Directive to the Red 22nd Division[1]

(May 1934)

You are a new unit, and the enemy is so numerous. After fighting for so long, the enemy has advanced only that little bit—this is victory! Now you should pull back the main force for consolidation and training, and use small units in coordination with local armed forces and Red Guards to wage guerrilla warfare and pin down the enemy. During consolidation and training, sum up your experience and earnestly study the reasons why you could not hold back the enemy, could not fight well, and could not annihilate the enemy. In order to preserve the main force of the Red Army and annihilate the enemy, you must still coordinate with local armed forces and Red Guards, obtain the assistance of the local Party, and adopt the fighting methods of guerrilla warfare and mobile warfare. You must closely reconnoiter and study the enemy situation and terrain, and set up a battlefield between Huichang and Junmenling. On the enemy’s flanks, concentrate superior forces, create favorable conditions, first wipe out one enemy battalion or one regiment, and then go on to win even greater victories. Toward the masses who have "turned traitor," you absolutely must not fire guns, but you must fire "paper guns" (i.e., leaflets and slogans), help the local government do more mass work, win over the masses, and educate the masses. Counter-revolutionaries, however, must be resolutely struck down.

[1] Upon learning that the Red 22nd Division had been forced to withdraw from Junmenling on April 21 and was holding a cadres’ meeting to examine the lessons of the battle’s defeat, Mao Zedong immediately went to the office of the Guangdong-Jiangxi Provincial Party Committee to telephone the responsible persons of the Red 22nd Division. This is part of the telephone conversation between Mao Zedong and Political Commissar Fang Qiang after Mao had thoroughly understood the situation of both the enemy and our own forces.