Chapter 42 Regarding the current war situation and political situation[1]

(January 28, 1939) Let me tell you about the current situation.Because the comrades are scattered in various places, they are not very clear about the whole situation, so I took this opportunity to talk to the comrades. We look at the issue based on the report and resolution of the Sixth Plenary Session.The Sixth Plenary Session of the Central Committee said: "The war of resistance can be continued." This was said in the first half of October last year, and it has been three months now. book, on December 26 published an article refuting Jinwei[2], which was very good, and Wang Jingwei was expelled from the party[3]. Sending forces cannot shake the war of resistance.In the past, the first question was whether to fight or not to fight. However, there was a tendency to compromise among friendly parties and peace was brewing, which was very difficult.Although our Communist Party will fight no matter what and will not compromise, everyone knows that the Communist Party is still a minority in the country and is a minority shareholder in the united front. It is even more difficult for us to fight Japan alone.Now that the Kuomintang has taken these actions and determined the policy of adhering to the war of resistance, under the conditions of "fighting", it is easy to do anything. This is a good thing, and it is a progressive thing in the united front.

Now let's talk about the war situation. In October last year, we estimated that after the fall of Wuhan and Guangzhou, we would be more difficult and at the same time make more progress.As for difficulties, comrades all know that due to the loss of major cities and lines of communication, the state power and combat positions have been divided geographically by the enemy, and financial and economic difficulties have increased; as for progress, it is mainly manifested in Persisted in the War of Resistance and defeated the peace faction in the two Political Councils.So can progress overcome difficulties? Our answer is yes.And only when we make more progress and work harder to overcome difficulties can we bring the war to a new stage.The central task put forward by the Sixth Plenum of the Central Committee, that is, the task of the entire Chinese people, is to increase strength, overcome difficulties, stop the enemy's attack and prepare for our counter-offensive.It has now been proven correct, and it will be confirmed in the future.

We said that the enemy's offensive has not stopped. In the past three months since the fall of Wuhan and Guangzhou, the enemy has not made any major moves in the front, but the enemy has fought fiercely in the rear.Some people said that our estimate was wrong, and the enemy's attack had stopped.We don't say that, and we don't think that way, because the enemy will attack Xi'an, Lanchow, Changsha, Nanchang, Wuchow, Hengchow and other places, and we must be prepared.Although my words have not been confirmed as of the time of my speech, we are still well prepared, and if we are not prepared, we will suffer even greater losses.Why does the enemy still attack? First, if he does not attack, the fascist warlord will collapse immediately, and it has great ambitions, not only to attack the whole of China, but also to fight in Southeast Asia, Burma, Annan[4], and India to fight.In China, it opposes Generalissimo Chiang, opposes the Communist Party, and destroys the anti-Japanese national united front. This is its plan. It wants to achieve its goal, but whether it is possible to achieve it depends on our efforts.

We say that the enemy's attack will be stopped, but can it be stopped? We say that it must be stopped.Japan wants to destroy us, and we want it to stop, but exactly how will be explained according to the situation of the enemy and ourselves.Because the enemy's country is small, there are few people, and the number of troops is small, and the front line is so long now, from Guangzhou in the south to Baotou in the north, it already has the weakness of insufficient troops.Its insufficient and scattered troops are an incurable disease, and its power cannot allow more troops to be sent to China, because it has to guard against the powerful Soviet Union, Britain, the United States, and France are its enemies, and it must also guard against the domestic people and colonies The people, at most, can use one-third of their power in China.Now it is said that one million people have come, and in the future there will be at most one million more, and no more.In this way, we fight every day in the front, behind the enemy lines, the main force, the guerrillas, killing and injuring their soldiers, exhausting them, making their forces smaller and more scattered, consuming more ammunition and supplies, and weakening their strength. We have to stop the offensive; on the other hand, our China is stronger, we can fight guerrilla warfare, we can also fight mobile warfare, and we have made progress in other fields. Although we cannot stop Japan's offensive now, we will certainly be able to stop it. Make every effort to stop it.

As for our estimation, guerrilla warfare can be greatly developed and base areas can be established in the enemy's rear. This has been proved and will be proved even more in the future.At the same time, we also pointed out that guerrilla warfare is not always smooth sailing. We must see that the enemy will turn around and attack. At that time, guerrilla warfare will be even more difficult. We must prepare for the coming of this difficulty and fight back against it with a fighting posture.We must be prepared for this move in order to avoid the encounter of being "unprepared". We say that the Anti-Japanese National United Front will develop, but there are difficulties.The Kuomintang is making progress, but there is a countercurrent in the river of progress.What has been proved in March? Wang Jingwei of diehards has become Wang Jingwei of traitors, and of course he will stir up trouble in the future.The Kuomintang has permanently expelled Wang Jingwei from the party, which is good; now the frontline generals from all over the country, Chen Cheng, Li Zongren, Bai Chongxi, our deputy commanders Zhu and Peng, etc., have sent telegrams asking the Kuomintang government to issue an arrest warrant, but no explicit order has been issued yet.We believe that this arrest warrant is necessary because he has become a traitor and has joined forces with the enemy. Although it may not be possible to catch him now, when the Japanese imperialists are defeated, where are we afraid he will flee? Some people say , he will go to Germany and Italy, but when the fascists of these worlds are trapped in the loess ridge, where else can he escape? In short, as long as he is on the earth, he will definitely be caught in the end.

We say that in the whole progress, there is a partial regression, and because of this regression, there are frictions, and not only are there, but they are more severe than before.This retrogressive force can be divided into two factions. One faction advocates being pro-Japanese, anti-Chiang and anti-communist, headed by Wang Jingwei, who has already left a bit, but there are still some followers; , There are many such people around the border area.They said: Now, first fight against the Communist Party and then fight against Japan; when the enemy comes, first fight against Japan and then fight against the Communist Party.In the front, I heard that there are also so-called anti-Japanese and anti-communist two things going hand in hand.The pro-Japanese, anti-Chiang, and anti-Communist faction "carried out" their "advocacy" with the following major specific facts: a proposal with anti-Chiang content was put forward at the second National People's Political Consultative Conference; The Chairman of the Generalissimo has a relationship, so he used this to scold Chairman Jiang; they also slandered guerrilla warfare as a bandit. He scolded the Communist Party and Chairman Jiang at the same time, because Chairman Jiang and the Communist Party also advocated the need to develop guerrilla warfare in the long-term war of resistance; There are also Wang Jingwei's echoes Zhang Junmai, etc., who wrote articles saying how bad the Communist Party is! The basest insult.As for being pro-Japanese, before he deserted, it was not obvious that in his articles and speeches, there was always a vague meaning of unwillingness to fight against Japan and make peace with Japan.The other faction, in Xi'an and the adjacent border areas, is even more engaged in work that pleases the enemy than in the previous areas.

This countercurrent is regress, and there are progress and regress in the united front camp, but who will win the fight between progress and regress? Our answer is that the trend of progress can overwhelm the regress. We must understand that there must be friction in the united front.The noun of this united front already contains the meaning of friction, because when it comes to unity, at least two or more are possible. If there is only one, "it is difficult to use one hand", there will be no friction. If the clap is loud, friction is inevitable.The united front has 10,000 years of history, and friction has also lasted 10,000 years. If there is a united front, there will be friction.Because there are differences, there is friction, but we do everything in our power to reduce friction.

Someone insists on friction, so what should we do? At the Sixth Plenary Session of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China, we said that we will never tolerate unreasonable friction. I, I will be the offender" principle.The latter principle is very important. For example, if I stand in this room and he squeezes me, if I let him, I will step back. This step by step will squeeze me nowhere. Therefore, when he squeezes, we Squeeze back, squeeze him back to his original position, if he wants to rub, we will rub back.They say that the Shanxi-Gansu-Ningxia Border Region is a puppet government, and they want to abolish the Shanxi-Chahar-Hebei Border Region, as well as the Communist Party, and ask the Eighth Route Army and the New Fourth Army to go to the desert, and so on. opposing.He engaged in great friction around the Shaanxi-Gansu-Ningxia Border Region, occupying villages, he occupied one village, we occupied two of them, and if he returned one to us, we returned the original amount; if he wanted to arrest people, he arrested two, we Four of them were captured, and he imprisoned us for three days, and we released him for six days.Why do we have to deal with him twice? It is because he offended me first, he was wronged, and we have to punish him. This is anti-friction.Be dear, be united, but stand up, otherwise there will be "pain of the dead party".Now that the friction has increased, what will happen to the united front in the future? We must uphold the anti-Japanese national united front, and we can persist in the anti-Japanese war. This has been pointed out in the report of the Sixth Plenary Session of the Central Committee.Dear unity is the principle of the united front, but it is even more necessary to fight against friction. Without this principle, we can't do it. Only by adhering to this principle can we consolidate and expand the anti-Japanese national united front.

Now that the KMT is holding its Fifth Plenary Session, we estimate that its results will not be bad, but we should not ignore the possibility of friction. The above is about the current situation in China, and now we are talking about the situation in Japan. Japan has changed the cabinet prime minister, because now it needs to use a new method, that is, to mobilize the whole country.This incident proves that its old methods are no longer effective, and it shows that its difficulties have become more prominent; on the other hand, it also proves that it will attack China even more frantically, and is preparing to attack the world.Under the situation of "riding a tiger, it is difficult to get off", it had to mobilize the whole country.

Japan's difficulties: militarily, it is manifested in the shortage and dispersion of its troops.The economy is even more depleted, and now there are fewer exports because of the increase in the military industry; on the contrary, more imports than before, because there is a need to manufacture military supplies in large quantities.In the past, Japanese goods were the cheapest (because it exploited workers and peasants the most), and they could be exchanged for some foreign goods. Now, without this condition, you have to use cash to buy raw materials from foreign countries, and Japan does not have much savings. What's more, nearly 900 million war expenses were spent in the war of aggression against China for more than a year.In diplomacy, it is even more isolated. Britain, the United States, and France once sent a note to Japan, asking why it violated the Nine-Power Pact[5]. This incident also happened after Wuhan and Guangzhou fell.Now Britain and the United States are discussing to use economic sanctions to punish it.In the past, the United States had a neutrality law, which was not good for China, but good for Japan.The relationship between Japan and the United States is not doing well now, because Japan wants to monopolize it, and the interests of Britain and the United States in China have been weakened; at the same time, because Britain and the United States are separated from China by many oceans, a lot of freight is added, and the price of goods is higher than that of Japan, so they cannot cooperate with it. competition; and now Japan uses the excuse of military relations to prohibit British and American merchant ships from sailing in the Yangtze River and other places, and the commercial interests of Britain and the United States in China have almost been taken away.Now Japan is talking about returning the concessions in rhetoric, but in fact it wants to turn the concessions of Britain and France into its own occupied territories; it is also trying to invade Nanyang, Annan, Australia and other places.Japanese imperialism was like a "rat crossing the street, everyone shouting and beating". Its friends are only Hitler and Mussolini. Britain, the United States, France and other democratic countries do not like it, let alone the Soviet Union.

We said in October last year that Japan has not yet stopped its offensive, but it will definitely stop, and pointed out that there are three conditions for making it stop, and the above-mentioned Japanese difficulty is one of them. As for how it treats us internationally? We pointed out last year that European issues are somewhat different from Asian issues. In the past, Britain and France made concessions to Hitler step by step in Europe, but they were somewhat different towards China. This has now been proved.Britain and the United States have lent us money, which is good. It opens a door, and we will have more ways to go in the future; but will it help us a lot? No, imperialist countries have restrictions. Of course, we are not relying on Those who "eat" internationally should focus on China. There are two types of countries in the world, one is fascist countries and the other is democratic countries, and the contradiction between these two types of countries is getting sharper day by day.Now the Spanish government forces are more dangerous, Germany is demanding to take back the old colonies, and Italy is trying to seize France's Tunisia and other places, and it is getting closer to the crisis of war between great powers.Now the world war has begun. In the past and in the present, fascist countries fought against weak and small countries. In the future, they will fight against big countries, but we don't know when they will fight.However, do we hope to fight early, or what? It is true that fighting now is good in some respects. For example, if we hit Western fascism, it will weaken the power of Japanese imperialism, but this is indirect, so it is better to fight later. Well, democratic countries such as Britain and the United States can help us more directly.The Soviet Union is not willing to fight now. If in a few years, it completes the three five-year plans, becomes stronger, and becomes a country that scares the fascists, then it will be more beneficial to China and the world.The world will definitely fight a larger-scale war, but it is impossible to predict when it will break out. This is the case with regard to the present war and political situation. Published based on the transcript of the speech kept by the Central Archives. -------------------------------------------------- ------------------------------ note [1] This is part of Mao Zedong's speech at the summary of the inspection work meeting of the Yan'an General Military Station of the Eighteenth Army. [2] Konoe, Konoe Fumimaro (1891-1945), served as Prime Minister of the Japanese Cabinet from June 1937 to January 1939. [3] Wang Jingwei (1883-1944), a native of Shaoxing, Zhejiang.He once served as the vice chairman of the National Defense Supreme Council of the Kuomintang and the vice president of the Kuomintang.On December 19, 1938, he fled to Hanoi, Vietnam. On the 29th of the same month, he published a colorful telegram, publicly surrendering to Japanese imperialism.On January 1, 1939, the Central Standing Committee of the Kuomintang decided to expel him from the party. [4] Annan, now Vietnam. [5] The Nine-Power Pact was signed at the Washington Conference in February 1922 by the United States, Britain, France, Japan, Italy, Belgium, the Netherlands, Portugal and the Beiyang warlord government of China.The convention stipulates the principles of "China's door is open" and "equal opportunities" for the interests of the big powers in China to jointly invade China.In November 1937, the parties to the Nine-Nation Convention held a meeting in Brussels, and Japan refused to participate.