Speech at the Cadres’ Meeting Summarizing the Third Term at the Anti-Japanese Military and Political University[1]

(May 21, 1938)

Ten years of war experience have enabled us to form a military line, but little of it has been put into writing. In the past, we rather neglected strategy. Now we advocate writing books and enhancing the atmosphere of strategic study; for this reason, the Organization Department of the Central Committee has also initiated the Anti-Japanese War Research Society. In military command, the army should stress unified command and stress obedience, while officers and soldiers are politically equal and share hardships in daily life—this is democracy.

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[1] On May 21, 1938, Mao Zedong attended the cadres’ meeting summarizing the third term at the Anti-Japanese Military and Political University and delivered a speech, addressing issues such as being content to serve as instructors, compiling teaching materials, and democracy in the army. He said that instructors are cadres who educate cadres, and that making up one’s mind to serve as an instructor and running the university well is extremely important. He stressed the need to compile teaching materials on guerrilla warfare, strategy, tactics, political work, and so forth, and said that he would take responsibility for the guerrilla warfare teaching materials and bear part of the responsibility for the strategy teaching materials. This is a portion of his speech at the meeting.