It Is of the Greatest Importance to Conduct
United Front Work Among the Huangpu
Faction of Military Men

(November 16, 1940)

In the recent Northern Jiangsu Incident, the Tax and Garrison Regiment¹ did not
participate in the anti-Communist battles, although the majority of the officers in
this regiment are graduates of the Huangpu [Academy]. In the past, when there
was a confrontation with Zhu Huaibing in North China, one division also did not
participate in the anti-Communist warfare, and there were likewise some Huangpu
graduates among the officers in that division. Comrade Wang Shiying,² head of
our liaison office stationed with Yan [Xishan]'s forces, is able to do very good
united front work with the senior cadres in the Central Army there (Hu Zongnan)
who are Huangpu graduates. All this shows that the long-standing idea in our
Party and our army that Huangpu graduates are uniformly to be regarded as an
anti-Communist clique is wrong and is harmful. Given the current critical situation, it is a matter of urgency that this way of thinking be changed, that advantage
be taken of every opportunity to conduct united front work with military men who
are Huangpu graduates. They should not be provoked but, rather, should be inspired with the idea of the supremacy of the nation so that they will refuse to
surrender to the Japanese and so that they will adopt a neutral or passive attitude
toward the anti-Communist fight. This has great significance in reversing the current perilous situation.

Mao Zedong
Zhu De
Wang Jiaxiang

7. Regarding He and Sun, see above, the relevant note to the text of April 12, 1940.
8. Ma Biao (1885-1948), a native of Gansu, was a Muslim. He had recently commanded
the Guomindang Eighth Cavalry Division, but in August 1940, he was sent to northern
Anhui, where he fought the Japanese.
9. The reference is to Liao Lei (1890-1939), a native of Guangxi, who had been the
principal commander, and governor, of Anhui. Until his death from illness in October 1939,
the Communists had been on reasonably good terms with him-better, in any case, than
with his strongly anti-Communist successor, Li Pinxian.

Our source for this text is Mao Zedong junshi wenji, Vol. 2, pp. 581-82, where it is reproduced from a copy in the Central Archives.
1. Commanded by Chen Taiyun; see above, the relevant note to the text of November 4,
1940.
2. Wang Shiying (1905-1968), a native of Shanxi, joined the Chinese Communist Party
in 1925. He graduated from the Huangpu Academy and served in the late 1920s and early
1930s under Yang Hucheng and Yan Xishan. In 1935, he became head of the Intelligence
Department of the Chinese Communist Party in North China. In 1938, he took up an administrative post in the Eighth Route Army.

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