●This Collection of Mao Zedong’s Works has been compiled according to the following editorial principles:

    1. This collection includes as many of Mao Zedong’s writings as could be gathered, spanning from 1917 to 1949.

    2. The order of entries follows a chronological principle based on the dates of composition or delivery—such as speeches—and when these dates are uncertain, reference is made to the dates of publication. For details, please consult the Chronological Table of Mao Zedong’s Works in the Supplemental Volume.

    3. The scope of “Mao Zedong’s Works” in this collection is determined by the following criteria:

        1. All articles bearing Mao Zedong’s signature, whether written solely by him or jointly with others, are included without exception.

        2. Even if no signature appears, materials for which there is reliable evidence establishing their authorship by Mao Zedong are also incorporated.

        3. Building upon the above, in addition to essays, reports, speeches, and letters, conversations, declarations, decrees, telegrams, and similar documents are likewise regarded as part of his oeuvre.

        4. Other items such as poems, inscriptions, excerpts, and collective works are collected in the Supplemental Volume.

        5. However, materials found only in the current Selected Works of Mao Zedong and Selected Readings from the Works of Mao Zedong will not be reprinted in this collection.

    4. When different editions of the same work exist, the base text to be used is selected according to the following principles:

        1. Priority is given to the first edition or to versions closely resembling it—that is, those published earlier.

        2. Specifically, the 1949 edition of the Selected Works of Mao Zedong published by the Jin-Cha-Ji Daily and the 1949 edition compiled and printed by the Central Bureau of the CPC in the Jin-Cha-Ji Liberated Area shall serve as the base texts; any differences in meaning compared with earlier editions will be noted.

        3. If errors, omissions, or ambiguities are found in the chosen edition, they will be corrected or supplemented whenever possible using other available editions.

        4. Any discrepancies between the base texts adopted in this collection and those currently included in the Selected Works of Mao Zedong, regardless of their magnitude, will be fully documented.

    5. The final volume serves as a supplement, acting as an addendum to the entire set. In addition to containing poems, inscriptions, excerpts, and collective works, it also includes a section on textual criticism and a chronological table of Mao Zedong’s works at the end.

    6. The typeface used throughout is China’s current simplified Chinese characters.

●The following annotation methods have been employed in this Collection of Mao Zedong’s Works:

    1. At the end of each work, a record is kept of all separate volumes, journals, and other publications in which the piece has previously appeared. Those used as base texts are marked with a circle (○), while sources consulted for correcting typographical errors or filling in missing words are indicated with a star (☆). Works that were not examined are denoted by a triangle (△), and where comparison revealed no benefit to the original text, no symbol is added.

    2. Differences from the current Selected Works of Mao Zedong are indicated through marginal notes, headnotes, and supplementary notes. The edition used for comparison is the Beijing edition of the Selected Works of Mao Zedong published between 1951 and 1960 (hereinafter referred to as “the Selected Works”).

    Marginal notes

    123… indicate points to be explained in the headnotes.

    Text marked with an “×” signifies passages omitted in the Selected Works.

    (。) (，), etc.—the symbols within parentheses denote elements adopted in the Selected Works.

    Words like 和·它·他 follow the same convention.

    〈。〉 〈，〉, etc.—the symbols within angle brackets represent additions made in the Selected Works.

    A downward arrow (↘) indicates that no line break was present in the Selected Works, whereas a (改) symbol shows that a line break was included there.

    Discrepancies that cannot be resolved by the above symbols are noted in the supplementary notes at the end of each article as “Supp.—Supp. 2…” and so forth.

    Furthermore, other editions differing from the current Selected Works of Mao Zedong are identified via headnotes and marginal notes. For example, “On Lu Xun” (included in Volume Five) falls into this category. In such cases, the name of the comparative edition is stated at the beginning of the headnote, such as “Document → Long Live Mao Zedong Thought.”

    3. When the original text cites the “1944 Edition of the Selected Works” or the “1947 Edition of the Selected Works,” and these differ from earlier versions, a postscript note is appended at the end of the relevant entry.

    4. Unclear or illegible characters due to poor printing are represented by squares (□), while editorial judgments are marked with a bracketed right parenthesis (“］”). If an error is clearly evident but cannot be verified by other sources, and the editor is unable to make a determination, the passage remains unchanged.

    5. Text enclosed in square brackets [ ] represents explanatory notes added by the editors.

    6. The curved quotation marks ﹃﹄ and 〝〞 used in the original base texts have all been standardized to straight double quotation marks﹁﹂in this collection.

    7. Where the original base texts do not specify the date of publication for a particular work, efforts have been made to include this information alongside the title whenever possible.

    8. An asterisk (*) next to a title indicates that the editors have judged the work to be authored by Mao Zedong.





Notes:


 This Preface was transcribed from the first Chinese edition of the Collection of Mao Zedong’s Works, reprinted in 1976 by the Hong Kong Communist Research Group and published by Yishan Books (hereinafter referred to as the “Chinese First Edition”). Certain wording, punctuation, and paragraph formatting have been adjusted according to the Japanese second edition of the Preface to the Collection of Mao Zedong’s Works (hereinafter referred to as the “Japanese Second Edition”). — Editor’s Note


 The original text was typeset in vertical columns, hence the phrase “in accordance with the foregoing,” which corresponds to the horizontal layout’s “in accordance with the above.” — Editor’s Note


 This sentence does not appear in the Japanese Second Edition. — Editor’s Note


 Originally “央,” revised to conform to the Japanese Second Edition. — Editor’s Note


 This sentence is absent from the Japanese Second Edition. — Editor’s Note


 In the Chinese First Edition, “Marginal notes” directly follows “(hereinafter referred to as ‘the Selected Works’),” without a period at the end. It has been revised to match the Japanese Second Edition. — Editor’s Note


 Such text is highlighted in bold red font in this electronic edition. — Editor’s Note


 The Chinese First Edition lacks this sentence, which has been translated from the Japanese Second Edition and added here. In the Japanese Second Edition, the original reads: “Words like 和·它·他 are treated similarly.” This refers to instances where variant forms of characters such as “与” or “他” in the base text were standardized to “与,” “他,” or “它” (and possibly others) in the Selected Works. The editors of the Collection of Mao Zedong’s Works simply annotate the corresponding character on the margin with the version found in the Selected Works. In this electronic edition, however, we enclose the equivalent character from the Selected Works in parentheses and place it immediately after the original term, e.g., “与（和）.” — Editor’s Note


 The “Supp. 1…” supplementary notes in the Collection of Mao Zedong’s Works have been changed to footnotes labeled “Ⅰ…” in this electronic version.


 In the original Collection of Mao Zedong’s Works, text marked with “］” is now indicated with “[ ]” in this electronic edition. The “］” notation originally designated not only passages whose clarity was compromised in the base text and thus required editorial interpretation, but also segments that had been inadvertently omitted from the original source and subsequently reconstructed by the editors based on contextual clues. — Editor’s Note


 ] The vertically oriented quotation marks “﹁﹂” used in the Collection of Mao Zedong’s Works have been selectively replaced with standard horizontal double quotation marks “” or book titles enclosed in guillemets « ». — Editor’s Note


 ] This sentence does not appear in the Japanese Second Edition. Nevertheless, some entries in the main body still bear an asterisk before their titles. — Editor’s Note