Speech at the Joint Meeting of the Party, Government, and Military of the Shaanxi-Gansu-Ningxia Border Region[1]

(March 4, 1940)

There are three kinds of democracy. Britain, America, and France practice old democracy, that is, bourgeois democracy. We practice new democracy. The Soviet Union practices new-new democracy, that is, proletarian democracy. New democracy is temporary, transitional, a staircase; in the future we will still go upstairs, just like the Soviet Union.

The orientation of the Shaanxi-Gansu-Ningxia Border Region is the orientation of new democracy for the whole country. The Border Region has ten major merits, namely, there are no corrupt officials, no local tyrants and evil gentry, no profiteers making fortunes off national calamities, no people eating off friction, and so on. It is a model for the whole country and cannot be abolished.

[1] Part one of this text is a portion of Mao Zedong's speech on the question of new democracy at the Joint Meeting of the Party, Government, and Military of the Shaanxi-Gansu-Ningxia Border Region; part two is a portion of Mao Zedong's speech on the question of the Border Region at the Joint Meeting of the Party, Government, and Military of the Shaanxi-Gansu-Ningxia Border Region; part three is a portion of Mao Zedong's speech on the question of constitutional government at the Joint Meeting of the Party, Government, and Military of the Shaanxi-Gansu-Ningxia Border Region; part four is a portion of Mao Zedong's speech on the question of friction at the Joint Meeting of the Party, Government, and Military of the Shaanxi-Gansu-Ningxia Border Region.

Speech at the Joint Meeting of the Party, Government, and Military of the Shaanxi-Gansu-Ningxia Border Region

III

We must expose the plot of the Kuomintang diehards to engage in fake constitutional government; we must practice genuine constitutional government and genuine democracy.

IV

The Communist Party will never fire the first shot against any Kuomintang army, but if you fire the first shot, I will fire the second shot. At present, between the Kuomintang and the Communist Party, it is a situation of major peace and minor fighting, major unity and minor friction; it is not yet the time when they leave the Japanese alone and attack the Communists everywhere.