Speech to Students of the Eleventh to Twentieth Teams at Northern Shaanxi Public School[1]

(March 29, 1938)

With the progress of the people, the Kuomintang, and the Communist Party—these three conditions—China will not perish. Some say our territory is too small, that the good areas have already been occupied by the enemy, and that even resistance is futile. However, I am a diehard of the ultimate victory faction and still maintain that we will win. Wang Xizhi said, "The great earth lends me material for composition." Does it mean only large territories can serve as material for composition? Small ones can too. Some say China is doomed; I say it is not. The cities may fall, but the countryside has not; the main roads may fall, but the byways have not; the day may fall, but the night has not. The War of Resistance requires not only the great expansion of the Communist Party but also non-Party Bolsheviks—Lu Xun, for example, was a non-Party Bolshevik.

[1] This is part of Mao Zedong’s speech to students of the Eleventh to Twentieth Teams during his fifth visit to Northern Shaanxi Public School.