Memo from the Organization Department of
the [Shanghai] Executive Bureau [of the
Guomindang] to Comrade Shouyuan

(March 31, 1924)

Comrade Shouyuan:¹

We have seen the report of the Fifth Subdistrict of the Third District, and
from it we have learned that Mao Yongxun² and Tan Liming³ of the executive
committee [of this subdistrict] are also members of the Central Committee. According to the statutes, it is not permitted [for Central Committee members] to
occupy posts concurrently in subdistrict offices. Please hold another election.⁴

The source for this memo is a manuscript document held in the Guomindang archives in
Taibei, as copied by Professor Yeh Wen-hsin of the University of California at Berkeley,
in the course of her research on the Shanghai Executive Bureau. Professor Yeh has kindly
made the Chinese text available to us, and has also provided the information regarding the
Third District which appears in the first footnote. In the document itself, authorship is
attributed simply to the Organization Department of the Shanghai Bureau, but Professor
Yeh has no doubt that the original is in Mao Zedong's hand. That would, in any case, be a
reasonable supposition, since Mao was, as indicated in the Introduction to this volume, the
secretary of the Organization Department.
1. We have been unable to identify this individual, who was obviously an official of
the district or of the subdistrict concerned. The Third District, one of a number which
existed at this time in Shanghai, corresponded to the French Concession. A high proportion of the members there were Guomindang veterans not in sympathy with the transformation of their party inaugurated at the First Congress. Of all the subdistricts the fifth was
regarded as the worst, and had already been criticized by the Executive Bureau for failure
to submit a roster of members as required by the party statutes.
2. Mao Zuquan (1883-1952), zi Yongxun, a native of Jiangsu, was elected a member
of Parliament in April 1913. At the First Congress of the Guomindang he was elected an
alternate member of the Central Executive Committee, and at the first meeting of the
Shanghai Executive Bureau on February 25, 1924, he had been appointed head of the
Investigation Department. He was thus a close colleague of Mao Zedong.
3. Tan Zhen (1885-1947), zi Liming, a native of Hunan, was a founding member of
the Tongmenghui. In 1913, he was elected to Parliament. From 1918 to 1924, he worked
to establish a political base for the Guomindang in Guangdong, and at the First Congress
in January 1924, he was elected a full member of the Central Executive Committee.
4. It is of interest to note that, at the Second Congress in January 1926, Mao successfully proposed that this provision of the statutes be modified to allow Central Committee
members to serve simultaneously on lower-level party organs, with the authorization of
the Central Committee. See below, the extracts from the record of the Second Congress,
and the note regarding this point.