On the Present Situation

#PUBLICATION NOTE

This edition of On the Present Situation 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:

• Statement on the Present Situation by Mao Tse-tung, Chairman of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China, in the Selected Works of Mao Zedong, First English Edition, Vol. 4, Foreign Languages Press, Beijing, 1965.
• Statement on the Current Situation by Mao Zedong, Chairman of the Central Committee of the Chinese Communist Party, in Mao's Road to Power, First English Edition, Vol. 10, Routledge, New York and London, 2023.

#INTRODUCTION NOTE

This is a statement issued by Comrade Mao Zedong in Xibaipo, Pingshan, Hebei, China on the 14th of January, 1949. It was first published by the New China News Agency.

#Workers and oppressed people of the world, unite!

#ON THE PRESENT SITUATION

#Mao Zedong

#14th of January, 1949

#★

Two and a half years have gone by since July 1946, when the reactionary Nanjing Nationalist government, with the aid of the US imperialists, violated the will of the people, tore up the truce agreement and the resolutions of the Political Consultative Conference, and launched the countrywide counter-revolutionary civil war. In these two and a half years of war, the reactionary Nanjing Nationalist government has, in violation of the will of the people, convened a bogus «National Assembly», promulgated a bogus «Constitution», elected a bogus «President», and issued a bogus decree on the so-called «mobilization for putting down the rebellion»; sold out the national interest wholesale to the US government and received loans amounting to billions of US dollars; invited the US navy and air force to occupy China's territory and territorial sea and air; signed a large batch of treasonable treaties with the US government and accepted the US Military Advisory Group's participation in China's civil war; and obtained from the US government huge quantities of aircraft, tanks, light and heavy artillery, machine-guns, rifles, shells, bullets, and other war materiel for slaughtering the Chinese people. And it was on the basis of these reactionary and traitorous fundamental policies, domestic and foreign, that the reactionary Nanjing Nationalist government ordered millions of troops to launch ruthless attacks on the Chinese People's Liberated Areas and the Chinese People's Liberation Army. All the People's Liberated Areas in eastern China, the Central Plains, northern China, the North-West, and the North-East were, without exception, trampled upon by the Nationalist troops. The leading cities in the Liberated Areas, such as Yan'an, Zhangjiakou, Huaiyin, Heze, Daming, Linyi, Yantai, Chengde, Sipingjie, Changchun, Jilin, and Andong, were all occupied by these bandit troops at one time or another. Wherever they went, they massacred and raped, burned and looted, and stopped at nothing. In the areas under its rule, the reactionary Nanjing Nationalist government sucks the life-blood of the broad masses of the people — the workers, peasants, soldiers, intellectuals, and businesspeople — by exacting grain levies, taxes, and forced labour for «putting down the rebellion and suppressing the bandits». The reactionary Nanjing Nationalist government deprives the people of all their freedoms and rights; it oppresses all the democratic political parties and the people's organizations, denying them their legal status; it suppresses the righteous movement of the students against civil war, hunger, and persecution and against US interference in China's internal affairs and US fostering of the forces of aggression in Japan; it floods the country with the bogus national currency and the bogus gold yuan notes, thus ruining the economic life of the people and reducing the broad masses to bankruptcy; and by various means of expropriation, it concentrates the greatest part of the nation's wealth in the hands of the bureaucrat capitalists headed by the «Four Big Families» of Jiang, Song, Kong, and Chen. In short, the reactionary Nanjing Nationalist government has plunged the whole nation into dire suffering by waging a civil war based on its reactionary and traitorous fundamental policies, domestic and foreign; it absolutely cannot escape full responsibility. In contrast to the Nationalist Party of China, the Communist Party of China did all it could after Japan's surrender to press the Nationalist government to prevent and stop the civil war and realize domestic peace. Basing itself on this policy, the Communist Party of China struggled steadfastly and, with the support of the people of the whole country, first secured the signing of the Summary of Conversations between the Nationalist Party and the Communist Party in October 1945. In January 1946, the Communist Party again signed a truce agreement with the Nationalist Party and, in cooperation with the democratic political parties, forced the Nationalist Party to accept the joint resolutions of the Political Consultative Conference. From then on, the Communist Party of China, together with the democratic political parties and people's organizations, strove to uphold the agreement and the resolutions. But it is regrettable that the reactionary Nationalist government showed no respect for any of the actions we took in defence of internal peace and the democratic rights of the people. On the contrary, they were taken as signs of weakness and as beneath notice. The reactionary Nationalist government thought that the people could be bullied, that the truce agreement and the resolutions of the Political Consultative Conference could be torn up at will, that the People's Liberation Army could not withstand even a single blow, while its own troops several million strong could overrun the country, and that aid from the US government was inexhaustible. Therefore, the reactionary Nationalist government had the audacity to violate the will of the people of the whole country and unleash the counter-revolutionary war. In these circumstances, the Communist Party of China had no choice but to rise resolutely against the Nationalist government's reactionary policies and fight to safeguard the country's independence and the people's democratic rights. Since July 1946, the Communist Party of China has led the heroic People's Liberation Army to repulse the attacks of 4'300'000 troops of the reactionary Nationalist government and then to go over to the counter-offensive, recover all the lost territories of the Liberated Areas, and liberate many large cities, such as Shijiazhuang, Luoyang, Ji'nan, Zhengzhou, Kaifeng, Shenyang, Xuzhou, and Tangshan. The People's Liberation Army has overcome unparalleled difficulties, grown in strength, and equipped itself with huge quantities of arms given to the Nationalist government by the US government. In two and a half years, it has wiped out the main military forces of the reactionary Nationalist government and all its crack divisions. Today, the People's Liberation Army is superior to the remnant military forces of the reactionary Nationalist government in numbers, morale, and equipment. It is only now that the Chinese people can begin to breathe freely. The present situation is quite clear — the whole structure of the reactionary Nationalist regime will crumble and perish if the People's Liberation Army launches a few more powerful attacks against its remnant forces. Having pursued a policy of civil war, the reactionary Nationalist government is now reaping what it has sown, the masses are in rebellion, its close followers are deserting, and it can no longer maintain itself. In these circumstances, in order to preserve the remnant forces of the Nationalist government and in order to gain a breathing space before making new onslaughts to destroy the revolutionary forces, Jiang Jieshi, China's No. 1 war criminal, chieftain of the Nationalist bandit gang and bogus «President» of the Nanjing government, advanced the proposal on the 1st of January of this year that he was willing to hold peace negotiations with the Communist Party of China. The Communist Party of China considers this proposal hypocritical. The reason is that Jiang Jieshi has proposed as the basis for the peace negotiations such terms as preserving the bogus «Constitution», preserving the bogus «constituted authority», and preserving the armed forces of reaction, terms which the people throughout the country cannot accept. These are terms for continuing the war, not for peace. In the last ten days, the people throughout the country have made their will clear. They eagerly hope for an early peace, but they do not approve the so-called peace of the war criminals, do not approve their reactionary terms. Basing itself on the will of the people, the Communist Party of China declares that although the People's Liberation Army has ample strength and abundant reason to wipe out completely the remnant armed forces of the reactionary Nationalist government in not too long a period and has full confidence that it can do so; nevertheless, in order to hasten the end of the war, bring about genuine peace, and alleviate the people's sufferings, the Communist Party of China is willing to hold peace negotiations with the reactionary Nanjing Nationalist government or with any local governments or military groups of the Nationalist Party of China on the basis of the following terms:

• Punish the war criminals.
• Abolish the bogus «Constitution».
• Abolish the bogus «constituted authority».
• Reorganize all reactionary troops on democratic principles.
• Confiscate bureaucrat capital.
• Reform the land system.
• Abrogate treasonable treaties.
• Convene a Political Consultative Conference without the participation of reactionary elements, and form a democratic coalition government to take over all the powers of the reactionary Nanjing Nationalist government and of its subordinate governments at all levels.¹

The Communist Party of China holds that the above terms express the common will of the people throughout the country and that only a peace based on these terms can be called a genuine democratic peace. If the persons in the reactionary Nanjing Nationalist government wish to achieve a genuine democratic peace, and not a false reactionary peace, they should give up their reactionary terms and accept the eight terms put forward by the Communist Party of China as the basis for peace negotiations. Otherwise, their so-called peace will prove to be nothing but a fraud. We hope that the people throughout the country and all democratic political parties and people's organizations will rise to fight for a genuine democratic peace and against a false reactionary peace. The patriots in the Nanjing Nationalist governmental system should also support this peace proposal. Comrade commanders and fighters of the People's Liberation Army, attention! You should not slacken your fighting efforts in the slightest until the reactionary Nanjing Nationalist government has accepted a genuine democratic peace and carried it out. Any reactionaries who dare to resist must be resolutely, thoroughly, wholly, and completely annihilated.

#Mao Zedong, Chairperson of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China