Carry the Revolution Through to the End

#PUBLICATION NOTE

This edition of Carry the Revolution Through to the End has been prepared and revised for digital publication by the Institute of Marxism-Leninism-Maoism under the Central Committee of the Communist Party in Switzerland on the basis of the following editions:

• Carry the Revolution Through to the End, in the Selected Works of Mao Zedong, First English Edition, Vol. 4, Foreign Languages Press, Beijing, 1965.
• Carry Out the Revolution Through to the End, in Mao's Road to Power, First English Edition, Vol. 10, Routledge, New York and London, 2023.

#INTRODUCTION NOTE

This is a New Year message written by Comrade Mao Zedong for the New China News Agency in Xibaipo, Pingshan, Hebei, China on the 30th of December, 1948. It was first published in the Renmin Ribao (1st of January, 1949).

#Workers and oppressed people of the world, unite!

#CARRY THE REVOLUTION THROUGH TO THE END

#NEW YEAR MESSAGE FROM THE NEW CHINA NEWS AGENCY

#Mao Zedong

#30th of December, 1948

#★

The Chinese people will win final victory in the great War of Liberation. Even our enemy no longer doubts the outcome.

The war has followed a tortuous course. When the reactionary Nationalist government started the counter-revolutionary war, it had approximately three and a half times as many troops as the People's Liberation Army; the equipment and the human and material resources of its army were far superior to those of the People's Liberation Army; it had modern industries and modern means of communication, which the People's Liberation Army lacked; it had received large-scale military and economic aid from US imperialism and had made long preparations. Therefore, during the first year of the war (July 1946-June 1947), the Nationalist Party was on the offensive and the People's Liberation Army on the defensive. In 1946, in the North-East, the Nationalist Party occupied Shenyang, Sipingjie, Changchun, Jilin, Andong, and other cities and most of Liaoning, Liaobei, and Andong Provinces;¹ south of the Yellow River, it occupied the cities of Huaiyin and Heze and most of the Hubei-Henan-Anhui, Jiangsu-Anhui, Henan-Anhui-Jiangsu, and South-Western Shandong Liberated Areas; and north of the Great Wall, it occupied the cities of Chengde, Jining, and Zhangjiakou and most of Rehe, Suiyuan, and Chaha'er Provinces. The Nationalist Party blustered and swaggered like a conquering hero. The People's Liberation Army adopted the correct strategy, which had as its main objective to wipe out the Nationalist Party's effective strength rather than to hold territory, and in each month destroyed an average of some eight brigades of the Nationalist regular troops (the equivalent of eight present-day divisions). As a result, the Nationalist Party was finally compelled to abandon its plan for the overall offensive, and by the first half of 1947, it had to limit the major targets of its attack to the two wings of the southern front, that is, Shandong and northern Shaanxi. In the second year (July 1947-June 1948), a fundamental change took place in the war. Having wiped out large numbers of Nationalist regulars, the People's Liberation Army went over from the defensive to the offensive on the southern and northern fronts, while the Nationalist Party had to turn from the offensive to the defensive. The People's Liberation Army not only recovered most of the territories lost in north-eastern China, Shandong, and northern Shaanxi, but also extended the battlefront into the Nationalist areas north of the Yangzi and Weishui Rivers. Moreover, in the course of attacking and capturing Shijiazhuang, Yuncheng, Sipingjie, Luoyang, Yichuan, Baoji, Weixian, Linfen, and Kaifeng, our army mastered the tactics of storming heavily fortified points.² The People's Liberation Army formed its own artillery and engineer corps. Don't forget that the People's Liberation Army had neither aircraft nor tanks, but once it had formed an artillery and an engineer corps superior to those of the Nationalist army, the defensive system of the Nationalist Party, with all its aircraft and tanks, appeared negligible by contrast. The People's Liberation Army was already able to conduct, not only mobile warfare, but positional warfare as well. In the first half of the third year of the war (July-December 1948), another fundamental change has occurred. The People's Liberation Army, so long outnumbered, has gained numerical superiority. It has been able not only to capture the Nationalist Party's heavily fortified cities, but also to surround and destroy strong formations of Nationalist crack troops, a hundred thousand or several hundred thousand at a time. The rate at which the People's Liberation Army is wiping out Nationalist troops has become much faster. Look at the statistics on the number of Nationalist regular units of battalion level and above which we have destroyed (including enemy troops who have revolted and come over to our side). In the first year, 97 brigades, including 46 brigades entirely wiped out; in the second year, 94 brigades, including 50 brigades entirely wiped out; and in the first half of the third year, according to incomplete figures, 147 divisions, including 111 divisions entirely wiped out.³ In these six months, the number of enemy divisions entirely wiped out was 15 more than the grand total for the previous two years. The enemy front as a whole has completely crumbled. The enemy troops in the North-East have been entirely wiped out; those in northern China will soon be entirely wiped out, and in eastern China and the Central Plains, only a few enemy forces are left. The annihilation of the Nationalist Party's main forces north of the Yangzi River greatly facilitates the upcoming crossing of the Yangzi by the People's Liberation Army and its southward drive to liberate all of China. Simultaneously with victory on the military front, the Chinese people have scored tremendous victories on the political and economic fronts. For this reason, public opinion the world over, including the entire imperialist press, no longer disputes the certainty of the countrywide victory of the Chinese People's War of Liberation.

The enemy will not perish of themself. Neither the Chinese reactionaries nor the aggressive forces of US imperialism in China will step down from the stage of history of their own accord. Precisely because they realize that the countrywide victory of the Chinese People's War of Liberation can no longer be prevented by purely military struggle, they are placing more and more importance each day on political struggle. On the one hand, the Chinese reactionaries and the US aggressors are using the existing Nationalist government for their «peace» plot; on the other hand, they are scheming to use certain persons who have connections both with them and with the revolutionary camp, inciting and instigating these persons to work artfully, strive to infiltrate the revolutionary camp, and form a so-called opposition faction within it. The purpose is to preserve the reactionary forces and undermine the revolutionary forces. According to reliable information, the US government has decided on this scheme and begun to carry it out in China. The US government has changed its policy of simply backing the Nationalist Party's counter-revolutionary war to a policy embracing two forms of struggle:

• Organizing the remnants of the Nationalist Party's armed forces and the so-called local forces to continue to resist the People's Liberation Army south of the Yangzi River and in the remote border provinces.
• Organizing an opposition faction within the revolutionary camp to strive with might and main to halt the revolution where it is or, if it must advance, to moderate it and prevent it from encroaching too far on the interests of the imperialists and their lackeys. The British and French imperialists support this US policy.

Many people do not yet see this situation clearly, but it probably will not be long before they do.

The question now facing the Chinese people, all democratic political parties, and all people's organizations is whether to carry the revolution through to the end or to abandon it halfway. If the revolution is to be carried through to the end, we must use the revolutionary method to wipe out all the forces of reaction resolutely, thoroughly, wholly, and completely; we must unswervingly persist in overthrowing imperialism, feudalism, and bureaucrat capitalism; and we must overthrow the reactionary rule of the Nationalist Party on a countrywide scale and set up a republic that is a people's democratic dictatorship under the leadership of the proletariat and with the worker-peasant alliance as its main body. In this way, the Chinese nation will completely throw off the oppressor; the country will be transformed from a semi-colony into a genuinely independent State; the Chinese people will be fully emancipated, overthrowing once and for all both feudal oppression and oppression by bureaucrat capital (Chinese monopoly capital), and will thus achieve unity, democracy, and peace, create the prerequisites for transforming China from an agricultural into an industrial country, and make it possible for it to develop from a society with exploitation of some by others into a socialist society. If the revolution is abandoned halfway, it will mean going against the will of the people, bowing to the will of the foreign aggressors and Chinese reactionaries, and giving the Nationalist Party a chance to catch its breath and allow the wounded beast to heal its wounds, so that one day it may pounce suddenly to strangle the revolution and again plunge the whole country into darkness. That is how clearly and sharply the question is now posed. Which of these two roads to choose? Every democratic political party, every people's organization in China must consider this question, must choose its road and clarify its stand. Whether China's democratic political parties and people's organizations can sincerely cooperate without parting company halfway depends on whether they are agreed on this question and take unanimous action to overthrow the common enemy of the Chinese people. What is needed here is unanimity and cooperation, not the setting up of any «opposition faction» or the pursuit of any «middle road».

Who are the enemies that the Chinese people oppose today? Everyone knows who they are — the reactionaries led by Jiang Jieshi, Li Zongren, Chen Cheng, Bai Chongxi, He Yingqin, Gu Zhutong, Chen Guofu, Chen Lifu, Kong Xiangxi, Song Ziwen, Zhang Qun, Weng Wenhao, Sun Ke, Wu Tiecheng, Wang Yunwu, Dai Chuanxian, Wu Dingchang, Xiong Shihui, Zhang Lisheng, Zhu Jiahua, Wang Shijie, Gu Weijun, Song Meiling, Wu Guozhen, Liu Zhi, Cheng Qian, Xue Yue, Wei Lihuang, Yu Hanmou, Hu Zongnan, Fu Zuoyi, Yan Xishan, Zhou Zhirou, Wang Shuming, Gui Yongqing, Du Yuming, Tang Enbo, Sun Liren, Ma Hongkui, Ma Bufang, Tao Xisheng, Zeng Qi, Zhang Junli, and others. These people are all first-rate war criminals and enemies of the Chinese people.

In the long period of more than 20 years, from the counter-revolutionary State coup of the 12th of April, 1927 to today, have the Chinese reactionaries headed by Jiang Jieshi and his ilk not given proof enough that they are a gang of blood-stained executioners, who slaughter people without blinking? Have they not given proof enough that they are a band of professional traitors and the lackeys of imperialism? Think it over, everybody! How magnanimous the Chinese people have been towards this gang of bandits in the hope of achieving internal peace with them, since the Xi'an Incident of December 1936, since the Chongqing negotiations of October 1945, and since the Political Consultative Conference of January 1946! But has all this goodwill changed their class nature by one jot or title? In their history, not a single one of these bandits can be separated from US imperialism. Relying on US imperialism, they have plunged 475'000'000 of our compatriots into a huge civil war of unprecedented brutality and slaughtered millions upon millions of men and women, young and old, with bombers, fighter planes, guns, tanks, rocket-launchers, automatic rifles, gasoline bombs, gas projectiles, and other weapons, all supplied by US imperialism. And relying on these criminals, US imperialism on its part has seized China's sovereign rights over its own territory, waters, and air space, seized inland navigation rights and special commercial privileges, seized special privileges in China's domestic and foreign affairs, and even seized the privilege of killing people, beating them up, driving cars over them, and raping them, all with impunity. Can it be said that the Chinese people, who have been compelled to fight such a long and bloody war, should still show affection and tenderness toward these most vicious enemies and should not completely destroy or expel them? Only by completely destroying the Chinese reactionaries and expelling the aggressive forces of US imperialism can China gain independence, democracy, and peace. Isn't this truth clear enough by now?

What deserves attention is that, all of a sudden, the enemies of the Chinese people are doing their best to assume a harmless and even a pitiable look (readers, please remember that in the future they will try to look pitiable again). Didn't Sun Ke, who has now become President of the Nationalist government's Executive Chamber, state in June last year that a «settlement will finally come, provided militarily we fight to the end»? But this time, the moment he took office, he talked glibly about an «honourable peace» and said that «the Government has been striving for peace and only resorted to fighting because peace could not be realized, but the ultimate objective of fighting is still to restore peace». Immediately afterward, on the 21st of December, a United Press dispatch from Shanghai predicted that Sun Ke's statement would meet with widespread approval in US official quarters and among the Nationalist Liberals. At present, US officials have not only become deeply interested in «peace» in China, but also repeatedly assert that, ever since the Moscow Conference of Foreign Ministers of the Council Union, the United States, and Britain in December 1945, the United States has adhered to a «policy of non-interference in China's internal affairs». How are we to deal with these worthies from the «Land of Excellencies»? Here, it is fitting to quote an ancient Greek fable. One winter's day, a farmhand found a snake frozen by the cold. Moved by compassion, he picked it up and put it in his bosom. The snake was revived by the warmth, its natural instincts returned, and it gave its benefactor a fatal bite. The dying farmhand said: «I've got what I deserve for taking pity on an evil creature.»⁴ Venomous snakes, foreign and Chinese, hope that the Chinese people will die like the farmhand, that, like him, the Communist Party of China and all Chinese revolutionary democrats will be kindhearted to them. But the Chinese people, the Communist Party of China, and the genuine revolutionary democrats of China have heard the labourer's dying words and will well remember them. Moreover, the serpents infesting most of China, big or small, black or white, baring their poisonous fangs or assuming the guise of beautiful girls, are not yet frozen by the cold, although they already sense the threat of winter.

The Chinese people will never take pity on snake-like scoundrels, and they honestly believe that no one is their true friend who guilefully says that pity should be shown these scoundrels and says that anything else would be out of keeping with China's traditions, fall short of greatness, and so on. Why should one take pity on snake-like scoundrels? What worker, what peasant, what soldier, says that such scoundrels should be pitied? True, there are «Nationalist Liberals» or non-Nationalist «Liberals» who advise the Chinese people to accept the «peace» offered by the United States and the Nationalist Party, that is, to enshrine and worship the remnants of imperialism, feudalism, and bureaucrat capitalism, so that these treasures shall not become extinct on Earth. But they are decidedly not workers, peasants, or soldiers, nor are they the friends of workers, peasants, and soldiers.

We hold that the Chinese people's revolutionary camp must be expanded and must embrace all who are willing to join the revolutionary cause at the present stage. The Chinese people's revolution needs a main force and also needs allies, for an army without allies cannot defeat the enemy. The Chinese people, now at the high tide of revolution, need friends and they should remember their friends and not forget them. In China, there are undoubtedly many friends faithful to the people's revolutionary cause, who try to protect the people's interests and are opposed to protecting the enemy's interests, and undoubtedly none of these friends should be forgotten or cold-shouldered. Also, we hold that we must consolidate the Chinese people's revolutionary camp and not allow bad elements to sneak in or wrong views to prevail. Besides keeping their friends in mind, the Chinese people, now at the high tide of revolution, should also keep their enemies and the friends of their enemies firmly in mind. As we said above, since the enemy is cunningly using the method of «peace» and the method of sneaking into the revolutionary camp to preserve and strengthen their position, whereas the fundamental interests of the people demand that all reactionary forces be destroyed thoroughly and that the aggressive forces of US imperialism be driven out of China, those who advise the people to take pity on the enemy and preserve the forces of reaction are not friends of the people, but friends of the enemy.

The raging tide of China's revolution is forcing all social strata to decide their attitude. A new change is taking place in the balance of class forces in China. Multitudes of people are breaking away from Nationalist influence and control and coming over to the revolutionary camp; and the Chinese reactionaries have fallen into hopeless straits, isolated and abandoned. As the People's War of Liberation draws closer and closer to final victory, all the revolutionary people and all friends of the people will unite more solidly and, led by the Communist Party of China, resolutely demand the complete destruction of the reactionary forces and the thoroughgoing development of the revolutionary forces until a people's democratic republic on a countrywide scale is founded and a peace based on unity and democracy is achieved. The US imperialists, the Chinese reactionaries, and their friends, on the contrary, are incapable of uniting solidly and will indulge in endless squabbles, mutual insult, recrimination, and betrayal. On one point, however, they will cooperate — in striving by every means to undermine the revolutionary forces and preserve the reactionary forces. They will use every means, open and secret, direct and indirect. But it can definitely be stated that their political intrigues will meet with the same defeats as their military attacks. Having had plenty of experience, the Chinese people and their general staff, the Communist Party of China, are certain to smash the enemy's political intrigues, just as they have shattered their military attacks, and to carry the great People's War of Liberation through to the end.

In 1949, the Chinese People's Liberation Army will advance south of the Yangzi River and will win even greater victories than in 1948.

In 1949, on the economic front we shall achieve even greater successes than in 1948. Our agricultural and industrial production will rise to a higher level than before, and rail and highway traffic will be completely restored. In their operations the main formations of the People's Liberation Army will discard certain survivals of guerrilla habits and reach a higher level of regularization.

In 1949, the Political Consultative Conference, with no reactionaries participating and having as its aim the fulfilment of the tasks of the people's revolution, will be convened, the People's Democratic Republic of China will be proclaimed, and the Central Government of the Republic will be established. This government will be a democratic coalition government under the leadership of the Communist Party of China, with the participation of appropriate persons representing the democratic political parties and people's organizations.

These are the main concrete tasks which the Chinese people, the Communist Party of China, and all the democratic political parties and people's organizations in China should strive to fulfil in 1949. We shall brave all difficulties and unite as one to fulfil these tasks.

In our struggle, we shall overthrow once and for all the feudal oppression of thousands of years and the imperialist oppression of 100 years. The year 1949 will be a year of tremendous importance. We should redouble our efforts.

#New China News Agency

#Northern Shaanxi