[ Series of lectures from May 26 to June
3, 1938, at the Yenan Association
for the Study of the War of Resistance Against Japan.]
1. It will soon be July 7, the first anniversary of the
great War of Resistance Against Japan. Rallying in unity,
persevering in resistance and persevering in the united
front, the forces of the whole nation have been valiantly
fighting the enemy for almost a year. The people of the
whole world are attentively following this war, which has no
precedent in the history of the East, and which will go down
as a great war in world history too. Every Chinese suffering
from the disasters of the war and fighting for the survival
of his nation daily yearns for victory. But what actually
will be the course of the war? Can we win? Can we win
quickly? Many people are talking about a protracted war, but
why is it a protracted war? How to carry on a protracted
war? Many people are talking about Final victory, but why
will final victory be ours? How shall we strive for final
victory?
Not everyone has found answers to these questions; in
fact, to this day most people have not done so. Therefore
the defeatist exponents of the theory of national
subjugation have come forward to tell people that China will
be subjugated, that final victory will not be China's. On
the other hand, some impetuous friends have come forward to
tell people that China will win very quickly without having
to exert any great effort. But are these views correct? We
have said all along they are not.
However, most people have not yet grasped what we
have been saying. This is partly because we did not do
enough propaganda and explanatory work, and partly because
the development of objective events had not yet fully and
clearly revealed their inherent nature and their features to
the people, who were thus not in a position to foresee the
over-all trend and the outcome and hence to decide on a
complete set of policies and tactics. Now things are better,
the experience of ten months of war has been quite
sufficient to explode the utterly baseless theory of
national subjugation and to dissuade our impetuous friends
from their theory of quick victory.
In these circumstances many people are asking for a
comprehensive explanation. All the more so with regard to
protracted war, not only because of the opposing theories of
national subjugation and quick victory but also because of
the shallow understanding of its nature. "Our four hundred
million people have been making a concerted effort since the
Lukouchiao Incident, and the final victory will belong to
China." This formula has a wide currency. It is a correct
formula but needs to be given more content.
Our perseverance in the War of Resistance and in the
united front has been possible because of many factors.
Internally, they comprise all the political parties in the
country from the Communist Party to the Kuomintang, all the
people from the workers and peasants to the bourgeoisie, and
all the armed forces from the regular forces to the
guerrillas; internationally, they range from the land of
socialism to justice-loving people in all countries; in the
camp of the enemy, they range from those people in Japan who
are against the war to those Japanese soldiers at the front
who are against the war. In short, all these forces have
contributed in varying degrees to our War of Resistance.
Every man with a conscience should salute them.
We Communists, together with all the other ant-Japanese
political parties and the whole people, have no other course
than to strive to unite all forces for the defeat of the
diabolical Japanese aggressors. July 1 this year will be the
17th anniversary of the founding of the Communist
Party of China. A serious study of protracted war is
necessary in order to enable every Communist to play a
better and greater part in the War of Resistance. Therefore
my lectures will be devoted to such a study. I shall try to
speak on all the problems relevant to the protracted war,
but I cannot possibly go into everything in one series of
lectures.
2. All the experience of the ten months of war proves the
error both of the theory of China's inevitable subjugation
and of the theory of China's quick victory. The former gives
rise to the tendency to compromise and the latter to the
tendency to underestimate the enemy. Both approaches to the
problem are subjective and one-sided, or, in a word,
unscientific.
3. Before the War of Resistance, there was a great deal
of talk about national subjugation. Some said, "China is
inferior in arms and is bound to lose in a war." Others
said, "If China offers armed resistance, she is sure to
become another Abyssinia." Since the beginning of the war,
open talk of national subjugation has disappeared, but
secret talk, and quite a lot of it too, still continues. For
instance, from time to time an atmosphere of compromise
arises and the advocates of compromise argue that "the
continuance of the war spells subjugation".[1]
In a letter from Hunan a student has written:
In the countryside everything seems
difficult. Doing propaganda work on my own, I have to talk
to people when and where I find them. The people I have
talked to are by no means ignoramuses; they all have some
understanding of what is going on and are very interested in
what I have to say. But when I run into my own relatives,
they always say: "China cannot win; she is doomed." They
make one sick ! Fortunately, they do not go around spreading
their views, otherwise things would really be bad. The
peasants would naturally put more stock in what they say.
Such exponents of the theory of China's inevitable
subjugation form the social basis of the tendency to
compromise. They are to be found everywhere in China, and
therefore the problem of compromise is liable to crop up
within the anti-Japanese front at any time and will probably
remain with us right until the end of the war. Now that
Hsuchow has fallen and Wuhan is in danger, it will not be
unprofitable, I think, to knock the bottom out of the theory
of national subjugation.
4. During these ten months of war all kinds of views
which are indicative of impetuosity have also appeared. For
instance, at the outset of the war many people were
groundlessly optimistic, underestimating Japan and even
believing that the Japanese could not get as far as Shansi.
Some belittled the strategic role of guerrilla warfare in
the War of Resistance and doubted the proposition, "With
regard to the whole, mobile warfare is primary and guerrilla
warfare supplementary; with regard to the parts, guerrilla
warfare is primary and mobile warfare supplementary." They
disagreed with the Eighth Route Army's strategy, "Guerrilla
warfare is basic, but lose no chance for mobile warfare
under favourable conditions", which they regarded as a
"mechanical" approach.[2]
During the battle of Shanghai some people said: "If we
can fight for just three months, the international situation
is bound to change, the Soviet Union is bound to send
troops, and the war will be over." They pinned their hopes
for the future of the War of Resistance chiefly on foreign
aid.[3]
After the Taierhchuang victory,[4]
some people maintained that the Hsuchow campaign should be
fought as a "quasi-decisive campaign" and that the policy of
protracted war should be changed. They said such things as,
"This campaign marks the last desperate struggle of the
enemy," or, "If we win, the Japanese warlords will be
demoralized and able only to await their Day of Judgement."[5]
The victory at Pinghsingkuan turned some people's heads,
and further victory at Taierhchuang has turned more people's
heads. Doubts have arisen as to whether the enemy will
attack Wuhan. Many people think "probably not", and many
others "definitely not". Such doubts may affect all major
issues. For instance, is our anti-Japanese strength already
sufficient? Some people may answer affirmatively, for our
present strength is already sufficient to check the enemy's
advance, so why increase it? Or, for instance, is the slogan
"Consolidate and expand the Anti-Japanese National United
Front" still correct? Some people may answer negatively, for
the united front in its present state is already strong
enough to repulse the enemy, so why consolidate and expand
it? Or, for instance, should our efforts in diplomacy and
international propaganda be intensified? Here again the
answer may be in the negative.
Or, for instance, should we proceed in earnest to reform
the army system and the system of government, develop the
mass movement, enforce education for national defence,
suppress traitors and Trotskyites, develop war industries
and improve the people's livelihood? Or, for instance, are
the slogans calling for the defence of Wuhan, of Canton and
of the Northwest and for the vigorous development of
guerrilla warfare in the enemy's rear still correct? The
answers might all be in the negative. There are even some
people who, the moment a slightly favourable turn occurs in
the war situation, are prepared to intensify the "friction"
between the Kuomintang and the Communist Party, diverting
attention from external to internal matters. This almost
invariably occurs whenever a comparatively big battle is won
or the enemy's advance comes to a temporary halt. All the
above can be termed political and military
short-sightedness. Such talk, however plausible, is actually
specious and groundless. To sweep away such verbiage should
help the victorious prosecution of the War of Resistance.
5. The question now is: Will China be subjugated?
The answer is, No, she will not be subjugated, but will win
final victory. Can China win quickly? The answer is, No, she
cannot win quickly, and the War of Resistance will be a
protracted war.
6. As early as two years ago, we broadly indicated the
main arguments on these questions. On July 16, 1936, five
months before the Sian Incident and twelve months before the
Lukouchiao Incident, in an interview with the American
correspondent, Mr. Edgar Snow, I made a general estimate of
the situation with regard to war between China and Japan and
advanced various principles for winning victory. The
following excerpts may serve as a reminder:
Question: Under what conditions do
you think China can defeat and destroy the forces of Japan?
Answer: Three conditions are
required: first, the establishment of an anti-Japanese
united front in China; second, the formation of an
international anti-Japanese united front; third, the rise of
the revolutionary movement of the people in Japan and the
Japanese colonies. From the standpoint of the Chinese
people, the unity of the people of China is the most
important of the three conditions.
Question: How long do you think
such a war would last?
Answer: That depends on the
strength of China's anti-Japanese united front and many
other conditioning factors involving China and Japan. That
is to say, apart from China's own strength, which is the
main thing, international help to China and the help
rendered by the revolution in Japan are also important. If
China's anti-Japanese united front is greatly expanded and
effectively organized horizontally and vertically, if the
necessary help is given to China by those governments and
peoples which recognize the Japanese imperialist menace to
their own interests and if revolution comes quickly in
Japan, the war will speedily be brought to an end and China
will speedily win victory. If these conditions are not
realized quickly, the war will be prolonged. But in the end,
just the same, Japan will certainly be defeated and China
will certainly be victorious. Only the sacrifices will be
great and there will be a very painful period.
Question: What is your opinion of
the probable course of development of such a war,
politically and militarily?
Answer: Japan's continental policy
is already fixed, and those who think they can halt the
Japanese advance by making compromises with Japan at the
expense of more Chinese territory and sovereign rights are
indulging in mere fantasy. We definitely know that the lower
Yangtse valley and our southern seaports are already
included in the continental programme of Japanese
imperialism. Moreover, Japan wants to occupy the
Philippines, Siam, Indo-China, the Malay Peninsula and the
Dutch East Indies in order to cut off other countries from
China and monopolize the southwestern Pacific. This is
Japan's maritime policy. In such a period, China will
undoubtedly be in an extremely difficult position. But the
majority of the Chinese people believe that such
difficulties can be overcome; only the rich in the big port
cities are defeatists because they are afraid of losing
their property.
Many people think it would be impossible
for China to continue the war, once her coastline is
blockaded by Japan. This is nonsense. To refute them we need
only cite the war history of the Red Army. In the present
War of Resistance Against Japan, China's position is much
superior to that of the Red Army in the civil war. China is
a vast country, and even if Japan should succeed in
occupying a section of China with as many as 100 to 200
million people, we would still be far from defeated. We
would still have ample strength to fight against Japan,
while the Japanese would have to fight defensive battles in
their rear throughout the war. The heterogeneity and uneven
development of China's economy are rather advantageous in
the war of resistance. For example, to sever Shanghai from
the rest of China would definitely not be as disastrous to
China as would be the severance of New York from the rest of
the United States. Even if Japan blockades the Chinese
coastline, it is impossible for her to blockade China's
Northwest, Southwest and West. Thus, once more the central
point of the problem is the unity of the entire Chinese
people and the building up of a nation-wide anti-Japanese
front. This is what we have long been advocating.
Question: If the war drags on for
a long time and Japan is not completely defeated, would the
Communist Party agree to the negotiation of a peace with
Japan and recognize her rule in northeastern China?
Answer: No. Like the people of the
whole country, the Chinese Communist Party will not allow
Japan to retain an inch of Chinese territory.
Question: What, in your opinion,
should be the main strategy and tactics to be followed in
this "war of liberation"?
Answer: Our strategy should be to
employ our main forces to operate over an extended and fluid
front. To achieve success, the Chinese troops must
conduct their warfare with a high degree of mobility on
extensive battlefields, making swift advances and
withdrawals, swift concentrations and dispersals. This means large-scale mobile warfare, and not positional
warfare depending exclusively on defence works with deep
trenches, high fortresses and successive rows of defensive
positions. It does not mean the abandonment of all the
vital strategic points, which should be defended by
positional warfare as long as profitable. But the pivotal
strategy must be mobile warfare.
Positional warfare is also necessary, but
strategically it is auxiliary and secondary. Geographically
the theatre of the war is so vast that it is possible for us
to conduct mobile warfare most effectively. In the face of
the vigorous actions of our forces, the Japanese army will
have to be cautious. Its war-machine is ponderous and
slow-moving, with limited efficiency. If we concentrate our
forces on a narrow front for a defensive war of attrition,
we would be throwing away the advantages of our geography
and economic organization and repeating the mistake of
Abyssinia. In the early period of the war, we must avoid any
major decisive battles, and must first employ mobile warfare
gradually to break the morale and combat effectiveness of
the enemy troops.
Besides employing trained armies to carry
on mobile warfare, we must organize great numbers of
guerrilla units among the peasants. One should know that the
anti-Japanese volunteer units in the three northeastern
provinces are only a minor demonstration of the latent power
of resistance that can be mobilized from the peasants of the
whole country. The Chinese peasants have very great latent
power; properly organized and directed, they can keep the
Japanese army busy twenty-four hours a day and worry it to
death. It must be remembered that the war will be fought in
China, that is to say, the Japanese army will be entirely
surrounded by the hostile Chinese people, it will be forced
to move in all its provisions and guard them, it must use
large numbers of troops to protect its lines of
communications and constantly guard against attacks and it
needs large forces to garrison Manchuria and Japan as well.
In the course of the war, China will be
able to capture many Japanese soldiers and seize many
weapons and munitions with which to arm herself; at the same
time China will win foreign aid to reinforce the equipment
of her troops gradually. Therefore China will be able to
conduct positional warfare in the latter period of the war
and make positional attacks on the Japanese-occupied areas.
Thus Japan's economy will crack under the strain of China's
long resistance and the morale of the Japanese forces will
break under the trial of innumerable battles. On the Chinese
side, however, the growing latent power of resistance will
be constantly brought into play and large numbers of
revolutionary people will be pouring into the front lines to
fight for their freedom. The combination of all these and
other factors will enable us to make the final and decisive
attacks on the fortifications and bases in the
Japanese-occupied areas and drive the Japanese forces of
aggression out of China.
The above views have been proved correct in the light of
the experience of the ten months of war and will also be
borne out in the future.
7. As far back as August 25, 1937, less than two months
after the Lukouchiao Incident, the Central Committee of the
Chinese Communist Party clearly pointed out in its
"Resolution on the Present Situation and the Tasks of the
Party":
The military provocation by the Japanese
aggressors at Lukouchiao and their occupation of Peiping and
Tientsin represent only the beginning of their large-scale
invasion of China south of the Great Wall. They have already
begun their national mobilization for war. Their propaganda
that they have "no desire to aggravate the situation" is
only a smokescreen for further attacks.
The resistance at Lukouchiao on July 7
marked the starting point of China's national War of
Resistance.
Thus a new stage has opened in China's
political situation, the stage of actual resistance. The
stage of preparation for resistance is over. In the present
stage the central task is to mobilize all the nation's
forces for victory in the War of Resistance.
The key to victory in the war now lies in
developing the resistance that has already begun into a war
of total resistance by the whole nation. Only through such a
war of total resistance can final victory be won.
The existence of serious weaknesses in the
War of Resistance may lead to many setbacks, retreats,
internal splits, betrayals, temporary and partial
compromises and other such reverses. Therefore it should be
realized that the war will be an arduous and protracted war.
But we are confident that, through the efforts of our Party
and the whole people, the resistance already started will
sweep aside all obstacles and continue to advance and
develop.
The above thesis, too, has been proved correct in the
light of the experience of the ten months of war and will
also be borne out in the future.
8. Epistemologically speaking, the source of all
erroneous views on war lies in idealist and mechanistic
tendencies on the question. People with such tendencies are
subjective and one-sided in their approach to problems. They
either indulge in groundless and purely subjective talk, or,
basing themselves upon a single aspect or a temporary
manifestation, magnify it with similar subjectivity into the
whole of the problem. But there are two categories of
erroneous views, one comprising fundamental, and therefore
consistent, errors which are hard to correct, and the other
comprising accidental, and therefore temporary, errors which
are easy to correct. Since both are wrong, both need to be
corrected. Therefore, only by opposing idealist and
mechanistic tendencies and taking an objective and all-sided
view in making a study of war can we draw correct
conclusions on the question of war.
The Basis of
the Problem9. Why is the War of Resistance Against Japan a
protracted war? Why will the final victory be China's? What
is the basis for these statements?
The war between China and Japan is not just any war, it
is specifically a war of life and death between
semi-colonial and semi-feudal China and imperialist Japan,
fought in the Nineteen Thirties. Herein lies the basis of
the whole problem. The two sides in the war have many
contrasting features, which will be considered in turn
below.
10. The Japanese side. First, Japan is a
powerful imperialist country, which ranks first in the East
in military, economic and political-organizational power,
and is one of the five or six foremost imperialist countries
of the world. These are the basic factors in Japan's war of
aggression. The inevitability of the war and the
impossibility of quick victory for China are due to Japan's
imperialist system and her great military, economic and
political-organizational power. Secondly, however, the
imperialist character of Japan's social economy determines
the imperialist character of her war, a war that is
retrogressive and barbarous. In the Nineteen Thirties, the
internal and external contradictions of Japanese imperialism
have driven her not only to embark on an adventurist war
unparalleled in scale but also to approach her final
collapse. In terms of social development, Japan is no longer
a thriving country; the war will not lead to the prosperity
sought by her ruling classes but to the very reverse, the
doom of Japanese imperialism.
This is what we mean by the
retrogressive nature of Japan's war. It is this reactionary
quality, coupled with the military-feudal character of
Japanese imperialism, that gives rise to the peculiar
barbarity of Japan's war. All of which will arouse to the
utmost the class antagonisms within Japan, the antagonism
between the Japanese and the Chinese nations, and the
antagonism between Japan and most other countries of the
world. The reactionary and barbarous character of Japan's
war constitutes the primary reason for her inevitable
defeat. Thirdly, Japan's war is conducted on the basis of
her great military, economic and political-organizational
power, but at the same time it rests on an inadequate
natural endowment. Japan's military, economic and
political-organizational power is great but quantitatively
inadequate.
Japan is a comparatively small country,
deficient in manpower and in military, financial and
material resources, and she cannot stand a long war. Japan's
rulers are endeavouring to resolve this difficulty through
war, but again they will get the very reverse of what they
desire; that is to say, the war they have launched to
resolve this difficulty will eventually aggravate it and
even exhaust Japan's original resources. Fourthly and
lastly, while Japan can get international support from the
fascist countries, the international opposition she is bound
to encounter will be greater than her international support.
This opposition will gradually grow and eventually not only
cancel out the support but even bear down upon Japan
herself. Such is the law that an unjust cause finds meagre
support, and such is the consequence of the very nature of
Japan's war. To sum up, Japan's advantage lies in her great
capacity to wage war, and her disadvantages lie in the
reactionary and barbarous nature of her war, in the
inadequacy of her manpower and material resources, and in
her meagre international support. These are the
characteristics on the Japanese side.
11. The Chinese side. First, we are a
semi-colonial and semi-feudal country. The Opium War, [6]
the Taiping Revolution, [7] the
Reform Movement of 1898, [8] the
Revolution of 1911 [9] and the
Northern Expedition [10]--the
revolutionary or reform movements which aimed at extricating
China from her semi-colonial and semi-feudal state--all met
with serious setbacks, and China remains a semi-colonial and
semi-feudal country. We are still a weak country and
manifestly inferior to the enemy in military, economic and
political-organizational power. Here again one can find the
basis for the inevitability of the war and the impossibility
of quick victory for China. Secondly, however, China's
liberation movement, with its cumulative development over
the last hundred years, is now different from that of any
previous period.
Although the domestic and foreign forces opposing it have
caused it serious setbacks, at the same time they have
tempered the Chinese people. Although China today is not so
strong as Japan militarily, economically, politically and
culturally, yet there are factors in China more progressive
than in any other period of her history. The Communist Party
of China and the army under its leadership represent these
progressive factors. It is on the basis of this progress
that China's present war of liberation can be protracted and
can achieve final victory. By contrast with Japanese
imperialism, which is declining, China is a country rising
like the morning sun. China's war is progressive, hence its
just character.
Because it is a just war, it is capable of arousing the
nation to unity, of evoking the sympathy of the people in
Japan and of winning the support of most countries in the
world. Thirdly, and again by contrast with Japan, China is a
very big country with vast territory, rich resources, a
large population and plenty of soldiers, and is capable of
sustaining a long war. Fourthly and lastly, there is broad
international support for China stemming from the
progressive and just character of her war, which is again
exactly the reverse of the meagre support for Japan's unjust
cause. To sum up, China's disadvantage lies in her military
weakness, and her advantages lie in the progressive and just
character of her war, her great size and her abundant
international support. These are China's characteristics.
12. Thus it can be seen that Japan has great military,
economic and political-organizational power, but that her
war is reactionary and barbarous, her manpower and material
resources are inadequate, and she is in an unfavourable
position internationally. China, on the contrary, has less
military, economic and political-organizational power, but
she is in her era of progress, her war is progressive and
just, she is moreover a big country, a factor which enables
her to sustain a protracted war, and she will be supported
by most countries. The above are the basic, mutually
contradictory characteristics of the Sino-Japanese war. They
have determined and are determining all the political
policies and military strategies and tactics of the two
sides; they have determined and are determining the
protracted character of the war and its outcome, namely,
that the final victory will go to China and not to
Japan.
The war is a contest between these characteristics. They
will change in the course of the war, each according to its
own nature; and from this everything else will follow. These
characteristics exist objectively and are not invented to
deceive people; they constitute all the basic elements of
the war, and are not incomplete fragments; they permeate all
major and minor problems on both sides and all stages of the
war, and they are not matters of no consequence. If anyone
forgets these characteristics in studying the Sino-Japanese
war, he will surely go wrong; and even though some of his
ideas win credence for a time and may seem right, they will
inevitably be proved wrong by the course of the war. On the
basis of these characteristics we shall now proceed to
explain the problems to be dealt with.
Refutation of the Theory
of National Subjugation
13. The theorists of national subjugation, who see
nothing but the contrast between the enemy's strength and
our weakness, used to say, "Resistance will mean
subjugation," and now they are saying, "The continuance of
the war spells subjugation." We shall not be able to
convince them merely by stating that Japan, though strong;
is small, while China, though weak, is large. They can
adduce historical instances, such as the destruction of the
Sung Dynasty by the Yuan and the destruction of the Ming
Dynasty by the Ching, to prove that small but strong country
can vanquish a large but weak one and, moreover, that a
backward country can vanquish an advanced one. If we say
these events occurred long ago and do not prove the point,
they can cite the British subjugation of India to prove that
a small but strong capitalist country can vanquish a large
but weak and backward country. Therefore, we have to produce
other grounds before we can silence and convince all the
subjugationists, and supply everyone engaged in propaganda
with adequate arguments to persuade those who are still
confused or irresolute and so strengthen their faith in the
War of Resistance.
14. What then are the grounds we should advance? The
characteristics of the epoch. These characteristics are
concretely reflected in Japan's retrogression and paucity of
support and in China's progress and abundance of support.
15. Our war is not just any war, it is specifically a war
between China and Japan fought in the Nineteen Thirties. Our
enemy, Japan, is first of all a moribund imperialist power;
she is already in her era of decline and is not only
different from Britain at the time of the subjugation of
India, when British capitalism was still in the era of its
ascendancy, but also different from what she herself was at
the time of World War I twenty years ago. The present war
was launched on the eve of the general collapse of world
imperialism and, above all, of the fascist countries; that
is the very reason the enemy has launched this adventurist
war, which is in the nature of a last desperate struggle.
Therefore, it is an inescapable certainty that it will not
be China but the ruling circles of Japanese imperialism
which will be destroyed as a result of the war. Moreover,
Japan has undertaken this war at a time when many countries
have been or are about to be embroiled in war, when we are
all fighting or preparing to fight against barbarous
aggression, and China's fortunes are linked with those of
most of the countries and peoples of the world. This is the
root cause of the opposition Japan has aroused and will
increasingly arouse among those countries and peoples.
16. What about China? The China of today cannot be
compared with the China of any other historical period. She
is a semi-colony and a semi-feudal society, and she is
consequently considered a weak country. But at the same
time, China is historically in her era of progress; this is
the primary reason for her ability to defeat Japan. When we
say that the War of Resistance Against Japan is progressive
we do not mean progressive in the ordinary or general sense,
nor do we mean progressive in the sense that the Abyssinian
war against Italy, or the Taiping Revolution or the
Revolution of 1911 were progressive, we mean progressive in
the sense that China is progressive today.
In what way is the China of today progressive? She
is progressive because she is no longer a completely feudal
country and because we already have some capitalism in
China, we have a bourgeoisie and a proletariat, we have vast
numbers of people who have awakened or are awakening, we
have a Communist Party, we have a politically progressive
army--the Chinese Red Army led by the Communist Party--and
we have the tradition and the experience of many decades of
revolution, and especially the experience of the seventeen
years since the founding of the Chinese Communist Party.
This experience has schooled the people and the political
parties of China and forms the very basis for the present
unity against Japan. If it is said that without the
experience of 1905 the victory of 1917 would have been
impossible in Russia, then we can also say that without the
experience of the last seventeen years it would be
impossible to win our War of Resistance. Such is the
internal situation.
In the existing international situation, China is not
isolated in the war, and this fact too is without precedent
in history. In the past, China's wars, and India's too, were
wars fought in isolation. It is only today that we meet with
world-wide popular movements, extraordinary in breadth and
depth, which have arisen or are arising and which are
supporting China. The Russian Revolution of 1917 also
received international support, and thus the Russian workers
and peasants won; but that support was not so broad in scale
and deep in nature as ours today. The popular movements in
the world today are developing on a scale and with a depth
that are unprecedented. The existence of the Soviet Union is
a particularly vital factor in present-day international
politics, and the Soviet Union will certainly support China
with the greatest enthusiasm; there was nothing like this
twenty years ago. All these factors have created and are
creating important conditions indispensable to China's final
victory. Large-scale direct assistance is as yet lacking and
will come only in the future, but China is progressive and
is a big country, and these are the factors enabling her to
protract the war and to promote as well as await
international help.
17. There is the additional factor that while Japan is a
small country with a small territory, few resources, a small
population and a limited number of soldiers, China is a big
country with vast territory, rich resources, a large
population and plenty of soldiers, so that, besides the
contrast between strength and weakness, there is the
contrast between a small country, retrogression and meagre
support and a big country, progress and abundant support.
This is the reason why China will never be subjugated. It
follows from the contrast between strength and weakness that
Japan can ride roughshod over China for a certain time and
to a certain extent, that China must unavoidably travel a
hard stretch of road, and that the War of Resistance will be
a protracted war and not a war of quick decision;
nevertheless, it follows from the other contrast--a small
country, retrogression and meagre support versus a big
country, progress and abundant support--that Japan cannot
ride roughshod over China indefinitely but is sure to meet
final defeat, while China can never be subjugated but
is sure to win final victory.
18. Why was Abyssinia vanquished? First, she was not only
weak but also small. Second, she was not as progressive as
China; she was an old country passing from the slave to the
serf system, a country without any capitalism or bourgeois
political parties, let alone a Communist Party, and with no
army such as the Chinese army, let alone one like the Eighth
Route Army. Third, she was unable to hold out and wait for
international assistance and had to fight her war in
isolation. Fourth, and most important of all, there were
mistakes in the direction of her war against Italy.
Therefore Abyssinia was subjugated. But there is still quite
extensive guerrilla warfare in Abyssinia, which, if
persisted in, will enable the Abyssinians to recover their
country when the world situation changes.
19. If the subjugationists quote the history of the
failure of liberation movements in modern China to prove
their assertions first that "resistance will mean
subjugation", and then that "the continuance of the war
spells subjugation", here again our answer is, "Times are
different." China herself, the internal situation in Japan
and the international environment are all different now. It
is a serious matter that Japan is stronger than before while
China in her unchanged semi-colonial and semi-feudal
position is still fairly weak. It is also a fact that for
the time being Japan can still control her people at home
and exploit international contradictions in order to invade
China. But during a long war, these things are bound to
change in the opposite direction. Such changes are not yet
accomplished facts, but they will become so in future. The
subjugationists dismiss this point. As for China, we already
have new people, a new political party, a new army and a new
policy of resistance to Japan, a situation very different
from that of over a decade ago, and what is more, all these
will inevitably make further progress. It is true that
historically the liberation movements met with repeated
setbacks with the result that China could not accumulate
greater strength for the present War of Resistance--this is
a very painful historical lesson, and never again should we
destroy any of our revolutionary forces.
Yet even on the present basis, by exerting great
efforts we can certainly forge ahead gradually and increase
the strength of our resistance. All such efforts should
converge on the great Anti-Japanese National United Front.
As for international support, though direct and large-scale
assistance is not yet in sight, it is in the making, the
international situation being fundamentally different from
before. The countless failures in the liberation movement of
modern China had their subjective and objective causes, but
the situation today is entirely different. Today, although
there are many difficulties which make the War of Resistance
arduous--such as the enemy's strength and our weakness, and
the fact that his difficulties are just starting, while our
own progress is far from sufficient--nevertheless many
favourable conditions exist for defeating the enemy; we need
only add our subjective efforts, and we shall be able to
overcome the difficulties and win through to victory. These
are favourable conditions such as never existed before in
any period of our history, and that is why the War of
Resistance Against Japan, unlike the liberation movements of
the past, will not end in failure.
Compromise or Resistance?
Corruption or Progress?
20. It has been fully explained above that the theory of
national subjugation is groundless. But there are many
people who do not subscribe to this theory; they are honest
patriots, who are nevertheless deeply worried about the
present situation. Two things are worrying them, fear of a
compromise with Japan and doubts about the possibility of
political progress. These two vexing questions are being
widely discussed and no key has been found to their
solution. Let us now examine them.
21. As previously explained, the question of compromise
has its social roots, and as long as these roots exist the
question is bound to arise. But compromise will not avail.
To prove the point, again we need only look for
substantiation to Japan, China, and the international
situation. First take Japan. At the very beginning of the
War of Resistance, we estimated that the time would come
when an atmosphere conducive to compromise would arise, in
other words, that after occupying northern China, Kiangsu
and Chekiang, Japan would probably resort to the scheme of
inducing China to capitulate. True enough, she did resort to
the scheme, but the crisis soon passed, one reason being
that the enemy everywhere pursued a barbarous policy and
practiced naked plunder. Had China capitulated, every
Chinese would have become a slave without a country. The
enemy's predatory policy, the policy of subjugating China,
has two aspects, the material and the spiritual, both of
which are being applied universally to all Chinese, not only
to the people of the lower strata but also to members of the
upper strata; of course the latter are treated a little more
politely, but the difference is only one of degree, not of
principle.
In the main the enemy is transplanting into the interior
of China the same old measures he adopted in the three
northeastern provinces. Materially, he is robbing the common
people even of their food and clothing, making them cry out
in hunger and cold; he is plundering the means of
production, thus ruining and enslaving China's national
industries. Spiritually, he is working to destroy the
national consciousness of the Chinese people. Under the flag
of the "Rising Sun" all Chinese are forced to be docile
subjects, beasts of burden forbidden to show the slightest
trace of Chinese national spirit. This barbarous enemy
policy will be carried deeper into the interior of China.
Japan with her voracious appetite is unwilling to stop the
war. As was inevitable, the policy set forth in the Japanese
cabinet's statement of January 16, 1938 [11]
is still being obstinately carried out, which has enraged
all strata of the Chinese people.
This rage is engendered by the reactionary and barbarous
character of Japan's war--"there is no escape from fate",
and hence an absolute hostility has crystallized. It is to
be expected that on some future occasion the enemy will once
again resort to the scheme of inducing China to capitulate
and that certain subjugationists will again crawl out and
most probably collude with certain foreign elements (to be
found in Britain, the United States and France, and
specially among the upper strata in Britain) as partners in
crime. But the general trend of events will not permit
capitulation; the obstinate and peculiarly barbarous
character of Japan's war has decided this aspect of the
question.
22. Second, let us take China. There are three factors
contributing to China's perseverance in the War of
Resistance. In the first place the Communist Party, which is
the reliable force leading the people to resist Japan. Next,
the Kuomintang, which depends on Britain and the United
States and hence will not capitulate to Japan unless they
tell it to. Finally, the other political parties and groups,
most of which oppose compromise and support the War of
Resistance. With unity among these three, whoever
compromises will be standing with the traitors, and anybody
will have the right to punish him. All those unwilling to be
traitors have no choice but to unite and carry on the War of
Resistance to the end; therefore compromise can hardly
succeed.
23. Third, take the international aspect. Except for
Japan's allies and certain elements in the upper strata of
other capitalist countries, the whole world is in favour of
resistance, and not of compromise by China. This factor
reinforces China's hopes. Today the people throughout the
country cherish the hope that international forces will
gradually give China increasing help. It is not a vain hope;
the existence of the Soviet Union in particular encourages
China in her War of Resistance. The socialist Soviet Union,
now strong as never before, has always shared China's joys
and sorrows. In direct contrast to all the members of the
upper strata in the capitalist countries who seek nothing
but profits, the Soviet Union considers it its duty to help
all weak nations and all revolutionary wars. That China is
not fighting her war in isolation has its basis not only in
international support in general but in Soviet support in
particular. China and the Soviet Union are in close
geographical proximity, which aggravates Japan's crisis and
facilitates China's War of Resistance. Geographical
proximity to Japan increases the difficulties of China's
resistance. Proximity to the Soviet Union, on the other
hand, is a favourable condition for the War of Resistance.
24. Hence we may conclude that the danger of compromise
exists but can be overcome. Even if the enemy can modify his
policy to some extent, he cannot alter it fundamentally. In
China the social roots of compromise are present, but the
opponents of compromise are in the majority.
Internationally, also, some forces favour compromise but the
main forces favour resistance. The combination of these
three factors makes it possible to overcome the danger of
compromise and persist to the end in the War of Resistance.
25. Let us now answer the second question. Political
progress at home and perseverance in the War of Resistance
are inseparable. The greater the political progress, the
more we can persevere in the war, and the more we persevere
in the war, the greater the political progress. But,
fundamentally, everything depends on our perseverance in the
War of Resistance. The unhealthy phenomena in various herds
under the Kuomintang regime are very serious, and the
accumulation of these undesirable factors over the years has
caused great anxiety and vexation among the broad ranks of
our patriots. But there is no ground for pessimism, since
experience in the War of Resistance has already proved that
the Chinese people have made as much progress in the last
ten months as in many years in the past.
Although the cumulative effects of long years of
corruption are seriously retarding the growth of the
people's strength to resist Japan, thus reducing the extent
of our victories and causing us losses in the war, yet the
over-all situation in China, in Japan and in the world is
such that the Chinese people cannot but make progress. This
progress will be slow because of the factor of corruption,
which impedes progress. Progress and the slow pace of
progress are two characteristics of the present situation,
and the second ill accords with the urgent needs of the war,
which is a source of great concern to patriots. But we are
in the midst of a revolutionary war, and revolutionary war
is an antitoxin which not only eliminates the enemy's poison
but also purges us of our own filth. Every just,
revolutionary war is endowed with tremendous power, which
can transform many things or clear the way for their
transformation.
The Sino-Japanese war will transform both China and
Japan; provided China perseveres in the War of Resistance
and in the united front, the old Japan will surely be
transformed into a new Japan and the old China into a new
China, and people and everything else in both China and
Japan will be transformed during and after the war. It is
proper for us to regard the anti-Japanese war and our
national reconstruction as interconnected. To say that Japan
can also be transformed is to say that the war of aggression
by her rulers will end in defeat and may lead to a
revolution by the Japanese people. The day of triumph of the
Japanese people's revolution will be the day Japan is
transformed. All this is closely linked with China's War of
Resistance and is a prospect we should take into account.
The Theory of National
Subjugation is Wrong and the Theory of Quick Victory is
Likewise Wrong
26. In our comparative study of the enemy and ourselves
with respect to the basic contradictory characteristics,
such as relative strength, relative size, progress or
reaction, and the relative extent of support, we have
already refuted the theory of national subjugation, and we
have explained why compromise is unlikely and why political
progress is possible. The subjugationists stress the
contradiction between strength and weakness and puff it up
until it becomes the basis of their whole argument on the
question, neglecting all the other contradictions. Their
preoccupation with the contrast in strength shows their
one-sidedness, and their exaggeration of this one side of
the matter into the whole shows their subjectivism. Thus, if
one looks at the matter as a whole, it will be seen that
they have no ground to stand on and are wrong.
As for those
who are neither subjugationists nor confirmed pessimists,
but who are in a pessimistic frame of mind for the moment
simply because they are confused by the disparity between
our strength and that of the enemy at a given time and in
certain respects or by the corruption in the country, we
should point out to them that their approach also tends to
be one-sided and subjective. But in their case correction is
relatively easy; once they are alerted, they will
understand, for they are patriots and their error s only
momentary.
27. The exponents of quick victory are likewise wrong.
Either they completely forget the contradiction between
strength and weakness, remembering only the other
contradictions, or they exaggerate China's advantages beyond
all semblance of reality and beyond recognition, or they
presumptuously take the balance of forces at one time and
place for the whole situation, as in the old saying, "A leaf
before the eye shuts out Mount Tail" In a word, they lack
the courage to admit that the enemy is strong while we are
weak. They often deny this point and consequently deny one
aspect of the truth. Nor do they have the courage to admit
the limitations of our advantages, and thus they deny
another aspect of the truth. The result is that they make
mistakes, big and small, and here again it is subjectivism
and one-sidedness that are doing the mischief. These friends
have their hearts in the right place, and they, too, are
patriots. But while "the gentlemen aspirations are indeed
lofty", their views are wrong, and to act according to them
would certainly be to run into a brick wall. For if
appraisal does not conform to reality, action cannot attain
its objective; and to act notwithstanding would mean the
army's defeat and the nation's subjugation, so that the
result would be the same as with the defeatists. Hence this
theory of quick victory will not do either.
28. Do we deny the danger of national subjugation? No, we
do not. We recognize that China faces two possible
prospects, liberation or subjugation, and that the two are
in violent conflict. Our task is to achieve liberation and
to avert subjugation. The conditions for liberation are
China's progress, which is basic, the enemy's difficulties,
and international support. We differ from the
subjugationists. Taking an objective and all-sided view, we
recognize the two possibilities of national subjugation and
liberation, stress that liberation is the dominant
possibility, point out the conditions for its achievement,
and strive to secure them. The subjugationists, on the other
hand, taking a subjective and one-sided view, recognize only
one possibility, that of subjugation; they do not admit the
possibility of liberation, and still less point out the
conditions necessary for liberation or strive to secure
them. Moreover, while acknowledging the tendency to
compromise and the corruption, we see other tendencies and
phenomena which, we indicate, will gradually prevail and are
already in violent conflict with the former; in addition, we
point out the conditions necessary for the healthy
tendencies and phenomena to prevail, and we strive to
overcome the tendency to compromise and to change the state
of corruption. Therefore, contrary to the pessimists, we are
not at all down-hearted.
29. Not that we would not like a quick victory; everybody
would be in favour of driving the "devils" out overnight.
But we point out that, in the absence of certain definite
conditions, quick victory is something that exists only in
one's mind and not in objective reality, and that it is a
mere illusion, a false theory. Accordingly, having made an
objective and comprehensive appraisal of all the
circumstances concerning both the enemy and ourselves, we
point out that the only way to final victory is the strategy
of protracted war, and we reject the groundless theory of
quick victory. We maintain that we must strive to secure all
the conditions indispensable to final victory, and the more
fully and the earlier these conditions are secured, the
surer we shall be of victory and the earlier we shall win
it. We believe that only in this way can the course of the
war be shortened, and we reject the theory of quick victory,
which is just idle talk and an effort to get things on the
cheap.
Why a Protracted War?
30. Let us now examine the problem of protracted war. A
correct answer to the question "Why a protracted war?" can
be arrived at only on the basis of all the fundamental
contrasts between China and Japan. For instance, if we say
merely that the enemy is a strong imperialist power while we
are a weak semi-colonial and semi-feudal country, we are in
danger of falling into the theory of national subjugation.
For neither in theory nor in practice can a struggle become
protracted by simply pitting the weak against the strong.
Nor can it become protracted by simply pitting the big
against the small, the progressive against the reactionary,
or abundant support against meagre support.
The annexation of a small country by a big one or of a
big country by a small one is a common occurrence. It often
happens that a progressive country which is not strong is
destroyed by a big, reactionary country, and the same holds
for everything that is progressive but not strong. Abundant
or meagre support is an important but a subsidiary factor,
and the degree of its effect depends upon the fundamental
factors on both sides.
Therefore when we say that the War of Resistance Against
Japan is a protracted war, our conclusion is derived from
the interrelations of all the factors at work on both sides.
The enemy is strong and we are weak, and the danger of
subjugation is there. But in other respects the enemy has
shortcomings and we have advantages. The enemy's advantage
can be reduced and his shortcomings aggravated by our
efforts. On the other hand, our advantages can be enhanced
and our shortcoming remedied by our efforts. Hence, we can
win final victory and avert subjugation, while the enemy
will ultimately be defeated and will be unable to avert the
collapse of his whole imperialist system.
31. Since the enemy has advantages only in one respect
but shortcomings in all others and we have shortcomings in
only one respect but advantages in all others, why has this
produced not a balance, but, on the contrary, a superior
position for him and an inferior position for us at the
present time? Quite clearly, we cannot consider the question
in such a formal way. The fact is that the disparity between
the enemy's strength and our own is now so great that the
enemy's shortcomings have not developed, and for the time
being cannot develop, to a degree sufficient to offset his
strength, while our advantages have not developed, and for
the time being cannot develop, to a degree sufficient to
compensate for our weakness. Therefore there can as yet be
no balance, only imbalance.
32. Although our efforts in persevering in the War of
Resistance and the united front have somewhat changed the
enemy's strength and superiority as against our weakness and
inferiority, there has as yet been no basic change. Hence
during a certain stage of the war, to a certain degree the
enemy will be victorious and we shall suffer defeat. But why
is it that in this stage the enemy's victories and our
defeats are definitely restricted in degree and cannot be
transcended by complete victory or complete defeat?
The reason is that, first, from the very beginning the
enemy's strength and our weakness have been relative and not
absolute, and that, second, our efforts in persevering in
the War of Resistance and in the united front have further
accentuated this relativeness. In comparison with the
original situation, the enemy is still strong, but
unfavourable factors have reduced his strength, although not
yet to a degree sufficient to destroy his superiority, and
similarly we are still weak, but favourable factors have
compensated for our weakness, although not yet to a degree
sufficient to transform our inferiority. Thus it turns out
that the enemy is relatively strong and we are relatively
weak, that the enemy is in a relatively superior and we are
in a relatively inferior position. On both sides, strength
and weakness, superiority and inferiority, have never been
absolute, and besides, our efforts in persevering in
resistance to Japan and in the united front during the war
have brought about further changes in the original balance
of forces between us and the enemy. Therefore, in this stage
the enemy's victory and our defeat are definitely restricted
in degree, and hence the war becomes protracted.
33. But circumstances are continually changing. In the
course of the war, provided we employ correct military and
political tactics, make no mistakes of principle and exert
our best efforts, the enemy's disadvantages and China's
advantages will both grow as the war is drawn out, with the
inevitable result that there will be a continual change in
the difference in comparative strength and hence in the
relative position of the two sides. When a new stage
is reached, a great change will take place in the balance of
forces, resulting in the enemies defeat and our victory.
34. At present the enemy can still manage to exploit his
strength, and our War of Resistance has not yet
fundamentally weakened him. The insufficiency in his
manpower and material resources is not yet such as to
prevent his offensive; on the contrary, they can still
sustain his offensive to a certain extent. The reactionary
and barbarous nature of his war, a factor which intensifies
both class antagonisms within Japan and the resistance of
the Chinese nation, has not yet brought about a situation
which radically impedes his advance.
The enemy's international isolation is increasing but is
not yet complete. In many countries which have indicated
they will help us, the capitalists dealing in munitions and
war materials and bent solely on profit are still furnishing
Japan with large quantities of war supplies, [12]
and their governments [13] are
still reluctant to join the Soviet Union in practical
sanctions against Japan. From all this it follows that our
War of Resistance cannot be won quickly and can only be a
protracted war.
As for China, although there has been some improvement
with regard to her weakness in the military, economic,
political and cultural spheres in the ten months of
resistance, it is still a long way from what is required to
prevent the enemy's offensive and prepare our
counteroffensive. Moreover, quantitatively speaking, we have
had to sustain certain losses. Although all the factors
favourable to us are having a positive effect, it will not
be sufficient to halt the enemy's offensive and to prepare
for our counter-offensive unless we make an immense effort.
Neither the abolition of corruption and the acceleration of
progress at home, nor the curbing of the pro-Japanese forces
and the expansion of the anti-Japanese forces abroad, are
yet accomplished facts. From all this it follows that our
war cannot be won quickly but can only be a protracted war.
The Three Stages of the
Protracted War
35. Since the Sino-Japanese war is a protracted one and
final victory will belong to China, it can reasonably be
assumed that this protracted war will pass through three
stages. The first stage covers the period of the enemy's
strategic offensive and our strategic defensive. The second
stage will be the period of the enemy's strategic
consolidation and our preparation for the counter-offensive.
The third stage will be the period of our strategic
counter-offensive and the enemy's strategic retreat.
It is impossible to predict the concrete situation in the
three stages, but certain main trends in the war may be
pointed out in the light of present conditions. The
objective course of events will be exceedingly rich and
varied, with many twists and turns, and nobody can cast a
horoscope for the Sino-Japanese war; nevertheless it is
necessary for the strategic direction of the war to make a
rough sketch of its trends. Although our sketch may not be
in full accord with the subsequent facts and will be amended
by them, it is still necessary to make it in order to give
firm and purposeful strategic direction to the protracted
war.
36. The first stage has not yet ended. The enemy's design
is to occupy Canton, Wuhan and Lanchow and link up these
three points. To accomplish this aim the enemy will have to
use at least fifty divisions, or about one and a half
million men, spend from one and a half to two years, and
expend more than ten thousand million yen. In penetrating so
deeply, he will encounter immense difficulties, with
consequences disastrous beyond imagination.
As for attempting to occupy the entire length of the
Canton-Hankow Railway and the Sian-Lanchow Railway, he will
have to fight perilous battles and even so may not fully
accomplish his design. But in drawing up our operational
plan we should base ourselves on the assumption that the
enemy may occupy the three points and even certain
additional areas, as well as link them up, and we should
make dispositions for a protracted war, so that even if he
does so, we shall be able to cope with him. In this stage
the form of fighting we should adopt is primarily mobile
warfare, supplemented by guerrilla and positional warfare.
Through the subjective errors of the Kuomintang military
authorities, positional warfare was assigned the primary
role in the first phase of this stage, but it is
nevertheless supplementary from the point of view of the
stage as a whole. In this stage, China has already built up
a broad united front and achieved unprecedented unity.
Although the enemy has used and will continue to use base
and shameless means to induce China to capitulate in the
attempt to realize his plan for a quick decision and to
conquer the whole country without much effort, he has failed
so far, nor is he likely to succeed in the future. In this
stage, in spite of considerable losses, China will make
considerable progress, which will become the main basis for
her continued resistance in the second stage. In the present
stage the Soviet Union has already given substantial aid to
China.
On the enemy side, there are already signs of flagging
morale, and his army's momentum of attack is less in the
middle phase of this stage than it was in the initial phase,
and it will diminish still further in the concluding phase.
Signs of exhaustion are beginning to appear in his finances
and economy; war-weariness is beginning to set in among his
people and troops and within the clique at the helm of the
war, "war frustrations" are beginning to manifest themselves
and pessimism about the prospects of the war is growing.
37. The second stage may be termed one of strategic
stalemate. At the tail end of the first stage, the enemy
will be forced to fix certain terminal points to his
strategic offensive owing to his shortage of troops and our
firm resistance, and upon reaching them he will stop his
strategic offensive and enter the stage of safeguarding his
occupied areas. In the second stage, the enemy will attempt
to safeguard the occupied areas and to make them his own by
the fraudulent method of setting up puppet governments,
while plundering the Chinese people to the limit; but again
he will be confronted with stubborn guerrilla warfare.
Taking advantage of the fact that the enemy's rear is
unguarded, our guerrilla warfare will develop extensively in
the first stage, and many base areas will be established,
seriously threatening the enemy's consolidation of the
occupied areas, and so in the second stage there will still
be widespread fighting. In this stage, our form of fighting
will be primarily guerrilla warfare, supplemented by mobile
warfare.
China will still retain a large regular army, but she
will find it difficult to launch the strategic
counter-offensive immediately because, on the one hand, the
enemy will adopt a strategically defensive position in the
big cities and along the main lines of communication under
his occupation and, on the other hand, China will not yet be
adequately equipped technically. Except for the troops
engaged in frontal defence against the enemy, our forces
will be switched in large numbers to the enemy's rear in
comparatively dispersed dispositions, and, basing themselves
on all the areas not actually occupied by the enemy and
co-ordinating with the people's local armed forces, they
will launch extensive, fierce guerrilla warfare against
enemy-occupied areas, keeping the enemy on the move as far
as possible in order to destroy him in mobile warfare, as is
now being done in Shansi Province. The fighting in the
second stage will be ruthless, and the country will suffer
serious devastation.
But the guerrilla warfare will be successful, and if it
is well conducted the enemy may be able to retain only about
one-third of his occupied territory, with the remaining
two-thirds in our hands, and this will constitute a great
defeat for the enemy and a great victory for China. By then
the enemy-occupied territory as a whole will fall into three
categories: first, the enemy base areas; second, our base
areas for guerrilla warfare; and, third, the guerrilla areas
contested by both sides. The duration of this stage will
depend on the degree of change in the balance of forces
between us and the enemy and on the changes in the
international situation; generally speaking, we should be
prepared to see this stage last a comparatively long time
and to weather its hardships. It will be a very painful
period for China; the two big problems will be economic
difficulties and the disruptive activities of the traitors.
The enemy will go all out to wreck China's united front,
and the traitor organizations in all the occupied areas will
merge into a so-called "unified government". Owing to the
loss of big cities and the hardships of war, vacillating
elements within our ranks will clamour for compromise, and
pessimism will grow to a serious extent. Our tasks will then
be to mobilize the whole people to unite as one man and
carry on the war with unflinching perseverance, to broaden
and consolidate the united front, sweep away all pessimism
and ideas of compromise, promote the will to hard struggle
and apply new wartime policies, and so to weather the
hardships. In the second stage, we will have to call upon
the whole country resolutely to maintain a united
government, we will have to oppose splits and systematically
improve fighting techniques, reform the armed forces,
mobilize the entire people and prepare for the
counter-offensive.
The international situation will become still more
unfavourable to Japan and the main international forces will
incline towards giving more help to China, even though there
may be talk of "realism" of the Chamberlain type which
accommodates itself to faits accomplis. Japan's
threat to Southeast Asia and Siberia will become greater,
and there may even be another war. As regards Japan, scores
of her divisions will be inextricably bogged down in China.
Widespread guerrilla warfare and the people's anti-Japanese
movement will wear down this big Japanese force, greatly
reducing it and also disintegrating its morale by
stimulating the growth of homesickness, war-weariness and
even anti-war sentiment.
Though it would be wrong to say that Japan will achieve
no results at all in her plunder of China, yet, being short
of capital and harassed by guerrilla warfare, she cannot
possibly achieve rapid or substantial results. This second
stage will be the transitional stage of the entire war; it
will be the most trying period but also the pivotal one.
Whether China becomes an independent country or is reduced
to a colony will be determined not by the retention or loss
of the big cities in the first stage but by the extent to
which the whole nation exerts itself in the second. If we
can persevere in the War of Resistance, in the united front
and in the protracted war, China will in that stage gain the
power to change from weakness to strength. It will be the
second act in the three-act drama of China's War of
Resistance. And through the efforts of the entire cast it
will become possible to perform a most brilliant last act.
38. The third stage will be the stage of the
counter-offensive to recover our lost territories. Their
recovery will depend mainly upon the strength which China
has built up in the preceding stage and which will continue
to grow in the third stage. But China's strength alone will
not be sufficient, and we shall also have to rely on the
support of international forces and on the changes that will
take place inside Japan, or otherwise we shall not be able
to win; this adds to China's tasks in international
propaganda and diplomacy. In the third stage, our war will
no longer be one of strategic defensive, but will turn into
a strategic counter-offensive manifesting itself in
strategic offensives; and it will no longer be fought on
strategically interior lines, but will shift gradually to
strategically exterior lines.
Not until we fight our way to the Yalu River can this war
be considered over. The third stage will be the last in the
protracted war, and when we talk of persevering in the war
to the end, we mean going all the way through this
stage. Our primary form of fighting will still be mobile
warfare, but positional warfare will rise to importance.
While positional defence cannot be regarded as important in
the first stage because of the prevailing circumstances,
positional attack will become quite important in the third
stage because of the changed conditions and the requirements
of the task. In the third stage guerrilla warfare will again
provide strategic support by supplementing mobile and
positional warfare, but it will not be the primary form as
in the second stage.
39. It is thus obvious that the war is protracted and
consequently ruthless in nature. The enemy will not be able
to gobble up the whole of China but will be able to occupy
many places for a considerable time. China will not be able
to oust the Japanese quickly, but the greater part of her
territory will remain in her hands. Ultimately the enemy
will lose and we will win, but we shall have a hard stretch
of road to travel.
40. The Chinese people will become tempered in the course
of this long and ruthless war. The political parties taking
part in the war will also be steeled and tested. The united
front must be persevered in; only by persevering in the
united front can we persevere in the war; and only by
persevering in the united front and in the war can we win
final victory. Only thus can all difficulties be overcome.
After travelling the hard stretch of road we shall reach the
highway to victory. This is the natural logic of the war.
41. In the three stages the changes in relative strength
will proceed along the following lines. In the first stage,
the enemy is superior and we are inferior in strength. With
regard to our inferiority we must reckon on changes of two
different kinds from the eve of the War of Resistance to the
end of this stage. The first kind is a change for the worse.
China's original inferiority will be aggravated by war
losses, namely, decreases in territory, population, economic
strength, military strength and cultural institutions.
Towards the end of the first stage, the decrease will
probably be considerable, especially on the economic side.
This point will be exploited by some people as a basis for
their theories of national subjugation and of compromise.
But the second kind of change, the change for the better,
must also be noted. It includes the experience gained in the
war, the progress made by the armed forces, the political
progress, the mobilization of the people, the development of
culture in a new direction, the emergence of guerrilla
warfare, the increase in international support, etc. What is
on the downgrade in the first stage is the old quantity and
the old quality, the manifestations being mainly
quantitative. What is on the upgrade is the new quantity and
the new quality, the manifestations being mainly
qualitative. It is the second kind of change that provides a
basis for our ability to fight a protracted war and win
final victory.
42. In the first stage, changes of two kinds are also
occurring on the enemies side. The first kind is a change
for the worse and manifests itself in hundreds of thousands
of casualties, the drain on arms and ammunition,
deterioration of troop morale, popular discontent at home,
shrinkage of trade, the expenditure of over ten thousand
million yen, condemnation by world opinion, etc. This trend
also provides a basis for our ability to fight a protracted
war and win final victory. But we must likewise reckon with
the second kind of change on the enemy's side, a change for
the better, that is, his expansion in territory, population
and resources. This too is a basis for the protracted nature
of our War of Resistance and the impossibility of quick
victory, but at the same time certain people will use it as
a basis for their theories of national subjugation and of
compromise. However, we must take into account the
transitory and partial character of this change for the
better on the enemy's side. Japan is an imperialist power
heading for collapse, and her occupation of China's
territory is temporary. The vigorous growth of guerrilla
warfare in China will restrict her actual occupation to
narrow zones. Moreover, her occupation of Chinese territory
has created and intensified contradictions between Japan and
other foreign countries. Besides, generally speaking, such
occupation involves a considerable period in which Japan
will make capital outlays without drawing any profits, as is
shown by the experience in the three northeastern provinces.
All of which again gives us a basis for demolishing the
theories of national subjugation and of compromise and for
establishing the theories of protracted war and of final
victory.
43. In the second stage, the above changes on both sides
will continue to develop. While the situation cannot be
predicted in detail, on the whole Japan will continue on the
downgrade and China on the upgrade.[14]
For example, Japan's military and financial resources will
be seriously drained by China's guerrilla warfare, popular
discontent will grow in Japan, the morale of her troops will
deteriorate further, and she will become more isolated
internationally. As for China, she will make further
progress in the political, military and cultural spheres and
in the mobilization of the people; guerrilla warfare will
develop further; there will be some new economic growth on
the basis of the small industries and the widespread
agriculture in the interior; international support will
gradually increase; and the whole picture will be quite
different from what it is now. This second stage may last
quite a long time, during which there will be a great
reversal in the balance of forces, with China gradually
rising and Japan gradually declining. China will emerge from
her inferior position, and Japan will lose her superior
position; first the two countries will become evenly
matched, and then their relative positions will be reversed.
Thereupon, China will in general have completed her
preparations for the strategic counter-offensive and will
enter the stage of the counter-offensive and the expulsion
of the enemy. It should be reiterated that the change from
inferiority to superiority and the completion of
preparations for the counter-offensive will involve three
things, namely, an increase in China's own strength, an
increase in Japan's difficulties, and an increase in
international support; it is the combination of all these
forces that will bring about China's superiority and the
completion of her preparations for the counter-offensive.
44. Because of the unevenness in China's political and
economic development, the strategic counter-offensive of the
third stage will not present a uniform and even picture
throughout the country in its initial phase but will be
regional in character, rising here and subsiding there.
During this stage, the enemy will not relax his divisive
tricks to break China's united front, hence the task of
maintaining internal unity in China will become still more
important, and we shall have to ensure that the strategic
counter-offensive does not collapse halfway through internal
dissension. In this period the international situation will
become very favourable to China. China's task will be to
take advantage of it in order to attain complete liberation
and establish an independent democratic state, which at the
same time will mean helping the world anti-fascist movement.
45. China moving from inferiority to parity and then to
superiority, Japan moving from superiority to parity and
then to inferiority; China moving from the defensive to
stalemate and then to the counter-offensive, Japan moving
from the offensive to the safeguarding of her gains and then
to retreat--such will be the course of the Sino-Japanese war
and its inevitable trend.
46. Hence the questions and the conclusions are as
follows: Will China be subjugated? The answer is, No, she
will not be subjugated, but will win final victory. Can
China win quickly? The answer is, No, she cannot win
quickly, and the war must be a protracted one. Are these
conclusions correct? I think they are.
47. At this point, the exponents of national subjugation
and of compromise will again rush in and say, "To move from
inferiority to parity China needs a military and economic
power equal to Japan's, and to move from parity to
superiority she will need a military and economic power
greater than Japan's. But this is impossible, hence the
above conclusions are not correct."
48. This is the so-called theory that "weapons decide
everything",[15] which
constitutes a mechanical approach to the question of war and
a subjective and one-sided view. Our view is opposed to
this; we see not only weapons but also people. Weapons are
an important factor in war, but not the decisive factor; it
is people, not things, that are decisive. The contest of
strength is not only a contest of military and economic
power, but also a contest of human power and morale.
Military and economic power is necessarily wielded by
people. If the great majority of the Chinese, of the
Japanese and of the people of other countries are on the
side of our War of Resistance Against Japan, how can Japan's
military and economic power, wielded as it is by a small
minority through coercion, count as superiority? And if not,
then does not China, though wielding relatively inferior
military and economic power, become the superior?
There is no doubt that China will gradually grow in
military and economic power, provided she perseveres in the
War of Resistance and in the united front. As for our enemy,
weakened as he will be by the long war and by internal and
external contradictions, his military and economic power is
bound to change in the reverse direction. In these
circumstances, is there any reason why China cannot become
the superior? And that is not all. Although we cannot as yet
count the military and economic power of other countries as
being openly and to any great extent on our side, is there
any reason why we will not be able to do so in the future?
If Japan's enemy is not just China, if in future one or more
other countries make open use of their considerable military
and economic power defensively or offensively against Japan
and openly help us, then will not our superiority be still
greater? Japan is a small country, her war is reactionary
and barbarous, and she will become more and more isolated
internationally; China is a large country, her war is
progressive and just, and she will enjoy more and more
support internationally. Is there any reason why the
long-term development of these factors should not definitely
change the relative position between the enemy and
ourselves?
49. The exponents of quick victory, however, do not
realize that war is a contest of strength, and that before a
certain change has taken place in the relative strength of
the belligerents, there is no basis for trying to fight
strategically decisive battles and shorten the road to
liberation. Were their ideas to be put into practice, we
should inevitably run our heads into a brick wall. Or
perhaps they are just talking for their own pleasure without
really intending to put their ideas into practice. In the
end Mr. Reality will come and pour a bucket of cold water
over these chatterers, showing them up as mere windbags who
want to get things on the cheap, to have gains without
pains. We have had this kind of idle chatter before and we
have it now, though not very much so far; but there may be
more as the war develops into the stage of stalemate and
then of counter-offensive. But in the meantime, if China's
losses in the first stage are fairly heavy and the second
stage drags on very long, the theories of national
subjugation and of compromise will gain great currency.
Therefore, our fire should be directed mainly against them
and only secondarily against the idle chatter about quick
victory.
50. That the war will be protracted is certain, but
nobody can predict exactly how many months or years it will
last, as this depends entirely upon the degree of the change
in the balance of forces. All those who wish to shorten the
war have no alternative but to work hard to increase our own
strength and reduce that of the enemy. Specifically, the
only way is to strive to win more battles and wear down the
enemy's forces, develop guerrilla warfare to reduce
enemy-occupied territory to a minimum, consolidate and
expand the united front to rally the forces of the whole
nation, build up new armies and develop new war industries,
promote political, economic and cultural progress, mobilize
the workers, peasants, businessmen, intellectuals and other
sections of the people, disintegrate the enemy forces and
win over their soldiers, carry on international propaganda
to secure foreign support, and win the support of the
Japanese people and other oppressed peoples. Only by doing
all this can we reduce the duration of the war. There is no
magic short-cut.
A War of Jig Saw Pattern
51. We can say with certainty that the protracted War of
Resistance Against Japan will write a splendid page unique
in the war history of mankind. One of the special features
of this war is the interlocking "jig-saw" pattern which
arises from such contradictory factors as the barbarity of
Japan and her shortage of troops on the one hand, and the
progressiveness of China and the extensiveness of her
territory on the other. There have been other wars of
jig-saw pattern in history, the three years' civil war in
Russia after the October Revolution being a case in point.
But what distinguishes this war in China is its especially
protracted and extensive character, which will set a record
in history. Its jig-saw pattern manifests itself as follows.
52. Interior and exterior lines. The
anti-Japanese war as a whole is being fought on interior
lines; but as far as the relation between the main forces
and the guerrilla units is concerned, the former are on the
interior lines while the latter are on the exterior lines,
presenting a remarkable spectacle of pincers around the
enemy. The same can be said of the relationship between the
various guerrilla areas. From its own viewpoint each
guerrilla area is on interior lines and the other areas are
on exterior lines; together they form many battle fronts,
which hold the enemy in pincers. In the first stage of the
war, the regular army operating strategically on interior
lines is withdrawing but the guerrilla units operating
strategically on exterior lines will advance with great
strides over wide areas to the rear of the enemy-- they will
advance even more fiercely in the second stage--thereby
presenting a remarkable picture of both withdrawal and
advance.
53. Possession and non-possession of a rear area.
The main forces, which extend the front lines to the
outer limits of the enemy's occupied areas, are operating
from the rear area of the country as a whole. The guerrilla
units, which extend the battle lines into the enemy rear,
are separated from the rear area of the country as a whole.
But each guerrilla area has a small rear of its own, upon
which it relies to establish its fluid battle lines. The
case is different with the guerrilla detachments which are
dispatched by a guerrilla area for short-term operations in
the rear of the enemy in the same area; such detachments
have no rear, nor do they have a battle line. "Operating
without a rear area" is a special feature of revolutionary
war in the new era, wherever a vast territory, a progressive
people, and an advanced political party and army are to be
found; there is nothing to fear but much to gain from it,
and far from having doubts about it we should promote it.
54. Encirclement and counter-encirclement. Taking the war as a whole, there is no doubt that we are
strategically encircled by the enemy because he is on the
strategic offensive and operating on exterior lines while we
are on the strategic defensive and operating on interior
lines. This is the first form of enemy encirclement. We on
our part can encircle one or more of the enemy columns
advancing on us along separate routes, because we apply the
policy of fighting campaigns and battles from tactically
exterior lines by using numerically preponderant forces
against these enemy columns advancing on us from
strategically exterior lines. This is the first form of our
counter-encirclement of the enemy.
Next, if we consider the guerrilla base areas in the
enemy's rear, each area taken singly is surrounded by the
enemy on all sides, like the Wutai Mountains, or on three
sides, like the northwestern Shansi area. This is the second
form of enemy encirclement. However, if one considers all
the guerrilla base areas together and in their relation to
the positions of the regular forces, one can see that we in
turn surround a great many enemy forces. In Shansi Province,
for instance, we have surrounded the Tatung-puchow Railway
on three sides (the east and west flanks and the southern
end) and the city of Taiyuan on all sides; and there are
many similar instances in Hopei and Shantung Provinces. This
is the second form of our counter-encirclement of the enemy.
Thus there are two forms of encirclement by the enemy
forces and two forms of encirclement by our own--rather like
a game of weichi. [16]
Campaigns and battles fought by the two sides
resemble the capturing of each other's pieces, and the
establishment of enemy strongholds (such as Talyuan) and our
guerrilla base areas (such as the Wutai Mountains) resembles
moves to dominate spaces on the board. If the game of weichi is
extended to include the world, there is yet a
third form of encirclement as between us and the enemy,
namely, the interrelation between the front of aggression
and the front of peace. The enemy encircles China, the
Soviet Union, France and Czechoslovakia with his front of
aggression, while we counter-encircle Germany, Japan and
Italy with our front of peace. But our encirclement, like
the hand of Buddha, will turn into the Mountain of Five
Elements lying athwart the Universe, and the modern Sun Wu-kungs
[17]--the fascist aggressors--will
finally be buried underneath it, never to rise again.
Therefore, if on the international plane we can create an
anti-Japanese front in the Pacific region, with China as one
strategic unit, with the Soviet Union and other countries
which may join it as other strategic units, and with the
Japanese people's movement as still another strategic unit,
and thus form a gigantic net from which the fascist Sun Wu-kungs
can find no escape, then that will be our enemy's day of
doom. Indeed, the day when this gigantic net is formed will
undoubtedly be the day of the complete overthrow of Japanese
imperialism. We are not jesting; this is the inevitable
trend of the war.
55. Big areas and little areas. There is a
possibility that the enemy will occupy the greater part of
Chinese territory south of the Great Wall, and only the
smaller part will be kept intact. That is one aspect of the
situation. But within this greater part, which does not
include the three northeastern provinces, the enemy can
actually hold only the big cities, the main lines of
communication and some of the plains--which may rank first
in importance, but will probably constitute only the smaller
part of the occupied territory in size and population, while
the greater part will be taken up by the guerrilla areas
that will grow up everywhere. That is another aspect of the
situation.
If we go beyond the provinces south of the Great
Wall and include Mongolia, Sinkiang, Chinghai and Tibet,
then the unoccupied area will constitute the greater part of
China's territory, and the enemy-occupied area will become
the smaller part, even with the three northeastern
provinces. That is yet another aspect of the situation. The
area kept intact is undoubtedly important, and we should
devote great efforts to developing it, not only politically,
militarily and economically but, what is also important,
culturally. The enemy has transformed our former cultural
centres into culturally backward areas, and we on our part
must transform the former culturally backward areas into
cultural centres. At the same time, the work of developing
extensive guerrilla areas behind the enemy lines is also
extremely important, and we should attend to every aspect of
this work, including the cultural. All in all, big pieces of
China's territory, namely, the rural areas, will be
transformed into regions of progress and light, while the
small pieces, namely, the enemy-occupied areas and
especially the big cities, will temporarily become regions
of backwardness and darkness.
56. Thus it can be seen that the protracted and far-flung
War of Resistance Against Japan is a war of a jig-saw
pattern militarily, politically, economically and
culturally. It is a marvellous spectacle in the annals of
war, a heroic undertaking by the Chinese nation, a
magnificent and earth-shaking feat. This war will not only
affect China and Japan, strongly impelling both to advance,
but will also affect the whole world, impelling all nations,
especially the oppressed nations such as India, to march
forward. Every Chinese should consciously throw himself into
this war of a jig-saw pattern, for this is the form of war
by which the Chinese nation is liberating itself, the
special form of war of liberation waged by a big
semi-colonial country in the Nineteen Thirties and the
Nineteen Forties.
Fighting for Perpetual
Peace
57. The protracted nature of China's anti-Japanese war is
inseparably connected with the fight for perpetual peace in
China and the whole world. Never has there been a historical
period such as the present in which war is so close to
perpetual peace. For several thousand years since the
emergence of classes, the life of mankind has been full of
wars; each nation has fought countless wars, either
internally or with other nations. In the imperialist epoch
of capitalist society, wars are waged on a particularly
extensive scale and with a peculiar ruthlessness. The first
great imperialist war of twenty years ago was the first of
its kind in history, but not the last. Only the war which
has now begun comes close to being the final war, that is,
comes close to the perpetual peace of mankind. By now
one-third of the world's population has entered the war.
Look ! Italy, then Japan; Abyssinia, then Spain, then China.
The population of the countries at war now amounts to almost
600 million, or nearly a third of the total population of
the world.
The characteristics of the present war are its
uninterruptedness and its proximity to perpetual peace. Why
is it uninterrupted? After attacking Abyssinia, Italy
attacked Spain, and Germany joined in; then Japan attacked
China. What will come next? Undoubtedly Hitler will fight
the great powers. "Fascism is war" [18]--this
is perfectly true. There will be no interruption in the
development of the present war into a world war; mankind
will not be able to avoid the calamity of war. Why then do
we say the present war is near to perpetual peace? The
present war is the result of the development of the general
crisis of world capitalism which began with World War I;
this general crisis is driving the capitalist countries into
a new war and, above all, driving the fascist countries into
new war adventures. This war, we can foresee, will not save
capitalism, but will hasten its collapse. It will be greater
in scale and more ruthless than the war of twenty years ago,
all nations will inevitably be drawn in, it will drag on for
a very long time, and mankind will suffer greatly.
But, owing to the existence of the Soviet Union and the
growing political consciousness of the people of the world,
great revolutionary wars will undoubtedly emerge from this
war to oppose all counter-revolutionary wars, thus giving
this war the character of a struggle for perpetual peace.
Even if later there should be another period of war,
perpetual world peace will not be far off. Once man has
eliminated capitalism, he will attain the era of perpetual
peace, and there will be no more need for war. Neither
armies, nor warships, nor military aircraft, nor poison gas
will then be needed. Thereafter and for all time, mankind
will never again know war. The revolutionary wars which have
already begun are part of the war for perpetual peace. The
war between China and Japan, two countries which have a
combined population of over 500 million, will take an
important place in this war for perpetual peace, and out of
it will come the liberation of the Chinese nation. The
liberated new China of the future will be inseparable from
the liberated new world of the future. Hence our War of
Resistance Against Japan takes on the character of a
struggle for perpetual peace.
58. History shows that wars are divided into two kinds,
just and unjust. All wars that are progressive are just, and
all wars that impede progress are unjust. We Communists
oppose all unjust wars that impede progress, but we do not
oppose progressive, just wars. Not only do we Communists not
oppose just wars, we actively participate in them. As for
unjust wars, World War I is an instance in which both sides
fought for imperialist interests; therefore the Communists
of the whole world firmly opposed that war. The way to
oppose a war of this kind is to do everything possible to
prevent it before it breaks out and, once it breaks out, to
oppose war with war, to oppose unjust war with just war,
whenever possible. Japan's war is an unjust war that impedes
progress, and the peoples of the world, including the
Japanese people, should oppose it and are opposing it.
In our country the people and the government, the
Communist Party and the Kuomintang, have all raised the
banner of righteousness in the national revolutionary war
against aggression. Our war is sacred and just, it is
progressive and its aim is peace. The aim is peace not just
in one country but throughout the world, not just temporary
but perpetual peace. To achieve this aim we must wage a
life-and-death struggle, be prepared for any sacrifice,
persevere to the end and never stop short of the goal.
However great the sacrifice and however long the time needed
to attain it, a new world of perpetual peace and brightness
already lies clearly before us. Our faith in waging this war
is based upon the new China and the new world of perpetual
peace and brightness for which we are striving. Fascism and
imperialism wish to perpetuate war, but we wish to put an
end to it in the not too distant future.
The great majority of mankind should exert their
utmost efforts for this purpose. The 450 million people of
China constitute one quarter of the world's population, and
if by their concerted efforts they overthrow Japanese
imperialism and create a new China of freedom and equality,
they will most certainly be making a tremendous contribution
to the struggle for perpetual world peace. This is no vain
hope, for the whole world is approaching this point in the
course of its social and economic development, and provided
that the majority of mankind work together, our goal will
surely be attained in several decades.
Man's Dynamic Role in
War
59.We have so far explained why the war is a protracted
war and why the final victory will be China's, and in the
main dealt with what protracted war is and what it is not.
Now we shall turn to the question of what to do and what not
to do. How to conduct protracted war and how to win the
final victory? These are the questions answered below. We
shall therefore successively discuss the following problems:
man's dynamic role in war, war and politics, political
mobilization for the War of Resistance, the object of war,
offence within defence, quick decisions within a protracted
war, exterior lines within interior lines, initiative,
flexibility, planning, mobile warfare, guerrilla warfare,
positional warfare, war of annihilation, war of attrition,
the possibilities of exploiting the enemy's mistakes, the
question of decisive engagements in the anti-Japanese war,
and the army and the people as the foundation of victory.
Let us start with the problem of man's dynamic role.
60. When we say we are opposed to a subjective approach
to problems, we mean that we must oppose ideas which are not
based upon or do not correspond to objective facts, because
such ideas are fanciful and fallacious and will lead to
failure if acted on. But whatever is done has to be done by
human beings; protracted war and final victory will not come
about without human action. For such action to be effective
there must be people who derive ideas, principles or views
from the objective facts, and put forward plans, directives,
policies, strategies and tactics. Ideas, etc. are
subjective, while deeds or actions are the subjective
translated into the objective, but both represent the
dynamic role peculiar to human beings. We term this kind of
dynamic role "man's conscious dynamic role", and it is a
characteristic that distinguishes man from all other beings.
All ideas based upon and corresponding to objective facts
are correct ideas, and all deeds or actions based upon
correct ideas are correct actions. We must give full scope
to these ideas and actions, to this dynamic role. The
anti-Japanese war is being waged to drive out imperialism
and transform the old China into a new China; this can be
achieved only when the whole Chinese people are mobilized
and full scope is given to their conscious dynamic role in
resisting Japan. If we just sit by and take no action, only
subjugation awaits us and there will be neither protracted
war nor final victory.
61. It is a human characteristic to exercise a conscious
dynamic role. Man strongly displays this characteristic in
war. True, victory or defeat in war is decided by the
military, political, economic and geographical conditions on
both sides, the nature of the war each side is waging and
the international support each enjoys, but it is not decided
by these alone; in themselves, all these provide only the
possibility of victory or defeat but do not decide the
issue. To decide the issue, subjective effort must be added,
namely, the directing and waging of war, man's conscious
dynamic role in war.
62. In seeking victory, those who direct a war cannot
overstep the limitations imposed by the objective
conditions; within these limitations, however, they can and
must play a dynamic role in striving for victory. The stage
of action for commanders in a war must be built upon
objective possibilities, but on that stage they can direct
the performance of many a drama, full of sound and colour,
power and grandeur. Given the objective material
foundations, the commanders in the anti-Japanese war should
display their prowess and marshal all their forces to crush
the national enemy, transform the present situation in which
our country and society are suffering from aggression and
oppression, and create a new China of freedom and equality;
here is where our subjective faculties for directing war can
and must be exercised. We do not want any of our commanders
in the war to detach himself from the objective conditions
and become a blundering hothead, but we decidedly want every
commander to become a general who is both bold and
sagacious. Our commanders should have not only the boldness
to overwhelm the enemy but also the ability to remain
masters of the situation throughout the changes and
vicissitudes of the entire war. Swimming in the ocean of
war, they must not flounder but make sure of reaching the
opposite shore with measured strokes. Strategy and tactics,
as the laws for directing war, constitute the art of
swimming in the ocean of war.
War and Politics
63. "War is the continuation of politics." In this sense
war is politics and war itself is a political action; since
ancient times there has never been a war that did not have a
political character. The anti-Japanese war is a
revolutionary war waged by the whole nation, and victory is
inseparable from the political aim of the war--to drive out
Japanese imperialism and build a new China of freedom and
equality--inseparable from the general policy of persevering
in the War of Resistance and in the united front, from the
mobilization of the entire people, and from the political
principles of the unity between officers and men, the unity
between army and people and the disintegration of the enemy
forces, and inseparable from the effective application of
united front policy, from mobilization on the cultural
front, and from the efforts to win international support and
the support of the people inside Japan. In a word, war
cannot for a single moment be separated from politics. Any
tendency among the anti-Japanese armed forces to belittle
politics by isolating war from it and advocating the idea of
war as an absolute is wrong and should be corrected.
64. But war has its own particular characteristics and in
this sense it cannot be equated with politics in general.
"War is the continuation of politics by other . . .
means." [19] When politics
develops to a certain stage beyond which it cannot proceed
by the usual means, war breaks out to sweep the obstacles
from the way. For instance, the semi-independent status of
China is an obstacle to the political growth of Japanese
imperialism, hence Japan has unleashed a war of aggression
to sweep away that obstacle. What about China? Imperialist
oppression has long been an obstacle to China's
bourgeois-democratic revolution, hence many wars of
liberation have been waged in the effort to sweep it away.
Japan is now using war for the purpose of oppressing China
and completely blocking the advance of the Chinese
revolution, and therefore China is compelled to wage the War
of Resistance in her determination to sweep away this
obstacle. When the obstacle is removed, our political aim
will be attained and the war concluded. But if the obstacle
is not completely swept away, the war will have to continue
till the aim is fully accomp
"...
The enemy is strong and we are weak, and the danger of
subjugation is there. But in other respects the enemy has
shortcomings and we have advantages.... China's war is
progressive, hence its just character. Because it is a just
war, it is capable of arousing the nation to unity... Not that we would
not like a quick victory; everybody would be in favour of
driving the "devils" out overnight. But we point out that,
in the absence of certain definite conditions, quick victory
is something that exists only in one's mind and not in
objective reality, and that it is a mere illusion, a false
theory. Accordingly, having made an objective and
comprehensive appraisal of all the circumstances concerning
both the enemy and ourselves, we point out that the only way
to final victory is the strategy of protracted war, and we
reject the groundless theory of quick victory. We maintain
that we must strive to secure all the conditions
indispensable to final victory, and the more fully and the
earlier these conditions are secured, the surer we shall be
of victory and the earlier we shall win it. We believe that
only in this way can the course of the war be shortened, and
we reject the theory of quick victory, which is just idle
talk and an effort to get things on the cheap. ..."