Guidelines for the Work of Propaganda
Personnel
(April 26, 1930)

Item 1. All propaganda personnel must have a set of equipment and use white
(or black) coloring material to write slogans stipulated by this office, at any time
and in any place on walls that are easily seen by people traveling on the streets
and roads.

Item 2. In addition to writing on walls each and every one of the slogans from
the book of slogans stipulated by this office, longer slogans must be written out
on colored paper and pasted up in places where they are easily seen by people
traveling on the streets and roads.

Item 3. Whenever a town is reached, the main slogans stipulated by this office
are to be written on sheets of red cloth and hung in the middle of the street.

Item 4. Propaganda teams must frequently designate specific personnel to take
all the propaganda materials and a pot of paste, and paste the propaganda materials where they may be easily seen by people traveling on the streets and roads.

Item 5. All propaganda personnel, no matter whether with an army unit on the
move or with an army unit stationed somewhere, must carry propaganda materials and distribute them in an orderly fashion whenever they encounter the
masses.

Item 6. In White districts where reactionary propaganda has caused the people
to flee in fear, all propaganda personnel must see to it that propaganda materials
are placed so that they may be seen when the people return. For example, paste
propaganda materials on the streets and roads, in schools, in factories, in shops,
and in soldiers' quarters.

Item 7. From among the propaganda team, designate a certain number of propagandists who are good speakers to conduct oral propaganda. Whenever and

wherever, they should hoist a propaganda banner and use various tools to attract
the masses, call the masses together and address propaganda to them, and also
look for those among the masses who are relatively receptive to the propaganda
and talk with them individually. For example, when there is only a very small
crowd, talk with them individually.

Item 8. From among the propaganda team, designate those propaganda personnel who are both artistic and good speakers to be in charge of presenting propaganda in costume, and when there is a day or more of rest, go to work in places
where there are more people and also find a way to call a large mass meeting.

Item 9. When starting work [in a particular area], every propagandist should be
careful to make a social survey of the area in question and should report the
results of such investigations to the statistics section daily, to make up overall
statistics.

Item 10. All propaganda personnel should at all times take care to examine the
situation regarding the local bullies and all reactionary elements and quickly
report them to the defense office to find a way to deal with them.

Item 11. When fighting the local bullies, it is essential to delegate propagandists
to accompany the security section and make propaganda and also to aid the
security section in its work. (As in the case of distributing confiscated grain to
the poor peasants.)

Item 12. When holding large mass meetings, propagandists should take responsibility for setting up the meeting place, for calling the masses together, and for
maintaining order at the meeting. Before and after holding meetings, do intensive propaganda among the masses.

Item 13. When a battle is not going well, or we are in strategic retreat because
the enemy is attacking us, all propagandists must write a lot of propaganda
slogans that are addressed to the enemy troops and distribute a lot of propaganda
material meant for the enemy troops.

Item 14. In time of battle, all propagandists must help in carrying and attending
to wounded soldiers and also hire the masses from the vicinity of the battleground to carry the wounded to the first-aid stations for treatment.

Item 15. At the end of every battle, all propagandists must focus on looking after
enemy soldiers and talking with them and making propaganda to them individually.

Item 16. After hostilities are concluded, you should assist in hiring masses from
areas near the battleground to bury the dead soldiers.

Item 17. All propagandists, at all times and in all places, should pay attention to
maintaining troop morale.

Item 18. All propagandists, at the end of each day of work, must report the
circumstances of work during that day to the team leader, to be put down as a
written report and turned over to the section leader for inspection.

Issued by the Political Department of the
Fourth Army of the Red Army

--- Notes

Our source for this text is Mao Zedong ji. Bujuan, Vol. 3, pp. 95-97, where it is reproduced from a documentary collection published in China in 1979.