British peer called Lord Mountbatten. He said the worst possible mistake is to think that the atom bomb can decide the war.[27] These comrades are more backward than Mountbatten. What influence has made these comrades look upon
page 22
the atom bomb as something miraculous? Bourgeois influence. Where does it come from? From their education in bourgeois schools, from the bourgeois press and news agencies. There are two world outlooks and two methodologies, the proletarian world outlook and methodology and the bourgeois world outlook and methodology. These comrades often cling to the bourgeois world outlook and methodology and often forget the proletarian world outlook and methodology. The theory that "weapons decide everything", the purely military viewpoint, a bureaucratic style of work divorced from the masses, individualist thinking, and the like -- all these are bourgeois influences in our ranks. We must constantly sweep these bourgeois things out of our ranks just as we sweep out dust.
The entry of the Soviet Union into the war has decided Japan's surrender and the situation in China is entering a new period. Between the War of Resistance and the new period there is a transitional stage. The struggle during this transitional stage is to oppose Chiang Kai-shek's usurpation of the fruits of victory in the War of Resistance. Chiang Kai-shek wants to launch a country-wide civil war and his policy is set; we must be prepared for this. No matter when this country-wide civil war breaks out, we must be well prepared. If it comes early, say, tomorrow morning, we should also be prepared. That is point one. In the present international and domestic situation it is possible that for a time the civil war may be kept restricted in scale and localized. That is point two. Point one is what we should prepare for, point two is what has existed for a long time. In short, we must be prepared. Being prepared, we shall be able to deal properly with all kinds of complicated situations.
NOTES
[1]
On August 8, 1945, the Soviet government declared war on Japan. On August 10 the Mongolian government declared war on Japan. The Soviet Red Army moved by land and sea into China's Northeast and into Korea and swiftly routed the Japanese Kwantung Army. The joint Soviet-Mongolian armies crossed the Inner Mongolian desert and entered Jehol and Chahar Provinces. On August 10 the Japanese government was compelled to send a note begging to surrender and on the 14th it formally announced its unconditional surrender. The Kwantung Army was the cream of the main force of the Japanese army and constituted Japan's general strategic reserve. The Japanese imperialists had dreamed of relying on this force to carry on a long drawn-out war from their favourable strategic position in China's Northeast and in
page 23
Korea. This scheme was completely wrecked by the entry of the Soviet Union into the war, and the Japanese government had to admit defeat and surrender.
[p. 11]
[2]
For details, see "A Comment on the Eleventh Plenary Session of the Kuomintang's Central Executive Committee and the Second Session of the Third People's Political Council", Selected Works of Mao Tse-tung, Vol. III.
[p. 11]
[3]
"Mountain" here refers to Mount Omei in Szechuan Province and more generally to the mountainous areas in southwestern and northwestern China. After Wuhan was occupied by the Japanese army in 1938, Chiang Kai-shek and the main force under his command took refuge in these mountainous areas and sat there watching the bitter struggle against the Japanese aggressors which was being waged behind the enemy lines by the army and people of the Liberated Areas.
[p. 12]
[4]
Prior to the War of Resistance Against Japan, most of the revolutionary base areas led by the Communist Party of China were in mountainous regions. At that time Chiang Kai-shek's rule was centred in the large cities along the big rivers and the coast. Accordingly, Comrade Mao Tse-tung said "we were on the mountain and he was by the water".
[p. 12]
[5]
During the War of Resistance the front lines were in northern, eastern, central and southern China. People usually referred to the Kuomintang areas in southwestern and northwestern China which were not occupied by the Japanese invaders as the Great Rear Area.
[p. 12]
[6]
The Northern Expedition was the punitive war against the Northern warlords launched by the revolutionary army which marched north from Kwangtung Province in May-July 1926. The Northern Expeditionary Army, with the Communist Party of China taking part in its leadership and under the Party's influence (the political work in the army was at that time mostly under the charge of Communist Party members), gained the warm support of the broad masses of workers and peasants. In the second half of 1926 and the first half of 1927 it occupied most of the provinces along the Yangtse and Yellow Rivers and defeated the Northern warlords. In April 1927 this revolutionary war failed as a result of betrayal by the reactionary clique under Chiang Kai-shek within the revolutionary army.
[p. 12]
[7]
In 1924, with the help of the Communist Party of China, Sun Yat-sen reorganized the Kuomintang and effected co-operation between the Kuomintang and the Communist Party. The Revolutionary War of 1924-27 was launched on the basis of this co-operation. This first co-operation between the Kuomintang and the Communist Party was wrecked as a result of betrayals by Chiang Kai-shek and Wang Ching-wei in 1927.
[p. 12]
[8]
This refers to Chiang Kai-shek's betrayal of the revolution in 1927. After betraying the revolution, Chiang Kai-shek massacred great numbers of Communists, workers, peasants and revolutionary intellectuals and unleashed a counter-revolutionary war against the revolutionary masses.
[p. 13]
[9]
This Congress was held in Yenan in April 1945 It was there that Comrade Mao Tse-tung delivered the political report "On Coalition Government" (see Selected Works of Mao Tse-tung, Vol. III).
[p. 14]
[10]
The first revolution was the anti-imperialist, anti-feudal revolutionary struggle waged from 1924 to 1927 by the Chinese people under the leadership of the Communist Party of China; the Northern Expedition was the main content of this revolution. The second revolution was the revolutionary struggle from 1927 to 1937 to create and develop Red political power. The third revolution was the War of Resistance Against Japan from 1937 to 1945.
[p. 14]
[11]
Chen Tu-hsiu was originally a professor at Peking University and became famous as an editor of New Youth. He was one of the founders of the Communist
page 24
Party of China. Owing to his reputation at the time of the May 4th Movement and owing to the Party's immaturity in its initial period, he became General Secretary of the Party. In the last period of the revolution of 1924-27, the Rightist thinking in the Party represented by Chen Tu-hsiu developed into a line of capitulationism. In "The Present Situation and Our Tasks", Comrade Mao Tse-tung said that the capitulationists at that time "voluntarily gave up the Party's leadership of the peasant masses, urban petty bourgeoisie and middle bourgeoisie, and in particular gave up the Party's leadership of the armed forces, thus causing the defeat of the revolution" (p. 171 of this volume). After the defeat in 1927 Chen Tu-hsiu and a handful of other capitulationists lost faith in the future of the revolution and became liquidationists. They took the reactionary Trotskyist stand and together with the Trotskyites formed a small anti-Party group. Consequently Chen Tu-hsiu was expelled from the Party in November 1929. He died in 1942. With reference to Chen Tu-hsiu's Right opportunism, see the introductory notes to "Analysis of the Classes in Chinese Society" and to "Report on the Investigation into the Peasant Movement in Hunan", Selected Works of Mao Tse-tung, Vol. I, and "Introducing The Communist ", Selected Works of Mao Tse-tung, Vol. II.
[p. 15]
[12]
On July 21, 1945, the Provisional 59th Division and 2nd Cavalry Division under Hu Tsung-nan, Commander of the Kuomintang's 1st War Zone, suddenly attacked Yehtai Mountain in Chunhua County in the Kuanchung sub-region of the Shensi-Kansu-Ningsia Border Region. On July 23 Hu Tsung-nan sent his 3rd Reserve Division to join in the attack. On July 27 our forces withdrew on their own initiative from Yehtai Mountain and forty-one villages west of it. The Kuomintang forces continued their attacks on Hsunyi, Yaohsien and other points. On August 8 our forces struck back at the invading Kuomintang troops and recovered the Yehtai mountain area.
[p. 15]
[13]
This slogan was raised by the "Left" opportunists during the period from October 1933 to October 1934 when the Red Army of the Central Base Area was repulsing the Kuomintang's fifth encirclement campaign. The slogan was diametrically opposed to the strategy formulated by Comrade Mao Tse-tung, which was to lure the enemy deep into our territory, concentrate a superior force and select the enemy's weak points in order to wipe him out in mobile warfare.
[p. 15]
[14]
In January 1941, as demanded by Chiang Kai-shek, the Headquarters of the New Fourth Army led by the Communist Party of China and the units under the direct command of this headquarters moved north from southern Anhwei Province to cross the Yangtse River. While on the march they were encircled and ambushed by Chiang Kai-shek's troops and lost more than 9,000, killed, wounded and captured. Subsequently Chiang Kai-shek announced the cancellation of the designation of the New Fourth Army and ordered attacks against its other units. The event was called the Southern Anhwei Incident.
[p. 15]
[15]
During the War of Resistance the Kuomintang kept a staff officer in Yenan for liaison. "Ho" refers to Ho Ying-chin, Chief of the Kuomintang General Staff. On October 19 and December 8, 1940, Chiang Kai-shek sent two telegrams in the names of Ho Ying-chin and Pai Chung-hsi, Deputy Chief of the Kuomintang General Staff, outrageously slandering the Eighth Route Army and the New Fourth Army, which were fighting stubbornly behind the Japanese lines, and arbitrarily ordering the people's anti-Japanese armed forces operating south of the Yellow River to withdraw north of the river within a definite time-limit. The Kuomintang reactionaries then launched a sudden attack on units of the New Fourth Army which were moving north and thus created the Southern Anhwei Incident. At that time the Communist Party of China pointed to Ho Ying-chin as the representative of the Kuomintang reactionaries who
page 25
had launched the large-scale anti-Communist campaign, but actually Chiang Kai-shek was meant.
[p. 15]
[16]
The "People's Political Council" was an advisory body set up by the Kuomintang government after the start of the War of Resistance. Its members were all "selected" by the Kuomintang government; the majority belonged to the Kuomintang, and only a very few belonged to the Communist Party of China and other political parties. Moreover, the Kuomintang government did not recognize the equal and legal status of the parties which were opposed to Japanese aggression, nor did it allow their members to sit in the "People's Political Council" as representatives of their parties. One of the stipulations of the "Organic Rules of the People's Political Council" promulgated by the Kuomintang government was that those persons might become members of the Council "who have served in important cultural or economic organizations for three years or more and enjoy prestige, or those who devote themselves to affairs of state and have long enjoyed prestige". It was on the basis of this stipulation that the Kuomintang "selected" some councillors from the Communist Party of China.
[p. 16]
[17]
This refers to the commentary, "Chiang Kai-shek Is Provoking Civil War" written by Comrade Mao Tse-tung for the Hsinhua News Agency, pp. 27-31 of this volume.
[p. 16]
[18]
An unfinished railway line in southeastern Shansi Province, between Paikuei in Chihsien County and Chincheng.
[p. 17]
[19]
The province of Chahar was abolished in 1952. The province of Jehol was abolished in 1955. The territories originally under their jurisdiction were transferred to Hopei, Shansi and Liaoning Provinces and the Inner Mongolian Autonomous Region.
[p. 17]
[20]
From July to September 1931 Chiang Kai-shek personally held the post of commander-in-chief and moved 300,000 reactionary troops in an encirclement campaign against the Kiangsi Red Base Area. The Red Army smashed this encirclement campaign and won a great victory. For details, see "Strategic Problems of the Chinese Revolutionary War", Chapter 5, Section 5, Selected Works of Mao Tse-tung, Vol. I.
[p. 17]
[21]
The twenty-one county towns here referred to were Juichin, Huichang, Hsunwu, Anyuan, Hsinfeng, Yutu, Hsingkuo, Ningtu, Kuangchang, Shihcheng and Lichuan in Kiangsi Province, and Chienning, Taining, Ninghua, Chingliu, Kueihua, Lungyen, Changting, Liencheng, Shanghang and Yungting in Fukien Province.
[p. 17]
[22]
Pao-an was a county in the northwestern part of Shensi Province. It is now called Chihtan County. The Central Committee of the Communist Party of China had its headquarters there from early July 1936 to January 1937. Later it moved to Yenan.
[p. 20]
[23]
The fortified village referred to was Tanpachai in the southwest of Pao-an County. There were over two hundred households in the village, which occupied a highly strategic position. Tsao Chun-chang, a landlord despot who headed a reactionary local armed band of over a hundred men, had long entrenched himself in this village. The Chinese Red Army repeatedly besieged the village but failed to capture it. In August 1936 the Red Army, while surrounding Tanpachai with the local armed forces, proceeded to win over the basic masses in the village and disintegrate the enemy from within. In December of the same year the bandit Tsao fled with a handful of his men, and Tanpachai was liberated.
[p. 20]
[24]
From Maxims for the Good Household, written by Chu Po-lu in the 17th century.
[p. 20]
page 26
[25]
The American referred to was Colonel David D. Barrett, head of the U.S. Army Observer Group in Yenan. With the consent of the Communist Party of China, this group was sent to Yenan in 1944 by the U.S. forces fighting against Japan. Patrick J. Hurley, a reactionary politician of the Republican Party, came to China in September 1944 as the personal representative of the U.S. president and at the end of the year became U.S. ambassador to China. See "The Foolish Old Man Who Removed the Mountains", Note 1, Selected Works of Mao Tse-tung, Vol. III.
[p. 20]
[26]
The United States dropped an atom bomb on Hiroshima on August 6, 1945, and another on Nagasaki on August 9. The propaganda organs of the United States and of the Kuomintang made much of the event, alleging that the Japanese government had surrendered because it was afraid of the U.S. atom bombs. By such propaganda they hoped to belittle the decisive role played by the entry of the Soviet Union into the war in compelling Japan to surrender.
[p. 21]
[27]
Mountbatten, then Supreme Commander of Allied Forces in Southeast Asia, made a statement on August 9,1945, welcoming the entry of the Soviet Union into the war against Japan. He also said that the worst possible mistake would be to believe that the atom bomb could end the war in the Far East.
[p. 21]