Letter to Bo Yibo
(October 29, 1949)



Bo Yibo was at this time first secretary of the North China Bureau of the Central Committee of the CPC and political commissar of the North China Military Region of the
PLA. In December 1949 he also became political commissar of the Suiyuan Military
Region. For more complete biographical information on Bo, see text Aug. 12, 1953,
note 5.

Comrade Yibo:

I have received your letter of October 28. The two armies and the cavalry
division of Suiyuan can be organized into the combat order of the People’s
Liberation Army and awarded registration unit numbers. The [commissioning
of the] military command personnel for the two armies and the cavalry division may be approved as listed. However, they must be commissioned at the
Same time that the political commissars and the heads of the political departments [in those units] are only in this way can the confidence and prestige of
Political work be established in the military. On this issue, please consult with
Fu Yisheng.” If he thinks that it is somewhat inconvenient to publish [the
names of] the political commissars and the heads of the political departments
wanis point, the military personnel can be first appointed to the job de facto,
ee their formal commissioning taking place [a bit later] when it can be done
deci . Same time [as the commissioning of the political personnel] when the
the a on the latter has been made. It is a great and arduous task to carry out

ave t a work system earnestly in the Suiyuan armed forces. We must
isher, orehand full mental preparation and it must be personally led by Fu
ble. 8 before it can work. Otherwise chaos and troubles will be unavoida-
Mao Zedong
October 29

a



Notes

1. Suiyuan is the old name of the region to the west of Liaoning Province and southwest of 4
Heilongjiang Province. In the early years of the Chinese Republic (i.e., in the 1910s and 1920s), q
it was designated as a special region. In 1928 it became a province. In 1947, the region became
part of the then established Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region. j

2. Yisheng is the honorific name (zi) of Fu Zuoyi, who was governor of Suiyuan from 1931 to q
1947. From the mid-1930s on he was an active opponent of the Inner Mongolian independence 4
movement led by De Wang (Demchukdonggrub). During the War of Resistance against Japan,
the Nationalist forces that defended Suiyuan were under Fu’s command, and the same forces were q
employed by the KMT to “contain” the Communist forces in the Northwest, in this case He ;
Long’s troops which had established a base of operations in Suiyuan. For more biographical 4
information on Fu and on Fu’s surrender to the Communists, see text Sept. 16-18, 1953, note 6.