Foreign Relations of the United States, 1946, The Far East: China, Volume IX

Marshall Mission Files, Lot 54–D270

Draft of New China News Agency

Manifesto of the Central Executive Committee of the Chinese Communist Party in Commemoration of the 9th Anniversary of the “7th of July”⁷²

New China News Agency, Yenan, 5 July—The following is a full text of the Manifesto issued by the Central Executive Committee, Chinese Communist Party in commemoration of the 9th Anniversary of the “7th of July”:

To: All Fellow Citizens and all Patriots:

Today is the first commemoration of the “7th of July” after our people have victoriously concluded the war of resistance and patriotism against the Japanese. As you will recall, nine years ago, we, the patriotic people and service men of this entire nation forced the reactionary clique of the Kuomintang Party to abandon its policy of civil war and nonresistance and united our people to begin the war of resistance against the Japanese. During the course of 8 years of war, we persisted resistance against the enemy and unity and progress of the nation, and opposed surrender, disunity and retrogression of this country, thus averting the national crisis created by the policy of negative war of resistance of the reactionary clique of the Kuomintang Party and achieving victory over the Fascist aggression in coordination with the Allied forces in the European and Asiatic battle grounds. During the 8 years of war some hundreds of million of our people and service men had bled, toiled and sacrificed. What were to be received in return for these sacrifices? It was for the realization of national liberation, for the eradication of foreign aggression, for the founding of peace in the Far East, for the assurance that our country may not again become a colonial settlement for imperialism, for the democratization of our country, for the decontamination of feudalistic fascist principles in this country, for the end of the existence of fascist dictators, war lords, secret police and corrupt elements who are riding over the heads of the people and sucking the blood of the people, for peace and unity within the country, for the termination of the civil war of slaughtering our own selves, for the development of national economy, for the speedy industrialization of our country, and above all, for the independence, peace and democracy of our nation.

As soon as the war was won, the people on one hand exert[ed] their unprecedented efforts for the attainment of independence, peace and democracy. But on the other hand, the reactionary group of our country, under the support of the remnants of Japanese fascism and American reactionary group, took advantage of the stolen fruit of victory to sustain dictatorship and civil war. Attempting to replace the former Japanese position in this country and to transform China into a colonial settlement for American imperialism, the American reactionary group worked closely with Chinese reactionaries. Consequently, our patriotic people failed to obtain independence, peace and democracy as the war concluded victoriously. The grave national crisis still exists, we must continue to strive for the accomplishment of the unfinished sacred mission of the war of resistance against the Japanese.

The 11 months following the Japanese surrender saw the serious and intricate struggle between the people’s cause of independence, peace and democracy on one hand and the reactionaries’ policy of national betrayal, dictatorship and civil war on the other. On 25 August 1945, the Central Executive Committee of the Chinese Communist Party proposed in its manifesto that independence, peace and democracy be the fundamentals of the basic post-war national construction policy. For the realization of this policy, Chairman Mao Tse-tung personally went to Chungking for a 40-day talk with National Government President Chiang Kai-shek and signed on 10 October the Summary of National-Communist Talks.⁷³ Under pressure of democratic thinking of the world and of the people of this country, the Kmt was compelled to accept the “October 10” Agreement for long-termed cooperation with the Chinese Communists, prevention of civil war, termination of the political tutelage period, convocation of the PCC, assurance of people’s liberty, guarantee of co-equal and legal status of all parties, prohibition of activities of the secret police, release of political prisoners, execution of democratic local autonomy, revolutionization and reduction of the armed forces, severe penalties for the traitors, and the disbandment of the puppet forces. At the same time, the Kmt, leaning upon the armed intervention policy of the Hurley–Wedemeyer⁷⁴ clique, launched large scale attacks upon our liberated territories for 3 consecutive months, but these attacks of the reactionaries were repulsed by our people. The people of the United States and democratic circles of the world attacked the Hurley–Wedemeyer policy. Under the pressure of the people of the entire nation, and at the request of the Moscow Conference of the Three Foreign Ministers of last December and the participation of US Special Envoy General Marshall, the Kmt was again forced on 10 January to issue a National-Communist joint cease-fire order and to invite representatives of all parties and non-party citizens to participate in the PCC which was to convene. The PCC unanimously adopted the resolutions of reorganization of the government on a democratic line, reorganization of the National Assembly, implementation of the Outline of National Construction, revolutionization and reduction of the armed forces and the amendment of the draft constitution. These resolutions shine brightly over the path leading to the future of the democratization of our country. To these resolutions and to the cease-fire order, acclaims came from all people of China, the Chinese Communist Party, the Democratic League, the peaceful and democratic elements of the Kmt and the people of the United States and of other Allied nations. The reactionaries of Kmt, on the contrary, declared that they must resort to “remedial” means for this defeat. Since the unfortunate incident at Chiao-Chang-Kou, Chungking on 10 February, 10 days after the adjournment of the PCC, and particularly since the Second Plenary Session of the Kmt Central Committee, step by step, the reactionaries tore up all their promises. Upon discovery that the US is not faithfully carrying out the Moscow decisions⁷⁵ and that the US is continuing military aid to them, they intensified their onslaughts on the people rendering General Marshall’s efforts for peace futile. During the past half year they have attacked and captured 30 odd towns and more than 2,000 villages and hamlets in our liberated regions. More than 1,000,000 Kmt troops have been transported to north China or the Northeast. With a view to aggravate the civil war and to retain the warlord system, they are continuing to conscript soldiers and to use puppet troops, publicly advocating for civil war, forbid anti-civil war movements of the people, openly demand for more territories of our liberated areas and for the overthrowing of the Army Reorganization Plan. True that they often proclaim that political issues should be settled by political means, but in reality they try to solve everything by force, even to the harmless petitions of intellectuals and industrialists. They have spread in Chungking, Peiping, Hsian, Nan-Tung, Hsi-Kang, Yunnan, Kuangtung, Shanghai, Nanking and many other places many bloody instances even more barbarous than terrorism of the former Fascist regimes. Publicly demanding to overthrow the decisions of the PCC and refusing to reconvene the PCC, they are attempting to make a unilateral constitution. Under the dark rule of the reactionaries several millions of the people are dying in starvation, many factories were forced to close down under the crushing pressure of bureaucratic and foreign capitalism, even the high officials of the Government and college professors are compelled to resort to strikes because they could not make a living. The reactionaries are doing everything possible to continue to use their corrupt means, to demand food from the farmers and to raise the prices in order to continue the civil war. These rascals of the reactionary group are extending their sphere of oppression of our country and people.

Let us ask how did the reactionary group of our country sustain its dictatorship and civil war after the war. The answer is the world-known fact of armed intervention on the part of American reactionary clique and its so-called “aid to China.” If it were not for this intervention, we would have achieved democracy long time ago and the civil war could not have survived. Under the pretext of the so-called assistance to repatriate the Japanese and to aid our country and people for our national revival, every help given by the American reactionaries is a help to encourage dictatorship and civil war of the reactionaries of this country. Now let us think for a while why the American reactionaries, without regard to the feeling of the people of the United States and of China, are enthusiastic about this dutiful “aid to China.” Once again, the answer is another world-known fact. The American reactionaries have an undivulgeable object of imperialistic aggression. Our reactionaries, reactionaries that are accustomed to national betrayal, consented to allow influence of American aggression in China and the actual control of China’s military, economic, financial, internal and foreign affairs by Americans. They are accorded freedom penetrate into, occupy and use our national territorial land, air, sea and inland rivers thus threatening to extinct our national existence. American imperialism is far more dangerous than the Japanese imperialism as the former has a more “civilized” and “legal” outlook and the tools it uses are the capitalism of anti-fascism and the asset of traditional friendship between the people of the United States and China. It breeds traitors and bears potential danger.

It is now very apparent that our very national existence is imperiled by internal as well as external reactionaries. Their aims are to convert our country into a corpse-filled hell, a large concentration camp or a base or colonial settlement for a new war of imperial aggression. All of us who love our country, all heroes who had fought in the war of resistance against the Japs, all disciples of Dr. Sun Yat-sen, we must unite ourselves to repulse the joint attack of foreign imperialism and our reactionaries and must strive to achieve independence, peace and democracy of our country. These three points have become the goal for everyone of us to fight for. We must not yield the peace if we are to win independence and democracy. It is only when there is no peace and when there is a civil war that our fight for independence and democracy is suppressed and that it facilitates military dictatorship and military intervention. Without democracy China cannot be in their actual senses independent and peaceful, the same is true when our country is not completely independent. The Chinese Communist Party is determined to secure peace, independence and democracy for our country and at this most critical moment we urgently appeal to the people at home and abroad on the following points:

1. To immediately issue a nation-wide (including the Northeast) order reaffirming cessation of conflicts without exception, without condition and without time limitation, to cease troop movement, to stop construction of fortifications and to countermand conscription orders.

2. Reconvention of the PCC; implementation of the decisions reached in the previous session; reorganize the one-party government of Kmt and to form a democratic coalition government; reorganize the Ministries of National Defense, Foreign Affairs, Finance, Economic Affairs, the Interior, Communications and Education; deactivate all secret police organizations; purge all fascist, war-like and corrupted elements; eliminate bureaucratic capitalism; enact a protective tariff system; confiscate the properties of notorious traitors and corrupted officials; relieve domestic industries, unemployed workers refugees of famine areas and school teachers and Government workers who are on the starvation level.

3. Under the supervision of the PCC, carry out a drastic and speedy demobilization and reduction of the armed forces, extirpate military oligarchy and despotism of the war-lord system; slash the military expenditure to the lowest minimum and transfer the military budget to relief and educational funds; freeze all surplus weapons; stop buying munition, return all Lend-Lease munition to the US; reject with thanks the US Military Advisory Group in China; notify the US to immediately withdraw all her land, sea and air forces from China and to make a statement to her that the people of China will not assume responsibility of American loans made to China prior to the formation of a democratic coalition government.

4. Request the US, USSR and Great Britain to faithfully carry out the Moscow decisions; request the US to stop military intervention of China’s internal affairs, stop prolonging the civil war, nullify the Lend-Lease Act to China,⁷⁶ stop sending the Military Advisory Group to China and voluntarily evacuate all her army, naval and air forces from this country immediately.

Fellow Citizen and all veterans who had fought for independence, peace and democracy of our country, remember our national crisis is still grave and our struggles for our cause will be hard, but our future is bright. We have been struggling for independence and democracy for past hundred years, never in that period had we gathered so much strength as we have today, never was our hopes brighter than they are now. We had faced and surmounted during the 8 years of war difficulties which were more critical and more numerous than those we are confronting today. Squeezed in between Japanese imperialism and the Kmt reactionaries, we have successfully defended this independent and democratic fortress—our liberated areas with a population of 140,000,000 people. In the fight for national patriotism, the strength of our people has grown many times and we have united this strength with that the rural population under the control of the Kmt regime. Not only in this country that we have a national united front, we also have gigantic allied forces on the international scene. People in world have overthrown German, Italian and Japanese facism that forms the nucleus of world facism. These people are free now, they will continue to fight the remnants of fascism and profascist reactionaries. The struggles of our people have received and will continue to receive aid and sympathy from these brothers of ours all over the world. The people of the United States and the American democratic group are joining us to oppose the Chinese and American reactionaries. The military intervention of the American reactionaries, military dictatorship of Chinese reactionaries and the civil war in this country create serious threats to American security and welfare. Even with foreign aid the Kmt reactionaries cannot solve their own problems. The beastly acts of the Kmt are not signs of their power, but of their weakness. Such are characteristic phenomena of any fascist country, China is no exception. The Chinese reactionaries do their utmost to destroy the potential strength of the people and let foreign aggression turn our country into colonial settlement or Philippine-type “independent” nation. We can never allow it to materialize.

Let us all wake up and unite ourselves in the same spirit that we fought in the war. Let us make known to others that we have no other demands but independence, democracy and peace. In recent talks we have made many concessions for the sake of start [stop?] fighting we would get prepared to give them a thorough beating. We must frustrate the attempts of Chinese and foreign reactionaries, we must achieve independence, democracy and peace, we must implement the cease-fire order and the Army Reorganization Plan. We oppose to anybody who opposes the above views.

We oppose to civil war, we want peace!

We oppose to dictatorship, we want democracy!

We oppose to national betrayal, we want independence!

We support the Cease-fire Order, we support the PCC decisions!

We support the Moscow Big Three decision!

Strengthen the ties of friendship between the Chinese and American people!

We oppose to foreign aggression, we oppose to foreign military intervention!

Long live the victory of the war of patriotism and resistance against the Japanese!

Long live national patriotism and solidarity!

Long live independence, peace and democracy of New China!

Central Committee
Chinese Communist Party

7 July 1946.

72. Draft from New China News Agency, July 7, on the 9th anniversary of the outbreak of the undeclared war between China and Japan at Marco Polo Bridge, near Peiping.
73. See United States Relations With China, p. 577.
74. Maj. Gen. Patrick J. Hurley was Ambassador in China: Lt. Gen. Albert C. Wedemeyer was Commanding General, U. S. Forces in the China Theater and concurrently Chief of Staff, China Theater.
75. See Foreign Relations, 1945, vol. vii, pp. 829 ff.; for the communiqué issued by the conference, see Department of State Bulletin, December 30, 1945, p. 1027.
76. For text of Master Lend-Lease Agreement signed at Washington, June 2, 1942, see United States Relations With China, p. 466, or 56 Stat. (pt. 2) 1494.