To Xie Juezai
(August 9, 1941)

Venerable Xie:

I have received both your letter of the 8th and the report on Ansai.¹ I have read
them once and shall read them more carefully later. The summing-up meeting that
is in preparation is a positive thing and is not only for the purpose of debating
certain specific issues. Please prepare an active proposal, including the whole question of finance and the economy, enumerating all points item by item, and include
what is to be done this year and what is to be done next year. Please let me see it
after it is drafted so that I can study it beforehand and exchange views with you
before discussion takes place. The Venerable Lin has made a three-year plan, which
I would very much like to have a look at. He kindly wrote to me yesterday saying
that he plans to expand and rewrite it, and I wonder whether he will be able to have
the draft completed within ten days or so. Everyone hopes that we can unify our
determination and our actions, and my opinion is that we must map out a program
of action; otherwise, there is no way to unify. Such a program of action, moreover,
cannot be discussed and confirmed unless views are exchanged around a specific
plan and without detailed study. I am someone who has not studied the matter at
all, so I wish to increase my understanding for the purpose of participating in this
meeting, and I have read your various letters with great care. It would be even
better, provided the state of your health permits, if you could sketch a plan in
outline form, or else make some additions and revisions to Venerable Lin's threeyear plan on the basis of recent experience and study. For the moment I have not
yet gone to bed; if I am able to sleep well in the morning, I might go down or send
a car to fetch you here for a chat, and we can decide then. Respectful salutations to
you!

Mao Zedong
early morning on August 9

Our source for this letter is Mao Zedong shuxin xuanji, pp. 180-81, where it is reproduced
from the manuscript.
1. Ansai is a xian just north of Yan'an.

[Li] Fuchun and [Chen] Zhengren² have each written a proposal, which I have
previously perused roughly but failed to give proper attention to. I should like to
read them again more carefully. Have you read these two pieces?

2. Li Fuchun was then serving as deputy chief of the Chinese Communist Party Central
Committee's Organization Department. Chen Zhengren (1907-1972), a native of Suichuan
in Jiangxi, was then a member of the Standing Committee and head of the Organization
Department of the Chinese Communist Party Central Committee's Northwest Bureau.