K. This is the 1st working draft of vol. VI. It still ... - From Marx to Mao

152 MAO TSE-TUNG
although they yearn for help, they cannot obtain it.
But, at such a time, the most important task of the popular masses
is to spy out the direction in which the enemy is withdrawing, in
order to ascertain whether or not there may be an ambush or a feigned
retreat intended to encircle us from two sides, and report to us immediately
so that our army can pluck up courage and pursue the enemy
or devise a method of evading him.
(3) When the enemy halts, we harass him. When the enemy is
newly arrived in our territory, is not familiar with the terrain, does
not understand the local dialect, and is unable to gain any information
from the scouts he sends out, it is as though he had entered a
distant and inaccessible land. At such a time, we should increase
FROM MARX
TO MAO
our harassment — shooting off guns everywhere, to make him ill at
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ease day and night — so exercising a great influence on both his
mind and body under such circumstances. I fear that any army, however
overbearing, will begin to waver and will become weary. We
need only await the time when his spirits are wavering and his body
weary, and then, if our armies rush in all together, we can certainly
exterminate him completely.
17. DEALING WITH A WEAK ENEMY
NOT FOR
COMMERCIAL
Fighting as we are for the existence of our nation and the achievement
of the aims of guerrilla warfare — which are to destroy the
enemy and to stir up the courage of the popular masses — when we
are faced with a weak enemy, naturally we should unite with the
popular masses of the place in question to surround him and exterminate
him at one stroke.
DISTRIBUTION
18. AROUSING THE MASSES
There are always a good many among the popular masses who
forget the great cause for the sake of petty advantage. Frequently
having received great favors from the enemy, they act contrary to
conscience and aid the forces of evil. For this reason, before the
arrival of the enemy in a given place, we must do our utmost to whip
up the spirits of the popular masses, to rouse their will to resist and
to endow them with an unshakable resolve to fight to the end, with-