Interview with Edgar Snow on the United Front
(September 23, 1936)
Snow: Will you please explain the United Front policy of the Communist Party
and its change in attitude toward the Guomindang government?
Mao: Three main factors have influenced the decision leading to the policy
announced in our recent manifesto.¹
First of all the seriousness of Japanese aggression: it is becoming more intensified every day, and is so formidable a menace that before it all the forces of
China must unite. Besides the Communist Party, we recognize the existence of
other parties and forces in China, of course, and the strongest of these is the
Guomindang. Without its cooperation our strength at present is insufficient to
resist Japan in war. Nanjing must participate. The Guomindang and the Communist Party are the two main political forces in China, and if they continue to fight
now in civil war the effect will be unfavorable for the anti-Japanese movement.
Secondly, since last August (1935), the Communist Party has been urging, by
manifesto, a union of all parties in China for the purpose of resisting Japan, and
to this program the entire populace has responded with sympathy, notwithstanding the fact the the Guomindang has continued its attacks upon us.² Today the
Chinese people, as well as many patriotic officials, are eager to see the reunion
of the two parties for the purpose of national salvation. They are eager to see an
end to the civil war. Without it, the movement for resisting Japan is faced with
great obstacles.
The third point is that many patriotic elements, even in the Guomindang, now
favor a reunion with the Communist Party. Anti-Japanese elements even in the
Nanjing government, and Nanjing's own armies, are today ready to unite because of the peril to our national existence.
These are the main characteristics of the present situation in China, and because of them we are obliged to reconsider, in detail, the concrete formula under
which such cooperation in the national liberation movement can become possible. Such a formula has, in fact, been proposed in our recent negotiations with
Our source for this document is Edgar Snow's typewritten manuscript. For details, see the
source note to the interview of July 15, 1936. The text was first published on November
21, 1936, in the China Weekly Review.
Mao: Yes.
Snow: Does it mean that the present laws of the Soviets, especially on the land
question, will be nullified?
Mao: If and when the formation of a united front with Nanjing is realized, that
problem can easily be settled.
Of course, we realize that Japan and pro-Japanese elements in China will violently oppose this program. Its principles are directly opposed to their own interests.
But the Chinese people will welcome it, and we believe will fight to realize it.
Everyone who still has a conscience must feel that the alternative,³ which is subjugation by Japanese imperialism, means extinction for the Chinese people.
Part of the Guomindang, we know, is already opposed to accepting further
humiliation at the hands of the Japanese. Among the people, among all classes,
among army men, scientists, students, merchants, policemen, professional people, as well as among our own workers and peasants, there are already organized
anti-Japanese patriotic groups, and with these groups we want wholeheartedly to
shake hands and cooperate. We hope that such elements will form a united force
to overcome the influence of the Japanophiles and those who have betrayed the
guiding principles of Sun Yatsen. We hope that such elements will help to
restore and once more to realize Sun Yatsen's basic principles and his final will
in the Great Revolution [of 1924-1927], i.e. (1) alliance with the U.S.S.R. and
those countries which treat China as an equal, (2) union with the Chinese Communist Party, and (3) fundamental protection of the interests of the Chinese
working class. We hope such elements will help to realize the final will of Sun
Yatsen and oppose Japanese imperialism.
If such a movement develops in the Guomindang we are prepared to cooperate with and support it, and to form a united front against imperialism such as
existed in 1925-1927. We are convinced that this is the only way left to save
our nation. If such a program is realized we need not fear Japan. Japanese
imperialism is incapable of defeating a really united, armed, and organized Chinese people.
Meanwhile, however, Japan hopes to form an anti-Red front of her own. This
in reality means a front of subjugation for the Chinese people. We want to form a
national liberation front, and success for it will mean victory in the anti-Japanese
struggle, and a victory, ultimately, for world peace. For only by such a victory
can the Chinese people march hand in hand with all the free peoples of the earth.

Snow: What exactly do you mean by "representative" government? What, for
example, would you insist upon as the minimum demand for suffrage?

Mao: Suffrage should be universal, without any qualifications of property, position, education, or sex.

Snow: If such a program is accepted by Nanjing, will the Red Army agree to
change its name and submit to the higher command of Nanjing?

Mao: We recognize (as mentioned in an earlier interview) that in an anti-Japanese war there must be a unified command of the national armies, but we also
believe that the war council must be representative. It should be emphasized that
this is only possible on the basis of the anti-Japanese liberation front. Some
Guomindang members also talk of "unification," but not to support the national
liberation and anti-imperialist movement. In reality it is perfectly clear that without real anti-imperialist struggle there can be no unification of the country.
Whether or not the Red Army changes its name depends upon the conditions
of the reunion.

Snow: Does the new policy mean recognition by the Communist Party that national
liberation must be established before class revolution can be accomplished?

Mao: It is and has been all along a principle of the Communist Party that in this
stage the anti-imperialist drive must be realized, so that our emphasis on the
national struggle against Japan does not represent any new thesis. At the same
time, as already pointed out, we believe the anti-Japanese movement can only be
made effective if realized simultaneously with the liberation of the oppressed
peasantry and the realization of Sun Yatsen's third point, i.e. the protection of
the interests of the workers.

Snow: Does the United Front policy mean that the Communist Party is willing
to give up, or postpone indefinitely, the practice of land confiscation from landlords and redistribution to poor and landless peasants?

Mao: This will also have to be decided upon with the development of the
anti-Japanese movement. However, we are confident that the anti-Japanese program cannot be realized without relief to the peasantry. Agrarian revolution, as
you know, is of bourgeois character. It is beneficial to the development of
capitalism. We are not opposed to the development of capitalism now in China,
but against imperialism. This principle meets the demands of all democratic
elements in the country, and we support it wholeheartedly.

Snow: Would not the realization of the United Front on this basis in actual effect
mean an immediate declaration of war on Japan?

Mao: Yes, quite possibly if the reunion were proclaimed today, war might begin
tomorrow.6

Snow: So it is now only possible to conceive of acceptance of the program at
political prisoners. The Communist Party, I was also assured by Chairman Mao, would
be willing to agree not to organize mass movements opposed to the principles of the
National Salvation United Front, and not to "promote" class struggle. Edgar Snow.
Beiping, Nov. 5, 1936.
Nanjing if Chiang Kaishek really intends to go to war with Japan?
--- Notes

1. As indicated by Snow in a note to the manuscript, and to the published text, the
reference is to the "Letter to the Guomindang" of August 25, 1936, translated above.

2. As in the interview of July 16, certain passages critical of the Guomindang,
including the words italicized here, were omitted from the text as published in the China
Weekly Review.
the Guomindang. The fundamental point of unity which we insist upon is the
national liberation anti-Japanese principle. In order to realize it we believe there
must be established a National Defense Democratic Government, within a national defense democratic republic. Its main tasks must be (1) to resist the foreign invader, (2) to grant popular rights to the masses of the people, and (3) to
intensify the development of the country's economy.
Such a program fulfills the will of the people at present and has their unanimous support, and this is why the Soviet government favors the establishment of
such a united people's democratic government.
We will support a parliamentary form of representative government, an anti-Japanese salvation government, a government which protects and supports all
popular patriotic groups. If such a republic is established, the Chinese Soviets
will become a part of it. We will realize in our areas the same measures for a
democratic parliamentary form of government as realized in the rest of China.
Snow: Does that mean that the laws of such a government would also apply in
Soviet districts?

3. Here Snow has added a note reading: I.e., if the united front is not achieved and
civil war continues.

4. This remark, obviously aimed at Chiang Kaishek, is also omitted in the text as
published by the China Weekly Review.


5. See above, the interview of July 16, 1936.

6. The text of this interview as published in the China Weekly Review ends here. It is
followed by a note reading:
In conversation with various Soviet functionaries I was assured that the Soviet
government might agree to change the name of the Soviets, as well as that of the Red
Army. On the latter's banners already the inscription has been altered from "Workers
and Peasants Red Army" to "Chinese People's Anti-Japanese Vanguard Red Army." It
has been suggested in informal "Red-White" talks that the Soviet districts might change
their name to the "Experimental Areas" or "Special Administrative Districts." Generally
there seems to be a willingness among the Communists to make such changes in
nomenclature as might facilitate an agreement, but not fundamentally affect the
independent role of the Communist Party and the Red Army. The Communists evidently
will not insist upon representation in the Cabinet of the proposed "democratic republic."
They would be prepared to submit to its discipline. The point of universal suffrage
would perhaps not be insisted upon. But a central demand would be the guarantee of
civil liberties, of the rights of freedom of speech, press, and assembly, and the release of