Comrade Zhou Wen,1
I have received your letter and passed it on to various comrades in the Central Propaganda Department and the Liberation Daily to read. Your opinion is quite right;2 we are now taking the reform in hand and are preparing a meeting of cadres specifically for this purpose. This is my reply.
Salutations,
Mao Zedong
I hope that you will write articles on this issue for the Liberation Daily to combat Party formalism and neoclassical writing.3
Our source for this letter is Mao Zedong shuxin xuanji, p. 193, where it is reproduced from the manuscript.
1. Zhou Wen (1907–1952) was a noted left-wing writer who went to Yan’an in 1940 and who later served in the Shaan-Gan-Ning Border Region Government and edited Party periodicals. He would become a vocal supporter of the literary Rectification Campaign in 1942.
2. Mao may be referring to Zhou Wen’s support of language reform and language simplification.
3. On the term “Party formalism” [dang bagu], see Mao’s famous exposition in the February 1 and February 8 texts, below. See “Rectify Our Study Style, Party Style, and Writing Style,” February 1, 1942, note 10.