At present the Western Field Army should focus mainly on rest and recuperation

(August 1, 1936)

[1]

Comrade Dehuai:

Under the current circumstances, it seems advisable for the Field Army to concentrate primarily on rest and recuperation. If there are no sufficiently favorable conditions for combat, we might as well designate the entire month of August as a training period. Carry out planned education in political, military, and Party-related aspects, ensuring that a certain level of progress is achieved. At the same time, dispatch personnel to expand the Red Army throughout the Shaanxi-Gansu-Ningxia province, and improve medical treatment in rear hospitals so as to increase troop strength in August. Senior cadres at the regimental level and above should have a special education plan; for the sake of the future, the education of senior cadres holds particularly great importance. The main content of senior-level education should be the study of politics. If you agree with the above opinions, please convene a meeting of cadres at the regimental level and above to announce and implement them. If we achieve results in rest and recuperation in August, then by September, when we commemorate the battles in which the Second and Fourth Front Armies attacked from the north and south to seize the Shaanxi-Gansu thoroughfare, we will be able to carry them out with even greater strength. How this is to be done, I await your reply.

Zedong

1st, 10:30

[1] This is a telegram from Mao Zedong to Peng Dehuai, commander of the First Front Army of the Red Army and commander and political commissar of the Western Field Army.
[2] The two characters for "commemorate" appear to be a mistake for "coordinate."