The total budget for girls’ education is less than 100,000 yuan, a mere one twentysecond of the total educational budget. Men and women have the same obligations to
pay taxes, but when it comes to their rights to education, the women only get one
twenty-second of what the men do. Ah, men! How hardhearted you are!
In the whole of Hunan Province with its fifteen million women, there is not even
one girls’ middle school! How utterly shameful! The 1921 educational budget listed, for
the first time in history, the allocation for a “Provisional Girls’ Middle School” (6,000
yuan for regular expenses and 4,000 yuan for incidental expenses). I have been told
that some legislators are even contemplating canceling it. I am amazed that women
have been degraded to such an extent.
Zhang Wenliang’s Record of Mao Zedong’s
Comments on the Issue of Establishing the
League244 (November 21, 1920)
Met Mao (at the Popular Education Office).245 He said he was about to go to Liling
in a few days to investigate education there. He also talked about the Youth League,
saying that emphasis should now be given to looking for real comrades, and that it
was better to go slowly, and not advance too hastily.
Letter to Xiang Jingyu246 (November 25, 1920)
Dear Elder Sister Jingyu,
I received your letter some time ago, but could not reply earlier. Please forgive me!
When I visited Shanghai last winter, you forcefully presented to me your views on
Hunanese affairs. For one year now, I, together with Yinbo and others, have also tried
our best indirectly, but to no avail. Education here being backward and the people not
244 This is an entry from Zhang Wenliang’s diary. The league in question was the Socialist Youth
League, later to be redesignated the Communist Youth League. At this time Zhang Wenliang was
studying at First Normal School and had very close contact with Mao.
245 Xiang Jingyu (1895–1928), also known as Junxian, was born in Xupu, Hunan Province. Xiang
was one of the earliest female members of the New People’s Study Society. In December 1919 she went
to France on the work-study program, where she and Cai Hesen concluded a “union based on love,”
which Mao regarded as a model. (See his letter of November 26, 1920, to Luo Xuezan.) She was active
in mobilizing women to join in the work-study in France movement. On returning to China in 1922
she joined the Chinese Communist Party, was present at all Party congresses, was the first head of the
Women’s Department of the Party’s Central Committee and secretary of the Women’s Council. She
went to Moscow to study in 1925. On May 1, 1928, in Wuhan she was shot by the Nationalist army.
246 At this time He Shuheng was head of the Popular Education Office. He invited Xie Juezai and
others to supervise its publication, the Hunan Tongsubao (Hunan Popular News), and Mao very often
went to the office to assist with editorial work.

enlightened, a majority of the Hunanese are still dreaming. The so-called intellectuals
have neither ideals nor plans. I, together with Yinbo and the others, advocate that
Hunan set itself up as an independent country; it must cut itself away from those
unprogressive northern provinces as well as the southern provinces which have very
different situations, break down the hollow and disorganized great China, and embrace
all the other peoples endowed with self-awareness in the world. But those who understand this are few indeed. When the issue of autonomy first emerged, the atmosphere
was very negative. But since the idea of “building a new Hunan based on a Hunanese
constitution to be drawn up by a Hunan People’s Constitutional Convention called
by the Hunan revolutionary government” has been put forward, there has been a new
excitement in the air. The majority of the people, however, are still baffled or even
alarmed by this seemingly bizarre idea. In the last few months, I have seen through the
Hunanese: muddle-headed with neither ideals nor long-term plans. In political circles,
they are lethargic and extremely corrupt, and we can say that there is absolutely no
hope for political reform. We can only disregard all this, carve out a new path, and
create a new environment. Education is my profession, and I have made up my mind
to stay in Hunan for two years. But working will deprive me of the opportunity to
study. What a great sacrifice! There is extremely little progress in girls’ education in
Hunan (the same goes for boys’ education). I hope you can persuade a large number
of women comrades to go abroad. Each extra person you can lure there will be one
person saved. Wishing you progress! My best regards to Aunt Jianhao247 and Sister
Xianxi!248
Your younger brother,
Zedong
November 25, 1920
247 “Aunt Jianhao” was Ge Jianhao (1865–1943), born Lanying, in Xiangxiang, Hunan. She was the
mother of Cai Hesen and Cai Chang and would have been around fifty-five at this time, deserving
of the status of “aunt.” She enrolled in Hunan Women’s Teachers College at forty-nine sui, and after
graduation founded First Women’s Vocational School in her native Xiangxiang xian. She was the oldest
to go to France at the end of 1919 on the work-study program, together with Cai Hesen, Cai Chang,
and Xiang Jingyu. In 1924, after her return to China, she became head of Changsha Popular Women’s
Vocational School.
248 “Sister Xianxi” was Cai Chang (1900–1990), also known as Xianxi, a native of Xiangxiang, Hunan,
and the younger sister of Cai Hesen. In 1920 she became a member of the New People’s Study Society,
and she was an active organizer of the Socialist Youth Corps during her stay in France under the
work-study program. In 1923 she joined the Chinese Communist Party and held posts in the Central
Committee’s Women’s Department and the Women’s Council. After 1949, she became one of the most
important women’s leaders in the Chinese Communist Party.