(July 9, 1939)

I think you comrades must have talked a lot, heard a lot, read a lot, and also done
a lot about the problem of the united front. Why do I want to talk about it again
today when you comrades are leaving for the front? You comrades must realize
that if, today, we want to drive Japanese imperialism out of our country, overthrow
the Chinese traitors, overcome difficulties, seize victory in the War of Resistance,
achieve national liberation and social liberation, and all the rest, everything must
depend on this magic weapon, the united front.

What is the united front? It is unity in the War of Resistance; it is the great unity
of every class, every army, and every nationality in the War of Resistance. This
great unity is called the Anti-Japanese National United Front. This anti-Japanese
united front must comprise not only China but the whole world. It is not enough
for it to consist only of China. We should organize all those in the world who are
able to fight against Japanese aggression, whatever the degree of their opposition
to it, into an anti-Japanese united front. This united front of ours includes Chinese
forces as well as world forces; it is a great organization. In sum, the united front in
China has already been organized and has become a nationwide anti-Japanese
united front.

Nevertheless, in the course of the War of Resistance, in the process of development of the united front, and within this great organization, many people have
taken the road of fighting Japan, and some of them will change. Already there are
some who have changed, and others may change in the future. Taking the road of
fighting Japan is like your going to North China. The color of your faces will
certainly change a bit after exposure to the sun and rain on your journey. You may
also fall and lose some skin from your feet, or you may suffer a bellyache, and so
on. All of these are small changes. There are also greater changes, as when some
people become deserters while on the road, and give up, simply decamping and
slinking off. Comrades, it is only a short journey you are going to undertake from
here to North China, but what I am talking about today is not a short journey but,

This text consists of extracts from Mao's talk to a group from the North Shaanxi Public
School (Shaanbei gongxue), which was about to leave for the front. Our source is *Dangde
wenxian*, no. 4, 1995, pp. 17-20.

rather, a long journey--the long journey during which we will have to fight all the
way to the Yalu River. During this long journey, in the Anti-Japanese National
United Front as a whole, it is certain that there will be deserters. Now there is
already a Wang Jingwei. He fled first to Vietnam, then to Hong Kong, and finally
to Shanghai. He says that our Eighth Route Army is "roving around [you] but not
hitting [ji],"¹ but, in my opinion, he is the one who is roving without hitting. He
first roved to Japan to see the Japanese emperor, then roved to Beiping, and finally
roved to Nanjing. But he has never yet struck a blow at the Japanese invaders, so
Wang Jingwei is really the only one who roves without striking. At present, according to those who come from outside [the Border Region], in the interior there
are many Zhang Jingweis, Li Jingweis, Zhao Jingweis, Qian Jingweis, and so on.
In sum, there are many people of Wang Jingwei's ilk. Who are they? They are the
hidden Wang Jingweis. They want to perform a "Zhang Song presents the map." In
the era of the Three Kingdoms, there was a man named Zhang Song, who presented a map of western Sichuan to Liu Bei. As a result, Liu Bei entered Sichuan
and founded the kingdom of Shu.² Today, when the Japanese imperialists are invading China, Wang Jingwei is the first to present them with the map, but there are
Zhang Jingweis, Li Jingweis, Zhao Jingweis, Qian Jingweis, and so on, who are
also preparing to present maps. Their plan is to present the map of the entire Republic of China to Japanese imperialism and to establish a "China" under Japanese rule. That is why we say that at present there is great danger, the danger of
surrender and of compromising halfway. In seeking to achieve this goal, they first
spread rumors, with the aim of creating a split, so as to cause the breakup of this
great organization, the Anti-Japanese National United Front, and to bring about a
split in the Guomindang. Wang Jingwei has also organized a "Guomindang" in
Shanghai, and his doctrine is also called the "Three People's Principles," so now
there are two Guomindangs and two Three People's Principles. One is Wang
Jingwei's, and the other is Chiang Kaishek's. Actually there are three kinds of
Three People's Principles. One is fake, and Wang Jingwei's fall into this category;
one is half-real and half-fake; and one is real. Above all, we oppose the fake Three
People's Principles, oppose the fake Three People's Principles and the fake
Guomindang of the open Wang Jingwei as well as of the hidden Wang Jingweis.
People such as Wang Jingwei and his ilk split the Guomindang, split the Three
People's Principles, split the cooperation between the Guomindang and the Communist Party, split the Anti-Japanese National United Front, and split the entire

1. Mao had rejected this criticism of the role played by the Red Army in the anti-Japanese war in very similar terms in his preface of March 2, 1939, to a volume by Nie Rongzhen,
translated above.
2. This refers to an episode in the *Romance of the Three Kingdoms*, one of Mao's favorite traditional novels. Shu, where Liu Bei ultimately founded the so-called Shu Han dynasty, was one of the three kingdoms into which China was divided during part of the third
century C.E.


front of the War of Resistance. In a word, their conspiratorial scheme seeks to
promote splitting in order to achieve their goal of bringing about capitulation. This
is the greatest danger, a possible tendency, and an important characteristic of the
present situation. It requires that all the people of the whole country arise, beginning with revolutionary youth, all the progressive classes, and you comrades in
particular, to oppose splits and oppose surrender. Splits, surrender, and compromise mean retreating and falling back; unity and the War of Resistance mean
advancing and moving forward. The capitulationists are opposed to progress and
are moving backward. At present, there are this sort of people throughout the
country who do backward things, anti-Communist things, unscientific things. We
say that Marxism is the most scientific thing; they say that it does not fit Chinese
national conditions. Those who say this are Wang Jingwei, Zhang Jingwei, Li
Jingwei, and so on. We ask, "What are China's national conditions?" They are
unable to give an answer. What are China's national conditions? China's national
conditions are that it is a semicolonial and semifeudal society. Therefore, whenever we are asked the question "What are China's national conditions?" we answer with the words "semicolonial and semifeudal." This is the conclusion obtained
by many Chinese and foreign social scientists after several decades of study.
Semicolonial and semifeudal are diseases. That is to say that China has two diseases: one is imperialist oppression and the other is the oppression of the feudal
forces. Marxism is the most effective medicine for curing these diseases; it is truly
absurd to say that it does not fit Chinese national conditions! They want to use this
set of antiprogressive, backward, antiscientific fallacies to confuse China's youth,
but the revolutionary and progressive young people can never be taken in by them.
In the Anti-Japanese National United Front, and on the long road of fighting to
the Yalu River which we wish to follow, many people will become deserters. Wang
Jingwei was the first to desert, and there are quite a few who are preparing to
desert as well. In the future, there will be some landlords and members of the
bourgeoisie who, halfway through the journey, will be unable to stand the hardship and will also desert and go over to the side of Japanese imperialism. Nevertheless, so long as they have not run off, they are still our friends, we should still
maintain affection and unity with them, and we should all resist Japan together. If
they run away, then they become our enemies, and we should not speak politely to
them any more. It is the same as regards the international camp. Whether a government is bourgeois or some other kind, so long as it helps us resist Japan, we are
willing to be its friend. Such is our united front. The landlords and bourgeoisie are
part of the united front, and, provided only that they fight the Japanese, we will
unite with them all. But if some of them do not want to continue and want to leave,
we can only let them go! "If the King of Hell decides to take a person's life on the
third watch [3:00 to 5:00 A.M.], he will definitely never let him live until the fifth
[7:00 to 9:00 A.M.]." At present, the King of Hell is Japanese imperialism. He
wants to invite these people to go; Wang Jingwei has already gone, and there are
also Zhang Jingwei, Li Jingwei, and so on who are preparing to accept the invita-

tion. This kind of thing has already happened in the process of resisting Japan and
will continue to happen in the future. All of us must understand this. There are
those who ask themselves whether, if this happens, the ranks of our anti-Japanese
front will not be diminished. What can be done about this? We should look at the
problem this way: When Wang Jingwei was still in the anti-Japanese front, he tried
by every possible means to obstruct the development of the anti-Japanese mass
movement, to obstruct the expansion of the anti-Japanese armed forces and the
anti-Japanese mass organizations. Since he fled, our North Shaanxi Public School
and Anti-Japanese University have been able to recruit more students, and we have
been able to organize more workers' national salvation unions and peasants' national salvation unions and so on. The War of Resistance is a long-term thing, and
the more such people leave, the smaller their numbers become in the united front,
and the more good people come to join us. There is yet another problem about
which I would like to say a word. Now that Wang Jingwei has gone, and Zhang
Jingwei and Li Jingwei are also preparing to leave, if this continues, will not the
whole of the landlords and the bourgeoisie eventually leave? That will not happen.
We know that there are still many people among the landlords and the bourgeoisie
who want to resist Japan. Hence we must definitely maintain the Anti-Japanese
National United Front. We should not think that since Wang Jingwei has deserted,
and Zhang Jingwei and Li Jingwei are preparing to desert, it is no longer a national
united front but has become, rather, a popular front, an alliance of the workers,
peasants, and petty bourgeoisie exclusively, not including the landlords and the
bourgeoisie, so that we would perhaps be obliged to return to our policies of the
past, attacking the local bullies and dividing up the land. Some people feel unhappy now because they are not able to overthrow the local bullies and divide up
the land. Such thinking is wrong. We must bear in mind that revolution is not a
matter of seeking gratification but, rather, something that requires hard struggle.
We must definitely try our best to do the following: anyone who can be kept a day
longer should be kept a day longer; keeping someone for half a day, or a single
night is also good, or even having people eat breakfast before leaving. Everyone
should understand one point, that we want to uphold the united front. The present
situation has the following characteristic: The compromising and capitulationist
elements want to cause splits, and we shall deal with them through the progress of
the War of Resistance, the unity of the whole country, and our persistence in the
united front. We will certainly not let fall the banner of the united front. This is an
extremely important point.
Now I shall discuss the question of long-term cooperation once again. At present
there are considerable numbers of deserters and people who are preparing to desert,
so is it still possible for the two parties, Communist and Guomindang, to cooperate in the long run? Our answer is: "Yes!" The Wang Jingweis, Zhang Jingweis, Li
Jingweis, and others are, after all, in the minority, and those remaining in the anti-Japanese camp still constitute the majority. If we organize this majority into the
united front, then this united front will, as before, include various parties, various


factions, all classes, nationalities, and armed forces and will remain a great union
of resistance against Japan. Long-term cooperation will continue to exist, because
we will continue to the end to stand together with the anti-Japanese elements. We
must definitely persist in long-term cooperation, for otherwise China's War of
Resistance will surely meet with a great disaster. Today, as you comrades are
about to depart, I give you this magic weapon of the "united front." I believe it to
be like Jiang Ziya's "spirit-beating whip," used exclusively for beating evil spirits
and monsters of all sorts. Armed with this "demon-beating whip," we need fear
nothing, as we can then beat rash and blundering Japanese imperialism, and also
the cowardly devils, the Chinese traitors.3 Comrades! Experience gained from
undergoing all manner of hardships must certainly be prized very highly. Mr. Sun
Yatsen accumulated forty years of revolutionary experience and said in his testament that "the people must be roused to action and we must unite with all those
peoples of the world who treat us as equals." This corresponds to the idea of establishing a united front. The Chinese Communist Party has accumulated eighteen
years of revolutionary experience and has profound experience with regard to the
question of a united front.
The relationship between the two parties, the Communist Party and the
Guomindang, has already gone through three stages of cooperation, split, and cooperation again. Everyone gained experience in the ten years of civil war, our
friends and ourselves. If everyone would consider it calmly for a moment, the
problem of whether or not the two parties will keep fighting each other after the
War of Resistance is won is not hard to resolve. Many Guomindang comrades
have discussed with me this matter of whether, in the last analysis, the fighting
will continue after the War of Resistance. I say: In the past you went in for "suppressing the Communists," and in the so-called "suppression of bandits" I was the

3. Cheng Fangwu, who became president of North China United University, founded at
this time by the union of North Shaanxi Public School and three other schools, and led the
group bound for the front to set up this institution, indicates in a brief summary of Mao's
address on this occasion (which he wrongly dates July 7 instead of July 9, 1939) that Mao
referred to the three "magic weapons" which he was later to discuss in the important editorial of October 4, 1939, translated below, "Introducing The Communist." Cheng also states
that Mao explicitly linked his presentation of the "three magic weapons" [fa bao] to the
traditional novel Fengshen yanyi (The Investiture of the Gods) and quotes Mao as follows:

In that year when Jiang Ziya (Jiang Taigong) came down Mount Kunlun, Yuanshi
Tiancun gave him three magic weapons: an almond-yellow flag, a monstrosity
[sibuxiang], and a spirit-beating whip. Now you are going to the front, and I also
give you three magic weapons, which are the united front, armed struggle, and Party
building.

Thus, he states, this talk constituted a preview of the editorial which would be published
three months later. See Cheng Fangwu, Zhanhuozhong de daxue (A University in the Midst
of the Fires of War) (Beijing: Renmin chubanshe, 1982), pp. 75-76. Only the first of the
three "magic weapons" is discussed in the text translated here.

bandit chief. You insisted on "suppressing" us, but what is most curious is that the
more we were "suppressed" the more numerous we became. Our party used to be
only as big as a little finger, but thanks to the "Encirclement and Suppression"
campaigns it grew enormously and became as big as a thumb. Where do our guns
come from? They were all gifts from you. The entire Red Army was forged by
fighting you, and all the Red Army's guns were given by you, so I invite my
friends to consider it: To fight or not to fight? We, too, have thought about it; let's
everyone make peace!
There are presently some diehard elements, however, who always want to oppose the Communists and wish to keep fighting a civil war. We say: We do not
wish to fight. I used to live in Hankou, and you insisted on fighting, so I had no
choice but to go up the Jinggangshan. If you go in for fighting the Communists
again at this point and start to attack us once more, we will go up the mountains
immediately. Yet I think it's better that everyone live in the cities. In the past Li
Yuanhong said, "When there's food, everyone should eat it." We propose to add
another point, "When there's an enemy, everyone should fight him." Everyone has
a share in eating as well as in fighting the enemy. It would be utterly unfair if only
the bourgeoisie and the landlords had food to eat, and the workers and peasants
had nothing to eat. Where do the food people eat, the houses they live in, and the
clothes they wear come from? When drinking water, think of the source. All of this
was produced by the workers and peasants, but if the workers and peasants had
nothing to eat and nothing to wear, wouldn't that be excessively unfair? We advocate that everyone have food and clothing, which means that the united front should
not be ruptured. We can maintain long-term cooperation. Although there are deserters, long-term cooperation still exists. When you go to the front, you must keep
this point firmly in mind: maintain long-term cooperation between the Guomindang
and the Communist Party.
There is another question, one that has been raised in a letter from the comrades
at the Shaanxi Public School and has also been raised indirectly with me by the
school. This is the question "In the final analysis, is our Anti-Japanese National
United Front a matter of strategy or a matter of tactics?" They held a meeting to
discuss this, and there was a very fierce argument about it. Nobody was clear on
this. I thought about it for a few days, and there's no need for you comrades to
argue about it anymore. Combine the opinions of both sides and you still end up
with a "united front," in that the Anti-Japanese National United Front is both strategic and tactical. From the point of view of determining the proletariat's primary
direction of attack in a given stage of the revolution and the point of view of
establishing a plan for the corresponding deployment of revolutionary forces, the
Anti-Japanese National United Front is a matter of strategy. It determines strategic
tasks, determines and deploys allied forces, and that constitutes an overall strategic plan. In today's Anti-Japanese National United Front, its backbone, the proletariat, has as its domestic allies the peasant masses, the petty bourgeoisie, the
bourgeoisie, the landlords, and all other anti-Japanese elements, and all of them

together have organized a joint War of Resistance. Abroad, our allies are the United
States, Britain, France, the Soviet Union, and other countries, and all of them have
united to fight Japan. Thus an anti-Japanese united front has been formed inside
and outside the country. Consequently, the Anti-Japanese National United Front
is strategic. As for how to carry out resistance against Japan, specific forms of
warfare, and forms of organization, these are tactical matters. There are all sorts of
organizational forms; for example, the Anti-Japanese Military and Political University, United University, the trade unions, the peasant associations, the Youth
Association for National Salvation, and so on. Organizing the worker and peasant
masses, the petty bourgeoisie, landlords, and the bourgeoisie all together to establish a political council is another form of organization and another form of struggle.
Originally we were not in favor of the present political council, but it is all right to
hold such a meeting now, because it is, after all, better than nothing. In the future
it will no longer be sufficient to call political council meetings, and the rank and
file will elect their own representatives and hold their own representative meetings. As far as organizing the Central Army, the Eighth Route Army, and so on to
fight at the front is concerned, this is another form of organization and struggle.
Though the forms vary a great deal, they are all carrying out strategic tasks. Therefore we say that the Anti-Japanese National United Front is strategic as well as
tactical.

We must hold firmly to the united front. With this magic weapon, all difficulties
may be overcome. This spirit-beating whip-the united front-is the first magic
weapon I give you today. I hope that you comrades will use it to eliminate all the
demons, ghosts, and monsters.

4. The reference is to the People's Political Council (Guomin canzhenghui), established
by the Guomindang in 1938, of which Mao and several of his comrades were members. See
above, the note to the text of January 28, 1939.

Speech at the Opening Ceremony of the
Chinese Women's University

July 20, 1939

"Women's University," "Women's University!" This fresh and ringing name has been jumping from people's mouths for well over a month.

Rightly so. The "Chinese Women's University," a solemn cause that is connected with
the liberation of China's 225 million women, turned the first page of its new life a month
ago. Through the efforts of staff members of the whole university and the entire student
body, and after busy preparations, it finally convened its opening ceremony in a solemn
and august atmosphere and amid the celebration of a large number of people....
Leading cadres were invited to speak. The first one was Comrade Mao Zedong.

Comrades, we are all very happy today, and I, too, am happy....

The founding of the Women's University has extraordinary political significance. It cannot only educate large numbers of female cadres armed with theories,
but also train large numbers of women's movement cadres who will engage in
actual work and are ready to go to the front, the countryside, and factories, to
organize 225 million women to take part in the War of Resistance. Without the
awakening of the women, who constitute half the population in China, China's
War of Resistance cannot triumph. Women play an extremely important role in the
War of Resistance. Educating children, encouraging husbands, and educating the
masses all require the participation of women. The mobilization of women will
inevitably lead to the mobilization of the people of the whole country. There is no
question about it.

The Women's University has now been set up, and it ought to be maintained in
the future. To maintain it will demand a greater and more protracted struggle.
Some people do not support us in running a women's university. First of all, those
"diehards" do not approve of it. They set up barriers to prevent students from
various places from coming to Yan'an to study. They do not want women to achieve
thorough liberation.

Next, it is also necessary to fight against the viewpoint of looking down on
women's movements, for such people are blind to the role of women and ignore
the great power of women in the revolution. Only when these obstacles are overcome will the present Women's University be able to develop.

This speech was first published in Xin Zhonghua bao, July 25, 1939. Our source is Mao
Zedong ji. Bujuan, Vol. 6, pp. 89-90, which reproduces that version.