Because time is limited today, I can only present a simple work report to the plenum. I ask everyone to consider whether a detailed Central Committee work report will be needed. I do not think it is necessary to prepare a detailed report because all the Central Committee comrades are familiar with the recent work of the Central Committee and the comrades participating in this plenary session are more or less familiar with it. Do we need to give a detailed work report to the Seventh Congress on the Central Committee’s work from the Sixth Party Congress until now? Because it has been sixteen years since the Sixth Congress, and the principal responsible persons of the Central Committee have changed several times, I think it would be difficult to give such a detailed report, and we are prepared to put inspection of past work into the historical summary. In the past, the work reports by the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union to the Party congresses were in reality also political reports. We are only prepared to give a political report to the Seventh Party Congress, and we will not present an additional work report. The work summary can also be mentioned in this report. Only central problems that have already matured will be addressed.
Today I will only talk about the main problems during the period of preparation for resistance to Japan and the War of Resistance Against Japan. During these two periods, our only objective has been to strive to expel the Japanese imperialists from China. In order to achieve this objective, our general policy has been to develop ourselves and unite with friendly troops. This policy was first adopted at the Wayaobao Conference (December 1935),1 and since then to the present day the Democratic Republic Resolution (September 1936), the National Congress of the Chinese Communist Party (May 1937),2 the Luochuan Conference (August 1937),3 and the Sixth Plenum of the Central Committee (September to November 1938)4 all strove to carry out this general policy. While carrying out this policy, there have been some debates over how to develop ourselves and unite with friendly troops, over views regarding Japan, the Guomindang, and our Party, and over appraisal of the current situation and specific policies for carrying this out. Today, the objective of my talk is to defend the policies of the Central Committee.
There is a report here on the battle of Henan handed in by the Henan Branch Office of the Guomindang’s Investigation and Statistics Bureau to its Central Bureau. It is a representative example of recent conditions in the War of Resistance. I would like to ask Comrade Wang Shoudao5 to read it aloud. This material indicates how utterly incompetent were the troops of Tang Enbo, one of Chiang Kaishek’s three main forces, running about aimlessly from the advances of the Japanese invaders. There is also only one regiment left of the two divisions led by Hu Zongnan. This demonstrates the contrasting results of the two different policies adopted in the War of Resistance. The undemocratic policy can only lead to the failure of the War of Resistance; only the democratic policy can lead to the defeat of the enemy. The Central Army under Chiang Kaishek does not teach patriotism and democracy, but only fascism. Consequently, upon encounter with the enemy, its fighting capacity crumbled immediately. Our Eighth Route Army and New Fourth Army carry out education in nationalism and democracy and thus fully mobilized the people’s forces and set up more than a dozen base areas behind enemy lines. As a result, we were able to stop the enemy’s strategic attack on the battlefield for five and a half years. The Japanese are now attacking Henan because they have become desperate and the Guomindang is too weak, and the forces under the Communist Party are not strong enough to protect Tang Enbo’s army. Now some of Hu Zongnan’s forces have also been transferred to Henan. If Hu Zongnan suffers the same fate as Tang Enbo, two out of the three major forces under Chiang Kaishek will have collapsed. That can cause a tremendous change in the political situation in China, and in the proportion of forces under the Guomindang and the Communist Party. In the future, when Great Britain and the United States are ready for counterattack, which will shake the confidence of the Japanese army and the Japanese people as well as boost the confidence of the Chinese people in the areas occupied by the Japanese, the contrast between the Japanese forces and the forces of the Eighth Route Army and the New Fourth Army will also undergo a change. The idea that if democracy is practiced, we will win, and if not, we will lose, which used to be merely our ideal, is now being translated into reality. Last year, we published an article titled “A Comparison of the Achievements of the Guomindang and of the Communist Party During the War of Resistance” in order to draw foreigners’ attention to the forces of resistance of the Communist Party. Never before have Great Britain and the United States been so explicitly critical of the Guomindang and Chiang Kaishek as they are now. Hu Zhengzhi,6 when he invited Comrades Dong Biwu and Pan Zinian7 to dinner after he returned from a visit to England and the United States, said that he had talked about the promise of the Chinese Communist Party when he was abroad. He also said that the Twelfth Plenum of the Central Committee of the Guomindang was utterly hopeless. Sun Ke8 recently said that he is going to resign; Yu Youren9 shows no interest in attending the Twelfth Plenum. These people’s actions are signals indicating that the situation will change.
Concerning the principle of developing ourselves and developing the Eighth Route Army, the New Fourth Army, and the anti-Japanese democratic base areas, which constitute the major forces that represent the Chinese people in combating the Japanese bandits, the Central Committee has done a lot of work trying to persuade those comrades who were against this principle or who did not carry it out actively. In this respect, the mistakes made in Central China and Shandong were most serious, and it took almost all of 1939 to correct them. Afterward, however, the Southern Anhui Incident10 took place all the same, and only after that were these problems put right. When the Japanese occupied Jiangsu and Zhejiang, although the members of the Guomindang all fled, our comrades did not have enough courage to take over the positions of county head, saying that nobody had appointed them to those positions. During the confrontation between the Old Army and the New Army in Shanxi,11 there was even a debate within the New Army about whether they should fire back when the Old Army opened fire on them. These stories demonstrate how some of our comrades did not dare to adopt the policy of maintaining independence and keeping the initiative in our own hands in this national war. The question is whether the policy of maintaining independence and keeping the initiative in our own hands should be adopted. In today’s world, the policy of the Soviet Union is most oriented toward maintaining independence and keeping the initiative in their own hands. The United States is second to the Soviet Union. England is hesitant, its attitude ambivalent on such issues as those about France, Italy, and Poland. And so is Chiang Kaishek, whose policies toward the Communist Party and others indicate his hesitancy, thinking in one way but behaving in another. Both Tang and Hu use the anti-Communist Handbook on Suppressing Bandits as the textbook for teaching their troops. Such troops are surely powerless when fighting the Japanese. We are different from them in that from the very beginning we have adopted the policy of maintaining independence and keeping the initiative in our own hands. From beginning to end, we take the position of uniting with the Guomindang for resistance against the Japanese, while confronting the Guomindang when it creates friction with the Communist Party. In this way, the Guomindang can neither surrender to the Japanese nor attack the Communist Party on a large scale and will gradually be led to take part in the resistance against the Japanese. In our efforts against their friction, we adopt a policy of reason, advantage, and moderation, so as to reduce the friction. We used the same strategy during all three high tides of anti-communism. Our Party was a very small party (with no more than 40,000 Party members), and our army was a very small army (with only 45,000 soldiers) at the beginning of the War of Resistance. Now our Party has almost 1 million members, and our army almost 500,000 soldiers. In the winter of 1935, when the Red Army of the central soviet region made the Long March to northern Shaanxi, we had only 7,000 men left, and each person was just “skin and bones.” At that time, we declared that the Long March was victorious, since it served as a force to plant and propagandize; we did not take lightly this small leftover force because it had a great future. The pessimistic feelings that certain comrades developed during that period actually were by no means grounded in reality. From 1936 to 1939, we harbored the hope of reforming the Guomindang on account of the progressive example of Zhang Xueliang12 and the fact that the Guomindang had lost its territory in Jiangxi and Zhejiang. This hope of ours, however, did not materialize, although we did not lose anything. In the final analysis, it is mainly the Eighth Route Army and the New Fourth Army that have saved the nation during its crisis by engaging 58 percent of the Japanese army and 90 percent of the Japanese puppet forces. China’s War of Resistance could not be what it is today without the participation of the Eighth Route Army and the New Fourth Army. Our policy of developing the Eighth Route Army, the New Fourth Army, and the anti-Japanese base areas is absolutely correct, and so is our policy of uniting with friendly forces.
The growth of our Party during the period of the War of Resistance Against Japan has undergone three stages. The first stage was from 1937 to 1940. During the first two years of this stage, the Japanese used their main force to deal with the Guomindang, which was relatively courageous and had a relatively good relationship with the Communist Party. We adopted the general policy of guerrilla warfare, developed our army, set up base areas, and established cadre schools. There had been a debate among ourselves as to which was more appropriate: mobile warfare or guerrilla warfare. Eventually, however, the correct strategy of using primarily guerrilla warfare was adopted. The policy of forming a United Front suffered a setback first in 1938; later this was corrected at the Sixth Plenum. During this first stage, arrogance appeared among our troops. Some of our comrades were so arrogant that they underestimated the Japanese forces and relied excessively upon the Guomindang, thinking that everything would turn out all right. On this point, we suffered a loss.
The second phase covers the years from 1941 to 1942. During this period, the Japanese used their major forces to attack the Communist Party. They launched innumerable ruthless “mopping-up” operations, applying the policy of “nibbling” and of “burn all, kill all, and loot all.” Our base areas, our population, and our army all shrank. This hardship nevertheless taught our comrades a lesson. And we adopted appropriate policies, such as fighting the enemy, rectification of the “Three Styles,” Crack Troops and Simple Administration, supporting the government and cherishing the people, developing production, unification of leadership, the “Three-Thirds” system,13 and reducing rent and reducing interest. There have been achievements in all these areas. Thus we secured a firm foothold behind enemy lines. Although we suffered losses, we acquired experience as well in overcoming difficulties. During this stage, the Japanese applied the policy of mainly luring the Guomindang into capitulation through politics, while using military attacks as a subsidiary means. This policy began in 1939 and became most explicit in 1941, when Wang Jingwei set up the puppet government. Consequently, the Japanese launched no big military operations against the Guomindang, which became increasingly counterrevolution-ary by being passive toward the Japanese invaders, but very active in attacking the Communist Party and the broad masses of the Chinese people.
The third stage began last year. Our base areas, population, and armed forces started to grow once again. There are 470,000 soldiers in our armed forces, and its fighting capacity has become very great. Our Party has recruited more than 900,000 members. The population of the base areas in the first stage was nearly 100 million in terms of those who paid grain taxes directly and indirectly. In the second stage the population decreased to less than 50 million; in 1943 it has grown again to over 80 million. More progress has been made in carrying out various policies, especially in the rectification of the “Three Styles” and in the development of the economy. The aim of the rectification of work styles is to make our thinking clear and to unite the whole Party. Our Party is basically united, but this unity was only achieved after we persuaded some of our members to give up their different opinions on policy and after we corrected all kinds of petty-bourgeois thinking and work styles. Unity is one side of our Party, and disunity is the other. We should be able to see and acknowledge the existence of both sides. The factions that previously had a bad influence no longer exist politically or organizationally. There are, however, still residues of dogmatism and empiricism. There is still a strong and blind tendency toward a mountain-stronghold mentality, owing to the fact that the Chinese petty-bourgeois class is so large that the base areas in the countryside have been isolated from one another for a long time and our Party’s education work has been insufficient. We must overcome it. We had no experience in economic work for a long period of time in the past; now we must pay much attention to this.
The line of the Sixth National Congress was basically correct, but it did not resolve the problem of the base areas and, instead, proposed insurrection and attacking and occupying the big cities. We have been unable to carry out these things from the Sixth Congress to the present, but we will do so after the Seventh Congress; we must definitely carry out this general policy after the Seventh Congress. We cooperated with Xue Yue14 in 1927 to occupy Shanghai, but the Guomindang attacked us immediately thereafter. Now we want to change the method of entering Shanghai from that of Xue Yue to that of Chen Yi. In addition, we already have many “Xue Yues.” Between the Sixth and Seventh Congresses we have actually followed the line of the base areas. We must abide by this line now. We must develop the economy in the base areas. In 1939 there were merely 700 factory workers in the Shaanxi-Gansu-Ningxia Border Region; in 1942 there were 4,000; this year there are 12,000. If there are 30,000 factory workers in the border region, the proportion of workers in the whole population of the border region will be greater than the proportion of workers in the population of the country as a whole. There was much controversy when the Party shifted the focus of its work from the urban areas to the countryside. There will be many questions when the Party shifts the focus of its work from the countryside back to the urban areas. This will require that we be prepared to resolve these questions and learn to do economic work and work in the urban areas. In the future, the countryside will serve as the base to provide us with food for the army and with personnel for cadres. It will be impossible to drive the Japanese invaders out of the big cities without us, without the Eighth Route Army and the New Fourth Army.
Our Party must be prepared to deal with unexpected big events which will take place in the future. The Seventh Congress must select a Central Committee that is more powerful and more capable than the Central Committee of the past twenty-three years.
As regards the negotiations between the Guomindang and the Communist Party, the Guomindang sent two high-ranking officials, one civil and the other military, to meet Comrade Lin Boqu, who visited their area on this occasion, spent four hours every day negotiating with them, and was well treated wherever he went. Nothing like this had ever happened before. Originally we did not expect much of this trip, assuming that it could not solve the big issues and thus we asked Comrade Lin Boqu to raise only small issues. The other side offered to negotiate on the basis of the four points raised by Lin Biao last year; Venerable Lin made a counteroffer to negotiate on the basis of the five points raised by [Zhou] Enlai this year, which they turned down. Thus the Central Committee put forward twenty items.15 The future holds only one of two results: procrastinating or solving some of the problems, such as the problem of the armed forces, the problem of the border region, the problem of protected areas, and the problem of developing Party offices and of publishing newspapers in specific places. If they are prepared to solve these four problems, we should be ready to accept them and indicate to the whole country our willingness to maintain a good relationship with the Guomindang.
Concerning military affairs, this year we will concentrate on intensifying training. Next year we shall be ready to develop our forces, occupy some small cities, and prepare to drive the Japanese bandits out of China.
Our source for this document is Mao Zedong wenji, Vol. 3, pp. 136–45, where it is reproduced from the transcript of the speech preserved in the Central Archives.
1. The Wayaobao Conference refers to the meeting of the Politburo of the Central Committee of the Chinese Communist Party held in Anding (now Zichang) county of Shaanxi Province, held December 17–25, 1935. This conference adopted the policy of establishing a national united front against the Japanese. This text, the text of the September 1936 Democratic Republic Resolution, and the reports noted below all appear in Saich, ed., Rise to Power, beginning on p. 709, according to date.
2. Referring to the National Congress of the Chinese Communist Party held in Yan’an May 2–14, 1937.
3. The Luochuan Conference refers to the expanded meeting of the Politburo of the Central Committee of the Chinese Communist Party held in Luochuan, Shaanxi Province, August 22–25, 1937.
4. The Sixth Plenum refers to the Sixth Plenum of the Sixth Central Committee of the Chinese Communist Party, held September 29–November 6, 1938. Mao Zedong presented the political report “On the New Stage”; see Vol. VI, pp. 458–541.
5. On Wang Shoudao, see above, note to the text of January 23, 1942.
6. Hu Zhengzhi (1889–1949) was at this time general manager of the newspaper Dagong bao.
7. Pan Zinian (1893–1972) was at this time editor of New China Daily.
8. Sun Ke (1891–1973) was at this time head of the legislature of the National Government.
9. Yu Youren (1879–1964) was at this time head of the Procuratorate of the National Government.
10. Regarding the Southern Anhui Incident, see above, note to the text of July 21, 1943.
11. The Shanxi New Army refers to the Shanxi Youth Anti-Enemy Dare-to-Die Corps, an anti-Japanese military force that worked with the Chinese Communist Party. The Shanxi Old Army refers to Yan Xishan’s troops.
12. Zhang Xueliang was already under house arrest as instigator of the famous Xi’an Incident. See Vol. V, pp. lx and passim.
13. On the “Three-Thirds” system, see above, note to the text of January 26, 1942.
14. Xue Yue (1896–1998) was commander of the First Division of the First Army of the National Revolutionary Army in 1927.
15. See above, the text of May 15, 1944.