To all central bureaus, and forward to sub-bureaus, provincial Party committees, district Party committees, municipal Party committees, prefectural Party committees, and county Party committees; to the Party groups of the people’s governments of all greater administrative areas, all provinces, municipalities, and districts, all special administrative regions, and all counties, and to inform the Party groups of all departments of the Central People’s Government: It is necessary to attach importance to correspondence from the people. Letters from the people must be handled appropriately, and the legitimate demands of the masses must be satisfied. This matter must be regarded as a method by which the Communist Party and the people’s government strengthen their ties with the people. A bureaucratic attitude of treating it lightly and ignoring it must not be adopted.

If there are very many letters from the people and the person concerned has difficulty handling them, an appropriate number of specialized organs or specialized personnel should be established to handle these letters.

If there are not many letters and the person concerned or a secretary can handle them, then no additional specialized personnel should be assigned.

Below is a report on the work of handling letters from the first three months of this year, prepared by the secretarial office that specializes in handling letters sent to me by the people.〔1〕 It is distributed for your reference. I believe the viewpoint of this report is correct.

Mao Zedong
May 16, 1951
Published based on the manuscript.

Note
〔1〕 Refers to the report on the handling of letters from the masses from January to March, submitted to Mao Zedong on April 30, 1951, by the Secretarial Office of the General Office of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China. The report provides a classified statistical analysis of the nearly 20,000 letters from the masses received during this period, outlines the issues reflected in the letters, and describes how these letters were handled. The report also states: “There are also over 9,000 letters, which are batches of tribute letters written by the masses mobilized by local organizations. Some are still being sent here continuously. Under such circumstances, it is impossible to reply to each one individually, and a general reply to that locality is being prepared.” Mao Zedong wrote a comment on this: “Organizing the masses to write tribute letters in batches is not good. Do not do this in the future.”