In Peng's letter, Peng compared himself to the courageous but tactless Han dynasty general Zhang Fei. Because of Mao's appreciation of Zhang's enemy, Cao Cao, Mao interpreted this as implying a confrontational relationship. Peng criticized the poor allocation of labour across China, especially the inefficient, country-wide practice of forcing farmers to work in backyard furnaces. He criticized the nationwide famine and severe shortage of cotton, and stated that the Chinese people were justified in demanding change from the present conditions. Peng blamed the problems of the Great Leap on what he called "problems in our way of thinking and style of work", especially the tendency for Party administrators to submit exaggerated production reports, and for Party bureaucrats to accept these figures uncritically. Peng blamed the mistakes of the Party on a culture of "petty bourgeois fanaticism", a tendency to believe in achieving change through blindly encouraging mass movements, and claimed that the acceptance of this culture had led to the Party leadership forgetting "the mass-line and the style of seeking truth from facts", which Peng believed had led to the Communist victories over the Japanese and Kuomintang. Peng criticized Mao's policy of "putting politics in command", substituting economic principles and productive work for political objectives.