Conversation with Zeng Wen
(September 15, 1956)

Source: Mao jingwei, pp. 8–9. Other Chinese Text: RMRB (May 23, 1960), 3.
Zeng was a member of Mao’s security guard. For more on Mao’s exhortation to the members
of this corps to xue wenhua (i.e., become educated and, at least, literate), see text May 1955
and text mid-July 1955, vol. I. For more bibliographical information on the source, see text
May 1955, vol. I, source note.

From now on you people should not be called a military unit; you should simply
be called a student. . . .
. . . Would you like to have me to be your principal? . . . (Zeng Wen: Good!)
I will be the honorary principal and then find you a vice-principal. You can study

here for seven or eight years, until you reach a level [comparable to] middle-school
graduates or university graduates. Do you think that would work? (Zeng Wen: Yes!)
You are still very young; you’re only in your twenties. I think it would be
possible. Comrade Zeng Baojin, who served as a security guard for me before,
herded cows for people and worked as a hired hand in the past. He had never been
to school. [Afterward,] he went to study at the People’s University1 and placed first
in the examination. (Zeng Wen: The comrades are now very enthusiastic about
learning cultural matters.)2
After studying at this school for seven or eight years, you will become university
students who have come from the workers’ and peasants’ ranks. At present there
are still very few university students who have come from worker and peasant
backgrounds, but in the future there will be many.

Notes
1. On December 16, 1949, at the Eleventh Meeting of the Government Administration
Council, the PRC Central People’s Government decided to establish a Chinese People’s
University (Zhongguo renmin daxue). This was opened in Beijing on September 1, 1950,
with Wu Yuzhang as principal.
2. See text May 1955, vol. I, note 1.