Letter to the Jiangxi Communist Labour University
#PUBLICATION NOTE
This edition of Letter to the Jiangxi Communist Labour University has been prepared and revised for digital publication by the Institute of Marxism-Leninism-Maoism under the Central Committee of the Communist Party in Switzerland on the basis of the following edition: Chairman Mao's Letter to the Kiangsi Communist Labour University, in the Beijing Review, Vol. 20, No. 33 (12th of August, 1977).
#INTRODUCTION NOTE
This is a letter from Comrade Mao Zedong to the Communist Labour University in Jiangxi, China dated the 30th of July, 1961. It was first published in the Red Guard collection Long Live Mao Zedong's Thought! in 1968.
#Workers and oppressed people of the world, unite!
#LETTER TO THE JIANGXI COMMUNIST LABOUR UNIVERSITY
#Mao Zedong
#30th of July, 1961
#★
Comrades:
What you have been doing has my full support. A school run on the basis of part-work and part-study, self-supporting through hard work, without having to ask the State for a single cent, a school embracing primary-school, middle-school, and college courses and functioning mostly in the hilly regions of the province, though also on the plains — such a school is a very fine one indeed. Most of the students are young people, and there are also some middle-aged cadres. I hope that, besides Jiangxi, other provinces will set up this kind of school. They should send competent, discerning, and responsible comrades to Jiangxi on a study tour to draw on its experience and give such a school a try on their return. It is better for the enrolment to be small at the beginning and to expand gradually to reach as many as 50'000, as in Jiangxi.
Furthermore, Party, government, and mass organizations (of workers, youth, and women) should also set up schools on a part-work, part-study basis. But work and study in these schools should not be the same as in Jiangxi. In Jiangxi, work means farming, forestry, and livestock-breeding, and study means the study of these subjects. In the case of the schools run by Party, government, and mass organizations, work refers to the work done in these organizations, and study refers to acquiring basic knowledge in culture and science and studying current affairs and Marxism-Leninism. Therefore, the two are different. The offices of the Central Committee have already set up two schools. One is run by the Central Guards Regiment and has been in existence for six or seven years. The soldiers and cadres start with literacy courses in primary school and go on to middle-school and college courses. By 1960, they had already reached college level. They were very happy and wrote me a letter, which will be printed and sent to you. The other school was set up last year (1960) by the Party offices in Zhongnanhai, also on a part-work, part-study basis. Work means the work done in these offices, such as by the personnel handling confidential documents, the service and reception, medical and security staffs, and others. The Guards Regiment is an army unit, which has guard duties, such as keeping guard and standing sentry, that is their work. Besides, they engage in strict military training. In all this, their school is different from those run by non-military organizations.
On the occasion of the third anniversary of the Jiangxi Communist Labour University in August 1961, the comrades in charge asked me to write a few words. It is a matter of importance, so I have written the above at their request.