A. Strategic Guidelines Under the Imperial Japanese Threat to Colonize China, and Given the Current State of the Chinese Red Army and Other Revolutionary Armed Forces, the Party’s military strategy—its strategic guidelines—should comprise the following points:  (1) In the overarching task of waging a resolute national war to repel Japanese imperialist aggression against China, it is first necessary, in all political and military appeals as well as in practical action, to establish the principle of “combining the civil war with the national war.”
This translates into slogans and actions such as: “Form an Anti-Japanese United Army”; “The Red Army is the vanguard of the Chinese people’s resistance against Japan”; “All soldiers and units who refuse to be slaves under foreign rule should unite with the Red Army to fight the Japanese”; “Let all our compatriots take up arms to oppose Japanese imperialist aggression against China”; “Let workers, peasants, merchants, students, and soldiers join forces to arm themselves and defend China”; “Down with the traitorous collaborators who aid Japanese imperialism in its assault on China”; “Down with the chief traitor who helps Japan destroy China—Chiang Kai-shek”; “Down with the traitorous collaborators infiltrating the anti-Japanese base areas”; “Oppose the traitorous collaborators’ attempts to disrupt the rear of the resistance”; “Consolidate the rear of the resistance”; “Expand the anti-Japanese base areas”; “Let the Red Army and the Nationalist forces unite to overthrow Japanese imperialism”; “Confiscate the property of traitorous collaborators to finance the anti-Japanese army”; “Confiscate the property of Japanese imperialism in China to fund the anti-Japanese forces”; “Those with money contribute money, those with strength contribute strength, those with guns bring their guns, and those with knowledge share their knowledge—let us overthrow Japanese imperialism”; “Fight to the last drop of blood to defeat Japanese imperialism”; “Long live the national revolutionary war,” and so forth.  (2) Accurately assess the balance of power between ourselves and the enemy.
The Party’s general guideline for military deployment in 1936 should be “to prepare forces for direct combat against Japan.”
Accordingly, in 1936 the main operational objective of the Red Army’s principal forces should still be the armies of traitorous collaborators; however, within Japanese-occupied territories and autonomous regions [2], every possible effort should be made to organize, expand, and unite all anti-Japanese armed forces—anti-Japanese volunteer armies, guerrilla detachments, and the like—to conduct vigorous, direct guerrilla warfare against the Japanese.
It should also be anticipated that, in the latter half of 1936, the First Front Army may and ought to engage in limited skirmishes with Japanese forces (in the Shanxi–Suiyuan–Chahar region [3]).  (3) Radically expand the Red Army.
By 1936 the nationwide main force of the Red Army should number 200,000 men, with the First Front Army comprising 50,000.  (4) In order to resolutely and effectively implement the principles outlined in items (1), (2), and (3)—that is, combining the civil war with the national war, preparing forces for war against Japan, and expanding the Red Army—the basis of the First Front Army’s operational deployment should be firmly established upon two tasks: “establishing a route to the Soviet Union” and “consolidating and expanding the existing soviet areas,” with “establishing a route to the Soviet Union” designated as the central mission and closely linked to “consolidating and expanding the existing soviet areas.”
Specifically, this entails directing Red Army operations and the primary thrust of soviet-area development toward eastern Shanxi Province and northern Suiyuan Province.  (5) The Red Army units outside the First Front Army—the Second and Sixth Corps, and the Fourth Front Army—play a crucial strategic role in weakening and tying down the traitorous Nationalist forces in Nanjing.
Their actions should be appropriately guided.  (6) Guerrilla warfare plays a vital strategic role in defeating both Japanese imperialism and the traitorous collaborators.
Its guiding principles should be as follows:  1. All guerrilla units must present themselves as part of the national war (in Japanese-occupied areas, autonomous regions, and adjacent provinces they shall be known as the Chinese Anti-Japanese Volunteer Army; elsewhere—in Central and Southern China—as the Chinese Anti-Japanese Guerrilla Force; and when these forces in Central and Southern China have grown sufficiently, they shall be designated the Chinese People’s Revolutionary Anti-Japanese Army). Land reform shall be carried out under the slogans and strategies of the national war.  2. Develop guerrilla warfare across all provinces, with particular emphasis on key regions (Hebei, Shanxi, Rehe–Chahar–Suiyuan, the Three Eastern Provinces, Shandong, Henan, Jiangsu, Zhejiang, Fujian, Shaanxi–Gansu). In areas where former soviet zones north and south of the Yangtze River have been transformed into guerrilla zones, swiftly transition from a recovery phase to a full-fledged developmental phase.  3. Local party organizations are the sole guiding authorities for guerrilla warfare in non-soviet areas and the primary guiding authorities in soviet areas.  4. Vigorously recruit White Army soldiers and young students caught up in the anti-Japanese movement to join the guerrilla ranks.  5. Guerrilla units must maintain bases, but should avoid a conservative approach (which can easily prove detrimental to them).  6. Guerrilla units should be closely integrated with the local revolutionary masses.  7. Enhance guerrilla tactics.  8. Transform guerrilla units into regular revolutionary forces.  9. Guerrilla units are the creators of soviet areas.  10.
Introduce greater planning into guerrilla warfare.  (7) Integrate the revolutionary movement among White Army soldiers, under the banner of the national war, with the anti-Japanese Red Army and anti-Japanese guerrilla forces, bearing in mind the following guiding principles:  1. Without the support of soldiers—both Chinese and Japanese—it will be impossible to achieve a complete victory in the national war.  2. Such support is indeed attainable (given the plight of soldiers reduced to slavery, suffering from hunger and cold, and deprived of rest).  3. Broaden the mass base of the movement, break free from isolationism, and combine open activity with clandestine work.  (8) Elevate the struggle of the Mongol and Hui peoples (beginning with the Mongols) against Japan and the Chinese ruling class to the level of armed resistance, and directly link their struggle with ours.  (9) Implement the strategy of the “Anti-Japanese United Army,” exploiting contradictions and divisions within the enemy camp to draw them onto the national front, while simultaneously integrating our own camp with a “third camp” to form a unified national front.  (10) Forge closer ties between the Soviet Red Army and the Chinese Red Army on the basis of their common enemy, Japanese imperialism, starting with technical cooperation.

B. Basic Principles of Operational Command  (1) During strategic defense:  1. Reject pure defensive tactics and adopt active defense.  2. Reject preemptive strikes and instead employ a policy of striking after the enemy has advanced (as a general rule). Striking after the enemy has penetrated deep into our lines is not the so-called “opportunistic line of mere defense” (the Ningdu Conference [5] and its aftermath), but rather the correct principle of conducting operations on the inner line.  (2) During strategic offense:  1. Oppose opportunistic underestimation of the situation and strive to expand the gains achieved (whether transitioning from counteroffensive within a defensive posture to full-scale offensive operations, or throughout the course of the offensive itself, we must continually seek to extend our strategic advantages) and to seize the initiative.  2. Resist adventurism:  (a) Know when to stop and secure the victories already won (for even hard-won triumphs can be lost).  (b) Shift positions to new directions, allowing the Red Army to enjoy a temporary respite between major engagements and enabling the soviet areas to expand, thereby linking the task of expanding the soviet areas with that of creating battlefields prepared for the next engagement.
Rather than attempting to merge multiple soviet areas into one or eradicating white strongholds within and around them (“knocking down earth ramparts”), we should follow the correct policy that was once dismissed as “opportunistic wavering” (“Party Newspaper,” 1932 [6]).  (c) Pursue a progressive policy of development in waves, advancing with firm positions and solid rear support (what is known as “steadfastly developing the soviet areas” or “expanding while simultaneously going deeper”), and eschew rash advances (except when the balance of forces clearly favors us).  (d) Attacking cities and other heavily fortified enemy positions is permissible only under certain conditions; the earlier opposition to “mountain worship” and the “Northeast Line” (1932) was misguided.  (3) General principles (applicable whether in defense or offense):  1. Reject the suicidal mentality of merely “fighting” without “moving”; we must both fight and advance, with movement naturally serving the purpose of combat.
The guerilla nature of warfare—that is, the absence of fixed battle lines—is a characteristic feature of the Chinese Red Army determined by its backward technological conditions, and it has also been a strength of our past military leadership.
To speak out against “guerrilla warfare” here would be erroneous.
Our attempt to establish fixed battle lines during the Fifth Encirclement Campaign ended in failure.
By trading the temporary loss of one front (with territory temporarily occupied) for victory on another front, the problem posed by that front could likewise be resolved (for occupied territory can always be reclaimed).  2. Seize this opportunity and rapidly upgrade the Red Army’s technological capabilities, transforming its current state of guerilla warfare into a more conventional mode of mobile warfare, while significantly reducing its guerilla characteristics.
Without these modern conditions, it will be impossible to decisively defeat Japanese imperialism and its lackeys; therefore, any reluctance to improve our technical means is unwarranted.  3. Mobile warfare is the fundamental principle; reject the conservative stance of “not yielding an inch” in positional battles.
The Red Army’s principal forces must inevitably and necessarily advance and retreat in large strides.  4. Concentrate our forces on the main axis of attack—a single fist striking strategically, employing outer-line operations within the framework of inner-line warfare—to deliver a decisive blow; oppose the dispersal of forces, the notion of wielding two fists simultaneously, the strategy of launching a “full-frontal offensive,” and the tactic of rout (whether in strategic or tactical engagements).  5. Engage in strategic protracted warfare and tactical swift engagements; reject prolonged battles and the practice of “wearing down the enemy.”  6. Ensure adequate rest and training; resist unnecessary haste and embrace the necessity of deliberate slowness.  7. Maintain thorough combat readiness.  8. Determine command methods according to circumstances; decentralized command under unified decision-making is permissible and necessary.  9. Use strategic guidelines to inform tactical plans for individual campaigns, connecting today to tomorrow, the small to the large, and the local to the whole, rather than proceeding step by step without a clear vision.  10.
The Military Commission possesses full authority within the military sphere.
Printed from a copy preserved in the Central Archives.
Notes  [1] These are the first two sections of a resolution on military strategic issues drafted by Mao Zedong for the Political Bureau of the CPC Central Committee at the Wayaobao Meeting.  [2] Refers to the territory controlled by the puppet Jehol Anti-Communist Autonomous Government.
In November 1935, at the instigation of Japanese imperialism, Yin Rukeng, Administrative Inspector of the Luan-Yu and Ji-Mi Districts of the Hebei Provincial Government of the Kuomintang, established the Jehol Anti-Communist Autonomous Committee in Tong County, Hebei Province (soon renamed the Jehol Anti-Communist Autonomous Government), bringing twenty-two counties in eastern Hebei under his control and removing them from Chinese government jurisdiction.  [3] Sui refers to Suiyuan Province; see note [16] on page 371 of this volume.
Cha refers to Chahar Province, whose territory at the time encompassed what are now northwestern Hebei Province and the Xilingol League of the Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region.  [4] Rehe refers to Rehe Province, which was abolished in 1955, with its former territory divided among Hebei, Liaoning, and the Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region.  [5] The Ningdu Conference refers to the meeting convened in October 1932 by the Central Bureau of the CPC Soviet Areas in Ningdu, Jiangxi Province.
At this meeting, in order to enforce the “left”-leaning adventurist offensive line of the CPC Provisional Central Committee, Mao Zedong’s proposal of “luring the enemy deep into our lines” and his opposition to the Red Army’s attack on major urban centers were wrongly criticized.
Instead, it was argued that the Red Army should advance into northeastern Jiangxi, where enemy rule was weaker and the Party and the masses were stronger.
The meeting demanded that the Red Army launch a preemptive strike before being encircled by Nationalist forces, with the aim of capturing major urban centers and securing an early victory in Jiangxi.
Following the meeting, Mao Zedong was transferred to government work and subsequently removed from his post as Chief Political Commissar of the First Front Army.  [6] “Party Newspaper” refers to the CPC Central Committee’s official publication, the Weekly Red Flag.
In its combined thirty-seventh and thirty-eighth issues, published on April 25, 1932, the newspaper released an article titled “The Opportunistic Wavering Within the CPC in the Course of Striving for Initial Victory in One Province or Several Provinces of the Chinese Revolution.”  [7] In mid-March 1932, during a meeting of the CPC Central Bureau of the Soviet Areas held in Jiangkou, Gan County, Mao Zedong summarized the lessons learned from the Battle of Ganzhou, pointing out that the attack on Ganzhou had been a mistake and proposing that the Red Army’s main forces should develop a base in northeastern Jiangxi, where enemy forces were relatively weak, the Party and the masses were well-established, and the terrain offered favorable conditions.
However, this proposal was rejected by the majority of attendees.
Those advocating for “initial victory in one or several provinces”—the “left”-leaning adventurists—branded it “mountain worship” and the “Northeast Line.”