Studying the Party’s Line Is an Advance to a Higher Stage of the Rectification Movement[1]

(December 28, 1943)

Comrades Shu Shi, Rong Huan, Huang Jing, Xiao Ping, Zi Hua, and Lin Feng:

The Political Bureau’s directive telegram on studying the errors of the Wang Ming and Bo Gu sectarian opportunist line[2] will be sent to you in a day or two. You should organize this study with great prudence. For the time being, the scope of senior cadres participating in the study should not be too broad; it is appropriate to include about one hundred to two hundred persons within the area under each sub-bureau, and the list of names should be decided by the Central Bureau or the sub-bureau. Do not convene a conference of senior cadres from the entire base area solely for this matter. You may first organize a number of persons in your vicinity to conduct the study, and then take the opportunity of discussing other work to convey and discuss it at a conference of senior cadres from the whole area. Since there is no time to send you the book *Two Lines*[3] compiled by the Central Committee, you may select a number of documents (not too many) that can be found in your locality and that manifest the two lines (both the correct and the erroneous aspects) during the civil war and the war of resistance, and give them to the cadres to read. Before the cadres conduct the study, the members of the Central Bureau and the sub-bureau must hold discussions to allow the ideas
to mature, and only then should the leading cadres conduct the study. The nature of this study is an advance to a higher stage of the rectification movement, and its purpose is to enable the cadres to raise their level of understanding and promote unity and solidarity, and to make ideological preparations for future discussions on the resolutions of the Seventh Congress.

--- Notes

This is a telegram drafted by Mao Zedong for the Secretariat of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China.

[2] On December 28, 1943, the Secretariat of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China issued the *Directive on Studying the Errors of the Wang Ming and Bo Gu Sectarian Opportunist Line*, requiring senior Party cadres, on the basis of in-depth study, to study and summarize the harm caused by the “Left” and Right errors of Wang Ming and Bo Gu during the civil war and the war of resistance, so as to enhance understanding, promote unity and solidarity, and make ideological preparations for future discussions on the resolutions of the Seventh Congress.

[3] This book was compiled by the Secretariat of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China in October 1943, containing 135 Party documents from the period between May 1922 and October 1943.