The Whole Country Should Be a Great School
#PUBLICATION NOTE
This edition of The Whole Country Should Be a Great School has been translated, 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 editions:
- Chairman Mao's May 7 Directive, in the Beijing Review, Vol. 19, No. 20 (14th of May, 1976).
- Comments on the Report of the General Logistical Department on Further Improving the Army's Agricultural and Sideline Production, in the Collected Writings of Mao Zedong Since the Founding of the People's Republic of China, First Chinese Edition, Vol. 12, Central Party Literature Publishing House, Beijing.
#INTRODUCTION NOTE
These are two letters from Comrade Mao Zedong to Lin Biao dated the 7th and 14th of May, 1966 concerning the Report on Further Improving the Agricultural and Sideline Production of the Army, submitted for review by the General Logistical Department of the Chinese People's Liberation Army on the 6th of May, 1966. It was first published in Chairman Mao on the Educational Revolution in December 1967.
#Workers and oppressed people of the world, unite!
#THE WHOLE COUNTRY SHOULD BE A GREAT SCHOOL
#FIRST COMMENT ON A REPORT SUBMITTED BY THE GENERAL LOGISTICAL DEPARTMENT OF THE CHINESE PEOPLE'S LIBERATION ARMY
#Mao Zedong
#7th of May, 1966
#★
Dear Comrade Lin Biao:
I have received the report from the General Logistical Department which you sent me on the 6th of May. I think it is an excellent plan. Is it possible to send this report to all the military districts and ask them to hold discussions of it among the cadres at the field army and divisional levels? Their views should be reported to the Military Commission and through it to the Central Committee for approval. After that, suitable orders should be issued to them. Please consider this suggestion.
In the absence of a world war, the People's Liberation Army should be a great school. Even under conditions of a Third World War, it can still serve as a great school. In addition to fighting the war, it must do other work. In the eight years of the Second World War, didn't we do just that in the anti-Japanese base areas? In this school, our army should study politics and military affairs, raise its educational level, and also engage in agriculture and side-occupations and run small or middle factories to make products for its own needs or for exchange with the State against equal values. Our army should also do mass work and participate in the Socialist Education Movement in the factories and the villages. When the Socialist Education Movement is over, it will always find mass work to do, so as to be always at one with the masses. Also, our army should always be ready to participate in the struggles to criticize and repudiate the bourgeoisie in the Cultural Revolution. In this way, the army can concurrently study, engage in agriculture, run factories, and do mass work. Of course, these tasks should be properly coordinated, and a distinction should be made between the primary and secondary tasks. Each army unit should engage in one or two of the three fields of activity — agriculture, industry, and mass work — but not in all three at the same time. In this way, our army of several million will be able to play a very great role indeed.
While mainly engaging in industrial activity, workers should also study military affairs and politics and raise their educational level. They, too, should carry out the Socialist Education Movement and criticize and repudiate the bourgeoisie. Where conditions permit, they should also engage in agriculture and side-occupations, just as people do in the Daqing Oilfield.
While mainly engaging in agricultural production (including forestry, animal husbandry, side-occupations, and fisheries), the peasants in the communes should at the same time study military affairs and politics and raise their educational level. When conditions permit, they should collectively run some small factories. They also should criticize and repudiate the bourgeoisie.
The same holds good for the students, too. While their main task is to study, they should also learn other things, that is to say, they should not only learn book-knowledge, they should also learn industrial production, agricultural production, and military affairs. They also should criticize and repudiate the bourgeoisie. The length of schooling should be shortened, education should be revolutionized, and the domination of our schools and colleges by bourgeois intellectuals should not be tolerated any longer.
Where conditions permit, those working in commerce, the service trades, and Party and government organizations should do the same.
What has been said above is neither new nor original. Many people have been doing this for some time, but it has not yet become widespread. Our army has been working in this way for decades. Now, it is on the threshold of new developments.
#Mao Zedong
#7th of May, 1966
#Workers and oppressed people of the world, unite!
#SECOND COMMENT ON A REPORT SUBMITTED BY THE GENERAL LOGISTICAL DEPARTMENT OF THE CHINESE PEOPLE'S LIBERATION ARMY
#Mao Zedong
#14th of May, 1966
#★
Dear Comrade Lin Biao:
If you agree with the above document, you may print it and distribute it to the members of the Military Commission of the Party's Central Committee and at the upcoming Enlarged Meeting of the Political Bureau of the Party's Central Committee. Let people bring it home and discuss it. If there are no objections, it can be implemented. Please forward it together with a comment in the name of the Central Committee. Please use your discretion.