The Guomindang Reactionaries Turn from “Calling for Peace” to Calling for War

(February 16, 1949)

[According to Xinhua News Agency, Northern Shaanxi, February 16] Ever since Chiang Kai-shek launched his peace offensive on January 1, the heroes of the Guomindang reactionaries had been volubly proclaiming that they were willing to “shorten the duration of the war”, “alleviate the people’s suffering”, and “take the salvation of the people as the prerequisite”. But by early February the peace tune had suddenly dropped low, and the old tune about “fighting it out with the Communist Party” was again being loudly sung.
This has been particularly so in the last few days.
On February 13, the Propaganda Department of the Guomindang Central Executive Committee issued a “Special Directive on Propaganda” to “all Party headquarters and Party newspapers”, which said, “Ye Jianying has been spreading propaganda in our rear areas that the Chinese Communist Party is sincere about peace and accusing the government of insincerity in its military dispositions for peace.
In this regard, all newspapers must vigorously refute it from every angle, positive and negative, on the basis of the following points.”
This “Special Directive on Propaganda” listed a number of points to be “refuted”. “Rather than accept unconditional surrender, the government will fight to the finish.”
“The eight terms set forth in Mao Zedong’s statement of January 14 are terms for national subjugation, and the government should not have accepted them in the first place.”
“The Chinese Communist Party should bear the responsibility for wrecking the peace.
Today, the Chinese Communist Party has gone so far as to put forward a list of so-called war criminals, including all the responsible officials of the government, and has even demanded that the government arrest them first.
Its outrageous unreasonableness is obvious.
Unless the Chinese Communist Party changes this attitude, it will be difficult to find a way to negotiate peace.”
Gone is the air of anxiety for negotiations, as if they were bereaved of their parents, which they displayed a couple of weeks ago.
No longer is anything heard of those heart-warming and oft-repeated phrases, such as “shorten the duration of the war”, “alleviate the people’s suffering”, and “take the salvation of the people as the prerequisite”. If the Chinese Communist Party is unwilling to change its “attitude” and insists on punishing the war criminals, then there can be no peace negotiations.
After all, is it the salvation of the people that is the prerequisite, or the salvation of the war criminals?
According to the “Special Directive on Propaganda” of the Guomindang heroes, the latter has been chosen.
The Chinese Communist Party is still consulting the democratic parties and people’s organizations about the list of war criminals, and opinions from several quarters have already been received.
Judging from these opinions, none approves of the list put forward by the authoritative quarters of the Chinese Communist Party on December 25 last year.
They consider the list of only forty-three war criminals too few; they hold that the responsibility for launching the counter-revolutionary war and slaughtering millions of people rests with far more than forty-three persons, and that the number should be over a hundred.
Now let us assume for the moment that the number of war criminals will be fixed at over a hundred.
Then, may we ask the Guomindang heroes, why do you oppose the punishment of war criminals?
Are you not willing to “shorten the duration of the war” and “alleviate the people’s suffering”?
If your opposition results in the continuation of the war, wouldn’t that mean dragging out the war and prolonging the scourge of war?
The eight characters meaning “dragging out the war and prolonging the scourge of war” were used by you in the statement issued in the name of the spokesman of the Nanjing government on January 26, 1949, to pin the blame on the Communist Party.
Now, do you want to take them back, write them on a poster and hang it on yourselves as a badge of honour?
You are such merciful and compassionate people who “take the salvation of the people as the prerequisite”; why have you suddenly changed to taking the salvation of the war criminals as the prerequisite?
According to the statistics of your government’s Ministry of the Interior, the population of China is not 450 million but 475 million.
Compare this with the hundred and more war criminals—which is the larger figure?
You heroes have studied arithmetic; please do some careful figuring on the basis of your arithmetic textbook and then draw your conclusion.
If you do not figure it out clearly but hastily change your original formulation—which was very good, which we agreed to and which the people of the whole country agreed to—from “taking the salvation of the people as the prerequisite” to “taking the salvation of a hundred and more war criminals as the prerequisite”, then be careful, for you will certainly lose your footing.
These people who have been talking volubly about “taking the salvation of the people as the prerequisite” have, after “calling for peace” for a few weeks, stopped “calling for peace” and are calling for war instead.
Such is the predicament of the Guomindang die-hards, who stubbornly oppose the people, ride roughshod over them, and thus isolate themselves on the pinnacle of a pagoda, unrepentant to the very end.
People of the Yangtze River valley and of the South, including the workers, peasants, intellectuals, the urban petty bourgeoisie, the national bourgeoisie, enlightened gentry, and conscientious Guomindang members, please listen: The Guomindang die-hards who ride roughshod over you have not many days to live.
We are on the same side as you.
In a few days, the handful of die-hards will topple from the pinnacle of the pagoda, and a people’s China will emerge.