Revolutionary Heroism

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.

Give full play to our style of fighting - courage in battle, no fear of sacrifice, no fear of fatigue, and continuous fighting (that is, fighting successive battles in a short time without rest).

Thousands upon thousands of martyrs have heroically laid down their lives for the people. Let us hold their banner high and march ahead along the path crimson with their blood!

Be resolute, fear no sacrifice and surmount every difficulty to win victory.

At a critical moment in the progress of the Northern Expedition,… the treacherous and reactionary policies of “party purge” and massacre adopted by the Kuomintang authorities wrecked this national united front - the united front of the Kuomintang, the Communist Party and all sections of the people, which embodied the Chinese people’s cause of liberation - and all its revolutionary policies…

Thereupon unity was replaced by civil war, democracy by dictatorship, and a China full of brightness by a China covered in darkness. But the Chinese Communist Party and the Chinese people were neither cowed nor conquered nor exterminated.

They picked themselves up, wiped off the blood, buried their fallen comrades and went into battle again.

Holding high the great standard of revolution, they rose in armed resistance and over a vast territory in China they set up people’s governments, carried out land reform, built up a people’s army - the Chinese Red Army - andpreserved and expanded the revolutionary forces of the Chinese people.

You have many good qualities and have rendered great service, but you must always remember not to become conceited. You are respected by all, and quite rightly, but this easily leads to conceit.

If you become conceited, if you are not modest and cease to exert yourselves, and if you do not respect others, do not respect the cadres and the masses, then you will cease to be heroes and models. There have been such people in the past, and I hope you will not follow their example.

“We Must Learn to Do Economic Work” (January 10, 1945), Selected Works, Vol. III, p. 239.

In the fight to wipe out the enemy and to restore and increase industrial and agricultural production, you have overcome many difficulties and hardships and demonstrated immense courage, wisdom and initiative.

You are models for the whole Chinese nation, the backbone of the victorious advance of the people’s cause in all spheres, pillars of support to the People’s Government and bridges linking the People’s Government with the great masses.

Message of greetings on behalf of the Central Committee of the Chinese Communist Party to the Meeting of Representatives of National Combat Heroes and Model Workers (September 25, 1950).

We the Chinese nation have the spirit to fight the enemy to the last drop of our blood, the determination to recover our lost territory by our own efforts, and the ability to stand on our own feet in the family of nations.