News Agency and Press Propaganda
Must Follow Party Policy
(October 28, 1942)
To Various Central Committee Bureaus and Subbureaus:
Recently, propaganda in various localities has produced a series of incidents
incompatible with current Party policies. For example, the Taihang branch of the
New China News Agency published an open telegram from the Political
Consultative Conference urging the convening of a national assembly, the
Shandong branch printed an open telegram from the 111th Division of the
Northeastern Army opposing Guomindang personnel, the northern Jiangsu
branch criticized the Guomindang press, and the northwestern Hebei branch
issued a telegram of congratulations to a certain friendly army on the occasion of
the fifth anniversary of the New Army1 (which could have affected the position
of that friendly army). All these incidents are incompatible with the Party’s
current policies. Investigation of the central bureaus and subbureaus in various
areas reveals that they have paid too little attention to the work of their local
news agencies and press and have provided insufficient guidance to their
propaganda personnel and propaganda work, still failing to grasp the great task
of news agencies and the press to organize propagandists of revolutionary
policies and revolutionary work, and still failing to understand that much work
of leaders can be done through the press. The Northwestern Bureau of the
Central Committee has already issued a resolution concerning press work, which
all localities should follow in conducting their affairs. They should correct the
past practice of not discussing news policies and editorial guidelines and should
tighten the leadership of news agencies and the press to make sure that their

propaganda is completely in line with Party policies and to strengthen the Party
character of our propaganda. They should use the many documents published by
Liberation Daily concerning ways to strengthen the Party character of the press
to educate our propaganda personnel and to overcome the erroneous tendency of
independence among them.
Central Committee Secretariat
Notes
Our source for this text is Mao Zedong wenji, Vol. 2, pp. 454–55, which is based on a copy of the telegram
written in Mao’s own hand.
1. That is, the Shanxi New Army, an anti-Japanese popular army covertly supported by the Chinese
Communist Party.