Page 75 - SELECTED WORKS OF LIU SHAOQI Volume I

PARTY AND MASS WORK IN WHITE AREAS 71
overt with our covert work. In the past, we did not make such ap-
praisals at all, with the result that we committed many serious errors.
The general estimate is that there may be a change in the general
environment in which our work is carried on. If peace is achieved
and Kuomintang-Communist co-operation established, there will be
greater possibility of conducting our work openly throughout the
country, although the degree of openness will vary in different places.
In some places legal movements will probably become our principal
work, while in others only half our work will be done openly or there
will be even fewer possibilities for open activities and so secret work
will remain our principal work. In the areas ruled by the Japanese or
by collaborators and pro-Japanese elements, our Party organizations
must of course remain absolutely underground. With these possible
changes in mind, we must prepare to carry on open and partially open
activities on a larger scale and readjust the relations between our overt
and covert work. Even so, the co-ordination of overt and covert work,
far from diminishing in importance or even becoming non-existent, will
remain a question of the utmost importance.
So long as circumstances permit, we should employ legal and open
forms of work as much as possible. An underground Party cannot
carry on its work entirely in the open, but it can conduct some work
in the open. We should make use of opportunities to work in the open,
for they are valuable no matter how limited. Whenever there is a
chance to openly set up a preparatory school or a neutral, open
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organization or to publish a neutral magazine, we must grab it. Still
there are some people who say, “We don’t wish to work partially in
the open like this; count us out unless we can proceed fully in the
open.” Why? They maintain that it isn’t possible to bring only part
of our Party Programme into the open. In this way they have ruled
out all open work in the past.
With changing circumstances, the possibility for us to work in the
open may increase or decrease. But in no case must we go beyond the
bounds permitted by the particular circumstances. Otherwise our
originally open organizations and work will be driven into a semi-open
or secret state. Generally speaking, open work means such work as
can be conducted legally. Taking advantage of legality is not legalism.
In our past struggle against legalism, we branded all work that was
conducted legally as “legalism”. It was extremely wrong to turn all
open neutral organizations, yellow trade unions, etc. into Red trade
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unions, at a time when circumstances did not permit. This forced
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