Elegy for the Martyrs of the Pingjiang Massacre[1]

(August 1, 1939)

The Japanese brigands press their invasion, the national calamity is deepening, our gun muzzles must be turned outward;

We stand for war, the people’s spirit can be harnessed, our will must be concentrated.

--- Notes

[1] On June 12, 1939, the Kuomintang engineered the “Pingjiang Massacre,” which shocked the entire nation. After the massacre occurred, the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China solemnly held a memorial meeting in Yan’an on August 1. Mao Zedong delivered a speech at the meeting entitled “The Reactionaries Must Be Punished” and presented this elegiac couplet. Other leaders also presented elegiac couplets. Regarding the Pingjiang Massacre: On June 12, 1939, Yang Sen, stationed in Pingjiang, Hunan, acting on a secret order from Chiang Kai-shek and colluding with local reactionary forces, dispatched the Kuomintang 27th Group Army to surround the communications office of the New Fourth Army stationed in Jiayi Town, Pingjiang. Under the pretext of “discussing urgent anti-Japanese matters,” they lured Tu Zhengkun, Secretary of the CPC Hunan-Hubei-Jiangxi Special Committee and Director of the New Fourth Army’s Pingjiang Rear Area Communications Office, out of the office. Tu Zhengkun was shot and killed just as he stepped out of the gate. Subsequently, the enemy stormed the rear area office, arrested over 20 anti-Japanese cadres, and immediately killed five of them, including Special Committee Secretary Wu Yuan and Luo Ziming.