The Chinese Communists advocated resistance not simply as tools of the Comintern but in their own interest because if Chiang Kai-shek were forced to take up arms against Japan, he would be required to leave off his relentless campaign against themselves. Besides, they recognized, as an axiom of history if not of Marx, that national war has a wider appeal than class war and that the patriotic cause gave them a channel to the people of the north.
