(Xinhua News Agency, Yan’an, 5th) A United Press dispatch from Chongqing on the 4th reported that Kuomintang Propaganda Minister Wu Guozhen stated: The government is on the defensive in all battles and the issue of restoring transportation.
A reporter from this agency specifically inquired with a spokesperson for the Communist Party of China on this matter.
The CCP spokesperson told the reporter, saying, Mr. Wu’s statement of being on the “defensive” is a lie.
With the exception of our army’s withdrawal from the five liberated areas of Zhejiang-Jiangxi, Southern Jiangsu, Southern Anhui, Central Anhui, and Hunan, all of which were entered and occupied by Kuomintang troops, who brutally ravaged the people, in most other liberated areas, for example, Guangdong, Hubei, Henan, Northern Jiangsu, Northern Anhui, Shandong, Hebei, etc., there are more than seventy regular divisions that have advanced to our liberated areas and their vicinities, oppressing the people, attacking our army, or preparing to attack.
There are still several tens of divisions currently advancing.
Can this be called taking a defensive posture?
Among them, one column advancing north from Zhangde, which attacked the Handan area, consisted of eight divisions; two divisions opposed the civil war and advocated for peace, and six divisions (among which were three American-equipped divisions), only after the army and people of our liberated area launched a counter-attack in self-defense, were forced to lay down their arms.
Among them were a deputy commander, army commanders, and division commanders, many people, and the entire truth of their offensive strength.
Can this also be called taking a defensive posture?
The troops of our liberated areas in Yu and E provinces are now surrounded on all four sides by a total of more than one hundred and ten divisions from the First, Fifth, and Sixth War Zones, with Liu Zhi serving as the commander-in-chief for bandit suppression in that area.
Our liberated areas in Western Yu, Central Yu, Southern E, Eastern E, Central E, etc., have been invaded and occupied by Kuomintang troops, forcing our units under Li Xiannian, Wang Shusheng, and others to have no place to exist, compelling them to seek a place to station themselves in the Yu-E border region in order to survive, yet they are being closely pursued by Kuomintang troops.
Can this also be called taking a defensive posture?
In Jin and Sui provinces, Yan Xishan and Fu Zuoyi have consistently colluded with the enemy and puppets, invading the Xiangyuan and Tunliu regions of our Shangdang Liberated Area, and were completely disarmed by the local army and people in a battle of self-defense.
Among the captured personnel were also an army commander and many division commanders.
They are now in our Taihang Liberated Area, alive one and all, sufficient to prove where they came from and how they were ordered to attack, the entire truth.
As for Yan’s office claiming in Chongqing newspapers how he was attacked while he was merely taking a “defensive posture,” and all sorts of lies, he has probably forgotten that his Nineteenth Army Commander Shi Zebo, Provisional Forty-sixth Division Commander Guo Rong, Provisional Forty-ninth Division Commander Zhang Hong, Sixty-sixth Division Commander Li Peiying, Sixty-eighth Division Commander Guo Tianxing, Provisional Thirty-seventh Division Commander Yang Wencai, and other generals are now staying in our liberated area, sufficient to refute any lies from Mr. Wu Guozhen, Mr. Yan Xishan, and all reactionaries who instigate civil war.
Fu Zuoyi, under orders, has been attacking our liberated areas in the three provinces of Suiyuan, Chahar, and Rehe for more than two months, has fought to the gates of Zhangjiakou, and has occupied our entire Suiyuan Liberated Area and the western part of Chahar.
Can this also be called taking a defensive posture and not firing the “first shot”?
The army and people of our two provinces of Chahar and Suiyuan rose up in self-defense and also captured a large number of officers and soldiers in counter-attack battles; they all prove where they came from, how they attacked, and so on.
In each battle of self-defense, our side has captured a large number of “bandit suppression” and anti-communist documents, among which are the “Bandit Suppression Handbook,” which was issued by a certain authority and which Mr. Wu Guozhen called nothing more than a “joke,” “bandit suppression” orders, and other anti-communist documents, which are currently being transported to Yan’an.
The reporter also asked the CCP spokesperson, what is your opinion on the method for restoring transportation proposed by Mr. Wu Guozhen?
The spokesperson replied: This is merely a delaying tactic.
The Kuomintang authorities are currently mobilizing troops on a large scale, like a flood, to inundate our entire liberated areas.
After their several failed offensives in September and October, they are now arranging new, larger-scale offensives.
And one of the weapons to obstruct such offensives, that is, to effectively stop the civil war, is not to allow them to transport troops on the railways.
We, like others, advocate for the swift restoration of transportation lines, but it can only be restored after the three issues of accepting surrender, puppet troops, and local autonomy have been resolved.
Should the transportation issue be resolved first, and the three issues later?
Or should the three issues be resolved first, and the transportation issue later?
The armies of the liberated areas fought arduously against Japan for eight years, why do they not have the qualification to accept surrender, and must trouble other armies to travel from faraway places to accept surrender?
Puppet troops are those whom everyone has the right to execute, why are they all reorganized as the “National Army” and commanded to attack the liberated areas?
Local autonomy is clearly stipulated in the Double Tenth Agreement, and Mr. Sun Yat-sen long ago advocated for the popular election of provincial governors, why must the government still dispatch officials?
The transportation issue should be swiftly resolved, and these three major issues should especially be swiftly resolved.
To speak of restoring transportation without resolving the three major issues is only to expand and prolong the civil war, to achieve the objective of the civil war instigators to inundate the liberated areas.
In order to swiftly stop the anti-people and anti-democratic civil war that has already spread throughout the country, we advocate: (1) Government troops for accepting surrender and attacking troops that have already entered the liberated areas of North China, Northern Jiangsu, Northern Anhui, and Central China and their vicinities should immediately withdraw to their original defensive positions, and the armies of the liberated areas should go to accept the enemy's surrender and garrison the various cities and transportation lines, and recover all the invaded and occupied liberated areas. (2) All puppet troops in North China and Northern Jiangsu should be immediately disarmed and disbanded; those in North China and Northern Jiangsu shall be disarmed by the liberated areas. (3) Realize local autonomy, the central government must not appoint officials, and implement the provisions of the Double Tenth Agreement.
The spokesperson said: Only by doing so can the civil war be stopped; otherwise, there is no guarantee at all.
The documents captured in the three self-defense battles of Suiyuan, Shangdang, and Handan, and the practical actions of large-scale troop mobilization and large-scale offensives, have fully proven that the Kuomintang authorities’ claim that restoring transportation is for the people and not for civil war is utterly untrustworthy.
The Chinese people have been deceived enough; they can no longer be deceived now.
The central issue now is for the people of the whole country to mobilize and use all methods to stop the civil war.