运河角力:新见《周恩来致“联总”艾格顿将军函》考释

Fight Over the Canal:Study and Findings on Zhou Enlai's Letter to Glen E Edgerton,Director of UNRRA China Office

2021年新开放的英文历史档案《周恩来致“联总”艾格顿将军函》反映了苏北运河对于中共领导的苏皖边区所具有的重要政治、经济和军事上的多重价值。抗战结束后,新成立的苏皖边区政府把握有利时机,加强运河治理,促进边区社会经济的恢复和发展,给国民党造成很大的政治压力。对此,国民党在运河的春修和夏防工程期间屡加破坏,且在汛期时违反历史惯例,始终不开启运河归江各坝,又在军事上极力争夺运河沿线。中共则始终坚持军事斗争和防汛斗争相结合,保卫运河水利成果。中共的运河治理和防汛斗争,体现出对人民高度负责的精神,一定程度上奠定其日后最终赢得革命胜利的民意基础。

Zhou Enlai's Letter to Glen E Edgerton,the then director of United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration(UNRRA)China office,was open to the public in 2021.It is a newly released English historical document that reflects the political,economic and military importance and values of the Northern Jiangsu Canal to the Jiangsu-Anhui Border Region Government led by the Communist Party of China(CPC).With the end of the War of Resistance against Japanese Aggression,the newly established Jiangsu-Anhui Border Region Government seized the favorable opportunity to strengthen its management over Subei Canal,and strived to promote the recovery and development of the local social economy,which put great political pressure on the Kuomintang.The Kuomintang responded by repeatedly damaging the canal during the repair project in spring and the flood prevention project in summer,and refusing to open the dams along the Yangtze River to release flood waters,which act violated the general practice during the flood season as well as fighting ferociously for military control over the canal.The CPC answered by adhering the strategy of both military fights and flood control,thus successfully defending its water conservancy achievements regarding the canal.The CPC's canal management and fight for flood control demonstrated its high sense of responsibility to the people,and to a certain extent,it laid the public foundation for its eventual victory in the later War of Liberation.