Chen [Yi] and Rao [Shushi]:1
I have received your telegram2 and agree with your plan to disperse. The only problem is that you should not send anyone to eastern Zhejiang because I fear that when we win the War of Resistance, they will be wiped out by the Guomindang and we will not be able to recover any of them. We need to be prepared for at least two more years of the War of Resistance. You should try every possible means to survive two years and to preserve the backbone of our army. Do not be afraid of decreasing numbers. As long as the backbone exists, that is a victory. We are negotiating with the Guomindang to reorganize the New Fourth Army into one army and to incorporate it into the Eighth Route Army in order for it to obtain legal status. We also promise the Guomindang that we will move to the north of the Yellow River after victory has been achieved so that the two parties can continue their cooperation and rebuild the country together. Currently, the Guomindang and the Communist Party have moved a step closer, but a concrete resolution of this pending case may drag on for some time. During the period when the danger of a Far Eastern Munich Treaty,3 that is, the danger of Guomindang capitulation, still exists, it is necessary for us to develop to the south of the Yangzi River and to eastern Zhejiang. When such a danger disappears and when we need to plan to continue our cooperation with the Guomindang, we should be prepared to move to the north of the Yellow River after the war. This is the general orientation. The winter counteroffensive by the Soviet Union is a great success. In the Stalingrad war zone alone, the Soviet army defeated and shattered more than forty divisions of the German, Italian, and Romanian armies. Twenty-two divisions of the German army were surrounded and could not escape. The enemy troops suffered 310,000 casualties. The day of Hitler’s complete collapse is not far away. After Hitler’s defeat, the situation in China will improve, the morale of the Japanese aggressors will be deflated, and these will both benefit our War of Resistance. We should take advantage of this situation to boost the morale of the army and the people and to achieve the goal of perseverance. Also, Comrade [Liu] Shaoqi has arrived safely in Yan’an.
Mao Zedong
Our source for this document is Mao Zedong junshi wenji, Vol. 2, pp. 696–97, where it is reproduced from the manuscript preserved in the Central Archives.
1. Chen Yi was the acting commander of the New Fourth Army; Rao Shushi (1903–1975) was at this time acting secretary of the Central China Bureau of the Central Committee and acting commissar of the New Fourth Army.
2. Referring to the telegram sent to Mao Zedong and the Party Central Committee by Chen Yi, Rao Shushi, Lai Chuanzhu, and Zeng Shan on December 23, 1942, regarding the orientation and military deployment in dealing with the enemy’s “mopping up” in Central China. Regarding Lai and Zeng, see above, note to the text of July 6, 1942.
3. A Far Eastern Munich Treaty refers to the allegation that, in the several years before the outbreak of the Pacific War, the United States and Britain plotted to sacrifice China for a compromise with the Japanese imperialists. This plot was likened to the “Munich Treaty,” signed between Britain and France and the German and Italian Fascists, which allowed Germany to take over Czechoslovakia.