(June 8, 1964)
We must pay attention to the guerrilla warfare in southern Vietnam. There are only over ten million people there, not even as many as the population of one of our provinces, yet they can fight, and their guerrilla warfare is fought extremely well. Can it be that we cannot do the same? If the enemy occupies our territory, what should we do? Can one of our provinces fight guerrilla warfare? I think every province can.
Our coastal provinces must set up hand grenade factories, explosives factories, and ordnance factories. This has been talked about for several years, but nothing has been set up. When war breaks out, you cannot wait for the second and third lines to send supplies to you. Every province has first, second, and third lines! The deployment of military industry must also be reconsidered; it will not do to only develop large-scale ones. Every province—that is to say, the coastal provinces of Guangxi, Guangdong, Fujian, Zhejiang, Jiangsu, Shandong, Hebei, and Liaoning, plus Heilongjiang, which faces revisionism—must establish some local ordnance factories owned by the localities. Now the localities are no longer engaged in military affairs, assuming the central authorities have it all covered. What will happen when war breaks out? There will not be enough bullets, light weapons, explosives, or armed militia. When war breaks out, local forces must be organized; the provinces on the first and second lines must all do this. Otherwise, when things happen, we will be caught unprepared.
The second line consists of Hunan, Hubei, Anhui, Jiangxi, Jilin, Henan, Shanxi, and Ningxia. The enemy can conduct airborne landings, but they will always be isolated, and reaching the second and third lines will always be difficult. Once war breaks out,
[I] This is part of Mao Zedong's speech at the Central Committee Working Conference held from May 15 to June 17, 1964.

we must be prepared to have things smashed and be prepared to abandon the cities. Every province must have its own solutions.
What if we only have weapons but no bullets or explosives? This is the very point to which I ask all of you in the greater administrative regions and provinces to pay attention. Now there is no trouble, but what will happen when war breaks out? If the enemy invades our territory in the future, I am certain it will be worse than South Vietnam. Now the provincial, prefectural, and county party committees all speak only of civil affairs, not of military affairs.
There is another issue: we must develop third-line bases. In those areas, the scale of operations should be kept small, and the central authorities' operations should also be somewhat reduced. The Panzhihua railway is best built from both ends. Also, establish some military industries on the scale of greater administrative regions or provinces to prepare base areas for guerrilla warfare. With these things in place, I will be at ease. Trinitrotoluene (TNT) explosives should be produced on the scale of greater administrative regions.
For military exercises and training, organize a shooting drill in Beijing and invite all the provincial party secretaries to come and observe. I have not seen one either, and I will also go and take a look.
We were initially unprepared for Khrushchev's betrayal. Now there are two kinds of communist parties in the world. One kind is genuine, the other is fake. With the October Revolution, we knew that the emergence of revisionism in the Soviet Union had great significance. The emergence of revisionism in Yugoslavia was not decisive; the Soviet Union had been built over more than forty years under Lenin's leadership. Yugoslavia was an accident; the Soviet Union is no accident.
We have already had cases emerge: the Baiyin Factory, Xiaozhan [1]. In the past, we did not pay attention to the roots at the top.
[1] Refers to the Tianjin Municipal Committee's "Report on the Struggle to Seize Power in the Xiaozhan Area" and the Gansu Provincial Committee and the Ministry of Metallurgical Industry Party Group's "Report on Seizing Back Leadership of the Baiyin Nonferrous Metals Company."

Transmit this down to the county level. If a Khrushchev emerges, what is to be done? If a revisionist central committee emerges in China, what is to be done? The county committees must stand up against a revisionist central committee.
Develop the first, second, and third lines; when war breaks out, be prepared to have things smashed.
We must have a third line, we must develop a southwestern rear area, and we must do it faster, but not carelessly. The funds are only so much, so we must not spread the operations too wide. Building the railway from both ends will make it faster.