Persistently Follow the Road of Seizing Political Power by Armed Force

Marxism-Leninism holds that the fundamental question of revolution is political power and that the seizure of power by armed force is the central task and the highest form of revolution. This is the universal truth of Marxism-Leninism. Whoever denies this or admits it in words but denies it in deeds is not a genuine Marxist-Leninist. But specific conditions vary in different countries. And in what way could this task be carried out in China? On the basis of the great practice of the October Revolution, Lenin, in his Address to the Second All-Russian Congress of Communist Organizations of the Peoples of the East in November 1919, told the Communists of the Eastern peoples that they must see the characteristics of their own areas and that, relying upon the general theory and practice of communism, they must adapt themselves to peculiar conditions which do not exist in the European countries. Lenin stressed that this was "a task which until now did not confront the Communists anywhere in the world." Obviously, the seizure of political power and the victory of the revolution are out of the question if the universal truth of Marxism-Leninism is not integrated with the concrete revolutionary practice of a specific country.

On the basis of the unity of the universal truth of Marxism-Leninism and the concrete practice of the Chinese revolution, Chairman Mao analysed the history of China, its existing conditions and the main contradictions in contemporary Chinese society and gave correct answers as to the targets, tasks, motive forces and character of the Chinese revolution and its perspectives and transition. Chairman Mao pointed out: The Chinese revolution is a continuation of the October Revolution and part of the world proletarian-socialist revolution. The Chinese revolution must take two steps. First the new-democratic revolution and then the socialist revolution. These are two essentially different revolutionary processes which are at once distinct and interrelated. The second process, or the socialist revolution, can be carried through only after the first process, or the revolution of a bourgeois-democratic character, has been completed. The democratic revolution is the necessary preparation for the socialist revolution, and the socialist revolution is the inevitable sequel to the democratic revolution. Chairman Mao pointed out: A Communist Party built on Marxist-Leninist revolutionary theory and in the Marxist-Leninist revolutionary style; an army under the leadership of such a Party; a united front of all revolutionary classes and all revolutionary groups under the leadership of such a Party - these are the three main weapons with which we can seize political power and consolidate it. It is precisely along this course that the Chinese revolution has advanced.

The new-democratic revolution led by the Chinese Communist Party went through four historical periods - the First Revolutionary Civil War, the Agrarian Revolutionary War, the War of Resistance Against Japan and the People's War of Liberation. It took 28 years in all, from 1921 to 1949, to solve the problem of seizing political power by armed force.

Our Party was still in its infancy during the period of the First Revolutionary Civil War. In the early and middle stages of that period the Party's line was correct. Analysis of the Classes in Chinese Society, Report on an Investigation of the Peasant Movement in Hunan and other works published by Comrade Mao Tsetung in that period represented the Party's correct line. On the basis of thorough and systematic investigation and study, Chairman Mao made a concrete analysis of the economic status and political attitudes of the various classes in Chinese society. He clearly pointed out: "Our enemies are all those in league with imperialism - the warlords, the bureaucrats, the comprador class, the big landlord class and the reactionary section of the intelligentsia attached to them." He further pointed out: "The leading force in our revolution is the industrial proletariat. Our closest friends are the entire semi-proletariat and petty bourgeoisie." Chairman Mao paid particular attention to the question of arousing and arming the peasants, indicating that "without the poor peasants there would be no revolution." At the same time, he indicated that the national bourgeoisie was a vacillating class; their Right-wing might become our enemy and their Leftwing might become our friend, and we must constantly be on guard and not let them create confusion within our ranks. Thus, he solved the question of first importance for the revolution, namely, "Who are our enemies? Who are our friends?" He opposed both Right opportunism represented by Chen Tu-hsiu that wanted only the Kuomintang and not the peasants, and "Left" opportunism represented by Chang Kuo-tao that was concerned only with the labour movement and likewise did not want the peasants.

Chen Tu-hsiu, then General Secretary of the Communist Party of China, was actually a radical bourgeois democrat. He knew nothing about Marxism-Leninism. He even held that there had been no slave society in China and negated the universal truth of Marxism. He maintained that since the Chinese revolution at that stage was a bourgeois-democratic revolution in character, it could lead only to the founding of a bourgeois republic and be led by the bourgeoisie. He clamoured that the Chinese proletariat was not "an independent revolutionary force" and could not be the leading class and he slandered the peasants as being "loose," "conservative" and "unlikely to join the revolution." He flatly rejected Comrade Mao Tsetung's correct views and gave up leadership over the peasants, the urban petty bourgeoisie and the middle bourgeoisie, and particularly leadership over the armed forces. He advocated "all alliance and no struggle" in the united front. When the masses of workers and peasants arose, he was very much afraid that they would terrify the bourgeoisie. Chen Tu-hsiu and his follower Liu Shao-chi went so far as to order the workers' pickets in Wuhan to hand their arms over to the Kuomintang. When Chiang Kai-shek and Wang Ching-wei, representatives of the big landlord class and the big bourgeoisie, successively betrayed the revolution and slaughtered the workers and peasants, the broad masses of the people were unarmed and the dynamic great revolution ended in failure. Later, Chen Tu-hsiu clung to the reactionary stand of Trotsky and asserted that the establishment of the reactionary Chiang Kai-shek government marked the completion of the bourgeois-democratic revolution and that all the proletariat could do was to engage in legal parliamentary struggles and wait until capitalism had developed in China and then make a so-called socialist revolution. This meant liquidating the Chinese revolution.

The Chinese Communists were not cowed by Chiang Kai-shek's massacres. Chiang Kai-shek, Wang Ching-wei and Chen Tu-hsiu, those teachers by negative example, made us understand that "without armed struggle neither the proletariat, nor the people, nor the Communist Party would have any standing at all in China and that it would be impossible for the revolution to triumph," and they made us understand this Marxist-Leninist truth: "Political power grows out of the barrel of a gun." To save the revolution, the Nanchang Uprising was staged on August 1, 1927. The firing of the first shot at the Kuomintang reactionaries was the correct aspect of the Nanchang Uprising. Its mistake lay in not going to the countryside to arouse and arm the peasant masses and set up base areas, but taking the city as the centre and relying on aid from abroad. The Central Committee of the Party held an emergency meeting in Hankow on August 7, at which Chen Tu-hsiu's capitulationist line was corrected, and he was removed from his leading post. After the August 7th Meeting, Chairman Mao himself led the Autumn Harvest Uprising, organized the first contingent of the Workers' and Peasants' Red Army, founded the first rural revolutionary base area in the Chingkang Mountains and ignited the spark of "an armed independent regime of workers and peasants." In April 1928, the troops preserved after the Nanchang Uprising arrived in the Chingkang Mountains. Under Chairman Mao's leadership, the Workers' and Peasants' Red Army successfully smashed the first, second and third counter-revolutionary campaigns of "encirclement and suppression" launched by the Kuomintang against the Central Red Base Area. And guerrilla warfare also made progress in Kiangsi, Fukien, Hunan, Hupeh, Honan, Anhwei, Kwangsi, Kwangtung, Szechuan, Shensi and other places. Chairman Mao summed up the experience in good time and wrote Why Is It That Red Political Power Can Exist in China?, The Struggle in the Chingkang Mountains, On Correcting Mistaken Ideas in the Party, A Single Spark Can Start a Prairie Fire and other important works. In these works, he explained on a theoretical plane that in China the seizure of political power by armed force could be accomplished only by taking the road of setting up rural base areas, encircling the cities from the countryside, and finally seizing the cities, and not by taking the cities first and then advancing into the countryside, as in the capitalist countries.

Chairman Mao pointed out: "The history of our Party shows that Right deviations are likely to occur in periods when our Party has formed a united front with the Kuomintang and that 'Left' deviations are likely to occur in periods when our Party has broken with the Kuomintang." Shortly after our Party had broken with the Kuomintang and corrected Chen Tu-hsiu's Right opportunist line, there occurred Chu Chiu-pai's "Left" putschist line between the end of 1927 and the beginning of 1928, Li Li-san's "Left" opportunist line between June and September 1930, and Wang Ming's "Left" opportunist line between 1931 and 1934. During this period, although Chen Tu-hsiu's liquidationism, Lo Chang-lung's Right splittism and other Right deviations with their pessimism over the future of the revolution made their appearance, the "Left" opportunist line which occurred on the three above occasions was the main deviation. In particular, Wang Ming's "Left" opportunist line which dominated the Party for four years did the greatest damage and gave us the most serious lessons.

Wang Ming usurped the leadership in the central leading body of the Party at the Fourth Plenary Session of the Sixth Central Committee in January 1931. Wang Ming called himself a "100 per cent Bolshevik." While hoisting the banner of "opposition to the Li Li-san line," he alleged that the former central leading body "did nothing to expose and attack the consistently Right opportunist theory and practice of the Li Li-san line," and maintained that "the Right deviation is still the main danger in the Party at present." He in fact pushed an opportunist line even more "Left" than the Li Li-san line. Like other "Left" opportunists, Wang Ming knew nothing about the theory and practice of the revolution in China. They confused the distinction between the democratic and socialist revolutions. They knew nothing about the workers and peasants, about how to fight a war, or about the unevenness and the tortuous and protracted character of the Chinese revolution. They made absolutely no investigation or study of class relations in China, but alleged that the intermediate groups were "the most dangerous enemy" and advocated opposing the whole bourgeoisie and upper petty bourgeoisie. They enforced many "Left" policies characterized by "all struggle and no alliance." As regards military line, they first practised adventurism and then turned to desperate recklessness and flightism. As regards organizational line, they practised sectarianism and deprived Chairman Mao of his power. They resorted to "ruthless struggle and merciless blows" against those who disagreed with their erroneous line. Acting as an all-powerful emperor, Wang Ming placed himself above the Party and the people and pushed his erroneous line everywhere. As a result, our Party suffered a loss of 90 per cent in the Red areas and almost 100 per cent in the White areas, and the Red Army was compelled to leave and embark on the Long March.

The two lines with their two outcomes educated the whole Party, both positively and negatively. When Chairman Mao's revolutionary line was followed, an army was founded and revolutionary base areas were established where previously there were none. When Wang Ming's "Left" opportunist line was pursued, revolutionary base areas were lost and the Workers' and Peasants' Red Army was placed in a most dangerous position. Repeated testing in revolutionary practice proved that Chairman Mao's revolutionary line is the only correct line. Wang Ming who put "me at the core" and styled himself "100 per cent" correct turned out to be a sham Marxist. In January 1935 when the Red Army on the Long March reached Tsunyi in Kweichow, an enlarged meeting of the Political Bureau of the Central Committee was called, i.e., the great historic Tsunyi Meeting. The meeting put an end to the domination of Wang Ming's "Left" opportunist line in the central leading body, established the leading position of Chairman Mao in the whole Party and switched the Party line on to the correct Marxist-Leninist track. At what a high price and after what bloodshed!

The Tsunyi Meeting marked the growth of our Party from childhood to maturity. Under the leadership of our great leader Chairman Mao after the Tsunyi Meeting, the world famous 25,000-li Long March was concluded victoriously. During the Long March, the First Front Army of the Red Army was formed into an anti-Japanese detachment advancing northward and marched to northern Shensi, inspiring the people of the whole country with the determination to resist Japanese imperialist aggression. Our Party then smashed Chang Kuo-tao's line of establishing another central committee and splitting the Red Army. In October 1936 the Second and Fourth Front Armies arrived in northern Shensi and succeeded in joining forces with the First Front Army and the Red Army of that area. By that time, the Red Army had decreased from 300,000 men to less than 30,000. Quantitatively the strength of our Party was reduced for the time being, but qualitatively our Party became stronger than before, thanks to the correct line.

In 1937 the Chinese revolution entered the period of the War of Resistance Against Japan. Our Party brought about a successful change from the period of Agrarian Revolution to that of the Anti-Japanese National United Front. But the sharpening of the national contradiction and the formation for the second time of a united front of the Kuomintang and the Communist Party, which were like a surging tide, turned some people's heads. This found expression within the Party in the struggle between our Party and the Right opportunist line represented by Wang Ming.

Early in the War of Resistance Against Japan, the renegade Wang Ming jumped from the extreme "Left" to the extreme Right. On the pretext of establishing the Anti-Japanese National United Front, he placed more confidence in the Kuomintang than in the Communist Party, completely abandoned the Communist Party's principle of independence and initiative and put forward the idea "everything through the united front" and "everything must be submitted to the united front." This meant in essence that everything had to go through the Kuomintang and be submitted to it, and it meant not daring to wage resolute struggle against the Kuomintang's reactionary policies and not daring to boldly arouse the masses, or develop the revolutionary armed forces, or expand the anti-Japanese base areas in the Japanese-occupied areas. This meant handing over the leadership of the anti-Japanese war to the Kuomintang. Thus Wang Ming returned to the erroneous line of "all alliance and no struggle" advocated by Chen Tu-hsiu in 1927. Meanwhile, Liu Shao-chi went to the revolutionary base areas from the White areas. He opposed the Wang Ming line and supported Chairman Mao's correct line in appearance, and boosted himself as the representative of the correct line in the work in the White areas and concealed his true features. Actually, he had long been a renegade, hidden traitor and scab and he had carried out an entirely erroneous line in the White areas. In his sinister book Self-Cultivation, Liu Shao-chi did not touch at all upon the questions of defeating Japanese imperialism and of waging struggle against the Kuomintang reactionaries, nor did he touch upon the question of seizing political power by armed force; on the contrary, he urged Communist Party members to depart from the great practice of revolution, study "the ways of Confucius and Mencius" and indulge in idealistic "self-cultivation." What he preached was again a capitulationist line. The "literature of national defence" and the "philosophy of national defence" which cropped up during this period were in reality a literature of national betrayal and a philosophy of capitulation. They were products of Wang Ming's capitulationist line and of Liu Shao-chi's wrong line in the work in the White areas as well.

Our great leader Chairman Mao systematically and thoroughly criticized the Right capitulationist line represented by Wang Ming. In his work The Situation and Tasks in the Anti-Japanese War After the Fall of Shanghai and Taiyuan written in November 1937, Chairman Mao warned the whole Party against Wang Ming's Right capitulationism: "In 1927 Chen Tu-hsiu's capitulationism led to the failure of the revolution. No member of our Party should ever forget this historical lesson written in blood." Chairman Mao once again raised the question of the struggle between the proletariat and the bourgeoisie for leadership and stressed that it was necessary to insist on proletarian leadership and "closely adhere to the principle of independence and initiative in all our united front work." But Wang Ming opposed Chairman Mao's line and continued to push his opportunist line. In his report and concluding speech at the Sixth Plenary Session of the Sixth Central Committee of the Party held in October 1938, Chairman Mao put forward the question of the role of the Chinese Communist Party in the national War, refuted Wang Ming's opportunist line and laid down the Party's line and policy of leading the armed struggle independently and with the initiative in its own hands. The session adopted Chairman Mao's report and concluding speech. Later, in his On Policy and other works, Chairman Mao repeatedly taught the whole Party that the united front policy "is neither all alliance and no struggle nor all struggle and no alliance, but combines alliance and struggle." Our Party defeated the Kuomintang's repeated anti-Communist campaigns and took firm hold of the leadership of the Anti-Japanese National United Front because Chairman Mao's revolutionary line had already attained the predominant position in the whole Party, and because we had thoroughly criticized Wang Ming's Right capitulationist line, corrected the "Left" deviation in the struggle against the Kuomintang, adhered to the correct policy of developing the progressive forces, winning over the middle forces and isolating th die-hard forces and carried out the principles of making use of contradictions, winning over the many, opposing the few and crushing our enemies one by one and of waging struggles on just grounds, to our advantage, and with restraint in the struggle against the anti-Communist die-hards. Receiving no aid from outside but relying on our own efforts, we developed production, overcame difficulties, resisted the bulk of the Japanese invading forces and practically all the puppet troops, and developed and strengthened the Eighth Route Army, the New Fourth Army, the South China Anti-Japanese Guerrilla Column and the anti-Japanese base areas.

Comrade Mao Tsetung has attached great importance to building the Party ideologically since its early days. The Kutien Meeting Resolution drawn up by Chairman Mao and his On Practice, On Contradiction and other philosophical works have played a tremendous role in educating the whole Party ideologically. In the early 40s, when the War of Resistance Against Japan was in the stage of stalemate, the Central Committee of the Party grasped the excellent opportunity to launch the rectification movement throughout the Party in order to raise its Marxist-Leninist level. Chairman Mao published a series of works on the rectification movement such as Reform Our Study, Rectify the Party's Style of Work, Oppose Stereotyped Party Writing and Talks at the Yenan Forum on Literature and Art, calling on the whole Party to "fight subjectivism in order to rectify the style of study, fight sectarianism in order to rectify the style in Party relations, and fight Party stereotypes in order to rectify the style of writing." Chairman Mao pointed out: "Though the majority in our Party and in our ranks are clean and honest, we must in all seriousness put things in order both ideologically and organizationally if we are to develop the revolutionary movement more effectively and bring it to speedier success. To put things in order organizationally requires our first doing so ideologically, our launching a struggle of proletarian ideology against non-proletarian ideology."

The Yenan rectification movement personally led by Chairman Mao was a great, widespread movement of Marxist education. Through the study of works by Marx, Engels, Lenin and Stalin, of Chairman Mao's works, and of dialectical and historical materialism and the exposure of the anti-Marxist-Leninist essence of the various "Left" and Right opportunist lines, the whole Party learnt to distinguish between the correct and incorrect lines and between proletarian and non-proletarian ideologies and gained a great deal. The policy of learning from past mistakes to avoid future ones and curing the sickness to save the patient was adopted in the rectification movement. Through criticism and self-criticism, the cadres throughout the Party arrived at a new unity on the basis of the principles of Marxism-Leninism-Mao Tsetung Thought.

Presided over by our great leader Chairman Mao, the Seventh National Congress of the Party was victoriously convened in April 1945. At the Congress Chairman Mao made the political report On Coalition Government and laid down the political line of the Party, that is, "boldly to mobilize the masses and expand the people's forces so that, under the leadership of our Party, they will defeat the aggressors and build a new China." The Seventh Party Congress was a congress of victory, a congress of unity; it encouraged hundreds of millions of people throughout the country to fight with a will like the Foolish Old Man, who removed the mountains, and strengthened their confidence in victory. By the time of the victory in the War of Resistance Against Japan, the army led by our Party had grown to one million men and the Liberated Areas had expanded to embrace a population of 100 million. The revolutionary strength of the Chinese people was greater than ever.

The victory in the War of Resistance Against Japan brought about a drastic change in the situation and in class relations, both at home and abroad. With the assistance of U.S. imperialism Chiang Kai-shek, bent as always on destroying the Communist Party, decided to launch a counter-revolutionary civil war. Did we dare to struggle and win victory? "To build a new-democratic country of the broad masses of the people under the leadership of the proletariat? Or to build a semi-colonial and semi-feudal country under the dictatorship of the big landlords and the big bourgeoisie?" This was the question confronting the whole Party, the whole army and the people of the whole country. At that moment Liu Shao-chi came out with his capitulationist line, preaching that "China has entered the new stage of peace and democracy." He loudly proclaimed that "the main form of struggle of the Chinese revolution should change from armed struggle to non-armed mass parliamentary struggle" and "all the work of our Party should be reorganized." Liu Shao-chi wanted our Party to hand over the army and the revolutionary base areas to Chiang Kai-shek. seek official posts in the reactionary Kuomintang government and "build the country in co-operation" with the U.S.-Chiang reactionaries. This line was a continuation of the Chen Tu-hsiu and Wang Ming lines and an echo in China of the revisionist line of Browder, the renegade from the Communist Party of the United States of America. Chairman Mao resolutely opposed Liu Shao-chi's capitulationist line. He sharply pointed out: "Chiang Kai-shek always tries to wrest every ounce of power and every ounce of gain from the people. And we? Our policy is to give him tit for tat and to fight for every inch of land." "The arms of the people, every gun and every bullet, must all be kept, must not be handed over." Chairman Mao further pointed out: "How to give 'tit for tat' depends on the situation." If they wanted to fight, we would wipe them out completely, and this was tit for tat. If they wanted to negotiate, sometimes not going to negotiations was tit for tat, and sometimes going to negotiations was also tit for tat. In the light of the situation, Chairman Mao worked out plans and had operational preparations made to defeat offensives by the Chiang troops, and he went to Chungking in person for negotiations and thus exposed Chiang Kai-shek who paid lip service to peace but actually went in for civil war. In view of the prevailing morbid fear of the United States, Chairman Mao put forward the thesis, All reactionaries are paper tigers, exposing the nature of U.S. imperialism and all reaction. After Chiang Kai-shek started the all-round civil war, Chairman Mao, with revolutionary fearlessness, issued the great and timely call "Overthrow Chiang Kai-shek and liberate all China," and led the people of the whole country in defeating counter-revolutionary war by revolutionary war and in seizing state power by armed force. Chairman Mao laid down the general line and general policy of our Party at this historical stage, namely, a new-democratic revolution against imperialism, feudalism and bureaucrat-capitalism waged by the broad masses of the people under the leadership of the proletariat; he laid down the principle of fighting by concentrating a superior force to destroy the enemy forces one by one; and in accordance with the progress of the revolution in different parts of the country he laid down a series of specific lines for work and specific policies regarding land reform, the consolidation and building of the Party and of the army, and other work. The Party issued the Outline Land Law of China in conformity with the wishes of the peasants throughout the country; it corrected both the Right-deviationist error of not daring to boldly arouse the masses and not meeting the peasants' demand for land and the line represented by Liu Shao-chi in land reform and Party consolidation, which was "Left" in form but Right in essence and characterized by encroaching on the interests of the middle peasants and private industry and commerce, regarding large numbers of Party cadres as "stumbling-blocks" and removing them wholesale, gathering a few "trustworthy" people through secret contacts instead of arousing the masses and, in disregard of Party policy, simultaneously unfolding the movement everywhere and beating people and struggling against them at will, and so on. Under the leadership of Chairman Mao and with the support and assistance of the people in the Liberated Areas and the masses in the areas under Chiang Kai-shek's control, the great Chinese People's Liberation Army wiped out 8,000,000 Chiang bandit troops armed by U.S. imperialism, liberated all Chinese territory with the exception of Taiwan Province and a number of sea islands and buried the Chiang dynasty, and the People's Republic of China was founded. The Chinese people stood up!