To Chen Jinkun1
 (January 16, 1947)
Comrade Jinkun:
I have read your report carefully. It is essential to study law from a new point of
view. The law of new democracy is different from the law of socialism and it is also
different from the law of capitalism in Europe, America, and Japan. Please study
it according to this principle. The current peace negotiations proposed by America
and Chiang Kaishek are exactly the same as those in the past. They are all essentially deceptive. Because of their military failures, they are trying to gain time to rest
and consolidate their army for future fighting. We must never be taken in.
Best wishes and good health!
Mao Zedong
Our source for this letter is Mao Zedong shuxin xuanji, p. 280, where it is reproduced
from the manuscript.
1.  Jurist Chen Jinkun (1887–1959, native of Changde, Hunan) went to Yan’an in 1946
and was subsequently appointed to the Legal Committee of the Central Committee of the
Chinese Communist Party.
DOI:  10.4324/9781315719511-259