Letter of Thanks to the Soviet Government Delegation (Machine Tools and Agricultural Machines)
Compiled from the merged Wikisource corpus; dating follows the standard catalogue. See Guide · Editions & Language for the sourcing rule.
Introduction
In October 1954, Mao Zedong wrote to the Soviet government delegation, thanking it for presenting to China the eighty-three exhibits — mainly machine tools and agricultural machines — of the Soviet economic and cultural achievements exhibition to be held in Beijing. The letter is addressed to Khrushchev and the delegation, and mentions receipt of a 5 October letter. Besides the thank-you letter the base text carries a separate report on China-Ceylon trade, preserved as well.
Letter of Thanks from Chairman Mao Zedong to the Government Delegation of the Soviet Union (Machine Tools and Agricultural Machines)
Dear Comrade Khrushchev and the Government Delegation of the Soviet Union:
Your letter of 5 October 1954 has been received with respect.
The Government of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics has presented to our country the eighty-three exhibits — machine tools, agricultural machines and other items — now shown at the Soviet Exhibition of Economic and Cultural Achievements opened here in Beijing. On behalf of the People's Republic of China and the Chinese people I extend heartfelt thanks to the Soviet government. The Chinese people will regard this generous gift as a concrete expression of the close friendship of the Soviet people for the Chinese people.
The base text is the Wikisource version, arranged under the original name. Besides the thank-you letter, the same piece carries a report on the rubber-and-rice trade between the PRC government and the Ceylon government; this passage is unrelated to the letter and is a product of the base text's layout, which this edition does not alter or delete.
The letter mentions the five-year rubber-and-rice trade agreement the two governments concluded in December 1952, and the separate purchase-and-sale contracts the two sides signed for the third time this year. The amounts in the report are fifty thousand metric tons of rubber and two hundred and seventy thousand metric tons of rice.
This piece's date 'October 1954' is taken from the 5 October letter mentioned in the body; no other dating is added. The two letters share the same salutation, both to Khrushchev and the Soviet government delegation, and may be read together.