1
The soldiers defending Hengyang were heroic.
But their efforts received no support, because the passive strategy of our government and our supreme command, which rejected the people and voluntarily relinquished the initiative, could not support them. Though the people were consumed with anxiety, they could not spontaneously go to their aid.
2
Among the government’s measures, not a single one was aimed at calling upon and organizing the people to rise up and participate in the defense of Hengyang, the Southwest, and the Northwest.
The Kuomintang members in Xi’an even criticized in the newspapers the firm will to defend Xi’an and the Northwest, expressed by the tens of thousands of people attending the United Nations Day commemoration rally in Yan’an, calling it a “Communist Party conspiracy.”
In short, the Kuomintang has monopolized all our great and beautiful rivers and mountains, denying the people any involvement.
But, gentlemen of the Kuomintang, these great and beautiful rivers and mountains do not belong to you. They are the beloved homeland where the Chinese people were born, have grown up, and where their clans have gathered and dwelled.
You Kuomintang men have tightly bound the people hand and foot. When the enemy comes, you do not allow the people to rise up and defend themselves, yet you yourselves always “feint with a thrust of your spear and then turn your horse and flee.” This is allegedly “magnetic warfare tactics,” but in reality, it is a tactic of forever abandoning the initiative and forever rejecting the people. The people have already seen through this “peep show” of yours.
3
The crux of all questions lies in politics, and the crux of all politics lies in the populace. Without resolving the question of whether or not we want the people, nothing can be discussed at all.
If we want the people, there is a way out even amidst danger; if we do not want the people, everything is inevitably plunged into utter darkness.
Those of insight within the Kuomintang should think about this.