Letter to Wang Feng [1] Concerning an Investigation into the Situation of the Tibetan People (April 7, 1959)

Comrade Wang Feng:  I would like to conduct a study of the current situation throughout the Tibetan region.

(1) West of the Jinsha River, in what is known as “Inner Tibet”—comprising Qamdo, Ü-Tsang, and Ngari—is the population indeed estimated at 1.2 million?

(2) What is the total area in square kilometers?

(3) What were the features of the serfdom system? What was the relationship between serfs and their landlords (the nobility), and how was the produce divided between them? Some say it was split 80–20; others maintain that formally all belonged to the nobles, while in practice the serfs secretly withheld part of the harvest for their own sustenance. Which view is correct?

(4) How many lamas are there in total? Some claim 80,000; is this accurate?

(5) What was the political relationship between the nobility and the serfs? Did the nobility possess the right to take life? Did they conduct private trials and mete out extralegal punishments?

(6) What was the nature of the exploitation and oppression exercised by the monasteries over the serfs under their control?

(7) And within the monasteries themselves, what forms of exploitation and oppression prevailed? There are reports that rebellious lamas were flayed or had their tendons severed. Is there any truth to these accounts?

(8) On what sources did the local governments at all levels in Tibet, as well as the Tibetan army, draw their substantial annual budgets? Was the funding derived from the serfs, or from the nobility?

(9) What percentage of the total population consisted of rebels? Was it around 5 percent, more than that, less than that—perhaps only 1, 2, or 3 percent? Which figure is most accurate?

(10) Among the entire exploiting class, what were the respective proportions of leftists, centrists, and rightists? Could the leftists account for one-third, or less?  And how large was the centrist faction?

(11) How many Tibetans reside in Yunnan, Sichuan, Gansu, and Qinghai provinces respectively, and what is the total Tibetan population across these four provinces? Some estimate that the combined total ranges from slightly over two million to three million. Is this correct?

(12) What is the total area occupied by Tibetan settlements in these four provinces?

(13) What did the “suffering-representation” campaigns in the monasteries of Qinghai, Gansu, and Sichuan reveal? It has been reported that considerable quantities of human skin were discovered. Is this assertion substantiated?

Please undertake a preliminary investigation into each of the above questions within one to two weeks. Submit the findings to me in the form of an internal report, and also have them published in Xinhua News Agency’s “Internal Reference” [2]. If materials available in Beijing prove insufficient, please dispatch telegrams to the CPC Tibet Working Committee and to the provincial committees of Qinghai, Gansu, Sichuan, and Yunnan, requesting that they gather the necessary information. You may mobilize Xinhua’s correspondents stationed in those regions to assist with the collection of data, and assign Xinhua’s headquarters the long-term task of conducting systematic research on the Tibetan question.

Mao Zedong  April 7  Printed from the manuscript. Included in Selected Letters of Mao Zedong.

Notes  [1] Wang Feng was at the time Deputy Minister of the United Front Work Department of the CPC Central Committee and Deputy Director of the State Ethnic Affairs Commission.

[2] In April 1959, issues 2753, 2754, 2755, 2756, and 2757 of Xinhua News Agency’s “Internal Reference” separately published five articles titled “The Privileges of the Feudal Ruling Class in the Qinghai Tibetan Area,” “Basic Conditions in the Sichuan Tibetan Area,” “The Basic Situation in Tibet,” “The Serfdom System in Tibet,” and “Basic Conditions in the Gansu Tibetan Area.”  1£¹