Letter to Wu Yuzhang1
(November 18, 1947)
Comrade Yuzhang:
I have received and read your letter and report. I am very pleased to learn that
your health is improving each day and that you are in very high spirits. Although I
suffer from minor illnesses from time to time, my health is much better than it was
during my time in Yan’an. We have already made some arrangements for the task
of extending our base areas into the Sichuan-Shaanxi-Hubei Border Region; you
can ask Chief-of-Staff Ye2 for the details. It is not yet the right time to publicize
the draft constitution, and its content should be considered carefully as we look
to the future. The democratic dictatorship of the workers and peasants should be
the basic principle, as comrades Wang [Ming] and Xie [Juezai]3 can inform you
at greater length in person. I hope you will take good care of yourself in this cold
weather.
Best wishes! Stay safe and sound!
 Mao Zedong
Our source for this letter is Mao Zedong shuxin xuanji, pp. 290–91, where it is reproduced from Mao’s handwritten manuscript preserved in the Central Archives.
1.  Wu Yuzhang was a member of both the Central Committee of the Chinese Communist Party and of the Central Committee’s Legal Committee.
2.  This was a common way of referring to Ye Jianying, who during the War of Resistance Against Japan was chief-of-staff of the Eighteenth Army and of the Central Military
Commission. After the war, he became deputy chief-of-staff of the General Headquarters
of the Central Military Commission.
3.  Wang Ming, born Chen Shaoyu (1904–1974), was director of the Legal Committee.
Xie Juezai (1884–1971) was one of the persons in charge of the Legal Committee.
DOI:  10.4324/9781315719436-55