K. This is the 1st working draft of vol. VI. It still ... - From Marx to Mao

ECONOMIC AND FINANCIAL PROBLEMS IN THE ANTI-JAPONESE WAR
was gradually stopped and we applied ourselves to setting up handicraft
textile mills. In the first half of 1941 each large organization
and school selected service personnel and messengers to go to the
Refugee Textile Mill run by the government to study spinning and
weaving. Like bamboo shoots after spring rain, more than ten textile
mills grew up within a short time. The shortcoming was that
there was no planning. By the latter half of the year because they
had no ensured supply of raw materials or market for yarn, or because
they lacked sufficient liquid capital or were poorly administered,
some had closed, some had merged and some had temporarily
closed. For example, the Xin Zhongguo Textile Mill of the Finance
and Economy Office directly under the Central Committee first
FROM MARX
TO MAO
merged with the Shengli Mill of the Central Organization Depart-
⋆
ment and then merged with the Tuanjie Mill run by the Marxism-
Leninism Institute. Then using the name of Tuanjie Textile Mill, it
was run in a centralized way and got more profit. The wool-spinning
factory run by the Lu Xun Academy and the Women’s University
was closed down and its capital used elsewhere. The Tuanjie
Textile Mill of the Financial and Economy Office under the Central
Committee and the Jiaotong Mill run by the Rear Services could not
fully employ their production capacity because of all kinds of difficulties.
They alternately worked and closed down for a while until
they eventually got on NOT the right track. FOR Thus the process of moving
from a hand-spinning movement of several thousands of people to
the setting up of handicraft factories, from the setting up of over
ten small textile mills COMMERCIAL
and wool-spinning factories to the final merger
into two factories, the Jiaotong and the Tuanjie, was a process of
moving from blindness to consciousness in which there was continuous
groping forward through research, improvement in techniques
and improvement DISTRIBUTION
in administration. This process on the one
hand illustrated the hard-working spirit of the various organizations
and schools and on the other illustrated our complete lack of experience
in running industry at that time. By 1942 the Jiaotong produced
3,336 bolts of cloth and the Tuanjie produced 2,736, becoming
major factories in the Border Region. They are the valuable
creation of the process of hard work and groping the way forward.
Besides textile mills, the organizations and schools directly under
the Central Committee have successively set up many handicraft
factories for such things as bedding and clothing, shoes, coal and
charcoal, carpentry, papermaking, pottery, flour-milling and oil-
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