Communist movement, while remaining adherents to the Party’s communist programme, we can do no other than resolutely lead the anti-imperialist, anti-feudal national democratic revolution (this is the condition). Therefore, not only do we not oppose them, we previously implemented the true programme of the Three People’s Principles (anti-imperialist nationalism, the democratic principle of soviets of workers and peasants, and the principle of people’s livelihood through agrarian revolution). Moreover, in the past decade, the tradition of the true Three People’s Principles has remained only with the Communist Party. Besides a few elements like Song Qingling, He Xiangning, Li Yangjiu, etc., the Guomindang has discarded this tradition. The political programme of the Communist Party for the democratic revolution is not in conflict with the true Three People’s Principles, the thorough-going and progressive Three People’s Principles. When we have passed through the democratic stage, we will change to communism. The Three People’s Principles and communism are not a single entity, and the two are in contradiction; in the present and future stages they are not a single entity, and they are in contradiction. However, they are both in opposition and complementary; a certain condition can create identity.
We can also speak of something that is happening at this very moment. War and peace are in contradiction, but they are also connected;[4-588] war is transformed into peace (for instance, the First World War was transformed into the Treaty of Versailles;[4-589] China’s civil war was transformed into internal peace following the Xian Incident).[4-590] Peace is transformed into war (the present world peace is temporary, and will be transformed into the second world war;[4-591] the peace following Japan’s invasion of the four eastern provinces was temporary, and has now begun to change into a continental war). Why is this so? Because[4-592] they have an identity in given conditions. The Chinese proletariat and bourgeoisie have agreed upon an anti-Japanese united front; this is one aspect of the contradiction. The proletariat must raise its political consciousness and pay close attention to the bourgeoisie’s political vacillations, and its corrupting and destructive effect on the Communist Party, in order to guarantee the independence of Party and class; this is the other aspect of the contradiction. A united front of the various political parties [p. 270] with independence for those parties, are the two aspects of the contradiction constituting the present political movement. There would be no united front if one of these two aspects, the party’s right to determine its own policies, was removed. We give the people freedom; this is one aspect. We also suppress the Chinese traitors and wreckers; this is the other aspect. Because of certain conditions, these two, freedom and unfreedom, are connected, and it won’t do to be without either of them; this is the unity or identity of opposites. The organizational form of the Communist Party and the Soviets, as well as the anti-Japanese government which we advocate, is democratic centralist; they are democratic but also centralist, and the two are in contradiction and unity because, under certain conditions, they have identity. The proletarian democratic dictatorship in the Soviet Union, and our democratic dictatorship of workers and peasants of the last decade, are democratic toward the revolutionary classes; they are also dictatorial (or despotic) toward counter-revolutionary classes. There is identity between the two extremes of these opposites.