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

(May 26, 1941)

At present, the Munich conspiracy in the West has been temporarily shattered. Owing to Germany’s continuous victories in the war against Britain, Britain and the United States will make even greater concessions to Japan in order to concentrate their forces on dealing with Europe; therefore, the danger of a Munich in the East still exists. Before April of this year, Chiang Kai-shek used the Southern Anhui Incident to moderate the Japanese offensive. At that time, He Yingqin went to Xi’an to arrange for the “suppression of the Communists,” attempting to obtain a halt to the Japanese offensive by launching attacks against us. Recently, the Japanese army’s offensive against China has been a “guerrilla war,” aimed at forcing Chiang to surrender, with no preparations to attack Luoyang and Xi’an. At present, Japan’s approach to the China question has not yet been completely determined, and the attitude of the Kuomintang has also not yet been decided; no statements have been issued in the last three weeks. Our Party should actively expose and oppose this conspiracy.

In the past, it was customary for external propaganda not to be unified, as manifested in the lack of unified propaganda policies across the various base areas. From now on, this must be unified. The meeting decided that the Central Committee’s external propaganda work shall be uniformly placed under the charge of Qin Bangxian.

[1] Part one is a portion of Mao Zedong’s speech on the current situation at the meeting of the Political Bureau of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China; part two is a portion of his speech on the Party’s external propaganda work.