7th National Congress of the Chinese Communist Party

Discussions and reports

During the 7th National Congress, Mao Zedong delivered his April 1945 report On the Coalition Government which expanded on the principles of New Democracy he had formulated in his earlier essay On New Democracy.

During the Congress, Mao described the Communist Party's guerilla warfare as "sparrow tactics":

In the early phase of the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression, our prowess was like that of a little finger. How did we grow our prowess? With sparrow warfare, guerilla warfare. Sparrows fly wherever they can find food ... Even though sparrows are opportunists that follow food, even though they are little, when you add them up, they amount to 910,000 strong. Will we be sparrows forever? Long live the sparrow? History has proven that our sparrow is no ordinary sparrow; it can grow into an eagle. In ancient Chinese mythology, there is an eagle that can fly from the North Sea to the South Sea with one swoop of its wings. We will be like that too and grow to three million, five million. Our little sparrow will grow into an eagle swooping up all of China with its wings.