On January 12, 1958, at a Party conference in Nanning, Mao Zedong attacked the policy against “rash advance” (反冒进) that the leadership had followed in 1956. “When the rightists attacked,” he said, “some of our comrades were thrown to a point only fifty meters from the rightists.” The speech is recorded in the 1968 collection Long Live Mao Zedong Thought.
Premier Zhou Enlai stated his position at the conference and also made a self-criticism to Mao in private. In May 1958, at the second session of the Eighth Party Congress, Zhou and Chen Yun made formal written self-criticisms on the matter.