Comrades, so much for the positive side of the question. Now let
me take up the negative side, namely, the fact that certain elements among the
national bourgeoisie are often past masters at deceiving the people. Why?
Because apart from the genuine supporters of the people's revolutionary cause,
this class includes many who temporarily appear as revolutionaries or
semi-revolutionaries, and who thus acquire a deceptive status which makes it
difficult for the people to see through their lack of revolutionary
thoroughness and their false trappings. This increases the responsibility devolving
on the Communist Party to criticize its allies, unmask the fake
revolutionaries, and gain the leadership. To deny the possibility that the
national bourgeoisie may vacillate and join the revolution during great
upheavals amounts to abandoning, or at any rate to minimizing, our Party's task
of contending for leadership. For if the national bourgeoisie were exactly the
same as the landlords and compradors and had the same vile and traitorous
visage, there would be little or no problem of contending with it for
leadership.
In making a general analysis of the attitude of the Chinese
landlord class and the bourgeoisie in times of great upheaval, we should also
point to another aspect, namely, that even the landlord and comprador camp is
not completely united. The reason is that China is a semicolonial country for
which many imperialist powers are contending. When the struggle is directed
against Japanese imperialism, then the running dogs of the United States or
Britain, obeying the varying tones of their masters' commands, may engage in
veiled or even open strife with the Japanese imperialists and their running
dogs. There have been many instances of such dog-fights and we shall not dwell
on them. We will only mention the fact that Hu Han-min [14] a Kuomintang politician once detained by Chiang Kai-shek, has
recently added his signature to the Six-Point Programme for Resisting Japan and
Saving the Nation [15] which we have advanced. The warlords of the Kwangtung and
Kwangsi cliques [16] who back Hu Han-min are also opposing Chiang Kai-shek, under the
deceitful slogans of "Recover our lost territory", and "Resist
Japan and at the same time suppress the bandits"[17] (as against Chiang Kai-shek's slogan of "First suppress the
bandits, then resist Japan"). Is this not rather strange? No, it is not
strange at all, but merely a particularly interesting example of a fight
between large and small dogs, between well-fed and ill-fed dogs. It is not a
big rift, but neither is it small; it is at once an irritating and painful
contradiction. But such fights, such rifts, such contradictions are of use to the
revolutionary people. We must turn to good account all such fights, rifts and
contradictions in the enemy camp and turn them against our present main enemy.
