March 12, 1966
[SOURCE: Peking Review, December 26, 1977.]
Your letter dated March 11 has been received. It is a very good idea that the central planning group send people to Hupeh to discuss with the provincial Party committee its programme for farm mechanization covering five, seven and ten years and have a look at the experimental centres for achieving mechanization through self-reliance. I suggest that the regional bureaus of the Central Committee and the Party committees of the provinces, municipalities and autonomous regions also send their people to Hupeh to join in the study. Seven to ten days will suffice. On their return the localities should draft tentative plans covering five, seven and ten years and spend a few months talking the matter over. Then there will be something for discussion at the working conference to be called some time in August or September this year. If no preparations are made in advance, I am afraid the discussion will get nowhere. The task of mechanization should be performed by the provinces, municipalities and autonomous regions mainly through their own efforts, and the central authorities can only provide some help in materials, etc., for those areas which are deficient, but these things have to be bought with local funds when the central authorities really have reserves for sale. It won't do to start the work on the spur of the moment, with everyone stretching out his hand for help. In the absence of the necessary conditions, it would be better to postpone the matter for a few years. In line with the above principle, those localities where materials (iron and steel), machine tools and farm machines are under state control but are produced locally and where output far exceeds the state targets (say by 100 per cent or more) should be permitted to buy 30 to 50 per cent of that portion above the target for their own use. Unless this practice is established, it will be impossible to bring the initiative of the local authorities into play. To mechanize farming and increase output in agriculture, forestry, animal husbandry, side-lines and fishery, it is necessary to win for the localities some right to the machinery they make. Here some right means the right to share in the above-target portion where it is sufficiently large, but not otherwise. It is not good to concentrate everything in the hands of the central authorities and impose rigid controls. Moreover, mechanization should be linked with getting prepared against war, getting prepared against natural disasters, and doing everything for the people. Otherwise the localities will not go about it with enthusiasm even when the necessary conditions are present. The first point is getting prepared against war, for after all the people and the army must be fed and clad before they can fight, otherwise the rifles and guns will be useless. The second point is getting prepared against natural disasters. It is by no means feasible for the localities to go on for long without reserves of grain, cotton and cooking oil and to depend on other provinces for relief in case of crop failure. The difficulties will be greater still in time of war. And crop failure in limited areas is often unavoidable in any single province. This is still more so when several provinces are considered together. The third point is that the state must not take too much for accumulation but must allow for the fact that even now some of the people have not enough food and very little clothing. Further, it must allow for the need to store reserves among the people against the exigencies of war and natural disaster and, above all, it must allow for the accumulation by the localities of funds for expanded reproduction. Therefore, farm mechanization must be linked with these points before the masses can be mobilized to accomplish the plan for mechanization at a fairly rapid yet steady pace. Soviet agricultural policy has always been at fault; it drains the pond to catch all the fish and alienates the masses. In consequence, the country finds itself in its present straits, the main trouble being that it has long been confined to simple reproduction and is unable even to keep this up in a bad year. For several years we too had the experience of draining the pond to catch all the fish (i.e., higher tax and excessive state purchase of grain) and of being unable to maintain simple reproduction in many areas in lean years. We should at least take warning from this. We have raised the slogan "Be prepared against war, be prepared against natural disasters, and do everything for the people" (the last is also the best way of doing everything for the state, as the old saying goes: when the people are well off, how can the monarch not be?), but whether this slogan will be conscientiously followed for long, I think, is still a problem, and only time will show if it can be settled. By and large, has not agriculture been mechanized in the Soviet Union? Why is it still impasse? This is something well worth pondering.
Please weigh the above points and see if they are practicable. Further, as to who from the central planning group should go to Hupeh, it seems comrades Yu Chiu-li and Lin Hu-chia are the suitable choices. If the regional bureaus of the Central committee and the party Committees of the provinces, municipalities and autonomous regions are also asked to send people it seems appropriate that they should each send the secretary in charge of agriculture and a member of the planning commission. Altogether there will be only about 70 people going to have on-the-spot meeting fore seven to 10 days, also please consider if this is practicable.
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