Lessons from the Democratic League 1
(November 3, 1947)
Those in the Democratic League should by now have learned the lesson that harboring illusions about the American invaders and Chiang Kaishek’s ruling group
(or some of its factions) is of no benefit to themselves or to the people. They
should rid themselves of these types of illusions and stand firmly on the side of the
true people’s democratic revolution; there is no middle road. If the Democratic
League can do this, the fact that it was declared illegal by Chiang Kaishek will
not hurt it. On the contrary, this will give the Democratic League an opportunity
to follow an even brighter path than before.


Our source for this telegram is Mao Zedong wenji, Vol. 4, pp. 314–15, where it is reproduced from Mao’s handwritten manuscript.


1.  On October 27, 1947, the Nationalist government declared that the China Democratic League was an illegal organization, and on November 6, 1947, the league was forced
to disband its headquarters. A Xinhua News Agency editorial published in Renmin ribao
on November 7 stated that this incident was an honor to the China Democratic League, and
it made the public even more aware of the China Democratic League’s cooperation with
the Chinese Communist Party on the democratic front. The editorial noted that some in the
China Democratic League strongly opposed Chiang Kaishek’s dictatorship and U.S. imperialism, but some still harbored illusions about both. A paragraph in the editorial added by
Mao said that the disbanding of the China Democratic League taught people that attaining true peace and freedom required subverting Chiang Kaishek, supporting the armed
revolution of the People’s Liberation Army, and never relying on any peaceful, legal, and
revisionist approach. Two months later, in January 1948, Shen Junru, Zhang Bojun, and
other China Democratic League leaders held a meeting in Hong Kong, during which they
decided to restore the China Democratic League’s governing bodies and activities, to abandon the middle way, and to join forces with the Chinese Communist Party and the other
democratic parties to subvert Guomindang rule and to expel U.S. imperialism from China.
DOI:  10.4324/9781315719436-50