Reply to Zhou Enlai’s Telegram[1]

(June 4, 1943)

This year in the Shaanxi-Gansu-Ningxia Border Region, agriculture, industry, commerce, and salt production are all developing vigorously, and public and private life has greatly improved. The non-Party personages participating in the “Three-Thirds System” are in very good spirits, believing that only our Party has solutions and that the Border Region is the sole land of happiness in the whole country. The policies of better troops and simpler administration, supporting the government and cherishing the people, rectifying the three styles, and examining cadres have been deeply implemented, greatly improving relations inside and outside the Party, and greatly overcoming the styles of subjectivism and bureaucratism within the Party. On June 1, the Central Committee issued a decision concerning methods of leadership, which should bring about an advance in the leadership of the entire Party.

[1] This is the main content of Mao Zedong’s reply to Zhou Enlai’s telegram of May 30, also sent to inform Lin Biao and Dong Biwu.