On Consolidating the Forces of the Two Lis[1] Who Have Come Over to Our Side and Establishing Outer-Ring Armies

Telegram to Chen Yi and Liu Shaoqi

(November 16, 1940)

Chen Yi and Hufu:

(1) Regarding the over one thousand men who have come over to our side from the Two Lis, how did they come over, what work did we do beforehand, and was this the main reason for the Two Lis’ defeat? After they came over, how were the officers who originally led the defection handled? Awaiting a telegraphic report.

(2) If they were led over by their original officers, we must consider how to amplify the impact of this successful effort to win over the diehard troops, so that in the future many friendly armies that oppose “communist suppression” and are willing to resist Japan will dare to transfer over to our leadership in whole battalions, whole regiments, or whole divisions. Regarding these large numbers of troops who have come over to our side, we should handle them as a form of outer-ring army for the Eighth Route Army and the New Fourth Army. So long as they do not oppose us and obey our command and troop movements, we may refrain from changing the leadership of their original officers, may refrain from immediately implementing all the systems of the Eighth Route Army and the New Fourth Army (such as appointing political commissars, setting up political departments, expanding Party organizations, etc.), and may even refrain from changing their designations to those of the Eighth Route Army or the New Fourth Army, allowing them to continue using their original designations. However, we must use every means to help them consolidate. Our policy is to win over more troops and rally them around our Party, to use long-term, patient educational work to reform the friendly armies that have come over, and to demonstrate that our Party can broadly accommodate all anti-Japanese armed forces, rather than being short-sighted and seeing only the immediate

[1] The Two Lis refers to Li Mingyang and Li Changjiang, who were then respectively serving as commander-in-chief and deputy commander-in-chief of the Border Area Guerrilla Force of the Jiangsu-Shandong-Anhui War Zone of the Kuomintang Army.

gain of a few men and rifles, thereby causing many forces that could be won over to fear being swallowed up by us and to dare not come over.

(3) This work of creating outer-ring armies is inseparable from the work of further consolidating and expanding the Eighth Route Army and the New Fourth Army themselves. The political work and Party organization of the mainstay backbone (the Eighth Route Army and the New Fourth Army) must be raised to a higher level, and the main forces must be further strengthened. Only then will it be easier to win over and unite the outer-ring armies.

Mao, Zhu, Wang