Study the Policy of the Central Committee,
Rectify Erroneous Viewpoints1
(January 16, 1948)
The January 13 Xinhua News Agency dispatch from Jin-Ji-Lu-Yu [Shanxi-Hebei-Shandong-Henan] says, among other things, that prior to establishment of the
border region’s peasant congress, the political affairs meetings should respect the
opinions of the preparatory committee of the peasant congress and should improve
their work according to the demands of the poor peasants, hired farmhands, and
workers. Not only does it make no reference to the petty bourgeoisie and middle bourgeoisie, but it also fails to mention the middle peasants, the independent
industrialists and businesspeople, the free professionals, and the intellectuals who
perform mental labor. A political regime that covers an area as large the Jin-JiLu-Yu region should represent not only the peasants but all the laboring masses
(the workers, the peasants, the independent industrialists and businesspeople, the
free professionals, and the intellectuals who perform mental labor) and the middle classes (the petty bourgeoisie, the middle bourgeoisie, and the open-minded
gentry), with the laboring masses as its principal part. Therefore, the supreme
institution of political power in the border region is the border region’s people’s
congress and the government it selects rather than the peasant congress and the
government it selects. Although the peasants make up the majority in every
Liberated Area, we still must attend to the workers and the people of every social
stratum, and among the peasants we must also attend to the middle peasants. We
do not know whether you saw this piece of news before publication or whether it
was discussed in detail afterward. Based on this news, our Xinhua News Agency
and the newspaper’s working personnel did not study Chairman Mao’s December
25 report, and as a result they failed to correct the leftist, incorrect views of these
comrades. We hope you will examine the Xinhua News Agency’s work in accordance with this telegram and inform us of the result by telegram.


Our source for this document is Mao Zedong xinwen gongzuo wenxuan, pp. 139–40,
where it is reproduced from the handwritten manuscript.


1.  Mao Zedong drafted this telegram on behalf of the Central Committee of the Chinese Communist Party to the Handan Bureau and for the information of the Central Work
Committee and Xinhua News Agency.


2.  Referring to Mao’s report, “The Present Situation and Our Tasks,” presented at a
meeting of the Central Committee on December 25, 1947.
DOI:  10.4324/9781315719436-72