Mainstay of the War of Resistance Against Japan (July 1937-August 1945)

In July 1937, the Japanese imperialists launched an all-out war of aggression against China. In the ensuing eight years of the War of Resistance Against Japan, the Chinese Communist Party held high the banner of national unity and armed resistance against Japan, and stood in the forefront of the struggle for national liberation from beginning to end.

The Chinese Communist Party drew up a program for the anti-Japanese war. It called on Chinese forces to fight the enemy on all fronts and prepare for a protracted war against the Japanese aggressors. This policy paved the way for the final victory of the War of Resistance Against Japan. Under the leadership of the Party, the Eighth Route Army, the New Fourth Army and other anti-Japanese armed forces of the people penetrated deep behind enemy lines to mobilize the masses, peasants in particular, to launch guerrilla warfare. Anti-Japanese base areas and anti-Japanese democratic governments were set up behind enemy lines. Armed forces and civilians in the base areas thus gradually became the main forces in fighting the Japanese aggressors. Yan'an, headquarters of the Party Central Committee and capital of the Shaanxi-Gansu-Ningxia Border Region, became a command centre of the anti-Japanese war and a sacred place of revolution for all Chinese patriots.

When the war turned into a stalemate, the Party Central Committee raised three slogans-"Persist in resistance and oppose capitulation, persist in unity and oppose a split, and persist in progress and oppose retrogression". On the one hand, the Party led the armed forces and civilians behind enemy lines to fight bitter battles against Japanese aggressors. On the other hand, it tried every means to maintain the united front in fighting Japan, for which it waged struggles on just grounds, to its advantage and with restraint against the Kuomintang diehards who insisted on opposing the Communist Party and appeasing the Japanese aggressors at the same time, the Party made remarkable progress in mass work and united front work in the Kuomintang-controlled areas.

At these times, though the war was meeting with severe difficulties, the Party led the armed forces and civilians behind enemy lines in arduous struggles against the policies of "mopping-up operations", "nibbling" and "cleaning-up of villages" practiced by the Japanese aggressors. In the meantime, it strengthened the building of base areas through political, economic, ideological and educational means. In order to help the Party and the soldiers and civilians in base areas to tide over the difficult times, a rectification movement and a great campaign for production were launched, laying the foundation for the final victory of the anti-Japanese war.

Shortly before the victory of the anti-Japanese war, the Party convened its Seventh National Congress. During the congress, the CPC set the political line of defeating the aggressors and building a new China. On the basis of Mao Zedong Thought, the whole Party reached a high level of unity. After eight years of bitter struggles, the Chinese people won the great victory of the war against Japan and made great contributions to the victory of the worldwide war against fascism.