December 1,1939

[This was a decision drafted by Comrade Mao Tse-tung for the Central Committee
of the Chinese Communist Party.]


1. In the long and ruthless war of national liberation, in the great struggle
to build a new China, the Communist Party must be good at winning intellectuals,
for only in this way will it be able to organize great strength for the War
of Resistance, organize the millions of peasants, develop the revolutionary
cultural movement and expand the revolutionary united front. Without the
participation of the intellectuals victory in the revolution is impossible.

2. Our Party and our army have made considerable efforts to recruit intellectuals
during the last three years, and many revolutionary intellectuals have been
absorbed into the Party, the army, the organs of government, the cultural
movement and the mass movement, thus broadening the united front; this is
a major achievement. But many of the army cadres are not yet alive to the
importance of the intellectuals, they still regard them with some apprehension
and are even inclined to discriminate against them or shut them out. Many
of our training institutes are still hesitant about enrolling young students
in large numbers. Many of our local Party branches are still reluctant to
let intellectuals join. All this is due to failure to understand the importance
of the intellectuals for the revolutionary cause, the difference between
intellectuals in colonial and semi-colonial countries and those in capitalist
countries and the difference between intellectuals who serve the landlords
and the bourgeoisie and those who serve the working class and the peasantry,
as well as the seriousness of the situation in which the bourgeois political
parties are desperately contending with us for the intellectuals and in which
the Japanese imperialists are also trying in every possible way to buy over
Chinese intellectuals or corrupt their minds; in particular, it is due to
the failure to understand the favourable factor that our Party and our army
have already developed a hard core of well-tested cadres and are thus capable
of leading the intellectuals.

3. From now on attention should therefore be paid to the following:

  (a) All Party organizations in the war areas and all army units led by the
  Party should recruit large numbers of intellectuals into our army, training
  institutes and organs of government. We should use various ways and means
  to recruit all intellectuals who are willing to fight Japan and who are fairly
  loyal, hard-working and able to endure hardship; we should give them political
  education and help them to temper themselves in war and work and to serve
  the army, the government and the masses; and, taking each case on its merits,
  we should admit into the Party those who measure up to the requirements of
  Party membership. As for those who do not qualify or do not wish to join
  the Party, we should have good working relations with them and give them
  guidance in their work with us.

  (b) In applying the policy of recruiting intellectuals in large numbers,
  we must undoubtedly take great care to prevent the infiltration of those
  elements sent in by the enemy and the bourgeois political parties and to
  keep out other disloyal elements. We must be very strict about keeping out
  such elements. Those who have already sneaked into our Party, army or government
  organs must be firmly but discriminatingly combed out on the basis of conclusive
  evidence. But we must not on that account suspect reasonably loyal intellectuals,
  and we must be strictly on guard against the false accusation of innocent
  people by counter-revolutionaries.

  (c) We should assign appropriate work to all intellectuals who are reasonably
  loyal and useful, and we should earnestly give them political education and
  guidance so that in the long course of the struggle they gradually overcome
  their weaknesses, revolutionize their outlook, identify themselves with the
  masses, and merge with the older Party members and cadres and the worker
  and peasant members of the Party.

  (d) The necessity of admitting intellectuals into our work should be brought
  home to those cadres, and especially to certain cadres in the main forces
  of our army, who are opposed to their admission. At the same time, we should
  work effectively to encourage worker and peasant cadres to study hard and
  raise their cultural level. Thus worker and peasant cadres will at the same
  time become intellectuals, while the intellectuals will at the same time
  become workers and peasants.

  (e) In the main the principles stated above are also applicable in the Kuomintang
  areas and in the Japanese-occupied areas, except that, on admitting intellectuals
  into the Party, more attention must be paid to their degree of loyalty, so
  as to ensure still tighter Party organization in those areas. We should maintain
  suitable contact with the huge numbers of non-Party intellectuals who sympathize
  with us and organize them in the great struggle for resistance to Japan and
  for democracy, and in the cultural movement and the work of the united front.


4. All our Party comrades must understand that a correct policy towards the
intellectuals is an important prerequisite for victory in the revolution.
There must be no repetition of the incorrect attitude towards intellectuals
which Party organizations in many localities and army units adopted during
the Agrarian Revolution; the proletariat cannot produce intellectuals of
its own without the help of the existing intellectuals. The Central Committee
hopes that the Party committees at all levels and all Party comrades will
give this matter their serious attention.

NOTES


1. The term "intellectuals" refers to all those who have
had middle school or higher education and those with similar educational
levels. They include university and middle school teachers and staff members,
university and middle school students, primary school teachers, professionals,
engineers and technicians, among whom the university and middle school students
occupy an important position.


Transcription by the Maoist Documentation Project.