On Convening Party Conferences, State Affairs Conferences, the National Assembly, and Other Issues—Telegram to Zhou Enlai[1]

(January 28, 1945)

Zhou:

Your telegrams of the 24th and 27th have been received. I am much gratified.

(1) Wang Shijie says the five points contain no mention of a party conference or a state affairs conference. You may ask him in return: Can the Guomindang and the Communist Party monopolize state affairs? If you agree to the five points, may I ask how a coalition government can be formed without convening a party conference and a state affairs conference? There are many things not written into the five points—for example, the proportion of each party’s participation in the coalition government, the abolition of the secret police, the withdrawal of encirclement forces, recognition of the popularly elected governments in the Liberated Areas, and so on. Do none of these count as problems?

(2) If the question of the National Assembly is raised, you should state: We do not approve of convening any National Assembly before the country’s territory is fully recovered, because the old National Assembly delegates were elected through bribery and are outdated, while holding new elections is impossible in more than half of China. This would still be the case even after a coalition government is established, let alone without a coalition government. We also hope to seek the agreement of the minor parties on this point, so as to jointly resist Jiang’s

[1] On January 27, 1945, Zhou Enlai telegraphed Mao Zedong reporting on the talks held on the 25th and 26th with Hurley, Song Ziwen, Wang Shijie, and Zhang Zhizhong. The telegram stated that Hurley, Song Ziwen, and Wang Shijie proposed two supplementary measures outside the Administrative Council: (1) the formation of a military reorganization committee with one representative each from the United States, the Guomindang, and the Communist Party; (2) the appointment by the United States of a general officer as commander-in-chief of the Communist forces behind enemy lines, with one deputy commander each from the Guomindang and the Communist Party. Zhou Enlai rejected these two supplementary measures, pointing out that they were unfair and unreasonable. This is Mao Zedong’s reply telegram to Zhou Enlai.

National Assembly farce.

(3) You were quite right to reject Hurley’s two supplementary measures. This is a vicious policy designed to subordinate the Chinese army, especially our Party’s army, to a foreign power and turn it into a colonial army. We absolutely cannot agree to it.