February 7, 1940


The publication of The Chinese
Worker[1] meets a need. Led by its
own political party, the Communist Party of China, the Chinese working class
has waged heroic struggles for the past twenty years and become the most
politically awakened section of the people and the leader of the Chinese
revolution. Rallying the peasantry and all revolutionary people against
imperialism and feudalism, it has fought to establish a new-democratic China
and to drive out Japanese imperialism, and its contribution has been outstanding.
But the Chinese revolution has not yet triumphed and great efforts are still
needed to unite the working class itself and to unite the peasantry and the
other sections of the petty bourgeoisie, the intellectuals, and the entire
revolutionary people. This is a tremendous political and organizational task.
The responsibility for its accomplishment rests on the Communist Party of
China, on the progressive workers and on the entire working class. The ultimate
liberation of the working class and the people as a whole will be achieved
only under socialism, which is the final goal the Chinese proletariat must
struggle to attain. But before we can enter the stage of socialism, we must
pass through the stage of the anti-imperialist and anti-feudal democratic
revolution. The immediate task of the Chinese working class, therefore, is
to strengthen unity in its own ranks and unite the people, to oppose imperialism
and feudalism, and to struggle for a new China, a China of New Democracy.
The Chinese Worker is being published with just this task in view.

Using simple language, The Chinese Worker will explain the hows
and whys of many issues to the workers, report the realities of the working-class
struggle in the War of Resistance and sum up the experience gained, and in
this way it will endeavour to fulfil its task.

The Chinese Worker should become a school for educating the workers
and for training cadres from their midst, and the readers will be its students.
It is necessary to educate many cadres from among the workers, knowledgeable
and capable cadres who do not seek empty fame but are ready for honest work.
It is impossible for the working class to attain liberation without large
numbers of such cadres.

The working class should welcome the help of the revolutionary intellectuals
and never refuse it. For without their help the working class itself cannot
go forward nor can the revolution succeed.

I hope that the journal will be well edited and that it will publish a good
deal of lively writing, carefully avoiding wooden and trite articles which
are flat, insipid and unintelligible.

Once started, a journal must be run conscientiously and well. This is the
responsibility of the readers as well as of the staff. It is very important
for the readers to send in suggestions and write brief letters and articles
indicating what they like and what they dislike, for this is the only way
to make the journal a success.

With these few words I express my hopes; let them serve as an introduction
to The Chinese Worker.

NOTES


1. The Chinese Worker was a monthly founded in
February 1940 in Yenan and published under the auspices of the Trade Union
Commission of the Central Committee of the Chinese Communist Party.


Transcription by the Maoist Documentation Project.