Directive on the Report from the Nanjing Municipal Committee
Concerning Religious Reform Work
(September 8, 1951)

Comrade Qiaomu:[1]
This document[2] is very good. Please arrange for it to be printed and distributed to all central bureaus, sub-bureaus, provincial, municipal, and district party committees, and their organs managing religious affairs, and add a few introductory sentences before the text.

Mao Zedong
September 8

[1] Qiaomu, namely Hu Qiaomu, then serving as Deputy Director of the Propaganda Department of the CPC Central Committee and secretary to Mao Zedong and the Political Bureau of the Central Committee.
[2] Refers to the report of the CPC Nanjing Municipal Committee on religious reform work dated August 20, 1951. The report stated: Since April, we have successively launched accusation movements in various Christian churches, held anti-drug exhibitions at the Jinling Men’s and Women’s Theological Seminaries, and continued with a month-long political study to eliminate the influence of imperialist ideology. Subsequently, we organized two sessions of summer camps for young Christian students and established the city-wide Promotion Committee for the Three-Self Reform Movement among Christian students. In mid-July, taking progressive believers as the foundation, plus some working personnel, we organized religious work teams under the leadership of the Religious Affairs Office. These teams were dispatched to various urban districts, went deep into every church, and widely carried out a movement of Three-Self Reform study and democratic church reform, organized on a church-by-church basis, with the participation of over 80% of believers. The work steps were as follows: First, the work teams directly met with all the believers of each church, repeatedly conducted education on anti-imperialist patriotism and implementing the Three-Self Reform, inspired believers to expose and accuse the dark, arbitrary, and reactionary facts of the churches, and fostered a sense of ownership among the believers, thereby unfolding direct struggles between the believers and the clergy class to establish the predominance of progressive masses within the churches. Then, the Religious Affairs Office convened forums for church personnel (already held three times) to elucidate the important relationship between establishing a democratic style of work in churches and the future of the churches, support the demands for democratic reform, and emphasize that democratic reform was a crucial step for the unity of pastors and believers to resolutely defeat the imperialist offensive and strive for the survival of the churches, in order to reduce the opposition and resistance of the upper echelons.

On September 13, 1951, the CPC Central Committee forwarded this report from the Nanjing Municipal Committee, adding the following directive: "To all central bureaus, sub-bureaus, provincial, municipal, and district party committees: This report from the Nanjing Municipal Committee is very good. The experience contained therein regarding the methods and steps for conducting Christian work is well worth studying by all localities. It is hereby printed and distributed for your research. All local propaganda departments, united front work departments, public security departments, foreign affairs offices, and religious affairs offices are to pay attention to it."