Reply of the Seven Communist Members of the
Political Council Restating the Reasons
They Cannot Attend the Current Session

(March 8, 1941)

(Dispatch of the ninth from the Xinhua News Agency, Yan’an) The Second Session of the
People’s Political Council opened in Chongqing on March 1. All seven Communist members of the Council failed to attend. The reasons they cannot attend the session were given
in the telegram of February 5 from the seven councilors to the Political Council and also in
the official letter of March 2 from Dong Biwu and Deng Yingchao, both councilors, to the
Political Council. On March 6, the Political Council sent a telegram to the seven Commu-nist councilors urging them to attend. Having received the telegram, the seven councilors
sent a telegram in reply on March 8, elaborating the reasons they were unable to attend. The
telegram reads as follows:

To the Secretariat of the People’s Political Council, and for transmittal to all councilors for their perusal:

We are in receipt of your telegram of the 6th and are deeply touched by and filled
with admiration for the concern about unity that you gentlemen show. During the
past four years, your colleagues in the Chinese Communist Party have been making mentally and physically exhaustive efforts to uphold the national War of Resis-tance and internal unity, and this has long been commonly acknowledged among
our fellow countrymen. You gentlemen have also witnessed that the Communist
Party Council members have never failed to attend any session of the Political
Council in the past. Only this session is an exception because there are obstacles
preventing our attendance. The Communist councilors were appointed by the government, but recently the government has regarded the Chinese Communist Party
as its foe, obliterating the armies under its command, arresting and killing its members, and banning its newspapers. The Southern Anhui Incident and the order of
January 17, in particular, point to its anomalous deviation since the start of the War
of Resistance, which has had an enormously disastrous impact upon domestic unity.
Following the order of January 17, the enemy and the puppets applauded, our fellow countrymen were enraged, and the nations friendly to us were shocked, all
anticipating an impending breakup between the Guomindang and the Communist

only embarrassing and unreasonable, but also for various reasons impossible. With
this in mind we sent a telegram on the 15th to the Secretariat of the Political Coun-cil in which we briefly stated our position and our hope to be understood. Subsequently quite a few fellow councilors busied themselves in an attempt to mediate.
To express our gratitude for their good intentions and to give priority to the interests of the whole nation, Zedong and the others decided to compromise and have
[Dong] Biwu and [Deng] Yingchao, both councilors in Chongqing, put forward
twelve demands as a temporary expedient, requesting that the government accept
them as a solution so that the Communist councilors could attend the meeting. We
notified the Secretariat of the Political Council of this at the same time, but we
have not had any response from the government on any of this. The conditions for
an after-the-fact solution and a temporary expedient that Zedong and the others
have put forward and asked that the government authorities, which appointed us
as councilors, act upon, constitute the prerequisite for our attendance at the current
Political Council session. The government, of course, has the freedom to accept or
to reject them, just as Zedong and the others have the freedom to attend or not to
attend. Zedong and the others remain unchanged in our concern with and care for
the Political Council. If it is possible during the current meetings, through the
promotional efforts of the various gentlemen and a prompt decision by those in
government, to adopt the various measures put forward by Zedong and the others,
then as soon as there is an agreement and a guarantee of its implementation, the
Communist councilors at Chongqing will attend the conference as required, even
though the session is coming to a close at this time. Otherwise we shall have to
wait until the problem is resolved. Zedong and the others accepted the government’s
invitations only for the sake of unity and resistance to Japan. Ever since the South-ern Anhui Incident, the deep rift it created in the unity between the Guomindang
and the Communist Party has not been eliminated for a single day. As long as
these circumstances prevail, then, Zedong and the others find it difficult to attend
any meeting called by the government. Herein lies the root cause for the fact that
Zedong and the others are dealing with a rather different situation from you gentlemen. We have respectfully laid out these trifling matters, hoping to have your
understanding and consideration.

Signed collectively by the political councilors from the Chinese Communist Party:
Mao Zedong, Chen Shaoyu, Qin Bangxian, Lin Zuhan, Wu Yuzhang, Dong Biwu,
and Deng Yingchao

--- Notes

Our source for this text is Mao Zedong ji, Vol. 7, pp. 281–82, where it is reproduced from
Xin Zhonghua bao, March 13, 1941.
Party. Recognizing this dangerous situation, the Central Committee of the Chi-nese Communist Party could not but take proper measures to avert the crisis and
preserve the unity, so it proposed to the authorities twelve conditions as a solution
after the fact. Over a month has elapsed during which we have had no response
whatsoever, and instead the political oppression and military attacks against us
have been intensified further. The New Fourth Army has been labeled a rebel
army, the Eighth Route Army called a bandit army, and the Communist Party
dubbed a traitorous party. Along the road between Yan'an and Chongqing, appalling slogans such as “Down with the Communist Party,” “Pay equal attention to
resisting Japan and suppressing the bandits,” and “Suppressing the bandits is not
civil war” have been written all over walls in large characters by official government and regular armies. Given this situation, unless there is a change, even if
Zedong and the others should want to attend the session, to do so would be not