Note on the Writing of the Article
“Oppose Book Worship”
(March 25, 1964)

Return to Comrade Tian Jiaying.

[1]
“Oppose Book Worship,” originally titled “Investigation Work,” was written by Mao Zedong to oppose the dogmatic thinking then prevalent in the Red Army. A lithographed pamphlet was printed in August 1930. This work was long lost and could not be included in the first volume of the *Selected Works of Mao Zedong* published in 1951. In February 1957, it was contributed by Lai Maoji, a peasant from Shanghang County, Fujian.

In August 1959, this booklet was mailed to Beijing by the Bureau of Culture and Education of the Longyan Prefecture, Fujian, and deposited in the Central Revolutionary Museum. After the Political Research Office of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China borrowed this document at the end of 1960, Tian Jiaying, deputy director of the research office and Mao Zedong’s secretary, sent it to Mao Zedong for review in January 1961. On March 11, Mao Zedong changed the title of this work to “On Investigation Work,” made minor textual revisions, and distributed it to comrades attending the Central Committee’s working conference in Guangzhou. In 1964, after his personal examination and approval, it was included in both the A and B editions of the publicly issued *Selected Readings of Mao Zedong’s Works*. To determine the time of the article’s writing, Tian Jiaying, who was responsible for editing the selected readings, wrote in a letter to Mao Zedong on March 25: “Regarding the time this article was written, I hope the Chairman can recall it again. If you can remember where it was written, or any major events around the time of writing, we can use these clues to ascertain a more accurate date of composition.” That evening, Mao Zedong returned the final approved draft of this article to Jiaying, changed the article’s title to “Oppose Book Worship,” and wrote this note. Tian Jiaying expressed doubt about setting the writing date as 1929 and asked a comrade from the Central Political Research Office to compile a detailed account of Mao Zedong’s activities from January 1929 to August 1930 and send it to Mao Zedong. After reviewing it, Mao Zedong finally set the writing date as May 1930. The second edition of the *Selected Works of Mao Zedong*, published in July 1991, added this work.

This article was written in 1929; the location is not clearly remembered. A short essay was written first, titled “Oppose Book Worship,” written in Xunwu County, Jiangxi. Later, feeling that this essay was too short to convince comrades, I rewrote it into this longer article. The content is basically the same, though somewhat more developed. At the time, both articles existed in mimeographed copies.

Mao Zedong
March 25, 1964