Comment on the Draft [I]
(April 15, 1954)
With minor revisions12 1 , it may be issued immediately. Please have Comrades Liu Shaoqi, Peng Dehuai1' 13 1 , and Luo Ronghuan review the revised sections.
Mao Zedong
April 15th
[1]
This comment was written on a report dated March 10, 1954, submitted to Mao Zedong by Luo Ronghuan, Director of the General Political Department of the People’s Revolutionary Military Commission, together with Deputy Directors Fu Zhong, Xiao Hua, and Gan Leiqi. The report stated:
The Regulations on Political Work of the Chinese People’s Liberation Army, after more than a year of study and revision, had resulted in twenty draft versions of various regulations. Among these, the four principal ones were: the General Provisions of the Regulations on Political Work; the Regulations on the CPC Committees in the Army; the Regulations on the Work of Political Commissars; and the Regulations on the Work of the General Political Department.
[2]
The revisions made by Mao Zedong primarily involved rewriting the opening sentence of Article 2 of the Draft General Provisions of the Regulations on Political Work of the Chinese People’s Liberation Army from “The Chinese People’s Liberation Army, under the leadership of the Party and Comrade Mao Zedong,” to “The Chinese People’s Liberation Army, under the leadership of the Communist Party of China.” Additionally, he deleted the seven characters “the world’s second” from the phrase “actively and step by step build itself into the world’s second-best modern revolutionary army.”
[3]
Peng Dehuai was then Vice Chairman of the People’s Revolutionary Military Commission.

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In April 1954, Mao Zedong approved the promulgation of the first Regulations on Political Work of the Chinese People’s Liberation Army since the founding of the People’s Republic of China, and during his review restored the passage—previously removed by Chen Boda—that political work is the lifeline of our armed forces.