Speech at the Enlarged Meeting of the Political Bureau of the CPC Central Committee[1]

(September 12, 1935)

The strategic policy of developing northward decided by the Standing Committee of the Central Committee is submitted to the Political Bureau for approval. There are comrades who oppose this policy, advancing an opportunist line of their own, represented by Zhang Guotao. The Central Committee has waged many struggles with Zhang Guotao and has thought of many ways to get close to him and correct his warlordist tendencies, but without result. As for Zhang Guotao, we must do all we can to work on him and win him over. It will be necessary to make an organizational conclusion in the end, but this should not be done right away. The Central Committee should continue to uphold the policy of going north. After the joining of the First and Fourth Front Armies, a Soviet area should have been established in Sichuan, Shaanxi, and Gansu. But now only the main force of the First Front Army—the First and Third Army Corps—is going north. Therefore, our present basic policy is to pass through guerrilla warfare, to open up communications with the international community, to reorganize and rest our forces, to expand the Red Army, and to first create a base area in a place close to the Soviet Union, and then to develop eastward in the future.

The struggle with Zhang Guotao is a divergence between two lines; it is a struggle between Bolshevism and warlordist

[1] On September 12, 1935, the Political Bureau of the CPC Central Committee held an enlarged meeting in Er’ga. Mao Zedong delivered a report on the controversy with Zhang Guotao, leader of the Fourth Front Army, and on the current policy for action, and made conclusions. Selection One is part of the report; Selection Two is part of the conclusions.

tendencies. Zhang Guotao represents a developing warlordist tendency that may develop in the future to the point of betraying the revolution. This is unprecedented within the Party. As for the present strategic policy, it has changed from the plan of creating a base area in Sichuan, Shaanxi, and Gansu, because the First and Fourth Front Armies have already separated. Zhang Guotao’s move south has caused considerably serious losses to the Chinese revolution. But we are not moving toward a decline; rather, through guerrilla warfare, we will strike out on a large scale. The first victory in one or several provinces cannot be denied. This is so now, and it will be so in the future, except that it will be not in Jiangxi, but in Shaanxi and Gansu.

Internal Party Document

Decision Concerning the Errors of Comrade Zhang Guotao

In his conversations with the Central Committee, Comrade Zhang Guotao did not put forward any new opinions regarding our Party’s policies and the current organizational situation. However, when speaking on the organizational problems of our Party, he did raise certain erroneous opinions. He said that our Party’s organization is not sufficiently sound and not sufficiently strict. He put forward many erroneous views regarding our Party’s organizational problems, especially regarding the problem of our Party’s army.

We do not express agreement with these views of his. We firmly believe that under the leadership of the Communist Party of China, and through prolonged struggle, the organization of our Party will certainly become still more sound and still more strict. Yet, if views such as those put forward by Zhang Guotao were to prevail, then our work would encounter very great difficulties. Therefore, we must uphold the correct political orientation and continue to strengthen ideological construction within the Party, so as to ensure that our Party can victoriously fulfill its own historical tasks.