The Situation and Tasks in the Anti-Japanese War After the Fall of Shanghai and Taiyuan

#PUBLICATION NOTE

This edition of The Situation and Tasks in the Anti-Japanese War After the Fall of Shanghai and Taiyuan 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 edition published in the Selected Works of Mao Zedong, First English Edition, Volume 2, Foreign Languages Press, Beijing, 1965.

#INTRODUCTION NOTE

This is the outline for a report delivered by Comrade Mao Zedong at a meeting of Party militants in Yan'an, Shaanxi, China on the 12th of November, 1937. It was first published in the Selected Works of Mao Zedong, Volume 2, in 1951.

The report met with immediate opposition from the Right-wing opportunists in the Communist Party of China, and not until the Enlarged Sixth Plenary Session of the Sixth Central Committee in October-November 1938 was the Right-wing deviation basically overcome.

#Workers and oppressed people of the world, unite!

#THE SITUATION AND TASKS IN THE ANTI-JAPANESE WAR AFTER THE FALL OF SHANGHAI AND TAIYUAN

#Mao Zedong

#12th of November, 1937

#★

#1. THE PRESENT SITUATION IS ONE OF TRANSITION FROM A WAR OF PARTIAL RESISTANCE TO A WAR OF TOTAL RESISTANCE

We support any kind of war of resistance, even though partial, against the invasion of Japanese imperialism. For partial resistance is a step forward from non-resistance, and, to a certain extent, it is revolutionary in character and is a war in defence of the homeland.

However, a war of partial resistance by the government alone without the mass participation of the people will certainly fail, as we have already pointed out (at the meeting of Party activists in Yan'an in April of this year, at the Party's National Conference in May, and in the resolution¹ of the Political Bureau of the Central Committee in August). For it is not a national-revolutionary war in the full sense, not a people's war.

We stand for a national-revolutionary war in the full sense, a war in which the entire people are mobilized, in other words, total resistance. For only such resistance constitutes a people's war and can achieve the goal of defending the homeland.

Although the war of partial resistance advocated by the Nationalist Party also constitutes a national war and is revolutionary in character to a certain extent, its revolutionary character is far from complete. Partial resistance is bound to lead to defeat in the war; it can never successfully defend the homeland.

Herein lies the difference in principle between the standpoint of the Communist Party and the present standpoint of the Nationalist Party with regard to resistance. If Communists forget this difference in principle, they will be unable to guide the War of Resistance correctly, they will be powerless to overcome the Nationalist Party's one-sidedness, and they will debase themselves to the point of abandoning their principles and reduce their Party to the level of the Nationalist Party. That would be a crime against the sacred cause of the national-revolutionary war and the defence of the homeland.

In a national-revolutionary war in the full sense, in a war of total resistance, it is essential to put into effect the Ten-Point Programme for Resisting Japan and Saving the Nation proposed by the Communist Party, and it is essential to have a government and an army that will enforce this programme in its entirety.

The situation after the fall of Shanghai and Taiyuan is as follows:

• In northern China, regular warfare in which the Nationalist Party played the chief role has ended, and guerrilla warfare in which the Communist Party is playing the chief role has become primary. In Jiangsu and Zhejiang Provinces, the Japanese aggressors have broken through the Nationalist Party's battle lines and are advancing on Nanjing and the Yangzi valley. It is already clear that the Nationalist Party's partial resistance cannot last long.
• In their own imperialist interests, the governments of Britain, the United States, and France have indicated that they will help China, but so far there has been only verbal sympathy and no practical aid whatsoever.
• The German and Italian fascists are doing everything to assist Japanese imperialism.
• The Nationalist Party is still unwilling to make any fundamental change in its one-party dictatorship and autocratic rule over the people, through which it is carrying on partial resistance.

This is one side of the picture.

The other side is seen in the following:

• The political influence of the Communist Party and the Eighth Route Army is spreading fast and far, and they are being acclaimed throughout the country as «the saviours of the nation». The Communist Party and the Eighth Route Army are determined to keep up the guerrilla warfare in northern China, so as to defend the whole country, tie down the Japanese aggressors, and hinder them from attacking the Central Plains and the North-West.
• The mass movement has developed a step further.
• The national bourgeoisie is leaning toward the Left.
• Forces favouring reforms are growing within the Nationalist Party.
• The movement to oppose Japan and aid China is spreading among the people of the world.
• The Council Union is preparing to give practical assistance to China.

This is the other side of the picture.

Therefore, the present situation is one of transition from partial to total resistance. While partial resistance cannot last long, total resistance has not yet begun. The transition from one to the other, the gap in time, is fraught with danger.

In this period, China's partial resistance may develop in one of three directions:

• The first is the ending of partial resistance and its replacement by total resistance. This is what the majority of the nation demands, but the Nationalist Party is still undecided.
• The second is the ending of armed resistance and its replacement by capitulation. This is what the Japanese aggressors, the collaborators, and the pro-Japanese elements demand, but the majority of the Chinese people oppose it.
• The third is the coexistence of armed resistance and capitulation in China. This could come about as a result of the intrigues of the Japanese aggressors, the collaborators, and the pro-Japanese elements to split China's anti-Japanese front when they find it impossible to attain the second direction. They are now engineering something of this kind. Indeed, this danger is very grave.

Judging from the present situation, the domestic and international factors which prevent capitulationism from winning out have the upper hand. These factors include: Japan's persistence in its policy of subjugating China, which leaves China no alternative but to fight; the existence of the Communist Party and the Eighth Route Army; the wishes of the Chinese people; the wishes of the majority of the Nationalists; the anxiety of Britain, the United States, and France lest capitulation by the Nationalist Party damage their interests; the existence of the Council Union and its policy of helping China; the high hopes which the Chinese people place (not without foundation) in the Council Union. The proper and coordinated use of these factors would not only frustrate capitulationism and splitting, but also overcome the obstructions to any advance beyond partial resistance.

Therefore, the prospect of going over from partial to total resistance does exist. To strive for this prospect is the urgent common task of all Chinese Communists, all progressive Nationalists, and all the Chinese people.

China's anti-Japanese national-revolutionary war is now confronting a grave crisis. This crisis may be prolonged, or it may be overcome fairly quickly. Internally, the decisive factors are Nationalist-Communist cooperation and a change in Nationalist policy on the basis of this cooperation, and the strength of the worker and peasant masses. Externally, the decisive factor is assistance from the Council Union.

Political and organizational reform of the Nationalist Party is both necessary and possible.² The main reasons are Japanese pressure, the Communist Party of China's united front policy, the wishes of the Chinese people, and the growth of new forces inside the Nationalist Party. Our task is to work for this reform of the Nationalist Party as a basis for reforming the government and the army. This reform undoubtedly requires the consent of the Central Executive Committee of the Nationalist Party, and we are only in a position to offer suggestions.

The government should be reformed. We have proposed the convening of a provisional national assembly, which is likewise both necessary and possible. Undoubtedly, this reform also requires the consent of the Nationalist Party.

The task of reforming the army consists in building up new armies and reforming the old armies. If a new army of 250'000 to 300'000 soldiers imbued with a new political spirit can be built up within 6 to 12 months, the situation on the anti-Japanese battlefield will begin to mend. Such an army would influence all the old armies and rally them around itself. This would provide the military basis for the turn to the strategic counter-offensive in the War of Resistance. This reform likewise requires the Nationalist Party's consent. The Eighth Route Army ought to have an exemplary role to play in the course of this reform. And the Eighth Route Army itself should be expanded.

#2. CAPITULATIONISM MUST BE COMBATED BOTH INSIDE THE PARTY AND THROUGHOUT THE COUNTRY

#2.1. INSIDE THE PARTY, OPPOSE CLASS CAPITULATIONISM

In 1927, Chen Duxiu's capitulationism led to the failure of the revolution. No member of our Party should ever forget this historical lesson written in blood.

With regard to the Party's line of an anti-Japanese national united front, the main danger inside the Party before the Marco Polo Bridge Incident was «Left-wing» opportunism, that is, closed-doorism, the reason being chiefly that the Nationalist Party had not yet begun to resist Japan.

Since the Marco Polo Bridge Incident, the main danger inside the Party is no longer «Left-wing» closed-doorism, but Right-wing opportunism, that is, capitulationism, the reason being chiefly that the Nationalist Party has begun to resist Japan.

Already in April, at the Yan'an meeting of Party activists, then again in May, at the National Conference of the Party, and especially in August, at the meeting of the Political Bureau of the Central Committee (the Luochuan Meeting), we posed the following question: Will the proletariat lead the bourgeoisie in the united front, or the bourgeoisie the proletariat? Will the Nationalist Party draw over the Communist Party, or the Communist Party the Nationalist Party? In relation to the current specific political task, this question means: Is the Nationalist Party to be raised to the level of the Ten-Point Programme for Resisting Japan and Saving the Nation, to the level of the total resistance advocated by the Communist Party? Or is the Communist Party to sink to the level of the Nationalist dictatorship of the feudal lords and bourgeoisie, to the level of partial resistance?

Why must we pose the question so sharply? The answer is:

• On the one hand, we have the Chinese bourgeoisie's proneness to compromise; the Nationalist Party's superiority in material strength; the declaration and the decisions of the Third Plenary Session of the Central Executive Committee of the Nationalist Party, which slander and insult the Communist Party and cry out for «an end to the class struggle»; the Nationalist Party's yearning for «the capitulation of the Communist Party» and its widespread propaganda to this end; Jiang Jieshi's attempts to place the Communist Party under his control; the Nationalist Party's policy of restricting and weakening the Red Army and the anti-Japanese democratic base areas; the plan concocted during the Nationalist Party's Mount Lu Training Course³ in July «to reduce the Communist Party's strength by 2/5 in the course of the War of Resistance»; the attempts of the Nationalist Party to seduce Communist cadres with offers of fame and fortune and wine and sex; the political capitulation of certain small-bourgeois radicals (represented by Zhang Naiqi⁴); and so on.
• On the other hand, we have the uneven theoretical level among Communists; the fact that many of our Party members lack the experience of cooperation between the two political parties gained during the Northern Expedition; the fact that a large number of Party members are of small-bourgeois origin; the reluctance of some Party members to continue a life of bitter struggle; the tendency towards unprincipled accommodation with the Nationalist Party in the united front; the emergence of a tendency towards a new type of warlordism in the Eighth Route Army; the emergence of the problem of Communist participation in the Nationalist government; the emergence of a tendency toward excessive accommodation in the anti-Japanese democratic base areas; and so on.

We must sharply pose the question of who is to lead and must resolutely combat capitulationism in view of the grave situation described above.

For several months now, and especially since the outbreak of the War of Resistance, the Central Committee and Party organizations at all levels have waged a clear-cut and firm struggle against capitulationist tendencies, actual or potential, have taken various necessary precautions against them, and have achieved good results.

The Central Committee has issued a draft resolution⁵ on the problem of Communist participation in the government.

A struggle has been started against the tendency toward new warlordism in the Eighth Route Army. This tendency is manifest in certain individuals who, since the redesignation of the Red Army, have become unwilling to submit strictly to Communist Party leadership, have developed individualistic heroism, taken pride in being given appointments by the Nationalist Party (that is, in becoming officials), and so on. The tendency towards this new type of warlordism has the same root (the reduction of the Communist Party to the level of the Nationalist Party) and the same result (the alienation of the masses) as the tendency toward the old type of warlordism, which expressed itself in beating and abusing people, violating discipline, and so on; it is particularly dangerous, because it is occurring in the period of the Nationalist-Communist united front, and it therefore calls for special attention and determined opposition. Both the system of political commissars, which was abolished because of Nationalist intervention, and the system of political departments, which were renamed «political training offices» for the same reason, have now been restored. We have initiated and staunchly carried out the new strategic principle of «independent guerrilla warfare in the mountain regions with the initiative in our own hands», thus basically ensuring the Eighth Route Army's successes in fighting and in its other tasks. We have rejected the Nationalist Party's demand that its members should be sent to the Eighth Route Army units as cadres and have upheld the principle of absolute leadership of the Eighth Route Army by the Communist Party. Similarly, we have introduced the principle of «independence and initiative within the united front» in the revolutionary anti-Japanese base areas. We have corrected the tendency toward «parliamentarism»⁶ (of course, not the parliamentarism of the Second International, which is absent in the Chinese Party); we have also persisted in our struggle against bandits, enemy spies, and saboteurs.

In Xi'an, we have corrected the tendency toward unprincipled accommodation in our relations with the Nationalist Party and have developed the mass struggle anew.

In eastern Gansu, we have on the whole done the same as in Xi'an.

In Shanghai, we have criticized Zhang Naiqi's line of «issuing fewer calls and offering more suggestions» and begun to correct the tendency toward excessive accommodation in the work of the national salvation movement.

In the guerrilla zones in the south — these representing part of the gains of our decade of bloody warfare with the Nationalist Party, our strategic strongholds for the anti-Japanese national revolutionary war in the southern provinces, and our forces which the Nationalist Party tried to wipe out by «encirclement and suppression» even after the Xi'an Incident, and which it has tried to weaken by the newer method of «luring the tiger out of the mountains» even after the Marco Polo Bridge Incident — we have taken special care, firstly, to guard against concentrating our forces regardless of circumstances (which would suit the Nationalist Party's desire to destroy these strongholds); secondly, to reject Nationalist appointees; and, thirdly, to be on the alert against the danger of another He Ming Incident⁷ (that is, the danger of being surrounded and disarmed by the Nationalist Party).

Our attitude in the Jiefang⁸ [Liberation Weekly] has continued to be one of serious and fair criticism.

In order to persevere in armed resistance and win final victory as well as to turn partial resistance into total resistance, it is necessary to adhere to the Anti-Japanese National United Front and expand and strengthen it. No views disruptive of the Nationalist-Communist united front will be tolerated. We must still guard against «Left-wing» closed-doorism. But, at the same time, we must closely adhere to the principle of independence and initiative in all our united front work. Our united front with the Nationalist Party and other political parties is based on the execution of a definite programme. Without this basis, there can be no united front, and, in that case, cooperation would become unprincipled and a manifestation of capitulationism. Thus, the key to leading the anti-Japanese national revolutionary war to victory is to explain, apply, and uphold the principle of «independence and initiative within the united front».

What is our purpose in all this? In one respect, it is to hold the ground we have already won, for this ground is our strategic point of departure and its loss would mean the end of everything. But our chief purpose is to extend the ground already won and realize the positive aim of «winning the masses in their millions for the Anti-Japanese National United Front and the overthrow of Japanese imperialism». Holding our ground and extending it are inseparably connected. In the last few months, many more Left-wing members of the small bourgeoisie have become united under our influence, the new forces in the Nationalist camp have grown, the mass struggle in Shanxi has developed, and our Party organizations have expanded in many places.

But we must clearly understand that, generally speaking, the organizational strength of our Party is still quite small in the country as a whole. The strength of the masses in the country as a whole is also very small, because the workers and peasants, the fundamental sections of the masses, are not yet organized. All this is due to the Nationalist Party's policy of control and repression, on the one hand, and the inadequacy of our own work or even its complete absence, on the other. This is the fundamental weakness of our Party in the present anti-Japanese national-revolutionary war. Unless we overcome this weakness, Japanese imperialism cannot be defeated. To this end, we must apply the principle of «independence and initiative within the united front» and overcome all tendencies toward capitulation or excessive accommodation.

#2.2. IN THE COUNTRY AS A WHOLE, OPPOSE NATIONAL CAPITULATIONISM

The above points deal with class capitulationism. This tendency would lead the proletariat to accommodate itself to bourgeois reformism and bourgeois lack of thoroughness. Unless it is overcome, we cannot succeed in carrying forward the anti-Japanese national-revolutionary war, in turning partial resistance into total resistance, and in defending the homeland.

But there is also the other kind of capitulationism, national capitulationism, which would lead China to accommodate itself to the interests of Japanese imperialism, make China a Japanese colony, and turn the Chinese people into colonial slaves. This tendency has now appeared in the Right wing of the Anti-Japanese National United Front.

The Left wing of the Anti-Japanese National United Front is composed of the Communist-led masses, which include the proletariat, the peasantry, and the urban small bourgeoisie. Our task is to do our utmost to extend and consolidate this wing. The accomplishment of this task is the fundamental prerequisite for reforming the Nationalist Party, the government, and the army, for establishing a unified democratic republic, for turning partial resistance into total resistance, and for overthrowing Japanese imperialism.

The intermediate section of the Anti-Japanese National United Front is composed of the national bourgeoisie and the upper stratum of the small bourgeoisie. Those for whom the leading Shanghai newspapers speak are now tending toward the Left,⁹ while some members of the Revival Society have begun to vacillate and some members of the Central Club Clique are also wavering.¹⁰ The armies resisting Japan have learned severe lessons, and some have begun or are preparing to introduce reforms. Our task is to help the intermediate section to move forward and change its standpoint.

The Right wing of the Anti-Japanese National United Front consists of the big feudal lords and the big bourgeoisie, and it is the nerve centre of national capitulationism. It is inevitable that these people should tend toward capitulationism, for they fear both the destruction of their property in the war and the rise of the masses. Many of them are already collaborators, many have become or are ready to become pro-Japanese, many are vacillating, and only a few, owing to special circumstances, are firmly anti-Japanese. Some of them have joined the national united front for the time being under compulsion and with reluctance. Generally speaking, it will not be long before they split away. Indeed many of the worst elements among the big feudal lords and the big bourgeoisie are at this very moment engineering a split in the Anti-Japanese National United Front. They are manufacturing rumours, and stories, such as «the Communists are engaged in insurrection» and «the Eighth Route Army is in retreat», are sure to multiply daily. Our task is to combat national capitulationism resolutely and, in the course of this struggle, to expand and consolidate the Left wing and help the intermediate section to move forward and change its standpoint.

#2.3. THE RELATION BETWEEN CLASS CAPITULATIONISM AND NATIONAL CAPITULATIONISM

Class capitulationism is actually the reserve force of national capitulationism in the anti-Japanese national-revolutionary war; it is a vile tendency that lends support to the camp of the Right wing and leads to defeat in the war. We must fight this tendency inside the Communist Party and the proletariat and extend the fight to all spheres of our work, in order to invigorate the struggle against national capitulationism, and in order to achieve the liberation of the Chinese nation and the emancipation of the toiling masses.