THE CHINESE COMMUNIST PARTY DURING THE … · THE CHINESE COMMUNIST PARTY DURING THE ERA OF THE COMINTERN (1919-1943) TONY SAICH Daewoo Professor of International …

THE CHINESE COMMUNIST PARTY DURING THE ERA OF THE

COMINTERN (1919-1943)

TONY SAICH

Daewoo Professor of International Affairs, Kennedy School of Government,

Harvard University

Article prepared for Juergen Rojahn, “Comintern and National Communist Parties

Project,” International Institute of Social History, Amsterdam

The rise to power of the Chinese Communist movement has shaped the history of China

for most of the twentieth century. Almost from the founding of the Chinese Communist

Party (CCP) in 1920 to its seizure of state power in 1949, its struggle with the

Guomindang (GMD, Nationalist Party) dominated the domestic stage of Chinese politics.

The main elements of this history are well-known but the period of reform in China

launched in 1978 has been accompanied by the release of an unprecedented amount of

new documentation that has enabled a refinement of key components of the story. This

newly available documentation shows how the CCP interpreted the revolution in which it

was a key player, how its policies evolved to meet the changing circumstances, how

policy was communicated both to party members and to the public at large, and how the

CCP dealt with its complicated and crucial relationship with the Comintern. The message

was not always the same, not even for party members. How much one was entitled to

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know or which particular interpretation of an event one was entitled to see depended on

party rank.

The precise details of the Chinese revolution during the twentieth century are, of

course, unique but there are a number of general features that will be familiar to students

of revolutions elsewhere. First, the traditional system under the Imperial household and

hybrid successors had ceased to “deliver the goods” for its citizens and crucially for key

groups such as the urban elites and intellectuals. Disillusionment set in and the imperial

system lost its monopoly over feasible alternatives, allowing disaffected intellectuals to

challenge the premises of state power. Second, the communist movement was able to

thrive where the bases of power of local elites had been destroyed or lost the capacity to

repress alternatives to its rule. In these environments the communists could establish

local military superiority. Third, for the revolutionaries, the organization and

organizational ethos were crucial in terms of providing the movement with its direction

and purpose. This gave the activists their frame of reference. It enabled them to channel

the energies of other social forces when necessary and to overcome the resistance and

apathy of the local population.

This chapter will cover three issues. First, some general problems in the

relationship between the Comintern and the CCP are discussed. Second, a detailed

overview of the development of the CCP and its relationship to other social forces is

provided. This traces the development of the CCP from a small group of clandestine

plotters to an armed force ruling over significant sovereign territory. Third, a review of

some of the key sources available for the study of the CCP within its socio-economic and

political contexts is provided.

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The Comintern and the CCP: Some General Observations

During the fifties, the assumption in the West that the CCP was under the tutelage of

Moscow led to attempts to see Comintern influence on the CCP in earlier phases of the

revolution. It was not difficult to find.1 Indeed some western scholars saw the

destruction of the first united front in China between the CCP and the GMD (1924-27) as

amounting to a failure of Soviet policy or even more particularly that of Stalin himself.2

Interestingly, this is also the conclusion of more recent scholarship by historians in the

People’s Republic of China.3 Soviet writings also had a vested interest in claiming a

major role for the Bolshevik Party and the Comintern in the Chinese revolution and most

historiography was directed towards this end.4 The massive defeat of the Chinese

revolution in 1927 formed a key element in the struggle for power in Soviet Russia

between Stalin and Trotsky. Trotsky himself offered a penetrating analysis of the failure

of the CCP through its slavish adherence to Stalinist policies in the United Front, an

analysis that affected the writings of his followers in the West.5 While perceptive in his

analysis of the failings of the United Front, his exhortations for the CCP to break with the

bourgeoisie and rely on the power of the working-class was as equally ill-conceived in a

country where the working-class was weak and barely formed.6

In terms of Western scholarship, the work of Schwartz and Schram has stood out

as an exception to the idea of a revolution inspired by the Soviets. While Schwartz

acknowledged the debt owed by the Chinese communists to Bolshevik theory and

organization, he was aware of traditional influences and the “originality” of Mao Zedong

and his supporters that was of increasing importance after 1927.7 The indigenous

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elements that had gone into Chinese communism became major objects for retrieval

particularly after the Sino-Soviet rupture became apparent in the early sixties. Some

researchers, such as Schram, began to explore the “sinification of Marxism” and to stress

that much had happened in spite of Comintern influence rather than because of it.8

Materials that have become available through the eighties and nineties show that

there was a continual tension between the CCP and the Comintern resulting from China’s

perceived position in the world revolution and Moscow’s perception of Soviet geo-

political interest. Comintern influence was of major importance in the party’s founding

and development but its authority was not always accepted nor decisive in all periods.

Yet it was a voice that could not be ignored and up until 1938, when the Comintern could

articulate its message clearly and get it through the communication network to the CCP

leadership it had a reasonably decisive say. The legitimacy of the Comintern to dictate

policy in China became a key point in the struggle between the pro-Soviet group in the

CCP under the leadership of Wang Ming and those who under Mao Zedong who were

closer to the indigenous roots of the revolution.

The historian Dirlik is the most recent scholar to argue that the role of the

Comintern was crucial for forging together the party in its nascent period.9 His work

shows the influence of the Comintern in bolstering Leninism and the party at the expense

of anarchism, which was more influential initially, and other forms of Marxism.10 By

contrast, van de Ven highlights the indigenous roots of the communist movement. He

shows that not only did the localism have a strong impact on the first decade of the CCP

but also there were regional groupings, such as that in Sichuan, which came into existence

without reference to the Comintern and even without contact with the “founding fathers,”

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Chen Duxiu and Li Dazhao. He shows just what a long, hard process it was to construct a

Bolshevik organization in the Chinese cultural soil.11 Yeh Wen-Hsin also stresses the

indigenous nature of the movement’s origins and she has contributed significantly to our

understanding of its initial diversity. Her study of the Hangzhou radicals who comprised

many of the initial members of the Shanghai communist small group shows how disgust

of the old world rather than the revelations of the new led them to adopt radical

alternatives. However, she takes issue with van de Ven’s analysis of the party’s

evolution evolved to a Leninist form during the twenties. In her view, there was no

evolution but rather the CCP was totally reconstituted at the expense of most of its

earliest members. Those such as Shi Cuntong, the key figure in Yeh’s work, withdrew

from the party, rejecting its Bolshevization. By the end of the twenties, the party was

built on a new membership, while those who remained members had been significantly

radicalized by their experiences.12

As noted above, for the Comintern, China was also a crucial area for the

worldwide revolution and thus policy became embroiled in the polemics between Stalin

and Trotsky. The CCP had a permanent mission at the Comintern and until the mid-

thirties, the Comintern tried to coordinate its activities through the Far Eastern Bureau in

Shanghai.13 The Comintern tried to enforce its will through the agents and

representatives that it sent to implement policy in China.

Comintern agents in China enjoyed high prestige but had to find Chinese party

members through whom they could transmit their orders and the Comintern’s strategic

and tactical visions. At the very best, they were always one step removed form the

realities they were trying to influence and interpret. A stream of Comintern

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representatives from Maring (Sneevliet) through Borodin and Roy to Vladimirov were

frustrated in their attempts to apply Comintern policy to China.14 Frequently, they

discovered that the ideologically derived, policy positions of the Comintern were too

simplistic to deal with the complex realities of the revolution on the ground in China.

While Comintern agents in the field could enjoy considerable short-term freedom aided

by the difficulties of communication with Moscow, over the long-term room for

maneuver was limited. The ideological predilections of the Comintern set strict

constraints on the extent to which policy could be moderated in the light of local

conditions. Overloaded with details and information sent to Moscow from the periphery,

the Comintern center in Moscow tried to catalogue information and provide policy

prescriptions in terms of simple formulae based on the shifting class alignments. A good

example was Maring’s attempts to turn Lenin’s prescriptions for revolution in the

colonial countries into a viable strategy for China. Not only did it lead Maring to try to

interpret reality to fit a prescriptive, ideologiucal framework but also it caused him to

push the CCP into collaboration with the GMD. Attempts by field agents to redefine

their mission in the light of reality did, on occasion, bring them into conflict with

Comintern leaders who interpreted such redefinitions as “ideological deviation.”

Problems for Comintern agents were increased by the fact that not only were

they in an alien environment but also had to interpret it through the views and experiences

of others. Comintern agents did not speak Chinese and had no prior experience of

working in China. As a result, they relied on the Chinese leaders for their information

about the local situation. Thus, Maring depended on Liao Zhongkai for information

about the GMD and the potential for cooperation with the CCP. Liao was a member of

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the left-wing of the GMD and a strong supporter of such cooperation perhaps leading

Maring to adopt a positive assessment while underestimating opposition within the GMD

to cooperation with the communists.

Further, to get their message across, Comintern representatives had to find local

“carriers” to propagate their views within the CCP. In some cases this worked well but in

others it did not. For example, Pavel Mif was able to work through Wang Ming and Bo

Gu in the early thirties to repudiate the policies of Li Lisan and keep the focus of official

policy on revolutionary activity on the urban areas. By contrast, Maring was often

frustrated in his attempts to push cooperation with the GMD and to establish a viable pro-

CCP labor movement. Even Chen Duxiu, who supported Maring’s view of the need for

cooperation with the GMD at the CCP’s Third Congress, had originally rejected Maring’s

ideas. In fact, it was only after Maring appealed to Comintern discipline that he was able

to get Chen and other key CCP leaders on his side, albeit only briefly.

Two areas where Comintern representatives were particularly successful in

instilling their ideas among CCP members were on the need for strong organization and

the role that ideology played in inner-party debates. Bolshevik organization was

attractive to a number of CCP leaders from an early stage.15 The collapse of the

Confucian bureaucracy after the 1911 Revolution left an organizational vacuum that

many CCP leaders felt could be filled by a modern party organized along Bolshevik lines.

This kind of party was expected to provide an institutional form that transcended the

personal authority of an individual leader16 and a rational hierarchical structure that would

facilitate decision-making and policy implementation.

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A number of the CCP’s leaders who emerged during the twenties were attracted

to the Bolshevik form of organization because they felt that it would challenge what they

saw as a traditional Chinese political culture that stressed obedience to the powerful

individual leader.17 To some extent, they simplified the analysis of the past as comprising

a traditional system that culminated in an institution centered on an individual, the

“Emperorship.” However, previous Chinese rulers had been aware of the role played by

“abstract” institutions and a relatively sophisticated bureaucracy had been developed. In

their search for a suitable organizational form, these early CCP leaders overlooked the

fact that while, in theory, Bolshevik organization would transcend the individual, from

the outset it was inseparable from the role of Lenin. Subsequently, this tendency towards

the domination of the organization by the supreme leader became more apparent under

Stalin.

In addition, Bolshevik organization seemed to offer an alternative to the rule of

individual warlords or the GMD, which from its reorganization in the early twenties,

combined Leninist organization with leader worship. Sun Yat-sen was a supreme leader,

a function subsequently taken over by Chiang Kai-shek. In the CCP, the reemergence of

a leader dominate organizational system took longer and came with the assumption of

supreme power by Mao Zedong in the Shaan-Gan-Ning communist base area in

Northwest China in the forties.18

A number of factors combined to instill the notion of the Bolshevik party among

CCP members. First, there was the translation of key works and the promotion of the

Bolshevik form of organization in the party press. Secondly, there was the influence of

the Comintern emissaries such as Voitinsky and Maring who already had experience of

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such party organization and devoted considerable time to propagating their views. Indeed

Maring was appalled by the lack of discipline that he witnessed in the early CCP. Maring

provided information on the idea and importance of party organization and of propaganda

as a political weapon.19 Further, he stressed that the CCP’s struggle was linked to and

formed an integral part of the much wider worldwide struggle against imperialism.

Within this context, according to Maring and subsequent Comintern agents, the interests

and policies of the national party were subordinate to the Comintern.

Third, in the twenties there was the gradual return of influential individuals such

as Cai Hesen who had studied in Europe and had become acquainted with both

communist ideology and organization as well as the modern labor movement. As the

twenties progressed, the idea of a Bolshevik party was strengthened through the visits or

training of key CCP figures in Soviet Russia. The first group of Chinese students went to

Soviet Russia for study as early as spring 1921 and some 1,000 were trained in the

twenties and thirties at the Communist University of the Working People of China.20

While the students who returned from Soviet Russia were a very varied group they had all

received a thorough training in concepts of party organization and discipline. Of

particular importance for the subsequent development of the CCP were Wang Ming, Bo

Gu, Zhang Wentian, Wang Jiaxiang and Chen Yun.21

The Comintern was also influential in shaping the discourse of the CCP and the

form of its inner-party struggle. The existing influence of the Comintern and the use of

ideology as a weapon in inner-party struggle was increased by the removal of Chen Duxiu

as party leader at the 7 August Emergency Conference of 1927. Chen’s removal was a

potentially traumatic event in CCP history. For many, Chen had been a symbol of

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progress not just from the May Fourth Movement (1915-19), but from his earlier

struggles against the Imperial system. A number of the early leaders had been drawn into

the party because of personal connections and loyalty to Chen. In terms of the Chinese

tradition, to turn on a respected senior and elder was an event of major significance.

Chen’s removal was legitimized not merely through criticism of his “mistakes”

but also through the invocation of ideological symbols to justify the attack. Adherence to

the correct ideological line came to legitimize policy, and understanding of the “line” was

a necessary condition for leadership. This had the effect of strengthening Comintern

control over party leadership as the Comintern was thought to possess a “higher wisdom”

and vision of the revolutionary process than a mere national party. Concurrently, debate

in the party became governed by the manipulation of ideological symbols with the result

that genuine debate about policy disputes became even less feasible than had previously

been the case. As the resolution of the Second Plenum of the Sixth Central Committee

(CC) of the CCP pointed out (June 1929), there was no such thing as peace in the party.22

Erroneous tendencies always had to be fought against. All too often policy dispute was

raised to the level of line struggle. Thus, the 7 August Emergency Conference (1927)

ushered in ideological correctness as a key element in control, leadership and cohesion

within the CCP. With this many of the debates within the Soviet Communist Party and

the Comintern were imported into the Chinese party. Those who opposed party policy

were labeled as “Trotskyites,” “Anarchists,” “Right Deviationists,” “Left Deviationists,”

etc. Once labeled their objection to policy was more easily dealt with by the Party Center.

The idea of “correct line” also had consequences for the Party Center itself. It could not

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recognize faults in its own leadership and thus policy failure was followed by the hunt for

“scapegoats” who had sabotaged the party’s correct line.

The tendency toward the dominance of an organizationally derived ideological

truth was inherent in the choice of a Bolshevik form of organization from the beginning.

Yet in the early stages it was not so readily apparent. The CCP had been organized before

there had been any serious discussion of Marxism in China, and indeed the choice of a

Bolshevik organization removed the need for theoretical analysis. As a result “an

organizationally defined analysis became for them [the original founders] a substitute for

theoretical analysis.”23 Naturally, it was presumed that those from Soviet Russia or their

emissaries had a greater understanding of this problem and the relevant policy needs.

One last general question that deserves our attention is the relationship between

the Comintern and the rise to power of Mao Zedong. Some previous analyses viewed

Mao Zedong’s rise to power within the CCP as occurring in spite of the Comintern,24 but

more recently available materials suggest that the Comintern was at least willing to

acquiesce in Mao’s rise and his victories over rivals within the party such as Zhang

Guotao and Wang Ming (Moscow’s own trainee). In the conflicts with Zhang and Wang,

the actions and words of the Comintern tended to favor Mao over his opponents.25

Whether the Comintern perceived so clearly what was at stake is another matter. Further,

on a number of occasions the Comintern called for the CCP not to ape Soviet experience,

but to develop its own policy, and the Comintern’s Seventh Congress (1935) accepted

that individual parties should have more freedom. Whether the Comintern approved of

what was finally developed is a different question. In September 1938, the Comintern

informed the CCP that it approved of the united front policy during the previous year, a

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year during which the party had been under the control of Mao Zedong and during which

he had been in competition for dominance with Wang Ming. Further Dimitrov, the

person responsible for Chinese affairs at the time, let it be known that Mao Zedong

should be the party’s senior leader in preference to Wang Ming (the man thought of as

Moscow’s closest ally).26 Thus, the Comintern was not anti-Mao nor was Mao inevitably

opposed to the Comintern.27

Periodization

A) 1920-1927: From Intellectual Groups to Organized Party

The early years of the CCP is period is marked its development from a set of disparate

small intellectual groups to a more rigorously organized Leninist party. This process did

not go uncontested and resulted in the departure of most of the original members and their

replacement by those tempered in the urban struggles of the twenties. The question of

collaboration with the GMD proved contentious. However, following Comintern

promptings, there were increasingly desperate attempts to justify the continued

collaboration through providing class-based analyses of the internal forces within the

GMD.

The CCP was a direct product of the intellectual ferment that accompanied the

anti-imperialist demonstrations commonly referred to as the May Fourth Movement

(1919).28 Its longer term origins lay in the collapse of the imperial system and the social

and political vacuum that followed its fall. The seemingly innocuous Wuchang Uprising

brought down the Qing dynasty and despite attempts at restoration, the imperial system

was finished. The question for intellectuals interested in the nation’s future was now

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what sort of system should govern China and bring into the “modern world?” This has

been the key question underlying the upheavals and events of twentieth century history in

China. With the collapse of the dynasty and with no obvious successor, the logic of the

situation demanded a Republic. However, initial attempts under Yuan Shikai failed to

establish a predictable and effective system of parliamentary rule. At the same time, the

authority of the center fragmented and warlordism increased.29 The nominal government

in Beijing continued to rule and was accorded the respect of the foreign governments but

it was influenced by the shifting fortunes of a number of powerful political cliques. At

the time of the May Fourth Movement, Beijing politics was dominated by Duan Qirui and

the Anhui Clique. Duan and his supporters enjoyed the full support of the Japanese, a

fact that further undermined Duan’s credibility during the nationalist May Fourth

Movement that marked a high point of anti-Japanese sentiment. This movement broke

out with protests against the Versailles agreement ceding the German concession of

Shandong to Japan. The indignation that this aroused led to a 3,000 strong demonstration

on the streets of Beijing on 4 May 1919. The demonstration began peacefully but ended

with the arrest of 32 demonstrators. Duan’s embarrassment was increased when it was

revealed that the Versailles decision was based partly on agreements signed between his

government and the Japanese. Concern about Duan’s growing power also caused his

enemies in the Fengtian and Zhili cliques to combine forces to act against him and ouster

him. Thereafter power in Beijing was generally shared between these two cliques.

During this same period, Soviet Russia stepped up its interest in China.30

However, from summer 1918 to early 1920, Siberia was the main theater of war against

its remaining opposition and this hampered attempts at contacts. In fact, it was not until

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early 1920 that Russia sent its first representative to China to conduct investigations and

make contacts. The 1919 Karakhan Declaration, which appeared to renounce the former

czarist privileges in China, was particularly influential in China. It was easy for the

Russians to make such sweeping generous gestures as, given the situation in the east of

the country, they were in no position to carry out any of their promises. However, the

propaganda gain was evident as Soviet Russia distanced itself from the old imperialist

powers that were still intent of dismembering China.

For a number of Chinese intellectuals, such gestures and the intellectual

attraction of Marxism led to a desire to understand more about the October Revolution.

For such people, the Bolshevik revolution demonstrated the possibilities for radical

change in the context of underdevelopment. Within this essentially favorable

predisposition towards Soviet Russia, the Comintern began to press its interests in China

and to promote the idea of the development of a revolutionary party to guide and control

future actions.

The Comintern laid down the framework of a policy relevant to China at its

Second Congress (July-August 1920) with its discussion of how the national struggles in

colonial countries could be integrated with the strategy for world revolution. Lenin

recognized the importance of national movements in the east but was not willing to

accept the views of Roy that appeared to shift the responsibility for overthrowing

capitalism from the “advanced” west to the “backward” east.31 In Lenin’s view

movements to overthrow imperialism were an integral part of the broader struggle of the

proletariat. The national struggle could only succeed by destroying the colonial system

and this was an integral part of the broader struggle of the proletariat. To carry out these

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movements, Lenin felt that in the colonial countries it would be necessary to enter into a

temporary alliance with bourgeois democracy while remaining distinct, and maintaining

the independence of the proletarian movement. It was clear that for a time at least the

bourgeoisie would be in control of the revolutionary movement. This was the strategic

framework that Comintern representatives had to apply to the concrete realities of China.

In April 1920, Voitinsky visited China as the head of a group sent by V.D.

Vilensky-Sibiryakov, one of the leaders of Vladivostok Branch of the Bolshevik’s Far

Eastern Bureau. This was decided upon with the agreement of the leadership of the

Comintern. Beyond familiarization and establishing contacts, the Mission had the task to

study the possibility of setting up an East Asian Bureau of the Comintern in Shanghai.

He and his fellow visitors found fertile soil in which to plant the seeds of a Bolshevik

organization.32 According to Dirlik, the timing was fortuitous as the radical movement in

China had reached a point of crisis because the previous ideological and organizational

premises appeared to have run into a dead end.33 Voitinsky’s group established contacts

with radical intellectuals such as Li Dazhao in Beijing and Chen Duxiu in Shanghai. Out

of their discussions emerged the idea of founding a Communist Party in China.34 Later, a

meeting of Soviet communists working in China was held in Beijing from 5 to 7 July

1920. The meeting was presided over by V.D. Vilensky-Sibiryakov and it highlighted the

possibility of establishing a communist in China.35

As has been noted, the early communist organizations in China did not just

emerge out of the blue nor were they summoned up by Voitinsky’s visit but evolved from

the study societies set up during the May Fourth period. Many of China’s later

communist leaders were schooled in groups such as the “New People’s Study Society,”

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the “Awakening Society,” and the “Social Welfare Society.”36 They were products of the

radicalization that had accompanied the collapse of the Qing dynasty and some of the

early members were among the most radical thinkers during the May Fourth Movement.

While interest in socialism pre-dated the May Fourth Movement, it is fair to state that

during and after the Movement it increased in popularity and it became a fashionable

topic in intellectual circles.37

The May Fourth Movement represented the culmination of the attack on

traditional Chinese culture developed in the previous century. Marxism was not the only

mode of thought to influence China’s intellectuals during the movement, indeed it was

not even the most important. However, a number of key intellectuals were sympathetic to

its ideas. The best known are the two founding fathers of the CCP Li Dazhao and Chen

Duxiu, but there were others such as Li Da, who played a key role in promoting the study

of Marxism.38 The prestige these intellectuals enjoyed among the young people of China,

especially those at the universities, meant that marxism was able to gain a sympathetic

hearing earlier than would have been the case otherwise. One point worth emphasizing is

that most of these intellectuals were primarily nationalists, and ironic as it may seem in

the internationalist credo of marxism, and its subsequent Leninist variant, they saw the

possibility of China’s national salvation. This is important for understanding subsequent

developments and the ultimate form that Marxism-Leninism took in China.

The key magazine in the May Fourth Movement was New Youth (Xin

qingnian), which later became the organ of the CCP.39 It was set up in 1915 and edited

by Chen Duxiu and contained regular contributions not only from those who were moving

closer to marxism such as Chen himself and Li Dazhao but also from liberals such as Hu

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Shi. All writers shared a desire to replace the principles of Confucianism with political

and social practices to bring China into line with the modern world. The crux of the

difference between the liberals and the marxists was the question of political power.

Response to the October Revolution drove a deeper wedge between them. Hu Shi and the

liberals rejected its value for China but Chen and Li were sympathetic and wished to

know more. As Meisner has shown the fundamental difference revolved around whether

China’s problems should be resolved by political revolution or by slow, evolutionary

change.40

A growing interest in labor also helped promote sympathy towards Marxism.

During the May Fourth Movement, a more politically conscious urban proletariat began

its emergence onto the political stage. Although the workforce remained small, its

members were increasing dramatically, primarily as a result of the First World War.

China’s tardy industrialization had been propelled forward as many foreign imports

disappeared as a result of the war. A number of radical students such as Zhang Guotao

and Luo Zhanglong became interested in the workers’ movement and its further

development. Both began organization work among the railway workers around Beijing

and were among the earliest members of the CCP. The power of labor in Shanghai

during the May Fourth Movement greatly impressed later CCP leader and labor activist Li

Lisan. Chesneaux and a number of writers have interpreted the development of the labor

movement in terms of its fit with the interests of the CCP and viewed the movement as

having followed the CCP’s lead.41 However, especially in Shanghai the labor movement

did not begin with the arrival of communist organizers and the CCP had to struggle to

adapt to this reality. As Perry has noted, Shanghai labor was the heir “to a tradition of

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collective action that did not always fit easily with plans of outside organizers.”42 Her

detailed study shows how workers’ reactions to CCP and GMD overtures and response to

their policies varied “along lines that long predated” the two parties and their respective

political regimes.

The pre-cursors to the communist oriented organizations were the marxist study

societies that were established in a number of urban centers during the May Fourth

movement. The group in Shanghai was the first communist organization to be set up,

most probably in August 192043 and, very loosely it functioned as the provisional Party

Center until the First Congress was convened the following year. The Shanghai group

was instrumental in the establishment of groups in Wuhan (September 1920), Jinan

(November/December 1920), and Guangzhou (Canton, January 1921). In addition, there

were groups that called themselves communist in Beijing (October 1920), Changsha (end

1920/early 1921), Tianjin (before May 1921), Hong Kong (before May 1921), and

Chongqing (March 1920).44 While they called themselves communist, this did not meant

that they operated with communist organizational principles or even that the majority

viewpoint within tehm was communist. For example, the group in Guangzhou before

Chen Duxiu’s arrival had nine members of whom seven were under the influence of

anarchism. The only two who were not anarchists were the two members of the Rosta

News Agency, Stoyanovich and Perlin. In January 1921 when Chen arrived in

Guangzhou his first task was to reorganize the group and challenge the influence of the

anarchists. Similar problems were confronted in Beijing where the communist group also

had very strong anarchists tendencies about which early communists Li Dazhao and

Zhang Guotao complained bitterly.45

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Although the precise structure and names varied from place to place, by the

time of the First Party Congress the communist organizations functioned in a three-fold

structure. Operating illegally at the core were the communist small groups; then there

were units of the Socialist Youth Corps operating semi-openly and providing a

recruitment pool for the party; and finally the marxist study societies presented a public

face, trying to reach the widest possible audience.46

Before the First Party Congress, the work of the groups varied from place to

place as did its intensity. However, in general, with varying degrees of success, the

nascent groups involved themselves in the labor movement and propaganda work. For

example, to facilitate this work, the Shanghai organization was divided into two sections:

one for propaganda and one for labor work. Work was patchy at best, and even in

Shanghai during the first half of 1921 work began to fold. This was a result of the lack of

funding, the lack of personnel to carry out the workload, as well as emerging

disagreements over how activist the nascent party should be. This environment formed

the back-drop to the First Congress that opened in Shanghai on 23 July 1921. It was

attended by 13 Chinese delegates representing 53 members and by Maring on behalf of

the Comintern, and Nikolsky representing the Irkutsk Bureau of the Comintern.

Despite the policy of the Comintern and the presence of its representatives, the

First Party Congress adopted a sectarian, pro-proletarian line and was extremely hostile to

any notion of cooperation with the bourgeoisie. The views of those who felt that the

proletariat was too immature and that the party should concentrate on education and study

alternatives such as social democracy was rejected. The “Program” passed by the

Congress called for the "revolutionary army of the proletariat to overthrow the capitalistic

20

classes" and for the adoption of the dictatorship of the proletariat. The “Program” and the

“Resolution” are uncompromising in their hostility to collaboration with other parties,

groups or the "yellow intellectual class."47 The workers’ movement was confirmed as

the core of party work with the chief aim being the creation of industrial unions.

The party itself was to adopt a secretive, hierarchical structure based on local

Soviets. Supreme power was vested in a Central Executive Committee (CEC) that still

had to be set up, thus rejecting pleas for a more decentralized organization. It would have

the right to supervise and direct the finances, publications and policies of any local

Soviet. The final session of the Congress elected the central leadership. As party

membership was still small, it was decided to set up a Provisional Central Executive

Bureau to maintain liaison etc. with the various branches. Chen Duxiu, Zhang Guotao

and Li Da were elected members with Chen as secretary. Zhang and Li were in charge of

organization and propaganda respectively.48 In Chen Duxiu’s continued absence, Zhou

Fuhai was to deputize for him.

Despite the high sounding phrases adopted by the Congress, party work was slow

in getting off the ground because of continued differences of opinion, financial

difficulties, and the fact that the newly elected party Secretary, Chen Duxiu, did not return

to Shanghai until late August-mid September. By November 1921, however, a

preliminary work plan was agreed upon and circulated to the localities.49 It tried to

formalize party structure by calling on the five major districts to set up district executive

committees, each recruiting some 30 members. This would allow a "formal CEC" to be

set up in accordance with the party program. Labor work was stressed and each district

21

was instructed to have at least one labor union under its control. The focus was on

organizing railway workers with the objective of creating a national railway union.

The exclusive focus on the working-class and hostility towards the bourgeoisie

ran counter to the policy line that was evolving in the Comintern and the subsequent

period was dominated by attempts to force on the CCP a policy of cooperation with the

bourgeoisie in the nationalist revolutionary movement. It fell to the Comintern

representative Maring, to attempt to persuade the CCP

The pressure on the CCP to collaborate with other class forces was increased by

Maring’s generally negative assessment of the party and his positive response to the

GMD that was based in the South of China.50 This led Maring to propose that CCP

members join the GMD to form a bloc within. The ideological complication of the

proletariat joining a bourgeois party was swept aside with the assertion that the GMD was

not a bourgeois party at all but a combination of four groups, the intelligentsia, the

Chinese patriots overseas, the soldiers and the workers.

Initially, the idea was totally unacceptable to the CCP leaders as Chen Duxiu’s

letter of 6 April 1992 to Voitinsky clearly shows.51 Yet by June 1992 signs of a shift in

attitude were apparent. Presumably the influence of both Maring and the Youth

International representative, Dalin, was beginning to take effect.52 CCP propaganda

began to refer to the GMD as “revolutionary” and the CCP’s Second Congress (16-23

July 1922) confirmed the party’s decision to join the democratic revolutionary movement

in a temporary alliance.53 It is important to note that this decision referred to “all the

nation’s revolutionary parties” not just the GMD. However, since the “democratic

elements” did not represent the interests of the proletariat, the CCP was to promote an

22

independent class movement. Work in the labor movement was still seen as the CCP’s

main focus. Congress documents called for labor unions to represent all workers

regardless of belief but to educate them to accept socialist and communist principles. The

party, though, was seen as embodying the class-conscious elements of the proletariat who

understood that the objective was to overthrow capitalism. The Congress also called for

organization to be tightened to overcome anarchist tendencies and the CEC was enshrined

as the party’s most powerful body entrusted to enforce party decisions. Reality was very

much different and the small band of communists continued to be deeply divided over

key issues of strategy and tactics, especially the question of collaboration with the GMD.

The Congress favored a horizontal alignment alongside the GMD rather than a

“bloc within” as had been proposed by Maring. On his return to China (from his

consultations in Moscow) in the summer of 1922, Maring found major opposition to his

policy. Four of the five members of the party’s CEC belonged to a “small group” under

Zhang Guotao. This “small group” was based on the Labor Secretariat and was hostile to

the idea of cooperation with the GMD.54

To get his ideas accepted, Maring convened the Hangzhou Plenum (28-30

August 1922), the first Plenum ever held by the CCP. To overcome the opposition of the

majority, Maring was able to cite the “ Instructions for the ECCI Representative in South

China.”55 This document, drafted by Radek on the basis of Maring’s statements, was an

endorsement of the latter’s views. This imposition of Comintern discipline was intended

to move the CCP away from its idealism and exclusionist positions to embrace the

bourgeoisie in a tactical alliance. Moreover, Maring used the document to argue that

CCP members accept his view that they join the GMD to form a “bloc within.” The

23

Plenum called for individuals to join the GMD while retaining their CCP membership.

The CCP was to give directions for work within the GMD and was to lead the work of

organizing trade unions. As far as Maring was concerned the necessary freedom for the

communists existed and the Guide Weekly was to criticize the GMD and to try to prompt

it toward stronger anti-imperialist actions. The Third Party Congress did eventually pass

resolutions in favor of cooperation with the GMD on the lines suggested by Maring but

substantial opposition remained within the party.56 It was left to Borodin, who was sent

as Maring’s replacement to implement the policy.

The party was in bad shape by the time it convened its Third Congress (12-20

June 1923) in Guangzhou.57 Not only was it divided on the issue of cooperation with the

GMD58 but also the brutal crushing of the February 1923 Zhengzhou railway workers’

strike had shattered the party’s high hopes for the workers’ movement.59 The destruction

of the railway union, the best communist organization, and the ensuing crackdown on

labor in general, made many party members realize that the strength of the proletariat

alone was too weak. Chen Duxiu's work report to the Party Congress reflected the

depressed atmosphere within the party as did Maring’s reporting to the Comintern.60

Membership of the CEC was increased to nine but, at its first session, it was to

elect a five person Central Bureau to exercise power on its behalf. The Bureau was to

meet every week while the CEC was only to meet every four months. Thus, effective

power was to remain centralized in a few hands. The CEC also elected a chair to preside

over both organs, a secretary to handle party correspondence and documentation, and a

party accountant.61

24

Despite the passing of resolutions for cooperation with the GMD, the

policy was not smoothly implemented immediately afterwards, indeed it was hardly

implemented at all. The Central Bureau of the party decided to move back to Shanghai as

it felt that not much could be achieved with Sun Yat-sen. In addition, it wanted to create

new organizations in the north either to bring about a radical change in the dominant

opinions within the GMD, or to create a new nationalist party. This was quite contrary to

Maring's intentions although even he was moved to muse about a GMD without Sun at its

head.

The disillusionment with Sun stemmed from his obsession with a military

solution to China's problems and his resistance to the reorganization of the GMD. This

was fueled by what the communists saw as his inactivity concerning the situation in

Beijing. In June 1923, through the intrigues of Cao Kun, Li Yuanhong was dismissed as

President of the Republic. The CCP saw the resultant power vacuum as providing Sun

with the perfect chance to place himself at the head of the national movement by going to

Shanghai and convening there a National Assembly. However, Sun rejected these

overtures, claiming that the Assembly was an impossibility and that when the merchants

understood this they would rally to him.

Mistrust persisted in the relationship with the GMD with Gunagdong being the

main exception. Borodin's arrival in Canton had put life back into the process of

expanding cooperation between the CCP and the GMD. This was helped by promises of

even greater Soviet financial support and the reorganization of the GMD that finally took

place in January 1924. Borodin worked within the general framework sketched out in the

Comintern’s decisions on the China question of January and May 1923. According to the

25

Comintern, the main targets of the revolution were imperialism and its Chinese

supporters. While fighting these enemies, the CCP was to strengthen its position within

the GMD and more broadly within the nationalist movement through CCP control of the

peasant and labor movements. To use Stalin’s metaphor, the GMD-right would be

squeezed like a lemon and flung aside. All acknowledged that a time would come when

the interests of the bourgeoisie at the head of the nationalist movement would clash with

those of the proletariat. At this point, the representatives of the proletariat were to cease

the temporary cooperation and take over leadership. Deciding when this time had come

proved difficult and it was Chiang Kai-shek who acted first putting down the CCP-led

workers’ movement in Shanghai in April 1927.

Initially, the united front had proved very successful for the small group of

communists. Between January 1924 and May 1926, communist influence in the GMD

grew steadily and CCP membership grew from just under 1,000 in January 1925 to

almost 58,000 by April 1927. Communist influence in the urban areas received a boost

from the nationalist demonstrations of the May 30th Movement (1925). The protection of

the nationalist armies in the south helped the CCP to develop its influence among the

peasantry. Of special importance in this latter respect was the Hai-Lu-Feng Soviet set up by

Peng Pai.62

The CCP’s success was one major reason for its undoing. Some GMD leaders

came to see it as a real threat to their leadership of the revolution. The increasing

revolutionary activity in the countryside unsettled those GMD leaders who did not favor a

complete break-up of the traditional power structure. In fact, the CCP was caught

between the consequences of conflicting objectives. On the one hand, it was trying to

26

promote the national revolution in cooperation with the GMD while also pursuing a

social revolution that brought it into conflict with powerful elements within the GMD.

As the CCP tried to restructure the GMD in order to attain its own goals, opposition

within the GMD to CCP membership strengthened. This conflict with the CCP and a

reassessment of cooperation were accompanied by a growing rift between the left and

right wings of the GMD and the concentration of military power in the hands of the

emerging leader of the GMD-right-- Chiang Kai-shek.

The CCP also remained divided on the policy of cooperation with the GMD as

documents from a succession of party meetings show. However, attitudes to cooperation

varied depending the specific environment under which CCP members were working.

The situation looked quite different to Chen Duxiu, Voitinsky and the Party Center

working illegally among the proletariat in Shanghai than it did to Borodin and the

communists working openly in Canton under GMD protection and developing the peasant

movement. Borodin spoke of this conflict in Moscow in 1930 during his self-defense

against accusations of counter-revolutionary behavior. He remarked that here had been

“two lines in the Chinese Revolution,” one in Shanghai and one in Guangzhou.63 Friction

between these two rival centers undermined the party’s capacity to act coherently when

threatened by opponents in the GMD. While Chen Duxiu, on a number of occasions,

called for the withdrawal of CCP members from the GMD and the creation of an open

GMD-CCP alliance, the Guangzhou party organization called for the takeover of the

GMD leadership. The situation was complicated by the Comintern’s repeated insistence

that the CCP remain within the GMD while, at the same time, strengthening its

independent position among the mass movements.

27

Communist influence within the GMD was helped by the aid Soviet Russia was

willing to donate and by the reorganization of the GMD into a Leninist-style party.

Borodin had been sent to monitor this work. Unlike Maring, he was not merely a

Comintern representative but was sent by the Soviet Government and also represented the

Russian Communist Party (Bolshevik).64 Arriving in Canton early in October 1923,

Borodin immediately set to work. His first task was to bring about the reorganization of

the GMD and in this endeavor he found Sun Yat-sen’s willing support. Borodin acted as

adviser to the Provisional CEC of the GMD set up in late-October by Sun Yat-sen to

draw up plans for party reorganization and to prepare for the national GMD congress. It

was Borodin who provided the draft of the GMD Constitution.65

In the latter part of 1924, a major power shift in Beijing appeared to offer a

favorable opportunity for the nationalist movement in general and for Sun Yat-sen in

particular to exert influence on the national stage. In October 1924, a subordinate of Wu

Peifu, Feng Yuxiang, disobeyed orders to march against Zhang Zuolin, the head of the

Fengtian clique. Instead Feng formed an alliance with Zhang and together they seized

power in Beijing. This resulted in the fall of Wu and the collapse of the Zhili clique in

north China. Sun Yat-sen was invited to the capital to participate in discussions about

China's reunification. Sun's intention was to establish a National Assembly composed of

delegates from mass organizations, chambers of commerce, and armies opposed to Wu

Peifu, something that the CCP had tried, to no avail, to impress on Sun in June 1923.

However, the negotiations did not go well. On 24 November 1924, Duan Qirui had taken

over the government replacing Cao Kun. Instead of the National Assembly, Duan favored

convening a "National Rehabilitation Conference." This was opposed by Sun because it

28

would exclude representatives from the mass organizations and would favor the militarists.

On 1 February 1925, the Conference was convened and led to a break between Duan and

the GMD.

Sun's trip to Beijing created divisions in the CCP. Chen Duxiu and the Party

Center opposed the trip feeling that Sun should remain in Guangzhou to consolidate the

achievements of the revolution. Borodin and the Guangzhou communists thought that by

going to Beijing, Sun would expand the movement's influence. Borodin’s view prevailed

and the CCP began publicly to support the calls for a National Assembly.

These tensions notwithstanding the tone of the Fourth Party Congress (11-22

January 1925) that convened in Shanghai was much more optimistic than that of its

predecessor and delegates seemed to anticipate a rising revolutionary tide.66 In particular,

the Congress sought to clarify the relationship of the CCP to the national revolutionary

movement, to define more clearly labor and peasant policies and to adjust the party's

organizational structure.

The Congress reviewed the national revolutionary movement to date and tried to

outline the correct policy for the CCP with respect to the GMD.67 Many CCP members

were finding it difficult to strike a balance between developing the GMD in the nationalist

movement while not ignoring the CCP's own agenda. This tension persisted until the two

parties split in 1927. The resolution reflects Chen Duxiu's caution about CCP involvement

with the GMD. While “leftist” mistakes included continuing to promote the proletarian

revolution and opposing entry into the GMD and the nationalist revolution for fear that the

CCP would become a “yellow” party, “rightist” mistakes were defined as being more

dangerous. The tendency among members to think that concentration on the nationalist

29

movement and the GMD meant ignoring the CCP's own work was criticized as was the

belief that a policy of compromise between capital and labor should be pursued.

In contrast to the CCP’s earlier May 1924 division of the GMD into a left and a

right, a center was now discovered. The left comprised the workers, peasants and radical

intellectuals, the right was composed of the military, bureaucrats, politicians and capitalists,

and the center consisted of the revolutionary elements in the “petty bourgeois intellectual

class.” This center was deemed important because although numerically weak, its members

occupied leading positions in the GMD. The CCP’s task was to expand the GMD-left.

However, this was not to lead to the neglect of opposition to imperialism and the economic

struggles of the peasantry and working-class.

The Congress decided that CCP strength still lay with the labor movement, a

movement said to be entering a new phase that would offer opportunities for expansion.

Although the labor movement was seen as the key component in the nationalist revolution,

the resolution adopted made it clear that preservation of its independence was most

important.68 In fact, the Guangzhou communists were criticized for allowing the labor

movement to lose its independence, a problem that was claimed to have been corrected at

the May 1924 enlarged CEC meeting.

The creation of a strong, independent labor organization would ensure CCP

dominance of the nationalist movement as it was, by self-definition, “the leader of the

working-class.” Thus, the CCP's primary task was to organize labor unions and promote

class-based propaganda. The use of party branches at the work place was stressed. They

were to ensure that party policy was carried out and to guide work in the labor unions and

30

the small groups in the factories. In future, all factories etc. would be able to form a party

branch where there were three or more members.

The development of the peasant movement in areas under GMD control in south

China caused the Congress to adopt the party's most extensive resolution on the peasantry to

date.69 However, it still did not provide a concrete plan of action. The special place of the

peasantry in the Chinese revolutionary movement was acknowledged and its participation

was seen as vital for success. While expressing support for GMD policy in the south, the

resolution criticized the GMD for using the peasantry for its own ends. It claimed that the

GMD organized peasant associations in areas where it needed their support but did not force

landlords to give way to the peasantry nor did the GMD sufficiently protect the economic

and political rights of the peasantry. The resolution provides a good example of the

ambiguity concerning work within the united front. At one moment it is calling for the use

of the GMD's organization, the next it is chiding the GMD and then calls for independent

action. It is not surprising that some comrades were confused about the exact relationship

of their work to that of the GMD. The resolution also criticized the policy of the

Guangzhou communists. It claimed that their stress on the role of the GMD had caused the

peasantry to doubt its own strength and to fail to understand its own class position. This

had caused the peasantry to become disappointed in the CCP.

The CCP continued to take organization seriously and stated that this was the most

important question concerning the party's “survival and development.” Party leadership

hoped that improvements in organization would enable the party to break out from being

merely a collection of “small propaganda groups.” In particular, the “Resolution on

Organization” stressed the role of the branches as the basic units of party organization.70 To

31

recruit more workers and peasants, membership procedures were to be relaxed. In future, it

would not be necessary for prospective members to pass through the SYL and “class

conscious elements” would be able to join the party directly. The party was to be enlarged

at the local level by changing the requirement that five members were necessary to form a

cell (xiaozu) to only three being needed to form a branch (zhibu). This emphasis on the

branch marked an attempt to change the party from being area based to being occupation

based. To control party activities in other organizations such as the GMD, the formation of

party fractions (dangtuan) was confirmed.

The Congress provided a set of resolutions and organizational changes that it hoped

would help the party cope with the expected upsurge in the revolutionary movement.

Despite the collapse of the talks in Beijing and Sun Yat-sen's death (12 March 1925), events

took an even more radical turn than expected. The May 30th Movement (1925) witnessed a

massive upsurge in nationalist sentiment and provided the party with a chance for rapid

expansion, particularly in urban Shanghai. However, the movement brought with it new

headaches as the Party Center tried to grapple with the new situation and the influx of

members. The period from 1925 to April 1927 marked a high point in the development of

influence in the labor movement and with the development of communist-influenced

organizations in Shanghai. Crucial in pushing CCP influence in the labor movement was

Shanghai University that had been established in October 1922. Under the subsequent

protection of the united front, key figures such as Deng Zhongxia and Qu Qiubai were able

to train cadre for the labor movement. Shanghai University was also important for the

mobilization of women’s organizations during the May 30th Movement.71

32

The May 30th Movement had its origins in a February 1925 strike against the

Japanese-owned textile mills in Shanghai.72 After simmering for a few months, it exploded

on 15 May when a factory guard killed one of the strikers and wounded others. Incidents

spread as did injuries and arrests and on 28 May, the CCP together with other organizations

called for coordinated demonstrations to take place on 30 May. International Settlement

police opened fire on the demonstration killing ten and wounding and arresting many

others. In an attempt to gain control of the movement, the CCP set up the Shanghai General

Labor Union. It was established on 1 June and was chaired by Li Lisan. The Movement in

Shanghai continued until July when it began to wind down and by mid-September the

General Labor Union had been forcibly closed down and the CCP leadership had gone

underground. The movement spread to other cities and caused the Hong Kong-Guangzhou

strike that lasted from June 1925 until October 1926. Communist influence spread as a

result of the Movement and party membership increased from 994 at the time of the

Congress to some 3,000 in October 1925.

The CCP responded by trying to expand its role and to transform itself from a

“small group” into a “central mass political party.” A CEC meeting in October 1925

decided to relax membership procedures even further. Knowledge of marxism was no

longer required while anyone who was a factory worker was considered a natural member.

However, collaboration with the GMD was to be continued but it was stated that now the

GMD contained only a left and a right wing and that the right wing was becoming

increasingly reactionary. The meeting also addressed the question of the peasantry at some

length.73 The proclamation for the peasantry stated that the fundamental solution to the

problems they faced was land confiscation. However, only the land of big landlords,

33

warlords, bureaucrats and the churches was to be taken. An eight-point program for the

peasantry’s minimum demands was outlined. It was based on experience in the south, and

developed the ideas put forward earlier by Chen Duxiu in November 1922. It called for

recognition of peasant associations and the establishment of elected self-governing bodies in

the countryside, the setting of maximum rents and minimal grain prices by the associations

and self-governing bodies, the provision of interest-free loans to the peasantry, special

funding for river control and the creation of armed peasant self-defense corps. The

importance of the peasantry was recognized by splitting the former worker and peasant

committee into two.74 Despite this stress on the peasantry, the main revolutionary force was

still the working-class. The proclamation for the peasantry made it clear that to achieve its

aims it must ally with the working-class.

The success of the CCP and its more aggressive attempts to organize and

expand brought concern within the ranks of the GMD and as the right began to gain control

of the movement, clashes became inevitable.

The tensions were particularly highlighted after the “Zhongshan Incident” of

March 20, 1926. Chiang Kai-shek ordered martial law claiming that a gunboat under

communist command, the Zhongshan, was planning to kidnap him. Whether the plot was

real or not it provided Chiang with the chance to clip the wings of the communists. He

placed some 50 together with the soviet advisers under house arrest. Borodin was able to

negotiate their release but at a price. This included restricting CCP activity within the

GMD, providing a name list of all its members in the GMD, and abandoning its separate

organizations in the GMD. Further, CCP members could no longer serve as bureau head

in nationalist organizations. This last point meant that the communist, Tan Pingshan, had

34

to give up the powerful post of head of the organization department to Chiang Kai-shek.

Borodin was also forced to support the Northern Expedition to which he had previously

been opposed in return for Chiang’s promises to curb the GMD-right.75 Chiang was still,

of course, dependent on Soviet arms and aid for the Northern Expedition and made it

clear that his original actions had not been against the alliance with Soviet Russia as such.

The Northern Expedition was officially launched at the beginning of July 1926 even

though some units had gone north earlier.

These events caused the communists further confusion. Publicly, they accepted

the new regulations passed by the GMD CEC in May but privately there were conflicts

about the way forward. It appears that the Guangzhou area proposed an immediate

counter-attack against Chiang and the take over of the GMD from within while Chen

Duxiu proposed withdrawal. In June, a compromise was suggested, cooperation would

continue but as a bloc without rather than a bloc within.76 However, this alternative was

blocked by the Comintern.

Withdrawal from the alliance with the GMD or some elements of it was

consistently rejected by the Comintern even after the massacre of the communists by

Chiang Kai-shek in April 1927. The tenure of Comintern policy was set in the “Theses

on the Chinese Question” adopted at the Seventh Plenum of the ECCI (November-

December 1926). This called for continued CCP cooperation with the GMD-left to bring

about the success of the nationalist revolution.77 The GMD-right was not to be allowed to

turn the GMD into a bourgeois party. At the same time, the “Theses” called for the CCP

to take control of the social revolution. The agrarian revolution was defined as the central

component in the revolutionary struggle and the communists were to gain “real power” in

35

the rural areas through the peasant associations.78 According to the “Theses,” the fear

that intensification of class struggle in the village would weaken the united anti-

imperialist front was unfounded. The approach may have seemed feasible for those

situated in Moscow but the CCP was unable to act on these conflicting demands. The

CCP alienated the radical peasant leaders by trying to check the “excesses” but at the

same time it still aroused the hostility and suspicion of the GMD-left.

The CCP tried to grapple with the repression and slaughter of the communists at

its Fifth Congress (27 April - 9 May 1927) held in Hankou.79 Far from ordering a break

with the GMD, delegates argued about how to push ahead with the peasant movement

without upsetting cooperation. Chiang’s “betrayal” was met head on and was treated as a

positive sign for the revolution. In a long and interesting review of party work since the

Fourth Congress, Chen Duxiu said that Chiang’s betrayal had brought the Chinese

revolution to a new stage.80 According to Chen, the bourgeoisie had now deserted the

revolutionary front reducing its numbers but improving its quality. The four-class bloc

had been reduced to a “united front of workers, peasants and petty bourgeoisie.” Thus,

the future task was to strengthen these three classes and CCP work in the military. The

small number of bourgeois elements who remained could be expelled if they displayed

“counter-revolutionary tendencies.”

Future party policy was to concentrate on creating a “revolutionary democratic

regime” in the areas held by the GMD, although it was acknowledged that this objective

was still far away. According to Chen, the party was to discuss preparations for seizing

power and he described it as “no longer an opposition party” but one that was really going

to lead the revolution.

36

However, despite such bold words, the CCP was still going to have to work

through its cooperation with the GMD. This meant that its policy towards the peasantry

still erred to the side of caution and ideas of confiscation of all land were rejected. Chen

commented that while policy towards the peasant movement had been “too rightist” in the

past, it would be wrong to adopt now radical proposals to confiscate the land of all

landlords.

The re-definition of the revolutionary forces and the moderate land policy did

not help pull the party out of its dilemma. Despite the restrictions placed on the peasant

movement, “excesses” continued to occur. The CCP finished up pleasing no-one, the

GMD government in Wuhan blamed the communists for the excesses and the peasant

leaders blamed it for not supporting their radical actions and leaving them prey to the

military force of warlords and GMD troops. Suppression of the communists continued

and the events of summer 1927 seemed to make a mockery of the CCP leadership’s

decision to continue the alliance with the GMD. The communists suffered blow after

blow as one group after another of nationalist generals and politicians “betrayed the

revolution.”

The possibility of breaking with the GMD-left was reduced further by the

messages coming from Moscow. Given his struggles with Trotsky, it was impossible for

Stalin to acknowledge the folly of continued cooperation with the GMD. In May 1927,

the ECCI also interpreted the break with Chiang Kai-shek in a positive light. It re-

emphasized the need to place the rural revolution at the center of the stage but only within

the context of the continued alliance with GMD.81

37

The high-point in CCP compromise came with the adoption by an enlarged CC

meeting on 30 June of an 11-point resolution on relations between the two parties. The

resolution acknowledged that the GMD was the leader of the national revolution.

Communists in government functions were to work only as GMD members. To

minimize conflicts, communists holding government positions would give up their posts.

Further, mass organizations were instructed to submit to the leadership and control of the

GMD authorities.82 At a late stage, the party was stumbling towards the formation of a

“bloc without” rather than a “bloc within,” something that had been suggested by Chen

Duxiu on a number of occasions.

Submissive gestures did not resolve the conflicts with the GMD-left in Wuhan.

Wang Jingwei’s suspicions of the communists had been aroused further in early-June

when the Comintern delegate, M. N. Roy, had shown him the contents of a telegram from

Stalin. It called for the communists to reorganize the left and expel “reactionary leaders”

and to prepare concrete steps for a revolutionary army, albeit still under nationalist

leadership.83

An uneasy truce prevailed until mid-July and then events moved rapidly. Under

pressure from the Comintern, Chen Duxiu resigned his position as General Secretary.84

On 12 July, a new five-person temporary standing committee of the Politburo was chosen

and the following day it issued an open statement critical of the Wuhan government. On

15 July, the Wuhan GMD Political Affairs Committee announced the end of cooperation;

on 1 August, the CCP’s Nanchang Uprising was launched;85 and on 5 August, Wang

Jingwei began a large-scale purge of communist activists. Cooperation was ending in

tragedy and it was clear that a new strategy had to be found by the CCP.

38

During the early part of the twenties, CCP capacity to develop the labor

movement and move out of isolation was hampered by a lack of finances and personnel.

Work in Shanghai was made even more difficult by the foreign presence. In addition,

CCP organizers had to compete with other organizations that had already established a

presence among the working class in Shanghai. Communist access was frequently

blocked by the Green and Red gangs and even by the YMCA, while in Guangzhou the

GMD and the anarchists enjoyed greater popularity and influence. In May 1924, the

Shanghai party committee summed up results to date in labor organization as “nil.”

The May 30th Movement and the launch of the Northern Expedition had provided

the CCP the chance to break out of this isolation. However, problems persisted. The

party remained short of skilled personnel to organize on the ground and to develop

extensive grass-roots support. Many of the recruits, because of relaxed membership

requirements, did not understand CCP principles. As a result of its lack of labor power at

the grass roots, the party attempted to gain control of the movement generated by nationalist

sentiment from the top down. Thus, the CCP set up the Shanghai General Labor Union at

the start of the May 30th Movement but this had to be closed down in mid-September 1925

partly because of lack of revolutionary momentum and partly because of attacks on it by

various groups in Shanghai. Indeed, Chen Duxiu was later to admit that despite the

rhetoric, the movement in Shanghai had been really coordinated by the Shanghai Chamber

of Commerce and genuine communist influence seems to have been slight. This

opportunism was combined with attempts to take over leading positions in existing

organizations rather than building up solid grass roots support.

39

The apparent initial success of this strategy lulled party leaders, particularly those in

Shanghai, into a false sense of security. A CCP-led revolution on the back of a swelling

nationalist, anti-imperialist revolution seemed to be a possibility. Thus, in May 1926, Chen

Duxiu was moved to claim that 1.25 million workers were under CCP leadership. This

claim was based on a head count of members in organizations whose representatives had

attended the Third Labor Congress. However, the CCP had constructed no colossus but

rather a Buddha that turned out to have feet of clay. As the strength of the movement

ebbed, familiar problems resurfaced with labor work in Shanghai: the persistence of the

guild tradition and the influence of the Green and Red Gangs.86

In the twenties, the CCP did not develop the necessary support base in urban China

nor was it able to build up solid support in the southern countryside. During this period,

the CCP did not develop a coherent policy for the rural areas and moved from indifference

through a radical plan for land confiscation to retreat once this alienated the GMD right.

Mao Zedong, however, remained impressed with the power of the peasantry and would later

combine rural organization with military power.87 Unlike the Party Center, Mao saw

“excesses” in the peasant movement as necessary in order to overcome the

counterrevolutionaries and the power of the local gentry. Mao provided a critique of

revolutionary strategy as a whole. He does not explicitly renounce proletarian leadership

but his report concentrates on the role and the strength of the poor peasantry.

The main developments in the peasant movement were all in the south in Hubei,

Hunan, Guangdong and Jiangxi. As the Northern Expedition moved out from the GMD

strongholds in the south, large rural areas came under joint GMD-CCP control. Here

peasant associations were established, often under the leadership of professionally trained

40

peasant organizers. CCP supporters ran many of the associations and the party leadership

saw this as a way to gain control over the peasant movement. However, as in urban China,

the CCP lacked sufficient local cadres. A July 1926 report on the peasant movement in

Guangdong outlined the problem. While some 800,000 peasants were members of peasant

associations in 60 counties, there were only 600 party members working in 20 counties.88

Thus, the party had weak links to many local communities. The CCP adopted the same

head-counting, top-down approach to controlling the peasantry as they had used with

respect to the working-class in urban China. Thus, at the CCP’s Fifth Congress, Chen

Duxiu spoke of almost 10 million peasants being organized in the countryside via the

peasant associations and seemed to count this as being synonymous with CCP control.

Yet, the communist presence was kept in place only by GMD military power. Once

attacked by the GMD, CCP members had very little alternative other than to retreat into

more inhospitable rural areas. Given the short history of the CCP and its small size, it was

most unlikely that a sufficient base of support could have been developed. Building up an

independent armed force was also out of the question, not only because of the lack of

numbers and financial resources, but also because it would have inevitably speeded up the

clash with the GMD, especially the powerful GMD right.

The failure of the “First Revolution” was not caused directly by either rigid

implementation of a misguided Comintern policy or the “capitulationism” and

“opportunism” of Chen Duxiu vis-à-vis the GMD. It was more closely related to the CCP’s

inability to develop genuine support in urban and rural China and to develop a military force

with which to defend itself. The CCP tended to follow behind events in China, interpreting

positive signs as the next revolutionary wave that would cause history to flow in the right

41

direction. When the waves came, the party was unable to channel the flow to its own

benefit.

B) 1927 – 1937: From Urban Revolution to the Construction of Rural Bases

This period is marked by two diverging tendencies. The first is the failure of continued

attempts at urban-based revolution. In these attempts, the Comintern was able to exert a

tighter grip over the central party apparatus in Shanghai. The second is the increasing

autonomy of the CCP leaders in the base areas that were set up in the late-twenties and

early thirties in parts of central and south China. Comintern control of the Party Center

was a two-edged sword. On the one hand it enabled the organization to appoint leaders

sympathetic to its policies while on the other hand it had to extricate itself from the blame

each time policy failed.89 This resulted in a stream of missives from the Comintern

blaming individual CCP leaders for incorrectly applying or even betraying its correct

policy line. Life in the base areas offered a learning experience independent of

Comintern agendas. The lessons from these experiences informed the policies of Mao

Zedong and the other survivors after they arrived in Northwest China after the Long

March.

Remarkably, initial policy after Chen Duxiu’s dismissal was a radicalization of

policy towards the peasantry. In July 1927, the CCP announced that the revolution had

entered another new phase and that, despite all evidence to the contrary, the revolutionary

tide was rising.90 This tendency to ignore reality and to see the revolutionary tide as

turning in the CCP’s favor was a constant refrain throughout the remainder of the

twenties.

42

The 7 August Emergency Conference of 1927 resulted in a tightening of the

Comintern’s grip over the CCP’s central leadership. It convened in Hankou to evaluate

past policy, devise a new strategy, and elect a new party leadership.91 The Conference

marked the formal transition from a strategy of cooperation with the GMD to one of

opposition. Mistakes were blamed on the previous leadership of the CCP. This is clearly

to be seen in “The Circular Letter” sent to party members after the meeting and in the

comments of Lominadze to the Conference itself.92 The letter denounced the

“opportunist” mistakes made in attitude towards to GMD and the mass movement,

particularly stressing the failure to support fully the rural revolution. It had little to say

about future strategy, emphasizing the sole leadership of the CCP yet still calling for

collaboration with GMD leftists. It is worth pointing out that this appeal for continued

cooperation derived not only from Stalin’s need to show infallibility in his political

struggles with Trotsky but also from the situation within China. Significant members of

the GMD still supported the CCP and it was hoped that they could be rallied to the

communist cause. In the GMD central leadership there was Song Qingling (Sun Yat-

sen’s widow) and Deng Yanda, in the military He Long and Ye Ting. A number of

grassroots GMD branches and troops also favoured the communists.93 The Comintern’s

need to place the blame on the CCP leadership is apparent in Lominadze’s speech to

Conference. According to Lominadze, far from having given had advice, the fault lay in

the failure of the CCP to carry out Comintern instructions among the masses.94

In terms of organization, the party prepared itself for a life underground and

instructed members to “forge strong, secret” organizations. Priority was still given to the

conservation of party cells within labor unions. A new nine-person temporary Politburo

43

was elected pending the convocation of a Congress and it in turn elected a three-person

Standing Committee of Qu Qiubai, Li Weihan, and Su Zhaozheng.95

The new Conference strategy of rebellions, inciting army mutinies and initiating

peasant uprisings was not successful leading to a further depletion of the communist

forces. However, failure did not dampen the CCP’s enthusiasm (particularly that of Qu

Qiubai). In November 1927 policy for the rural and urban areas was radicalized.

Landlords, big and small, were to be shown no leniency and workers were to take power

in the factories into their own hands. This decision led to the disaster of the Guangzhou

Commune uprising in December 1927.

The defeat of the Guangzhou Commune coming so swiftly after the defeats of

the communists in the Nanchang and Autumn Harvest Uprisings, made it clear that a shift

in tactics was necessary. It was impossible for the Party Center under Qu Qiubai to

continue with its “putschism.” The party had lost contact with the working-class in

major centers such as Shanghai, Wuhan and Guangzhou. The insurrectionary policy even

where the peasantry had been mobilized had been intended to restore the initiative to the

proletariat under the CCP’s leadership by seizing major urban centers. The failure of this

approach signalled the effective end of the proletariat as the main force of the revolution.

Over time this would also lead to a drastic reduction in Comintern influence over real

policy implementation in the CCP.

A National Congress was needed to reassess the past and sanction a shift in

policy direction. Thus, preparations began for the Sixth Congress and for reasons of

security it was held in Moscow (18 June to 11 July 1928).96 The Congress had two points

of departure. First, that while the policy of military confrontation with the GMD was now

44

inevitable, second, the reckless “putchism” pursued under Qu Qiubai’s leadership had not

shown any tangible success. Not surprisingly, Comintern influence was dominant. The

“Political Decision” described the revolution as being in a trough between two waves.97

The first revolutionary wave had receded because of “repeated failures” and the new wave

had not yet arrived. This notion allowed the “putchism” of Qu Qiubai to be attacked

while supporting future insurrections.98 Judging the waves was a difficult business and it

is not surprising that the new Chinese leadership would seize upon any sign of heightened

activity as the arrival of a new crest.

The notion of the movement developing in waves was not an innovation of the

Congress but had been put forward by the ECCI in February 1928. While criticizing the

previous “excesses”, in particular the Guangzhou Commune, the ECCI maintained that a

further revolutionary upsurge was possible. However, such upsurges would be irregular

and thus the party must take care not to allow the movement to run out of control. Instead

the mass organizations were to be built up to ensure coordination.99

A major contribution of the Congress was its designation of the soviet as the

governmental system to be established in the wake of the armed uprisings to replace the

old political system. While the Congress saw this as the form of government throughout

the entire country, in practice it meant the soviet would rule the rural base areas. While

the Congress retained the intention of recapturing the CCP’s urban base, social reality led

to a greater emphasis being placed on the revolutionary role of the peasantry.100 The

party was to form a united front with as many of the peasantry as possible, including

middle peasants. Rich peasants were to be “neutralized” and the poor peasants were to be

placed in charge of the peasant associations. The Congress stressed the importance of

45

guerrilla warfare carried out by the peasantry. It was hoped that this would lead to a

steady expansion of rural reform and the worker-peasant revolutionary Red Army.

However, it was clearly stated that the peasantry would remain under the hegemony of the

proletariat.101

The Congress also installed a new leadership with a new CC of 23 members

and 13 alternates and a Central Control Commission with three members and two

alternates. The new Politburo elected by the CC had seven full members: Su Zhaozheng

(22 votes), Xiang Ying (22), Xiang Zhongfa (21), Zhou Enlai (21), Qu Qiubai (16), Cai

Hesen (16), and Zhang Guotao (10). There were seven alternates, one of whom was Li

Lisan. The Standing Committee comprised Xiang Zhongfa, Zhou Enlai, Su Zhaozheng,

Xiang Ying, and Cai Hesen with Li Lisan, Xu Xigen, and Yang Yin as alternates. Xiang

Zhongfa was elected Chair of the Politburo and the CC. Despite the claim that party

congresses would be held every year, a congress would not be held again until 1945.

On the surface, the Sixth Congress appeared to have produced an appropriate

long-term program. In reality, it presented the CCP with an intractable problem. The

central issue of the revolution was to be the agrarian question while it was of paramount

importance that the CCP recapture its proletarian base in the urban areas. The chance of

fulfilling these objectives was further complicated by the more radical turn of events both

in China and the Soviet Union shortly after the Congress.

In China, the situation was improving somewhat for the CCP. In the urban

areas, the CCP was slowly recovering from the GMD suppression and failed uprisings,

while in the rural areas from 1928 on there was a steady growth of the Red Army and the

soviet areas. The latter were beginning to emerge as dynamic new forces in the

46

communist movement. However, the socio-economic conditions varied from soviet to

soviet resulting in different policies and compromises with local groups to ensure

survival.

Of immediate direct influence on the new party leadership was the factional

struggle between Stalin and Bukharin. Although rumors of differences had circulated at

the Sixth Party Congress, Bukharin supervised the Congress on behalf of the Comintern.

Indeed, the “Political Resolution” was based on the nine hour (sic!) speech that he

delivered to the Congress and the new Politburo was put together on his instructions. By

the end of 1928, Bukharin had become the main target of Stalin’s attacks for his “rightist”

or “rich peasant line.”

This caused the CCP to adopt an increasingly “left” policy that culminated in

what the Comintern was itself to denounce as the Li Lisan line. On 8 February 1929 the

ECCI issued a letter to the CC of the CCP claiming that signs of a new revolutionary

wave were clearly detectable in China. As a result the ECCI warned that at the present

time, the “rightist trend” was particularly dangerous.102 Shortly after the letter arrived,

the Politburo drafted a formal resolution on how the party should apply the Comintern

line in its practical work.103 Indeed, the period until April 1930 marks a distinct phase in

the shift of party policy.

The anti-rightist drive in Moscow continued to affect the Party Center in

Shanghai. On 26 October 1929 the ECCI sent another letter to the CCP CC, this time

announcing “the beginning of the revolutionary wave.”104 The party was to take over the

leadership of this new revolutionary wave by overcoming its “petty bourgeois

waverings.” Once again the Comintern reinforced the view that at the present time,

47

“rightism” was the most dangerous trend in the party. The Politburo responded to this

letter by adopting resolutions on 20 December 1929 and 11 January 1930 that fully

accepted the Comintern’s position and that heralded a louder criticism of “rightism.”105

One of the first victims of the attack on “rightism” had been Chen Duxiu who

was expelled from the party in 1929. His expulsion and that of many others were carried

in the pages of the party’s theoretical journal Red Flag. He was denounced viciously for

what were decreed to be his “Trotskyite” and liquidationist” tendencies. While Chen was

in power before July 1927, he had no particular association with Trotsky and had adhered

to the position of accommodation with the GMD as approved by Stalin but opposed by

Trotsky. After the left-wing of the GMD also turned on the CCP, his analysis of the

revolution did move closer to a Trotskyite position. His conversion, given his enormous

prestige in the party, created a crisis in the party and the major purge was launched. The

Trotskyites who were expelled formed their own organization called the “Left

Opposition.” The organization was, however, bitterly divided into four main factions and

it took a Unification Conference in May 1931 to bring agreement to form only one group,

the “Chinese Oppositionists.” Despite this, it remained a very fractious group and its

impact was very limited. The Trotskyites as a whole, despite the assessment of their main

chronicler Gregor Benton that they were the first and weightiest movement of radical

democratic dissent within China, enjoyed little sustained influence within the party or

among the Chinese working-class. In addition to the ideological differences, the

movement was best by intense personal friction. The “Chinese Oppositionists” became

the targets of not only the GMD but also the CCP and indeed suffered worst at the hands

of the latter than the former. A number of those who did not escape to Hong Kong, such

48

as Liu Renjing, spent most of the subsequent period in GMD jails followed by re-arrest

after the CCP came to power in 1949.106

Unfortunately the revolutionary tide that the Comintern thought it spotted did

not exist, at least in the urban areas. The Comintern’s insistence on political strikes and

preparation for armed insurrection served to alienate the proletariat rather than to rally it

to the communist cause. The CCP leadership decided to use the rising soviet movement

in the countryside as means of recapturing its influence in the cities. This policy reached

its fruition under Li Lisan’s direction and was spelled out in the Politburo decision of 11

June 1930. The current stage was seen as one of revolutionary upsurge and it proposed

that Wuhan be seized as a part of the take over of one or more provinces.107 The

resolution sought to implement the Comintern’s wishes in China but the failure of the

strategy caused it to become the focus of critical attention in the Soviet Union some

months later.

The resolution was sent to the Comintern for approval but the Comintern

delayed making a formal reply, possibly because of the link made by Li Lisan between the

Chinese and world revolutions.108 Later the Comintern was to criticize the efforts made

in the resolution to show the interdependence of the Chinese Revolution and the world

revolution. The 11 June resolution claimed that because China was the weakest link in

the ruling chain of world imperialism, the Chinese revolution could occur first setting off

the world revolution and the final class war. While such an analysis could be justified in

terms of the Comintern’s view that the stability of world capitalism would soon erode,

though at an uneven pace depending on place, the Comintern may not have been happy to

have Li Lisan lecturing them on the world revolution. The resolution also hinted at the

49

need for Soviet aid, something that Li Lisan would soon openly ask for. This was ignored

by the Comintern. It was not in a position to call on the Soviet Union to support the

Chinese Revolution. This appeal was later denounced as an error of “semi-Trotskyism.”

The prediction that a successful bourgeois-democratic revolution would soon be

transformed into a socialist one was also cited later as proof of Li’s Trotskyite tendencies.

However, this too had been a prediction in line with Comintern analysis at the time.

On 16 July, the Party Center sent another letter to the Presidium of the ECCI

calling for approval of the strategy outlined in the resolution of 11 June. Two days later,

the National Conference of CCP Organizations opened in Shanghai. The Conference

announced that the general task of the party was to organize armed uprisings to seize

political power and that the party was one preparing to take power. Further it called for

action committees to be established at the central and local levels. In the “red areas,”

workers’ and peasants’ revolutionary committees were to be established. These would be

the sole leading organs.

Eventually the Comintern replied in a letter dated 23 July 1930 to the CCP CC.

The letter has produced different interpretations.109 The letter contained no substantial

disagreement with Li Lisan either in the general policy or even with respect to practical

strategy. What was indicated between the lines, however, was worry over Li Lisan’s

operations and shirking of responsibility, which fully accorded with the position of the

Comintern leaders in the early thirties. The Comintern leaders were not so foolhardy as

Li to claim world revolution was imminent nor did they dare to exclude the possibility of

a successful revolution in China. The letter did not oppose the idea of taking over Wuhan

50

and one or more provinces but it seemed to oppose Li’s notion of an “immediate

nationwide revolution.”

It is a moot point as to when Li Lisan and the Party Center knew of the

Comintern’s views. Letters could take up to one or two months to arrive and the full text

probably did not arrive until early September. However, CCP leaders were already

informed of its contents by late-July from telegraphic messages received by the ECCI Far

East Bureau in Shanghai.110

While it is uncertain just how much Li knew and when, he certainly rejected

Comintern concern. On 6 August, Li Lisan chaired the first meeting of the Central Action

Committee calling the whole party to mobilize for immediate revolution. By this time,

the Comintern was more clearly of the opinion that Li had gone too far. Qu Qiubai and

Zhou Enlai were sent back to China to moderate Li’s excesses but not yet to repudiate his

policy wholesale. This is not surprising given that it would be difficult to extricate the

Comintern from sharing the blame.

While the Comintern refrained from criticism of Li Lisan while the strategy was

in operation, as soon as it failed harsh condemnation followed. Between the Third and

Fourth Plenums (September 1930 – January 1931), factional conflicts and power

struggles within the CCP increased. Li Lisan’s strongest opponents were Wang Ming and

the “returned students” group. They had as their principal supporter Pavel Mif, the

Comintern representative in China.111 Yet, opposition had little to do with current or

future policy and was not based on opposition to a “leftist” line. Wang Ming, in an article

published four days after the 11 June resolution, only differed from Li in his assessment

51

that the Chinese Revolution could occur immediately without depending on world

revolution as its precondition.112

Also, the Comintern began to toughen its stance as Pavel Mif and his supporters

in the Comintern became dissatisfied with the decisions of the Third Plenum. In October

1930, the ECCI sent members of the CC a letter stating that Li Lisan’s mistakes were

ones of line.113 It labelled Li Lisan “anti-Comintern” and a “semi-Trotskyite.” Mif

himself arrived in China in mid-December 1930 and proposed that the Fourth Plenum be

convened as soon as possible. The Plenum was held in Shanghai on 7 January and was

dominated by Mif and his protégé, Wang Ming.

The resolution of the Fourth Plenum drafted under Mif’s guidance was harsh in

its condemnation of Li Lisan.114 Li was accused of betraying the correct instructions of

the Comintern and bringing havoc to the party. Li’s “line” was summed up as being

contradictory to that of the Comintern and comprising “a policy of opportunism under the

camouflage of ‘leftist phrases,’ and an opportunistic passivism in regard to the task of

organizing the masses in a practical and revolutionary way.” Betraying the Comintern

line was true to the extent that the Comintern itself had abandoned the idea of using the

Red Army to seize the urban areas.

For its new leadership in China, the Comintern did not turn to the Soviet areas

but to Wang Ming and the “returned students.” There were substantial changes in the

Politburo with Wang Ming, who had not even been a CC member before the Plenum

becoming a full member. While Xiang Zhongfa remained General Secretary, real power

lay with Wang Ming.115 Several months after the Plenum, the strength of the “returned

students” was increased with the promotion of Bo Gu and Zhang Wentian. Excluded

52

from the new leadership was the group gathered around the workers’ activists He

Mengxiong and Luo Zhanglong. They felt that the policies were destroying the labor

movement that they had been intimately involved in developing. They set up an

opposition organ and demanded that an emergency congress be convened and Mif

recalled. In still unexplained circumstances, the group was betrayed and arrested by the

British police. The police turned them over to the GMD and they were executed.116

Wang Ming denied involvement in the betrayal but it was certainly convenient as it

removed the group within the CCP that had the best links with labor.

However, the failure of the Li Lisan strategy fatally wounded the strength of the

CCP in the urban areas and many key figures in the communist movement were rounded

up and almost all of the underground branches were rolled up. The story of the CCP in

these years in Shanghai reads like an adventure story with spies, Chinese and foreign

police, safe houses, and deals with gangsters. The problem is that it was reality and it was

often CCP members who lost out. After the communist-directed insurrection in

Shanghai had handed power to Chiang Kai-shek, party history was one of almost

continual repression after Chiang turned on the communists on 12 April 1927. While

party membership in Shanghai had been around 8,000 in April 1927, it had fallen to a

mere 300 in 1934.117 The damaged to the communist dominated labor movement was

equally severe. In 1930, communist sponsored organizations had 2,000 workers, a

number that declined to 500 in 1932, and a mere handful in 1934.118

The most devastating blow came when Gu Shunzhang, the head of the CC’s

special services unit was caught in April 1931 and turned by the GMD. His information

led to the break-up of CCP organizations in Hankou, Nanjing, Tianjin, Beijing, and

53

Shanghai. There ensued the start of what is referred to as the “white terror.” Although

Zhou Enlai was tipped off and escaped from Shanghai, others were not so lucky. Xiang

Zhongfa119 was caught in June and some 40 other high-ranking CCP members were

caught along with 800 others at the local level.120 In June, the crack-down also led to the

arrest of Noulens who was actually Chief of the Department for International Liaison (the

communications and intelligence organ) of the Comintern’s Far Eastern Bureau. he

worked under the cover of his formal position as secretary general of the Pan-Pacific

Trade Union. Noulens and his wife were arrested by the Shanghai Municipal Police and

this seriously hampered the work of the Comintern in China, even if it did not cause it to

stop completely.121

However, as Stranahan has shown, while badly wounded the party did continue to

function to the best of its ability in Shanghai.122 The onset of Japanese aggression and

GMD repression gave it a chance to survive and develop very limited support and it

began to network with a number of multiclass organizations that it was able to infiltrate.

These were the “Red Mass Leagues,” organizations such as the Chinese Association to

Relieve Distress, the Self-Defense Committee and the Cultural Committee. Infiltration of

these organizations provided the first concentrated attempt to adapt the Shanghai party’s

goals to the socio-political environment of the city. While capacity was limited, this work

enabled the party to gain experience and develop contacts that would stand it in good

stead when the National Salvation Movement developed following the Beijing anti-

Japanese demonstrations of 1935. This meant that when the united front with the GMD

was reactivated in 1937 there was the remnants of an organization for Liu Xiao to work

with on his appointment to run the Shanghai apparatus.

54

These developments increased the relative importance of the party organizations

in the base areas that had been set up. The Party Center in Shanghai was reduced to little

more than a liaison organization relaying instructions from the Comintern to the soviets.

Indeed, it appears that in early 1931 the Comintern made the suggestion that the Party

Center consider a move to the rural Soviets.123 The departure of the CC for the Jiangxi

Soviet in 1933 had left the Shanghai party without effective leadership. It is also

debatable to what extent and how often the rump in Shanghai was in contact with the CC.

While the Party Center became more involved in the work of the soviets,

transferring key personnel, it was not until early 1933 that Bo Gu and the Party Center

arrived at the Central Soviet.124 The conditions under which the Party Center began its

move to the soviets meant that in reality legitimate leadership of the revolutionary

movement had passed to the soviets. However, the process inevitably produced conflicts

and frictions. Yet this is not to say that Mao and his supporters were an immediate

conscious target of the “returned students” who dominated the Party Center when it began

its transfer to the Jiangxi Soviet.

Despite the repression in the urban areas, 1931 saw the CCP in a much better

position. At one point in 1927, membership had dipped as low as 10,000. By the end of

1930, membership had grown tenfold but the momentum had shifted from the urban to

the rural soviets. The way forward now for the CCP was to rely on the steady expansion

of the soviet bases and the Red Army. In addition to the Jiangxi Soviet125 under Mao,

important bases had been developed in west Hunan-Hubei (Xiang-Exi) under He Long,

and in Hubei-Henan-Anhui (E-Yu-Wan) under Xu Xiangqian.126 The soviets had been

provided a breathing space to develop by Chiang Kai-shek’s conflict with Feng Yuxiang

55

and Yan Xishan. However, the respite did not last long as Chiang was victorious in

November 1930 and in October he had already launched the first of five “suppression”

campaigns to annihilate the communists. Despite the failure to take over a major city or

win a victory in one or more provinces, the military capacity of the Red Army had

generally increased.

In November 1931, the First All-China Soviet Congress was convened in Ruijin,

Jiangxi and it founded the Chinese Soviet Republic as a national regime and established

separate state and military structures to operate at the national level. While direct control

over the military was taken away from Mao Zedong, he was appointed to the new post of

Chair of the Soviet government.127 Xiang Ying and Zhang Guotao were appointed as his

deputies. Zhu De was appointed chair of the newly established Central Revolutionary

Military Commission, with Peng Dehuai and Wang Jiaxiang as his deputies. The

Congress also adopted a Constitution for the Republic that designated it as a “democratic

dictatorship of the proletariat and the peasantry.” However, there was no pretence that

the Soviet was anything other than a communist one-party dictatorship. In the remote

rural area there were no industrial workers, the proletariat consisted almost entirely of

village artisans, handicraftsmen, and farm laborers. This notwithstadning, the

Constitution acknowledged that “only the proletariat can lead the broad masses to

socialism,” and thus they were to have extra representation in the Soviet.128

The most important piece of legislation passed was the Land Law.129 This

moderated previous policy but radical swings in policy towards peasants alienated many

and provides a good example of how policy driven by ideology could undermine support

for the CCP in specific contexts. On arriving in Jiangxi, the party had adopted a radical

56

policy that had alienated groups such as the middle and rich peasants who were crucial to

CCP survival. The CCP had decided that land redistribution was crucial to ensuring peasant

support in their resistance to the GMD, but changes in land ownership based on strict class

definitions caused unforeseen economic and social problems that in turn led to further

readjustment. Thus, the Soviet Land Law contained prescriptions more liberal than

previous policy and did not mention land nationalization and collectivization. It represented

a deliberate attempt to woo back the alienated “middle classes.” However, later, between

June and September 1933, many “middle peasants” were reclassified as “landlords” with

serious consequences for them. This was between the fourth and fifth suppression

campaigns launched by Chiang Kai-shek. This re-radicalization of policy began with the

Land Investigation Movement that was again intended to ensure peasant support in the

conflict with the GMD. The CCP sought to use the Movement to create a favorable

revolutionary atmosphere that would serve their political and military purposes. However,

constant changes in land ownership caused social and economic problems within the base

area, and excesses would often occur. This required periodic retrenchment and the adoption

of a mild or “antileftist” policy. Thus, between October and December, the new “landlords”

were demoted to the ranks of “middle peasants.” Finally, in early 1934, policy was

radicalized once again with attacks on the “rich peasants.” This merry-go-round was only

halted with the expulsion of the communist forces from their base area.

The Fourth Suppression Campaign reached the Jiangxi Soviet in January 1933 just

as the remainder of the Party Center headed by Bo Gu was moving in. The E-Yu-Wan

Soviet had been lost in September 1932 and the Xiang-Exi Soviet in October 1932.

Although, the Jiangxi Soviet held out, a better organized fifth campaign began in October

57

1933.130 This came at a bad time for the CCP as it was not only engaged in the Land

Investigation Movement but also a major inner party struggle usually referred to as the anti-

Luo Ming line. The attacks on Luo and his supporters were intended to strengthen the

resolve of party cadres in face of the GMD attacks. Luo had been acting secretary of the

Fujian CCP Committee since March 1932 and had claimed that the GMD attacks had

caused panic and fatigue in west Fujian. He blamed the party leadership for its mechanistic

approach to resisting the GMD, applying the same tactics in all areas, and called for flexible

military tactics to be adopted that were tailored to suit the varying conditions. While Luo

was clearly referring to the local situation, it served the Party Center’s interests to interpret

his view as an attack on party policy as a whole. In February 1933, Bo Gu and the Party

Center attacked what it called the Luo Ming line and their success in resisting the Fourth

Suppression temporarily strengthened their position and allowed them to use the situation to

attack their enemies.131 In the Jiangxi Soviet, Mao’s brother, Mao Zetan, was criticized as

was Deng Xiaoping.132

With the Fifth Campaign slowly encircling the soviet, from 15 to 18 January 1934,

the party convened the Fifth Plenum of the Sixth CC in Ruijin. It was attended by full and

alternate CC members and some delegates from provincial party committees. Given the

context, Bo Gu’s political report was a stunning example of being divorced from reality.133

For Bo Gu, the revolutionary situation at home and abroad was excellent, and he deemed

the policies of the Comintern and the CCP infallible. Amazingly, there was no formal

report on military affairs to the Plenum and all Bo had to say was that the major task was

simply to continue the fight against the “right opportunists” who refused to see the

excellence of the situation. Work in the GMD areas was not forgotten about and party

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organizations were requested to strengthen work in key industrial centers and to make the

greatest efforts to “prepare, organize, and lead the working-class in strikes.” The party’s

entire strength was to be concentrated on “strikes in factories and trade unions.” In addition

the Plenum listened to a report by Chen Yun on the workers’ economic struggle and trade

unions in GMD-held areas and a resolution was adopted on this question.134 The Plenum

elected a new Politburo that included Mao Zedong, contrary to what most studies have

suggested.135

Immediately following the Plenum, the Second All-China Soviet Congress was held

and it provided a chance for the leadership to boost morale. A giant auditorium was

constructed, and the ceremonies included a military parade and gunshot salute. No effort

was spared to portray the Soviet as a formal, national state rather than as a shaky local

rebellious base area. This aspiration to statehood was reflected in the election once again of

a full complement of people’s commissariats, including one for foreign affairs. Further, the

Congress proposed that all the soviet bases be designated as provinces, no matter that their

size nor the fact that they were small islands in a large sea of GMD-controlled waters meant

that they hardly deserved the appellation. The Congress did at least refer to the war and

called for the Red Army to adopt positional defense as its central task and basic strategy.

The meetings did little to address the crucial problem facing the CCP, namely the

GMD Suppression. Effective military control of the Soviet was under Otto Braun, who had

arrived in Ruijin in October 1933. After initial attempts to defend the base areas from

within, Braun pursued a strategy referred to as “Short, Swift Thrusts” that also engaged the

GMD through attacks in the “white areas.” The hope was to pull troops away from the

encirclement of the Soviet. However, this tactic also failed and a plan for the evacuation of

59

the Soviet in late-summer of 1934 was drawn up by Bo Gu, Zhou Enlai and Braun. The

plan was drawn up in great secrecy and leaders were only informed gradually and on a need

to know basis. The idea of withdrawal was made public through the splendidly titled

article “All for the Defense of the Soviet” written by Zhang Wentian and published in Red

China on 29 September 1934. The article put forward the notion of retreating from and

surrendering a soviet in a particular place in order to gain victory for the soviet movement

throughout the country as a whole.136 In October, the CCP began to move out on what it

called the “strategic transfer” or what later became known as the Long March. They left

behind a party organization under the leadership of Xiang Ying who was also in control of

military affairs. In addition, the Office of the Central Government of the Chinese Soviet

Republic was established under Chen Yi’s leadership. This Office was to direct the struggle

of the guerrilla armies left behind in the former base areas of South China.137 Initially, the

withdrawal did not go well. The CCP had no idea where it was going and by late-

November military engagements had caused its personnel to be reduced from the 86,000

who set out to around 30,000.138

In January 1935, the Red Army reached northern Guizhou and found some

time for a break. Vitally, during these days from 15 to 18 January the most important

meeting of the Long March was held at Zunyi and it marked the start of Mao Zedong’s rise

to preeminent power in the CCP.139 While the meeting was probably called to discuss the

current situation and where the Red Army should go, it turned into a major review of past

policy and heralded a shift in the party leadership. While Bo Gu and Zhou Enlai started off

the meeting, the most decisive event was Mao’s speech that criticized military policy. On

the basis of subsequent debates and very much in line with Mao’s speech, Zhang Wentian

60

drafted the meeting documents.140 The Resolution criticizes Bo Gu and Braun for their

previous errors but adopts a compromise. Braun firmly rejected all criticism of himself and

Bo Gu was only willing to admit to partial errors in judgment. While it approved the

political line of the party, the military failures were ascribed to the erroneous military line of

“pure positional defense” promoted by Bo and Braun.141

Mao was promoted to the five-person secretariat and joined Zhang Wentian

(general secretary), Zhou Enlai, Chen Yun, and Bo Gu. Along with Zhou and Wang

Jiaxiang, Mao was to serve on the CCP Central Military Leadership Group. While Zhou

was to be the chief decision-maker, Mao was to be chief assistant. This broke Braun’s

control over military affairs. Mao did not become chair of the Military Council or the

Politburo as some historians have suggested, but he did become one of the top five leaders

of the party and had the right to be involved in all party and army decisions.

During the Long March, Mao was a major challenge from Zhang Guotao for

leadership of the party. Zhang did not accept the decisions taken at Zunyi as binding and

had not attended the meeting. At the time he commanded a far larger military force than

those soldiers with Mao, some 80,000 to Mao’s 20,000 at best. Yet Zhang was thoroughly

outmaneuvered142 and came under severe criticism in Yan’an in early 1937 and in March a

party resolution was passed criticizing his past mistakes. With renewed collaboration

between the GMD and the CCP, Zhang decided to flee the communists new home in

Yan’an and joined the GMD in April 1938.143

While the Red Army was on the Long March the last decision taken by the

Comintern to impact on the CCP was beginning to take effect. This led to a second

period of alliance with the GMD in 1937. The Comintern’s Seventh Congress (July-

61

August 1935) adopted a new policy that called for a united front of all elements, classes

and nations in the fight against fascism. This policy shift came primarily as a result of

Soviet Russia’s awareness of the increasing threat to its security posed by Germany and

Japan.

This new policy line was applied to China by Wang Ming, the head of the CCP

Mission to the Comintern in Moscow. However, it should be pointed out that Wang

Ming’s own ideas had been evolving from the notion of a united front from below to a

united from above.144 Indeed, the Japanese occupation of Northeast China had caused the

CC to suggest a shift in policy in the Manchuria region in January 1933.145 This letter

from the CC to the local party organization indicated that it would be possible to

cooperate with the national bourgeoisie if a solid united front from below had been

assured. This, according to the letter, would ensure proletarian leadership in the united

front.

The “August First Declaration” (1935) issued in Moscow in the name of the

CCP and the Chinese Soviet Republic, was a clear signal that the CCP was to make the

strategic shift from civil war to a new united front.146 The declaration claimed that it was

the “sacred duty of everyone to resist Japan and save the nation.” It then criticized the

actions of “scum” and “traitors” such as Chiang Kai-shek, Yan Xishan and Zhang

Xueliang who had not adopted a policy of resistance to Japan. If the GMD would stop its

attacks, the CCP and the Soviet Government pledged that it would cooperate closely with

them to defend the country against the Japanese no matter what their other differences

might be. The CCP declared its willingness to cooperate with all those prepared to join a

62

government of national defense that would pursue a ten-point programme to expel the

Japanese. The suggestion was clearly for a united front from above.

It is not entirely clear when this news reached the Party Center as

communications with Moscow had been severed during the Long March. Certainly

communications were restored in November 1935 when Zhang Hao, an envoy of the CCP

Mission to the Comintern, arrived in north Shaanxi but evidence suggests that its contents

were known earlier. A CC secret directive in October 1935 reflected the thrust of the

declaration.147

In December 1935, an enlarged Politburo meeting was convened at Wayaobao

to discuss the implications of the united front strategy.148 The meeting decided to adopt

the widest political front possible to oppose Japanese imperialism and Chiang Kai-shek.

This front would include workers, peasants and the petty bourgeoisie and even members

of the national bourgeoisie, rich peasants and small landlords. The party was to strive for

leadership of this coalition. The highest manifestation of this new united front would be

the government of national defense and the united anti-Japanese army that would be

united on the basis of the ten-point program. This conciliatory approach was reflected in

the change of name of the Worker and Peasant Soviet Republic into the People’s Soviet

Republic and in policy shifts. Policy was moderated, rich peasants were to enjoy the

same rights as others and not have their property confiscated while industrial and

commercial entrepreneurs would be welcomed to invest in the area.149 In line with this

new approach, the meeting also adopted a resolution on military affairs that called for

combining the civil war with the national war against Japan. The main task for 1936 was

to gather strength to fight against Japan. The base areas were to be expanded and to link

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up with the Soviet Union as would the two armies link to fight the Japanese. Widespread

guerrilla warfare was to be used in a shift from the emphasis on regular warfare.150 In

addition, criteria for party membership were relaxed and “left closed-doorism” was cited

as a greater danger than “right opportunism.” The need to respond flexibly to changing

circumstances was stressed, probably in a veiled criticism of Bo Gu, Wang Ming and

their supporters.

Despite this new approach, it would take another two years before the CCP

accepted Chiang Kai-shek as a partner in a new united front and then only after his arrest

by his own officers in what is commonly referred to as the Xi’an Incident. The CCP

reached a secret agreement with the Northeast Army under the command of Zhang

Xueliang that was threatening them in the Northwest base area that was now home to

Mao and his supporters.151 With this cooperation secured, the CCP toned down its

criticism of Chiang Kai-shek and on 17 September 1936, the Politburo passed a

resolution that suggested an agreement be reached with him.152 This was clearly a

delicate business and the resolution was carefully framed. Criticism of the GMD was not

to be stopped nor was the ultimate goal of socialism to be abandoned but it noted that the

rising tide of anti-Japanese sentiment would force the GMD to join the struggle. The

CCP proposed the formation of a democratic republic, a form of government that would

have a more universal form of democracy than that practised in the soviets and more

progressive than that under the GMD.

For Zhang Xueliang such conciliation must have contrasted strongly with

Chiang Kai-shek’s insistence on dealing with the communists first. Thus, in December

1936 while Chiang was on a visit to pursue the campaign to eradicate the communists, he

64

was kidnapped by Zhang and held for one week before being released. It is worth

pointing out that it seems that the Comintern applied what pressure it could to persuade

that the incident be resolved peacefully and that Chiang be released to head the national

resistance to Japan.

The incident did provide the link between the phases of Civil War and the

National War of Resistance. The Marco Polo Bridge Incident in Beijing on 7 July 1937

and the Hongqiao Airport Incident in Shanghai on 9 August clearly revealed Japan’s

aggressive intentions towards China. The subsequent invasion and communist

concessions finally pushed Chiang to collaboration and in August 1937, the GMD

accepted communist troops as part of the nationalist army. The Red Army was renamed

the Eighth Route Army of the National Revolutionary Army. In November, the

remaining guerrilla forces in central China were renamed the New Fourth Army.

C) 1937-1943: The Politics of Collaboration and the Reinforcement of the Base Areas.

The formation of the second united front brought a much needed respite to the communist

troops scattered across a number of base areas.153 It enabled them to operate openly,

develop administrative structures, and most importantly receive revenues from the GMD.

However, tensions within this new alliance arose very quickly as the mistrust on both

sides was too difficult to wish away.

Once collaboration with the GMD was decided upon, Mao’s main concern was

how to use communist troops in the War of Resistance. While the CCP was prepared to

make declarations about the democratization of the GMD regime, Mao’s concern was

how to preserve military strength, avoiding needless sacrifice. Some were concerned,

65

however, that too passive a response would undermine sympathy for the CCP. Ultimately

a policy of self-preservation and expansion was accepted.

The adoption of the united front did bring the simmering conflict between Mao

and Wang Ming to a head and this was the last major inner-party struggle before Mao

exerted power over the party as a whole. Mao working within China felt that the GMD

was incapable of leading the War of Resistance and that the CCP must retain its

independence and initiative. By contrast, Wang Ming was much more amenable to the

policy of collaboration and was denounced for promoting the policy of “All Through the

United Front.” On 29 November 1937, Wang Ming and seven other members of the CCP

Mission to the Comintern, including Kang Sheng and Chen Yun, arrived in the CCP

headquarters at Yan’an. Wang was given a warm welcome. Mao meeting him for the

first time, purportedly said Wang was “a blessing from the sky.”154 But Wang also

immediately challenged Mao as the dominant ideological force in the party. When Wang

reported on what kind of position ought to be taken vis-à-vis the united front, Mao is

supposed to have voted to accept the report in part since it appeared to reflect Stalin's

views. But Mao had quite other ideas about how the united front ought to be conducted.

Mao had to defeat Wang Ming politically and then present an approach to theory

that would not only appropriate the united front as his but also undermine Wang Ming's

credibility. This latter objective was difficult to achieve because “Stalin had instructed

Wang Ming to overcome the ‘leftist deviation’ in the Party without directly contesting

Mao's authority.”155

To deal with the situation created by these new arrivals, the Politburo held a

Conference from 9 to 14 December, at which Wang Ming won the support of the majority

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and established his influence, although his power base remained weak. Wang delivered

the keynote speech to the conference while Mao remained silent. Wang’s 27 December

article called for improving the unification of all work in what became to be known as the

policy of “everything through the united front.”156 This contrasted with Mao's calls for

“independence and initiative.” Wang clearly felt that his was the best way to develop

CCP activities outside of the Border Region. While Wang acknowledged that problems

still existed with the GMD, he felt that the foundations had been laid for a solid anti-

Japanese national united front. This cooperation would be long-term, continuing after the

war during a period of national reconstruction. He also called for the united front to be

extended beyond the two parties to mobilize effectively other groups for resistance.

Although Wang accepted that CCP members could join the GMD government, he

maintained that the Eighth Route Army must retain its independence.

The conference’s resolution congratulating the CCP Mission to the Comintern for

its work in formulating the new policies for the anti-Japanese united front appeared to

boost Wang's pre-eminent position. In fact, organizational changes strengthened Mao's

position. The conference adopted a resolution to convene the Seventh Party Congress as

soon as possible. A twenty-five person committee was set up to prepare the congress to

which Mao was appointed Chair, with Wang Ming as Secretary. This reflected the power

relations at the time as Wang, despite his prestige, must have realized that he could not

take over from Mao. Further, on the Comintern's instructions, it was decided to abolish

the post of General Secretary to encourage collective leadership. Thus, Zhang Wentian

lost his position and a Secretariat was formed consisting of Zhang Wentian, Mao Zedong,

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Chen Yun and Kang Sheng.157 Mao retained his influential position as Chair of the

Military Council.

After the conference Wang Ming, accompanied by Zhou Enlai and Bo Gu, left

Yan’an for Wuhan to take up his position as Secretary of the party's Yangtze Bureau.

This removed him from the Party Center, leaving Mao to run it together with the Army

Headquarters. In Wuhan, Wang Ming began to develop an approach to the united front

that was seriously at odds with Mao’s. Initially dictated by the vastly different conditions

in Wuhan, Wang’s policy of cooperation and taking advantage of opportunities to work

legally and to expand communist influence paid off.

The conflict between Mao and Wang reached a high point at the Politburo

meeting held in Yan’an in early March 1938. The key issues discussed were the role of

the CCP in the Sino-Japanese War and the relationship between the CCP and the GMD.

As in December, Wang Ming delivered the key-note address while Mao made no formal

speech. However, Mao’s opposition meant that no formal resolution was adopted,

although a written version of Wang’s report was published and circulated widely.

Wang’s report stated that the united front was to be consolidated in the form of a

“national revolutionary alliance”158 that would resemble the first united front or would be

a confederation within which all parties would have political and organizational

independence. He stressed the need for a “united army, united assignment, united

command, united combat.” He also stressed the need for the GMD to formalize the legal

activities of other groups. He proposed establishing a national assembly so that other

parties could be consulted and that the government legalize and encourage the

development of mass organizations. Finally, Wang stated that the correct military

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strategy was to use mobile warfare as the main form of combat coordinated with

positional warfare. Guerrilla warfare was relegated to a support function.

The downgrading of guerrilla warfare was at odds with Mao's approach and the

question of military strategy took on increased importance in the following months

especially after the fall of Xuzhou to Japanese forces in late May led to Wuhan being

threatened. Throughout April, Mao called for the development of guerrilla bases in north

China and in May, Mao stressed that the main task of the Eighth Route Army was to

engage in guerrilla warfare and only to engage in mobile warfare where the conditions

were favorable.

This clash of approaches became crucial as Wang Ming began to participate in the

defense of Wuhan. On 14 May, the Party Center sent out instructions to the New Fourth

Army and the Party’s Yangtze Bureau instructing them to shift their work to the rural

areas where they were to set up guerrilla forces.159 This was followed on 22 May 1938,

by instructions to the Hebei, Hunan and Wuhan party branches that, after the fall of

Xuzhou, they should focus their work on guerrilla warfare in the countryside and the

creation of bases there. To this end, the majority of students, workers and revolutionary

elements were to return to their home villages to help with this process. The instructions

peripheralized party work in Wuhan.

In stark contrast, Wang Ming in his public statement of 15 June, while

acknowledging that Wuhan might fall, mooted Madrid as an example of heroic defense.

Wang favored a massive mobilization under the GMD's leadership to engage the Japanese

in mobile warfare before they could reach Wuhan. The Eighth Route Army, operating in

the enemy’s rear was to be used to destroy supply lines.

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These proposals backfired. As always, the GMD was suspicious of CCP calls for

mass mobilization and, on 5 August placed restrictions on the activities of the local mass

organizations. A number were closed down and the activities of the CCP came under

close scrutiny by the GMD secret police. Wang Ming’s attempt to expand communist

influence through legal means ended in failure. His prestige in party circles received

another major blow when Wuhan fell to the Japanese on 25 October 1938.

Mao then used the Sixth Plenum of the Sixth CC held from 29 September to 6

November 1938 to press home his advantage.160 His dominance was enhanced by news

brought from Moscow by Wang Jiaxiang. Wang relayed information contained in a

September Comintern directive and Dimitrov’s ideas. The directive approved of the

political line of the CCP during the past year in its united front work while Dimitrov fully

endorsed Mao's leading position in the party. This stripped any claim that Wang Ming

could have made to be the “Comintern’s man.” Indeed, many believe that it was only

after receiving this news that Mao decided to convene the Plenum.161 The loss of Wuhan

during the Plenum shifted things further in Mao’s favor. By the end of the meeting, Mao

made his differences with Wang clear. The sharpness of Mao’s tone in his concluding

speeches was aided by the fact that Wang had left the meeting early to attend the National

Political Consultative Assembly apparently believing that he and Mao had reached a

compromise. Wang obviously had not made a very good study of Mao as a political

strategist.

Mao had no intention of wrecking the united front and he realized that it was vital

to the CCP’s interests. Thus his opening speech praised both the GMD and Chiang Kai-

shek personally.162 Mao even stated that the GMD played the dominant role in the united

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front. Class struggle was not to detract from the task of national resistance. Mao still

proposed that the “new democratic republic” would be based on Sun Yat-sen’s “Three

Principles of the People,” rather than on those of socialism. These were all sentiments

that Wang could wholeheartedly endorse and he even praised indirectly the pivotal role

which Mao played in the CCP.

However, with Wang gone and Wuhan fallen, Mao told a different story. Mao

blamed the GMD for not allowing the united front to assume a proper organizational form

and harshly criticized Wang Ming’s slogan of “everything through the united front.”163

Mao went on to criticize Wang Ming’s idea of using legal channels to develop the

communist movement and Wang’s strategy of moving from the cities to the countryside,

a mistake, Mao clearly implied, that derived from the influence of the Soviet revolution

on Wang Ming. Mao made it clear that China’s revolution would move from the

countryside to the cities.164

The political resolution did not include harsh condemnations of Wang Ming’s

approach. It was not yet necessary to risk upsetting the situation by informing the rank

and file. It was enough that Mao had told the party’s inner-circle. Having dealt Wang a

serious blow at the Plenum, immediately afterwards, the party’s regional bureau system

was reorganized resulting in an undermining of Wang Ming’s organizational position.165

On 9 November, Wang’s Yangtze Bureau was abolished and its former area of

jurisdiction was placed under two new bureaux, the Southern Bureau headed by Zhou

Enlai and the Central Plain’s Bureau headed by Liu Shaoqi. Both were loyal to Mao.

With the Party Center reunited in Yan’an, it was decided to bring order to the ad

hoc decision-making that had taken place during the years of dislocation. In addition, it

71

was important to outline rules for how the party organizations should function in the

different environments they inhabited. As a result, three resolutions were adopted on

concrete organizational questions. The united front meant that the CCP could come out

of its secret existence and engage in a wide range of activities. Such activities were to be

used to expand party influence, independence was to be retained and “capitulationism”

resisted. A resolution on work rules and discipline sought to regularize the channels

through which decisions were made and information was circulated. Thus, individuals

were forbidden from speaking on behalf of the party or distributing documents in its name

unless entrusted to do so by the CC or other leading organs.

The Resolution reconfirmed that the CC was the highest organ of the party when

the National Congress was not in session but then went on to outline where real power

lay. When the CC was not in session, the Politburo elected by it would guide work. The

Politburo was to meet at least once every three months. The section on the Secretariat

indicates the growing power of this organization in party affairs. The Secretariat was to

convene Politburo meetings and prepare the issues to be discussed. It was to meet at least

once a week. This placed it in an extremely powerful position by allowing it to control

the flow of information and effectively control the agenda. Most importantly, between

Politburo meetings, if a new emergency arose and the Politburo could not be convened

immediately, the Secretariat could make new decisions and issue them in the name of the

CC. Only afterwards would the Secretariat have to seek the approval of the Politburo.166

The Plenum placed Mao Zedong in control of the daily work of the Secretariat.

The renewed cooperation between the CCP and the GMD also allowed work in

the urban areas of China to pick up once again. As shown above, despite a devastated

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organization, the few remaining communists in Shanghai had kept alive some activities

through a number of front organizations and through the infiltration of other groups

engaged in patriotic resistance to Japanese aggression. Liu Shaoqi, who had been placed

in charge of work in the “white areas,” used the new situation to launch a devastating

critique of earlier CCP policy.167 While his views were strongly refuted at the time, they

anticipated Mao’s later assessment of the “leftist” trend in the party under Wang Ming

and Bo Gu’s control.

CCP historians view the moderately successful strike in Shanghai at Japanese-run

cotton mills in October 1936 as vindicating Liu’s new policy of shifting from class

actions to those of national resistance. The strike was led by the National Salvation

Association that had been set up some time earlier as a part of the process of the

formation of a number of specific Salvation Associations drawn from different sectors of

the population. In fact, the CCP had a minimal role in the Association but the actions

fitted with its new strategy and the Association was to be the focus of CCP rebuilding

activities during the war years.168 This approach was given a boost by the December

1936 anti-Japanese demonstrations that began in Beijing and soon spread to Shanghai.169

However, the Japanese invasion of the city meant that progress was slow and it was very

difficult for the party to act in a concerted way. However, important links were laid for

the later struggle against the GMD once the civil war erupted in 1945. Party membership

grew from 130 in November 1937 to over 2,000 by the time of the Japanese surrender in

August 1945.170

It was not long before the new relationship began to sour. As the CCP began to

spread its influence, it came into conflict with local GMD troops culminating in what

73

CCP historians refer to as the “first and second anticommunist upsurges” (December

1939-March 1940 and January 1941). While these clashes did not end the united front

they did reinforce Mao’s view that not all CCP resources should be channelled via the

GMD. For Mao, the united front was more than an alliance with just Chiang Kai-shek.

CCP policy turned towards isolating Chiang while trying to win over to its side

significant sections of the anti-Japanese alliance.

This combined with the removal of GMD financial support affected policy within

the CCP-held base areas. Policies were adopted for power-sharing and to moderate

economic policies to win over other groups in the united front. For the party faithful,

Mao stated that the “three magic weapons” that would bring victory were the united front,

armed struggle, and party-building.171 For the broader public, Mao put forward his ideas

on New Democracy.172 However, this document stated publicly the CCP’s claim to lead

the revolution. According to Mao, the bourgeoisie had both revolutionary characteristics

and a tendency toward compromise. As a result, the proletariat would have to assume

leadership in China’s struggle against imperialism and feudalism by default. During this

first stage there would be a “revolutionary democratic dictatorship” of several classes. In

the second stage, the non proletarian classes would be transformed gradually and the new

democratic revolution would progress into its socialist stage. Although Mao said that the

first phase would last for a long time, he was vague about when the change of stages

would come about and criticized as “leftist” those who thought that socialism could be

implemented before the new democratic revolution was completed. However, the article

did return the attainment to the CCP’s political agenda.

74

In line with the view that it would be a long time before socialist construction was

on the agenda, Mao outlined a moderate economic policy that would appeal to non-CCP

elements. Private capitalist production would be allowed so long as it did not dominate

the “livelihood of the people on a national scale.” In the countryside, a rich peasant

economy was proposed, with only “big landlords” having their land confiscated and

redistributed. This economic program was depicted as being in line with Sun Yat-sen’s

ideas.173

This more open and conciliatory external policy was accompanied by an extensive

set of internal party campaigns that were intended to weed out opponents to current

policy, tighten party discipline, and crush dissent while building adherence to Mao and

his supporters’ analysis of the past and visions for the future. The disciplining of the

party that began in earnest in 1941 carried on through until 1945.

During this period, Comintern direct influence on the CCP was slight and, as

argued above, was not necessarily detrimental to Mao’s ascendance to power within the

party as many authors have suggested previously. The decline in the influence of the

Comintern is clearly seen in the manner of interpretation by the CCP of key Comintern

decisions during this period. As noted above, it was on receiving news from Moscow of

the Comintern’s tacit support that Mao decided to convene the Sixth Plenum of the Sixth

CC at which he defeated Wang Ming politically.

The war with Japan did not exist in isolation and the CCP leadership in Yan’an

could not afford to ignore the Comintern totally. Just as publicly Mao and the CCP gave

full support to the Soviet-Nazi Non-Aggression Pact of 23 August 1939, so they

supported the neutrality pact the Soviet Union concluded with Japan on 13 April 1941.

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However, both events allowed the CCP to pursue its own course independent of

Moscow’s aims. Thus, for example, the CCP’s comments on the neutrality pact stated

that it marked another triumph of the Soviet Union’s peace policy.174 It was claimed that

this pact had in no way compromised Soviet support for China’s war effort, a view quite

different to that of Chiang Kai-shek. However, the CCP used the pact as a chance to put

forward the view that it was up to China itself to recover all the Chinese territories south

of the Yalu River by itself. Despite this, the CCP was being forced into defending a

position that was clearly not going to push forward its nationalist claims. From the

CCP’s point of view, the German invasion of the Soviet Union that began on 22 June

1941 came as a fortunate relief. Overnight the Soviet peace policy in the midst of a

capitalist war was changed into a position of the Soviet Union as the leader of the fight

against fascism.

Now, the “capitalist powers” such as Great Britain and the US who had been

“conspiring” to encourage a Japanese attack on the Soviet Union to preempt a Japanese

push southward had to be courted as a part of the international united front against

fascism. The Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor brought the US into the war and enabled

the CCP to call for international involvement in the war to push forward the united front.

The CCP had moved swiftly from the view of recovering all its territories on its own.

The CCP’s 9 December 1941 declaration called for the formation of an anti-

Japanese and anti-fascist front in the Pacific that would include all the governments and

peoples who were opposing Japan.175 Now the USA and Great Britain were seen as

having an important role to play in defeating Japan and bringing about unity in China.

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“Left” deviation was to be avoided and all party members were to cooperate with the

British and Americans.

The dissolution of the Comintern (15 May 1943) freed the CCP from any need

to bow in its direction and re-affirmed what was already a reality for Mao and his

supporters that the CCP should get on with creating its own revolution on its own terms.

Also, it undercut any last possible support base for Wang Ming and his followers.

Combined with other internal factors, it contributed to the build up of a cult around Mao

Zedong.

On 26 May, after the CCP had received the information, the Politburo met to

discuss the issue and in the name of the CC issued a decision on the matter.176 Not

surprisingly, the decision wholly agreed with the Comintern’s abolition pointing out that

this would strengthen the local communist parties by making them “even more

nationalized.” Such a leading center was no longer considered necessary and,

interestingly, the decision points out that the Comintern had not interfered in CCP affairs

since 1935. The need to assert the continued and strengthened role the CCP would play

without the Comintern was further necessitated by the calls by some CCP domestic critics

that it could now disband.

Sources

There is an abundance of sources for the study of the CCP during the years from 1919

until 1943 but still many areas of the relationship remain murky. Some of the outstanding

questions may be resolved by the opening of the archives in Moscow and research that is

now in progress.

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a) Archives

Extensive collections of materials concerning the Chinese revolution are held in Moscow,

especially in the Comintern Archives at the Russian Center for the Storing and Study of

Documents of Contemporary History (formerly the Central Party Archives).

1) The Central Archives (Zhongyang dang’an), Wen Quan Village, Beijing. These

archives comprise the main holdings of the CCP. Among other material, it contains

archives and related documents since the founding of the CCP from the CC and its

affiliated organizations, their agencies, as well as from revolutionary groups and front

organizations from different periods. There are 202 complete files with approximately 8

million pieces. Among the materials is the archive of the CCP delegation to the

Comintern. This contains important documents of the Comintern, and resolutions,

decisions, announcements on China by the ECCI, the Far East Bureau, and the Eastern

Department, as well as by the Youth Communist International and the Workers’

International. Alas, entrance is highly restricted even for Chinese researchers and

virtually impossible for foreigners. It is important to note that there are relevant archives

held at all administrative levels in China that are relevant to the history of the CCP.177

2) The Sneevliet Archives, International Institute of Social History, Amsterdam. One

section of this archive covers the period of time that Sneevliet (Maring) spent working for

the Comintern in Moscow and in China. The most important materials are Sneevliet’s

reports to the Comintern on the situation in China, the relationship between the CCP and

the GMD, and the state of affairs within the party. In addition, there are interesting notes

on key events either made by Sneevliet himself of for Sneevliet by his interpreters. Of

particular interest in this respect are the notes concerning the Third Party Congress. The

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archives are entirely open. The most important materials concerning Sneevliet’s period in

China are published in Tony Saich, The Origins of the First United Front in China. The

Role of Sneevliet (Alias Maring).

3) The Archives of the Bureau of Investigation, Taibei, Taiwan. These archives contain

materials captured by the GMD and taken to Taiwan after 1949. There is a wealth of

documentation concerning CCP activities underground during the late-twenties and early-

thirties and also on the base areas. These sets of documents were captured by the

invading GMD armies. Finally, there are complete sets of party newspapers and

periodicals that contain articles about the CCP, the Comintern or that transmit its

decisions. The archives are now completely open for researchers.

b) Contemporary CCP Newspapers and Magazines

Below the most important CCP journals and newspapers are listed for the period covered

in this essay.

Balujun junzheng zazhi (Military and Political Journal of the Eighth Route Army). Began publication on 15 January 1939 and ceased publication on 25 March 1942. It was the organ of the General Political Office of the Eighth Route Army. Buersheweike (The Bolshevik). Began publication in Shanghai on 24 October 1927 as

the organ of the CCP CC. Originally, it was a weekly but changed to a bi-monthly and finally a monthly. It was a secret journal, and it ceased publishing in July 1932.

Dangbao (The Party Paper). The CCP’s first internal party paper. It began publication

on 30 November 1923 with an unspecified publication regularity. It is unclear when it ceased publication, but one issue appeared on 1 June 1924.

Douzheng (Struggle). A weekly that began publication in February 1933 as the organ of

the Central Bureau, it was widely disseminated among the base areas. Issue 73 was published on 30 September 1934.

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Gongchandang (The Communist). The publication of the first party cell in Shanghai. It began publication on 7 November 1920 as a monthly. Issue six was published on 7 July 1921.

Gonchandangren (The Communist). Began publication in Yan’an on 20 October 1939 as

an internal CCP paper. It was published nineteen times, ending publication in August 1941.

Hongqi ribao (Red Flag Daily). An organ of the CCP CC that began publication on 20

August 1930 in Shanghai. Starting on 9 March 1931, its name was changed to Hongqi zhoubao (Red Flag Weekly).

Hongqi zhoubao (Red Flag Weekly). The successor publication to Hongqi ribao (Red

Flag Daily), it began publication on 9 March 1931. In August 1933, it became a bi-monthly. It ceased publication on 1 March 1934 with issue no. 64. Because it was a secret publication, it often had a fake cover.

Hongse Zhonghua (Red China). Began publication on 11 December 1931 at Ruijin as the

organ of the Central Soviet government. After the evacuation of the base area its publication effectively stopped (October 1934), to be revived in the Shaan-Gan-Ning base area. From 29 January 1937 its name was changed to Xin Zhonghua bao (New China).

Jiefang (Liberation). Began as a weekly of the CCP CC that was later changed to a bi-

monthly. It began publication in Yan’an on 24 April 1937 and ended in May 1941. In all, 134 issues were published.

Jiefang ribao (Liberation Daily). Set up as a publication of the CCP CC on 16 May 1941.

It was the major paper for the base areas, and many other publications were halted to allow concentration of news reporting. It ended publication on 27 March 1947.

Laodongzhe (The Laborer). Began publication on 3 October 1920 and continued

publication until 2 January 1921. Liening shenghuo (Lenin Life). Was the theoretical organ of the Party Center in Shanghai

under Bo Gu and ran from 1932 until 1934. Litou (The Plow). Began publication in Canton on 25 January 1926 as the organ of the

Guangdong Peasant Association. Initially, its was published every ten days but subsequently was changed to a weekly. The last issue (no. 23) was published on 7 January 1927. It was generally pro-CCP.

Qianfeng (The Vanguard). First published on 15 July 1923. Not a success, only three

issues were published before it ceased publication in early 1924.

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Qunzhong (The Masses). An open weekly CCP publication for the GMD-ruled areas and Hong Kong. It began publication on 11 December 1937 in Hankou and later was moved to Chongqing. In June 1946, it began publication in Shanghai but was forced to stop by the GMD in March 1947. In Hong Kong its was published as a weekly from January 1947 until it voluntarily ceased publication on 20 October 1949.

Shihua (True Words). The organ of the CC, its was set up in Shanghai in October 1930.

It was superseded by Hongqi ribao (Red Flag Daily). Xiangdao zhoubao (The Guide Weekly). Began publication in September 1922 in

Shanghai. In all, 201 editions were published, with publication ending on 18 July 1927.

Xiaoqu (The Pioneer). The fortnightly journal of the SYL, it began publication on 15

January 1922 and ceased publication on 15 August 1923. Xin qingnian (New Youth). Launched in September 1915 in Shanghai, it had a major

impact on progressive thinkers during the May Fourth Movement. Originally called Qingnian zazhi (Youth Magazine), its name was changed in September 1916. From September 1920 it was operated as a publication of the Shanghai communist small group and was an organ of the CCP after its foundation. In July 1922 it temporarily stopped publication, reappearing in June 1923 as the party’s theoretical organ. It finally ceased publication in July 1926.

Xin Zhonghuabao (New China News). A publication of the Central Soviet government

published in Yan’an as a successor to Hongse Zhonghua (Red China), it began publication on 29 January 1937. In January 1939, it became the publication of the Shaan-Gan-Ning Border Region Government. It published a total of 230 issues, ending publication on 15 May 1941.

Zhongguo nongmin (The Chinese Peasant). Published by the Central Peasant Department

of the GMD, it began publication as a monthly on 1 January 1926. The general editor was Mao Zedong. In December 1926, it temporarily ceased publication but revived briefly in Hankou in July 1927.

Zhongguo wenhua (Chinese Culture). A theoretical journal published in Yan’an, it began

publication as a monthly on 15 February 1940 but only ran until 20 August 1941.

c) Publications of Documents

An indispensable collection of CCP documents is to be found in the two volumes Liuda

yilai – dangnei mimi wenjian (Since the Sixth Party Congress – Secret Inner-Party

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Documents) and Liuda yiqian (Before the Sixth Party Congress) (Beijing, 1952 and1981).

These two volumes were originally compiled and distributed by the Secretariat of the

CCP CC between December 1941 and October 1942. They were produced as study

materials for high-ranking cadres in preparation for the Rectification Movement (1941-

44). The collections were re-issued after 1980 in connection with the writing of the new

Resolution on Party History (1981). The main drawback of this reissue is that pieces by

Mao Zedong were withdrawn and readers are referred to the official works. These

official works contain heavily edited versions of Mao’s speeches.

Based on these two publications and their own holdings, the Central Archives published

their 14 volume selection of central party documents intended for internal use only –

Zhonggong zhongyang wenjian xuanji (Selected Documents of the CCP CC) (Beijing,

1982-1987). This collection provides a massive amount of previously unavailable

material. More recently, an open (gongkai) version of the collection has been published.

A total of 18 volumes have been published (1989-92), covering the period 1921 until

1949. In terms of information about original publication details etc., this latter series is

more useful than the neibu series. However, not all materials are included. The most

important set of original documentation on Comintern-CCP relations is the three volume

series Gongchanguoji youguan Zhongguo geming de wenxian ziliao (Materials of the

Comintern Concerning the Chinese Revolution), Vol. 1 1919-28, Vol. 2 1929-36, and

Vol. 1936-43 (Beijing, 1980, 1982 and 1989). It is edited by the Institute of Modern

History of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences.

In recent years, the CCP has been releasing complete collections of Mao’s

writings before 1949. Important have been the five volume series Mao Zedong wenji

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(Collected Writings of Mao Zedong) (Beijing, 1993) covering the period from 1921 to

1949. In addition, there is the monumental 20 volume collection edited by Takeuchi

Minoru, Mao Zedong ji (Collected Writings of Mao Zedong) (Tokyo, 1983), 10 volumes

and Mao Zedong ji. Bujuan (Supplement to the Collected Writings of Mao Zedong)

(Tokyo, 1983-86). In English there is the huge undertaking by Stuart Schram and his

collaborators at the Fairbank Center, Harvard University to publish all Mao’s pre-1949

writings. Four volumes have been published covering the period from 1912 to 1934 by

M.E. Sharpe. The general title of the series is Mao’s Road to Power. Revolutionary

Writings 1912-1949.

In English, the most extensive collection of documents of the CCP during this

period Tony Saich, The Rise to Power of the Chinese Communist Party: Documents and

Analysis (Armonk, NY, 1996).

In Chinese there are collected documentary series for virtually all the major events

discussed in the essay above. Most, but not all, are edited by the Committee for the

Collection of Materials on CCP History and the Central Archives and published in

Beijing by the Party Materials Publishing House of the CC.

d) Memoirs, biographies, and handbooks

Unfortunately, most of the important Chinese participants died before the recent fad for

memoir writing got off the ground in China. However, there are a number of sources that

are useful.

M.N. Roy’s memoirs are interesting to read (My Experience in China, Calcutta,

1945) while those of Otto Braun are far less so A Comintern Agent in China, 1932-39

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(Stanford, 1982). Wang Ming’s quasi memoirs are worth a dip into although the reader is

advised to read carefully, Mao’s Betrayal (Moscow, 1979).

The memoirs of Zhang Guotao are the most extensive available but also have to

be treated with care. Chang Kuo-t’ao, The Rise to Power of the Chinese Communist

Party, 2 Volumes (Lawrence, Kansas, 1971-72). Others of interest are Li Weihan, Huiyi

yu yanjiu (Reminiscences and Research) (Beijing, 1986). This work is particularly

interesting for party development and high-level politics such as were played out at the 7

August Emergency Conference. The memoirs of Wu Xiuquan, which provide valuable

information on how the influence of the pro-Soviet group in the party was broken up, are

important. Wu had been an interpreter for the CCP in many of its dealing with Comintern

representatives in the thirties.178 There are numerous short reminiscences of key events or

individuals that are either published in special collections or in the various journals on

party history.

For CCP and related Comintern personnel, the most extensive new guide is the

series that was launched by Professor Hu Hua before his death Zhonggong dangshi

renwuzhuan (Biographies of Historical Personages of the CCP) (Xi’an, 1980-present).

Originally a projected series of 50 volumes, to date 55 have been published. In general

the quality of the biographies improves as the series progresses but it is uneven. This

series can be used in conjunction with Chen Yutang’s Zhonggong dangshi renwu

bieminglu, ziming, biming, huaming (Pseudonyms of CCP Personalities in the History of

the CCP, Original Names, Pen Names, Aliases) (Beijing, 1985). The dictionary contains

192 entries on key figures in the Communist movement. Each entry provides brief

biographical details and a list of aliases etc. and where and when they were used. Most

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useful is the index of aliases. For a good one volume source on people there is the 900-

page Zhongguo gongchandang renming cidian (Dictionary of CCP Personages 1921-

1991) (Beijing, 1991), which contains brief biographical sketches for some 10,000

luminaries.

For party organizations several indispensable books have been published. There

is Wang Jianying, Zhongguo gongchandang zuzhi shi ziliao huibian: lingdao jigou yange

he chengyuan minglu (zengdingben cong yidai dao shisida) (Compilation of Materials on

the Organizational History of the CCP--The Evolution of Leading Organs and Name-Lists

of Personnel (Revised Edition from the First to the Fourteenth Party Congress) (Beijing,

1982). This reference book should be used in conjunction with Zhao Shenghui’s,

Zhongguo gongchandang zuzhi gangyao (Outline History of CCP Organization) (Hefei,

1987).

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NOTES

1 See, for example, Robert C. North, Moscow and the Chinese Communists (Stanford, 1953). 2 Conrad Brandt, Stalin’s Failure in China (Cambridge, Mass, 1958). An earlier analysis published in 1938 that laid the blame at Stalin’s feet was Harold R. Isaacs, The Tragedy of the Chinese Revolution (Stanford, 1961, second revised edition). 3 These accounts acknowledge the general correctness of the Comintern’s line on China during the period but claim that mistakes were made during the period from 1925 to 1927. PRC official historians claim that these mistakes derived from the rightist tendency within the Comintern at the time and General Secretary, Chen Duxiu’s “slavish adherence” to the instructions from the Comintern. 4 For example, R. A. Ulyanovsky (ed.), The Comintern and the East (Moscow, 1979) and Revolutionary Democracy and Communists in the East (Moscow, 1990). 5 See, for example, L. Evans and R. Block (eds.), Leon Trotsky on China: Introduction by Peng Shu-tse (New York, 1976). For an analysis of the failure of the communists in China see Harold R. Isaacs, The Tragedy of the Chinese Revolution (Stanford, 1961, second revised edition). 6 For the most complete analysis of the labor movement during this period see Jean Chesneaux, The Chinese Labor Movement 1919-1927 (Stanford, 1968). For an analysis that has made use of recently available sources to draw a nuanced picture of Chinese labor in Shanghai see Elizabeth J. Perry, Shanghai on Strike. The Politics of Chinese Labor (Stanford, 1993). 7 Benjamin Schwartz, Chinese Communism and the Rise of Mao (Cambridge, 1979). 8 Schram has analyzed in detail the process of the “sinification of Marxism” and the interplay of the traditional and Marxist in the persona of Mao Zedong. See, for example, Stuart R. Schram, The Political Thought of Mao Tse-tung (New York, 1969). For a more recent views see The Thought of Mao Tse-tung (Cambridge, 1989). For a sustained account that sees the relationship between the CCP and the Comintern in terms of conflict see John W. Garver, Chinese-Soviet Relations 1937-1945: The Diplomacy of Chinese Nationalism (Oxford, 1988) and “The Origins of the Second United Front: The Comintern and the Chinese Communist Party,” The China Quarterly, No. 113, March 1988, pp. 29-59. 9 A Chinese scholar who reaches a similar conclusion is Huang Xiurong, Gongchan guoji yu Zhongguo geming guanxi shi (A History of the Relationship between the Comintern and the Chinese Revolution) (Beijing, 1989), especially pp. 95-96.

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10 Arif Dirlik, The Origins of Chinese Communism (Oxford, 1989). For his work on the influence anarchism see particularly Anarchism in the Chinese Revolution (Berkeley and Los Angeles, 1991). Chapter five discusses the influence of anarchism in the May Fourth Movement and chapter six analyzes the anarchist alternative in Chinese socialism during the twenties. 11 Hans van de Ven, From Friend to Comrade. The Founding of the Chinese Communist Party, 1920-1927 (Berkeley and Los Angeles, 1991). 12 Wen-Hsin Yeh, Provincial Passages. Culture, Space, and the Origins of Chinese Communism (Berkeley and Los Angeles, 1996). 13 Most probably, the Comintern effectively ended its activities in Shanghai in 1934. See Frederick S. Litten, “The Noulens Affair,” The China Quarterly, No. 138, June 1994, p. 508. 14 For an account of the role of Maring and the problems he encountered see Tony Saich, The Origins of the First United Front in China. The Role of Sneevliet (Alias Maring) (Leiden, 1991) and “Interpreting China: The Case of Maring,” in Kurt Werner Radtke and Tony Saich (eds.), China’s Modernisation. Westernisation and Acculturation (Stuttgart, 1993), pp. 59-82. The best account of Borodin’s work in China is Lydia Holubnychy’s uncompleted work Michael Borodin and the Chinese Revolution, 1923-25 (New York, 1979). Otto Braun has written his own account of his work in China and the frustrations he encountered, A Comintern Agent in China, 1932-39 (Stanford, 1982). See also the memoirs of M. N. Roy, My Experiences in China (Calcutta, 1945) and M. N. Roy’s Memoirs (Bombay, 1964), and finally the frustrations encountered by Vladimirov when he was in Yan’an, The Vladimirov Diaries: Yenan, China, 1942-45 (New York, 1975). 15 On the introduction of Bolshevism through the twenties in addition to Dirlik and van de Ven see Michael Y. L. Luk, The Origins of Chinese Bolshevism. An Ideology in the Making, 1920-1928 (Hong Kong, 1990). 16 On this issue see Lawrence R. Sullivan, “The Evolution of Chinese Communist Organization and Leadership Doctrine, 1921-1949,” paper presented to the conference “New perspectives on the Chinese Communist Revolution,” Leiden and Amsterdam, January 1990. 17 See Sullivan, ibid. The tension created between the party norms and Mao Zedong’s rise to supreme power is interestingly handled in Frederick C. Teiwes with Warren Sun, “From a Leninist to a Charismatic Party: The CCP’s Changing Leadership, 1937-1945” in Tony Saich and Hans van de Ven (eds.), New Perspectives on the Chinese Communist Revolution (New York, 1995), pp. 339-87. 18 David E. Apter and Tony Saich, Revolutionary Discourse in Mao’s China (Cambridge, Mass., 1994).

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19 Apart from his regular contact with early party leaders and his briefings at meetings, Maring also published many articles in the Chinese communist press under one of his pen-names, Sun Duo (Sentot). He published regularly in Xiangdao (The Guide). For an English translation of these articles and others written while he was in China see Saich, The Origins of the First United Front, 2, pp. 737-836. 20 This latter figure also includes those from the GMD. From 1925 to 1928 the university was called the Sun Yat-sen University of Working People of China. The first batch of 14 students to go to Soviet Russia were from the Foreign Language School in Shanghai, a communist stronghold. For details of the training programs see M. F. Yuriev and A.V. Pantsov, “Comintern, CPSU (B) and Ideological and Organizational Evolution of the Communist Party of China,” in R. Ulyanovsky (ed.), Revolutionary Democracy and Communists in the East, pp. 283-333. The authors estimate that of the 118 top leaders in the CCP during the period before 1949, some 70 percent were trained in Soviet Russia. 21 One might add Kang Sheng who was trained in the ways of the Soviet secret police and oversaw its Chinese equivalent until his death in 1975. On Kang Sheng see Zhong Kan, Kang Sheng pingzhuan (A Critical Biography of Kang Sheng) (Beijing, 1982) and John Byron and Robert Pack, The Claws of the Dragon: Kang Sheng—The Evil Genius Behind Mao—and his Legacy of Terror in People’s China (New York, 1992). 22 An English translation of this document can be found in Tony Saich, The Rise to Power of the Chinese Communist Party. Documents and Analysis (New York, 1996), pp. 386-400. 23 Dirlik, The Origins of Chinese Communism, p. 269. 24 John E. Rue, Mao Tse-tung in Opposition, 1927-1935 (Stanford, 1966). 25 This is convincingly argued by Teiwes and Sun in “From a Leninist to a Charismatic Party.” 26 Wang Jiaxiang relayed this information to a Politburo meeting held on 14 September 1938. It is claimed that it was after receiving this news that Mao decided to convene the Sixth Plenum of the Sixth CC (September-November 1938). See “Gongchan guoji zhixing weiyuanhui zhuxituan de jueding” (Decision of the Presidium of the ECCI), September 1938, in The Central Party Archives (ed.), Zhonggong zhongyang wenjian xuanji (Selected Documents of the CCP CC) (Beijing, 1985), 10, pp. 574-75. See also, Zhao Shenghui, Zhongguo gongchandang zuzhishi gangyao (An Outline Organizational History of the CCP) (Anhui, 1987), p. 145. Dimitrov, a Bulgarian communist, was appointed Secretary General of the Comintern at the Seventh Congress in 1935. 27 Mao himself felt that the Comintern had played a progressive role up until 1927 and again between mid-1935 and its dissolution in 1943.

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28 The demonstration of 4 May from which the Movement draws its name was a protest against the decisions of the Versailles Conference but it developed into a broad based moment for political and cultural renewal. For the classic account of the incident that sparked the demonstrations and the broader intellectual and social environment around it see Chow Tse-tsung, The May Fourth Movement: Intellectual Revolution in Modern China Cambridge, Mass., 1960). For an analysis that looks at the impact of the Movement on intellectual inquiries about enlightenment see Vera Schwarcz, The Chinese Enlightenment. Intellectuals and the Legacy of the May Fourth Movement of 1919 (Berkeley and Los Angeles, 1986). 29 For the best study of Yuan see Ernest P. Young, The Presidency of Yuan Shih-kai. Liberalism and Dictatorship in Early Republican China (Ann Arbor, 1977). On warlordism see John E. Sheridan, “The Warlord Era: Politics and militarism Under the Peking Government, 1916-28,” in John King Fairbank, The Cambridge History of China. Republican China 1912-1949, Part 1(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1983), 12, pp. 284-321. 30 The best account of Soviet interests in China during this period remains Allen S. Whiting, Soviet Policies in China 1917-1924 (New York, 1954). 31 For the relevant materials see, The Second Congress of the Communist International (New York, 1977), 1 and 2. This is a translation of Der Zweite Kongress der Kommunistische Internationale Protokoll der Verhandlungen (Hamburg, 1921). For an analysis of the Congress in terms of its relevance to China see Saich, The Origins of the First United Front, pp. 12-22. 32 Konstatin Shevelyov, “On the History of the Formation of the Communist Party of China,” in Far Eastern Affairs, No. 1, 1981, p. 129. 33 Dirlik, The Origins of Chinese Communism, p. 253. 34 It would appear that Voitinsky had no specific brief to establish a Communist Party but that he suggested it after observing the situation in China. It is also probable that the idea of establishing a party had already been discussed prior to Voitinsky’ arrival by Li and Chen. According to one account they had already discussed this in January 1920 while traveling from Beijing to Tianjin just before Chen was to travel south. They pledged to establish party organizations in the north and the south of the country. See Chen Shaokang, “Shanghai gongchandang zhuyi xiaozu zongshu” (A General Account of the Shanghai Communist Small Group), in Committee for the Collection of Materials on CCP CC Party History (ed.), Gongchan zhuyi xiaozu (Communist Party Small Groups) (Beijing, 1987) 1, p. 24. 35 Shevelyov, “On the History of the Formation of the Communist Party of China,” p. 130.

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36 For an interesting discussion of the study societies and their politicization see van de Ven, From Friend to Comrade, pp. 38-50. 37 For the earlier period see Martin Bernal, Chinese Socialism to 1907 (Ithaca, 1976). For the most complete analysis of the influence of anarchism in early twentieth century China that traces its origins and reviews its main contents of utopianism, revolutionary theory, feminism, and culture and nation see Peter Zarrow, Anarchism and Chinese Political Culture (New York, 1990). 38 On Li Dazhao see Maurice Meisner, Li Ta-chao and the Origins of Chinese Marxism (Cambridge, Mass., 1967). For Chen Duxiu see Lee Feigon, Chen Duxiu: Founder of the Chinese Communist Party (Lawrenceville, 1983). Li Da’s importance in the founding of the CCP has been recognized by Chinese communist historians, as have his important theoretical contributions during the early years. Indeed, he published and edited the CCP’s first official organ, Gongchandang (The Communist). See, for example, Li Qiju et. al., “Gongchandang yuekan yu Li Da tongzhi” (The Communist Monthly and Comrade Li Da), Guangming ribao (Illuminated Daily) 2 July 1979 and “Jiandang qianhou de Li Da tongzhi” (Comrade Li Da Around the Time of the Establishment of the Party), Lishi yanjiu (Historical Research), No. 8, 1979, pp. 15-31. For an assessment of his early ideas on party organization see Hans van de Ven, The Founding of the Chinese Communist Party and the Search for a New Political Order, 1920-1927 (Harvard University: Unpublished Ph. D. dissertation, 1987), pp. 62-65. On his contribution to the dissemination of marxist ideas see V. Burov, “Li Da and the Dissemination of Marxist Ideas in China,” Far Eastern Affairs, No. 3, 1983, pp. 102-13. 39 In September 1920, it became the organ of the Shanghai communist “small group.” 40 Maurice Meisner, Li Ta-chao and the Origins of Chinese Marxism. 41 Chesneaux, The Chinese Labor Movement, p. 405 and passim. 42 Perry, Shanghai on Strike, p. 4. For other nuanced treatments of labor in China see Gail Hershatter, The Workers of Tianjin, 1900-1949 (Stanford, 1986) and Emily Honig, Sisters and Strangers: Women in the Shanghai Cotton Mills, 1911-1949 (Stanford, 1986). 43 Formerly it was suggested that this group was founded in May but this is more likely the founding date of the Marxist Research Society. More recently, a Chinese scholar has suggested the date of June, basing this on the fact that Shi Cuntong, who was an original member, left for Japan on 20 June 1920. However, the situation was very fluid and changed rapidly. It is still quite probable that Shi and the other sources were referring to the Marxist Study Society and that the formal establishment of the communist group came later. See, Jin Liren, “Zhonggong Shanghai faqizu chengli qianhou rougan shi shikao” (An Investigation into Some Historical Questions Around the Time of the Establishment of the Initial Shanghai Organizations of the CCP) part 1, Dang de wenxian (Party Documents), No. 6, 1997, pp. 78-83.

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44 See Tony Saich, “Through the Past Darkly: Some New Sources on the Founding of the Chinese Communist Party,” International Review of Social History, 30, 2, 1986, pp. 167-76 for details concerning the founding of the organizations in Shanghai, Beijing, Wuhan, Changsha, Guangzhou and Jinan. A written report by an early communist, Zhang Tailei, states that by 1 May 1921, there were communist organizations in Shanghai, Guangzhou, Beijing, Tianjin, Wuhan and Hong Kong among others. See “Zhang Tailei xiang gongchan guoji yuandong shujichu de baogao” (Report of Zhang Tailei to the Far Eastern Bureau of the Comintern), in Research Group on Contemporary History of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences (ed.), Qingnian gongchan guoji yu Zhongguo qingnian yundong (The Communist Youth International and the Chinese Youth Movement) (Beijing, 1986), p. 44. There appears to be no information on the activities of the group in Tianjin. The activities of the Chongqing group are mentioned in a report that was delivered to the Comintern. It is important to note that this group had no representation at the First Party Congress and appears to have developed in isolation from the rest of the centers. For the report see “Sichuan sheng Chongqing gongchan zhuyi zuzhi baogao” (Report of the Communist Organization of Chongqing in Sichuan Province), in Central Archives (ed.), Zhongguo gongchandang diyi ci daibiao dahui dang’an ziliao zeng ding ben (Archival Materials on the First Congress of the CCP, Expanded Edition) (Beijing, 1984), pp. 27-32. The report and its significance is analyzed in van de Ven, From Friend to Comrade, pp. 73-75. 45 Of the eight original members six were said to have been anarchists. 46 See Saich, “Through the Past Darkly” for details concerning the establishment date of all these organizations. 47 See “The First Program of the CCP” and “The First Decision as to the Objects of the CCP,” in Ch’en Kung-po (Chen Gongbo), The Communist Movement in China: An Essay Written in 1924 by Ch’en Kung-po (New York, 1966). Edited with an introduction by C. Martin Wilbur. 48 Wang Jianying (ed.), Zhongguo gongchandang zuzhishi ziliao huibian (Collection of Materials on the Organizational History of the CCP) (Beijing, 1982), p. 2. 49 “Zhongguo gongchandang zhongyangju tonggao--guanyu jianli yu fazhan dang, tuan, gonghui zuzhi ji xuanchuan gongzuo deng” (Circular of the Central Bureau--Concerning Building and Developing the Party, the Youth League, Labor Unions, and Propaganda Work) in Saich, The Rise to Power of the Chinese Communist Party, pp. 27-28. 50 This is clearly seen in his report of July 1922 to the ECCI. “Bericht des Genossen H. Maring fur die Executive,” v. Ravesteyn Papers, No. 79, International Institute of Social History. 51 An English translation of the letter can be found in Saich, The Rise to Power of the Chinese Communist Party, p. 34.

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52 Dalin had been in Canton during the months of April to June to help with arrangements for the Congress of the Socialist Youth League. During this period he engaged in discussions about the feasibility of a united front with the GMD. 53 The Congress was attended by 12 delegates and they represented some 195 members. Chen Duxiu, Zhang Guotao, Cai Hesen, Gao Junyu, and Deng Zhongxia were elected to the CEC with Chen as Chair of the Central Bureau, Zhang the head or organization, Cai head of propaganda. Xiang Jingyu, who was elected as an alternate member of the CEC, was appointed head of the Women’s Department. CCP policy towards women and the role of Xiang Jingyu is interestingly analyzed in Christina Kelly Gilmartin, Engendering the Chinese Revolution. Radical Women, Communist Politics, and Mass Movements in the 1920s (Berkeley and Los Angeles, 1995). She demonstrates how difficult it was to establish a women’s voice in the communist literature and to establish a presence in the Shanghai party structure. Despite their proclamations, the structures remained male dominated. It was, in fact, the Comintern that compelled the party to set up a formal women’s bureau at the Second Party Congress. 54 The Labor Secretariat had been set up in August 1921 and Maring wrote its original declaration. 55 For the text see Saich, The Origins of the First United Front in China, 1, pp. 328-39. 56 After the Congress, as noted below, there were severe problems with implementation of the policy. 57 Exact attendance at the Congress is unclear from documentary evidence, and the memoirs are contradictory. Most reliably it seems that some 30 delegates represented 420 party members. 58 The main opponents were Zhang Guotao and Cai Hesen. The fact that opposition ran deep is shown by the fact that the vote on the resolution was only passed by a margin of 21 to 16. 59 In November 1922, the Central Bureau of the party moved to Beijing to take advantage of warlord Wu Peifu's patronage. Wu was seen by the Narkomindel as a "democrat" and a progressive force who could be worked with in the national movement. He had supported the labor movement and allowed the dissemination of communist propaganda in return for its support against opponents such as Zhang Zuolin. However, on 1 February 1923, troops broke up the meeting to establish a union for the Beijing-Hankou Railway. The resulting strike was brutally put down by soldiers under Wu Peifu's command. For a first hand account see Luo Zhanglong, “Jing-Han gongren liuxue ji” (The Bloodshed of the Jing-Han Workers), March 1923, in Beifang diqu gongren yundong ziliao xuanbian (Selected Materials on the Workers’ Movement in the Northern District) (Beijing, 1981), pp. 433-583. In February it was decided to move the Party Center back to Shanghai

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where it was still operating in late-March/early April despite a decision to relocate to Guangzhou to operate in the more relaxed climate there. 60 For an English translation of Chen’s report see Saich, The Rise to Power of the Chinese Communist Party, pp. 60-63. For an analysis of the debates concerning the cooperation with the GMD and relevant documentation from the Congress see Saich, The Origins of the First United Front in China, 1, pp. 175-86, 2, pp. 570-629. 61 The new full CEC members with the number of votes received in brackets were as follows: Chen Duxiu (40), Cai Hesen (37), Li Dazhao (37), Wang Hebo (34), Mao Zedong (34), Zhu Shaolian (32), Tan Pingshan (30), Xiang Ying (27) and Luo Zhanglong (25). Five alternates were elected. The five members of the Central Bureau were Chen Duxiu, Mao Zedong, Cai Hesen, Tan Pingshan, and Luo Zhanglong. Chen was elected Chair, Mao secretary, and Luo accountant. 62 On the Soviet see Fernando Galbiati, P’eng P’ai and the Hai-Lu-Feng Soviet (Stanford, 1985). 63 “Istoricheskie korni chentusiuizma” (Historical Roots of Chen Duxiu-ism), Problemly Kitaia (Problems of China), No. 3, 1930, p. 210, quoted in L. Holubnychy, Michael Borodin and the Chinese Revolution, 1923-1925 (New York, 1979), pp. 376a-377. 64 Holubnychy, Michael Borodin and the Chinese Revolution, pp. 254-56. 65 “Sun Zhongshan dui tanhe gongchandang chengwen zhi pishi” (Sun Yat-sen’s Comments on a Petition to Impeach the Communist Party), in Tanhe gongchandang liangda yao’an (Two Important Cases of Impeachment of the Communist Party) (n.p., September 1927), in Geming wenxian (Documents of the Revolution), No. 9, June 1955, p. 2. 66 Twenty delegates attended representing 994 members. Voitinsky attended on behalf of the Comintern. The Congress elected a new nine-person CEC comprising Chen Duxiu, Li Dazhao, Cai Hesen, Zhang Guotao, Xiang Ying, Qu Qiubai, Peng Shuzhi, Tan Pingshan, and Li Weihan. There were five alternates. Chen was elected General Secretary by the CEC, the post replacing that of Chair of the Central Bureau. 67 “Guanyu minzu geming yundong zhi yijuean” (Resolution on the National Revolutionary Movement) in The Central Archives (ed.), Zhonggong zhongyang wenjian xuanji (Selected Documents of the CCP Center) (Beijing, 1989), 1, pp. 329-41. 68 “Dui zhigong yundongzhi yijuean,” (Resolution on the Labor Movement) in ibid., pp. 342-357. 69 “Duiyu nongmin yundongzhi yijuean,” (Resolution on the Peasant Movement), in ibid., pp. 358-64.

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70 “Duiyu zuzhi wenti zhi yijuean” (Resolution on the Organization Question) in ibid., pp. 379-82. 71 See Gilmartin, Engendering the Chinese Revolution, pp. 134-36. The Movement also enabled the CCP to expand its women’s organizations extensively outside of Shanghai. Of particular importance was the communist-sponsored Guangdong Women’s Emancipation Association founded in May 1925. It had about 1,000 members. 72 For the most detailed account see Richard W. Rigby, The May Thirtieth Movement: Events and Themes (Canberra, 1980). 73 For an analysis of this meeting and a translation of the relevant documents see Saich, The Rise to Power of the Chinese Communist Party, pp. 106-09 and pp. 152-66. 74 The workers’ committee was headed by Zhang Guotao. The peasants’ committee was not set up until November 1926 and then it was headed by Mao Zedong. In addition, a military committee was set up and was also headed by Zhang. 75 C. Martin Wilbur and Julie L.Y. How, Documents on Communism, Nationalism and Soviet Advisers in China 1918-1927, (New York, 1956), p. 228. 76 Ibid., pp. 225-27. 77 The “Theses” can be found in Jane Degras (ed.), The Communist International 1919-1943 Documents (Oxford, 1953), 2, pp. 336-48. 78 A policy that was being pursued quasi-independently by Mao Zedong and Peng Pai. 79 Eighty delegates attended representing 57,967 party members. The most important Comintern delegate was the Indian M. N. Roy. The Congress elected a 29-person Central Committee with ten alternates. Now the top organization was the Politburo that had seven members and four alternates. Chen Duxiu, Zhang Guotao, Cai Hesen, Qu Qiubai, and Li Weihan formed its Standing Committee with Chen remaining as General Secretary. 80 “Chen Duxiu zai Zhongguo gongchandang diwuci quanguo daibiao dahui shang de baogao” (Report of Chen Duxiu to the Fifth Congress of the CCP), in Zhonggong dangshi ziliao (Materials on CCP History), No. 3, pp. 26-59. Extracts are translated in Saich, The Rise to Power of the Chinese Communist Party, pp. 228-43. 81 See “Resolution of the Eighth ECCI Plenum on the China Question,” in Degras (ed.), The Communist International 1919-1943, 2, pp. 384-90.

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82 See “Guogong liangdang guanxi jueyian” (CCP Resolution on Relations Between the Two Parties). The most important contents of this resolution were transmitted to party members in a letter dated 7 August 1927. It was drafted at the 7 August Emergency Conference that is discussed below. The Chinese text of the letter can be found in the Committee for Collection of Materials on CCP History and the Central Archives (ed.), Baqi huiyi (The 7 August Conference) (Beijing, 1986), pp. 5-37. 83 Xenia J. Eudin and Robert C. North, Soviet Russia and the East, 1920-1927: A Documentary Survey (Stanford, 1957), p. 304 and Robert C. North and Xenia J. Eudin, M. N. Roy’s Mission to China, p. 107. 84 According to Zhang Guotao, Chen handed in a letter of resignation on 15 July 1927. His reason for withdrawal was said to be that the Comintern’s insistence that the CCP develop its own policies combined with its insistence that the CCP not withdraw from the GMD made work impossible. Chang Kuo-t’ao (Zhang Guotao), The Rise of the Chinese Communist Party/1921-1927 (Lawrence, 1971), 1, pp. 655 and 715. However, this is not quite accurate as in accordance with Comintern instructions, the CCP central authorities were reorganized and Chen’s leadership stopped on 12 July 1927. See Political Academy of the Chinese People’s Liberation Army (ed.). Zhonggong dangshi ziliao (Materials on CCP History) (Beijing, February 1982), pp. 57-58. 85 To this day, 1 August is marked as the founding of the Red Army and is celebrated as army day. 86 “Shanghai gongzuo jihua jueyian” (Resolution on the Shanghai Work Plan), in Central Archives (ed.), Zhonggong zhongyang wenjian xuanji, 2, pp. 259-63 and Perry, Shanghai on Strike, passim. Indeed the 12 April repression of the CCP and its supporters was carried out by various groups of gangsters, some of which were linked to Chiang and the GMD. 87 See Mao Zedong, “Hunan nongmin yundong baogao” (A Report on the Peasant Movement in Hunan), in Minoru Takeuchi (ed.), Mao Zedong ji (Collected Works of Mao Zedong) (Tokyo, 1983), 1, pp. 207-49. 88 “Duiyu Guangdong nongmin yundong yijuean” (Resolution on the Peasant Movement in Guangdong), in Central Archives (ed.), Zhonggong zhongyang wenjian xuanji, 2, pp. 163-79. 89 Obviously one cannot go into all the details here and discussion will focus on the case of Li Lisan’s leadership and the formation of a second united front with the GMD. 90 “Zhongyang tonggao nongzi dijiuhao--muqian nongmin yundong zong celue” (CC Circular No. 9 on the Peasantry--The General Strategy for Peasant Movement at the Present Time) in the Committee for Collection of Materials on CCP History and the Central Archives (ed.), Baqi huiyi, 1986), pp. 84-89.

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91 The conference was attended by 22 CCP members and three Soviet advisors. The newly arrived Comintern representative, Lominadze, had called the meeting. The preparatory work was conducted in collaboration with Qu Qiubai, Li Weihan, and Zhang Tailei. 92 These are translated in Saich, The Rise to Power of the Chinese Communist Party, pp. 296-313. 93 This view differs somewhat from that expressed in Conrad Brandt et al. The authors attribute the mention of continued cooperation with the GMD to Stalin’s need to “to hide the ugly faces which belied his infallibility.” Conrad Brandt, Benjamin Schwartz, and John King Fairbank, A Documentary History of Chinese Communism (New York, 1966), p. 98. 94 B. Lominadze had arrived in China as the Comintern representative to replace Borodin and Roy. He participated in drafting the “Circular Letter” adopted by the meeting. He returned to the Soviet Union at the end of 1927. 95 The members were: Su Zhaozheng, Xiang Zhongfa, Qu Qiubai, Luo Yinong, Gu Shunzhang, Wang Hebo, Li Weihan, Peng Pai, and Ren Bishi. Seven alternates were elected including Mao Zedong, Zhou Enlai, Li Lisan, and Zhang Guotao. 96 The suggestion that the Congress be held in Moscow had been made by Qu Qiubai as head of the temporary Politburo and a Comintern representative in China, O. A. Mitkevich. This was accepted by the ECCI. Alexander Grigoriev and Konstatin Shevelyov, “On the 60th Anniversary of the 6th CPC Congress,” Far Eastern Affairs, No. 5, 1988, pp. 81-82. The Congress was attended by 142 deputies of whom 84 had the right to vote and they represented an estimated 130,000 party members. Party History Research Center of the CC of the CCP, History of the Chinese Communist Party--A Chronology of Events (1919-1990) (Beijing, 1991), p. 60. The figure was an estimate provided by Zhou Enlai in his report to the Congress. 97 “Zhengzhi jueyian” (Political Resolution of the Sixth National Congress), in the Secretariat of the CCP CC (ed.), Liuda yilai--dangnei mimi wenjian (Since the Sixth Party Congress--Secret Inner-Party Documents) (originally compiled in Yan’an in 1941 and republished Beijing, 1952 and 1981), 1, pp. 1-17. Extracts are translated in Saich, The Rise to Power of the Chinese Communist Party, pp. 341-58. 98 Chen Duxiu’s policies were denounced as opportunist right-deviation. However, the “leftism” of Qu was seen as the greatest danger within the party at the present time. Chen was later denounced as a Trotskyite and, as is discussed below his later analysis did move close to that of Trotsky and he became sympathetic to the Trotskyite movement in China.

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99 “Resolution on the Chinese Question”, February 1928 in Xenia J. Eudin and Robert Slusser (eds.), Soviet Foreign Policy, 1928-1934; Documents and Materials (University Park, 1967), pp. 83-86. 100 Key extracts of the “Resolution on the Peasant Question” can be found in Saich, The Rise to Power of the Chinese Communist Party, pp. 369-76. The full text can be found in The Secretariat of the CCP CC (ed.), Liuda yilai, 1, pp. 39-45. 101 In fact, party membership was already becoming increasingly dominated by peasants. Membership at the time of the Congress was calculated to be 130,194 of whom 76.6 percent were said to be peasants and only 10.9 percent workers. Intellectuals accounted for 7.2 percent and rank-and-file soldiers 0.82 percent. It is debatable how reliable a figure this is. 102 “Gongchan guoji zhixing weiyuanhui gei Zhongguo gongchandang zhongyang weiyuanhui de xin,” in Institute of Modern History, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences (ed.), Gongchan guoji youguan Zhongguo geming de wenxian ziliao (Materials of the Comintern Concerning the Chinese Revolution) (Beijing, 1982), 2, pp. 1-18. 103 “Zhongyang dui guoji eryue bari guanyu Zhongguo dang ying zhendui muqian xingshi zenyang zhengque de yunyong liuci dahui he guoji dahui de zhengque luxian de xunling de jueyi” (Resolution of the CCP CC Concerning the Implementation of the Comintern’s 8 February Letter and the Correct Line of the Sixth Congress and the Comintern), in the Central Party School (ed.), Zhonggong dangshi jiaoxue cankao ziliao (Reference Materials on Teaching CCP History) (Beijing, 1978), 2, pp. 6-19. The Resolution is dated 15 May 1929. 104 The letter was published in Pravda on 29 December 1929. 105 See “Zhongguo gongchandang jieshou gongchan guoji dishici quanti huiyi jueyi de jueyi” (Resolution of the CCP Acceptance of the Resolution of the Comintern’s Tenth Plenum) 20 December 1929 in The Central Party School (ed.), Zhonggong zhongyang wenjian xuanji, 5, pp. 523-29 and “Jieshou guoji yijiuerjiunian shiyue ershiliuri zhishixin de jueyi – guanyu lun Guomindang gaizu pai he Zhongguo gongchandang de renwu” (Decision Accepting the Comintern’s Directive of 26 October 1929 – Concerning Discussion of the Reform Faction of the GMD and the Tasks of the CCP) in ibid., 6, pp. 1-11. One of first victims of this attack on rightism was Chen Duxiu who was denounced viciously for his “Trotskyite” and “liquidationist” tendencies. 106 For analysis of the movement see Gregor Benton, China’s Urban Revolutionaries: the History of Chinese Trotskyism, 1921-1952 (Atlantic highlands, NJ, 1996). For Chen’s later pro-Trotskyite writings see Gregor Benton (ed.), Chen Duxiu’s Last Articles and Letters, 1937-1942 (Amsterdam, 1995). Foe memoirs see Wang Fan-hsi (Wang Fanxi) Memoirs of a Chinese Revolutionary, translated and edited by Gregor Benton (New York, 1991) and, for a very different view see C. Cadart and Cheng Yingxiang, Memoires

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de Peng Shuzhi: L’Envol du Communisme en Chine (Memoirs of Peng Shuzhi: The Origins of Communism in China) (Paris, 1983). 107 “Xin de geming gaochao yu yi huo ji sheng de shouxian shengli” (The New Revolutionary High Tide and an Initial Victory in one or More Provinces), Hongqi (Red Flag), No. 121, 19 July 1930, pp. 1-4. 108 The agent of the Far Eastern Bureau of the ECCI in Shanghai did reply in letter of 20 June. He expressed his disagreement with resolution and requested that it not be distributed. This seems to have angered Li Lisan sufficiently that he wrote to ECCI calling for his dismissal and the dissolution of the Bureau. Yang Yunruo, Gongchan guoji he Zhongguo geming guanxi jishi, 1919-1943 (Records of the Relations Between the Comintern and the Chinese Revolution) (Beijing, 1983), p. 86. 109 See Benjamin Schwartz, Chinese Communism and the Rise of Mao (Cambridge, Mass., 1979), p. 143: “Far from condemning the Politburo 11 June letter, the ECCI letter of 23 July actually endorses its basic strategic suggestions”; Hsiao Tso-liang, Power Relations within the Chinese Communist Movement 1930-1934 (Seattle, 1961), 1, p. 25: “A close examination of the Comintern directive of 23 July 1930 and the CCP Politburo resolution of 11 June shows discrepancies which go beyond the scope of timing and tactics”; and Robert Thornton, The Comintern and the Chinese Communists, 1928-1931 (Seattle, 1969), p. 175: “The Comintern’s analyses then stripped Li of any theoretical ambiguities he might have attempted to use to maintain his position.” 110 There was no direct telegraphic communication between the Party Center and the Comintern before early 1931. 111 The “returned students” groups refers to those who had come back to China from studies in Soviet Russia. They formed a group under the leadership of Wang Ming, Bo Gu and Zhang Wentian. The group is also referred to as the “28 Bolsheviks” after the group of students who returned from Sun Yat-sen University in Moscow. Pavel Mif had been their patron and had influenced them through his positions as director of the ECCI’s Chinese Commission, deputy director of the Comintern’s Far Eastern Secretariat, and president of Sun Yat-sen University. 112 Shao Yu [Wang Ming], “The Current War Among the Warlords and the Tasks of the Party,” Bolshevik, 5 June 1930. 113 This letter is often referred to as the letter of 16 November 1930 because of the date of its arrival in China. “ Gongchan guoji zhixing weiyuanhui guanyu Li Lisan luxian wenti gei Zhongguo gongchandang zhongyang weiyuanhui de xin” (Letter from the ECCI to Members of the CCP CC Concerning the Li Lisan line), in The Institute of Modern History of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences (ed.), Gongchan guoji youguan zhongguo geming de wenxian ziliao, pp. 103-12.

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114 “Zhonggong sizhong quanhui jueyian,” in The Secretariat of the CCP CC (ed.), Liuda yilai, 1, pp. 114-18. It is translated in Saich, The Rise to Power of the Chinese Communist Party, pp. 457-63. 115 The list of Politburo members had been approved prior to the Plenum by the Politburo and the Comintern’s Far Eastern Bureau. The members of the new Politburo were: Xiang Zhongfa, Xiang Ying, Xu Xigen, Zhang Guotao, Chen Yu, Zhou Enlai, Lu Futan, Ren Bishi, and Wang Ming. There were seven alternates including Liu Shaoqi and Mao Zedong. The Standing Committee of the Politburo comprised Xiang Zhongfa, Zhou Enlai, and Zhang Guotao. 116 Luo Zhanglong was not caught. 117 See Patricia Stranahan, Underground. The Shanghai Communist Party and the Politics of Survival, 1927-1937 (Lanham and Boulder, 1998), pp. 111 and 154. This is an excellent account of the party organization and its struggle to survive during the years of GMD repression. 118 Perry, Shanghai on Strike, p. 105. 119 Xiang also betrayed the party to the GMD. 120 Frederic Wakeman, Jr., Policing Shanghai, 1927-1937 (Berkeley and Los Angeles, 1995), pp. 151-56 and Stranahan, Underground, pp. 116-18. 121 After an international campaign of protest, the Noulenses were released from prison in August 1937 and left China in July 1939. The real name of Noulens was Yakov Rudnik. The Bureau probably finally wound up activities in 1934. For an amazing piece of detective work see Frederick S. Litten, “The Noulens Affair,” pp. 492-512. 122 See Stranahan, Underground, pp. 147-84 on which the following is based. 123 Yang Yunruo, Gongchan guoji he Zhongguo geming guanxi jishi 1919-1943. 124 This is the date that is used in official publications and its still followed by historians in the People’s Republic of China. See, for example, The Research Department on Party History of the CCP CC, Zhonggong dangshi dashi nianbao (Annual Chronology of Major Events in CCP History) (Beijing, 1987), p. 91. Some Contemporary evidence suggests that the Party Center moved as early as 1931. Here it is suggested that movement of key personnel did begin in 1931 but that the formal organization did not move until January 1933. However, the Provisional Party Center in Shanghai was a largely ineffectual rump at this time. 125 For studies of the Jiangxi Soviet see Derek Waller, The Kiangsi Soviet Republic: Mao and the Two National Congresses of 1931 and 1934 (Berkeley and Los Angeles,

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1973) and Trygve Lotveit, Chinese Communism 1931-1934. Experience in Civil Government (Scandinavian Institute of Asian Studies Monograph Series, No. 16, 1973). For documents and analysis see Hsiao Tso-liang, Power Relations within the Chinese Communist Movement 1930-1934 (Seattle, 1961 and 1967), Two volumes. 126 On the E-Yu-Wan see Odoric Y. K. Wou, Mobilizing the Masses. Building Revolution in Henan (Stanford, 1994), pp. 98-162. This study centers on the interaction between the CCP and various social groups: workers, religious sectarians, rural elites, students, intellectuals, the military, and the peasantry. It shows how the CCP adopted its tactics to the varying conditions confronted in the revolutionary process. 127 For a collection of all Mao’s writings at this time and an analysis of the soviet between 1931 and 1934 see Mao’s Road to Power, Revolutionary Writings 1912-1949: Volume IV, The Rise and Fall of the Chinese Soviet Republic 1931-1934, edited by Stuart R. Schram, associate editor Nancy J. Rhoades, guest associate editor Stephen C. Averill (Armonk, NY, 1997). 128 “Zhonghua suweiai gongheguo xianhefa” (Outline of the Constitution of the Chinese Soviet Republic), Hongqi zhoubao (Red Flag Weekly), 25, 4 December 1931, pp. 2-7. It is translated in Saich, The Rise to Power of the Chinese Communist Party, pp. 552-56. 129 “Zhonghua suweiai gongheguo tudifa” (Land Law of the Soviet Republic), in The Secretariat of the CCP CC, Liuda yilai, 1, pp. 181-83. It is translated in Saich, The Rise to Power of the Chinese Communist Party, pp. 556-58. 130 Chiang Kai-shek personally assumed command and committed around 1 million troops. It was a more thoughtful campaign than those previously and gradually a noose was tightened around the soviet. 131 For Luo’s views see “Dui gongzuo de yidian yijian” (Some Opinions About Our Current Work), reprinted in the Political Academy of the Chinese People’s Liberation Army (ed.), Zhonggong dangshi ziliao (Materials on CCP History) (Beijing, 1982). For the Party Center’s response see “Suqu zhongyangju guanyu MinYueGan shengwei de jueding” (Decision of the Central Bureau of the Soviet Area Regarding the Fujian-Guangdong-Jiangxi Provincial Committee), in the Secretariat of the CCP CC, Liuda yilai, 1, pp. 384-85. They are translated in Saich, The Rise to Power of the Chinese Communist Party, pp. 596-602. 132 This was not the first purge in the Jiangxi Soviet. Shortly after returning to Jiangxi during the summer of 1930 after the failure of an attack on Changsha, a part of the attempted program of uprisings to seize major cities, Mao came into conflict with other local communist forces. Mao used the Jiangxi Soviet government to begin a purge of the Jiangxi Action Committee, which had been created just before the July 1930 attempted uprising in line with Li Lisan’s policy. Mao’s opponents were accused of being members

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of a nationalist secret organization known as the “A.B. League” (Anti-Bolshevik League) and of being guilty of “liquidationist” tendencies. In response to the purge, a local Red Army battalion rebelled and was massacred at Futian in early December 1930. While both sides claimed they were acting in accordance with ideological principles, the struggle really was one to assert the power of the newly arrived Red Army forces over local communists. This was a pattern repeated throughout the base areas in the thirties and forties. For the fullest account of the Futian events see Stephen C. Averill, “The Origins of the Futian Incident,” in Tony Saich and Hans van de Ven (eds.), New Perspectives on the Chinese Communist Revolution (Armonk, NY, 1995), pp. 79-115. Averill points out that the origins of the name A.B. League are uncertain. While popularly referred to as the Anti-Bolshevik League, he suggests that the name derives from the two levels (the “A” or provincial level and “B” or local level) at which the group operated. 133 “Muqian de xingshi yu dangde renwu jueyi” (Resolution on the Current Situation and the Party’s Tasks), Douzheng (Struggle), 47, 16 February 1934, pp. 1-16. It is translated in Saich, The Rise to Power of the Chinese Communist Party, pp. 609-22. 134 The Resolution can be found in the Central Archives (ed.), Zhonggong zhongyang wenjian xuanji, 10, pp. 50-70. 135 The Politburo probably had twelve members with five alternates. The Politburo members were: Bo Gu (Qin Bangxian), Zhang Wentian, Zhou Enlai, Wang Jiaxiang, Xiang Ying, Wang Ming, Chen Yun, Kang Sheng, Ren Bishi, Zhang Guotao, Mao Zedong and Gu Zuolin. Liu Shaoqi was among the alternates. The Plenum also established a Central Secretariat (also referred to as the Standing Committee of the Politburo) with Bo Gu, Zhang Wentian, Zhou Enlai, and Xiang Ying as members. Bo Gu had overall responsibility. 136 “Yichu weile baowei suai,” Hongse Zhonghua (Red China), No. 239, 29 September 1934, pp. 1-2. 137 On the history of this group who stayed behind before they were rescued by the Second United Front that began in 1937 see Gregor Benton, Mountain Fires. The Red Army’s Three-Year War in South China 1934-1938 (Berkeley and Los Angeles, 1992). 138 For an analytical account that adopts a more journalistic style for this epic adventure see Harrison E. Salisbury, The Long March: The Untold Story (New York, 1985) and for a more academic account see Benjamin Yang, From Revolution to Politics: Chinese Communism on the Long March (Boulder, Colorado, 1990). 139 On the meeting see Thomas Kampen, “The Zunyi Conference and Further Steps in Mao’s Rise to Power,” The China Quarterly, No. 117, March 1989; Benjamin Yang, “The

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Zunyi Conference as One Step in Mao’s Rise to Power: A Survey of Historical Studies of the Chinese Communist Party,” The China Quarterly, No. 106, June 1986; and the much earlier Jerome Ch’en, “Resolution of the Tsunyi Conference,” The China Quarterly, No. 40, December 1965. The meeting was attended by Politburo members Mao Zedong, Zhu De, Chen Yun, Zhou Enlai, Zhang Wentian and Bo Gu and alternate members Wang Jiaxiang, Deng Fa, Liu Shaoqi, and Kai Feng. Seven military leaders were present as was Otto Braun and his interpreter, Wu Xiuquan. Deng Xiaoping was present probably as the note-taker. 140 A long resolution and a short one were drafted. The longer version was probably for dissemination in the party while the short one that names names was for senior officials. 141 The short resolution is translated in Saich, The Rise to Power of the Chinese Communist Party, pp. 640-43. 142 On how he was outmaneuvered see David E. Apter and Tony Saich, Revolutionary Discourse in Mao’s Republic (Cambridge, Mass., 1994), pp. 39-49. 143 For Zhang’s highly colorful but not entirely reliable autobiography see Chang Kuo-t’ao, The Rise to Power of the Chinese Communist Party, Vol. 1: 1921-1927; Vol. 2: 1928-1938 (Lawrence, Kansas, 1971-72). 144 On this see Shum Kui-kwong, The Chinese Communists’ Road to Power: The Anti-Japanese National United Front (1935-1945) (Oxford, 1988), pp. 18-27. 145 Shum suggests that this policy derived from Wang Ming’s ideas. Shum Kui-kwong, The Chinese Communists’ Road to Power, p. 19. For the letter see “Zhongyang gei Manzhou geji quanti dangyuan de xin. Lun Manzhou de zhuangkuang he women dang de renwu” (Letter from the Party Center to Party Organizations at All Levels and all Party Members in Manchuria. On the Situation in Manchuria and Our Party’s Tasks), Douzheng (Struggle), No. 18, June 15, 1933, pp. 1-5; No. 19, July 25, 1933, pp. 14-16; and No. 20, August 5, 1933, pp. 14-16. 146 Because the announcement had been submitted to and approved by Dimitrov and Stalin at the Comintern Congress in August, it is commonly referred to as the “August First Declaration.” According to Wang Ming, he drafted the Declaration while convalescing from an illness in June 1935. Wang Ming, Mao’s Betrayal (Moscow, 1979), p. 68. Previously, the origins of this declaration had been subjected to much debate but now it is quite clear that it was prepared by Wang Ming in Moscow. 147 “Zhongyang wei muqian fan-Ri tao-Jiang de mimi zhishi shu” (The Party Center’s Secret Letter of Instruction on Opposing Japan and Condemning Chiang at the Present Time), in The Central Archives (ed.), Zhonggong zhongyang wenjian xuanji, 10, pp. 561-71. A translation can be found in Saich, The Rise to Power of the Chinese Communist Party, pp. 698-705.

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148 Those probably in attendance were: Mao Zedong, Zhang Wentian, Zhou Enlai, Bo Gu, Liu Shaoqi, Wang Jiaxiang, Kai Feng, Deng Fa, Li Weihan, Peng Dehuai, Wu Liangping, Yang Shangkun, Otto Braun, Guo Hongtao, and Zhang Hao. 149 See the Political Resolution drafted by Zhang Wentian in The Secretariat of the CCP CC (ed.), Liuda yilai, 1, pp. 734-45. 150 The resolution can be found in ibid., 2, pp. 286-89. The CC had already sent out a circular on developing guerrilla warfare in Shaanxi-Gansu area on 21 November 1935. 151 Mao led the men under his command in the First and Third Red Armies to north Shaanxi where he arrived at Wuqizhen in October 1935. Here, together with the local red armies, he was able to create a new base. This became the Shaan-Gan-Ging Border Region when the second united front was formalized in 1937. By contrast, Zhang Guotao and his troops had headed south to the Chengdu plain and after several inconclusive battles with GMD troops, it moved to winter on the Tibet-Xikang border. Zhang tried to set up a stable base area here and even demanded that his base be recognized as the Party Center. In February 1937, he suffered another defeat at the hands of the GMD and eventually his troops pushed him to move north to rejoin with Mao and the others. 152 The resolution can be found in the Secretariat of the CCP CC (ed.), Liuda yilai, 1, pp. 779-82. 153 Apart from the Shaan-Gan-Ning (Shaanxi-Gansu-Ningxia) there were major base areas in the Jin-Ji-Yu-Lu (Shanxi-Hebei-Shandong-Henan) and the Jin-Cha-Ji (Shanxi-Chahar-Hebei). Recent research has revealed not only how varied the conditions were from base area to base area but even within particular base areas. In general the research shows that the CCP was successful at putting down local roots only where it showed flexibility in adapting policy to local circumstances, where initially it was good at micro-politics. By contrast, attempts to transform local environments to conform with predetermined ideology was unsuccessful. For studies of the various base areas see the essays by Saich, David S. G. Goodman, Pauline Keating, and Joseph W. Esherick in The China Quarterly, No. 140, December 1994, pp. 1000-79; and the essays in Kathleen Hartford and Steven M. Goldstein (eds.), Single Sparks. China’s Rural Revolutions (Armonk, NY, 1989. In addition see Lyman van Slyke, “The Chinese Communist Movement During the Sino-Japanese War 1937-1945,” in John King Fairbank and Albert Feuerwerker (eds.), The Cambridge History of China. Vol. 13. Republican China 1912-1949, part 2 (Cambridge, 1986). On the Shaan-Gan-Ning see Mark Selden, China in Revolution. The Yenan Way Revisited (Armonk, NY, 1995); Pauline Keating, Two Revolutions: Village Reconstruction and Cooperativization in North Shaanxi, 1934-1945 (Canberra: Ph.D. dissertation, Australian National University, 1989); and David E. Apter and Tony Saich, Revolutionary Discourse in Mao’s China. For Anhui and Jiangsu see Yung-fa Chen, Making Revolution. The Communist Movement in Eastern and Central

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China, 1937-1945 (Berkeley and Los Angeles, 1986). For Henan see Odoric Y. K. Wou, Mobilizing the Masses, pp. 165-327. For the Jin-Cha-Ji see Kathleen Hartford, Step by Step: Reform, Resistance and Revolution in Chin-Ch’a-Chi Border Region 1937-1945 (Stanford: Ph. D. dissertation, Stanford University, 1980). On the Jin-Ji-Yu-Lu see Ralph Thaxton, China Turned Right Side Up: Revolutionary Legitimacy in the Peasant World (New Haven, 1983). 154 Shum, The Chinese Communists’ Road to Power, p. 114. 155 Ibid., p. 117. 156 See “Wanjiu shijude guanjian” (The Key to the Salvation of the Nation), in Wang Ming yanlun xuanji (Collected Speeches of Wang Ming) (Beijing, 1982), pp. 546-54. It is translated in Saich, The Rise to Power of the Chinese Communist Party, pp. 795-802. 157 The Politburo comprised: Mao Zedong, Zhang Wentian, Zhou Enlai, Zhu De, Zhang Guotao, Wang Jiaxiang, Bo Gu, Ren Bishi, Chen Yun, Peng Dehuai, Xiang Ying, Liu Shaoqi, Kang Sheng, Wang Ming, Deng Fa, and Kai Feng. 158 “Sanyue zhengzhiju huiyi de zongjie--muqian kangzhan xingshi yu ruhe jixu kangzhan he zhengqu kangzhan shengli” (Summary of the March Politburo Meeting--The Current Situation in the War of Resistance and to Continue the War and Win Victory) in The Secretariat of the CCP CC, Liuda yilai, 1, pp. 923-39. 159 “Zhongyang guanyu xinsijun xingdong fangzhen de zhishi” (Instructions of the CC on the Policy for Movement of the New Fourth Army) and “Zhongyang guanyu jiaqiang xiangcun youji zhanzheng he chuanli youji genjudi wenti gei Jiangsu shengwei de zhishi” (Instruction of the CC to the Jiangsu Provincial Committee on Strengthening Guerrilla Warfare in the Rural Areas and the Establishment of Guerrilla Bases), in The Central Archives (ed.), Zhonggong zhongyang wenjian xuanji, 10, pp. 512-13. 160 The Plenum was attended by 56 delegates and was run by a Presidium of twelve. The presidium comprised Mao Zedong, Zhang Wentian, Zhou Enlai, Zhu De, Xiang Ying, Wang Jiaxiang, Chen Yun, Liu Shaoqi, Kang Sheng, Peng Dehuai, Bo Gu, and Wang Ming. 161 Wang reported the news to a Politburo meeting on 14 September. The directive also approved the expulsion of Zhang Guotao. See “Gongchanguoji zhixing weiyuanhui zhuxituan de jueding” (Decision of the Presidium of the ECCI) in the Central Archives (ed.), Zhonggong zhongyang wenjian xuanji, 10, pp. 574-75. 162 Mao Zedong, “Lun xin jieduan” (On the New Stage) in Takeuchi Minoru (ed.), Mao Zedong ji, 6, pp. 163-240.

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163 “The Question of Independence and Initiative Within the United Front,” in Selected Works of Mao Tse-tung, 2 (Beijing, 1965), pp. 213-17. 164 “Problems of War and Strategy,” in ibid, pp. 219-34. 165 Although defeated politically, Wang was still useful to Mao as a “straw man” to attack as a part of Mao's justification to become the sole voice interpreting the Chinese revolution. Thus, Wang’s political defeat was the necessary prelude to his humiliation in the campaign to study party history and the Rectification Campaign (1941-44). The campaigns ended in the adoption of the “Resolution on Some Historical Questions” in April 1945. This Resolution adopted Mao’s analysis of party history that crticized the policy of the thirties when Wang Ming, Bo Gu and the Returned Russian Students held sway as “leftist.” Wang’s demise coincided with Mao’s desire to place himself as the unchallenged interpreter of China’s revolutionary experience. The Resolution is in The Secretariat of the CCP CC (ed.), Liuda yilai, 1, pp. 1179-1200. For an analysis of the Resolution and the role its drafting played in discrediting Wang Ming and consolidating Mao’s power see Tony Saich, “Writing or Rewriting History? The Construction of the Maoist Resolution on Party History,” in Saich and van de Ven (eds.), New Perspectives on the Chinese Communist Revolution, pp. 299-338. 166 The three resolutions on organizational issues can be found in The Secretariat of the CCP CC, Liuda yilai, 2, pp. 203-09. 167 Liu’s critique was outlined in four letters to the CC. For the most important see The Secretariat of the CCP CC, Liuda yilai, 1, pp. 803-12. 168 Perry, Shanghai on Strike, pp. 110-11. 169 On the Association see Parks M. Coble, “The National Salvation Association as a Political Party,” in Robert B. Jeans (ed.), Roads Not Taken: The Struggle of Opposition Parties in Twentieth-Century China (Boulder, 1992). 170 Ibid., p. 117. 171 See “Gongchandangren fakanci” (Introducing the Communist) in Takeuchi Minoru (ed.), Mao Zedong ji, 7, pp. 69-83. 172 “Xinminzhu de zhengzhi yu xinminzhu de wenhua” (New Democratic Politics and New Democratic Culture) in Zhongguo wenhua (Chinese Culture), No. 1, February 1940. 173 For Mao’s most extensive analysis of economic policy see Andrew Watson, Mao Zedong and the Political Economy of the Border Region: A Translation of Mao’s Economic and Financial Problems (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1980).

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174 The statement can be found in Xin Zhonghua bao (New China News), 16 April 1941. It is translated in Saich, The Rise to Power of the Chinese Communist Party, pp. 963-65. 175 See Jiefang ribao (Liberation Daily), 10 December 1941. It is translated in Saich, The Rise to Power of the Chinese Communist Party, pp. 965-66. 176 See Jiefang ribao, 27 May 1943. It is translated in Saich, The Rise to Power of the Chinese Communist Party, pp. 1143-45. 177 See William W. Moss, “Dang’an: Contemporary Chinese Archives,” in The China Quarterly, No. 145, March 1996, pp. 112-29. 178 These memoirs were published in four parts in Zhonggong dangshi ziliao (Materials of CCP History), No. 1, 1980, pp. 114-79; No. 2, 1982, pp. 169-218; No. 4, 1982, pp. 50-135; and No. 7, 1983, pp. 143-225.