Page 165 - SELECTED WORKS OF ZHOU ENLAI Volume I

ON CHINESE FASCISM, THE NEW AUTOCRACY 161
and greater reactionary role. Furthermore, Chiang has written the book
entitled China’s Destiny. If this is allowed to go on, it is bound to
lead to defeat in the War of Resistance and the rekindling of civil war.
Therefore, we must publicly reveal the fascist essence of the Kuomintang
today. We did not lay so much stress on this in the past because it
hadn’t gone so far as it has now, and not because there were no fascists
in it.
Another may ask: Since Chiang Kai-shek’s Kuomintang is fas-
cist, how is it that it can put up resistance to Japan? Our answer
is: Comrade Mao Zedong tells us that Chiang’s is a comprador-feudal
fascism. Because of its comprador aspect, when the Japanese imperial-
ists invaded China, the Kuomintang could rely on other imperialists
in resisting the aggressors, and it played a revolutionary role, riding
the wave of popular concern for national salvation. But at the same
time it has a feudal aspect, so now that the Allied countries are gradual-
ly coming to pay more attention to the War of Resistance waged by
the Chinese nation, it relapses into its former mode of thinking. It
wishes to restore the ancient ways and opposes everything foreign, thus
playing a reactionary role. It is precisely because it represents the big
landlords and the big bourgeoisie that it always opposes, fears and
oppresses the people, and its resistance can never be thoroughgoing.
The proletariat and its political party must win and consolidate leader-
ship in the national democratic revolution and must never tail behind
the big bourgeoisie. Comrade Mao Zedong warned us on this point
at a Party conference of the Soviet areas before the anti-Japanese
457
war. 207
Then still another may ask: Since fascism means national aggression
and since Chiang Kai-shek’s Kuomintang is resisting the Japanese
aggressors, why do we call it fascist? Our answer is that this is exactly
why Comrade Mao Zedong calls it Chinese fascism. National aggres-
sion is one of the characteristics of fascism, but not the only one.
Chinese fascism has all the characteristics of fascism pointed out by
Georgi Dimitrov in his report except that of national aggression. Both
208
in the past and at present, Chiang Kai-shek’s Kuomintang has launched
ruthless attacks on the people, on the working masses. It has even
unleashed civil war to suppress the revolution and introduced rampant
reaction and counter-revolution. It has thus become the arch-enemy
of the whole Chinese people. It is only because China finds itself in the
position of a colony or semi-colony that the Chinese big landlords and
big bourgeoisie are powerless to invade other countries. Isn’t their