Page 17 - SELECTED WORKS OF MAO TSE-TUNG Volume IV.indd

SITUATION AND OUR POLICY AFTER VICTORY OVER JAPAN 15

after the same fashion. Some of us often neglect such investigation
and study. Chen Tu-hsiu, for example, did not understand that
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with swords one can kill people. Some say, this is a plain everyday
truth; how can a leader of the Communist Party fail to know it?
But you never can tell. Chen Tu-hsiu made no investigation and
study and so did not understand this, hence we called him an oppor-
tunist. He who makes no investigation and study has no right to
speak, and accordingly we deprived Chen Tu-hsiu of that right. We
have adopted a course different from Chen Tu-hsiu’s and enabled the
people suffering from oppression and slaughter to take up swords.
If ever again anybody wants to kill us, we will act after his fashion.
Not long ago, the Kuomintang sent six divisions to attack our Kuan-
chung sub-region, and three of them drove in and seized an area
measuring 20 by 100 li. We acted after their fashion and wholly,
thoroughly and completely wiped out the Kuomintang troops in this
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area of 20 by 100 li. Our policy is to give tit for tat and fight
for every inch of land; we will never let the Kuomintang easily
seize our land and kill our people. Of course, to fight for every
inch of land does not mean following the old “Left” line of “not
abandoning a single inch of land in the base area”. This time we
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abandoned an area of 20 by 100 li. Abandoned late in July, it was
retaken early in August. After the Southern Anhwei Incident of
1941, the Kuomintang liaison staff officer once asked me what we
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intended to do. I answered, “You are here in Yenan all the time
and you don’t know? If Ho goes for us, we’ll go for him. If Ho
stops, we’ll stop too.” At that time Chiang Kai-shek was not named,
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only Ho Ying-chin. Today we say, “If Chiang goes for us, we’ll go
for him. If Chiang stops, we’ll stop too.” We will act after his fashion.
As Chiang Kai-shek is now sharpening his swords, we must sharpen
ours too.
The rights the people have won must never be lightly given up
but must be defended by fighting. We don’t want civil war. How-
ever, if Chiang Kai-shek insists on forcing civil war on the Chinese
people, the only thing we can do is to take up arms and fight him
in self-defence to protect the lives and property, the rights and well-
being of the people of the Liberated Areas. This will be a civil
war he forces on us. If we do not win, we will blame neither
heaven nor earth but only ourselves. However, let no one think
that the people can be easily robbed or defrauded of the rights they
have won; that is impossible. Last year an American correspondent