On Party and Mass Work in the White Areas

The fourth part of Liu Shaoqi's report at the Party’s White District Congress held in Yan'an in May 1937. It was included in the Selected Works of Liu Shaoqi (Part I) published by the People’s Press in 1981. The full text consists of eleven parts.

The report comes straight to the question that "the general work of our Party and the masses is to carry out a radical transformation in the future", and analyzes the reasons for the transformation in two aspects. On the one hand, the policy of the Japanese imperialists to destroy China on the mainland and the resolute implementation of our Party's Anti-Japanese National United Front policy have caused major changes in the political situation and social relations throughout the country.

These changes have changed and will continue to change the environment in which we work, as well as the tasks, slogans and policies we propose. With the change of the environment and the proposition of new tasks and slogans have necessitated a complete transformation of the way our Party works with the masses, the way we organize ourselves and the way we fight.

On the other hand, it is because in our Party there is still a serious historical tradition of closed-doorism, sectarianism and adventurism in all kinds of mass work. This abominable tradition has not yet been eradicated, especially hindering the establishment of the National United Front and winning over the majority of the masses. In order to purge this tradition in every concrete work, it is necessary to create new ways of work, organization, and struggle, and to make a comprehensive transformation of the Party's organizational work.

The report outlines the twofold nature of the current transformation of organizational work of the Party, its concrete forms of manifestation and the nature of the transformation. It is pointed out that, firstly, because of the changes in the environment and policies, we need to change the way we organize and work in our struggle.

Secondly, because there is still a wrong and bad tradition in the Party's work with the masses that needs to be purged and changed. The former shift is from the armed to the peaceful, from the illegal to the legal, from secret to open, and from separate to cooperative with allies. The latter is from mechanical to lively, from subjective to objective, from empty talk to reality, and from metaphysics to dialectics. Therefore, the current transformation is a comprehensive and radical transformation of the work of the Party and the masses. This is an extremely difficult task for us, yet it is something that determines everything.

The report focused on the question of how to win and organize millions of masses to put the national revolution under the leadership of the Party, pointing out that we must correctly establish the relationship between the Party and the masses, correctly organize the link between open and secret work, and learn the art of leading the masses under various circumstances. We must distinguish and make clear that leading the Party organizations and leading the masses are fundamentally different, and that the methods of working within the Party and the methods of working among the masses are fundamentally different.

The report discusses the decisive role of the construction of the CPC for the realization of the leadership of the proletariat, pointing out that in order to defeat Japanese imperialism and realize the leadership of the proletariat, only the Bolshevization of the Party and the development and consolidation of its organization are the only guarantee.

The main tasks of Party building at the present time are as follows: Firstly, to quickly restore Party headquarters in all areas and to develop Party members carefully and conscientiously; secondly, to clearly separate internal Party work from open mass work; thirdly, to expand Party-internal democracy under possible conditions; fourthly, to refrain from attacking comrades casually in the ideological struggle; fifthly, to select and train a large number of cadres to be assigned to various fronts and to help them in their work; sixthly, to establish Party groups among mass organizations, and to absolutely subordinate them to the leadership of party headquarters at all levels; seventhly, to adhere to the combination of revolutionary spirit and pragmatic spirit, change the busy and disorganized style of work, purge the style of empty talk, and overcome bureaucratism; eighthly, to correctly carry out publicity work; ninthly, to overcome the serious existence of subjectivism and formalism in the Party, and replace them with the Marxist dialectic.

The report concluded: comrades should all study, learn from past experience, the theory of Marxism-Leninism and the methods of Marxism-Leninism. Only in this way can we be able to move forward and make a complete transformation of the Party's work among the masses. Study! Study! Study again! Armed with Marxism-Leninism, we can overcome all the mistakes of the past and lead millions of people to defeat Japanese imperialism and liberate China.

The report is a systematic summary of the experience and lessons of the Party's work in the White Areas since the August 7th Meeting of the Party in 1927, and the experience of the Party's work in the White Areas in North China since the Wayaobu Conference in 1935. It systematically exposes and criticizes the mistakes of closed-doorism and adventurism, and emphatically expounds the Party's basic principles and principles of work in the White Areas under the new situation after the peaceful settlement of the Xi'an Incident, as well as the Party's organizational work and mass work that must be done to realize these policies, strategies and tasks, have played a positive role in the complete transformation of the Party's work in the White Areas.