What the Guomindang Can Do After
the Fall of Hengyang1
(August 12, 1944)
The good news that the American and Chinese Allied Forces stationed on the
Yunnan-Burma border had taken Myitkyina was soon reversed by the unhappy
news of the fall of Hengyang. The soldiers defending Hengyang were very
brave. But no one assisted their efforts because the passive strategies of
excluding the people and willingly giving up the initiative by our
government and our supreme command could not help them. Although the
people were extremely anxious and worried, they could not volunteer to go
there to help them.
Hengyang surpasses Changsha in importance. It is the junction of the
Guangdong-Hankou rail line with the Hunan-Guangxi rail line, as well as the
hub of the network of highways in the Southwest. Its fall means that the
connections between the Southeast and the Southwest will be broken and that the
great rear echelon in the Southwest will be exposed to a direct military threat.
The Hengyang airport was the intermediate station connecting the southeastern
air force bases and those in the Southwest. Its fall means that the southeastern air
force bases that we have established with so much hardship will be useless. If we
wage an air strike on Moji in Japan from Jian’ou in Fujian, it is only 1,425
kilometers by air, but that distance becomes 2,220 kilometers if we start from
Guilin. Hengyang is located where the waters of the Xiang and Lei Rivers meet.
The area around these two rivers is primarily responsible for Hunan Province’s
annual production of 30 million dan of rice, and it is a highly abundant source of
mineral resources as well. These resources are crucial both for military industry
as well as for feeding civilians and the military in the great rear echelon. The loss

of Hengyang will deepen the economic crisis there, while at the same time it will
give the enemy the possibility of “nourishing the war by waging war.”
The British and Americans have also been very much concerned about the
campaign in Hengyang. They have pointed out that Hengyang is more important
than Changsha. They worry that if Hengyang is lost, then the war will drag on.
They worry about the economic crisis in the great rear echelon. The American
newspaper, the Christian Science Monitor, warns that there are signs indicating
that the Japanese are adopting a policy of “defeating China first” (Central News
Agency, New York, June 14). The Times of London fears that our country will not
be able to wait until the Yunnan-Burma Highway has broken through before
surrendering to the Japanese, saying, “What a dreadful conclusion it would be if
we break through the Yunnan-Burma Highway and it is too late” (Reuters,
London, July 1). The newspapers in England, the United States, and the Soviet
Union have all repeatedly appealed that the 500,000 troops now surrounding the
border region be sent to fight the Japanese. The importance they attach to this
campaign is self-evident. The enemy’s Allied News Agency admits that after the
enemy captured Hengyang Airport on June 26, General [Claire Lee] Chennault’s
Fourteenth Air Force sent at least a hundred planes daily to bomb the bandits’
forces. One can see the aggressiveness of this operation.
The people of our country have paid even closer attention to this campaign.
Especially important are the many active propositions they have raised. An
editorial in this paper on June 24 pointed out that the Japanese bandits’ present
crime against Hunan is different from their previous “piston strategy.” Now they
want instead “to bottle this resistance to death.” It also pointed out that
“everything is prepared except for a change in the policies of the Guomindang.
We hope that the Guomindang will change and change quickly. How should it
change? It should change from a passive war to an active one, from the theory
that only weapons matter to that of uniting the people and weapons, from
hindering the people to relying on them, from oppressing democracy to
implementing it, from opposing the Communist Party to strengthening the unity
of the Guomindang with the Communist Party, from relying on foreign strength
to combat Japan to taking the initiative ourselves to cooperate with the Allied
countries to fight Japan.” These propositions met with the sympathy of people
from every walk of life and every party and group in the entire country. There

was one other proposition, which was a demand by the people of Henan to
investigate the responsibilities of the generals fighting in Henan.
But what exactly do our government authorities do? In short: They don’t
move. On June 3, when the Military Commission published the weekly report on
the war situation, it declared: “In the campaign in central Henan, because our
brave and loyal soldiers did not hesitate to sacrifice themselves and fought
without fearing death, in the end 120 kilometers, from north to south, of the
Beiping-Hankou rail line returned to the control of our military. The enemy
bandits were not able to get what they wanted.” This is a barefaced lie. They are
trying to conceal the failure of the campaign in Henan. They will never
investigate responsibilities or study the lessons of experience. On June 10, they
published another weekly report on the war situation. In it, the early days of the
campaign in Hunan, in which the Japanese forced a Chinese retreat of 100 li a
day, are described: “Our army resisted every step of the way. The enemy paid the
highest price for every inch of land!” On June 28, at a news conference for foreign
journalists, Liang Hancao,2 in addition to blowing his own horn and glossing
over the situation, also denied that the fall of Hengyang would lengthen the war.
He said, “Some people are worried that if Hengyang falls, the war will last
another one or two years. I cannot agree” (Central News Agency, Chongqing,
June 29). On July 10, He Yingqin said during the central memorial week,
“Speaking in terms of overall strategy, we are not worried at all about the
enemy’s silly attempt to break through our Beiping-Hankou and Guangdong-Hankou rail lines” (Central News Agency, Chongqing, July 10). What an
exceptionally free-handed picture this is! Of all the measures of the government,
not one calls on and organizes the masses to stand up and participate in the
defense of Hengyang or the Southwest and Northwest. In newspapers the
Guomindang in Xi’an have even criticized the strong determination to
defend Xi’an and the Northwest expressed by the tens of thousands of the
masses who came to the rally in Yan’an commemorating United Nations
Day. They believe it to be “a Communist Party conspiracy.” In a word, all the
“beautiful rivers and mountains” are taken care of only by the Guomindang;
the people are not allowed to interfere. But, dear Guomindang gentlemen,
these beautiful rivers and mountains are not yours; they are the adorable
hometowns in which Chinese people are born, grow, and gather together.

You Guomindangers have tightly bound the hands and feet of the Chinese
people and won’t let them stand up to defend themselves when the enemy
comes. You just flash your guns for an instant and then beat a hasty retreat.
It is said that this is a “magnetic tactic,” but in reality it is a tactic that
forever abandons seizing the initiative and will never want the people’s
participation. The people have already seen through these tricks of yours.
Our opinions can be summed up as follows: This battle of Hengyang proves
yet again that even if you have many soldiers, air domination, and good
weapons, it will all be useless without a fundamental political reform. The
situation is still the same as before: “Everything is prepared except for a change
in the policies of the Guomindang.” This newspaper printed an editorial on
June 20 which said, “If the Guomindang does not change fundamentally, then
the dangers of the future can be predicted. We will continue to lose battles; the
field armies will continue to suffer more losses; the enemy will break through the
Beiping-Hankou and Guangdong-Hankou rail lines; the provinces of Jiangsu,
Anhui, Zhejiang, Fujian, Guangdong, and Jiangxi will be cut off from the rest of
the country; the resistance bases in the great rear echelon will shrink
dramatically; our sources of soldiers and financial resources will experience
greater and greater difficulties; our international status will fall day by day; and
all kinds of crises will become more and more acute as time goes by.” It will not
be long before these words come true.
The key to every problem lies in politics, and the key to all politics lies in
the masses. Unless the question of whether to include the masses is resolved,
we will be unable to do anything at all. If we include the masses, even if in a
dangerous situation, there will be a way out. Excluding them will inevitably
leave one in the dark. Think about this, far-sighted men of the Guomindang.
Notes
Our source for this document is Mao Zedong xinwen gongzuo wenxuan, pp. 303–6, where it is reproduced
from the original draft preserved in the Central Archives. Text in boldface represents Mao’s additions during
revisions prior to publication.

1. This is an editorial in the Yan’an Jiefang ribao. The title was changed from “On the Fall of Hengyang”
to the present one by Mao Zedong.
2. Liang Hancao (1898–1975) was at this time director of the Guomindang’s Propaganda Bureau.