Speech at the Welcome Meeting for Ye Ting[1]

(October 1937)

Why do we welcome General Ye Ting today? Because he was a famous commander of the Northern Expedition during the Great Revolution, because he is willing to serve as commander of our New Fourth Army, and because he endorses our Party’s policy of the Anti-Japanese National United Front. That is why we welcome him.

[1] During Ye Ting’s stay in Yan’an, Mao Zedong personally presided over a welcome meeting for Ye Ting in the auditorium of the Anti-Japanese Military and Political University. This is part of Mao Zedong’s speech at the meeting. Deeply moved by the grand welcome extended by the Party Central Committee, Ye Ting said at the meeting: “I truly do not deserve such a welcome from you, comrades. Revolution is like climbing a mountain; many comrades, fearing neither the height nor the difficult path, have kept moving upward. There was a stretch where I climbed halfway up the mountain and then turned back. Now I have caught up again. From now on, I will certainly follow the path pointed out by the Party and, under the correct leadership of the Party and Chairman Mao, persist in the War of Resistance to the very end.”