Telegram on the Extensive Recruitment and Training of Cadres from Ethnic Minority Groups (November 14, 1949)

Comrade Dehuai [1], Northwest Bureau:  (1) According to successive reports from the Qinghai Provincial Committee, remnants of the Ma [2] bandit forces are inciting the masses and organizing resistance in many localities. This matter should be given serious attention at the forthcoming Lanzhou Conference [3]. In addition to vigorously suppressing banditry, the provincial, prefectural, and county committees should concentrate on conducting painstaking mass work and consistently upholding policies of ethnic equality and unity in all their activities. Furthermore, government organs at all levels ought to allocate seats in proportion to the population of each ethnic group and extensively recruit Hui and other ethnic minority personnel who are willing to cooperate with us to participate in government work. At present, joint governments—i.e., united-front governments—should be established across the board. Through such cooperation, a large number of cadres from ethnic minority groups should be trained. Moreover, the provincial committees of Qinghai, Gansu, Xinjiang, Ningxia, and Shaanxi, as well as all prefectural committees in areas where ethnic minorities reside, should set up training classes or schools for minority cadres. Please pay close attention to this point: without a substantial contingent of communist cadres drawn from ethnic minority backgrounds, it will be impossible to thoroughly resolve the ethnic question and completely isolate the ethnic reactionary elements.

(2) Have the comrades of the Northwest Bureau already arrived in Lanzhou, and when is your meeting scheduled to begin? The agenda for this meeting is quite extensive, so it may need to last about a week. It also remains to be decided whether Xi’an or Lanzhou will serve as the political center of Northwest China going forward. I would appreciate it if you could inform me of the main items on the agenda.

(3) Please instruct Wang Zhen [4] to keep us apprised of developments.

Mao Zedong November 14 Based on the manuscript copy. Included in Selected Letters of Mao Zedong. Notes  [1] Dehuai refers to Peng Dehuai, who at that time was First Secretary of the CPC Northwest Bureau and Commander and Political Commissar of the First Field Army of the People’s Liberation Army.  [2] “Ma” refers to Ma Bufang, who had formerly served as Chief of the Northwest Military and Political Office of the Nationalist Government.  [3] Refers to the expanded meeting of the CPC Northwest Bureau held in Lanzhou in November 1949.  [4] Wang Zhen was then Secretary of the CPC Xinjiang Branch and Commander and Political Commissar of the First Corps of the PLA.