(February 17, 1931)

At present, the central task of the revolution is to launch a revolutionary war and
stop the warfare among the warlords. To carry out such a task, it is absolutely
necessary to create a Red Army of iron and to win over the broad masses of the
people. Consequently, it has become an urgent task for us to strengthen political
education in the Red Army and make sure that commanders and soldiers alike
clearly recognize their tasks and resolutely carry them out, and at the same time
to intensify our propaganda and organizational work among the masses and
mobilize the masses within the war zone to rise up in struggle. These tasks are to
be carried out by the commissars and political departments of the Red Army. To
coordinate these various tasks of the Red Army units in different places requires
the establishment of a General Political Department. Now that the Red Army has
expanded rapidly all over the country, there is an urgent need to centralize and
strengthen political guidance for all its units. It is to meet this need that a General
Political Department has been established within this commission, with Mao
Zedong as its director. Because of practical necessity, the General Political De-
partment of this commission will, for the time being, serve concurrently as the
General Political Department of the First Front Army.

The General Political Department commands all political departments in the
Red Army and guides the political work of all political commissars. Orders from
the General Political Department must absolutely be obeyed by subordinate political departments. Similarly, as regards political work, commissars must accept
and submit to [the guidance of the General Political Department]. All political
departments in the Red Army are to make frequent reports to the General Political Department through the next higher level. Political commissars, apart from

Our source for this document is Mao Zedong ji, Vol. 2, pp. 253-54, where it is reproduced
from the collection Chifei wenxian huibian (A Collection of Red Bandit Documents),
published by the Guomindang Military Affairs Commission in 1934.


reporting to the political committee at the next higher level, should at the same
time send reports on political work to the political department at the next higher
level. Within the Red Army, in organizational terms, political departments and
political commissars each have separate organizational systems, but in terms of
the actual work, the subordinate political department follows the direction of the
superior political department and at the same time follows the guidance of the
political commissar of the same rank; the lower level political commissar follows
the direction of the higher level commissar and, at the same time, submits to the
direction of the higher level political department with respect to political work.
It is expected that this order will be thoroughly carried out as soon as it is
received.

Chairman
Vice-Chairmen
Xiang Ying

Zhu De
Mao Zedong