Page 16 - SELECTED WORKS OF ZHOU ENLAI Volume II

14 ZHOU ENLAI

problem. However, feeding these 9 million people will be conducive
to production and to national development. We should explain to our
people that this is a burden we must bear for the sake of victory and
that it cannot be avoided. The several million people we have pro-
vided for will play some useful role. We should be determined to
turn them into a productive force. We are quite certain that this can
be done, because it was once tried successfully during the War of
Resistance Against Japan. We are now beginning to do it nationwide.
Comrade Mao Zedong has expressed his opinion on military personnel
engaging in production: they should start with agriculture and
handicrafts and also produce industrial goods and armaments. We
believe that in two or three years’ time this practice will prove highly
successful. It is not necessary to have 3.5 million government employees
now. We should make preparations for them to take part in produc-
tion and study, in addition to doing their regular jobs, so that they
will become the revolutionary-minded office workers required by New
China — meeting work requirements and also equipped with a
correct attitude towards labour and with scientific knowledge.
Governments at various levels should all do this work well. At pre-
sent our government organs are overstaffed. Not all employees have
to stay on in government offices; some of them can be transferred to
enterprises.
2. Restoring production. The state will have a heavy burden
next year, and we have no choice but to devote great efforts to pro-
duction. Comrade Mao Zedong has said that production should
increase as the army advances. What else but production can we
rely on now to support the war effort and consolidate our victory?
Production is the basic task of New China. The emphasis at present
must be on recovery rather than expansion, though we certainly do
not exclude any expansion that is possible and necessary. The highest
total annual yield of grain before the War of Resistance Against Japan
was 140 million tons. This year’s harvest is down from that by about
20 per cent. Although we plan to increase the yield by 5 million tons
next year, the total will still be far less than 140 million. The situation
with regard to cotton production is similar. In general, what we should
do is first put things back to normal in every field of endeavour, and
then achieve expansion based on that recovery. Comrade Mao Zedong
has said that recovery would take from three to five years and that
expansion would ensue in eight to ten years. It will be remarkable
enough if in three to five years we can just reach or top the pre-war