Zhang Pingqun’s Speech Is Erroneous,
the People Demand Immediate
Reorganization of the Government and
the Supreme Command1
(October 8, 1944)
(New China News Agency, Yan’an, October 8) According to the October 4
telegram of the Central News Agency in Chongqing, at the news conference held
for Chinese and foreign reporters, when a reporter asked for the government
authority’s opinion on organizing a coalition government, the government
spokesman Zhang Pingqun replied: “This idea is not worth discussing, and I am
not going to discuss it.” The observer in Yan’an said: Three weeks have already
passed since Comrade Lin Zuhan [Lin Boqu], the representative of the Chinese
Communist Party Central Committee, put forward the suggestion to hold an
urgent national affairs conference and to establish a democratic coalition
government in the National Political Council. With the increasingly worsening
crisis on the front-line battlefields and the gradual exposure of the Guomindang
dictatorship’s corruption and incompetence, the immediate reorganization of the
National Government and its supreme command has become the common plea of
all patriotic compatriots in our country (including many Guomindang
members) and all friends in our Allied countries. Quite unexpectedly, the
Guomindang authority shows contempt for this appeal. Zhang Pingqun is the
spokesman of the Guomindang authority. His words exposed the ferocious face
of the Guomindang authority’s dictatorship, arbitrariness, incorrigibly obstinate
nature, and its lack of any sense of democracy. Now the threat from the enemy

grows greater every day. The enemy is closing in on Guilin, the gate to the great
rear echelon is wide open, the nation is in dire peril, and it is a matter of extreme
urgency. We can only save the nation from this crisis by eliminating
immediately the oligarchic dictatorship and reorganizing the National
Government and the supreme command. We must win the War of Resistance in
China, and the common cause of the Allied countries must win. To eliminate the
Guomindang oligarchic dictatorship and to reorganize the National
Government and supreme command have become the unanimous demand of the
people of the entire nation and the people of friendly countries. But somehow,
according to those Guomindang gentlemen, these issues are “not worth
discussion” and “will not be discussed.” Are they really “not worth
discussion”? The people of the entire great rear echelon are either already
suffering, or will suffer, the devastation, oppression, and outrages that the
enemy inflicts. The people demand an immediate investigation into the
Guomindang’s responsibility, and this responsibility is worthy of discussion.
Is it really “not going to be discussed”? Though you may insist on “not,” the
life and death of the people and the survival or demise of the nation must be
discussed. Regardless of whether the Guomindang authority will “discuss” it, the
demand to eliminate the oligarchic dictatorship and to reorganize the
National Government and supreme command is irresistible.
Notes
Our source for this document is Mao Zedong xinwen gongzuo wenxuan, pp. 337–38, where it is reproduced
from the original preserved in the Central Archives. Text in boldface is Mao’s additions during revisions.
1. This is a commentary by the Xinhua News Agency. The title was added by Mao.