Recently, the military situation on China’s two fronts has starkly exposed the true nature of the Kuomintang authorities’ much-vaunted “unity of command.” On the main front, entirely under the KMT High Command, from November 11—the day after the Japanese captured Changning in Hunan—through the following eleven days, seven cities along the Hunan–Guangxi Railway fell in quick succession: Qiyang, Lingling, Dong’an, Xinning, Daoxian, Ziyuan, and Quanzhou. Both Guilin on the main line and Shaoyang on the flank are now in grave danger. Meanwhile, Japanese forces in Guangdong advanced simultaneously from the West River and the Leizhou Peninsula, seizing six more towns: Gaoming, Sihui, Zhaoqing, Kaiping, Xinxing, and Lianjiang. Presently, the enemy pushing south from Daoxian has reached Jianghua and Yongming in southernmost Hunan, while the force advancing up the West River has occupied Huaizhi and Xindu in Guangxi. The two axes are now less than one hundred and ten miles apart. This shameful rout—a city lost every day—is precisely the price of today’s so-called “obedience to military orders.”

While the Allies are making strenuous preparations by sea for offensives against the Philippines and China’s coast, and intensifying overland and air operations to sustain the Burma Road supply route and bomb Japanese-occupied territories as well as Japan itself, Chongqing’s corrupt and incompetent High Command is actively creating dangers for itself and difficulties for its allies, thereby providing the Japanese with crucial strategic advantages and time to stave off defeat. The gravity of the debacle in the Southwest lies not primarily in the sheer scale and speed of the losses, but in its strategic implications. The crisis in Guangxi means that the Japanese could use it as a springboard to threaten Kunming and even Chongqing. Moreover, the Allied air power, which the Japanese fear most, has also been deprived of vital bases due to the rapid deterioration of the situation in Hunan and Guangxi, and continues to suffer from the disastrous military leadership of the KMT. Even if the enemy merely succeeds in completing its trans-Chinese corridor and splitting the country in two, the resulting disadvantages for the Allied counteroffensive would be incalculable.

In his two speeches before the National Political Consultative Conference, Chiang Kai-shek did not utter a single word about how to avert the current crisis or change the High Command’s policies and personnel that have brought it about; instead, he repeatedly harped on his so-called “unity of command,” which is actually impeding the war effort. As members Wang Yunwu and Hu Lin pointed out, the very notion of “unity of command” was never in question; the real issue has always been which commands should be unified. If we are to unify the nation under today’s defeatist directives, it amounts to nothing more than ordering all Chinese forces to emulate the Henan campaign of the past and the present Hunan–Guangxi debacle—to march inexorably toward mutual annihilation—and then simply resign ourselves to failure. Such a suicidal mentality can only aid the enemy, obstruct victory, and lead to ruin; it serves no other purpose.

By contrast, consider the guerrilla front behind enemy lines, which the KMT falsely accuses of “disobeying military orders.” There, the People’s Liberation Army achieved a series of momentous victories during August and September. In Shandong, the Eighth Route Army captured five towns in the latter half of August and the first half of September: Lizhen at the old Yellow River estuary, Leling and Linyi, Wendeng at the tip of the Jiaodong Peninsula, and Yishui in southeastern Shandong. The battle of Yuncheng in southwestern Shandong liberated over six hundred villages and towns, while another operation in southeastern coastal Shandong repelled a “sweeping” attack, annihilating an entire brigade of the puppet army commanded by Chen San Kan. These successes stand in stark contrast to the daily loss of a city on the main front. Furthermore, there were numerous other victories across the coastal provinces: in Hebei, the Eighth Route Army seized Gaoliying, sixteen miles north of Beijing; penetrated Qingyundian in the southeast and Changxindian in the southwest; and took the county seats of Cangzhou, Xiongxian, and Shenze, as well as the urban centers of Yixian and Xushui. Meanwhile, the New Fourth Army operating in the Nanjing–Shanghai–Ningbo triangle captured Liulangqiao, sixteen miles southwest of Nanjing; fortified positions on the north bank of the Yangtze at Shizhuang, Zhanghuang Port, and Xinsheng Port; entered Changxing on the southwestern shore of Taihu Lake; and seized three towns—Lishui, Liyang, and Ningbo’s immediate suburbs—between Nanjing and Changxing. Near Guangzhou, the East River Column likewise penetrated Longyandong in the outskirts of Guangzhou City.

Just these four victories at Yishui, Wendeng, Yuncheng, and Changxing together liberated an area of fourteen thousand square kilometers, or roughly fifteen hundred square miles. Thanks to this recent string of successes behind enemy lines, the total population of China’s liberated zones has risen from eighty-six million to over ninety million. If “military orders” are meant to fight the Japanese and achieve victory, then the guerrilla front truly serves as a model for implementing such commands. However, if the KMT insists that this effective anti-Japanese force must be “dismantled” by four-fifths—that is, returning four-fifths of the recovered territory, the liberated people, and the captured weapons and personnel to the enemy and their collaborators—in order to be deemed “obedient to military orders”—then such “orders” are nothing more than treasonous edicts issued by lackeys of the Emperor, betraying the national interest. The Chinese people will rise up to punish these veritable traitors and will never allow them to go unpunished.

A review of the latest developments on China’s two fronts makes it abundantly clear that the pressing task on the main front is to convene urgently a national conference bringing together all parties, factions, social groups, military units, mass organizations, and local anti-Japanese forces; to immediately abolish the KMT’s oligarchic rule; to thoroughly reorganize the National Government and the High Command; and to expel forthwith all traitors, surrenderists, defeatists, autocrats, and fascists, handing them over to the people for judgment. Only by placing political and military authority in the hands of those who represent the interests of the resistance and the will of the people can we halt the enemy’s advance and avert national catastrophe. As for the guerrilla front, the central issue there is to strengthen its armed forces. Given that the Communists have fought and defeated the enemy and their collaborators six times as often as the KMT, winning battles day after day, whereas the KMT has engaged the enemy and their collaborators only once for every six engagements, suffering defeat each time, it follows that the Communists deserve at least five-sixths of any aid provided by the Allies, while the KMT should receive no more than one-sixth. Moreover, this distribution should not be entrusted to the KMT, since it has forfeited any right to manage such matters. Should the government and the High Command remain unchanged, even the one-sixth allocated to the KMT ought to be reconsidered, for it bears responsibility for the losses and for hindering Allied victory; handing it any arms would only serve to bolster the enemy. From the Reference Materials on the History of China’s New Democratic Revolution, China Book Distribution Corporation, 1951. Four Volumes of Reference Materials on the History of the Chinese Revolution, Renmin University of China, 1957. Reference Materials on the History of the Communist Party of China, Volume IV.