Chapter 67 At present, it is only appropriate to fight a small war of annihilation against the US and British troops

(May 26, 1951) Comrade Dehuai[1]: Previous battles have proved that it is difficult for our army to achieve the mission of annihilation by encircling several divisions of the US military, or an entire division, or even an entire regiment by encircling a large strategic or operational detour.This is because the U.S. military still has a strong fighting will and self-confidence at present.In order to defeat the enemy's self-confidence and achieve the goal of encircling and annihilating in the end, it is advisable not to be too ambitious in each battle, and only require each army of our army to wipe out an entire battalion of the US, British, and Turkish troops in one battle. At most two whole battalions are enough.Now we have eight armies on the front line, and each army has wiped out an entire battalion of the enemy. There are eight entire battalions in total, and this has dealt a great blow to the enemy.If each army can wipe out two entire battalions of the enemy each time, for a total of sixteen entire battalions, the blow to the enemy will be even greater.If this is not possible, it is more appropriate to require each army to wipe out only one entire battalion of the enemy at a time.That is to say, fighting against the U.S. and British troops is different from fighting against the puppet troops. When fighting against the puppet troops, a large-scale strategic or campaign encirclement can be carried out. However, when fighting against the U.S. and British troops, such a large-scale encirclement should not be carried out within a few months, and only tactical ones should be implemented. Small encirclement, that is, each army only carefully selects one battalion or a little more of the enemy's army at a time, encircles and annihilates them all.In this way, if three or four more battles are fought, that is to say, three or four whole battalions of each American and British division will be completely wiped out. Their morale must be lowered and their confidence must be shaken. Then we can wipe out one enemy at a time. There are plans for the whole division or two or three divisions.In the past, the New First Army, New Sixth Army, Fifth Army, Eighteenth Army, and the Seventh Army of the Guangxi clique that we fought against Chiang Kai-shek went through this process from small annihilation to mass annihilation.The five campaigns since our army entered the DPRK have completed some of the journey of this small war of annihilation, but it is not enough. We still need to go through several battles before we can complete the stage of the small war of annihilation and enter the stage of the major war of annihilation.As for the location of the attack, as long as the enemy is willing to advance, the more north the better, as long as it does not exceed the Pyongyang and Wonsan lines.Please consider the above telegram.

Mao Zedong May 26 Printed from manuscript. -------------------------------------------------- ------------------------------ note [1] Dehuai, that is, Peng Dehuai, was the commander and political commissar of the Chinese People's Volunteers at that time.