ON TACTICS AGAINST JAPANESE IMPERIALISM

ON TACTICS AGAINST JAPANESE IMPERIALISM

December 27, 1935

[This report was given by Comrade Mao Tse-tung at the conference of Party activists which was held at Wayaopao, northern Shensi, after the Wayaopao meeting of the Political Bureau of the Central Committee in December 1935. This meeting, one of the most important ever called by the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China, criticized the mistaken view in the Party that the Chinese national bourgeoisie could not be an ally of the workers and peasants in the common fight against Japan, and it decided on the tactics of a national united front. On the basis of the Political Bureau's decisions, Comrade Mao Tse-tung explained in detail the possibility and the importance of re-establishing a united front with the national bourgeoisie on the condition that there must be resistance to Japan. He stressed the decisive significance of the leading role to be played by the Communist Party and the Red Army in this united front. He pointed out the protracted character of the Chinese revolution, and criticized the narrow-minded closed-doorism and overhastiness with regard to the revolution which had long existed in the Party and which were the basic cause of the serious setbacks of the Party and the Red Army during the Second Revolutionary Civil War. At the same time, he called the Party's attention to the historical lesson of the defeat of the revolution in 1927 which had been caused by Chen Tu-hsiu's Right opportunism, and he showed that Chiang Kai-shek would inevitably try to undermine the forces of the revolution. Thus he enabled the Party to remain clear-headed in the new situation and to save the forces of the revolution from losses, in spite of Chiang Kai-shek's endless intrigues and many armed attacks. In January 1935, at an enlarged meeting of the Political Bureau of the Central Committee which was convened in Tsunyi, Kweichow Province, a new Central Committee leadership headed by Comrade Mao Tse-tung had been established in place of the former "Left" opportunist leadership. However, as that meeting took place during the Red Army's Long March, it had to confine itself to decisions on the most urgent military problems and on the organization of the Secretariat and the Revolutionary Military Commission of the Central Committee. Only when the Red Army had reached northern Shensi after the Long March was it possible for the Central Committee of the Party to deal systematically with the various problems of tactics in the political sphere. A most comprehensive analysis of these problems is given in this report by Comrade Mao Tse-tung.]

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Comrades! A great change has now taken place in the political situation. Our Party has defined its tasks in the light of this changed situation.

What is the present situation?

Its main characteristic is that Japanese imperialism wants to turn China into a colony.

As we all know, for nearly a hundred years China has been a semi-colonial country jointly dominated by several imperialist powers. Owing to the Chinese people's struggle against imperialism and to conflicts among the imperialist powers, China has been able to retain a semi-independent status. For a time World War I gave Japanese imperialism the opportunity of dominating China exclusively. But the treaty surrendering China to Japan, the Twenty-one Demands [1] signed by Yuan Shih-kai, [2] the arch-traitor of that time, was inevitably rendered null and void as a result of the Chinese people's fight against Japanese imperialism and of the intervention by other imperialist powers. In 1922 at the Washington Nine-Power Conference called by the United States. A treaty [3] was signed which once again placed China under the joint domination of several imperialist powers. But before long the situation changed again. The Incident of September 18, 1931, [4] began the present stage of Japan's colonization of China. As Japanese aggression was temporarily limited to the four northeastern provinces, [5] some people felt that the Japanese imperialists would probably advance no farther. Today things are different. The Japanese imperialists have already shown their intention of penetrating south of the Great Wall and occupying all China. Now they want to convert the whole of China from a semi-colony shared by several imperialist powers into a colony monopolized by Japan. The recent Eastern Hopei Incident [6] and diplomatic talks[7] are clear indications of this trend of events which threatens the survival of the whole Chinese people. This faces all classes and political groups in China with the question of what to do. Resist? Surrender? Or vacillate between the two?

Now let us see how the different classes in China answer this question.

The workers and the peasants are all demanding resistance. The revolution of 1924-27, the agrarian revolution from 1927 to the present day, and the anti-Japanese tide since the Incident of September 18, 1931, have all proved that the working class and peasantry are the most resolute forces in the Chinese revolution.