Speech to the Pinghan Railway Workers' Destruction Squad Visiting Yan’an[1]

(May 8, 1938)

Now the whole nation is united in resisting Japan. The workers and peasants constitute the great majority among them, bearing arduous tasks and carrying great responsibility. The current shortcoming is that the workers and peasants have not yet been universally organized and lack sufficient understanding of their own mission. It is hoped that the workers and peasants will quickly organize themselves, and that the workers will serve as vanguards in the resistance against Japan.

[1] This is part of Mao Zedong’s speech to the Pinghan Railway Workers’ Destruction Squad during their visit to Yan’an.