Circular of the Central Committee of the
Chinese Communist Party¹
(May 25, 1941)

1. A compromise between Japan and the United States at the expense of China
and the creation of an Eastern Munich against communism and against the Soviet
Union and Germany-such is the new plot that is now being hatched between
Japan, the United States, and China.2 We must expose this plot and fight it.
2. Japan has announced the end of its latest round of military attacks, which
was designed to force Chiang [Kaishek] to capitulate, and there are bound to follow moves to induce him to capitulate. This is a repeat performance of the enemy's
old policy of using the stick and the carrot, either alternately or simultaneously.
We must expose this policy and fight it.
3. Simultaneously with its military attacks, Japan has launched a rumor-mongering campaign alleging that the Eighth Route Army does not want to fight in
coordination with the [Guomindang] Central Army, that the Eighth Route Army is
seizing every opportunity to expand its territory, that it is opening up an international route, that it is setting up another Central Government, and so on. This is a
cunning Japanese scheme to foment discord between the Guomindang and the
Communists and thus to make it easier for them to induce capitulation. The Central News Agency³ and the Guomindang press are copying and spreading these
rumors, showing no qualms about echoing Japan's anti-Communist propaganda,
and their intentions are thoroughly dubious. This, too, we must expose and fight.
4. Although the New Fourth Army has been declared mutinous and the Eighth
Route Army has not been issued a single bullet or a single copper [from the
Guomindang], it has never for a moment ceased fighting the enemy. The Eighth
Route Army, moreover, has taken the initiative in coordinating its operations with
the Central Army in the fighting in the present campaign in southern Shanxi, and

for the past two weeks it has been launching attacks on all fronts in northern China,
where fierce battles are raging at this very moment. The armed forces and the
people led by the Communist Party have already become the mainstay in the War
of Resistance Against Japan. All the calumnies against the Communist Party are
aimed at sabotaging the War of Resistance and paving the way for capitulation.
We should extend the military successes of the Eighth Route Army and the New
Fourth Army and oppose all defeatists and capitulationists.

This document was first published in Jiefang ribao, May 28, 1941. We have translated it
from Mao Zedong ji, Vol. 7, pp. 305-6, where it is reproduced from the 1944 edition of
Mao Zedong xuanji.

--- Notes

1. Circular of the Central Committee of the Chinese Communist Party Expose the
Plot for a Far Eastern Munich

2. China Chiang [Kaishek]

3. The Central News Agency → The Guomindang "Central News Agency"

4. The Central Army → The Guomindang forces