Dear Mr. Zhou Suyuan,[1]

Your letter has been received and noted. We feel that you are a most cordial and esteemed friend of ours as well as a revolutionary comrade, and we do not at all feel that you are "sitting back and enjoying preferential treatment." Your activities and work should be decided entirely in accordance with your health and interests, because you are an elderly man, not comparable to the young. This is a point that not only we must take into consideration, but you yourself must also take into consideration. Only under comparatively more suitable conditions and circumstances, where your health is better assured, can your work be done better.

Regarding the plan you proposed to return to Guizhou and work there, if you have already made up your mind and believe this to be better, I am in complete agreement. I intend to give you 300 yuan for travel expenses. I do not know if this will be sufficient; please calculate it yourself and let me know. In the future, when our funds are more ample, we can help you with a little living allowance each month, roughly equivalent to living as one does in Yan'an. This is entirely because you are a person who struggles, and for no other reason whatsoever. When you are about to leave, please leave your mailing address and inform me. When you decide on the time of departure, I will come to see you off.

With respectful salutations!

Mao Zedong

October 6

[1] Zhou Suyuan (1879–1958), a native of Bijie, Guizhou. In 1936 he joined the Long March with the Second Front Army of the Red Army and reached northern Shaanxi. After the outbreak of the War of Resistance, he served as a senior counselor in the Eighth Route Army. He returned to his native place in 1938. After the founding of New China, he served as Vice Chairman of the Guizhou Provincial People's Government and Vice Governor of Guizhou Province.