Northwest Shanxi Must Actively
Promote Guerrilla Warfare
(October 31, 1942)
Comrade Lin Feng:1
I have received your telegram of the twenty-fifth. Northwest Shanxi has a
population of only about 700,000 to 1 million, and I hope you will investigate the
cause of such a precipitous population decline and will discuss with Zhou2 and
Gan3 concrete plans to promote actively guerrilla warfare and to squeeze the
enemy for territory (i.e., a concrete, active, and comprehensive anti-“nibbling”
struggle).4 We must inspire the army and the people, adopt an active policy
against the enemy, or else further contraction of territory will lead to an even
worse future.
Mao Zedong
Notes
Our source for this text is Mao Zedong junshi wenji, Vol. 2, p. 688, which is based on a copy of a transcript
held in the Central Archives.
1. Lin Feng (1906–1977) was at this time assistant Party secretary for the Shanxi-Suide Central Committee
branch office.
2. Zhou Sidi (1900–1979) was at this time chair of the Shanxi-Suide Eighth Route Army’s Consultative
Congress.

3. Gan Siqi (1904–1964) was at this time director of the Political Office of the Shanxi-Suide Eighth Route
Army.
4. Or “a concrete, active, and comprehensive struggle against their ‘nibbling’ of our territory.”