Speech at the Farewell Evening Party for the Northwest Field Service Corps[1]

(August 15, 1937)

The Field Service Corps is a great undertaking, because fighting Japan—fighting Japan is a great event both domestically and in the world. For several years we have demanded that the whole nation unite as one to resist Japan, and today it can be said that this has begun to be realized. This war can be said to carry the significance of a final struggle. The Field Service Corps will set out with the Red Army to work at the front. You must use your pens and your mouths to fight Japan; the army will use guns to fight Japan. We must attack Japanese imperialism from both the cultural and the military sides, so that the Japanese bandits will be utterly destroyed before us forever.

[1] Ding Ling, Agnes Smedley, and others initiated and organized the Northwest Field Service Corps, which accompanied the army to the front lines to work. The corps was divided into two sections: communications and propaganda. The communications section specialized in war reporting; the propaganda section specialized in carrying out anti-Japanese national salvation propaganda through literary and artistic forms, in order to boost morale and mobilize the masses. On the evening of August 15, 1937, all circles in Yan'an held a farewell evening party in the Great Auditorium. Mao Zedong attended and delivered a speech.