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Chapter Three ‖ The Mainstay of the War of Resistance Against Japan by the Entire Nation

Editorial Group of This Book

January 1, 2021

第三章 全民族抗日战争的中流砥柱

本书编写组

Chapter Three ‖ The Mainstay of the War of Resistance Against Japan by the Entire Nation第三章 全民族抗日战争的中流砥柱

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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 Three ‖ The Mainstay of the War of Resistance Against Japan by the Entire Nation

第三章 ‖ 全民族抗日战争的中流砥柱

On the night of July 7, 1937, the Japanese invading forces brazenly launched the Marco Polo Bridge Incident (the July 7th Incident). The Chinese garrison troops stationed there rose up in resistance, and the entire nation’s War of Resistance thus erupted. The day after the Marco Polo Bridge Incident, the CPC Central Committee issued a telegram to the whole nation: “Beiping and Tianjin are in danger! North China is in danger! The Chinese nation is in danger! Only a war of resistance by the entire nation can show us the way out!” A life-and-death struggle that would determine the fate of the Chinese nation had begun.

I. The Formulation of the Party’s Line of Total Resistance and the Strategic Guideline of Protracted War

The Full Outbreak of the War of Resistance Against Japan and the Formal Formation of the Second United Front Between the Nationalist Party and the Communist Party

The war against China launched by Japanese militarists was an imperialist war of aggression aimed at annihilating China and turning it into Japan’s exclusive colony. Japanese forces occupied Beiping and Tianjin by late July, then expanded their offensive into North China along three railway lines—the Beiping-Suiyuan, Beiping-Hankou, and Tianjin-Pukou lines—with the aim of “annihilating China” within three months.

At this moment of life and death, the only path to survival and development was for the entire nation to unite in resistance. The Chinese Communist Party raised high the banner of resistance against Japan. The day after the Marco Polo Bridge Incident, it issued a telegram to the whole nation calling on “all compatriots, the government, and the armed forces throughout China to unite and build a solid Great Wall of national unity to resist the Japanese invaders’ aggression!” and for “the Nationalist Party and the Communist Party to work closely together to resist the new Japanese offensive!” On the same day, Mao Zedong, Zhu De, Peng Dehuai, and other Red Army leaders sent a telegram to Chiang Kai-shek expressing the willingness of Red Army officers and soldiers to “serve the nation and engage the enemy, so as to achieve the goal of defending our territory and protecting our country.” To promote unity and cooperation between the Nationalist Party and the Communist Party in resisting Japan, the Party Central Committee dispatched Zhou Enlai and others to deliver the Declaration of the CPC Central Committee on the Publication of the Nationalist-Communist Cooperation to Chiang Kai-shek. On September 22, the Nationalist Party’s Central News Agency published the CPC Central Committee’s declaration; on the 23rd, Chiang Kai-shek delivered a speech that effectively acknowledged the Communist Party’s legal status. The publication of the CPC Central Committee’s declaration and Chiang Kai-shek’s speech announced the renewed cooperation between the Nationalist Party and the Communist Party and the formation of the Anti-Japanese National United Front.

In August, the Central Military Commission of the CPC issued an order announcing that the Red Army would be renamed the National Revolutionary Army Eighth Route Army (abbreviated as the “Eighth Route Army”), comprising three divisions with a total force of approximately 46,000 troops. The Red Army’s Front Headquarters was reorganized as the Eighth Route Army General Headquarters, with Zhu De as Commander-in-Chief and Peng Dehuai as Deputy Commander-in-Chief. In September, the Shaanxi-Gansu-Ningxia base area was renamed the Shaanxi-Gansu-Ningxia Border Region and remained the location of the Party Central Committee. Subsequently, the Red Army guerrilla forces in eight southern provinces under Party leadership (with the exception of the Qiongya Red Army Guerrilla Force) were reorganized as the National Revolutionary Army New Fourth Army (abbreviated as the “New Fourth Army”). Ye Ting was appointed Commander and Xiang Ying Deputy Commander; the army comprised four detachments with a total force of approximately 10,300 troops.

Unity is strength; only through unity can victory be achieved. It was precisely the banner of the Anti-Japanese National United Front that summoned all parties, factions, sectors, and armed forces throughout China; that summoned workers, peasants, soldiers, students, and merchants across the country; that summoned the sons and daughters of China at home and abroad—all united in a common purpose, sharing a common hatred of the enemy, building a steel Great Wall against the Japanese invaders. The great patriot Song Qingling stated in a declaration: “The Communist Party is a political party that represents the interests of the working class of workers and peasants. Sun Yat-sen knew that without the enthusiastic support and cooperation of these laboring classes, it would be impossible to smoothly fulfill the mission of completing the national revolution. … With the nation in peril, all past grievances should be set aside. The entire nation must unite as one to resist Japan and strive for final victory.” Li Jishen and other leaders of the Chinese National Revolutionary Alliance within the Nationalist Party shifted from a position of opposing Chiang while resisting Japan to one of supporting Chiang in resisting Japan. The National Socialist Party, the China Youth Party, the Chinese Vocational Education Society, the Rural Reconstruction faction, and others all expressed their support for the government’s war of resistance and for Nationalist-Communist cooperation in resisting Japan. Workers, peasants, and intellectuals actively joined the flood tide of resistance against Japan; national industrialists and businesspeople enthusiastically donated money and goods to the front lines, and some even braved great hardships to relocate their factories to the interior. People of various ethnic minorities joined the Han people in actively participating in the War of Resistance Against Japan. Many compatriots from Taiwan returned to the Chinese mainland and organized various anti-Japanese groups and armed forces. Compatriots from Hong Kong and Macao, as well as overseas Chinese, also participated in anti-Japanese activities in various ways. These new phenomena, unseen in a hundred years, marked an unprecedented awakening of an ancient nation. This caused the Japanese invaders to suddenly discover that they were facing an Anti-Japanese National United Front composed of the entire Chinese nation—something they had not anticipated.

The Party’s Line of Total Resistance and the Overall Strategic Guideline of Protracted War

From the very beginning, the Nationalist Party and the Communist Party held different propositions on how to resist Japan. The Chiang Kai-shek clique pursued a line of partial resistance, relying solely on the government and the military to fight, unwilling to implement democracy or improve the people’s livelihood, and not daring to mobilize and rely on the masses. The Chinese Communist Party, by contrast, advocated a line of total resistance: abolishing the Nationalist Party’s one-party dictatorship, granting the people full democratic rights to resist Japan, appropriately improving the lives of the working masses of workers and peasants, and fully mobilizing, organizing, and arming the people to fight, so as to make the War of Resistance a truly people’s war.

In August 1937, the CPC Central Committee convened an enlarged meeting of the Politburo (the Luochuan Conference) in the outskirts of Luochuan in northern Shaanxi. The conference adopted the Ten-Point Program of the Chinese Communist Party for Resisting Japan and Saving the Nation and a propaganda and agitation outline drafted by Mao Zedong, Struggle to Mobilize All Forces for Victory in the War of Resistance. The conference emphasized that it was essential to uphold the proletariat’s leadership within the united front, to boldly launch an independent and autonomous mountain guerrilla war behind enemy lines, and to boldly launch the anti-Japanese mass movement in areas under Nationalist Party rule. The Luochuan Conference was an important meeting convened at a historical turning point just as the nationwide War of Resistance had broken out. The Ten-Point Program and the decisions adopted at the conference marked the formal formation of the Party’s line of total resistance.

In order to mobilize and organize the people for total resistance, it was necessary to clearly articulate the military strategic guideline for the War of Resistance. At the time, the erroneous views of “defeatism” and “quick victory theory” both had a considerable following. How would the course of the Sino-Japanese War unfold? Could China achieve victory in the War of Resistance? How could victory be achieved? These questions urgently needed to be clearly resolved.

In order to preliminarily summarize the experience of the nationwide War of Resistance, refute the various erroneous views then in circulation, and systematically expound the Party’s guideline of protracted resistance against Japan, Mao Zedong delivered a lengthy lecture titled On Protracted War in May and June of 1938. He clearly stated: “Will China be subjugated? The answer is: No, China will not be subjugated, and the final victory will be China’s. Can China win quickly? The answer is: No, a quick victory is impossible, and the War of Resistance Against Japan is a protracted war.” He analyzed four fundamental and mutually contradictory characteristics of the two sides in the war: Japan was a powerful imperialist state while China was a weak semi-colonial and semi-feudal country; Japan’s war of aggression was reactionary and barbaric while China’s war of resistance was progressive and just; Japan was a small country that could not sustain a prolonged war while China was a large country capable of sustaining one; Japan’s unjust war had little support while China’s just war had great support. He then pointed out: the first characteristic determined that Japan’s offensive could run rampant in China for a time and that China could not achieve a quick victory; the latter three characteristics determined that China would not be subjugated and that, after a prolonged war of resistance, final victory would belong to China.

On Protracted War scientifically foresaw that the War of Resistance Against Japan would pass through three stages: strategic defense, strategic stalemate, and strategic counteroffensive. It clearly proposed that through these three stages,

★ Mao Zedong writing On Protracted War in a cave dwelling in Yan’an

in terms of the balance of forces between the two sides, China would necessarily move from a position of inferiority to one of equilibrium and then to one of superiority. Among these stages, the strategic stalemate phase would last quite a long time and would present the most difficulties; yet it would be the pivot of the entire war’s transformation. During this stage, our primary form of combat would be guerrilla warfare, supplemented by mobile warfare. The war during this stage would be brutal, but guerrilla warfare could prevail. Whether China would become an independent nation or sink into a colony would not be determined by whether large cities were lost in the first stage, but by the degree of effort exerted by the entire nation in the second stage. If resistance could be maintained, the united front upheld, and protracted war persisted in, China would gain the strength to transform weakness into strength during this stage.

On Protracted War emphasized that “the soldiers and the people are the foundation of victory” and that “the deepest source of the war’s mighty power lies among the masses of the people.” It pointed out that the only correct path to victory in the War of Resistance was to fully mobilize and rely on the masses and to wage a people’s war. Throughout the entire war, the Chinese Communist Party consistently persisted in mobilizing and relying on the people, driving the formation of a historical flood tide of resistance by the entire nation, and plunging the Japanese invaders into a vast ocean of people’s war.

On Protracted War systematically expounded the Party’s overall strategic guideline of protracted resistance against Japan and stands as a programmatic document for the Chinese Communist Party’s leadership of the War of Resistance Against Japan. It not only pointed out the prospect that only through protracted resistance could final victory be achieved, but also put forward a complete and practical set of methods for mobilizing the masses, unceasingly weakening the enemy’s advantages during the protracted war, growing one’s own strength, and seizing final victory. This greatly strengthened people’s resolve and confidence in persisting in the War of Resistance. It is rare in history for a single lecture to possess such powerful persuasive force and such a stirring impact on people’s hearts. The subsequent practice of the War of Resistance Against Japan fully proved that the predictions in On Protracted War were entirely correct and in accordance with actual conditions.

At the same time, Mao Zedong also wrote the essay Problems of Strategy in Guerrilla War Against Japan, which placed particular emphasis on the important strategic position of guerrilla warfare throughout the entire War of Resistance Against Japan.

II. Launching the Anti-Japanese Guerrilla War Behind Enemy Lines and Upholding Independence and Autonomy Within the United Front

The Eighth Route Army Advances to the Anti-Japanese Front

After the Red Army was reorganized into the National Revolutionary Army, it rapidly advanced to the anti-Japanese front. At this moment, the War of Resistance Against Japan was in its stage of strategic defense. This stage was characterized by two major features: first, Japanese forces penetrated deep into China’s vast territory along multiple routes, and their offensive against China’s frontal battlefield reached its peak; second, the people’s army led by the Chinese Communist Party launched guerrilla warfare behind enemy lines and rapidly grew in strength.

At the time, the Nationalist Party demonstrated a certain degree of enthusiasm for resisting Japan. Nationalist Party forces conducted campaigns at Beiping-Tianjin, Shanghai, Xinkou, Xuzhou, and in the defense of Wuhan, and achieved victory in the Battle of Taierzhuang, shattering the Japanese imperialists’ plan to “annihilate China in three months.” However, they were unable to fundamentally reverse the course of the war.

On December 13, 1937, after Japanese forces occupied Nanjing, they carried out a horrific and bloody massacre lasting six weeks. More than 300,000 Chinese civilians and disarmed soldiers were shot, burned, buried alive, or killed by other cruel methods. Countless women were violated and brutalized, countless children perished, one-third of the buildings were destroyed, and vast quantities of property were looted. The once-prosperous ancient capital became a living hell. This genocide perpetrated by the Japanese invading forces was a monstrous crime against humanity and one of the darkest pages in human history. Faced with the extremely savage and brutal Japanese invaders, the Chinese people, imbued with a great spirit of patriotism, did not submit. Instead, they rallied an unprecedented fighting spirit to battle the invaders to the end and steadfastly held to the conviction that they would surely win in resisting Japan and saving the nation.

After the Eighth Route Army arrived at the anti-Japanese front in Shanxi, it achieved a major victory at the Battle of Pingxingguan. On September 25, 1937, the main force of the Eighth Route Army’s 115th Division ambushed Japanese forces at Pingxingguan, winning the first engagement and annihilating more than 1,000 Japanese troops in one stroke, destroying more than 100 Japanese military vehicles, and capturing a quantity of supplies and weapons. Subsequently, the three divisions of the Eighth Route Army also cooperated with Nationalist Party forces in the Battle of Xinkou, achieving successive victories including the ambush at Yanmenguan and the night raid on the Japanese airfield at Yangmingbao. The Battle of Xinkou lasted more than 20 days and was the largest-scale and most fiercely contested battle on the North China battlefield, as well as the battle in which Nationalist-Communist cooperation in resisting Japan was best coordinated.

The great victory at Pingxingguan was the first major victory achieved by Chinese forces through active engagement against Japan after the full outbreak of the War of Resistance by the entire nation. It shattered the myth of Japanese forces being “invincible,” greatly inspired the confidence of the nation’s military and civilians in the War of Resistance, and raised the prestige of the Communist Party and the Eighth Route Army, leading many people to believe that the Communist Party was not only resolute in resisting Japan but also capable of▶ A Brief History of the Chinese Communist Party Chapter Three defeating the enemy. The Party decided to focus on strategic deployment behind enemy lines and to launch an independent and autonomous guerrilla war behind enemy lines. While Japanese forces, relying on their superior numbers, charged forward aggressively, the Nationalist Party’s forces retreated step by step, while the poorly equipped Eighth Route Army dispersed and advanced in great strides behind enemy lines. They combined with local party organizations, formed work teams, and established semi-governmental organizations such as wartime mobilization committees and anti-Japanese national salvation associations.

★ Eighth Route Army units advancing to the anti-Japanese front

Zhu De wrote in a letter home that this battle caused “the morale of the entire front to be greatly boosted. If all armies fought like us, it would not be difficult to repel and annihilate the enemy.”

After penetrating deep into enemy-held territory, how should the Eighth Route Army fight and strike at the enemy? The Party determined a combat guideline of primarily waging guerrilla warfare while not neglecting mobile warfare under favorable conditions. The people’s army led by the Party carried out a major transformation in military strategy: shifting from the mobile warfare of the later period of the Agrarian Revolutionary War to anti-Japanese guerrilla warfare.

The Opening of the Behind-Enemy-Lines Battlefield and the Establishment of Anti-Japanese Base Areas Behind Enemy Lines

After the fall of Taiyuan in November 1937, the guerrilla war with the Chinese Communist Party as its main force rose to a position of primary importance in North China. The army led by the Party, in accordance with the decisions of the Luochuan Conference, focused on strategic deployment behind enemy lines and launched an independent and autonomous guerrilla war behind enemy lines.

On January 10, 1938, the Provisional Administrative Committee of the Shanxi-Chahar-Hebei Border Region[1] was established. This was the first anti-Japanese democratic government of a united front nature established under Communist Party leadership behind enemy lines. The establishment of anti-Japanese governments behind enemy lines restored social order that had fallen into chaos after the Nationalist Party government fled, gave the broad masses of the people a glimpse of light and hope, and rapidly won the people’s support.

In April 1938, the Party Central Committee made a decision to advance the three main forces of the Eighth Route Army, originally in the mountainous areas of Shanxi, separately into the plains of Hebei and Shandong to open up new anti-Japanese base areas. This was a new challenge for the Eighth Route Army, which was accustomed to mountain warfare. The various units of the New Fourth Army also used complex terrain such as mountainous areas and river-lake waterways to conduct guerrilla warfare. The anti-Japanese guerrilla war behind enemy lines took on a new dimension.

The opening of the behind-enemy-lines battlefield meant that China’s War of Resistance Against Japan formed two battlefields that complemented each other strategically: one was the frontal battlefield, borne primarily by Nationalist Party forces, and the other was the behind-enemy-lines battlefield, borne primarily by Communist Party forces. The rapid development of the behind-enemy-lines battlefield tied down large numbers of Japanese forces. This was an important condition for the War of Resistance Against Japan to transition from strategic defense to strategic stalemate.

The guerrilla war waged by the army led by the Chinese Communist Party behind enemy lines was an arduous war rarely seen in world history. The officers and soldiers of the Eighth Route Army faced repeated Japanese “mopping-up” campaigns with only extremely rudimentary weapons and equipment, with no resupply of guns and ★ New Fourth Army units fighting across the Yangtze River region Wang Ming returned to Yan’an from the Soviet Union. He advocated “everything through the united front” and “everything subordinated to resisting Japan,” confining the activities of the Communist Party and the people’s army to the scope permitted by the Nationalist Party, and criticizing many of the correct views and policies on the united front question that the Party had held since the Luochuan Conference. These erroneous views were resolutely opposed by Mao Zedong and other central leaders. In July 1938, the leadership of the Communist International also made clear that within the CPC Central Committee, Mao Zedong’s leadership position should be supported; Wang Ming lacked practical work experience and should not contend for leadership.

ammunition from the rear. They established anti-Japanese base areas while surrounded by the enemy, in places that were mostly remote and impoverished, with extremely harsh material conditions. In November 1937, when a unit of the Eighth Route Army’s 115th Division advanced into the Shanxi-Chahar-Hebei region, snow had already begun to fall on Mount Wutai, yet the troops were still wearing single-layer clothing and straw sandals and spending the night in ruined temples. Nevertheless, through arduous and heroic struggle, they ultimately gained a firm foothold behind enemy lines and opened up the situation. The key was winning the support and backing of the people. This was the secret behind the people’s army’s ability to grow and strengthen unceasingly in the harsh environment behind enemy lines.

Upholding Independence and Autonomy Within the United Front

During the War of Resistance Against Japan by the entire nation, given the complex international and domestic situation and the existence of two different lines of resistance between the Nationalist Party and the Communist Party, how the Party correctly handled the relationship between unity and independence, and between solidarity and struggle, within the united front became a question of decisive significance for the success or failure of the War of Resistance. From the very beginning of the War of Resistance by the entire nation, the Party Central Committee pointed out that the principle of independence and autonomy within the united front must be upheld.

At the end of November 1937, Wang Ming, the CPC representative to the Communist International and a member of the Executive Committee of the Communist International,

From September to November 1938, the enlarged Sixth Plenary Session of the Sixth Central Committee was held in Yan’an. The plenary session put forward for the first time the proposition of the Sinicization of Marxism. Mao Zedong clearly stated: “To make Marxism concrete in China so that its every manifestation bears a Chinese character—that is, to apply it according to China’s specific characteristics—has become a problem that the whole Party must understand and solve without delay.” The plenary session emphasized that “our guideline is independence and autonomy within the united front—both unity and independence,” and determined that the overall strategic deployment for the war behind enemy lines was to “consolidate North China and develop Central China.”

The plenary session reaffirmed party discipline: the individual is subordinate to the organization, the minority is subordinate to the majority, and the entire Party is subordinate to the Center. The plenary session also emphasized strengthening the study of Marxist theory, pointing out: “If our Party has one hundred to two hundred comrades who have systematically and not piecemeal, practically and not abstractly mastered Marxism-Leninism, this will greatly raise the combat effectiveness of our Party.”

The enlarged Sixth Plenary Session of the Sixth Central Committee was a meeting of great historical significance. Mao Zedong later said at the Party’s Seventh National Congress: “The Sixth Plenary Session determined the destiny of China.” This plenary session correctly analyzed the situation of the War of Resistance Against Japan, defined the Party’s tasks in the new stage of the War of Resistance, carried out comprehensive strategic planning for realizing the Party’s leadership of the War of Resistance Against Japan, basically corrected Wang Ming’s right-deviationist errors, further consolidated Mao Zedong’s leadership position throughout the Party, unified the thinking and pace of the entire Party, and promoted the rapid development of work in all areas.

III. Upholding the Guideline of Resistance, Unity, and Progress

The Situation After the Arrival of the Strategic Stalemate Stage and the Party’s Guideline

After Japanese forces occupied Guangzhou and Wuhan in October 1938, they were no longer capable of launching large-scale strategic offensives. The War of Resistance Against Japan by the entire nation transitioned from the stage of strategic defense to the stage of strategic stalemate.

After the strategic stalemate stage arrived, the Japanese invaders, while persisting in their overall policy of annihilating China, adjusted their strategy for the invasion of China. They gradually shifted their main forces to striking the Eighth Route Army and the New Fourth Army on the behind-enemy-lines battlefield. Toward the Nationalist government, they shifted from a primary emphasis on military offensives supplemented by political inducements to surrender, to a primary emphasis on political inducements to surrender supplemented by military strikes. In the occupied areas, they intensified their efforts to prop up puppet regimes and to establish and develop collaborationist organizations.

Under these circumstances, the activities of capitulation, division, and retrogression within the Nationalist Party ruling clique grew increasingly serious. In December 1938, the pro-Japanese faction of the Nationalist Party, represented by Nationalist Party Vice-Chairman Wang Jingwei, openly surrendered and began cobbling together a puppet central government. The pro-British and pro-American faction of the Nationalist Party, represented by Chiang Kai-shek, continued to resist Japan but with an increasingly passive attitude, and its anti-Communist tendency grew markedly. Incidents of anti-Communist friction involving attacks on and killings of anti-Japanese military and civilian forces led by the Communist Party occurred in succession across various localities. The situation of united resistance faced a serious crisis.

The Chinese Communist Party correctly analyzed the complex international and domestic situation after the arrival of the stalemate stage. On July 7, 1939, the Party Central Committee issued the Declaration on the Current Situation for the Second Anniversary of the War of Resistance, clearly and forthrightly putting forward: “Persist in the War of Resistance to the end—oppose capitulation halfway! Consolidate national unity—oppose internal division! Strive for nationwide progress—oppose retrogression!” At this critical juncture of the War of Resistance Against Japan by the entire nation, the Party raised the clear banner of united resistance to the end.

The Development of Guerrilla Warfare Behind Enemy Lines and the Hundred Regiments Offensive

During the strategic stalemate stage, the Chinese Communist Party shouldered the primary responsibility for resisting the Japanese invading forces, and the guerrilla war behind enemy lines led by the Party became the primary mode of combat against Japan.

The focus of Japanese “mopping-up” campaigns against the anti-Japanese base areas was the North China region. In the spring of 1939, the Japanese North China Area Army formulated a “Public Security Rectification Plan,” implementing a “total war” integrating military, economic, cultural, and intelligence operations. In the two years of 1939 and 1940 alone, Japanese forces in North China conducted 109 large-scale “mopping-up” operations involving more than 1,000 troops each, with a total force deployed of more than 500,000.

In accordance with the strategic guideline of “consolidating North China,” the Eighth Route Army in North China relied on the broad masses to persist in mountain guerrilla warfare and develop plains guerrilla warfare. In early November 1939, Shanxi-Chahar-Hebei forces, in coordination with the 120th Division, conducted the ambush at Huangtuliang, killing Lieutenant General Abe Norihide, commander of the Independent Mixed 2nd Brigade and so-called “flower of famous generals.” The New China Daily published a brief commentary: “Since the War of Resistance began, this is the first time an enemy lieutenant general commander has been killed in battle by our forces. It is truly cause for excitement!”

To implement the strategic guideline of “developing Central China,” in February 1939 Zhou Enlai, entrusted by the Party Central Committee, traveled to southern Anhui to discuss with New Fourth Army leaders and determine that the New Fourth Army’s strategic tasks were to consolidate in the south, fight eastward, and develop northward. Thereafter, the New Fourth Army and the anti-Japanese guerrilla war behind enemy lines in Central China saw considerable development. In May 1940, the Party Central Committee dispatched a unit of 12,000 Eighth Route Army troops to march south and join the New Fourth Army in developing the Central China anti-Japanese base areas.

In South China, after the fall of Guangzhou, the CPC Guangdong Party organization actively led the development of guerrilla warfare, establishing the East River anti-Japanese guerrilla base area and the East River Column. The Red Army guerrilla forces that had long fought on Hainan Island launched anti-Japanese guerrilla warfare and later developed into the Qiongya Column.

In the Northeast, the Northeast Anti-Japanese United Army led by the Party persisted for a long time in the mountains and rivers of the region, dealing heavy blows to Japanese and puppet forces and becoming an important force in the nationwide War of Resistance. During this period, the Japanese invaders launched sustained and brutal military “punitive campaigns” against the Northeast Anti-Japanese United Army. Under conditions of extreme difficulty, the Northeast Anti-Japanese United Army persisted in struggle with unyielding determination. In October 1938, eight female soldiers of the Northeast Anti-Japanese United Army, including Leng Yun, after being surrounded by the enemy, threw themselves into the icy Wusuli River and died heroically for their country. In February 1940, Yang Jingyu, Commander-in-Chief and Political Commissar of the First Route Army of the Northeast Anti-Japanese United Army, was encircled in Mengjiang County (present-day Jingyu County) by a Japanese “punitive” force. Braving temperatures of minus 40 degrees Celsius, he fought bloody battles against an enemy several times his strength, and in the end, fighting alone, he persisted until he died a heroic death. The cruel enemy cut open his abdomen and found that his stomach contained not a single grain of food—only withered grass, tree bark, and cotton wadding.

Over the more than two years from the winter of 1938 to 1940, the anti-Japanese war behind enemy lines led by the Chinese Communist Party tied down and fought large numbers of Japanese invading forces, and the people’s anti-Japanese forces grew and strengthened through combat. By the end of 1940, the armed forces led by the Communist Party had grown to 500,000 troops (not counting the Northeast Anti-Japanese United Army), along with large numbers of local armed forces and militia. Sixteen anti-Japanese democratic base areas had been established in North China, Central China, and South China, playing an increasingly important role in the War of Resistance by the entire nation.

Several international friends traveled great distances to China to participate in the arduous war behind enemy lines. Among them were Norman Bethune, a Canadian Communist Party member; Hans Müller, a German medical doctor; George Hatem, an American medical doctor; and Dwarkanath Kotnis, an Indian physician. In November 1939, during the Shanxi-Chahar-Hebei military and civilian anti-“mopping-up” operations, Dr. Bethune unfortunately contracted a fatal infection while rescuing wounded Eighth Route Army soldiers and gave his life for the cause of the Chinese people’s liberation. In December, Mao Zedong, in his essay In Memory of Norman Bethune, called on people to learn from Bethune’s spirit of utter selflessness, to be “a person of noble character, a person of integrity, a person of moral virtue, a person free from vulgar interests, a person who is of benefit to the people.”

On the behind-enemy-lines battlefield, with the rapid development of the people’s armed forces and the anti-Japanese base areas, and also because China at the time faced an unprecedented danger of capitulation and difficulties in the War of Resistance, from August 1940 to January of the following year, the Eighth Route Army General Headquarters launched a large-scale offensive against Japanese forces in North China. On the night of August 20, participating units, guerrilla forces, and militia launched simultaneous attacks. As the campaign unfolded, the forces that successively joined the battle reached 105 regiments totaling more than 200,000 troops—this was the Hundred Regiments Offensive. The Hundred Regiments Offensive was the largest-scale and longest-lasting campaign with a strategic offensive character launched by the Eighth Route Army in North China since the full outbreak of the War of Resistance by the entire nation. By early December 1940, the military and civilian forces behind enemy lines had fought 1,824 engagements, killing and wounding more than 25,000 Japanese and puppet troops, capturing 281 Japanese soldiers and more than 18,000 puppet troops, destroying more than 470 kilometers of railway and more than 1,500 kilometers of road, demolishing large numbers of enemy blockhouses and strongholds, and seizing large quantities of guns, artillery, and military supplies. The Hundred Regiments Offensive dealt a heavy blow to the Japanese forces’ “cage policy,” raised the prestige of the Communist Party and the Eighth Route Army, and boosted the confidence of the entire nation’s people at a time when the anti-Japanese situation had become relatively subdued.

The Anti-Japanese Struggle of the People in the Occupied Territories

After large swaths of Chinese territory fell under Japanese occupation, the Japanese forces imposed brutal colonial rule in these areas, committing crimes of unprecedented severity and inhumanity.

The Japanese forces established multiple secret bases for biological warfare units in the occupied areas, developing viruses for cholera, typhoid, plague, and other diseases, and subjecting Chinese military and civilian personnel to inhumane “vivisection.” They also produced a considerable quantity of chemical weapons and brazenly waged biological and chemical warfare. From the second half of 1940 onward, Japanese units such as Unit 731 began deploying virus-laden projectiles in many areas of China, causing the deaths of large numbers of Chinese residents. The Japanese forces also abducted and brutalized Chinese laborers in the occupied areas and forced Chinese women to serve as “comfort women.”

In addition, the Japanese forces frantically plundered China’s resources and wealth, and in accordance with the guideline of “thought warfare,” vigorously promoted enslaving education in the occupied areas, attempting thereby to extinguish the national consciousness and spirit of resistance of the Chinese people and to maintain their colonial rule.

The barbaric acts of Japanese militarism provoked fierce resistance from the people in the occupied territories. Party organizations in the occupied territories, under conditions of extreme difficulty, conducted extensive and in-depth anti-Japanese propaganda, used various means to awaken the people’s national consciousness, and inspired the people’s enthusiasm for resisting Japan. They actively mobilized and organized the masses to engage in tit-for-tat struggle against the Japanese invaders, launched armed uprisings to directly strike at the Japanese invaders, and established a covert front to carry out effective intelligence work. In 1941, workers at the Datong coal mines launched strikes and uprisings, with some workers joining the Eighth Route Army. The Social Affairs Department of the CPC Shanxi-Chahar-Hebei Sub-Bureau successively dispatched personnel to large and medium-sized cities such as Beiping and Tianjin to organize and liaise with local underground party members, progressive youth, and patriotic figures, penetrating the enemy’s interior and obtaining considerable intelligence.

Party organizations in the occupied territories also arranged for the transfer of large numbers of cadres and progressive figures through secret communication lines, and unceasingly provided human, material, and financial assistance to the Eighth Route Army, the New Fourth Army, and the anti-Japanese base areas. Before the outbreak of the Pacific War in 1941, the China Defense League led by Song Qingling, using Hong Kong as its base over a long period and with the support of compatriots in Hong Kong and Macao, liaised with overseas Chinese, raised large amounts of donations, and supported the motherland’s War of Resistance. After the outbreak of the Pacific War, Japanese forces occupied Hong Kong. The Party Central Committee and Zhou Enlai, who was overseeing the work of the Southern Bureau, urgently instructed the heads of the Eighth Route Army’s Hong Kong liaison office and the East River Anti-Japanese Guerrilla Force to rescue patriotic democratic figures and cultural figures in Hong Kong. This rescue operation lasted more than half a year and successfully rescued more than 800 people, including He Xiangning, Liu Yazi, and Zou Taofen. After the fall of Hong Kong, the Kowloon Brigade of the Guangdong People’s Anti-Japanese Guerrilla General Headquarters, established under Communist Party leadership, advanced behind enemy lines and persisted in conducting maritime guerrilla warfare and urban guerrilla warfare, frequently launching attacks on Japanese and puppet forces, effectively coordinating and supporting the anti-Japanese guerrilla war in the Guangdong region.

Repelling and Halting the Anti-Communist Offensives of the Nationalist Party Diehards

During the War of Resistance Against Japan, there existed two contradictions that bore on the fate of the Chinese nation. One was the national contradiction, which concerned the question of China’s survival; the other was the class contradiction, which concerned whether the War of Resistance by the entire nation could be persisted in to the end and whether a new China could be built after the war. The Chinese Communist Party handled these two contradictions appropriately, both waging principled, advantageous, and measured struggle against the Nationalist Party diehards and upholding and safeguarding the Anti-Japanese National United Front, ensuring that the War of Resistance Against Japan by the entire nation developed in the correct direction.

From the winter of 1939 to the spring of 1940, the Nationalist Party diehards launched the first anti-Communist offensive. The Chinese Communist Party resolutely struck back, and on the basis of summarizing the experience of the anti-friction struggle, in order to uphold, consolidate, and expand the Anti-Japanese National United Front, formulated the tactical guideline of “developing progressive forces, winning over middle forces, and isolating diehard forces,” as well as the principle of self-defense—”we will not attack unless we are attacked; if we are attacked, we will certainly counterattack”—and the principles of “on just grounds, to our advantage, and with restraint.”

In January 1941, the Nationalist Party diehards engineered the Southern Anhui Incident, which shocked China and the world. More than 9,000 troops of the New Fourth Army headquarters and its Anhui units, while moving northward in compliance with orders from the Nationalist Party military authorities, were ambushed and encircled by more than 80,000 Nationalist Party troops. Except for more than 2,000 who broke through the encirclement, some were scattered and the majority died heroically or were captured. Army Commander Ye Ting was detained while conducting negotiations with Nationalist Party forces, and Deputy Army Commander Xiang Ying was killed during the breakout. After the incident, Chiang Kai-shek had the audacity to falsely accuse the New Fourth Army of “mutiny” and announced the abolition of its designation.

Faced with this grave situation, the Chinese Communist Party still placed the overall interest of resisting Japan first, exercising strict self-defense militarily while resolutely striking back politically. On January 20, 1941, the Central Military Commission issued an order to reestablish the New Fourth Army headquarters, with Chen Yi as acting commander and Liu Shaoqi as political commissar. At the same time, the Party Central Committee published a large body of facts exposing the Nationalist Party’s conspiracy to sabotage the War of Resistance, and put forward 12 measures for resolving the Southern Anhui Incident, including punishing the chief culprits, releasing Ye Ting, and abolishing the Nationalist Party’s one-party dictatorship. The New China Daily broke through the Nationalist Party’s news censorship and published two handwritten inscriptions by Zhou Enlai: “Mourning those who died for the nation in Jiangnan” and “A grievance for the ages—a single leaf in Jiangnan; brothers turning against each other—how urgent the mutual torment?!” This caused a great stir in Chongqing and throughout the Nationalist Party-controlled areas. The Chinese Communist Party’s clear-cut stance of placing national righteousness first won widespread sympathy and support from the people across the country, middle forces, righteous figures within the Nationalist Party, and international opinion. Song Qingling, He Xiangning, and others launched a protest movement in Hong Kong; overseas Chinese leader Tan Kah Kee sent a telegram to the National Political Council calling for unity and opposing Chiang Kai-shek’s reactionary actions. In March 1941, under pressure, Chiang Kai-shek publicly “pledged” that there would never again be any military action to “suppress the Communists.” At this point, the second anti-Communist offensive by the Nationalist Party diehards was repelled.

In the spring of 1943, Chiang Kai-shek published under his name the anti-Communist and anti-people book China’s Destiny, hinting that the Communist Party and all revolutionary forces would be eliminated within two years. Subsequently, the Nationalist Party diehards, using the Communist International’s announcement of its dissolution in May of that year as a pretext, demanded the “dissolution of the Communist Party” and the “abolition of the Shaanxi-Gansu-Ningxia Border Region,” and secretly ordered Hu Zongnan’s forces, which were heavily garrisoned in the Northwest, to prepare to attack the Shaanxi-Gansu-Ningxia Border Region. In response, the Party Central Committee made necessary military deployments and adopted a series of powerful political countermeasures, causing the Nationalist Party’s third anti-Communist offensive to be halted before it could develop into a large-scale armed attack.

The Chinese Communist Party upheld the guideline of resistance, unity, and progress, and successively repelled or halted three anti-Communist offensives by the Nationalist Party diehards. This demonstrated that the Party already possessed a mature leadership collective capable of navigating complex situations—one that neither panicked nor made endless concessions in the face of sudden incidents, nor took reckless actions that would give those who sabotaged united resistance a pretext. Many middle-ground figures also came to see clearly from this that the Communist Party was indeed placing national interests first, rather than serving only the interests of one party or faction. The Party’s political standing throughout the country rose to unprecedented heights, further proving that it was the cornerstone of uniting the entire nation in persisting in the War of Resistance.

IV. Consolidating the Anti-Japanese Base Areas and Advancing the Anti-Japanese Democratic Movement

The Arduous Anti-“Mopping-Up” and Anti-“Rural Pacification” Struggles of the Military and Civilians Behind Enemy Lines

After the War of Resistance Against Japan entered the stage of strategic stalemate, the struggle on the behind-enemy-lines battlefield grew increasingly severe. The years 1941 and 1942 were the most difficult period for the anti-Japanese war behind enemy lines in China.

At this time, the aggressive momentum of the fascist forces of Germany, Japan, and others reached its peak. In June 1941, after occupying multiple countries in Europe, Germany launched a large-scale offensive against the Soviet Union. In December, Japanese forces launched a surprise attack on the American naval base at Pearl Harbor, triggering the Pacific War. On January 1, 1942, twenty-six nations including China, the United States, Britain, and the Soviet Union signed the Declaration by United Nations, formally establishing the international anti-fascist united front. This created favorable international conditions for the Chinese people to strive for victory in the War of Resistance Against Japan.

The Japanese invaders sought to turn China into a rear base for their Pacific War and were determined to intensify their operations against China. By the end of 1941, Japan’s total military strength had expanded to more than 2.4 million troops, of whom 1.3 million were deployed on the China battlefield. The China battlefield became the main eastern theater of the world’s anti-fascist war, bearing the task of resisting the main force of the Japanese Army.

Japanese forces repeatedly conducted “public security strengthening campaigns” in North China, imposing brutal colonial rule, economic plunder, and enslaving education on the people in the occupied areas. They launched unprecedentedly brutal and destructive “mopping-up” and “rural pacification” campaigns against the various anti-Japanese base areas, implementing the savage “Three Alls” policy of “burn all, kill all, loot all,” using poison gas and biological weapons, and creating “no-man’s lands,” in an attempt to destroy the conditions for survival of the anti-Japanese military and civilian forces behind enemy lines and to annihilate the Communist Party and the anti-Japanese armed forces it led behind enemy lines. In late January 1941, more than 1,500 Japanese troops “mopped up” Panjiayu in Fengrun, Jidong, driving all the men, women, and elderly of the village into a large courtyard and mowing them down with machine guns, massacring approximately 1,300 villagers and burning more than 1,000 houses, creating the horrific “Panjiayu Massacre.”

The various anti-Japanese base areas behind enemy lines led by the Chinese Communist Party faced an extremely difficult and complex situation. They had to contend with Japanese and puppet forces’ “mopping-up” and “rural pacification” campaigns while also fighting against the military encirclement and economic blockade of the Nationalist Party diehard forces. Under these circumstances, by 1942 the Eighth Route Army and the New Fourth Army had been reduced from 500,000 to approximately 400,000 troops, the area of the anti-Japanese base areas had shrunk, and the total population had fallen from 100 million to below 50 million. The financial and economic situation of the Shaanxi-Gansu-Ningxia Border Region was extremely difficult; in some places, the anti-Japanese military and civilian forces had almost no clothes to wear, no vegetables or oil to eat, soldiers had no shoes or socks, work personnel had no quilts in winter, and even obtaining food was very difficult. To overcome these difficulties, the Party made timely adjustments to various policies for base area construction and led the military and civilian forces of the base areas in heroic struggle against the Japanese and puppet forces’ “mopping-up” and “rural pacification” campaigns.

In the anti-“mopping-up” and anti-“rural pacification” struggles, the military and civilian forces behind enemy lines created many highly effective methods of annihilating the enemy, such as sparrow warfare, tunnel warfare, mine warfare, sabotage warfare, and aquatic guerrilla warfare, and also created combat forms such as establishing armed work teams, developing the strategy and tactics of people’s war. From 1941 to 1942, the Eighth Route Army, the New Fourth Army, guerrilla forces, and militia fought more than 42,000 engagements, killing, wounding, and capturing Japanese and puppet troops. In the arduous anti-Japanese war behind enemy lines, countless heroic deeds worthy of song and tears emerged among the broad military and civilian forces. In September 1941, in the Langya Mountain area of western Hebei, Eighth Route Army soldiers Ma Baoyu, Hu Delin, Hu Fucai, Song Xueyi, and Ge Zhenlin, in order to cover the withdrawal of Party and government organs and the masses, actively drew the Japanese and puppet forces toward themselves, retreating step by step to a sheer cliff, where they held out in resistance. After firing their last bullets, they resolutely smashed their rifles and leapt from the cliff. They are known as the “Five Heroes of Langya Mountain.” In March 1943, the New Fourth Army’s “Liu Laozhuang Company” died heroically to the last man in battle against the enemy. Yang Jingyu, Deputy Commander-in-Chief of the Second Route Army of the Northeast Anti-Japanese United Army; Zuo Quan, Deputy Chief of Staff of the Eighth Route Army; Peng Xuefeng, Commander of the Fourth Division of the New Fourth Army; and others led from the front and gave their lives in battle. The revolutionary heroism of the Communist Party-led military and civilian forces behind enemy lines—their unity, their fearlessness in the face of brute force, and their resistance against aggression—was the source of strength for victory in the anti-“mopping-up” and anti-“rural pacification” struggles.

more than 331,000 people. The anti-“mopping-up” struggles of the military and civilian forces behind enemy lines tied down and annihilated large numbers of Japanese forces, becoming the most important factor in China’s persistence in the prolonged War of Resistance and also constituting enormous support for the world’s anti-fascist war.

The Great Production Campaign and the Construction of the Anti-Japanese Base Areas

The Great Production Campaign was an important component of overcoming the difficulties in the anti-Japanese base areas; its overall guideline was “develop the economy and ensure supply.” In February 1939, when difficulties had just begun to appear, Mao Zedong issued the call to “do it ourselves.” In 1941, the Party Central Committee again emphasized the necessity of taking the path of production and self-rescue. In the spring of that year, the 359th Brigade of the Eighth Route Army advanced into Nanniwan to carry out military land reclamation. Displaying a spirit of self-reliance and vigorous enterprise, they transformed the once-desolate Nanniwan into “the Jiangnan of northern Shaanxi.”

During the Great Production Campaign, central leaders led by example. Mao Zedong cultivated a plot of land and planted vegetables; Zhu De organized a production team and opened up ★ Cadres from government organs spinning thread vegetables, and the people’s burden amounted to only about 14% of total income. By the living standards of the time, the requirements of “doing it ourselves” and “having ample food and clothing” were met.

three mu of vegetable plots; in 1943, the central directly subordinate organs and others held a thread-spinning competition in which Ren Bishi won first place and Zhou Enlai was named an expert spinner.

In September 1944, Zhang Side, a soldier of the Central Security Regiment, died in the Great Production Campaign when a charcoal kiln collapsed. At Zhang Side’s memorial service, Mao Zedong delivered the lecture Serve the People, stating: “Our army is entirely dedicated to the liberation of the people and works completely in the people’s interests.” “To die for the people is weightier than Mount Tai.”

After the Shaanxi-Gansu-Ningxia Border Region and the North China anti-Japanese base areas behind enemy lines launched the Great Production Campaign, the people’s burden was greatly reduced, the lives of the military and civilian forces improved markedly, and the bond of flesh and blood between the Party and the masses was strengthened. By 1945, most peasants in the Shaanxi-Gansu-Ningxia Border Region had achieved “three years of farming, one year’s surplus” (farming for three years and, after consumption, having enough grain left over for one year), and the proportion of public grain paid by peasants as a share of total output declined year by year. From 1943 onward, government organs in the various base areas behind enemy lines were generally able to be self-sufficient in grain and vegetables for two to three months or even half a year.

The anti-Japanese base areas also achieved notable results in cultivating cadres and developing cultural education. After the full outbreak of the War of Resistance by the entire nation, Yan’an, where the Party Central Committee was located, became a “sacred place” yearned for by revolutionaries. Many passionate young people felt that “even with bones broken and flesh torn, with only a single breath remaining, they would crawl their way to Yan’an.” The poet He Qifang recorded what he witnessed upon first arriving in Yan’an in early 1938: “Yan’an’s city gates were open all day long, and all day long young people came from every direction, carrying their bedrolls, burning with hope, walking through these gates.”

The Party Central Committee promptly made decisions to absorb large numbers of intellectuals and placed the development of the anti-Japanese revolutionary cultural movement on the important agenda. A number of cadre schools and specialized schools were successively established, including the Chinese People’s Anti-Japanese Military and Political University, the Northern Shaanxi Public School, the Youth Cadre Training Class, the Lu Xun Academy of Arts, the Marx-Lenin Academy, the CPC Central Party School, the Workers’ School, the Chinese Women’s University, the Institute for Nationalities, and the Medical School, cultivating large numbers of cadres. Party organizations at all levels also universally established systems for cadres to study while on the job, which played an important role in raising the political and cultural quality of cadres. At the same time, efforts were made to strengthen the construction of propaganda positions including party newspapers and journals, the Xinhua News Agency, and the Xinhua Radio Station, and to vigorously develop literary creation and theatrical performances. The Yan’an Academy of Natural Sciences, founded in September 1940, was the first specialized institution in the Party’s history to conduct natural science teaching and research. The base areas also attached importance to elementary education work, establishing middle and primary schools under simple conditions.

The various anti-Japanese base areas successively implemented ten major policies including streamlining the army and simplifying administration, unified leadership, cherishing the government and loving the people, the “three-thirds system,”[2] and reduction of rent and interest, which played an important role in overcoming difficulties, weathering hardships, and consolidating the anti-Japanese base areas.

The Communists in the various anti-Japanese base areas, especially the Shaanxi-Gansu-Ningxia Border Region, accumulated experience through leading the people in struggle against the enemy and in base area construction, forming a systematic set of ideas and work styles. The Yan’an Spirit was the concentrated expression of these ideas and work styles. Its main content was: a firm and correct political orientation; the ideological line of emancipating the mind and seeking truth from facts; the fundamental purpose of serving the people wholeheartedly; and the entrepreneurial spirit of self-reliance and arduous struggle. The Yan’an Spirit has cultivated generation after generation of Chinese Communists and is a precious spiritual treasure of our Party.

The Anti-Japanese Democratic Movement in the Nationalist Party-Controlled Areas

While concentrating its efforts on launching anti-Japanese guerrilla warfare behind enemy lines, building anti-Japanese democratic base areas, and leading the people in the occupied territories to carry out various forms of anti-Japanese struggle, the Chinese Communist Party also carried out a large amount of highly effective work in the Nationalist Party-controlled areas (conventionally called the “Great Rear”).

Under Party leadership, Party organizations in the southern provinces were gradually restored and developed after suffering severe damage. The Party placed particular importance on winning over and uniting middle forces, making extensive contact with democratic parties, non-partisan figures, democratic figures within the Nationalist Party, local power holders, national industrialists and businesspeople, and intellectuals, enabling them to understand the Communist Party’s propositions and gradually winning their trust, thereby consolidating and expanding the Anti-Japanese National United Front and promoting the development of the anti-Japanese democratic movement in the Nationalist Party-controlled areas.

The Party also strengthened its work in the Nationalist Party-controlled areas of the Northwest through various means, and dispatched Chen Yun, Deng Fa, Chen Tanqiu, Mao Zemin, and more than 100 other Communists to work in Xinjiang, uniting and encouraging the people of all ethnic groups in Xinjiang to carry out the anti-Japanese struggle.

After the anti-Japanese war behind enemy lines led by the Party passed through the most difficult period of 1941 to 1942, it entered a period of renewed development. From 1943 onward, the people’s army led by the Party began offensive operations against Japanese and puppet forces in some areas. During the same period, China’s frontal battlefield experienced the great rout of the Henan-Hunan-Guangxi Campaign. In the eight months from the spring to the winter of 1944, 146 cities were lost, totaling more than 200,000 square kilometers of territory, and more than 60 million compatriots fell under the iron heel of the Japanese invaders. The people drew conclusions from the facts: the Nationalist Party ruling clique was incapable of bearing the responsibility of striving for victory in the War of Resistance, incapable of safeguarding China’s independence or promoting economic development, and could only become an obstacle to China’s progress. Abolishing the Nationalist Party’s one-party dictatorship and implementing democratic politics to strengthen the forces of united resistance had become an increasingly urgent demand of the people—including many middle-ground figures.

On September 15, 1944, Lin Boqu, acting on instructions from the Party Central Committee, formally put forward at the National Political Council the proposition of immediately ending the Nationalist Party’s one-party rule and establishing a democratic coalition government of all anti-Japanese parties. This proposition of the Chinese Communist Party provoked a strong response at home and abroad. On October 10, the China Democratic League published its Political Propositions for the Final Stage of the War of Resistance, demanding the immediate end of one-party dictatorship and the establishment of a multi-party coalition government to implement democratic politics. Under the influence of the Chinese Communist Party, the patriotic democratic movement in the Great Rear developed toward the clear political goal of demanding the establishment of a coalition government.

V. Strengthening Party Building, Advancing the Sinicization of Marxism, and Launching the Rectification Campaign

Putting Forward the “Great Project” of Strengthening Party Building

Driven by the War of Resistance Against Japan by the entire nation, the Chinese Communist Party rapidly developed and grew. By the end of 1938, the nationwide party membership had grown from more than 40,000 at the time of the full outbreak of the War of Resistance to more than 500,000. This placed new demands on the Party’s own construction.

In August 1939, the Central Politburo made the Decision on Consolidating the Party. In October, Mao Zedong published the Preface to “The Communist”, putting forward the overall goal and overall task of Party building—namely, “to build a Bolshevized Chinese Communist Party that is national in scope, broad in mass character, and fully consolidated ideologically, politically, and organizationally”—and called Party building a “great project.” He pointed out that Party building must be closely centered on the Party’s political line. He also pointed out that the united front question, the armed struggle question, and the Party building question were the three fundamental questions for the Party in the Chinese revolution. To correctly understand these three questions and their interrelationships was equivalent to correctly leading the entirety of the Chinese revolution.

The central link in consolidating the Party was strengthening the training of party members and raising their quality. To this end, Chen Yun wrote the essay How to Be a Communist Party Member; Liu Shaoqi delivered the lecture On the Cultivation of Communist Party Members; and Zhang Wentian successively published six essays including The Rights and Obligations of Communist Party Members. These works provided important teaching materials for party member education and played an important role in Party building.

Advancing Party building as a great project was a major innovation of the Party. It demonstrated that the Party’s understanding of the importance of strengthening its own construction had become more conscious and profound. The implementation of the great project of Party building provided a powerful political guarantee for the Party to play the role of mainstay in the War of Resistance Against Japan.

Systematically Expounding the Theory of New Democracy

Since the full outbreak of the War of Resistance Against Japan, the question of where China was headed had not disappeared; on the contrary, it was sharply placed before every Chinese person as the Nationalist Party diehards deliberately propagandized for “one doctrine” and “one party.”

At the turn of 1939 and 1940, in order to systematize the rich experience of the Chinese revolution, expound the Party’s theory and program, answer the question of where China was headed, and thereby better guide the War of Resistance Against Japan and the Chinese revolution, following the publication of the Preface to “The Communist,” Mao Zedong successively published important theoretical works including The Chinese Revolution and the Chinese Communist Party and On New Democracy.

Mao Zedong revealed the nature and main characteristics of China’s semi-colonial and semi-feudal society, the principal contradictions of modern Chinese society, and the reasons for the occurrence and development of the Chinese revolution. On this basis, he pointed out that the entire Chinese revolutionary movement led by the Chinese Communist Party was a complete revolutionary movement encompassing two stages: the democratic revolution and the socialist revolution. The Chinese democratic revolution after the May Fourth Movement of 1919 had already become a new-democratic revolution—an anti-imperialist and anti-feudal revolution of the broad masses of the people under proletarian leadership.

Mao Zedong expounded the basic program of the Chinese Communist Party in the stage of the new-democratic revolution. Politically, this meant establishing “a democratic republic of the joint dictatorship of all anti-imperialist and anti-feudal people under the leadership of the proletariat—this is the new-democratic republic.” Economically, this meant confiscating the big banks, big industries, and big commercial enterprises that controlled the national economy and people’s livelihood to establish a state-owned economy; confiscating landlord land and distributing it to the peasants while guiding the peasants to develop a cooperative economy; and permitting the development of national capitalist economy and the existence of rich-peasant economy. Culturally, this meant abolishing feudal comprador culture and developing a national, scientific, and mass culture.

Mao Zedong pointed out that the inevitable direction of development of the new-democratic revolution was socialism. The new-democratic revolution and the socialist revolution were two different stages of revolution that could not be “accomplished in a single stroke,” but the two stages of revolution must and inevitably would be connected, with no room for inserting a bourgeois dictatorship in between.

Mao Zedong summarized the historical experience of the Chinese Communist Party since its founding, pointing out that the united front, armed struggle, and Party building were the three principal magic weapons by which the Chinese Communist Party defeated the enemy in the Chinese revolution.

The putting forward of the theory of New Democracy gave the entire Party a clear and complete understanding of the nature, content, leadership, and developmental prospects of the current stage of the Chinese revolution. This theory became a banner guiding the Chinese people to consciously advance unceasingly in a complex environment, and played a major guiding role in the victorious development of the Chinese revolution.

The theory of New Democracy was the product of the integration of Marxism with the actual conditions of the Chinese revolution. In the past, the Party had often confused the tasks of the democratic revolution with those of the socialist revolution. The putting forward of this theory both scientifically clarified the strict distinction and policy boundaries between the democratic revolution and the socialist revolution, and creatively resolved the question of how these two revolutions were to be connected.

The putting forward and systematic exposition of the theory of New Democracy was a major theoretical achievement of the Sinicization of Marxism, marking that Mao Zedong Thought had been developed in multiple dimensions and was approaching maturity. This theory ideologically armed the Chinese Communists, greatly enhancing the entire Party’s consciousness in participating in and leading the War of Resistance Against Japan and the new-democratic revolution.

The Rectification Campaign and the Resolution on Certain Historical Questions

After the Zunyi Conference, the Party’s line had gotten onto the correct Marxist track, but the subjectivism and dogmatism that had once caused serious harm to the Party’s cause had not yet been earnestly cleared away ideologically. It was therefore necessary to concentrate on launching a universal Marxist ideological education campaign, to summarize and draw lessons from historical experience, in order to raise the ideological and theoretical level of the broad party members and cadres—especially the Party’s senior cadres—and to strengthen the Party’s cohesion and combat effectiveness.

In May 1941, Mao Zedong delivered the report Reform Our Study at a senior cadre conference in Yan’an. From September to October, the Central Politburo convened an enlarged meeting (the September Conference), at which the Party’s senior cadres began to study and research the Party’s history,

to summarize the Party’s historical experience, seeking to clarify right and wrong on the question of the political line and reach a basically unified understanding, thereby making preparations for universal rectification throughout the entire Party.

In February 1942, Mao Zedong successively delivered the lectures Rectify the Party’s Style of Work and Oppose Stereotyped Party Writing. The Rectification Campaign was universally launched throughout the entire Party. The content of the universal rectification throughout the entire Party was to oppose subjectivism, sectarianism, and stereotyped party writing in order to establish a Marxist style of work. Opposing subjectivism to rectify the style of study was the most important task of the Rectification Campaign. To overcome subjectivism, it was necessary to adopt a scientific attitude toward Marxism, to promote the Marxist style of study that integrates theory with practice, to proceed from reality in all things, and to seek truth from facts. Among these, investigation and research was an indispensable intermediate link connecting theory with practice. Opposing sectarianism to rectify the party style, and opposing stereotyped party writing to rectify the writing style, were also important tasks of the Rectification Campaign.

The method of rectification was to earnestly read the rectification documents, to conduct self-examination in connection with one’s personal thinking, work, history, and the work of one’s own region or department, to carry out criticism and self-criticism, to clarify the circumstances, nature, and causes of errors, to gradually reach unity in ideological understanding, and to put forward the direction of effort. In carrying out criticism and self-criticism, particular emphasis was placed on self-criticism. Mao Zedong emphasized that in handling people, a cautious attitude should be adopted—neither glossing things over nor harming comrades—and that this was one of the hallmarks of our Party’s flourishing vitality.

During the Rectification Campaign, the Party Central Committee convened the Yan’an Forum on Literature and Art in May 1942. In his speech, Mao Zedong emphasized: “The question of ‘for whom?’ is a fundamental question, a question of principle.” “Our literature and art are for the people, first and foremost for the workers, peasants, and soldiers.” Guided by the spirit of Mao Zedong’s speech at the Yan’an Forum on Literature and Art, large numbers of literary and art workers rushed to the front lines of the War of Resistance, going deep into the countryside, the army, and factories, making contact with the masses and experiencing life, and created a large number of outstanding works beloved by the masses that reflected real life, including The White-Haired Girl, Brother and Sister Clear the Wasteland, Driven to Join the Liangshan Rebels, and Wang Gui and Li Xiangxiang. Among these, The White-Haired Girl was China’s first new opera, collectively created by artists of the Lu Xun Academy of Arts in Yan’an. Through a true yet legendary story, it revealed the vivid theme of the times: “The old society turned people into ghosts; the new society turns ghosts back into people.”

From September 1943 onward, the rectification of the central leadership stratum entered the stage of in-depth discussion of the Party’s historical questions. In order to unify the thinking of senior cadres, the Central Politburo convened enlarged meetings to discuss the question of the Party’s historical line.

On the basis of in-depth summarization of historical experience, from May 1944 to April 1945, the enlarged Seventh Plenary Session of the Sixth Central Committee was convened. The plenary session adopted in principle the Resolution on Certain Historical Questions. The Resolution summarized the Party’s history since its founding—especially the period from the Fourth Plenary Session of the Sixth Central Committee to the Zunyi Conference—and its basic experience and lessons. It expounded the manifestations and serious harm caused by “left”-deviationist errors in the political, military, organizational, and ideological spheres, highly evaluated Mao Zedong’s outstanding contributions in applying the basic principles of Marxism to resolve the problems of the Chinese revolution, and affirmed the great significance of establishing Mao Zedong’s leadership position throughout the Party, enabling the entire Party—especially the Party’s senior cadres—to reach unity on the basis of Marxism-Leninism in their understanding of the fundamental questions of China’s democratic revolution. At this point, the Rectification Campaign concluded in victory.

The Rectification Campaign was a profound Marxist ideological education campaign that achieved enormous results. It upheld the correct orientation of integrating Marxism with Chinese reality, causing the Marxist ideological line of seeking truth from facts to take deep root throughout the entire Party. During the Rectification Campaign, great discussions were launched around how to approach Marxist principles from the standpoint of proceeding from reality, how to integrate the basic principles of Marxism with the actual conditions of the Chinese revolution, and how to approach certain major questions in the Party’s history. Through these discussions, the position of Marxist thought was consolidated both within and outside the Party, and cadres were greatly elevated ideologically. Through the Rectification Campaign, a new unity and cohesion of the entire Party under the leadership of the Party Central Committee with Comrade Mao Zedong as its core was achieved, laying an important ideological and political foundation for victory in the War of Resistance Against Japan and for the ultimate victory of the new-democratic revolution throughout the country.

The experience accumulated by the Yan’an Rectification Campaign holds great and far-reaching significance for Party building.

VI. The Party’s Seventh National Congress, the Establishment of Mao Zedong Thought as the Party’s Guiding Ideology, and the Final Victory in the War of Resistance Against Japan

The Party’s Seventh National Congress

On the eve of the complete collapse of German fascism and the approaching victory in the War of Resistance Against Japan, and on the basis of the rectification of the entire Party, from April to June 1945, the Seventh National Congress of the Chinese Communist Party was convened at the Central Auditorium in Yangjialing, Yan’an. The congress was attended by 547 full delegates and 208 alternate delegates, representing 1.21 million party members nationwide. This congress bore the task of summarizing past revolutionary experience, welcoming the victory of the War of Resistance Against Japan, and guiding China toward a bright future.

Mao Zedong submitted the political report On Coalition Government to the congress and delivered an oral report; Zhu De delivered the military report On the Liberated Areas Battlefield; Liu Shaoqi delivered the Report on the Revision of the Party Constitution; and Zhou Enlai delivered the speech On the United Front.

The Seventh National Congress put forward the Party’s political line: “Boldly mobilize the masses, strengthen the people’s forces, and under the leadership of our Party, defeat the Japanese invaders, liberate the entire people, and establish a new-democratic China.” In order to establish a new-democratic state, the congress again put forward the slogan of “abolishing the Nationalist Party’s one-party dictatorship and establishing a democratic coalition government,” and further proposed two concrete steps for ending the Nationalist Party’s one-party dictatorship: in the current period, through consultations among all parties, factions, and non-partisan representatives, to establish a provisional coalition government; in the future period, through free and unrestrained elec▶ A Brief History of the Chinese Communist Party Volume Three “deviations are a fact of real life; when there are deviations, call for alignment.”

★ The venue of the Party’s Seventh National Congress

tions, to convene a National Assembly and establish a formal coalition government.

The congress formulated the program for the new-democratic state in the political, economic, and cultural spheres, put forward the grand task of realizing China’s industrialization, and for the first time explicitly stated in a party document: “Whether the policies of all parties in China and their practice as manifested among the Chinese people are good or bad, great or small, ultimately depends on whether they help develop the productive forces of the Chinese people and how much they help, and on whether they fetter the productive forces or liberate them.”

The Seventh National Congress summarized the fine work styles formed by the Party through its prolonged struggle into three great work styles: the style of integrating theory with practice, the style of maintaining close ties with the masses, and the style of self-criticism. These were the distinctive hallmarks that set the Communist Party apart from other political parties. Mao Zedong, at the preparatory meeting of the congress held beforehand, emphasized the sense of alignment, saying: “We must align ourselves with the Central Committee as our standard, and align ourselves with the congress as our standard. Alignment is the

The Seventh National Congress elected a new Central Committee. On June 19, the First Plenary Session of the Seventh Central Committee elected 13 members of the Central Politburo, and elected Mao Zedong, Zhu De, Liu Shaoqi, Zhou Enlai, and Ren Bishi as members of the Central Secretariat, with Mao Zedong as Chairman of the Central Committee, Chairman of the Central Politburo, and Chairman of the Central Secretariat. In August, a Central Politburo meeting decided that Mao Zedong would serve as Chairman of the Central Military Commission, with Zhu De and others as Vice-Chairmen. This brought the entire Party to an unprecedented level of organizational unity and cohesion.

The Seventh National Congress was an extremely important national congress convened by the Party during the period of the new-democratic revolution. It summarized the historical experience of more than 20 years of tortuous development of China’s new-democratic revolution, formulated the correct line, program, and strategy, overcame erroneous thinking within the Party, and enabled the entire Party—especially the Party’s senior cadres—to have a relatively clear understanding of the laws governing the development of China’s democratic revolution, thereby bringing the entire Party to an unprecedented level of unity on the basis of Marxism-Leninism and Mao Zedong Thought. The Seventh Congress entered the Party’s annals as “a congress of unity, a congress of victory.”

Establishing Mao Zedong Thought as the Party’s Guiding Ideology

Establishing Mao Zedong Thought as the Party’s guiding ideology and writing it into the Party Constitution was the historic contribution of the Seventh National Congress.

Liu Shaoqi, in his Report on the Revision of the Party Constitution, stated: “Mao Zedong Thought is the thought that unifies the theory of Marxism-Leninism with the practice of the Chinese revolution—it is Chinese communism, Chinese Marxism.” The report summarized the main content of Mao Zedong Thought as follows: the analysis of the conditions of the modern world and China’s national conditions; the theory and policy of New Democracy; the theory and policy of liberating the peasants; the theory and policy of the revolutionary united front; the theory and policy of revolutionary war; the theory and policy of revolutionary base areas; the theory and policy of building a new-democratic republic; the theory and policy of Party building; and the theory and policy of culture.

The Seventh National Congress’s establishment of Mao Zedong Thought as the Party’s guiding ideology was the inevitable choice of modern Chinese history and the development of the people’s revolutionary struggle. Mao Zedong Thought was formed gradually in practice on the basis of the Party’s arduous struggle in leading the people, through the summarization of experience from both positive and negative sides. It was the crystallization of the collective wisdom of the Chinese Communist Party; it enriched and developed Marxism with original theories, achieved the first historic leap of the Sinicization of Marxism, and Mao Zedong was the great pioneer of the Sinicization of Marxism.

After the Seventh National Congress, all comrades throughout the Party, guided by Mao Zedong Thought, united as one and fought heroically to seize the final victory in the War of Resistance Against Japan and the ultimate victory of the new-democratic revolution throughout the country.

The General Counteroffensive and the Great Victory in the War of Resistance Against Japan

In the first half of 1945, the world’s anti-fascist war entered its final stage of victory. In April, the United Nations Conference on International Organization was held in San Francisco, United States, attended by the Chinese delegation, which included Dong Biwu, a representative from China’s liberated areas. China became one of the founding member states of the United Nations and one of the five permanent members of the Security Council.

On August 9 of the same year, the Soviet Red Army advanced into the Northeast China battlefield and fought alongside the Chinese military and civilian forces against Japan, accelerating the process of completely defeating the Japanese invaders. On the same day, Mao Zedong issued the statement The Last Round with the Japanese Imperialists. Subsequently, Commander-in-Chief Zhu De of the Yan’an General Headquarters issued seven orders for a general counteroffensive. Under extremely favorable international conditions, the War of Resistance Against Japan entered the stage of general counteroffensive.

At this time, Nationalist Party forces were mainly concentrated in China’s southwest and northwest regions, while the majority of cities, towns, and transportation arteries occupied by Japanese forces in North China, Central China, and South China were (August–September 1945) surrounded by the anti-Japanese military and civilian forces behind enemy lines led by the Communist Party. In accordance with the instructions and orders of the Yan’an General Headquarters, the military and civilian forces of the various anti-Japanese base areas launched fierce general counteroffensives against Japanese and puppet forces, rapidly liberating vast swaths of territory.

Map of the Strategic Counteroffensive by the Eighth Route Army, the New Fourth Army, and the South China Guerrilla Forces

On August 15, Japanese Emperor Hirohito issued the Imperial Rescript on the Termination of the War by radio broadcast. Japan surrendered unconditionally. On September 2, Japanese representatives signed the instrument of surrender. 1.28 million Japanese invading forces in China surrendered. At this point, the War of Resistance Against Japan concluded in victory, and the world’s anti-fascist war also concluded in victory. September 3, the day after the Japanese representatives signed the instrument of surrender, became the Victory Day of the Chinese People’s War of Resistance Against Japan.

On October 25, the Chinese government held a surrender acceptance ceremony in Taiwan. Taiwan and the Penghu Islands, which had been under Japanese occupation for 50 years, were returned to Chinese sovereign jurisdiction. This became an important symbol of the complete victory of the War of Resistance Against Japan.

The Chinese People’s War of Resistance Against Japan was the longest-lasting, largest-scale, and most costly national liberation struggle in which the Chinese people had resisted foreign invasion since modern times, and also the first national liberation struggle to achieve complete victory. According to incomplete statistics, throughout the entire war, Chinese military and civilian casualties exceeded 35 million. Calculated at 1937 values, China’s direct economic losses exceeded 100 billion US dollars, and indirect economic losses exceeded 500 billion US dollars. The victory of the Chinese People’s War of Resistance Against Japan became a historical turning point in the Chinese nation’s march toward rejuvenation, and also holds great and far-reaching significance for the progress of world civilization: it completely defeated the Japanese invaders, powerfully defended China’s state sovereignty and territorial integrity, and thoroughly washed away the national humiliation of repeated defeats in resisting foreign aggression since modern times; it promoted the awakening of the Chinese nation, bringing the Chinese people to an unprecedented height of spiritual and organizational progress, and laid an important foundation for the Chinese Communist Party to lead the Chinese people in achieving complete national independence and people’s liberation; it promoted the great unity of the Chinese nation and carried forward the great spirit of the Chinese nation with patriotism at its core; it exerted a tremendous influence on the peoples of all countries in seizing victory in the anti-fascist war and on the great cause of safeguarding world peace, significantly raised China’s international standing and international influence, won the Chinese people the respect of peace-loving peoples around the world, and won the Chinese nation a lofty national reputation.

The Chinese Communist Party played the role of mainstay in the War of Resistance by the entire nation. This was the decisive factor in the Chinese People’s War of Resistance Against Japan achieving complete victory. From the day of its founding, the Chinese Communist Party took the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation as its historical mission—it was the most steadfast in defending national independence, the most resolute in safeguarding national interests, the most courageous in resisting foreign aggression, and made the greatest self-sacrifice. During the War of Resistance Against Japan, at the historical juncture of national peril, the Chinese Communist Party, with outstanding political leadership and correct strategy and tactics, pointed the way forward for China’s War of Resistance, steadfastly and unwaveringly drove the entire nation to persist in resistance, unity, and progress, and to oppose capitulation, division, and retrogression. The Chinese Communist Party raised high the banner of the Anti-Japanese National United Front, resolutely safeguarded, consolidated, and developed the united front, upheld independence and autonomy, and united in resistance, safeguarding the overall landscape of united resistance. Chinese Communists fought bravely on the front lines of the War of Resistance Against Japan, sustaining the hope of the Chinese nation’s struggle for survival, and became the mainstay of the War of Resistance by the entire nation. The practice of the War of Resistance Against Japan demonstrated that the Chinese Communist Party was the strong core leading the Chinese people in striving for national independence and people’s liberation.

In the magnificent course of the War of Resistance Against Japan, the Chinese people nurtured the great Spirit of Resistance Against Japan, displaying to the world the patriotic sentiment that every citizen bears responsibility for the rise and fall of the nation, the national integrity of facing death unflinchingly and preferring death to submission, the heroic spirit of not fearing brute force and fighting to the last drop of blood, and the conviction of indomitable perseverance and the certainty of ultimate victory. The great Spirit of Resistance Against Japan is a precious spiritual treasure of the Chinese people and will forever inspire the Chinese people to overcome all difficulties and hardships in striving for the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation.

The Chinese Communist Party persisted in mobilizing and relying on the people, and in driving the unfolding of the people’s war of resistance by the entire nation, its own forces also developed and grew to an unprecedented degree. During the War of Resistance by the entire nation, the Eighth Route Army, the New Fourth Army, and other people’s anti-Japanese armed forces fought more than 125,000 engagements against the enemy, pinning down and annihilating large numbers of Japanese forces, annihilating the majority of puppet forces, and the behind-enemy-lines battlefield gradually became the main battlefield of the Chinese People’s War of Resistance Against Japan. By the end of the War of Resistance, the people’s army had grown to approximately 1.32 million troops, and the militia had grown to more than 2.6 million; the anti-Japanese democratic base areas—that is, the liberated areas—led by the Chinese Communist Party had grown to 19 in number, covering an area of nearly 1 million square kilometers with a population of nearly 100 million. The proportion of the Chinese Communist Party in the nation’s social and political life had grown enormously compared with before the War of Resistance Against Japan. This created unprecedentedly favorable conditions for ultimately achieving victory in the new-democratic revolution throughout the country, on the basis of the great victory of the Chinese People’s War of Resistance Against Japan.

[1] Initially called the Provisional Administrative Committee. In late January 1938, it received formal approval successively from Yan Xishan and the National Government’s Military Affairs Commission and Executive Yuan, and the word “provisional” was dropped.

[1] 初称临时行政委员会。1938年1月下旬，先后得到阎锡山和国民政府军事委员会及行政院的正式批准、去掉”临时”二字。

[2] The “three-thirds system” was an important principle implemented by the Chinese Communist Party in the construction of political power in the various anti-Japanese base areas, whereby Communist Party members, non-party progressive figures, and middle-of-the-road elements each held one-third of the positions in the anti-Japanese democratic government.

[2] “三三制”，是中国共产党在各抗日根据地政权建设上实行的重要原则，即共产党员、党外进步人士和中间派在抗日民主政权中各占1/3。

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