To the East China Bureau, with copy to all Bureaus and Field Front Committees: ︹︺1 We have duly received your telegram of August 24th.
(1) In the past, you failed to issue instructions on the important matter of convening conferences of representatives from all sectors of the people in cities, nor did you implement such conferences yourselves in Shanghai. As a result, you found yourselves in a passive position, which led to considerable losses in urban work.


You have now held a conference of representatives from all sectors in Shanghai, with excellent results, and on August 24th you issued instructions to your subordinate organs. By doing so, you have regained the initiative on this issue.


The Central Committee is extremely pleased to learn of this development.


In addition to forwarding your telegram to all Bureaus and Field Commands, we now instruct you to strictly urge all cities with a population exceeding 30,000 to hold, without exception, a conference of representatives from all sectors during September. The details of each meeting are to be publicly announced in the newspapers and broadcast over the radio. No city may refrain from holding such a conference, nor may it fail to make the proceedings public or to broadcast them orally.


This measure is intended to forge a close bond between the Party organizations in cities of 30,000 or more inhabitants and the representatives of all sectors, enabling them through these bodies to unite the people of all walks of life, overcome difficulties, restore and develop production, and to counter the bureaucratic tendency among many leaders within the Party apparatus who place their trust solely in meetings of Party cadres while disregarding the value of people’s representative assemblies.


Thereafter, all cities with populations above 30,000 are to convene conferences of representatives from all sectors at least once a month. Each session should last no more than one or two days, and it suffices to discuss and decide upon only one or two specific issues at each meeting.


(2) All counties are to hold county-wide conferences of representatives from all sectors, following the procedures set forth in the Central Committee’s most ︹︺2 recent telegram addressed to the Central China Bureau and copied to all other Bureaus.


Provincial, Regional, and Prefectural Party Committees are to assume responsibility for leading and implementing this directive, thereby putting an end to the long-standing practice of failing to convene conferences of representatives from all sectors.


Such county-wide conferences of representatives are to be held uniformly in both newly liberated and older liberated areas. In newly liberated regions, they may be convened two or three weeks after occupation, without waiting for peasant associations to be established first.


An important objective of these conferences is to mobilize the peasant masses through this very mechanism.


(3) The Northeast Bureau, North China Bureau, Shandong Sub-bureau, Northwest Bureau, Central China Bureau, and South China Sub-bureau are all directed to comply with the above-mentioned directives without exception.


Field Front Committees are to study these matters carefully and provide assistance as needed.


Printed by the Central Committee on August 26th, based on Mao Zedong’s handwritten draft.


Notes ︹︺1 “Wei Jing” refers to August 24th.


︹︺2 Refers to the instruction drafted by Mao Zedong on August 25, 1949, on behalf of the CPC Central Committee, concerning the necessity for every county to convene a county-wide conference of representatives from all sectors. The instruction calls for such conferences to be held at least once a month or every two months in both newly and formerly liberated counties. Representatives are to be selected from peasant associations, trade unions, student organizations, cultural and educational circles, industrial and commercial circles, as well as from Party, government, and military bodies, to deliberate on county-level affairs. Large counties are to be represented by over two hundred delegates, medium-sized counties by more than one hundred, and small counties by several dozen; each session is to last two to three days.