AND TAIYUAN

 November 12, 1937

[This was the outline for a report made by Comrade Mao Tse-tung in Yenan,
in November 1937 at a meeting of Party activists. It met with immediate
opposition from the Right opportunists in the Party, and not until
the Sixth Plenary Session of the Sixth Central Committee in October 1938
was the Right deviation basically overcome.]


I. THE PRESENT SITUATION IS ONE OF TRANSITION  A WAR
  OF PARTIAL RESISTANCE TO A WAR OF TOTAL RESISTANCE


1. We support any kind of war of resistance, even though partial, against
the invasion of Japanese imperialism. For partial resistance is a step forward
from non-resistance, and to a certain extent it is revolutionary in character
and is a war in defence of the motherland.

2. However, a war of partial resistance by the government alone without the
mass participation of the people will certainly fail, as we have already
pointed out (at the meeting of Party activists in Yenan in April of this
year, at the Party's National Conference in May, and in the resolution
[1] of the Political Bureau of the Central Committee
in August). For it is not a national revolutionary war in the full sense,
not a people's war.

3. We stand for a national revolutionary war in the full sense, a war in
which the entire people are mobilized, in other words, total resistance.
For only such resistance constitutes a people's war and can achieve the goal
of defending the motherland.

4. Although the war of partial resistance advocated by the Kuomintang also
constitutes a national war and is revolutionary in character to a certain
extent, its revolutionary character is far from complete. Partial resistance
is bound to lead to defeat in the war; it can never successfully defend the
motherland.

5. Herein lies the difference in principle between the stand of the Communist
Party and the present stand of the Kuomintang with regard to resistance.
If Communists forget this difference in principle, they will be unable to
guide the War of Resistance correctly, they will be powerless to overcome
the Kuomintang's one-sidedness, and they will debase themselves to the point
of abandoning their principles and reduce their Party to the level of the
Kuomintang. That would be a crime against the sacred cause of the national
revolutionary war and the defence of the motherland.

6. In a national revolutionary war in the full sense, in a war of total
resistance, it is essential to put into effect the Ten-Point Programme for
Resisting Japan and Saving the Nation proposed by the Communist Party, and
it is essential to have a government and an army that will enforce this programme
in its entirety.

7. The situation after the fall of Shanghai and Taiyuan is as follows:

  (1) In northern China, regular warfare in which the Kuomintang played the
  chief role has ended, and guerrilla warfare in which the Communist Party
  is playing the chief role has become primary. In Kiangsu and Chekiang Provinces,
  the Japanese aggressors have broken through the Kuomintang's battle lines
  and are advancing on Nanking and the Yangtse valley. It is already clear that
  the Kuomintang's partial resistance cannot last long.

  (2) In their own imperialist interests, the governments of Britain, the United
  States and France have indicated that they will help China, but so far there
  has been only verbal sympathy and no practical aid whatsoever.

  (3) The German and Italian fascists are doing everything to assist Japanese
  imperialism.

  (4) The Kuomintang is still unwilling to make any fundamental change in its
  one-party dictatorship and autocratic rule over the people, through which
  it is carrying on partial resistance.


This is one side of the picture. The other side is seen in the
following:

  (1) The political influence of the Communist Party and the Eighth Route Army
  is spreading fast and far, and they are being acclaimed throughout the country
  as "the saviours of the nation". The Communist Party and the Eighth Route
  Army are determined to keep up the guerrilla warfare in northern China, so
  as to defend the whole country, tie down the Japanese aggressors and hinder
  them from attacking the Central Plains and the Northwest.

  (2) The mass movement has developed a step further.

  (3) The national bourgeoisie is leaning towards the left.

  (4) Forces favouring reforms are growing within the Kuomintang.

  (5) The movement to oppose Japan and aid China is spreading among the people
  of the world.

  (6) The Soviet Union is preparing to give practical assistance to China.


This is the other side of the picture.

8. Therefore, the present situation is one of transition from partial to
total resistance. While partial resistance cannot last long, total resistance
has not yet begun. The transition from one to the other, the gap in time,
is fraught with danger.

9. In this period, China's partial resistance may develop in one of
three directions:

The first is the ending of partial resistance and its replacement by total
resistance. This is what the majority of the nation demands, but the Kuomintang
is still undecided.

The second is the ending of armed resistance and its replacement by capitulation.
This is what the Japanese aggressors, the collaborators and the pro-Japanese
elements demand, but the majority of the Chinese people oppose it.

The third is the coexistence of armed resistance and capitulation in China.
This could come about as a result of the intrigues of the Japanese aggressors,
the collaborators and the pro-Japanese elements to split China's anti-Japanese
front when they find it impossible to attain the second direction. They are
now engineering something of this kind. Indeed this danger is very grave.

10. Judging from the present situation, the domestic and international factors
which prevent capitulationism from winning out have the upper hand. These
factors include: Japan's persistence in its policy of subjugating China,
which leaves China no alternative but to fight; the existence of the Communist
Party and the Eighth Route Army; the wishes of the Chinese people; the wishes
of the majority of the Kuomintang members; the anxiety of Britain, the United
States and France lest capitulation by the Kuomintang damage their interests;
the existence of the Soviet Union and its policy of helping China; the high
hopes which the Chinese people place (not without foundation) in the Soviet
Union. The proper and co-ordinated use of these factors would not only
frustrate capitulationism and splitting but also overcome the obstructions
to any advance beyond partial resistance.

11. Therefore, the prospect of going over from partial to total resistance
does exist. To strive for this prospect is the urgent common task of all
Chinese Communists, all progressive members of the Kuomintang, and all the
Chinese people.

12. China's anti-Japanese national revolutionary war is now confronting a
grave crisis. This crisis may be prolonged, or it may be overcome fairly
quickly. Internally, the decisive factors are Kuomintang-Communist co-operation
and a change in Kuomintang policy on the basis of this co-operation, and
the strength of the worker and peasant masses. Externally, the decisive factor
is assistance from the Soviet Union.

13. Political and organizational reform of the Kuomintang is both necessary
and possible.[2] The main reasons are Japanese
pressure, the Chinese Communist Party's united front policy, the wishes of
the Chinese people, and the growth of new forces inside the Kuomintang. Our
task is to work for this reform of the Kuomintang as a basis for reforming
the government and the army. This reform undoubtedly requires the consent
of the Central Executive Committee of the Kuomintang, and we are only in
a position to offer suggestions.

14. The government should be reformed. We have proposed the convening of
a provisional national assembly, which is likewise both necessary and possible.
Undoubtedly this reform also requires the consent of the Kuomintang.

15. The task of reforming the army consists in building up new armies and
reforming the old armies. If a new army of '50,000 to 300,000 men imbued
with a new political spirit can be built up within six to twelve months,
the situation on the anti-Japanese battlefield will begin to mend. Such an
army would influence all the old armies and rally them around itself. This
would provide the military basis for the turn to the strategic counter-offensive
in the War of Resistance. This reform likewise requires the Kuomintang's
consent. The Eighth Route Army ought to have an exemplary role to play in
the course of this reform. And the Eighth Route Army itself should be expanded.


II. CAPITULATIONISM MUST BE COMBATED BOTH INSIDE THE PARTY
  AND THROUGHOUT THE COUNTRY


INSIDE THE PARTY, OPPOSE CLASS CAPITULATIONISM


16. In 1927 Chen Tu-hsiu's capitulationism led to the failure of the revolution.
No member of our Party should ever forget this historical lesson written
in blood.

17. With regard to the Party's line of an anti-Japanese national united front,
the main danger inside the Party before the Lukouchiao Incident was "Left"
opportunism, that is, closed-doorism, the reason being chiefly that the
Kuomintang had not yet begun to resist Japan.

18. Since the Lukouchiao Incident the main danger inside the Party is no
longer "Left" closed-doorism but Right opportunism, that is, capitulationism,
the reason being chiefly that the Kuomintang has begun to resist Japan.

19. Already in April at the Yenan meeting of Party activists, then again
in May at the National Conference of the Party, and especially in August
at the meeting of the Political Bureau of the Central Committee (the Lochuan
meeting), we posed the following question: Will the proletariat lead the
bourgeoisie in the united front, or the bourgeoisie the proletariat? Will
the Kuomintang draw over the Communist Party, or the Communist Party the
Kuomintang? In relation to the current specific political task this question
means: Is the Kuomintang to be raised to the level of the Ten-Point Programme
for Resisting Japan and Saving the Nation, to the level of the total resistance
advocated by the Communist Party? Or is the Communist Party to sink to the
level of the Kuomintang dictatorship of the landlords and bourgeoisie, to
the level of partial resistance?

20. Why must we pose the question so sharply? The answer is:

On the one hand, we have the Chinese bourgeoisie's proneness to compromise;
the Kuomintang's superiority in material strength; the declaration and the
decisions of the Third Plenary Session of the Central Executive Committee
of the Kuomintang, which slander and insult the Communist Party and cry out
for "an end to the class struggle"; the Kuomintang's yearning for "the
capitulation of the Communist Party" and its widespread propaganda to this
end; Chiang Kai-shek's attempts to place the Communist Party under his control;
the Kuomintang's policy of restricting and weakening the Red Army and the
anti-Japanese democratic base areas; the plan concocted during the Kuomintang's
Lushan Training Course [3] in July "to reduce the
Communist Party's strength by two-fifths in the course of the War of Resistance";
the attempts of the Kuomintang to seduce Communist cadres with offers of
fame and fortune and wine and women; the political capitulation of certain
petty-bourgeois radicals (represented by Chang Nai-chi
[4]); etc.

On the other hand, we have the uneven theoretical level among Communists;
the fact that many of our Party members lack the experience of co-operation
between the two parties gained during the Northern Expedition; the fact that
a large number of Party members are of petty-bourgeois origin; the reluctance
of some Party members to continue a life of bitter struggle; the tendency
towards unprincipled accommodation with the Kuomintang in the united front;
the emergence of a tendency towards a new type of warlordism in the Eighth
Route Army; the emergence of the problem of Communist participation in the
Kuomintang government; the emergence of a tendency towards excessive
accommodation in the anti-Japanese democratic base areas; etc.

We must sharply pose the question of who is to lead and must resolutely combat
capitulationism in view of the grave situation described above.

21. For several months now, and especially since the outbreak of the War
of Resistance, the Central Committee and Party organizations at all levels
have waged a clear-cut and firm struggle against capitulationist tendencies,
actual or potential, have taken various necessary precautions against them
and have achieved good results.

The Central Committee has issued a draft resolution
[5] on the problem of Communist participation in
the government.

A struggle has been started against the tendency towards new warlordism in
the Eighth Route Army. This tendency is manifest in certain individuals who,
since the redesignation of the Red Army, have become unwilling to submit
strictly to Communist Party leadership, have developed individualistic heroism,
taken pride in being given appointments by the Kuomintang (i.e.,
in becoming officials), and so forth. The tendency towards this new type
of warlordism has the same root (the reduction of the Communist Party to
the level of the Kuomintang) and the same result (the alienation of the masses)
as the tendency towards the old type of warlordism, which expressed itself
in beating and abusing people, violating discipline, etc.; it is particularly
dangerous because it is occurring in the period of the Kuomintang-Communist
united front, and it therefore calls for special attention and determined
opposition. Both the system of political commissars, which was abolished
because of Kuomintang intervention, and the system of political departments,
which were renamed "political training offices" for the same reason, have
now been restored. We have initiated and staunchly carried out the new strategic
principle of "independent guerrilla warfare in the mountain regions with
the initiative in our own hands", thus basically ensuring the Eighth Route
Army's successes in fighting and in its other tasks. We have rejected the
Kuomintang's demand that its members should be sent to the Eighth Route Army
units as cadres and have upheld the principle of absolute leadership of the
Eighth Route Army by the Communist Party. Similarly, we have introduced the
principle of "independence and initiative within the united front"in the
revolutionary anti-Japanese base areas. We have corrected the tendency towards
"parliamentarism" [6] (of course not the
parliamentarism of the Second International, which is absent in the Chinese
Party); we have also persisted in our struggle against bandits, enemy spies
and saboteurs.

In Sian we have corrected the tendency towards unprincipled accommodation
in our relations with the Kuomintang and have developed the mass struggle
anew.

In eastern Kansu we have on the whole done the same as in Sian.

In Shanghai we have criticized Chang Nai-chi's line of "issuing fewer calls
and offering more suggestions" and begun to correct the tendency towards
excessive accommodation in the work of the national salvation movement.

In the guerrilla zones in the south--these representing part of the gains
of our decade of sanguinary warfare with the Kuomintang, our strategic
strongholds for the anti-Japanese national revolutionary war in the southern
provinces, and our forces which the Kuomintang tried to wipe out by "encirclement
and suppression" even after the Sian Incident, and which it has tried to
weaken by the newer method of "luring the tiger out of the mountains" even
after the Lukouchiao Incident--we have taken special care (1) to guard against
concentrating our forces regardless of circumstances (which would suit the
Kuomintang's desire to destroy these strongholds), (2) to reject Kuomintang
appointees, and (3) to be on the alert against the danger of another Ho Ming
Incident [7] (i.e., the danger of being
surrounded and disarmed by the Kuomintang).

Our attitude in the Liberation Weekly
[8] has continued to be one of serious
and fair criticism.

22. In order to persevere in armed resistance and win final victory as well
as to turn partial resistance into total resistance, it is necessary to adhere
to the Anti-Japanese National United Front and expand and strengthen it.
No views disruptive of the Kuomintang-Communist united front will be tolerated.
We must still guard against "Left" closed-doorism. But at the same time we
must closely adhere to the principle of independence and initiative in all
our united front work. Our united front with the Kuomintang and other parties
is based on the execution of a definite programme. Without this basis there
can be no united front, and in that case co-operation would become unprincipled
and a manifestation of capitulationism. Thus the key to leading the anti-Japanese
national revolutionary war to victory is to explain, apply and uphold the
principle of "independence and initiative within the united front".

23. What is our purpose in all this? In one respect, it is to hold the ground
we have already won, for this ground is our strategic point of departure
and its loss would mean the end of everything. But our chief purpose is to
extend the ground already won and realize the positive aim of "winning the
masses in their millions for the Anti-Japanese National United Front and
the overthrow of Japanese imperialism". Holding our ground and extending
it are inseparably connected. In the last few months, many more left-wing
members of the petty bourgeoisie have become united under our influence,
the new forces in the Kuomintang camp have grown, the mass struggle in Shansi
has developed, and our Party organizations have expanded in many places.

24. But we must clearly understand that generally speaking the organizational
strength of our Party is still quite small in the country as a whole. The
strength of the masses in the country as a whole is also very small, because
the workers and peasants, the basic sections of the masses, are not yet
organized. All this is due to the Kuomintang's policy of control and repression
on the one hand and the inadequacy of our own work or even its complete absence
on the other. This is the fundamental weakness of our Party in the present
anti-Japanese national revolutionary war. Unless we overcome this weakness,
Japanese imperialism cannot be defeated. To this end we must apply the principle
of "independence and initiative within the united front" and overcome all
tendencies towards capitulation or excessive accommodation.

IN THE COUNTRY AS A WHOLE, OPPOSE NATIONAL
  CAPITULATIONISM


25. The above points deal with class capitulationism. This tendency would
lead the proletariat to accommodate itself to bourgeois reformism and bourgeois
lack of thoroughness. Unless it is overcome, we cannot succeed in carrying
forward the anti-Japanese national revolutionary war, in turning partial
resistance into total resistance and in defending the motherland.

But there is also the other kind of capitulationism, national capitulationism,
which would lead China to accommodate herself to the interests of Japanese
imperialism, make China a Japanese colony and turn the Chinese people into
colonial slaves. This tendency has now appeared in the right wing of the
Anti-Japanese National United Front.

26. The left wing of the Anti-Japanese National United Front is composed
of the Communist-led masses, which include the proletariat, the peasantry
and the urban petty bourgeoisie. Our task is to do our utmost to extend and
consolidate this wing. The accomplishment of this task is the basic prerequisite
for reforming the Kuomintang, the government and the army, for establishing
a unified democratic republic, for turning partial resistance into total
resistance and for overthrowing Japanese imperialism.

27. The intermediate section of the Anti-Japanese National United Front is
composed of the national bourgeoisie and the upper stratum of the petty
bourgeoisie. Those for whom the leading Shanghai newspapers speak are now
tending towards the Left, [9] while some members
of the Fu Hsing Society have begun to vacillate and some members of the C.C.
Clique are also wavering. [10] The armies resisting
Japan have learned severe lessons, and some have begun or are preparing to
introduce reforms. Our task is to help the intermediate section to move forward
and change its stand.

28. The right wing of the Anti-Japanese National United Front consists of
the big landlords and big bourgeoisie, and it is the nerve centre of national
capitulationism. It is inevitable that these people should tend towards
capitulationism, for they fear both the destruction of their property in
the war and the rise of the masses. Many of them are already collaborators,
many have become or are ready to become pro-Japanese, many are vacillating,
and only a few, owing to special circumstances, are firmly anti-Japanese.
Some of them have joined the national united front for the time being under
compulsion and with reluctance. Generally speaking, it will not be long before
they split away. Indeed many of the worst elements among the big landlords
and big bourgeoisie are at this very moment engineering a split in the
Anti-Japanese National United Front. They are manufacturing rumours, and
stories such as "the Communists are engaged in insurrection" and "the Eighth
Route Army is in retreat" are sure to multiply daily. Our task is to combat
national capitulationism resolutely and, in the course of this struggle,
to expand and consolidate the left wing and help the intermediate section
to move forward and change its stand.

THE RELATION BETWEEN CLASS CAPITULATIONISM AND NATIONAL
  CAPITULATIONISM


29. Class capitulationism is actually the reserve force of national
capitulationism in the anti-Japanese national revolutionary war; it is a
vile tendency that lends support to the camp of the right wing and leads
to defeat in the war. We must fight this tendency inside the Communist Party
and the proletariat and extend the fight to all spheres of our work, in order
to invigorate the struggle against national capitulationism, and in order
to achieve the liberation of the Chinese nation and the emancipation of the
toiling masses.

NOTES


1. This refers to the "Resolution on the Present Situation
and the Tasks of the Party" adopted by the Political Bureau of the Central
Committee of the Chinese Communist Party at its meeting in Lochuan, northern
Shensi, on August 25, 1937. The full text reads as follows:

  (1) The military provocation by the Japanese aggressors at Lukouchiao and
  their occupation of Peiping and Tientsin represent only the beginning of
  their large-scale invasion of China south of the Great Wall. They
  have already begun their national mobilization for war. Their propaganda
  that they have "no desire to aggravate the situation"is only a smokescreen
  for further attacks.

  (2) Under the pressure of the Japanese aggressors' attacks and the Chinese
  people's indignation, the Nanking government is beginning to make up its
  mind to fight. General defence arrangements and actual resistance in some
  places have already started. Full-scale war between China and Japan is
  inevitable. The resistance at Lukouchiao on July 7 marked the starting point
  of China's national war of resistance.

  (3) Thus a new stage has opened in China's political situation, the stage
  of actual resistance. The stage of preparation for resistance is over. In
  the present stage the central task is to mobilize all the nation's forces
  for victory in the War of Resistance. The winning of democracy, which was
  not accomplished in the previous stage because of the Kuomintang's unwillingness
  and the inadequate mobilization of the people, is a task that must be fulfilled
  in the course of the struggle for victory in the War of Resistance.

  (4) Our differences and disputes with the Kuomintang and other anti-Japanese
  groups in this new stage are no longer about whether to wage war of resistance
  but about how to win victory.

  (5) The key to victory in the war now lies in developing the resistance that
  has already begun into a war of total resistance by the whole nation. Only
  through such a war of total resistance can final victory be won. The Ten-Point
  Programme for Resisting Japan and Saving the Nation now proposed by our Party
  spells out concretely the way to win final victory in the War of Resistance.

  (6) A great danger lurks in the present state of resistance. The main reason
  for this danger is that the Kuomintang is still unwilling to arouse the whole
  people to take part in the war. Instead, it regards the war as the concern
  of the government alone, and at every turn fears and restricts the people's
  participation in the war, prevents the government and the army from forming
  close ties with the people, denies the people the democratic right to resist
  Japan and save the nation, and refuses to reform the government apparatus
  thoroughly and to turn the government into a national defence government
  of the whole nation. A war of resistance of this kind may achieve partial
  victories, but never final victory. On the contrary, it may end in grievous
  failure.

  (7) The existence of serious weaknesses in the War of Resistance may lead
  to many setbacks, retreats, internal splits, betrayals, temporary and partial
  compromises and other such reverses. Therefore it should be realized that
  the war will be an arduous and protracted war. But we are confident that,
  through the efforts of our Party and the whole people, the resistance already
  started will sweep aside all obstacles and continue to advance and develop.
  We must overcome all difficulties and firmly fight for the realization of
  the Ten-Point Programme for victory proposed by our Party. We must firmly
  oppose all wrong policies which run counter to it and combat national
  defeatism and the pessimism and despair it engenders.

  (8) Together with the people and the armed forces under the leadership of
  the Party, members of the Communist Party must actively take their stand
  in the forefront of the struggle, become the core of the nation's resistance
  and do their utmost to develop the anti-Japanese mass movement. They must
  never for a moment relax or miss a single opportunity to do propaganda among
  the masses and to organize and arm them. Victory in the War of Resistance
  Against Japan will be certain provided the masses in their millions are really
  organized in the national united front.


2. In the initial period of the War of Resistance, the
Kuomintang and Chiang Kai-shek made a number of promises to introduce various
reforms under popular pressure, but very quickly broke them one after another.
The possibility that the Kuomintang might introduce the reforms desired by
the whole people was not actualized. As Comrade Mao Tse-tung said later in
"On Coalition Government":

All the people, including the Communists and other democrats, earnestly hoped
that the Kuomintang government would seize the opportunity, at a time when
the nation was in peril and the people were filled with enthusiasm, to institute
democratic reforms and put Dr. Sun Yat-sen's revolutionary Three People's
Principles into practice. But their hopes came to nought. (See Selected
Works of Mao Tse-tung, Eng. ed., FLP, Peking, 1965, Vol. III, p. 263.)

3. The Lushan Training Course was set up by Chiang Kai-shek
at Lushan, Kiangsi Province, to train high and middle-ranking officials of
the Kuomintang party and government to form the core of his reactionary regime.

4. Chang Nai-chi was then advocating "issuing fewer calls
and offering more suggestions". But it would have been useless merely to
submit "suggestions" to the Kuomintang, since it was following a policy of
oppression. Calls had to be made directly to the masses, in order to arouse
them to struggle against the Kuomintang. Otherwise, it would have been impossible
to keep up the war against Japan or to resist Kuomintang reaction. Chang
Nai-chi was wrong on this point, and gradually he realized his mistake.

5. This refers to the "Draft Resolution of the Central
Committee of the Communist Party of China Concerning the Communist Party's
Participation in the Government" which was drawn up on September 25, 1937.
The full text reads as follows:

  (1) The present situation in the anti-Japanese war urgently requires a united
  front government representing the whole nation, for only such a government
  can effectively lead the anti-Japanese national revolutionary war and defeat
  Japanese imperialism. The Communist Party is ready to participate in such
  a government, that is, to undertake administrative responsibilities in the
  government directly and officially and play an active part in it. But such
  a government does not yet exist. What exists today is still the government
  of the Kuomintang one-party dictatorship.

  (2) The Communist Party of China can participate in the government only when
  it is changed from a one-party dictatorship of the Kuomintang into a united
  front government of the whole nation, that is, when the present Kuomintang
  government (a) accepts the fundamentals of the Ten-Point Programme for Resisting
  Japan and Saving the Nation proposed by our Party and promulgates an
  administrative programme in accordance therewith; (b) begins to show by deeds
  the sincerity of its efforts to carry out this programme and achieves definite
  results; and (c) permits the legal existence of Communist Party organizations
  and guarantees the Communist Party freedom to mobilize, organize and educate
  the masses.

  (3) Before the Central Committee of the Party decides to participate in the
  Central Government, members of the Communist Party must not as a rule participate
  in any local government or in any administrative councils or committees attached
  to the administrative organs of the government, central or local. For such
  participation would only obscure the distinctive features of the Communist
  Party, prolong the Kuomintang's dictatorship and hinder rather than help
  the effort to bring a unified democratic government into being.

  (4) However, members of the Communist Party may participate in the local
  governments of certain particular regions, such as battle areas, where the
  old authorities find it impossible to rule as before and are on the whole
  willing to put the Communist Party's policies into effect, where the Communist
  Party is free to operate openly, and where the present emergency makes Communist
  participation a necessity in the opinion both of the people and of the
  government. Still more so in the Japanese-occupied areas, the Communist Party
  should come forward openly as the organizer of the anti-Japanese united front
  governments.

  (5) Before the Communist Party officially joins the government, it is permissible
  in principle for Party members to participate in representative bodies, such
  as an all-China national assembly, for the purpose of discussing a democratic
  constitution and policies to save the nation. Thus, the Communist Party should
  strive to get its members elected to such assemblies and use them as a forum
  for propagating the Party's views, so as to mobilize the people and rally
  them round the Party and promote the establishment of a unified democratic
  government.

  (6) Given a definite common programme and the principle of absolute equality,
  the Central Committee of the Communist Party or its local branches may form
  united front organizations with the Central Executive Committee of the Kuomintang
  or its local headquarters, such as various joint committees (e.g., national
  revolutionary leagues, committees for mass movements and committees for
  mobilization in the war zones), and through such joint activities the Communist
  Party should achieve co-operation with the Kuomintang.

  (7) With the redesignation of the Red Army as part of the National Revolutionary
  Army and the change of the organ of Red political power into the Government
  of the Special Region, their representatives may, by virtue of the legal
  status they have acquired, join all the military and mass organizations which
  further the resistance to Japan and the salvation of the nation.

  (8) It is most essential to maintain absolutely independent Communist Party
  leadership in what was originally the Red Army and in all the guerrilla units,
  and Communists must not show any vacillation on this matter of principle.


6."Parliamentarism" here refers to the proposal of some
Party comrades that the system of political power in the revolutionary base
areas, the system of people's representative conferences, should be changed
into the bourgeois parliamentary system.

7. The Ho Ming Incident took place after the outbreak of
the anti-Japanese war. In October 1934, when the Central Red Army moved
northward, Red Army guerrilla units stayed behind and maintained guerrilla
warfare in extremely difficult circumstances in fourteen areas in the eight
southern provinces of Kiangsi, Fukien, Kwangtung, Hunan, Hupeh, Honan, Chekiang
and Anhwei. When the anti-Japanese war began, these units, acting on instructions
from the Central Committee of the Chinese Communist Party, entered into
negotiations with the Kuomintang for the cessation of civil war and organized
themselves into a single army (namely, the New Fourth Army which later stubbornly
fought the Japanese on the southern and northern banks of the Yangtse River)
and moved to the front to resist Japan. But Chiang Kai-shek plotted to exploit
these negotiations for the purpose of wiping out the guerrilla units. Ho
Ming was one of the guerrilla leaders in the Fukien-Kwangtung border area
which was one of the fourteen guerrilla areas. He was not on the alert against
Chiang Kai-shek's plot, with the result that more than one thousand of the
guerrillas under his command were surrounded and disarmed by the Kuomintang
forces after they assembled.

8. Founded in Yenan in 1937, the Liberation Weekly
was the organ of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China.
It was superseded by the Liberation Daily in 1941.

9. They were that section of the national bourgeoisie for
whom newspapers like the Shanghai Shen Pao served as a vehicle.

10. The Pu Hsing Society and the C.C. Clique, two fascist
organizations within the Kuomintang, were headed by Chiang Kai-shek and Chen
Li-fu respectively. They served the oligarchic interests of the big landlords
and the big bourgeoisie. But many petty-bourgeois elements had joined them
under compulsion or had been duped into joining. The text refers to the section
of the Fu Hsing Society consisting mainly of lower and middle-ranking officers
in the Kuomintang army and to the section of the C.C. Clique consisting
mainly of members not in power.


Transcription by the Maoist Documentation Project.