On Limiting special Express Mail
General Order No. 8 of the
Council of People's Commissars
(May 11, 1933)
In order to limit special express mail, the Central Commissariat for Internal
Affairs of the Council of People's Commissars has issued an order specifying
that "any public or private letters or documents that are not strictly urgent in
nature are not to be sent by special express mail." Recent investigations within
Party organs and Red armed forces units have continued to reveal a good deal of
irresponsible use of special express mail. For example, a comrade in the Fifth
Branch District lost a fountain pen and sent a special express letter to inquire
about it, requesting, furthermore, that the reply be sent by special express as
well. In Yihuang xian, a comrade in the Soviet Military Affairs Bureau sent a
special express letter to a comrade in the Fujian Military District seeking repayment of a personal loan. The Daxiba district committee also sent an inquiry by
special express mail to a representative of the Huangbai district to ask about
mailing funds, and so on. Such irresponsible uses of special express mail does
harm to the work of the postal service, to express communications that are
genuinely urgent, and especially to communication of reports on the military
situation, and are a waste of public funds. This situation must not be allowed to
continue. The Council of People's Commissars specifically and strictly repeats
the order to all organs and all units of the armed forces to prohibit their personnel
from doing such things, and also specifies the following restrictive measures:
I. Special express mail of military organs shall be limited to urgent reports
on the disposition of the enemy and to the sending of emergency orders and
reports. All other items may not be sent by special express mail. In addition, the
seal of the commanding officer must appear on the communication.
2. Restrictions applicable to the Party, governments, and mass organizations:
a. Only xian level organs are permitted to send special express mail. District and township organs may not use special express mail.
b. The content of special express mail must be truly urgent in nature, that
This order was first published in Hongse Zhonghua, no. 90, July 2, 1933. We have
translated it from Mao Zedongji, Vol. 3, pp. 217-18, which reproduces this version.

is, the nature of the communication must be such that if not received within a
very short time it will have a serious adverse affect on the overall work.
c. For Party organs, the Party secretary, or for government organs, the
government chairman (in the case of the central government, the department
head, and for mass organizations, the responsible person or committee chairman), must place his seal on the envelope of any special express mail.
3. The security bureau, which is charged with the responsibility of inspection,
upon discovering a violation of the above stipulations, in addition to immediately
changing the communication to regular mail status, shall also report the sender to
the responsible organ at the next higher level to mete out proper punishment to
the said sender.
Organs at all levels and all armed forces units are expected to observe strictly
the above regulations and to refrain from violating them again. It is so ordered.
Chairman
Vice-Chairmen
Mao Zedong
Xiang Ying
Zhang Guotao
May 11, 1933, by the Western calendar