Chapter 37 Instructions of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China on Urban Work [1]

(June 5, 1944) 1. The Japanese invaders cannot be expelled from China without occupying the major cities and major traffic arteries.If we do not win over the millions of working people and citizens under the oppression of the Japanese aggressors, disintegrate the puppet army and puppet organizations, and prepare for armed uprisings, we cannot cooperate with the army and the countryside to occupy large cities and major transportation routes.In the past, people thought that the task of expelling the Japanese aggressors from big cities and major transportation routes seemed to be performed only by the Kuomintang; now we must change this view, thinking that some tasks can only be performed by relying on our party, and some can only be performed by relying mainly on our party, and relying on the Kuomintang is hopeless of.The corruption of the Kuomintang has reached the extreme, and the hundreds of thousands of Kuomintang troops in Henan were defeated without a fight or collapsed at the first touch, which is a clear proof.Our party cannot bear this responsibility only in places where there is no strong army and strong base of our party.

2. Therefore, all bureaus and committees must regard urban work and base area work as two equally important tasks, and take up the responsibility of preparing to seize all large, medium and small cities and major transportation routes to which they belong.The Japanese aggressors are now aggressively attacking the frontal battlefield in China in order to save lives, and the Japanese aggressors are in the process of declining.The struggle against Hitler in the West is expected to be won soon, and the counterattack against the Japanese invaders in the Pacific will be further developed in the future.All this has given our party good conditions. On the one hand, it will develop and consolidate the base areas, build a much stronger army and local work based on the existing foundation; Win over the puppet army and puppet police, and prepare for an armed uprising, so that when the time is right, the two can cooperate with each other to attack the Japanese invaders from inside and outside, and occupy major cities and major transportation routes.The idea of ​​cooperating with the inside and the outside is the fundamental idea of ​​our party to expel the enemy from the big cities.

3. All bureaus and committees must put the work of winning over the enemy's occupation of all large, medium, and small cities and major transportation routes and preparing for armed uprisings by the masses to a very important position, and change the previous neglect or lack of emphasis on urban work and major transportation routes. From the point of view of work, arouse the whole party to pay attention to this work, seriously and carefully sum up experience, study methods, organize agencies, allocate cadres, and carry out work, with a view to achieving remarkable results in the second half of this year and the first half of next year. Cooperate with major world events, and when the time is right, seize all enemy-occupied cities and traffic arteries near our strong army and strong base areas.

4. To realize this great task, the following specific problems must be solved: First, about ideas.It is necessary to carry out education so that the majority of cadres fully understand the possibility, necessity and importance of the leadership of our party to occupy large cities and major traffic arteries in an internal and external manner in order to finally drive out the Japanese invaders. Without this kind of ideological education, it is impossible to mobilize the whole party to take action of.It is also necessary to make the cadres understand that the current work on cities and communication arteries has completely new goals compared with the past.In the past, this kind of work was only done to preserve the organization, pass through the darkness, or to obtain information and purchase supplies.Now it is to win over the millions of people, to win over the puppet army and puppet police, to prepare for an armed uprising, and to seize cities and traffic arteries.All efforts and work are for this goal and obey this goal.It is also necessary to make the cadres understand that it is timely and timely to carry out the work on cities and traffic arteries for such a goal.Because both the World Anti-Fascist War and China’s War of Resistance are close to complete victory, and the extreme corruption of the Kuomintang is closely related to the victory of our party and our army in the vast battlefields behind enemy lines. In the future, the revolutionary upsurge among the broad masses in the enemy-occupied areas will inevitably rise extremely rapidly. To carry out this work at present, there are broader social and mass conditions than before.Therefore, the task of preparing an armed insurrection to seize the big cities, which was correctly not raised before, must be raised now.If we don't raise it now, we will make a big mistake. In the future counter-offensive, we will be forced to fight for big cities and communication arteries without or with insufficient preparation, so that our army will not be able to fully cooperate with them when attacking cities in the future. The necessary internal response, and the inability to quickly mobilize the masses to establish a revolutionary order in the city and control the city after capturing the city.It is also necessary to make the cadres understand that preparations for an armed uprising to seize cities and major communication routes are long-term and arduous preparations.Due to China's special conditions, urban armed uprisings are often only possible to win when they respond to the attacking troops outside the city, that is, under the conditions of cooperation from inside and outside (such as the Shanghai Uprising in 1927), and there is no independent military action outside the city. It is very difficult to win an urban uprising.Therefore, in preparing for an armed uprising in the cities, we should combat impatience, reckless armed uprisings, and independent or premature uprisings without the cooperation of our troops outside the city.Long hours and extremely complicated and enduring work are necessary, not careless and hasty work.It is also necessary to make the cadres understand that our policies and general strategies for urban work cannot be kept secret, and should be communicated to the whole party.However, the specific work plans and specific organizational work in cities and all enemy-occupied areas should be kept completely secret, and education about secret work should be carried out within the party. Every party member and cadre should only know what they need to know, not what they need to know. should know what they can know.

Second, about planning and organization.Each bureau and committee should draw up a general plan based on the specific conditions of all large, medium and small cities, railways, highways, and puppet troops and puppet police in their respective regions, such as how to divide responsibilities, how to organize agencies, how to deploy and train cadres, etc. .Every city (large, medium, and small), every section of railway, highway, every puppet army unit and puppet police organization should be the target of work, and a capable working committee should be organized to carry out the work.Large cities and large units can also organize several committees to work in separate divisions.This kind of committee does not work in the base area, but is responsible for organizing and guiding the work in the main roads of the city and the puppet army.Such committees can currently be set up in base areas or guerrilla areas, or in cities if security conditions permit.The party committees of the bureaus and districts should entrust the work to the working committees under their own direct guidance for the large cities, medium-sized cities and important railways they belong to, and the enemy-occupied county towns and small cities should organize committees to work under the guidance of the local or county committees.For each corps or division in the frequently mobilized puppet army, a committee should be formed to work under the guidance of an appropriate party committee.But at the same time, this kind of work should also mobilize all organizations of the whole party and army, and carry out it in multiple and branched ways, from the branch to the central bureau, as long as it has the means to carry out the cities, the main roads of communication and the puppet army and puppet police. Workers should send people to work directly, there is no need to unify for the time being, and there is no need to explain the relationship.If all kinds of relationships meet in the working group, they should take care of each other and help each other, and should not compete and complain about each other.This work should be led by Party committees at all levels.However, for the convenience of management, urban work departments can be established under the bureaus and district party committees.In addition to directing and organizing secret work in cities and traffic arteries, such departments should also guide small plainclothes guerrillas near cities and traffic arteries in enemy areas, so as to facilitate urban work.This kind of department should be stationed in relatively hidden places in the base area, and should not be mixed with the party, government, and army in the base area.

Third, about the direction of work.Since the goal of our work is to oppose the national enemy, the overall situation is in our favor, and there are strong troops and bases of our party around cities and main roads or not far away, there will be objective conditions for this kind of work to be greatly carried out.Among the people in the enemy-occupied cities and major traffic arteries, except for a very small number of die-hard traitors and die-hard anti-Communists, most people are able to participate in or sympathize with various anti-Japanese work.Therefore, we must carry out extensive and proper work among all the masses in cities and major communication routes, and among people from all walks of life.Work must be carried out among the puppet army and puppet police, among the coolies of the workers, in the puppet government, puppet economic circles, and puppet cultural circles, among young students, children, women, and even various secret associations and hooligan organizations. .But the main attention should be on winning over hundreds of thousands of puppet soldiers and policemen and millions of labor coolies, because they are the decisive force in the armed uprising.Our activities and organization among the coolies of the workers should be carried out separately from the activities of the united front at the top.The activities of the upper class should generally be to cover and assist the activities of the lower class.Our activities should not have any relationship with the Kuomintang organization. We should expose the reactionary corruption and incompetence of the Kuomintang members among the masses, and disregard the interests of the minority and the interests of the nation, and eliminate any illusions about the Kuomintang among the masses in big cities.The organizations and relationships we have established for intelligence and economic work in the big cities in the past should still carry out intelligence and economic work, and only carry out some upper-level activities and mass work when possible.In order to establish extensive communication links between base areas and cities (especially large cities) and main roads, and to prepare military starting points for seizing cities and main roads, we should carry out sufficient work among the people around the cities and on both sides of the main roads, and conduct guerrilla attacks in base areas. The war should adopt various appropriate methods to gradually approach the surrounding areas of the city and both sides of the main roads, and establish hidden guerrilla areas there to facilitate the work of the city and the main roads.At the same time, it is necessary to mobilize a large number of workers and revolutionary intellectuals in the cities and main roads to go out of the city to participate in guerrilla warfare. Some of them are going to be sent back to guide the armed struggle of the uprising during the uprising, so that they can cooperate internally and externally to occupy the cities and main roads.To reiterate, the idea of ​​coordinating inside and outside is the fundamental idea for our party to seize cities and important roads. We should start from this point to deploy all forces and arrange all tasks.

Fourth, on working methods.The methods of working in cities and traffic arteries should be obtained from summarizing existing experience, and in future work, we should constantly sum up experience and generalize various good methods created by the masses.However, it should be pointed out that the Party’s methods of working in cities and arteries during the Civil War were generally wrong and should not be adopted. Such mistakes should be criticized to avoid repetition.Since the Anti-Japanese War, the base areas have carried out very effective legal and illegal struggles in some small cities in the enemy-occupied areas nearby, and there have been many good jobs in some big cities.In these jobs, its approach is generally correct.If our work experience in enemy-occupied areas and small cities is properly transformed, it can be transferred to large cities, medium-sized cities and arteries of communication.All localities should carefully study the legal and illegal forms of struggle that are suitable for each location, each type of people, and the current environment.In enemy-occupied areas, the organization of the party and anti-Japanese organizations can only be carried out in secret, so attention should be paid to being capable and concealed, and strictly preventing spies from getting in.However, all kinds of ordinary mass organizations and mass activities should be carried out openly and using all possible legal forms.For example, use various pseudo-organizations (Xinmin Association, Self-Defense Group, etc.), or set up various gray social groups, or establish pure social professional institutions and professional activities (teahouses, restaurants, referrals, etc.) that are closely related to the masses. houses, etc.), and even use factories, workshops, schools, and shops to form some kind of amorphous alliance of all the people in them under the slogan of jointly deceiving and dealing with enemy traitors and protecting the Chinese people, which is also a good mass organization. form.We often see the whole village alliance in the villages near the base area to jointly deceive and deal with the enemy's traitors and the strict organization and division of labor. This method should be applied to certain factories, workshops, schools, and shops in the cities.We should proceed from the protection of the vital interests of the masses and unite the masses, such as reducing burdens, avoiding harassment, hiding materials, increasing wages and improving treatment, etc., can all be the starting point for mass joint activities.However, the enemy's deceitful and pretentious "new policy" towards China can become a legitimate slogan for us and the masses to use.Secondly, the high prestige of the Eighth Route Army and the New Fourth Army among the people of all walks of life in the enemy areas can also become a favorable capital for our urban work. Many people have heard about our army, established some kind of contact with our army, and obtained some kind of certificate from our army For the sake of glory, we should use this situation to promote the unity of the people, but this is illegal in enemy territory and should be used very covertly and to a limited extent.At present, all illegal activities and illegal struggles in cities and arteries should be limited to not hindering and destroying our legal organizations and legal struggles.This is somewhat different from the struggle between legal and illegal ties in the guerrilla areas near the base areas.Legal struggles in guerrilla areas are often used to cover the activities and existence of illegal guerrillas, but in cities and arteries, the opposite is true, and illegal struggles should always be subordinated to legal struggles.Propaganda work in enemy areas should also be carried out in many legal forms, using various legal newspapers, periodicals and books, and using various legal slogans.All kinds of illegal propaganda should also be carried out, but the method should be seriously considered.At present, word-of-mouth propaganda is the main method, and even the method of spreading rumors can be used.The distribution of illegal leaflets, books, and newspapers should be carefully organized.In short, in terms of urban work methods, two biases should be opposed: one is careless, irresponsible, yelling, and reckless adventurism; Tailism method of carrying out mass work.The correct method is to contact and unite as many people as possible within all possible and legal scope, to improve the awareness and organization of the masses, and to hide elite secret organizations and secret activities among the masses in the legitimate activities of the masses.Before the uprising, all forms of organization and struggle should avoid fixed and systematic forms and adopt various indeterminate and decentralized methods in order to win more victories and reduce damage.

Fifth, about cadres.It is necessary to have a large number of cadres to carry out the work of cities and communication arteries.The cadres who are currently working in the cities and the veteran cadres who have worked in the cities in the past should try to make them continue to take on this kind of work, but let them absorb new experience and use new methods to work under the new policy.Secondly, in the two-sided struggle in the enemy-occupied areas near the various base areas over the past few years, a large number of Party and non-Party cadres who are good at conducting legal struggles have been tempered. Many of them have a wealth of knowledge and are good at dealing with the enemy, deceiving the enemy, and conducting legal struggles Yes, some even surpassed our veteran cadres who worked in the cities during the Civil War.Many of them are able to get a foothold in the coolies of urban laborers and other occupations. These cadres should be well trained and used.As long as these people have the means to gain a foothold in big cities, medium-sized cities and major transportation routes, and are able to work, some of them should be selected for short-term training and sent to work, whether they are intellectuals, workers, farmers or other occupations, Or party and non-party cadres can be.And there are many such cadres in the base areas.Thirdly, some people from each base area often went to the enemy-occupied cities to do business, work, and seek business, especially in northern Jiangsu and Jiaodong. Every year, hundreds of thousands of people went to Shanghai, Hangzhou, and cities in Manchuria[2] to make a living.Therefore, various urban work cadres should be found and trained from among these people.In addition, among the prisoners of the puppet army, some cadres can also be trained and sent back.The gentry in the base areas who live in the city can also give him some mission and name to go to the city to do activities.Even those who are not easy to find out because of some political suspicion in the base area, they can also be sent to the enemy-occupied cities to conduct some independent activities to investigate him.Among all kinds of cadres, special attention should be paid to training local cadres in various cities and districts, and cadres who have gone out should regard themselves as guides and caretakers of local cadres.In the base areas, cadres who have grown up and lived in cities and main roads can also be found, trained and sent back.In short, we should let go of using various cadres to carry out various tasks, and make the various tasks of various people be carried out separately, not mixed together, and done in multiple and separate ways.But at the same time, it is necessary to maintain the leanness, purity and reliability of the party's secret organization, and establish a majority of the party's reliable strongholds in all large, medium and small cities, as well as on railways and highways, as the leading backbone of the great urban work, forming the party's leading backbone The situation combined with the broad masses of the people.In addition, in the base areas, responsible party, government, military, and civilian cadres at all levels should earnestly study and study urban work, study urban armed uprisings and the struggle art of internal and external cooperation, study the establishment of urban revolutionary order, control of cities and large Industry and commerce, as a preparation for seizing and managing big cities and communication arteries in the future.

Sixth, about funding.There must be a large amount of funds to carry out the work of the city and the main transportation routes. As long as it does not cause waste of cadres and employment concepts of urban workers, all necessary funds should be fully paid.Various organizations in each base area should be allowed to be reimbursed for the necessary expenses for urban and transportation arteries.In the budget of each base area, a sufficient fund for urban work should be prepared.It is also possible to use the method of sending capital to cities and important roads to do business, and using the profits as working expenses.

5. The opinions on the above-mentioned specific issues should be studied by the bureaus and committees according to the local conditions, flexibly applied to actual work, and fully utilized in future work.Only when these specific problems are completely resolved, can the city and traffic arteries achieve remarkable results and move towards the destination of the armed uprising. Central Committee of the Communist Party of China Published on June 5th based on the mimeograph kept by the Central Archives. -------------------------------------------------- ------------------------------ note

[1] This is an inner-party directive drafted by Mao Zedong for the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China. [2] This refers to Northeast China.