From a Telegram to Mao Zedong, April 20, 1948

Source: Tom 18

...We disagree with this. We believe that the various opposition political parties in China, representing the middle strata of the Chinese population and standing against the Guomindang clique, will continue to exist for a long time, and the Chinese Communist Party will be compelled to enlist their cooperation against Chinese reaction and the imperialist powers while retaining for itself hegemony, that is, the leading position. It is possible that some representatives of these parties will need to be brought into the Chinese people's democratic government, and the government itself declared a coalition, in order thereby to broaden its base among the population and isolate the imperialists and their Guomindang agents.

...One must bear in mind that the Chinese government after the victory of the People's Liberation Army of China will be, in its policy, at least during the period after victory — the duration of which is now difficult to determine — a national revolutionary-democratic government and not a communist one.

This means that for the time being there will be no nationalization of all land and abolition of private ownership of land, no confiscation of the property of all the commercial and industrial bourgeoisie from small to large, no confiscation of the property of not only large landowners but also medium and small ones who live by hired labor. These reforms will have to wait for a certain period.

...For your information, in Yugoslavia, in addition to the Communist Party, there exist other parties that are part of the people's front.

Note

This telegram responded to the position of the CPC Central Committee, reflected in a telegram to the CC of the VKP(b) on November 30, 1947: "In the period of the final victory of the Chinese revolution, following the example of the USSR and Yugoslavia, all political parties except the CPC must leave the political arena, which will significantly strengthen the Chinese revolution."