Instruction to the Party and the Eighth Route Army in Shanxi-Hebei-Henan[1]

(August 24, 1938)

At present, the central task in the entire Shanxi-Hebei-Henan area is to create, with the greatest speed, the Shanxi-Hebei-Henan Border Area as a consolidated base area for persisting in the War of Resistance. To this end, the tasks of the Party and the Eighth Route Army are: to establish combat-effective guerrilla corps and local guerrilla units completely under the Party’s leadership, to extensively organize self-defense forces that are not detached from production, and to win over and reform friendly forces; to gradually transform the organs of political power, turning them into anti-Japanese democratic political power, and to prepare for the future convening of a congress of representatives of the Shanxi-Hebei-Henan Border Area Government; to convene representative conferences of mass organizations in a number of counties throughout the area, to mobilize the masses to participate in the war, and to satisfy some of the people’s urgent demands; to vigorously develop the Party, to establish and perfect the Party’s leading organs, to run schools and training courses, and to train cadres.

Mao, Lo, Hu

24th

[1] This is an instruction given by Mao Zedong, Lo Fu (Zhang Wentian), and Hu Fu (Liu Shaoqi) on the tasks of the Party and the Eighth Route Army in Shanxi-Hebei-Henan.