To all central bureaus, and through them to sub-bureaus, provincial, municipal, and district Party committees, as well as Party leadership groups in government cultural departments and literary and art organizations at the corresponding levels:

(1) The Central Committee approves the report submitted by the Central Propaganda Department to the Central Committee on November 23, 1951 [1], and deems this report to be correct.

(2) All central bureaus, sub-bureaus, provincial Party committees, municipal Party committees, and district Party committees, as well as responsible comrades locally engaged in literary and art work, are requested to pay attention to studying this report, and, following the methods adopted in Beijing, to launch a prepared and purposeful rectification study movement in local literary and art circles, initiate serious criticism and self-criticism, overcome erroneous thinking among literary and art cadres, promote correct thinking, rectify literary and art work, and enable literary and art work to develop in a sound direction.

In order to ensure that this rectification movement yields good results, the responsible comrades of the central bureaus, sub-bureaus, provincial Party committees, municipal Party committees, and district Party committees, as well as the responsible comrades of the propaganda departments, must personally take firm hold of the leadership of the rectification movement in literary and art circles, and first report your plans to the Central Committee and the Central Propaganda Department for approval.

(3) This directive of the Central Committee and the report of the Central Propaganda Department may be published in internal Party journals and may be shown to non-Party sympathizers for their reading.

Central Committee of the Communist Party of China
November 26, 1951
Printed based on Mao Zedong's manuscript.

Note
[1] This report by the Central Propaganda Department of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China, in analyzing the achievements and shortcomings of literary and art work over the past two years, pointed out: Particularly in the leadership of literary and art work, there exists a tendency to neglect ideological work, to divorce oneself from politics, to divorce oneself from the masses, and to accommodate the bourgeoisie and petty bourgeoisie, causing confusion on the literary and art front and also fostering certain phenomena of disorganization and indiscipline among Party literary and art cadres. For this reason, it has been decided to carry out a rectification study among literary and art cadres, in order to clarify the various erroneous ideas in literary and art circles and conscientiously establish effective Party leadership over literary and art work.