Directive on Rectifying Language Defects in Directives and Decisions [I]

(February 1, 1951)

To leading comrades of the Party groups within the various ministries and commissions of the Central Committee and the Military Commission, the Party group of the Government Administration Council, the various central bureaus, the major military regions, sub-bureaus, major municipal Party committees, provincial Party committees, regional Party committees, prefectural Party committees, military regions, regiments, armies, and governments above the special commissioner’s office, as well as leading comrades of Party groups in mass organizations:

"Directive on Rectifying Language Defects in Telegrams, Reports, Directives, Decisions, etc."

At present, there are indeed not a few well-written telegrams and other documents exchanged between the Party, government, and military—such as reports, directives, and decisions. These telegrams or documents are written clearly, vividly, and explicitly, making them easy to read and highly effective. At the same time, however, there are still many documents and telegrams that contain serious linguistic defects, which must be rectified. The most common of these defects fall into five categories: misuse of abbreviations, incomplete syntax, unclear exposition, lack of clear organization, and excessive length. The rectification measures are stipulated separately as follows:

(1) Prohibition on the misuse of abbreviations. Currently, in many telegrams and documents, abbreviations are misused for personal names, place names, dates (The original text’s note is omitted here; see the original context for details), institutional names, and the names of things, forcing readers to expend considerable effort on memorization and guesswork, and sometimes rendering the text utterly incomprehensible. Such practices shall be rectified according to the following provisions:

A. Except in the case of certain leading comrades of the Central Committee, certain leading comrades of the various central bureaus and central sub-bureaus, and the commanders and political commissars of the field armies (major military regions)—where occasionally (not at all times, nor most of the time) the surname alone may be used without the given name, or the surname followed by a title in the heading or closing of telegrams, e.g., “Chairman Mao,” “Premier Zhou,” “Chen Rao,” “Peng Xi,” etc.—it is required in general circumstances, whether within the body of the telegram or in the heading and closing, that full names be written, and not merely the surname without the given name. When necessary, titles must also be added before the names, for example, “Yang Xiufeng, Chairman of the People’s Government of Hebei Province,” “Chen Pizhian, Secretary of the Party Committee of the Southern Jiangsu Region,” “Yang Dezhi, Commander of the 19th Corps, Li Zhimin, Political Commissar.”

B. Place names must always be written in full, for example, “Shanghai,” “Fuzhou,” “Guangzhou,” “Chongqing”; they must not be written as “Hu,” “Rong,” “Sui,” “Yu”; “Fujian” must not be written as “Min,” “Hunan” must not be written as “Xiang.” Only when two or more well-known cities or famous provinces are written together and immediately comprehensible at a glance, for example, “Beijing–Tianjin,” “Shanghai–Nanjing,” “Henan–Hubei–Hunan–Jiangxi,” “Guangdong–Guangxi Border,” etc., or when combined with other characters to form popular specialized terms, such as “East Shanghai,” “North Anhui,” “Tianjin–Pukou Railway,” “Tianshui–Lanzhou Road,” etc., may abbreviated forms be used.

C. Ordinary official documents and telegrams must clearly indicate the month and day. Urgent documents and telegrams must indicate the month, day, and hour. Officially published documents must indicate the year, month, and day. In all cases, months, days, and hours shall be written using ordinary numerals, and earthly branches [1] and rhyme headwords must not be used. For example, “February 1, 14:00 hours” must not be abbreviated as “Chou Dong Wei.” Years must be written in full and shall not be abbreviated. For example, “1951” must not be abbreviated as “Year 51.”

D. Institutional names must always be written in full. For example, the “Organization Department and Publicity Department of the Northeast Bureau” [1] The earthly branches, also known as the twelve branches, are a collective term for Zi, Chou, Yin, Mao, Chen, Si, Wu, Wei, Shen, You, Xu, and Hai. Traditionally used as symbols for indicating order, here they are used as symbols to represent the months. (Note: The Chinese original’s footnote numbering and placement are retained. It should be understood as an explanatory note within the original text.)

must not be abbreviated as “Northeast Org. and Pub.,” the “Air Force Headquarters” must not be abbreviated as “Air HQ,” and the “All-China Federation of Trade Unions” must not be abbreviated as “ACFTU.”

E. Except for those abbreviated names of things that are truly universally familiar to the people of the whole country, such as “CPC” and “anti-imperialism,” which may be used in informal settings, all others must be written in full. For example, “reduction of rent and interest,” “production and disaster relief” must not be abbreviated as “double reduction” and “production relief”; “bandits and special agents” (referring to bandits and special agents) or “special agent bandits” (referring to special agents being of the bandit category) must not be abbreviated as “bandit agents.” In all formal documents and telegrams, abbreviations should be avoided as much as possible. For example, Marx, Engels, Lenin, and Stalin must not be abbreviated as “M., E., L., S.,” and American imperialism must not be abbreviated as “U.S. imperialism.”

F. For all particularly obscure words and phrases, the meaning of which is incomprehensible to most readers, necessary annotations must be provided.

(2) Adherence to grammar is essential. Although sentences in telegrams should strive for conciseness, they must not violate grammatical rules. Necessary subjects, predicates, and objects must be complete and without error. Simple and compound sentences must be clearly distinguished. Pronouns must closely follow the nouns they replace. The endings of adjectives and adverbs should, as far as possible, use “的” and “地” respectively to differentiate them (adjectives mainly modify nouns, e.g., “imperialism is dying capitalism,” hence “的” is used before the noun to distinguish it. Adverbs mainly modify verbs, e.g., “resolutely overthrow imperialism,” hence “地” is used before the verb to distinguish it). Only in this way can clarity in organization be ensured and meaning be made precise. As for letters and published documents, not only should the wording be complete, but punctuation must also be correct. To resolve this issue, the *People’s Daily* will soon serialize a grammar lesson column; the entire Party is urged to pay attention to it. It is also hoped that among responsible cadres above the level of local county Party and county government committees, and above the army division level, at least one person will learn grammar so as to be responsible for correcting the language in documents and telegrams.

(3) Rectify the phenomenon of unclear exposition.

A. All documents and telegrams requesting instructions must clearly state the circumstances, one’s own views and requests (when forwarding requests for instructions from lower levels, one’s own opinion should also be stated), and must clearly indicate from which organ or individual, and at what time, a reply to which specific matter is expected. All documents and telegrams providing replies must clearly state that they are in reply to which question raised by which organ or individual at what time. All documents and telegrams containing directives must also clearly define the requirements for subordinates. For example, which organ should handle the matter, how it should be handled, or when a report on the handling situation should be submitted, etc. In short, for every matter, six “whats” must be clearly stated, namely, what thing, what person, what time, what place, what appearance, and what reason. Only when it is absolutely clear may some elements be omitted.

B. To facilitate clear exposition, except for comprehensive reports and directives, the system of reporting one matter per communication must be strictly enforced. It is forbidden to include several unrelated matters in one document or telegram, and forbidden to use intra-Party documents and telegrams concurrently as extra-Party documents and telegrams.

C. Regardless of whether it is a report, request for instructions, or a directive, if a document or telegram is intended not only for a specific person or organ but also needs to be communicated to other persons or organs, after specifying the primary responsible person or organ, the words “and inform” should be written, followed by the other persons or organs, in order to clarify responsibility.

D. When forwarding a document or telegram, whether in full text or in summary form, the person or organ receiving it, the reason for forwarding the document or telegram, the forwarding person or organ, and the time of forwarding should be written at the front of the forwarded document or telegram, with the text of the forwarded document or telegram placed afterward, so as to clarify the sequence; and the heading and closing, as well as the year, month, and day of the original forwarded document or telegram, must be retained unchanged and shall not be omitted.

E. When quoting statements from another person’s or organ’s documents or telegrams in a document or telegram, one must first clearly state which person or organ said it at what time, then write the quoted statement, enclose it in quotation marks (square brackets), and then write the words “end quote” after it. If the content of the quoted statement is not an opinion but a narration of events, then write the words “end facts” afterward. Only then should one’s own opinion be written, so as to clarify the organization.

(4) Rectify the phenomenon of unclear organization. Except for very short communications, all longer documents and telegrams should come straight to the point, first presenting the key elements. That is, at the very beginning, use extremely concise sentences to explain the purpose or conclusion of the whole text (what is now called a “lead” in journalism, and what the ancients in China called “placing a key sentence at the beginning to serve as the essence and guiding principle of the whole piece”), so as to capture the reader’s attention, allowing the reader’s mind to first grasp a general concept and feel compelled to continue reading further. Only then should necessary explanations follow. When a long document or telegram is divided into several paragraphs, each paragraph should also adopt this method. When a document or telegram contains several layers of meaning or several requirements, attention must be paid to organizing them logically, distinguishing the levels clearly, and using numbers to mark paragraphs and items.

(5) All documents and telegrams must be conscientiously condensed. Leading comrades at all levels bear heavy responsibilities and are burdened with numerous and complex affairs. When requesting instructions from or submitting reports to leading comrades or organs, two tendencies must be opposed: the tendency not to request instructions or submit reports when they are due, and the tendency to casually request instructions or submit reports when they are not due. When writing documents or telegrams requesting instructions or submitting reports, attention must be paid to concise and to-the-point wording, clear organization, and ease of reading. Currently, many documents and telegrams are both excessively long and disorderly. The reason for this is that they have not been condensed, contain many empty words that need not be said, or have not been logically organized, and messy, ill-organized drafts are casually submitted upwards. The result is that leading comrades find these documents and telegrams very difficult to read, or simply do not read them at all, rendering them equivalent to having been written in vain. Henceforth, for all documents and telegrams reporting situations to or requesting instructions from higher-level organs, and for all directives issued to lower levels, all comrades who draft and review these documents and telegrams must, in a spirit of responsibility, repeatedly refine the organization and condense the wording before sending them out; otherwise, they shall be subject to criticism. However, “condensation” refers to clarifying organization and removing empty talk; it does not mean that indispensable parts of speech can be omitted, that grammar can be violated, or that the vividness and distinctiveness of the language can be disregarded. Some well-written reports, although quite long, are engaging to read and do not make people mind their length. Some poorly written reports, although not long, are difficult to read. The difference here lies in whether there is logical organization, whether empty talk is spoken, and whether grammatical rules are adhered to.

The above points should be earnestly implemented by Party committees at all levels.

To ensure the smooth implementation of this directive, leading comrades at all levels are requested to print and distribute this directive to all comrades within the various organs responsible for drafting and reviewing documents and telegrams, to communicate it at appropriate meetings, and to publish it in intra-Party journals.

To ensure genuine effectiveness, the Central Committee authorizes the General Office of the Central Committee and the office organs of the various central bureaus to conduct an initial inspection, in accordance with the various standards put forward in this directive, of the documents and telegrams received from January to April of this year by the end of April 1951. Organs that have implemented it well shall be notified for commendation, and those that have implemented it poorly shall be notified for criticism. One inspection shall be conducted every four months thereafter, totaling three inspections in 1951, with the year-end inspection serving as the comprehensive inspection for the year. A summary must be written for each inspection, reviewed and approved by the Central Committee, and circulated to all major leading organs throughout the Party.

The Central Committee believes that the rectification of these language defects will make the minds of our comrades more precise and enhance work efficiency. Therefore, it must be taken seriously, and the existing defects must be conscientiously reformed. When educating comrades, several documents that generally meet the above standards should be selected as exemplary models for people to read, with someone providing explanations. This is an effective method during the educational process.

Central Committee of the Communist Party of China
February 1, 1951