To the Central Plains Bureau[1]

(June 28, 1948)

Central Plains Bureau:

We fully approve your directive of June 6. It is to be issued immediately to the entire Party and army in the Central Plains for earnest implementation. However, the passage after item hai in section two, beginning with "at the same time it must be emphatically pointed out," should be made into a separate section and become section three, while the original sections three and four should be changed to sections four and five, so as to strengthen the weight given to the assessment of achievements. In that section, after the sentence "a large number of Guomindang regular and local troops have been wiped out," the following words should be added: "Not only that, because our military advance has drawn a large number of enemy troops to the Central Plains, this has fundamentally wrecked the enemy's counterrevolutionary plan of continuing to direct the war into the Liberated Areas in an attempt to completely destroy the Liberated Areas, and has instead directed the war into the Guomindang-ruled regions. This has not only preserved the basic areas of the original Liberated Areas, but has also enabled our fraternal armies on various fronts—in Shandong, northern Jiangsu, northern Henan, southern Shanxi, the Northwest, and the Northeast—to smoothly wipe out large numbers of enemy troops and recover vast lost territories, turning the overall situation to the offensive. Our toil has not been in vain." Then continue with the original text "although some individual units of our army have suffered attrition." At the end of that section, after "is very good proof," the following should be added: "All comrades of the Central Plains Party must have a sufficient assessment of the above-mentioned achievements. If, after pointing out the errors and shortcomings in our work, we forget the achievements of our work, forget the most important aspect, forget the foundation on which we advance, as if we had done everything wrong, and thereby damage our confidence in victory, that is completely incorrect, that is a Right opportunist

viewpoint." Based on these additions, we will forward the full text of your directive to all central bureaus, sub-bureaus, and front committees outside the Central Plains Bureau.

The Central Committee

Ji jian

--- Notes

[1] This was a telegram drafted by Mao Zedong for the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China to the Central Plains Bureau.