First Published: In Beijing
Red Flag, in Chinese, No. 19, 1 October 1983, page 40.
Source of the translation: Joint Publications Research
Service [Arlington (VA), USA], China Report: Red Flag No. 19, 1 October1984.
(JPRS 84805), 23 November 1983, pages 68-69.
Transcription/HTML/Markup for marxists.org: January
2024.
Among Comrade Mao Zedong's manuscripts, there are some letters about the proofreading of his works and notices on corrections in his handwriting. Naturally, these writings are relatively less important compared with his very popular works. However, they reflect Comrade Mao Zedong's cautiousness, carefulness, conscientiousness, and meticulousness in writing and publishing his works.
Comrade Mao Zedong advocated that it was necessary to "conscientiously revise" what one had written. This is known to all. However, as a writer with a high sense of responsibility for the people, he did not regard the final revision of his writings as the completion of his work bf writing and paid great attention to proofreading when his manuscripts were being printed. At one time in 1938 when he sent the final revised manuscript of one of his articles to be printed, he wrote to Comrade Guo Huaruo: "The first section has already been finally revised and can be printed immediately. However, we must pay attention to proofreading, and you must personally proofread it at least once." Moreover, he particu¬larly pointed out: "Pay attention to punctuation marks and ensure that there are no mistakes." If an article was important, he not only enjoined the relevant comrades to conscientiously proofread it, but he also often personally and repeatedly proofread it. On 27 June 1938, when "On Pro¬tracted War" was being published, he personally proofread it and later wrote to the comrades in the publishing department: "I have proofread all of it. Please send part three back to me for my proofreading once more." "I request that you give a final proofreading to parts one and two extremely meticulously, and do ensure that there are no errors whatever." On 8 November 1938, when he sent in the manuscript of the report to the Sixth Enlarged Plenary Session of the Sixth CPC Central Committee after he had revised it, he wrote to Comrade Xu Bing and enjoined him: "Please carry out the first and second proofreadings. I will carry out the third and fourth proofreadings."
Whenever Comrade Mao Zedong found any errors in the writings drafted by him or signed by him for issuance, even if the errors were minor ones, he seriously and conscientiously corrected them with meticulous care. On 1 June 1938, he specially wrote to Comrade Xu Bing about a wrong word in his article "Problems of Strategy in Guerrilla War Against Japan." He wrote: "In line 12, passage 2, page 7 of the article on 'Problems of Strategy in Guerrilla War,' the word 'military' in 'the massing of the military forces for use in one important direction' is an error for the word 'principal.'" He earnestly enjoined: "If it is not too late, please correct this error when this pamphlet is being printed." Despite his heavy work load, he personally wrote notices of correction for newspapers and news agencies. On 2 May 1945, there were a few printing mistakes in the article "On Coalition Government" published in JIEFANG RIBAO in Yanan. He immediately wrote a notice on corrections in the name of the newspaper and had it published on 3 May. On 24 April 1949, the JIEFANG BAO in Beijing carried his article "May 4th Movement" in which there were four extra words and two words missing. Immediately on that day, he wrote a list of correc¬tions for the editorial department of the paper so as to correct all the errors and attached a letter to the list "requesting the publication of the list in the paper." That very day, the XINHUA News Agency transmitted the "Proclamation of the Chinese People's Liberation Army" which was signed by Comrade Mao Zedong and Zhu De. Mao Zedong found that there were two printing mistakes in the article, namely, "must" was misprinted as "all" and "village" was misprinted as "people." The next day, he wrote a notice on corrections for the news agency and said: "We earnestly request that all the broadcasting stations and newspapers transmit and publish this correction notice. We also earnestly request that all the political organs of the PLA correct these misprintings before they issue this proclamation."
It was precisely because of Comrade Mao Zedong's exacting meticulousness in writing and proofreading his works that the large number of his works were able to appear before us in such an accurate, well-knit, and beautiful style. Today, when we review his well-known articles, characterized by deep insight and vivid language, and when we recall his deeds in personally proofreading his works and writing notices of corrections, what great enlightenment and benefits every comrade of us who is engaged in the work of writing and editing will gain!