Integrate into the Central Committee All of
China’s Powers That Can and Should Be
United
(April 10, 1948)
To the East China Bureau; forward to Xu [Shiyou], Tan [Zhenlin], and Xie
[Youfa];1 and for the information of all central bureaus, local bureaus, and front
committees:
We have received the April 1 telegram sent by Xu [Shiyou], Tan [Zhenlin],
and Xie [Youfa]. Your declaration of a lenient policy toward the enemy in the
Changwei region is basically correct, but one point is not correct. That is, you
fail to distinguish between major counterrevolutionary elements and major local
tyrants who are guilty of the most heinous crimes and who are hated by the broad
masses of the people, as opposed to other enemy personnel, declaring that all
will be forgiven alike for their past misdeeds, and that they can atone for their
crimes with good deeds. In fact, this kind of declaration will end up cheating the
enemy side. In reality, once these heinous criminals are arrested, the local masses
will very reasonably demand that our armies and democratic government punish
them. Our armies and democratic government must accept the demands of the
masses or else they are going to make mistakes. This kind of declaration puts you
in a weak and passive position politically, because when these heinous criminals
have been arrested and the masses are demanding punishment, persisting in the
policy of forgiving past misdeeds in order to maintain your trustworthiness in
the enemy’s eyes will mean you have to oppose the just demands and will of the
masses. You should have asked the East China Bureau and the Central Committee
for instructions before declaring this kind of principled policy because forgiving
past deeds without exception and without distinguishing between heinous criminals and other enemy personnel directly contravenes the policies of our Party and
the stipulation in the manifesto of the People’s Liberation Army that principal
culprits must be punished. You failed to ask for instructions beforehand, and you
Our source for this text is Mao Zedong wenji, Vol. 5, pp. 85–87, where it is reproduced
from Mao’s handwritten manuscript.
1.  Xu Shiyou and Tan Zhenlin were commander and political commissar, respectively,
of the Shandong Corps of the East China Field Army. Xie Youfa (1917–1995, born in Xingguo county, Jiangxi) was director of the Political Department of the East China Field Army.
DOI:  10.4324/9781315719436-111

crudely and carelessly sent out this incorrect declaration to the enemy side. If you
have not yet publicly announced this declaration, you must quickly revise it and
only then should you announce it. If you have already publicly announced it, then
you have already caused yourselves to fall into error. Of course, you should not
immediately announce the cancellation of this declaration, but sooner or later you
must announce the correct policy of carrying out punishment against the principal
culprits.
The Central Committee has pointed out more than once to the leading comrades of every locality and every army that all Central Committee policies should
be carried out without reservation. We cannot permit lower-level organs to freely
amend policies without the agreement of the Central Committee. However, in the
two-plus years since Japan’s surrender, local Party and military leadership organs
in various localities, acting without the consent of the Central Committee, and
even without the consent of the leadership organs commissioned by the Central
Committee (that is, the various central bureaus, central branch offices, front committees, and other leading organs commissioned by the Central Committee), have
freely, impatiently, crudely, carelessly, and adventurously formulated and carried
out certain policies relating to land reform, industrial and commercial enterprises,
labor movements, attacking and killing people, the united front, propaganda and
education, and other areas that clearly violate the line and policies of the Central
Committee. The abhorrent practices of localism and empiricism; of not asking for
instructions beforehand and not reporting afterwards; of over-reporting achievements and under-reporting (or simply not reporting) mistakes and shortcomings;
of being crude and careless, and lacking an attitude of careful consideration and
caution on matters of principle; and of being unwilling to carefully study Central
Committee documents and consequently running directly counter to some stipulations in these documents, still exist. The Central Committee calls on all responsible comrades in the leadership organs commissioned by the Central Committee
to solemnly focus on changing all these harmful phenomena, and in the same
way to guide all the responsible comrades in middle- and lower-level leadership
organs to solemnly pay attention to changing them. As soon as you come across
these kinds of phenomena, you should at once clearly and unambiguously point
them out and correct them. Doing this is completely appropriate to the demands of
China’s revolutionary situation. China’s new high tide of revolution has arrived,
and our Party is already on a direct path to seizing political power over the whole
country. This situation requires that our whole Party and our whole army first
achieve total unity regarding political policy and tactics, military strategy and
significant campaigns, and economic matters and government administration in
several major regions. Then, according to the development of the revolutionary
situation, we should further consider how to achieve greater unity in the organization and supply of our armies, in the coordination of campaign actions, and in
economic matters and government administration (at that time, we must establish
a central government).

In short, the revolutionary situation requires us to reduce (not abolish) the
autonomy of each local government and army corps and integrate into the Central
Committee all the country’s powers that can and should be united. And in each
local region and each section, powers should be integrated into the leadership
organs commissioned by the Central Committee (as far as we know, there exist
very serious, very irregular, and very harmful situations of internal disunity vis-à-vis the organs commissioned by the Central Committee in all local regions and
sections). The leading comrades in each locality must quickly complete all necessary psychological and organizational preparation in this regard.
The Central Committee