The Ta Kung Pao's Advocacy of a Decisive Battle Is Wrong[1]

(May 13, 1938)

Comrades Chen, Zhou, Bo and Kai:

Ta Kung Pao rejects the protracted war and advocates a decisive battle,[2] which we consider to be wrong. The decisive battle in Xuzhou[3] should only be a decisive campaign to a certain extent, and must by no means be regarded as a strategic decisive battle. We must prepare, after the failure of the decisive battle in Xuzhou, still to have adequate forces to fight in defense of Wuhan.

Mao Zedong
May 13

[1] This was a telegram from Mao Zedong to Comrades Chen Shaoyu (Wang Ming), Zhou Enlai, Bogu (Qin Bangxian) and Kai Feng (He Kequan), members of the Yangtze River Bureau of the CPC Central Committee. The telegram was also sent to the Front Headquarters of the Eighth Route Army, the 115th, 120th and 129th Divisions, the New Fourth Army, the Eighth Route Army Office in Xi'an and the Shansi-Chahar-Hopei Military Area.

[2] On April 26, 1938, in an editorial dealing with the then Xuzhou campaign the Hankou Ta Kung Pao said, "This battle is naturally not the final decisive battle, but it can nonetheless be described as a quasi-decisive battle. For the Japanese militarists this battle is their last desperate struggle." And also, "From a purely military point of view this battle is naturally not the final decisive battle, but in the spiritual and political sense it can be termed a quasi-decisive battle."

[3] After the Taierhchuang campaign in April 1938, the Kuomintang concentrated about 600,000 troops for a campaign against the Japanese invaders in the areas north and east of Xuzhou. When the Japanese forces had basically completed their encirclement of Xuzhou, the Kuomintang troops withdrew from the city toward western Anhwei, southern Honan and northern Hupeh. Xuzhou fell on May 19.