November 12,1937
[This was the outline for a report made by Comrade Mao Tse-tung in Yenan, in November 1937 at a meeting of Party activists. It met with immediate opposition from the Right opportunists in the Party, and not until the Sixth Plenary Session of the Sixth Central Committee in October 1938 was the Right deviation basically overcome.]
1. We support any kind of war of resistance, even though partial, against the invasion of Japanese imperialism. For partial resistance is a step forward from non-resistance, and to a certain extent it is revolutionary in character and is a war in defence of the motherland.
2. However, a war of partial resistance by the government alone without the mass participation of the people will certainly fail, as we have already pointed out (at the meeting of Party activists in Yenan in April of this year, at the Party's National Conference in May, and in the resolution [1] of the Political Bureau of the Central Committee in August). For it is not a national revolutionary war in the full sense, not a people's war.
3. We stand for a national revolutionary war in the full sense, a war in which the entire people are mobilized, in other words, total resistance. For only such resistance constitutes a people's war and can achieve the goal of defending the motherland.
4. Although the war of partial resistance advocated by the Kuomintang also constitutes a national war and is revolutionary in character to a certain extent, its revolutionary character is far from complete. Partial resistance is bound to lead to defeat in the war; it can never successfully defend the motherland.
5. Herein lies the difference in principle between the stand of the Communist Party and the present stand of the Kuomintang with regard to resistance. If Communists forget this difference in principle, they will be unable to guide the War of Resistance correctly, they will be powerless to overcome the Kuomintang's one-sidedness, and they will debase themselves to the point of abandoning their principles and reduce their Party to the level of the Kuomintang. That would be a crime against the sacred cause of the national revolutionary war and the defence of the motherland.
6. In a national revolutionary war in the full sense, in a war of total resistance, it is essential to put into effect the Ten-Point Programme for Resisting Japan and Saving the Nation proposed by the Communist Party, and it is essential to have a government and an army that will enforce this programme in its entirety.
7. The situation after the fall of Shanghai and Taiyuan is as follows:
(1) In northern China, regular warfare in which the Kuomintang played the chief role has ended, and guerrilla warfare in which the Communist Party is playing the chief role has become primary. In Kiangsu and Chekiang Provinces, the Japanese aggressors have broken through the Kuomintang's battle lines and are advancing on Nanking and the Yangtse valley. It is already dear that the Kuomintang's partial resistance cannot last long.(2) In their own imperialist interests, the governments of Britain, the United States and France have indicated that they will help China, but so far there has been only verbal sympathy and no practical aid whatsoever.
(3) The German and Italian fascists are doing everything to assist Japanese imperialism.
(4) The Kuomintang is still unwilling to make any fundamental change in its one-party dictatorship and autocratic rule over the people, through which it is carrying on partial resistance.
This is one side of the picture. The other side is seen in the following:
(1) The political influence of the Communist Party and the Eighth Route Army is spreading fast and far, and they are being acclaimed throughout the country as "the saviours of the nation". The Communist Party and the Eighth Route Army are determined to keep up the guerrilla warfare in northern China, so as to defend the whole country, tie down the Japanese aggressors and hinder them from attacking the Central Plains and the Northwest.(2) The mass movement has developed a step further.
(3) The national bourgeoisie is leaning towards the left.
(4) Forces favouring reforms are growing within the Kuomintang.
(5) The movement to oppose Japan and aid China is spreading among the people of the world.
(6) The Soviet Union is preparing to give practical assistance to China.
This is the other side of the picture.
8. Therefore, the present situation is one of transition from partial to total resistance. While partial resistance cannot last long, total resistance has not yet begun. The transition from one to the other, the gap in time, is fraught with danger.
9. In this period, China's partial resistance may develop in one of three directions:
The first is the ending of partial resistance and its replacement by total resistance. This is what the majority of the nation demands, but the Kuomintang is still undecided.
The second is the ending of armed resistance and its replacement by capitulation. This is what the Japanese aggressors, the collaborators and the pro-Japanese elements demand, but the majority of the Chinese people oppose it.
The third is the coexistence of armed resistance and capitulation in China. This could come about as a result of the intrigues of the Japanese aggressors, the collaborators and the pro-Japanese elements to split China's anti-Japanese front when they kind it impossible to attain the second direction. They are now engineering something of this kind. Indeed this danger is very grave.
10. Judging from the present situation, the domestic and international factors which prevent capitulationism from winning out have the upper hand. These factors include: Japan's persistence in its policy of subjugating China, which leaves China no alternative but to fight; the existence of the Communist Party and the Eighth Route Army; the wishes of the Chinese people; the wishes of the majority of the Kuomintang members; the anxiety of Britain, the United States and France lest capitulation by the Kuomintang damage their interests; the existence of the Soviet Union and its policy of helping China; the high hopes which the Chinese people place (not without foundation) in the Soviet Union. The proper and co-ordinated use of these factors would not only frustrate capitulationism and splitting but also overcome the obstructions to any advance beyond partial resistance.
11. Therefore, the prospect of going over from partial to total resistance does exist. To strive for this prospect is the urgent common task of all Chinese Communists, all progressive members of the Kuomintang, and all the Chinese people.
12. China's anti-Japanese national revolutionary war is now confronting a grave crisis. This crisis may be prolonged, or it may be overcome fairly quickly. Internally, the decisive factors are Kuomintang-Communist co-operation and a change in Kuomintang policy on the basis of this co-operation, and the strength of the worker and peasant masses. Externally, the decisive factor is assistance from the Soviet Union.
13. Political and organizational reform of the Kuomintang is both necessary and possible.[2] The main reasons are Japanese pressure, the Chinese Communist Party's united front policy, the wishes of the Chinese people, and the growth of new forces inside the Kuomintang. Our task is to work for this reform of the Kuomintang as a basis for reforming the government and the army. This reform undoubtedly requires the consent of the Central Executive Committee of the Kuomintang, and we are only in a position to offer suggestions.
14. The government should be reformed. We have proposed the convening of a provisional national assembly, which is likewise both necessary and possible. Undoubtedly this reform also requires the consent of the Kuomintang.
15. The task of reforming the army consists in building up new armies and
reforming the old armies. If a new army of '50,000 to 300,000 men imbued
with a new political spirit can be built up within six to twelve months,
the situation on the anti-Japanese battlefield will begin to mend. Such an
army would influence all the old armies and rally them around itself. This
would provide the military basis for the turn to the strategic counter-offensive
in the War of Resistance. This reform likewise requires the Kuomintang's
consent. The Eighth Route Army ought to have an exemplary role to play in
the course of this reform. And the Eighth Route Army itself should be expanded.
II. CAPITULATIONISM MUST BE COMBATED BOTH INSIDE THE PARTY AND THROUGHOUT THE COUNTRY
INSIDE THE PARTY, OPPOSE CLASS CAPITULATIONISM
16. In 1927 Chen Tu-hsiu's capitulationism led to the failure of the revolution. No member of our Party should ever forget this historical lesson written in blood.
17. With regard to the Party's line of an anti-Japanese national united front, the main danger inside the Party before the Lukouchiao Incident was "Left" opportunism, that is, closed-doorism, the reason being chiefly that the Kuomintang had not yet begun to resist Japan.
18. Since the Lukouchiao Incident the main danger inside the Party is no longer "Left" closed-doorism but Right opportunism, that is, capitulationism, the reason being chiefly that the Kuomintang has begun to resist Japan.
19. Already in April at the Yenan meeting of Party activists, then again in May at the National Conference of the Party, and especially in August at the meeting of the Political Bureau of the Central Committee (the Lochuan meeting), we posed the following question: Will the proletariat lead the bourgeoisie in the united front, or the bourgeoisie the proletariat? Will the Kuomintang draw over the Communist Party, or the Communist Party the Kuomintang? In relation to the current specific political task this question means: Is the Kuomintang to be raised to the level of the Ten-Point Programme for Resisting Japan and Saving the Nation, to the level of the total resistance advocated by the Communist Party? Or is the Communist Party to sink to the level of the Kuomintang dictatorship of the landlords and bourgeoisie, to the level of partial resistance?
20. Why must we pose the question so sharply? The answer is:
On the one hand, we have the Chinese bourgeoisie's proneness to compromise; the Kuomintang's superiority in material strength; the declaration and the decisions of the Third Plenary Session of the Central Executive Committee of the Kuomintang, which slander and insult the Communist Party and cry out for "an end to the class struggle"; the Kuomintang's yearning for "the capitulation of the Communist Party" and its widespread propaganda to this end; Chiang Kai-shek's attempts to place the Communist Party under his control; the Kuomintang's policy of restricting and weakening the Red Army and the anti-Japanese democratic base areas; the plan concocted during the Kuomintang's Lushan Training Course [3] in July "to reduce the Communist Party's strength by two-fifths in the course of the War of Resistance"; the attempts of the Kuomintang to seduce Communist cadres with offers of fame and fortune and wine and women; the political capitulation of certain petty-bourgeois radicals (represented by Chang Nai-chi [4]); etc.
On the other hand, we have the uneven theoretical level among Communists; the fact that many of our Party members lack the experience of co-operation between the two parties gained during the Northern Expedition; the fact that a large number of Party members are of petty-bourgeois origin; the reluctance of some Party members to continue a life of bitter struggle; the tendency towards unprincipled accommodation with the Kuomintang in the united front; the emergence of a tendency towards a new type of warlordism in the Eighth Route Army; the emergence of the problem of Communist participation in the Kuomintang government; the emergence of a tendency towards excessive accommodation in the anti-Japanese democratic base areas; etc.
We must sharply pose the question of who is to lead and must resolutely combat capitulationism in view of the grave situation described above.
21. For several months now, and especially since the outbreak of the War of Resistance, the Central Committee and Party organizations at all levels have waged a clear-cut and firm struggle against capitulationist tendencies, actual or potential, have taken various necessary precautions against them and have achieved good results.
The Central Committee has issued a draft resolution [5] on the problem of Communist participation in the government.
A struggle has been started against the tendency towards new warlordism in the Eighth Route Army. This tendency is manifest in certain individuals who, since the redesignation of the Red Army, have become unwilling to submit strictly to Communist Party leadership, have developed individualistic heroism, taken pride in being given appointments by the Kuomintang (i.e., in becoming officials), and so forth. The tendency towards this new type of warlordism has the same root (the reduction of the Communist Party to the level of the Kuomintang) and the same result (the alienation of the masses) as the tendency towards the old type of warlordism, which expressed itself in beating and abusing people, violating discipline, etc.; it is particularly dangerous because it is occurring in the period of the Kuomintang-Communist united front, and it therefore calls for special attention and determined opposition. Both the system of political commissars, which was abolished because of Kuomintang intervention, and the system of political departments, which were renamed "political training offices" for the same reason, have now been restored. We have initiated and staunchly carried out the new strategic principle of "independent guerrilla warfare in the mountain regions with the initiative in our own hands", thus basically ensuring the Eighth Route Army's successes in fighting and in its other tasks. We have rejected the Kuomintang's demand that its members should be sent to the Eighth Route Army units as cadres and have upheld the principle of absolute leadership of the Eighth Route Army by the Communist Party. Similarly, we have introduced the principle of "independence and initiative within the united front" in the revolutionary anti-Japanese base areas. We have corrected the tendency towards "parliamentarism" [6] (of course not the parliamentarism of the Second International, which is absent in the Chinese Party); we have also persisted in our struggle against bandits, enemy spies and saboteurs.
In Sian we have corrected the tendency towards unprincipled accommodation in our relations with the Kuomintang and have developed the mass struggle anew.
In eastern Kansu we have on the whole done the same as in Sian.
In Shanghai we have criticized Chang Nai-chi's line of "issuing fewer calls and offering more suggestions" and begun to correct the tendency towards excessive accommodation in the work of the national salvation movement.
In the guerrilla zones in the south--these representing part of the gains of our decade of sanguinary warfare with the Kuomintang, our strategic strongholds for the anti-Japanese national revolutionary war in the southern provinces, and our forces which the Kuomintang tried to wipe out by "encirclement and suppression" even after the Sian Incident, and which it has tried to weaken by the newer method of "luring the tiger out of the mountains" even after the Lukouchiao Incident--we have taken special care (1) to guard against concentrating our forces regardless of circumstances (which would suit the Kuomintang's desire to destroy these strongholds), (2) to reject Kuomintang appointees, and (3) to be on the alert against the danger of another Ho Ming Incident [7] (i.e., the danger of being surrounded and disarmed by the Kuomintang).
Our attitude in the Liberation Weekly [8] has continued to be one of serious and fair criticism.
22. In order to persevere in armed resistance and win final victory as well as to turn partial resistance into total resistance, it is necessary to adhere to the Anti-Japanese National United Front and expand and strengthen it. No views disruptive of the Kuomintang-Communist united front will be tolerated. We must still guard against "Left" closed-doorism. But at the same time we must closely adhere to the principle of independence and initiative in all our united front work. Our united front with the Kuomintang and other parties is based on the execution of a definite programme. Without this basis there can be no united front, and in that case co-operation would become unprincipled and a manifestation of capitulationism. Thus the key to leading the anti-Japanese national revolutionary war to victory is to explain, apply and uphold the principle of "independence and initiative within the united front".
23. What is our purpose in all this? In one respect, it is to hold the ground we have already won, for this ground is our strategic point of departure and its loss would mean the end of everything. But our chief purpose is to extend the ground already won and realize the positive aim of "winning the masses in their millions for the Anti-Japanese National United Front and the overthrow of Japanese imperialism". Holding our ground and extending it are inseparably connected. In the last few months, many more left-wing members of the petty bourgeoisie have become united under our influence, the new forces in the Kuomintang camp have grown, the mass struggle in Shansi has developed, and our Party organizations have expanded in many places.
24. But we must clearly understand that generally speaking the organizational strength of our Party is still quite small in the country as a whole. The strength of the masses in the country as a whole is also very small, because the workers and peasants, the basic sections of the masses, are not yet organized. All this is due to the Kuomintang's policy of control and repression on the one hand and the inadequacy of our own work or even its complete absence on the other. This is the fundamental weakness of our Party in the present anti-Japanese national revolutionary war. Unless we overcome this weakness, Japanese imperialism cannot be defeated. To this end we must apply the principle of "independence and initiative within the united front" and overcome all tendencies towards capitulation or excessive accommodation.
IN THE COUNTRY AS A WHOLE, OPPOSE NATIONAL CAPITULATIONISM
25. The above points deal with class capitulationism. This tendency would lead the proletariat to accommodate itself to bourgeois reformism and bourgeois lack of thoroughness. Unless it is overcome, we cannot succeed in carrying forward the anti-Japanese national revolutionary war, in turning partial resistance into total resistance and in defending the motherland.
But there is also the other kind of capitulationism, national capitulationism, which would lead China to accommodate herself to the interests of Japanese imperialism, make China a Japanese colony and turn the Chinese people into colonial slaves. This tendency has now appeared in the right wing of the Anti-Japanese National United Front.
26. The left wing of the Anti-Japanese National United Front is composed of the Communist-led masses, which include the proletariat, the peasantry and the urban petty bourgeoisie. Our task is to do our utmost to extend and consolidate this wing. The accomplishment of this task is the basic prerequisite for reforming the Kuomintang, the government and the army, for establishing a unified democratic republic, for turning partial resistance into total resistance and for overthrowing Japanese imperialism.
27. The intermediate section of the Anti-Japanese National United Front is composed of the national bourgeoisie and the upper stratum of the petty bourgeoisie. Those for whom the leading Shanghai newspapers speak are now tending towards the Left, [9] while some members of the Fu Hsing Society have begun to vacillate and some members of the C.C. Clique are also wavering. [10] The armies resisting Japan have learned severe lessons, and some have begun or are preparing to introduce reforms. Our task is to help the intermediate section to move forward and change its stand.
28. The right wing of the Anti-Japanese National United Front consists of the big landlords and big bourgeoisie, and it is the nerve centre of national capitulationism. It is inevitable that these people should tend towards capitulationism, for they fear both the destruction of their property in the war and the rise of the masses. Many of them are already collaborators, many have become or are ready to become pro-Japanese, many are vacillating, and only a few, owing to special circumstances, are firmly anti-Japanese. Some of them have joined the national united front for the time being under compulsion and with reluctance. Generally speaking, it will not be long before they split away. Indeed many of the worst elements among the big landlords and big bourgeoisie are at this very moment engineering a split in the Anti-Japanese National United Front. They are manufacturing rumours, and stories such as "the Communists are engaged in insurrection" and "the Eighth Route Army is in retreat" are sure to multiply daily. Our task is to combat national capitulationism resolutely and, in the course of this struggle, to expand and consolidate the left wing and help the intermediate section to move forward and change its stand.
THE RELATION BETWEEEN CLASS CAPITULATIONISM AND NATIONAL CAPITULATIONISM
29. Class capitulationism is actually the reserve force of national capitulationism in the anti-Japanese national revolutionary war; it is a vile tendency that lends support to the camp of the right wing and leads to defeat in the war. We must fight this tendency inside the Communist Party and the proletariat and extend the fight to all spheres of our work, in order to invigorate the struggle against national capitulationism, and in order to achieve the liberation of the Chinese nation and the emancipation of the toiling masses.
NOTES
1. This refers to the "Resolution on the Present Situation and the Tasks of the Party" adopted by the Political Bureau of the Central Committee of the Chinese Communist Party at its meeting in Lochuan, northern Shensi, on August 25, 1937. The full text reads as follows:
(1) The military provocation by the Japanese aggressors at Lukouchiao and their occupation of Peiping and Tientsin represent only the beginning of their large-scale invasion of China south of the Great Wall. They have already begun their national mobilization for war. Their propaganda that they have "no desire to aggravate the situation" is only a smokescreen for further attacks.(2) Under the pressure of the Japanese aggressors' attacks and the Chinese people's indignation, the Nanking government is beginning to make up its mind to fight. General defence arrangements and actual resistance in some places have already started. Full-scale war between China and Japan is inevitable. The resistance at Lukouchiao on July 7 marked the starting point of China's national war of resistance.
(3) Thus a new stage has opened in China's political situation, the stage of actual resistance. The stage of preparation for resistance is over. In the present stage the central task is to mobilize all the nation's forces for victory in the War of Resistance. The winning of democracy, which was not accomplished in the previous stage because of the Kuomintang's unwillingness and the inadequate mobilization of the people, is a task that must be fulfilled in the course of the struggle for victory in the War of Resistance.
(4) Our differences and disputes with the Kuomintang and other anti-Japanese groups in this new stage are no longer about whether to wage war of resistance but about how to win victory.
(5) The key to victory in the war now lies in developing the resistance that has already begun into a war of total resistance by the whole nation. Only through such a war of total resistance can final victory be won. The Ten-Point Programme for Resisting Japan and Saving the Nation now proposed by our Party spells out concretely the way to win final victory in the War of Resistance.
(6) A great danger lurks in the present state of resistance. The main reason for this danger is that the Kuomintang is still unwilling to arouse the whole people to take part in the war. Instead, it regards the war as the concern of the government alone, and at every turn fears and restricts the people's participation in the war, prevents the government and the army from forming close ties with the people, denies the people the democratic right to resist Japan and save the nation, and refuses to reform the government apparatus thoroughly and to turn the government into a national defence government of the whole nation. A war of resistance of this kind may achieve partial victories, but never final victory. On the contrary, it may end in grievous failure.
(7) The existence of serious weaknesses in the War of Resistance may lead to many setbacks, retreats, internal splits, betrayals, temporary and partial compromises and other such reverses. Therefore it should be realized that the war will be an arduous and protracted war. But we are confident that, through the efforts of our Party and the whole people, the resistance already started will sweep aside all obstacles and continue to advance and develop. We must overcome all difficulties and firmly fight for the realization of the Ten-Point Programme for victory proposed by our Party. We must firmly oppose all wrong policies which run counter to it and combat national defeatism and the pessimism and despair it engenders.
(8) Together with the people and the armed forces under the leadership of the Party, members of the Communist Party must actively take their stand in the forefront of the struggle, become the core of the nation's resistance and do their utmost to develop the anti-Japanese mass movement. They must never for a moment relax or miss a single opportunity to do propaganda among the masses and to organize and arm them. Victory in the War of Resistance Against Japan will be certain provided the masses in their millions are really organized in the national united front.
2. In the initial period of the War of Resistance, the Kuomintang and Chiang Kai-shek made a number of promises to introduce various reforms under popular pressure, but very quickly broke them one after another. The possibility that the Kuomintang might introduce the reforms desired by the whole people was not actualized. As Comrade Mao Tse-tung said later in "On Coalition Government":
All the people, including the Communists and other democrats, earnestly hoped that the Kuomintang government would seize the opportunity, at a time when the nation was in peril and the people were filled with enthusiasm, to institute democratic reforms and put Dr. Sun Yat-sen's revolutionary Three People's Principles into practice. But their hopes came to nought. (See Selected Work of Mao Tse-tung, Eng. ed., FLP, Peking, 1965, Vol. III, p. 263.)
3. The Lushan Training Course was set up by Chiang Kai-shek at Lushan, Kiangsi Province, to train high and middle-ranking officials of the Kuomintang party and government to form the core of his reactionary regime.
4. Chang Nai-chi was then advocating "issuing fewer calls and offering more suggestions". But it would have been useless merely to submit "suggestions" to the Kuomintang, since it was following a policy of oppression. Calls had to be made directly to the masses, in order to arouse them to struggle against the Kuomintang. Otherwise, it would have been impossible to keep up the war against Japan or to resist Kuomintang reaction. Chang Nai-chi was wrong on this point, and gradually he realized his mistake.
5. This refers to the "Draft Resolution of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China Concerning the Communist Party's Participation in the Government" which was drawn up on September 25, 1937. The full text reads as follows:
(1) The present situation in the anti-Japanese war urgently requires a united front government representing the whole nation, for only such a government can effectively lead the anti-Japanese national revolutionary war and defeat Japanese imperialism. The Communist Party is ready to participate in such a government, that is, to undertake administrative responsibilities in the government directly and officially and play an active part in it. But such a government does not yet exist. What exists today is still the government of the Kuomintang one-party dictatorship.(2) The Communist Party of China can participate in the government only when it is changed from a one-party dictatorship of the Kuomintang into a united front government of the whole nation, that is, when the present Kuomintang government (a) accepts the fundamentals of the Ten-Point Programme for Resisting Japan and Saving the Nation proposed by our Party and promulgates an administrative programme in accordance therewith; (b) begins to show by deeds the sincerity of its efforts to carry out this programme and achieves definite results; and (c) permits the legal existence of Communist Party organizations and guarantees the Communist Party freedom to mobilize, organize and educate the masses.
(3) Before the Central Committee of the Party decides to participate in the Central Government, members of the Communist Party must not as a rule participate in any local government or in any administrative councils or committees attached to the administrative organs of the government, central or local. For such participation would only obscure the distinctive features of the Communist Party, prolong the Kuomintang's dictatorship and hinder rather than help the effort to bring a unified democratic government into being.
(4) However, members of the Communist Party may participate in the local governments of certain particular regions, such as battle areas, where the old authorities find it impossible to rule as before and are on the whole willing to put the Communist Party's policies into effect, where the Communist Party is free to operate openly, and where the present emergency makes Communist participation a necessity in the opinion both of the people and of the government. Still more so in the Japanese-occupied areas, the Communist Party should come forward openly as the organizer of the anti-Japanese united front governments.
(5) Before the Communist Party officially joins the government, it is permissible in principle for Party members to participate in representative bodies, such as an all-China national assembly, for the purpose of discussing a democratic constitution and policies to save the nation. Thus, the Communist Party should strive to get its members elected to such assemblies and use them as a forum for propagating the Party's views, so as to mobilize the people and rally them round the Party and promote the establishment of a unified democratic government.
(6) Given a definite common programme and the principle of absolute equality, the Central Committee of the Communist Party or its local branches may form united front organizations with the Central Executive Committee of the Kuomintang or its local headquarters, such as various joint committees (e.g., national revolutionary leagues, committees for mass movements and committees for mobilization in the war zones), and through such joint activities the Communist Party should achieve co-operation with the Kuomintang.
(7) With the redesignation of the Red Army as part of the National Revolutionary Army and the change of the organ of Red political power into the Government of the Special Region, their representatives may, by virtue of the legal status they have acquired, join all the military and mass organizations which further the resistance to Japan and the salvation of the nation.
(8) It is most essential to maintain absolutely independent Communist Party leadership in what was originally the Red Army and in all the guerrilla units, and Communists must not show any vacillation on this matter of principle.
6."Parliamentarism" here refers to the proposal of some Party comrades that the system of political power in the revolutionary base areas, the system of people's representative conferences, should be changed into the bourgeois parliamentary system.
7. The Ho Ming Incident took place after the outbreak of the anti-Japanese war. In October 1934, when the Central Red Army moved northward, Red Army guerrilla units stayed behind and maintained guerrilla warfare in extremely difficult circumstances in fourteen areas in the eight southern provinces of Kiangsi, Fukien, Kwangtung, Hunan, Hupeh, Honan, Chekiang and Anhwei. When the anti-Japanese war began, these units, acting on instructions from the Central Committee of the Chinese Communist Party, entered into negotiations with the Kuomintang for the cessation of civil war and organized themselves into a single army (namely, the New Fourth Army which later stubbornly fought the Japanese on the southern and northern banks of the Yangtse River) and moved to the front to resist Japan. But Chiang Kai-shek plotted to exploit these negotiations for the purpose of wiping out the guerrilla units. Ho Ming was one of the guerrilla leaders in the Fukien-Kwangtung border area which was one of the fourteen guerrilla areas. He was not on the alert against Chiang Kai-shek's plot, with the result that more than one thousand of the guerrillas under his command were surrounded and disarmed by the Kuomintang forces after they assembled.
8. Founded in Yenan in 1937, the Liberation Weekly was the organ of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China. It was superseded by the Liberation Daily in 1941.
9. They were that section of the national bourgeoisie for whom newspapers like the Shanghai Shen Pao served as a vehicle.
10. The Pu Hsing Society and the C.C. Clique, two fascist organizations within the Kuomintang, were headed by Chiang Kai-shek and Chen Li-fu respectively. They served the oligarchic interests of the big landlords and the big bourgeoisie. But many petty-bourgeois elements had joined them under compulsion or had been duped into joining. The text refers to the section of the Fu Hsing Society consisting mainly of lower and middle-ranking officers in the Kuomintang army and to the section of the C.C. Clique consisting mainly of members not in power.