The Great Significance of the December Ninth
Movement¹
(December 9, 1939)

Comrades: Today we are holding an assembly to commemorate the fourth anniversary of the
"December Ninth movement." All the young people filling this hall are fresh and
energetic. What a lively and vigorous meeting this is! This is not the first assembly
to commemorate the "December Ninth movement" in Yan'an, but since I was unable to attend those in the past, I am extremely happy to come to this meeting today.²
I think that things in China are easier to manage now. What are the things in
China? They include opposition to imperialism and to the dark forces. It has been
a hundred years now since the Chinese people began to fight against imperialism
and the dark forces in the Opium War. This is a very long time, and although this such a great Long March, and the student comrades had launched such a great
movement of national salvation in Beiping. Both of these were struggles for the
liberation of the nation and the people, and the direct significance of both lay in
promoting the War of Resistance Against Japan. Therefore, historically speaking,
the December Ninth movement was an extremely important aspect of the preparation for the anti-Japanese war.

Some people say that the December Ninth movement is not equal to the May
Fourth movement, that is to say, the political significance of the former is not as
great as that of the latter. Is this correct? No, it is incorrect. We think that the
significance of the two is equally great.

The May Fourth movement was the preparation for the Northern Expedition.
Without the May Fourth movement, the Northern Expedition would have been
unthinkable. Some people hold that student movements have no strength, but what
are the facts? The May Fourth movement of the broad student masses gave an
impetus to the struggle against imperialism and against the government that was
selling out the country, as manifested in the nationwide strike of workers, merchants, and students on "June 3," which developed into a movement of the whole
nation. After the May Fourth movement, the Chinese Communist Party emerged,
and this led to the first cooperation between the Guomindang and the Communist
Party, to the May Thirtieth movement, and to the Northern Expedition, thus bringing about the First Great Revolution. Thus it is very evident that without the May
Fourth movement, the First Great Revolution would have been impossible. The
May Fourth movement truly prepared public opinion, and people's hearts and
thoughts, as well as the cadres for the First Great Revolution.

As regards the December Ninth movement, it was the preparation for the great
War of Resistance Against Japan, just as the May Fourth movement was a preparation for the First Great Revolution. "December Ninth" pushed forward and prepared for the "July 7" War of Resistance Against Japan.

Let us consider the circumstances under which the December Ninth movement
took place. On the one hand, it took place in the territory ruled by the Guomindang,
in which the Communist Party was regarded as absolutely without authority or
legitimate status. It took place at the time of a war to "suppress the Communists"
by the Nationalist reactionaries, in an environment of military as well as cultural
"encirclement and suppression." In the previous so-called campaigns to "suppress
the Communists," the difficult situation of the Communist Party and that of the
Red Army was so obvious that we need say little about it. Later the Red Army
began the Long March, and once it began marching, it marched for 25,000 li.
There were also people behind, "seeing us off" for 25,000 li, as well as people
"greeting" us in front. To these must be added those who were "giving us gifts"
from the sky above; these gifts were called bombs. Although those who were
seeing us off did "see us off" trip after trip, and those who were greeting us did
"greet us" at every stop, the Red Army still arrived in northern Shaanxi. Yet the
enemy continued to use bullets as gifts to greet us in the front and see us off from
behind. That is to say that after arriving in northern Shaanxi, the Red Army was
still in a situation of being "encircled and suppressed." Such was the situation of
military "encirclement and suppression." How about the cultural "encirclement
and suppression?" The enemy's "blockhouses" were built in schools, and in books,
newspapers, and magazines, as well as in social, cultural, and educational societies, and it looked as if they were going to "go ahead steadily and strike sure blows,
and consolidate at every step." As far as this is concerned, it will suffice to read
Mr. Lu Xun's essays. His fighting essays criticizing and condemning the evils of
the time were aimed at opposing cultural "encirclement and suppression" and opposing the repression of young people's thought. On the other hand, the Japanese
imperialists had already occupied the Northeast and were discussing a "special
status for North China." Moreover, they were actively preparing to destroy all of
China. Consequently, every one of the 450 million people wanted to act and to
fight Japanese imperialism. Nonetheless, strangely enough, some people obstinately refused to agree. They also wanted to fight, but against whom did they want
to fight? They wanted to fight the Communist Party, the young students, and the
progressive people in intellectual circles. The common people of the whole country told them: Your direction of attack is wrong, we resolutely oppose it. This is
the other side of the circumstances in which the December Ninth movement took
place. After the December Ninth movement, things gradually became easier to
manage. With the peaceful resolution of the Xi'an Incident, the Guomindang
government's method of fighting only the Communist Party and not fighting Japanese imperialism was no longer feasible. Hence they had no choice but to give up
the policy of suppressing the Communist Party, and take the road of preparing for
a War of Resistance, which led to the Third Plenum of the Guomindang, and the
Anti-Japanese National United Front was actually proclaimed. The December Ninth
movement contributed greatly to these developments.

Here, there is one point to which we should pay special attention, namely, the
close relationship between the Long March of the Red Army and the December
Ninth movement. The December Ninth movement took place at the time when the
Red Army had arrived in northern Shaanxi on its march to the north to resist Japan. The victory of the 25,000-li Long March helped the December Ninth movement, while at the same time the December Ninth movement also helped the Red
Army. The combination of these two things helped to mobilize the people as a
whole for the War of Resistance, helped the Chinese nation, and advanced the
interests of the entire nation.

The August 1 Declaration by the Chinese Communist Party Central Committee5 called on the people of the whole country to resist Japanese imperialism and pushed forward the tide of the development of uniting the whole country for the
anti-Japanese war. The December Ninth movement took place in circumstances
when the Chinese Communist Party had published the August 1 Declaration, when
the Red Army had won some victories after arriving in northern Shaanxi, and
when Japanese imperialism was just then intensifying its invasion of China. The
broad mass of young students stood up and opposed the authorities' oppression of
them, opposed the invasion of China by Japanese imperialism, and demanded an
end to civil war and a unified resistance war against Japan. The outbreak of this
movement caused a sensation throughout the country. In conjunction with the Red
Army's Northern Expedition to resist Japan, it promoted domestic peace and the
War of Resistance Against Japan and turned the anti-Japanese movement into a
nationwide movement. Thus, the December Ninth movement was a movement
that mobilized the whole nation for a resistance war; it prepared the thoughts, the
human hearts, and the cadres for the War of Resistance. If we make a comparison
to the relationship between the May Fourth movement and the Northern Expedition, it is very plain that the relationship between the December Ninth movement
and the Resistance War Against Japan is closer, and the interval between them is
shorter, because the December Ninth movement was coordinated with the victory
of the Long March of the Red Army. In sum, the December Ninth movement will
become an extremely important date in Chinese history. After the December Ninth
movement, after the outbreak of the anti-Japanese war, it is much easier to pursue
the anti-imperialist cause in China.
Second, it is also much easier to oppose the oppression of young students and
intellectuals by the dark forces, and it is harder for the dark forces to oppress the
young students and intellectuals. This has been proved by the December Ninth
movement. The dark forces oppress progressive thought, but, in the end, the dark
forces always suffer defeat. Before the December Ninth movement, they had been
carrying on anti-Communist education for more than eight years, and it was carried out according to plan. Every course in the schools which had political tendencies had as its first principle opposition to the Communist Party and to Marxism.
Among the faculty, all those who were regarded as Communists and Marxists
were dismissed and oppressed. Beginning in the second half of 1927, they used
this kind of education and trained people for more than eight years. Most unfortunately, this training produced a "December Ninth." In the eyes of those anti-Communist gentlemen in the Guomindang, this was certainly a colossal misfortune.
Some people said that the December Ninth movement was a student rebellion.
The students accepted this point; it was indeed a rebellion. Nevertheless, against
whom did they rebel? They rebelled against those who oppressed the students, and
those who sought to "encircle and suppress" thought, as well as those who propagated false Three People's Principles. The purpose of their rebellion was to carry
out the real Three People's Principles, that is, the Three People's Principles of
uniting with the Soviet Union, uniting with the Communist Party, and assisting the
peasants and workers. They rebelled in order to eliminate all the obstacles to carrying out the real Three People's Principles. Was such a rebellion necessary or
not? The answer is yes, yes, and again yes.
There are really strange things in this world. Some people hit their heads against
a brick wall, but, afterward, they forget about it. Just consider that in the past some
people simply refused to recognize the May Fourth movement, yet today everybody recognizes it. Now there are some people who refuse to recognize the December Ninth movement, but in the light of the experience of the May Fourth
movement, at some future time, we cannot say exactly when, these people will
have to recognize the "December Ninth movement." If they persist in refusing to
recognize it, then we should ask them to choose the best of the thirty-six strategems,
or to put it in simple words, ask them to beat it! Because the world is always
moving forward, it is impossible to move backward. The Chinese people no longer
have pigtails, so they cannot pull us back even if they want to. The old and backward things will have to fall down and let the new and progressive things replace
them. If, in the midst of the tide of progress, they still refuse to recognize the
progressive December Ninth movement, and still want to look down upon this
movement, then they will certainly be out of luck.
The young students now understand more truths and are much cleverer than
when I was a young student. In the first few years after I went to school, I only
learned stuff like "it is written in the Book of Poetry," and "the Master says," and
in my heart I always thought that all those officials and emperors were good people.
Later, when I entered a school run by foreigners, I encountered revolution. It was
then that I learned that our master the emperor was no good, the capital of the
United States is Washington, and the capital of England is London. I also heard
about things such as x plus y equals z, molecules, atoms, and electrons. Now you
know not only these things but also Marxism! At that time I did not know anything
about Marx. This is one of the proofs that the present is more progressive than the
past. During World War I, the upper strata wanted to join Britain and France of the
Entente to attack Germany and Austria. Their speeches were beautifully delivered, and indeed some people were fooled. In 1918, when World War I ended,
China also held a meeting in Beijing. At the meeting a tablet was set up, upon
which the four characters [meaning] "universal truth is victorious" were inscribed.
This was of great renown and influence for a time and confused the minds of some
people for a time. Now things are different. China is forever moving forward. The
people of China have now already come to understand the major events in the
world, they understand revolutionary principles. They have understood these principles step by step; in the past, they understood little, but now they understand
more. Everyone has understood that an imperialist war is unjust and predatory in
nature, understands the plots and schemes of Japanese imperialism, understands
the sinister and ruthless nature of the capitulationists and the diehard faction, and
understands democracy and constitutional government. They understand these
things clearly and want progress, democracy, and participation in government and
politics. But the true realization of democracy and constitutional government also requires that everyone stand up and struggle hard. Only when the young students,
workers, and peasants in the whole country stand up and struggle hard can we
succeed in this matter. Now people are cleverer, and cannot be deceived so easily.
Everyone's eyes are wide open and watching. They want to see who does not want
democracy. Who wants splits. Who wants to surrender. Who wants to go backward. In the novel *The Investiture of the Gods*, there is a character named Shen
Gongbao. He is an unworthy classmate of Jiang Ziya; his face is at the back and
his eyes look to the back.6 Hiding at present in the ranks of the War of Resistance
are a pack of "Shen Gongbaos," a bunch of experts in retrogression. They are
holding China up and trying to make it go backward. The dark forces in China are
oppressing the bright forces; this is called the freedom of oppression. Nonetheless,
the great mass of young people, workers, and peasants throughout China also have
another freedom: this is called the freedom to resist the dark forces. We will not
allow the dark forces to pull China backward. Do we have confidence in our ability not to allow them to do that? Yes, we do. An important reason is that at present
people are not easily duped; it is not easy to deceive the common people of the
whole country. Now the majority of the people would not allow these people to
oppress them like this and want to resist their oppression. They will not allow
them to surrender and want to carry on the War of Resistance. They will not allow
them to split and want to maintain unity. They will not allow them to go backward,
and insist on progress. Let's wait and see how this whole bunch of "Shen Gongbaos"
ends up.

Third, how about the relationship between the December Ninth movement and
the Chinese Communist Party? There is no doubt that the Communist Party played
the role of backbone in the December Ninth movement. If the Communist Party
had not served as the backbone, the December Ninth movement could not have
taken place. First of all, the August 1 Declaration of the Communist Party provided the young students with a clear political orientation. Second, the Red Army
had arrived in northern Shaanxi and was acting in concert with the National Salvation movement in the north. Finally, the Northern Bureau of the Communist Party
and the Party organizations in Shanghai and other places provided direct leadership. Only this made it possible for the December Ninth movement to take place
and, moreover, caused it to expand and develop at every level throughout the
country and to become a great political force in the National Salvation movement
of the entire nation. The young students were just like the firewood in the December Ninth movement; everything was ready, and the only thing needed was to set
the fire. Who set the fire? It was the Communist Party. Ever since the day it came into existence, the Communist Party has been closely united with young students
and intellectuals; by the same token, only in concert with the Communist Party
can the young students and intellectuals take the correct road. If the intellectuals
do not unite with the workers and peasants, they will not be able to have great
strength and will be unable to achieve great things. Similarly, if there are no intellectuals in the revolutionary ranks, we will not be able to achieve great things
either. Only when the intellectuals, workers, and peasants are properly combined
will there be a force which will always be victorious and can never be stopped.
Therefore, intellectuals must integrate themselves with the Communist Party, with
the large number of worker and peasant masses, with the revolutionary armed
forces, and with the Eighth Route Army and the New Fourth Army. Every Communist Party member must make it clear to non-Party sympathizers that our Communist Party welcomes intellectuals very much and wants to unite with the
intellectuals. Of course, we are against those few bad intellectuals who sabotage
the revolution, those intellectuals who are Chinese traitors, and intellectuals of the
"Shen Gongbao" type. It is a crime if we do not oppose this kind of intellectuals; it
will benefit both the country and the people to oppose this kind of intellectuals.

Now many young intellectuals do not have any freedom; they do not have the
right to walk along the roads. Take the road from Xi'an to Yan'an, for example.
Numerous security measures are set up along it, and it is very difficult for progressive educated youths to pass. Because they do not have green dragon crescent
swords, or red horses that fly like the wind, and because they do not have the
capacity to decapitate six generals at five passes,7 they can only go to the "training
regiments" in the concentration camps. It seems that this is a rather difficult thing
to deal with. But if the intellectuals join with the Eighth Route Army, the New
Fourth Army, and the guerrillas, that is, if pens can be combined with guns, it will
be easy to deal with things. Napoleon said that one pen can equal three thousand
Mauser rifles. Nevertheless, if there were no Mauser rifles made of iron, this pen
would be of no use. If you have a pen plus a Mauser rifle, according to Napoleon,
you will have 3,001 Mauser rifles.8 With these, you will not fear any imperialism
or any diehard elements. With these, will those dogs dare to come and bite you?
Beginning with the Opium War, the Chinese people have had a hundred years
of experience in struggling against imperialism and the forces of darkness. If we
add the Communist Party's eighteen-year experience of struggle, will there be
anything that we cannot accomplish? If you look at it this way, things in China are
easier to manage than they were before. We must be determined to carry on the
War of Resistance to final victory, overthrow Japanese imperialism, and create a

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Notes

Extracts from this talk delivered by Mao at an evening meeting on December 9, 1939,
appeared in Xin Zhonghua bao, December 16, 1939, and are reproduced in Mao Zedong ji.
Bujuan, Vol. 6, pp. 133-34. The present, much fuller text was first published in Hongqi,
no. 23, December 1, 1985; that version is reprinted in Mao Zedong wenji, Vol. 2, pp. 25058, which is our source.
1. The December Ninth movement was an initially spontaneous response of university
and middle school students in Beiping to Japanese pressure on five North China provinces
to declare independence from the Nanjing government and also a protest at Nanjing's apparent willingness to accept these Japanese demands. After large-scale demonstrations in
Beiping on December 9 and 16, 1935, the movement quickly spread into other areas and
other strata of the population, becoming known as the National Salvation movement. From
the very start, Communists (many of them under cover) played a leading role in the movement. In the official Chinese historiography, the December Ninth movement is seen as the
beginning of a fundamental shift in public opinion, favoring internal unity and resistance
against Japan.
2. Not only had Mao attended no meetings commemorating the December Ninth movement, but we have found few previous mentions of it in his writings. Nianpu, which refers
to virtually all of Mao's utterances, even when it does not cite the texts, says nothing of any
remarks by him on earlier anniversaries of these events. In his speeches of May 3 and 7,
1937, to a Party congress of the soviet regions, Mao stated that a "new period in the Chinese revolution" had begun with the December Ninth movement, but did not further dwell
on the nature of that movement. (See the translations of these texts in Volume V of our
edition.) Apart from this, the texts for the years 1935-1938 available to us and translated in
Volumes V and VI do not even allude to December 9, 1935.
matter has not yet been completed, it is much easier to deal with it now. Because
the diehard faction in the Guomindang has greatly strengthened its anti-Communist activity and attacked progressive intellectual circles, some people now say
that things in China have become difficult to manage. They are making great efforts to achieve progress, and are fighting for the interests of the state and the
nation; they are full of enthusiasm, their hearts are filled with good will, and they
want to do their best for our state and our nation. And yet, precisely at this critical
moment of the War of Resistance Against Japan, they see around them the shadow
of surrender, splits, and retrogression laid down by the diehard forces, and their
efforts are limited and repressed in many ways. Inevitably, they feel that things are
difficult to manage. But this is looking at only one side of the matter. Certainly we
are firmly against the perverse actions of the diehard faction, but, looking at the
whole picture, we think that, compared to the past, things in China are not difficult
to manage at all. Quite the contrary, they are easier to manage now.
Why? Here we must begin with the December Ninth movement we are commemorating today.
First, you comrades are all aware of what the December Ninth movement was
about. Besides, Comrade Li Chang has just talked about it.³ We should, however,
take another step forward in our understanding. In what kind of political environment did it take place? What kind of political significance did it have? What kind
of influence did it have on Chinese politics? When we have understood these
issues, we will be able to see that the present situation in China is very different
from that in the past. Not only are things no more difficult to manage now than
they were in the past, but they are much easier to manage than in the past.
After the Long March, the Red Army arrived at Wuqizheng in northern Shaanxi
in October 1935. At that time the enemy was still attacking us. In the last ten days of
November of that year, we won three victories in Fuxian. How happy we were to
learn the news of the December Ninth movement in Beiping on December 10 in the
midst of our celebration of the victories!⁴ The Red Army comrades had completed

3. Li Chang (1914-), a native of Hunan, joined the Chinese Communist Youth League
in 1933. The following year, he became a student at Qinghua University in Beijing, and in
that capacity he played a significant role in the December Ninth movement and in the
creation of the National Salvation movement. He joined the Chinese Communist Party in
May 1936 and occupied various responsible posts in the Communist Youth League. In
October 1938 he went to Yan'an, where he attended the Sixth Plenum. Soon thereafter he
became head of the Organization Department of the Party's Committee on Youth Work. In
this capacity, he chaired the meeting on May 4, 1939, at which Mao gave the report on the
May Fourth movement translated above.
4. As already noted, there is no available record in Mao's own words expressing any
such sentiments. That is not to say, of course, that when news of the events in Beiping
reached him, he was not happy to hear about the December Ninth movement, but, having
just arrived in the northwest after the Long March, he had many other things on his mind.
Regarding the situation in which he found himself and the views he did put forward in
December 1935, see the Introduction to Volume V of this edition and the relevant texts.

5. This declaration was not actually written or issued by Mao and the Central Committee in China, but was drafted by Wang Ming in Moscow, in the context of the Seventh
Congress of the Communist International. Mao learned of it only in November 1935, though
copies had become available in some parts of China earlier. On these events, see the Introduction to Volume V of this edition. These facts about the origin of the declaration do not,
of course, invalidate Mao's argument, in the present document, about its impact in China
when it did become known.

6. Shen Gongbao, a character in the traditional Chinese novel *The Investiture of the
Gods*, was skilled at summoning up the spirits. He did so in support of the last emperor of
the Shang dynasty, commonly regarded as a tyrant; his antagonist, Jiang Ziya, armed with
the weapons described above in a note to the text of July 9, 1939, fought on behalf of King
Wu, the founder of the ensuing Zhou dynasty.

7. The reference is to the great sword and fleet horse of Guan Yu (long known in China
as Guan Gong, the god of war), one of Liu Bei's sworn brothers in the *Romance of the
Three Kingdoms*, and to his exploits in combat.
8. Regarding this anachronistic reference to Napoleon and Mausers, see p. 302 of Volume VI.