On the Question of Peace Negotiations
#PUBLICATION NOTE
This edition of On the Question of Peace Negotiations has been prepared and revised for digital publication by the Institute of Marxism-Leninism-Maoism under the Central Committee of the Communist Party in Switzerland on the basis of the following edition: Spokesperson for the Chinese Communist Party Delivers a Speech on the Question of Peace Negotiations, in Mao's Road to Power, First English Edition, Vol. 10, Routledge, New York and London, 2023.
#INTRODUCTION NOTE
This is a statement written by Comrade Mao Zedong for the spokesperson for the Communist Party of China in Xibaipo, Pingshan, Hebei, China on the 25th of January, 1949. It was first published by the New China News Agency on that date.
#Workers and oppressed people of the world, unite!
#ON THE QUESTION OF PEACE NEGOTIATIONS
#STATEMENT BY THE SPOKESPERSON FOR THE COMMUNIST PARTY OF CHINA
#Mao Zedong
#25th of January, 1949
#★
According to a 22nd of January report from the Central News Agency of the reactionary Nanjing Nationalist government, the Executive Chamber of that reactionary government on the 22nd overturned its own ridiculous resolution from the 19th that it would not be willing to negotiate if the Communist Party of China did not first stop fighting. It had reached a new decision to dispatch five delegates to carry out negotiations with the Communist Party of China. These five delegates are Shao Lizi, Zhang Zhizhong, Huang Shaohong, Peng Zhaoxian, and Zhong Tianxin.
We will be willing to negotiate with the reactionary Nanjing government on the question of a peaceful resolution based on Chairman Mao Zedong's 14th of January statement, On the Present Situation. The reactionary Nanjing government should take complete responsibility for launching the counter-revolutionary civil war. The Chinese people lost all confidence in this government long ago, and it has long been disqualified from representing the Chinese people. The only government qualified to represent the Chinese people will be the democratic coalition government that shall emerge from the upcoming meeting of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference, in which no reactionary elements will take part. We have permitted the reactionary Nanjing government to send a delegation for peace negotiations with us, not because we recognize that government as still qualified to represent the Chinese people, but because it still has some remnants of the reactionary armed forces. If that government feels that it has completely forfeited the people's confidence and that the remnants of its reactionary armed forces are unable to resist the powerful People's Liberation Army and if that government is willing to accept the eight terms for peace proposed by the Communist Party of China, then it is of course preferable and beneficial to the cause of the liberation of the people to settle the matter by negotiations, so as to lessen the people's sufferings. The recent peaceful resolution of the Beijing question offers a concrete example of this. However, at present, no one knows whether the reactionary Nanjing government is wiling to accept the eight terms put forward by the Communist Party, which reflect the will of the people throughout the country. All we know for now is that the reactionary Nanjing government has released some false and pretentious talk of peace in an attempt to dupe the people. This is to achieve its goal of preserving reactionary power, gaining some breathing room, and then staging a comeback to stamp out the revolutionary forces. The people of the whole country should remain clear-headed and must not be misled by this hypocritical prattle. As to the place of negotiations, it can be decided only after the complete liberation of Beijing and will probably be Beijing. Peng Zhaoxian is one of the key figures of the Nationalist «Central Club Clique», which has been most vehemently clamouring for war, and people consider him a war criminal; the Communist Party of China cannot receive such a delegate. Regarding the issue of the list of war criminals, we have not yet issued a complete such list. The list issued by the New China News Agency on the 25th of December of last year was only the first batch of names. Those persons in the Nationalist reactionary clique who bear main responsibility for launching the civil war and for massacring the people are certainly not limited to 43 names.