(New China News Agency, September 19) The authoritative person here gave the following comments on the course of the negotiations between the Guomindang and the Communist Party and the sending of an inspection delegation to Yan’an by the National Political Council:
It is already four and a half months since Comrade Lin Boqu began negotiations with the representatives of the government, Mr. Zhang Zhizhong and Mr. Wang Shijie,1 in Xi’an. During this long period, though the Chinese Communist Party Central Committee and its representatives have been extremely tolerant and patient and compromised out of consideration for the general interest, because the government, for its part, is incorrigibly obstinate in its erroneous policies, lacks sincerity in the negotiations, and resorts to crafty maneuvers, the negotiations have had no result at all. Every specific issue, even the most trivial one, has not been resolved. Now the progress of the talks has been reported to the Political Council,2 and the Political Council has decided to organize an inspection delegation to come to Yan’an. The negotiations between the Guomindang and the Communist Party, which lasted for four and a half months, have been brought to a temporary end. Hence we can comment briefly on the past talks. The last ten days of April, when Comrade Lin Boqu was leaving for Chongqing, was precisely the time when the Japanese bandits began their offensive on the Chinese mainland. Considering the Guomindang’s erroneous policies that have harmed the nation in the past—in military matters, looking on passively and relying on the Allied countries to defeat Japan; in politics, authoritarian dictatorship; in the economy, monopoly; in culture, oppression and muzzling of public opinion—the Chinese Communist Party Central Committee foresaw that in the face of a new offensive by the Japanese invaders the resistance camp in China would suffer serious military loses and major crises in politics, the economy, and all the other fields. In order to avoid this dangerous situation, the Chinese Communist Party Central Committee sent Comrade Lin Boqu to Chongqing. The stand and general policy of the Chinese Communist Party in the negotiations were explicitly expressed in the suggestions put forward to the Guomindang government on June 5. This document began with the following words: “In order to overcome the current difficulties, defeat the offensive of the Japanese bandits, and prepare carefully for the counteroffensive, the Chinese Communist side believes that we have only one way, that is, to carry out democracy and enhance unity. For this purpose, the Chinese Communist Party hopes that the government side will solve a few urgent problems.” The calm and clear understanding of the situation by the Chinese Communist Party, its great sense of responsibility for, and unselfish and loyal attitude toward, the country and the people could be seen clearly in this proposal. As for the Guomindang government, its position is quite different. It turns a blind eye to the present critical situation and is careless and optimistic about it. It does not seem to blame itself for leading the country and the people into these perils. Throughout the negotiations, it adopted an arrogant and dogmatic attitude, attempted to put the private interests of the Guomindang and its faction alone above the national interests, and to force the others to accept this. This is apparent if we look at the brief proposed by the government on June 5.3 The brief does not contain a single word about the War of Resistance (this is very much worth noting), does not include a single word about the present difficult and dangerous situation, and does not express any intention of changing and giving up the erroneous policies that have done great harm to the country. This brief wants to abolish more than four-fifths of the armed forces that are resisting five-sixths of the invading and puppet troops and that have made extraordinary contributions in the War of Resistance behind enemy lines “within a limited period.” That is, this brief permits us to organize ten divisions, each division, as in the Guomindang military system, with about 10,000 men. The total number is not to exceed 100,000 and the remaining 370,000 regular troops must all “be abolished.” Moreover, they must “be abolished” very quickly. We must ask, isn’t this the tune of the Japanese? If what the Japanese bandits have been trying by every possible cruel means of war to “abolish” but have not been able to do so is really “abolished” now in accordance with the brief of the Guomindang, aren’t they going to be awarded a top decoration by the Japanese emperor? This brief also wants to “put all the democratic regimes,” which are democratically elected by the Chinese people in the liberated areas, which are linked as closely as flesh and blood with the people behind the enemy lines, which share joys and sorrows with the people, and which resolutely lead the War of Resistance “all and without exception under the charge of envoys sent by the individual provincial governments in which they are located.” But where the devil are these “provincial governments?” Nobody knows to what corner of the earth they have fled. What connections do they have with the unrivaled arduous struggles of the people? If one day these gentlemen in the so-called provincial governments can be located, they should be given fair treatment, that is, “discharge them from their posts and prosecute them.” What is worse, are there not also many traitors hidden in these so-called provincial governments? Weren’t traitors like Pang Bingxun and Shi Yousan4 formerly chairmen of these kinds of provincial governments? As for the members of these provincial governments who have defected to the enemy and betrayed the nation, they are even more innumerable. In sum, this brief only favors the Japanese invaders and is only the expression of the will of those who think of their own private interests instead of those of the country and the nation. To put it more bluntly, the so-called brief is nothing but the summary of the mean-spirited will of a small clique of Guomindang Fascist elements who think only of the interests of their party, but know nothing of the righteous cause of the nation. It cannot and should not be accepted by every true patriot, because accepting this brief is as good as assisting the Japanese invaders.
As far as the attitudes of both sides in the negotiations are concerned, the Chinese Communist Party was always sincere and compromised out of consideration for the general interest. The Guomindang government, however, with ludicrous conceit, tried rascally tricks. For the moment, we will not discuss these here, but will deal with the proposition put forward by the Chinese Communist Party itself. On May 21, the Chinese Communist Party Central Committee telegraphed Comrade Lin Boqu and put forward twenty suggestions.5 On the twenty-second, Lin sent them to Zhang and Wang. Zhang and Wang said that “to put it in this way is no different from denouncing the crimes of the Guomindang,” and they refused to accept them. After learning this, the Chinese Communist Party Central Committee reduced the list to twelve suggestions and changed the remaining eight suggestions to oral demands. On June 5, Zhang and Wang still refused to forward it to the government. After many days of argument, they finally promised to forward it to the government. This incident alone proves that the Chinese Communist Party Central Committee, in order to respect the opinions of the representatives of the other side, did not hesitate to compromise out of consideration for the general interest and reduced the formal items considerably. Nevertheless, the representatives of the government exposed fully the image of a rascal, since it is the primary responsibility and duty of the representatives in any negotiations to forward the opinions of the opposite side to the institutions they represent. The negotiations are already under way, but the representatives of one side refuse to forward the opinions of the opposite side. This is really a rare case in any negotiations. We cannot think of any terms for characterizing such an attitude other than the tricks of rascals or hooligans.
Apart from this, Mr. Zhang Zhizhong, the representative of the government, and Mr. Chiang Kaishek himself remarked repeatedly at the Political Council: “What the Central Government is seeking is the unification of the military and political order” (Zhang). “Our central government has said more than once that all we want is a unified military order and a unified political order” (Chiang). Regarding this point, we should state clearly that we most resolutely support the unification of military and political order. But this political order must be a political order that represents the will of the people, and this military order must be a military order advantageous to the War of Resistance. If, however, the political order is a political order that will lead the country toward Fascist tyranny, and the military order is a military order that will result in the failure of the War of Resistance, they will never be obeyed by any patriots or democratic fighters in China, nor will we allow this unification. The Chinese people profoundly despise this worn-out counterrevolutionary theme of “unification.” The heart of the matter is that the political and military order of the Guomindang government at present is exactly this kind of stuff. Its political order is a Fascist political order; its military order is that of defeatism. If we are going to unify everything with this kind of political and military order, it is exactly like climbing a tree to catch fish. Moreover, even if there is unification, it will lead to the catastrophe of losing the nation. Let us not talk about things in the remote past, and let us concentrate on the examples during the negotiations. Jiang Dingwen, Tang Enbo, Hu Zongnan, and Xue Yue6 are all so-called loyal followers of the political and military orders of the Guomindang. The result is they were defeated without fighting or were routed at the first encounter and lost troops and territory, plunging the people into an abyss of misery, and they have made a laughingstock of themselves before the people of the world. In contrast, the Eighth Route Army and the New Fourth Army, which are falsely accused by the Guomindang of “sabotaging the unification of military and political order,” are winning victories every day and regaining lost territory every day. This is the unification that really helps the nation and the country. This sharp contrast proves the utter uselessness of the “military and political order” of the Guomindang. Therefore, in talking about the need for the unification of the military and political orders today, we must thoroughly change the character of the military and political orders. If we want to change the character of the military and political orders, we must change completely the military, political, economic, cultural, and other policies of the Guomindang government. We must reorganize totally the government and the supreme command, kick out those capitulators, defeatists, tyrants, and Fascist elements, and put those who can truly represent the interests of the people in charge of the political and military orders and make them represent the will of the various forces and people in the country. Only in this way can we really remedy the present crisis and win victory in the War of Resistance. Only in this way can we talk about the unification of the military and political orders. Only in this way can the unification of the political and military orders serve the nation and the people. As regards reorganizing the present weak, corrupt, incapable, and oligarchical and dictatorial Guomindang government, Comrade Lin Boqu has put forward this proposal in the report he made at the Political Council, and it can be said that this was precisely the right time. The criticism of the Guomindang government’s brief by Comrade Lin in his letter to Mr. Wang Shijie and Mr. Zhang Zhizhong on August 30 is completely in accordance with the principles of the War of Resistance, unity, and democracy. The people in Yan’an still hope that Mr. Zhang and Mr. Wang will come to Yan’an for inspection and negotiation. As regards the matter of the five members who were chosen by the Political Council to come to Yan’an for inspection and an exchange of opinions, this is a very good idea and we welcome it.
Our source for this document is Mao Zedong ji, Vol. 9, pp. 117–21, where it is reproduced from the September 20, 1944, issue of Jiefang ribao. A long section identified as Mao’s major addition to the report, which appears in boldface, is reproduced in Mao Zedong wenji, Vol. 3, pp. 211–12; it is not clear what other changes or additions he made to the report.
1. Zhang Zhizhong and Wang Shijie were the two representatives of the Guomindang in the negotiations with the Communist Party.
2. The Political Council refers to the National Political Council, the highest consultative institution, which was established by a resolution of the Provisional National People’s Congress of the Guomindang on March 31, 1938. All its members were designated by the Guomindang government, and the Guomindang members constituted the majority. It was rescinded after the Third Plenum of the Fourth Congress of the Guomindang in May 1947.
3. Referring to the “brief” of the Guomindang government with regard to solving the problem of the Communist Party by political means; Mao also refers to a draft version of this “brief,” above in the text of May 15, 1944.
4. Pang Bingxun (1879–1963), chairman of the Henan Provincial Government for the Guomindang, surrendered to the Japanese in 1943. Shi Yousan (1891–1940), a Guomindang general active in Hebei, turned on the resistance forces and signed an “Anti-Communist Pact” with the Japanese in 1940.
5. The content appears in an earlier text, a telegram to Dong Biwu to transmit to Lin Boqu; see above, the text of May 15, 1944.
6. For the Guomindang generals, see above, notes to the texts of May 21, 1944, and June 14, 1944.