To Zhou Enlai[1] and Others

(September 1, 1937)

The Shaanxi-Gansu-Ningxia Border Region shall establish a chief executive, not a director, appointing Lin Boqu and Zhang Guotao as chief and deputy chief executives; appoint Ren Bishi and Deng Xiaoping as director and deputy director of the Political Department of the Eighth Route Army; and reject the Kuomintang’s dispatch of senior staff officers to the Eighth Route Army.

The 115th Division, the 120th Division, and the headquarters of the Eighth Route Army have set out in succession. The 129th Division shall by no means move until the major issues between the Kuomintang and the Communist Party are all resolved. This disposition is entirely correct. The main force of the Eighth Route Army, upon receiving Chiang Kai-shek’s first order, set out from Gansu without the slightest delay, whereas the Kuomintang’s unreasonable delays and restrictions have emerged one after another without end, demonstrating its lack of necessary sincerity.

[1] This is the main content of Mao Zedong’s telegram to Zhou Enlai and others.