The More the Reactionaries Resort to Massacre, the Nearer They Approach Their Doom
#PUBLICATION NOTE
This edition of The More the Reactionaries Resort to Massacre, the Nearer They Approach Their Doom 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:
- Quotation in Comrade Mao Tse-tung on «Imperialism and All Reactionaries Are Paper Tigers», Third English Edition, Foreign Languages Press, Beijing, 1966.
- Speech at the Memorial Assembly for Chinese Revolutionary Martyrs, in Mao's Road to Power, First English Edition, Vol. 8, Routledge, New York and London, 2015.
#INTRODUCTION NOTE
This is an address delivered by Comrade Mao Zedong at a memorial meeting for martyrs of the Chinese revolution in Yan'an, Shaanxi, China on the 17th of June, 1945. It was first published in the Collected Works of Mao Zedong, Vol. 3.
#Workers and oppressed people of the world, unite!
#THE MORE THE REACTIONARIES RESORT TO MASSACRE, THE NEARER THEY APPROACH THEIR DOOM
#ADDRESS AT A MEMORIAL MEETING FOR MARTYRS OF THE CHINESE REVOLUTION
#Mao Zedong
#17th of June, 1945
#★
Comrades:
Today, the delegates to the Seventh National Congress of the Communist Party of China and the representatives of the people of Yan'an jointly gather for a memorial meeting to mourn those in the Chinese revolutionary forces who sacrificed themselves on every front during the last few decades. Among these martyrs are several hundred thousand Communists and millions of revolutionary democrats. Among them are comrades engaged in military work, comrades engaged in all kinds of mass movements, comrades engaged in administrative work, comrades engaged in Party affairs, and comrades engaged in technical work. They range from the very high ranking to cooks, grooms, fighters, workers, and peasants. It is these two groups of people, Communists and revolutionary democrats, who have united to fight our enemy. In the beginning, such an army made up of these two groups of people was not big at all. Later, it gradually grew, and now it is quite large. At the beginning, its line, principles, policies, and methods only had a direction. As for how it could become better and more correct, this was achieved through protracted struggle and through the blood and sacrifice of several hundred thousand Communists and millions of revolutionary people. We have held our Seventh Party Congress, and the Communist Party of China has adopted a line, programme, and set of policies for building a New China that is independent, free, democratic, united, prosperous, and powerful. Where did these things come from? They did not come from the brains of a few individuals, and they were not invented by a few individuals. Instead, they are the results of several decades of struggle by millions of Chinese people led by their vanguard — the Communist Party of China. It is only through this experience that we have the resolutions and documents of the Seventh Party Congress.
China has two big enemies, two heavy mountains, that are oppressing our 450'000'000 people. One mountain is imperialism, the other is feudalism. Domestic and foreign oppression are weighing down on our 450'000'000 people to prevent them from rising up, and are destroying our productive forces. The productive forces of the Chinese people should be developed. China should develop and become a modern country, a country with ample food and clothing as well as wealth and strength. To achieve this, we must liberate the productive forces and destroy imperialism and feudalism. It is imperialism and feudalism that impede the productive forces of the Chinese people. Without destroying them, China will be unable to develop and make progress, and will be in danger of being destroyed. Imperialism began to encroach upon China as early as more than 100 years ago. Now, we have been fighting against Japanese imperialism for eight years. It has been over ten years if we count from the Mukden Incident. Japanese imperialism is our enemy No. 1. In reality, the domestic reactionaries in China are oppressing the Chinese people hand in glove with the Japanese invaders. These reactionary forces are still very strong. They oppress all the Chinese people and constrain their productive forces, so that they cannot grow. What does the revolution do? It breaks this oppression, liberates the productive forces of the Chinese people, and liberates the Chinese people, so that they will have freedom. Therefore, we should first obtain national independence and then democracy. Without these two things, China will be neither united, prosperous, nor powerful. Without independence, China will continue to suffer from imperialist oppression. Without democracy, China will continue to suffer from feudal oppression. Would we then still have unity? There are both democrats and reactionaries in the Nationalist Party. Now, the reactionaries are in power. Their so-called unification of China wants China to remain a colony or semi-colony of imperialism and to remain a country ruled by the feudal system. China would be without independence and without democracy, which means that the productive forces of the Chinese people would not be liberated. Our War of Resistance is not yet over, and we should continue to work hard and unite the people throughout the country to make great efforts before we can defeat our enemy. Nonetheless, the first obstacle that prevents us from uniting is the Nationalist reactionaries.
The anti-imperialist and anti-feudal struggle of the Chinese people has undergone several stages. There was the «Quell-the-British» Corps in Guangdong, the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom, the Boxer Movement, the Revolution of 1911, and the 4th of May Movement, all of which had a national, democratic, and mass character. In terms of the goals of these movements, their demands for independence and democracy were the same as ours. There was no Communist Party of China during these several decades of struggle. These movements were led by other groups and political parties. Because there was no Communist Party of China, the Chinese people did not have a thorough revolutionary programme, which could represent their interests, and did not have a correct leader, who could steadfastly and consistently lead them to carry on the struggle. Changes took place in the Nationalist Party. the Nationalist Party during the Sun Yixian period was different from the Nationalist Party in the Jiang Jieshi period. While the former was the Nationalist Party that pursued the revolutionary «Three People's Principles», the latter is the Nationalist Party that retrogresses toward reaction. Only the Communist Party is incapable of vacillating on the question of revolution. Only the Communist Party can carry the revolution through to the end, regardless of the number of deaths and sacrifices. It has already been 104 years since the uprising in Guangdong of the «Quell-the-British» Corps to resist British imperialism in 1841. In these 104 years, the number of Chinese who have been killed or imprisoned is incalculable. Ever since the founding of the Communist Party of China in 1921, the past 24 years have seen the deaths of several hundred thousand people among the Communists alone. The revolutionary democrats, who fought against foreign as well as Chinese counter-revolutionary forces along with us, have also lost millions of lives. All reactionaries try to stamp out revolution by mass murder, thinking that the greater their massacre, the weaker the revolution. But, contrary to this reactionary wishful thinking, the fact is that the more the reactionaries resort to massacre, the greater the strength of the revolution and the nearer the reactionaries approach their doom. This is an inexorable law.
The aforementioned law can also be proved by the history of the Nationalist Party. The Qing Dynasty and foreign imperialism once oppressed the Nationalist Party. Did this oppression make the Nationalist Party smaller or bigger? In the end, the Revolution of 1911 broke out and overthrew the Qing Dynasty. The Nationalist Party now uses the same methods that the imperialists and feudalists once used against it to suppress the Chinese people, the Communist Party, and the workers, peasants, and revolutionary intellectuals. But they are mistaken! The more troops they march over here, the smaller they will become. Our army, however, will become bigger. This is the conclusion we draw from the history of the past few decades. Japanese imperialism has killed so many people, but did it become any bigger as a result? Hitler also killed many people, but did he become any bigger as a result? Whether they are Chinese or foreigners, the more people that the reactionaries kill, the smaller their own forces will become, and the bigger the revolutionary forces will become.
The political party that we are building is a Communist Party in Asia. The army that we are building is a revolutionary people's army in Asia. We are fighting bravely. It is impossible to diminish or eliminate us by means of massacre and oppression. Several hundred thousand Communists and millions of revolutionary democrats have been butchered, but our contingent still has hundreds of thousands and millions standing up to continue fighting. Take the three periods in the history of the Communist Party of China, for example. In the first period, we recruited 50'000 Party members, and they were scattered by one blow. Very few remained. In the second period, we recruited 300'000 Party members, and again, many were scattered. Again, only a few remained. In the third period, we have recruited more than 1'200'000 Party members. In terms of the army, every comrade here knows that there has never been a Chinese Red Army in history until today. If there really had been one, it would have been that of Zhu Hongwu of the Ming Dynasty, who named his army the «Red Army», because its flags were red. Some people think that we must have imported the name Red Army from foreign countries. I would say that it is not necessarily the case, because you only know about what goes on abroad and do not know the deeds of our Chinese ancestors. After the oppression and slaughter of the people by the reactionary Nationalist clique in 1927, a Red Army was founded in China again. This Red Army is under the leadership of a progressive political party. At the beginning, its numbers were very small. I often tell some of our comrades: «Its beginning is humble, but it will become great in the end.» That is what it says in the Writings of Master Zhuang. This saying refers to things that have vitality, whether they are countries, nations, people, or political parties. Are the Chinese revolutionary forces «great» now? In 1841, the «Quell-the-British» Corps in Guangdong had several tens of thousands of troops, and their slogan was to oppose the British invasion. Nonetheless, people back then did not know what would later happen to their children, grandchildren, and so on. Sun Yixian led the Revolution of 1911, but he did not anticipate the 4th of May Movement nor the founding of the Communist Party. Our ancestors couldn't have predicted such an important historic event as the Great November Socialist Revolution in Russia, much less that China would progress to the point of having people who carry out the new-democratic revolution under the leadership of the Communist Party. They also couldn't have predicted that the Chinese revolution would take such a long time to succeed. At that time, they had only just begun to resist enemy oppression. As far as what the next episode would be, in my opinion, they did not maturely consider it. It was unlike the Seventh Party Congress, where we have summed up historical experience, gained a clear understanding of the current and future situation, and thus strengthened our confidence. Our ancestors failed to predict these things, but they are not to blame. They did not have revolutionary social science back then, and they did not have Marxism to arm their brains. We are people whose brains are armed with Scientific Socialism and who can predict the future of society. We are more progressive than they were, and we must carry to completion what they did not finish. Our public memorial meeting today can be traced back to the heroes of the «Quell-the-British» Corps in 1841. We also mourn and pay our respects to them. The anti-British struggle of the «Quell-the-British» Corps and the Movement of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom were both brave struggles. The Taiping Heavenly Kingdom had a few hundred thousand troops and millions of peasants supporting it. It fought for 13 years. In the end, when Nanjing was overwhelmed by the Qing troops, nobody surrendered, and they were all burned alive. That was the end of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom. Although it failed, its failure was unyielding. Nobody could make them surrender. There is no «Quell-the-British» Corps today, nor is there a Taiping Heavenly Kingdom, nor a Boxer Movement. Nonetheless, there was a Taiping Heavenly Kingdom after the «Quell-the-British» Corps, a Boxer Movement after the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom, a Revolution of 1911 after the Boxer Movement, and a Communist Party after the Revolution of 1911. Because of this, there was the Northern Expedition, the Agrarian Revolutionary War, and the War of Resistance Against Japan. One or another part of the revolutionary forces may be eliminated. They will be eliminated and killed by the enemy if they are not handled well. Even hundreds of thousands can be killed by the enemy, but subsequently, more and more people will join our ranks. I have seen families like this, and you comrades must have seen many families like this, too, where the reactionaries killed the father, so three or four of his sons, or even seven or eight of his sons and all of his daughters, all joined the Communist Party and came to Yan'an. Therefore, the more people the reactionaries kill, the bigger the revolutionary army will grow.
We are holding a big meeting today, and we are confident. The martyrs have left us and passed their responsibilities onto us. We must fulfil this responsibility. Comrades, today is different from the times when these martyrs waged their struggles. Changes will take place in China in the next two to three years. Perhaps things will change for the worse or for the better. In sum, changes will take place. Japanese imperialism will be defeated. After the defeat of Japanese imperialism, the Chinese and foreign reactionaries will again want to defeat us and the Chinese people. They want to wipe out all the people's democratic and revolutionary forces in China. By then, there may be such a situation. The whole country would then be covered in darkness. Yan'an would also be covered in darkness. It would be as if Chine were sinking into the ocean. Every day would turn into night, without sunlight and with a great deal of darkness, and we would have to live in terror for another few decades. This is one possibility. There is another possibility, another picture, which is the suppression of the forces of darkness and those who massacre the people. A group of Chinese and foreign correspondents asked me some questions when they visited Yan'an last year, including questions in this regard. I answered: We are sophisticated people, who use our words rather than our fists. But if someone threatens to kill us with a knife, then we will respond accordingly. I once told the communication staff of the Nationalist Party: Let us say that we have 100 rifles. If you have the ability to capture 99 of them, then I will admire you, because you are good at fighting and we are not. But if you capture 99 out of 100 rifles, then we shall still have one left, and we will fight on with this rifle. You may tell us to surrender, but we will not. The word «surrender» does not exist in our dictionary, but it does exist in yours.
Comrades, the present international and domestic situation is very good. Our people, our friends, the true democrats, and us Communists need to understand more about unity and more about the line, principles, and policies of the Communist Party. By understanding the Party's line, principles, and policies, we shall become more united, and no one will be able to disperse us. Comrades, you should be careful. Fighting is inevitable in the future, since the reactionaries are already prepared. Now, in reality, they are working hand in glove with our national enemy, Japanese imperialism, intending to wipe out the revolutionary forces of the Chinese people. They would like to wipe out all the revolutionary forces. Nevertheless, the result will be just like what I said in my concluding speech at the Seventh Party Congress: The revolution is sure to succeed. China belongs to the Chinese people, not to the reactionary clique. The Americans who visited Yan'an asked me a question, and I told them: I will write you a check. After you return to the United States, if you ever come back here, you will be meeting the same people again, because China belongs to the people. This is one possible future. The other possible future is that China will belong to the reactionaries. Now, the policy of US Ambassador Patrick J. Hurley is reactionary, supporting the Chinese reactionary clique. Our Party now has a clear and sober mind, and a correct line, principles, and policies. We are sure to succeed. We have such confidence. We are determined to erase the darkness from China and the world and to build a China of light. This China of light is the goal toward which the martyrs all fought for a very long time. Although they died before succeeding, they left us with experiences and lessons. The revolution has not yet succeeded today, when we are holding this memorial meeting, but it will succeed tomorrow. We have made up our minds to turn Old China into People's China. We must defeat all foreign and Chinese reactionaries and oppressors. We will never give up until they have been defeated. This objective will be achieved if our entire Party unites, if the 100'000'000 people of our Liberated Areas unite, and if the revolutionary democrats throughout the enemy-occupied areas and all other areas of the country unite. We will never stop until we have achieved this goal.