Notes and Comments on the Article “Investigative Work”
(March 11, 1961)
This is an old article written to oppose dogmatism within the Red Army at the time. Back then, we did not use the term “dogmatism”; instead, we referred to it as “textbookism.” It was composed around the spring of 1930 and had remained unpublished for thirty years. In January 1961, it was unexpectedly discovered in the Central Revolutionary Museum, which had obtained it from the Longyan Prefectural Party Committee in Fujian Province. Seeing that it still seemed useful, several copies were printed for the reference of comrades.
Mao Zedong
March 11, 1961
[1]
The lithographic print of the article “Investigative Work” was originally donated in February 1957 by Lai Maoji, a farmer from Chadì Commune (now Chadì Township) in Shanghang County, Fujian Province, and had been kept in the Party History Office of the Longyan Prefectural Party Committee. When the Central Revolutionary Museum (now the National Museum of China) collected historical materials in the Longyan area in January 1958, it requested this item for its collection and recorded it in its inventory. In August 1959, the Longyan Regional Education Bureau mailed it to Beijing, where it was placed in the Central Revolutionary Museum. At the end of 1960, the CPC Central Committee’s Political Research Office borrowed the document, and Tian Jiaying, the office’s deputy director and Mao Zedong’s secretary, presented it to Mao Zedong for review in January 1961.
[2]
When authorizing the publication of this article, Mao Zedong made some minor textual revisions to the main body and changed the title to “On Investigative Work.” In 1964, the article was included in the Selected Works of Mao Zedong (Type A), at which point Mao revised the title again to “Against Textbookism” and fixed the date of composition as May 1930.