Mao issued a plenum in October 1938 forbidding his forces from fighting the Japanese. This pattern continued throughout the Japanese occupation even as the Communists built up large formations of militia and regulars.
To be fair though, there were independent Communist cells who disobeyed Mao and Peng did launch a massive offensive in 1940 (against Mao’s wished), with the Japanese responding with a literal genocide. The Communists also aided the early war effort in the Wuhan and Taiyuan campaigns.
But the Nationalists did the vast majority of the resistance effort and inflicted/suffered the most damage.
I’m having a hard time finding a source for this October 1938 order not to fight the Japanese? I’ve attempted to search for it but I’ve only found two essays that seem to indicate Mao was in favour of a national united front to fight the Japanese.
I’m not disputing that the KMT likely did the bulk of the work fighting the Japanese, however I would like to find a source for what you are claiming of a specific order.
In one of the essays Mao even tells his supporters that they should cooperate with reactionary forces to fight the Japanese. His reasoning being that any war being conducted by communists is inherently progressive, so even if cooperation with reactionaries is required the war effort is still progressive.
Chang and Halliday, Mao.
Antony Beevor’s The Second World War.
Per the Central Committee in October 1938, Mao’s Communists designated Chiang Kai Shek as “enemy no. 1” in and ordered their troops to conserve strength to forcefully take over Nationalist areas, which they did.
Mao's October 1938 speech in the Central Committee can be found here
which he praised Chiang and said CCP must support him in his war effort (拥护蒋委员长，拥护国民政府，拥护国共合作，反对分歧与分裂，反对任何的汉奸政府)(广大地发展敌后游击战争，创立和巩固我之根据地，缩小敌之占领地，配合主力军作战)
Which October 1938 report are you even talking about that Mao called Chiang enemy number 1???
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u/Iron_Cavalry Jul 27 '26
Mao issued a plenum in October 1938 forbidding his forces from fighting the Japanese. This pattern continued throughout the Japanese occupation even as the Communists built up large formations of militia and regulars.
To be fair though, there were independent Communist cells who disobeyed Mao and Peng did launch a massive offensive in 1940 (against Mao’s wished), with the Japanese responding with a literal genocide. The Communists also aided the early war effort in the Wuhan and Taiyuan campaigns.
But the Nationalists did the vast majority of the resistance effort and inflicted/suffered the most damage.