May 25, 1941

[This inner-Party directive was written by Comrade Mao Tse-tung for the Central
Committee of the Communist Party of China.]


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--such is the new plot which is now being hatched by Japan,
the United States and Chiang Kai-shek. We must expose this plot and fight
it.

2. Now that the Japanese imperialists have ended their latest round of military
attacks, which was designed to force Chiang Kai-shek to capitulate, there
are bound to be 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 her military attacks, Japan has launched a
rumour-mongering campaign alleging that "the Eighth Route Army does not want
to fight in co-ordination with the Kuomintang 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", etc. This is a cunning Japanese scheme to foment discord between
the Kuomintang and the Communist Party and thus to make it easier for them
to induce the Kuomintang to capitulate. The Kuomintang Central News Agency
and the Kuomintang press are copying and spreading these rumours, showing
no qualms about echoing Japan's anti-Communist propaganda, and their intentions
are most dubious. This, too, we must expose and fight.

4. Although the New Fourth Army has been declared to be "in rebellion" and
the Eighth Route Army has not received a single bullet or a single copper
from the Kuomintang, they have never for a moment ceased fighting the enemy.
The Eighth Route Army, moreover, has taken the initiative in co-ordinating
its operations with those of the Kuomintang troops in the fighting in the
present campaign in southern Shansi, [1] and for
the last 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
and New Fourth Armies and oppose all the defeatists and capitulationists.
NOTES

1. The Southern Shansi campaign refers to the campaign
of the Chungtiao Mountains. In May 1941, a Japanese invading force 50,000
strong attacked the Chungtiao Mountains area to the north of the Yellow River
in southern Shansi. Altogether seven Kuomintang corps were massed in that
area, and another four in the Kaoping area to the northeast, making a total
of 250,000 men. Since the fight against the Communists was the main job of
the Kuomintang troops north of the Yellow River, they had never prepared
themselves to fight the Japanese, and most of them tried to avoid combat
when the Japanese aggressors attacked. Therefore, in spite of vigorous efforts
by the Eighth Route Army to support the Kuomintang troops against the enemy
in this campaign, the Kuomintang troops were completely routed, losing more
than 50,000 men in three weeks, while the remainder fled to the south of
the Yellow River.


Transcription by the Maoist Documentation Project.