I. The Current Situation Both the international and domestic situations indicate that we are now in a period of profound and momentous change.  (1) The defining feature of the current international situation is the struggle among three major blocs: the first is the fascist alliance of Germany, Italy, and Japan; the second is the imperialist alliance of Britain, France, and the United States; and the third is the Soviet Union’s peace front. The majority of countries in these two imperialist blocs have already entered a life-and-death struggle over the division of the world, while the Soviet-led peace front, thanks to the USSR’s formidable national strength and sound policies, has remained aloof from this imperialist war. This is the most fundamental characteristic of the present situation.  (2) The two opposing imperialist blocs, following Germany’s attack, Italy’s entry into the war, France’s surrender, and Britain’s withdrawal from the European continent, have fallen into a severe state of imbalance. Each side is currently reorganizing its forces in preparation for a new, massive conflict. Germany and Italy are preparing to launch an offensive against Britain, which is consolidating French colonial possessions to resist them, while Japan is gearing up to join the German–Italian front in the Pacific. Meanwhile, the United States is rapidly arming itself and moving toward war. There is a clear trend for the imperialist war to expand from Europe to a global scale, and the clashes among the imperialist powers show no sign of abating.  (3) The Soviet Union, having kept itself out of the imperialist war, is further addressing the consolidation of its security on the Baltic, Balkan, and Near Eastern fronts. It is also building up the greatest revolutionary force to confront the epoch-making events unfolding across the globe and to strive for lasting world peace.  (4) The unprecedentedly fierce imperialist war, which is disrupting the entire world order, is accelerating the revolutionary mobilization of the popular masses in all capitalist countries and of the oppressed peoples in the colonies. Revolution is brewing deeply throughout the world, particularly in Europe and India. The First International has rapidly collapsed, faith in the Communist Party is rapidly increasing among the masses, and the Soviet Union’s prestige among the peoples of the world is soaring.  (5) Since Japan has severed China’s southwestern international communication routes and is mounting a full-scale offensive, seeking to split China internally through intensified pressure and force it to surrender, the Chinese War of Resistance has entered a new phase. An era of unprecedented difficulty and grave danger of capitulation is upon us. At the same time, however, the possibility of overcoming the threat of surrender and improving the situation has also increased.  (6) The primary source of the threat of surrender is no longer the Anglo-American-French “Munich policy” in the East, but rather Japanese pressure, the encouragement Japan derives from the victories of Germany and Italy, and the potential for a pacification policy. Moreover, the Kuomintang’s stubborn anti-communist stance has greatly weakened its own position. Consequently, renewed splits within the KMT and the emergence of a new Wang Jingwei faction have become inevitable, and a sense of hopelessness will inevitably grow among the Chinese people.  (7) Nevertheless, both internationally and domestically there exist numerous favorable conditions that can help us carry out the task of averting surrender and effecting a turnaround. These conditions are as follows:  (i) Britain, the United States, and France are no longer significant factors inducing China’s surrender. Although they may wish to sacrifice China in order to safeguard Southeast Asia, Japan is no longer willing to take their orders. We can exploit the conflict between the Anglo-American-French and the German–Italian–Japanese imperialist blocs, especially the growing tensions between Japan and the United States in the Pacific.  (ii) Japan faces internal and external difficulties, and its military strength has been substantially weakened by our three years of resistance.  (iii) The unparalleled power of the Soviet Union and the development of the world revolutionary movement make the USSR a reliable friend of the Chinese War of Resistance. (These are the three external conditions.)  (iv) Our Party’s strength in the War of Resistance has greatly increased, which is the principal determining factor in overcoming surrender and achieving a favorable turn of events.  (v) The broad middle forces still retain their enthusiasm for the war effort. These include the majority of KMT members, the majority of officers in the National Revolutionary Army, most of the so-called “miscellaneous armies,” the intermediate bourgeoisie, small and medium landlords together with enlightened gentry, the upper petty bourgeoisie, and various small anti-Japanese parties.  (vi) The internal contradictions within the big landlord–big capitalist class, as well as its conflicts with the middle and petty bourgeoisie, prevent it from unitarily pursuing either surrender or the suppression of the Communists. (These are the three internal conditions.) All of these conditions provide us with ample opportunity to avoid the dangers of unified surrender and unified anti-communist repression, thereby gradually steering the situation toward improvement. The pessimistic mood within the Party regarding the current situation must be overcome by fully recognizing these conditions.  (8) The heightened threat of surrender and the increased possibility of a turnaround will manifest themselves in divisions within the anti-Japanese front. First, there will be a split among the big landlords and big capitalists: some, succumbing to Japanese pressure, the hardships of the war, and fear of the Communists and the masses, will inevitably break away to become collaborators; others, for various reasons—particularly due to our policies—may undergo a transformation and become more active anti-Japanese elements. Although such a transformation among certain sections of the big landlord–big capitalist class can only occur without undermining their fundamental class interests and cannot amount to a thoroughgoing change, it is nevertheless possible to extend the period of cooperation in the war effort. Second, divisions will also arise among the middle forces. Our task is to win over all those who are capable of change, to persuade the main body of the KMT to prolong its cooperation, and to isolate and expel all collaborators.  (9) The coming year will be an exceptionally difficult one. The entire Party must brace itself, become the core rallying point for the nation’s anti-Japanese forces, and earnestly and clearly implement the Central Committee’s policies in order to surmount the difficulties, avert the threat of surrender, and bring about a favorable turn of events.

II. Party Policy Based on the foregoing analysis of the international and domestic situations, the entire Party should adopt the following policies:  (1) The focus should not be on emphasizing the dangers of the Anglo-American-French “Munich policy” in the East, but rather on highlighting the risk that, under Japanese pressure, certain elements may become discouraged and resort to surrender. Instead of concealing the truth—as some in the KMT do, claiming “everything is to China’s advantage”—we must point out that the difficulties of the war and the threat of surrender are unprecedentedly severe, and call upon the people to fight to overcome these challenges.  (2) We must explain that the failure of Britain and France was due to their anti-Soviet and anti-communist stance, and draw a painful lesson from France’s surrender: if China were to pursue an anti-Soviet and anti-communist course in the future, it would inevitably repeat France’s fate. Past anti-communist policies have severely weakened our resistance forces; without changing this policy, victory in the war is out of reach.  (3) We should emphasize the favorable conditions for the war effort. In particular, we should highlight the strength of the Soviet Union, the propitious state of the world revolutionary movement, and the fact that China’s resistance capabilities are far superior to those of France. By publicizing the heroic achievements of the Chinese people over the past three years, we can counteract pessimism and isolate the collaborators.  (4) We must stress self-reliance. To this end, we should urge the KMT to change its approach to the war. For example, it should immediately convene a democratic National Assembly, abolish its anti-communist policies, abandon its secret police-style methods, and revise its erroneous fiscal, economic, cultural, educational, and military service policies. We should also publicize exemplary cases of the Eighth Route Army and the New Fourth Army relying on the people’s self-reliance.  (5) We must emphasize unity. In the recent past, we stressed the absolute necessity of self-defense, arguing that only by doing so could we repel the previous wave of anti-communist hysteria and prompt the recalcitrant elements to reconsider their positions. Now that this wave has subsided, we should once again emphasize unity, since our earlier struggles were precisely aimed at fostering it. Party members must understand that stressing unity does not mean ceasing all struggle. As long as the KMT continues its anti-communist policies, our struggle from a self-defense standpoint remains indispensable. However, our primary efforts should now be directed against genuine collaborators, rather than against recalcitrant elements in general. As certain recalcitrants begin to show signs of moderation following the decline of the anti-communist fervor, we should appeal to them to embrace unity in order to extend the period of cooperation.  (6) The development of our military forces—which is entirely necessary—should be confined to the combat zones, enemy rear areas, and the twenty-three counties of the Shaanxi–Gansu–Ningxia Border Region, and no actions that might provoke conflict should be undertaken in KMT-held rear areas. Some units are reluctant to penetrate deep behind enemy lines, and when the situation becomes critical, they seek to operate in KMT rear areas, attempting to revert to the guerrilla warfare practices of the civil war period. Such thinking is misguided.  (7) Among all friendly forces, including those of the National Revolutionary Army and the miscellaneous armies, in accordance with the resolution of the Sixth Plenary Session, we shall definitively and unconditionally cease developing Party organizations. All existing Party members shall suspend all organizational activities in order to build the Party’s credibility, expand our outreach efforts, and strive to retain one million friendly troops in the war effort. Any locality where these outreach efforts prove fruitless shall be subject to severe Party criticism.  (8) We hereby declare to the KMT and to the entire nation that we have not violated our own declaration of September 22, 1937—that is, our commitment to thoroughly realize the Three Principles of the People, to halt the land revolution, to abolish the policy of armed insurrection, to transform the Red Army into the National Revolutionary Army, and to convert the soviets into local democratic governments. We have consistently, and will continue to, resolutely uphold this pledge. In contrast, the KMT has repeatedly breached its own commitments—for example, concerning the legal right of political parties to exist, recognition of the border region issue, and implementation of the Three Principles of the People and the Program for Building the Nation Through Resistance—actions that are all inconsistent with its stated principles. We should therefore demand that the KMT fulfill its promises and refute the deceptive propaganda claiming that “the Communists have broken their word.”  (9) We must correct the left-leaning errors in implementing the united front policy. Over the past year, numerous left-wing deviations have occurred during the struggle against friction. For instance, in military operations, certain units failed to adhere to the principle of self-defense, indiscriminately attacking collaborators; in fiscal and economic work, excessively leftist policies led to infringements upon merchants’ property rights and arbitrary levies and donations. There has also been non-compliance with the principle of a united government embracing all classes, neglect of instructions to establish a “three-thirds” regime at the central level, short-sighted planning for base areas, inadequate care for these bases, and wasteful use of manpower and resources. Furthermore, there has been skepticism toward and failure to implement the central directive to “massively absorb intellectuals,” a tendency to rely solely on struggle rather than on unity when dealing with recalcitrant elements, a simplistic view of the KMT as being composed entirely of hardliners without recognizing that the majority of its members belong to the middle forces and that progressive elements constitute a significant minority, and even the erroneous practice of labeling moderate elements as hardliners and demanding that they exhibit the same level of progress as true progressives, thereby denying them their rightful status. Additionally, there has been a lack of trust in non-Party cadres, reluctance to engage with them, absence of habits of joint work, and instances of executing captured recalcitrants or assassinating informants. All of these represent manifestations of narrow-minded, left-leaning errors. If they are not rigorously corrected, the Party’s united front policy will be jeopardized. At the same time, however, we must not relax our vigilance against right-leaning deviations. Examples include a pessimistic outlook on the situation, unprincipled accommodation to the KMT, a passive attitude toward establishing anti-Japanese base areas and strengthening the resistance forces, a lack of alertness to KMT agents within our ranks, confusion regarding the differences between communism and the Three Principles of the People, the pursuit of personal enrichment and corruption among cadres, bureaucratic and formalistic tendencies in our work, and fear of self-criticism. Failure to address these issues will result in the loss of the Party’s independence and the erosion of its revolutionary prospects.  (10) We must intensify united front education throughout the Party. Members must understand that united front education constitutes an essential component of class education. They need to grasp both how the proletariat can achieve its own independence and how it can form a united front with other classes to oppose a common enemy. These two aspects are inseparable facets of Party education and must never be arbitrarily sacrificed. Many cadres within the Party still lack a clear understanding of the strategic dimensions of the united front, reducing complex issues to simplistic terms, which gives rise to various errors. Therefore, the entire Party must strengthen strategic education and overcome this tendency toward oversimplification. Such education should be incorporated into the official training curriculum for cadres and serve as an important criterion for evaluating their performance.  (11) We must continue to consolidate the Party’s work. The basic guiding principle remains consolidation rather than expansion, prioritizing quality over quantity. Cadres must be rigorously vetted, and any agents of the enemy or the KMT must be purged to effectively prevent infiltration. Within the Party, we should remove three categories of individuals: agents—both those planted by the enemy and those bought off by the KMT—speculators—those who enter the Party solely for personal gain and exhibit serious corruption and detachment from the masses—and laggards—nominal members who fail to attend meetings, pay dues, or perform any meaningful work. The remaining members should receive enhanced education. Party members must understand the distinct principles of “strict inside, lenient outside,” which complement each other. Currently, however, the opposite pattern prevails: the Party is relatively lenient internally, while it is strict externally. This phenomenon must be rectified.  (12) We must strengthen organizational work in all base areas. Some base areas, such as the Jin-Cha-Ji Border Region, already enjoy robust organizational structures, with well-established arrangements in the military, political, fiscal, economic, and cultural spheres. In many other regions, however, due to insufficient awareness of the need for long-term support, significant weaknesses persist. We must recognize that the struggle ahead will be exceptionally arduous and that sustained effort requires abandoning our previous haphazard, slapdash approach in favor of meticulous, planned organization, coupled with the consistent implementation of the Party’s correct policies in all areas; otherwise, failure is inevitable.  (13) We must continue to expand and consolidate the Eighth Route Army, the New Fourth Army, and the anti-Japanese guerrilla forces, as these constitute the most fundamental pillar of our victory in the war. Expansion should primarily target enemy-occupied territories. In areas where manpower and resources are already strained, the priority should be consolidation; in other areas, however, the emphasis should be on expansion combined with consolidation.  (14) In all operational zones of the Eighth Route Army and the New Fourth Army, we must resolutely implement the Central Committee’s directives on disintegrating enemy and puppet forces. Over the next year, we must demonstrate tangible results in this regard, bearing in mind that our achievements in this area over the past three years have been modest.  (15) In KMT-controlled areas, we must strictly enforce the Party’s policies of concealment and streamlining within our ranks. Outside these areas, we should pursue a broad united front strategy to expose and isolate the collaborators.  (16) In Japanese-occupied areas, we must carefully establish Party organizations and likewise adhere to policies of concealment and streamlining. Beyond the Party, our focus should be on meticulously organizing the masses, intensifying the workers’ movement, actively disintegrating enemy and puppet forces, and winning over double-dealers and collaborators, with the ultimate goal of isolating and ultimately eliminating Japanese collaborators.  (17) We must strengthen our work among overseas Chinese communities, seeking to establish contact with the national independence movements in India, Burma, the Dutch East Indies, Annam, Siam, and the Philippines, providing assistance wherever possible to ensure that their struggles are coordinated with ours. The Central Committee calls upon all Party comrades to resolutely fight for the implementation of the above-mentioned policies. If we succeed, then overcoming the difficulties, averting the threat of surrender, and bringing about a favorable turn of events will be assured. o()•