Speech at the Opening Ceremony of the First
Representative Assembly of the Border Region
National Defense Education Commission

(April 11, 1938)

Comrade Mao Zedong said:

Our nation is a nation that lacks education. But the War of Resistance has greatly
changed the Chinese people; this is something that even decades of education
could not have achieved. If we are able to continue to persist in the War of Resistance, it will create more new people by the millions or tens of millions. I think
that all you gentlemen present today will live to see the realization of a new China,
independent, free, and happy, organized by these new people. Since the War of
Resistance is such a big help to us, we should use all our strength to deal with the
War of Resistance, and use education to support the War of Resistance. At the
moment, the War of Resistance is the thing that determines everything. Our education must also take orders from the War of Resistance; that is what's called War of
Resistance education. War of Resistance education is not compulsory, but spontaneous; it depends on enthusiasm to learn on the part of the masses or the students,
and on the activism of the education cadres. It is also necessary to join the educator and the educated closely together.

This record of Mao's remarks was published in Xin Zhonghua bao on April 15, 1938. Our
source is Mao Zedong ji. Bujuan, Vol. 9, p. 369, which reproduces that text.