By Nikos Mottas
Recently, Taiwan’s government has once again attempted to rewrite the history of the Second World War, claiming that the Communist Party of China (CPC) played no role in the resistance against Japanese imperialism and, by extension, no role in the victory over fascism.
This claim is not only historically inaccurate — it is a deliberate act of political revisionism, intended to deny the legacy of socialist struggle and the contribution of the Chinese people in the 1945 Great Antifascist Victory.
From a Marxist-Leninist perspective, such denial is not merely an academic error but an ideological maneuver, erasing the internationalist dimensions of the war and the role of the masses in shaping history. World War II was not a series of disconnected national conflicts but a global confrontation, in which the working class and oppressed peoples bore the heaviest burdens.
China’s resistance against Japan, which began in earnest with the Marco Polo Bridge Incident of July 1937, lasted eight years—longer than the Soviet Union’s direct involvement in the war. By tying down over 1.7 million Japanese troops, China prevented Tokyo from launching an assault on Siberia, thereby securing the Soviet Union’s eastern flank at the most critical moment of the Eastern Front struggle.
As renowned historian Eric Hobsbawm noted, “Had Japan been free to march northward, the survival of the Soviet Union in 1941 would have been uncertain at best.” By keeping Japanese divisions bogged down in China, the CPC directly influenced the global balance of forces, ensuring that the Red Army could throw its full weight against Hitler without fear of a second front in the Far East.
The CPC, guided by Mao Zedong’s theory of people’s war, organized the resistance in a fundamentally different manner than the Nationalist Kuomintang (KMT). Whereas the KMT relied on conventional armies and foreign aid, often retreating in the face of Japanese offensives, the communists embedded themselves among the masses. They mobilized peasants, established base areas, conducted guerrilla warfare, and even enacted progressive reforms, such as reducing rents and redistributing land, which won them deep legitimacy among the rural population.
The Hundred Regiments Offensive of 1940, led by the Eighth Route Army under CPC command, demonstrated that communist forces were not a mere sideshow but a decisive military actor. These campaigns disrupted Japanese supply lines, destroyed railway infrastructure, and forced Tokyo to commit vast resources to counter-insurgency operations rather than expansion into Soviet territory. In fact, the CPC transformed the anti-fascist war in China into a revolutionary war of the masses, proving Lenin’s dictum that the people, once organized, are stronger than any standing army.
Taiwan’s denial of the CPC’s wartime role reflects a broader pattern of bourgeois nationalist historiography. By claiming that only the so-called Republic of China (ROC) “fought” the Japanese, Taiwan attempts to monopolize the narrative of resistance and delegitimize the socialist revolution that followed. Yet this claim collapses under historical scrutiny. First, it ignores that Chiang Kai-shek’s government repeatedly prioritized fighting communists over resisting Japan, most notoriously before the Xi’an Incident of 1936, when only popular pressure forced the KMT into a united front with the communists. Second, it disregards the documented fact that CPC forces operated in vast swathes of northern China, where the KMT’s presence was minimal or non-existent. Third, it erases the dialectical relationship between resistance and revolution: the CPC’s wartime mobilization laid the groundwork for its eventual victory in the Chinese Civil War, a fact Taiwan’s ruling class finds politically inconvenient.
Revisionism, as Lenin warned, serves the ruling class by severing the masses from their revolutionary heritage. Taiwan’s current attempt to erase the CPC’s role is not simply about history—it is about delegitimizing socialism and aligning with imperialist narratives that seek to portray the People's Republic of China as a usurper rather than a liberator.
The victory over fascism was mainly a product of proletarian internationalism. The Soviet Union bore the heaviest military burden in Europe, but its ability to withstand Hitler’s assault was inextricably linked, among others, to the struggles of the Chinese people. By holding down Japan, China prevented the Axis from fully coordinating a two-front encirclement of socialism. Even U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt personally acknowledged China's pivotal role, by stating: "Without China - or if China had been defeated - countless additional Japanese divisions would have been deployed elsewhere. Japan could have seized Australia and India unimpeded, then advanced into the Middle East."
The Chinese and Soviet struggles were thus not parallel but interdependent. The defense of Moscow in 1941 was made possible, in part, because Japanese divisions that might have invaded Siberia were instead pinned down in Hebei and Shanxi. This fact underscores a central truth of Marxism-Leninism: the liberation of one people strengthens the struggle of all peoples.
The denial of China’s role in defeating Japan is an attack not only on the CPC but on the very principle that the masses make history. The Chinese people, led by the communists, transformed their suffering into resistance, their resistance into revolution, and their revolution into liberation. To erase this is to erase the contribution of the world’s largest anti-fascist front to the survival of socialism in the twentieth century.
No matter what ideological approach we may have towards today's China and its leadership, we have the moral duty to acknowledge historical truth, which is clear: Without China’s protracted war of resistance, the Soviet Union might not have prevailed on the Eastern Front, and without the Soviet victory, fascism might not have been crushed in Europe. Taiwan’s revisionism cannot change this dialectical reality. History belongs to the people, and the people of China decisively and heroically shaped the global victory over fascism.
As renowned historian Eric Hobsbawm noted, “Had Japan been free to march northward, the survival of the Soviet Union in 1941 would have been uncertain at best.” By keeping Japanese divisions bogged down in China, the CPC directly influenced the global balance of forces, ensuring that the Red Army could throw its full weight against Hitler without fear of a second front in the Far East.
The CPC, guided by Mao Zedong’s theory of people’s war, organized the resistance in a fundamentally different manner than the Nationalist Kuomintang (KMT). Whereas the KMT relied on conventional armies and foreign aid, often retreating in the face of Japanese offensives, the communists embedded themselves among the masses. They mobilized peasants, established base areas, conducted guerrilla warfare, and even enacted progressive reforms, such as reducing rents and redistributing land, which won them deep legitimacy among the rural population.
The Hundred Regiments Offensive of 1940, led by the Eighth Route Army under CPC command, demonstrated that communist forces were not a mere sideshow but a decisive military actor. These campaigns disrupted Japanese supply lines, destroyed railway infrastructure, and forced Tokyo to commit vast resources to counter-insurgency operations rather than expansion into Soviet territory. In fact, the CPC transformed the anti-fascist war in China into a revolutionary war of the masses, proving Lenin’s dictum that the people, once organized, are stronger than any standing army.
Taiwan’s denial of the CPC’s wartime role reflects a broader pattern of bourgeois nationalist historiography. By claiming that only the so-called Republic of China (ROC) “fought” the Japanese, Taiwan attempts to monopolize the narrative of resistance and delegitimize the socialist revolution that followed. Yet this claim collapses under historical scrutiny. First, it ignores that Chiang Kai-shek’s government repeatedly prioritized fighting communists over resisting Japan, most notoriously before the Xi’an Incident of 1936, when only popular pressure forced the KMT into a united front with the communists. Second, it disregards the documented fact that CPC forces operated in vast swathes of northern China, where the KMT’s presence was minimal or non-existent. Third, it erases the dialectical relationship between resistance and revolution: the CPC’s wartime mobilization laid the groundwork for its eventual victory in the Chinese Civil War, a fact Taiwan’s ruling class finds politically inconvenient.
Revisionism, as Lenin warned, serves the ruling class by severing the masses from their revolutionary heritage. Taiwan’s current attempt to erase the CPC’s role is not simply about history—it is about delegitimizing socialism and aligning with imperialist narratives that seek to portray the People's Republic of China as a usurper rather than a liberator.
The victory over fascism was mainly a product of proletarian internationalism. The Soviet Union bore the heaviest military burden in Europe, but its ability to withstand Hitler’s assault was inextricably linked, among others, to the struggles of the Chinese people. By holding down Japan, China prevented the Axis from fully coordinating a two-front encirclement of socialism. Even U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt personally acknowledged China's pivotal role, by stating: "Without China - or if China had been defeated - countless additional Japanese divisions would have been deployed elsewhere. Japan could have seized Australia and India unimpeded, then advanced into the Middle East."
The Chinese and Soviet struggles were thus not parallel but interdependent. The defense of Moscow in 1941 was made possible, in part, because Japanese divisions that might have invaded Siberia were instead pinned down in Hebei and Shanxi. This fact underscores a central truth of Marxism-Leninism: the liberation of one people strengthens the struggle of all peoples.
The denial of China’s role in defeating Japan is an attack not only on the CPC but on the very principle that the masses make history. The Chinese people, led by the communists, transformed their suffering into resistance, their resistance into revolution, and their revolution into liberation. To erase this is to erase the contribution of the world’s largest anti-fascist front to the survival of socialism in the twentieth century.
No matter what ideological approach we may have towards today's China and its leadership, we have the moral duty to acknowledge historical truth, which is clear: Without China’s protracted war of resistance, the Soviet Union might not have prevailed on the Eastern Front, and without the Soviet victory, fascism might not have been crushed in Europe. Taiwan’s revisionism cannot change this dialectical reality. History belongs to the people, and the people of China decisively and heroically shaped the global victory over fascism.
* Nikos Mottas is the Editor-in-Chief of In Defense of Communism.