这次我到豫陕鄂区来,看到情况很好,这是这里的党政军各同志努力的结果,也是从去年七月起全国性反攻的结果。
On this visit to the Henan-Shaanxi-Hubei Border Area I find the situation very good, the result not only of efforts made by all the Party, government and army comrades here, but also of the countrywide counter-offensives launched in July last year.
大家希望我谈一谈最近的形势,我想,就拿我们豫陕鄂区根据地的雏形已经具备这个事实,也大体上可以说明问题了。
I have been asked to talk about the current situation and I think the existence of the embryonic Henan-Shaanxi-Hubei Border Area confirms, on the whole, what I have just said about the situation.
九个月来,全国战局有了新的发展,各个区都无例外地转入反攻。
Over the past nine months there has been a new development in the war situation nationwide; our army has switched to counter-offensive in every area.
我们由黄河到长江跃进了一千里。
We have advanced five hundred kilometers from the Yellow River to the Yangtze River.
这个跃进的意义可不要小看了,中国从北到南没有多少个一千里,从长江再跃进一千里就到了广东、福建的边界,下剩不到一千里了,蒋介石的反动政权就要垮台了。
We cannot underestimate the significance of this advance, for China is only a few thousands of kilometers from north to south.
Another such advance will bring us to the border of Guangdong and Fujian provinces, with less than five hundred kilometers left and the collapse of Chiang Kai-shek's reactionary regime imminent.
这个跃进的事实表明战略形势起了巨大变化,正如毛主席在《目前形势和我们的任务》的报告中所说的,由于我们的反攻,已经扭转了战争的车轮。
The present advance is indicative of the tremendous change that has taken place in the strategic situation, and as noted by Chairman Mao in his report “The Present Situation and Our Tasks”, our counter-offensive has turned the war around.
我们击破了蒋介石的反革命计划,使之由进攻转为防御,由外线转到内线,而我们则由防御转为进攻,由内线转到外线,改变了战略形势。
We have thwarted Chiang Kai-shek's counter-revolutionary plan, forcing him to go from the offensive to the defensive and from exterior to interior lines; at the same time, we have moved from the defensive to the offensive and from interior to exterior lines, thus changing the strategic situation.
我们几个野战军出来以后,是吃了苦头的,特别是大别山的部队遇到了好多困难。
Since our field armies moved to exterior lines, they have suffered hardships, with troops in the Dabie Mountains, in particular, encountering many difficulties.
豫陕鄂的部队情况好一些,但总没有在太岳内线那样舒服。
Conditions are somewhat better for troops operating in the Henan-Shaanxi-Hubei Border Area, but they still feel that things are not so easy as before when they were fighting on interior lines in the Taiyue area.
事实证明,反攻是恰当其时的,迟了就要犯错误。
Facts have shown that the counter-offensive was launched at just the right moment and that it would have been a mistake if we had delayed it.
因为蒋介石的反革命战略方针是要把战争扭在解放区打,这是他从长期反人民战争中得到的经验。
This is because Chiang Kai-shek's counter-revolutionary strategy is to continue with the war in the liberated areas, an experience he gained from his protracted war against the people.
如果有同志参加过十年苏维埃时期的内战,就会懂得这一点。
Comrades who took part in the civil war during the ten-year Soviet period can understand this point.
那时不管在中央苏区,还是鄂豫皖苏区或湘鄂西苏区,都是处于敌人四面包围中作战。
During those years, whether we were fighting in the Central Soviet Area, the Hubei-Henan-Anhui Soviet Area or the Western Hunan-Hubei Soviet Area, we found ourselves encircled by the enemy on all sides.
敌人的方针就是要扭在苏区边沿和苏区里面打,尽情地消耗我苏区的人力、物力、财力,使我们陷于枯竭,即使取得军事上若干胜利,也不能持久。
The enemy's policy was to keep the fighting centred around or in the Soviet areas, trying to exhaust the manpower, material supplies and financial resources in our Soviet areas and make it impossible for us to fight on even if we were victorious in some military operations.
在反对敌人的第五次“围剿”时,要是按照毛主席的方针,由内线转到外线,将敌人拖出苏区之外去打就好了,那样苏区还是能够保持,红军也不致被迫长征。
During the campaign against the enemy's fifth “encirclement and suppression”, if we had moved from interior to exterior lines, dragging the enemy out of the Soviet areas in accordance with the principle formulated by Chairman Mao, the outcome would have been better -- the Soviet areas would have been preserved and the Red Army would not have been forced to begin the Long March.
可惜“左”倾机会主义者不这样做,中了蒋介石的计。
Unfortunately, the “Left” opportunists didn't do it that way and fell into Chiang Kai-shek's trap.
这次蒋介石又想用这个办法对付我们,扭在解放区打,来削弱我们的人力、物力、财力,使我们不能持久,封锁我们不能出来,好使他保持三万万人口的后方完整而不受损失,来供应他作战。
This time Chiang Kai-shek wanted to resort to the same trick of restricting the fight to the liberated areas in an attempt to exhaust our manpower, material supplies and financial resources and make it impossible for us to carry on the fight and move out of the liberated areas, so that he could keep his rear area, with a population of 300 million, out of the war and obtain supplies from the area for his military operations.
这个如意算盘是高明的,但是还有更高明的毛主席,他从确定自卫战争的方针时起早就看清这一点。
Although Chiang Kai-shek is shrewd in his calculations, we have our Chairman Mao, who is even wiser and saw through them as early as when he began to formulate the concept of the principle for the war of self-defence.
他告诉我们,开始必须在内线打,打到一定时候,也就是削弱敌人到相当程度之后,就要打到外线,到蒋管区去打。
He pointed out to us that we should start by fighting on interior lines and then carry the war to exterior lines, that is, to the Kuomintang areas after we had weakened the enemy considerably.
因为在战争初期,我们的装备还不够优良,作战经验还不丰富,内线便于消灭敌人,便于组织和发展我们的力量,便于积累经验,所以先在内线打是完全必要的,也是取得了胜利的。
Since, in the initial stage of the war, we were not equipped well enough and still lacked experience in military operations, it was more convenient for us to wipe out the enemy, organize and expand our forces and accumulate experience by fighting on interior lines.
Therefore, it was the only choice to fight on interior lines first; in fact, we have already had some victories.
从一九四六年七月到一九四七年六月,我们全国各个战场在第一年的自卫战争中,消灭了一百一十二万敌人。
In the first year of the war of self-defence, from July 1946 to June 1947, we annihilated a total of 1.12 million enemy troops on all the battle fronts in the country.
我们把分散的游击部队组成了野战军,积累了丰富的作战经验。
We organized the dispersed guerrilla units into field armies and accumulated a wealth of experience in military operations.
这时时机成熟了,就应该转到外线,否则就要吃亏。
This is the right moment for us to carry the war to exterior lines; otherwise, we shall suffer setbacks.
拿冀鲁豫来说,经过一年的内线作战,农民的鸡、猪、牲口看见的不多了,村里的树也少了,试问,扭在解放区打,我们受得了吗?
After fighting on interior lines in the Hebei-Shandong-Henan Border Area for one year, for example, the number of chickens, swine and draught animals raised by the local peasants dropped sharply, as also did the number of trees in the villages.
We may well ask whether we can afford to restrict the fighting to the liberated areas.