How Should Kang Da Students Work After Graduation?[1]

(August 5, 1938)

After graduating from Kang Da, what should you do? First, be students. What you have learned in school has only just opened a door; you must continue learning outside of school. All objectively existing things, whether people or objects, are subjects of study and are teachers. Marxism is also never complete; Marxism is unprecedented but not without successors—you must study it for a lifetime. Second, be teachers. All 450 million people in the nation are students; we must unite them, organize them, learn from them, and at the same time educate them. Third, be commanders. Now, during the War of Resistance, the four words "guerrilla warfare" are a brilliant stratagem for defeating the enemy. You must resolve to go behind enemy lines to carry out guerrilla warfare. Most of you must go to the front lines to serve as military commanders or political commanders.

[1] This is part of Mao Zedong's speech to the fourth graduating class of Kang Da on how to work after graduation.