Thoroughly Carry Out the Policy for the Shanghai Uprising[1]

(August 20, 1945)

Your policy of launching the Shanghai uprising is completely correct. It is imperative to resolutely and thoroughly carry out this policy and to send powerful units of our army into the city to provide assistance. For other cities where conditions for an uprising exist, proceed in the same manner.

--- Notes

[1] This is the main content of a telegram drafted by Mao Zedong for the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China in reply to the Central China Bureau. The Central China Bureau reported on August 19: “In Shanghai, the forces we can control total 200,000. We can control the majority of the water and electricity workers, postal workers, tram workers, telephone workers, and railway workers. The 100,000 unemployed workers from the Japanese factories can be mobilized, and tens of thousands can be mobilized in Hudong and Huxi respectively. We can control most of the patrol officers in Huxi. On the puppet side, only the Tax Police Regiment and the Peace Preservation Corps are maintaining order, and they are very panicked. Based on the current subjective and objective forces, a mass armed uprising can be launched, but for the time being, no attacks will be made against the Japanese troops who remain garrisoned and do not move.” “Even if, in the worst case, it cannot be sustained for a long period, we can withdraw to the countryside to develop guerrilla warfare and achieve victory.”