Two Failures Taught Us How to Fight (I)
(February 17, 1959)

China’s democratic party was founded in 1905. It was called the Tongmenghui, and Sun Yat-sen was its leader. The Communist Party of China was founded in 1921. The period from 1905 to 1921 spans sixteen years, so it was established sixteen years after the founding of the Tongmenghui. The Revolution of 1911 took place in 1911. There was no Communist Party at that time, and the first bourgeois republic was established. But they failed, and the first republic perished. After that, there was continuous struggle, struggle against the warlords and compradors, and there was still no Communist Party then. From 1911 to the founding of the Communist Party was a full decade. The bourgeoisie kept failing and could not find a way out. At that time, some of us participated in the Revolution of 1911 as individuals. I myself took part in the Revolution of 1911, and so did Wu Yuzhang, Lin Boqu, and others. [2] Later, we participated in the anti-imperialist, anti-feudal revolution, still without a Communist Party. The bourgeoisie had no way out, so they took the path of the Russian revolution. Later, the Communist Party of China was founded. Sun Yat-sen and the Soviet representative Joffe [3] signed the Sun-Joffe Agreement. This was around 1922 to 1923, when the Soviet Union supported Sun Yat-sen’s revolution.

In 1923, the Third Congress of the Communist Party decided to join the Kuomintang, meaning a portion of the
[1] This is part of Mao Zedong’s conversation with Ali Yata, First Secretary of the Central Committee of the Moroccan Communist Party, and Abdelslam Bourquia, member of the Political Bureau and Secretary of the Central Committee.
[2] Wu Yuzhang joined the Tongmenghui in 1905 and led the uprising in Rong County, Sichuan, before the 1911 Revolution. Lin Boqu joined the Tongmenghui in 1905 and returned to China the same year to participate in the 1911 Revolution.
[3] Joffe came to China as the Plenipotentiary Representative of the Soviet Russian Government from August 1922 to January 1923 and issued the "Sun Yat-sen–Joffe Joint Declaration" with Sun Yat-sen on January 26, 1923.

Party members would join the Kuomintang. The Kuomintang accepted, and we joined in. Its purpose was to "absorb" the Communist Party, that is, to dissolve us completely. They had a Principle of the People’s Livelihood that could dissolve communism. This was the aim of the bourgeoisie.

The Chinese bourgeoisie was economically weak and could not resist imperialism. It was also organizationally weak and did not know how to do organizational work. We went to help them organize the masses and establish branches. This refers to the reorganized, new Kuomintang.
In the central organization of the Kuomintang, only one or two out of every ten committee members were Communists; the Kuomintang held an absolute advantage. Sun Yat-sen died, and Chiang Kai-shek staged a coup, attacking the Communist Party. This took place in Guangdong, where both the Kuomintang and the Communist Party had their base areas at the time. Chiang Kai-shek’s army was also built up with the help of the Soviet Union and the Communist Party. Premier Zhou Enlai was the director of the political department at the Whampoa Military Academy at that time. The Kuomintang stripped us of our power in the central leadership, but they could not do so in the localities and in the army. Because things were very complicated there, they could not carry it out. Therefore, the Northern Expedition from 1926 to 1927 was a cooperation between the Kuomintang and the Communist Party.

The year 1927 was both a great victory and a great defeat. Chiang Kai-shek seized the leadership, and the Communist Party was forced underground. Within the Party, Chen Duxiu [1] made the mistake of right opportunism. The revolutionary high tide turned into a revolutionary low tide. The Communist Party went from being legal to being illegal. Large numbers of Party members were slaughtered. At that time, our Party lacked experience. We only knew how to cooperate with the bourgeoisie but did not know how to struggle. We should have prepared to struggle against them and prepared for defeat, but we were not prepared for this at the time.

The fruits of the revolution fell into the hands of the bourgeoisie. The proletariat and the peasants gained nothing whatsoever; on the contrary, they were suppressed. But we did gain one very good thing, and that was experience. So this is what the bourgeoisie was like: they once cooperated with us, and now they strike us. I think this piece of experience is useful to you.

We then thought it over: he kills people, so we go into hiding and do secret work. Before this, we did not know how to do secret work. The second course of action was to go into the mountains. He had guns, and we also had guns, so we fought him head-on.

The enemy taught us two methods. The first was doing secret work. If he did not kill people, we could not have learned it. The second was learning to fight, and once we started, we fought for ten years. We established over a dozen base areas, with a force of three hundred thousand troops (including guerrilla forces) and three hundred thousand Party members.
At this point, we made another mistake, a "Left" mistake, thinking that at this time we were something extraordinary and underestimating the enemy. Chen Duxiu committed the mistake of right opportunism, and now this time it was a "Left" mistake. Once a mistake was made, it was a very big one. Three hundred thousand troops were reduced to twenty thousand. They collapsed. In between, we went through a Long March, covering twelve thousand five hundred kilometers. You may have heard about it. Party membership was reduced to tens of thousands. Out of more than a dozen base areas, only one remained in the north. We moved from the south to the north. Secret work was also almost completely destroyed because of the "Left" error.

This was a defeat, a very big defeat. But defeat taught us. Probably this was unavoidable; without defeat, Party members could not be taught. The enemy taught us, and right and "Left" opportunism taught us.

We have experienced two major rises and two major falls. The first time, we had fifty thousand Party members, and the Party had considerable influence within the army. The enemy defeated us, leaving us with a few hundred or roughly a thousand Party members. The numbers were small, but they were all excellent comrades. Some were killed, some turned traitors, and some wavered. In short, it was a dark and chaotic time, hard to get by. Among those present are three Party members who went through these great rises and falls. [2] The second major rise and fall was the one just mentioned. Due to committing a "Left" opportunist error, only twenty thousand troops and tens of thousands of Party members remained.

This was a process of understanding the Chinese revolution. We are Chinese, yet we did not know what methods should be used for the Chinese revolution. Therefore, during the War of Resistance Against Japan, in light of two failures, one "Left" and one Right, we did a work of synthesis, combining both lines of experience, the strengths and weaknesses, the correctness and errors. We worked out a whole set of policies for politics, military affairs, and economics.

From the second great fall to the north, from the winter of 1934 to the present, a span of twenty-three and a half years,
[1] Chen Duxiu served as General Secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China during the Great Revolution.
[2] Refers to Mao Zedong, Liu Shaoqi, and Wang Jiaxiang, Secretary of the Secretariat of the CPC Central Committee.

we have been steadily rising, with no more major rises and falls. This period encompassed the defeat of Japanese imperialism, the defeat of Chiang Kai-shek, the defeat of American imperialism in Korea, and the carrying out of the second revolution at home. We have had two revolutions: the bourgeois-democratic revolution and the socialist revolution. The socialist revolution means transforming bourgeois and small-producer ownership into ownership by the whole people.

This period includes the War of Resistance Against Japan, cooperating with Chiang Kai-shek for a total of eight years. Later, we fought again and drove him away, and he fled to Taiwan. Now we are again talking about cooperating with Chiang Kai-shek. He says he won’t do it. We say we must cooperate to jointly oppose America, but he refuses. We say that one day the United States will turn on him. One day the United States will have to recognize us and abandon him. Chiang Kai-shek understands this point. We want to create a third cooperation. He contacts us through secret and indirect methods, not daring to do so openly, for fear of the United States, but not fearing us.

For a long time, we could not clearly distinguish the two parts of the bourgeoisie. There should be different policies for the comprador bourgeoisie and the national bourgeoisie.

We are relatively clear on opposing imperialism and opposing feudalism, but opposing feudalism requires knowing how to analyze.