893.00/7–2944
The Ambassador in China (Gauss) to the Secretary of State
[Received August 21.]
Sir: I have the honor to refer to the Embassy’s despatch no. 2750, dated July 6, 1944, and to enclose a memorandum dated July 28, 194416 of a conversation between a secretary in the Chungking headquarters of the Chinese Communist Party and a member of the staff of the Embassy on the organization of that Party in China.
Summary of Memorandum. There are approximately 900,000 members of the Communist Party in all China, a figure which compares favorably with that of 2,000,000 for the Kuomintang Party when the risk of belonging to the one and the social pressure for membership in the other is considered. The roots of the Party are its “cells” in schools, factories, and farming communities, usually numbering about twenty persons, and run by the “Cell Committee” appointed by the “District Committee”, in turn appointed by the “Provincial Committee”. The latter are appointed by the Central Committee of the Party at Yenan, the membership of which was last elected at a meeting of the Chinese Communist Party in Moscow in 1929.
The cells are self-supporting, secret, and have no direct contact with each other. No knowledge of the theories of Karl Marx is required for membership; it is only necessary that the applicant should sympathize [Page 489] with the general aims of the Party and that he be willing to obey Party leadership.
The informant would appear to be well placed to know of what he was speaking, and to have been frank in his statements. If his description is accurate, the Chinese Communist Party would appear to retain an organization set up along the structural lines of the original (Russian) Party, but to be seeking much less radical objectives. End of Summary.
Respectfully yours,
- Latter not printed.↩