Written: June 18, 1943
Source: Selected Works of Liu Shaoqi, Volume 1
Online Version: Liu Shaoqi Internet Archive, December 2003
Transcribed: Kenneth Higham
HTML Markup: Kenneth Higham and Roland Ferguson
1. Your work in various base areas in Central China has progressed in four specific phases. In the first year, 1940, your main task was to engage in military operations with a view to opening up new prospects in these areas., while the subsidiary tasks were to establish public order and begin mass work. In the second year, 1941, your main task was to restore public order throughout the base areas and set up various kinds of organisations while at the same time continuing with your mass work. In the third year, 1942, you focused on mass work, and in the fourth year, this year, you have undertaken the reform of organs of political power and set up a militia while, at the same time, educating cadres (through the rectification movement 2) and promoting production. All your work has been carried out within the context of a sustained struggle against the enemy, the aim being to persist in the struggle more effectively and to preserve your key activities. In the fifth year, next year, all base areas should consider the organization and promotion of production as their central task so as to lay the foundation for maintaining these base areas in the future. To achieve this, you should start doing all the preparation possible, now. Experience in production should be accumulated and analysed this year, so that functionaries in government offices and peasant associations can become familiar with different ways of organizing the masses to engage in production. In this way they will be in a position to work out realistic plans this winter for the expansion of production next year. After rents are reduced, the peasant associations should set as their central task the organization of the masses for production and the formation of co-operatives. They should make appropriate and effective changes in their work, taking care not to get bogged down in the old ways. The government for its part, should formulate relatively stable policies concerning the grain levy and taxation so as to ensure the entire crop increase goes to the peasants and that rises in production are not accompanied by increased burdens on them. The consultative councils and other government bodies should make production the main theme at all their meetings and should reduce the number of meetings which have little relevance to the masses so as to mobilize all efforts for production. In order to enhance self-sufficiency and avoid placing heavier burdens on the peasants, all government offices, schools and army units should participate in the production campaign on a broad scale, provided that their work of military operations are not hampered.
2. While tackling the above-mentioned work, you will have to contest every inch of our territory by countering the mopping-up campaigns and nibbling-away operations of the Japanese aggressors. You will also have to complete the tasks of rectification and examination of cadres’ personal records for this year or next. Therefore, you must properly analyse all experience gained in the struggle against the enemy. For our part, we will inform you of the experience gained in the north of China. As for this year’s rectification, your decision is a good one, but it cannot be enforced unless you get on with inspection and supervision, speed up work and strengthen ideological and organizational leadership. In the initial and middle stages of the rectification, it is correct to stress rectifying the style of study (and along with it, the style of writing). But in the final stage, emphasis should be put on rectifying the Party style by closely checking up on the Party spirit of all cadres, particularly high-ranking cadres, and having them examine themselves in line with the four criteria put forward by Georgi Dimitrov 3 (absolute devotion to the cause, close contact with the people, ability independently to find one’s bearings, and discipline 4). Both the rectification and examination of the cadres’ personal records should be linked with production and the struggle against the enemy.
3. You are advancing under complex conditions, with complicated tasks and duties to perform. To fulfill your tasks on time, you must take advantage of favourable opportunities and co-ordinate various kinds of work without loosing sight of the key link or upsetting the sequence of work. The leadership should assume overall responsibility, while specific work should be carried out through a division of labour. For example, while production should be carried out mainly by the masses, soldiers and auxiliary personnel mobilized by the leadership, the struggle against the enemy should be conducted mainly by troops, armed work teams, the militia and the departments in charge of work behind enemy lines - all under the command of the leadership. The leading bodies must be responsible for analysing experience and providing guidance at all times. In addition, the rectification and examination of cadres’ personal records should also be done mainly by the leading bodies themselves.
[A] In the original transcription of this work, the Editorial Committee on Party Literature (Central Committee of the Communist Party of China) opted to separate editorial and explanatory notes into two separate categories, independently numbered relative to (1) the type of note and (2) chronological appearance in the text.
Both editorial and explanatory notes are presented in the present transcription in chronological order based solely on the current order of relevance to the selected text.
Additionally, the Pinyin (Chinese phonetic alphabet) spellings of Chinese proper names are used exclusively throughout the present transcription to preserve the continuity of the original transcription.
1. A telegram to Chen Yi and other leading members of the Central China Bureau of the Central Committee of the Chinese Communist Party and the New Fourth Army, sent from Yan’an.
2. The rectification movement was a Party-wide Marxist-Leninist ideological education movement launched by the Chinese Communist Party in 1942.
3. Georgi Dimitrov (1882-1949), a renowned Bulgarian activist in the international communist movement, served as a member of the Central Committee of the Red International of Labour Unions in 1921, and from 1935 to 1943 as Secretary-General of the Executive Committee of the Communist-International. After returning to Bulgaria in November 1945, he worked as Secretary-General of the Bulgarian Communist Party and Chairman of the Council of Ministers. pp. 291, 414
4. For details see Georgi Dimitrov, “The Seventh World Congress of the Communist International”, Selected Articles and Speeches, Eng. ed., Lawrence and Wishart, London, 1951, pp. 138-39