Zhang Guotao had, on April 17, in Wuhan, unilaterally withdrawn from the Chinese Communist Party. Over the years, Zhang Guotao had committed numerous errors within the Party, resulting in grave harm. Most notably, in 1935 he launched an open struggle against the Central Committee and set up a rival “pseudo-Central Committee” of his own, thereby undermining the Party’s unity and revolutionary discipline and inflicting heavy losses on the Chinese revolution. Even after the Central Committee issued the general line for the Anti-Japanese National United Front, he consistently expressed dissatisfaction and skepticism. During the Xi’an Incident, he advocated a policy of civil war and cast doubt on the Central Committee’s peaceful approach. This time, without the Central Committee’s permission, he left his post on his own initiative and fled to Wuhan, publicly voicing distrust in the Party’s general line for the Anti-Japanese National United Front, despairing about the bright future of the Chinese revolution, and engaging in various acts calculated to sabotage national anti-Japanese unity. Despite the Central Committee’s repeated efforts to bring him to his senses and induce him to return to Party work, he showed no sign of repentance. In the end, he formally declared in writing that he was severing all ties with the Party. Such conduct by Zhang Guotao was, of course, by no means accidental; it represented the inevitable final outcome of his long-standing opportunist errors.

In order to consolidate the Party’s iron discipline, the CPC Central Committee has decided to expel him from the Party and to make this decision public. April 18, 1938. Sixteenth Plenary Session of the CPC. Teaching Reference Materials on the History of the CPC (III). People’s Publishing House, 1979, p. 10.