Central Commentary on the Hebei Provincial Party Committee’s Report Concerning the Military Enlistment Campaign (February 2, 1953)

To All Central Bureaus and Major Military Regions:  This document [1] should be brought to the attention of the East China, Southwest, Northwest, Central-South, and Northeast Central Bureaus and the major military regions, so as to facilitate the correction of deviations and the successful completion of the enlistment drive in your respective areas.

The Central Committee February 2 Based on Mao Zedong’s handwritten draft.  Note [1] Refers to the report dated January 24, 1953, submitted by the CPC Hebei Provincial Committee to the North China Bureau and to all local party committees regarding the military enlistment campaign. The report states that Hebei Province’s current enlistment work has entered the stage of screening, centralizing, and consolidating new recruits. Judging from the screening results of those newly recruited who have been concentrated at the county level, there is now every assurance that the province will fulfill its enlistment quota. Nevertheless, development remains uneven among different regions; in some lagging areas, propaganda efforts are disconnected from organizational work, and mass mobilization is divorced from targeted recruitment. Some places place undue emphasis on voluntariness while neglecting compulsory education, treating voluntary enlistment as a spontaneous act—simply “waiting for soldiers to come on their own.” In their publicity campaigns, these areas offer only abstract exhortations without any concrete connection to real-life situations; others even disseminate incorrect information, going so far as to erroneously propagate the slogan “three nos”—“no return unless killed, no return unless maimed, no return until imperialism is defeated”—thereby imposing psychological pressure on certain families of service members and on the recruits themselves. Still others pursue the so-called “universal registration” approach, thereby relaxing their efforts to cultivate key cadres and thus obstructing the smooth progress of the enlistment campaign.