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“DURINGTHEWAROFRESISTANCE
, ourParty combated ideas similar to those of the capit-ulationists [referring to Chen Tu-hsiu’s capitula-tionism in the period of the First RevolutionaryCivilWar],thatis,suchideasasmakingconcessionsto the Kuomintang’s anti-popular policies, having more confidence in the Kuomintang than in themasses, not daring to arouse and give full rein tomass struggles, not daring to expand the LiberatedAreasandthepeoplesarmiesintheJapanese-occu- pied areas, and handing over the leadership in the War of Resistance to the Kuomintang. Our Party wagedaresolutestruggleagainstsuchimpotentanddegenerate ideas, which run counter to the princi- plesofMarxism-Leninism,resolutelycarriedoutits political line of “developing the progressive forces, winning over the middle forces and isolating thedie-hard forces”, and resolutely expanded the Lib-eratedAreasandthePeople’sLiberationArmy.Notonly did this ensure our Party’s ability to defeat Japaneseimperialismintheperiodofitsaggression,but also in the period aer the Japanese surrender when Chiang Kai-shek launched his counter-revo-lutionarywar,itensuredourParty’sabilitytoswitchsmoothlyandwithoutlosstothecourseofOppos-ing Chiang Kai-shek’s counter-revolutionary war with a people’s revolutionary war and to win great victories in a short time. All Party comrades mustkeep these lessons of history firmly in mind.”
HELPANDCONCESSIONSSHOULDBEPOSITIVE,NOTNEGATIVE
Allpoliticalpartiesandgroupsintheunitedfrontmusthelpeachotherandmakemutualconcessionsforthesakeoflong-term cooperation, but such help and concessions should be positive,notnegative.Wemustconsolidateandexpandourown Party and army, and at the same time should assistfriendly parties and armies to consolidate and expand; the people want the government to satisfy their political andeconomic demands, and at the same time give the govern-
[This is part of Comrade Mao Zedong’sconcluding speech at the Sixth PlenarySession of the Sixth Central Committee of theParty. At the time, the issue of independenceand initiative within the united front was oneof the outstanding questions concerning theanti-Japanese united front, a question onwhich there were differences of opinionbetween Comrade Mao Zedong and ChenShao-yu. In essence what was involved wasproletarian leadership in the united front. Inhis report of December 1947 ("The PresentSituation and Our Tasks") Comrade MaoZedong briefly summed up these differences:
THE
QUESTION
OF
INDEPENDENCE
AND
INITIATIVE
WITHIN THE
UNITEDFRONT
BY
MAOZEDONG
(ORIGINALLY WRITTEN NOVEMBER 5, 1938)VERSION BASED ON
SELECTED WORKS (ADDITIONAL FORMATTING ADDED FOR CLARITY) 
 
menteverypossiblehelptoprosecutetheWarofResistance;thefactoryworkersdemandbetterconditionsfromtheown-ers,andatthesametimeworkhardintheinterestsofresist-ance; for the sake of unity against foreign aggression, thelandlords should reduce rent and interest, and at the sametimethepeasantsshouldpayrentandinterest.Alltheseprin-ciplesandpoliciesofmutualassistancearepositive,notneg-ative or one-sided.e same should be true of mutual concessions. Eachside should refrain from undermining the other and fromorganizing secret party branches within the other’s party,government and army. For our part we organize no secret party branches inside the Kuomintang and its governmentorarmy,andsosettheKuomintang’smindatrest,tothead- vantage of the War of Resistance.esaying,“Refrainfromdoingsomethingsinordertobe able to do other things”,[
1
] exactly meets the case. A na-tionalwarofresistancewouldhavebeenimpossiblewithoutthe reorganization of the Red Army, the change in the ad-ministrative system in the Red areas, and the abandonmentofthepolicyofarmedinsurrection.Bygivingwayonthelat-ter we have achieved the former; negative measures have yielded positive results. “To fall back the better to leap for- ward”[
 2
]--thatisLeninism.Toregardconcessionsassome-thing purely negative is contrary to Marxism-Leninism.ere are indeed instances of purely negative conces-sions--the Second International’s doctrine of collaborationbetween labour and capital [
3
] resulted in the betrayal of a wholeclassandawholerevolution.InChina,ChenTu-hsiuand then Chang Kuo-tao were both capitulators; capitula-tionism must be strenuously opposed. When we make con-cessions, fall back, turn to the defensive or halt our advancein our relations with either allies or enemies, we should al- waysseetheseactionsaspartofourwholerevolutionarypol-icy,asanindispensablelinkinthegeneralrevolutionaryline,as one turn in a zigzag course. In a word, they are positive.
THEIDENTITYBETWEENTHENATIONAL&THECLASSSTRUGGLE
Tosustainalongwarbylong-termco-operationor,inother words, to subordinate the class struggle to the present na-tional struggle against Japan--such is the fundamental prin-ciple of the united front. Subject to this principle, theindependentcharacterofthepartiesandclassesandtheirin-dependenceandinitiativewithintheunitedfrontshouldbe preserved,andtheiressentialrightsshouldnotbesacrificedto co-operation and unity, but on the contrary must befirmly upheld within certain limits. Only thus can co-oper-ationbepromoted,indeedonlythuscantherebeanyco-op-eration at all. Otherwise co-operation will turn intoamalgamation and the united front will inevitably be sacri-ficed. In a struggle that is national in character, the classstruggle takes the form of national struggle, which demon-strates the identity between the two.On the one hand, for a given historical period the po-liticalandeconomicdemandsofthevariousclassesmustnotbe such as to disrupt co-operation; on the other hand, thedemands of the national struggle (the need to resist Japan)should be the point of departure for all class struggle. usthereisidentityintheunitedfrontbetweenunityandinde- pendence and between the national struggle and the classstruggle.
“EVERYTHINGTHROUGHTHEUNITEDFRONT”ISWRONG
eKuomintangisthepartyinpower,andsofarhasnotal-lowedtheunitedfronttoassumeanorganizationalform.Be-
of 00

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