The Causes of the Reactionary Attitude of the
Shanghai Minguo Ribao and the Handling of
This Matter by the Central Executive
Committee of the Guomindang

(December 20, 1925)

Since November 20, the day the newspaper published the text of the circular
telegram of the Beijing meeting of rightists, the Shanghai Minguo ribao, directed
by Ye Chucang¹ and other Guomindang rightists, has publicly proclaimed the
fact that it has become an organ of the reactionaries. It has proclaimed the fact
that it has broken away from the revolutionary Guomindang, compromised with
the imperialists and warlords, and become one of their propaganda organs. We
are not in the least surprised by the reactionary attitude of the Shanghai Minguo
ribao, because it was formerly a newspaper of Ye Chucang and other individuals. Only after last year's First National Congress was it taken over by the party,
yet from the very beginning it could not be an organ for Guomindang opinion. It
often refused to publish, or made cuts in, what it regarded as "extreme" anti-imperialist and antiwarlord writings; it hid the evil of the imperialists and warlords
and praised them in every possible way; it proved unable to propagate to the
slightest extent the revolutionary policies of the Guomindang and of the national
government. During the war in Jiangsu and Zhejiang last year, this newspaper
completely abandoned its Guomindang identity and became a mouthpiece of Lu
Yongxiang and the Anfu clique. When the Nanyang Tobacco Company made
several thousand of its workers unemployed² and turned them into homeless
Zedong ji. Bujuan, Vol. 2, pp. 139-40.
early member of the Tongmenghui, was a cofounder in 1915 of the Minguo ribao (Republican Daily), which served as the mouthpiece of Sun Yatsen and the Guomindang cause.
In January 1924, at the First Congress of the reorganized Guomindang, he was elected a
member of the Central Executive Committee and director of the Department of Youth and
Women in the party's Shanghai Executive Bureau. In November 1925 he attended the
Western Hills Conference of Guomindang conservatives, but by 1926 he was already back
in Guangzhou as secretary general of the Central Political Council.
1924 resulted in many workers being laid off. The strike was supported by the Communist
Party, but curbed by the moderate-led workers' club and by the Federation of Labor
Organizations. The Minguo ribao attacked the strikers.


wanderers, this paper gave enormous publicity to the arguments of the capitalists
in justification of their oppression of the workers, while reports from the
workers' side were either simply rejected or only carried after cuts had been
made. In the May Thirtieth Movement this year, the Shanghai Minguo ribao's
anti-imperialist propaganda fell far short of that in the official newspaper of the
Research clique.³ During the past few months, this paper has refused to publish
many important news items about matters in Guangdong such as the anti-imperialist movement, the struggle against the warlords, and the elimination of
counterrevolutionaries. In contrast, stories of Sun Chuanfang's⁴ military actions
filled its pages. All these were presages of this newspaper's turn toward reaction,
with which every revolutionary party member has long been extremely dissatisfied. So there is really nothing new; the paper has simply taken the occasion of
the Beijing meeting of rightists to declare 'formally' its reactionary stand. Since
it did this on November 20, the paper has daily made many propaganda attacks
on the left. This is naturally its duty, because without attacking the left it cannot
qualify as the official newspaper of the right, nor can it seek merit in the eyes of
the Municipal Council in Shanghai and of Duan Qirui in Beijing and get them to
recognize its counterrevolutionary position, or attain its reactionary goals. We
consider the reactionary attitude of the Shanghai Minguo ribao fully logical. It
demonstrates the strength of the Guomindang Left and the development of the
movement against imperialism and the warlords in China. It also demonstrates,
finally, that a close combat between Chinese revolutionaries and counterrevolutionaries has already been engaged, and that the success of China's
national revolution will come very soon. In China today, all the people and the
newspapers in the center must change their stand soon. Either they must go to the
left and join the revolutionary camp, or they must go to the right and join the
counterrevolutionary camp; it is simply no longer possible to go on wearing that
gray mask of neutrality. Having grasped this point, we can understand why the
Shanghai Minguo ribao has become reactionary; why recently papers such as the
Chenbao and Xingshi zhoubao have been attacking the Guomindang and the
Communist Party much more fiercely than before, and why the leaders of the
Guomindang right were obliged to meet in Beijing at the present time to counter
the Central Executive Committee and the national government in Guangzhou led
xinbao. See below, Mao's Report on Propaganda of January 1926.
warlords. In March 1923 he became military governor of Fujian, and in September 1924
military governor of Zhejiang. He then embarked on military exploits to increase his
power. By 1925 he was the strongest warlord of the Zhili clique, and in October he
appointed himself commander in chief of the allied armies of Jiangsu, Zhejiang, Jiangxi,
Anhui, and Fujian. In December he declared that provinces under his control would not be
subject to orders from Beijing. His power collapsed in 1927. For his role in the Jiangsu-Zhejiang War, see above, the note to the circular of September 10, 1924.

--- Notes

This text appeared in Zhengzhi zhoubao, No. 3, December 20, 1925. Our source is Mao

1. Ye Chucang (1883-1946), zi Xiaofeng, was a native of Jiangsu Province. Ye, an

2. A large-scale strike of workers at the Nanyang Tobacco Company in September

3. The "official" newspapers of the Research clique were the Chenbao and the Shishi

4. Sun Chuanfang (1884-1935), zi Xingyuan, was associated with the Zhili clique of