• Creatively Applying Chairman Mao's Works
• Ye Baixin
• Reproduced by the Political Department of the South Sichuan Mining Zone
• It is necessary to master Marxist theory and apply it, master it for the sole purpose of applying it. If you can apply the Marxist-Leninist viewpoint in elucidating one or two practical problems, you should be commended and credited with some achievement. The more problems you elucidate and the more comprehensively and profoundly you do so, the greater will be your achievement.
  
  "Rectify the Party's Style of Work" (February 1, 1942), Selected Works, Vol. III, p. 38.
• Energetically study the highest directives.
• Faithfully implement the highest directives.
• Enthusiastically propogate the highest directives.
• Courageously defend the highest directives.

Living by the Book: Ask Chairman Mao for the Answers

The movement to apply Mao Zedong Thought creatively (huoxue huoyong Mao Zedong sixiang) originated in the People's Liberation Army. As the Mao cult grew in the mid-1960s, it was believed that every problem and contingency in life could be resolved by referring to Mao Thought, of which the quintessential expression was Quotations from Chairman Mao, or the "Little Red Book," first published in early 1964. This pamphlet, titled Creatively Applying Chairman Mao's Works, contains a guide to using Mao Thought to find solutions to the problems encountered by comrades as they pursued the path of revolution. Ask a question and find the answer on the relevant page of Quotations.

For some examples of questions and answers, see next page.