Address at the Opening Ceremony
of the First National Salvation Congress
of Young People from the Northwest
(April 12, 1937)
Special to this newspaper: The first National Salvation Congress of Young
People from the Northwest officially opened on the 12th, attended by more
than three hundred representatives from all over (Hebei, the Northeast, Shanxi,
Shaanxi, Gansu, and Ningxia, and Mongolian and Muslim nationalities). The
meeting place had been prepared and decorated beforehand. It was set up in
the central auditorium, which was decorated brightly in a stately and magnificent manner, altogether fresh and beautiful. Meanwhile, all the streets and
alleys of the city of Yan'an were adorned with colorful posters and slogans
supporting the conference, so that the streets took on an entirely new look that
was exciting and exhilarating!
At one o'clock on the afternoon of the 12th, the opening ceremony began in
the central auditorium. Aside from the participants, there were sixty or seventy
visitors, and the whole auditorium was almost full. First, Comrade Feng
Wenbin made opening remarks; addresses by Chairman Mao, the Communist
Party representative Comrade Luo Fu, Zhou Enlai, Commander-in-Chief Zhu
De, Comrades Bo Gu, Lin Boqu, Xu Teli, and others followed. The main
points of Chairman Mao's lecture are as follows:
If we try to explain the relationship and differences between the Communist
Party's past tactics and slogans and its current new ones, it becomes clear that,
after the Great Revolution failed, it was right to struggle for the soviets because
at that time the bourgeoisie, and its political party, the Guomindang, had
betrayed the revolution, and the workers and peasants had no choice but to
struggle against the feudal landlords and the bourgeoisie. Ever since the
"September Eighteenth Incident," and especially after the North China Incident,
the situation has changed significantly. The invasion by the Japanese, and their
measures to destroy China, have endangered not only the workers, peasants, and
toiling masses but also the bourgeoisie. No one wants to become a slave without
a country, so the Communist Party promoted the establishment of a national
united front against Japan, and with the peaceful resolution of the Xi'an Incident,
the first step in establishing the national united front-striving for domestic
peace has been basically accomplished. Now the second stage has been en-

Our source for this text is Mao Zedong ji. Bujuan, Vol. 5, pp. 69-70, where it is reproduced from Xin Zhonghua bao, April 13, 1937.