Letter to Liu Shaoqi and Others on the Issue That All Should Be Addressed as Comrades in the Briefing Bulletins of the Lushan Conference

(August 3, 1959)

Shaoqi, Enlai, Peng Zhen, Shangkun[2] comrades, and comrades serving as leaders of the various groups[3]:

The form of address for comrades in the briefing bulletins is inappropriate, and this old custom should be corrected. Suggestion: Address everyone uniformly as Comrade So-and-so. For example: The Chairman, address as Comrade Mao Zedong; the Premier, address as Comrade Zhou Enlai; Commander Lin, Commander Peng, Commander He, address as Comrade Lin Biao, Comrade Peng Dehuai, Comrade He Long. Others, by analogy. If agreed, please ask the leaders of the various groups to announce this at the meetings. Please ask Shangkun to inform the editors of the briefing bulletins to uniformly make this correction starting from the 4th.

Mao Zedong
August 3

[1] Refers to the enlarged meeting of the Political Bureau of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China and the Eighth Plenary Session of the Eighth Central Committee held successively at Lushan from July 2 to August 16, 1959.
[2] Peng Zhen, then serving as a member of the Political Bureau of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China and Secretary of the Central Secretariat. Shangkun, namely Yang Shangkun, then serving as an alternate member of the Central Secretariat of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China and Director of the General Office of the Central Committee.
[3] Refers to the leaders of the various groups into which the Lushan Conference was divided at the time.