We Must Stress Unity and Progress

#PUBLICATION NOTE

This edition of We Must Stress Unity and Progress 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 editions:

• We Must Stress Unity and Progress, in the Selected Works of Mao Zedong, First English Edition, Vol. 2, Foreign Languages Press, Beijing, 1965.
• Strengthen Unity and Progress, First English Edition, Vol. 7, M.E. Sharpe, Armonk and London, 2005.

#INTRODUCTION NOTE

This is an article written by Comrade Mao Zedong in commemoration of the first anniversary of the Xin Zhonghua Bao in Yan'an, Shaanxi, China. It was first published in that newspaper on the 7th of February, 1940.

#Workers and oppressed people of the world, unite!

#WE MUST STRESS UNITY AND PROGRESS

#Mao Zedong

#Before the 7th of February, 1940

#★

A year has passed since the Yan'an Xin Zhonghua Bao [New China News] became the newspaper of the Communist Party organizations. In my opinion, this small newspaper is the best one in China. The main reasons are: first, it is run by the Communist Party; and, second, it operates in the context of democratic politics. Without the existence of these two prerequisites at the same time, it would be impossible for it to be run so well. The direct efforts of the comrades working for the newspaper are another important prerequisite. It is also impossible to run it well without their initiative and creativity. But there is no limit as to how well it can be run. This year is its second year, and I hope that it will improve further.

Resistance, unity, and progress — these are the three major principles which the Communist Party put forward last 7th of July on the second anniversary of the War of Resistance. The three form an organic whole, and not one of them can be dispensed with. If the stress is solely on resistance to the exclusion of unity and progress, then such «resistance» will be neither dependable nor enduring. Without a programme for unity and progress, resistance must sooner or later turn into capitulation or end in defeat. We Communists hold that the three must be integrated. For the sake of the War of Resistance, it is necessary to fight against capitulation, against Wang Jingwei's traitorous pact with Japan, against his puppet regime, and against all the traitors and capitulators concealed in the anti-Japanese ranks. For the sake of unity, it is necessary to oppose splitting activities and internal «friction», to oppose the stabbing of the Eighth Route and New Fourth Armies and other progressive anti-Japanese groups in the back, to oppose the disruption of the anti-Japanese base areas behind the enemy lines and of the Shaanxi-Gansu-Ningxia Border Region, which is the rear area of the Eighth Route Army, to oppose the denial of legal status to the Communist Party and the avalanche of documents for «restricting the activities of alien political parties». For the sake of progress, it is necessary to oppose retrogression and the shelving of the «Three People's Principles» and of the Programme of Armed Resistance and National Reconstruction, to oppose the refusal to carry out the injunction in Dr. Sun Yixian's Testament to «mobilize the masses of the people», to oppose the internment of progressive young people in concentration camps, to oppose the suppression of what little freedom of speech and of the press there was in the early days of the War of Resistance, to oppose the scheme to turn the movement for constitutional government into the private concern of a few bureaucrats, to oppose the attacks on the new army, the persecution of the League of Self-Sacrifice and the massacre of progressives in Shanxi,¹ to oppose the activities of the «Three People's Principles» Youth League in kidnapping people along the Xianyang-Yulin Highway and the Longhai Railway,² to oppose such shameless practices as taking nine concubines and making fortunes of 100'000'000 yuan out of the national crisis, and to oppose the unbridled brutality of the corrupt officials and the local tyrants and evil gentry. Without opposing all these, and without unity and progress, «resistance» will be just empty talk and victory a vain hope. What will be the political orientation of the New China News in its second year? It will be to stress unity and progress and oppose all the vicious practices which are detrimental to the war, so that further successes can be achieved in our cause of resistance to Japan.

On the occasion of the first anniversary of the New China News, I have written this article to express my sincere hopes, and I wish to work with our compatriots throughout the country for their realization.