We Agree to Adopt an Overall Policy of
Mobile Warfare and Guerrilla Warfare in the
Northeast1
 (June 3, 1946)
To the Northeast Bureau and Lin [Biao], and for the information of Li [Fuchun]
and Huang [Kecheng]:2
We agree that you should prepare to abandon Harbin, adopt a policy of mobile
warfare and guerrilla warfare, carry out the Central Committee’s work instructions for the Northeast of December of last year,3 make long-term plans, and strive
to build base areas in small and medium cities and in the vast countryside. As for
scattered and isolated enemy strongholds, you should attack and seize them when
conditions allow. For now, the troops should try to rest and reorganize, recuperate
from exhaustion, and raise morale.
The Central Committee


Our source for this text is Mao Zedong junshi wenji, Vol. 3, pp. 250–51, where it is
reproduced from Mao’s handwritten manuscript preserved in the Central Archives.

--- Notes

1.  After the Guomindang army invaded and occupied Siping, it also successively occupied Gongzhuling, Changchun, Jilin [city], and other cities and towns, and an assault was
planned on Harbin. In late May and early June 1946, the Northern Bureau, Lin Biao, and
Huang Kecheng proposed abandoning Harbin to consolidate the main forces. Mao Zedong
drafted this telegram on behalf of the Central Committee of the Chinese Communist Party
in response to the former telegram. On June 5, Mao Zedong drafted another telegram on
behalf of the Central Committee to Lin Biao, Peng Zhen, and Luo Ronghuan, changing the
above deployment in hopes of holding on to the region north of the Songhua River, especially Harbin, as well as Anshan and Yingkou.


2.  Lin Biao was commander-in-chief of the Northeast Democratic Allied Army. Huang
Kecheng was commander and Li Fuchun was political commissar, respectively, of the Central Plains Military Region.


3.  See “Directive of the CPC Central Committee on Work in the Northeast,” December
28, 1945, in this volume.


DOI:  10.4324/9781315719511-166