April 24, 1945

[This was the political report made by Comrade Mao Tse-tung to the Seventh
National Congress of the Communist Party of China.]


I. THE FUNDAMENTAL DEMANDS OF THE CHINESE PEOPLE


Our congress is being held in the following circumstances. A new situation
has emerged after nearly eight years of resolute, heroic and indomitable
struggle waged by the Chinese people with countless sacrifices and amid untold
hardships against the Japanese aggressors; in the world as a whole, decisive
victory has been gained in the just and sacred war against the fascist aggressors
and the moment is near when the Japanese aggressors will be defeated by the
Chinese people in co-ordination with the allied countries. But China remains
disunited and is still confronted with a grave crisis. In these circumstances,
what ought we to do? Beyond all doubt, the urgent need is to unite
representatives of all political parties and groups and of people without
any party affiliation and establish a provisional democratic coalition government
for the purpose of instituting democratic reforms, surmounting the present
crisis, mobilizing and unifying all the anti-Japanese forces in the country
to fight in effective co-ordination with the allied countries for the defeat
of the Japanese aggressors, and thus enabling the Chinese people to liberate
themselves from the latter's clutches. After that it will be necessary to
convene a national assembly on a broad democratic basis and set up a formally
constituted democratic government, which will also be in the nature of a
coalition and will have a still wider representation of people from all parties
and groups or without any party affiliation, and which will lead the liberated
people of the whole country in building an independent, free, democratic,
united, prosperous and powerful new China. In short, we must take the line
of unity and democracy, defeat the aggressors and build a new China.

We believe that this alone can give expression to the fundamental demands
of the Chinese people. Therefore, my report will deal mainly with these demands.
Whether or not a democratic coalition government should be set up has become
a matter of deep concern for the Chinese people and for democratic public
opinion in the allied countries. My report will therefore lay particular
stress on elucidating this question.

In the eight years of the War of Resistance Against Japan, the Communist
Party of China has overcome many difficulties and achieved great successes,
but as things stand serious difficulties still confront our Party and people.
The present situation demands that our Party should work still more solidly
and intensively and that it should continue to overcome the difficulties
and strive to fulfil the fundamental demands of the Chinese people.

II. THE INTERNATIONAL AND THE DOMESTIC SITUATION


Can the Chinese people translate these basic demands into reality? This will
depend on the level of their political consciousness, their unity and their
efforts. At the same time, the present international and domestic situation
offers extremely favourable opportunities. If the Chinese people can make
good use of these opportunities and continue to fight on staunchly, vigorously
and persistently, they will undoubtedly defeat the aggressors and build a
new China. They must redouble their efforts in their struggle to accomplish
their sacred tasks.

What is the present international situation?

The present military situation is that the Soviet Army is attacking Berlin,
and the allied forces of Britain, the United States and France are attacking
the Hitlerite remnants in co-ordination with this offensive, while the Italian
people are launching uprisings. All this will eliminate Hitler once and for
all. After Hitler is wiped out, the defeat of the Japanese aggressors will
not be far distant. Contrary to the predictions of the Chinese and foreign
reactionaries, the forces of fascist aggression will undoubtedly be overthrown
and the people's democratic forces will undoubtedly triumph. The world will
unquestionably take the road of progress and not the road of reaction. Of
course, we must remain very much on the alert and reckon with the possibility
of certain temporary or perhaps even serious twists and turns in the course
of events; in many countries there are still strong reactionary forces which
begrudge the people at home and abroad their unity, progress and liberation.
Anyone who loses sight of this possibility will make political mistakes.
The general trend of history, however, is already clearly decided and will
not change. This is bad only for the fascists and for the reactionaries of
all countries who are in fact their helpers, but it is a blessing for the
people and for the organized democratic forces in all countries. The people,
and the people alone, are the motive force of world history. The Soviet-people
have built up great strength and become the main force in the defeat of fascism.
It is their efforts, plus those of the people in the other anti-fascist allied
countries, which are making the destruction of fascism possible. War has
educated the people and it is the people who will win the war, win the peace
and win progress.

This new situation is very different from that in World War I. The Soviet
Union was not yet in existence then and the people were not politically awakened
as they are in many countries today. The two world wars represent two entirely
different epochs.

This does not mean that there will be no more struggles after the defeat
of the fascist aggressor countries, the end of World War II and the establishment
of international peace. The remnant forces of fascism which are still widespread
will certainly continue to make trouble, while within the camp now fighting
fascist aggression there are forces which oppose democracy and oppress other
nations, and they will continue to oppress the people in various countries
and in the colonies and semi-colonies. Therefore, after international peace
is established, there will still be numerous struggles over the greater part
of the world--between the anti-fascist masses and the remnants of fascism,
between democracy and anti-democracy, between national liberation and national
oppression. The people will achieve the most extensive victory only through
long and sustained efforts, when the remaining forces of fascism, the
anti-democratic forces and all the imperialist forces are overcome. To be
sure, that day will not come very quickly or easily, but come it surely will.
Victory in the anti-fascist Second World War will pave the way for the victory
of the people in their post-war struggles. A stable and lasting peace will
be ensured only when victory is won in these struggles.

What is the present domestic situation?

China's protracted war has exacted and will continue to exact great sacrifices
from the Chinese people, but at the same time this very war has tempered
them. It has awakened and united the Chinese people to a greater degree than
all their great struggles in the last hundred years. The Chinese people face
not only a formidable national enemy but also powerful domestic reactionary
forces which are in fact helping the enemy; this is one side of the picture.
But the other side is that the Chinese people are not only more politically
conscious than ever before but have built powerful Liberated Areas and a
nation-wide democratic movement that is growing day by day. These constitute
favourable domestic conditions. If the defeats and setbacks in the Chinese
people's struggles of the last hundred years were due to the absence of certain
necessary international and domestic conditions, then today the situation
is different--all the necessary conditions are present. There is every
possibility of avoiding defeat and winning victory. We shall be victorious
if we can unite the whole people in resolute struggle and give them proper
leadership.

The Chinese people now have much greater confidence that they can unite to
defeat the aggressors and build a new China. The time has come for them to
conquer all difficulties and achieve their fundamental demands, their great
historic aspirations. Is there any doubt about it? I think not.

Such is the general international and domestic situation today.

III. TWO LINES IN THE ANTI-JAPANESE WAR


THE KEY TO CHINA'S PROBLEMS


In speaking of the domestic situation, we have also to make a specific analysis
of China's War of Resistance.

China is one of the five biggest countries taking part in the war against
fascism and it is the principal country fighting the Japanese aggressors
on the continent of Asia. Not only have the Chinese people played a very
great role in the war against Japan, but they will also play a very great
role in safeguarding peace in the post-war world and the decisive one in
safeguarding peace in the East. China has made very great efforts to liberate
herself and to help the allied countries during the eight years of the War
of Resistance Against Japan. These efforts have been made primarily by the
people of China. Vast numbers of officers and men in China's armies have
fought and shed their blood at the front; the workers, peasants, intellectuals
and industrialists of China have worked hard in the rear; the Chinese overseas
have made donations to support the war; and all the anti-Japanese political
parties, except for such of their members as are opposed to the people, have
played their part in the war. In short, with their blood and sweat, the Chinese
people have heroically fought the Japanese aggressors for eight long years.
But for a number of years the Chinese reactionaries have been spreading rumours
and misleading public opinion in order to prevent the world from knowing
the truth about the role played by the Chinese people in the war. Besides,
there has as yet been no comprehensive summing-up of the varied experience
gained by China during those eight years of war. Therefore, this congress
should make a proper summing-up of all this experience in order to educate
the people and provide our Party with a basis for the formulation of policy.

When it comes to such summing up, it is plain to all that there are two different
guiding lines in China. One leads to the defeat of the Japanese aggressors,
while the other not only makes their defeat impossible but in some respects
actually helps them and undermines our War of Resistance.

The Kuomintang government's policy of passive resistance to Japan and its
reactionary domestic policy of active repression of the people have resulted
in military setbacks, enormous territorial losses, financial and economic
crisis, oppression and hardship for the people and the disruption of national
unity. This reactionary policy has been an obstruction to mobilizing and
uniting all the anti-Japanese forces of the Chinese people for the effective
prosecution of the war, and has hindered the awakening and unity of the people.
Yet this political awakening and this unity have never ceased to develop,
but have moved forward along a tortuous course, under the twofold repression
of the Japanese aggressors and the Kuomintang government. Clearly, there
have been two lines in China for a long time, the Kuomintang government's
line of oppression of the people and of passive resistance, and the Chinese
people's line of enhancing their own consciousness and unity for the waging
of a people's war. Herein lies the key to all China's problems.

HISTORY FOLLOWS A TORTUOUS COURSE


To help people understand why this question of the two lines is the key to
all of China's problems, it is necessary to trace the history of our War
of Resistance Against Japan.

The Chinese people's War of Resistance has followed a tortuous course. It
began as far back as 1931. On September 18 of that year, the Japanese aggressors
occupied Shenyang, and within a few months they seized the three northeastern
provinces. The Kuomintang government adopted a policy of non-resistance.
But against the will of the Kuomintang government and led or assisted by
the Chinese Communist Party, the people and a patriotic section of the troops
of these provinces organized the Anti-Japanese Volunteers and the Anti-Japanese
United Army and engaged in heroic guerrilla warfare. At one time this heroic
guerrilla warfare grew to great dimensions and, despite many difficulties
and setbacks, it has never been put down by the enemy. When the Japanese
aggressors attacked Shanghai in 1932, a group of patriots in the Kuomintang
once again defied the will of the Kuomintang government and led the 19th
Route Army in resisting the Japanese aggressors. In 1933 the Japanese aggressors
invaded Jehol and Chahar Provinces, and for the third time a group of patriots
in the Kuomintang defied the will of the Kuomintang government and co-operated
with the Communist Party in organizing the Anti-Japanese Allied Army to resist
the enemy. But in all this fighting against Japan support came entirely from
the Chinese people, the Chinese Communist Party, other democratic groups
and the patriotic Chinese overseas, while the Kuomintang government with
its policy of non-resistance contributed nothing. On the contrary, the
anti-Japanese actions in Shanghai and Chahar were both wrecked by the Kuomintang
government itself. In 1933 it also destroyed the people's government which
had been established in Fukien by the 19th Route Army.

Why did the Kuomintang government of that day adopt a policy of non-resistance?
The main reason was that it had wrecked Kuomintang-Communist co-operation
and the unity of the Chinese people in 1927.

In 1924 Dr. Sun Yat-sen, accepting the proposals of the Chinese Communist
Party, called the First National Congress of the Kuomintang in which Communists
took part, adopted the Three Great Policies of alliance with Russia, co-operation
with the Communist Party and assistance to the peasants and workers, established
the Whampoa Military Academy and formed the national united front of the
Kuomintang, the Communist Party and all sections of the people. As a result,
the reactionary forces in Kwangtung Province were destroyed in 1924-25, the
triumphant Northern Expedition was carried out during 1926-27, most of the
areas along the Yangtse and Yellow Rivers were taken over, the Northern warlord
government was defeated, and the people's struggle for liberation was unfolded
on a scale never before seen in Chinese history. But at a critical moment
in the progress of the Northern Expedition, in the late spring and early
summer of 1927, the treacherous and reactionary policies of "party purge"
and massacre adopted by the Kuomintang authorities wrecked this national
united front--the united front of the Kuomintang, the Communist Party and
all sections of the people, which embodied the Chinese people's cause of
liberation--and all its revolutionary policies. Yesterday's allies, the Chinese
Communist Party and the Chinese people, were now regarded as enemies, and
yesterday's enemies, the imperialists and feudalists, were now regarded as
allies. So it came about that a sudden attack was perfidiously launched against
the Chinese Communist Party and the people, and the great, dynamic and vigorous
revolution was crushed. Thereupon unity was replaced by civil war, democracy
by dictatorship, and a China full of brightness by a China covered in darkness.
But the Chinese Communist Party and the Chinese people were neither cowed
nor conquered nor exterminated. They picked themselves up, wiped off the
blood, buried their fallen comrades and went into battle again. Holding high
the great standard of revolution, they rose in armed resistance and over
a vast territory in China they set up people's governments, carried out land
reform, built up a people's army--the Chinese Red Army-- and preserved and
expanded the revolutionary forces of the Chinese people. Dr. Sun Yat-sen's
revolutionary Three People's Principles, which the Kuomintang reactionaries
had discarded, were carried forward by the people, the Communist Party and
other democrats.

After the invasion of the three northeastern provinces by the Japanese
aggressors, the Chinese Communist Party in 1933, proposed to all the Kuomintang
forces then attacking the revolutionary base areas and the Red Army that
an armistice agreement be concluded to facilitate united resistance to Japan;
this proposal was made with three conditions--that the attacks should stop,
that the people should be granted democratic rights, and that the people
should be armed. But the Kuomintang authorities rejected it.

From then on the Kuomintang government's policy of civil war became increasingly
vicious, while the voice of the Chinese people grow increasingly powerful
in its demand for an end to civil war and for united resistance to Japan.
All kinds of popular patriotic organizations were formed in Shanghai and
many other places. Between 1934 and 1936, under the leadership of the Central
Committee of our Party, the main forces of the Red Army north and south of
the Yangtse River went through untold hardships and moved to northwestern
China, joining forces with the Red Army units there. It was in those two
years that the Chinese Communist Party decided on, and carried out, a new
and comprehensive political line in keeping with the new situation--the line
of the National United Front Against Japan, with united resistance to Japan
and the establishment of a new-democratic republic as the goal of struggle.
On December 9,1935, the student masses in Peiping launched a heroic patriotic
movement under our Party's leadership; they formed the Chinese National
Liberation Vanguard Corps [1] and spread this movement
to all the big cities in China. On December 12, 1936, two patriotic Kuomintang
groups which favoured resistance to Japan, the Northeastern Army and the
17th Route Army, together staged the famous Sian Incident in courageous
opposition to the reactionary Kuomintang policy of compromising with Japan
and massacring the people at home. Other patriots in the Kuomintang were
likewise dissatisfied with the policy of the Kuomintang authorities at the
time. These were the circumstances in which the Kuomintang authorities were
forced to abandon their policy of civil war and to acknowledge the demands
of the people. The peaceful settlement of the Sian Incident became the turning
point; under the new circumstances internal co-operation took shape and the
nationwide War of Resistance Against Japan began. In May 1937, shortly before
the Lukouchiao Incident, [2] our Party called the
historic national conference at which the new political line followed by
the Central Committee of the Party since 1935 was endorsed.

From the Lukouchiao Incident of July 7, 1937 to the fall of Wuhan in October
1938, the Kuomintang government was relatively active in the war against
Japan. During that period the large-scale Japanese attacks and the mounting
patriotic indignation of the whole people compelled the Kuomintang government
to make resistance to the Japanese aggressors the centre of gravity of its
policy, which made it easier to bring about an upsurge in the struggle of
the whole army and people against Japan, and for a time there was a new and
dynamic atmosphere. All the people, including the Communists and other democrats,
earnestly hoped that the Kuomintang government would seize the opportunity,
at a time when the nation was in peril and the people were filled with
enthusiasm, to institute democratic reforms and put Dr. Sun Yat-sen's
revolutionary Three People's Principles into practice. But their hopes came
to nought. Even in those two years of relatively active resistance, the
Kuomintang authorities continued to oppose the mobilization of the masses
for a people's war and to place restrictions on the people's spontaneous
efforts to unite for anti-Japanese and democratic action. While the Kuomintang
government had somewhat changed its previous attitude to the Chinese Communist
Party and the other anti-Japanese parties, it continued to deny them equal
status and restrict their activities in many ways. Patriotic political prisoners
were still kept in jail in large numbers. Above all, the Kuomintang government
still maintained the oligarchic dictatorship it had established after launching
the civil war in 1927, so that it was impossible to set up a democratic coalition
government representing the unanimous will of the nation.

At the very beginning of this period we Communists pointed out that there
were two alternative lines for China's war of Resistance Against Japan, an
all-embracing people's war leading to victory, or a partial war in which
the people remained oppressed, leading to defeat. We also pointed out that
the war would be protracted and would inevitably involve many obstacles and
hardships, but that by their exertions the Chinese people were sure to win
the final victory.
THE PEOPLE'S WAR


During the same period the main forces of the Communist-led Red Army, which
had moved to northwestern China, were redesignated as the Eighth Route Army
of the Chinese National Revolutionary Army, while the Chinese Red Army's
guerrilla units, which had remained in various places on both sides of the
Yangtse River, were redesignated as the New Fourth Army of the Chinese National
Revolutionary Army. The former went to fight on the northern China front
and the latter on the central China front. During the civil war period, the
Chinese Red Army, which had preserved and developed the democratic tradition
of the Whampoa Military Academy and of the National Revolutionary Army of
the Northern Expedition days, had at one time grown to several hundred thousand
men. But by the beginning of the War of Resistance Against Japan it had been
reduced to a few tens of thousands as a result of the ruthless destruction
wrought in our southern base areas by the Kuomintang government, our losses
during the Long March, and other causes. Consequently there were some who
looked down on this army and thought that the main reliance for resistance
to Japan should be placed on the Kuomintang. But the people are the best
judges. The people knew that despite their small number at the time, the
Eighth Route and New Fourth Armies were of high quality, that they alone
could wage a real people's war and that boundless prospects would open up
before them once they reached the anti-Japanese fronts and joined with the
broad masses there. And the people were right. By now, as I make this report,
our army has already expanded to 910,000 men, and the number of our rural
militia, who are not withdrawn from normal productive work, has grown to
more than 2,200,000. Despite the fact that our regular army is still numerically
much smaller than that of the Kuomintang (counting the Kuomintang units under
local as well as central control), it has already become the main force in
China's War of Resistance, judging by the number of Japanese and puppet forces
it is engaging and the extent of its battle fronts, by its combat effectiveness,
by the mass support it enjoys in its operations, and by its political quality,
cohesion and unity.

This army is powerful because all its members have a discipline based on
political consciousness; they have come together and they fight not for the
private interests of a few individuals or a narrow clique, but for the interests
of the broad masses and of the whole nation. The sole purpose of this army
is to stand firmly with the Chinese people and to serve them whole-heartedly.

Guided by this purpose, this army has an indomitable spirit and is determined
to vanquish all enemies and never to yield. No matter what the difficulties
and hardships, so long as a single man remains, he will fight on.

Guided by this purpose, this army has achieved remarkable unity in its own
ranks and with those outside its ranks. Internally, there is unity between
officers and men, between the higher and lower ranks, and between military
work, political work and rear service work, and externally, there is unity
between the army and the people, between the army and government organizations,
and between our army and the friendly armies. It is imperative to overcome
anything that impairs this unity.

Guided by this purpose, this army has a correct policy for winning over enemy
officers and men and for dealing with prisoners of war. Without exception
all members of the enemy forces who surrender, who come over to our side
or who, after laying down their arms, wish to join in fighting the common
foe, are welcomed and given proper education. It is forbidden to kill, maltreat
or insult any prisoner of war.

Guided by this purpose, this army has built up a system of strategy and tactics
which is essential for the people's war. It is skilled in flexible guerrilla
warfare conducted in accordance with the changing concrete conditions and
is also skilled in mobile warfare.

Guided by this purpose, this army has built up a system of political work
which is essential for the people's war and is aimed at promoting unity in
its own ranks, unity with the friendly armies and unity with the people,
and at disintegrating the enemy forces and ensuring victory in battle.

Guided by this purpose, the entire army, operating under conditions of guerrilla
warfare, is able to utilize, and has in fact utilized, the intervals between
battles and between training periods to produce grain and other necessities,
thus becoming wholly, half or at least partly self-supporting, so that economic
difficulties are overcome, living conditions improved and the burden on the
people lightened. Every possibility has been exploited to establish a number
of small-scale armament works in various military base areas.

Furthermore, this army is powerful because it has the people's self-defence
corps and the militia--the vast armed organizations of the masses--fighting
in co-ordination with it. In the Liberated Areas of China all men and women,
from youth to middle age, are organized in the people's anti-Japanese
self-defence corps on a voluntary and democratic basis and without giving
up their work in production. The cream of the self-defence corps, except
for those who join the army or the guerrilla units, is brought into the militia.
Without the cooperation of these armed forces of the masses it would be
impossible to defeat the enemy.

Finally, this army is powerful because of its division into two parts, the
main forces and the regional forces, with the former available for operations
in any region whenever necessary and the latter concentrating on defending
their own localities and attacking the enemy there in co-operation with the
local militia and the self-defence corps. This division of labour has won
the whole-hearted support of the people. Without this correct division of
labour--if, for example, attention were paid only to the role of the main
forces while that of the regional forces were neglected--it would likewise
be impossible to defeat the enemy in the conditions obtaining in China's
Liberated Areas. Under the regional forces, numerous armed working teams
have been organized, which are well trained and hence better qualified for
military, political and mass work; they penetrate into the rearmost areas
behind the enemy lines, strike at the enemy and arouse the masses to
anti-Japanese struggle, thus giving support to the frontal military operations
of the various Liberated Areas. In all this they have achieved great success.

Under the leadership of their democratic governments, all the anti-Japanese
people in the Liberated Areas of China are called upon to join organizations
of workers, peasants, youth and women, and cultural, professional and other
organizations, which will wholeheartedly perform various tasks in support
of the armed forces. Those tasks are not limited to rallying the people to
join the army, transporting grain for it, caring for soldiers' families and
helping the troops in meeting their material needs. They also include mobilizing
the guerrilla units, militia and self-defence corps to make widespread raids
and lay land mines against the enemy, gather intelligence about him, comb
out traitors and spies, transport and protect the wounded and take direct
part in the army's operations. At the same time, the people in all the Liberated
Areas are enthusiastically taking up various kinds of political, economic,
cultural and health work. The most important thing in this connection is
to mobilize everybody for the production of grain and other necessities and
to ensure that all government institutions and schools, except in special
cases, devote their free time to production for their own support in order
to supplement the self-sufficiency production campaigns of the army and the
people and thus help to create a great upsurge of production to sustain the
protracted War of Resistance. In China's Liberated Areas, the enemy has wrought
great havoc, and floods, droughts and damage by insect pests have been frequent.
However, the democratic governments there have been leading the people in
overcoming these difficulties in an organized way, and unprecedented results
have been achieved by the great mass campaigns for pest extermination, flood
control and disaster relief, thus making it possible to persevere in the
protracted War of Resistance. In a word, everything for the front, everything
for the defeat of the Japanese aggressors and for the liberation of the Chinese
people--this is the general slogan, the general policy for the whole army
and the whole people in the Liberated Areas of China.

Such is a real people's war. Only by waging such a people's war can we defeat
the national enemy. The Kuomintang has failed precisely because of its desperate
opposition to a people's war.

Once it is equipped with modern weapons, the army of China's Liberated Areas
will become still more powerful and will be able to accomplish the final
defeat of the Japanese aggressors.
TWO BATTLE FRONTS


From the very beginning there have been two fronts in China's War of Resistance,
the Kuomintang front and the front of the Liberated Areas.

After the fall of Wuhan in October 1938, the Japanese aggressors stopped
their strategic offensive against the Kuomintang front and gradually shifted
their main forces to the front of the Liberated Areas; at the same time,
taking advantage of the defeatist sentiments of the Kuomintang government,
they declared their willingness to arrive at a compromise peace with it,
and, adopting a policy designed to deceive the Chinese nation, they induced
the traitor Wang Ching-wei to leave Chungking and establish a puppet government
in Nanking. The Kuomintang government then began to change its policy, gradually
shifting the emphasis from resistance to Japan to opposition to the Communist
Party and the people. This shift first made itself apparent in the military
sphere. To conserve its own military strength, the Kuomintang government
adopted the policy of passive resistance to Japan; it threw the burden of
fighting onto the front of the Liberated Areas by letting the Japanese invaders
attack the Liberated Areas in force, while itself "sitting on top of the
mountain to watch the tigers fight".

In 1939, the Kuomintang government adopted the reactionary "Measures for
Restricting the Activities of Alien Parties" and completely deprived the
people and the anti-Japanese parties of whatever rights they had won during
the early period of the War of Resistance. From then on, in the Kuomintang
areas, all the democratic parties, and first and foremost the Communist Party
of China, have been driven underground by the Kuomintang government. In every
province in those areas the prisons and concentration camps are packed with
Communists, young patriots and other fighters for democracy. In the five
years from 1939 to the autumn of 1943, the Kuomintang government launched
three anti-Communist onslaughts [3] to split national
unity, and thus created serious danger of civil war. It was in this period
that the "disbanding" of the New Fourth Army was ordered and more than nine
thousand of its troops in southern Anhwei were annihilated--an event which
shocked the world. To this very moment the attacks by Kuomintang troops on
the forces of the Liberated Areas have not ceased, nor is there any sign
that they will. At the same time, the Kuomintang reactionaries have been
pouring out slanders and calumnies of all sorts. It is they who have fabricated
such labels and expressions as "traitor party", "traitor army", "traitor
areas", and "sabotaging the War of Resistance and endangering the state",
for the purpose of maligning the Communist Party, the Eighth Route and New
Fourth Armies and the Liberated Areas. To meet the crisis, on July 7, 1939
the Central Committee of the Chinese Communist Party issued a manifesto setting
forth the following slogans, "Persist in resistance and oppose capitulation!
Persist in unity and oppose a split! Persist in progress and oppose
retrogressions!" In those five years, our Party, acting on these timely slogans,
vigorously repulsed the three reactionary and anti-popular anti-Communist
onslaughts and overcame the crisis on each occasion.

There was actually no serious fighting on the Kuomintang front during those
years. The sword-edge of Japanese aggression was mainly directed against
the Liberated Areas. By 1943, the army and the people of the Liberated Areas
were pinning down 64 per cent of the Japanese forces invading China and 95
per cent of the puppet troops, while the Kuomintang front faced only 36 per
cent of the former and 5 per cent of the latter.

In 1944 the Japanese aggressors launched operations to force China's north-south
trunk railways open for through traffic;[4]
panic-stricken, the Kuomintang forces were totally incapable of offering
resistance. Within a few months extensive areas in Honan, Hunan, Kwangsi
and Kwangtung Provinces had fallen into the enemy's hands. It was not until
then that some change took place in the proportion of enemy forces engaged
on the two fronts. Even so, at the moment of making this report, of the 40
divisions comprising 580,000 Japanese soldiers in China (not counting those
in the three northeastern provinces), 22 1/2 divisions, comprising 320,000
men or 56 per cent of the total forces, are engaged on the front of the Liberated
Areas, and no more than 17 1/2 divisions, comprising 260,000 men or 44 per
cent, are engaged on the Kuomintang front. As for the puppet troops engaged
on the two fronts, the ratio has not changed at all.

It should also be pointed out that the puppet troops, numbering more than
800,000 men (in both the regular and the local forces), are chiefly composed
either of units that surrendered under their Kuomintang commanders or of
units organized by the Kuomintang officers after their surrender. The Kuomintang
reactionaries have furnished these puppet troops in advance with a false
and traitorous theory, namely, "saving the nation by a devious path", and
have given them moral and organizational support since their surrender, directing
them to attack the Chinese people's Liberated Areas in co-ordination with
the Japanese aggressors. These reactionaries have also mustered large forces,
totalling no less than 797,000 men, to blockade and attack the
Shensi-Kansu-Ningsia Border Region and other Liberated Areas. This grave
situation is being kept from the knowledge of many Chinese and foreigners
by the Kuomintang government's policy of suppressing news.
CHINA'S LIBERATED AREAS


China's Liberated Areas, led by the Communist Party, now have a population
of 95,500,000. They exist from Inner Mongolia in the north to Hainan Island
in the south; almost everywhere the enemy goes, he finds the Eighth Route
Army, the New Fourth Army or some other people's forces in operation. This
vast liberated territory consists of nineteen major Liberated Areas, covering
greater or lesser parts of the provinces of Liaoning, Jehol, Chahar, Suiyuan,
Shensi, Kansu, Ningsia, Shansi, Hopei, Honan, Shantung, Kiangsu, Chekiang,
Anhwei, Kiangsi, Hupeh, Hunan, Kwangtung and Fukien. Yenan is the centre
from which guidance is given to all those Liberated Areas. The
Shensi-Kansu-Ningsia Border Region west of the Yellow River, with a population
of only 1,500,000, is but one of the nineteen areas forming this vast liberated
part of China and, indeed, the smallest in population except for one in eastern
Chekiang Province and another on Hainan Island. Unaware of this, some people
think China's liberated territory consists chiefly of the Shensi-Kansu-Ningsia
Border Region. This misconception arises from the Kuomintang government's
blockade. In every one of the Liberated Areas, all the requisite policies
of the Anti-Japanese National United Front have been put into practice, and
popularly elected governments, that is, local coalition governments, have
been or are being set up, in which Communists and representative personalities
of other anti-Japanese parties or without any party affiliation are co-operating.
The entire strength of the people has been mobilized in the Liberated Areas.
As a result, despite the formidable pressure of the enemy, the Kuomintang's
military blockade and attacks and the complete absence of outside help, China's
Liberated Areas have stood firm and have grown steadily, reducing the territory
occupied by the enemy and extending their own; they have become the model
for a democratic China and the main force driving out the Japanese aggressors
and liberating the Chinese people in military co-operation with the allied
countries. The armed forces of China's Liberated Areas, the Eighth Route
Army, the New Fourth Army and the other armed forces of the people, have
not only set a heroic example in fighting Japan, but have also set an example
in carrying out the democratic policies of the Anti-Japanese National United
Front. The declaration issued by the Central Committee of the Communist Party
of China on September 22, 1937 affirming that "Dr. Sun Yat-sen's Three People's
Principles being what China needs today, our Party is ready to fight for
their complete realization", has been completely carried into effect in China's
Liberated Areas.
THE KUOMINTANG AREAS


Persisting in its dictatorial rule, the chief ruling clique of the Kuomintang
has followed a policy of passive resistance to Japan and a domestic policy
directed against the people. In consequence, its armed forces have shrunk
to less than half their original size and most of them have virtually lost
their combat effectiveness; there is a profound rift between this clique
and the broad masses and a grave crisis of mass impoverishment, seething
discontent and widespread revolt; not only has its role in the war been sharply
reduced, but it has also become an obstacle to the mobilization and unity
of all the anti-Japanese forces of the Chinese people.

Why has such a grave situation arisen under the leadership of the Kuomintang's
chief ruling clique? It has arisen because that clique represents the interests
of China's big landlords, big bankers and big compradors. The handful of
people forming this reactionary stratum monopolize all the important military,
political, economic and cultural organizations under the Kuomintang government.
They place the safeguarding of their own interests above resistance to Japan.
They too say "the nation above all", but their actions do not accord with
the demands of the great majority of the nation. They too say "the state
above all", but what they mean is the feudal-fascist dictatorship of the
big landlords, big bankers and big compradors, and not a democratic state
of the people. Therefore they are afraid of the rise of the people, afraid
of the democratic movement and afraid of full mass mobilization for war against
Japan. Herein lies the root cause of their policy of passive resistance to
Japan and their reactionary domestic policy against the people, democracy
and the Communist Party. They have a double-faced policy in everything. For
instance, on the one hand they are resisting Japan but on the other they
are pursuing a passive war policy, and moreover they are the constant target
of Japanese inducements to surrender. They talk about developing China's
economy, but in fact they build up their own bureaucrat-capital, i.e., the
capital of the big landlords, bankers and compradors, and monopolize the
lifelines of China's economy, ruthlessly oppressing the peasants, the workers,
the petty bourgeoisie and the non-monopoly bourgeoisie. They talk about putting
"democracy" into practice and "handing state power back to the people", yet
they ruthlessly suppress the people's movement for democracy and refuse to
introduce the mildest democratic reform. They say that "the Communist problem
is a political one and should be solved politically", yet they ruthlessly
suppress the Chinese Communist Party militarily, politically and economically,
regarding it as "enemy No. 1" and the Japanese aggressors as only "enemy
No. 2", and day in and day out they busy themselves with preparations for
a civil war and plots to annihilate the Communist Party. They say they will
establish a "modern state", yet they work desperately to maintain the
feudal-fascist dictatorship of the big landlords, bankers and compradors.
While maintaining formal diplomatic relations with the Soviet Union, they
are in fact hostile to it. They chant "Asia before Europe" in chorus with
the U.S. isolationists in order to prolong the life of fascist Germany, which
amounts to prolonging the life of fascists everywhere, including their own
fascist rule over the Chinese people, yet at the same time they indulge in
diplomatic manoeuvres, masquerading as anti-fascist heroes. If you look for
the root of these contradictory double-faced policies, you will find they
all stem from the social stratum of the big landlords, bankers and compradors.

Nevertheless, the Kuomintang is not a homogeneous political party. Though
it is controlled and led by the reactionary clique representing the stratum
of the big landlords, bankers and compradors, it must not be entirely identified
with this clique. Some Kuomintang leaders do not belong to this clique by
which they are even slighted, pushed aside or attacked. Many of its cadres
and rank and file and many members of the Three People's Principles Youth
League are dissatisfied with the leadership of this clique, and some even
oppose it. The same is true of all the Kuomintang armies, government organs
and economic and cultural institutions which this reactionary clique controls.
There are quite a number of democratic elements in all of them. Moreover,
the reactionary clique itself, divided as it is into several contending factions,
is not a close-knit body. Undoubtedly it is wrong to regard the Kuomintang
as a homogeneous body of reactionaries.
A CONTRAST


The Chinese people have come to see the sharp contrast between the Liberated
Areas and the Kuomintang areas.

Are not the facts clear enough? Here are two lines, the line of a people's
war and the line of passive resistance, which is against a people's war;
one leads to victory even in the difficult conditions in China's Liberated
Areas with their total lack of outside aid, and the other leads to defeat
even in the extremely favourable conditions in the Kuomintang areas with
foreign aid available.

The Kuomintang government attributes its failures to lack of arms.

Yet one may ask, which of the two are short of arms, the Kuomintang troops
or the troops of the Liberated Areas? Of all China's forces, those of the
Liberated Areas lack arms most acutely, their only weapons being those they
capture from the enemy or manufacture under the most adverse conditions.

Is it not true that the forces directly under the Kuomintang central government
are far better armed than the provincial troops? Yet in combat effectiveness
most of the central forces are inferior to the provincial troops.

The Kuomintang commands vast reserves of manpower, yet its wrong recruiting
policy makes manpower replenishment very difficult. Though cut off from each
other by the enemy and engaged in constant fighting, China's Liberated Areas
are able to mobilize inexhaustible manpower because the militia and self-defence
corps system, which is well-adapted to the needs of the people, is applied
everywhere, and because misuse and waste of manpower are avoided.

Although the Kuomintang controls vast areas abounding in grain and the people
supply it with 70-100 million tan annually, its army is always short
of food and its soldiers are emaciated because the greater part of the grain
is embezzled by those through whose hands it passes. But although most of
China's Liberated Areas, which are located in the enemy rear, have been
devastated by the enemy's policy of "burn all, kill all, loot all", and although
some regions like northern Shensi are very arid, we have successfully solved
the grain problem through our own efforts by increasing agricultural production.

The Kuomintang areas are facing a very grave economic crisis; most industries
are bankrupt, and even such necessities as cloth have to be imported from
the United States. But China's Liberated Areas are able to meet their own
needs in cloth and other necessities through the development of industry.

In the Kuomintang areas, the workers, peasants, shop assistants, government
employees, intellectuals and cultural workers live in extreme misery. In
the Liberated Areas all the people have food, clothing and work.

It is characteristic of the Kuomintang areas that, exploiting the national
crisis for profiteering purposes, officials have concurrently become traders
and habitual grafters without any sense of shame or decency. It is characteristic
of China's Liberated Areas that, setting an example of plain living and hard
work, the cadres take part in production in addition to their regular duties;
honesty is held in high esteem while graft is strictly prohibited.

In the Kuomintang areas the people have no freedom at all. In China's Liberated
Areas the people have full freedom.

Who is to blame for all the anomalies which confront the Kuomintang rulers?
Are others to blame, or they themselves? Are foreign countries to blame for
not giving them enough aid, or are the Kuomintang government's dictatorial
rule, corruption and incompetence to blame? Isn't the answer obvious?
WHO IS "SABOTAGING THE WAR OF RESISTANCE AND ENDANGERING THE
  STATE"?


In the light of the indisputable evidence, is it not the Kuomintang government
itself that has been sabotaging the Chinese people's War of Resistance and
endangering our country? For fully ten years that government devoted itself
wholly to civil war, turning the edge of its sword against the people while
utterly neglecting national defence, and by its policy of non-resistance
it gave away the four northeastern provinces. When the Japanese aggressors
drove south of the Great Wall, it put up a flurry of resistance and then
retreated from Lukouchiao all the way to the province of Kweichow. Yet the
Kuomintang alleges that "the Communist Party is sabotaging the War of Resistance
and endangering the state" (see resolutions of the Eleventh Plenary Session
of the Central Executive Committee of the Kuomintang, held in September 1943).
Its only evidence is that the Communist Party has united with all sections
of the people to create the Liberated Areas which are heroically resisting
Japan. The logic of the Kuomintang is so different from that of the Chinese
people that the failure to arrive at a common language on many problems is
not to be wondered at.

Here are two questions.

First, what exactly has made the Kuomintang government abandon so vast and
so well populated a territory, stretching from Heilungkiang Province to
Lukouchiao and from Lukouchiao to Kweichow? Can it be anything other than
its policy first of non-resistance and then of passive resistance to Japan,
and its domestic policy of opposing the people?

Second, what exactly has enabled China's Liberated Areas to smash the ruthless
and prolonged attacks of the Japanese and puppet forces, to recover such
vast territories and liberate such an immense population from the grip of
the national enemy? Can it be anything other than our correct line, the line
of a people's war?
"DISOBEDIENCE TO GOVERNMENTAL AND MILITARY ORDERS"


The Kuomintang government also constantly accuses the Chinese Communist Party
of "disobedience to governmental and military orders". All we need say is
that fortunately the Chinese Communists, sharing the common sense of the
Chinese people, have not obeyed such "governmental and military orders" as
in fact would have meant handing over to the Japanese aggressors the Liberated
Areas which the Chinese people had recaptured from them amid great difficulties
and hardships. Some examples are the "Measures for Restricting the Activities
of Alien Parties" in 1939, the orders for the "disbandment of the New Fourth
Army" and for its "withdrawal north of the old course of the Yellow River"
in 1941, the order for the "dissolution of the Communist Party of China"
in 1943, the order for us to "disband all the troops except for ten divisions
within a definite time limit" in 1944, and the proposal which the Kuomintang
government called "a concession" in the recent talks with us and which would
require us to hand over our armed forces and local governments in exchange
for a few posts in its dictatorial government, but without the formation
of a coalition government. Fortunately we have not submitted to this sort
of thing and have thus preserved an undefiled stretch of soil and a heroic
anti-Japanese army for the Chinese people. Should not the Chinese people
congratulate themselves on such "disobedience"? Does not the Kuomintang
government feel it has done enough after presenting the Japanese aggressors
with the vast populated area from Heilungkiang to Kweichow through its own
fascist government decrees and defeatist military orders? The Japanese aggressors
and the reactionaries welcome these "governmental and military orders", but
can such things be welcomed by any upright Chinese patriot? Unless there
is a coalition government, not in form but in fact, not a fascist dictatorship
but a democratic government, is it conceivable that the Chinese people would
permit the Chinese Communists to hand over the Liberated Areas where the
people have won freedom as well as the people's armies that have performed
signal service in the War of Resistance to the present Kuomintang government,
which is defeatist, fascist and dictatorial? Without the Liberated Areas
and the people's army, could the anti-Japanese cause of the Chinese people
be what it is today? And can one possibly conceive what the future of the
Chinese nation would be?
THE DANGER OF CIVIL WAR


To this day the chief ruling clique in the Kuomintang is persisting in its
reactionary policy of dictatorship and civil war. There are many signs that
it has long been making, and is now stepping up, preparations to unleash
civil war as soon as the forces of a certain allied country have cleared
a considerable part of the Chinese mainland of the Japanese aggressors. It
also hopes that the generals of certain allied countries will do the same
job in China as the British General Scobie [5]
has been doing in Greece. It applauds the butchery perpetrated by Scobie
and the reactionary Greek government. It is planning to plunge China once
again into the maelstrom of civil war, as in 1927-37. Behind the smokescreen
of "convening the national assembly" and "political settlement", it is secretly
preparing civil war. If our fellow-countrymen fail to take note, fail to
expose its schemes and put a stop to these preparations, then one fine morning
they will hear the cannonade of civil war.
NEGOTIATIONS


After obtaining the consent of other democratic parties, the Communist Party
of China put forward the demand at the People's Political Council in September
1944 that the Kuomintang one-party dictatorship be abolished immediately
and a democratic coalition government be formed for the purpose of defeating
the Japanese aggressors, building a new China and preventing civil war. This
was undoubtedly a timely demand, and in the space of a few months it has
won the warm response of the broad masses.

We have had many rounds of negotiations with the Kuomintang government on
the question of abolishing the one-party dictatorship, forming a coalition
government and instituting essential democratic reforms, but it has rejected
all our proposals. Not only is the Kuomintang unwilling to abolish the one-party
dictatorship and form a coalition government, it is unwilling to introduce
a single one of the urgently needed democratic reforms, such as the abolition
of the secret police, the annulment of the reactionary laws and decrees that
suppress the people's freedom, the release of political prisoners, recognition
of the legal status of the political parties, recognition of the Liberated
Areas and the withdrawal of the armies blockading and attacking them.
Consequently political relations in China have become very strained.
TWO PROSPECTS


In the light of the situation as a whole and of the above analysis of the
actual international and domestic state of affairs, I would ask everyone
here to be on the alert and not to expect that our cause will proceed smoothly
and easily. No, it will not. Actually there are two possibilities, two prospects,
one good and one bad. One possibility or prospect is that the fascist
dictatorship will continue and democratic reforms will not be allowed, that
the stress will be on opposing the people instead of the Japanese aggressors,
and even that civil war may break out after the Japanese aggressors are defeated,
dragging China back into her old miserable state, without independence, freedom,
democracy, unity, prosperity or strength. This possibility or prospect is
still there, and it has not ceased to exist or has not automatically vanished
simply because of the favourable international situation and the increased
political consciousness and organized strength of our people. Those who hope
that this possibility or prospect will become a reality in China are the
reactionary clique within the Kuomintang at home and the imperialist-minded
reactionaries abroad. This is one aspect which must be taken into account.

But there is another aspect and, again in the light of the situation as a
whole and the foregoing analysis of the international and domestic state
of affairs, we can gain added confidence and courage in striving for the
second possibility or prospect. It is that of overcoming all difficulties,
uniting the whole people, abolishing the Kuomintang's fascist dictatorship,
carrying out democratic reforms, consolidating and expanding the anti-Japanese
forces, thoroughly defeating the Japanese aggressors and building an independent,
free, democratic, united, prosperous and powerful new China. Those who hope
that this possibility or prospect will become a reality in China are the
masses, the Communist Party and the other democratic parties at home, and
all the nations that treat us as equals and the progressives and the masses
abroad.

We know full well that we Communists together with the whole Chinese people
still face great difficulties and many obstacles and have a long and tortuous
road to travel. But we know equally well that, together with the whole Chinese
people, we shall overcome all the difficulties and obstacles and accomplish
the task which history has entrusted China. The great task for us and for
the whole people is to avert the first possibility or prospect and work for
the second with every ounce of our energy. Essentially the international
and domestic situation favours us Communists together with the Chinese people
as a whole. This I have already made quite clear. We hope that the Kuomintang
authorities will have the courage to change their present wrong policies
in view of the general world trend and the popular feeling in China, so that
the war can be won, the sufferings of the Chinese people can be reduced and
a new China can soon be brought into being. It must be understood that, however
tortuous the road, the Chinese people will certainly accomplish the task
of achieving independence and liberation, and that the time has come for
them to do so. It falls to our generation to fulfil the great aspirations
cherished by countless martyrs in the past century, and any attempt to stop
us will undoubtedly end in failure.

IV. THE POLICY OF THE CHINESE COMMUNIST PARTY


I have analysed the two lines in China's War of Resistance. Such an analysis
is absolutely necessary. For up to this very moment many Chinese people still
do not know what is really going on in this war. Many people in the Kuomintang
areas and in foreign countries are being kept in the dark by the Kuomintang
government's policy of blockade. They knew practically nothing about China's
Liberated Areas until a group of Chinese and foreign correspondents came
here in 1944 on a tour of observation. As soon as this group returned, the
Kuomintang government, which was very much afraid of the true situation in
the Liberated Areas becoming known outside, bolted the door and refused to
let any other correspondent come here. Similarly it has suppressed the truth
about the Kuomintang areas. Therefore I feel that we have the duty to give
the public as much of the true picture of "the two areas" as possible. Only
when people see the whole situation in China clearly will they understand
why there is such a difference in policy between the Communist Party and
the Kuomintang, the two biggest political parties in China, and why there
is such a struggle between the two lines. Only then will people understand
that the dispute between the two parties is not an unnecessary or unimportant
or merely captious dispute, as some have alleged, but is one of principle
on which the lives of hundreds of millions of people depend.

In China's present grave situation, the people, the democrats and democratic
parties at home and the people in other countries who are concerned about
the Chinese situation all hope that unity will replace disunity and that
democratic reforms will be introduced, and they all want to know what the
policy of the Chinese Communist Party is for solving the many vital problems
of today. The members of our Party, of course, have a still deeper interest
in these matters.

Our policies of the Anti-Japanese National United Front in the war have always
been clear and definite, and they have been tested in the eight years of
war. Our congress should draw conclusions from them as a guide for our future
struggles.

Here I shall explain a number of the definite conclusions arrived at by our
Party concerning the major policies for solving China's problems.
OUR GENERAL PROGRAMME


An agreed common programme is urgently needed by the Chinese people, the
Chinese Communist Party and all the anti-Japanese democratic parties for
the purpose of mobilizing and uniting all the anti-Japanese forces of the
Chinese people, completely wiping out the Japanese aggressors and building
a new China that is independent, free, democratic, united, prosperous and
powerful.

Such a common programme may be divided into two parts, the general and the
specific. Let us consider first the general and then the specific programme.

On the major premise that the Japanese aggressors must be completely destroyed
and a new China must be built, we Communists and the overwhelming majority
of the population are agreed on the following fundamental propositions at
the present stage of China's development. First, China should not have a
feudal, fascist and anti-popular state system under the dictatorship of the
big landlords and big bourgeoisie, because eighteen years of government by
the chief ruling clique of the Kuomintang have already proved its complete
bankruptcy. Second, China cannot possibly establish the old type of democratic
dictatorship--a purely national-bourgeois state--and therefore should not
attempt to do so, because on the one hand the Chinese national bourgeoisie
has proved itself very flabby economically and politically, and on the other,
for a long time now a new factor has been present, namely, the awakened Chinese
proletariat with its leader, the Chinese Communist Party, which has demonstrated
great capacity in the political arena and assumed leadership of the peasant
masses, the urban petty bourgeoisie, the intelligentsia and other democratic
forces. Third, it is likewise impossible for the Chinese people to institute
a socialist state system at the present stage when it is still their task
to fight foreign and feudal oppression and the necessary social and economic
conditions for a socialist state are still lacking.

What then do we propose? We propose the establishment, after the thorough
defeat of the Japanese aggressors, of a state system which we call New Democracy,
namely, a united-front democratic alliance based on the overwhelming majority
of the people, under the leadership of the working class.

It is this kind of state system that truly meets the demands of the overwhelming
majority of the Chinese population, because it can win and indeed has been
winning the approval, first, of millions of industrial workers and tens of
millions of handicraftsmen and farm labourers, second, of the peasantry,
which constitutes 80 per cent of China's population, i.e., 360 million out
of a population of 450 million, and third, of the large numbers of the urban
petty bourgeoisie as well as the national bourgeoisie, the enlightened gentry
and other patriots.

Of course, there are still contradictions among those classes, notably the
contradiction between labour and capital, and consequently each has its own
particular demands. It would be hypocritical and wrong to deny the existence
of these contradictions and differing demands. But throughout the stage of
New Democracy, these contradictions, these differing demands, will not grow
and transcend the demands which all have in common and should not be allowed
to do so; they can be adjusted. Given such adjustment, these classes can
together accomplish the political, economic and cultural tasks of the
new-democratic state.

The politics of New Democracy which we advocate consists in the overthrow
of external oppression and of internal feudal and fascist oppression, and
then the setting up not of the old type of democracy but of a political system
which is a united front of all the democratic classes. These views of ours
are completely in accord with the revolutionary views of Dr. Sun Yat-sen.
In the Manifesto of the First National Congress of the Kuomintang, Dr. Sun
wrote:

  The so-called democratic system in modern states is usually monopolized by
  the bourgeoisie and has become simply an instrument for oppressing the common
  people. On the other hand, the Kuomintang's Principle of Democracy means
  a democratic system shared by all the common people and not privately owned
  by the few.


This is a great political injunction of Dr. Sun's. The Chinese people, the
Chinese Communist Party and all other democrats must respect it, firmly put
it into practice and wage a determined fight against all individuals and
groups that violate or oppose it, and so defend and develop this perfectly
correct political principle of New Democracy.

The organizational principle of the new-democratic state should be democratic
centralism, with the people's congresses determining the major policies and
electing the governments at the various levels. It is at once democratic
and centralized, that is, centralized on the basis of democracy and democratic
under centralized guidance. This is the only system that can give full expression
to democracy with full powers vested in the people's congresses at all levels
and, at the same time, guarantee centralized administration with the governments
at each level exercising centralized management of all the affairs entrusted
to them by the people's congresses at the corresponding level and safeguarding
whatever is essential to the democratic life of the people.

The army and the other armed forces constitute an important part of the apparatus
of the new-democratic state power, without which the state cannot be defended.
As with all other organs of power, the armed forces of the new-democratic
state belong to the people and protect the people; they have nothing in common
with the army, police, etc. of the old type which belong to the few and oppress
the people.

The economy of New Democracy which we advocate is likewise in accord with
Dr. Sun's principles. On the land question, Dr. Sun championed "land to the
tiller". On the question of industry and commerce, Dr. Sun stated in the
Manifesto quoted above:

  Enterprises, such as banks, railways and airlines, whether Chinese-owned
  or foreign-owned, which are either monopolistic in character or too big for
  private management, shall be operated and administered by the state, so that
  private capital cannot dominate the livelihood of the people: this is the
  main principle of the regulation of capital.


In the present stage, we fully agree with these views of Dr. Sun's on economic
questions.

Some people suspect that the Chinese Communists are opposed to the development
of individual initiative, the growth of private capital and the protection
of private property, but they are mistaken. It is foreign oppression and
feudal oppression that cruelly fetter the development of the individual
initiative of the Chinese people, hamper the growth of private capital and
destroy the property of the people. It is the very task of the New Democracy
we advocate to remove these fetters and stop this destruction, to guarantee
that the people can freely develop their individuality within the framework
of society and freely develop such private capitalist economy as will benefit
and not "dominate the livelihood of the people", and to protect all appropriate
forms of private property.

In accordance with Dr. Sun's principles and the experience of the Chinese
revolution, China's national economy at the present stage should be composed
of the state sector, the private sector and the co-operative sector. But
the state here must certainly not be one "privately owned by the few", but
a new-democratic state "shared by all the common people" under the leadership
of the proletariat.

The culture of New Democracy should likewise be "shared by all the common
people", that is, it should be a national, scientific and mass culture, and
must under no circumstances be a culture "privately owned by the few".

Such is the general or fundamental programme which we Communists advocate
for the present stage, the entire stage of the bourgeois-democratic revolution.
This is our minimum programme as against our future or maximum programme
of socialism and communism. Its realization will carry the Chinese state
and Chinese society a step forward, from a colonial, semi-colonial and
semi-feudal to a new-democratic state and society.

The political leadership of the proletariat and the proletarian-led state
and co-operative sectors of the economy required by our programme are socialist
factors. Yet the fulfilment of this programme will not turn China into a
socialist society.

We Communists do not conceal our political views. Definitely and beyond all
doubt, our future or maximum programme is to carry China forward to socialism
and communism. Both the name of our Party and our Marxist world outlook
unequivocally point to this supreme ideal of the future, a future of incomparable
brightness and splendour. On joining the Party, every Communist has two
clearly-defined objectives at heart, the new-democratic revolution now and
socialism and communism in the future, and for these he will fight despite
the animosity of the enemies of communism and their vulgar and ignorant calumny,
abuse and ridicule, which we must firmly combat. As for the well-meaning
sceptics, we should explain things to them with goodwill and patience and
not attack them. All this is very clear, definite and unequivocal.

But all Communists and sympathizers with communism in China must struggle
to achieve the objective of the present stage; they must struggle against
foreign and feudal oppression to deliver the Chinese people from their miserable
colonial, semi-colonial and semi-feudal plight and establish a proletarian-led
new-democratic China whose main task is the liberation of the peasantry,
a China of the revolutionary Three People's Principles of Dr. Sun Yat-sen,
a China which is independent, free, democratic, united, prosperous and powerful.
This is what we have actually been doing. Together with the masses of the
Chinese people, we Communists have been fighting heroically for this objective
for the past twenty-four years.

If any Communist or Communist sympathizer talks about socialism and communism
but fails to fight for this objective, if he belittles this bourgeois-democratic
revolution, relaxes or slows down ever so slightly and shows the least disloyalty
and coolness or is reluctant to shed his blood or give his life for it, then
wittingly or unwittingly, such a person is betraying socialism and communism
to a greater or lesser extent and is certainly not a politically conscious
and staunch fighter for communism. It is a law of Marxism that socialism
can be attained only via the stage of democracy. And in China the fight for
democracy is a protracted one. It would be a sheer illusion to try to build
a socialist society on the ruins of the colonial, semi-colonial and semi-feudal
order without a united new-democratic state, without the development of the
state sector of the new-democratic economy, of the private capitalist and
the co-operative sectors, and of a national, scientific and mass culture,
i.e., a new-democratic culture, and without the liberation and the development
of the individuality of hundreds of millions of people--in short, without
a thoroughgoing bourgeois-democratic revolution of a new type led by the
Communist Party.

Some people fail to understand why, so far from fearing capitalism, Communists
should advocate its development in certain given conditions. Our answer is
simple. The substitution of a certain degree of capitalist development for
the oppression of foreign imperialism and domestic feudalism is not only
an advance but an unavoidable process. It benefits the proletariat as well
as the bourgeoisie, and the former perhaps more. It is not domestic capitalism
but foreign imperialism and domestic feudalism which are superfluous in China
today; indeed, we have too little of capitalism. Strangely enough, some spokesmen
of the Chinese bourgeoisie fight shy of openly advocating the development
of capitalism, but refer to it obliquely. There are other people who flatly
deny that China should permit a necessary degree of capitalist development
and who talk about reaching socialism in one stride and "accomplishing at
one stroke" the tasks of the Three People's Principles and socialism. Obviously,
these opinions either reflect the weakness of the Chinese national bourgeoisie
or are a demagogic trick on the part of the big landlords and the big
bourgeoisie. From our knowledge of the Marxist laws of social development,
we Communists clearly understand that under the state system of New Democracy
in China it will be necessary in the interests of social progress to facilitate
the development of the private capitalist sector of the economy (provided
it does not dominate the livelihood of the people) besides the development
of the state sector and of the individual and co-operative sectors run by
the labouring people. We Communists will not let empty talk or deceitful
tricks befuddle us.

There are some people who doubt whether we Communists are sincere when we
declare that "the Three People's Principles being what China needs today,
our Party is ready to fight for their complete realization". This is the
result of their failure to understand that the basic tenets of the Three
People's Principles, which Dr. Sun Yat-sen enunciated in the Manifesto of
the First National Congress of the Kuomintang in 1924 and which we have accepted,
coincide with certain basic tenets of our Party's programme for the present
stage, that is, of our minimum programme. It should be pointed out that these
Three People's Principles of Dr. Sun Yat-sen coincide with our Party's programme
for the present stage only in certain basic tenets and not in everything.
Our Party's programme of New Democracy is of course much more comprehensive
than Dr. Sun's principles, particularly as our Party's theory, programme
and practice of New Democracy have greatly developed with the development
of the Chinese revolution in the twenty years since Dr. Sun's death, and
will develop still further. In essence, however, these Three People's Principles
are a programme of New Democracy, as distinguished from the previous, old
Three People's Principles; naturally they are "what China needs today" and
naturally "our Party is ready to fight for their complete realization". To
us Chinese Communists, the struggle for our Party's minimum programme and
the struggle for Dr. Sun's revolutionary, or new, Three People's Principles
are basically (though not in every respect) one and the same thing. Therefore,
as in the past and the present, the Chinese Communists will prove to be the
most sincere and thoroughgoing executors of the revolutionary Three People's
Principles in the future as well.

Some people are suspicious and think that once in power, the Communist Party
will follow Russia's example and establish the dictatorship of the proletariat
and a one-party system. Our answer is that a new-democratic state based on
an alliance of the democratic classes is different in principle from a socialist
state under the dictatorship of the proletariat. Beyond all doubt, our system
of New Democracy will be built under the leadership of the proletariat and
of the Communist Party, but throughout the stage of New Democracy China cannot
possibly have a one-class dictatorship and one-party government and therefore
should not attempt it. We have no reason for refusing to co-operate with
all political parties, social groups and individuals, provided their attitude
to the Communist Party is cooperative and not hostile. The Russian system
has been shaped by Russian history; in Russia the exploitation of man by
man has been abolished as a social system, the political, economic and cultural
system of the newest type of democracy, i.e. socialism, has been put into
effect, and the people support the Bolshevik Party alone, having discarded
all the anti-socialist parties. All this has shaped the Russian system, which
is perfectly necessary and reasonable there. But even in Russia, where the
Bolshevik Party is the sole political party, the system practised in the
organs of state power is still one of an alliance of workers, peasants and
intellectuals and an alliance of Party members and non-Party people, and
not a system in which the working class and the Bolsheviks alone may work
in the organs of government. The Chinese system for the present stage is
being shaped by the present stage of Chinese history, and for a long time
to come there will exist a special form of state and political power, a form
that is distinguished from the Russian system but is perfectly necessary
and reasonable for us, namely, the new-democratic form of state and political
power based on the alliance of the democratic classes.
OUR SPECIFIC PROGRAMME


Our Party must also have a specific programme for each period based on this
general programme. Our general programme of New Democracy will remain unchanged
throughout the stage of the bourgeois-democratic revolution, that is, for
several decades. But from phase to phase during this stage, conditions have
changed or are changing and it is only natural that we have to change our
specific programme accordingly. For example, our general programme of New
Democracy has remained the same throughout the periods of the Northern
Expedition, the Agrarian Revolutionary War and the War of Resistance Against
Japan, but there have been changes in our specific programme, because our
friends and enemies have not remained the same in the three periods.

The Chinese people now find themselves in the following situation:

  (1) the Japanese aggressors have not yet been defeated;


  (2) the Chinese people urgently need to work together for a democratic change
  in order to achieve national unity, rapidly mobilize and unite all anti-Japanese
  forces, and defeat the Japanese aggressors in co-operation with the allies;
  and


  (3) the Kuomintang government is disrupting national unity and obstructing
  such a democratic change.


What is our specific programme in the circumstances or, in other words, what
are the immediate demands of the people?

We consider the following to be appropriate and minimum demands:

  Mobilize all available forces for the thorough defeat of the Japanese aggressors
  and the establishment of international peace in co-operation with the allies;


  Abolish the Kuomintang one-party dictatorship and establish a democratic
  coalition government and a joint supreme command;


  Punish the pro-Japanese elements, fascists and defeatists who are opposing
  the people and disrupting national unity, and so help to build national unity;


  Punish the reactionaries who are creating the danger of civil war, and so
  help to ensure internal peace;


  Punish the traitors, take punitive action against officers who surrender
  to the enemy, and punish the agents of the Japanese;


  Liquidate the reactionary secret service and all its repressive activities
  and abolish the concentration camps;


  Revoke all reactionary laws and decrees aimed at suppressing the people's
  freedom of speech, press, assembly, association, political conviction and
  religious belief and freedom of the person, and guarantee full civil rights
  to the people;


  Recognize the legal status of all democratic parties and groups;


  Release all patriotic political prisoners;


  Withdraw all troops encircling and attacking China's Liberated Areas and
  dispatch them to the anti-Japanese front;


  Recognize the anti-Japanese armed forces and popularly elected governments
  of China's Liberated Areas;


  Consolidate and expand the Liberated Areas and their armed forces, and recover
  all lost territory;


  Help the people in the Japanese-occupied areas to organize underground armed
  forces for armed uprisings;


  Allow the Chinese people to arm themselves and defend their homes and their
  country;


  Bring about the political and military transformation of those armies directly
  under the Kuomintang supreme command, which constantly lose battles, oppress
  the people and discriminate against armies not directly under it, and punish
  the commanders who are responsible for disastrous defeats;


  Improve the recruiting system and the living conditions of the officers and
  men;


  Give preferential treatment to the families of the soldiers fighting in the
  anti-Japanese war, so that the officers and men at the front are free from
  domestic worries;


  Provide preferential treatment for disabled soldiers and for the families
  of the soldiers who give their lives for the country, and help demobilized
  soldiers to settle down and earn a living;


  Develop war industries to facilitate the prosecution of the war;


  Distribute the military and financial aid received from the allies impartially
  to all the armies fighting in the War of Resistance;


  Punish corrupt officials and institute clean government;


  Improve the pay of the middle and lower grade government employees;


  Give the Chinese people democratic rights;


  Abolish the oppressive pao-chia system;
  [6]


  Provide the war refugees and the victims of natural disasters with relief;


  Appropriate substantial funds after the recovery of China's lost territory
  for the extensive relief of people who have suffered under enemy occupation;


  Abolish exorbitant taxes and miscellaneous levies and establish a consolidated
  progressive tax;


  Introduce rural reforms, reduce rent and interest, provide suitable safeguards
  for the rights of tenants, grant low-interest loans to impoverished peasants
  and help the peasants to organize, in order to facilitate the expansion of
  agricultural production;


  Outlaw bureaucrat-capital;


  Abolish the present policy of economic controls;


  Check the unbridled inflation and rocketing prices;


  Assist private industry and provide it with facilities for obtaining loans,
  purchasing raw materials and marketing its products;


  Improve the livelihood of the workers, provide relief for the unemployed
  and help the workers to organize, in order to facilitate the expansion of
  industrial production;


  Abolish Kuomintang indoctrination in education and promote a national, scientific
  and mass culture and education;


  Guarantee the livelihood of the teachers and other staff members of educational
  institutions and guarantee academic freedom; protect the interests of the
  youth, women and children--provide assistance to young student refugees,
  help the youth and women to organize in order to participate on an equal
  footing in all work useful to the war effort and to social progress, ensure
  freedom of marriage and equality as between men and women, and give young
  people and children a useful education;


  Give the minority nationalities in China better and grant them autonomous
  rights;


  Protect the interests of the overseas Chinese and assist those who have returned
  to the motherland;


  Protect foreign nationals who have fled to China from the Japanese oppression
  and support their struggle against the Japanese aggressors;


  Improve Sino-Soviet relations.


To achieve these demands, the most important thing is the immediate abolition
of the Kuomintang one-party dictatorship and the establishment of a democratic
provisional central government, a coalition government enjoying nation-wide
support and including representatives of all the anti-Japanese parties and
people without party affiliation. Without this prerequisite it is impossible
to make any genuine change in the Kuomintang areas, and therefore in the
country as a whole.

These demands voice the desires of the Chinese masses and also of broad sections
of democratic public opinion in the allied countries.

A minimum specific programme which is agreed upon by all the anti-Japanese
democratic parties is absolutely indispensable, and we are prepared to consult
with them on the basis of the programme outlined above. Different parties
may have different demands, but all should reach agreement on a common programme.

As far as the Kuomintang areas are concerned, such a programme is still at
the stage of being a demand of the people; as far as the Japanese-occupied
areas are concerned, it is a programme whose fulfilment must await their
recovery, except for the item on the organization of underground forces for
armed uprisings; as far as the Liberated Areas are concerned, it is a programme
which has already been, is being and should continue to be, put into practice.

The immediate demands or specific programme of the Chinese people outlined
above involve many vital war-time and post-war problems which require further
elucidation. In explaining these problems below we shall criticize some of
the wrong viewpoints held by the chief ruling clique of the Kuomintang and
at the same time answer some questions raised by other people.
1. Destroy the Japanese Aggressors Completely, Allow No Compromise
  Halfway


The Cairo conference [7] rightly decided that the
Japanese aggressors must be made to surrender unconditionally. But the Japanese
aggressors are now working behind the scenes for a compromise peace, while
the pro-Japanese elements in the Kuomintang government are hitching up with
Japan's secret emissaries through the Nanking puppet government, and no stop
has been put to this. Hence the danger of a halfway compromise is not yet
entirely over. The Cairo conference made another good decision, namely, that
the four northeastern provinces, Taiwan and the Penghu Islands should be
returned to China. But, given its present policies, the Kuomintang government
cannot possibly be relied upon to fight all the way to the Yalu River and
recover all our lost territory. What should the Chinese people do in these
circumstances? They should demand that the Kuomintang government should destroy
the Japanese aggressors completely and allow no compromise halfway. All intrigues
for a compromise must immediately be stopped. The Chinese people should demand
that the Kuomintang government should change its present policy of passive
resistance and employ all its military strength in active warfare against
Japan. They should expand their own armed forces--the Eighth Route Army,
the New Fourth Army and the other armed units of the people--and on their
own initiative develop anti-Japanese armed forces on an extensive scale wherever
the enemy has reached, and they should prepare to recover all the lost territory
by fighting in direct co-operation with the allies; under no circumstances
must they place their reliance solely on the Kuomintang. It is the sacred
right of the Chinese people to defeat the Japanese aggressors. If the
reactionaries try to deprive them of this right, suppress their anti-Japanese
activities or undermine their strength, then the Chinese people should firmly
strike back in self-defence if persuasion proves unavailing. For such acts
of national treachery on the part of the Chinese reactionaries only aid and
abet the Japanese aggressors.
2. Abolish the Kuomintang One-Party Dictatorship, Establish
  a Democratic Coalition Government


To wipe out the Japanese aggressors it is necessary to effect democratic
reforms throughout the country. Yet this will be impossible unless the one-party
dictatorship of the Kuomintang is abolished and a democratic coalition government
is established.

The one-party dictatorship of the Kuomintang is in reality the dictatorship
of the anti-popular clique within the Kuomintang, and this dictatorship is
the disrupter of China's national unity, the author of the defeats on the
Kuomintang front in the war, and the basic obstacle to the mobilization and
unification of the anti-Japanese forces of the Chinese people. The Chinese
people have become fully aware of the evils of this dictatorship through
eight years of bitter experience in the War of Resistance, and they naturally
demand its immediate abolition. This reactionary dictatorship is also the
breeder of civil war and, unless it is immediately abolished, it will again
bring the calamity of civil war upon them.

So widespread and resounding is the outcry of the Chinese people for the
abolition of the anti-popular dictatorship that the Kuomintang authorities
themselves have been forced to agree publicly to the "earlier termination
of political tutelage", which shows how far this "political tutelage" or
one-party dictatorship has forfeited popular support and prestige. There
is not a single person in China who still dares to assert that "political
tutelage" or one-party dictatorship is any good or that it should not be
abolished or "terminated", and that marks a great change in the situation.

It is definite and beyond all doubt that it should be "terminated". But opinions
differ as to how to do it. Some say, terminate it at once and establish a
provisional democratic coalition government. Others say, wait a bit, convene
the "national assembly", and "hand state power back to the people" and not
to a coalition government.

What does this mean?

It means there are two ways of doing things, the honest way and the dishonest
way.

First, the honest way. The honest way is immediately to proclaim the abolition
of the Kuomintang one-party dictatorship, to establish a provisional central
government composed of representatives of the Kuomintang, the Communist Party,
the Democratic League and people with no party affiliation, and to promulgate
a democratic programme of political action such as the immediate demands
of the Chinese people which we have set forth above, with the aim of restoring
national unity and defeating the Japanese aggressors. A roundtable conference
of the representatives of the various parties and people with no party
affiliation should be convened to discuss and reach agreement on these matters,
and action should then be taken accordingly. This is the road of unity, which
the Chinese people will firmly support.

Second, the dishonest way. The dishonest way is to disregard the demands
of the masses and of all the democratic parties and to insist on convening
a so-called national assembly stage-managed by the anti-popular clique in
the Kuomintang and have it adopt a "constitution" which in practice will
be anti-democratic and will buttress the dictatorship of this clique, for
the purpose of providing a cloak of legality for an illegal "National
Government"--a government formed privately through the appointment of a few
dozen Kuomintang members, imposed on the people and utterly devoid of any
foundation in the popular will--thus making a pretence of "handing state
power back to the people" while actually "handing it back" to the selfsame
reactionary clique within the Kuomintang. Whoever disapproves will be accused
of sabotaging "democracy" and "unity", which will then be a "reason" for
ordering punitive action against him. This is the road of disruption, which
the Chinese people will firmly oppose.

The steps our reactionary heroes are preparing to take in line with this
splitting policy will probably lead them to destruction. They are putting
a noose round their own necks and fastening it there, and this noose is the
"national assembly". Their intention is to use the "national assembly" as
a magic weapon, first, to prevent the formation of a coalition government,
second, to maintain their dictatorship, and third, to prepare a justification
of civil war. However, the logic of history runs counter to their wishes,
and they will be "lifting a rock only to drop it on their own toes". For
it is now obvious to all that the people in the Kuomintang areas have no
freedom and the people in the Japanese-occupied areas cannot take part in
elections, while the Liberated Areas which have freedom are not recognized
by the Kuomintang government. Such being the case, how can there be national
delegates? How can there be a "national assembly"? The national assembly
they are clamouring for is the one the Kuomintang dictatorship rigged up
in every detail eight years ago during the civil war period. If such an assembly
is convened, the whole nation will inevitably rise up against it, and how,
it may be asked, will our reactionary heroes get out of that predicament?
All in all, the convening of the bogus national assembly will only lead them
to destruction.

We Communists propose two steps for the termination of the Kuomintang one-party
dictatorship. First, at the present stage, to establish a provisional coalition
government through common agreement among representatives of all parties
and people with no party affiliation. Second, in the next stage, to convene
a national assembly after free and unrestricted elections and form a regular
coalition government. In both cases there will be a coalition government
in which the representatives of all classes and political parties willing
to take part are united on a democratic common programme in the fight against
Japan today and for national construction tomorrow.

This is the only course China can take, whatever the intentions of the Kuomintang
or other parties, groups or individuals, whether they like it or not, and
whether or not they are conscious of it. This is a historical law, an inexorable
trend which no force can reverse.

On this and all other problems of democratic reform, we Communists declare
that although the Kuomintang authorities are still stubbornly persisting
in their wrong policies and using negotiations to play for time and allay
public opinion, we are ready to resume negotiations with them the moment
they show willingness to renounce their present wrong policies and agree
to democratic reforms. But the negotiations must be based on the general
principle of resistance, unity and democracy, and we will not agree to any
so-called measures, plans or empty pronouncements that depart from this general
principle, however pleasing they may sound.
3. Freedom for the People


At present the Chinese people's struggle for freedom is primarily directed
against the Japanese aggressors. But the Kuomintang government is preventing
them from fighting the Japanese aggressors by depriving them of their freedom
and binding them hand and foot. Unless this problem is solved, it will be
impossible to mobilize and unify all the anti-Japanese forces of the nation.
It is precisely to untie the people's bonds so that they can have the freedom
to resist Japan, to unite and to win democracy that our programme puts forward
such demands as the abolition of the one-party dictatorship; the establishment
of a coalition government; the liquidation of the secret police; the revocation
of repressive laws and decrees; the punishment of traitors, spies, pro-Japanese
elements, fascists and corrupt officials; the release of political prisoners;
the recognition of the legal status of all the democratic parties; the withdrawal
of troops encircling or attacking the Liberated Areas; the recognition of
the Liberated Areas the abolition of the pao-chia system; and the
many other demands relating to the economy, culture and the mass movement.

Freedom is won by the people through struggle, it is not bestowed by anyone
as a favour. The people in China's Liberated Areas have already won freedom,
and the people can and must win freedom in the other areas too. The greater
the freedom of the Chinese people and the stronger their organized democratic
forces, the greater the possibility of forming a provisional and unified
coalition government. Once formed, this coalition government will in its
turn provide full freedom for the people and so consolidate its own foundations.
Only then will it be possible to hold free and unrestricted elections throughout
the land after the overthrow of the Japanese aggressors, to create a democratic
national assembly and to establish a regular and unified coalition government.
Unless the people have freedom, there can be no national assembly or government
genuinely elected by the people. Is this not clear enough?

Freedom of speech, press, assembly, association, political conviction and
religious belief and freedom of the person are the people's most important
freedoms. In China only the Liberated Areas have given full effect to these
freedoms.

In 1925 Dr. Sun Yat-sen declared in his deathbed Testament:

  For forty years I have devoted myself to the cause of the national revolution
  with the aim of winning freedom and equality for China. My experience during
  these forty years has firmly convinced me that to achieve this aim we must
  arouse the masses of the people and unite in a common fight with those nations
  of the world who treat us as equals.


The unworthy successors of Dr. Sun, who have betrayed him, oppress the masses
of the people instead of arousing them, and deprive them of all their freedom
of speech, press, assembly, association, political conviction and religious
belief and freedom of the person. They attach the labels "traitor party",
"traitor army", and "traitor areas" to the Communist Party, the Eighth Route
and New Fourth Armies and the Liberated Areas, which are all genuinely arousing
the masses of the people and protecting their freedoms and rights. We hope
that there will soon be an end to this reversal of right and wrong. If it
lasts much longer, the Chinese people will lose all patience.
4. Unity of the People


It is imperative to turn a divided China into a united China in order to
destroy the Japanese aggressors, prevent civil war and build a new China;
such is the historical task of the Chinese people.

But how is China to be united? Through autocratic unification by a dictator
or democratic unification by the people? From the time of Yuan Shih-kai
[8] the Northern warlords concentrated on autocratic
unification. But what was the result? Contrary to their desires, what they
obtained was not unification but division, and finally they tumbled from
power. Following in Yuan Shih-kai's footsteps, the anti-popular clique of
the Kuomintang sought autocratic unification and waged civil war for fully
ten years, only to let in the Japanese aggressors while they themselves withdrew
to Mount Omei. [9] And now from their mountain
top they are again shouting about their theory of autocratic unification.
To whom are they shouting? Will any upright patriotic Chinese listen to them?
Having lived through sixteen years of Northern warlord rule and eighteen
years of dictatorial Kuomintang rule, the people have acquired ample experience
and discerning eyes. They want democratic unification by the masses and not
autocratic unification by a dictator. As early as 1935, we Communists put
forward the policy of the Anti-Japanese National United Front, and we have
fought for it ever since. In 1939, when the Kuomintang was enforcing its
reactionary "Measures for Restricting the Activities of Alien Parties", thus
creating the imminent danger of capitulation, split and retrogression, and
when it was shouting about its theory of autocratic unification, we again
declared: There must be unification based on resistance and not on capitulation,
on unity and not on splitting, on progress and not on retrogression. Only
unification based on resistance, unity and progress is genuine and any other
kind would be a sham. Six years have passed, but the issue remains the same.

Can there be unity if the people have no freedom or democracy? There will
be unity as soon as they have both. The Chinese people's movement for freedom,
democracy and a coalition government is at the same time a movement for unity.
When we put forward many demands for freedom, democracy and a coalition
government in our specific programme, we are at the same time aiming at unity.
It is plain common sense that unless the dictatorship of the anti-popular
Kuomintang clique is abolished and a democratic coalition government is formed,
not only will it be impossible to carry out any democratic reform in the
Kuomintang areas or to mobilize the armies and the people there for the defeat
of the Japanese aggressors, but the calamity of civil war will ensue. Why
do so many democrats, with and without party affiliation, including many
in the Kuomintang, unanimously demand a coalition government? Because they
are clearly aware of the present crisis and realize that there is no other
way to overcome it and achieve both unity against the enemy and unity for
national construction.
5. The People's Army


Without an army standing on the people's side, it is impossible for the Chinese
people to win freedom and unification, establish a coalition government,
thoroughly defeat the Japanese aggressors and build a new China. At present
the only armed forces that stand wholly on the people's side are the Liberated
Areas' Eighth Route and New Fourth Armies, which are not very large; they
are far from sufficient. Yet the Kuomintang group which opposes the people
is ceaselessly intriguing to undermine and destroy the armies of the Liberated
Areas. In 1944 the Kuomintang government presented a so-called memorandum
demanding that the Communist Party should "disband, within a definite time
limit", four-fifths of the armed forces of the Liberated Areas. In 1945,
during the most recent negotiations, it has further demanded the handing
over of all the armed forces of the Liberated Areas by the Communist Party,
after which it would grant the Communist Party "legal status".

These people tell the Communists, "Hand over your troops and we will grant
you freedom." According to their theory, a political party that does not
have any army should enjoy freedom. Yet whatever freedom the Chinese Communist
Party enjoyed during 1924-27, when it had only a small armed force, vanished
with the Kuomintang government's policies of "party purge" and massacre.
And today, the China Democratic League and the democrats within the Kuomintang,
who have no armed forces, have no freedom either. Let us take the workers,
peasants and students and the progressively inclined people in cultural,
educational and industrial circles under the Kuomintang regime--for the last
eighteen years none of them have had any armed forces, and none of them have
had any freedom. Can it be that all these democratic parties and people have
been denied freedom because they organized armies, perpetrated "feudal
separatism", created "traitor areas" and violated "governmental and military
orders"? Not in the least. On the contrary, they have been denied freedom
precisely because they have done none of these things.

"The army belongs to the state"--that is perfectly true, and there is not
an army in the world that does not belong to a state. But what kind of state?
A state under the feudal and fascist dictatorship of the big landlords, big
bankers and big compradors, or a new-democratic state of the broad masses
of the people? The only kind of state for China to establish is a new-democratic
state and, on this basis, she should establish a new-democratic coalition
government; all the armed forces of China must belong to such a government
of such a state so that they may safeguard the people's freedom and effectively
fight foreign aggressors. The moment a new-democratic coalition government
comes into being in China, the Liberated Areas of China will hand their armed
forces over to it. But all the Kuomintang armed forces will have to be handed
over to it at the same time.

In 1924 Dr. Sun Yat-sen said, "Today should mark the beginning of a new epoch
in the national revolution.... The first step is to unite the armed forces
with the people, and the next step is to turn them into the armed forces
of the people." [10] It is because they have applied
this policy that the Eighth Route and New Fourth Armies have become "the
armed forces of the people", that is, the people's army, and have been able
to win victories. During the earlier period of the Northern Expedition, the
Kuomintang armies took Dr. Sun's "first step", and hence won victories. In
the latter period of the Northern Expedition they abandoned even the "first
step", took a stand against the people, and hence from that time right down
to the present they have become more and more corrupt and degenerate; in
their element when fighting internal war, they cannot but be out of their
element when it comes to fighting external war. Every patriotic officer in
the Kuomintang army who has a conscience should set about reviving the Sun
Yat-sen spirit and transforming his troops.

In the work of transforming the old armies, a suitable education should be
given to all officers who are capable of being reeducated to help them to
get rid of their obsolete outlook and acquire a correct outlook, so that
they can remain and serve in the people's army.

It is the duty of the whole nation to struggle for the creation of the army
of the Chinese people. Without a people's army the people have nothing. On
this question there must be no empty theorizing whatsoever.

We Communists are ready to give our support to the task of transforming the
Chinese army. All those military forces which are willing to unite with the
people and to oppose the Japanese aggressors instead of opposing the armed
forces of the Chinese Liberated Areas should be regarded as friendly troops
and be given proper assistance by the Eighth Route and New Fourth Armies.
6. The Land Problem


To wipe out the Japanese aggressors and build a new China, it is imperative
to reform the land system and emancipate the peasants. Dr. Sun Yat-sen's
thesis of "land to the tiller" is correct for the present period of our
revolution, which is bourgeois-democratic in nature.

Why do we say our revolution in the present period is bourgeois-democratic
in nature? We mean that the target of this revolution is not the bourgeoisie
in general but national and feudal oppression, that the measures taken in
this revolution are in general directed not at abolishing but at protecting
private property, and that as a result of this revolution the working class
will be able to build up the strength to lead China in the direction of
socialism, though capitalism will still be enabled to grow to an appropriate
extent for a fairly long period. "Land to the tiller" means transferring
the land from the feudal exploiters to the peasants, turning the private
property of the feudal landlords into the private property of the peasants
and emancipating them from feudal agrarian relations, thereby making possible
the transformation of an agricultural country into an industrial country.
Thus, "land to the tiller" is in the nature of a bourgeois-democratic and
not a proletarian-socialist demand; it is the demand of all revolutionary
democrats and not the demand of us Communists alone. The difference is that,
in China's circumstances, we Communists alone treat this demand with special
seriousness, and do not just talk about it but put it into practice. Who
are the revolutionary democrats? Apart from the proletariat who are the most
thoroughgoing of the revolutionary democrats, the peasants form by far the
largest group. The overwhelming majority of the peasants, that is, all except
the rich peasants who have a feudal tail, actively demand "land to the tiller".
The urban petty bourgeoisie are also revolutionary democrats and "land to
the tiller" will prove to be to their advantage as well, for it will help
to develop the productive forces in agriculture. The national bourgeoisie
are a vacillating class--they also approve of "land to the tiller" because
they need markets, but many of them are afraid of it because for the most
part they have ties with landed property. Dr. Sun Yat-sen was the earliest
revolutionary democrat in China. Representing the revolutionary section of
the national bourgeoisie as well as the urban petty bourgeoisie and the peasants,
he carried out an armed revolution and put forward his thesis of "equalization
of landownership" and "land to the tiller". But unfortunately he did not
take the initiative and reform the land system when he was in power. And
when the anti-popular clique of the Kuomintang took power, it completely
betrayed what he stood for. It is this clique that is now stubbornly opposing
"land to the tiller" because it represents the stratum of big landlords,
bankers and compradors. As China has no political party exclusively representing
the peasants and the political parties of the national bourgeoisie have no
thoroughgoing land programme, the Chinese Communist Party has become the
leader of the peasants and all the other revolutionary democrats, being the
only party that has formulated and carried out a thoroughgoing land programme,
fought earnestly for the peasants' interests and therefore won the overwhelming
majority of the peasants as its great ally.

From 1927 to 1936, the Chinese Communist Party adopted various measures for
the thorough reform of the land system and put Dr. Sun's "land to the tiller"
into effect. It was precisely the reactionary clique of the Kuomintang, that
gang of unworthy followers of Dr. Sun Yat-sen, who bared their teeth, showed
their claws and fought against "land to the tiller" in ten years of war against
the people.

The Communist Party has made a major concession in the anti-Japanese war
period by changing the policy of "land to the tiller" to one of reducing
rent and interest. This concession is a correct one, for it helped to bring
the Kuomintang into the war against Japan and lessened the resistance of
the landlords in the Liberated Areas to our mobilization of the peasants
for the war. If no special obstacle arises, we are prepared to continue this
policy after the war, first extending rent and interest reduction to the
whole country and then taking proper measures for the gradual achievement
of "land to the tiller".

However, those who have betrayed Dr. Sun oppose the reduction of rent and
interest, let alone "land to the tiller". The Kuomintang government has not
carried out the decree for a "25 per cent reduction in rent" and similar
decrees which it has promulgated itself; only we in the Liberated Areas have
enforced them, and for this crime the Liberated Areas have been labelled
"traitor areas".

In the course of the anti-Japanese war a so-called theory of two stages,
a stage of "national revolution" and a stage of "revolution for democracy
and the people's livelihood", has made its appearance. This theory is wrong.

"Faced with a formidable enemy, we should not raise the question of democratic
reforms or the people's livelihood; better wait until the Japanese are
gone"--such is the absurd theory put forward by the reactionary clique of
the Kuomintang for the purpose of preventing complete victory in the war.
Yet there are people who have been echoing this theory and have become its
servile adherents.

"Faced with a formidable enemy, it is impossible for us to build up bases
against the Japanese and resist their attacks unless we settle the question
of democracy and the people's livelihood"--this is what the Chinese Communist
Party has been advocating and, moreover, has already put into practice with
excellent results.

In the period of the anti-Japanese war, reduction of rent and interest and
the other democratic reforms all serve the war. In order to lessen the landlords'
resistance to the war effort we have abstained from abolishing their ownership
of land and have only reduced rent and interest; at the same time, we have
encouraged them to transfer their assets to industry and given the enlightened
gentry the opportunity to take part in public activities for the war and
in the work of government alongside other representatives of the people.
As for the rich peasants, we have encouraged them to develop production.
All this is part of the resolute line of democratic reforms in the rural
areas and is absolutely necessary.

There are two lines. Either stubbornly oppose the Chinese peasants' endeavour
to settle the problem of democracy and the people's livelihood, and become
corrupt, ineffectual and utterly incapable of fighting Japan; or firmly support
the Chinese peasants in their endeavour, and gain the greatest of allies,
constituting 80 per cent of the population, thereby forging tremendous fighting
strength. The former is the line of the Kuomintang government, the latter
is the line of China's Liberated Areas.

The line of the opportunists is to vacillate between the two, to profess
support for the peasants and yet lack the resolve to reduce rent and interest,
arm the peasants or establish democratic political power in the rural areas.

Using all the forces at its command, the anti-popular clique of the Kuomintang
has directed every kind of vicious attack, open and secret, military and
political, both with bloodshed and without, against the Chinese Communist
Party. Taken in its social setting, the dispute between the two parties is
essentially over this issue of agrarian relations. Where exactly did we give
offence to the Kuomintang reactionary clique? Is it not on this score? Has
it not been precisely by rendering the Japanese aggressors great help on
this score that this clique has won favour and encouragement from them? Have
not all the charges against the Chinese Communist Party--"sabotaging the
War of Resistance and endangering the state", "traitor party", "traitor army",
"traitor areas", and "disobedience to governmental and military orders"--been
levelled precisely because it has done conscientious work in the true interests
of the nation in this sphere?

It is the peasants who are the source of China's industrial workers. In the
future, additional tens of millions of peasants will go to the cities and
enter factories. If China is to build up powerful national industries and
many large modern cities, there will have to be a long process of transformation
of rural into urban inhabitants.

It is the peasants who constitute the main market for China's industry. Only
they can supply foodstuffs and raw materials in great abundance and absorb
manufactured goods in great quantities.

It is the peasants who are the source of the Chinese army. The soldiers are
peasants in military uniform, the mortal enemies of the Japanese aggressors.

It is the peasants who are the main political force for democracy in China
at the present stage. Chinese democrats will achieve nothing unless they
rely on the support of the 360 million peasants.

It is the peasants who are the chief concern of China's cultural movement
at the present stage. If the 360 million peasants are left out, do not the
"elimination of illiteracy", "popularization of education", "literature and
art for the masses" and "public health" become largely empty talk?

In saying this, I am of course not ignoring the political, economic and cultural
importance of the rest of the people numbering about 90 million, and in
particular am not ignoring the working class, which is politically the most
conscious and therefore qualified to lead the whole revolutionary movement.
Let there be no misunderstanding.

It is absolutely necessary not only for Communists but for every democrat
in China to grasp these points.

When there is reform of the land system--even such an elementary reform as
reduction of rent and interest--the peasants become more interested in
production. Then as the peasants are helped to organize farming and other
co-operatives step by step on a voluntary basis, the productive forces will
grow. The farming co-operatives at present can only be collective, mutual-aid
labour organizations based on an individual peasant economy (i.e., on private
ownership by the peasants), such as labour-exchange teams, mutual-aid teams
and work-exchange groups; even so the increase in labour productivity and
output is already astonishing. Such organizations have been widely developed
in China's Liberated Areas and from now on should be spread as much as possible.

It might be mentioned that co-operative organization of the labour-exchange
team type has existed among the peasants for a long time, but in the past
it was only a means by which they tried to alleviate their wretchedness.
Today the labour-exchange teams in China's Liberated Areas are different
both in form and in content; they have become a means by which the peasant
masses increase production and strive for a better life.

In the last analysis, the impact, good or bad, great or small, of the policy
and the practice of any Chinese political party upon the people depends on
whether and how much it helps to develop their productive forces, and on
whether it fetters or liberates these forces. The social productive forces
of China can be liberated only by destroying the Japanese aggressors, carrying
out land reform, emancipating the peasants, developing modern industry and
establishing an independent, free, democratic, united, prosperous and powerful
new China--and this will win the approbation of the Chinese people.

It should be pointed out further that it is not easy for city intellectuals
who come to work in the countryside to understand the characteristics of
the rural areas, i.e., that they are still based on a scattered and backward,
individual economy, and that, moreover, the Liberated Areas are temporarily
cut off from one another by the enemy and involved in a guerrilla war. Failing
to understand these characteristics, they often inappropriately approach
and handle rural problems and rural work from the viewpoint of life and work
in the cities, and so divorce themselves from the realities of the countryside
and fail to identify themselves with the peasants. It is necessary to overcome
this by education.

China's numerous revolutionary intellectuals must awaken to the necessity
of becoming one with the peasants. The peasants need them and await their
help. They should go to the countryside enthusiastically, doff their student
garb and put on rough clothing, and willingly start with any work however
trivial; they should learn what the peasants want and help to arouse and
organize them in the struggle to accomplish the democratic revolution in
the countryside, which is one of the most important tasks in China's democratic
revolution.

After the Japanese aggressors are wiped out, we should confiscate the land
usurped by them and the chief traitors and distribute it among those peasants
who have little or no land.
7. The Problem of Industry


In order to defeat the Japanese aggressors and build a new China it is necessary
to develop industry. But under the Kuomintang government there is dependence
on foreign countries for everything, and its financial and economic policy
is ruining the entire economic life of the people. A few small industrial
enterprises are all that is to be found in the Kuomintang areas, and in most
cases they have been unable to avoid bankruptcy. In the absence of political
reforms all the productive forces are being ruined, and this is true both
of agriculture and of industry.

By and large, it will be impossible to develop industry unless China is
independent, free, democratic and united. To wipe out the Japanese aggressors
is to seek independence. To abolish the Kuomintang's one-party dictatorship,
establish a democratic and united coalition government, transform all China's
troops into a people's armed force, carry out land reform and emancipate
the peasants is to seek freedom, democracy and unity. Without independence,
freedom, democracy and unity it is impossible to build industry on a really
large scale. Without industry there can be no solid national defence, no
well-being for the people, no prosperity or strength for the nation. The
history of the 105 years since the Opium War of 1840,
[11] and especially of the eighteen years since
the Kuomintang came to power, has brought this important point home to the
Chinese people. A China that is not poor and weak but prosperous and strong
implies a China that is not colonial or semi-colonial but independent, not
semi-feudal but free and democratic, not divided but united. In semi-colonial,
semi-feudal and divided China, many people have for years dreamed of developing
industry, building up national defence, and bringing well-being to the people
and prosperity and power to the nation, but all their dreams have been shattered.
Many well-intentioned educators, scientists and students have buried themselves
in their own work or studies and paid no attention to politics in the belief
that they could serve the country with their knowledge, but this too has
turned out to be a dream, a dream that has been shattered. This indeed is
a good sign, for the shattering of these childish dreams marks a starting-point
on China's road towards prosperity and strength. The Chinese people have
learned many things in the war; they know that after the defeat of the Japanese
aggressors they must build a new-democratic China enjoying independence,
freedom, democracy, unity, prosperity and strength, all of which are interrelated
and indispensable. If they do so, then a bright future lies before China.
The productive forces of the Chinese people will be released and given every
possibility to develop only when the political system of New Democracy obtains
in all parts of China. More and more people are coming to understand this
point every day.

When the political system of New Democracy is won, the Chinese people and
their government will have to adopt practical measures in order to build
heavy and light industry step by step over a number of years and transform
China from an agricultural into an industrial country. The new-democratic
state cannot be consolidated unless it has a solid economy as its base, a
much more advanced agriculture than at present, and a large-scale industry
occupying a predominant position in the national economy, with communications,
trade and finance to match.

We Communists are ready to fight for this objective in co-operation with
all the democratic parties and industrial circles throughout the country.
The Chinese working class will play a great role in this undertaking.

Ever since World War I, the Chinese working class has consciously fought
for the independence and liberation of China. The year 1921 witnessed the
birth of the Communist Party of China, the vanguard of the working class,
and China's struggle for liberation then entered a new stage. During the
ensuing three periods, the Northern Expedition, the Agrarian Revolutionary
War and the War of Resistance Against Japan, the working class and Communist
Party of China have worked extremely hard and made an invaluable contribution
to the cause of the liberation of the Chinese people. In the struggle for
the final defeat of the Japanese aggressors, and especially for the recovery
of the big cities and important lines of communications, the Chinese working
class will play a very great role. And it can be predicted that after the
anti-Japanese war, the effort and contribution of the Chinese working class
will be even greater. The task of the Chinese working class is to struggle
not only for the establishment of a new-democratic state but also for China's
industrialization and the modernization of her agriculture.

The policy of adjusting the interests of labour and capital will be adopted
under the new-democratic state system. On the one hand, it will protect the
interests of the workers, institute an eight- to ten-hour working day according
to circumstances, provide suitable unemployment relief and social insurance
and safeguard trade union rights; on the other hand, it will guarantee legitimate
profits to properly managed state, private and co-operative enterprises--so
that both the public and the private sectors and both labour and capital
will work together to develop industrial production.

The enterprises and property in China of the Japanese aggressors and of the
chief traitors will be confiscated and placed at the disposal of the government
when Japan is defeated.
8. The Problem of Culture, Education and the Intellectuals


The calamities brought upon the Chinese people by foreign and feudal oppression
also affect our national culture. The progressive cultural and educational
institutions and progressive cultural workers and educators have particularly
suffered. To sweep away foreign and feudal oppression and build a new-democratic
China, we need large numbers of educators and teachers for the people, and
also people's scientists, engineers, technicians, doctors, journalists, writers,
men of letters, artists and rank-and-file cultural workers. They must be
imbued with the spirit of serving the people and must work hard. Provided
they serve the people creditably, all intellectuals should be esteemed and
regarded as valuable national and social assets. The problem of the intellectuals
becomes particularly important in China because the country is culturally
backward as a result of foreign and feudal oppression and because intellectuals
are urgently needed in the people's struggle for liberation. The numerous
revolutionary intellectuals have played a very great role in the people's
struggle for liberation in the past half-century, and especially since the
May 4th Movement of 1919 and in the eight years of the anti-Japanese war.
They will play an even greater role in the struggles to come. Therefore,
the task of a people's government is systematically to develop all kinds
of intellectually equipped cadres from among the ranks of the people and
at the same time take care to unite with and re-educate all the useful
intellectuals already available.

The elimination of illiteracy among 80 per cent of the population is a vital
task for the new China.

Proper and firm steps should be taken to eliminate all enslaving feudal and
fascist culture and education.

Vigorous action should be taken to prevent and cure endemic and other diseases
among the people and to expand the people's medical and health services.

The old type of cultural and educational workers and doctors should be given
suitable re-education so that they can acquire a new outlook and new methods
to serve the people.

The Chinese people's culture and education should be new-democratic, that
is to say, China should establish her own new national, scientific and mass
culture and education.

As for foreign culture, it would be a wrong policy to shut it out, rather
we should as far as possible draw on what is progressive in it for use in
the development of China's new culture; it would also be wrong to copy it
blindly, rather we should draw on it critically to meet the actual needs
of the Chinese people. The new culture created in the Soviet Union should
be a model for us in building our people's culture. Similarly, ancient Chinese
culture should neither be totally rejected nor blindly copied, but should
be accepted discriminatingly so as to help the progress of China's new culture.
9. The Problem of the Minority Nationalities


The anti-popular clique of the Kuomintang denies that many nationalities
exist in China, and labels all excepting the Han nationality as "tribes".
It has taken over the reactionary policy of the governments of the Ching
Dynasty and of the Northern warlords in relation to the minority nationalities,
oppressing and exploiting them in every possible way. Clear cases in point
are the massacre of Mongolians of the Ikhchao League in 1943, the armed
suppression of the minority nationalities in Sinkiang since 1944 and the
massacres of the Hui people in Kansu Province in recent years. These are
manifestations of a wrong Han-chauvinistic ideology and policy.

In 1924 Dr. Sun Yat-sen wrote in the Manifesto of the First National Congress
of the Kuomintang that "the Kuomintang's Principle of Nationalism has a twofold
meaning, first, the liberation of the Chinese nation, and second, the equality
of all the nationalities in China" and that "the Kuomintang solemnly declares
that it recognizes the right to self-determination of all the nationalities
in China and that a free and united republic of China (a free union of all
the nationalities) will be established when the anti-imperialist and anti-warlord
revolution is victorious".

The Communist Party of China is in full agreement with Dr. Sun's policy on
nationalities as stated here. Communists must actively help the people of
all the minority nationalities to fight for it, and help them, including
all their leaders who have ties with the masses, to fight for their political,
economic and cultural emancipation and development and to establish their
own armies which will safeguard the people's interests. Their spoken and
written languages, their manners and customs and their religious beliefs
must be respected.

The attitude which the Shensi-Kansu-Ningsia Border Region and the Liberated
Areas in northern China have for years adopted towards the Mongolian and
Hui nationalities is correct, and the work they have done has been fruitful.
10. The Problem of Foreign Policy


The Communist Party of China agrees with the Atlantic Charter and with the
decisions of the international conferences of Moscow, Cairo, Teheran and
the Crimea, [12] because these decisions all
contribute to the defeat of the fascist aggressors and the maintenance of
world peace.

The fundamental principle of the foreign policy advocated by the Chinese
Communist Party is as follows: China shall establish and strengthen diplomatic
relations with all countries and settle all questions of common concern,
such as co-ordination of military operations in the war, peace conferences,
trade and investment, on the basic conditions that the Japanese aggressors
must be completely defeated and world peace maintained, that there must be
mutual respect for national independence and equality, and that there must
be promotion of mutual interests and friendship between states and between
peoples.

The Chinese Communist Party fully agrees with the proposals of the Dumbarton
Oaks conference and the decisions of the Crimea conference on the establishment
of an organization to safeguard international peace and security after the
war. It welcomes the United Nations Conference on International Organization
in San Francisco.

It has appointed its own representative on China's delegation to this conference
in order to express the will of the Chinese people.
[13]

We hold that the Kuomintang government must cease its hostility towards the
Soviet Union and speedily improve Sino-Soviet relations. The Soviet Union
was the first country to renounce the unequal treaties and sign new, equal
treaties with China. At the time of the Kuomintang's First National Congress
called by Dr. Sun Yat-sen in 1924 and the subsequent Northern Expedition,
the Soviet Union was the only country to help China's war of liberation.
When the anti-Japanese war broke out in 1937, the Soviet Union was again
the first country to help China against the Japanese aggressors. The Chinese
people are grateful to the Soviet government and people for this help. We
believe that no final and thorough settlement of the problems of the Pacific
is possible without the participation of the Soviet Union.

We ask the governments of all the allied countries, and of the United States
and Britain in the first place, to pay serious attention to the voice of
the Chinese people and not to impair friendship with them by pursuing foreign
policies that run counter to their will. We maintain that if any foreign
government helps the Chinese reactionaries and opposes the Chinese people's
democratic cause, it will be committing a gross mistake.

The Chinese people welcome the steps taken by many foreign governments in
renouncing their unequal treaties and concluding new, equal treaties with
China. However, we maintain that the conclusion of equal treaties does not
in itself mean that China has actually won genuine equality. Genuine and
actual equality is never the gift of foreign governments, but must be won
mainly by the Chinese people through their own efforts, and the way to win
it is to build a new-democratic China politically, economically and culturally;
otherwise there will be only nominal and not actual independence and equality.
That is to say, China can never win genuine independence and equality by
following the present policy of the Kuomintang government.

We consider that, after the defeat and unconditional surrender of the Japanese
aggressors, it will be necessary to help all the democratic forces of the
Japanese people to establish their own democratic system so that Japanese
fascism and militarism may be thoroughly wiped out, together with their
political, economic and social roots. Unless the Japanese people have a
democratic system, it will be impossible thoroughly to wipe out Japanese
fascism and militarism and impossible to ensure peace in the Pacific.

We consider the decision of the Cairo conference regarding the independence
of Korea to be correct. The Chinese people should help the Korean people
to win liberation.

We hope that India will attain independence. For an independent and democratic
India is not only needed by the Indian people but is essential for world
peace.

As regards the Southeast Asian countries--Burma, Malaya, Indonesia, Viet
Nam and the Philippines--we hope that after the defeat of the Japanese aggressors
their people will exercise their right to establish independent and democratic
states of their own. As for Thailand, she should be treated like the fascist
satellite states in Europe.


So much for the major points of our specific programme.

To repeat, none of the points in this specific programme can be successfully
carried out on a nation-wide scale without a democratic coalition government
enjoying the support of the entire nation.

By its twenty-four years of struggle for the cause of the liberation of the
Chinese people, the Communist Party of China has attained a position such
that any political party or social group or any Chinese or foreigner ignoring
its opinion on questions concerning China will be making a serious mistake
and courting certain failure. There were, and still are, people who try to
ignore our opinions and to follow their own bigoted course, but they have
all ended in a blind alley. Why? Simply because our opinions conform to the
interests of the Chinese masses. The Chinese Communist Party is the most
faithful spokesman of the Chinese people, and whoever fails to respect it
in fact fails to respect the Chinese masses and is doomed to defeat.
THE TASKS IN THE KUOMINTANG AREAS


I have now given a detailed explanation of our Party's general and specific
programmes. There is no doubt that these programmes will eventually be put
into effect throughout China; this is the vista that the international and
domestic situation as a whole has opened up for the Chinese people. However,
at the moment conditions in the Kuomintang areas, the enemy-occupied areas
and the Liberated Areas differ from each other, making it necessary for us
to distinguish between them in implementing our programme. Different conditions
give rise to different tasks. Some of these tasks I have already explained
above, while others still need elaboration.

In the Kuomintang areas, the people are not free to engage in patriotic activity,
and democratic movements are considered illegal, and yet various social strata,
democratic parties and individuals are becoming increasingly active. The
China Democratic League issued a manifesto in January this year demanding
the termination of the Kuomintang's one-party dictatorship and the establishment
of a coalition government. Many sections of the people have made similar
declarations. Within the Kuomintang, too, many people are showing increasing
doubt and discontent over the policies of the leading bodies of their own
party, are becoming increasingly aware of the danger of their party's isolation
from the people, and are therefore demanding democratic reforms suited to
the times. In Chungking and other places democratic movements are growing
among the workers, the peasants, cultural circles, the students, educational
circles, women, industrial and commercial circles, government employees and
even among some of the soldiers and officers. Those facts indicate that the
democratic movements of all the oppressed strata are gradually converging
on a common objective. One weakness of the present movements is that the
basic sections of society have not yet joined it on a wide scale and that
the most important forces, namely, the peasants, workers, soldiers and the
lower-ranking government employees and teachers, who are all suffering so
bitterly, are not yet organized. Another weakness is that many of the democratic
personalities in the movement are still unclear and hesitant about the
fundamental policy, namely, that a change in the situation must be sought
through the waging of struggle on a democratic mass basis. However, the objective
situation is compelling all the oppressed strata, political parties and social
groups gradually to awaken and unite. No suppression by the Kuomintang government
can stop the advance of this movement.

All the oppressed strata, political parties and social groups in the Kuomintang
areas must extend their democratic movement on a broad scale and gradually
weld their scattered forces together in order to fight for national unity,
the establishment of a coalition government, the defeat of the Japanese
aggressors and the building of a new China. The Communist Party of China
and the people of the Liberated Areas should give them every possible help.

In the Kuomintang areas the Communists should continue to pursue the policy
of a broad National United Front Against Japan. In the fight for common
objectives, we should co-operate with anyone who does not oppose us today,
even though he might have done so yesterday.
THE TASKS IN THE JAPANESE-OCCUPIED AREAS


In the occupied areas, Communists should call on all who oppose Japan to
follow the French and Italian examples and form organizations and underground
forces to prepare armed uprisings, so that when the time comes they can act
from the inside in co-ordination with the armies attacking from the outside
and so wipe out the Japanese aggressors. The atrocities, plunder, rape and
humiliation suffered by our brothers and sisters in the occupied areas at
the hands of the Japanese aggressors and their servile lackeys have aroused
the burning wrath of all Chinese, and the hour of revenge is fast approaching.
The victories in the European theatre of war and the victories of our Eighth
Route and New Fourth Armies have stimulated and heightened the anti-Japanese
spirit of the people in the occupied areas. They urgently want to become
organized so as to achieve liberation as quickly as possible. Therefore,
we must raise our work in the occupied areas to the same level of importance
as that in the Liberated Areas. Large numbers of our working personnel must
be sent to work there. Large numbers of activists among the people there
must be trained and promoted and must take part in local work. We must intensify
our underground work in the four northeastern provinces which have been occupied
longer than any other region and which form a key industrial and troop
concentration area for the Japanese aggressors. With a view to the recovery
of these lost territories, we should strengthen our solidarity with the people
who have fled south from the Northeast.

Communists should pursue the broadest united front policy in all the occupied
areas. For the overthrow of the common enemy they must unite with anyone
who is opposed to the Japanese aggressors and their servile lackeys.

We should warn all the puppet armies, the puppet police and others who are
helping the enemy and opposing their countrymen that they must quickly recognize
the criminal nature of their actions, repent in time and atone for their
crimes by helping their countrymen against the enemy. Otherwise the nation
will certainly call them to account the day the enemy collapses.

Communists should direct persuasive propaganda at all puppet organizations
with a mass following so as to win the masses who have been misled over to
our side against the national enemy. At the same time, evidence should be
collected about those impenitent collaborators who have committed the most
heinous crimes, so that they can be brought to justice when the lost territories
are recovered.

Those Kuomintang reactionaries who have betrayed the nation by organizing
open collaborators to fight the Chinese people, the Communist Party, the
Eighth Route Army, the New Fourth Army and other armed forces of the people
must be warned to repent in time. Otherwise, when the lost territories are
recovered, they will certainly be punished for their crimes along with the
collaborators with Japan and will be shown no mercy.
THE TASKS IN THE LIBERATED AREAS


Our Party has put its whole new-democratic programme into practice in the
Liberated Areas with striking results, and so built up tremendous anti-Japanese
strength, and from now on this strength should be developed and consolidated
in every way.

In the prevailing circumstances, the troops of the Liberated Areas should
launch extensive attacks on all places that can be captured from the Japanese
and puppets in order to expand the Liberated Areas and reduce the occupied
areas.

But at the same time it should be borne in mind that the enemy is still strong
and may launch further attacks on the Liberated Areas. The army and the people
of our areas must be ready at all times to smash his attacks and must work
in every way to consolidate these areas.

We must expand the armies, the guerrilla units, the people's militia and
the self-defence corps of the Liberated Areas, and increase their combat
effectiveness by speeding up their training and consolidation in order to
build up adequate strength for the final defeat of the aggressors.

The army in the Liberated Areas must support the government and cherish the
people, while the democratic governments must lead the people in the work
of supporting the army and taking good care of the families of soldiers fighting
Japan. In this way relations between the army and the people will become
still better.

In the work of the local coalition governments and mass organizations, Communists
should continue to co-operate closely with all anti-Japanese democrats on
the basis of the new-democratic programme.

Similarly in military work, Communists should co-operate closely with all
anti-Japanese democrats who are willing to co-operate with us, whether or
not they are members of the armies of the Liberated Areas.

To increase the enthusiasm of the masses of the workers, peasants and other
working people for the war and for production, we must thoroughly apply the
policy of reducing rent and interest and of increasing the pay of workers
and office staff. The cadres of the Liberated Areas must diligently learn
to do economic work. All available forces must be mobilized for the extensive
development of agriculture, industry and trade and the improvement of the
livelihood of the soldiers and the people. For this purpose there must be
labour emulation campaigns, and rewards should be given to labour heroes
and model workers. When the Japanese aggressors are driven out of the cities,
our personnel must rapidly learn how to do urban economic work.

Our cultural and educational work must be developed in order to raise the
level of political consciousness of the people in the Liberated Areas and,
above all, of the masses of the workers, peasants and soldiers, and in order
to train large numbers of cadres. In carrying forward this work, those engaged
in it should adopt forms and select contents suited to the existing rural
conditions and to the needs and wishes of the people in the countryside.

In all our work in the Liberated Areas, manpower and material resources must
be used most sparingly, and in every field long-term plans must be made,
and misuse and waste must be avoided. This is needed both for defeating the
Japanese aggressors and for building up the new China.

In all our work in the Liberated Areas, we must take great care to help the
local people administer local affairs and to cultivate many local cadres
from among the best local people. It will be impossible to accomplish the
great task of the democratic revolution in the rural areas unless comrades
who come from other places identify themselves with the local people and
help the local cadres whole-heartedly, painstakingly and in ways that fit
the actual conditions, and unless they cherish them like their own brothers
and sisters.

When a unit of the Eighth Route Army, the New Fourth Army or any other armed
force of the people arrives at a place, it should immediately help the local
people to organize forces led by the local cadres, including not only militia
and self-defence corps but also local troops and regional forces. This will
make possible the eventual creation of regular forces and regular army formations
led by local people. This is an extremely important task. Unless it is
accomplished, we can neither build stable anti-Japanese base areas nor expand
the people's army.

Of course the local people for their part should warmly welcome and help
the revolutionary workers and people's forces coming from other areas.

Everybody should be alerted on the question of dealing with covert wreckers.
For it is easy to spot and handle overt enemies and wreckers of the national
cause, but not those who work under cover. Therefore we should take up this
matter in all seriousness and at the same time be very careful in dealing
with such people.

All religions are permitted in China's Liberated Areas, in accordance with
the principle of freedom of religious belief. All believers in Protestantism,
Catholicism, Islamism, Buddhism and other faiths enjoy the protection of
the people's government so long as they are abiding by its laws. Everyone
is free to believe or not to believe; neither compulsion nor discrimination
is permitted.

Our congress should propose to the people of the Liberated Areas that a people's
conference of the Chinese Liberated Areas [14]
be held in Yenan as soon as possible to discuss the questions of co-ordinating
the activities of the various Liberated Areas, strengthening their work in
the War of Resistance, helping the people's anti-Japanese democratic movement
in the Kuomintang areas, helping the underground armed forces of the people
in the occupied areas, and promoting national unity and the formation of
a coalition government. Now that China's Liberated Areas have become the
centre of gravity in the nationwide people's struggle to resist Japan and
save the country, the broad masses throughout the country pin their hopes
on us and it is our duty not to disappoint them. Such a conference would
give great impetus to the Chinese people's cause of national liberation.

V. LET THE WHOLE PARTY UNITE AND FIGHT TO ACCOMPLISH ITS
  TASKS!


Comrades! Now that we understand our tasks and the policies for accomplishing
them, what should be our attitude in carrying out these policies and performing
these tasks?

The present international and domestic situation opens up bright prospects
and provides unprecedentedly favorable conditions for us and the Chinese
people as a whole; this is evident and beyond doubt. But at the same time
there are still serious difficulties. Anyone who sees only the bright side
but not the difficulties cannot fight effectively for the accomplishment
of the Party's tasks.

Together with the Chinese people, our Party has built up immense strength
for the Chinese nation in the twenty-four years of the Party's history, including
the eight years of the War of Resistance Against Japan; the success of our
work is obvious and beyond doubt. But at the same time there are still defects
in our work. Anyone who sees only the successful side but not the defects
likewise cannot fight effectively for the accomplishment of the Party's tasks.

In the twenty-four years since its birth in 1921, the Communist Party of
China has gone through three great struggles--the Northern Expedition, the
Agrarian Revolutionary War and the War of Resistance Against Japan which
is still going on. From its very beginning our Party has based itself on
the theory of Marxism-Leninism, for Marxism-Leninism is the crystallization
of the most correct and most revolutionary scientific thought of the world
proletariat. When the universal truth of Marxism-Leninism began to be integrated
with the concrete practice of the Chinese revolution, the Chinese revolution
took on an entirely new complexion and the entire historical stage of New
Democracy emerged. Armed with Marxist-Leninist theory, the Communist Party
of China has brought a new style of work to the Chinese people, a style of
work which essentially entails integrating theory with practice, forging
close links with the masses and practicing self-criticism.

The universal truth of Marxism-Leninism, which reflects the practice of
proletarian struggle throughout the world, becomes an invincible weapon for
the Chinese people when it is integrated with the concrete practice of the
revolutionary struggle of the Chinese proletariat and people. This the Communist
Party of China has achieved. Our Party has grown and advanced through staunch
struggle against every manifestation of dogmatism and empiricism, which runs
counter to this principle. Dogmatism is divorced from concrete practice,
while empiricism mistakes fragmentary experience for universal truth; both
kinds of opportunist thinking run counter to Marxism. In the course of its
twenty-four years of struggle our Party has successfully fought such wrong
thinking and it is still doing so, thus greatly consolidating itself
ideologically. Our Party now has 1,210,000 members. The overwhelming majority
have joined during the War of Resistance, and there are various impurities
in their ideology. The same is true of some of the members who joined the
Party before the war. The work of rectification in the last few years has
been most successful and has gone a long way towards removing these impurities.
This work should be continued and ideological education within the Party
should be developed still more extensively in the spirit of "learning from
past mistakes to avoid future ones" and "curing the sickness to save the
patient". We must enable the Party's leading cadres at all levels to understand
that close integration of theory and practice is a hallmark distinguishing
our Party from all other political parties. Therefore ideological education
is the key link to be grasped in uniting the whole Party for great political
struggles. Unless this is done, the Party cannot accomplish any of its political
tasks.

Another hallmark distinguishing our Party from all other political parties
is that we have very close ties with the broadest masses of the people. Our
point of departure is to serve the people whole-heartedly and never for a
moment divorce ourselves from the masses, to proceed in all cases from the
interests of the people and not from the interests of individuals or groups,
and to understand the identity of our responsibility to the people and our
responsibility to the leading organs of the Party. Communists must be ready
at all times to stand up for the truth, because truth is in the interests
of the people; Communists must be ready at all times to correct their mistakes,
because mistakes are against the interests of the people. Twenty-four years
of experience tell us that the right task, policy and style of work invariably
conform with the demands of the masses at a given time and place and invariably
strengthen our ties with the masses, and the wrong task, policy and style
of work invariably disagree with the demands of the masses at a given time
and place and invariably alienate us from the masses. The reason why such
evils as dogmatism, empiricism, commandism, tailism, sectarianism, bureaucracy
and an arrogant attitude in work are definitely harmful and intolerable,
and why anyone suffering from these maladies must overcome them, is that
they alienate us from the masses. Our congress should call upon the whole
Party to be vigilant and to see that no comrade at any post is divorced from
the masses. It should teach every comrade to love the people and listen
attentively to the voice of the masses; to identify himself with the masses
wherever he goes and, instead of standing above them, to immerse himself
among them; and, according to their present level, to awaken them or raise
their political consciousness and help them gradually to organize themselves
voluntarily and to set going all essential struggles permitted by the internal
and external circumstances of the given time and place. Commandism is wrong
in any type of work, because in overstepping the level of political consciousness
of the masses and violating the principle of voluntary mass action it reflects
the disease of impetuosity. Our comrades must not assume that everything
they themselves understand is understood by the masses. Whether the masses
understand it and are ready to take action can be discovered only by going
into their midst and making investigations. If we do so, we can avoid commandism.
Tailism in any type of work is also wrong, because in falling below the level
of political consciousness of the masses and violating the principle of leading
the masses forward it reflects the disease of dilatoriness. Our comrades
must not assume that the masses have no understanding of what they themselves
do not yet understand. It often happens that the masses outstrip us and are
eager to advance a step when our comrades are still tailing behind certain
backward elements, for instead of acting as leaders of the masses such comrades
reflect the views of these backward elements and, moreover, mistake them
for those of the broad masses. In a word, every comrade must be brought to
understand that the supreme test of the words and deeds of a Communist is
whether they conform with the highest interests and enjoy the support of
the overwhelming majority of the people. Every comrade must be helped to
understand that as long as we rely on the people, believe firmly in the
inexhaustible creative power of the masses and hence trust and identify ourselves
with them, no enemy can crush us while we can crush every enemy and overcome
every difficulty.

Conscientious practice of self-criticism is still another hallmark distinguishing
our Party from all other political parties. As we say, dust will accumulate
if a room is not cleaned regularly, our faces will get dirty if they are
not washed regularly. Our comrades' minds and our Party's work may also collect
dust, and also need sweeping and washing. The proverb "Running water is never
stale and a door-hinge is never worm-eaten" means that constant motion prevents
the inroads of germs and other organisms. To check up regularly on our work
and in the process develop a democratic style of work, to fear neither criticism
nor self-criticism, and to apply such good popular Chinese maxims as "Say
all you know and say it without reserve", "Blame not the speaker but be warned
by his words" and "Correct mistakes if you have committed them and guard
against them if you have not"-- this is the only effective way to prevent
all kinds of political dust and germs from contaminating the minds of our
comrades and the body of our Party. The reason for the great effectiveness
of the rectification movement, the purpose of which was "to learn from past
mistakes to avoid future ones and to cure the sickness to save the patient",
was that the criticism and self-criticism we carried out were honest and
conscientious, and not perfunctory and distorted. As we Chinese Communists,
who base all our actions on the highest interests of the broadest masses
of the Chinese people and who are fully convinced of the justice of our cause,
never balk at any personal sacrifice and are ready at all times to give our
lives for the cause, can we be reluctant to discard any idea, viewpoint,
opinion or method which is not suited to the needs of the people? Can we
be willing to allow political dust and germs to dirty our clean faces or
eat into our healthy organism? Countless revolutionary martyrs have laid
down their lives in the interests of the people, and our hearts are filled
with pain as we the living think of them--can there be any personal interest,
then, that we would not sacrifice or any error that we would not discard?

Comrades! When this congress is over, we shall go to the front and, guided
by its resolutions, fight to bring about the final defeat of the Japanese
aggressors and to build a new China. To achieve this aim, we shall unite
with all the people of our country. Let me repeat: We shall unite with any
class, any party, any group or individual if they are for the defeat of the
Japanese aggressors and the building of a new China. To achieve this aim,
we shall solidly unite all the forces of our Party on democratic centralist
principles of organization and discipline. We shall unite with any comrade
if he abides by the Party's Programme, Constitution and decisions. In the
period of the Northern Expedition our Party had a membership of less than
60,000, most of whom were later dispersed by the enemy; in the period of
the Agrarian Revolutionary War we had a membership of less than 300,000,
most of whom were likewise dispersed by the enemy. Now we have more than
1,200,000 members; this time we must in no circumstances allow ourselves
to be dispersed by the enemy. If we can profit from the experience of those
three periods, if we are modest and guard against conceit and are able to
strengthen unity among all comrades inside the Party and with all the people
outside the Party, we can rest assured that, far from being dispersed by
the enemy, we shall destroy the Japanese aggressors and their servile running
dogs resolutely, thoroughly, wholly and completely, and thereafter build
a new-democratic China.

The experience of the three periods of the revolution, and especially that
of the War of Resistance Against Japan, has convinced us and the whole Chinese
people that without the efforts of the Chinese Communist Party, without the
Chinese Communists as the mainstay of the Chinese people, China can never
achieve independence or liberation, or industrialization and the modernization
of her agriculture.

Comrades! I firmly believe that with the Communist Party of China armed with
the experience of the three revolutions, we can accomplish our great political
task.

Thousands upon thousands of martyrs have heroically laid down their lives
for the people; let us hold their banner high and march ahead along the path
crimson with their blood!

A new-democratic China will soon be born. Let us hail that great day!
NOTES

1. The Chinese National Liberation Vanguard Corps, or to
give its shorter name the National Vanguard Corps, was a revolutionary youth
organization formed under the leadership of the Chinese Communist Party in
September 1936 by the progressive youth who participated in the December
9th Movement of 1935. After the outbreak of the War of Resistance, many of
its members saw action and took part in building base areas behind the enemy
lines. The organizations of the National Vanguard Corps in the Kuomintang
areas were forcibly dissolved by the Chiang Kai-shek government in 1938;
those in the Liberated Areas were later merged into the Association of Youth
for National Salvation, an organization of even broader scope.

2. On July 7, 1937, the Japanese invading forces attacked
the Chinese garrison at Lukouchiao, some ten kilometres southwest of Peking.
Under the influence of the ardent and nation-wide anti-Japanese movement
the Chinese troops put up resistance. This incident marked the beginning
of the Chinese people's heroic War of Resistance Against Japan which lasted
for eight years.

3. For a fuller account of the three anti-Communist onslaughts,
see "A Comment on the Sessions of the Kuomintang Central Executive Committee
and of the People's Political Council", pp. 137-51 of this volume.

4. These operations to force China's north-south trunk
railways open for through traffic constituted the offensive launched in May
1944 by the Japanese army to seize the Canton-Hankow Railway along its entire
length and thus secure an uninterrupted land link between northern and southern
China.

5. Scobie was the commander of the British imperialist
forces of aggression in Greece. In October 1944, when the German invaders
were retreating in defeat on the European continent, Scobie's troops entered
the country, bringing with them the reactionary Greek government that had
been in exile in London. Scobie directed and assisted this government in
attacking the Greek People's Liberation Army, which had waged a long and
heroic struggle against the German invaders, and in massacring Greek patriots,
and so plunged Greece into a blood bath.

6. Pao chia was the administrative system by which
the Kuomintang reactionary clique enforced its fascist rule at the primary
level. On August 1, 1932, Chiang Kai-shek promulgated his "Regulations for
the Organization of Pao and Chia and for a Population Census
in the Counties", covering the provinces of Honan, Hupeh and Anhwei. The
"Regulations" provided that "the pao and chia are to be
organized on the basis of households; there is to be a head of each household,
of each chia, which is made up of ten households, and of each pao,
which is made up of ten chia". Neighbours were required to
watch each other's activities and report them to the authorities, and all
were punishable when one was found guilty; counter-revolutionary measures
for exacting compulsory labour were also laid down. On November 7, 1934,
the Kuomintang government officially announced that this system of fascist
rule was to be established in all the provinces and municipalities under
its rule.

7. The Cairo conference, held by China, the United States
and Britain in November 1943, issued the Cairo Declaration which clearly
stipulated that Taiwan and certain other territories were to be returned
to China. In June 1950 the U.S. government sent a fleet to control Taiwan
in open repudiation of this agreement, in the attempt to deprive China of
her sovereignty over it.

8. Yuan Shih-kai was the head of the Northern warlords
in the last years of the Ching Dynasty. After the Ching Dynasty was overthrown
by the Revolution of 1911, he usurped the president of the Republic and organized
the first government of the Northern warlords, which represented the big
landlord and big comprador classes. He did this by relying on
counter-revolutionary armed force and on the support of the imperialists
and by taking advantage of the conciliationist character of the bourgeoisie,
which was then leading the revolution. In 1915 he wanted to make himself
emperor and, to gain the support of the Japanese imperialists, accepted the
Twenty-one Demands with which Japan aimed at obtaining exclusive control
of all China. In December of the same year an uprising against his assumption
of the throne took place in Yunnan Province and promptly won nation-wide
response and support. Yuan Shih-kai died in Peking in June 1916.

9. Omei is a famous mountain in the southwestern part of
Szechuan Province. Here it symbolizes the mountainous areas of Szechuan,
the last refuge of the Chiang Kai-shek ruling clique in the War of Resistance
Against Japan.

10. From Dr. Sun Yat-sen's "Statement on My Departure
for the North", dated November 10, 1924.

11. For many decades, beginning with the end of the 18th
century, Britain exported an increasing quantity of opium to China. This
traffic not only subjected the Chinese people to drugging but also plundered
China of her silver. It aroused fierce opposition in China. In 1840, under
the pretext of safeguarding its trade with China, Britain launched armed
aggression against her. The Chinese troops led by Lin Tse-hsu put up resistance,
and the people in Canton spontaneously organized the "Quell the British Corps",
which dealt serious blows to the British forces of aggression. In 1842, however,
the corrupt Ching regime signed the Treaty of Nanking with Britain. This
treaty provided for the payment of indemnities and the cession of Hongkong
to Britain, and stipulated that Shanghai, Foochow, Amoy, Ningpo and Canton
were to be opened to British trade and that tariff rates for British goods
imported into China were to be jointly fixed by China and Britain.

12. The Atlantic Charter was issued jointly by the United
States and Britain at the conclusion of their Atlantic conference in August
1941. The Moscow conference was held in October 1943 by the foreign ministers
of the Soviet Union, the United States and Britain. The Teheran conference
of the Soviet Union, the United States and Britain was held in the capital
of Iran from November to December 1943. The Crimea conference of the Soviet
Union, the United States and Britain took place in February 1945 at Yalta.
At all these international conferences the signatories recorded their resolve
to defeat fascist Germany and Japan through common endeavour and, after the
war, to prevent the revival of the forces of aggression and the remnants
of fascism, maintain world peace and help the peoples of all countries to
realize their aspirations for independence and democracy. But immediately
after the war the U.S. and British governments violated all these international
agreements.

13. As the representative of China's Liberated Areas Comrade
Tang Pi-wu attended the United Nations Conference on International Organization
which was held at San Francisco from April to June 1945, with the participation
of representatives from fifty countries. The proposals for the Organization
of the United Nations were drafted at Dumbarton Oaks, U.S.A., where the
representatives of the Soviet Union, the United States, Britain and China
met from August to October 1944 in accordance with the decisions of the Moscow
and Teheran conferences.

14. With Japan's surrender the situation changed and the
people's conference of the Chinese Liberated Areas was not convened, although
a Preparatory Committee for this conference was formed in Yenan after the
Seventh National Congress of the Chinese Communist Party and held an inaugural
meeting which was attended by representative from all the Liberated Areas.


Transcription by the Maoist Documentation Project.