The U.S. Army Observation Group, sent by the general headquarters (that is, the headquarters of General [Joseph] Stilwell) of the U.S. forces stationed in China, Burma [Myanmar], and India, has now arrived in Yan’an. This is the most exciting event since the beginning of the War of Resistance in China. We extend a sincere welcome to everyone in this observation group who has come so far!
As we welcome every comrade-in-arms of the U.S. Army Observation Group, we cannot but think of the glorious achievements of the United States in the world war against the Fascists, and of the American people’s great spirit of readiness to battle for a just cause without fear of sacrifice. Everywhere you look, from Europe to Africa to Asia, heroic American officers and soldiers are devoting their lives on the field of battle, shedding their blood in the struggle to liberate the people who live under the iron heel of the Fascists. On China’s battlefields of the anti-Japanese war, Americans and the people of our country have put their shoulders together to wage war, and Americans have become our closest comrades-in-arms. At this moment of welcoming our friends from the U.S. Army Observation Group, we express our sincere thanks to the U.S. government, people, the soldiers and officers of its army, navy, and air force, and to its brilliant leader, President [Franklin] Roosevelt.
The arrival in Yan’an of the comrades-in-arms of the U.S. Army Observation Group is indeed of great significance in the struggle to win the anti-Japanese war. Over the past seven years, nearly half a million soldiers of the Eighth Route Army and New Fourth Army and more than 80 million liberated people have been fighting bravely behind enemy lines in North, South, and Central China. For quite a long time now, the battlefields behind enemy lines have actually been the most important battlefields in China’s War of Resistance. Here, five-sixths of the enemy and puppet troops have been beaten back; here, almost all of the large Chinese cities have been besieged by the Eighth Route Army and the New Fourth Army; here, most of the coast occupied by the enemy is under our control. Our Allied friends did not know much about this situation before.
In the past, what the governments and people of the Allied countries understood to be true of China’s War of Resistance was entirely the opposite of what I have just described. Their impression was that the main military force of China’s War of Resistance is the Guomindang, that the Guomindang has done most of the work in the War of Resistance, that the majority of the enemy and puppet troops have been held back by the Guomindang, and that, in the future, one naturally will have to rely primarily on the Guomindang in the counteroffensive against the Japanese bandits. To this day, these impressions still dominate the thinking of most people among the governments and people of the Allied countries.
The cause of this phenomenon, which is in complete disagreement with the facts, lies mainly in the policies of deception and the blockade by the Guomindang rulers. They deceive foreigners, telling them how hard the Guomindang is working to fight the Japanese. Actually, over the five and a half years since October 1938, their basic policy has been simply to “stand on a hill and watch the tigers fighting.” Until now, with the exception of the war zones in Hunan and Burma, the situation in the majority of the war zones has been the same. They deceive foreigners, saying that the Communist Party “does not fight the Japanese,” but is always “sabotaging the War of Resistance and endangering the country.” In fact, the one who has resisted five-sixths of the Japanese and puppet attacks is none other than the Communist Party, which supposedly “does not fight the Japanese” but, rather, “sabotages the War of Resistance and endangers the country.” As for the Guomindang, which everyday cries “the nation above all,” it has only resisted one-sixth of the enemy. Since the Communist Party, first, “does not fight the Japanese,” second, “sabotages the War of Resistance,” and, third, “endangers the country,” why then, did the Guomindang not long ago call foreigners and Chinese alike to come observe the Communist-controlled areas in order to prove that what the Guomindang gentlemen were saying was not false. But, no, absolutely not; on the contrary, Communist territory is encircled and blockaded as tight as an iron barrel. For more than five years, first, the Communist Party has not been allowed to publish military reports; second, border region newspapers have not been allowed to be printed or sold in other areas; third, neither foreign nor Chinese journalists have been allowed to visit the border region; and, fourth, the people both within and outside the border region have not been allowed to come and go freely. In sum, only the abuse, curses, rumors, and insults of the Guomindang are allowed to spread chaotically to the world; the facts about the Communists and the Eighth Route Army and New Fourth Army are not allowed to be revealed in the smallest degree. You have only to look at the difficulties and struggles the journalists’ delegation endured in order to achieve its goal to know that the policy of the honorable rulers of the Guomindang, which they arrived at after racking their brains but which is still self-contradictory, is, on the one hand, to slander as much as they like and, on the other, not to permit anyone to come see [the true situation].
But reality prevails over eloquence, and truth is higher than everything else; there will come a day when the scales will fall from the eyes of foreigners and Chinese alike, and this is slowly beginning to happen now. The delegation of foreign and Chinese journalists and the U.S. Army Observation Group have broken through the Guomindang’s blockade and have come to Yan’an. This is an issue that concerns the 450 million Chinese who are resisting the Japanese bandits and liberating China; it is an issue concerning which of the two positions and two lines in China is true and which is false; it is an issue concerning the Allied countries’ victory over the common enemy and the establishment of perpetual peace. The Guomindang say that “the dispute between the Guomindang and the Communists is an affair of the Chinese alone.” This is no more than a fig leaf with which the Guomindang try to hide their shame for the crimes they have committed during the anti-Japanese war. That this filthy fig leaf should be tossed into the latrine is now openly discussed among both Chinese and foreigners.
Discussions both abroad and domestically over the past half-year have reached their final conclusion about the perfunctory job that the Guomindang is doing in the War of Resistance and the fact that it is corrupt and incompetent. Most foreigners and most Chinese in the heartland still do not know the real truth about the Communists, because the reactionary propaganda and blockade policy of the Guomindang have gone on for so long. But the situation is already beginning to change. One can see that things have already begun to change in public opinion abroad over the past half-year. This trip of the journalists’ delegation and the observation group to Yan’an will begin a new phase in this change.
Because of the reports of the foreign journalists who have come to Yan’an, foreigners will gradually be able to understand the truth about the Communists, the Eighth Route Army and the New Fourth Army, and the anti-Japanese base areas, as well as their important position in aiding the Allied countries’ resistance against the Japanese. The following examples can serve as evidence of this.
On July 1, the New York Times published an article titled “Communist Army in China Is Strong,” one sentence of which reads: “Undoubtedly, over the last five years the troops under the command of the Communist Party, which is so mysterious to most people in the outside world, have been our valuable allies in the war against the Japanese. Use them properly, and they will surely hasten victory.”2 This article was written following the reports of the foreign journalists.
As early as January 7, an article appeared in Amerasia titled “The Counteroffensive Base of the Chinese Guerrilla Areas.” It said, “Many military authorities believe that if the troops in the border region are able to obtain sufficient assistance, this region has the potential of becoming a strong counteroffensive base that will shorten the length of the war against Japan.”
On June 10, the American magazine the Saturday Evening Post published an article by the famous American journalist [Edgar] Snow titled “Sixty Million Forgotten Allies.” This article demonstrated a penetrating understanding of the strategic significance of every anti-Japanese base area behind enemy lines in China and of the Eighth Route Army and New Fourth Army. He wrote, “In February, Admiral [Chester] Nimitz declared that the [U.S.] Navy was planning to build bases on the Chinese coast in order to attack Japan and Taiwan from there. Either Hong Kong or Canton [Guangzhou] may first be taken by the [U.S.] military. But it is a great distance for bombers to fly from these cities to Japan. Only in more northern places is China closest to Japan. Therefore, the Chinese guerrilla troops there are of great potential importance to us.”3
These are reports about the Chinese Communists that leaked through the gaps between the fingers of the sky-covering hand of the Guomindang.
Now, not only has the foreign journalists delegation arrived in Yan’an but so has the U.S. Army Observation Group. We believe that the comrades-in-arms of these groups will surely make a thorough and deep examination of the situation here, and will also give us further guidance about how the two sides can closely cooperate to be victorious over the Japanese. The Guomindang’s desire to cover the sky with its hand forever is already in trouble.
We congratulate in advance the U.S. Army Observation Group on the success of its work. We hope that this success will allow the U.S. military headquarters to obtain a true understanding both of the Chinese Communist Party, which from beginning to end has insisted on a united War of Resistance and has carried out democratic policies and also of the strength of the war effort under the leadership of the Communist Party behind enemy lines. We also hope it will be used to decide upon correct policies. We hope that this success will improve the unity between the two great Allied countries, China and the United States, and will hasten the process of the final victory over the Japanese bandits.
Our source for this document is Mao Zedong xinwen gongzuo wenxuan, pp. 317–21, where it is reproduced from the original preserved in the Central Archives. Text in boldface is Mao’s additions prior to publication.
1. This is an editorial from the Yan’an Jiefang ribao. The title was changed to the present one by Mao Zedong from the original “Welcome the American Army Observation Group.”
2. The original text of this sentence on p. 6 of that day’s New York Times reads: “There is no doubt that the communist armies, which have been largely a mystery to the outside world for five years, are valuable allies in the anti-Japanese war and that their proper use—like the proper use of the Balkan Partisans—will speed up victory.”
3. Snow’s article in the June 10, 1944, issue of The Saturday Evening Post is titled “Sixty Million Lost Allies”; the quotation here is on p. 12.