Inscription in Memory of Zhidan
(May 2, 1943)1
In 1943, on the seventh anniversary of Comrade Liu Zhidan’s2 heroic death, the
Party and the people moved his remains back to Zhidan xian (originally Bao’an
xian) and built a tomb there. Comrade Mao Zedong himself wrote the words
“General Liu Zhidan’s Tomb” for the tombstone and “Leader of the Masses and
Hero of the Nation” for the tablet. He also wrote the following inscription: “From
the one face-to-face meeting with Liu Zhidan after I came to northern Shaanxi, I
knew that he was an excellent member of the Communist Party. His heroic death
was unexpected, but his complete devotion and spirit of serving the Party and the
people will forever remain with the Party and the people and will not disappear
with the passage of time.”
Notes
Our source for this text is Mao Zedong ji. Bujuan, Vol. 7, p. 117, where it is reproduced from a memorial
volume for Mao published in 1980.
1. May 6 is the date given for this text in the source cited in Bujuan. However, both Nianpu and Wang
Zuoxin, ed., Mao Zedong zhushu biannian suoyin (Beijing: Xinhua chubanshe, 2001), confirm that it was
written on May 2.
2. Liu Zhidan (1902–1936) joined the Chinese Communist Party in 1925 and was a member of the fifth
class at Huangpu Military Academy in 1925–26. From 1929 to 1933, he organized guerrilla operations in
Shaanxi, finally succeeding in 1934 in establishing the Shaanxi-Gansu Border Region Revolutionary
Committee, which subsequently gave birth to the Shaanxi-Gansu Provisional Soviet Government. In 1935,

Liu was the commander of the Twenty-sixth and Twenty-seventh Red Armies, which welcomed Mao and
his comrades on their arrival in the Northwest at the end of that year. In early 1936, Liu played a leading role
in the “Eastern Expedition” to Shanxi Province, where he was killed in action.