The Policy of Striving for Peace and Democracy

After the essential victory of the Anti-Japanese War in August 1945, the CPC put forward its policy in response to the current situation in China.

On August 25, 1945, the CPC Central Committee issued the “Declaration on the Current Situation”. The Declaration pointed out that after the surrender of Japanese imperialism, "the important task confronting the whole nation is to consolidate unity in the country, safeguard domestic peace, bring about democracy and improve the people's livelihood so as, on the basis of peace, democracy and unity, to achieve national unification and build a new China, independent, free, prosperous and powerful." The Declaration called on the KMT government to implement six emergency measures immediately: Recognize the government elected by the people and the resist-Japan troops in China’s Liberated Areas; designate the areas for accepting the surrender of Japanese troops by the Eighth Route Army, the New Fourth Army and the South China Resist-Japan Column; severely punish the traitors; disband the puppet troops; reorganize the troops and handle demobilization fairly and rationally; recognize the legitimacy of the parties and factions; and Immediately call a meeting of all parties and without party affiliations to form a democratic coalition government.

On the evening of the same day, the CPC Central Committee decided to send Mao Zedong, Zhou Enlai and Wang Ruofei to Chongqing for peace negotiations with Chiang Kai-shek. After 43 days of negotiations, the KMT and the CPC reached a summary of conversations (that is, the “Double Tenth Agreement”). Although this achievement was quickly destroyed by the KMT ruling group, the CPC took great initiative in politics, won the approval of all democratic parties and non-Party personages who love peace and democracy, and made the ruling group of the KMT fall into isolation and passivity. Although the efforts of the CPC to achieve peace and democracy failed to prevent the outbreak of a full-scale civil war in the end, it made people from all walks of life enhance their understanding on the policies of the Communist Party of China and fully understood which political force was responsible behind the civil war. This was a major political victory.