(November 13, 1937)
Comrades Zhu [De], Peng [Dehuai], and Ren [Bishi], as well as [Zhou] Enlai, Hu
Fu [Liu Shaoqi], and [Yang] Shangkun, and for the information of Lin [Biao], Nie
[Rongzhen], He [Long], Xiao [Ke], Guan [Xiangying], Liu [Bocheng], Xu
[Xiangqian], and Zhang [Hao] [Lin Yuying]:

1. The partial resistance war in the whole nation is no longer sustainable, a fullscale War of Resistance has not yet come, and right now we are in a critical and
serious moment of transition when the new crop is still in the blade and the old one
is all consumed.
2. All the armies in Shanxi have suffered big defeats. Apart from Liu Xiang and
Tang Enbo, the rest are simply unable to fight at present. With the regular war
over, the only thing left is the guerrilla war, waged primarily by the Red Army. The
ruling class of Shanxi, as well as the leaders of all the armies, are shaken and lost.
3. The task of the Red Army lies in further bringing into play the principle of
independence and self-reliance and sustaining the guerrilla war in North China,
while at the same time fighting fiercely with the Japanese bandits for the majority
of the villages in the whole of Shanxi Province, in order to turn them into guerrilla
base areas, mobilize the masses, incorporate the scattered troops into our own forces,
expand our own strength, be self-sufficient, not relying on others, fight more victorious small-scale combats, raise morale, so as to influence the whole nation, facilitate the reform of the Guomindang, the government, and the military, overcome
the crisis, and realize the new prospect of a full-scale War of Resistance.
4. Xu's brigade¹ of Lin [Biao]'s division should move as quickly as possible to
the Wuchengzhen area and prepare to fight a few small victorious battles in coop-

Our source for this text is Mao Zedong wenji, Vol. 2, pp. 67-69. The same version appears
in Mao Zedong junshi wenji, Vol. 2, pp. 116-18, with a slightly different title.
1. The reference is to the 344th Brigade of the 115th Division of the Eighth Route Army,
commanded by Xu Haidong.