October 11, 1944

[Comrade Mao Tse-tung wrote this commentary for the Hsinhua News Agency.]


One of the distinguishing features of Chiang Kai-shek's Double Tenth
[1] speech is its utter lack of content and its
failure to answer any of the questions about which the people are deeply
concerned. Chiang Kai-shek declares that the enemy is not to be feared because
there are still vast territories in the Great Rear Area. So far the autocratic
Kuomintang leaders have shown neither the desire nor the ability to introduce
political reforms or keep the enemy at bay, and territory is the only "capital"
they can fall back upon for resisting the enemy. But it is plain to all that
without a correct policy and without human effort this capital is not enough,
for Japanese imperialism is daily threatening the remaining territories.
In all probability Chiang Kai-shek has acutely felt this threat, as is shown
by the very fact that he is repeatedly assuring the people that no such threat
exists and even says, "In the twenty years since I founded the army at the
Whampoa Military Academy, [2] the revolutionary
situation has never been so stable as at present." He also keeps repeating,
"We must not lose our self-confidence," which actually indicates loss of
confidence among many people within the ranks of the Kuomintang and among
many prominent public figures in the Kuomintang areas. Chiang Kai-shek has
been casting about for some means to restore that confidence. But instead
of looking for such means by examining his policy and work in the political,
military, economic and cultural fields, he resorts to the rejection of criticisms
and the whitewashing of his mistakes. He says that all "foreign observers"
are "ignorant of the heart of the matter" and that the "babel of foreign
criticism of our military and political affairs" is entirely due to credulous
acceptance of "the rumours and tricks of the invaders and the Chinese
collaborators".

Curiously enough, such foreigners as Franklin D. Roosevelt as well as such
Kuomintang members as Soong Ching Ling, many members of the People's Political
Council, and all Chinese who are not devoid of conscience, disbelieve the
plausible explanations offered by Chiang Kai-shek and his trusted followers
and are also raising a "babel of criticism of our military and political
affairs". Chiang Kai-shek is annoyed, but not until this year's Double Tenth
Festival did he succeed in discovering what he regards as a compelling argument,
i.e., that these people believe "the rumours and tricks of the invaders
and the Chinese collaborators". So in his speech Chiang Kai-shek vehemently
denounces these "rumours and tricks of the invaders and the Chinese
collaborators" at great length. He fancies that, having made this denunciation,
he can silence all the Chinese and foreigners. And anyone who again raises
a "Babel of criticism" of his military and political affairs will be put
down as a willing believer of "the rumours and tricks of the invaders and
the Chinese collaborators"! We consider Chiang Kai-shek's accusations ridiculous
in the extreme. For the invaders and the Chinese collaborators have never
criticized, but on the contrary have warmly applauded, the Kuomintang for
its autocracy, its half-hearted prosecution of the war, its corruption and
incompetence, and the fascist decrees and defeatist military orders of its
government. Chiang Kai-shek's China's Destiny, a book which has
met with general disapproval, has won sincere and repeated praise from the
Japanese imperialists. The invaders and the Chinese collaborators have never
said a word about reorganization of the National Government and its supreme
command, because it is their cherished wish that this government and supreme
command which keep on oppressing the people and losing battles will be preserved.
Is it not a fact that Chiang Kai-shek and his group have always been the
target of Japanese inducements to surrender? Is it not also a fact that of
the two slogans originally put forward by the Japanese imperialists, one,
"Annihilate the Kuomintang!" has been dropped long ago and only the other,
"Oppose the Communists!" remains? To this very moment the Japanese imperialists
have not declared war on the Kuomintang government, and no state of war,
so they say, exists between Japan and the Kuomintang government! To this
very moment the invaders and the Chinese collaborators are taking good care
of the property of the Kuomintang bigwigs in Shanghai, Nanking, Ningpo, etc.
The enemy chieftain Shuaroku Hata has sent his representatives to offer
sacrifices at Chiang Kai-shek's ancestral tombs at Fenghua. In Shanghai and
elsewhere, emissaries secretly dispatched by Chiang Kai-shek's trusted followers
are maintaining almost uninterrupted contact and carrying on clandestine
negotiations with the Japanese invaders. Those contacts and negotiations
become more frequent whenever the Japanese intensify their offensives. Aren't
all these things facts? Are those who raise a "Babel of criticism" of the
military and political affairs of Chiang Kai-shek and his group really "ignorant
of the heart of the matter", or are they on the contrary only too well acquainted
with it? After all, where is "the heart of the matter" to be found, in "the
rumours and tricks of the invaders and the Chinese collaborators", or in
Chiang Kai-shek himself and his own group?

In another statement in his speech, Chiang Kai-shek denies that civil war
will break out in China. But he adds, "Certainly no one will ever again dare
to rebel against the Republic and sabotage the War of Resistance, as Wang
Ching-wei and his like have done." Here Chiang Kai-shek is seeking, and has
in fact found, an excuse for civil war. Any Chinese whose memory is not too
short will remember that in 1941, at the very moment when the betrayers of
China were ordering the disbandment of the New Fourth Army and the Chinese
people were rising to avert the crisis of civil war, Chiang Kai-shek made
a speech in which he said that there would never be any war to "suppress
the Communists" and that, should there be a war, it would only be a punitive
one to put down rebels. Those who have read China's Destiny will
also remember Chiang Kai-shek's remark that the Communist Party of China
was "in league with" Wang Ching-wei in 1927 during the period of the Wuhan
Government. In the resolutions of the Eleventh Plenary Session of the Kuomintang
Central Executive Committee in 1943, an eight-word label was attached to
the Chinese Communist Party: "Sabotaging the War of Resistance and endangering
the state." After reading his present speech, one feels that the danger of
civil war not only exists but is actually growing. From now on the Chinese
people should firmly bear in mind that one fine morning Chiang 'Kai-shek
will order a punitive expedition against so-called rebels and that the charge
will be "rebellion against the Republic", "sabotaging the War of Resistance",
and doing what "Wang Ching-wei and his like have done". Chiang is good at
playing this game; he is no good at denouncing as rebels people like Pang
Ping-hsun, Sun Liang-cheng and Chen Hsiao-chiang
[3] or at launching punitive expeditions against
them, but he is very good at denouncing as "rebels" the New Fourth Army in
central China and the Dare-to-Die Corps [4] in
Shansi and is exceptionally good at launching punitive expeditions against
them. The Chinese people must not forget that, while proclaiming that he
will not fight a civil war, Chiang Kai-shek has already dispatched 775,000
troops who are now engaged exclusively in encircling or attacking the Eighth
Route Army, the New Fourth Army and the people's guerrillas in southern China.

Chiang Kai-shek's speech has nothing to show on the positive side, and he
has in no way met the Chinese people's eager desire to strengthen the
anti-Japanese front. On the negative side, the speech is fraught with dangerous
possibilities. His attitude is becoming more and more anomalous, as witness
his stubborn opposition to the people's demand for political change, his
bitter hatred of the Chinese Communist Party and his hint at a pretext for
the anti-Communist civil war he is preparing. However, he will succeed in
none of his schemes. Unless he is willing to mend his ways, he will be lifting
a rock only to drop it on his own toes. We sincerely hope he will change
his ways, because his present course of action will get him absolutely nowhere.
Since he has proclaimed that "a greater latitude will be allowed to the voicing
of opinions", [5] he should not stifle the "babel
of criticism" by threatening people with the slander that they are willingly
accepting "the rumours and tricks of the invaders and the Chinese collaborators".
Since he has proclaimed that "the period of political tutelage will be
shortened", he should not reject the demand for reorganizing the government
and the supreme command. Since he has proclaimed that "the Communist problem
should be solved politically", he should not again seek a pretext for preparing
civil war.
NOTES

1. The Double Tenth, October 10, is the anniversary of
the armed uprising in Wuhan which set off the Revolution of 1911.

2. The Whampoa Military Academy, located at Whampoa near
Canton, was established by Dr. Sun Yat-sen in 1924 after the reorganization
of the Kuomintang with the help of the Chinese Communist Party and the Soviet
Union. Before Chiang Kai-shek's betrayal of the revolution in 1927, the academy
was run jointly by the Kuomintang and the Communist Party. Comrades Chou
En-lai, Yeh Chien-ying, Yun Tai-ying, Hsiao Chu-nu and others held responsible
posts in the academy at one time or another. Many of the cadets were members
of the Communist Party or the Communist Youth League, and they formed the
revolutionary core of the academy.

3. Pang Ping-hsun, Sun Liang-cheng and Chen Hsiao-chiang
were Kuomintang generals who openly deserted to the Japanese invaders.

4. The Dare-to-Die Corps in Shansi was an anti-Japanese
armed force of the people which developed under the leadership and influence
of the Communist Party in the early days of the War of Resistance Against
Japan.

5. In April 1944 the Kuomintang announced that "a greater
latitude will be allowed to the voicing of opinions". Its purpose was to
fob off the people, because the demand that the Kuomintang dictatorship should
be ended, democracy established, and freedom of speech guaranteed had become
the general cry of the people in the Kuomintang areas from the beginning
of the year. In May, the Twelfth Plenary Session of the Central Executive
Committee of the Kuomintang again declared that it would "protect freedom
of speech". But the Kuomintang never fulfilled any of the promises it had
been compelled to make, and as the people's movement for democracy surged
forward, it multiplied its measures for the suppression of popular opinion.


Transcription by the Maoist Documentation Project.