Please convey to Zhang Chong for transmission to Chiang Kai-shek and the Central Executive Committee of the Kuomintang[1]

(February 22, 1941)

The Southern Anhui Incident of January 13 and the order of January 17 declaring the New Fourth Army to be in mutiny are actions by the Kuomintang side signifying the beginning of a rupture in KMT-CPC cooperation.

The Central Committee of our Party holds that, apart from the adoption by the Kuomintang side of the twelve-point proposal, there is absolutely no other method sufficient to salvage the crisis of rupture brought about by the Kuomintang side; and if this crisis of rupture is not salvaged, a great calamity endangering the very existence of the nation will inevitably ensue. As of this day, the political oppression and military attacks by the Kuomintang side against our Party have been steadily intensifying without cease.[2]

The Central Committee of our Party holds that if a satisfactory resolution of the twelve-point proposal cannot be achieved, and if the various political oppressions and military attacks cannot be halted, then the relations between the KMT and the CPC and the crisis of the current situation will inevitably become increasingly grave, and all methods of empty talk and delay will be of no help whatsoever in practical terms.

[1] On February 22, 1941, Mao Zedong sent the telegram he had drafted for Ye Jianying to send to Zhang Chong on the 23rd to Zhou Enlai, for transmission to Zhang Chong. This is the main content of that telegram.

[2] Regarding political oppression, for example: the various forms of oppression against Xinhua Daily, the various forms of oppression against the offices of the Eighth Route Army, the continuous arrests and secret assassinations of Communist Party members in various localities, the open attacks by newspapers in various localities on the Communist Party, the Eighth Route Army, and the New Fourth Army, and the coercion of Communist Party members in various localities to recant and leave the Party. Regarding military attacks, for example: Pang Bingxun’s attacks on southern Hebei, Li Xianzhou’s attacks on northern Huai, Li Pinxian’s attacks on eastern Anhui, Chen Daqing’s attacks on central [region], and Hu Zongnan’s attacks on the Shaanxi-Gansu-Ningxia Border Region.