Preface to Textbook for Literacy
(January 17, 1942)
A revolutionary cadre must be able to read and write and also have rich general
knowledge of social life and of nature, as the basis for doing work and as the
basis for studying theory. Only thus can he hope to do his work well and to study
theory well. Without this basis—that is, someone who does not recognize
characters is not able to read and write, and someone whose general knowledge
of society and nature is limited to the category of what one directly sees and
hears—such people, though able to do some work, will not be able to do it well,
even if they wish to. Although they can study some revolutionary principles, they
will not be able to study them well. We now have a great number of cadres who
are bright and faithful but lack a cultural basis. In the future we will inevitably
still have a great number of such cadres. They urgently need to resolve the
problems of a cultural basis, but the problem of textbooks has still not been
resolved. Now, the publication of the Textbook for Literacy is a great victory. It is
the contribution of comrades [He] Kaifeng, Xu Teli, and Fan Wenlan.1 Although
the contents of the textbook will necessarily have to have its faults corrected
from time to time, weeding through the old to bring forth the new, having this
textbook still opens the gates to the study of culture. The publication of the
Textbook for Literacy is good news for many cadres, and I believe the great mass
of our cadres will warmly welcome this textbook.
Notes
Our source for this text is Mao Zedong wenji, Vol. 2, p. 387. It is taken from the 1948 edition of Wenhua

keben, published by the second branch of Xinhua shudian.
1. He Kaifeng (1906–1955) was at this time the vice director of the Central Propaganda Department of the
Chinese Communist Party; see Vol. V, p. lviii. Xu Teli (1877–1968) had been Mao’s teacher at the First
Normal School in Changsha from 1913 to 1918; he joined the Party in 1927 and at the time of this publication
was director of Yan’an’s Natural Science Academy; see Vol. I, p. 372, and Vol. V, p. 601. Fan Wenlan (1893–
1969), the noted Marxian historian was at this time vice director of Yan’an’s Central Research Institute and
director of the History Research Office.