893.00/1–347: Telegram
The Ambassador in China ( Stuart ) to the Secretary of State
[Received January 2—11:30 p.m.]
Mao Tse-tung, chairman of the Chinese Communist Party, issued the following New Year’s message in Yenan December 31:
In the year 1946 in China, as throughout the post-war world, the side of light waged a victorious struggle against the side of darkness. In the post-war world and in China there developed on extremely large scale people’s movement for peace and democratic liberties. These movements must of necessity move toward victory—there is no power which can bring them to a halt. But the reactionaries constantly scheme to put a halt to these movements. The duty of the people in the whole world and the Chinese people is to consolidate all their strength to smash the invading forces of the reaction.
In the year 1947 the world united front of the peoples of all countries—including China—the front against the aggressor policy of the American imperialists will develop rapidly and the movement of the Chinese people for democratic liberty will obtain even more important victories than those of 1946. The trend will be to cause the conditions in China to undergo a change beneficial to the restoration of peace and independence of the nation. We, Communists, during the anti-Japanese resistance, strove for post-war cooperation of all parties and groups. At the same time, however, we issued a warning: “The dominant clique in the Kuomintang are behind the smokescreen of so-called ‘calling a National Assembly’ ‘political settlement’ steadfastly carrying [on] the work of preparing for civil war. If the people of the nation do not pay heed, do not expose their conspiracy and put a halt to their preparations, the morning will come when roar of civil war guns will be heard.”
After the close of the anti-Japanese resistance war the people of the whole country exerted all efforts of forbearance to prevent the breaking out and enlarging of the civil war.
Unfortunately these efforts were destroyed by the all-out attacks of the reactionaries and the Kmt one-party National Assembly. But the Chinese people are still continuing the fight for peace through two types of endeavors: the heroic strenuous struggle of all classes of the people in the liberated areas to smash the attacks of the reactionaries, [Page 680] and the daily swelling mass movement for democratic liberties on the part of all classes of the people in areas under the Kuomintang rule.
This united will of the Chinese people will decisively overwhelm the will of any reactionary clique and thus create the possibility of restoring sincere peace negotiations between all parties and groups and of having a truly peaceful life on a nationwide scale. At present the Kuomintang authorities have still not evidenced any slightest intentions for peace. Under the direction of the American Government they are busy adorning themselves with a “National Assembly” of division and a dictatorial “Constitution” in order to “legalize” their war and the American aid. But the people of the whole country need only close their ranks in firm unswerving battle, and in the not distant future, the light of liberty will surely illumine the vast reaches of our ancestral homeland. Within the next few years an independent peaceful democratic new China will surely establish its firm foundation.