Letter to Peng Dehuai and the Northwest Bureau
(November 14, 1949)

Source: Shuxin, pp. 349-350.

Peng Dehuai was at this time deputy commander-in-chief of the People’s Liberation
Army and first secretary of the Northwest Bureau of the Central Committee of the
CPC. For more complete biographical information on Peng, see text Aug. 15,
1959(2), note 3.

Comrade Dehuai and the Northwest Bureau:

1. According to the information submitted repeatedly by the Qinghai Pro-vincial [Party] Committee, the remnants of [the forces of] Bandit Ma’ have
been fanning up fires among the masses in many places and organizing a resistance. At the imminent Lanzhou conference, please pay serious attention to
this.” In having the various provincial, [special] district and xian [Party] committees focusing on the arduous job [of uniting and organizing] the masses
and in all such work upholding [the principle of] equality among the nationalities, the government organs at all levels should, in accordance with the size
and ratio of [minority] nationality populations, allocate quotas and absorb in
large numbers those members of the Hui nationality and other minority
communities who are capable of cooperating with us into taking part in gov-coal work. In the present period they should organize, across the board,
of] su , governments, L.€., united front governments. Within [the framework
number a cooperation, minority nationality cadres will be nurtured in large

infor, Furthermore, the provincial [Party] committees of Qinghai, Gansu,
of all Ningxia and Shaanxi, and the [special] district [Party] committees
classee fae there are minority nationalities ought to form training
this a Or minority nationality cadres, or cadre training schools. Please give
Proble ood deal of attention. It is impossible to thoroughly resolve the
of the minority nationalities and to totally isolate the nationalistic


34. / MAU ZEDONG

reactionaries without a large number of Communist cadres who are from
minority nationality backgrounds.

2. Have all the comrades of the Northwest Bureau arrived in Lanzhou? On
what day will your conference commence? The agenda for this conference is
very full, and I am afraid that the meeting must be held for a week or so. You
also need to make a decision as to where the political center of the Northwest
should be located from now on — should it be in Xian? or Lanzhou? Please
inform me of the major items on your agenda.

3. Please ask General Wang Zhen’ to report to us.

Mao Zedong
November 14

Notes

1. This refers to Ma Bufang (b. 1903) who was governor of Qinghai Province under the Nation-alist government in 1938-49. As governor he introduced an efficient government to that province
which was predominantly populated by the Moslem (Hui) minority nationality. In 1943 he
became commander-in-chief of Chiang Kai-shek’s Fortieth Army Group and in 1945 deputy
chairman of Chiang’s northwest headquarters and a member of the KMT’s Central Executive
Committee. He became head of the northwest headquarters in 1949 when his erstwhile superior
Zhang Zhizhong went over to the Communist side. In late July of that year, however, Ma left for
Hong Kong, and soon thereafter the capital cities of Qinghai - Lanzhou and Xining — fell to the
Communists. Mao was referring to the fact that in spite of his physical absence, Ma continued to
have influence over the forces in Qinghai Province, mostly military leaders who had previous
affiliations with the KMT and some of whom wished for Hui autonomy in the region. For more
biographical information on Ma, see H. Boorman et al., eds. (1968), II, pp. 474-475.

2. According to the source, this refers to the enlarged meeting of the Northwest Bureau of the
Central Committee of the CPC, held in Lanzhou in November 1949.

3. Wang Zhen (a.k.a. Wang Zhenlin, Wang Zhenting, b. 1909) was at this time the commander and political commissar of the First Army Group of the First Field Army of the PLA.
Having joined the Communist Youth League in 1927, Wang rose through the CPC ranks as a
labor trainer and organizer. In the early 1930s, having armed organized labor groups in the Hunan
area (groups which were later absorbed into the regular armed forces of the Communist Red
Army), Wang began his career as a brilliant political officer of the Communist military units.
During the Long March, he reached northern Shaanxi as political commissar of the Sixth Army
Corps under Xiao Ke. In the late 1930s he led his troops in productive labor in the Yanan area,
and he was considered a model officer whose soldiers were equally adept at productive work as at
combat duties. This apparently stemmed from his earlier experience as a labor movement organizer. At the time of this letter the First Army Group under his command was pushing into Xin-jiang, and later Mao would cite his contribution to that effort, especially his ability, again, in
combining productive and constructive labor and military action in the area. (See text Apr. 6,
1952, note 1, see also text Dec. 5, 1949.) Wang remained the ranking military and political
officer in that region until August 1952. For more biographical information on Wang, see N.
Wales (1952), pp. 90-101, and D. Klein and A. Clark, eds. (1971), I, pp. 889-894. Here Mao
used the salutation tai for Wang Zhen, which usually is employed for a government or military
official.