Inscription for the Couplet at Yan’an New Market[1]

(1939)

Persist in the War of Resistance, persist in unity, persist in progress—the Border Region is a democratic anti-Japanese base area;
Oppose capitulation, oppose division, oppose retrogression—the people have full freedom to save the nation.

[1] On July 7, 1939, the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China, in its “Declaration on the Current Situation in Commemoration of the Second Anniversary of the War of Resistance,” put forward the political slogans: “Persist in the War of Resistance, oppose capitulation; persist in unity, oppose division; persist in progress, oppose retrogression.” Mao Zedong embedded these into the couplet and wrote this inscription. Yan’an New Market: In October 1938, Yan’an was subjected to frenzied bombing by Japanese enemy aircraft, and the old market was reduced to ruins. In 1939, a new market was established in the southern suburbs.