The book holds twenty-five pieces, one per page, in chronological order. The twenty-three main-body pieces come first; the two appendices follow. A divider row in the Contents table lets the reader tell at a glance which two are not by Mao.
Each page, top to bottom, is: introduction, the full original text, background notes, and related themes. The introduction states the piece's time of writing, its genre and the matter it describes; the original is arranged in paragraphs as in the base text; background notes explain people, institutions, places and events, and on the longer pieces one is inserted about every twelve paragraphs.
The paragraph order of the original is preserved; subheadings within a piece are set as their own headings, so citations can be located by paragraph. The shortest, the 'Order of the President of the PRC', is three lines; the longest, 'On the New Stage', is over two hundred and sixty paragraphs; both stand as independent pages.
Three switches are independent of one another: the Traditional/Simplified toggle only changes glyphs; the glossary toggle controls the pop-up annotations on terms; the background-note toggle controls the notes inserted in the text and the right column. None affects another — you may turn on only one. (The Chinese edition carries a fourth, a Chinese/English toggle; these English pages show the English title and abstract directly.)
The base text was downloaded piece by piece as plain text from Wikisource's 'Category: Mao Zedong'. Part of it was in simplified Chinese, part in traditional, so the glyphs of this layer are mixed. Choices about the Chinese text follow the base: which pieces to include, and where each begins and ends, are both decided by it.
The traditional-script display layer is generated mechanically from the base, not hand-corrected. The method is OpenCC simplified-to-traditional conversion, then a variant-character table that unifies several variant forms into the common glyph. Obvious scanning artefacts in the base are also preserved and not silently changed on the page.
The simplified layer is not on disk; it is produced at run time by the browser, which converts the traditional page to simplified by a character table. So the Traditional/Simplified button affects only the display, not the base text, and does not change the character count or paragraphing used for citation.
This compiled edition carries no full English translation of the body, because none of the included pieces has a public-domain translation that could be attached. Each piece offers only an English title and a one-line English abstract, shown directly at the top of its page on this English tree. Readers who need a full translation should seek one elsewhere.
A written code governing land. In the texts it turns on three acts — confiscation, distribution and levy — fixing per-capita and labour-power standards for allotting fields, township and district area standards, and a ban on buying and selling once distribution is done.
A transliteration of the Russian word for 'assembly'; here it denotes the organs of power of workers', peasants' and soldiers' deputies. The texts show three levels — township, district and county — and at times simply call it the government.
The name of the armed forces led by the Communist Party in this period. After 1937 they were reorganised into the Eighth Army and the New Fourth Army of the National Revolutionary Army, and after the victory in the War of Resistance took the name People's Liberation Army.
The common name for the Second Civil-War period: the stage in which armed force overthrew the landlord class and gave the fields to the peasants. The texts mostly use it to periodise the decade after 1927.
A region from which armed forces operate, raise provisions and build political power. The texts also say 'Soviet area' or 'border area' for the same kind of place.
A political alliance of different classes, parties and groups for one common goal. Most instances in the texts are the KMT–CCP cooperation of the War of Resistance.
The wartime alliance, built on KMT–CCP cooperation, that united the country's forces against Japan. Sun Yat-sen's three principles were often cited as its intellectual foundation.
A strategy that does not seek to decide the issue in a single campaign but wears the enemy down over time. Its opposite in the texts is the quick-decision line that denies any long process.
The view that the enemy is strong and we are weak, that resistance must fail, and that compromise or surrender is therefore called for. The texts pair it with a line that underestimates the difficulties; both are named as errors to oppose.
The view that the war can be won in a short time, without a long process. The texts say it has no basis either in the enemy's situation or in our own.
A way of fighting in which dispersed small units harass the enemy's rear, mobilise the population and build centres of political power. The texts describe it as the main form of fighting in the stalemate stage.
Regions controlled and administered during the War of Resistance by the CCP-led army and government, where its policies were carried out. The figures for population, army and militia given in the texts refer to these areas.
A central government composed of representatives of the parties and of non-party figures. The texts distinguish a provisional body during the war from a formal one afterwards.
The term the texts use for the character of the Chinese revolution at this stage: a revolution led by the proletariat, with the popular masses as its main body, opposed to imperialism and feudalism — and the political system that goes with it.
Sun Yat-sen's three principles — nationalism, democracy and the people's livelihood. The texts cite them as one intellectual basis of KMT–CCP cooperation in the war.
Correcting the Party's habits of thought and work through study and criticism. When the texts mention it they usually mention two steps as well: studying documents and checking oneself against them.
A habit of mind that starts from books and formulas and never connects with the actual conditions of one's own country.
A habit of mind that acts on scattered personal impressions without ever summing them up systematically.
Judging situations and directing work by imagination, without investigation and study. The texts note that it tends to breed suspicion and unprincipled disputes.
The idea of fighting only on the move, unwilling to build stable rural political power and supply areas. The texts set the old cases of Huang Chao and Li Zicheng against it.
A policy of cutting troop numbers and administrative organs to lighten the people's burden. It was proposed by Li Dingming at the assembly of the Shaan–Gan–Ning Border Region.
The rural policy of the war years: reduce rents and loan interest while guaranteeing that rent and interest are still paid.
The nationwide campaign of high-target production and construction begun in 1958. The author of the appended letter discusses its achievements and its problems in two separate parts.
The enlarged meeting of the Politburo of the CCP Central Committee held at Lushan, Jiangxi, in July 1959. The appended letter was written during that conference.