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Chapter Four ‖ Seizing Nationwide Victory in the New Democratic Revolution

Editorial Group of This Book

January 1, 2021

第四章 夺取新民主主义革命的全国性胜利

本书编写组

Chapter Four ‖ Seizing Nationwide Victory in the New Democratic Revolution第四章 夺取新民主主义革命的全国性胜利

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Originally Written By
Editorial Group of This Book本书编写组
Publisher
CPC History Press中共党史出版社

Chapter Four ‖ Seizing Nationwide Victory in the New Democratic Revolution

第四章 ‖ 夺取新民主主义革命的全国性胜利

After the victory of the War of Resistance Against Japan, the Chinese people ardently hoped for peace and democracy and the building of a new China. But on June 26, 1946, Nationalist forces launched a massive assault on the Central Plains Liberation Area centered on Xuanhuadian in the Hubei-Henan border region, provoking a full-scale civil war. In August, confronting the grave situation of a strong enemy and a weak self, Mao Zedong met with American journalist Anna Louise Strong and, brimming with confidence, put forward the famous thesis that “all reactionaries are paper tigers,” declaring with great resolve that the reactionaries would one day be defeated and we would one day be victorious. The reason was none other than this: the reactionaries represent reaction, while we represent progress.

I. The Chongqing Negotiations and the Struggle for Peace and Democracy

The Domestic and International Political Situation After the Victory of the War of Resistance Against Japan, and the Party’s Guidelines

The postwar political situation was favorable to the development of China’s political landscape in the direction of peace and democracy. Internationally, socialist states and national liberation movements had gained new strength, while imperialist forces had been weakened and could no longer concentrate their efforts to interfere in the Chinese revo▶ A Brief History of the Chinese Communist Partylution, let alone freely launch a civil war and place the blame for it on the CCP.

Domestically, the level of consciousness, unity, and organization among the Chinese people had risen to unprecedented heights. Having endured the suffering of prolonged warfare, the people universally longed for peace. The situation among the various domestic political forces had undergone profound changes. The Chinese Communist Party had grown into a major party with nationwide influence and maintained close ties with the democratic forces in the Nationalist-controlled areas, composed of democratic parties and democratic personages.

The active efforts of the Chinese Communist Party and the Chinese people to safeguard domestic peace and democracy were, however, seriously obstructed by the ruling clique of the Nationalist Party. The Nationalist ruling clique increasingly focused its attention on eliminating the Chinese Communist Party and other democratic forces, with the aim of continuing to maintain one-party Nationalist rule and “establishing a semi-colonial, semi-feudal state under the dictatorship of the big landlords and big bourgeoisie.”

More seriously, the Nationalist Party’s anti-communist guideline received the support of the United States. After the end of the Second World War, the United States, relying on its formidable economic and military strength, actively expanded outward in an attempt to establish its own dominant position in the world. Controlling China was an important component of America’s global strategy. As a later report by the U.S. National Security Council stated, the long-term goal they were pursuing in China at the time was to promote the establishment of a stable, unified, pro-American government, while the short-term goal was first and foremost to “prevent the Communists from taking complete control of China.” The measures the United States adopted were twofold: on one hand, it demanded that the Nationalist government carry out a degree of reform—including some nominal democracy—to win the sympathy and support of the middle factions, and to induce or compel the Communists to hand over their army and achieve “unification” of China under Nationalist leadership; on the other hand, it vigorously aided the Nationalist government in economic, political, and military terms, and helped Nationalist troops transport forces to seize strategic positions.

Chiang Kai-shek’s intention was to fight, but he needed time to complete his preparations. Therefore, while actively preparing for war, Chiang Kai-shek was compelled to express willingness to hold peace negotiations with the CCP. In mid-to-late August 1945, he sent three successive telegrams inviting Mao Zedong to come to Chongqing to “jointly determine the great plan.” Chiang Kai-shek’s calculation was: if the negotiations failed,

Based on a sincere desire for peace and a clear-eyed understanding of the situation, the Party Center concluded that peace negotiations with the Nationalist Party were necessary; even a temporary period of peace was worth actively striving for. On August 23, the Politburo convened an enlarged session and put forward the guideline for future dealings with the Nationalist Party: “If Chiang attacks, we attack; if Chiang stops, we stop”—using struggle to achieve unity, compelling the Nationalist Party to accept the people’s demands to a certain degree, and thereby advancing the realization of goals such as domestic peace. On August 25, the Party Center issued the “Declaration on the Current Situation,” explicitly putting forward the slogans of peace, democracy, and unity. That same evening, the Politburo decided that Mao Zedong and others would travel to Chongqing to hold peace negotiations with Chiang Kai-shek.

The Chongqing Negotiations

On August 28, 1945, Mao Zedong and his delegation flew from Yan’an to Chongqing. This act fully demonstrated the Chinese Communist Party’s sincere desire to seek peace. The poet Liu Yazi composed a poem praising Mao Zedong’s action as “courage that fills the heavens.”

During the Chongqing negotiations, the Nationalist side attempted to use the pretext of “unifying political and military orders” to abolish the liberated areas and the people’s army. In order to strive for peace and democracy and expose the rumor that the Communist Party did not want peace or unity, the Party Center made necessary concessions in the negotiations on issues such as the scope of authority over the liberated areas and the reduction of the people’s army. During this period, Liu Bocheng and Deng Xiaoping commanded the Shanxi-Hebei-Shandong-Henan Military Region forces to annihilate 35,000 troops of Yan Xishan’s forces that had invaded the Shangdang area of Shanxi, checking the Nationalist army’s offensive against the liberated areas and strengthening the Chinese Communist Party’s position in the negotiations.

On October 10, the two sides formally signed the “Summary of Conversations Between the Government and CCP Representatives,” known as the “Double Tenth Agreement.” The Nationalist authorities verbally expressed acceptance of the “basic guideline of peaceful national reconstruction.” Both sides agreed to convene a Political Consultative Conference attended by representatives of all parties and public figures to discuss a plan for peaceful national reconstruction. Although the Com▶ A Brief History of the Chinese Communist Partymunist Party made major concessions—agreeing to withdraw troops from eight liberated areas in the south and to substantially reduce the people’s army—the two sides failed to reach agreement on the two fundamental issues of the people’s army and the liberated area governments. On October 11, Mao Zedong flew back to Yan’an.

★ Mao Zedong returns to Yan’an after the signing of the “Double Tenth Agreement”

The Communist Party made major concessions, including agreeing to withdraw troops from eight liberated areas in the south and to substantially reduce the size of the people’s army. However, the two sides failed to reach agreement on the two fundamental issues of the people’s army and the sovereign power of the liberated areas. On October 11, Mao Zedong flew back to Yan’an.

The results of the Chongqing negotiations were a victory for the forces of the people. Through the negotiations, the Nationalist Party acknowledged the basic guideline of peaceful national reconstruction. Even though this acknowledgment was only verbal, it meant that if the Nationalist Party were to launch a civil war, it would lose the moral argument before the entire country and the entire world, placing itself in a politically passive position. The talks and the agreements reached also powerfully advanced the democratic movement in the Nationalist-controlled areas.

The Political Consultative Conference

The ink on the “Double Tenth Agreement” had barely dried when Chiang Kai-shek issued secret orders to attack the liberated areas.

The Chinese Communist Party harbored no unrealistic illusions about the Nationalist authorities, even as it strove for peace and democracy. The Party steadfastly held that “one must absolutely not hope that the Nationalist Party will have a change of heart—it will not. One must rely on the strength in one’s own hands, correct guidance in action, fraternal unity within the Party, and good relations with the people” in order to remain invincible and to lay a solid foundation for realizing peace and democracy and building a new China.

To defend the fruits of the people’s victory in the War of Resistance and to strengthen the forces of the people’s revolution, the Party Center successively dispatched from various liberated areas an army of 110,000 troops and 20,000 cadres to enter the Northeast, establishing the CCP Central Northeast Bureau—with Peng Zhen as secretary and Chen Yun and others as members (later with Lin Biao as secretary)—to provide unified leadership over work in the Northeast. In mid-to-late October, the liberated area forces successively conducted three campaigns—the Ping-Sui, Jin-Pu, and Ping-Han (Handan) campaigns—annihilating 110,000 invading Nationalist troops and slowing their advance deep into North China and toward the Northeast.

The Nationalist authorities’ guideline of civil war did not change in the slightest due to military setbacks. By early December 1945, the total forces it had deployed to attack the liberated areas had already exceeded 1.9 million. This could not but arouse the fierce indignation of the people who demanded peace and democracy.

In late November 1945, a current affairs evening gathering held by Kunming students to oppose civil war was suppressed and disrupted, provoking more than 30,000 students to launch a general strike. On December 1, large numbers of armed Nationalist thugs cracked down on the students, resulting in a massacre. Chongqing, Shanghai, and other cities subsequently erupted in sympathy strikes and protest marches. The December First Movement, with “oppose civil war, strive for democracy” as its basic slogan, placed the Nationalist authorities in an increasingly passive political position.

At this point, Chiang Kai-shek had not yet fully completed his preparations for launching a civil war and did not dare rashly tear up the “Double Tenth Agreement.” On January 5, 1946, the two sides reached an agreement on cessation of domestic military conflict. On January 10, both sides issued cease-fire orders. On the same day, the Political Consultative Conference opened in Chongqing. Attending the conference were 38 representatives from the Nationalist Party, the Communist Party, the Democratic League, the Youth Party, and nonpartisan figures. The conference lasted 22 days and, after passing five agreements on the government organization bill, the National Assembly bill, the program for peaceful national reconstruction, the military affairs bill, and the constitutional draft bill, closed on January 31.

The Chinese Communist Party was prepared to earnestly implement these agreements. The day after the Political Consultative Conference closed, the Party Center issued an intra-party directive requiring the entire Party to prepare to struggle resolutely for the implementation of the PCC agreements.

But the Nationalist Chiang Kai-shek clique had never intended to implement the PCC agreements. No sooner had the Political Consultative Conference closed than Chiang Kai-shek declared at a meeting of the Nationalist Party Central Standing Committee: “I am also dissatisfied with the constitutional draft, but things have come to this point and there is no way to overturn the original resolution; we can only provisionally pass it and deal with it later.” At the Sixth Plenary Session of the Second Central Committee of the Nationalist Party convened in March, he openly stated that the PCC agreements should be “properly remedied in their most important aspects.”

II. Smashing the Nationalist Military Offensive and the Formation of the Second Front

The Outbreak of Full-Scale Civil War

On June 26, 1946, after completing its preparations for civil war, the Nationalist army brazenly attacked the Central Plains Liberation Area on the Hubei-Henan border with 220,000 troops. Thereafter, the Nationalist army launched large-scale offensives against other liberated areas. Full-scale civil war thus broke out.

For the forces of the people’s revolution, the situation in the early period of the war was quite grave.

In military terms, the Nationalist army had a total force of approximately 4.3 million, including approximately 2 million regular troops; the people’s army of the liberated areas had a total force of only approximately 1.27 million, including 610,000 field army troops. The ratio of total forces was 3.4 to 1. The Nationalist army possessed well-equipped army, navy, and air forces; the people’s army of the liberated areas had no navy or air force, and its equipment consisted basically of infantry weapons captured from Japanese and puppet forces, with only a small number of artillery pieces.

In economic terms, the Nationalist-controlled areas had a population of 339 million, accounting for approximately 76% of the country’s territory. The Nationalist government controlled virtually all major cities and the vast majority of railway lines, and possessed most of the country’s modern industry and human and material resources. The liberated areas had a population of approximately 136 million and occupied only about 24% of the country’s land area, with very little modern industry and a reliance basically on a traditional agricultural economy.

The Nationalist Party grossly overestimated its own strength. Chiang Kai-shek declared that, relying on the Nationalist Party’s advantages, he would “certainly be able to achieve a quick victory.” The Nationalist army’s chief of staff, Chen Cheng, even boasted that the Communist forces could be “resolved in perhaps three months, five months at most.”

A very important reason the Nationalist Party dared to launch a full-scale civil war was its reliance on American support. Mao Zedong pointed out: “Although Chiang Kai-shek has the aid of the United States, the people are not with him, morale is low, and the economy is in difficulty. We have no foreign aid, but the people are with us, morale is high, and we have ways to handle the economy. Therefore, we are able to defeat Chiang Kai-shek.”

To smash the Nationalist military offensive, the Party formulated various guidelines and policies. Politically: uphold Party leadership, boldly mobilize the masses, unite all forces that can be united, and establish the broadest possible people’s democratic united front. Militarily: implement the operational principle of concentrating superior forces to annihilate the enemy piecemeal and the guideline of active defense, with the primary objective of annihilating the enemy’s effective strength rather than holding or seizing cities and localities.

Smashing the Nationalist Army’s Comprehensive Offensive and Focused Offensives

From June 1946 to June 1947, the people’s army was in the strategic defensive stage, with the war being fought mainly within the liberated areas. During this period, the first eight months were spent smashing the Nationalist army’s comprehensive offensive, and the last four months were spent working to break the Nationalist army’s focused offensives.

From mid-July to late August 1946, under extremely arduous conditions, Su Yu and others commanded the Central China Field Army in seven consecutive engagements in the Subei region (the Subei Campaign), annihilating more than 50,000 enemy troops. The Huaibei battlefield, the Shanxi-Hebei-Shandong-Henan Dingtao Campaign, the Shanxi-Chahar-Hebei Northern Shanxi Campaign, and the Northeast “Three Crossings South of the Songhua River, Four Defenses of Linjiang” Campaign all brought good news. These victories boosted the morale of the people’s army, blunted the edge of the Nationalist army’s offensive, and provided initial experience in annihilating the enemy mainly on interior lines. In the first eight months of the war, the people’s army recaptured 135 cities and annihilated 708,000 enemy troops. The Nationalist Party’s plan to eliminate the forces of the people’s revolution through a quick decisive victory was declared bankrupt.

Beginning in March 1947, with its comprehensive offensive having been frustrated, the Nationalist army shifted to focused offensives against the Shaanxi-Gansu-Ningxia and Shandong liberated areas. The people’s army continued to implement the operational guideline of active defense.

In Shandong, the East China Field Army under the command of Chen Yi, Su Yu, and others first annihilated more than 56,000 troops of Li Xianzou, deputy commander of the Nationalist Second “Pacification” Zone, in the Laiwu area in late February, and then in mid-May completely annihilated the Nationalist army’s crack main force—the Reorganized 74th Division of more than 32,000 troops—in the Battle of Menglianggu. The Nationalist army’s focused offensive against the Shandong liberated area was essentially smashed.

In Shaanxi-Gansu-Ningxia, 250,000 Nationalist troops under Hu Zongnan and others launched a surprise attack on Yan’an. The central organs proactively withdrew on March 18, beginning an arduous campaign of mobile operations in northern Shaanxi. Shortly thereafter, the central organs were divided into three parts: Liu Shaoqi, Zhu De, and others formed the Central Work Committee and went to North China to carry out work entrusted by the Party Center; Mao Zedong,

Zhou Enlai, and Ren Bishi led a lean central organ and the General Headquarters of the People’s Liberation Army, remaining in northern Shaanxi to direct operations on all fronts nationwide; and the Central Rear Committee, presided over by Ye Jianying and Yang Shangkun, moved to northwestern Shanxi to coordinate rear-area work.

Northern Shaanxi had a strong mass base, rugged terrain, and ample room for maneuver. Following instructions from the Center, Peng Dehuai and Xi Zhongxun commanded the Northwest Field Force to employ “mushroom” tactics to wear down the enemy. Within 45 days of withdrawing from Yan’an, they won three consecutive victories at Qinghuabian, Yangmahe, and Panlong, annihilating more than 14,000 enemy troops. They then completely annihilated the headquarters and two brigades of Hu Zongnan’s Reorganized 36th Division in the Battle of Shajiadian. By August, the Nationalist army’s focused offensive against northern Shaanxi had also been smashed.

While the Nationalist army’s focused offensives were being smashed, the people’s army and civilians in other liberated areas launched strategic counteroffensives against Nationalist forces that had contracted their lines and shifted to the defensive. The Shanxi-Hebei-Shandong-Henan Field Army launched offensives in northern Henan and southern Shanxi, liberating vast areas of northern Henan and southern Shanxi. The Shanxi-Chahar-Hebei Field Army launched the Zhengding-Taiyuan Railway Campaign, the Jincang Campaign, and the Northern Baoding Campaign, opening up communications between the Shanxi-Chahar-Hebei and Shanxi-Hebei-Shandong-Henan liberated areas. The Northeast Democratic Allied Army launched a summer offensive, linking up the base areas of eastern, southern, western, and northern Manchuria and transforming the situation in which they had been divided into two separate northern and southern combat groups.

From July 1946 to June 1947, the people’s army annihilated 1.12 million enemy troops in one year of interior-line operations, and its total strength grew to more than 1.9 million. After the strategic defensive stage ended, the people’s army entered the second year of the People’s Liberation War in a new posture.

The Political and Economic Crisis in the Nationalist-Controlled Areas and the Broad Development of the People’s Movement

After the outbreak of full-scale civil war, in order to raise funds for the war, the Nationalist government not only levied heavy taxes and levies on the people but also issued paper currency without limit. Inflation galloped like a runaway horse to a staggering degree. By August 1948, the amount of fiat currency in circulation had increased by more than 470,000 times compared to the eve of the nationwide War of Resistance in 1937, and commodity prices had soared to more than 7.25 million times the pre-war level. This hyperinflation amounted in practice to a wholesale plunder of the people in the Nationalist-controlled areas. Bureaucratic capital expanded enormously, industrial and agricultural production contracted severely, large numbers of national industrial and commercial enterprises teetered on the brink of bankruptcy, urban unemployment surged, and corpses of the starved lined the roads throughout the countryside. The Nationalist-controlled areas sank into a severe economic crisis. People of all strata across the country struggled on the brink of starvation and death, and were compelled to unite and wage a life-and-death struggle against the Nationalist government.

To escape the economic crisis, the Nationalist government further threw itself into the arms of American imperialism, selling off state rights and interests in large quantities. American goods achieved a monopoly position in the Chinese market, dealing a devastating blow to the national capitalists who were already in dire straits. American troops stationed in China ran roughshod and behaved outrageously, arousing the intense national indignation of the Chinese people.

In mid-May 1947, the student movement against hunger and civil war rapidly surged across the country. On May 20, more than 5,000 students from Nanjing, Shanghai, Jiangsu, and Hangzhou took to the streets of Nanjing to hold a “Joint March to Rescue the Education Crisis,” shouting slogans of “oppose hunger” and “oppose civil war,” and were suppressed by the reactionary authorities. On the same day, more than 7,000 students in Beiping also held a large protest march against hunger and civil war. This was the May 20th Movement.

The upsurge of the student movement promoted the upsurge of the entire people’s movement. In 1947, more than 3 million workers in over 20 large and medium-sized cities across the country went on strike in succession. In the countryside, the broad masses of peasants resisted conscription, grain levies, and taxation. The struggle between the patriotic democratic movement led by students as its vanguard and the Nationalist government gradually formed a second front in coordination with the People’s Liberation War. The Party timely put forward the call to build, on the basis of the people’s struggle for survival in the Nationalist-controlled areas, a broad front against national betrayal, civil war, and dictatorship, enabling the struggle on the second front to develop more broadly and deeply. The Nationalist government had suffered defeats on both the military front and the political front, and was already encircled by the entire people.

III. The People’s Liberation Army Shifts to the Strategic Offensive

The Advance into the Central Plains and the Full Unfolding of the Strategic Offensive

After a year of fighting, the war situation had undergone a major change. By July 1947, the Nationalist army’s total strength had fallen from 4.3 million to 3.73 million, with regular troops declining from 2 million to 1.5 million. The People’s Liberation Army’s total strength had grown from 1.27 million to 1.95 million, with nearly 1 million regular troops and greatly improved weapons and equipment. The Party Center seized the moment and decided not to wait until the enemy’s strategic offensive had been completely smashed before immediately shifting to a nationwide counteroffensive, taking the main forces to the exterior lines and carrying the war into Nationalist territory. The Party Center selected the Dabie Mountain area in the Central Plains as the main direction of attack, and decided that the Shanxi-Hebei-Shandong-Henan Field Army would adopt a leapfrog offensive style—without a rear base, driving deep in a long-range thrust—to strike directly into the enemy’s strategic depth in one blow.

On the night of June 30, 1947, Liu Bocheng and Deng Xiaoping led the main force of 120,000 troops of the Shanxi-Hebei-Shandong-Henan Field Army in a single thrust across the natural barrier of the Yellow River, opening the curtain on the strategic offensive. The Liu-Deng army advanced a thousand li in a bold thrust and entered the Dabie Mountain area at the end of August. Relying closely on the people, they fought tenaciously, smashed the Nationalist army’s focused and rotating offensives, and by November had annihilated more than 30,000 enemy troops and established democratic governments in 33 counties. The fundamental reason the Liu-Deng army was able to gain a foothold and take root after its thousand-li thrust into the Dabie Mountains was that the Party and the people were of one heart, and the army and the people were united as one. As Liu Bocheng said, “What we rely on is the people; what Chiang Kai-shek relies on is pillboxes.”

In late August, Chen Geng and Xie Fuzhi led a portion of the Shanxi-Hebei-Shandong-Henan Field Army across the Yellow River and advanced into western Henan; Chen Yi and Su Yu led the main force of the East China Field Army across the Longhai Railway southward in September, entering the Henan-Anhui-Jiangsu plain. By November, both armies had successively completed their strategic deployment in the Henan-Shaanxi border area and the Henan-Anhui-Jiangsu border area.

At this point, all three columns were fighting on exterior lines, arrayed in a triangular formation, ranging freely across the vast area south of the Yellow River, north of the Yangtze River, west to the Han River, and east to the sea. They served as mutual flanking support, pressing in a tripod formation against the Nationalist Party’s Yangtze River defense line and directly threatening Nanjing and Wuhan.

The People’s Liberation Army forces still fighting on interior lines also intensified their attacks and gradually shifted to strategic offensives and counteroffensives. That same year, Lin Biao and Luo Ronghuan led the Northeast Democratic Allied Army in launching successive autumn and winter offensive campaigns, compressing the Nationalist forces into the three isolated areas of Shenyang, Changchun, and Jinzhou—which together occupied only 3% of the Northeast’s total area—fundamentally transforming the situation in the Northeast.

On April 21, 1948, the Northwest Field Army recaptured Yan’an. Prior to this, on March 23, Mao Zedong had led the central organs and part of the People’s Liberation Army General Headquarters staff across the Yellow River heading east, and subsequently made their way to Xibaipo Village in Jianping County, Hebei (now part of Pingshan County, Hebei).

The People’s Liberation Army’s shift to the strategic offensive was of great historical significance. Mao Zedong pointed out: “This is a turning point in history. It is the turning point from the development to the elimination of Chiang Kai-shek’s twenty years of counter-revolutionary rule. It is the turning point from the development to the elimination of more than a hundred years of imperialist rule in China. This is a momentous event.” “Once this event occurs, it will inevitably advance toward nationwide victory.”

The Development of the Land Reform Movement and the Party Rectification Movement

The new situation of the People’s Liberation Army shifting to the strategic offensive required that land reform be carried out more universally and thoroughly in the liberated areas. As Mao Zedong pointed out: “If we can solve the land problem universally and thoroughly, we will have obtained the most basic condition for defeating all enemies.”

From the issuance of the CCP Central Committee’s “Directive on the Land Question” (the May Fourth Directive) on May 4, 1946, to the second half of 1947, two-thirds of the liberated areas had basically achieved “land to the tiller,” but one-third had not yet carried out land reform; and in areas where reform had been carried out, some cases were not thorough enough. To advance the further development of the land reform movement in the liberated areas, Liu Shaoqi presided over the National Land Conference at Xibaipo from July to September 1947, formulating the Outline Land Law of China, which was approved and promulgated by the CCP Central Committee in October of the same year.

The Outline Land Law of China was a thoroughly anti-feudal land revolution program. It stipulated: “Abolish the feudal and semi-feudal system of land exploitation and implement the system of land to the tiller.” After this outline was promulgated, leading organs at all levels in the liberated areas dispatched large numbers of land reform work teams deep into the countryside to mobilize the masses, organize poor peasant associations and peasant associations, denounce landlords, punish local tyrants, distribute land, and rapidly form a tide of land reform.

★ Peasants in the liberated areas plant boundary markers on the land they have been allocated

Land reform was a great social transformation led by the Chinese Communist Party to fundamentally destroy the foundations of China’s feudal system. It enabled the peasants—who constituted the vast majority of China’s population—to further recognize that the Chinese Communist Party was the resolute defender of their interests, and thus consciously rallied around the Party. This laid the deepest possible mass foundation for defeating Chiang Kai-shek and establishing a new China.

While carrying out land reform, the various liberated areas also conducted Party rectification work in response to problems of ideological impurity, work-style impurity, and class-composition impurity that existed in some local party organizations, especially rural grassroots party organizations. The basic content of Party rectification was: through investigating class background, investigating ideology, and investigating work style, and through rectifying organization, rectifying ideology, and rectifying work style, using methods that combined intra-party and extra-party approaches to resolve the prominent problems existing in grassroots party organizations. Through Party rectification, rural grassroots party organizations made great progress ideologically, politically, and organizationally; the Party’s ties with the masses became closer; and important guarantees were provided for achieving victory in land reform and in the war.

IV. The Formulation and Implementation of the Program for Seizing Nationwide Victory, and the Consolidation and Expansion of the People’s Democratic United Front

The Putting Forward of the Program for Seizing Nationwide Victory and the Formulation of Policies and Tactics

As the People’s Liberation Army shifted to the strategic offensive, in September 1947 the Chinese Communist Party issued the call for “a nationwide general counteroffensive to overthrow Chiang Kai-shek.” In October, the General Headquarters of the Chinese People’s Liberation Army issued a declaration, resoundingly putting forward the slogan “Overthrow Chiang Kai-shek, liberate all of China.”

In December 1947, the Party Center convened an enlarged conference (the December Conference) at Yangjiagou in Mizhi County, northern Shaanxi, at which Mao Zedong submitted a written report titled “The Present Situation and Our Tasks.”

The report set forth the Party’s most fundamental political program: “Unite the workers, peasants, soldiers, students, and merchants—all oppressed classes, all people’s organizations, all democratic parties, all ethnic minorities, overseas Chinese everywhere, and other patriotic elements—to form a national united front, overthrow the Chiang Kai-shek dictatorial government, and establish a democratic coalition government.” The report stated: “Confiscate the land of the feudal class and turn it over to the peasants. Confiscate the monopoly capital headed by Chiang Kai-shek, Song Ziwen, Kong Xiangxi, and Chen Lifu and turn it over to the New Democratic state. Protect the national industry and commerce. These are the three major economic programs of the New Democratic revolution.” The report also summarized the combat experience of the people’s army and put forward ten military principles, the core of which was “concentrate superior forces to annihilate the enemy piecemeal.” The report stated that these strategies and tactics were built on the foundation of people’s war and therefore could neither be utilized by nor countered by any anti-people army. This demonstrated the Party’s confidence in the prospects for victory.

Mao Zedong’s report was “a programmatic document in the political, military, and economic spheres for the entire period of overthrowing the Chiang Kai-shek reactionary ruling clique and establishing a New Democratic China.”

In the period following the December Conference, the Party Center concentrated its full efforts on studying and resolving the various specific policy and tactical questions facing the Party under the new situation. This was because, as the Liberation War advanced victoriously, the liberated areas rapidly expanded and large numbers of cities returned to the hands of the people. The Party still lacked experience in how to adapt to the new and previously unfamiliar circumstances and do good work in newly liberated areas and in cities. In actual work, tendencies had already appeared of encroaching on the interests of middle peasants and national industrial and commercial enterprises, and even the erroneous slogan of “do whatever the masses want to do” had been put forward indiscriminately. In response to these circumstances, Mao Zedong solemnly warned the entire Party: “The enemy is now completely isolated, but the enemy’s isolation does not mean our victory. If we make errors in policy, we still cannot achieve victory.” He emphasized: “Policy and tactics are the lifeblood of the Party; leading comrades at all levels must give them full attention and must on no account be negligent.”

In the process of exploring experience in taking over cities, in February 1948 the Party Center circulated for approval the “Central Work Committee’s Report on Urban Work Experience in the Recovery of Shijiazhuang”; in June it circulated the “Northeast Bureau’s Directive on Protecting Newly Recovered Cities”; and in December it circulated Chen Yun’s “Experience in Taking Over Shenyang.” Because the Party adopted a series of correct policies, social order in the newly liberated cities quickly stabilized, and production was rapidly restored and developed, powerfully supporting the People’s Liberation War.

To ensure that the Party’s line and its various guidelines and policies were strictly implemented, Mao Zedong repeatedly warned the entire Party: it was necessary to uphold the Party’s centralized and unified leadership, strengthen organizational discipline, and rapidly overcome certain conditions of indiscipline, anarchism, localism, and guerrilla-ism that had arisen in the past due to the long period of operating in a guerrilla warfare environment cut off by the enemy. The Party Center required all localities to strictly observe the various policies formulated by the Center and to establish a system of regularly reporting to and seeking instructions from the Center. At the same time, it timely criticized the phenomenon of insufficient democratic life within the Party, and called for strengthening the Party’s democratic life and improving the party committee system.

This was already a historical turning point in seizing comprehensive victory in the New Democratic revolution. The Party’s history proves that when a major historical turning point arrives, it is necessary to foresightedly and earnestly study new circumstances and new problems, timely formulate correct countermeasures, and adopt effective measures. At this historical moment, the Party formulated various practical policies and carried out extensive work to strengthen the policy consciousness of all party comrades, maintaining a high degree of unity throughout the Party on the basis of the correct line and policies, and carrying out work in an orderly manner. This created the most important conditions for welcoming the imminent nationwide victory of the revolution.

New Developments in the Patriotic Democratic Movement Led by the Party and the Historic Choice of the Democratic Parties

As the Liberation War advanced victoriously, the people’s movement in the Nationalist-controlled areas underwent new developments. The broad student masses increasingly placed China’s hopes on the victory of the People’s Liberation War, and therefore no longer raised the slogan of “oppose civil war” but instead waged their struggle under the banner of “oppose persecution.” In October 1947, Yu Zisan, chairman of the Zhejiang University Student Self-Governing Association, was illegally arrested and died in prison. More than 100,000 students in 12 cities including Hangzhou, Nanjing, Shanghai, and Beiping launched a struggle “against illegal arrest, against secret agents, against the massacre of youth.” In April 1948, the struggle of North China students against the authorities’ banning of the North China Student Federation combined with the struggle of teachers and staff in the Beiping-Tianjin area demanding improved treatment, forming the large-scale April Storm. From May to June, a nationwide patriotic movement erupted against the American government’s support for Japanese militarist forces. The Nationalist Party’s reactionary rule fell into complete isolation.

The various democratic parties and the broad nonpartisan democratic personages increasingly inclined toward supporting the people’s revolution. Among them, some had previously advocated implementing bourgeois democratic “middle road” politics in China—the so-called “third road.” But as the Liberation War advanced victoriously, as the Nationalist authorities intensified their persecution of patriotic democratic forces, and as the Chinese Communist Party’s propaganda and educational work deepened, the political proposition of the “middle road” that had once had influence among some democratic personages and middle strata rapidly collapsed.

In the decisive contest between two roads, two prospects, and two destinies for China, the previously middle forces underwent differentiation. The majority of people in the Democratic League and other democratic parties, as well as nonpartisan democratic personages, stood firmly with the Chinese Communist Party in the struggle to resist the bogus National Assembly[1] and oppose the bogus constitution, playing an active role in the struggle against the Nationalist Party’s dictatorial rule and civil war policy. They cooperated and struggled together with the Chinese Communist Party and continuously progressed through the practice of struggle—this was the main aspect of the democratic parties’ conduct during this period. This made China’s democratic parties an important component of the revolutionary united front led by the Chinese Communist Party.

The democratic parties at the time were mainly: the Revolutionary Committee of the Chinese Kuomintang, the China Democratic League, the China Democratic National Construction Association, the China Association for Promoting Democracy, the Chinese Peasants’ and Workers’ Democratic Party, the China Zhi Gong Party, the Jiusan Society, and the Taiwan Democratic Self-Government League. They all advocated patriotism and opposed national betrayal; they advocated democracy and opposed dictatorship. In these respects, they were basically in agreement with the Chinese Communist Party’s New Democratic revolutionary program. The Chinese Communist Party adopted a policy of actively winning over and uniting the democratic parties, achieving very good results. This also helped the left wing within the democratic parties and strengthened their political position.

The democratic parties and democratic personages actively drawing closer to the Chinese Communist Party threw the Nationalist authorities into a panic, and they took desperate measures, intensifying their persecution of the democratic parties and nonpartisan democratic personages. Following Li Gongpu and Wen Yiduo, the prominent democratic personage Du Bincheng was murdered in Xi’an. Many members of local Democratic League organizations were arrested and abducted, and several newspapers they ran were smashed or attacked. In May 1947, the Nationalist Party brazenly slandered the Democratic League, the Association for Promoting Democracy, and others as “acting under CCP orders and preparing to willingly serve as new instruments of CCP violence.” In October, the Nationalist authorities declared the Democratic League an “illegal organization.” On November 6, the Democratic League’s headquarters was compelled to issue a public announcement in Shanghai declaring its dissolution.

In January 1948, Shen Junru and others convened the Third Plenary Session of the First Central Committee of the Democratic League in Hong Kong, restored the League’s headquarters, and expressed that henceforth the League would work hand in hand with the Chinese Communist Party. At the same time, the Revolutionary Committee of the Chinese Kuomintang also publicly acknowledged the Chinese Communist Party’s leadership position, and other democratic parties also clearly expressed their stance of participating in the New Democratic revolution.

The Formation of the Multi-Party Cooperation Landscape Under Communist Party Leadership

On April 30, 1948, in the slogans commemorating May Day International Labor Day, the CCP Central Committee proposed: “Let the democratic parties, people’s organizations, and public figures of all circles quickly convene a Political Consultative Conference to discuss and realize the convening of a people’s representative assembly and the establishment of a democratic coalition government!” This call received an enthusiastic response from the democratic parties, nonpartisan personages, and all sectors of society. It marked the open and conscious acceptance of Chinese Communist Party leadership by the democratic parties and nonpartisan personages, opened the prelude to the Chinese Communist Party’s consultations with all parties, organizations, and representatives of all ethnic groups and social circles on the founding of the state, and laid the foundation for the system of multi-party cooperation and political consultation under Chinese Communist Party leadership.

In January 1949, Li Jishen, Shen Junru, and other democratic party leaders, together with 55 prominent nonpartisan democratic personages, jointly issued “Views on the Current Situation,” unanimously affirming that the CCP’s proposition regarding the convening of a Political Consultative Conference and the establishment of a coalition government “conforms to the demands of the broad masses of the entire country’s people,” and earnestly expressing their willingness to “contribute their modest efforts under CCP leadership, jointly advancing the cause, in order to achieve the rapid success of China’s people’s democratic revolution and the early realization of a new China that is independent, free, peaceful, and happy.” This political declaration showed that China’s democratic parties and nonpartisan democratic personages voluntarily accepted the leadership of the Chinese Communist Party, were determined to take the road of people’s revolution, and supported the establishment of a people’s democratic new China.

In the spring of that year, Mao Zedong, in conversations with relevant personages, proposed that the democratic parties should “actively participate in governance and jointly build a new China.” This marked a fundamental change in the status of the democratic parties. They would no longer be opposition parties under the Nationalist regime, but would instead, under the leadership of the Chinese Communist Party, jointly shoulder the historic responsibility of administering and building a new China. The political landscape of multi-party cooperation under Chinese Communist Party leadership was formed precisely on this foundation.

V. The Great Strategic Decisive Battles and the Collapse of Nationalist Reactionary Rule

Conducting the Three Great Campaigns of Liaoshen, Huaihai, and Pingjin

In the autumn of 1948, the People’s Liberation War entered its decisive stage of seizing nationwide victory.

By this time, the People’s Liberation Army had grown from 1.27 million at the start of the war to 2.8 million, including 1.49 million field army troops. It had established relatively strong artillery and engineering units, improved its capability for attacking fortified positions, and gained experience in positional warfare.

In contrast, the Nationalist army had declined from 4.3 million at the start of the war to 3.65 million, with only 1.74 million troops available for the front line. Morale was low and combat effectiveness was weak, and it was compelled to abandon “comprehensive defense” in favor of “key-point defense.” The Nationalist army had been divided by the Liberation Army into five separate battlefields in the Northwest, Central Plains, East China, North China, and Northeast, making coordination among them difficult, with no intact front line remaining. The Party Center and Mao Zedong seized the moment and organized in succession the three great campaigns of Liaoshen, Huaihai, and Pingjin.

In accordance with the deployment of Mao Zedong and the Central Military Commission, the decision was made to begin the strategic decisive battles first in the Northeast. On September 12, 1948, Lin Biao and Luo Ronghuan commanded the main force and local armed forces of the Northeast Field Army—totaling 1.03 million troops—to launch the Liaoshen Campaign, attacking the 550,000 Nationalist troops isolated in Jinzhou, Changchun, Shenyang, and other areas. The campaign began with an attack on Jinzhou to seal off the Nationalist army in the Northeast. On October 14, the Northeast Field Army launched a general assault on Jinzhou, and after 31 hours of fierce fighting, completely annihilated the nearly 90,000 defending enemy troops.

The liberation of Jinzhou prompted part of the Changchun garrison to stage an uprising while the rest surrendered in full, cutting off the retreat route of the Northeast Nationalist forces to the interior. After capturing Jinzhou, the Northeast Field Army immediately encircled and completely annihilated the Liao Yaoxiang Corps of Nationalist forces that had sortied from Shenyang to relieve Jinzhou, then pursued the fleeing enemy and liberated Shenyang and Yingkou on November 2. The entire Northeast was liberated.

No sooner had the Liaoshen Campaign ended than the East China Field Army and the Central Plains Field Army, together with some local armed forces—totaling more than 600,000 troops—launched the Huaihai Campaign, an operation of unprecedented scale, in the area centered on Xuzhou, stretching from Haizhou in the east to Shangqiu in the west, from Lincheng (present-day Xuecheng) in the north to the Huai River in the south. On November 16, 1948, the Party Center decided to form a General Front Committee with Deng Xiaoping as secretary, composed of Liu Bocheng, Chen Yi, Deng Xiaoping, Su Yu, and Tan Zhenlin, to provide unified command over the East China Field Army and the Central Plains Field Army. Since the Nationalist forces concentrated in this area held advantages in both troop strength and weapons and equipment, the People’s Liberation Army adopted the method of repeatedly splitting the enemy’s large troop concentrations and then concentrating superior forces to annihilate them piecemeal.

★ People’s Liberation Army troops charge the walls of Jinzhou during the Liaoshen Campaign▶ A Brief History of the Chinese Communist PartyIn accordance with the Party Center’s deployment, the main force of the Northeast Field Army covertly entered the interior from November 1948 onward, and together with the Second and Third Corps of the North China Military Region, first used the methods of “encircle but do not attack” or “isolate but do not encircle” to complete the strategic encirclement and operational division of the enemy forces in Beiping, Tianjin, and Zhangjiakou. They then launched attacks in the sequence of “strike the two ends first, then take the middle,” capturing Xinbaoan and Zhangjiakou in succession in late December.

★ People’s Liberation Army troops advance in triumph during the Huaihai Campaign, as large numbers of captured Nationalist troops are escorted off the battlefield

From November 6 to 22, 1948, the Liberation Army encircled and annihilated the Huang Baitao Corps of approximately 100,000 troops east of Xuzhou, completing a breakthrough in the center. From November 23 to December 15, it completely annihilated the Huang Wei Corps of approximately 120,000 troops—which had rushed from southern Henan as a relief force and was now isolated and exposed—southwest of Suxian, and encircled the Du Yuming Group’s three corps under Qiu Qingquan, Li Mi, and Sun Yuanliang, totaling approximately 300,000 troops, in the Chengguanzhuang area, subsequently annihilating the Sun Yuanliang Corps as it attempted to break out. From December 16 to January 10, 1949, it annihilated the Qiu Qingquan and Li Mi corps of the Du Yuming forces—ten armies in total—and captured Du Yuming alive. The Huaihai Campaign thus concluded in victory.

After this campaign, the Nationalist army’s crack main forces on the southern front had been eliminated, the vast areas north of the middle and lower reaches of the Yangtze River were liberated and linked up with the North China liberated areas, the Nationalist government’s capital Nanjing was directly exposed to the People’s Liberation Army, and the Nationalist reactionary rule fell into a state of total collapse.

As the Liaoshen Campaign concluded and the Huaihai Campaign advanced victoriously, the Northeast Field Army together with the Second and Third Corps of the North China Military Region and local forces of the North China and Northeast Military Regions—totaling 1 million troops—jointly launched the Pingjin Campaign.

On January 10, 1949, the Party Center decided to establish a Pingjin Front General Front Committee composed of Lin Biao, Luo Ronghuan, and Nie Rongzhen, with Lin Biao as secretary. After the Tianjin garrison refused to accept peaceful reorganization, on January 14 the Liberation Army launched a general assault with powerful forces, and after 29 hours of fierce fighting, captured Tianjin and completely annihilated the 130,000 defending troops. The more than 200,000 Beiping garrison troops, completely surrounded by the Liberation Army and utterly without recourse, accepted peaceful reorganization under the leadership of Fu Zuoyi. On January 31, Beiping was peacefully liberated.

The three great campaigns of Liaoshen, Huaihai, and Pingjin were unprecedented in scale and in the results achieved,

★ After the peaceful liberation of Beiping, People’s Liberation Army units hold a grand entry ceremony into the city★ A civilian support cart team active in the Shandong liberated area during the Liberation War periodThe people, with boundless enthusiasm, provided the front with unprecedented-scale support in manpower and material resources. The military supplies needed by the enormous front-line forces were transported entirely by shoulder poles, back-carrying, and handcart. According to statistics, just to support the Huaihai Campaign, the mobilized civilian laborers cumulatively totaled 5.43 million, transporting to the front more than 14.6 million jin of ammunition, 960 million jin of grain, and other military supplies. Chen Yi once said with deep feeling and vivid imagery that the victory of the Huaihai Campaign was pushed out by the people with their handcarts.

both in Chinese military history and in world military history. The three great campaigns together annihilated more than 1.54 million Nationalist troops, basically destroying the main military forces on which the Nationalist Party relied to maintain its reactionary rule, and laying the foundation for the nationwide victory of the Chinese revolution.

The victory of the three great campaigns was a great victory for Mao Zedong’s military thought. In the three great campaigns, Mao Zedong and the Central Military Commission formulated different operational guidelines tailored to the different characteristics of the three battlefields in the Northeast, East China, and North China, comprehensively applying the “ten military principles,” closely combining the annihilation of the enemy’s effective strength with the seizure of cities and localities, closely combining the concentration of superior forces with the complete elimination of the enemy’s powerful corps, closely combining large-scale mobile warfare, positional warfare, and urban assault warfare, and combining military strikes with political winning-over. This was an important development of Mao Zedong’s military thought in practice.

The victory of the three great campaigns was also a great victory for people’s war. The liberated areas’

Carrying the Revolution Through to the End

Faced with military defeat on the battlefield, the Chiang Kai-shek clique resorted to a delaying tactic to buy time for recovery. Chiang Kai-shek’s attempts to obtain increased American aid and “mediation” by the United States, Britain, France, and the Soviet Union came to nothing. Under pressure from all sides, he was compelled to issue a “peace-seeking” statement on New Year’s Day 1949. On January 21, Chiang Kai-shek announced his “retirement,” with his duties as “president” assumed by “vice president” Li Zongren. Although the Li Zongren government verbally expressed willingness to conduct peace negotiations on the basis of the conditions put forward by the CCP, in reality it sought to buy time for recovery, deploy the Yangtze River defense line, and achieve a “division of the country at the Yangtze River.”

Should the revolution be carried through to the end, or should it be allowed to peter out halfway? On December 30, 1948, Mao Zedong issued the great call to “carry the revolution through to the end” in a New Year’s message for the New China News Agency. He emphasized that it was necessary to use revolutionary methods to resolutely, thoroughly, cleanly, and completely eliminate all reactionary forces. Without wavering, persist in overthrowing imperialism, overthrowing feudalism, and overthrowing bureaucratic capitalism; overthrow the Nationalist reactionary rule throughout the country; establish throughout the country a people’s democratic republic under proletarian leadership with the worker-peasant alliance as its foundation; and from there advance toward a socialist society. On this question, all those willing to participate in the current revolutionary cause must be united and cooperative, rather than forming any “opposition faction” or taking any “middle road.”

On January 14, 1949, Mao Zedong issued a statement on the current situation, solemnly pointing out that in order to rapidly end the war, achieve genuine peace, and reduce the suffering of the people, the Chinese Communist Party was willing to conduct peace negotiations with the Nanjing Nationalist government and with Nationalist local governments and military groups on the basis of eight conditions, including punishing war criminals, abolishing the bogus constitution and bogus legal order, and reorganizing all reactionary armies.

Although the Chinese Communists harbored no illusions whatsoever about Chiang Kai-shek’s sham “peace talks,” they still made one final earnest effort to achieve domestic peace. On April 1, a CCP delegation headed by Zhou Enlai as chief representative and a Nationalist government delegation headed by Zhang Zhizhong as chief representative held negotiations in Beiping. After repeated consultations, on April 15 the CCP delegation put forward the Domestic Peace Agreement (final revised draft), giving the Nationalist government a deadline of April 20 to express its position. Since the Nationalist government refused to sign this agreement, the negotiations broke down. On April 21, Chairman Mao Zedong and Commander-in-Chief Zhu De issued the order to advance on the entire country.

From the night of April 20 to April 21, under the unified command of the Crossing-the-Yangtze Campaign General Front Committee with Deng Xiaoping as secretary, the Second and Third Field Armies, in coordination with the advance corps of the Fourth Field Army and Central Plains Military Region forces, launched the Crossing-the-Yangtze Campaign. Along a thousand-li front stretching from Hukou in the west to Jiangyin in the east, a million-strong army crossed the Yangtze River in three columns. The Yangtze River defense line that the Nationalist Party had painstakingly built over three and a half months collapsed in an instant.

The victory of the Crossing-the-Yangtze Campaign was rowed out by the common people in their small boats. Along the Yangtze River banks, wooden sailing boats and fishing boats were the people’s means of production and their lifeline, yet they offered them up one after another to support the campaign. By the time the campaign was launched, the Liberation Army had already gathered more than 20,000 vessels of various kinds. In addition, boatmen creatively lashed timber into rafts more than four meters wide and ten meters long, mounted cotton bale barriers with automobile engines, and mounted light and heavy weapons on them to create “waterborne improvised gunboats.”

On April 23, the Liberation Army occupied Nanjing, the center of Nationalist rule, announcing the collapse of the 22-year Nationalist reactionary rule. When Mao Zedong received this good news at Shuangqing Villa on Xiangshan in Beiping, he composed the poem “Seven-Character Regulated Verse: The People’s Liberation Army Captures Nanjing.” He used the lines “it is right to press on and capture the fleeing foe, and wrong to seek fame by imitating the Hegemon-King” to express his determination to carry the revolution through to the end; and he used the lines “if heaven had feelings, heaven too would grow old; the right path in the human world is one of vicissitudes” to reveal the objective laws of human social progress.

Subsequently, the People’s Liberation Army captured Shanghai on May 27. After Shanghai’s liberation, in order not to disturb the citizens of Shanghai, the Liberation Army did not occupy civilian residences but slept in the streets, moving the entire city. Before and after this, the Liberation Army continued its victorious advance in separate columns into the provinces of Central-South China, the Northwest, and the Southwest, rapidly resolving the remaining enemy forces through combat or peaceful means and liberating vast territories. The Nationalist Chiang Kai-shek clique fled from the mainland to Taiwan.

On the eve of Chongqing’s liberation, numerous Communist Party members imprisoned in Zhazidong and Baigongguan were brutally massacred by the Nationalist reactionaries. The Communist Party member Jiang Zhujun endured every form of torture by the Nationalist Military Statistics Bureau secret agents, remaining steadfast and unyielding, and would rather die than reveal any Party secrets. People affectionately called her “Sister Jiang.” Facing the enemy’s brutal torture, she declared resolutely: “Bamboo skewers are made of bamboo, but the will of a Communist Party member is made of steel.” With the new China already established and Chongqing on the verge of liberation, Sister Jiang died a heroic death at only 29 years of age. The many revolutionary martyrs represented by Sister Jiang endured every form of torture, remained unyielding and unbowed, and would rather die than submit, giving their precious lives for the cause of the liberation of the Chinese people. Their spirit crystallized into the “Red Crag Spirit.”

VI. The Party’s Seventh Central Committee Second Plenary Session and the Preparations for Founding a New China

Drawing the Blueprint for a New China

As the people’s revolution led by the Party was on the verge of nationwide victory, the task of establishing a new China was placed on the agenda.

▶ A Brief History of the Chinese Communist Party

★ The venue of the Party’s Seventh Central Committee Second Plenary Session

In September 1948, the Politburo convened an enlarged session. Mao Zedong addressed the session on the state form and governmental form of the new China about to be established—that is, the class nature and organizational form of state power. The session also put forward the basic guidelines for New Democratic economic construction.

The Party’s Seventh Central Committee Second Plenary Session, convened at Xibaipo in March 1949, stipulated the basic policies the Party should adopt in political, economic, and foreign affairs after nationwide victory, and pointed out the direction of development from an agricultural country to an industrial country and from a New Democratic society to a socialist society.

The plenary session discussed the question of shifting the Party’s center of work from the countryside to the cities, pointing out that the period of using the countryside to encircle the cities had ended, and that from now on the period of advancing from the cities to the countryside and of the cities leading the countryside had begun.

Mao Zedong warned the entire Party that seizing nationwide victory was only the first step in a ten-thousand-li march; the Chinese revolution was great, but the road after the revolution would be longer, and the work would be greater and more arduous. To this end, Mao Zedong put forward the thought of the “two musts”: “We must make our comrades continue to maintain the style of being modest, prudent, and free from arrogance and rashness, and we must make our comrades continue to maintain the style of hard struggle.” This contained a profound lesson drawn from the patterns of order and chaos in several thousand years of Chinese history; a profound summation of the Chinese Communist Party’s arduous and extraordinary course of struggle; a profound concern for the victorious Party to forever preserve its advanced nature and purity, and for the people’s regime about to be born to achieve lasting stability and order; and a profound understanding of the Chinese Communist Party’s fundamental purpose of serving the people wholeheartedly. The thought of the “two musts” has always inspired the entire Party to forever preserve the glorious tradition of hard struggle, forever preserve its flesh-and-blood ties with the people, and forever preserve the Party’s advanced nature and purity. Mao Zedong also pointed out that in the face of victory, it was necessary to be vigilant against the attack of the bourgeoisie’s “sugar-coated bullets.”

On the morning of March 23, 1949, Mao Zedong led the central organs to leave Xibaipo—the last rural command post of the Chinese revolution—and set out for Beiping. Before departing, Mao Zedong said to Zhou Enlai that today was the day to enter the capital, to go to Beiping to “sit the examination.” Zhou Enlai said they should all be able to pass the examination and not have to come back. Mao Zedong said that coming back would mean failure. “We absolutely will not be like Li Zicheng; we all hope to achieve good results.” On March 25, Mao Zedong and other central leaders, together with the central organs and the People’s Liberation Army General Headquarters, took up residence in Beiping. The Party Center and Mao Zedong’s move to Beiping marked the shift of the center of the Chinese revolution from the countryside to the cities. This became the general headquarters that led the Liberation War to nationwide victory and the New Democratic revolution to its great triumph.

In order to publicly explain to the people of the entire country the Chinese Communist Party’s propositions on the question of establishing a new China, on June 30 Mao Zedong published the essay “On the People’s Democratic Dictatorship,” pointing out that the people’s democratic dictatorship required the leadership of the working class. The foundation of the people’s democratic dictatorship was the alliance of the working class, the peasant class, and the urban petty bourgeoisie, primarily the alliance of workers and peasants. Conducting China’s people’s revolution and developing China’s economy required uniting the national bourgeoisie, but it could not serve as the leader of the revolution, nor should it occupy a primary position in state power.

The resolution of the Party’s Seventh Central Committee Second Plenary Session and Mao Zedong’s “On the People’s Democratic Dictatorship” laid the theoretical and policy foundations for the establishment of a new China. In the process of preparing to found a new China, the Party Center also gave careful consideration and made decisions on the state structure and ethnic relations of the new China, concluding that: a unitary state structure better suited China’s national conditions; and implementing ethnic regional autonomy within a unified state would be more conducive to realizing the principle of ethnic equality.

The Convening of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference and the Formulation of the Common Program

The work of preparing to establish a new China was carried out through the New Political Consultative Conference (the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference).

In June 1949, the First Plenary Session of the Preparatory Committee for the New Political Consultative Conference was convened in Beiping, establishing the Standing Committee of the CPPCC Preparatory Committee with Mao Zedong as chairman, responsible for drafting the Common Program, drawing up the government plan, and so forth, and fully unfolding the work of preparing to found a new China.

In September 1949, the First Plenary Session of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference was solemnly convened in Beiping. The convening of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference marked the great historic victory of the Chinese people’s more than 100-year struggle for national independence and people’s liberation; it marked the complete organizational formation of the patriotic united front and the great unity of the entire people; and it marked the formal establishment of the system of multi-party cooperation and political consultation under Chinese Communist Party leadership. In his opening address, Mao Zedong proudly declared to the entire world: “We have a common feeling, which is that our work will be written into human history, and it will prove that: the Chinese people, who constitute one-quarter of humanity, have from this moment ★ At the First Plenary Session of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference, delegates vote by show of hands on a resolutionThe Common Program became the great charter of the Chinese people, serving for a period as the provisional constitution of the new China.

stood up.” He also predicted: “With the arrival of the high tide of economic construction, there will inevitably come a high tide of cultural construction. The era in which the Chinese were regarded as uncivilized is now ended. We shall emerge in the world as a nation with an advanced culture.”

The People’s Political Consultative Conference was the organizational form of the people’s democratic united front based on the worker-peasant alliance under Chinese Communist Party leadership. Participating in the CPPCC were representatives of the Chinese Communist Party, the democratic parties, nonpartisan personages, people’s organizations, the People’s Liberation Army, various regions, various ethnic groups, and overseas Chinese. The conference passed the Organizational Law of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference and elected the First National Committee of the CPPCC. On October 9, Mao Zedong was elected chairman of the CPPCC National Committee.

The conference passed the Common Program of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference. This

The conference passed the Organizational Law of the Central People’s Government, and unanimously elected Mao Zedong as chairman of the Central People’s Government, with Zhu De, Liu Shaoqi, Song Qingling, Li Jishen, Zhang Lan, and Gao Gang as vice chairmen, and Chen Yi and 55 others as members of the Central People’s Government Council.

The conference decided that Beiping would be the capital of the People’s Republic of China and that its name would be changed to Beijing; decided to adopt the Common Era calendar; adopted the “March of the Volunteers” as the provisional national anthem; and designated the Five-Star Red Flag as the national flag, symbolizing the great unity of the people of the entire country under Communist Party leadership.

The Causes and Basic Experience of the Victory of China’s New Democratic Revolution

With the collapse of the Nationalist reactionary rule and the establishment of the People’s Republic of China, China’s New Democratic revolution achieved its basic victory.

The occurrence and victory of the Chinese revolution were not accidental; they had profound social roots and a deep mass foundation. The brutal oppression and exploitation of the Chinese people by imperialism and feudal forces drove the Chinese people onto the historical road of the great revolutionary struggle against imperialism and feudalism. The Nationalist ruling clique headed by Chiang Kai-shek relied externally on imperialist support and internally on the feudal landlord class and the comprador bourgeoisie as its social pillars, placing itself in opposition to the Chinese people. After the War of Resistance Against Japan, the Chiang Kai-shek clique persisted in its policy of dictatorship and civil war, driving people of all strata across the country toward starvation and death, compelling them to rise up, unite, and save themselves.

The resistance struggle of the Chinese people was extremely heroic, but only under the leadership of the Chinese Communist Party did it completely escape the fate of defeat and advance from victory to new victory. From the day of its founding, the Chinese Communist Party took as its original aspiration and mission to seek happiness for the Chinese people and rejuvenation for the Chinese nation. This original aspiration and mission is the fundamental driving force that unceasingly propels Chinese Communists forward. The Chinese Communist Party pointed out to the Chinese people the goal of the struggle, found in the practice of long-term struggle the road that would lead the revolution to victory, and united and rallied the Chinese people—who had been regarded as “a sheet of loose sand”—into an invincible force of millions united as one. “Without the Communist Party, there would be no new China”—this is the scientific conclusion drawn by the Chinese people from the historical experience of China’s modern revolution, and the great truth they confirmed based on their own personal experience.

In order to realize their original aspiration and mission, and to realize the ideals and propositions they had always upheld, the Chinese Communist Party waged unrelenting struggle with wave after wave of fighters, making enormous self-sacrifice. In the 28 years from the Party’s founding in 1921 to the establishment of the People’s Republic of China in 1949, countless outstanding fighters gave their lives for the cause of the Chinese people’s liberation. Many of the Party’s outstanding leaders—such as Li Dazhao, Qu Qiubai, Cai Hesen, Xiang Jingyu, Deng Zhongxia, Su Zhaozheng, Peng Pai, Chen Yannian, Yun Daiying, Zhao Shiyan, and Zhang Tailei—and many outstanding commanders—such as Fang Zhimin, Liu Zhidan, Huang Gonglüe, Xu Jishen, Wei Baqun, Zhao Bosheng, Dong Zhentang, Duan Dechang, Yang Jingyu, Zuo Quan, and Ye Ting—all heroically gave their lives in this great struggle in which wave after wave of fighters pressed forward. The victory of China’s New Democratic revolution was the result of the long-term sacrifice and struggle of countless martyrs and all party comrades and the people of all ethnic groups across the country.

China’s taking the road of socialism was the ultimate result of long-term social historical development and the practice of the people. For a long period, China faced three alternative nation-building programs: the first was represented first by the Northern Warlords and then by the Nationalist ruling clique. They advocated establishing the dictatorship of the landlord-comprador class, keeping Chinese society on the semi-colonial, semi-feudal road. The second was represented by certain middle factions or middle personages. They advocated establishing a bourgeois republic and setting Chinese society on the road of independently developing capitalism. The third was represented by the Communist Party, which advocated establishing a people’s republic under working-class leadership with the worker-peasant alliance as its foundation, and advancing toward socialism through New Democracy. These three programs were repeatedly tested in the practice of the Chinese people. Only the third program ultimately won the support of the broadest masses of the Chinese people, including the national bourgeoisie and their political representatives. This demonstrated the historical inevitability that “only socialism can save China.”

In the course of leading the people’s revolution, the Chinese Communist Party accumulated rich experience and forged effective weapons for defeating the enemy. Mao Zedong pointed out: “The united front, armed struggle, and Party building are the three magic weapons of the Chinese Communist Party in the Chinese revolution, the three principal magic weapons.”

A fundamental experience that enabled the Chinese Communist Party to lead the revolution to victory was: it was necessary to uphold the integration of the basic principles of Marxism with China’s concrete realities and unceasingly advance the Sinicization of Marxism. The formation and development of Mao Zedong Thought caused Marxism to take deep root in Chinese soil. Once this Sinicized Marxism was accepted by the Chinese people, it was transformed into a great material force for the revolutionary transformation of Chinese society. The history of the Chinese revolution fully proves: history and the people were completely correct in choosing Marxism; the Chinese Communist Party was completely correct in inscribing Marxism on its banner; and it is completely correct to uphold the integration of the basic principles of Marxism with China’s concrete realities and unceasingly advance the Sinicization and modernization of Marxism.

The victory of the Chinese people’s revolution fundamentally transformed the tragic fate of China being impoverished, weak, and bullied for more than 100 years since modern times, and the Chinese nation set out on the broad road toward the great rejuvenation.

The victory of the Chinese people’s revolution fundamentally changed the direction of development of Chinese society, sweeping away the main obstacles and creating the political preconditions for realizing the transition from New Democracy to socialism, establishing the socialist system, and carrying out socialist modernization construction; and opening up a broad road for realizing national prosperity and strength and the happiness of the people, and realizing the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation. The Chinese people, who had been oppressed and enslaved for thousands of years, from this moment became the masters of the new state and new society.

[1] The “bogus National Assembly” refers to the “National Assembly” single-handedly arranged by the Nationalist Party in November 1946. The “National Assembly” passed the so-called Constitution of the Republic of China, which upheld Chiang Kai-shek’s dictatorial rule.

[1] 伪国大，指1946年11月国民党一手包办的”国民大会”。”国民大会”通过了维护蒋介石独裁统治的所谓《中华民国宪法》。

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