Page 264 - SELECTED WORKS OF MAO TSE-TUNG Volume I.indd

258 MAO TSE-TUNG

fundamental errors of compromise in foreign affairs and of civil war
and oppression at home, immediately join the anti-Japanese front
uniting all parties and groups and really take the military and political
measures that can save the nation, then of course the Communist Party
will support him. As early as August 25, the Communist Party promised
such support to Chiang and the Kuomintang in its letter to the Kuo-
7
mintang. The people throughout the country have known for fifteen
years that the Communist Party observes the maxim, “Promises must
be kept and action must be resolute.” They undoubtedly have more
confidence in the words and deeds of the Communist Party than in
those of any other party or group in China.

NOTES

1
Under the influence of the Chinese Red Army and the people’s anti-Japanese
movement, the Kuomintang’s Northeastern Army headed by Chang Hsueh-liang
and the Kuomintang’s 17th Route Army headed by Yang Hu-cheng agreed to the
anti-Japanese national united front proposed by the Communist Party of China and
demanded that Chiang Kai-shek should unite with the Communist Party to resist
Japan. He refused, became still more active in his military preparations for the
“suppression of the Communists” and massacred young people in Sian who were
anti-Japanese. Chang Hsueh-liang and Yang Hu-cheng took joint action and
arrested Chiang Kai-shek. This was the famous Sian Incident of December 12, 1936.
He was forced to accept the terms of unity with the Communist Party and resistance
to Japan, and was then set free to return to Nanking.
2
The Chinese “punitive” group consisted of the pro-Japanese elements in the
Kuomintang government in Nanking who tried to wrest power from Chiang Kai-shek
during the Sian Incident. With Wang Ching-wei and Ho Ying-chin as their leaders,
they advocated a “punitive expedition” against Chang Hsueh-liang and Yang
Hu-cheng. Availing themselves of the incident, they prepared to start large-scale
civil war in order to clear the way for the Japanese invaders and wrest political
power from Chiang Kai-shek.
3
Seven leaders of the patriotic anti-Japanese movement in Shanghai had been
arrested by Chiang Kai-shek’s government in November 1936. They were Shen
Chun-ju, Chang Nai-chi, Tsou Tao-fen, Li Kung-pu, Sha Chien-li, Shih Liang and
Wang Tsao-shih. They were kept in prison till July 1937.
4
Wang Ching-wei was the head of the pro-Japanese group in the Kuomintang.
He had stood for compromise with the Japanese imperialists ever since their invasion
of the Northeast in 1931. In December 1938 he left Chungking, openly capitulated
to the Japanese invaders, and set up a puppet government in Nanking.
5
Ho Ying-chin, a Kuomintang warlord, was another leader of the pro-Japanese
group. During the Sian Incident he actively plotted civil war by deploying Kuomintang