Chairman Mao Zedong Oppose Book Worship - Page 13

Section VII. The Technique of Investigation

3. Which Is better, a large fact-finding meeting or a small one? That depends on the investigator's ability to conduct a meeting. If he is good at it, a meeting of a many as a dozen or even twenty or more people can be called. A large meeting has its advantages; from the answers you get fairly accurate statistics (e.g., in finding out the percentages of poor peasants in the total peasant population) and fairly correct conclusions (e.g., in finding out whether equal or differentiated land distribution is better). Of course, it has its disadvantages too; unless you are skillful in conducting meetings, you will find it difficult to keep order. So the number of people attending a meeting depends on the competence of the investigator. However, the minimum is three, or otherwise the information obtained will be too limited to correspond to the real situation.