 The National Broadcasting Company and its affiliated stations present the Pacific story. In the mounting fury of world conflicts, events in the Pacific are taking on ever greater importance. Here is the story of the Pacific and the millions of people who live around this greatest sea. The drama of the people whose destiny is at stake in the Pacific War. Here is the tale of the war in the Pacific and its meaning to us and to the generations to come. The Pacific story comes to you as another public service with drama of the past and present and commentary by Agnes Smetley, noted traveler and author of the Battle Hymn of China. The Chinese Communist. Stop that, go for that coffee. It's the slightest noise could give us away. Do you think the Japanese are close enough to hear us, Major Chen? They are all around us. The only protection we have is the darkness. That man is a bad cold. Middle of the man now. But where must we are? Very business. Not a light. We are passing within half a mile. The Japanese are post. They have a radio transmitter. Mr. Scott, Middle of the man. They could radio the girls in the weaker rivers. I'm coming to see you, Mr. Scott. Yeah, I'm right behind you. Some of the men suffer from back climbers. That is why we must march single-fire. What a surprise those Japanese, the garrison, are going to get. If we cover the 20 miles before dawn, one of the men cannot see. He is lost in the column. Night blindness? Yes. This will show him where we are. This is operating behind the Japanese lines. Yes. Sergeant? Yes, sir. We will halt for a rest. Give the order. Whisper down the line. Yes, sir. Column halt. Column halt. Column halt. The order faded out and whispers along the column. I could hear the machine gunners grunt and sigh with relief as they put down their heavy weapons. We rested, standing or squatting, where the mud was ankle deep and there was no place to sit down. The only sound was a drizzling rain and the intermittent sound of the men moving around in the mud. Until a few days before this, the Chinese communists had never seen me. The Chinese nationalists permitted me as a correspondent to cross the blockade along the Yellow River and go into the Chinese communist country. This forced night march through the rain was the first time I'd seen them in operation. Sergeant? Yes, sir. Give the order. March quickly. Yes, sir. March quickly. March quickly. That's remarkable, Major Chen, Honour Chairman. A gorilla must be about in order to live. Somebody else has wandered off the trail. They will direct him back to the column. Stop that. The runner is slipping, falling down the bank. Go down and help him. Yes. Night blindness, Major. Yes. The men are undeniesed. They are blind in the dark. The soldier broke a rib and twisted a ankle in the fall. He helped him back to the trail. He moved along with the rest. We slugged on until we came to a swift river. Here's my hand, Mr. Scott. Hold on tight. Yeah. I will take you another hand, Mr. Scott. All right. Now we must hold firmly to each other as we wait across. All right. Come along. We will lead the way. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes, I'm coming. Come along back there. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. The men in the mules, all loaded with supplies, ordered the icy river as the rain beat down. We slugged on through the night. Hurry. Go. Hurry. Go. Hurry. Go. The orders were little more than suppressed whispers. Run. Come to the right. Turn to the right. Turn to the right. Turn to the right. It was unreal. Pressing on and on through the darkness. Just before dawn, it reached the vicinity of the Japanese garrison. The machine gunners crept up and set up their weapons at strategic points. Major Tenfu lie, deployed his men around the garrison. What is this on the little? This. They killed all. They killed and wounded some of us. We killed all of them. We are bringing in the horses with carbines and ammunition and food. Yellow River. The Chinese communists are fighting and working for their way of life. Nearly 60 million of them. 60 million. They have been up here in North China nearly eight years now. They have their own army. 500,000 men or more. And their own government at Yanan and Shenty Province. And besides, they have much more. And millet and cotton and corn. We have opened up 600,000 acres of new land. This is a Chinese communist farmer. Mao Zedong said that we must be self-supporting. Mao Zedong is a brilliant leader of the Chinese communists. He said that we must depend on ourselves. We must not count on anything from the outside. The blockades cut us off from the outside. So now we grow the cotton and wool for our clothes. And we grow our own food. I have seen their fields. In the last several years, they have cultivated great areas. From their own soil, they feed their 60 million and maintain their own army. Among them are many refugees. I walked 400 miles to Yanan here. This is a student. I came here to attend college. The Chinese communists have established four colleges. Education is compulsory behind the communist lines. And the schools are free. But I came here of my own free will. Once, this was a poverty-stricken region. In a matter of a few years, it has been transformed. Today, everyone works or fights. There's no opium traffic. There's little vice. There are no ligards. For only those who believe in the cause of the Chinese communists are here. We have given much of our blood for what we believe. This is one of the Chinese communist government. Our government is the most democratic China has ever had. The communists have worked out the problems of all the people. Working and fighting together. We have our own system for handling the mail. We publish our own books and newspapers. We collect taxes and we administrate all the functions of government. We believe that all Chinese should have a voice in the government and that the government should be a true constitutional government. This is a basic belief of the Chinese communists. We believe all Chinese should have a voice in the government and that the government should be a true constitutional government. They support Dr. Sun Yat-sen's theories. The three principles of the people. Nationalism, democracy, and livelihood. The three principles of the people answer the needs of present-day China. But the bone of contention between the communists and the nationalists is the introduction of the second principle, democracy. And the third principle, livelihood. The communists demand their realization. The nationalists say all such problems must wait till after the war. And the nationalists say we believe it in the interest of the country for the communists to disband their two big guerrilla armies and their administration in North China and disband their party, placing themselves under the government. And the communists say China cannot be ruled by a single party. The Guomindong must end its control of the Chinese government and allow full development of democracy with equal rights for all parties, including our own. This demand is in accordance with the three people's principles of Sun Yat-sen and is the only basis for national unity and continued resistance to the enemy. We have carried out these principles in the territory which we have reconquered from the enemy and with the people we administer. This is the thinking of the Chinese communists today. This stem is back to about 1919. Right after World War I, a group of Chinese students began to work for the emancipation of the Chinese people. They raised their voice against the decision of the Big Four at the Versailles Peace Conference. They have surrendered our Shandong to Japan. They have shown a total disregard for China's rights. We were one of the Allied nations, yet now the peacemakers have given our Shandong to Japan. We must fight to show the world that might should never be right. But how can we fight? China is weak and helpless. China is weak because it is stagnant. We must live by our ancient traditions. No, our ancient traditions are responsible for our stagnation. The world is changing and we must change. China had its revolution. The Manchus were overthrown seven years ago, yes. But not yet foreign control of our country. To become an independent and progressive nation, we must complete the anti-imperialist struggle and begin the agrarian revolution and feudalism in agriculture. We must achieve real democracy. Young China was disillusioned, especially about western civilization. They talked about rejuvenation of China and they looked toward Soviet Russia. Soviet Russia expresses its willingness to renounce all the advantages and privileges and concessions which were extorted from China by the tsarist regime of Russia. This was the far-reaching declaration of Karakam. It won many Chinese sympathizers. In the next year, the first communist group was formed at Shanghai. And soon, Mao Zedong was busier than organizer. If we are to succeed, we must organize the workers, not merely to talk of the nature of man and of human society and of China's relation to the world. We must organize the workers politically. The Communist Party of China was formed. China had turned toward Russia. In 1922, Dr. Sun Yat-sen invited the party of Soviet Russian advisors to come to China. At 1922, the second congress of the Communist Party was held at Shanghai. The influence of the party grew. Chinese workers are striking for better wages than human rights. Chinese workers are striking for better working conditions. The Chinese workers are daily becoming stronger and are uniting in a powerful labor movement. Chinese scholars and intellectuals took part in the promotion of the Communist Party. And in 1923, at the third congress of the party of Canton, they made an important decision. It is therefore the will of this Communist Congress assembled to join the Kuomintang, to cooperate with the Kuomintang, and together with the Kuomintang to move against the militarists of North China. But it was plain to all of us in China, after Sun Yat-sen died in 1925, that there was a growing rift between them. Yes, I am Xu Wing, one of your students. Yes, you are from Inner Mongolia, are you not? You remember me? Every one of you. We have men from 21 different provinces in our course. And you are going to be our organizers in the peasant movement. How could I forget you? There are so many being trained here. I know you all. You've been attacking the right wing of the Kuomintang in the political weekly. They are reactionary. Are we not working for solidarity with the Kuomintang? Yes. And the only way solidarity can be achieved is to work together with a single point of view, for a singleness of purpose against imperialism, for the agrarian revolution, the right wing of the Kuomintang is moving far... Mao Zedong went on working in the Kuomintang. They also went on writing. We knew the crisis was not far off. It came in 1927 in Shanghai. That's it! That's it! You are dead! Are they straight down every worker they can see? Every organized worker. Revolutionary students. Even revolutionary Kuomintang members. If we can make that cellar, we will be safe. Just ahead of us there. But we can hide there. I'll open the door. I'll help you. No, no. Quick, get down in it. Yes. Close the door. We have been waiting for you. Soldiers, gangsters, jump to the... I'll get in with them! Soldiers, come... You thought you could escape us? The communists in the leftist group of the Kuomintang joined forces. But these split, too. And Chao and Lai and some of the other communists made their way to Nanchang. There, with the 20th Kuomintang army, they led the uprising. Kuomintang soldiers mutinied. And there at Nanchang, the Red Army of the Chinese communists was born. From this time forward, communist armies were to be an important factor. As the communist movement grew, its armies grew. The first Soviets were set up in China. For years the Chinese had talked about the old feudal land policies. Most Chinese are peasants. Now they committed themselves to redistribution of the land. The movement spread like an epidemic. Peasants swarmed to join. I am from Chiangxi province. I am from Hunan province. I want to join. I am from Anhui province. I am from Hunan province. I want to join. I am from Hopei province. I want to join. I want to join. I want to join. I want to join. It was in the last part of the 1930s that the Nanking government became alarmed by the growing power of the Chinese workers and peasants' Red Army led by the communists. The nationalists started out to exterminate. The communist forces, nearly five to one, the communists have defeated the drive to exterminate. The second campaign to exterminate the Chinese communists has ended in failure. To exterminate the Chinese communists has ended in defeat. Instead of being crushed, the communists became stronger. More poor men, more students, engineers joined them. And in November 1931 they established their own government in Chiangxi. And now it's a turn with elected chairman. No party should aim at a monopoly of state power. No party should insist upon exclusive control of national policy. No party should attempt to establish dictatorship. The communists had a breathing space of about 18 months. Then the nationalists attacked again. The strategy was mapped out by the German Reichswehr officer General von Siegel. Seated, the force drive to exterminate them. The communists captured 13,000 nationalist troops. Zheng Kai-shek with 900,000 men has surrounded the communist troops with a system of blockhouses. The Reds are retreating. The retreat turned out to be one of the greatest forced marches in all history, 6,000 miles. Over mountain ranges, great plains, rivers. And Mao Zedong marched nearly every mile of the way. We have made it. Yes, come let's not Zedong. The credit should go to you soldiers. You outmaneuvers and out fought and outwitted those who tried to trap us. All of us did it together. Come let Mao. All of us suffered privation. How many of us are left? 20,000. 20,000. But other thousands are coming from other provinces. We started with 90,000. Yes. And every mile of the way is strewn with our dead. Northwest, the communists build up their own economy. They've established their own form of government at Yanan. And behind the bandits of their armies worked out their way of living. When the Japanese attacked China in July 1937, the communists joined the Nationalist forces to fight their common enemy. You have your instructions? Yes. Very well. You are well trained for your mission. You will move with your fighting units at all times. Inspire them. Educate them. You must remember, you are a political worker. Yes. Goodbye, Wang. Goodbye, Major Chen. Good luck to you. Thank you, sir. I shall see you again. Hmm. Dangerous mission that young man is going on, Mr. Scott. What will he do? He will work in occupied territory, organizing and training and arming the civilians to fight the Japanese. Behind the Japanese lines, eh? Yes. We have an iron-educated army of 500,000 in our new 8th Route, and 4th Arm. With inadequate arms, the Chinese communists reconquered great areas from the Japanese in northern regions from which the Japanese had driven out the regular Chinese armies. And here they organized and educated the common people to elect their own officials to establish a democratic administration. This is the first time I have ever voted. I am a citizen. I am the first one in all the generations of my family to vote. My wife and my sisters voted along with me today. What great things are happening to our China. No class lines were drawn. And for the first time, these Chinese had a part in the system of democracy. But in 1940, the central government imposed a military and economic blockade against the communists. Blockade them along the Yellow River. Today, as the war closes in toward Japan, the differences between the Chinese central government and the Chinese communists are seen as having a direct relationship to the prosecution of the war. If we are to have important basis in China for direct operations against Japan, then we should have the help of those hundreds of thousands of communist guerrillas. Chinese Reds are not only blockaded up there in northwest China, but they would have to be properly armed. All they have now are what they have captured, or small arms made by themselves. Yes, and many of them have no weapons at all. Well, what the Chinese communists want most of all is political rights for themselves and all the people. They want a thorough going democracy. That is what they are fighting for. As much as fighting the domination of the Japanese. And in the coming operations on the mainland of Asia are the 60 million Chinese communists. To tell the significance of these people in the complex political situation in the Pacific, the National Broadcasting Company presents a message from Agnes Medley, noted traveler and author of the Battle Hymn of China, who has visited and studied the Chinese communists. Miss Medley's message. The dramatization, which you have just heard, gives a brief glimpse into what is generally referred to as guerrilla or partisan or communist China. It introduces you to the famous Chinese guerrilla armies, the Eighth Route and New Fourth Armies, which are very similar in both form and content to the Yugoslav Army of National Liberation, whose commander is Marshal Tito. Within a few months after the Japanese invasion of China began in July 1937, the Japanese had overrun most of the territory north of the Yellow River. The regular Chinese armies fought hard, but were driven out by the powerful Japanese armies. Chinese officials and the wealthy people fled either with the armies or into Japanese occupied cities such as Bebing. The Eighth Route Army began to filter through the Japanese lines into this occupied territory in the autumn of 1937. They began widespread guerrilla fighting, recapturing towns and villages and whole country sides from the enemy. Since the old Chinese officials had already fled from the north, the communists and their armies were faced with an administrative vacuum in newly liberated territory. They solved the problem by democratic methods. First, they conducted educational campaigns among the people in self-government and democratic elections. Next, they granted suffrage rights to all men and women over 18, regardless of class. Elections were then held from the village up through all the administrative organs to the new regional administrative governments which were established in safe northern mountain retreats. Hospital bases and various kinds of training schools and camps were also established in need mountain retreats. Simultaneously, with this development, new laws were passed in the liberated regions guaranteeing rights of free speech, press, assembly, religion, residence, movement and the right to own property. Private trade and industry were permitted and encouraged. Primary schools and some high schools were re-established, universities were founded and night schools to eradicate illiteracy among adults became universal. A medical training school with a three-year course was founded in Yanan. Study and learning permeates every branch of these guerrilla armies. Their leaders believe that men fight best who know what they are fighting for and have a good goal and a good cause. All soldiers must learn reading and writing and other general subjects as also all the political and historical knowledge taught in the training camps. This education continues ceaselessly and proceeds hand in hand with fighting. Every conceivable educational method such as singing, patriotic plays, discussion groups, mass meeting and slogans are used. The Japanese constantly made use of the so-called communist menace in an effort to break the resistance of the Chinese government. In the past three years, the Japanese have used 42% of their total armed forces in China against the guerrillas. The guerrillas have suffered serious losses as high as 100,000 men a year. In one year alone, they lost 75 of their highest commanders in action. But the Japanese have lost three or more men to every Chinese guerrilla. In 1940, the Guomandong, or sole ruling party of China, became frightened by the rapid growth, success and influence over the people of the communist armies. The Chinese government, therefore, withdrew one of its most powerful armies from the battlefield and used it to institute a blockade against the guerrilla regions. Since that time, the guerrillas have been cut off from the rest of China and have had to depend upon themselves and the civilian population. They have had to capture guns and ammunition from the enemy or to manufacture what they could in their network of small arsenals. The communists have repeatedly announced that they are willing to negotiate with the Guomandong or ruling party but that negotiations must be sincere and conducted on a basis of equality. They refuse to abolish their armies of the democratic system they have introduced. They insist that the Chinese government introduce democracy and give all parties and groups of the people a voice in the government that rules them. China leaves American arms and ammunition and airplanes and leaves them badly. But even without foreign help, indeed even without any help whatever from the Chinese government, the Eighth Route and New Fourth Armies have been able to hold their own in a territory which is the most difficult in China, directly in the rear of the enemy. You have just heard a message from Agnes Smedley, read by Lynn Whitney. To the Pacific Story, presented by the National Broadcasting Company and its affiliated independent stations as a public service to clarify events in the Pacific and to make understandable the cross-currents of life in the Pacific Basin. For a reprint of this Pacific Story program, send 10 cents in stamps or coin to University of California Press, Berkeley, California. It is written and directed by Arnold Marquess. The original musical score was composed and conducted by Thomas Pelusel. Your narrator, Herbert Lytton. This program came to you from Hollywood. This is the National Broadcasting Company.