Speech at a Meeting of the Political Bureau of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China[1]

(August 24, 1939)

1. The work in the South is extensive local work and united front work. The work has been done well, and the work in the various provinces has achieved results. These results were achieved under the leadership of Zhou Enlai. The weaknesses of the work in the South are: the Party is not consolidated, the mass movement is not deep-going, and there is no greater development of the middle strata within the united front.

2. Sun Yat-sen’s Three Principles of the People are the Three Principles of the People of a petty-bourgeois nature. The main political programme of the stage of the bourgeois-democratic revolution is identical with that of our Party, but the entire political programme of the whole revolution is not identical with the programme of our Party. The attitude of the Chinese Communist Party toward the Three Principles of the People is, first, to recognize them theoretically, recognizing that the Three Principles of the People are a necessity for China today and are the political foundation of the Anti-Japanese United Front. Second, to implement them in practice; the work of the Eighth Route Army, the New Fourth Army, the Border Region, and the Party all carry out the Three Principles of the People, this common programme. We must openly call for, propagate, and explain the Three Principles of the People; otherwise, we cannot support the left wing and win over the masses. The starting point of all tactics must not be divorced from the majority in the Kuomintang. The Three Principles of the People themselves cannot develop into socialism; Ye Qing’s[2] theory of the peaceful transformation of the Three Principles of the People is erroneous. Whether it is necessary to openly propagate the points of similarity and difference between the Three Principles of the People and communism—I believe it is necessary. When the Kuomintang retreats and hinders the development of the united front, the danger lies in fearing that opposing friction will destroy the united front, in not knowing the necessity of opposing friction, and in forgetting

[1] This is part of a speech by Mao Zedong during discussions at a meeting of the Political Bureau of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China on the reports by Zhou Enlai and Bo Gu (Qin Bangxian).

[2] Ye Qing, originally named Ren Zhuoxuan, once joined the Chinese Communist Party, later betrayed it, and served as Vice Minister of the Propaganda Department of the Kuomintang Central Committee.

distinctiveness; when friction becomes acute, the danger may most easily lie in forgetting identity, forgetting the Three Principles of the People and united front tactics.