I. Without occupying large cities and transportation hubs, it is impossible to expel the Japanese invaders from China.
Without winning over the millions of working masses and urban residents oppressed by the Japanese invaders, disintegrating the puppet troops and puppet organizations, and preparing for armed uprisings, it is impossible to coordinate with the army and the countryside to occupy large cities and transportation hubs.
In the past, people thought that the task of expelling the Japanese invaders from large cities and transportation hubs seemed to be only within the capability of the Kuomintang; now this view must be changed, believing that some tasks can only be accomplished by relying on our Party, some mainly rely on our Party, and relying on the Kuomintang is hopeless.
The Kuomintang has become extremely corrupt, as evidenced by the fact that hundreds of thousands of Kuomintang troops in Henan collapsed without a fight or at the first touch.
Only in places where there are no strong armies and strong base areas of our Party, our Party cannot assume this responsibility.

II. Therefore, all bureaus and committees must regard urban work and base area work as two equally important tasks, and assume the responsibility of preparing to seize all large, medium, and small cities and transportation hubs under their jurisdiction.
The Japanese invaders are now launching a large-scale offensive on the Chinese front in a desperate attempt to save themselves, and the Japanese invaders are in the process of decline.
The Western anti-Hitler struggle is expected to be victorious soon, and the Pacific counter-offensive against the Japanese invaders will inevitably be further developed in the future.
All this provides our Party with good conditions, on the one hand, to develop and consolidate base areas, and build armies and local work that are much stronger than they are now based on the existing foundation; on the other hand, to win over millions of people in cities and transportation hubs, disintegrate and win over puppet troops and puppet police, and prepare for armed uprisings, so that when the time is ripe, the two can cooperate with each other, attacking the Japanese invaders from within and without, and occupying large cities and transportation hubs.
The idea of attacking from within and without is the fundamental idea of our Party to expel the enemy from large cities.

III. All bureaus and committees must give extremely important status to the work of winning over all large, medium, and small cities and transportation hubs occupied by the enemy and preparing for mass armed uprisings, change the past view of not paying attention or not paying much attention to urban work and transportation hub work, arouse the whole Party to pay attention to this work, conscientiously and carefully summarize experience, study methods, organize institutions, equip cadres, and carry out work, in order to achieve significant results in the second half of this year and the first half of next year, and prepare to cooperate with major world events, and when the time is ripe, seize all enemy-occupied cities and transportation hubs near our strong armies and strong base areas.

IV. To realize this great task, the following specific issues must be resolved: First, regarding ideology.
Education must be carried out to make the vast number of cadres fully understand the possibility, necessity, and importance of occupying large cities and transportation hubs from within and without under the leadership of our Party in order to finally expel the Japanese invaders. Without this kind of ideological education, it is impossible to mobilize the whole Party to act.
Cadres must also understand that the current work in cities and transportation hubs has completely new goals compared to the past.
In the past, this kind of work was only for preserving the organization, getting through the darkness, or for obtaining intelligence and purchasing materials.
Now it is to win over millions of people, win over puppet troops and puppet police, prepare for armed uprisings, and seize cities and transportation hubs.
All efforts and work are for this goal and subordinate to this goal.
Cadres must also understand that it is timely to carry out urban and transportation hub work for such goals at present.
Because the world anti-fascist war and the Chinese War of Resistance Against Japan are both definitely approaching complete victory, the extreme corruption of the Kuomintang and the victorious persistence of our Party and our army in the vast enemy-occupied areas have made the people of the whole country even more disappointed with the Kuomintang and place unlimited hope in our Party and our army. The revolutionary upsurge of the vast masses in the enemy-occupied areas will inevitably rise rapidly in the future. Carrying out this work now has broader social and mass conditions than before.
Therefore, it was correct in the past not to propose the task of preparing for armed uprisings to seize large cities, but now it must be proposed.
If it is not proposed now, we will make a big mistake, forcing us to carry out the struggle to seize large cities and transportation hubs without preparation or with insufficient preparation during the future counter-offensive, so that our army will not have sufficient and necessary internal support when attacking cities in the future, and will not be able to quickly mobilize the masses to establish revolutionary order in the cities and take charge of the cities after seizing them.
Cadres must also understand that the preparatory work for armed uprisings to seize cities and transportation hubs is a long-term, arduous, and great preparatory work.
Due to China's special conditions, urban armed uprisings often only have a chance of victory when responding to the attacking army outside the city, that is, under the conditions of attacking from within and without (such as the Shanghai uprising in 1927), and a separate urban uprising without the cooperation of military action outside the city is difficult to win.
Therefore, in preparing for urban armed uprisings, we should oppose impatience, oppose rashly launching armed uprisings, and oppose launching uprisings alone or prematurely without the cooperation of our army outside the city.
There must be a long and extremely complex and patient work, which cannot be accomplished by rough and impatient work.
Cadres must also understand that our Party's policy and general strategy for urban work cannot be kept secret and should be communicated to the whole Party.
However, the specific work plans and specific organizational work in cities and all enemy-occupied areas should be completely secret. Education on secret work should be carried out within the Party. Each Party member and cadre should only know what they must know, not what they can know.
Second, regarding planning and organization.
All bureaus and committees should formulate a general plan based on the specific conditions of all large, medium, and small cities and railways, highways, and puppet troops and puppet police in their respective regions, such as how to divide responsibilities, how to organize institutions, and how to equip and train cadres.
A capable working committee should be organized to work on each city (large, medium, and small), each section of railway and highway, and each puppet army unit and puppet police organization.
Several committees can also be organized in large cities and large troops to work separately in different areas.
This kind of committee does not do base area work, but specializes in organizing and guiding the work in the cities, transportation hubs, and puppet troops.
This kind of committee can currently be located in the base area or guerrilla area, and if there are safe conditions, it can be located in the city.
The Party committees of each bureau and district should entrust the working committees under their direct guidance to work on large cities, medium-sized cities, and important railways under their jurisdiction, and organize committees to work on enemy-occupied county towns and small cities under the guidance of local Party committees or county Party committees.
For each army or division in the puppet army that is frequently transferred, a committee should be established under the guidance of the appropriate Party committee to work.
However, at the same time, this work should also mobilize all organizations of the whole Party and the whole army to carry out work in multiple ways and in separate routes. Organizations at all levels from the branch to the central bureau, as long as they have a way to carry out work on cities, transportation hubs, and puppet troops and puppet police, should directly send people to work, temporarily without unification, and the relationship does not need to be explained.
If various relationships meet in the work among the masses, they should take care of and assist each other, and should not compete and complain with each other.
This work should be led by Party committees at all levels.
However, for the sake of convenient management, urban work departments can be established under the bureaus and district Party committees.
In addition to guiding and organizing secret work in cities and transportation hubs, this department should also guide small plainclothes guerrilla teams near cities and transportation hubs in the enemy area, so as to facilitate urban work.
This department should be stationed in a relatively hidden place in the base area, and should not be mixed with the Party, government, and army of the base area.
Third, regarding the direction of work.
Since our work goal is to oppose the national enemy, the overall situation is favorable to us, and there are strong armies and base areas of our Party around the cities and transportation hubs or not far away, this work will have extremely great objective conditions for development.
Among the people in enemy-occupied cities and transportation hubs, except for a very small number of die-hard traitors and stubborn anti-communist elements, most people can participate in or sympathize with various anti-Japanese work.
Therefore, we must carry out extensive and proper work among all the masses and people from all walks of life in cities and transportation hubs.
We must carry out work among puppet troops and puppet police, among workers and coolies, in the puppet political circles, puppet economic circles, puppet cultural circles, as well as among young students, children, women, and even various secret societies and hooligan organizations.
However, we should focus our main attention on winning over hundreds of thousands of puppet troops and puppet police and winning over millions of workers and coolies, because they are the decisive force for armed uprisings, and this is precisely what various places have not paid enough attention to in the past.
Our activities and organizations among workers and coolies should be carried out separately from the activities of the upper-level united front.
And upper-level activities should generally be to cover and assist activities among the lower-level masses.
Our activities should not have any relationship with the Kuomintang organization. We should expose the Kuomintang's reactionary corruption and incompetence and its concern only for the interests of a few people and disregard for the interests of the nation among the masses, and eliminate any illusions about the Kuomintang among the masses in large cities.
The organizations and relationships we established in large cities for intelligence and economic work in the past should still carry out intelligence and economic work, and only carry out some upper-level activities and mass work when possible.
In order to widely create transportation links between the base area and the city (especially large cities) and transportation hubs, and to prepare a military starting point for seizing cities and transportation hubs, we should carry out sufficient work among the people around the cities and on both sides of the transportation hubs. The guerrilla warfare in the base area should gradually approach the surroundings of the cities and both sides of the transportation hubs by various proper means, and establish hidden guerrilla areas there to facilitate the work in the cities and transportation hubs.
At the same time, we must mobilize a large number of workers and revolutionary intellectuals in the cities and transportation hubs to leave the city and the road to participate in guerrilla warfare, and some of them are prepared to be sent back to guide the armed struggle of the uprising when the uprising occurs, so as to occupy the cities and transportation hubs from within and without.
To say it again, the idea of attacking from within and without is the fundamental idea of our Party to seize cities and transportation hubs, and we should deploy all forces and arrange all work from this point of view.
Fourth, regarding working methods.
The methods of working in cities and transportation hubs should be obtained from summarizing existing experience, and should be continuously summarized in future work, and various good methods created by the masses should be popularized.
However, it should be pointed out that the Party's working methods in cities and transportation hubs during the civil war period were generally wrong and cannot be adopted. This mistake should be criticized to avoid repetition.
Since the War of Resistance Against Japan, various base areas have carried out extremely effective work combining legal and illegal struggles in the enemy-occupied areas near them and in some small cities, and there has also been a lot of good work in some large cities.
In these works, the methods are generally correct.
If we appropriately transform our work experience in enemy-occupied areas and small cities, we can apply it to large cities, medium-sized cities, and transportation hubs.
Various places should carefully study the forms of struggle that combine legal and illegal methods suitable for each location, each group of people, and the current environment.
In the enemy-occupied areas, the organizations of the Party and anti-Japanese groups can only be carried out secretly, so attention should be paid to being lean, hidden, and strictly preventing special agents from infiltrating.
However, various ordinary mass organizations and mass activities should openly use all possible legal forms to carry out.
For example, using existing various puppet organizations (Xinminhui, Self-Defense Corps, etc.), or establishing various gray social groups, or establishing purely social professional institutions and professional activities that have close ties with the masses (teahouses, restaurants, matchmaker houses, etc.), or even using factories, workshops, schools, and shops, under the slogan of jointly deceiving and dealing with the enemy and traitors and protecting the Chinese people, the establishment of some kind of amorphous alliance of all personnel in them is also a very good form of mass organization.
We often see the close organization and division of labor of the alliance of the whole village in the villages near the base area, jointly deceiving and dealing with the enemy and traitors. This method should be applied to certain factories, workshops, schools, and shops in the city.
We should unite the masses starting from protecting the vital interests of the masses, such as reducing burdens, eliminating harassment, hiding materials, and increasing wages and improving treatment, which can all become the starting point for mass joint activities.
And the deceptive and artificial "new policy" of the enemy towards China can become a legal slogan for us and the masses to use.
Secondly, the extremely high prestige of the Eighth Route Army and the New Fourth Army among the people of all strata in the enemy area can also become a favorable capital for our urban work. Many people are honored to hear news of our army, establish some kind of connection with our army, and obtain some kind of certificate from our army. We should use this situation to promote the unity of the people, but this is illegal in the enemy area and should be used very secretly and to a limited extent.
At present, all illegal activities and illegal struggles in cities and transportation hubs are limited to not hindering and destroying our legal organizations and legal struggles.
This is somewhat different from the struggle of legal and illegal connections in the guerrilla areas near the base area.
In the guerrilla areas, legal struggles are often to cover the activities and existence of illegal guerrillas, while in cities and transportation hubs, the opposite is true, and illegal struggles should often be subordinate to legal struggles.
Propaganda work in the enemy area should also adopt many legal forms, using various legal newspapers, periodicals, and books, and using various legal slogans to carry out.
Various illegal propaganda should also be carried out, but its methods should be carefully considered.
At present, oral propaganda is the main one, and even the method of spreading rumors can be used.
The distribution of illegal leaflets, books, and newspapers should have a thorough and careful organization.
In short, in urban working methods, we should oppose two deviations: one is the adventurous method of carelessness, irresponsibility, shouting, and reckless rushing; the other is the tailism method of not moving at all, simply hiding, and not contacting the masses and carrying out mass work.
The correct method is to contact and unite as many masses as possible within all possible and legal ranges, to improve the masses' awareness and organization, and to hide lean secret organizations and secret activities among the vast masses, and hide them in the legal activities of the masses.
And before the uprising, all organizational forms and forms of struggle should avoid fixed and systematic forms, and adopt various amorphous and decentralized methods, in order to gain more victories and reduce damage.
Fifth, regarding cadres.
There must be a large number of cadres to carry out the work of cities and transportation hubs.
Existing cadres working in cities and old cadres who have worked in cities in the past should be found ways to make them still undertake this work, but they should be made to absorb new experience and work with new methods under the new policy.
Secondly, in the past few years, in the two-sided struggle in the enemy-occupied areas near various base areas, a large number of Party and non-Party cadres who are good at carrying out legal struggles have been trained, and many of them have rich knowledge of being good at dealing with the enemy, deceiving the enemy, and carrying out legal struggles, some even exceeding the old cadres of our urban work during the civil war period.
Many of them are able to gain a foothold among urban workers and coolies and other various occupations, and these cadres should be well trained, cultivated, and used.
As long as these people have a way to gain a foothold in large cities, medium-sized cities, and transportation hubs and can carry out work, some of them should be transferred, given short-term training, and sent to work, regardless of whether they are intellectuals, workers, peasants, or other various occupations, or Party and non-Party cadres.
And there are many such cadres in various base areas now.
Again, there are some people in various base areas who often go to enemy-occupied cities to do business, work, and seek employment, especially in Subei and Jiaodong, hundreds of thousands of people go to Shanghai, Hangzhou, and various cities in Manchuria [2] every year to make a living.
Therefore, various urban work cadres should be found and trained from these people.
In addition, some cadres can also be trained and released back among the puppet army prisoners.
Gentry in the base area who live in the city can also be given some tasks and titles to carry out activities in the city.
Even those in the base area who have some political suspicion and are not easy to clarify can be sent to enemy-occupied cities to carry out some independent activities to examine them.
And among various cadres, special attention should be paid to cultivating local cadres in various cities and roads. Cadres who go out should regard themselves as guides and conservators of local cadres.
In the base area, cadres who originally grew up and lived in cities and transportation hubs can also be found, trained, and sent back.
In short, we should boldly use various cadres to carry out various work, and make the various work of various people carried out separately, not mixed together, and do it in multiple ways and in separate routes.
But at the same time, we must maintain the leanness, purity, and reliability of the Party's secret organization, and establish a majority of reliable strongholds of the Party in all large, medium, and small cities and railways and highways, as the leading backbone of the great urban work, forming a situation in which the Party's leading backbone is combined with the vast masses of the people.
In addition, in the base area, responsible cadres of the Party, government, army, and people at all levels should conscientiously study and learn urban work, study the art of urban armed uprisings and attacking from within and without, study the establishment of urban revolutionary order, and take charge of cities and large industries and businesses, as preparation for seizing and managing large cities and transportation hubs in the future.
Sixth, regarding funding.
There must be a large amount of funding to carry out the work of cities and transportation hubs. As long as it does not cause waste of cadres and the employment concept of urban workers, all necessary funding should be fully paid.
Various organizations in various base areas should be allowed to reimburse the necessary expenses for carrying out the work of cities and transportation hubs.
A sufficient urban work fund should be prepared in the budget of each base area.
The method of issuing capital to do business in cities and transportation hubs and using its profits to fill the work fund can also be adopted.

V. The opinions on the above specific issues should be conscientiously studied by all bureaus and committees based on local conditions, flexibly applied to practical work, and fully developed in future work.
Only when these specific issues are completely resolved can the work of cities and transportation hubs achieve significant results and move towards the destination of armed uprisings.

Printed by the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China on June 5 based on the mimeographed copy preserved in the Central Archives.

Note [1] This is an internal Party instruction drafted by Mao Zedong for the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China.
[2] This refers to the northeastern region of China.