The Battle Front in the Liberated Areas

The military report "On the Battlefield of the Liberated Areas" given by Zhu De at the Seventh National Congress of the Communist Party of China on April 25, 1945. It is included in the Selected Works of Zhu De published in 1983. The report is divided into four parts:

The first part is about the eight years of the Anti-Japanese War. Zhu De pointed out that no matter how the situation changed, its development process did not go beyond the scientific prediction of the three stages pointed out by Mao Zedong in "On Protracted War", namely: the enemy's offensive; stalemate; and our counter-offensive.

The second part is about the battle front of the Liberated Areas. There are mainly four aspects: Firstly, the establishment of the battle front in the Liberated Areas. It is pointed out that the battle front in the Liberated Areas was created by the Eighth Route Army, the New Fourth Army and the South China Anti-Japanese Column, which shouldered unique operational responsibilities. Secondly, the three periods in the Anti-Japanese War in the Liberated Areas. Between the Pingxingguan victory in September 1937 and the great Hundred-Regiment Campaign in 1940, this period was the period of creation and opening up of the Liberated Areas behind enemy lines. The period after the end of the great Hundred-Regiment Campaign to the winter of 1942, it was the most difficult period in the Liberated Areas. In the winter of 1942, the work in the various Liberated Areas of southern, central and eastern Hebei Province began to revive, and the Liberated Areas in north China moved to a new period of expansion, that is, the third period of the Anti-Japanese War in the Liberated Areas. Thirdly, despite hardships and sacrifices, great achievements had been made in the battle front in the Liberated Areas and in all stages of their operations. Fourthly, the experience gained by the War of Resistance in the Liberated Areas was that the Liberated Areas, led by our Party and in line with Comrade Mao Zedong's policy of people's war, had practiced Dr. Sun Yat-sen's revolutionary Three People's Principles and the New Democracy. As a consequence, they had realized the great unity among the various classes in the Liberated Areas and thus the unified leadership of the War of Resistance.

The third part is about the military line adopted by the Chinese people for the War of Resistance. This part mainly contains the following contents:The first is two different military lines; The second is the principles of army building; The third is the recruitment; The fourth is maintaining the army; The fifth is leading the army; The sixth is training the army; The seventh is conducting the war; The eighth is the political work in the army; The ninth is the army command; The tenth is equipment and other problems; The eleventh is strong main forces and strong reserves; The twelfth is breaking up the puppet troops.

The fourth part is about the future military tasks. Firstly, the military task of the whole country was mainly to unite the Eighth Route and the New Fourth Armies with all friendly forces engaged in the War of Resistance in order to defeat the Japanese aggressors. Secondly, the military tasks of the occupied areas were to intensify the political struggle and organizational work for the people of the occupied areas, to strengthen the political influence over the enemy, puppet troops and the police in order to win over them, to carry out more intensive work in cities in the rear of the enemy and to organize underground forces. Thirdly, the military tasks in the Liberated Areas, namely: expanding the Liberated Areas and reducing the areas occupied by the enemy; expanding the people's forces so as to break up and wipe out the enemy and puppet troops; intensifying the training of the existing forces, the regular troops, local forces and the militia and self-defense forces in preparation for the counter-offensive; improving military technical skills; strengthening the command system; preparing a material base from which to launch the general counter-offensive; strengthening the work of treating the anti-Japanese fighters, compassionate casualties, resettlement of disabled soldiers and veterans. In order to promote all this work and fulfill all these tasks, there must have been complete unity within the Eighth Route Army, the New Fourth Army and the other armed forces of the people. And, with this accomplished, we had to work towards unity with the many friendly armies. In a word, as Mao Zedong pointed out in the early period of the War of Resistance, the Eighth Route and the New Fourth Armies had to be prepared for a strategic change from guerrilla warfare to regular warfare in the later period of the war. In his concluding remarks, Zhu De emphasized the assertion made by Mao Zedong: "This army is powerful because all its members have a discipline based on political consciousness; they have come together and they fight not for the private interests of a few individuals or a narrow clique, but for the interests of the broad masses and of the whole nation. The sole purpose of this army is to stand firmly with the Chinese people and to serve them wholeheartedly. Guided by this purpose, this army has an indomitable spirit and is determined to vanquish all enemies and never to yield. No matter what the difficulties and hardships, so long as a single man remains, he will fight on.” “The Battle Front in the Liberated Areas” systematically summarizes the Party's basic experience in leading the Anti-Japanese War Aggression from the combination of theory and practice, vividly demonstrates the role of the CPC as a mainstay in the nationwide war, and is an important military document in the history of the Communist Party of China.