On the Ten Major Relationships
| Author | Mao Tsetung |
|---|---|
| Published | April 25, 1956 |
| Format | Talk |
TL;DR — Mao’s April 1956 speech to the Politburo on ten tensions in building socialism, starting with heavy industry versus light industry and agriculture, as printed in his Selected Works.
Mao Zedong’s speech of April 25, 1956, made after the Politburo heard reports from thirty-four economic departments. This copy is a scan of the text as printed in volume V of his Selected Works (the English edition from Beijing’s Foreign Languages Press).
Mao groups the problems of building socialism into ten “relationships”, among them heavy industry versus light industry and agriculture; coastal versus inland industry; economic construction versus defence; the state, production units and individual producers; the centre and the regions; Han and minority nationalities; Party and non-Party; and China and other countries. Written in the shadow of Khrushchev’s denunciation of Stalin, it argues China should learn from Soviet “defects and errors” and give more weight to agriculture and light industry so capital could accumulate faster.
What it is: a primary political text by a head of state, in an official Party-edited version. Important for the history of Chinese economic policy.
Where this came from
- A copy saved in October 2026.
24 pages. A PDF copy is held in Kyle’s private archive; it is not linked or shared here.