion of this transition, people’s communes, like state-owned industry, are still socialist in character, where the principle of “from each according to his ability and to each according to his labor” prevails. After a number of years, as the social product increases greatly, the communist consciousness and morality of the entire people are raised to a much higher degree, and universal education is instituted and developed, the differences between workers and peasants, town and country, and mental and manual labor—legacies of the old society that have inevitably been carried over into the socialist period, and the remnants of unequal bourgeois rights which are the reflection of these differences—will gradually vanish, and the function of the state will be limited to protecting the country from external aggression but will play no role internally. At that time Chinese society will enter the era of communism where the principle of “from each according to his ability and to each according to his needs” will be practiced.
After the establishment of people’s communes, it is not necessary to hurry the change from the original system of distribution, in order to avoid any unfavorable effect on production. The system of distribution should be determined according to specific conditions. Where conditions permit, the shift to a wage system may be made. But where conditions are not yet ripe, the original system of payment according to workdays may be temporarily retained (such as the system of fixed targets for output, workdays and costs, with a part of the extra output as reward; or the system of calculating workdays on the basis of output). This can be changed when conditions permit.
Although ownership in the people’s communes is still collective ownership and the system of distribution, either the wage system or payment according to workdays, is “to each according to his work” and not “to each according to his needs,” the people’s communes are the best form of organization for the attainment of socialism and gradual transition to communism. They will develop into the basic social units in communist society.
6. At the present stage, our task is to build socialism. The primary purpose of establishing people’s communes is to accelerate the speed of socialist construction and the purpose of building socialism is to prepare actively for the transition to communism. It seems that the attainment of communism in China is no longer a remote future event. We should actively use the form of the people’s communes to explore the practical road of transition to communism.
Central Committee of the Chinese Communist Party
November 3, 1960
Central Committee Letter to the Party Committee of Each Province and District:
1. At the present stage, make certain that ownership by the production brigade is basic in the three-level system of ownership.
2. Firmly oppose the “communist wind” of one equalization and two transfers [absolute egalitarianism and excessive transfer of personnel] and thoroughly rectify it.
3. Strengthen the system of basic ownership by the production brigade.
4. Stabilize the system of partial ownership by the production team. Carry out the “four fixed allocations” policy [fixed targets for output, workdays, and costs, with bonuses for over-fulfillment] and ensure peasant rights to subsidiary agricultural products.
5. Permit commune members to cultivate private plots and engage in family sideline activities.
6. Lessen deductions, enlarge distribution, and ensure income increases for 90 percent of the commune members.
7. Enforce the principle “from each according to one’s ability, to each according to one’s work,” and divide income in the ratio of three parts free supply and seven parts wages.
8. Economize labor and strengthen the first line of agricultural production.
9. Handle the distribution of grain well and manage the communal dining halls well.
10. Restore rural free markets under proper leadership and stimulate the village economy.
11. Genuinely integrate labor and rest and put into effect the holiday system.
12. Boldly mobilize the masses and carry out readjustment of the communes.
We will not change the above measures for at least seven years. The entire nation must study, but cadres especially must study every year during the winter season. Continue this for at least three years.
Approved by the Tenth Plenary Session of the Eighth CCP Central Committee in September 1962
CHAPTER I THE CHARACTER, ORGANIZATION, AND SIZE OF A RURAL PEOPLE’S COMMUNE IN THE CURRENT PHASE
1. A rural people’s commune is an organization merging government administration with commune management. It is a grassroots unit of our socialist society as well as a grassroots unit of our socialist government in rural areas.
A rural people’s commune is constituted on the basis of the union advanced agricultural producers’ cooperatives to accelerate production. For a fairly long period, a people’s commune will serve as a collective economic organization of mutual aid and benefit, implementing the principles of “from each according to his ability,” “to each according to work,” “more pay for more work,” and “one who does not work, neither should he eat.”
Both the economy of collective ownership by the people’s communes and the economy of ownership by the whole people are two forms of the socialist economy. They should support each other and jointly flourish with our national economy. The state should support the collective economy of the people’s communes as much as possible in varying aspects, develop agricultural production, make gradual innovations in farming techniques, and fulfill farm mechanization and rural electrification based on agricultural collectivization within a period of several five-year plans.
2. The basic accounting unit of a people’s commune is a production team. Depending on different local conditions, a people’s commune may be composed of two levels—a commune and production teams; or three levels—a commune, production brigades, and production teams.
3. The organizations at various levels of a people’s commune must enforce the state’s policies and decrees. Under the direction of the state, they should manage and organize production rationally in a manner appropriate to local conditions.
The Party organizations at various levels in a people’s commune must maintain close ties with the masses, consult the masses whenever problems arise, pay heed to their suggestions, and play a leading, central role among the organizations at various levels of a people’s commune.
4. The organizations at various levels of a people’s commune should act in line with the principles of democratic centralism.
The organs of state power of a people’s commune are its people’s congress, the people’s congresses of its production brigades, and the general meetings of its production teams.
The administrative organs of a people’s commune are management committees at various levels.
The supervisory organs of a people’s commune are control commissions at various levels. Relatively small production teams may only appoint a controller instead of setting up a control commission.
All deputies to the people’s congresses of a commune and members of management committees and control commissions should be elected by secret ballot after full deliberation by commune members.
5. The size of the various levels of a people’s commune should be decided by commune members in a democratic way. The size decided should benefit the various levels of a people’s commune in production, management, and unity, under the supervision of the masses.
The size of a people’s commune is based on a town, either large or small. The size of each commune will remain unchanged for a long period once it is decided.
In deciding the size of a production team, it is necessary to consider the area of its land, the distance between plots, the density or scattering of residential quarters, its labor force, the balance between its draft animals and farm implements, conditions for developing diversified undertakings, and so on. The size of a production team will also remain unchanged for a long period once it is decided.
6. Regions that minority nationalities inhabit, pasturage areas, fishing areas, and forestry areas may formulate additional measures in accordance with the basic provisions of this regulation to cope with local situations.
CHAPTER II THE COMMUNES
7. The people’s congresses of the communes are the people’s congresses of towns. The deputies to the people’s congresses of the communes are deputies to the people’s congresses of towns.
Important matters concerning the whole communes should be decided by the people’s congresses rather than by management committees. The commune people’s congresses should hold at least two sessions each year.
8. Deputies to the commune people’s congresses are elected for a term of two years. The deputies should extensively and properly include representatives of commune members engaged in different undertakings: old experienced peasants, rural professional workers, youth, women, minorities, nationalities, dependents of martyrs, army men transferred to civil work, dependents of overseas Chinese, and returned overseas Chinese.
Commune directors and members of the management committees and control commissions should be elected by the commune people’s congresses for a term of two years and may be re-elected for a second term. When electing members to management committees and control commissions, the communes, production brigades, and production terms should ensure that old poor peasants and lower-middle peasants have a preponderance of members.
Communes or brigades that are composed of several different nationalities should make efforts to incorporate members of minority nationalities into the management work.
Incompetent commune directors or members of management committees and control commissions may be dismissed by the commune people’s congresses at any time.
9. The management committees of the communes are the townspeople committees administration (also known as the townspeople governments). They are under the leadership of organs authorized by the county people’s committees and exercise the functions of managing production, construction, finance, grain, trade, civil affairs, culture, education, public health, militia, and mediation in civil disputes.
The commune directors are the town heads.
10. The main tasks of commune management committees are to gear themselves to the needs of the production teams and to fully arouse the aggressiveness of the masses of commune members for boosting farm production, animal husbandry, forestry, side occupations, and fishing. In doing this, they should make investigations and studies, follow the mass line, handle problems correctly, and perform their duties conscientiously rather than monopolize or control everything:
a. They should implement the policies and decrees on the rural people’s communes set forth by the central government; the communes must not violate or change the policies or decrees laid down by the central government; on the other hand, they must urge production brigades and production teams to execute these policies conscientiously and meanwhile check their performance.
b. They should advance their proposals for drafting production plans to the production teams, which should be based on the state’s plans and the factual situation of various production teams but should pay equal attention to the state and collectives’ interests; meanwhile, they may readjust the plans drafted by the production teams reasonably. The readjustment should be made through consultation rather than by force.
c. They should supervise and check the output of various production teams, help the teams solve production problems as soon as possible through discussion with commune members and cadres, improve administration and their work on financial accounting, help the production teams arrange income distribution, and provide support to the production teams that encounter more difficulties than other teams. Moreover, they are forbidden to convene telephone conferences except for urgent matters, to ask for statistics and reports of the production teams without proper reason, or to give blind directions for production.
d. They should popularize measures for increasing production that have been proven efficient through repeated experiments and advanced experience. In doing so, they should take local conditions into account and employ typical examples to show the way and then should advance proposals rather than compel the production teams to follow them.
e. They may coordinate production among the production teams, when necessary. In doing so, they should act in line with the principles of voluntariness and mutual benefit as well as of exchange at equal value. They are prohibited from commandeering labor force, capital goods, or materials without compensation.
f. They should assist and urge the production teams to arrange their capital goods properly: (1) They should select and reserve superior seeds and readjust the varieties of seed, when necessary, according to the principle of exchange at equal value; (2) they should formulate plans for the supply of farm implements, fertilizers, and insecticides, which should be based on the demands of the production teams and the sources of goods, after consulting the supply and marketing cooperatives; meanwhile, they should supervise the supply and marketing cooperatives performing supply work; in addition, they must ensure good quality and complete sets of farm implements and stress efficiency in supplying these capital goods, which should be purchased freely by the production teams themselves rather than be apportioned among the production teams; the production teams have the right to reject goods that are apportioned; (3) they may popularize improved farm implements and transportation means that have been proved efficient through repeated experience, and at the same time, best fit local conditions; and (4) they should take charge of and make the best of all large- and middle-scale farm implements and transportation means owned by the communes.
11. On the premise that it will not hinder the increase of production and the commune members’ income of that year, each management committee may build irrigation facilities and capital construction, such as afforestation, water and soil conservancy, and soil improvement for the whole commune or several production brigades or production teams, according to the demands of production and the possible manpower, material resources, and financial abilities. It may also build irrigation facilities and other capital construction to be used together by several communes. All of these construction projects should be decided after discussion by the people’s congresses of the communes and brigades concerned and by general meetings of the members of the production teams concerned. The decisions are subject to approval at higher levels.
In carrying out construction, the commune management committees should sign contracts with the units concerned, specifying the rights and duties of each unit. They should apportion labor and capital among these units according to the benefits to be derived from the construction. Units that do not benefit from the construction but contribute labor, land, and appendages to the land should be paid or compensated rationally.
The commune management committees should also be responsible for managing and maintaining the irrigation facilities and other farmland capital construction collectively owned by the communes. The irrigation facilities and other farmland capital construction built by several production teams should be managed and maintained by a management organ to be elected jointly by the production brigades or teams concerned under the leadership and direction of the commune to which they are affiliated; a covenant should also be formulated to this end by the production brigades or teams concerned.
The commune management committees and the organizations at various levels of the communes must protect reservoirs, dams, irrigation canals, and ponds and also should make multipurpose use of construction to raise fish and ducks and to grow aquatic plants.
12. To protect, nourish, and utilize the resources of mountains and forests rationally, mountains and forests owned by communes should be transferred to production teams. Mountains or forests unsuited for transfer should still be owned by the communes or production brigades, but are generally to be managed by production teams under contractual arrangements. Mountains or forests unsuitable for management by production teams should be managed by specialized teams organized by the communes or production brigades. The ownership of the mountains or forests and the authority to manage them should remain unchanged for a long term once they are decided.
No matter whether in mountainous areas, in semimountainous areas, in plains, in costal areas, or in other areas, the organizations at various levels of the people’s communes must afforest, protect forests, and conserve soil energetically. Further, they must strictly forbid the wanton felling of trees and the opening up of wasteland at the expense of forests. It is also forbidden to destroy young forests through grazing. The communes, brigades, and production teams should stipulate the amount, items, timing, and places for felling trees each year, according to the resources of the mountains and forests, growth laws of trees, the state’s plans for felling, and the demands of commune members’ livelihood. The responsible units have the right to put a check on felling trees if such felling is inconsistent with state plans or stipulations. A strict system for approving the felling of trees should be established; any unit or individual violating this system should be penalized.
The organizations at various levels of the people’s communes should formulate a covenant for protecting forests, which should be approved by commune members after discussion. Specific personnel for managing forests must be employed. The covenant should stipulate that any units or individuals must plant three trees for every tree they fell and must ensure the growth of the trees.
13. Generally, the commune management committees will not sponsor any enterprises within the next several years. Enterprises that have been initiated but have not measured up to the requirements for normal production and are unwelcome by the masses should be closed. Enterprises that are valuable if maintained should be transferred to handcraft co-operatives or production teams for management, or transformed into individual handicraft industries or domestic side-occupations. Arrangements of this kind should depend on different situations and should be decided by the commune people’s congresses. The individual enterprises may be run continually by the communes or transferred to production brigades with the approval of the commune people’s congresses and ratification by the county people’s committees.
The enterprises operated by the communes should directly serve the development of agriculture and the life of the peasants. They should not hinder agricultural production or increase the burdens of the peasants, nor should they affect the state’s requisitions of agriculture products. These enterprises must strive to carry out economic accounting and democratic management, and make public their accounts on schedule. They have to report the appointment of personnel, the status of production, the utilization of materials, and their revenue and expenditures to the commune people’s congresses on schedule and seek suggestions from members. Embezzlement is prohibited among these enterprises. The cadres of communes or any other individuals are forbidden to capitalize on these enterprises, to eat or take more than their due, to hand out jobs to their associates, or to be extravagant and wasteful.
The profits of the enterprises operated by communes should be used to expand the output and to develop productive undertakings of the communes. Apart from these, part of the profits should be allocated to aid the production teams that encounter difficulties in production.
14. Commune management committees should energetically promote the development of the handicraft industry.
The rural handicraft producers’ cooperatives and cooperative groups are independent units in operation and are under the joint leadership of the county federations of handicraft cooperatives and the communes. The communes should do their best to help the handicraft organizations solve their production difficulties and urge them to conform to the state’s policies and decrees.
The commune management committees should solve the issues for food grain rations for craftsmen in the production teams and handle problems affecting their share in collective distribution in a reasonable way. For craftsmen engaged both in handicrafts and farmwork, the committees should assign farmwork that best fits their situation. Payment for labor contributed by skilled craftsmen should be calculated on a basis different from that of fieldwork and should be according to the particular situation prevailing.
The organizations at various levels of the people’s communes should allow individual craftsmen who have been working around the countryside to continue to do so.
15. Based on the state’s stipulations, the commune management committees should apportion in a rational way the tasks of requisitioning grain and other agricultural and sideline products for the state among the production teams and urge them to accomplish their tasks.
The communes or production brigades must not assign the production teams additional tasks such as requisitioning grain for occasional use or providing grain by themselves other than the tasks stipulated by the state. They are forbidden to assign additional tasks under any sort of classification.
16. Generally speaking, communes and production brigades will not draw public reserve funds and public welfare fund of the production teams within the next several years.
17. According to the basic principles of operating communes industriously and thriftily in a democratic way, commune management committees should check at all times the work of the production teams on finance and on managing materials and help them do a good job. Moreover, they must help the production teams set up a system for managing finance or improving the system that has already been established, urge them to act in line wit the system strictly, utilize capital rationally and prevent corruption and extravagance.
The departments concerned at the county level should frequently check the accounting and financial work of the various levels of the communes and offer assistance, and open training classes to train accountants.
CHAPTER III THE PRODUCTION BRIGADES
18. In the three-level people’s communes [i.e., commune, production brigade, and production team] important matters affecting a production brigade should be decided by its people’s congress. The brigade people’s congresses should meet at least twice a year. The deputies to the brigade people’s congresses should be elected every year. Just like the deputies to the commune people’s congresses, the deputies to brigade people’s congresses should also thoroughly represent the people of varying backgrounds.
The directors of the production brigades and members of the brigade management committees and control commissions shall be elected by the brigade people’s congresses.
The directors of the production brigades and members of the brigade management committees and control commissions shall be elected for a term of one year and may be re-elected for a second term. Incompetent directors or members may be dismissed at any time.
19. The management committee of a production brigade shall manage the production and administrative work of its production teams under the leadership of the commune management committee of the commune to which it belongs:
a. It should help the production teams prepare their production plans.
b. It should correctly direct, examine, and supervise the production, financial management, and distribution of the production teams, and help them to improve administrative work.
c. It should take the lead in building and managing irrigation facilities and other farmland construction utilized by the whole brigade or several production teams and organize the necessary coordination among the production teams to meet the demands of production, according to the principles of voluntariness, mutual benefit, and exchange at equal value.
d. It should take charge of all large- and middle-scale farm machinery, implements, and means of transportation owned by the brigade and make the best of them.
e. It should strive to administer mountains, forests, and enterprises owned by the brigade; conscientiously direct the enterprises jointly run by the production teams; and urge and assist the production teams to administer mountains, forests, and enterprises.
f. It should urge its production teams to fulfill the tasks of requisitioning rain and other agricultural and sideline products for the state, and help them arrange the livelihood of their members.
g. It should take charge of the civil affairs, militia, public order, culture, education, and public health of the whole brigade.
h. It should carry out ideological and political work and implement the policies and decrees set forth by the Party Central Committee.
In performing this work, the brigade management committees should abide by the regulations laid down in Chapter II; and while dealing with the enterprises operated by the brigades, they should adhere to the regulations concerning enterprises run by the communes laid down in article 13 of Chapter II.
Some production brigades still serve as basic accounting units. Efforts should be made to administer these brigades to a satisfactory extent so long as the masses agree. In handling their work, the production brigades should refer to the regulations laid down in Chapter IV on basic accounting units.
CHAPTER IV PRODUCTION TEAMS
20. A production team is the basic accounting unit of a people’s commune. It carries out independent accounting and is responsible for its own gains and losses. It also organizes production and the distribution of its income directly. This system will remain unchanged for at least thirty years once it is determined.
21. The land within the scope of a production team should belong to the team. No land belonging to a production team, including private plots of its members and land used for residence and public centers, is allowed to be sold.
No unit or individual may commandeer the land owned by production teams unless this is approved by people’s committees above the county level after investigation. Land already cultivated should be utilized carefully. Capital construction projects should limit to a minimum the commandeering of land already cultivated.
The labor force of production teams should be under the control of the teams themselves. The communes or production brigades must consult the masses of team members before the requisition labor forms the production teams. The requisitioning of labor will not be permitted without the consent of team members.
No communes or production brigades are allowed to requisition cattle, horses, and farm implements owned by the production teams. Farm implements, small-scale farm machinery, or cattle and horses that originally belonged to the communes or brigades but are better suited for ownership or use by a production team should be transferred to them. Farm implements, machinery, and cattle or horses not suitable for ownership or use by a production team should be retained by the communes or brigades, or may be collectively owned and managed by several production teams.
Mountains, forests, water surfaces, and prairies owned by the collectives but more suitable for ownership by production teams should be transferred to them. Production teams may assign team members the responsibility of managing scattered groves and forests and sign contracts with them, stipulating the distribution of earning from those resources or they may share the scattered groves and forests among team members.
The ownership of land, livestock, farm implements, water surfaces, and prairies stated above and the authority to manage them will remain unchanged for a long period once approved by general meetings of commune members or the people’s congresses. Apart from these, other ownership or authority are also unchangeable for a long period once this is decided at general meetings of commune members or by people’s congresses.
22. Production teams are vested with autonomous rights in production and income distribution.
On the premise that they accept that state’s planning and direction and do not destroy natural resources, production teams have the right to plant and decide how to increase production in a manner and timing suitable to local conditions.
Assuming that they will not erode agricultural land, woodland, and prairies, production teams have the right to open up wasteland, to reclaim barren mountains, and to make full use of all possible resources.
On the premise that it has fulfilled the task of submitting and selling agricultural and sideline products to the state, a production team may distribute among its team members its products and earnings. The manner of doing so should be decided at general meetings of team members after discussion.
23. Based on local conditions, local methods of production, the rotation system, the requirements of the state’s plans, and the demands of production and the livelihood of its members, a production team should prepare its plans for production with overall consideration for the ratio between grain crops and industrial crops as well as of the varieties of grain crops.
While preparing the plans for production, a production team should mobilize the masses to discuss, supplement, or revise the plans to the fullest extent; above all, it must seek the suggestions of the experienced peasants. The production plans should be approved by general meetings of team members.
After its plans for production are approved, a production team should organize the masses to review these plans on schedule so as to ensure their extension.
24. Usually, the production teams should place its main emphasis on developing the production of grain and meanwhile develop energetically the production of cotton, oil-bearing crops, and other industrial crops according to local conditions. Further, they must make full use of natural resources and sideline products of farm crops to develop animal husbandry, fishing, and other side occupations.
Production teams in centralized production areas for industrial crops should give first priority to the planting of such crops.
Production teams in fishing areas should concentrate solely or mainly on fishing.
Production teams in the pasturage areas should concentrate solely or mainly on animal husbandry.
Production teams in the mountainous areas or semimountainous areas should nourish and protect forests effectively and strictly prohibit the excessive felling of trees and the opening up of wasteland at the expense of forests. Furthermore, they must energetically afforest and develop, in a manner appropriate to local conditions, the production of timber, bamboo, economic forests, and firewood, as well as products of mountains and the sideline products of forests. The production teams in the centralized production areas for bamboo should grow bamboo primarily, combining the production of bamboo with the production of grain.
25. The production teams should energetically develop diversified undertakings.
In accordance with local demands and conditions, production teams should energetically develop workshops for processing agricultural and sideline products such as mills, flour mills, bean curd workshops, and oil workshops that have been in operation in the countryside; in addition, they should also develop handicrafts (the manufacture of farm implements, pottery, and knitwear) and cultivation (pigs, breeding cattle, ducks, geese, and bees), transportation, picking, fishing, hunting, and so on.
The diversified undertakings of production teams may adopt varying modes to meet their requirements: some may organize a labor force during slack farm seasons for short-distance transportation, fishing, hunting, or picking; some may organize team members possessing skills to run a variety of processing workshops; some may organize team members to engage in processing with raw materials supplied by production teams.
Production projects that were originally run by the communes or brigades should be taken over by production teams provided that the projects are better suited for operation by the teams and that they would not obstruct agricultural production. Projects too big to be run by a single production team may be jointly operated by several production teams or still by communes or production brigades.
In accordance with the principles of voluntariness and mutual benefit, the diversified undertakings of the production teams must carry out strict economic accounting and democratic management. Their accounts must be publicized on schedule. The products and income of these diversified undertakings should be distributed among team members according to proposals of the general meetings of team members. No one is allowed to eat or take more than his due.
26. The production teams should protect and breed draft animals, cattle, and horses conscientiously. They must employ cattle and horses rationally. Special attention should be paid to the rearing of female livestock, breeding cattle, and young livestock and improving the livestock breed.
Depending on various local conditions, there are various ways to feed the draft animals owned by the collectives. It is permissible to let individual contractors be responsible for feeding and using draft animals or to feed them in the same mangers. The ways of feeding should be decided by team members after discussion. The production teams should guarantee the supply of hay and other fodder for these draft animals.
The production teams should select animal keepers strictly through democratic nomination. Animal keepers who are rich in experience and who show genuine consideration for livestock should remain in their positions and should not be transferred lightly. The units or individuals who perform satisfactorily in using draft animals and in preventing and curing the diseases to which such animals are liable should be given rewards. The masses should investigate the death of draft animals caused by improper management, feeding or use and determine who should be held responsible; personnel involved in such cases should be properly punished.
The production teams should encourage team members to breed livestock. Personnel who are so engaged should be given grain or cash as rewards; or they may have a share of the livestock bred.
The livestock of the production teams may be marketed at trade fairs for sale or exchange. Earning from the sale of livestock may be included as part of the income distribution of that year.
Efforts should be made to train veterinarians especially country veterinarians and to nip various diseases of livestock in the bud.
27. The production teams should strive to take care of their farm implements and try their utmost to buy new farm implements.
Production teams should select team members with a strong sense of responsibility to take charge of farm implements and should strive to have those who use the implements maintain them in good order.
Production teams should train artisans in a planned way to repair farm implements. These artisans should be concurrently farmworkers.
Team members should prepare small-scale farm implements for their own use. Some middle-scale farm implements may also be purchased by team members themselves. Production teams should seek the consent of team members before they borrow farm implements from them and should pay a reasonable fee; in case the farm implements borrowed are damaged, the production teams should pay compensation.
28. The production teams should strive to increase their collection of manure. They should map out annual plans for storing manure and organize team members to store manure at all times. To acquire more backyard manure, production teams should encourage team members to rear domestic animals and poultry. In addition, they must encourage team members to gather manure of varied origin and quality. Some production teams also must enlarge the areas as much as possible for growing plants that can produce manure, if they are able to do so.
Production teams should prescribe reasonably the tasks for team members for submitting or selling manure to them, and pay them on basis of its quality. Payment for manure may be by workpoints or by cash. Team members who submit manure of good quality exceeding quotas prescribed should be given additional cash or goods as rewards.
29. The production teams should organize all able-bodied persons to participate in labor. They must assign, through democratic evaluation, all fully and partially able-bodied males and females the basic attendance dates they are required to contribute, according to the demand of production and individual cases. In stipulating the basic attendance dates for female team members, the teams should take into account their physical condition and household responsibilities. Production teams should also organize all those who are able to undertake auxiliary productive activities to participate in work befitting their physical state and pay them for the work they perform.
30. The production teams must strive to improve the farming techniques of team members. They should enable the old experienced and skillful peasants to play their part to the fullest, invite them as advisers, and listen to and study their suggestions conscientiously. Furthermore, they must organize young people to learn techniques in a planned way and have old hands train greenhorns. In reviewing the course of production, the production teams must examine and evaluate the techniques applied. Team members who make contributions to the techniques and disseminate their technical knowledge enthusiastically should be given rewards.
31. To facilitate the organization of production, production teams should set up specific or temporary operation groups on a short-term, seasonal, or yearly basis by signing contracts with them and assigning them work. In doing this, a strict system of responsibility should be established. A similar system should also be carried out in animal husbandry, forestry, fishing, and other side occupations, as well as in managing livestock, farm implements, irrigation facilities, and other public property. Responsibility may be assumed by groups or individuals.
Groups or individuals who participate in labor energetically, are responsible in management, produce outstanding achievements, or fulfill tasks exceeding their quotas should be given proper rewards; groups or individuals who are unenthusiastic about their labor, irresponsible in management, or fail to fulfill their tasks should be punished by lowering their pay or by other proper penalties.
32. The production teams should pay team members for their labor based on the quality and the amount of work done. In doing so, they must avoid equalitarianism in calculating the labor payment for team members.
Production teams should stipulate various output quotas for labor and place control over the quotas. They should calculate workpoints on the basis of the output quotas. As to work in which a prescribed output is impossible, production teams should, depending on the actual situation, calculate workpoints by evaluating work done.
When stipulating output quotas, the production teams should set up rational standards for calculating workpoints on the basis of techniques needed in the course of work, hardship in working, and the importance of the work for production. Payment for farm at busy farm seasons should be higher than that in normal times; payment or work in farming and animal husbandry that requires high technical skills should be higher than that for ordinary work. Payment for professional activities in the handicraft industry, forestry, fishing, the salt industry, and transportation should be based on standards different from those for farmwork.
In stipulating output quotas or readjusting the standards for payment, production teams should consider not only the amount of fieldwork but also the quality of the work. Output quotas and standards should be approved by general meetings of team members after discussion.
In areas unsuitable for the imposition of output quotas, production teams should calculate conscientiously the workpoints by evaluating the work done.
Regardless of sex or age, cadres, or members, there should be equal pay for equal work. The workpoints earned by each member should be listed in his workpoint handbook on schedule. The workpoints earned by team members should be made public on schedule.
33. Production teams are obliged to fulfill their tasks requisitioning grain, cotton, and oil-bearing crops, as well as agricultural and sideline products for the state. In prescribing these tasks, the state should place equal emphasis on its own interests and on those of collectives and individuals so as to enable the teams that produce more to reserve more.
In accordance with the principle of exchange at equal value, the state should stipulate a rational proportion between the prices of industrial and agricultural products, providing as many industrial products as possible to the production teams in exchange for agricultural products. Areas in which more agricultural products are submitted or sold to the state should be given more industrial products. Areas in which more grain, cotton, and oil-bearing crops are submitted or sold to the state should receive greater attention from the state.
To encourage the development of agricultural production to meet industrial development, while maintaining the desired population proportion between the urban and rural areas, state taxation in agriculture and the total amount of grain requisitioned should be kept stable at an appropriate level within a certain period.
It is necessary to avoid equalitarianism in instituting a standard for grain to be reserved by team members. Production teams that submit more commodity grain on a per capita basis should enjoy higher food grain rations. Production teams that engage mainly in the production of industrial crops, vegetables, forestry animal husbandry, and fishing and thus lack grain should be ensured a food grain ration not lower than that for adjacent grain-producing areas.
34. Production teams must implement conscientiously the principles of “to each according to his work” and “more pay for more work,” and avoid equalitarianism in distribution.
Production teams should make every effort to increase output, save labor force and expenses used for production, put expenditure for nonproductive use under strict control, and uphold more share in distribution rather than deduction. Further, they must try their best to raise the value of workpoints team members earn, thus increasing the income of the members.
Production teams may adopt various measures to distribute grain to team members, and at the same time must conform to their own situation and consider suggestions made by the majority of team members. It is permissible to use the practice of integrating basic rations with distribution based on workpoints, or to use the practice of distribution according to workpoints plus consideration for special cases, or adopt other proper measures. Whatever the case, the grain should be distributed as to stimulate the labor aggressiveness of team members and ensure normal food grain rations for the dependents of martyrs, of servicemen, of staff and workers, and of peasant households with too many members but little manpower.
Food grain rations for team members should be delivered to their living quarters and controlled by team members themselves.
According to the results of harvests, production teams may set aside some grain for reserves as decided at a general meeting of team members. Grain reserves are to be stored against war and natural disasters, or be used to aid other production teams when they are short of grain. The grain reserves borrowed must be returned in full. Also, they may be used to subsidize needy households and “five guarantees” households. Usually, the amount of grain reserves of a production team is less than 1 percent of the total amount of its distributable grains that are left over after it submits the stipulated amount of grain to the state. The amount of grain reserves should not exceed 2 percent at most. The grain reserves in good harvest may be more than in those normal harvest years. The grain reserves of production teams should be kept by the teams themselves. Communes or brigades are forbidden from requisitioning the reserves. The use of grain reserves should be decided at general meetings of team members after discussion. A system for managing grain reserves, which meanwhile facilitates supervision by the masses, should be established to prevent the cadres from eating or taking more than their due.
35. The amount of the public reserve funds of a production team should be decided at general meetings of team members after serious discussion on the basis of annual demands and possibilities. Usually, public reserve funds will be limited to less than 3–5 percent of its distributable revenue.
A few high-income production teams located in production areas for industrial crops, forestry, or suburbs may set aside relatively more income for public reserve funds. Production teams that suffer severe natural disasters may set aside less income for reserve funds or cancel them.
The use of public reserve funds should be decided at general meetings of team members after discussion rather than by a few cadres.
Expenditure in capital construction by a production team and its investment in expanding production should be drawn from its public reserve funds. Labor days for capital construction and for production should be calculated separately. With the approval of general meetings of team members, each able-bodied team member should contribute a certain number of labor days each year to capital construction projects for the use of production; this contribution should be regarded as the labor accumulation of the collective economy. Labor days of this kind should usually be limited to under 3 percent of basic attendance dates required as a contribution by commune members each year. Contributed labor days exceeding this stipulation deserve a payment that should be issued from public reserve funds.
The labor of production teams for repairing small-scale irrigation facilities, such as drains, ponds, and dams, and for improving the soil should be paid by workpoints in the same way as that for production and should have a share in the distribution of that year.
36. Production teams may set aside a certain amount of the distributable revenue for public welfare funds to be used for social security and collective welfare undertakings. The amount of public welfare funds should be decided at general meetings of team members after serious discussion in accordance with annual demands and possibilities; public welfare funds should be limited to less than 2 or 3 percent of the total distributable revenue.
The use of public welfare funds should be decided at general meetings of team members after discussion rather than arbitrarily by a few cadres.
Subject to approval of general meetings, production teams should support or subsidize team members who have lost their independence because they have aged; have become weak, orphaned, widowed, or disabled; or have met unfortunate difficulties in earning a livelihood. Proper preferential treatment should also be given to the dependents of martyrs and of servicemen and disabled servicemen who find it difficult to earn a livelihood. Households with too many members but inadequate manpower should be assigned appropriate work according to their capacity for work so that they are able to increase their income; in addition, production teams may issue them necessary subsidies with the approval of a general meeting of team members after discussion. All of these supports and subsidies should be drawn from public welfare funds. The subsidies for team members injured on official assignments or the pension for dependents of team members who died while discharging official assignments should also be drawn from public welfare funds.
37. Production teams should be run industriously and economically. They should be very careful in reckoning affairs, stress efficiency, and resolutely object to extravagance and wastefulness.
The production teams should set up a sound system for managing finances. All expenditures should be approved before they are used. Accountants have the right to reject any expenditure inconsistent with regulations. Production teams should make public the revenue and expenditure each month. Grain and other agricultural and sideline products belonging to production teams should be so scrupulously kept that embezzlement, misappropriation, and other losses are prevented. Specific personnel should be employed to take charge of grain, materials, finance, and accounting. Team directors should examine and supervise the work on finance and the storing of materials, but must not be in personal charge of cash and materials.
38. Production teams should be run in a democratic way and should arouse the enthusiasm of members for becoming masters.
Important matters of the production teams concerning output and distribution should be decided by general meetings of team members after discussion rather than by cadres. Before meetings, the production teams should outline their various programs to team members, clearly explain concrete measures for implementing the programs and seek their suggestions. After full discussion, the general meeting of team members should make decisions in a democratic way.
Team members should convene general meetings on schedule, at least once every month. Meetings may also be specially convened to meet the demands of production and distribution and the requests of team members.
The directors, accountants, and members of management committees and control commissions of the production teams should be elected at general meetings of team members for a one-year term and may be re-elected for a second term.
The direction of teams should be assumed by peasants who come from a good class, perform satisfactory work, have much experience in agricultural production, know how to consult the masses, and also are fair and just in conducting business.
Incompetent team directors, accountants, members of management committees and control commissions, or controllers may be dismissed at any time by general meetings of team members.
The team management committees should submit at least one work report to general meetings of team members each month. The work reports should include important matters in which team members are interested, such as the revenue and expenditure of the production teams, the amount of materials stored, the number of workpoints team members earned, the amount of manure offered or sold, and the amount of grain or cash distributed. All of these matters should be explained one by one to team members who have the right to raise questions, offer criticism, and make suggestions.
Team management committees should pay careful attention to various suggestions of team members at all times and act in accordance with suggestions by the majority, meanwhile safeguarding the democratic rights and economic interests of the minority.
CHAPTER V DOMESTIC SIDE OCCUPATIONS OF COMMUNE MEMBERS
39. The domestic side occupations of the members of the people’s communes are necessary supplements to the socialist economy. They pertain to the economy of collective ownership as well as to the economy of ownership by the whole people, serving as their auxiliaries. On the condition that they would strive to develop the collective economy, not hinder the development of the collective economy, and guarantee the absolute preponderance of the collective economy, the people’s commune should allow and encourage their members to avail themselves of their leisure time and the holidays to develop domestic side occupations, increase the output of society, augment the members’ income, and enliven the rural markets.
40. The members of the people’s communes may engage in the following domestic side occupations:
a. Cultivating private plots distributed by the collectives. The area of private plots normally accounts for 5–7 percent of the cultivated land of production teams. These private plots are for use by the households of commune members and will remain unchanged for a long time. In areas where there are wooded hills and barren slopes, the production teams may, based on the needs of the masses and old customs, allot to team members an appropriate number of private hills to be managed by them. The private hills, once allotted, will also remain unchanged.
b. Raising livestock and poultry, such as pigs, sheep, rabbits, chickens, ducks, and geese, or raising sows, cattle, and horses. To develop pig breeding so as to provide more manure for the collective economy, the production teams may, wherever needed and suitable, allot to their members an appropriate number of fodder plots in accordance with their local land conditions and after the discussion of team members. Fallow land or small lots of wasteland should be used as much as possible to this end.
c. After discussion by the general meetings of production teams and approval of communes or production brigades, fractional wasteland may be opened up under a unified programming. The acreage of land thus opened up may normally be the same as that of private plots. It may be a little less where there is a smaller population, and a little more where the population is larger.
In opening up wasteland, it is absolutely forbidden to destroy soil, mountains, forests, prairies, or irrigation facilities or to disrupt communications.
The combined area of private plots, fodder plots, and reclaimed wasteland owned by production team members varies with different local conditions. Under normal conditions, the acreage may account for 5–10 percent of the cultivated land of a production team, or 15 percent at most.
d. Engaging in domestic handicraft production, such as knitwear, sewing, embroidery, and the like.
e. Engaging in such side occupations as picking, fishing, hunting, sericulture, apiculture, and so on.
f. Managing private fruit trees and bamboos distributed by the collectives. Team members may plant fruit trees, mulberry trees, and bamboos around their houses or at other places specified by the production teams. These plants will belong to team members forever.
When engaging in domestic side occupations, team members should pay the collectives proper fees whenever they use the means of production owned by the collectives, such as livestock or implements.
41. The products and earnings that team members gain from domestic side occupations belong to, and are at the disposal of, the team members. After fulfilling the contracts of purchase they signed with the state, team members may sell the products at the fairs except those specifically restricted by the state.
The agricultural products grown by team members on their private plots and reclaimed wastelands are not included in the reckoning of the output and the food grain rations to be distributed by the collectives. The state will not impose farm tax on products of this kind, nor will they be subject to requisition.
42. The management committees at various levels of the people’s communes should offer commune members who undertake domestic side occupations necessary instruction and assistance and should not interfere without proper reason. At the same time, they must instruct commune members to pay equal regard to the interests of the state and the collectives to actively participate in and show concern for collective production, to avoid infringing public interests, not to quit farming to go into business, and not to engage in speculation.
For team members who encounter difficulties in earning their living, the production teams should help them solve difficulties and increase their income by enabling them to undertake some side occupations, such as pig breeding, knitwear, and the like.
43. In accordance with the principles of voluntariness and mutual benefit, the organizations at various levels of the people’s communes, the supply and marketing cooperatives, the handicraft cooperatives, and the state-run enterprises specified by the state may adopt a variety of ways, including processing, placing orders for their products, purchasing raw materials for them, marketing their products on their behalf, purchasing their products, or having team members rear public-owned livestock, to help team members develop domestic side occupations, combining domestic side occupations with the collective economy or the state-run economy.
CHAPTER VI COMMUNE MEMBERS
44. The members of the people’s communes enjoy all the rights to which they are entitled within the communes in respect of politics, economics, culture, and welfare. The organizations at various levels of the people’s communes should respect and safeguard all the rights vested in team members.
In the communes composed of several nationalities, commune members from different nationalities should have common respect for different customs and should befriend and cooperate with one another.
All means of subsistence including houses, furniture, clothes, bicycles, and sewing machines owned by individual commune members and their deposits in banks or credit cooperatives belong to commune members forever and should be safeguarded; no encroachment upon this ownership is allowed.
All the means of production including farm implements and tools owned by individual commune members and their livestock should belong to commune members forever and should be safeguarded; none is allowed to encroach upon this ownership.
A system for vacations should be carried out by arranging labor time in accordance with the usual farming practices and with the busy or slack farm seasons so as to achieve a proper ration between labor and leisure.
Concern must be shown for the physical health of commune members, and the security of commune members in labor must be safeguarded. Proper subsidy should be furnished to commune members injured while on official assignments. Dependents of commune members who died while carrying out official assignments should be given proper pension. Special care should also be taken of the physiological peculiarities of female commune members and the growing youths participating in labor. Female commune members on maternity leave who have difficulties in learning a living should be properly subsidized.
Commune members have the right to make suggestions, to take part in discussion and vote, to offer criticism, and to exercise supervision in the production, distribution, welfare, and expenditure of the communes or brigades. This right is under the protection of the people’s government and is not to be violated by anyone.
Commune members have the right to indict to higher authorities any cadres of communes or brigades of violation of the law and discipline. This right is under the protection of the people’s government; none is allowed to obstruct the exercise of such right or to resort to retaliation.
45. The houses of commune members belong to the members forever. Commune members have the right to buy, sell, or rent their houses. In doing so, a contract may be signed between the buyer and the seller or between the homeowner and the tenant, through a go-between assessing a fair and reasonable rental or price.
No units or individuals may compel commune members to move. Without commune members’ personal consent or paying reasonable rental or price, no organs, groups, or units can occupy the houses of commune members. In case the houses of commune members must be commandeered for construction or other purposes, the regulations on commandeering private houses promulgated by the State Council must be strictly observed. Compensation must be paid and the moved households properly resettled.
The organizations at various levels of the state and the people’s communes should offer commune members all possible aid in manpower and material for constructing their houses. The sites for commune members to construct houses should be mapped out by the production teams. Occupying cultivated land for residential purpose should be avoided wherever possible.
46. All members of the people’s communes should heighten their socialist consciousness and fulfill their obligations to the communes. Each member is required to abide by the state policies and decrees and carry out the decisions made by the commune people’s congresses and general meetings of commune members.
Each commune member must care for the collectives, voluntarily observe labor discipline, and struggle against the phenomena of impairing the collective economy and subverting labor discipline.
Each commune member must do his or her basic daily stint and complete the stipulated tasks of submitting or selling manure.
Each commune member should take good care of the public property of the state, communes, and brigades, protecting them from damage.
Commune members should heighten their revolutionary vigilance and guard against the restoration of feudal forces and the sabotage activities of counterrevolutionaries.
CHAPTER VII CADRES
47. The organizations at various levels of the people’s communes must practice rigorous retrenchment, reducing, whenever possible, the number of those cadres who completely or partially turn away from productive activities and cutting to a minimum the number of the subsidized workpoints given to cadres. The number of the subsidized workpoints given to cadres of the communes or production brigades should be discussed and approved by the people’s congresses or general meetings of commune members and ratified by the superior level, rather than arbitrarily decided by cadres.
The number of cadres at the commune level should be rigorously limited to that stipulated by the state in accordance with the size of the communes and the principle of retrenchment. It is forbidden to exceed this limit.
The number of cadres of a production brigade should be deliberated and decided by its people’s congress in accordance with its size and the principle of retrenchment. After it is approved by the management committee of the people’s commune to which it is affiliated, the number decided on should be submitted to the county people’s committee (the county people’s government) to be kept on record. The cadres of the production brigades must not completely turn away from productive activities; they can only partially turn away from their work in production.
The number of cadres of a production team should be decided by general meetings of team members in accordance with its size and the principle of retrenchment, and should also be too many. All the cadres of production teams are required to engage in production.
48. The cadres at various levels of the people’s communes should establish the concept of serving the people, working as sincere servants of the people. They must show concern about the livelihood of the masses, always keep the masses in mind, share their joys and hardships and oppose individualization. They are prohibited from practicing graft, sharing bribes, or eating and taking more than their due.
The cadres at various levels of the people’s communes should have a correct understanding of the identity of interests of the state and the masses, correctly combining their responsibility to the state with that to the masses. When encountering difficulties in executing the superiors’ directives, they may report to the superior level and submit their own suggestions.
The cadres at various levels of the people’s communes must implement conscientiously the three main rules of discipline and the eight points for attention laid down for all Party and state cadres. The three rules of discipline are: (1) conscientiously execute the policies set forth by the Party Central Committee and the laws and decrees of the state, and actively participate in socialist construction; (2) implement democratic centralism; and (3) reflect the true situation. The eight points for attention are: (1) show concern for the livelihood of the masses; (2) take part in collective labor; (3) deal with people on an equal footing; (4) consult the masses about work and be fair and square in conducting affairs (5) identify themselves with the masses and not hold themselves aloof from the masses; (6) have no say in matters without investigations; (7) act in accordance with factual situation; and (8) heighten the proletarian class-consciousness and meanwhile raise the political level.
49. The cadres at all levels of the people’s communes must uphold the democratic work style and oppose decrees by force. They must establish correct leadership on the basis of democracy and oppose laissez-faire. They are forbidden to suppress democracy or seek revenge. They should discuss problems with the masses on an equal footing and let people with different opinions speak their minds freely. They should deal with commune members having different opinions by consultation rather than by force and refrain from making false accusations. They are strictly forbidden to beat or scold the people and impose corporal punishment in any shape or form. They are also strictly prohibited from punishing commune members by means of “withholding food rations,” excessively deducting workpoints, or excluding them from fieldwork.
50. Cadres at all levels of the people’s communes must learn administration, management, and production, raising their professional standard. At the same time, they must participate in labor along with commune members.
Depending on different working conditions, the cadres at the commune level should engage in collective labor in the production teams for certain days, sixty days at least in a whole year. Furthermore, they would ensure that their work reaches a certain standard in quality and quantity.
The cadres of the production brigades and teams should take an active part in labor in the capacity of ordinary commune members and their work should be evaluated and workpoints given in the same way as ordinary commune members. Each cadre of the production brigade had better always participate in labor in one particular production team. The cadres of the production brigades are required to work at least 120 days in a whole year.
To compensate the cadres of production teams for reduced income due to loss of work time for official reasons, fixed subsidies or subsidiaries for the loss of work time should be awarded according to the workload of each cadre after discussion and decision by team members. The subsidized workpoints for the cadres of production teams generally should be limited to no more than 1 percent of the total workpoints.
Cadres of the production brigades who partially turn away from productive activities can be subsidized either by the state or by the production teams with a certain number of workpoints. In the areas where the latter way is adopted, the total subsidized workpoints issued to the cadres of a production brigade and its production teams may be a little more than 1 percent of the total workpoints of the production teams, but should not exceed 2 percent.
In case counties or units above counties summon the cadres of the production brigades and production teams to conferences, they should not only bear these cadres’ travel and food expenses, but also issue them proper subsidies. The production teams will give them no more workpoints.
51. The appointment and dismissal of the personnel at all levels of the people’s communes and any reward and penalty should conform to the stipulated procedures. It is forbidden to appoint cronies or indulge in favoritism and corruption. Any appointment, dismissal, reward, or penalties inconsistent with procedures are invalid.
CHAPTER VIII SUPERVISORY ORGANIZATIONS AT VARIOUS LEVELS OF THE PEOPLE’S COMMUNES
52. The control commissions or controllers of the production teams and the control commissions of the production brigades are under the leadership of the control commissions of the communes, which are under the jurisdiction of the county people’s committees. The central supervisory organs may directly oversee the work of the supervisory organizations at various levels of the people’s communes.
53. The functions of the various levels of supervisory organizations of the people’s communes are as follows:
a. Investigating whether or not the cadres of the management committees violate the state policies or decrees, the provisions of these Regulations, and the decisions made by the people’s congresses and by the general meetings of commune members.
b. Investigating whether or not the cadres violate the civil and other rights of commune members, and whether there are other violations of the law and discipline.
c. Inspecting the accounts of cash and inventories of the management committees of the same and lower levels, enterprises, and collective welfare undertakings; checking whether or not their income and expenditure are proper or at variance with the fiscal system.
d. Investigating wrongdoings including favoritism, corruption, extravagance, wastefulness, eating or taking more than one’s due, embezzlement, misappropriation, and destroying public property.
e. Accepting the accusations of commune members, their prosecutions, and complaints.
f. Attending the meetings of the management committees of the same or lower levels.
g. Interrogating the management committees and other organizations or personnel of the same or lower levels. The organizations or people interrogated should be responsible for giving prompt answers.
h. Organizing, whenever necessary, special personnel to conduct inspection and investigation. All units and personnel concerned are under obligation to supply information.
For serious problems, the supervisory organizations at various levels of the people’s communes should submit their accusations or prosecutions to the superior supervisory organs and judiciaries, even up to the supervisory commission of the Party Central Committee, the Supreme People’s Procuratorate, and the Supreme People’s Court.
When encountering obstruction and resistance in their work, the supervisory organizations of the people’s communes have the right to report to their superior levels, including the central supervisory organ for resolution.
54. Cadres serving on the management committees at various levels of the people’s communes, accountants, cashiers and custodians of the communes, and the managers of enterprises and undertakings run by the communes or production brigades are ineligible for membership of the control commissions or for being a controller.
CHAPTER IX PARTY ORGANIZATIONS IN THE PEOPLE’S COMMUNES
55. According to its size and number of Party members, each people’s commune may set up a Party committee, or a general Party branch committee, or a Party branch committee. According to its size and number of Party members, each production brigade may set up a general Party branch committee or a Party branch committee. The Party committees, general Party branch committees, and Party branch committees are the grassroots rural organizations of the Chinese Communist Party, serving as the nucleus of leadership in rural work.
56. The Party organizations in the people’s communes must strengthen the leadership in the work of all levels and units of the people’s communes in conformity with Party guidelines and policies, but must not take it upon themselves the duties of the management committees at various levels. The work and duties of the communes and brigades should be handled by the management committees. The Party organizations in the people’s communes must give priority to the work on education and training of the cadres, especially those of the production teams.
The Party organizations of the people’s communes should discuss and study periodically the work performed by the people’s congresses, general meetings of commune members, management committees, and control commissions of various levels.
As for important issues concerning production, the life of the masses, the execution of the policies, decrees and plans of the state, etc., the Party organizations should first fully deliberate them within the Party, and then study together with commune members and non-Party cadres, and then bring the Party’s proposals before the general meetings of commune members, the people’s congresses, the management committees, or control commissions for discussion. Implementation should be ensured after they are announced.
57. The Party organizations in the people’s communes should do a good job in ideological and political work.
They must propagate among Party members, League members, and the masses Marxism-Leninism, Mao Zedong Thought, as well as the Party’s General Line for Socialist Construction, the Great Leap Forward, and the People’s Communes. Further, they must educate them in socialism, patriotism, collectivism, and worker-peasant alliance, as well as current affairs and policies, so as to consolidate the people’s communes ideologically and politically.
They must carry out regularly the class education of the proletariat and the education in the Constitution of the Party and that of the League among Party members and League members.
They must teach Party members, League members, and cadres to care for the opinions of the masses at all times.
They must teach Party members, League members, and cadres to correctly implement the Party’s class line in the rural areas, rely on the old poor peasants and middle-lower peasants and firmly unite with other middle peasants. They must strengthen the solidarity among the laborers from different nationalities.
58. The Party organizations in the people’s communes must assume the leadership in the work of the Communist Youth League and the Conference of Women’s Delegates, enabling them to play well their part as links between the Party and the masses.
The Party organizations in the people’s communes must strengthen their leadership in militia work, to ensure that the military equipment of the militia is in the hands of the activist elements of old, poor, lower-middle peasants who are politically reliable.
59. The Party organizations in the people’s communes should improve their organized living, strengthen the Party’s organization and discipline, and put an end to such phenomena as the shirking of responsibilities and laxity in organized living, with the Party branches playing the role of a fortress and Party members the role of a paragon.
They should periodically convene meetings of Party groups and rallies of Party branches, intensify Party members’ study in the Party policies and the Party Constitution, examine Party members’ work among the masses, and carry out criticism and self-criticism.
The Party committees of the communes and their affiliated general Party branch committees or Party branch committees should hold elections at intervals as stipulated in the Party Constitution. In doing so, they must give full play to democracy within the Party and listen attentively to the suggestions of the masses.
Recruiting or punishing Party members must be strictly in conformity with the procedures set forth in the Party Constitution.
The Party committees of the communes must do a good job in scrutinizing Party members, tighten up and purify the Party organizations, and guard against bad elements and elements of other parties worming their way into the Party.
60. The Party organizations in the people’s communes must strictly observe democratic centralism and act upon the principle of combining collective leadership with division of labor and the sharing of responsibilities. All important issues should be discussed in meetings rather than being left to the personal decision of secretaries. During the discussion, individuals attending the meeting should be enabled to voice adequately their opinions. Decisions should be made collectively, abiding by the principle that the minority is subordinate to the majority. After the decisions are made collectively by the Party committees, Party organizations and personnel concerned must act upon them in an earnest and responsible manner.
Zhongfa [1970] No. 70
Chairman Mao’s Instructions: Approved for Distribution
The Revolutionary Committees of all provinces, municipalities, and autonomous regions; all military regions, provincial military districts, and group armies; all headquarters, the military, and arms; the CPC Central Committee and all ministries and commissions:
The Report of the State Council on the Northern Districts Agricultural Conference (draft) brought back by provincial representatives attending the meeting for discussion and implementation has proved that it can advance the role of “grasping revolution and promoting production” and solve some urgent problems.
The central government now officially approves this report, expecting all provinces to enforce it based on local context. At the same time, agricultural development plans of all provinces, municipalities, and autonomous regions should be formulated in mid-December this year, in accordance with this report and the conception of the fourth Five-Year Plan for Agricultural Development.
December 11, 1970
(Please circulate this piece to all counties)
To: Chairman Mao, Vice-Chairman Lin, and the CPC Central Committee
We held the Northern Regional Agriculture Conference from August 25 to October 5. The attendees included provincial-, city-, and county-level delegates from fourteen provinces, municipalities, and autonomous regions located in Northern China; lower and lower-middle peasants from progressive communes and brigades; and delegates from other provinces, municipalities, autonomous regions, and PLA Production and Construction Corps, totaling 1,259 people.
Delegates first went on a study tour to Dazhai Brigade and Xiyang County, and then to the conference in Beijing. They studied the important instructions from Chairman Mao and Vice- Chairman Lin, carried out large-scale revolutionary criticism, summarized and exchanged the experience of learning from Dazhai, studied the relevant policy issues in the current rural work, and discussed the design and measures of the fourth Five-Year Agricultural Plan.
During the conference, delegates enthusiastically studied the communiqué of the Second Plenary Session of the Ninth Central Committee of the CPC, the remarks made by Vice Chairman Lin at the celebration ceremony of twenty-first anniversary of the National Day, and the National Day’s editorials published on central newspapers and magazine. The conference unanimously agreed to resolutely respond to the call of the Plenary Session, adhere to the continued revolution under the dictatorship of the proletariat, adhere to Chairman Mao’s proletarian revolutionary line and policy, and continue to complete the fighting missions identified by the Ninth National Congress.
1. The New Upsurge in Agricultural Production Is on the Rise
At the present time, the situation is excellent both domestically and internationally. Under the unified and successful guidance of the Ninth National Congress, a new upsurge in the socialist agricultural production is on the rise.
First, the tasks of struggle, criticism, and correction are carried out step by step among the vast majority of communes and brigades. Large-scale revolutionary criticism, “One-Strike-Three-Anti Campaign,”4 and the party-building movement continue to be deepened. The combat preparedness work has been greatly strengthened. The mass lower and lower-middle peasants have been improving their consciousness of class struggle and line struggle. An active revolution prevails in the countryside.
Second, the mass movement of Learning Agriculture from Dazhai has a new progress. There is an emergence of not only thousands of Dazhai-type communes and brigades, but also Dazhai-type counties.
Third, the agricultural production has experienced a bumper harvest for eight consecutive years and is anticipated to continue the trend this year. In 1969, the municipal grain yield per mu in Beijing, Shanghai, and Zhejiang exceeded the requirement of the “Program.”5 Among the fourteen provinces, municipalities, and autonomous regions in northern regions, there were 84 counties, 1,251, communes and 26,613 brigades that had more grain production than the requirement of the “Program.” This year there will be more counties, communes, and brigades. Hebei, Shandong, and Henan Provinces, where food shortage pervaded for a long time, have initially achieved food self-sufficiency through the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution. This is a great thing with strategic significance.
Fourth, the farmland construction is developing rapidly. From last winter to this spring, the country’s high-yielding farmland has increased more than 30 million mu, reaching 450 million mu, of which the fourteen northern provinces, municipalities, and autonomous regions added 13 million mu, totaling 150 million mu.
Fifth, the industries for agriculture, especially the “five small” industries, are developing rapidly. It is estimated that the national steel production of small iron and steel plants will reach 1.8 million metric tons and pig iron production will reach 3.3 million metric tons. About 90 percent of the counties around the country will be equipped with agricultural machinery repair factories.
Now, the collective economy of our people’s communes is more consolidated. Food and most of the cash crops have been able to meet the basic needs of national construction and people’s livelihood. This is the great victory of Chairman Mao’s revolutionary line and the great victory of the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution.
The conference pointed out that in the past, the development of agricultural production was largely affected by the disruption and destruction of the antirevolutionary revisionist line led by Liu Shaoqi, the renegade, traitor, and scab. Currently, China’s grain yield per unit area is still relatively low. The capability of disaster resistance and management is not strong. The grain reserve is not adequate. The level of agricultural mechanization is not high. Especially in the fourteen northern provinces, municipalities, and autonomous regions with nearly half of the national population, the reliance on food delivery from southern China has not yet been completely reversed. This situation is incompatible with the requirements of “preparing against natural disasters for the people,” the development of national economy, and the expectation that “China should make a greater contribution to the mankind.” We must work harder and double our efforts to promote agricultural production and grab back the time delayed by a handful of counterrevolutionary revisionists like Liu Shaoqi.
2. Learning Agriculture from Dazhai
Delegates visited Dazhai, listened to the experience of Xiyang County, studied the editorial titled “Learning Agriculture from Dazhai” in People’s Daily, and experienced a huge shock to their mind-sets. They have also enhanced their confidence, improved the morale, and solved two major problems:
First of all, it is clarified that which should be learned from Dazhai. That is to learn Dazhai brigade’s consistent adherence to the principle of proletarian politics in command and Mao Zedong Thought in leadership, to learn its self-reliance and hard-working spirit, and to learn its communism-type patriotism and collectivism in the three revolutionary movements of class struggle, production struggle, and scientific experiments. In a word, that is to educate the peasants with the great Mao Zedong Thought like the Dazhai Party branch. This is the primary and fundamental experience of Dazhai. The material and spirit can be interchangeable. Once the masses master the Mao Zedong Thought, then there comes a direction, a driver, and a way through which we can change the people, the land, and the production and overturn the earth. As for some specific methods of operation, management, and production techniques, those should be the secondary lessons to be learned from Dazhai and cannot be replicated regardless of local conditions.
Secondly, it is clarified that in order to disseminate the Dazhai experience, we must firmly stick to the guideline of class struggle, starting from resolving the leadership problems underlying communes and brigades at all levels and the revolutionization issues within the leadership, particularly at the county level. Why are people from some communes and brigades unable to carry out the mass movement of Learning from Dazhai? Where does the resistance come from? According to the comrades of Xiyang County, this is mainly because some leadership teams are infiltrated by the rogues; some cadres cannot distinguish from the enemies whom they collude with; some are keen on the capitalism road; some are the so-called yes-men who show little enthusiasm about socialism and thus unleash the proliferation of capitalism. There are other Party members whose mind-set still stays in the stage of democratic revolution and cannot reach the gateway to the socialist revolution. Lower and lower-middle peasants from Xiyang made a good point about it. Their sayings include “Learn from Dazhai, chase after Dazhai, one cannot learn well without power in hand,” ”learn well or not, leadership is the pivot.” Xiyang County firmly seized this key; scrutinized over four hundred county branches one by one; carried out large-scale revolutionary criticism, Party rectification, and “One-Strike-Three-Anti” campaigns in three years; and mobilized the masses to unveil the class struggle of the society and within the Party. Following Chairman Mao’s guidance of “attacking less and educating more” and the policy of “getting rid of the old and bringing in the new,” they have strictly differentiated two types of contradictions, united and educated the majority of cadres, removed a handful of rogues inside the Party leadership, saved a group of cadres from wrongdoings, and elected a large number of new leaders. As a result of these efforts, the spirit of leadership at all levels was renewed, the mass movement of Learning from Dazhai was spread across the county, the total grain production doubled in three years, the yield per mu surpassed the requirement of the “Program,” and Xiyang turned into a Dazhai-type county. The conference believed that the experience from Xiyang was representative and other counties should study and promulgate it based on their own situations. Now, many counties have their own “Dazhai.” While studying Xiyang’s experience, they should ask themselves the following questions: If Xiyang can do it, why cannot we? If we cannot do it in one year or two, can we achieve it in three years? Or four or five years?
Dazhai is a red flag advocated by the great leader Chairman Mao. “Learning Agriculture from Dazhai” is the great call of Chairman Mao. All delegates agreed that determining whether to learn from Dazhai or not was of great importance in choosing the line of agriculture. All delegates expressed their resolution to say, “under the same dome, on the same ground, with the same sun and the leadership of Chairman Mao, what Dazhai is capable of, we can achieve as well.”
3. Deepen Class Struggle and Two-Line Struggle
Chairman Mao taught us: “socialism is the only way for China’s agriculture.” Since the founding of the PRC, the intense conflict between the two lines in the rural areas has always revolved around the fundamental question of which line should be taken. Liu Shaoqi and his agents have long opposed Chairman Mao’s proletarian revolutionary line, vigorously advocated a set of revisionist schemes, such as “three freedoms and one contract,”6 “four big freedoms,”7 and “material stimulus,” attempting to disintegrate the socialist collective economy and restore capitalism. Renegade Liao Luyan has long dominated the Ministry of Agriculture, established an independent and dictatorial regime, sabotaged the Party’s unified leadership, and strangled the passion of the local and the masses. He furiously opposed proletarian politics in command, objected to the mass movements transforming socialist agriculture, and deluded the public that the socialist collective economy was dying. He turned the previous Ministry of Agriculture into a “technical department” and a department of “retrogression.” Through the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution, a handful of traitors, spies, and unrepentant capitalists were apprehended, yet the counterrevolutionary revisionist line they pursue still exists. Hence, the current mission must be to put through a large-scale revolutionary criticism emphasizing the following issues.
a. Eradicate the vestige of “three freedoms and one contract” and “four big freedoms,” criticize the capitalism tendency, and adhere to the socialism principle.
Comrades attending the conference listed numerous facts and pointed out the intenseness of the current class struggle and line struggle in the rural areas. A small group of class enemies usurp a few communes and brigades. Landlords, rich peasants, revisionists, and rogues provoke a storm of trouble and initiate counterrevolutionary activities. In some communes and brigades where the capitalist tendency pervades, corruption, embezzlement, opportunism, farmland abandonment, and advocacy for businesses have severely undermined the consolidation and development of the collective economy. It has been proved that agriculture production decreases as capitalism rises and increases as socialist righteousness permeates. Wujiaping, a brigade contiguous to Dazhai, used to be an advanced unit. After 1957, the unit was separated due to an uproar. Wujiaping became capitalist and its grain yield decreased from over 300 catties to 200 catties. Dazhai remained socialist and its yield increased from over 300 catties to 900 catties. Later, Wujiaping halted its capitalist trend and learned from Dazhai earnestly. It took three years to meet the requirement of the “Program,” four years to cross “Yellow River,” and five years to cross “Yangtze River.”8 In Qufu County, Chenjiazhuang, Shandong, grain yield per mu was 500 catties when the good was in charge, but after the revisionists took power, grain yield dropped from 500 catties to 300 catties. When the masses stood up to replace the bad with the good, grain yield grew from 300 catties to 600 catties and reached 1,000 catties last year through the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution. Comrades pointed out that the “three freedoms and one contract” and “four big freedoms” were slogans representing the interests of the landlords and rich peasants and were the counterrevolutionary guideline to restore capitalism in rural areas. It is a basic task and a long-term mission of rural political and ideological work to eradicate the vestige of and constantly criticize the capitalist tendency.
b. Criticize the idea of “relying on the heaven and the state,” and adhere to the principle of “self-reliance” and “hard work.”
In order to develop agriculture, should we depend on the lower and lower-middle peasants and be self-reliant, or should we count on the heaven and the state? This is a critical issue in the two-line struggle of the agricultural front.
Jiuyuangou of Suide County, Shaanxi Province, used to be a typical “state-funding and peasant-farming” commune. From 1953 to 1963, the state invested 960,000 yuan, but only built 2,600 mu of terraced fields and five dams. Since last winter, they mobilized the masses, criticized the thought of reliance on others, and consequently repaired 1,450 mu of horizontal terraced fields and constructed over twenty dams without a penny from the state.
Shenyang is a large industrial city with a total population of more than 4.2 million, of which nearly 60 percent is urban population. In the past, capitalists said, “Shenyang is built on industries and should not engage too much in agriculture.” As a result, its food, vegetables, and meat have long been imported from other provinces. After the establishment of the provincial and municipal Revolutionary Committee, Shenyang achieved a “turnaround in agriculture,” which can basically realize self-sufficiency in food and vegetables this year.
Two principles contribute to two consequences. Just as the lower and lower-middle peasants said, “the more one relies on the country, the lazier one becomes, the less grain can be produced; to learn from Dazhai, the more self-reliant one is, the wider the road one can walk through.” This is exactly the conclusion.
c. Criticize Rightist conservative thinking and the worldview of tardiness and cowardliness, improve the morale, and aim high.
Chairman Mao once pointed out in the upsurge of rural socialism in 1955: “The current problem is that people consider it impossible to do what they could have completed with hard work. Therefore, it is absolutely necessary to constantly criticize the Rightist conservative ideas that do exist.” Yan’an County serves as a vivid example. Agricultural production there used to be at a low level for two decades, while only 18,000 mu of farmlands were irrigated. This year they re-learned Chairman Mao’s responding message to the Yan’an people in 1949, criticized the Rightist conservative ideas in the leadership, and carried forward the spirit of Yan’an; 10,000 mu of farmlands and 30,000 mu of Dazhai farmlands were irrigated in approximately six months. What used to take two decades can be achieved in one year, can’t it?
At present, in the face of a new upsurge in production, there are still some leaders and cadres who fall behind the situation, follow the old, are satisfied with the status quo, and lack the sensitivity to new things. They always find it impossible to do everything, stick to the old mode, and refuse to innovate. Some people put “fear” upon anything and are willing to do nothing at all. They disseminate the philistine philosophy that “upstream is adventurous, downstream is dangerous, midstream is safe and stable.” Their so-called safe and stable philosophy is to ensure the safety of “private” interests and their political careers. This erroneous thought can put the Party and the people at risk if it is not rebuked.
d. Eliminate the vestiges of ideas that are “Left” in form but Right in essence such as “proneness of bloating and exaggeration” and “arbitrary orders,” and integrate the passion and ambition with the spirit of seeking truth from facts.
The delegates also enumerated a large number of facts, harshly reprimanding a handful of counterrevolutionary revisionists, including Liu Shaoqi, for using the approach that is left in form but right in essence to sabotage Chairman Mao’s proletarian revolutionary line. They rebuked several capitalists for their arbitrary orders, “egalitarianism and indiscriminate transfer of resources” (yiping erdiao), and the “proneness of bloating and exaggeration” (fukua feng) during the Great Leap Forward, which seriously damaged the agricultural productivity. What they did, in essence, is the Kuomintang’s approach to the masses, which deprives peasants, undermines the collective economy of people’s commune, and destroys the worker-peasant alliance. ”Historical experience is worth attention.” The delegates talked about the fact that in the past, there were a few places that changed the basic accounting unit and retrieved reserved lands regardless of the conditions and the will of the majority of the people. The scale was not large, but the influence was not trivial, signaling the presence of the ideas that is left in form but right in essence among some leaders and cadres. It is necessary to remind the leaders at all levels to pay full attention.
The delegates evaluated the situation of class struggle in the rural areas according to the Directive of the Second Plenary Session of the Ninth Central Committee. It is agreed that we must follow Chairman Mao’s guidance of “earnestly engage in struggle, criticism, and correction,” deepen the “One-Strike-Three-Anti” campaign, and complete the party-building tasks. During this winter or next spring, according to individual condition, all need to organize the Mao Zedong Thought Propaganda teams consisting of the People’s Liberation Army, revolutionary cadres, and lower and lower-middle peasant representatives. The teams must go inside the communes and brigades that have not completed “struggle, criticism, and correction”; rectify the Party branches one by one; resolve the leadership problems underlying the communes and brigades; “organize a revolutionary leadership closely tied with the people”; and consolidate the dictatorship of the proletariat to the grassroots level.
4. Implement the Party’s Policies Correctly
In accordance with Chairman Mao’s guidance that “policy and strategy is the life of the Party, leaders at all levels must pay full attention and never be negligent,” the conference discussed how to correctly implement the Party’s policies targeting the rural areas.
Chairman Mao personally presided over the formulation of the Sixty Articles of the people’s commune, which played a significant role in consolidating the collective economy and improving agricultural production. After Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution, the situation has undergone a new development, but the basic policy of the Sixty Articles regarding the people’s commune at the present stage is still applicable and must continue to be implemented. In December 1967, the Central Committee had made it clear that “the existing three-level and team-based system and the private land system of rural people’s communes should generally be unchanged.” In February 1969, People’s Daily editorial reiterated, “policy issues newly emerged in the movement, particularly those involving ownership, should be treated cautiously and request for directives.” We must strengthen the Party’s policy concept and tackle the undisciplined and unorganized trends in some places. The Party policy is a concrete manifestation of Chairman Mao’s proletarian revolutionary line. Only by earnest implementation of the policy would the Rightist and Leftist disruption be excluded.
All delegates agreed that we must follow the instructions of Chairman Mao, noticing one major tendency while also noticing another tendency that may be concealed. The cadres must be told clearly what they are permitted to do and what they are not under the Party’s policies. We must resolutely eliminate the vestiges of the “three freedoms and one contract” and “four big freedoms.” However, under the circumstances when the collective economy is guaranteed to develop and maintain the absolute advantage, commune members can operate a small amount of private plots and household sidelines. We must resolutely eliminate the vestiges of “material stimulus” and “workpoint in command,” but also adhere to the principle of “distribution according to work” and oppose egalitarianism. We must criticize the erroneous tendency of “splitting up and using up,” but also avoid accumulating so much that the commune members’ income will be affected this year. Under the premise of following the unified national plan, we must allow the production teams to adapt to local conditions flexibly. We must promote socialist cooperation, and gradually develop the economy of the communes and brigades, yet we must not repeat the mistake of “egalitarianism and indiscriminate transfers of resources.” The state-run enterprises or enterprises managed by production brigades and lower-middle peasants are allowed neither to dispatch labor, supply inventories, and other facilities of the production team without payment nor to increase the burden of the commune members. We must not draw excessive labor from the production teams in the name of mobilizing farmers to support the national construction, which impacts the production and management of the production teams. At present, some communes and brigades arbitrarily increase the nonproduction personnel and nonproduction expenses and reduce the income of commune members, which affects the enthusiasm of members. All governments must take effective measures to stop it.
5. Accelerate the Realization of Agricultural Development According to the “Program”
In line with Chairman Mao’s strategic guidelines on “preparing the war against natural disasters for the people,” the conference discussed the conception of the fourth Five-Year Agricultural Development Plan.
First, the goal is to “reverse the situation that Northern China must rely on the grains delivered from the South” and to meet the requirement of “National Program for Agricultural Development.” In areas where the goal has been achieved, we should push the agricultural production toward a new pinnacle. We should also speed up the development of agricultural production in the third front and the northern areas with food insecurity.
Second, we must follow the guideline of “all-round development based on grain production.” We must earnestly promote the production of grain, cotton, oil, hemp, silk, tea, sugar, vegetables, tobacco, fruit, medicine, and etc. Five industries including agriculture, forestry, animal husbandry, sideline, and fishery must be arranged comprehensively and mapped out with plans. We must emphasize the grain production while developing a diversified economy and preventing overconcentration. We must emphasize forestry and animal husbandry. “It takes ten years to grow a tree.” It also takes several years for big livestock to grow up, so the work must start early.
Third, we must put great efforts into the farmland construction. As long as the basic conditions of agricultural production are unchanged, the grain yield cannot be stabilized and the passive situation underlying agriculture cannot be reversed fundamentally. The fourth Five-Year Plan is aiming to assure each person one mu of high-yielding field regardless of the weather and climate through the improvement of soil and water conservancy. Terraced fields must be introduced on the hills and mountains. Flat farmland and soil improvement should be introduced in plain areas. Water conservancy construction should be adhered to the small-scale, supportive, and commune-based approaches. Flood control should be combined with soil improvement and alkaline modification. Drilling and studies on how to make use of the underground water should be encouraged.
Fourth, we should increase the use of fertilizer with a main purpose of boosting pig raising. We should earnestly promote pig raising via a collective approach and continue to encourage the commune members to participate. We should find reasonable solutions to pig feed and continue to implement the policy where the state subsidizes swine sales with an appropriate amount of pig feed. The commune members who feed the pigs should receive reasonable payment. We should increase feed mills, popularize saccharified pig feed, and prevent swine fever. Through the fourth Five-Year Plan, we should achieve one pig for each two people, striving for one pig per capita. “If we can achieve one pig per capita, one pig per mu, we can find the main source of fertilizer.” We should grow more green fertilizer according to local conditions, and actively promote the use of fertilizers.
Fifth, we should fully implement the agricultural “Eight-Word Constitution” on soil, fertilizer, water, cultivation, coverage, storage, management, and labor. We should actively promote high-quality seeds and appropriate close-spaced planting based on local conditions. We should take advantage of intercropping, actively develop pesticides, and prevent pests and diseases. We should frequently exchange and promote new technologies.
Sixth, “the fundamental solution for agricultural development lies in mechanization.” With no agricultural mechanization and manual labor alone, it is impossible to increase agricultural productivity more quickly, it is impossible to change the situation of 600 million peasants struggling for food, and it is impossible to free up labor to speed up industrial construction. It has been fifteen years since Chairman Mao proposed to “basically achieve agricultural mechanization within twenty-five years.” We should pay close attention to the work of the next decade. During the fourth Five-Year Plan, the level of farming mechanization should reach about 50 percent of the arable land and the level of irrigation mechanization should reach about 60 percent.
Agricultural mechanization should adopt the principle of “walking with two legs.” We should encourage all provinces, municipalities, and autonomous regions to be more self-reliant based on local conditions and meet the requirements of intensive farming. We should utilize both domestic and foreign techniques and develop mechanization and semimechanization simultaneously. We should endeavor to advance “five small” industries from the raw materials and adhere to the direction of serving agriculture.
All provinces, municipalities, and autonomous regions should proceed immediately to formulate the agricultural development plan for 1971 and the fourth Five-Year Plan. “When devising the plan, we must mobilize the masses and pay attention to the flexibility of the plan.”
The Five-Year Plan is grounded on the conditions of the first three years, the Three-Year Plan is grounded on the conditions of the first year, and the annual plan is grounded on the conditions of the previous winter. All governments should earnestly supervise the harvest and cultivation work this fall and the farmland construction between this winter and next spring.
6. Strengthen the Leadership of the Party
Chairman Mao taught us, “China has over 500 million agricultural population. The living condition of farmers is instrumental in developing national economy and consolidating the regime.” To develop agriculture, we must strengthen the Party’s unified leadership. The heads of the Party organizations and the Revolutionary Committee at all levels should be held accountable, take personal responsibility, and strengthen the leadership of the mass movement of Learning Agriculture from Dazhai. Particularly at the city and county levels, we should focus on guiding the rural work. For tertiary and food-insecure areas, we must boost agricultural production as soon as possible. We cannot take any initiative before the agricultural sector meets the requirement.
The development of agriculture is crucial for the Party and the people of the whole country. It is not only the issue of the agricultural sector. Other departments, including industry and transportation, finance, and trade, should see supporting agriculture as their glorious task and actively contribute to the development of agricultural production.
In the face of the current new upsurge of agricultural construction, we must prepare ourselves to be progressive. We should earnestly study Chairman Mao’s philosophy, adjust the worldview, and improve the work style and working methods. We should promote dialectical materialism and historical materialism and oppose the idealism and metaphysics. We should have not only the vigor for revolution, but also the scientific attitude of seeking truth from facts. We should focus on pragmatism rather than the glorious fame. “There must be a driver, there must not be lies.” We should improve the production and livelihood at the same time and balance between work and rest to prevent an overemphasis on one side. “We should be modest and prudent and to guard against arrogance and rashness.” We should seek the masses for help and should not be capricious.
Right now, some leaders and cadres use the metaphysical view to tackle the relationship between revolution and production, politics and economics. They either see it as a parallel or a contradiction. They do not understand that politics is the commander and the soul and they do not have the proletarian politics in command rooted in their mind. Others use the revolution as a substitute instead of a driver of production. We must fully implement the principle of “grasping revolution and promoting production.” To guide the agricultural work, we must rely on the lower-middle peasants and take the mass line. Cadres’ participation in collective production work is an important measure to prevent and oppose revisionism, thus must be resolutely implemented. “We must emphasize the archetypes.” “The surface of the work should be grasped a third first.” We must carry out large-scale investigations and studies, summarize the experience in a timely manner, and extend it to broader scope. To streamline the conferences, we must oppose the “five excesses,”9 and resolutely correct the superficial management style featured by “only appearing at the meeting, writing on the paper, and talking without practices.” The agricultural and forestry departments of the central government must stick to the proletarian politics in command; deepen the reform into the grassroots; concentrate on studying the Party’s principles, policies, and planning; and exchange the best practices. As for important issues, we must discuss with the local authorities, provide them with necessary assistance, and defeat the “dictatorship” with a resolution.
All delegates insisted that we must uphold the red flag of the great Mao Zedong Thought, follow the leadership of Central Committee of the CPC under Chairman Mao and Vice Chairman Lin, leverage the outcomes of the Second Plenary Session of the Ninth National Congress, and “unite for a greater victory!”
State Council
October 5, 1970
(Reprinted from original of Central Committee)
December 26, 1971
Zhongfa (1971) No. 82
Chairman Mao’s Instructions: Published as Recommended
Under the guidance of the line of unity and triumph adopted in out Party’s “Ninth Congress,” and in compliance with our great leader Chairman Mao’s directive concerning carrying out ideological and political education in the whole Party, the rural areas in the whole nation have unfolded a rectification movement to criticize revisionism. This education has in particular succeeded in smashing the counterrevolutionary conspiracy of careerist, conspirator, renegade, and traitor Lin Biao and his diehard followers; smashing the counterrevolutionary revisionist line of Lin Biao and Chen Boda; enhancing the consciousness of the broad masses of poor and lower-middle peasants, commune members, and revolutionary cadres in their class struggle and the struggle between the two lines; raising to a higher level the aggressiveness of socialist revolution and production; and enlarging to a wider scope the mass movement of “Learning Agriculture from Dazhai,” thus promoting the overall development in agriculture, forestry, animal husbandry, sideline production, and fishery. After overcoming the serious natural disasters caused by drought, flood, typhoons, and pests, agricultural production this year scored a bumper harvest for the tenth consecutive year. At present, the situation of revolution and production in the countryside is excellent.
In this excellent situation, “we must take care of the national, collective, and personal interests” and at the same time, seriously make the Party’s related policies take full effect, and do well the distribution work in the rural people’s communes. This is of paramount importance in carrying out Chairman Mao’s great strategic plan for “preparing against war, preparing against natural disasters, and doing everything for the people”; consolidating the socialist position in the countryside; intensifying the proletarian dictatorship; promoting the socialist aggressiveness of the broad masses of commune members; and supporting the nation’s socialist construction.
On the whole, distribution word in the rural people’s communes of the whole nation is excellent. In recent years [our comrades in] various areas have, in general, been able to correctly handle relations between the country, the group, and individuals, actively completed and surpassed national levying and purchasing tasks, thus strengthening the collective economy and increasing the commune members’ income. However, we should also be able to see that on the question of distribution, the struggles between the two classes, two roads and two lines are still rampant. Some communes “partition all and eat all”; others increased production collectively, but commune members’ income did not increase; and some others have many households that overdraw, making normal distribution impossible. Still others, having criticized “workpoints take command” and have exercised egalitarianism in paying for the labor. All these impaired the thorough implementation of Chairman Mao’s revolutionary line.
In order to further improve distribution work in rural people’s communes, we must summarize experience, enhance achievement, correct deficiency, and effectively solve the following problems:
1. Correctly handle relations between collective accumulation and distribution among commune members. The people’s communes should gradually build up their accumulation on the basis of productive development. To do this, however, we should not accumulate too much at one time. “We should make every possible effort to enable the peasants to receive better personal incomes in normal situations from the increased production year after year.” Those communes, production brigades, or teams that develop production faster and have a higher income level may, with the commune members’ agreement reached through discussions, retain a more proportionate public accumulation.
In general, the commune or the production brigade should not draw the public accumulation from the production team. However, it also may, with the agreement of the team’s assembly through discussions, draw a proper share of the public accumulation for establishing enterprises or purchasing agricultural machinery, provided that the drawing does not affect the team’s plan for enlarging reproduction.
The public reserved fund should be used for enlarging reproduction; it should not be used for building offices, auditoriums, or hostels or for entertainment or gifts and other nonproductive expenditures.
2. Handle distribution of grains extremely well. The Central Committee’s notice concerning the Five-Year Plan for continuously carrying out the levy and purchase of grains shall be seriously and thoroughly implemented with full effect. In carrying out this task, we should ensure timely accomplishment of the nation’s levy and purchase missions, and at the same time, take good care of the life of commune members. “Over purchase of grains is positively prohibited.”
The production team must reserve sufficient grains for seeds and fodder. “There must be reserve grains. A little reserve a year will build up a great amount in the end.” The reserve grains of collective organizations are to be used primarily for preparing against war and natural disasters, and cannot be used without sufficient reason. When the reserve grains must be used, the use should be decided through assembly discussions of the commune members.
For distribution of rations, we can use the general practice to integrate basic rations with distribution according to workpoints, or other proper systems supported by the majority of commune members. Whatever the case, the grains should be so distributed that it can facilitate mobilizing labor aggressiveness of the greatest majority of commune members and at the same effectively ensure that dependents of the martyrs, soldiers, staff, and workers and difficult households receive normal rations. Rations for commune members should be sent to the houses of individuals and controlled by commune members themselves. We shall educate the commune members to be industrious and frugal and to spend their rations according to their own plans.
The levy and purchase of grains or the unified marketing index for the areas where economic crops are concentrated should be properly arranged. We should resolutely pledge that commune members in these areas receive rations not less than that in the adjacent grain-producing areas. The rations for commune members in forestry, animal husbandry, and fishing areas should also be properly arranged.
3. Persist in the socialist principle of the “from each according to his ability and to each according to his work.” A good system of payment for labor is the basis of “to each according to his work.” In paying commune members for labor, we must persist in the proletarian politics taking command, steadily raise the consciousness of commune members to plant rice for revolution, and steadily struggle against capitalist inclination. In the current stage, attention must be paid to overcoming egalitarianism. We should pay commune members reasonably according to the quality and quantity of their labor. To learn from Dazhai’s labor administration methods, we must start from the actual situation and discuss the matter with the masses, but not adopt the methods wholly without consideration. We must mobilize the masses to seriously summarize the typical experience, which proves good in their area, correct those complicated unreasonable things that restrict aggressiveness of the masses, persist in those simple feasible measures that are welcomed by most of the masses, and steadily improve them.
The principle of equal pay for equal work of men and women must be practiced, and the feudal thinking of prejudice against women must be criticized and repudiated. In some areas, the “four category elements”11 who have more men workers at home incite men and women to do the same amount of work with unequal pay and exploit the poor and lower-middle peasants by taking advantage of the old thinking of the cadres and the masses. Particular attention should be paid to this deviation, which must be exposed in time and resolutely struggled against.
4. Seriously carry out the policy of administering the communes through diligence and frugality, fostering the spirit of self-reliance and hard struggle. “[We] must very frugally use our manpower and material resources and strictly refrain from waste.” The collective welfare enterprises conducted by the commune, brigade, or team should conform the economic development level. It will not be allowed to increase those individuals who are disengaged from production without good reason. The propaganda teams, broadcast announcers, and athletic teams should persist in various activities in their spare time. The barefoot doctors12 should persist in participating in collective production labor. When necessary, they may, with the approval of commune members through discussions, be absent from work with workpoints granted.
The system of persisting in having cadres participate in collective production labor “is a great matter of basic nature under the socialist system.” Some cadres in production brigades and teams participate in little labor. This situation must be resolutely corrected, and the cadres should be made “three nondisengaged.”13 The allowance for their additional workpoints should not exceed the amount stipulated in the Sixty Articles. 14
The types of conferences should be simplified. Meetings should be made fewer in number and shorter in time. When governments of the county and above call cadres and commune members from the production brigade and team for conferences or study class training, those participants and trainees should be provided with allowances, food costs, and necessary travel expenses. The commune and brigade should try as much as possible not to use production time for meetings.
If the commune wants to utilize the labor from the production team, the commune must consult members of the team. If the national departments want to utilize labor from the production team, the use must have prior approval of Party committees at various levels and should be given reasonable reward. It will not be allowed to again commit the mistake of “production grading and sending up”15 by using the capital and materials of the production team with no pay and launching a donation campaign or levying money among the masses.
If the national government conducts cultural, educational, medical, or other enterprises and activities, or delegates the administration of these enterprises and activities to poor and lower-middle peasants in the production team, the expenditure for these enterprises and activities should be provided by the national departments concerned, but not by other organizations of commune members. The national subsidies approved for schools sponsored by civilians and subsidized by the government and that for civilian-sponsored school teachers in various areas cannot be transferred to other uses without prior permission.
5. Thoroughly solve the problem of overdrawing households. At present, some communes, brigades, and teams have quite a few overdrawing households, rendering normal distribution impossible. They have even used up the accumulation of the group, partitioned the national loans, thus seriously battering the aggressiveness of the commune members’ collective production, affecting the consolidation and development of the collective economy. This must be seriously regarded and treated. The reasons for the emergence of overdrawing households are several. The primary factor is agitation by the class enemy and the erosion of certain cadres by capitalist ideology. Therefore, we must tightly grasp the class struggle, strike the sabotage activities of the class enemy, and criticize and repudiate capitalist inclination; we must intensify the revolutionary construction of the leading group of communes, brigades, and teams, educate cadres to heighten their consciousness, change their working style and make them take the lead in repaying money they owe; we must establish the financial system in the organizations and units responsible for financial administration at various levels and in communes, brigades, and teams, and improve it with the objective that financial affairs have no secret, the accounts are published, and democracy is practiced in economy.
6. Thoroughly carry out the policy of “taking the grains as the key link to promote overall development.” To develop production and increase income is the basis of distribution. When the people’s commune grasps the production of grains, it must properly arrange the plans for agriculture, forestry, animal husbandry, sideline production, and fishery, and properly treat the relations of grains, cotton, oil, linen, silk, tea, sugar, vegetable, tobacco, fruit, drugs, and other products, so that the success of the key link will prompt the development in other aspects, which will in turn promote one another and lead to overall development. They should make a fine line between multiple business and “money takes command” and should not mistake multiple businesses, which is allowed by the Party’s policy, for the capitalist inclination, which must be criticized and repudiated.
The commercial departments should actively organize multiple businesses in communes, brigades, and teams and the justified household sidelines. They should also intensify the purchase of products and correctly carry out the Party’s price policy and not reduce grade and price, so as to promote the development of multiple businesses in rural areas. In addition to this, the reasonable policy of reward for selling must be carried out continuously and cannot be changed at will.
The Central Committee hopes that the Party committees at various levels will grasp the distribution work in rural people’s communes as a great task. They shall take the rectification movement for criticizing revisionism as the key link to persist in the mass line, engage in deep investigation and research, seriously grasp the models and the proper time to summarize experience so as to successfully grasp the final account and distribution work of this year.
(This directive will be distributed to various organizations down to county and regimental levels.)
Excerpts of the report by Hua Guofeng at the National Conference on Learning from Dazhai in Agriculture
October 15, 1975
Comrades:
Our conference has continued for a month and we have fully discussed the question of learning from Dazhai in agriculture. At the same time, we have studied the question of agricultural mechanization. Today I shall dwell on the following questions.
I. MILITANT TASK OF THE WHOLE PARTY
China’s socialist revolution and socialist construction at present are in an important historical period of development, and the nationwide mass movement “In agriculture, learn from Dazhai” has also reached a new important stage. A great militant task before us is to get the whole Party mobilized, make ever greater efforts to develop agriculture and strive to build Dazhaitype counties throughout the country. This is an urgent task in implementing Chairman Mao’s important directive on studying theory and combating and preventing revisionism and in consolidating the dictatorship of the proletariat; it is also an urgent task in pushing the national economy forward so that China will be advancing in the front ranks of the world before the end of this century, as well as an urgent task in racing against the enemy for time and speed and doing a good job of getting prepared against war. The whole Party must get mobilized vigorously, attain unity in thinking and pace, unite and lead the people of the whole country to accomplish this great political task.
To build Dazhai-type counties throughout the country means building every county in China into a fighting bastion which adheres to Chairman Mao’s proletarian revolutionary line and the socialist road. In this way, the leading bodies at all levels in the country will be further revolutionized. The cadres and members of our Party and the masses of the people will greatly raise their understanding of Marxism-Leninism-Mao Zedong Thought. Our dictatorship of the proletariat and socialist-system will be further consolidated and developed. And we shall have greater might with which to smash attacks in any form by any enemy.
To build Dazhai-type counties all over the country means enabling every county in China to achieve stability and unity on the basis of Chairman Mao’s revolutionary line and go all out to build socialism with millions united as one. It means that every county will implement the general principle of “taking agriculture as the foundation and industry as the leading factor” in developing the national economy, undertake large-scale farmland capital construction, basically realize the mechanization of agriculture, “take grain as the key link and ensure an all-round development” so that production of grain, cotton, oil-bearing crops, pigs, all industrial crops and forestry, animal husbandry, side occupations and fishery will surpass the targets set in the National Program for Agricultural Development and outstrip the state plans. We should see to it that the modernization of agriculture would more effectively push forward and guarantee the modernization of industry, national defense and science and technology so as to greatly strengthen the material base of our great socialist motherland for preparedness against war and natural disasters.
Take for instance Shanxi Province where Xiyang County is located. If every county in Shanxi is built into a Dazhai-type county attaining this year’s level in Xiyang where every person on the average has produced 750 kilograms of grain and supplied 250 kilograms of marketable grain, then the total grain output in the whole province would increase 2.5-fold and marketable grain nearly fourfold compared with 1974. Generally speaking, natural conditions in Shanxi as a whole are not worse than in Xiyang and it is quite possible for the entire province to attain Xiyang’s present level. From the example of Shanxi alone, we can see the prospects of how grain production will rise after Dazhai-type counties have been built all over the country.
The necessary conditions for building Dazhai-type counties throughout the country have been provided on a nationwide scale. As a result of the tremendous victories won in the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution and in the movement to criticize Lin Biao and Confucius and the destroying of the two bourgeois headquarters of Liu Shaoqi and Lin Biao, Chairman Mao’s revolutionary line has achieved brilliant successes on all fronts and the consciousness of the cadres and people in class struggle and the two-line struggle has risen to unprecedented heights. Since 1970, the Xiyang experience in building itself into a Dazhai-type county in three years has been popularized and the movement to learn from Dazhai in agriculture has gathered ever greater momentum. Dazhai-type communes and production brigades have emerged in great numbers, more than 300 counties in various parts of the country have excelled as advanced units in learning from Dazhai, and a revolutionary torrent involving vast numbers of people in learning from Dazhai has taken shape in many areas and a number of provinces. In the movement to learn from Dazhai, the cadres and people have mounted powerful attacks on the class enemies and capitalist forces and this has led to a tremendous rise in the socialist forces and a drastic fall in the capitalist forces. Farmland capital construction has been carried out on a large scale, and during the past four years some 100 million people have taken part in each winter-spring period, bringing an average of 1.6 million more hectares of land each year under irrigation. The rate of mechanization of agriculture has been gradually stepped up. The amount of irrigation and drainage equipment, chemical fertilizer and tractors supplied in the past four years exceeded the total supplied in the previous 15 years, and a number of production brigades, communes and counties have attained a relatively high degree of mechanization. Mass scientific experiment in farming has spread far and wide. Five provinces and municipalities, 44 prefectures and 725 counties have topped their targets for per-hectare yield of grain set in the National Program for Agricultural Development. Another 11 provinces and one municipality are nearing their respective targets. Thirty counties in the north have reached the target set for areas south of the Yangtze River, six of them topping the 7.5-ton-per-hectare mark, and four counties in the south have doubled the yield set by the program.17
At the same time, however, we must take note of the fact that the development of the movement is as yet not well balanced. So long as we strengthen the leadership, adhere to the correct line and take effective steps, the movement will get under way rapidly.
Learning from Dazhai in agriculture and building Dazhai-type counties throughout the country is a great revolutionary mass movement to continue the revolution under the dictatorship of the proletariat and build socialist agriculture with greater, faster, better and more economical results. Like the land reform, agricultural co-operation and people’s commune movements, it is another great revolutionary movement in the rural areas. The whole Party, from the Central Committee to Party committees at provincial, prefectural and county levels, should firmly take it into their own hands, exercise centralized leadership, and organize all fronts and departments to make concerted efforts and strive for the victory of the movement.
II. KEY LIES IN COUNTY PARTY COMMITTEES
Dazhai is a standard-bearer established by Chairman Mao himself; it is a typical example in adhering to the Party’s basic line, continuing the revolution under the dictatorship of the proletariat and achieving greater, faster, better and more economical results building socialist agriculture. Dazhai’s fundamental experience lies in its adherence to the principle of putting proletarian politics in command and placing Mao Zedong Thought in the lead, to the spirit of self-reliance and hard struggle and to the communist style of loving the country and the collective. Dazhai has consistently used Marxism-Leninism-Mao Zedong Thought to educate the peasants and deepen the socialist revolution in the political, economic and ideological and cultural spheres. It has consistently practiced criticism and self-criticism and strengthened the revolutionization of the leading body. It has continually given full scope to the enthusiasm, wisdom and creativeness of the masses, thus ensuring the growth of agricultural production and progress in agricultural technique year after year. To build a Dazhai-type county means spreading Dazhai’s fundamental experience throughout the county.
Through discussions and study at the conference the present standards for a Dazhai-type county are as follows: (1) The county Party committee should be a leading core which firmly adheres to the Party’s line and policies and is united in struggle. (2) It should establish the dominance of the poor and lower-middle peasants as a class so as to be able to wage resolute struggles against capitalist activities and exercise effective supervision over the class enemies and remold them. (3) Cadres at the county, commune and brigade levels should, like those in Xiyang, regularly participate in collective productive labor. (4) Rapid progress and substantial results should be achieved in farmland capital construction, mechanization of agriculture and scientific farming. (5) The collective economy should be steadily expanded and production and income of the poor communes and brigades should reach or surpass the present level of the average communes and brigades in the locality. (6) All-round development should be made in agriculture, forestry, animal husbandry, side-occupations and fishery with considerable increases in output, big contributions to the state and steady improvement in the living standards of the commune members.
The key to building Dazhai-type counties lies in the county Party committees, which are at once leading and executive organs. Only when there are staunch county Party committees is it possible to set the pace for the communes and brigades.
That the key in building Dazhai-type counties lies in the county Party committees does not mean that the provincial and prefectural Party committees are relieved of the important or even primary responsibility they should assume. Whether a province or prefecture has a clear idea about taking agriculture as the foundation, whether it follows a correct orientation in building Dazhai-type counties, whether the measures taken are practical and effective and whether the pace of progress is fast enough, the leadership o! the provincial or prefectural Party committee plays a decisive role.
III. DEEPEN EDUCATION IN PARTY’S BASIC LINE
In the historical period of socialism, the principal contradiction always remains the struggle between the proletariat and the bourgeoisie and between the socialist road and the capitalist road. Deepening education in the Party’s basic line in the countryside is the fundamental guarantee for building Dazhai-type counties. All provincial, prefectural and county Party committees must conscientiously do a good job in grasping this work, mobilize the masses fully, constantly raise the socialist consciousness of the broad masses of peasants and make consistent efforts to ensure the victory of socialism over capitalism.
The serious problem is the education of the peasantry. The peasants are willing to take the socialist road under the leadership of the Communist Party. We must unswervingly rely on the poor and lower-middle peasants, unite with the middle peasants and wage struggles against capitalism. With the growth of the socialist agricultural economy, the consolidation of the people’s commune system and the improvement of the peasants’ life, the overwhelming majority of the peasants have come to see more clearly than ever that only socialism can save China, and their enthusiasm for socialism has become still higher. We must be aware at the same time that in socialist society there are still classes and class struggle, and that the differences between town and country, between worker and peasant and between manual and mental labor still remain. Our country at present practices a commodity system, the wage system is unequal, too, as in the eight-grade wage scale and so forth. Under the dictatorship of the proletariat such things can only be restricted. Therefore, new bourgeois elements will invariably be engendered continuously. This is true of the countryside as well as the cities. The traditional influence of small production still remains among the peasants, and there still are fairly serious spontaneous tendencies towards capitalism among the well-to-do middle peasants. It is a long-term task constantly to imbue the peasant masses with the socialist ideology and to criticize the tendency towards capitalism, and at no time should we relax our efforts in this respect.
Many cases of the tendency towards capitalism in the countryside are problems among the people. They must be solved by means of persuasion and education, and criticism and self-criticism. It is also necessary to solve those problems concerning the consolidation and development of the collective economy appropriately in line with the Party’s policies, and make constant efforts to consolidate and extend the positions of socialism.
IV. SPEEDING UP THE BUILDING OF LARGE-SCALE SOCIALIST AGRICULTURE
We must guide the cadres’ and masses’ socialist enthusiasm engendered in the course of vigorously criticizing capitalism on to the great drive to develop socialist agriculture.
In building Dazhai-type counties, it is necessary to undertake farmland capital construction as a great socialist task. We must carry forward the spirit of self-reliance and hard struggle, transform China in the spirit of the Foolish Old Man who removed the mountains, change the face of mountains and harness the rivers. This is a fundamental measure to increase our capabilities to resist natural calamities and achieve high and stable yields, and we must persistently and unremittingly carry out this work with the utmost efforts. The experience of the Dazhai-type counties in different parts of the country shows that where big progress has been achieved in farmland capital construction, the superiority of the people’s commune as an institution large in size and with a high degree of public ownership has demonstrated fully, the old features of small production have undergone tremendous changes, and better conditions have been created for the development of mechanized farming than elsewhere. In the course of farmland capital construction, the collective concept and sense of organization and discipline of the peasants are greatly enhanced and they think more of the collective and show greater zeal in building socialism. “The more we do it, the better we like it and the greater our courage and ability to do it well.” All this helps to further consolidate and develop the victory in vigorously criticizing capitalism and developing socialism.
In order to build themselves into Dazhai-type counties, all counties must map out overall plans for their farmland capital construction.
To equip agriculture with machinery is a decisive factor for achieving a great expansion of farming, forestry and animal husbandry simultaneously. In the course of building Dazhai-type counties throughout the country, the provinces, municipalities and autonomous regions must energetically develop their own form machinery industry in the light of local conditions so as to supply the communes and production brigades with equipment and other products needed for the mechanization of agriculture.
The prefectures and counties, for their part, must in the light of their own resources and other conditions set up small industrial enterprises producing iron and steel, coal, chemical fertilizer, cement and machinery in order to provide the rural areas with more farm machinery, chemical fertilizer and insecticide suited to local needs. We must publicize among the masses Chairman Mao’s teaching that the fundamental way out for agriculture lies in mechanization, bring the enthusiasm and initiative of the hundreds of millions of people into full play, work energetically for the technical transformation of agriculture and raise the level of mechanized farming step by step and in a planned way. We must train a mighty contingent of people for mechanized farming, people who are both workers and peasants and well versed in modern techniques. The development of farm mechanization will greatly raise labor productivity in agriculture and enable the peasants to set aside plenty of time to develop a diversified economy and build a new, prosperous and rich socialist countryside. It will also have a great significance in bringing into play the role of the people’s commune as an organization that combines industry, agriculture, commerce, education and military affairs, in enabling the commune to display its superiority—big in size and with a high degree of public ownership—and in narrowing the differences between town and country, between worker and peasant and between manual and mental labor. Therefore, the various departments concerned under the State Council and the leading organs or the provinces, prefectures and counties must make very great efforts to speed up the progress of this work so as to ensure that the great task of mechanizing agriculture will be accomplished in the main by 1980.
In order to build Dazhai-type counties and achieve high and stable yields, it is necessary to implement the Eight-Point Charter for agriculture18 in an all-round way and go in for scientific farming. It is necessary to make big efforts to breed, propagate spread, purify and regenerate fine seed strains; to change the old cropping system, improve cultivation techniques and raise the multiple-cropping index; and to tap various sources of fertilizer, apply fertilizer rationally and do plant protection work well. We must work hard to promote scientific research in agriculture so as to change the present situation in which research lags far behind the needs of speeding up the expansion of large-scale socialist agriculture.
Each county must set up agricultural scientific experimental organizations at the county, commune, production brigade and production team levels and weld them into a complete network, encourage the masses to carry out widespread scientific experiments, and bring into full play the function of professional scientific and technical personnel. At the central, provincial, prefectural and county levels, the agricultural scientific research organizations must be reinforced and agricultural production and technical work given more guidance.
The expansion of commune- and brigade-run enterprises strengthens the economy at the commune and brigade levels; it has effectively helped the poorer brigades and teams, accelerated farm production, supported national construction and speeded up the pace of mechanization of agriculture. It constitutes an important material guarantee for the further development of the people’s commune system. Party committees in all parts of the country must adopt a positive attitude and take effective measures to help the commune- and brigade-run enterprises develop still faster and better. In promoting the expansion of commune and brigade-run enterprises, it is necessary to keep to the socialist orientation and see to it that they devote their main attention to serving agriculture and the people’s livelihood. Where conditions permit, these enterprises should also work for the big industries and for export. It is necessary to make the fullest possible use of local resources to develop the cultivation of crops and breeding as well as processing and mining industries.
The people’s communes have great vitality and are promoting the development of all kinds of undertakings in the countryside. For most parts or China, the rural people’s communes’ present system of “three-level ownership, with the production team as the basic accounting unit” is in the main still in harmony with the growth of the productive forces in the countryside. However, we must also note that, with the spread and deepening of the movement to build Dazhai-type counties, with the expansion of large-scale socialist agriculture, and especially with the growth of the economy at the commune and brigade levels, this system of ownership will make a step-by-step transition to the system of ownership that takes the production brigade or even the commune as the basic accounting unit when conditions are ripe. In the still more distant future, the people’s commune will undergo the transition from the system of collective ownership to the system of ownership by the whole people and then from the socialist system of ownership by the whole people to the communist system of ownership by the whole people. Therefore, although the economy at the commune and brigade levels today is only incipient and small, herein lie our great, bright hopes.
V. ALL-ROUND PLANNING AND THE STRENGTHENING OF LEADERSHIP
To build Dazhai-type counties throughout the country is a great march in which our Party leads millions upon millions of peasants to deepen the socialist revolution and speed up socialist construction. The Central Committee and the local Party committees at various levels should all map out all-round plans and effective measures and go all out to win victories, just as they did in leading the land reform and the movement for agricultural co-operation and in directing military operations.
After five years of hard struggle, that is, by 1980, more than one-third of the counties in the country are expected to become Dazhai-type counties, and more Dazhai-type brigades and communes should have been built up in the other counties. There are now more than 300 advanced counties in the country which have distinguished themselves in learning from Dazhai. While these counties must continue to consolidate their achievements and make further progress, an average of at least 100 new Dazhai-type counties should be built annually in the next five years. The provincial, municipal and autonomous regional Party committees and the prefectural Party committees under them should all work out their own concrete plans. All county Party committees in the country should regard the work of building Dazhai-type counties as their own goal of struggle and, on the basis of local conditions, draw up their own schedules and steps for accomplishing the task and strive to fulfill it ahead of time.
The various departments under the Party Central Committee and the government should make great concerted efforts and do a good job in building Dazhai-type counties. Agricultural departments must devote all their efforts to the movement to build Dazhai-type counties throughout the country, do a good job in investigation and study, and give timely reports to the Central Committee and the State Council on the movement’s progress and problems. All other departments including those or planning, industry and communications, finance and commerce, culture and education, science, public health and family planning should make their contributions to building Dazhai-type counties throughout the country.
Building Dazhai-type counties is a great and arduous fighting task. We shall inevitably come up against many difficulties on our way of advance. But we shall certainly be able to overcome all kinds or difficulties and reach our goal so long as we earnestly carry out the political line, policies, principles and methods of work formulated by Chairman Mao and have faith in and rely on the masses. We Communists, revolutionary workers and staff members, poor and lower-middle peasants and educated youth who have settled in the countryside have high aspirations and ability “to change our world by our own hands through hard struggle and build our as yet very backward countryside into a thriving and prospering paradise.”
Deng Xiaoping
May 31, 1980
Now that more flexible policies have been introduced in the rural areas, the practice of fixing farm output quotas on a household basis has been adopted in some localities where it is suitable. It has proved quite effective and changed things rapidly for the better. Fixing output quotas on a household basis has been adopted in most of the production teams in Feixi County, Anhui Province, and there have been big increases in production. Nearly all the production teams in the same province’s Fengyang County, which incidentally is the locale of the “Fengyang Flower-Drum” Opera, have been practicing an all-round contract system, which inside of a year has resulted in an upswing in production that has transformed the county’s prospects. Some comrades are worried that this practice may have an adverse effect on the collective economy. I think their fears are unwarranted. Development of the collective economy continues to be our general objective. Where farm output quotas are fixed by household, the production teams still constitute the main economic units. What does the future hold for these places? It is certain that as long as production expands, division of labor increases and the commodity economy develops, lower forms of collectivization in the countryside will develop into higher forms and the collective economy will acquire a firmer basis. The key task is to expand the productive forces and thereby create conditions for the further development of collectivization. To be specific, the following four conditions should be realized: First, a higher level of mechanization, one that is relatively well suited to local natural and economic conditions and welcomed by the people (here I mean mechanization in a broad sense, not merely mechanized plowing, sowing, and harvesting). Second, a higher level of management, combining accumulated experience and a contingent of cadres with fairly strong management abilities. Third, a developed diversified economy that leads to the establishment of a variety of specialized groups or teams, which in turn leads to the large-scale expansion of the commodity economy in the rural areas. Fourth, an increase in the income of the collective, both in absolute terms and in relation to the total income of the economic unit involved. If these four conditions are realized, the localities that now fix output quotas on a household basis will develop new forms of collectivization. This sort of development won’t come from above as the result of administrative decree, but will be an inevitable response to the demands of growing production.
Some comrades say that the pace of socialist transformation had been too rapid. I think there is some ground for this view. For example, in the cooperative transformation of agriculture, there was an upsurge every year or two, with one kind of organizational form being quickly replaced by another before the first one had time to be consolidated. The rapid, large-scale transition from elementary cooperatives to advanced cooperatives was a case in point. If the transformation had advanced step by step, with a period of consolidation followed by further development, the results might have been better. Again, during the Great Leap Forward in 1958, before cooperatives of the advanced type had been consolidated, people’s communes were set up on a large scale. As a result, we had to take a step back in the early sixties and again make production teams the basic accounting units of the collective economy. During the rural socialist education movement, production teams of an appropriate size were arbitrarily divided into very small ones in some localities, while in others they were amalgamated into teams that were too large. Practice has shown this to be bad.
Generally speaking, the main problem in rural work is still that people’s thinking is not sufficiently emancipated. This problem manifests itself not only in the matter of determining the organizational forms of collectivization. It also is apparent when it comes to developing production suited to local conditions. The latter means developing what is appropriate for a specific locality and not arbitrarily attempting what is unsuitable. For instance, many areas in northwest China should concentrate on growing forage grass in order to expand animal husbandry. Some cadres currently give little thought to planning new undertakings that would be suitable to local conditions and would produce economic gains and benefit the masses. Far from emancipating their thinking, these cadres still act according to fixed patterns. Thus there is still much work to do, even now that flexible policies have been adopted.
It is extremely important for us to proceed from concrete local conditions and take into account the wishes of the people. We must not propagate one method and require all localities to adopt it. In publicizing typical examples, we must explain how and under what conditions people in these localities achieved success. We should not describe them as perfect or as having solved all problems; and we should certainly not require people in other places to copy them mechanically in disregard for their own specific conditions.
(Excerpt from a talk with some senior officials under the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China.)
Zhongfa (1980) No. 75
In a recent colloquium of the first secretaries of the provincial, municipal, and autonomous regional committees of the CPC, the issues regarding further strengthening and perfecting the production responsibility system in agriculture were discussed, with the following meeting minutes. The Central Committee agreed with the opinions in the meeting minutes, and now forwards them to you for prompt transmissions, discussions, clarification, and unification of thoughts, and implementation with regard to local conditions, in order to motivate the broad rural cadres and the masses to do their job well and enhance agricultural productions.
CPC Central Committee
September 27, 1980
Several Issues in Further Strengthening and Perfecting the Production Responsibility System in Agriculture
Meeting Minutes of the first secretaries of the provincial, municipal, and autonomous regional committees of the CPC, September 14 to September 22, 1980
First, since the Third Plenary Session of the Party’s Eleventh Central Committee, localities throughout the country have liquidated the influences of the ultra-Left line, implemented two of the Central Committee’s documents on agriculture, adjusted the agricultural policy regarding prices, taxation, credit, and purchase of sideline agricultural products, and relaxed restrictions on private plots, household sideline production and country fair trade. More prominent is the promotion of autonomy for production teams, thereby enabling them to develop a diversified economy suitable to local conditions, to establish various forms of production responsibility system, to improve measures of calculating payments for labor performed, and or rectify subjectivism in directing production and equalitarianism in distribution. These measures have effectively mobilized the power of initiative of the peasants, brought about a comparatively speedy recovery and development of agricultural production and an increase of income for the majority of peasants, and made the situation in the countryside better and better.
Our future tasks still are to continue to march ahead along the line, the guiding principle, and the policy decided upon by the Party’s Central Committee at its Third Plenary Session, to study new circumstances, to solve new problems, to strive for an overall upsurge of agricultural production and a gradual improvement of livelihood for the peasant, and to realize overall agricultural modernization.
Second, the collective economy is the unshakable foundation on which to modernize our country’s agriculture. It has the superiority that cannot be matched by individual economy, a fact that has been attested to by the history of agricultural development in the recent twenty years. Since the liberation of the whole country, our Party has led the broad masses of peasantry to affect two social reforms of far-reaching significance. First, it was the elimination of the feudalist system to carry out the land reform. Secondly, it was the implementation of socialist reform of the small peasant economy to lead several hundred million peasants onto the socialist road. This has in turn laid down the new basis for the worker-peasant alliance, released rural productivity, and initiated the peasants into the new era of agricultural socialist construction.
Although our country’s agricultural collectivization has confronted some complications and developed some faults, generally speaking, it was primarily a success. The complications and faults we are talking about have been in the main caused by failures to do things in strict accordance with the principles of voluntary participation by, and mutual benefit of, the masses in the process of directing agricultural collectivization, which caused not a few localities to adopt more political coercion and administrative actions than measures of demonstration and attraction; and by failures to consistently follow the correct guiding principles of suiting measures to local conditions, giving different directions for different things, and following in order and advancing step by step, while practicing the erroneous way of cutting things with one stroke of the knife and cooking different things in the same pot. These problems had already emerged during the period of the establishment of advanced agricultural cooperatives and then developed to a larger degree and on a larger scale during the movement for people’s communes, resulting in a nationwide “tendency to effect the transition to communism prematurely,” the “proneness of bloating and exaggeration,” and the “arbitrary orders” that caused even more serous losses. Aiming at these situations, the Party Central and Comrade Mao Zedong had conducted several adjustments of the system and policy concerning the people’s commune to enable the collective economy to stabilize step by step. Now, after more than twenty years of efforts, the rural collective economy has been consolidated in the majority of localities and the orientation of agricultural collectivization is recognized and supported by the broad messes of peasantry. On the basis of agricultural collectivization, a bigger increase of agricultural productivity has been achieved and at the same time conditions for agricultural production have also been initially improved. At present, there are in the whole country 700 million mu of irrigated land, more than 600,000 large and medium tractors, and various kinds of agricultural machinery with a total motive power of 180 million horsepower, and more than 80 billion yuan of public properties held by communes and teams, while the total value of production by communal and team enterprises constitutes one-third of the total agricultural output value. By relying mainly on the collective economy, agricultural production has been continuously enhanced, with the total agricultural output value more than doubled as compared with that during the initial stage of the cooperative movement. Meanwhile, peasant livelihood has also been improved, and socialist industrialization and the development of other enterprises have been assured. Under the conditions that existed in our country—small-peasant economy divided into single households—it would have been inconceivable and impossible to build up a modernized agriculture, to achieve higher labor productivity, to increase production of commodities, and to free the countryside fundamentally from poverty and to attain general prosperity. Therefore, the orientation toward agricultural collectivization is doubtlessly correct and must be persisted in.
Of course, we must also realize that, owing to the shortcomings in the movement of collectivization, the ultra-Left interruptions, and the fact that for a long period of time the Party has not shifted its emphasis, bases for the collective economy are still comparatively weak. Meanwhile, there are also matters in need of improvement and perfection concerning the systems and structure of the people’s communes, the weakest link being the management and administration work. For a long time, there have been no significant improvements and breakthroughs in implementing the principle of distribution according to work and in perfecting the system of job responsibility for production. This has caused suppression of the peasants’ socialist initiative as well as insufficient exertion of the superiority of collectivization. Because the collective economy has not been doing satisfactorily, people in a few backward and poverty-stricken localities have been less faithful in agricultural collectivization. We must face these problems squarely and solve them aggressively and step by step. At present, it is necessary to regard improvement of management and administration, implementation of distribution according to work, and improvement and perfection of the system of job responsibility for production as the central links for further consolidation of the collective economy and for development of agricultural production. It is necessary to put in a lot of strenuous efforts to grasp it tight and grasp it well.
Third, under the moral encouragement of the Third Plenary Session, Party cadres and the masses of commune members have in the recent two years proceeded from actual conditions, liberated their thought and boldly explored, and established many forms of job responsibility system for production which can be generally divided into two categories: one is contracted work of small segments with payments according to fixed quotas, and the other is contracted work and production quotas with payments in accordance with actual production. Results of implementation indicate that most areas have increased production by acquiring some new experiences. Especially noteworthy is the emergence of the system of job responsibility that gives contracts to specialized persons and gives payment in accordance with actual production, which is widely welcomed by commune members. This is a very good start. Leadership at various levels should sum up the positive and negative experiences, together with the broad masses, and help the communes and brigades perfect and improve the system of job responsibility to energetically push further forward the management work of the collective economy.
Fourth, our country is geographically vast, economically backward, while developments are very unbalanced from place to place. Moreover, the agricultural production is different from industrial production in that is it is chiefly done by hand, with the labor force being scattered while the production cycle being considerably longer, and in many aspects being restricted by natural conditions. This requires that relations of production must be made suitable to the productivity levels of different localities and that the management of agricultural production must have larger adaptability and more flexibility. In different localities and communes or teams, even in the very same production team, things must be done on the basis of actual demands and actual conditions in order to permit co-existence of diversified management forms, diversified labor structures, and diversified measures for calculating payments. Along with the elevation of productivity levels, these measures and forms will have corresponding changes in different periods of developmental time. Therefore, all forms of the system of job responsibility that are favorable to encouraging the producer to give utmost attention to collective production, to increasing production, and to increasing incomes, are good and feasible ones, and should be supported. It is improper to rigidly stick to any form only and practice “cutting things with one stroke of the knife.”
Fifth, the system of job responsibility of giving contracts to specific persons and giving payments in accordance with actual production is a system based on division of labor and cooperative work. Under the system, the labor forces who are good in agriculture receive contracts for arable lands according to their ability, while those who are good in forestry, stock raising, sideline production, fishery, industry, commerce, etc., receive contracts of various trades concerned according to their ability. Contracts for production of fixed quotas in various trades are assigned to teams, to labor forces, or to households, according to the principle of facilitating production and benefiting management. All operations in the process of production are to be centralized whenever centralization is suitable, and decentralized, whenever decentralization is good, by the production team. Centralized distribution of payment is made for the portions under fixed quotas, while rewards or penalties are given for production in excess of quotas or unfulfilled production. These are stipulated in the form of contracts for the current year or for the next several years.
This kind of system of production responsibility has many more merits than other forms of contracted production: It can satisfy the commune members’ demand for calculating payments in accordance with production, stabilize the production team’s position as the main economic entity, concretely consolidate both the mobilization of production initiative of individual commune members and the exertion of the superiority of centralized management as well as division of labor and cooperative work; it is favorable to the development of diversified business, popularization of scientific farming, and promotion of production of commercial items; it is good for men to exert their talents, things to exert their usefulness, and land to exert its potential; it is favorable for the commune members to take care of their sideline business; and it is convenient to make arrangements for production to ensure the livelihood of the four categories of bereaved households and the weak-labor households. This form is, on the one hand, applicable to areas currently undergoing difficulties while, on the other hand, can be developed into a system of job responsibility that further divides specialties by an ever-higher degree and with more socialist characteristics.
In addition, there are some agricultural production teams that have, on the original basis of in-the-field management and responsibility of the individual, developed into a system that calculates rewards and penalties in accordance with production quantities. This also has certain advantages of a system that gives contracts to specific people and gives payments in accordance with actual production. Moreover, the cadres and masses are more familiar with this system and are willing to accept it.
In the communes and teams located in Jiangsu, Zhejiang, and Northeastern provinces, and suburban areas of large cities, diversified management of business is comparatively advanced, with a higher level of mechanization. Some of them have expanded beyond the scope of production teams and are using the production brigade as the unit for implementing the system of production responsibility that gives contracts to specific people and gives payments in accordance with actual production. This is exactly a kind of new development.
Localities should lead the masses according to their voluntary will to gradually popularize the above-mentioned forms as local conditions permit. At the same time, they should help the concerned in perfecting various systems and solving various problems that might emerge during the process of development.
Sixth, at present, the question of whether the system of contracted production of fixed output quotas based on the individual households is applicable or not has caused widespread discussion among the cadres and masses. To facilitate work and to benefit production, it is necessary to work out corresponding measures in policy.
The collective economy in most localities in our country is solid or comparatively solid, but there are localities where collective economy is not doing satisfactorily and where the level of productivity is still very low and the livelihood of the masses is very hard, owing to such influences as Leftist policy or other leadership factors. In view of these conditions, different guiding principles should be adopted for different communes and production teams in different localities for the contracted production of fixed output quotas on the basis of individual households.
In remote mountainous areas and poverty-stricken and backward localities, masses in the production teams that have been for a long time “eating grains resold by the state, producing by relying on loans from the state, and living on relief” have lost their confidence in collectivization and thus have demanded implementation of a system of contracted production of fixed output quotas on the basis of individual household. It is necessary to support the demand of the masses to practice either the system of contracted production of fixed output quotas based on the individual households or the system of contracted work to the individual, and to keep the system thus adopted a stable one for a longer period of time. In view of actual situations in these areas, implementation of the system of contracted production of fixed output quotas based on the individual households is a necessary measure to line up the masses, to develop production, and to solve the problem of producing enough to wear and eat. In the whole country, implementation of the system of contracted production of fixed output quotas based on the individual households practiced under the leadership of the production team and under the conditions where socialist industry, socialist commerce, and collective agriculture are in an absolutely predominant position means dependence on the socialist economy that will not deviate from the track of socialism. Thus, it poses no threats of restoration of capitalism. Therefore, it is nothing to be afraid of.
In ordinary localities where collective economy is comparatively stable, production has increased, and the current system of production responsibility has satisfied the masses or will satisfy them after improvement, the system of contracted production of fixed output quotas based on the individual households need not be practiced. Vital energies of the leadership of these localities should be placed on how to further consolidate and develop the collective economy. Places that have implemented the system of contracted production of fixed output quotas based on the individual households will be allowed to continue, if the masses do not demand a change. Then these places should, based on the development of situation and the demand of the masses, adroitly guide action according to circumstances and utilize all transitional forms for further organization. Classification of the above-mentioned localities is to be determined by various provinces, municipalities, and autonomous regions, in accordance with the actual conditions of the local communes and production teams, after a careful investigation and study.
The communes and production teams that have practiced the system of contracted production of fixed output quotas based on the individual households should, through actual work and public discussion, achieve the following: (1) protect collective properties, not tear them down and divide them equally; promptly ascertain the property rights of woods and forbid wanton cuttings; (2) reiterate the prohibitions on selling lands, hiring labors, and practicing usury; (3) take proper care of dependents of military men and martyrs, of households enjoying the five guarantees,20 and other households suffering hardship; (4) retain as much as possible the collective-operated production items that are welcomed by the masses and have yielded good economic results; (5) ensure that production teams and commune members strictly fulfill obligatory duties assigned to them, while credits and liabilities must be checked up and arranged in good order; and (6) retain the organization of production teams and restrengthen the role of basic-level Party organizations as the center of actions.
Seventh, do a good job as much as possible at the production teams and communes that are in a medium status on the economic level and the management level. These teams and communes amount to a large number, about 50 percent of the total. There are many factors attributed to their internal instability and easily susceptible to outside influences. Only improvement of work in such teams and communes can help stabilize the whole situation.
There are many factors attributable to the protracted hardships in certain localities as well as to satisfactory operations of certain teams and communes. Do not use the system of contracted production of fixed output quotas to the individual households as the only way to solve their problems. Some of them need policy readjustments from many aspects in order to reduce their burden and to liven up the diversified economy; some of them need gradual improvement of conditions for production, transportation, and storage; some need readjustment of the scope of the teams and communes to simplify the organizational structure and straighten out the leadership squads; and some need adequate expansion of the auxiliary economy conducted by individual team or commune members, such as the private plots. All in all, it is necessary to solve the problems by “suiting the medicine to the illness.”
Eighth, it is necessary to bring into full play the specialties of all kinds of handicraftsmen, small merchants, small retailers, and other tradesmen, by organizing them into enterprises of the teams and communes as well as other kinds of collective sideline production enterprises. The few who request individual operations can, upon approval by agencies concerned, sign contracts with the production teams and then take the permits to go outside to labor or to run business. It is necessary to encourage the commune members to develop household sideline production in order to liven up and develop the rural economy.
Ninth, in practicing a certain policy or taking up a certain work in the rural areas, the Party must make allowance for the peasants’ economic interests and respect the peasants’ democratic rights. In the process of establishing a sound production responsibility system, it is wrong to run counter to the wishes of the local masses and to arbitrarily push forward any single form while forbidding other forms. It is necessary to unite together the persistence in the Party’s leadership and the respect to the autonomy of the teams and communes, in a way that will be good for both the exercise of democracy and effective leadership. It is necessary to associate together the expansion of autonomy of the teams and communes and the improvement of democratic supervision by team/commune members, to bring into full play the duties and functions of the commune members representative assembly and the management committees at various levels. All important matters that involve the interests of the team/commune members, including the establishment of the system of production responsibility, must be determined collectively through democratic discussions.
Tenth, it is necessary to strengthen the Party’s leadership and improve the work style of the leadership. All comrades of our Party must understand that reformation of the small producers’ ideology and habits is a long-term and arduous work which requires the time of a whole generation or even several generations and which can only be accomplished through a great deal of deep-going, meticulous ideological and political work as well as economic work. Any resort to coercion will be ineffective and harmful. It is necessary to be adept at applying methods such as persuasive education, demonstration by exemplary models, and economic incentives to continuously elevate the peasants’ socialist consciousness and to establish close associations with the peasants.
Eleventh, it is necessary to conscientiously train cadres and cultivate a great number of talented persons who understand the Party’s policy and the government’s regulations and at the same time are familiar with operation and management of the socialist collective economy. Cadres engaged in agricultural work at various levels, especially those working in counties and communes, should penetrate into their professions and practice them continuously so that they can make, as soon as possible, themselves professionals managing the socialist collective economy.
Twelfth, in the instant winter and the coming spring, all provinces, municipalities and autonomous regions must take the establishment of sound production responsibility systems and further improvement of the calculation of labor payments as an important task which should be arranged in conjunction with the winter production drive as well as the production effort and relief measures in the disaster areas. Various provinces can carry out the above-mentioned principles and guidelines in accordance with the actual conditions in their localities. The key requirement is that they must achieve stability of the overall situation, develop an excellent situation, and raise a bumper harvest in 1981.
Party Central Committee and State Council
October 12, 1983
As economic structural reform continues in the countryside, the unsuitability of the present structure in which government administration is combined with commune management becomes more and more apparent. The constitution stipulates that township governments should be established in the rural areas, and that government administration and commune management should be separated. To carry out this reform in a controlled and planned way, you are herewith advised of the following:
First, at the present time, the priority is to separate government administration and commune management and set up township government. At the same time that township Party committees are set up, suitable economic structures should be established in accordance with the needs of production and the wishes of the peasants. We must speedily change the situation in which the Party does not handle Party affairs, governments do no handle government affairs, and government administration is fused with and inseparable from enterprise and commune management.
The work of separating the government from the commune and setting up township government should proceed along with the election of Township People’s Representatives, and should be largely completed by the end of 1984.22
Second, the scope of a township should generally be based on the area formerly under commune jurisdiction. It could also be smaller if the commune was too large.
In setting up townships, particular attention must be paid to market towns. Where conditions are ripe, governments should be set up in market towns to promote economic and cultural development of surrounding rural areas.
The establishment of township governments should be streamlined and the number on their staffs should not exceed that of the present commune level. Concrete arrangements should be made by the provinces. Municipalities, or autonomous regions concerned after all-round considerations.
Township cadres should be selected through a gradual process from outstanding people in the countryside; they should be able to “go up or down” as the case may be, that is, if elected, they would devote themselves to their jobs; if not, they should remain good farmers. Wages and benefits of current full-time cadres, including those working in collective economic organizations, will not be changed. Newly elected cadres should be given suitable stipends or subsidies.
In the past, some commune members had been selected to work in commune offices in various localities. Those among them who are suitable to continue working can stay on their jobs; those who are not should be transferred back to productive work.
Third, township people’s governments, after their establishment, should exercise rights and responsibilities as stipulated in “The Organizational Law of the People’s Republic of China Concerning Local People’s Congresses and People’s Governments at Every Level”; they should lead the area’s economic and cultural development and socialist construction projects and do a good job in public security, civil and judicial affairs, cultural, educational and health undertakings, and family planning. At present, their emphasis should be on consolidating social order, cracking down on crime, mobilizing the masses to formulate township rules and regulations, launching activities to establish socialist spiritual civilization, and promoting the fundamental improvement of social order and practices.
Fourth, after the separation of government administration and commune management, the reform of the economic system ought to proceed in accordance with the Central Committee’s 1983 Document 1.
Among existing enterprises belonging to the communes or production brigades, the responsibility system should continue to be implemented and improved. Democratic management by the masses should be strengthened, so that such enterprises become genuinely cooperative economic units. In the course of reform, any damage to property or graft should be strictly guarded against.
Ongoing reforms should be kept up in grassroots undertakings engaged in technical dissemination, forestry, veterinary medicine, farm machine-building, and economic management, as well as supply and marketing cooperatives and credit cooperatives. The scope of services should be widened and quality raised; a service system embracing technology dispensation, management, circulation, and finance should gradually be set up to facilitate development of diverse economic forms and commodity production.
Fifth, budget making, final accounting, and other financial systems should be set up at the township level after the establishment of township governments; the scope of revenues and expenditures should be defined. Concrete regulations pertaining to this area should be formulated by the Finance Ministry.
Villagers’ committees are the grassroots organs of mass autonomy and should be established in accordance with the geographic distribution of villagers. These committees should actively promote public welfare and assist local governments in administrative work and leadership over production. Committee chairmen, vice-chairmen, and members are elected. Working regulations for these committees should be established separately according to local circumstances. After a period of implementation, experience should be summed up, from which unified organizational regulations should be formulated for the whole nation. Where economic units such as agricultural cooperatives existed in natural hamlets [instead of administratively divided villages—tr.], should the villagers wish to have only one leading body for both the economic organization and the villagers’ committee, their wishes should be agreed to for trial implementation.
Sixth, separating of government administration and commune management and establishment of township governments is a matter of major importance over which Party committees at every level should strengthen leadership. The mass line should be followed and political and ideological work reinforced. Experiments could first be carried out in selected areas to gain experiences, after which work should expand to include all areas. The task must be performed well. Where reforms have already been carried out, the existing scope and structure should be tested out in practice and changes made where necessary.
To do this work well, civil affairs departments should take charge of relevant day-to-day work. The Rural Policy Research Department under the Party Central Committee and the Civil Affairs Ministry should be contacted for problems pertaining to economic and government structure. Major issues should be reported to the Central Committee and State Council as soon as possible.