(July 4, 1931)

Ever since the big victory of the Red Army in the Second Campaign, the new
development of the revolution is posing a greater threat to the ruling class, and
the entire ruling class regards "suppressing the Reds" as its common central
political slogan. The Nanjing government in particular has mobilized all its
forces for a desperate attack against the revolution, with the aim of waging a
last-ditch struggle. Recently, it has sent reinforcements to strengthen its troops in
Jiangxi, made concessions to the northern warlords, and adopted a defensive
posture toward Guangdong. Chiang Kaishek has even come to Nanchang himself. All of this is for no other purpose than to launch another desperate attack on
our Red Army. Now the enemy is moving toward us step by step! The Third
Campaign will soon break out. In this campaign, the conditions for our victory-good masses, a good Red Army, and good terrain—are even more amply present
than in the Second Campaign. The weaknesses of the enemy, on the other
hand—the contradictions among the warlords, the contradictions between the
soldiers and the officers, the opposition of the masses, the lack of familiarity
with the terrain, the difficulty in the transportation of food, and so on—have
substantially increased as compared to the Second Campaign. Consequently, so
long as we apply the tactics correctly and work hard, we are even more assured
of securing victory in the Third Campaign. Now that the Red Army is right in the
midst of preparing to resist the attack, the Party branches at all levels should
immediately mobilize, expand propaganda and agitation regarding the Third
Campaign, arouse the broad masses, and intensify the work of preparation for the

Our source for this document is Jiangxi dangshi ziliao, Vol. 19, pp. 46-48.
the late spring of 1931 to appoint a sufficient number of his supporters to the Central
Bureau of the Soviet Areas to obtain a majority on that body. (He lost control of the
bureau again in November.) Even though he is not credited with authorship of the Emer-gency Circular referred to here, that document can therefore be assumed to have reflected
his views, and the present commentary on it also appears relevant.


Third Campaign: (1) Call a mass meeting at once, speed up the propaganda and
agitation for victory in the Third Campaign, and also put up many posters and
fliers (the Central Bureau has issued an outline for propaganda aimed at winning
victory in the Third Campaign), as well as mobilizing the masses in a planned
and concrete way to carry out practical work in preparation for the Third Campaign. (2) The local armed forces in every locality should rapidly be consolidated
to the highest possible extent, in order to contribute to the immediate establishment of newly organized independent divisions, and to the reorganization of the
guerrillas in each locality. We should strengthen their political and military
training, eliminate the rich peasants and vagabonds from the local armed forces,
and employ expeditious means to eliminate the AB Corps from our ranks. We
should draw fully on our experience in the second campaign to make all kinds
of preparations and take all kinds of precautions to meet and harass the enemy.
(3) We should intensify our fierce attacks on the AB Corps and use the correct
line of the Party to carry out thoroughly the work of eliminating the counterrevolutionaries. We must make sure that the AB Corps and all counterrevolutionary elements are purged from every Party branch and administrative organ at
all levels, as well as from all armed organizations and mass organizations. In this
way we can strengthen the Red areas and shatter the plots of the reactionaries in
the Red areas. (4) Immediately impose martial law [jieyan] in the Red areas. This
should be done with particular strictness in the border regions, keeping close
watch, checking passers-by, and checking passes. There must not be the slightest
carelessness; we must guard strictly against the penetration of enemy spies and
the evasion of reactionary elements such as AB Corps members who may pass
information to the enemy. (5) Organizations such as the Red Guards, the communication teams, the espionage teams, and the transportation teams must be
reorganized once again; their leadership and supervision must be strengthened
and constantly exercised; their command should be unified; and they should
prepare to mobilize and go into action in the shortest possible time. (6) The work
of strengthening the walls and clearing the fields² should be carried out without
delay, starting with all the districts in the border area. During the second campaign, some of the regions did this work very badly, and now we should make
use of our past experiences to remedy our shortcomings and really do it. In the
expression meaning to prepare for combat by strengthening town walls, evacuating noncombatants, and hiding provisions and livestock. Imperial-era officials used the term to
describe preparations to resist rural rebels (see Philip Kuhn, Rebellion and Its Enemies in
Late Imperial China [Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1980), pp. 41-47), but
during this period Mao and some other Communist cadres in the Jiangxi base areas
inverted the meaning to refer to efforts to prepare the rural populace for the incursion of
government armies. The use of the term was distinctive enough to catch the attention of
the Central Committee, which later made pejorative reference to it in its criticisms of
Mao-style "luring deep" tactics.

past we neglected completely the preparation of secret work in the border region.
Once the enemy came, all our work collapsed. During the war, we were unable
to carry out secret work in order to lead the forces of the masses to cooperate
with the Red Army in wiping out the enemy. This must be corrected. (7) In the
Second Campaign, we did a very bad job in clearing the battlefield after the
battles. It was so bad that many of the weapons were not collected quickly, and
some were even lost or fell into the hands of the reactionary elements. This time
we should make use of our experiences and lessons in the Second Campaign.
There must be good preparation and organization beforehand, so that when each
battle is over, in the places where the Red Army is in charge of cleaning up, we
should at once lead the masses to help the Red Army with it. If the Red Army
has moved further to the front, the governments at various levels should at once
lead the masses by district, by ridge, and by section to search the mountains in an
organized way, to scoop up from the rivers, and to collect and pick up all the
weapons such as cannons, mortars, machineguns, rifles, pistols, all bullets,
shells, electrical wires, radios, as well as all the unidentified things (special care
should be given to radios and the unidentified things). All these things should be
sent to the government to be registered, and sent to the Central Revolutionary
Military Commission. Of the fruits of victory in this campaign, not a single
bullet should be allowed to fall into the hands of the reactionary elements. This is
a very important piece of work and we must prepare it very well beforehand. In
this campaign we must mobilize the masses to comfort and take good care of the
wounded and sick of the Red Army. In addition, the government at each level
should be responsible for sending stretchers as quickly as possible to take them
to the hospitals of the Red Army.
As regards the work toward the captives of the White army, we should mobilize the masses and encourage them to conduct propaganda and agitation toward
the captives, and tell them to give the captives tea to drink and food to eat and
not to harbor feelings of distaste toward them. As for the dead bodies on the
battlefield, they must be buried very quickly.
Comrades! The Third Campaign will soon start, and it will be an extremely
cruel war, which will have an enormous impact on the development of the
Chinese revolution. We must summon up the Bolshevik spirit of hard struggle,
use the experience of the past few campaigns, and work tirelessly and ten times
harder in order to achieve a great victory in the Third Campaign!


--- Notes

1. According to historical sources recently published in China, Mao had been able in

2. "Strengthening the walls and clearing the fields" (jianbi qingye) was a traditional