To Comrade Liu Shaoqi and All Leading Comrades of the New Fourth Army North of the Yangtze River[1]

(March 21, 1940)

All your successive telegrams have been received. Your determination and dispositions are entirely correct, and you are expected to carry them out resolutely. Under this resolute policy, by arousing the initiative of all officers and soldiers of the New Fourth Army, arousing the initiative of the millions of people in the fifteen counties of Fenyang, Dingyuan, Hefei, Wuwei, Hanshan, Quanjiao, He County, Chu County, Jiashan, Lai’an, Xuyi, Tianchang, Jiangdu, Liuhe, and Jiangpu, eliminating the anti-communist forces, establishing democratic political power, winning over the middle forces, winning over all progressive and middle-of-the-road elements in the Kuomintang, and doing our utmost to perfect our methods of warfare, we shall be able to defeat the attacks of the anti-communist forces one by one and, in the course of this arduous struggle, consolidate this anti-Japanese base area which is of the utmost strategic importance.[2] At a time when the national enemy has penetrated deep into our territory, the anti-communist clique’s attacks have no popular support, and your war of self-defence can be victorious. The Eighth Route Army is now seeking ways to assist you, but you should not rely on any outside assistance; you must use the spirit of complete independence and self-reliance and of arduous struggle to vanquish all attackers.

[1] This is the main content of a telegram drafted by Mao Zedong for the Secretariat of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China to Comrade Liu Shaoqi and all leading comrades of the New Fourth Army north of the Yangtze River.

[2] This refers to the anti-Japanese base area in eastern Anhui established in the first half of 1940.