Policy and Strategy Are the Life of Our Party
and Army1
(March 20, 1948)
Is there anything that the field army front committees and the military regions do
not grasp firmly while carrying out the Party’s policies and strategies in the army?
If such things exist, the leaders of the front committees and military regions need
to engage in deeper self-examination. It is necessary to know that policy and strategy are the life of the Party and the army. It is wrong not to stress education on
policy and strategy; not to carry out this type of education in a thorough enough
fashion to give all officers and men an adequate understanding; not to examine
these things, and thereby allow a simpleminded military mentality to predominate; not to sharply and thoroughly oppose this simpleminded military mentality,
and instead to yield to and compromise with these incorrect viewpoints or hide
these phenomena from the front committees and military regions; it is wrong for
the front committees and military regions to fail to report, or to report too little, to
the Central Committee, and instead to report only their military successes to the
higher levels and the Central Committee. This deviates to a greater or lesser extent
from the Party line and must be regarded as an extremely grave phenomenon that
calls for immediate self-examination.
Our source for this text is Mao Zedong junshi wenji, Vol. 4, pp. 442–43, where it is
reproduced from Mao’s handwritten manuscript preserved in the Central Archives.

--- Notes

1.  Mao Zedong wrote these comments on a telegram sent by the front committee of
the Northwest Field Army. The comments, together with the front committee’s report, were
forwarded to all broadcasting stations.
DOI:  10.4324/9781315719436-105