Conversation with American Journalist Robert Martin
(February 1939)
[1]
China needs democracy to persist in the War of Resistance. It needs not only an elected parliament but also an elected government. Implementing democracy can solve all problems, and it is imperative to lighten the people’s burdens—reduce taxes, reduce rents, reduce interest rates—so that the people can live in peace and contentment and strive to increase production.

Japan now finds itself in a predicament from which it is hard to extricate itself and is preparing to continue its offensive against Xi’an and other places. It is estimated that the first stage of the War of Resistance will conclude with the fall of Xi’an; the second stage will be a period when the Japanese forces are trapped and garrisoned in cities and towns; the third stage will be the period of driving the Japanese forces out of China. Guerrilla warfare will continue to develop, aimed at driving the Japanese invaders into the cities—Hankou, Shanghai, Nanjing, Beiping, and other places—and letting them stay there for three to seven years. They will have no food and will be unable to trade, and then they will be driven back to Tokyo.

The Communist Party’s present program has no fundamental conflict with the Three Principles of the People, but there are points of difference. The abolition of the private property system is the basic point of difference between the programs of the Kuomintang and the Communist Party. When China advances to socialism, if at that time Britain, the United States, France, and other countries remain capitalist states, and if these countries do not come to attack China, then the Chinese government will provide guarantees (with compensation) for foreign investments and the property of foreigners in China. The program implemented by the Chinese Communist Party in China is based on China’s needs, not on the rule of the Communist International over the Chinese Communist Party.

[1] One evening in February 1939, Mao Zedong met with Robert Martin, a correspondent for the United Press of America, and spoke with him for over two hours. Wu Qing from the Communications Section of the Administrative Office of the Anti-Japanese Military and Political University served as interpreter, and Martin took notes in English. Afterwards, based on his notes, Martin wrote 43 key points of Mao Zedong’s remarks in English, which Wu Qing then translated into Chinese and submitted to Mao Zedong for review through his secretary He Peiyuan. This is a portion of that conversation.