Can a Communist, who is an internationalist, at the same time be a patriot? We hold that he not only can be but must be. - Mao Zedong

人们要想得到工作的胜利即得到预想的结果，一定要使自己的思想合于客观外界的规律性，如果不合，就会在实践中失败。人们经过失败之后，也就从失败取得教训，改正自己的思想使之适合于外界的规律性，人们就能变失败为胜利，所谓“失败者成功之母”，“吃一堑长一智”，就是这个道理。

Between war and peace, the possibility of peace is greater. Currently the possibility of peace is greater than in the past. The strength of the socialist camp is greater than the past and the possibility of peace is greater than at the time of World War II. The Soviet Union is powerful and the national independence movement is our strong ally. The Western nations are not stable. The working class, a part of the bourgeoisie and the American people do not want war; therefore, the possibility of peace is greater than that of war. Nevertheless, there is also the possibility of war. There are the maniacs and imperialism wants to extricate itself from economic crises. The duration of atomic warfare today will be short, three instead of four years. We must be prepared. What should be done if war really comes? I want to discuss this problem. If there is war, we will fight. Let imperialism be swept clean and we will start construction again. Thereafter there will not be any more world war. Since a world war is possible, we must prepare for it. We must not spend our time napping. Do not be alarmed either if there should be war. It would merely mean getting people killed and we’ve seen people killed in war. Eliminating half of the population occurred several times in China’s history. The 50 million population in the time of Emperor Wu in the Han Dynasty was reduced to 10 million by the time of the Three Kingdoms, the two Chin Dynasties and the North and South Dynasties. The war lasted for decades and intermittently for several hundred years, from the Three Kingdoms to the North and South Dynasties. The Tang Dynasty began with a population of 20 million and did not reach 50 million until Emperor Xuan. And Lushan staged a revolt, and the country was divided into many states. It was not reunited until the Song Dynasty, some 100 or 200 years later, with a population of just over 10 million. I once discussed this with XX. I maintained that modern weapons were not as powerful as the big sword of China’s Guan Yunchang, but he did not agree with me. Not very many people were killed in the two World Wars, 10 million in the first and 20 million in the second, but we had 40 million killed in one war. So, how destructive were the big swords! We have no experience in atomic war. So, how many will be killed cannot be known. The best outcome may be that only half of the population is left and the second best may be only one-third. When 900 million are left out of 2.9 billion, several five-year plans can be developed for the total elimination of capitalism and for permanent peace. It is not a bad thing.

Under the leadership of their democratic governments, all the anti-Japanese people in the Liberated Areas of China are called upon to join organizations of workers, peasants, youth and women, and cultural, professional and other organizations, which will wholeheartedly perform various tasks in support of the armed forces. Those tasks are not limited to rallying the people to join the army, transporting grain for it, caring for soldiers' families and helping the troops in meeting their material needs. They also include mobilizing the guerrilla units, militia and self-defence corps to make widespread raids and lay land mines against the enemy, gather intelligence about him, comb out traitors and spies, transport and protect the wounded and take direct part in the army's operations. At the same time, the people in all the Liberated Areas are enthusiastically taking up various kinds of political, economic, cultural and health work. The most important thing in this connection is to mobilize everybody for the production of grain and other necessities and to ensure that all government institutions and schools, except in special cases, devote their free time to production for their own support in order to supplement the self-suffidency production campaigns of the army and the people and thus help to create a great upsurge of production to sustain the protracted War of Resistance. In China's Liberated Areas, the enemy has wrought great havoc, and floods, droughts and damage by insect pests have been frequent. However, the democratic governments there have been leading the people in overcoming these difficulties in an organized way, and unprecedented results have been achieved by the great mass campaigns for pest extermination, flood control and disaster relief, thus making it possible to persevere in the protracted War of Resistance. In a word, everything for the front, everything for the defeat of the Japanese aggressors and for the liberation of the Chinese people--this is the general slogan, the general policy for the whole army and the whole people in the Liberated Areas of China.