The Tasks of the Red Army’s Eastern Expedition[1]

(February 18, 1936)

The tasks of the Eastern Expedition are threefold: first, to strike at the traitor Yan Xishan on exterior lines and to draw off the four brigades he has in northern Shaanxi, thereby helping to smash the enemy’s new “encirclement and suppression” campaign against the Shaanxi-Gansu border area; second, to coordinate with the December 9th student anti-Japanese patriotic movement in Beiping and the nationwide upsurge against civil war; third, to strengthen our own forces and promote the realization of the anti-Japanese national united front.

At present our primary task is to cross the Yellow River.

[1] On February 18, 1936, Mao Zedong attended a meeting of cadres at and above the regimental level of the First Front Army of the Red Army and delivered a report on the situation and tasks of the Eastern Expedition. This is part of that report.