* This was a decision drafted by Comrade Mao Tse-tung for the Central Committee of the Chinese Communist Party.
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intellectuals or corrupt their minds; in particular, it is due to the failure to understand the favourable factor that our Party and our army have already developed a hard core of well-tested cadres and are thus capable of leading the intellectuals.
   
3. From now on attention should therefore be paid to the following:
   
(a) All Party organizations in the war areas and all army units led by the Party should recruit large numbers of intellectuals into our army, training institutes and organs of government. We should use various ways and means to recruit all intellectuals who are willing to fight Japan and who are fairly loyal, hard-working and able to endure hardship; we should give them political education and help them to temper themselves in war and work and to serve the army, the government and the masses; and, taking each case on its merits, we should admit into the Party those who measure up to the requirements of Party membership. As for those who do not qualify or do not wish to join the Party, we should have good working relations with them and give them guidance in their work with us.
(b) In applying the policy of recruiting intellectuals in large numbers, we must undoubtedly take great care to prevent the infiltration of those elements sent in by the enemy and the bourgeois political parties and to keep out other disloyal elements. We must be very strict about keeping out such elements. Those who have already sneaked into our Party, army or government organs must be firmly but discriminatingly combed out on the basis of conclusive evidence. But we must not on that account suspect reasonably loyal intellectuals, and we must be strictly on guard against the false accusation of innocent people by counter-revolutionaries.
(c) We should assign appropriate work to all intellectuals who are reasonably loyal and useful, and we should earnestly give them political education and guidance so that in the long course of the struggle they gradually overcome their weaknesses, revolutionize their outlook, identify themselves with the masses, and merge with the older Party members and cadres and the worker and peasant members of the Party.
(d) The necessity of admitting intellectuals into our work should be brought home to those cadres, and especially to certain
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cadres in the main forces of our army, who are opposed to their admission. At the same time, we should work effectively to encourage worker and peasant cadres to study hard and raise their cultural level. Thus worker and peasant cadres will at the same time become intellectuals, while the intellectuals will at the same time become workers and peasants.
(e) In the main the principles stated above are also applicable in the Kuomintang areas and in the Japanese-occupied areas, except that, on admitting intellectuals into the Party, more attention must be paid to their degree of loyalty, so as to ensure still tighter Party organization in those areas. We should maintain suitable contact with the huge numbers of non-Party intellectuals who sympathize with us and organize them in the great struggle for resistance to Japan and for democracy, and in the cultural movement and the work of the united front.
   
4. All our Party comrades must understand that a correct policy towards the intellectuals is an important prerequisite for victory in the revolution. There must be no repetition of the incorrect attitude towards intellectuals which Party organizations in many localities and army units adopted during the Agrarian Revolution; the proletariat cannot produce intellectuals of its own without the help of the existing intellectuals. The Central Committee hopes that the Party committees at all levels and all Party comrades will give this matter their serious attention.
NOTES
[1]
The term "intellectuals" refers to all those who have had middle school or higher education and those with similar educational levels. They include university and middle school teachers and staff members, university and middle school students, primary school teachers, professionals, engineers and technicians, among whom the university and middle school students occupy an important position.
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