When the first volunteer armies were organised, the Chinese Communist Party was completely hostile to them on the grounds that their leaders were bound to capitulate, claiming that the leaders of the volunteer armies were paid by the Japanese and merely pretending to resist.
Some Communists acted against this policy and held senior positions in the volunteer forces.
They were particularly influential in the Chinese People's National Salvation Army, where Li Yanlu and Zhou Baozhong were made high-ranking officers.
However, the Communists eventually had to face the fact that their policy made them almost irrelevant to the anti-Japanese cause.
This force continued the struggle against the Japanese pacification of Manchukuo until the death of Yang in 1940.