Analysis of the Situation After Repelling the Kuomintang’s Third Anti-Communist High Tide and Directive on the Party’s Policies[1]

(August 13, 1943)

To all Central Bureaus and Central Sub-Bureaus, and for the information of Lü Zhengcao, Li Xiannian, and Huang Jing:

Although Chiang Kai-shek and the Kuomintang’s plot to attack the Border Region has been temporarily halted due to our exposure of it, our preparedness, and the intervention of foreigners, their plot has not been abandoned; at the same time, they are extensively launching public opinion nationwide demanding the dissolution of the Communist Party, and the Kuomintang news agencies have published many such dispatches. Meanwhile, in Central China and Shandong, they continue to resolutely and silently carry out military attacks against our army; they adopt a passive attitude toward the Japanese forces and puppet troops. At the same time, Chiang’s representative Zhang Zhizhong informally told comrades Zhou Enlai and Lin Biao before they left Chongqing that the Kuomintang, after the dissolution of the Communist International, has drawn up two plans: one is to demand that the CCP hand over military and political power in exchange for the legalization of the Party; the other is to merge the two parties, the Kuomintang and the Communist Party, into one. According to statistics from July this year, of the total 36 Japanese divisions in China, numbering 600,000 men, the Kuomintang is resisting only 250,000, while the Communist Party is resisting 350,000; of the total 620,000 puppet troops under Wang Jingwei and Wang Kemin (most of whom are Chiang Kai-shek’s troops who have defected to the enemy and become puppets), the Kuomintang is only pinning down 60,000 in the Guangdong area (but does not attack them), while the 560,000 puppet troops in North and Central China are all being resisted by the Communist Party, against whom the Kuomintang does not fire a single shot. The Japanese government has publicly issued a statement enticing surrender, yet Chiang Kai-shek has not issued even a written refutation. Large numbers of Chiang’s subordinates collude with Japanese secret service personnel and Wang Jingwei’s personnel to an astonishing

[1] This is a directive by Mao Zedong to all Central Bureaus and Central Sub-Bureaus, and for the information of Lü Zhengcao, Li Xiannian, and Huang Jing, on the analysis of the situation after repelling the Kuomintang’s third anti-communist high tide and on the Party’s policies.

degree, and those surrendering to the enemy are increasing daily. Public opinion in Britain and the United States is increasingly dissatisfied with the Kuomintang’s ineffective resistance and political darkness. The various minor domestic parties and local strength factions, oppressed just as we are, are showing a growing tendency to sympathize with our Party. Our Party’s policy is to avoid a rupture with the Kuomintang by all means possible and to avert a major civil war, while at the same time exposing the Kuomintang’s ineffective resistance and anti-communist plots, countering the Kuomintang’s anti-communist rhetoric, and preparing our strength for self-defense.

Mao Zedong

August 13