I have read it and I will return it to Comrade Qi Benyu.
 It is good to make some mistakes, which can lead to deep reflection and correction of
mistakes. Please inform Comrades Guan and Wang when it is convenient.
Mao Zedong
September 7

[1] Qi Benyu was a member of the Cultural Revolution Group of the CPC Central Committee
and deputy editor-in-chief of Red Flag magazine. On September 4, 1967, he wrote to Mao
Zedong saying that Guan Feng and Wang Li had made serious mistakes, which manifested in
blind "left" actions. First, they misjudged the national situation and regarded the repeated
phenomena in the struggle as the restoration of capitalism in the country, and failed to see
the results and strength of the revolutionary masses. Second, they misjudged the Chinese
People's Liberation Army and called for the arrest of "a handful of people in the army"
everywhere in newspapers and radio stations. Third, they doubted everything and shook the
leadership of Chairman Mao's headquarters at will. The ideological root of their mistakes
was individualism, self-expansion, self-importance, and thinking that they were great and
more revolutionary than anyone else, and could not tolerate different opinions. Qi Benyu
also reviewed in the letter that he was not aware of some of their problems, and Wang Li's
mistakes on the issue of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs were related to me. I am willing to
work hard to reform myself and always be a soldier loyal to Mao Zedong Thought. In January
1968, with the approval of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China, Qi
Benyu was isolated for investigation and dismissed from all positions within and outside the
party. In November 1983, the Beijing Intermediate People's Court sentenced Qi Benyu to 18
years in prison and deprived him of political rights for 4 years for the crimes of counterrevolutionary propaganda and incitement, false accusation and framing, and gathering a
crowd to smash, loot and rob.