Comments on Su Zhenhua’s[1] Letter
(March 5, 1972)

It seems this person can be liberated. If the navy cannot use him, it seems he could be transferred back to the army (or to a local post) to let him do some work. Whether this is feasible, please let the Central Committee decide at its discretion.

Mao Zedong
March 5, 1972

Please ask Wang[2] to print and distribute to all comrades.

[1] Su Zhenhua, formerly a member of the Standing Committee of the CPC Central Military Commission and concurrently its deputy secretary-general, and political commissar of the PLA Navy. During the “Cultural Revolution” he was wrongly criticized and removed from his posts. On December 13, 1971, he wrote a letter to Mao Zedong expressing his determination to “return to the Chairman’s revolutionary line and strive to do some useful work for the people in my later years.” In January 1973, Su Zhenhua was reinstated as first political commissar of the navy. In August of the same year, at the Tenth National Congress of the CPC, he was elected a member of the Central Committee, and at the First Plenary Session of the Tenth Central Committee he was elected an alternate member of the Political Bureau of the CPC Central Committee.
[2] Wang refers to Wang Dongxing, then an alternate member of the Political Bureau of the CPC Central Committee and director of the General Office of the CPC Central Committee.