Brothers in Arms (106 page)

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Authors: Odd Arne Westad

Tags: #Political Science, #International Relations, #General, #test

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ment and the government itself has to be proclaimed a coalition government in order to widen the basis of this government among the population and to isolate imperialists and their Guomindang agents. It is necessary to keep in mind that the Chinese government in its policy will be a national revolutionary-democratic government, not a Communist one, after the victory of the People's Liberation Armies of China, at any rate in the period immediately after the victory, the length of which is difficult to define now.
This means that nationalization of all land and abolition of private ownership of land, confiscation of the property of all industrial and trade bourgeoisie from petty to big, confiscation of property belonging not only to big landowners but to middle and small holders exploiting hired labor, will not be fulfilled for the present. These reforms have to wait for some time.
It has to be said for your information that there are other parties in Yugoslavia besides the Communists which form part of the People's Front.
Second. The answer to the letter from Comrade Mao Zedong from March 15, 1948. We are very grateful to Comrade Mao Zedong for the detailed information on military and political questions. We agree with all the conclusions of Comrade Mao Zedong given in this letter. We consider as absolutely correct Comrade Mao Zedong's thoughts concerning the creation of a central government of China and including in it representatives of the liberal bourgeosie.
With Communist greetings
Stalin
Source: Arkhiv Prezidenta Rossiiskoi Federatsii (APRF), fond (f.) 39, opis (op.) 1, delo (d.) 31, 43-4.
II. Telegram, Mao Zedong to Stalin, April 26, 1948
Comrade Stalin,
1. I have received the letter of April 20. Completely agree with it.
2. Our Central Committee has already moved to an area near Shijiazhuang in Hebei province. It has merged and united with the working committee of the CC which used to consist of Liu Shaoqi, Zhu De, [and] Dong Biwu.
3. We passed through the northern part of Shanxi province and the northwestern part of Hebei province, where we met and had conversations with the comrades from the JinSui subbureau of the CC CCP and the comrades from the JinChaJi bureau of the CC CCP as

 

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well as with the masses. On our way we saw that the work with rectifying party ranks, carrying out land reform, reconstruction, and development of agriculture and industry, work on supplying the fronts, on helping victims of various disasters, work with non-party progressive gentry and so on had moved in the right direction.
Leftist tendencies, which came into being in the provinces during the two years following the Japanese capitulation, have already been thoroughly corrected. A new work spirit can be felt everywhere.
4. I decided to move forward my visit [to] the USSR. I am planning to leave the Fobin district (100 km to the north from Shijiazhuang) in Hebei province in the beginning of the month and under cover of troops to cross the railway Beiping [Beijing]-Kalgan [Zhangjiakou] (the Guomindang has concentrated around 100,000 troops on this railway). Possibly, I'll be able to arrive in Harbin in the beginning or in the middle of July. Then, from Harbin to you.
I will be accompanied by Comrade Ren Bishi, member of the Political Bureau of the CC CCP. He has been to the USSR more than once, [he] knows Russian. On my arrival at Harbin I am planning to invite to go with me another member of the Politbureau, Comrade Chen Yun. He is now in charge of industry and labor movement in Manchuria; he was in the USSR in 1936.
Besides them, I'll have with me two secretaries and several cipher officers and radio operators.
I have organized such a big group for my trip to the USSR because I will ask for advice and guidance from the comrades in the CC VKP(b)
2
on political, military, economic, and other important questions; besides, if you agree, we are planning to conduct studies in the USSR on military, economic, governmental, and party questions.
Besides, if possible, I would like to travel to the countries of Eastern and Southeastern Europe in order to study the work of the people' s front and other kinds of work.
We are planning to travel for one to three months. If you agree with this plan, we will act according to it. If not, then, of course, there is only one way out to come by myself.
5. My health is not good. I hope that the two Russian doctors who live here (one of them can speak Chinese) will accompany me to the USSR and then return here with me. Terebin's radio station will go with us ("to be in touch on the way" [he] said but did not write. Terebin). On arrival in Harbin, we will leave the radio station there.
Please indicate to me whether we can do this.
Mao Zedong
Source: APRF, f. 39, op. 1, d. 31, 45-6.
2
All-Union Communist Party (bolsheviks), (after 1954 Communist Party of the Soviet Union [CPSU]).

 

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III. Liu Shaoqi's Report to the CPSU CC Politburo, July 4, 1949
Since Mao did not get Stalin's permission to come to the Soviet Union, the CCP chairman instead sent his deputy, Liu Shaoqi, as head of a delegation that paid an almost two-month-long visit to Moscow in the summer of 1949. Document III is the report that Liu Shaoqi presented to the CPSU Politburo on July 11, 1948. The report was originally drafted by Liu in Beijing before departure, discussed among a number of CCP Politburo members, and revised by Mao Zedong. After arrival in Moscow, and especially after the first conversation with Stalin on June 28, Liu made several changes to the report. All of these changes were agreed to by Mao. Stalin received a copy of the text on July 4. Stalin's handwritten notes on the report are given in italics. The underlinings are all Stalin's.
To the Central Committee of the Soviet Communist Party, Comrade Joseph Stalin. We are sending you the enclosed report.
Liu Shaoqi, head of the delegation of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China, July 4, 1949.
1. The Present Situation of the Chinese Revolution
The revolutionary war of the Chinese people has already been won by and large, and it is to culminate in complete victory shortly.
By the end of May 1949 the People's Liberation Army had occupied 2.9 million square kilometers of the country's richest regions making up 30 percent of China's territory (30 percent because Xinjiang, Qinghai, and Tibet occupy a large part of the country's territory). The territory liberated by the People's Liberation Army is populated by
275 million
people, or 57 percent of China's total population. The People's Liberation Army has occupied 1,043 cities, including such major cities as Shanghai, Nanjing, Beiping [Beijing], Tianjin, and Wuhan, or 51 percent of China's 2,000 cities from country towns up.
In the course of its three-year combat operations the People's Liberation Army has destroyed
5.59 million
Guomindang troops. At the present time the Guomindang army, including the personnel of the logistics services, is only about 1.5 million strong, of whom only 200,000 may be considered battleworthy. On the other hand, according to the latest data, the People's Liberation Army is
3.9 million
strong. Its four field armies have 2.4 million combatants, with the rest of the personnel being distributed among military districts, local troops, the armies of the Chief Command, military institutions, and military

 

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schools. The
air force has 7,500
and the
navy has 7,700,
(Airmen, are there? Sailors, are there?)
This summer and autumn the People's Liberation Army will be able to clear the provinces of Fujian, Hunan, Jiangxi, and Shaanxi, and in the winter it will be able to liberate the provinces of Guangdong, Guangxi, Yunnan, Guizhou, Sichuan, Xikang, Gansu, Ningxia, and Qinghai. Thereby the hostilities against the Guomindang will be terminated in the main. To be liberated yet will then be Formosa [Taiwan], Hainan island, Xinjiang, and Tibet. The issue of Tibet should be resolved by political means and not by the military option. Formosa, Hainan, and Xinjiang will be liberated next year. Since part of the Guomindang forces on the island of Formosa might take our side, the liberation of Formosa could take place even earlier than the above date. We would like to liberate Xinjiang as soon as possible were it not for the great obstacle of clearing the enemy from the route to Xinjiang and getting traffic moving along it. Another great difficulty is the shortage of required transport (traveling from Gansu to Xinjiang, one must cover a great distance passing through desolate areas devoid of food supplies and drinking water). If we can overcome these difficulties, we could liberate Xinjiang much sooner.
Alongside military victories we also have political victories. The American imperialists and Jiang Jieshi's Guomindang are now completely isolated. All democratic parties and groups are on our side. The popular masses are warmly greeting the People's Liberation Army and coming out against the imperialists and the Guomindang. We believe there could now be no doubt about the victory of the Chinese Revolution. Yet because of the constraints imposed on the operations of our troops by roads and terrain, some time will yet be needed for us to score a complete victory. We have always reckoned with the possibility of imperialist armed intervention against the Chinese Revolution. The instructions given to us on this matter by the Soviet Communist Party, which we have accepted in full, have alerted us to pay more attention in this regard. Although we have not slackened our caution with respect to the probability of imperialist armed intervention, yet, judging by the current international situation, there can be no possibility for the imperialists to dispatch troops more than a million strong for a massive intervention in China. Such moves on their part could only delay the ultimate victory of the Chinese Revolution but they are unable to annihilate or stall the Chinese Revolution. On the contrary, they would put the imperialists in a very awkward position.
Quite possibly, the imperialists would dispatch 100,000 to 200,000 troops for seizing three or four Chinese ports or for committing various acts of sabotage. Considering the possibility of such actions, we have made certain preparations. Since we have no navy or air force, we have no naval defenses. A possible armed attack by the imperialists may pose difficulties to us and may cause damage to us, but our armed forces will not suffer a defeat. Such actions on the part of the imperialists will make the Chinese people and its army rise against the imperialists, and they will drive out the interventionist forces.

 

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