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SITUATION AND OUR POLICY AFTER VICTORY OVER JAPAN 13

grateful to the people, knocked them down and plunged them into
the bloodbath of ten years of civil war. You comrades are familiar
with this segment of history. During the present War of Resistance
the Chinese people again defended him. This war is now ending
in victory and Japan is on the point of surrender, but he is not at
all grateful to the people. On the contrary, thumbing through the
records of 1927, he wants to act in the same old way. He says
8
there has never been any “civil war” in China, only “bandit suppres-
sion”. Whatever he likes to call it, the fact is he wants to start a
civil war against the people, he wants to slaughter the people.
Until a civil war breaks out all over the country, many of the
people and many of our Party comrades will not have a very clear
understanding of this question. Since civil war is not yet here on a
large scale, since it is not yet widespread or out in the open and
since the battles are not yet numerous, many people think, “Well,
there may not be a civil war after all!” Many others are afraid of
civil war. Their fear is not without reason. There were ten years
of fighting and then another eight years of the War of Resistance;
if the fighting keeps on, where will it all end? It is quite natural that
such fears should arise. With regard to Chiang Kai-shek’s plot to
launch a civil war, our Party’s policy has been clear and consistent,
that is, resolutely to oppose civil war, be against civil war and
prevent civil war. In the days to come, we shall continue, with the
utmost effort and greatest patience, to lead the people in preventing
civil war. Nevertheless, it is necessary to be soberly aware that the
danger of civil war is extremely serious because Chiang Kai-shek’s
policy is already set. Chiang Kai-shek’s policy is civil war. Our policy,
the policy of the people, is against civil war. The opponents of civil war

country-wide civil war and had to adopt the correct policy, that is to say, to harbour
no illusions about imperialism and reaction, to have no fear of their threats, to
resolutely safeguard the fruits of the people’s struggle and strive to build a new China -
a new-democratic China of the broad masses of the people under the leadership of the
proletariat. The decisive struggle between the two destinies, the two futures facing
China, constituted the content of the historical period from the conclusion of the War
of Resistance Against Japan to the founding of the People’s Republic of China, the
historical period of the Chinese People’s War of Liberation or Third Revolutionary
Civil War. After the War of Resistance, Chiang Kai-shek, supported by U.S.
imperialism, tore up peace agreements again and again and launched a gigantic
counter-revolutionary civil war without parallel in history in an attempt to wipe out the
people’s forces. Because of the correct leadership of the Communist Party of China,
it took the Chinese people only four years of struggle to win a great country-wide
victory - the overthrow of Chiang Kai-shek and the creation of a new China.