Comments on a Recent Briefing Regarding Zhang Guotao [1]
(January 1959)

Zhang Guotao should be persuaded to sever his ties with the Americans. If this can be accomplished, consideration may be given to providing him with personal living assistance. Mao's note.

[1] Zhang Guotao attended the First National Congress of the Communist Party of China in 1921. He was subsequently elected a member of the Central Committee, a member of the Political Bureau, and a member of the Standing Committee of the Political Bureau. In 1931, he served as Secretary of the Eyuwan Sub-Bureau of the Central Committee and Vice Chairman of the Provisional Central Government of the Chinese Soviet Republic, among other posts. In June 1935, after the First and Fourth Front Armies of the Red Army joined forces in Maogong (present-day Xiaojin) area, Sichuan, he served as General Political Commissar of the Red Army. He opposed the Central Committee of the CPC's decision for the Red Army to march north, engaged in activities to split the Party and the Red Army, and established a separate Central Committee. In June 1936, he was compelled to dissolve the second Central Committee, and subsequently marched north together with the Second and Fourth Front Armies of the Red Army, arriving in northern Shaanxi in December. From September 1937, he served as Vice Chairman and Acting Chairman of the Shaanxi-Gansu-Ningxia Border Region Government. In April 1938, he fled the Shaanxi-Gansu-Ningxia Border Region and defected to the Kuomintang secret service, and was immediately expelled from the Party. In 1959, he was residing in Hong Kong. He died in Canada in 1979.

[2] This internal briefing, issued on January 5, 1959, stated that in October of the previous year, Zhang Guotao expressed willingness to do some work for the New China government and requested living assistance.