On the New Stage

Comrades, on behalf of the Political Bureau of the Central Committee I am reporting to the enlarged Sixth Plenary Session. What do I intend to say? My report falls into the following parts: (1) from the Fifth Plenum to the Sixth Plenum; (2) a summing-up of fifteen months of the war of resistance; (3) the new stage in the development of the national war of resistance and of the national united front; (4) the present urgent tasks of the whole nation; (5) protracted war and long-term co-operation; (6) China's war of resistance against aggression and the world anti-fascist movement; (7) the Chinese Communist Party's position in the national war; (8) convening the Party's Seventh National Congress. These are the questions I shall discuss.

Comrades, we are holding this enlarged plenary session of our Central Committee amid the roar of guns across the country and an acute world crisis of war. What work must we do? What is our aim? We must unite for ever with all the patriotic parties and all patriotic fellow-countrymen of China, overcome the new difficulties, mobilize new strength, and at present halt the enemy's offensive and in the future launch our own counter-offensive, so as to drive out Japanese imperialism and establish a Three People's Principles republic. We must be free; we must be victorious — this is our aim, and the general direction of my report.

I. From the Fifth Plenum to the Sixth Plenum

1. Convening the enlarged Sixth Plenary Session

More than five years have passed since our Party's Central Committee held its Fifth Plenum in Jiangxi in January 1934. Because the Central Committee members were dispersed at work in many different circumstances at home and abroad, we could not gather together. On this occasion, except for a few comrades, the great majority of the Central Committee members are present, together with many comrades in leading work from all parts of the country, so that this plenary session is the best attended since the Sixth National Congress. The Seventh National Congress was originally to have been convened this year, but because the war is so intense it has had to be postponed until next year. The current situation has posed many questions that must be clearly answered, so as to win victory in the war of resistance; hence this enlarged plenary session.

2. From the Fifth Plenum to the Sixth Plenum

In the past five years our Party has passed through many great events. The greatest and most important are: the change from a situation in which the various parties and classes at home were opposed to one another to the national anti-Japanese united front, and the change from civil war to the war of resistance against Japan.

The cause of the past civil war was the unhappy rupture in 1927 of the united front between the Kuomintang and the Communist Party; it was brought about by the historical circumstances of the time.

How, then, did the policy of the national anti-Japanese united front come into being? It came from a new historical situation. Everyone now understands very clearly that ever since the September 18th Incident of 1931, Japanese imperialism, the enemy of the Chinese nation, moved from the first step of invading the four north-eastern provinces to preparing and carrying out the second step of invading the whole of China. This unprecedented historical event changed the domestic and international situation. In the first place it changed, and is changing, the mutual relations of the various strata, parties and groups within the country, and at the same time it changed, and is changing, the international relations. Accordingly our Party, basing itself on this unprecedented historical event and on the new domestic and international relations, and following the new political line already begun in 1933 (concluding agreements for joint anti-Japanese action with any section within the Kuomintang willing to co-operate with us, on three conditions), raised it to the new policy of the national anti-Japanese united front, and issued the declaration of August 1935, the resolution of December 1935, the letter to the Kuomintang of August 1936, and the resolution on the democratic republic of September 1936. On this basis we were able, at the Xi'an Incident of December that year, to adhere to the policy of a peaceful settlement, and in February 1937 to send the Kuomintang's Third Plenum a concrete proposal for united resistance to Japan. Last May we convened a temporary congress (called the Congress of Soviet Areas, attended by delegates from the Soviet and non-Soviet areas then existing and from the Red Army), which adopted “The Tasks of the National Anti-Japanese United Front at the Present Stage”, approved the reorganization of the Red Army into the National Revolutionary Army, and approved the conversion of the Soviets into democracy. Thus in fact we passed from a state of civil war into the new period of building the national anti-Japanese united front. At that time the Chinese Kuomintang too was gradually changing its policy and gradually turning to the stand of united resistance to Japan. Without the change in the Kuomintang's policy, the national anti-Japanese united front could not have been built. At that time, national salvation organizations sprang up in many places, and the other parties likewise demanded resistance to Japan. Because of the change of policy by both the Kuomintang and the Communist Party, through the leadership of Mr. Chiang Kai-shek, with the support of the army and people of the whole country, and with the co-operation of other groups and parties, the steps of Japanese imperialism to subjugate the whole of China met with a nation-wide resistance such as had never been seen before. After the Lugouqiao Incident of 7 July last year, the whole of China, under the unified leadership of the national leader and supreme commander Generalissimo Chiang, sounded the sacred guns of justice; the whole country formed an unprecedented great unity in resistance to Japan — the great national anti-Japanese united front. In the second month after the Lugouqiao Incident, in August last year, our Party issued the Ten-Point Programme for resisting Japan and saving the nation. At the same time the Eighth Route Army's reorganization was completed and it moved to the front in North China. On 22 September our Party issued a declaration publicly announcing sincere unity with the Kuomintang on the basis of the Three People's Principles to meet the national crisis together. The next day Mr. Chiang Kai-shek, supreme leader of the Kuomintang, the National Government and the National Revolutionary Army, issued a statement recognizing the Communist Party's legal existence and uniting with it to save the nation. From then on the national anti-Japanese united front based on the two parties, the Kuomintang and the Communist Party, was fully established. In December, to consolidate and develop the united front, our Party issued a further declaration expressing readiness to co-operate with the Kuomintang not only in resisting Japan but in building the nation. Shortly afterwards the Red Army guerrilla units in the south were reorganized into the New Fourth Army of the National Revolutionary Army and moved to operate south of the Yangtze. From then on unity in resistance advanced day by day.

Comrades, this change from ten years of war between the two parties to their renewed co-operation, carried out under extremely difficult conditions and laying the foundation for long-term co-operation between them, was accomplished only through many twists and turns. Yet through the efforts of the Central Committee and the whole Party, it was accomplished. The Communist International fully approved this new political line of our Party (Comintern resolution; New China Daily, 8 September). And for the victory of the Chinese nation it called on the Communist parties and the proletariat of all countries to aid China's war of resistance.

Comrades, without the initiation, building and perseverance of the national anti-Japanese united front based on the Kuomintang and the Communist Party, such a great national revolutionary war of resistance could never have been launched, nor could it have been protracted or carried to victory. Now everyone in China and the world understands: the Chinese nation has stood up! The position of unbearable servility of the past hundred years — bullied, insulted, invaded and oppressed, and especially since the September 18th Incident — has been changed. The whole Chinese people have taken up arms and gone to the battlefield of the national war of self-defence. The light of dawn of the final victory of the whole of China — the freedom and liberation of the Chinese nation — has already appeared.

We know that today's great national war differs from all the wars of China's past historical periods. It is a war to liberate the Chinese nation from its semi-colonial state and from the danger of national subjugation and extinction; it is being fought in the most progressive period in the nation's history; it is being fought while our enemy, Japanese imperialism, is digging its own road to ruin and collapse; and it is being fought while the advanced people of the whole world are preparing fighting forces of unprecedented breadth and depth to resist and defeat the fascist monsters of Germany, Japan and Italy and to win a bright future for the world. This combination of three factors — resting mainly on the progress of China and its continued progress — guarantees that our war of resistance will in the end be victorious, and that a new China, free and liberated, will appear in East Asia and become an extremely important part of the future bright world. Such a China will bring happiness not only to the four hundred and fifty million Chinese but to all mankind.

The base text is the Wikisource version, with the inline note '12 October 1938'. Of the twenty-five pieces this is the longest, about fifty-four thousand characters and over two hundred and sixty paragraphs; its conventional title is 'On the New Stage', the common name of the Sixth Plenum report.

3. The tasks of the Sixth Plenary Session

This enlarged Sixth Plenary Session is meeting at an important juncture when the war of resistance is about to enter a new stage of development, and it bears a great historical task.

It is entirely correct. The war of resistance has been fought heroically for over a year; the whole country has achieved great unity and great progress, and inflicted heavy blows on Japanese imperialism. Although much territory has been lost, there have also been many victories — a fact no one can deny. As the war develops, mainly through China's continued progress, together with the growth of Japan's difficulties and the growth of international aid to us, final victory will belong to us and not to the enemy — this too can be foretold. Whoever fails to see the great achievements of the past and the prospect of future victory will sink into the pit of pessimism and never climb out. But to see only this aspect is not enough; the war of resistance has another aspect, a negative aspect — the many difficulties facing us. The present situation tells us that the struggle, unity, progress and victories of the past year or more have not yet stopped the enemy's advance, and we do not yet have the strength for a counter-offensive. Wuhan is now under the enemy's threat, and he will attack Guangzhou, Changsha, the north-west and other places. So the whole nation looks to the Communist Party to speak out, and the new situation has raised many questions. Comrades, we must speak out and we must solve the problems. Yes, our Party has long since spoken out, and many fundamental problems have long since been solved. But the new situation demands that we put forward new opinions and solve new problems.

What are the new questions?

How to add new strength on the existing basis, cross the difficult pass of the war, halt the enemy's offensive, prepare our counter-offensive, and attain the aim of expelling the enemy — that is the crux of the present question. It is being debated and anxiously pondered by countless people throughout the country. Ought we to answer it? Undoubtedly we ought.

This question unfolds in many directions and gives rise to many problems.

For example, what exactly have fifteen months of the war proved? Do fifteen months of experience prove that the war is long or short? Is the strategic principle to defeat the enemy by protracted war or by quick war? Does final victory belong to China or to the enemy? Is there a way out through resistance, or only through compromise? If the war is long, by what means are we to sustain a long war and win final victory? Can all these be clearly answered on the basis of fifteen months' experience? And can we, on the basis of this past experience, play an active part in the new stage of the war, so as to overcome new difficulties and win new victories? These are important questions — one category of questions.

Again, how will the war as a whole develop and change? What will be the character of the so-called new stage? If Wuhan is lost, what will be the trend of the war? What should be the direction of the nation's efforts henceforth — the present urgent tasks of the whole Chinese nation? What good means are there for crossing the difficult pass of the war? These are still more important questions — another category.

Again, what will be the future and prospects of Kuomintang-Communist co-operation? On what grounds does the Communist Party speak of long-term co-operation? By what means can the relations between the two parties be improved? When we say we will co-operate not only in resisting Japan but in building the nation, what state is to be built? What are the relations between the Three People's Principles and communism? These too are very important questions — another category.

Again, the world situation is so critical — how will it trend? What is the relation of interest and harm between China's war of resistance and the world anti-fascist movement? This too is an important question — another category.

Further, what is the Chinese Communist Party's position in the national war? What should be the working attitude of Communist Party members in striving for their Party's political line? By what better methods can the Communist Party co-operate with other parties and maintain contact with the people, so as to carry the difficult situation toward a favourable turn? What are the Party's internal relations? What good methods are there to unite the whole Party so that it may play a great part in the war of resistance, especially in the present difficult situation? What will the Party's Seventh Congress be like? These too are important questions — another category.

Part one reviews Party history from 1934 to 1938, in turn mentioning the August 1935 declaration, the December resolution, the peaceful settlement of the Xi'an Incident, and the reorganisation of the Red Army and the Soviet reform. These statements can be compared with the chronology of the anti-Japanese national united front's formation.

All these questions are urgently demanded of us both inside and outside the Party; in the past few months we have constantly met people asking for answers to them.

Comrades, our country is a vast and complex country, and it is now engaged in a life-and-death struggle with a strong imperialist power, a struggle that has now approached a new stage of development and is passing through a transition into that new stage. Our enlarged Sixth Plenary Session is meeting at this moment; its responsibility is very heavy, and we have many problems to solve.

II. A Summing-Up of Fifteen Months of the War of Resistance

1. What have the fifteen months of experience proved?

Let us begin with the experience of the fifteen months.

What has the experience of fifteen months of war given us? In my view, chiefly three things. First, it has proved that the war of resistance is a long one, not a short one, and hence that its strategic principle is protracted war, not a war of quick decision. Second, it has proved that China's resistance can win final victory and that the pessimists have no grounds. Third, it has proved that the only correct road for sustaining a long war and winning final victory lies in uniting the whole nation, striving for progress, and relying on the people, so as to overcome difficulties and win victory — and in nothing else.

2. The war of resistance is long, not short; the strategic principle is protracted war, not quick decision

When the war of resistance first began, many people set out not from the basic balance of strength between the enemy and ourselves but from certain momentary and superficial appearances, and imagined the war would soon be over; for a time the idea of quick victory prevailed. But on the Double Tenth last year the Generalissimo declared plainly: “This war of resistance cannot be finished in a year or half a year; final victory can be won only after extraordinary toil and hardship.” For our part, we pointed out very early the protracted character of the war of resistance; it could not be settled in a short time. “The outcome of the war will be Japan's defeat and China's victory; only the sacrifice will be great, and a very painful period must be gone through.” (Talk between Mao Zedong and Snow, 16 July 1936.) “It must be seen that this war of resistance will be a hard, protracted war.” (Decision of the CCP Central Committee on the present situation and the Party's tasks, 15 August 1937.) All this shows: the war of resistance is long, not short; the strategic principle is protracted war, not quick decision — and the experience of fifteen months has fully proved it correct.

Why? Because the enemy is strong and we are weak: the enemy holds the superiority and we the inferiority; the enemy is an imperialist country and we a semi-colonial one.

We pointed out long ago that three conditions are needed to defeat Japanese imperialism: first, China's progress, which is basic and principal; second, Japan's difficulties; third, international aid. Let us see how these conditions have fared in the fifteen months. To answer in a word: a foundation has been laid, but it is still far from what is necessary.

Take the first condition — China's progress, the basic and principal condition for defeating the enemy. In fifteen months a foundation has indeed been laid, but only by continued progress can the enemy be finally beaten. By China's progress I mean progress in all fields — domestic politics, military affairs, Party affairs, the mass movement, culture and education. Progress in all these fields over the fifteen months has been very marked. Yet with what we already have we cannot stop the enemy's offensive or launch our counter-offensive. A period of preparation is needed for the counter-offensive; it requires the efforts of the whole nation, so that all the living forces of our nation are widely and deeply aroused; only then is a victorious counter-offensive possible. Hence the theory of quick victory has no basis: it forgets the feature that the enemy is strong and we are weak, forgets that the enemy holds the superiority and we the inferiority, that the enemy is an imperialist country and we a semi-colonial one. China possesses very great latent strength, which, once aroused, can turn defeat into victory and weakness into strength and fundamentally change the balance between the enemy and ourselves — but this still awaits future effort; it is not an accomplished fact.

Part three proposes the three-stage theory: enemy offensive, bilateral stalemate, our counter-offensive, calling the stalemate the hinge of the whole war, used to refute both the theory of quick victory and the theory of national subjugation. Part seven specifically discusses the position of the Communist Party in the national war — the most-cited section of the piece.

Take the second condition, Japan's difficulties. Here too the same applies. In the fifteen months the enemy has put a million troops into the field, suffered hundreds of thousands of casualties, spent thousands of millions of yuan, seen his army's morale steadily decline, and watched his finances and economy grow daily more embarrassed; international opinion has risen everywhere in condemnation. These are the results of Japan's savage aggression and of China's heroic resistance. Yet the enemy's existing difficulties are not yet enough to stop his offensive or favour our counter-offensive. The opportunity for a victorious counter-offensive will come only when his difficulties are greater and our progress greater. Hence the theory of quick victory has no basis on the side of the enemy's situation either, as fifteen months of experience have proved.

Take the third condition, international aid. The moment of greatest advantage has not yet arrived either. In fifteen months we have won the broad moral support of world opinion; the Soviet Union and other democratic countries, acting on the resolutions of the League of Nations, have already given us much help, proving that we are not isolated. But we must see that the countries of the international peace front differ widely in their circumstances. In the capitalist countries the people aid us, the governments maintain a certain neutrality, and their bourgeoisie profits from the war by trade, still shipping large quantities of arms and raw materials for arms to Japan. The socialist country differs fundamentally from the capitalist countries, as has been concretely shown in its aid to China; yet the international situation at present does not permit aid beyond its present degree. Therefore we must not for the moment place excessive hopes in international aid. To abandon the policy of self-reliance and place our main hopes on foreign aid is undoubtedly a grave error. Fifteen months of experience prove that only by relying mainly on our own strength, while at the same time not relaxing our efforts to win foreign aid, is the road correct. On this point too the past experience has refuted the theory of quick victory.

To sum up: whether on the Chinese side, the enemy's side, or the international side, the fifteen months of experience have shown the theory of quick victory to be utterly groundless; on the contrary, they have laid bare the protracted and cruel character of the war. Hence our strategic principle cannot be a war of quick decision; it must be protracted war. To defeat the enemy through protracted war — that is the one correct principle for the war of resistance. Those who did not believe this principle in the past have now been taught a plain lesson by facts; there should be no more doubt about it!

Such is the first summing-up of the fifteen months of war.

3. Final victory belongs to China; the pessimists have not a leg to stand on

Before the war, the “weapons-are-everything” theory made a great stir, holding that China's weapons were inferior, that to fight meant ruin, and that China would become another Abyssinia. After the war began, such talk vanished from the surface but circulated in the dark; at every tense moment of the war it raised a fresh storm, holding that China should cease fire and negotiate peace, that she could not bear to fight on, that to fight on meant ruin. We take the opposite view. We hold that China's weapons are indeed inferior, but weapons can be strengthened by human effort; the issue of war is decided mainly by men and not by things. As a result of protracted resistance, provided the whole nation strives, China will gradually overcome her weaknesses and add to her strength, turning passivity into initiative and inferiority into superiority; at the same time the enemy's difficulties will steadily grow and international aid to us will steadily increase. Combining these factors, we shall certainly defeat Japanese imperialism in the end. The Generalissimo long ago declared plainly: “Once war has broken out, we must stake the life of the whole nation and sacrifice to the end; there is no question of halting halfway or compromising.” (Lushan statement of July last year.) “This war is a necessary stage in the National Revolution, a war of an invaded nation against the invader for independent existence, wholly unlike wars between powers evenly matched. Our reliance lies not in weapons and armaments but in an unyielding revolutionary spirit and an unshakable national consciousness.” (Statement to the nation, December last year.) The Chinese Communist Party pointed out long ago: “Under the long attrition of China's resistance, Japan's economy will head for collapse and her morale for demoralization, while on the Chinese side the latent forces of resistance surge higher day by day. All these factors, combined with others, will enable us to deliver the final blow against the Japanese-occupied territory and drive the armies of Japanese aggression out of China.” (Talk between Mao Zedong and Snow.) “We believe that the resistance already launched will continue to advance and develop, breaking through every obstacle through the efforts of the whole people. Provided the tens of millions of the masses are really organized into the national anti-Japanese united front, the victory of the war of resistance is certain.” (Decision of the CCP Central Committee, August last year.) All this has been proved by the fifteen months of experience. The absurd arguments of the pessimists and the subjugationists — that the enemy is too strong to be resisted, that China cannot stand a single battle, that compromise is the only way out — have been proved completely wrong.

Why? Because that the enemy is strong and we are weak is only one side of the facts; the enemy has his weaknesses, and China has her advantages.

What are the enemy's weaknesses? First, he is a comparatively small country; his manpower and financial resources are insufficient and cannot stand prolonged attrition. Because his forces are insufficient, and because they must be dispersed and worn down in the face of China's firm resistance, he cannot occupy the whole of China. Even in the areas he occupies, in fact he can hold only the big cities, the main lines of communication and certain plains; the rest remains China's. Second, the character of the enemy's war is imperialist, and therefore retrogressive. His internal contradictions compel him to wage a war of aggression and drive him to policies of exceptionally savage plunder. Thus his war becomes, on the one hand, a war in absolute opposition to the whole Chinese nation, forcing every stratum and every party in China, whatever it be, to unite in firm resistance; and on the other, a war in absolute opposition to the masses of his own people. The result of Japanese imperialism's staking all its manpower and wealth on the war has already bred growing discontent among its own people and among the soldiers at the front; as the war develops, there is no doubt that the masses of its people and soldiers will tend toward resolute methods of opposing the war itself. All this has already begun to be proved in the fifteen months. This is the principal ground, existing in the enemy's own camp, for his inevitable failure. Third, precisely because the character of the enemy's war is imperialist — that is, injures others to benefit himself — he has been forced into opposition to every country whose interests clash with his. Apart from two or three fascist states, all countries, and above all the masses of their people, disapprove of Japan's war of aggression. Thus Japan is compelled to shrink the sphere of her international activity day by day and sink into isolation. This too has begun to be proved in the fifteen months.

Thus Japan's comparatively small territory affects the insufficiency of her manpower and finances; her war is retrogressive in character; and her international position is one of isolation. These three, combined together, constitute the congenital weaknesses and difficulties of Japan's war — and these weaknesses and difficulties are daily growing. To all this the subjugationists and the pessimists are blind men: they see nothing of it, seeing only that the enemy is strong and we weak. So subjugationism and pessimism have no basis in the enemy's situation, and their policy of compromise can only be a policy of national ruin. We are believers in final victory, and our view has ample basis in the enemy's situation, as fifteen months of experience have already begun to prove.

What are our advantages? First, we are a big country — vast in territory, rich in resources, large in population, numerous in soldiers. However many of our principal big cities and lines of communication the enemy has taken, we still have large tracts of land as our base for protracted resistance and for striving for final victory. Even in the enemy-occupied areas we still have many guerrilla base areas. This feature fundamentally distinguishes us from small countries like Czechoslovakia or Belgium. That is our first advantage. Second, today's war of resistance differs from every war in China's history: it is a national revolutionary war, a progressive war. Not only is the character of the war itself progressive; it is being fought on a foundation of progress unprecedented in China. The China of the nineteen-forties differs from the China of every previous age: we have a progressive people, a progressive party and a progressive army unlike those of any earlier period. The national revolutionary war of resistance waged on this foundation contains within itself the great force of possible further progress. This is the principal ground, existing on our side, for our ability to sustain a long war and win final victory. Fifteen months of experience prove that the great, sacred national revolutionary war, waged on the foundation of past progress, has already pushed the whole of China forward: the old traditions of national corruption are being destroyed, new progressive forces of the nation are growing, and a great process of national unity, solidarity, progress and development is moving toward completion. That the China before the war differs from the China after the war began, anyone with eyes can see. And it can already be foretold that the China of the first stage of the war (a stage not yet ended) will again differ from the China of the later stages. Third, our war of resistance is not isolated. However many contradictory policies the capitalist countries still maintain, and however the international situation may for a time affect the degree of aid from various countries, China's war of resistance is inseparably bound up with the world's struggle against aggression and against fascism. Not only the Chinese but Europeans, Americans, Africans, Australians and other Asians are fighting the Japanese war of aggression. The sympathy and aid of the countries of the world over the past fifteen months have given us this confidence. China, relying mainly on her own strength, can at the same time count on the aid of the world, for today's world is not the world of the past: the advanced people of the whole world have become one body, sharing weal and woe, and the enemy's attempts to isolate us can only prove futile.

Thus we are a very large country; our war is a progressive war; and we have international aid — these three combined together. All are favourable conditions, not merely existing but daily growing. Here again the subjugationists and pessimists are blind men: they see none of it, seeing only that we are a weak country, in an inferior position, a semi-colony, and they mutter their nonsense of “resistance means ruin” and “fight again and perish” — nonsense upon which many scoundrels base their plots of surrender and compromise carried on in the dark. We, on the contrary, basing ourselves on what the fifteen months have proved, must point out clearly to the whole Party and nation the strong and weak points of our country and our war, the favourable and unfavourable conditions; we must point out that the strong points and favourable conditions hold the advantage in the war as a whole, and call on the whole nation to strive, to develop its strong points, strengthen its favourable conditions, overcome its weak points and unfavourable conditions, and fight for final victory. Whose will final victory be? We answer definitively: China's. On this basis we decide our policy: firm resistance, or wavering and compromise? We answer definitively: there must be no wavering and compromise of any kind; only firm resistance is the way out. The fall of the four north-eastern provinces, the extinction of Austria, the dismemberment of Czechoslovakia — none of these came of resistance; that is plain to all. It is the same today: under China's many favourable conditions, resistance will raise the nation up; but if the road of compromise is taken, ruin is inevitable. Therefore to oppose resolutely the theory of compromise and oppose pessimism, and to arouse the whole people to fight to the end, is the one and only policy.

To sum up: the contradictory contrast of enemy strength and our weakness determines the protracted character of the war and the strategic principle of protracted war; we are believers in defeating the enemy through protracted war, not in quick victory. The enemy is small and we are large; the enemy's war is retrogressive and ours progressive; the enemy's international position is comparatively isolated and ours comparatively able to win foreign aid — these contradictory contrasts determine that final victory will belong to us and not to the enemy. Such is the second summing-up of the fifteen months' experience.

4. The only road to sustaining a long war and winning final victory lies in uniting the whole nation, striving for progress, and relying on the people

That the war of resistance is long, and that final victory belongs to China — these two basic questions have been proved by the experience of the fifteen months. But as to the concrete plan for sustaining the long war and winning final victory, opinion in the past was not unanimous. Many people thought things could go on in the old way; they paid no attention to uniting the whole country, no attention to improving military affairs, politics, culture, Party affairs and the mass movement, and even aggravated friction and obstructed progress. We have never approved of that view: we hold that only the united solidarity of the whole nation, constant striving for progress, and reliance on the people can sustain a long war and win final victory; otherwise it is impossible. The Kuomintang states plainly in its Programme of Armed Resistance and National Reconstruction: “If victory in the war and success in national construction are to be won, they depend not only on the efforts of the members of our Party, but above all on the united hearts and shared burdens of the whole nation.” The Chinese Communist Party too pointed out long ago: “The most central task of the period of resistance is to mobilize all forces to win victory in the war; and the central key to victory is to develop the resistance already launched into an all-round, nation-wide war of resistance — only such an all-round, nation-wide war can bring final victory.” (Decision of the CCP Central Committee, August last year.) All this is entirely correct, as fifteen months of experience have proved.

Since the war began, the mutually opposed classes, parties and groups within the country have been united; the different regions and different armies have been unified under the command of the National Government and the Military Affairs Commission; the fifteen months' perseverance would have been impossible without this unity. Only the war of resistance, in turn, could unite all sides. This unity is the national anti-Japanese united front. But the fifteen months also prove to us the gravity of the enemy's disruptive plots and the insufficiency of our internal unity. Why has the war met with many setbacks? Why can the enemy's offensive not yet be stopped and our counter-offensive not yet be launched? Besides objective causes, the chief cause is the insufficiency of the united front's strength — it has not yet been expanded and consolidated as necessary. From this it follows, first, that only by still closer uniting the whole nation, consolidating and expanding the national anti-Japanese united front, can a long war be sustained and final victory won. Second, the fifteen months of war have not only promoted the nation's unity but exposed its insufficiency, and have not only promoted progress in military affairs, politics, culture, Party affairs and the mass movement but exposed the insufficiency of that progress. To sustain the long war and win final victory, all the living forces of every stratum of the nation must be aroused; and to that end there must be greater progress in military affairs, politics, culture, Party affairs and the mass movement. Without greater progress in every field, the living forces of the whole nation cannot be aroused, nor can the nation be still more closely united. Third, the fifteen months of war have also proved the greatness of the people's power to aid the war of resistance, and at the same time proved that the people's strength has only begun to be aroused, so that the war, lacking broad popular support, has met many setbacks. The lesson is that the nation must further understand this basic question: the war depends on the people. Rely on the people, and every difficulty can be overcome and any strong enemy defeated; depart from the people, and nothing can be accomplished. China's future progress must show itself fully in the arousing of the people's strength.

In a word, the only correct road to sustaining a long war and winning final victory lies in consolidating and expanding the nation's united solidarity, in striving for progress so as to arouse the nation's living forces, and in relying on the people to overcome difficulties. Such is our third summing-up.

Comrades: persevere in the war of resistance, persevere in protracted war, strive for unity and progress — that is the basic lesson of the fifteen months and the general principle for the war henceforth. We can defeat the enemy, provided we and the whole country hold to this general principle and make long and extensive efforts. The war of resistance is developing toward a new stage, and the new stage holds many new tasks; but this general principle remains unchanged, and the fifteen months of experience form the basis on which we survey the new situation and put forward the new tasks.

III. The New Stage in the Development of the National War of Resistance and of the National Anti-Japanese United Front

1. Studying the laws of the war and of the united front is the basis for deciding policy

Comrades, now that we have summed up past experience, the important question is to see the direction in which the present situation is developing. How will the war of resistance and the national anti-Japanese united front change and develop forward from the existing foundation? This is the question we must now answer, and it has an important bearing on solving our present problems. For if we have no rough estimate of the whole course of the war's development, we can only circle round the war and let it bind us, instead of bringing it under our control, regulating and ordering it, creating the conditions the war requires, steering it in the direction we desire, and winning its victory. Hence we must grasp the laws of the war of resistance in order to exercise strategic direction over it, and to decide all the strategy, tactics, policies, plans and schemes that serve the war. The same holds for the national anti-Japanese united front: only by studying and understanding its laws can we effectively push the united front along the road of consolidation and development, so that it may serve as a pillar of victory in the war.

Let us first speak of the war.

2. The specific historical conditions and the relative quality of the contending sides' directing ability determine the war's course of development

Some wars in history ended within a single stage: the Russo-Japanese War of 1905, for instance, ended with the Japanese attack and the Russian retreat; so did the Italo-Abyssinian War, ending with Italy's attack and Abyssinia's defeat; and so did China's war against the northern warlords that began in 1926. That is one case, arising from unequal strength on the one hand and unmatched quality of directing ability on the other — the first kind of war. Wars of the second kind ended in two stages: the Franco-Russian War, for example, in which Napoleon advanced and then retreated while Russia retreated and then counter-attacked, both sides passing through two stages; and in ancient China the famous battles of Red Cliffs between Wu and Wei, and of the Fei River between Qin and Jin. Though the two armies were unequal in strength, the weaker side knew how to use other favourable conditions and direct affairs correctly, so that after the retreat it counter-attacked and defeated the enemy. But there is a third kind of war — the Seven Years' War, the Eight Years' War, the Thirty Years' War, the Hundred Years' War abroad, and the great European war of twenty years ago that lasted four years (most visibly on the western front): all had three stages. Side A attacked and side B retreated — the first stage; the two sides were locked in stalemate for a long time — the second stage; side B counter-attacked and side A retreated — the third stage. Chinese history has many wars of this kind too. The feature of such wars is a fairly long, or very long, stage of stalemate; this too is brought about by specific historical conditions and the character of the group directing the war.

To which kind does the Sino-Japanese war belong? In my view, to the third kind. It is so because of the different historical conditions of the two sides and the special character of their two war-directing groups.

3. The protracted character of the Sino-Japanese war expresses itself in the war's three stages

The protracted character of the Sino-Japanese war will express itself in three stages: on the enemy's side, offensive, stalemate, retreat; on ours, defence, stalemate, counter-offensive. Because the enemy is strong and we are weak (the enemy holds the superiority and we the inferiority; the enemy is an imperialist country and we a semi-colonial one), there appears the first stage of the enemy's offensive and our defence. We say defence and not retreat because the retreat takes the form of a strategic mobile defence, that is, resistance step by step, not an abrupt collapse. But then, because of the special conditions — on the enemy's side a small country, retrogressive, with few helpers; on ours a large country, progressive, with many helpers — our heroic resistance forces the enemy, in the course of his offensive, into the difficulties of dispersal and the losses of attrition, so that at a certain point he must end his strategic offensive and pass into a stage of holding militarily what he has occupied while attacking us politically and by economic blockade. At that time, though the enemy is being worn down, he has not yet been worn down to the point of defeat; and though we resist firmly and progress in every field, we have not yet progressed enough to pass to the counter-offensive and expel him from the country. For these reasons a second stage of mutual stalemate — a middle stage — takes shape. Because in this second stage the enemy's difficulties and our progress both grow daily, combined with an international situation favourable to us and unfavourable to him, the original state of affairs — enemy strong and we weak, enemy superior and we inferior — will gradually change, until the situation as a whole becomes daily more unfavourable to the enemy and favourable to us: first reaching a balance between the two sides, then our superiority over his inferiority. At that point we can pass to the third stage of our counter-offensive and his retreat.

This view of three stages is an estimate of the whole course of the war, drawn from the concrete conditions of the two sides' existing and future opposite contrasts. It is not yet fact but a possible trend. Only through our subjective efforts to create the conditions this possible trend requires can the possible trend become fact. Yet given the existing conditions, plus correct direction and the broad, persevering efforts of the whole nation, this possible trend can be turned into fact.

4. Both the quick-victory theorists and the subjugationists oppose this estimate

The quick-victory theorists oppose the three-stage theory, holding that we can counter-attack quickly, with no need of a middle stage. That is wrong. Many difficulties stand before the war of resistance, and overcoming them takes time; a rapid counter-offensive is impossible. The quick-victory theorists oppose the three stages because they underestimate the enemy's strength and overestimate their own. The subjugationists also oppose the three stages, holding that stalemate and counter-offensive alike are impossible, and that China is only another Abyssinia. That is wrong. They, opposite to the quick-victory theorists, overestimate the enemy's strength and underestimate their own. Before them lies only darkness: they concede that the enemy can subjugate the whole of China, that our resistance and efforts are vain, that even a stalemate is impossible — to say nothing of a victorious counter-offensive. Hence we must oppose the quick-victory theory on the one hand and subjugationism on the other, in order to uphold our three-stage theory; and in the present situation, opposing subjugationism is more important than opposing the quick-victory theory. There are yet others who in words favour protracted war but do not favour the three-stage theory. This too is wrong. Where is protracted war, long war, expressed? In the war's three stages. If one accepts protracted war, long war, yet rejects the three stages, then the protracted and the long become wholly abstract things with no content and no reality, and no actual strategic direction and no actual policy of resistance can follow. In effect, such a view still belongs to the quick-victory theory, merely dressed in the coat of “protracted war.”

5. The three-stage theory and the international situation

When the Changkufeng Incident occurred, part of domestic opinion was elated, thinking that if war broke out between Japan and the Soviet Union, China could pass to the counter-offensive without needing a protracted war. On that view the three-stage theory, of course, could not stand, and our estimate would be wrong. That was thinking that relies mainly on foreign aid — one species of quick-victory thinking. But the international situation develops not according to such friends' subjective wishes, but according to its own laws. The world's chief centre of gravity is in Europe; the East is an important part revolving around it. The principal peace-front countries and the principal fascist countries are entangled over the crisis of war in Europe. Whether the great powers are on the eve of war or war has broken out, the countries of the West, great and small, will put the settlement of the European question first on the agenda, and the Eastern question must for a time be put second. Viewed in this light, the two-stage theory of rapid counter-offensive in the Sino-Japanese war has no justification either. We must rely mainly on our own strength; far from fearing the three stages, we must precisely bring them into being. The three stages are the law of the Sino-Japanese war, grounded not only in the balance of forces between the two sides but also in the international situation.

6. The stage of stalemate is the pivot of the war

The chief feature of the three stages is that they contain a transitional middle stage. That is to say, first, our resistance must strive with all its strength to stop the enemy's offensive; if his offensive cannot be stopped within a certain time and in certain regions, there are no three stages of differing character to speak of. Second, when the stage of stalemate appears, all our strength must be exerted to prepare every condition our counter-offensive requires; otherwise we cannot pass into the stage of counter-offensive but only remain in stalemate for ever, and again there are no three stages. Here we say definitively to the quick-victory theorists: a period of preparation is indispensable before the whole nation can be united, the difficulties overcome, new strength grown, and then, combined with the enemy's difficulties and international aid, the counter-offensive launched and the enemy driven from the country; otherwise it is impossible. Judging from the standpoint of defeating the enemy mainly by our own strength, this conclusion is inescapable. And to the subjugationists and pessimists we say definitively: only this transitional stage is the pivot of the whole war. Whether China becomes a colony or wins liberation is decided not by the loss, in the first stage, of the principal big cities and lines of communication, but by the degree of the whole nation's effort in the second stage. The loss of the big cities and the lines of communication is regrettable: it adds to the enemy's strength and lessens our own. Yet much that has not been lost still remains as capital for defeating the enemy, and sighing over the loss of treasures is useless. The territory and the various living forces preserved in the first stage — above all the progress already gained in military affairs, politics, culture, Party affairs and the mass movement — are most precious: they are the foundation for continued progress and for preparing the counter-offensive in the second stage. But this is only the foundation: what decides the counter-offensive is the strength added in the second stage. Without the addition of great new-born strength, the counter-offensive is only an empty cry.

7. The features of the three stages: the first stage

The features of the three stages of the war of resistance, whether already visible or not yet visible but foreseeable, need to be indicated in outline, for they bear importantly on directing the war and deciding policy.

What are the features, the important marks, of the first stage?

There are the following three aspects.

First, on the Chinese side: the formation of the national united front; the participation of the country's armies in the war; the firmness of the resistance; the promulgation of the Kuomintang's Programme of Armed Resistance and National Reconstruction; the convening of the People's Political Council; the attainment of legal status by the Communist Party and other parties; the creation of guerrilla warfare; the progress of the country's armies; the development of the mass movement, and so on. These are the great events marking China's progress. But at the same time there are many unfavourable events and bad phenomena: the loss of the principal big cities, the lines of communication and the principal industries and commerce; the loss of territory and population; the unevenness of progress throughout the country (in some places progress has been very slow); a political system as a whole only beginning to become democratic; the existence of die-hards and corrupt phenomena; the brewing of a tendency to compromise, and so forth.

Second, on the enemy's side: the drain on his military strength and finances; the censure of world opinion; the decay of army discipline; the relative decline of his armies' fighting power; the brewing of discontent among his home population and his soldiers at the front; the failure of the Changkufeng war; the difficulty of forming traitor armies and the incompetence of those already formed, and so on. These are the great events marking his difficulties. But there are also things marking his capability: the firmness of his offensive, the toughness of his forces, the expansion of his occupied territory, the strength and tenacity of his political organization, the effectiveness of his plot-machinery, and so on.

Third, on the international side: the growth of the movement to aid China; the growth of the Soviet Union's strength and its aid to China — these favour China. But there are other things: the brewing of a great war in Europe; a tendency to a certain degree of compromise between Britain and Japan; the aid given the enemy in arms and raw materials by various countries — all unfavourable to China.

All these many things on the Chinese, Japanese and international sides are the features shown in the first stage of the war during its fifteen months. These features will each in its turn exert its influence on the new stage.

8. The second stage

On the assumption that Wuhan is lost, many new things will appear in the war situation. Although the enemy's occupation of Wuhan does not of itself mean the end of the old stage and the beginning of the new — the time between the enemy's still being able to continue his offensive and his being forced to halt it remains a transition from the old stage to the new — yet once the fall of Wuhan becomes fact, many new circumstances will arise.

After the fall of Wuhan, and through most of the new stage, the basic situation foreseeable will be: greater difficulty on the one hand, greater progress on the other. These are the basic features of the new stage.

Greater difficulty will show itself in the following respects: (1) with the loss of the principal big cities and lines of communication, the state power and the battle positions will be territorially cut apart by the enemy, and many new problems will arise from this; (2) extraordinary difficulties in finance and the economy; (3) a certain tendency to Anglo-Japanese compromise (or, on the contrary, given Japan's insistence on monopoly and her threats against the South Seas, the possibility of further Anglo-Japanese conflict); (4) if the enemy attacks Guangzhou, the country's principal sea routes may be cut, and international aid will be temporarily and partly weakened; (5) the possible formation of a nation-wide puppet regime and its effect on the anti-Japanese front; (6) the possibility of partial betrayal within the anti-Japanese front, and the growth of a compromise atmosphere; (7) the growth of pessimistic feeling and the increase of divergent opinions, and so on. These are the new difficulties that may arise and fall upon the war of resistance. Only by estimating them can we overcome them with preparation and plan.

Greater progress will show itself in the following respects: (1) the Generalissimo's and the Kuomintang's firm policy of resistance and their further political progress; (2) the improvement of Kuomintang-Communist relations and the consolidation and expansion of the national anti-Japanese united front; (3) progress in the work of army reform; (4) the broad development of guerrilla warfare; (5) progress in the democratization of the state; (6) still greater development of the mass movement; (7) the adoption of new wartime policies in finance and the economy; (8) the raising of wartime culture and education; (9) the continuation and possible increase of Soviet aid, and still closer Sino-Soviet relations, and so forth.

The whole of the second stage — the stage of stalemate — is China's stage of preparing the counter-offensive. Its length will depend on the degree of change in the balance of forces and on the international situation. But we must prepare for a long war and endure this stretch of hard road; then the broad highway of victory arrives.

Though in the second stage the two sides are stalemated strategically, war remains widespread, appearing mainly in the main forces holding the defence on the frontal positions while guerrilla warfare develops on a great scale in the enemy's rear. Then guerrilla warfare in many important strategic regions will become an extremely bitter war, and we must prepare now to meet that bitterness.

9. The third stage

Concrete circumstances cannot be foretold. But at that time our conditions for the counter-offensive will have been fully prepared, the enemy's difficulties greatly deepened, and the international situation greatly more favourable to us. The form of war then will be neither strategic defence nor strategic stalemate but strategic counter-offensive; not strategic interior lines but strategic exterior lines. At that time there must be great political progress at home and new technique in military affairs; otherwise a counter-offensive is impossible.

10. Defending Wuhan is a question of gaining time, not of holding to the death

The purpose of the struggle to defend Wuhan is, on the one hand, to wear down the enemy and, on the other, to gain time for the progress of the nation's work; it is not the holding of a stronghold to the death. When the course of the war clearly proves that holding is unfavourable to us and that giving way would be more advantageous, the principle should be to give up the place and preserve our forces; therefore decisive battles at great disadvantage must be avoided. Strategic decisive battles ought not to occur in either the first or the second stage, for they would hamper the perseverance of the resistance and the preparation of the counter-offensive; they must be avoided. To avoid strategic decisive battles while striving for decisive battles of campaigns and combats under favourable conditions should be one of the principles of protracted war. To abandon at the necessary moment and under given conditions certain cities that can no longer be held is not only forced and unavoidable; it is an active policy of luring the enemy in deep, dispersing, wearing down and exhausting him. On the major premise of persevering in resistance rather than surrendering, the abandonment of certain strongpoints at the necessary moment is permitted within the principle of protracted war, and there is no need to be alarmed by it.

11. The transition from the present to the stage of stalemate

Only by stopping the enemy's offensive can we advantageously prepare our counter-offensive; and to attain that end a great effort is still needed. Hence the passage from the present to the time when the enemy is forced to halt his strategic offensive and turn to holding his occupied areas — when the stage of general stalemate appears — is still a process of struggle, attainable only by overcoming many difficulties. For after occupying Wuhan the enemy will not immediately end his offensive; he will surely want to attack Xi'an, Yichang, Changsha, Hengyang, Wuzhou, Beihai, Nanchang, Shantou, Fuzhou and their neighbouring regions. To stop his offensive we must continue strategic mobile defence aimed precisely at these designs, fight with the greatest effort and persistence, wear him down on a great scale without being out-manoeuvred by him, force his offensive to a halt, and pass the war into the favourable situation of general stalemate between the two sides.

12. But the stage of stalemate is approaching

After the enemy occupies Wuhan, his weaknesses of insufficient and dispersed forces will be more exposed. If he further attempts to attack and occupy Xi'an, Yichang, Changsha, Nanchang, Wuzhou, Fuzhou and other places, the immense difficulties arising from his insufficient and dispersed forces will rise to the highest point of his offensive stage — namely, the firm resistance of our main forces on the frontal positions and the menace of our vast guerrilla warfare in the enormous territory behind his lines, which confront him with the immense difficulty of insufficiency of forces (he cannot be sufficient) and dispersal of forces (he cannot but disperse). This situation — on the enemy's side insufficient and dispersed forces; on ours frontal defence and rear menace — is his immense inferiority and our immense superiority. Of course, in the overall balance of forces between the two sides, the basic situation of enemy strength and our weakness, enemy superiority and our inferiority, has not changed; only the immense, nation-wide efforts of the long stage of stalemate, combined with international conditions, can change it. Yet in the battle for Wuhan the enemy's strong side has been further displayed. That further display of strength, while costing us losses, at the same time created difficulties for himself. For after his strength (which is at the same time his insufficiency and dispersal) has been further exerted, his vigour must decline, and his general strategic offensive is brought near its apex. We admit that the enemy's offensive still retains a residue of force, and it is best and most correct to estimate that this residue is still considerable, so that there is full possibility he will attack Xi'an, Yichang, Changsha, Nanchang, Wuzhou, Fuzhou and their neighbouring regions, and even prepare offensives along the whole Guangzhou-Hankou railway and the Xi'an-Lanzhou highway. Yet in terms of his total strength this will be only a residue. In terms of Japan's total national power — defending herself in the north against the Soviet Union, in the east against the United States, in the south facing Britain and France, and repressing her own people at home — she has only so much strength, and what can be used against China is nearly spent. Moreover the widespread war she must face on the frontal positions and in the occupied areas still exists; the contradictions between Japan and the Soviet Union, the United States, Britain and France are growing; the contradictions between her government and her people, between officers and soldiers at the front, and between enormous expenditure and exhausted finances are deepening — all places where the enemy must knit his brows. We and the whole people must see these things, refuse to be alarmed by the loss of the principal big cities and lines of communication, support the government in adjusting the country's warfare, plan the operations on the Guangzhou-Hankou railway, the Longhai railway, the Xi'an-Lanzhou highway and the other strategic regions, and plan the guerrilla warfare in the vast areas behind the enemy's lines; seize the enemy's weaknesses of insufficient and dispersed forces, inflict more attrition on him, force still greater dispersal, and bring the war victoriously and definitively into the new stage of general stalemate — that is the present urgent task of the whole nation.

13. The enemy's strength is gradually diminishing while ours is gradually increasing

Has the enemy added to his strength? In terms of his original strength, there is no increase; on the contrary, his strength has been greatly reduced. His original military and economic power has been heavily consumed. In the fifteen months of war he has lost hundreds of thousands of casualties, consumed vast quantities of arms, ammunition and war materials, destroyed several hundred aircraft and over a hundred warships, and spent thousands of millions of yuan — a consumption unprecedented in Japan's history. By the time he is forced to halt his strategic offensive he will have consumed a further large batch of strength. On this point his ally Hitler has long been worrying deeply. But has the enemy added no strength at all? He has: the occupation of China's principal big cities, lines of communication and part of the countryside; the seizure of markets from other countries and from China's national capital; the seizure of resources and means of production from China; the seizure of much manpower — these are the sole aims of Japan's war, and for the time being she has gained them. But the question is: can these offset the consumption the war has already caused? No: the whole “investment” of the war already consumed is consumed; to recoup it he must make new productive investment. The question again: setting aside Japan's incapacity for productive investment, and assuming he could, could he recoup his war losses? Still no. For the widespread war continues, and consumption continues every day. So long as vast guerrilla warfare exists behind his lines — as in North China today — recoupment is very difficult for him. Through incessant war he will not only fail to recoup the old outlay but must pay out new; so long as our resistance holds, Japan's miserable fate is in the main settled. We say that in the second strategic stage — the stage of stalemate — Japan will gradually turn strength into weakness and superiority into inferiority; this continued attrition is one decisive aspect. Now as to the Chinese side. Has China's strength decreased or increased? Our answer: it has decreased, and it has increased. What has decreased is the quality and quantity of the original strength, shown in the consumption of troops, personnel and weapons, and in the loss of population, industry, territory and resources — this is an important aspect of our difficulties. But there has also been increase: increase in new quality and quantity, shown in the unity of the whole country, the progress of the armies, the progress of politics and culture, and the rising level of the people's consciousness and organization. Though the main forces have fallen back, guerrilla warfare has advanced. Though some regions have been lost, other regions have progressed. The problem is that the increase is not yet enough: today it is not enough to stop the enemy's offensive, and henceforth not enough to launch our counter-offensive; hence the question of increasing new strength through vast, protracted effort arises. And this increase — the greater arousing of the living forces of every stratum of the nation and greater progress in the Party, the government, the army and the people — is entirely possible on the basis of future broad, protracted effort. Relying mainly on the strength we grow ourselves, combined with the worsening of the enemy's difficulties and the growth of international aid, we can change the whole situation — from the present enemy-superior, we-inferior position, first to a balance, then to our superiority and his inferiority. That is the fundamental problem that the long stage of stalemate must solve and can solve.

14. The enemy holds the cities and we the countryside: the war is long, but the countryside can finally defeat the cities

Hence the question: after the enemy has occupied China's principal big cities and lines of communication, he holds the cities against us and we hold the countryside against him — can the countryside defeat the cities? Answer: with difficulty, but it can. The protracted character of the war arises not only because the enemy is an imperialist country and we a semi-colonial one, but also because this imperialism has occupied our cities while we have withdrawn to the countryside to resist — hence protractedness, and here the theory of quick victory has no basis whatsoever. But the city-countryside question in today's China differs in character from the city-countryside question in the capitalist countries abroad. In the capitalist countries the cities dominate the countryside both in substance and in form: cut off the city's head, and the countryside's four limbs cannot live. One cannot imagine prolonged rural peasant war against the cities in countries like Britain, America, France, Germany, Japan or Italy. Nor is it possible in a small semi-colony. In a large semi-colonial country like China it would have been very difficult a few decades ago. But in a large semi-colonial country like China, today, this possibility has come into being. Here three conditions, a triple unity, are manifest. First, the semi-colonial condition. In a semi-colony the cities, though leading, cannot completely dominate the countryside, for the cities are small and the countryside vast: the great mass of manpower and materials lies in the countryside, not the cities. Second, the condition of a big country. If one part is lost, another remains. The enemy brings few troops against a big country, and our firm resistance forces on him the difficulties of insufficiency and dispersal of forces; thus we are given not only a general base of resistance — the great rear area of Yunnan, Guizhou, Sichuan and elsewhere, which the enemy cannot occupy — but also vast ground for guerrilla activity behind his lines, in North China, Central China, South China and elsewhere, which he cannot wholly occupy. Third, the conditions of today. Had China, decades ago, been overrun by a strong imperialist power — as Britain overran India — national ruin would have been unavoidable. Today is different. Today, first of all, China has progressed: she has a new party, new armies and a new people — the basic force for defeating the enemy. Next, the enemy has retrogressed: the socio-economic development of Japanese imperialism has reached the threshold of old age, and the development of Japanese capitalism has created, and is creating, the conditions for burying itself. And further, the international situation has changed: the old world is nearing its death, the light of the new world has dawned. All this I have explained at length in On Protracted War. In a word, in today's large semi-colonial country like China there exist many favourable conditions for our organizing a firm, long, vast war against the enemy who holds the cities — a war in which, interlocking like dogs' teeth, we encircle the cities, isolate them, grow our own strength through the long war, change the balance between the enemy and ourselves, and then, combined with changes in the world, drive the enemy out and recover the cities. Without doubt, countryside against cities is difficult even in today's China: cities are always concentrated and countryside always dispersed, and after the enemy has seized our principal big cities and lines of communication our administrative regions and battle positions are territorially cut apart, giving us many difficulties — this determines the protracted and cruel character of the war of resistance. But we must say that the countryside can defeat the cities, because of the triple conditions described above. Under the conditions of the civil war, a tiny part of the countryside sustained a long war against the cities, and that at a time when all the imperialist powers were united against communism. Who can say that under the conditions of a national war, and at a time when the imperialist camp is split, China's vastly larger countryside cannot sustain a long war against the enemy in the cities? Without doubt it can. And the countryside of today differs greatly from the countryside of the civil-war period: not only is the territory vast, but in the great rear provinces of Yunnan, Guizhou and Sichuan there are many cities and much industry, links with foreign countries can be kept, and construction can go on. On the basis of holding the great rear and establishing guerrilla base areas behind the enemy's lines, breeding our strength and sapping the enemy's over a long time, plus the future co-operation of favourable international conditions, we can launch the counter-offensive and recover the cities. In his statement to the nation last December the Generalissimo pointed out: “The centre of final victory in China's protracted war of resistance lies not in Nanjing, nor even in the great cities, but in the countryside of the whole nation and in the broad, firm hearts of the people.” This is entirely correct. Though the war is hard, the road to victory exists.

15. The crisis of compromise gravely exists, but it can be overcome

We said long ago that some people afflicted with fear of Japan are always trying to shake the government's determination to resist, advocating so-called peace and compromise — seen after the fall of Nanjing, and stirring again today. This is the reflection of the enemy's plots inside the anti-Japanese front. The crisis gravely exists, and the nation must give it full attention, never letting the pro-Japanese clique work its mischief. The pro-Japanese clique's aims are identical with the enemy's, and will necessarily concentrate on opposing Chiang and opposing communism; should they succeed, the future of the war would be in grave question. Therefore the whole nation, from top to bottom, must wake alert to the terror of the enemy's plots and internal treachery, and of itself, consciously, strive against such plots, relaxing not for a moment. Can the crisis of compromise be overcome? It can. Once the Kuomintang and the Communist Party and all patriotic persons unite as one and make the necessary efforts, to overcome the crisis of compromise, drive out the devils and monsters who aid the enemy, and carry the resistance forward is not only absolutely necessary but entirely possible. For the pro-Japanese clique has after all no very great strength; the party of resistance is stronger than the party of capitulation.

16. The new situation of guerrilla warfare in the stage of stalemate

In the new stage the main forces hold the frontal defence, and guerrilla warfare behind the enemy's lines will for a time become the principal form. But in the new stage of stalemate, guerrilla warfare behind the enemy's lines will develop in a new form. What is this new form? First, it can still develop broadly over vast areas. This is because our territory is vast while the enemy's forces are insufficient and dispersed; provided we hold to the policy of persevering in and developing guerrilla warfare and direct it correctly, the enemy cannot fundamentally restrict our development. But second, in certain important strategic regions — North China and the lower Yangtze, for example — we shall meet the enemy's cruel offensives; the plains will find it hard to preserve large formations, the mountains will become the principal base areas, and in some regions the guerrilla units may for a time be reduced in numbers. We must prepare now for the arrival of this situation. At present, in order to support the battles of the main forces on the frontal positions and to prepare for the new stage, guerrilla warfare behind the enemy's lines should for the most part be divided into two kinds of region. In one kind — regions where guerrilla warfare is already fully developed, such as North China — the main policy is to consolidate the foundation already laid, so as to be able to defeat the enemy's cruel offensives in the new stage and hold the base areas. In the other — regions where guerrilla warfare is not yet fully developed or is only beginning, such as Central China — the main policy is to develop guerrilla warfare rapidly, lest there be difficulty in developing it once the enemy turns back his armies. In the future, in order to support the frontal defence and give the main forces time to rest and reorganize, and in order to grow strength and prepare the strategic counter-offensive, we must strive with all our strength to sustain the guerrilla war of defending the base areas; through long perseverance the guerrilla units must be tempered into a fresh army, holding down the enemy and aiding the front. Generally speaking, guerrilla warfare behind the enemy's lines will be far harder in the new stage than in the preceding one; we must foresee this difficulty and admit it, and not let the easy development of the preceding stage turn our heads — for the enemy is certain to turn round and attack the guerrilla war. Yet it can be sustained, and all leaders of work behind the enemy's lines must have this confidence. For guerrilla warfare in a national war, however strong the enemy, enjoys far better conditions than in the civil war. Here, winning over and disintegrating the puppet troops so as to isolate the Japanese invader is a most important task.

17. The new stage of the war of resistance is at the same time a new stage in the development of the national anti-Japanese united front

What has been said above concerns the situation of the war; what follows concerns the situation of the national anti-Japanese united front.

When the war of resistance develops into a new stage, that is at the same time the moment when the national anti-Japanese united front develops into a new stage. Because the new stage will bring more difficulties than the last, the united front must likewise rise to them and show its great power of struggling against difficulty and conquering whatever difficulty arises. In order that the united front, in the present period of transition and in the new stage to come, may show not its incapacity in the face of difficulty but its great power to overcome it, the united front must be conscientiously consolidated and expanded. A long war can be sustained only by a long united front: the protractedness of the war and the protractedness of the united front are inseparable.

18. The Kuomintang has a bright future

The national anti-Japanese united front is based on the two parties, the Kuomintang and the Communist Party; and of the two the Kuomintang is the first big party — the launching and perseverance of the war of resistance cannot be imagined without it. The Kuomintang has its glorious history: above all the overthrow of the Manchus and the founding of the republic, the struggle against Yuan Shikai, the once-established policies of alliance with Russia, with the Communists and with the workers and peasants, the great revolution of 1926-27, and today the leadership of the great war of resistance. It has the historical tradition of the Three People's Principles, two great leaders in succession — Dr. Sun Yat-sen and Mr. Chiang Kai-shek — and a broad membership loyal and patriotic. All this must not be overlooked by the nation; all this is the fruit of China's historical development.

In the conduct of the war of resistance and the formation of the national anti-Japanese united front, the Kuomintang occupies the leading and pivotal position. Over the fifteen months all the anti-Japanese parties of the country have progressed, and the Kuomintang's progress has been marked. It convened an emergency national congress, promulgated the Programme of Armed Resistance and National Reconstruction, convened the People's Political Council, began to organize the Three People's Principles Youth Corps, recognized the legal existence of the various parties and their joint participation in resistance and national reconstruction, granted a certain degree of democratic rights, made certain reforms in military affairs and in the organs of government, and pursued a foreign policy suited to the needs of resistance — all events of historic significance. On the major premise of perseverance in the war and in the united front, it can be foretold that the Kuomintang's future is bright.

Yet even now many people hold an incorrect view of the Kuomintang and doubt its future. Their doubts concern three questions — whether it can continue the war, whether it can continue to progress, and whether it can become a national league for resistance and reconstruction — and these three are bound together and inseparable. What is our view? We hold that the Kuomintang has a bright future, and that on the basis of the various subjective and objective conditions it can continue the war, continue to progress, and become a national league for resistance and reconstruction.

The firmness of the enemy's offensive, the heavy blows and plunder he deals to every stratum of China, the anger of the nation's armies against him and the heroism of their resistance, the upsurge of the anti-Japanese movement among the whole people, and the existence of a favourable international situation — these facts fundamentally determine the political direction of the whole of China and of the Kuomintang. First, every party — the Kuomintang, the Communist Party, and the other anti-Japanese parties and groups included — must continue the war; whoever does not has no way out except that of a national traitor. Second, every party that continues the war must continue to progress. True, the progress of domestic politics has been neither rapid nor general, and the war has suffered losses in consequence. But precisely because of those losses, progress must henceforth be sought in politics, military affairs, culture, Party affairs and the mass movement, so as to withstand the enemy and recover the lost territory. Whether it be the Kuomintang in power or the other parties, progress must go on. Third, an important link in domestic progress is the democratization of the Kuomintang's organizational form, its transformation into a national league for resistance and reconstruction — the best organizational form of the national anti-Japanese united front. Is this possible? I think it is. The trend of the war is such that unless the Kuomintang opens its doors to the broad masses and takes into one great organization the patriotic parties and patriotic persons of the whole country, it cannot shoulder the hard task of continuing the war and defeating the enemy. In the Kuomintang's fifty years and more of history, at every great revolutionary struggle it transformed itself into a revolutionary national league — twice most conspicuously and with most historic significance. The first time was from the founding of the Tongmenghui to the revolution of 1911: to overthrow the Manchus and found the republic, Dr. Sun Yat-sen united all the revolutionary parties opposed to the Manchus (from the Restoration Society to the Elder Brothers Society); in that period its members abounded in deeds of heroic struggle, pressing on wave upon wave, full of vigour, and so won the success of the 1911 Revolution. The second was from 1924 to 1927: to oppose imperialism and the warlords, it united at home with the workers, peasants and Communists and abroad with socialist Soviet Russia, established the famous “three great policies,” founded Whampoa, built the Party army, and won the victory of the Northern Expedition. All this showed not only the development of the Kuomintang's united-front policy but the development of the Three People's Principles. Today is the third occasion in the Kuomintang's history when it may become a revolutionary national league: to oppose Japanese imperialism and build a Three People's Principles republic, it must and can transform itself into a national league for resistance and reconstruction. This great movement has already begun: the recognition of the legal existence of the Communist Party and the other parties; the admission of the Eighth Route Army into the system of the National Revolutionary Army; the proclamation in the Programme of Armed Resistance and National Reconstruction that “victory in the war and success in national reconstruction depend not only on the efforts of our Party's members but above all on the united hearts and shared burdens of the whole nation”; the convening of the People's Political Council and the organization of the Three People's Principles Youth Corps — all mark the beginning of its transformation into a national league for resistance and reconstruction. The question now is: what attitude should the Communist Party take toward this movement to expand the Kuomintang's organization — approval or opposition? We say: at all times we favour the Kuomintang's expanding and developing itself into a revolutionary national league. At the Kuomintang's reorganization of 1924 we took a policy of support. Today, when the national crisis is graver than ever, we will support it by every possible means. The reason is that the bigger the friendly army of resistance, the better: the growth and progress of the Communist Party alone is not enough to drive out Japanese imperialism. The Chinese Communist Party, standing as the second party, has initiated and upheld the united front of all parties, groups, circles and armies, and has opened its own organization to all revolutionary persons, striving for victory in resistance. But if the Kuomintang, standing as the first party, were to remain in its old state, that would be very unfavourable both to the war and to the united front. The war could not be won, the whole nation would be in danger, and the Communist Party and the proletariat could not escape that danger. So the Communist Party, so far from opposing, earnestly hopes for and firmly supports the Kuomintang's expanding and consolidating its organization, practising internal democracy, and transforming itself into a revolutionary national league, so as to further the continuance of the war and the winning of final victory.

19. But there are still obstacles in the Kuomintang's path, to be overcome by effort before it can develop

The Kuomintang's bright future exists, and its progress and development are possible; Mr. Chiang Kai-shek and the great majority of the Kuomintang are leading and pushing it forward. Yet everyone understands that there are still some die-hard elements in the Kuomintang obstructing the speed and the degree of its progress. Because these elements exist, and combine with many die-hard elements in society, a counter-current has formed in the flood-tide of the national revolutionary war, stubbornly resisting the ship of progress: it obstructs the democratization of the state to a considerable degree, obstructs the carrying out of all the enterprises of progress necessary for the war, obstructs the execution of the many good policies and methods Mr. Chiang Kai-shek has laid down in his successive declarations, statements, speeches and orders, obstructs the implementation of the Kuomintang's Programme of Armed Resistance and National Reconstruction and of the National Government's laws for saving the nation, and obstructs the development of the mass movement. These are facts, and they are the major reasons why the Kuomintang's progress has been neither rapid nor general and why the war has met with much disadvantage. These elements oppose the Kuomintang's progress and development, and even advocate compromise; if they gained the upper hand, the cause of national liberation would suffer a great setback — hence they deserve grave attention. Yet we firmly believe this die-hard force cannot exist for ever, holds no advantage and will find it hard to gain one: it is a counter-current, not the mainstream. Under the Generalissimo's leadership, with the efforts of the Kuomintang's great majority and the support of the whole people, this die-hard tendency can be overcome. The Communist Party firmly supports the Kuomintang's progress, and toward the die-hard elements who obstruct it we hope they will discard the old and seek the new and progress together. We hope such people will change — “the faults of a gentleman are like an eclipse of the sun or moon”: once changed, all is well. In fact we have already seen many die-hards progress in the course of the war, and many more will in future awaken through its lessons and progress with the masses. Such is the changeableness of the die-hards in the war of resistance. But it is also possible that a few will grow worse, content to be swept away by the great waves of resistance — that too is one side of changeableness; for such people there is nothing to be regretted.

20. The other parties likewise have a bright future

Every party that has joined the war of resistance and the national anti-Japanese united front has a future of development, on the major premise of perseverance in the war and in the united front; with all of them we are willing to establish long-term co-operation and give what support we can. This holds equally for the Third Party, the Young China Party, the National Socialist Party, the National Salvation Association, and any other group or party. It is plain that to say all parties have a bright future on the major premise of perseverance in resistance and in the united front includes the effort to overcome the die-hard tendencies within each party. If die-hard tendencies harmful to the war and to the united front were allowed to develop unchecked, there would be danger of forfeiting that bright future. This holds for the Kuomintang, for the Communist Party, and for the other parties alike, and all should give it full attention.

21. The features of China's national anti-Japanese united front

For historical reasons, today's national anti-Japanese united front in China differs from any united front abroad — the people's fronts, for instance — and from the united fronts of China's own history, such as the first Kuomintang-Communist co-operation: it has the features of China today. To understand these features is of the gravest importance for consolidating and expanding the national anti-Japanese united front.

What are these features? In sum there are eight: it is nation-wide in its resistance to Japan; it is long-term; it is uneven; it has armies; it has fifteen years of experience; most of the people are as yet unorganized; it rests on the Three People's Principles; and it exists in a new international environment.

First, it is nation-wide in its resistance to Japan. This feature determines the fundamental character of our united front. On the one hand, the aim of our united front is opposition to the alien invader, Japanese imperialism, which has broken into our land; it was founded and has grown for that purpose. On the other hand, its composition embraces the whole nation — all parties, all classes, all armies, all nationalities within the country — a body of the broadest scope. Because it opposes an alien invader, its membership can be so broad; and because its membership is so extraordinarily broad, the united front possesses great strength. But at the same time friction within the united front is hard to avoid and must be properly adjusted if unity against the external foe is to be achieved. This most basic feature of our united front — political aim, opposition to alien invasion; composition, extraordinary breadth — differs both from the people's fronts of France and Spain and from the national front of the first Great Revolution (the then Kuomintang-Communist co-operation), and gives today's united front much that is special in content and in result. This is the first feature and merit of today's united front, though its organizational complexity at the same time carries certain defects.

Second, it is long-term. This feature follows from the first. Because this united front wages national war against Japanese imperialism, and Japanese imperialism is a strong imperialist power, the war of resistance is long, and hence the united front is long. This I shall mention again in the fifth part of the report; it is the starting-point of all our policies. It also differs from the first Kuomintang-Communist co-operation.

Third, it is uneven. For historical reasons the political strength of the various parties and strata is uneven, and the same unevenness shows in their regional distribution. The Kuomintang is the first big party with real power, the Communist Party the second, the others after that. This situation produces much that is special.

Fourth, it has armies. Both the Kuomintang and the Communist Party have armies — the result of a special historical condition, and a merit, not a defect. Because the two parties have armies, they can in the war of resistance fulfil to the utmost their duty of division of labour and co-operation, and the benefit of mutual observation and mutual encouragement is the greater. In this it resembles Spain but differs from France, and differs also from the first Kuomintang-Communist co-operation; it is one of the factors making long-term co-operation between the two parties possible.

Fifth, it has fifteen years of experience. Four years of the first Kuomintang-Communist co-operation, 1924 to 1927; nine years of split, 1927 to 1936; and now two years of renewed co-operation. In these fifteen years, the experience of co-operation, split, and co-operation again has educated the two parties, the other parties and the whole people most profoundly. The conclusion is: there should be co-operation and no split. This too is one of the foundations of long-term co-operation. This precious experience no other country possesses; it did not exist even at the time of the first co-operation.

Sixth, most of the people are as yet unorganized. This is a feature of China, differing from the Western countries; it is a defect, leaving the united front without a ready-organized popular base. But at the same time the parties can divide the work of organizing the people, instead of crowding together and wearing each other with friction; for there are plenty of unorganized people awaiting organization to meet the urgent needs of the war.

Seventh, it rests on the Three People's Principles. The national anti-Japanese united front takes the Three People's Principles as its political basis — the basis not only of co-operation in resisting Japan but of co-operation in building the nation. The Principle of Nationalism will lead this co-operation to the struggle for the liberation of the whole nation; the Principle of Democracy to the thorough establishment of a democratic state; and the Principle of Livelihood may lead it through a very long period. The political programme and political thought of the Three People's Principles guarantee the long-term character of the united front.

Eighth, it exists in a new international environment. The world's political and economic conditions today differ from those both of the first co-operation and of the civil war between the two parties. Today only a part of the imperialist countries — Japan, Germany, Italy — oppose Kuomintang-Communist co-operation and the national anti-Japanese united front. Another part of the imperialist countries, because of their own contradictions with Japan, do not at present oppose our united front; they take rather a supportive stand. The advanced people of all countries support us, and the Soviet Union supports us most sincerely. This new international environment has an important bearing on our long-term co-operation.

Only by deeply studying and understanding the features described above can we adopt the appropriate political policies and working attitudes — not dealing with political and working problems by the method of “painting the head when the head aches and the foot when the foot aches,” but solving them correctly on a scientific foundation. The victory of the war of resistance and the consolidation and expansion of the united front require this scientific foundation.

22. The new situation of the united front

In the new stage of the war, the national anti-Japanese united front must appear in a new guise if it is to meet the new situation of the war. This new guise is the broad development and the high consolidation of the united front. The lesson of fifteen months of united resistance will bring the parties to see the necessity of this development and consolidation. In development, the direction is the expansion of each party's organization and the expansion of the people's organization. In consolidation, the direction is the adoption by each party of new policies and new methods of work, the reduction of mutual friction, and the achievement of genuine unity of heart in meeting the national crisis. The new stage of the war holds many difficulties; only if the parties of the united front broadly develop their organizations and highly consolidate their internal relations and their mutual relations can the new political tasks be carried out with strength, the new difficulties be conquered, and the aims of stopping the enemy's offensive and preparing our counter-offensive be attained. Such is the new situation of the united front within the new situation of the war; and thanks to the common efforts of the parties and the ardent support of the whole people, the arrival of this new situation is entirely possible.

IV. The Present Urgent Tasks of the Whole Nation

On the basis of the summing-up of the war so far, and of the estimate of the new stage in the development of the war and of the united front, what should be the present urgent tasks of the whole nation? And in what should they differ from the past?

The general task should be: to persevere in the war of resistance, persevere in protracted war, consolidate and expand the united front, so as to overcome difficulties, stop the enemy's offensive, prepare our strength, launch our counter-offensive, and attain the final aim of expelling the enemy.

In detail, the concrete tasks are in the various fields set out below. Every constituent part of the national anti-Japanese united front should support the government and, under its leadership, mobilize the whole nation to carry them out; and Communist Party members should be models in carrying them out.

1. Raising national self-respect and self-confidence to the highest degree, persevering in the war to the end, overcoming pessimism, opposing every attempt at compromise

It must be reckoned that under the new conditions of the war some people, because of the loss of the principal big cities and lines of communication, the difficulties of finance and the economy, and the delay in international aid, will breed and foster feelings of pessimism and despair about the future of the war. And the Japanese invaders, the traitors and the pro-Japanese clique will certainly exploit such feelings, sowing far and wide the air of peace and compromise, trying to shake our determination to resist. Therefore the first task of the whole nation is to raise national self-respect and self-confidence to the highest degree, overcome the pessimism of some people, firmly uphold the government's policy of continuing the war, oppose every attempt at capitulation and compromise, and persevere in the war to the end. This task is more important now than at any previous time.

To this end, newspapers, periodicals, schools, propaganda bodies, cultural and artistic organizations, the political organs of the army, mass organizations and every other possible force must be mobilized to carry on broad propaganda and agitation among the officers and men at the front, the garrison troops in the rear, the people of the occupied areas and the people of the whole country, carrying out this policy firmly and systematically: uphold resistance to the end, oppose surrender and compromise, cleanse away pessimism, and point out again and again the possibility and the inevitability of final victory, and that compromise means extinction while resistance alone is the way out; call on the whole nation to unite, to fear no difficulty and no sacrifice — we shall be free, we shall be victorious — so as to attain the aim of the whole country continuing the war with one accord.

To this end, all propaganda and agitation should attend to the following aspects. On the one hand, the national revolutionary models already produced and still being produced — heroic resistance, death for the country, Pingxingguan, Taierzhuang, the eight hundred heroes, the advance of guerrilla warfare, generous contributions to the war, the patriotism of the overseas Chinese, and so on — should be widely propagated at the front and in the rear, at home and abroad. On the other hand, the negative elements existing and growing in the national front — the tendency to compromise, pessimism, corruption and the like — should be exposed, cleansed and eliminated. And further, concrete instances of all the enemy's savage atrocities should be published to the whole country and denounced before the whole world, to raise national consciousness and foster national self-respect and self-confidence. It must be realized that the insufficiency of such consciousness and self-confidence greatly hinders the basic tasks of overcoming difficulties and preparing the counter-offensive.

2. Support Generalissimo Chiang, support the National Government, support Kuomintang-Communist co-operation; oppose discord and split, oppose any traitor government

In the new circumstances the enemy's policy will necessarily concentrate on opposing Chiang and opposing communism, on setting up a nation-wide traitor government, in an attempt to overthrow the Generalissimo, overthrow the National Government, and wreck Kuomintang-Communist co-operation and national unity. Against this policy of the enemy, the second task of the whole nation is to call on the country, with one heart and in all sincerity, to support the Generalissimo, support the National Government, support Kuomintang-Communist co-operation and national unity; oppose any act of the enemy detrimental to the Generalissimo, the National Government, Kuomintang-Communist co-operation and national unity; and oppose any traitor government ruling China.

To this end, the relations between the Kuomintang and the Communist Party must be adjusted, the relations between the Central authorities and the localities adjusted, the relations among the armies of resistance adjusted, and the relations between the government and the people adjusted. In all these relations the spirit of fairness, reasonableness, mutual aid and mutual regard should be fostered; friction and divergences should be reduced; and any attempt to exploit difficulties to embarrass the government opposed. The whole nation must be called on to take gravely to heart the plots of the enemy, the traitors and the pro-Japanese clique to sow discord within our ranks, manufacture discontent and division, and foment friction. The prestige of the Generalissimo and the National Government must on no account suffer; Kuomintang-Communist co-operation and national unity must grow daily closer; and a firm centre of gravity must be established for continuing the war in a difficult environment — against the enemy and against any traitor government, overcoming difficulties and preparing the counter-offensive.

3. Raise the fighting power of the main forces; defend Central and South China and the north-west; stop the enemy's offensive

Against the enemy's present attack on Wuhan and his designs of continuing his offensive in South China and the north-west, the third task of the whole nation is to raise the fighting power of the main forces, reorganize the existing armies, raise new ones, fight for the defence of Central China, South China and the north-west, and stop the enemy's offensive. To this end, on the side of China's main forces: first, highly mobile warfare must be developed, supplemented by such positional defence as is necessary and possible, resisting the enemy step by step and wearing down his strength. Second, military factories capable of the possible output must be established in the great rear, and their productive capacity raised, to supply arms and ammunition to the front. Third, political work of the national revolutionary type must be seriously carried out in the army, together with political, cultural and recreational education, to raise the spirit of heroic struggle and endurance of hardship through a long war throughout the army. Fourth, the soldiers' livelihood should be improved within the limits of the existing material base, and economic committees organized in the companies, with the soldiers managing their own mess. Fifth, conscious discipline should be fostered and the system of beating and cursing abolished; mutual affection and unity between officers and men should be encouraged, to improve the relations between them. Sixth, fair buying and selling should be practised, courtesy shown to the people; grain must not be forcibly requisitioned, labour forcibly impressed, nor recruits forcibly seized — the problems of food, porterage and recruits must be solved by political mobilization, so as to improve the relations between the army and the people. Seventh, among the armies at the front and between front and rear, the spirit of friendship and mutual aid should be raised: in battle support one another, in work learn from one another, and eliminate the bad practices of standing aloof and jealous rivalry, so as to improve the relations among the various armies. Eighth, the existing armies should be reorganized and their deficits made up, while new armies are raised and education and training intensified, so as to sustain protracted operations. By all these means the fighting power of the main forces must be raised, to fight for the defence of Central China, South China and the north-west, and to strive to stop the enemy's offensive and prepare our counter-offensive.

4. Develop guerrilla warfare behind the enemy's lines on a broad scale, create and consolidate our base areas, narrow the enemy's occupied areas, and co-operate with the main forces

Against the enemy's aims of continuing his offensive against us and of withdrawing troops at a certain point to attack the guerrilla war, in an attempt to consolidate his occupied areas and make our counter-offensive difficult, the fourth task of the whole nation is to develop guerrilla warfare behind the enemy's lines on a broad scale, create many base areas, and consolidate those already established, so as to narrow the enemy's occupied areas — now, co-operating with the main forces to stop his offensive; in the future, co-operating with the main forces to launch the counter-offensive. One of the important features of the national war of resistance in semi-colonial China is the breadth and duration of guerrilla warfare. Without such guerrilla warfare, large bodies of enemy troops cannot be pinned down and there can be no effective support for the operations of the main forces on the frontal positions and no halt to the enemy's offensive; the enemy's occupation cannot be confined within certain belts and he cannot occupy everything; and there can be no many anti-Japanese fortresses behind his lines sustaining guerrilla war and preparing the future strategic counter-offensive in co-operation with the main forces. Therefore, first, guerrilla warfare must be developed on a broad scale in all areas behind the enemy's lines, many guerrilla base areas created, and those already established consolidated. Second, following the North China model, a sufficient number of regular troops must be left behind or dispatched to each strategic region behind the enemy's lines as the backbone of prolonged guerrilla war. These troops should gradually learn guerrilla tactics, strengthen their political work, develop the mass movement, create base areas, and help the people's guerrilla units and guerrilla warfare behind the enemy's lines gradually to advance toward regular armies and regular warfare. Third, in every theatre of war and in the enemy's rear, the patriotic ardour of all men and women to defend the country and their homes must be aroused; besides mobilizing large numbers of them to join the guerrilla units that leave production and to fill up the regular troops left behind the enemy's lines, they must be organized into semi-military people's self-defence corps for resistance to Japan. The organization of such corps should become the general and permanent militia system of every theatre of war and every enemy rear area, its members not leaving production. Fourth, the people must be helped to organize broad guerrilla units: these leave production, should exist in every county and district, and serve as the general small units for raiding the enemy and defending the locality. Fifth, political work must be established in the guerrilla units, and their military, political, cultural and recreational education strengthened, so as to raise their fighting power. Sixth, correct military and political systems must be instituted in the guerrilla units, with equal treatment of officers and men and open accounting. Seventh, bandit units must be reformed and led onto the road of resisting Japan; bandits in our rear and those used by the enemy must be eliminated. Eighth, the supply of arms to the guerrilla war is a question of the utmost importance: on the one hand the great rear should supply them as far as possible; on the other, every guerrilla base area must do its utmost to set up small arsenals, reaching the point of making its own ammunition, rifles, grenades and so forth, so that the guerrilla war need never fear a shortage of arms. Ninth, in accordance with the enemy's dispositions and our strategic needs, the zones of operations and the administrative regions behind the enemy's lines must be redivided to fit the new war situation. Tenth, in accordance with strategic needs, unified leadership must be established over the various units and administrative regions behind the enemy's lines, so as to concentrate the forces of resistance and eliminate internal contradictions — but mutual annexation in warlord fashion must be opposed.

5. Raise military technique, create mechanized formations, prepare the strength for the counter-offensive

That the enemy, with fewer troops than we, can push deeper step by step is due, besides political causes, mainly to the backwardness of our technique. Against the enemy's strong points and our weak points, the fifth task of the whole nation is to raise military technique, increase the numbers of aircraft, artillery, tanks and other weapons and the trained personnel to use them, and prepare the strength for the counter-offensive. To this end, on the one hand we must, with the existing and prospective manufacturing capacity, begin with partial manufacture and repair and set about this work in earnest. On the other hand, we must seek by every means to import new-style weapons from abroad, gradually improving the equipment of the army and creating genuinely modern mechanized formations. Without question we should look at things as they are: at present what is actually fighting is a great quantity of primitive weapons; hence we should call on the armies and the armed people of the whole country to believe that primitive weapons can also defeat the enemy, raise their political spirit, improve their methods of fighting, and develop guerrilla warfare, to make up for the lack of new technique. Not to exert ourselves on this side is to neglect the actual question of the moment and lose the means of overcoming present difficulties. But in the future, to prepare the strategic counter-offensive, new technique must be raised and new-style armies built; it must be understood that without armies in sufficient numbers equipped with modern technique, a counter-offensive to recover the lost territory is impossible. Not to give attention to this side, and to set about it in earnest within the bounds of the possible, is to see only the present and forget the future, and lose the means of overcoming future difficulties. In a China rich in manpower and materials, provided the political conditions improve, the methods of mobilization advance, and foreign aid is added, the gradual improvement of technical equipment is by no means impossible.

6. Practise democratic politics under centralized leadership, draw government and people closely together, and bring out the fullest capacity of the anti-Japanese political power

The enemy exploits our weak points not only in military affairs but in politics — the undemocratized character of our political system, which cannot form close ties with the broad masses of the people. To remedy this weakness, the sixth task of the whole nation is to practise democratic institutions under centralized leadership; without improvement on this side the final defeat of the Japanese invaders is also impossible. Democratic politics is the engine for arousing all the living forces of the nation; with such a system the anti-Japanese enthusiasm of the whole people will be aroused beyond measure, becoming a deep well inexhaustible for use. And the completion of the great process of the nation's thorough unity can likewise be achieved only through the establishment of democratic institutions. On this point practical measures are required in every field. First, the convening of the People's Political Council has begun the first step in the democratization of the state; hereafter the work of the Council should proceed openly and smoothly, all its decisions should be put into effect, and on the pattern of its already adopted schemes provincial and local councils at all levels should be conscientiously established to advance democratic politics. Second, the freedoms of speech, publication, assembly, association and belief of the people as provided in the Programme of Armed Resistance and National Reconstruction must be guaranteed in full throughout the country. These freedoms lie within the bounds of resistance and national reconstruction; only when they are fully guaranteed can the strength of resistance and national construction be generally brought forth. Here the question is to guarantee the application of the Central government's decrees in the localities without arbitrary local restriction. The only freedom that should be restricted is the kind harmful to resistance and national construction — the freedom of traitors and pro-Japanese elements; nothing else should be restricted. Third, a large measure of democracy should be put into practice beginning in the theatres of war and the enemy's rear. For example: local governments at all levels chosen by popular election and then confirmed by higher authority; democratic-centralist councils adopted by the governments of the theatres of war at all levels, with people's representative organs established at each level; the addition in such governments of certain necessary departments of work; the change of official document forms; the removal of the corrupt and incompetent and the absorption of active resisters; the reduction of salaries and the encouragement of hard and simple living, so as to fit the hard, complex and mobile circumstances of the theatres of war. Local governments in the theatres of war, under the unified leadership of the Central government, have the right to issue local ordinances. All men and women citizens of the theatres of war, except traitors, have the right to vote and stand for election, and the freedoms of speech, publication, assembly, association and armed resistance. All anti-Japanese parties in the theatres of war have an open and legal status, and so on. In the theatres of war, and above all behind the enemy's lines, without such political reforms it is impossible to sustain a long and hard war of resistance. All these measures aim at drawing the government and the people closely together and increasing the real strength of the government, so that it may play its greatest part in the war of resistance. There is no question but that every local government in the country should be concentrated under the leadership of the Central government; no sign of disrespect toward the Central leadership should be shown merely because the administrative territory has been territorially cut apart by the enemy. The whole country must carry out democratic government in accordance with the Central decrees, and the whole country must be unified under the Centre.

7. Expand the unified mass movements and aid the war with all strength

The seventh task of the whole nation is to expand the various mass movements, unify them, and aid the war with all strength. A long and hard war of resistance draws everything from the people; without mass movements broadly developed and unified throughout the country, it is impossible to sustain the war for long. This is especially urgent in the theatres of war and behind the enemy's lines. The war of resistance is meeting new difficulties, and only by mobilizing the people can they be effectively overcome. Throughout the country, and especially in the theatres of war and the enemy's rear, the following must be done: first, guarantee the freedom of all anti-Japanese mass organizations and mass movements, and establish the legal status of the mass organizations. Second, give them material help and respect their independence. Third, conscientiously establish various national salvation associations of workers, peasants, youth, women, merchants, professional people, cultural workers and children, with broad mass participation, and organize them into federated bodies on both territorial and occupational principles. Fourth, arouse the people to take an active part in the work of resistance in every field and actively aid the government and the army — in the theatres of war above all this brooks no delay.

8. Improve the people's livelihood and stimulate their enthusiasm for resistance and production

The improvement of the people's livelihood has in the past been carried out far too feebly, so that the enthusiasm of the broad labouring people for resistance and for production cannot be aroused — very unfavourable to sustaining a long war. Hence the eighth task of the whole nation is to carry out the following policies for improving the people's livelihood. First, treat generously the families of soldiers of the anti-Japanese army and the disabled soldiers. Second, relieve the refugees and unemployed workers of the theatres of war. Third, begin in the theatres of war and behind the enemy's lines an appropriate reduction of rent and interest. Fourth, regulate the supply of grain and other important daily necessities. Fifth, raise wages appropriately and improve the treatment of workers and office employees. Sixth, recognize the right of workers and peasants to collective contracts with employers and landlords. Seventh, prohibit employers, landlords, masters and foremen from beating or ill-treating workers and apprentices. Once these elementary measures for improving livelihood are carried out, the enthusiasm of the workers, peasants and urban poor for supporting the government, joining the war and joining production will certainly rise: not only will the mobilization of everything the war requires be greatly transformed, but the quantity and quality of industrial and agricultural production and the circulation of commerce will greatly increase, and the state's finances will find a satisfactory solution on the new foundation of agriculture, industry and commerce.

9. Adopt a new wartime financial and economic policy and cross the difficult pass of the war

After the loss of the principal big cities and lines of communication the state's finances and economy will be in great difficulty, and without new and effective measures there is no crossing the difficult pass of the war. Yet if new policies are adopted and the strength of the people mobilized, any difficulty can be overcome. Hence the ninth task of the whole nation is to adopt a new wartime financial and economic policy. Its main provisions are as follows. First, the new policy aims at guaranteeing all necessary supplies for the anti-Japanese armed forces, meeting the people's needs in daily necessities, and struggling against the enemy's economic blockade and economic sabotage. Second, national defence industry must be deliberately rebuilt in the interior, beginning with small-scale urgently needed branches and gradually developing and improving; the resources of the government, private circles and foreign countries should be absorbed; workers should be politically mobilized, guaranteed a minimum material standard, and factory administration improved, so as to raise productivity. All this is not only necessary but possible. Third, political mobilization combined with government decrees should develop the nation's agriculture and handicrafts, organizing spring-ploughing and autumn-harvest campaigns, so that the country's agriculture and handicrafts develop in a new form. In the theatres of war attention must be paid to protecting farm tools, draught animals and handicraft workshops, and the economic self-sufficiency of the cut-off regions guaranteed. Fourth, the free operation of private industry and commerce must be protected, while attention is paid to developing co-operatives. Fifth, on the principle that the rich contribute money, the various old taxes should be revised into a unified progressive tax, and the vexatious levies and apportionments abolished, so as to relieve the people's strength and benefit the revenue. Sixth, political mobilization combined with government decrees should raise national salvation loans and public grain, and arouse the people to contribute funds and grain of their own accord to supply the armies, so as to enlarge the revenue. Seventh, a planned struggle must be waged against the enemy's issuance of puppet currency and sabotage of the fabi; local banks should be permitted in the cut-off regions to issue local paper money. Eighth, the movement for clean government must be energetically carried out, the salary system revised, and a roughly equal salary scale fixed according to the minimum standard of living. Ninth, low-interest loans should be made through the state banks to aid production and the circulation of goods. Tenth, the posts, telecommunications and transport of the theatres of war must be restored and developed. The foregoing are only the main points; what is required is the firm resolve to reform the old system and institute the new, and perseverance in carrying it out, if the new difficulties are to be removed and the long war sustained. The heart of the matter is to organize the people's productive energy in its breadth and make it serve the supply of the war. China's war of resistance is being waged under special conditions: the principal big cities and lines of communication are occupied by the enemy, and the main reliance of the resistance is on the countryside and the peasantry. The peasants possess great strength for sustaining the war, but necessary political and economic reforms must be carried out. The new policies set out here are proposed precisely in view of these special conditions.

10. Adopt a policy of education for the war of resistance, making education serve the long war

Under the principle that everything serves the war, all cultural and educational work must be made to fit the needs of the war. Hence the tenth task of the whole nation is to carry out the following cultural and educational policies. First, revise the school system, abolish courses neither urgent nor necessary, change the methods of administration, taking as the principle the teaching of the courses the war requires and the fostering of the students' enthusiasm for study. Second, create and expand and strengthen the various schools for cadres, to train large numbers of cadres for the resistance. Third, develop popular education broadly, organize various supplementary schools, literacy campaigns, drama movements, singing movements, physical culture movements, and found popular local newspapers both at the front and behind the enemy's lines, so as to raise the people's national culture and national consciousness. Fourth, carry out compulsory primary education, educating the new generation in the national spirit. All this likewise requires the combination of political mobilization of the people's strength with government decrees; the essential thing is to set the people to educate themselves, with the government giving appropriate guidance and adjustment and such material help as is possible. A few schools, newspapers and the like run by the government with its limited funds cannot accomplish the great task of raising the nation's culture and consciousness. Since the war began the educational system has been changing, especially in the theatres of war, where improvement has been marked. But there has as yet been no change of the whole system to fit the needs of the war, and that is bad. The great war of resistance must be matched by a great movement of education for the war of resistance, and the present lack of fit between the two must be quickly removed.

11. Strive for international aid, concentrate on opposing Japanese imperialism

Proceeding from the principles of a long war and concentration against Japanese imperialism, the organization of every possible form of foreign aid must not be neglected. Hence the eleventh task at present. First, firmly oppose the advocacy by some people of taking the German-Italian road, for this is in effect a step toward surrender to the enemy. Second, strive for the increase of material aid from the democratic countries and the Soviet Union, and at the same time do the utmost to bring the various countries to carry out the League of Nations resolutions sanctioning Japan. Third, set up a suitable organ to collect systematically all the enemy's atrocities into concrete documents and reports, to propagate them abroad, arouse the attention of the whole world, and call for the punishment of the Japanese fascists. Fourth, delegates from the various parties and people's organizations should be sent to form an international propaganda body to travel through the countries of the world, arousing the sympathy of their peoples and governments, in co-ordination with the diplomatic activities of our government. Fifth, protect the nationals of all sympathetic countries resident in China and their peaceful pursuits of trade, missionary work and so on. Sixth, attend to protecting the interests of the overseas Chinese, and through their efforts advance the movement in the various countries against Japan and for aid to China. All this we should strive to do, however temporarily the aid of the various countries may fail to increase or even partly decline, and however much the League's resolutions may remain merely pleasant words. Since the war will be long, our foreign policy should likewise look to the long term, valuing not immediate gains but future reinforcement; this long view is necessary.

12. Build a united front against aggression of China together with the soldiers and people of Japan and the oppressed peoples of Korea, Taiwan and elsewhere, jointly opposing Japanese imperialism

The war of aggression of Japanese imperialism harms not only the Chinese nation but the whole body of Japan's soldiers and people and the oppressed peoples of Korea, Taiwan and elsewhere. To make Japan's war of aggression fail, the united, broad and persevering common effort of the soldiers and people of the two great nations, China and Japan, and of the oppressed peoples of Korea, Taiwan and elsewhere is necessary, and a common united front against aggression must be built. To this end, the twelfth task of the whole nation is as follows. First, put before the soldiers and people of the two countries and the peoples of Korea and Taiwan this policy of a united front against aggression, and call on them to struggle for it. Second, the government should order that all officers and men of the anti-Japanese armies and guerrilla units learn a necessary amount of Japanese, of suitable content; the senior political departments should prepare and dispatch teachers of Japanese to the various armies to give instruction — beginning with a few phrases and going as far as being able to reason with Japanese officers and men. All anti-Japanese officers and men should be educated to carry on oral propaganda to all enemy soldiers and junior officers, supplemented by written and pictorial propaganda, gradually winning them over and asking them to agree to the building of the common united front against aggression, so that the million and more troops of Japanese aggression may become our friendly forces, withdraw from China, and overthrow Japanese fascism. Third, respect and treat well the prisoners taken from the enemy army, give them education, and through them influence the rest, striving for the building of the united front against aggression. Fourth, arrange for anti-aggression cultural workers from Japan itself to come to China and join in this struggle. Fifth, protect the honest Japanese residents in China. Sixth, educate our own soldiers and people: on the one hand raise national self-respect; on the other correct certain mistaken ideas among the army and the people, distinguishing Japanese imperialism from the Japanese people, enemy officers from soldiers, and senior officers from junior officers. Once the above policies and measures are carried out with broad and persevering effort, this united front against aggression can be built. China's victory depends mainly on the increase of her own strength; but at the same time the enemy's difficulties and international aid must be won to combine with it. On the side of the enemy's difficulties, besides the gradual attrition caused by our long war and our diplomatic efforts to isolate Japan, the policy of building with the Japanese soldiers and people and with the peoples of Korea and Taiwan a common front against aggression is an indispensable part. The longer Japan's war of aggression is prolonged, the more foundation there will be for building this united front.

13. Unite all the nationalities of China in common resistance to Japan

Our national anti-Japanese united front is one not only of the various parties and classes within the country but of the various nationalities. Against the schemes of division among the national minorities which the enemy has carried out and will carry out with still greater vigour, the thirteenth task at present is to unite all nationalities into one body to meet the Japanese invaders together. To this end the following points must be attended to. First, allow the Mongolian, Hui, Tibetan, Miao, Yao, Yi, Fan and other nationalities equal rights with the Han; on the principle of common resistance to Japan, allow them the right of managing their own affairs, while uniting with the Han to build a single unified state. Second, in places where the national minorities live intermixed with the Han, the local governments must set up committees composed of members of the local minorities, as a department of the provincial or county government, to manage the affairs concerning them and adjust the relations among the nationalities; the minorities should also have their place among the members of the provincial and county governments. Third, respect the culture, religion and customs of the various minorities; not only must they not be forced to learn the Han script and language, but they should be helped to develop their own culture and education in their own languages and scripts. Fourth, correct the existing Great-Han chauvinism, advocate that the Han deal with the other nationalities on terms of equality, so that mutual goodwill and closeness may grow daily, and at the same time prohibit any language, writing or conduct toward them that is insulting or contemptuous. These policies must, on the one hand, be striven for by the nationalities themselves in their own unity, and, on the other, carried out by the government of its own accord; only so can the mutual relations of the nationalities within the country be thoroughly improved and the aim of unity against the external foe truly achieved. The old methods of conciliation and tutelage will not work any more.

14. Carry out energetically the movement to eliminate traitors, and consolidate the front and the rear

Under the new situation, traitors, enemy agents, Trotskyites and pro-Japanese elements will inevitably grow more rampant than before, wantonly spreading rumours, slander, division and sabotage. Hence the fourteenth task at present is to carry out the following measures and energetically pursue the movement to eliminate traitors. First, awaken the vigilance of all soldiers and people, at the front and in the rear, to watch closely the activities of traitors, enemy agents, Trotskyites and pro-Japanese elements, and according to the government's laws suppress them without mercy. Second, attend to protecting state secrets, and punish as traitors those who leak them. Third, insert a lesson on the elimination of traitors into the school textbooks, and carry out education in raising vigilance. Fourth, establish in the army at all levels departments for the work of eliminating traitors; establish traitor-elimination groups in the mass organizations and the people's self-defence corps; and strengthen traitor-elimination education in the state police, so that the traitors can find no hiding-place under the eyes of all. Since the war began, the damage done by these traitors is beyond reckoning. The soldiers at the front have long exclaimed with one voice at the number of traitors and the greatness of the harm to military operations. Even in the rear, the leaking of state secrets and the guiding of enemy planes to bomb cruelly are enough to rouse the wrath of gods and men. In a long war, unless the traitors are purged, the victory of the war cannot be imagined; to arouse the national revolutionary vigilance of the broad people, energetically carry out the above measures for eliminating traitors, and make of it a broad movement — this is an indispensable and grave task in the struggle for victory. It should be pointed out that the movement to eliminate traitors must distinguish the chief culprits from those coerced, the conscious from the deceived, the resolute from the wavering, dealing with them separately — the former severely, the latter leniently — and strive to win over the latter and turn them back to the good; they must never be treated all alike. Care must also be taken with evidence; torture must not be used; and false accusation strictly guarded against. The aim of eliminating traitors is to purge the real ones: only correct policies and correct methods can attain that aim.

15. Develop the Kuomintang and the Communist Party and all the anti-Japanese parties, strengthen the united front, sustain the long war

The carrying out of all the urgent tasks set out above awaits the pushing forward of the whole nation by the parties of the national anti-Japanese united front, under the unified leadership of the Generalissimo, in firm and resolute fashion; and to attain that end, the organizational strength of every party in the united front must be developed. The existing strength of every party is too small and all need to grow; and the great development of the Kuomintang and the Communist Party is above all the urgent task of the moment. In this task of development each party should support the growth of the others, and must not envy or obstruct one another. It must be understood that the growth of any anti-Japanese party benefits the resistance. There is no question that the united front is based on the two parties, the Kuomintang and the Communist Party, and that of the two the Kuomintang is the main body — we recognize this fact. Therefore we firmly support the Generalissimo and the National Government and the Kuomintang under his leadership, and call on the whole nation to support them likewise. To recognize and support this main body while at the same time developing all the parties is a thing mutually connected, and involves no conflict.

In numbers, I think the Kuomintang should grow to more than five million, and the Communist Party and the other parties to more than a million. In a great nation of four hundred and fifty million people, in this great era of war of resistance, to draw millions of the finest elements into the various anti-Japanese parties is not only necessary but entirely possible. If that is done, the national anti-Japanese united front will be broadened and with it consolidated, ample guarantee will exist for carrying out every task of defeating the enemy, and the fundamental aims of sustaining a long war and long co-operation, of expelling the Japanese invaders and of building a new China of the Three People's Principles need not fear being unattainable.

V. Protracted War and Long-Term Co-operation

Now let us discuss at some length the question of the long-term character of the national anti-Japanese united front, giving a general answer to the many questions already raised by those who are deeply concerned about the relations between the Kuomintang and the Communist Party. This has an important bearing on consolidating and expanding the national anti-Japanese united front, consolidating and expanding Kuomintang-Communist co-operation, smoothly carrying out the present urgent tasks, and crossing the difficult pass of the war.

The questions are as follows: the protractedness of the war determines the protractedness of co-operation; co-operation in the war determines co-operation after the war; the content and main conditions of long-term co-operation; the Three People's Principles and communism; the organizational forms of long-term co-operation; the policy of mutual aid and mutual concession in long-term co-operation; and the question of the democratic republic. All these concern many people, and all must be answered clearly.

1. The protractedness of the war determines the protractedness of co-operation

Because the war of resistance against Japan is long, the whole national anti-Japanese united front can and must be long-term, and the co-operation of its two principal parties — the Kuomintang and the Communist Party — can and must likewise be long-term. This is the starting-point of all policies. Hence our policy must in any case be a long-term national united front and long-term co-operation; and in any case we must together maintain a unified government and oppose discord and split — only so can we cross the difficult pass of the war, withstand the enemy's disruptive schemes, drive back Japanese imperialism, and after the war complete the task of building the new China. Herein lies a fundamental difference from the Kuomintang-Communist co-operation of 1924 to 1927: that was short-term, this is long-term.

2. Co-operation in the war determines co-operation after the war

By long-term co-operation I mean co-operation not only during the war but after it. The war of resistance against Japan is long, and co-operation during the war is already long-term. But that is not enough: we hope co-operation will continue, and it must continue. What guarantees this? The guarantee lies in this: co-operation in the war determines co-operation after the war. The two principal parties of the national anti-Japanese united front, the Kuomintang and the Communist Party, must share hardship and face life and death together, strive for progress, and pass through long effort before Japanese imperialism can be driven back; otherwise it cannot be done. After the war, these two parties, having shared long hardship and made progress, will have laid the foundation for continued co-operation. The domestic and international conditions of that time will be more favourable to co-operation — that too can be foreseen today. Without question, co-operation during the war will have the content of its several stages, and co-operation after the war will have still new content. But that co-operation in the war determines the possibility of co-operation after it is a forecast not without foundation.

3. The content and main conditions of long-term co-operation

By long-term co-operation I mean the long-term national united front, in which all classes are included, from the capitalists to the workers; all parties, from the Kuomintang to the Communist Party; all nationalities, from the Han to the Miao, the Yao and other small nationalities; all armies, from the Central Army to the Eighth Route Army; all governments, from the National Government to the government of the Shaan-Gan-Ning Border Region — with the sole exception of national traitors, everything is included, and included for the long term. Within the national united front, some people, in the long war, when they cannot endure the hard struggle and place their personal interest above the national interest, will turn into national traitors; hence the national united front must continually expel such traitors. But with these exceptions it remains the national united front. The reason — that is, the main condition — of long-term co-operation is first of all the savagery and protractedness of the enemy's war. Because the enemy's war is savage, gravely menacing the existence of every stratum of the nation, even the upper classes are compelled to resist Japan alongside the other classes. Part of the upper classes will inevitably drop out of the anti-Japanese front, but the rest, like the other classes, are oppressed and have no way out but resistance. And because this savage war is long, co-operation is determined to be long. That is one side of what determines long-term co-operation. But there is a second side: the parties in the co-operation, above all the Kuomintang and the Communist Party, must adopt correct policies and carry out necessary work. What policies and what work? Policies and work laid down and carried out from the standpoint of long war and long co-operation; policies and work that have regard for the present and for the future, for this class and for that class, for this party and for that party, for this army and for that army, for this nationality and for that nationality. Otherwise the policy is wrong and the work fails, steps are thrown into confusion of themselves, and co-operation becomes hard to sustain. Thus, on the one hand the savagery and duration of the enemy's war, and on the other the correct policies and necessary work within the united front, make China's national united front not only something that should be long-term but something that can be long-term. It is a national front, not a people's front. It is Kuomintang-Communist co-operation embracing the war and the period after it, not a co-operation designed to split again and return to civil war once the war is over.

4. The Three People's Principles and communism

The Three People's Principles are the political basis of the national anti-Japanese united front and of Kuomintang-Communist co-operation. But what are the relations between the Three People's Principles and communism? And what attitude should Communist Party members take toward the Three People's Principles? To this day some people are still unclear, and so the matter must be explained once more.

As early as the temporary congress of our Party held in May 1937, the following outline on “resolutely carrying out the Three People's Principles” was adopted:

“Does the Communist Party approve of the Three People's Principles? Our answer is that it does. The Three People's Principles have known historical change. Dr. Sun Yat-sen's revolutionary Three People's Principles once won the people's belief through co-operation with the Communist Party and firm practice, and launched the victorious Great Revolution of 1925-27; and then lost the people's belief and brought about the failure of the revolution through the expulsion of the Communist Party (the party-purification movement) and the practice of the opposite policies. Now, with the national and social crisis extremely grave, the whole people and the patriotic elements in the Kuomintang earnestly demand the co-operation of the two parties. Therefore to restore the spirit of the Three People's Principles, and for the two parties to co-operate anew and lead the people in resolute practice — under a Principle of Nationalism of independent liberation from without, a Principle of Democracy of democratic freedom within, and a Principle of Livelihood of increasing the people's happiness — is entirely in accord with the historical demands of the Chinese revolution, and must be clearly understood by every Communist. The Communist Party will by no means abandon its ideal of socialism and communism; it will arrive at the stage of socialism and communism through the stage of the bourgeois-democratic revolution. The Communist Party has its own Party programme and its own political programme: its Party programme is socialism and communism, and in this it differs from the Three People's Principles. Its programme for the democratic revolution is more thoroughgoing than that of any other party in the country; but with the Three People's Principles as proclaimed at the First and Second Congresses of the Kuomintang it is, in the main, without conflict. Therefore so far from rejecting the Three People's Principles, we are willing to carry them out resolutely; we demand that the Kuomintang carry them out together with us, and we call on the whole people to put them into practice, so that the Kuomintang, the Communist Party and the whole people may strive together for the three great aims of national independence, democratic freedom, and the people's livelihood and happiness.” (The Tasks of the National Anti-Japanese United Front at the Present Stage, p. 11.)

On 22 September last year, in the declaration by which our Party's Central Committee announced the establishment of Kuomintang-Communist co-operation, it was stressed again: “Dr. Sun Yat-sen's Three People's Principles are what China needs today, and our Party will strive for their thorough realization.”

Why does a communist party adopt this attitude? Plainly, national independence, democratic freedom and the people's livelihood and happiness are precisely the general aims the Communist Party seeks to realize in the stage of the national-democratic revolution — and they are the general aims demanded by the whole people, not the demand of any single party alone. One need only look at the documents and the political programme of the Communist Party since its birth to understand this. Therefore in the past, not only did we Communists resolutely carry out the Three People's Principles during the first co-operation of the two parties from 1924 to 1927; even after the unhappy rupture of 1927, none of our practice violated the Three People's Principles. At that time we resolutely opposed imperialism, which accorded with the Principle of Nationalism; we practised a political system of congresses of people's delegates, which accorded with the Principle of Democracy; we practised a land system of land to the tiller, which accorded with the Principle of Livelihood. And all our practice then never went beyond private ownership of property, the basic category of the bourgeois-democratic revolution. In the present stage of the war of resistance, and in the postwar stage of the thorough completion of the democratic republic — both are stages of the Three People's Principles, both stages of bourgeois-democratic revolutionary character. For the thorough completion of the tasks of this democratic stage, every Communist, without question, should, in accordance with his Party's consistent general line of revolution, its resolutions and declarations, together with the Chinese Kuomintang and the other parties of the country and the broad masses of the people, sincerely carry out the Three People's Principles. Whoever is unfaithful in the belief in and practice of the Three People's Principles is one who says one thing with his lips and another in his heart, one whose outside does not match his inside, and is not a faithful Marxist. In China every faithful Marxist bears at once the twofold duty of the present practical tasks and of the great ideal of the future. And it should be understood that only when the present practical tasks have been accomplished as thoroughly as possible can there be the basis and foundation for advancing to the stage of the great ideal of the future. The great ideal of the future is communism — the most perfect social system of mankind, which Dr. Sun Yat-sen also held must be practised before the social problems of the future can be solved. The practical task of the present is the Three People's Principles — the basic task of the present stage of “seeking equality of international status, equality of political status, and equality of economic status” — the common demand of the two parties and of the whole people. Therefore the Communist should study the Three People's Principles as he studies communism: study the theory of the Three People's Principles with the Marxist eye, study how to translate the Three People's Principles concretely into practice, and study how to educate the masses of the people with correct Three People's Principles thinking, so that from understanding they pass to active struggle — for the defeat of Japanese imperialism and the building of a new China of the Three People's Principles.

5. The organizational forms of long-term co-operation

To guarantee long-term co-operation, the question of the organizational form of co-operation must also be solved. We have already refuted the theory of a single party: whether judged by past history, by present tasks, or by the character of Chinese society, the so-called single-party system is groundless, unachievable and unworkable; it violates the great common aim of united resistance to Japan and national reconstruction, and has a hundred harms and not one benefit. If the parties are to coexist and combine into one national anti-Japanese united front, should there not be a unified common organization? There should, and it is necessary; without such a unified common organization united resistance is handicapped, and long-term co-operation still more so. Therefore the parties should conscientiously study and find the unified common organizational form best suited to long-term co-operation. Let us examine the question now.

In view of China's political and economic conditions and the historical character of the parties, the national anti-Japanese united front may take, as it appears today, one of three organizational forms.

The first is for the Kuomintang itself to become a national league, the various parties joining the Kuomintang while preserving their independence — but unlike the first Kuomintang-Communist co-operation. If the Kuomintang agreed to admit Communists, what attitude should we take? First of all, we should favour such an arrangement, for it would be the finest of all unified organizational forms of the national anti-Japanese united front and would benefit resistance and national reconstruction. Not only the Communist Party but any other anti-Japanese party could join the Kuomintang, provided the Kuomintang consented; we would by no means oppose it. If it were done, we could adopt methods different from those of the co-operation of 1924: first, all Communists joining the Kuomintang would do so openly, submitting the list of those joining to the Kuomintang's leading organs; second, we would recruit no Kuomintang member into the Communist Party — any who asked to join we would advise to have regard for the general interest and not join; third, if with the Kuomintang's consent our young Communist members joined the Three People's Principles Youth Corps, the same would apply — no secret party cells or corps would be organized, and no non-Communists recruited into them. By such methods all could live in peace, and there would be benefit and no harm. That is the first organizational form of the united front.

The second organizational form is for the parties together to organize a national league, upholding Mr. Chiang Kai-shek as its supreme leader, the parties sending representatives on equal terms to form joint committees at the centre and in the localities at all levels, working to carry out the common programme and handle common affairs. This too is a very good form, and we favour it. We proposed it long ago; unfortunately it has not yet been carried out.

The third organizational form is the present method: nothing in writing, nothing fixed, consultation whenever matters arise, and settlement of the questions arising between the two parties. But this form is far too loose; many questions cannot be appropriately and promptly settled. For example, the execution of many major policies and the adjustment of frictions at lower levels drag on for lack of a fixed organization; such a method is unfavourable to long-term co-operation. Yet if the first and second forms are not adopted, this one must for the time being be kept.

In a word, in long-term co-operation during a long war the question of organizational form is also an important one. We strongly favour a unified form, as favourable to long-term co-operation.

6. The policy of mutual aid and mutual concession in long-term co-operation

A long war needs a long united front — already said, and the starting-point of all policies. Therefore Communists, in their work and in their relations with the friendly parties, must at all times and places have regard to this long-term character. Whatever favours long-term co-operation should be done resolutely and boldly; whatever harms it must never be done.

Here arises the question of mutual aid and mutual concession among the parties. Speaking of mutual aid: every party must develop and consolidate, and each, besides developing and consolidating itself, should adopt a supportive attitude toward the development and consolidation of the others. What attitude should Communists take toward the development and consolidation of the Kuomintang? In a word, support. The reason is that the Kuomintang's development and consolidation benefit the war of resistance, benefit the whole nation, and thereby benefit the labouring people and the Communist Party — I have already explained this above. The Kuomintang is now organizing the Three People's Principles Youth Corps; what attitude should Communists take? Without question, support. We hope the Corps will develop broadly, and if it proceeds according to Mr. Chiang Kai-shek's declaration about it, its development has a bright future. It is precisely in the spirit of support that we hope certain provisions of its present methods will be revised; otherwise a good motive may fail to obtain good results. The Three People's Principles Youth Corps should become the unified organization of the broad masses of young people of the whole country for united national salvation, absorbing young people of all parties, groups and circles, individually and in groups, so as to become a great body in which the whole younger generation collectively receives the education and training of the national revolution. Hence its organization should be democratized, and politically it should foster the self-conscious initiative of its members and the enthusiasm of the young masses. Such is our attitude and our opinion regarding the Three People's Principles Youth Corps.

Mutual aid is not mutual injury. To harm others to benefit oneself is wrong in personal morality and still more wrong in the morality of the nation. Therefore unjustified friction, and even seizure of persons and killing, must on no account be tolerated; Communists must never treat the friendly parties in such fashion. But if the friendly parties treat us so, we can by no means remain indifferent. Every unjustified act must be met with a firm and serious attitude — that is the right way of treating oneself and others. Mutual correction of faults is a virtue among friends, and a style that should be encouraged among parties.

What mutual concession is there in the united front? There is some. We have made certain political concessions: stopping the confiscation of land, reorganizing the Red Army, changing the Soviet system in the special regions. These were political concessions, necessary steps for building the united front and uniting the whole people against the common enemy. Our friendly party has also made concessions: recognizing the legal status of the Communist Party, and so on. Such a policy of mutual concession, for the sake of united resistance and long-term co-operation, is very good and very correct. Only the politically muddled, or those with other designs, would say that the Communist Party has capitulated to the Kuomintang, or the Kuomintang to the Communist Party.

Now we further propose that all the parties of the united front should refrain from recruiting members, organizing branches or carrying on secret activities inside one another's organizations. We hold such a policy necessary. Of course things differ from the past: in the period of civil war, besides open war, the two parties used secret methods against each other, engaging in activities to disrupt each other. Since co-operation began, there should of course be neither the motive nor the practice of mutual disruption; but the practice of secretly recruiting members and organizing branches inside each other's organizations should also cease, so that each may be at ease — only thus can the aim of long-term co-operation in a long war be served. We now formally declare to the comrades of the Kuomintang: we cease all activity of recruiting members and organizing branches inside your organization, and we shall do so whatever common organizational form the united front adopts. At the same time we hope you will do likewise. Once the two sides have so agreed, if any lower-level member violates it, the higher organ of the violating side should be responsible for dealing with the matter.

Further, in their contacts the comrades of the two sides should adopt an attitude of modesty, respect and consultation, not an attitude of arrogance, contempt and arbitrariness, so as to improve their mutual relations — this too is necessary.

In everything we have said, the Communists should be the first to practise it. Even if some persons on the other side do not as yet treat us with the same policy, the same methods and the same attitude, we shall still act thus; and acting thus long enough, even those on the other side who are not yet clear will become clear.

In every cause that serves the country and the people, the Communist should hold firmly to his own standpoint and advance without change toward the defeat of the Japanese invaders and the building of the new China; whoever departs from this standpoint and this direction forfeits the qualification of a Communist. But the Communist must also have the spirit of mutual aid and mutual concession, must respect the friendly parties and settle questions with the comrades of the friendly parties in a modest and consultative spirit. Wherever there are comrades of the friendly parties, matters of common concern should be settled in consultation with them, not arbitrarily. Without such a spirit the united front cannot be consolidated, and the aims of the cause of the nation and the people — defeating the Japanese invaders and building the new China — cannot be attained. Therefore the necessary policy of mutual concession must never be interpreted as passivity. Mutual aid is active, and mutual concession is active too, for the necessary concession is an indispensable condition for consolidating the co-operation of the two parties and achieving better unity and greater progress.

7. The question of the democratic republic

Although our Party issued a resolution on the establishment of a democratic republic as early as September 1936, and although comrades of the Central Committee have explained the question many times, there is still much misunderstanding of our position outside. This is a question concerning the future of the war of resistance. What will be the outcome of the war? What the Communists mean by resisting Japan and building the nation — what state is to be built? The question exists, and to explain it once more will strengthen the confidence of the parties in long-term co-operation.

What state is to be built? The answer in one sentence: a republic of the Three People's Principles.

By a democratic republic we mean a republic of the Three People's Principles, its character being that of the Three People's Principles. In Dr. Sun Yat-sen's words, it is a state “seeking equality of international status, equality of political status, and equality of economic status.” First, it is a state of nationalism. It is an independent state, subject to no foreign interference, and itself interfering with no foreign country. That is to say, China's original semi-colonial status is changed and she becomes independent; but however strong she may become, she will never turn herself into an imperialism, but will live in peace and mutual benefit with all friendly countries that respect China's independence, on a footing of equality. To the various nationalities within the country it grants equal rights, uniting with them of their own free will to build a unified government. Second, it is a state of democracy. All the people of the country are equal in political status; officials at all levels are chosen by popular election; the political system is democratic centralism; a national assembly of people's delegates and local assemblies are established; and all citizens of eighteen years and over, except criminals, without distinction of class, sex, nationality, belief or education, have the right to vote and stand for election. The state grants the people freedom of speech, publication, assembly, association, belief, residence and movement, and protects them politically and materially. Third, it is a state of the Principle of Livelihood. It does not deny private ownership of property; but it must ensure that workers have work and that conditions of labour are improved; that peasants have land, with vexatious taxes, heavy rents and usurious interest abolished; that students have schools, with schooling guaranteed for the poor; and that people of all walks of life have work to do and can give full play to their talents. In a word, everyone is to have clothes to wear, food to eat, schooling and work. Such is the state we call a democratic republic — a truly Three People's Principles republic of China. It is not a Soviet, and it is not socialism.

For China to become such a state, with whom must she struggle? With Japanese imperialism. Japanese imperialism has stripped us of our independence — we demand independence of him. Japanese imperialism treats us as slaves — we demand freedom of him. Japanese imperialism has plunged us into hunger and cold — we demand food of him. How demand it? With the muzzle of a gun. In a word, drive out Japanese imperialism, and there will be an independent, free and happy new China of the Three People's Principles.

VI. China's War of Resistance Against Aggression and the World Anti-Fascist Movement

1. China and the world are inseparable

China is already closely bound into one body with the world; the Sino-Japanese war is a part of the world war, and the victory of China's war of resistance cannot be isolated from the world. The new situation of the war may for a time reduce part of the foreign aid to us and add to the significance of China's self-reliance; at all times China should take self-reliance as her fundamental standpoint. But China is not isolated and cannot be isolated; the fact of China's close ties with the world is likewise our standpoint, and must become our standpoint. We are not, and cannot be, advocates of a closed door: China long ago ceased to be able to shut her gates, and now a world-wide imperialism has burst into the whole country by war. All the Chinese people are concerned with the relation between the world and China, and above all with the present changes in the European situation. Hence an analysis of the present international situation is of significance.

2. The Second World War for the repartition of the world has already begun

The nature of capitalist imperialism is contradictory not only to its own people, to the colonies and semi-colonies, and to the socialist country, but also to the other imperialist countries among themselves. The sharpest historical expression of this last contradiction was the world war of twenty years ago. As a result of that war between two groups of imperialist powers, a new international situation came into being. And the new political and economic development of the postwar world has brought the world once more to the threshold of a great war. Since the Japanese invaders seized the four north-eastern provinces in the East and Hitler came to power in the West, the new war for the repartition of the world has already begun. “Fascism is war” — not a word too much. In this situation, on the one hand Japan, Germany and Italy have formed an aggressive front and are practising aggression on a great scale; on the other, the democratic countries, to preserve their acquired interests, are preparing for war in the name of peace, but to this day are unwilling to use force to sanction the aggressors — above all, Britain's policy of compromise has in fact been aiding the aggressors. Under such circumstances, China's four north-eastern provinces were the first to be sacrificed; then Abyssinia perished at Italy's hands; Spain fed the arrogance of the rebel armies; China suffered the invaders' new large-scale assault; and most recently Austria and Czechoslovakia were sacrificed one after another to Hitler. Six hundred million people of the world have already entered the war, spreading over Asia, Africa and Europe — such is the present state of the new world war.

3. The features of the present world war

Because on the one hand the fascist countries Japan, Germany and Italy have a determined will to aggression, and on the other the democratic countries are unwilling to use force to sanction them — above all, Britain's policy of compromise — the present state of the new world war shows features distinguishing it from the First World War: the aggression of the intermediate countries first of all, and the adoption of various forms of war. China, Abyssinia, Spain, Austria, Czechoslovakia and the like are all semi-independent countries or small countries, and Japan, Germany and Italy have picked these morsels of fat to swallow first. In aggressing against these intermediate countries the aggressors have adopted three special forms of war. The first is the war of Japan against China and of Italy against Abyssinia — open, direct, large-scale war, but conducted under the form of war without declaration, opening a new era in the history of war. The purpose of this undeclared-war policy is that the aggressors, exploiting the unwillingness of the democratic countries to impose sanctions — above all Britain's compromising policy — may for a time avoid direct clash with them and ease their campaign of seizing the intermediate countries first. The second is the form adopted by Italy and Germany in their aggression against Spain: aiding the rebel armies — a repetition of an old device of history, for such devices have existed before. The third is Hitler's form of aggression against Austria and Czechoslovakia: no surface of war (no shots fired) but the substance of war — the dispatch of powerful forces to occupy the whole of Austria and part of Czechoslovakia, with the rest of Czechoslovakia brought under his control — the cleverest method of destroying a country without fighting. These three forms of war were adopted because, on the one hand, the strength of the aggressor countries is not yet sufficient, and for the time being it is not convenient for them to fight the great powers directly, so they adopt clever methods of war in an attempt to build themselves up first — which is at the same time to weaken the great powers — before fighting them; and on the other hand it is the result of the unwillingness of the democratic countries to sanction the aggressors, above all of Britain's cowardly and compromising policy, which has in fact aided the aggressors and eased their aggression against the intermediate countries.

4. Britain's policy of compromise will lead the fascist countries to wage war on a still greater scale

The British Conservative cabinet headed by Chamberlain is step by step carrying out its so-called policy of co-operation among the four great powers; after the Munich agreement the political situation of Europe may for a time suffer a reversal. The policy of the greater part of the British Conservative Party has always been based on the exclusion of the Soviet Union and compromise with Germany and Italy. Fearing the growth of Soviet strength, fearing to be drawn into war too early, and fearing the popular movement at home and the movement for independence in the colonies, they long ago resolved to sacrifice Spain, Austria, Czechoslovakia and the rest, to accomplish their design of excluding the Soviet Union and compromising with Germany and Italy. In the past, owing to disunity within the Conservative Party, the active policy of the French People's Front, and the censure of opinion at home and abroad, they did not succeed. Now, exploiting the unwillingness of the British and the peoples of Europe as a whole for war, exploiting the swing to the right of the French Flandin party, and under Hitler's menaces, they concluded the Munich agreement. This agreement is the fruit of Britain's policy of compromise; unless Britain changes her policy, she will lead the fascist countries into adventures of war on a still greater scale. For the time being war among the great powers may perhaps not break out, and the process of confining aggression to the intermediate countries may still continue; but in the end the great powers are certain to be dragged into a war of unprecedented cruelty — of that future there is no doubt. “To lift a rock only to drop it on one's own feet” — such is the inevitable outcome of Chamberlain's policy.

5. The majority of mankind the world over is gradually being mobilized

In the capitalist countries, with the general economic crisis, capitalism has reached a state with no way out; a war involving six hundred million people has shaken the whole world, and a new and greater war menaces all mankind. In the socialist country, everything is bright, progressive and strong. Under the contrast of these two opposites, the great majority of mankind the world over is gradually finding the direction of self-defence and self-liberation, is uniting itself and preparing for struggle with unprecedented breadth and unprecedented depth. The First World War, the growth in strength of the socialist country over twenty years, the decline of the capitalist countries, the wars of aggression of the fascist countries over the past six or seven years, China's great war of resistance, the people's war in Spain, Chamberlain's policy of compromise and so forth — all these are gradually educating the peoples of Britain, France and the whole world, teaching them that organization and struggle alone are the way out; that only by uniting all mankind's own seekers of liberation into one body, and only through a united front of the world's people and the oppressed nations, is there a way out. This great world process of the people's awakening, organization, struggle and united front is advancing, but only through broad and hard effort can it be completed. The fascist war menace and Chamberlain's policy of compromise will in the end meet great resistance — of that future too there is no doubt, and it is likewise the inevitable outcome of the fascist war and of Chamberlain's policy.

6. The co-ordination of China's war of resistance against aggression with the world anti-fascist movement

As for the past, everyone understands that the democratic countries have in some degree all aided China — chiefly through the sympathy of their peoples, while the Soviet Union's aid has been the more positive. Now, with the deepening of the Japanese offensive, the contradictions of Britain, America, France and the Soviet Union with Japan have been further sharpened. Though Britain's compromising policy in the West may be carried over to the East — hoping to preserve some of her commerce in the Japanese-occupied areas and dreaming of lessening the Japanese threat to the South Seas, Britain may reach a certain degree of compromise with Japan — yet fundamental compromise is difficult, difficult at least for the present, as a result of Japan's policy of monopoly; the Eastern question and the Western question differ to a certain degree in their present concrete circumstances. Japan's deepening offensive has further sharpened the contradictions between Japan and the United States; the friendship of the Soviet Union with China is growing, and there is a possibility of further closeness among China, America and the Soviet Union. But first we must not forget the distinction between the capitalist countries and the socialist country; second, we must not forget the distinction between the governments of the capitalist countries and the peoples of the capitalist countries; and third — still less must we forget — the distinction between the present and the future; toward the former we should not place excessive hopes. To strive with effort for every possible form of aid from the former is to a certain degree not only possible but fact; but excessive hopes are unfitting. The co-ordination of China's national liberation movement with foreign aid lies chiefly in its future co-ordination with the anti-fascist movement of the advanced countries and of the broad masses of the people of the whole world. The policy of relying mainly on our own strength while at the same time not relaxing the struggle for foreign aid should be based on this standpoint.

VII. The Position of the Chinese Communist Party in the National War

1. The character of the question

Comrades! We have a bright future: China must defeat Japanese imperialism, and can defeat him. But between the present and that bright future lies a stretch of hard road. We, who struggle for a bright China, and the whole nation with us, must fight the dark force of the Japanese invaders step by step, and he can be defeated only through a long war. In this war, what position do the Communists occupy? What must they do to fulfil their utmost duty? The experience of the war since it began we have summed up; the present situation we have estimated; the urgent tasks of the whole nation we have put forward; the theory and method of sustaining a long war through long-term co-operation we have explained; the international situation we have analysed. What, then, remains? Comrades! One thing remains: the question of the position of the Chinese Communist Party in the national war — the question of how Communists should know themselves, strengthen themselves and unite themselves, so as to discharge their greatest responsibility in the national war.

2. Patriotism and internationalism

Can the Communist, who is an internationalist, at the same time be a patriot? He can; he should be; it depends on the historical conditions. There is a patriotism of the Japanese invaders and of Hitler, and there is our patriotism. Toward the Japanese invaders and Hitler the Communists resolutely reject so-called patriotism: the Japanese and German Communist parties are defeatists toward their rulers' war, using every means to make the wars of the Japanese invaders and of Hitler fail — the more thoroughly the failure, the better. That is what the Japanese and German Communists should do, and are doing. The reason is that the wars of the Japanese invaders and of Hitler injure the people of the whole world and their own peoples as well. For us, patriotism and internationalism are closely combined: our slogan is to fight in defence of the fatherland against the invader. For us, defeatism is a crime; to aid the Generalissimo and the National Government with all our strength is a bounden duty, admitting no trace of passivity. The reason is that only by fighting in defence of the fatherland can the whole nation be delivered from its peril; only through the liberation of the whole nation can there be the liberation of the proletariat and the labouring people; patriotism is internationalism applied in the national revolutionary war. For this reason every Communist must bring out all his enthusiasm, march resolutely and heroically to the battlefield of the national revolutionary war, and aim every gun at the Japanese invaders, admitting no passivity of any kind. The friendly parties and armies must be aided with all our strength, admitting no thought of standing by to watch the outcome. For this reason, from the September 18th Incident onward our Party put forward the slogan of resisting the Japanese invaders by a national war of self-defence; later it put forward and upheld the national anti-Japanese united front, ordered the Red Army reorganized into the anti-Japanese National Revolutionary Army and sent to the front, and ordered its members to stand at the very forefront of the war of resistance, to shed the last drop of their blood in defence of the fatherland. All these acts, all this patriotism, are right, proper, necessary — they are precisely internationalism applied in China, without the slightest violation of internationalism. Only the politically muddled, or those with other designs, will shut their eyes and talk nonsense about our practice being wrong, about our having abandoned internationalism.

3. The exemplary role of Communists in the national war

On the grounds stated above, Communists should display the highest enthusiasm in the national war, and this enthusiasm should be concretely displayed in every field — they should play the vanguard's and the model's role in every field. Our war is being waged in difficult circumstances. These difficulties arise because the vast living forces of our nation have as yet only begun to be aroused: the national consciousness, self-respect and self-confidence of most of the people are insufficient; most of the people are unorganized; the army's strength is not yet firm; the economy is backward; politics is not yet democratized; corrupt practices and pessimism exist; and the unity of the united front is not yet sufficiently consolidated — these are the main causes of the difficult circumstances. For this reason the Communists cannot but consciously shoulder the great responsibility of uniting the whole people and raising the backward. Here the vanguard and exemplary role of the Communists is of the utmost importance. In the Eighth Route Army and the New Fourth Army they should be models of heroic fighting, of carrying out orders, of discipline, of political work and of internal unity. In their relations with the friendly parties and armies, Communists should hold firmly to the standpoint of unity, uphold the programme of the united front, and be models in carrying out the tasks of resistance. Their word should be as good as their bond and their action decisive; there should be no arrogance; they should discuss questions with the friendly parties and armies in all sincerity and work in co-operation with them, setting the model of mutual relations among the parties of the united front. In government work Communists should be models of complete integrity, of employing no personal connections, of doing more work and taking less pay. In the mass movements Communists should be the friends of the masses and not their overlords, indefatigable teachers and not bureaucratic politicians. At no time and in no place should a Communist put personal interest first; personal interest must be subordinated to the interest of the nation and of the masses. Hence selfishness, passivity and slackness, corruption, the seeking of the limelight and the like are most contemptible; while selflessness, active effort, devotion to public duty with private interests forgotten, quiet hard work and the like are the model spirit worthy of respect. Communists should work in concert with all advanced elements outside the Party in striving to unite the whole people and raise the backward. It must be understood that Communists are only a small part of the whole nation; outside the Party there exist broad masses of advanced and active elements, and we must work in concert with them. The idea that “only we are good and all others are no good” is entirely wrong. Toward the backward, the Communist's attitude should not be contempt, not looking down on them, but respect, closeness, unity, persuasion, and encouragement to advance. Toward those who have made mistakes in their work, except the incurable, the Communist's attitude should be not exclusion but admonition, so that they turn about and improve, discarding the old for the new. The Communist should be a model of seeking truth from facts and a model of far-sightedness. For only by seeking truth from facts can definite tasks be completed, and only with far-sightedness can the direction of advance never be lost. Hence Communists should also be models of study: every day teachers of the people, but every day also students of the people. Only by learning from the masses, from the circumstances, from the friendly parties and armies, and understanding them, can one seek truth from facts in one's work and have far-sightedness for the future. In a long war and hard circumstances, only when the Communists, together with the friendly parties and armies and with all the advanced elements among the masses of the people, display to the highest degree their vanguard and exemplary role, can all the living forces of the whole nation be mobilized, the backward raised, the difficulties overcome, and the struggle waged to defeat the enemy and create the new China.

4. Uniting the whole nation and opposing the agents within the national front

The central task for overcoming difficulties and defeating the enemy is to unite the whole nation, to consolidate and expand the united front, and to arouse all the living forces of every stratum of the nation — this is the one and only policy. But at the same time, within the national united front there already exist, and will continue to sneak in, agents of disruption — hidden traitors, Trotskyites and pro-Japanese elements presenting an anti-Japanese face on the surface. Communists should be on guard against such agents at all times, and on the basis of real evidence, according to concrete circumstances, expose their crimes, while warning the friendly parties and armies and the masses of the people not to be taken in by them. To raise political vigilance against the traitors to the nation is a heavy responsibility of the Communists. To expose and eliminate the agents is inseparable from expanding and consolidating the national united front.

5. Expanding the Communist Party and preventing the infiltration of agents

To overcome difficulties and defeat the enemy, the Communist Party must expand its organization, open its doors to the broad masses of workers, peasants and young active elements who are sincere in revolution, believe in the Party's doctrines, uphold its policies, and are willing to obey discipline and work hard, so that the Party becomes a great party with a mass character. Here the tendency of closed-doorism cannot be tolerated. But at the same time vigilance against the infiltration of agents must never for a moment be relaxed. The secret agencies of Japanese imperialism are constantly seeking to disrupt our Party, constantly trying to make use of hidden traitors, Trotskyites, pro-Japanese elements, corrupt elements and careerists, disguised in an appearance of activity, to infiltrate our Party. Vigilance against such elements and strict precaution against them must not for a moment be relaxed. The Party must not be shut behind closed doors for fear of agents: bold development of the Party is our fixed policy. But at the same time, bold development must not lead to neglect of vigilance against agents and careerists slipping in on the chance. “Bold development, yet not letting in a single bad element” — such is our general policy in expanding the Party.

6. Upholding the united front and upholding the independence of the Party

If China had only one class and one party, there would be no need of any united front. A united front presupposes the existence of two or more classes and parties. To persevere in the national anti-Japanese united front is the only way to defeat the enemy, and the perseverance must be long-term — this is the fixed policy. But at the same time the independence of every party in the united front — in ideology, in politics and in organization — must be preserved, whether it be the Kuomintang, the Communist Party or any other party: all alike. What is the Principle of Democracy in the Three People's Principles? On the question of parties, it means permitting union and unity while at the same time permitting independent coexistence. To deny independence and talk only of unity is an idea that abandons the Principle of Democracy — our Communist Party cannot approve it, nor can any party. Without question, within the united front independence must not override unity but be subordinated to it; independence within the united front is only, and can only be, a relative thing. Not so — and one is not upholding the united front, but wrecking the general policy of unity against the enemy. But at the same time this relative independence must on no account be wiped out; whether in ideology, in politics or in organization, every party must have its relative freedom. If this relative independence or freedom were wiped out by others or abandoned by the parties themselves, it would likewise wreck unity against the enemy and wreck the united front. This every Communist should understand, and so should every member of the friendly parties.

The relation between class struggle and national struggle is the same. In the war of resistance, the subordination of everything to the interest of resistance to Japan is the general principle; class struggle must be subordinated to the interests and demands of the national struggle and must never run counter to them. But at the same time, so long as classes exist, class struggle cannot be, and cannot be made to be, eliminated; the theory that fundamentally denies the existence of class struggle is a distorted theory. We do not deny it — we regulate it. The policy of mutual aid and mutual concession we advocate applies not only to relations among parties but, fundamentally, to relations among classes. For the sake of united resistance to Japan, a policy of properly regulating the mutual relations of the classes should be carried out: the toiling masses must not be left without any political or livelihood guarantees, while at the same time regard must be had for the interests of the well-to-do — thus fitting the general demand of unity against the enemy.

7. Having regard for the whole, for the majority, and working together with the allies

When Communists lead the masses, take part in the united front, and struggle against the enemy, the spirit of having regard for the whole, for the majority, and of working together with the allies must not be neglected. Communists should understand the necessity of subordinating the need of the part to the need of the whole. When a thing seems feasible from the standpoint of the part but not from that of the whole, the part should be subordinated to the whole; and conversely, when a thing seems infeasible from the standpoint of the part but feasible from that of the whole, the part should likewise be subordinated to the whole. That is the viewpoint of having regard for the whole. A Communist must never detach himself from the majority of the masses: to disregard the condition of the majority and lead a small advanced detachment forward alone is bound to fail. To keep close at all times the contact between the advanced elements and the broad masses — that is the viewpoint of having regard for the majority. Wherever there are allies, in everything one should act in concert with them; to act arbitrarily and set the allies at naught is wrong. All these are points in the art of leadership and the spirit of work of the Communist that must not be neglected. A good Communist is one skilled in having regard for the whole, skilled in having regard for the majority, and skilled in working together with the allies; whoever violates these is not a good Party member.

8. The policy toward cadres

The Chinese Communist Party is a party leading a great revolutionary struggle in a great nation of several hundred million people; without a large number of leading cadres possessed of both ability and virtue, its historical tasks cannot be accomplished. In seventeen years our Party has trained many leading personnel: in military affairs, politics, culture, Party affairs, the mass movement, we have our backbone elements — the glory of the Party and the glory of the whole nation. But at the same time the existing backbone is not enough to bear the edifice of the struggle; talent must still be trained in breadth. In the great national revolutionary struggle countless men of genius and leaders have already emerged and are still emerging. Our task is to organize them, train them, cherish them, and use them well. “Once the political line is laid down, the cadres are the decisive factor” — we must not forget this truth. Here it is necessary to rely on the foundation of the existing cadres but never to be complacent about that foundation. Therefore to persevere in systematically training large numbers of new cadres is our militant task.

Not only must we be concerned with the Party's cadres; we must be concerned with non-Party cadres too. Outside the Party there is much talent, and the Communist Party cannot leave it out of account. To cast off the airs of aloofness and superiority, to be good at working with non-Party cadres, sincerely to unite with them while giving them well-meaning help, to treat them with warm comradeship, and to organize their enthusiasm and talent into the great cause of resistance and national reconstruction — that is the duty of every Communist. The attitude of fencing oneself in and having no eyes for others is wrong.

We must be good at knowing cadres. In judging a cadre's merits and demerits we must look not only at his performance but at his essence, not only at a single act of a single moment but at his whole history and his whole work — that is the correct method of judging cadres. Carelessness and wilfulness settle nothing here.

We must be good at using cadres. A leader's duty and work, in the last analysis, come to two things: to give ideas and to use cadres. All plans, resolutions, orders, directives, pronouncements, writings, speeches and the like belong to the category of “giving ideas.” To put all these “ideas” into practice requires uniting the cadres and pushing them to act — that belongs to the category of “using cadres.” These two things are what in the Chinese tradition is called “choosing men and administering affairs.” On this question of using cadres, our national history has known two opposite lines, the one upright and the other crooked: the one is “appointing men on their merit,” the other “appointing men on their kinship.” The former was the policy of the enlightened ruler and his worthy ministers; the latter, that of the benighted ruler and his treacherous ministers. We who today discuss the use of cadres do so from the revolutionary standpoint, fundamentally different from antiquity, yet the standard of “appointing men on their merit” remains. To reward flatterers and punish upright men, to love and hate by one's own moods — bad in the old days, equally bad with us. The cadre policy of Lenin and Stalin takes as its standard firm adherence to the Party's line, obedience to Party discipline, close ties with the masses, ability to work independently, earnest diligence, freedom from self-seeking — and nothing else. The cadre policy of Zhang Guotao in the past was precisely the opposite. With Zhang Guotao it was precisely flatterers who were rewarded and upright men punished; he gathered a private faction with other designs, and his sectarian activity of a small group has a long history. Yet it was precisely this cadre policy centred on the individual instead of on the political principles of the Party that led to the opposite of his aim: all the cadres fell away from him, and in the end Zhang Guotao alone was left, a solitary man, to betray the Party and depart — a great lesson. The backwardness of the politics and economy of a semi-colonial, semi-feudal society, reflected within the Party, is the source of such bad tendencies as liberalism, individual showmanship and sectarian activity. To reckon with the existence of this source, to uphold the organizational line and cadre policy of Lenin and Stalin, to oppose the bad tendencies that are crooked and unfair, and to consolidate the unity of the Party on the correct line — that is the duty of the Central Committee and of the comrades of the whole Party.

We must be good at cherishing cadres. The cadres created in the Party's training and arduous struggle are the treasure of the nation and the honour of the whole Party, to be respected and cherished by all comrades; and the leading organs at all levels bear the responsibility of achieving this by practical measures. What measures? First, guide them: that is, let them work freely, make them dare to take responsibility and not fear mistakes, while giving them in due time and appropriately direction on the circumstances of their work, its policy and its methods, so that they may display their creativeness under the Party's political line. Second, raise them: that is, give them opportunities to study theory and method, educate them, so that in ideology and in ability to lead they advance a step beyond the past. Third, check their work: not daily but in due time, helping them to sum up experience, correct defects and extend achievements. This is necessary; to delegate without checking, and to pay attention only after grave errors have been committed, is not the way to cherish cadres. Fourth, remould them: that is, toward cadres with defects, who have made errors or hold incorrect ideas, use chiefly the method of persuasion and, when unavoidable, the method of struggle, to bring them to change. Patience is necessary here. To slap the big labels of “opportunism” or “petty-bourgeois mentality” on people lightly and improperly, or lightly and improperly to “launch struggles” — where the error is no great breach of principle and the person has not proved incorrigible — is wrong. Fifth, attend to their difficulties: in questions of illness, livelihood and family, the Party's leading organs should give warm, solicitous, comradely care; to treat them with indifference and cold neglect is wrong. Illness must be treated and nursed; livelihood must be made to fit the needs of work; and family questions too should, within the bounds of the possible, be helped to a solution. All such care, within the limits that material means and circumstances permit, has an important bearing on inspiring the cadres' spirit of work and uniting the whole Party into one body.

9. Party discipline

Seventeen years of struggle, especially since the Fifth Plenum, have proved the necessity of continuing to maintain iron discipline within the Party, within the Eighth Route Army and within the New Fourth Army. Discipline is the guarantee of carrying out the line; without discipline, the Party cannot lead the masses and the armies in struggle to victory. In the past, it was by overcoming the discipline-destroying tendency of Zhang Guotao's kind that the smooth execution of the national anti-Japanese united front and the war of resistance was guaranteed. In the future, this discipline must be maintained so that the whole Party may be united, new difficulties overcome, and new victories won. Here a few basic principles admit no neglect: (1) the individual is subordinate to the organization; (2) the minority is subordinate to the majority; (3) the lower level is subordinate to the higher level; (4) the entire Party is subordinate to the Central Committee. These are the concrete applications of democratic centralism in the Party; whoever violates them destroys democratic centralism and inflicts the gravest injury on the Party's unity and on its revolutionary struggle. For this reason the leading organs of the Party at all levels should, on the basis of these basic principles, give the whole Party and especially the new members the necessary education in discipline. Past experience proves that some who violated discipline did so because they did not know what Party discipline is; and some who violated it knowingly — Zhang Guotao's kind — exploited the ignorance of part of the membership to work their mischief. Hence education in discipline is necessary not only for forming in the membership generally the good habit of obeying discipline; it is necessary also for supervising the Party's leaders so that they too obey discipline. Party discipline is mandatory; but at the same time it must rest on the self-consciousness of the members and cadres, and is by no means one-sided commandism. For this reason the leading organs from the Centre down to the localities should draw up Party regulations and treat them as part of the Party's law and discipline; once drawn up, they must be carried out to the letter, so as to unify the actions of the leading organs at all levels and set the model for the whole Party.

10. Party democracy

The Chinese Communist Party, facing a great struggle, demands of the Party's leading organs, of all its members and cadres the display of the highest enthusiasm; only so can the struggle be led to victory. By displaying enthusiasm I do not mean an empty phrase: it must find concentrated expression in the creativeness of the leading organs, the cadres and the members; in their sense of responsibility; in the liveliness of their work; in their daring and skill in raising questions, expressing opinions and criticizing defects; and in their supervisory scrutiny of the leading organs and leading cadres, exercised from a standpoint of solicitous care. Without these, talk of enthusiasm is empty. And the display of such enthusiasm depends on the democratization of the Party's internal life: without democratic life, or where it is deficient, the aim of displaying enthusiasm cannot be attained. The creation of large numbers of capable personnel is likewise possible only in a democratic life.

Because our country has as yet no democratic life, its reflection within the Party has produced a deficiency of democratic life, which in fact hinders the full display of the enthusiasm of the whole Party. At the same time it affects the insufficiency of democratization in the united front and in the mass movements. For this reason democratic education must be carried on within the Party, so that members understand what democratic life means, the connection between democracy and centralism, and how democratic centralism is to be practised. Only so can it be brought about that, on the one hand, democratic life within the Party is genuinely expanded, and, on the other, we do not slide into ultra-democracy and laissez-faire.

The Party in the army also needs the increase of necessary democratic life, so as further to raise the enthusiasm of the members and strengthen the army's fighting power. But at the same time democracy in the army Party should be less than in the local Party: it should serve to strengthen army discipline and raise fighting power, not to weaken them. And in the local Party too, democracy should serve to strengthen Party discipline and the Party's fighting power, not the contrary.

The expansion of inner-Party democracy is a necessary step for consolidating and developing the Party; it is a useful and important weapon for making the Party lively and vigorous in the great struggle, equal to its tasks with ease, growing new strength, and breaking through the difficult pass of the war.

11. Our Party has grown strong and consolidated through the struggle on two fronts

In the past seventeen years our Party, in the main, has learned to wield this Marxist weapon — the method of struggle on two fronts, in ideology, in politics and in work: opposing Right opportunism on the one hand and “Left” opportunism on the other.

Before the Fifth Plenum, our Party opposed Chen Duxiu's Right opportunism and Li Lisan's “Left” opportunism. The victories of these two inner-Party struggles won the Party great progress. After the Fifth Plenum there were two more inner-Party struggles of historic significance: the Zunyi Conference and the expulsion of Zhang Guotao.

The Zunyi Conference corrected the grave errors of principle, of a “Left”-opportunist character, committed in the struggle against the fifth “encirclement and suppression” campaign, united the Party and the Red Army, enabled the Central Committee and the main forces of the Red Army to complete the Long March victoriously, transferred to the forward positions of resistance to Japan, and carried out the new policy of the national anti-Japanese united front. The Brazilian Meeting and the Yan'an Meeting (the struggle against Zhang Guotao's line of error began at Basig and was completed at Yan'an) opposed Zhang Guotao's Right opportunism, brought all the Red Army forces together, united the Party still more closely, and launched the heroic struggle against Japan. Both these opportunist errors arose in the civil war, and their feature is that they were errors of war.

Wherein lie the lessons of these two inner-Party struggles? In the following. (1) The grave errors of principle, shown in the struggle against the fifth “encirclement and suppression,” arose from failure to understand the special features of China's revolutionary war; they contained the “Left” impetuous tendency that disregards subjective and objective conditions, a tendency extremely harmful to the revolutionary war and harmful likewise to any revolutionary movement. It should be pointed out that this error of the time was not an error of the Party's general line, but grave errors of principle in the strategy and methods of war committed in carrying out the then general line. (2) Zhang Guotao's opportunism was Right opportunism within the revolutionary war, its content being a compound of his line of retreat, his warlordism and his anti-Party conduct. Only by overcoming it could the Fourth Front Army of the Red Army — excellent in essence and long heroic in struggle — above all its broad cadres and members, be liberated from Zhang Guotao's opportunist domination and brought under the correct line of the Centre. (3) The great organizational work of the period of the Central Soviet Area — in army building, government work, mass work and Party building alike — had great achievements to its credit; without such organizational work combined with the heroic fighting at the front, it would have been impossible to sustain the cruel struggle of those days. But in the Party's cadre policy and organizational principles of that time grave errors of principle were committed, shown in sectarian tendencies, penalism and excesses in ideological struggle. These were the result of the insufficient liquidation of the remnants of the old Li Lisan line, and also the result of the then political errors of principle. These errors too were corrected by the Zunyi Conference, and the Party turned to a generally correct cadre policy and organizational principles. As for Zhang Guotao's organizational line, it departed entirely from every principle of the Party, destroyed Party discipline, and developed from sectarian activity into anti-Party, anti-Central and anti-Comintern conduct. The Central Committee did everything possible to overcome Zhang Guotao's criminal line of error and anti-Party conduct, and tried to save Zhang Guotao himself; but when he not only persisted unrepentant and adopted double-faced conduct but finally betrayed the Party, his expulsion from its ranks became unavoidable. This expulsion won not only the support of the whole Party but the support of all faithful to the cause of national liberation. The Communist International has approved the expulsion, pointing out that Zhang Guotao is a deserter and a traitor.

The lessons and successes recounted above give us the necessary premise for uniting the whole Party hereafter, for consolidating its unity in ideology, politics and organization, and for victoriously carrying out the war of resistance and the national anti-Japanese united front. Our Party has grown strong and consolidated through the struggle on two fronts.

12. The present struggle on two fronts

In the new situation of the war of resistance hereafter, the political opposition to Right pessimism will be of the first importance. But at the same time attention must still be paid to opposing “Left” impetuosity. On the questions of the united front, of the Party's organization and of the mass organizations, the “Left” closed-door tendency must continue to be opposed, so as to realize long-term co-operation, develop the Party and develop the mass movements. But at the same time attention must also be paid to the Right-opportunist tendency of unconditional co-operation and unconditional development; otherwise it too will hamper co-operation and hamper development, turning into co-operation of capitulationism and development without principle.

The struggle on two fronts must fit the actual circumstances of the concrete object; the question must never be viewed abstractly. A general indication and a concrete application are different things. The bad habit of “slapping labels on at random” is precisely the wrongness of applying this method abstractly.

In the struggle against erroneous tendencies, opposition to double-faced conduct deserves the gravest attention. For the greatest danger of double-faced conduct is that it may develop into small-group action — Zhang Guotao's history is the proof. Obedience in appearance and disobedience in fact; one thing with the lips and another in the heart; fair words to the face and mischief behind the back — such is the substance of double-faced conduct. To raise the attention of cadres and members to double-faced conduct is an important requirement for consolidating Party discipline.

13. Study

Generally speaking, all Communists with a fair capacity for study should study the theory of Marx, Engels, Lenin and Stalin, should study the history of our nation, and should study the situation and trend of the current movement; and through them, educate those members whose cultural level is lower. In particular, the cadres should concentrate on the study of these things, and the members of the Central Committee and the higher cadres above all should intensify their study. To guide a great revolutionary movement to victory without revolutionary theory, without historical knowledge, without understanding of the actual movement, is impossible.

The theory of Marx, Engels, Lenin and Stalin is a theory of universal application. We must not treat their theory as dogma but as a guide to action; we must not learn the alphabet of Marxism-Leninism, but learn their standpoint and method in observing and solving problems. Only this guide to action, only this standpoint and method, is revolutionary science, is the sole correct principle for leading us to know the object of revolution and to direct the revolutionary movement. The cultivation of Marxism in the Chinese Party has already made great progress compared with the past, but it cannot yet be called general and deep. In this respect we are somewhat inferior to a number of foreign brother parties. Yet our task is to lead a great nation of four hundred and fifty million people in a historical struggle without precedent. Hence the task of studying theory generally and deeply is for us a great problem crying for solution, solvable only by concentrated effort. Let us strive: from this enlarged Sixth Plenum onward, let there be a learning contest throughout the Party, to see who really learns something, who learns more, who learns better. Our work has been not badly done; but unless we study theory a step further, we cannot make our work better; and only by making our work better can we win. Therefore the study of theory is a condition of victory. From the standpoint of the chief responsibility for leadership, if in China there were a hundred or two hundred comrades who had mastered Marxism systematically, and not fragmentarily, practically and not emptily, that would be equal to defeating a Japanese imperialism. Comrades, we must learn Marxism.

To study our historical legacy and subject it to a critical summing-up by the Marxist method is another task of our study. The several thousand years of history of our great nation have their laws of development, their national characteristics, and many precious things. Of this we are still schoolchildren. Today's China is a development of historical China; we are Marxist historicists, and we must not cut ourselves off from history. From Confucius to Sun Yat-sen, we must sum it up; we must inherit this precious legacy. To inherit the legacy is in turn to become a method, and for guiding the present great movement it is an important help. Communists are internationalist Marxists, but Marxism can be realized only through a national form. There is no such thing as abstract Marxism, only concrete Marxism. By concrete Marxism I mean Marxism that takes a national form, that is, Marxism applied to the concrete struggle in the concrete circumstances of China, and not applied abstractly. For a Communist who is part of the great Chinese nation, bound flesh and blood to it, to talk of Marxism apart from China's peculiarities is only abstract, empty Marxism. Hence the sinification of Marxism — making every manifestation of it bear Chinese characteristics, that is, applying it according to China's peculiarities — has become a problem that must be understood and solved by the whole Party with all haste. Foreign-flavoured stereotyped writing must be stopped; empty and abstract tunes must be sung less; dogmatism must be laid to rest, and replaced by the fresh, lively Chinese style and manner which the common folk of China love to see and hear. To divorce the content of internationalism from its national form is the practice of those who do not understand internationalism in the least; we on the contrary must weld the two closely together. On this question, the serious shortcomings existing in our ranks should be conscientiously removed.

What are the features of the current movement? What are its laws, and how is it to be directed? These are questions of the most practical kind. To this day we have not yet understood the whole of Japanese imperialism, nor yet the whole of China. The movement is developing, and new things are still to come — new things arise without end. To study the movement as a whole and its development is a great subject to which we must open our eyes at every moment. Whoever refuses to make a serious and careful study of these things is merely a Spanish Don Quixote, plus a Chinese Ah Q, and not a Marxist. How to study? With the Marxist instrument — materialist dialectics. And from whom? Our teachers are many — the workers, the peasants, the petty bourgeoisie, the capitalists, the landlords, Japanese imperialism, and the whole world besides. They are all objects of our study, and at the same time all our teachers; we should learn something from each of them.

The enemy of learning is one's own satisfaction. To learn anything earnestly, one must begin by not being self-satisfied. Toward ourselves, “study without weariness”; toward others, “teach without weariness” — such should be our attitude.

14. From uniting the whole Party to uniting the whole nation

A great struggle needs great strength. To unite the whole nation and arouse all its living forces into this struggle is our fixed policy. And to attain that end, the internal unity of the Chinese Communist Party has a decisive role and is the most basic condition. After the Zunyi Conference and the overcoming of the Zhang Guotao error, our Party is now at its most united and most unified period since the Sixth National Congress. Within our Party today, on the political line, on the strategic policy, on the estimate of the situation and the tasks put forward, the Central Committee and the whole Party are of one opinion. This unity of political principle is the basic condition of solidarity. In the mutual relations of member and member, cadre and cadre, leader and leader — the so-called personal relations of ordinary usage — we have also learned many correct and appropriate methods, have created an atmosphere of harmonious co-operation under correct political principle, and have better mutual relations. Owing to the vastness of our territories, the complexity of conditions and the differences among the departments of work, different opinions are unavoidable and proper; the practice of inner-Party democracy is precisely to permit the raising and discussion of any different opinion. And it is precisely by democratic methods that the exchange of opinions is guaranteed and brought to a synthesis from which conclusions are drawn and a policy of whole-Party unanimity formed. Here too we have gradually learned the Marxist method of viewing problems objectively and in the round, free of subjective prejudice and petulance, refusing one-sidedness — and this again guarantees the Party's unity. We are scientific Marxists; self-complacent prejudice and the temperamental style are useless lumber. The Chinese Communist Party and its leading personnel, tempered through seventeen years, already have a seasoned style. All this can guarantee the unity of the Central Committee and the whole Party, can form in the whole nation a united and solid nucleus and centre of gravity, and push the war of resistance forward to victory. Comrades, let the whole Party unite, let the whole nation unite — victory will certainly be ours!

VIII. Convening the Party's Seventh National Congress

Now let me come to the last question: the convening of the Seventh Congress.

Comrades, ten years have passed since our Party held the Sixth National Congress in 1928, with no congress held since because of circumstances. In December last year the Political Bureau decided to prepare for convening the Seventh National Congress, but the preparatory work is not yet finished, and so it is still difficult to convene it this year. This enlarged plenary session should discuss the speeding up of this preparatory work, and decide to convene the congress before long. The political significance of this congress is great: it will sum up past experience, above all the experience of the nation-wide war of resistance and of the national anti-Japanese united front; discuss the political situation at home and abroad; discuss how further to unite the whole nation, the two parties and the other parties, and further to consolidate and expand the national anti-Japanese united front; discuss the policy, methods and plans for winning final victory in the long war and through long-term co-operation; discuss how to mobilize the working class and the labouring people of the whole country to take a still more active part in the war of resistance; and should discuss how, in the new circumstances, the Party can further unite itself, strengthen itself, consolidate its ties with the Kuomintang, the other parties and the whole people, so as to carry out smoothly the general policy of the national anti-Japanese united front. Besides these political and organizational questions, the Seventh Congress should elect a new Central Committee, bringing into it the many leading comrades of the greatest prestige in the whole Party, to strengthen the leadership of the Party's work as a whole. Comrades, so great is the significance of this congress that, after this enlarged Sixth Plenum closes and you comrades return to your work in the various places, on the foundation of vigorously developing and consolidating the Party, and according to democratic methods, elections should be carried out in due time, so that the finest cadres and members, most trusted by the Party's membership, have the opportunity to be elected delegates to the congress, and the Seventh Congress is able to gather the finest representatives of the whole Party in one hall and guarantee its success. We believe this National Congress will certainly succeed, and will certainly give the most solemn and most powerful answer to the war of aggression of Japanese imperialism; let Japanese imperialism tremble before our National Congress and roll away into the eastern ocean — the Chinese nation will certainly be victorious.

Here my report ends.

Delivered 12 October 1938; by Mao Zedong (for the Political Bureau of the CCP Central Committee)