The Chinese People's War of Liberation, apart from Xizang, Taiwan, and other places that are yet to be liberated, and remnant bandits in various localities that are yet to be annihilated, has basically come to an end.
The great work of the nation's economic construction and cultural construction has already begun.
From now on, the tasks of the People's Liberation Army, aside from the necessity of liberating Xizang and Taiwan and annihilating remnant bandits, are mainly to carry out national defense construction, prepare to deal with possible aggression by imperialism, maintain domestic public order, and consolidate the people's democratic dictatorship.
At the same time, it must also, as much as possible, participate in the nation's economic construction work and other work.
My entire People's Liberation Army has basically completed the great task of the domestic revolutionary war and has received the love and support of the people of the whole country; from now on, it must strive to complete its new tasks.


In view of the situation that the cultural level of the commanders and fighters of the People's Liberation Army is generally too low, in order to complete the great new tasks, it is necessary to raise the cultural, scientific, and technical level of all commanders and fighters, and to cultivate from within the army a large number of intellectuals of worker and peasant origin.
Therefore, the Central Committee has decided that the entire army, in addition to carrying out prescribed combat tasks and production tasks, must, for a considerable period of time in the future, focus on studying culture, taking the raising of culture as the primary task, so as to transform the army into a huge school, organizing the broad masses of commanders and fighters, especially cadres with low cultural levels, to participate in cultural study.


For this purpose, the following items are specially stipulated: (1) Army-wide cultural education will formally begin in January 1951.


It is imperative that within three years, ordinary fighters and cadres below the level of lower primary school reach the level of higher primary school, and that cadres generally at the level of higher primary school reach the level of junior middle school, and then continue to raise their levels.


(2) Within the education time in the companies, it is temporarily stipulated that sixty percent of the time be used for cultural education, thirty percent for military education, and ten percent for political education.
However, for certain insurrectionary units, the time for cultural education in 1951 should be appropriately reduced, while the time for political education should be increased.
If the allocation of education time for companies throughout the army needs to be changed due to changes in circumstances, it shall be changed by order.


(3) All units should, by the method of linking and advancing on-the-job education and off-the-job education, with on-the-job education as the focus, establish the following various types of cultural schools: (1) On-the-job half-day cultural schools, to be universally established by all levels at and above the regiment.
These half-day schools should, according to the situation, establish classes such as lower primary, higher primary, middle school, or specialized studies.
In organs and units with heavy workloads and a large number of enrolled cadres, classes shall be divided into morning and afternoon sessions.
(2) Accelerated primary schools and accelerated middle schools for off-the-job cadres, to be temporarily established by levels at and above the army and provincial military district.
Accelerated middle schools can be divided into two types: ordinary junior middle schools and complete middle schools.
First-level military regions may establish cultural remedial classes for off-the-job senior cadres.
(3) Companies shall adopt the form of a school to carry out basically complete lower primary education and higher primary education.
(4) All military and political universities shall, within one or one and a half years, focus on cultural education.
Other schools in the army, except for those stipulated or approved by the Military Commission, shall temporarily not be run, or shall be reorganized into cultural schools.


(4) All on-the-job cadres and fighters who need to study or supplement their culture, regardless of rank, shall without exception, in accordance with the examination and screening of cultural courses, participate in the appropriate class of on-the-job cultural education and study conscientiously.
Cadres at all levels, especially cadres of worker and peasant origin who have experienced many years of struggle and have a very low cultural level, who are able to study off-the-job, should all be systematically transferred in batches or by rotation by leadership organs at all levels, and after examination, be sent to accelerated primary schools, or accelerated middle schools, or cultural remedial classes for senior cadres to study.
A portion of outstanding young fighters may also be selected and transferred for enrollment.


(5) The education in on-the-job and off-the-job cultural schools shall uniformly adopt an educational policy that is accelerated, linked to reality, but also regular.
School curricula should be streamlined and recompiled with reference to the curricula of ordinary primary and middle schools, maintaining their scientific system, removing unnecessary courses, and increasing the content of necessary courses.
Primary schools shall take Chinese and arithmetic as basic courses, with a small number of general knowledge courses in nature, history, and geography.
Middle schools must also emphasize Chinese and mathematics, but should be supplemented by courses in nature, physics, chemistry, history, and geography.
In addition, all types of schools must have a certain number of military and political courses.
All basic courses should use textbooks approved by the Central Committee.
Before the Central Committee issues approved textbooks, existing textbooks may be selected for use.
All cultural schools should establish regular and reasonable systems for examination, grading, class assignment, promotion, repeating a grade, graduation, and issuing diplomas; formulate various necessary statutes and rules; establish the self-conscious discipline of students; and define the responsibilities of teachers.
The education in various cultural schools shall take classroom teaching as the main method, while also attaching importance to activities such as self-study and tutoring, in order to facilitate practical and rapid education and learning.


(6) The leadership personnel and teachers of on-the-job and off-the-job cultural schools at all levels shall be uniformly allocated by each first-level military region.
First, teachers should be transferred from among the intellectual cadres of various units.
The shortfall shall be planned by the first-level military regions and shall be drawn or recruited from military and political universities, people's revolutionary universities, surplus personnel from ordinary universities and middle schools in various localities, and unemployed intellectuals.
Teachers for cadre schools should strive to be excellent and competent.


(7) The necessary funds for military cultural education should be budgeted by the political departments of the first-level military regions, approved by higher authorities, and the supply departments at all levels shall be responsible for their timely provision.


(8) The cultural education work in the army should be carried out under the unified leadership of the Party committees at all levels.
For the smooth progress of educational work, a Cultural Education Committee may be established under the leadership of the Party committees at and above the regiment level, including the heads of the headquarters, political, and logistics departments and relevant departments, as well as school heads, to be responsible for matters such as planning cultural education curricula, time, funds, equipment, and allocating teachers and students.
The implementation of educational work shall be led and carried out by the political organs at all levels and school heads.


(9) The administrative organ for the cultural education work of the entire army is the General Political Department of the Military Commission.
The implementation plan for the entire army's cultural education and other major matters that must be handled uniformly must be resolved in a timely manner by the General Political Department of the Military Commission.


(10) There are still five months left this year. All units that are not undertaking combat tasks or major engineering tasks, in addition to carrying out work such as rectification, production, reorganization and demobilization, military training, and political training, should complete preparatory work for matters such as transferring, recruiting, and training teachers, transferring and enrolling students, and preparing school buildings, textbooks, and other educational equipment, so as to ensure that all schools can start in January of next year.
At the same time, key pilot programs can be started immediately to gain experience.


Chairman Mao Zedong
Published according to the original document preserved in the Central Archives.