Comment on the «Charter of the Anshan Iron and Steel Company»
#PUBLICATION NOTE
This edition of Comment on the «Charter of the Anshan Iron and Steel Company» has been prepared and revised for digital publication by the Institute of Marxism-Leninism-Maoism under the Central Committee of the Communist Party in Switzerland on the basis of the following edition: Chairman Mao's Note on «Charter of the Anshan Iron and Steel Company», in the Beijing Review, Vol. 20, No. 14 (1st of April, 1977).
#INTRODUCTION NOTE
This is a comment written by Comrade Mao Zedong on the Report on the Development of the Movement for Technological Innovations and Technological Revolution on the Industrial Front, submitted by the Anshan City Committee of the Communist Party of China on the 11th of March, 1960, on the 22nd of March, 1960. It was first published in the Renmin Ribao (22nd of March, 1960).
#Workers and oppressed people of the world, unite!
#COMMENT ON THE «CHARTER OF THE ANSHAN IRON AND STEEL COMPANY»
#Mao Zedong
#22nd of March, 1960
#★
This report from the Anshan City Party Committee is very good. The more one reads it, the more delighted one gets. It doesn't strike one as too long, in fact, one would be willing to read it even if it were longer; this is because the problems raised in the report are factual, well reasoned out, and very absorbing. With more than 100'000 workers and staff members, the Anshan Iron and Steel Company is the country's biggest enterprise. Formerly, people there thought that their enterprise was a modernized one and there was no need for technological revolution. They were opposed to launching vigorous mass movements, to the principle of cadres' participation in productive labour and workers' participation in management, of reform of irrational and outdated rules and regulations, and of close cooperation among cadres, workers, and technicians, and opposed to putting politics in command; they relied on just a few people working in seclusion. Many favoured the system of placing responsibility solely on the factory director and were against the system of the factory director designated to undertake responsibility under the leadership of the Party committee. They held that the «Charter of the Magnitogorsk Iron and Steel Combine» (a set of authoritative rules practised in a big steel plant in the Council Union) was sacred. That was the situation up to the Great Leap Forward in 1958, which marked the first stage. The year 1959 marked the second stage, when people began to think things over, began to have faith in the mass movement, and began to question the system of placing responsibility solely on the factory director and the «Charter of the Magnitogorsk Iron and Steel Combine». During the Mount Lu Meeting of July 1959, the Central Committee received a good report from them, which spoke in favour of the Great Leap Forward, of opposing the Right-wing deviation, and of making utmost exertions; it also put forward a high but practicable target. The Central Committee was extremely pleased with the report and had it circulated to the comrades concerned with its comment. They immediately relayed it by telephone to their respective provinces, municipalities, and autonomous regions, thus helping the struggle going on at the time to criticize Right-wing opportunism. The present report (March 1960) takes another step forward; it does not smack of the «Charter of the Magnitogorsk Iron and Steel Combine», but has given birth to a «Charter of the Anshan Iron and Steel Company». Here emerges the «Charter of the Anshan Iron and Steel Company» in China, in East Asia. This marks the third stage. Now, this report is being passed on to you and you are asked to transmit it to the big and middle enterprises under your administration and to the Party committees of all big and middle cities, and, of course, you may also transmit it to prefectural Party committees and other cities. It should be used as a document for study by cadres in order to stimulate their minds and make them think about the affairs in their own units, so that, under due leadership, a great Marxist-Leninist movement of economic and technological revolution will be carried out link by link and wave upon wave in the cities and the countryside during the whole year of 1960.