Talk with Leading Comrades of the Troops in the Shaanxi-Gansu-Ningxia Border Region[1]

(March 16, 1947)

The soldiers’ resolve is excellent. We have lived in Yan’an for ten years. We dug cave dwellings, ate millet, studied Marxism-Leninism, and led the nationwide revolution. All of China and the whole world know Yan’an. The comrades’ profound attachment to Yan’an is entirely understandable. We must use a spirit of resolute struggle to defend and develop the Shaanxi-Gansu-Ningxia Border Region and the Northwest Liberated Area.

The Guomindang has now dispatched over two hundred thousand troops to attack the Shaanxi-Gansu-Ningxia Border Region. They have the support of U.S. imperialism, as well as airplanes and tanks. Yet our forces in the Border Region number only twenty thousand. In terms of weapons, we basically have millet plus rifles. Under these circumstances, though the enemy is superior to us in both numbers and weaponry, we must also see that the Border Region has terrain that is strategically difficult and hazardous, good conditions among the masses, and ample room to maneuver. As long as we have a correct operational policy, we will certainly be able to defeat the enemy. Our operational policy is to lure the enemy in deep, lead the enemy by the nose in circles through the mountains, wear the enemy down until they are utterly exhausted and desperately short of provisions, and then seek an opportunity to wipe them out. This is the tactic of “tiring the enemy out.” Chiang Kai-shek’s occupation of Yan’an is by no means his victory; it is lifting a rock only to drop it on his own feet. He will soon come to grief.

[1] Chiang Kai-shek ordered Hu Zongnan to muster a force of 230,000 troops to invade our Shaanxi-Gansu-Ningxia Border Region. At the time, some people proposed the idea of “chopping off the enemy’s evil claws outside the very gates of Yan’an.” Comrade Mao Zedong analyzed the situation then, deemed this proposition mistaken, and decided to evacuate Yan’an voluntarily, make full use of the favorable conditions in the Border Region, adopt the “tiring the enemy out” tactic, lead the enemy around in northern Shaanxi, and destroy the enemy forces one by one through mobile warfare. Before preparing to evacuate Yan’an, Mao Zedong received some leading comrades of the troops defending the Border Region at Wangjiaping and listened to their reports on the conditions of the troops. This is part of his talk with the leading cadres of the Border Region troops.

Our operational objective is principally to destroy the enemy’s effective strength, not to hold a specific location. As long as we can destroy large numbers of the enemy’s effective strength, we will be able to recover lost territory in the future and seize new areas. Thus the saying goes: lose the people but keep the land, and both people and land will be lost; keep the people but lose the land, and both people and land will be preserved. We are now voluntarily giving up Yan’an for exactly this reason.

Go back and explain this to the soldiers. In one year, two years at most, we shall return to Yan’an. By then, Yan’an will forever belong to the people.