This document is an investigative report submitted by the Shanghai Revolutionary
Committee on 29 August to the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China and the
Central Cultural Revolution Group. It is now published in this journal. We request that the
revolutionary committees of major, medium-sized, and small industrial cities across the
country pay attention to this matter, conduct investigations into the situation of engineering
and technical personnel in your areas, and submit the results to the Central Committee in a
timely manner. We will select and publish the key points. Fundamentally speaking, the path
of selecting engineering and technical personnel and other ideological workers (professors,
teachers, scientists, journalists, writers, artists, and Marxist theorists) from among workers,
peasants, soldiers, and their descendants has already been determined. At the same time,
the Party, the working class, the poor peasants, and the People's Liberation Army have a
responsibility to enthusiastically and seriously assist some of the graduates and current
students of higher education institutions who still do not understand or have not yet
decided to combine with workers, farmers, and soldiers and serve them, gradually changing
their mindset. Those who have already united or are willing to unite should be encouraged,
and their inspiring stories and the process of change should also be investigated and
summarised for publication. The stubborn capitalists or others who are considered bad by
the broad masses are only a small minority of our population. For such people, we must also
start with education in order to transform them despite their stubbornness and make them
better despite their badness. In summary, a path forward must be provided. Policies that do
not offer a path forward are not the policies of the proletariat. These are the consistent
traditional policies our Party has upheld for a long time, and they should be clearly explained
to everyone. The Cultural Revolution is a serious class struggle and also a great educational
movement.
Red Flag Magazine Editorial Board
September 1968
One draft article and commentary to be published, sent to Lin, Zhou [2], and all comrades
involved in the Cultural Revolution for review, returned to comrade Yao Wenyuan [3] for
processing.



Comrades Lin, Zhou, and others involved in the Cultural Revolution: Please read this
document and submit it to the Prime Minister for discussion at the meeting for revision. It is
recommended that it be published in the third issue of Red Flag.
Mao Zedong
31 August

[1] This refers to the investigative report titled ‘The Growth of Shanghai Workers and
Technical Personnel in Struggle,’ submitted for review on 29 August 1968 by Zhang
Chunqiao, Deputy Head of the Central Committee's Cultural Revolution Group and Director
of the Shanghai Revolutionary Committee. This investigative report states that recently, we
investigated the situation of workers and technical personnel on the industrial front in
Shanghai and found that a large number of workers and technical personnel are distributed
across large, medium, and small factories in Shanghai. Among the numerous small factories,
workers and technical personnel account for 80% of the total number of technical personnel
in their respective units. They, along with the vast majority of workers, are the main force in
the development of science and technology. This powerful workforce of workers and
technical personnel will be an important force in the proletarian educational revolution and
the primary source of faculty for science and engineering universities. To carry out an
educational revolution, schools must transform the existing faculty. The workforce of
technical personnel in Shanghai possesses a high level of proletarian political consciousness,
extensive experience in the three great revolutionary movements, and an understanding of
how to cultivate successors for the proletarian revolutionary cause. Therefore, it is entirely
possible to select a group of outstanding people from among them to serve as university
teachers. Among the workers' propaganda teams that have recently entered universities,
there are a group of workers and technicians. It is certain that with the deepening of
struggle, criticism, and reform in schools, the leading role of the working class in the
educational revolution will become increasingly prominent. When Mao Zedong reviewed the
report, he deleted the word "unprecedented" from the sentence "Chairman Mao personally
launched and led the unprecedented great proletarian cultural revolution"; he deleted the
three words "in human history" from the sentence "the workers and technicians who led the
scientific and technological work prepared the conditions for our country to carry out a new
industrial revolution in human history".
[2] Lin, referring to Lin Biao, was re-elected as a member of the Standing Committee of the
Political Bureau of the CPC Central Committee at the 11th Plenary Session of the 8th CPC
Central Committee and was soon appointed Vice Chairman of the CPC Central Committee.
Zhou, referring to Zhou Enlai.



[3] Yao Wenyuan, then a member of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of
China's Cultural Revolution Group and deputy director of the Shanghai Revolutionary
Committee.