Hail the Signal Victory of the Chinese People's Volunteers!
#PUBLICATION NOTE
This edition of Hail the Signal Victory of the Chinese People's Volunteers! has been translated, prepared, and revised for digital publication by the Institute of Marxism-Leninism-Maoism under the Central Committee of the Communist Party in Switzerland on the basis of the following editions:
- Hail the Signal Victory of the Chinese People's Volunteers!, in the Selected Works of Mao Zedong, First English Edition, Vol. 5, Foreign Languages Press, Beijing, 1977.
- Hail the Signal Victory of the Chinese People's Volunteers!, in the Collected Works of Mao Zedong, First Chinese Edition, Vol. 6, People's Publishing House, Beijing.
#INTRODUCTION NOTE
This is an order to the Chinese People's Volunteer Army drafted by Comrade Mao Zedong for the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China and its Military Commission on the 24th of October, 1952.
#Workers and oppressed people of the world, unite!
#HAIL THE SIGNAL VICTORY OF THE CHINESE PEOPLE'S VOLUNTEERS!
#ORDER TO THE CHINESE PEOPLE'S VOLUNTEER ARMY
#Mao Zedong
#24th of October, 1952
#★
#To Comrades Peng Dehuai, Deng Hua, Yang Dezhi, and Gan Siqi, and to the Leading Comrades of the Chinese People's Volunteer Army at All Levels
#To Be Forwarded to the Directors of All Bureaus and Sub-Bureaus of the Central Committee, All Greater Military Areas, All Departments of the Military Commission, and All Military Academies
Beginning on the 18th of September, our Volunteers, together with the Korean People's Army, initiated tactical counter-attacks on all fronts and have won a signal victory by annihilating and wounding more than 30'000 enemy troops in the space of a month. The Central Committee and its Military Commission send you and all commanders and fighters hearty congratulations. The operations can be summed up as follows:
- First, concentrating superior forces and firepower on a number of selected tactically critical points, springing surprise attacks, and wiping out the enemy by whole platoons, whole companies, whole battalions, or by the larger part of such units.
- Second, inflicting heavy casualties on the enemy in repeated operations as they mount counter-attacks.
- Third, firmly holding those captured strongpoints which can be held and abandoning those which cannot according to circumstances, so as to keep the initiative in our hands in preparation for future counter-attacks.
If such operations are kept up, we will have the enemy by the throat and force them to come to terms and end the Korean War. The losses inflicted on the enemy since July last year, when our forces started tenacious positional warfare, have far exceeded those inflicted on the enemy in the many campaigns of mobile warfare before then. On the other hand, our losses have greatly diminished. So far as casualties are concerned, the monthly average, to speak only of our Volunteers, has been reduced by over 2/3 in the 15 months since July last year, as compared with that in the previous eight months. This is due to the kind of operation mentioned above, which is carried out by relying on our positions. In the period since the 18th of September, operations of this kind have been carried out on the whole front more extensively and in a more organized way, and therefore, they deserve special attention.
On the occasion of the second anniversary of the Chinese People's Volunteer Army's entry into the war in Korea, we hope you will sum up your experience, further enhance your sense of organization, raise your tactical level and save ammunition, unite more closely with the Korean comrades and people, and strive for still greater victories in future operations.