Notes on the Chinese Question

Georgi Dimitrov
Meeting with Stal(in) in the Kremlin. D(imitrov), Wang Ming, Kang Sheng, Communard.
The decree of the Secretariat [of ECCI] is outdated.
This is what happens, when people sit in their offices and cook up!'
To strengthen by all possible means the struggle against Trotskyites (in the dec[ree]). That is not sufficient. Trotskyites must be pursued, shot and destroyed. They are world-wide provocateurs. Most malicious agents of fascism!'
1) Basic for the Chi(nese) Communist Party at present is: to participate in the all-national upheaval and to take a leading position.
2) At the moment war is the most important. And not agrarian revolution not confisca(tion) of land.
(Necessity is for a tax in support of the war.)
Chi(nese) Com(munists) have moved from one extreme to the other - earlier they confiscated everything, now - nothing.
3) There is only one slogan:
'Victorious war for the liberation of the Chi(nese) peo(ple).'
'For a free China, against Japa(nese) war-mongers.'
4) How should the Chinese fight against the foreign enemy - that is the basic question. When that is settled, then to tackle the question, how to fight amongst themselves !
5) The Chinese are now in more favourable conditions. More than we were in 1918-20. Our country was divided along the line of social revolution.
In China national revolution, struggle for nat(ional) liberat(ion) and freedom. Unites the country and the people.
6) China has a great reserve of people and I think, that Chiang Kai-shek is right when he asserts that China will win. What is needed is to persist with the war that has started.
7) For that it is necessary to create its own war industry.
Production of aviation.
It is easy to produce aeroplanes, but it is very difficult to transport them.
(Mater[ials] for the planes we shall give them!)
Aeroplane manufacturing facilities must be built.
Must also produce tanks.
(We can give materials for tanks!)
If China has its own war industry, no one can defeat it.
8) 8th Army must have not three, but thirteen divisions.
That can be done in the form of reserve regiments as a replacement of the existing divisions.
New regiments must be raised, and armed training given night and day.
9) Since the 8th army does not have artillery, its tactics should not be of direct attack, but should irritate the enemy, to draw it into the countryside and to attack it from the rear.
Must blow up communications.
10) Neither England, nor America want China to win. They are afraid of its victory, because of their own imperialist interests.
Chinese victory will influence India, Indochina etc.
They want Japan to weaken as a result of the war, but would not allow China to stand on its legs.
In the form of Japan, they wish to have a dog on the leash - to frighten China, as in the past.1) Tsar's Russia did but they do not want the dog to eat the whole of the sacrificial victim.
11) For the Chin(ese) part(y) congress it is not advisable to engage in theoreti(cal) discussions (refers to the 7th Congress of CPC).
They can leave theoretical problems for later. After the end of the war.
To talk of a non-capitalist path of development for China now has much less chance than earlier.
(Isn't capitalism in China now developing!)
12) Held up is the question of the setting up of national revolutionary league.
13) In Uhumi a suitable representative of the 8th Army and the party.