(January 26, 1967)
Comrade Lin Biao:
This material reflects that the masses have raised the questions of exactly which organs can seize power and which cannot;
and what attitude those who have seized power should adopt toward the masses who hold differing opinions (they should win over the majority and must not exclude them). Please study this.
Mao Zedong
January 26
[1]


This instruction was written on Issue No. 5 of the "Essential Report on the Situation of the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution in the Army," compiled and printed by the All-Army Cultural Revolution Group on January 25, 1967.
[2]


On February 16, 1967, the Military Commission of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China issued the "Regulations on the Scope of Power Seizure in the Army." The regulations pointed out: (1) The scope within which power may be seized in the army is limited to academies and schools (except confidential schools, advanced technology schools, flight schools, and classes and departments with foreign training tasks), literary and art troupes, sports teams, hospitals (limited to the PLA General Hospital, general hospitals of military regions and services, and teaching hospitals), and military factories (except factories with advanced technology testing tasks, factories subordinate to naval bases, and top-secret factories). In these units, which ones need to have power seized and which do not depends on the nature of the problems existing in the Party committee leadership. (2) Power seizure must be carried out by the genuine proletarian revolutionaries of the unit itself; revolutionary organizations from outside the unit are not permitted to join in the power seizure. (3) The power of the guard, communications, training, service, and transport detachments of various academies, schools, military factories, and other units cannot be seized, nor are they permitted to participate in power seizure. (4) Except for the scope within which power seizure is permitted as stipulated in Article 1, all other units, large or small, are not permitted to carry out power seizure through methods from the bottom up.