The Method for Handling Captured Officers
(November 8, 1946)
To Zhang [Yunyi], Li [Yu], and Shu [Tong]:1
We received your November 4 telegram. Captured officers should be dealt
with in different ways:
	 1.	 Apart from those who have been recruited into our army, deputy commanding officers should all be released.
	 2.	 First officers at the rank of battalion-commander or above as a rule should
not be released; only individuals who might be useful in sowing division
among the enemy should be released. You should educate company and platoon commanders and strive to have some of the more progressive elements
join our army. The rest can be released if it is impossible to retain them, but
the most reactionary among them should not be released.
	 3.	 Those to be released should be educated and then released.
The Central Committee
Our source for this text is Mao Zedong junshi wenji, Vol. 3, p. 554, where it is reproduced from Mao’s handwritten manuscript preserved in the Central Archives.

--- Notes

1.  Mao Zedong drafted this telegram on behalf of the Central Committee of the Chinese Communist Party. Zhang Yunyi was deputy commander of the Shandong Military
Region, Li Yu was deputy political commissar, and Shu Tong was director of the Political
Department of the Shandong Military Region.
DOI:  10.4324/9781315719511-243