Gao Shiying: The Historical Contribution of Anti-Japanese Military and Political University to the Anti-Japanese National United Front [1]
After the September 18th Incident [1], the ethnic contradiction between China and Japan became the principal contradiction [2] facing Chinese society. Against the historical backdrop of a crisis where the Chinese nation faced subjugation and extinction, the Communist Party of China (CPC) took the lead in proposing the establishment of an Anti-Japanese National United Front. Subsequently, it vigorously promoted the second instantiation of Kuomintang-CPC cooperation, facilitated the formal formation of the Anti-Japanese National United Front, and played the role of the mainstay [3] during the War of Resistance. In October 1935, the Red Army reached Northern Shaanxi after the Long March. To cultivate cadres capable of adapting to the new domestic and international situation, the Chinese Anti-Japanese Red Army College was announced and began recruitment in June of the following year. At the opening ceremony, Mao Zedong emphasized that the CPC founded the Anti-Japanese Red Army College to prepare for the coming national revolutionary war and to strive for the independence and liberation of the Chinese nation. As the situation of the War of Resistance evolved, the Chinese Anti-Japanese Red Army College was renamed the Chinese People's Anti-Japanese Military and Political University (hereinafter referred to as "Kangda" [4]). As the highest military institution under the leadership of the Party, Kangda successively trained over 100,000 military and political cadres possessing both political integrity and professional competence, making significant contributions to the consolidation and development of the Anti-Japanese National United Front.
Actively disseminating the theory of resisting Japan and saving the nation. Regarding the theoretical dissemination of the Anti-Japanese National United Front, Kangda both promoted the education and publicity of relevant theories among students and facilitated the publicity work of the vast student body among the masses. This created a favorable situation where the school educated the students and the students mobilized the masses.
To encourage students to master systematic anti-Japanese theories, Kangda actively taught knowledge of the Anti-Japanese National United Front. "The Party’s Policy on the National United Front" and Mao Zedong’s "On the Anti-Japanese National United Front" were compulsory courses for students. Before classes, preparatory education meetings were held for study group leaders, and class representatives and general class representatives were appointed to exchange learning experiences. The school also introduced many songs reflecting anti-Japanese themes; the "Kangda Anthem," "The Yellow River Cantata," and "The Sword March" were frequently sung by the students. On the training grounds, in classrooms, during marches, and at labor sites—wherever there was a Kangda unit, there was the sound of loud singing. By singing songs reflecting the resistance and national salvation, the confidence and fighting spirit of Kangda students were enhanced, and the surrounding masses were also inspired. Under the school's cultivation, the students were profoundly influenced. Guo Qingshou, a Kangda student, recalled that Kangda’s education on resisting Japan and saving the nation gave him a direction and a goal in life, representing the first "ideological liberation" [5] of his life.
While completing their education and training tasks, the school also required the students to shoulder the tasks of "publicity teams" and "work teams," actively mobilizing the masses to resist Japan. The Party branches and "Salvation Rooms" [6] of Kangda featured Mass Movement Committees, primarily responsible for mass work around the school. The school organized teachers and students to use holidays to assist the masses with labor; during breaks, they would take the initiative to tell the masses about changes in the war situation, expose the aggressive crimes of the Japanese invaders, and emphasize the importance of popular unity for achieving victory. To further strengthen the dissemination of anti-Japanese theory among the masses, the school specifically established literature and art troupes, organizing students to perform for the public. In the arduous wartime environment, students built earth stages on the spot and hung curtains for performances, actively publicizing the Party’s theory of resisting Japan and saving the nation. Many people, after watching the programs, took the initiative to express their willingness to go to the front lines. The First Branch School even received reports regarding the crimes of Japanese puppets and traitors [7], providing leads and evidence for punishing collaborators. Some members of the Kangda cultural troupes even went near the blockhouses of the puppet army [8], first playing the erhu and singing anti-Japanese songs, then explaining the latest international and domestic situations and the Party’s anti-Japanese policies, ultimately causing the puppet soldiers in the entire blockhouse to "abandon the darkness and head for the light" [9].
Striving to maintain the unity of the whole nation in the War of Resistance. Regarding the maintenance of the Anti-Japanese National United Front, the students recruited by Kangda showed clear breadth and inclusivity, promoting the integration and solidarity of different student groups. Furthermore, the school resolutely struggled against acts that undermined the unity of the resistance, actively promoting the realization of a nationwide united War of Resistance.
Patriotism is the largest "concentric circle." In the practical predicament of Japanese imperialist aggression, achieving broad national unity was the inevitable choice to save the nation from crisis. Kangda actively maintained national unity in the resistance; among the students recruited, there were students from different domestic provinces as well as returned overseas Chinese, students of the Han ethnicity as well as ethnic minorities, and both Communist Party members and Kuomintang members. Kangda fully protected the rights of the students and did not force all students to believe in Communism. As long as they were willing to resist Japan, Kangda would actively cultivate them; the school's recruitment was intended to "unite all forces that can be united" to resist Japan. To promote good exchange and collaboration among different groups, Kangda made "unity" a major theme of its school spirit, emphasizing mutual assistance and harmonious coexistence between students and between teachers and students. This created a positive campus atmosphere and injected spiritual impetus into the united resistance.
After the Southern Anhui Incident [10] occurred in 1941, Kangda teachers and students created the stage play "The Blue Sky and the Fair Sun" (Qing tian bai ri), exposing the criminal acts of the Kuomintang reactionaries in sabotaging the Anti-Japanese National United Front. The Kangda School Headquarters and Political Department urgently mobilized student cadres to go to various regiments and regions to conduct publicity against the civil war. Simultaneously, they established denunciation and support committees to expose and criticize the atrocities of the Kuomintang reactionaries. In June 1943, Chiang Kai-shek secretly ordered forces under Hu Zongnan and others to concentrate toward the Shaanxi-Gansu-Ningxia Border Region, and shortly thereafter ordered the shelling of the Guanzhong sub-region. Yan'an issued an urgent nationwide circular telegram for "unity in resisting Japan and opposition to civil war." Following relevant orders from the Party Central Committee, Kangda students actively executed combat plans, taking up arms to conduct defense in places such as Mizhi and Suide, and strengthening self-defense preparations. Shortly thereafter, the forces of Hu Zongnan and others withdrew, and the conspiracy of the "diehards" [11] to sabotage the unity of the resistance was crushed. The First Branch of Kangda also organized small detachments and armed work teams to penetrate deep into enemy-occupied areas and "fringe areas" to carry out anti-Japanese work. In newly opened areas, they mobilized the masses to join the army and support the front, organized people from all walks of life to join anti-Japanese salvation groups, strove to unite progressive forces, win over the "middle-of-the-road" forces, and waged struggles against the diehards that were "on just grounds, to our advantage, and with restraint" [12], thoroughly implementing the Party's policy of the Anti-Japanese National United Front.
Extensively organizing students to participate in actual anti-Japanese combat. To achieve the goals of the Anti-Japanese National United Front, Kangda organized students to participate in actual combat multiple times. Upon graduation, students rushed to various regions across the country, using the knowledge they had learned to educate and influence the local masses, playing a positive role in radiation and mobilization, and promoting the victory of the War of Resistance.
Kangda always treated the cultivation of military capability as a vital component, listing "Strategic Problems of China's Revolutionary War," "Strategic Problems of Anti-Japanese Guerrilla War," and "On Protracted War" as compulsory military theory courses. Simultaneously, it organized students to learn operations such as shooting, grenade throwing, and demolition, delivering a large number of military talents to the anti-Japanese front lines and supporting the struggle against Japan at the front. During the May Anti-"Mop-up" Operation [13], the participating Kangda students decisively adopted the "passing-by" tactic of "the enemy advances, we advance," using mountain guerrilla warfare methods to repel the enemy's offensive, creating favorable conditions for the relocation of the masses in the base areas. During the Hundred Regiments Offensive, over 500 people from Kangda formed a blocking force, repelling three attacks by Japanese and puppet troops at Hongling and eliminating nearly 60 enemies. Later, in the "Thirty Mu" area, they killed or wounded nearly 70 Japanese and puppet soldiers, effectively coordinating with the operations of the main forces. Under the school's organization, Kangda students also participated in actual combat: the attacks on puppet strongholds in Tongjing and Mazhuang, the "stubborn fortress" of Shilangzhai, as well as the battles of Heyang, Duozhuang, and Jiazi Mountain. In 1945, under instructions from the CPC Central Committee, Kangda students enthusiastically rushed to the front lines to participate in the final battle against Japanese imperialism. In the military struggle against the enemy, Kangda students displayed an indomitable spirit. Some jumped off cliffs to sacrifice themselves after running out of bullets; others grappled with the enemy, biting off the enemies' ears, shouldering the historical responsibility of saving the nation from peril with a spirit of being unafraid of sacrifice.
Mao Zedong once clearly pointed out, "Why is Kangda famous throughout the country and the world? It is because it is more revolutionary and progressive than any other military school, and most capable of fighting for national liberation and social liberation." Generally speaking, Kangda actively practiced the Party's proposition for an Anti-Japanese National United Front, promoting the front's deep penetration among the masses. It played an important role in achieving national independence and people's liberation and stands as a "revolutionary furnace" [14] in the history of modern Chinese education.
(The author is an Associate Professor at the School of Marxism, Changchun University of Science and Technology) Source: China Social Science Network - China Social Science Journal, August 28, 2025 Web Editor: Tongxin