July 10, 1945

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


Convened to camouflage Chiang Kai-shek's dictatorial regime, the Fourth People's
Political Council opened in Chungking on July 7. It was the smallest opening
session on record. Not only was nobody present from the Chinese Communist
Party, but many members of the Council from other groups were absent too.
Out of a total membership of 290, only 180 turned up. Chiang Kai-shek held
forth at this opening session as follows:

  The government is not going to submit any specific proposal on questions
  relating to the convocation of the National Assembly, and you gentlemen can
  therefore discuss these matters fully. The government is ready to listen
  to your opinions on these questions in all honesty and sincerity.


This will probably be the end of the whole business about convoking the National
Assembly on November 12 this year. The imperialist Patrick J. Hurley has
had something to do with this business. At first he strongly encouraged Chiang
Kai-shek to make such a move, and it was this that put some stiffening into
Chiang Kai-shek's New Year's Day speech, [1] and
a great deal more into his March 1 speech [2] in
which he announced his determination to "hand state power back to the people"
on November 12. In his speech of March 1 he flatly rejected the Chinese Communist
Party's proposal, which voiced the general will of the Chinese people, that
a conference of all parties be convened and a coalition government established.
He gleefully played up the idea of forming a so-called Committee of Three,
including an American, to "reorganize" the armed forces of the Chinese Communist
Party. He had the audacity to say that the Chinese Communist Party must hand
over its troops before he would bestow "legal status" upon it.

In all this, the backing of His Worship Patrick J. Hurley was decisive. In
a statement in Washington on April 2, Hurley did his best to boost Chiang
Kai-shek's "National Assembly" and other such nasty schemes in addition to
denying the role of the Chinese Communist Party, vilifying its activities,
declaring against co-operation with it and uttering other such imperialist
platitudes. Thus the duet between Hurley in the United States and Chiang
Kai-shek in China reached its most raucous pitch, with the sacrifice of the
Chinese people as the common objective. Since then the show seems to have
flagged. Countless voices have been raised in protest everywhere, among both
Chinese and foreigners, both inside and outside the Kuomintang, among people
with party affiliations and without. The sole reason is that for all its
high-sounding language, the Hurley-Chiang racket is designed to sacrifice
the interests of the Chinese people, further wreck their unity, and as it
were, lay a mine to set off large-scale civil war in China, thereby damaging
the common interests of the people of the United States and other allied
countries during the anti-fascist war and the prospects of peaceful coexistence
afterwards. At the moment Hurley seems to be lying low, busying himself with
no one knows what, with the result that Chiang Kai-shek has to talk twaddle
before the People's Political Council. Previously, on March 1, Chiang Kai-shek
said:

  The conditions in our country differ from those in other countries: prior
  to the convocation of the National Assembly, we have no responsible organization
  which is representative of the people and through which the government can
  consult the people for their opinions.


If that is so, why does our Generalissimo now go to the People's Political
Council to "listen" to "opinions"? According to him, there is no "responsible
organization" in the whole of China through which one "can consult the people
for their opinions"; it follows that the People's Political Council as an
"organization" exists merely to eat, and his "listening" to it has no legal
basis. Be that as it may, if the People's Political Council says even a single
word against the convocation of the bogus "National" Assembly, it will have
done a good deed and merited divine grace, though by so doing it would have
violated the Imperial Edict of March 1 and committed
lèse-majesté. Of course, it is still premature to
make any comment on the People's Political Council, as we have to wait a
few days to see what it will produce for the Generalissimo to "listen" to.
One thing, however, is certain: ever since the Chinese people began raising
their voices in protest against this National Assembly, even the enthusiasts
for "constitutional monarchy" have been worried about our "monarch", cautioning
him not to stick his neck into a noose by convening a "Parliament of
Pigs"[3] and warning him of the fate of Yuan Shih-kai.
Who knows but that our "monarch" may stay his hand in consequence? But it
is absolutely certain that he and his retinue will not allow the people to
gain a particle of power, if that would cost them a single hair. The immediate
proof is that His Majesty has described the people's justified criticism
as "unbridled attacks". He said:

... under war conditions a general election is obviously out of the question
in the Japanese-occupied areas. Consequently two years ago the Plenary Session
of the Central Executive Committee of the Kuomintang resolved to convoke
the National Assembly and institute constitutional government within a year
after the conclusion of the war. However, in certain quarters unbridled attacks
were made at that time.

And the grounds for these attacks were that this date might be too late.
His Majesty thereupon proposed that "the National Assembly be convoked as
soon as the war situation is stabilized, in view of the possibility that
the final conclusion of the war may be delayed and that order may not be
quickly restored everywhere even after the end of the war". Much to his surprise,
these people again made "unbridled attacks". This has put His Majesty in
a terrible fix. But the Chinese people must teach Chiang Kai-shek and his
group a lesson and tell them: Whatever you say or do, no tricks in violation
of the people's wishes will be tolerated. What the Chinese people demand
is immediate democratic reforms, such as the release of political prisoners,
the abolition of the secret service, and the granting of freedoms to the
people and of legal status to the political parties. You are doing none of
these things and instead are simply juggling with the pseudo-problem of the
date of the "National Assembly"; this will not deceive even a three-year-old.
Without a minimum of genuine democratic reforms, all your assemblies, large
or small, will be thrown into the cesspit. Call this an "unbridled attack"
if you like, but every deception of this kind must be exploded resolutely,
thoroughly, wholly and completely, with not a trace allowed to remain. The
reason is simply that it is a swindle. Whether or not there is a national
assembly is one thing and whether or not there is a minimum of democratic
reforms is quite another. The former can be dispensed with for the time being,
but the latter must be introduced immediately. Since Chiang Kai-shek and
his group are willing to "hand state power back to the people sooner", why
are they unwilling to carry out a minimum of democratic reforms "sooner"?
Gentlemen of the Kuomintang! When you come to these concluding lines, you
will have to admit that the Chinese Communists are not in any sense making
an "unbridled attack" on you, but are asking you one simple question. May
we not even ask a question? Can you brush it aside? The question you must
answer is: How is it that you are willing to "hand state power back to the
people" but not willing to institute democratic reforms?
NOTES

1. The radio speech made by Chiang Kai-shek on January
1, 1945 did not even mention the ignominious defeats of the Kuomintang troops
at the hands of the Japanese aggressors in the previous year, but maligned
the people and opposed the proposal for abolishing the Kuomintang's one-party
dictatorship and for setting up a coalition government and a joint supreme
command, a proposal supported by all the people and all the anti-Japanese
parties in the country. He insisted on continuing the Kuomintang's one-party
dictatorship and as a shield against the people's criticism he talked about
convening a Kuomintang-controlled "National Assembly" which had been spurned
by the whole nation.

2. On March 1, 1945 Chiang Kai-shek made a speech in Chungking
at the Association for the Establishment of Constitutional Government. Besides
reiterating the reactionary views of his New Year's Day speech, Chiang proposed
the formation of a Committee of Three, including a U.S. representative, to
"reorganize" the Eighth Route Army and the New Fourth Army, which amounted
to an open invitation to the U.S. imperialists to intervene in China's domestic
affairs.

3. In 1923, the Northern warlord Tsao Kun had himself elected
"President of the Republic of China" by giving members of parliament a bribe
of 5,000 silver dollars each. He became notorious as the president elected
through bribery, and the bribed members came to be called "members of the
Parliament of Pigs". Comrade Mao Tse-tung's analogy here likens the Kuomintang's
bogus "National Assembly" to the "Parliament of Pigs".


Transcription by the Maoist Documentation Project.