Change the Policy on the Shanghai Uprising[1]

(August 21, 1945)

The main forces in eastern Zhejiang risk being wiped out if they go to Shanghai; it would be better for them to remain in eastern Zhejiang and, when faced with difficulties, withdraw to southern Zhejiang. The Japanese surrender treaty is about to be signed, and Chiang Kai-shek has already appointed officials in Shanghai. Under these circumstances, the Shanghai uprising would turn into an action against Chiang Kai-shek and would inevitably be suppressed. It should be changed to organizing various mass groups to launch a struggle to ferret out traitors, immediately establishing two newspapers—a mass-oriented paper and a Shanghai edition of *Xinhua Ribao*—to be published openly, without establishing a government.

[1] This is the main content of a telegram drafted by Mao Zedong for the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China to the Central China Bureau.