The Policy of the Three Red Banners. The Second Five-Year Plan, 1958–1962, and the Consolidation Phase, 1963–1965

Fourteen months after Li Fu-ch’un’s detailed Report on the First Five-Year Plan for the Development of the People’s Republic of China, 1953–1957, Prime Minister Chou En-lai announced on September 16, 1956, at the Eighth Party Congress of the CCP, the second 5-year plan. The suggested plan, which was passed by the Party congress on September 27, 1956, was with respect to structure and priorities quite similar to the first 5-year plan and its capital-intensive industrial buildup. The influence of the Soviet development pattern remained. The construction performance of the “great Soviet Union,” whose aid continued to form the base for China’s development, was specifically praised. The Party Congress authorized the State Council to set up a provisional plan without delay. It was demanded specifically that all quantitative targets be determined according to a solid basis. The socialist enthusiasm of the masses should of course not be ignored, but all negative conditions and difficulties that could turn up should also be considered. Rash and adventurist tendencies had to be fought as well as tendencies to depart from concrete reality; it was wrong to overlook possible alternatives or to disregard the planned and well-proportioned development in the different economic sectors.1