PE Files, Lot 52–354
Memorandum by Mr. Everett F. Drumright of the Division of Chinese Affairs
According to a Yenan transmission, recorded by the FCC, a meeting of “different circles in the Shensi, Kansu, and Ninghsia border region” was held in Yenan on June 21, 1945, to discuss the “promotion of a convention of Liberated China People’s Representatives Conference”.
Lin Tzu-han, Chairman of the “Border Kegion Government”, referring to a proposal offered by Mao Tse-tung at the recently held Seventh National Congress of the Chinese Communist Party, proposed at the [Page 436] meeting that a “preparatory committee” be formed to arrange the details for the holding of such a conference. Lin’s proposal was approved, a preparatory committee of nine members organized, and measures devised to send a circular telegram to the “governments and people’s organizations of various liberated areas behind the Japanese lines”. It was pointed out in the circular telegram that although the “nineteen big liberated areas …99 have become a model of independent, free and united New China … there is no federated organization Japanese work and unification of anti-Japanese forces to fall short of of these liberated areas, which causes the strengthening of the anti-requirements”. Added reasons for the holding of such a conference were outlined in an editorial published in the June 23 edition of the Communist Emancipation Daily. It was held that unity of the “liberated areas” is essential to collaboration with Allied troops in recovering “the big cities and all lost territories”, as well as in striving for “nation-wide democratic reforms, solidarity and unification … and how to aid the democratic movement in Kuomintang-controlled areas, stop the danger of civil war, strive for nation-wide democratic reforms, national solidarity and unification and promote the realization of an independent, free, democratic, unified, prosperous and strong New China”.
Comment: The foregoing and later information reaching the Department via the Yenan broadcasts clearly indicate that the Chinese Communists are proceeding with plans to set up a separate regime in the areas controlled by them. It seems likely that this new federated Communist regime will be activated by the end of the present year. The establishment of the new regime will in a sense put a seal on what has been a fact for several years: the existence of a regime with an army and a political administration which operates independently of the Chinese National Government. It may be taken for granted that the Chinese National Government will take no official cognizance of the newly and formally organized Communist regime. On the other hand, the new Communist regime may be expected to exert every claim to being the legitimate government of the Chinese people and will utilize its propaganda to the greatest possible degree with a view to persuading the Chinese people to abandon the Kuomintang and give their allegiance to the Communists. The new Communist regime may also be expected by the use of propaganda and other means to seek the support of foreign powers. Those powers which continue to accord support to the National Government will doubtless be labeled “reactionary”, “imperialist”, “undemocratic”, “interventionist”, and every effort will be made by the Chinese Communists to persuade the Chinese people to accept such propaganda. Already the initiation of such a [Page 437] policy can be seen in the Communist attacks leveled at Ambassador Hurley.
While the “formal” establishment of a federated Communist regime may not necessarily be the signal for the commencement of general internecine strife, it will without doubt be an important step in that direction.
Should it become the policy of the Soviet Union to intervene in the internal affairs of China—as she did in 1925—it will be apparent that the setting up of a separate federated Communist regime in North China would offer a convenient vehicle for the carrying out of such a policy. As has been said above, the Chinese Communists will doubtless claim that they are the legitimate agents of the Chinese people and the Soviet Union might find it convenient to recognize that claim, and, if the Soviets chose to do so, join the Chinese Communists in declaring that those powers who supported the Chinese National Government were supporting a regime which was “reactionary” and “undemocratic” and which had forfeited the confidence of the Chinese people, et cetera.
- Omissions in this memorandum indicated in the original.↩