Views Regarding the Political Appraisal,
Military Strategy, and the Tasks of the
Eastern and Western Route Armies
(May 3, 1932)
To the Central Bureau:
I have taken cognizance of your telegram. The political appraisal and military
strategy of the Center are wholly erroneous. 1
First, after the three campaigns and the Japanese attack, the ruling forces in
China, particularly the Chiang Kaishek faction, have been dealt a great blow and
can only strike defensive blows against us. The same is true of the Guangdong
forces. We must absolutely not exaggerate the strength of the enemy or believe
that he is still capable of inflicting damage as severe as that caused to the Central
Soviet Area in the three campaigns last year. Nor, as regards strategy, should we
summon up our own mistakes and take an erroneous road.
Second, after the three campaigns, our overall military strategy should absolutely never repeat the defensive strategy of fighting on interior lines. On the
contrary, we should adopt the offensive strategy of fighting on exterior lines. Our
task is to take key cities and achieve victory in one province. It seems that
destroying the enemy is the prerequisite for this. Given the present situation both
on our side and on that of the enemy, as well as the condition of our supplies and
logistics, we must leap out of the enemy's encirclement and wage offensive war
on exterior lines. Only thus can we achieve our goal. To propose using last
year's strategy under present circumstances is right opportunism. 2 The operations of both the Eastern Route Army and the Western Route Army on the
present occasion have been absolutely correct. The aim of the Eastern Route
Army's deep penetration into Zhangzhou was absolutely not primarily for the
purpose of raising revenue, nor does the separation of the Western Route Army
violate the principle of concentration. We have escaped from the enemy's encirclement and smashed both his eastern and western fronts. As a result, his northern and southern fronts are under severe threat from us, and he has no alternative
but to change his goal of marching to the Central Soviet Area and [instead] move
toward our Eastern and Western Route armies. In the future our Western Route
Army should adopt a completely active stance, employ all sorts of methods to
make the enemy move, concentrate its forces to hit the enemy's weak points,
destroy the enemy one by one, and achieve overall victory. The task of the
Eastern Route Army in the future is to strike resolutely at the enemy troops in
Guangdong. It should immediately concentrate the Fourteenth Army, the Eighth
Division of the Third Army, and the Thirty-sixth Division of the Twelfth Army
at Qiuyan. There are very great differences between a campaign in the White
areas and one in the Red areas, and there are also great differences between
fighting the armies in Guangdong and fighting Zhang Zhen. As regards the
enemy in Nanjing [xian in Fujian], because we were in a White area and did not
have enough forces to allocate, we could not send any troops to besiege the
enemy from the left and we were unable to wipe out Zhang Zhen's remnant
forces. It is absolutely necessary to concentrate the Fourteenth Army, the Eighth
Division, and the Thirty-sixth Division. There are plenty of local armed forces to
allocate in Jiangxi.
Zedong
reproduced from a copy in the Central Archives.

--- Notes

Our source for this text is Mao Zedong junshi wenji, Vol. I, pp. 271-72, where it is
I. Mao sent this telegram from Zhangzhou in reply to a Central Bureau communication
which relayed the Central Committee's April 14, 1932, missive entitled "'Letter from
Central to the Party Organs of the Various Soviet Areas Regarding Opposing the Imperialist Attack on the Soviet Union and the Partition of China." After stressing the seriousness
of the imperialist threat to the Soviet Union and China and calling for countermeasures
such as expanding the Red Army and expanding and linking up the soviet areas, the letter
concluded that "right opportunism" within the Party was still a significant obstacle to
carrying out these measures. Among the manifestations of this "right opportunism," the
letter cited ignoring the continuing danger to the Soviet Union and to the revolution;
ignoring the leadership of the proletariat in the revolutionary struggle; and failing to
understand the necessity for energetic operations (jiji xingdong) by the Red Army, falling
instead into a "vulgar conservatism" which in certain circumstances had led to advocacy of
"dispersing the Red Army and organizing it into guerrilla detachments."' The text of the
Central Committee letter is available in Central Committee Documents, Vol. 8 (1932), pp.
193-201.

2. In this passage Mao appears to be abandoning the "luring deep" slnltegy for which
he had previously argued so vehemently.