On Tuesday, the provincial archives in Guangdong formally opened 127,031 historical files to the public. These files cover the time period between 1949 and 1974, and hence include a large number of documents from the Cultural Revolution. They represent 32% of the post-revolutionary holdings of the Guangdong archives.

The files' wide range provides an opportunity for papers to highlight different points of interest in their coverage of this event, although it appears from most reports that the Guangdong archives released just a few choice documents to the media rather than having journalists come in and leaf through several thousand volumes (at a preservation cost of one yuan apiece).

File 316-2-32 concerns a particularly rowdy football match between teams from North Korea and Hunan, in which fans set off firecrackers and threw junk onto the field when the score was tied up near the end of the game. In particular, the file contains Premier Zhou Enlai's memo protesting the officiating. The match was called as the Korean team was setting up a corner kick, and the Premier was displeased. He later wrote:

Why didn't the referee let the Koreans take the kick? They hadn't yet put the ball in play and he blew the whistle. The referee should occasionally recall that "friendship comes first, competition second." That's political leadership...if we are to be firm in correcting these unhealthy tendencies, we must guarantee that things like this do not happen again in the future.

File 229-4-355 is a report on the 1972 purchase of an Indonesian ape for 10,000 RMB by the Guangzhou revolutionary committee.

File 214-1-514 contains Mao Zedong's thoughts on education reform, starting in 1964. In 1965 he wrote the letter pictured here, in which he complained that students had too many responsibilities and recommended that their workload be reduced by two-thirds.

The Southern Daily's article goes for self-promotion as it reports on a memo concerning Mao Zedong's calligraphic rendition of the newspaper's title.

The Southern Metropolitan Daily concentrates its article on the Cultural Revolution, publishing excerpts from People's Bank of China directives explaining how Red Guards should properly dispose of confiscated foreign currency and other valuables. From the attachment to the directive:

1. Confiscating the valuables of landlords, the rich, counter-revolutionaries, bad elements, rightists, and other exploiters is the magnificent victory that revolutionary Red Guards and the larger revolutionary masses have obtained in the Cultural Revolution. For this reason, dealing with these valuables must be done while lifting high the great red banner of Mao Zedong thought, stressing the politics of the proletariate to earnestly perform this task.

The Information Times reports on another aspect of the archives: the over 20,000 documents relating to the Japanese invasion. Among the newly opened files are 240 photographs that have never before been released.