Why Do the Badly Split Reactionaries Still Idly Clamour for «Total Peace»?

#PUBLICATION NOTE

This edition of Why Do the Badly Split Reactionaries Still Idly Clamour for «Total Peace»? 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:

• Why Do the Badly Split Reactionaries Still Idly Clamour for «Total Peace»?, in the Selected Works of Mao Zedong, First English Edition, Vol. 4, Foreign Languages Press, Beijing, 1965.
• The Badly Split Reactionary Group Still Idly Clamors for «Total Peace», in Mao's Road to Power, First English Edition, Vol. 10, Routledge, New York and London, 2023.

#INTRODUCTION NOTE

This is a comment written by Comrade Mao Zedong for the New China News Agency in Xibaipo, Pingshan, Hebei, China. It was first published on the 15th of February, 1949.

This is part of a series of comments written by Comrade Mao Zedong for the New China News Agency to expose the use of peace negotiations by the Nationalist Party of China in order to preserve the counter-revolutionary forces.

#Workers and oppressed people of the world, unite!

#WHY DO THE BADLY SPLIT REACTIONARIES STILL IDLY CLAMOUR FOR «TOTAL PEACE»?

#Mao Zedong

#15th of February, 1949

#★

The reactionary Nationalist rule is collapsing more rapidly than was expected. It is only a little over four months since the People's Liberation Army captured Ji'nan and only a little over three months since it captured Shenyang, but all the remnant forces of the Nationalist Party of China in the military, political, economic, cultural, and propaganda fields are already hopelessly split and disintegrated. The general collapse of Nationalist rule began with the Liaoxi-Shenyang and Beijing-Tianjin Campaigns on the northern front and the Huai-Hai Campaign on the southern front. In less than four months, from early October last year to the end of January this year, these three campaigns cost the Nationalist Party a total of more than 1'540'000 troops, including 144 entire divisions of its regular army. The general collapse of Nationalist rule is essentially the inevitable outcome of the great victories of the Chinese People's War of Liberation and of the revolutionary movement of the Chinese people, but the clamour for «peace» by the Nationalist Party and its US masters has played a considerable part in hastening this collapse. On the 1st of January of this year, the Nationalist reactionaries began to lift a rock called the «peace offensive»; they intended to hurl it at the Chinese people, but now it has dropped on their own feet. To be more exact, the rock has smashed the Nationalist Party to pieces. Besides General Fu Zuoyi, who has helped the People's Liberation Army to achieve a peaceful settlement of the Beijing question, there are plenty of people everywhere who hope for a peaceful settlement. But there are still Jiang Jieshi, Li Zongren, Sun Ke, Bai Chongxi, Zhang Qun, Zhang Zhizhong, and other big and small ringleaders in different provinces and cities who are still ostensibly part of the Nationalist Party, but each has their own stronghold, puts on their own label, and pursues their own plans. The Americans are looking on in impotent fury, because their brats have failed them. In fact, this magic weapon, the peace offensive, was made in US factories and was delivered to the Nationalist Party more than half a year ago. It was Leighton Stuart himself who betrayed the secret. After Jiang Jieshi issued his so-called New Year's Day message, Stuart told a correspondent of the Central News Agency that this was «what I myself have consistently worked for». According to US news agencies, that correspondent lost his rice bowl for publishing this «off the record» remark. The reason the Jiang Jieshi clique did not dare to obey this American order for quite a long time was clearly explained in a directive issued by the Propaganda Department of the Nationalist Central Executive Committee on the 27th of December, 1948:

If we cannot fight, we cannot make peace. If we can fight, then to talk about peace will only demoralize the troops and the people. Hence, whether we can fight or not, we have everything to lose and nothing to gain by talking about peace.

The Nationalist Party issued this directive at that time because some Nationalist factions other than Jiang's were already advocating peace talks. Last 25th of December, Bai Chongxi and the Hubei Provincial Council under his direction raised the question of a «peaceful settlement»¹ with Jiang Jieshi, who was compelled to issue a statement on the 1st of January about holding peace negotiations on the basis of his five terms. He hoped to snatch the patent for inventing the peace offensive from Bai Chongxi and to continue his old rule under a new trademark. On the 8th of January, he sent Zhang Qun to Hankou to enlist the support of Bai Chongxi, and on the same day, he asked the governments of the United States, Britain, France, and the Council Union to intervene in China's civil war.² But all these moves failed completely. The statement by Mao Zedong, Chairperson of the Communist Party of China, on the 14th of January dealt a fatal blow to Jiang Jieshi's plot for a sham peace and compelled him to «retire» backstage a week later. Although Jiang Jieshi, Li Zongren, and the Americans had made all kinds of arrangements for this plot and hoped to put on a fairly good puppet show, the result was contrary to their expectations; not only did the audience dwindle, but even the actors themselves vanished from the stage one after another. In Fenghua, Jiang Jieshi continues to direct his remnant forces in his «status of retirement», but he has lost his legal status, and those people who believe in him are getting fewer and fewer. On its own initiative, Sun Ke's «Executive Chamber» has proclaimed «the moving of the Government to Guangzhou»; it has broken away not only from the «President» and «Acting President» of the government, but also from the «Legislative Chamber» and «Control Chamber». The illegal Legislative Chamber has a total of 750 people now, with more than 200 in Shanghai, more than 120 in Taiwan, and, as of the 11th of February, only 57 people are reported to be in Guangzhou. According to the Organic Law of the illegal Legislative Chamber, there must be more than 1/3 in attendance to hold a meeting. Although the Standing Committee of the Nationalist Central Executive Committee has announced a meeting in Guangzhou, it only has 11 members there, not even 1/4 of the total of more than 50. Sun Ke's «Executive Chamber» calls for war,³ but the «Ministry of National Defence», which is charged with conducting the war, is neither in Guangzhou nor in Nanjing, and the only thing that is known of it is that its spokesperson is in Shanghai. Thus, all that is left for Li Zongren to see from the ramparts of the «Stone City» is: «The sky brooding low over the land of Wu and Chu; With nothing between to meet the eye.»⁴

None of the orders issued by Li Zongren since he assumed office on the 21st of January has been carried out. Although the Nationalist Party no longer has any «total» «government», and although activities for local peace are going on in many places — whether in Nanjing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, Wuhan, Changsha, the North-West, or the South-West — the Right-wing Nationalists oppose local peace and demand a so-called «total peace», and they actually aim at rejecting peace in the vain hope of carrying on the war; they are terribly afraid that these local peace activities will spread and get out of hand. The farce of the badly split and disintegrating Nationalist Party's demand for a «total peace» reached its climax in the statement issued on the 9th of February in Shanghai by the war criminal Deng Wenyi, head of the Bureau for Political Work of the bogus Ministry of National Defence. Like Sun Ke, Deng Wenyi repudiated Li Zongren's 22nd of January statement, which accepted the eight terms of the Communist Party of China as the basis for peace negotiations; instead, he demanded a so-called «peace on an equal footing, a total peace», failing which, he said, «we will stop at no sacrifices in order to fight the Communists to the bitter end». But Deng Wenyi failed to mention with whom we, his opponents, should now negotiate for a «peace on an equal footing, a total peace». It seems that to approach Deng Wenyi will get us nowhere and that not to approach Deng Wenyi or anyone else will also get us nowhere. How very trying this is! According to a Central News Agency dispatch from Shanghai on the 9th of February:

Deng Wenyi was asked by a reporter: «Has Acting President Li approved the four points in your public statement?»⁵ Deng Wenyi answered: «I am speaking from the standpoint of the Ministry of National Defence, and the four points made today were not submitted beforehand to Acting President Li.»

Here, Deng Wenyi is not only inventing a partial standpoint of the bogus Ministry of National Defence, as distinct from the total standpoint of the bogus Nationalist government, but is in fact inventing a smaller partial standpoint of the Bureau for Political Work of the bogus Ministry of National Defence, as distinct from the larger partial standpoint of the bogus Ministry of National Defence. For Deng Wenyi openly opposes, maligns, and spreads rumours about the peaceful settlement in Beijing, while the bogus Ministry of National Defence hailed it on the 27th of January as an act «to shorten the war, secure peace, and thereby preserve the foundations of the ancient capital, Beijing, and its cultural objects and historic monuments» and declared that «cessation of hostilities will be effected» in the same way in places like Datong and Suiyuan.⁶ From this, it can be seen that those reactionaries who are the most energetic in their clamour for «total peace» are the very reactionaries with the least total standpoint. A Bureau for Political Work of the Ministry of National Defence can contradict the Ministry of National Defence as well as the Acting President. These reactionaries are the greatest obstacle to the realization of peace in China today. They dream of agitating for a total war under the slogan of a «total peace»; in their own words: «If there is to be war, let it be a total war; if there is to be peace, let it be a total peace.» But as a matter of fact, they have neither the power to bring about a total peace nor the power to wage a total war. Total power is in the hands of the Chinese people, the Chinese People's Liberation Army, the Communist Party of China, and the other democratic political parties, not in the hands of the badly split and disintegrating Nationalist Party of China. One side wields total power, while the other is hopelessly split and disintegrated, and this is the result of the prolonged struggle of the Chinese people and the prolonged evil-doing of the Nationalist Party. No serious person can ignore this fundamental fact of the political situation in China today.