Socialism in China (1919-1965) 9781844644445, 9781844644438

Citation preview

Socialism in China (1919-1965) Dr. Yu Youjun

Socialism in China (1919-1965)

Dr. Yu Youjun

CONTENTS

Chapter 1 Marxism Introduced to China after the Russian October Revolution; Initiated by Li Dazhao and Chen Duxiu, the Communist Party of China Is Founded ..................................................................... 1 Chapter 2 Formulation of Ultimate and Interim Party Programs Based on Prevailing Conditions in China; Two-step Approach for Party’s Strategies .......................................... 30 Chapter 3 During Chen Jiongming’s Mutiny, Sun Yat-sen Escapes Aboard the Yongfeng; Sun Decides to Ally with the Soviet Union and the CPC................... 49 Chapter 4 The United Front Founded, the National Revolution Rolls On; Sun Yat-sen Dies but His Legacy Continues ...................................... 71 Chapter 5 Chiang Kai-shek Launches Attacks on Communists in Shanghai; the CPC Realizes that Political Power Grows out of the Barrel of a Gun ...................................................................................... 92 Chapter 6 To Besiege Cities from the Countryside, the Jinggang Base Is Built; a Single Spark Starts a Prairie Fire, the Red Army Is Founded ................................................................................ 125

III

Chapter 7 Fighting Dogmatism, the CPC Finds the Right Path; Exploring a New Way to Govern, the People’s Republic in Embryo ... 154 Chapter 8 Wang Ming’s Leftist Policy Leads the Revolution Astray; Bo Gu’s Blind Command Takes the Red Army up a Blind Alley ... 174 Chapter 9 The Zunyi Meeting Corrects the Direction of the Party; the Long March Keeps Alive the Embers of Revolution ................. 200 Chapter 10 Zhang Xueliang and Yang Hucheng Capture Chiang in the Xi’an Incident; Zhang Wentian and Mao Zedong Mediate for a United Front between KMT and CPC against Japanese Aggression ............ 228 Chapter 11 A Whole Nation United as One to Resist Japanese Aggression; the CPC Wins Wide Respect for Defending National Unity ........... 255 Chapter 12 Mao Zedong Crystallizes His Thoughts on the New-Democracy Theory; Shaanxi-Gansu Base Experiments the Model of the People’s Republic ................................................................................... 278 Chapter 13 Complying with the Historical Trend, the CPC Issues May Day Slogans; Joining Hands to Found a Democratic Government, the CPC and the Democratic Parties Formulate the Common Program .... 307 Chapter 14 New-democratic Blueprint Cures the Wounds of War; Land Reform Makes Land-to-the-tiller Dream Come True ............ 336 IV

Chapter 15 China Chooses Alliance with the Soviet Union; Implementation of the First Five-Year Plan Leads to Economic and Social Advancement .......................................................... 361 Chapter 16 A Premature Transition to Socialism under the General Line which Replaces the Common Program; Too Eager to Complete the Transformation of Agriculture, Handicraft and Industrial and Commercial Industries ............. 382 Chapter 17 Khrushchev Repudiates Personality Cult in His Secret Report; Eighth CPC National Congress Explores New Path Based on In-depth Research ..................................................................... 412 Chapter 18 The Intra-Party Rectification Movement Turns into the AntiRightist Campaign; Purge Escalates and Becomes Reckless............................................ 434 Chapter 19 Following a Right Track Not for Rash Advance, a Sober Mind Ensures Steady Progress; the Feverish Great Leap Forward Ends in Debacle and the Utopia Is But a Dream .............................................................. 461 Chapter 20 Premature People’s Communes Waste Money and Manpower, Causing Lasting Calamities; Communization Results in Chaos and Disunity, an Expensive Lesson ...................................................................................... 480 Chapter 21 Overnight Change of Direction at the Lushan Conference, from Correcting Leftist Mistakes to Fighting Rightist Opportunism; V

the Anti-Rightist Storm Surges across the Country, Millions of Innocents Are Wronged ....................................................... 502 Chapter 22 Three-year Great Leap Forward Plunges China into an Abyss; Readjustment Policy Helps Rescue the Nation ................................ 531 Chapter 23 Guarding against Revisionism, the “Four Clear-ups” Movement Aims to Purge “Dissidents” within the Party; Focusing on the Class Struggle, Mao’s New Thought Sets the Tone for the Cultural Revolution ............................................. 555

Bibliography ........................................................................................... 637

Afterword................................................................................................ 646

VI

Chapter 1

Marxism Introduced to China after the Russian October Revolution; Initiated by Li Dazhao and Chen Duxiu, the Communist Party of China Is Founded

Chen Duxiu, initiator and major leader of China’s New Culture Movement and “commander-in-chief ” of the May Fourth Movement, put his heart and efforts into promoting democracy and the development of science. Together with a group of people who also worried about the country’s future, they used the New Youth magazine as a base to attack the feudal ideology and culture. In the meantime, the success of the October Revolution in Russia led by Lenin was like a bright comet in the dark night, a great inspiration for the leaders of China’s New Culture

Chen Duxiu, core leader of the May Fourth Movement, and a founder of the Communist Party of China

Movement. Furthermore, Marxism was introduced into China around this time, and provided those who looked to the West for a solution with a new way to think about China’s future and a practical path to save China and its people. Armed with a new perspective, these people pondered China’s future, gradually developed into intellectuals with some basic understandings of Communism. They shouldered the historical responsibilities to save the country and its people and founded the Communist Party of China (CPC). 1

Socialism in China

It was the afternoon of June 11, 1919, and the streets of southern Beijing were full of noise and bustle from people attending a local fair. By contrast, in a corner of a quiet teahouse, three men dressed in scholarly garb were chatting. Suddenly, one of them, a man perhaps in his 40s and wearing a white suit and a hat, took out a pile of leaflets from his jacket and distributed them around the teahouse. Entitled “The Declaration of Beijing Citizens”, the leaflet made five demands, including reclaiming Shandong Province’s sovereignty; deposing traitor officials; and granting freedom of assembly and speech to citizens. The teahouse immediately became noisy, with some shocked and many more excited. The three men looked at each other, smiled, and stood up to leave. It was getting late. Among the three men, Professor Li Dazhao of Peking University and Gao Yihan said goodbye to the man distributing the leaflets, who continued wondering about the fair. At about 10:00 p.m., he went to a rooftop garden and noticed people were watching a movie on a terrace downstairs. He took out a pile of leaflets to drop them below, but just as he was leaving, he was caught by two policemen. He was taken to the police station, where an officer banged the table and roared: “State your name!” Totally unruffled, the middle-aged man distributing the leaflets replied in a calm voice, “Chen Duxiu.” Upon hearing the name of this well-known individual, the officer was shocked, and lowered his voice, “Chen Duxiu of Peking University?” “Precisely!” came the lofty reply. The officer was at a loss, but continued: “Why are you handing out inflammatory leaflets in the public place? Were you an instigator of unlawful student activities a couple of weeks ago?” Clearly, by “unlawful activities” he meant the May Fourth Movement. Chen replied, “What are ‘inflammatory leaflets’? What are ‘unlawful activities’? Are patriotic activities inflammatory? Is the endeavor to save the country unlawful?” The officer was speechless, but thought that since Mr. Chen was well known, he should report the case to his superior to avoid potential trouble. He then told his underlings, “Put him into prison and await further instructions.” 2

Chapter 1

Marxism Introduced to China after the Russian October Revolution; Initiated by Li Dazhao and Chen Duxiu, the Communist Party of China Is Founded

Behind bars, Chen Duxiu thought back on the road he had trodden these past years and reflected on the current political and revolutionary situation as it stood. After the failure of the Hundred Days’ Reform1, led by Kang Youwei and Liang Qichao, Chen Duxiu left for Japan to study Western bourgeois political theory. He accepted bourgeois ideas on democracy, and actively participated in Chinese students’ revolutionary activities. After returning to China, he first founded a newspaper in his hometown Anhui Province, to spread the ideas of democracy and revolution; then he established and led “Yue Wang Hui” (Society of General Yue), an anti-Qing Dynasty secret society. During the Revolution of 1911, he participated in the revolution in Anhui and Zhejiang provinces. After Anhui gained independence from the Qing government, he took the post of general secretary of the provincial government and implemented radical reforms. However, the reforms were not successful due to opposition by the Royalist old guards. Later he took part in anti-Yuan Shikai activities in Anhui but failed again. At that time, Chen became confused and depressed. What needed to be done to save China and the Chinese people? Without learning from the West, it appeared there was no way out. Chen recollected that Hong Xiuquan had established the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom and tried to practice agrarian socialism and equalitarianism, but failed; the Boxers had relied on feudalistic superstition to gather the masses, but in the end were unable to withstand Western aggression with advanced weapons. It also seemed that learning from the West did not lead to success either: During the Westernization Movement, the reformers had thought they could learn advanced military, technologies and industries from the West to make the country strong so that it would be able to resist invasion from the West, but they failed; Kang Youwei and Liang Qichao attempted to learn from Western political systems and reform the feudal ruling regime of China during the Constitutional Reform and Modernization of 1898, but they failed; the Revolution of 1911, led by Dr. Sun Yatsen, had overthrown the Qing Dynasty and aimed to establish a republican system similar to what the West had, but warlords ended up seizing power 1

Referring to the Constitutional Reform and Modernization of 1898. – Ed.

3

Socialism in China

and the resulting Republic had no substance and was unworthy of the name; from the Revolution of 1911 to the May Fourth Movement of 1919, Chinese scholars and thinkers had tried hard to introduce and spread different ideas and thoughts from the West, conducted many different kinds of social experiments, but nothing succeeded and aroused little attention from the citizens. What needed to be done to save China and the Chinese people? Chen Duxiu thought hard and ultimately came to this conclusion: China’s top priority was to improve the national character and transform the culture; only with a new culture, could there be a new citizenship and a new society, only then could a new political system be implemented and stabilized. Having this in mind, Chen Duxiu threw himself into the cultural and ideological fray. In September 1915, he established the Youth Journal (renamed New Youth after the second issue) in Shanghai, raising the curtain of China’s New Culture Movement. In 1917, Cai Yuanpei became president of Peking University. A champion of inclusivity in academic learning, Cai invited many scholars with new ideas from around the country to teach at the university, and engaged Chen Duxiu as head of liberal arts department. The editorial department of New Youth magazine moved to Beijing, and Hu Shi, Li Dazhao, Lu Xun, Qian Xuantong and Liu Bannong all joined the editorial department and became major writers for the journal. Thus, New Youth and Peking University became two major centers of China’s New Culture Movement. With “Mr. Democracy” and “Mr. Science” as its two slogans, the movement aimed to “build a new Western-style country and create a new Western-style society,” or to build a bourgeois republic and develop capitalism. At this reminiscence, Chen Duxiu could only shake his head with an ironic smile. He thought he had found a good way from Western countries to save China and its people, but reality had smashed his dream. After World War I, the contradictions and problems of the capitalist system had become apparent and, as a result, the Chinese started to have doubts about Western values. Specifically, the Western powers at the Paris Peace Conference not only refused all the reasonable demands from China, a fellow victor, including: the abolition of foreign spheres of influence in China; the withdrawal of foreign troops and the abolition of the Twenty-One Demands that Japan had forced on China. Instead, they decided to transfer to Japan the privileges 4

Chapter 1

Marxism Introduced to China after the Russian October Revolution; Initiated by Li Dazhao and Chen Duxiu, the Communist Party of China Is Founded

in Shandong Province previously enjoyed by Germany. The Western dreams were thus shattered. But where was the new way? Chen Duxiu thought of Li Dazhao’s stance: to take the Russian path. Would that work? Chen lost himself in thought. Similar to Chen, a group of progressive Chinese scholars were thinking hard about China’s future and exploring a practicable path to save the country. Before and after the May Fourth Movement, they wrote articles and books, and established periodicals or societies, to study, introduce and spread different foreign ideologies and propose different programs to improve Chinese society. At that time, there were many schools of thought in China contending for attention. Over 400 periodicals were established, advocating new trends of thought; numerous societies and associations were set up, with 281 societies being registered in Beijing in 1919 alone. There were many different views regarding the approach to reform the society, but they could be summed up into three main camps. The first group advocated learning from the West and taking the path of capitalism. Though they recognized the problems of capitalist societies, they believed it was still a more advanced culture and social system than China. The second group advocated the combining of Western values and Chinese culture to create a new culture. But how to combine the two? This group either had no feasible plan or proposed to turn back to the old path of “letting Chinese learning be the base and Western learning for application.” The third group proposed to follow Russia and take the path of socialism, believing that only socialism could save China. This third view gradually became the mainstream thought. However, the theories on socialism that were spreading around were not consistent. They included both scientific socialism created by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels and different kinds of self-called “socialism” of the bourgeoisie and petty bourgeoisie, such as anarchism, anarcho-syndicalism, mutualism, corporatism, Guild socialism, Bernstein socialism, etc. Faced with many forms of “socialism,” most young progressives had no idea which one would be the best for reforming China, and thus had to feel their way toward true socialism. During this process, Marx and Engels’ scientific socialism stood out from various socialist ideologies for its scientific and revolutionary characters and 5

Socialism in China

for the example of the Russian Revolution. The success of the October Revolution in 1917 turned socialism from an ideology and social ideal into reality for the first time, and set up the first socialist country in human history with a new political regime quite different from the capitalist countries. This enlightened the Chinese people, and particularly awakened intellectuals with a new direction and with promising prospects. In July 1919, under the leadership of Li Dazhao, core leader of the May Fourth Movement, and a founder of the Communist Party of China

Vladimir Lenin, the Soviet Union declared that the Soviet Union would abrogate all unequal treaties that tsarist Russia had

signed with the Chinese government and all privileges it enjoyed within China. This information delighted and excited the Chinese people who had long suffered from imperialist powers.1 This event amplified the impact of the Russian Revolution on China and further promoted the spread of Marxism in China, leading more and more men of insight to approve and accept Marxism and scientific socialism. Li Dazhao was among the torchbearers who first spread Marxism in China and called for learning from Russia. He studied in Japan in his early years, where he read classic Marxist works translated by Hajime Kawakami and gradually came to accept Marxism. He and Chen Duxiu were both leaders of the May Fourth Movement. A famous poem sings highly of their contributions. It goes like this: At Peking University’s old Red House, /Two giants from the north and south, /Li and Chen wield mighty words, /Like sun and moon they light then and now. In 1918, the second year after the October Revolution in Russia, Li Dazhao published some articles, including “A Comparison of the French and Russian

1

Unfortunately, promises in the declaration were not realized due to various reasons. Unequal treaties signed between tsarist Russia and the Chinese government were not abrogated.

6

Chapter 1

Marxism Introduced to China after the Russian October Revolution; Initiated by Li Dazhao and Chen Duxiu, the Communist Party of China Is Founded

Revolutions.” He noted that the October Revolution in Russia signaled an era of socialist revolutions, just as the French Revolution had signaled the world entering an age of capitalist revolutions; and also that the development of the Russia’s revolution would certainly impact China. That same year, he wrote “Victory of the Common People” and “Victory of Bolshevism,” in which he enthusiastically praised Russia’s revolution, firmly pointing out that proletarian socialist revolutions would be the trend of world history, and passionately predicted: “You will see a world of red flags in the future!” In the October and November 1919 issues of New Youth magazine, Li Dazhao published “My Views on Marxism,” an essay giving a systematic introduction to the basic principles of Marxism – historical materialism, political economics and scientific socialism. He pointed out that Marx’s “theory of class struggle links the three doctrines like a golden thread.” Still more commendable is that while calling for the path of socialism in China, he clearly stated that Marxism should not be applied simply and rigidly in China, but it should be combined with China’s prevailing conditions. In another essay “On Question and Doctrine Again,” he pointed out: “Generally, a doctrine has its idealistic side and practical side. It is similar in all countries. When this ideal is applied in actual politics, it will become different according to various times, locations and particular circumstances. This is also true for socialism.” Li’s essays generated a far-reaching and profound influence in China. Li Dazhao was knowledgeable, sharp, sincere, kind, and good with people, qualities which made him a good teacher and a friend of many young progressives. His office at Peking University was often full of visitors and friends, and it became a place where young progressives from Beijing and elsewhere in China could talk, discuss and debate. The University Library where he was in charge also became a platform for spreading scientific socialism. Li Da, Yang Pao’an, Chen Wangdao and some other students who studied in Japan also translated and published works of Marx, Engels and Lenin, and published articles in different periodicals to introduce Marxism, making important contributions to spread Marxism in China. In addition, Deng Zhongxia, Cai Hesen, Zhou Enlai, Gao Junyu, Yun Daiying, Li Hanjun, Qu Qiubai, Zhao Shiyan, Chen Tanqiu, He Shuheng, Yu Xiusong, Xiang Jingyu, He Mengxiong, Zhang Tailei, Wang Jinmei, Deng Enming, Zhang Wentian, 7

Socialism in China

Luo Yinong and some other core members of the May Fourth Movement gradually became Marxists through participating in revolutionary activities and studying Marxism. Dong Biwu, Lin Boqu, Wu Yuzhang and some other activists in the Revolution of 1911 gradually changed their minds and became Marxists. Among the activists in the May Fourth Movement who acquired some basic understanding of Communism, there was an outstanding talent from Hunan Province. This person was Mao Zedong. Mao was born on December 26, 1893, into a middle-class family in Shaoshanchong, Xiangtan County, Hunan Province. He loved history since childhood and read the Outlaws of the Marsh, The Romance of the Three Kingdoms and other historical novels at elementary school. He was rebellious when he was a teenager, threatening suicide by jumping into a pool after a dispute with his father and quitting school and hiding in the mountains after quarreling with a teacher. Influenced by his mother, he developed a vague belief in Buddhism in his teens. At the age of 17, leaving home for further study elsewhere, he wrote a poem to his father: “The child determines to leave his native place, /to never return without making a name for himself; /a man does not have to be buried in his homeland, /and there is green mountain everywhere where I can rest.” This poem illustrated the young man’s aspiration and ambition. When studying at middle school in Changsha and Xiangxiang County, he was greatly influenced by Sun Yat-sen’s ideas of democracy and revolution and Kang Youwei and Liang Qichao’s ideas of reforming China. He wrote an article and posted it on the school wall, proposing Sun as president, Kang as premier, and Liang as foreign minister of the new government. In 1911 after the Wuchang Uprising, Mao renounced the pen and joined the Hunan New Army. Half a year later, he left the army and resumed his studies. In the spring of 1913, he was enrolled into a college – No.4 Normal School of Hunan Province (incorporated into No.1 Normal School the following year), where he was inspired by the New Culture Movement and the Huxiang School which promoted reasoning and the importance of application of academic theories into practical use. Mao thus studied philosophy, ethics and works of ancient Chinese thinkers. He paid attention to current affairs, liked to talk about politics, took an active part in social activities, organized a night school for workers, 8

Chapter 1

Marxism Introduced to China after the Russian October Revolution; Initiated by Li Dazhao and Chen Duxiu, the Communist Party of China Is Founded

and studied in other places during holidays to get to know local customs and to make friends. On holidays, he often gathered with schoolmates on Yuelu Mountain or Orange Island to discuss national affairs. As he wrote in one of his pomes: “Young we were, schoolmates, /At life’s full flowering; / Filled with student enthusiasm, /Boldly we cast all restraints aside.” In April 1918, with the goal of “reforming academic style, tempering behavior, and changing minds and customs,” Mao, together with Xiao Zisheng, Cai Hesen, Luo Zhanglong, He Shuheng and others, established the Xinmin Society in Changsha City to read and study together. After graduating from the normal school, Mao went to Beijing and became an assistant librarian in Peking University Library with the help of a recommendation from his teacher, Professor Yang Changji. During this period, he was active in the journalism association and philosophy society, and made friends with famous people, scholars and patriotic youth from the May Fourth Movement. Influenced by Li Dazhao and Chen Duxiu, he studied Marxism and learned about the experiences and lessons of the Russia’s October Revolution. His mind underwent profound change. During the May Fourth Movement, Mao Zedong returned to Changsha and became leader of the student movements in Hunan Province there. With the Xinmin Society as a platform, he initiated the Hunan Student Union, established Xiangjiang Review magazine and supervised its publication, wrote articles praising the Russia’s October Revolution, believing that its victory would “spread across the whole world” and “we should copy that model.” In December 1919, Mao Zedong went to Beijing for the second time, discussing with progressive intellectuals, including Li Dazhao and Deng Zhongxia, about a fundamental way to reform China. In 1920, he went to Shanghai to discuss with Chen Duxiu about Marxist theories and Hunan revolutionary movements. Here Chen gave him Chen Wangdao’s translations of The Communist Manifesto, Class Struggle, and The History of Socialism. As Mao later recalled, “By the summer of 1920, theoretically I had become a Marxist, and in practice to a certain degree.” As different ideologies spread like wildfire, China’s social structure was undergoing profound changes: the proletariat was gradually becoming an important social force in modern China. 9

Socialism in China

The Chinese proletariat first arose in the mid-20th century among foreign enterprises in China, and grew stronger with the rise of enterprises run by the Qing Dynasty government and China’s own bourgeoisie. By 1919, before the May Fourth Movement, the number of industrial workers had reached 2 million, and that of the proletariat was around 40 million, including artisans, coolies, hired workers in agriculture, workers in business and finance, etc. At that time, even though the working class only accounted for one-tenth of the population in China, and they were relatively young and not well-educated, they were associated with a more advanced mode of production, and they were organized and disciplined. They were deeply oppressed by the bourgeoisie, the feudalist and imperialist powers. During the May Fourth Movement, the working class, a new and independent political force, began to show its strength. On June 5, 1919, Shanghai workers went on strike in support of the students. Within one week, over 50 companies and between 60,000 to 70,000 workers joined in. Workers from Beijing, Tangshan, Hankou, Nanjing, Changsha followed, and quickly spread to over 100 cities in over 20 provinces and regions. As a result, workers replaced students as the main force of the May Fourth Movement, making the movement even more influential. The expansion of the proletariat laid the social foundation for the spread of Marxism in China. The wide dissemination of Marxism, a group of intellectuals with some basic understanding of communism, the expansion of the proletariat and the rise of workers’ movements provided the necessary conditions for the establishment of a proletarian party. But who would shoulder this important task? The times called for a standard-bearer. The Government of Northern Warlords (or Beiyang Government), which had seized the fruits of the Revolution of 1911, was alarmed by the spread of Marxism in China at that time. They attacked socialism as “a rampant heresy whose threat was greater than fierce floods and savage beasts,” banned and destroyed all prints relating to Marxism; and punished and persecuted “radicals” who advocated Marxism and socialism. After Chen Duxiu was arrested, Li Dazhao and others tried hard to appeal for help, urging news media, social organizations, university teachers and students to help. Sun Yat-sen delivered a speech attacking the Government of the Northern Warlords in the South as well. 10

Chapter 1

Marxism Introduced to China after the Russian October Revolution; Initiated by Li Dazhao and Chen Duxiu, the Communist Party of China Is Founded

Pressured by public opinion, in September 1919, the Government of Northern Warlords agreed to release Chen Duxiu on the grounds that Chen was suffering from stomach illness. Chen Duxiu became even more active after the release. He published a series of articles in New Youth magazine. In the series, Chen accused the Government of Northern Warlords as “the republic controlled by few bourgeois,” and “it would be wishful thinking to use this system to create happiness for the majority;” and declared that “we need to oppose the existing party that only represents the minority’s interests” while “calling for popular movement to reform our society … to build a new era and a new society.” Chen’s study of Marxism and practical experience in this period turned him from a radical bourgeois democrat before the May Fourth Movement to a Marxist, from the “commander-in-chief ” of the May Fourth Movement to a leader of China’s intellectuals with some basic understanding of communism. On one evening in February 1920, Chen Duxiu took a train back to Beijing from Hankou, where he lectured at the invitation of the Hubei Student Union. He had just gotten home when a policeman knocked at his door to ask him questions. Chen sensed something might be wrong. After the policeman left, he quickly packed the bare essentials and hurried to Hu Shi’s home and then Li Dazhao’s. As soon as Li Dazhao saw Chen Duxiu, he said, “I’m worried about you. The news of you lecturing in Wuhan has been reported, and I heard that the police is after you. We were anxious. We sent someone to pick you up at the station, but without success.” Chen told Li about the policeman’s visit. Li was worried: “You can’t stay in Beijing. How about going to the South?” “That is what I’m thinking. But I don’t think I can take the trains or buses since the police must be there.” Chen replied. Li thought for a while and then said, “I’ll figure out a way to get you to Tianjin, and there you can take a foreigner’s ship to Shanghai.” Li asked someone to hire a mule cart. Chen disguised himself as a sick man, wearing a felt cap and a greasy vest from a chef. Li dressed up as a businessman. The two of them took the cart and headed for Tianjin. On the way, they found a small inn to spend the night. They sat down in the room and chatted. Chen Duxiu said, “Recently, I’ve been thinking a lot. So 11

Socialism in China

far, we’ve only worked on educating people. We need to reform our society. I fear that running periodicals, teaching, lecturing and writing articles won’t be enough.” Li Dazhao nodded, “Yes. We need to be closer to the people, and participate in their movements. What if we follow the Russian way and form a Bolshevik party?” Chen said, “You always say we need to learn from the Russians and take their path of revolution. Now I totally agree. I used to oppose the idea of forming a party, and claimed in ‘New Youth Declaration’ that I would never join ‘a political party that could not bring happiness for the whole society.’ But the Russian party is one that seeks to do so. I did say that I would not join a party, but I didn’t say that I wouldn’t establish a party that I believe.” Li laughed, “So let’s work together to set up such a party.” Chen agreed and continued, “We can immediately organize comrades with a common goal into a group, gradually develop it into a party representing the majority, and lead the popular movement to reform the society. I will work on this as soon as I arrive in Shanghai. How about you working on it in Beijing at the same time?” Li gladly agreed: “Great! As soon as I get back I’ll get some people who are interested in Marxism together and form a society to study Marxism. On the one hand, we have not sufficiently studied how to adapt Marxism to prevailing political and economic conditions and we need to do more preparations. On the other hand, it would be hard for the government to interfere in this type of activity.” Chen was delighted, “Great! We don’t need to be China’s Marx and Engels; we can just make ourselves students of Marxism, learning while practicing. Marxism is a doctrine about the proletarian revolution, and thus we need to integrate our research with the workers’ movements. People used to say ‘There is Li in the North and Chen in the South,’ referring to our achievements in academia, from now on, ‘Li from the North and Chen from the South’ will do something meaningful together!” The two laughed. A great idea had been born, one that would have a far-reaching influence on China’s modern and contemporary history, one that would change the fate of all Chinese people. 12

Chapter 1

Marxism Introduced to China after the Russian October Revolution; Initiated by Li Dazhao and Chen Duxiu, the Communist Party of China Is Founded

After sending Chen Duxiu to Tianjin, Li Dazhao returned to Beijing and immediately contacted a group of young talents. In March 1920, Li established the earliest society to study Marxism in China at Peking University. Its members include Deng Zhongxia, He Mengxiong, Luo Zhanglong, Liu Renjing, and Gao Junyu and others. They studied how to apply Marxism in China’s revolutionary practices and started the preparation work to establish a political party. In mid-February, Chen Duxiu arrived in Shanghai, where he stayed at No.2 Yuyangli, Huanlong Road in the city’s French Concession. He often invited people with similar interests to have discussions at home, went to factories and shops to learn about conditions of workers, was broadly engaged with workers’ associations in Shanghai; and founded magazines for workers. Soon he had gathered a group of activists who were interested in socialism, such as Li Hanjun, Dai Jitao and Shen Dingyi from the Weekly Review, Shao Lizi from the Republic Daily, Shen Yanbing (Mao Dun) from the Commercial Press, and Chen Wangdao, Shi Cuntong, Yu Xiusong, and Chen Gongpei. These people often got together to discuss Marxism and trends of socialist thoughts and planned to build a new socialist organization. Just when “Li in the North and Chen in the South” were working to form a party, the Third Communist International (the Comintern) was turning its attention to China. After the revolutions in a few European countries failed, Lenin and the Russian Communist Party (Bolsheviks) turned their gaze towards the East and formulated their strategies, namely to help set up Communist organizations in several Eastern countries or to find partners there to spread communism and start revolutions, which can support the Soviet Union’s national strategy and ensure its security and interests in the Far Eastern border areas. In the spring of 1920, with the approval of the newly-established Comintern, the Far Eastern Bureau of the Russian Communist Party (Bolsheviks) in Vladivostok dispatched a full-fledged representative, Grigori Naumovich Voitinsky, and others to China. The goal of this trip was to find partners in China to protect the Soviet Union’s security and interests in the Far Eastern border areas. Initially their intent was to select one or two open-minded warlords, but then they found Li Dazhao and Chen Duxiu and discussed forming a Communist party in China with them. The Comintern also set up liaison offices in Shanghai and some other cities. 13

Socialism in China

Grigori Voitinsky was a Russian who had worked and studied in America during his exile prior to the October Revolution. He joined the revolution and the Communist Party upon his return to Russia. In April 1920, he arrived in Beijing as a journalist under the name Wu Tingkang, together with Yang Mingzhai (a native of Shandong Province, now a Russian Communist Party member living in Russia). Through the introduction of Boris Polevoy, a Soviet teacher at Peking Grigori Naumovich Voitinsky, a Comintern representative to China

University, Voitinsky met Li Dazhao and discussed matters related to building a

Communist organization in China, finding agreement on most issues. Carrying a letter of introduction from Li Dazhao, Voitinsky then went to Shanghai and visited Chen Duxiu. He told Chen about the Comintern’s intention of building a Communist party in China, and Chen happily agreed. In fact, two or three months earlier, Chen Duxiu had already reached consensus with Li Da, Li Hanjun, Chen Wangdao and others about forming a political party. After then, some Communist organizations were gradually being established across China. In May 1920, Chen Duxiu launched the Marxism Research Society in Shanghai, and used this as a platform to accelerate the preparations for forming a political party. In July, Chen discussed with Li Hanjun, Shen Dingyi and others about forming a party. Their initial idea was to name the new organization the “Socialist Party”, but after consulting Li Dazhao, Chen adopted Li’s suggestion, naming it the Communist Party of China (CPC). In August, Chen started the initial party in Shanghai calling the first entity the “CPC Shanghai Branch”. Chen was the secretary, and its members included Li Da, Li Hanjun, Chen Wangdao, Shen Dingyi and Yu Xiusong. Later Chen helped set up the Socialist Youth League, with over 30 members including Luo Yinong, Liu Shaoqi and Ren Bishi. 14

Chapter 1

Marxism Introduced to China after the Russian October Revolution; Initiated by Li Dazhao and Chen Duxiu, the Communist Party of China Is Founded

In October, Li Dazhao, Zhang Shenfu, Zhang Guotao and others launched the CPC Beijing Group, and there were nine founding members, including Luo Zhanglong, Liu Renjing, Huang Lingshuang, Chen Derong, Zhang Bogen. Later they set up the Socialist Youth League, with over 40 members including Gao Junyu, Deng Zhongxia, Li Shi, He Mengxiong, Liao Boying and Luo Han. Two months later, the Beijing Group was renamed the CPC Beijing Branch, with Li Dazhao as its secretary, Zhang Guotao in charge of organizational work, and Luo Zhanglong in charge of publicity work. After these first party branches were established in Shanghai and Beijing, Li Dazhao and Chen Duxiu worked to set up similar organizations in northern and southern China respectively. In northern China, Li Dazhao sent Chen Weiren of the Beijing Group to Jinan, where he contacted Wang Jinmei, Deng Enming and others, and in spring 1921, together, they set up a CPC group and a Socialist Youth League there. The CPC Beijing Branch admitted Deng Peng and Liang Pengwan, two workers of the Tangshan Railway, and sent them to develop activities along the Tangshan Railway and North China Railway. In southern China, Chen Duxiu sent Li Hanjun and Liu Bochui to Wuhan. Together with Dong Biwu, Bao Huisen, Chen Tanqiu, Lin Yu’nan, Xiang Ying and others, they set up the CPC Wuhan Branch in August 1920, with Bao Huisen as secretary. Later, they set up the Socialist Youth League, which included Yun Daiying, Xiao Chunü, Li Shuqu, Li Qiushi, Liu Changqun and others as first members. Chen also wrote to Mao Zedong, encouraging him to initiate Communist organizations in Hunan. Mao Zedong and He Shuheng then started a Communist group in Changsha in November 1920, with Xia Xi, Yi Lirong, Guo Liang and others as members. At the same time, a Socialist Youth League was established, enrolling over 30 members. In December 1920, Chen Duxiu went to Guangzhou to take the post of Chairman of the Education Committee of the Guangdong government. He invited Tan Pingshan, Chen Gongbo, Tan Zhitang and others to set up a CPC organization there the following month, at the same time establishing a Socialist Youth League with Peng Pai, Luo Yiyuan, Ruan Xiaoxian and others as first members. 15

Socialism in China

Socialist Youth Leagues were established in Tianjin, Anhui, Zhejiang, Sichuan, Shanxi, Henan, Shaanxi and Inner Mongolia, each with 20 to 30 members. Most of these early members of the Socialist Youth Leagues quickly joined the CPC. The work went beyond China’s borders: in Tokyo, Shi Cuntong and Zhou Fohai established a CPC organization composed of expatriate Chinese residents and students; in France, students Zhang Shenfu, Zhou Enlai, Zhao Shiyan, Chen Gongpei and Liu Qingyang set up a similar CPC group in Paris. All the CPC organizations and youth leagues ran newspapers or periodicals to spread Marxism, translated and published works of Marx and Engels, and organized progressive young people to learn Marxist theories through school forums and seminars. In addition, they raised the slogan of “going to the people,” and organized members to go to factories and the masses, integrated with the workers’ movements, becoming one with workers and peasants. Li Dazhao in Beijing and Chen Duxiu in Shanghai delivered speeches at workers’ meetings and called them into action, urging them to take control of their own lives and be masters of the society. In Beijing, Shanghai, Wuhan, Guangzhou and Jinan, members of the CPC organizations and youth leagues put on workers’ uniforms and worked at factories; in the name of mass education that was fully legal, they donated money or raised funds to conduct night schools, labor extension schools, literacy classes or other types of courses for workers while spreading Marxism; they also instructed and helped workers to set up worker unions or clubs. Once combined with Marxism, China’s workers’ movements rapidly entered a new stage. In early June 1921, there was an exchange of letters between Li Da and Li Hanjun in Shanghai with Chen Duxiu in Guangzhou and Li Dazhao in Beijing, agreeing that the conditions for forming a party were ready. They wrote letters to various CPC organizations across the country to gather together in Shanghai in mid-June to establish a nationwide CPC organization and hold the first national congress. One mid-summer day in 1921, Bowen Girls’ School, a private establishment in Shanghai’s French Concession had just started its summer vacation, and all teachers and students had left. Headmistress Huang Shaolan was reading in her office, when an acquaintance, Wang Huiwu, entered with a proposi16

Chapter 1

Marxism Introduced to China after the Russian October Revolution; Initiated by Li Dazhao and Chen Duxiu, the Communist Party of China Is Founded

tion. He said a Peking University Summer Tour Group of about ten people wanted to rent the school for one month, but was willing to pay rent for three months, provided that they had sole use of the buildings. Huang agreed right away. Wang Huiwu and the other nine members of the “tour group” came and stayed. Huang Shaolan noticed that most of this “tour group” were studentlooking young men in their 20s, however, she was rather suspicious since two men in their 40s did not look like university students, but she had no inkling that these people were planning a world-shaking event. Around seven o’clock on the evening on July 23, six visitors arrived at the school, with two of them being foreigners. They and the nine people residing at the school gathered in a classroom, where several desks were pulled up to form a square meeting table, surrounded by some chairs. The CPC’s First National Congress was then held in the simplest manner. Altogether 15 people attended the congress, including 13 representatives from the Party’s early organizations around China and Japan. The roll call read: Li Da and Li Hanjun from Shanghai, Zhang Guotao and Liu Renjing from Beijing, Mao Zedong and He Shuheng from Changsha, Dong Biwu and Chen Tanqiu from Wuhan, Wang Jinmei and Deng Enming from Jinan, Chen Gongbo and Bao Huisen from Guangzhou, and Zhou Fohai from Japan. They represented over 50 CPC members. The two foreigners were Comintern representatives: Henk Sneevliet (aka Maring) from the Netherlands and Vladimir Neumann from the Secretariat of the Comintern’s Far Eastern Bureau. Chen Duxiu and Li Dazhao did not attend, however. Zhang Guotao was elected Chairman of the congress, with Mao Zedong and Zhou Fohai taking minutes. Zhang Guotao, from Pingxiang, Jiangxi Province, was 24 years old that year. He was a student at Peking University, an organizer of the May Fourth Movement, and one of the three founding members of the CPC Beijing Branch. He declared the congress open, and said, “Mr. Chen Duxiu is unable to attend, since he is trying to raise money to open schools in Guangdong. He has asked Chen Gongbo to bring along a letter containing his advice on developing and educating party members, establishing and applying democratic 17

Socialism in China

The 13 representatives to the First National Congress of the CPC:

Li Da

Li Hanjun

Zhang Guotao

Liu Renjing

Mao Zedong

He Shuheng

Dong Biwu

Chen Tanqiu

Wang Jinmei

Deng Enming

Chen Gongbo

18

Bao Huisen

Zhou Fohai

Chapter 1

Marxism Introduced to China after the Russian October Revolution; Initiated by Li Dazhao and Chen Duxiu, the Communist Party of China Is Founded

centralism, exercising strict party discipline, being prudent in mobilizing the people and other matters for discussion. Mr. Li Dazhao cannot attend either due to busy schedule at Peking University.” Zhang followed with his report on preparation work for this congress, and raised agenda items, including the Party program, declaration on the establishment of the Party, work plan and election of leaders. Following Zhang, Henk Sneevliet gave a speech on behalf of the Comintern. He had been active in the Dutch workers’ movements early in his life before moving to the Dutch East Indies (roughly equal to present-day Indonesia) to help build a workers’ party. After the second Comintern congress, Sneevliet went to work in Russia, and then Lenin sent him as a Comintern representative to China, to help expand the CPC. He spoke in English, and Liu Renjing and Li Hanjun took turns to translate his words. “The formal establishment of the CPC is of global significance. The Comin-

Henk Sneevliet (Maring), a Comintern representative to China

tern will have an Eastern branch, and Russian Bolsheviks will have an Eastern comrade-in-arms.” Sneevliet then gave a passionate and eloquent speech for more than three hours, introducing the Comintern’s nature, organization and mission, and communicating Lenin’s close attention to China’s revolution. Lenin looked forward to the establishment of the CPC and a socialist system in the East. Following Sneevliet, Nikolsky gave a short congratulatory address on the founding of the Party in China and of the First National Congress. Then the representatives discussed the tasks and agenda of the congress. On July 24, the congress continued at the school, but without the presence of the Comintern members. Local representatives reported the process of setting up the Communist Party and youth league organizations and their major activities. They decided to adjourn for two days to allow Zhang Guotao, Li Da and Dong Biwu to draft the Party program, the declaration on the establish19

Socialism in China

ment of the Party, a work plan and other documents for the congress to discuss and approve. The congress resumed in the evenings of July 27 to 29 in a Western-style brick-and-wood building at 106 Wangzhi Road (currently 76 Xingye Road) in the French Concession, not far from the Bowen School. The building was the residence of Li Hanjun and his brother Li Shucheng, a founding member of the Tong Meng Hui (an alliance that helped bring about the fall of the Qing Dynasty and the establishment of a republic in 1912). The congress was held in the downstairs dining-room. Representatives first discussed the draft Party program by Zhang Guotao and others, including the nature of the Party, ways of revolution, criteria for membership, and way to organize the Party. On the nature of the Party and ways of revolution, representatives had different opinions. The draft program stated that China would follow the Russian way in forming a party, but Li Hanjun did not agree. He was one of the few Chinese pioneers studying and spreading Marxism in China, and was the acting secretary of the Shanghai Party Branch when Chen Duxiu went to Guangdong. Li said, “We have had Russia’s October Revolution and the German Social Democratic Party’s November Revolution. What kind of party program, political platform and way of revolution should China’s Communist Party adopt? We should first send people to the Soviet Union and Germany to study, and then set up organizations in China to conduct in-depth research before coming to a final decision. Our Party should focus on studying and spreading communism now, while supporting Mr. Sun Yat-sen’s revolution; and once it succeeds then join the parliament.” Liu Renjing followed immediately: “I think the Party should definitely believe in revolutionary Marxism, and oppose parliamentary elections and debates adopted by social democratic parties in Western Europe, together with all reformist thinking, since these will not work in China. The Party should not be a society for Marxist study; instead, it should have this as a supreme principle: to seize political power by armed force, establish dictatorship of the proletariat, and realize communism.” Only 19 years old, Liu was a student of the Foreign Languages Department of Peking University and a key member of the May Fourth Movement. He had read many classic works of Marx, and was 20

Chapter 1

Marxism Introduced to China after the Russian October Revolution; Initiated by Li Dazhao and Chen Duxiu, the Communist Party of China Is Founded

thus nicknamed as “Marx Junior.” Then, Li Hanjun and Liu Renjing debated their points of views, citing quotations from the classics. Other representatives also joined in. Most representatives believed that the Party should define its basic principles as to realize the dictatorship of the proletariat, and support Sun Yat-sen’s revolution from a Communist standpoint. Another controversial issue was whether a Party member, with approval from the Party, could be an official or a parliament member in a bourgeois government. Chen Gongbo, Li Hanjun and others thought that it would not be dangerous for a Party member to become an official, and proposed selecting some Party members to be members of the parliament, but under the Party’s leadership. They also maintained that the Party should combine public and secret work. Since uprisings would not be frequent, in peacetime, the Party should prepare for uprisings: to spread its ideas, to try to improve conditions for workers, and to guide them to be part of the revolution and to fight for freedom of publishing and assembly. Other representatives believed that allowing members into the parliament would lead the Party to becoming more assimilated like what happened to the Social Democratic Party of Germany; that after entering the parliament, Party members would gradually give up their principles, and even become part of the bourgeois class and traitors to the working class. Furthermore, they insisted that the Party could not rely on the parliament to improve the people’s lives or advance social revolution. Rather, it would only lead to a false conception among the people. No consensus was reached, and an interim solution was provided: “No Party member should take a post of the government or parliament, unless under the pressure of the law or the Party approves. The posts of soldier, policeman and clerk are not subject to this restriction.” They left this question to the following congress. After three days of discussion, the representatives reached a basic consensus on the major issues concerning the Party program and constitution: Name: The Communist Party of China. Program: To organize a revolutionary army and together with the proletariat overthrow the bourgeois regime; to exercise the dictatorship of the proletariat until the class struggle ends or the difference between classes is eliminated; to eradicate capitalist private ownership, and take machines, land, factory buildings, semi-finished products and other means of production into 21

Socialism in China

public ownership; and to adopt the Soviet model in organizing workers, peasants and soldiers to spread Communism. The Party’s guiding principles for its struggles and tasks for revolution: To focus on studying Marxist theories and organizing workers’ movements while expanding membership and influence in preparation for the Communist revolution; do not deny parliamentary and other legal activities but believe such activities are only a way of expanding the strength of the working class; to support Sun Yat-sen’s revolution from a Communist standpoint but still focus on achieving a Communist revolution, not confusing the Party’s social revolution with the revolution of Kuomintang (KMT, Chinese Nationalist Party). The congress also defined the precondition to becoming a Party member as each member must believe in Communism, accept the Party program and policy, and comply with the Party’s decisions and discipline. It also set out some principles: All Party decisions should be made after democratic discussion; the minority being subordinate to the majority, and the lower level to the higher level; and local organizations must accept the supervision and direction of the central committee. During the discussions, the following opinions were voiced: The Communist revolution being a thing of the future, its tasks and methods could not therefore be defined at the moment. China should undergo two revolutions, a national and democratic revolution followed by a socialist revolution. The first step in China’s revolution was to set up a democratic republic in which the working class would enjoy more freedom. However, the Communists should not stop there, but must continue with a socialist revolution until a regime similar to the one that the Soviet had was realized. The above were just some representatives’ personal views and were not written into documents of the CPC’s First Congress, but these sparks of thoughts were rare and commendable, and were later proved correct in China’s revolution. The representatives also discussed the draft of the “Declaration on the Establishment of the Communist Party of China,” but they thought that the draft was not ready and needed more work. They decided to let the new elected central leadership to decide when, what, and if to publish the Declaration. On the evening of July 30, the congress continued at Li’s residence, joined by Sneevliet and Nikolsky as non-voting delegates. The meeting was just about 22

Chapter 1

Marxism Introduced to China after the Russian October Revolution; Initiated by Li Dazhao and Chen Duxiu, the Communist Party of China Is Founded

to start when suddenly a middle-aged stranger in a long gray gown intruded into the dining-room and looked around. Li Hanjun asked, “Who are you looking for?” That man answered, “Chairman Wang of the Association Union.” Li said, “Wrong place. No Chairman Wang here.” The man bowed, apologized and hurried away. The intruder was Cheng Ziqing, a spy of the French Concession police and blood brother of Huang Jinrong, leader the of Shanghai Bund Qing Gang. A veteran of clandestine revolutionary work, Sneevliet was immediately on the alert. He asked about this “uninvited guest” and then stood up and said: “He must be a spy! I advise that the meeting be stopped quickly, and all should leave separately.” With that, he and Nikolsky left. Chen Gongbo stayed behind with Li Hanjun, but all the other representatives left hurriedly. Since Bowen School was probably under surveillance, they agreed to gather in Chen Duxiu’s residence at Yuyangli. Two hours later, Bao Huisen threaded his way through alleyways back to the Li house, where Li Hanjun and Chen Gongbo told him: “That was a frightening close call. Soon after you left, more than 10 policemen came. They asked what meeting we were holding, and we replied it was a gathering of friends. They searched through chests and cupboards for over an hour, and it was lucky that they did not find our ‘Party program’ draft in a drawer, since we weren’t able to destroy it in time. So they gave us a warning and left.” Afraid of being tailed, Bao returned to Chen’s place via back streets. There he reported to the anxious representatives, who were all impressed by Sneevliet’s experience. Li Da suggested, “We have to find another place to continue the congress. Better leave Shanghai and avoid the French police.” Li Da’s wife Wang Huiwu chimed in: “I have an idea. You can go to my hometown, Jiaxing in Zhejiang. It’s only an hour or so from Shanghai. There we can rent a boat on Nanhu Lake and hold the meeting on the boat. It will be safe and convenient.” All thought this was a great idea. The next morning, they took the train to Nanhu Lake separately. This lake, also known as Mandarin Duck Lake, is small but tasteful, and it is a well-known tourist site in Jiaxing. Nanhu Lake in the summer has willows 23

Socialism in China

drooping into the sides of the lake, surrounding the 800 acres of lake. The lotus flowers floating on the lake give off refreshing fragrance. That day, it was cloudy, with a little drizzle, so there were not a lot of tourists around, and the lake area was quiet. At one o’clock in the afternoon, a painted tourist boat sailed slowly from the bank toward the middle of the lake. Above its cabin door hung a horizontally inscribed board, and it was flanked by a pair of scrolls praising the lake’s beauty. Inside the cabin, the walls were carved with beautiful designs like golden flowers, farm cattle, people and birds, and the pillars were carved with golden dragons. Two old-style square tables were pushed together, and on the table were tea sets and mahjong tiles. Around the table sat 11 people, drinking and talking. They looked like tourists, but they were representatives to the CPC’s First Congress, except for the absence of Li Hanjun and Chen Gongbo. The two Comintern representatives stayed away for fear of attracting unwelcome attention. The 11 representatives continued the congress on the boat. They discussed the Party’s strategies, tasks and the congress resolution draft. When discussing the Party’s attitude towards other parties, they fell into heated debate again. The draft resolution stated: “The Party shall adopt the policy of remaining independent and attacking other parties. In political struggle, in the fight against warlordism and bureaucracy, in the struggle to gain freedom of speech, press and assembly, we shall always take a completely independent stand, only protecting the interests of the proletariat and having no relations with other parties.” Some agreed with the draft, but others believed that it would not be a violation of Party principles to unite with other parties to fight the common enemy. The congress adopted the majority’s view and stayed with the original draft on this point. The meeting also decided that since the Party membership was currently small, it should put aside the work to organize peasants and armed forces, and focus on developing worker unions, educating and organizing workers. The sudden noise of an engine interrupted the discussions. Wang Huiwu, who was in the fore cabin “looking at the scenery” entered: “There’s a motorboat approaching. Could it be the police?” They quickly put aside the documents on the tables and started playing mahjong. Soon the motorboat passed by, and they could breathe easily again. 24

Chapter 1

Marxism Introduced to China after the Russian October Revolution; Initiated by Li Dazhao and Chen Duxiu, the Communist Party of China Is Founded

After this false alarm, the congress came to the last agenda item: election of the central leadership. Since the membership was not big and local organizations were not mature, it was agreed not to set up a central committee for the time being, but to have a three-person bureau as an interim leadership. They elected Chen Duxiu as general secretary (Zhou Fohai as acting secretary until Chen returned to Shanghai), Zhang Guotao responsible for organizational work, and Li Da responsible for publicity work. It was getting dark. A strong wind blew up and the waves surged, and there was a distant sound of thunder. Zhang Guotao said a few closing words. All representatives raised their hands and uttered their slogans with a serious look on their faces: “Long live the Communist Party! Long live the Comintern! Long live Communism, liberator of mankind!” Their voice was not loud, but it was powerful; a small voice at that time, but within a few years it would shake the whole country. The CPC that would deeply shape China and the world’s history and change the fate of Chinese people was born on such a boat in Nanhu Lake. After many years, in May 1938, Mao Zedong, having consulted with other central leaders of the Party, proposed in a speech at Yan’an entitled “On Protracted War” that July 1 be the anniversary of founding of the CPC. Three years later, the CPC Central Committee affirmed this proposal in The Guideline on the Commemoration of the 20th Anniversary of the Establishment of the Party and the Fourth Anniversary on Ending the Anti-Japanese War. The establishment of the CPC was no fortuitous event. It was an inevitable result of history, a choice by history and the people. Modern China was a semi-colonial and semi-feudal country facing two important tasks – a national revolution against imperialism and a democratic revolution against feudalism. History had shown that China’s peasant and bourgeois classes were unable to shoulder these two tasks; nor had parties and societies established in the early 20th century produced any correct programs or mobilized the people to save and develop China. Thus a group of progressive intellectuals in China, with numerous analyses and comparisons, finally selected Marx’s scientific socialism as the weapon to reform Chinese society, followed the Russian path of revolution, and formed the CPC based on Leninism. 25

Socialism in China

From its very founding, the CPC took Marxism as the guide and direction for its actions, and set the goal as the realization of socialism and Communism, believing that only socialism could save China. The goals and tasks that CPC raised at the outset have been constantly improved in practice, and they were consistent with people’s fundamental interests and represented the direction of Chinese society’s development. This gave the CPC vitality, and it grew rapidly to a great size, in response to the needs of the age. Undoubtedly, the founding of the CPC was not without shortcomings, such as inadequate theoretical foundation. At that time, Chinese Communists had little access to Marxist works. There were but few books, and most of these were translated from Japanese and Russian versions. In fact, the Marxism spread into China was mostly Marxism interpreted by the Russians. Though the Russians had many correct and scientific knowledge of Marxism, there were also some partial or even wrong interpretations. Moreover, most early Chinese Communists, due to the historical conditions and their limited capacity, could only study Marxist theories on social revolution on a symbolic and elementary level. As a result, they did not fully understand, digest and master the extensive and profound framework of Marxism, its basic doctrines and essence, and were unable to form their own theories based on China’s prevailing conditions. Because of these objective and subjective factors, China’s early Communists mainly had the following limitations and misunderstanding of Marxism: They were unable to fully and correctly grasp the Marxist principle that classes and class struggle are only related to a particular stage in the development of social productive forces, and so Communists need to depend on the actual social productive forces to start the class struggle and social revolution, instead of basing it on the resolution made by a handful of revolutionaries. They were unable to fully and correctly understand the Marxist principle that only when capitalism and social productive forces are highly developed can a socialist revolution take place and succeed. Nor could they understand that whether a society would be socialist or capitalist depends on the level of social productive forces, and capitalism and socialism are two successive and inevitable stages of history that cannot be leapfrogged at will. As a result, they were unable to distinguish anti-imperialism from anti-feudalism, and national democratic revolution from socialist revolution aiming to eliminate private 26

Chapter 1

Marxism Introduced to China after the Russian October Revolution; Initiated by Li Dazhao and Chen Duxiu, the Communist Party of China Is Founded

ownership. Consequently, when drafting the Party program, they proposed to launch a socialist revolution and establish a socialist society in China at a stage when the country was not highly developed economically and culturally and had small peasantry and small production as the mainstay. Theoretically immature, it was hard for the Party to be firm and correct. The fledging CPC made several mistakes including dogmatism and empiricism, errors that inflicted severe damage and loss on its revolutionary cause. On further analysis, we discover that although China’s early Communists had decided to “take the Russian path,” due to objective and subjective limitations, they only had a vague and sketchy understanding of the fundamental content, tasks and requirements of this path. They knew that in the October Revolution the Russian proletariat had seized political power by armed force in the cities and, immediately after the revolution succeeded, they put into practice Marx and Engel’s concept of a Communist society and adopted the policy of “Wartime Communism.” However, their knowledge was not complete. They did not realize that before the proletarian revolution, the proletariat joined and won success in a capitalist democratic revolution, nor that “Wartime Communism” had quickly failed and new economic policies were adopted. Such incomplete understanding had a long-term negative effect on the CPC and the course of the Chinese revolution. In terms of Party organization, the CPC followed the model of Russia’s Communist Party, and established a highly centralized and unified organizational principle, a tight organizational system and strict discipline. All these things showed their worth when the reactionary regime enforced a white terror policy in a country without democratic or legal systems, and they were to play an important and positive role in later revolution. However, the CPC only emphasized centralism and unity, and though it raised principles of practicing democracy within the Party, it did not set up a corresponding democratic system. As a result, from its founding, the CPC lacked a mechanism of democracy, which is indispensible for modern parties. For this deficiency, together with China’s deep-rooted culture of feudalism, authoritarianism, monarchism, tradition of officials being subordinate absolutely to emperor, and the vagrant culture, the Party paid a heavy price – both in its revolutionary years and after it took power. 27

Socialism in China

In fact, at the First Congress, Li Hanjun raised some good points about the Party program as mentioned before. The Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD) was established during the First International period (18641876). When setting up the Communist League and the First International, Marx and Engels maintained that the principle for building a proletarian party was democracy, which stressed that Party members’ democratic rights must be respected and protected within the Party, that a spirit of democracy must be promoted, and that centralism must only be practiced in compliance with democratic principles. Marx and Engels raised this principle in the context of living in European countries, especially Britain, which had the tradition and foundation for democracy and were already capitalist democratic republics. People enjoyed freedom of speech, press, and assembly, and parties were allowed to freely organize public activities. When Lenin was founding the Bolshevik Party, he believed that the Party should adopt centralism first, then democratic centralism; but in wartime, centralism was highly stressed, and this was obviously different from Marx and Engels’ “democratic centralism” by working class political parties. Of course, the Bolshevik Party was a product of the prevailing social environment and historic conditions at the time. After the civil war, Lenin put forward that the ruling party must improve on democratic centralism, and emphasized that the spirit of democracy and the principle of democracy should be fully developed within the party and in state affairs. Unfortunately, he died too early, and did not have time to institutionalize democracy within the Party. Looking back, it would have been better if the CPC had clarified in its program and constitution at the outset that democratic spirit and principles were to be complied, and democratic centralism should only be practiced based on democratic principles. If this was hard to realize during a time to attack the authoritarian rule, once in power, the CPC had to try to make it work based on the thoughts and principles in founding the Party raised by Marx, Engels, and Lenin in their later years. Of course, history does not allow “ifs,” and we should not be overcritical of our forefathers without taking the prevailing historical conditions into consideration. But we can learn from their experiences and lessons, and do our best for the present and for the future. 28

Chapter 1

Marxism Introduced to China after the Russian October Revolution; Initiated by Li Dazhao and Chen Duxiu, the Communist Party of China Is Founded

Of course, such defects cannot obscure the virtues. History has proven that with the founding of the CPC, the Chinese people had a reliable organizer and leader, and the Chinese revolution had a strong leading force. As the revolution grew, the Chinese Communists overcame their shortcomings and both theoretically and politically, they grew more mature and stronger. In order to fulfill their historic mission, achieve national independence, liberate its people and realize prosperity, in order to achieve their lofty ideal of Communism, they embarked on a long and hard road. As the poem says: When the Chinese people fell into an abyss of misery, A group of progressives got up to fight. They mobilized millions of workers and peasants, To start the revolution and create a bright new world. ലᇤ੬Ӯຫ૾ࡠĭ ၊օႏག‫ځ‬ᆢ༽h ߚగ‫୲܅‬బϬຫĭ ৾ՃఓऐԿྕ็h So, as curtain rises on the stage of China’s modern history, how will the Party lead the Chinese people to great things despite many obstacles? For this you must read on.

29

Chapter 2

Formulation of Ultimate and Interim Party Programs Based on Prevailing Conditions in China; Two-step Approach for Party’s Strategies

The newly founded Party straightaway embarked on its path, groping its way in the dark, in search of the goals, tasks, direction and path of China’s revolution. Dozens of young Party members, of good faith and virtue, inspired by the ideal of saving China and the Chinese people, were ready to shed their blood for their cause. Encouraged by the Russia’s October Revolution, they believed that they were able to launch socialist revolution straightaway in China, overthrow the capitalist regime, eradicate capitalist private ownership, take machines, land, factories and other means of production into state ownership and establish a dictatorship of the proletariat, until the distinction between social classes was erased. Such aspirations were sincere and well meaning, but there was obviously a lack of understanding of China’s prevailing conditions and the nature of a revolution here, which was destined to be arduous, complex and protracted. They simply applied certain principles and conclusions of Marxism and Leninism to China, mechanically copying the path and mode of the Soviet revolution. A semi-feudal and semi-colonial country at that time, the conditions and foundation in China fell far short of what was required for socialist revolution in developed countries according to Marx and Engels. Unlike Russia, which had already practiced capitalism before its revolution, China was not ready socially, economically, or politically. The Revolution of 1911 had dethroned the Qing emperor, overthrown a feudal dynasty, but never ended feudal rule completely. 30

Chapter 2

Formulation of Ultimate and Interim Party Programs Based on Prevailing Conditions in China; Two-step Approach for Party’s Strategies

Feudal warlords staged various acts of ignominy in turn, fighting for territory, ruling as despots, oppressing workers, farmers and the common people, and even trying to restore monarchy in China. On the other hand, the revolutionaries failed to hold onto power and establish a capitalist regime, rendering the republic an empty name. Besides, modern industry accounted for under 10 percent of the national economy; 90 percent came from outdated agriculture and handicraft. In China, capitalism was far from developed, but was nonetheless on the rise and played a positive role in promoting social productivity. In such a country, toppling the capitalist regime and eradicating capitalist private ownership were obviously beyond China’s development stage. Targeted at the wrong group for attack and unclear about the short-term tasks and long-term goals, the revolutionaries were like Don Quixote tilting at windmills. In the naive belief that one party could single-handedly accomplish the task of revolution in China, the hot-blooded youth believed that there was no need to ally with any other political parties or organizations. Fortunately, these young political elite soon woke up to the realization that the path to saving China and its people must be based on prevailing conditions, and that the task was too arduous and heavy to bear alone. On the rugged path of democratic revolution, one must march ahead with others. Overcoming difficulties and hardships and receiving valuable help from others, the Chinese Communists endured countless setbacks and trials on the road of revolution. As they learned from their experience and mistakes, their wisdom and competence grew, and they eventually explored the correct path that would lead to the success of China’s revolution. On the early morning of July 16, 1922, a dozen young men filed into a small building at 625 Fudeli, South Chengdu Road in the International Settlement of Shanghai. They dressed differently and had different dispositions, but were united in their high spirits and exuberance. The building was Li Da’s residence, and the 12 young men were there to attend the Second National Congress of the CPC. The congress was held in the reception room on the ground floor. A square table stood in the center, with eight stools around it and several chairs against the wall. It was presided over by 31

Socialism in China

Site of the Second National Congress of the CPC at 625 Fudeli, South Chengdu Road, Shanghai

Declaration of the Communist Party of China

Chen Duxiu, elected in absentia at the First Congress as secretary of the Central Bureau. He invited everybody to sit down and made these opening remarks: “Comrades, this is our Party’s Second Congress, a whole year after the first. Within a year, our organization has expanded to reach 195 Party members and 5,000 members of the Socialist Youth League. We have been actively leading and promoting labor movements. In August last year, the Secretariat of China Labor Association was set up in Shanghai, under the leadership of Comrade Teli (Zhang Guotao). The First National Labor Congress was held in Guangzhou on May 1 this year – International Labor Day. Trade union organizations and labor movements in various areas have seen positive progress. The seamen’s strike in Hong Kong, in particular, lasted over 50 days and exerted great social influence. Besides, we have also done some work in Marxism publicity.” He continued: “Our Party is like a new-born baby. And we must confess that we have no experience as to how to carry out our work and find the most suitable solution to solve China’s problems. We are challenged with the historical quest of exploring our path of revolution. What we have to hand are but two weapons – the theory of Marxism and the practice of Soviet Russia. 32

Chapter 2

Formulation of Ultimate and Interim Party Programs Based on Prevailing Conditions in China; Two-step Approach for Party’s Strategies

To sum up, our tasks are to carry out a socialist revolution to end capitalist ownership and exercise dictatorship of the proletariat. However, the current situation in China is that there is not an established capitalist system politically. Although the Revolution of 1911 overthrew the feudal autocratic system and established a republic, it is republic only in name – in practice it is still a feudal and reactionary regime of a military nature. Warlord factions are constantly fighting each other, plunging the people into the hardships and misery of war. The labor movement also suffers cruel repression. China now is a semi-independent and, according to Lenin, a semi-colonial country, whose military politics are supported by international capitalist influences and whose people are being exploited by imperialism via warlords in power and some with regional power. The Nine-Powers Treaty concluded not long ago at the Washington Conference was nothing more than a robbers’ agreement among the imperialist countries to carve up China between them. It aims to create an imperialist collaboration to take over China, and will strip the Chinese people of their economic independence and enslave the oppressed population of 400 million to their new master – International Trust. Economically, Chinese society is still based on a semi-primitive economy of household agriculture and handicraft, and petty bourgeois economic production. Large industries are in the hands of imperialist countries, which are oppressing the Chinese bourgeoisie that lack both the capital and capacity to run major industries. Industrial capitalism is still a long way off.” As Chen Duxiu paused for a cup of tea, the participants broke into discussion. Cai Hesen, a representative from Hunan, burst out angrily: “It is incontestable that today’s China is plagued by rampaging warlords, who are the biggest obstacles to internal peace, unification and freedom. But international imperialism, which is hampering China from free development politically and economically, is the true demon. In name, China is an independent republic, but in effect, it has become a shared colony of the Western powers. And to be

Cai Hesen

33

Socialism in China

honest, a shared colony is even worse than one under a single colonial power. The imperialists are just competing with each other and scrambling for more resources. They have no long-term plans at all!” After founding the Xinmin Institute with Mao Zedong and others in Hunan, Cai Hesen had gone on a work-study program in France but was repatriated to China together with his wife Xiang Jingyu for leading a movement for the rights of survival among Chinese students in France. He joined the CPC at the end of 1921. Chen continued: “It is obvious therefore that what China needs most now cannot be a socialist revolution. The invasion of imperialist forces and the rule of feudal warlords are like two heavy mountains weighing on various peoples and classes of China. As long as the joint rule of imperialists and warlords persists, China will not gain true independence and the people will not be liberated, let alone realize socialism and communism. About this issue, we have done our own thinking and reflection over the past year, and from Russia, Comrade Lenin and the Comintern have also offered clear ideological and political viewpoints. Let’s invite Comrade Teli to talk about this issue. He has just returned from a meeting of the Comintern in Russia.” The Comintern was an international organization of proletariats developed as a result of the changes and restructuring of the international political pattern subsequent to World War I. After World War I, imperialist powers ganged up to divide the spoils of the defeated countries, and set up the League of Nations. Social democratic parties in European countries had also got together to establish the International Socialist Commission, or the Berne International in Switzerland in 1912. The Berne International continued to implement the lines of Eduard Bernstein of the Second International, striving to bring the labor movement onto the reformist path. To consolidate the newly-founded Communist organizations of various countries and also to compete for leadership of the labor movement with the Berne International, Lenin established the Third International, also known as the Communist International (Comintern). Organized to hold on to the legacy of the First and Second Internationals created by Marx and Engels, its aim was to help the Soviet regime shake off the attacks and blockade of imperialist powers and transmit the Russian Revolution to the world. 34

Chapter 2

Formulation of Ultimate and Interim Party Programs Based on Prevailing Conditions in China; Two-step Approach for Party’s Strategies

Under the arrangement of the Russian Communist Party, the Founding Congress of the Communist International was summoned in Moscow in March 1919. The meeting was attended by 52 delegates from 35 political parties and organizations of 21 European, American and Asian countries. Liu Shaozhou and Zhang Yongkui, heading the Union of Chinese Workers in Russia, were invited to the congress as representing the Socialist Workers’ Party of China. In his report titled “On Bourgeois Democracy and Dictatorship of the Proletariat” at the opening session, Lenin pointed out that the task of the congress and the Comintern was to banish fantasies about bourgeois democracy and struggle for the establishment of dictatorship of the proletariat. The congress passed the Declaration of the Communist International, which announced: “The Third International is a public international of mass movement, of realizing revolution, and of creating a cause.” It called upon all proletarians of the world to “unite under the flag of the workers’ Soviet, under the flag of revolution and struggle to seize political power and exercise dictatorship of proletariat, under the flag of the Communist International.” The second congress of the Comintern took place in Moscow between July 19 and August 7, 1920. Lenin presented a report titled “On the International Situation and the Basic Tasks of the Communist International.” The congress discussed national and colonial issues, and passed the “Draft Outlines on the

Lenin making a report at the second congress of Comintern

35

Socialism in China

National and Colonial Issues” written by Lenin. In these two important documents, Lenin offered a systematic explanation of the theses on national and colonial issues. He pointed out that “the Communist International’s entire policy on national and colonial issues should rest primarily on a closer union of the proletarians and the working masses of all nations and countries for a joint revolutionary struggle to overthrow the landowners and the bourgeoisie,” and that the proletariat should enter into an alliance with the bourgeoisie in the democratic revolution, but must maintain its independence. Documents passed at the second congress also clearly stated that in the first stage of the revolution, the tasks were to overthrow international capitalism and achieve the goals of the bourgeois-democratic revolution such as allotting land to peasants. From January 21 to February 2, 1922, the Comintern convened its First Congress of Toilers of the Far East in Moscow, which involved Communist parties and national revolutionary organizations of the Far East. A 44-person Chinese delegation, led by Zhang Guotao, attended the congress. During the congress, Lenin, though in bad health, met with Zhang Guotao, Zhang Qiubai and Deng Pei, who represented the CPC, KMT and Chinese workers, respectively. Zhang Guotao said: “The Far East Congress aimed to implement the resolutions passed at the Comintern’s second congress and discuss countermeasures to the Washington Conference, which has made China a target. I have made a summary of Lenin’s speeches at the Comintern congress and the main points of the Far East Congress: “Firstly, the capitalist classes around the world are fighting the Russian Soviet Republic, which, in countering these attacks, will certainly unite with Soviet movements of progressive workers in different countries, as well as unite with all national liberation movements in colonial countries and of oppressed peoples. For countries and peoples that are invaded and enslaved, foreign oppression has always hindered their free development. So the first step of revolution should be to overthrow the oppression of foreign capitalism. “Secondly, Soviet organization is applicable not only to capitalist countries, but also to countries with pre-capitalist relations. With the help of proletarians in advanced nations, it is possible for backward countries to progress to Soviets without going through the capitalist stage, before they 36

Chapter 2

Formulation of Ultimate and Interim Party Programs Based on Prevailing Conditions in China; Two-step Approach for Party’s Strategies

advance to communism after a certain period of development. Two forms of movement exist among the oppressed peoples: one is bourgeois-led nationalist movement; the other is peasant and worker-led struggle for liberation from all exploitation. We shall promote the development of class awareness among workers in colonial countries to help them push forward revolution and the creation of Soviet republics. “Thirdly, the Communist International and Communist parties of various nations should forge temporary alliances with the democratic bourgeois in colonial and backward countries. But they shall not merge with them and must maintain the independence of the proletarian movement – even in the earliest stages of growth. “Fourthly, Lenin pointed out that it was a dream that a proletarian party could practice Communist strategies and policies in a backward country without involving and supporting the peasants’ movement and forming a close alliance. In particular, Lenin stressed that when settling all colonial and national issues, one cannot start from abstract principles, but rather, more concrete phenomena in real life. “I think that these important ideas of Lenin are of huge significance in guiding China’s revolution and our Party’s exploration of the revolutionary path. We need to make serious deliberations. The Far East Congress called upon all proletarians and oppressed peoples of the world to unite, and the oppressed peoples of the East to carry out nationalist-democratic revolutions against imperialism and feudalism with the assistance of Western proletarians, so as to form a united revolutionary front against world imperialism.” As soon as Zhang finished, Chen Duxiu pressed on with the theme: “The Central Bureau has discussed the issue with other comrades and decided that Lenin and the Comintern’s theory on national and colonial issues is of vital importance to the exploration and development of our next-step strategies and guidelines for China’s revolution. With this theoretical guidance, we are prepared to publish ‘The CPC’s Proposals on the Current Situation’ in midJune, when we will publicize for the first time our Party’s political stance on China’s current situation. Why do we need to do this? It is because in the current times of complexity, all types of political opinions and forces are vying for attention. For example, Wu Peifu, the warlord of the Zhili Clique, has 37

Socialism in China

proposed ‘unification by force’; the commander-in-chief of the Guangdong army Chen Jiongming has put forth ‘inter-provincial autonomy’; and Hu Shi has suggested a ‘good-man government.’ For us, proposing our own political points now can win over more political powers as well as common people and revolutionary youth. “We stand for fighting imperialism and feudalism by revolutionary means, and establish democratic politics, which is the core solution to the current situation. The targets of revolution in China now are the warlords and the Western powers in our country. Stratocracy is the root cause of China’s domestic strife and foreign aggression, and also the root cause of people’s suffering. We must smash it down by revolutionary means to realize democracy. Our Party proposes a joint conference attended by the KMT, and other revolutionary democratic parties as well as revolutionary socialist organizations, in order to establish a democratic united front to continue fighting feudal warlords. Our idea has produced a strong response in society, with favorable feedback from all walks of life.” Heated discussion ensued, with views exchanged in no particular order. The speakers were passionate, greeting some points with sharp words, the next minute laughing heartily in relaxed good humor. The atmosphere around the meeting table remained warm and friendly. Chen Duxiu, Zhang Guotao and Cai Hesen were selected to draft the declaration of the congress and other resolutions. During the recess, the three men continued to work on the drafts. The Resolution on the “Democratic United Front” was the first document Chen proposed. He said bluntly: “At our Party’s First Congress, we were wary of the existing political parties, forbidding any relationship with them. Now it is time to change our strategy. Under the current conditions of China’s politics, economy and proletariat, it is true that the democratic revolution benefits the bourgeois, yet it also benefits the proletariat. The feudal military are the common enemy of the proletariat and democrats, and we, the Communist Party, shall step forward to unite all the revolutionary parties of China and organize a united front. In this way we can sweep out the feudal warlords, overthrow imperialist oppression and establish an independent country of genuine democracy.” 38

Chapter 2

Formulation of Ultimate and Interim Party Programs Based on Prevailing Conditions in China; Two-step Approach for Party’s Strategies

Zhang Guotao spoke next: “Among the political parties in China today, only the KMT led by Sun Yat-sen can be regarded as a true revolutionary democratic party. To develop a united front, we should take the KMT as our main target for cooperation. Despite the military coup of Chen Jiongming in June and the fact that Sun Yat-sen is having a hard time, Mr. Sun still enjoys high prestige within his party and in the whole society as well. At our meeting with Lenin during the Far East Congress, he especially mentioned the KMT and our Communist Party, asking if it was possible for us to cooperate. It seemed that Lenin and the Comintern favored bipartisan cooperation in China for a nationalist-democratic revolution.” Cai Hesen had a deeper take on the issue: “In our Party’s proposals on the current situation published in June, the role of the proletariat and our Party was not fully delivered. The Chinese bourgeoisie will not play the same role as the French bourgeoisie in the French Revolution. In China’s democratic revolution, it is true that the proletariat should unite with and offer assistance to the democrats, but that is not all. It should never surrender to the democratic parties, nor affiliate or merge with them, because the democrats do not fight for the interests of the proletariat. What we should do is rally under the flag of the Communist Party – the party of the proletariat – to unite the vast population of peasants and petty bourgeois for an independent movement of our own class.” Chen Duxiu nodded in agreement: “Good. We will include these points in the first resolution draft for approval at the congress. Next we will discuss the second document, ‘Declaration of the Second National Congress of the Communist Party of China’. We can expand and deepen the contents of the June proposals. It could be divided into three parts. The first part will clearly expose the Western powers’ colonial practice and exploitation of the Chinese people, make it clear that China’s anti-imperialist movement must merge with the revolutionary tide of all oppressed peoples of the world, and that it must correspond to the revolutionary movements of proletarians around the world. The second part will offer an in-depth analysis of China’s political and economic conditions and the conditions of different classes. The third part will introduce and explain the guidelines of our Party, which are the foothold and focal point of this document. At the First Congress, we believed we could directly carry out socialist revolution in China and establish dictatorship of the 39

Socialism in China

proletariat. This now seems somewhat naive. This time, we can present a twolevel structure in this document. The higher level will introduce our Party’s ultimate program which states the ultimate goals, and the lower the interim program, which guides our current actions. And then we can include the twostage strategy for China’s revolution – first democratic revolution and then socialist revolution.” Painstakingly deliberating word by word, sentence by sentence, the three men carefully discussed and studied the wording of the Party’s programs. Eventually, the phrasing of the ultimate program read: The CPC “aims to organize the proletariat to establish a political regime with dictatorship of workers and peasants by means of class struggle, and eradicate private ownership and gradually achieve a Communist society.” The interim program read: The CPC acts in the immediate interests of workers and impoverished peasants, guides the workers to help with the democratic revolutionary movement, and promotes the establishment of a democratic united front of workers, poor peasants and petty bourgeois.” The Party’s tasks in the current stage are “to put an end to internal strife, overthrow the warlords and build internal peace; to overthrow the oppression of international imperialism and achieve complete independence of the Chinese nation; and to unify China (including the three northeastern provinces) into a true democratic republic. According to the Party’s ultimate and interim programs, China’s revolution fell into two steps: “We proletarians have our own class interests. Should the democratic revolution succeed, proletarians gain only a degree of freedom and rights rather than complete liberation. And if that revolution succeeds, the naive bourgeois will rapidly develop and be in opposition to the proletariat, who will in turn fight against them to achieve dictatorship of the proletariat in alliance with impoverished peasants, and this will be the second step of struggle. For the proletariat, if their organization and combat capacities are strong enough, the second step shall see immediate success following the victory of the democratic revolution.” After careful deliberation, the two documents were passed unanimously. Chen Duxiu, Zhang Guotao, Cai Hesen, Gao Junyu and Deng Zhongxia were elected members of the Central Executive Committee, with Chen as chairman and Cai and Zhang in charge of publicity and organization work, respectively. 40

Chapter 2

Formulation of Ultimate and Interim Party Programs Based on Prevailing Conditions in China; Two-step Approach for Party’s Strategies

The Second National Congress played an extremely important role in the history of the Party’s creation and in the history of China’s revolution. Comprehensively and objectively speaking, the Party was created by the joint work of its first and second congresses. At the first, the Party was given an official name, and a unified national organization was established. It also clarified the Party’s nature and ultimate goals. However, due to ideological limitations and under the threat of the white terror, the congress finished in a rush. Shanghai’s French Concession police had barged into their meeting place and the delegates were forced to decamp to Nanhu Lake in Jiaxing, Zhejiang Province, where the meeting resumed. Originally slated to last three or four days, the congress was forced to finish in half a day, leaving various issues pending for serious discussion and final resolution – the Party’s current goals and tasks, the targets of the national revolution, the means and measures of realizing the ultimate goals, the Party constitution, and other important matters. There was not even time to finalize the draft declaration announcing the Party’s founding, leaving the document unpublished. Overall, the First National Congress did not finish the main works of establishing the Party. What the First Congress had left unfinished was taken up at the Second Congress. At this congress, the delegates discussed and passed the Declaration of the Communist Party of China, which was published later; it drafted the Party’s first constitution, which clearly stipulated the requirements for Party members, the construction of Party organizations at various levels, and the disciplines and principles, especially specifying the Party’s goals in the ultimate and interim programs under the guidance of Lenin and the Comintern. The interim program set the short-term goals and tasks of the newly-founded Party, namely to fight against imperialism and feudalism and complete the bourgeois democratic revolution. The constitution also stipulated the fundamental two-step strategy of China’s revolution, namely the democratic revolution followed by socialist revolution. This set the first step of applying Marxism to China’s revolutionary realities, thus clarifying the direction of China’s revolution and determining the goals and tasks of China’s Communists in their struggle. The Second Congress also proposed the idea of a democratic united front, clearly targeting the KMT represented by Sun Yat-sen as the main ally 41

Socialism in China

but also uniting with other political parties and organizations. With this effort, the CPC initiated the historical process of bipartisan cooperation in the national revolution, jointly promoting China’s struggle against imperialism and feudalism and realizing the great cause of establishing a democratic republic. Of course, all key meetings, documents or decisions are bound to have shortcomings, shortcomings dictated by the historical conditions, social environment and people’s ideological level prevailing at the time. The Second Congress too had its limitations and inadequacies. For example, the delegates, ignoring the stage-development nature of revolution, believed in the immediate success of socialist revolution hot on the heels of a victorious democratic revolution; this obviously stemmed from a lack of overall and correct understanding of the consistent nature of the Marxist theories of uninterrupted revolution and the development of revolution by stages. The congress defined the Party’s interim program in the current stage, but was unable to find concrete measures and a path to realize it. The CPC put forth the establishment of a democratic united front with the KMT and other political parties and organizations and wished to lead the movement, but failed to specify a detailed pattern of cooperation with the KMT or how to maintain the independence of the Party within the united front, among other core issues. The Second Congress also passed a resolution that the CPC join the Communist International and become a branch. In this way, the CPC and China’s revolution would gain more support and help from Soviet Russia and the Comintern. On the other hand, this also restricted and even weakened the Party somewhat in terms of organizational and political independence. The negative effects were time and again to hamper China’s revolution in the years to come. A month later the CPC held a special meeting at Hangzhou’s West Lake. Only seven people attended the meeting. Its purpose was to find specific channels of cooperation between the Communist Party and the KMT, an issue unresolved at the Second Congress. Two months after the First Congress, Chen Duxiu resigned his position as chair of the education committee of Guangdong, and returned to Shanghai to oversee the work of the CPC Central Committee. Initially, Chen insisted on the Party’s independence politically and organizationally, and was loath to accept the highly centralized leading style of the Comintern and the condescend42

Chapter 2

Formulation of Ultimate and Interim Party Programs Based on Prevailing Conditions in China; Two-step Approach for Party’s Strategies

ing and domineering attitude of Henk Sneevliet, its representative in China. Chen held that the Party in China was in its infancy and had started on no major work, so to be identified as a member of the Third International was not essential, nor was it necessary to accept its economic aid, since this might give rise to rumors from other political parties and social sectors. After all, carrying out the revolution was a matter of our won, and though it was good to have help, it could be accomplished even without it. China could not depend on financing from others for its own revolution. Chen told Sneevliet in person: “The conditions of revolution vary in different countries. China is a country with backward productivity and industries, and we need to maintain our right of independence and act independently. We do whatever we are capable of, and never allow ourselves to be controlled by anyone.” Sneevliet responded that Comintern was a worldwide organization of Communists and the headquarters of all Communist movements, and that the parties in individual countries were but branches of it. Therefore, all CPC’s work should be carried out under the unified leadership of that body. Sneevliet repeatedly exceeded his brief and meddled in the internal affairs of the CPC, giving direct orders on the activities and work of the CPC. Unhappy with this interference in the Party’s internal affairs and his disrespect for its independence, Chen Duxiu had many quarrels with Sneevliet, and they often had strong words, pounding the table and bellowing at each other. Sneevliet became so angered that he asked the Comintern to revoke Chen’s membership of the Communist Party. Their relations became very strained indeed. But later, when Chen was arrested by concession police, Sneevliet managed to get him out, leveraging his foreign identity, paying expensive legal fees and maneuvering through layers of bureaucracy. After this, the two were reconciled and both readjusted their attitudes. With more mutual understanding, they worked together amicably. But as to how to adjust and handle the relations between the CPC and the Comintern, and on the analysis and judgment of China’s political situation and corresponding policies and measures, the two were still at odds. At the West Lake meeting, they locked horns again. On August 29, 1922, a company of seven – Chen Duxiu, Li Dazhao, Zhang Guotao, Cai Hesen, Gao Junyu, Henk Sneevliet and Zhang Tailei – arrived at the West Lake. 43

Socialism in China

The West Lake in midsummer looked like a mirror, its waters were as clear as jade. The weeping willows on its shores gently swayed their leaves in the breeze, and the gracefully floating water lilies were a charming sight. Yang Wanli, a Song Dynasty poet, praised its beauty in these lines: “After all it is summer at West Lake, /and the view is different from the other seasons; /lotus leaves extend to the skyline in a boundless shade of jade, / Gao Junyu

the sunlight drenches the flowers to a peerless red.” The Tang poet Bai Juyi also fell

intoxicated by its beauty. He wrote: “After bidding farewell to the views of Qiantang, /I drank little and read less poetry; /on my boat, making my return, I wish to make my feelings known to the wind and moon of the West Lake.” But these seven men were in no mood for sightseeing. Sequestered in a house by the lake, they argued for two days. Chen was in the chair. After reading out the directives from the Comintern, Sneevliet said in a condescending and slightly accusatory tone: “The Comintern requires the CPC to work together with the KMT, but the question now is how. You proposed cooperation in parallel, but Sun Yat-sen has rejected this; I have repeatedly suggested that the CPC as an entity join the KMT, but none of you agreed. In my opinion, there is only one feasible way for the united front, and that is that members of the CPC join the KMT on an individual basis.” Zhang Tailei translated his words, which met with silence from the meeting. After a long pause, Chen broke the silence: “I still think it is possible to form a united front with the KMT on an “external” basis. The KMT has made alliances with other factions before. We can consider to set up a united front committee and elect Sun Yat-sen as chairman. The KMT representation on the committee could be twice as big as the Communist number. For us, a parallel united front is not the only choice; the key thing is that our Party cannot lose its independence.” Sneevliet responded: “The KMT has 200,000 members, and the CPC has several hundred (200 at the time). The disparity is too big. Sun Yat-sen says he 44

Chapter 2

Formulation of Ultimate and Interim Party Programs Based on Prevailing Conditions in China; Two-step Approach for Party’s Strategies

has the large circle, and the CPC the small circle. He could not accept such a plan.” Prior to this meeting, Sneevliet had discussed the cooperation issue with Sun three times, and he knew exactly how Sun felt on the matter. Cai Hesen spoke next, supporting Chen’s point: “I feel that we should stick to the ‘external’ style of cooperation. The KMT represents the bourgeoisie. If we join and form an alliance as insiders, our Party will be in effect merged with the bourgeoisie and lose our independence. This runs contrary to the spirit of the second congress of the Comintern.” Sneevliet shook his head and said, “To my knowledge, the KMT is not bourgeois, but a political party of a nationalist character. It consists of intellectuals, overseas Chinese bourgeois, soldiers in the South, and workers. As an alliance of revolutionaries from different classes, it is within its principles to accept us as Communists.” Sneevliet seemed to have been deeply influenced by his contacts with Sun Yat-sen: Sun had told Sneevliet and a few other Communists that communism could find a place in his Three Principles of the People. Chen did not mince his words in his frosty response: “As I see it, the KMT is mainly a party of the bourgeois, and we cannot deny its nature simply because it has some non-bourgeois members.” Sneevliet raised his voice, “China will only have national and democratic revolution over a very long period of time. There will not be socialist revolution in that time. That the CPC joins the KMT to promote national and democratic revolution in China is totally consistent with the spirit of the second congress of Comintern.” Zhang Guotao appeared agitated. He said: “I think the two parties lack a common ground for intra-party cooperation. The Three Principles of the People and Communist beliefs are different, and the organizational setup of the KMT is not suited for revolution. And they tend to put more emphasis on military action than mass movement.” Gao Junyu nodded in agreement, “In addition to forming a united front with the KMT, we should pay more attention to expanding our own Party by winning the support of the mass workers and peasants.” Chen Duxiu pressed home his point with a simple example. He said: “If a Communist joins the KMT, it can give rise to complexities that are difficult to 45

Socialism in China

handle, hampering the unity of revolutionary forces despite the goodwill. It is like two families. They can get along well as neighbors but will squabble if living under the same roof. Since the KMT does not want cooperation now, we can talk with them later.” Seeing that no one accepted his views, Sneevliet got very annoyed and shouted: “The CPC is a branch of the Communist International. It should respect the decisions of the Comintern, submit to its discipline, and join the KMT.” Chen also raised his voice: “If this is an immutable decision of Comintern, we are obliged to obey, albeit under protest. But this is conditional – we will join the KMT only if it is democratically restructured and if on joining there is no taking of fingerprints or swearing personal oaths to Sun Yat-sen.” Li Dazhao, after a long silence, said: “I agree with Chen. Could it work this way – at first a few Communist leaders join the KMT as a bridge for cooperation, so as to persuade all CPC members to join later?” Eventually, the two sides agreed on Li Dazhao’s compromise idea. The West Lake meeting finally drew a clear conclusion on concrete means to promote CPC-KMT cooperation, and Sun Yat-sen also agreed. First Li Dazhao joined the KMT with the introduction of Zhang Ji, and the ceremony was personally conducted by Sun Yat-sen. Later Chen Duxiu, Zhang Tailei, Cai Hesen, Zhang Guotao, Yu Xiusong, Mao Zedong and other Communists also joined the KMT as individuals. Despite this preliminary consensus, most Communists were still dubious about joining the KMT and adopted a wait-and-see attitude, and only supported the establishment of a democratic united front with the KMT and other political parties. Nor was there total unanimity at leadership level in the Comintern and Soviet Communist Party regarding the mode of CPC-KMT cooperation. Grigori Voitinsky, another Comintern representative in China, disagreed with Sneevliet, believing the CPC would jeopardize its independence by this move. When the two different opinions were reported back to the Moscow headquarters, Nikolai Bukharin, the head of Comintern, gave ambiguous directives. On the one hand, he confirmed that the KMT was China’s only major national revolutionary group and that CPC members should join it; on the 46

Chapter 2

Formulation of Ultimate and Interim Party Programs Based on Prevailing Conditions in China; Two-step Approach for Party’s Strategies

other hand, he pointed out that cooperation between the CPC and the KMT on an internal basis could not be realized at the cost of the special political status of the CPC, and that the CPC must maintain its original organization and strictly centralized leadership. Bukharin also stressed that the CPC should avoid conflicts with China’s national revolutionary movement. Instead, it shall exert influence on that movement so as to unite it with Soviet Russia in their joint struggle against European, American and Japanese imperialism. Obviously, Soviet Russia and the Comintern under its control were serving their own diplomatic interests by supporting the KMT and pushing the CPC to join it at the same time. For a period, Soviet Russia and the Comintern handled the relations between the CPC and the KMT with this same attitude, supporting and aiding the Nationalists as priority. Directives were repeatedly sent to the CPC that it must not fall out with the KMT, and even that the CPC must go through (obey) the KMT on all matters. In January 1923, the Comintern executive committee passed the Resolution on the Relations between the Communist Party of China and the Nationalist Party of China. This had been drafted by Bukharin and jointly revised by Voitinsky and Sneevliet. It stated that China’s working class “had not fully developed into an independent social force,” and the KMT was the “only major national revolutionary group in China.” It said that CPC members should remain in the KMT and cooperate with it, whilst maintaining the political independence of the Communist Party. When the resolution reached China, most Communists agreed on the principle of bipartisan cooperation stated in the resolution, but were largely divided on the detailed modes and measures for the understanding and execution of the resolution. Various opinions surfaced and no correct judgment could be made. The newborn CPC accepted the Comintern’s decision that CPC members join the KMT as individuals. Under the historical circumstances back then, it was undoubtedly a positive move for finding a way of cooperation acceptable to the KMT and for rallying all revolutionary forces to complete the national democratic revolution. It was the most important task in China at the time. This type of cooperation, however, clearly put the nationalists at the core and the Communists in a subordinate position, a situation not conducive to maintaining the CPC’s independence and autonomy. But for the newly-founded 47

Socialism in China

and still feeble Communist Party, it had to be this way. For the KMT on the other hand, it was unbearable to have Communists in leading positions in the party, political departments and the army while they retained the Communist organization and underground activities. Seen in this light, the intra-party pattern for CPC-KMT cooperation, which proved reasonable and necessary in the prevailing historical and social circumstances, was not an ideal or solid option for either party. A parting of the ways was inevitable. It was only a matter of when and how. Just as this poem puts it: Ultimate or interim, programs were based on prevailing conditions, Grand blueprints drawn to light the onward path. Cooperation remains the most difficult part, Twists and turns endured under rain or shine. ֶۢۜ਽ᄀ‫ݛ‬౮ĭ ߳ު঩๵଄੦࣭h ቓ൦଼Ԝ‫ގ‬ቜൡĭ ၊ѷೠᆄ࠳ႄ౬h Did all Communists reach consensus on how to work with the KMT? Was it possible for the parties to join hands? Read the next chapter to find out.

48

Chapter 3

During Chen Jiongming’s Mutiny, Sun Yat-sen Escapes Aboard the Yongfeng; Sun Decides to Ally with the Soviet Union and the CPC

After the Second National Congress of the CPC in July and the Special Meeting of the Second Central Executive Committee of the CPC (West Lake Meeting) in August, 1922, the CPC decided to join hands with the KMT, establish the national revolutionary united front to fight against imperialism and feudalism and achieve democratic republicanism. But when it comes to cooperation, there has to be give-and-take on both sides. As the old saying goes, “One hand alone cannot clap.” But did the KMT have any intention of cooperating? For the answer we must look into how Sun Yat-sen founded and reorganized his party. When the CPC was deliberating at the Shanghai and Hangzhou meetings the issue of cooperation with the KMT, Sun Yat-sen was experiencing the most serious setback of his political life. On August 13, 1922, Sun Yat-sen, leader of the Revolution of 1911 and the first president of the Republic of China (ROC), was pacing on the deck of the British gunboat HMS Moorhen sailing along the southeastern coast of China. A man of medium height, in his fifties, Sun looked tired. Two months earlier, his former subordinate Chen Jiongming had rebelled against him and 49

Sun Yat-sen

Socialism in China

fired cannons at the Presidential Palace in Guangzhou and Yuexiu Mansion, Sun’s residence. Under the cover of an armed escort, President Sun Yat-sen had escaped and secreted himself in the warship Chuyu anchored on the Pearl River. The following day he was transferred to the gunboat Yongfeng moored near Changzhou Island, about 20 km away from the eastern suburb of Guangzhou, in confrontation with the insurgent troops. Later, Chen issued an open telegraph to the nation, urging Sun to relinquish power. Chen Jiongming

He also incited the military governors and

the governors of northern provinces to call on both Yuan Shikai and Sun Yatsen, the two Republic of China (ROC) presidents presiding in the North and the South respectively, to leave office. Cai Yuanpei, Li Shizeng, Wu Zhihui and other founder members of the KMT also added their names to the telegraph, urging Sun to step down. Internationally, the British government supported Chen’s mutiny, and the American minister to China pressed his home government to bring about cooperation between Chen Jiongming and the Government of Northern Warlords. All of a sudden, Sun Yat-sen found his life and career at all-time low, pressured as never before. It was high summer in the South and Sun had been cooped up aboard the Yongfeng at the mouth of the Pearl River for nearly two months. His only recourse was to escape to Shanghai aboard the HMS Moorhen. Standing on deck and staring at the rolling waves, he fell into deep reverie, reliving the memories of his 20-plus years of setbacks and comebacks in the national revolution. After achieving victory in the Revolution of 1911, Sun Yat-sen was elected the Provisional President of the ROC, but only 44 days later, he resigned, yielding his position to the warlord leader Yuan Shikai, and leaving the fruits of national revolution to the Government of Northern Warlords. Was Sun following the example of George Washington, the founding father of the United States, who resigned and returned to his native village after winning the War of Independence and establishing an independent, democratic and free 50

Chapter 3

During Chen Jiongming’s Mutiny, Sun Yat-sen Escapes Aboard the Yongfeng; Sun Decides to Ally with the Soviet Union and the CPC

republic? Was Sun Yat-sen taken in by Yuan’s politicking and pretending to safeguard republicanism? Or perhaps a mixer of both? The reason mainly lies in the pressure of the situation. Established after the Revolution of 1911, the new ROC was beset with difficulties both at home and abroad: internationally, the republic was not recognized by the major powers; on the domestic front, the Northern warlords wielded ample military power and financial support, while the revolutionaries were facing financial exhaustion. Under these circumstances, Sun Yat-sen had no choice but to give up his position. After resigning, Sun Yat-sen turned to save the nation through industrial development, and lobbied across the country advocating the Principle of People’s Livelihood. He focused on economic development – railway construction in particular, striving to build a total length of 200,000 li (one li equals to half a kilometer) in 10 years and make China a world railway power. Sun Yat-sen’s loyal friend Song Jiaoren and other members of the Tong Meng Hui were still avid to bring about democracy and republicanism in China. On the foundations of the Tong Meng Hui founded by Sun himself, they united the Republican Party, Nationalist Public Party, Nationalist Common Progress Party and Republican Pragmatic Progress Association into the KMT and elected Sun Yat-sen as chairman of the executive council. Later, Sun Yatsen appointed Song Jiaoren as acting chairman, and continued to devote himself to promoting national industrial development. In February, 1913, the first elections to the ROC congress were held in Beijing. The KMT won the majority of seats in both the House of Representatives and the Senate. However, the 31-year-old Song Jiaoren, the Prime Minister elect, was murdered in broad daylight in the bustle of Huning Railway Station right before setting off for Beijing to form his cabinet. Sun Yat-sen was deeply grieved

Song Jiaoren

51

Socialism in China

over Song’s misfortune, writing in his elegiac couplet, “Song Jiaoren was the first man to sacrifice himself for the Constitution.” Under the pressure of public opinion, and urged by Sun Yat-sen, Liao Zhongkai, Huang Xing and other KMT members, Jiangsu Provincial Military Governor Cheng Dequan and Civil Administration Chief Ying Dehong made public the evidence in Song’s case that pointed the finger of suspicion at Prime Minister Zhao Bingjun and President Yuan Shikai of the Government of Northern Warlords. The sensational case rocked the whole country. Huang Xing

The revolutionary party had two options for punishing the murderers and their mas-

terminds – the legal route or a punitive expedition; Sun Yat-sen chose the latter. He ordered the Southern provinces to raise troops and in Hukou, Jiangxi, he pledged a crusade against Yuan Shikai. However, the “Second Revolution” against Yuan Shikai failed in less than two months and Sun Yat-sen was forced to seek sanctuary in Japan again. Then Yuan Shikai ordered the disbanding of the KMT and it soon fell apart. During his exile in Japan, Sun Yat-sen reflected on his gains and losses, and realized that the KMT’s dysfunctional party affairs administration was to blame for years of revolution turning out to be in vain. To press on with the national revolution, he had to establish a new political party that was purer, more loyal and more disciplined than the KMT. So, in Tokyo, he had founded the China Revolutionary Party, and assumed the post of chairman. Copying the rules of feudal underworld gangs, he demanded that members be fingerprinted and take a personal oath of absolute loyalty to the chairman, and graded the members according to their dates of enrollment. The majority of KMT members did not support Sun’s reorganizing the party, even Huang Xing who had fought shoulder-to-shoulder with him since the founding of the Tong Meng Hui, refused to join the new party. They carried on the name of the KMT in political activities, so the Chinese Revolutionary Party failed to develop. 52

Chapter 3

During Chen Jiongming’s Mutiny, Sun Yat-sen Escapes Aboard the Yongfeng; Sun Decides to Ally with the Soviet Union and the CPC

On December 12, 1915, Yuan Shikai reinstated autocratic monarchy, to universal wrath and disapproval. Yunnan was the first province to rise in rebellion, followed by many more, the National Protection Campaign spreading like wildfire. In May 1916, Yuan Shikai was forced to formally renounce monarchy, and later died of illness – excoriated by public opinion. After Yuan’s death, the Northern warlords fragmented into several cliques and the nation was carved up into a number of separate regimes by rival warlords courting patronage from imperialist powers. Successive years of turf wars among warlords made life impossible for the people. In July, 1917, Sun Yat-sen left Shanghai and allied with the Southwestern warlords to safeguard the Provisional Constitution of the Republic of China and oppose the autocratic rule of the Northern warlords. On September 21, Sun announced the founding of the Military Government of the ROC in Guangzhou, and assumed the post of Generalissimo, forming a south-north confrontation against the Government of Northern Warlords. However, within a year, the Southwestern warlords betrayed the Generalissimo, tempted by the carrot interest and coerced by the stick of threatened force that the Northern warlords wielded. This led to the failure of the Constitution Protection Movement. Sun Yat-sen was forced to resign as Generalissimo and left Guangzhou. He settled down in Shanghai producing scholarly works, including The Fundamental Knowledge in Democracy, The Doctrines of Sun Wen, and The Industrial Development Plan, which completed the Three Principles of the People (Nationalism, Democracy and the People’s Livelihood) that he had initiated in 1905. The gist of the Principle of Nationalism was expanded from opposing the feudal rule of the Qing Dynasty (1644-1911) to achieving unity of all ethnic groups on an equal footing and resisting foreign aggression and oppression; the meaning of the Principle of Democracy was extended from the republican and representative system practiced by the US, France and Britain to the direct democracy system of Switzerland – election, reconsideration, legislation and dismissal; the Principle of People’s Livelihood went further than equalization of landownership to control of capital, including bringing rail, mining, forestry, water conservancy and other large-scale industries under state management. 53

Socialism in China

Besides writing scholarly works, Sun Yat-sen paid close attention to China’s New Culture Movement and May Fourth Movement while studying the experiences of the October Revolution of Russia. Heard on the success of the Russian revolution in the winter of 1917, the following summer, Sun entrusted some overseas Chinese nationals in America with a message of greetings to Vladimir Lenin and his Soviet regime, saying: “The Chinese Revolutionary Party expresses deep admiration for the arduous struggle of the Russian revolutionaries, and will readily join hands with them.” Lenin praised this message as “dawn in the East”, and wrote a letter to Sun Yat-sen, “the leader of the Chinese revolution.” While in exile in London during 1896-1899, Sun Yat-sen had studied various socialist theories in Europe, and his socialist ideas started to emerge. When he returned to China and launched the Revolution of 1911 that led to the birth of the ROC, he advocated socialism. In his speech at the welcome party of Shanghai Chinese Industrial Development Federation held in April, 1912, he said, “We aim at developing national industry and practicing the Principle of the People’s Livelihood, with socialism as the ultimate objective.” In May, 1914, he said in the Letter to the International Socialist Bureau, “My fellow comrades, I call on you to make China the first socialist country in the world.” However, he later became doubtful about the communism practiced in Soviet Russia, and assumed it could not be achieved in China at the time. He believed that his Three Principles of the People, perpetuating and developing the essence of Chinese traditional thinking, were fully inclusive of communism; the Principle of the People’s Livelihood was exactly socialism; and the banner of the Three Principles of the People covered all revolutionaries. Nevertheless, Sun Yat-sen remained admiring of the earnest spirit, meticulous structure, rigorous discipline and high combat effectiveness of the Soviet Russian Communists, the Soviet regime and its military. He was willing to learn from their organizational experiences, reorganize the KMT, found military schools and create revolutionary armies with their help. In October 1919, Sun Yat-sen made two important decisions. One was to reorganize the Chinese Revolutionary Party into the KMT, its political program aimed to consolidate republicanism and practice the Three Principles of the People. He enrolled young students dedicated to revolution to maintain 54

Chapter 3

During Chen Jiongming’s Mutiny, Sun Yat-sen Escapes Aboard the Yongfeng; Sun Decides to Ally with the Soviet Union and the CPC

the purity of the revolutionary party. The second was to “launch revolution again”, renounce the Northern and Southern congresses, corrupt bureaucrats, domineering warlords and troublesome politicians, and create a nation belonging to the entire people. But reorganization had a difficult start and turned out to be a slow process. Nor did it fundamentally change KMT’s problems of lax discipline and sloppy organization. Furthermore, provincial KMT branches were barely established. The first tasks in “launching revolution again” were to crush the Guangxi Clique warlords embedded in Guangdong and Guangxi provinces, and to conquer Guangdong so as to make it into the base for democratic revolution. Therefore, Sun Yat-sen had ordered Chen Jiongming, Commander-in-Chief of the Guangdong Army, a man he had trained and trusted, to lead his 20,000 soldiers in Fujian back to Guangdong, expel the local warlords and retrieve the entire Guangdong area. In April, 1921, the Grand Congress was convened in Guangzhou and elected Sun Yat-sen Grand President. He reestablished the ROC government in Guangdong. Later, the Guangdong Army conquered Guangxi in three months. Then, Sun Yat-sen ordered Chen Jiongming to launch the Northern Expedition, planning to ally with Duan Qirui and Zhang Zuolin to suppress the Zhili Clique warlords Cao Kun and Wu Peifu. But Chen held different political views and, against all expectations, was unwilling to dispatch his troops immediately. Chen Jiongming was Governor and Commander-in-Chief of Guangdong, holding regional military and political power in his hands. He did not agree with Sun Yat-sen’s haste to establish a united government, elect the president and launch the Northern Expedition. His approach was to first build Guangdong into a “model province” of democratic government, form an autonomous group with neighboring provinces then, once they were strong enough and the time was ripe, start the Northern Expedition, and unite the whole country. Chen’s disobedience sent Sun Yat-sen into a rage and he dismissed Chen from his posts. This intensified their conflict and led to Chen’s mutiny. As Sun Yat-sen was looking into the distance, absorbed in thought, a pair of gentle hands took his right arm. It was his wife, Soong Ching Ling. She was the daughter of Charlie Soong, an intimate friend, also a firm supporter of Sun Yat-sen. The couple had known each other since her childhood, and in 55

Socialism in China

1914, by then 21, Ching Ling had replaced her elder sister Soong Ai-ling as the English-language secretary of Sun Yat-sen. They fell in love at work and married the next year. At the critical moment of Chen’s attacks on the Presidential Palace and Yuexiu Mansion, Soong Ching Ling persuaded Sun Yat-sen to retreat from their residence first, she herself escaped later with the help of the armed escort. Soong Ching Ling asked gently, “Sir, what’s on your mind?” Sun Yat-sen looked at her face lovingly and sighed, “I can’t bear to think of the past. Let it lie. But ever since we married you’ve been with me fleeing from pillar to post, enduring guns and bullets, without respite. I feel so sorry that you had such a hard time.” “How so? Living with you and serving a great historical cause together is the greatest blessing of my life.” She rested her head on his shoulder. Sun Yat-sen said in a low voice, “China’s greatest peril lies in the warlords contending for dominance. The Northern and Southern warlords are birds of a feather: none can be trusted for achieving the national revolution. We must have our own army. I was counting on the Guangdong Army, planning to transfer Deng Keng, Xu Chongzhi and other KMT military talents to lead it, bring the entire Guangdong Army into the KMT, provide it with the best equipment, and make it the main force of the revolution. I had never expected Chen Jiongming would turn against me.” Soong Ching Ling urged, “Forget him. He will not be a problem.” Sun Yat-sen sighed, “How can I let go of this? He has been my follower for years, a subordinate I relied on heavily. He joined the Tong Meng Hui in 1909, took part in the Huanghuagang Uprising in 1911, and was appointed Commander-in-Chief of the Guangdong Army after the Revolution of 1911. When garrisoned in Fujian and as Guangdong Governor, he was keen on democratic reform and that differentiated him from other warlords. I trusted him as a reliable colleague, but he meant to put me to death. It’s true what they say: ‘Misfortunes befall a household from within.’ Since founding the Revive China Society, I have striven arduously for nearly three decades. But of all the dicing with death, of all the twists and turns, this is the most grievous blow I have ever suffered. I blame myself for trusting the wrong person.” 56

Chapter 3

During Chen Jiongming’s Mutiny, Sun Yat-sen Escapes Aboard the Yongfeng; Sun Decides to Ally with the Soviet Union and the CPC

Soong Ching Ling nodded, “I still tremble at the thought of what happened the other day. I can’t imagine the consequences if Zhimian (Sun’s secretary) hadn’t taken you away from the Presidential Palace. And if not for the escort of Xiyi (Ye Ting, the then battalion commander of the armed escort for the president), Xue Yue and Ma Xiang, I’d have had no chance to escape and see you again.” Sun Yat-sen took her gently by the shoulders and said, “Dearest, it’s over now. We’ll get to Shanghai tomorrow, and everything will get better. Let’s take a rest.” They went into the cabin hand in hand. At the point that Sun Yat-sen was plagued by internal and external troubles, the CPC and the Comintern reached out a timely helping hand. Soon after Chen Jiongming’s mutiny, Chen Duxiu announced openly, “The CPC will not change its stand on cooperating with Mr. Sun Yat-sen because of his temporary reverse.” He also ordered the Party’s Guangzhou branch to break off relations with Chen Jiongming. The Comintern Representative in China also articulated his support for Sun Yat-sen and wished him success. The Soviet government made a public announcement, promising financial support for Sun. In Shanghai Chen Duxiu, Li Dazhao and the Comintern Representative beat a path to Sun’s door and conveyed their greetings and support, discussed about KMT-CPC cooperation and China-Russia relations, which was great consolation to Sun Yat-sen. The Chen mutiny made Sun Yat-sen determined to reorganize the KMT, and soon after reaching Shanghai, Sun started to reshape it into a revolutionary vanguard organization to serve fundamental social reform. He called a meeting of the backbone KMT members in Shanghai to discuss plans for improving administration of party affairs. He designated nine people to form a plan drafting committee, among them Chen Duxiu, who had joined the KMT in his own name. On January 1, 1923, Sun Yat-sen published the “Declaration of the Chinese Nationalist Party” in the supplement to Times of the Republic of China. It took the Three Principles of the People as the fundamental state principle, the Five-Branch Constitution (administration, legislation, jurisdiction, examination and supervision) as the institutional principle, redefined the Three Principles of the People and took it as the basis for formulating new political programs; 57

Socialism in China

put greater emphasis on anti-imperialism and anti-feudalism, and set forth the policies of “alliance with Russia, cooperation with the Communist Party and assistance to peasants and workers.” His Three Principles of the People found full expression in these propositions as they were “following the trend of the world and fulfilling the need of the people.” The next day, Sun Yat-sen issued the charter of the KMT and its program, appointed department heads at the KMT headquarters, and began restructuring the party. On January 22, 1923, the Soviet ambassador to China Adolph Joffe flew from Beijing to Shanghai on the pretext of convalescing. There he held a secret dialogue with Sun Yat-sen, signed a declaration and reached an agreement that “China’s top priority is to realize national unity and independence.” This declaration strengthened Sun’s resolve to ally with the Soviet Union and cooperate with the Communists, and inspired him to reorganize the KMT along the organizational lines of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. This coincided with changes in the war situation in Guangdong. In October, 1922, Sun Yat-sen reorganized the Northern Expedition Army garrisoned in Fujian into the East Route Campaign Army, and appointed Xu Chongzhi as the Commander-in-Chief. In the winter of the same year, he contacted the Yunnan Army led by Yang Ximin and Zhu Peide stationed in Guangxi and the Guangxi Army led by Liu Zhenhuan. These he reorganized as the West Route Campaign Army. They advanced in a pincer movement on Chen Jiongming’s troops, forcing him to resign and withdraw to Huizhou. Thus Guangzhou was recovered, allowing Sun to return to the city, rebuild the Generalissimo’s Mansion, regain his power as Generalissimo, and spare no effort to wipe out Chen Jiongming’s forces and other rebel armies. With the Guangdong situation stabilized, Sun accelerated the reorganization process. On October 10, 1922, he presided over the KMT Party Affairs Conference in Guangzhou, pointing out three reasons why the KMT remained weak after the Revolution of 1911: firstly, dysfunctional organization of its central committee; secondly, loss of revolutionary spirit among the KMT members; thirdly, weak foundation of the KMT. He stressed the urgency of reshaping the party. In a speech on another occasion Sun said: “To achieve success in revolution, we should learn from the organization and training of the Russian Communist 58

Chapter 3

During Chen Jiongming’s Mutiny, Sun Yat-sen Escapes Aboard the Yongfeng; Sun Decides to Ally with the Soviet Union and the CPC

Party” since “Soviet Russia sets an example for how we should change.” Several days after the Guangzhou Conference, Sun Yatsen appointed Mikhail Borodin, the advisor on KMT reorganization sent by the Russian Communist Party, to take charge of the training of KMT Party affairs cadres, designated Liao Zhongkai, Wang Jingwei, Zhang Ji, Dai Jitao and Li Dazhao as mem-

Mikhail Markovich Borodin

bers of the reorganization committee, and appointed nine people including Hu Hanmin to form the KMT Provisional Central Committee to supervise and coordinate the reorganization preparation work. As Sun Yat-sen attended to the KMT reorganization himself, membership registration was finished in only two months; the local KMT headquarters and organizational system were established; reorganization plans were submitted for scrutiny and approval at the KMT national congress. While Sun Yat-sen was busy reorganiz-

Borodin’s appointment document

ing the KMT, the CPC pushed forward cooperation with the KMT at a faster rate. The necessity and importance of cooperating with the KMT was starkly underlined to the CPC with the February 7 Massacre of 1923. After the founding of the CPC, workers’ movements gained momentum. Between January 1922 and February 1923, over 180 strikes were held throughout Chins, involving more than 300,000 workers. The most massive and best known was the Beijing-Hankou Railway Workers’ Strike. In 1922, 16 stations in succession along the Beijing-Hankou Railway established labor unions (widely called workers’ clubs). The preparatory committee of Beijing-Hankou Railway Federation of Trade Unions decided to hold the 59

Socialism in China

founding conference of Beijing-Hankou Railway Federation of Trade Unions on February 1, 1923, in Zhengzhou. Wu Peifu, the leading warlord of the Zhili Clique, ordered his army and the police to stop the conference by surrounding the meeting place and to destroy the federation headquarters. The Federation mobilized over 20,000 workers along the 1,200-km-long Beijing-Hankou railway line to go on strike. On February 7, Wu Peifu sent armed troops and police to suppress the striking workers, shooting dead 52 of them, injuring more than 300, arresting and jailing over 40. More than 1,000 were fired and exiled. Around this time, the Hong Kong Seamen’s Strike, Anyuan Coal Miners’ and Railway Workers’ Strike and other strikes led by the CPC all failed. Apart from Hunan and Guangdong, labor unions throughout the country were suppressed and shut down by warlords. Workers’ movements were at their lowest ebb. Cruel reality dealt the Chinese Communists a heavy blow, forcing them to confront the fact that they were much weaker than the enemy. They realized they must ally with other anti-feudalist and anti-imperialist political parties, associations and social forces to achieve success in revolution. The Third CPC National Congress met between June 12-20, 1923, in a two-story building behind Dongshan Orphanage in Guangzhou. Based on the West Lake Meeting deliberations of August 1922, this congress put forward specific approaches for KMT-CPC cooperation and decided to establish a democratic united front. The Comintern representative to China, Henk Sneevliet, said at the meeting that Chinese labor movement (i.e., workers’ movement) was too weak; China only had the conditions to launch a national revolutionary movement rather than a socialist movement, so national and democratic revolution must be its major task; since the KMT represented national revolutionary movement, the CPC must assist with the KMT reorganization and enrolling KMT members from workers all over the country. He even put forward slogans like “all revolutionary work should be carried out by the KMT” and “all revolutionary work should rely on the KMT.” The first of these propositions were correct, as they conformed to Lenin’s thought that the proletariat in colonial and semi-colonial countries could cooperate with the bourgeoisie, and they accorded with the objective situation of China’s national revolution. But 60

Chapter 3

During Chen Jiongming’s Mutiny, Sun Yat-sen Escapes Aboard the Yongfeng; Sun Decides to Ally with the Soviet Union and the CPC

his slogans were wrong as they required the CPC to give up its independence and initiative in the national revolution and depend on the KMT completely. Chen Duxiu was conflicted about Sneevliet’s perception. In the two years since the founding of the CPC, the Comintern representative had proposed that the CPC should join the KMT and that all CPC members should acquire KMT individual membership; this time he required the CPC to help the KMT enroll members from among the workers and carry out all its revolutionary work through the KMT. Chen Duxiu disagreed with this profoundly and argued with Sneevliet many times at Party meetings. However, the Comintern ordered the CPC to follow this instruction, and at its Fourth Congress harshly criticized the CPC for not effectively implementing Comintern instructions. As a leader of the CPC which was a branch of the Comintern, Chen Duxiu had to abide by the principles and disciplines of the Communist Party and enforce Comintern directives despite his personal views. Besides, the February 7 Massacre and multiple failures of workers’ movements made him doubtful about the strength of the Communist Party and workers, so he accepted part of Sneevliet’s advice. At Sun Yatsen’s invitation and delegated by the CPC, Chen Duxiu had participated in the reorganization of the KMT and began to have more hope for the KMT. Therefore, at the Third CPC National Congress, he tried to persuade others to take Sneevliet’s advice. Zhang Guotao and Cai Hesen agreed that China’s major task of the time was the anti-feudalist and anti-imperialist national revolution, but given KMT’s performance to date they did not believe it represented national revolution. They proposed that the CPC should promote national revolution ideas among the populace, mobilize workers and peasants to commit to the national revolution, and only then proceed to apply its efforts to the KMT reorganization, or use other modes of joint movements to participate in national revolution; they were not in favor of the CPC and industrial workers joining and assisting the KMT, and objected to the CPC’s helping develop KMT membership among workers; they stressed that the CPC must maintain its independence and not hand over its leadership of the labor movement to the KMT. In a long speech Qu Qiubai spoke in favor of cooperation: “Our duty is to lead the proletariat to help the KMT to get rid of the bourgeois compromising 61

Socialism in China

policy. We should not be afraid of the growth of the bourgeoisie as the proletariat is also growing. The development of the KMT does not mean sacrificing the CPC. On the contrary, the CPC gets the opportunity for its own development. We have full opportunity to increase our strength in national revolution and follow the path of the Russian October Revolution.” Sneevliet appreciated Qu’s speech, and wrote to the Comintern after the congress, praising Qu Qiubai as the most outstanding Marxist among the Chinese Communists. Mao Zedong too expressed support for Sneevliet. Based on his experience of leading workers’ movement in Hunan and Jiangxi, he pointed out that the Chinese working class was small in number and weak in strength and maintained a low level of struggle, so it was rather difficult to lead the labor movement onto the political track; whereas, the petty bourgeoisie in China was politically active, and the KMT representing the bourgeoisie and the petty bourgeoisie had the vigor to lead the national democratic movement. Therefore, “we should not be afraid of joining the KMT.” Mao Zedong advanced a different theory; namely that the peasants had played the most important role in all revolution in China; peasants were the major force of all uprisings in the past dynasties; if the CPC could focus on peasants’ movements, it would not be difficult to create a favorable situation like the KMT had done in Guangdong. Mao Zedong was born to a peasant family in Hunan and later rose from obscurity in peasants’ movements. He had a keen eye for this, and had realized that in the semi-feudal and semi-colonial Chinese society, peasants were the most fundamental and significant force in social change. Even after long discussion, the representatives of the Third CPC National Congress did not reach an agreement. Under this circumstance, Chen Duxiu put to the vote his draft Deliberation on the National Movement and Issues Concerning National Revolution. It was adopted by majority vote – 21 for and 16 against. The resolution pointed out: the Party should “focus on national revolution” currently and cooperate with the KMT; CPC members should join the KMT and strive to expand the KMT organization to the whole country, so as to enroll all Chinese revolutionaries in the KMT; the CPC should maintain its own organization even after joining the KMT, and must recruit revolutionaries with real class consciousness from workers’ associations and KMT Leftwing members so as to expand its own organization. This resolution did raise 62

Chapter 3

During Chen Jiongming’s Mutiny, Sun Yat-sen Escapes Aboard the Yongfeng; Sun Decides to Ally with the Soviet Union and the CPC

the issue that the Party should maintain organizational independence even after joining the KMT, but it failed to arouse much notice within the CPC, especially among senior CPC members. The Third CPC National Congress elected Chen Duxiu, Mao Zedong, Luo Zhanglong, Cai Hesen and Tan Pingshan to form the CPC Central Bureau in charge of the daily work of the CPC Central Committee, Chen Duxiu as Chairman, Mao Zedong as Secretary and Luo Zhanglong as Accountant. It was the first time that Mao Zedong was included in the CPC central leadership. Half a year later, on January 20, 1924, the First KMT National Congress was convened in the assembly hall of Guangdong Higher Normal School (renamed Zhongshan University in July, 1926 in memory of Sun Yat-sen) in Guangzhou. The debate also focused on KMT-CPC cooperation. Of the 165 delegates, 23 were CPC members, accounting for one-seventh of the total. Sun Yat-sen was President, and Hu Hanmin, Wang Jingwei, Lin Sen, Xie Chi and Li Dazhao (member of both parties) were members of the Presidium. Tan Pingshan was Secretary of the CPC Delegation, and delivered a work report on behalf of the KMT Provisional Central Executive Committee. Sun Yat-sen’s sincerity about KMT-CPC cooperation found full expression in this arrangement. Chen Duxiu remained doubtful about KMT-CPC cooperation, so he politely declined to attend the First KMT National Congress. Sun Yat-sen made it clear in the opening remarks that the most important task of this congress was to reorganize the KMT and reform the country through its strength. He said passionately, “This is our first national congress since the founding of the Republic of China as well as since the birth of the revolutionary party…. From today on, we should restore the revolutionary spirit and reorganize our party, make it a powerful political party with a concrete political program, and reform the country through the strength of the political party.” The specific reorganization measures were included in the Declaration of the First National Congress of the KMT (hereinafter referred to as the Declaration) and Draft of the Constitution of the KMT were deliberated and adopted. Interestingly, the Declaration was drafted with the help of the Com63

Socialism in China

munists, being drafted by Borodin, the advisor from Soviet Russia. It was translated into Chinese by Qu Qiubai of the CPC, polished by Wang Jingwei, and reviewed by Sun Yat-sen. The Declaration (draft) gave new explanations to Sun Yat-sen’s Three Principles of the People. For example, the Principle of Nationalism was defined as, internationally, to achieve liberation of the Chinese nation and resist foreign aggression of the imperialist powers, while Site of the First KMT National Congress: Assembly Hall of Guangdong Higher Normal School

domestically, to ensure equality and oppose oppression among all ethnic groups; the Principle of Democracy stipulated that

the right to democracy and freedom should be enjoyed by the ordinary people and not be the monopoly of a minority group; the substance of the Principle of People’s Livelihood was equalization of land ownership and capital control – the state should give the land purchased from landlords to landless peasants, bring large enterprises in the field of bank, railway and shipping under state management, so as to prevent private capital from controlling the people’s livelihood. Clearly, the reinterpreted Three Principles of the People acquired new connotations and conformed to the basic principles of the CPC’s democratic revolution program, thus serving as the common program for KMT-CPC cooperation during the national revolution period. After Secretary-General Liu Yanzhi read out the draft of the Declaration, the attending representatives agreed to submit it to the nine-man committee including Hu Hanmin and Dai Jitao for examination. On the afternoon of January 21, Hu Hanmin and Dai Jitao reported back to the conference, noting dissenting voices about the Principle of People’s Livelihood. Some representatives objected to KMT-CPC cooperation, claiming that the Principle of People’s Livelihood and Communism were different principles, and the KMT and the CPC were different political parties, and this generated passionate argument. 64

Chapter 3

During Chen Jiongming’s Mutiny, Sun Yat-sen Escapes Aboard the Yongfeng; Sun Decides to Ally with the Soviet Union and the CPC

At this point Sun Yat-sen explained, “There is absolutely no conflict between communism and the Principle of People’s Livelihood: the difference is just one of scale. The Principle of People’s Livelihood covers socialism, communism and collectivism. As you get to understand the true meaning of the Principle of People’s Livelihood, the hidden misunderstandings and doubts will be dispelled.” Although Sun Yat-sen’s remarks were not a correct or comprehensive interpretation of socialism and communism, and actually included some misunderstandings, they were a forceful rebuttal to the KMT Right-wing members’ attempt to use the Principle of People’s Livelihood against communists and KMT-CPC cooperation. Indeed, though holding different political beliefs, the KMT and the CPC both held the aspiration of saving the nation and the people. During the democratic revolution period, they shared common ground in revolutionary theories, policies and objectives, thus should and could join hands to fight against feudalism and imperialism, strive for national independence, and bring about democracy and republicism. Suddenly, on the morning of January 25, came the news that Lenin had passed away. Sun Yat-sen hurried to the conference, where, deeply grieving, he delivered a speech and invited Borodin to talk about Lenin’s life and achievements. A month later, the KMT held a mourning ceremony, at which Sun Yatsen presented an elegiac couplet with the words “Friend of China, Mentor of the People,” and delivered a memorial speech: “From time immemorial, many leaders and scholars have emerged but failed to put their remarks and thoughts into practice. Only you, Lenin, is an exception. You have turned your propositions into reality, founded a new country, and pointed out the path of common struggle for us all. I will follow your footsteps… You will forever live in the hearts of the oppressed.” On January 28, after three days of mourning for Lenin, the session resumed, so too did arguments over the KMT Constitution. The remarks of Fang Ruilin, representative of Guangzhou Special District, triggered intense debate. He proposed to revise the KMT Constitution, adding the stipulation that KMT members should not join other political parties. This proposal was obviously against CPC members joining the KMT. Fang Ruilin’s proposal had a complicated background. Before the session, 65

Socialism in China

some KMT Right-wing members had written to Sun Yat-sen in the name of the Guangdong branch. They criticized the CPC’s joining the KMT as a plot, and suspected the Soviet Union’s motives in helping with KMT’s reorganization. The authors were secretly planning to found an organization in preparation for saving the KMT. Sun Yat-sen reproached them harshly, “If, out of fear of the CPC, you disapprove of our reorganization, you can quit the KMT!” Sun Yat-sen was in favor of the CPC members joining the KMT because he aspired to gather all revolutionaries under the banner of the Three Principles of the People, and enroll a batch of distinguished talents with firm revolutionary determination. Soong Ching Ling once asked him why the CPC needed to join the KMT, and he replied: “The KMT is in fatal decline and we need fresh blood to save it.” Sun was fully aware that the CPC, despite its short history and a limited membership, boasted a galaxy of talented people and was very influential among progressive youth. He valued the knowledge and character of Li Dazhao, Chen Duxiu, Tan Pingshan and Lin Boqu among other CPC members. Moreover, as he was trying to win military and financial aid from Soviet Russia, he needed to keep on good terms with the CPC. Liao Zhongkai and other KMT Left-wing members firmly supported Sun Yat-sen’s policy of “alliance with Russia and cooperation with the Communist Party” for the reorganization of the KMT. During the preparation for the First KMT National Congress, Liao said to his friends, “It has been over a decade since the founding of the Republic of China, but Sun Yat-sen’s Three Principles of the People remain unrealized. The problem obviously lies in our organization. I feel sorry that Dr. Sun’s lifetime of effort has not achieved his ideal, so I’m firmly behind the reorganization.” “I’m determined to do this for the nation and the KMT. I’m not afraid of anyone that objects, even if it costs me my life.” Unfortunately, his words came true one year later. During the First KMT National Congress, a dozen people, among them Lin Sen, Xie Chi, Deng Zeru, Huang Jirui and Fang Ruilin, initially planned to oppose cooperation with the CPC, but were intimidated by Sun Yat-sen’s resolute attitude, so did not sign or submit the proposal. There66

Chapter 3

During Chen Jiongming’s Mutiny, Sun Yat-sen Escapes Aboard the Yongfeng; Sun Decides to Ally with the Soviet Union and the CPC

fore, Fang Ruilin raised the proposal in his own name during a day when Sun was absent. Hu Hanmin asked if anyone supported Fang’s proposal. Unexpectedly, more than 10 people seconded the motion. According to the conference rules, this meant the proposal had to go to a general vote. At this critical moment, Li Dazhao stood up and requested to speak. Hu agreed, and Li Dazhao sternly read out the announcement of the CPC delegation, “Looking around China, we believe the KMT is the only revolutionary party that has a history, principles and leaders; only the KMT can be reformed into a great yet common national revolutionary party, and shoulder the responsibility of realizing national liberation, restoring democracy and ensuring people’s livelihood. Therefore, we join the KMT wholeheartedly. “We join the KMT to contribute to the party in the national revolution not in pursuit of our own interests or to profit from the KMT by stealth. Before joining the KMT, we had carried out thorough theoretical and practical research. President Sun Yat-sen has agreed to our organization remaining within the Third International. Therefore, that we join the KMT while maintaining our CPC membership is open and above-board, not a furtive conspiracy. Now that we have joined the KMT, we shall adhere to its political program and disciplines, and shall be punished if we fail. As the KMT has accepted us, there is no need to suspect us, because suspicion impedes KMT’s progress and must be eliminated during its reorganization.” Jiang Weifan then stood up to counter this argument, “As we have joined the one party, believe in its principles and abide by its constitution, we should pledge allegiance to that one and must not engage in other organizations.” Ye Chucang chimed in to support Li Dazhao’s declaration, “All those who join our Party, practice our beliefs and honor our constitution are our comrades.” In the agitated argument it looked as if the two sides might come to blows. Then, Wang Jingwei got to his feet and said reasonably rationally and impartially as Chairman of the Constitution Examination Committee, “Wu Zhihui, Li Shizeng and Zhang Ji used to believe in anarchism. Since we have admitted them to KMT membership, why can’t we approve the CPC to join us? Besides, our party constitution has special stipulations on punishment for violators of the party principles. So there is no cause to fuss about our members.” 67

Socialism in China

Li Xilian and Huang Jirui showed disagreement with his remarks, insisting on adding stipulations to the KMT Constitution which would forbid multiple party memberships for KMT members. At this point, Hu Hanmin as chairman of the conference turned to the senior KMT member Liao Zhongkai for help. Liao said unequivocally and sonorously: “I object to Mr. Fang’s proposal. Provided they have faith in our principles and are resolute to carry out revolution, there is absolutely no problem. Besides, we only admit those who join the KMT as individuals but not as a group. As long as they join the revolution with sincerity, nothing matters. Now the CPC members joining the KMT bring new vigor to our party. If you disapprove, please think very hard about your intention. They come to join us in the national revolution, not to hold us back.” Liao Zhongkai was a capable assistant of Sun Yat-sen and enjoyed high prestige in the KMT, so his remarks carried great weight in leading conference opinion. Hu Hanmin vacated the chair, asking Lin Sen to replace him while he delivered a speech himself. “I assume our concern is mainly the violation of our party principles and constitution. As there are already related stipulations in the KMT Constitution, it is unnecessary to add prohibitions for multiple party membership, and we can just reiterate our disciplines.” Mao Zedong noticed that things were moving in the CPC favor and that more debate might complicate the issue, so he wisely spoke up to cut in: “Mr. Chairman, I propose that the issue be submitted to the vote!” Hu Hanmin approved and announced, “Let us now take a vote. Those who agree that there is no need to add stipulation to the KMT Constitution of prohibiting KMT members to be other political parties and that we reiterate our party disciplines, please raise your hand.” As a majority raised their hands, the session passed the Constitution of the Nationalist Party of China. On the morning of January 30, Sun Yat-sen presided over the session which elected 41 members and alternate members of the KMT Central Executive Committee, 10 of whom were from the CPC: Li Dazhao, Tan Pingshan and Yu Shude as executive members; Shen Dingyi, Lin Boqu, Mao Zedong, Yu Fangzhou, Qu Qiubai, Han Linfu and Zhang Guotao as alternate executive members. 68

Chapter 3

During Chen Jiongming’s Mutiny, Sun Yat-sen Escapes Aboard the Yongfeng; Sun Decides to Ally with the Soviet Union and the CPC

KMT and CPC members in the Shanghai Executive Department of the KMT Central Committee. Third row: Mao Zedong (second left), Luo Zhanglong (fourth right), Yun Daiying (third right); front row: Deng Zhongxia (first left), Zhang Ji (fifth left), Hu Hanmin (fifth right), Wang Jingwei (fourth right), Xiang Jingyu (first right)

The First KMT National Congress closed on the afternoon of January 30, 1924, and the next day Sun Yat-sen hosted the First Plenary Session of the KMT Central Executive Committee. The session decided on Guangzhou for the office of the Central Executive Committee; elected Liao Zhongkai, Dai Jitao and Tan Pingshan as standing members of the Central Executive Committee; set up eight departments and a secretariat under the Central Executive Committee. CPC members Tan Pingshan and Lin Boqu were appointed Head of the Department of Organization and Head of the Department of Agriculture respectively. Through the joint efforts of Sun Yat-sen, Liao Zhongkai, Hu Hanmin, Chen Duxiu, Li Dazhao, Mao Zedong and Tan Pingshan, the First KMT National Congress laid the ideological and organizational foundation for cooperating with the CPC within the framework of the KMT. At that time, the KMT-CPC cooperation seemed assured, although later the two parties diverged and even resorted to war. But, the two parties did, all in all, reach consensus on pushing forward solidarity and cooperation in fighting against feudalism and imperialism. Hereafter, the national revolution entered a new period and surged forward with great momentum. 69

Socialism in China

As these lines put it: Striving perseveringly against repeated setbacks, Sun Yat-sen reorganized the KMT and founded a new army. Once the KMT allied with Soviet Russia and the CPC, The national revolution rolled on with full force. ੴϯੴᅦҌҊ๜ĭ ᇗ೾ᆤ֜ࢁྕळh ৻‫ش‬ೀ‫่޿ܓ‬ၼĭ ‫ڌ‬৊‫ׁ׶‬೩ҟᄑh So just how did the two parties join hands to take on the historical duty of fighting feudalism and imperialism? To know what followed, turn to the next chapter.

70

Chapter 4

The United Front Founded, the National Revolution Rolls On; Sun Yat-sen Dies but His Legacy Continues

So, the CPC and the KMT decided to jointly shoulder the historic mission of promoting national revolution, achieving national independence and building a democratic republic. From the lessons of national revolution over the previous 20-odd years, Dr. Sun Yat-sen became painfully aware of the extreme importance of building a political party with revolutionary spirit and strict discipline. He put forward the New Three Principles of the People which consisted of alliance with Russia, cooperation with the Communist Party and assistance to peasants and workers. Having reorganized the KMT as mentored by Russia, Sun then invested all his attention and enthusiasm into drumming up support from the Soviets, establishing a military academy jointly with the CPC to train military personnel and build a new revolutionary army. Sun’s efforts started with the First KMT National Congress. On January 24, he instructed the formation of a military academy preparatory committee and appointed Chiang Kai-shek as committee chairman. Changzhou Island, where the academy was located, covers an area of more than 20 sq km. It lies 20 km offshore from the Whampoa (Huangpu) dock in the Zhujiang River estuary in east Guangzhou, and has a village called Whampoa Village, so it was also called Whampoa Island. The academy, though officially named the Kuomintang Army Officer Academy1, is often referred to as the Whampoa Military Academy in history.

1

The academy was renamed as the Central Military and Political School by the KMT Central Military Commission on January 12, 1926.

71

Socialism in China

Prior to that, Chiang had been sent by Sun as head of a KMT military delegation to Moscow to study the Soviet political and military systems and discuss the details of Soviet support for building the military academy. Chiang was also asked to come up with a detailed plan for academy building based on the Moscow discussions. Who was Chiang Kai-shek? Why was he the apple of Sun’s eye and entrusted with such an important position? Chiang Kai-shek (in Mandarin, Jiang Jieshi or Jiang Zhongzheng), was born in Xikou Town in Fenghua of Zhejiang Province on October 31, 1887. At the age of 20, he left China for Tokyo Shinbo Gakko, an imperial Japanese army academy preparatory school for Chinese students, where he befriended fellow Zhejiang native Chen Qimei (aka Chen Yingshi). Chen was an intimate friend and important assistant of Sun Yat-sen, and a founder of the Tong Meng Hui, the precursor to the KMT formed by Dr. Sun and others in Tokyo in 1905. Chen brought Chiang into the Tong Meng Hui and introduced him to Sun Yat-sen. Later, Chiang followed Chen in the Revolution of 1911 and the struggle against Yuan Shikai’s restoration of monarchy, and thus became Chen’s favorite follower. Sun Yat-sen cherished a deep friendship with Chen Qimei, and for this reason was favorably inclined toward Chiang Kai-shek. After his mentor Chen was assassinated in 1916, Chiang began to contact Sun directly. Given the shortage of military personnel in the Tong Meng Hui and the later KMT, and Chiang’s acquisition of military skills in Japan, he gradually won Sun’s trust. On the eve of Chen Jiongming’s mutiny on June 16, 1923, Sun had telegraphed Chiang Kai-shek who was in Shanghai at the time: “Guangdong in imminent danger. No one is in charge of military. At all costs come Chiang Kai-shek, first commandant of Whampoa Military Academy

72

help. Take the first steamer. Await arrival.” Unable to fathom the politi-

Chapter 4

The United Front Founded, the National Revolution Rolls On; Sun Yat-sen Dies but His Legacy Continues

cal situation in Guangdong, Chiang was reluctant to go. After Chen Jiongming launched the mutiny, Sun sent a further telegraph on June 18: “Emergency! Get here soonest.” At the time Chiang was in his hometown Xikou, observing mourning for his mother. He settled in his wife and two sons, left for Guangzhou on June 25 and four days later boarded the warship Yongfeng and came to rescue Sun Yatsen. Sun was just overjoyed and told foreign journalists: “Mr. Chiang alone is like having 20,000 reinforcements.” Chiang accompanied Sun on the warship for 42 days, helped Sun deal with the enemy, saw through several conspiracies and finally got him out of the jaws of danger. With little hope of outside help, Chiang followed Sun to Shanghai. The incident further earned Chiang the trust of Dr. Sun Yat-sen. Previously, Sun had planned to put Xu Chongzhi in charge of the military academy preparations, but Xu was too busy managing the military affairs of the entire Guangdong Army; other KMT members who were familiar with military affairs were old warlords, so Sun finally opted for Chiang. During his fact finding visit to the Soviet Union, Chiang was invited to deliver a speech at the Presidium meeting of the Comintern Executive Committee. At this meeting, he said that Russia, as a world revolutionary base, should help to complete China’s revolution; after the German and Chinese revolutions triumphed, Russia, Germany and China would fight against world capitalism in alliance, accomplish world revolution and eliminate capitalism. It would not be a difficult task. Chiang’s speech brought the house down and earned him the trust of the Comintern. At the invitation of Sun and the National Revolutionary Government in Guangzhou, an advisory group of 50 military experts was sent by the Soviet Union to help build the Whampoa Military Academy. But less than one month after Chiang Kai-shek was appointed as chairman of the preparatory committee, he submitted his resignation to the KMT Central Committee and left Guangzhou for Shanghai without prior approval, saying that he had no idea where to get the funds and citing interference in performing his duties. Experts later pointed out that Chiang’s resignation was due to his dissatisfaction with Sun’s policy of “alliance with Russia, cooperation with the Communist 73

Socialism in China

Party,” plus his belief that Sun did not trust him fully, having appointed him only as chairman of the military academy preparatory committee rather than as academy’s first commandant. After Chiang’s resignation, Sun Yat-sen appointed Liao Zhongkai as acting chairman of the preparatory committee. Liao completed the preparatory work with the help of KMT Leftists Deng Yanda and Ye Jianying, and urged Chiang to return to Guangzhou. When the school was about to open, Chiang returned and became the first commandant of the academy. Liao himself transferred to the post of KMT representative to the academy. Sun took the job of academy Premier. The directorate of the academy, composed of the three of them, was directly under the leadership of the KMT Central Executive Committee. Whampoa Island with its rolling hills and luxuriant vegetation was transformed to a different scene on June 16, 1924: banners and flags fluttered, gongs and drums resounded as 500 young students in new military uniforms stood in square formation in the middle of the drill ground. Sun Yat-sen delivered an inaugural speech from the platform, with Liao Zhongkai, Chiang Kai-shek and Soong Ching Ling standing alongside. Sun, in light gray Chinese tunic suit, gestured as he made his impassioned address: “Chi-

Sun Yat-sen and others at the inauguration of Whampoa Military Academy

74

Chapter 4

The United Front Founded, the National Revolution Rolls On; Sun Yat-sen Dies but His Legacy Continues

na’s revolution in the past 13 years has been a total failure. One of the important reasons was that the revolutionary struggle was waged by the revolutionary parties alone without the struggle by the revolutionary armies. The purpose of building this military academy is to rebuild the revolutionary cause, and to set up a revolutionary army based on the students of this academy, so as to save China from peril.” The audience erupted into applause. Thus was born the Whampoa Military Academy, later to play a famous role in modern Chinese history. Liao Zhongkai, KMT Representative

A paired couplet hung either side of the to Whampoa Military Academy academy gate: “Those in pursuit of power

and money go elsewhere; cowards and weaklings do not enter!” The horizontal board said: “Come, all revolutionaries!” Jointly built by the KMT and the CPC, the academy learned from Russian military academies and attached equal importance to military and politics. Its education policy was embodied in instructor assignment, its curriculum and selection of teaching materials. The purpose of the academy was to cultivate revolutionary military talents rather than professional army officers – the students were taught not only how to shoot but whom to shoot. This is the most striking difference between the Whampoa Military Academy and other military colleges. The Soviet government provided great support to the Whampoa Military Academy by sending a group of military instructors, allocating 2-million-yuan funds, 8,000 rifles, 2 million bullets and a batch of munitions. Since the academy was jointly founded by the KMT and the CPC the political work was mainly presided over by Communists. They held most of the posts in the Political Department – from director, deputy director, secretary to section chief and political instructor. Xiong Xiong, Nie Rongzhen, Yun Daiying, Xiao Chunü and Yu Shude successively served as director, secretary or instructor. Some 10 percent of the first student intake were Communist or members of the Communist Youth League. 75

Socialism in China

In early August 1924, Zhou Enlai was back to China from France and served in the CPC Guangdong District Committee, and later took office as director of the Political Department of the Whampoa Military Academy at the invitation of Liao Zhongkai. The 26-year-old Zhou, who was learned, energetic, sincere and diligent, soon won the respect and support of the faculty and students. He established a political system, invited leaders of the two parties and celebrities to lecture, and he himself gave well received lectures. The faculty and students, no matter Leftists or Rightists, liked Zhou’s lectures and respected his character, knowledge and brilliance. It was not long after Sun had built a revolutionary army, the backbone of which was the faculty and students of Whampoa. The teachers and students formed the 1st and 2nd training regiments, which expanded to three divisions and nine regiments, and were further reorganized into the First Army of the National Revolutionary Army (NRA) after the founding of the National Government in Guangzhou in 1925. Chiang Kai-shek was the army commander, Wang Jingwei the KMT representative, and Zhou Enlai the director of the political department and concurrently CPC representative to the First Division. Most posts of party representatives to the divisions, regiments, battalions and companies were held by Communists. The second, third, fourth and fifth armies of the NRA were reorganized from the Hunan, Yunnan, Guangdong and Fujian armies respectively, and the posts of party representatives at various levels and political department directors were mostly held by Communist Party members. After the founding of Whampoa Military Academy, the NRA and the National Government, Sun started planning to pacify and reunify the entire Guangdong Province and make Guangdong the base of national revolution. At that time the newly-established National Government could not control all of Guangdong, let alone other provinces in the nation. East Guangdong was under warlord Chen Jiongming’s control and south Guangdong was occupied by warlord Deng Benyin. To eliminate warlord forces and reunify the province, the National Government decided to launch an expedition to the east on September 1, 1925. Chiang Kai-shek, Wang Jingwei and Zhou Enlai led an eastern expeditionary 76

Chapter 4

The United Front Founded, the National Revolution Rolls On; Sun Yat-sen Dies but His Legacy Continues

army of more than 30,000 soldiers to east Guangdong by three routes. The Canton1-Hong Kong Strike Committee organized 3,500 workers to form a transport team for the expedition, and workers and peasants in east Guangdong also got organized to help the incoming troops. The training regiments of the Whampoa Military Academy fought in the van and swept away all obstacles. Chiang Kai-shek had a narrow escape in Huayang Town. A part of eastern expeditionary army under his command was encircled and utterly routed by the troops of Lin Hu, a subordinate of Chen Jiongming. The headquarters staff all fled for their lives, and suddenly Chiang was in mortal danger. But then Chen Geng, company commander of the guards, a first-term student of the Whampoa Military Academy and Communist Party member, rushed to Chiang, stooped down and hauled Chiang onto his back. The 167 cm-tall Chen carried the 180 cm-tall Chiang more than 10 km, making straight for the river. Having found a boat for Chiang, Chen Geng remained on the bank directing the troops to block the enemy, and covering Chiang’s escape. How brave and resourceful Chen Geng was! After more than a month of tough fighting, the eastern expeditionary army annihilated the forces of Chen Jiongming, who had occupied the East River and threatened the Guangzhou National Government for years. It soon directed its attention to the south. Deng Benyin, then occupying southeast Guangdong, nearly half of the territory of the province, had originally served under Chen Jiongming. After splitting from Chen, Deng scraped together some despotic landlords, militias and bandits in southeast Guangdong and Hainan Island. In collusion with Chen, the Government of Northern Warlords and imperialists, he played the bully in areas under his occupation and fought against the National Government in Guangdong. Led by Zhu Peide, the southern expedition army fought its way south by four routes. With the support of the transportation and publicity teams, composed of thousands of Canton-Hong Kong Strike workers, the army wiped out more than 28,000 enemy soldiers – the entire Deng army – within three 1

Referring to Guangzhou. – Ed.

77

Socialism in China

months. Only Deng himself and a few of his trusted fellows fled to Hainan Island by boat. In the first KMT-CPC cooperation period, the NRA gained a complete victory in the eastern and southern expeditions, unified Guangdong, consolidated and expanded the birthplace and rear area of the national revolution. Another product of the first KMT-CPC cooperation was the establishment of a united front, which resulted in the rise of workers’ and peasants’ movements and a high tide of anti-imperialist and anti-feudal democratic movement across the country. Guangzhou workers took the lead. On May 1, 1924, more than 160 representatives of over 100,000 workers in the city gathered at the Taiping Theatre and established trade unions and a federation of workers’ unions, with Liao Zhongkai as president of the federation. Sun Yat-sen delivered a speech calling on Chinese workers to awake, organize, and shoulder the responsibility along with intellectuals, peasants and businessmen to build a country based on the Three Principles of the People and Five-Power Constitution. After the meeting, more than 300 young, progressive and athletic workers were selected to form a “labor army” and receive military training in the Whampoa Military Academy. The next year, the army led by the CPC was renamed “worker’s pickets” and became a strong force in labor movements. In early July 1924, the British and French imperialists issued a new police law in their concessions of Shamian Island in Guangzhou City, formerly known as Shameen Island, imposing many discriminatory and humiliating regulations against Chinese people. The imperialists even erected a board reading “Chinese and dogs not admitted” at the entrance to the concessions. The CPC Guangzhou Prefectural Committee and the newly-built Guangzhou Federation of Workers’ Unions mobilized more than 3,000 workers in Shamian to call a strike, which was supported by the army and political circles, trade unions and other people’s organizations in Guangzhou. At the end of the 32day strike, Shamian was covered with piles of rubbish. The British and French imperialists were finally forced to rescind the preposterous new law and admit that Chinese and foreigners were equal. 78

Chapter 4

The United Front Founded, the National Revolution Rolls On; Sun Yat-sen Dies but His Legacy Continues

The triumph of the Shamian Strike inspired the Chinese people’s fighting spirit against imperialists. It marked the beginning of a new spate of anti-imperialist and anti-warlord labor movements in China. The strike was followed by many more: mobilized by the newly-established All-China Federation of Railway Workers’ Unions, railway workers launched several strikes; Beijing trolleybus workers, printers, textile workers, paper mill workers, blacksmiths and masons established trade unions and went on strike; more than 15,000 workers in 14 Shanghai silk mills held a general strike; more than 2,000 workers of Nanyang Brothers Tobacco Company withdrew their labor; strikes of various sizes were held by workers in Tangshan cotton mills, Fushun coal mines, Hunan Xiangtan manganese mines, Wuhan’s Jiujiang port and Suzhou weaving industry as well as salt producers in Zhejiang’s Yuyao and rickshaw pullers in Hankou. Those strikes were directed against imperialist powers in China and most won positive results. Against this backdrop, the Second National Labor Congress was held in Guangzhou in May 1925. The congress decided to establish the All-China Federation of Trade Unions, with CPC members Lin Weimin and Liu Shaoqi as chairman and vice chairman respectively. Under the leadership of the federation, China’s labor movements surged to a high tide, and the waiting powder keg exploded when British police officers in Shanghai’s International Settlement suppressed and shot striking workers. On May 15, workers in Shanghai No.8 Cotton Mill, a Japanese-owned mill, went on strike to protest against the unfair dismissal of Chinese workers. The Japanese foremen shot dead a demonstrator and key trade unionist Ku Chenhung, and injured a dozen more, which enraged workers, students and all walks of life in the city. On May 30, college students and workers entered the Shanghai International Settlement to deliver speeches and demonstrate. The chief of the Settlement Police, Commissioner K.J. McEuen and Inspector Everson ordered to shoot into the unarmed crowd, killing 13 workers and students at the scene and seriously injuring a dozen demonstrators, with many others wounded. It became known as the May 30 Massacre. That same night, Chen Duxiu presided over a CPC emergency meeting in Shanghai, which resolved to call on workers to go on strike, businessmen to cease trade and students to boycott classes in protest against the British imperialists’ atrocities. Chen Duxiu and other CPC leaders directed the strike, 79

Socialism in China

which escalated into an anti-imperialist movement by Shanghai citizens. The CPC Central Committee then decided to promote the movement to other big cities. Soon afterwards, unprecedented mass demonstrations, protest rallies and strikes took place in dozens of large and medium-sized cities including Beijing, Hankou, Changsha, Nanjing, Jinan, Tianjin, Baoding, Taiyuan, Shenyang and Guangzhou, and more than 600 towns and some rural areas. Overseas Chinese residing in dozens of other countries on five continents also expressed support for the anti-imperialist movement. These efforts converged into a powerful anti-imperialist current. Of all the demonstrations, rallies and strikes, the biggest and most farreaching was the Canton-Hong Kong General Strike. On June 23, more than 50,000 people from all circles in Guangzhou, Hong Kong and Macau attended a meeting at the East Drill Ground in Guangzhou. They unanimously approved 16 demands at the meeting including recovering all concessions and customs taken by imperialists and abolishing all unequal treaties. At 1:30 p.m., a procession of workers, peasants, students, businessmen, soldiers and citizens moved off, shouting “Down with imperialism!” and other slogans. The demonstrators were indignant but orderly. Zhou Enlai and Chen Yannian, son of Chen Duxiu and secretary of CPC Guangdong District Committee, headed the procession. At 2:40 p.m., when the demonstrators passed by Shakee (Shaji) near Shamian Island, British soldiers hiding behind sandbag fortifications suddenly opened fire, and 10 British, French and Portuguese warships anchored at Bai’etan on the Pearl River and Shakee port began to bombard the crowd. Caught off-guard, many of the unarmed demonstrators were shot and fell down bleeding. The massacre went on for an hour. A heavy rain happened to pour. The blood of hundreds of demonstrators, washed by the rain into the river, dyed it red. This bloody event became known as the “Shakee Massacre.” In memory of this anti-imperialist movement, the road where the massacre took place was renamed the 623 (i.e., 23 June) Road, and a monument was built, which still stands east of the road today. The massacre enraged the Chinese people. The Guangzhou National Government presented notes of protest to the consuls of Britain, France and Portugal. The CPC leaders convened the Congress of Canton-Hong Kong Striking Workers, and established the Canton-Hong Kong Strike Committee to lead 80

Chapter 4

The United Front Founded, the National Revolution Rolls On; Sun Yat-sen Dies but His Legacy Continues

the strike of more than 200,000 workers in Guangzhou and Hong Kong, with Communist members Su Zhaozheng as chairman and Deng Zhongxia as Party secretary. The strike, targeting the Hong Kong British authorities and British businessmen, lasted for 16 months, causing a daily economic loss of 1.8 million yuan to Britain and dealing a heavy blow to British imperialists. The fast growing workers’ movements were echoed by movements of peasants, which were starting up like wildfire throughout China. The first to rebel was Peng Pai in Haifeng and Lufeng counties of Guangdong Province. He initiated the biggest and most influential peasants’ movement since the founding of the Republic of China in 1912. Peng Pai, also honored as “Guangdong Peasant King,” was a native of Haifeng County. He was born into a big landlord family in 1896. Soon after finishing his studies in Japan and returning to China in 1921, he joined the Socialist Youth League of China (later called the Communist Youth League of China), was granted Party membership three years later, and joined the KMT with the approval of the CPC Central Committee. In July 1922, Peng Pai established China’s first peasant association in the township of Chishan Yue, which had recruited 100,000 members by the end of the year. The Haifeng County Peasant Association was founded on January 1, 1923 and was expanded with the addition of 250,000 peasant members from Haifeng, Lufeng and Huiyang counties to become the Huizhou Peasant Association that May. Under the leadership of Peng Pai, the association campaigned for lower rents and interest rates, and led anti-landlord boycotts, offsetting in motion a series of peasants’ movements in Guangdong and its surrounding provinces. After the First National Congress of the KMT held in 1924, Communist member Lin Boqu took office as director of the Peasant Department of the KMT Central Committee, with Peng Pai as department secretary. Peng was in charge of the routine work and was unstinting in promoting peasants’ movements in Guangdong and other southern provinces. In July 1924, Peng Pai proposed to the KMT Central Committee to set up the Guangdong Peasants’ Movement Training Institute (PMTI) to train young peasants to go out to educate the rural masses. Approved by the Central Committee, the institute was officially opened in Huizhou Association Headquarters at 53 Yuexiu 81

Socialism in China

South Road in Guangzhou, with Peng Pai as director for the first term. Most of the lecturers including Tan Pingshan, Ruan Xiaoxian and Luo Yiyuan were Communist members; 20 of the 38 first-intake students were Communist or Socialist Youth League members. The courses, which were very practical, covered the theory and practice of national revolutions and peasants’ movements, military training, and practice in rural areas. Sun himself attended PMTI’s first graduation ceremony. He put forward the principle of “land for the tiller” and emphasized that national revolution would not triumph without the participation of peasants. He also urged the students to shoulder the historical responsibility and go to countryside to mobilize the peasants to take part in the national revolution. Twenty-four of the students were appointed commissioners to places in Guangdong Province by the Peasant Department of KMT Central Committee to be engaged in peasants’ movements. They later became the backbone of peasants’ movements in corresponding areas. Between July 1924 and September 1926, six sessions were held in the PMTI. Mao Zedong was the director for the sixth and largest session. The 327 students came from 20 provinces, and its lecturers included such famous revolutionaries as Xiao Chunü, Zhou Enlai, Peng Pai, Li Lisan, Yun Daiying, Zhao

Site of the Guangdong Peasants’ Movement Training Institut

82

Chapter 4

The United Front Founded, the National Revolution Rolls On; Sun Yat-sen Dies but His Legacy Continues

Zixuan, Deng Zhongxia, Guo Moruo, and He Xiangning. The training was extended to three months and 25 courses. In the course “China’s Peasant Issue,” Mao Zedong taught the first part – “Analysis of China’s Social Classes.” Mao’s lectures were lively, interesting, easy to understand and well received thanks to his solid theoretical foundation, profound learning, familiarity with China’s countryside and peasants, and experience of organizing peasants’ movements. The lecturers instructed the students to read The Communist Manifesto, Marx’s Das Kapital for Beginners, The ABC of Communism, Social Evolutionism and other theoretical books, and organized the students to conduct special research in the countryside and write reports. The 772 graduates produced by the PMTI’s six sessions left for 20 provinces and districts. In their turn they mobilized peasants to join the national revolution, promoting peasants’ movements in Guangdong, Hunan, Hubei, Guangxi, Fujian, Zhejiang and Jiangsu, which soon reached their climax and gave effective support to the Guangdong National Government’s eastern, southern and northern expeditions. Workers and peasants took the lead in China’s anti-imperialist and anti-feudal movements: the two biggest of these were the 1924 movement to oppose imperialists and abrogate unequal treaties organized by the Anti-imperialist Movement Alliance in 1924 and the national congress movement. On May 31, 1924, Soviet Russia and the Beijing government officially signed the Sino-Soviet Agreement on the Outline on Solving the Outstanding Issues and its related documents. Soviet Russia offered to give up its privileges in China obtained in Tsarist times and rescind unequal treaties between the two countries. This was an astonishing move in China’s diplomatic history, and greatly encouraged the Chinese people’s national spirit and will to fight imperialists. On July 13, more than 50 parties and organizations, including the CPC, the Socialist Youth League of China and the KMT, founded the Antiimperialist Movement Alliance in Beijing. They selected 15 people to form the executive committee and Hu Egong, a Communist and congress member, as its chairman. The purpose of the Alliance was to abrogate all aggressive policies and unequal treaties imposed by imperialist countries and oppose all imperialist running dogs and traitors. Before long, anti-imperialist movement alliances were set up successively in Shanghai, Hunan, Tianjin, Wuhan, Jinan, 83

Socialism in China

Guangzhou, Qingdao, Taiyuan, Baoding, Jiangxi and Sichuan. The Beijing Anti-imperialist Movement Alliance proposed an Anti-imperialist Movement Week from September 3 to 9, marking September 7 (the date of signing of the Boxer Protocol) as a Day of Infamy. The proposal was supported by the alliances in other localities. They organized demonstrations and various publicity and protest activities. The slogans “down with imperialism” and “abrogate unequal treaties” were shouted across the land. Soon afterwards, the National Congress Movement was launched. It was an anti-warlord movement as well as an anti-imperialist movement. When the Second Zhili-Fengtian War broke out in the autumn of 1924, Feng Yuxiang, a pro-revolution Zhili general who was sick of warlordism, was in charge of defending Rehe against the Fengtian clique. He switched sides and launched a coup in Beijing on October 23, forcing President Cao Kun to cease fire and remove Wu Peifu from office. Caught between the hammer and the anvil, Wu Peifu was defeated in November, and the Zhili clique-controlled government was overthrown. To alleviate pressure from all sides after the Beijing Coup and to prevent Beijing political power from falling into the hands of the northeast warlord Zhang Zuolin, Feng Yuxiang reached out to Beiyang warlord Duan Qirui (Tuan Chi-jui) and Sun Yat-sen. He sent several telegraphs to Sun, inviting him to Beijing to discuss and take care of state affairs. Duan Qirui and Zhang Zuolin also wired Sun and expressed the same wish, for reasons of their own. Sun Yat-sen, having weighed pros and cons, decided to go to Beijing regardless of risks to his own safety. Before leaving Guangzhou on November 13, he delivered the Declaration before Going up to Beijing, and during his journey, he proposed a national congress for realizing China’s reunification and abolishing unequal treaties. Dr. Sun’s proposal was acclaimed by the CPC Central Committee. As early as in July 1923, the CPC Central Committee had issued “CPC Propositions on the Current Situation,” a document which was first to propose a national congress to negotiate on the current political situation. At the instigation of the CPC and KMT, national congress promotion societies were founded in various regions to counter the “Reconstruction Conference” proposed by the Duan Qirui administration. 84

Chapter 4

The United Front Founded, the National Revolution Rolls On; Sun Yat-sen Dies but His Legacy Continues

With the national congress movement and anti-imperialist and anti-feudal movements all thriving, the CPC convened its Fourth National Congress in Shanghai from January 11 to 22, 1925, to review CPC-KMT cooperation in the previous year and further promote the national revolution. Chen Duxiu presided over the congress and delivered a work report. In the report, resolution and declaration approved at the congress, Chen and the CPC made a correct analysis of the world’s revolutionary situation and its relationship with China’s national revolution, the role of different classes in Chinese society in the national revolutionary movement, and brought up for the first time the issue of leadership of the proletariat in the national revolutionary movement and worker-peasant alliance. They pointed out that China’s national revolutionary movement could only be victorious with the powerful participation and leadership of the proletariat and that the Chinese revolution needed the wide participation of workers, peasants and urban middle and petty bourgeoisie, of which peasants, accounting for 80 percent of the population, were “an important part” and the “natural allies of the working class.” The CPC also criticized both Left and Right tendencies in the united front, warning that the major risk lay in Right mistakes but Left mistakes should also be prevented. As regard the KMT, it decided to “expand and help its Leftists, criticize and win over its centrists, and stand rock solid against its Rightists” in CPC-KMT cooperation. The Fourth CPC National Congress tentatively explored a number of major issues including the nature, mission, target, motive power, leadership and prospects of China’s national revolution and drew a correct conclusion. Thus were laid solid ideological, theoretical and policy foundations for the arrival of high tide of revolution. Reverting to Sun Yat-sen’s northern tour: this lasted 49 days, during which time he stopped several times to make speeches. Out of “hospitality,” Japan invited Sun to visit the country, but while there the Japanese urged Duan Qirui to go to Beijing and take office as president. The day after Sun arrived in Japan, Duan hurriedly declared himself “interim president” of the Republic of China in Beijing, and convened the “Reconstruction Conference” attended by representatives of powerful warlords to divide the land. Sun had walked into Japan’s trap. 85

Socialism in China

On March 1, outraged by Duan’s usurpation of state power, the KMT, the CPC and other democratic parties and organizations jointly held the National Conference of the National Congress Promotion Society in Beijing. This onemonth conference, chaired by Gu Mengyu, and attended by representatives from 20 provinces and 120 regions, was broadly representative. CPC members Li Dazhao and KMT members such as Wang Jingwei, Lin Sen, and Xu Qian delivered speeches. The conference criticized the reactionary “Reconstruction Conference,” and put forward the basic principles of the national congress: establish a national government and the country’s fundamental laws; hold general elections and give every man and woman with an occupation the right to vote and to stand for election; abolish unequal treaties and retrieve tariff autonomy; fight for the freedom and independence of the Chinese nation; rally the whole county to wage war against the feudal warlords. The political propositions raised by the conference resonated throughout China and led to an anti-imperialist and anti-feudal upsurge across the land. But at this important juncture, a giant star fell from the sky. On March 12, 1925, Sun Yat-sen, pioneer of China’s democratic revolution, overthrower of China’s last feudal dynasty, and founding father of the Republic of China, died of gallbladder cancer in Beijing at the age of 59. The entire country wept for the loss of a great man, and mourning events were held in many places including Beijing and Guangzhou. More than 300,000 people came to pay their final respects to Sun in the mourning event held in Beijing. On the site was a huge elegiac couplet. The first line read: Subverter of feudal dictatorship, guider of revolution, and your greatness eclipses all Qin and Ming emperors. The second line read: Guardian of the Chinese nation in its weakness, fighter against imperialism, your spirit of equality and universal love shines with Lenin and Abraham Lincoln. A thought-provoking elegiac couplet written by poet Liu Yazi read: China’s Lenin and defender of justice and truthfulness, you were among the first in the world to work for the liberation of a weak nation; fighter against imperialism, you are gone now. Who will inherit your unfinished cause? Sun left a political will, which read: “For 40 years, I have devoted myself to the national revolution in pursuit of China’s freedom and equality. The revolution has not yet succeeded, and our comrades must continue fighting.” Sun 86

Chapter 4

The United Front Founded, the National Revolution Rolls On; Sun Yat-sen Dies but His Legacy Continues

left with China’s revolution unfinished, but who could carry on his cause? – as Liu Yazi asked. In the 20 years after Sun’s death, China’s revolution veered offtrack and experienced many changes and reverses, causing later generations to sigh for the loss of the great man. As Karl Marx’s maxim said “The critical weapon cannot replace the criticism of weapon.” Although the Duan Qirui administration met a barrage of criticism all over China by political parties, social groups and people’s rallies in the wake of the National Conference of the National Congress Promotion Society, the powerful reactionary warlords would by no means step down, and Duan clung to his post of “interim president” in Beijing. In the latter half of 1925, wars between warlords yet again plunged China into chaos. Sun Chuanfang, once the Zhili Clique’s military commander in Zhejiang Province, made himself general commander of the coalition force of the provinces of Zhejiang, Fujian, Jiangsu, Anhui and Jiangxi. He declared war on the Fengtian Clique, and Wu Peifu did likewise in Hankou. Zhang Zuolin, head of the Fengtian Clique, sent his general Guo Songling to join the war. However, Guo signed a secret treaty with Feng Yuxiang’s National Army to topple Duan Qirui, and turned against Zhang with his troops. Duan’s regime, supported by the Fengtian Clique, began to falter. In March 1926, an anti-imperialist and anti-warlord patriotic mass movement, triggered by an incident in Tianjin, led to the collapse of the Duan Qirui regime. At that time, a civil war was raging between the Fengtian Clique and the National Army stationed in Tianjin. On March 11, two Japanese warships entered the Dagu Port without permission. The National Army stationed at the artillery battery raised flag signals warning the Japanese ships to stop advancing, but to no avail. The Chinese army fired warning shots, but came under return artillery fire, which killed more than ten Chinese soldiers. The Chinese troops had to fight back and drove the Japanese ships out of the Dagu Port. The Chinese soldiers’ action in defense of sovereignty was justified and patriotic. However, the villain brought suit against the victim. After the incident, Japanese diplomat in China rounded up ministers of the eight signatory countries of the Boxer Protocol, and issued an ultimatum, demanding China to remove defense facilities at Dagu Port. Angered by the imperialist countries, more than 20,000 Chinese people, including students from more than 80 87

Socialism in China

schools and colleges in Beijing, and members of more than 140 social organizations, rallied at Tian’anmen Square on March 18 to protest the ultimatum and demand strong action from the Duan Qirui government. Unexpectedly, the warlord government opened fire on unarmed protesters in front of the government building, leaving 47 dead and more than 200 wounded. The great writer Lu Xun wrote an essay in memory of his fallen student Liu Hezhen and called March 18 the “darkest day since the founding of the Republic of China.” After the tragedy, the Duan Qirui government, condemned by the whole country, was toppled by the National Army and Zhili Clique. However, warlords were fickle. Wu Peifu, who had first united with Feng Yuxiang’s National Army against the Fengtian Clique, then collaborated with the latter to attack the National Army and drove it to Nankou. Northern China remained in the rule of the Zhili and Fengtian cliques. The March 18 Massacre, plus the duplicity and inconsistency of the warlords taught revolutionaries a lesson – the hope of revolution should not rest on one warlord toppling another: the feudal warlords must all be terminated before the revolution could succeed. Such lessons prompted the CPC and the KMT to join hands to wage the Northern Expedition. It was Sun Yat-sen’s dying wish to wage a Northern Expedition, unite China and found a united government of the people. But after his demise, the KMT plunged into factional struggle and ignored its founder’s wish. The CPC Central Committee convened a special meeting in February 1926, which concluded that the Guangdong National Government must wage war against the warlords in order to make the revolution successful. The CPC determined at the meeting that the major political task of the Party was to prepare for the Northern Expedition of the National Government, and decided to mobilize workers and peasants in Hunan, Hubei, Henan and Hebei, the provinces through which the expeditionary army would pass, so as to provide support. At that time, the revolutionary force was greatly outnumbered by that of the warlords. The former had a total of 330,000 people, 130,000 in Guangdong and Guangxi provinces, and 200,000 from General Feng Yuxiang’s northwest nationalist army. On the side of the warlords, the Fengtian Clique led by Zhang Zuolin in the Northeast had 350,000 troops at its disposal; the 88

Chapter 4

The United Front Founded, the National Revolution Rolls On; Sun Yat-sen Dies but His Legacy Continues

Wu Peifu, Sun Chuanfang and Zhang Zuolin

Zhili Clique warlord Wu Peifu in the north had 200,000; another Zhili Clique warlord Sun Chuanfang had 220,000. The Zhili and Fengtian cliques between them could command 770,000 troops. There were also some local warlords in Shanxi, Yunnan, Guizhou, and Sichuan provinces. Facing the strong enemy, General Vasili Blyukher (aka Galens), the Soviet general advisor to the Guangzhou National Government and one of Russia’s first five decorated marshals, advised the revolutionary army to concentrate its forces and take on the warlords one by one – first Wu Peifu, then Sun Chuanfang, and finally Zhang Zuolin. According to that military deployment, two brigades of Li Zongren’s 7th Army marched into Hunan Province in early May 1926 to assist Tang Shengzhi’s 8th Army in the fight against Wu Peifu. In late May 1926, the Guangzhou government dispatched the 10th Division and the 12th Division of the 4th Army, and Ye Ting’s independent regiment to fight in Hunan, in order to advance the Northern Expedition. Ye Ting’s independent regiment grew out of the “armored fleet,” that was founded by Zhou Enlai in Guangzhou as the first CPC-led military force. Leaders above company level of the 2,000man independent regiment were all CPC members. As the pioneer of the Fourth Army, the regiment won the Northern Expedition’s first great victory in Hunan, capturing Youxian County on June 5. The Guangzhou government approved the Northern Expedition plan the same day. The government decid89

Socialism in China

ed to first capture Hunan Province and Wuhan City, then seize Central China and reunify the whole country. On July 1, the National Government published the Declaration of the Northern Expedition, announcing its aims: eliminate the northern warlords, put an end to the rule of imperialism and feudal warlords in China, and found a united government of the people. On July 9, the national revolutionary army rallied in Guangzhou, and General Commander Chiang Kai-shek delivered a speech, pledging to undertake the Northern Expedition. The Northern Expedition Army dispatched its 4th, 7th and 8th armies to Hunan and Hubei provinces, making them the primary battle fields. The 4th Army, pioneered by Ye Ting’s independent regiment, was an invincible “iron army” of brave warriors. After its great victory in Youxian County, the Northern Expedition Army marched north, and captured Changsha, Pingjiang and Yueyang. On October 10, the 4th Army’s divisions under Chen Mingshu and Zhang Fakui, Ye Ting’s independent regiment, and the 8th Army’s 1st Division fought together to take Wuchang, capturing more than 12,000 defending troops, plus large quantities of weapons and ammunition. With glorious victories, the Northern Expedition Army marked the 15th anniversary of the Revolution of 1911 in Nanchang, birthplace of that revolution. By then the main force of Wu Peifu had been virtually eliminated, and the Northern Expedition won the decisive victory in the battlefields of Hunan and Hubei provinces. After the victories in Hunan and Hubei, Chiang Kai-shek himself led the army to open new frontlines in Jiangxi Province, and commanded the 2nd and 3rd armies in the decisive battle against warlord Sun Chuanfang. Chiang struck Jiangxi’s capital Nanchang three times and took Jiujiang and Nanchang. Although suffering heavy casualties, the Northern Expedition Army devastated Jiangxi’s warlords and forced them into retreat. The army then marched east, captured the entire Fujian Province, and advanced into Zhejiang Province. In January 1927, the Northern Expedition Army mobilized the main forces of eight armies to pursue Sun Chuanfang and captured the entire Zhejiang Province, Jiangsu’s captial Nanjing, and Anhui’s Wuhu City after arduous battles. With the Northern Expedition approaching Shanghai, CPC members Chen Duxiu, Zhou Enlai, Luo Yinong and Zhao Shiyan led a strike of 800,000 workers and the third armed uprising in the port city. After a 30-hour fierce battle, they captured Shanghai, and welcomed in the Northern Expedition Army. By then, the 90

Chapter 4

The United Front Founded, the National Revolution Rolls On; Sun Yat-sen Dies but His Legacy Continues

entire lower Yangtze region was occupied by the Northern Expedition Army. Supported by local workers and peasants, the Northern Expedition Army captured all or most of Hunan, Hubei, Jiangxi, Zhejiang, Anhui and Jiangsu provinces during the course of a bloody 10-month war since marching into battle in May 1926, and eliminated the main forces of warlords Wu Peifu and Sun Chuanfang. At the same time, Feng Yuxiang’s Northwest National Coalition Force waged war against the northern warlords, capturing Gansu and Shaanxi provinces, and fought in Henan Province in support of the revolutionary army in the South. The Northern Expedition had won the decisive victory by then, with two of the three biggest warlords in north China eliminated. The main force of the Northern Expedition Army then marched into Henan Province, and sandwiched Zhang Zuolin’s Fengtien Clique from the north and the south. A united China was within sight. Fate played a cruel joke, however. No sooner had the national revolutionary armies joined forces in Wuhan, captured Shanghai and Nanjing, and got ready for northward advancement, the KMT started to butcher its brother. The clique of Chiang Kai-shek and Wang Jingwei betrayed the three policies of “alliance with Russia, cooperation with the Communist Party and assistance to peasants and workers,” turned against allies who had shared foxholes with them, and slaughtered thousands of CPC members and revolutionaries. The Northern Expedition ended nowhere after the rupture of KMT-CPC cooperation, and the glorious national revolution ended in failure. As the poem goes: Northward the warriors march, With brothers up in arms. Burning pods to cook peas, the great cause thus destroyed, A bitter lesson going down in history. ᧐ఓТᆿऐၴѩĭ ྩ‫ׅ‬๥ྗफ़‫ࣉؖ‬h ᑑ‫؀‬ཕࡠ߶վ၄ĭ ᅺᅺൖࡳቈଇྗh What brought about this volte face? The next chapter tells the story. 91

Chapter 5

Chiang Kai-shek Launches Attacks on Communists in Shanghai; the CPC Realizes that Political Power Grows out of the Barrel of a Gun

Following consecutive victories of the Northern Expedition, China’s national revolution was on a successful roll as the tides of anti-imperialism and anti-feudalism converged. But all this time a hidden undercurrent was bubbling within the KMT, an anti-Communist paranoia that was bent on sabotaging bipartisan cooperation. Around the end of the First National Congress of the KMT, a group of KMT Right-wing members opposed to the policy of KMT-CPC cooperation had agitated to undermine bipartisan relations, provoking tensions between the two parties. On June 18, 1924, several members of the KMT’s Central Supervision Committee, including Zhang Ji, Xie Chi and Deng Zeru, proposed an impeachment motion against the Communist Party at the KMT Central Executive Committee, demanding that Communists be purged from the KMT. With the personal mediation of Sun Yat-sen and after a heated debate at the second plenum of the KMT’s First Congress, the KMT threw out the motion. But a shadow had fallen on the bipartisan relationship. In the summer of 1925, Dai Jitao, a member of the Standing Committee of the KMT Central Executive Committee and Publicity Minister, released his book The National Revolution and the KMT of China. This, with other articles of his, outlined systematic objections against communism and the “tolerance of Communists” policy. He accused the CPC of taking on the appearance of the KMT in order to further its own organization. He described it as “parasitic policy,” comparing it to the Monkey King’s strategy in fighting the Bull 92

Chapter 5

Chiang Kai-shek Launches Attacks on Communists in Shanghai; the CPC Realizes that Political Power Grows out of the Barrel of a Gun

Demon King by entering the King’s belly, and advocating that all members of the CPC and its youth league who had joined the KMT should break away from all other political parties and simply be members of the KMT. This was known as the “Dai Jitao Doctrine.” At this, the Party members counterattacked. In August, Xiao Chunü published the book The National Revolution and the Communists of China, listing facts to counter Dai Jitao’s aspersions. Chen Duxiu, Li Dazhao, Qu Qiubai, Mao Zedong, Yun Daiying and others also wrote to condemn the Dai Jitao Doctrine. The death of Sun Yat-sen set off a fierce internecine battle within the KMT as different factions vied for supremacy. The most powerful contenders for the chair were Hu Hanmin and Wang Jingwei. In their early years, both had studied in Japan, where they joined the Tong Meng Hui, founded by

Hu Hanmin

Wang Jingwei

Sun Yat-sen in 1905. Both had sat on the five-person presidium at the KMT’s first congress and were elected members of the Central Executive Committee. Wang had been entrusted to draft Sun Yat-sen’s will, while Hu had stood in for Sun as acting generalissimo and chair of Guangdong Government after Sun went to the North. Both were deeply trusted and held in high regard by Sun, and both had similar qualifications and capability. Wang won the first round as a Left-wing leader of the KMT, and was elected chair of the National Government Committee and the Military Committee. Unwilling to relinquish power, Hu tried to ally with the Right-wing members to counter Wang. Just at this juncture, the murder of Liao Zhongkai changed the situation dramatically. On the morning of August 20, 1925 the Left-wing leader Liao Zhongkai was shot dead at the entrance of the central party headquarters. He was a member of the KMT’s Central Standing Committee and the National Government Standing Committee. That same day, the National Government set up a commission of inspection into the murder: this included Zhu Depei, Chen Shuren, Gan Naiguang, 93

Socialism in China

Zhou Enlai, Chen Gongbo, Yue Sen, Wu Tiecheng, Chen Fumu and Li Fulin. The commission was to track down the mastermind behind the assassin’s hand, and assemble a judicial committee and special court. Soon a joint session of the KMT’s Central Executive Committee, National Government Committee and Military Committee took place. It was decided that Wang Jingwei, Chiang Kai-shek and Xu Chongzhi be given full power of the political, military and police departments and that they form a special commission in charge of investigating the Liao case and handle the political situation. Investigation indicated that Hu Hanmin’s cousin Hu Yisheng and his diehard follower Zhu Zhuowen, plus several commanders of the Guangdong Clique under Xu Chongzhi, were suspected of involvement. Seizing this opportunity, Wang and Chiang joined hands and forced Xu to resign as minister of the National Government’s military department. Xu was sent to Shanghai under escort and he abstained from politics ever after. As for Hu Hanmin, he was detained for questioning and later made to serve as ambassador in Soviet Russia. The investigation of the Liao murder delivered heavy blows to Xu and Hu, but it seriously damaged Wang Jingwei’s reputation too. Some top KMT officials believed that Wang took advantage of the situation so as to wipe out his political rivals. This sowed the seeds for the “Western Hills faction” incident that ensued. The Liao case hurt Hu Hanmin and Wang Jingwei both, and also inflicted heavy losses on the local force of Guangdong. Chiang Kai-shek turned out to be the sole winner, and began his rise to the core leadership of the KMT. On November 23, members of the KMT Central Executive Committee Xie Chi, Zou Lu and others summoned a meeting, which was attended by some members of the KMT Central Executive Committee and the Supervision Committee. It took place at the Temple of Azure Clouds (Biyun Temple) in the Western Hills of Beijing. The meeting lasted over 40 days, and is known as the “Western Hills Meeting” in Chinese history. The attendees took it upon themselves to pass a resolution in the name of the KMT Central Executive Committee, accusing Wang Jingwei, Hu Hanmin and Chiang Kai-shek of “allying with Russia and tolerating Communists” and undermining the KMT’s interests. They also called for withdrawing the power of the Guangzhou Central Executive Committee, suspending Wang Jingwei’s party membership for six 94

Chapter 5

Chiang Kai-shek Launches Attacks on Communists in Shanghai; the CPC Realizes that Political Power Grows out of the Barrel of a Gun

months and removing him from the Central Executive Committee. Lin Sen, Qin Zhen, Shi Qingyang, Zou Lu and Ye Chucang were appointed members of the Standing Committee of the KMT Central Executive Committee; to cancel membership of the KMT for CPC members; to remove Tan Pingshan and other CPC members from the Central Executive Committee and the alternate member lists; it also demanded to dismiss the Soviet adviser Borodin. Hu Hanmin, Chiang Kai-shek, and others denounced the Western Hills Meeting for this separatist act. In January 1926, the KMT held its Second National Congress in Guangzhou, condemning and punishing the “Western Hills faction” for its divisive actions. Xie Chi and Zou Lu were expelled from the party, and 12 others, including Ju Zheng and Shi Qingyang, were given disciplinary warnings. The meeting resumed the election of CPC members as Central Executive Committee members and alternate members, but slightly reduced the quota as compared to the first congress. At the second congress, Chiang Kai-shek appeared as a hero of the eastern expedition and a Leftist general. Handsomely cloaked and wearing high riding boots, he made a military report to the congress and, garnering the most votes, was elected a member of the Central Executive Committee. Chiang joined the nine-person Standing Committee, holding three key positions concurrently – member of the political committee, military committee and chief general of the National Revolutionary Army. The KMT’s second congress really formed a new Leftist party, administrative and military structure headed by Wang Jingwei and Chiang Kai-shek. Near the Guangzhou National Government, a couplet appeared on the gate of the First Park. The left-hand scroll read “little bird fills the ocean with gravels,” the right-hand scroll “small stones mend the heavens,” alluding to Wang Jingwei (Jingwei being a mythical Chinese bird) and Chiang Kai-shek (whose name means stones), respectively. However, none expected that Chiang would soon amaze Mikhail Borodin, the CPC and KMT Left-wing members by swiftly turning to a Rightist once he rose to the pinnacle of power. In March 1926, Ouyang Zhong, member of Sun Wen Society, composed of Rightist teachers and cadets of the Whampoa Military Academy, instructed the warship Zhongshan to stand by at the mouth of the Pearl River, saying the 95

Socialism in China

order came from Chiang Kai-shek. The warship drew closed to Whampoa Island, and the captain asked for further instructions. But Chiang denied giving orders to deploy the ship. The captain had no choice but sailed back to urban waters. As the Zhongshan was tricked away, members of the Sun Wen Society put about a rumor that the ship was going to bombard the Academy and kidnap Chiang. At this, Chiang ordered troops under his command to arrest the acting director of the naval division and CPC member Li Zhilong and a number of Communists at the Whampoa Military Academy. Imposing a curfew in Guangzhou and surrounding the CPC’s provincial Party headquarters and trade union, Chiang also forced the disarmament of the worker’s pickets. Closely following these events, he filed a motion to “settle the party affairs” at the KMT Central Executive Committee in early April. This was passed at the Second Plenum of the KMT Central Executive Committee on May 15: it ushered in a comprehensive disciplinary inspection, restriction and purge of Communists within the KMT’s party, administrative and military organs. In the wake of the Zhongshan Incident, Mao Zedong, Zhou Enlai, Li Fuchun, Chen Yannian and others strongly proposed a fight-back, only to be rejected by a Soviet Russian inspection group headed by Andrei Bubnov (member of the Russian Communist Party Central Committee and director of the Red Army’s General Political Department) in Guangzhou at the time. Chen Duxiu and the CPC Central Committee also supported a fight-back, ready to ally with the KMT Left-wing members, isolate and fight Chiang Kaishek. In his letter to Grigori Voitinsky, then secretary of the Russian Communist Party Far East Division, Chen made it clear that “we should not unconditionally and limitlessly support the KMT; we should only support certain activities under the control of the (KMT) Leftists. Otherwise, we would be helping our enemies and creating an opposition for ourselves.” Unfortunately, Chen’s suggestion failed to attract attention or gain support from the Russian Communist Party or the Comintern. Chen also entrusted Peng Shuzhi to make a personal representation to the Comintern Representative in Guangzhou, in the hope that the Soviet Union could spare 5,000 guns from the newly-arrived firearms for Chiang Kai-shek and Chen Jitang for Guangdong’s workers and peasants to “prepare an independent military force against Chiang Kai-shek.” 96

Chapter 5

Chiang Kai-shek Launches Attacks on Communists in Shanghai; the CPC Realizes that Political Power Grows out of the Barrel of a Gun

But the request was refused by Borodin. Besides, Chen repeatedly proposed that CPC members should quit the KMT in order to maintain independence of the Communist organization; but this too was overruled by the Comintern Representative and Soviet advisers. In his speech at the seventh enlarged plenum of the Comintern Executive Committee in November 1926, Josef Stalin lashed out at the CPC, saying it would be a huge mistake to quit the KMT at the current time. Soviet advisers and the Comintern repeatedly issued directives that the CPC should remain within the KMT, and that it should never allow a rupture. As a branch of the Comintern, the CPC Central Committee was obliged to follow these orders and so conceded. However, the CPC’s efforts did not produce restraint or goodwill among the KMT Right-wing members, who deemed the Communists a weak and easy target to bully. Redoubling their anti-Communist and purging campaigns, the Rightists fomented more tragic incidents. In March 1927, orchestrated by Chiang, KMT Right-wing members murdered Communists and destroyed trade union headquarters, among other serious incidents, in Ganzhou, Jiujiang, Anqing and other places in Jiangxi Province. Arriving in Shanghai with the Northern Expedition Army, Chiang received financial support from Jiangsu and Zhejiang consortiums. Calculating that he was no longer reliant on financial and military assistance from the Soviet Union, Chiang made up his mind to purge and crack down on Communists. He seized control of Shanghai by deploying the newly-incorporated 26th Army there, and arranged a temporary political commission in Shanghai which included Wu Zhihui, Bai Chongxi, Chen Guofu and 12 other men to replace the interim government established after the third armed uprising of Shanghai workers. He instigated ringleaders Huang Jinrong, Du Yuesheng and Zhang Xiaolin to organize the so-called “China Common Progress Society,” which hired mobs and gangsters, and set up the “Shanghai Workers’ Federation” misappropriating the name of workers, which stood against and later replaced the Shanghai Federation of Trade Unions. His preparations done, Chiang gave a secret order in Nanjing on April 11, dictating that “all restored provinces purge Communists from the party,” and told Bai Chongxi to take action in Shanghai. Bai thus ordered the 26th Army garrisoned there to “quickly disarm radicals.” That same night, the gang leader 97

Socialism in China

Du Yuesheng set a trap at his mansion and lured the commissioner of the Shanghai Federation of Trade Unions Wang Shouhua to his home. Du tried to coerce Wang to order the workers’ pickets to disarm but to no avail. He then rushed Wang to the suburbs and killed him at Fenglin Bridge. At 4 a.m. on the 12th, battle trumpets sounded at Chiang’s military headquarters, and according to plan over 1,500 gangsters armed to the teeth launched assaults on the Shanghai Trade Union and the headquarters of the workers’ pickets. But the workers’ pickets’ defenses withstood the raid until daybreak, when the 26th Army managed, with false promises and deception, to force the disarmament of over 2,000 workers. That day, 300 members of the Shanghai workers’ pickets were killed or wounded, and large quantities of guns and ammunitions were taken. There followed the closure of CPC-run newspapers, trade unions and revolutionary organizations, shootings of revolutionaries who took to the streets, and the arrest and killing of Communists and trade union leaders. Within four days over 300 people were murdered and over 500 arrested, and the total number of those killed or unaccounted for exceeded 5,000. Leaders of Communist organizations, including Chen Yannian, Zhao Shiyan and Luo Yinong, were also arrested and killed. Following the April 12 Massacre in Shanghai, illegal arrests and killings of Communists and revolutionary people in the name of “anti-Communist purge” also took place in the cities of Guangzhou, Nanjing, Wuxi, Ningbo, Hangzhou, Fuzhou, Xiamen and Shantou, as well as Anhui, Guangxi and other provinces. In Guangdong alone, more than 2,000 people were arrested and imprisoned, and more than 100 of them were killed. In Beijing, Fengtian Clique warlords also committed appalling murders of CPC members. Li Dazhao and 19 other Communists died heroically for their cause. Chiang’s unilateral assumption of the KMT leadership in Nanjing enraged the party’s Central Executive Committee and government in Wuhan. On April 17, the KMT Central Executive Committee issued a public declaration of Chiang Kai-shek’s expulsion from the party and removal from all his official posts. The KMT also ordered his arrest and was planning to launch military operations against him. On April 20, the CPC Central Committee also issued a declaration in Wuhan, denouncing Chiang’s reactionary atrocities and calling upon the whole nation to rise against the new warlord. 98

Chapter 5

Chiang Kai-shek Launches Attacks on Communists in Shanghai; the CPC Realizes that Political Power Grows out of the Barrel of a Gun

In face of this catastrophe for the revolution, the CPC convened the Fifth National Congress in Wuhan from April 27 to May 9, 1927. However, influenced by the Comintern and its representatives in China, the General Secretary Chen Duxiu’s report on behalf of the Central Executive Committee failed to face up to the cruel reality. Without a proper plan to address the current situation, Chen hoped of resolving the crisis rested on the KMT government in Wuhan, attempting to hold onto the Wang Jingwei faction through making concessions. The congress raised the question of proletarian leadership of the national democratic revolution, but failed to mention the way of realizing it or making a contingency plan to counter KMT Rightists’ slaughter and suppression of Communists. Conspicuously, there was no discussion of such major issues as the establishment and expansion of revolutionary forces under direct CPC leadership. Moreover, the congress failed to conduct a comprehensive and objective analysis of the class relations and factional struggle inside the KMT’s Central Executive Committee and its government in Wuhan, and placed too much trust in the Wang Jingwei clique and Wuhan government. The congress did pass one resolution to carry out an agrarian revolution in rural areas, but due to a lack of feasibility as well as the incorrect directives from Comintern and interruptions from the nationalist government, the meeting resolution was not implemented; otiose, it gathered dust on the shelf. Although the Fifth National Congress of the CPC failed to fulfill its historic mission of rescuing the Party and the revolutionary cause at a critical juncture, it did put forth some worthwhile ideas and measures on the building of Party organization. For example, the congress first proposed in explicit terms the organizational principles of “collective leadership” and “democratic centralism”; it elected members of the Central Political Bureau and its Standing Committee for the first time and improved the system of collective leadership, and established the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection to strengthen intra-Party oversight. These ideas and measures played a positive role in the building of CPC organizations. After the CPC’s Fifth National Congress, the situation continued to deteriorate with anti-Communist incidents in Hunan, Hubei and Jiangxi provinces under the jurisdiction of the Wuhan government. Even in these circumstances, 99

Socialism in China

Borodin and Chen Duxiu were still carrying on with the Comintern directives with their delusions about Wang Jingwei and making blind concessions. Zhou Enlai proposed to push the KMT central government into quick military action against Chiang Kai-shek, and Zhang Tailei and Mao Zedong raised the strategy of launching a workers and peasants’ armed uprising, protecting the revolutionary military forces and countering the KMT’s reactionary Right-wing forces. But Borodin and Chen refused to adopt these correct suggestions: they decided instead to plunge into the KMT’s second northern expedition against the Beiyang warlords. Their failure to understand what was important and what secondary cost the CPC a good opportunity for a prompt counterattack against the KMT’s reactionary forces represented by Chiang Kai-shek. But this conciliatory approach did the CPC no good with Wang Jingwei. On July 15, Wang publicly announced his falling out with the CPC in Wuhan, and this was followed by a purging of Communists. In the streets of Wuhan, posters went up, declaring “better to kill a thousand wrong than let slip one Communist,” and the southern provinces controlled by the Wuhan government again saw tragic arrests and killings of Party members and revolutionary workers and peasants. During the period from the April 12 Massacre in 1927 to the first half of 1928, 310,000 Communists and progressives were murdered, 26,000 of them CPC members. The number of Party members plummeted – from 60,000 during the 1924-1927 height of the revolution to just over 10,000 – and the number of CPC-led trade union members reduced from 2.8 million to a few ten thousands. Peasant unions with almost 10 million members around the country were mostly destroyed and dissolved. The first bipartisan cooperation between the KMT and the CPC was smashed to smithereens, and the great national revolution ended in failure after just three years. The bloodshed opened the eyes of Party members, inspiring them to fight even more bravely for their cause. On July 12, under the directive of the Comintern’s Executive Committee, the Party restructured its Political Bureau Standing Committee with Zhang Guotao, Li Weihan, Zhou Enlai, Li Lisan and Zhang Tailei as members. The interim committee laid down new guidelines and policies, which included an agrarian revolution, armed uprisings of workers and peasants and the fight against KMT’s reactionary Right-wing members. They also decided to launch peasant uprisings in Hunan, Hubei, Guangdong 100

Chapter 5

Chiang Kai-shek Launches Attacks on Communists in Shanghai; the CPC Realizes that Political Power Grows out of the Barrel of a Gun

and Jiangxi provinces in the coming fall. With the Northern Expedition troops led by the CPC as the core forces, they planned to fight their way back to Guangdong with the help of Zhang Fakui, a KMT Leftist and commanderin-chief of the second front army of the National Revolutionary Army. By establishing a new revolutionary base and rolling out the agrarian revolution, the CPC was getting prepared for another northern expedition to overthrow Chiang Kai-shek’s renewed warlord rule. On July 20, CPC members Li Lisan, Tan Pingshan, Deng Zhongxia, Wu Yuzhang, Ye Ting and Nie Rongzhen arrived separately in Jiujiang, Jiangxi Province for a meeting. It took place at the city’s customs office, the venue arranged by Lin Boqu’s younger brother Lin Zulie. Painstakingly deliberating the current situation, they observed that Zhang Fakui, the general commander of the expedition against Chiang Kai-shek appointed by the KMT Wuhan government, had been holding back his troops in Wuhan and having close contacts with Wang Jingwei, who had already gone publicly against the CPC. As Zhang’s political stance was tending to the Right wing, the attendees believed that the Party should readjust its plan of “fighting back to Guangdong with the help of Zhang.” They considered the Party should organize independent military operations, quickly mobilize troops of the CPC and KMT Left-wing members for an armed uprising in Nanchang and establish a new political regime and armed forces there.

Wu Yuzhang

Nie Rongzhen

Tan Pingshan

Deng Zhongxia

Li Lisan and Deng Zhongxia immediately headed for Lushan Mountain and reported the Nanchang plan to Borodin, Qu Qiubai and Zhang Tailei. Qu and Zhang heartily agreed with the plan, but Borodin remained silent. Three days later Li Lisan, Deng Zhongxia, Tan Pingshan, Yun Daiying and a few others had another meeting in Jiujiang, at which it was decided that the 101

Socialism in China

troops to participate in the uprising shall muster in Nanchang before July 28 and that the event take place that evening. The meeting also decided to set up the China KMT Revolutionary Commission after the uprising, to stand counter to the so-called central party headquarters controlled by Chiang Kai-shek in Nanjing and the government under Wang Jingwei in WuZhou Enlai

han. The reason the planned commission was labeled as “KMT Revolutionary Commission” was to gain support from elements within the KMT and the NRA sympathetic to the revolution. After receiving Li’s urgent telegram along these lines, the CPC Central Committee summoned a meeting of the provisional Political Bureau Standing Committee in Wuhan the next day. The committee decided to launch an armed uprising in Nanchang in the name

Li Lisan

of the KMT Revolutionary Commission. After that, the armies were to turn south and take control of the Chaoshan area of Guangdong, and seize coastal ports to ensure access to the Comintern’s economic and military aid for a second northern expedition. The meeting also decided that Zhou Enlai, Li Lisan, Yun Daiying and Peng Pai form a CPC front committee with Zhou as secretary to lead the Nanchang Uprising. While the CPC was busy planning the uprising, the

Yun Daiying

KMT was scheming against its political rival. On July 24, Zhang Fakui sent a notice to Ye Ting and He Long, asking them to move their troops to De’an, Jiangxi Province and then go to Lushan Mountain to attend an important military meeting. This was actually a trap set to remove their command and detain them.. But the conspiracy was discovered by Ye Jianying, the chief of staff of the 4th Army who was also in

Peng Pai

102

Lushan Mountain with Zhang Fakui.

Chapter 5

Chiang Kai-shek Launches Attacks on Communists in Shanghai; the CPC Realizes that Political Power Grows out of the Barrel of a Gun

Ye Jianying, styled Cang Bai, was a native of Meixian County of Guangdong Province. A graduate of Yunnan Military School, he had followed Sun Yat-sen into revolution. He participated in the planning and establishment of Whampoa Military Academy and served as deputy director of the teachers’ department. After the events of April 12 Massacre masterminded by Chiang Kai-shek, Ye filed an application to join the CPC at this critical juncture of revolution, and was secretly accepted as a

Ye Jianying

member of the organization in early July with the consent of Zhou Enlai. Learning what Zhang Fakui was up to, Ye Jianying immediately sent a messenger to inform Ye Ting and the others in Jiujiang about Zhang’s plot. On July 25, He Long, Ye Ting, Ye Jianying, Gao Yuhan and Liao Gan went boating on Gantang Lake as a cover so as to discuss counter measures. It was unanimously decided that Ye and He would not go to Lushan Mountain and their troops were not moving to De’an, either. Instead, they would get their armies to Nanchang in two days’ time for the uprising. On July 27, Zhou Enlai and several others had the first meeting of the uprising front committee in the Jiangxi Hotel in downtown Nanchang. The

He Long, commander-inYe Ting, front commander-inLiu Bocheng, chief of staff chief of the Nanchang Uprising chief of the Nanchang Uprising of the Nanchang Uprising

103

Socialism in China

committee members carefully analyzed and compared the military strength of the uprising forces and the enemy in Nanchang, and on this basis changed the date of the action to the evening of the 30th. He Long was made the commander-in-chief of the uprising, Ye Ting was front commander-in-chief and Liu Bocheng was chief of staff. After the meeting, Zhou Enlai visited He Long at his 20th Army command headquarters, informing him of the uprising plan and asking his opinion. Moved by the CPC’s trust in him, who was not even a Party member at the time, He Long said with emotion: “I will follow the instructions of the Party. I’ll do what you say!” Zhou was very pleased, and said: “The first thing the Party wants you to do is to be commander-in-chief of the uprising army.” Two pairs of hands clasped firmly together. He Long was a legendary figure. One night in March 1916, at the head of a bunch of poor peasants armed only with kitchen knives he had destroyed a salt tax office in western Hunan, and with the 12 guns they captured developed his own troop. He became known as the Bearded He who “raised revolution with two kitchen knives.” Later he participated in the fight against Yuan Shikai and the Constitution Protection Movement, and became a noted militia leader. At the beginning of the Northern Expedition, He was commander of the Sixth Division of the NRA. Later he became head of the 15th independent division, which won many hard battles when fighting in Henan Province. For its valor, the division was hailed as the “steel army,” tougher even than iron. The division was expanded to what was known as the 20th Army in 1927. As commander He Long showed concern for the revolution as well as for the workers and peasants. Before the Nanchang Uprising, Chiang Kai-shek got wind of He’s decision to follow the CPC, he sent someone to talk him out of it, promising as an incentive 5 million silver dollars, the Hanyang Arsenal and command of the Wuhan Garrison. Not buying Chiang’s offers of money and office, He resolutely headed his army to join the uprising in Nanchang. When the uprising forces were passing Ruijin in Jiangxi Province on their way south to Guangdong, He Long and Guo Moruo took the oath and joined the CPC with the consent of Zhou Enlai. Just as preparations for the uprising were about complete, problems emerged. The Comintern and the CPC central leadership had different opin104

Chapter 5

Chiang Kai-shek Launches Attacks on Communists in Shanghai; the CPC Realizes that Political Power Grows out of the Barrel of a Gun

ions on certain matters, which resulted in quite a brawl in the front committee and nearly resulted in the uprising being stillborn. On the morning of July 26, Deng Zhongxia returned from Jiujiang to Wuhan, and reported the uprising plan to the CPC Central Committee. At four o’clock in the afternoon, the Standing Committee of the provisional Political Bureau had a secret meeting at a house in Hankou. At this meeting the Comintern Representative Besso Lominadze read the reply of the Political Bureau of the Russian Communist Party (Bolshevik) regarding the Nanchang Uprising. The Russian adviser Galen proposed that if Zhang Fakui agreed to pull back his troops to Guangdong and promise not to force Ye Ting out of the Communist Party, he could act in concert with the uprising forces and return to Guangdong to set up a revolutionary base. Should Zhang refuse these conditions, it would only cause a minor delay to launching the action. The Standing Committee reached a consensus that the uprising in Nanchang had a high chance of success, so they decided to send Zhang Guotao immediately to deliver the message of the Comintern and the decision of the meeting to Nanchang, where Zhang would discuss the uprising plan with the front committee. Zhang Guotao immediately set out for Nanchang via Jiujiang. On the morning of July 30, a front committee meeting was held at its headquarters in a classroom of the provincial women’s vocational school in the city. Zhou Enlai presided and Zhang Guotao spoke first to deliver the central directives. Zhang said slowly: “The Central Committee has decided to set off the uprising in Nanchang, and the decision was thus reported to Comintern by its new representative in China Besso Lominadze. The Comintern’s reply came in on the 25th and the Central Committee had a meeting of the Standing Committee to discuss the matter on the following day. The Comintern’s message says that if we are confident that the uprising will succeed, it will approve our plan. If not, the Comintern considers it more appropriate for Communists to resign their military positions in the KMT army and switch to peasants’ movements; the Comintern says it does not allow Russian military advisers to participate in the uprising. In addition, our request for uprising funds is still pending for the time being. The Central Committee asks that the uprising be reconsidered.” 105

Socialism in China

Hardly had Zhang finished than the room exploded in uproar as those present protested: “What on earth does it mean?” “The uprising plan is denied?” Li Lisan jumped to his feet and asked passionately: “Everything is ready. Why should we reconsider?” Zhang cut in: “The Central Committee believes that the Comintern does not actually agree with our uprising plan. And without its assistance, our action will end up a blind alley.” Peng Pai, known for his shrewdness and optimism, said smilingly: “There’s nothing to worry about. Judging from the situation in Nanchang, our uprising will definitely succeed. We should act according to our original plan, and this is in line with the Comintern’s opinion.” Zhang pressed on: “This brings us to another concern. Lately, General Galen has been trying to persuade Zhang Fakui not to go further east and return to Guangdong, and Zhang has basically agreed. Galen says that if Zhang undertakes to return to Guangdong and not to force Ye Ting out of the CPC anymore, we can act with him in the uprising to gain military advantage. The Central Committee sent me to deliver the message as well as make decisions based on the situation. Judging from the current situation, I believe we should try our best to keep Zhang on our side and gain his support. Otherwise we cannot start the uprising.” Li Lisan got up again and said loudly: “Zhang Fakui will never agree with our plan. He ganged up with Wang Jingwei and Tang Shengzhi back in Lushan Mountain, and even tried to rope in Ye Ting and He Long. We must absolutely abandon the fantasy of relying on Zhang. We must work alone.” Zhou Yiqun added: “He Long does not want to work with Zhang either.” Ye Ting had been listening quietly to the others, and now he spoke up: “It would be OK to postpone the uprising a bit, allowing our comrades in Zhang Fakui’s army prepare themselves. But the actual situation brooks no delay.” Zhou Enlai swept his hand in the air and said quite categorically: “With things as they are, we must do it! Resolutely!” But Zhang Guotao, speaking calmly and slowly, advised: “I’m not clear about the situation here. But the Comintern is opposed to it and Galen suggests a small delay. It concerns the lives of thousands of our comrades, so we really must deliberate carefully and not act rashly.” 106

Chapter 5

Chiang Kai-shek Launches Attacks on Communists in Shanghai; the CPC Realizes that Political Power Grows out of the Barrel of a Gun

But his words had the opposite effect. Thumping the table, Zhou Enlai leapt to his feet, abandoning his usual urbane manner. Pointing at Zhang, he raged: “I was put in charge of the uprising plan by the Comintern Representative and the Central Committee, and now they give you orders not to act. I quit! I won’t be at the special meeting today. I’m leaving right now for Wuhan to report to the Central Committee.” With this, he gathered his things from the table and was turning away. With Zhou so incensed and himself the object of hostile glaring from one and all, Zhang cringed. Pulling Zhou back, he said softly: “You don’t have to be like this. What’s all this talk about quitting? It’s all so childish. How about this: you attend the special committee meeting first and leave one comrade to brief me on the situation here. We’ll discuss later.” Li Lisan said: “We’ll run out of time if we don’t make a decision now. Let’s just vote and let the majority rule.” Schooled in discipline, Zhou Enlai resigned himself and said: “Comrade Teli represents the Comintern and the Central Committee. We can’t make a decision like this. Let’s postpone tonight’s action and meet again tomorrow morning.” On the early morning of July 31, the front committee had an enlarged meeting at the same place. It started in a very tense atmosphere. Zhang Guotao adhered to his position – that the front committee should heed the views of the Comintern and the Central Committee and act with Zhang Fakui. Yun Daiying, a normally mild mannered man who had remained silent for two days, now exploded: “We wouldn’t be at such a disadvantage now if the Central Committee and Comintern had been right all the way through. The Comintern tells us to be prudent, but how long for? They told us to refrain after the Zhongshan Incident and not fall out with Chiang Kai-shek. We followed the order but Chiang chose to fall out with us on April 12. When Wang Jingwei betrayed the revolution we were again told to refrain, and Wang killed our comrades. Now it’s the refrain order once again and we are asked to ally with Zhang Fakui. Are we here waiting to be betrayed by Zhang? So many comrades have been slaughtered by the enemy. Are we here with our necks bared waiting to be beheaded? You were sent here by the Central Committee to judge the situation and make a decision, but it is not in your explicit orders to 107

Socialism in China

abandon the uprising plan. We told you in Jiujiang that the arrow is in the bow and it has to be released. There is no room for discussion. Whoever is against the uprising will be toppled by us!” Straight-forward and short-tempered, Tan Pingshan jumped to his feet and blurted out at Zhang Guotao: “You bastard!” He then shouted at the guards at the door: “Guards! Tie him up!” Several guards immediately rushed in toward Zhang and grasped him by the arms. Again, Zhou Enlai was the first to regain composure. He stopped the guards and said: “Let go of him. No matter what, Comrade Teli represents the Central Committee. We cannot force him.” Zhang Guotao collapsed back into his chair, looking dismayed. But he said to himself that he will not be knuckled down. A year later Tan Pingshan paid for his temerity with expulsion from the Party. At this point a message arrived from Jiujiang: Zhang Fakui was already secretly mobilizing troops to Nanchang and closing pro-Communist newspapers and bookstores in Jiujiang City. A while later another telegram came in. Ye Ting read the note before passing it to Zhou Enlai. It was sent by Zhang Fakui from Lushan Mountain, and read “Arriving in Nanchang in one day.” Zhou said: “Zhang Fakui will come to Nanchang tomorrow to make you obedient by force.” This news stirred up things again. Li Lisan stood up and bellowed: “What’s left to discuss? Discuss and see Zhang Fakui take away our troops! Let’s hurry and decide. We’re out of time.” At this point, whoever took the initiative would gain the upper hand, and who acted slowly would be doomed. There was no time to lose. Seeing that all were of one mind, Zhang Guotao said reluctantly: “We only wanted to win Zhang Fakui’s support. Now that things are like this, you decide and I’ll abide by the majority decision.” Zhou Enlai rose and said solemnly: “I now declare that the uprising starts at 4 a.m. on August 1.” Later, owing to an information leak, the time was brought forward by two hours. To make way for the uprising, Zhu De took advantage of his official post as police chief of Nanchang City, detained the commanders of the Rightist 108

Chapter 5

Chiang Kai-shek Launches Attacks on Communists in Shanghai; the CPC Realizes that Political Power Grows out of the Barrel of a Gun

armies stationed in the city after inviting them to a banquet at his home. This move left the Rightist forces rudderless during the uprising. At two in the morning of August 1, 1927, gunshots rang out in the city of Nanchang. Over 20,000 soldiers unleashed fierce attacks on the enemy and after five hours of intense fighting annihilated and captured 5,000 enemy soldiers. By dawn the uprising troops were in total control of the city, and the flag of victory fluttered high above the military headquarters. Later that morning the uprising front committee in the name of the special committee summoned a joint meeting at the Xihua Hall of the former Jiangxi provincial government. More than 40 representatives from the Central Executive Committee of the KMT in Nanchang and its branches in provinces and cities as well as overseas branches attended the session. The meeting decided to establish a revolutionary political organization – the Chinese Revolutionary Committee of the KMT. Twenty-five people were elected as members and Soong Ching Ling, Deng Yanda, Tan Pingshan, Zhang Fakui, He Long, Guo Moruo and Yun Daiying became members of the presidium. Readers might wonder: Did Soong Ching Ling and Deng Yanda take part in the Nanchang Uprising? Why was Zhang Fakui also a member of the presidium of the new regime? As was mentioned above, the front committee had decided to carry out the uprising in the name of the KMT Leftists, with the approval of the CPC Central Committee. As a result, well-known KMT Leftist leaders and celebrities such as Soong Ching Ling, Deng Yanda, Yu Youren, He Xiangning, and Chen Youren were included in the presidium or committee for strategic considerations. Seats were even reserved for Zhang Fakui and two of his army commanders. The newly-created revolutionary committee immediately released its political outlines and a declaration, denouncing the betrayals of Chiang Kaishek and Wang Jingwei and announcing to the public that the committee would adhere to Sun Yat-sen’s Three Principles of the People and his three policies – alliance with Russia, cooperation with the Communist Party and assistance to the peasants and workers. The committee vowed to continue fighting against imperialism without compromise, build up strength to sweep out new warlords and feudal forces, and carry out agrarian revolutions to stop 109

Socialism in China

exorbitant taxes and levies and liberate peasants. It also planned to build a new revolutionary base within a short period of time and proposed to summon the Third National Congress of the KMT to reelect members of the Central Executive Committee, etc. On August 2, members of the revolutionary committee took the oath of office. All the committee members and representatives from various organizations met the public on the rostrum, and thousands of workers, peasants, merchants, students and soldiers broke into wild cheers. It was truly an unprecedented event. But while the people were celebrating the success of the uprising, Wang Jingwei and Chiang Kai-shek lost no time in mobilizing their forces to suppress the uprising. Wang ordered Zhang Fakui, Zhu Peide and Tang Shengzhi to move their troops to surround Nanchang. As the powerful enemies closed in, 23,000 soldiers of the uprising troops withdrew from the city on August 3 according to plan, heading to distant Guangdong, hundreds of miles away. To avoid the onslaught of the KMT’s reactionary armies, the uprising forces chose to enter Guangdong through Linzhou, Huichang and Xunwu in eastern Jiangxi Province before reaching the Dongjiang River. This route passed through remote mountainous areas with rugged roads. Under-equipped and supplied and marching in scorching heat, many soldiers fell to illness or heatstroke, and every day saw more desertions. Five thousand soldiers of the 10th Division of the 11th Army left the uprising forces under the leadership of their commander Cai Tingkai, a quite reluctant participant in the first place. Chen Yuxin, Chief of Staff of the 20th Army, also defected with some 700 men. The uprising forces suffered severe losses, reaching Guangdong in midSeptember with only about 10,000 soldiers left. On September 18, the uprising forces occupied Sanheba of Dabu County in Eastern Guangdong. To contain and counter the enemy, the headquarters decided to leave a garrison troop of 4,000 men there under the leadership of Zhu De, commander of the 25th Division, Zhou Shidi and Party representative Li Shuoxun. The rest of the uprising forces turned to capture Chaozhou and Shantou. At the same time, Chiang Kai-shek ordered Li Jishen to muster an army of 27,000 men and besiege the uprising forces from three directions. On September 28, under the leadership of He Long and Ye Ting, the 6,500110

Chapter 5

Chiang Kai-shek Launches Attacks on Communists in Shanghai; the CPC Realizes that Political Power Grows out of the Barrel of a Gun

men, main strength of the uprising forces, held their ground at Tangkeng, Jieyang County against fierce attacks. For two days and two nights, the valiant soldiers killed 3,000 enemies but also lost 2,000 of their comrades. Unable to breach the defense of Chen Jitang’s troops, they pulled back on the 30th. Zhou Yiqun and about 1,000 of his men were defeated in Chaozhou, way outnumbered in their battle against Li Jishen’s two divisions. Shantou also fell to enemy control soon after. As the situation deteriorated, the uprising forces retreated from Tangkeng and on October 3 the front committee and leadership of the revolutionary committee, in retreat from Shantou, held an emergency meeting in a chapel in Liushan Town, Puning County. Suffering from malaria, Zhou Enlai was stretchered in to chair the meeting despite his condition. He reviewed the factors for the failed uprising, and decided that Ye Ting, Nie Rongzhen and himself move the troops to the Haifeng and Lufeng areas in Guangdong and set up a revolutionary base there to carry on the revolutionary cause with local people. The other leaders of the uprising and non-combatant personnel such as He Long, Liu Bocheng, Yun Daiying, Lin Boqu, Wu Yuzhang, Xu Teli, Guo Moruo and He Chang would retreat to Haikou, Shanghai and Hong Kong by sea. The meeting was brief as the enemy was getting near. The uprising forces managed to pull back to Wushi area, but there they were ambushed and cut off from each other, and the commanders also lost contact. Zhou Enlai, Ye Ting, Nie Rongzhen and Liu Bocheng got to Hong Kong by sea from Lufeng. Zhu De and his Sanheba garrison fought courageously against enemy forces many times greater than their own for three days, losing several hundred men. In early November they were forced to retreat to the mountains bordering Hunan, Guangdong and Jiangxi and fought as guerrillas. Many factors led to the failure of the Nanchang Uprising, and there were many lessons to be learnt. One fundamental reason was that the Communist leadership mechanically copied the model of Russia’s October Revolution, bound by the theories of city-centered armed uprising and conventional war, and attempting to follow Sun Yat-sen’s success by occupying one province as a foothold before launching another northern expedition. As the main leader 111

Socialism in China

and organizer of the Nanchang Uprising, Zhou Enlai later recalled the lessons he learned from the failure, and shared his thinking. The guiding line for the armed uprising had been to go south to Guangdong and rely on assistance from the Soviet Union to capture big cities, instead of organizing and arming peasants in rural areas, carrying out agrarian revolution and setting up rural revolutionary bases. The erroneous guiding policy had led directly to the failure of the uprising. Reviewing the failure of the Nanchang Uprising with the wisdom of hindsight, we should not be overcritical. At that time the Party was in its infancy, its leaders very young and inexperienced in revolution and combat. Furthermore, the exploration of a correct revolutionary path required experience from both good and bad lessons. Surrounded by heavy hostile military determined to wipe out the Communists, the Party had no options. The CPC-led Nanchang Uprising fired the first shots against the reactionary faction of the KMT after the failure of the Great Revolution. It signaled the beginning of the Communists’ armed struggle and opened up a new stage for the CPC’s independent armed struggle and the development of a revolutionary army. The event also taught valuable lessons to a large number of Party and army leaders. It served too as a historical divide between the failed national revolution and the beginning of the agrarian revolution. These things were of great historical significance. These lessons also made the Communists realize that in a position of weakness versus a strong enemy, we should shift the focus from cities to rural areas and from conventional war to guerilla war. Seen in this light, the uprising made a positive contribution. At this critical juncture, another important meeting was convened. It pointed out the way for the CPC and pulled the whole Party and people together for their rise again. This was the August 7 Conference. August in Wuhan was broiling. White terror spread as KMT reactionaries arrested and shot Communists and common people, and screeching police sirens and gunfire added to the oppressive atmosphere. On the second floor of a foreigners’ trading firm in Sanjiao Street in the city center of Hankou, the CPC Central Committee had an emergency meeting. Presided over by Qu Qiubai and Li Weihan, it was attended by 21 persons including the members of the 112

Chapter 5

Chiang Kai-shek Launches Attacks on Communists in Shanghai; the CPC Realizes that Political Power Grows out of the Barrel of a Gun

CPC Central Committee and its alternate members, members of the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection, the Central Committee of the Communist Youth League in Wuhan and representatives from Hunan and Hubei provinces. The Comintern Representative Besso Lominadze made a report titled The Past Mistakes of the Party and the New Guiding Line. How bizarre that a foreigner represented the CPC to make a work report! Qu Qiubai delivered the Report on the Guiding Line of Our Work in Future on behalf of the provisional Party Central Committee. The conference summarized the lessons of the failed Great Revolution, and discussions ranged widely on issues concerning the relationship between the CPC and the KMT, the agrarian revolution and the armed struggle. Those present reviewed the mistakes of the Central Committee under Chen Duxiu in the latter stage of the Great Revolution, criticizing the Party’s endless compromises to the KMT, leaving the Party defenseless when Chiang Kai-shek and Wang Jingwei betrayed the revolution and turned to slaughter Communists. On the issue of armed struggle, there was also censure for the Central Committee’s failure to quickly arm the workers and peasants in order to create a genuinely revolutionary army. Mao Zedong did not mince his words: “We used to take Sun Yat-sen to task for being militaristic, but we went to the opposite extreme – no military preparation but all working with the masses. Chiang Kai-shek and Tang Shengzhi both came to prominence through guns, but we just ignored the power of the gun.” Mao also criticized the Central Committee’s failure to develop a concrete military plan even though aware of the problem, emphasizing “we must pay close attention to military progress in future. We must grasp the truth that political power comes from the barrel of a gun. We should attach importance to this issue at this meeting, and members of the Standing Committee of the new Political Bureau should be tougher on this issue.” The meeting finally came to the decision of armed struggle against the bloody suppression of the KMT reactionaries. It was at this meeting that Mao Zedong first put forth his famous thinking “political power comes from the barrel of a gun.” When the reactionary authorities cruelly suppress the people with guns and there is no democracy or justice in society, revolutionaries and people alike have no choice but to take up weapons and overthrow the reactionary regime with violence. Mao’s judgment exerted profound and extensive influence over Chinese Communists’ 113

Socialism in China

exploration of a new revolutionary path as well as the course of China’s new-democratic revolution. On the issue of agrarian revolution, the meeting was unanimous that as China’s revolution was still at the stage of bourgeois civil rights revolution, agrarian revolution should be the main content in practice. To carry out agrarian revolution, the Party must ensure the participation of peasants and expropriate the land of big landlords to distribute to tenant peasants and landless peasants. Only in this way Qu Qiubai

could the Party win the peasants’ support for

and participation in the revolution and achieve the establishment of a revolutionary regime. The August 7 Conference made changes to the central leadership and elected an interim Political Bureau, which met for the first time two days later, electing Qu Qiubai, Su Zhaozheng and Li Weihan to its Standing Committee. Soon afterwards, the Comintern appointed Qu as the person in charge. Chen Duxiu did not attend the conference due to Comintern’s interference. Chen, who was elected secretary of the Central Bureau at a meeting he did not personally attend, oversaw the work of five Central Committees before being criticized and removed from the Party leadership in absentia. How to judge the main founder of the CPC and a leader in the early stage has always been a much debated issue, and the jury is still out on Chen. As a main founder of the CPC, Chen Duxiu, together with Li Daozhao, made indelible contributions to the introduction of Marxism into China, the planning and founding of the CPC and the drafting of the Party’s first constitution. At the Party’s Second National Congress, he oversaw the development of the Party’s political program and the “two-steps” strategy, ensuring that the CPC and China’s revolution start from reality and carry on in line with the national conditions. He presided over the Party’s Third National Congress, which decided to cooperate with the KMT and form a revolutionary united front. Pulling together more strength for the national revolution and also facilitating 114

Chapter 5

Chiang Kai-shek Launches Attacks on Communists in Shanghai; the CPC Realizes that Political Power Grows out of the Barrel of a Gun

the Party’s development, the united front later became one of the “three magic weapons” in China’s new-democratic revolution. The Party’s Fourth National Congress further proposed the detailed guidelines and tasks in CPC-KMT cooperation and the workers’ and peasants’ movement. Chen’s leadership of the workers’ movement after this congress pushed China’s national revolution to new heights. These were undoubtedly correct. Chen made important contributions to the founding and development of the CPC and China’s national democratic revolution; for this he deserves full credit, from our duty to history and honoring the facts. At the Party’s Fifth National Congress, Chen did raise the issue of proletarian leadership of the united front but failed to put forth concrete measures to achieve it. When Chiang Kai-shek betrayed the revolution and began killing Communists and progressives, Chen became indecisive and placed the hopes of rescuing China on Wang Jingwei. His failure to come up with timely countermeasures was a serious and inexcusable blunder. Comintern also aggravated the situation by giving wrong directives and intervening in CPC’s affairs, but as the Party’s general secretary he should take full responsibility for the losses incurred to the Party by his irresolution and mistakes, no matter what particular situation he was facing. When judging Chen’s mistakes in the latter stage of the national revolution, we should make an unprejudiced, comprehensive and objective analysis and correctly summarize the lessons history has taught us. After the “Zhongshan Incident” and the KMT’s purging of Communists, Chen Duxiu and the Party’s Central Committee adopted a compromising attitude, following the instruction of the Comintern representatives and Soviet advisers of trying not to fall out with the KMT. Although Chen and other central leaders had correct personal opinions on this matter, the Party, being a branch of Comintern, had to follow its orders. On the leadership of the united front in the national revolution, a sober mind and persistence was both necessary and correct, and the independence of the Party and proletarians was the bottom line. In the early days, Chen basically kept a sober mind on maintaining the political and organizational independence of the CPC in the united front by objecting to Comintern’s suggestion that the CPC join the KMT as an entity. Chen held to the position 115

Socialism in China

that the CPC could only “cooperate externally” with the KMT rather than “internally” so as to preserve the organizational independence of the CPC. He personally quit the KMT after the “Zhongshan Incident” and the KMT’s purging of Communists, calling on CPC members to follow his lead and revealing the KMT reactionaries’ plots and countering their provocation. But his call failed due to the orders of Comintern. As to the issue of CPC leadership in the united front, an objective stand should be taken. At that time, the CPC was greatly outweighed and outnumbered by the KMT, a large political party with many resources and advantages and with a membership a hundred times greater than the CPC’s. Sun Yat-sen’s Tong Meng Hui, the predecessor of the KMT, had toppled the Qing Dynasty and established the Republic of China, establishing a good image for the KMT in China and abroad as well as winning the support of powers at home and abroad that favored a democratic revolution in China. Even the Soviet Communist Party, the Soviet government and Comintern, all presumed natural allies and comrades of the CPC, focused on the KMT, dispatching political and military advisers to help them, channeling economic aid and weapons to arm the KMT but not the CPC, and repeatedly ordering the Communists to cooperate with and fully support the KMT. On top of this, the KMT dominated the ROC government with huge advantages in personnel, supply and financial resources, and they controlled the armed forces. In conditions such as these it was a pipe dream that the weak and disadvantaged CPC could gain leadership of the united front. Therefore, we should not be so harsh on Chen on this matter. For decades the Party and the academia have been accusing Chen of making “Right opportunism” and “capitulationism” mistakes, and such claims were made on the assumption that Chen was opposed to workers’ and peasants’ movements. But this accusation was not fair either. It was exactly Chen Duxiu who personally planned and founded the Shanghai Machinery Union in 1920, China’s first labor union set up by the Communist group. It was Chen who organized the four major strikes highlighting the first wave of Chinese workers’ movement, and he also planned and led the famous May 30 Movement, Shanghai workers’ strike, the third armed uprising and other significant workers’ movements. How could he be labeled as “against workers’ and peasants’ movements”? 116

Chapter 5

Chiang Kai-shek Launches Attacks on Communists in Shanghai; the CPC Realizes that Political Power Grows out of the Barrel of a Gun

In the history all people’s movements, especially peasants’ movements dominated by non-organized peasants, have inevitably made certain mistakes and gone to extremes. The workers’ movements and peasants’ movements in Hunan, Hubei, Jiangxi and elsewhere did use excessive violence against industrial and commercial capitalists, owners of handicraft workshops, landlords and rich peasants, killing too many people and even the wrong people. These incidents greatly upset quite a few leading KMT officials and middleand lower-ranking officers in the NRA, who were landlords themselves or came from landlord families. Without prompt rectification of extreme acts, the united front would be undermined, and result in jeopardizing the mustering of all possible strengths against the common enemy and fulfilling the most important tasks – the Northern Expedition and the struggle against imperialism and feudalism. Moreover, the reactionary forces would be delighted at any excuse to create trouble for the CPC and the revolution. Keeping a sober head in leading workers’ and peasants’ movements, Chen quickly pointed out and criticized the extreme acts occurring in local movements and required Party organizations at various levels to guide and rectify these wrongdoings, so as not to give the enemy a handle to harm the overall interests. In this Chen did the correct thing. However, in his report at the CPC’s special meeting in Hankou in December 1926, Chen believed extremism in workers’ and peasants’ movements to be the prime danger facing the revolution: he failed to notice that the newly-risen KMT Right-wing members were quickening their steps toward betrayal. With his eye off the ball, Chen failed to take appropriate countermeasures, pinning his hopes on Left-wing members within the KMT to combat the KMT Rightwing members. In this he was quite wrong. Perusing the six volumes of Works of Chen Duxiu, it is clear that Chen never wavered in his faith in socialism and communism or changed his communist ideals. Even after his later expulsion from the Party, he did not speak ill of it and repeatedly rebuked KMT’s unjust slanders of the CPC. When he was released from KMT’s prison during the anti-Japanese war, he resolutely rejected KMT’s offers of a government post and also declined suggestions from friends who could arrange academic visits abroad for him. He only wanted to return to Yan’an and rejoin the Party and the revolutionary cause. Unfortu117

Socialism in China

nately his wishes were not fulfilled. He ended up in a mountain village in rural Chongqing and died in poverty and illness. The August 7 Conference summarized the lessons of the failed national revolution, and set the guiding principles of the agrarian revolution and fighting against the KMT with armed struggle. It also clarified the basic principle of seizing political power through armed struggle and confirmed peasants’ uprisings in harvest time as a major task. The progress made at the conference played a significant role at a turning point in the CPC’s history, ushering in a new stage of China’s revolution. Unfortunately, the meeting failed to notice that China’s revolution was ebbing away after the failed Great Revolution, and while trying to rectify Rightist mistakes they were not vigilant enough for the Leftist tendencies. The Party had no plans to preserve the revolutionary forces during the revolution’s low-tide, an oversight that gave rise to adventurism among Communists and planting seeds that would create problems for the Party and the new-democratic revolution in future. After the conference Qu Qiubai talked with Mao Zedong and invited him to work at the Party’s central office in Shanghai. Mao jokingly declined his offer and said: “I don’t want to follow you to tall buildings; I’d rather go to the mountains and hook up with some outlaw friends.” At a meeting of the Political Bureau two days later, Mao was appointed as a special commissioner of the Party’s Central Committee charged with delivering the spirit of the August 7 Conference in Hunan Province, to adjust the Provincial Party Committee and organize the Autumn Harvest Uprising there. As soon as he arrived in Changsha, Mao held a meeting with representatives of local peasants, handicraftsmen and intellectuals to glean their opinions on the current situation and discuss the outlines of the agrarian revolution. By listening to the people Mao obtained firsthand information and was able to learn the people’s attitude. At the meeting of the Hunan Provincial Party Committee, Mao delivered the gist of the August 7 Conference and shared his opinions on major issues concerning the Autumn Harvest Uprising based on his previous investigation and deliberation. The first question for the uprising plan was in what name the uprising 118

Chapter 5

Chiang Kai-shek Launches Attacks on Communists in Shanghai; the CPC Realizes that Political Power Grows out of the Barrel of a Gun

should be carried out, to win people’s support. The Nanchang Uprising had launched under the banner of the “KMT Left-wing members,” and an explicit directive had been given at the August 7 Conference that local armed insurrections must carry the same name. But from his meetings with various people, Mao understood that, since the cruel suppression by the KMT, the people now thought of them badly, and the KMT banner had become the symbol of the new warlord. For this reason Mao insisted that the Autumn Harvest Uprising be carried out in the name of the CPC rather than the KMT Left-wing members as required by the August 7 Conference. The second question was: who should be the backbone of the uprising? A common opinion within the Central Committee and the Party at large was that the uprising must rely on armed peasants and workers, and that the military could play a supporting role. But Mao, who had good understanding of China’s conditions and its peasants, was fully aware that scattered uprisings of peasants alone would stand no chance at all against the KMT’s regular armies. The uprising was doomed to failure without the participation of a certain number of systematically trained and well-organized troops. At the meeting Mao said with emotion: “The goal of the uprising is to seize political power. And to seize political power without military backing is self-deluding. Our past mistake was to neglect military development, and we should devote 60 percent of our energy to military preparation. We should seize political power through the barrel of the gun.” As to the scale of the uprising, the Central Committee required that of the entire Hunan Province engage in the action. But Mao, with an objective analysis of the situation on the ground, made great effort to persuade the Central Committee to limit the uprising to a few counties in central Hunan. On the agrarian revolution issue, Mao also aired his own view. It was decided at the August 7 Conference that the land should be expropriated from big and medium landlords and distributed to peasants. But in Mao’s view, China had more small landlords than big landlords, and that limiting expropriation to big landlords alone would not be enough to redistribute land to peasants. He argued that all landlords should hand over their land to peasants, however, their life should be properly arranged. After the meeting, the CPC Hunan Provincial Party Committee reported its plan for the Autumn Harvest Uprising to the Central Committee, and Mao 119

Socialism in China

wrote a letter explaining why his opinions differed from some of the Central Committee’s decisions. After discussing the report and the letter, the Central Committee’s Standing Committee sent its reply: it required the Hunan Provincial Party Committee to implement the central decisions and criticized the latter’s proposal of abandoning the KMT banner in the uprising and setting up a soviet regime afterwards. The Provincial Party Committee’s uprising plan was deemed as a military adventure, and only land of big landlords should be expropriated. Despite this negative response, Mao held to his belief that everything should proceed from reality, and, out of duty to the revolutionary cause, he wrote once more to the Central Committee, stating his disagreement. The person in charge of the Central Committee was Qu Qiubai, who was very democratic in his work, allowing local Party committees and Party members to express different views through organizational channels. Three weeks later, the Central Committee issued two documents including Resolution on the Question of the Banner of KMT Left-wing Members and the Soviet Regime, which adopted the correct opinions of Mao and nullified its earlier decisions. At a meeting of the Political Bureau’s Standing Committee several months later, Qu Qiubai praised Mao as “an independent thinker of the Party.” Preparations for the Autumn Harvest Uprising went as scheduled. In early September the Hunan Provincial Party Committee issued several decisions: appoint Mao Zedong as the secretary of the front committee to lead the uprising; troops participating in the uprising to act in the name of the “first division of the first army of the revolutionary army of workers and peasants” to publicly hoist the banner of CPC-led workers’ and peasants’ revolutionary armed forces; and reorganize Zhang Fakui’s former guards regiment of the second front army headquarters which was under CPC control but had not taken part in the Nanchang Uprising into the First Regiment, the armed forces of workers from Anyuan into the Second Regiment, the peasants’ army of Liuyang into the Third Regiment, the peasants’ army of Pingjiang into the First and Third Regiments. Commanded by the former head of the guards regiment Lu Deming, who was both a Whampoa Military Academy graduate and CPC member, the 5,000-men uprising force was ready to “start destroying the railways from the 9th, lead riots in surrounding counties on the 11th, and launch insurrection in Changsha on the 15th.” 120

Chapter 5

Chiang Kai-shek Launches Attacks on Communists in Shanghai; the CPC Realizes that Political Power Grows out of the Barrel of a Gun

Later Mao Zedong summoned a meeting at Zhangjiawan, Anyuan and decided that the uprising forces should split into three and attack Liuyang, Pingjiang, and Pingxiang and Liling respectively, before converging on Changsha. After the meeting, Mao, dressed as a purchasing officer of Anyuan Mining Company, set out for Tonggu, with the secretary of the Liuyang county Party committee Pan Xinyuan, in order to fix plans for an uprising of the Liuyang peasants’ army and the guards regiment in Tonggu. But they were caught halfway by local patrols hired by landlords, and were to be sent to their headquarters. Mao tried to bribe his way out but was rejected. When they were just 200 meters from the corps’ headquarters Mao suddenly broke loose and dashed off, finding a hiding place in the dense vegetation around a nearby pond. The soldiers searched till sunset but without finding Mao who was just inches away. Finally they gave up and left. Now on his own, Mao crossed the mountains overnight and managed to reach Tonggu on the morning of September 10. He went straight to work and led the local peasant forces to Liuyang according to the plan, and the two other armies also went into action. The operation went smoothly at first. The troops occupied a few towns but soon suffered severe losses in encounters with the well-equipped regular armies of the KMT. The 5,000-strong army was reduced to 1,500 men. Mao realized the impossibility of seizing the big city with such a strong enemy presence, so he resolutely ordered the three regiments to stop attacking Changsha and retreat to Liujiashi, Liuyang to rally there. On the night of the 15th the Hunan Provincial Party Committee decided to cancel the uprising plan in Changsha scheduled for the following day. On the night of September 19, Mao presided over a meeting of the front committee at the Liren School of Wenjiashi to discuss further actions for the uprising forces. The division commander Yu Sadu insisted that the plan of “seizing Liuyang and attacking Changsha” was in line with the central decision, and some other leaders supported his judgment. Mao was patient in trying to convince them of the reality that the enemy was much stronger and that local peasants were not responding to the action as anticipated. Under such circumstances and relying solely on the current strength of the uprising forces, it would be impossible to take the KMT garrison city of Changsha. Such rashness would only result in greater loss. Mao urged that the forces should retreat 121

Socialism in China

south to the mountainous areas where the enemy had little control, find a foothold there and preserve the strength for future development. After heated debate the meeting eventually accepted Mao’s proposals and decided to withdraw the troops to Pingxiang in Jiangxi Province. The next morning Mao rallied all the commanders and soldiers of the uprising forces at the sports ground of Liren School, and announced the change of strategy. Standing on a high platform, he spoke to the audience in his plain manner: “We originally planned to attack Changsha for the Autumn Uprising, and everyone of us wants to get into Changsha. Is Changsha a good place? Yes, it is. Is Changsha a pushover? No, it is not. The enemy has deployed heavy troops there and we cannot take it down with our current strength. We should first preserve our strength in the countryside where the enemy presence is weak, and organize the peasants to make revolution.” Getting more and more passionate and gesturing forcefully, Mao declared: “We did have setbacks this time, but it is nothing. Victory and defeat are both common in war. Now we are like a small stone, but a stone that will smash Chiang Kai-shek’s water vat in the end!” Mao’s speech greatly lifted morale. The forces turned south and marched along the Luoxiao Mountains at the border of Hunan and Jiangxi provinces. The mountain paths were difficult going and they were pursued by KMT troops. In an enemy attack in Pingxiang they lost 300 men. The commander-in-chief Lu Deming died in battle covering the retreating soldiers. Malaria also struck down many, further affecting morale, and soldiers began deserting. On September 29 the uprising forces made camp at Sanwan Village of Yongxin County, Jiangxi Province. Embraced by mountain ranges, the place could make a good base, being easy to defend and difficult to capture. Now that they had shaken off the enemy and there was no reactionary force there, the front committee decided to stay for a few days to rest up. At a meeting of the front committee Mao decided to consolidate the 1,000-men army into a single regiment, as the first regiment of the first division of the First Revolutionary Army of Workers and Peasants. It was announced to the soldiers that whoever wanted to stay could do so, and whoever wanted to leave could have money for travelling home, but would always be welcome should they return in future. Three measures were also declared. First, the army was under the uni122

Chapter 5

Chiang Kai-shek Launches Attacks on Communists in Shanghai; the CPC Realizes that Political Power Grows out of the Barrel of a Gun

fied leadership of the Party’s front committee, and Party organizations were set at every level of the army: Party group at the squad and platoon level, Party branch at the company level, and Party committee at the battalion and regiment level. Units above the company level would have the secretary of the Party organization at the same level as Party representative, and major issues of the units should be brought to group discussion within the Party organizations. Second, democracy should be introduced to the army. All commanding officers and ordinary soldiers were equal, and officers were not allowed to beat or insult soldiers. Soldiers were given the right to speak at meetings, and soldiers’ committees were set up at units above the company level to participate in the administrative and economic management of their units. Officers must accept the oversight of soldiers’ committees. Third, the quota supply system was put in place. Soldiers were not paid for their service, but they were given money to buy daily necessities. Officers and soldiers were treated on an equal footing. The three measures implemented during the reorganization of the army at Sanwan ensured the Party’s leadership over the army, and was beneficial to changing the bad practices of old-type armies and the lax and sloppy habits of peasant-soldiers. The measures became key principles to guide the building of new people’s armies, and because of its contributions the “Sanwan reorganization” is of great significance in the histories of CPC and its military. Now rested and reorganized, the troops needed to find a place to go. When he was in Anyuan Mao Zedong heard about two peasants’ self-defense forces in Ninggang and Suichuan, and on his way south from Wenjiashi he also received a letter from the Jiangxi Provincial Party Committee which mentioned an armed force under CPC leadership in Ninggang. So during their time in Sanwan Mao sent a messenger to Ninggang. On the basis of the information received from the secretary of the Ninggang County Party committee, Mao and the front committee decided to move the uprising forces to Jinggang Mountain in the middle ranges of the Luoxiao Mountains on the border of Hunan and Jiangxi provinces. There they would set up a revolutionary base and fight a guerilla war to kindle the fire of an independent workers’ and peasants’ regime. Before the troops left Sanwan for Jinggang Mountain, Mao gave a speech to all army officers and soldiers. He said: “We are coming under sniper fire 123

Socialism in China

from the enemy at our rear, but it is no big deal. We all come into the world the same way. Our enemies have two legs, so do we. Comrade He Long began with two kitchen knives, and now he commands an army. We have more than two kitchen knives now. We have two battalions and 700 guns. Aren’t these enough to do something big?” His words greatly encouraged the soldiers, who marched resolutely to Jinggang Mountain, and to the new beginning of China’s revolution. As this poem says: Political power comes from the barrel of a gun, The truth cast firm with blood; In memory of the slaughtered martyrs, We bid yesterday goodbye to rise up for tomorrow. uా‫ێ‬ሸৢԣᆧಋvĭ ఆሻᆏစ࿛ሄӶh ๭ྗႏਣᄭ๹੭ĭ ۩ѡ቗็‫ځ‬ॎᆢh If you wish to know how Mao Zedong and Chinese Communists managed, amidst dangers and difficulties, to establish the Jinggang Mountain Revolutionary Base, and how they cleared the path to revolutionary success, you must turn to the next chapter.

124

Chapter 6

To Besiege Cities from the Countryside, the Jinggang Base Is Built; a Single Spark Starts a Prairie Fire, the Red Army Is Founded

The Communists struggled forward after surviving the bloody failure of the Great Revolution. Yet where was their way out? What were their revolutionary goals? What were their objectives? How would they achieve them? In short, they faced a serious challenge in determining the path the Chinese revolution should take. Following the Political Bureau meeting of August 7, 1927, Qu Qiubai was made leader of the CPC Central Committee. Influenced and constrained by the Soviet Union and the Comintern, Qu misjudged China’s circumstances and the state of the revolution and formulated a guiding thought influenced by Leftist adventurism. In November 1927, Qu Qiubai convened a meeting of the provisionally enlarged Political Bureau, and this passed the Resolution on China’s Current Situation and the Party’s Objectives drafted by Lominadze, a Comintern representative. The resolution believed that China’s revolution was a “continuous revolution,” putting forward the proposition that the current revolutionary struggle would inevitably leapfrog Principle of Democracy and launch socialist revolution right away. The meeting mistakenly believed that China’s revolution was not at low ebb, but showed signs for an imminent revolution. Accordingly, a general strategy of achieving a nationwide armed uprising was formulated, with the aim of winning revolutionary victories in one or even several provinces. Following this meeting the Central Work Plan was formulated, requiring general strikes and uprisings in large cities such as Guangzhou, Shanghai, Wuhan, Tianjin and Changsha, and planning general uprisings of workers and peasants in Guangdong, Hunan, Hubei, Jiangsu, Zhejiang and other provinces. 125

Socialism in China

This policy of Qu Qiubai and the Central Committee of the CPC led to severe setbacks. One month later, the Guangzhou Revolution failed, resulting in the death of Zhang Tailei, Secretary of the Guangdong Provincial Party Committee and one of the major leaders of this revolution. The Soviet-style Guangzhou Government, the regime set up by the revolution, survived only three days. By the end of 1928, armed uprisings launched by workers and peasants in more than 140 counties of 22 provinces across China ended in heroic but tragic failure. At the same time, Mao Zedong, Zhu De, Peng Dehuai, He Long, Fang Zhimin, Deng Xiaoping, Zhang Yunyi, Gu Dacun, Feng Baiju and other Party members were striving to explore a revolutionary road right for Chinese conditions. The previous chapter related how, in the aftermath of the Autumn Harvest Uprising, Mao Zedong, disregarding the erroneous orders of the Comintern and the CPC Central Committee, managed to persuade revolutionary army commanders to face the reality of their weakness in the face of a strong enemy and to abandon the original plan of attacking Changsha. Instead, the army made its way to Jinggang Mountain, a remote and undeveloped area where the enemy’s rule was weak, so as to seek a place to establish a revolutionary base. Covering an area of about 4,000 sq km, Jinggang Mountain is located in the middle section of the Luoxiao Mountains at the border between Hunan and Jiangxi provinces. Specifically, it stretches between Lingxian (now Yanling) County in Hunan and Ninggang, Suichuan and Yongxin counties in Jiangxi. KMT rule was shaky here, a place remote from cities of any size. Its height and steepness, dense forests, and accessibility only by a few narrow roads made the area easy to defend and hard to attack. The Ciping area and the five mountain villages had households and paddy fields that could provide for the army. Supplies could also be obtained from the surrounding areas. During the Great Revolution, Party organizations and a peasant self-defense army had been founded in the Jinggang Mountain area, and were well supported locally. A Robin-Hood-like peasant army led by Party member Yuan Wencai was stationed on the mountain, and wielded a certain local strength and influence. In Mao Zedong’s view, the revolutionary army was weak and the enemy strong. 126

Chapter 6

To Besiege Cities from the Countryside, the Jinggang Base Is Built; a Single Spark Starts a Prairie Fire, the Red Army Is Founded

In this critical situation, the army first had to find somewhere to restore and develop its strength. The Jinggang Mountain area met all these criteria, and was undoubtedly the ideal place for a revolutionary base. To settle down in the Jinggang Mountain area, the revolutionary army had to seek the agreement and support of two local peasant troops led by Yuan Wencai and Wang Zuo. Each of them had 150 to 160 soldiers with more than 60 guns. Yuan Wencai had served as head of the peasant self-defense army in Ninggang County and Wang Zuo in Suichuan County during the Great Revolution, and Yuan had joined the Party. After the failure of the Great Revolution, Yuan Wencai and Wang Zuo led their troops up into the mountains, and on learning that Mao Zedong’s revolutionary troops from the Autumn Harvest Uprising wanted to stay on Jinggang Mountain, both leaders were concerned that they would lose their base. They sent a message to Mao, intimating that they were willing to provide some supplies but wished the revolutionary troops to find somewhere else. At this, some among the revolutionary troops were incensed and were all for taking the mountain by force, but Mao disagreed and called this proposal too parochial. He pointed out that the approach of swallowing up the small fry was not feasible: there were many friendly troops in the mountains, and if all were to unite, they would form a big army. It was possible to win them over to become an army with the same goal as their own. Therefore, accompanied by just a few soldiers, Mao Zedong went to see Yuan Wencai, to explain his purpose and to dispel Yuan’s concerns. Mao Zedong gave Yuan Wencai 100 guns there and then, which helped win him over. After that, Mao gave 70 guns to Wang Zuo also. This finally earned these leaders’ trust and support. They agreed that Mao’s Workers’ and Peasants’ Revolutionary Army could establish a rear hospital and office in Maoping. Then Mao Zedong discussed with Yuan Wencai and Wang Zuo that the Workers’ and Peasants’ Revolutionary Army would send more than 20 Party members to serve as company and platoon commanders and Party representatives, absorbing Wang Zuo as a Party member; their two sets of troops would become the Second Regiment of the First Division of the Workers’ and Peasants’ Revolutionary Army, with Yuan Wencai as regiment commander, Wang Zuo as deputy regiment commander. He Changgong from the Workers’ and Peasants’ Revolutionary Army would be the regiment’s Party representative. Only after 127

Socialism in China

Yuan Wencai

Wang Zuo

the Workers’ and Peasants’ Revolutionary Army united with Yuan Wencai’s and Wang Zuo’s troops did the army get a firm footing on Jinggang Mountain. Once settled, Mao Zedong began to establish and develop Party organizations within the army and in the local area. In accordance with the Sanwan Reorganization principle, he improved the army’s Party organizations at various levels, establishing Party branches among companies to develop new members, and adopted the method of having the army’s Party organizations help local Party organizations, so as to guide and promote the building of Party organizations in neighboring counties. Party committees in Ninggang, Yongxin, Chaling, Suichuan and other counties as well as a special district Party committee in Lingxian County were then established. Party organizations were founded at district and village levels in those counties, followed by the establishment of local governments of workers, peasants and soldiers. In order to clearly define army discipline and improve relations between the army and the local residents, Mao Zedong himself formulated Three Rules of Discipline and Six Points for Attention. The Three Rules called for obedience to orders in all actions, delivery to the authorities of all money confiscated from landlords, and no taking of sweet potatoes from peasants. The Six Points were: put back door panels; tie up bed-use straw; be polite when 128

Chapter 6

To Besiege Cities from the Countryside, the Jinggang Base Is Built; a Single Spark Starts a Prairie Fire, the Red Army Is Founded

speaking; be honest in buying and selling; return all borrowed articles; and pay compensation for everything damaged. Later, two further points were added: do not harass females and do not mistreat prisoners. These small things could distinguish the people’s army from the KMT or old warlords’ army. The strict implementation of these stipulations in the revolutionary army soon garnered local acclaim. The rising of workers’ and peasants’ revolution around Jinggang Mountain and its neighboring areas was a great shock for the KMT authority in Jiangxi Province, prompting, in early 1928, the launching of the first encirclement, sending a regiment and two battalions to attack Wan’an and Ninggang counties. Mao Zedong led the Workers’ and Peasants’ Revolutionary Army in a guerrilla war, eliminating the enemy’s one battalion and the reactionary local armed troops, capturing more than 300 enemy soldiers, and finally breaking the enemy’s first attempt to destroy it. The enemy’s attack failed to shake the revolutionary base, but an internal struggle led to an explosive situation within. In early March, 1928, Zhou Lu, military minister of the CPC south Hunan Special Committee and an envoy of the provincial military region, came to Jinggang Mountain. Instructed by the Central Committee and the provincial committee, he accused the Party organization and the army on Jinggang Mountain of “too much Rightist behavior and too little burning and killing.” He criticized the Mao-led Autumn Harvest Revolution failure to attack Changsha as an error of Rightist escapism, and that taking troops to Jinggang Mountain came from “barrel of a gun-ism.” The Central Committee’s decision to dismiss Mao Zedong as an ad hoc alternate member of the Political Bureau was mistakenly given as revoking his Party membership; and the front committee with Mao Zedong as its secretary was also scrapped. Deprived of his Party membership, Mao Zedong was made commander of the First Division of the Workers’ and Peasants’ Revolutionary Army. Despite the wrongful accusation and severe blow, Mao Zedong was not disheartened, nor were his ideals or faith shaken. Complying with the order of the CPC south Hunan Special Committee, Mao Zedong led his division to southern Hunan, to coordinate with the uprising there. When they reached Zhongcun Village in Linxian County, he heard that Zhu De, Chen Yi and 129

Socialism in China

Wang Erzhuo were retreating toward Jinggang Mountain, along with the remnants of the South Hunan Rural Army, an army they had organized from the remaining troops of the Nanchang Uprising so as to raise a peasants’ uprising in southern Hunan. There were 10,000 of them and KMT soldiers were in hot pursuit.

Zhu De

Chen Yi

This is what had happened: when the Nanchang Uprising army headed southward to Guangdong, Zhu De led his men to fight three days and nights at Sanheba, suffering heavy losses. Withdrawing from there, he was left with little more than 2,000 men. Some military leaders proposed disbanding the army because of the failure at Nanchang and the scattering of the main force in the Chaoshan region, compounded by the fact that a few divisional and regimental commanders had also left the army. Zhu De strongly opposed disbanding, saying firmly at a military meeting in Tianxinyu: “We all know that the Great Revolution was defeated, as was our revolutionary army. But we still need revolution. Comrades, those who need revolution should stay with me, while those who don’t may go home… Provided we keep our strength, the revolution will find a way. You should place your trust in this.” The remaining 800 soldiers were reorganized as one column, with Zhu De as commander, Chen Yi as commissar, and Wang Erzhuo as chief of staff. This army became 130

Chapter 6

To Besiege Cities from the Countryside, the Jinggang Base Is Built; a Single Spark Starts a Prairie Fire, the Red Army Is Founded

the backbone of the military force of the CPC. Zhu De and Chen Yi led the army to southern Hunan, launched a south Hunan uprising, and then began to withdraw to Jinggang Mountain. On this intelligence, Mao Zedong immediately sent Yuan Wencai and He Changgong with their Second Regiment to move westward to Zixing, to meet the South Hunan Rural Army withdrawing from Chenxian County. Mao Zedong himself led the First Regiment to Guidong and Rucheng, hampering the KMT army and covering Zhu De’s retreat. On April 24, Mao Zedong completed the task of blocking the KMT army’s pursuit and returned to Longshi of Ninggang County, meeting the army led by Zhu De and Chen Yi who had arrived two days earlier. It was then that the CPC Hunan Provincial Committee discovered and rectified Zhou Lu’s erroneous order, and reinstated Mao Zedong’s Party membership. On reaching Longshi, Mao raced to Longjiang Academy, where Zhu De was staying. Zhu De, hearing Mao Zedong coming, ran out of the courtyard to welcome him. Mao sped up, hands outstretched even at a distance; Zhu De advanced faster too. Two pairs of hot and powerful hands met in a tight grasp. They immediately held a meeting for officers above battalion level, agreeing to reorganize the two troops into the Fourth Army of the Workers’ and Peasants’ Revolutionary Army. Zhu De was made commander of the Fourth Army, Mao Zedong the Party representative, and Chen Yi as head of the training corps. The army consisted of six regiments, two of them Mao Zedong’s First Division, the four others comprising Zhu De and Chen Yi’s remaining troops from the Nanchang Uprising and rural troops from the South Hunan Uprising. At the subsequent first congress of CPC representatives of the Fourth Army, a military commission was elected, with Mao Zedong serving as secretary. Later, rural troops from Chenzhou, Leiyang and other counties were reorganized into two regiments to conduct guerrilla warfare in Hunan. The Workers’ and Peasants’ Army on the Jinggang Mountain base grew from its original size of over 1,000 to more than 6,000, greatly strengthening its fighting capability. The reason for the Fourth Army designation was a nod to the courage and military brilliance of the 4th Army of the National Revolution shown during the Northern Expedition (1926-1928), winning the sobriquet 131

Socialism in China

“iron army.” Furthermore, the majority of Zhu De’s and Mao Zedong’s troops belonged to the same 4th Army, and revolutionary officials and soldiers could hardly discard this title. In June, under the order of the CPC Central Committee, the Fourth Army of the Workers’ and Peasants’ Army was renamed the Fourth Army of the Workers’ and Peasants’ Red Army – the Fourth Red Army for short. But while Mao Zedong was taking his troops to join up with Zhu De’s army, the KMT took advantage of the reduced strength on Jinggang Mountain, and had its Hunan army take Chaling and Linxian, and its Jiangxi army occupy Yongxin, Ji’an, Suichuan and other places. In late April, KMT troops launched a second encirclement attack on Jinggang Mountain, with two regiments marching from Yongxin and Suichuan. The Fourth Army’s military meeting chaired by Mao Zedong determined a strategy of concentrating forces on defeating one branch of the enemy, deploying troops to defeat the relatively weak Jiangxi element. Zhu De and Wang Erzhou led the main force of the Fourth Army, defeating three KMT attacks in three months, and seizing a large quantity of guns and ammunition. The Jinggang Mountain base was therefore expanded to cover Ninggang, Yongxin and Lianhua counties and part of Ji’an, Anfu, Suichuan and Linxian counties, with a total area of more than 7,200 sq km and a population of over half a million. To unify the leadership of Party organizations and the governments of workers, peasants and soldiers in the adjacent counties, Mao Zedong, with the agreement of the CPC Jiangxi Provincial Committee, convened the first Party congress of Hunan and Jiangxi border areas in late May. The congress elected a special committee of the CPC Hunan and Jiangxi border areas, with Mao Zedong as committee secretary. Later, a Soviet-style government of workers, peasants and soldiers for Hunan and Jiangxi border areas was established in Maoping, Ninggang County, with Yuan Wencai as chairman. The special committee and governments in the border areas acted in accordance with the decision made at the Party congress to “deepen land reform in the areas of the Independent Regime,” with the Land Guidelines formulated by Mao Zedong himself, launching land reform in the border areas, confiscating the land of landlords and distributing it among landless peasants. These actions ended feudal landownership that had lasted for several thousand years. In this land 132

Chapter 6

To Besiege Cities from the Countryside, the Jinggang Base Is Built; a Single Spark Starts a Prairie Fire, the Red Army Is Founded

reform, a great many farmers, now in possession of the land their forefathers had dreamed of and witnessing the CPC and the Red Army genuinely working for poor peasants’ interests, threw in their lot with the Party of their own accord, and supported the growth of the Red Army and its base. Through the land reform the CPC and the Red Army was able to solve its expenses and supply problems, thus escaping its economic difficulties. The Jinggang Mountain base entered into a flourishing phase, with great development in various aspects including the Party organization and the Red Army. But the peaceful interlude was a short one: internal Leftism reemerged. In mid to late June, the CPC Hunan Provincial Committee once again sent letters, ordering the Special Committee and the Military Commission of the Fourth Red Army to gather its forces to move toward southern Hunan, where the Red Army had to coordinate with the workers’ and peasants’ uprising. The aim was to create an armed-resistance situation on the Hunan-Jiangxi border and to realize the plan of opening up a route between Hunan and Guangdong. The order demanded that Mao Zedong should depart with the army, leaving Yuan Wencai with only one battalion to defend the mountain. The order put Mao Zedong in a dilemma. Three months before, at the order of the south Hunan Special Committee, he had led troops to attack southern Hunan and the base had suffered heavy losses in their absence. Now the Party’s Hunan Provincial Committee required almost all of the Fourth Red Army to attack southern Hunan. Mao was between a rock and a hard place: disobeying this order would be insubordination, but following it could result in defeat. Mao Zedong therefore convened a seminar co-organized by the CPC Special Committee for Hunan and Jiangxi border areas and the Fourth Red Army’s Military Commission. He also invited two inspectors from the provincial committee to join the seminar. After heated discussions, the seminar decided that “the Fourth Red Army should remain in the border counties between Hunan and Jiangxi, continuing to mobilize people and to consolidate the base. With this foundation, the Fourth Red Army will move toward Hunan and Jiangxi.” After this seminar, Mao Zedong wrote a report to the CPC Hunan Provincial Committee, giving six reasons for the above decision: First, the Fourth Red Army was building a Ninggang-centered base in accordance with the plan of 133

Socialism in China

the Central Committee and the provincial committee. The ordinary people in Yongxin and Ninggang had been mobilized and it would be inappropriate to change such plans. Second, the enemy in Hunan was strong and less vulnerable to attack as that in Jiangxi, so it would be inappropriate to move to Hunan and risk losing the entire army. Third, Ninggang had high and steep mountains, with roads into both provinces, so victory there would make it possible to defend the mountain, while losing it could give a chance to retreat. To just abandon Ninggang at this juncture would put the Fourth Red Army in jeopardy; it would be like a tiger descending to flat land only to be insulted by dogs. Fourth, in the past nationwide uprisings had enjoyed great but fleeting victories, since in face of enemy counterattacks, they had been obliterated like they never happened. This was because, pursuing impressive displays of power, the need for solid foundations was neglected. Therefore, establishment of a regime in the central Luoxiao Mountains was strengthening the foundations, and absolutely not conservatism. Fifth, the counties of southern Hunan were bankrupt, with no more property or land of landlords confiscated. If the Fourth Army went there, it would be impossible to resolve its economic difficulties. Sixth, the number of the injured soldiers now stood at 500, so going to southern Hunan would result in collapsed morale. These six reasons were explained logically and reasonably. They summarized the lessons of past failures, and analyzed the realities. Unfortunately, the provincial committee was in the grip of Leftist adventurism, and was impervious to correct opinions from a Party committee at a lower level. Just then, the KMT troops in Hunan and Jiangxi provinces launched a combined attack, so the Fourth Red Army was divided to counter those attacks. The inspector of the CPC Hunan Provincial Committee disregarded the Yongxin joint resolution, and was all for implementing the misguided orders of the provincial committee. While Mao Zedong was fighting outside the Jinggang base, the inspector took two regiments to Hunan, attacking Chenzhou. Despite initial victory, the two regiments were then defeated, with just over 200 soldiers surviving in one regiment, and heavy casualties for the other. Mao Zedong himself led troops to welcome the remaining soldiers from the Hunan battles, who amounted to less than a regiment. While the main force of the Red Army was away from Jinggang Mountain, the KMT army had launched 134

Chapter 6

To Besiege Cities from the Countryside, the Jinggang Base Is Built; a Single Spark Starts a Prairie Fire, the Red Army Is Founded

strong attacks, taking the Hunan-Jiangxi border counties and the plains. The Jinggang Mountain base was badly damaged, losing almost all the border counties except for a small area held by surviving troops stationed there. This failure was called the “August Failure.” In just over a year, the Jinggang Mountain base was lost many times, and was regained many times despite the KMT army’s combined attacks. The Red Army soldiers were ill-equipped, and life was hard, as they were constantly in battle, and trying to obtain supplies. Criticism and accusations, particularly from the higher-level Party organization, put the base Party and army leadership under great pressure, leading to pessimism and disappointment among all ranks, raising questions whether the move to Jinggang Mountain had been the right decision, whether the Red independent regime would survive, and how long the Red Flag would fly. Although concerned about all this, Mao coped calmly with the situation. He summarized the process of establishing the Jinggang Mountain base over the past year and gave it a theoretical thinking, while guiding border counties to rebuild the damaged Party organizations and directing the Red Army to restore the base. He knew that clearly explaining the situation to higher-level authorities, getting all those under him to understand too, and improving morale were all issues bearing on the survival or otherwise of the base and the Red Army. They had to be taken seriously. One day in October, in an old and shabby hall in Maoping on Jinggang Mountain, Mao Zedong addressed the second congress for the CPC HunanJiangxi border areas. Wearing a thin gray military uniform, he detailed in slow and earnest fashion how China’s Red regimes could be sustained. He counted off on his fingers the reasons why a small area, many small areas even, of Red political power, surrounded by a White political regime, were able to survive for a long time. First, China was a semi-colonial nation with a backward economy, indirectly controlled by many imperialist powers. Local rural economies and the exploitative policies followed in areas under different imperialist influences had led to long-term division and feuding among the warlords of White political power. This was the root cause for a small area of Red political power to appear and grow. Second, the areas where China’s Red political power had 135

Socialism in China

emerged and existed for a long time were those areas that had gone through a democratic revolution, with the worker and peasant classes conducting economic and political struggles against the landlords, landed gentry and bourgeoisie, bolstered by the peasants’ armed resistance and a good revolutionary foundation among ordinary people. Third, the entire revolution in the country had gained momentum. There was no doubt that a small Red area could survive, and continue to develop until the whole country was taken over. Fourth, a necessary condition for the existence of the Red political power was a Red Army of considerable strength. Therefore, the idea of the independent regime of armed workers and peasants was an important concept that had to be fully grasped by the CPC and ordinary people. Fifth, vigorous Party organizations with no erroneous policies were another necessary condition… His unraveling of the issue dispelled their confusion and, with hopes renewed, the attendees responded with hearty laughter and warm applause. Having got his thinking across to Party members and officials below him, Mao lost no time in reporting to the Party committee at the higher level, aiming to win senior officials’ understanding and support. Late one early November night, in Maoping Village in northern Jinggang Mountain, faint lamplight could still be seen in a house there. Inside, in

Bajiao House in Maoping Village, Jinggang Mountain, where Mao Zedong once resided in

136

Chapter 6

To Besiege Cities from the Countryside, the Jinggang Base Is Built; a Single Spark Starts a Prairie Fire, the Red Army Is Founded

a smoke-filled room, Mao was writing a report, lighted cigarette in hand. He Zizhen woke up at midnight, saw Mao Zedong was still working, and quietly dressed and came to stand behind him. He Zizhen, a native of Yongxin County, came from a prestigious local family. Her father, once the county magistrate, later got embroiled in a lawsuit. After selling off his property, her father was released from prison, and opened a teahouse to make a living. He Zizhen studied at a local church school, where she was acclaimed as a beauty by her classmates. In early 1926, she joined the county’s first Socialist Youth League group, and became a Party member that autumn of the same year. At age 17, He Zizhen left school, beginning her career as a revolutionary by serving both as head of a women’s department at a KMT county party headquarters and as the county’s Socialist Youth League secretary, during the KMT-CPC cooperation period. After the failure of the Great Revolution, she went along with her brother and He Minxue, the CPC Yongxin County Secretary, to Jinggang Mountain. Six months before she married Mao Zedong. Noticing his wife behind him, Mao put down his writing brush and picked up his teacup. Turning to her, he asked: “Why did you get up?” There was a note of reproach in her reply: “Runzhi, it’s almost dawn. What are you still writing?” Mao took her hands in his: “The day before yesterday, a letter came from the Central Committee, confirming our resolution to adopt a long-distance struggle strategy following the failure of our Great Revolution. But they don’t quite understand why we take to the mountains, nor our situation up here. For more than a year we’ve come under a barrage of letters and messengers from the CPC Central Committee, the Hunan Provincial Committee and the Special Hunan Committee, most of them critical. I’m writing a report to the Central Committee, describing the year of building Party and Red Army organizations and local troops, plus my own thoughts, to summarize lessons and experiences of the struggle on Jinggang Mountain.” A little surprised, He Zizhen read a page of it: “Struggle resolutely against the enemy, set up political power in the middle section of the Luoxiao mountain range, and oppose flightism. Deepen the agrarian revolution in areas under the independent regime. Promote the development of the local Party organization with the help of the army Party organization and promote the 137

Socialism in China

development of the local armed forces with the help of the regular army, adopt a defensive strategy toward Hunan where government control is strong, and an offensive strategy toward Jiangxi where it is weak; strive to administer Yongxin, create the independent regime by the masses, and plan for protracted struggle. Concentrate the Red Army units in order to fight the enemy confronting them when the time is opportune, and oppose the division of forces so as to avoid being destroyed one by one. Adopt the policy of advancing in a series of waves to expand the area under the independent regime, and oppose the policy of expansion by adventurist advance.” Mao stood up and patted his wife’s shoulder, saying: “These are major policies and strategies for the struggle on Jinggang Mountain. With less than four regiments, for four months we have fought against enemy forces several times larger than our own, day by day expanding the areas of the independent regime, deepening land revolution, spreading people’s regimes, and expanding the Red Army and Red Guards. We were able to do so is because of the correct policies of Party organizations at the provincial border areas, including local and army Party organizations. Why did we get defeated in August? Because provincial Party inspectors messed with those policies! Once we returned to them, the revolutionary base started to recover and grow again.” He Zizhen read on: “Since the struggle in the border area is exclusively military, both the Party and the masses have to be placed on a war footing. An independent regime must be an armed one. Wherever such an area is located, it will be immediately occupied by the enemy if armed forces are lacking or inadequate, or if wrong tactics are used in dealing with the enemy.” Mao Zedong took a pull on his cigarette, still absorbed in thought. Then he said: “The Central Committee’s letters recommended launching a people’s uprising with the masses as the main force and the Red Army as the auxiliary one. It’s difficult to say this is wrong. But the emphasis on the military seems quite inadequate. I still want to add a sentence: ‘The feature of revolution in China, a county where economy depends heavily on agriculture, is militarybased uprising. We suggest the Central Committee should strive to carry out military campaigns.’” He Zizhen picked up another page, and read: “The Red Army should stay in the border areas, resolving to struggle and having the courage to fight without 138

Chapter 6

To Besiege Cities from the Countryside, the Jinggang Base Is Built; a Single Spark Starts a Prairie Fire, the Red Army Is Founded

respite. Only by doing so can we add to our weaponry and train good soldiers.” She looked up with a smile, asking, “Is this what you most want to say?” Mao nodded: “My conclusion for this report, also its last sentence, is this: ‘the continuing firm presence of the Red Flag in border areas signals the strength of the Party and the bankruptcy of the bourgeoisie. It has huge political significance across China. We have always believed it totally essential and correct to create and expand the political power in the central Luoxiao Mountains.’” Mao Zedong’s speech “How Is It That Red Political Power Can Exist in China?” and his report to the CPC Central Committee, “Struggle on the Jinggang Mountain,” correctly analyzed the political situation as well as the semicolonial and semi-feudal conditions following the failure of the Great Revolution. He demonstrated the reasons and conditions for the existence of Red political power through the armed resistance of workers and peasants. He primarily formed the important concept for the existence and development of Red political power, a “trinity” of land reform as the core content, armed struggle as the major form, and the rural bases as the basic support. This concept answered the most basic questions concerning China’s revolutionary future and destiny, and developed the Jinggang Mountain base. From then on, starting from the Jinggang Mountain base, the CPC led the people to fight for 21 years, until finally winning power across the entire country. On December 11, 1928, another army reached Jinggang Mountain. Numbering over 700 soldiers. This was the Fifth Red Army led by Peng Dehuai and Teng Daiyuan, who had launched the Pingjiang Revolution in Hunan. With the arrival of Peng Dehuai and others, the military force on the mountain was strengthened, and the number of valiant and effective generals increased. The army of workers and peasants on Jinggang Mountain kept on growing. Several suppression campaigns by the KMT troops in Jiangxi and Hunan ended in failure, angering Chiang Kai-shek. He ordered Hunan and Jiangxi provinces to mobilize 18 regiments of more than 30,000 troops, and launched a five-pronged attack on Jinggang Mountain, the third such attempt. At this point, the Red Army had only 5,000 or 6,000 troops on Jinggang Mountain, with insufficient ammunition and supplies. Mao Zedong convened a multi-party joint meeting, and determined the strategy of “besieging the state 139

Socialism in China

of Wei in order to rescue the state of Zhao”. It was decided that Peng Dehuai would lead the Fifth Red Army along with Yuan Wencai and Wang Zuo’s troops to defend the mountain, while Zhu De and Mao Zedong would lead the Fourth Red Army along the Hunan-Jiangxi border, and out of southern Jiangxi, to lift the encirclement by attacking the enemy’s flanks and rear. In the face of winter cold, wind and snow, in January 1929, Mao Zedong and Zhu De led more than 3,600 troops, down the mountain from Ciping, Xiaozhou and elsewhere. Going beyond mountain areas, the Red Army passed through places without a local Party organizations or a foundation of popular struggles during the Great Revolution. They could not even find a guide. The Red Army, pursued and blocked by the KMT army in the county town of Dayu, Zhenxia Village of Xunwu County, and elsewhere, suffered a series of heavy and costly defeats. But on February 10, 1929, the first day of the lunar New Year, the Red Army, exploiting the lie of the land at Dabodi, north of Ruijin, and taking advantage of a rash advance by the two enemy regiments, trapped them in a no-exit situation. By day’s end, the Red Army killed more than 300 enemy soldiers, captured over 800, and seized a large quantity of guns, ammunition and food. This victory reversed a losing situation, and reinvigorated morale. The Red Army, after enduring a month of mobile combat, urgently needed a place to rest. It was decided to march to Donggu, bordered by five counties including Ji’an and Xingguo. But on arrival, they learned that the Jinggang Mountain base had been lost under strong enemy attack; that Peng Dehuai and Teng Daiyuan had withdrawn to southern Jiangxi at the head of just over 1,000 soldiers; and that He Changgong and Wang Zuo had led some of the Red Army soldiers and local armed troops into the forests to continue fighting a guerrilla war. They had not been able to carry out the original rescue plan for Jinggang Mountain. With the KMT troops about to surround them again, Zhu De and Mao Zedong had to lead the Fourth Red Army along the Jiangxi-Fujian border into western Fujian. In Changting in western Fujian, the Red Army learned that Chiang Kai-shek was about to fight against Li Zongren, a warlord of the Guangxi clique, and that KMT troops in Jiangxi would be dispatched northward to take part in the confrontation. Taking advantage of this moment, the Red Army returned to southern Jiangxi and met the Peng Dehuai-led Fifth 140

Chapter 6

To Besiege Cities from the Countryside, the Jinggang Base Is Built; a Single Spark Starts a Prairie Fire, the Red Army Is Founded

Red Army that had broken out from Jinggang Mountain. Several days later, the war between Chiang Kai-shek and Li Zongren broke out. Peng Dehuai led his men to fight their way to retake Jinggang Mountain and revive the base along the Hunan-Jiangxi border, while Zhu De and Mao Zedong commanded the Fourth Red Army to occupy Yudu, Xingguo, Ningdu, Ruijin, Ganxian, Anyuan, Xunwu and other counties, and put down the beginnings of the southern Jiangxi base, where the Southwest Jiangxi Soviet has been formed, with Zeng Shan as its chairman. In mid-May, Chiang Kai-shek won the war against Li. The southern Jiangxi KMT troops returned to Jiangxi, while local western Fujian warlords went on to Guangdong to fight there, since war had flared up between Guangdong and Guangxi warlords. From late May to early June, the Fourth Red Army reentered Fujian, filling the military vacuum and occupying Longyan, Yongding, Shanghang, Wuping, Changting, Liancheng and other counties. The Red Army established county-level revolutionary regimes, with Deng Zihui as secretary of the western Fujian Special Committee, leading peasants to crack down on landlords, and confiscating their land. With the expansion of the Red Army and Red Guards, the western Fujian revolutionary base was thus formed. But as the revolutionary base was expanding rapidly, a major conflict broke out inside the Red Army, one that nearly led to its split. Right since its founding, the Red Army had contended with very difficult conditions, fighting to survive, fighting to grow, without time to deepen its work to build the army and its ideological principles. Moreover, most of its members came from revolutionary peasants, officers and soldiers of old warlords, and greenwood bandits. Inevitably the bad habits of the old warlord armies were infectious and some erroneous ideas caught on and multiplied. There was growing divergence of view between senior officers on how to build the army and the Party’s leadership of it. These differences and conflicts could not be settled for a long time, and were mounting. What brought the internal conflicts to a head was the arrival of Liu Angong, sent by the Central Committee to the Fourth Red Army. Liu Angong, a native of Sichuan Province, had studied at the Lecture Hall in Yunnan in the early years, and also with Zhu De in Germany, before being dispatched by the Central Committee to study the military in Soviet Russia. When Liu Angong 141

Socialism in China

joined the Fourth Red Army, Mao Zedong recommended to the Front Committee that Liu Angong replace him as political commissar. During the time on Jinggang Mountain, the Fourth Red Army had set up the Military Commission under the leadership of the Mao Zedong-led Front Committee. When Zhu De and Mao Zedong led the Red Army to fight in southern Jiangxi, in order to deal with critical situations and simplify the leadership structure, Mao Zedong proposed to the Front Committee that the Military Commission of the Fourth Red Army should be suspended and the Front Committee should directly lead Party organizations at various levels. This actually cancelled the Military Commission in which Zhu De served as secretary. Considering the overall situation, Zhu De agreed. Later, after the setting up of the southern Jiangxi and western Fujian bases, the Front Committee managed both military and local affairs. When Liu Angong joined the Fourth Red Army, with the agreement of Zhu De and Chen Yi, Mao Zedong proposed resuming the function of the Military Commission and appointing Liu Angong as secretary. Unexpectedly, soon after Liu Angong took office, he called a Military Commission meeting, making resolutions to limit and weaken the role of the Front Committee, requiring that the Front Committee should administer only local affairs and participate in discussion of principles for military actions, and that the Front Committee should no longer be involved in any other affairs of the Fourth Red Army. This was obviously a move to marginalize the Front Committee and to contend with Mao Zedong for power. Liu Angong also spread rumors that the Central Committee had asked Zhu De and Mao Zedong to leave the army, causing confusion among soldiers. At the end of May 1929, Mao Zedong hosted a Front Committee meeting at Yongding County in Fujian Province, discussing the relation between the Front Committee and the Military Commission and other Party affairs of the army. As stipulated, the Military Commission was under the leadership of the Front Committee; there was no ambiguity, and was not up for debate. The discussion focused on whether the Fourth Red Army should keep the Military Commission. Mao proposed that the leadership of the Front Committee should still focus on the army because military command should be concentrated and quick to respond, therefore there was no call for overlapping organizations. It was recommended that the Military Commission should be can142

Chapter 6

To Besiege Cities from the Countryside, the Jinggang Base Is Built; a Single Spark Starts a Prairie Fire, the Red Army Is Founded

celled and the Front Committee directly administer the Party committee work at the army, division and regiment level. This meant removing Liu Angong’s pro-tem post as secretary of the Military Commission. Liu Angong flatly disagreed. On the pretext of improving the army’s leadership organ, he maintained that the Military Commission should be retained; he accused the Front Committee of over-management and concentrating too much power, criticizing Mao Zedong’s “dictatorship of the secretary” and his “patriarchal errors.” Had it just been Liu Angong to raise the issue, it would not have amounted to much; but he had the support of several other leaders including Zhu De, and this complicated matters. The meeting failed to reach an agreement and the controversy continued to escalate. On June 8, an expanded meeting of the Front Committee was held in Baisha, Shanghang County, for further discussion of the Military Commission issue. Mao Zedong had his written opinion read out at the meeting; it stated that the fundamental divergence was that the Military Commission wanted to limit the power of the Front Committee, which though unable to work effectively, had to take the responsibility of overall leadership; that some people were opposed to Party control of everything, opposed to all work going through Party branches, and opposed to constraints on the individual freedom of Party members. This divergence shook the three biggest organizational principles, and was fundamentally seen as a struggle between unrestrained individual freedom and the discipline of proletarian organizations. Liu Angong, however, criticized Mao Zedong for “self-created principles” and “disobeying the CPC Central Committee,” and recommended “a full election system, replacing senior Party leaders by rotation”. Intense arguments arose at the meeting. Some of the 41 participants supported Mao Zedong’s position, while others agreed with Liu Angong’s views. Seeing the stalemate, Mao took the extreme decision to resign from his post as secretary of the Front Committee. By majority vote the meeting passed a resolution to cancel the provisional Military Commission. However, Liu Angong, unwilling to comply, lobbied for support after the meeting and widened the divergence between senior Party officials within the army. The issue of the Military Commission evolved into a conflict between two major Red Army leaders, Zhu De and Mao Zedong. Mao was determined not to withdraw his resignation, and since an army cannot be left leaderless for 143

Socialism in China

a single day, the Front Committee decided to ask Chen Yi to step in as secretary on a pro tem basis. After the Baisha meeting, Mao Zedong and Zhu De, as required by the Front Committee, each wrote an article, published that same month in the Communications of the Front Committee. Following the debates over different opinions, the acting secretary Chen Yi wished to dispel rumors and unify everybody’s thinking, but it just made the conflicts even more intense. For his part, Mao Zedong listed the 14 issues of contention among the Party members of the Red Army. He indicated the root cause was that most soldiers of the Fourth Red Army had come from old warlord armies, compounded by the fact that some army leaders sided toward a military viewpoint, to the neglect of the political. He denied the existence of “a patriarchal style” inside the Party of the Fourth Red Army, stressing that such erroneous ideas as one-sided military viewpoints, the notion of roving bandits, cliquishness and neglect of discipline had to be overcome if the Red Army were to be reformed. Zhu De pointed out in his article that the concept of Party management of absolutely everything as the highest principle was not found in the Communist classics; the Party should administer everything through the central role of various proletarian agencies (such as Soviet-style government), rather than handling things directly; he criticized the Front Committee for usurping the work of Party branches and for implementing a top-down patriarchal work style, rather than a bottom-up democracy; he criticized the limitations on Party members’ freedom advocated by Mao Zedong, who nonetheless had followed his own will when he disobeyed the transfer order of the Central Committee. These two articles intensified internal debate within the Fourth Red Army. Against this backdrop, the Fourth Red Army’s Seventh Party Congress, held on June 22, was hosted by Chen Yi, who issued a political report. At the meeting, Zhu De admitted that his past views had been somewhat partial and said he welcomed any criticism from delegates. Mao Zedong stressed strengthening the Party’s leadership of the Red Army, political work inside the army, and discipline. Regarding any criticism of him at the meeting, Mao Zedong stated that he had nothing to say. If it had a point, he would consider it; if it was incorrect, the future would prove it so. 144

Chapter 6

To Besiege Cities from the Countryside, the Jinggang Base Is Built; a Single Spark Starts a Prairie Fire, the Red Army Is Founded

The Resolution of the Seventh Party Congress of the Fourth Red Army was voted on and passed but did not gloss over the existing conflicts. It pointed out clearly that, in the past, Party and non-Party members of the Fourth Red Army, along with subordinates, mechanically obeyed the Party and superiors. This desultory Party life could be attributed to one person setting a patriarchal trend, but there was no such phenomenon as the “dictatorship of the secretary”; the criticism of the higher echelons of the Party taking care of everything concerning its branches’ work was arbitrary, and not in line with the facts; the Party’s comprehensive administration conformed to the Party’s constitution, but this slogan’s verbal oversimplification might lead to incorrect understanding and should not be cited again. The resolution also affirmed Zhu De’s and Mao Zedong’s achievements and their major contributions, while seriously detailing and criticizing their shortcomings. It was decided that Mao Zedong should be punished with a serious warning and Zhu De should receive a written warning. When the meeting chose the secretary of the Front Committee, Chen Yi was elected, Mao lost his position of the secretary of the Front Committee appointed by the Central Committee. This was the only time in Mao’s life that he had lost a bottom-up election. After the meeting, the newly elected Front Committee agreed to Mao Zedong’s request, allowing him to work and rest for a while in west Fujian. In late September, he contracted malaria and was in critical condition. He received treatment and rested at a dilapidated temple in Sujiapo. The KMT put about a rumor that Mao Zedong had died of illness. The Comintern actually swallowed this and published an obituary in The International News Communication. It read: “Comrade Mao Zedong, one of the founders of the Chinese Communist Party, the guerrillas and the Red Army, died at the front in Fujian, after suffering from TB for a long time. This is a great loss to the Chinese Communist Party, the guerrillas and the Red Army.” To read one’s own obituary is both funny and distressing at the same time. But it did underline that Mao Zedong’s important position and role in the Chinese revolution had been recognized by the Comintern. After Mao Zedong left the Fourth Red Army, the newly elected secretary of the Front Committee, Chen Yi, went to Shanghai for a joint military work meeting and reported to the CPC Central Committee about the conditions of 145

Socialism in China

the Fourth Red Army. He was away for more than two months, leaving only Zhu De to take care of all the work of the army. Party matters, military command and political work – this was an unmanageable burden for one person’s shoulders. As a result, political and ideological work in the army clearly weakened, and army discipline grew lax. In late September, the Fourth Red Army held its Eighth Party Congress, and some officers moved to invite Mao Zedong back. Zhu De agreed and said, “Zhu and Mao, Zhu and Mao! Zhu can’t do without Mao. Without Mao beside him, Zhu won’t get through the winter.” Zhu De himself wrote a letter urging Mao Zedong to return immediately to preside over the work of the Front Committee in the Fourth Red Army. On reading the letter, Mao Zedong displayed his stubborn temper: “Without this line issue being settled, I won’t be able to return.” On learning about Mao Zedong’s reluctance to return, all recommended that Zhang Henqiu write an urgent invitation letter on behalf of all members of the Front Committee, saying, “…for failure to come back upon receiving the letter, Mao Zedong shall be subject to internal disciplinary punishment by the Party.” On receiving the letter, Mao Zedong, despite his ill health, was carried back on a stretcher by the Red Guards of Yongding County, back to the military headquarters of the Fourth Red Army. He continued to rest for a while due to his illness, and did not take charge of leadership work. In late October, Chen Yi rejoined the troops, bringing with him important instructions for the Fourth Red Army from the Central Committee. Chen Yi had reached Shanghai at the end of August, and reported to the Political Bureau about the situation in the Fourth Red Army, including the internal wrangling and controversies. The Political Bureau decided that Zhou Enlai, Li Lisan and Chen Yi should draft a letter in accordance with the spirit of the Political Bureau’s meeting – an instruction letter in the name of the Central Committee to the Fourth Red Army. This, the “September Letter,” drafted by Chen Yi and reviewed by Zhou Enlai, ran to nearly 10,000 characters. The letter was completed in accordance with the spirit of the Political Bureau’s meeting and Zhou Enlai’s talks, summarizing and affirming the experience of the Fourth Red Army, and pointing out three basic objectives for the Red Army: mobilizing ordinary people for revolution, implementing land 146

Chapter 6

To Besiege Cities from the Countryside, the Jinggang Base Is Built; a Single Spark Starts a Prairie Fire, the Red Army Is Founded

reform, and establishing Soviet-style regimes; carrying out guerrilla warfare, arming peasants, and expanding their own organizations; expanding guerrilla warfare areas and spreading their influence to the entire country. The instruction letter also indicated: “We will first have the Red Army in the countryside and then political power in cities. This is a feature of the Chinese revolution and a product of China’s economic basis.” This was in effect a complete endorsement of the important concept of the Chinese revolution besieging the cities from the surrounding rural areas. Regarding differences among the leaders of the Fourth Red Army, the September Letter explicitly stated: “All power of the Party is under the guiding organ of the Front Committee; this is correct and unshakable. We cannot parrot the noun ‘patriarchy’ to undermine the guiding organ’s power, and to act as a cover for extreme democracy. The letter also made the point: “The Party’s work line should implement the line of the Party, and should not directly command troops, but manage military affairs through the military headquarters, and political affairs through the political department; the Front Committee should not manage ordinary administrative affairs, which should be delegated to administrative organs; the Front Committee should focus on guiding the Red Army’s political, military, economic and ordinary people’s struggles; the peasant-turned-Red-Army members should be strengthened through education and guidance of proletarian consciousness, reducing peasant mindset. The September Letter also seriously pointed out the shortcomings and errors of Zhu De and Mao Zedong, requiring the two of them to unite together, demanding that officers and soldiers safeguard the leadership reputation of Zhu De and Mao Zedong. It unequivocally stated that Mao should “remain as secretary of the Front Committee.” The letter was perfectly timed to settle the controversies among the Fourth Red Army’s leadership, to heal the schisms in the army, and promote unity. It came as a timely, powerfully supportive and serious lesson for Mao Zedong and Zhu De. Chen Yi hosted an expanded meeting of the Front Committee, and passed on the message in the September Letter. Mao Zedong and Zhu De said they accepted the letter’s instructions, and conducted self-criticism. The Front Committee resolved to accept the guidance of the Central Committee’s letter, 147

Socialism in China

and made preparations for the opening of the Fourth Red Army’s Ninth Party Congress, to further address the problems present in building the Red Army. Reflecting on the controversies among the Fourth Red Army’s senior officials, it is apparent that, as regards the setting up of the Military Commission, Liu Angong’s struggle for power and reputation was completely wrong. Mao Zedong’s advocacy of the leadership of the Fourth Red Army under the Front Committee was correct, but his proposals first for the suspension, then the resumption and then the disbanding of the Military Commission, all in the space of half a year, seemed to be overly at will – the disbanding in particular. The issues of maintaining the leadership of the Front Committee and Liu Angong’s power grab could have been tackled in a different way. Moreover, in accordance with the Sanwan Reorganization principle proposed and determined by Mao Zedong at the founding of the Red Army, the Red Army had to have Party organizations at various levels and its armies, divisions and regiments should have Party committees. In this controversy, Zhu De really did not oppose Party leadership over the army. His point of disagreement was the concept of Party’s management of all things being the highest principle. He argued that the Party should not be taking care of all aspects of military work, believing that the Party should let the various organs of proletarian organizations exert a central role to manage everything, rather than direct management by Party committees. Zhu De’s opinions were correct, and confirmed as such by the September Letter. Zhu De’s criticism of Mao Zedong for implementing a top-down patriarchy rather than a bottom-up democracy was actually the key and essence of this controversy. What Zhu De opposed was patriarchy inside the Party, but he did not advocate ultra-democracy. Unfortunately, this opinion from Zhu De failed to find favor with the CPC Central Committee, which could have further formulated systems, measures and discipline to combat patriarchy within the Party, and implemented democratic collectivism, thereby settling this issue at the early stage of the Party and army’s founding. Therefore, this controversy over how to reflect the Party’s leadership over the military indubitably concerned important principles for the future and destiny of the Party and army. This was certainly not a struggle between two lines, neither a Zhu-Mao power or reputation struggle, nor a personal issue. It was a 148

Chapter 6

To Besiege Cities from the Countryside, the Jinggang Base Is Built; a Single Spark Starts a Prairie Fire, the Red Army Is Founded

normal debate among senior Party and army leaders in the early period of the founding of the army, concerning what kind of army should be built and how to build it. As for the principles, the arguments helped clarify confused thinking, improve and unify the understanding of Party members and officials, and reach a new unity on a new ideological base. A bad thing had thus turned into something good. On November 28, 1929, the Fourth Red Army held its Ninth Party Congress at Shuguang Elementary School in Xibei Village, Gutian Town in Shanghang County, Fujian Province. The congress discussed the spirit of the September Letter, summarized the lessons and experiences of the Front Committee, and passed eight resolutions drafted by Mao Zedong. At this congress, Mao Zedong was re-elected secretary of the Front Committee. The eight resolutions are known generally as the Resolutions of the Ninth Congress of the CPC Fourth Red Army, and abbreviated as the Gutian Congress Resolutions. They clearly stated the following: the nature and mission of the Red Army, which is an armed group whose revolutionary political tasks, apart from fighting and eliminating the enemy’s military forces, include educating, organizing and arming the masses, helping them establish political power and Party organizations; the principle of the Party’s leadership over the Red Army, which stressed that various-level Party organizations in the Red Army should be improved, that the Party should proactively pay attention to and discuss military work, and that all the work should be carried out by the masses, following the Party’s discussions and resolutions; the principle of the minority being subordinated to the majority in various Party organs, according to which principle resolutions once formulated must be implemented; the parallel relationship of the Red Army’s political organs and military organs, both working under the Front Committee, but with different responsibilities. The political organs should not be considered subordinate to military ones; and certain principles must be established for the Red Army to handle internal and external relations. For example, the equality of officers and soldiers inside the army, so as to practice democracy; that the Red Army should respect the people’s regime organs in terms of the relationship between the military and the government; that the Three Rules and the Six Points should be implemented re149

Socialism in China

garding the relationship between the military and the people; and for resolute elimination of the enemy, while weakening the enemy and treating prisoners with leniency… In addition, the above resolutions also stressed that the Red Army should strengthen the Party’s ideological construction, while continuously conducting education on Marxism and correct Party lines, overcoming all types of non-proletarian thinking, and enhancing the political level of the troops. To sum up: the Gutian Congress and its resolutions comprehensively answered the questions of how to build a peasant-centered army into a new type of people’s troops led by the proletarian class, and how to construct a Party organization with the majority of peasants and elements of the petty bourgeoisie into a strong proletarian Party. It was a crucial and profound step in the building of the CPC, the Red Army and their base. The September Letter, the Gutian Congress Resolutions, and the solving of conflicts between Zhu De and Mao Zedong had a dramatic impact on the thinking of Lin Biao, the commander of the First Column of the Fourth Red Army. Lin Biao, formerly known as Lin Yurong, a native of Huanggang, Hubei Province, was a fourth-session graduate of the Whampoa Military Academy. He participated in the Nanchang Uprising, and then followed Zhu De to war, before retreating to Jinggang Mountain. At age 21, Lin Biao served as commander of the 28th Regiment, known as

Lin Biao in the Red Army days

No. 1 regiment of the Red Army; at age 22, he was made commander of the First Column among the Fourth Red Army’s three columns reorganized at Changting. He was the youngest senior general of the Red Army. Several hours before the expanded meeting of the Front Committee at Baisha, Lin Biao had presented a letter to Mao Zedong, demonstrating his sup150

Chapter 6

To Besiege Cities from the Countryside, the Jinggang Base Is Built; a Single Spark Starts a Prairie Fire, the Red Army Is Founded

port of Mao Zedong’s fight against erroneous thinking inside the army, and indirectly criticizing Zhu De with the words: “There are some comrades with strong leadership desires and extreme vanity.” He even used such words as a “politician’s methods,” “feudal relationship,” and “foul behavior.” Lin Biao’s letter had been read by Zhu De and other leaders of the Fourth Red Army. After realizing that Zhu De and Mao Zedong would soon be reconciled, Lin Biao was in a quandary, wanting to mend relations. On the occasion of New Year’s Eve, Lin Biao wrote with New Year wishes to Mao Zedong and Chen Yi, the former and new secretary of the Front Committee respectively. He suggested holding an expanded meeting of the new Front Committee, in which each comrade on the committee would conduct criticism and self-criticism; he welcomed more criticism on him, and thus help him to progress faster. Mao Zedong contemplated Lin Biao’s letter over several days, wondering how he should respond. Lin Biao could be considered Mao Zedong’s favorite general. Mao was very familiar with him, knowing him to be intelligent, a resourceful strategist, and a super-competent fighter, but that he had obvious shortcomings. The most prominent shortcoming was his serious selfish departmentalism, with lack of regard for the overall situation on occasion. One such occasion was when the Red Army came down Jinggang Mountain and was attacked in Dayu and Xunwu, Jiangxi Province. Lin Biao led his troops straight into retreat, without organizing any rearguard action, almost endangering the military headquarters. Mao Zedong had severely censured him at the time, but putting it down to Lin’s youth and immaturity, did not brood over it. What did worry Mao after going up Jinggang Mountain was Lin Biao’s frequently demonstrated lack of enthusiasm in establishing a base in the valleys, his eagerness for fighting guerrilla warfare in order to expand the army’s influence, and his pessimism about the revolution’s prospects. Mao Zedong was aware that Lin Biao was not alone to have such ideas among officers and soldiers of the Red Army. He felt it necessary to warn Lin Biao and educate other officers and soldiers, regarding major issues of China’s revolutionary road and future. Therefore, on the evening of January 4, 1930, writing without stop, he replied to Lin Biao with a letter on this subject; it ran to more than 7,000 characters long. Mao later published it through the army’s internal communications, so that all other Party members could read it. 151

Socialism in China

The letter criticized Lin Biao and others for having “no deep understanding of the idea of accelerating the nationwide revolutionary high tide through the consolidation and expansion of Red political power;” and indicated that “their theory that we must first win over the masses on a country-wide scale and in all regions and then establish political power does not accord with the actual state of the Chinese revolution.” The most important thoughts in Mao Zedong’s letter were that “the policy which merely calls for roving guerrilla actions cannot accomplish the task of accelerating this nationwide revolutionary high tide, while the kind of policy adopted by Zhu De and Mao Zedong and also by Fang Zhiming is undoubtedly correct – that is, the policy of establishing base areas; of systematically setting up political power; of deepening the agrarian revolution; of expanding the people’s armed forces by a comprehensive process of building up first the township Red Guards, then the district Red Guards, then the county Red Guards, then the local Red Army troops, all the way up to the regular Red Army troops; of spreading political power by advancing in a series of waves, etc., etc.” In 1948, when this letter was about to be published in the compilation Selected Works of Mao Zedong, at Lin Biao’s request, the original title “A Letter Written by Mao Zedong to Lin Biao” was renamed “A Single Spark Can Start a Prairie Fire,” and the content relating to Lin Biao was deleted. Mao Zedong’s letter was a deep summation of the fresh experiences of establishing the Jinggang Mountain and a dozen other revolutionary bases in the years following the failure of the Great Revolution, a proof of the importance to the Chinese revolution of establishing rural bases and Red political power and expanding revolutionary troops. He clearly stated the “trinity” idea of armed struggle, agrarian revolution and rural base construction, deeply revealed the development trends and objective laws of China’s revolution that would spread from one small Red regime to the whole nation, like a single spark starting a prairie fire. In reality it was an exposition of the important thought that China’s revolution should center on rural areas and thence take political power by besieging cities from the countryside. This thought based on China’s realities was a major innovation in social revolutionary theories, including Marxism and Leninism. In the conception of Marx and Engels, under a specific historical condition, the specific path for the prole152

Chapter 6

To Besiege Cities from the Countryside, the Jinggang Base Is Built; a Single Spark Starts a Prairie Fire, the Red Army Is Founded

tariat to seize political power through violent revolution was to organize workers’ uprisings. The experience of the October Revolution initiated by Lenin and Stalin demonstrated that the revolutionary climax and the seizure of power came from armed uprisings in central cities. China’s Revolution of 1911 and Northern Expedition also experienced uprisings in large cities and the taking of central cities northward. The Comintern, Chen Duxiu, Li Lisan and Qu Qiubai and other CPC leaders also stressed that China’s revolution should focus on cities and organize urban uprisings or attack large cities through the Red Army, first winning victories in one or several provinces and then taking over the entire country. However, Mao Zedong, Zhu De, Peng Dehuai, He Long, Fang Zhimin, Li Wenlin, Deng Xiaoping, Zhang Yunyi, Gu Dacun, Feng Baiju and other CPC members did not confine themselves to book knowledge, nor did they blindly follow orders from the top. They proceeded from realities, and integrated China’s revolutionary practice with basic tenets of Marxism and Leninism, thereby creating a new theory for China’s revolution – one of focusing on the countryside and establishing revolutionary bases there from which to besiege the cities, of continuously expanding armed troops and bases and eventually taking power nationally, thus blazing a new trail for China’s new democratic revolution to succeed. How true these lines are: Used to life and death choices at critical moments, Revolutionary troops hoist red flags in Jiangxi and Hunan, Speak not of the cold wind sweeping across the land, But of frost-hardy branches in southern skies. ݀՞यׁ૦഻ࠗĭ ၴ൅ۖཛऐԍఓh କ֩က‫ݭ‬෵վׁĭ ็଺ሹႽϔ࿚ᆭh The direction was now defined, the path explored and the forward base built. As to how Mao Zedong and Communists would consolidate the rural bases and further explore the beginnings of a people’s republic, you must turn to the next chapter.

153

Chapter 7

Fighting Dogmatism, the CPC Finds the Right Path; Exploring a New Way to Govern, the People’s Republic in Embryo

From 1929 to the first half of 1930, the domestic situation changed when warlords started fighting one another once again. Chiang Kai-shek, shortly after concluding the war with the Guangxi clique, became embroiled in the Central Plains War led by Yan Xishan and Feng Yuxiang, and wars in Jiangxi, Guangdong and Guangxi against Li Zongren, and Zhang Fakui. Engaged in constant fighting, the warlords, both old and new, found no time to wipe out the Communists and the Red Army, leaving a relatively favorable environment for revolutionary forces. Besides, having undergone baptism by fire in the bloody failure of the Great Revolution, and two years of bitter fighting, the CPC had steered its way out of its predicament; with the Red Army, the revolutionary bases, and urban underground organization recovered and developed, the revolutionary situation was on the upturn. But even though the enemy was still in the stronger position, some CPC leaders under the influence of Comintern “Leftism” became headstrong, made misjudgments of the political situation and even erred into Leftist adventurism. The Party and the revolution sustained heavy damage as a result. The Party’s general secretary at the time, Xiang Zhongfa, was just elected at the Sixth CPC National Congress held in Moscow. The Comintern required that this post should be taken by a worker, but Xiang was really not up to the job. Zhou Enlai, elected at the Sixth National Congress to the Standing Committee of the CPC Political Bureau, was dispatched by the Central Committee to Moscow to report to the Comintern; effectively, the person presiding over 154

Chapter 7

Fighting Dogmatism, the CPC Finds the Right Path; Exploring a New Way to Govern, the People’s Republic in Embryo

the Party work was Li Lisan, then also a Standing Committee member, secretary general of the CPC, and publicity minister. Li Lisan went to study in France in early 1920, where he worked part-time to earn his tuition. On his return to China, he began with organizing labor unions to carry out strikes in Anyuan, Hunan Province, then went to Wuhan to lead labor work, enjoying great popularity among the workers. After the Great Revolution failed, he remained a firm advocate of responding to antirevolutionary violence with violence, first proposing and actively participating in the Nanchang Uprising. After the outbreak of wars in the Central Plains, Hunan, Guangdong and Guangxi, in June 1930, Li Lisan, influenced by a constant stream of directive letters and resolutions from the Comintern, submitted a resolution to the Political Bureau. His Resolution on the Present Political Task received its approval. The resolution made the case that since the high tide of revolution in China was already at the threshold, the Party should attack cities right away through organizing armed forces and assembling the Red Army to win victories in one or multiple provinces, proceeding from there to establish revolutionary regimes across the country to win victory across the whole nation. Li’s proposal, which had the backing of Xiang Zhongfa, the then general secretary of the Central Committee, developed into what was later termed the Li Lisan line of “Leftist adventurism.” It was not long before the Political Bureau put forward the slogans: “organize political strikes,” “organize local uprisings”, “organize mutiny,” and “organize Red Army attacks” and took these four slogans as the “key strategy” of Party organizations at all levels, determining to “seize power by motivating all possible elements to create a revolutionary situation and thence seize power.” Based on this guideline, the Political Bureau formulated a plan to launch a putsch on the cities, spreading out from the core city of Wuhan and organizing the Red Army to launch assaults on major cities; it required the instant organization of insurrections in Wuhan and Nanjing, and a general strike in Shanghai, and instructed the Red Army to attack Nanchang, Jiujiang, Daye, Liuzhou, Guilin and Changsha and join forces in Wuhan, there to celebrate victory at the Yangtze River. This Leftist adventurism wrought devastation on the Party and the Red Army. The Second Red Army Group led by He Long based in west Hunan 155

Socialism in China

and Hubei provinces was reduced from 15,000 soldiers down to a mere 3,000. The Party organizations responsible for mobilizing armed insurrection in major cities were severely hit too, with a dozen provincial Party organizations such as those in Manchuria, Henan, Shanxi, Guangdong, Hubei, Hunan, and Zhejiang totally destroyed, and those in Wuhan and Nanjing almost wiped out. Many CPC and youth league members and activists were arrested and killed. Li Lisan had frequently castigated as “totally wrong” Mao Zedong’s ideological insistence on “setting up independent regimes of armed workers and peasants” and establishing revolutionary bases; he regarded this as “reflecting a peasant mentality, and a mistake of political opportunism.” To Li’s mind the Red Army should not be skulking in the countryside launching guerrilla attacks; they should be taking the offensive on a massive scale, linking up with armed insurrections in the major cities so as to seize revolutionary victory across the country. In the name of the Central Committee, Li Lisan even wrote to the Front Committee of the Fourth Red Army to accuse Mao Zedong and others of persisting in old guidelines, and instructing the Front Committee to change its line so as to conform to the Central Committee’s new line; “any one of the Front Committee who disagrees with the new line should come to the Central Committee and settle the problem.” Cornered, Mao Zedong and Zhu De had to execute the instructions, issuing orders to the Red Army to “cooperate with peasants and workers in Jiangxi to seize Jiujiang and Nanchang to establish revolutionary bases there.” But rather than mechanically executing the Central Committee’s instructions, in fact, they took a flexible approach, moving the troops around according to the actual fighting situation, giving the cities a wide berth but mobilizing people in the surrounding countryside to join the Red Army. After besieging Changsha for 16 days and launching two unsuccessful assaults, they withdrew to Jiangxi revolutionary base to avoid further losses. In the meantime, Mao Zedong and Zhu De assessed the situation and, taking advantage of the warlord dogfight, ordered the Red Army to step up efforts to establish revolutionary bases and expand its strength. In late January 1930, Mao chaired the Front Committee conference at Dongshao, Ningdu County in south Jiangxi, and it decided that the Red Army should first strengthen itself in Jiangxi, then mobilize the masses in area bordering Fujian, 156

Chapter 7

Fighting Dogmatism, the CPC Finds the Right Path; Exploring a New Way to Govern, the People’s Republic in Embryo

Hunan and Guangdong to launch agrarian struggle and to expand the revolutionary bases. Their reaction to the central leadership’s strictures was actually a feint; while giving the impression of conforming, they continued to play things their own way. The Red Army expanded quickly in south Jiangxi and formed contiguous revolutionary bases. In May 1930, after the Red Army captured Xunwu County, it split up to mobilize the masses in neighboring counties to start agrarian revolution. During this relatively peaceful interval, Mao Zedong made an investigation in Xunwu County. He had made many rural investigations before but this was his first urban investigation. Over the course of 17 days, Mao made field visits to collect information on production and living conditions from local merchants, handicraftsmen, town dwellers and peasants; he also held discussions with relevant persons. On the basis of his interviews he wrote an 80,000-character account and conclusions – the Xunwu Report. This investigation gave Mao Zedong a better understanding of urban commerce, handcraft industry and rural land distribution, which laid a solid foundation for him later to formulate correct policies for urban poor, capitalists and rich peasants during the Land Reform (taking from rich peasants and giving to rural poor), and to guide China’s revolution with a full understanding of China’s rural and urban situation. While working on the Xunwu Report, Mao Zedong reviewed the different arguments concerning the aims of and approaches to China’s revolution proposed by leaders of the Party in the nine years since its founding. He discovered that proposals and thoughts ignoring China’s objective conditions and revolution background had prevailed, inflicting severe damage on the Party and the revolutionary cause time and time again; also, the decisions and instructions made by the Comintern and Soviet advisers were in most cases at odds with China’s objective condition and revolution background, and had turned out badly. Why would this happen? Why did those erroneous thoughts, lines and standpoints emerge repeatedly in the form of “Leftism” or “Rightism” and keep making trouble? Mao Zedong racked his brains and finally came to realize that the problem lay in formalism, subjectivism, and dogmatism prevailing within the Party; these attitudes had given rise to the blind copying of state157

Socialism in China

ments and conclusions from Marx, Engels, Lenin and Stalin and other countries’ experience, and to the mechanical executing of orders from the Comintern and Soviet advisers. Without a thorough overhaul of theoretical guidelines, there would be no possibility of correcting wrong thinking within the Party and the Red Army or eliminating the damage caused by “Leftism” or “Rightism.” Based on his observation, Mao Zedong wrote an article Investigation Report, which was published in early 1960s with a new title Oppose Book Worship.1 It directed its fire at dogmatism, and set out for the first time the theoretical guidelines of the CPC.

Text of Mao Zedong’s Investigation Report

This article came straight to the point with the statement: “No investigation, no right to speak.” A month later, another line was added: “No right investigation, no right to speak either.” But how to carry out investigations? Mao Zedong stressed that conclusions must always come after investigation, and not before. A problem must be looked into thoroughly, avoiding subjective and ill-considered comment when only seeing the surface of things or minor details. 1

Investigation Report was first mimeographed in Xunwu County and handed out to the Fourth Red Army to study. Afterwards it was distributed within the Party at the Soviet area in west Jiangxi. Due to KMT’s encirclements and the Long March, the manuscripts and copies were lost, and therefore omitted from the Selected Works of Mao Zedong published in the 1950s. It was rediscovered only in February, 1957, in Guanshan Vllage, Shanghang County, west Jiangxi. Mao Zedong thought it was very important and re-titled it Oppose Book Worship. It was re-printed and distributed under this title in March 1961.

158

Chapter 7

Fighting Dogmatism, the CPC Finds the Right Path; Exploring a New Way to Govern, the People’s Republic in Embryo

Mao Zedong made the important conclusion in the final part that “victory in China’s revolutionary struggle will depend on the Chinese comrades’ understanding of Chinese conditions.” “A communist party’s correct and unswerving tactics of struggle can in no circumstance be created by a few people sitting in an office; they emerge in the course of mass struggle, that is, through actual experience.” Obviously, Mao’s remarks are aimed at figures within the Party who blindly carried out the Comintern’s directives or copied Soviet Russia’s revolution experience. Mao went on with sharp words for the mentality of some Party members in discussing and making decisions – “show me where it’s written in the book,” “whatever is written in a book is right,” “one can always be victorious just by adhering to the established methods.” In his view “these ideas are absolutely wrong and have nothing in common with the idea that Communists should create favorable new situations through struggle; they represent a purely conservative line. Unless it is jettisoned, this line will cause great losses to the revolution and do harm to these comrades themselves.” “It is quite wrong to take a formalistic attitude and blindly carry out directives without discussing and examining them in the light of actual conditions simply because they come from a higher organ.” Mao’s challenging remarks came from his standpoint of criticizing malpractice, expounding that Communists should make decisions only after careful investigation into the actual situation, and seeking truth from facts as their theoretical guideline, rather than taking a formalistic attitude or being slaves to the book or blindly carrying out directives from above. Mao also expounded eloquently the right attitude for Communists towards Marxism. “When we say Marxism is correct, it is certainly not because Marx was a ‘prophet’ but because his theory has been proved correct in our practice and in our struggle. We need Marxism in our struggle.” He went on, animating his argument: “Of course we should study Marxist books, but this study must be integrated with China’s actual conditions. We need the books, but we must at all costs overcome book worship, which is divorced from the actual situation.” He stressed that the principles of Marxism must integrate with the actual situation of the Chinese revolution. Oppose Book Worship demonstrated the important features of Mao Zedong’s philosophy and methodology: it put forward and stated for the first 159

Socialism in China

time the theoretical guideline that Communists should seek truth from facts, be realistic, link theory to practice, and integrate Marxism with the actual situation of the Chinese revolution. This guideline was later expounded comprehensively, systematically and in depth in Yan’an, enriching the understanding of Marxism. This article gives us a hint of three basic aspects that were to become canonized as the living soul of Mao Zedong Thought – seeking truth from facts, pursuing the mass line, and sticking to the principle of independence. Insisting on bearing the realities of the Chinese revolution in mind, Mao Zedong, Zhu De, Peng Dehuai, Deng Zihui and Zhang Dingcheng were breaking new ground in establishing independent regimes of armed workers and peasants, taking advantage of the breathing space afforded by the constant fighting between Chiang Kai-shek and the warlords. By the fall of 1930, the Jiangxi Soviet, established in the southwest of that province, had expanded to over 30 counties such as Ji’an, Jishui, Yudu, Ruijin in Jiangxi and Chaling, Youxian in Hunan; about 80 percent of Jiangxi Province was Red. The Red Army and local armed forces built up rapidly, forming the Sixth, 20th, 22nd and 35th armies and guerillas. A Soviet was also set up in west Fujian Province, covering six counties – Changting, Longyan, Shanghang, Yongding, Liancheng, and Wuping, and in districts and towns in Heping, Zhangping and Nanjing counties; local armed forces such as independent regiments and Red Guards were also established in these places. The expansion of the revolutionary bases in Jiangxi and other provinces and especially Red Army attacks on major cities as deployed by Li Lisan and the Central Committee shocked Chiang Kai-shek, although fresh from victory in the Central Plains War and wars in Jiangxi, Guangdong and Guangxi in October 1930. He immediately mobilized troops to launch large-scale encirclements of the Red Army and revolutionary bases. In late October, Chiang Kai-shek arrived at Hankou to preside over a “suppress the Communists” meeting of Hunan, Hubei and Jiangxi provinces, focusing on Zhu De and Mao Zedong’s troops. He mustered 100,000 KMT troops from nine divisions and one brigade, with Lu Diping, governor of Jiangxi Province, as commander-in-chief, to stage the first encirclement of the 160

Chapter 7

Fighting Dogmatism, the CPC Finds the Right Path; Exploring a New Way to Govern, the People’s Republic in Embryo

Soviet regime in southwest Jiangxi. In November, “Fatty Lu” led his armies into Jiangxi, threatening to eliminate the Red Army. The revolutionary bases then had only 40,000 Red Army troops, with weaponry far inferior to that of the KMT troops – many were still using swords and spears! Mao Zedong and Zhu De stood their ground in the face of this heavily armed encirclement, and decided on the strategy of withdrawing the Red Army so as to lure the enemy deep into the revolutionary base hinterland, while seeking the right opportunity to concentrate a superior force and annihilate the enemy. The regime also organized people to strengthen the defenses and clear the fields to starve the KMT of supplies; at the same time, local armed forces coordinated the main strength of the Red Army to harass and delay the enemy. As a result, the KMT troops suffered a great deal – they found no guides or food supplies on their arduous road to the revolutionary bases, and were sleep-deprived because of constant assaults on them. The Red Army finally lured the enemy to Huangpo and Xiaobu in Ningdu County, chose a favorable terrain and were ready to fight the KMT troops there. On December 25, the Red Army held a grand morale-building meeting in Xiaobu Village which attracted over 10,000 soldiers and civilians. On the rostrum there hung a paired couplet by Mao Zedong which read: “The enemy advances, we retreat; the enemy camps, we harass; the enemy tires, we attack; the enemy retreats, we pursue, guerrilla war ensures us victory. Be flexible in defense and retreat, lure the enemy in deep, muster forces to defeat the enemy forces one by one, wipe out the enemy through mobile warfare.” The first line (of 16 Chinese characters) encapsulates the operational policy jointly conceived by Zhu De and Mao Zedong. During his stay in the Soviet Union to receive military education in 1925, Zhu De put forward the idea of “fighting when we can win, and retreating when we cannot, moving the troops to mountain areas when necessary.” In attacking Huichang County in the Nanchang Uprising, Zhu De adopted the tactics of “retreating if the enemy advances; and harassing if the enemy camps.” In the retreat to Jinggang Mountain after the failure of the Autumn Harvest Uprising, Mao Zedong employed flexible guerrilla tactics against the enemy. On Jinggang Mountain the two further enriched the tactics and strategy of guerrilla war, summarizing them as the “16-character strategy.” 161

Socialism in China

This policy should not be underestimated; it was a great innovation in world military history. It overruled the traditional definition of military victory by temporary triumph in one battle, putting the emphasis instead on flexible maneuvering, preserving one’s strength to triumph over superior forces and so winning the final victory. The 16-character strategy in the second line demonstrates the strategic thinking and principles of Mao Zedong and Zhu De in their command of the Red Army – mustering forces to defeat the enemy and break their encirclement through mobile warfare, taking advantage of the revolutionary bases. From the platform Mao Zedong made a passionate mobilizing speech to the troops: “Comrades, we have twice used the tactic of luring the enemy in deep through our long retreats, and now the enemy is falling into our trap. The situation is changing in our favor, and victory is right at hand.” At the end, Mao raised his fist and led the deafening cries of over 10,000 soldiers and civilians – “Charge to kill, to disarm the enemy! Expand the Red Army and capture Fatty Lu! Down with Chiang Kai-shek!” On December 30, under the command of Zhu De and Mao Zedong the troops won their first battle at Longgang, smashing the “crack division” – the 18th division, including its two brigades and the troops directly under the command of the division – capturing the division commander, Zhang Huizan, who had boasted before the battle of “chopping off the heads of Zhu De and Mao Zedong.” They took 9,000 prisoners, and seized over 9,000 guns and one million bullets. Three days later, the Red Army marched eastward and wiped out one brigade in Dongshao, taking over 3,000 prisoners and 2,000 guns. In this way, against all odds, the Red Army won two victories within five days and wiped out over 10,000 enemy troops, thus smashing the first KMT encirclement. Three months later, Chiang Kei-shek formulated his own encirclement strategy: “Muster forces to encircle, push steadily to win each battle” (also 16 characters). He appointed He Yingqin, national defense minister of the KMT to replace Lu Diping as commander-in-chief. He Yingqin assembled a total of 200,000 troops – 18 divisions and three brigades – to press forward to the revolutionary base, forming a curving battle line from Ji’an in Jiangxi Province to Jianning in Fujian, and sent troops to block the Red Army’s route of retreat, conducting the second encirclement. 162

Chapter 7

Fighting Dogmatism, the CPC Finds the Right Path; Exploring a New Way to Govern, the People’s Republic in Embryo

Given the enemy’s superior strength, there was deep division of opinion about the counter-encirclement policy among the leaders of the Soviet’s Central Bureau and leaders of the Red Army. Xiang Ying, then acting secretary of the Soviet’s Central Bureau, was against a head-on confrontation with the enemy, advocating avoiding their thrust and taking the major force of the Red Army to Sichuan to establish new bases there. Some high-ranking officers of the Red Army supported the idea of splitting up and shifting the forces to north Guangdong, Hunan and west Jiangxi so as to distract the enemy, engaging with them if encountered, thereby protecting the Jiangxi revolutionary base. Mao agreed neither to the Sichuan idea nor to the idea of splitting up. He stuck firm to the approach of “luring the enemy in deep,” to smash them in the base area when chances came up. When some comrades voiced concern that the Red Army was too weak in numbers to counter enemy encirclement, Mao deployed his rich knowledge of history to convince them that the Red Army could defeat the more powerful enemy if appropriate strategy and tactics were adopted and if the army fought valiantly. He cited famous battles in history: at the battle of Kunyang and with only 9,000 troops, Liu Xiu, the founder of the Eastern Han Dynasty, defeated the 400,000 troops of his adversary Wang Mang; during the Three Kingdoms Period, Cao Cao, the King of Wei, defeated Yuan Shao at the Battle of Guandu despite having 20,000 men against his enemy’s 100,000 troops; and later Cao Cao, with 800,000 troops, was defeated by the combined forces of Wu and Shuhan with only 50,000. After repeated conference discussions, Mao Zedong’s proposal was supported by Red Army officers such as Zhu De, Zhou Yisu, Lin Biao, and Luo Ronghuan and new central delegation members in the Soviet such as Ren Bishi and Wang Jiaxiang, thus adopting it as the operational policy of the second anti-encirclement. Luring the enemy into areas around Fudian and Donggu, the Red Army deployed 30,000 troops at Jiucun Hill of Baiyun Mountain and ambushed the enemy in thick fog, wiping out most of the 28th division, taking over 4,000 prisoners below the rank of deputy division commander, and seizing 3,000 guns. On the heels of this victory, the Red Army swept across 350 km within 15 days at lightning speed, engaged five times and won five times, wiped out over 30,000 soldiers and took 20,000 weapons, thereby smashing the second KMT encirclement. 163

Socialism in China

The severe losses on the battlefield sent Chiang Kai-shek into a rage; after giving He Yingqin a harsh dressing down for his incompetence, he took personal command of the third encirclement, vowing to exterminate the Red Army at one blow, or he would quit public life. In July 1931, Chiang Kai-shek assembled 300,000 troops from 23 divisions and three brigades. Of these, 100,000 soldiers from five divisions, wellequipped and well-trained, were under Chiang’s direct control. As the major force, they followed the policy of “mustering forces to march into attack from different directions,” in a pincer movement from left and right wings.

Chiang Kai-shek took personal command of the third encirclement campaign.

As for Zhu De and Mao Zedong, with only 30,000 troops under their command, they continued with the policy of “luring the enemy in deep,” “avoiding their thrust but attacking at weak points,” to calmly deal with an enemy that outnumbered them by ten to one. They quickly called back the First Front Army, at that time mobilizing the masses in west Jiangxi to ensure provisions, to join their counter-encirclement. The Red Army launched surprise attacks at Liantang, Liangcun in Xingguo County and Huangpo in Ningdu County, and won all three fights, destroying two brigades and three regiments, killing and wounding over 2,000 and taking over 7,500 prisoners. Then the Red Army deployed a few troops to trick the enemy eastward, dragging them around within the Soviet area, whilst the local armed forces and guerillas cut their supply lines 164

Chapter 7

Fighting Dogmatism, the CPC Finds the Right Path; Exploring a New Way to Govern, the People’s Republic in Embryo

and harassed their camps, giving the KMT troops a hard time, and making them lose stomach for the fight. By contrast, the Red Army was resting and recharging its batteries under the cover of forest and mountains. As it happened, the anti-Chiang cliques within the KMT were taking this opportunity to muster troops and establish an alliance in Guangzhou before issuing a statement to overthrow Chiang and sending troops to Hunan. Facing opposition ahead and behind, Chiang Kai-shek slipped back to Nanjing on the excuse of flooding in Zhejiang, and ordered his troops to withdraw back to south Jiangxi, reneging on his pledge to “wipe out the Red Enemy on the battlefield, or quit public life.” The Red Army immediately pursued and attacked the escaping enemy. The third counter-encirclement lasted for 77 days. The Red Army won five of the six battles, hunted down 30,000 enemy troops, seized over 14,000 guns, 55 mortars and six radio sets. Chiang’s third encirclement ended in failure. The Red Army learned a great deal during the three counter-encirclements, and such experience helped them to create a unique set of strategy and tactics. Commanders such as Mao Zedong, Zhu De and Peng Dehuai made major contributions. The underlying guideline of this strategic and tactical approach was: the basic battle strategy in the revolutionary bases when confronting massive enemy forces is to lure the enemy in deep rather than meet the enemy head-on; the basic military operation is mobile warfare rather than positional warfare; the basic combat request is annihilation rather than putting the enemy to flight; the combat objective is to wipe out the enemy’s effective strength rather than winning back a village or a town; the combat feature is a quick battle rather than a war of attrition, steer clear of the enemy’s main strength and strike at points of weakness. It was precisely this military thinking, strategy and tactics that enabled the Red Army, with nothing more than home-made guns and canons, spears and swords, to smash the offensives and encirclements of tens of thousands of well-equipped KMT troops. Thus was a people’s war legend created. As well as the central revolutionary base there were other counter-encirclement victories for the Red Army. The Red Army at Hubei-Henan-Anhui, west Hunan-Hubei, northeast Jiangxi, Hunan-Jiangxi and Hunan-Hubei-Jiangxi revolutionary bases also broke down the KMT military encirclement, thereby 165

Socialism in China

consolidating and expanding the workers’ and peasants’ revolutionary base area, and the army itself. The Red Army’s victory in counter-encirclement battles forced the Chiang Kai-shek clique to give up new military attacks for the time being. Besides, Chiang could not afford new rounds of battles just then, being under pressure to announce his resignation from the posts of KMT chairman and premier. The Red Army exploited this opportunity to expand the revolutionary base areas – merging the base in southwest Jiangxi with the west Fujian base and thereby forming a new central revolutionary base area, which, with Ruijin as center, covered 28 counties with a total of 50,000 sq km of territory, and a population of 2.5 million. At the same time, it began to build political power, develop local economy and culture to explore how to establish a new China. While Mao and Zhu were busy establishing the central revolutionary base area, a dozen Soviets and some small guerilla areas were springing up in southern China – the sparks of revolution were about to start a prairie fire. In light of this situation, the Comintern and the CPC Central Committee decided to set up a national Soviet government in the central revolutionary base area of southwest Jiangxi and west Fujian. On November 7, 1931, the anniversary of victory of the Russian Revolution, the First National Soviet People’s Delegates Conference was solemnly held at Yeping Village, Ruijin County, Jiangxi Province. It was attended by 610 delegates representing Soviet areas, Red Army troops, the Federation of Trade Unions, and the National Maritime Union. A parade took place that morning. On vacant land beside the village, the Third, Fourth, Seventh, and Twelfth armies presented themselves in separate battalions, cadets of the Central Military and Political School of the Red Army, Red Guards and Young Pioneers of Ruijin County marched past the temporary platform, their high spirits welcomed with warm applause from Party and government cadres, Red Army officers and local people. In the afternoon, the opening ceremony of the First National Soviet People’s Delegates Conference was held at the Xie Family Ancestral Hall in Yeping. Small and simple though the hall was, it was crowded with 200 wooden benches, every pillar and all walls were posted with slogans like “long live the Soviet,” “long live the Red Army,” “support the Conference”; colored 166

Chapter 7

Fighting Dogmatism, the CPC Finds the Right Path; Exploring a New Way to Govern, the People’s Republic in Embryo

The Xie Family Ancestral Hall at Yeping, venue for the First National Soviet People’s Delegates Conference and location of the office of the provisionary central government of the Chinese Soviet Republic

pennants dangled from ropes strung under the roof, and the revolutionary atmosphere was intense. A red flag with hammer and sickle dominated the wall behind the conference platform, and on either side was a giant portrait of Marx and Lenin. On the two sides of the platform hung a paired couplet: the left-hand one read, “learning from Soviet movement experience”; the righthand one read, “establishing Bolshevik mass work”; a horizontal banner read, “workers of the world unite!” The opening ceremony was solemn, rousing, and brief. On the platform the Red Army band played The Internationale, and the chorus sang newly composed revolutionary songs. At the start of the conference, 37 persons including Mao Zedong, Xiang Ying, Ren Bishi, and Zhu De were elected to the presidium, after which the presiding chairman, Wang Jiaxiang, declared the conference open, and Zhu De delivered a speech on behalf of the Red Army. Xiang Ying, member of the Political Bureau of the CPC Central Committee and member of the Soviet’s Central Bureau, declared proudly in his opening speech: “The success of this conference, establishment of the provisional central government will signal the establishment of the first republic in the East and the second republic in the world – following the first Soviet republic set up after the 167

Socialism in China

victory of the Russian Revolution. It will encourage thousands upon thousands of oppressed peasants and workers in the East to unite with world proletariat to repeat the victory of the Russian Revolution around the globe.” The conference heard and examined Mao Zedong’s report on political issues, Xiang Ying’s on Labor Law, Zhang Dingzheng’s on Land Law, Zhu De’s on the affairs of the Red Army, Zhou Yisu’s on economic policy, Wang Jiaxiang’s on ethnic groups and Deng Fa’s on peasants and workers inspection work; approved relevant laws and resolutions on Red Army building and economic policies. It elected Central Executive Committee of the Soviet, which included 63 members such as Mao Zedong, Xiang Ying, Zhang Guotao, Zhou Enlai, Zhu De, Peng Dehuai and Liu Shaoqi. The Central Executive Committee of the Soviet was the supreme organ of state power when the National Soviet People’s Delegates Conference was not in session, and later the Presidium of the Central Executive Committee was established, which served as the supreme power organ when the Central Executive Committee was not in session. On November 27, to elude bombing by KMT airplanes, Mao Zedong presided over the First Plenary Session of the Central Executive Committee of Chinese Soviet Republic in lush woods outside of Yeping. The meeting elected Mao Zedong as chairman of the Central Executive Committee and Central People’s Committee, and for this reason, Mao Zedong got the title Chairman Mao. The meeting elected Xiang Ying and Zhang Guotao as vice chairmen of the two committees respectively, and it also elected heads of departments, known then as commissars; it also determined to set up the provisional central government of the Soviet Republic in Ruijin, Jiangxi Province. Under the Central People’s Committee (the central government) were nine ministries responsible for foreign affairs, labor, land, military affairs, finance, education, internal affairs, justice, and procuratorial work of peasants and workers, and the National Political Security Bureau; these were later joined by ministries or bureaus of economy, food, and general affairs, as well as a Soviet national bank and central general post office. The office of the central government was then at the Xie Family Ancestral Hall, separated by wooden boards into 15 rooms of a dozen squ m apiece, with one ministry per room. Each office, equipped with nothing more than a few desks, benches and a wind-up 168

Chapter 7

Fighting Dogmatism, the CPC Finds the Right Path; Exploring a New Way to Govern, the People’s Republic in Embryo

telephone, had only a few persons including the minister and vice minister. All it took was one shout by the chairman in the hall, and an executive meeting of the Central People’s Committee could begin immediately. A government with such a lean bureaucracy and simple offices is a rare phenomenon. Yet this is where the People’s Republic of China started: a new-born baby that would grow into adulthood 18 years later with the founding of New China in 1949, and thence mature into manhood after a further 60 years of phenomenal progress as a nation playing a globally important role. After China’s Soviet Republic was founded, despite hardships in the revolutionary area and KMT encirclement, it began exploring a prototype People’s Republic in government building and economic and cultural development. The First National Soviet People’s Delegates Conference passed the Constitution Outline of the Chinese Soviet Republic, which stated that the new government was in essence a workers’ and peasants’ democratic dictatorship, with workers, peasants, soldiers and the masses as the masters of the Soviet Republic, enjoying broad democracy and freedom, and exercising dictatorship over all exploiting classes and reactionaries such as warlords, bureaucrats and landlords; the purpose of the dictatorship was to eliminate all feudal remnants, expel imperial forces in China to unite the country, to systematically curb development of capitalism and promote economic development…” clearly, this was the blueprint for a new-democracy country in China. The political system defined by the Soviet Republic was a workers’, peasants’ and soldiers’ congress system, and under this, congresses at township, region, county, province and national levels all took in peasants and workers to participate in government and manage public affairs. According to The Election Rules of the Chinese Soviet Republic, three large democratic elections were conducted in the Soviet Area, the delegates being elected by secret ballot to participate in government. Delegates of the congress of workers and peasants at county level were elected in proportion through direct election, and delegates to congress at lower levels were elected by the congress at the next level down, as were the Soviet government members. The congresses of workers, peasants and soldiers at different levels were not only legislative organs but also organs of state power; they were responsible for making laws, regulations, deciding on major issues of national and local 169

Socialism in China

concern; they had authority to appoint and remove officials of administrative, judicial and procuratorial organs, and to supervise their work. The Soviet government attached high importance to building a legal system, formulating successively the Constitution Outline, civil law, criminal law, administration law, land law, and other laws and regulations concerning culture and education, totaling over 120. It is unsurprising that, having long suffered under the impact of encirclements and having no experience in democracy and the rule of law, the infant Soviet government had its flaws. For example, some policies in certain acts and documents passed at the Soviet congress concerning national bourgeoisie, land ownership, labor and taxation were excessively Leftist; as criticized by Mao Zedong at the time, within the Soviet government there existed no separation between Party work and government work, and this hampered the functioning of Soviet government. It might be necessary and logical during war, but its continuance after the founding of the People’s Republic of China gave rise to many problems, and needed to be addressed. We will come to this later. The Soviets, pressured by KMT’s encirclement and economic blockade, encountered great economic difficulties, and had to rely on itself to develop their economy to ensure supplies for the Red Army and people’s lives. After the Soviet Central Government was set up, it promulgated a series of laws, regulations and policies on economy, to protect and promote economic development. At the end of 1931, Mao Zedong was forced by Wang Ming out of his position as general commissar and Secretary of the Front Committee of the First Red Army, and stripped of command over the Red Army on the pretext of setting up a new central military commission. However, Mao remained chairman of the provisional central government of the Chinese Soviet Republic. During his year when in charge of Soviet government work, Mao focused on economic development in the Soviet Area and put forward a series of thoughts on economic work. In light of the fact that some Party organizations and Red Army leading officers focused only on military operations and ignored economic development, which they even believed inadvisable in wartime, Mao Zedong wrote papers and gave lectures to expound on the relationship between war and economic 170

Chapter 7

Fighting Dogmatism, the CPC Finds the Right Path; Exploring a New Way to Govern, the People’s Republic in Embryo

development. He stressed that the base area should accord high importance to economic development with the revolutionary war at its core; and that advancing economic development must proceed from facts and be executed to the best extent possible in the war context. Some cadres thought that the structure of ownership in the Soviet Area should follow that of the Soviet Union: in their view, private ownership should be eliminated immediately and replaced with public ownership. Mao, proceeding from the situation in China and the revolutionary area in particular, said that state-owned economy, cooperative economy and private economy should coexist. Private economy, provided it violated no laws, should be encouraged rather than banned. Cooperative economy and state-owned economy would finally prevail and dominate after long-term development. As for how to develop economy in the Soviet Area, Mao’s idea was to mobilize and lead the masses to oppose “bossism” and “bureaucratism”; cultivate personnel versed in economy, respect intellectuals, introduce professional and technical experts from within and beyond the Soviet Area to join in building the economy; give agricultural development top priority, restore and rejuvenate industry, open foreign trade, facilitate commodity circulation; increase revenue through boosting economy and saving unnecessary expense; maintain close ties with the masses, keep aware of their problems so they realize we represent

Bank notes and coins issued by the Soviet government bank

171

Socialism in China

their interests. Apart from this, with land reforms conducted so the peasants got land, they were motivated to produce as never before. The Soviet government also set up a national bank to issue currency, and supported the development of agriculture, industry and commerce through credit cooperatives, and low-interest loans. Mao’s economic thinking and policies guided the development of the Soviet Area and boosted its economy. Liu Shaoqi, Chen Yun and some other comrades responsible for economic work during this period also played an important contributory role. The practical experience in economy building and theory gained in this period proved invaluable in formulating the newdemocratic economic program, and for post-1949 economic development in New China. In terms of cultural development, the general guideline of the Soviet government was to educate the masses in the communistic spirit, make cultural education serve revolutionary war and the class struggle and conduct education through labor. Despite desperately hard wartime conditions, the Soviet Area recorded notable progress in compulsory education, anti-illiteracy campaigns, cadre education, Red Army education, press and publishing, drama, literature and art, popular culture, health and sports. It was pioneering work and a major contribution to the building of new-democratic culture. Look back on this period of history, and you will find how soul stirring it is. The Chinese Soviet Republic was like a premature baby. Its premature delivery was attributable to the anxiety of the Comintern and the CPC Central Committee to determine the fate of two Chinese governments, overestimating the revolutionary situation and pushing for the establishment of the Soviet Republic far before the ripe time. The government set up in such conditions soon found it hard to survive and collapsed, but its birth did raise a flag that reignited the hopes of people struggling in the dark and encouraged the masses to fight bravely toward the ideal of a people’s republic. This is an enormous and valuable spiritual wealth. The Chinese Soviet Republic was the rudimentary form of New China. It was the first political entity led by the CPC and a rehearsal for the People’s Republic of China, founded 18 years later. From the Soviet’s state system, form 172

Chapter 7

Fighting Dogmatism, the CPC Finds the Right Path; Exploring a New Way to Govern, the People’s Republic in Embryo

of government, division of economic sectors and culture, one can clearly discern its tracks in pursuit of Soviet government, and the clear genetic relationship then and today. The Chinese Soviet Republic was the cradle of the People’s Republic of China. It was the training base and proving ground for Party cadres, cultivating a raft of talents in Party, state and military leadership – such as the first generation of leaders including Mao Zedong, Liu Shaoqi, Zhou Enlai, Zhu De and Ren Bishi, and the second generation such as Deng Xiaoping, Chen Yun, Ye Jianying, Hu Yaobang and Yang Shangkun, all of them backbones of the Chinese Soviet Republic. Furthermore, nine of the ten marshals, and seven of the ten senior generals first commissioned by New China were all fighting veterans of the Central Soviet Area. The great practical and historical contribution of the Soviet has gone down in history and can never, ever, be erased. Nevertheless, because of the overall political landscape, political environment and relative political strength at that time, and because wrong thinking reemerged to dominate our Party, the infant Chinese Soviet Republic survived for just three years, leaving behind many pains and regrets. As the poem has it: Do not rely on books and bosses alone, But seek the truth from real experience. The sight of Red bases in Jiangxi lifts the heart, A shining torch that signals hope across the nation. ຿ඈ຿ഐҊቈ࿦ĭ ᆏᆱ྾ཧൔࡴ౸h ༧ࡶޫ‫؃‬ԣۖණĭ ଄֯ඵඵ်ലᇤh To know the fate and future of Chinese Soviet Republic, Communists and the Red Army, you must turn to the next chapter.

173

Chapter 8

Wang Ming’s Leftist Policy Leads the Revolution Astray; Bo Gu’s Blind Command Takes the Red Army up a Blind Alley

After the Central Plains War, Chiang Kai-shek hastily called a meeting of the National Assembly to formulate the Provisional Constitution of the Political Tutelage Period. He legalized KMT dictatorship through legislation, and assumed the post of president of the Republic of China. His proposal was immediately challenged by Hu Hanmin, Head of the Legislative Yuan, and others. At the end of February 1931, Chiang tried to force Hu’s resignation, and when Hu refused Chiang had him put under house arrest against the will of the public. The move put the country in uproar. The opposition faction and several senior military leaders of the KMT jointly urged Chiang to relinquish power as an apology to the people. But Chiang Kai-shek went his own way and convened a meeting of the National Assembly on May 5, 1931. Under the pressure of public opinion and the opposition faction within the KMT, Chiang dared not crown himself president, but instead, by passing the Provisional Constitution in the Political Tutelage Period of the Republic of China, expanded his power as Chairman of the National Government. He was entitled to appoint and dismiss the heads of the Legislative Yuan, the Judicial Yuan, the Executive Yuan, the Examination Yuan and the Procuratorial Yuan, and all the ministers, was entitled to sign and issue orders, and entitled to promulgate laws. With this, Chiang Kai-shek arrogated all powers to himself and became the de facto president. Chiang Kai-shek’s bullying and dictatorship generated increasingly heated disputes and conflicts within the KMT, and eventually the party fell apart. Factions headed respectively by Hu Hanmin, Wang Jingwei and Sun Ke along 174

Chapter 8

Wang Ming’s Leftist Policy Leads the Revolution Astray; Bo Gu’s Blind Command Takes the Red Army up a Blind Alley

with Guangdong General Chen Jitang and Guangxi General Bai Chongxi convened a special meeting of the KMT Central Executive and Inspection Committee in Guangzhou. The meeting announced the establishment of a new national government in confrontation with the Nanjing Government, and split Guangdong from the administration of the latter. At that time, Chiang Kai-shek assembled a force of 300,000 in an unsuccessful attempt to encircle and suppress the Soviet Area in Jiangxi. The Guangdong and Guangxi armies seized the chance to march on Hunan. The KMT was now at war with itself. Right at this time, the Japanese militarists launched the September 18 Incident, with the forcible occupation of Heilongjiang, Jilin and Liaoning provinces in Northeast China. At this time of national crisis, public sentiment was seething. The people demanded solidarity in resisting the Japanese aggression and an end to partisan conflicts. Chiang was forced to release Hu Hanmin. Within the space of a month, the KMT held three Fourth National Congresses – one in Nanjing, one in Guangzhou and one in Shanghai – a farce without parallel in history. When the three Fourth National Congresses closed, the Hu Hanmin and Sun Ke cliques in Guangzhou and the Wang Jingwei clique in Shanghai all urged Chiang Kai-shek to quit office, threatening that if he did not they would refuse to attend the First Plenary Session of the Fourth KMT Central Committee. The upshot would be three KMT Central Committees. Chiang Kai-shek had no alternative: on December 15, 1931, he stepped down, resigning from the posts of Chairman of the National Government, Head of the Executive Yuan and Generalissimo, in order to “reunite the three cliques.” In late December, Chiang convened the First Plenary Session of the Fourth KMT Central Committee in Nanjing, thereby achieving the appearance of party unity. The session elected Chiang Kai-shek, Hu Hanmin and Wang Jingwei to the KMT Central Standing Political Committee, elected Lin Sen Chairman of the National Government (existing in name only), and elected Sun Ke Head of the Executive Yuan. Sun Ke resigned less than a month later because of fiscal deficit, and Wang Jingwei stepped into his shoes. In March 1932, the KMT convened the Second Plenary Session of the Fourth Central Committee, and established the Military Commission with Chiang Kai-shek as Chairman. Chiang Kai-shek and Wang Jingwei joined hands for a second time, but it was Chiang who held the actual power. From this 175

Socialism in China

point on, Chiang wielded power over the party, the government and the army. Hu Hanmin was quite resentful of Chiang’s autocracy and the Chiang-Wang association, so he refused to assume his post on the KMT Central Standing Committee in Nanjing. He lashed out at Chiang’s policy of “domestic pacification before resistance to foreign aggression,” believing that Chiang had his priorities wrong. He vigorously urged a policy of accommodating the CPC rather than trying to destroy it, and that the KMT should join hands with the CPC to fight Japanese aggression. He went as far as declaring openly that since the Communists were also Chinese nationals it was “preferable to hang the red flag than the Japanese flag.” Right up to his death in 1936, Hu Hanmin kept seeking alliances with military leaders in southwest provinces, and Feng Yuxiang and other northern generals to jointly oppose Chiang Kai-shek and resist Japanese aggression. The KMT was bothered by perpetual internecine conflict, but internal friction plagued the CPC too. Such friction was inevitable, since the CPC was then still young, and its organization and leaders quite inexperienced. The August 7 Conference held by the CPC in 1927 corrected the Right-deviationist error, but neglected the hidden Left-deviationist thought. Li Lisan brought this thinking to a dominating position, and caused severe damage to the CPC and the Red Army. Later, under the leadership of Qu Qiubai and Zhou Enlai, Left-deviationist thought was contained and corrected to some extent; but under Wang Ming and Bo Gu it reached its apogee; it resulted in the complete annihilation of the CPC organizations and the Red Army in the Soviet Area. Wang Ming, whose original name was Chen Shaoyu, was born in Anhui Province. As a youth, he was influenced by the May Fourth Movement, and parWang Ming

176

ticipated in movements of progressive

Chapter 8

Wang Ming’s Leftist Policy Leads the Revolution Astray; Bo Gu’s Blind Command Takes the Red Army up a Blind Alley

students. While studying and working at Sun Yat-sen University in Moscow during 1925-1929, he became determined to save China and the people, and read many classics of Marxism-Leninism. The Comintern trained him as “a future CPC leader.” In March 1929, Wang Ming returned to China, and was appointed first as Secretary of Shanghai Huxi District Committee of the CPC, and then as Editor of Red Flag under the Publicity Department of the CPC Central Committee. During this period, he published many articles in support of Li Lisan’s Left adventurist thought, but as soon as he learned Li Lisan’s attitude had been criticized by the Comintern, he abruptly changed his own and became violently critical of this thinking. In January 1931, at the Fourth Plenary Session of the Sixth CPC Central Committee, the 26-year-old Wang Ming was elected to the Political Bureau of the CPC Central Committee, thanks to manipulation by the Comintern representatives to China. Four months later, General Secretary of the CPC Central Committee Xiang Zhongfa betrayed the Party after being arrested by the KMT. Again the Comintern Representative Pavel Mif, through a mixture of orders and interference, managed to get his man in. Wang Ming became the actual supreme leader of the CPC. There were two important features to Wang Ming’s personality. Firstly, he had several years of systematic Marxist-Leninist education, plus a natural gift for reciting Marxist-Leninist classics, identifying himself as “a Marxist theorist” and “a 100 percent Bolshevik.” However, because of his “ossified mindset,” he failed to understand the substance and essence of Marxism, and was always dogmatic in blindly following all of the Comintern’s instructions. His representative work Striving to Make the CPC More Bolshevik copied many paragraphs from Josef Stalin and the Comintern resolutions. In a word, he was the epitome of dogmatism. The second feature – and it was a fatal weakness – was his lack of familiarity with China’s actual conditions and lack of revolutionary experience. Prior to taking the Party’s top leadership position, he had never participated in workers’ movement, peasants’ movement or armed struggle in China, had never been to revolutionary base areas, and had no idea of the specific situation of the Red Army. During the three years that he was the supreme leader of the CPC, he spent only nine months in China, and spent the rest of time in the Soviet Union sending longdistance orders. He was extremely conceited, and despised all his comrades 177

Socialism in China

constantly fighting for revolution in China. He believed “Marxism does not come out of mountain villages” and refused to accept opinions that diverged from his own. A real understanding of national conditions, the nature of society and stages of social development was the premise and foundation for the revolutionaries to formulate their approaches, principles and policies. However, Wang Ming was not aware of China’s actual conditions and refused to make good his shortcomings by probing into China’s history and current situation. He simply copied the viewpoints of Marx, Engels, Lenin and Stalin and viewed the Soviet Union’s experiences as holy writ; he saw the semi-colonial nature of Chinese society but denied its feudal nature, exaggerated the scale of capitalism in China’s economy, overvalued the function of socialist revolution in democratic revolution, and blurred the line between democratic revolution and socialist revolution. Proceeding from his Left-deviationist theory that leapfrogged a stage of social development, Wang Ming mistakenly figured the bourgeoisie and the petty bourgeoisie as the adversaries of revolution, considered that China’s revolution was at its high point and it was time for an all-around attack throughout the country, and thus put forward a range of putschist and adventurist action plans. Ignoring Chinese reality, Wang blindly and rigidly copied the urban uprising model and experience of the Paris Commune and the Russian October Revolution. In the name of the CPC Central Committee, he ordered Party organizations in Wuhan, Shanghai and other large cities to organize workers’, students’ and shopkeepers’ strikes frequently and unconditionally, hold “flying protests,” street demonstrations and even armed insurrection. As a result, the Party and Youth League branches and trade unions were exposed and annihilated by the KMT in one fell swoop, causing great damage to Party organizations in the KMT-ruled areas. In less than three years, the number of CPC provincial committees was reduced from 17 to 5, and Party members from 300,000 to tens of thousands. In October, 1931, the Comintern approved Wang Ming’s self-nomination as the CPC Representative to the Comintern in Moscow, despite having been in charge of the CPC Central Committee for only half a year. At the same time, Wang sent Zhou Enlai to the Central Soviet Area as Secretary of the 178

Chapter 8

Wang Ming’s Leftist Policy Leads the Revolution Astray; Bo Gu’s Blind Command Takes the Red Army up a Blind Alley

CPC Central Bureau of the Soviet Area. Before leaving for Moscow, Wang Ming established the Provisional Political Bureau of the CPC Central Committee in Shanghai, its members including Qin Bangxian (Bo Gu), Zhang Wentian (Zhang Luofu), Kang Sheng, Chen Yun, Lu Futan and Li Zhusheng (Lu and Li betrayed the CPC after being arrested by the KMT), and designated Bo Gu, who was not even an alternative member of the CPC Central Committee, to take charge. Later, this provisional central leadership was approved by the Comintern. Qin Bangxian was born in Wuxi, Jiangsu Province, on June 24, 1907. His father died when he was young, and his mother worked hard, single-handedly fed the family and paid for his education. In the winter of 1926, he went to Moscow Sun Yat-sen University, and became a classmate of Wang Ming. Both young men were tutored by Pavel Mif who later became a Comintern representative in China. While studying in the Soviet Union, Qin adopted a Russian name and on his return to China took the pseudonym Bo Gu, a

Qin Bangxian (Bo Gu)

rough approximation of how the Russian name sounded. Bo Gu became a deeply trusted friend of Wang Ming. Wang singled him out to take charge of the Provisional Political Bureau of the CPC Central Committee because they shared a similar experience and mentality and had forged a deep personal friendship. Nevertheless, Wang Ming kept something in reserve in handing over his power. He designated Bo Gu to take charge but did not appoint him General Secretary. Making his farewell in Shanghai, Wang exhorted Bo Gu to request instructions from the Comintern before making major decisions, not to act without authorization or listen to others. Bo Gu readily took the hint: since Wang Ming was Head of the CPC Delegation to the Comintern, Bo should take instructions from Wang Ming and follow his lead only. After Wang’s arrival in Moscow, he kept in contact via radio transmitter with Bo Gu first in Shanghai and then in the Central Soviet Area after 179

Socialism in China

his transfer to it. Thus Wang Ming managed to maintain remote control over .

the CPC Central Committee, to continue the “Wang Ming Line” without his physical presence. Once in office Bo Gu followed Wang Ming’s instruction to the letter. He severely rebuked the CPC Central Bureau of the Soviet Area with Mao Zedong as the Acting Secretary for its “Right-deviationist opportunist mistake,” and the leadership’s departure from the Bolshevik line. In early November 1931, Bo Gu sent a CPC Central Committee Delegation to preside over the First Party Congress of the Chinese Soviet Republic (usually known as the Gannan Meeting) in Yeping Village of Ruijin, Jiangxi Province. As instructed by Wang Ming and Bo Gu, the central delegation criticized that Mao Zedong’s philosophy of being realistic and opposing book worship was a denial of Marxist theory, a “narrow empiricism” based on short-sighted analysis, and a backward peasant mentality; criticized that the farmland allocation policy (“taking from those who have a surplus and giving to those who have a shortage” and “taking from those who have better and giving to those who have worse” and “allocating farmland to all”) adopted by the Central Soviet Area during the Agrarian Revolution contravened the Comintern and the CPC Central Committee’s policy (“giving the rich peasants the poor land and landlords no land at all”), and was a Right-deviationist “rich peasant line”. It criticized that the principle of the Party’s leadership over the army established at the Gutian Meeting of 1929 was a demonstration of “the Party managing everything” and “the toxic influence of KMT which practices rule of the country by the party”; criticized that Zhu De and Mao Zedong’s strategy of creating, consolidating and expanding revolutionary base areas was “a tradition of guerilla-ism,” and reproached the Red Army for neglecting “positional warfare” and “urban warfare”; pointed out that the Party, government and military officials in the Central Soviet Area were mixed with dissidents from other classes, advocating kicking out those born in the exploiting classes, etc. The resolution finished by stressing “concentration of efforts to combat Right-deviationism” and a ruthless fight against Right-deviationist opportunism. In effect, this conference, an attack on Mao Zedong in all but name, completely denied the lines, principles, policies and achievements of the 180

Chapter 8

Wang Ming’s Leftist Policy Leads the Revolution Astray; Bo Gu’s Blind Command Takes the Red Army up a Blind Alley

Party organization in the Central Soviet Area and the Red Army over the years. As per the instruction of the provisional central leadership, the Gannan Meeting deprived Mao Zedong of his leadership of the Red Army, in the name of establishing a military commission and annulling the positions of commanderin-chief, general political commissar in the First Red Army and the general secretary of the Front Committee. Early In 1933, the CPC organizations in Shanghai were severely damaged. As the Provisional Political Bureau of the CPC Central Committee no longer had a base in Shanghai, Bo Gu and his followers moved to the Central Soviet Area, and soon began to combat “Right-deviationist opportunism,” with merciless criticism for those with different opinions. Wang Ming and Bo Gu were fully aware that Mao Zedong had formed different ideological guidelines, political principles and military strategies; moreover, he had won the support of the officials and the general public in the Central Soviet Area and the Red Army. If they wanted to take control of the Soviet Area and promote their own lines, they had to get rid of Mao Zedong, suppress his supporters and build up their own force. Bo Gu left Shanghai for Ruijin by way of Fujian. In the West Fujian Soviet Area, when Bo Gu passed by Baisha Town of Shanghang County, Luo Ming, Acting Secretary of the CPC Fujian Provincial Committee, reported the local situation and future plans to him. Luo Ming repeatedly mentioned how to implement Mao Zedong’s guerrilla-warfare and mobile-warfare strategy to assist the main force of the Red Army in eliminating the enemy. These remarks infuriated Bo Gu, but what made him even angrier was Luo’s written report. “We must abandon empty preaching, earnestly protect the interests of the masses, and boost morale and confidence in victory.” Bo Gu was particularly stung by the last sentence: “If we need advice about this, we should consult our great leaders Chairman Mao, Chairman Xiang and Comrade Zhou Enlai….” Considering Luo Ming to be defying the authority of the CPC Central Committee and fixated on Mao Zedong only, Bo Gu resolved to make an example of Luo as a warning to others. A month later when he arrived at the Central Soviet Area, he called a meeting of the CPC Central Bureau there, which made the arbitrary assertion that the Fujian Provincial Committee of the CPC had formed “an opportunist line headed by Luo Ming” and removed Luo Ming 181

Socialism in China

from office, established a new Fujian Provincial Committee, and mobilized the struggle against Luo Ming’s opportunist line in the Soviet Area. The major targets of this anti-Luo Ming Line campaign also included Deng Xiaoping (the then Secretary of Huichang-Xunwu-Anyuan County Committee of the CPC) who was a representative figure of “Luo Deng Xiaoping

Ming Line in Jiangxi,” Mao Zeqin (Mao Zedong’s brother, the then Secretary of Yongfeng-Ji’an-Taihe County Committee of the CPC), Xie Weijun (the then Commanding Officer of the Second Sub-military Area Command) and Gu Bai (the then Secretary of Party organization and the Head of the Interior Service Department of the Jiangxi Soviet Government). The four people were comrades-in-arms of like mind, and kept

Mao Zeqin

in touch through frequent exchange of letters. In character they were honest and frank, daring to speak boldly in defense of justice. They were averse to Wang Ming’s and Bo Gu’s divorce from reality, empty preaching and issuing random orders in the Soviet Area. They felt indignant at the unfair criticism and punishment meted out to Mao Zedong, openly reproaching “Mr. Foreignstyle House” for stirring up trouble in the Soviet Area. The four openly refuted Wang Ming’s and Bo Gu’s

Xie Weijun

criticism of Mao Zedong as a “narrow empiricist” and their line that “Marxism does not come out of mountain villages.” In riposte they said: “Big cities generated the ‘Li Lisan Line’, but in the mountains of our Soviet Area, everything is Marxist.” They were dubbed the “Four Guardian Warriors” of the Soviet Area for their bold criticism of and resistance to Left-deviationism. After Deng Xiaoping assumed the post of Secretary of Ruijin County Committee of the CPC, he investigated

Gu Bai

182

the case in which his predecessor wantonly killed inno-

Chapter 8

Wang Ming’s Leftist Policy Leads the Revolution Astray; Bo Gu’s Blind Command Takes the Red Army up a Blind Alley

cent people in the name of eliminating counter-revolutionaries, and executed him after a public trial. This exemplary act became widely known and earned Deng Xiaoping even higher prestige. Bo Gu, who controlled the CPC Central Committee, trumped up a charge against Deng for being the figurehead of the Luo Ming Line in Jiangxi as well as the leader of the anti-Party clique, on the flimsy grounds that the four were closely associated and had written Mao Zedong one or two letters. Bo Gu dismissed all four from all their posts within the Party, confiscated their guns, and sent them to rural areas for reform through labor. The anti-Luo Ming Line campaign continued to escalate and expand. From western Fujian and Jiangxi it spread to the whole Central Soviet Area and the surrounding Soviet Areas. A large number of Party, government and military officials were removed from office, expelled from the CPC, and sent to rural areas or “labor persuasion camps” for reform through labor. The persecuted officials were even deprived of allowances for living expenses. Some were forced to beg for money on the street, earn a living by selling melon seeds, or even become outlaws robbing from the rich to give to the poor. The campaign aroused popular apprehension in the Soviet Areas, deflated morale, and reduced the combat capability of the Red Army. While combating the Luo Ming Line, Bo Gu and his followers, in the name of the CPC Central Committee, ordered the Soviet Areas to harshly suppress “counter-revolutionaries” in the Party, the government and the army. This breathed new life into and escalated an existing campaign to eliminate counterrevolutionaries. The campaign in the Central Soviet Area pre-dated Bo Gu’s arrival; Zhou Enlai, the then Secretary of the CPC Central Bureau of the Soviet Area, had pointed out the mistake and tried hard to correct it. The “eliminate counter-revolutionaries” campaign originated from the “AB League” crack-down in Southwest Jiangxi in 1930. “AB League” was short for the Anti-Bolshevik League, a secret anti-Communist organization of KMT Right-wing members, initiated by Chiang Kai-shek and Chen Guofu in Nanchang, Jiangxi, at the end of 1926. From January to March 1927, Duan Xipeng, Cheng Wufang and other backbone members of the AB League committed a series of criminal suppressions of workers’ and peasants’ movements 183

Socialism in China

in the province. Their shooting dead of Chen Zanxian, Chairman of Ganzhou General Labor Union, fired up the moral indignation of local Communists, KMT Left-wing members, workers and peasants. In early April, they destroyed the KMT Jiangxi Provincial Headquarters controlled by the AB League, and arrested over 30 of its backbone members. From its establishment to disintegration, this organization existed for only three or four months. It was never restored or re-built ever since. Who could have foretold that this organization, defunct for three years, would ignite a campaign to eliminate counter-revolutionaries in the Soviet Area. During May and June 1930, the Southwest Jiangxi Special Committee of the CPC issued several documents, claiming that the League had infiltrated Party organizations at all levels as well as other revolutionary organizations, and ordering the Party committees at all levels and the Soviet Government to give utmost priority to the “anti-AB League campaign” and impose Red Terror. In the beginning, the Southwest Jiangxi Soviet Area identified as AB League members “wobblers” within the Party, suspicious squires, landlords and rich farmers, and proceeded to arrest, torture and even execute them. Later they were to discover the AB League organization “for real.” In August 1930, the Southwest Jiangxi Special Committee of the CPC arrested Zhu Jiahao, an official from the Distribution Department of the Youth League Special Committee, because “the public informed against him,” claiming that “he kept frequent correspondence with the AB League”. Subjected to torture, Zhu confessed that his colleague Xie Zhaoyuan was the AB League leader in Southwest Jiangxi. Xie was arrested, harshly tortured, and admitted the existence of an AB League system from national headquarters down to community-level groups, and that AB League organizations covered all the counties and the Red Army in the Southwest Jiangxi Revolutionary Base Area. In view of the “severe situation,” the Southwest Jiangxi Special Committee of the CPC issued an Emergency Announcement. It required Party and government departments at all levels to set up investigation teams and interrogate anyone suspicious, because “the AB League members are deceitful and tough, and they will not confess their crime unless under the cruelest punishment.” It also transferred the power of execution to county level. In no time, the Soviet Area was busy hunting out and executing AB League members. 184

Chapter 8

Wang Ming’s Leftist Policy Leads the Revolution Astray; Bo Gu’s Blind Command Takes the Red Army up a Blind Alley

According to research materials relating to the history of the CPC Jiangxi provincial branch, within the course of a few months, over 3,500 people were persecuted in Xunwu County, 1,890 in Yongxin County, and 1,000 plus in Yudu County; all government officials of Ganxian County were executed except for one cook. A bloody storm of Red Terror swept through the Southwest Jiangxi Soviet Area. Soon, the campaign spread from local governments to the Red Army. Mao Zedong and the General Front Committee signed a document ordering the First Front Red Army to set up “eliminate counter-revolutionaries committees” at army, division and regiment levels. Initially, power of arrest resided in Party committees at regiment level, and power of execution at division level; later, both powers were transferred down to Party branches and teams at company and platoon levels. Provided someone reported against someone else, Party organizations at all levels were authorized to arrest, investigate and even execute that person. Li Shaoqing, Zhu De’s 15-year-old orderly, was also arrested, interrogated and was saved from execution only by Zhu’s intervention. Investigators at all levels arrested people wantonly and subjected them to torture cruel beyond description. Within a dozen days of the campaign starting, over 4,400 people were identified as AB League members and more than 2,000 were executed. Of the 40,000 soldiers of the First Front Red Army, some 4,000 were falsely accused as AB League members, and half of that number were wrongfully killed. How thrilling to kill one’s own people with such fierceness and efficiency! Casual arrests, cruel punishment and wanton slaughter led to the Futian Incident. At the time during the campaign, Li Shaojiu wielded the power of life and death in the First Front Red Army. He was Secretary General of the General Political Department and Chairman of the Eliminate Counter-revolutionaries Committee. Li was opportunistic, morally corrupt, and eager for personal profit and promotion. On December 7, 1930, acting on the confession of several tortured prisoners, Li led a troop to the Jiangxi Action Committee in Futian Town, arrested several Party and government leaders and their families, and subjected them to harsh torture. Within five days, Li arrested over 120 “AB League members” in the Action Committee and Soviet Government of Jiangxi, and executed 24 of them in a single day. 185

Socialism in China

On the basis of a confession extracted by savage torture, Li Shaojiu headed a troop to the headquarters of the 20th Red Army stationed in Donggu Township, to arrest the so-called “AB League leader” Liu Di, a regiment political commissar of the Red Army. Liu was fully aware that Li was a contemptible character, and knew of his butchery in Futian; he was sure that Li was seeking to settle old scores and pursue his own interests under the cover of rooting out the AB League. Liu Di was not going to be taken without a fight. He led a battalion to encircle the army headquarters, and rescued several “AB criminals.” Then he hurried to Futian, disarmed Li Shaojiu’s entourage, and released nearly 100 Party and government officials imprisoned and awaiting execution. Later, he led the 20th Red Army and officials of the provincial Party committee and government out of Futian, and at the same time, sent representatives to report the incident to the General Front Committee of the Red Army and the CPC Central Committee, asking for justice and appropriate action. As for how to handle the “Futian Incident,” there was no unanimity of opinion among the CPC Central Committee, the Central Bureau of the Soviet Area and the General Front Committee of the Red Army. Zhou Enlai, Xiang Ying and Ren Bishi favored a mediation approach to an intra-Party conflict; Mao Zedong thought it was of serious nature and called for harsh punishment. The CPC Central Committee firmly believed the Futian Incident was counter-revolutionary, and decided on execution for Zeng Bingchun the political commissar of the 20th Red Army (away on sick leave at the time), for the perpetrator Liu Di and several other “wanted criminals.” Even more outrageous and unforgivable is that 20th Red Army officers above the level of platoon leader were tricked into going to the riverside for an alleged meeting, and every one of them was disarmed, trussed up and executed by shooting. Lamentably, this branch of the Red Army that distinguished itself time and again in battle for the establishment of Southwest Jiangxi Soviet Area disappeared for ever: all its commanders and backbone officers were unjustly killed by the guns of their own people, and all its soldiers were incorporated into the Seventh Red Army. The anti-AB League campaign had been easing off, but in the wake of the Futian Incident, it abruptly became more intense. Li Wenlin, Secretary of the Jiangxi Action Committee and one of the major establishing leaders of the 186

Chapter 8

Wang Ming’s Leftist Policy Leads the Revolution Astray; Bo Gu’s Blind Command Takes the Red Army up a Blind Alley

Southwest Jiangxi Soviet Area was executed as a “wanted criminal” of the AB League, together with a number of Party and government leaders. On the execution ground, Li Wenlin and others shouted loudly, “Long live the Communist Party of China!” Their death by the guns of their Communist colleagues was grief for our own people and joy for the enemy. Even Chen Yi, at the time Secretary of the Southwest Jiangxi Special Committee of the CPC and Commander of the 22nd Red Army, was in danger of execution. While the Southwest Jiangxi Soviet Area and the Red Army were combating the AB League, the West Fujian Soviet Area was suppressing the so-called “Social Democratic Party.” At that time, there was no “Social Democratic Party” in China at all. Like the AB League, it was a groundless pretext for pursing personal agendas, and the origin of these organizations was sheer nonsense. In early 1931, the 12th Red Army in the West Fujian Soviet Area held a meeting to commemorate the Comintern leaders Wilhelm Liebknecht, Rosa Luxemburg and Vladimir Lenin. When the host mentioned Liebknecht and Luxemburg as leaders of the Second International and German Social Democrats a young man named Wu Zhuozai and several young soldiers, who hadn’t a clue what these two terms meant, suddenly started shouting, “Support the Second International” and “Long live the Social Democrats.” Without any investigation, Lin Yizhu, Director of the Eliminate Counter-revolutionaries Committee in the West Fujian Soviet Area, ordered them arrested as counter-revolutionaries. Under coercion the young men made a spurious confession that there was a “Social Democratic Party” in the West Fujian Soviet Area, and that it had a membership of over 60, most of them leaders of the local Party committee and the Red Army. Thereafter, the Western Fujian Soviet Area started a largescale “anti-Social Democrats campaign.” Like the investigators for the anti-AB League campaign in the Southwest Jiangxi Soviet Area, the Eliminate Counter-revolutionaries Committee in the West Fujian Soviet Area also resorted to torture to wrest confessions from prisoners. One detainee would give up 10 names, and those 10 would give up a hundred. The process, rolling like a snowball, resulted in thousands of “Social Democrats” being arrested in a few months. The top committee transferred power of execution down to county-level “counter-revolutionary adjudication committees,” and issued an announcement demanding “quick arrests and 187

Socialism in China

quick execution of Social Democrats, without shilly-shallying or hesitation.” Therefore, the county-level committees started a massacre. Provided they had a confession, they sought no corroborating evidence, but proceeded straight to put the “Social Democrats” to death. In only a few months, half of the 55 executive members of the West Fujian Soviet Government were slandered as “Social Democrats” and executed; most of the officials of county-level Party committees and governments were executed, and only two or three survived; in the 12th Red Army half of all officers above company level were wrongly executed; across the West Fujian Soviet Area, 6,352 people met unjust deaths. As with the 20th Red Army in Jiangxi, some Party officials and Red Army officers and soldiers who put up a fight against the wrongful charge were executed too. Zhang Dingcheng, Chairman of the West Fujian Soviet Government, who had himself narrowly escaped execution as a “Social Democrat,” reported to Mao Zedong and the CPC Central Bureau of the Soviet Area about the wanton slaughter of innocents during the local campaign. By then Mao had already realized the severe consequences of his wrong decision to crack down on the AB League and eliminate counter-revolutionaries in the Red Army. He said with a heavy heart: “If we go on like this, we’ll destroy ourselves without being attacked by the enemy.” Mao discussed with Zhou Enlai and other leaders, and called a meeting of the CPC Central Bureau of the Soviet Area. The meeting decided on an immediate end to the campaign to eliminate the “Social Democrat Party,” correct the “eliminate counter-revolutionaries” error, redress fabricated cases and posthumously rehabilitate those who had been wronged. The Central Government allocated 5,000 yuan to properly solve the remaining problems. However, the decision came too late. The innocent victims would not revive at any cost. Mao Zedong learned a painful lesson from this, as evidenced by his proposing the principle of “killing none and arresting only a few” during the rectification movement and the eliminating counterrevolutionaries campaign in Yan’an in the 1940s. Under Bo Gu’s grip, the CPC Central Committee wantonly arrested, tortured and executed the innocent in the Soviet Area and the Red Army. They also pushed forward a series of Left-deviationist policies, such as imprisoning landlords and rich peasants and their families and expropriating their property, issuing bonds and grain coupons, and introducing compulsory conscription 188

Chapter 8

Wang Ming’s Leftist Policy Leads the Revolution Astray; Bo Gu’s Blind Command Takes the Red Army up a Blind Alley

among the masses. These draining-the-pond-to-catch-the-fish policies made endless demands on the people, aroused public grievances and lost public support. The Left-deviationist policies also found expression in the Land Inventory Movement launched in the Soviet Area in the second half of 1933. They randomly divided social classes, damaged the interests of the middle-income peasants and eliminated the rich-farmer economy. These actions alienated a populace previously sympathetic to the cause, pushing them toward the enemy camp, as well as severely impacting agricultural production. The economy in the Soviet Area went from bad to worse. What Wang Ming and Bo Gu did in the Soviet Area led to internal friction, and estranged the Party from the people, leaving behind a hidden danger for self-destruction. While the Soviet Area was in the grip of the Left-deviationist line, Chiang Kai-shek was plotting another campaign to encircle and suppress the Soviet Area. At that time, Japan was occupying the three northeast provinces of China, and casting a menacing eye on the North China Plain, watching for a chance to pounce. Despite the national crisis, Chiang Kai-shek insisted on the policy of internal pacification taking priority over resistance to foreign aggression. His top priority was to suppress the Soviet Area and the Red Army. He even instructed his subordinates that, “If we lose to Japan, we would just be conquered slaves; but defeat by the Communists and the Red Army, our bodies would lie unburied.” In February 1933, Chiang Kai-shek succeeded in encircling and suppressing the Hubei-Henan-Anhui and West Hunan-Hubei revolutionary base areas. The Fourth Front Red Army and the Second Army Group of the Red Army were forced to withdraw from the base areas and began the Western Expedition. Later, Chiang assembled forces to launch the fourth “encirclement and suppression” against the Central Soviet Area. This time, Chiang himself was the Commander-in-Chief, and dispatched a 400,000-strong force, 160,000 of them crack troops under the direct control of his faction. At this time, Mao Zedong had been dismissed from his post as General Political Commissar of the First Front Red Army, thus unable to lead the 189

Socialism in China

counter-encirclement campaign. The fortunate thing was that Zhou Enlai, Zhu De and others commanding operations on the front stuck with the same tactics that Mao had used during the three previous campaigns, such as luring the enemy in deep and eliminating the enemy’s effective troop strength through mobile warfare. They concentrated superior forces, ambushed the enemy’s three divisions, and smashed the KMT’s fourth encirclement. Learning his lesson from four successive failures, Chiang Kai-shek tried to formulate a new battle plan. He personally recruited from Hitler Germany General First Class Hans von Seeckt as his military adviser. Von Seeckt, who had been Army Commander-in-Chief of Germany for seven years. For three consecutive months, Chiang organized the Lushan Military Officers’ Training Course in Haihui Temple, Bailu Cave and other places in Lushan, Jiangxi, one session every two weeks. The course trained batches of officers above platoon-leader level, 7,598 in all, to take part in the fifth encirclement and suppression, aiming to work out new battle strategies and tactics. Chiang participated in every training session to give instructions. Drawing a lesson from the past, for the fifth encirclement Chiang decided to rely on “three parts military, seven parts politics” and to follow the general strategy of comprehensive “encirclement and suppression” covering military, political, economic and cultural aspects. Militarily, Chiang Kai-shek put forward the principle of “forging ahead steadily, consolidating at every step, building blockhouses and roads, and pushing forward step by step” so as to counter Zhu De and Mao Zedong’s guerilla-warfare tactics encapsulated in the 16-character approach – “the enemy advances, we retreat; the enemy camps, we harass; the enemy tires, we attack; the enemy retreats, we pursue.” Chiang emphasized the new military tactics of protracted warfare and blockhouse warfare. This entailed the immediate construction of blockhouses wherever the army stopped, making camp every three or five li and pushing forward every eight or 10 li, consolidating every inch conquered so as to strangle the “bandit area.” No isolated force was to drive straight in and penetrate deep into the enemy territory. The blockhouse tactic was originated by Jin Handing, leader of the Yunnan Army and a former classmate of Zhu De at Yunnan Army Jiangwutang Military School. In 1929, as Deputy Commander-in-Chief during the cam190

Chapter 8

Wang Ming’s Leftist Policy Leads the Revolution Astray; Bo Gu’s Blind Command Takes the Red Army up a Blind Alley

paign of suppressing Communists in Hunan, Fujian and Jiangxi, he had suggested building fortresses and checkpoints and pushing forward step by step till finally eliminating the Red Army in the Jiangxi Soviet Area. However, his proposal had failed to impress Chiang. When Chiang called a meeting at Nanchang headquarters to work on the tactics for the fifth encirclement, junior officer Liu Weiyuan proposed the blockhouse approach and it was taken up by Chiang. This tactic was indeed effective and played a major role in the fifth encirclement campaign. Politically, Chiang adopted the baojia system1 and lianzuo2 system to exert greater control over the masses, and a combination of buying popular support with suppression, so as to induce the masses in the Soviet Area to join the anti-Communist campaign. Economically, Chiang ordered the enforcement of a tight blockade in the Soviet Area, in an attempt to cut the Red Army off from supplies of food, salt, cloth, kerosene, medicine and other daily necessities. Culturally, Chiang promoted the so-called New Life Movement, advocating “sense of propriety, righteousness, honesty and shame” and “loyalty, piety, benevolence, good faith and peace,” so as to resist the influence of the Communist philosophy. This time Chiang Kai-shek put sufficient effort into “eliminating the Communists.” When all was ready, Chiang dispatched 53 divisions and 28 brigades, five squadrons of over 200 aircraft, assembled a total force of more than 500,000 and divided them into three routes (north, south and west) to encircle and suppress the Jiangxi Soviet Area; he deployed six divisions and one brigade of the 19th Route Army in Fujian to resist the eastward expansion of the Red Army. In late September 1933, the KMT army mounted a large-scale offensive against the Red Army in the Central Soviet Area, pushing forward step by step while building bastions and roads at every step, with cover provided by aircraft and heavy artillery. Facing this formidable force, Bo Gu, Xiang Ying and other CPC leaders 1

Former administrative system organized on the basis of households, with each jia made up of 10 households, and each bao of 10 jias, and all the baos and jias responsible for public security, tax-collection and control of the people within their jurisdiction. 2

A system where households were made responsible for the actions of all members.

191

Socialism in China

abandoned the tactics of proactive defense, mobile warfare and luring the enemy in deep that Mao Zedong, Zhou Enlai and Zhu De had applied in the previous counter-encirclement campaigns. They blindly followed the “beating with two fists” principle put forward by Manfred Stern, Comintern General Military Adviser in China living in Shanghai. They divided the Red Army into central and the eastern forces to conduct separate operations, dispersing the forces to “engage the enemy outside the gates” and “not give up an inch of our territory in the Soviet Area.” They adopted wrong tactics for passive defense such as positional warfare and war of attrition, an approach that landed the Red Army into a passive position right from the outset of the fighting. Coincidently, both adversaries Chiang Kai-shek and Bo Gu recruited Germans as their military consultants. Bo Gu elbowed Mao Zedong out of the Red Army’s central leadership, and arranged for himself to take charge of the Soviet Government. He also distrusted Zhu De and Zhou Enlai, believing them to be Right-deviationists deeply influenced by Mao’s guerrilla warfare philosophy. Although Bo Gu had the supreme command of the Red Army, he knew nothing about military affairs. Lacking the confidence to direct Red Army operations, he requested the Comintern to recruit Otto Braun (Li De) as his military adviser. Braun was a friend of Bo Gu from his student days in Moscow, and happened to be in China on other business when Bo Gu’s request arrived. The Comintern approved but instructed that the military adviser had no power to give orders or instructions and was under the control of the CPC Central Committee. Li De was the Chinese name adopted by Otto Braun, a German national. Born in 1900, in his youth Braun participated in the battle to establish the Bavarian Soviet Republic and the workers’ uprising in central Germany. He was arrested in 1926, Li De (Otto Braun)

192

escaped to the Soviet Union in 1928, and

Chapter 8

Wang Ming’s Leftist Policy Leads the Revolution Astray; Bo Gu’s Blind Command Takes the Red Army up a Blind Alley

graduated from Frunze Military Academy in Moscow in 1932. His highest military post was chief of staff of a regiment of mounted troops. His military career obviously far fell short of that of von Scheekt, his counterpart on Chiang Kai-shek’s side. Otto Braun’s arrival in September 1933, coincided with the KMT army’s onslaught on the Central Soviet Area. It felt to Bo Gu like finding a pearl beyond price, and he led senior leaders of the Party, government and military of the Soviet Area to Ruijin County to take the foreign adviser to Shazhouba, seat of the CPC Central Committee. Three days later, Bo Gu informed leaders of the Soviet Area to attend a meeting at Otto Braun’s residence, the village temple. There Bo Gu announced, “From now on, Comrade Otto Braun takes charge of the Red Army’s military strategies and operational tactics, training and logistics; he attends the meetings of the CPC Central Committee and the Central Military Commission; he participates in formulating policies for the Party and the Red Army. The Party and Red Army leaders at all levels should respect him and follow his instructions….” However, Bo Gu omitted the text of the Comintern’s telegram stipulating that the military adviser had no right to give orders or instructions. Those at the meeting heard the message loud and clear: no way was Otto Braun just a military consultant; he was Commander-in-Chief of the Red Army. So, here we have Bo Gu, a man blind to the realities of China’s revolution and with no military knowledge, and encircled by a strong enemy. This man hands over command of the Red Army to a foreigner with scant knowledge of China and the Red Army. It was just like a blind man riding a blind horse on the edge of an abyss in the dead of night. It was a disaster waiting to happen. Despite being supreme leader of the Red Army, Otto Braun neither went to the front nor talked with the army. Nor did he even meet the Commanderin-Chief Zhu De and the General Political Commissar Zhou Enlai directing operations on the front. He stayed in the village temple, looking at the battle map, earnestly measuring with a ruler and scratching with a pencil for several hours a day. He commanded the army relying only on a rough and ready map. He meticulously marked out on it the deployment of forces, choice of battlefield, time of arrival and even where to place the machineguns, and instructed the front to take his order. Unfortunately, his arrangement was so impractical 193

Socialism in China

that the Red Army could not get anywhere on schedule. Moreover, the foreign adviser frequently changed his orders, thus confusing the front-line commanders. Red Army officers and soldiers alike moaned and complained about him and referred to him as “the commander on the map.” Soon, the military consultant “making an impressive entrance” presented his “cunning plan” to counter the encirclement campaign. Bo Gu called a meeting of the Central Military Commission at the village temple, which served as Otto Braun’s office, and asked him to explain his proposed tactics. The excited Bo Gu, his face wreathed in smiles, introduced him thus: “Comrades, our military consultant Otto Braun from the Comintern, based on his rich battlefield experience [several months of urban uprising actually] and abundant knowledge learned from the Frunze Military Academy [nothing more than urban uprising and positional warfare], has, on the basis of our situation and that of the enemy, formulated the tactics to counter the fifth encirclement. To my mind, it is highly satisfactory. I now call upon him to take us through it.” Otto Braun took over: “In this round of encirclement, Chiang Kai-shek is using the ‘blockhouse warfare tactic’ that my fellow national Hans von Seeckt advised. Over the last few days I have figured out how to crack it, which is to build our own citadels and launch sudden assaults so as to keep the enemy out of our territory. We should build pillboxes and deploy garrison forces at important towns, residential clusters and transport arteries. When the enemy leave their blockhouses and march forward, the Red Army will be concealed nearby, ready and waiting to jump them and eliminate them at one stroke. This is the tactic I call ‘close-range assaults.’” His speech produced a flurry of discussion. “The Red Army is poorly equipped. To fight a positional war against a strong enemy is just like an egg trying to smash a rock!” “How could the Red Army’s pillboxes made of rock and wood resist the enemy’s air and cannon bombardment?” “Close-range assaults are very difficult to time right, and we might be trapped in the enemy’s firing range.” Bo Gu tried to quell the general discontent, ordering: “No talking among yourselves, please. Listen to the adviser!” Otto Braun was displeased and agitated, waving his arms, he said: “Some people advise the tactics used in the 194

Chapter 8

Wang Ming’s Leftist Policy Leads the Revolution Astray; Bo Gu’s Blind Command Takes the Red Army up a Blind Alley

previous four counter-encirclement campaigns. This is so wrong! The age of guerilla warfare has gone. We should abandon the guerilla tactics and face the enemy directly this time!” To convince, or more accurately intimidate, them, Braun listed Julius Caesar, Tacitus, von Clausewitz, von Moltke and many other foreign military celebrities to support the tactics he was postulating. After the meeting, the senior- and middle-rank commanders of the Red Army all felt doubtful and discontent with the so-called “close-range assaults,” but Bo Gu was in thrall to Braun’s tactics, and ordered the Red Army to follow his instructions without further comment. No one was allowed to air any dissident view. Under the direction of Bo Gu and Otto Braun, the Red Army failed in each “close-range assault,” sustained heavy casualties, and lost more and more land. During this period, because of the intervention of the Comintern and the wrong decision of the Left-deviationist CPC Central Committee, the Red Army lost a heaven-sent opportunity to smash the fifth encirclement to smithereens. This opportunity was brought by the KMT’s 19th Route Army. On January 28, 1932, the Japanese army suddenly burst out of the Japanese Concession and attacked the 19th Route Army stationed in Zhabei District of Shanghai. The 19th Route Army Commander Cai Tingkai and ZhejiangShanghai Garrison Commander Jiang Guangnai led their troops in fierce fighting against the Japanese for over a month, wiping out more than 10,000 of their troops, stiffening the morale of the Chinese and puncturing the enemy’s arrogance. Amazingly, the 19th Route Army was censured, not rewarded, for resisting the Japanese aggression. Chiang Kai-shek forced the 19th Route Army to withdraw from Shanghai and head for Fujian to suppress the Red Army. Cai Tingkai and Jiang Guangnai were patriotic military men who were disenchanted with Chiang and unwilling to fight civil wars at this critical moment of national peril. Together with the Guangdong military and government leader Li Jishen, they secretly planned to launch a mutiny in Fujian under the dual banner of opposing Chiang and resisting Japanese aggression. Prior to launching the mutiny, 195

Socialism in China

they sent representatives to the Central Soviet Area, seeking alliance with the Red Army to jointly resist Japanese aggression and oppose Chiang. Entrusted by the CPC Central Committee, Mao Zedong and Pan Hannian discussed with the representatives, and inked the Preliminary Agreement with the 19th Route Army of the KMT with the approval of the CPC Central Committee. Since Cai had been promised the support of the CPC, on November 22 the KMT mutineers announced they were setting up “the People’s Revolutionary Government of the Republic of China,” with Li Jishen as its chairman and Cai Tingkai, Chen Mingshu, Jiang Guangnai as members of the 11-strong government; all the Fujian mutineers were quitting the KMT to create the new “People’s Production Party,” and called on the whole nation to overthrow Chiang Kai-shek’s reactionary rule and resist Japanese aggression in solidarity After the Fujian Incident, Mao Zedong, who had been sidelined for a while, raised a formal proposal to the CPC Central Committee: Since Chiang Kai-shek was busy gathering forces to suppress the Fujian mutiny, the main force of the Red Army should seize this favorable chance to break through the enemy’s encirclement immediately, advance on Zhejiang, Shanghai, Hangzhou and the Jiangsu-Anhui-Jiangxi area, and press on towards Nanjing, KMT’s administrative center, thereby compelling Chiang to withdraw his troops back to rescue Nanjing. This way they could lift the siege of the Red Army, force Chiang to stop attacking the 19th Route Army, and enable the Red Army to aid the KMT’s 19th Route Army and the Fujian People’s Government from the flank. Zhou Enlai, Zhang Wentian, Peng Dehuai and Lin Biao had all made similar suggestions, but Bo Gu and Otto Braun resolutely disapproved, condemning them as adventurist and willing to give up the Soviet Area. Later, the Comintern telegraphed its disapproval of the Red Army cooperating with the 19th Route Army in opposition to Chiang Kai-shek. Therefore, Bo Gu and Otto Braun ordered the Red Army not to interfere with the KMT army attacking the Fujian People’s Government and the 19th Route Army, and absolutely forbade the Red Army to leave the Soviet Area. Mao shouted with rage: “You went back on your commitment and tore up the agreement. Not only the 19th Route Army will be destroyed, there’s no hope now of the Red Army smashing the encirclement.” Without the aid of the Red Army, the 19th Route Army had to fight in 196

Chapter 8

Wang Ming’s Leftist Policy Leads the Revolution Astray; Bo Gu’s Blind Command Takes the Red Army up a Blind Alley

isolation against the onslaught of Chiang Kai-shek’s 100,000-strong force. It soon fell apart and only 4,000 men escaped from Fujian with Cai Tingkai. In the meanwhile, the Red Army also missed the opportunity to destroy the fifth encirclement. Chiang Kai-shek succeeded in squashing the Fujian People’s Government, and incorporated the remnants of the 19th Route Army into his 200,000-strong East Route Army to encircle the Soviet Area and Red Army. Thus he was able to form a complete encirclement, advancing on the Soviet Area from four directions for an all-out attack. In early April, the Red Army was forced to withdraw to Guangchang and Jianning of Jiangxi. Bo Gu and Otto Braun decided to assemble all the nine divisions of the First, Third, Fifth and Ninth Groups of the Red Army, to fight a last-ditch battle against the 11 divisions of the KMT Army at Guangchang, the north entrance of the Central Soviet Area. They ordered to “fight to the death in defending Guangchang,” and gathered the Red Army to build blockhouses around the Guangchang county seat. Chiang Kai-shek was delighted and excited at this intelligence, telling his subordinates: “Provided the Red Army abandons Mao Zedong’s tactics and begins fighting positional warfare, we’ll annihilate it without a doubt.” Mao Zedong, Zhang Wentian, Peng Dehuai, Lin Biao, Nie Rongzhen and other senior leaders of the Red Army were absolutely opposed to the idea of waging a battle at Guangchang. Peng Dehuai vehemently told Bo Gu and Otto Braun: “We should not defend Guangchang to the death. Our pillboxes will not stand up to enemy bombing and artillery. If we insist, we could hold out for three days maximum and it would be certain death for the frontline 12,000 soldiers of the Third Group, and the certain loss of Guangchang.” But he was talking to the deaf: Bo Gu and Otto Braun insisted on fighting the Battle of Guangchang. On April 10, 1934, Chen Cheng, the Vice Commander-in-Chief of the KMT army for the fifth encirclement, commanding 10 infantry divisions and one artillery division covered by intense air and cannon bombardment, launched an all-out attack against Guangchang. The Red Army’s flimsy pillboxes of wood and rock were all toppled by bombardment. The soldiers guarding the pillboxes had no time to launch “close-range assaults” but were 197

Socialism in China

buried alive in their own blockhouses. The soldiers that were ordered into such assaults were completely exposed in the open, and were either mown down in the enemy’s ring of fire, or blown up by bombs and cannon fire. It was a scene of desperate carnage. The Red Army forces ordered to defend Guangchang to the death put up a brave and glorious fight until their ammunition and food ran out and they gave their lives. Not one survived. The Battle of Guangchang lasted 18 days. The Red Army soldiers fought a bloody war, killed 2,600 enemies and suffered 5,500 casualties, but were ultimately forced to withdraw. After this battle, Peng Deguai went to the headquarters, rebuking Otto Braun furiously: “It took nearly eight years of brave fighting to establish the Central Revolutionary Base Area. You call that easy? But under your blind command, we’ve suffered heavy casualties. The base area is shrinking and our Red Army is getting smaller and smaller. Everything we’ve achieved over the years is being ruined by you. Do you not give a toss about ruining our own land?” After the defeat at Guangchang, Junmenling and Jianning, the southern entrances to the Soviet Area, were also lost. Thereafter, the KMT army drove straight in. The Red Army was doomed to lose the fifth counter-encirclement. In June 1934, Chiang Kai-shek, taking personal command of the KMT army, deployed his troops to attack the Soviet Area hinterland by six routes, aiming to “drain the pool and catch all the fish.” Mao risked stricture by proposing a counter-strategy, namely, to stop engaging in head-to-head, fight-tothe-death battles, and instead move out with all speed to central Hunan where enemy fortresses had not yet been built, and eliminate the enemy through mobile warfare. Regrettably, Bo Gu and Otto Braun clung obstinately to their course, continued with passive defense, and ordered the Red Army to meet the enemy head-on in six routes. It was just like putting our own head into Chiang Kai-shek’s noose – just what he wanted. Through July, August and September, the Red Army fought dauntlessly against the well-equipped and overwhelming enemy, but suffered heavy casualties, lost much land, and was finally defeated. In early October, the Central Soviet Area was reduced from the 60 counties remaining after the fourth encirclement to just six (Ruijin, Xingguo, Yudu, Ningdu, Changting and Huichang). The Red Army finally failed in the fifth counter-encirclement. 198

Chapter 8

Wang Ming’s Leftist Policy Leads the Revolution Astray; Bo Gu’s Blind Command Takes the Red Army up a Blind Alley

One can enumerate many external reasons for the Red Army’s failure: the improper intervention of the Comintern; the blind command of Bo Gu and Otto Braun; Chiang Kai-shek’s military squeeze and changes of tactics; the Red Army’s undersupply of provisions and recruits arising from the peasants’ dampened enthusiasm for production after year after year of war and the Leftdeviationist Land Inventory Movement. But the deeper cause was the CPC’s intra-Party administrative structure that was copied from the Communist Party of the Soviet Union and lacked mechanisms for democracy and error correction. Enormous damage was caused because the leaders’ arbitrariness, persisting with decisions and lines that had been repeatedly proven wrong. Without the mechanisms for democracy and error correction, the Party and the Red Army failed to reverse the situation promptly. The consequences were devastating. As the poem rightly tells us: Ignorance is forgivable, But there is no cure for incorrigible obstinacy. Throughout the history of the Party, Left-deviationist errors are the most miserable. ჄᇐႵफ़࿦ĭ ጞຠ໵း၌h ၊Ҏᇗ‫ܓ‬ൖĭ uቘvࠓቓҡ৪h  What would happen to the Central Soviet Area and the Red Army next? Could the beleaguered army break through and come to life again? To know what followed, you must read on.

199

Chapter 9

The Zunyi Meeting Corrects the Direction of the Party; the Long March Keeps Alive the Embers of Revolution

As failure became inevitable in the Red Army’s campaign to counter the KMT’s fifth encirclement, the KMT army pushed quickly into the heartland of the Central Soviet Area, forcing the Red Army to retreat to Ruijin, Huichang, Yudu, Ningdu and other small areas. Ruijin, where the Party’s central organs and the headquarters of the Red Army were located was already in the range of enemy cannons. They had no choice but to withdraw from the Central Soviet Area and march west to break out of the encirclement. Bo Gu decided to form a triumvirate leadership with Otto Braun and Zhou Enlai, which had exclusive power to plan and command the withdrawal. On October 10, 1934, the Central Red Army (renamed the Red Field Army before the start of the Long March) and the Party’s central organs started out from Ruijin, Yudu and elsewhere. More than 86,000 people, divided into left, right and central routes, marched west to break out of the encirclement. It was the start of the grueling Long March. In withdrawing from the Central Soviet Area and shifting to western Hubei-Hunan, the Central Red Army’s intention was to join forces with the Second Army Group under He Long and the Sixth Army Group under Ren Bishi and open up a new revolutionary base. Initially, the Red Army did not encounter much obstruction from the KMT. Before the withdrawal, Zhu De sent letters to the Guangdong warlord Chen Jitang, and then the Central Revolutionary Military Commission sent Pan Hannian and He Changgong as representatives to conduct negotiations with the Guangdong Army under Chen Jitang. The two sides reached a truce and the Guangdong Army agreed 200

Chapter 9

The Zunyi Meeting Corrects the Direction of the Party; the Long March Keeps Alive the Embers of Revolution

to lift its blockade and make way for the Red Army, so it passed easily through the three Guangdong Army defense lines in Jiangxi and Guangdong, and entered into the regions of the Xiaoshui and Xiangjiang rivers. However, Chiang Kai-shek guessed the direction the Red Army would take and appointed He Jian and Xue Yue to command the KMT’s Central Army, Hunan Army and Guangxi Army, totaling 100,000 soldiers in 25 divisions. The upper reaches of the Xiangjiang River were heavily guarded and five forces were sent out to encircle the Red Army. Chiang ordered that the Red Army forces should be annihilated east of the Xiangjiang and Lishui rivers. From November 27 to December 1, the Red Army engaged in a fierce battle with the KMT army to cross the Xiangjiang River. The First and Third Red Army Groups, as the vanguard troops, had occupied the major ferry point at Jieshou on the east side of the Xiangjiang River and set up pontoon bridges, waiting for the two columns of the Party’s central organs and the rear troops to cross the river. However, they were able to advance only 20 km a day since they tried to take everything with them, including cumbersome equipment. They were unable to reach the ferry before the arrival of the KMT’s Hunan and Guangxi armies and missed the best opportunity to cross the river. The First and Third Red Army Groups dug in at the ferry and fought a weeklong battle with the enemy and suffered heavy casualties. Peng Dehuai and Lin Biao sent many telegrams urging the columns of the Central Committee and Central Revolutionary Military Commission to move faster. When their tens of thousands of troops finally did arrive and packed the eastern bank of the Xiangjiang River, they encountered waves of bombing and strafing from dozens of enemy aircraft. Many of those trying to repair the pontoon bridges and those rushing to cross the bridge were blown to pieces. The First and Third Red Army Groups as the covering forces and the Fifth and Eighth Groups as the rear forces fought desperately to repel wave after wave of fierce enemy attack; not a minute passed without great sacrifice of life and blood. Only 30,000 of the 86,000 who withdrew from the Central Soviet Area survived and crossed the river. Bo Gu and Otto Braun were shocked and dispirited by the debacle at the Xiangjiang River. Bo Gu attempted to commit suicide, but was prevented by Nie Rongzhen. Even so, Bo Gu and Otto Braun still stuck firmly to their orig201

Socialism in China

inal plan of marching north. At that time, Chiang Kai-shek had sent troops in massive numbers to construct strong fortifications and guard the places that the Red Army must pass through in order to reach western Hubei-Hunan area. Had the Red Army followed Bo Gu and Otto Braun’s plan it would have become easy prey for the enemy, but Mao Zedong came out with a different view, and thus saved the Red Army from destruction. During the Long March, despite his poor health, Mao Zedong often discussed with Zhang Wentian and Wang Jiaxiang about command mistakes in the Red Army’s campaign to counter the KMT’s fifth encirclement, and the subsequent retreat. As Zhang Wentian and Wang Jiaxiang had acquired a deeper understanding of Mao Zedong they admired his brilliant military strategic thinking and tactics, and were increasingly frustrated with the wrong leadership of Bo Gu and Otto Braun, which had caused severe losses to the Red Army. Once the Xiangjiang River had been crossed, Mao suggested to Zhou Enlai that lessons learned since the beginning of the Long March should be discussed and plans for the next move be looked into. Zhou Enlai agreed and called an emergency meeting of the Party’s central leadership at Tongdao County, Hunan, on December 12. Here Mao Zedong declared that the Red Army should abandon its original plan and instead march to Guizhou, where the enemy was weak, so that the Red Army could get out of the enemy’s encirclement and set up a new revolutionary base when conditions permitted. Zhang Wentian, Wang Jiaxiang and Zhou Enlai agreed with Mao’s proposal whilst Bo Gu and Otto Braun stuck to their own plan. On December 18, Zhou Enlai presided over a meeting of the Political Bureau of the CPC Central Committee to discuss this issue at Liping, where the provinces of Hunan and Guizhou meet. Bo Gu insisted on the plan to head north to join forces with the Second and Sixth Army Groups in western Hunan. Otto Braun was of the same opinion but, absent because of illness, entrusted someone to communicate his view to the meeting. After a protracted and fiery debate, the majority of those present supported Mao’s proposal and the meeting decided to move towards northwestern Guizhou and establish a new revolutionary base in the Sichuan-Guizhou border area. About two weeks later, Bo Gu and Otto Braun attempted to reverse the Liping decision and proposed establishing a temporary revolutionary base on the southern 202

Chapter 9

The Zunyi Meeting Corrects the Direction of the Party; the Long March Keeps Alive the Embers of Revolution

bank of the Wujiang River while awaiting an opportunity to proceed to western Hunan. As a result, the Political Bureau held a meeting presided over by Zhang Wentian at Houchang on the southern bank of the Wujiang River and reiterated its Liping decision. In addition, the Political Bureau decided that the Central Revolutionary Military Commission must report any issues regarding the choice of military strategy and the time and place of operation to the Political Bureau, thus restricting the military command of Bo Gu and Otto Braun.

Zhang Wentian

Wang Jiaxiang

After the three meetings, Mao Zedong’s prestige among the Party’s central leadership and high-ranking officers of the Red Army was riding high. The central leaders compared the fifth campaign against the KMT’s encirclement with the previous four and took into account in that the Red Army had been a sitting duck for the enemy along its line of retreat. They realized that the wrong strategies and incompetent military command of Bo Gu and Otto Braun would lead the Red Army to destruction if the two were allowed to continue in post. Complaints and grumbling about their wrong leadership were rife among Red Army soldiers. After discussions with Mao Zedong, Wang Jiaxiang proposed an enlarged meeting of the Political Bureau to trans203

Socialism in China

fer the military authority of Bo Gu and Otto Braun to Mao Zedong. His proposal won support from Zhou Enlai, Zhu De, and high-ranking officers including Peng Dehuai and Lin Biao. After the Houchang Meeting, the Central Red Army changed course and marched west. Despite low winter temperatures, the vanguard troops swam across the Wujiang River under machine-gun cover and seized advantageous positions. Then, covered by the vanguard troops, the main forces of the Red Army sailed across the Wujiang River on bamboo and leather rafts, and marched onwards towards northern Guizhou. On January 7, 1935, having eluded the enemy in hot pursuit, the Red Army seized Zunyi and could rest and regroup for a few days. Making use of this respite, the CPC Central Committee held an enlarged meeting of the Political Bureau in Zunyi between January 15 and 17, 1935. The meeting discussed strategies for the Long March and lessons of military command taken from the campaign to counter the KMT’s fifth encirclement and the initial period of the Long March. Bo Gu consented to the holding of the meeting, planning to hurl criticism at Mao Zedong. However, it was Bo Gu himself who was the target of criticism at the meeting. The meeting was held in the Red Army headquarters by the Pipa Bridge on Ziyin Road, Zunyi. The headquarters was a two-storied grey building encircled

Site of the Zunyi Meeting

204

Chapter 9

The Zunyi Meeting Corrects the Direction of the Party; the Long March Keeps Alive the Embers of Revolution

by high walls, and was the former private residence of Bai Huizhang, commander of the Second Division of the 25th Army of the Guizhou Army. As the day was spent dealing with military affairs, the meeting was held over three evenings. At dusk on January 15, the meeting convened in an upstairs office of the Red Army headquarters. In the center of the room was a long, dark-red table with a stove for heating beneath. Members of the Political Bureau – Bo Gu, Zhang Wentian, Zhou Enlai, Mao Zedong, Zhu De, and Chen Yun, and alternate members – Wang Jiaxiang, Liu Shaoqi, Deng Fa, and Kai Feng, and leaders of the Red Army headquarters and army groups – Liu Bocheng, Li Fuchun, Lin Biao, Nie Rongzhen, Peng Dehuai, Yang Shangkun, and Li Zhuoran were seated around the table in a circle of wood-and-wicker armchairs. Deng Xiaoping, General Secretary of the Central Column, military adviser Otto Braun, and interpreter Wu Xiuquan were also present. Bo Gu chaired the meeting and first gave a report on the work of the central leadership since the fifth counter-encirclement campaign. Holding a stack of manuscripts, and without any of his customary arrogance, he spoke slowly and solemnly: “The Central Soviet Area and the Red Army have suffered serious setbacks since the fifth counter-encirclement campaign and I am as sad as every one of you. By and large, the Central Committee’s political and military leadership has been correct despite certain mistakes. Yet some of these mistakes have led to undesirable consequences, for which I, as the principal leader, must take the responsibility.” After these few words of self-criticism, Bo Gu went on to elaborate for an hour on the causes of failures in the fifth counter-encirclement campaign, attempting to justify his mistakes. He argued that the enemy, with much more advanced weapons, far outnumbered the Red Army and had other military, political and economic advantages whereas the Red Army was hampered by severe shortages of men and materials, its outdated weaponry, not to mention lack of coordination among forces in different Soviet areas. His intention was to justify his political and military strategy and attribute the failure to objective causes and the actions of others. His shirking of responsibility was not well received by those present. The report was followed by Zhou Enlai’s sub-report on military issues. Zhou presented a brief analysis of major battles since the start of the counter205

Socialism in China

encirclement campaign. In his sincere self-criticism, he said: “The failure was mainly caused by erroneous military strategy and command, in particular the mistake of adopting positional warfare. As a leader of the Central Military Commission and a frontline commander in many of the battles, I must take major responsibility for the failure.” Everyone there knew that Zhou Enlai, though a member of the military triumvirate, had no real commanding power and only implemented the military decisions and strategies of Bo Gu and Otto Braun. So the blame did not lie with Zhou Enlai. Zhang Wentian then delivered a speech. Referring to the gist of his discussions with Mao Zedong and Wang Jiaxiang prior to the Political Bureau meeting, he went straight to the point, without mincing his words: “Having heard Comrade Bo Gu’s summary report on the fifth counter-encirclement campaign and Comrade Zhou Enlai’s sub-report, we consider Comrade Bo Gu’s report as basically incorrect. In his report, he clearly understates the conditions in our favor in the fifth counter-campaign and exaggerates the difficulties and weak points in our work. He tries to cover up the severe consequences resulting from the mistakes in military command and choice of strategies and tactics.” After a brief pause, he resumed, “Our failure to smash the KMT encirclement was of our own making. Specifically it resulted from the purely defensive strategy taken by our military command, rather than from objective difficulties. The enemy adopted the strategy of protracted war and the tactic of blockhouse building, seeking first to exhaust our viability and resources and shrink the Soviet Area, prior to engaging with our main forces in a final decisive battle. And, knowing this, we chose the strategy of pure, passive defense instead of active defense! We chose positional warfare instead of mobile warfare. Comrade Hua Fu (Otto Braun) used the tactic of swift thrusts to support the passive defense strategy, totally abandoning mobile warfare. Attacking the enemy’s blockhouses consumed the Red Army’s strength, which was precisely the purpose of the enemy’s strategy of protracted war and blockhouse building.” Zhang Wentian continued with even more biting criticism: “Comrade Bo Gu’s way of leadership was abominable. Comrade Hua Fu was even worse. He monopolized all power of the Military Commission and abandoned group leadership. He rejected valuable experience learned from past battles and sup206

Chapter 9

The Zunyi Meeting Corrects the Direction of the Party; the Long March Keeps Alive the Embers of Revolution

pressed any different opinions on military affairs. Comrade Bo Gu did not correct Comrade Hua Fu in time. Rather he actively supported Comrade Hua Fu and furthered his mistakes. If we are to smash the enemy’s forthcoming rounds of encirclement and set up a new Soviet Area, we must correct our mistakes in military command and improve the manner of leadership of the Military Commission.” Zhang Wentian’s speech, especially the last sentence, expressed what everyone had been thinking and met fervent applause. Seeing the unfavorable situation, the livid-faced Bo Gu announced: “It’s already very late now. The meeting will adjourn until tomorrow evening.” Mao Zedong customarily waited until others had spoken before doing so himself, but on the following evening he rushed to take the floor first. Holding his speech notes, which was rather unusual for him, he declared: “I agree with what Comrade Luo Fu (Zhang Wentian) said yesterday. To be specific, we made the mistake in military command of pure-defense or passive-defense. In the early phase of the counter-campaign, this manifested as adventurism and desperate recklessness, aiming at ‘engaging the enemy outside the gates’ and ‘not giving up an inch of our territory.’ But the result was the loss of all land in the Central Soviet Area. Confronting such a formidable enemy, we should have stuck to the tactic of ‘luring the enemy in deep’ that served well in the previous four counter-encirclement campaigns, watching for our chance to wipe out the enemy by mobile warfare. To achieve the final victory, we should balk at nothing, even if it means the temporary sacrifice of some land in the Soviet Area and pulling our main force out of the base area.” He went on: “In the second phase, the pure-defense line developed into conservatism, relying on swift thrusts, blockhouse warfare, positional warfare and war of attrition. This is like playing at war.” “How can we smash Chiang’s blockhouse-warfare tactics? The answer remains mobile warfare, which is to move the Red Army into areas unoccupied by the enemy’s blockhouses, forcing them to emerge from their strongholds and engage in mobile warfare with us. Provided we apply mobile-warfare tactics flexibly and ingeniously, we are certainly able to destroy the enemy’s blockhouse-warfare tactics.” “In order to win a decisive battle in mobile warfare, it is absolutely necessary to concentrate our forces. However, the initiator of our purely defensive 207

Socialism in China

line often dispersed our forces, first by separating the First and Third Red Army Groups so as to ‘beat the enemy with two fists,’ and then by dividing the Red Army into six routes, which weakened our strength and made it easy for the enemy to crush our forces one by one.” Mao’s incisive analysis was met with the nodding of heads in approbation from the majority. He continued: “The pure-defense strategy ended up as ‘flightism.’ Our attempt to break out of the encirclement was no more than panicky running away and moving house. The three-month battle was more of a fighting retreat than a proactive attack. Our action was one of avoiding engagement and taking flight rather than preparing to counterattack at an opportune time.” Finally, Mao Zedong hit the nail on the head when pointing out Bo Gu and Otto Braun’s errors: “They slighted our previous approach as ‘guerillaism,’ and jettisoned all the precious experience gained. So, what were their new strategies and tactics? When circumstances were good, their subjectivism manifested itself in petty-bourgeois revolutionary fanaticism and impetuosity. In times of adversity, as the situation worsened, their approach progressed from desperate recklessness via conservatism into flightism. These were the theories and practices of hotheads and ignoramuses; they had not the slightest flavor of Marxism about them; indeed they were anti-Marxist. All the theories and practices of these opportunist strategies and tactics in revolutionary wars have been proven complete illusions by the five encirclement campaigns.” In the two years since losing his command over the Red Army, Mao Zedong had been mentally constrained, observing silently and thinking deeply. But now, those restrained emotions erupted and he spoke for two hours without a break, like a waterfall tumbling down the cliffs or lava erupting from the deep earth. His solid military knowledge and battlefield experiences, his strategic insight and broad vision, and his wise and sharp remarks compelled the admiration of the majority. Later, Mao summarized the content of this speech into “Problems of Strategy in China’s Revolutionary War.” According to Chen Yun’s eye-witness recall of the Zunyi Meeting, the article was completely in line with the original speech. 208

Chapter 9

The Zunyi Meeting Corrects the Direction of the Party; the Long March Keeps Alive the Embers of Revolution

At Mao’s unrestrained and forceful remarks, Wang Jiaxiang sat up on his stretcher. In support of Zhang Wentian and Mao Zedong’s perspective, he sharply criticized the wrong military command since the fifth counter-encirclement campaign. His last sentence really plunged in the knife: “I believe Comrade Bo Gu and Comrade Hua Fu are no longer qualified to command the Red Army. Instead, the Red Army should be under the command of battleexperienced people like Comrade Zedong.” Immediately Communist Youth League Secretary Kai Feng, a fellowstudent of Wang Ming and Bo Gu in the Soviet Union leapt in, his objection couched in sarcasm: “What does Old Mao know? Marxism? Military matters? He fights battles simply by copying two books – he takes a leaf out of Sunzi’s Art of War and skims through The Romance of the Three Kingdoms.” Mao Zedong colored up and launched into his rebuttal: “How can we fight battles by copying books? Does reading more books on Marxism and Leninism make one a more effective fighter? We’ve read more Marx-Leninist books than Chiang Kai-shek and know more Marx-Leninism than the KMT, but on the battlefield, we’ve made one retreat after another. Do military school and military books help to fight battles better? Zhao Kuo of the Warring States Period (475-221 BC) and Ma Su of the Three Kingdoms Period (220-280) read plenty of military works, but what was the result? They turned out as examples of what not to do. Yes, I did read The Romance of the Three Kingdoms when I was a child, but I’ve not yet read Sunzi’s Art of War. Have you read it? How many sections and chapters does it have?” Kai Feng was silenced by the question, never having read the work. Zhang Wentian broke the silence: “Practice has proved that Zedong is more effective on the battlefield.” Zhu De said in sonorous tones: “Only fight battles if you can afford the cost. If you can’t, why fight with foreign-style tactics? They lost us the Base Area and so many lives were sacrificed. If this type of leadership continues, we cannot follow it any longer!” Zhou Enlai took up the theme: “Only by correcting the leadership can the Red Army regain its hope and the revolution succeed. I suggest that the leadership triumvirate of Bo Gu, Hua Fu and myself should be cancelled and that command of the Red Army should pass to Comrade Zedong.” 209

Socialism in China

An infuriated Peng Dehuai, Commander of the Third Red Army Group, said: “Fu Hua should have been stripped of command long ago. I suggested right at the very start that we should break our way through the blockhouses, but he wouldn’t listen. I advised against fighting the Battle of Guangchang, but he wouldn’t listen. Before crossing the Xiangjiang River, I suggested a different course of action, but again he wouldn’t listen. So many of our people have died under his purblind command already and if things carry on this way the Red Army that we have struggled so hard to build will sooner or later be ruined at his hands!” Nie Rongzhen, Political Commissar of the First Red Army Group, also said angrily: “Comrade Hua Fu gave instructions as to the sitting of each cannon and the deployment of every sentry, but how can he command a battle on the basis of just a few rough maps without coming to the frontline?” Although Otto Braun did not understand what they were saying, he knew he was the target. He kept his head down and kept on smoking, his face downcast. Suddenly, he shouted out in his own defense: “I just gave my suggestions as the Military Adviser. It was up to the Central Committee of your Party to accept or reject that advice. It was you Chinese comrades who made a hash of things.” Otto Braun’s remarks irritated the others, and they reproached him for shirking responsibility. Sensing the tense atmosphere, Bo Gu hurriedly adjourned the meeting on the excuse that it was getting dark. On the third evening, people made their positions clear. With the exceptions of Bo Gu, Otto Braun and Kai Feng, all agreed with Zhang Wentian, Mao Zedong and Wang Jiaxiang. The meeting decided to restructure the central Party leadership by electing Mao Zedong an additional member of the Standing Committee of the Political Bureau of the CPC Central Committee as nominated by Zhang Wentian and Wang Jiaxiang; the triumvirate was dismissed, while Zhu De and Zhou Enlai remained supreme military commanders with Zhou the final decision-maker and Mao Zedong assisting Zhou in military command. Soon after the Zunyi Meeting, the Political Bureau decided to replace Bo Gu with Zhang Wentian as the General Secre-

210

Chapter 9

The Zunyi Meeting Corrects the Direction of the Party; the Long March Keeps Alive the Embers of Revolution

tary1; the Revolutionary Military Commission of the CPC Central Committee set up the Frontline Command with Zhu De as Commander and Mao Zedong as Political Commissar; the previous triumvirate was replaced by the military leading group composed of Zhou Enlai, Mao Zedong and Wang Jiaxiang, with Zhou as the group leader exercising full command over military operations. The Zunyi Meeting solved military and organizational problems affecting the Party and the Red Army, established the central leadership with Zhang Wentian as the General Secretary, restored Mao Zedong’s command over the Red Army and his position at the core of the Party’s central leadership, put an end to the Left-deviationist leadership and set forth the correct military line represented by Mao Zedong. In so doing, it saved the Party and the Red Army and corrected the direction for China’s revolution. The Red Army could not contact the Comintern before starting the Long March, since the CPC Central Bureau based in Shanghai had been destroyed by the enemy, and this enabled the Party to independently elect its leadership through democratic centralization for the first time, and to establish its own lines, principles and policies, which were approved by the Comintern later. Prior to the Zunyi Meeting, the CPC had taken orders from the Comintern completely. The Zunyi Meeting was a milestone in the CPC’s development, marking the turning from youth into maturity. It was a life-or-death turning point of epoch-making significance in the history of the CPC, the history of the Red Army and the history of China’s revolution. While the Red Army rested and was reorganized at Zunyi, Chiang Kai-shek readjusted his military deployment and assembled a force of 400,000 to encircle the Zunyi area, attempting to annihilate the Red Army of 35,000 northwest of the Wujiang River. 1

The election of Zhang Wentian as General Secretary at Zunyi Meeting has long been the subject of different opinions. Some believe that Zhang was in full charge but not actually General Secretary, while the recollections of most of the attendees confirm that Zhang was elected General Secretary at the Zunyi Meeting. One piece of authoritative evidence is that at Zhang Wentian’s memorial meeting hosted by Chen Yun on August 27, 1979, Deng Xiaoping’s memorial speech on behalf of the CPC Central Committee explicitly stated: “It was at this meeting (Zunyi) that he was elected General Secretary of the Party’s Central Committee.”

211

Socialism in China

The CPC Central Committee and the Military Commission of the CPC Central Committee made the decision that the Red Army should withdraw from Zunyi and cross the Wujiang River into Sichuan, striving to establish a revolutionary base area in the south of that province. Under Zhu De and Mao Zedong’s command, the Red Army fought a fierce battle with the KMT’s Sichuan Army at Tucheng (present-day Tucheng Town, Xishui County, Zunyi City, Guizhou Province), but was beaten. The Red Army made an urgent decision to head west to cross the Chishui River. This was the first of “the four Chishui crossings” that the Red Army would ultimately make. On February 9, 1935, after the first crossing of the Chishui, Mao Zedong suggested at the Political Bureau meeting that, since the enemy’s main force was heading for southern Sichuan, the Red Army should streamline its forces, return back east across the Chishui River, and head for northern Guizhou where the enemy was vulnerable. After crossing the Chishui for the second time, the Red Army seized the right moment to strike. Under the command of Peng Dehuai and Lin Biao, the First and Third Red Army Groups won the Battle of Loushanguan and reoccupied Zunyi, achieving the greatest Red Army victory since the start of the Long March. Later, Mao Zedong was appointed Political Commissar and Zhu De Commander of the Frontline Command. At the military meeting chaired by Zhang Wentian to discuss the battle plan, Zhu De and most of those present agreed with Lin Biao and Nie Rongzhen’s proposal to attack a division of the KMT’s Guizhou Army stationed at Daguxinchang (present-day Jinsha County, Bijie City, Guizhou Province). Following the principle that the minority should be subordinate to the majority, the meeting voted down Mao Zedong’s objection. That night, Mao talked with Zhou Enlai and Zhou called a further meeting next day, at which the others were persuaded to cancel the previous decision and adopt Mao’s battle plan – to concentrate the Red Army’s main force to fight a final battle with the three divisions of the KMT’s pursuing forces under Zhou Hunyuan. Receiving the new orders, head of the Third Red Army Group Peng Dehuai and Political Commissar Yang Shangkun immediately suggested that they should not head west through Maotai and Renhuai (present Maotai Town, Renhuai County, Guizhou Province) where they would 212

Chapter 9

The Zunyi Meeting Corrects the Direction of the Party; the Long March Keeps Alive the Embers of Revolution

confront a well-prepared enemy, but Mao Zedong rejected their proposal. As a result, the Red Army was defeated in the Battle of Lubanchang (present-day Renhuai County, Zunyi City, Guizhou Province), and the plan of setting up a revolutionary base area in northern Guizhou had to be abandoned; it crossed the Chishui for the third time at Maotai, and headed for Gulin and Xuyong (present-day Gulin and Xuyong counties, Luzhou City, Sichuan Province). At this time, Chiang Kai-shek, taking personal command in Sichuan, wired his frontline commander Xue Yue with the instruction: “Now the Communist army is like an arrow at the end of its flight, and will be broken up into parts, fighting as guerrillas north of the Wujiang River, south of the Yangtze and east of the Hengjiang River. I hereby instruct all our forces to practice the blockhouse tactic to encircle and annihilate the Red Army.” Confronting the enemy on three sides, Zhu De and Mao Zedong resolutely commanded the Red Army to cross the Chishui for the fourth time. As soon as the Red Army reached the east bank, Zhu De and Mao Zedong, taking the advice of Peng Dehuai and Yang Shangkun, commanded the forces to rush south and cross the Wujiang River at all speed so as to break through the enemy’s encirclement. Later, Zhu De and Mao Zedong made a feinted attack on Guiyang, thereby compelling Chiang Kai-shek who was supervising operations there in person to send the Yunnan Army to rescue the city. At this, the Red Army’s main force pressed on towards Kunming and pushed forward to the northwest when the Yunnan Army hurried back to save Kunming. In early May, the Red Army speedily crossed the Jinsha River into Sichuan, leaving several hundred thousand KMT forces behind. The Red Army continued to head north and, having won over the support of minority ethnic groups, passed smoothly through Daliang Mountain inhabited by Yi and other peoples. Later, the Red Army launched a surprise attack at Anshunchang (present-day Shimian County, Ya’an City, Sichuan Province); 17 soldiers crossed the Dadu River on a small boat and occupied the ferry on the north bank. Then, the Red Army quick-marched some 110 miles in two days, racing to seize Luding Bridge; a death-defying corps of 22 soldiers inched forward in a hail of bullets along the iron chains of the bridge and finally reached the opposite bank. The success of such nimble maneuvers enabled the Red Army’s main force to cross the forbidding Dadu River. Its flexible and resolute military actions crushed Chi213

Socialism in China

ang Kai-shek’s attempt to wipe out the Red Army at the Dadu River. Thus the army avoided the fate of the Taiping Rebellion leader Shi Dakai, who failed to cross the river in 1863 and was subsequently most cruelly put to death by the pursuing Qing authorities. The four crossings of the Chishui after the Zunyi Meeting was clearly not the triumph extolled in the musical suite Songs on the Long March. “The Red Army crossed the Chishui River four times; Chairman Mao was a past master in the art of war.” In fact, by Chairman Mao’s own admission, he lost four battles in his life, two of them (Tucheng and Lubanchang) in the Chishui River period. The significance of the Chishui battles lies in that the numerically inferior Red Army defeated enemy troops by applying flexible tactics with great bravery and heroic tenacity. Thereby they broke out of the enemy’s encirclement, reversed the trend of being bullied since the Western Expedition, and started to take the initiative in strategic shift. The four crossings of the Chishui River provoked fierce controversy among senior officials of the Party and the army, nearly causing Mao Zedong to lose command over the Red Army again. The argument was caused by a letter from Lin Biao. During the Chishui River period, the Red Army marched on rapidly, changed its route capriciously, and lost two battles. Clambering up mountains and crossing rivers day after day, the Red Army was extremely exhausted and greatly reduced in numbers. The Xiangjiang Battle during the Long March had already drastically reduced the force from 86,000 to 30,000; although the Red Army recruited several thousand additional soldiers, after crossing the Jinsha River there remained a force of only 20,000. Resentment was rife, the army complaining that if the situation continued it would collapse of its own accord, the enemy would not have to lift a finger. When the Red Army reached Huili (present-day Huili County, Yi Autonomous Prefecture, Sichuan Province) on the bank of the Jinsha River, Lin Biao phoned Peng Dehuai: “The present leadership is incapable. We will fail if things carry on like this. You should assume command, and direct the Red Army to march north. We will take your orders.” Peng immediately rejected his proposal: “How can I command the Red Army to march north? This is up to the central leadership for decision.” 214

Chapter 9

The Zunyi Meeting Corrects the Direction of the Party; the Long March Keeps Alive the Embers of Revolution

Lin Biao hung up the phone and immediately wrote to the Central Military Commission proposing that Mao Zedong, Zhu De and Zhou Enlai should just have overall charge of the army, while Peng Dehuai should be Frontline Commander directing the army to head rapidly north and join forces with the Fourth Front Red Army. On receiving this letter, Mao Zedong suggested Zhang Wentian should call a high-level meeting to address the divergence in operational principles right away. Zhang agreed and held an enlarged meeting of the Political Bureau (the Huili Meeting) in a thatched shack on a mountainside outside Huili county seat, with the purpose of reviewing the strategies adopted since Zunyi and to discuss the next-step military action. Present at the meeting were Zhou Enlai, Mao Zedong and Wang Jiaxiang (the military leading group), Chairman of the Central Military Commission Zhu De, Lin Biao and Nie Rongzhen from the First Red Army Group, and Peng Dehuai and Yang Shangkun from the Third Red Army Group.

Peng Dehuai

Nie Rongzhen

Yang Shangkun

Zhang Wentian chaired the meeting and was first to speak. He criticized Mao Zedong for launching the Lubanchang Battle without adequate consideration, expressed his displeasure at the Red Army’s marching this way and that, but also reproached Lin Biao for his wavering and doubt in Mao Zedong’s military command capability. Mao Zedong spoke next, saying that although the Red Army had endured many hardships in the four crossings period, it had manipulated the enemy into reduced effectiveness, had successfully crossed the Jinsha River 215

Socialism in China

and broken through the encirclement, pursuit, obstruction and interception. Now certain people were complaining about the circuitous and outflanking tactics, and had even written to the Central Committee asking for a change of leadership, which was, in his opinion, wavering and Right opportunistic behavior. At noon Peng Dehuai spoke about progress in attacking Huili county seat. He was just saying it had been a great triumph of the Red Army to cross the Jinsha River and enter the Huili area when he was interrupted by Mao Zedong. Mao said at top of his voice: “Comrade Peng Dehuai, it was you who instigated Lin Biao to write that letter. You concealed the Third Group’s dissatisfaction with the operational policy made by the Party Central Committee, and you refused to sign Liu Shaoqi’s telegram to the Central Committee. Yang Shangkun is just your cat’s paw. He is no political commissar.” Mao’s inexplicable anger shocked everyone. Peng Dehuai had known nothing about Lin Biao’s letter prior to entering the meeting place and seeing a carbon copy of it. As for Liu Shaoqi’s telegram to the CPC Central Committee, Peng had not signed it because he held different views on some of its content. Seeing Mao so furious, Peng said only that he had been totally unaware of Lin Biao’s letter, still less had he put him up to it. Then, without further explanation, he went on to make a frank self-criticism, saying that his poor performance in the Pingqiao and Lubanchang battles had added to the difficulties of the Red Army, and admitting that he had once doubted the new leadership, which was not right. He promised to hold together with and unswervingly support the new leadership (referring to Mao Zedong) and continue to head north according to its instructions so as to join forces with the Fourth Front Army of the Red Army without delay. Lin Biao hastened to explain that he had written to the Central Committee out of demoralization at constantly being on the run. He wanted to explain more, but was cut off by Mao: “You’re still just a kid. What do you know?” It was not until 24 years later at the Lushan Conference in 1959 that Lin Biao managed to explain further: at the Lushan conference Peng Dehuai was condemned by Mao and some others for all his “crimes” including the letter: Lin Biao explained that he had not informed Peng before writing his letter sug216

Chapter 9

The Zunyi Meeting Corrects the Direction of the Party; the Long March Keeps Alive the Embers of Revolution

gesting that Mao, Zhu and Zhou leave their leadership position and let Peng command the troops, so it had nothing to do with Peng. But the explanation came many years too late to be useful: Mao had held a grudge against Peng ever since that day. At the Huili Conference Zhou Enlai and Zhu De praised and supported Mao’s military instructions. In Zhang Wentian’s conclusion he affirmed the correctness of Mao’s instructions since the Zunyi Meeting, criticized those opposed to maneuver warfare, and decided that the Red Army must head north immediately to join forces with the Fourth Front Army. After the conference, the First Front Army (or Central Red Army), which had just managed to evade the pursuing enemy, was again pushed on – to the furthest limits of humankind – to traverse the uninhabited and perennially snow-girt Jiajin Mountain. It rises south of Maogong (today’s Tsenlha or Xiaojin County) in the north of Sichuan Province. At an elevation of over 4,900 m, the air is thin and even on a fine day an ordinary man would pant and experience headache and tightness in the chest when climbing here. How much more difficult, dangerous and painful it would be for the Red Army soldiers to trek more than 35 km on the mountain road in heavy snow in winter with the thinnest air, wearing only thin clothes and straw sandals! Finally, helped by their strong belief and willpower, the soldiers tramped across the snow mountain and reached Tayung in the southeast of Maogong, rendezvousing with the vanguard of the Fourth Front Army led by Li Xiannian. The Fourth Front Army, under the leadership of Zhang Guotao, Xu Xiangqian and Chen Changhao, had been stationed in the Hebei-Henan-Anhui Soviet Area until 1932. Then, having failed to break through the fourth encirclement of the Soviet Area, it retreated westward into Sichuan and Xu Xiangqian, Fourth Front Army Commander of the Red Army

Shaanxi provinces and increased the number of soldiers to more than 80,000. 217

Socialism in China

The First and Fourth Front Armies finally joined forces in Maogong, their combined numbers reaching 100,000. The two armies could have acted as one, established new revolutionary base areas, and sought better development together. However, unexpectedly, great differences and conflicts arose between them, which almost resulted in a split between the Party and its army. The day after the two armies joined forces, the CPC Central Committee summoned a Political Bureau meeting in Lianghekou, north of Maogong, to study and develop strategies for the Red Army. Zhou Enlai reported on the existing strategies and policies on behalf of the Central Committee. He listed the factors that made the Shaanxi-Gansu area suitable as a new revolutionary base, namely: vast territory, convenient transportation, abundant natural resources, a large Han population, the vulnerability of KMT rule there, and its position neighboring North China enabling it to serve as a frontline. His analysis was very incisive. Zhou then proposed to the Central Committee to establish a new revolutionary base area in Shaanxi and Gansu and to make it a frontline for the national anti-Japanese democratic movement. Zhang Guotao opposed Zhou’s proposal. He maintained that Chinese revolution had been in full retreat since the failure of the Red Army in the Central Soviet in the counter-encirclement campaign. Therefore, in his view, the Red Army should retreat to sparsely populated Xinjiang, Qinghai and the Sichuan-Kham-Tsang area inhabited by ethnic minorities, and then head south to establish a revolutionary base in Sichuan, thereby avoiding intense military pressure from the KMT. After discussion, Zhang Guotao reluctantly came in line with the CPC Central Committee’s policy of heading north, but at the same time he proposed to “head Zhang Guotao

218

south” and “strike for Chengdu.” At

Chapter 9

The Zunyi Meeting Corrects the Direction of the Party; the Long March Keeps Alive the Embers of Revolution

length, the meeting decided that the Red Army should first seize southern Gansu and establish the Sichuan-Shaanxi-Gansu revolutionary base. The Party Central Committee also decided to appoint Zhang Guotao as vice chairman of the Revolutionary Military Commission of the Central Committee of the CPC; Xu Xiangqian and Chen Changhao were made members of the commission. After the Lianghekou Meeting, the Revolutionary Military Commission formulated the Songpan battle plan: the First and Fourth Front Armies would fight in coordination to eliminate the still unprepared Hu Zongnan’s troops, seize Songpan and open the way to the north. In line with this plan, the First Front Army left Maogong, climbed the Mengbi, Changban and Dagu snow mountains, reaching Mao’ergai near Songpan on July 20. However, pleading the excuse of inadequate supplies, Zhang Guotao at first took no action at all and then, on the pretext that the issues of “unified command” and “organizational problem” were not yet solved, delayed implementing the decision of the Lianghekou Meeting and the Songpan battle plan. Furthermore, he instigated certain people to write to the Party Central Committee, proposing to reorganize the Revolutionary Military Commission and the Front Committee and appoint Zhang Guotao as chairman of the former. Obviously, relying on his seniority in the Party and the Fourth Front Army’s military strength, which was several times greater that of the First Front Army, Zhang was challenging the Central Committee and bidding to control the entire Red Army. To bring Zhang on side and urge him to head north, Zhang Wentian convened a meeting of the Political Bureau Standing Committee; this approved Zhou Enlai’s proposal to appoint Zhang Guotao as political commissar of the entire Red Army, a post previously held by Zhou himself, and the reorganization of the Front Committee, with Xu Xiangqian as the commander-in-chief, Chen Changhao as the political commissar, and Ye Jianying as the chief of staff, concurrently. This met some of the demands raised by Zhang Guotao and the Fourth Front Army. However, greed is like a valley that can never be filled. Zhang Guotao was still not satisfied and took no action. To unite him and the Fourth Front Army 219

Socialism in China

and help him realize his mistakes, the Central Committee convened another meeting in Shanwo near Mao’ergai from August 4 to 6. The meeting reiterated the strategic policy of establishing the Sichuan-Shaanxi-Gansu revolutionary base area that had been formulated at the Lianghekou Meeting, stressed the importance of the Party’s absolute leadership over the Red Army and of unity between the First and Fourth Front Armies, and pointed out the necessity of rectifying any pessimism and defeatism about the future of the Chinese revolution. During the meeting, Mao Zedong and Zhou Enlai had several conversations with Zhang, patiently trying to bring him round. Face-to-face, Zhang would express agreement with the northward policy, but later he would again propose the different plan of retreating to Qinghai, Ningxia and Xinjiang by way of Aba, singing a different tune from the Central Committee’s decision to head north. Because of Zhang’s refusal to implement the Central Committee’s northbound policy and combat plans, the Red Army was stuck in Maogong and Mao’ergai for more than two months, during which time the situation changed greatly. As the enemy’s armies gathered in Songpan, the Red Army lost a good opportunity to take the region and advance north while the enemy’s defenses were weak. The Central Committee had no choice but to change its original route, and decided to head north across the desolate and uninhabited grassland. The August weather on the great grassland can be very volatile and unpredictable, with storms and torrential rain one minute, heavy snow and hailstorm the next. But even more daunting were the swamps and noxious smelling quagmires lurking beneath the weeds, waiting to engulf the unwary. The Red Army soldiers, divided into the Left Army and the Right Army, endured tremendous hardships on the grassland. They ate tree bark and grassroots, helped each other and stumbled ahead. After trekking for several days and nights, the Red Army soldiers eventually conquered the grassland and reached Banyu and Aba. Having reached Aba, Zhang Guotao ignored a wire from the CPC Central Committee urging him to lead the army northeast at all speed. Instead, without authorization, he commanded the Left Army to march southward. He also sent a coded telegram to Chen Changhao, who was with the CPC Central 220

Chapter 9

The Zunyi Meeting Corrects the Direction of the Party; the Long March Keeps Alive the Embers of Revolution

Committee in the Right Army, and asked him to lead the Right Army southward and launch an all-out struggle within the Party.1 Seeing the telegram, Ye Jianying secretly rushed to the seat of the CPC Central Committee, and reported to Mao Zedong. Mao copied the telegram, and held an urgent meeting with Zhang Wentian, Bo Gu, Wang Jiaxiang and the seriously ill Zhou Enlai. They decided that the First and Third Army Groups, and the CPC Central Committee should march north immediately so as to avoid bloodshed within the Red Army. Unaware of the truth, some military officers of the Fourth Front Army tried to prevent the Central Committee and its armies from going north by force, but at that critical moment, Xu Xiangqian determinedly stopped those officers, protecting the Central Committee and the solidarity of the Red Army. At the same time, Mao Zedong sent a telegram to Zhang Guotao in the name of the CPC Central Committee. The telegram stated that the Central Committee’s decision to march north should not be altered, and ordered the Left Army to march north immediately and advance towards Banyu and Baxi without fail. Turning a deaf ear to this order, Zhang deceived the Fourth Front Army, and the Fifth and Ninth Groups of the First Front Army, and forced them to turn around and march south, cross the grassland once more and move towards the Sichuan-Kham border. Later, Zhang Guotao went even further: he proclaimed the establishment of another “CPC Central Committee” in Lifan (today’s Lixian County), Sichuan Province, naming himself “Chairman,” declaring the “dismissal” of Zhang Wentian, Mao Zedong, Zhou Enlai and Bo Gu from the Central Committee and the Party, and ordering the expulsion and prosecution of Yang Shangkun and Ye Jianying. This move was an open attempt to split the Party and the Red Army. He even threatened to shoot Zhu De who was with the left 1 Senior CPC leaders and historians with different views have long argued this topic. One side holds that there was no such telegram. The argument is based on the following evidence: Zhang Guotao never mentioned the telegram in his self-criticism submitted to the CPC Central Committee nor in his Memoir written in his late years; people involved in the incident, Xu Xiangqian and Chen Changhao, who were main leaders of the Fourth Front Army, reiterated many times that they had never seen such a telegram; only four people in charge of sending and receiving telegrams in the Fourth Front Army had the opportunity to see that telegram, and all four denied seeing it; no Political Bureau documents related to the problem of Zhang mention the telegram; scholars have scoured historical files in the central archives and the archives of the Central Military Commission, but found no sign of such a telegram, whereas other telegrams of the same period were well preserved.

221

Socialism in China

branch of the Red Army, forcing him to issue a proclamation opposing Mao and the Red Army’s northward expedition. This met with a stern refusal from Zhu De. The Red Army continued northward, reaching Ejie in northern Sichuan in September 1935. There Zhang Wentian hosted an enlarged meeting of the Political Bureau, reiterating that the decision made by the central leadership to evacuate to the north was right, and Zhang Guotao’s decision to move south was wrong, declaring that the split between the central leadership and Zhang Guotao was a “fight between two lines and fight between Bolshevikism and warlordism.” At the meeting, the Party’s “Decision Concerning Zhang Guotao’s Mistakes” (unpublished) was made, calling for the Fourth Front Army to rally around the Central Committee, to resolutely fight against Zhang Guotao’s mistakes and persuade him to join the northward expedition. After the meeting, the Red Army hurriedly continued its northward expedition, crossing the Lazikou Pass, and traversing Minshan Mountain, they entered the small town of Hadapu, Yanchang County in southern Gansu. It was here that Zhang Wentian, Mao Zedong and Zhou Enlai, discovered from a local newspaper that a Soviet area had been set up in northern Shaanxi Province by a Red Army group led by Liu Zhidan. On 27, the Political Bureau held a conference in Bangluo Township, Tongwei County, and decided to make northern Shaanxi the destination of the Long March. This was the seventh time the Red Army changed its base area location since setting out on the Long March. Then the Red Army started its trek to the northern Shaanxi Soviet area, crossing the highway linking Xi’an and Lanzhou, climbing the 3,000-m-high Liupan Mountain, and breaking the last KMT blockade line. With only about 8,000 troops left, they finally arrived at Wuqi Town, Bao’an County, Shaanxi Province. The small town, named in honor of the famous general Wu Qi of the Warring States Period (475-221 BC), was home to barely dozens of households, and when the Red Army entered, its streets were quiet, with every store closed. Seeing a Soviet Government plaque hanging on the beam of a house there, Mao Zedong declared in delight: “We’re home at last. Let’s stay put.” But that evening, the Red Army learned that the Northeast Army and four cavalry regiments led by Gansu warlord Ma Hongbin had followed on their 222

Chapter 9

The Zunyi Meeting Corrects the Direction of the Party; the Long March Keeps Alive the Embers of Revolution

tail. Determined to chop off this tail and keep these troops out of the Soviet area, Mao Zedong and Peng Dehuai stayed up all night to discuss how to deploy their soldiers. Early next morning, the battle began. Peng Dehuai urged Mao to sleep in the rear while he himself took command. Mao Zedong moved to a tree on the mountain and fell asleep beneath it while the battle raged. He awoke to find the battle over after two hours of fierce fighting, a victory that had wiped out one regiment, defeated three regiments with over 20,000 troops, captured over 700 warhorses and a quantity of guns and ammunition, bringing a “gift” to the army and people in the Soviet area of northern Shaanxi. Returning to the camp, Mao Zedong dashed off a poem. Between high mountains and deep valleys, Our army marches on its sweeping way; If you ask who can block the enemy’s attack? None but our General Peng. When Peng Dehuai came from the battlefield and saw this poem on the table, he changed the last line into “None but our Red Army,” and gave the manuscript to Mao Zedong. This modification fully demonstrates Peng Dehuai’s selflessness and breadth of vision. On October 22, the central leadership held a Political Bureau meeting at Wuqi, approving the decision made at the Bangluo Meeting to make Shaanxi and Gansu the foothold of the Red Army and to lead the national revolution from there. It also declared a victorious end to the Long March of the Central Red Army. At that time, the Shaanxi-Gansu Soviet Area was the only surviving Red base in the whole country, since more than a dozen of other revolutionary bases had been wiped out by KMT troops since the fall of the Central Soviet Area into enemy hands. The Shaanxi-Gansu Soviet Area combined the one founded by Liu Zhidan and Xi Zhongxun and the one founded by Xie Zichang and Gao Gang. It covered 13 counties with a total size of 30,000 sq km and a population of over 900,000. Liu Zhidan and Xie Zichang joined the CPC in 1925 and 1926 respectively, and became the leaders of the early CPC organizations in northern Shaanxi. After the Great Revolution in 1927 failed, Xie Zichang and Liu Zhidan led the Qingjian and Weihua uprisings, starting 223

Socialism in China

the armed rebellion against the KMT. After unremitting struggles, advances and setbacks, they helped to set up two revolutionary bases and the 26th and 27th Armies of the Red Army. In February 1935, Xie Zichang fell at the age of 38, and Liu Zhidan led the army to smash the KMT’s second encirclement of the revolutionary bases in northern Shaanxi, and merged the two revolutionary bases into one – the Shaanxi-Gansu Soviet Area.

Xie Zichang

Liu Zhidan

Xi Zhongxun

In September 1935, after the withdrawal of the Fourth Front Army, the 25th Red Army, previously stationed in the Hubei-Henan-Anhui Soviet Area, arrived in northern Shaanxi after ten months of Long March led by Xu Haidong. It joined with the two armies commanded by Liu Zhidan, Gao Gang and Xi Zhongxun and was organized into the 15th Army Group, with about 5,000 troops. Its commander was Xu Haidong, its political commissar was Cheng Zihua, its vice commander and chief of staff was Liu Zhidan, its political department director was Gao Gang, and deputy secretary of the special committee of the CPC Shaanxi-Gansu border area and border area chief was Xi Zhongxun. In the meantime, the CPC Shaanxi Provincial Committee was set up, with Zhu Lizhi, Guo Hongtao sent by the Central Committee as secretary and vice secretary respectively, and Dai Jiying who had come into Shaanxi with the 25th Red Army as chief of staff of the northwest military commission and security bureau director. But Dai Jiying and his colleagues brought with them into the ShaanxiGansu Soviet Area the Leftist guideline practiced in the campaign to eliminate counter-revolutionaries in the Hubei-Henan-Anhui Soviet Area. Soon after 224

Chapter 9

The Zunyi Meeting Corrects the Direction of the Party; the Long March Keeps Alive the Embers of Revolution

taking office, dozens of leaders of Party organizations and the Red Army in Shaanxi including Liu Zhidan, Xi Zhongxun, Gao Gang, Zhang Xiushan, Ma Wenrui and Liu Jingfan were labeled as “rich peasants” and “counter-revolutionaries,” then arrested and imprisoned awaiting trial in a courtyard in Huichuantong, Wayaobu; they even prepared pits to bury them alive, moreover, they imprisoned all cadres of the 26th Red Army above battalion level. It was at this life-threatening moment that the Central Red Army arrived in Wuqi. Mao Zedong, Zhang Wentian and Zhou Enlai met and talked with Zhang Mingke, the guerrilla leader of Bao’an County, and were informed of the situation facing Liu Zhidan, Gao Gang, and Xi Zhongxun and others. They instantly telegrammed instructions to Xu Haidong: “Stop the arrests, and suspend executions until orders come from the central leadership.” Zhang Wentian sent a working team led by Wang Shoudao, newly appointed director of the central security bureau, to rush overnight to Wayaobu to stop things getting any worse, to investigate and correct the mistakes. Then a working team composed of Dong Biwu, Li Weihan, Wang Shoudao, Zhang Yunyi and Guo Hongtao was set up, charged with reviewing this case. Once Wang Shoudao and his work team arrived at Wayaobu, they put a halt to Dai Jiying’s work and took over the case, aiming for a full grasp of every detail including Liu Zhidan’s background and all the work he had done. It took no time to discover that the charges against Liu Zhidan and others were groundless. In checking the confessions fingering Liu Zhidan as a counterrevolutionary, they found most of them to have been extorted, and many were malicious fabrications. The working team reported the result to the Central Committee. Then Zhang Wentian held a Political Bureau meeting to review and approve the conclusion, and convened a public meeting in Wanyaobu to announce the rehabilitation of Liu Zhidan and others, the release of all the “counter-revolutionaries” wrongly arrested, their reinstatement to their jobs and entrusting them with important posts, thus resolving a big crisis in the Shaanxi-Gansu Soviet Area. In mid-December, after Mao Zedong and Zhou Enlai commanded the First Front Army to win the victory in the Battle of Zhiluo, wiping out Division 109 and one regiment of the KMT’s Northeast Army, they immediately returned to Wayaobu and met with Liu Zhidan. 225

Socialism in China

As an old acquaintance of Liu Zhidan in Whampoa Military Academy, Zhou Enlai introduced him to Mao Zedong: “This is Liu Zhidan, and the host of our new home.” Mao took Liu’s hands and smiled: “We came here to seek your help. We are sorry about your suffering. Thanks to this revolutionary base you helped to build and save, the central leadership finally finds a foothold.” Tightly gripping Mao Zedong’s large hands, Liu Zhidan said excitedly: “Thanks to the central leadership and yourself, we have survived. Now you are here, everything will get easier in future.” Then the Central Red Army and its counterpart in northern Shaanxi fought together against KMT attacks, smashing its third encirclement, consolidating and expanding the revolutionary base and retaining the foothold in northwest China. In October the following year, under the leadership of He Long and Ren Bishi, the Second Front Army with over 9,000 troops broke through the close siege in Sangzhi, Hunan Province, and after innumerable trials and hardships finally succeeded in reaching northern Shaanxi. Thanks to the efforts of Zhu De, Liu Bocheng, Xu Xiangqian and the fervent aspiration of the Red Army, Zhang Guotao had to agree to lead the Fourth Front Army north, and finally arrived in northern Shaanxi with 13,000 Red Army troops. The three armies with a combined total of over 30,000 troops then joined forces in northern Shaanxi. This signaled that the Long March, of two years duration and 25,000 li in length, had finally ended in victory. With today’s convenient transport network, this 25,000 li journey could be completed pretty quickly. But back then, the Red Army had to endure starvation, injuries, scorching summers and freezing winters, had to trudge across snow mountains, grassland, rivers, forests and rugged mountain roads, flee bombardment, break encirclement by an enemy ten times stronger, fight under wrong guidelines and separatist activities within the Party before completing the Long March. Through the 25,000 li of the Long March, one soldier died for every 200 m of Red Army advance. What a tough journey! How much faith and persistence they had to muster to finish it. But all these difficulties and hardships actually helped to forge a better army. The Red Army made it, and in the process helped to forge the soul of the nation, and straighten the 226

Chapter 9

The Zunyi Meeting Corrects the Direction of the Party; the Long March Keeps Alive the Embers of Revolution

backs of the Chinese nation to rise up to new challenges. Mao Zedong extolled the significance of the Long March in his speeches and articles, “The Long March is the first of its kind in the annals of history… The Long March is a manifesto. It has proclaimed to the world that the Red Army is an army of heroes, while the imperialists and their running dogs, Chiang Kai-shek and his like, are impotent. It has proclaimed their utter failure to encircle, pursue, obstruct and intercept us. The Long March is also a publicity force. It has announced to some 200 million people in eleven provinces that the road of the Red Army is their only road to liberation ... The Long March is also a seeding-machine. In the eleven provinces it has sown many seeds which will sprout, leaf, blossom, and bear fruit, and will yield a harvest in the future. In a word, the Long March has ended with victory for us and defeat for the enemy.” When Lu Xun, the great thinker and writer, heard in Shanghai that the Red Army had completed its Long March and arrived in northern Shaanxi, he sent an affectionate telegraph of congratulations: “The hopes of China and of mankind are placed upon you.” The Red Army’s Long March, a great feat that captured the world’s attention and will shine throughout history, has become a priceless intellectual treasure of the Chinese nation. If we can hold fast to and maintain this treasure, there will be no difficulty we cannot surmount and no evil force that we cannot expel. As the poem truly says: The irresistible army marches 10,000 li to cross Mount Guan, At Zunyi Meeting the critical situation is saved; Enduring trials and hardships of the Long March, They leave us with an awe-inspiring legacy. ๕ੈຫৢԾܹ೾ĭ ቖၴ߾ၸߘআরh ؐࣘࢲѷӑᆠൡĭ ‫ޅ‬టӑ੅็ׁ࡟h To learn how the Red Army made this foothold into a new starting point and changed the face of the revolution and the anti-Japanese war, you must turn to the next chapter. 227

Chapter 10

Zhang Xueliang and Yang Hucheng Capture Chiang in the Xi’an Incident; Zhang Wentian and Mao Zedong Mediate for a United Front between KMT and CPC against Japanese Aggression

After innumerable hardships, the three main forces of the Red Army finally reached northern Shaanxi, where, together with the North Shaanxi Red Army and local people, they consolidated and expanded this revolutionary base area as a resistance center in the Northwest to mobilize the whole nation into the fight against Japanese aggression. At that time, Japanese militarist aggression against China was becoming ever more insatiable, and its wild ambition to swallow up all of China was as clear as day. On September 18, 1931, the Imperial Japanese Army openly invaded China. Chiang Kai-shek’s government, under the delusion that the League of Nations (1920-1949) would force Japan to withdraw, did not promptly deploy his troops to fight back. As a result, within just four and a half months, the Japanese Army with fewer than 20,000 soldiers occupied Northeast China, a territory triple the size of Japan itself, and where Japan later established the puppet regime of Manchukuo, turning Northeast China into its colony. In January 1932, the Japanese Army provoked an incident in Shanghai. Cai Tingkai led the 19th Route Army of the Republic of China’s National Revolutionary Army to rise up in resistance. Thousands upon thousands of soldiers and people fought together and wiped out over 10,000 Japanese aggressors. They held off the Japanese Army until early March when, without help forthcoming and under attack from front and rear, they were compelled to evacuate 228

Chapter 10

Zhang Xueliang and Yang Hucheng Capture Chiang in the Xi’an Incident; Zhang Wentian and Mao Zedong Mediate for a United Front between KMT and CPC against Japanese Aggression

the city. The Nanjing Government (the Republic of China) signed the Shanghai Ceasefire Agreement with Japan, under which China was forbidden to garrison troops in Shanghai. Between late February and early March 1933, Japan conquered Rehe Province in only 10 days and then advanced along the Great Wall. The Nanjing Government failed to stop the Japanese Army beyond the Great Wall, and was forced to sign the Tanggu Truce with Japan, a de facto recognition of Japan’s occupation of four provinces in Northeast China and loss of the right to garrison troops in over 20 counties of east Hebei. In 1935, Japan stepped up the pace. At the beginning of the year, the Japanese Kwantung Army supported its puppet army to set up the Commissioner’s Office of East Chahar Special Autonomous Region, a de facto occupation of East Chahar. In May, the Japanese Army provoked incidents in Hebei and forced the Nanjing Government to sign the He-Umezu Agreement and the Chin-Doihara Agreement, under which Japan seized the sovereignty of Chahar including Peking and Tianjin and most areas of Hebei. Then, the Japanese Army instigated the North China Autonomous Movement, attempting to wrest the five provinces of Hebei, Shandong, Shanxi, Chahar and Suiyuan as well as the cities of Peking, Tianjin and Qingdao from the Chinese government to create a second Manchukuo. In May 1936, Japan incited the Xilin Gol League of Inner Mongolia to set up a puppet Mongolian regime. Japan’s rapacity, winning the upper hand everywhere, and its naked aim to destroy China were just too much for the Chinese people to stomach. They rose up to fight back. Again, young students stood in the vanguard. On December 9, 1935, under the leadership of the Communist Party organization in Beijing, several thousand students held a demonstration to oppose the KMT government’s policy of compromise and concession, demanding that the government should stop the civil war and cooperate with the CPC in common cause against Japan. But these students met with bloody suppression. Military police caught and beat several hundred students, enraging people around the country. Two days later, students in Tianjin, Baoding, Taiyuan, Shanghai, Wuhan, Chongqing, Guangzhou and other cities held assemblies and demonstrations in support of the Beijing students’ patriotic actions; workers around China went on strike in 229

Socialism in China

A student demonstration in Bejing during the December Ninth Movement

response to the call of All-China Federation of Trade Unions, and workers in Guangzhou and Shanghai published open telegrams demanding a declaration of war against Japan; patriotic people and associations set up national salvation associations and urged the KMT government to protect China’s territory and sovereignty, stop the civil war and dispatch troops to fight against Japan. These currents converged to create an anti-Japanese surge, called the December Ninth Movement. The desperate plight of the country enraged the Chinese people. Dissension appeared within the leadership of the KMT and the Nanjing Government, and many expressed dissatisfaction with Chiang Kai-shek for stubbornly clinging to his policies of “nonresistance” and “domestic pacification before resistance to foreign aggression.” Feng Yuxiang, vice-chairman of the Military Council of the Nanjing Government, and some others proposed that the KMT and the CPC should agree a ceasefire, stop attacking each other, and unite against the Japanese aggressors. Hu Hanmin, member of the Standing Committee of the KMT Central Committee, and some others strongly advocated that resistance against Japan was more important than suppression of the Communist Party, and that the KMT should change its policy toward the Communist Party from “suppression” to “pacification,” that the KMT should 230

Chapter 10

Zhang Xueliang and Yang Hucheng Capture Chiang in the Xi’an Incident; Zhang Wentian and Mao Zedong Mediate for a United Front between KMT and CPC against Japanese Aggression

cooperate with the Communist Party to save the country in its hour of need; they even publicly advocated that Communists were also Chinese and that “it would be better to hang a red flag rather than the Japanese flag.” Some founder members of the KMT and local power brokers also strongly demanded that the government actively resist Japan, and advised that the government re-adopt Sun Yat-sen’s policies of alliance with Russia, cooperation with the Communist Party and assistance to peasants and workers and mobilize forces of all fields to save the Chinese nation. However, Chiang still clung to his policy of “domestic pacification before resistance to foreign aggression,” and regarded the CPC and the Red Army as the arch-enemy; his head-in-the-sand policy toward Japan involved: “no severing of diplomatic relations, no declaration of war, no peace talks, and no signing of agreements,” and dared not publicly declare a full-scale war against Japan. However, Chiang faced pressure from public opinion and his own party, as evidenced by two incidents. The pro-Japanese Wang Jingwei was wounded by an assassin’s gunfire at the opening ceremony of the Sixth Session of the Fourth KMT Central Committee, and one month later, the pro-Japanese Tang Youren, vice-minister of Foreign Affairs, was assassinated in Shanghai. Chiang was affected by the strong anti-Japan, anti-compromise mood within his party and around the country and his attitude towards the Japanese aggression started to change. Facing the national crisis, the CPC called for national unity in resisting Japan, reiterated its proposal for and helped establish the anti-Japanese national united front, bringing together all forces capable of being united, and organizing them into anti-Japanese troops to save the country. The Communists disregarded their previous enmity with the Chiang Kai-shek clique, and attached most importance to the overall national interest, changing Party policy from “resisting Japan and opposing Chiang” to “forcing Chiang to resist Japan,” and then to “collaborating with Chiang and supporting him to resist Japan.” After the Red Army arrived in northern Shaanxi at the end of the Long March, the CPC Central Committee published many declarations and announcements declaring willingness to sign a truce with whoever fought against Japan and opposed Chiang Kai-shek, to organize anti-Japanese allied forces 231

Socialism in China

and a coalition government, and launch a national revolutionary war, so as to defeat Japanese imperialism and achieve the liberation and integrity of China’s territory. Before this, Wang Ming and the CPC delegation to the Seventh Congress of the Comintern, held in the Soviet Union from July to August 1935, issued a declaration on August 1. The “Message of the Soviet Government of China and the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China to all Compatriots on Resistance Against Japan and National Salvation” is also known as the “August 1 Declaration.” In this, the Soviet Government of China and the CPC pointed out that China faced an extremely urgent crisis, and that all parties, compatriots of all walks of life, and all troops, irrespective of their differing opinions, were nonetheless brothers and should unite against foreign invasion; and called upon all forces to end the civil war and struggle for the sacred cause of resistance against Japan and national salvation. They solemnly declared that provided KMT troops stopped attacking the Soviet areas, provided any of them started resisting Japan, the Red Army would not only stop hostilities immediately but join hands as friends to work together in saving China. The declaration called upon the nation to set up and expand a national united front for resistance against Japan, to unite and organize a “National Defense Government” and “Anti-Japanese Allied Forces” in a concerted movement to counter Japanese aggression. To adapt to the new anti-Japanese situation and clarify the strategies and policies for the Red Army after its main force arrived in northern Shaanxi, the CPC Central Committee held an enlarged Political Bureau meeting in Wayaobu Town in Anding County (present Zichang County), Shaanxi, from December 17 to 25, 1935. On the morning of December 17, members and alternate members of the Political Bureau of the CPC Central Committee and non-voting delegates, totaling 15, entered a cave-dwelling, about three meters wide and eight meters deep, at a Tian family courtyard in Wayaobu Town. Zhang Wentian presided over the meeting. After a short speech, he invited Zhang Hao, CPC representative to the Comintern, to relay the main contents of the Comintern Seventh Congress and instructions from Comintern leaders. 232

Chapter 10

Zhang Xueliang and Yang Hucheng Capture Chiang in the Xi’an Incident; Zhang Wentian and Mao Zedong Mediate for a United Front between KMT and CPC against Japanese Aggression

Zhang Hao, previously named Li Yuying, was an elder cousin of Lin Biao. Long a stalwart of the workers’ movement, he was sent to Moscow in 1933 as a CPC representative. In August 1935, the Comintern sent him back to China to report to the CPC Central Committee the main contents of the Comintern Seventh Congress. Zhang committed all the documents to memory so as to have no incriminating papers on him, disguised himself as a merchant and made his way back to China via the vast desert of Inner Mongolia; after

The cave-dwelling venue for the Wayaobu Meeting

several grueling months, he reached northern Shaanxi in November. Zhang told the meeting: Since the early 1930s, fascist regimes in Germany, Italy and Japan exercised dictatorship at home while invading other countries; as a result, the world faced fascist invasion and the threat of war. The major task of the Seventh Congress of the Comintern was to mobilize and organize people around the world into the anti-fascist struggle. The Seventh Congress of the Comintern was held in Moscow between July 25 and August 20, 1935. It was attended by 510 representatives of 65 communist parties. Mao Zedong, Zhou Enlai and Zhang Guotao of the CPC were elected members of the Comintern Executive Committee. Chairman Georgii Dimitrov of the Executive Committee gave the main speech, based on which the congress endorsed a Resolution on Establishing a Popular Front Against Fascism. The resolution called upon people of all countries to act against fascism, and demanded communist parties in all countries to unite with social parties to establish an anti-fascist popular front, and the proletariats in colonial and semicolonial countries to set up an anti-imperialist united front. The Comintern leaders also gave instructions about the Chinese revolution, requiring the Chinese Communists to expand the Soviet movement and enhance the com233

Socialism in China

bat effectiveness of the Red Army, in the meantime to launch a nationwide people’s movement against imperialism, and arm the people for a national revolutionary war. Zhang Wentian then gave a political report entitled “Political Situation and Strategies.” He declared that Japan was planning to swallow China whole, and this fact compelled any Chinese unwilling to be a conquered slave or to betray their country to join in the national war. Zhang Wentian then put forward a political line for the CPC under the new conditions: “To mobilize, unite and organize all revolutionary forces of the whole nation to oppose our arch-enemies: Japanese imperialism and Chiang Kai-shek, head of traitors.” He stressed that only when the most extensive anti-Japanese national united front was established, could Japanese imperialism and Chiang Kai-shek be defeated. When the meeting turned to political issues, Mao Zedong made a long speech. As for how to treat the national bourgeoisie, he had fierce arguments with Bo Gu. Mao Zedong said that Japanese imperialists had invaded North China, and China faced a national crisis. At this time, the national bourgeoisie was breaking ranks with the KMT, and the Party should unite with them to resist Japan. Bo Gu’s attitude was one of typical “Leftist” dogmatism. He drawled: “Lao Mao, the middle forces are the most dangerous. We cannot unite the national bourgeoisie to resist Japan. To do so would be to deviate from Marxism.” He then recited swathe after swathe of “classic theories” from Stalin and others to bolster his argument. The next day, Mao spoke up again. He pointed out that China’s national bourgeoisie differed from the bourgeoisie of capitalist countries; it had a dual nature and could be united into the fight against Japan in China’s hour of need. He cited the Fujian Mutiny of November 1933, during which Cai Tingkai and his 19th Route Army rebelled against the ruling KMT regime and established the Fujian People’s Government on 22 November. He criticized Bo Gu’s attack on the 19th Route Army at the time of the mutiny, and his assertion that the middle forces were the most dangerous; the result had been defeat for the 19th Route Army and expulsion of Communists from the revolutionary base area. He pointed out that Cai Tingkai and others, though 234

Chapter 10

Zhang Xueliang and Yang Hucheng Capture Chiang in the Xi’an Incident; Zhang Wentian and Mao Zedong Mediate for a United Front between KMT and CPC against Japanese Aggression

representing the interests of the national bourgeoisie and the upper stratum of the petty bourgeoisie, had directed their fire towards Japanese imperialism and Chiang Kai-shek and their acts had benefited the Chinese revolution. As he neared the end of his speech, his passion raised and voice at full volume Mao appealed: “I analyze Chinese issues based on the fundamental principles and stand of Marxism and Leninism, and propose to unite with the national bourgeoisie to resist Japan. Does that make me disloyal to Marxism and Leninism and unfilial to our forefathers?” Seeing Mao’s face ablaze with anger, Bo Gu leant against the wall, without a further word to say. Zhang Wentian and others then made remarks in support of Mao’s speech. Finally, the Political Bureau meeting adopted the Resolution of the Central Committee on Present Political Conditions and the Party’s Tasks, as drafted by Zhang. The resolution made a clear political exposition: to set up a broad national united front, in which “any person, irrespective of party, armed force and class, can join in the sacred national war provided he opposes Japanese imperialism and the arch-enemy Chiang Kai-shek.” The resolution reiterated

Handwritten document from the Wayaobu Meeting

235

Socialism in China

that the highest form of the united front was a National Defense Government and Anti-Japanese Allied Forces. The resolution also pointed out, “Under the present new circumstances, closed-doorism is the major danger within our Party” and analyzed that the reason for closed-doorism was a “basic inability to adapt Marxism, Leninism and Stalinism as living ideas to the special and specific conditions of China, but instead turn them into lifeless dogma.” The Wayaobu Meeting also heard Mao Zedong’s report on military issues and adopted the Resolution of the Central Committee on Military Tactics as drafted by Mao, confirming the Party and the Red Army’s military tactics and major tasks under new conditions. On December 27, the day after the end of the Wayaobu Meeting, the CPC Central Committee held a conference of over 400 cadres from Party and government organs, the Red Army University and the Central Party School in a hall at the foot of Longhu Mountain in Wayaobu Town. Zhang Wentian presided. Wearing a black army uniform and Red Army cap, Mao Zedong made a long speech entitled “On Tactics Against Japanese Imperialism.” He stood and talked for more than two hours, sometimes with hands on hips, sometimes gesticulating in excitement. Mao made an in-depth analysis of the stand and attitudes of all classes and political schools in China at a point in history where Japanese imperialism wanted to make China its colony, and elaborated incisively on the necessity and feasibility of establishing a broad national united front. He had sharp words for the closed-doorism among some “Leftist” cadres, pointing out: “In order to attack the forces of the counter-revolution, what the revolutionary forces need today is to organize millions upon millions of the masses and move a mighty revolutionary army into action. The plain truth is that only a force of such magnitude can crush the Japanese imperialists and Chinese traitors and collaborators. Closed-doorism just “drives the fish into deep waters and the sparrows into the thickets,” and it will drive the millions upon millions of the masses, this mighty army, over to the enemy side. A move the enemy is bound to welcome. In practice, closed-doorism is the faithful servant of Japanese imperialists and our own traitors and collaborators. Its adherents’ talk of the “pure” and the “straight” will be condemned by Marxist-Leninists and commended by Japanese imperialists. We definitely want no closed-doorism; what 236

Chapter 10

Zhang Xueliang and Yang Hucheng Capture Chiang in the Xi’an Incident; Zhang Wentian and Mao Zedong Mediate for a United Front between KMT and CPC against Japanese Aggression

we want is the revolutionary national united front, which will spell death to Japanese imperialists and Chinese traitors and collaborators.” Bursts of heavy applause punctuated this speech. The Wayaobu Meeting determined a political line that the Party had not had time to settle at the Zunyi Meeting, namely promoting the formation of a national united front against Japan. The new political line changed the fate of the CPC and the Red Army by expanding the space for their survival and development: but it also changed the fate of China and its people, as it helped bring about national resistance against Japan, and laid the foundation for Chinese victory in the war. From this perspective, the Wayaobu Meeting was another turning point in CPC history after the Zunyi Meeting. However, at this meeting, the Party still kept to the policy of “resisting Japan and opposing Chiang Kai-shek,” excluding Chiang’s clique from the united front. This was not only because of their widely different ideologies, but also because the two parties had accumulated grievances since the Shanghai Massacre of 1927 and the July 15 Incident. But more important were Chiang’s stubborn adherence to the policy of “nonresistance” and “domestic pacification before resistance to foreign aggression”, his continuous arrests and executions of Communists nationwide, and deployment of huge forces to encircle and suppress the Chinese Workers’ and Peasants’ Red Army. Under such conditions, the CPC had to combine resistance against Japan with opposing Chiang. However, one sudden event changed both parties’ attitudes and brought them together to face the national crisis. After the Wayaobu Meeting, the CPC applied both military and political tactics to help set up the anti-Japanese national united front and bring about a new situation of national resistance against Japan. In terms of military action, Zhang Wentian, Mao Zedong and Peng Dehuai led over 30,000 Red Army officers and soldiers, crossed the Yellow River and entered Shanxi Province, where they publicly unfurled the banner of the AntiJapanese Vanguard of the Chinese Workers’ and Peasants’ Red Army and set up anti-Japanese guerrilla forces and areas in over 20 counties in the Lüliang Mountain Area. It was a demonstration to the Chinese people of the resolute attitude against Japan of the Party and the Red Army. 237

Socialism in China

Then Peng Dehuai led an expeditionary force of over 13,000 Red Army men westward into Gansu, where they occupied a vast area on the borders of Shaanxi, Gansu and Ningxia, expanding and consolidating the Northwest Anti-Japanese Base Area and laying a foundation for an anti-Japanese general headquarters that the whole nation had been longing for. In terms of political action, the CPC Central Committee wrote to the Second Plenary Session of the KMT, stating: “Provided you stop attacking the Red Army and Soviet areas, mobilize the whole nation to resist Japan, realize democracy and freedom and penalize traitors, we and the Red Army will not impair your anti-Japanese efforts, and moreover, will try our best to support and even closely cooperate with you.” Moreover, the Party expressed readiness to negotiate with the KMT on cooperation and national salvation. Mao Zedong and some other leaders also wrote to important military officers and political officials of the Nanjing Government, local power wielders, representatives of different parties and associations, and renowned leaders, trying to win their understanding and support of a national united front to resist Japan. From early 1936, the CPC sent envoys to secretly contact Chiang’s representatives in Shanghai, Nanjing, Xi’an and Moscow to negotiate anti-Japanese cooperation. In the meantime, the Party focused its united front work on winning over the Northeast Army and the 17th Route Army of the Northwest Army stationed around the Shaanxi-Gansu-Ningxia Base Area. Zhang Xueliang, head of the Northeast Army and son of Zhang Zuolin who had been assassinated by the Japanese, had become more and more discontented with Chiang Kai-shek’s policy of “domestic pacification before resistance to foreign aggression”. During the September 18 Incident, he misjudged the situation not immediately recognizing Japan’s ambition to invade Northeast China first and then swallow China whole; he thought the incident was an pretext for the Japanese invaders to provoke a full-scale war. Not wanting to court censure, he gave wrong orders to the Northeast Army, such as “nonresistance” and not to engage with the Japanese Army. Consequently, 200,000 soldiers put up no strong resistance and the northeast provinces were lost. This roused the Chinese people to justified fury, and he was ridiculed as “General No-resistance.” Actually Zhang was deeply under the influence 238

Chapter 10

Zhang Xueliang and Yang Hucheng Capture Chiang in the Xi’an Incident; Zhang Wentian and Mao Zedong Mediate for a United Front between KMT and CPC against Japanese Aggression

of Chiang Kai-shek’s view that China’s military might was way inferior to Japan’s and they must win over international forces to check Japan’s invasion of China. Two or three months before the September 18 Incident, Chiang sent several telegrams to Zhang Xueliang, saying that however Japanese troops provoked Chinese troops in Northeast China, the Chinese side should not resist but try to avoid conflicts. Such messages resulted in Zhang giving wrong orders. After the September 18 Incident, the KMT government wired the Northeast Army: This was just a provocative action of the Japanese Army, and you shall follow the policy of nonresistance in order to prevent it from escalating. Clearly, Chiang Kai-shek and the Nanjing Government approved and supported Zhang’s wrong decisions. In 1933, the Japanese Army invaded Rehe Province, putting the Northeast Army to flight once again, and making Zhang a target of public criticism again. This time, Chiang met Zhang and had a secret talk in which he told Zhang: “We two now sit in a small boat in stormy waves. The boat will sink if we both sit in it, so one of us should jump into the water first.” Zhang had no choice but to “jump first” and announced his resignation. He took his family to travel in Europe for eight months. In January 1934, on Zhang’s return to China, he was appointed by Chiang as deputy commander-in-chief, acted on behalf of Chiang and assumed personal command in Wuhan to suppress the Red Army in Hubei, Henan and Anhui. After the Red Army arrived in northern Shaanxi, Chiang Kai-shek established a headquarters in Xi’an for suppressing “bandits” in northwest China, and appointed Zhang as deputy commander-in-chief to govern 220,000 men on his behalf. He had under his command 160,000 of the Northeast Army, 30,000 of the 17th Route Army, Ma Hongkui’s troops from Ningxia and Ma Bufang’s troops from Qinghai. However, three divisions of the Northeast Army were wiped out by the Red Army within only three months. Zhang and his men did not want to continue since neither side would gain in the battle; they wanted only to husband their strength and fight their way back to Northeast China, there to take revenge on the Japanese Army for invading the country and destroying their home. 239

Socialism in China

Yang Hucheng was leader of the 17th Route Army. A native of Pucheng, Shaanxi, he joined the KMT in 1924, and had served under Feng Yuxiang. In 1929, he aligned with Chiang Kai-shek and was appointed commander-inchief of the 17th Route Army as well as chairman of Shaanxi government and director of the Xi’an Pacification Office. But later Chiang did not entirely trust him, and unceremoniously removed him from the post of chairman of Shaanxi government without prior notice, and whittled down the number of his troops. Conflicts between Yang and Chiang grew more frequent and sharp. Yang Hucheng was progressive, and compassionate with peasants and workers. He had applied, unsuccessfully, for CPC membership in 1927 and 1928 but remained in contact with underground CPC organizations, and his wife, secretary and a few officers were CPC members. When Zhang Xueliang led his army into Shaanxi, he quickly made close friends with Yang, both of them disenchanted with Chiang and sharing the idea of cooperating with the CPC in resistance against Japan. The CPC Central Committee analyzed Zhang Xueliang and Yang Hucheng’s thinking, and resolved to win them over as the Party’s military allies to resist Japan. In December 1935, Mao Zedong wrote a letter to Yang Hucheng and dispatched Wang Feng to meet secretly with Yang in Xi’an; later Mao sent his secretary Zhang Wenbin to Xi’an to negotiate with Yang, and the two reached a number of secret agreements, including to refrain from attacking each other, stop hostile operations in their respective garrison areas, cancel economic blockades, and establish military liaison. Having won over the Northwest Army, the CPC turned its attention to the Northeast Army. In January 1936, Gao Fuyuan, an officer under Zhang Xueliang’s command who had been taken prisoner by the Red Army and then released, submitted two letters to Zhang. One letter came from Mao Zedong and the other from Zhou Enlai, establishing contact between the CPC Central Committee and Zhang Xueliang. After several contacts and discussions between representatives, Zhang personally piloted a plane to Luochuan where, disguised as a rich businessman, he had a secret talk with Li Kenong, head of the CPC Central Committee Liaison Bureau. On April 9, Zhang flew himself to Fushi (present-day Yan’an). There, in a downtown church, he talked with Zhou Enlai, Li Kenong and others from eight in the evening to four in the 240

Chapter 10

Zhang Xueliang and Yang Hucheng Capture Chiang in the Xi’an Incident; Zhang Wentian and Mao Zedong Mediate for a United Front between KMT and CPC against Japanese Aggression

morning. Zhang and Zhou Enlai felt like old friends at the first meeting and quickly agreed on several issues, including: to end the civil war, build trade relations and cooperate to resist Japan. But the two sides had different views about how to treat Chiang Kai-shek. Zhou Enlai explained the CPC’s stand: the CPC slogan of “resisting Japan and opposing Chiang had come about because of Chiang’s policies of “nonresistance to Japan” and “domestic pacification before resistance to foreign aggression”. Zhang Xueliang said honestly: To resist Japan, they absolutely must unite with Chiang, since the latter represented the most powerful force in China and the KMT mainstream: opposing Chiang would be to lose the biggest branch of force. Moreover, Chiang still had national sentiment and leadership on his side, and had not actually surrendered to Japan; thus it was still possible to win him over. In his view, a combination of him working inside and the CPC putting pressure outside could force Chiang to change his wrong policies and take the path of resistance. At these totally sincere words from Zhang, Zhou Enlai responded with equal candor: “Speaking for myself, I agree with you, General Zhang. But it would be a major change of policy, and I will take back your opinion and submit it to the CPC Central Committee for deliberation.” Back in Wayaobu, Zhou immediately reported his talk to Zhang Wentian, Mao Zedong and some other leaders, and told them of Zhang’s suggestion of “allying with Chiang to resist Japan,” a proposition they found fair and reasonable. Around this time, they had learnt via other channels that Chiang’s attitude towards resistance against Japan had changed after the North China Incident. For example, he flatly refused Japan’s unreasonable demand of “making North China an autonomous region” and the “Hirota Three Principles.” Moreover, on some public occasions Chiang talked about considering the united front; he sent representatives to the Soviet Union to discuss cooperation, and also had secret negations with the CPC. In light of this situation and bearing in mind the national interest, gradually the CPC changed its attitude towards Chiang, from “resisting Japan and opposing Chiang” to “forcing Chiang to resist Japan,” for the benefit of the national resistance cause. 241

Socialism in China

On April 25, 1936, the CPC published the “Declaration on Establishing the People’s Anti-Japanese Front of All Parties and Groups,” its first demonstration that the Party regarded the KMT as a partner in the united front. On May 5, the Red Army returned to northern Shaanxi after the expedition into Shanxi Province. Mao Zedong and Zhu De signed the “Circular Telegram on the Cessation of the War, Peace Negotiations, and Unity to Resist Japan” and sent it to the Nanjing Government and all parties and societies around China, calling upon KMT and CPC troops and all other armed forces to cease hostile military operations, and join hands in resisting Japan. The conciliatory tone – no longer abusing Chiang and his men as “traitors” but with respectful references to “Mr. Chiang” and “gentlemen of the Nanjing Government” – showed that the CPC had changed its policy from “resisting Japan and opposing Chiang” to “forcing Chiang to resist Japan.” On August 25, the CPC sent a letter to the KMT Central Committee and all KMT members, advocating that the CPC and KMT join hands for the second time in the interest of China’s salvation from Japan. On September 1, 1936, the CPC issued an internal Party instruction on the subject of forcing Chiang to resist Japan: “The present arch-enemy of the Chinese people is Japanese imperialism; therefore it is wrong to treat Japanese imperialism and Chiang Kai-shek in the same manner. Nor is it appropriate to use the slogan ‘resisting Japan and opposing Chiang’”; “our principal policy should be ‘forcing Chiang to resist Japan.’” Not long previously, the Comintern had also instructed the CPC to win over Chiang for joint resistance against Japan. On September 20, Mao Zedong drew up the “Draft of the CPC-KMT Agreement on Resistance Against Japan and National Salvation,” proposing that the two parties should immediately stop any military hostilities, establish an anti-Japanese united front, set up a democratic republic, and resist Japan with armed forces. The draft later became the basis for the CPC to negotiate with the KMT and local power wielders about establishing a national united front. In October, the CPC Central Committee sent Ye Jianying and others to Xi’an as its permanent representatives in that city to start united front work among the Northeast Army, the Northwest Army and local authorities in Northwest China. Therefore, in northwest China, there appeared three mili242

Chapter 10

Zhang Xueliang and Yang Hucheng Capture Chiang in the Xi’an Incident; Zhang Wentian and Mao Zedong Mediate for a United Front between KMT and CPC against Japanese Aggression

tary forces in co-existence, namely the Red Army, the Northeast Army and the Northwest Army. However, at that time Chiang Kai-shek had no intention to cooperate, despite the CPC’s willingness to “cooperate with Chiang to resist Japan.” Chiang was still fixated on dealing with the “enemy within” first; for him, CPC-KMT cooperation meant the chance to absorb the CPC into his party and the Red Army into his forces. Thus, on the one hand, he expressed willingness to contact and negotiate with the CPC, but raised conditions impossible for the CPC to accept: to downsize the Red Army to 3,000 men and exile overseas cadres above the division level; at the same time, he sped up assembling 300,000 men to encircle the Red Army in northern Shaanxi. He appointed Jiang Dingwen as frontline commander-in-chief of the “bandit suppression” headquarters of Northwest China, Wei Lihuang as commander-in-chief for suppressing the Red Army in Shaanxi-Gansu-Ningxia Border Region, and Vice-Minister Chen Cheng of the Military and Administrative Ministry to supervise frontline operations; he moved Hu Zongnan’s troops under his direct control as the main force for suppressing the “bandits.” On October 22, 1936, Chiang Kai-shek flew from Nanjing to Xi’an. Two days later, he summoned Zhang Xueliang and Yang Hucheng to Huaqing Hot Spring in Lintong, and ordered them to immediately wipe out the Red Army in northern Shaanxi. Zhang and Yang expressed disagreement and asked Chiang to consider ending the civil war and cooperating with the CPC against Japan. This earned them a sharp reprimand. On October 27, Chiang attended the opening ceremony of the Chang’an Wangqu Officer Training Corps, where he gave an admonitory talk to over 500 trainees and officers above regiment level of the Northeast Army and the 17th Route Army. He said, “Our

Chiang Kai-shek giving an admonitory talk at the opening ceremony of the Chang’an Wangqu Officer Training Corps in Xi’an

243

Socialism in China

closest enemy is the Communist Party, and this is the one the Northeast Army must strike. Japan is far away from us.” “If we don’t actively suppress the Communist Party but talk about resistance against Japan, it shows we cannot distinguish the internal from the external, the right from the wrong, and the urgent from the less urgent, and that we put the incidental before the fundamental.” “Our country has laws and discipline, and will punish disloyal and unfilial servicemen.” But Zhang and Yang were not scared off by Chiang’s tirade. In October and November they went to Luoyang in Henan Province where they implored Chiang face-to-face to end the civil war and unite to resist Japan. Again they got a dressing down. On December 4, Chiang and his high-ranking officials and officers including Jiang Dingwen, Wei Lihuang and Chen Cheng flew back to Xi’an, renewing the pressure on Zhang and Yang to suppress the Communists. Chiang presented an ultimatum: Zhang and Yang could obey Chiang’s orders to move the Northeast Army and the 17th Route Army to the frontline to fight the Red Army while the KMT Central Army supervised their operations from behind; if they were unwilling, Chiang would move the Northeast Army to Fujian and the 17th Route Army to Anhui to make room for the Central Army. Zhang and Yang cried bitterly, imploring Chiang to withdraw the two options. But again, Chiang rebuked them. Back in Xi’an City, Zhang and Yang had a conclave at Zhang’s residence. Yang suggested that they had no option but to “coerce the emperor so as to command the nobles.” Zhang asked for some time to think it over. On December 7, Zhang Xueliang invited Yang Hucheng to his home and told him, “I will admonish Chiang one last time, trying peaceful means before resorting to force. As a sworn brother, I’ll do all I can.” That evening, Zhang went to Huaqing Hot Spring again. As soon as he sat down, Chiang asked, “What do you think about my two options?” Zhang replied, “Generalissimo, I have thought them over. I still think the most urgent thing is to resist Japan…” Unhappy, Chiang cut him off in mid-sentence, shouting: “I want to resist Japan too, but first I have to wipe out the Communist Party. I’ve told you time and time again why we should carry out ‘domestic pacification before resistance to foreign aggression’. Why do you persist in your error?” 244

Chapter 10

Zhang Xueliang and Yang Hucheng Capture Chiang in the Xi’an Incident; Zhang Wentian and Mao Zedong Mediate for a United Front between KMT and CPC against Japanese Aggression

Zhang stood up and said in excitement, “Generalissimo, no matter which side wins the civil war, the real beneficiary will certainly be our national enemy. The Communist Party has once more expressed its willingness to unite and fight against Japan; what reason do we have to refuse this? To my knowledge, as well as advocating war against Japan, the Communist Party supports you as the supreme leader. You will be a national hero. So why not accept?” Chiang rebuked Zhang angrily, “You must be young and ignorant to be taken in by the Communist Party. I hear that you’ve had frequent contact with them recently. Are you planning to oppose me?” Fighting back tears, Zhang tried to defend himself: “Generalissimo, I and the Northeast Army have always been on your side. In the past, we have supported you through thick and thin. Today, our attitude is one and the same; we hope you will lead the nation to fight against Japan.” Chiang would hear none of it. He stood up abruptly and said in exasperation, “Even if you shoot me with a handgun, I will not change my policy of suppressing the Communist Party.” Then he turned on his heels and exited, leaving Zhang alone. Zhang had no choice but to return to the city. The next morning, Zhang told Yang Hucheng how things had gone, and asked Yang to go to Lintong for one last try, but Chiang cursed him out too. Seeing their two months of remonstrations had proven futile, the two had to turn to armed persuasion, namely detaining Chiang to force him into policy change. But the two did not fix a date for their move.

Zhang Xueliang during the Xi’an Incident

Yang Hucheng during the Xi’an Incident

245

Socialism in China

But events transpired to trigger the mutiny. On December 9, over 10,000 middle school and college students held a big demonstration in Xi’an to commemorate the first anniversary of the December Ninth Movement, demanding that the authorities should stop their attacks on Communists and join hands with them to resist Japan. At the order of Chiang Kai-shek, armed police opened fire on the demonstrators, injuring one student. The gunfire incensed the students, who decided to walk to Lintong and present their demands to Chiang Kai-shek in person. Chiang immediately called Zhang with orders to stop the students from going to Lintong, and to use force if the students would not listen. Zhang, aware that bloodshed was inevitable if the students managed to get to Lintong, immediately drove to Baqiao to stop the procession, and tried hard to persuade the students, shouting himself hoarse. But the students would not give up and shouted “We support the Northeast Army to resist Japan!” and “We would rather die for the nation rather than be conquered!” among other slogans. Zhang, moved by their patriotism, moved to a high point and shouted, “I will not let you down or cheat you. I will reply to you with facts in a week.” The students agreed not to go to Lintong, and so bloodshed was averted. That evening, Zhang told Chiang about the students’ petition. But Chiang was completely unmoved; he upbraided Zhang for not suppressing the students by force. The original order to open fire on them had been his and if the students tried coming to Lintong again, he would order police to use machine guns on them. Zhang Xueliang and Yang Hucheng despaired of their “leader.” The next day, they secretly discussed with a few high-ranking officers about forcible remonstrance. They agreed that Liu Duoquan, commander of the 105th Division of the Northeast Army, would be in overall charge of the operation; Bai Fengxiang, commander of the 6th Cavalry Division, and Liu Guiwu, one of his regimental commanders, would direct the action; and Sun Mingjiu, commander of Zhang Xueliang’s 2nd Bodyguard Battalion, would carry out the action. The 17th Route Army would arrest those important military officers and political officials of the Nanjing Government who were in Chiang’s entourage but were staying in the City of Xi’an. The action would start at 6:00 a.m. on December 12. 246

Chapter 10

Zhang Xueliang and Yang Hucheng Capture Chiang in the Xi’an Incident; Zhang Wentian and Mao Zedong Mediate for a United Front between KMT and CPC against Japanese Aggression

At about 11:00 p.m. on December 11, Zhang Xueliang held a meeting in his residence in Jinjia Alleyway with Yu Xuezhong, Wang Yizhe, Liu Duoquan and other senior officers of the Northeast Army, and announced his plan with grief and indignation; not one person dissented. Yu Xuezhong then asked, “What is the second step?” Zhang Xueliang answered, “First we detain him, and then go from there. Provided he agrees to resist Japan, I will still support him as our leader.” He then told Su Mingjiu, “Your orders are to go to Huaqing Hot Spring with Commander Bai and detain the Generalissimo. On no account shoot him dead, nor let him escape.” Sun replied, “I will fulfill your task, otherwise, I won’t come back to face you.” After midnight, Zhang Xueliang and his men went to Yang Hucheng’s residence in Xincheng to direct the action. At about 5:00 a.m. on December 12, the sound of intense firing came from the northwest foot of Lishan Mountain of Lintong. The soldiers of the Northeast Army quickly overcame the 70-odd military policemen stationed outside Huaqing Hot Spring, and Sun Mingjiu led his men in through the gate, fighting with Chiang Kai-shek’s bodyguards as they charged into Chiang’s bedroom. But when they managed to get in they found the room empty: Chiang had escaped through a window at the first sound of gunfire. His bodyguard and nephew Jiang Xiaozhen carried him out on his back and hid him on the hill behind the house. Sun Mingjiu directed his men to search the hill, and finally found Chiang in a hillside cave. They helped Chiang down the hill and drove him back to the headquarters in Xi’an. Important military officers and political officials of the Nanjing Government were all held in custody, apart from Shao Yuanchong, member of the Standing Committee of the KMT Central Committee, who had fallen, casualty of a stray bullet. That same day, Zhang Xueliang and Yang Hucheng published an open telegram to the nation, explaining the reason for their action: “Surrounded by a group of little men, Generalissimo Chiang has abandoned the people and endangered the nation. We admonished him many times, but got only severe reprimands for our pains… As his fellow officers for many years, we could not bear to stand idly by. Thus we have made this last remonstrance, protecting him while urging him to reflect.” They also raised eight demands, 247

Socialism in China

Six men singing loudly in prison. From left to right: Li Gongpu, Zou Taofen, Shen Junr u, Zhang Naiqi, Wang Zaoshi, and Sha Qianli.

“Reorganize the Nanjing Government and include all parties for a joint effort to save the nation; end all civil battles; free as soon as possible patriotic leaders arrested in Shanghai (Shen Junru, Zhang Naiqi, Zou Taofen, Li Gongpu, Shang Qianli, Wang Zaoshi, Shi Liang, and some others); release all political prisoners; lift the ban on people’s patriotic movements; ensure people’s right to assembly, association and all other political freedoms; carry out Mr. Sun Yat-sen’s will to the letter; and convene a meeting for national salvation as soon as possible.” The shock of the Xi’an Incident reverberated through the whole nation and overseas. By the afternoon, the news had spread around Xi’an, and its 300,000 citizens were in a state of high excitement. Dozens of people’s associations organized gatherings and demonstrations in support of Zhang Xueliang and Yang Hucheng’s justified action and eight demands; they shouted slogans such as “bringing Chiang to public trial” and “execute Chiang by shooting.” News media around the country quickly reported the incident; while parties, associations and public figures made statements either in support of the action or to oppose and condemn it. Foreign reaction varied from country to country. The Soviet Union, the United States and the United Kingdom criticized it, but advocated a peaceful settlement to avoid civil war and control by the pro-Japan faction; Japan secretly incited some people to kill Chiang in order to provoke civil war, and 248

Chapter 10

Zhang Xueliang and Yang Hucheng Capture Chiang in the Xi’an Incident; Zhang Wentian and Mao Zedong Mediate for a United Front between KMT and CPC against Japanese Aggression

colluded with Hitler to support Wang Jingwei, at the time recuperating in Germany, to return to China as soon as possible and set up a pro-Japanese government with He Yingqin. The Nanjing Government and the KMT fell into great confusion, and there was sharp disagreement over how to deal with the incident. That night, the Standing Committee and the Political Committee of the KMT Central Committee held an emergency meeting. He Yingqin was among those proposing to mobilize and send troops to suppress Zhang and Yang, and majority opinion was in favor of a military resolution. The meeting decided to strip Zhang Xueliang of all his positions and to hand him over to the Military Council for severe punishment; He Yingqin moved to take command of a punitive expedition against Zhang and Yang. He ordered the Central Army to enter the Tongguan Pass, and deployed a large number of aircraft to bomb the area between Tongguan Pass and Xi’an. It remains one of the enigmas of history whether He Yingqin really was shouldering responsibility to the party and the state or was conniving to use this opportunity to kill Chiang and replace him. Soong May-ling was shocked to learn of the Xi’an Incident, and arrived in Nanjing from Shanghai on the 13th. She was extremely unhappy with the KMT leadership’s decision to send a punitive expedition against Zhang and Yang, and rushed hither and thither trying to bring about a peaceful rescue of her husband. She won support from K’ung Hsiang-hsi, Soong Tse-ven, Sun Ke, Chen Lifu, Wang Chonghui and others. Under Soong May-ling’s energetic lobbying, the Nanjing Government agreed a dual approach: to threaten Xi’an with force, whilst also sending its representatives to negotiate. At the same time, among the highest echelons of the Party in Yan’an, there was divergence of opinion regarding how to treat Chiang Kai-shek. On the morning of the incident, when Mao Zedong received Zhang Xueliang’s telegram, he laughed and told Zhang Wentian, Zhou Enlai, Zhu De, Bo Gu and the others in the cave dwelling: “The arch-criminal has been seized, to universal delight! Chiang is now facing his just deserts for all his crimes. He must have thought this day would never come!” All those present burst into hearty laughter. 249

Socialism in China

The next day, Zhang Wentian convened a special Political Bureau meeting to discuss policy vis-a-vis the Xi’an Incident. Mao Zedong opened the discussion as the member of the Standing Committee of the CPC Central Committee in charge of military and united front work. He affirmed that the Xi’an Incident and Zhang and Yang’s eight demands were of positive significance as regards resisting Japan and countering traitors, and maintained that the CPC should endorse these demands and support them militarily. Mao also proposed: “With Xi’an as our center of operations, we should lead the country and control Nanjing, and make Northwest China as our frontline and the center of our anti-Japanese battle line.” Zhou Enlai was of a different mind, considering the purpose of this action had been to resist Japan, not to oppose the Nanjing Government. He argued that politically they should not oppose Nanjing but win over most of Chiang’s subordinates. Zhang Guotao supported Mao Zedong’s idea of making Xi’an the center of anti-Japanese activities and in response to Zhou Enlai’s words proposed to “overthrow the Nanjing Government and set up an anti-Japanese government” and to “replace a compromising government with an anti-Japanese government.” Zhang Wentian was on Zhou Enlai’s side, advising against a policy of antagonism against the Nanjing Government or organizing ways to oppose it. The policy should be to turn a local united front into a national one and so bring the CPC up onto China’s political stage by legal means. On the issue of how to punish Chiang Kai-shek, Mao proposed to “reveal his crimes before the people” and to “remove Chiang from office and hand him over to the people for public trial.” In effect this meant killing Chiang. Zhu De, Bo Gu and Zhang Guotao also supported this idea. Zhang Wentian and Zhou Enlai were rather reserved on the issue, not expressing a direct opinion. Zhang’s view however was implicit in his words: “We will try to win over the Nanjing Government and ally ourselves with non-Chiang forces.” Two days later, Mao Zedong, Zhu De and 13 other Red Army officers published a “Telegram to the KMT Nationalist Government,” publicly calling on them to remove Chiang from office and submit him for public trial. 250

Chapter 10

Zhang Xueliang and Yang Hucheng Capture Chiang in the Xi’an Incident; Zhang Wentian and Mao Zedong Mediate for a United Front between KMT and CPC against Japanese Aggression

The angry demands of Mao Zedong, Zhu De and others to “try Chiang” and “kill him” are understandable in the emotional context of that time: after all, a decade of civil war had raged between the KMT and the CPC; Chiang Kaishek’s hands were stained with the blood of the Communists and the revolutionary masses; and just before he was seized, he was deploying massive forces to wipe out the Red Army and threatening its extermination within two weeks, or a month at the most. Despite their anger Mao, Zhu and the other leaders quickly cooled down and took stock of the situation. In the interest of the nation, they came to the correct decision to strive for a peaceful settlement of the Xi’an Incident and create a new environment for a war of national resistance. On December 19, Zhang Wentian presided over an enlarged meeting of the Political Bureau of the CPC Central Committee, at which CPC leaders again discussed the basic policy for settling the Xi’an Incident. Zhang Wentian pointed out, that in addition to analyzing and judging domestic conditions, the views of the Soviet Union should also be considered. At that time, Yan’an could tune in to radio broadcasts from the Soviet Union, and from these they learned that the Party and government of the Soviet Union opposed killing Chiang and advocated a peaceful settlement and an anti-Japanese united front. Mao Zedong then made clear that he advocated striving for a peaceful resolution of the Xi’an Incident; and Zhang Wentian criticized as inappropriate the slogan “hand over Chiang to the people for public trial.” At a meeting one month later, Mao admitted he had been wrong to suggest this. At this enlarged Political Bureau meeting of the CPC Central Committee, the CPC adopted the “Instructions of the CPC Central Committee on the Xi’an Incident and Our Tasks,” which stated clearly that it would “oppose any new civil war, and advocate that Nanjing and Xi’an should work for peaceful resolution of the incident on the basis of unity and resistance against Japan.” After the meeting, an open telegram in the names of the Soviet Central Government of China and the CPC Central Committee was sent to Nanjing, Xi’an and some other places. Mao Zedong drafted and sent 14 telegrams within one day, circulating the CPC Central Committee’s decision and work arrangements to CPC local organizations and the Red Army. The CPC Central Committee decided to send Zhou Enlai, Ye Jianying and Qin Bangxian to Xi’an to participate in tripartite talks for the peaceful resolu251

Socialism in China

Zhou Enlai (right), Ye Jianying (middle) and Qin Bangxian (left) in Xi’an for peace talks

tion of the incident. They were accommodated in Zhang Xueliang’s residence and discussed frequently with Zhang Xueliang and Yang Hucheng, trying to persuade them to release Chiang Kai-shek and resolve the incident by peaceful means while deciding on the policies, principles and conditions that they would adopt during peace talks with Chiang and representatives of the Nanjing Government. Zhou Enlai personally talked with Chiang and Soong Mayling, and negotiated with Chiang’s representative T. V. Soong alongside Zhang and Yang. Zhou raised six conditions on behalf of the CPC, which were finally accepted by all parties, leading to peaceful settlement of the Xi’an Incident. But the circumstances of Chiang’s release left behind an “historical regret”. During the peace talks Chiang Kai-shek and T. V. Soong agreed to the six conditions, a precondition for Chiang’s release. Soong May-ling said she and Chiang were both Christians, and demanded Chiang be released to Nanjing on Christmas Day. Zhang Xueliang agreed and said that as an expression of apology for his action, he would personally escort Chiang to Nanjing by plane. When Zhou Enlai learnt of this, he rushed to the airport to dissuade Zhang, but sadly the plane had already taken off. As soon as it landed in Nanjing, Zhang was detained and sent to a military tribunal. Later Zhang was put under house arrest for several decades. Yang Hucheng’s fate was even more wretched. Three months later, he was forced to resign and “go abroad for investigation.” After the outbreak of the War of Resistance Against Japan, Yang re252

Chapter 10

Zhang Xueliang and Yang Hucheng Capture Chiang in the Xi’an Incident; Zhang Wentian and Mao Zedong Mediate for a United Front between KMT and CPC against Japanese Aggression

turned to China and volunteered to fight Japan, but Chiang put him in prison. In 1949 before Chiang fled for Taiwan, Yang, his wife and children were killed in a Chongqing prison by KMT agents. Zhang Xueliang and Yang Hucheng initiated the Xi’an Incident regardless of their personal safety and honor; their enormous sacrifices did see good results. The KMT stopped suppressing the CPC and ceased the civil war, enabling the whole nation to unite against Japan. It was a noble deed praised far and wide. After the peaceful settlement of the Xi’an Incident, the two parties began negotiations. Zhou Enlai and other CPC representatives went to Xi’an, Hangzhou, Lushan, Nanjing and other places to negotiate with Chiang and his representatives. For the sake of the overall national interest, the CPC made concessions on many issues, but not on the independence of CPC organizations or the autonomy of the Red Army and the Shaanxi-GansuNingxia Border Region. For example, it acknowledged the unified leadership of the Nationalist Government; stopped armed rebellions against the Nationalist Government; changed the workers’ and peasants’ government in the Shaanxi-Gansu-Ningxia Border Region and other areas into the Special Area Government of the Republic of China; reorganized the Red Army into the National Revolutionary Army which accepted the directions of the Nanjing Government and its National Military Council; stopped the land reform in the Special Area in which land was confiscated from landlords; and adopted a democratic system of direct general election. The CPC’s concessions led to better results during the CPC-KMT talks at one time. However, Chiang Kaishek went back on his word, repudiating conditions and commitments that the KMT had agreed on during the talks. As a result, the peace talks stalled and agreement was postponed. On July 7, 1937, Japan provoked the Lugou Bridge (Marco Polo Bridge) Incident, launching an all-out war of invasion. One month later, the Japanese Army went beyond the International Settlement in Shanghai and opened fire on the Chinese garrison, provoking the Battle of Shanghai with KMT troops. And the flames of war spread to the heartland area of the Nanjing Government. Now Chiang Kai-shek realized the inevitability of a full-scale war and that the Red Army was needed at the frontline to fight the Japanese Army. For 253

Socialism in China

this reason, the stalled CPC-KMT negotiations resumed. The Nanjing Government reorganized the Northwest Red Army into the Eighth Route Army (later renamed the 18th Group Army) of the National Revolutionary Army, and ordered it to march to the frontline in North China and other battlefields and fight the Japanese Army. Later, the Nanjing Government agreed to reorganize the Red Army guerrillas in regions south of the lower reaches of the Yangtze River into the New Fourth Army. The KMT Central News Agency published for the first time the “Declaration of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China on the CPC-KMT Cooperation”; while Chiang delivered a special speech acknowledging the CPC’s legal status and expressed his sincerity to unite with the CPC for resistance against Japan and national salvation. This was the point at which the national united front against Japan came into being officially; the CPC and KMT joined hands for the second time to fight against Japanese invaders. With effective support from the international anti-fascist front, the Chinese people fought bloody battles for eight years, paid a heavy price, and finally emerged victorious in the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression. As this poem says, Zhang and Yang launched a seismic incident, The Red Army showed open mind and great ambition. Joining hands again to save a nation in peril The CPC and KMT united their efforts to resist the enemy. ᅮဟၴऐ࣡็ׁĭ ޫळ࣌ИВᄑཫh ຺ຯ‫ܓݛ‬ᄤ৻൵ĭ ᇡᇅӶӴॎֹᡧh To know what happened during the Anti-Japanese War, you must turn to the next chapter.

254

Chapter 11

A Whole Nation United as One to Resist Japanese Aggression; the CPC Wins Wide Respect for Defending National Unity

In the last chapter we learned about the Xi’an Incident in which Zhang Xueliang and Yang Hucheng took Chiang Kai-shek prisoner so as to force him into leading China into a war of national resistance against Japanese invasion. In the interests of the common good, the CPC helped to bring about a peaceful resolution of the incident. After many negotiations, the KMT and the CPC reached an agreement in the wake of the cannon shelling at Lugou Bridge in the July 7 Incident and the August 13 Shanghai Incident. For a second time the two parties joined hands, and formed a national united front against Japanese aggression. They jointly shouldered the weighty task of leading China’s anti-Japanese war, symbolizing a new stage in a nationwide war of resistance. Politically, the war between China and Japan was one between justice and injustice. It is an eternal truth that being just brings generous support while being unjust finds scant help; ultimately justice will win. However, in terms of national and military strength, this war was not a match of equals. In 1937, Japan’s industry rivaled that of advanced countries like the UK and the United States, far surpassing China’s. Its industrial output was 4.4 times that of China, and its output of steel, copper, oil and coal exceeded China’s by 145, 124, 129 and 1.9 times respectively. In terms of military industrial manufacturing capability, in 1937, Japan manufactured 1,580 airplanes, 744 large-caliber cannons and 330 tanks, and had a ship-building capability of over half a million tons. China, by contrast, produced only light weapons domestically and had to purchase warships, airplanes, tanks and cannons from abroad. In military force, Japan had a 380,000-strong standing army and 6.74 million reserves. In 255

Socialism in China

addition, it had 4.48 million personnel that could be mobilized. Despite having a combined force of 2.1 million, China had no such channels, mechanisms or preparations for mobilizing off-duty or reserve military personnel, and had a large weapons gap compared with Japan. The contrast in naval and air force capability was even greater. The Japanese navy had 290 ships and boats with a gross tonnage of 1.9 million, while China had only 66 naval vessels, old and new, with a gross tonnage under 60,000. Japan possessed 2,700 airplanes as compared to China’s 600, only 305 of which were combat planes. The huge economic and military gap put China at an obvious disadvantage. Economic and military strength are important, but not the sole factors in achieving military victory. The nature of war, strength of the people, government organization and military strategies and tactics are also critical to winning a war. Right from the outset of the war the CPC and the KMT and its government held different views about how to address Japan’s comprehensive aggression, resulting in approaches to resistance that were poles apart. The KMT and its government put forward and implemented a partial antiJapanese line, adhered to single-party (KMT) rule, and relied solely on the government and its army to wage the war. They spinelessly shrank from mobilizing and organizing the people to take up arms; instead they feared and limited every aspect of civilian participation in combat. The CPC, on the other hand, advocated an all-embracing resistance line, mobilizing all patriotic parties, armed forces and civilians, organizing all groups to fight against Japanese aggression and win a final victory. This line was formally drafted and determined at the Luochuan Meeting. On August 22, 1937, the same day as the announcement by the government that the Red Army was to be integrated as the Eighth Route Army under the agreement reached between the KMT and the CPC, the CPC Central Committee held an expanded three-day Political Bureau meeting at a private school in Fengjia Village in Luochuan County, Shaanxi Province. The meeting studied and formulated guidelines and policies at this timely and historic juncture, and clearly put forward the strategy and military principles for launching and organizing the all-embracing resistance line. More than 20 Political Bureau members and senior Red Army generals attended this meeting, chaired by Zhang Wentian. Entrusted by the Political 256

Chapter 11

A Whole Nation United as One to Resist Japanese Aggression; the CPC Wins Wide Respect for Defending National Unity

Site of the Luochuan Meeting

Bureau, Mao Zedong gave a report detailing issues concerning the current military and political situation, the strategic objectives and combat principles of the Red Army, methods for handling the relationship between the KMT and the CPC, and an active push for building a national united front. In his report, Mao Zedong, on behalf of the Party Central Committee, put forward a strategy to mobilize all people and launch a comprehensive resistance, pointing out: “China’s War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression will be tough and protracted. The key to the victory lies in developing the existing resistance into a nationwide one, and mobilizing every possible force to win.” He sharply criticized the KMT for its partial anti-Japanese line, maintaining single-party rule, relying solely on the government and army, rejecting other fundamental policies beneficial to the resistance cause, refusing to grant necessary democracy and freedom to the people, and fearing and obstructing the development of the people’s forces in the war at the critical moment when the country was on the verge of being conquered. After heated discussions, the meeting passed the “Central Committee’s Decisions Regarding the Current Situation and the Party’s Tasks” (the Decisions) 257

Socialism in China

and the “Ten Guiding Principles for Resisting Japan and Saving the Nation” drafted by Zhang Wentian. The Decisions declared that China’s War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression would be a tough and protracted one, and that the key to victory was to organize a national war involving all society. They defined the Party’s focus as: to freely stage mountain guerrilla attacks in war zones and in particular behind enemy lines, to ensure guerrilla warfare complemented frontal battlefields; to open battlefields behind enemy lines and establish resistance bases there; to mobilize people in all KMT-controlled areas to join the war effort, to unite them and to struggle for people’s political and economic rights; to change the land reform policy of the domestic revolutionary war period (cracking down on landlords and distributing their land) to a basic policy for the duration of the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression (reducing rents and interest rates to resolve farmers’ burdens). The Decisions called upon Party members, people of CPC-controlled areas and armed forces to play active roles at the forefront of the struggle, to become the core of the national war of resistance, and to actively develop people’s campaigns against Japanese aggression. The meeting discussed and passed the “Ten Guiding Principles for Resisting Japan and Saving the Nation,” proposed by Mao Zedong on behalf of the Central Committee. These were as follows: One: overthrow Japanese imperialism: sever relations with Japan, abolish treaties with Japan, and drive Japanese imperialists out of China. Two, nationwide military mobilization: mobilize land, sea and air forces to launch a nationwide war of resistance; arm the people, develop guerrilla warfare in conjunction with the main army operations; and give equal treatment to all anti-Japan forces. Three: nationwide civilian mobilization: mobilize and arm the Chinese people to participate in the anti-Japanese war; contribute everything to the war – personnel, money, weapons and knowledge; release all patriotic, revolutionary and political prisoners; and lift the ban on political parties. Four: reform of political institutions: convene a national congress that really represents the people, pass a truly democratic constitution, decide on anti-Japanese and nation-saving principles, and elect a government of national defense. 258

Chapter 11

A Whole Nation United as One to Resist Japanese Aggression; the CPC Wins Wide Respect for Defending National Unity

Five: anti-Japanese diplomacy: sign anti-aggression alliances and anti-Japanese military mutual aid agreements with all other countries in a manner that does not sacrifice sovereignty; uphold the international peace principle; and oppose German, Japanese and Italian aggression. Six: wartime fiscal and economic policies: donate money wherever possible, confiscate traitors’ property to fund the resistance effort, adjust and expand defense production, promote domestic products, and clamp down on dishonest businesspeople. Seven: improve people’s livelihood: abolish exorbitant taxes and levies, reduce rents and interest, help the unemployed, and provide disaster relief. Eight: anti-Japan education policy: implement new systems and curricula with the goal of resisting Japan and saving the nation, carry out the universal compulsory education, and give military training to students nationwide. Nine: ferret out and punish traitors, collaborators and pro-Japanese elements, and consolidate rear areas. Ten: uphold national unity for the anti-Japan effort: on the foundation of KMT-CPC cooperation, build a national united anti-Japan front from the different parties, factions, communities and armies, to lead the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression, and move jointly to save the nation through unity. This guideline redefined the CPC’s political principles during the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression, fully elaborating the basic political proposition of resistance to Japan from across society, and indicating the direction to victory. At the Luochuan Meeting, Zhang Wentian, Mao Zedong and others clearly set forth that Party members must adhere to the independence principle of the united front, draw a lesson from the failure of the Great Revolution of 1927, stay alert for possible sudden attacks by the KMT, and maintain the political and organizational independence of Party organizations and the Red Army. Senior Party and military officials reached general agreement on those issues. To strengthen military work and coordinate anti-Japanese military operations by the Eighth Route Army, New Fourth Army and local armed troops, the Luochuan Meeting decided to boost the strength of the Central Military 259

Socialism in China

Commission by making Mao Zedong chairman, Zhou Enlai and Zhu De vice-chairmen, with Peng Dehuai, Ren Bishi, Ye Jianying, Zhang Hao, He Long, Liu Bocheng, Xu Xiangqian and Lin Biao as members. Immediately after the meeting concluded, Mao Zedong, Zhu De and Zhou Enlai issued orders in the name of the CPC Central Military Commission, announcing that the Red Army would be renamed the Eighth Route Army of the National Revolutionary Ar my of the Zhu De and Peng Dehuai in the headquarters of the Eighth Route Army in Wuxiang, Shaanxi Province

Republic of China (in September, reorganized as the 18th

Army Group under the National Government Order, and abbreviated later as the Eighth Route Army), with Zhu De as general commander, Peng Dehuai as deputy commander, Ren Bishi as director of political department, Deng Xiaoping as deputy director, Ye Jianying as chief of staff and Zuo Quan as deputy chief of staff. The entire army of 46,000 consisted of three divisions – the 115th, the 120th and the 129th, with troops primarily coming from the First, Second and Fourth Red Armies. A month later, in line with the agreement, the CPC Central Committee reorganized more than 10,000 Red Army troops and guerrillas from the 14 bases in eight southern provinces following the Long March, as the New Fourth Army of the National Revolutionary Army (abbreviated as the New Fourth Army). Its commander was Ye Ting, and its deputy commander was Xiang Ying. At that time, the KMT and CPC had agreed on a division of roles in resisting Japanese aggression: the KMT would be responsible for frontal battles to repel Japanese invaders, while the CPC-led Eighth Route Army and New 260

Chapter 11

A Whole Nation United as One to Resist Japanese Aggression; the CPC Wins Wide Respect for Defending National Unity

Fourth Army would serve as strategic guerrillas to launch side operations, assisting the KMT troops by distracting Japanese armies, pinning them down and eliminating groups of them whenever possible. This division was based on the strength and conditions of the two parties at the beginning of the war. The KMT was then in power, capable of mobilizing various resources for the war, possessing over 4 million troops as well as light and heavy weapons and equipment; the CPC, on the other hand, was a non-ruling party that had only just won legal status, and faced more difficult conditions than the KMT. It had only 50,000 or 60,000 troops and a small number of light weapons, no cannons, let alone airplanes or warships. Obviously, the CPC-led troops, unable to fight against the Japanese in front battlefields, could only use guerrilla warfare, skillfully picking its fights with the enemy, achieving small victories to culminate in big ones. As a result, during the war of resistance, the KMT troops fought on the battlefronts and the CPC behind enemy lines. The two parties’ troops formed a joint strategic posture against the Japanese and a unified Chinese battlefield. The Eighth Route Army and the New Fourth Army rapidly assumed their positions according to the agreed division of work. The Eighth Route Army’s three divisions immediately set out from the Sanyuan and Fuping areas of Shaanxi Province and crossed the Yellow River toward the front; between August and September they entered the Wutai Mountains, Northwest Shanxi and Taihang Mountain areas. They launched guerrilla warfare, mobilized people to resist Japanese invaders and established the Jinchaji, Jinxibei and Southeast Shanxi bases. The three bases could help each other, besieging or threatening major transport lines and key cities in Japanese-occupied North China. On September 25, the Eighth Route Army selected an advantageous position at Pingxinguan in Northeast Shanxi and ambushed the supplies battalion of the 2nd brigade of the Japanese Sakagaki division, wiping out more than 1,000 soldiers. This was the first big victory in the Chinese army’s War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression, and boosted the confidence of Chinese soldiers and civilians alike throughout the country. Afterwards, the Eighth Route Army harassed and damaged Japanese transport lines and airports in the battles of Xikou and Niangziguan, Shanxi Province, and helped the KMT troops kill 261

Socialism in China

more than 20,000 Japanese soldiers. The Eighth Route Army was hailed for its resolute, brave operations against the Japanese enemy. In the spring of 1938, to implement its plan for the Battle of Xuzhou, the Japanese army sent its main North China force south. The CPC Central Committee and the Military Commission took this opportunity to spread the Eighth Route Army troops from the mountain base areas to the North China plains, educating, organizing and arming civilians, and building anti-Japanese base areas in Jiluyu (Hebei, Shandong and Henan), Jilubian (border areas of Hebei and Shandong), Jizhong (Central Hebei), Jidong (East Hebei) and Daqingshan. The Eighth Route Army used methods such as tunnel warfare, mine warfare and armed working teams appropriate to the plains areas, to wage guerrilla warfare. The New Fourth Army also established guerrilla bases centered on Maoshan in southern Jiangsu. By the end of 1938, the Eighth Route Army and the New Fourth Army had killed over 54,000 enemy troops in more than 1,600 combat missions. The Eighth Route Army had grown into a force of over 156,000 soldiers, while the New Fourth Army was more than 25,000 strong. Together they established 24 bases across China and led the people’s guerrilla war, effectively weakening the Japanese army, providing side support to KMT battlefront operations and hobbling the Japanese strategic offense. Meanwhile, the KMT troops heroically resisted Japanese attacks on the battlefronts of North, East and Central China. They organized and launched a series of battles in Songhu (Shanghai), Xikou, Xuzhou, Wuhan, Nanchang, Suizao, and Changsha, inflicting heavy blows on the Japanese invaders. In the North China theater, the Japanese army massed some 200,000 elite troops, launching attacks along Pingsui, Pinghan and Jinpu railway lines. Despite fierce fighting, the KMT troops were unable to repulse the Japanese onslaught and had to retreat. Within just three months, the Japanese army captured most of the cities in Hebei, Chahar, Shandong, Henan and other provinces, attacking Shanxi from north and east. The KMT army put up a heavy defense, beginning the fiercest of the North China battles, but finally Taiyuan fell to the enemy, leaving most of North China under Japanese occupation. The KMT government regarded the East China battlefront as its strategic focus, and concentrated its heaviest defenses in this theater of war. The 262

Chapter 11

A Whole Nation United as One to Resist Japanese Aggression; the CPC Wins Wide Respect for Defending National Unity

Japanese continued to pour troops in and this finally evolved into the huge Battle of Shanghai. From the August 13 Incident up to November 12, on which Shanghai fell, the Japanese army mobilized more than 200,000 troops within three months, and suffered 40,000 casualties. The Chinese army poured in more than 700,000 troops, and sustained 250,000 casualties. Afterwards, the Japanese army took Nanjing, where its soldiers went on a six-week long rampage of pillage, killing and rape, killing more than 300,000 Chinese civilians and disarmed soldiers. This was the Nanjing Massacre that left the world aghast. In the Central China theater, Japanese and Chinese troops fought a series of battles over the region between the Yellow River and Huaihe River, centered on Xuzhou. On May 19, 1938, KMT troops abandoned Xuzhou after suffering nearly 200,000 casualties and killing or injuring over 30,000 Japanese. Of those battles, the battle of Tai’erzhuang was the most intense and the most important victory in a single battle in the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression: more than 10,000 Japanese soldiers were killed at the cost of over 20,000 KMT lives. Having taken Xuzhou, the Japanese army mobilized a force of 300 airplanes and 120 warships and boats, and 250,000 men to besiege Wuhan, in an effort to inflict a decisive defeat on the KMT’s million-strong defense troops.

KMT troops using heavy machine guns to fight Japanese invaders in Tai’erzhuang

263

Socialism in China

Reeling under so many failures and the losses of major cities, some Chinese became fearful and impatient, giving rise to two schools of thought: the “national subjugation argument” and “rapid victory argument.” Subscribers to the first believed that China’s inferiority in troops, weapons and economic strength would ultimately lead to subjugation of the entire country and favored a compromise with Japan. Subscribers to the second idea envisioned a change in the international situation in which the allies would send troops to help China defeat Japan rapidly, or counted on the KMT 2-million-strong regular army soon winning a final battle with Japan. Mao Zedong feared that both theories would affect military and civilian morale and therefore interfere with the war of resistance. He thought it necessary to clarify the two theories for his countrymen and instill firm faith in ultimate victory among both Chinese soldiers and civilians. In the Wu family’s cave-dwelling on the side of Fenghuang Mountain in Yan’an, Mao Zedong began to write On Protracted War. During the day, he attended meetings, dealt with telegrams and official documents, gathered generals to discuss the war situation and strategies, and commanded the Eighth Route Army and the New Fourth Army. In the evenings, he stayed put and by the light of two candles continued his writing, basing it on his past research and the collective wisdom of generals and soldiers. Mao was systemically summarizing and elaborating on the concept of a protracted war. He had proposed this notion as early as July 1936 in an interview with U.S. journalist Edgar Snow. In July 1937, Zhu De put out an article entitled “Implementing War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression,” noting that the “Chinese war of resistance would be a protracted and tough one.” In August, at a military meeting of the National Government, Zhu De and Zhou Enlai proposed that “the war of resistance for the entire country should follow a protracted defensive strategy.” The Political Bureau’s Luochuan Meeting passed a decision stating that “we should see this war as a tough protracted one.” After this meeting, Zhang Wentian, Zhou Enlai, Liu Shaoqi, Peng Dehuai and others wrote articles on protracted war and its strategies and tactics. Chiang Kai-shek, Jiang Baili and other KMT members also put forward such slogans as “a protracted war of attrition,” and “trading time for space.” 264

Chapter 11

A Whole Nation United as One to Resist Japanese Aggression; the CPC Wins Wide Respect for Defending National Unity

During the first two days, Mao Zedong worked through the night without sleep. He objectively analyzed the theories of national subjugation and a rapid victory, assessing the strengths and weaknesses, characteristics and nature of the war between China and Japan, demonstrating that the war would be a protracted one and won finally by China. He observed that the war was one of life or death between semi-colonial and semi-feudal China and imperialist Japan. The strength of Japan lay in its war power, while its weaknesses were the retrogressive and barbarous nature of this war that led to its loss of international support, as well as its being a small country with manpower and material inadequate to sustain a long-term war. China’s weaknesses lay in its weak war power, hardly a rival for the enemy in terms of military, economic and political strength, while its strengths were its progressiveness and the just nature of its war. Being a big country, China could sustain the war from its vast land, abundant produce, huge population and numerous soldiers, winning support from the international community. These characteristics decided the political policies and military strategies and tactics on both sides, the protracted nature of the war and China’s ultimate victory over Japan. On the third and fourth evenings, Mao Zedong predicted in his draft that the Sino-Japanese war would evolve through three phases: phase one was the enemy’s strategic offense and China’s strategic defense; phase two was the enemy’s strategic defense and China’s prepared counterattack; phase three was China’s strategic counterattack and the enemy’s strategic retreat. The course of the Sino-Japanese war, with China shifting from defense to stalemate to counterattack, and Japan from attack to defense to retreat, was inevitable. On the eighth evening, Mao Zedong wrote and wrote until he felt a sudden pain on his right foot. He looked down only to see one of his slippers had caught fire from the charcoals in the brazier. He hurriedly took it off and slapped it on the floor. Having extinguished the fire, he continued writing: “The richest source of power to wage war lies in the masses of the people. It is mainly because of the unorganized state of the Chinese masses that Japan dares to bully us. When this defect is remedied, then the Japanese aggressor, like a mad bull crashing into a ring of flames, will be surrounded by hundreds of millions of our people standing upright, the mere sound of their voices will strike terror into him, and he will be burned to death.” “The troops should 265

Socialism in China

establish close ties with the people, so that they are regarded as the people’s troops. This kind of army would be invincible. There are too few Japanese imperialists to defeat us.” On the ninth day, Mao Zedong finally finished this lecture draft of nearly 50,000 characters. Beginning on May 28, he gave a series of lectures over six successive days entitled “On Protracted War” at the Yan’an War Seminar. Thunderous applause interrupted his delivery many times. Later, these lectures were compiled into an article, published in newspapers in Yan’an and beyond, and translated into English and issued overseas in a separate edition. This world-shaking article also interested the KMT’s military and political leaders. Bai Chongxi, a senior KMT general with the laudatory nickname Little Zhuge (a reference to the renowned and wily strategist Zhuge Liang of the Three Kingdoms Period in the second century AD), received a copy from Zhou Enlai. He read it at a single sitting, commented favorably on it and recommended it to Chiang Kai-shek. When U.S. General Stilwell read it, he regarded it as an excellent textbook. Within a year of the resistance war starting, at a tough and critical moment, Mao Zedong’s article convincingly addressed the issues concerning the destiny of the anti-Japanese war, significantly boosted the Chinese people’s confidence of defeating Japanese aggressors, and raising the morale of Chinese generals and soldiers on the battlefront. During this period, Wang Ming returned to China and, as a result, understanding of the anti-Japanese war among Party members experienced some setbacks. In November 1937, Wang Ming returned from the Soviet Union, carrying instructions from Stalin and the Comintern. On reaching Yan’an, at a meeting of the Political Bureau meeting he criticized the Central Committee for having put too much emphasis on independence since the Luochuan Meeting; they had failed to keep to the principles and methods required by the instruction that “everything goes through and follows the united front”; they should not waste words on who should lead the national united front, emphasizing that the KMT and the CPC had “joint responsibility and joint leadership.” 266

Chapter 11

A Whole Nation United as One to Resist Japanese Aggression; the CPC Wins Wide Respect for Defending National Unity

Wang Ming’s insistence that “everything goes through and follows the united front” was not completely his own idea, but influenced by Georgi Dimitrov, general secretary of the Comintern. On August 10, 1937, the executive secretariat of the Comintern discussed China’s anti-Japanese war situation and the CPC objectives. Dimitrov said, “The CPC faces a 180-degree turn in its policy and strategy. The Chinese war of resistance should rely on the Chiang-led KMT. The CPC should strive to promote nationwide solidarity on the basis of the KMT government, should not mention the issue “who leads whom,” and should apply the experience of the French Communist Party of “everything following and going through the united front” to achieve joint responsibility and leadership. Dimitrov’s view clearly was not right for China’s situation. Since at that time China had not set up a concrete organizational form when establishing the united front, this socalled principle meant in effect that everything was subordinated to Chiang Kai-shek and the KMT government. Moreover it abandoned the principle of CPC autonomy within the united front and was unhelpful in establishing and strengthening it. At this Political Bureau meeting, Wang Ming was added as secretary of the CPC Secretariat and served as secretary of the CPC Yangtze Bureau. After the meeting, Wang Ming went to Wuhan to see Chiang Kai-shek, talking about his own views and those of the Comintern. Flouting the CPC Central Committee’s demand that he return to Yan’an immediately after meeting Chiang Kaishek, Wang Ming stayed on in Wuhan, publishing articles and giving lectures, spreading the political view that everything should go through the national united front and “follow Chiang Kai-shek’s unified command.” He even took the liberty of issuing declarations and statements on behalf of the CPC Central Committee, without its authorization. Wang Ming’s speeches at senior Party meetings and articles and lectures in the KMT-ruled areas appeared under the byline of a “senior Comintern envoy,” so it was impossible to distinguish what were Stalin’s instructions and those of the Soviet Communist Party and the Comintern and what were Wang’s own views. His instructions and speeches caused confusion and divergence among the Party and civilians concerning the issue of a united front. The CPC Central Committee decided to send Ren Bishi to re267

Socialism in China

port to the Comintern to help the Soviet Communist Party fully understand China’s anti-Japanese war situation and the CPC’s philosophy, principles and policies. Between July and August 1938, Wang Jiaxiang, the CPC resident representative to the Comintern, brought back to Yan’an new instructions from the Comintern to the CPC, based on what Comintern members had heard in reports from Ren Bishi, Liu Yalou and others. At the Political Bureau meeting, Wang Jiaxiang conveyed the Comintern’s affirmation that the CPC Central Committee was following the correct political line and truly applying Marxist and Leninist instructions under complex and difficult conditions. He brought back a special instruction that Dimitrov had given when seeing him off: “Members inside the CPC Central Committee should support Mao Zedong’s leadership and form close ties and unity … Mao Zedong is the leader who has emerged from the practical struggle, while Wang Ming lacks work experience and should not contend for leadership.” Dimitrov’s instruction signaled a new attitude on the part of Stalin and the Comintern toward candidates for Party leadership. Prior to this, leaders of the Soviet Union and the Comintern had carefully cultivated Wang Ming, appointing him as general secretary of the CPC Central Committee. Why had these two authoritative organizations changed their attitude? This remained a puzzle until the 1980s when a document from the Russian State Archive of Socio-Political History was declassified. In an official report, the Comintern Executive Committee had informed the organization’s leadership that Wang Ming’s work and actions were suspect. He had presented false figures to the 17th Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, to the Comintern Executive Committee and to its congress. The report recommended that Wang Ming not be given a significant leadership position. Wang Ming’s speeches and articles in the Soviet Union, favoring the killing of Chiang Kai-shek during the Xi’an Incident, had added to Stalin’s dissatisfaction. These new instructions conveyed by Wang Jiaxiang were quite different from those Wang Ming had brought back from the Comintern. They played a significant role in unifying the understanding in the Party, removing the influence of Wang Ming’s erroneous ideas, adhering to the CPC Central Committee’s political approach to the founding and consolidation of the national 268

Chapter 11

A Whole Nation United as One to Resist Japanese Aggression; the CPC Wins Wide Respect for Defending National Unity

united front and related principles and policies, and establishing Mao Zedong’s leadership inside the Party. Mao Zedong’s speech at this Political Bureau meeting elaborated on the dialectic relationship between unity and struggle inside the united front: “Inside the united front, unity is the basic principle. It should be practiced in every place and in all work, and should not be forgotten anytime or anywhere. Meanwhile, the principle of unity should be supplemented by that of struggle, because struggle aims for unity; without struggle the united front cannot be developed and consolidated.” Just as Mao Zedong had predicted, after a year or more of war, Japan was showing weaknesses in manpower, supplies and finances. After taking Guangzhou and Wuhan, the Japanese army decreased its attacks, thus leading the war to strategic stalemate. The Japanese army stopped large-scale attacks on China’s battlefronts, and focused its policy on political enticements to bring about surrender. Supplementing this with military attacks, the Japanese used such strategies as “using Chinese to deal with Chinese,” and “using war to raise war,” and tried to cultivate a puppet regime of Chinese traitors. A major success for the Japanese was inciting the open defection of the pro-Japanese elements led by Wang Jingwei, KMT Vice President, Chairman of the Standing Committee of the National Government, and National Assembly Speaker and establishing a puppet government. Serving the Japanese imperialist plot, the Wang Jingwei clique convened the so-called sixth KMT congress in Shanghai on August 1939, setting up a pseudo central committee. It signed a secret treaty with Japan to betray China. In March 1940, it established a collaborationist government in Nanjing, and a puppet army of traitors working for and commanded by the Japanese aggressors. An already serious war situation was made even more difficult by the betrayal of the Wang Jingwei clique. During the same period, war broke out in Europe. Germany invaded Poland and proceeded to conquer half of Europe in blitzkrieg offenses, forcing the allies led by Britain and France to retreat. In this international context, the Japanese invaders became even more arrogant, causing pessimistic sentiment to rise in KMT political circles, favoring compromise and even surrender. 269

Socialism in China

The Eighth Route Army headquarters, having got approval from the CPC Central Military Commission and reported to the National Government, fought the “Hundred Regiments Offensive” in North China from August to December 1940. The aim was to reverse the critical war situation, strike at the Japanese invaders’ arrogance, counterattack the act of surrender and betrayal, and encourage nationwide anti-Japanese struggle. Commanding 105 regiments with 200,000 troops, Peng Dehuai and other generals fiercely attacked the Japanese and puppet Chinese army along railways and roads in North China,

Peng Dehuai commanding the “Hundred Regiments Offensive” at the battlefront

aiming to destroy Japanese transport lines and launch a war of attrition. In three and a half months, the Eighth Route Army, with the support of local guerrillas and civilians, engaged in 1,824 battles, took 2,993 Japanese and puppet Chinese army redoubts, destroyed 474 km of railways, 1,502 km of roads, and damaged 258 bridges, tunnels and railway stations. They killed or injured 20,645 Japanese troops and 5,155 puppet army soldiers, captured 281 Japanese soldiers and 18,407 puppet army soldiers, causing total casualties of 44,000 Japanese and puppet army soldiers. The campaign seized a great number of guns and ammunition, including light and heavy weapons, and suffered more than 22,000 casualties. The Hundred Regiments Offensive showed the high combat capability of the Eighth Route Army and the bravery of the CPC; it was a strong riposte to slanders from KMT diehards that the CPC-led Eighth Route Army avoided engagements with the enemy. This campaign dealt a heavy blow to the Japanese army, which called it “The Battle of Anguish” and set August 20 as a day 270

Chapter 11

A Whole Nation United as One to Resist Japanese Aggression; the CPC Wins Wide Respect for Defending National Unity

of memorial. The offensive also led the Japanese ground army headquarters to replace its North China general commander. Moreover, it pinned down the Japanese army in the North China theater, lessening Japanese pressure on the KMT battlefronts and reining in inclination among some KMT members toward surrender and compromise. But the downside of the Offensive’s success was that it revealed to the Japanese army and the KMT the strength of the CPC and its Eighth Route Army too early. Hideki Tojo, head of the Japanese imperial army, sighed: “In 1940, the main KMT force did not launch counterattacks; only the Communist Party started a large scale confrontation in North China.” The Japanese army therefore could no longer neglect the Eighth Route Army. It mobilized a large number of troops to attack it and swept North China with the cruel policy of “kill all, burn all, and destroy all” in those areas containing antiJapanese forces. Although Chiang Kai-shek issued orders to commend the Eighth Route Army, this was for the sake of appearances: inside he feared the growing power of this army. He was bedeviled by fear of and opposition to the Communist Party, putting first single-party interests and pacifying the domestic situation before resisting foreign aggression. Although for two years before the offensive, Chiang had been uneasy about the CPC, but had put aside his deep concerns in the wake of the Xi’an and the Lugou Bridge Incidents. Entries in Chiang Kai-shek’s diary between 1938 and early 1939 state quite explicitly: “The CPC is taking the opportunity to expand its force, which is actually a latent worry.” “The present headache lies not with the enemy,” but “with the CPC plotting to expand everywhere.” “Only when we take practical measures can we remove this worry.” Objectively speaking, in those two or three years, the KMT and the CPC both wished to gain strength and increase the area under their control, and this inevitably led to conflicts. The Right-wingers in the KMT gained ground, continuously stirring up trouble for the CPC, and exacerbating friction between the two sides. In January 1939, at its Sixth Plenary Session of the Fifth National Congress, the KMT decided to limit the CPC’s activities, formulating a policy of “dissolving, guarding against and constraining the CPC” to replace the policy of political accommodation agreed in discussions during the Xi’an Incident. From the winter of 1939 to 1940, frequent military conflicts occurred between KMT 271

Socialism in China

forces and the Eighth Route Army in places such as Shaanxi-Gansu-Ningxia Border Region and Shandong, Shanxi, Hebei, Henan and Hubei provinces. Mao Zedong and other Central Committee leaders remembered the painful lesson from the failure of the First Great Revolution, realizing that by stressing unity with the KMT and the constantly retreating KMT would constantly want more and this would never resolve the problem. They organized the Eighth Route Army’s counterattacks, but once KMT attacks had been repelled they stopped the military action. Through negotiations the CPC demarcated its own defense territory with the KMT, striving to maintain cooperation despite the struggle between them. In light of the complex situation and ongoing problems in the antiJapanese-aggression cooperation, on March 11, 1943, at a meeting for senior CPC officials in Yan’an, Mao Zedong gave a report entitled “Current Issues Concerning the Strategies of the Anti-Japanese United Front,” elaborating on the dialectic between unity and struggle. He said, “During the period of antiJapanese united front, struggle is the means to achieve unity while unity is the goal of struggle. Using struggle to seek unity can sustain it, whereas making concessions to win unity would lose it.” “Fighting against the diehards means defending against their attacks so as to prevent any losses of progressive forces and to continue their development. It also means prolonging their time in the anti-Japanese struggle and maintaining our cooperation with them and thereby preventing a civil war.” Mao Zedong put forward three principles in fighting with the KMT diehards: First, the self-defense principle: Those who do not attack shall not be attacked. Those who do attack will be attacked in return. Second, the victory principle: We will not fight unless we are sure of victory. Third, the truce principle: We cannot fight without limit and keep on fighting every hour of every day; we shall not become blinded by victories. These principles could be boiled down to waging struggle “with good reason, with advantage and with restraint.” These ideas expressed by Mao Zedong enriched the theories of the CPC united front. However, a leopard cannot change its spots. Similarly, the Chiang Kai-shek clique, despite being faced by a strong enemy and a nation in peril, persisted in making its priority limiting the expansion of CPC troops and its controlled areas. In July 1940, the KMT put forward a “Reminding Note of the Cen272

Chapter 11

A Whole Nation United as One to Resist Japanese Aggression; the CPC Wins Wide Respect for Defending National Unity

tral Committee,” requiring the CPC to dissolve the Shaanxi-Gansu-Ningxia Border Region and reduce the size of the Eighth Route Army and the New Fourth Army from half a million to 100,000 men. It ordered the two armies to withdraw to areas north of the Yellow River and to concentrate in Hebei and Chahar provinces, northwestern Shandong, and northern Shanxi to receive the command of Yan Xishan, Commander of the Second Battle Region. Meanwhile, the Military Orders Department of the National Government secretly ordered KMT troops to prepare to attack the New Fourth Army in areas north and south of the Yangtze River. In order to maintain anti-Japanese unity, the CPC Central Committee agreed to move the New Fourth Army and its headquarters in the south of Anhui Province to regions north of the Yangtze River. However, drawing lessons from the Incidents of April 12 and July 15, 1927, the CPC Central Committee issued an internal Party document “On Instructions for Opposing Surrender and Saving the Current Political Situation,” requiring the Party to mobilize and prepare its members to handle whatever serious anti-Communist attack might come from KMT diehards, and to organize Party organizations in KMT-controlled areas to take cover in orderly manner as a precaution against sudden attack, and to make adequate preparations for possible attacks from the KMT diehards who were deadly against Communists. After many negotiation sessions, the KMT and the CPC decided on a northern route for the New Fourth Army. As it moved northward, the New Fourth Army found that places ahead were heavily guarded by the Japanese army and that to go forward would be to put their head into a noose. Considering this, Xiang Ying feared that the KMT’s alternative route might be unsafe and lead into a trap, so he pursued another route north without informing the KMT’s stationed army. The upshot was that KMT hardliners used this as a pretext to deploy seven divisions – more than 80,000 troops – in Maolin, Jingxian County, southern Anhui Province, to ambush the passing New Fourth Army. The New Fourth Army fought for seven days and nights, but were outnumbered and out of supplies and ammunition: the very existence of the entire army stood in the balance. To save the remaining troops, Ye Ting, commander of the New Fourth Army, wrote an outraged letter to the KMT army commander Shangguan Yunxiang, lambasting him for treachery, and 273

Socialism in China

proposing a meeting to resolve the conflict. Shangguan Yunxiang responded positively but when Ye Ting arrived, Shangguan detained him. Under Chiang Kai-shek’s secret order to “take Ye Ting and Xiang Ying alive,” the KMT army launched a general offensive on the New Fourth Army. Of the 9,000 Communist troops just over 2,000 soldiers led by Fu Qiutao escaped the siege; the majority was killed, captured or unaccounted for. Deputy army commander Xiang Ying and deputy chief of staff Zhou Zikun also escaped the siege, but were shot dead by a traitorous bodyguard. This internecine battle is known to history as the Wannan Incident. This incident provoked uproar in China and shocked the world. The CPC immediately protested in strong wording, putting the blame squarely on Chiang Kai-shek and the Chongqing-based KMT government. To placate public opinion, Chiang pretended to order Gu Zhutong to investigate the incident. The so-called “findings” were released, accusing the New Fourth Army of inciting the incident by its insubordination, mandating that Ye Ting be tried by court-martial and the designation “New Fourth Army be cancelled.” On hearing this news, Zhou Enlai immediately called He Yingqin to voice his outrage: “Your action pains your kin and delights the enemy. You’ve done

Zhou Enlai’s poem published in the Xinhua Daily in Chongqing

274

Chapter 11

A Whole Nation United as One to Resist Japanese Aggression; the CPC Wins Wide Respect for Defending National Unity

for the Japanese army what it could not do itself.” “You are condemned as a sinner against the Chinese nation.” With these words, he threw down the receiver in rage. The next day, Zhou Enlai’s words appeared in Xinhua Daily under the headline “Mourn for Those Killed in Jiangnan” and he published a short but stirring poem: A thousand-year wrong/ Ye Ting in Jiangnan/ Killing one’s own family/Why do they act as adversary?/ Why the hurry!” When the bad news of the Wannan Incident reached Yan’an, outrage was universal among senior CPC leaders and troops: they itched to launch a bloody counterattack against the KMT. How to address and deal with this incident was a thorny issue and major test for the Party. To respond to the KMT’s provocation and launch an attack on their troops so as to avenge the New Fourth Army would surely lead to a total collapse of KMT-CPC relations, their cooperation and the united front. But how could the Party stay its hand and not retaliate against the KMT diehards’ frenzied attack; how could this crime be tolerated? Would this be treating the fallen with respect? How would this go down in history? During those days and nights, Zhang Wentian, Mao Zedong, Zhou Enlai, Zhu De and others could barely eat or sleep, trying to figure out an appropriate response. Eventually they decided to maintain the anti-Japanese united front, acting on the three principles “with good reason, with advantage and with restraint.” Politically, they went on the offensive, exposing and criticizing the KMT hardliners for their passive resistance to Japan but active opposition to the CPC, and its deliberate intent to cause friction. They also strove to obtain domestic and international condemnations of the KMT diehards. Militarily, they adopted a defensive position, not counterattacking the KMT troops or starting confrontation, but concentrating forces to strike the Japanese aggressors, Chinese traitors and the puppet army. Speaking on behalf of the Central Military Commission, Mao Zedong gave a speech, telling the truth of the Wannan Incident, exposing the KMT diehards’ sabotage of the anti-Japanese effort and their collusion with the Japanese and the puppet army to attack the CPC. Zhou Enlai reached out to patriots within the KMT, heads of other democratic parties and people’s groups as well as news media friends, trying to win their understanding and support for the CPC stand. 275

Socialism in China

Other parties and well known personages began to condemn the KMT for eliminating those who held different political views and for sabotaging the united front. Patriotic individuals within the KMT, such as Soong Ching Ling, Liu Yazi, He Xiangning, Chen Youren, and Peng Zemin wrote to Chiang Kaishek, urging the KMT authorities to “follow the instructions of the former Premier [Sun Yat-sen], namely to practice the party’s state policies, to cancel plans for suppressing the CPC, to settle on a plan for collaborating with the CPC, to develop all anti-Japanese forces, and to protect all anti-Japanese parties.” Shanghai civilian groups jointly wrote to the leaders of both parties, “Since its founding, the New Fourth Army has fought across the Yangtze River. Its achievements were reported in local and international newspapers. These achievements were recorded with facts and can be substantiated. Even if there are disagreements, it should be not hard to resolve them politically. How could this get so far as killing each other and our infighting becoming a matter of ridicule?” Overseas Chinese also issued declarations and telegrams, criticizing the KMT for creating frictions to serve an anti-Communist policy. Even the U.S., British and Soviet governments openly opposed the KMT’s internal war policy, and urged its government to stop conflicts with the CPC. With its open attitude and honorable actions focused on upholding national interests, the CPC won the support and respect of many people, including patriots within the KMT and the governments of Britain, the United States and the Soviet Union. Though the KMT diehards won some military advantage, they lost political support and became isolated. Pressured by domestic and international outcries, the KMT had to restrain its suppression of the CPC; Chiang Kai-shek publicly announced that suppression of the CPC would not happen again. The Central Military Commission issued an order to rebuild the New Fourth Army headquarters, appointing Chen Yi as acting army commander, Zhang Yunyi as deputy army commander, Liu Shaoqi as political commissar, Lai Chuanzhu as chief of staff, and Deng Zihui as political department head. The Central China New Fourth Army was reorganized into seven divisions and one brigade, with more than 90,000 soldiers continuing attacks on the Japanese army along the Yangtze River. The CPC prioritized national interests, took sensible actions, relied on China’s forces of the just, resolved serious 276

Chapter 11

A Whole Nation United as One to Resist Japanese Aggression; the CPC Wins Wide Respect for Defending National Unity

domestic political problems, saved the anti-Japanese united front which was on the verge of collapse, safeguarded the effort of the whole nation’s joint struggle, and laid the foundation for China’s anti-Japanese war to shift from strategic stalemate, to counterattack, and ultimately to victory. Just as the poem says: Betraying one’s word is anathema to all, Upholding what is right wins hearts. Good and evil will always be rewarded, This iron law rules now as it has ever done. ֢ྣ୑ൈٝᇡ୶ĭ ࡢ֌֩ၴ֬૾ྗh ഇ‫֦ظ‬๰ᇜႽЙĭ ႓ᆱ๕੸๡‫࣊ܦ‬h To know what happened next in the cooperation and in the war against Japan, please read on to the next chapter.

277

Chapter 12

Mao Zedong Crystallizes His Thoughts on the New-Democracy Theory; Shaanxi-Gansu Base Experiments the Model of the People’s Republic

With the anti-Japanese war at stalemate, Mao Zedong and other CPC leaders remained in the cave-dwellings in Yan’an, sizing up the situation while commanding the Eighth Route Army, the New Fourth Army and the people’s armed forces across China, waged guerrilla warfare against the Japanese aggressors. At the same time, the CPC organized many training courses for Party officials in the Shaanxi-Gansu-Ningxia Border Region and the base areas, promoting Marxist theories and summarizing historical experience and lessons, and preparing a large number of revolutionary fighters of high caliber, so as to forge a staunch and mature political Party capable of leading the Chinese army in a strategic counteroffensive so as to achieve victory for new-democratic revolution. The then Shaanxi-Gansu-Ningxia Border Region, with 23 counties under its jurisdiction and a total population of about 1.5 million, was the strategic rear

Yan’an

278

Chapter 12

Mao Zedong Crystallizes His Thoughts on the New-Democracy Theory; Shaanxi-Gansu Base Experiments the Model of the People’s Republic

base of the Eighth Route Army and the New Fourth Army as well as the supreme headquarters of the CPC’s national war campaign. The CPC won respect and commendation from the people for holding high the banner of national independence, democracy and freedom. Yan’an became the sacred place for the red-blooded youth bent on resisting Japanese aggression and saving China. After 1937, within only two or three years, the number of young intellectuals drawn to Yan’an from all over the country and overseas reached more than 40,000. These young people witnessed a new world at Yan’an. During that period, the CPC practiced the system of collective leadership and division of responsibility. General Secretary Zhang Wentian was receptive to different opinions and encouraged discussion and argument. When chairing meetings, his decisions abided by the principle that the minority should be subordinate to the majority while respecting and protecting minority opinions; this earned him the nickname “Liberal Monarch” from Mao Zedong. Mao, who enjoyed high prestige within the Party and the army, became the de facto leader in Yan’an. He was modest and prudent, always consulting others to correct himself. Mao Zedong and Zhang Wentian respected each other and worked together in accord, making a perfect pair. Senior officials of the CPC united as one, creating a harmonious and democratic atmosphere. With the CPC central leadership setting a good example, Party, government and military officials formed an equal relationship, addressed their colleagues as “comrade” instead of by titles and treated each other with respect and fraternity, all living a simple and Spartan military Communist life.

Major leaders of the CPC Central Committee at Yan’an: front row from left, K ang Sheng, Mao Zedong, Wang Jiaxiang, Zhu De, Xiang Ying, Wang Ming; back row, Chen Yun, Bo Gu, Peng Dehuai, Liu Shaoqi, Zhou Enlai, Zhang Wentian

279

Socialism in China

Despite material shortages, people in Yan’an and the Border Region lacked for little in terms of intellectual and cultural nourishment. They published a dozen types of newspapers and journals, organized choirs, poetry recitations, modern drama performances, weekend dances and other activities. Cheers and laughter were everywhere at the foot of Baota Mountain and along the Yanhe River. Even more commendably, the ethos in Yan’an was one favoring education and study. Red Army officials and soldiers who had never had a day’s schooling went to literacy classes or night school; those who had received primary education went to schools at a higher level. Yan’an had more than 30 institutes, including the Party School of the CPC Central Committee, the Chinese People’s Anti-Japanese Military and Political University, Shanbei Public School, Lu Xun Academy of Art, Institute of Marxism-Leninism, Women’s University, and Academy of Natural Sciences, for the training of Party, government and military officials from all over the country, especially the young educated people swarming into the Border Region. Mao Zedong and other leaders of the CPC Central Committee often attended opening and graduation ceremonies, and taught or gave lectures at these institutes. At the time of its founding, the CPC lacked theoretical preparation. Over the years, Party leaders at all levels, beset by anti-Communist White Terror and wars, had been preoccupied with political and military struggles; rushing through mountains and dodging gunfire meant no time to attend to theoretical study. Even the senior Party officials were not well-read in Marxist classics. Because of its low level in Marxist theory, the CPC had wavered during China’s revolutionary practice, repeatedly committing Right- or Left-deviationist errors. This state of affairs was not conducive to achieving the Party’s historic task of leading China to victory in new-democratic revolution under the guidance of Marxism, and thereby conducting socialist revolution, as prescribed in the Party Program and the Party Constitution. While the anti-Japanese war was at a stalemate phase and the Border Region was generally stable thanks to its distance from the major battlefields, the CPC Central Committee seized the opportunity to address the theory issue. They decided to launch a campaign for disseminating and teaching Marxism. General Secretary Zhang Wentian took charge of the work of research, publicity and education, organized the translation and publishing of classics by 280

Chapter 12

Mao Zedong Crystallizes His Thoughts on the New-Democracy Theory; Shaanxi-Gansu Base Experiments the Model of the People’s Republic

Karl Marx, Friedrich Engels, Vladimir Lenin and Josef Stalin. Government departments, the army and public associations held various seminars and reading clubs; more than 4,000 people in Yan’an took part. Party leaders initiated and joined in various study meetings and learning groups, for example, military strategy study under Mao Zedong, Das Kapital study under Zhang Wentian, philosophy under Chen Yun. Other study groups included modern Chinese history, ethnic issues, and current events. Officials and soldiers compared notes on what they had learned, and spoke up without hesitation; sometimes they would argue fiercely, but then chat cheerfully and shake hands. The usual greetings of “Have you eaten?” and “How is your health?” were replaced by “What have you read recently?” or “Any good book you could lend me?” At the Sixth Plenary Session of the Sixth CPC Central Committee convened from September 29 to November 6, 1938, Mao Zedong called on all Party members to study Marxist theory, national history and the current situation, stressing “the application of Marxism in the light of China’s specific characteristics” and “the Sinification of Marxism.” He called for learning competitions among all Party members, to see who had actually learned something, and who had learned more and better, pushing the campaign to a new high. In those years, Yan’an became a paradise for Marxist theoretical studies and ideological emancipation, attracted young people with lofty aspirations from all over the country, and trained a large number of specialists in all fields for the Party, the government and the army. During that period, the CPC leaders concentrated on theoretical studies while addressing Party, government and army affairs, and produced a large number of important political, military and cultural works, including: “On the Constancy of Anti-Japanese National Revolutionary War” and “Promote Cultural Movement” by Zhang Wentian; “On the Self-cultivation of the Communists” and “On the Anti-Japanese Democratic Political Power” by Liu Shaoqi; “Anti-Japanese Guerrilla Warfare” and “Experience and Lessons of the Eighth Route Army Drawn from the Anti-Japanese War in the Past Two Years” by Zhu De; “The Nature of the Youth Movement and Its Current Tasks” and “Political Work of the Anti-Japanese Forces” by Zhou Enlai; “Basic Organizational Principles of the Communist Party” and “In Commemoration of the 20th Anniversary of the May Fourth Movement” by Chen Yun. 281

Socialism in China

Mao Zedong writing in a cave-dwelling, Yan’an

The most prolific and fruitful writer was Mao Zedong. Summarizing the experience and lessons since the founding of the CPC, and studying Marxist and Leninist theories based on China’s actual conditions, he wrote a great many articles including “On Contradiction,” “On Practice,” “Problems of Strategy in China’s Revolutionary War,” “The Chinese Revolution and the Chinese Communist Party,” “On New Democracy” and “On Coalition Government,” which went to form the theoretical system of Sinicized Marxism. It was during the Yan’an period that Mao reached the peak of his theoretical writing. According to statistics Selected Works of Mao Zedong, compiled and published after the founding of New China in 1949, comprises four volumes, 158 articles, of which 112 were written during the Yan’an period. One night in December 1939, in a house of the Institute of MarxismLeninism at Liujiaping in the northern suburbs of Yan’an, a dozen teachers and trainees were sitting around a fire brazier, in excited discussion. One of the teachers was holding a mimeographed booklet The Chinese Revolution and the Chinese Communist Party. It was a textbook compiled by the CPC Central Committee for the Party officials. The booklet comprised two chapters: The first chapter, “Chinese Society,” was written by Zhang Wentian and several others, and revised by Mao Zedong; the second chapter, “Chinese Revolution,” was drafted by Mao Zedong. The teacher said excitedly, “For today’s group study, we are going to discuss the second chapter. Here Chairman Mao initiates the 282

Chapter 12

Mao Zedong Crystallizes His Thoughts on the New-Democracy Theory; Shaanxi-Gansu Base Experiments the Model of the People’s Republic

concept ‘new-democratic revolution,’ and elaborates on the nature, characteristics, targets, impetus, tasks, path and prospect of China’s new-democratic revolution. We can share our thoughts unreservedly.” First to speak was a 30-year-old senior cadre who had taken part in the Autumn Harvest Uprising and the Long March. “Since the founding of the Party, there have been different opinions on the nature of China’s current revolution. Some people put forward the ‘two-revolutions theory,’ believing China is going through a bourgeois-democratic revolution, aiming to establish a regime of bourgeois dictatorship, to be followed by a socialist revolution; some put forth the ‘one-revolution theory’ that China’s revolution is already in the socialist revolution stage; yet others considered it had gone directly from democratic revolution to socialist revolution without interruption. Understanding of the phase of social development and the nature of revolution has a direct bearing on the Party’s path, principles and policies as well as the result of China’s revolution. Our Party has learned many lessons in this regard. Chairman Mao has pointed out that China’s current revolution is new-democratic revolution. It is a correct conclusion drawn after we made quite a few detours and blunders in our work.” A young trainee with a pair of glasses who had come from a KMT-controlled area a year earlier continued: “I wonder if you have noticed that Chairman Mao’s analysis of the nature, target and tasks of China’s revolution proceeds from China’s actual conditions and the nature of Chinese society with an unassailable logic. Let me read out this part for you. ‘China is currently a colonial, semi-colonial and semi-feudal society. This is the special condition of China. The contradiction between imperialism and the Chinese nation and the contradiction between feudalism and the great masses of the people are the basic contradictions in modern Chinese society, and the former is the principal one. Therefore, the principal targets or enemies of the Chinese revolution are imperialism and feudalism, the bourgeoisie of the imperialist countries and the landlord class of our country; the tasks of the Chinese revolution are to carry out a national revolution to overthrow foreign imperialist oppression and a democratic revolution to overthrow feudalism; the motive forces of the Chinese revolution are the proletariat, the peasantry, and the petty bourgeoisie, while the national bourgeoisie could become a revolutionary force in a certain 283

Socialism in China

period and to some extent, but the proletariat is the leading force of Chinese revolution.’ Based on the above elaboration, Chairman Mao has pointed out that ‘The character of the Chinese revolution at the present stage is not proletarian-socialist but bourgeois-democratic; the bourgeois-democratic revolution is no longer the old general style but one of a new special type. We call this type the new-democratic revolution.’ ‘A new-democratic revolution is an antiimperialist and anti-feudal revolution of the broad masses of the people under the leadership of the proletariat.’” A woman trainee chimed in: “Chairman Mao has also made a comparison between the new-democratic revolution and the bourgeois-democratic revolution along with the socialist revolution, pointing out that the new-democratic revolution is quite different from the democratic revolutions of the Western countries in history; it does not lead to the bourgeois dictatorship but a united front of all revolutionary classes under the leadership of the proletariat, and creates a democratic republic with a revolutionary alliance of workers, peasants, urban bourgeoisie and all the other anti-imperialist and anti-feudal elements; it is also different from the socialist revolution because it aims to overthrow the rule of imperialism and the reactionary elements over China, without damaging any capitalist element that is able to take part in the antiimperialist and anti-feudal campaign.” A philosophy teacher with a southern accent said: “Chairman Mao elaborates on the path and prospect of New Democracy by proceeding from China’s actual conditions and applying Marxist theory to solving China’s problems. This elaboration is more theoretical, inclusive and profound than his previous thoughts. As we remember, during the National Revolution period, Chairman Mao put forward the thought that political power grows out of the barrel of a gun, the strategy of relocating into mountain areas to carry out armed struggle, and the principle of establishing rural revolutionary base areas and encircling the cities from the countryside so as to finally seize state power. During this anti-Japanese war period, Chairman Mao put forward the idea of establishing anti-Japanese revolutionary base areas in enemy-controlled areas and conduct guerrilla warfare so as to finally expel the enemy and capture the cities. All these thoughts and strategies have pointed out the path of China’s revolution in a timely and explicit fashion.” 284

Chapter 12

Mao Zedong Crystallizes His Thoughts on the New-Democracy Theory; Shaanxi-Gansu Base Experiments the Model of the People’s Republic

He drank some water and continued: “In his summary speech at the Sixth Plenary Session of the Sixth CPC Central Committee, Chairman Mao further expounded and proved the inevitability of this path. ‘It is the task of the party of the proletariat in capitalist countries to educate the workers and build up strength through a long period of legal struggle, and thus prepare for the final overthrow of capitalism. There the form of organization is legal and the form of struggle is bloodless (non-military).’ ‘China is different however. Internally she has no democracy but is under feudal oppression, and externally she has no national independence but is oppressed by imperialism. It follows that we have no parliament to make use of and no legal right to organize the workers to strike. Basically, the task of the Communist Party here is not to go through a long period of legal struggle before launching insurrection and war, and not to seize the big cities first and then occupy the countryside. It is the reverse.’ In the chapter we are discussing today, Chairman Mao further points out: ‘The principal means or form of the Chinese revolution cannot be peaceful struggle: it must be armed struggle. For our enemies have made peaceful activity impossible for the Chinese people and have deprived them of all political freedom and democratic rights.’ The Chinese revolution must take the path of establishing rural base areas and encircling the cities from the countryside because ‘China’s key cities have long been occupied by the powerful imperialists and their reactionary Chinese allies.’ ‘Stressing armed struggle does not mean abandoning other forms of struggle; and stressing work in the rural base areas does not mean abandoning our work in the cities and in the other vast rural areas which are still under the enemy’s rule.’ These make Chairman Mao’s thought concerning the path of Chinese revolution more complete.” The teacher raised another question: “Now we are clear about the nature, targets, tasks and path of China’s new-democratic revolution, what about its prospect and course?” One trainee said enthusiastically: “Chairman Mao has made it clear in Section Six of this article – ‘Taken as a whole, the Chinese revolutionary movement led by the Communist Party embraces the two stages, i.e., the democratic and the socialist revolutions, which are two essentially different revolutionary processes, and that the second process can be carried through only after the 285

Socialism in China

first has been completed. The democratic revolution is the necessary preparation for the socialist revolution, and the socialist revolution is the inevitable sequel to the democratic revolution. The ultimate aim that all Communists strive for is to bring about a socialist and communist society. A clear understanding of both the differences and the interconnections between the democratic and the socialist revolutions is indispensable to correct leadership in the Chinese revolution.’” Another trainee continued: “Several days ago, I read the first issue of The Communist periodical. In his launch comments for this new publication Chairman Mao pointed out, ‘The united front, armed struggle and Party building are the Chinese Communist Party’s three principal “magic weapons” for defeating the enemy in the Chinese revolution.’ As I understand it, they are also the three ‘magic weapons’ for the new-democratic revolution and should be included into the theoretical system of the new-democratic revolution. Am I right on this?” The teacher answered: “Yes, your understanding is correct. In his launching comments, Chairman Mao requires us to correctly understand the interconnections between the three ‘magic weapons,’ saying that ‘The united front and armed struggle are the two basic weapons for defeating the enemy. And the Party is the heroic warrior wielding those two weapons to storm and shatter the enemy’s positions. If we understand and apply these three weapons well, we will be invincible.’ Chairman Mao also warned us in his summary speech at the Sixth Plenary Session of the Sixth CPC Central Committee: Throughout China’s democratic revolution, the CPC’s relationship with the national bourgeoisie is the basic and crucial question, and whether it is properly addressed will determine the result of the new-democratic revolution; to facilitate longterm cooperation, all political parties that have formed the united front must support each other, in positive not negative fashion, while adhering to the principle of independence.” The discussion went on till midnight. Another achievement of Mao in the area of theoretical innovation during the Yan’an period was the concept of new-democratic society – a logical next step from the theory of new-democratic revolution. 286

Chapter 12

Mao Zedong Crystallizes His Thoughts on the New-Democracy Theory; Shaanxi-Gansu Base Experiments the Model of the People’s Republic

On the afternoon of January 9, 1940, over 500 representatives of the First Congress of Cultural Associations in the Shaanxi-Gansu-Ningxia Border Region gathered in the auditorium of the Chinese Women’s University in the west of Wangjiaping, north of Yan’an. They listened to Mao Zedong’s speech titled “Politics and Culture of New Democracy.” A month later, this speech appeared in the periodical Liberation issued in Yan’an under a new title – “On New Democracy.” In this speech, Mao elaborated what kind of country and society China would be after the success of the new-democratic revolution. One minute the room was so quiet you could hear a pin drop; the next, the audience would burst into laughter and loud applause. Based on the analysis of China’s historical characteristics and the Chinese revolution as a part of the world revolution, Mao Zedong explicitly expounded that after the new-democratic revolution succeeded, the New China to be founded would be a new-democratic republic. It would be “different from the old European-American capitalist republic under bourgeois dictatorship” on the one hand, and also “different from the socialist republic of the Soviet type under proletarian dictatorship” on the other. It would be the Third Path and the Third Form suited for colonial and semi-colonial countries. What is the connotation of this third type of republic featuring a newdemocratic society? What of its political, economic and cultural characteristics? Mao Zedong gave a thorough explanation, which was the result of his deliberation for quite some time. He expounded in incisive terms: The new-democratic politics comprised a “state system” and a “government system”, the first referring to the status of the various social classes within the state, and the second being a matter of how political power is organized, the form in which one social class or another chooses to arrange its apparatus of political power. The “state system” of a new-democratic republic was a joint dictatorship of all the revolutionary classes, and its “government system” democratic centralism. After the success of the Chinese revolution, China would adopt a system of people’s congresses, at national, provincial, county, district and township levels, all of them electing their respective governmental bodies. It must be a system of really universal and equal suffrage, namely democratic centralization. Without a genuinely 287

Socialism in China

democratic system this could not be attained and the “government system” and the “state system” would be out of harmony. Mao went on to describe the new-democratic economy: Currently, China’s economy had to be made up of state-owned, private and cooperative sectors. The big banks, industries and commercial enterprises would be owned and run by the state. The state-owned sector would be of a socialist character and would constitute the leading force in the whole national economy, but the republic would neither confiscate capitalist private property in general nor forbid the development of such capitalist production which could not dominate the livelihood of the people, China’s economy still being underdeveloped. Facilitating the development of the capitalist private economy would benefit the country and the people and push forward social development. Mao continued: The republic would take certain necessary steps to confiscate the land of the landlords and distribute it to those peasants having little or no land, and turn the land over to the private ownership of the peasants, while a rich peasant economy would be allowed in the rural areas. In general, socialist agriculture would not be established at this stage, though various types of cooperative enterprises developed on the basis of “land to the tiller” would contain elements of socialism. No one was conscious of the time, but night came on and kerosene lamps were lit at the meeting place. Mao Zedong drank some water, had a smoke and began the next session, a thorough exposition on new-democratic culture, and a subject he was very at home with. He highly praised Lu Xun, saying, “Lu Xun was the greatest and the most courageous standard-bearer of this new cultural force. The chief commander of China’s cultural revolution, he was not only a great man of letters but a great thinker and revolutionary … and an unprecedented national hero.” These remarks drew him closer to the educated audience and received warm applause. Returning to the subject, Mao said: “In a word, new-democratic culture is the prole288

Lu Xun

Chapter 12

Mao Zedong Crystallizes His Thoughts on the New-Democracy Theory; Shaanxi-Gansu Base Experiments the Model of the People’s Republic

tarian-led, anti-imperialist and anti-feudal culture of the broad masses.” “New-democratic culture is national. It opposes imperialist oppression and upholds the dignity and independence of the Chinese nation.” “New-democratic culture is scientific. Opposed as it is to all feudal and superstitious ideas, it stands for seeking truth from facts, for objective truth and for the unity of theory and practice.” “New-democratic culture belongs to the broad masses and is therefore democratic. It should serve the toiling masses of workers and peasants who make up more than 90 percent of the nation’s population and should gradually become their very own.” “A national, scientific and mass culture is the anti-imperialist and antifeudal culture of the people, the new-democratic culture, and the new culture of the Chinese nation.” In conclusion, Mao finished with a bold, poetic flourish, proclaiming: “Combine the politics, the economy and the culture of New Democracy, and you have the new-democratic republic, the Republic of China both in name and in reality, the new China we want to create.” “Her masts have risen above the horizon. Let us all cheer in welcome! Lift high your hands. New China is ours!” The lecture received prolonged applause and cheering. The listeners had been convinced by his new theory, won over by his natural persona and infected by his poetic temperament. Mao made it clear that it was a new-democratic state that would be founded in China after the victory of the new-democratic revolution, and he systematically expounded the political, economic and cultural programs of New Democracy, thereby laying the theoretical foundation for the founding of New China. Political, economic and cultural diversity would be the distinguishing feature of a new-democratic society. To build such a new-democratic society after the success of democratic revolution was a creative and magnificent concept of Mao’s integrating Marxism and Leninism with China’s actual conditions. It was during the Yan’an period that Mao Zedong posited the concept “new-democratic society” and that the idea of New Democracy took initial 289

Socialism in China

shape. In “On Coalition Government,” his written report to the CPC’s Seventh National Congress, Mao reiterated that building a new-democratic state and society after the founding of New China would be historically inevitable, significant and lengthy in nature. He expounded that the major tasks of the new-democratic society were to complete the anti-imperialist and anti-feudal democratic revolution and vigorously develop social productivity, so as to realize national industrialization and agricultural modernization and create conditions for a transition to socialism. He emphasized, “It is this kind of state system that truly meets the demands of the overwhelming majority of the Chinese population,” and it would be a sheer illusion to try to build a socialist society on the ruins of the colonial, semi-colonial and semi-feudal order without such a new-democratic state and without the development of the newdemocratic politics, economy and culture. The new-democratic society would witness the development of both capitalist and socialist elements and its aim was to avoid capitalism and realize socialism although it would take a long time. These propositions made his theory of “new-democratic society” more complete. Clearly, according to Mao Zedong’s vision, the new-democratic society was a special form of society in an economically underdeveloped country transiting from capitalism to socialism under particular historical conditions. The notion of new-democratic society contains Marx’s and Engels’ anticipation of the ideal future society yet differs from the traditional Soviet-type socialist society. Mao and the CPC Central Committee began to put into practice the building of a new-democratic society in the Shaanxi-Gansu-Ningxia Border Region, and then promoted it in the anti-Japanese base areas. Thereby they explored and accumulated experience for building a new-democratic country after the founding of New China. On May 1, 1941, the “Administrative Program of the Shaanxi-GansuNingxia Border Region” (“Administrative Program”) drafted under the leadership of Mao Zedong and revised several times by himself was implemented under the approval of the Political Bureau of the CPC Central Committee. This program demonstrated the CPC’s line of resisting Japanese aggression in solidarity and its political proposition of building a new-democratic society, and made specific stipulations on the politics, economy, culture, education 290

Chapter 12

Mao Zedong Crystallizes His Thoughts on the New-Democracy Theory; Shaanxi-Gansu Base Experiments the Model of the People’s Republic

and law of the Border Region. The most noticeable and historically significant proposition was the “Tripartite System” for the building of state power. It prescribed that the local councils and administrative departments of the anti-Japanese democratic government which was established through general election should comprise one- third CPC members, one-third non-Communist leftist progressives and one-third centrists. The “Administrative Program” articulated, “The CPC will form electoral alliance with the other political parties and public associations, and the CPC members will account for only one third of the candidates, so that the other political parties and non-party personages will be able to take part in activities of the council and administration of the government in the Border Region. When a Party member is elected the head of a department, it must be guaranteed that two thirds of the staff in his department must be non-Party personages. Communists should cooperate democratically with non-Party personages and must not act arbitrarily or keep everything in their own hands.” The “Administrative Program” and the “Tripartite System” was first tried out in Suide, Fuxian and Longdong counties, and then comprehensively implemented during the second general election in the Border Region. Mao

Members elected to the Second Assembly of Representatives of the Shaanxi-Gansu-Ningxia Border Region: Lin Boqu (second left, front row), Li Dingming (third left, front row)

291

Socialism in China

supervised the election himself, instructed to stick to the “Tripartite System,” and requested specifically that “one of the two elected vice chairmen of the Border Region must be a non-Party (non-Communist) progressive.” As a result, through secret ballot, the Second Assembly of the Representatives of the Shaanxi-Gansu-Ningxia Border Region elected Gao Gang Speaker of the Legislative Assembly, An Wenqin (an enlightened landlord and entrepreneur of Suide County) Deputy Speaker, Lin Boqu Chairman of the Border Region Government, and Li Dingming (a renowned herbalist doctor of Mizhi County) Vice Chairman; three of the nine permanent members were from the CPC. As it happened, seven of the 18 members of the Border Region Government were CPC members, which exceeded the one-third ratio. Then, Xu Teli, a senior Party member who enjoyed moral eminence and high esteem, volunteered to step aside in favor of the non-Party candidate with the most electoral votes. Thereafter, the “Tripartite System” was extensively adopted in the anti-Japanese base areas under the leadership of the CPC. To promote economic development, the Border Region allowed diverse forms of economic sectors to develop side by side; public and cooperative economy accounted for a small proportion while private economy, landlord economy and capitalist industry and commerce accounted for the lion’s share. To promote cultural progress, Mao Zedong held a forum of over one hundred workers in literature and art, at which he delivered an important speech declaring that literature and art should serve workers, peasants and soldiers first of all. He called on them to draw nourishment and inspiration from the hard-struggle life of workers, peasants and soldiers, and to critically carry on the fine cultural and art heritages of ancient times and of foreign countries, striving to produce works that the people would love. The speech served to

Participants at the literature and art forum at Yan’an, including Mao Zedong and Zhu De

292

Chapter 12

Mao Zedong Crystallizes His Thoughts on the New-Democracy Theory; Shaanxi-Gansu Base Experiments the Model of the People’s Republic

enrich the new-democratic culture concept, and subsequent to it the literature and art workers of Yan’an went down to the grassroots and to anti-Japanese base areas behind enemy lines, produced a batch of works popular among workers and peasants, thereby enabling literature and art to become a powerful weapon capable of uniting and educating the people and of beating and eliminating the enemy. The theory of New Democracy started life during the National Revolution period, matured during the anti-Japanese war period, and was enriched and improved during the War of Liberation and in the early years of the People’s Republic of China. It crystallized the collective wisdom of the Chinese Communists, and arrived at through two decades of arduous exploration. Mao Zedong was the major initiator and epitome of this theory, a significant contributor to its formulation and development. In addition, Chen Duxiu, Li Dazhao, Cai Hesen, Zhang Guotao, Qu Qiubai, Li Lisan, Deng Zhongxia, Peng Pai, Yun Daiying, Tan Pingshan, Zhang Tailei, Peng Shuzhi, Zhang Wentian, Zhou Enlai, Zhu De, Liu Shaoqi, Chen Yun, Deng Xiaoping, Li Weihan, Li Da, Ai Siqi (Li Sheng-Hsuen) and Fan Wenlan all explored the theory and contributed their thoughts at different stages, in different areas and from different angles. The theory of New Democracy critically carried forward the Three Principles of the People by Sun Yat-sen. Sun Yat-sen devoted his life to introducing Western liberty, democracy, human rights, rule of law and other modern thinking and political systems into China. His Three Principles of the People was a Sinicized version of Western bourgeois revolutionary thinking. In China’s modern history, the Three Principles of the People was the banner of China’s democratic revolution. It led the Revolution of 1911 that overthrew the Qing Dynasty and dealt a heavy blow to the feudal warlords, but it was unable to achieve overall and complete success in China’s democratic revolution. The fruits of the revolution were soon usurped by the Beiyang warlords; parliamentarianism and other democratic forms borrowed from the West became the token gesture and fig leaf of the warlords scrambling for power and wealth. “Alas that countless lives were spent, to bring about only a fake republic.” (Cai Jimin: Wrath of Books) The CPC had always held that Sun Yat-sen’s New Three Principles of the People were generally in line with the Party’s national and democratic revolu293

Socialism in China

tion programs. In the first KMT-CPC cooperation during the National Revolution period and the second KMT-CPC cooperation during the anti-Japanese war period, the CPC held the Three Principles of the People as the common political program and intellectual foundation. After Sun Yat-sen passed away, the KMT ruling clique under Chiang Kaishek renounced the revolutionary spirit of the Three Principles of the People, abandoned its progressive elements, emphasized and exaggerated its weak points in partisan fashion, and made it a tool to safeguard the single-party dictatorship of the KMT and Chiang Kai-shek. Mao Zedong and the Chinese Communists carried forward the unfinished task of Sun Yat-sen, pledging again to strive for complete implementation of the Three Principles of the People during China’s national and democratic revolutions. They carried forward its progressive political thought of striving for the nation and the people, for science and democracy, while discarding its negative elements, thereby establishing the theoretical system of New Democracy that led China’s democratic revolution to victory and founded the people’s democratic republic of New China. The New Democracy theory carried forward and creatively enriched Marxist-Leninist social revolutionary theory. Marxism holds that the entire proletarian revolutionary process has two steps – the bourgeois democratic revolution and the socialist revolution. In European and American developed capitalist countries, the proletariat should first take part in the bourgeois democratic revolution and facilitate its success, and then carry out socialist revolution to enter socialist society – the first stage of Communist society. A theory of “permanent revolution” was set forth that requires a transition from bourgeois democratic revolution to socialist revolution. In his later years, Marx advanced the conception that the Eastern underdeveloped countries would “leap the Kafdin Gorge” under certain historical conditions, proceeding directly to socialist society without establishing the bourgeois dictatorship and the capitalist political and economic system, but he did not elaborate on the path, approach and tasks. Before the CPC was founded, Lenin had systematically elaborated in Two Tactics of Social Democracy in the Democratic Revolution and other works, that the proletarian revolution would experience two stages – the bourgeois democratic 294

Chapter 12

Mao Zedong Crystallizes His Thoughts on the New-Democracy Theory; Shaanxi-Gansu Base Experiments the Model of the People’s Republic

revolution and the socialist revolution; as the bourgeois democratic revolution and socialist revolution have completely different natures and tasks, we should demarcate the two historical periods; only through the bourgeois democratic revolution and the development of capitalism can the proletariat launch class struggles against the bourgeoisie, while the victory of democratic revolution will pave the way for socialist revolution; the bourgeois democratic revolution in colonial and semi-colonial countries is a significant component of the world’s proletarian revolution. It is thus clear that the thoughts of Marx, Engels and Lenin about social revolution were the direct source of China’s new-democratic theory. Proceeding from China’s actual conditions as a semi-colonial and semifeudal society, Mao Zedong and other Chinese Communists were totally clear that it was impractical and erroneous to confuse the democratic revolution with the socialist revolution and combine the tasks of two historical stages into one. They creatively initiated the concept of “new-democratic society,” expounded and proved the political, economic and cultural programs of such a society, emphasizing that after succeeding in the national democratic revolution, the proletariat should first found a new-democratic country to transit to the socialist society. During this transitional period, they should strive to develop new-democratic politics, economy and culture, foster socialist elements, fulfill the historical tasks of industrialization and agricultural mechanization, and take socialist revolutionary measures (in a peaceful manner) when the time came to transit to socialist society. This integration of Marxist theory of “permanent revolution” with the theory of “the development of revolution by stages” found a path for economically and culturally underdeveloped semicolonial and semi-feudal countries to transit to socialist society; it made the Marxist socialist revolution theory and transitional period thought more complete and applicable to China’s actual conditions, thereby contributing to the success of China’s democratic revolution and to the innovative development of Marxism. The theory of New Democracy, including new-democratic revolution and new-democratic society, formed a comparatively complete theoretical system. It was a major achievement of Sinicized Marxism, marking the maturity of Mao Zedong Thought and the formation of its theoretical system. 295

Socialism in China

During the Yan’an period, Mao Zedong gave much thought to promoting publicity within the Party to educate Party cadres and solve problems in the Party’s political and ideological lines. He was acutely aware that the Party’s history of two decades had been marked by twists and turns, ups and downs, successes and failures, and Leftand Right-deviationist errors. The most lethal error was the Left-deviationist line represented by Wang Ming. The Zunyi Meeting of 1935 had solved the pressing military and organizational problems that determined the destiny of the Party and the Red Army, but had no time to address problems of political and ideological lines. Through several meetings, the CPC corrected the Leftand Right-deviationist mistakes made by Wang Ming during the late National Revolution period and the early anti-Japanese war period, but it failed to set things right from the roots. Since the CPC had grown into a major political party of 800,000 members and was shouldering the mission of victory in the anti-Japanese war and the new-democratic revolution, the Party might continue making the same Left- and Right-deviationist mistakes if the problem was not rooted out. Moreover, most of the Party members and the army personnel were newly recruited young people who had little knowledge of the history and experience of the CPC, thus it was necessary to enlighten them in this regard. At this very moment, a book was published in Yan’an that had accelerated Mao Zedong to put his idea into practice. In March, 1940, Wang Ming republished Striving to Make the CPC More Bolshevik, a book he had written in 1931 and which epitomized his Left-deviationist dogmatic mistake. At that time, Wang Ming had returned to Yan’an from the Soviet Union and had rejoined the central leadership – the Secretariat of the CPC Central Committee. Taking on the robes of “imperial envoy from the Comintern,” Wang Ming did not see eye to eye with Zhang Wentian, Mao Zedong and the Central Committee concerning thoughts and principles, delivered declarations, statements and speeches on behalf of the Central Committee without authorization, prohibited Zhang and Mao to give instructions and issue documents in the name of the Secretariat, and stood up to the Central Committee as an equal. Moreover, he was eloquent and well versed in Marxist-Leninist classics, as a Comintern representative and once the top CPC leader, thus was quite 296

Chapter 12

Mao Zedong Crystallizes His Thoughts on the New-Democracy Theory; Shaanxi-Gansu Base Experiments the Model of the People’s Republic

influential among Party officials, and especially young people. The re-publishing of this book was undoubtedly a public provocation; it aroused Mao’s notice and concern. In response to Wang Ming’s provocation and to educate the cadres, Mao organized the compilation of Party documents Since the Sixth National Congress of the CPC to show them especially those at the middle and senior levels, the harm of Wang Ming’s Left-deviationist line, and decided to launch a Rectification Movement within the Party. At the mobilization rally, Mao Zedong stated the requirements for the Rectification Movement: to summarize experience and lessons of the Party; to remove all erroneous ideological influences; to oppose subjectivism (dogmatism and empiricism) and sectarianism; and to instruct the whole Party to apply the Marxist stand, viewpoints and approaches to solve the specific problems of China’s revolution. He ordered the Rectification Movement to be carried out in two phases, first with high-level cadres and then with mid-level cadres, with the former as the major target. The first phase started with the central leadership. From September 10 to October 20, 1941, the CPC Central Committee held an enlarged meeting of the Political Bureau (the September Meeting) to study Since the Sixth National Congress of the CPC and to summarize experience and lessons from reality through discussion. The meeting lasted more than a month, but only five days were devoted to group study and discussion. At the first day’s session Mao Zedong delivered a report titled “Against Subjectivism and Sectarianism”, emphasizing that “we must differentiate creative Marxism and dogmatic Marxism” and concentrate on criticizing subjectivism and sectarianism. “The Party has an impractical tradition of following our inclinations, which is subjectivism. In the past, our Party has long been dominated by subjectivism. The ‘Li Lisan line’ and the Left-deviationist opportunism in the later Soviet Union period (writer’s note: the period when Wang Ming presided over the CPC Central Committee) were both subjectivism. In the later stage of the Soviet Movement, subjectivism had a more complete form, a longer period in the ascendant, and more miserable consequences. Now subjectivism is no longer dominating but it still exists without arousing our attention.” Although Mao Zedong did not name Wang Ming, no one doubted who the remarks were aimed at. 297

Socialism in China

During the five-day discussion, 28 people spoke up, stressing the necessity and significance of opposing subjectivism and sectarianism, and some people examined their own mistakes in the past. Zhang Wentian admitted candidly that the line of the Central Soviet Area in the late National Revolution period had been wrong. It had been Leftdeviationist opportunism politically, putschism strategically, and adventurism militarily, and organizationally, it did not believe sectarianism existing among cadres in the Soviet Area. Bo Gu made a sincere self-criticism, attributing error to their then complete lack of experience, uncritical imitation of the Soviet Union and Western European political parties, and formulating many of Party resolutions by copying documents of the Comintern. Wang Jiaxiang reviewed the root causes of subjectivism based on his own mentality, saying that in addition to social reasons, it was also attributable to inexperience, and that the comrades who returned from the Comintern in Moscow without practical work experience were apt to become dogmatists. Wang Ming spoke twice, asserting that Bo Gu and Zhang Wentian should take the major blame for the mistakes of the Central Soviet Area. He criticized the errors of over 20 high-ranking Party officials, but said not a single word about his own mistakes, and repeatedly stressed that the Party’s line adopted during his term of office had been correct. After the meeting, Mao Zedong along with Wang Jiaxiang and Ren Bishi talked to Wang Ming many times, hoping that he could recognize his own mistake and make a self-criticism. However, Wang Ming refused. On the contrary, he criticized that Mao’s new-democratic thought and the Central Committee’s excessively Leftist line since the start of the anti-Japanese war had scared off Chiang Kai-shek and jeopardized the united front. He declared he would argue against the Central Committee to the end and let the Comintern judge. At the next day’s meeting of the Secretariat, Wang Ming reiterated his views. From then on, he pleaded illness and was absent from all meetings of the Secretariat and the Political Bureau. As the meeting could not continue without the “main player,” the Central Committee decided to suspend the rectification study within the Political Bureau and turn to the senior officials of the Party, government and the army. A 298

Chapter 12

Mao Zedong Crystallizes His Thoughts on the New-Democracy Theory; Shaanxi-Gansu Base Experiments the Model of the People’s Republic

study group of the central Party officials was set up, with Mao Zedong as the group leader and Wang Jiaxiang vice group leader. Yan’an and other places also established senior study groups. Mao Zedong put forward two major tasks for the central study group: firstly, to study Marxist methodology; secondly, to study the documents adopted since the Sixth National Congress of the CPC, oppose subjectivism and sectarianism, make a majority of high- and mid-level cadres thoroughly understand the significance of the rectification, and retain those who had made mistakes. In the winter of 1941, the rectification study was widely carried out among senior officials. In 1942, the focus of the rectification shifted from the high- and midlevel cadres to those at lower levels in the base areas. Mao Zedong delivered reports titled “Rectify the Party’s Style of Work” and “Oppose Stereotyped Party Writing” to all Party officials and set forth the tasks of the rectification study – fight subjectivism in order to rectify the style of study, fight sectarianism in order to rectify the style in Party relations, and fight Party stereotypes in order to rectify the style of writing. He pointed out that subjectivism divorced theory from practice, was manifested as dogmatism and empiricism; dogmatism was the major peril, sectarianism was an expression of subjectivism in organizational relations, and stereotyped Party writing was the manifestation of subjectivism and sectarianism. He announced that the three were all against Marxism and a reflection of the petty bourgeois mentality within the Party. Mao took personal charge of compiling the textbook for the rectification study. “Use History of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union/Bolsheviks as the major reading material” was his explicit demand. Most of the 22 designated texts were summaries of experience of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, articles by the CPC leaders and documents of the CPC: one article by Lenin (comprising several excerpts from his quotations), six by Stalin, History of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union/Bolsheviks, several by Georgi Dimitrov and Lazar Kaganovich, as well as documents of the CPC Central Committee, and writings by Mao Zedong, Zhang Wentian, Wang Jiaxiang and Liu Shaoqi. None of the required reading came from the works of Marx and Engels. As to the purpose and principle of the Rectification Movement, Mao Zedong summarized it as “learning from past mistakes to avoid future ones, and curing the sickness to save the patient.” He ordered to expose and rectify all 299

Socialism in China

the past mistakes ruthlessly. Nevertheless, like the doctor saving rather than killing the patient, the approach of rectification should be criticism and selfcriticism and patient and meticulous ideological education. The first stage of the rectification study went smoothly enough, but the next phase, the “Rescue Campaign” went seriously off track. In November 1942, Mao Zedong announced at the meeting of senior officials of the Northwest Bureau of the CPC Central Committee: Rectification was not only aimed at differentiating proletarian and non-proletarian ideologies but also revolution and counter-revolution, as well as conducting a counterespionage campaign. In March 1943, Mao pointed out at the meeting of the Political Bureau of the CPC Central Committee: Rectification should not only combat petty bourgeois thought but also counter-revolutionary activities. Later, the Central Committee issued a document stating that the whole Party should spend a whole year to rectify the non-proletarian ideologies of Party officials, and in the meantime, to eliminate enemy agents and counter-revolutionary elements hidden in the Party. Summarizing the painful lessons from the campaigns of eliminating counter-revolutionaries and cracking down on the AB League in the Central Soviet Area, Mao Zedong forbade extorting confessions and establishing them as evidence during interrogation, and required to focus on investigation and evidence, not to give ready credence to confessions. However, the campaign deviated from its original objective right from the start. After Kang Sheng, who was put in charge of the campaign, delivered a report titled “Save Those Who Have Strayed” at the meeting of institutions directly under the CPC Central Committee, Yan’an and the whole Border Region overestimated the threat from the enemy, and extorted confessions by atrocious torture. At the seat of the Social Department of the CPC Central Committee, blood-curdling screams could be heard intermittently from suspects under interrogation. For a time, the whole Yan’an area was on tenterhooks. In under two weeks, over 1,400 “enemy spies” were ferreted out in Yan’an, 50 of whom committed suicide, unable to withstand the injustice and torture. The number of uncovered “enemy spies” in the whole Border Region reached 15,000. The number of “enemy spies” purged by some units even accounted for half of their total staff. Discovering the problems resulting from widening the elimi300

Chapter 12

Mao Zedong Crystallizes His Thoughts on the New-Democracy Theory; Shaanxi-Gansu Base Experiments the Model of the People’s Republic

nation of counter-revolutionaries, Mao Zedong came forward to remedy the situation and put forward the principle of “killing not one and arresting only a minority.” The Secretariat of the CPC Central Committee decided to cease the “Rescue Campaign” immediately, and to screen the uncovered “enemy spies.” It ordered that all areas rectify the Leftist tendency and the error of extracting forced confessions. As a result, only 30 percent of the more than 15,000 “enemy spies” who had confessed turned out to be problematic; of these some remained under suspicion pending investigation, but by far the majority had been wrongfully accused. Mao Zedong admitted his liability for extending the campaign; many times at meetings he took off his cap and bowed in apology to falsely charged comrades, which helped assuage their resentment. Since Wang Ming refused to attend the meeting and examine his own mistakes, the rectification study of senior CPC officials was suspended for a time. In September 1943, the Political Bureau of the CPC Central Committee held another meeting to expose and criticize the Left- and Right-deviationist mistakes made by Wang Ming during the 10-year civil war and the early antiJapanese war period. The meeting confirmed Wang Ming as the initiator and supporter of the wrong line of the late National Revolution period, and Bo Gu as the executor and amplifier. However, this was just “trial by default” because of Wang Ming’s non-attendance. Just then, the international communist movement witnessed a great event. On May 21, 1943, Stalin said at a meeting of the Political Bureau of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union: “The experience of Marx and Lenin and that of today all illustrate the impossibility of the world’s workers’ movement being led from a single international center.” “When the Comintern was established, we overestimated our own strength, believing we could lead the global movement. It was our mistake.” The dissolution of the Comintern was announced. Wang Ming was now without backup. From hospital, he asked his wife to write on his behalf to Mao Zedong and the CPC Central Committee, vaguely admitting his mistake in courteous terms, saying he was “willing to restart learning as a student of Mao Zedong, reshape his ideology and rectify his dogmatic sectarian mistake…” Obviously, these remarks, hoping to pass the selfcriticism test, were insincere and perfunctory. 301

Socialism in China

The Party leaders and officials achieved unity of thinking through the Rectification Movement and, on this foundation in May 1944, the Sixth CPC Central Committee convened the Seventh Plenary Session, which lasted 11 months off and on. The session passed the Resolution on Certain Questions in the History, and submitted it to the Seventh CPC National Congress for deliberation. The Resolution analyzed and criticized the three erroneous Leftdeviationist lines of the Party adopted during the 10-year Agrarian Revolution period, in particular the third one during the period from the Fourth Plenary Session of the Sixth CPC Central Committee to the Zunyi Meeting; gave full affirmation to the Party’s political line adopted after the Zunyi Meeting; and commended the Rectification Movement for correcting the Left- and Rightdeviationist mistakes the Party had made ideologically. This marked the end of the Rectification Movement. The three-year-long Yan’an Rectification Movement was an active exploration of the CPC about Party building. The Movement played a significant role in giving the cadres a correct understanding of the Party’s experience and lessons, achieving unity of thinking among all Party members by applying Sinicized Marxism, combating subjectivism, dogmatism, sectarianism and “mountain-stronghold” mentality, enhancing internal solidarity, and establishing the guiding status of Mao Zedong Thought and Mao Zedong’s leadership in the Party and the army. The Movement put forward carrying on the fine traditions of integrating theory with practice, maintaining close ties with the people, as well as criticism and self-criticism. This enabled the large number of intellectuals who had newly joined the Party and the revolution to learn about Sinicized Marxism, correctly understand the Party’s experience and lessons, and reshape their ideology. There is no denying that the Yan’an Rectification Movement had its defects: The “Rescue Campaign” not only hurt a large number of passionate young intellectuals and Party officials dedicated to revolution, but also turned the rich and varied political life at Yan’an into a monotonous and stereotyped existence, while the previous atmosphere of intellectual enlightenment and theoretical innovation vanished into thin air with the adoption of the one-sided and simplistic anti-dogmatism approach. Hu Qiaomu, an expert on CPC history with personal experience of the Yan’an Rectification Movement, said, “Since the Rectification 302

Chapter 12

Mao Zedong Crystallizes His Thoughts on the New-Democracy Theory; Shaanxi-Gansu Base Experiments the Model of the People’s Republic

Movement, there has been little in the way of innovative research. Most studies are about what Chairman Mao said, and no one dared to research what he didn’t mention.” In 1943, the Secretariat of the CPC Central Committee decided that “Chairman Mao has the power to make the final decision about issues under discussion.” “The people’s great savior,” “the red sun,” “long live” and other expressions became popular within the Party and the army and among the people, which led to the rise of dictatorship and personality cult later. On the eve of victory in the anti-Japanese war, the Party convened its Seventh National Congress, and put forward comprehensive and systematic programs and policies regarding how to achieve final victory in the war and what kind of country to build thereafter.

Site of the Seventh National Congress of the CPC

From April 23 to June 11, 1945, the Congress was held in the newly built central assembly hall at Yangjialing, Yan’an. Centered over the rostrum were hung the portraits of Mao Zedong and Zhu De, flanked by three Party flags each side. The stone arch over the rostrum bore the words “Marching For303

Socialism in China

ward under the Banner of Mao Zedong.” Against the walls of the assembly hall were 24 red flags posted in six V-shaped pedestals, symbolizing that the CPC had convened six national congresses and had a history of 24 years. The delegates, 547 formal representatives and 208 alternates, represented the 1.21 million Party members throughout China. After The Internationale, Secretary-General of the CPC Central Committee Ren Bishi declared open of the congress. Mao Zedong set forth in his opening speech the tasks of the congress which were also the tasks of the Party in the following stage: “Our sole task is to boldly mobilize the masses, expand the people’s forces and unite all the forces of the nation capable of being united in order to struggle under our Party’s leadership to defeat the Japanese aggressors and build a bright new China, a China that is independent, free, democratic, united, prosperous and strong.” The next day, Mao Zedong submitted a written report titled “On Coalition Government” to the congress and also gave an oral presentation. In the written report, he expounded again, once the Japanese aggressors were defeated, to establish a new-democratic state system based on democratic alliance and the united front and serving the overwhelming majority of the people under the leadership of the working class. He reiterated, “It is a law of Marxism that socialism can be attained only via the stage of democracy. But in China the fight for democracy will be a protracted one. It would be sheer illusion to try to build a socialist society on the ruins of the colonial, semi-colonial and semi-feudal order without a united new-democratic state, without the development of the state sector of the new-democratic economy, of the private capitalist and the cooperative sectors, and of a national, scientific and mass culture, i.e., a new-democratic culture, and without the liberation and the development of the individuality of hundreds of millions of people – in short, without a thoroughgoing bourgeoisdemocratic revolution of a new type led by the Communist Party.” The report also put forward the specific program of the new-democratic society: abolish the KMT one-party dictatorship, establish a democratic coalition government; revoke all reactionary laws and decrees aimed at suppressing the people’s freedom of speech, press, assembly, association, political conviction and religious belief and freedom of the person, and guarantee full civil rights to the people; allow the development of capitalism in the new-democratic society, and pro304

Chapter 12

Mao Zedong Crystallizes His Thoughts on the New-Democracy Theory; Shaanxi-Gansu Base Experiments the Model of the People’s Republic

tect all appropriate forms of private property, etc. Another significant outcome of the Seventh National Congress of the CPC was the establishing of Mao Zedong Thought as the CPC’s guiding ideology and writing it into the Party Constitution. Since 1943, Wang Jiaxiang, Liu Shaoqi and others published articles proposing to establish Mao Zedong Thought – the significant achievement of Sinicized Marxism – as the CPC’s guiding ideology. Having gone through

Liu Shaoqi in Yan’an, 1945

the Rectification Movement, the CPC accepted this proposal. In Liu Shaoqi’s report to the congress about the revision of the Constitution of the Communist Party of China, he made a point of saying: “It is prescribed in the General Program of the Party Constitution that ‘The Communist Party of China takes as the guide to all its work Mao Zedong Thought, which integrates Marxist-Leninist theory and Chinese practice.” The CPC’s Seventh National Congress called on all Party members to intensively study Mao Zedong Thought. Thereafter, Mao Zedong Thought became the banner and guiding ideology of the CPC, and Mao Zedong the core of the first generation of the CPC’s central collective leadership as well as leader of the Party and the people. After the CPC’s Seventh National Congress, China’s anti-Japanese war soon turned to a strategic counteroffensive. In August 1945, the Chinese people, having fought many years of bloody war and suffering over 35 million casualties, property loss and war wastage exceeding 500 billion US dollars, finally triumphed in the War of Resistance against Japanese Aggression with the support of the world’s anti-fascist alliance. The anti-Japanese battlefield in China was an important component of the Eastern and the world’s anti-fascist front, and China’s War of Resistance made a significant contribution to the victory of the world’s anti-fascist campaign. 305

Socialism in China

China, her national liberation and independence achieved, was like the giant wheel of history, rolling with sweeping and irresistible momentum, to the destination of a people’s democratic republic. As the poem rightly says: The ambition of a great country, The brilliant history of Cathay. Produced New Democracy, Like the phoenix reborn from the fire. ᚻᚻվ‫ݛ‬૛ĭ ߪߪ߇༹ൖh ਇऄࠍ‫ߨڔ‬ĭ uྕ૾ᇾᇾၴv  h How did the turbulent waves of republic and democracy surge on? How did the Chinese people fulfill their hundred-year dream? To know what followed, turn to the next chapter.

306

Chapter 13

Complying with the Historical Trend, the CPC Issues May Day Slogans; Joining Hands to Found a Democratic Government, the CPC and the Democratic Parties Formulate the Common Program

After eight years of resistance against Japanese aggression, victory was ultimately won. Celebrating their hard-won triumph, the broad masses of the Chinese people, weary of war-inflicted sufferings, all longed for peace and democracy and an end to dictatorship. Following the wishes of the people, on the eve of victory against Japan, the Party timely raised the banner of democracy and freedom, and the country responded positively, echoing this desire. In an interview with foreign and Chinese journalists in June 1944, Mao Zedong stated that of all the shortages from which China suffered, democracy was in the shortest supply. “For politics there must be unification. But powerful politics cannot exist without a guarantee of freedom of speech, press and association, and the founding of government on democratic election.” In September 1944, the CPC called for “an immediate halt to the one-party dictatorship of the KMT and the establishment of a coalition government of all anti-Japanese parties.” This call elicited a positive response from all democratic parties and people from all sectors of society. Upon victory in the resistance war, the CPC promptly raised the slogan of peace, democracy and unity, urging that all parties should discuss policies for the peaceful reconstruction of China. This was in line with the people’s wishes. At this time, opposition to despotism and seeking peace, democracy, freedom and unification was the common consensus and strong aspiration of 307

Socialism in China

Mao Zedong (right, front row) and Chiang Kai-shek (center) with US Ambassador Patrick J. Hurley and others during the Chongqing negotiations

the democratic parties and of the whole nation. In response to this call, the democratic political parties issued statements of support; students, ordinary folk and intellectuals demonstrated in the streets, and the surge was further promoted by newspaper editorials. Under pressure, Chiang Kai-shek released an announcement that he would negotiate with the CPC on peace, consult other political parties, and exercise constitution-based governance. He sent three telegrams to Yan’an, inviting Mao Zedong to Chongqing to discuss state affairs. Joseph Stalin and Albert C. Wedemeyer (commander of US forces in China), each acting from their different considerations, both wired Mao urging the CPC to negotiate with the KMT. After weighing the case for quite a while, Mao decided to lead a delegation with Zhou Enlai and Wang Ruofei to Chongqing, risking the possibility of being put under house arrest as Zhang Xueliang had been. During their stay there, Mao Zedong had eleven closed-door talks with Chiang. The formal negotiations proceeded mainly between his comrades 308

Chapter 13

Complying with the Historical Trend, the CPC Issues May Day Slogans; Joining Hands to Found a Democratic Government, the CPC and the Democratic Parties Formulate the Common Program

Zhou Enlai and Wang Ruofei and the KMT government representatives Wang Shijie, Luo Qun, Zhang Zhizhong and Shao Lizi. The CPC delegates put forward 11 proposals, which included: affirming the principle of peace and national reconstruction; acknowledging the legitimate and equal position of all political parties; recognizing the regimes and the anti-Japanese troops in the liberated areas; and ending the single-party rule of the KMT. Their KMT counterparts replied that: they agreed with the proposal of peace and national reconstruction; acknowledged the legitimate and equal position of all political parties; and agreed to convene a political consultative conference to discuss building a multi-party coalition government. But they insisted that the whole country must have one unified leadership over government administration and military command, and that the CPC must give up the areas they had occupied and the troops they had built. They flatly refused to acknowledge regimes in the liberated areas controlled by the CPC as legitimate local governments. For the sake of unity, peace and reunification, the CPC delegation made one major concession after another. They agreed that elections of governments at all levels in the liberated areas would be conducted, the elected officials to be appointed by the national government; they agreed to give up the eight liberated areas in Guangdong, Zhejiang, south Jiangsu, south and central Anhui, Hunan, Hubei and Henan, and withdraw their forces to north Jiangsu and north Anhui and to the areas north of the eastwest Longhai (Lianyungang-Lanzhou) Railway; and they agreed to reduce their troops to 20 divisions, creating a ratio of 1:6 to KMT troops. In Chongqing, Mao Zedong and Zhou Enlai met with KMT officials and army officers, leaders of the Left groups within the KMT, leaders of the democratic parties, and other renowned personages, in addition to diplomats of the Soviet Union, the US, Britain, France and Canada. They explained their political propositions and sincerity in promoting peace and democracy, and thus won wide support and understanding. When answering questions raised by Doon Campbell, a British reporter for Reuters, during Mao’s visit to Chongqing for negotiations, Mao said, “A ‘free and democratic China’ should be such a country: Its governments at all levels, including the central government, should be produced through elections on the basis of universal suffrage, equality and secret ballot, and be accountable to the people who elected them. 309

Socialism in China

They should work to realize Sun Yat-sen’ Three Principles of the People, Abraham Lincoln’s principle of the government of the people, by the people and for the people, and Franklin D. Roosevelt’s four great freedoms.” While the negotiations went on, KMT troops attacked CPC-controlled liberated areas but were defeated, and the CPC’s victories on the battlefield won them initiatives at the negotiating table. Under the combined effect of various factors, on October 10, 1945, the KMT government signed and published the “Summary of Talks Between the Representatives of the Kuomintang and the Communist Party of China” (the “October 10th Agreement”). It accepted the CPC’s proposal of a basic policy of peace and national reconstruction; agreed to hold a political consultative conference of representatives of all political parties and people without party affiliation; to bring the KMT’s political tutelage to a speedy conclusion and realize political democracy; to recognize the legal status of various parties; to abolish the secret services, and conduct bottom-up general elections. On January 10, 1946, the Political Consultative Conference was convened in the National Government Auditorium in Chongqing. It was attended by 38 delegates representing the KMT, the CPC, China Democratic League, China Youth Party and social luminaries. The CPC delegates submitted the Draft Program for Peace and National Reconstruction, which proposed peace, democracy, solidarity and reunification as the basis; a speedy end to the KMT’s political tutelage and the inception of constitutional governance under Chiang’s leadership; earnestly implementing the Three Principles of the People and building a new China that would be independent, free, prosperous and powerful. These received wide support from other participating parties. After scores of discussions and debates, five resolutions were reached concerning government reorganization, restructuring of the army, the convening of the National Assembly, the program for peace and national reconstruction, and the draft of the constitution. On February 10, just 10 days after the conference, some 10,000 people from all circles rallied at Jiaochangkou in Chongqing to celebrate the success of the conference. But it was ruined by a violent attack of KMT agents, who stormed the platform, beating up and injuring Li Gongpu, Guo Moruo, Shi Fuliang, Zhang Naiqi and other patriotic democrats. Over 100 participants 310

Chapter 13

Complying with the Historical Trend, the CPC Issues May Day Slogans; Joining Hands to Found a Democratic Government, the CPC and the Democratic Parties Formulate the Common Program

were arrested. And that was not the end of the persecution. The agents did not release Li Gongpu and Wen Yiduo who had publicly criticized KMT autocracy and appealed for democracy, freedom and peace. They were murdered just days later. The agents also injured Zhang Lan, chairman of the China Democratic League. Within a month of signing the political resolution jointly with other political parties, the KMT overturned that very document and tore up the October 10th Agreement and the truce agreement it had signed with the CPC. For Chiang, the negotiations and the Political Consultative Conference had been, in essence, just cards to be played so as to con public opinion at home and abroad, maneuvers for time to make better arrangements to reoccupy the areas that had fallen under CPC control postwar. His true intention was revealed in a secret telegram he sent to Zhang Zhizhong and Hu Zongnan during the Chongqing negotiations: “The reason we are having negotiations with the wicked party is to gauge their aim or demands, so as to drag things out, mellow international opinion, and buy time for our troops to seize the opportunity to quickly reoccupy the major cities they have taken… If they do not submit to our unified military and governance, we will wipe them out as bandits.” The negotiations in Chongqing lasted for 43 days, which did serve Chiang’s agenda. On the day following the announcement of the October 10th Agreement, he issued a secret order: “If we fail to clear them out quickly, we will not only lose everything achieved in the eight-year-long anti-Japanese war, but will be left with a poisonous future legacy.” As soon as his military arrangements were in place, he immediately ordered large-scale attacks of the liberated areas under CPC control, and launched an all-out civil war. He even predicted that the CPC troops could be annihilated within five months. At that time, there was still great disparity of strength between the CPC and the KMT troops. Though CPC troop number had increased to 1.27 million from original 50,000 during the anti-Japanese war, in addition to 2.68 million militia, the KMT had more than three times that number, with a 4.3million-strong, well-equipped regular army. On Chiang’s orders, KMT troops immediately started attacking the liberated areas in a bid to seize more land from the CPC-controlled areas. In the first 311

Socialism in China

half of 1946, 2.7 million soldiers launched 4,365 attacks on CPC-controlled areas and took 40 cities. In late June and early July, KMT troops mounted an all-out offensive on liberated areas in central China, and a full-scale civil war began. Far from treating the loss of territory or cities as a disaster, the CPC gave up some large and medium-sized cities on its own initiative and withdrew from some liberated areas, so the enemy would have to draw off troops to guard them. At the same time, it seized every possible chance to destroy as many enemies as possible in mobile warfare. After eight months, the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) wiped out more than 710,000 KMT troops, though losing 105 cities in total. This forced the enemy to give up their plan of an allout offensive in the liberated areas, and turn its focus on the Shaanxi-GansuNingxia Border Region and Shandong areas. In March 1947, Hu Zongnan led 250,000 crack troops and encircled the Shaanxi-Gansu-Ningxia Border Region. In face of the strong enemy, Mao Zedong left Yan’an with the central Party and government organs and 42,000 troops led by Peng Dehuai and Xi Zhongxun, and withdrew to northern Shaanxi on their own initiative. The occupation of Yan’an made Chiang and his clique exultant. Chiang even flew to Yan’an as the victorious occupier, boasting to annihilate the Communists within three months. Believing that the day was imminent that he would wipe out the Communists, Chiang broke his promise to convene a political consultative conference of all parties, and accelerated preparations for a “National Assembly” that would involve only the KMT and its affiliated Youth Party and Democratic Socialist Party. During this “one-man show” directed and performed by the KMT alone, Chiang was elected president of China as he had wished. However, within days of Chiang’s ascending the presidential throne, Yan’an was re-occupied by the Northwest Field Army led by Mao Zedong, Peng Dehuai and Xi Zhongxun. It had defeated Chiang’s troops at Qinghuabian, Yangmahe and Panlong, and destroyed 14,000 troops of Hu Zongnan. On the battlefield of Shandong Province, the PLA East China Field Army under the command of Chen Yi and Su Yu lured the enemy in deep and, at Menglianggu, annihilated the whole 32,000-strong well-equipped elite No. 74 Division, shooting dead its Division Commander Lieutenant General Zhang 312

Chapter 13

Complying with the Historical Trend, the CPC Issues May Day Slogans; Joining Hands to Found a Democratic Government, the CPC and the Democratic Parties Formulate the Common Program

Lingfu. Like a powerful wind sweeping all before it, the PLA destroyed multitudes of intruding enemy, and crushed the KMT troops’ invasion of the liberated area of Shandong. Three months later, Liu Bocheng, Deng Xiaoping and their army crossed the Yellow River and advanced into the Dabie Mountains, establishing democratic governments in 33 counties there. Chen Geng and Xie Fuzhi led their army group to western Henan and established democratic governments in 39 counties there. Following their victories in Shandong, Chen Yi and Su Yu led their army and occupied large areas in Jiangsu, Shandong, Henan and Anhui provinces and established democratic governments in 25 counties. These three armies formed a triangle that supported and responded to each other, and started a strategic offensive against the KMT on the Central Plains in preparation for a decisive battle. However, at the time, factions within the KMT were engaged in a power struggle. Now in post as president, Chiang intended to choose a compliant vice president. He picked out as the best candidate Sun Ke, the eldest son of Sun Yat-sen, who had no factional backup to challenge Chiang. That someone like Li Zongren would dare to interfere did not occur to him. But, supported by the US ambassador to China John L. Stuart, Li, the powerful warlord based in Guangxi, announced his candidacy for vice president. Chiang tried every means to dissuade Li, but in vain. So he invited Li for a talk at the Mausoleum of Sun Yet-san in Nanjing, and said to him, “Presidential and vice-presidential candidates were nominated by the central leadership and that Sun Ke was the chosen nominee. In the interest of the common good, you should withdraw.” But Li refused to comply. He replied, “Mr. Commissioner, I asked your opinion before and you said it was an open contest. If you had discouraged me then, I would not enter the contest. But now I’ve made it public, it’s too late. It’s hard to obey you now.” “But you must give up. How could you get elected without my support?” Chiang raged. “It’s hard to tell,” replied Li, annoyed. Chiang leapt to his feet and shouted furiously: “You won’t get elected. Never!” 313

Socialism in China

Li stood up too and said firmly: “I most certainly will, Mr. Commissioner!” “Let’s see about that.” Chiang left in a huff. Then came the “National Assembly.” After four rounds of voting, Sun Ke lost to Li Zongren, who was elected vice president. Hearing the news at his residence, Chiang kicked the radio to the floor. Taking up his stick and cape, he ordered his aides to drive him to the suburbs, went to the Sun Yat-sen Memorial, and then ordered them to go back to the residence. Even after several such trips, his anger was unabated. From then on, the antagonism between Chiang and Li only got worse. A year later, Chiang was forced to resign and Li took over as acting president. But Li had little control: it was still Chiang who really pulled the strings in the party, the government and the military. This also foreshadowed Li’s turning his back on Chiang, throwing in his lot with the Communists and returning to the mainland 16 years later. But that is another story. While the KMT-controlled “National Assembly” had just wound up in haste and confusion, preparations were busily going forward for another event. This was the “Political Consultative Conference” advocated by the CPC and involving the participation of various democratic parties. Its initiation was marked by the May Day slogans revised by Mao himself and issued to the whole nation by the CPC. There is an interesting anecdote about the May Day slogans. In late April 1948, Zhou Enlai received a telegram from Xinhua News Agency in Yan’an, which was sent to Xibaipo in Pingshan County, Hebei Province, where the CPC Central Committee was located. It read, “As May Day is imminent. What wind does the Central Committee propose to break?” “This cheeky Liao, he’s never serious.” Zhou couldn’t help laughing at seeing the telegram. But the young man’s political sensitivity did win his appreciation. “This cheeky Liao” was Liao Chengzhi, son of Liao Zhongkai and He Xiangning, both of them loyal comrades of Sun Yet-san and founder members of the KMT. The young Liao, a happy-go-lucky fellow and fond of a joke, was then heading Xinhua News Agency, the “mouthpiece” of the CPC authorities. 314

Chapter 13

Complying with the Historical Trend, the CPC Issues May Day Slogans; Joining Hands to Found a Democratic Government, the CPC and the Democratic Parties Formulate the Common Program

During its early days, the CPC was known for its strongly democratic ethos: all comrades were equal, whether leaders or subordinates, and there was a great deal of joking around. So Liao’s slightly vulgar humor was no great shock to Zhou. In fact, it came just at the right time. May Day is a festival of the working class around the world. As the political party of the Chinese workers, the CPC naturally would celebrate it. At that time, the Chinese revolution and the Chinese nation stood at a turning point, and Zhou Enlai had the relevant department draft some celebratory slogans for the Central Committee to choose from. Soon, the draft slogans arrived on Mao Zedong’s desk. Mao revised them carefully, considering every nuance. First to be deleted were No. 22 (“Long Live Chairman Mao, the Leader of the Chinese People!”) and No. 24 (“Long Live the CPC, the Organizer of the Chinese Working People and Oppressed People, and the Leader of the Chinese People’s Liberation War!”); he changed No. 5 (“The Working Class Is the Leader of the Chinese People’s Revolution, the Working Class in the Liberated Areas Is the Master of New China, Let Us Take More Positive Actions for the Final Victory of the Chinese Revolution!”) to “All Democratic Parties, People’s Organizations and Prestigious Personages Work to Hold the Political Consultative Conference to Discuss the Holding of a People’s Congress and Establish a Democratic Coalition Government.” These revisions reflected the broad vision of Mao Zedong, an open-minded, resourceful and far-sighted strategist. On April 30, 1948, peals of laughter could be heard emerging from a smoke-filled room in a simple house in Chengnan Village in Baoding, Hebei. Mao Zedong, Liu Shaoqi, Zhu De, Zhou Enlai and Ren Bishi were meeting for the first time since leaving Yan’an, and were holding a secretariat meeting. Zhou showed them Liao Chengzhi’s telegram, which set them laughing heartily. The first item for discussion was the May Day slogans, in particular Mao’s revision of No. 5. Putting down his teacup, Mao explained, “Chiang Kai-shek is staging a one-man show and is at odds with Li Zongren in Nanjing. We should do exactly the opposite to him and put on a big show in which all the heroes get to play just like those heroes and heroines in Liangshan Mountain. There has never been an event like the Political Consultative Conference. No, never, neither here nor abroad. It’s the creation of ourselves and the KMT. 315

Socialism in China

But Chiang doesn’t value this creation, abandons it, and plays the autocrat. He has hurt the democratic parties and lost public support. He’s on the road to nowhere. We hold high the banner of ‘political consultation’ and work to build a democratic coalition government. Under this banner, we are sure to bring democratic parties on our side and win over public support. Only with public support can we win over the whole country.” Zhou Enlai took up the theme: “When the Political Consultative Conference broke up in 1946, we decided that if Chiang convened the ‘National Assembly’ of his own will, we would hold our ‘People’s Congress’ on our own. In form, these slogans replicate the name of the Political Consultative Conference held in January 1946, but in content and in nature they are quite different. Ours will be a new Political Consultative Conference. These are not merely slogans for publicity, but guidance for our politics and actions too.” Liu Shaoqi continued, “Though the KMT is doomed to failure, most of the country is still under its control. So now is not the time to hold the People’s Congress. By raising the slogan of ‘Political Consultative Conference,’ we will appeal to and unite more than 90 percent of the people. So, the time to hold the Political Consultative Conference is right now.” That same day, the May Day slogans were transmitted to the whole world via Xinhua News Agency. Mao Zedong, in his own name, wired the leaders of two major democratic parties in China – Li Jishen of the Revolutionary Committee of the Chinese Kuomintang and Shen Junru of the China Democratic League, and consulted them on convening the new Political Consultative Conference. On May 1, 1948, there was a distinct air of tension and secrecy at a small three-story villa on Robinson Road halfway up a hill in Hong Kong. Under the vigilant watch of a dozen strapping guards by the main entrance, a number of visitors slipped into the compound one by one, some in Western suits, and some wearing traditional Chinese garments. Locals knew the villa as the “Li Mansion.” It was owned by the 63-yearold Li Jishen, commander of the Guangdong Army and a renowned general of the Northern Expedition. When the Whampoa Military Academy was established, Chiang Kai-shek was its president and Li its academic dean. During 316

Chapter 13

Complying with the Historical Trend, the CPC Issues May Day Slogans; Joining Hands to Found a Democratic Government, the CPC and the Democratic Parties Formulate the Common Program

the Northern Expedition, Chiang was commander-in-chief, and Li his chief of staff. But as time went by, Li got sick of Chiang’s treacherous conduct, tyrannical behavior and perverse actions, and had on several occasions rebelled against Chiang. Four months earlier, Li, together with Soong Ching Ling and He Xiangning, had brought together the anti-Chiang democratic forces in the KMT and in Hong Kong founded the Revolutionary Committee of the Chinese Kuomintang (RCCK). Soong Ching Ling was made its honorary chairman, Li its chairman, and He Xiangning, Feng Yuxiang, Tan Pingshan and Cai Tingkai were made members of the Central Committee. With his extensive connections in military and administration circles of the KMT, and his wide influence in society, Li Jishen was a crucial figure among the democratic parties. Having welcomed his guests in the sitting room, Li began: “I’ve invited you over today to discuss a major issue. I very recently received a telegram which Mao Zedong sent to Mr. Shen and me. He sincerely invited all democratic parties, people’s organizations and famous personages to hold a Political Consultative Conference to discuss the establishment of a democratic coalition government. I guess all of you may have read about the May Day slogans of the Communists. What do you think of this? Please be frank and say what’s on your mind.” Guo Moruo, a leading figure in academe, with no party affiliation, was the first to speak: “The May Day slogans expressed the Communists’ sincerity to work with the democratic parties, people’s organizations and the elite to build a new China. They voiced our own aspirations. No. 5 is the most important of the slogans. New China is just around the corner, so what are we still waiting for?” Guo had joined the CPC after the Nanchang Uprising, but later left with the Party’s agreement, engaged in academic research and literary creation, involving himself in the democratic movement. He was a famous man of letters, historian and archaeologist. “Chiang Kai-shek is a traitor to the Three Principles of the People, whereas Mao Zedong is a good friend of those principles. He is an advocate of new democracy and welcomes us to work together to establish a coalition government,” Tan Pingshan continued. Tan was a member of the standing committee of the RCCK and a leader of the Association of the Comrades of Three Principles of the 317

Socialism in China

People. He was a veteran politician and an influential democratic revolutionary. During the first KMT-CPC Cooperation, he, as a key CPC cadre, was on the KMT Central Executive Committee and headed the KMT Department of Organization. In 1927, he was one of the initiators of the Nanchang Uprising, but was later expelled from the CPC by “Leftist” Party leaders on a trumped up charge. With Deng Yanda he founded the China Revolutionary Party, which was reorganized as the China KMT Provisional Action Committee in 1930. In Chongqing in 1945, he initiated the Association of the Comrades of Three Principles of the People to unite the democrats inside the KMT against Chiang. Tan’s sentiments were echoed by Cai Tingkai, a plain-speaking career soldier. “No sooner do we win our eight-year-long war against the Japs than Chiang goes and drags the whole nation into a civil war. I long ago suggested holding a new political consultative conference of our own, bypassing Chiang entirely. The Communists have just voiced what I’ve been thinking about,” his voice resounded in the room like a great bell. Cai, as commander of the 19th Route Army, had led a fierce fight back against the Japanese in the Battle of Shanghai. Later he rebelled against Chiang in Fujian and called for resistance against the Japanese invaders, which made him a thorn in Chiang’s flesh. In Guangzhou in 1946, he allied with the KMT’s anti-Chiang forces and established the Association for Promoting Democracy of the Chinese Kuomintang. This was banned by Chiang and Cai himself was forced to move to Hong Kong. Ma Xulun, in his traditional dress, said in measured tones: “The May Day slogans sound the bell for a new dawn. They call for consolidating and expanding our united front against imperialism, feudalism and bureaucraticcapitalism, and working together to end the reactionary rule of the KMT and build a new China.” Ma headed the China Association for Promoting Democracy, founded in Shanghai in 1945 and with a membership mainly of intellectuals in cultural, education and publishing circles. Persecuted by the KMT in 1947, Ma fled to refuge in Hong Kong with the help of the CPC. Chen Qiyou, vice president of the China Zhi Gong Dang, had an air of gallantry about him, as did his words: “From the Revolution of 1911 to our resistance against Japanese aggression, we overseas Chinese have devoted all we can – our money and our strength. We can no longer endure the last feudal 318

Chapter 13

Complying with the Historical Trend, the CPC Issues May Day Slogans; Joining Hands to Found a Democratic Government, the CPC and the Democratic Parties Formulate the Common Program

dynasty in Chinese history – the Chiang Dynasty.” His party was founded in San Francisco in 1925. Its predecessor was the martial Hung Society, which had been a great supporter of and actual participant in Sun Yet-san’s revolutionary activities to overthrow the feudal rule of the Qing Dynasty. In early 1946, the party recovered its headquarters in Hong Kong and continued its democratic fight against the Chiang camp. Li Zhangda represented the Chinese People’s Association to Save the Nation. He said, “We must resist feudal autocracy no matter what disguise it takes. Imperialist invader, be it Japanese or American, must be driven out. It is high time for our Chinese nation to rise up.” The mission of his party was to motivate the whole nation to resist the Japanese aggressors and save the country. Seeing through Chiang Kai-shek’s intrigue to launch a civil war and continue his Fascist autocracy, many of Li’s colleagues had written articles and made speeches to expose and denounce Chiang’s secret agenda. But their actions resulted in harassment from KMT agents, and Shen Junru, Zhang Naiqi, Zou Taofen, Li Gongpu, Shi Liang, Wang Zaoshi and Sha Qianli were arrested in what became known as the “Seven Gentlemen Incident,” and aroused nationwide condemnation. Peng Zemin, a Leftist veteran in the KMT and leader of the Chinese Peasants and Workers Democratic Party, spoke: “The peasants and workers are in peril, and the Chiang regime is near to collapse. The time to save the nation is upon us.” In 1927, Chiang Kai-shek launched a purge of the Communists in contravention of the will of Sun Yet-san, which brought strong opposition from the KMT Left wing. The following year, with the support of Soong Ching Ling and Chen Youren, Deng Yanda had made a public speech in Moscow in the name of the Chinese KMT Provisional Action Committee, calling on the people to oppose the new warlords invoking the KMT banner, and to establish a popular government founded on the support of the peasants and workers. Soon afterward, the China KMT Provisional Action Committee was set up inside the KMT. During the anti-Japanese war, it was renamed the China National Liberation Action Committee and in 1947 it took the name Chinese Peasants and Workers Democratic Party. The resolute and forthright He Xiangning was the only woman present that day. She was terse and decisive in her words: “We should hold the Political 319

Socialism in China

Consultative Conference, and the sooner the better. We should hold high the banner of justice, and not allow Chiang a breathing spell.” Madame He and her husband Liao Zhongkai were two of the earliest founders of the Hsing Chung Hui (Society for China’s Regeneration), Tung Meng Hui (Chinese Revolutionary League) and the Kuomintang. They were two of Sun Yat-sen’s most reliable comrades. After Dr. Sun passed away and Mr. Liao was assassinated, like Soong Ching Ling, Madame He too became a representative figure of the Left wing of the KMT. After most of the guests had said their piece, all eyes turned to a highly respected elderly figure, wishing to hear his views. Mr. Shen Junru, at 73, was a gentleman of sage bearing. In slow but resolute tones, he spoke: “The Communists have received nationwide support for their May Day slogans. This fully demonstrates that to hold a Political Consultative Conference is not the call of one single party or faction, but the common desire of all democratic parties and people’s organizations, and even the whole nation. I totally approve the idea and will do all in my power to make it happen!” This declaration won warm applause. In the late Qing Dynasty, Mr. Shen had joined a petition calling for national assembly. Later he joined the Tung Meng Hui, and participated in the Revolution of 1911 and the Northern Expedition and fought against Yuan Shikai, Cao Kun and other warlords’ usurpation of state power and restoration of the old system. During the anti-Japanese war, he and Zhang Lan, Huang Yanpei and Zhang Bojun founded the China Democratic Political League, which was later reorganized into the China Democratic League and became the third largest political party in China after the KMT and the CPC. After that war, the China Democratic League actively joined movements for democracy and peace, and was therefore pronounced illegal by the KMT government and forced to dissolve. On January 5, 1948, Mr. Shen, together with Zhang Bojun and Zhou Xinmin, held the Third Plenary Session of the Central Committee of the China Democratic League in Hong Kong and announced the reopening of the League’s headquarters. Mr. Shen himself became its acting president. The League made a public announcement that it would stand on the side of the people, pursue democracy and revolution, and strive to overthrow the KMT, eliminate feudal land ownership, and realize 320

Chapter 13

Complying with the Historical Trend, the CPC Issues May Day Slogans; Joining Hands to Found a Democratic Government, the CPC and the Democratic Parties Formulate the Common Program

people’s democracy. It advocated allying with the CPC and other democratic parties to found a coalition government. The meeting concluded with a concise summary from Li Jishen: “The May Day slogans propose inter-party consultation and the establishment of a coalition government. This fully reflects the CPC’s sincerity in opposing one-party autocracy. All of us should support them and join the efforts of the democratic forces to establish a new China.” Two days after the meeting, Li Jishen, Shen Junru and 10 other leaders of democratic parties plus Guo Moruo sent a joint telegram to Mao Zedong, expressing their support for the May Day slogans. Subsequently, various democratic parties, people’s organizations and celebrities in Hong Kong and overseas Chinese organizations and their leaders issued announcements voicing their support. The May Day slogans became the call to action for holding the People’s Political Consultative Conference and founding a new China. Chiang Kai-shek and the KMT government became increasingly isolated: their days were numbered. By this time, the KMT had not only lost public support in politics, but was facing failure on the battlefield in its fight with the CPC for control of China. In September 1948, the CPC Central Committee ordered the PLA East China Field Army to launch a battle at Ji’nan. After eight days and nights of fierce fighting, they wiped out more than 100,000 KMT troops. This victory was the overture to strategic battles between the two armies across the country. From September 12 to November 2, the Northeast Field Army waged the Liaoxi-Shenyang Campaign, and took Jinzhou, Shenyang, Yingkou, wiping out 472,000 KMT troops in the process. From November 6 to January 10 of 1949, the North China and East China Field Armies launched the Huai-Hai Campaign over a broad area extending from Haizhou in the east to Shangqiu in the west, and from Lincheng in the north to the Huaihe River in the south, with Xuzhou in the center. They wiped out three elite KMT armies with a combined strength of 555,000, and liberated eastern China and the Central Plains, a vast area north of the Yangtze River. While the Huai-Hai Campaign advanced, CPC Central Committee was already planning the Beiping (Beijing)-Tianjin Campaign. After liberating 321

Socialism in China

Zhangjiakou and Tianjin, the PLA besieged Beiping with strong forces, and dispatched representatives to talk with the defending KMT officers on the peaceful liberation of this old capital city. Conforming to the trend of the times and the wishes of the people, Fu Zuoyi, the highest local commander, made a correct decision and enabled the peaceful hand-over of the city. During the Beiping-Tianjin Campaign, more than 520,000 KMT troops were destroyed or reorganized into the PLA. Altogether, the three great campaigns wiped out more than 1.54 million KMT troops – nearly all the crack KMT troops – making the fall of the KMT regime a certainty. Chiang Kai-shek was forced to resign on January 21, leaving Li Zongren as acting president. So as to avoid damaging the country further, despite having victory within its grasp, the CPC suggested peace negotiations with the KMT. It put forward eight conditions as the basis for negotiations, including: punish war criminals, abolish the bogus constitution, form a democratic coalition government to take over all the power and authority of the reactionary Nanjing KMT government and of its subordinate governments at all levels. Li Zongren agreed to negotiate on this basis and finally the representatives of both sides drafted the Agreement on Internal Peace. However, because of the behind-the-scene interference of the Chiang Kai-shek faction, the KMT government refused to sign the agreement document. On April 21, 1949, Mao Zedong and Zhu De issued the “Order for Countrywide Military Advance,” ordering the PLA to advance with courage and to wipe out resolutely, thoroughly, wholly and completely all KMT reactionaries within China’s borders who dared resist the move to liberate the people of the whole country. Following this order, the Second and the Third Field Armies (formerly the Central Plains and the East China Field Armies) and local troops, one million in all, fought their way south across the Yangtze River on a front extending more than 500 km from Jiangyin in the east to Hukou in the west, destroying the defense line the enemy had built along the Yangtze. On April 23 these forces liberated Nanjing, the seat of the KMT government; Wuhan, Shanghai and other cities fell within a month. The PLA soldiers, inspired by Mao Zedong’s poem “with power and to spare we must pursue the tottering foe, and 322

Chapter 13

Complying with the Historical Trend, the CPC Issues May Day Slogans; Joining Hands to Found a Democratic Government, the CPC and the Democratic Parties Formulate the Common Program

not ape Xiang Yu the conqueror seeking idle fame,” followed up this victory and advanced on to the south and southwest of China in hot pursuit of the remnant enemies. Chiang Kai-shek had to retreat with his remaining troops to the island of Taiwan and some small islands off the southeast coast. Li Jishen, Shen Junru, Ma Xulun, together with leaders of other democratic parties and non-party democrats, 56 signatories in all, sent a joint telegram to Mao Zedong and Zhu De, expressing congratulations on the great victories of the PLA. It read: “Our People’s Liberation Army is the armed strength of the people, the spearhead of the revolution. You gentlemen have commanded with composure, working with great merit for the nation; the soldiers look up to you, doing their duty without question. Wherever your flag appears it is welcomed, the people freely offering food and drink. Your victories at Jinzhou and Shenyang have liberated the entire northeast China; your victories in the HuaiHai Campaign have shaken and toppled Beiping and Shanghai; your victories in the Tianjin-Tanggu area enabled the ancient capital Beiping to be liberated without a drop of blood being spilt. Such unprecedented achievements will shine in history. Any day now, the revolution will be complete…. From many colleagues who have gone to the liberated areas, we have had good news followed by more good news. So stirred are we that we will follow you and unite closely with you, striving to the very end for the building of China.” This telegram demonstrated the sincerity and aspirations of the democrats. Thirteen years earlier, at the end of the Red Army’s Long March to northern Shaanxi, they too had also received a telegram. It came from Lu Xun, and read “The hopes of China and of mankind are placed upon you.” The sentiments of the two cables, though separated in time by more than a decade, were completely in accord. The stream of great news from the battlefields encouraged the Communists to speed up their preparations for the founding of a new government of the people. The Second Plenary Session of the Seventh Central Committee of the CPC met between March 5 and 13, 1949, at Xibaipo, a small village in Pingshan County, Hebei Province, lying some 300 km south of Beiping. Present at the meeting were 34 members and 19 alternate members of the Central Com323

Socialism in China

mittee, plus 11 non-voting participants. They were key members of the Party, government and army, and shouldered the mission to lead the new-democratic revolution to victory. Mao Zedong made a report to the meeting, in which he set forth policies for a speedy nationwide victory for the revolution. Once victory had been achieved, the center of gravity of the Party’s work should shift from the countryside to the city, he said. He also defined the basic political, economic and foreign policies the Party should adopt following victory. Concerning the new-democratic political construction, Mao pointed out: “Now that China’s first Political Consultative Conference under the leadership of our Party will soon be convened, now that the formation of democratic coalition government is imminent, and now that the revolution will soon be victorious throughout the country, our Party’s policy of long-term cooperation with non-Party democrats should be clearly established in the thinking and work of the whole Party, and we must oppose the two deviations, the Rightist doctrine of accommodation, and the closed-door and perfunctory approach of the Left.” Concerning new-democratic economic development, Mao analyzed China’s current economic situation: concentrated and progressive modern industry stood at 10 percent, whereas scattered and backward individual agriculture and handicraft industry stood at around 90 percent. Such national conditions plus the attitude and stance of the national bourgeoisie combined to determine “the need, for a fairly long period after the victory of the revolution, to make use of the positive qualities of urban and rural private capitalism as far as possible, in the interest of developing the national economy. In this period, all capitalist elements in the cities and countryside that are not harmful but beneficial to the national economy should be allowed to exist and expand. This is not only unavoidable but also economically necessary.” But they would be subject to restrictions in several aspects – in their scope of operation and by tax policy, market prices and labor conditions; such policies needed to be well-measured and flexible so as to leave room for them to exist and develop within the framework of the economic policy and planning of the People’s Republic. He also made an incisive exposition of New China’s economic structure after the national revolution was victorious. “The state-owned economy is so324

Chapter 13

Complying with the Historical Trend, the CPC Issues May Day Slogans; Joining Hands to Found a Democratic Government, the CPC and the Democratic Parties Formulate the Common Program

cialist in character and the co-operative economy is semi-socialist; these plus private capitalism, plus the individual economy, plus the state-capitalist economy in which the state and private capitalists work jointly, will be the chief sectors of the economy of the People’s Republic and will constitute the newdemocratic economic structure.” Mao warned the whole Party with great sincerity in his closing words: Winning victory countrywide would be only the first step in a long march of ten thousand li … the road after the revolution would be longer, the work greater and more arduous. The comrades must remain modest, prudent and free from arrogance and rashness in their style of work, and must preserve the style of plain living and hard struggle. The legacy of this internal Party meeting was that it unified the thinking of key cadres, defined the guiding principles and set the tasks. After the meeting, Mao Zedong and other senior leaders lost no time in preparing for the Political Consultative Conference and planning for the establishment of a new government. Apart from those who had fled to Hong Kong to escape KMT persecution, most of the democratic party leaders and social luminaries invited for the consultative conference by the CPC stayed in such cities as Beiping, Shanghai, Nanjing, Chongqing and Guangzhou, which were still under KMT control. And even those in Hong Kong were under the surveillance of KMT agents. So, it posed a big problem for the CPC to help such prominent people, in their hundreds, to shake off the spies and travel safely to the CPC-controlled liberated areas for the meeting. Zhou Enlai commanded this clandestine operation in person. He ordered the underground CPC organizations and armed forces in KMT-controlled areas to use every means to help these democrats elude their shadows, leave the big cities for Hong Kong in groups, then take them by chartered foreign vessels to Dalian, Yantai or North Korea before escorting them to the liberated areas of Huabei and Northeast China. Over the course of more than a year, from August 1948 to the holding of the conference, more than 350 democratic party leaders, famous cultural figures and businessmen reached the liberated areas via these secret channels. 325

Socialism in China

Among them were Li Jishen, Shen Junru, Tan Pingshan, Zhang Bojun, Cai Tingkai, He Xiangning, Huang Yanpei, Ma Yinchu, Guo Moruo, Ma Xulun, Shen Yanbing, Ye Shengtao and Deng Chumin, On March 25, 1949, a fleet of sedan cars carrying Mao Zedong and other leaders of the Party, government and army arrived at Xiyuan Airport in Beiping. Then with General Fu Zuoyi and the democratic party leaders, they reviewed the People’s Liberation Army. After that, Mao’s motorcade headed for Fragrant Hills in the western suburbs. At Shuangqing Villa at the mid-level of Fragrant Hills, Mao Zedong, who had only just settled in, worked simultaneously on directing PLA fighting at the front while also preparing for the Conference and the new government. The villa was visited by celebrities and famous figures from various circles. Mao met with the leaders of democratic parties and people’s organizations and with prestigious personages, exchanging views with them and listening to their opinions and suggestions about China’s governance. Among them was a senior guest, Situ Meitang, a renowned patriotic democrat and chairman of China Zhi Gong Dang’s branches in the Americas. In order to get to the Conference, this leader of overseas Chinese, at the advanced age of 81, had travelled all the way from the US. So as to save him the bumpy car ride up the mountain, Mao Zedong had his guards fashion a “sedan chair” out of his own rattan chair to convey this senior guest all the way up the hill to the villa. At the approach of the “sedan chair,” Mao came out to greet his guest. Helping Situ out of the conveyance, he said, “From this day on we’ll work together. We’ll be both passengers of the sedan and carriers of the sedan. We’ll have every patriot use his strengths to the best in the people’s government. As well as having duties to fulfill, they will have power commensurate with position.” Zhang Lan was the president of the China Democratic League, the second largest democratic party in China at the time. Learning he was coming to visit, the guards tried to hunt out some decent clothes for Mao, but in vain: not one of his garment was without patches. Mao was not at all concerned, saying, “There’s no need to worry about patches. Provided the clothes are neat and tidy, Mr. Zhang won’t mind. History affords many examples of dandies not making the grade and the poor achieving success. We can make the grade.” 326

Chapter 13

Complying with the Historical Trend, the CPC Issues May Day Slogans; Joining Hands to Found a Democratic Government, the CPC and the Democratic Parties Formulate the Common Program

Li Jishen, though seven years older than Mao, greeted the younger man with hands folded in respectful manner: “Chairman Mao, you’re magnificent, real magnificent.” Mao, his face wreathed in smiles, came forward and helped Li by the arm to his seat. “Mr. Li, we are old friends and know each other very well. Please do not flatter me. It will embarrass me.” The invited participants continued arriving in Beiping, and the date scheduled for the Conference drew near, but one important figure had yet to appear. This caused Mao a little anxiety, so he wrote in his own fine hand: “Dear Madame Soong, time has flown by since we last met in Chongqing nearly four years ago. I sincerely look forward to meeting you again, more with every day that passes. With the victory of national revolution in sight, we all eagerly anticipate consulting with you on the issue of state governance. I am sending Comrade Deng Yingchao to you, to convey our greetings and accompany you to Beiping. Please do come, so we may learn from you more easily. Please do not decline our request. With utmost respect.” Zhou Enlai also wrote a letter entreating Soong Ching Ling to come to Beiping. Bearing these two letters, Deng Yingchao made a special trip to Shanghai where Dr. Sun’s widow was recuperating in hospital. Then she accompanied her to Beiping for the Conference. On the afternoon of August 28, Beiping’s Qianmen Railway Station was all decked out with colorful festive flags. Mao Zedong, Zhu De, Zhou Enlai, Lin Boqu, Dong Biwu, Li Jishen, He Xiangning, Shen Junru, and Guo Moruo were prominent among the 59-strong welcoming party that waited patiently on the platform for the arrival of Soong Ching Ling, the widow of Sun Yat-sen and a renowned patriotic leader in China’s pursuit of democracy. At four o’clock, her train slowly pulled into the station. When the graceful lady appeared at the carriage door, a group of children thronged to salute her with bouquets. She shook hands with Mao

Soong Ching Ling

327

Socialism in China

Zedong, Zhu De, Zhou Enlai and other friends who had come especially to welcome her. Tears of happiness filled her eyes and a smile of contentment spread across her face. With her arrival, all the important figures were now assembled in Beiping. The curtain could now go up on the drama. At any important political meeting whose theme is determined, the attendees have two major tasks: to draft documents and assign people to posts. The forthcoming new Political Consultative Conference had a dual character. On the one hand, it would play the role of the envisaged National People’s Congress (NPC) as an organization of people’s democratic dictatorship. On the other, it would also be the organization of the people’s democratic united front. So the Conference would discuss and decide plans for building a new country and establishing a democratic coalition government. The major document to be formulated at the Conference – the Common Program of New Democracy – was the program for building a new China and the provisional Constitution. Hence it was freighted with great significance for the success of the Conference and of New China too. The CPC Central Committee had, as early as in 1948, entrusted Zhou Enlai with the task of producing a perfect draft of the Common Program docu-

Standing Committee members of the CPPCC preparatory meeting. From left: Tan Pingshan, Zhou Enlai, Zhang Bojun, Huang Yanpei, Lin Boqu, Zhu De, Ma Yingchu, Cai Chang, Mao Zedong, Zhang Xiruo, Chen Shutong, Shen Junru, Ma Xulun, Guo Moruo, Li Jishen, Li Lisan, Cai Tingkai, Tan Kah Kee, Ulanhu, and Shen Yanbing

328

Chapter 13

Complying with the Historical Trend, the CPC Issues May Day Slogans; Joining Hands to Found a Democratic Government, the CPC and the Democratic Parties Formulate the Common Program

ment. In June 1949, the preparatory meeting for the Conference decided to set up a 22-person document drafting group, with Zhou Enlai as its head and Xu Deheng as deputy. There were just four CPC members, the others were members of democratic parties, patriotic personages without party affiliation, and famous scholars and experts. After rounds of discussion, soliciting of opinion and revisions to the text, the group submitted a draft on August 22, signed off by Zhou Enlai for review by Mao Zedong. Over the next two weeks, Mao read the draft word by word and made more than 200 revisions. He also changed the title to Common Program. His dedication reflected the great importance he placed on the document. On the night of September 10, Zhou Enlai, Xu Deheng and Hu Qiaomu came to Mao’s residence. Together they deliberated and made further amendments to Mao’s version. Their discussion lasted more than 10 hours, not finishing until daybreak. At around seven in the morning, Zhou left Mao’s Juxiang Study carrying the final version. September is the best season in Beiping. At this golden time of the year, everything was in place for the new Conference; the theme document was finalized and the deputies were already arriving in the city. On the afternoon of September 17, the last preparatory meeting was held in Qinzheng Hall in Zhongnanhai. The members, 134 in total, reviewed the Common Program and other documents and agreed to submit them to the Conference for examination and approval. They also decided the name of the forthcoming event as “Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC).” After the meeting, all deputies to the CPPCC were invited to a banquet on Yingtai Isle in Zhongnanhai. As night fell on the brightly-lit isle, the banquet hall was filled with the sound of laughter and enjoyment. The guests, movers and shakers who had for so long devoted themselves to China’s new-democratic revolution in various heroic ways, were packing the hall. At the top table Mao Zedong proposed a toast to the guests at his table: “We have people from all walks of society here. We have Mr. Li Lisan of the proletariat, Mr. Guo Moruo who is a man of letters with no party affiliation, 329

Socialism in China

Professor Xu Deheng who is a professor of democracy, Mr. Chen Shutong who is an eminent businessman and a scholar of the Qing Dynasty Imperial Academy, Madame He Xiangning who is a representative of Chinese women, and Mr. Tan Kah Kee and Mr. Situ Meitang who are leaders of overseas Chinese. Let’s raise our glasses and drink to our heart’s content to celebrate the imminent birth of the people’s New China.” On the night of September 21, 1949, the First Plenary Session of the CPPCC was held at Huairen Hall in Zhongnanhai. A total of 662 formal and alternate deputies attended, representing 45 political parties, people’s organizations, the ethnic minorities and overseas Chinese. Among them, the CPC, the Revolutionary Committee of the Chinese KMT, and China Democratic League – the three largest parties – each had 16 formal deputies and two alternate deputies. In terms of deputy mix, the CPC deputies accounted for 44 percent, democratic party deputies 30 percent and peasants and workers and non-party personages 26 percent. This showed the allied governance of all democratic parties under the leadership of the CPC. Mao Zedong said passionately when addressing the opening ceremony: “The present Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference is convened on an entirely new foundation; it is representative of the people of the whole country… Therefore, the Conference proclaims that it will exercise the functions and powers of a National People’s Congress.” The CPPCC handed this power over to the NPC when the First NPC was held in 1954.

T he First Plenar y Session of the CPPCC

330

Chapter 13

Complying with the Historical Trend, the CPC Issues May Day Slogans; Joining Hands to Found a Democratic Government, the CPC and the Democratic Parties Formulate the Common Program

At the Conference, the deputies had lively discussions concerning the nature of New China and the state system to be adopted for the People’s Republic. Some members of the Revolutionary Committee of the Chinese Kuomintang suggested using Dr. Sun Yet-san’s “Three Principles of the People” or “New Three Principles of the People” rather than “new democracy” to define the nature of New China, considering that this had greater continuity and appeal. But the majority of the deputies argued that “Three Principles of the People” had been shamed by Chiang Kai-shek, and if New China continued to use it would there be any difference from Old China? After frank, sometimes heated, discussions, the deputies reached consensus about the nature of New China. The first article of the Common Program stipulated that “The People’s Republic of China is a new-democratic – a people’s democratic – state governed by a people’s democratic dictatorship that is led by the working class and based on an alliance of workers and peasants. The state unites all democratic classes and all ethnic groups in China, opposes imperialism, feudalism and bureaucrat-capitalism, and strives for national independence, democracy, peace, reunification and prosperity.” Concerning the system of government, the deputies agreed after thorough discussions with the provision in the draft Common Program that “The state power in the People’s Republic of China belongs to the people. The people’s congresses and people’s governments at all levels are the organs through which the people exercise state power. The people’s congresses at all levels are constituted through general elections, and the people’s governments at all levels are constituted through elections of the people’s congresses at all levels. When the people’s congresses are not in session, the people’s governments will exercise state power. The organs of state at all levels apply the principles of democratic centralism, with the minority subordinate to the majority.” Xu Deheng, deputy head of the drafting group, suggested including a sentence in the “General Principles” to the effect that the new-democratic society would be just a transition, and the future goal would be socialism and communism. His idea received support from many deputies. But the head of the drafting group Zhou Enlai explained: “Definitely China will develop toward a higher stage of society, namely socialism and commu331

Socialism in China

nism. We need to explain this to the people, and in particular, we should prove this with our practice. Only when the people realize through our practice that this is the only and best way will they support it and work whole-heartedly for it. That’s why we have not written it into the document for now. It’s not that we negate it, rather that we respect it.” His sincere explanations won warm applause from the deputies. On September 29, the meeting adopted the Common Program of the CPPCC. It had seven chapters and 60 articles. In addition to the state system and system of government described above, it also stipulated the extent, rights and obligations of the people. It defined the term “people” in the People’s Republic of China as the workers, peasants, urban petty bourgeoisie, national bourgeoisie and other patriotic democrats; it stipulated that citizens of the People’s Republic of China enjoyed freedom of thought, speech, press, assembly, association, communication, person, residence, migration, religious belief, parade and demonstration, and had the right to vote and stand for election; that women enjoyed equal rights with men, and equal freedom of marriage as well; and that all ethnic groups in China were equal, with regional autonomy practiced in areas where people of ethnic minorities live in concentrated communities. Regarding the principles and policies of economic construction, the document said the state would give consideration to both public and private interests, benefit both labor and capital, encourage the cities and the countryside to help each other, and promote exchanges with other countries, so as to develop production and promote economic prosperity. The state would encourage the co-existence of state-owned economy, cooperative economy, individual economy of peasants and handicraftsmen, private capitalism and state-capitalist economy, so that under the leadership of the state sector, all sectors of the economy would function satisfactorily with a due division of labor to promote the development of the whole economy. The state would protect the economic interests and private property of workers, peasants, petty bourgeoisie and national bourgeoisie. The Common Program also stipulated basic policies on new-democratic culture and education. It said that China’s culture and education would be national and scientific and belong to the broad masses. The main goal of the 332

Chapter 13

Complying with the Historical Trend, the CPC Issues May Day Slogans; Joining Hands to Found a Democratic Government, the CPC and the Democratic Parties Formulate the Common Program

people’s government in this field would be: to raise the cultural attainment of the people, train personnel needed for the country’s development, purge away feudal, comprador and Fascist thinking, and foster the ideal of serving the people. As the provisional Constitution and basic law of New China, the Common Program for the first time stipulated that the state exercises a state system of democratic politics, defined the political system and the economic system for China, and defined the guiding principles and basic policies for various undertakings. It therefore embodied two innovative Chinese characteristics: it put forth the idea of a democratic coalition government of all revolutionary classes, and not dictatorship by a single class; it allowed the coexistence of various economic sectors under the leadership of the state sector, with a due division of labor, and permitted the development of private capitalism. Speaking for the CPC, Liu Shaoqi proclaimed that the Party would abide by all the stipulations of the Common Program. He also called on the whole nation to strive for the complete implementation of this document. On September 30, the deputies turned to the last agenda item: to elect by secret ballot members of the organs of the Central People’s Government. The results were as follows: Chairman of the Central People’s Government: Mao Zedong Vice Chairpersons: Zhu De, Liu Shaoqi, Soong Ching Ling, Li Jishen, Zhang Lan and Gao Gang. Three of the six were democrats. The Central People’s Government Council had 56 members elected, 27 of them (47 percent) democrats. Premier of the Administration Council: Zhou Enlai Vice Premiers: Dong Biwu, Chen Yun, Guo Moruo and Huang Yanpei. Two of these were democrats. The Administration Council had 21 members elected, nine of them democrats; of the 105 ministers and vice ministers, 49 were democrats. Clearly, the mix of party affiliation of state leaders and in government organs reflected the fact that the new-democratic nature of the multi-party cooperation system practiced by New China was not merely written into the Common Program, but was implemented to the letter. 333

Socialism in China

After 10 days in session, the First Plenary Session of the CPPCC successfully completed its agenda. When Mao Zedong, the newly elected chairman, announced the end of the meeting, the deputies all rose respectfully. Above the podium a huge red flag was slowly unfurled: it had five yellow stars in the upper left corner, symbolizing the alliance of all classes and the unity of all ethnic groups. A PLA band of 49 players struck up: March of the Volunteers, the provisional national anthem, was played for the first time. At six in the afternoon, all the deputies came to Tian’anmen Square for a ceremony to lay the foundation stone of the Monument to the People’s Heroes. Zhou Enlai made a speech on behalf of the Presidium, and all present removed their hats and mourned the martyrs in silence. Mao Zedong sternly read out the Epitaph he had composed: “Eternal glory to the heroes of the people who laid down their lives in the people’s war of liberation and the people’s revolution in the past three years! Eternal glory to the heroes of the people who laid down their lives in the people’s war of liberation and the people’s revolution in the past thirty years! Eternal glory to the heroes of the people who from 1840 laid down their lives in the many struggles against domestic and foreign enemies and for national independence and the freedom and well-being of the people!” By building a monument in the heart of the national capital to the martyrs who had sacrificed their lives for the people, not just in the years between the May Fourth Movement of 1919 and the new-democratic revolution but also those who had died for the cause of national independence since the Opium War in 1840, China’s Communists fully demonstrated their tolerance and inclusivity. Nineteen years earlier, at a time when the Chinese revolution was at a low ebb, the Party and the Red Army were still very weak and facing an enemy 100 times more powerful than itself, Mao Zedong, with his strategist’s far-sightedness, revolutionary’s resolve, philosopher’s wisdom and poet’s romance, predicted the bright future of Chinese revolution in his essay “A Single Spark Can Start a Prairie Fire.” He wrote: “When I say that there will soon be a high tide of revolution in China, I am emphatically not speaking of something which in the words of some people ‘is possibly coming,’ something illusory, unattainable and devoid of significance for action. It is like a ship far out at sea whose 334

Chapter 13

Complying with the Historical Trend, the CPC Issues May Day Slogans; Joining Hands to Found a Democratic Government, the CPC and the Democratic Parties Formulate the Common Program

mast-head can already be seen from the shore; it is like the morning sun in the east whose shimmering rays are visible from a high mountain top; it is like a child about to be born moving restlessly in its mother’s womb.” Today, the morning sun was emerging in all its splendor, and the child was born. The Chinese Communists had led the Chinese people for 28 years of struggle, and in the end founded a republic of the people. As the poem rightly says, Democracy and republic are the beacons, Despotism became the dregs of history. The die was cast in battle on the Central Plains, To win the people’s support was the key. ૾ᇾ‫ތܓ‬൦֯෻ĭ ؇ҒልᇍֱӮᅇh ᇗჸᇷ੨ܼӶϯĭ ධ႓ಮྗ֬็༷h How did New China go about quickly curing the wounds of war and implementing new-democratic construction on all fronts? You must read the next chapter to find out.

335

Chapter 14

New-democratic Blueprint Cures the Wounds of War; Land Reform Makes Land-to-the-tiller Dream Come True

The First Plenary Session of the CPPCC adopted the Common Program – the program for the establishment of New China and the provisional Constitution of the new state; elected the leading officials of the Central People’s Government and state organs; decided on the national flag, national anthem and national emblem; and pronounced the founding of the People’s Republic of China. On October 1, 1949, the sun shone brightly above Tian’anmen Square. This broad open square that had witnessed the changes of ages was turned into a vast sea of joyful people and red bouquets, with the beating of gongs and drums resounding to the skies, and red flags fluttering in the wind. At two o’clock, the first meeting of the Central People’s Government Council was held in Qinzheng Hall in Zhongnanhai, presided over by Mao Zedong. After the meeting, he and other Council members who had just assumed office were driven by car to the Tian’anmen Rostrum. When Mao, in dark gray jacket, ascended the steps and appeared with the others on the rostrum, the crowds waiting on the square applauded in excitement, shouting and jumping for joy. At three, Lin Boqu, secretary-general of the Central People’s Government, announced the beginning of the festivity. Mao Zedong stood before the microphone and solemnly declared to the whole world, “The Central People’s Government of the People’s Republic of China is founded today!” Hardly were the words out of his mouth than the square erupted in cheers of jubilation: the banging of drums and gongs filled the sky, resonating like rolls of 336

Chapter 14

New-democratic Blueprint Cures the Wounds of War; Land Reform Makes Land-to-the-tiller Dream Come True

The founding ceremony of the People’s Republic of China

thunder or stampeding horses. What a stirring moment! Mao Zedong then pushed a button and the five-star red national flag slowly rose, to the accompaniment of the majestic national anthem, March of the Volunteers. The 300,000 spectators on the square and the rostrum all saluted the flag. Then followed a 28-gun salute from 54 canons; it symbolized 28 years of the Party leading all the ethnic groups of China in the struggle for national liberation. It was a solemn moment that witnessed the rise of the Chinese nation from the ashes. When the red flag reached the top of the flagpole, the whole square seethed again, the noise of the crowd and the guns loud enough to split the heavens. After Mao Zedong read out the Announcement of the Central People’s Government, the ceremonial parade began. Standing tall in the car reviewing the troops, Zhu De, the highest commander of the People’s Liberation Army, raised his arm and shouted: “Long live the People’s Republic of China!” He was echoed by the troops and the spectators: “Long live! Long live! Long live!” After the troop review came a parade of the people in all their great variety. The grand celebration continued for more than four hours. Mao Zedong and other leaders waved to the crowd from the rostrum and shouted, “Long live the Chinese people!” 337

Socialism in China

The harmonious scene of the Tian’anmen expressed the love of the state leaders and the common people toward each other. After the founding ceremony for New China, the PLA continued to advance in triumph, marching to the south, southwest and northwest regions in order to completely wipe out the remaining KMT troops and liberate the whole of China. Meanwhile the Party and the government lost no time in leading the people to treat the wounds of war, restore the economy, and proceed with new-democratic political, economic and cultural development. With the arrival of the PLA, military control committees were established in the newly liberated areas, but only as an interim measure, pending replacement by people’s governments at various levels – coalition governments of all revolutionary classes under the CPC’s leadership and established in accordance with the Common Program. Once the PLA liberated a city, they would confiscate enterprises run by bureaucrat-capitalists and turn them into state-run businesses, and confiscate the properties of war criminals, national traitors, bureaucrat-capitalists and counter-revolutionaries and hand them to the state treasury as assets of state. But this sector accounted for only 10 percent of the economy; the lion’s share was comprised of national industry and commerce, the private ownership economy of medium and petty capitalists and individual economy. How to encourage these businesses to play an active role in the recovery and development of the economy, as required by the Common Program, was of vital importance, not only for the normalization of economic and social life in the cities but also for stabilizing the national economy and political situation and consolidating the new people’s government. At the Second Plenary Session of the Seventh CPC Central Committee, Mao Zedong had warned the Party that after the revolution was victorious, the work focus would shift from the countryside to the cities, so the Party must try its utmost to learn to administer and develop the cities and recover and develop urban production. But how was it to set about doing so? The new Communist regime lacked experience in this regard, and the new people’s government also faced a severe test. The KMT had left the CPC a rotten legacy, one of severe destruction re338

Chapter 14

New-democratic Blueprint Cures the Wounds of War; Land Reform Makes Land-to-the-tiller Dream Come True

sulting from protracted turmoil and war, with production halted, all businesses languishing, materials in short supply, grave inflation, prices rocketing and the people living in destitution. From the outbreak of the anti-Japanese war in July 1937 to the founding of New China in October 1949, banknotes issued by the KMT government inflated by 144.5 billion times, and the price index soared 3,667.6 billion-fold. In 1937, 100 yuan (KMT currency) would have bought two oxen; by 1949 it wouldn’t buy half a grain of rice. So, how to nurse back to health and develop a national economy in such a parlous state? It really posed the Communists a thorny problem. The US Secretary of State Dean Acheson predicted that though the CPC had the ability to win the war, it had no chance of solving China’s economic problems or of feeding its people. At home, some malign Chinese piped the same tune, giving the CPC a 100 grade for military matters, 80 for politics, but zero for economy. So, now that the Communists had achieved victory, would they be able to perform the much more difficult task of running the country well? The first problem they faced after taking power was to rapidly restore and grow the economy under the guidance of new-democracy theory and the Common Program – this would be the test by which they were judged. On the evening of April 10, 1949, a train from Beijing arrived in Tianjin. Waiting on the platform were Tianjin’s Party secretary Huang Kecheng, the mayor Huang Jing and deputy Party secretary Huang Huoqing. The group hurried up to greet the visitors. First to emerge from the first carriage was a middle-aged gentleman with a thin face and gray hair. This was Liu Shaoqi, secretary of the Communist Central Secretariat and concurrently First Secretary of the North China Bureau. He had been entrusted by the CPC Central Committee and Mao Zedong to look into the urban economy of Tianjin. As the car drove him and his party downtown through once familiar streets, Liu fell into retrospection. In March 1928, after the collapse of the first CPC-KMT cooperation he had been sent to Tianjin as a special agent by the National Federation of Trade Unions and had led the railway workers’ movement here for a year. During this time he experienced the awful hardships of the white terror. In 1935, the Leftist mistakes made by Wang Ming caused the Party to lose almost all of its orga339

Socialism in China

nizations in the KMT-controlled areas; in the entire north China the number of surviving CPC members could be counted only in dozens. This was the backdrop to Liu being sent by the CPC Central Committee to Tianjin to lead the Northern Bureau. Under his leadership, various Party organizations were soon re-established, and tens of thousands of new members were enrolled in the Party. Later, these organizations worked with the Eighth Route Army and built several anti-Japanese bases in north China, enabling the anti-Japanese armed forces under the Party’s leadership to expand to hundreds of thousands. In 1947 when the War of Liberation was at a turning point, Mao Zedong asked him to study the management and development of large and mediumsized cities post-Liberation, and the Central Committee also assigned him to take charge of urban work. In September 1948, he completed an essay titled “On New-democratic Economy and Cooperatives” and delivered a long speech at the Political Bureau meeting. At that meeting he explained for the first time that New China, once founded, would develop a “new-democratic economy,” which would encompass natural economy, small-scale production economy, capitalist economy, semi-socialist (cooperative) economy, state-capitalist economy, and state-run socialist economy, with the last being the leading sector. At a meeting on finance in north China in late 1949, he elaborated that the new-democratic economy would be a transitional one, which, though not permanent, would be of fairly long duration. The transition might take 10-15 years, and this would be good for the proletariat class. These ideas of his had the blessing of Mao Zedong and other senior leaders. Liu recalled that just two months before this visit, on the very day the PLA conquered Tianjin, he had drafted a telegram to the Tianjin Party Committee, on behalf of the Central Committee in Xibaipo, Hebei Province. Its content was a reminder to the city leaders to maintain the normal order of production and operation in local factories, mines, railways, post and telegraph services, and banking sectors, not to break their previous organization structure, nor fire their management personnel or abolish their rules unless absolutely necessary. Only by doing this could the Party maintain its initiative. How was the local work proceeding now? Were new problems emerging? He was soon at the hotel where, after a brief rest, he resumed work in the evening, making further revisions to his investigation outline. 340

Chapter 14

New-democratic Blueprint Cures the Wounds of War; Land Reform Makes Land-to-the-tiller Dream Come True

Liu Shaoqi (first left) during his investigation in Tianjin, April 1949

The next day, Liu and his party threw themselves into a hectic research program. For a whole week, they visited the factories making textiles, bicycles, paper, electrical products, auto parts, and woolen cloth. Besides inspecting the workshops, they talked with workers and managers and listened to reports from municipal officials and those in charge of industry and commerce, grain production, finance, foreign trade, customs and trade unions. Through this they got a general understanding of the situation and the problems. Tianjin was a major industrial and commercial city in north China. Over three months since its liberation, its social order had been restored, but its industry and commerce was not yet recovered. The wars had blocked exchange of goods between the city and the countryside, halted foreign trade, causing a serious shortage of raw materials, slow products sales, and serious inflation. To make things worse, local Party organizations and local governments had failed to comprehensively and correctly implement the principles established at the Second Plenary Session of the Seventh CPC Central Committee and the relevant policies and instructions of the Central Committee, and therefore had failed to properly handle relations between labor and capital and between state-owned economy and private economy. Many workers and sales assistants were under the false impression that, post-Liberation, they could settle scores with their former bosses as the peasants had done with landlords in the land reform, and divide the factory or shop properties among themselves. So within one month of Tianjin’s Liberation, the workers themselves launched 53 cases of denunciation against and settling scores with their former bosses. Afraid that their properties would be 341

Socialism in China

divided by their former employees seeking redress, nervous that the Communists would care for the interests of the workers only, and apprehensive that the workers would be difficult to manage in the future, factory owners were very pessimistic and unwilling or afraid to resume production. Some even fled to Hong Kong or elsewhere. Statistics showed that of the tens of thousands of private businesses in Tianjin, less than 30 percent were actually operating; hundreds of thousands of workers had lost jobs and a million of local residents were living in difficulty as a result. Learning of this situation, Liu Shaoqi realized that these problems were not just blighting Tianjin; they were widespread in the newly liberated cities, and if not properly handled, they would lead to public discontent and social instability, and even endanger the new state power. Based on the first-hand information he had obtained, in particular the thinking of Party members and cadres and the worries of workers and capitalists, Liu decided to take appropriate steps and make explanations to reassure the people and unify their thinking. At the meeting of the Standing Committee of the Tianjin Municipal Committee of the CPC, the enlarged meeting of the Tianjin Municipal Committee of the CPC, and the meeting of local cadres, Liu Shaoqi had praise for the progress they had made since taking over the city. He pointed out that the guiding principles for the future work would be to “wholeheartedly rely on the working class, unite with the rest of the laboring people, win over the intellectuals and win over to our side as many as possible of the national bourgeois elements and their representatives who can cooperate with us,” and to learn to administer the cities and to restore and develop production there. He told the leading officials with Party membership that they should gain a correct understanding of the principles and policies laid down at the Second Plenary Session of the Seventh Central Committee of the CPC: “We should allow the development of urban and rural industrial and commercial capitalism that are beneficial to the national economy and the people’s livelihood. We should both unite national bourgeois (free bourgeois) and keep certain struggles with them. But for the time being, the point is to unite them, and this will remain unchanged for a long time,” he said. “We must carry out the policies 342

Chapter 14

New-democratic Blueprint Cures the Wounds of War; Land Reform Makes Land-to-the-tiller Dream Come True

of ‘giving consideration to both public and private interests, and benefiting both labor and capital,’ and coordinate relations on all fronts.” By “all fronts” he referred to the Party’s policy on relations between public and private, labor and capital, cities and countryside, China and the rest of the world. Only with these relations well coordinated could the Party mobilize all people to boost production. To wipe any doubts from the capitalists’ minds, Liu Shaoqi had four meetings with their representatives, explaining the principles and policies of Party and government to encourage the long-term growth of private capitalism, and the policies of “giving consideration to both public and private interests, and benefiting both labor and capital.” He exhorted them to run their businesses well and open more factories. From the outset of the talks, he made things crystal clear: Currently, part of industry was state capital, but the lion’s share was private capital; there might be competition and conflicts between state-owned and private enterprises, but the government principle was to encourage mutual cooperation and reduce competition. The government wanted to develop production in both state-owned and private enterprises and this meant giving consideration to both public and private interests. In the future, private production might exceed that of the public sector, but the government would not worry much about that, since the aim was to grow production irrespective of the form of ownership. One factory owner asked: “I run three factories and don’t want to open a fourth, because I’m afraid with more factories I’ll be branded a big capitalist. The more I exploit labor, the bigger criminal I will be. It could earn me a death sentence!” Liu was all sweetness and light in his reply: “Exploitation is an unavoidable fact in operating factories and shops. But it is wrong to think ‘the more exploitation, the more crimes, and the owners must be judged and executed.’ Exploitation in certain historical conditions is progressive in nature. When capitalism was just beginning to develop, it was full of vitality. A hundred years ago, Marx considered the capitalists to have historical merits in developing and organizing production. Our national bourgeois have had both merits and demerits, and today their merits outweigh their demerits. Today, capitalist exploitation in 343

Socialism in China

our country is not a crime: it is actually a merit. After feudal exploitation has been cleared away, capitalist exploitation can be progressive. Today, it is not that we have too many factories and too many workers being exploited, but too few. If you are able, you may open more factories and exploit more workers, and that will benefit the country and the people, and we will all support you. Today, capitalism in China is in its youth, and now is just the right time for it to play its historical, positive and contributory role. You should put your heart and soul into it and not miss out. Today, capitalist exploitation is legal. And the more exploitation the better.” Obviously Liu Shaoqi didn’t literally mean that exploitation had merits and that the more exploitation the better. His remarks were made in special circumstances and his intention was to free the capitalists of their doubts about expanding production. He was analyzing the exploitation of capitalists, proceeding from the historical role of the bourgeoisie in a particular historical period. However, his argument, though in line with Marxist historical materialism, was served up as “criminal evidence” years later in the Cultural Revolution. At these meetings, some capitalists expressed concerns about when and in what manner China would make the transition into socialism. Liu explained with patience and according to the guiding principles of the Second Plenary Session of the Seventh CPC Central Committee that it was sure to take quite a long time and that the transition would only begin in certain conditions and with the support of all the people. As to how the transition would be effected, Liu’s view was that it should be through state purchase. “China has had to undergo revolution in order to progress from a semi-colonial and semi-feudal society to a new-democratic society; but in the future, the road from a newdemocratic society to a socialist society will be one of peaceful development, without blood and revolution. But that lies decades ahead. At present and in our new-democratic China, you capitalists can give full play to your initiatives. What will you do when we move to a socialist China? A couple of days ago when I inspected the Dongya Corporation, I told their general manager Mr. Song Feiqing, ‘You have two or three factories now, and in the future you’ll have eight. When socialism comes, the state will issue an order under which you hand over your factories to the state, or the state will purchase your fac344

Chapter 14

New-democratic Blueprint Cures the Wounds of War; Land Reform Makes Land-to-the-tiller Dream Come True

tories. If the state hasn’t sufficient funds for that, it will issue bonds. Then the state will return the eight factories for you to run, and you’ll still be the manager, but appointed by the state. Because of your ability, the state will give you another eight factories to run. That will make 16, and your salary will also be raised. But you must run them very well. Will you do that?’ Mr. Song agreed: ‘Of course.’” Liu continued, “Later on, we’ll get you all here for a meeting to discuss the change to socialism, and I bet none of you will come in frowning; you’ll be all smiles..” His sincerity dispelled the misgivings and restored the confidence of the capitalists. Liu moved on to persuade the workers. He held many face-to-face conversations with workers on the shop floor, or invited their representatives to meetings, listening to their opinions. On the basis of their feedback, he made a speech to the local workers’ congress, expressing himself in moving terms that were perfectly comprehensible to them: “We must be clear about who is with us and who is our enemy. The peasants, petty bourgeoisie and national bourgeoisie are our friends, whereas imperialism, feudalism and bureaucrat-bourgeoisie are our enemies. We must not treat the petty bourgeoisie and national bourgeoisie as our enemies. As for the national bourgeoisie, there is scope for struggle and scope for alliance. In politics we should unite them to fight against imperialism, feudalism and bureaucratcapitalism, and in economy we should unite them to develop production. But there has to be struggle with them as well as unity, and unity should prevail for the time being so they can play their due roles to develop production. Since we must permit the capitalists to exist, we should allow them to make profits. That’s why we have the policy of ‘benefiting both labor and capital.’ That’s why we permit their exploitation. Exploitation is not a good thing, but it does have the benefit of providing work for the many jobless workers. So, it is better to have exploitation rather than no exploitation. Workers in private enterprises should not be too harsh when denouncing the capitalists. They should not destroy their employers. If our struggle ends up eliminating the capitalists, then we would have fewer factories, less production and more jobless workers, which will be of no benefit to the workers, the state and the people. Today, we have far fewer capitalists and our country is not yet advanced. So under a new345

Socialism in China

democratic economy, while we try to benefit both labor and capital, we shall have to let the capitalists survive and grow for decades to come. For the working class this course will be more beneficial than harmful.” Liu’s long involvement in workers’ movements meant he had a good understanding of how the workers lived and thought. His explanation, which appealed to heart and head alike, hit the nail on the head and made the workers understand all the pros and cons, and put them straight on the meaning of “benefiting both labor and capital.” Liu’s research and guidance in Tianjin aroused a great reaction and yielded positive results among the local cadres, workers and businesspeople. The CPC Tianjin Municipal Committee held two meetings to discuss and study Liu’s observation. They agreed to publicize these comments, modify their plans, and correct the deviation in their previous understanding and work. With no lingering doubts, the businesspeople threw themselves into resuming and increasing production. Song Feiqing, General Manager of Dongya Corporation, wrote to Liu Shaoqi, saying: “Since your recent visit to our factory and gracious instruction, all workers and staff of the factory have a new understanding of government policy toward industry, and we now have new hope for our new life. Each one of us will try our best to fulfill the great mission to serve the people.” Three days later, Mr. Song received Liu’s reply: “I’m glad to hear that your company is now in harmony and that labor and capital will make concerted efforts to expand production and build new factories. I hope your company will benefit from the government policy and continue to work for a bright future. The great renewal of our nation can be realized very soon.” On May 1, Tianjin Daily published a report on the transformed morale of the workers after hearing Liu Shaoqi’s remarks. It said that “In the past it would take one worker 13 hours to dye 278 chi (=1/3 meter) of cloth, but today, it takes only 11 hours to output 320 chi. The workers have organized groups to learn how to read and write, to put up bulletins, and to learn songs.” After May 1949, Tianjin’s industrial and commercial production began to pick up again. In June and July, the production indices of major industrial sectors returned to the level before New China was founded. By September, the 346

Chapter 14

New-democratic Blueprint Cures the Wounds of War; Land Reform Makes Land-to-the-tiller Dream Come True

number of private industrial and commercial businesses allowed to open had increased from 293 in April to 3,800, and nearly 20 percent more workers had jobs. With the quick recovery of industry and commerce, Tianjin’s economy presented a scene of great energy. Leaving Tianjin, Liu Shaoqi went to the neighboring Kailuan Coal Mine to deal with a strike planned by the workers to protest non-payment of their wages. Having just settled the case, Liu received a call from Mao Zedong, asking him to return to Beijing immediately. The night of his return, Liu visited Shuangqing Villa and reported to Mao his research and remarks in Tianjin, and suggestions for future work. Mao approved the report. Bo Yibo, a member of the Tianjin inspection group, also reported to Mao on the major points of Liu’s remarks there. Mao thought the remarks good on the whole, apart from the phrase “the more exploitation, the better,” which he considered inappropriate. He summed up the policies as “look after public and private sectors, benefit labor and capital, urban and rural areas to help each other, promote domestic and foreign trade” and asked Bo to pass this summary on to Liu Shaoqi. Liu’s immediate reaction was: “Chairman Mao’s idea is pretty good and very comprehensive. We’ll follow this instruction in the future.” With Mao’s support and approval, Liu Shaoqi began to use the insights gained from his Tianjin study to guide urban work. On May 31, in the name of the CPC Central Committee, he drafted a telegram to the Northeast Bureau of the CPC explaining the Party’s policies toward private capitalism and national bourgeoisie. His telegram went first to Mao Zedong for review. On the day it was sent out, Mao Zedong wrote a notice in the name of the Central Committee for issuing to all regional bureaus, Party committees in major cities, and front committees of various field armies, circulating the telegram drafted by Liu. The notice required the relevant departments to review their work and overcome their Left opportunist tendencies toward national bourgeoisie. From this it can be inferred that at that time Mao Zedong had affirmed the main points of Liu Shaoqi’s remarks in Tianjin, and the two of them held similar views on these issues. By mobilizing the workers, industrial and commercial proprietors, and national bourgeoisie to resume production and develop the economy, the rul347

Socialism in China

ing Communists set out to improve the economic environment in the face of vicious inflation, to stabilize the financial order, bring down prices, and boost public confidence. This heavy task rested with Chen Yun. Chen Yun was born in 1905 in Liantang, a small town in Qingpu County, Jiangsu Province. His parents died when he was very young, and he was brought up by his uncle. His uncle ran a small restaurant, where Chen Yun helped out since his childhood. He became an apprentice at Shanghai’s Commercial Press at 15, and while there he studied cultural knowledge and revolutionary theories and took an active part in the workers’ movement. After joining the CPC, he gradually became a career revolutionary, working his way up to the highest echelons of the Party leadership.

Chen Yun in the e a r l y d ay s o f t h e People’s Republic

In the late days of the anti-Japanese war, Chen Yun was in charge of financial work in the Shaanxi-Gansu-Ningxia Border Region. After the Northeast was liberated, he became director of the Northeast Financial Committee and began to show his brilliance in financial management. After the Party’s central leadership moved to Beijing, Liu Shaoqi and Zhou Enlai talent-spotted Chen and recommended him to take charge of the national financial work, which was affirmed by Mao Zedong. So Chen was appointed as the first director of the National Financial Committee. At the meeting when the committee was established, Chen introduced himself with self-deprecating humor: “My name is Chen Yun, a puny little 348

Chapter 14

New-democratic Blueprint Cures the Wounds of War; Land Reform Makes Land-to-the-tiller Dream Come True

guy. And sickly too – I catch cold every couple of months. My new situation can be compared to a former street peddler trading outside Shanghai’s Wing On Company being made general manager of a big company. I don’t know if I can do it well. But I do know that I’ll need your support to do so.” Not long after Chen came to work in the capital, Shanghai was liberated. At that time, Shanghai was the economic center of China and the most prosperous metropolis in the Far East. It was called “the paradise of adventurers and speculators.” Two or three years before the KMT fled to Taiwan, Shanghai was already in financial meltdown, with soaring prices and economic disorder. So it posed a big problem for Chen Yun to quickly restore order to Shanghai’s economy, and then move on to stabilize the national economy. The first economic battle he commanded was to close the Shanghai Stock Exchange. Here, up to a thousand speculators congregated to play the market, thus controlling financial transactions in Shanghai and even the whole of China. Before the Communists had managed to establish themselves in this newly liberated city, the speculators took advantage of its citizen’s fears and worries resulting from the rampant inflation under KMT rule. Their hoarding seriously disturbed the local financial order: gold, silver and US dollars flooded onto the black market, and within a month of Shanghai’s liberation, the prices of gold and silver had more than tripled and those of grain, cotton yarn and coal had also rocketed. The residents were filled with anxiety. Unless this speculators’ lair was closed, normal economic and social order could not be restored. On the morning of June 6, in a nine-story European style building on Hankou Road, several hundred brokers were gesturing and shouting code words only they could understand. Many businessmen and agents dressed smartly in Western suits came and went between rooms on different floors. The constant ringing of telephones and the constant quoting of price changes made the place unbearably noisy. At 10:00 precisely, a dozen military trucks arrived, carrying several hundred fully armed PLA soldiers, who quickly surrounded and sealed off the building. Then, the more than 200 plainclothes policemen, who had infiltrated the building earlier, took control of the trading floor and all the rooms. With gold and silver ingots in their hands, the traders were shocked at the sight of the PLA men. A fat-bellied speculator turned in mid-telephone call to be 349

Socialism in China

confronted by police guns and dropped the handset. Those who tried to slip away were forced back by the soldiers guarding the entrance. The unanswered phones continued to ring like crazy. This neat closedown action forcefully deflated the arrogance of the speculators, and stabilized the financial order in Shanghai and China. Having declared war, Chen Yun now started planning his next battle move against illegal speculation. One might consider his opening move at the Shanghai Stock Exchange an administrative approach; for the second phase he learned to pull economic levers. At that time, speculation was not only rampant in Shanghai’s financial market, but in the industrial and commercial sectors too. There was a popular adage to the effect that industry was less profitable than commerce, commerce less profitable than hoarding, and hoarding less profitable than speculating. A great many speculators had won staggering profits from hoarding and speculation. They did not care a fig for the life of common people. In July 1949, Shanghai was hit by the most devastating typhoon in 30 years. The Huangpu River flowed upstream and inundated the whole city; east and north China were also afflicted with catastrophic storms. Unscrupulous merchants were quick to take advantage, buying up and hoarding various goods to cash in on, which led to another round of wild price rises. Amid wind and rain, Chen came to Shanghai. He summoned the financial directors of east, north, central, northeast and northwest China to study how to strike the speculators a heavy blow and bring an end to inflation. For the following three months, Chen led the National Financial Committee and the five regional committees to coordinate the production and distribution of grain, cotton yarns, coal and other goods of importance to the national economy and people’s livelihood. By early November when the autumn harvest work was nearly ended across the country, the state had purchased and requisitioned sufficient grain, cotton and oil seeds. Chen now had his ammunition ready; the decisive war against speculators could begin. On the night of November 12, Chen sent a secret telegram to the CPC Central Committee. On receiving it, Premier Zhou Enlai wrote on the telegram, “Submit this to Chairman Mao immediately if he has not gone to bed 350

Chapter 14

New-democratic Blueprint Cures the Wounds of War; Land Reform Makes Land-to-the-tiller Dream Come True

yet. Otherwise, send it out immediately and submit it for his review afterward.” Mao was then busy preparing for his visit to the Soviet Union and was still up and about, so the telegram reached his desk without delay. He reacted immediately: “Send it out now. Then submit to Liu (Shaoqi) and Zhu (De).” By early next morning, the secret telegram had been sent to all departments of finance and trade nationwide. Attached to the telegram were 12 secret orders, including: With effect from November 13, all commercial and trade departments must suspend large quantity sales of staple goods with the exception of necessary retail sales; the Northeast Financial Committee must arrange to transfer 10,000,000 to 15,000,000 jin (one jin equals to 0.5 kg, approximately 5-7.5 million kg) of grain per day from the Northeast between November 15 and 30; the Northwest Financial Committee must transport to Xi’an with all possible speed the cotton yarns stocked in areas along the Longhai Railway, and dispatch people forthwith to Shanghai and Wuhan to handle stocks of cotton so as to facilitate unified actions in future; at the same time, the state will tighten money supply, the People’s Bank headquarters and its main branches must suspend all lending, urge the collection of taxes due to the state treasury, and postpone the provision of funds to various localities. After the telegram was sent out, the National Financial Committee dispatched a large number of staff to all localities to coordinate and press implementation of these orders. Within days, a total of 60,000,000 jin (approximately 30 million kg) of reserve grains, 41,000 pieces of cotton yarns and 2.1 million bolts of cloth had been collected. Once large quantities of these goods were in place, the National Financial Committee issued an order requiring the major cities to start selling them from late November – at a much lower price. Initially, the speculators still had the capacity to keep buying the goods, and they did so. But they didn’t expect that the state-owned companies had an unfailing supply of goods and would lower the prices as they sold. Over time, the speculators began to run short of money and could not afford more. At this point, the National Financial Committee made another smart move. First it launched sudden investigations of the underground banks, shutting them down to cut off money supply to the speculators. Then it demanded all stateowned enterprises to deposit their money in state-owned banks, and not to borrow from or lend to private banks or businesses. It also urged the taxation 351

Socialism in China

departments to quicken their work and impose penalties on enterprises’ tax arrears equivalent to three percent per day of the due amount. After 10 consecutive days of government-supported underselling, the prices of grain, cotton and oil had dropped by 30-40 percent in Shanghai, Beijing, Tianjin and other major cities. The speculating merchants now had to feel the pain and follow the government and dump at low price the hoarded goods they had bought at high cost. But it was too late. The more they dumped, the lower the prices fell, and the more money they lost. Many speculators who had borrowed money at usurious rates to buy the goods ended in bankruptcy, so did the private and underground banks as they saw no possibility of getting their loans repaid. This concerted price war against speculators nationwide was a total success. The government’s skillful use of economic levers, meticulous planning and decisive action won a complete victory in just two weeks. The Communists’ ability in running the economy gained respect from the capitalists and industrial and commercial proprietors. Rong Yiren, a renowned Shanghai capitalist, commented: “The silver dollar chaos in June was suppressed by the Communists by political force. But this time, they achieved stability by using economic forces only. This was something the Shanghai business community really did not expect.” Many local businesspeople gave Chen the thumbs up: “That puny little guy from the Commercial Press is really something!” Mao Zedong later commented that this economic battle was every bit as significant as the HuaiHai military campaign. To restore financial order and combat speculation was necessary on two counts: for restoring the national economy, and for developing the new-democratic economy. With the exercise of administrative and economic means, runaway inflation was soon brought under control, the economic situation changed for the better, and the new-democratic economy began to develop on all fronts. Having gained a firm foothold in the cities, land reform in the countryside could now be accelerated. In old China, the system of feudal land ownership operated throughout China’s vast rural areas. Landlords and rich peasants, who accounted for under 352

Chapter 14

New-democratic Blueprint Cures the Wounds of War; Land Reform Makes Land-to-the-tiller Dream Come True

10 percent of the rural population, occupied 80 percent of the total rural land area. Through various kinds of land rents, the landlords cruelly exploited the peasants who had no or little land of their own. Though they labored hard all year round, the peasants still had barely enough to get by. And in disaster years, they would be starving and homeless. In extremes of desperation, they would have no choice but to become outlaws, robbing the rich in order to survive. The backward feudal land ownership had seriously hindered the productive forces, which was why time and again in Chinese history the peasants had rebelled to overthrow the feudal dynasties. Sun Yet-san had made equitable land ownership an important program for the Chinese democratic revolution. From its very inception, the CPC had also made land an issue of primary importance to the Chinese revolution, and land reform a most fundamental and important task for the new-democratic revolution. Unswervingly striving for the goal of “land to the tiller,” the Party had mobilized and led the peasants to overthrow local despots and distribute their land to the peasants, launched movements to reduce rents and interest rates, and continuously pushed forward agrarian revolution in the countryside. From July to September 1947, the Working Committee of the CPC Central Committee held the National Land Conference in Xibaipo Village in Jianping County (present-day Pingshan County), Hebei Province. The conference drew up and promulgated the Outline of Land Law of China (Draft), which stipulated the abolition of the feudal and semi-feudal land exploitation system and implementation of the “land-to-the-tiller” system; it also laid down the basic principle of equal distribution of land per head. Land reform was widely carried out in all the areas liberated. By the time New China was founded in 1949, land reform had been completed in the old liberated areas that had a population of 100 million. But in the newly and yet to be liberated areas there were 300 million more people still waiting for land reform. In line with the principles of the Seventh National Congress of the CPC and the stipulations in the Common Program, in June 1950, the Third Plenary Session of the Seventh Central Committee formulated the Law of Land Reform (Draft). Following review by the Second Session of the First CPPCC National Committee, the law was adopted at the Eighth Meeting of the Central People’s Government Council. The law drew on the Party’s lessons and 353

Socialism in China

experiences gained in leading land reform, and outlined new policies to suit the new situation with the founding of New China. It provided the legal foundation for land reform in the newly liberated areas across the country. Regarding land reform policy, the top Party leaders were in general agreement on the line of relying on poor peasants and farm laborers, uniting with the middle peasants, and distributing the land of the landlords to peasants with little or no land. But there was sharp disagreement on how to address the question of rich peasants. Some comrades proposed that the government should not confiscate from rich peasants the land they farmed themselves or rented to others; in this way they would keep such people motivated to produce, unite the majority to the greatest extent and isolate the landlord class. Others argued that the rich peasants should be allowed only enough land to farm by themselves, and the land they rented out must be confiscated and distributed to peasants with little or no land and to farm laborers. Neither side of the argument would give way. Some even attacked the opposing views as Left or Right deviations. Based on the new situation, the Law of Land Reform made it clear that as regards the rich peasants, the policy would be changed from confiscating their surplus land in wartime to preserving the rich peasant economy. In other words, all their land that they farmed themselves or employed others to farm

Farmers in Jintang, Sichuan Province, distributing land

354

Chapter 14

New-democratic Blueprint Cures the Wounds of War; Land Reform Makes Land-to-the-tiller Dream Come True

and their other properties would be protected, and must not be encroached on. Small areas of rented out land would be kept too. As for those rich peasants whose land size was close to that of a landlord, large areas of rented out land greater than the area they farmed themselves or employed others to farm would be confiscated. As regards landlords, the policy also changed from one of confiscating all their rural properties in wartime to one of confiscating only their land, draught animals, farm tools, surplus grains and surplus rooms in the countryside, but leaving their other property in their ownership. Any industrial and commercial businesses they ran, associated properties and land on which such businesses operated would not be liable to confiscation. The Third Plenary Session of the Seventh Central Committee also set a three-year target for completing land reform across the country in three rounds, so as to emancipate rural productive forces from feudal land ownership and build the economic foundation for a new-democratic society. Guided by the correct principles and policies and operated according to state laws, land reform was carried out energetically in the newly liberated areas, which soon changed the old relations of production in the countryside, and enabled the peasants to own their land. However, in some places where erroneous Left thinking still held sway, the range of those coming in for attack was widened, and some middle peasants were mistakenly branded as landlords or rich peasants, the interests of the middle peasants and some rich peasants who had won a better life by dint of their own labor were encroached on, landlords and rich peasants were denounced without carefully differentiating between despots and non-despots; executions were too many, sometimes mistaken or unjust. But on the whole, the nationwide land reform proceeded peaceably, without major bloody incidents. This was quite different from the forced land reform in the Soviet Union and countries of Eastern Europe where the army, tanks and guns were deployed to put down the opposition of landlords and rich peasants. By the spring of 1953, land reform had been completed in most parts with the exception of Xinjiang, Tibet, several other predominantly ethnic minority areas, and Taiwan Province. The movement thoroughly swept away feudal land ownership, a system that had existed in China for thousands of years; more than 300 million peasants were given about 700 million mu (approx. 46 million 355

Socialism in China

hectares) of land and generous quantities of means of production, allowing them to freely farm their own land. This greatly inspired the peasants and liberated productive forces. From 1950 to 1952, national grain output grew by an average 12.9 percent per annum. The “land-to-the-tiller” slogan was first mooted by Dr. Sun Yet-san, but he could not manage to make it reality. The CPC carried on this slogan, led the new-democratic revolution to success, and consequently realized the dream that so many peasants and those of lofty ideals had pursued down the centuries. The centuries-old land ownership of feudal landlords was completely abolished, and millions of peasants became owners of the land. One of the major tasks of the new-democratic revolution had been accomplished, and a major program of the new-democratic society basically realized. The CPC had made good its lofty promise to the people. Around the time of New China’s founding, the Party’s top leaders were sober-minded and in agreement on the outlook that a new-democratic state would be founded following the success of the new-democratic revolution, and that it would take New China quite a long time to develop a new-democratic society and develop new-democratic politics, economy and culture. They were in accord that during the transition period, China should pool its strengths to complete the historical task of industrialization, develop and expand the state-owned economy and semi-socialist cooperative economy, whilst permitting and encouraging the growth of capitalism and individual economy that would benefit the national economy and people’s livelihood. And when social productive forces had advanced to a certain stage and conditions were ready for industrialization, China would adopt socialist measures to change the relations of production and move to a socialist society. These ideas can be found in speeches of senior officials and documents of important meetings. As early as in the anti-Japanese war, Mao Zedong had clearly laid out in such important works as On New Democracy and On Coalition Government that in the new-democratic state to be founded after the success of the revolution, state enterprises would constitute the leading force in the whole national economy, but the state would not prohibit the development of capitalist pro356

Chapter 14

New-democratic Blueprint Cures the Wounds of War; Land Reform Makes Land-to-the-tiller Dream Come True

duction that did not control the livelihood of the people. He considered that the development of private capitalism to be an unavoidable step in the overall course of social progress, and that it would be “sheer illusion” to try to build a socialist society on the ruins of the semi-colonial and semi-feudal order without the development of the private capitalist sector. In September 1948, Mao Zedong pointed out at a Political Bureau meeting that it might take 15 years before China could start its socialist development after the national victory. In his speech at the Second Plenary Session of the Seventh CPC Central Committee held in March 1949, Mao predicted that “even after we achieve nationwide victory, we shall need two or three five-year plans before the change to socialism can be achieved.” That September during the CPPCC session, when the democrats asked him when the change could take place, his reply was: “Probably 20-30 years.” In June 1950, at the Third Plenary Session of the Seventh CPC Central Committee, Mao sternly criticized as wrong view held by certain people that it would be possible to eliminate capitalism and realize socialism at an early date. That goal still lay far in the future, in his view. When addressing the closing meeting of the Second Session of the First CPPCC National Committee, he was more explicit, declaring that nationwide socialist transformation, i.e., the nationalization of private enterprises and socialization of agriculture, was still quite far off. Once the economy and culture were flourishing, when all the conditions were right, after mature consideration by all the people and with the agreement of all, then and only then would China calmly and methodically enter its new socialist age. On February 18, 1951, at the enlarged meeting of the Political Bureau of the CPC Central Committee, in connection with the transition to socialism, Mao raised the idea of “three years for preparation and ten years for planned economic construction.” In line with this idea of Mao and the whole of the Political Bureau, Liu Shaoqi, when addressing the National Publicity Work Meeting in May and talking to students of the Marxism and Leninism College in July, stated that after 10 years of construction, New China would look completely different, with advanced agriculture and its own industrial sector. Only then would China 357

Socialism in China

raise the issue of transition to socialism. Hence, it is reasonable to infer that in the early days of New China, Liu Shaoqi and Mao Zedong shared roughly similar views concerning the timing of China’s possible transition from a new-democratic society to a socialist society, which were at one with the consensus reached at the Party’s Seventh National Congress and the Second Plenary Session of the Seventh CPC Central Committee. At the First National Meeting on Organizational Work held in March 1951, Liu said that the Chinese Communists should “strive for the consolidation of the new-democratic system right now, strive for the transition to a socialist system in the near future, and strive for the realization of communism in the far future.” These words were later included in the Resolution of Party Consolidation (Draft) as the norms for each Party member to follow. The document and Liu’s remarks had been submitted to Mao Zedong and other central leaders in advance for their review and approval. On May 7, 1951, at the National Meeting on Publicity Work and again on May 13 at a meeting of democrats, Liu Shaoqi said: “It will take at least 10-20 years before China can put socialism in practice,” and “to take immediate steps of socialism would most surely be damaging to the current productive forces. It would be a Left error to do so.” To summarize Liu’s far-sighted thinking at this period, his idea of “getting the new-democratic social order firmly established” proceeding from China’s actual conditions had four main points: One, the new-democratic economy was an economy in transition that needed to be developed over 15-20 years; Two, he identified the central task for this transitional period as developing the productive forces and completing industrialization; Three, he put forward that during this transitional period, the five sectors of the new-democratic economy each had a role to play and should develop together; Four, he opposed any attempt to prematurely “shake, weaken or negate private ownership” or move towards socialism too soon, proposing instead that the transition to socialism be made when the conditions were ripe and the people wanted that step taken. During that time, Zhou Enlai also mentioned “consolidating the newdemocratic order” in more than one speech. Evidently, before and in the early days of New China, Mao Zedong, Liu 358

Chapter 14

New-democratic Blueprint Cures the Wounds of War; Land Reform Makes Land-to-the-tiller Dream Come True

Shaoqi and Zhou Enlai had agreed that China would first spend a fairly long time (10-20 years) building a new-democratic society and then move toward socialism when conditions became ripe. This thought that they shared suited the conditions of China at that time and the historical task at that particular stage of social development, and had positive effects when implemented in society. By the end of 1952, the national industrial and agricultural output value reached 81 billion yuan, which was 77.6 percent more than in 1949 at comparable prices and represented an average annual increase of around 20 percent. The industrial output value was 145 percent more than in 1949, and 23 percent higher than in the record year of 1936. Agricultural output value was 48.4 percent more than in 1949. Outputs of the main industrial and agricultural products all set records. The number of people in jobs nationwide nearly doubled, and of the 4 million previously jobless urban residents, 2.2 million had found new jobs. At the same time, the people led a better life with their living conditions improved. From 1949 to 1952, significant changes took place in China’s socio-economic structure, laying the foundation for the new-democratic economy. By the end of 1952, the ratios of different economic sectors in national income and production were as follows: state-owned economy 19.1 percent, collective ownership sector 1.5 percent, joint state-private management 0.7 percent, private capital 6.9 percent, and individual economy (predominantly small peasant economy) 71.8 percent. These figures show that socialist economy (state-owned and cooperative) now represented a fairly high share of the economy as a whole, but they also reveal that China’s economy was still very backward. However, compared with the post-World War II recovery of European and other Asian countries, China’s recovery rate stands out for its great speed and a great margin. After 28 years of leading the Chinese people through bloody battles, the CPC finally established a new-democratic state, with a coalition government of several democratic revolutionary parties under the CPC’s leadership, with diverse cultures and multiple economic sectors co-existing for common development. After a further three years spent treating the wounds of war, China’s economy quickly recovered. Movements were launched to eliminate banditry 359

Socialism in China

and despots, and to suppress counter-revolutionaries; the remnants of hostile reactionary forces were wiped out. By taking forceful measures, it resolutely eliminated phenomena lingering on from old China such as prostitution, gambling, drug trafficking and use, and purified the social environment with good standards of morality. The new government had gained a firm foothold, and the principle of the people being the masters of their country was starting to become reality. All China was a scene of happiness and a gratified populace. Nothing comparable had ever happened in this land of five millennia of civilization. It was a time for rejoicing and congratulation, but the task ahead was arduous and the journey long. China was setting out on a tough new Long March, this time toward new development. As the poem aptly puts it: The humiliations of centuries are washed away, Raising high its head, the East Asian lion awakes. To write new chapters in history, United as one, the nation charges on. Ϭ୕ಁೋ၊Ӝּĭ ύಞ‫ײ‬࿸ྤྮേh ൴൏೾‫ޒ‬िྕ၂ĭ ऐ‫ݛ‬ఒྗຫજԈh To find out what came next for the new-democratic society, please read on.

360

Chapter 15

China Chooses Alliance with the Soviet Union; Implementation of the First Five-Year Plan Leads to Economic and Social Advancement

In May 1949, Liu Shaoqi was on an inspection tour in Tianjin and Tangshan when a phone call came from Mao Zedong: “Return to Beijing immediately to discuss something important.” Liu stopped the tour and hurried back immediately. The CPC Central Committee had decided to send him to the Soviet Union as head of a secret delegation, and Mao wanted to discuss with him the details of the visit. At the time, the World War II alliance of the US, Britain and Soviet Union built against the fascist coalition of Germany, Italy and Japan had broken. The war had sapped Britain’s vitality; the dominance of the “empire on which the sun never sets” was declining “like a falling flower.” The US was the biggest beneficiary of the war: it did not ravage its soil, but instead spurred the rapid development of its military industry and national economy. The US had replaced Britain as the leading world power in terms of comprehensive national strength. The Soviet Union had been the mainstay in the World War II; despite suffering heavy losses, it had turned the tables in the Battle of Stalingrad. After the war, relying on its vast territory and abundant resources, it controlled Eastern European countries, thus acquiring the political and military strength to contend for hegemony with the US. The confrontation between the US and the Soviet Union was not only a geopolitical struggle between East and West, but a conflict between the ideologies and social systems of socialism and capitalism. Britain’s Prime Minister Winston Churchill used the term “iron curtain” in his “Sinews of Peace” address of March 1946 during a visit to the US: “From Stettin in the Baltic to 361

Socialism in China

Trieste in the Adriatic, an iron curtain has descended across the Continent.” He called for a coalition between Britain and the US to confront the Soviet Union and the Soviet-dominated Eastern Europe behind that iron curtain. Churchill’s view was totally at one with that of the US government. In the spring of 1947, US President Harry Truman said in his State of the Union address that the world was divided into two camps – “totalitarian regimes” and “free peoples,” and that the US must shoulder the responsibility to lead “free peoples” in containing the expansion of socialist “totalitarian regimes.” This address was called the “Truman Doctrine.” Soon afterwards, US Secretary of State George Marshall put forth the “Marshall Plan” with a view to helping rebuild the post-war economies of Western Europe and Japan in order to form robust alliances to prevent the spread of Soviet Communism. Facing the overbearing stance of the Western countries, the Soviet Union and the socialist countries of Eastern Europe began their counterattack with a conference of communist party leaders in Poland in September 1947. Nine countries participated, including the Soviet Union, Yugoslavia, Poland, Hungary, Czechoslovakia, Romania and Bulgaria. The Information Bureau of the Communist and Workers’ Parties (Cominform) was founded to strengthen the unity of Communist members and workers and fight against international imperialism. The “Truman Doctrine” and the “Marshall Plan” as well as the founding of Cominform signaled the establishment of the capitalist and the socialist camps (or the Eastern and Western Blocs respectively) and the start of the Cold War, a situation that endured for 40 years in the latter half of the 20th century. New China was on the point of being founded. Against the backdrop of this confrontation what foreign policy should the new republic adopt? The decision was not determined by China’s subjective wishes, but by the international environment and various objective factors. Let us look first at America’s China policy. After China’s victory in the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression in 1945, the US, proceeding from its global strategic interests, tried at first to promote peace talks between the KMT and the CPC so as to build a pro-American coalition government. 362

Chapter 15

China Chooses Alliance with the Soviet Union; Implementation of the First Five-Year Plan Leads to Economic and Social Advancement

It would have American-style freedom and democracy, with the KMT as its mainstay but with the participation of the CPC and democratic parties. After the peace talks foundered, though dissatisfied with Chiang Kai-shek’s singleparty government and one-man dictatorship, the US government put its ideology and its global strategic interests first and supported Chiang in waging civil war. It provided the KMT with abundant military and economic aid, trying to help the latter control China, build a pro-American government and guarantee America’s strategic interests in the country. The Soviet Union’s post-war China policy was, however, a little complicated. In the beginning, the Soviet government assumed an ambiguous attitude towards the struggle between the KMT and the CPC, which was dubbed a “tightrope” policy by the CPC. Proceeding from its national interests, the Soviet government kept an intimate relationship with the CPC since they shared the same ideology, providing support and aid. But it fostered an even more cordial relationship with the KMT. Soon after Japan declared surrender, the Soviet government, taking advantage of its anti-Japanese military presence still in northeast China and the KMT’s fear that the Soviet Union might aid the CPC, signed a treaty with the KMT government to the detriment of China’s sovereignty by forcing the KMT to admit the independence of Outer Mongolia and the privileges of the Soviet Union in northeast China. By way of exchange, the Soviet Union offered to support Chiang Kaishek in unifying China’s military and government orders. Joseph Stalin even sent telegrams to the CPC Central Committee, urging Mao Zedong to accept Chiang’s invitation to the Chongqing negotiations to seek internal peace and participating in the KMT-led coalition government at the expense of giving up military power. On the other hand, the Soviet Union and the CPC had a common ideology. The KMT attached itself to the US after the breakout of civil war following China’s success in the anti-Japanese war, while the CPC army went from victory to victory in the civil war; this gradually changed the judgment of Stalin and other Soviet leaders regarding China’s revolutionary situation. On top of this, the increasing conflict between the US and the Soviet Union accelerated the formation of two mutually hostile camps. The Soviet Union’s policy toward China changed with the adjustment of its global strategy: its government 363

Socialism in China

stopped “walking the tightrope” and allied with the CPC, providing military equipment and financial aid to the CPC and openly criticizing the US for supporting Chiang Kai-shek in waging a civil war. Given the international and domestic situations and historical background, the CPC had no choice but to “lean to one side,” and align with the Soviet Union. To this end, the CPC Central Committee sent Liu Shaoqi to head a delegation to the Soviet Union in advance of the founding of New China in order to negotiate an alliance of friendship with the Soviet Union, drum up Soviet support for building China’s economy and culture, and make preparations for Mao Zedong’s formal visit to meet Stalin. On June 26, the CPC delegation led by Liu Shaoqi arrived in Moscow. The party also included Gao Gang, member of the Political Bureau of the CPC Central Committee and secretary of the Northeast Bureau, and Wang Jiaxiang, who would be New China’s first ambassador to the Soviet Union. The next day, the delegation was received by Stalin at the Kuntsevo Dacha, his personal country residence outside Moscow. Liu Shaoqi submitted to him a handwritten letter from Mao Zedong. The two sides discussed the provision of Soviet loans and experts to assist Chinese economic recovery and development as well as Soviet navy and air force aid. Liu Shaoqi expressed the wish to report on China’s current situation and vision for the future at the Soviet Union Political Bureau meeting and to hear advice from Soviet comrades. Stalin agreed to this request. After two days of preparation, the Chinese delegation handed in a report on the idea of construction of New China. It presented four aspects and illustrated key points: For a long time after the founding of New China, the principal contradiction in society would not be one between the working class and the national bourgeoisie, but one between the people and imperialism, feudalism and bureaucrat capitalism; there would be similarities and differences between the people’s democratic dictatorship that China was going to build and the Soviet Union’s dictatorship of the proletariat, and also between China’s new democratic political and economic systems and the Soviet Union’s socialist system. Where he agreed with the report’s content Stalin wrote “Correct” on it. He did so 15 times. 364

Chapter 15

China Chooses Alliance with the Soviet Union; Implementation of the First Five-Year Plan Leads to Economic and Social Advancement

On July 27, Stalin received the delegation again at his dacha. The two sides talked over dinner in a warm and friendly atmosphere. Stalin spoke in glowing terms of the triumph of China’s revolution. In high spirits, he said: “We Soviets may know more about Marxism than you Chinese do in terms of the general theory, but you have much experience in applying the general principles of Marxism to practice, and we have much to learn from you.” Then he proposed a toast: “Please join me in toasting the younger brother’s surpassing the big brother and his faster progress!” Liu Shaoqi rose to propose a toast in return: “An older brother will always be the older brother. We will always learn from you.” Stalin asked somewhat guiltily: “Did we disrupt or hamper you in pursuing your revolution?” This was a clear reference to the fact that the Communist Party of the Soviet Union had once insisted on Mao Zedong negotiating with Chiang Kai-shek, dissolving the armed forces and joining the KMT government. Liu Shaoqi replied, “No. We were clear-headed during the peace negotiations with the KMT. Our participation in the negotiations and the following peace and democracy movement isolated Chiang Kai-shek, gave us the upper hand politically and won over the people to our side.” Stalin nodded and said meaningfully, “Winners are immune from judgment. As long as one wins, then it’s right.” The delegation stayed for more than a month, conducting discussions with leading officials of Gosplan (the State Planning Commission), the Ministry of Finance of the USSR, Gosbank (the State Bank) and the Ministry of Commerce to learn about the organization, functions and working procedures of these entities. They also visited factories, colleges and museums, and reached a declaration of intent on loans, equipment purchase and expert assistance from the Soviet Union. On August 14, Liu Shaoqi and his delegation returned to China, bringing home a list of massive aid and a team of more than 200 Soviet experts. While Liu was in the Soviet Union, Mao Zedong, on the occasion of the celebration of the 28th anniversary of the CPC’s founding, published an article entitled “On the People’s Democratic Dictatorship.” In this, the first public declaration of New China’s foreign policy of aligning with the Soviet Union, 365

Socialism in China

he stated: “We oppose the Chiang Kai-shek reactionaries who lean to the side of imperialism, and we also oppose illusions about a third road” and “internationally, we belong to the side of the anti-imperialist front headed by the Soviet Union, and so we can turn only to this side for genuine and friendly help, not to the side of the imperialist front.” Soon afterwards, Mao penned five commentaries for Xinhua News Agency, among them “Cast away Illusions, Prepare for Struggle” and “Farewell, Leighton Stuart!” The articles revealed the imperialist nature of US policy on China and criticized pro-American politicians and some intellectuals who still cherished illusions about the United States. The publication of the articles communicated to the world at large New China’s foreign policy of “leaning to one side” and its clear intention of joining the socialist camp. On October 2, 1949, the second day after the founding of the People’s Republic of China, the Soviet government declared its recognition of New China and its severance of diplomatic relations with the KMT government, thus becoming the first country to establish diplomatic relations with the PRC. When the confidential secretary handed him the document sent by the Soviet government establishing diplomatic relations, Mao was so excited that he shook hands with the secretary. This action both confused and flattered the secretary: he had delivered documents to Chairman Mao on countless occasions, but this was the first time ever that they had shaken hands like that. This detail indicates how much importance Mao attached to USSR-China relations. In the next three months or so, China established diplomatic relations with ten countries – Bulgaria, Romania, Hungary, Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, Czechoslovakia, Poland, Mongolia, German Democratic Republic, Albania and the Socialist Republic of Vietnam. Yugoslavia also declared its recognition of New China. December 21 was Stalin’s 70th birthday. At his invitation, Mao Zedong took a special train to Moscow, the first time he had been abroad. Ostensibly, the intent was to celebrate Stalin’s birthday, but in actuality, Mao was taking this chance to talk about major political and economic issues between the two countries, especially about the conclusion of the Sino-Soviet Treaty of Friendship, Alliance and Mutual Assistance for more support from the Soviet Union for New China’s social development. 366

Chapter 15

China Chooses Alliance with the Soviet Union; Implementation of the First Five-Year Plan Leads to Economic and Social Advancement

A photo of Mao Zedong and Stalin, taken when Mao visiting the Soviet Union

When the clock at Moscow’s Yaroslavl Station struck noon on December 16, the special train carrying Mao drew slowly into the station. He was given a red-carpet welcome by Soviet Party and government leaders. At 10 that night, Stalin received Mao at the Kremlin and the two had cordial talks. The conversation started from the international situation. Mao said to Stalin, “The overriding issue for the moment is to safeguard peace. China needs a breathing space of three to five years in order to get the economy back to the pre-war level and stabilize the national situation. So, the CPC Central Committee instructed me to ask you this question: how and to what extent can world peace be safeguarded?” Stalin answered, “There is no direct threat of war to China at present. Japan has not recovered from the war, so it won’t be fighting another one; although the US makes bellicose noises, it fears war the most; and the European countries are terrified by the thought of war, so there is no possibility of them fighting China. If we pull together, we can safeguard peace for five, 10, 20 years, perhaps even longer.” He quipped: “Could Kim Il-sung possibly attack China?” Mao said in a telegram from Moscow to Liu Shaoqi: Stalin’s estimation of war is the same as ours – there is little likelihood of a new war. However, what astonished Stalin and Mao was that China, only six months after their conversation, was dragged into a three-year-long war; but that’s another story. Stalin’s birthday celebration was a gathering of Communist leaders from various countries. Stalin asked Mao to sit beside him and be the first to deliver 367

Socialism in China

a speech. Mao offered to Stalin his congratulations and a work of calligraphy by his own hand, reading “Happiness as immense as the East Sea, Life as long as the Southern Mountain.” The gathered leaders all applauded. The major purpose of Mao’s visit was to conclude a new treaty to replace the one signed between the KMT government and the Soviet Union in 1945 that undermined China’s sovereignty and interests. Initially, Stalin was reluctant to conclude a new treaty and suggested postponing discussion on the pretext of avoiding adverse reaction from the US and Britain. However, at Mao’s insistence, Stalin finally accepted the Chinese delegation’s requirement. After discussions and negotiations, the two sides reached consensus. Zhou Enlai came especially to Moscow for friendly negotiations with Soviet Foreign Minister Andrey Vyshinsky. The talks lasted for more than one month and on February 14, 1950, witnessed by Stalin, Mao Zedong and other Soviet and Chinese leaders, the Sino-Soviet Treaty of Friendship, Alliance and Mutual Assistance was formally signed in the Kremlin. During his visit, Mao masterminded the structure of New China’s foreign diplomacy and determined the alliance of friendship and cooperation between China and the Soviet Union, thereby ensuring good external conditions for consolidating the new-born political power and restoring and developing the economy. As a country with a population of more than 400 million, China’s alliance with the Soviet Union and its accession into the socialist camp made a big impact on the international community. Was it wise for New China to adopt the diplomatic principle of “leaning to one side”? Did it serve China’s best interests? On this issue Chinese and foreign scholars have long held differing opinions. Undoubtedly, the new-born China urgently needed a peaceful external environment so as to concentrate on economic growth, stabilize the social environment and obtain foreign economic and technological support, so of course it wished to and needed to establish normal diplomatic relations and engage in economic and trade cooperation with all countries including the US and other Western countries. However, this aspiration was nothing more than a pipe dream on the part of China, given the international backdrop at the time. Owing to different ideologies and the confrontation between the two camps, Western countries led 368

Chapter 15

China Chooses Alliance with the Soviet Union; Implementation of the First Five-Year Plan Leads to Economic and Social Advancement

by the US had rooted for the KMT government during the civil war, refused to recognize New China, instead recognizing the Taiwan “national government” as the legitimate government of China, objecting to its dismissal from the UN Security Council, and obstructing New China from obtaining its rightful seat at the UN. Furthermore, some capitalist countries led by the US imposed “sanctions” on China, including political pressure and materials embargo. This international environment forced New China toward the “leaning to one side” principle. The new-born China was in urgent need of external economic support to restore its war-torn economy and start industrialization, so it had to engage in trade and economic cooperation with the Soviet Union and other socialist countries. There was no alternative but to “lean to one side” diplomatically. Mao Zedong and the CPC Central Committee, however, did not give up their efforts to communicate and seek trade and economic cooperation with Western countries. During his Soviet Union visit, Mao sent a telegram to other leaders in China with instructions regarding preparation of the treaty text. In this he explicitly pointed out: “You should take the overall situation into account while preparing trade treaties to be signed with the Soviet Union. The Soviet Union should be in the first place, of course, but we should also be prepared to do business with Poland, Czechoslovakia, West Germany, Britain, Japan and the US. There must be an estimation of the scope and volume of the business.” Obviously, while aligning with the Soviet Union, Mao still hoped to have economic and trade operations with Western countries including Britain and the USA, as well as Japan. Another major decision the Chinese government made was to keep the status quo of Hong Kong and Macau. Given New China’s military strength and the international and domestic situation, recovering Hong Kong and Macau would not have been difficult. Though concerned about their colonies, Britain and Portugal could have done nothing to prevent it. In coming to their decision, the CPC Central Committee and Mao Zedong maintained that retaining the status of Hong Kong and Macau, though caused by historical reasons, would be strategically useful in the future. It would be beneficial for New China to conduct economic, trade, scientific, technological and cultural exchanges and cooperation with the outside world, to break the blockade imposed by 369

Socialism in China

Western countries and gain support from the international community. The significance of this strategic decision was vindicated by China’s development in the following several decades. The blockade imposed by Western countries on New China was gradually broken. In 1964, diplomatic relations were established between China and France, the first Western country to build diplomatic ties with China, and US President Richard Nixon visited China in 1972. But just as China and the Soviet Union were going into formal alliance, as the new republic was mopping up spies and bandits, putting it all into restoring the economy and consolidating the new political regime, the specter of war once more loomed. The new battlefield was on the adjoining Korean Peninsula; close geographically and politically – the very place that Stalin and Mao Zedong had joked about. Korea was colonized by Japan in the early 20th century. After World War II, the Soviet Union and the US agreed on the surrender of Japanese forces in Korea, and Soviet troops occupied north of the 38th parallel, while US troops took surrender south of it. The Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK or North Korea) and the Republic of Korea (South Korea) were founded. After the two superpowers withdrew troops from the peninsula in January 1950, the North Korean leader Kim Il-sung had a confidential meeting with Stalin in the Soviet Union, who approved his idea of reunifying the peninsula by military means. In May that year, Kim Il-sung visited China secretly to brief Mao Zedong. Considering that the new-born China was still getting on its feet, and if a war broke out between the two Koreas, China’s peace-building and reunification was bound to be affected, Mao Zedong did not express support. However, the situation evolved independently of what Mao and other Chinese leaders wanted. The Korean War broke out on June 25, 1950, when the North Korean People’s Army (KPA) crossed the 38th parallel. On June 27, President Truman ordered his air and sea forces to help the South Korean régime and sent the US Seventh Fleet into the Taiwan Strait, “neutralizing” it so as to stop the People’s Liberation Army of the PRC from crossing and liberating Taiwan. That same day, at the instigation of the US and 370

Chapter 15

China Chooses Alliance with the Soviet Union; Implementation of the First Five-Year Plan Leads to Economic and Social Advancement

Britain, the UN Security Council passed a resolution to form and send a UN Command to Korea with the US forces. Chinese Premier Zhou Enlai made a statement on behalf of the Chinese government on June 28, forcefully criticizing the US sending armed forces to North Korea and Taiwan Strait, interfering Asian affairs. He called for people from all over the world who loved peace, justice and freedom to check the US imperialists’ new aggression in the East. In the early phase of the Korean War, the KPA carried all before it and seized Seoul, the South Korean capital, in three days. It pushed quickly south and drove the Republic of Korea Army (ROK Army) to a small and narrow area known as the Pusan Perimeter. The war seemed about to end, but then the UN forces of more than 70,000 soldiers led by the US counterattacked, landing at Incheon on the west coast of North Korea, cutting the KPA in half. Beset from front and rear, the KPA took heavy casualties and was completely routed. The US forces and ROK Army recovered Seoul and attacked north of the 38th parallel, approaching Pyongyang, the North Korean capital. The flames of war reached the Yalu River. The fate of North Korea hung in the balance. At this critical juncture, Kim Il-sung called an emergency meeting of the Central Committee of the Korean Workers’ Party (KWP) and requested military aid from the Soviet Union and the PRC. The Soviet Union agreed to provide weaponry and air cover. Stalin wired Mao Zedong to express his hope that China would dispatch troops to help North Korea. A neighbor was in danger. Should China remain neutral, be a bystander, or lend a hand and commit troops? The Chinese leaders were between a rock and a hard place. To send in troops to another country on the grounds of their fates being closely bound up would be against the norms of international relations. Moreover, China was under reconstruction after more than a decade of wars. Could it withstand yet another war, this time against the world’s biggest military power? But if China stood aloof, the US forces, ROK Army and the UN Command would certainly take over North Korea, which might entail further disasters to China. More importantly, using the Korean War as a pretext, the US had sent an air and sea presence to the Taiwan Strait and to the Chinese territory of Taiwan. This was a mockery of international rules, 371

Socialism in China

a violation of Chinese sovereignty, and a serious threat to China’s peace and development. Mao Zedong tossed and turned in those days. He called several meetings and discussed countermeasures with Liu Shaoqi, Zhou Enlai, Zhu De, Peng Dehuai and Lin Biao. At an enlarged meeting of the Political Bureau of the CPC Central Committee, Lin Biao was cautious in his words and held a negative attitude towards the war. He listed figures of Chinese and US weaponry to demonstrate the great disparity in strength between the two countries, implying that the consequences would be unimaginable if China were to send troops to North Korea. Lin Biao was not alone in that judgment. Almost all other Party, military and government leaders were skeptical about or opposed to China’s sending troops. They worried that China stood barely a chance of winning a war against US troops given such a huge mismatch in military equipment. Moreover, Chinese troops were exhausted after years of war, and the people also needed respite, so the top priority for China was to pool all wisdom and strength to restore its economy. Seeing such opposition, Mao, who had intended to send troops and had drafted a telegram to Stalin agreeing to do so, decided to give it second thoughts. He met with the Soviet ambassador to China and asked him to convey a message to Stalin that China would not send troops to North Korea for the moment. Stalin’s response was a further telegram to Mao, committing to provide air cover and weaponry assistance to Chinese troops in North Korea and the Soviet Union’s full support to China if the US declared war against China. Mao called another enlarged meeting of the Political Bureau on October 4 and 5. Marshal Peng Dehuai, who had been absent from the previous enlarged meeting and had just returned to Beijing, was there this time. Mao asked him to speak first. Peng was very straightforward: “To send troops to North Korea is essential. If it is not successful, we take it as if our Liberation War has been postponed for a couple of years, but with US troops stationed on the Yalu River and Taiwan, the US can find an excuse for war with China at any time.” Some participants agreed with him, but not all. After listening to the participants’ opinions, Mao said slowly and thoughtfully, “What you said all makes sense. But when all’s said and done, China and North Korea are both socialist countries under communist party leadership. 372

Chapter 15

China Chooses Alliance with the Soviet Union; Implementation of the First Five-Year Plan Leads to Economic and Social Advancement

We should be ready to come to the rescue of those in distress, above all our friendly neighbor North Korea, with whom we are so geographically and politically connected. How can we act as a bystander? We should fight this war precisely to avoid China becoming the next victim of aggression. There is no alternative!” A consensus was finally reached – China would send expeditionary troops to help North Korea to resist US aggression and protect its own territory. On October 8, 1950, Mao Zedong on behalf of the Central Military Commission instructed to send the Chinese People’s Volunteer Army (CPV), reorganized from the Northeast Border Defense Army (NEBDA), to North Korea. The army had been under the Fourth Field Army (the former Manchurian Field Army) whose commander-in-chief was Lin Biao. Normally Lin should lead the troops to North Korea, but he pleaded illness, so the task fell to Peng Dehuai, who was always in the thick of things at times of peril for China. On October 19, the CPV, with Peng Dehuai as commander-in-chief and political commissar, crossed the Yalu River. Morale was high.

Marshal Peng Dehuai, commander-in-chief of the CPVA, observing the battlefront in North Korea

373

Socialism in China

The CPV won the first battle on October 25, killing more than 15,000 enemies in 13 days. In the following eight months, the CPV, fighting alongside the KPA, launched five consecutive battles and killed altogether more than 230,000 enemies, forcing the UN Command back from the Yalu River to south of the 38th parallel. The five battles were a wake-up call for the US. They forced the arrogant US generals and politicians to realize that the Chinese army could not be bullied, that North Korea was a bottomless pit and that the UN Command had no chance of winning. Similarly, the disparity in strength made it no easy task for the CPV and KPA to inflict complete defeat on the UN Command. The two sides came to the negotiating table to discuss bringing the war to an end, but the negotiations dragged on for two years, the bitter war of words being mirrored by battlefront fighting. Finally on July 27, 1953, representatives from the US, China and North Korea signed an armistice agreement in Panmunjom near the 38th parallel. This marked the end of the Korean War and three years and one month of fighting. China sent altogether 2.97 million troops to North Korea, suffering 366,000 casualties and killing, wounding or capturing more than 710,000 enemies. The CPV and KPA shot down more than 12,000 planes, sank 257 vessels, and seized large quantities of weapons and materials. This was the first war the US had not won. Mark Wayne Clark, commander of the UN Command and US negotiator in the Korean War, gave expression to his dismay in his memoir: “In carrying out the instructions of my government, I gained the unenviable distinction of being the first United States army commander in history to sign an armistice without victory.” The war to resist US aggression and aid Korea shattered the myth of an invincible US army. The world was impressed by China: a war-torn agricultural country with a backward economy and poor military equipment had, against all the odds, defeated the well-equipped army of a superpower! China wiped away the humiliations of the past 100-odd years since the Opium War in 1840 and began to stand erect among world nations. The Chinese people paid a heavy price for the war, but the victory activated China’s national spirit and enhanced its reputation. Just as Marshal Peng Dehuai said, the war proved that a 374

Chapter 15

China Chooses Alliance with the Soviet Union; Implementation of the First Five-Year Plan Leads to Economic and Social Advancement

re-awakened nation daring to fight for the country’s honor, independence and security cannot be beaten in war. As the war went from one victory to the next, on the home front, good news about China’s economy kept pouring in. By the end of 1952, great progress had been made in restoring the national economy and in building new democracy, with all major economic indicators reaching or surpassing previous records. The next major task facing the Party was how to begin large-scale economic development – in particular the major historical mission for this phase of new-democratic society – how to promote industrialization, transform China from a backward agricultural country into a modern industrial one, and create material and cultural conditions for the transition to socialism. Countries normally took one of two roads to industrialization. The first was the market economy model pioneered by capitalist Europe and America. Characterized by free competition, the journey toward a modern industrialized country generally took 50 to 100 years. The second road was the governmentled planned economic model implemented by the Soviet Union and socialist Eastern European countries. Mao Zedong and other CPC leaders chose the planned economic model. It was not a subjective choice, but was determined by the CPC’s theoretical foundation and the special historical conditions. A planned commodity economy based on the public ownership of the means of production had been one of the basic assumptions of the future ideal society by Karl Marx and Frederick Engels in criticizing the anarchy of capitalist production. The guiding ideology of the CPC being Marxism, it was natural for China to put the ideas of those “forefathers” into practice. Moreover, the Soviet Union, the world’s first socialist country, had established a highly-centralized planned economy in the 1920s and 1930s. The major characteristics of the Soviet Union’s planned economy model are as follows: The Soviet Union implemented socialist public ownership of the means of production only. Urban industry and commerce implemented ownership by the whole people or state ownership. The rural economy implemented collective ownership, with private ownership by farmers being abolished, and 375

Socialism in China

collective ownership gradually transiting to ownership by the whole people. The Soviet Union managed the national economy mainly through administrative means. The state allocated resources and organized social production, commodity circulation and consumption distribution in line with mandatory plans. The Soviet Union adhered to strict departmental management systems. The government’s economic management departments directly controlled the human, material and financial resources of enterprises and directed their production and business operations; those enterprises had no autonomy in production, operation or distribution. The Soviet Union monopolized foreign trade, etc. One of the big advantages of this economic model was the effective concentration of all nationwide resources to recover production as rapidly as possible and organize key projects. Therefore, it played a positive role in restoring the national economy and starting social construction of war-torn and backward countries in particular historical circumstances. The planned economy and an industrialization strategy prioritizing the development of heavy industry in the late 1920s and throughout the 1930s enabled the Soviet Union to establish a large number of industrial bases in just 10 years or so, a preliminarily independent and complete industrial system and a national economic system, basically complete industrialization and agricultural collectivization, thus laying the material foundation for socialism. The Soviet Union realized industrialization from 1928 to 1940, making the leap from a backward agricultural country to an advanced industrial country. Its gross industrial output value surpassed that of Britain, France and Germany and it became the world’s second largest industrial power. Furthermore, it defeated German fascists during the World War II, and in so doing turned the course of that war. It only took 13 years for the socialist Soviet Union to complete the transition that had taken capitalist countries decades or more than a century. This achievement was in stark contrast to the economic crisis and stagnation of the capitalist world in the same period. By 1950, the Soviet Union’s gross industrial output value had increased 12 times over that of 1913. By comparison, the corresponding growth rates for the capitalist US, Britain and France were two times, 70 percent and 50 percent respectively, lagging far behind that of the Soviet Union. The Soviet Union had, beyond doubt, set a good example for the CPC in its choice of development model after the 376

Chapter 15

China Chooses Alliance with the Soviet Union; Implementation of the First Five-Year Plan Leads to Economic and Social Advancement

founding of the PRC. “The Soviet Union’s today will be our tomorrow” was a popular slogan in China. The Soviet Union’s highly centralized planned economy and its development model of giving priority to the development of heavy industry was made one-sided, absolute and theoretical by Stalin after the World War II. It was elevated to a socialist universal law and only model and was imposed on other socialist countries. However, due to its rigidity and conventionalism, the drawbacks of the economic system had gradually revealed themselves since the late 1940s and the early 1950s. By the late 1970s, the system had been reduced from an effective way to emancipate and develop productivity to shackles hindering the development of advanced productive force. This resulted in the long-term slow development of the national economy in the Soviet Union and Eastern European countries, which lagged far behind their surrounding capitalist countries, and aroused great dissatisfaction among their peoples. It should be realized, however, that the economic system had not fully revealed its drawbacks but proved quite effective by the late 1940s and the early 1950s when China decided to follow the Soviet path. The forefathers’ choice should not be denounced without regard to the specific historical conditions and environment. The newly founded republic, in light of the blockade imposed by the US and other Western countries and in particular after the Korean War, and because of Chinese industry’s urgent need for economic and technology support from outside, had no alternative but to turn for assistance to the Soviet Union, at the time the world’s second largest economy. Given the historical and international conditions, Mao Zedong and other Chinese leaders had to “lean to one side” in foreign policy and adopt the Soviet Union’s planned economy. Therefore, it was a critical step for China to formulate and carry out its first Five-Year Plan with the Soviet Union’s help. Believing the precept that preparedness is key to success, Mao Zedong planned to spend three years on preparation, and then 10 years to develop the plan-based economy. He decided to undertake the first Five-Year Plan starting from 1953, and asked the Financial and Economic Commission of the Central People’s Government Council led by Chen Yun to compile New China’s first Five-Year Plan. 377

Socialism in China

The Chinese delegation led by Zhou Enlai arriving at Moscow airport

In early 1952, a leading group was formed to take charge of the formulation of the first Five-Year Plan. Its members were Zhou Enlai, Chen Yun, Bo Yibo, Li Fuchun, Nie Rongzhen and Song Shaowen, and half a year later they presented a 25-volume draft plan. The draft included the overall plan and principles for economic development in the five years ahead, and plans for industries such as nonferrous metal, machinery, automobile, ship, electronic equipment, chemicals, construction materials, power, coal mining, oil, textile, light industry, transportation and post and telecommunications, etc. Led by Zhou Enlai, Chen Yun and Li Fuchun, a group of more than 30 experts involved in the drafting of the plan visited the Soviet Union, where they spent more than a month consulting the “Big Brother” on the plan and discussing implementation of the overall plan of aid projects. On the advice of the Soviet Union, the drafting group scrapped the original plan and drafted a new one. In March 1953, Stalin passed away. The government of the Soviet Union did not change its plan to aid China’s construction during the period of the first Five-Year Plan. Replying to China in April, the Soviet Union confirmed its provision of funds and experts for major aid projects. Accordingly, the newly established State Planning Commission led by Gao Gang continued to revise the first Five-Year Plan based on Soviet advice. However, owing to various reasons, the drafting did not progress smoothly. In 1954, as requested by Mao Zedong and decided by the CPC Central Committee, Chen Yun again led the drafting group of the first Five-Year Plan 378

Chapter 15

China Chooses Alliance with the Soviet Union; Implementation of the First Five-Year Plan Leads to Economic and Social Advancement

after his return from sick leave. This time, Mao gave orders that the drafting should be finished in a short period of time. He told Chen an efficient way to go about the work: First, eat; second, do nothing else but draft; third, draft several articles every day. Taking the order, Chen Yun’s drafters threw themselves into the job, analyzing, summing up, and polishing the articles. They worked around the clock except when eating or sleeping, and presented the first draft to Mao Zedong as early as April. On June 29 and 30, the Political Bureau held a special meeting to study the draft plan. Chen Yun put forward its basic principles. He said the first FiveYear Plan, formulated with the help of Russian experts, revolved around the 156 USSR aid projects. However, China must proceed from its own national conditions, be realistic and independent, and avoid blindly and rigidly copying foreign examples. Based on opinions expressed in the Political Bureau meetings, Chen Yun, Li Fuchun and other officials revised the draft plan. In October, Chinese leaders including Mao Zedong, Liu Shaoqi and Zhou Enlai spent a month in Guangzhou reviewing and revising the draft plan. It then went for discussion by the Political Bureau and the CPC Central Committee, and was approved by the Second Session of the First National People’s Congress. It took China four years to draft, revise and approve the first Five-Year Plan, which pooled the wisdom of Chinese leaders and experts. By the time it was formulated, it had actually been practiced for two years. Between 1953 and 1957, the years covered by the first Five-Year Plan, China’s economy achieved more than old China had been able to in 100 years. With the completion of 156 key projects and 694 major projects aided by the Soviet Union, China initially built up the industries of smelting and manufacturing of nonferrous metals such as steel, copper and aluminum, as well as the manufacturing of trucks, open hearth and blast furnaces, coke ovens, steam turbine-generators, tractors, precision instruments, petroleum plant and dozens of other kinds of manufacturing facilities. In addition, China also improved its transportation industry, light industry, agriculture, commerce, culture, education, science and technology, and public health, and greatly improved the people’s livelihood. 379

Socialism in China

During the period of the first Five-Year Plan, China’s gross industrial output value grew by an average of 18 percent per annum and gross agricultural output value by 4.5 percent, both surpassing historical records. Compared with 1952, the gross output value of industry and agriculture increased by 67.8 percent in 1957; the gross industrial output value increased by 128.6 percent, and the national income increased by 53 percent. Following the example of the Soviet Union, the first Five-Year Plan gave priority to heavy industry. Therefore, during the five-year period, China’s industrial growth rate greatly outpaced that of agriculture, with the proportion of industry in the combined output value of industry and agriculture jumping by 13.6 percentage points – from 43.1 percent to 56.7 percent. The growth rate of heavy industry also substantially outpaced that of light industry, with the proportion of heavy industry in the gross industrial output value increasing from 35.5 percent to 45 percent. Such a development strategy was necessary to complete a particular historical mission under particular conditions. In the newly-founded People’s Republic with literally no industry at all, the development of war-torn agriculture, light industry, transportation and national defense would have been out of the question without the development of heavy industry to provide raw materials and equipment. However, instead of making adjustments to suit the changing situations, the development strategy prioritizing heavy industry was later reinforced and became a long-term policy, resulting in a disproportional economic structure, unbalanced development, and difficulties in satisfying the people’s increasing demand for material and cultural life. Copying the Soviet Union model, China’s industrialization in particular was achieved at the cost of the farmers’ interests. China practiced the system of unified purchase and marketing to forcefully keep the prices of agricultural products low, and created price scissors to fund industrialization. This development model harmed the farmers’ interests, and hampered agricultural development – a lesson we should remember. With the first Five-Year Plan comprehensively over-fulfilled, China initially laid the foundation for industrialization, and demonstrated success in building a new-democratic society and the superiority of the socialist system. Those five years were memorable days, days when China maintained fast growth, 380

Chapter 15

China Chooses Alliance with the Soviet Union; Implementation of the First Five-Year Plan Leads to Economic and Social Advancement

greatly improved people’s livelihood, maintained a good social order and enhanced people’s morality. Just as China was formulating and implementing the first Five-Year Plan, a vigorous socialist movement to revolutionize China’s production relations was in full swing. The first Five-Year Plan has been recorded in the history of the People’s Republic as a good start for China’s industrialization. However, when it comes to the socialist revolution aimed at changing production relations, then opinions may vary greatly. As the poem says: Confront the US, for Korea and for national pride, Learn from the Soviet Union, and seek a new path. As success comes for the Five-Year Plan, The tattoo sounds for social transformation. ॎ્ჹӜဠ‫ືݛ‬ĭ ྕ੦౸෴٧వිh ᆋѐ၊໼Ҕቅूĭ ଲѐന‫ۇ‬ժᅦ‫ܥ‬h How would China effect the socialist transformation, and what lessons should we learn from it? The next chapter tells the story.

381

Chapter 16

A Premature Transition to Socialism under the General Line which Replaces the Common Program; Too Eager to Complete the Transformation of Agriculture, Handicraft and Industrial and Commercial Industries

In the lead up to New China and in its early years, the top leaders of the CPC were all of one view that, after the Liberation War, China would establish a new-democratic state, which would then go through a transition period to develop its economy, politics and culture before transiting to a socialist society. However, officials at all levels were unclear, theoretically unprepared and ideologically confused about how long it would take to build a new-democratic state, what conditions would be needed for socialism, and when to start the transition. As construction work went on, practice gave rise to differences of opinion and friction. In early 1950, Liu Shaoqi, secretary of the CPC Central Committee Secretariat, clashed with Gao Gang, secretary of the Party’s Northeast Bureau. As an old liberated area, Northeast China had completed land reform before the founding of New China. Here agricultural production was recovering and the life of peasants improving, so some who had become rich first by dint of their labor and good work could hire hands and buy land, farm implements and horses to expand production, whereas some who had slumped for various reasons had to rent out or sell their land and work for richer peasants. On top of this, most rich peasants preferred to work on their own and were reluctant to join mutual aid teams, whereas poor and weak peasants were willing to work in cooperation. In December 1949, the CPC Northeast Bureau and the Northeast People’s Government held a meeting on rural work. Gao Gang 382

Chapter 16

A Premature Transition to Socialism under the General Line which Replaces the Common Program; Too Eager to Complete the Transformation of Agriculture, Handicraft and Industrial and Commercial Industries

asserted that to tackle the new problems arising after the land reform in rural Northeast China, the direction should be organized production, and that most peasants must be moved gradually from individual farming to collective work. Although individual farming, hiring hands, borrowing and lending money, buying, selling and renting out land were all allowed in principle, in his view, it was crucial to increase the limits on such activities, whilst enhancing and developing peasants’ mutual aid teams, i.e., upgrading small labor-exchanging groups into cooperative teams. Gao Gang also put forward policies and measures in support of peasants’ labor exchange and mutual assistance. After the meeting, under the slogan “upgrade mutual aid teams,” peasants in rural Northeast China received orders from the top to merge small teams into mutual aid teams and expand them to large cooperative groups. All this was to be done fast. Some areas made policies and adopted various measures to ban or limit individual farming. At the same time, Gao Gang maintained that those Party members who had become rich peasants by hard work after the land reform must be expelled from the Party. Liu Shaoqi’s views differed from those expressed in Gao Gang’s speech and from the approach mooted for Northeast China. An Ziwen, vice head of the Organization Department of the CPC Central Committee, asked Liu for instructions on how to reply to the Northeast China Bureau’s “Instructions for Party Branch Work in Rural Areas,” Liu responded that the rural economy of Northeast China was starting to develop, and even if “rich” peasants had three horses, a plough and a cart after the land reform, they could only be counted as middle peasants rather than rich; such peasants accounted for less than 10 percent of the population of Northeast China, and even fewer of their number merited the label of rich peasant. Currently, middle peasants should be encouraged in Northeast China; only if 70 percent of peasants owned three horses would collective farms be feasible in the future; hence, we should publicize the advantages of labor exchange and mutual assistance but at the same time still permit individual farming. Rich peasants, in Liu’s view, would hire more hands and buy more horses, which was good for the rural economy and should not be restricted just then; in three or five years’ time, the state could impose limits by collecting land tax or more grain from them. Liu was adamant that those who had got rich through their own toil should 383

Socialism in China

not be expelled from the Party; as China was building new-democracy, peasant Party members could work individually, and Party regulations, though by no means encouraging individual farming, did permit such activity and the hiring of labor; even if such people did become rich peasants, they should not be expelled from the Party unless they decided to withdraw of their own volition. When Gao Gang received the record of Liu Shaoqi’s talk and the reply from the Organization Department, he was far from pleased. Armed with the record, he went straight to Beijing to lodge a complaint with Mao Zedong. Mao did not express an opinion, but passed on the complaint to Chen Boda and the dispute remained unresolved. A year or so later, Mao Zedong got into conflict with Liu Shaoqi on the issue of when rural areas should adopt measures to transit to socialism. The conflict was triggered by a report of the Shanxi Provincial Party Committee on the subject of agricultural mutual aid and cooperation. As early as in 1940, mutual aid teams appeared in the Shanxi Anti-Japanese Base Area. After land reform was launched in liberated areas in 1946, mutual aid by labor was widely practiced in liberated areas there, by which the ablebodied and draught animals were organized for more effective production. As with the peasants in Northeast China, after land reform some Shanxi peasants got rich by dint of their hard work and good management and bought oxen, horses and other tools of production. Such peasants preferred to work individually rather than join mutual aid teams; as a result, teams in some old base areas started to fade away, shrink and even break up. How to tackle the new problems emerging post land reform? The Shanxi Changzhi Prefectural Party Committee proposed that agricultural production should gradually be developed as a cooperative activity, and to this end there should be organization of cooperatives, “established on the basis of individual economy,” which would encompass production, supply and marketing and credit. In April 1951, the Shanxi Provincial Party Committee submitted to the CPC Central Committee and the North China Bureau a “Report on Improving Mutual Aid Teams in Old Liberated Areas” based on a study report from the Changzhi Prefectural Party Committee. The report said that as agricultural economy recovered and developed, peasants would not take the initiative to go along the line required for modernization and collectivization. On the con384

Chapter 16

A Premature Transition to Socialism under the General Line which Replaces the Common Program; Too Eager to Complete the Transformation of Agriculture, Handicraft and Industrial and Commercial Industries

trary, they would go individual farming and try to get rich. If this problem was not tackled properly, mutual aid teams would fade away, disintegrate or become the “manor estate” of rich peasants. There were two solutions: one, establish and gradually increase accumulated reserve funds in mutual aid teams, which members could share but not take away if they left the team; two, allocation of income should be on the basis of work capability and soil fertility, and as production developed the allocation proportion based on work capability should be gradually increased. Although this approach would not change the foundation of private ownership, it was a negating element; “at the current stage private ownership should not be strengthened, on the contrary, it should be gradually shaken, weakened and nullified.” In effect, the report posed a deadly serious question: what measures should be taken vis a vis mutual aid teams and private ownership in rural areas? Should they be consolidated or weakened? On May 4, the North China Bureau gave its written response to the Shanxi Committee, also notifying the CPC Central Committee. The reply read, “Your current approach of using accumulated reserve funds and allocating on the basis of work in order to gradually shake, weaken and even nullify the basis of private ownership conforms neither to the Party’s policy during the new-democratic revolution nor to the spirit of the Common Program. It is therefore wrong.” “In establishing agricultural production cooperatives, your province may set up just a few as an experiment for the purpose of research, demonstration and education; and such experiments shall come about from the peasants’ own free will, rather than by coercion. Nor shall they be spread further.” Shanxi Provincial Party Committee did not accept the North China Bureau’s criticism, and lodged an appeal, which was adopted at an enlarged meeting of the Standing Committee of Shanxi Provincial Party Committee. The appeal argued that Shanxi would establish pilot cooperatives in which peasants could become “shareholders with land” and which would be run in a unified way. They would have two characteristics: dividend-sharing according to land and work, and admitting private ownership while affirming socialist factors; thus they would be semi-socialist, one of the five economic sectors stated in the Common Program. Secretary Lai Ruoyu and Deputy Secretary Xie 385

Socialism in China

Xuegong of Shanxi Provincial Party Committee sent a telegraph to the North China Bureau to reiterate these views. When Liu Shaoqi read this report referred on by the North China Bureau, he wrote the following comments: “It is a wrong, dangerous and utopian idea for agricultural socialism to gradually shake, weaken and even nullify the basis of private ownership, to upgrade agricultural mutual aid teams to cooperatives, and use this as a new factor to ‘overcome peasants’ initiative.’” During this period, Liu Shaoqi asserted at several meetings that there should be no mobilization of peasants to set up production cooperatives, and that they could run only mutual aid teams; there would be three years’ preparation for ten years of construction, so it would be 13 or 15 years before the issue of socialism possibly be considered. During the new-democracy stage, there should be no shaking, weakening or nullifying individual ownership by peasants, nor should there be fear of peasants’ getting rich. Only when 80 percent of peasants getting rich to the extent of owning three horses, a plough and a cart, could the Party organize them to voluntarily take the road of cooperatives; moreover, for agricultural collectivization to happen, it would be necessary for an industrialized China to produce agricultural machinery, and for the land to be nationalized. Bo Yibo, first secretary of the North China Bureau, published an article in the People’s Daily, criticizing as complete fantasy the idea of realizing agricultural collectivization by shaking, weakening and nullifying private ownership within mutual aid teams. The controversy over the Shanxi Bo Yibo

Party Committee’s agricultural coop-

erativization lasted four months. In August, Mao Zedong talked to Liu Shaoqi, Bo Yibo and Secretary Liu Lantao of the North China Bureau, informing them he could not agree with them and supported Shanxi’s position. Mao also criticized Liu Shaoqi and others directly for the views they had expressed. According to him, Western capitalism had gone through a stage of handwork factories before the introduction of steam-powered mechanization but there was divi386

Chapter 16

A Premature Transition to Socialism under the General Line which Replaces the Common Program; Too Eager to Complete the Transformation of Agriculture, Handicraft and Industrial and Commercial Industries

sion of labor to bring into being new productivity; it therefore followed that it would be feasible to run cooperatives in a unified way and bring about new productivity, and then shake the basis of private ownership. Mao tasked Chen Boda there and then to draft a resolution about introducing agricultural cooperatives and then submit it to the Political Bureau for deliberation. When Gao Gang got word about Mao Zedong criticizing Liu Shaoqi, he immediately organized the drafting of “Report on Launching a Mutual Aid and Cooperation Movement in Rural Northeast China” and submitted it to Mao Zedong. Gao Gang’s report listed recent achievements in rural Northeast China and expressed that henceforth the key focus should be on developing agricultural cooperatives at a faster rate. This was not the first time that Gao Gang, keenly alert to Mao’s words and looks, provoked estrangement. Before this, he had believed that Mao had negative feelings about Liu Shaoqi and Zhou Enlai, on many occasions Gao had expressed dissatisfaction about these two leaders, and others too. He provoked hostility among central and local leaders. He said that the CPC had “a Party of the base areas and the army” and “a Party of the White Area1,” that the Party had been created by the army and that he himself was the representative of the “Party of the base areas and the army.” He spread that the wording “Liu Shaoqi is the representative of the Party’s correct policy in the White Area” in the resolution of the Seventh Plenary Session of the Sixth CPC Central Committee was not correct and should be revised. Gao Gang also lobbied Chen Yun and Deng Xiaoping to overthrow Liu Shaoqi, but met with resistance from both of them. In February 1954, at the Fourth Plenary Session of the Seventh CPC Central Committee, Gao Gang was condemned as one of the chiefs of the “Gao Gang-Rao Shushi anti-Party league” and later committed suicide. At that time, when Mao Zedong read Gao Gang’s report, he had high praise for it and circulated it to Liu Shaoqi, Zhou Enlai, Zhu De, Chen Yun, Peng Zhen and some others. Liu Shaoqi, Bo Yibo and Liu Lantao accepted Mao’s criticism, and the controversy about rural cooperatives in Shanxi and Northeast China stopped forthwith. And from then on, Liu Shaoqi never voiced an opinion about social issues of new-democracy. 1

Referring to the areas under the rule of the KMT. –Ed.

387

Socialism in China

The nub of this controversy was whether, after land reform in the countryside, China should immediately take the necessary steps for a transition to socialism or whether it should first apply the economic policies of newdemocracy. Liu Shaoqi was against the Northeast China and Shanxi plan to develop agricultural cooperatives, on the grounds that it would take a long time for China to transit from new democracy to socialism and the government should not shake, weaken or nullify private ownership by peasants. His view was undoubtedly correct. As Chapter 14 described, before the founding of New China, at the Seventh National Congress of the CPC and the Second Plenary Session of the Seventh CPC Central Committee and at many meetings of the CPPCC and other meetings after the founding of New China, the CPC had reached a common view, discussed it with non-Communist parties and written it into the Common Program, the provisional constitution of New China. It said that establishing a new-democratic country once the revolution succeeded would entail a transition period of between 15 and 20 years to develop economy, politics and culture; once conditions permitted, socialist steps could be taken to transit to socialism. Even so, it was overly harsh of Liu Shaoqi to characterize as “wrong, dangerous and utopian” Shanxi’s bid to run semi-socialist, primary cooperatives in which peasants could “become shareholders with land” and which would be run in a unified way. Granted, conditions were not altogether ready for rushing into forming agricultural cooperatives countrywide, and there was no urgency; but in Shanxi and Northeast China land reform had been completed many years earlier and mutual aid teams had worked well for years, it was not impossible to select some villages with favorable conditions to set up experimental cooperatives from which successful experience could be rolled out to more areas when conditions permitted. The Shanxi proposal to experiment with cooperatives of a semi-socialist nature while keeping private land ownership unchanged, exploring ways to upgrade agricultural mutual aid and cooperation, was not totally unreasonable. It did not deserve such damning criticism. Since none had any experience at all in the early days of New China, it was natural and normal that different opinions and arguments should exist. But irrespective of which opinions on such matters were wrong, under-informed or one-sided, we could use democratic ways or procedures within the Party 388

Chapter 16

A Premature Transition to Socialism under the General Line which Replaces the Common Program; Too Eager to Complete the Transformation of Agriculture, Handicraft and Industrial and Commercial Industries

to correct them and make decisions, or adjust them by exploration and in practice. Unfortunately, at that time, the Party and state had not put in place a democratic and scientific mechanism for decision making and for correcting errors. When the top leadership had different opinions, there were no normal procedures for settling disagreement; usually the top leader had “the only say.” As a result, it was hard to avoid wrong decisions. Because of this controversy, the Party gave up building a new-democratic society too soon. Mao Zedong’s ideological change became gradually clear from the latter half of 1952 to the first half of 1953, and became the general line of the Party and country for the transition period. In September 1952, the Secretariat of the CPC Central Committee (equivalent to the later Standing Committee of the Political Bureau) held a meeting to discuss policies and tasks for the First Five-Year National Economic Plan. Mao Zedong told the meeting that we “must basically complete socialism in 10 to 15 years, rather than transit to socialism after 10 years.” In November, at another meeting he proposed to “eliminate the bourgeoisie, and eliminate capitalist industry and commerce.” In 1953, soon after the Chinese New Year, Mao Zedong made an inspection visit to Hebei, Henan, Hubei, Anhui, Jiangsu and Tianjin, during which he explained to local Party and government leaders why he advocated an immediate transition to socialism. Back in Beijing, he kept expounding this thought to top Party leaders time and again. On June 15, 1953, at an enlarged Political Bureau meeting of the CPC Central Committee, Mao Zedong for the first time put forward the general line for the transition period – from the founding of New China in 1949 to the completion of the socialist transformation. The Party’s general line and task for the transition period was to basically accomplish the industrialization of the country and the socialist transformation of agriculture, handwork industry, capitalist industry and commerce within 10 to 15 years or perhaps a little longer. Mao Zedong then stressed, “This general line is a beacon for all of our work and must not be departed from; if we depart from it, we will make Left or Right mistakes.” Liu Shaoqi and Zhou Enlai came in for oblique criticism, 389

Socialism in China

when Mao called it “harmful” and “hindering our socialist cause” to say (as they had done not long previously) “we need to put in place the order of newdemocratic society.” Mao Zedong summarized the general line as “one industrialization” and “three transformations.” The former, to turn the country from a backward agricultural country to a modern industrial one, was the main body of the general line; the latter was to accomplish the socialist transformation of agriculture, handwork industry, capitalist industry and commerce. They represented the “two wings” of the general line. Although Mao said the main body and the “two wings” were complementary and could not be separated, in thought and in practice he paid more attention to the “wings.” In his view, only first “completing the transition from private ownership of the means of production to socialist ownership” by reforming productive relations would be beneficial for promoting “rapid development of social productivity” and for pushing forward industrialization. For this reason, he asserted: “The essence of our Party’s general line for the transition period is to make the socialist ownership of means of production the sole economic base of our country and society,” and “the general line can be used to tackle the problem of ownership.” In February 1954, the Fourth Plenary Session of the Seventh CPC Central Committee adopted a resolution approving the general line. In September, the first meeting of the First National People’s Congress adopted the Constitution of the People’s Republic of China, incorporating the general line into its general principles. It showed the shift in the Party’s guiding ideology and political basis from new-democracy as in the Common Program toward socialism on the Soviet Union model. A socialist transformation campaign was launched and the elimination of private ownership accelerated. China’s means of production and superstructure were about to enter a highly volatile period. The three transformations came first to agriculture. As soon as the general line for the transition period was published, a mass movement was launched, quickly changing mutual aid teams to elementary cooperatives, to advanced cooperatives, and finally to people’s communes. Mutual aid teams had been created by peasants in anti-Japanese base areas during the anti-Japanese war and in liberated areas during the War of Libera390

Chapter 16

A Premature Transition to Socialism under the General Line which Replaces the Common Program; Too Eager to Complete the Transformation of Agriculture, Handicraft and Industrial and Commercial Industries

tion to help each other in agricultural production. The system was based on the private ownership of land and means of production by peasants and independent accounting by household; the land, means of production and crops were owned by peasants themselves; but team members could exchange labor and do paid work for each other. Such mutual aid teams could help peasants who had been given farmland during land reform, but individual households did not have enough manpower, farm animals and farm tools of their own; geared to local productivity and small peasant economy at the time, such teams were popular among peasant households. In December 1951, the CPC Central Committee issued the “Resolution on Mutual Aid and Cooperation in Agriculture (Draft).” By the end of 1953, half the peasant population around the country had joined such mutual aid teams, contributing to the recovery and development of the agricultural economy. In 1952, the national grain yield was the highest ever, up by 42.8 percent over 1949. At the same time that mutual aid teams were developing quickly, a form of semi-collective cooperative appeared in some of the earliest liberated rural areas in Northeast China, Shandong and Shanxi. Similar to the mutual aid team, this did not change the private ownership of land and means of production, but evaluated them in terms of shares, adopted unified production and opera-

Farmers of a cooperative

391

Socialism in China

tion, and distributed revenue according to shares and work. These were later called elementary cooperatives. Before the general line for the transition period was implemented the mutual aid team was the most popular form; only a few elementary cooperatives existed, still being at the experimental stage. In February 1953, the CPC Central Committee issued the “Resolution on Developing Agricultural Cooperatives.” In April, it held the First National Meeting on Rural Work, to plan and organize the change to cooperatives. Deng Zihui, head of the Central Rural Work Department, pointed out that the Party’s task for rural work was to lead farmers onto a road of organized mutual aid and cooperation, toward common growth and common prosperity; the mutual aid and cooperation campaign had to be implemented step by step and not with excessive haste. Deng also said: “It is wrong to talk about ‘ensuring private ownership’ but we cannot casually deprive farmers of land that has been given them and should ensure their ownership under the law; in national terms, impetuosity and rash advance has been a major erroneous tendency and must be corrected.” After a few months’ readjustment and consolidation, at the end of 1953, the number of mutual aid teams around China decreased to 7,450,000 from the figure of 8,026,000 in 1952 even though more peasant households were involved in the teams; the number of elementary cooperatives exceeded 15,000, involving 275,000 households, 18.3 households per cooperative on average; and over 90 percent of the mutual aid teams and Deng Zihui in 1953

elementary cooperatives managed to increase their grain yields.

The CPC Central Committee held the Third National Meeting on Mutual Aid and Cooperation between October and November 1953. Mao Zedong talked to Deng Zihui and others, criticizing the correction work on impetuosity and rash advance they had carried out that spring: “To try for a big increase in grain output and to tackle the country’s grain problem by reliance on small peasant economy and individual economy rather than on socialism is just plain 392

Chapter 16

A Premature Transition to Socialism under the General Line which Replaces the Common Program; Too Eager to Complete the Transformation of Agriculture, Handicraft and Industrial and Commercial Industries

wrong.” Following these words, the meeting focused on expediting the development of agricultural cooperatives, discussed and adopted the “Resolution of the CPC Central Committee on Developing Agricultural Cooperatives,” and decided to increase the number of cooperatives from 15,000 to 35,800 in the spring of 1954. In the spring of 1954, the high tide of agricultural cooperativization swept across the Chinese countryside. In just one year, the number of cooperatives jumped from 14,000 to over 600,000. During this period, some local governments used violent ways to force farmers into cooperatives and rode roughshod over their interests. As a result, some areas experienced “rebellion of the productive forces” (to use Mao’s phrase). To be specific, farmers sold and slaughtered their farm animals on a large scale, and their zeal for production dropped. When Deng Zihui discovered rash advance in cooperativization, he immediately reported it to Mao and advised the CPC Central Committee that the pace of development should not be accelerated willy-nilly; at the proper time they should be downsized and rectified. After hearing Deng’s report, Mao Zedong gave instructions that different conditions required different policies to be adopted: development should be stopped, the cooperatives downsized and developed at appropriate speed. The CPC Central Committee issued three documents in a row for local governments on the subject of readjusting and consolidating agricultural cooperatives. By July 1954, all 650,000 of them had undergone readjustment, and the number had been cut by more than 20,000. Mao Zedong approved these measures at first, but changed his mind only three months later. In April 1955, he went by special train on an inspection tour of South China. On the way, he saw crops growing well; and his tour companion Ke Qingshi, secretary of the East China Bureau, told him that about 30 percent of Party officials lacked enthusiasm for the move to cooperatives, and some of them were influenced by the Central Rural Work Department. During this tour, Mao’s thinking underwent gradual change, turning to the view that conditions in the countryside were not as serious as Deng Zihui had reported and there was no need to slow down the pace of change. On his return to the capital in early May, Mao Zedong talked to Deng Zihui twice and warned him not to repeat the mistake of 1953 when a large 393

Socialism in China

number of cooperatives were dissolved. In mid-May, Mao convened a meeting of secretaries of 15 provincial and municipal Party committees, and issued a clear and open warning: “The negativity regarding cooperativization must change; not to do so would be committing a grave error.” The main focus should be on accelerating the development of cooperatives. Subsequently, the Central Rural Work Department revised its plan, increasing the number of cooperatives to be developed in 1956 from 650,000 to 1,000,000, and submitted the new plan to the Political Bureau meeting chaired by Liu Shaoqi for deliberation and approval. Mao was in North China on an inspection tour, so did not attend this meeting. However, on his return in late June, he talked to Deng again, saying that the plan approved by the Political Bureau was “just a half-measure” and increased the target to 1,350,000 cooperatives. The difference between the Political Bureau meeting and Mao Zedong’s opinion put Deng Zihui in a quandary. After weighing up the matter carefully and listening to views from different quarters, Deng Zihui went to Zhongnanhai to speak to Mao frankly. From 10 at night to early next morning, Deng pressed his factual arguments: The speed of the process should be in step with China’s pace of industrialization; the existing 650,000 cooperatives had many problems and a heavy task lay ahead to make these stable; leading officials at all levels still needed time to accumulate experience in cooperativization; the Soviet Union and Hungary had learnt a lesson from their quick and rash cooperativization; the plan to develop 1 million cooperatives was based on local investigations and collective discussion. But Deng’s voice could not sway Mao Zedong; the leader became displeased with Deng. Two days later, Mao Zedong summoned Deng and other leaders of the Central Rural Work Department to Zhongnanhai. He lambasted the Department for being “lily-livered,” “not asking for instructions beforehand and not reporting afterwards,” being “very full of itself.” He even said “Deng Zihui’s mind needs a bomb on it.” Deng’s colleagues were nervous for him, and urged him for his own good not to argue with the Chairman over the number of cooperatives. But Deng was unyielding and said: “This is not an issue of numbers. The important thing is that he thinks that the conditions for setting up cooperatives are irrelevant. We really must make this clear.” 394

Chapter 16

A Premature Transition to Socialism under the General Line which Replaces the Common Program; Too Eager to Complete the Transformation of Agriculture, Handicraft and Industrial and Commercial Industries

“Deng Zihui’s mind needs a bomb on it.” This was not spoken as a joke or in a fit of anger: it was soon to become reality. On July 31, at a conference of secretaries of provincial, municipal and autonomous region Party committees called by the CPC Central Committee, Mao Zedong made a long speech entitled “On the Cooperative Transformation of Agriculture.” His speech dropped a direct bomb on Deng Zihui: “Certain comrades, tottering along like a woman on bound feet, keep up a continual complaint, ‘You’re going too fast, much too fast.’ Too much carping, unwarranted complaints, boundless anxiety and countless taboos – all this they take as the right policy to guide the socialist mass movement in the rural areas.” “No! This is not the correct policy: it is the wrong one.” He also fired from the perspective of class struggle and line struggle: “They take the stand of the bourgeoisie, the rich peasants, or the well-to-do middle peasants with their spontaneous tendencies towards capitalism, they always think in terms of the interests of the few. They fail to take the working-class stand or think in terms of the interests of the whole country and people.” Such a heavy onslaught astounded the audience. In October, Mao followed up with another speech: “A Debate on Agricultural Cooperativization and Current Class Struggle” at the Sixth Plenary Session of the Seventh CPC Central Committee, repudiating Deng Zihui and the Rural Work Department as “Right opportunist.” At that time, Mao Zedong enjoyed high prestige and respect among the Party and the people alike. Consequently his instructions triggered a nationwide upsurge of criticism for “walking like a woman on bound feet,” opposing Right-deviationist thinking, and favoring faster cooperativization. During this time, Mao Zedong compiled Socialist Upsurge in China’s Countryside, wrote the editor’s note to recommend it to the Party and country, thereby fueling the move to cooperatives nationwide. The movement charged ahead at breakneck speed, setting up 640,000 new cooperatives in just four months from June to October and bringing the total number to 1,300,000. By January 1956, 80.3 percent of peasant households had joined cooperatives. The CPC Central Committee and Mao Zedong originally put forward correct principles, such as voluntary participation and mutual benefit, model demonstration and state support, and gradual transition from elementary to advanced cooperatives. However, it was hard to carry out these correct prin395

Socialism in China

ciples since the prevailing trend was to oppose Rightist opportunism. Local governments used strong-arm methods to force peasants into cooperatives, infringing upon the interests of middle peasants who had got rich through hard work and dampening peasants’ enthusiasm for production. In June 1956, Mao Zedong, as state president, issued the “Model Regulations for Advanced Agricultural Production Cooperatives,” which stipulated that the major means of production would be all collectively owned, members’ land must go into collective ownership, revenue distribution by land would be abolished, and farm animals and tools would be evaluated and sold to the cooperative. This document brought about another movement to set up advanced cooperatives at speed. Many newly organized elementary cooperatives were quickly drawn into a new round of cooperativization before gaining a firm foothold or even being established. By the end of 1956, 96.3 percent of peasant households had joined cooperatives, and 87.8 percent of these, i.e., 100 million households, were in advanced cooperatives. The CPC Central Committee originally intended to spend 15 years in three five-year-plan periods starting from 1953 to accomplish the transformation of agriculture; it only spent three years, including half a year for the advanced cooperative movement. The high speed was phenomenal. But the after-effects of this hellfor-leather, rough-and-ready dash to cooperatives were considerable. From late 1956 to early 1957, many peasants tried to withdraw from cooperatives or dissolve them; such incidents kept happening everywhere around China. Local governments managed to suppress the trend by means of mass criticism, mass debate, etc., “beating back the attacks of enemies of the people and the wellto-do middle peasants.” However, deep-rooted problems were not solved and they continued to hamper the development of rural production. The compulsory upgrading of elementary cooperatives into advanced cooperatives entailed a very important change to ownership of the means of production in rural areas and to the mode of production. In elementary cooperatives, land and other means of production were still privately owned by individual peasants, but they were assessed as shares and revenue was distributed by share. An elementary cooperative usually consisted of about 20 households. In advanced cooperatives, not only were the major means of production collectively owned; production was centralized, management and economic ac396

Chapter 16

A Premature Transition to Socialism under the General Line which Replaces the Common Program; Too Eager to Complete the Transformation of Agriculture, Handicraft and Industrial and Commercial Industries

counting were conducted in a unified way, and revenue was distributed only on the basis of work. On average, an advanced cooperative comprised 200 households. This scale of ownership and production far exceeded the level of rural productivity and was way beyond the understanding of most peasants. It was pushed by means of coercion and mass movements, which stifled farmers’ enthusiasm to produce and damaged the development of rural productive forces. It gave rise to a slew of serious problems such as grain supply shortages. In the row about the pace of agricultural cooperativization, the underlying ideological questions were these: Should the process of cooperativization follow economic laws and objective conditions? Was it the level of productivity that decided the nature of productive relations, and should the organizational form of agricultural cooperativization be adapted to the conditions and requirements of rural productivity? Alternatively, could rural productivity be propelled by reforming productive relations more quickly, expanding the cooperatives and transferring their ownership to public ownership? Even now, some Chinese experts and scholars, proceeding from the demands of industrialization and the number of already established mutual aid teams and elementary cooperatives at the time, still try to argue the necessity and correctness of the Party’s decision and policy in the mid-1950s to speed up cooperativization. The author considers this view neither comprehensive nor scientific. Industrializing China was the only possible road to strengthening the country and enriching the people, and an urgent task to lift China out of poverty and backwardness. However, the course and scale of China’s industrialization must be suited to the country’s agricultural basis, the level of rural productivity, and conditions for development. But back then, our agriculture was characterized by backward small peasant and small-scale production, very outdated agricultural infrastructure and farming technologies. Since the government could not radically change this situation, it could only work on productive relations, on the assumption that more advanced cooperatives could produce more grain and other products to meet the demands of industrialization. This method might work for a limited period, but not in the long run because it was at odds with objective economic laws. And to use the existence of many mutual aid teams and elementary cooperatives as an argument for the neces397

Socialism in China

sity and rationality of pushing for advanced cooperatives is circular reasoning, using productive relations to prove productive relations; it had no connection with the reality of rural productivity and thus did not accord with the basic principle that productivity decides productive relations. Furthermore, to believe that we could boost agricultural productivity by reforming productive relations constantly and ever more quickly in disregard of objective conditions of rural productivity does not comply with the fundamental and most important principle of Marxist historical materialism – productivity decides productive relations, which must be suited to the development level and demands of productivity. From the perspective of history and social practice, following the Third Plenary Session of the 11th CPC Central Committee, Deng Xiaoping and other leaders made a decision to launch rural reform, changing the system and policies for people’s communes developed on the basis of advanced cooperatives. The household contract responsibility system was introduced and spread. In effect, this was a return to the organizational form and economic policies for agricultural production that predated advanced cooperatives, a return to the economic program and policies of new-democracy, and it greatly liberated and boosted productivity. This also proved that the decision and policy to hastily establish first advanced cooperatives and later people’s communes had no link with local productivity and could not stand the test of history and practice. To insist that the decision was right and timely is to imply the incorrectness of the CPC and Deng’s decision to change the system of people’s communes, implement the household contract responsibility system with remuneration linked to output, and allow and encourage individual economy and private economy. Obviously, this argument is not tenable. Plainly, Mao Zedong acted out of the best of intentions, pushing forward agricultural cooperativization and transfer to public ownership so as to accelerate industrialization, change the backward countryside and improve the life of impoverished peasants at all possible speed; but what he actually did was to pull up seedlings to help them grow, and the result was more haste, less speed. Deng Zihui, motivated by a high sense of responsibility for the Party and the people’s interests, tried to present his opinions; although he was criticized and removed from office, practice and history have vindicated him and the people 398

Chapter 16

A Premature Transition to Socialism under the General Line which Replaces the Common Program; Too Eager to Complete the Transformation of Agriculture, Handicraft and Industrial and Commercial Industries

are in his debt. Disparity of position and power made the debate between Mao Zedong and Deng Zihui an unequal one and it resulted in criticism and disciplinary punishment for Deng. But the truth is not decided by power. History finally gave a fair verdict on him. In 1981, the CPC Central Committee rehabilitated Deng and pronounced: “Most of his opinions on some important issues in the agricultural collectivization were correct, and the Party’s criticism and punishment of Deng and the Central Rural Work Department were wrong and should be redressed; all untrue labels imposed on him should be repudiated and his reputation restored.” “The criticism imposed on Deng resulted in impetuosity and rash advance such as the establishment of advanced cooperatives and people’s communes.” The thought and course for the socialist transformation of handwork industry was similar to that of agricultural cooperativization, namely, turning private ownership by the producers to socialist collective ownership. Old China was a backward agrarian country; modern industry represented less than 10 percent of the national economy, and the handwork industry played a major role in national economy, providing numerous daily necessities for urban and rural residents. But it was in dire need of change and development, since its scattered means of production, laggard technologies, crude tools and low productivity meant it was unsuited to the demands of New China’s development, and incapable of meeting its people’s living needs. How to transform and develop this industry? In May 1949, Liu Shaoqi said: The handwork industry should take the road of cooperative development, its original means of production and ownership could be retained; as a first step, handwork supply and marketing cooperatives should be set up in order to ally scattered individual producers and help them buy materials and sell products; then the industry should take the road of cooperation, technical reform and expansion of production. This approach was in line with the nature of China’s handwork industry at that time, and many producers quickly set up supply and marketing cooperatives of their own accord. Following the decision on the general line, the socialist transformation of handwork industry started in the second half of 1953. In December, the CPC Central Committee held in Beijing the Third National Meeting on Handwork In399

Socialism in China

dustry Cooperation, setting the guiding principles, policies and an overall plan for cooperativization. On behalf of the CPC Central Committee, Zhu De made a report entitled “Organize Handwork Industry and Take a Socialist Road,” which clearly stated that the organization of handwork producers should proceed from realities and adopt flexible and diverse forms, rather than one size fits all; the guiding principle was active leadership and steady progress; the organizational form should be producers’ teams, then supply and marketing cooperatives, and then production cooperatives; the method should be to start from supply and marketing and then reform production; the steps should go from small to big, from elementary to advanced. These policies and plans were suited to the conditions of China’s handwork industry at the time, which was widely dispersed, produced on a small scale, and covered a multitude of products and services. In December 1954, addressing the Fourth National Meeting on Handwork Industry Cooperation, Chen Yun said: “We prefer to go more slowly in handwork industry cooperativization and ensure social order; if it goes too fast, I fear there will be trouble.” By the first half of 1955, producers’ cooperatives had grown steadily and made remarkable achievements; over 50,000 cooperatives employing 1.5 million people had been set up. But in the latter half of 1955, this steady and healthy development was wrecked. Amid Party-wide criticism of “walking like a woman on bound feet” and “Rightist conservatism,” and the nationwide wave of agricultural cooperativization, the socialist transformation of handwork industry suddenly picked up speed. At the Fifth National Meeting on Handwork Industry Cooperation held at the end of 1955, the tone was very different from the Third and Fourth meetings. It stressed: “We must resolutely overcome Rightist conservative thinking and speed up the socialist transformation of handwork industry” and demanded that by 1956 cooperatives should account for 74 percent of the industry, and by 1957 that proportion should exceed 90 percent. It also demanded that by 1957 members of fully socialist cooperatives should account for at least 80 percent of the total number in cooperatives and teams, and imposed the deadline of 1958 for the remaining semi-socialist cooperatives or teams to become fully socialist cooperatives. But even this rate of change was not enough for Mao. In March 1956, when listening to a report from the head of the Central Handwork Industry Bureau, 400

Chapter 16

A Premature Transition to Socialism under the General Line which Replaces the Common Program; Too Eager to Complete the Transformation of Agriculture, Handicraft and Industrial and Commercial Industries

he remarked: “In handwork industry the speed of transformation from individual ownership is on the slow side, I think.” He required the transformation to be completed by the end of the year. Following this instruction, the transformation accelerated. By the end of 1956, the number of handwork industry cooperatives exceeded 100,000, and over 6 million people were engaged, making up 91.7 percent of people employed in this sector; the output value of these cooperatives accounted for 92.9 percent of the industry’s total output; by that time, the socialist transformation of the handwork industry was basically complete. Completing such a process at such high speed was bound to produce flawed results. For example, during the transformation, regardless of the nature of what was being made, there was blind concentration of production, production and service branches in local residential communities were removed, causing people great inconvenience; a single organizational form was adopted for all cooperatives, a unified accounting for their operation and management, and a “big-pot” system for distribution, resulting in low productivity, lower product quality and fewer types of product; the cooperatives were expanded without due consideration, their production and services lumped together, but their warehousing, equipment and materials procurement could not meet demand, and the outcome was standstill or shrinkage in some newly set up cooperatives. As this industry was closely connected with people’s day-to-day lives, it became apparent that its slumping production and services could not meet the people’s needs. Very soon there was general dissatisfaction, grumbling and finger-pointing. Rising cries of discontent came to the attention of the Party leadership. When listening to a report from a department concerned, Mao Zedong said: “I would remind you not to discard the good things about the industry.” On several occasions, Chen Yun criticized the practice in Beijing, Shanghai and other big cities of blindly removing or merging production and service branches. He also stressed that independent operation should be retained for some parts of industry for a long time to come, and that most services and many handwork processing and manufacturing should not be merged; many big cooperatives that had emerged during the cooperativization movement should be changed into small ones; and unified accounting for a cooperative should be changed to each team or household having sole responsibility for its own profits and losses. 401

Socialism in China

After the Eighth National Congress of the CPC, local governments adjusted policies to correct mistakes rising during the movement to cooperatives, and these led the industry to healthy and booming development. Unfortunately, the good times were short-lived: 1958 saw the start of the Great Leap Forward and throughout China’s urban and rural handwork industries there was a wild rush to the next phase – to ownership by the whole people. Overnight newly established cooperatives in collective ownership became factories owned by the whole people. By the first half of 1959, of the more than 100,000 handwork industry cooperatives and 5-million-plus members, 37.8 percent had been transformed into local state-run factories, 13.6 percent into large collective cooperative factories, and 35.3 percent into people’s commune factories. Just 13.3 percent retained their nature as handwork industry cooperatives. Reflecting on the transformation of China’s handwork industry, we can see that its development was bound to be hampered and destroyed by government polices influenced by the Soviet Union model and the urge to complete socialist transition, by blind pursuit of the line “big scale, public ownership of means of production, and pure public ownership,” by blindly merging production and service branches and unifying operation and management – measures that went against the individual and dispersed production nature of such industry. Moreover, the government used mass movements and repeatedly ratcheted up the pace of transformation, completing in three years tasks that should have been done over a time span of 12 to 15 years; as a result, the work was too rough and the organizational form too simple. These mistakes hindered the development of social productivity and disrupted people’s life for a long period. It was not until the 1980s after the convening of the Third Plenary Session of the 11th CPC Central Committee when the Party and government issued a policy encouraging individual economy that the shortage of daily necessities, living inconveniences and other problems were resolved. The socialist transformation of capitalist industry and commerce was the most important of the three transformations. Different policies and measures were applied for different conditions, and the transformation was a two-stage process. 402

Chapter 16

A Premature Transition to Socialism under the General Line which Replaces the Common Program; Too Eager to Complete the Transformation of Agriculture, Handicraft and Industrial and Commercial Industries

The first stage was non-compensated expropriation of bureaucrat capitalist property. With the advance of the War of Liberation and the establishment of the people’s governments, all assets and equity owned by war criminals, traitors, and bureaucrat capitalists in the small number of state-owned and private enterprises of Old China were nationalized and made state-owned enterprises and state-run economy. Proceeding from this step, a socialist state economy was established as the mainstay of the national economy. In the second stage, as regards national capitalist industry and commerce, the policy guideline was one of making use of it, setting limits and transforming, the process to be carried out in peaceful manner and with compensation, creating a transitional form from lower to higher-level state capitalism. The peaceful buy-out of the national bourgeoisie was finally realized and socialist transformation was achieved at a relatively low cost and with minimal social unrest. In the first years of New China’s economic recovery and the building of new democracy, the main methods used in the transformation of capitalist industry and commerce were primary and intermediate forms of state capitalism. They included governments’ consigning processing and manufacture to the private sector, planned placing of state orders, unified state purchase and sale, the sale of products from state-owned enterprises via private dealerships. These forms did not change the private-ownership character of capitalist industrial and commercial enterprises, but they established production and sales connections between state-owned and private enterprises, and gave the state sector of the economy a degree of regulation and control over private enterprises’ raw materials, sources of goods, and product sales, and brought into play the positive role in economic development of private enterprise under state guidance. These transformative measures, though still in the sphere of new-democratic revolution and new-democratic economic policies, had socialist elements, and could be called a special kind of capitalist economy – in effect, new-style state capitalism. In practice these policies and measures played an irreplaceable positive role in quickly restoring the war-damaged national economy, meeting people’s living needs, and consolidating the new regime. In the spring of 1953, Mao Zedong raised the issue of transition to socialism. In this context, the United Front Work Department of the CPC Central 403

Socialism in China

Committee submitted to the Central Committee a report entitled “The Relations Between the State and Private Sectors of the Economy in Capitalist Industry.” It advocated state-private partnership as the best mode for private industry’s transition to socialism. An enlarged meeting of the Political Bureau discussed and approved the report. The CPC Central Committee and the State Council issued a document requiring the completion of state-private partnership for all private enterprises with 10 or more employees within two five-yearplan periods; this marked the start of nationwide transformation of private industry and commerce. State-private partnership was a partnership of socialist economy and capitalist economy within enterprises. Initially, in enterprises going into stateprivate partnership the ownership and management authority remained in capitalist hands. By the second half of 1955, as agricultural cooperativization accelerated and the government implemented the policy of unified purchase and marketing by the state, some private businesses started experiencing problems in material supplies and sales, while the situation for state-operated and joint state-private enterprises was much better. To get out of the dilemma, some private entrepreneurs wished to take the road of state-private partnership. Against this background, particularly in rural areas, the Rightist conservative trend was thoroughly repudiated, cooperativization was pushed faster, Mao Zedong and the CPC Central Committee decided to speed up the socialist transformation of industry and commerce. In November, the CPC Central Committee held a working conference, at which it drew up and issued a resolution to do so. Then, Mao Zedong personally chaired a forum of the business community to speed up the pace of the transformation. He also pointed out on another occasion: “It is a good thing, a meaningful good thing, to wipe out the bourgeoisie and capitalism in China with its population of 600 million. Our goal is to make capitalism extinct on the Earth and make it into the stuff of history.” Immediately, across industry there arose a nationwide upsurge of private enterprises converting to state-private partnerships. Industry-wide state-private partnerships changed the nature of capitalist industry and commerce. Enterprises’ means of production were now stateowned and under unitary allocation, and enterprises were operated and man404

Chapter 16

A Premature Transition to Socialism under the General Line which Replaces the Common Program; Too Eager to Complete the Transformation of Agriculture, Handicraft and Industrial and Commercial Industries

Poster reading “Celebrating Dad’s enterprise becoming a state-private partnership,” January 1956

aged along socialist lines; entrepreneurs’ ownership and management authority became vestigial, just a sort of fixed interest certificate. When a private enterprise switched to state-private partnership, the entrepreneur usually received as dividend 25 percent of that enterprise’s operating profit; after the whole industry completed the transformation, the state moved them onto a fixed percentage of interest, usually 5 percent per annum. So, formerly private enterprises basically became socialist in nature. In the face of strong political pressure, public sentiment, and continually deteriorating conditions for production, one capitalist entrepreneur after another, either of their own volition or forced into it, expressed support for industrywide transformation. During that period, there were always groups parading on city streets in partnership celebrations. It must be said, however, that whilst most industrial and commercial entrepreneurs accepted and cooperated with the transformation some of them would be walking in parades of celebration during the day but weeping behind closed doors with the family at night. On January 15, 1956, over 200,000 people braved the bitter cold to gather at the Tian’anmen Square amid the deafening noise of drums, gongs and firecrackers. They came to celebrate the industry-wide state-private partnership of industry and commerce, and the cooperativization of agriculture and 405

Socialism in China

handwork industry. Mao Zedong, Liu Shaoqi, Zhou Enlai and other leaders of the Party and state attended the great assembly. Representatives from industrial and commercial circles, peasants, and handwork producers mounted the Tian’anmen rostrum to present letters of success to these leaders. Beijing Mayor Peng Zhen declared that “our capital has entered socialism.” Major central news media carried report after report of this grand occasion, setting off a ripple effect across China: governments from top to bottom tried to speed up the pace of industry-wide change to state-private partnership. Tianjin, Xi’an, Shenyang, Chongqing, Wuhan, Guangzhou, Shanghai and other major cities announced success in completing the socialist transformation of private industry and commerce. By the end of 1956, 99 percent of the more than 80,000 private factories and 82 percent of over 2.4 million private businesses had completed the process. The socialist transformation of agriculture, handwork industry and capitalist industry and commerce was a sweeping and in-depth social reform of productive relations and a social revolution affecting the interests of millions of people. After New China was founded, the Party and government initially planned to fulfill this tough historic task in 15 to 18 years. In June 1953, when Mao Zedong put forward the general line for the transition period, he gave a time frame of between 10 and 15 years for completion, or perhaps longer. However, drawing on the high prestige among the people enjoyed by the Party and Mao Zedong, on the strong and tight structure of Party organizations, and on popular eagerness to cast off poverty and get rich, the Party and the government launched mass movements from top to bottom and successfully completed this hard task of socialist transformation. China was now in a period of socialist construction. During the course of transformation, Chinese Communists were skilled in combining Marxist doctrines with Chinese reality. They creatively put forward and implemented the policy of peaceful transformation and buy-outs, under which they completed the transformation step by step through the elementary, intermediate and advanced forms of state capitalism. Moreover they combined enterprise transformation with people transformation and gave the capitalists a way out. Finally, the government completed the socialist transfor406

Chapter 16

A Premature Transition to Socialism under the General Line which Replaces the Common Program; Too Eager to Complete the Transformation of Agriculture, Handicraft and Industrial and Commercial Industries

mation of industry and commerce at a cost of 3 billion yuan by paying capitalists several years of fixed interest. This social reform of productive relations produced no grave incidents of bloodshed, and gave rise to no severe social unrest; it represents a miracle in the history of socialist movements worldwide, an innovative development of the theory and practice of scientific socialism. It was truly a great and civilized advance, compared with what happened in the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe where socialist transformation resorted to violent and arbitrary means to eliminate the landlord class and expropriate the assets of capitalists. To give one example, after the success of the October Revolution in 1917, the Soviet Russian government deployed armed troops and airplanes to force the kulaks in some areas to migrate to backward and remote regions in order to enforce agricultural collectivization. However, because of inadequate theoretical preparation for the three transformations, rashness in launching and excessive urgency in pressing on, there were flaws and undesirable sequels. One, the transformations were launched prematurely and executed too quickly. The economic and social construction stage of new-democracy was ended too soon and productive relations reform happened too quickly and without considering social productivity. After land reform, farmers got their own land to farm, and their enthusiasm rocketed. Some of them, in order to meet production needs, organized mutual aid teams of their own accord but, before these teams could be consolidated and spread across the country, they were hastily turned into elementary cooperatives; the elementary cooperatives operated only for a year or two before being transformed into advanced cooperatives; these, in turn, operated for less than two years before a further transformation into people’s communes. Handwork industry and industry and commerce underwent a similar process. Two, the transformations were too hasty and too rough. For a social reform of productive relations, 10 to 20 years would count as fast; but Mao Zedong repeatedly urged the Party and government to speed up the pace, resulting in repeated changes to the schedule. The interaction of these measures and the deployment of fanatical mass movements brought the campaign to completion in three years. Such a blistering pace inevitably engendered coercion and command-ism, simplistic and crude methods, and violation of 407

Socialism in China

people’s interests, all of which served to dampen enthusiasm for economic development and hobbled productivity growth. These failings are attributable to the eagerness of Mao Zedong and other leaders to enter socialism. This led them to abandon the correct idea of establishing a new-democratic state and building a new-democratic society after victory of a new democratic revolution. It led them to premature adoption of socialist-revolution measures to comprehensively reform productive relations. As a realistic social system, socialism reflects the interests and aspirations of the people; it is a lofty ideal that Communists pursue and strive for. However, to realize this ideal, a society must go through several stages with objective conditions, each stage having specific historic tasks; no stage can be randomly skipped; the ideal cannot be achieved at one stroke, nor will reckless subjectivist action bring it about. The essence of scientific socialism and what distinguishes it from utopian socialism is that it must follow this basic principle of historical materialism: productivity decides productive relations and superstructure, and it builds the ideal and principles of socialism on the foundations of reality. When Marx and Engels founded the theory of communism and described the glorious ideal of progression from socialism to communism, they presented the basic principles of a future ideal society, but they did not prescribe specific forms of socialism and communism or ways of realizing them. According to the historical materialism and scientific socialism founded by Marx and Engels, productive relations must adapt to productivity conditions and development needs, and socialism must be built on a foundation of highly developed industrial productivity and modern agriculture. Let us use this principle in an analysis of China’s situation. When New China was founded, modern industry made up just 10 percent of the national economy, the remaining 90 percent being backward farming and handwork industry under individual ownership. Patently, China did not have the economic base necessary for immediate socialist reform and construction, and had to go through a transition period or stage to develop modern industry and agriculture, creating and building up the economic base before transiting to socialism. At the same time, Marx and Engels applied dialectical materialism and historical materialism to guide the proletarian revolutionary movement, and 408

Chapter 16

A Premature Transition to Socialism under the General Line which Replaces the Common Program; Too Eager to Complete the Transformation of Agriculture, Handicraft and Industrial and Commercial Industries

raised a principle combining the theory of permanent revolution with the theory of developing revolution in stages. As they stated, socialism, as a realistic historical movement, must be divided into several development stages, each having specific tasks; Communists must keep to the idea of permanent revolution and push the movement to its ultimate destination – communism – whilst working hard to complete the historical tasks for each stage, not skipping to future stages. Based on this Marxist doctrine, Mao Zedong and some other Chinese Communists raised the new-democracy theory, clarifying that the Chinese revolution would go through two stages, the first being to set up a new-democratic state and build a new-democratic society after the success of the newdemocratic revolution. It was beyond doubt that the new-democratic society would be a transition period during which economy, politics and culture would be developed to promote and strengthen socialist elements and reduce capitalist ones, a gradual process from quantitative change to qualitative change. Since it was a transition period, the new-democratic society had to be relatively stable and needed to accomplish its historic tasks over a lengthy period. Otherwise, why have theory of social development by stages or a transition period at all? We could have announced the establishment of a socialist state as soon as New China was founded, progressing directly to socialism. From a philosophical perspective, a period of time and stability is necessary for the waning of old things and the ascent to dominance of new things, for quantitative change to progress via partial qualitative change to totally qualitative change. Gradual change does not mean there is no need for relative stability in each stage. Mao Zedong rightly described capitalist society and socialist society as two stages that are not entirely separate, but a new-democratic society, a transition period from capitalism to socialism, must be relatively stable and be of quite long duration. Thus, before and after the founding of New China, the Party leaders agreed that it would take 15 to 20 years or even longer to complete the transition period tasks, and would adopt socialist measures for a transition to socialism once the new-democratic economy, politics and culture had developed substantially and socialist elements had been built up to a certain degree. It should not, having just started on one stage of social development (transition 409

Socialism in China

stage included), immediately transit to a different stage. Without relatively stable development stages, there would be no Marxist theory of the development of revolution by stages. We would be left only with the theory of permanent revolution that emphasizes “uninterrupted revolution,” a theory criticized by Marx. Actually, the schedules for the transition to socialism – whether three to five years or 15 to 20 years – were not dramatically different. As Deng Xiaoping later observed, the Party leadership had no clear understanding of what socialism was, but mechanically put into practice Marx and Engels’ doctrines and their blueprint for a future ideal society. All they did was copy along the lines of Stalin’s socialist model. However, before New China was founded and in the three years after its founding, Mao Zedong, Liu Shaoqi, Zhou Enlai and others advocated a period for consolidating (ensuring) the new-democratic order and system and implementing economic policies of a new-democratic nature. This obviously conformed to the basic principle of historic materialism that productive relations must adapt themselves to productivity, accorded with the national conditions and that specific stage of history, and was consistent with the agreement that the Party had reached with non-Communist parties around the founding of New China. How regrettable then, that in the latter half of 1952, Mao Zedong deviated from the idea of building a new-democratic society, the most precious and the most innovative element in his own new-democracy theory, and repudiated the agreement that the CPC leadership had reached with non-Communist parties. He was so eager to make China a socialist society that he launched the socialist transformation of agriculture, handwork industry and capitalist industry and commerce before conditions were right and pushed the programs forward in a rash manner. The negative consequences rendered China’s socialist construction “a pot of half-cooked rice,” incapable of radical improvement even after over two decades of trying. Socialism with Chinese characteristics regained its vigor and vitality only with implementation of the reform and opening-up policy in 1978, when Deng Xiaoping’s theory that China was in the primary stage of socialism pointed the correct direction, and when government systems and mechanisms were reformed and economic policies adjusted. Not to 410

Chapter 16

A Premature Transition to Socialism under the General Line which Replaces the Common Program; Too Eager to Complete the Transformation of Agriculture, Handicraft and Industrial and Commercial Industries

mince words, most reform measures and policies in the economic field after the Third Plenary Session of the 11th CPC Central Committee were actually a retreat to those for building a new-democratic society at the time of New China’s founding. Of course, this “retreat” was also an “advance,” an advance into the building of socialism with Chinese characteristics based on national circumstances and current development stage. Every time I read this period of history, I wring my hands and sigh in pained regret. As the poem aptly says: Ruling a country is like preparing a delicate dish, Aspirations must be based on the reality. To accomplish great deeds, abide by rules, Then let the revelries commence. ᇕ‫ݛ‬Ⴝೊழུ༿ĭ ᄃິߖ྾‫ܼॢގ‬h შӶվ၄࿞݇੸ĭ ٢फ़ณཹू۫ߖh So how did New China explore its path of socialism? Turn to the next chapter to find out.

411

Chapter 17

Khrushchev Repudiates Personality Cult in His Secret Report; Eighth CPC National Congress Explores New Path Based on In-depth Research

With the socialist transformation of the means of production basically completed, China had preliminarily established the socialist system and was about to enter the stage of building socialism in all aspects. At this historic turning point, the Chinese Communists and the Chinese people faced a brandnew issue, namely how to explore a path of socialist construction proceeding from China’s actual conditions, formulate correct lines, principles and policies, and mobilize all forces to complete the great cause of building socialism. The Chinese Communists persisted in seeking truth from facts and proceeding from reality. The CPC was preparing for its Eighth National Congress to set forth the general principle of building socialism in an all-round way. Mao Zedong, Liu Shaoqi, Zhou Enlai, Zhu De, Chen Yun, Deng Xiaoping and other Party leaders vigorously advocated investigation and study and earnestly set an example of this practice. It so happened that at this time, the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU) convened its 20th National Congress, putting forward new strategies for domestic and foreign affairs. Nikita Khrushchev delivered a secret report, criticizing Stalin’s personality cult that had caused the damage to their Party and nation and exposing the malady in the Soviet Union’s socialist construction. This alerted the Chinese Communists to turn from the principle of “learning from the Soviet Union” established in the early years of New China to “take the Soviet Union as a mirror for our own work.” It made them determined to find a new path of building socialism, a path suited to China’s actual conditions. 412

Chapter 17

Khrushchev Repudiates Personality Cult in His Secret Report; Eighth CPC National Congress Explores New Path Based on In-depth Research

In August 1955, Mao Zedong announced at the National Conference of Representatives of the CPC that the Eighth National Congress would be held in the second half of 1956. Mao and the CPC Central Committee assigned Liu Shaoqi, Deng Xiaoping and Zhou Enlai respectively to draft the political report to the Congress, the report for amending the Party Constitution and the economic work report. From December 7, 1955 to early March 1956, Liu Shaoqi led investigation and study for team drafting the political report. He required the heads of central government departments to prepare investigations and reports, and invited the heads of 32 departments under the CPC Central Committee and the State Council to hear each one. They were comprehensive in scope, covering industry, agriculture, commerce, construction, finance, banking, coal industry, electric power, geology, petroleum industry, culture, health and education. The reports usually began in the afternoon, and lasted till seven or eight in the evening, sometimes even midnight. Liu Shaoqi always took notes, and sometimes cut in with questions or made frank exchanges with others present. Within three months, Liu Shaoqi had written formidable quantities of survey notes, and formed many insightful viewpoints. He proposed at those meetings to explore the potential of coastal industries while vigorously developing inland industries; attend to highly profitable quick-effect projects while maintaining investments in key projects; stimulate consumer demand in order to promote production, attach high importance to the operation and management of enterprises, enhance scientific study and learn from advanced foreign technologies; allow regional competition between enterprises and create an atmosphere of survival of the fittest; give full play to the strength of intellectuals, select and train technical officials, and modestly learn technology and management from capitalists; organize small-scale dealers instead of completely merging them, maintain 10 percent of such dealers and their business pattern; borrow foreign experience suited to China’s actual conditions instead of rigidly copying them. These ideas were all included in the political report to the CPC’s Eighth National Congress. At the same time, Mao Zedong conducted personal investigation and study into central and local government departments. He traveled for 22 days from December 21, 1955, going to the south by train along the Beijing-Wuhan and Guangzhou-Wuchang railways, 413

Socialism in China

and returning to Beijing via Shanghai-Hangzhou, Shanghai-Nanjing and Tianjin-Pukou railways, conducting surveys all the way by talking to the leading officials of nine provinces and cities. In mid-January 1956, Mao Zedong returned to Beijing, and learned that Liu Shaoqi was conducting investigations in central Party and government departments. He said to Bo Yibo, “Good. I want to listen to the reports, too. Can you arrange for some departments to report to me?” From February 14 to April 24, Mao heard reports from 34 central Party and government departments at Yinian Hall, Zhongnanhai. Over these two months, Mao, by then already in his sixties, started hearing reports as soon as he got up and went to bed only when the reports finished, but still managed to find time to deal with routine work. Zhou Enlai, Chen Yun, Deng Xiaoping and other leaders of the Secretariat of the CPC Central Committee listened to the reports along with Mao Zedong. While listening to Bo Yibo’s report on behalf of the Third Office of the State Council, Mao added some comments on the relationship between the central and local governments. “Last year, I went out to talk with local officials. They expressed dissatisfaction at being constrained by central government. They have conflicts with the central government because it does not allow them to take care of certain things.” When the report mentioned the problem of sectionalism, Mao put forward an important proposition. “Solving institutional problems is more important and fundamental than solving ideological problems.” “People live in the system. They may respond without enthusiasm to one system but positively to another.” “The agricultural production cooperatives practice the system of ‘guaranteeing work and payment’. It is said that even layabouts stir themselves and there are no longer ideological problems. People obey rules rather than individuals, right?” When listening to the reports of the Ministry of Power Industry and from the First, Second and Third Ministries of Machine-building Industry, Mao Zedong stressed the need to adopt the right attitude as regards learning from the experience of the Soviet Union. One way was to adapt it to a Chinese style; the other was to mechanically copy it. For example, the policies towards capitalists during the agrarian revolution and the socialist transformation of agriculture, handwork industry and capitalist industry, and the financial poli414

Chapter 17

Khrushchev Repudiates Personality Cult in His Secret Report; Eighth CPC National Congress Explores New Path Based on In-depth Research

cies adopted after New China were not borrowed from the Soviet Union but adapted to China’s actual conditions. On February 25, 1956, Mao Zedong, listening to the report of the Ministry of Heavy Industry, made a point about blind faith. “We should put an end to placing blind faith in others, whether in China or abroad. Our future generations should likewise smash blind faith in this current generation. China should make fewer detours than the Soviet Union in its industrialization and industrial construction.” Zhou Enlai who was also there added, “It was necessary for us to learn from the Soviet Union during the initial years. Over these two or three years, we have amassed some experience for ourselves, so it’s time for us to summarize our own experiences and lessons.” Mao continued, “As they have taken the lid off, and we are starting to get a grasp of things, we should not follow in blind faith!” “Taking the lid off ” was a reference to the exposure of Stalin’s mistakes at the 20th National Congress of the CPSU then taking place in Moscow. At that time, Khrushchev’s secret report had not yet been published, but Mao had been informed about the political tendency and atmosphere of the Congress in a telegram sent back by the CPC delegation there. On February 14, the first day of hearing reports from central Party and government departments in Beijing, the opening ceremony of the 20th National Congress of the CPSU was being held in Moscow. It was the Soviet Union’s first Party congress since the death of Stalin in 1953. Its theme was the formulation of principles for domestic reform and new international strategies. General Secretary Khrushchev delivered a report on behalf of the CPSU Central Committee, putting forward a raft of lines, principles and policies concern-

Khrushchev attending the 20th National Congress of

ing international relations, the Communist Party of the Soviet Union

415

Socialism in China

domestic construction and Party building that were completely different from those during the Stalin period; they formed a new ideological path for building socialism. On international relations, the report initiated the general principle of “peaceful coexistence, peaceful transition and peaceful competition.” According to the report, the coexistence of capitalist and socialist systems was already a fact; in the era of nuclear weapons, all countries faced either peaceful coexistence or the most destructive war ever, so “peaceful coexistence” was an inevitable choice. In such an international situation and political pattern, all nations might achieve “peaceful transition” without resort to violent revolution. The conflict between socialism and capitalism might be pursued through “peaceful competition.” On domestic construction, the report put forward new measures for national reform in economic management systems and development strategies – to develop production of consumer goods while ensuring the preferential development of heavy industry; to take improving production technology as top priority; to enhance the reasonable allocation of productive forces and actively promote agricultural development; to improve people’s living standard and life quality; to reform economic management systems; to vigorously promote socialist democracy and build the socialist legal system, etc. On Party building, the report stressed the strengthening of collective leadership and opposing the cult of personality, to promote internal Party democracy and improve the building of the democratic system within the CPSU. Khrushchev’s report had been basically agreed by senior CPSU members, and so was accepted and supported by the Party members and the people as soon as it was published. While preparing for its 20th National Congress, the CPSU had to confront a tough but unavoidable question, namely how to evaluate the Great Purge launched by Stalin in the 1930s, and whether or not to rehabilitate those wrongfully persecuted and executed in the Great Purge and other political movements. After Stalin’s demise, a great many victims’ families urged to redress the fabricated cases and to reevaluate the Great Purge and other historical issues. This stirred a strong response within the CPSU and all social circles. The state procuratorial departments reviewed a number of cases 416

Chapter 17

Khrushchev Repudiates Personality Cult in His Secret Report; Eighth CPC National Congress Explores New Path Based on In-depth Research

on appeal and found the vast majority to have been wrongfully brought or misjudged. In December 1955, Khrushchev presided over the CPSU Presidium meeting, which decided to set up a special committee headed by Pyotr Pospelov, member of the Secretariat of the CPSU Central Committee and Head of the Marx, Engels, Lenin and Stalin Institute, to screen the political cases of the Great Purge. Two months later, the committee submitted a 70-page investigation report to the CPSU Central Committee. This report listed realms of evidence proving that most of the anti-Party, anti-Soviet and counter-revolutionary cases confirmed in the Great Purge had been fabricated by the KGB and that the confessions had been extracted by torture. The Great Purge affected all government departments and all areas of the Soviet Union. “In a majority of the republics, territories and prefectures, almost all the leaders of the CPSU and the Soviet government met with arrest.” Of the 139 members and alternate members of the Central Committee, 98 were arrested and executed, accounting for 70 percent of the total; of the 1,966 representatives with voting and speaking rights, 1,108 were arrested and 848 executed; from 1935 to 1940, over 1.92 million citizens of the Soviet Union were arrested on the charge of anti-Soviet activities, and more than 688,500 of that number were executed. Evidence provided by the report showed that Stalin not only launched the massive suppression, but also gave detailed instructions on many major cases, and even approved and encouraged interrogation through severe torture. Pospelov’s report hit the leadership like a thunderbolt. The Presidium meetings adopted a resolution to entrust Khrushchev to convene a plenary session of the Central Committee. This indicated the Presidium’s determination to expose to the Party and the nation at the congress the damage wrought by Stalin’s cult of personality. Later, the plenary session of the CPSU Central Committee adopted the resolution. On the final day of the 20th National Congress, the elections completed, delegates were urgently convened to a closed session, around midnight on February 24. They were to hear a report from Khrushchev “On the Cult of Personality and Its Consequences.” In the four-hour report, Khrushchev did not totally denigrate Stalin: he affirmed Stalin’s “loyalty to Marxism and Leninism” as a theorist and organizer 417

Socialism in China

who led the Party to combat various enemies, his significant role in planning and launching socialist revolution, civil war and socialist construction, winning high prestige and reputation. But then, he went on to quote from Marx, Engels and Lenin against personality cult, made public letters in which Lenin worried about and condemned Stalin’s violent character. He listed facts and statistics reproaching Stalin for undermining the principle of collective leadership, encouraging personality cult and arbitrary dictatorship, wantonly trampling on socialist democracy and legal system, organizing appalling suppression and terrorist activities on a massive scale, concocting false charges and extracting forced confessions by torture, and persecuting and executing Party officials and ordinary people. During the two years from 1937 to 1939, Stalin approved 383 lists for detention and execution involving 45,000 persons, most of them Party, government and military officials or respected intellectuals. The report also denounced the grave mistakes1 Stalin made in the Soviet Union’s Great Patriotic War against Nazi Germany, nationality issues, relations with Yugoslavia and domestic economic policies. Khrushchev attributed Stalin’s errors to his individual character and moral defects. He did not explore the social, historical and cultural roots of Stalin’s cult of personality, nor did he analyze the reasons for those wrongdoings from the angles of Party and state democracy or deficiencies in the rule of law. As this closed session excluded the 55 delegations from foreign parties, and was not covered by any news report, the session was called a “secret meeting” and Khrushchev’s report a “secret speech.” Khrushchev’s secret speech was a bombshell. It stunned the Soviet Union, socialist countries in Eastern Europe and, indeed, the whole world; a stream of conflicts and problems ensued.

1

About the source of Stalin’s grave mistakes, see Memoirs of Nikita Khrushchev, Chinese edition, Vol. 1, China Social Sciences Press, December, 2006; The Rise and Collapse of a Great Nation, Vol. 1, Social Sciences Academic Press, 2009, compiled by Shen Zhihua; Selected Historical Files of the Soviet Union, Vol. 8, 12, 13, etc.

418

Chapter 17

Khrushchev Repudiates Personality Cult in His Secret Report; Eighth CPC National Congress Explores New Path Based on In-depth Research

The congress and report shocked the Chinese Communists too and brought about both positive and negative impacts. The most important positive effect was that it smashed the CPC’s blind trust in Stalin and the Soviet Union; the Chinese Party realized Stalin’s grave mistakes and the malady in the Soviet Union’s development, stopped following the Soviet Union’s path mechanically, changed the principle of “learning from the Soviet Union” to “taking a warning from the Soviet Union,” and decided to explore a new and independent path for China’s socialist construction.” On March 3, 1956, Deng Xiaoping, Wang Jiaxiang and others attending the CPSU’s 20th National Congress returned to Beijing, bringing with them the text of Khrushchev’s speech. That same day, Mao Zedong called a meeting to hear Deng’s report. Liu Shaoqi, Zhou Enlai, Peng Zhen, Kang Sheng, Nie Rongzhen and Liu Lantao attended. Later, Mao presided over several summit meetings of the CPC Central Committee to discuss coping strategies. On March 12, Mao Zedong told an enlarged meeting of the Political Bureau of the CPC Central Committee: “Khrushchev’s report against Stalin has taken the lid off things, which is good; he made a great blunder, which has shocked the world. What has been uncovered illustrates that the ways of Stalin and the Soviet Union are not always absolutely right, so political parties of other countries can handle things according to their own actual conditions instead of blindly following the Soviet Union. The report was a sudden assault which has taken the parties of other countries completely unawares. Not even the CPSU was prepared for this.” Mao summarized Stalin’s major mistakes in seven points: giving credence to extorted confessions, and eliminating “counter-revolutionaries” in contempt of the law; lack of vigilance against German invasion; adopting policies towards farmers that undermined the worker-peasant alliance; the forcible relocation of some ethnic groups; denying the principle of collective leadership and listening to flattery; arbitrary decisions and actions; the wrong foreign policies towards Yugoslavia and other countries. Despite these grave mistakes, Stalin was still a great Marxist in Mao’s overall estimation. His merits outweighed his demerits in a 70:30 ratio. Mao Zedong considered that a downright repudiation of Stalin might have severe consequences for the Soviet 419

Socialism in China

Union and the international socialist movement; on the other hand, lifting the lid on the Stalin myth would help emancipate minds. On March 24, Mao Zedong told the enlarged Political Bureau meeting: “Khrushchev’s opposing Stalin has some good points: it removes inhibitions, breaks blind trust in the Soviet Union and helps us to reconsider our own problems. In building socialism we need not copy the Soviet Union indiscriminately. We can formulate principles and policies that conform to China’s actual conditions. What we should do is to learn lessons from the Soviet Union and avoid repeating its mistakes.” During this period, Mao Zedong reflected upon the major problems triggered by Khrushchev’s secret report for China-Soviet Union relations and for the international communist movement. Accordingly, he organized the drafting of “On the Historical Experience of the Dictatorship of the Proletariat” to show the world the CPC’s stand and attitude. Meanwhile, Mao combined investigation and study for the CPC’s upcoming Eighth National Congress, summarizing experience and lessons from the Soviet Union. He continued to listen to departmental reports, and held a four-day meeting with leading officials of Guangdong and Hubei provinces and Guangzhou and Wuhan cities. He reviewed the reports of these provinces, cities and enterprises, summarized the Party’s seven years of experience since the founding of New China, thereby formulating new policies and measures for building Chinese socialism, measures differing from the Soviet Union model but conforming to China’s actual conditions. On April 25, 1956, an enlarged meeting of the Political Bureau took place in Yinian Hall, Zhongnanhai. As well as Political Bureau members, first secretaries of Party committees of all provinces, municipalities directly under the central government and autonomous regions took part. The original main agenda item had been agricultural cooperatives, but Mao skipped this, proceeding directly to the questions posed during the investigation and study over the previous two months. Mao Zedong came straight to the point: “Recently, I have listened to the work reports of 34 central Party and government departments, and I have seen the questions about socialist construction and transformation. There are 420

Chapter 17

Khrushchev Repudiates Personality Cult in His Secret Report; Eighth CPC National Congress Explores New Path Based on In-depth Research

10 questions altogether, concerning 10 major relationships. The 10 questions center on the basic principle of mobilizing all positive elements within and outside the Party, in China and abroad so as to build China into a powerful socialist country. Among the 10 major relationships, the principal ones are those between industry and agriculture, between coastal areas and the interior, between central government and local authorities, between the collective and individuals, and between national defense and economic development.” He proceeded to analyze the 10 major relationships individually. The relationship between industry and agriculture refers to the balance between heavy industry and light industry and agriculture. Stalin’s policy of preferential development of heavy industry caused imbalanced development of agriculture, light industry and heavy industry. Mao pointed out: In dealing with this relationship we have not made mistakes of principle. We have done better than the Soviet Union and a number of East European countries. The problem now facing us is that of continuing to adjust properly the ratio between investment in heavy industry on the one hand and in agriculture and light industry on the other so as to bring about a greater development of the latter. Heavy industry still claims the emphasis in our investment. This ensures the livelihood of the people, and will allow us to develop heavy industry to better effect. In connection with this, Mao moved to address the relationship between industry in the coastal regions and industry in the interior. He pointed out the irrational nature of China’s industrial pattern, 70 percent of it in coastal areas but only 30 percent inland. Therefore, to achieve balance in industrial development, China should vigorously develop inland industry whilst still giving full play to coastal industry. Concerning the relationship between central and local authorities, Mao pointed out: We must not follow the example of the Soviet Union in concentrating everything in the hands of the central authorities, shackling the local authorities and denying them the right to independent action. Our attention should now be focused on how to enlarge the powers of the local authorities to some extent, give them greater independence and let them do more, all on the premise that the unified leadership of the central authorities is to be strengthened. 421

Socialism in China

About the relationship between the state, the production units and individuals, Mao pointed out: The Soviet Union has adopted measures which squeeze the farmers very hard. It takes away too much from the farmers at too low a price through its system of so-called obligatory sales and other measures. This method of capital accumulation has seriously dampened the farmers’ enthusiasm for production. We should balance the interests of the state, the production units and individuals. To give consideration to only one side, whichever it may be, is harmful to socialism. As to the relationship between defense construction and economic construction, Mao pointed out: National defense is indispensable. For that purpose we must first of all strengthen our work in economic construction. The state should cut military and administrative expenditures down to appropriate proportions and increase expenditures on economic construction. Only with the faster growth of economic construction can there be greater progress in defense construction. In addition, concerning the relationship between the Han people and minority ethnic groups, the relationship between Party and non-Party, the relationship between revolution and counter-revolution, the relationship between right and wrong, and the relationship between China and other countries, Mao Zedong drew lessons from the Soviet Union and put forward pertinent strategies in accordance with China’s actual conditions. The meeting adopted Mao Zedong’s report. On May 2, 1956, Mao Zedong delivered a speech titled “On the Ten Major Relationships” at the Supreme State Conference, which was highly praised and recognized by those present. “On the Ten Major Relationships” was full of dialectic wisdom and accorded with China’s actual conditions. Summarizing experience since the founding of New China in 1949, it initiated the general principle of exploring a path to building socialism that conformed to the realities of China, and laid a foundation for China’s socialist construction. Of course, given the historical conditions and level of awareness at the time, Mao Zedong’s speech had its limitations. Although it attempted to break away from the Stalin model, seek its own path of development, and put forward new thoughts different from those of the Soviet Union, it was still shackled by the Soviet pattern on the whole, and was undermined by a one-sided and inadequate understanding 422

Chapter 17

Khrushchev Repudiates Personality Cult in His Secret Report; Eighth CPC National Congress Explores New Path Based on In-depth Research

Mao Zedong delivering the speech titled “On the Ten Major Relationships” at the Supreme State Conference

of some issues. More regrettably, Mao Zedong subsequently made no further explorations and breakthroughs like this, and reverted to the Soviet Union model, becoming increasingly rigid and extreme. “On the Ten Major Relationships” set forth the thought of finding a development path proceeding from China’s own conditions; the basic principle of mobilizing all positive elements to build socialism; concepts about China’s path to industrialization and economic system reform; and the idea of handling the 10 major relationships. It provided a theoretical foundation and guidance for establishing the line of building socialism in an all-round way at the upcoming Eighth National Congress. Learning about the content of this speech of Mao Zedong, Liu Shaoqi informed his drafting team that the report to the Eighth National Congress should be structured to reflect Chairman Mao’s speech on the 10 major relationships. In early July, 1956, the first drafts of the political report and other documents for the CPC’s Eighth National Congress were completed. In the two months that followed, Mao presided over two dozen meetings in Beijing and 423

Socialism in China

Beidaihe for discussion and revision of the drafts. Right up to the eve of the congress, Mao was still weighing every word of the political report while Liu Shaoqi, Zhou Enlai and Chen Yun were rewriting several parts of the content. The political report to the Eighth National Congress was indeed the crystallization of the first generation CPC leaders’ collective wisdom. At two in the afternoon of September 15, 1956, the Eighth National Congress of the CPC opened in the newly completed Assembly Hall of the National Committee of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC). It was attended by 1,026 deputies representing 10.73 million CPC members throughout China. Held 11 years after the Seventh National Congress, this was the CPC’s first national congress since becoming the ruling party. Mao Zedong announced in his short opening speech: “The task of this congress is to summarize experience since the Seventh National Congress, unite the whole Party and all the forces capable of being united at home and abroad, and strive for building China into a great socialist country.” His 10-minute speech was interrupted by applause at least 30 times. Liu Shaoqi delivered the political report on behalf of the Seventh CPC Central Committee, summarizing the experience of socialist transformation and construction in the 11-year interval since the previous national congress, analyzing domestic and international situations from all angles, and putting forward the CPC’s basic lines, principles and policies in the new phase. On September 16, Deng Xiaoping delivered the “Report on the Revision of the Constitution of the Communist Party of China.” He pointed out: With the Party in power, our comrades are liable to become tainted with bureaucratism and can become prone to conceit and self-complacency. In view of this situation, the Party must persist in the ideological line of integrating theory with practice and seeking truth from facts, constantly be on the alert to combat subjectivism, bureaucratism and sectarianism and must keep up our guard against the danger of becoming divorced from reality and the masses, and strengthen internal supervision and the supervision by the masses and nonParty people. That same day, Zhou Enlai delivered the “Report on the Proposals for the Second Five-Year Plan for the Development of the National Economy.” The report fully affirmed the achievements in economic construction made during 424

Chapter 17

Khrushchev Repudiates Personality Cult in His Secret Report; Eighth CPC National Congress Explores New Path Based on In-depth Research

the First Five-Year Plan period, analyzed the disadvantages and mistakes, gave proposals for the Second Five-Year Plan for the development of the national economy, and put forward principles and policies for its sound development.

Liu Shaoqi reporting to the congress

Deng Xiaoping reporting to the congress

Zhou Enlai reporting to the congress

In addition, Zhu De, Chen Yun, Dong Biwu and Peng Dehuai were among the 68 people who made presentations, and 45 people submitted written speeches. Finally, the congress passed the political report. The atmosphere was one of unity, democracy and exploration. While summarizing the past experience and lessons and giving advice for the future work, the delegates all spoke their minds freely and came straight to the point without empty formulae and verbiage. That the three important reports to the congress were delivered by three people at the core of the central leadership was a departure from the convention that the political report to the Party congress should be delivered by principal leader of the CPC Central Committee, and set a precedent for collective leadership. The Eighth National Congress set a good example in promoting internal Party democracy and collective leadership. When Mao Zedong met with delegations from other political parties of foreign countries during the sessions, he said humorously, “I had a walk-on part at this congress. Comrades Liu Shaoqi, Zhou Enlai and Deng Xiaoping played the lead roles.” In fact, Mao had been strenuously involved in setting the theme of the congress, drafting and revising the political report and other documents, and selecting the new collective leadership. To continue the opera metaphor, Liu Shaoqi, Zhou Enlai and Deng Xiaoping had the lead roles up on the stage of the Eighth National Congress, but behind the scenes Mao Zedong was chief producer, scriptwriter and direc425

Socialism in China

tor of the performance. As the collective leadership of the CPC Central Committee pooled the wisdom of the whole Party, the Eighth National Congress bore rich fruits and achieved great success, setting forth the line of exploring its own path of socialist construction. The major contribution of the CPC’s Eighth National Congress to the theory of building socialism found expression in the political report to the congress and the resolution it passed, as well as the speeches made during the sessions. The writer hereby attempts to summarize it from the following aspects: One: the Eighth National Congress analyzed in a scientific manner the major contradictions in socialist society. After completing the socialist transformation of the means of production, relationships between social classes had changed: on China’s mainland the bureaucrat-comprador bourgeoisie and the feudal landlord class had been eliminated, and landlords and rich peasants who used to exploit poor peasants were being reformed into self-supporting laborers; the national bourgeoisie as a whole had been more or less eliminated, and national bourgeois elements were in the process of changing from exploiters to laborers; farmers and other self-employed laborers had become socialist collective laborers, and intellectuals too were beginning to serve socialism; the leadership of the working class had been consolidated and all ethnic groups made up a big family of unity and fraternity. Based on this analysis, the Eighth National Congress explicitly pointed out that the contradiction between the proletariat and the bourgeoisie had been basically resolved; the exploitation system had been basically terminated, and the socialist system had been preliminarily established. Therefore, China’s major social conflict was no longer the contradiction between the proletariat and the bourgeoisie, but the contradiction between the demand of building an advanced industrial country and the fact of being a backward agricultural country, the contradiction between the people’s demand for rapid economic and cultural development and the fact that the current economy and culture could not meet the needs of the people, which is the contradiction between the advanced social system and the backward productive forces in essence. Two: the congress made the important decision to swiftly shift the focus of the Party’s work to socialist economic construction. Based on the judgment 426

Chapter 17

Khrushchev Repudiates Personality Cult in His Secret Report; Eighth CPC National Congress Explores New Path Based on In-depth Research

of changes in the principal social contradictions, it set forth the major tasks of the Party and the people, to shift from emancipating productive forces to protecting and developing productive forces. Therefore, the Party needed to mobilize all positive factors and pool all possible strengths to achieve industrialization and change China from a backward agricultural country into an advanced industrial country with all speed; the focus of the Party’s work was no longer class struggle, but socialist construction and developing productive forces. Three: the congress set forth the guiding principle of opposing conservatism and premature advances, forging ahead steadily while maintaining balance in economic work. The congress explicitly advocated setting a rational pace for the development of national economy according to need and feasibility; to formulate proactive and reliable plans to ensure balanced economic development; to combine priority programs with overall arrangement to ensure the balanced development of all economic sectors in due proportion; to improve the material reserve system; to correctly handle the relationship between economics and finance, appropriately regulate proportionality of accumulation and consumption in national income, improve the people’s livelihood while ensuring the expansion of national construction; to apply the law of value within certain limits, and promote economic development by encouraging selfdevelopment, free production and free market competition. Four: it advanced the concept of establishing Chinese socialist administrative and economic systems. Politically, the congress made clear the principle of centralized leadership, management by different levels, suiting measures to local conditions and circumstances, proposing to improve the national administrative system, expand the administrative power of provinces, autonomous regions and municipalities directly under the central government, and improve the work of all departments of the central government, ensure appropriate decision-making power for enterprises in the management of planning, finance and officials, staff transfer and welfare facilities under the unified leadership of the state and within the framework of the national plan. Economically, the congress decided to better apply the law of value, and establish an economic system with state-run and collective operations as the main body and individual operation as a supplement; planned production as 427

Socialism in China

the main body and free production as a supplement; national market as the main body and free market as a supplement. These concepts represented a breakthrough in the Soviet model of planned economy; they advocated “big scale, public ownership of means of production, and pure public ownership,” and featuring integration of government administration with enterprise and a high degree of centralization. Five: the congress put forward the political strategy of expanding people’s democracy and establishing and improving a socialist legal system. Summarizing experience and lessons from the Soviet Union, the Eighth National Congress made clear the means of enhancing the Party’s supervision over government bodies, enhancing the supervision of the people’s congresses at all levels over government bodies at all levels, enhancing mutual supervision among government bodies, and enhancing the people’s supervision over government bodies, and ordered to persistently combat various forms of bureaucracy. At the same time, the Eighth National Congress proposed to formulate systematic and complete laws and improve the legal system so that the Party and the government act in accordance with law and all government bodies and staff strictly observe the law, and the people’s democratic rights and interests are properly protected by the law. Six: it made clear the principle of developing scientific and cultural undertakings. In view of the lesson that the Soviet Union had mixed politics and scholarship and had ridden roughshod over academic freedom during the Stalin period, the Eighth National Congress set forth Mao Zedong’s thought of “letting a hundred flowers blossom and a hundred schools of thoughts contend” as the Party’s basic principle of developing science and culture; it made clear that the Party should not impose administrative orders upon academic and artistic issues, but advocate free discussion and competition to advance the development of science and culture; and proposed to absorb the cream of both traditional Chinese and foreign cultures and endeavor to create new culture that was both socialist and national. Seven: the congress put forward the important thought of improving Party building. It set forth the fundamental task for Party building – to improve all Party members’ understanding of Marxism and Leninism, adhere to the principle of integrating theory with practice and seeking truth from facts, and op428

Chapter 17

Khrushchev Repudiates Personality Cult in His Secret Report; Eighth CPC National Congress Explores New Path Based on In-depth Research

pose subjectivism, bureaucratism and sectarianism; reiterated that the CPC as the governing party should stick to the mass line and educate Party officials to serve the people wholeheartedly; stressed universal practice of the collective leadership principle, strengthening of democratic centralism and expansion of democracy within the Party, making all major decisions after sufficient collective discussion, and allowing dissident views to be argued freely, so as to collect various opinions within the Party and from the people; emphasized to combat personality cult and individual arbitrariness, safeguard the Party’s solidarity and unity, oppose sectarianism, and ensure implementation in all aspects of the Party’s democratic principle and mass line. Interestingly, the Party Constitution adopted at the Eighth National Congress did not mention Mao Zedong Thought as the Party’s guiding principle but stated: “The Communist Party of China takes Marxism-Leninism as its guide to action;” “The Party adheres to the principle of integrating the universal truth of Marxism-Leninism with the concrete practice of Chinese revolution.” This significant revision was initiated by Mao Zedong himself. As early as at the Second Plenary Session of the Seventh CPC Central Committee held in March 1949, Mao had already proposed “not to place Chinese comrades on a par with Marx, Engels, Lenin or Stalin.” In December 1954, Mao Zedong required the term “Mao Zedong Thought” to be no longer used, and the Publicity Department of the CPC Central Committee issued a pertinent notice. In addition, to maintain prolonged political stability for both the Party and the country, the Eighth National Congress took notable measures to enhance Party building – improving the system of collective leadership and nurturing successors for the CPC Central Committee. Before the congress met, Mao Zedong, deliberating on the selection of senior Party officials, said: “The Central Committee is about to put up four Vice Chairmen, namely Comrade [Liu] Shaoqi, Comrade [Zhou] Enlai, Comrade Zhu De and Comrade Chen Yun, and set up a Secretariat with Comrade Deng Xiaoping as General Secretary.” “With a Chairman, four Vice Chairmen and a General Secretary, I have several ‘windbreaks’ in case ‘as in nature there are unexpected storms and in life unpredictable vicissitudes’.” “The central objective is to safeguard national security. With a few more people the responsibility can be shared.” Mao also said: “I have decided to resign as Chairman at the 429

Socialism in China

proper time, and I’m asking you to confer me the title of Honorary Chairman.” At Mao Zedong’s suggestion, the Party Constitution that was adopted at the congress prescribed appointing several Vice Chairmen and General Secretary of the CPC Central Committee, setting up the Secretariat under the Political Bureau and its Standing Committee, and adding an Honorary Chairman of the CPC Central Committee when necessary. The Eighth National Congress also made the decision that the core of the central leadership should be categorized into the “front line” and the “rear line”; Mao Zedong would stay at the “rear line”, leaving Liu Shaoqi and the other Vice Chairmen and the General Secretary at the “front line” to discharge the routine duties of the CPC Central Committee. Mao Zedong nominated Chen Yun and Deng Xiaoping, then in their fifties, as additional members of the eighth CPC central leadership. He said that Chen was righteous, capable and prudent, insightful and to the point. In his view; and Deng was fair-mined and honest, conscious of the overall interest, and tempered in the fire of struggle within the Party. History testifies to Mao Zedong’s sharp eye for talent. Twenty years later, when Mao Zedong, Liu Shaoqi, Zhou Enlai and Zhu De had all passed away, Deng Xiaoping and Chen Yun, both of whom had been through the mill, carried forward the cause of leading socialist construction, and ushered in the new era of China’s reform and opening-up. This will be discussed in later chapters. Regrettably, for various reasons, Mao Zedong’s oft repeated intention of resigning as Chairman and withdrawing to the “rear line” with an honorary title was not materialized until the day when he passed away. If, after the CPC’s Eighth National Congress, he had retired at the height of his official career in leading China’s new-democratic revolution and socialist revolution to achieve historic success, his image in history would be much greater, inviting favorable comparison with George Washington, the first President of the United States who retired after achieving success as the Founding Father of America and was widely praised for this wise choice. What is worthy of recording in letters of gold is the democratic atmosphere within the Party that was pioneered by the Eighth National Congress. 430

Chapter 17

Khrushchev Repudiates Personality Cult in His Secret Report; Eighth CPC National Congress Explores New Path Based on In-depth Research

This found full expression in the three important reports delivered by three individual members of the central leadership, the 113 delegates speaking their mind freely and the election of the CPC Central Committee. The Eighth National Congress did not provide a candidate list in advance, but organized a primary election without any quota limits, allowing the delegates to nominate candidates. The result of the first-round primary election was published according to the number of votes, thus creating an initial list of candidates. Based on the delegates’ discussion, the Presidium generated a provisional candidate list for the second-round primary election. Based on votes received in this round, the Presidium provided an updated list of candidates to be voted on by delegates as to generate a list of official candidates. Then the congress elected members and alternate members of the CPC Central Committee. The three rounds of candidate voting fully promoted internal democracy and reflected the essence of democratic election. More than half a century has gone by since then. Despite the dust of history, the line of the Eighth National Congress has maintained its brilliant splendor. The CPC’s Eighth National Congress marked a turning point and new beginning for China to embark on the path of building socialism suited to its actual conditions. The line set forth there pointed a correct direction for the socialist cause and Party building; the principles, policies and conceptions initiated there were creative in the historical context; the thought about the change of the major socialist contradictions and the decision of shifting the Party’s work to socialist construction were of great theoretical value and practical significance; the specific development concepts proposed by the congress provided significant inspirations for later generations to blaze the path of socialism with Chinese characteristics. Of course, the CPC’s Eighth National Congress was not without limitations and shortcomings. Although the Eighth National Congress stated that the contradiction between the proletariat and the bourgeoisie had basically been resolved and the major social contradictions had changed, not all senior Party officials were in agreement on the major contradictions of socialist society, the forms and characteristics of class struggle and other issues. Theoretical ambiguity can 431

Socialism in China

easily lead to ideological and political wavering, for example, when the Polish and the Hungarian incidents of 1956 broke out and a tiny minority of people in China criticized the Party and socialism. Mao Zedong along with other Party leaders misjudged the complicated situation and overestimated the severity of class struggle, believing that the conflict between the proletariat and the bourgeoisie had not yet been solved and the struggle between the two classes and their paths remained the major conflict in socialist society. This resulted in them rashly negating the correct understanding of major contradictions in socialist society reached at the Eighth National Congress. Although the Eighth National Congress put forward the idea of establishing a complete industrial system within 15 years and building China into a powerful industrial country within 50 years (a more practical target than before), its guiding principle remained unchanged, namely to overtake and surpass the most advanced capitalist countries and achieve a socialist society as soon as possible. Inadequate understanding of the protracted and arduous nature and objective rules of socialist construction made it easy for the Leftist error of rash advance to take hold and take over. At the strong urging of Zhou Enlai and Chen Yun, the Eighth National Congress formulated the guiding principle for economic work, a principle of anti-conservativism and anti-rash-advance, of forging steadily ahead in overall balance. However, understanding of this principle among the senior Party leaders was not unanimous: Liu Shaoqi, Zhou Enlai and Chen Yun saw blind rash advance as the major tendency to be prevented and opposed, whereas Mao Zedong was among those seeing Rightist conservatism as the tendency to be opposed at all costs. Although the congress put forward opposition to both conservatism and rash advance, actually anti-conservatism was put first. The congress ignored or not admitted that, within the Party, the main trend at the time was rash advance in economic work. Owing to divergence of view at senior level, not long after the Eighth National Congress, Mao Zedong launched the “Anti-Rash-Advance” and Great Leap Forward campaigns. The Eighth National Congress did set forth the principle of democratic centralization and collective leadership and made the decision of opposing individual arbitrariness and personality cult. However, it simply put forward requirements in principle, but failed to formulate specific institutional rules, 432

Chapter 17

Khrushchev Repudiates Personality Cult in His Secret Report; Eighth CPC National Congress Explores New Path Based on In-depth Research

measures and disciplines or establish effective mechanisms for democratic checks and balances, supervision and error correction. The result was that as Mao Zedong’s personality cult kept growing under the instigation of some people, and he made a stream of arbitrary wrong decisions including launching the Cultural Revolution. The CPC Central Committee had no way of restraining him, and the Party could do nothing. As the poem says: A hero1 passed away, And left the Eastern camp2 in turmoil. But taking a precious lesson from such events, Holding up its own flag, China marched ahead in high morale. ၊օ‫ྮݿ‬Ḗಞ཰ĭ ‫ײ‬٢ᆜ႗గѷษh ෸೾ᆵൎफ़‫܆‬პĭ ሹᇾဠِၱటۢh To know the twists and turns and the heavy price China paid in exploring its path of socialist construction, please read on.

1

Joseph Stalin.

2

The Eastern Bloc countries from the 1940s to the early 1990s.

433

Chapter 18

The Intra-Party Rectification Movement Turns into the Anti-Rightist Campaign; Purge Escalates and Becomes Reckless

In 1956, just a month after the CPC’s Eighth National Congress, Soviet tanks entered the Hungarian capital Budapest to quell riots in that fellowsocialist country. This action, known in China as the “October Incident,” shocked the world, delivered a heavy blow to the socialist camp, and had a profound impact in China too. In World War II Hungary defeated the fascists with the help of the Soviet Red Army and established a people’s socialist regime in 1944. After two rounds of bitter party struggle, Matyas Rakosi emerged as the general secretary of the Hungarian Working People’s Party, and took over the party and state after purging the “Tito elements” and eliminating “counter-revolutionaries.” Under Rakosi, the Hungarian leadership mechanically copied from the Soviet Union’s centralized political system and highly unified planned economy under Stalin’s stewardship. The model severely damaged innovation and motivation among Hungary’s party and populace alike, resulting in long-term imbalance and sluggish growth in the national economy, the sustained decline of living standards, and strong dissatisfaction among the people. When the shockwave of the Russian Communist Party’s 20th Congress reached Hungary, Imre Nagy, former Chairman of the Council of Ministers (i.e. premier) who, having attempted to reform the Soviet pattern and take Hungary’s own path to development, had been removed from office and expelled from the party as a Rightist opportunist, requested that his party membership be restored. Pro-Nagy cadres and intellectuals often gathered at the Petofi Circle and regularly held forums on economy, philosophy and history. 434

Chapter 18

The Intra-Party Rectification Movement Turns into the AntiRightist Campaign; Purge Escalates and Becomes Reckless

On June 27, 1956, the Petofi Circle forum met at the People’s Officers Club. Julia Rajk, wife of Laszlo Rajk, general secretary of the Hungarian Communist Party and leader of the party’s underground activities during World War II, called on the party to posthumously rehabilitate her husband who had been executed as a spy and “agent of Tito” by Rakosi. Geza Losonczy, jurist and veteran member of the Communist Party told the truth about the so-called “Nagy incident.” The audiences inside and outside the club, in their thousands, were greatly incensed, called for the rehabilitation of their wrongfully killed former leader and demanded Nagy’s reinstatement to the party and government. On Rakosi’s orders the Department of Internal Affairs banned the activities of Petofi Circle and arrested large numbers of party members and ordinary people who had supported the call. Some newspapers and journals were also ordered to close down. These measures ratcheted up tensions within the party and in the whole society. On October 6, 300,000 citizens of Budapest took to the streets, demanding that the government hold state funerals for Laszlo Rajk and other three party and state leaders killed in the purge of “Tito elements” and the “elimination of counter-revolutionaries.” Similar demands to rehabilitate victims of past political campaigns echoed throughout Hungary. On October 23 another demonstration took place in Budapest. A hundred thousand students and citizens demonstrated, calling for Nagy’s reinstatement and the dismissal of Erno Gero, and demanding that “Russians get out of Hungary.” A small number of agitators in the crowd shot at the police and attacked radio stations, newspapers and state organs, resulting in violent conflicts between the demonstrators and armed police. The next day, a curfew was imposed in the capital. As several thousand demonstrators gathered again outside the National Council building, police who had occupied the surrounding rooftops and Soviet tanks already in the city opened fire on the crowd, killing and injuring hundreds. At this point, Imre Nagy, newly restored to the party and to the premier’s office, issued a public announcement “To the Hungarian People,” ending the curfew, calling for an end to the killings and urging the armed forces and representatives of the street demonstrators to hold talks to restore order. But his call was not answered. As the unrest spread from the capital across the nation, “reactionary organizations” that had been cracked down on and suppressed in the past and 435

Socialism in China

other political powers re-entered the stage, and landlords and capitalists who had fled abroad after the revolution returned to Hungary. Bad people took advantage of the chaos, burning party and government organs, smashing newspaper offices and killing ruling party officials and innocent people without discrimination. Faced with the turmoil in Hungary, the Soviet leaders vacillated between withdrawing Soviet troops or sending more to quell the unrest. With the situation in Hungary changing all the time, Mao Zedong and other CPC leaders entrusted Liu Shaoqi, visiting Moscow at the time, to relay their opinion to the central committee of the Soviet Communist Party that all measures should be taken to save socialist Hungary. On October 31, Anastas Mikoyan and Mikhail Suslov arrived in Budapest to represent the Soviet Union in talks with the Hungarian side. Nagy demanded the immediate withdrawal of Soviet troops from Hungary, among other conditions including Hungary’s exit from the Warsaw Pact, free election of its government, and reestablishment of a multi-party regime. Deceiving Nagy with false promises, the Soviet Union deployed troops in secret. On November 4, large number of Soviet troops entered Budapest to quell the rioting and restore order. The Hungarian Working People’s Party was restructured into the Socialist Workers Party, and a new Revolutionary Worker-Peasant Government was established. Nagy was arrested by the Soviet troops and executed six months later. The Socialist Workers Party of Hungary held a plenary meeting in December and passed a “resolution” asserting that four basic factors had interacted to lead to the tragic consequences of the “October Incident.” First, during the tenure of former party leaders Rakosi and Gero, party and state affairs had been managed with sectarian and dogmatic rules, and bureaucratic practices dominated the government, leading to the socialist rule of law being seriously undermined. The mechanical copying of the Soviet model had made people apathetic, preventing them from seeking a better standard of living. Two, the Nagy-centered opposition within the party had been in error to transfer intraparty problems and power struggles outside the party, it had been feeble and incompetent during the “October Incident” and its turn to the Right had made things easier for reactionaries. Three, all kinds of reactionary forces in436

Chapter 18

The Intra-Party Rectification Movement Turns into the AntiRightist Campaign; Purge Escalates and Becomes Reckless

side Hungary had bandied about the cause of democracy in order to provoke riots, which was the main factor in turning peaceful protests into armed revolts. Four, the powers of international imperialism had tried to overturn the socialist country. The October Incident and the not long previous Poznan Incident1 were seen as very important by the CPC Central Committee. Within the first month of the revolt in Hungary, the Standing Committee of the CPC Central Committee and the Political Bureau held meeting after meeting to discuss the matter and related issues. Mao Zedong and other central leaders were crystal clear that the two revolts demonstrated the persistence of all kinds of social problems in the socialist system: the ability to distinguish contradictions between the people and the enemy from contradictions among the people would be critical to victory or otherwise in socialist construction and to the survival or otherwise of a socialist regime. If serious mistakes occurred in the guidelines and policies of the ruling party, if the ruling party failed to properly deal with bureaucratism and losing touch with the masses, it could lead to social unrest or even the downfall of its rule. Mao and other central leaders took a sober look at China’s domestic situation and made the following observations: After the founding of New China, some CPC leaders and officials had gradually fallen into bad ways, thinking their positions entitled them to privileges and becoming bureaucratic in conduct; in some places there had been workers’ strikes, class boycotts by high school and college students, and farmers quitting rural cooperatives. Such phenomena mostly resulted from the failure to address the people’s difficulties and solve their problems. Party officials in affected areas or units, being bureaucratic in the execution of their duties, had erroneously dealt with workers’ and students’ strikes as if such people were the enemy, thereby inflaming 1

On June 28, 1956, over 100,000 people took to the streets of Poznan, Poland, to demonstrate their dissatisfaction and protest against the Stalinist mode of socialism exercised there, and to demand government to carry out economic reforms. The Polish United Workers’ Party, despite the political pressure and military threat from the Soviet Union, met in plenary session October 19-21 and replaced its core leadership with Wladyslaw Gomulka, the elected First Secretary of the party’s central committee and an advocate of Poland’s own socialist path. Reforms to the original model started with this event.

437

Socialism in China

the situation. Such problems convinced the leadership of the urgent need to strengthen ideological education in the Party, to rectify malpractices, and to correctly handle contradictions among the people, so as to ensure lasting political stability in China. Further pondering on how to gain a correct understanding of and properly handle problems in a socialist country, Mao gradually developed a relatively complete ideological system of his own. On February 27, 1957, Mao presented the important report “On the Correct Handling of Contradictions among the People” to over 1,800 senior Party officials attending the 11th Session (enlarged) of the Supreme State Conference held at Zhongnanhai. Mao went straight to the point: “Never before has our country been as united as it is today. However, this does not mean that contradictions no longer exist in our society. We are confronted with two types of social contradictions – those between ourselves and the enemy and those among the people. The two are totally different in nature.” Then he focused on the analysis and explanation of how to correctly handle contradictions among the people. “In the conditions prevailing in China today, contradictions among the people comprise contradictions within the working class, contradictions within the peasantry, contradictions within the intelligentsia, contradictions between the working class and the peasantry, contradictions between the workers and farmers on the one hand and the intellectuals on the other, contradictions between the working class and other sections of the working people on the one hand and the national bourgeoisie on the other, contradictions within the national bourgeoisie, and so on. There are still certain contradictions between the people’s government and the people. These include contradictions between the interests of the state and the interests of the collective on the one hand and the interests of the individual on the other, between democracy and centralism, between the leaders and the led, and contradictions arising from the bureaucratic work style of some state personnel in their relations with the masses. All of these count as contradictions among the people. Generally speaking, the fundamental identity of the people’s interests underlies contradictions among the people.” He continued to expound his ideas: “In our country, the contradiction between the working class and the national bourgeoisie comes under the cat438

Chapter 18

The Intra-Party Rectification Movement Turns into the AntiRightist Campaign; Purge Escalates and Becomes Reckless

egory of contradictions among the people because the Chinese national bourgeoisie has a dual character. In the period of the socialist revolution, its support of the Constitution and its willingness to accept socialist transformation constitute one side of its character. The contradiction between the national bourgeoisie and the working class is one between exploiter and exploited, and is by nature antagonistic. But in the specific conditions of China, this antagonistic contradiction between the two classes, if properly handled, can be transformed into a non-antagonistic one and be resolved by peaceful methods.” This thinking of Mao was the first of its kind in the history of scientific socialism and in the history of the world socialist movement. Mao said: “Since they are different in nature, contradictions between ourselves and the enemy and contradictions among the people must be resolved by different methods. Generally speaking, force and dictatorship should be applied to resolve contradictions between ourselves and the enemy, whereas contradictions among the people can only be resolved democratically, using persuasion and education. This method can be summed up in the formula ‘unity – criticism – unity.’ To elaborate, that means starting from the desire for unity, resolving contradictions through criticism or struggle, and arriving at a new unity on a new basis.” He also stressed: “The only way to settle questions of an ideological nature or controversial issues among the people is by the democratic method, the method of discussion, criticism, persuasion and education, and not by the method of coercion or repression.” In his closing remarks on the different natures of the contradictions, Mao said: “It is therefore imperative for us at this juncture to raise the question of distinguishing contradictions among the people from contradiction between ourselves and the enemy, as well as the question of the correct handling of contradictions among the people, in order to unite the people of all ethnic groups in our country for the new battle, the battle against nature, develop our economy and culture, help the whole nation to traverse this period of transition relatively smoothly, consolidate our new system and build up our new state.” Mao’s report showed his mastery of applying the dialectics of Marxist materialism to the study and analysis of the practical issue of building socialism in China in the start-up stage. In the history of world socialist development 439

Socialism in China

it was the first clear and explicit proposition that two different types of contradictions existed in socialist society; it asserted that the theme of a socialist country’s political life was the correct handling of contradictions among the people. The important thought of carefully distinguishing contradictions among the people from contradictions between the people and the enemy was also proposed, together with guidelines, policies and methods in practice. In simple terms, Mao addressed the major concerns to an audience of Party officials, representatives from other political parties and people from all walks of life, who returned long and warm applause. After several revisions and additions, the speech was published in the People’s Daily on June 19, 1957, under the title “On the Correct Handling of Contradictions among the People.” It produced strong responses from both China and the international community, and the theory became a talking point worldwide. The report was carried either in full or in summary by media in socialist and capitalist countries alike, and Mao’s proposals for the peaceful and democratic handling of national bourgeoisie and the resolving of different domestic contradictions triggered wide discussion, since it was a fundamental ideological and policy departure from thinking in the Soviet Union and Eastern European countries. In China the news quickly circulated among Party members and officials at various levels of Party and government organs, enterprises and public institutions, and among political parties, intellectuals, and business people. There was a rush to read the report, and there was general approval of Mao’s views on distinguishing and handling the two different types of contradictions, of his guiding line of “let a hundred flowers blossom, let a hundred schools of thought contend” in science and culture, and of the principle of “long-term coexistence and mutual supervision” for relations between the CPC and other democratic parties. However, for correct handling of the two different types of contradictions the prerequisite must be the correct understanding of the main contradictions at the current stage of a country’s social development, since the nature of society’s main contradictions determines the basic position, guidelines and policies of the ruling party and government for resolving the contradictions and various social problems. Focusing on this issue, Mao made an analysis in “On the Correct Handling of Contradictions among the People” and concluded that in a socialist society the basic contradictions were still those between the 440

Chapter 18

The Intra-Party Rectification Movement Turns into the AntiRightist Campaign; Purge Escalates and Becomes Reckless

relations of production and the productive forces and between the superstructure and the economic base. He elaborated on the special forms of these basic contradictions in a socialist society, but, unlike the Eighth Party Congress had done, he failed to give a clear-cut indication of what the main contradictions in Chinese society were. Later, in an error of judgment, Mao turned his back on the correct conclusions of the Eighth Party Congress. His mistake on this ideological issue, his failure to apply knowledge to action and put theory into practice, led to swinging back and forth, and to major mistakes in practice in the following years. While his speech on contradictions was still echoing in people’s ears, before the ink was dry on his report, Mao’s correct judgment was trampled over by the abrupt escalation of the anti-Rightist movement. It all started with the CPC’s Rectification Movement. At the Second Plenary Session of the Eighth CPC Central Committee in November 1956, Mao announced to the Party and society that the CPC “plans to launch a rectification movement inside the CPC against subjectivism, sectarianism and bureaucratism,” informing that “the approach of rectification and criticism and self-criticism shall henceforth be applied to resolving all matters among the people and inside the Party.” Liu Shaoqi said that the approach of rectification would be used to criticize and educate Party members who, as the CPC became the ruling party, had developed attitudes of privilege entitlement, superiority to the people, social chauvinism, divorcing themselves from the people, subjectivism, commandism, and bureaucratism. On April 27, 1957, the CPC Central Committee issued the “Directive on the Rectification Movement” (the Directive), which put forth in explicit terms that the whole Party would focus on the correct handling of contradictions among the people and carry out a thorough rectification movement against bureaucratism, sectarianism and subjectivism. The Directive stated that in the rectification the main duties of leading organs and officials at all levels were to: review the handling of contradictions among the people; review implementation of Party’s guidelines such as “let a hundred flowers blossom, let a hundred schools of thought contend,” “long-term coexistence and mutual supervision,” and “build the country with diligence and thrift;” review bureaucratic practices that strayed away from the workers, farmers, soldiers, students 441

Socialism in China

The Directive published in the People’s Daily

and intellectuals; and also to review cases of sectarianism and subjectivism. As for ordinary Party members, they were required to serve the people, consult the people, be the first to endure hardships and the last to gain benefits, and to conduct criticism and self-criticism. The Directive also stressed that “the rectification movement should be a serious ideological educational movement carried out in a moderate manner, a movement for appropriately measured criticism and for self-criticism.” It urged: “Criticism should be encouraged, and Party members should speak all they know without reserve. There will be no punishment for the speakers, and the listeners should learn from the criticism. Party members should correct mistakes if they have any, and guard against them if they have not.” From Mao’s and Liu’s speeches and CPC Central Committee documents it is clear that the Rectification Movement was initiated with the intention of correcting malpractices inside the Party, especially those of leading Party and government officials at all levels, so as to mend the ties between themselves and the people. 442

Chapter 18

The Intra-Party Rectification Movement Turns into the AntiRightist Campaign; Purge Escalates and Becomes Reckless

The Central Committee also decided that the movement should be open to the whole society and that criticism should be conducted from both inside and outside the Party. Mao personally drafted documents and directives to promote public criticism, exhorting Party organizations and officials to be modest and listen to criticisms and opinions from both Party members and people outside the Party, and to become more receptive to oversight from within the Party and without. Mao and other CPC leaders sent personal invitations to leaders of the democratic parties (non-communist parties) and personages without party affiliation for forums or private talks at Tian’anmen rostrum and elsewhere. There they were acquainted with the aims, contents and approaches of the Rectification Movement and their support for the campaign was sought. They too were encouraged to expose problems and offer criticisms. From May 8 to June 3, the United Front Work Department of the CPC Central Committee held 13 consecutive forums with democratic parties and non-affiliated personages. More than 70 contributions came from the floor, sharing criticisms of and suggestions for the work of the Party and government. Zhang Xiruo, the non-affiliated Minister of Education, criticized the growing arrogance within the CPC, which manifested itself in a fixation for the grandiose; in his view Party members misunderstood socialism as synonymous with “greatness” in everything, that they confused haste with benefit, and that they pushed forward at breakneck speed matters requiring long-term planning. The CPC was showing contempt for the past and ignoring history, classing many historic legacies as feudal relics to be smashed. But it was superstitious about the future, believing everything in the future would be good. Vice Chairman of the China Democratic League Zhang Bojun suggested that “the CPPCC, National People’s Congress, other political parties and people’s organizations should be the architect consultants of politics… some fundamental political construction should first go to them for discussion.” Vice Chairman of the Revolutionary Committee of Kuomintang Xiong Kewu pointed out that in order for non-CPC officials to perform their duties, they should have the powers appropriate to their responsibilities. Deputy SecretaryGeneral of the China Democratic League Qian Jiaju and central committee member of the China Zhi Gong Party Huang Dingchen criticized that CPC 443

Socialism in China

committees or groups were administrating in the place of non-CPC leaders, who felt they had just empty titles and found it difficult to perform their duties. In other contributions, opinions were shared on personnel work, equality in promoting Party and non-Party officials, improving united front work, giving play to the roles of non-CPC personages and intellectuals and other issues. During the same period, the United Front Work Department of the CPC Central Committee and the Eighth Office of the State Council held 25 forums for people from industry and commerce, during which 108 contributions came from attendees. Party groups of various departments of the State Council, Party committees of various provinces, and some colleges and universities, Party schools and news media also opened up to non-CPC personages to hear their criticism and opinions. The People’s Daily, Guangming Daily and other media created new columns or special pages to carry criticisms and suggestions from all walks of life for the work of the Party and government. The main thrust of criticism targeted the problems of bureaucratism, subjectivism and sectarianism in Party organs at central, local and grassroots levels. By and large, they steered clear of sensitive issues such as the CPC’s leadership, the state system, the guidelines and policies of the CPC Central Committee, various campaigns to “eliminate counter-revolutionaries” and political movements since the founding of New China. Even though some opinions were strongly worded, the criticisms generally stayed within the bounds of issues up for criticism set by Mao in his many speeches, and were all motivated by goodwill to help with the CPC’s Rectification Movement. Mao issued many directives and documents for circulation inside the Party, which affirmed the criticisms from nonCPC personages, regarding 90 percent of the criticisms as sincere advice and correct suggestions, no matter how harsh they might sound. He declared these opinions to be extremely helpful to the Rectification Movement to correct the Party’s mistakes, and urged Party organizations and officials at all levels to heed the criticisms and correct their unhealthy conduct. The movement was carried out throughout the nation in orderly manner and according to central planning. But In mid-May, new developments appeared in the Rectification Movement, causing Mao Zedong to change his ideas. 444

Chapter 18

The Intra-Party Rectification Movement Turns into the AntiRightist Campaign; Purge Escalates and Becomes Reckless

When giving the third and fourth briefings on forums with heads of other democratic parties to the Standing Committee of the Political Bureau, Li Weihan, the head of the United Front Work Department of the CPC Central Committee, singled out various comments made. Zhang Bojun had said, “Now it is the petty intellectuals of Marxism-Leninism leading the great intellectuals of the petty bourgeois, and the laymen leading the professionals.” Zhang Naiqi had urged change in the Party group system in state organs so that officials from other political parties could have the power to go with the title. Vice Chairman of the China Democratic League Central Committee Luo Longji, standing committee member of the Revolutionary Committee of Kuomintang Central Committee Chen Mingshu and others had called for reform in the leadership of Party committees at colleges and universities, suggesting the establishment of school administration committees to let experts and scholars run schools. Standing committee member of the Revolutionary Committee of Kuomintang Central Committee Huang Shaohong had criticized the words “achievements are in the majority, mistakes are a rarity” as a formula for boasting of achievements and covering up mistakes, which risked leading to more mistakes. Some had argued that Mao’s dialectical analysis of contradictions in “On Contradictions” had become an article of faith, saying that most of the many movements launched since the founding of New China had failed and that “grave mistakes were made in eliminating counter-revolutionaries and such cases should be reviewed for rehabilitation.” Li Weihan made a point of highlighting strongly-worded opinions, for example: “Now when the students take to the streets, citizens join them,” “the situation is very grim,” and the CPC “is at a loss whether to advance or retreat.” Such harsh comments shook Mao to the core, causing him to reconsider the generous encouragement he had given to the Party’s critics. On May 14, Mao presided over an enlarged meeting of the Political Bureau at Yinian Hall, Zhongnanhai, starting at nine in the evening. The four-hour meeting passed the “Directive on the Reporting of Criticisms on Party and Government Work from Non-Party Personages,” ordering Party committees at all levels to “hold back from refuting the opinions of Rightist elements for the time being, giving them full rein to speak their minds. Local newspapers should carry full reports on the opinions of non-CPC persons, especially 445

Socialism in China

those of Rightists and anti-Communist elements. The reports should quote the remarks verbatim so that the people can see their true colors.” On May 15, Mao wrote an article “Things Are Beginning to Change” and sent it to Liu Shaoqi, Zhou Enlai, Zhu De, Chen Yun, Peng Zhen and other central leaders before circulating it among senior Party officials on June 12. In this Mao asserted: “In recent days the Rightists in the democratic parties and institutions of higher learning have shown themselves to be most determined and most rabid,” and “in order to achieve their end, the Rightists, who are anti-Communist, are making a desperate attempt to stir up a typhoon in China, above force 7, strong enough to devastate crops and houses.” To address the situation Mao said that “we shall let the Rightists run rampage for a time and let them reach their climax” and “lure them in deep, round them up and annihilate them.” This article reflected the changes in Mao’s thinking. At nine p.m. on May 16, Mao held another enlarged meeting of the Standing Committee of the Political Bureau, of similar duration, in order to discuss a directive he personally drafted for circulation in the Party. The directive asserted: “In recent days a few people in society who harbor anti-Communist sentiments have been itching to issue inflammatory opinions,” and it ordered Party committees at all levels and news media to “let them issue those opinions and do not refute them for the time being (for a few weeks) but allow the anti-revolutionary nature of the Rightists to be revealed to the people. Discussion on how to refute them will follow in a while.” On May 20, the CPC Central Committee issued the “Directive on Strengthening Leadership on the Current Movement”, requiring Party newspapers around China to “continue publishing the counter-revolutionary views of the Rightist elements, especially those which fully reveal their counter-revolutionary nature (the more reactionary, the better).” It also indicated that “Party members should stay silent for a short period” but should “immediately start studying different categories of counter-revolutionary remarks of the Rightists and other bourgeois arguments” so as to prepare counterattacks and criticism at the proper time. What Mao would later term the “open scheme” to “entice the snakes from the cave” had taken initial shape. While the directive was being circulated inside the Party and preparations made to “entice the snakes from the cave” and “hook the fish,” Party 446

Chapter 18

The Intra-Party Rectification Movement Turns into the AntiRightist Campaign; Purge Escalates and Becomes Reckless

organizations and news media were, according to plan, publicly encouraging non-CPC personages to play a part in the Rectification Movement and share all types of criticism of the Party. An article in the May 17 issue of the People’s Daily wrote that the Party welcomed non-CPC comrades to “be bold, sharp and without reserve in exposing our shortcomings and mistakes in all fields to help Party members rectify their conduct.” Two days later, the same paper carried another editorial encouraging “full exposure of all types of contradictions among the people,” “allowing people from all walks of life to speak out all their opinions” so as to truly “let a hundred schools of thought contend.” In late May, the Rectification Movement swung into its second phase. Ministries and commissions of central government, local governments, colleges and universities and research institutes held forums, inviting persons from other democratic parties and those with no political affiliation, encouraging them to freely voice any criticism of the CPC. Newspapers and magazines were required to publicize their views “in the original form.” So, many non-CPC intellectuals duly did so, voicing their opinions at all types of forums. Some sharp and passionate criticisms appeared during this time, some of them erroneous and radical opinions. For example, Vice Chairman of the Revolutionary Committee of Kuomintang Long Yun said, “The mistakes and shortcomings that people point to exist mostly at the lower levels, but the root causes lie higher up.” Chu Anping, Editor-in-Chief of the Guangming Daily and standing committee member of the China Democratic League Central Committee, complained that over the years “in every work unit across the country, be it large or small, and even in sections and work teams, a Party member is always installed as leader. For everything we do, no matter whether important or trivial, we must have the Party member’s consent … and now it has developed into such a situation that one Party rules the country.” Chu also aired views towards Mao Zedong and Zhou Enlai: “When the new Republic was founded in 1949, three of the six vice chairmen were taken by non-CPC persons and two of the four vice premiers were not CPC members, which gave the appearance of a coalition government. But now the leadership does not include a single non-CPC person. Can such arrangement be looked into?” Executive Vice Chairman of the China Democratic League’s 447

Socialism in China

Central Committee Zhang Bojun said: “One-party rule can be harmful,” and “it would be much better if the one-party rule by CPC comes to an end and the Communist Party and the democratic parties take turns to govern on an elected basis. Let different parties raise their political platforms and let the people choose freely.” Some others were scathing about the achievements of political movements since the founding of New China, claiming that “the past major movements were used by the CPC to persecute people,” and that the campaign to eliminate counter-revolutionaries had been “an assault upon humanity and destruction of the human soul.” In the Anti-Rightist Campaign that was soon to take the stage, these opinions and remarks were labeled as counter-revolutionary statements opposing CPC leadership and socialism and attacking the leaders of Party and state. During this stage of the movement, colleges and universities in Beijing hung up eye-catching posters encouraging free voices in “blooming” and “contending,” and some schools built debating platforms on campus. During these activities very harsh and radical opinions were heard from some young students. Here are some examples of erroneous opinions as collected and classified by the college work department of the Central Committee of the Communist Youth League: “Eight years since the founding of the new Republic, democracy is but an empty word … there is no guarantee to the people’s democratic rights granted by the Constitution. The Party monopolizes everything, and exercises arbitrary rule over everything;” and “the Party must be taken down from its position above the People’s Congress and the government, and the government should be placed under the People’s Congress so that the congress becomes the real organ of power.” Even more worrying for Mao and the CPC Central Committee was that in some colleges some radically-minded students were boycotting classes, petitioning, and forming small groups, and these were having a bad influence on society. From May to June there were more and more cases of workers going on strike, students boycotting classes and organizing demonstrations, and farmers quitting or splitting from cooperatives. Fearing that if left unattended such things might develop into another “Hungary Incident” and threaten the leading position of the CPC, the Party decided to fight back and immediately began arrangements for its Anti-Rightist Campaign. 448

Chapter 18

The Intra-Party Rectification Movement Turns into the AntiRightist Campaign; Purge Escalates and Becomes Reckless

The June 8 issue of the People’s Daily carried the editorial “What Is This For?” That same day Mao personally drafted the “Directive of the CPC Central Committee on Organizing Strength to Prepare to Fight Back the Attacks of Rightist Elements,” and this was sent by telegram to Party committees of all provinces, municipalities directly under the central government and autonomous regions. The directive declared: “This is a major battle (the battlefield is both within and outside the Party). If this battle is not won, socialism will not be achieved, and there will be a danger of what happened in Hungary happening here.” The directive wrote that “every Party newspaper shall prepare several dozen articles to be published one after another once the wave of criticism starts to break in different places.” The editorial and telegram were the mobilization order for the Anti-Rightist Campaign nationwide, signaling the official start of the campaign. In the days that followed, the People’s Daily carried successive editorials to inaugurate the Anti-Rightist Campaign and give it wings. On June 10, Mao drafted and issued the “Directive of the CPC Central Committee on the Steps and Strategy of the Campaign on Fighting Back Rightist Elements.” It pointedly declared: “Common to the democratic parties, college professors and college students have a certain number of Rightists and counter-revolutionaries, and it is they who have stirred up the most trouble in the movement. They have a mixed history: they are either traitors, previous targets of past movements to eradicate counter-revolutionaries, the children of landlord or wealthy bourgeois families, or relatives of people cracked down on before.” It called on the nation to “disgrace the counter-revolutionaries in front of the public in this movement.” Centrally launched and organized, transmitted down to local levels, this tempestuous mass movement soon engulfed the country. It was the democratic parties that took the brunt. On July 1, Mao wrote an editorial for the People’s Daily under the title “Wen Hui Bao’s Bourgeois Orientation Should Be Criticized.” In this he publicly criticized Zhang Bojun and Luo Longji and their parties, the China Democratic League and Chinese Peasants’ and Workers’ Democratic Party. To quote from the editorial: “The Democratic League has played a particularly vicious role in ‘one hundred schools of thought contending’ and the Rectification Movement. It operates in an 449

Socialism in China

organized way, complete with a plan, program and line, none of which have the support of the people and directed against the Communist Party and socialism. Then there is the Peasants’ and Workers’ Democratic Party which has played exactly the same role. These two parties have made themselves particularly conspicuous in these days of violent storm;” they “summon the storm and churn the waves, plot in secret and incite discontent among the masses, make contacts high and low and seek responses far and near;” “their plan is to bring down the Communist Party and create utter confusion everywhere so as to take over;” and “all this spring, the sky over China suddenly became overcast with rolling dark clouds, and the source of the trouble can be traced to the Zhang-Luo alliance.” The editorial pointedly described the Rightist bourgeoisie as “bourgeois reactionaries opposed to the Communist Party, the people and socialism.” The Wen Hui Bao was the newspaper of the China Democratic League. The Democratic League came into being in 1941 as a result of a major restructuring of the Third Party (predecessor of the Peasants’ and Workers’ Democratic Party) led by Zhang Bojun, the Youth Party led by Zuo Shunsheng, the National Socialist Party led by Zhang Junmai, the Chinese Vocational Educational Institute founded by Huang Yanpei, the Rural Construction Party founded by Liang Shuming, and the National Salvation Association led by Shen Junru and Shi Liang (the Youth Party and National Socialist Party quit later). Of the democratic parties at the time, the Democratic League boasted the most members and the biggest scale. Zhang Bojun and Luo Longji both served as vice chairmen of its central committee, and Zhang was also Chairman of the Peasants’ and Workers’ Democratic Party. From day one of the Democratic League, Zhang and Luo were at loggerheads, and they had been so ever since. From the founding of New China to the eve of the Anti-Rightist Campaign, the League had been in the grip of a battle for power, with Zhang Bojun and Shi Liang on one side as the “ruling clique” and Luo Longji and Zhang Dongsun on the other side as the “nonruling clique.” The League’s main leaders Shen Junru and Zhang Lan also took sides. It was said that Zhang and Luo “spent more time quarrelling than eating,” arguing about everything no matter how important or trivial. To put it crudely, “They couldn’t piss into the same pot.” Their mutual antipathy was 450

Chapter 18

The Intra-Party Rectification Movement Turns into the AntiRightist Campaign; Purge Escalates and Becomes Reckless

common knowledge within the Democratic League; it was also known to the United Work Department of the CPC Central Committee, and Mao Zedong, Zhou Enlai and other leaders were well aware of it too. Hearing that he had been branded with Zhang Bojun as part of an antiParty, anti-socialism “alliance,” Luo Longji rushed to Zhang’s home. In the living room he bellowed out in anger: “Zhang Bojun, I’m telling you this: I wasn’t your ally before, I am not your ally now, and I will never ever be your ally in the future!” Then he struck his walking cane against the floor, broke it into three pieces, tossed them in front of Zhang and stormed out. It was obvious to all that Luo was not making a scene targeted at Zhang personally: under the huge political pressure this was the only possible outlet for his resentment. The “reactionary remarks” listed in the materials condemning Zhang Bojun as a Rightist were in two main threads. One demonstrated he was against CPC leadership and socialism, advocated democracy along British and American lines, and vilifying that socialism had no democracy. They cited Zhang’s claim that “capitalism still has its vitality by having a ruling party and opposition which take turns to rule” and his advocating that China should follow the example of capitalist bicameralism and let the democratic parties and the Communist Party rule in turn. The second part of the accusation stated that Zhang had maliciously vilified Marxism-Leninism and the Soviet Union. The evidence cited was that he had once said “Marxism-Leninism is too simple in theory, thus not worthy of study” and that “The Soviet Union has nothing to teach us; learning from the Soviet Union is learning to be dogmatic.” The decision notice condemning Luo Longji as a Rightist provided a list of his major reactionary remarks. The first was his resistance to CPC leadership over intellectuals and his incitement of old-school intellectuals to resist ideological re-education. Adduced as evidence were excerpts from his speech at the national conference of the China Democratic League: “Our main contradiction today is that the petty intellectuals of Marxism-Leninism are leading the great intellectuals of the petty bourgeois,” and “the contradictions between intellectuals and the Party are results of the ideological remodeling campaign.” The second charge against him was that he stood against dictatorship of the proletariat and had undermined the campaign to eliminate counter-revolutionaries. This was based on Luo’s publicly expressed proposal to set up a 451

Socialism in China

People of the Ministry of Transport denouncing Zhang Bojun’s erroneous opinions at a meeting

“rehabilitation committee” to “not only inspect errors during the past political campaigns, but also issue a public announcement urging those who had been wronged to lodge appeals.” The third count against him was his opposition to the Party’s leadership in state affairs and the political system, and his denigrating the departments of the State Council as organs with power in name only. The evidence was found in his remark “above all of the government’s ministries are the eight offices of the State Council, the planning committee and the economic committee, and the various departments of the CPC Central Committee. The ministry is impotent.” Zhang and Luo received severe punishment during the Anti-Rightist Campaign. Zhang Bojun was stripped of membership of the National People’s Congress, removed from various offices as the Minister of Transport, Vice Chairman of the CPPCC, Vice Chairman of the China Democratic League and Chairman of the Chinese Peasants’ and Workers’ Democratic Party, and demoted in administrative rank from three to seven. Luo Longji was removed from his posts as member of the CPPCC Standing Committee, Minister of Forest Industry and Vice Chairman of the China Democratic League, and demoted in administrative rank from four to nine. In addition, 59 people, a third of the members and alternate members of the China Democratic League’s central committee, were branded as Rightists. Other democratic parties suffered too, with many members removed from office, demoted, dismissed from their work units, re-educated through labor, sent to labor camps, or even sentenced to prison terms. 452

Chapter 18

The Intra-Party Rectification Movement Turns into the AntiRightist Campaign; Purge Escalates and Becomes Reckless

In mid-July, Mao penned “The Situation in the Summer of 1957,” which further pointed out that the contradiction between the people and bourgeois Rightists, opponents of the Communist Party, the people and socialism, was contradiction between the people and the enemy, i.e., an antagonistic, irreconcilable, life-and-death contradiction; it described bourgeois Rightists who had launched wild attacks against the working class and the Communist Party as reactionaries or counter-revolutionaries. It also cautioned that “in order to win complete victory, several more months of deep digging are needed, and we must not wind up the struggle in a hurry.” Subsequently, the CPC Central Committee issued a series of directives, and the Anti-Rightist Campaign quickly spread to government organs at all levels, schools, hospitals, cultural institutions and factories, as well as to rural areas. It was reiterated by Party committees at all levels and through news media that the struggle must be carried out “without mercy” and “through deep digging” to deliver heavy blows to extreme Rightist elements who opposed the Communist Party and socialism, and that the people should be mobilized to participate in the struggle by freely airing views, organizing debates, and putting up posters. Waged in the absence of a clear-cut standard for the crimes of “anti-communism” and “anti-socialism,” the campaign did not have a guideline until the issuing of “Criteria for Distinguishing Rightist Elements” on October 15, five months after the campaign began. Prior to the guideline document, some areas, departments and work units actually set quotas for the number of Rightists to be ferreted out. Right from the outset the Anti-Rightist Campaign made serious mistakes by confusing the two different types of contradictions and tagging too many people as Rightists. Those who offered criticism and different opinions on the leadership of their work units or the higher leadership concerning their subjective, sectarian, bureaucratic conduct and problems in their work during the Rectification Movement, those who aired different views on the policies and measures adopted in past political movements, on the problems occurring during the execution of policies, those who had criticized the Party for being insufficiently democratic, its power over-centralized, operating under an incomplete legal system and for not trusting non-Party persons – critics yes, but not fundamentally opposed to CPC leadership or socialism … all of these were cracked down 453

Socialism in China

A public assembly against Rightist elements

on as Rightists. Different views on theoretical studies, academic research, literature and arts were also labeled as Rightist remarks. Even those who honestly reported to the Party the erroneous or deviating ideas that had occurred to them were also branded as Rightists. The Anti-Rightist Campaign was waged within the Party too. In early July, Mao braved the heat of summer in Nanjing and summoned the first secretaries of some provincial and municipal Party committees for talks to launch the Anti-Rightist Campaign inside the Party. Mao asked: “Do you have any Rightists on the Jiangsu Provincial Party Committee? What about your secretaries and standing committee members? Why haven’t you made a move?” Jiang Weiqing, First Secretary of Jiangsu Provincial Party Committee at the time, answered: “Chairman, who doesn’t say something wrong sometimes? You yourself wisely said that if one says nine things right out of ten, one gets 90 points, for eight things right, 80 points…” Mao cut him off in mid-sentence and pounded the sofa’s end-table, demanding, “Are you going to fight Rightists or not?” 454

Chapter 18

The Intra-Party Rectification Movement Turns into the AntiRightist Campaign; Purge Escalates and Becomes Reckless

Jiang was straight-forward in his answer: “Yes, we can fight Rightists, but you will have to remove me first and send over someone else to do it. I am the first ‘Rightist’ anyway. You can dismiss me first and have someone else do the job.” Mao said: “Fine. Don’t do it then if you are so unwilling. Weiqing, you are really brave enough to unsaddle an emperor!” Jiang immediately retorted: “Chairman, I am really brave enough to guard your flank!” Indeed, Jiang’s reluctance to randomly crack down on Rightists inside the Party manifested his strong sense of duty to Mao personally, to the Party’s cause and the people’s interests. This was the second type of loyalty, a truly genuine loyalty. During the movement no leading officials at the provincial level were condemned as Rightists in Jiangsu Province, but more than 10 officials at department or prefecture level became targets of the crackdown. Of the provincial Party committees of Zhejiang, Anhui, Gansu, Qinghai, Hebei, Yunnan, Henan, Guangxi, Liaoning, Shandong, Xinjiang and Guangdong, which were summoned to meetings with Mao during this period, more than 20 leading provincial-level officials were ferreted out either as members of the so-called “anti-Party Rightist group,” “anti-Party localist group,” or “anti-Party local ethnic minority group.” First secretaries and secretaries of provincial Party committees, standing committees members, governors and vice-governors were labeled as Rightists, removed from office, ousted from the Party, and sent to labor camps or prison. At the Third Plenary Session of the Eighth Central Committee of the CPC in October 1957, Mao said: “The contradictions between the proletariat and the bourgeoisie and the contradictions between the socialist path and capitalist path are undoubtedly the primary contradictions in our society at the current time.” This conclusion effectively negated the correct judgment made at the CPC’s Eighth National Congress a year earlier that the major social conflict was the contradiction between the demand of building an advanced industrial country and the fact of being a backward agricultural country, the contradiction between the people’s demand for rapid economic and cultural development and the fact that the current economy and culture could not meet the needs of the people.” 455

Socialism in China

In this rejection of the CPC’s Eighth National Congress’s correct judgment, Mao put the emphasis back on class struggle, and reiterated that to oppose Rightists was to eliminate counter-revolutionaries in a different way, describing the campaign as “a good opportunity to purge the Party, the Youth League, as well as the democratic parties.” On December 12 the CPC Central Committee issued “Measures on the Handling of Rightist Elements” together with materials from central state organs and the United Front Work Department exemplifying how to deal with Rightists. These documents contributed to the escalation of the Anti-Rightist Campaign; in particular, the confusion of the different types of contradiction when dealing with Rightists resulted in serious consequences, taking things in a wrong direction and aggravating the situation, Following the Third Plenary Session of the 11th CPC Central Committee, Deng Xiaoping led the whole Party and the whole nation to rehabilitate those who had been wronged. Seeking truth from facts and correcting its past mistakes, the Party made a thorough reinvestigation of unjust, false and erroneous cases concluded during the political movements following the founding of the PRC in 1949. Data released by Central Committee departments show that, between 1957 and 1958, altogether 552,973 persons in every part of China were branded as Rightists. After 1978, 552,877 of them were rehabilitated. The verdicts on 96 people stood, among them Zhang Bojun, Luo Longji, Chu Anping, Peng Wenying and Chen Bingren. The fact is that 99.99 percent has been proved to be false charges. This is far too absurd! Tragic fates befell over 550,000 Rightists who were Party members and officials, members of democratic parties, intellectuals, government officials and workers, who were demoted or dismissed from office, expelled from the Party or the Youth League, or sent for re-education through labor. These were relatively light punishments. Others got more serious penalties, being ousted from government, sent to do forced labor in concentration camps, and sentenced to prison terms. Many on false charges committed suicide or died under torture. For a long time after, Rightists were listed as targets of dictatorship together with landlords, rich peasants, counter-revolutionary elements and bad elements; their relatives and children were seen as implicated and suffered all manner of discrimination and unfair treatment for decades. Apart from these, another 300,000 people 456

Chapter 18

The Intra-Party Rectification Movement Turns into the AntiRightist Campaign; Purge Escalates and Becomes Reckless

were labeled middle-Rightist elements or anti-socialist elements and they too became long-term victims of discrimination and attack. It was not until the early 1980s that justice was done for the almost one million people previously cracked down on as Rightists or middle-Rightists. This delayed justice demonstrates that the CPC had grown mature enough to address and correct its previous errors. On the other hand, it also reflects serious institutional failings in democratic politics and the rule of law over a very long period in China. As the old adage rightly says “the lessons of the past can guide one in the future.” Indeed, facing up to, reflecting on and learning the lessons from the catastrophic escalation of the Anti-Rightist Campaign is very beneficial for the correct handling of contradictions among the people, the building of socialist democracy and the rule of law in the future. There were only seven years between the founding of New China and the basic completion of socialist transformation, and introducing a social revolution that fundamentally altered productive relations within such a short period affected the interests of millions. Inevitably, some found it hard to accept, giving rise to discontent, even confrontational feelings. Therefore, sharp criticism and strong sentiments of dissatisfaction were bound to be directed at the Party and government during the Rectification Movement, a campaign originally designed to collect opinions of people from all walks of life to help the CPC improve its conduct. In the Anti-Rightist Campaign Mao Zedong and other leaders misjudged the domestic political situation and exaggerated the need for class struggle, blowing up the sharp criticisms of CPC leadership and socialism from a very few individuals into opposition to and attacks on the Party and socialism. Very strong expressions were used to describe the situation, among them “the sky over China suddenly became overcast with rolling dark clouds,” “dark clouds bearing down on the city threatened to crush it,” and “stirring up a force 7 typhoon” and “force 10 typhoon.” The Party thus decided to counter-attack with a large-scale mass movement of great speed and violence. This was, undeniably, an over-reaction; the measures were inappropriate and harmed many innocent people. Further, during the campaign, Mao also changed the correct judgment on China’s primary social contradictions made at the CPC’s Eighth National Congress, thus altering the Party and state’s main tasks and changing the Party’s 457

Socialism in China

political guideline. His erroneous judgment not only provided a theoretical basis for escalating the Anti-Rightist Campaign; it also seriously interrupted the Party’s shift of focus onto economic development, dragging the Party and state into the whirlpool of extensive class struggle for a long period. It also escalated the continuing “class struggle” that confused the two different types of contradictions, severely disrupting China’s economic progress and pulling down the people’s living standards. The movement also deviated from the correct guideline, principles and methods that Mao himself proposed in “On the Correct Handling of Contradictions among the People”, seriously confusing the two different types of contradictions and handling contradictions among the people with methods to deal with contradictions between the people and the enemy. Judging from the “evidence” adduced at the time, the majority of those accused of being Rightists were sincerely responding to the Party’s call to help rectify its conduct. They either offered criticism on the work of Party committees and governments at all levels or shared views on the subjective, sectarian and bureaucratic conduct and other problems of Party members and officials. Although some used extreme and very strong words or were mistaken in their opinions, they were not actually opposing the Party’s leadership or the socialist system: they could have been educated following the “unity-criticism-unity” formula. For the very few individuals who aired erroneous or reactionary views on major political matters of principle, their cases could have been handled through ideological and political reeducation as long as their acts did not violate state laws, but they were thrown into prison or forced labor camps prepared for enemies. In his speech at the Third Plenary Session of the Eighth CPC Central Committee, Mao categorized intellectuals as the exploiting class, having quit their proper place in social life. This position was theoretically untenable and led to grave consequences in practice. The over-expanding of the scope of Rightists also inflicted terrible damage on socialist democratic progress. Until the Third Plenary Session of the 11th CPC Central Committee in 1978, no one dared or was willing to publicly express different opinions or criticism regarding decisions and policies of the Party and government, nor on the ruling Party’s conduct and problems. Far from being “a hundred flowers blossoming, a hundred schools of thought 458

Chapter 18

The Intra-Party Rectification Movement Turns into the AntiRightist Campaign; Purge Escalates and Becomes Reckless

contending,” it was a case of “one flower in blossom, 10,000 horses standing mute.” The vow of “sincere treatment with each other” and “mutual oversight” between the CPC and democratic parties became nothing but empty phrases. During the Rectification Movement a few people made public remarks against CPC leadership and the socialist system, which had bad repercussions in society. It was necessary to fight back and criticize these opinions in order to educate the people, but to resort schemes such as “hooking the fish” and “enticing snakes out of the cave” was utterly wrong: these methods were suitable only for dealing with an enemy rather than people from the democratic parties, democratic personages and intellectuals. It tarnished the CPC’s image and damaged its cooperative relations with democratic parties. Had the Party contacted related parties and departments at the first sign of erroneous thoughts and talked with the people involved, it could have guided, transformed and won the support of many. It could have united with all forces that could be united and turned the negative factors into positive ones; instead it pushed hundreds of thousands of people to the opposite side. There is no getting away from the fact that Mao Zedong was the initiator and main decision-maker of the Anti-Rightist Campaign, and he should shoulder the main responsibility for its later escalation. But it was not exclusively his fault. The reasons for this error are multifaceted, the result of interplay between many complex historical and realistic factors. Mao should not be the only one held responsible. In Deng Xiaoping’s summary of the lessons learnt from this period of history, he rightly said that no one within the central leadership at the time raised different opinions when Mao made the decision, or later during the movement. Moreover, during the campaign, Party committees and governments at all levels, related departments, democratic parties and other organizations all scrambled to ferret out more Rightists and each level of authority placed higher quotas on the number of Rightists to be identified, for fear of being accused of inactive or not “revolutionary” enough. Some ill-intentioned people used their chances to eliminate rivals, to crack down on those of different views or whom they simply didn’t like; even worse, a few unscrupulous persons pressed false charges against others in order to get promotion at work. These were all contributory factors in the escalation. Behind such phenomena can clearly be seen the lack of democracy and rule of law in China at the time; 459

Socialism in China

also evident are the heavy baggage of feudalism in the traditional culture and the shadow of bad habits deep-rooted in the Chinese nation. Today, as we improve the governing mechanism of the Party and state and establish a sound system of democratic politics and the rule of law, we should make a comprehensive review of this chapter of history and take its lessons. We should cultivate in our citizens a modern sense of civic awareness and eradicate the toxic remnants of feudalist thinking, energetically promote socialist democracy and the rule of law, and reform and improve the governing mechanism of the Party and state. We should not overly blame our forerunners or be obsessed with old historical debts. Some further questions: Why was the correct judgment on the primary contradictions in China’s society made at the Eighth National Congress of the CPC so easily changed? Why were some people so vehement about class struggle when the victory of the socialist revolution had basically eliminated the exploiting class? Why was the pro-Left mindset so deep-rooted within the CPC and society, and why did it so often prevail? In seeking the ideological, cultural and institutional reasons we need to reflect more broadly and more deeply. There is a need for targeted measures that treat the malady at the root, measures applied with perseverance and consistency. Only in this way can we solve problems at the root and prevent tragedy recurring. Truly, the poem says: Advocating free airing of criticisms, The “open scheme” tricks so many. The injustices of the Anti-Rightist Campaign, Inscribe their tragic lesson on the mind. ۢӘվ٪‫ڷ‬վଆĭ ဥଜᆵҮൔҊၚh ‫ا‬ചჴ౮ඹٙႿĭ ৔ൖ၊၂֚ଇྗh To know about the after-effects and serious consequences of the AntiRightist Campaign you must read the next chapter.

460

Chapter 19

Following a Right Track Not for Rash Advance, a Sober Mind Ensures Steady Progress; the Feverish Great Leap Forward Ends in Debacle and the Utopia Is But a Dream

A string of big wins followed hard on the heels of China’s founding: a remarkable economic recovery within three years; troops returned after battlefield victory in the Korean War; smooth completion of the First Five-Year Plan; the socialist transformation of agriculture, handwork industry and capitalist industry and commerce achieved in three years rather than in 15. Success after success made Mao Zedong and other leaders hot-headed, which bred over-hastiness in economic construction and the gradual formation of the development strategy of overtaking Britain and the United States; aspiring to dash into communism, they put forward the general line of going all out for high-speed development, launching the Great Leap Forward and the People’s Commune movement. But as the saying goes: more haste, less speed. Things did not go according to plan: it backfired and failed, leaving only painful lessons to swallow. First, we must start by looking at “rash advance” and “anti-rash advance” as well as opposition to “anti-rash advance”. In the summer of 1955, Mao Zedong directed harsh criticism toward Deng Zihui, likening his work style to the “walk of a woman with bound feet,” and then a campaign was launched against Rightist conservatism. The socialist transformation of agriculture, handwork industry and capitalist industry and commerce saw huge leaps; economic construction in every area was accelerated, with all sectors of society reaching for higher and higher targets in a frenzy of trying to outdo each other. 461

Socialism in China

This spurred Mao Zedong on to even more ambitious goals: he declared that China’s industrialization, along with its science, culture, education and health, should be further expanded and accelerated. He personally oversaw the drawing up of the “National Program for Agricultural Development: 19561967 (Draft).” Hungry for quick results, and seeing agricultural development as the prerequisite for realizing industrialization, he proposed that the outputs of grain and cotton should increase annually by 8.7 percent and 10.4 percent, respectively, in order for both outputs to reach one trillion jin by 1967 (the actual output in 1967 was 436.5 billion jin of grain and 40.7 million dan of cotton). [one jin = approximately 500g, one dan = approximately 50 kg] Mao also required that steel output should reach 15 million tons by 1962 under the Second Five-Year Plan, and double to reach 30 million tons during the “Third Five-Year Plan” period. At this, all departments of the State Council rushed to revise the targets only just set, shrinking the 8-12 year plan into a 3-5 year one and requiring the 1955 combined industrial and agricultural output value to be exceeded by 15.9 percent in 1956. This entailed greatly increased investment in capital construction and bank loans way beyond the state budget capacity, and created huge pressure on materials supply and transportation. Zhou Enlai, at the forefront of economic work, initially accepted Mao Zedong’s criticism of laggardly progress, and was encouraged by the upsurge in production construction. He once wrote a couplet to express how he felt about Mao’s criticism. It went: “Objective actuality may transcend subjective view; subjective efforts are legged behind objective demand.” In early 1956, Zhou Enlai, Chen Yun and some other top leaders, aware of the inclination within the Party toward over-urgency and impetuosity, tendencies that might lead to decisions contrary to the laws of economic development and harmful to the economy, resolved to take a timely stand against “rash advance.” At subsequent conferences on national planning and finance held by the State Council, Zhou Enlai and Chen Yun strongly advocated that “while opposing conservatism, we must also oppose the inclination of impetuosity;” they required that all departments should be realistic in making development plans, never using the importance of realizing industrialization as an excuse for ignoring reality. They should shave all the plan targets by between 5 and 6 percent. The same cuts were included in the Second Five-Year Plan sent to 462

Chapter 19

Following a Right Track Not for Rash Advance, a Sober Mind Ensures Steady Progress; the Feverish Great Leap Forward Ends in Debacle and the Utopia Is But a Dream

the Central Committee by the State Council, making the targets of economic development positive, feasible and with some leeway. In April, at a meeting of the Political Bureau of the CPC Central Committee, when Mao Zedong asked for additional investment of two billion yuan into capital construction, Zhou Enlai made an impassioned attempt to stop him. At that time, internal Party politics were on track, and high-level decisionmaking still followed the procedure of democratic centralism and, because of this, Mao’ s proposal was not passed, since he had only one supporter. After the meeting, Zhou Enlai came to Mao Zedong to explain in detail why it was not possible to put in extra investment. Mao listened, but said not one word, which made Zhou Enlai believe the matter settled. It wasn’t. It continued to rankle with Mao. In May, Mao Zedong left Beijing on vacation, leaving his routine Central Committee work in the care of Liu Shaoqi. Liu then took charge of the CPC Central Committee and the Political Bureau, discussed the report from the State Council to be delivered to the National People’s Congress, agreed with Zhou Enlai and Chen Yun about opposing rash advance, reducing the proposed targets and the capital construction program. On June 20, the People’s Daily printed an editorial entitled “Oppose Both Conservatism and Impetuosity,” criticizing the tendency toward impetuosity and rash advance recently emerging and pointing out the need, whilst opposing both conservatism and impetuosity on this issue, to seek truth from facts, to correct erroneous tendencies when they appear, but not go too far. The editorial also said that objective actuality must be the criterion to identify Rightist conservatism or rash development, stating that everything falling behind real possibility was Rightist conservatism, and the converse was rash advance; the correct ideology and working approach was to ensure that plans and procedures were in line with what was realistically achievable. In their reports to the Eighth National Congress of the CPC held that September, Liu Shaoqi and Zhou Enlai advocated opposing both conservatism and rash development in economic development, and following the policy of steady progress and all-round balance. This approach was affirmed in the resolutions of the congress. At the Second Plenary Session of the Eighth National Congress of the CPC in November, Liu Shaoqi and Zhou Enlai repeated their 463

Socialism in China

criticism of rashness, emphasizing that the pace of industrial development should be finely calibrated. They advocated reducing the growth rate set for the next year. After the meeting, Chen Yun presided over formulation of the national economic development program for 1957, and resolved to scale back investment in capital construction and cut industrial growth targets. After more than half a year of hard work this started to bear fruit. By the end of 1957, positive signs were seen in the economy, with all sectors developing in a steady and coordinated way, and all targets fulfilled. It was the best year since the founding of New China. But the efforts to curb rash advance were opposed and criticized by Mao Zedong. At the Third Plenary Session of the Eighth CPC Central Committee of the CPC held between September and October 1957, Mao Zedong criticized this opposition for underestimating achievements, exaggerating mistakes, standing in the way of the drive for “greater, faster, better and more economical results” and thereby quenching people’s enthusiasm. On November 13, the expression Great Leap Forward appeared for the first time in a People’s Daily editorial. Mao Zedong applauded the phrase, regarding it as “a great invention.” In Moscow in November 1957, addressing the Conference of Communist and Workers Parties of all countries, Mao Zedong proclaimed his ambition that China would overtake Britain within 15 years. After seeing victory in the Anti-Rightist Campaign, he turned to deal with Rightist conservatism within the Party, and called a string of meetings to organize opposition to “anti-rash advance” and launched the Great Leap Forward. Shortly after the New Year in 1958, Mao Zedong convened a three-day meeting in Hangzhou, at which he praised to the skies the 31 percent leap in industrial growth achieved in 1956, and criticized Zhou Enlai and other State Council leaders for their “anti-rash advance” attitude in 1957. In mid-January, Mao held another larger, meeting in Nanning, Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region. On the first day he slammed the “anti-rash advance” position as not seeing the big picture, likening it to denying that nine fingers worked well when just one had a sore, and asserted: “You are only 50 meters away from Rightists.” Mao hurled a question to Zhou Enlai: “Aren’t you opposing ‘rash advance’? But I am all for ‘anti-anti-rash advance’.” 464

Chapter 19

Following a Right Track Not for Rash Advance, a Sober Mind Ensures Steady Progress; the Feverish Great Leap Forward Ends in Debacle and the Utopia Is But a Dream

Zhou Enlai and the attending vice premiers were restless, meeting in Zhou’s room several nights in succession, discussing into the early hours how to word their self-criticisms. Later Zhou Enlai made self-criticism at the meeting, recognizing opposition to rash advance as a manifestation of Rightist conservatism, contrary to Chairman Mao’s policy guideline for development, and declaring he would take the blame for mistakes made by the State Council. In his concluding speech Mao repeated his criticism that such opposition subverted “greater, faster, better and more economical results,” subverted the “National Program for Agricultural Development (40 Articles)” and the Promotion Committee. He demanded that the industrial output value in each and every administrative area should exceed agricultural output value within a five to 10 year period, and set a July 1 deadline for formulating plans to achieve this. Mao was not yet done. On March 8, he convened a conference in Chengdu attended by the main central leaders, related department heads, and the first secretaries of the Party committee of some provinces, cities and autonomous regions. During the course of the 18-day conference Mao Zedong used six speeches and many interjections to lambast opposition to rash advance as antiMarxist; he hailed the Henan Provincial Party Committee’s stated ambition of achieving the grain targets set by the “40 Articles” within a year, to implement water conservancy, to eradicate the “four pests” (fly, mosquito, mouse and sparrow) and eliminate illiteracy. He undertook to give Henan one year to experiment, and if it worked, a Great Leap Forward campaign would be launched across every province. Zhou Enlai and Chen Yun again made selfcriticisms of their mistaken opposition to rash advance, and Liu Shaoqi also criticized himself at the meeting for not realizing that development speed had evolved into a debate about policy direction: “Our thinking falls below that of the Chairman,” praising Mao’s vision as “indeed clever and admirable.” All the officials at province, commission and ministry level who had expressed opposition to rash advance made self-criticisms. It was at this meeting that Mao incorporated the spirit of “going all out and striving for the best” into the general line of building socialism. After Mao’s repeated condemnations of such opposition, the voices of dissent among the central leadership fell silent. Two months later in Beijing, the Second Plenary Session of the Eighth CPC Central Committee officially ap465

Socialism in China

proved the general line of building socialism, based on Mao Zedong’ proposals, as “going all out and striving for the best, to build socialism with greater, faster, better and more economical results.” In his work report on behalf of the CPC Central Committee, Liu Shaoqi expounded the basic points of the general line, emphasizing “after the victory of socialist revolution, development speed is our priority,” “we should accelerate our development pace as much as possible.” Mao Zedong had Zhou Enlai, Chen Yun, Li Xiannian, Bo Yibo and others make self-criticism again at the meeting. This climate helped produce 117 verbal and 140 written expressions of support for the general line at the session. At this meeting, some ministers and commissioners of the State Council further hiked the already high target speed, and this was followed by Party secretaries of all provinces, cities and autonomous regions proposing still higher targets. An editorial in the People’s Daily afterwards declared “speed is the soul of the general line,” and “in the formula ‘greater, faster, better and more economical’ the key element is faster,’’ and “it is the fundamental essence of the general line to develop socialist productive forces at top speed so as to realize national industrialization and the modernization of agriculture.” With the benefit of hindsight, it is obvious who was right and who wrong. It was correct for Zhou Enlai, Chen Yun, Liu Shaoqi, Li Xiannian and Bo Yibo, among others to oppose rash advance, to stand up for rational economic development based on objective realities, and for steady and positive development of the national economy balancing all sectors. This was indisputably correct, manifesting the scientific attitude of seeking truth from facts, and in line with the laws of economic development. However, the several meetings to counter opposition to rash advance, in particular the Second Plenary Session of the Eighth CPC Central Committee, subverted the theoretical guideline of seeking truth from facts, abandoned the policy of steady and balanced economic development, which led directly to the Great Leap Forward Movement. But they also subverted the correct political line set at the Eighth National Party Congress, discarding the democratic work style and the principle of collective leadership within the Party, allowing individual arbitrariness and the cult of personality to run riot, thereby sowing the seeds of trouble for even more troubles in the future. In this counter-attack, the tactic of labeling anti-rash advance as Rightist conservatism became a powerful political tool to silence 466

Chapter 19

Following a Right Track Not for Rash Advance, a Sober Mind Ensures Steady Progress; the Feverish Great Leap Forward Ends in Debacle and the Utopia Is But a Dream

those in the higher echelons of the Party who held a different view, and to press ahead with wrong ideas. It was a tool that severely damaged the political life of the Party and nation. It opened a Pandora’s box, bringing endless trouble for the country. “Rash advance” – “anti-rash advance” – “anti-anti-rash advance” is no concocted tongue-twister: in 1950s, it was the actual backdrop to and part of the fermentation process in formulating the general line for national socialist construction. Identifying high velocity as the soul of the general line was like sounding the bugle for the Great Leap Forward to start. The Great Leap Forward started in the agricultural sector. Specifically, it started with the mass mobilization of people along military lines to undertake construction of reservoirs, irrigation schemes and water conservancy projects on a huge scale. It was a response to the call issued jointly by the Party Central Committee and the State Council in September 1957 in its “Decision on Massive Construction of Water Conservancy Works and Manure Collection in the Coming Winter-Spring Period.” That winter, there was a virtual tsunami of water conservancy projects across the country, in which work villagers and cadres were joined by urban students, workers and cadres. By October, there were 20 to 30 million people involved; by November this number reached 60-70 million, by December it was 80 million, and by January 1958 the total was around 100

New Xihe Reservoir construction site in Jieyang County,

million. The labor force Guangdong Province

467

Socialism in China

was organized along military lines, squad, platoon, company, regiment and division units working as a corps. They dug earth with hoes, carried loads on their shoulders or carts, worked by day and night, in rain and blazing sun, in this battle against the land. They gave their all, careless of reward, careless of pain, carrying on despite injury or sickness. Such a spirit of dedication and self-sacrifice is truly awe-inspiring. Irrigation and water conservancy are the foundation of agriculture, bearing directly on livelihoods. Organizing the farmers to do this work was of tremendous benefit and many water conservancy projects still function even to this day. When I was working in Guangdong, Hunan and Shanxi, I found the reservoirs and irrigation works there were mostly built in the 1950s and 1960s, but no new efforts had been made in most recent 30 years, which is regrettable. However, such mass mobilization and military-style organization, with surveying, design and construction all happening simultaneously, resulted in many projects being rushed to start but abandoned half-way through, and some that did get built were not safe. With hundreds of millions of people participating, waste and delays were inevitable and impacted other aspects of agricultural production. Another feature of the agricultural Great Leap Forward then was deep plowing and close planting. However there appeared a host of lies: the universal falsification of records, ridiculously exaggerated yields and wild boasting. In the “40 Articles,” eight pointers for increasing agricultural production were presented: deep plowing to improve the soil; raising pigs to collect manure; irrigation works; selecting and breeding improved seeds varieties; rational and close planting; and better farming tools. These measures, particularly those relating to plowing and planting, did help to improve yields but the key is not to go too far. However, the outbreak of wild exaggeration that ensued was all about going too far. At the Second Plenary Session of the Eighth CPC Central Committee, the Party secretary of Changge County, Henan Province, introduced local experience in deep plowing. He claimed that after deep plowing, yields could increase dramatically, even multiplied several times over, and his county planned to deep plow all of its 1.2 million mu of farmland within a year. This excited Mao Zedong; he thought it a great breakthrough and exhorted the whole na468

Chapter 19

Following a Right Track Not for Rash Advance, a Sober Mind Ensures Steady Progress; the Feverish Great Leap Forward Ends in Debacle and the Utopia Is But a Dream

tion to learn from the experience of Changge. After that, he made a speech on appropriate and close planting. After the meeting, deep plowing and close planting were introduced across the land. In some areas, farmers were required to plow as deep as four meters, and to sow up to several hundred or even one thousand jin of seeds (but the yield of one mu was only several hundred jin). Added to this, leaders at all levels shared a general impatience for results, a craving for big successes, in their blind pursuit of high targets and high yields. These factors soon gave rise to false reporting and wild exaggerations as each tried to outdo the other with reports of sky-high yields of grain crops and other agricultural products. On June 8, 1958, the People’s Daily ran a front-page headline: “Suiping County Commune, Henan Province Achieves Wheat Yield of 2,105 Jin Per Mu.” Four days later, there was a follow-up item about the commune, reporting a wheat yield from a 2.9 mu experimental field of 3,530 jin per mu. There was a congratulatory editorial too.

High yield reports in the People’s Daily

Xinhua News Agency was not to be outdone: on June 16, it too carried a high wheat yield story, reporting 4,353 jin per mu achieved by Xingguang Commune of Gucheng County, Hunan Province. This triggered a wave of “anything you can do I can do better.” On July 12, the People’s Daily reported wheat yield of 7,320 jin of per mu in Xiping township, Xiping County, Henan 469

Socialism in China

Province; on July 25, Xinhua News Agency reported a rice yield of 9,195 jin per mu reached by Guihu Agriculture Commune of Boyang County, Jiangxi Province; on July 30, the People’s Daily went one better, reporting a rice yield of 10,597 jin per mu by Chunguang Commune of Yingcheng County, Hubei Province. These “sputnik yield” claims became more outrageous by the day. On August 13, the People’s Daily ran a whole page in red type dedicated to the record grain yield of 36,950 jin per mu set by Maxihe Town, Macheng County, Hubei Province. In less than a month, this record was smashed when news appeared in the People’s Daily of a rice yield of 60,437 jin per mu in Lianxian County, Guangdong Province. This was eclipsed after ten days by the story of 130,000 jin per mu rice yield achieved by Hongqi People’s Commune in Huanjiang County, Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region. This phenomenon was encapsulated in a catchphrase of that era: “The bolder you are, the higher the yield.” A more truthful version might be “The bolder you blow your own trumpet, the higher the yield.” According to state statistics, the highest record of per mu rice yield in 1957 was 2,400 jin. Only one year after, per mu rice yield rocketed to several thousands, tens of thousands of jin. In an area of one mu of land, it simply had no space even to stack so many grain stalks horizontally not to say crops actually grow vertically. The “high yielding fields” of wheat and rice came about through the collusion of cadres at commune, town and county level, who commandeered farmers to take crops from dozens or hundreds of mu to a piece of farmland elsewhere; after this relocation, leaders and journalists were invited along to inspect, weigh and check. If the space was not enough to put those crops, they would only show the visitors the weighing process in the courtyard, telling them that all the millet and wheat had been harvested from one pilot plot, when in fact, the same load was being carried in, weighed and carried out, then back in again, time after time. The rice yield of 30,000 jin per mu in Huanjiang County, Guangxi was a fiction created in this way. And in the original draft of the report from Lianxian County in Gouangdong, the figure of 60,000 jin had a note inserted in the report: “This is the total rice output of 23 mu,” but the note was deleted from the version of the report sent up to the provincial Party committee for approval. Thus Lianxian County was dubbed 470

Chapter 19

Following a Right Track Not for Rash Advance, a Sober Mind Ensures Steady Progress; the Feverish Great Leap Forward Ends in Debacle and the Utopia Is But a Dream

“advanced” and became a role model. Tricks of all varieties had many people fooled. Even vice premier and foreign minister, Marshal Chen Yi was fully convinced when he inspected a test plot of potatoes with an alleged yield of one million jin per mu at Panyu, Guangdong Province. He wrote an article in People’s Daily to heap praise on it. Li Rui, concurrently secretary of Mao Zedong and Vice Minister of Water Resources, asked Mao Zedong during the Lushan Conference in the summer of 1959: “You come from the countryside, so how can you give credence to these ‘sputnik’ reports?” Mao told him he had read an article by the famous scientist Qian Xuesen in the China Youth Daily on June 16, 1958, in which Qian analyzed that through the process of photosynthesis, the current yearly output of rice and wheat per mu could be multiplied 20-fold. Clearly the atmosphere of wild exaggeration across the country had gone to the heads of leaders and scientists alike. Blame for the trumpeting of inflated achievements should not be laid at the door of local and grassroots cadres. It was sparked by the high targets required by central, provincial and municipal authorities. At the meeting in Beidaihe held in August 1958, the Political Bureau decided that since the national grain output target for 1958 was 300 million to 350 million tons, a 60 to 90 percent increase on 1957, then the target for 1959 should be set at 400 or 500 million tons. Between 1952 and 1957, the total grain output had risen from 164 million to 195 million, representing an annual increase of 3.5 percent, the highest rate increase in China’s history and the highest in the world for the same period. Therefore the high rate of increase and targets set at Beidaihe were clearly divorced from reality and impossible to achieve without a marked increase in farmland or fundamental improvement in farming techniques. While the central government set unrealistic targets, at the next level down even higher goals were then imposed by provincial and municipal governments, and at grassroots level the only possible response was crazy exaggeration in reports that made their way back up the chain of command to Zhongnanhai. Whatever the higher-ups favor, the localities made it a big fuss. The pressure of high and unrealistic targets inevitably gave rise to exaggeration and lying at local and grassroots levels. From this there is probably a principle to be drawn and a lesson to be learned. 471

Socialism in China

The cadres did the lying and the people did the dying. Exaggerated trumpet blowing and fantasy yield reports brought a career boost for some cadres, in the form of pay increases or promotions; even if the reports had to be corrected later, a self-criticism would suffice to wipe the slate clean: but for the broad mass of the farmers it was totally catastrophic. What the exaggerated reports and false data led to was much higher requisitioned purchase of grain. For example, in 1958, the national purchase goal was 22.23 percent higher than in 1957. Farmers could not put their hands on that much grain, resulting in some provinces launching a “campaign to oppose lying and private distribution.” They would send special teams to villages to requisition grain, charging into each and every dwelling, denouncing or beating up farmers and local cadres, and even expropriating the farmers’ seeds, fodder and provisions. This is a major reason for the famine and death by starvation during three years of economic difficulties, but this will be returned to in a later chapter. In industry, steel was seen as the key link of the Great Leap Forward, and the whole Party and the people were to be involved in steelmaking. It was triggered by an idea that Mao Zedong put forward in Russia and at the Second Plenary Session of the Eighth CPC Central Committee. In the spirit of what Mao Zedong had said at meetings in Hangzhou, Nanning and Chengdu, and with the aim of speeding up China’s industrialization, the Second Plenary Session of the Eighth CPC Central Committee put forward the policy of centrally controlled industries and locally controlled industries developing simultaneously. There was nothing intrinsically wrong with this policy and purpose, but in the context of opposition to rash advance, the targets set were excessive and unreachable. The requirement that industrial output value in every province should outstrip its agricultural output value within five to seven years would be unachievable for many places in such a backward agricultural country. In spite of this, all provinces jumped to the call of the Central Committee of the CPC, and threw themselves with a vengeance into the national campaign for industrialization. Soon, across the land, every commune, village and county was operating factories. Even if it was just a workshop, it was in pursuit of the “small yet complete” ideal. Only a small number of them had any success: the majority 472

Chapter 19

Following a Right Track Not for Rash Advance, a Sober Mind Ensures Steady Progress; the Feverish Great Leap Forward Ends in Debacle and the Utopia Is But a Dream

failed, and the result was a huge waste of resources, manpower, money and materials. Industrial development is impossible without steel, and steel production was the bottleneck. In November 1957, Mao Zedong headed a delegation to the Soviet Union. In Moscow, at the Conference of Communist and Workers Parties of all countries, Nikita Khrushchev said the Soviet Union would catch up with and overtake the United States, and Mao Zedong told the meeting that China’s steel output could reach 40 million tons in about 15 years, catching up with or overtaking Britain. Mao’s words encouraged the whole nation. In early March 1958, the Ministry of Metallurgical Industry got out a report stating the aim of “catching up Britain in 10 years, and the United States in 20 years or so.” Mao Zedong heaped praise upon this report, calling it “poetry.” On June 17, Li Fuchun, vice premier of the State Council and director of the State Planning Commission, cut that time in half. In his “Major Tasks of the Second Five-Year Plan” delivered to the CPC Central Committee, he asserted that China could take as little as five years to catch up with Britain, and 10 to draw even with the US. Mao loved it, commenting: “This is an excellent document, well worth reading. A real eye-opener.” Five days later, Mao Zedong wrote the following comment on a report from Bo Yibo, the vice premier of the State Council and director of the State Economic Commission: “To surpass Britain will not take 15 years or even seven; two or three years will do it. Two years is possible provided we can produce 25 million tons by 1959, and then our steel output will be equal to Britain’s.” Thus the timetable was halved again. With the time frame for overtaking Britain and the US constantly being cut, accelerating steel production became the focus of the whole Party. In February 1958, in his report to the Third Plenary Session of the First National People’s Congress, Bo Yibo proposed the target for steel output that year at 6.248 million tons, an increase of 16.7 percent over 1957. But this was seen as too low and was reset at 8 million to 8.5 million by a meeting of the Political Bureau on May 30. But even this was still considered insufficiently ambitious. On the evening of June 18, Mao Zedong summoned the Political Bureau Standing Committee and related persons for talks at the 473

Socialism in China

Swimming Pool in Zhongnanhai1, where it was decided to double the steel output target that year, taking it up to 11 million tons but declaring to the public only 10.7 million tons. The target for 1959 was set at 25 million tons. At the Beidaihe meeting of the Political Bureau in August, the steel output target for 1959 was to be double the 10.7 million tons of the 1958 target, taking it to 27 to 30 million tons, and then to 50 million tons in 1960, and then to 80 to 100 million tons in 1962, the terminating year of the Second Five-Year Plan. But in early August, Mao Zedong was rattled to discover that aggregate steel production for January through July was only 3.8 million tons, 7 million tons short of the revised target of 10.7 million tons. So, at the Political Bureau meeting held at Beidaihe on August 12, he put forward the policy of “taking steel as the key link,” the Party secretaries taking command, launching mass movements, and mobilizing all Party members and people to go in for steel production; he also instructed Chen Yun over the phone to draw up a document, demanding iron discipline to achieve the steel production task, and an escalating scale of punishments to those concerned if production or appropriation plans were not fulfilled. The scale started with issuing of warning, followed by recording of demerit, suspension from office, being placed on probation within the Party, culminating in removal from post and expulsion from the Party. On September 1, the People’s Daily issued the communiqué of the enlarged Political Bureau meeting held at Beidaihe, together with an editorial “Act Now to Double Steel Output,” mobilizing all Party members and people to plunge into this campaign. Only three days later, it turned up the heat with a followup editorial “Go All Out to Ensure Steel Production.” From then on, “Commander Steel” was paramount, all other trades and professions giving way. A steel production drive swept across China at hurricane speed, involving the whole populace. It embraced Chinese and foreign methods alike, with all sizes of furnace contributing to the whole. One prominent feature of such furnaces were small, indigenous and clustered.

1

Mao spent his last ten years in the Swimming Pool, part of which was converted into Mao’s office and residence. – Ed

474

Chapter 19

Following a Right Track Not for Rash Advance, a Sober Mind Ensures Steady Progress; the Feverish Great Leap Forward Ends in Debacle and the Utopia Is But a Dream

Clusters of small-scale indigenous steel plants in Guxian County, Shanxi Province, 1958

The central leadership and government organs spearheaded the campaign. A small ironworks was built in Zhongnanhai, under the management of Mao’s personal secretary Ye Zilong who organized the other secretaries, guards, chauffeurs and working staff to service it around the clock. Mao Zedong went in person to inspect it and listened to verbal reports. Even Soong Ching Ling, the vice president of the state, had a furnace built in her own courtyard, leading her secretary, driver and cook to make a contribution to the steel production drive. Command offices were set up in central government organs such as the State Planning Commission, Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Ministry of Culture, and small furnaces were set up in office compounds, with cadres taking turns to smelt iron. Following the example of these role models, command offices under the leadership of Party secretaries were set up by all provincial committees and governments, and small furnaces were built in office compounds. More surprisingly, it was not just government offices, factories, colleges, middle schools, army barracks and street communities that went in for building furnaces: Party committees and governments at all levels mobilized 90 million farmers to drop their farm work and join the steel-making flood, which resulted in numerous furnaces being built all over the fields, even on mountainsides. In July, 30,000 small furnaces were built across the country. This figure was 170,000 by August, and over 600,000 in September. By October there were several million of them. 475

Socialism in China

Beijingers contributing their own iron utensils to steel making efforts

Just as the saying goes, once the people are mobilized, any miracle at all can be created. In their search for bricks to build furnaces, some localities first tore down city walls, temples, old fortresses and unoccupied houses, and if there were still insufficient bricks some farmers’ homes were forcibly demolished. As coal was also essential, the Ministry of Coal Industry sent orders to coal mines, requiring them to extract at full capacity and to work day and night for more. At the same time, it called on people nationwide to open small coal mines, which gave rise to the emergence of over 100,000 such operations, supplying coal for the small furnaces. In places without coal deposits or unable to meet demand, people felled trees for charcoal to make iron. When there was a lack of iron ore, Party committees and governments at all levels would mobilize farmers to search for and dig out deposits in the mountains; if there was still not enough, household items such as iron woks, bowls, window grills, and door knockers would be rounded up and consigned to the furnace, as would temple bells, tripods and metal cultural relics. If transport capacity for the ores was inadequate, tens of thousands of people, cars, carriages, ox carts, bicycles and wooden vehicles were pressed into service to form a formidable transport force. A campaign on such a scale and with such public involvement was frenzied and unheard of in history. It was a crazy campaign and a laughing stock of the international community. It was also a huge waste of resources, and not worth the effort. It damaged the environment and China’s international standing too, 476

Chapter 19

Following a Right Track Not for Rash Advance, a Sober Mind Ensures Steady Progress; the Feverish Great Leap Forward Ends in Debacle and the Utopia Is But a Dream

since most of the product of all this effort was unusable! Of the several million tons of pig iron smelted in the backyard furnaces, less than half met the standard. The state had to earmark four billion yuan (over 10 percent of that year’s fiscal revenue) from the central budget to subsidize the backyard furnaces, which was twice the value for subsidizing the pig iron production in large steel plants. When large steel plants went into production under the pressure of constantly escalated targets and working extra shifts, and using these low quality raw materials, the steel produced had a very high rejection and defect rate. The policy of prioritizing steel production did not lead to China galloping ahead in industrial development: rather it brought about serious imbalance of national economic sectors, gravely damaging the social productive force. This can be demonstrated by statistics. Serious imbalance in investment and consumption: the investment amount increased by 122 percent from 1957 to 1959, but the consumption rate increased only by 0.6 percent; the investment rate (proportion of investment in GDP) rose from 25.4 percent in 1957 to 42 percent in 1959, but the consumption rate (proportion of consumption in GDP) declined from 74.1 percent in 1957 to 56.6 percent in 1959. Imbalance in investment structure and low return on investment: from 1958 to 1960, investment in capital construction and productive investment represented over 86 percent, and non-productive investment 13 percent of total investment; in terms of industrial investment, heavy industry investment rose to 51.6 percent but light industry investment was lower than in 1957. During the Second Five-Year Plan period (1958-1962), the total investment in capital construction increased by 87 percent, but the industrial output in 1962 was only 19.9 percent higher than it had been in 1957. Imbalance in industrial structure: from 1958 to 1960, the cumulative industrial growth was 98 percent, whereas agricultural growth declined by 29.6 percent between 1959 and 1960. The ratio of light industry to heavy industry fell from 53:47 in 1957 to 33:67 in 1960. The Great Leap Forward mania was not confined to agriculture and industry: it took over culture, education, science and technology and public health too. 477

Socialism in China

In education, it was illustrated by the massive building of schools. Ke Qingshi, first Party secretary of the East China Bureau declaimed at the Second Plenary Session of the Eighth CPC Central Committee: we should build colleges or polytechnics not only in every city and county, but also in towns, townships and rural areas, giving everyone access to Das Kapital and a good grasp of advanced mathematics. Mathematics, geology, agronomy, mechanics, chemistry, physics, and electronics should all become the general knowledge of the public. Influenced by this craze, some counties came up with several such “colleges” within a year. But they disappeared as fast as they materialized and were soon lost without trace. The cultural departments were not willing to be left behind. The Great Leap Forward in culture work was launched in August 1958, when the Ministry of Culture held a conference of provincial cultural department heads in

A Great Leap in scripting Peking Opera – China National Peking Opera Theater announcing to create 300 scripts in one year

478

Chapter 19

Following a Right Track Not for Rash Advance, a Sober Mind Ensures Steady Progress; the Feverish Great Leap Forward Ends in Debacle and the Utopia Is But a Dream

Hefei, Anhui Province, followed up, in October, by a state cultural administration conference in Zhengzhou, Henan Province. At these meetings several targets were set: within a few years everyone should be able to read, write, and calculate; everyone should be able to watch a film, able to sing, paint, dance, perform and create. The first three or four targets might have been achievable, but over a longer period. The last four, however, were beyond the bounds of possibility, since these artistic activities require innate talent, and not everyone is capable. In some places, the targets verged on lunacy: “writing 60 drama scripts in one night,” “each county should produce one Guo Moruo,” or “surpassing Lu Xun in two years,” give the flavor of this. At that time many creative works were produced that fanned the exaggeration mania. This folk song is a case in point: “Rice grains as big as soybeans, soybeans as big as potatoes, sesame as big as maize, maize as big as a man, peanuts as big as sweet potatoes, and sweet potatoes as big as white gourds. What a good harvest the Great Leap has brought.” Another song went: “This is a bumper crop year, the harvested grain could pile up into a mountain; it is hard to calculate how much it is, but it is weighty enough to turn the earth around.” In no time at all, every trade raced to join the Great Leap Forward; people high and low rushed fanatically onto the juggernaut. As the poem rightly observes: Brave words outdone by more brave words, Each claim madder than the last; One day the grandchildren will laugh at this, How could the old folk have been so crazy? ‫ݿ‬စመნְࣱӎĭ ၊۹‫ۿ‬й၊۹আh ෸ಸሸ෬ณՖൡĭ ཹߍవУฆߡมh To learn about the People’s Commune Movement, the twin brother of the Great Leap Forward, please turn to the next chapter.

479

Chapter 20

Premature People’s Communes Waste Money and Manpower, Causing Lasting Calamities; Communization Results in Chaos and Disunity, an Expensive Lesson

The Great Leap Forward was not the only campaign to get underway in 1958 under the aegis of the General Line: there was the People’s Commune Movement too. The Great Leap Forward was all about productive forces and the People’s Commune Movement was all about productive relations, but they had this thing in common – the aim to enter socialism in a single bound. Their outcomes were the same too – the quest for speed at all costs was severely punished for the breach of objective economic laws. We regard the two drives as twin brothers because they were born from the womb of the General Line in 1958: moreover, both began with irrigation and water conservancy construction in the winter of 1957. At that time, adjacent areas and intense concentrations of labor were needed for large-scale reservoir construction but primary cooperatives consisting of one to two hundred households struggled to meet the demands of such groupings. Therefore, some county leaders in Sichuan and Guangxi proposed merging several small cooperatives into one bigger one. This suggestion chimed right in with the view that Mao Zedong had long cherished, having advocated large agricultural production cooperatives since 1953. Naturally, these voices from Sichuan and Guangxi immediately found a champion in Mao. At a meeting held in Nanning in January 1958, Mao formally gave his instruction to establish large cooperatives since small ones could not meet the demands of the Great Leap Forward and he ordered the central departments concerned to draw up the necessary documents immediately. Two months later in Chengdu, Mao hosted a meeting at which the reso480

Chapter 20

Premature People’s Communes Waste Money and Manpower, Causing Lasting Calamities; Communization Results in Chaos and Disunity, an Expensive Lesson

lution to merge small cooperatives into large cooperatives was passed after discussion. After the issuing of the Central Committee’s directive, the whole country became swept up in a tide of merging cooperatives. Liaoning Province took the lead and transformed its 9,600 agricultural production cooperatives (primary cooperatives) into 1,461 large (advanced) cooperatives in May. The average number of households per cooperative was 2,000, but there were nine comprising more than 10,000 households. Basically, every township had its own large cooperative. Rural areas in other provinces began to emulate the pace and scale of integration set by Liaoning. These infant large cooperatives were hardly on their feet before becoming engulfed in the much ambitious People’s Commune Movement. On July 1, 1958, Chen Boda, then alternate member of the Political Bureau and chief of the Central Committee’s Political Research Office, gave a speech at Peking University at a ceremony marking the 37th anniversary of the founding of the CPC. The speech “Under the Banner of Mao Zedong” aired Mao’s concept of establishing Communist communes: “Comrade Mao Zedong says the direction we should take is to proceed in orderly fashion to the creation of large communes encompassing industry, agriculture, commerce, education and military, thereby shaping the basic units of our society;” “Comrade Mao Zedong’s thought about establishing people’s communes is arrived at from experience of real life.” Chen Boda’s speech was widely reported and attracted the concern and attention of local leaders across China. Henan Provincial Party Committee was the first to respond, setting up 1,378 people’s communes across the province in the months of July and August. Each commune had about 7,200 households on average, but the entire Wuxiu County was converted into a united people’s commune in its own right, comprising 29,000 households. Henan was the first province to popularize people’s communes among the farmers, and managed to register 99.9 percent of all its rural households into people’s communes within just a month. Other provinces rushed to follow suite, none willing to trail behind. 481

Socialism in China

In early August 1958, during his inspections in Hebei, Henan, Shandong and Tianjin, Mao Zedong encouraged leaders at all levels to help establish people’s communes. At 4:30 p.m. on August 4, Mao Zedong, wearing gray pants and a white shirt, looking ruddy and healthy, inspected the Dasigezhuang Agricultural Cooperative of Nanliyuan Town, Xushui County, Hebei Province. He was immediately besieged on every side by applauding and cheering farmers. Mao Zedong smiled and asked: “Did you get a good wheat harvest this year? What was the yield per mu?” The commune chief replied: “Great. We’ve never had a better one.” The branch Party secretary added: “The yield per mu is 754 jin.” Zhang Guozhong, secretary of Xushui County Party committee, continued: “We estimate a total of 1.2 billion jin of grain from the summer and autumn harvests, with an average yield of 2,000 jin per mu. Mainly because the Chinese yam crop looks sure to have high yields.” Mao seemed delighted at this, and asked: “You got a harvest of about 90 million jin of grain this summer, and you should reap another 1.1 billion jin this autumn. Your county’s total population is only 310,000, so how on earth are you going to eat all that? What will you do with the surplus?” Zhang replied: “We’ll exchange the surplus grain for machinery and make alcohol from the yams.” Mao agreed: “The more surplus the better! The cooperative members can eat their fill and more! Five meals a day would be fine!” He told the cadres of the township government and the commune: “Since we are capable of producing more grain, we may grow a little less in future. We can spend half the day on agricultural work and the other half studying culture and science and running middle schools and colleges. What do you say?” Mao had nothing but excitement and praise for Xushui’s initiatives: free meals in public canteens for all rural residents; a kindergarten in every cooperative; and the militarized management of all Xushui’s agricultural cooperatives. Still in Henan a couple of days later, Mao’s inspection in Qiliying People’s Commune in Xinxiang County from August 6 to 8, put him in high spirits: “The name ‘people’s commune’ is great, as it covers industry, agriculture, commerce, education and militia. Its special features are large scale and public benefit.” 482

Chapter 20

Premature People’s Communes Waste Money and Manpower, Causing Lasting Calamities; Communization Results in Chaos and Disunity, an Expensive Lesson

Mao Zedong on a fact-finding mission to Qiliying People’s Commune, Xinxiang, Henan Province

On August 9 in Shandong Province, after reports from provincial leaders, Mao told them: “You’d do better with people’s communes: the advantage is that by integrating industry, agriculture, commerce, education and militia, it’s easier to exercise leadership.” The People’s Daily didn’t waste a second in reporting the inspection tour and gave publicity to Mao’s remarks about establishing people’s communes. Later, at the enlarged Political Bureau meeting at Beidaihe, Mao expounded further: “The special features of a people’s commune are large scale and public benefit – large numbers of people, large tracts of land, large-scale production, large undertakings of all kinds, the government functions and the commune administration are merged into one. A people’s commune should run public canteens, serving food for free – this is what communism means. We should take over the residual private plots but leave alone poultry and courtyard trees for the time being, pending future action. In about 10 years, we can realize communism in terms of food, clothing and housing. We can develop schools, factories and neighborhoods in the form of people’s communes. All the people will join big communes in a few years.” On August 29, the CPC Central Committee passed the “Resolution on Establishing People’s Communes in Rural Areas.” It indicated that having vanquished Rightist conservatism, agricultural output had experienced phenom483

Socialism in China

enal growth across the country and agricultural products had grown two-fold, several-fold, tenfold and even more. Currently, single, stand-alone agricultural cooperatives consisting of dozens or hundreds of households could not meet the demands of development. Therefore “The essential and basic guideline to help rural residents accelerate socialist development, bring forward the achievement of socialism, and gradually transit to communism, is to establish people’s communes embracing all-round development of agriculture, forestry, animal husbandry, sideline industry and fishing industry and integrating industry, agriculture, commerce, education and militia.” “The realization of communism in China is no longer a far-away prospect: we should find a specific way to build China into a communist country by actively promoting people’s communes.” After this, Party committees and governments at all levels put their backs into rolling out the People’s Commune Movement across the country at breakneck speed, so people’s communes were established in all rural areas within two months. By the end of October, 26,570 communes were established, with 99.1 percent of all rural households being registered with communes. A commune could be several thousand-, 10,000-, 20,000 householdsstrong, and there were some where households numbered tens of thousands. In no time at all, rural farmlands, farm tools, farm animals and other public assets were taken into commune ownership, all to be distributed and accounted by the commune. But things did not stop there: the commune members’ small plots, woodland, domestic animals and other privately owned assets became the property of the commune. The state transferred its jurisdiction over grain, commerce, finance and banks to people’s communes, and this move also added the elements of the ownership of all the people in people’s communes. As a rule, people’s communes operated mainly on provision of basics, and the wage system was supplementary. The communes operated public canteens in which free meals were served up. Some even supplied member households with seven to ten basic living essentials for free. In line with the ideas of Mao Zedong and other central leaders, central government documents and officials at all levels took the establishment of people’s communes as the best organizational form and concrete method to speed up socialist development and real484

Chapter 20

Premature People’s Communes Waste Money and Manpower, Causing Lasting Calamities; Communization Results in Chaos and Disunity, an Expensive Lesson

ize communism at top speed. A fashionable slogan circulating at the time read: “Communism is heaven and people’s communes are the stairway to heaven.” Urban and rural areas nationwide swiftly established people’s communes and the atmosphere of “realizing communism as soon as possible” became even more frenetic. Xushui County, the object of Mao’s inspection and praise in August, was picked by the CPC Central Committee as a trial county to bring in communism. A vice minister of the Rural Work Department of the CPC Central Committee brought a team to Xushui and formulated plans to do so. He handed out copies of Kang Youwei’s Book of Great Harmony for people to read. With detailed help from the Rural Work Department of the CPC Central Committee, provincial Party committee and prefectural Party committee, the county took less than two weeks to put forward a “magnificent plan,” a plan carried in full by local newspapers: Xushui would realize mechanization of irrigation and of processing within the year (1958); a socialist society would be basically built by 1959, starting the county’s transition to communism; by 1963, the county would realize communism and achieve a high level of mechanization and electrification, and each could take what he or she needed of the main things necessary for life. In line with this plan, the General People’s Commune of Xushui was established on September 15, the whole county and its 300,000 population becoming a single commune, its revenues and allocations controlled on a unitary basis by the commune. The supply system was applied and allowances replaced salaries for cadres, teachers, medical staff and workers. For example, county-level cadres received 16 yuan a month, township-level cadres 12 yuan, government employees and teachers 8 yuan and general workers 6 yuan. In theory. When the time came to implement the system, allowances at every level were halved due to the lack of funds. Meantime, all cadres, workers and rural residents enjoyed the free supply system which provided 15 needs, including meals, housing, clothing, shoes, socks, towels, soap, lamp oil, match, medical treatment, movies, heat, bathing, hair cutting and even funerals. Rural residents were not paid on the basis of their labor but received monthly allowances varying from 1 yuan to 3 yuan. People paraded on the streets, beating gongs and drums to celebrate the free supply system across the county and the 485

Socialism in China

Members of Weixing People’s Commune marching to work in Suiping County, Henan Province

successful transition to communism. However, the system aborted only after three months. In the dash to communism, the Xushui Party committee launched countywide great revolution in production mode and life style – “militarization in action, communization in thought, industrialization in farmland management and popularization in leading method.” At the heart of all four lay militarization. Across Xushui “socialist leap” corps were set up, the towns being the basic unit, and the town Party secretary and town chief as commander-in-chief and commissar respectively. Below them were battalions, companies, platoons and squads. Within a few days, 93 regiments, 229 battalions, 1,099 companies and 3,365 platoons were established across the county. Commune members would march to and from work in procession, all in step and shouting “Left, Right, Left.” Members started their day with a military-style briefing and a similar de-briefing took place after work. Which crop would be grown and when to start farm works were all under the command of the county Party committee. The whole county became a huge army barrack and the farmers, regardless of gender or state of health, were the soldiers. Some of them were 486

Chapter 20

Premature People’s Communes Waste Money and Manpower, Causing Lasting Calamities; Communization Results in Chaos and Disunity, an Expensive Lesson

appointed heads of squads or platoon leaders. For a while it was fun and excitement. In order to implement the communist supply system and promote socialization of housework labor, countywide 1,693 public canteens were opened, supplying free meals to 22,560 people – 70.5 percent of Xushui’s total population. Some canteens even provided a 24-7 free meal service to commune members and visitors. But such lavish spending on free canteens far exceeded what local finances could afford or agricultural productivity could sustain. It was like squandering a fortune. But the phenomenon was not confined to Xushui: across China most public canteens operated only for a few months, one or two years at the longest. It truly was a case of “here today, gone tomorrow.” In its fervor to communize, Xushui County set in motion a “wind of communism.”1 The county Party committee took all collectively-owned enterprises and private businesses into the state-owned sector; the same treatment was meted out to the means of production and means of livelihood that originally belonged to individuals. It also gave the order to move all rural residents into new villages – villages as not yet built – forcing them to dismantle the old houses. As a result, more than 33,000 households were made homeless in a freezing winter. Anyone resisting the “wind of communism” was accused of sabotaging the people’s commune and opposing communism, and would be bound up, harangued a n d e ve n b e a t e n u p. Grassroots cadres who failed to meet the schedule of communization tasks set by the county Party committee would get a written reprimand in the first instance, pro-

Tucking in at a free canteen, Longshan People’s Commune in Panshun County, Guangdong Province, 1966

1

A term used to refer to the practice during the period of the People’s Commune Movement in China in 1958. Such practice includes advocacy of equalitarianism in distribution, expropriation of free labor and personal properties. – Ed.

487

Socialism in China

gressing to suspension, sacking, and ultimately public criticism and denunciation meetings. Another exemplar of people’s communes was Fanxian County, then part of Shandong but now part of Henan Province. In an impassioned address to a 10,000-strong gathering of the county, its Party secretary announced that Fanxian would make the transition to communism by 1960. He waxed lyrical when describing plans for the two-year transition period: “We will take one year to build the local industry network and two years to realize industrialization and electrification;” “the grain yield per mu will exceed tens of thousands of jin and the stacks of harvested grain will be as high as Mount Tai;” “by 1960, all 930 natural villages will be integrated to form 25 new communist paradises,” and the county-wide communist allocation system would be implemented – from each according to ability and to each according to his need. By then, “The new communist paradises will be open, providing free meals, drink and clothes; poultry, fish and domestic animals will be raised and four dishes will be supplied at each meal; every day there will be fresh fruits to eat, and no end of different clothes to wear; heaven cannot compare with these new paradises.” The Publicity Department of the CPC Central Committee highly praised Fanxian County as an advanced role model and published its key plan to realize communism in Publicity and Education News. After reading it, Mao Zedong commented: “It’s very interesting they made their plan a poem. It may well work. Three years seem too hasty, but it doesn’t matter. If they can’t get it done by then, the schedule can be extended.” Plainly, the whole country from top to bottom, from the top leader to the common man, got the delusion into their heads that China would realize communism in a few years – a decade at most – through people’s communes and the Great Leap Forward. However, while it seemed all of China was raving, full of drunken ambition, there were a few sober minds at work. Li Da, representative at the CPC’s First National Congress, famous philosopher and then president of Wuhan University, worried about the slogans and articles carried in the People’s Daily, bragging that farmland could be made to produce as much grain as one dared strive for. When Mao Zedong came on an inspection visit to Wuhan, Li Da took the opportunity to challenge this friend of his youth. 488

Chapter 20

Premature People’s Communes Waste Money and Manpower, Causing Lasting Calamities; Communization Results in Chaos and Disunity, an Expensive Lesson

“Do you think it’s reasonable, this slogan ‘farmland can yield as much grain as you dare strive for?’” Mao replied: “It has a double meaning.” He proceeded to give instances where man’s subjective initiative sometimes could overcome seemingly impossible difficulties. The desire to fly had produced the airplane, the desire to travel long distances had resulted in the invention of the train. Li cut in: “You talk about its double meaning. But in fact you approve of it, don’t you?” Seeming a little discomforted, Mao replied: “How will it be if I approve of it and how will it be if I deny it?” Li said: “To approve of this slogan is to consider that man’s subjective initiative is without limits, and is an error. Subjective initiative comes into play only in certain circumstances … it cannot be played up ad infinitum. Now people are becoming too bold and you shouldn’t pour oil on the flames, or it will end in disaster.” “If you as a leader are hot-blooded, those below you will take it one step further, and further… The result will be a catastrophe for the people of China.” Mao’s deafness to Li’s advice finally brought an unhappy end to this conversation between two old friends. Zhou Enlai also doubted the “sputnik reports” on steel and iron output coming in from across the country, so he dispatched his secretary Gu Ming to Henan to find out what was going on. Gu Ming brought back a piece of cast iron made in a backyard furnace. Zhou sighed: “This is not iron at all.” The specimen was placed on a bookshelf in Zhou’s office. Zhou was afraid of broaching awkward questions and voicing a different opinion to Mao’s face. A few high-ranking leaders did dare speak the truth, spoke up for the people and objectively reported the serious problems and disastrous consequences created by the Great Leap Forward and the People’s Commune Movement. Among them were men like Peng Dehuai and Zhang Wentian. They were accused of being part of an anti-Party clique and suffered public denunciation and dismissal. But this is another story. The lack of democratic decision-making and correction mechanism robbed the Party and government of the ability and opportunity to discover its errors and put them right promptly. 489

Socialism in China

Meeting between Mao Zedong and the Marxist philosopher Li Da, April 1958

The People’s Commune Movement was the product of dissociation from the contemporary productive force development, of blind and one-sided pursuit of reforming relations, of trying to leapfrog the socialist development stage. Looking back on that period of our history, after the founding of New China, Chinese farmers enjoyed the results of the land reform of the New Democratic Revolution and were able to farm on their own farmland as they chose, freely disposing of their harvest. The dream of their ancestors had come true and they were fired with unprecedented zeal to produce, to improve their own lives and contribute to their country and society. However, after just two or three years of owning their own farmland (conditions were different in old and new liberated areas), the liberated farmers were led to the path of mutual-aid groups and primary production cooperatives. These forms of production were small-scale organization that recognized and respected farmers’ private rights and interests over land and other means of production. Both forms were warmly welcomed by farmers as they matched the productivity level of small-scale peasant economy in rural areas and promoted the development of rural productive forces. 490

Chapter 20

Premature People’s Communes Waste Money and Manpower, Causing Lasting Calamities; Communization Results in Chaos and Disunity, an Expensive Lesson

But this promising situation was short-lived. Primary production cooperatives operated for only a year before being hastily transformed into advanced cooperatives one year later. Actually, advanced cooperatives were already collectivized, not cooperatively owned. It was a change from farmers’ private ownership over land and other means of production. Furthermore, grouping one or two hundreds of farmers to work on production was not suited to the conditions of agricultural production in most areas of China at that time. It was not beneficial for organizing and managing agricultural production, nor did it help stimulate enthusiasm to produce, or promote rural productivity. Objectively speaking, the primary production cooperatives had been a “rash advance,” and the advanced cooperatives were even more so. But even before they had got a firm foothold they were hastily superseded as the People’s Commune Movement swept China and communes were established in all rural areas within the span of two months. Mao Zedong and other leaders were fixated on productive relations and stubbornly believed that continuous changes in productive relations could speed the development of the productive force. What they did not realize is that divorce from the level and the development needs of the productive force and putting the productive relation ahead of the productive force would hinder and destroy development of the latter. Besides, in the early stage of the communes, they operated the system of equal ownership, with central allocation and accounting, leveling out the disparity between wealthy and poor cooperatives and mutual-aid groups, thereby allowing the poorer groups to share the wealth of the richer ones. Communes not only took over private plots, domestic animals and farm tools from cooperatives and mutual-aid groups but also appropriated without recompense their materials and labor forces. In terms of allocation, the communes unrealistically operated the free supply system and opened public canteens providing free meals. These policies and measures severely violated the peasants’ interests, dampened their enthusiasm to produce and destroyed rural productivity. Analyzed in terms of its ideological and theoretical origins, the People’s Commune Movement was the mixed result of utopian socialism and “Leftist thought” advocating a hasty transition into communist society. 491

Socialism in China

The word “commune” originated in medieval Europe and referred to a politically autonomous urban organization in Western Europe. After the French Revolution succeeded, the Jacobins advocated restoring the commune system in France. Between 1824 and 1828, Robert Owen, a British utopian socialist sold off his factory and property to raise substantial funds, and crossed the Atlantic to America with his followers. In Indiana he purchased 30,000 acres of land to conduct an experiment in establishing a future ideal society and named the community-level organization of the ideal society “New Harmony.” The commune designed by Robert Owen consisted of 2,000 to 3,000 people and was an organization for production and living, one in which industry, agriculture, commerce and education were integrated. Apart from private daily items, the property of its members became owned by the commune; everyone collectively participated in production labor organized by the commune and all products were distributed according to need; its members had free meals in the public canteen and obtained free daily necessities from the commune warehouse. Marx and Engels also used “commune” as the name of the communitylevel organization of the communist society they envisaged. In the early stage after the October Revolution, Russia forcibly promoted agricultural communes, which was praised by Lenin as a name resonant with the concepts of communism. However, they only survived three years. Lenin and the Central Committee of the CPSU decided to abandon agricultural communes in favor of new economic policies that allowed farmers to farm their own land as they wished and dispose of the output at their own discretion. As an open-minded young man, Mao Zedong studied hard in order to transform China. He read many books written by Chinese and foreign utopian socialists. As a student at the First Normal College of Changsha, on weekends and holidays, Mao, together with his friends Cai Hesen, Zhang Kundi and Chen Shunong would swim in the Xiangjiang River and visit Juzizhou Isle and the Aiwan Pavilion on Yuelu Mountain. They commented on political affairs and mapped out China’s future, discussing the blueprint for a future ideal society. During the summer and autumn of 1919, Mao Zedong, Cai Hesen and their friends negotiated to select a place on the Yuelu Mountain to build a “New Village” as an experiment in building a new society. In December of the same 492

Chapter 20

Premature People’s Communes Waste Money and Manpower, Causing Lasting Calamities; Communization Results in Chaos and Disunity, an Expensive Lesson

year, Mao Zedong published an article in the first volume of Hunan Education to introduce his ideas for “New Village.” It would encompass gardening, farming, tree planting, herding, mulberry growing and the raising of chickens and fish; it would have a public kindergarten, nursing home, school, library, bank, hospital, park, museum and self-rule meeting. Limited by environmental conditions they could not raise enough funds, so gave up their idea to build “New Village.” However, the seeds took root in Mao’s mind. Now in his middle years, and as the top leader wielding supreme power, Mao Zedong returned to his long-standing dream to build “communes” and “new villages.” At the Beidaihe meeting to discuss the document about establishing people’s communes, Mao expressed his opinions without hesitation: “We should put some ideas of utopian socialism into practice.” Mao’s conception to establish people’s communes has many points of identity, similarity or correspondence with the ideas and experiments in Kang Youwei’s Book of Great Harmony and of utopian socialists in 18th-century Europe. There is no doubting the sincerity of Mao Zedong’s idealism: throughout his life, he fought unswervingly and energetically to realize his ideals and beliefs. However, no matter how sincere and unremitting he was, once his ideas became divorced from objective conditions and went against objective laws of social development, they were bound to end up in utopianism and failure. He was not alone in this: others among the central leadership became disconnected from realities in their impatience to achieve hasty transition to communism. Nor were the CPC leaders the only ones: in the history of the international communist movement, the rush to realize socialism and communism was a common phenomenon: Marx and Engels several times predicted the imminent arrival of socialist revolution and communism; after the Russian Revolution, Vladimir Lenin lost no time in putting into practice the socialist and communist ideology of Marx and Engels and implemented military communist policies; in the mid-1930s Stalin declared that the Soviet Union had achieved socialism and could now transit into communism. These fine aspirations had to run up against frustration and failure in practice before a forced return to reality. The reasons are many and various, but one important reason is: idealists hope for and are eager to see the beliefs and ideas for which they fight become reality as soon as possible, aspirations that can engender over-eagerness 493

Socialism in China

for quick results and a propensity for rash advance that ignore the limits of objective laws and conditions. It is also a lesson these pioneers left for later generations: to be a sincere and unwavering idealist who is at the same time sober-minded and practical is no easy task. By autumn of 1958, Mao Zedong was becoming aware of the problems caused by the Great Leap Forward and the People’s Commune Movement and set out to investigate, adjust and correct. In early-mid October, numerous briefings and reports made Mao Zedong aware of problems in the iron and steel campaign and the People’s Commune Movement in some areas, problems of subjectivism, forcible orders, rough and violent treatment of people, false reporting of output, and wildly unrealistic sloganizing. He immediately dispatched leaders of related departments to Henan to investigate. In mid-November, Mao Zedong took his special train to inspect Xiaogan in Hubei Province. He invited the Party secretary and deputy secretary of Hubei Province, secretaries at prefectural and county levels and two representatives of workers and farmers to his train to have a discussion. The prefecture and county secretaries complained about the grain targets being hiked at every level of command, the Central Committee putting pressure on the provincial Party committees, and the provincial Party committees putting pressure on the locality, resulting in quite unreachable goals. A female worker representative admitted that the output target set by the superior was “a million miles” from the real output. The farmer representative told the Chairman that the actual output had to be exaggerated or it would not make the news, and the reason for this was the cumulative effect of one level pressurizing the next one down. Ordinary folk were going hungry for lack of grain. “The abacus clicks and the tears start to trickle.” He hoped the Central Committee would seek truth from facts. Holding back his tears in his eyes, Mao Zedong comforted them: “You ask me to be practical and realistic, and I ask the same of you. I should not have approved the grain target of 60 billion jin in Hubei. This figure is subjective and bureaucratic. As Chairman of the Central Committee I am to blame for this.” After the grassroots cadres and people’s representatives left, Mao told all the Party secretaries: “What good people they are! We’ve let them down.” “To 494

Chapter 20

Premature People’s Communes Waste Money and Manpower, Causing Lasting Calamities; Communization Results in Chaos and Disunity, an Expensive Lesson

quote the Tang poet Wei Yingwu, ‘I am ashamed to get my official salary if there are homeless on the streets.’ Now, my mood is: ‘I shall have a lifetime of shame if there are homeless in this country.’” During another conversation with leaders from several provinces, Mao used the term “wind of communism” for the first time to criticize the deviation and faults of the People’s Commune Movement. He pointed out the substance of the “wind of communism”: first, equalizing the poor and the wealthy; second, excessive reserves and imposing too much obligatory labor; third, turning private belongings into public property. Harshly criticizing “the effect of allowing certain people to appropriate without recompensing the fruits of other people’s toil” he demanded Party committees and governments at all levels to rein in such practice. Following his personal investigation and first-hand interviews, Mao Zedong made a decision to step off the gas. In early November 1958, addressing a meeting in Zhengzhou attended by some central leaders and local heads, he stressed the importance of distinguishing between state ownership and collective ownership, and between communism and socialism – the two should not be muddled up; he criticized incorrect moves to hastily change collectivelyowned people’s communes into state-owned ones, transform socialism into communism in a rash way and abolish commodity production. At the following enlarged meeting of the Wuhan CPC Political Bureau and the Sixth Plenary Session of the Eighth CPC Central Committee, Mao reflected on issues concerning the speed of transition to communism and communism building. He pointedly remarked: “Now we’re exaggerating too much and, to my mind, breaking away from reality and not reflecting objective conditions;” “the pursuit of empty reputation must not be allowed to result in real disasters;” he explicitly proposed: “In industry, water conservancy, grain and other tasks, we should make appropriate reductions to targets.” Mao Zedong also reflected on problems in the People’s Commune Movement, chairing the Sixth Plenary Session of the Eighth CPC Central Committee to formulate the “Resolution on Several Issues of the People’s Communes” (the Resolution). This had high praise for the nationwide thriving of the People’s Commune Movement. At the same time it warned against the erroneous beliefs of people’s communes being state-owned entities, the hasty 495

Socialism in China

transition to communism, the possibility of implementing communist allocation principles, that commodity exchange was no longer needed. It pointed out that, given China’s low development level, it was groundless and inappropriate to declare rural people’s communes to be state-owned and transformed to communism. It also pointed out that people’s communes were economic organizations in collective ownership; it was utopianism and premature to deny the principle of income distribution according to labor in favor of income distribution according to need and to declare the realization of communism before conditions were ripe; the whole Party must be aware that continuing to develop commodity production and continuing to maintain the principle of income distribution according to labor were two important issues of principle for the development of socialist economy. After the Sixth Plenary Session of the Eighth CPC Central Committee, work to rectify people’s communes was carried out across the country. While it did basically slow the momentum in the hasty transition to state ownership and communism, the tendencies of egalitarianism and excessive centralization persisted within the people’s communes. Farmers dissatisfied with the Party and government remained resentful as the communes equalized the poor and the wealthy and centralized too much resources. Mao Zedong noticed these problems during his nationwide inspections and decided to start by classifying the ownership of people’s communes to further correct the “wind of communism” so as to safeguard and mobilize the farmers’ enthusiasm for production. During the first half of 1959, at the Second Zhengzhou Meeting and the Seventh Plenary Session of the Eighth CPC Central Committee, Mao Zedong further criticized the trend toward excessive centralization and the “wind of communism” emerging in the communization process. He sternly pointed out: egalitarian deviation denied reasonable income differences between production teams and individuals, and also denied the socialist principles of distribution according to labor and more pay for more work; excessive centralization denied the ownership and due rights of production teams, and absorption into the commune of property owned by the production teams negated both the law of value and the idea of equal-value exchange. In order to correct the two wrong tendencies, Mao Zedong put forward a guideline to 496

Chapter 20

Premature People’s Communes Waste Money and Manpower, Causing Lasting Calamities; Communization Results in Chaos and Disunity, an Expensive Lesson

rectify and develop people’s communes: “There should be united leadership, with production teams as the foundation; management by different levels, empowering the subordinate; introducing three-level accounting with each level accountable for profit and loss; determining distribution plans by the commune, accumulating properly and adjusting reasonably; exchanging materials and labor on an equal-value basis; allocating on the basis of labor given, accepting income differences.” This practical guideline played a significant role in correcting the Leftist tendencies of the “wind of communism” during the People’s Commune Movement. The Central Committee also delivered an emergency order to rural areas that residual private plots should be restored, to permit commune members to raise poultry and domestic animals, and encourage them to fully exploit the bits and pieces of land by their houses and road verges to grow crops and trees without having to share the output with the state. These measures had a degree of success in arousing enthusiasm for developing production. In terms of building up industry, Chen Yun was tasked by the CPC Central Committee and Mao Zedong to conduct a special survey on the targets for iron and steel output. His recommendation to reduce the original 1959 steel output target of 18 million tons to 13 million tons was adopted by the Political Bureau. The State Council also ordered to cut the number of largescale construction projects. Between the first Zhengzhou Meeting in November 1958 and June 1959, the CPC Central Committee convened a number of meetings proposed and chaired by Mao Zedong. A series of orders came down that achieved a measure of success in curbing the “wind of communism,” the extravagant boasting, the fantasy targets and blind command in the Great Leap Forward and the People’s Commune Movement. The economic situation took a turn for the better. As soon as he became aware of the mistakes in the Great Leap Forward and the People’s Commune Movement, Mao Zedong took action to correct the deviation and set out to adjust polices, rectify errors and solve existing problems. However, Mao Zedong and other leaders still did not realize the seriousness of the Leftist mistakes, nor did they discard the guiding ideology that required quick development, rapid achievements and a hasty transition to socialism and even communism. For example, resolutions of the Sixth and Seventh Plenary Sessions of the Eighth 497

Socialism in China

CPC Central Committee still held opinions that “the transition from the collective ownership system to one of state ownership is not too far to reach.” The timetable for transition was extended by only five years – from 15 to 20. They affirmed the supply system and free public canteens and stressed that they should continue. Mao Zedong’s comments on the Biography of Zhang Lu1, he had printed and handed out at the meeting still praised agrarian socialism and utopian socialism. On the whole, Mao Zedong and the Central Committee still adhered to the Leftist guiding thoughts of the Great Leap Forward and People’s Commune Movement. Because of this the reckless Leftist mistakes were not and could not be completely eliminated. Once the social and economic crisis passed, Leftist thoughts would invariably re-emerge and give rise to even greater calamities. The lessons to be drawn from the Great Leap Forward and the People’s Commune Movement deserve deep reflection. The Great Leap Forward and the People’s Commune Movement were the implementation on a large-scale of Mao Zedong’s thoughts on how to develop socialism and what kind of socialism should be built in China. But they were failures. Mao himself admitted he suffered failure. This failure warns us that building socialism must respect people’s willingness, follow objective laws, consciously act in line with laws of economic and social development and adopt corresponding policies and measures. We should never ever repeat the mistakes committed in the Great Leap Forward and People’s Commune Movement: top-down coercive administrative orders, internal Party conflict, launching mass political campaigns, “public debates” (denunciation of cadres and people). Nor, in applying strong political pressure to get dissidents to conform or to force through a particular socio-economic policy, should there be recourse to such means as demoting, dismissing, and sacking – even trussing and beating up people. To build socialism we must follow the Marxist principle that productive force determines productive relations; we should also remember that the theo-

1

ner.

498

Zhang Lu was a Han Dynasty warlord exercising power in a humane and civilized man-

Chapter 20

Premature People’s Communes Waste Money and Manpower, Causing Lasting Calamities; Communization Results in Chaos and Disunity, an Expensive Lesson

ry of permanent revolution should be united with the theory of revolutionary development in stages, and never one-sidedly transform productive relations beyond the level and development of social productive force. The lesson of the Great Leap Forward and People’s Commune Movement is that huge damage was inflicted on the productive force by ignoring its level and believing that constant and rapid changes in productive relations and the dominance of the state-owned sector could promote its swift development. Another profound and related lesson is that we should not one-sidedly stress permanent revolution and neglect the relative stability of different stages of social development by pursuing hasty transition to socialism and communism beyond the stage of social development and before conditions are ripe. To do otherwise means more haste less speed and will incur punishment by objective laws. The fundamental mistake of the two movements was the utopian dream of racing into communism by leap-frogging the stage of socialism. Reflecting further, we will find that the most fundamental reason for the most serious mistake in the Great Leap Forward and People’s Commune Movement was a problem of political system and mechanisms. The political life of the Party and state lacked any system to guarantee collective leadership, to guarantee the reflection of people’s wishes, to guarantee the reasonable allocation of political power, or for essential limiting and effective supervision of power. It lacked a system for helping leaders make democratic and scientific decisions and correct their wrong decisions in timely and effective manner. After the founding of New China, Mao’s personal prestige inside the Party and the country at large kept climbing to greater and greater heights, and in policy decisions on politics and the economy Mao Zedong’s opinions and wishes held the paramount position. Mao had the final say in important decisions of the Party and the country and could change, off his own bat and without going through legal process, decisions of the collective leadership. Even when some legal process was conducted, it was just window dressing and had no effective restriction and supervision function. The other members of the collective leadership acquiesced, not daring to oppose him even if they knew he was wrong. Those who did seek truth from facts and spoke up for the people lay themselves open to persecution and various groundless charges. 499

Socialism in China

Looking back on this period, some are of the opinion that though the Great Leap Forward and the People’s Commune Movement, elements of the “Three Red Flags”, should basically be denied, the third element – the General Line – should be affirmed, since it advocated going all out and aiming high to build socialism in fast and economic fashion. Doubtlessly, the General Line had benign intentions and reflected the Chinese people’s urgent desire to change China’s backward economy and culture. That said, when measuring a social policy, one cannot examine solely the motivation behind that policy; one must also examine its social impact, whether it promoted or impeded social productivity, people’s lives and advanced social civilization. After all, practice is the sole criterion for testing truth. Based on this criterion, at that time “fast” was the soul of the General Line and high speed was central to it. Looking at its actual results, reckless pursuit of “fast” and unrealistically high speed did not bring about the “better” and the “economic” aspects of the General Line for building socialism. In fact they were more than useless: they severely damaged resources and environment, squandered manpower and materials and actually brought down quality. Three years of the Great Leap Forward and People’s Commune Movement did not deliver rapid economic development; they left in their wake a huge downturn in the main economic indicators; the next three years would be marked by severe economic difficulty for the nation and widespread famine as a result. Furthermore, the “Three Red Flags” were an indivisible entity. The General Line was the mobilization order and guideline for the Great Leap Forward and People’s Commune Movement; the Great Leap Forward was the inevitable product of the General Line and the main vehicle for its implementations; the people’s commune was a specific organizational form to carry out the General Line and realize the Great Leap Forward. So, how can one single out the General Line for approval and deny the two other “flags”? As its main vehicle and organizational form respectively, the Great Leap Forward and People’s Commune Movement cannot be separated from the General Line. As it says in the Volume II Book one of the History of the Chinese Communist Party, this General Line was shaped in the campaign to oppose criticism of rash advance; it was made in the ideological context of pursuing quick results and rash advance, and hence mistakenly stressed speed of economic development above all, ex500

Chapter 20

Premature People’s Communes Waste Money and Manpower, Causing Lasting Calamities; Communization Results in Chaos and Disunity, an Expensive Lesson

aggerated the role of man’s subjective motivation and effort, and neglected the principles that economic development must follow objective laws, one must do what one is able to, and seek truth from facts. As the poem puts it: Hot-headed bragging, flouting objective laws, Was sure to end in punishment; One skyward leap to achieve a dream, The Commune Movement is still blamed today. ๰ି‫ه‬ಫॹվߍĭ ຼٙ݇੸ᇜൻ‫و‬h ၊Ҍְ็଺ॗ૛ĭ ᇈ࣊ಮᄄ‫܌‬നߌh To learn about the fierce disputes around the “Three Red Flags,” you must turn to the next chapter.

501

Chapter 21

Overnight Change of Direction at the Lushan Conference, from Correcting Leftist Mistakes to Fighting Rightist Opportunism; the Anti-Rightist Storm Surges across the Country, Millions of Innocents Are Wronged

Wild exaggeration during the Great Leap Forward and the “wind of communism” of the People’s Commune Movement got people worked up; the consequent wholesale requisitioning of grain and coercive actions led to widespread complaints and discontent among the people. The harsh consequences of these campaigns started making their presence felt between late 1958 and early 1959. These caused great concern to the Party Central Committee and Mao Zedong, who immediately looked into the new problems and adjusted policies in an attempt to resolve them. In June 1959, Mao Zedong went south in a special train, inspecting the situations in Hebei, Henan, Hubei and Hunan provinces. On June 25, he arrived in Changsha, capital of his native Hunan Province, and returned to his hometown of Shaoshan in Xiangtan County, a place he left 32 years before. In Shaoshan, Mao Zedong listened to reports from local officials and visited several farmers’ homes. He also made a special trip of homage to the graves of his parents. That evening, he invited his kinfolk, families of army martyrs and veterans of undercover work for the Party for a meal and a chat, talking freely of old times and revolutionary friendship. On June 28, Mao arrived in Wuhan in Hubei Province. There he was joined successively by several members of the central leadership and those in charge 502

Chapter 21

Overnight Change of Direction at the Lushan Conference, from Correcting Leftist Mistakes to Fighting Rightist Opportunism; the Anti-Rightist Storm Surges across the Country, Millions of Innocents Are Wronged

of large regions. Aboard the steamer Dong Fang Hong, as it made its way down the Yangtze River towards Jiujiang and arriving at Lushan, Mao talked with his fellow passengers including Ke Qingshi, Li Jingquan, Lin Tie, Ouyang Qin and Zhang Desheng, seeking their views about the prevailing situation and discussing the agenda for the Lushan Conference. After the meeting, Mao Zedong went up to the deck. Gusts of wind off the river stirred his mind, reviving images of his conversations with his fellow villagers in Shaoshan, with their voices echoing in his ears: “We farmers don’t have enough food to eat, but even so we have to hand over our crops and there’s virtually nothing left. Many people are starving now.” “Some cadres just bark out orders and there’s no reasoning with them.” “If you don’t or simply can’t hand over grain, then you’ll get a beating and a cursing.” “We now all have to eat at the canteen. Men and women must live separately. Since ancient times, in every family husband and wife have lived together and cared for each other. Now couples are being split up, what sort of life is that? Chairman, please tell us who ordered this?” The villagers’ candid and harsh words at the hometown meeting gave Mao much to ponder. The previous autumn he had become aware of the practices condemned by his Shaoshan folks and had made arrangements and plans to put them right. At several meetings, he had called for a reduction in the overheated rhetoric, adjusting targets for steel and grain production, correcting the problems in the people’s communes and the rising authoritarianism. On two occasions, he wrote to each provincial CPC first secretary, urging officials at each level to implement the Central Committee’s policies, which were: to regard each production team as a basic accounting unit and each smaller production team as a contracting production unit; the requisitioned private property of commune members was to be returned to them; telling community-level cadres and the masses the truth and correcting our mistakes in the early-stage people’s communes. At a meeting of first Party secretaries of provinces, municipalities and autonomous regions held earlier in the year, Mao had admitted: “As for economic construction, we remain immature and inexperienced. We lack proper strategies and tactics. We should acknowledge these shortcomings and the errors we made. As for following objective laws and developing proportion503

Socialism in China

ally, we still haven’t cracked that.” At the recommendation of Chen Yun and others in May and June, the central authorities issued a series of urgent instructions to cut that year’s steel output target from 18 to 13 million tons; to restore villagers’ private-use lands; to allow commune members to raise livestock and poultry; and to encourage them to plant crops and trees on scattered lands around their houses or on roadside margins. However, judging from the situation in the southern provinces, particularly in Mao’s hometown of Shaoshan, the farmers were unaware of the central authorities’ efforts to correct things. Such changes had not been made at the grassroots level. The Lushan Conference should go further in rectifying Leftist rash advance and related problems. It was already evening when the boat docked in Jiujiang, Jiangxi Province. The next morning, Mao rose early, a departure from his usual habit of sleeping late and rising late. He rode from Jiujiang in a Soviet-made Jim sedan, zigzagging along the mountain road, heading north to Lushan Mountain. Along the way, he saw high cliffs, deep valleys, ramrod-straight cedars and green pines. Halfway into the trip the radiator overheated, so the car had to stop for water. Mao Zedong got out and took a stroll along the road. Gazing ahead, he saw the Yangtze flowing eastward, like a long ribbon of cloth suspended between heaven and earth. He looked down and saw patchwork fields and cooking smoke, as if in a fairyland. He asked casually: “How many bends does this road have?” The person in charge of Jiujiang City travelling with him replied: “Nearly 400. They counted the number when they built the road.” Once the car radiator was replenished, the party drove on, and after a couple of kilometers, the view opened out before them. Far off, waves rippled the vast blue waters of Poyang Lake, and the slopes of the sleepy mountains looked like green brocade. The mountain and the lake feasted his eyes, and then there were red cliffs and green ravines – views to intoxicate his heart. With half an eye on the view, Mao chatted with Li Xiannian, Luo Ruiqing and others as they drove through the Wujiapo, Xiaotiandi, Yuezhaofeng tunnels and Gulin Road, and reached the villa at 180 Gulinhe East Road. This villa, the Meilu Villa, was named after Soong May-ling, the wife of Chiang Kai-shek. It had been given by a friend in the 1930s and the couple 504

Chapter 21

Overnight Change of Direction at the Lushan Conference, from Correcting Leftist Mistakes to Fighting Rightist Opportunism; the Anti-Rightist Storm Surges across the Country, Millions of Innocents Are Wronged

had stayed there several times. Entering the villa, Mao Zedong felt relaxed and joked: “Long time no see, Generalissimo Chiang.” How true is the saying, “All things change, but the mountains and rivers stay the same.” About 20 years earlier at this villa, Chiang Kai-shek convened many meetings with military generals, at which he gave orders to mobilize several hundred thousand KMT troops to attack the Central Soviet Region and the Red Army, between 300 and 400 km away at that time. He also offered bounties for the arrest of Zhu De and Mao Zedong. Now, the tables were turned: the once weak Communist Party of China had taken the country and driven Chiang and the KMT to an island off the southeast coast of China. Early next day, Mao Zedong basked in the sunshine in the villa’s secondfloor study, enjoying the mountain breeze. He was inspired to write a short poem Ascent of Lushan Mountain: Perching as after flight, the mountain towers over the Yangtze; I have overleapt four hundred twists to its green crest. Cold-eyed I survey the world beyond the seas; Hot sweat of men spatters on the sky-brooded waters. Clouds cluster over the nine streams, the yellow crane floating, And billows roll on to the eastern coast, white foam flying. Tao Qian was tired of serving the Yuan Dynasty, Retired into simple rural life. Later, Mao Zedong accepted advice from Guo Moruo and others, changing “Hot sweat of men spatters” to “A hot wind spatters raindrops.” The last two lines were also revised to “Who knows where Prefect Tao Yuanming is going /Perhaps he is going to till fields in the Land of Peach Blossoms.” Mao Zedong bequeathed a famous poem to the world, a song of praise for Lushan and for times past. Two days later, on July 1, Peng Dehuai and other leaders took a train from Beijing to Wuhan, and then boarded a ship to Jiujiang, where they arrived in the early morning, then took the car up to Lushan. Heavy-hearted, Peng Dehuai spoke little on the way. He had led a military delegation to Eastern Europe in May, returned to Beijing in mid-June. Exhausted, he had wanted to request sick leave and sent Huang Kecheng, sec505

Socialism in China

retary of the Central Military Commission and chief of staff, to stand in for him at Lushan, but had been prevailed upon to attend in person. On the train to Wuhan, in conversation with He Long, Li Fuchun, Kang Sheng and others, Peng Dehuai said: “Even though the Hungarians eat 40 kg of meat a year, the Hungarian Incident still broke out. If the Chinese workers and farmers were not so obedient, they would have rebelled against the Red Army.” Little did he know this throwaway remark would be brandished as evidence of his treason at the Lushan Conference.

Peng Dehuai talking to people during his investigation in Hunan in 1958

506

Chapter 21

Overnight Change of Direction at the Lushan Conference, from Correcting Leftist Mistakes to Fighting Rightist Opportunism; the Anti-Rightist Storm Surges across the Country, Millions of Innocents Are Wronged

On the train through Hebei, Henan and Hubei provinces, Peng had seen groups of farmers fleeing from famine: they were ragged, sallow, emaciated and starving. He recalled his trip to his hometown Wushi of Xiangtan, Shaoshan, Zhuzhou and elsewhere, seeing and hearing about the disasters the Great Leap Forward, the “wind of communism” and authoritarianism in the people’s communes brought to people. At a seminar in Pingjiang, an old revolutionary area, a crippled Red Army veteran secretly passed him a note with a popular ballad. Grain scattered on the ground, potato leaves withered; Strong young people have left to make steel; Only children and old women reap the crops; How can they pass the coming year? Please raise your voice for the people. His worries robbed him of all appetite. From Jiujiang to Lushan Mountain, depressed and silent, Peng was in no mood for scenic appreciation. Up the mountain, Peng Dehuai stayed in a single-story house on 166 Hedong Road. In the evening, other leaders and staff went to watch movies or shows, to dance, or to play chess or cards. He shut the door and began studying documents and materials about other areas in preparation for his speech. On July 2 at Villa 446, Mao Zedong held an enlarged Political Bureau meeting of more than 70 people. Chen Yun, Lin Biao and Deng Xiaoping all asked for sick leave. Mao opened with a keynote speech, which specified that the meeting would further summarize experiences and lessons since 1958, unify the Party members’ views on the domestic situation and adjust some of the targets to accomplish a continued leap forward in 1959; put forward 19 problems for discussion, focusing on how to assess domestic situation since 1958; and draw lessons and decide the next steps. Concerning the domestic situation, Mao Zedong said: “In brief, there were great achievements as well as some problems, but the future is bright.” Though there were problems, they were insignificant compared with the overall achievements. The current problem was to unify thoughts, arouse enthusiasm and keep forging ahead. 507

Socialism in China

Regarding the lessons, Mao Zedong pointed out: “One lesson from the Great Leap Forward was our failure to achieve overall balance. Last year, we did some stupid things. In our blind approach, we aimed to achieve in one year what should have taken several years.” Regarding the future, Mao Zedong emphasized, “The General Line, the Great Leap Forward and the People’s Commune Movement should be affirmed and not undermined; the 15-year target of overtaking Britain in output of major products should stay the same; the people’s commune canteens should be managed well, not dissolved at a shout, and the free supply system should not be denied; to plan for national economic development, the priority order should be agriculture, light industry, heavy industry and transportation industry. Mao’s remarks set the tone for the meeting and a baseline for evaluating the problems and mistakes during the previous two years. The first few days were organized on a regional basis, divided into six groups. The atmosphere was lively and relaxed. In the daytime, participants joined in discussions and meetings; at night, they went to the movies, danced, played cards and chess or dropped in on each other for informal chats. The Lushan Conference was considered shallow and lighthearted. Liu Shaoqi attended the discussion of the Central and Southern China group and said: “In 1958, we scored achievements in the Great Leap Forward but made a few mess-ups too. As long as we turn around once we hit the nail, we would be fine.” In the discussion, Zhu De said, “Last year’s achievements were great, but the fact that farmers are both workers and owners of property was not adequately considered. Communization came a little too early. The canteens should not have been set up so soon. How could it work if it was all free lunch? Even if the canteens failed, it might not be a bad thing. We should allow farmers to get rich rather than to lead them to poverty. As for industry, it was mainly the craze for making steel that messed things up. The industrial target was too high, and everybody rushed to contribute to it. What a waste!” Speaking in the Northwest Region discussion group, Peng Dehuai also strongly affirmed the great achievements made during the past year or so, 508

Chapter 21

Overnight Change of Direction at the Lushan Conference, from Correcting Leftist Mistakes to Fighting Rightist Opportunism; the Anti-Rightist Storm Surges across the Country, Millions of Innocents Are Wronged

but pointed out that the impact of errors made in one short period (September to November) would persist beyond three months. The lessons were thus precious. If common understanding was achieved, then all would be unified. He also pointed out existing problems and lessons, and was objective but sharp: “Since the Anti-Rightist Campaign in 1957, a series of political and economic victories earned the Party high prestige. But the successes have gone to our heads and made us rash.” “After the Beidaihe Meeting, a Leftist campaign got underway – ‘let all the people smelt steel.’ Was this a correct slogan?” “The people’s communes, in my view, were set up too early. The advanced cooperatives were hardly given a chance to play to their strengths before there was a leap to communization without any testing.” “Also such a big issue as eating for free went ahead without a pilot scheme.” “To draw experiences and lessons, don’t blame or seek accountability. Everybody should be held accountable and share the responsibility, including Comrade Mao Zedong. The 1070 (10.7-million-tons steel output target for 1958) was decided by Chairman Mao. How can he not be accountable? I had a share too; at least, I did not oppose it.” “Inside our Party, a Leftist error is hard to rectify, while a Rightist one is easy. Once Leftists dominate, people feel too intimidated to speak up.” “Currently, decisions are not decided by the collective leadership of Party committees, but by one person. The first secretary has the final say and what the second decides is not taken into account. It is abnormal and dangerous to establish individual prestige rather than the collective one.” The note taker present did Peng Dehuai a favor by not including his sharp words and comments on Mao Zedong in the briefing notes. However, they did reach the ears of Southeast Region secretary Ke Qingshi, who relayed the sharper ones to Mao Zedong directly. Zhou Xiaozhou, First Secretary of the CPC Hunan Provincial Committee, spoke at the Central and Southern China group: The situation is not too optimistic. The communes had been established in order to change the way of production in agriculture to speed up agricultural development to support 509

Socialism in China

industrial development, but everything was happening too fast, on too big a scale, too all-encompassing. He also listed six reasons against free-of-charge canteens in the communes. A few days into the meeting, marked divergence emerged concerning the situation and lessons learned from the past year or so. On the evening of the 10th, Mao Zedong summoned the members of the Political Bureau to a meeting, listening to reports on the regional groups’ discussions. In a long speech, Mao admitted that the plan for 1958 had been somewhat too ambitious, with too many projects and high expectations for agricultural output. There had been errors and demerits in establishing the communes and the “wind of communism.” However, he disagreed that the lost outweighed the gains from the Great Leap Forward, reiterating that the lost and gains should be compared to that of one finger (three at most) to all the other fingers. There were mainly achievements, and the errors were not a big deal. Furthermore, following the two Zhengzhou meetings, the Wuchang Meeting, and the Shanghai Meeting and now this Lushan Conference, the problems were gradually being solved. He emphasized the importance of solidarity within the Party: unifying the thinking and forming consistent views towards the situation. He said the Lushan Conference was scheduled to continue until the 15th, and asked people to draft the minutes. Peng Dehuai saw Mao Zedong not paying enough attention to the seriousness of the problems caused by the Great Leap Forward and the People’s Commune Movement, and not trying hard to figure out the causes and lessons. Worried that this meeting would conclude hastily without solving serious existing problems, and that the people had more suffering ahead, Peng could not eat or drink: he tossed and turned on his bed, unable to fall asleep. On the afternoon of the 12th, Peng Dehuai walked to Meilu Villa, hoping to present his views to Mao face to face, and get him to pay more attention to these problems and to correct them by coming out to speak himself. But, to his surprise, he was barred by Mao’s security guard, saying that the Chairman was sleeping. Peng thought back to wartime when he and Mao were very close: back then, when there was something urgent, he could go to Mao by entering his place directly, even when Mao was still sleeping, he 510

Chapter 21

Overnight Change of Direction at the Lushan Conference, from Correcting Leftist Mistakes to Fighting Rightist Opportunism; the Anti-Rightist Storm Surges across the Country, Millions of Innocents Are Wronged

could wake him up to talk. But he understood that things were different now, and he could only leave. Unable to meet Mao face to face, Peng Dehuai was afraid that the problems would be delayed giving that the meeting would end in two to three days. Thus, he decided to write to Mao through a letter. On the afternoon of the 13th, having prepared the outlines, he dictated the letter to his staff officer Wang Chengguang. Peng revised the letter twice, then on the afternoon of the 14th, asked Wang to write out the final version, signed it, and had it sent to Mao Zedong’s secretary. Informed that the letter had been received, feeling a weight lifted from his shoulders, Peng Dehuai kept saying: “Good, good. Good that the letter has been received.” Little did he know that this letter would lead to a furious struggle within the Party, and would bring terrible disaster for him personally. Peng Dehuai’s letter was comprised of around six thousand words, not the rumored “10,000-word letter.” It was divided into two parts, pointing out the

Peng Dehuai’s letter to Mao Zedong

511

Socialism in China

problems while acknowledging the achievements, and summarizing lessons learned. At the outset, he humbly compared himself to the rough and ready historical warrior Zhang Fei who lacked refinement. The purpose of this letter was for Mao Zedong’s reference alone, “Please instruct if there is anything inappropriate.” In the first part, Peng Dehuai discussed his views on the situation. He fully affirmed, “The achievements of the Great Leap Forward in 1958 are beyond doubt,” and “Such rapid growth was unprecedented in the world and broke the rules for the speed of socialist construction;” “Establishing communes in rural areas in 1958 was extremely significant,” and “Though there was a chaotic period regarding the ownership issue, plus some errors and demerits in the details, but the errors were basically resolved through the meetings in Wuchang, Zhengzhou and Shanghai;” “In the campaign to get everyone to make steel, there were too many backyard furnaces being built, wasting (material and fiscal) resources and manpower. Of course there was quite a big loss,” however, “even in this aspect, there were both gains and losses.” In the second part of the letter, Peng Dehuai discussed his views on the lessons of 1958. “In my opinion, some errors could hardly have been avoided in the 1958 Great Leap Forward... However, it has affected the relationship between the workers and farmers, among the urban classes, and among rural classes, and is therefore political in character. These are keys in mobilizing the people to achieve a further leap forward.” “In the previous period, a number of issues emerged concerning our way of thought and work style, the main ones being: 1) the rising tendency for wild exaggeration, and the problem of not sufficiently seeking truth from facts. 2) the petty bourgeois fanaticism that made us prone to making Leftist mistakes… Some targets kept being raised at every tier of government, to unrealistic levels, giving only a year or just a few months to achieve targets that really required several years or even decades to reach. Such flight from reality could not win mass support.” A close examination of Peng Dehuai’s letter shows that it reflected actual conditions and the voices of the people, and was undoubtedly correct. Even though he spoke in an honest way, he took into account the overall situation, chose his words carefully to respect Mao Zedong and fully considered how to 512

Chapter 21

Overnight Change of Direction at the Lushan Conference, from Correcting Leftist Mistakes to Fighting Rightist Opportunism; the Anti-Rightist Storm Surges across the Country, Millions of Innocents Are Wronged

make his views acceptable. This was tact in a difficult situation. For example, while fully acknowledging the achievements of the Great Leap Forward and the people’s communes, he pointed out the problems. When talking about problems, he tried not to be too critical. The letter noted petty bourgeois fanaticism, and the “must-get-there-first” desire to leap directly into communism, a source of the Leftist errors of 1958. He did not exclude himself from such criticism, saying that “I and plenty of other comrades made the same mistakes...” When criticizing the Great Leap Forward and its high targets, he said the targets were being raised at every tier of government down the chain, reaching unrealistic levels, and he did not say that these levels were being imposed from the top, nor did he say that the super-high targets for steel and food had been set by Mao himself. Unlike his words at the group meeting, the letter did not mention the name of Mao Zedong at all. Despite some sharp wording, the letter was not radical and could be viewed as gentle and objective. It was not a gratuitous venting of personal grievances. That being said, Peng Dehuai’s analysis of the 1958 situation and his understanding of experience and lessons did break the basic tone and underlying theme that Mao Zedong had set for the meeting. Having read the letter, Mao was furious: he dubbed it as “The Opinion of Comrade Peng Dehuai,” instructing it to be printed “as reference material for all comrades.” For the first few days, the atmosphere surrounding the group discussions of Peng Dehuai’s “Opinion” was quite normal. Despite differences of opinion, things were calm and peaceful. Most people agreed with the content, and thought that it confirmed the achievements of the Great Leap Forward and the people’s communes while pointing out existing problems and summarizing profound lessons. They were particularly impressed by Peng Dehuai’s boldness in voicing his own opinion at the Lushan Conference, a move underlining his loyalty to the Party. Some, however, disagreed with his assessment of the situation, dubbing his comments as overly critical, arguing that the balance sheet on the Great Leap Forward and the people’s communes showed more gains than losses, and that the shortcomings were minor, “hardly one finger.” The ill-intentioned Kang Sheng sent a note to Mao Zedong, “I suggest allowing no mercy on this,” intending to provoke Mao into punishing Peng Dehuai. 513

Socialism in China

On the 18th and 21st, Peng Dehuai spoke at or interrupted at the fourth group, explaining the reasons for his letter. He sincerely declared that the letter, written in haste, had problems in its wording and logic and failed to convey his actual meaning, and that he wished to withdraw it after the meeting. Originally, Huang Kecheng was supposed to remain in Beijing to take charge of the Ministry of Defense work during the Lushan Conference, but upon notification from the CPC Central Committee that he should attend the Conference, he arrived there on July 13. The secretariat arranged for him to stay in the same house as Peng Dehuai. When Huang Kecheng got to his room, Peng Dehuai showed him his letter to Mao. Huang Kecheng read it carefully and told him: “I agree with the views you expressed, but it was poorly written, with some sharp wording. Why did you do that?” Peng Dehuai replied: “The actual situation is very serious, but no one here is brave enough to speak sharply. I wanted to draw attention to what I’m proposing.” Huang Kecheng said, “You always let your emotions rule you. You and the Chairman have worked together for many years, and should know each other well. Why not talk to him face-to-face? Why the need for this letter?” The next day, Huang Kecheng dropped in on his old superior Li Xiannian. In the talks, Li expressed the view that the practices of 1958 had gone too far and had to be changed. But when Huang Kecheng dropped in on Tan Zhenlin, they quarreled over their views. Tan said angrily: “Have you eaten dog meat? Are you feverish that you react so strongly? Let me tell you, we asked you to come to Lushan to rescue and support us.” Without thinking much, Huang Kecheng got angry and blurted out: “Well you thought wrong. I’m not a rescue party; I came to rebel. The wording “rebel” was obviously a response to Tan Zhenlin’s “rescue,” and implied nothing more than holding a different view of the situation than Tan Zhenlin’s. However, it was later adduced as evidence of Huang Kecheng being part of an “anti-Party clique.” On the 19th, Huang Kecheng spoke at a group meeting, fully elaborating his views in support of Peng Dehuai’s opinion. The meeting atmosphere was becoming more fraught by the day, with more and more repudiations and sharp criticisms of the “Opinion”. Mao’s secretaries Tian Jianying and Hu Qiaomu rang Zhang Wentian, expressing 514

Chapter 21

Overnight Change of Direction at the Lushan Conference, from Correcting Leftist Mistakes to Fighting Rightist Opportunism; the Anti-Rightist Storm Surges across the Country, Millions of Innocents Are Wronged

the Chairman’s displeasure at Peng Dehuai’s letter, urging Zhang not to speak much at the meeting, and that if he did speak he should steer clear of the mistakes, in particular not touching on the campaign to call everyone to make steel and that the losses outweighed the gains. Zhang Wentian was a scholarly politician, with a solid theoretical foundation and strong sense of political responsibility, and he has strong views on the right and wrong. For 20 days at Lushan, he had listened to what everybody else had to say, but said almost nothing himself. After careful thought, and

Zhang Wentian on Lushan

from his high sense of responsibility for the Party and the people’s interests, he spoke at the second group meeting on the afternoon of the 21st. Disregarding heckling from Ke Qingshi and others, Zhang Wentian commented on 13 issues, speaking for three hours without a break. Zhang Wentian did not beat around the bush: “The slogan ‘let all the people smelt steel’ was inappropriate in itself. Furthermore it was gone about the wrong way. Without a prior survey of resources, without knowing whether there was sufficient iron ore, tens of millions of people were sent to work in the mountains … causing damage to farm outputs even in a supposedly good year of harvest.” He voiced harsh criticism, pointing to unreasonably high targets and impatience for success as leading to unbalanced national economic growth and great losses. These were reflected in the market as supply shortages and a lack of materials, so even if people did have money there was nothing to buy. 515

Socialism in China

Commodity prices had inflated somewhat, and black markets had appeared. The masses were dissatisfied with these conditions, but had not come to the state of fury or hatred. Zhang analyzed the reasons behind these problems using theory and methodology: “The understanding of the relations between subjective and objective, and between spiritual and material was limited. There was a period when subjective initiative was elevated to a ridiculous level. Excessive vigor, combined with no conditions required, led to subjectivity.” “Some people looked down on economic laws, thinking that political marshaling would prevail. Some flagrantly violated objective economic laws, saying that economics does not count, only political value counts. None of this could work.” “We must not uphold egalitarianism. Instead, we should distribute according to labor contributed. Now some people regard the free supply system and public canteens as socialism and communism, but these are two totally different things. Socialism does not necessarily have free supply system and public canteens.” Zhang Wentian’s most profound and precious insights pertained to democracy within the Party: “The Chairman has often said a person should be brave enough to give a different opinion, this is absolutely correct. However, not fearing beheading is not enough, the other aspect of this issue is that leaders should create an atmosphere or environment where subordinates can be brave enough to give different views, so as to create a free and lively exchange of views.” “This issue is extraordinarily important to our Party. We should never put a label on a person for voicing a different opinion.” Finally, addressing the issue of Peng Dehuai’s “Opinion” which had come under fire for several days, Zhang came out in open support: “His letter is good and confirms the achievements.” “Its emphasis is on summarizing lessons, and the intention is good.” Zhang Wentian’s long speech was sharp yet profound, supported by solid theory, an insightful analysis, and rational proposals. Compared with what Peng Dehuai had written, it was more comprehensive, systematic and profound, more convincing and impactful. Some scholars of Party history believe that it was Zhang Wentian’s long speech that completely instigated Mao Zedong’s rage, prompting his speech of July 23 and causing the Lushan 516

Chapter 21

Overnight Change of Direction at the Lushan Conference, from Correcting Leftist Mistakes to Fighting Rightist Opportunism; the Anti-Rightist Storm Surges across the Country, Millions of Innocents Are Wronged

Conference to suddenly change course. Peng Dehuai’s “Opinion” was just the fuse. The author cannot deny this opinion, but believes that two other factors should be considered. It was at precisely this time (July 21) that the Soviet newspaper Pravda published an editorial in which Khrushchev openly criticized China’s setting up of communes. Did this touch a sensitive nerve in Mao? The other was Ke Qingshi’s saying to Mao Zedong, on July 22, that Peng Dehuai’s letter was targeted at the General Line, and at the Chairman himself, and that Mao must deliver a speech and nip this opposition in the bud, or else the team would collapse. This is perhaps one reason for Mao’s last-minute decision to give a high profile speech at the next day’s meeting, criticizing Peng Dehuai and others. On July 23, 1959, the Lushan Conference suddenly changed course, as recorded in the CPC history and China’s modern history. That morning, the working staff notified participants to attend the meeting. Mao Zedong presided over the meeting and delivered an opening speech, but his customary smile and humor were absent. He opened sullenly with two short sentences: “You’ve all talked a lot. Now, allow me to talk for an hour or so, won’t you? I took three sleeping pills and still didn’t sleep.” Mao came quickly to the point, “Now there are winds forming both within the Party and outside of the Party… They are combining forces inside and outside the meeting. Shame that Lushan is too small to invite them all here.” He went on to point to Peng Dehuai and Zhang Wentian, “We are said to have lost touch with the masses. I see that as a temporary problem, lasting only two or three months.” “There was a little petty-bourgeois fanaticism, but not that much… They wanted to establish communes and canteens, and to launch big collaboration and large-scale cultivation… Can you call this pettybourgeois fanaticism? They are not petty bourgeois, but poor peasants, lowermiddle peasants, proletarians, and semi-proletarians.” “Some people will waver in times of crisis and show a lack of resolution in the great storms of history. Let’s look at the ‘losses and gains.’ The word ‘losses’ is put first, cunningly enough. If one has to put a label, this would be ‘bourgeois wavering,’ or, to bring it down a level, ‘petty-bourgeois wavering.’ 517

Socialism in China

It is Rightist in nature.” “They are not the Rightists, but they have gone very close… only 30 km from being Rightists.” “Because the Rightists welcome this tone of argument.” After this meeting, Peng Dehuai stopped Mao Zedong outside the auditorium and said: “Chairman, I’m your student. If I speak incorrectly, you can criticize me to my face and educate me. Why do things this way? I wrote you a letter for your eyes only, so why forward it to other people? You should recall the letter. I didn’t agree to it being put out.” Mao did not stop walking, and just said coldly, “It’s too late for that. Why recall it? You spoke well. You can do so again.” With that, he got in the car and left. From that afternoon, each group discussed Mao Zedong’s speech, and turned to criticize Peng Dehuai’s letter. Those who had agreed with Peng’s comments or had criticized the Great Leap Forward and the communes in the previous days now made self-criticisms and repudiated Peng Dehuai’s letter. But even so, the prevailing mood was peaceful, with only a handful of people (among them Ke Qingshi) criticizing Peng Dehuai for denying the Great Leap Forward and the General Line, and suggesting the Central Committee to adopt moves against those going against the Line. Mao Zedong was dissatisfied with the atmosphere. On the 25th, he called a meeting of the Standing Committee of the Political Bureau and invited directors of several large regions to attend. He brought up four points: “The meeting should continue. Anyone who has opinions should speak openly; now we should target issues and people alike; in the previous stage, correcting Leftism was the main task, but now the Rightists are on the rise and they must be opposed. We should make a clear demarcation between ourselves, waverers and Rightists.” On the 26th, each group conveyed the spirit of Mao Zedong’s speech: criticism of Peng Dehuai and others increased in virulence and intensity. Some “revealed” that in history Peng Dehuai had stood on the wrong side of the Lisan Line, the Wang Ming Line and the Gao Gang-Rao Shushi antiParty clique, so this opposition to the General Line had historical roots. Others accused Peng Dehuai of individualistic heroism, of taking pride in offending superiors and, the Campaign of One Hundred Regiments during the anti-Japanese war under his command was without organization or discipline. 518

Chapter 21

Overnight Change of Direction at the Lushan Conference, from Correcting Leftist Mistakes to Fighting Rightist Opportunism; the Anti-Rightist Storm Surges across the Country, Millions of Innocents Are Wronged

Still others maligned Peng’s motives for writing the letter: it was not serving the Party’s interest, they claimed, but to start an internal fight to oppose the General Line and attack the Chairman himself. Some ill-intentioned individuals described Zhang as “deputy marshal” to Marshall Peng Dehuai, and depicted Zhang’s speech and Peng’s letter as oppositional in nature to the Party’s guidelines. With ulterior motives, they pressed Peng Dehuai, asking whether he had been influenced by international friends or received instructions from abroad. The implication was that Peng Dehuai, Zhang Wentian and others had formed an anti-Party and traitorous relations with foreign powers. Peng Dehuai, Zhang Wentian, Huang Kecheng, Zhou Xiaozhou and others were swayed by the political pressure and well-meant urging of some comrades and comrades-in-arms, reluctantly voiced self-criticism many times at the group meetings. Peng Dehuai admitted that his way of thinking had been incomplete and impatient. Some wording had been inappropriate and wrong. Zhang Wentian expressed a wish to retract his speech on the 21st. However, this was not enough for Mao Zedong. On July 31 and August 1, he called a meeting of the Standing Committee of the Political Bureau, aimed at criticizing and helping Peng Dehuai. Apart from Liu Shaoqi, Zhou Enlai, Zhu De and other Standing Committee members already on Lushan, Lin Biao, absent on sick leave, also received a notice requiring him to attend. Political Bureau members Peng Dehuai, Peng Zhen and He Long, as well as Huang Kecheng, Zhou Xiaozhou, Zhou Hui and Li Rui also listened in. The first day’s meeting lasted from 10:50 a.m. right through to 5:00 p.m., with just a simple lunch of steamed buns. The meeting was dominated by Mao. He listed many things concerning the struggle over the Party line after troops were led to the Jinggang Mountain base, criticizing Peng Dehuai, “You’ve always been wavering in such struggles, for which you had been criticized and punished, and you bear a terrible grudge. It’s hard to predict what you would do in the future.” He also said to Peng Dehuai, “The relationship between you and me could be described as 30 percent cooperation and 70 percent non-cooperation. We went along with each other 30 percent of the time and for 70 percent we didn’t. This has continued for 31 years. Isn’t that so?” 519

Socialism in China

Peng Dehuai replied: “As for politics and emotions, you combine them. I haven’t reached that level. You elevated them so high, it’s quite beyond me.” He explained that he was not a staunch supporter of the Lisan Line, but he had not opposed it. Mao said again: “You say that you are unhappy about your letter being distributed. I don’t think so. Your purpose in writing it was to win over people and organize your team.” Lin Biao chipped in: “I totally agree.” In the end, Peng offered self-criticism that he was being too pessimistic in his view on the steel-making campaign involving 90 million people in the previous year, and that he had failed to understand how to maintain people’s enthusiasm once they were mobilized. He hoped to learn from this lesson. The next day’s meeting lasted from 10 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. Again Mao Zedong did most of the talking, with the other participants speaking or interrupting only to criticize Peng Dehuai. Zhu De was the first to speak up. He had uttered only a few sentences criticizing Peng Dehuai’s letter. Upon hearing this, Mao Zedong lifted his leg and scratched the surface of his shoe, saying “scratching an itch from outside one’s shoe.” This brought an immediate blush to Zhu De’s face and he stopped speaking. Lin Biao understood Mao Zedong’s intention very well and upped the critical rhetoric accordingly: “You Peng Dehuai are an ambitious contender, conspirator and hypocrite. The only big hero in China is Chairman Mao. No one else should want to stand as hero. You and I are far from it and should not even dream of it.” Mao Zedong picked up the litany of criticism again: Peng Dehuai put too much faith in experience alone, did not understand Marxist philosophy, and did not possess a Marxist world view; he had bad relationships with others and failed to communicate with them; he had rung Mao only nine times in ten years despite both of them being in Beijing, and he had stalked off when the guard told him Mao was still in bed; Peng’s term “petty bourgeois fanaticism” was actually an attack on the central authorities; Peng had always harbored wild ambitions and wanted to use his ideas to change the Party and the world. In a later interruption, Mao Zedong added that Peng Dehuai’s intention had been to launch a planned, organized and prepared attack on the Party from a 520

Chapter 21

Overnight Change of Direction at the Lushan Conference, from Correcting Leftist Mistakes to Fighting Rightist Opportunism; the Anti-Rightist Storm Surges across the Country, Millions of Innocents Are Wronged

Rightist stand. He also criticized Zhang Wentian, Huang Kecheng and Zhou Xiaozhou. Finally, the Standing Committee determined that Peng Dehuai’s letter was “a program for Right opportunists,” and that Peng Dehuai, Huang Kecheng, Zhang Wentian and Zhou Xiaozhou had “formed an anti-Party clique, launching planned, organized and prepared activities against the Party’s Central Committee, Chairman Mao and the General Line. The day after the Standing Committee meeting, the Party immediately convened the Eighth Plenary Session of the Eighth CPC Central Committee. Its main content was to continue to uphold the banner of the General Line and to criticize and strike back against Rightist opportunism. The plenum lasted half a month. In his opening speech Mao Zedong said: “Once up the mountain I used three phrases: great achievements, many problems and a bright future.” The present problem – the only problem – was the fierce attack on the Party by the forces of “Right opportunism.” “We fought back the Leftists for nine months. The Lushan Conference faced no opposition from the Left; the opposition came from the Right, because Rightist opportunism is waging a war against the Party, against its leading organs and against the people’s cause, the magnificent socialist cause of our 600 million people.” At the meeting of the 11th, Mao Zedong repudiated Peng Dehuai in harsh terms: “This man has not changed his bourgeois stance for 30-odd years.” They were “allies of Marxists in the bourgeois democratic revolution.” “This time, they could not wait to raise their banner, organize factions and engage in divisive activities.” Mao Zedong also accused Peng of being too “deeply involved in the clique headed by Gao Gang and Rao Shushi. He enjoyed protection at the time and passed the investigation. Was it a Gao-Rao clique or a Gao-Peng clique?” Mao Zedong set the tone in two speeches. The plenary session first split into group meetings, then reassembled as a conference to expose and criticize Peng Dehuai, Zhang Wentian, Huang Kecheng and Zhou Xiaozhou. Under extreme political pressure, Peng Dehuai and others were stripped of the right to speak for themselves. Peng, after days of non-stop criticism and aggressive interrogation from Kang Sheng, Li Jingquan and others, could only declare, “I don’t have a lawyer. You’re treating this like a court trial.” 521

Socialism in China

“The letter was most definitely not meant as an attack on Comrade Mao Zedong!” “My saying The East Is Red should not be sung was something proposed at a Standing Committee meeting. In North Korea, I said to Comrade Kim Il-sung ‘don’t build a Mao Zedong Square’… Comrade Mao always opposed people singing high praises of him, and at the Second Plenary Session of the Seventh CPC Central Committee, the Party passed a resolution on these issues.” “I could say I’m ambitious to topple Mao Zedong. You would like to hear this, but I cannot say that.” As for Zhang Wentian, Mao Zedong said that he had a “recurrence of an old illness.” This was referring to Zhang Wentian having followed the Leftist opportunism of Wang Ming and Bo Gu in the early 1930s. This time he was erring again, but on the Rightist line. At the later stage of the meeting, Mao wrote “A Letter to Zhang Wentian,” which he had printed and distributed it to all participants. It starts: “How come you got involved with that military club. Indeed, it’s like birds of a feather flocking together that people of a certain mind fall into the same group.” At the end of the letter, he wrote: “You have forgotten all the brilliant Marxist words, so you have run into the military club. A perfect integration of the civil and the military.” Mao’s frequent mention of the “military club” was to imply that Peng Dehuai and Zhang Wentian had formed an anti-Party clique. On August 16, Mao Zedong asserted in an article that “This struggle in Lushan Mountain was a struggle of the classes, a continuation of the life-anddeath struggle between the bourgeoisie and the proletarians during the past 10 years of socialist revolution. In China, within the Party, this struggle may continue for at least 20 years or perhaps half a century until the classes vanish. Internal Party struggles reflect class struggles in the society.” Mao Zedong had his articles and remarks as well as his letter to Zhang Wentian printed and distributed, promoting everyone to criticize the “military club” led by Peng Dehuai, Huang Kecheng, Zhang Wentian and Zhou Xiaozhou. Although Peng Dehuai, against his will, admitted errors time and again, he never once admitted to the existence of the “military club,” or opposition to the Party Central Committee and Mao Zedong. Finally, the Eighth Plenary Session issued a “Resolution on the Peng Dehuai-led Anti-Party Clique” (the Resolution), determining that the anti-Party clique 522

Chapter 21

Overnight Change of Direction at the Lushan Conference, from Correcting Leftist Mistakes to Fighting Rightist Opportunism; the Anti-Rightist Storm Surges across the Country, Millions of Innocents Are Wronged

headed by Peng Dehuai, including Rightist opportunists Huang Kecheng, Zhang Wentian and Zhou Xiaozhou, had launched a fierce attack against the Party’s General Line, the Great Leap Forward and the People’s Commune Movement in a purposeful, prepared, planned and organized manner, and made Rightist opportunist errors in opposing the Party, the people and socialism. The Resolution and the following day’s central work meeting decided to strip Peng Dehuai, Huang Kecheng, Zhang Wentian and Zhou

“Resolution on the Peng Dehuai-led Anti-Party

Xiaozhou of their leadership Clique” adopted by the Eighth Plenary Session of Eighth CPC Central Committee, published in the posts, but reserved their titles as the People’s Daily member or alternate member of

the Political Bureau, members or alternate members of the Central Committee in order to monitor their future behavior. Mao Zedong said in the concluding session: “This Lushan Conference has solved a big problem,” and “the main priority is to fight the Rightists and encourage enthusiasm to work.” As the Lushan Conference came to an end after 42 days of soul-stirring drama, another political hurricane was brewing and about to sweep the country. As the Lushan spirit spread throughout Party and the country, a huge Anti-Rightist Opportunism Movement was ignited like wildfire. The Anti-Rightist Opportunism Movement first started with leading organs in the Party, government and army. In accordance with the requirements and plans of the documents of the CPC Central Committee, each Party committee mobilized people to use big-character posters and debate meetings (actually targeted attack meetings) to expose, criticize and fight against 523

Socialism in China

leaders who spoke out against the General Line, the Great Leap Forward and the People’s Commune Movement. Large numbers of provincial Party secretaries, deputy secretaries, provincial governors, deputy governors, and prefectural, departmental and director-level officials were judged as Rightist opportunists and then demoted, removed, fired, or sent to countryside to do manual work. As the Anti-Rightist Opportunism Movement spread across the country, through Party organizations, local, community-level organizations and different industries, a huge number of Party members and officials were attacked, denounced and sentenced. According to rectification work statistics in 1962, the number of Party members and officials wrongly criticized, misjudged and labeled as Rightist opportunists exceeded 3 million. If those officials, Party members and ordinary people wrongly labeled as “class dissidents” were added, then the figure would have been doubled. The industrial system concentrated on attacking the “Rightist” policies of opposing nationwide steel smelting and high-speed industrialization. The central organs, news media and local Party committees totally disregarded the facts and turned truth on its head by depicting the steel-making effort not as a net loss, but as a tremendous achievement. They also said that steel was key to the growth of other industrial sectors and the ratio of main sectors in the national economy was coordinated and normal. In rural areas, the Anti-Rightist Opportunism Movement targeted at the policies and measures taken in late 1958 and early 1959 to correct the “wind of communism”, wild exaggeration and authoritarianism. In rural production, the main targets of criticism were the “household contract responsibility system,” the “land-section responsibility system”, “basic ownership rights for small production teams”, and development of family sideline production. Special attention was directed on those who opposed the free supply system and public canteens. As a result, many rural grassroots cadres and wealthy farmers were criticized and attacked. In this period, Mao Zedong read and called on senior and mid-level officials to read theoretical works such as Stalin’s Socialist Economic Issues in the Soviet Union and On Communism by Marx, Engels, Lenin and Stalin. When reading the Soviet Union’s Political Economics Textbook, Mao criticized the textbook for 524

Chapter 21

Overnight Change of Direction at the Lushan Conference, from Correcting Leftist Mistakes to Fighting Rightist Opportunism; the Anti-Rightist Storm Surges across the Country, Millions of Innocents Are Wronged

its partiality, for failing to say that socialism itself allows high speed development. He pointed out: “We implement the principle of adopting foreign and domestic measures, and encourage small, medium and large industries and enterprises. We do so, not just because of our backward technology, large population and need for employment; it is mainly for high speed development.” He also believed: “When capitalism develops to a certain level, the more backward the economy is, the easier it is to transit from capitalism to socialism.” His views were further to the Left than Stalin’s, and clearly in breach of the basic principles of Marxism. Mao Zedong also believed, “Establishing people’s communes is an important issue.… Our people’s communes are large and publicly owned. First, they are large, then the level of public ownership must be enhanced; change in quantity must bring about some change in character.” Mao Zedong also stressed that politics should remain the controlling force, promoted the free supply system and opposed material incentivization… Mao Zedong’s talks quickly spread within the Party, reinforcing the theoretical foundation for Leftist errors and helping nurture Leftist ideas of rash advance among cadres at all levels. The Lushan Conference and the Anti-Rightist Opportunism Movement stopped the nationwide anti-rash advance movement already taken place. Once again there was blind pursuit of high targets, scale, public and pure ownership, and the continuation of the Great Leap Forward. As a result, exaggerated claims, “wind of communism”, and authoritarianism, brought under control months before the Lushan Conference, made a comeback, and on an even greater scale than that in 1958. In January 1960, at an enlarged Political Bureau meeting in Shanghai, Mao Zedong said that steel output should be raised to more than 20 million tons. The meeting required that, building on two consecutive great “leaps”, an even greater leap forward should be achieved in 1960. In April, the Second National People’s Congress at its Second Session approved the 1960 National Economic Plan, increasing economic growth targets across the board, for example, a year-on-year increase of 23 percent for gross industrial and agricultural output, of which, an increase of 12 percent for agriculture, 29 percent for industry, 38 percent for steel, 34 percent for pig iron, 22 percent for coal, 34-40 percent for electricity, 10 percent for food, cotton…. 525

Socialism in China

In May, the Central Committee raised the steel output target for the second time that year, from 18.04 to 21 to 22 million tons, but the program was poorly implemented. In the second half of the year, the Central Committee directed Party committees nationwide to use every possible means to meet their steel targets. Nationwide the scene was like 1958 all over again, with everyone engaged in steel smelting, and striving to guarantee steel and coal output and transportation. By the end of 1960, China barely met the steel target of 18.66 million tons but the consequences were enormous: a great imbalance in the national economy, a sharp fall in light industrial output and food production, a huge fiscal deficit, and shortage of commodities, triggering new economic difficulties even greater than before. After the Lushan Conference, this picture was not exclusive to industry: Great Leap Forward in production relations of rural people’s communes were accelerated too, with a new wave of upgrading to commune ownership, building industries and public canteens. To support commune-owned industries, pig farms and water conservancy works, each region mobilized labor, capital and financial assets from production brigades and teams. Some areas not only achieved a “great communist collaboration” between rich and poor production teams in capital, labor and production materials, but also merged rich and poor production teams for unified financial accounting, once again violating the interests of production brigades, teams and farmers, and damaging the recently recovered rural economy. In February and March 1960, Mao and the Central Committee gave further instructions in a report: “To strengthen people’s communes, we need to manage canteens well,” and localities throughout the country rushed to create a large number of canteens in rural areas. According to the State Bureau of Statistics, in many provinces, over 90 percent of the rural population – about 400 million – ate for free in the communal canteens. Some provinces even limited and reclaimed the private land of commune members, following Mao Zedong’s instruction that “it needs further studies.” These Leftist rash advances seriously hurt farmers’ zeal for work and rural productivity. Along with the Anti-Rightist Opportunism Movement, the People’s Commune Movement spread rapidly from the countryside to cities. In March 1960, the Central Committee issued an “Instruction on the Issue of Urban People’s 526

Chapter 21

Overnight Change of Direction at the Lushan Conference, from Correcting Leftist Mistakes to Fighting Rightist Opportunism; the Anti-Rightist Storm Surges across the Country, Millions of Innocents Are Wronged

Communes.” Within a few months, 1,064 communes were established in 190 large- and medium-sized cities. More than 55 million city dwellers took part in communes, accounting for 55.6 percent of the total city population. With the worsening national economic situation, the urban communes were unviable and disbanded one after another that same year. The Lushan Conference and the Anti-Rightist Opportunism Movement damaged the Party and state’s political, moral and cultural progress and the interests of the people. The consequences were grave. Both in theory and in practice, the Lushan Conference and the AntiRightist Opportunism Movement lightly changed the correct understanding and conclusion reached at the Eighth CPC National Congress concerning the main conflicts of the socialist period, and wrongly expanded the class struggle during the socialist period, and even extended it to the Party and its high officials, creating class struggle out of nowhere. From then on, the Party’s internal struggles became more intense, more frequent and more cruel. There was no peace any more within the Party and state while the people were suffering. The Lushan Conference and the Anti-Rightist Opportunism Movement brazenly trampled the Party Constitution, damaged democracy within the Party and the political life of the Party and state. They interpreted normal and inevitable differences of opinions among senior Party officials on situations and policies as a “reflection of class struggle in society,” a continuation of the life-and-death struggle between the two antagonist classes – the proletariat and the bourgeoisie. They treated normal exchanges of views between comrades as an “anti-Party clique.” In the internal Party struggle, the following of personal agendas, fallacious reasoning, cruel attacks and brutal battles trampled the democratic rights of Party members set out in the Party Constitution, and damaged the Party’s democratic centralism. They rendered the Party and state incapable of operating normally, allowing the growth of “one-voice party” or “patriarchic system.” Thus, the Party allowed no internal dissent and let a single individual have the say on important policies. The top leader could change or even reverse collective decisions. Also, when one major leader expressed his view and set the tone, other leaders did not dare to speak differently. In addition, this encouraged a bad climate, in which people would advocate or 527

Socialism in China

speak falsehoods, comply for self-protection and bend with the wind. If this continued, the collective leadership of the Party and state would become just an empty phrase, and democratic centralism would change its nature. If combined with other factors, such bad practices could easily become tools for despotic dictatorship. The Lushan Conference and the Anti-Rightist Opportunism Movement reversed the resolution against the cult of personality, made at the Second Plenary Session of the Seventh CPC Central Committee, after the founding of New China. Instead, they opened wide the gate for a personality cult. They confused and reversed the relationship between following the truth and cult of the individual, failing to distinguish right from wrong and disregarding principles. Instead, they simply saw protecting the individual leader’s prestige as protecting the prestige of the Party, its solidarity and fundamental interests. As a result, the cult of Mao Zedong put him above the Party and sowed the seeds for the decade-long tragedy of the Cultural Revolution. All of these created the ideological and political environment for Mao’s “theory of continual revolution under the dictatorship of the proletariat.” Of course, the causes behind the sudden political change at Lushan and the ensuing Anti-Rightist Opportunism Movement are complicated. We cannot attempt to find the causes solely in Mao Zedong’s character and nature. In the 1980s, Deng Xiaoping summarized historical lessons from that period and expressed his regret that the CPC Central Committee had “not formed a rigorous and comprehensive system” of collective leadership and democratic centralism. He pointed out: “From the criticism of opposition to rash advance in 1958 and the Anti-Rightist Opportunism Movement, the democratic life of the Party and the state was abnormal; this was a breeding ground for the onevoice party, personality cult, individual above the party patriarchy.” Chen Yun also observed: “Mao Zedong’s mistakes were mainly that he destroyed the principle of democratic centralism, put himself above the Party, was stubborn and suppressed those who disagreed with him.” Reviewing this period of history, the author finds four lessons to remember: First, the ruling party’s principles of internal democracy and collective leadership must be specific, systematic and procedural, and be guaranteed through rigorous, comprehensive systems and strict Party rules and discipline. All Party 528

Chapter 21

Overnight Change of Direction at the Lushan Conference, from Correcting Leftist Mistakes to Fighting Rightist Opportunism; the Anti-Rightist Storm Surges across the Country, Millions of Innocents Are Wronged

members including leaders, high and mid-level officials and ordinary members must follow the system and discipline and be restrained and supervised by them. Empty slogans, abstract principles and hard-to-implement measures are of little use for restraining and supervising Party members, for judging right and wrong and for dealing with them promptly. Second, democratic centralism by the ruling party must be built on fully carrying forward democracy and guaranteeing the democratic rights of Party members, thus achieving centralism on the basis of democracy. It should not be understood or practiced as democracy under central guidance only. Democracy and centralism form an organic unity through interdependence and complementarities. We should not emphasize or implement one while neglecting or abandoning the other. The quintessence, core and nature of democratic centralism requires collective leadership and majority rule, but its precondition is to allow full democracy and create an environment for people to talk freely. Thus, Party members and officials at each level, practicing the Party’s guiding philosophy and upholding the Party’s basic line, are allowed to voice their different opinions, discuss and debate through internal Party meetings, Party periodicals and other proper channels concerning the Party’s direction, policy and decisions at different periods. Party members should not be required to agree with their superiors on all issues. Inside the Party, all major matters should be discussed fully and be decided on the principle of majority rule. When stressing that Party officials must implement collective resolutions, the Party should tolerate, respect and protect the minority’s opinions and permit the minority to reserve their opinions and test them in practice. Third, inside the Party and in society at large we should get rid of feudal autocracy and monarchic and imperial thinking, resolutely oppose any form of personal cult. We should not confuse respect for truth with the cult of individual leaders, and blur the boundaries between loyalty to the Party’s cause and the people’s interests and blindly following individual leaders. No individual official should be above collective leadership or the Party organization, or above Party rules and discipline and state laws. Fourth, the ruling party of such a large country of more than 1 billion population should build itself into a party that can continue to learn and think. Facing a complex and changing society and social problems of different 529

Socialism in China

kinds as well as new emerging issues, Party officials at various levels, including high and middle-level officials, should be diligent in learning and thinking, courageous in exploring, capable in summarizing lessons and bold in innovating. They should be eager to improve and enrich themselves with scientific theory and others’ lessons, and to unify theory and practice, knowledge and execution, respect laws of development and work on rule of law and institutionalization, truly reflecting the principles of the people being the country’s masters and governing the Party and country by law. By doing that, they can lay a solid foundation to guarantee the stability of the Party and state, and the contentment and interests of the people. As the poem says: The shape of Kuanglu1 is hard to gauge, But politics are even harder to predict. Curbing Leftism becomes fighting the Rightists, And spells suffering for the loyal and honest. କ֩Ҋൕ঄੝૳ĭ ᆧฎ‫ڌ‬თ‫଼ۿ‬ᆱh ࣷቘْӶվٙႿĭ ᆦ൦ᇙ਍ൻॵ൐h To learn what happened in the three years of the Great Leap Forward and how things developed in China, read on to the next chapter.

1

“Kuanglu” is another name for Lushan. The Song-dynasty poet Su Shi once wrote a poem about Lushan Mountain entitled Written on the Wall of the West Forest Temple: Sideways a mountain range, vertically a peak. /Far-near, soaring-crouching, never the same. /No way to know Lushan’s true face /When you’re in the middle of this mountain!

530

Chapter 22

Three-year Great Leap Forward Plunges China into an Abyss; Readjustment Policy Helps Rescue the Nation

In only three years, the Great Leap Forward movement sank the whole country into grave reverses and catastrophes. Far from propelling the country forward, the movement, which went against the objective law, and was exacerbated by natural disasters and other factors, brought China into dire economic straits between 1959 and 1961. First and foremost, grain output fell for three years in succession, resulting in a nationwide crisis of grain and non-staple food supplies. The output of grain, edible oil, pigs, cotton and other major crops and livestock kept declining sharply year-on-year, to way below the level of 1957, the year before the Great Leap Forward, falling even lower than the 1951 level. Take 1960 for example. The national output of grain was 287 billion jin (one jin equals to 0.5 kg), 26.4 percent less than the 390.1 billion jin in 1957; of cotton, 21.26 million dan (1 dan = 50 kg), 35 percent less than the 32.8 million dan in 1957; of oil-bearing crops, 34.05 million dan, 50.9 percent less than the 75.42 million dan in 1957; and the number of pigs on hand, 82.27 million head, 56 percent fewer than the 145.9 million head in 1957; and of draught animals such as ox and horse, 73.36 million head, 12.5 percent fewer than the 83.82 million head in 1957. With the exception of oil crops, whose output was actually half that of 1951, all categories nosedived to the 1951 level. Food is the first necessity of man, but successive years of dramatic falls in agricultural and livestock products resulted in a nationwide supply crisis of grain and non-staple food; this coincided with natural disasters to develop into a massive famine across the country. 531

Socialism in China

The serious difficulties also came with a startling output drop in the light textile and foodstuff industries, which in turn greatly impacted people’s lives. A case in point is 1960, when the output of cotton yarns dropped by 28.6 percent and that of cotton cloth by 28 percent. This naturally resulted in a supply shortage of daily necessities. For a while, heavy industry reported staggering output as a result of the hell-for-leather Great Leap Forward, but this spike was short-lived due to the supply shortage of energy and raw materials. Furthermore, the growth of heavy industry in isolation caused serious imbalance of the national economy. For instance, steel output in 1959 soared to 13.87 million tons, 73 percent more than in the previous year; in 1960 it climbed to 18.66 million tons – up a further 34.5 percent – but it plummeted to 8.7 million tons in 1961 and even lower to 6.67 million tons in 1962, roughly the same level as before the movement. In contrast with these steep falls was the continuous climb of the state deficits and consumer prices. In 1958, China reported a deficit of 2.18 billion yuan, which rose to 6.58 billion yuan in 1959, and climbed even higher to 8.18 billion yuan in 1960. To make it up, the state printed more banknotes and issued more money. By the end of 1960, the currency in circulation stood at 9.59 billion yuan, 82 percent more than in 1957, and consumption capability rose to 71.67 billion yuan, which far outpaced commodity supply and meant an extreme shortage of commodities and serious inflation. The state-run shops had scarcely anything to sell, while open markets hawked goods at prices several times or even a dozen times higher than the shop tags. This caused widespread complaints and discontent among the people. To curb the soaring prices and restore order to the market, the government had to ration foodstuffs and other daily necessities so as to guarantee the basic needs of urban residents. In order to buy grain, edible oil, cloth, meat, fish, egg and sugar, an appropriate ration coupon was required. They were necessary too for purchases of watches, bicycles, sewing machines, and even soap and match. In those years, there were enough different coupon types to win entry into Guinness World Records. These coupons would only guarantee the minimum needs of the urban residents: a monthly per capita maximum of 250 g of pork, fish and egg each and 250 ml of edible oil. But they had nothing to 532

Chapter 22

Three-year Great Leap Forward Plunges China into an Abyss; Readjustment Policy Helps Rescue the Nation

complain about compared with rural residents, who were guaranteed not even the minimum needs.

Ration coupons used for various commodities

Despite such measures, plus lowering the grain ration for urban residents, the food shortage was far from being relieved. Consumption of grain and foodstuffs across the country continued to decline. In 1960, the annual percapita consumption of grain nationwide was 163.5 kg, 19.4 percent less than in 1957 (the amount in rural areas was 134 kg, down 35.3 percent); of pork, 1.55 kg, down 70 percent; and of vegetable oil, down 23 percent. Even more heartbreaking was that during the overwhelming famine that hit all China in these three difficult years, millions starved to death. In many places the desperate even ate the corpses of others. What was the exact number of abnormal deaths because of hunger or malnutrition in those three years? Even today, there is no answer from the government. According to the Third National Census released by the National Bureau of Statistics in 1983, China’s population in 1960 was 10 million fewer than in 1959. This static figure only tells the net decrease. If normal demographic growth is factored in, the number of actual deaths must exceed 10 million. In his A Retrospect of Some Significant Decisions and Events, Bo Yibo, a veteran revolutionary and state leader, wrote that during the three difficult years, food shortage and malnutrition caused dropsy to rage across the country, causing even more deaths in the countryside. He cited the 1960 statistics that the national population decreased by more than 10 million in that year alone. So what is the accurate figure? Based on their studies, some Chinese scholars put the figure of abnormal deaths of those three years at 15 million, some at 21 million and still others at 33-35 million. 533

Socialism in China

Whatever the figure, it weighs like a giant mountain on China’s conscience. The ruling Party and the government should always feel remorseful toward the people, and never forget this bitter lesson.1 In the words of Mao Zedong, the Great Leap Forward was “a great defeat,” and its cost was far too high. When Liu Shaoqi heard the dreadful stories of hungry people eating human corpses, he said to Mao in grief, “History won’t let you and me off the hook, with so many people dying of hunger. People eating people, this will be recorded in the history books!” Mao looked very solemn, and did not say a word. To learn the historical lessons and to avoid any reoccurrence in the future, we must find both the subjective and the objective reasons behind the tragedy; discover whether natural disaster or human factors was the main cause. For a long time, a prevailing saying has blamed natural disasters for the three years of China’s economic difficulties. According to Statistics of New China in 50 Years, compiled by the National Bureau of Statistics, serious natural disasters struck 44.63 million ha of land area in 1959 and 13.73 million ha of farmland reported crop failure of more than 30 percent; the corresponding figures for 1960 were 65.46 million ha and 24.98 million ha, and for 1961 they were 61.75 million ha and 28.83 million ha respectively. These facts tell that serious natural disasters did befall China during those three years, presenting a direct and objective cause for the nationwide economic difficulties. But this blame has met challenges from some Chinese scholars in recent years. Based on their studies of meteorological materials, they argue that given China’s vast territory and complex climate conditions, it is only natural that droughts, floods or typhoons might hit one place or another every year. According to the 120 hydrologic stations across the country, natural disasters did take place in those three years, but they were not so overwhelming as to make the whole country suffer. Another saying, which I was told by my parents and primary school teachers, labeled the Soviet Union as the culprit: It had reneged on its promise of 1

I borrowed these words from Bo Yibo’s A Retrospect of Some Significant Decisions and Events. The original text goes like this: “Such a thing should happen in a time of the peace and construction, we, as Communists, should always feel remorseful toward the people, and never forget this bitter lesson.”

534

Chapter 22

Three-year Great Leap Forward Plunges China into an Abyss; Readjustment Policy Helps Rescue the Nation

economic aid to China, recalled Soviet experts and forced China to repay its debts early, thus worsening China’s extreme difficulties. Regarding this history, there have been a number of recent studies at home and abroad. The Soviet Union’s aid to China that started in the 1950s mainly focused on provision of turnkey equipment and technologies for key industrial projects and military loans. The total amount was 6.6 billion old rubles, 95 percent of which was military loans (48 percent of that for the War to Resist US Aggression and Aid Korea). In 1958, the Sino-Soviet rift happened after the Soviet Union suggested joint construction of long-wave radio facilities and a joint navy fleet with China, and China had shelled Quemoy and Matsu without informing the Soviet Union of its intentions. In June 1956, the Soviet Union unilaterally tore up its contract of aid to China: at that time widespread famine had been raging for more than six months. It must be pointed out that the breached contract had nothing to do with farming and industries related to well-being, as it was about the provision to China of a specimen atomic bomb and manufacturing technology. On July 16, 1960, the Soviet Union scrapped 600 bilateral contracts, recalled 139 Soviet experts sent to work in China, and shelved future plans to send more. At that time, the whole of China had been suffering overwhelming famine for more than a year, but those contracts were all about industrial and scientific cooperation and had no relation to agriculture at all. From the above we can see that the breach of economic aid promises and recalling of experts came long after the onset of China’s own economic difficulties, and it was arbitrary to blame the Soviet Union. The Soviet Union government was also criticized for pouncing upon China and forcing it to pay off its debts prematurely, thus worsening China’s economic difficulties. However, to date no historical proof of this blame has been found, according to research by some Chinese scholars. Indeed, they have found evidence supporting the contradictory view that the Soviet Union assisted China to get through the famine. Evidence 1: In March 1961, the Soviet Union proposed loaning to China one million tons of wheat and 500,000 tons of sugarcane transited from Cuba, but the Chinese government accepted only the interest-free loan of sugarcane to the value of 329.3 million new rubles. 535

Socialism in China

Evidence 2: In April 1961, a Chinese delegation visited the Soviet Union. At the host’s reception, Minister of Foreign Trade Ye Jizhuang, head of the delegation, acknowledged: “Since we have suffered grave natural disasters for two consecutive years, we lagged behind the commodities supply to you last year, and this year we have to reduce or stop the export of many commodities. …Our Soviet comrades have shown great cooperation and brotherly understanding for this. The Soviet Union government agrees that we pay off our trade debts left over from 1960 in installments over five years, and exempts us from paying interest.” Ye’s words make it clear that the Soviet Union did not force China to repay ahead of time. So, why did China do so at a time when its people had little to eat and its economy was on its knees? From the historical documents available, it can be inferred that the decision was made on the initiative of Mao Zedong who simply wanted to hold his head up before the Soviet Union. At a Political Bureau meeting held at Beidaihe on July 18, 1960, Mao asked Zhou Enlai for how long would China take to repay all the debt to the Soviet Union. Zhou answered, “The total debt is roughly eight billion rubles. It’ll take us 16 years if we repay 500 million rubles a year, and 10 years at 800 million rubles a year.” Mao then instructed, “Let’s tighten our belts and try to pay it off in five years.” So by 1964, China had paid off all its Soviet loans from the 1950s, together with interest on the loans. Given all this, was it natural disasters or man-inflicted calamities that caused the three years of serious economic difficulties? In my view, though droughts, floods and typhoons did lead to output reduction in grain, livestock and poultry with consequential food shortages, they were not so serious as to produce nationwide famine. Based on statistics released by the National Bureau of Statistics of China, I have drawn this conclusion: in 1959, the total area hit by natural disasters accounted for 42.68 percent of the total area (104.58 million ha) of arable land, but only 13.13 percent of the arable land reported crop failure; in 1960, the total area hit by natural disasters accounted for 62.43 percent of the total area (104.86 million ha) of arable land, but only 23.82 percent of the arable land reported crop failure; and in 1961, the total area hit by natural disasters accounted for 59.7 percent of the total (103.31 million ha) area 536

Chapter 22

Three-year Great Leap Forward Plunges China into an Abyss; Readjustment Policy Helps Rescue the Nation

of arable land, while only 23.82 percent of the arable land reported crop failure. Clearly, the natural disasters were not serious enough to bring death by starvation to millions. It was the Great Leap Forward and the People’s Commune Movement that should take the blame for exacerbating the difficulties brought about by natural disasters. The “wind of communism” seriously dampened farmers’ initiative and productivity and led to successive annual falls in output of grain and livestock. Amidst the bragging of high grain outputs, and “sputnik yields,” the state raised its monopoly purchase quota of farm produce, meaning that the collective and household grain reserves, and even the family grain ration for the whole year, had to be handed over to the state, leaving farmers virtually no resource against natural disasters. The commune canteens simply let the people eat their fill. The bureaucratic style of work of many cadres and the widespread practice of fabricating or exaggerating statistics to deceive superiors seriously misled the Central Authorities and governments at all levels into inaccurate judgment of the grain outputs and reserves and the seriousness of the disasters; consequently they mis-timed opening the grain stores to relieve poverty, reducing or stopping grain exports, increasing grain imports and taking other measures to combat the natural disasters. In early 1962, Liu Shaoqi, at an enlarged conference of the Central Committee attended by 7,000 officials from across China, attributed 30 percent of the calamities to natural disasters, and the other 70 percent to human factors. His was an honest acknowledgement. By the first half of 1960, China’s national economy was in dire straits. Henan, Gansu and other provinces reported abnormal deaths caused by starvation, which caught the attention of the Central Committee of the CPC and Mao Zedong. It made Mao realize that haste makes waste and socialist construction could not be done overnight. He instructed on the report submitted by the Party Committee of Hubei Province that “We must resolutely rectify, within several months, such practices as the “wind of communism”, exaggeration and boastfulness, authoritarianism, cadres seeking privileges, and giving arbitrary orders for production. The focus is to curb the tendency of the “wind of communism.” 537

Socialism in China

On November 3, 1960, Mao revised and issued the “Letter of Urgent Instructions on Current Policies Regarding the Rural People’s Communes,” which the Central Committee had entrusted to be drafted under the supervision of Zhou Enlai. The Letter ushered in the rectification of people’s communes and the work style of rural cadres, in an effort to eliminate the above listed “five practices.” The Letter reiterated that the means of production belonged to the people’s communes, the production brigades and the production teams, and the production teams should practice independent accounting, and this should remain the basic system of the people’s communes for the time being. It demanded all localities to immediately set out to thoroughly rectify the wrong practices of egalitarianism and free requisition of labor and property of the production teams by any organizations, and where labor or property was requisitioned, the labor must be compensated and the property be returned, unconditionally. The basic ownership of the production teams must be consolidated, and partial ownership of the production groups should be practiced. The Letter also allowed commune members to have family plots of land and run small family sidelines, and demanded the restoration of open markets in the countryside. Coinciding with the Letter, the Central Committee issued another document on its implementation. This document pointed out that the key and top task was to enhance the cadres’ understanding of policies. It called for the cadres to mobilize and rely on the broad masses in rural areas to rectify the irregularities of the people’s communes and improve their own style of work, so as to ensure that the Central Committee’s rural policies were earnestly carried out. Soon various meetings were held at provincial, prefectural and county levels to convey these two documents, and Party organizations at all levels dispatched cadres to explain relevant policies to the farmers and their proper implementation. The broad masses of farmers and grassroots cadres were greatly inspired, calling the Letter “timely rain on the parched land.” In June 1960, or months before the Letter, Mao Zedong had told an enlarged Political Bureau meeting in Shanghai that the targets must resolutely be lowered in order to gain the initiative. Liu Shaoqi also called for the whole 538

Chapter 22

Three-year Great Leap Forward Plunges China into an Abyss; Readjustment Policy Helps Rescue the Nation

Party to face up to the seriousness of the problem and resolutely curb the tendency of pursuing capital construction on too large a scale. In line with the consensus of the Political Bureau, Zhou Enlai and Li Fuchun proposed the policy of “readjustment, consolidation, reinforcement and improvement” at a State Council meeting in late August. The gist of the policy was: to adjust the imbalance between various sectors of the national economy, to consolidate the progress already made in production and construction, to reinforce new industrial products and products in short supply, and to improve the quality and profits of products. This policy was adopted at the Ninth Plenary Session of the Eighth CPC Central Committee. It marked the end of the Great Leap Forward and the beginning of readjustment of the national economy. At a meeting of the CPC Central Committee in January 1961, Mao Zedong explained the importance of seeking truth from facts. He said, “This year, let us all go and do investigation and research.” He also said, “Socialist construction could not be done in a hurry, and it might take 50 years to accomplish. Do not set overly high targets, since such vanity might court real troubles.” The meeting adjusted that year’s economic index targets, lowered the steel output target to 19 million tons, and reduced the number of medium-sized and large projects to be started in 1961 to 900, 300 fewer than in the previous plan. The Communiqué of the Ninth Plenary Session of the Eighth CPC Central Committee declared that the main task of the whole Party and the whole country in 1961 was to concentrate on agriculture, to implement the guideline of taking agriculture as the foundation in developing the national economy and going all out in agriculture and grain production, increasing support to agriculture from all sectors, so as to get a good harvest with the utmost endeavors. Even so, the Communiqué still concluded that the progress made by China in the previous three years demonstrated that the Party’s General Line, the Great Leap Forward, and the people’s communes suited actual conditions in China. This was sheer distortion of the facts and went against the principle of “seeking truth from facts” that Mao Zedong himself had reiterated. After the meeting, Mao set up three investigation groups under his secretaries: Tian Jiaying headed the rural Zhejiang group, Hu Qiaomu the Hunan 539

Socialism in China

group, and Chen Boda the Guangdong group. With the support and participation of local Party organizations, these three groups made detailed investigations, and submitted first-hand information and suggestions to Mao Zedong. Mao himself also traveled by train southward through Hebei, Shandong, Jiangsu, Zhejiang, Jiangxi, Hunan and Guangdong provinces. On Mao Zedong’s letter of instruction to the three investigation groups

the way he held in-depth talks with the provincial leaders and discussed problems concern-

ing the size of the communes and production brigades and the public canteens. Through his own research and the reports of others, Mao changed his outlook and realized that production team should be the basic unit of independent accounting and the public canteens should be kept small and run flexibly. At the same time, members of the Standing Committee of the Political Bureau, apart from Lin Biao, all went to the countryside to find out facts. Liu Shaoqi went back to Hunan, to his hometown of Ningxiang, and the provincial capital Changsha. He did not stay in hotels, but chose to stop over in a pig farm or his old residence. Zhou Enlai went to Handan, Hebei Province, and stayed in the barracks. At noon he ate corn porridge at the canteen together with the farmers, and visited the homes of many of them. Even though they had to stay in Beijing to deal with the daily work of the Secretariat, Deng Xiaoping and Peng Zhen also made time to visit markets in suburban Shunyi and Huairou, outskirts of Beijing, and to consult local cadres for factual information. Chen Yun conducted investigations in Hangzhou and Nanjing. In Qingpu County, his hometown in suburban Shanghai, he lived with the farmers and listened to their complaints. He learned that the primary concern of the farmers was not which political way to follow, socialism or capitalism, but 540

Chapter 22

Three-year Great Leap Forward Plunges China into an Abyss; Readjustment Policy Helps Rescue the Nation

whether they had rice to eat and gruel to sup. In Henan, Sichuan, Shaanxi and Hebei, Zhu De observed and heard the difficult life of the farmers. With these senior leaders setting the example, the leaders of all provinces, autonomous regions and municipalities directly under the central government, and officials of various levels all went to the countryside or enterprises to conduct investigations. Drawing on wide investigations and studies, the Central Authorities drew up regulations on the work of the people’s communes, industry, commerce, handicraft, forestry, literature and art, science and technology, and higher, secondary and elementary education. They played an important role in the effort to correct or rectify the mistakes and chaos in different sectors since the Great Leap Forward, and to set the work onto the right track. The intent of the “60 Regulations on the Rural People’s Communes” was to erase egalitarianism among different production teams within a production brigade and among different commune members. In the Regulations on the Work in the Rural People’s Communes (revised draft) that was issued soon afterward, the supply system was rescinded. The line “the decision whether to run a canteen in the production team will be taken all by the members” rang the death knell for public canteens, which had been something forced on unwilling people. The “70 Regulations on Industry” stipulated that in state-run industrial enterprises, the factory directors must assume full responsibility under the leadership of the factory Party committee, the system of workers congresses should be practiced, the system of accountability be introduced in various links and sectors, and that comprehensive accounting should be adopted to seek more profits. The “40 Regulations on Commerce” stated that country markets were a necessary means for circulation of commodities in addition to state-run shops and supply and marketing cooperatives. The “35 Regulations on Handicrafts” stated that during the whole course of socialist construction, collective ownership should play a dominate role in the handicraft industry, individual ownership being a necessary supplement of the socialist economy, and the ownership of the whole people was only part of the industry. 541

Socialism in China

The regulations on the work of education, science and technology, and literature and art aimed to readjust the Party’s relations with intellectuals and supported the efforts to bring into full play the initiative of intellectuals. The implementation of these measures did, to some extent, solve some prominent problems hindering construction and social progress. But at this time, the majority of the cadres at all levels had not yet cast off the mindset formed in the Great Leap Forward and the Anti-Rightist Campaign; the readjustment of the national economy progressed slowly, and the national economic situation remained grave. In 1961, the gross output of agriculture was 2.4 percent down on the previous year; that of light industry was 21.6 percent down, and of heavy industry 46.5 percent down; national revenue was 37.8 percent less; and retail commodities 12.8 percent less. The percapita consumption of grain, cooking-oil and cloth nationwide had kept decreasing for three consecutive years. The Chinese people were enduring a very difficult life. To further summarize lessons and experience since the Great Leap Forward, mobilize the whole Party to implement the new policies for the national economy more effectively and resolutely and rouse confidence to overcome difficulties, the CPC Central Committee held a work conference enlarged to an unprecedented scale in Beijing. Over 7,000 people attended, including the Party and state leaders, all departments under the CPC Central Committee and the central government, officials in charge of Central Bureaus of the CPC, officials of all provinces, cities, districts and counties, and leading cadres of key factories and mines, and army units. For this reason, it was called the 7,000 Cadres Conference. It met for 28 days from January 11, 1962. This conference was divided into two sessions. From January 11 to the morning of January 29, the conference was devoted to discussing the draft report written by Liu Shaoqi on behalf of CPC Central Committee. On the principle of democracy, this draft, yet to be approved by the Political Bureau, was first sent to different groups for review and revision. Based on their suggestions and advice, the drafting committee of 21 members headed by Liu Shaoqi made amendments to it and worked out a second draft for review by Mao Zedong and deliberation of the Political Bureau until the final report was delivered as the formal document of the conference. 542

Chapter 22

Three-year Great Leap Forward Plunges China into an Abyss; Readjustment Policy Helps Rescue the Nation

The report was composed of three parts. The first listed the achievements in China’s socialist construction in those years, focusing on analyzing the major faults and mistakes in the work: firstly, the targets for agricultural and industrial production had been set too high, and capital construction overextended, bringing disorder to various sectors of national economy; secondly, in the rush to transform collective ownership into ownership by the whole people in people’s communes, the line between the two had been confused, the principles of distribution according to work and exchange at equal values had been violated, and the “wind of communism” and egalitarianism had been mistakes; thirdly, striving to establish many complete industrial systems across the country had been inappropriate, done in too devolved and decentralized fashion; fourthly, the rate of agricultural production had been overestimated, the construction program pushed too hard, giving rise to an abnormal surge in urban population, and exacerbating the burden in agricultural production and supplying the cities. The report pointed out that these problems were attributable to the Party’s lack of experience in economic development work, and some leading cadres’ lack of modesty and prudence, violating the Party’s traditional work style of seeking truth from facts and mass line; these had weakened the principle of democratic centralism and hindered the Party’s detecting and responding to problems in a timely manner. The report, however, stressed that the orientation and major principle of the Three Red Banners (General Line for Socialist Construction, Great Leap Forward, and the people’s communes) were correct, that the achievements of the past few years were commendable, and the mistakes and faults were secondary. This was at odds with the principle of seeking truth from facts. At 2 p.m. on January 27, the first general assembly of the 7,000 Cadres Conference convened by Mao Zedong met in the Great Hall of the People, where Liu Shaoqi delivered the report on behalf of the CPC Central Committee. Eschewing rhetoric and conventional formalities, Liu Shaoqi came straight to the point: “As I have handed out copies of the report, I will not waste time reading it here; rather I’d like to talk further about some problems mentioned in it.” He spoke for three hours without a break based on a ten-page outline. 543

Socialism in China

Liu Shaoqi speaking at the 7,000 Cadres Conference. From left: Liu Shaoqi, Chen Yun, Deng Xiaoping, Peng Zhen and Li Fuchun

He first of all analyzed the domestic situation based on facts: “We are now confronted with great economic difficulties, and face serious shortages in food, clothing and basic necessities. Why such shortages? Because we suffered a significant decrease in agricultural production in 1959, 1960 and 1961; many factories ceased operation partially or completely for lack of raw materials and fuel, reducing output by over 40 percent in 1961, which will make it hard to recover in 1962. The state revenue dropped sharply. Two or three years ago, we thought our agriculture and industry might leap forward, but they did not: on the contrary, they slumped, like the curve of a saddle. We should admit and face this fact.” How to evaluate the national situation and the mistakes made? Liu Shaoqi was blunt: “We have exaggerated our achievements but downplayed our faults and mistakes, comparing the proportion of mistakes to achievements as ‘one finger to the other nine.’ But we must not use this expression any more, maybe it applies to a few cases around the country. …Well, as far as the whole country is concerned, we may not be able to compare the proportion of mistakes to achievements as ‘one finger to the other nine,’ I’m afraid it might be in the proportion of three to seven, and in some regions, our faults and mistakes 544

Chapter 22

Three-year Great Leap Forward Plunges China into an Abyss; Readjustment Policy Helps Rescue the Nation

might be more than that.” “I was told by farmers when I visited some places in Hunan, ‘three out of ten disasters are natural, seven are man-made.’ If you do not own up, they won’t be persuaded. In some regions, our faults and mistakes are primary, and our achievements are not.” However, Liu Shaoqi avoided referring to the problems of starvation and cannibalism during the threeyear famine. The expression “one finger to the other nine” was a general evaluation on the work nationwide during the Great Leap Forward, an analogy repeatedly used by Mao Zedong at the Lushan Conference and many other meetings. Peng Dehuai and Zhang Wentian suffered a great deal for offending this “electric line” at Lushan. Liu Shaoqi’s sincerity and incisiveness in pointing out the reasons for the economic difficulties, the faults and mistakes in the work and their relationship to achievements demonstrates his courage in facing facts and speaking truth in the interests of the people. It was admirable and worthy of respect. But it bred Mao Zedong’s displeasure with Liu Shaoqi, and four years later, Liu was to pay a high price for it. When Liu finished, Mao Zedong, chairing the meeting from the platform, uttered not one word on this three-hour speech: rather he declared the session closed after briefing on the forthcoming schedule. At the second general assembly on the morning of January 29, a long speech from Lin Biao elicited a quite different reception from Mao. Setting aside the speech prepared by his speechwriters, Lin Biao made a wily, off-the-cuff remark: “The Three Red Banners put forward by our Party are correct, and they are the creation of our people and of the Party in the process of China’s revolution and development.” “Though we have suffered some losses in material, in agricultural and industrial production, we gained a lot more in our spirit… It is worthwhile for us to pay some tuitions.” Obviously, Lin Biao’s speech was aimed at criticism of the mistakes in Great Leap Forward and the people’s communes made by Liu Shaoqi and many others at the conference. After insinuating for a while, Lin Biao turned to praise: “The facts prove that we encountered these difficulties precisely because we did not follow Chairman Mao’s instructions, warnings and thought to some extent. It has been proved then and now that Mao Zedong thought is always correct.” “I 545

Socialism in China

have come to realize that we do our work well when Chairman Mao’s thought is smoothly carried out and not interfered with. If his ideas are not respected or interfered with, things will go awry. For decades, our Party’s history corroborates this.” Li Biao’s words went down well with Mao Zedong. He responded approvingly: “Lin Biao gave us a very good speech on our Party’s line and military policy. I hope it can be sorted out, in a week or half a month.” After Lin Biao re-polished his speech, Mao Zedong revised it personally and spoke highly of it in a letter to his secretary: “I read it through. I am happy because I find it is a very good and weighty speech.” Four years later, Mao Zedong designated Lin Biao as his successor in place of Liu Shaoqi. Liu Shaoqi, Mao’s first designated successor, fell victim of his integrity while Lin Biao, Mao’s second designated successor, was promoted thanks to his flattery. Reflecting on Liu Shaoqi’s tragedy in the Cultural Revolution reminds one of a rhyme of the Northern and Southern Dynasties period (420589 AD) – “If you are a person of integrity like a bowstring, you will end up dead by the roadside; if you are sycophantic as a crook, you will find yourself promoted.” But history and the people will set things right, although justice may sometimes be long deferred. The second session of the conference was for venting grievances, and lasted for 10 days – from January 29 to February 7. According to the planned schedule, the conference was supposed to conclude on January 31 so that delegates could return home to celebrate the Chinese New Year. But by January 28 and 29, many delegates still had not aired their pent-up grievances. Following discussion with members of the Standing Committee, Mao decided to extend the session and on the afternoon of January 29 declared the extension decision – and that the delegates would celebrate a revolutionary New Year together. Mao said with a touch of humor: “No matter what grievances you harbor, no matter how big, and no matter whether they are justified, there will be no making a fuss over it, no ‘squaring accounts after the dust settles down,’ no counterattack and no retaliation.” “We shall vent grievances in the daytime and enjoy theatre at night; eat rice at lunch and supper and porridge at breakfast every day to make everyone pleased.” His suggestion was applauded and 546

Chapter 22

Three-year Great Leap Forward Plunges China into an Abyss; Readjustment Policy Helps Rescue the Nation

the atmosphere was enlivened. In the following days, every group offered their criticisms and suggestions on the provincial party committees, central bureaus, Party and state organs and their leading cadres, who in turn made self-criticism of their work in those years. On the afternoon of January 30, the third general assembly was convened at which Mao Zedong remarked, “In acquiring an understanding of the objective world, man must pass through a process. On the question of how China was to carry out the democratic revolution, it took us 24 years to reach a correct consensus, and it will also take us time now to understand the law of socialist construction. Only after stumbling and running into snags, going through successes and failures, can we take the initiative and have the right to speak. In socialist construction, we are to some extent working blind. Many sectors of socialist economy are still new to us. Take myself for example, I don’t understand many of the problems arising in our economic development. Haven’t we committed many follies these years? Even if no one scolds us, we should scold ourselves – it was just too stupid of us to make those mistakes.” After summing up lessons learned during the Great Leap Forward, Mao Zedong pointed out that without exercising wide democracy among the people, neither cadres nor the common people would dare to speak up their minds, thus correct opinions could not coalesce and their enthusiasm could not be stirred. Likewise, dictatorship of the proletariat would be replaced by dictatorship of the bourgeoisie, or even fascist dictatorship, and socialist economic development could not continue normally. Therefore, the people should be let talk and tell the truth, enabled to criticize or even reprove. If the people were forbidden to tell truth, the Party might one day be forced to step down. Mao Zedong also made self-criticism and assumed responsibility for the faults in the work nationwide: “The mistakes and faults in our work in recent years are firstly attributable to the Central Committee and to me especially; secondly, they are attributable to the provincial Party committees, city Party committees and the Party committees of the autonomous regions; thirdly, they are attributable to prefectural Party committees; fourthly, to county Party committees; and fifthly, to enterprise Party committees and commune Party committees. In a word, each branch has its share of responsibility.” Mao also 547

Socialism in China

admitted: “We have punished some cadres mistakenly…it has happened in different phases of history, and is unavoidable in socialist society. It is unavoidable whether it is in the period with correct guidelines or wrong guidelines. But there is one difference: in the period with correct guidelines, if we wrong a person, we can identify this and make redress, apologize and make amends, thus they may feel better and lift up their heads. But in the period with wrong guidelines, it was not handled this way; we could only wait for the advent of the people representing the correct guidelines to correct those mistakes through democratic centralism at the appropriate time.” Mao’s remark was correct, of course. Unfortunately, he did not frankly admit the wrongness of his treatment of Peng Dehuai and Zhang Wentian at the Lushan Conference. Obviously, as Deng Xiaoping said in 1980, Mao did not have a full understanding and introspection of his mistakes in those years, and this gave rise to the launch of the Cultural Revolution. Zhou Enlai honestly confessed at the conference that the State Council bore the main responsibility for the mistakes of those years – such as overestimation of grain yield, over-high targets, constant policy changes, supply shortages, overextended capital construction, excessive devolution of power, unrealistically going in for construction on a huge scale. The State Council and its various departments should bear their responsibility. Deng Xiaoping also made self-criticism and took responsibility, stating that he should be blamed, as he had been head of the Secretariat of the CPC Central Committee which was responsible for the daily work of the Central Committee during this period. The central leadership took the lead to claim responsibility and make selfcriticisms; some even dared criticize other Party leaders. On January 1, Peng Zhen said in discussing the Report draft: “The Secretariat of the CPC Central Committee should take the major responsibility for the mistakes, should not the Chairman, Liu Shaoqi and the members of the Standing Committee of the Political Bureau be blamed too? Just be honest. Chairman Mao also made mistakes. For example, the suggestions for transition within three or five years and running public canteens both came from him. Now a prevailing ill practice in the Party is that we dare not give advice, and dare not examine our mistakes. Whoever makes self-criticism, he will be doomed. If Chairman Mao 548

Chapter 22

Three-year Great Leap Forward Plunges China into an Abyss; Readjustment Policy Helps Rescue the Nation

refuses to make self-criticism on his mistakes, though they might be only 1 percent or even 0.1 percent, he might set a bad example for the Party.” The next day, Chen Boda said enigmatically: “Comrade Peng Zhen’s words yesterday are worthy of study. We did have messed things up; should we attribute this all to Chairman Mao or should we check his work?” Peng Zhen had to explain himself: “My opinion is we should avoid giving the impression that we can criticize everybody but Chairman Mao. It is not right.” Just as Liu Shaoqi paid dearly for telling the truth, so did Peng Zhen for criticizing Mao Zedong. In the Cultural Revolution launched four years later, Peng Zhen was among the first top leaders to be cast out, while Chen Boda was promoted to the head of the leading group of the Cultural Revolution. It can thus be concluded that if we could not institutionalize intra-Party democracy and people’s democracy in Party rules and in law, we could not realize it, and thus anyone telling the truth could expect bad times ahead. Generally speaking, the 7,000 Cadres Conference was democratic and lively. At this 28 day-long conference, attendees had their opportunities to talk freely and air their opinions. On the positive side, the experience and lessons of the Great Leap Forward and the People’s Commune Movement were provisionally summarized: there had been failure to command the law of socialist construction, making many mistakes because of inexperience and haste for success; failure to find and correct major mistakes in decision-making for lack of democracy, violation of democratic centralism, and Party infighting so that the Party and the government were unable to timely find and correct major mistakes in policy-making; the Party’s fine tradition of seeking truth from facts had been abandoned, encouraging subjectivism, trickery, suffering for truthtellers of integrity but promotion for smarmy flatterers, political acrobats and braggarts; there had been departure from the Party’s purpose of serving the people and the work-style of building close ties with the masses, resorting instead to coercion, excessive grain purchases, arbitrary guidelines and the “wind of communism,” which seriously infringed upon the farmers’ interests, hampered their enthusiasm and damaged social productivity; only Right conservatism was opposed, and time and again an anti-Leftist campaign had been suddenly shifted to an Anti-Rightist Campaign, which led to the thinking within the Party and society that Left was better than Right, being rather Left 549

Socialism in China

than Right. These experience and lessons, if properly recognized and learned, could have been a valuable asset. Unfortunately, they failed to find their way into our system, laws and measures, which if effectively implemented could have prevented us falling into the same old trap, culminating in the nationwide catastrophe of the Cultural Revolution. Needless to say, restrained by the historical conditions and other factors, the 7,000 Cadres Conference also had its limits. For example, the “Three Red Banners” were still insisted on and upheld, and, because of the shadow of Lushan Conference attendees were cautious in mentioning the mistakes in the Great Leap Forward and the People’s Commune Movement because they had been long influenced by Leftist thinking themselves, and because of blind praise of the Party leader purposefully by some people. Therefore, the conference failed fundamentally to shed the bondage of Leftist thinking; and it did not reverse the tendency to widen class struggle and the violation of economic laws. Two weeks after the conference ended, Liu Shaoqi hosted an enlarged Standing Committee Meeting of the Political Bureau in the Western Building conference room of Zhongnanhai (the Western Building Conference), to study how to implement the guiding principle of the 7,000 Cadres Conference. This three-day conference further analyzed the economic difficulties caused by the Great Leap Forward, and looked into formulating corresponding policies and measures. Liu Shaoqi, Zhou Enlai and Chen Yun agreed that that conference had underestimated the difficulties which were still trapping us, and that without decisive measures, the national economy might worsen. Therefore, Liu Shaoqi reiterated the taking of harsh measures to implement economic policies to tide over the harsh times. Zhou Enlai proposed the need for determination to make significant adjustments to our national economy, to resolutely reduce the industrial production index and capital construction investment so as to restore order to the national economy and seek development. Chen Yun systematically analyzed the difficulties in national economy from five perspectives, and proposed six measures. The attendees reached consensus on this. 550

Chapter 22

Three-year Great Leap Forward Plunges China into an Abyss; Readjustment Policy Helps Rescue the Nation

After this conference, the Central Committee made important decisions to strengthen leadership in economic development, restore the leading group for financial and economic work, appointing Chen Yun as the group leader and Li Fuchun and Li Xiannian as assistant leaders in charge of economic work. Chen Yun resumed the role which Mao Zedong had taken over from him four years earlier in 1958. In order to implement the guiding principles reached at the Western Building Conference and mobilize and arrange various tasks, the State Council called meetings attended by all Party Group members of ministries and commissions. Chen Yun delivered a report entitled “The Current Financial and Economic Conditions and Ways to Overcome Difficulties” and Li Fuchun and Li Xiannian, as vice premiers, gave speeches on industry, capital construction and fiscal work. After this, the Party Central Committee and the State Council held several meetings, which put forward a series of extraordinary measures centering on promoting agricultural and industrial production and capital construction within three to five years to realize the harmonious, steady and sustained development of the national economy: First, we shall slash the high targets for industrial production and capital construction even though it might hurt the economy. We shall reduce the production targets of most heavy industries for 1962 by between 5 and 20 percent: steel output will be further reduced to 6 million tons, which had already nosedived to 7.5 million tons in 1961; investment in capital construction had dropped from 38.4 billion yuan in 1960 to 12.4 billion yuan in 1961 and will be further decreased to 6.76 billion yuan in 1962, with over two-thirds of construction projects being cut. In addition, we shall resolutely shut down industrial enterprises that lack materials and markets, and as a result, the number of enterprises will be reduced by 38 percent in 1962 compared to that of 1959. Second, we shall slash the urban population. Between 1961 to 1962, the urban population was reduced by 20 million, and we sent back home farmers moving into cities during the Great Leap Forward period and urban residents whose home were in the rural areas, simultaneously promoting agricultural production and reducing pressure on supplies of grain and non-staple food to cities. Third, we shall focus our efforts on increasing agricultural production. We shall adopt more liberal policies for rural economy, adjust the people’s com551

Socialism in China

mune system, increase state investment in agriculture, and divert some raw materials to increase the means of agricultural production, increasing the production of tractors, mechanized irrigation and drainage facilities, and fertilizers by between 41 and 51 percent. We shall also greatly increase the supply of coal and fuel for agriculture. In the meantime, we shall transfer cadres from Party and government offices and public institutions at all levels to rural areas to reinforce various leading bodies there, and mobilize people from urban offices, enterprises, public institutions and schools to go to the countryside in support of agricultural production. Fourth, we shall make our best endeavors to ensure market supply and people’s basic life necessities to bridge the shortfall in the domestic market and particularly the urban market, the state spent half of its foreign exchange expenditure on grain imports, over 10 billion in 1961, and will spend 8 billion in 1962; will increase input into light textile industry in terms of capital, raw material and fuel, increase production and market supply of life necessities; we shall also work hard to guarantee that every urban citizen gets 1.5 kg of soybean every month. Fifth, we shall take measures to control issuance of paper money, tighten cash control, financial and material management, and resolutely curb inflation. These decisive and strong measures, once implemented, soon took effect. By the end of 1962, the national economy was pulled out of the crisis: the decline of agricultural output for three consecutive years came to an end, and the total grain output climbed back to 160 billion kg, an increase of 12.5 billion kg and 6.2 percent compared with 1961. The state’s four-year-long fiscal deficit came to an end, and an 830 million yuan surplus was reported in 1962. Life in the cities and in the countryside improved, with annual average grain consumption nationwide standing at 165 kg per capita, an 5.6 kg increase as against 1961; annual average pork consumption per capita increased by 0.8 kg and cotton by 0.8 m. While adjusting the national economy, the Party and government also made adjustments to social and political relations. Concerning the faults and mistakes since 1958, Liu Shaoqi and Zhou Enlai made self-criticism respectively at the Supreme State Conference and State Council meeting in the presence of democratic parties and personages without party-affiliation. 552

Chapter 22

Three-year Great Leap Forward Plunges China into an Abyss; Readjustment Policy Helps Rescue the Nation

The Central Committee gradually rehabilitated 129,000 “Rightists” nationwide, improved their political situation, work and life conditions, but their political identity still bore the stigma of “rehabilitated Rightist,” bringing discrimination to themselves and their relatives. At the two meetings held in February and March, 1962, Zhou Enlai and Chen Yi redefined the status of intellectuals – removing the label “bourgeois intellectuals” and referring to them as “people’s intellectuals, socialist scientists, and people’s workers.” On March 27, Zhou Enlai pointed out in his government work report delivered at the Third Plenary Session of the Second National People’s Congress that the majority of intellectuals were doing their utmost to meet the needs of socialism, and they belonged to the people; it was wrong to regard them as “bourgeois intellectuals.” Zhou Enlai making a speech at the Guangzhou Meeting

During this period, the Central Committee also decided to rehabilitate over six million Party members, cadres and common people who suffered, were wronged and persecuted in the Anti-Rightist Opportunism Movement and rural rectification movement, abolishing the tags “Rightist opportunist,” “landlord,” “rich peasant,” “counter-revolutionary” and “evildoer.” These measures helped smooth the increasingly tense social relations since the Anti-Rightist Opportunism Movement. While this work was taking effect, with the national economy getting over its difficulties, and society developing in a sustained and coordinated way, Mao Zedong was about to wage the class struggle again, put forward new 553

Socialism in China

theories, search for a new object of revolution and launch internal struggle in the Party. Paging through the history of CPC and that of modern China, I have drawn an interesting conclusion: Be it in time of revolution or war, peace or construction, every time we faced difficulty or disaster, the sagacity, determination, composure, pragmatism and flexibility of Mao Zedong could always get the nation out of these crises. In such circumstances of crisis he was a hero and great man. But once troubles were surmounted and peace prevailed, Mao Zedong tended to be self-willed, headstrong, keen on struggle and infighting.1 It is hard to tell why. This poem might provide some insight. There exists no pure gold, Every man has his faults. One small step mistaken by the leader, Tears trickle down people’s faces. ߣࣉ໵ቈԍĭ ൟഐૈຣಮļ ਽ྷെᴱҌĭ Ϭྨ৔ᛟᛟh So what was the new theory proposed by Mao Zedong? And how did it send the country into turmoil and bring disaster to the common people? The next chapter tells the story.

1

In a letter to his wife Jiang Qing on July 8, 1966, Mao Zedong said, “From nationwide chaos to nationwide peace and order, this occurs once every seven or eight years, …After another seven or eight years, there will be another campaign to sweep out monsters and demons, This will happen many times in the future.”

554

Chapter 23

Guarding against Revisionism, the “Four Clear-ups” Movement Aims to Purge “Dissidents” within the Party; Focusing on the Class Struggle, Mao’s New Thought Sets the Tone for the Cultural Revolution

After the 7,000 Cadres Conference, Liu Shaoqi, Zhou Enlai, Chen Yun and Deng Xiaoping led the readjustment of the national economy from the front line. They hosted the Western Building Conference and other important meetings to look into implementation of the principle of “adjustment, consolidation, reinforcement and improvement.” They vigorously implemented adjustment measures, enabling the economy to take a rapid turn for the better and emerge from its difficulties. At the same time, political changes on the domestic and international scene prompted Mao Zedong to focus on guarding against revisionism. Besides engaging in heated debate with the communist parties of the Soviet Union and Eastern European countries, Mao disagreed with Liu Shaoqi, Zhou Enlai, Chen Yun and Deng Xiaoping on the analysis of the situation in China after the Great Leap Forward and how to go about adjusting the national economy. In 1962, this culminated in Mao’s elevating the theory of widening class struggle at the 10th Plenary Session of the Eighth CPC Central Committee, and in an irreconcilable conflict with Liu Shaoqi during the Socialist Education Movement. Thus were sown the seeds of catastrophe three years down the line when the Cultural Revolution exploded onto the scene. On September 24, 1962, the 10th Plenary Session of the Eighth CPC Central Committee opened in Beijing. The official meeting was scheduled to last only four days, but in fact it lasted for two months. A preparatory meeting 555

Socialism in China

of 29 days duration took place prior to the official session, and even before the preparatory meeting, a central work conference met at Beidaihe, lasing a month. The Beidaihe Conference began on July 25. The original agenda listed discussion of three papers on agriculture, grain and commerce respectively but, on August 6, Mao Zedong took everyone by surprise, putting forward three further questions for discussion. The first was directed at Khrushchev’s theories of “party of the entire people” and “state of the whole people.” He asked: “Do different classes still exist in socialist countries? Abroad, some people say classes have ceased to exist and so the Party belongs to the entire people. They contend that it is neither a class tool nor the party of the proletariat any longer, that the dictatorship of the proletariat no longer exists. There is no longer any rival to the dictatorship of the entire people, and that only external contradiction remains. Does this really accord with our own country?” The second question was a veiled reference to the analysis of the domestic situation given by Liu Shaoqi, Zhou Enlai and Chen Yun at the 7,000 Cadres Conference and the Western Building Conference: “What has the real situation been in recent years? Is there any experience? Some comrades, who previously believed our situation is bright, now can see nothing but darkness. Is it truly dark? Which view is the correct one?” The third was aimed at recently introduced reforms such as the household output responsibility system, under which output quotas were contracted to individual households. “At present, some farmers are agitating to go it alone. So, when it comes down to it, shall we take the socialist road or the capitalist road? What about agricultural cooperativization?” These new questions totally disrupted the original agenda. During the course of the next 10 days and more, Mao brought up the issue of class struggle six times in group sessions, and criticized the “dark view” and the “go it alone trend” in the countryside. His tone became harsher and more pointed: “How is it that for the last two years talking about difficulties and darkness is legal but talking about brightness is illegal! We must settle the question at this meeting.” “You’ve suppressed me for several years! You’ve been talking about darkness for several years now! The more you talk, the less of a future 556

Chapter 23

Guarding against Revisionism, the “Four Clear-ups” Movement Aims to Purge “Dissidents” within the Party; Focusing on the Class Struggle, Mao’s New Thought Sets the Tone for the Cultural Revolution

we have. Isn’t this suppressing me?” Dancing to Mao’s tune, the whole meeting turned right away into a criticism session targeting the “dark view” and the “go it alone trend.” Liu Shaoqi was obliged to make repeated explanations and self-criticisms for his judgment of the domestic situation for the past two years. The preparatory meeting began on August 26 and was divided into two sections. The first ten days were devoted to discussing two draft papers on strengthening the people’s communes and developing agricultural production, and to criticizing the “go it alone trend” advocated by Deng Zihui. Deng Zihui, one of the founders of the Soviet Base in west Fujian, was assigned by the Central Committee and State Council to take charge of agriculture and rural work after the founding of New China. Not sharing the same opinion as Mao on agricultural cooperativization, he had come in for criticism by the Chairman several times. Since the winter of 1960, efforts had been made to adjust rural polices, rectify the “wind of communism” all over the country, and ensure that the production team was the basic accounting unit, and these measures had basically succeeded in erasing egalitarianism between different production teams in the people’s communes. However, egalitarianism continued to prevail within each production team, and according to many farmers, there was a lot of hustle and bustle but little work got done and everyone got the same allocations. The former practice of “all eating from the same big pot” had now just become “all eating from the same smaller pot.” These efforts had failed to solve the problems of egalitarianism and “showing up but shirking.” In early 1961, farmers in Anhui Province had created a new administrative form, the responsibility field system – in effect the “household output responsibility system” referred to above. In this, the planning, distribution, farm work, water use and disaster relief came under unified production team management while output quotas were contracted to individual farmer households. Lest they be accused of favoring “go it alone” farming, the smart grassroots cadres took an indirect approach. They described the mode as a production responsibility system of “contracting output quotas to the production team, farm work to the household, and responsibility to the person.” This form defused the disadvantages of “eating from the smaller pot” and effectively reinvigorated zeal to produce. The farmers welcomed it warmly, and its use spread 557

Socialism in China

rapidly. The CPC Anhui Provincial Committee, having summarized this innovation, planned a province-wide roll-out of the production responsibility system, which advocated “contracting farmland according to labor contribution, and recording work points according to actual output.” Zeng Xisheng, first secretary of the Anhui Party Committee delivered a report to the East China Bureau of the CPC Central Committee, and received no clear support from Ke Qingshi. So, Zeng reported to Mao Zedong in person. Mao responded, “You can experiment. If it fails, you should make self-criticism.” Taking this response as a yes, Zeng decided to give it his best shot, and asked the provincial Party committee to issue documents to advance the system across Anhui. The production responsibility system went into action in 90 percent of all the people’s communes and production teams in Anhui Province. At around the same time, similar measures were being adopted in dozens of provinces, and an estimated 20 percent of rural households in China at that time practiced one version or another of the household output responsibility system. But when December came, Mao changed his mind. He thought the “wind of communism” problem had been basically solved by making the production team the basic accounting unit in rural areas. It was the bottom line in the efforts to straighten out the people’s communes, and there was no further retreat possible. In his view the production responsibility system was in essence the “division of land among farmers for them to ‘go it alone’ and practice capitalism.” Mao sought out Zeng Xisheng to ask him whether the “responsibility field” system should be changed now that agricultural output had recovered. Showing signs of reluctance, Zeng played for time: “The people have just tasted the benefits of the system, so should we continue it for a while?” Mao said nothing but his face was a picture of displeasure. Later, he criticized Zeng at the 7,000 Cadres Conference for the “grave directional error” of advocating the revisionist “responsibility field” system. After the conference, Zeng was immediately dismissed from his post. In the first half of 1962, the reorganized Party committee of Anhui Province put a stop to the “responsibility field” practice. But then, some countyand district-level cadres wrote letters to Deng Zihui conveying what the farmers thought of this. They argued that the “responsibility field,” which upheld “unified management in five key areas,” was not a departure from the 558

Chapter 23

Guarding against Revisionism, the “Four Clear-ups” Movement Aims to Purge “Dissidents” within the Party; Focusing on the Class Struggle, Mao’s New Thought Sets the Tone for the Cultural Revolution

principle of collective ownership of the basic means of production. The practice did not equate to individual farming, so it should not be changed. Deng Zihui asked the Rural Work Department to send an investigation team to Anhui Province, and they reported back that the “responsibility field” belonged to the collective economy. It was a new venture in collective production and operation, one that was popular with farmers, who wished it to remain unchanged. Having carefully mulled over the reports and come to his own conclusions, Deng Zihui then wrote to the Central Committee and Mao Zedong, advocating the production responsibility system involving household contracting and remuneration linked to output. He asserted that the practice of this system could not be considered as “go-it-alone” farming because the land and other means of production under it were owned collectively, not individually; he stressed that setting up the production responsibility system was a vital link in doing well in farm output and strengthening collective ownership. Some of the top leaders gave the household output responsibility system their great support. After hearing the reports, Liao Shaoqi called for the household output responsibility system to be made legal. At the report from the East China Bureau, Deng Xiaoping explicitly opposed the criticism from the leaders of the East China Bureau that Anhui’s “responsibility field” amounted to private farming and a mistaken direction, adding the comment that the “responsibility field” was something new and worth trying. At a later meeting he declared that in areas where farmers were living in conditions of huge adversity all manner of approaches were justifiable. He agreed with the view expressed by comrades from Anhui Province: “Black cat, white cat, it doesn’t matter. If it catches mice it’s a good cat.” On July 7, receiving delegates to the Seventh Plenary Session of the Third Central Committee of the Communist Youth League, Deng Xiaoping made an impromptu speech: “There have been new reform attempts recently, for example ‘household output responsibility,’ ‘responsibility field’ and ‘unified management of five key areas.’ Which is the best mode for productive relations? We should choose the one that can quickly help restore and develop local agricultural output; we should choose the one that is welcomed by local people, and if it is not legal it should be made so.” Sadly, this clear-sighted judgment did not become reality until 17 559

Socialism in China

years later when Deng came to power, and the inception of the “household responsibility system with remuneration linked to output,” put an end to the people’s communes. Having read the materials about the “responsibility fields” submitted by Anhui Province, Chen Yun concluded that Anhui’s “responsibility field” was a necessary measure for harsh times. He voiced his view to Mao Zedong: since the individual sector and cooperative economy would coexist in rural areas for a long time, attention should be given to motivating individual producers so as to overcome the current adversity; the division of land among farmers would not lead to polarization, or impact the state grain purchase. Mao said nothing at the time, but it emerged the following day that he had got very angry indeed, and issued a severe reprimand that “division of land among farmers for them to ‘go it alone’” was considered an attempt to collapse the collective economy: it was revisionism. When he got wind of this, Chen wrote a letter immediately requesting sick leave from the Beidaihe Conference, so as to avoid coming in for attack, making self-criticism and clashing with Mao Zedong yet again. Deng Zihui’s “household output responsibility” proposition was anathema to Mao, and he was displeased too with Liu Shaoqi, Chen Yun and Deng Xiaoping for showing approval rather than condemnation. As a result, Mao decided to draw up a document as soon as possible on strengthening the people’s communes and developing agricultural production. He put Chen Boda in charge of drafting the document, which would be issued in the name of the Party Central Committee. At the Beidaihe Conference and preparatory meeting, Mao directed harsh criticism at Deng Zihui for seeing only the negative side of the situation and for advocating “household output responsibility;” in connection with his previous performance, Mao asserted that Deng had always disliked the cooperatives, and was in error for opposing the socialist rural collective economy. According to the concentrated criticism at Beidaihe, Deng’s encouragement for individual farming actually represented the demands of rich peasants to develop capitalist agriculture. Not long afterwards, in a move that resembled pulling down the temple in order to evict the monks, the Rural Work Department of the Central Committee was disbanded and Deng Zihui was transferred to the State Planning Commission as its deputy director. 560

Chapter 23

Guarding against Revisionism, the “Four Clear-ups” Movement Aims to Purge “Dissidents” within the Party; Focusing on the Class Struggle, Mao’s New Thought Sets the Tone for the Cultural Revolution

At the second phase of the preparatory meeting, the guns were directed at “the tendency to reverse correct verdicts.” It all stemmed from two letters written by Peng Dehuai to the Party Central Committee and Mao Zedong. As discussed in the last chapter, during the three years of China’s economic difficulties, the Party and the government rehabilitated over six million Party members, cadres and ordinary people who had suffered injustice and persecution in the Anti-Rightist Opportunism Movement and other movements. Unfortunately, Mao stubbornly insisted that there was nothing wrong with the Lushan Conference and “Peng Dehuai must not be rehabilitated.” There was much muttering about this within the Party and outside it too. At the 7,000 Cadres Conference, Liu Shaoqi, compliant with Mao’s instructions, observed: “Comrade Peng Dehuai wrote Chairman Mao to express his opinions. His letter did conform to reality in many aspects.” “As a member of the Standing Committee of the Political Bureau, he was not wrong in writing to the Chairman of the Party Central Committee even if he expressed some incorrect opinions.” The four reasons the Central Committee had criticized and punished Peng Dehuai were: one, Peng was one of the principal members of an anti-Party clique headed by Gao Gang and Rao Shushi within the Party; Mao chipped in here: “In fact, the real leader was Peng, not Gao.” Liu Shaoqi continued: two, Peng and Gao both had an “international background,” and had dealings with “foreigners involved in subversive activities in China;” three, Peng had conspired to usurp Party and state power, hiding his sectarian activities from the Central Committee; four, Peng had dashed off his letter hastily on his return to China after a several-month-long military tour through Eastern Europe, because he thought this a golden opportunity to exploit the work failings and mistakes to launch an attack on the Party. Peng Dehuai was not at the 7,000 Cadres Conference, and when he learned that he had come under attack once again and the so-called “four reasons” justifying this, his anger, suppressed during three years of injustice, was akin to a volcanic eruption: not only had there been no reversal of the unjust verdict on him made at Lushan, even more serious charges had been made against him. In his shock and anger he submitted a long letter, 80,000 characters in length, to the Central Committee and Mao, in which he stated: “I am no ‘opportunist who sneaked into the Party,’ no ‘careerist,’ no ‘conspirator,’ nor have 561

Socialism in China

I ‘long designed to usurp the Party leadership.’ But I did made several mistakes.” In rebutting the “four reasons,” he cited numerous facts and argued strongly on just grounds: his relations with Huang Kecheng, Zhang Wentian and Zhou Xiaozhou were those of normal comradeship and there had been nothing clandestine in their dealings. The accusation against him of wanting to usurp power was groundless; Peng reviewed and presented the facts of his contacts with Gao Gang and Rao Shushi to show that he had formed no alliance with Gao and Rao; he stated clearly that he could neither speak nor read any foreign language, and that on all nine occasions when he met with foreigners between 1936 and 1958 there had been translators and diplomats present, as could be demonstrated by referring to the records of these occasions. There was absolutely no question of him having dealings with “foreigners engaged in subversive activities.” In managing the day-to-day affairs of the Central Military Commission he had stuck to the principles established by the Central Committee and Chairman Mao in terms of army building, leadership system and strategies. Therefore, it could not be concluded that he had followed a “bourgeois military line.” In his letter, Peng specially highlighted that the charges against him of conspiring to usurp Party and state power and of having an “international background” were quite unwarranted: if investigation found true and certain evidence of wrong doing, he would be “willing to face the death penalty for committing treason.” On August 22, Peng wrote to the Central Committee and Mao again, imploring that his mistakes be given a comprehensive review and be properly handled. Mao chose to interpret Peng’ s two letters as a public challenge to reverse the verdict so he called a limited-scope meeting to have Peng’s letters widely circulated and criticized. In addition, Mao gave a speech at the preparatory meeting, denigrating Peng as a “careerist … launching a new attack against the Party,” “in illicit relations with a foreign country,” serving the interests of an “international reactionary einsatz gruppen.” Finally, the Tenth Plenary Session of the Eighth CPC Central Committee passed a resolution to establish a special group for further investigation into “the Peng Dehuai case.” In September 1965, Mao appointed Peng Deputy Director of the Great Third Line of Construction of National Defense Industry in Southwest and Northwest China. When talking to Peng personally, Mao said: “Perhaps, 562

Chapter 23

Guarding against Revisionism, the “Four Clear-ups” Movement Aims to Purge “Dissidents” within the Party; Focusing on the Class Struggle, Mao’s New Thought Sets the Tone for the Cultural Revolution

truth is on your side.” During the Cultural Revolution, Peng was arrested and brought back to Beijing where he was struggled against and persecuted, culminating in his death. In December 1978, at the Third Plenary Session of the Eleventh CPC Central Committee, the CPC Central Committee formally reversed the erroneous verdict against Peng Dehuai. At a solemn memorial meeting in Beijing, Deng Xiaoping delivered a eulogy on behalf of the Central Committee of the CPC. He gave a comprehensive and impartial evaluation of Peng Dehuai, extolling Peng’s life-long magnanimity and loyalty to the cause of the Party and the people, and to a life rich in great achievements. While the preparatory meeting was targeting Peng Dehuai for criticism of “trend to reverse correct verdicts,” Xi Zhongxun was coming in for the same treatment, and in his case the injustice was even more egregious. The unjust case against Xi Zhongxun had its origins in a novel about the life of Liu Zhidan, a founder of the Shaanxi-Gansu-Ningxia Base Area, a book written by Liu’s sister-in-law Liu Jiantong. When the manuscript was finished, the publisher solicited feedback on it from Liu’s former comrades-in-arms and cofounders of the Base Area, among them Xi Zhouxun. Xi, who used to be Red Army leader of the Shaanxi-Gansu Border Region Soviet Area, chairman of the Shaanxi-Gansu Soviet Government, commissar of the Northwest Field Army, and vice premier of the State Council in the late 1950s, had been against her writing of the book in the first place. In Xi’s opinion, it would be bound to get entangled in historical facts and issues of rights and wrongs, merits and mistakes, all of them with the potential to stir up disputes among the old comrades of the Northwest. Therefore, Xi had suggested that she content herself with just a few chapters on the revolutionary career of Liu Zhidan. In 1961, the publisher and the author brought the final proof of the book to Xi again to ask for his opinion. At that time, Xi was so busy with his concurrent duties as vice premier and secretary-general of the State Council that he delegated the task of going over the final proof to his secretary. After hearing the secretary’s report on the book, Xi met the author and the publisher twice while the latter took on-the-spot notes. According to these notes, Xi listed historical facts about the Shaanxi-Gansu Base Area to correct inaccuracies and defects in the novel. He explicitly pointed out that the novel 563

Socialism in China

should focus on the era as a whole by portraying Liu Zhidan in the context of the Great Chinese Revolution (1924-1927); the novel should reflect the correct ideas of Mao Zedong on how to lead the Chinese revolution, for example, Mao’s thought of establishing revolutionary bases in rural areas, as vindicated by the Shaanxi-Gansu Base Area founded by Liu Zhidan and other comrades. From whatever historical perspective you look at it, Xi’s opinions about the book was impeccable. However, there are some people who will find fault in anything and make trouble out of nothing. Just when Peng Dehuai was being singled out for criticism at the preparatory meeting, the publisher sent Biography of Liu Zhidan to Yan Hongyan, at the time first secretary of CPC Yunnan Provincial Committee and had formerly worked in the Shaanxi-Gansu Base Area, to ask for his opinion. After reading part of the novel, Yan thought some of its details inconsistent with the historical facts. Therefore, he suggested that its publication be postponed for a while, plus he was not happy with parts of it being serialized in Workers’ Daily and China Youth Daily. When Kang Sheng, the member of the Political Bureau in charge of ideological work, got wind of it, he concluded without casting a glance at the text that it was far more than an issue of literature and art: it was an anti-Party “political program.” Kang immediately ordered the Publicity Department of the CPC Central Committee to instruct that no newspapers, magazines or publishing houses were allowed to publish the novel. In addition, Kang asked the Secretariat of the CPC Central Committee to deal with it. At a meeting, Yan Hongyan claimed that the novel, written with the support of Xi Zhongxun, was an effort to exploit the fame of Liu Zhidan in order to promote the cause of Gao Gang. Kang Sheng asked: “The central question is why is Gao Gang being publicized at this particular time?” Later, the speeches of Yan Hongyan and Kang Sheng were published in Conference Bulletin, causing a great stir among the attendees of the meeting. At the following preparatory meetings of the Tenth Plenary Session of the Eighth CPC Central Committee, the Biography of Liu Zhidan was painted as an attempt to “reverse the Party’s verdict on Gao Gang,” and to “amass political capital for Xi Zhongxun’s conspiracy to usurp Party and state power.” Xi Zhongxun, Ma Wenrui and Jia Tuofu, joint founders the Northern-Shaanxi Base Area, were accused, along with Liu Zhidan’s brother and battle companion Liu Jingfan, 564

Chapter 23

Guarding against Revisionism, the “Four Clear-ups” Movement Aims to Purge “Dissidents” within the Party; Focusing on the Class Struggle, Mao’s New Thought Sets the Tone for the Cultural Revolution

of forming an “anti-Party clique headed by Peng Dehuai, Gao Gang and Xi Zhongxun,” and a “northwest anti-Party clique,” the novel being criticized as their “anti-Party program.” On September 24, Mao Zedong was making his opening speech at the Tenth Plenary Session of the Eighth CPC Central Committee held in the Huairentang Hall of Zhongnanhai, when Kang Sheng passed him a note. The note read: “Using a novel to conduct anti-Party activities is a great invention.” Mao read the note out loud, and continued: “Now, it is popular to write novels, isn’t it? Using a novel to conduct anti-Party activities is a great invention. If you want to overthrow a regime, first you have to create public opinion and ideological work has to be done in advance. The same applies for the revolutionary class and counterrevolutionary class alike.” Mao also made a pointed reference to the fact that the Ninth Plenary Session of the Eighth CPC Central Committee held in 1959 had crushed the conspiracy by Peng Dehuai’s anti-Party clique to attack the Party. At the Tenth Plenary Session, Peng Dehuai’s anti-Party activities were again exposed, but also unmasked Xi Zhongxun, another member of the Gao-Rao clique. Mao’s speech set the prejudicial tone for Xi Zhongxun to be identified as a member of the anti-Party clique of Peng, Gao and Rao. The plenary session passed a resolution to set up a 20-strong special investigation committee, with Kang Sheng in charge. The investigation committee set the tone right from the start that “the novel is an anti-Party program” and “there is an anti-Party clique.” They then went looking for the “proof ” and cooked up charges. When the Cultural Revolution began in June 1966, the investigation committee gave a handling suggestion that turned right and wrong on its head, and was based on fabrication. Xi Zhongxun was falsely accused of “following the capitulationist road” during his time in the Northern-Shaanxi Base Area, of developing cooperation with the capitalist elite and abandoning class struggle. Xi was accused not only of being a leader of the anti-Party clique, but also of being a counter-revolutionary who should be punished according to law. As a result, Xi was dismissed from his post. He was under examination for 16 years, eight of them in jail experiencing every kind of torment. During the Cultural Revolution, Kang Sheng acted in collusion with Lin Biao and the “Gang of Four” to persecute the victims of the case. Liu Jingfan 565

Socialism in China

was jailed and his wife, the author of the novel, was either behind bars or under surveillance. More than 10,000 people got dragged into the affair, some of whom were even persecuted to death. Kang Sheng and the investigation committee members played dirty tricks, quoting remarks out of context, surreptitiously doctoring the text and misrepresenting the original intention so as to groundlessly charge Xi Zhongxun with being the covert presence behind the novel’s publication. Xi was criticized for using the novel as an attempt to present the Shaanxi-Gansu Base Area as the Chinese revolution’s “true orthodoxy” and “center,” and of “making a program to usurp Party and state power.” The charges were ridiculous in the extreme. The trumped-up charge that the novel was an effort to “reverse the Party’s verdict on Gao Gang” was based on hearsay and misrepresentation. The author drew on experiences of leaders in the Base Area as material, weaving them together in the stories of two fictitious characters Luo Yan and Xu Zhong. It was a common literary technique at the time, as the author explained under questioning. However, Kang Sheng and other members of the investigation committee managed to identify the fictitious Luo Yan as the real-life Gao Gang. Their “reasoning” went like this: Gao Gang’s original name was Gao Chongde and in the first draft of the book Luo Yan had the same character “Chong” in his given name, and furthermore Luo Yan had some similar experiences to Gao Gang. Even though the author had changed the name Luo Chongyan into Luo Yan in the second draft, the investigation committee kept identifying Luo Yan as Gao Gang. The same logic reached the conclusion that the fictitious character Xu Zhong represented Xi Zhongxun. The true “great invention” was the “literary inquisition” pursued by Kang Sheng and his ilk. So adept were they at concocting unjust cases, they could have given masterclasses to the infamous Ming Dynasty secret service! Xi suffered 18 years of injustice and persecution before the CPC Central Committee issued a notice in February 1980 redressing the fabricated case of the so-called “Xi Zhongxun anti-Party clique,” and rehabilitating the reputations of Xi Zhongxun, Jia Tuofu and Liu Jingfan. At the Tenth Plenary Session of the Eighth CPC Central Committee, Mao Zedong singled out Deng Zihui, Peng Dehuai and Xi Zhongxun by name, 566

Chapter 23

Guarding against Revisionism, the “Four Clear-ups” Movement Aims to Purge “Dissidents” within the Party; Focusing on the Class Struggle, Mao’s New Thought Sets the Tone for the Cultural Revolution

criticizing them for supporting “going it alone,” for negativity and for “trying to reverse correct verdicts.” He laid particular stress on class struggle, warning the public on no account to forget this, nor the danger of revisionism emerging within the Party and the country. He declared that classes and class struggle did exist even in socialist countries, as did the possibility of restoration of the reactionary class. On the issue of class struggle, he said: “From now on, we should talk about it every year, every month, every day and at meetings with large attendees, at Party congresses, at plenums, at every meeting so that we can consciously follow a Marxist-Leninist route to deal with it.” Mao also remarked that there were counter-revolutionaries in the society, but not that many, and it was just a few making waves. In his view, the main danger lay within the Party itself, and it must concentrate on guarding against revisionism within the Party.

The 10th Plenary Session of the Eighth CPC Central Committee, where Mao Zedong warned not to forget class struggle and to guard against revisionism within the Party

The Communiqué of the Tenth Plenary Session of the Eighth CPC Central Committee underwent repeated revision and expansion by Mao Zedong before being issued, in particular the paragraph containing the initial form of Mao’s new theory on class struggle: “During the periods of the proletarian revolution and dictatorship of the proletariat, and during the transition period from capitalism to socialism (which may last about several decades 567

Socialism in China

or even longer), there exist the class struggle between the proletariat and the bourgeoisie, the struggle between socialist road and capitalist road. Not taking defeat lying down, the overturned reactionary ruling class always attempts to stage a comeback. In the meanwhile, there are still influences produced by the bourgeoisie, force of habit left over by the old society and the spontaneous inclination to capitalism of a few small producers in society … under such circumstances, class struggle is inevitable.” “This class struggle inevitably has a reflection inside the Party. Pressure of foreign imperialism and influences of domestic bourgeoisie are the social roots of the birth of revisionist thinking within the Party. We must guard against and resolutely oppose all opportunistic tendencies inside the Party while struggling with domestic and overseas class enemies.” Clearly, new developments in Mao’s ideas on class struggle had taken place. This becomes evident by comparing what he said on the subject at the Tenth Plenary Session, the preparatory meeting and in the communiqué with his remarks during the Anti-Rightist Campaign of 1957 and the Lushan Conference and Anti-Rightist Opportunism Movement of 1959. His new position, reflected in his sayings, was that class struggle, which existed only within limits and to a certain extent in China after the socialist transformation of the means of production, would run through the transition period from capitalism to socialism. Therefore, it should be talked about every year, every month and every day. Furthermore, Mao thought that class struggle in society would inevitably find reflection within the ruling Communist Party, giving rise to revisionism within the Party, and this should be the focus and target of attack. Mao’s words contributed to the extension and the making absolute of class struggle in socialist countries, and to systematizing the erroneous Leftist theory. What Mao branded as “revisionism” within the CPC, according to analysis of actual situations at the Lushan Conference and the Tenth Plenary Session of the Eighth CPC Central Committee, amounted to nothing more than different opinions among the central leadership on how to go about building socialism, assessing the domestic situation, and formulating policies and guidelines. It was quite to be expected at this early stage of socialist construction that senior Party officials, without much experience and still learning on the job, 568

Chapter 23

Guarding against Revisionism, the “Four Clear-ups” Movement Aims to Purge “Dissidents” within the Party; Focusing on the Class Struggle, Mao’s New Thought Sets the Tone for the Cultural Revolution

should have different ideas. They could seek common ground while reserving differences, approach the truth and reach consensus through democratic discussion, communication and debate; they could also try to gather experience in practice and compare different programs so as to gradually master the rules. It was totally unnecessary and improper to mobilize class struggle, political movements and “two-line struggle within the Party” in order to suppress different opinions and bring about unanimity of view by coercion. Ideological disagreements and different views, even though they were consistent with the general direction of building socialism, were arbitrarily denounced by Mao as “Rightist opportunism,” “revisionism” and “reflection of social class struggle within the Party.” His ruthless punishment and excision of dissident voices did great damage to democracy within the state and the Party. Mao’s new class struggle ideology already contained within it the germ of the guiding theory of the yet-to-come Cultural Revolution – “continuous revolution under dictatorship of the proletariat,” a theory that reached its final shape at the hands of the “Gang of Four”, Kang Sheng, Chen Boda and his ilk – in the early days of the Cultural Revolution. It goes to show that erroneous Leftist thinking was already playing a dominant role in the political life of the Party and state. Viewed in terms of the historical and international context, Mao’s new thinking was certainly influenced by the 1956 rebellions in Poland and Hungary, and intensification of Sino-Soviet divergences and polemics. In Mao’s view the USSR and its Communist Party had become revisionist, and he wanted to prevent such a tragedy being repeated in China. There were other objective factors that served to fuel Mao’s thought on strengthening class struggle: the hostility and blockade of the USA and other Western countries; Chiang Kaishek’s clamor to retake the mainland; at home, destructive activities by hostile elements, increasing economic crimes and criminality, strikes by workers and students, street demonstrations by citizens, as well as farmers’ riots. Analyzing in terms of subjective factors, after the founding of New China, Mao Zedong, without any shadow of doubt, devoted his full attention and effort to preventing any deterioration or even change of the political power, for example: “having the people supervise the government;” avoid the flourish569

Socialism in China

and-decline cycle of rulers in the feudal society; preventing and tackling “bureaucratism,” “patrician class,” “vested interests” and “bureaucrat class” and similar problems among Party and government officials. With this motivation, in the 1950s, Mao launched the “Three-anti and Five-anti Campaigns,” and two Party rectification movements which led to the Anti-Rightist Campaign and the Anti-Rightist Opportunism Movement; these were followed, in 1963 by the Socialist Education Movement, and later by the Cultural Revolution. It has to be said, Mao was right in trying to enhance Party conduct, which is of crucial importance to the ruling party and state power. Nevertheless, he was wrong to see class struggle as the principal contradiction during the entire socialism period, basing his solution on strengthening the ideology of class struggle, and waging class struggle, intra-Party struggle and political movements. Deviating from the correct path of democracy and rule of law, he encouraged people to “speak out and air views in a big way, put up big-character posters and hold mass debates,” and let loose stormy mass movements. But things did not turn out the way he wished: instead of producing good results, Mao’s methods gravely harmed the fundamental interests of the people; they stirred up popular resentment and social conflicts capable of shaking the very foundations of the ruling party. Burrowing deeper, looking at cultural reasons, the residual feudalist autocratic and imperial mindset deep down in Mao’s thought, plus the arrogance and personality cult that grew in him after the nationwide victory, made him deaf to and intolerant of different voices and criticism from within the Party or outside. At will, Mao used crude and violent means to suppress different views and uphold his personal authority. Mao was unable to tolerate the domestic situation analysis by Liu Shaoqi, Zhou Enlai, Chen Yun, Deng Xiaoping and Deng Zihui, especially when it came to the causes of and solutions for the three years of economic hardship. Also, Peng Dehuai’s unwillingness to submit after being criticized and his appeal against the decision felt to Mao like a challenge to his authority. Thus, invoking class struggle became a magic formula for Mao and he exploited it to the hilt, as a theoretical basis and ideological weapon to attack other leaders who had different opinions or attempted to challenge his authority.

570

Chapter 23

Guarding against Revisionism, the “Four Clear-ups” Movement Aims to Purge “Dissidents” within the Party; Focusing on the Class Struggle, Mao’s New Thought Sets the Tone for the Cultural Revolution

There was one fortunate thing: drawing lessons from the Lushan Conference, Liu Shaoqi suggested at the Tenth Plenary Session that the essential points of the meeting should not be conveyed to lower levels, because too much focus on class struggle might hinder readjustment of the economy. Liu’s advice was taken by Mao and other leaders, and it was made clear that the essential points of the meeting would be transmitted only to cadres above the 17th administrative level (county-level or regimental-level). And cadres at all levels, at the grass-roots level in particular, were required to put their routine work in first place. Therefore, after the meeting, the Party and the public still concentrated on putting the economy to rights, recovering and developing output. In 1963, the economic situation began to take a favorable turn. The CPC Central Committee decided to devote another three more years continuing the policy of “readjustment, consolidation, reinforcement and improvement.” Five years of readjustment commencing in 1961 had coordinated the relations between industry and agriculture, between heavy industry and light industry, and between accumulation and consumption. Meanwhile, industry’s ability to support agriculture showed improvement, as did enterprises’ management and economic benefits. On this foundation, industrial and agricultural output recovered and grew, and there was improvement in market supply and demand, fiscal balance, and price stability. From 1963 to 1965, gross output value grew by an average of 15.7 percent per annum; the corresponding figures for agricultural and industrial output values were 11 percent and 17.9 percent respectively. Thanks to the hard struggle waged by the people under the leadership of the Party and the government, an independent and fairly complete industrial system took shape on the basis of the first and second five-year plans. A group of large- and medium-sized iron and steel bases were set up, and selfsufficiency in iron and steel climbed from 85 percent in 1957 to 95 percent in 1965; complete industrial systems were by and large formed in nonferrous metals, machinery, light textile and national defense industries, with the selfsufficiency rate in main equipment jumping from 60 percent in 1957 to 90 percent in 1964; there was development of a breakthrough nature in the petroleum industry, which became a pillar industry of the national economy. With 571

Socialism in China

the development of Daqin, Shengli and Dagang oilfields, by 1965 China was self-sufficient in oil and could even export a small amount, no longer a passive dependent on imported oil. Communications and transportation, and post and telecommunications developed rapidly: 12 trunk railways were laid and the length of railway track was extended by 7,200 km; highway length more than doubled, and the number of trucks grew 1.6-fold; the number of inland river vessels grew 1.9-fold, inland waterway freight by nearly 50 percent, and ocean freight three-fold; the telecommunications network expanded into rural areas, bringing telephone access to more than 90 percent of villages and towns. The hard graft, resilience and enterprise of workers of Daqing and farmers of Dazhai encouraged people from all walks of life to go for rapid development. The development of agricultural infrastructure resulted in obvious benefits, with the proportion of irrigated area in the total area under cultivation rising from 24.4 percent in 1957 to 32 percent in 1965. Educational and scientific and technical undertakings made remarkable progress: there were 434 institutions of higher learning and 674,000 enrolled students in 1965, the enrollment rate for school-age children having soared from 61.7 percent in 1957 to 84.7 percent; the number of scientists and technicians increased from 1.2 million to 2.3 million during the same period. Spectacular achievements were made on

“Iron Man” Wang Jinxi and his workmates mixChen Yonggui, Party branch secreing concrete with their bodies on the Daqing Oilfield tary of Dazhai Production Brigade, while trying to control a blowout leading commune members in reclaiming terraced fields in Xiyang County, Shanxi Province

572

Chapter 23

Guarding against Revisionism, the “Four Clear-ups” Movement Aims to Purge “Dissidents” within the Party; Focusing on the Class Struggle, Mao’s New Thought Sets the Tone for the Cultural Revolution

the frontiers of science in the service of national defense, notably the atomic bomb, missiles, hydrogen bomb and earth satellite. The home-developed production line for uranium-235 and the detonation of its first atomic bomb gave a huge boost to China’s international standing. Of course, the growth in national economy was in part a rebound from a low base, namely the grave economic difficulties brought by the Great Leap Forward and the People’s Commune Movement. In fact, the economic growth rate and labor productivity during this time were at the lowest level since the founding of New China. For example, in the period from 1957 to 1966, average annual growth rate of GDP was 3.3 percent, much lower than the 6.9 percent figure during the period of the First Five-Year Plan (1951-1956); per capita growth rate of GDP was 1.7 percent, much lower than the 4.5 percent figure during the period of the First Five-Year Plan; labor productivity fell to 1.2 percent from the 4.1 percent figure of the First Five-Year Plan period; capital productivity was -7.9 percent, and total factor productivity was between -4.26 percent and -2.44 percent, both figures the lowest in our history. Per capita consumption of grain, edible oil and cotton cloth in 1965 was still below the 1957 figure. In sharp contrast to the smooth readjustment, recovery and development of the economy, following the Tenth Plenary Session of the Eighth CPC Central Committee, China’s political life was one of turbulence. Driven by the new thought on class struggle, Mao Zedong decided to launch the Socialist Education Movement, or the “Four Clean-ups Movement” in urban and rural areas, so as to “combat and prevent revisionism,” and to guard against “peaceful evolution” and “restoration of capitalism.” Mao put forward the idea of socialist education again at the Tenth Plenary Session of the Eighth CPC Central Committee. At the central work conference in February 1963, when Mao summarized and promoted the spreading the experience of Hunan and Hebei, he made a decision to launch the “Four Clean-ups Movement” in rural people’s communes, focusing on cleaning up account books, warehouse stocks, assets and work points. For the cities, he planned a movement against the “five evils” to combat embezzlement and theft, speculation and profiteering, extravagance and waste, decentralism and 573

Socialism in China

bureaucratism. All the foregoing served as pilot schemes for the wholesale roll-out of the Socialist Education Movement. In early May, Mao convened a meeting of Political Bureau members and secretaries of major central bureaus to prepare a document for launching the movement in the countryside. The document consisted of 10 articles so it was popularly called the “First 10-point Decision.” At the meeting, Mao remarked four times “once the theory of class struggle is grasped, all problems can be solved” and warned that China should be on its guard against revisionism, and on no account forget the class struggle. With class struggle as its guiding thought, the “First 10-point Decision” greatly exaggerated the domestic political situation and listed specific signs of intense class struggle appearing in Chinese society, such as overturned landlords and rich peasants attempting to stage a comeback and settle old scores; they were trying every way possible to corrupt the cadres and usurp the leadership, had actually succeeded in winning power in a few people’s communes, and had their agents in production teams, organs and units; it made the sensational claim that “if class struggle was not grasped, within a few years at the least and a few decades at the most, the whole country would inevitably be swept by counterrevolutionary restoration, the Party of Marxism-Leninism would surely turn revisionist, a Fascist party, and then the whole country would change color.” Based on this false analysis, the “First 10-point Decision” defined the Socialist Education Movement as “a magnificent movement aiming to wage tit-fortat struggle against the capitalist and feudalist forces that launched wild attacks against us, squash their counter-revolutionary arrogance, and transform the majority into new people.” Thus defined from the outset, the movement could hardly avoid Left-deviationist mistakes, such as expanded scope of attack and merciless struggle. After the issuing of “First 10-point Decision”, the Socialist Education Movement was tried out in one place after another. Since the movement took class struggle as its central task, it used class struggle to deal with problems that actually could not be classed either as contradictions between the people and the enemy or as class struggle. The central document required the movement to implement the policy of “education first, with punishment as supplement” and that “cadres should first cleanse themselves so as to engage with a 574

Chapter 23

Guarding against Revisionism, the “Four Clear-ups” Movement Aims to Purge “Dissidents” within the Party; Focusing on the Class Struggle, Mao’s New Thought Sets the Tone for the Cultural Revolution

clear conscience;” despite this, many people under persecution were tied, hung up, beaten, and made to kneel. Some even committed suicide or fled. In November that year, the CPC Central Committee issued another document on specific policies concerning the Socialist Education Movement in the countryside (the “Latter 10-point Decision”). Since the emphasis was still on class struggle and further mobilizing masses to participate into the movement, it was impossible for this document to curb the expansionary trend of class struggle. In many places the movement was pursued as before, in an antienemy fashion. The “four elements” (landlord, rich peasant, counter-revolutionary and bad elements, plus in some areas Rightists) became the target of attack again, even those who had been completely or basically reformed. They were forced into supervision and reform. Following the spread and deepening of the movement, its target of attack were expanded and upgraded. At a central work conference convened in May and June 1964, Mao Zedong made a remark on the Socialist Education Movement: “In a word, I think one third of the state power is not in our hands. It is held by our enemy instead.” In addition, Mao posed a sharp question: what if man like Khrushchev were to appear in China? At the meeting, Liu Shaoqi advocated “tracing the root” of problems, since mistakes by cadres in the “four not-clean areas” usually had their “root” at a higher level. However, Liu suggested that the action be restricted to the levels of people’s commune and county. After the meeting, the CPC Central Committee decided to set up a headquarters for the “Four Clean-ups Movement” and struggle against the “five evils.” It would be under the command of Liu Shaoqi who was moved to the frontline of the Socialist Education Movement. In the second half of 1964, the Four Clean-ups Movement went into action nationwide. Targeting rural grassroots cadres, the movement took a more Leftist direction. Later on, as the movement developed in urban industries and mining enterprises and in public institutions, cadres at all levels were made the target of attack, too. Acting on the misconception that “the Four Cleanups Movement belongs to class struggle” and that “one third of state power is in the enemy’s hands,” the Party Central Committee decided to send to rural areas 1,560,000 cadres, teachers and students from Party and government offices, and institutions of higher learning, to form work teams for the promotion of the Socialist Education Movement in the countryside. 575

Socialism in China

The work team established headquarters in county seats, set up branches in people’s communes, and sent working groups to villages, production brigades and enterprises. After settling down in villages, members of the working groups ate, lived and worked together with villagers, put down roots among them and secretly established contacts. They set up organizations of the poor and lower-middle peasants, and mobilized the masses to “take off the lid,” an attempt to expose cadres who were not clean in the “four fields (political, economic, organizational and ideological fields)” and seize power from the corrupt leadership; organize people to criticize the “go it alone” tendency and “sever the capitalist tail.” The label “capitalist roader” was flung at farmers engaged in household responsibility system and trading at country fairs, and at commune members with family sidelines, if they cultivated more private plots, raised more chickens, ducks, geese, pigs and sheep. In fact, what they did had nothing to do with “capitalism.” Those critics weren’t even clear what “capitalism” actually meant before denouncing people. As a result, huge numbers of cadres and ordinary people were wronged, and even the term “capitalism” suffered an “injustice.” During this period, the nationwide Four Clean-ups Movement was significantly influenced by the “Taoyuan experience” and the “Xiaozhan of Tianjin experience.” The experience of seizing power in Xiaozhan in particular pushed the movement to Leftist extremes. The “Taoyuan experience” refers to the movement methods and measures followed by Taoyuan Production Brigade of Lüwangzhuang Commune in Funing County, Hebei Province, where Wang Guangmei (Liu Shaoqi’s wife) was working under an assumed name. The main points were: severe class struggle conflict between those who were clean in the “four fields” and those who were not; the Taoyuan Brigade Party branch was “basically not a Communist Party organization” but “a political power of dual character;” once stationed in the village, the working group first put down roots and established contacts, next did the “four clean-ups,” and then “launched the struggle against the enemy.” It relied “largely but not exclusively on the grassroots organizations and cadres,” mobilized and relied on poor and lower-middle peasants to criticize cadres who had made serious mistakes in the “four not-cleans,” and traced their source in the higher levels. However, throughout the duration of the movement, Taoyuan 576

Chapter 23

Guarding against Revisionism, the “Four Clear-ups” Movement Aims to Purge “Dissidents” within the Party; Focusing on the Class Struggle, Mao’s New Thought Sets the Tone for the Cultural Revolution

Brigade held not one “struggle meeting,” and no one was beaten or arrested. The original Party branch secretary was dismissed from his position, and his problems were treated as a contradiction among the people. Other cadres who made mistakes could resume work provided they made self-criticism, paid compensation, and were forgiven by the people. Wang Guangmei reported directly to Mao Zedong on the performance of the work team many times. Mao was so satisfied that he repeatedly encouraged and instructed her to introduce the experiences of Taoyuan to other places. At the request of the top leaders of CPC Hebei Provincial Committee, Wang made a presentation on the performance of Taoyuan Brigade to the work conference of CPC Hebei Provincial Committee. Chen Boda was very keen that the experience of the Taoyuan Brigade should be transmitted to Party committees at all levels and all the work teams. Mao agreed and so the “Taoyuan experience” was disseminated nationwide in the name of the CPC Central Committee. The “experience of Xiaozhan in Tianjin” was all the work of Chen Boda, who was in charge of the “four clean-ups” in Xiaozhan Town. Chen incited the working group to report the four clean-ups experience of Xiaozhan up to the CPC Central Committee on behalf of the CPC Tianjin Municipal Committee. According to this report, the political power in Xiaozhan was a counter-revo-

Socialist Education Movement carried out in Xiaozhan People’s Commune, Tianjin

577

Socialism in China

lutionary dualist regime in which three counter-revolutionary groups had long been following a restoration agenda. The working group stationed there “had learned the situation thoroughly having put down roots, established contacts and mobilized the masses over a period of time.” The Tianjin Party committee poured in large numbers of cadres to strengthen the work team, and dispatched many public security officers, creating an intimidating presence. As a result, “The problems of the three counter-revolutionary groups were thoroughly exposed, and struggle was launched to wrest power from them.” Mao Zedong repeatedly commended the “Xiaozhan experience” and approved its nationwide dissemination under Central Committee auspices. Furthermore, Mao issued two documents in succession, making it clear that at any place where grassroots cadres resisted the movement, and corrupt elements, landlords, rich peasants, counter-revolutionaries, bad elements and new bourgeois wielded power, if the work team approved, power could be taken over by organizations of poor and lower-middle peasants, and the work team should provide help if needed. The documents also stipulated that the Party and government organizations at all levels should be led by the work team in any county where the Socialist Education Movement was carried out; the implication of this was that the work team took over the power of all Party committees and government departments below county level. With this, the Four Clean-ups Movement entered a new stage, one whose focus was on seizing power, one in which grassroots cadres were treated as opposition, one which inflicted corporal punishment and torture to extort confessions, leading to cases of suicide and flight. The Socialist Education Movement escalated unremittingly, becoming ever more Left as it did so. How to understand and grasp the nature of this movement? Liu Shaoqi did agree with Mao Zedong in believing that the Four Clean-ups Movement belonged to the class struggle and two-line struggle, and that the movement in the countryside and urban industrial and mining enterprises should strive to trace the roots of problems up to higher levels. Liu endeavored to implement Mao’s intention and the decisions of the CPC Central Committee, and led the ideologically misguided Leftist movement. Therefore, Liu should be held responsible for Left-deviationist mistakes made in the Four Clean-ups Movement. 578

Chapter 23

Guarding against Revisionism, the “Four Clear-ups” Movement Aims to Purge “Dissidents” within the Party; Focusing on the Class Struggle, Mao’s New Thought Sets the Tone for the Cultural Revolution

However, Liu Shaoqi disagreed with Mao Zedong on one important and fundamental question of ideology. Liu saw the Four Clean-ups Movement as class struggle among the people, which should be tackled as contradictions among the people. When put in charge of the movement in July 1964, Liu said explicitly: “Our Socialist Education Movement task, the ‘four clean-ups’ and combating the ‘five evils’ all aim to solve the contradictions among the people and within the Party; at the same time they aim to uncover and solve the contradictions between ourselves and the enemy concealed among the people and within the Party,” and “wherever there is a problem, that problem will be solved.” “As regards cadres who are not clean in the ‘four fields’ (they are not our enemy – as written in the original text), we should proceed from an aspiration for unity, and via criticism and denunciation, bring them to unity on a new basis.” Liu specifically instructed that during the Four Clean-ups Movement there “should be few arrested, not one killed, no difficulties passed up to the leadership, and no more than 2 percent of the all cadres punished.” “The vast majority of erring cadres can correct their mistakes … and it is better to unite them to us.” In the eyes of Mao Zedong, however, the Four Clean-ups Movement was a life-and-death fight. Cadres not clean in the “four fields” constituted an issue of contradiction between ourselves and the enemy. He regarded “persons in authority taking the capitalist road as a key target of the Four Clean-ups Movement, the opponents should be toppled and a handful singled out. Their differences on major issues relating to the Four Clean-ups Movement led to intense conflict between Mao Zedong and Liu Shaoqi. From December 15, 1964 to January 14, 1965, the Political Bureau of the Central Committee held a work conference to review the initial stage of the Socialist Education Movement and to make plans for the next. On the afternoon of December 20, the Standing Committee of the Political Bureau convened an enlarged meeting under the chairmanship of Mao Zedong to discuss the movement. He had Liu Shaoqi speak first. Liu plunged straight in with a question: What is the current principal contradiction in the countryside? Is it the contradiction between rich peasants and the poor and lower-middle peasants, or is it the contradiction between the 579

Socialism in China

masses and the former landlords, rich-peasants, counter-revolutionaries, and bad elements acting in collusion with seriously erring bad cadres? Mao interrupted. According to him, landlords, rich peasants, counter-revolutionaries, and bad elements were the power behind the throne of the unclean cadres in authority. The problem in the countryside was that those cadres rode on the backs of farmers. The landlords and rich peasants had been denounced before, but those persons in authority had not. Mao even quoted from the Tang poet Du Fu: “The bow you carry should be strong; the arrow you use should be long. To shoot a man, first shoot his horse; capture the chief to beat his force.” Mao’s meaning was clear: the movement should focus on persons in power within the Party. Although Mao had laid bare his intention, Liu stuck to his guns that the movement should concentrate on the contradiction between those who were clean in the “four fields” and those not. Just then, the secretary of a provincial Party committee asked: “what is the nature of the contradiction?” Liu Shaoqi blurted out without thinking: “Contradictions among the people interwoven with contradictions between ourselves and the enemy.” Mao immediately snapped: “What nature? Anti-socialism, that’s what! Its nature is capitalist.” But Liu Shaoqi would not be diverted: he reiterated the complex nature of the problem, namely contradictions among the people being interwoven with contradictions between ourselves and the enemy. He stuck to his own views, making Mao Zedong visibly displeased. The disputes between Mao and Liu grew more and more intense. Mao Zedong celebrated his 71st birthday on December 26. He invited over 40 guests to a banquet in the Great Hall of the People, including central leaders, heads of central bureaus, model workers and scientists. The guest list, decided and checked by Mao himself, did not include Liu Shaoqi. At the start of the banquet, Mao told the assembled guests: “This is neither a treat, nor a birthday party today. I invite you to dinner at my own expense, that is, royalties of my books, and it counts as practicing the ‘Four Togethers’ (a policy requiring leaders to live, eat, work and study with the peasants when working in the countryside). I haven’t got my children here because they have contributed nothing to the revolution.” Then, with a serious expression, 580

Chapter 23

Guarding against Revisionism, the “Four Clear-ups” Movement Aims to Purge “Dissidents” within the Party; Focusing on the Class Struggle, Mao’s New Thought Sets the Tone for the Cultural Revolution

he continued: “The Socialist Education Movement has just begun, but some people have got cocky. What’s to be done?” “According to the central working conference held in May and June, one third of the power at the grassroots level is not in our hands. I fear the emergence of revisionism in the Party Central Committee! The emergence of revisionism signals the rise of the bourgeoisie on the political stage. Those capitalist-road leaders have become or are becoming bourgeois elements sucking the blood of workers. Since they are the target of struggle and revolution, the Socialist Education Movement absolutely cannot rely on them.” “It is non-Marxist to say that this movement aims to solve contradictions between those who are clean in the ‘four fields’ and those not, and contradictions within the Party interwoven with those outside!” This tirade, quite out of tune with the banquet atmosphere, left guests astounded and dumbfounded. But at the time, no one realized Mao was directing his fire at Liu Shaoqi. At the following central work conference, Mao once more stated: “This movement of ours is called the Socialist Education Movement. It is not called the “Four-clean” or a “Four Not-clean Education Movement.” It is not called an Education Movement of Interwoven Party and Non-Party Contradictions; nor the Education Movement of Contradictions among the People Interwoven with Contradictions between Ourselves and the Enemy.” “The movement aims at persons in authority within the Party who take the capitalist road.” In addition, Mao criticized Liu Shaoqi’s views and practice concerning the “Four Clean-ups Movement” without actually naming him. In one of his interjections, Mao threw out these ominous words: “Our Party now has at least two factions – socialist and capitalist.” “Beijing, and I don’t mean Beijing Municipal Committee, has two independent kingdoms. I won’t spell it out, you can guess.” The attendees didn’t gather the implication of Mao’s remarks at the time. Three years later, it became clear. Mao’s speeches on the nature, principal contradiction, target of attack and guiding policies of the Socialist Education Movement were written into the document issued by the CPC Central Committee to guide the movement. The document, originally called the “17-point Decision,” was later renamed the “23-point Decision.” It stipulated that the Socialist Education Movement underway in rural and urban areas shall be called the “Four Clean-ups (in 581

Socialism in China

the political, economic, organizational and ideological fields) Movement.” The document did have a certain positive effect in curbing the excesses of the Leftist methods pursued in the Socialist Education Movement in the second half of 1964, and in maintaining production and stability too. But instead of changing it, the “23-point Decision” actually developed the Leftist guiding thought. It formally stipulated that the movement should target “persons in authority within the Party who take the capitalist road,” and made leading cadres at all levels the target of attack, thereby developing and elevating the Leftist thought of the extension of class struggle. Toward the end of the month-long central work conference, some senior Party leaders saw the great rift between Mao Zedong and Liu Shaoqi, and got extremely worried. Zhu De and He Long separately talked to Liu Shaoqi, urging him to restrain himself for the sake of the overall interest and to respect Mao Zedong. Liu himself also tried to mend fences by seeking out Mao and making self-criticism; in his own home, he held inner-Party life meetings, attended by some central leaders, to make self-criticism and examine mistakes. Furthermore, he got Chen Boda to report the meeting to Mao every day. But none of this was of any use. At a meeting of the Political Bureau, Liu brought up and apologized for his lack of respect for Mao, who responded coldly: “It is not a question of respect, but a question of Marxism and revisionism. I never yield on matters of principle.” Obviously, the views of these two leaders were diametrically opposed; the rupture between them could not be healed. There was no avoiding a final showdown and decisive break. In the historical context, the Socialist Education Movement did play a somewhat positive role in tackling certain issues, such as: the assumption of privilege by some rural and urban cadres divorced from the people; their bureaucratic style of work, embezzlement, and chaotic management. It did help improve the ideology and work style of cadres, and narrowed the divide between cadres and the masses. But, the extension of class struggle was driving the movement, it mixed up two types of contradictions and greatly expanded the scope of attack, with the result that rural grassroots cadres and even some farmers suffered persecution. It was a dress rehearsal for the ensuing Cultural Revolution.

582

Chapter 23

Guarding against Revisionism, the “Four Clear-ups” Movement Aims to Purge “Dissidents” within the Party; Focusing on the Class Struggle, Mao’s New Thought Sets the Tone for the Cultural Revolution

During the Four Clean-ups Movement, Mao Zedong also politicized cultural, artistic and academic issues, launching a series of struggles in the ideological sphere. In fact, the curtain had already gone up on this with the attack on the novel Liu Zhidan, and it subsequently got more intense. A major agent in this was Mao’s wife Jiang Qing, who called herself “a patrolling sentry on the literature and art frontline” but was actually an unmitigated disaster for the creative world. In the autumn of 1962, because a ghost role appeared in a new adaptation of the Kunqu opera Li Huiniang, Jiang Qing designated it as a “ghost opera” which was incompatible with socialism, and called on newspapers and periodicals to direct criticism against it. Since then, Jiang Qing had been a constant troublemaker on the literature and art.

Scene from the Kunqu opera Li Huiniang

After the 10th Plenary Session of the Eighth CPC Central Committee, there were many occasions on which Mao Zedong issued instructions on culture and art work: “Quite a few problems remain in different forms of art – opera, drama, music, fine art, dance, film, poetry and literature, and many people are involved. The socialist transformation has produced little effect in many departments, many of them still have the dead in control;” “is it not 583

Socialism in China

strange that many Communists advocate feudalist and capitalist art, and show no enthusiasm for socialist art?” Mao denounced the Ministry of Culture as the “ministry of kings and princes,” “ministry of talented scholars and beautiful ladies” and “ministry of foreign dead persons.” According to him, the China Federation of Literary and Art Circles (CFLAC) and its affiliated associations and publications had seldom implemented the Party’s polices for 15 years since the founding of New China, had acted as bureaucrats and overlords, and were on the verge of revisionism. Mao suggested that rectification be carried out in the literary and art circles, there should be radical reorganization of the Ministry of Culture, and criticism of its leaders and the heads of the CFLAC associations. As a result, Xia Yan, Qi Yanming and Chen Huangmei, vice ministers of the Ministry of Culture were removed from office. Soon afterwards, films such as Early Spring in February, Jiangnan in North China, The Shop of the Lin Family, Stage Sisters, The Red Sun, The Conscription and The City Is under Siege, and novels such as Three Families Alley and Hard Fight were accused of promoting “the theory of human nature” and bourgeois humanitarianism while denying and distorting class struggle. From the summer of 1964, the Left-deviationist flood swamped the fields of philosophy and social sciences. Philosophers Yang Xianzhen and Feng Ding, economist Sun Yefang, and historians Jian Bozan and Luo Ergang were singled out for criticism and removed from their posts. Moreover, Yao Wenyuan’s attack against Hai Rui Dismissed from Office, a new historical play written by Wu Han, touched off the Cultural Revolution. Thus, Mao’s new thought of class struggle in socialist society, which was put forward at the Second Plenary Session of the Eighth CPC Central Committee and took initial shape at the 10th Plenary Session, developed into the “theory of continuous revolution under the dictatorship of the proletariat.” The disastrous Cultural Revolution, Mao’s erroneous theory put into practice, was waiting in the wings. The sky of China was overcast with thick dark clouds. A strong gust of wind swept across the land, ushering in a devastating storm. As the poem puts it: Rolling thunder, a pall across China 584

Chapter 23

Guarding against Revisionism, the “Four Clear-ups” Movement Aims to Purge “Dissidents” within the Party; Focusing on the Class Struggle, Mao’s New Thought Sets the Tone for the Cultural Revolution

The violent storm nearly destroys our country1 Luckily, we have top-flight healers2 The hard winter passes, spring buds burst open. Ӯ৊௜ԶḖࣼᇤĭ ‫ݦ‬াཊࢄվ༸ըh ലᇤྥႽ၌‫ݛ‬൵ĭ က‫޲ݞ׳‬ᅩՅৌh So how was it that Mao’s theory got put forward? How did it cause a national disaster? And how, eventually, did Deng Xiaoping bring about a radical transformation, build the theory of socialism with Chinese characteristics, blaze a new trail and achieve spectacular success? This is all explained in the next volume.

1

“Rolling thunder” and “violent storm” refer to the imminent Cultural Revolution.

2

“Top-flight healers” refers to revolutionists and politicians such as Deng Xiaoping, Ye Jianying and Chen Yun.

585

Important Figures

Bo Gu (1907-1946): original name Qin Bangxian, from Wuxi in Jiangsu Province. He was one of early leaders of the CPC. Bo enrolled at Shanghai University in 1925 and joined the CPC there. In 1926, he went to study at Sun Yat-sen University in Moscow. He returned to China in May 1930, became editor of Laborer, the newspaper of the Central Committee’s Publicity Department, and served as director and secretary of the Publicity Department of the Communist Youth League Central Committee. In July 1931, at the 4th Plenary Session of the 6th CPC Central Committee, he was elected to membership of the Standing Committee of the Political Bureau of the Central Committee in charge of Central Committee work. In post until January 1935, he implemented Wang Ming’s Leftist dogmatism and adventurism, doing severe harm to the CPC and the Red Army. After the Zunyi Meeting in January 1935, Bo Gu was dismissed from the post of the top leader of the Central Committee, but remained on the Standing Committee of the Political Bureau, and concurrently as acting director and then director of the General Political Department of the CMC. During the anti-Japanese war, he served as Party representative in Nanjing, member and organizational director of the Yangtze River Bureau, first president of Xinhua News Agency and president of Liberation Daily. He was elected to the CPC Central Committee at the 7th National Party Congress in June 1945. In February 1946, in his capacity of CPC representative, he went to Chongqing for the political consultative conference. On April 8, he was killed in a plane crash while returning to Yan’an. Bo Yibo (1908-2007): original given name Bo Shucun, from Dingxiang in Shanxi Province. He was a proletarian revolutionary and an important Party leader in economic affairs. 586

Important Figures

He joined the CPC in 1925. During the anti-Japanese war, he was vice chairman of the Shanxi-Hebei-Shandong-Henan Border Government and secretary of the CPC’s Taiyue District. In 1945, he was elected to the CPC Central Committee and, in 1946, as chairman of the Consultative Council of the Shanxi-Hebei-Shandong-Henan Border Government. In 1948, he became commissar of the North China Military Area Command and was elected the first vice chairman of the CPC’s North China People’s Government. After the founding of the PRC, he was elected a member of the Central People’s Government, and served as the first secretary of the Central Committee’s North China Bureau, vice director of the Financial and Economic Committee of the Government Administration Council and the first minister of the Ministry of Finance. In 1956, he was elected an alternate member of the Political Bureau of the Central Committee, serving as director of the Financial and Economic Commission and vice premier of the State Council. In 1963, he was appointed concurrently as vice director of the State Development Planning Commission. He was persecuted during the Cultural Revolution, and was rehabilitated in 1978 following correction of his case. In 1979, he was co-opted to the CPC Central Committee and held posts of member of the Financial and Economic Commission of the State Council and vice premier of the State Council. In 1992, he resigned as vice director of the Central Advisory Committee and died of illness in January 2007. Cai Hesen (1895-1931): courtesy name Runhuan, ancestral home in Hunan, born in Shanghai. He was an early leader of the CPC, a proletarian revolutionary, theorist and publicist. During his time as a student (1913 to 1917) at Hunan Higher Normal School, together with Mao Zedong and others, he organized the New People’s Study Society, founded The Shian Kian Weekly Review (known as Xiangjiang Review), and joined the May Fourth Movement. At the end of 1919, he went to France on a work-study scheme, and later became a Communist. Cai returned to China in October 1921, and joined the CPC in Shanghai, accepted on the introduction of Chen Duxiu. Cai was a member of the second, third, fourth, fifth, and sixth Central Committees of the CPC, and a member of the Political Bureau, a member of the Standing Committee of 587

Socialism in China

the Political Bureau of the fifth and sixth Central Committees, among other important positions. He worked in the Party’s central leadership and ran The Guide, an official Party weekly. In 1925, he went to Moscow as head of the CPC delegation to the Comintern. In 1927, he returned to China, and held the post of Director of the Publicity Department of the Central Committee of the CPC. At the critical moment when the KMT massacred Communists, Cai supported Mao Zedong’s proposition of launching armed struggle. On June 10, 1931, Cai was betrayed by Gu Shunzhang when attending a meeting in Hong Kong. He was arrested by the Hong Kong police, and then extradited into the hands of the Guangzhou warlord. Finally, on August 4, 1931, Cai was murdered in Guangzhou. He was 36 years old. Chen Boda (1904-1989): from Quanzhou in Fujian Province. He was an important Party leader during the Cultural Revolution. He joined the CPC in 1927 and was sent to Moscow to study at Sun Yatsen University there. He returned to China in 1930 and pursued students’ movements. During the anti-Japanese war, he became a teacher at the Yan’an Institute of Marxism and Leninism. Later, he was a long serving political secretary to Mao Zedong. After the founding of the PRC, he was elected alternate member of the Political Bureau of the CPC Central Committee in1956 and served as vice minister of the Publicity Department of the CPC Central Committee. During the Cultural Revolution, he served on the Standing Committee of the Political Bureau and as head of the Cultural Revolution Group of the Central Committee. At the Second Plenary Session of the Ninth CPC Central Committee in 1970, he was elbowed out by Mao Zedong due to his support for Lin Biao’s proposal to establish the position of national president. In 1981, a special court of the People’s Supreme Court judged him as one of principal criminals of the Lin Biao and Jiang Qing Counter-revolutionary Group and sentenced him to 18 years in prison. He died of illness in September 1989. Chen Duxiu (1879-1942): courtesy name Zhongfu, from Huaining County (now Anqing), Anhui Province. He was a leading figure in the May Fourth 588

Important Figures

Movement, pioneer of the New Culture Movement, early disseminator of Marxism, and co-founder and early leader of the Communist Party of China (CPC). Before the May Fourth Movement in 1919, Chen founded the magazines New Youth and Weekly Review, and used his base at Peking University to promote democracy and science, advocate literary revolution, and fight against feudal thinking, culture and ethics. He was a standard-bearer and leading figure of the New Culture Movement. During the May Fourth Movement, Chen espoused Marxism and spread it energetically. He went to Shanghai in early 1920, and later, with the help of the Comintern (1919-1943), cofounded the CPC along with other prominent revolutionary leaders. At the First National Congress of the CPC held in Shanghai in July 1921, Chen was elected general secretary of the CPC Central Bureau and he served in this capacity from the first through fifth national congresses of the CPC. In the later part of the Great Revolution (1924-1927) when Kuomintang (KMT) Right-wing members staged a coup to kill thousands of Communists, Chen followed the directions of the Comintern and took no countermeasures in resistance, which led to the failure of the Great Revolution. Following this, he was removed from leading positions in the Party. In November 1929, Chen was expelled from membership for sending an open letter against the CPC Central Committee on the Sino-Soviet conflict of 1929 over the control of railways in Northeast China. In October 1932, Chen was arrested in Shanghai by the KMT government, sentenced and imprisoned in Nanjing Model Prison. Chen was released in August 1937, after the outbreak of the War of Resistance Against Japan (1937-1945). After his release, he lived first in Wuhan and then in Chongqing, and spent his last days in Jiangjin (now Jiangjin District in Chongqing), Sichuan Province. Worn down by poverty and illness, he died in May 1942. Chen Yi (1901-1972): courtesy name Zhonghong, from Lezhi in Sichuan Province. He was a proletarian revolutionary, military strategist, diplomat, a founder of the PLA and marshal of the PRC. 589

Socialism in China

In 1919, Chen Yi went to France on a work-study scheme. He returned to China in 1922 and joined the CPC. In 1927, he participated in the Nanchang Uprising and the establishment of the Jinggangshan Revolutionary Base. When the Red Army broke out from the base to begin the Long March to the north, Chen Yi remained in the south to lead guerilla war. During the anti-Japanese war, he was appointed vice commander and then commander of the New Fourth Army, waging guerrilla war against the invaders and establishing democratic regimes. During the War of Liberation, he was appointed, in succession, commander of the Shandong Military Command, commander of the Eastern China Military Command and commander and commissar of the Third Field Army. He was one of the leaders directing the Huai-Hai and Shanghai campaigns, making significant contributions to the founding of New China. After the founding of the PRC, he was granted the rank of marshal. He also served as mayor of Shanghai, vice premier of the State Council and minister of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, member of the Political Bureau of the Central Committee, vice chairman of the CMC, vice chairman of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC). He was persecuted in the early stages of the Cultural Revolution. He died of illness in Beijing on January 6, 1972. Chen Yun (1905-1995): from Qingpu (now part of Shanghai) in Jiangsu Province, He was a proletarian revolutionary, statesman, a founder of the CPC and the PLA and one of pioneers and founders of China’s socialist economic construction. In 1925, he took part in workers’ movements and joined the CPC. He led a peasant uprising in Qingpu in 1928. He served as Standing Committee member of Jiangsu Provincial Party Committee, and secretary of the Agricultural Committee, secretary of the Special Operations Agency of the Central Committee, member of the Political Bureau of the Central Committee and concurrently director of the White Areas (KMT controlled) Work Department. During the anti-Japanese war, he served as secretary of the Central Committee Secretariat and concurrently minister of the Organizational Department. After 1946, he served as vice secretary of the Central Committee’s Northeast Bu590

Important Figures

reau, director of the Northeast Financial and Economic Committee and chairman of the All-China Federation of Trade Unions. After the founding the PRC, he served as vice premier of the Government Administration Council and concurrently director of the Financial and Economic Committee, Standing Committee member of the Political Bureau of the Central Committee, secretary of the Central Committee Secretariat and vice chairman of the Central Committee. He suffered persecution during the Cultural Revolution. In 1975, he became vice chairman of the Standing Committee of the National People’s Congress. In 1978, he was reelected to the Standing Committee of the Political Bureau, vice chairman of the Central Committee and as first secretary of the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection. In 1987, he was appointed director of the Central Advisory Commission. He retired in 1992 and died of illness in 1995 in Beijing. Chiang Kai-shek (1887-1975): given name Zhongzheng, ancestral home Yixing in Jiangsu, born in Fenghua, Zhejiang Province. He was a famous politician and military commander of modern China. When studying in Japan between 1908 and 1911, he met Sun Yat-sen and joined the Tong Meng Hui. Returning to China after the outbreak of the Revolution of 1911, he committed himself to the democratic revolution led by Sun Yat-sen. He served successively as commandant of the Whampoa Military Academy, commander-in-chief of the National Revolutionary Army, generalissimo of the Military Affairs Commission of the National Government, president of the KMT, Allied Supreme Leader of the Chinese theater in World War II, and president of the Republic of China. In 1927, he launched the April 12 coup, unleashing a massacre of Communists in Shanghai and initiated a full-scale purge of Communists all over the country; this led to the end of the first KMT-CPC cooperation, and the failure of the Great Revolution. The Xi’an Incident of December 1936 forced Chiang to put an end to the ten-year-long civil war and make the Second United Front with the CPC against Japan. With Japan defeated, in August 1945, Chiang started peace talks in Chongqing with the CPC delegation led by Mao Zedong. As a result, the 591

Socialism in China

two sides signed the Double Tenth Agreement. However, Chiang tore up the Agreement soon afterwards, and launched massive attacks on CPC-controlled areas in June 1946, marking the beginning of a full-scale civil war. Furthermore, he unilaterally convened the National Assembly to exercise dictatorship by the KMT, with himself as its head. In December 1949, Chiang retreated in defeat to Taiwan, where he continued as President of the “Republic of China” and Director-General of the KMT. To maintain his rule in Taiwan, he held high the banners of “Constructing Taiwan under the Three Principles of the People” and “Resisting the Communists and Recovering the Mainland;” and signed the Mutual Defense Treaty with the United States. He upheld the one China principle and opposed the stance of “Taiwan independence.” On April 5, 1975, he died in Taipei. Chu Anping (1909-?): from Yixing in Jiangsu Province. He was a patriotic democrat, news commentator and a founder and leader of the Jiusan Society. He studied in Kwang Hua University in Shanghai in his early years. In 1935, he went to the UK to study and became a student of Harold Laski, a famous British liberal thinker. He served as a columnist for the Central Daily and editor of that newspaper’s international section, as professor at Fudan University in Shanghai and researcher at the National Chengchi University. In 1946, he established the fortnightly magazine Guancha (Observer) in Shanghai and served as its president and editor-in-chief. In 1949, he participated in the new Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference in Beiping and joined the China Democratic League and the Jiusan Society. After the founding of the PRC, he served as commissioner of the General Administration of Press and Publication (GAPP), vice director of the Distribution Bureau of GAPP, member of the Central Committee of the Jiusan Society and vice minister of its Publicity Department. He was also elected to the first National People’s Congress. In 1957, he became editor-in-chief of the Guangming Daily but was stripped of all posts and sent to a labor camp after being labeled as a Rightist that same year. He was dismissed from the Central Committee of the Jiusan Society as well as vice director of its Publicity De592

Important Figures

partment and his NPC membership was also removed in 1958. He suffered persecution during the Cultural Revolution. He has been missing without trace since early September 1966. Deng Xiaoping (1904-1997): original given name Xixian, from Guang’an County, Sichuan Province. He was a proletarian revolutionary, statesman, military strategist and diplomat, and the chief architect of China’s reform and opening-up and socialist modernization. In 1920, Deng went to Europe under a work-study scheme, and joined the Chinese Youth Communist Party in 1922, and the CPC in 1924. In 1926, Deng went to study in the Soviet Union. After returning to China in 1927, he served successively as secretary-general of the CPC Central Committee, director of the Political Department of the First Army Group of the Red Army, acting secretary of the Central Committee’s Northern Bureau, and first secretary of its Central Plains Bureau. After the founding of the PRC, Deng was appointed first secretary of the Central Committee’s Southwest Bureau and vice premier of the State Council. He was elected to the Political Bureau in 1955, and in 1956 he became a member of the Standing Committee of the Political Bureau and general secretary of the CPC Central Committee. During the Cultural Revolution, he was denounced and removed from all his positions. He made a short-lived political comeback in 1973. In 1975, he was appointed vice chairman of the Central Committee, vice premier of the State Council, vice chairman of the CMC and chief of the general staff of the PLA. Soon afterwards, however, he was criticized again and removed from office. In 1977, he was reinstated to his former posts. He was elected chairman of the CPPCC in 1978, chairman of the CMC in 1981, member of the Standing Committee of the Political Bureau and director of the Advisory Committee of the CPC in 1982. It was his theory that guided China to remarkable achievements in reform and opening-up and economic development. It was his concept of “one country, two systems” that blazed the trail for national reunification. In addition, he opened up new horizons in China’s diplomacy and made significant contributions to the safeguarding of world peace. In 1989, he retired as chairman of the CMC, the last position he held. During his southern 593

Socialism in China

tour of China in 1992, he delivered important speeches, marking the beginning of a new round of reform and opening-up and economic development. In February 1997, he passed away in Beijing at the age of 93. Deng Zihui (1896-1972): from Longyan in Fujian Province. He was a proletarian revolutionary, statesman, a founder and leader of the Western Fujian Revolutionary Base and among the leaders in charge of agricultural work in the PRC. He joined the CPC in 1926. He served as vice general director of the Western Fujian Insurgence Committee, secretary of the CPC’s Western Fujian Special Committee, chairman of the Western Fujian Soviet Government and commissar of the Ninth Army of the Red Army. From 1932 to 1933, he served as minister of the Ministry of Finance of the Government of the Chinese Soviet Republic and vice chairman of the Military and Administrative Committee of Southwest Fujian. During the anti-Japanese war, he was chief of the Publicity Department of the Provincial Committee of the Fujian-Guangdong-Jiangxi Border Government, chief of the Political Department of the Headquarters of the Eighth Route Army and the New Fourth Army, secretary of the Central Committee’s Central China Bureau and commissar of the Central China Military Area Command. In 1947, he was appointed vice secretary and acting secretary of the Central Committee’s Central China Bureau. In 1948, he became the first vice commissar of the Central Plains Military Area Command. After the Founding of the PRC in 1949, he served as vice chairman of the State Development Planning Commission, secretary of the Central Committee’s South China Bureau, minister of the Rural Work Department of the Central Committee, vice premier of the State Council and vice chairman of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference. He suffered persecution during the Cultural Revolution and died of illness in December 1972. Gao Gang (1905-1954): original name Gao Chongde, from Hengshan in Shaanxi Province. He was a founder and leader of the Shaanxi-Gansu Red Army and of the Shaanxi-Gansu Revolutionary Base. In 1927, he studied at the Sun Yat-sen Military Academy in Xi’an and joined the CPC. Later, he pursued peasants’ and soldiers’ movements. After 594

Important Figures

1932, he held the posts of commissar of the Interim General Headquarters of the Shaanxi-Gansu Red Army, vice chairman of the Northwest Workers’ Committee of the CPC and commissar of the Frontline General Headquarters of the Northwest Military Commission. During the anti-Japanese war, he was appointed commander of the Security Headquarters of the ShaanxiGansu-Ningxia Border Region, secretary of the Shaanxi-Gansu-Ningxia Border Region of the CPC, head of the Consultative Council and secretary of the Northwest Bureau of the CPC. From 1945 to 1949, he served as Standing Committee member of the Central Committee’s Northeast Bureau, acting secretary of the Northeast Bureau, commander and commissar of the Northeast Military Region and chairman of the Northeast People’s Government. After the founding of the PRC in October 1949, Gao Gang served as vice president of the Central People’s Government, first secretary of the Northeast Bureau, chairman of the Northeast Executive Committee and chairman of the National Planning Committee of the Central Government. Accused of plotting to usurp the top power of the Party and the state, his crime was exposed and criticized at the 4th Plenary Session of the 7th CPC Central Committee. In August 1954, he committed suicide in Beijing. He was posthumously expelled from the Party and stripped of all his Party and state titles. He Long (1896-1969): from Sangzhi in Hunan Province. He was a proletarian revolutionary, statesman, military strategist, a founder of the PLA and marshal of the PRC. Joining the Chinese Revolutionary Party headed by Sun Yat-sen in 1914, He Long organized armed uprisings of peasants to oppose feudal warlord rule. He and his army took part in the Northern Expedition of 1924. After the first KMT-CPC cooperation broke up, He Long led the Nanchang Uprising as commander-in-chief of the Uprising Army and joined the CPC. In the period of the anti-Japanese war, He Long was appointed commander of the 120th Division of the Eighth Route Army and established antiJapanese bases in areas behind enemy lines. At the Seventh National Congress of the CPC, he was elected to the Central Committee. During the War of Liberation, He Long assisted Peng Dehuai in directing military campaigns in 595

Socialism in China

Northwest China, cooperating with the Second Field Army under the command of Liu Bocheng and Deng Xiaoping, and making crucial contributions to the liberation of Northwest and Southwest China. After the founding of the PRC, He Long was granted the rank of marshal and served as vice premier of the State Council, vice chairman of the CMC, member of the Political Bureau of the CPC Central Committee, director of the Commission of Science, Technology and Industry for National Defense and president of the State Physical Culture and Sports Commission. During the Cultural Revolution, He Long was purged and persecuted, dying as a consequence in June 1969. In September 1974, the Central Committee cleared his name and made the decision to officially rehabilitate him in October 1982. Hu Hanmin (1879-1936): courtesy name Zhantang, from Ji’an, Jiangxi Province. He was a bourgeois revolutionary and one of the early leaders of the KMT. In 1905, he joined the Tong Meng Hui as an overseas student in Japan. In April 1911, he participated in the Huanghuagang Uprising against the feudal rule of the Qing Dynasty. Shortly after the Revolution of 1911, he was appointed governor of Guangdong Military Government. Later, he followed Sun Yat-sen to Nanjing where he served as secretary-general of the Provisional Government of the Republic of China. In 1913, he participated in the Second Revolution against Yuan Shikai, and followed Sun Yat-sen to Japan when this ended in failure in 1914. There they established the Chinese Revolutionary Party. In January 1924, the First National Congress of the KMT elected Hu to its Central Executive Committee. After the death of Sun Yat-sen in 1925, Hu became one of the leaders of the KMT’s Right wing. When the KMT’s Left-wing leader Liao Zhongkai was assassinated, Hu was detained as a suspect. Soon afterwards, he was sent to the Soviet Union on a tour of investigation. After the breakdown of the first KMT-CPC cooperation in 1927, Hu supported Chiang Kai-shek in his purging of Communists from the KMT, cofounded the Nanjing National Government with Chiang and served as head of the Legislative Yuan in Nanjing. In 1931, he was placed under house arrest by Chiang because 596

Important Figures

of disputes over the new provisional constitution. He was released after the September 18 Incident, and went to Guangzhou. There he became a powerful factional leader in southern China, an advocate of three political principles of resistance: resistance against the Japanese invasion and massacre, resistance against the Communist military, and resistance against Chiang Kai-shek. In May 1936, he died of a cerebral hemorrhage. Huang Kecheng (1902-1986): from Yongxing in Hunan Province. He joined the CPC in 1925 and participated in the Northern Expedition of the National Revolutionary Army. At the end of 1928, after leading the uprising in Yongxing, he came to the Jinggang Mountains He served as commissar of the First Division of the Third Corps of the Chinese Workers’ and Peasants’ Red Army, director of the Political Department of the Fifth Corps, head of the Health Department of the Central Revolutionary Committee and director of the Political Department of the Red Army’s First Front Army as well as director of the Organization Department of the Red Army’s General Political Department. During the anti-Japanese war, he was director of the Organization Department of the Eighth Route Army’s General Political Department, commissar of the Second Column Army and commander of the Hebei-ShandongHenan Military Area Command, and commissar and commander of the Third Division of the New Fourth Army. Between 1946 and 1948, he served as commander of the West Manchuria Military Area Command, second-in-command of the Northeast Democratic United Army, secretary of the CPC’s Hebei-Chahar-Rehe-Liaoning Bureau, commissar of the Second Corps of the Northeast Field Army and secretary of the CPC’s Tianjin Municipal Committee. After the founding of the PRC in 1949, he was appointed secretary of the Hunan Provincial Party Committee, deputy chief of staff of the PLA and concurrently director of the General Logistics Department, vice minister of the Ministry of National Defense and concurrently secretary-general of the CMC, secretary of Central Committee Secretariat and chief of general staff of the PLA. In 1959, he was dismissed after being labeled as a member of the “anti-Party clique” at the Lushan Conference. He suffered persecution during the Cultural Revolution. In 1977, he was rehabilitated and became a consultant to the CMC 597

Socialism in China

and executive secretary of the Central Discipline Inspection Commission. He resigned on health grounds in 1985 and died of illness in December 1986. Huang Yanpei (1878-1965): from Chuansha (now part of Shanghai) in Jiangsu Province. He was a patriot and educator of modern China. He joined the Tong Meng Hui in 1905 and served as head of its Shanghai branch. After the Revolution of 1911, he took the post of director-general of Education of Jiangsu Province. He started the Chinese Vocational Educational Institute in Shanghai and was involved in establishing Hehai University, Nanjing University, Shanghai University of Finance and Economics and Xiamen University, enthusiastically pursuing modern civil education and rural development. During the anti-Japanese war, he served as senator of the KMT’s National Defense Council and as counselor of the National Political Participation Council. In 1941, he participated in establishing the League of Chinese Democratic Political Groups (today’s China Democratic League) and became its chairman. In 1945, he helped found the China Democratic National Construction Association and acted as its chief member. After the founding of the PRC in 1949, he served as vice premier of the Government Administration Council, minister of the Ministry of Light Industry and member of the Financial and Economic Committee. Later, he was elected member of the Central Standing Committee of the China Democratic League, chief member of the China Democratic National Construction Association and president of the Chinese Vocational Educational Institute. From 1954 to 1965, he was elected vice chairman of the Standing Committee of the National People’s Congress as well as vice chairman of the Chinese People’s Consultative Conference. He died of illness in December 1965. Jiang Qing (1915-1991): original name Li Yunhe, stage name Lan Ping, from Zhucheng in Shandong Province. Wife of Mao Zedong. In 1935 she became an actress in the Diantong Film Company in Shanghai. She went to Yan’an in 1937 and studied at the Yan’an Institute of Marxism and Leninism. She married Mao Zedong in 1938. After the founding of the PRC in 1949, she held posts of vice director of the Literature and Art Section of the Central Committee’s Publicity Department, director of the 598

Important Figures

Film Section, and member of the Secretary Committee of the General Office of the Central Committee. During the Cultural Revolution, she served as the first deputy chief and acting chief of the Cultural Revolution Group and as consultant to the Cultural Revolution Group of the PLA. In 1969, she was elected to the Political Bureau of the Central Committee. In 1976, she was investigated by the Political Bureau, and the following year she was stripped of Party membership and removed from all posts inside and outside the Party. In 1981, she was sentenced to death with a two-year reprieve and stripped of all political rights for the rest of her life. In May 1991, she committed suicide in Beijing. Kang Sheng (1898-1975): original name Zhang Zongke, from Qingdao in Shandong Province. He joined the CPC in 1925. In the years from 1926 to 1927, he was one of the leaders of the three armed uprisings in Shanghai. He served as director of the Organization Department and of the Workers Department of the CPC Central Committee. He went to the Soviet Union to work and study in 1933. In 1934, he was elected to the Political Bureau of the Central Committee. He returned to China from the Soviet Union in 1937 and was appointed president of the Party School of the Central Commttee of CPC, director of the Social Affairs Department, director of the Intelligence Department and secretary of the Central Committee Secretariat. During the Rectification Movement in Yan’an in 1942, he exploited his power by large-scale use of the third degree, persecuting and torturing confessions out of many CPC cadres and young people who went to revolutionary bases to take part in revolution. After the founding of the PRC, he was under medical treatment for a long time. In 1956, he was elected alternate member of the Political Bureau of the Central Committee. During the Cultural Revolution, he had the full trust of Mao Zedong and was made a member of the Standing Committee of the Political Bureau, vice chairman of the Central Committee and consultant of the Cultural Revolution Group. He was elected vice chairman of the Standing Committee of the National People’s Congress in 1975 and died of illness in December of the same year. 599

Socialism in China

In 1980, the Central Committee made the decision to strip him of his Party membership because of “his evil political character” and “serious crimes committed during the Cultural Revolution.” Li Da (1890-1966): courtesy name Yongxi, from Yongzhou, Hunan Province. He was a Marxist theorist, a co-founder and early leader of the CPC. After the May Fourth Movement in 1919, Li devoted himself to the studying and spreading of Marxism. In the summer of 1920, he started a communist group in Shanghai, along with Chen Duxiu. He was editor-inchief of the monthly magazine Communist Party while taking part in the editing work of New Youth. From February 1921, he held the post of acting secretary of the communist group in Shanghai. At the First National Congress of the CPC held in July 1921, he was present and elected Director of Publicity of the Central Committee. From August 1921 to May 1925, he served as a member of the Secretariat of China Labor Realignment Department. In September 1921, he founded the People’s Publishing House, the first of its kind for the CPC, publishing works on Marxism-Leninism and book series about China’s revolution. He was present at the Second National Congress of the CPC in July 1922. That November, at the invitation of Mao Zedong, he went to Changsha to work as president of Hunan Self-study University. At the same time, he also acted as editor-in-chief of New Age, the university’s official publication. After the failure of the Great Revolution, he upheld the theory of Marxism-Leninism during the KMT’s White Terror period, making remarkable achievements in theoretical research on Marxism. In May 1937 in Shanghai, Li published his important work Elements of Sociology, praised by Mao Zedong as the “first Marxist philosophy textbook written by a Chinese.” After the founding of the PRC, he served as president of Wuhan University and president of the International Society for Chinese Philosophy for a long period, making contributions to the dissemination, application and development of Marxism in China. He was heavily criticized and attacked during the Cultural Revolution. In August 1966, he passed away in Wuhan. Li was rehabilitated after the Cultural Revolution.

600

Important Figures

Li Dazhao (1889-1927): courtesy name Shouchang, from Laoting (a county of Tangshan), Hebei Province. He was a pioneer of the Chinese communist movement, outstanding Marxist and proletarian revolutionary, and co-founder of the CPC. In his early years, Li entered Beiyang Political Science and Law School in Tianjin. After graduation, he went to Japan to study at Waseda University where he became a Marxist. He returned to China in 1916 and was a leading intellectual in the New Culture Movement while heading the library at Peking University. Following the victory of the Russian October Revolution in 1917, he published many famous articles in New Youth and Weekly Review to spread the word about the October Revolution and Marxism, becoming a pioneer of the Chinese communist movement. Early in 1920, Li and Chen Duxiu started communist groups in Beijing and Shanghai, respectively, promoting the building of a nationwide Party organization. In July 1921, the First National Congress of the CPC was held, and Li was co-founder of the CPC. Li was responsible for the Party’s work in northern China. From 1922 to early 1924, on behalf of the CPC, Li had many meetings with Sun Yat-sen. He was designated by Sun Yat-sen as one of the five members in the Presidium of the First National Congress of the KMT, and took part in the drafting the manifesto, making significant contributions to the realization of all-round cooperation between the KMT and CPC. In March 1926 when the situation was extremely dangerous, Li led and joined anti-warlord and anti-imperialist demonstrations in Beijing. As a result, he was on the wanted list of the Northern Warlord regime (1912-1927). On April 6, 1927, he was arrested and imprisoned. Despite cruel torture, he remained faithful and unyielding. On April 28, he died a hero’s death, aged just 38. Li De (German name: Otto Braun, 1900-1974): pen name Huafu, an Austrian, born in Munich, Germany. He was a Comintern agent sent to China to advise the CPC on military strategy. As a young man, Braun participated in the battle to found the Bavarian Soviet Republic and German workers’ uprising, and joined the Communist Party of Germany (KPD). In 1926, he was arrested for treason by the German government. He escaped from prison two years later and made his way to 601

Socialism in China

Moscow, where he studied at the Frunze Military Academy. After graduation, he served as Cavalry Unit Chief of Staff in the Soviet Red Army. In 1932, the Soviet General Staff dispatched Braun to China. In 1933, he was appointed Military Adviser to the Central Military Commission of the Chinese Soviet Republic by the Comintern Executive Committee, under the direction of the CPC Central Committee. In September 1933, Braun arrived in the Central Soviet Area, and acquired his Chinese name “Li De.” He was given military command by Bo Gu, who was then in charge of the Political Bureau of the CPC. He was a firm proponent of direct confrontation, opposing guerrilla warfare, which led to the failure of the Red Army to break through the KMT’s fifth encirclement. In May 1934, as a member of the top leadership of the CPC, together with Zhou Enlai and Bo Gu, he led the Red Army in passive withdrawal, causing it to suffer heavy casualties in the early days of the Long March. At the Zunyi Conference in January 1935, Braun was removed as military commander of the Red Army. In the later days of the Long March, he supported the CPC’s tactics of going north to launch anti-Japanese struggles, and opposed the scheme to split the Red Army. After the Red Army arrived in northern Shaanxi Province, he stayed in Yan’an, as director of the Editorial Board of Military Research of the CMC and professor at the Anti-Japanese Military and Political University. In 1939, Braun returned to the Soviet Union. He served in the Soviet Red Army from 1941 to 1945, and served as a political instructor in POW concentration camps. Later, he returned to and settled in the German Democratic Republic (East Germany), and worked at the Institute for Marxism-Leninism and Institute for Social Science Research of the Communist Party of Germany. Braun died in Berlin in 1974. Li Jishen (1885-1959): original given name Jichen, from Cangwu, Guangxi. He was a modern statesman and military strategist, patriotic democrat and a founder and leader of the Revolutionary Committee of the KMT. He joined the military at a young age and participated in the Revolution of 1911. During the first KMT-CPC cooperation, he took part in the launching of the Whampoa Military Academy and the Northern Expedition. He was 602

Important Figures

appointed chief of the Fourth Army of the National Revolutionary Army (NRA), vice president of Whampoa Military Academy, chief of the General Staff of the NRA and governor of Guangdong Province. During the antiJapanese war, he advocated a united front against Japan and served on the KMT Military Commission, organizing anti-Japan armed forces and waging guerilla warfare in the enemy-controlled areas. After the victory of resistance against Japan, he proposed ending the civil war and building a democratic China. He was elected chairman of the Central Executive Committee of the KMT Revolutionary Committee established in 1948 in Hong Kong. After the founding of the PRC in 1949, he was elected vice president of the Central People’s Government, vice chairman of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference and vice chairman of the Standing Committee of the National People’s Congress. He died of illness in October 1959. Li Lisan (1899-1967): from Liling in Hunan Province. He was a proletarian revolutionary and one of the earliest leaders of the CPC. In September 1919, he left for France on a work-study scheme. Returning to China in 1921, he joined the CPC to pursue workers’ movements. At the Fifth National Congress of the CPC, he was elected to the Central Committee Political Bureau and appointed head of the Workers’ Movement Department of the Central Committee. From June to September in 1930, he made Left adventurist mistakes when he took control of the top power in the Central Committee as secretary-general and Political Bureau member. After the founding of the PRC, he served, in order, as secretary of the Trade Union Committee of the Central Committee, vice chairman of the AllChina Federation of Trade Unions and secretary of its Party Group, member of the Standing Committee of the People’s Political Consultative Conference, member of the Central People’s Government, minister of the Ministry of Labor and secretary of its Party Group, and head of the Secretariat of the Central Committee’s North China Bureau. He was in charge of the drafting of the Trade Union Law of the People’s Republic of China (PRC). Persecuted during the Cultural Revolution, he died in June 1967 as the result of his mistreatment. In March 1980, the CPC Central Committee reversed his case, exonerated and rehabilitated him. 603

Socialism in China

Li Zongren (1891-1969), courtesy name Delin, from Guilin in Guangxi. He was a famous general in resistance to Japanese aggression, a well-known patriot, military strategist and statesman of the Republic of China. He was admitted to the Guangxi Army Academy in his youth. He joined the Tong Meng Hui in 1910 and became a member of the KMT in 1923. He also took part in the National Protection Movement and the Northern Expedition. He was appointed commander-in-chief of the Fourth Army Group of the National Revolutionary Army. Between 1929 and 1936, he made several attempts against Chiang Kai-shek but eventually they made their peace with each other. During the anti-Japanese war, the KMT government appointed him commander-in-chief of the Fifth War Zone, member of the Military Commission, governor of Anhui Province and director of the Hanzhong Military Office sent by the central headquarters. He directed the Taierzhuang Campaign and achieved victory, killing over 20,000 Japanese troops. During the War of Liberation, he was director of the Beiping Field Headquarters, vice president and then acting president of the KMT government. He engaged in peace negotiations with the CPC, but finally refused to sign the proposed settlement terms. He lived in the United States in exile since late 1949. In July 1965, he returned to China’s mainland via Switzerland and the Middle East and was welcomed by Mao Zedong. He died of pneumonia in Beijing in January 1969. Liao Zhongkai (1877-1925): Original name Liao Enxu, from Huizhou, Guangdong Province. He was a famous activist of the democratic revolution, Left-wing KMT leader of the KMT and patriot of modern China, and close friend of the CPC. Born in San Francisco, he returned to China in 1893. He went to study in Japan in 1902, and got to know Sun Yat-sen there, joined the Tong Meng Hui, and served at its headquarters as the person in charge of foreign affairs. After the Revolution of 1911, he successively held the posts of General Counsellor to the Guangzhou Governor, Finance Minister of the Presidential Office and Director of the of Guangdong Financial Bureau. In 1913, he went into exile with Sun Yat-sen in Japan, and participated in the Constitution Protection Movement to oppose Yuan Shikai. After the October Revolution of 1917, he 604

Important Figures

helped Sun Yat-sen to reorganize the KMT and implement policies of “alliance with Soviet Russia, cooperation with the Communist Party and assisting peasants and workers.” He served successively as member of the KMT Executive Committee, head of the Workers Department, head of the Peasants Department, Party representative at the Whampoa Military Academy, Minister of Finance of the National Government, Governor of Guangdong Province, Inspector-general of Military Supplies, and Secretary-general to the Generalissimo, making significant contributions to the first KMT-CPC alliance. On August 20, 1925, Liao was assassinated in Guangzhou by Rightists in the KMT. Lin Biao (1907-1972): from Huanggang in Hubei Province. He was a military strategist and marshal of the PRC. He was admitted to Whampoa Military Academy in 1925 and joined the CPC. He took part in the Northern Expedition against the feudal warlords. He took part in the Nanchang Uprising in 1927 and followed Zhu De and Mao Zedong to establish the Jinggangshan Revolutionary Base. He served as battalion commander, regiment commander, army commander and corps commander. During the anti-Japanese war, he served as president of the Chinese People’s Anti-Japanese Military and Political University, commander of the 115th Division of the Eighth Route Army. He led his troops to the front line in Northern China, where they inflicted defeat on the Japanese army in the Battle of Pingxingguan, smashing the myth of Japanese military invincibility. During the War of Liberation, he served as commander of the Northeast Field Army, commander of the Fourth Field Army, directing the LiaoxiShenyang and Beiping-Tianjin campaigns. After the founding of the PRC, Lin Biao was granted the rank of marshal and served as vice premier of the State Council, vice chairman of the National Defense Commission, minister of the Ministry of National Defense and vice chairman of the CMC. In April 1969, he was elected vice chairman of the Central Committee and vice chairman of the CMC at the First Plenary Session of the Ninth CPC Central Committee. He was designated successor to Mao Zedong, which was written into the Party Constitution. 605

Socialism in China

On September 13, 1971, Lin fled with his wife Ye Qun and son Lin Liguo and was killed in a plane crash near Ondorhaan in the Mongolian People’s Republic. In 1973, the Central Committee decided to expel Lin Biao from the Party. In 1981, a special court at the Supreme People’s Court sentenced him as a major criminal of the counter-revolutionary clique. Liu Bocheng (1892-1986): from Kaixian County in Chongqing. He was a proletarian revolutionary, military strategist, a founder of the PLA and marshal of the PRC. He enlisted at an early age to engage in democratic revolution, joining the CPC in 1926. After the first KMT-CPC cooperation broke up in 1927, Liu Bocheng helped lead the Nanchang Uprising, later going to the Soviet Union to study military tactics. After his return in 1930, he served as chief of the general staff of the CMC, chief of the general staff of the Chinese Workers’ and Peasants’ Red Army and commander of the Central Column and president of the College of the Chinese Workers’ and Peasants’ Red Army. During the anti-Japanese war, as commander of the 129th Division of the Eighth Route Army, he and Commissar Deng Xiaoping led attacks behind enemy lines in areas controlled by the Japanese occupiers. During the War of Liberation, as commander of the Central Plains Field Army and the Second Field Army, he organized and led the Shangdang, Huai-Hai, and the Cross-the Yangtze campaigns, as well as the campaign to liberate Southwest China, making significant contributions to the victory of China’s revolutionary war and the Party’s winning nationwide control. After the founding of the PRC, he was granted the rank of marshal. He also served as president of the Military Academy of the Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA), vice chairman of the Chinese People’s Revolutionary Military Commission of the Central People’s Government, vice chairman of the National Defense Commission and vice chairman of the CMC. After 1982, he resigned all posts due to his age and health problems. He died in Beijing on October 7, 1986.

606

Important Figures

Liu Shaoqi (1898-1969): from Ningxiang in Hunan Province. He was a proletarian revolutionary, statesman, theorist and one of main leaders of the CPC and of the PRC. In 1921, he went as a student to the Soviet Union, where he joined the CPC the same year. He returned to China in 1922 and organized workers’ movements. He was one of the leaders of the strike of railway workers and miners in Anyuan. He served as acting chairman of the All-China Federation of Trade Unions, secretary of the CPC’s Manchuria Provincial Committee, head of the Workers Department of the Central Committee, secretary of the Party Committee of the All-China Federation of Trade Unions, head of the Central Executive Bureau of the All-China Federation of Trade Unions in the Soviet Area, and secretary of the CPC’s Fujian Provincial Committee. During the anti-Japanese war, he served as secretary of the Central Committee’s Northern Bureau and of its Central Plains Bureau, and as commissar of the New Fourth Army. After 1945, he held posts of Political Bureau member, secretary of the Central Committee Secretariat, vice chairman of the Central Revolutionary Military Commission and secretary of the Work Committee of the Central Committee. After the founding of the PRC in 1949, he was elected vice chairman of the Central People’s Government, chairman of the Standing Committee of the National People’s Congress, member of the Standing Committee of the Political Bureau, vice chairman of the Central Committee and president of the PRC. He was falsely accused and cruelly persecuted during the Cultural Revolution. He died of illness in November of 1969. In 1980, the Fifth Plenary Session of the 11th Central Committee of the CPC overturned his case and rehabilitated him. Liu Zhidan (1903-1936): original given name Jinggui, from Bao’an in Shaanxi Province. He was a proletarian revolutionary and military strategist. He joined the Socialist Youth League of China in 1924 and the CPC in 1925. He was admitted to the Whampoa Military Academy in 1926. He participated in the Northern Expedition as Party representative and chief of the political section in the Fourth Route Army of the National People’s United Army. In 1928, he became chairman of the Military Commission of 607

Socialism in China

the Northwest Revolutionary Army of Workers and Peasants, and led the Weihua Uprising. When the uprising was put down, he returned to northern Shaanxi. There he was appointed secretary of the Military Commission of the Northern Shaanxi Special Committee of the CPC, and founded the Nanliang guerrilla force. After Nanliang and northern Shaanxi guerrilla detachments were merged and reorganized as the Shaanxi-Gansu Guerrilla Detachment of the Red Army in 1931, he served as its deputy commander-in-chief and then commander-in-chief, and established the Shaanxi-Gansu Border Region Base Area. From 1933 to 1935, he led guerrilla actions to defeat the KMT’s three encirclement campaigns against the Shaanxi-Gansu Border Region Base Area, and managed to merge the two base areas in Shaanxi-Gansu border region and northern Shaanxi into a foothold for the Central Committee and the Red Army after the Long March. After they arrived in northern Shaanxi, he served successively as deputy director of the Rear Office of the Northwest Revolutionary Military Commission, garrison commander of Wayaobu (the location of CPC Central Committee), commander-in-chief of the North Route Army of the Red Army, army commander of the 28th Army of the Red Army, and member of the Northwest Military Commission. In 1936, he died a martyr’s death while leading the 28th Army in the Eastern Expedition. He was 33. Luo Longji (1896-1965): from Anfu in Jiangxi Province. He was a political activist and one of founders and leaders of the China Democratic League. He studied in the United States and the UK in his early days and achieved a doctoral degree in politics. He returned to China in 1928 and taught in Tsinghua University in Beiping and Shanghai’s Kwang Hua University. He was also editor-in-chief of the Morning News and New Moon. He served as senator of the National Political Participation Assembly. In 1941, he participated in the establishment of the League of Chinese Democratic Political Groups, serving as member of the Standing Committee, director of the Publicity Department and chief member of the Kunming branch. After victory in the anti-Japanese war, he pursued democratic campaigns and built close cooperation with the CPC. 608

Important Figures

After the founding of the PRC, he was appointed as member of the Government Administration Council, minister of the Ministry of Forest Industry, member of the Standing Committee of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference, vice chairman of the Central Committee of the China Democratic League. In 1957, he was denounced as a Rightist and died of illness in December 1965. Mao Zedong (December 1893-September 1976): courtesy name Ruizhi, from Xiangtan, Hunan Province. He was a proletarian revolutionary, military strategist and theorist, a co-founder and main leading figure of the CPC, the PLA and the PRC. Around the May Fourth Movement of 1919, he came into contact with and accepted Marxism, and established a communist organization in Hunan Province in November 1920. After attending the First Session of the National Congress of the CPC in July 1921, he became Party secretary for Hunan Province, leading workers’ movements in Changsha and Anyuan. At the Third National Party Congress in June 1923, he was elected a member of the Central Executive Committee. Following the KMT-CPC cooperation agreed in January 1924, he was elected an alternate member of the Central Executive Committee and Deputy Director of the Publicity Department of the KMT at the first and second national congresses of the KMT. In November 1926, he was appointed secretary of the Peasants’ Movement Committee of the CPC. After the breakdown of the KMT-CPC cooperation, Mao advocated the seizing power by armed force, led the Autumn Harvest Uprising, founded the first rural revolutionary base, and created a new strategic path of using the rural areas to encircle the cities so as to capture the cities and seize power across the country. When the Provisional Government of the Soviet Republic of China was founded in Ruijin, Jiangxi Province, in November 1931, he was elected chairman. In January 1935, during the Long March, the Political Bureau of the CPC Central Committee held a conference in Zunyi, which elected Mao to a position of power in the central leadership. He was elected chairman of the Political Bureau in March 1943. From April to June 1945, Mao chaired the Seventh 609

Socialism in China

National Party Congress, and Mao Zedong Thought was determined as the guiding ideology of the CPC. On October 1, 1949, the PRC was established and Mao was elected chairman of the Central People’s Government. In May 1966, he launched the Cultural Revolution. It lasted more than 10 years, causing grievous damage and great losses to the country in many ways. He passed away in Beijing on September 9, 1976. Mao Zetan (1905-1935): courtesy name Runju, from Xiangtan, Hunan Province. The younger brother of Mao Zedong, he was a proletarian revolutionary. Participating in movements of students, workers and peasants in Hunan Province in his early years, Mao Zetan joined the Socialist Youth League of China in 1921, and the CPC in 1923. In 1924, he was elected secretary of the Changsha Executive Committee of the Socialist Youth League of China. In the autumn of 1925, he went to Guangzhou to work in the Political Department of Whampoa Military Academy and the Guangdong Committee of the CPC. Later, he served as secretary of the Political Department of the Fourth Army of the National Revolutionary Army in Wuhan. In 1927, he participated in the Nanchang Uprising, as publicity chief in the Political Department of the 25th Division of 11th Army of the Uprising Army. He went on to fight in border regions of Fujian, Guangdong, Jiangxi and Hunan provinces. In the winter of that year, he was sent to the Jinggang Mountains to make contact with Mao Zedong. In early 1928, he was appointed Party representative of the guerrilla force of Suichuan County in Jiangxi Province, and later received orders to join up with the insurrectionary army of Nanchang Uprising and join forces with troops stationed in the Jinggang Mountains. In May that year, he was appointed Party representative of the Third Battalion of the 31st Regiment of the Fourth Army of the Chinese Workers’ and Peasants’ Red Army, and took part in the Battle of Longyuankou. In 1930, he served successively as director of the Political Department of the Sixth Red Army (acting political commissar), secretary of the Party Committee of Ji’an County of Jiangxi Province, and director of the Red Army Of610

Important Figures

fice at Ji’an County. In 1931, he held the posts of secretary of the CPC Special Committee at Yongfeng, Ji’an and Taihe counties and concurrently political commissar of the Fifth Independent Division of the Red Army. In 1932, he was appointed secretary-general of the Central Bureau of the Border Area Soviet. He was awarded a Red Star Medal (Class 2) in recognition of his military exploits. During the Long March, he remained behind in the Soviet area to wage guerrilla war. He served as member of the Soviet Area Branch of the Central Committee, division commander of the Independent Division of the Red Army and Commander of the Fujian-Jiangxi Military Region, leading his army to fight in the high mountains of the Fujian-Jiangxi Border Area. On April 26, 1935, besieged by KMT forces in Ruijin, Jiangxi Province, Mao Zetan gave his life in battle, covering the withdrawal of guerrilla fighters. He was not quite 30. Maring (1883-1942): known as Henk Sneevliet, originally named Hendricus Josephus Franciscus Marie Sneevliet. He was a Dutch Communist, who helped to guide the formation of the Communist Party of Indonesia and the CPC. Sneevliet was born in Rotterdam, started working for the Dutch railways in 1900 and became a member of the Sociaal Democratische Arbeiders Partij (SDAP, the predecessor of the Dutch Labor Party) and the railway union. Sneevliet went to the Dutch East Indies (roughly equal to present-day Indonesia) in 1913, and soon became active in the struggle against the Dutch colonial authorities. He was a co-founder of the Indies Social Democratic Association (ISDV, a predecessor of the Communist Party of Indonesia). As the result of disagreement with other members, he left the SDAP in 1916, and joined the Communist Party of Holland (CPH). As a representative of the Communist Party of Indonesia, he was present at the second Comintern congress in Moscow in 1920, where he was elected an executive member of the Comintern and secretary of the Commission on the National and Colonial Question. He was sent by Lenin to China to help the formation of the Communist Party of China. In June 1921, he arrived in Shanghai, traveling in the guise of a journalist by the name of Andresen. During his time in China, he met and discussed 611

Socialism in China

with Li Dazhao and Chen Duxiu, and helped to convene the First National Congress of the CPC. His strenuous urging that the CPC must cooperate with the KMT engendered conflict with the Chinese Party’s leaders. In 1924, Sneevliet was recalled from China and replaced by Grigori Voitinsky. In 1927, Sneevliet broke all ties with the CPH, formed his own party, and joined the Fourth International (FI), founded by Leon Trotsky. On the Nazi occupation of the Netherlands in 1940, Sneevliet immediately dissolved his own party and founded a resistance group to launch guerilla strikes against the German occupiers. In April 1940, Sneevliet was arrested by the Nazis and executed. Mikhail Borodin (Russian name Ɇɢɯɚɢғɥ0iSɤRɜɢɱȻɨɪɨɞɢғɧ?-1951): Russian politician. Born in Russia, a former dock worker. He joined the Russian Bolshevik Party in 1903 and followed Vladimir Lenin to Switzerland for revolutionary work in 1904. After the October Revolution of 1917, he returned to his country, working in the foreign relations committee. In 1923, he was sent to Guangzhou, as Comintern representative to China and plenipotentiary representative of the Soviet Union to the Guangzhou government. Appointed by Sun Yat-sen as organization instructor for the KMT, he put forward a plan to reorganize the KMT along the lines the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. Later, he acted as adviser to the Central Executive Committee and the Political Committee of the KMT, becoming a close associate of Sun Yat-sen. Due to his work, the Whampoa Military Academy got military advisory teams, funds and weapons from the Soviet Union government. After the breakdown of the first KMT-CPC cooperation in 1927, Borodin was a wanted man, hunted by the KMT government in Nanjing, and was forced to return to the Soviet Union. There he served as people’s commissar of labor and as editor of the English language paper Moscow News. In 1949, implicated in the spy case of the American journalist Anna Louise Strong, he was jailed, denounced as an enemy of the Soviet regime, and exiled to Siberia. In May 1951, he died in a Soviet labor camp.

612

Important Figures

Nie Rongzhen (1899-1992): courtesy name Fupian, from Jiangjin County in Sichuan Province (now part of Chongqing municipality). He was a proletarian revolutionary, statesman, military strategist, and one of the principal leaders of the PLA. In 1919, he went to study in Europe under a work-study scheme. He joined the Chinese Youth Communist Party in Europe in 1922, and was admitted to the CPC in 1923. He went to study in Moscow in 1924. Returning to China in 1925, he successively worked as teacher in the Whampoa Military Academy, secretary of the Military Commission of Hubei Provincial Committee and of Guangdong Provincial Committee of the CPC, and head of the Organization Department of Shunzhi Provincial Committee (originally Northern Region Committee) of the CPC. In 1931, he was appointed chief-of-staff of the CMC and political commissar of the First Red Army Group. In 1937, he assisted the command of the First Red Army in the antiJapanese war, winning a great victory at Pingxingguan. Later, he was appointed commander and political commissar of Shanxi-Chahar-Hebei Military Area Command. In 1948, he became commander of North China Military Area Command. In 1949, he held concurrently the posts of commander of Beiping-Tianjin Garrison Command, mayor and director of the Military Control Commission of Beiping. Subsequently, he served as deputy chief of the General Staff of the PLA. In 1950, he was appointed acting chief of the General Staff of the PLA. In 1954, he became vice chairman of the People’s Revolutionary Military Committee of the Central People’s Government. In 1955, he was awarded the military rank of marshal. In 1956, he was appointed vice premier of the State Council. In 1958, he was appointed concurrently as minister of the State Science and Technology Commission. In 1959, he served concurrently as minister of the Commission of Science and Technology for National Defense, responsible for research and manufacture of atomic bombs, hydrogen bombs and space satellites. He was attacked during the Cultural Revolution. In 1977, he was restored to his former post of vice chairman of the CMC. In 1987, he retired on grounds of ill health. He was elected vice chairman of the first, second and third National Defense Commissions of the PRC; vice chairman of the Standing Committee of the Fourth and Fifth National People’s Congresses; co-opted member of the Political Bureau at the 613

Socialism in China

11th Plenary Session of the Eighth CPC Central Committee, and member of the Political Bureau of the 11th and 12th CPC Central Committees. In May 1992, he passed away in Beijing. Peng Dehuai (1898-1974): original given name Dehua, from Xiangtan County, Hunan Province. He was a proletarian revolutionary, military strategist and statesman, and a prominent leader of the CPC, PRC and PLA. In 1926, Peng participated in the Northern Expedition. In 1928, he joined the CPC, led the Pingjiang Uprising, organized the Fifth Army of the Chinese Workers’ and Peasants’ Red Army (the Fifth Red Army) and headed its main force to Jinggang Mountain. In 1931, he was appointed vice chairman of the Central Military Commission of the Chinese Soviet Republic, and won many victories during the anti-encirclement campaigns of the Central Soviet Area and the Long March. In 1935, he served as vice chairman of the Northwest Revolutionary Military Commission and commander of the First Front Red Army. In 1936, he was elected to the Political Bureau and became commanderin-chief of the Front-line General Headquarters of the Red Army. During the anti-Japanese war, he served as member of the Central Military Commission and vice commander-in-chief of the Eighth Route Army. In 1940, he conducted the Hundred Regiments Offensive, a massive effort to disrupt Japanese logistical networks across North China, dealing a heavy blow to the Japanese aggressors. During the War of Liberation, he doubled as commander and political commissar of the Northwest Field Army (later renamed the First Field Army) and was made deputy commander-in-chief of the PLA. In 1949, he served as first secretary of the Central Committee’s Northwest Bureau, chairman of the Northwest China Military and Administrative Commission and commander of the Northwest China Military Area Command. After the founding of the PRC, he became vice chairman of the People’s Revolutionary Military Committee of the Central People’s Government. In 1950, he doubled as commander and political commissar of the Chinese People’s Volunteer Army (PVA) in the War to Resist U.S. Aggression and Aid Korea. In 1954, he was appointed vice premier of the State Council and concurrently minister of National Defense and vice chairman of the National Defense Commission. In 1955, he was made marshal of the PRC. 614

Important Figures

At the Lushan Conference held in 1959, Peng was wrongly criticized and condemned as the leader of the “Right opportunist anti-Party clique.” In 1964, he was appointed third deputy director of the Great Third Line Construction Committee of the Central Committee’s Southwest Bureau. During the Cultural Revolution, he suffered severe persecution. In November 1974, he died in Beijing, the false charge against him still uncleared. In 1978, the CPC Central Committee held a memorial meeting for Peng at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing, and the Third Plenary Session of the 11th CPC Central Committee announced his rehabilitation. Peng Pai (1896-1929): original name Peng Hanyu, from Haifeng County, Guangdong Province. He was a proletarian revolutionary, founder of the HaiLu-Feng Peasants’ Movement and Revolutionary Base in Guangdong Province, and one of the early CPC leaders of peasants’ movements. He went to study in Japan in 1917, and returned to his native Haifeng in 1921 to launch and lead the peasants’ revolution movement there. In 1924, he joined the CPC. From July 1923 to the end of 1925, Peng ran five sessions of the Peasants’ Movement Training Institute in Guangzhou, and was director for its first and fifth sessions. In 1927, he led the peasant uprising in Haifeng and Lufeng counties, and established the Hai-Lu-Feng Soviet, the first of its kind in China. He served as a member of the Provisional Political Bureau and as secretary of the Peasants’ Movement Committee of the Central Committee. In August 1929, he was sold out and arrested in Shanghai. He firmly refused to surrender and gave up his life heroically. Peng Zhen (1902-1997): original name Fu Maogong, from Quwo in Shanxi Province. He was a proletarian revolutionary, statesman, an important leader of the CPC and the PRC, and a founder of China’s socialist legal system. He joined the CPC in 1923. He served as secretary of the CPC’s Tianjin Municipal Committee and director of the Organization Department of the North China Bureau. During the anti-Japanese war, he acted as secretary of the North China Bureau of the CPC Central Committee, vice president of the Party School of the Central Committee of CPC, acting minister of the Orga615

Socialism in China

nization Department of the Central Committee and director of the Department of Urban Work. Between 1945 and 1948, he served as member of the Political Bureau of the Central Committee, secretary of the Northeast China Bureau, minister of the Organization Department of the CPC Central Committee, director of the Central Policy Research Office and secretary of the Beiping Municipal Committee. After the founding of the PRC, he was appointed mayor of Beijing, president of the Central Politics and Law Cadres School, vice chairman of the Standing Committee of the National People’s Congress, vice chairman of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference, first secretary of the Beijing Municipal Party Committee, member of the Political Bureau of the Central Committee and secretary of the Central Committee Secretariat. He took part in drafting the Electoral Law and the Constitution. He was persecuted during the Cultural Revolution. Rehabilitated in 1979, he returned to the Political Bureau of the Central Committee, and served as vice chairman of the Standing Committee of the Fifth National People’s Congress and concurrently director of its Law Committee. He retired in 1988 and died of illness in April 1997. Qu Qiubai (1899-1935): from Yixing, Jiangsu Province. He was an early leader of the CPC, proletarian revolutionary, theorist and publicist, and an important founder of Chinese revolutionary literature. While studying Russian in May 1919 in Beijing, Qu participated in the May Fourth Movement and joined the Marxism Study Society founded by Li Dazhao. In August 1920, he was sent as a correspondent to Moscow by Beijing’s Morning News and Shanghai’s Current Affairs. In May 1921, he joined the Russian Communist Party and was admitted to the CPC the following year. He returned to China in 1923, and acted as editor-in-chief of New Youth while also being in charge of the CPC’s publicity work. He also participated in the drafting of the Manifesto of the First National Congress of the KMT. He was elected a member of the Political Bureau at the fourth and fifth national congresses of the CPC. In 1927, after the removal of Chen Duxiu at the August 7 Meeting, Qu was appointed to preside over the work of CPC Central Committee. He chaired the Sixth National Congress of the CPC in Moscow 616

Important Figures

in June 1928, and later stayed in Moscow, as head of the CPC delegation in the Comintern. Qu returned to Shanghai in 1930. He was dismissed from the central leadership at the Fourth Plenary Session of the Sixth CPC Central Committee held in January 1931. He went to the Ruijin Central Revolutionary Base in Jiangxi Province in February 1934, serving as a member of the Central Executive Committee of the Chinese Soviet Republic and Minister of Education of the central government. Qu was arrested by the troops of the KMT in February 1935. On June 18, he died a hero’s death at the age of 36. Ren Bishi (1904-1950): from Miluo in Hunan Province. He was a proletarian revolutionary, statesman, a founder of the CPC and the PLA. In 1921, he went to the Soviet Union to study at the Communist University of the Toilers of the East and joined the CPC in 1922. On his return to China in 1924 he served as acting secretary of the Central Committee of the Socialist Youth League. In the aftermath of the split in the first KMT-CPC cooperation, he pursued underground activities for the CPC in Shanghai. In 1931, he went to the Central Soviet Area in Jiangxi and served as member of the Standing Committee of the CPC Central Bureau, member of the Executive Committee of the Chinese Soviet Republic, minister of the Organization Department of the CPC Central Bureau and president of the Central Party School. During the anti-Japanese war, Ren Bishi was director of the Political Department of the Eighth Route Army, director of the General Political Department of the CMC, Chinese representative to the Comintern and secretarygeneral of the CPC Central Committee. In 1945, at the First Plenary Session of the 7th CPC Central Committee, he was elected member of the Political Bureau and secretary of the Secretariat. During the War of Liberation, as one of five secretaries of the Central Committee Secretariat, he assisted Mao Zedong and Zhou Enlai to overthrow KMT rule. He died of illness in Beijing on October 27, 1950. Song Jiaoren (1882-1913): A native of Taoyuan County, Hunan Province, Song was a pioneer of China’s democratic revolution, a co-founder of the KMT and the Republic of China. 617

Socialism in China

In February 1904, he founded Hua Xing Hui (China Revival Society) in Changsha, along with Huang Xing and others, aiming to “expel Manchus and revive China.” In November, he originally planned to stage an uprising in Changsha, but the plan leaked out and he was forced to flee to Japan. During his years in Japan, he helped Sun Yat-sen found, and was a leading figure in, the Tong Meng Hui. Song returned to China in 1910 to organize democratic revolution against the feudal rule of the Qing Dynasty. In January 1, 1912, the Republic of China was established in Nanjing. Song was appointed the head of Legality Yuan, and he drafted a provisional constitution – the “Republic of China Interim Government Organization Act.” In April that year, he took up the post of Minister of Agriculture and Forestry in the Government of the Republic of China; Song was so disgusted at Yuan Shikai’s violation of the provisional constitution that he resigned in July, and was later elected Director of Tong Meng Hui’s General Affairs Department, taking charge of the League’s work. In August, Song helped Sun Yat-sen establish the KMT on the basis of alliance with smaller parties in Beijing. Song was elected a member of the council and deputy president (Sun Yat-sen was the president of the council). Led by Sun Yat-sen and Song Jiaoren, the KMT won an overwhelming majority of seats in the first National Assembly in early 1913. But just as Song was about to form his own cabinet to follow the Western road of constitutional democracy and practice the “cabinet system,” he was shot by a gunman at Shanghai Railway Station on March 20, 1913, and died two days later, at the age of 31. Soong Ching Ling (1893-1981): native of Wenchang, Hainan. She was the wife of Sun Yat-sen, leader of the Revolutionary Committee of the KMT and an important leader of the PRC. She went to the United States to study in 1907. She was married to Sun Yat-sen in 1915 and remained by his side to his death in 1925. In 1926, she was elected to the Central Executive Committee of the KMT. After breaking with the KMT Right wing, she visited the Soviet Union and lived in Europe. In Belgium she was elected honorary chair of the International Anti-imperialist Alliance. She returned to China in 1931 and participated in establishing the China League for Civil Rights. In 1934, she chaired China’s National Armed 618

Important Figures

Self-defense Committee. After the Xi’an Incident in 1936, she urged cooperation between the KMT and the CPC to fight against Japan. During the antiJapanese war, she organized the China Defense League (later China Welfare Foundation) to support the resistance and carry out disaster relief. In 1948, she was elected honorary chairwoman of the Revolutionary Committee of the KMT. After the founding of the PRC in 1949, she held posts of vice president of the People’s Republic of China, honorary chairwoman of the National Women’s Federation, chairwoman of the Chinese People’s Committee for Protection of Children, vice chairwoman of the Standing Committee of the National People’s Congress, vice president of the PRC, member of the World Peace Council, and honorary president of the PRC. She died of illness on May 29, 1981. Sun Yat-sen (1866-1925): given name Wen, getting the name Yat-sen (Yixian in Pinyin) while at school in Hong Kong, from Cuiheng Village, Xiangshan County (now Zhongshan City) in Guangdong Province. The forerunner of the democratic revolution in modern China, founding father of the Republic of China and the KMT, Sun Yat-sen introduced into China the European/American idea of bourgeois-democratic revolution, and created the political philosophy of the Three Principles of the People (nationalism, democracy, and the livelihood of the people). In his early years, Sun studied at Christian schools, where he absorbed Western democratic ideas, and resolved to transform China and explore ways to social reformation and national renewal. In 1894, he left China after the First Sino-Japanese War for Hawaii, where he founded the Hsing Chung Hui (Society for China’s Regeneration), which aimed to “expel Manchus, revive China, and establish a unified government.” The following year, he organized the Hong Kong chapter of the Hsing Chung Hui, and planned the Guangzhou uprising against the Qing government. However, the plan leaked out, and Sun was forced to flee abroad. In August 1905, Sun founded the Tong Meng Hui (Chinese United League, an alliance that helped bring about the fall of the Qing Dynasty and the establishment of a republic in 1912) in Tokyo, and was elected its premier. Later, Sun published an editorial in Min Bao, the 619

Socialism in China

official newspaper of the Tong Meng Hui, giving expression for the first time to the Three Principles of the People. On October 10, 1911, the armed uprising at Wuchang took place, setting in motion the Revolution of 1911 that would end over two millennia of absolute monarchy in China. Then, the Republic of China was founded and Sun was elected its provisional president. In February 1912, forced by external circumstances and the internal weakness of the revolutionary party, Sun stepped down as president, and Yuan Shikai, head of the Northern warlords, took his place. In March 1913, Yuan Shikai restored monarchy in China, making himself Emperor. Sun advocated using armed force to overthrow Yuan and launched the Second Revolution, the failure of which forced Sun to go to Japan in exile. In July 1914, Sun reorganized the revolutionary party in Tokyo, renaming it Chinese Revolutionary Party, and continued striving to establish and safeguard democracy and republicanism. Drawing inspiration from the victory of the 1917 October Revolution in Russia, Sun turned for help to the Soviet Union and Comintern, rather than to the Western powers. In Shanghai in October 1919, he reorganized the Chinese Revolutionary Party as the Chinese Nationalist Party (Kuomintang or KMT). With the help of the Soviet Union and CPC, the KMT held its first national congress in Guangzhou in January 1924, under the chairmanship of Sun Yatsen. The congress adopted the party program and constitution, decided to reorganize the KMT, reinterpreted the Three Principles of the People, and set out the three major policies of alliance with Russia, cooperation with the Communist Party and assistance to peasants and workers. Meanwhile, Sun established the Whampoa Military Academy, developing revolutionary armed forces. On March 12, 1925, Sun died of liver cancer in Beijing at the age of 59. Wang Jiaxiang (1906-1974): from Jingxian County in Anhui Province. He was a proletarian revolutionary and a leader both of the CPC and of the PLA. In 1925, he went as a student to Sun Yat-sen University in Moscow, where he joined the CPC in 1928. He returned to China in 1930 and served as director of the General Political Department of the Chinese Workers’ 620

Important Figures

and Peasants’ Red Army and vice chairman of the Revolutionary Military Commission of the CPC Central Committee. In 1934, he participated in the Long March. At the Zunyi Meeting convened in January 1935, Wang Jiaxiang supported Mao Zedong’s reinstatement to command of the army, afterwards forming the three-man military command group along with Mao Zedong and Zhou Enlai. During the anti-Japanese war, he served as vice chairman of the Revolutionary Military Commission of the CPC Central Committee, director of the General Political Department of the Revolutionary Military Commission and acting director of the General Political Department of the Eighth Route Army, and in charge of daily affairs of the CMC. During the War of Liberation, he served on the CPC Northeast China Bureau, and as Minister of Urban Work and acting head of the Publicity Department. After the founding of the PRC, he was appointed China’s first ambassador to the Soviet Union, vice minister of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and minister of the International Liaison Department of the Central Committee. He was persecuted during the Cultural Revolution. He died in Beijing on January 25, 1974. Wang Jingwei (1883-1944): also known as Wang Zhaoming, born in Foshan, Guangdong Province, but of Shaoxing ancestry in Zhejiang. He was a political figure in China’s modern age. In 1905, as an overseas student in Japan, Wang joined the Tong Meng Hui and became an assistant to Sun Yat-sen. In 1910, he was jailed and sentenced to life imprisonment for plotting the assassination of the regent, Prince Chun of the Qing Dynasty in Beijing. He was released after the Revolution of 1911, and participated in the Second Revolution and Constitution Protection Movement to resist Yuan Shikai. He took part in the reorganization of the KMT, and was a Presidium member of the KMT’s First National Congress, a member of the Central Executive Committee and Publicity Minister. After the death of Sun Yat-sen in 1925, Wang was the losing contender in the power struggle with Chiang Kai-shek for control of the KMT. After the anti-Japanese war broke out in 1937, Wang, at the time vice chairman of Defense Summit of the National Government and vice president of the KMT, advocated collaboration with the Japanese and vigorously promoted 621

Socialism in China

the Peace Movement. In December 1938, via Yunnan Province, he arrived in Hanoi where he announced by telegram a capitulationist call to cooperate with the Japanese against the Communists. As a result, he was removed from office and expelled from the KMT. In March 1940, he formed a Japanese-supported collaborationist government in Nanjing, and served as the president of the Executive Yuan and chairman of the National Government, earning himself undying shame as an archtraitor to China. He died in Nagoya in November 1944. Wang Ming (1904-1974): original name Chen Shaoyu, from Jinzhai County in Anhui Province. He was an early leader of the CPC and a representative figure of the Leftist line. A student activist from a young age, in 1925 he went to study at Sun Yatsen University in Moscow, where he joined the CPC. In October 1929, he returned to China and became editor of Red Flag, a newspaper under the Publicity Department of the Central Committee. At the 4th Plenary Session of the 6th CPC Central Committee, with the support of his teacher Pavel Mif who was an Executive Council member and head of the Oriental Department of the Comintern, Wang Ming was elected to membership of the Political Bureau of the Central Committee in charge of Central Committee work. Ideologically, he espoused and promoted dogmatism; politically he was a proponent of Leftist adventurism. He inflicted huge damage on the Chinese revolution. In October 1937, during the anti-Japanese war, Wang Ming returned to Yan’an from Moscow and served as director of the United Front Work Department of the Central Committee and secretary of the Yangtze River Bureau. After the 7th National Party Congress, he was elected to the Central Committee and appointed director of the Political Research Office of the Central Committee in charge of the drafting work of the Party’s policies and articles of law. After the PRC was founded in 1949, he served as deputy director of the Committee of Political and Legal Affairs and director of the Legal Affairs Committee of the State Council. In 1950, he went to the Soviet Union for medical treatment and remained there, writing memoirs and essays to criticize the CPC and exculpate himself. He died of illness in Moscow on March 27, 1974. 622

Important Figures

Xi Zhongxun (1913-2002): courtesy name Xiangjin, from Fuping County in Shaanxi Province. He was a proletarian revolutionary, one of the leaders of the political work of the CPC and PLA, and one of the principal founders and leaders of the Shaanxi-Gansu Border Region Base Area. He was an initiator and leader of reform and opening-up and special economic zones, which were pioneered in Guangdong Province. He joined the Communist Youth League of China in 1926 and the CPC in 1928. In 1933, he was appointed secretary of the Military Commission of the Shaanxi-Gansu Border Region Special Committee of the CPC and vice chairman of the Revolutionary Committee of the Shaanxi-Gansu Border Region, and participated in founding the Shaanxi-Gansu Border Region Base Area. From 1934 to 1936, he worked as deputy secretary of the Shaanxi-Gansu Border Region Special Committee of the CPC and chairman of the Shaanxi-Gansu Border Region Soviet Government. From 1937 to 1945, he was appointed political commissar of the Army Group of the Shaanxi-Gansu-Ningxia Border Region and elected alternate member of the Central Committee. From 1947 to 1949, he served as secretary of the Central Committee’s Northwest Bureau and political commissar of the Northwest Military Area Command, and was elected member of the Central People’s Government Commission, and member of the People’s Revolutionary Military Commission. He became head of the Publicity Department of the CPC Central Committee in 1950 and secretary-general of the Government Administration Council in 1953. In 1956, he was elected to the Central Committee. From 1959 to 1962, he served as vice premier and concurrently secretary-general of the State Council. In 1962, he was falsely accused of leading an anti-Party clique for supporting the Biography of Liu Zhidan, and suffered persecution during the Cultural Revolution. After being rehabilitated in 1978, he was appointed first secretary of Guangdong Provincial Party Committee, and became a co-opted member of the CPC Central Committee. In 1979, he was appointed governor of Guangdong Province. In 1980, Xi was appointed concurrently as first political commissar of the Guangdong Military Area Command, and became co-opted vice chairman of the Standing Committee of the National People’s Congress. In 1981, he was co-opted as secretary of the Central Committee Secretariat. In 1982, he was elected to the Political Bureau and as secretary of Central 623

Socialism in China

Committee Secretariat. In 1988, he was reelected vice chairman of the Standing Committee of the National People’s Congress. In 1993, he retired from all leading posts in the CPC and PRC. He died in Beijing in May 2002. Xiang Ying (1898-1941): from Wuchang in Hubei Province. He was a workers’ movement activist, an early leader of the CPC and the Chinese Workers’ and Peasants’ Red Army, and one of founders and leaders of the New Fourth Army. As a young man, Xiang Ying was an industrial worker. He joined the CPC in April 1922, dedicating himself to workers’ movements. After the first KMT-CPC cooperation broke up, he operated as a secret agent for the Party in Shanghai. In 1930, he was transferred to the Central Revolutionary Base in Ruijin in Jiangxi Province and led the construction of political regime of the Central Soviet Area. After the Red Army’s main force embarked on the Long March in October 1934, Xiang Ying was left in the south of China to wage guerrilla war. He served as secretary of the Party Committee of Jiangsu Province, member of the Standing Committee of the CPC Political Bureau, chairman of the All-China Federation of Trade Unions and secretary of the Central Committee’s Yangtze River Bureau. During the anti-Japanese war, he was appointed secretary of the Central Committee’s Southeast China Bureau, secretary of the New Fourth Army branch of the CMC and deputy commander of the New Fourth Army. He and Ye Ting, commander of the New Fourth Army, led those forces in guerilla operations in enemy-controlled areas. KMT hardliners launched the Wannan Incident in January 1941, ambushing the New Fourth Army in a surprise attack. Xiang Ying was shot by a traitor while breaking out of the ambush. Xiang Zhongfa (1880-1931): from Hanchuan in Hubei Province. He was among the early leadership of the CPC. As a young man, Xiang worked in Hanyang Weaponry Factory in Hubei. He joined the CPC in 1922 and dedicated himself to workers’ movements. In May 1927, he was elected to the CPC Central Committee at the Fifth National Party Congress and, in October of the same year, went to the Soviet Union 624

Important Figures

to represent the CPC at the Comintern. In July 1928, at the First Plenary Session of the 6th CPC Central Committee convened in Moscow, he was elected chairman of the Political Bureau of the CPC. He returned to China at the end of 1928. On June 22, 1931, he was arrested by agents of the KMT and executed three days later. Xie Zichang (1897-1935): from Anding in Shaanxi Province. He was a cofounder of the North Shaanxi Red Army and revolutionary base and a senior official of the Chinese Workers’ and Peasants’ Red Army. In 1922 Xie Zichang began studying at a military school in Taiyuan. In 1924, he returned to Anding and established a militia group with himself as the head. He joined the CPC in 1925. Later, he pursued peasants’ and soldiers’ movements in northern Shaanxi, Ningxia and Gansu, participated in the Qingjian and Weihua uprisings, and established the Shaanxi-Gansu Revolutionary Base with Liu Zhidan. He held posts of battalion commander and deputy commander of the guerrilla army of the Northwest Revolutionary Army, member of the Military Commission of the Special Committee of the CPC in Shaanxi, general commander of the Shaanxi and Gansu guerrilla force of the Chinese Workers’ and Peasants’ Red Army, commissar of the 42th Division of the 26th Corps of the Red Army, and chairman of the Revolutionary Military Commission of the CPC in Northwest China. In 1934, he was shot in the chest while directing the battle at the front and died in Anding in February 1935. Xu Xiangqian (1901-1990): courtesy name Zijing, from Wutai County, Shanxi Province. He was a proletarian revolutionary and military strategist, and one of the principal leaders of the CPC, PRC and PLA. Xu joined the armed escort of Sun Yat-sen in 1921 and was admitted to Whampoa Military Academy in 1924. He joined the CPC in 1927 and later became division commander of the Fourth Division of the Chinese Workers’ and Peasants’ Revolutionary Army. In 1929, he was appointed chairman of the Military Commission of Hubei-Henan Border Region Revolutionary Committee. From 1930 to 1936, he served as deputy army commander and concur625

Socialism in China

rently division commander in the First Army of the Chinese Workers’ and Peasants’ Red Army, commander-in-chief and army commander of the Fourth Army in the Fourth Front Red Army, commander-in-chief of the Front-line General Headquarters of the Red Army, and vice chairman of the Military and Administrative Commission and concurrently commander-in-chief in the West Route Army of the Red Army. In 1937, he was made assistant division commander of the 129th Division of the Eighth Route Army and commander of the First Column of the Eighth Route Army in 1939. In 1942, he was appointed deputy commander of the Shaanxi-Gansu-Ningxia-Shanxi-Suiyuan United Defense Army, and later became acting president of the Chinese People’s Anti-Japanese Military and Political University. In 1945, he served successively as deputy commander of the Shanxi-Hebei-Shandong-Henan Military Area Command, deputy commander of the North China Military Area Command and commander and political commissar of the First Army Group. In 1949, he was appointed chief of the general staff of the PLA. From 1954, he served as vice chairman of the People’s Revolutionary Military Commission of the Central People’s Government, and vice chairman of the National Defense Commission of the PRC. In 1955, he was granted the rank of marshal. From 1965, he served as vice chairman of the Standing Committee of the Third and Fourth National People’s Congresses. From 1966 to 1987, he was vice chairman of the CMC. From 1978 to 1980, he held the post of vice premier of the State Council and concurrently minister of National Defense. From 1983 to 1988, he served as vice chairman of the CMC. He died in Beijing in September 1990. Yang Hucheng (1893-1949): courtesy name Huchen, from Pucheng in Shaanxi Province. He was a patriotic general in the anti-Japanese war, a statesman and military strategist of modern China. He threw in his lot with Sun Yat-sen in the Revolution of 1911. In 1924, he joined the KMT, sponsored by Sun Yat-sen. He served as commander of the 3rd Division of the 3rd Corps of the National Revolutionary Army, commander-in-chief in Northern Shaanxi, commander of the 10th Route Army, commander-in-chief of the 17th Route Army and chairman of the Shaanxi Provincial Government. 626

Important Figures

In December 1936, he and Zhang Xueliang launched the Xi’an Incident to force Chiang Kai-shek into cooperation with the CPC to oppose the Japanese invaders, resulting in his dismissal by the Kuomintang government, followed by imprisonment in Hunan, Guizhou and Sichuan. In September 1949, he was executed by Chiang Kai-shek at the Chongqing Sino-American Cooperative Organization (SACO) headquarters. Yang Shangkun (1907-1998): courtesy name Chengwu, from Tongnan County in Sichuan Province (now part of Chongqing municipality). He was a proletarian revolutionary, statesman and military strategist, and one of the principal leaders of the CPC, PRC and PLA. After joining the Communist Youth League of China in 1925, and the CPC in 1926, he went to study in the Soviet Union. He returned to China in 1931 and served as head of the Publicity Department of the Central Committee. In 1934, he became political commissar of the Third Army Group of the Chinese Workers’ and Peasants’ Red Army. In 1935, he was appointed deputy director of the General Political Department of the Northwest Revolutionary Military Commission, and deputy director of the General Political Department of the Central Revolutionary Military Commission in 1936. During the anti-Japanese war he served as secretary of the Central Committee’s Northern Bureau, secretary-general of the CMC, deputy head of the Foreign Affairs Working Group of the Central Committee, and director of the Central Committee’s General Office. During the War of Liberation, he held concurrently the posts of commander of the Central Guard Unit, deputy secretary of the Rear Committee of the Central Committee and deputy secretary-general of the Central Committee. After the founding of the PRC in 1949, he retained the positions of deputy secretary-general of the Central Committee and the director of the Central Committee’s General Office, while also holding the posts of secretarygeneral of the CMC and Party secretary of Departments Directly Under the Central Committee. In 1956, he was elected alternate secretary of the Central Committee Secretariat. During the Cultural Revolution, he was removed from office and put in jail. After the Central Committee announced his rehabilitation in 1978, he held leading positions in Party, government and army in 627

Socialism in China

Guangdong Province. In 1980, he was elected vice chairman and secretarygeneral of the Standing Committee of the National People’s Congress. In 1981, he was appointed Standing Committee member and secretary-general of the CMC. In 1982, he was appointed executive vice chairman of the CMC in addition to the secretary-general role, becoming its vice chairman in 1983. He was elected president of the PRC in 1988 and first vice chairman of the CMC in 1989. He passed away in Beijing in September 1998. Ye Jianying (1897-1986): from Meixian County, Guangdong Province. He was a proletarian revolutionary, statesman, military strategist, a founder of the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) and marshal of the PRC. He entered Yunnan Military Academy in 1917, aligning himself with Sun Yat-sen after graduation, and committing himself to the democratic revolution. A co-founder of the Whampoa Military Academy, he also participated in the Northern Expedition. After the first KMT-CPC cooperation broke up in 1927, he joined the CPC. He was one of the leaders of the Guangzhou Uprising. He served as deputy commander-in-chief of the Chinese Workers’ and Peasants’ Red Army, president and commissar of the College of the Chinese Workers’ and Peasants’ Red Army, chief of staff of the First Front Army of the Chinese Workers’ and Peasants’ Red Army and chief of staff of the Central Military Commission. During the anti-Japanese war, Ye Jianying helped Zhou Enlai to a peaceful settlement of the Xi’an Incident and was appointed chief of general staff of the Eighth Route Army. After victory over Japan, he participated in the negotiations with the KMT and directed the War of Liberation nationwide. After the founding of the PRC in 1949, Ye was concurrently mayor of Guangzhou and chairman of the People’s Government of Guangdong Province, commander of the South China Military Area Command, vice chairman of the Revolutionary Military Commission of the Central People’s Government and vice chairman of the Central Military Commission (CMC) of the CPC. During the Cultural Revolution, he presided over the day-to-day work of the CMC and played a significant role in protecting senior officials, and stabilizing the army and the general situation. 628

Important Figures

After Mao’s death in 1976, Ye Jianying assisted Hua Guofeng, chairman of the CPC, in the campaign against the Gang of Four, endeavored to reinstate Deng Xiaoping and Chen Yun to the Party and state leadership and to set right of unjust cases. In March 1978, he was chosen as chairman of the Standing Committee of the National People’s Congress, retiring at his own request in September 1985. He died in October 1986 in Beijing. Ye Ting (1896-1946): courtesy name Xiyi, from Huiyang County, Guangdong Province. He was a renowned statesman and military strategist, a cofounder of the PLA and chief leader of the New Fourth Army. He graduated from Baoding Military Academy in 1918. In 1919, he joined the KMT, engaging in the democratic revolution as a follower of Sun Yat-sen. While studying in the Soviet Union, he joined the CPC in 1924, and changed his allegiance from the Three Principles of the People to communism. In 1926, he led the independent regiment of the Fourth Army of the National Revolutionary Army as an advance detachment in the Northern Expedition, winning many victories and the accolade “famous general of the Northern Expedition.” In 1927, he led the Guangzhou Uprising after the breakdown in the KMTCPC cooperation. During the anti-Japanese war, Ye Ting served as army commander of the New Fourth Army of the National Revolutionary Army. In 1938, he was congratulated in a telegram from Chiang Kai-shek for leading his army to smash Japanese mopping-up operations in the south of Anhui Province. In January 1941 he was arrested and imprisoned for five years by the KMT as a result of the Wannan Incident. In March 1946, he was released and readmitted to membership of the CPC. On April 8 that year, on route from Chongqing to Yan’an, he died in a plane crash near Black Tea Mountain in Xingxian County, Shanxi Province. Zhang Bojun (1895-1969): from Tongcheng in Anhui Province. He was a patriotic democrat, political activist and one of the founders and leaders of the Chinese Peasants’ and Workers’ Democratic Party. He was admitted to Wuchang Higher Normal College in 1916 and after graduation became the principal of Xuancheng Normal College in Anhui. In 629

Socialism in China

1922, he went to study in Germany and joined the CPC there. He returned to China in 1926 and became a teacher at Sun Yat-sen University in Guangzhou. He participated in the Northern Expedition and served as Party representative of the Ninth Army of the National Revolutionary Army. He took part in the Nanchang Uprising in 1927 and was vice director of the Political Department of the Uprising Army Headquarters. He withdrew from the CPC after the uprising failed. During the anti-Japanese war, he served as senator of the KMT’s National Political Participation Assembly and took part in the establishment of the League of Chinese Democratic Political Groups, serving on the Central Standing Committee and as minister of the Organization Department. He was elected chairman of the Chinese Peasants’ and Workers’ Democratic Party in 1947. After the founding of the PRC, he served as member of the Central People’s Government, political affairs member of the Government Administration Council, minister of the Ministry of Communications, vice chairman of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference, chairman of the Chinese Peasants’ and Workers’ Democratic Party, vice chairman of the China Democratic League, president of the Guangming Daily. He was denounced as a Rightist in 1957 and removed from all posts. He was persecuted during the Cultural Revolution and died of illness in May 1969. Zhang Guotao (1897-1979): courtesy name Kaiyin, from Pingxiang County, Jiangxi Province. He was a founding member and early leader of the CPC. Because of his active role in the May Fourth Movement in 1919 while studying at Peking University, Zhang became head of the Speechmaking Department of the Beijing Union of Students. In October 1920, he joined the communist group in Beijing. Zhang attended the First National Congress of the CPC in July 1921, during which he took the chair and was elected a member of the CPC Central Bureau. He acted as a leading member of the CPC from the first through sixth national congresses of the CPC. In 1928, he went to the Soviet Union, as a CPC delegate to the Comintern. In 1931, Zhang returned to China, and was assigned to work as general secretary of the CPC Sub-Bureau of Hunan-Henan-Anhui Soviet Area and concurrently chairman of the military commission. In November that year he became vice chairman of the Interim Central Government of the Chinese So-

630

Important Figures

viet Republic. In October 1932, Zhang led the Fourth Red Army into North Sichuan, set up the Sichuan-Shaanxi Revolutionary Base, and served as chairman of the Northwest Revolutionary Military Commission of the CPC. In April 1935, the KMT’s encirclement forced Zhang to give up the revolutionary base on the border of Sichuan and Shaanxi provinces and begin the Long March. After the Fourth Red Army reunited with the Central Red Army in June in Maogong, Sichuan, Zhang opposed the Party’s decision to move northward to establish a revolutionary base on the borders of Sichuan, Shaanxi and Gansu provinces, and headed the Fourth Red Army south without authorization, causing a split both in the Party and in the Red Army. In October 1936, badly beaten by KMT troops during his southward march, Zhang was forced to head the Fourth Red Army north to join forces with the First Red Army. Later, he was stripped of military authority. After the second cooperation between the KMT and the CPC to resist Japanese aggression, Zhang, then vice chairman of Shaanxi-Gansu-Ningxia Border Region government, left Yan’an to defect to the KMT in April 1938. As a result, he was expelled from the Party. After the anti-Japanese war, Zhang continued his activities against the CPC. He fled to Taiwan in November 1948 and to Hong Kong in 1949. He eventually retired to Canada in 1968, where he died in 1979. Zhang Wentian (1900-1976): original given name Yinggao, also known as Luo Fu, from Nanhui in Jiangsu Province (now part of Shanghai). He was a proletarian revolutionary and theorist, and an early leader of the CPC. He participated in the May Fourth Movement of 1919, joined the CPC in 1925 and was sent to study in the Soviet Union in the winter of that year. Following his return to China in 1931, he became publicity minister of the Central Committee. In 1934, he was elected to the Political Bureau and concurrently as secretary of the Secretariat of the Central Committee, and chairman of the People’s Committee of the Central Government. In 1935, he was elected general secretary of the Central Committee at the Zunyi Conference. During the Long March, he resolutely fought against separatist thinking. In 1936, he prevailed over all dissenting views and helped effect a peaceful settlement of the Xi’an Incident. 631

Socialism in China

After yielding his position of general secretary to Mao Zedong in 1938, he served as publicity minister of the Central Committee, president of the Institute of Marxism and Leninism in Yan’an, director of the Northwest Working Committee, and as person in charge of the weekly magazine Liberation. In 1945, he was elected member of the Political Bureau. During the War of Liberation, he successively served as secretary of Hejiang (today’s Heilongjiang) Provincial Committee of the CPC, member of the Standing Committee and minister of the Organization Department of the Northeast Bureau, deputy director of the Financial and Economic Committee in Northeast China, and secretary of Liaodong (now under the jurisdiction of Liaoning and Jilin provinces) Provincial Committee of the CPC. In April 1951, he became the New China’s ambassador to the Soviet Union. Returning to China at the end of 1954, he was appointed first vice minister of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. In 1956, he was elected alternate member of the Political Bureau of the CPC. Being wrongly criticized at the Lushan Conference in 1959, he was removed from office. During the Cultural Revolution, he suffered cruel persecution. He died on July 1, 1976, his name still not cleared of the false charges against him. In 1978, he was rehabilitated at the Third Plenary Session of the 11th CPC Central Committee. In 1981, Zhang’s name was included in the list of prominent leaders of the Party, mentioned in the speech delivered by Hu Yaobang, then general secretary of the Central Committee at the meeting to celebrate the 60th anniversary of the founding of the CPC. Zhang Xueliang (1901-2001): courtesy name Hanqing, from Haicheng in Liaoning Province. He was a patriotic general in the anti-Japanese war, a statesman and military strategist of modern China. Since 1917, he served in the Fengtian Army of his warlord father Zhang Zuolin. In 1919, he started studying at the Fengtian Military Academy. After his father was killed in an explosion plotted by the Japanese Kwantung Army in 1928, Zhang Xueliang served as Security Commander of the Three Provinces of Northeast China and was appointed by the KMT government as commander of the Northeast Frontier Defense Army. Later, he served as chairman of the Northeast Political Affairs Committee, deputy commanderin-chief of the Army, Navy and Air Forces of the Republic of China, member 632

Important Figures

of the Nationalist Government and member of the Political Conference of the Central Committee of the KMT. After the September 18 Incident in 1931, the Northeast Army followed the “non-resistance” policy that left Northeast China under Japanese occupation, and Zhang Xueliang was switched to head the Nationalist Government’s Beiping Appeasement Office. In 1935, he was granted the military rank of first-class General and appointed deputy commander of the “Northwest bandit suppression force.” In December 1936, he and Yang Hucheng launched the Xi’an Incident to force Chiang Kai-shek into cooperation with the CPC to oppose the Japanese invaders. After peaceful settlement of the Incident, he was long imprisoned by Chang Kai-shek. After arriving in Taiwan in October 1946, he was put under house arrest and his freedom was not restored until 1990. In 1993, he was hired as honorary president of the Northeastern University and honorary councilor of the Harbin Institute of Technology. In 1995, he quit Taiwan for Hawaii, where he died of illness in October 2001. Zhou Enlai (1898-1976): courtesy name Xiangyu, from Shaoxing, Zhejiang Province. He was as a Marxist, proletarian revolutionary, statesman, military strategist, diplomat, main leader of the CPC and PRC, and co-founder of the PLA. In 1913, Zhou Enlai entered the famous Nankai Middle School in Tianjin, went to Japan for further studies in 1917, and returned to China in 1919. In Tianjin, he joined the May Fourth Movement, and engaged in anti-imperialist and anti-feudal revolutionary activities. While on a work-study scheme in Europe from 1920 to 1924, he became a Marxist and initiated the organization of the Chinese Youth Communist Party in Europe. In 1922, he joined the leadership of the European Branch of the CPC. He returned from Paris in August 1924, and held the positions of director of the Political Department of the Whampoa Military Academy and director of the Political Department of the First Corps of the National Revolutionary Army. After the first KMT-CPC cooperation split up, he led the third uprising of workers in Shanghai in March 1927; he led the Nanchang Uprising in August, and co-founded the Chinese Workers’ and Peasants’ Red Army, the predecessor of the PLA. 633

Socialism in China

In 1928, Zhou attended the Sixth National Congress of the CPC and emerged as a major leader of the CPC Central Committee. At the Zunyi Meeting held during the Long March in January 1935, Zhou supported the decision to reinstate Mao Zedong’s position in the Party’s military command, playing an important role in rescuing the Red Army and the CPC from danger. During the Xi’an Incident of December 1936, Zhou went to Xi’an as the chief negotiator for the CPC, contributing to the peaceful settlement of the incident, and to the new alliance formed by the KMT and the CPC to resist Japanese aggression. During the anti-Japanese war, as the representative of the CPC, Zhou was stationed in KMT-controlled areas for a long period, leading the anti-Japanese united front work. Soon after victory over Japan in August 1945, Zhou accompanied Mao Zedong to Chongqing to conduct peace negotiations with the KMT. During the War of Liberation, he took part in the command of LiaoxiShenyang, Beiping-Tianjin and Huai-Hai campaigns, directed preparations for the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC) and drafting of the Common Program of the CPPCC, making remarkable contributions to overthrowing the rule of the KMT, and creating the new socialist China. After the founding of the PRC, he held the posts of premier of the central government, minister of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, vice chairman of the Military Commission of the CPC Central Committee, vice chairman of the First CPPCC National Committee, chairman of the Second and Third CPPCC National Committee, member of the Standing Committee of the Political Bureau and vice chairman of the CPC Central Committee. During the Cultural Revolution, he tried his best to minimize damage, protected large numbers of officials and non-Party personages, and maintain the normal running of the Party and the state. In terms of international affairs, he advocated the famous Five Principles of Peaceful Coexistence, and pushed forward the establishment of Sino-US diplomatic relations. He opened up new horizons in China’s diplomatic work and won recognition and respect from the international community. On January 8, 1976, he died of cancer in Beijing.

634

Important Figures

Zhou Xiaozhou (1912-1966): from Xiangtan in Hunan Province. He joined the CPC in 1935 and served as chief of the Publicity Department of the CPC’s Provisional Beiping Municipal Committee. In 1936, he represented the CPC in negotiations with the KMT government in Nanjing for a united front in resisting Japan. During the anti-Japanese war, he headed local Party committees and was a military leader in Hebei and Shanxi provinces. Between 1945 and 1948, he served as member of the Standing Committee of the Beiping Municipal Party Committee and concurrently director of the Publicity Department, vice director of the Publicity Department of the Central Committee’s North China Bureau, deputy secretary and director of the Publicity Department of the Working Group for Liberating South China, and member of the Standing Committee of the Hunan Provincial Party Committee and director of the Publicity Department. After the founding of the PRC in 1949, he was appointed vice secretary of the Hunan Provincial Party Committee and then first secretary of the Hunan Provincial Party Committee. At the Lushan Conference in 1959 he was branded as belonging to the “anti-Party clique,” and dismissed from office. He was publicly “denounced” during the Cultural Revolution and committed suicide in Guangzhou in December 1966. In 1979, the CPC Central Committee revoked the wrong punishment meted out to him. Zhu De (1886-1976): courtesy name Yujie, from Yilong County in Sichuan Province. He was a proletarian revolutionary, statesman, military strategist, a founder of the CPC, the PLA and the PRC, and marshal of the PRC. Zhu De enrolled in Yunnan Military Academy in 1909 and joined Sun Yatsen’s Tong Meng Hui. In August 1922, he went to study in Germany and joined the CPC that same year. In July 1925, he went to the Soviet Union for military studies. In 1926, he returned to China and established a training regiment to educate revolutionary military officers. In 1927, after the breakdown of the first KMT-CPC cooperation, he participated in the Nanchang Uprising as commander of the Ninth Corps of the Uprising Army. In April 1928, he led his insurrectionary troops to meet the Chinese Workers’ and Peasants’ Red Army headed by Mao Zedong and established the Jinggangshan Revolutionary Base. He served as commander-in-chief of the First Front Army of the 635

Socialism in China

Chinese Workers’ and Peasants’ Red Army and commander-in-chief of the Chinese Workers’ and Peasants’ Red Army and as chairman of the Central Revolutionary Military Commission. With the outbreak of anti-Japanese war, Zhu De was appointed commander-in-chief of the Eighth Route Army and led troops to strike Japanese invaders and establish anti-Japanese bases in occupied areas. In 1945, he was elected to membership of the Political Bureau of the Central Committee and head of the Central Committee Secretariat. During the War of Liberation, as PLA commander-in-chief, Zhu De assisted Mao Zedong in directing the LiaoxiShenyang, Huai-Hai, and Beiping-Tianjin campaigns which overthrew Chiang Kai-shek’s dominance of China’s mainland. On the founding of the PRC, he was granted the rank of marshal. He also served as vice president of the Central People’s Government, commander-inchief of the PLA, chairman of the Standing Committee of the National People’s Congress, vice chairman of the CPC Central Committee and vice chairman of the CMC. He suffered persecution during the Cultural Revolution. Zhu De died in Beijing on July 6, 1976.

636

Bibliography

1. Mao Zedong. Selected Works of Mao Tse-tung, Vols. I-V. Beijing: People’s Publishing House, 1991. 2. CCCPC Party Literature Research Office, ed. Mao Zedong’s Manuscripts since the Founding of the PRC, Vols. I-XIII. Beijing: Central Party Literature Press, 1987-1998. 3. Liu Shaoqi. Selected Works of Liu Shaoqi, Vols. I-II. Beijing: People’s Publishing House, 1981. 4. CCCPC Party Literature Research Office, ed. Liu Shaoqi on New China’s Economic Construction. Beijing: Central Party Literature Press, 1993. 5. Deng Xiaoping. Selected Works of Deng Xiaoping, Vols. I-II (2nd edition). Beijing: People’s Publishing House, 1994. 6. Deng Xiaoping. Selected Works of Deng Xiaoping, Vol. III (2nd edition). Beijing: People’s Publishing House, 1993. 7. “Resolution on Certain Questions in the History of Our Party Since the Founding of the People’s Republic of China,” approved by the CPC Central Committee (1981). 8. CCCPC Party History Research Office. History of the Chinese Communist Party, Vol. I. Beijing: CPC History Publishing House, 2011. 9. CCCPC Party History Research Office. History of the Chinese Communist Party, Vol. II. Beijing: CPC History Publishing House, 2011. 10. Wu Jianshu, ed. Selected Works of Chen Duxiu, Vols. I-VI. Shanghai: Shanghai People’s Publishing House, 2008. 11. Huang Yan, ed. Selected Works of Sun Yat-sen. Guangzhou: Guangdong People’s Publishing House, 2006. 12. CCCPC Party Literature Research Office, ed. Mao Zedong: A Biography (1893-1949). Beijing: Central Party Literature Press, 1996. 637

Socialism in China

13. CCCPC Party Literature Research Office, ed. Mao Zedong: A Biography (1949-1976), Vols. I-II. Beijing: Central Party Literature Press, 2003. 14. Liu Shaoqi Research Group of the CCCPC Party Literature Research Office, ed. Biography of Liu Shaoqi (1898-1969). Chengdu: Sichuan People’s Publishing House, 2009. 15. CCCPC Party Literature Research Office, ed. Zhou Enlai: A Biography, Vols. I-II. Beijing: Central Party Literature Press, 2008. 16. Zhou Enlai Research Group of the CCCPC Party Literature Research Office, ed. Biography of Zhou Enlai (1898-1976). Chengdu: Sichuan People’s Publishing House, 2009. 17. Yang Shangkun. Memoirs of Yang Shangkun. Beijing: Central Party Literature Press, 2001. 18. Nie Rongzhen. Memoirs of Nie Rongzhen. Beijing: PLA Publishing House, 2007. 19. CCCPC Party Literature Research Office, ed. Zhu De: A Biography. Beijing: Central Party Literature Press, 2006. 20. Shang Mingxuan. Biography of Sun Yat-sen. Beijing: Culture and Art Publishing House, 2008. 21. Yang Shubiao, and Yang Jing. Biography of Chiang Kai-shek (1887-1975). Hangzhou: Zhejiang University Press, 2008. 22. Li Ao, and Wang Rongzu. A Critical Biography of Chiang Kai-shek, Vols. I-II. Beijing: China Friendship Publishing Company, 2004. 23. Hu Qiaomu. Reminiscences of Mao Zedong. Beijing: People’s Publishing House, 1994. 24. Xi Zhongxun. Unforgettable Memories. Beijing: Central Party Literature Press, 1995. 25. Wang Guangmei, Liu Yuan, and others, eds. About Liu Shaoqi—What You Don’t Know. Zhengzhou: Henan People’s Publishing House, 2000. 26. Liu Aiqin. My Father Liu Shaoqi. Beijing: People’s Publishing House, 2008. 27. Deng Liqun. I Want to Say Something for Comrade Liu Shaoqi. Beijing: Contemporary China Publishing House, 1998. 28. Editorial Group of Xi Zhongxun’s Revolutionary Life, ed. Xi Zhongxun’s Revolutionary Life. Beijing: CPC History Publishing House, Chinese Literature and History Press, 2002. 638

Bibliography

29. Hu Sheng, ed. Seventy Years of the Communist Party of China. Beijing: CPC History Publishing House, 1991. 30. Li Xin, and Chen Tiejian, eds. A Complete History of China’s New-Democratic Revolution: The Rise of the National Revolution. Shanghai: Shanghai People’s Publishing House, 1991. 31. Li Xin, and Chen Tiejian, eds. A Complete History of China’s New-Democratic Revolution: A Single Spark Starts a Prairie Fire. Shanghai: Shanghai People’s Publishing House, 1994. 32. Li Xin, and Chen Tiejian, eds. A Complete History of China’s New-Democratic Revolution: From Civil War to Anti-Japanese War. Shanghai: Shanghai People’s Publishing House, 1995. 33. Li Xin, and Chen Tiejian, eds. A Complete History of China’s New-Democratic Revolution: The Pride and Passion of the Whole Chinese Nation Against Japanese Aggression. Shanghai: Shanghai People’s Publishing House, 1995. 34. Yang Tianshi. Finding out a Real Chiang Kai-shek: An Interpretation of Chiang Kai-shek’s Diary. Taiyuan: Shanxi People’s Publishing House, 2008. 35. Chen Tiejian. Among Bamboos and Waters. Gansu: Lanzhou University Press, 2003. 36. State Archives Administration, ed. Selected Documents of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China. Beijing: Central Party School Press, 1991. 37. CCCPC Party Literature Research Office, ed. A Collection of Important Documents Since the Founding of the People’s Republic of China. Beijing: Central Party Literature Press, 1992. 38. CCCPC Organization Department, CCCPC Party History Research Center, and State Archives Administration, eds. Historical Materials on the Organization of the Communist Party of China, Vols. I-IX. Beijing: CPC History Publishing House, 2000. 39. CCCPC Party History Research Center. Archive Materials of China’s Revolution, Vols. II-XVII. Beijing: Central Party Literature Press, 2002. 40. The CPC History and Records Compilation and Research Group of the Jinggangshan Revolutionary Base, and the Jinggangshan Revolution Museum, eds. The Jianggangshan Revolutionary Base, Vols. I-II. Beijing: CPC History Data Publishing House, 1987. 41. The Historical Record Compilation Committee for the Second National 639

Socialism in China

Congress of the CPC, ed. The Second National Congress of the Communist Party of China. Beijing: CPC History Publishing House, 2006. 42. The Committee for Party History and Data Collection of the CPC Central Committee, ed. Documents of the Zunyin Meeting. Beijing: People’s Publishing House, 2009. 43. Xu Xiangqian. A Review of History. Beijing: PLA Publishing House, 1988. 44. Bo Yibo. Leaders, Marshals and Comrades-in-Arms. Beijing: People’s Publishing House, 2002. 45. Bo Yibo. Looking Back on Some Major Decisions and Events, Vols. I-II. Beijing: Central Party School Press, 1993. 46. Li Weihan. Memories and Reflection. Beijing: CPC History Publishing House, 1986. 47. Wang Ming. Memoirs of Wang Ming. Hefei: Anhui People’s Publishing House, 2004. 48. Wang Ming. Fifty Years of the Communist Party of China. Beijing: The Eastern Publishing House, 2004. 49. Zhang Guotao. My Memories, Vols. I-II. Beijing: The Eastern Publishing House, 2004. 50. Otto Braun. A Comintern Agent in China, 1932-1939. Beijing: The Eastern Publishing House, 2004. 51. Peter Vladimirov. The Vladimirov’s Diaries: Yanan, China, 1942-1945. Beijing: The Eastern Publishing House, 2004. 52. Li Rui. Minutes of the Lushan Conference. Shijiangzhuang: Henan People’s Publishing House, 1994. 53. Wang Mengchu, ed. Witness to the Great Leap Forward. Beijing: People’s Publishing House, 2008. 54. Li Haiwen, ed. Witness to Major Historic Events of the CPC. Chengdu: Sichuan People’s Publishing House, 2006. 55. Chen Yiran, ed. Witness to the 60 Years of the People’s Republic of China: Major Events and Decisions in the Historical Course. Beijing: People’s Publishing House, 2009. 56. Jiang Weiqing. Journey in the 70 Years: Jiang Weiqing’s Memoirs. Nanjing: Jiangsu People’s Publishing House, 1996. 57. Stuart R. Schram. The Thought of Mao Tse-tung, translated into Chinese by 640

Bibliography

Tian Songnian, Yang De and others. Beijing: China Renmin University Press, 2005. 58. Benjamin I. Schwartz. Chinese Communism and the Rise of Mao, translated into Chinese by Chen Wei. Beijing: China Renmin University Press, 2006. 59. Yang Kuisong. Stories of Mao Zedong and Moscow. Nanchang: Jiangxi People’s Publishing House, 1999. 60. Wang Shuduo, ed. Research on the Mao Zedong Thought During the Central Soviet Area Period. Nanchang: Jiangxi University and College Press, 1999. 61. Zhang Shude. Mao Zedong and Peng Dehuai. Beijing: China Youth Publishing Group, 2008. 62. Dong Yibing. Research on Liu Shaoqi’s Socialist Thought. Beijing: CPC History Publishing House, 2007. 63. Zhang Buzhen. Eager for Truth: Liu Shaoqi in 1961. Zhuhai: Zhuhai Publishing House, 1998. 64. Feng Jianhui. From Chen Duxiu to Mao Zedong: A New Perspective on the Six CPC Top Leaders. Beijing: Central Party Literature Press, 1998. 65. Tang Baolin, and Chen Tiejian. Chen Duxiu and Qu Qiubai. Beijing: Unity Press, 2008. 66. Li Ying. Chen Duxiu and the Comintern. Changsha: Hunan People’s Publishing House, 2005. 67. Bai Li. Otto Braun in the Red Vortex. Beijing: Central Party Literature Press, 2006. 68. Huang Renyu. Reading Chiang Kai-shek’s Diaries from a Macro-History Perspective. Beijing: Jiuzhou Press, 2008. 69. Zeng Jingzhong, ed. Selection of Family Letters, Diaries and Calligraphy Works of Chiang Kai-shek. Beijing: Unity Press, 2010. 70. Guo Junsheng. Historical Records of Zhang Xueliang. Shenyang: Liaoning People’s Publishing House, 2010. 71. Wang Qisheng. KMT-CPC Cooperation and the National Revolution (General History of Modern China, Vol. VII). Nanjing: Jiangsu People’s Publishing House, 2006. 72. Yang Kuisong. The Civil War and Crisis (General History of Modern China, Vol. VIII). Nanjing: Jiangsu People’s Publishing House, 2007. 73. Wang Jianlang, and Zeng Jingzhong. Anti-Japanese War (General History 641

Socialism in China

of Modern China, Vol. IX). Nanjing: Jiangsu People’s Publishing House, 2007. 74. Yu Boliu, and Ling Buji. The History of the Central Soviet Area. Nanchang: Jiangxi People’s Publishing Group, 2001. 75. Jin Yinan. Miseries and Glories. Beijing: Hua Yi Publishing House, 2009. 76. Yang Kuisong. A Brief Record of People in the Republic of China. Guangzhou: Guangdong People’s Publishing House, 2009. 77. Yang Kuisong. Research on the Founding History of the People’s Republic of China, Vol. I, Politics. Nanchang: Jiangxi People’s Publishing House, 2009. 78. Shen Zhihua, ed. An Outline History of China-Soviet Relations. Beijing: Xinhua Publishing House, 2007. 79. The First Research Department of CCCPC Party History Research Office, ed. Secret Documents of the Russian Communist Party (Bolsheviks) and History of China’s Revolution. Harbin: Heilongjiang Education Press, 1998. 80. The First Research Department of CCCPC Party History Research Office, ed. New Theories on the Comintern, Secret Documents of the All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks) and History of China’s Revolution. Beijing: CPC History Publishing House, 2004. 81. Xiang Qing, and others, eds. The Soviet Union and Chinese Revolution, Beijing: Central Compilation and Translation Press, 1994. 82. Cong Jin. China from 1949 to 1976: The Years of Ups and Downs. Beijing: People’s Publishing House, 2009. 83. Lin Yunhui. On Chinese History (Events). Beijing: The Eastern Publishing House, 2008. 84. Gong Yuzhi. From New Democracy to the Primary Stage of Socialism. Beijing: People’s Publishing House, 1988. 85. Yu Yuanguang. From “New-Democratic Society Theory” to “Socialist Primary Stage Theory”. Beijing: People’s Publishing House, 1996. 86. Yu Guangyuan, and Han Gangquan. Historical Mission of the “Theory of New-Democratic Society”. Wuhan: Changjiang Literature and Art Publishing House, 2005. 87. Yang Shengqun, and Chen Jin, eds. Looking Back on 50 Years. Beijing: SDX Joint Publishing Company, 2006. 88. Zhang Suhua, 7,000-Cadre Conference of the Communist Party of China: 642

Bibliography

Unexpected Changes. Beijing: China Youth Publishing Group, 2006. 89. Xu Jilin, and Chen Dakai, eds. The History of China’s Modernization, Vol. I (1800-1949). Shanghai: Academia Press, 2006. 90. Liu Tinghua. An Introduction to the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression. Beijing: Military Science Publishing House, 2005. 91. Wang Shuzeng. The Long March. Beijing: People’s Literature Publishing House, 2006. 92. Hu Angang. On China’s Political and Economic History (1949-1976). Beijing: Tsinghua University Press, 2008. 93. Gao Fang, Li Jingzhi, and Pu Guoliang, eds. Theory and Practice of Scientific Socialism. Beijing: China Renmin University Press, 1990. 94. Duan Zhiwen, and others, eds. An Introduction to China’s Socialist Process. Beijing: Higher Education Press, 2004. 95. Guan Zhigang, and others, eds. Ten Years’ Explorations in the Path of Building Socialism. Beijing: China Social Sciences Press, 2003. 96. Qu Zuojun, and Wu Zhenghong, eds. Collected Studies on the History of China’s Socialist Reform and Progress. Shanghai: East China Normal University Press, 1989. 97. Guo Shengfu, Cai Li, and others. The History of the Communist Party of China in Understanding Socialism. Beijing: China Social Sciences Press, 2004. 98. Li Jingzhi, and Pu Guoliang, eds. The Theory and Practice of Building Socialism. Beijing, China Renmin University Press, 2003. 99. Liu Junqi. Socialism in the 20th Century. Guangzhou: Guangdong Economy Publishing House, 2007. 100. Li Shenming, ed. The Theory and Practice of Socialism. Beijing: Social Sciences Academic Press, 2001. 101. Wang Jiping, Xin Chijian, and Shang Junfang. A Brief Introduction to the General History of Socialist Ideology in China. Changsha: Hunan People’s Publishing House, 2007. 102. Wang Huilin, ed. A Study of New-Democracy Theory in China. Beijing: Party Building Books Publishing House, 1998. 103. Han Damei. A Study of New-Democratic Constitutionalism. Beijing: People’s Publishing House, 2005. 104. Zhang Wei. The Theory and Practice of Mao Zedong’s New-Democratic Society. 643

Socialism in China

Beijing: China Yan Shi Press, 2000. 105. Xiao Dongbo. An Outline of the Theoretic History of the Communist Party of China (1921-1949). Beijing: CPC History Publishing House, 2004. 106. Li Guangcan. The Theories of Continuous Revolution and the Development of Revolution by Stages. Shijiazhuang: Hebei People’s Publishing House, 1964. 107. Wen Yu. Leftist Disasters in China. Beijing: Xinhua Publishing House, 1993. 108. Zeng Qingliu. Government of the Republic of China in Guangzhou. Guangzhou: Guangdong People’s Publishing House, 1996. 109. Zhu Hong. Looking Back on the Revolution. Beijing: People’s Publishing House, 2006. 110. CPC History Research Office of the Jiangxing Municipal Party Committee, and Nanhu Revolutionary Memorial Hall, eds. The Birth of the Communist Party of China. Hangzhou: Zhejiang University Press, 2001. 111. Huang Daoxuan. An In-depth Study of the Nanchang Uprising. Nanchang: Jiangxi Fine Arts Publishing House, 2007. 112. Fa Jianming, and Wang Xiaoling, eds. A Brief History of the Nanchang Uprising. Nanchang: Jiangxi People’s Publishing House, 2007. 113. Ma Hongwu, and Wang Mingsheng. A Brief History of China’s Revolutionary Bases. Beijing: Social Sciences Academic Press, 2000. 114. Tan Kesheng, ed. China’s Revolutionary Bases, Vols. I-II. Fuzhou: Fujian People’s Publishing House, 2007. 115. Zhang Wenjie, and Huang Ying. Records of China’s Revolutionary Wars: The Agrarian Revolutionary War: The Establishment of Revolutionary Bases. Beijing: People’s Publishing House, 2007. 116. Wang Zhijun. Records of China’s Revolutionary Wars: The Agrarian Revolutionary War: Anti-“Encirclement and Suppression”. Beijing: People’s Publishing House, 2007. 117. Wen Rui, and Liu Qiang. A Brief History of the Chinese Soviet Republic. Beijing: Social Sciences Academic Press, 2000. 118. Qiang Tieniu. The Critical Turning Point: CPC Central Committee at Wayaobu. Beijing: Central Party School Press, 2006. 119. Liu Tong. China in 1984: A Decisive Battle Between Two Destinies. Beijing: SDX Joint Publishing Company, 2006. 120. Hao Zaijin. Consultations over the Founding of the People’s Republic: Records of 644

Bibliography

Chinese Political Parties. Beijing: The Chinese Overseas Publishing House, 2007. 121. Qiu Shi, ed. Stories Behind the Major Events and Decisions of the People’s Republic of China, Vols. I-III. Beijing: The Economic Daily Press, 1997. 122. Jin Chunming. A Brief History of the People’s Republic of China (1949-2007). Beijing: CPC History Publishing House, 2001. 123. Zhu Yonghong, ed. Major National Events over the Past 60 Years: Political Events. Changsha: Hunan People’s Publishing House, 2009. 124. He Yaomin, and Wu Li, eds. Major National Events over the Past 60 Years: Economic Events. Changsha: Hunan People’s Publishing House, 2009. 125. Bai Xi. The Land Reform Following the Founding of the People’s Republic. Beijing: CPC History Publishing House, 2009. 126. Luo Pinghan. Essays on Major Issues in China’s Modern History. Guilin: Guangxi Normal University Press, 2003. 127. Luo Pinghan. Essays on Major Issues in China’s Modern History (II). Guilin: Guangxi Normal University Press, 2006. 128. CCCPC Party Literature Research Office, ed. Chronological Compilation of the Thoughts of Mao Zedong (1921-1975). Beijing: Central Party Literature Press, 2011. 129. Liu Yuan. Liu Shaoqi and New China: What If He Had Another Ten Years. Hong Kong: Strong Wind Press, 2005. 130. He Fang. Notes on CPC History: From the Zunyi Meeting to the Rectification Movement in Yan’an, Vols. I-II. Hong Kong: Lee Man Publication, 2005. 131. Lin Yunhui. A History of the People’s Republic of China: The Utopian Movement. Hong Kong: The Chinese University Press, 2008. 132. Shen Zhihua. Thinking and Choosing: From the Intellectuals’ Conference to the Anti-Rightist Movement. Hong Kong: The Chinese University Press, 2008.

645

Afterword1

This volume follows the zhanghui style2 of traditional Chinese novel. While the previous two volumes take the history of socialist ideology as the main line, this volume comprises the histories of China’s socialist ideology, socialist movement, the Communist Party of China (CPC), and modern and contemporary Chinese history, which is richer and livelier in content, and more extensive and profound in ideology. In terms of the time span, this book starts with the May 4th Movement in 1919 and ends in 1965, the eve of the Cultural Revolution, giving a detailed narration of the spread of Marxism in China in this period and its integration with the country’s prevailing conditions, the gradual formation of Marxist theory with Chinese characteristics, and the practice and development of scientific socialism in China. The book tries to provide a systematic review and reflection of the historical period when Chinese Communists represented by Mao Zedong combined the fundamental tenets of Marxism with China’s prevailing conditions and revolutionary practice, created the new-democratic theory covering the theories of new-democratic revolution and new-democratic society, led the new-democratic revolution of China to success, founded the People’s Republic of China, started the arduous practice of moving towards and building socialism in a semi-feudal and semi-colonial country with a backward economy and culture, and endeavored to explore the building of a socialist road. The book provides an objective summary of the experience gained and the lessons learned, seeking truth from facts, clearing up the sources and getting to the bottom of problems, taking history as a mirror, and providing reference opinions on the management of state affairs and the education of the people. 1

This afterword was written by the author in 2010 for the Chinese version of the book.

2

A type of traditional Chinese novel divided into several chapters with each chapter headed by a couplet giving the gist of its contents.

646

Afterword

The reason for integrating the four histories into this book is that they are inseparable. All theories originate from practice; they are tested by and develop in practice. Socialist ideology, once becoming social practice, cannot be separated from the socialist movement, for it must take the latter as a carrier and form of realization. In turn, the socialist movement must be carried out under the guidance of socialist ideology and theories. Without the practice of the socialist movement, it is difficult to appreciate the formation and development of socialist ideology, or evaluate its evolution. China’s socialist movement starts with the new-democratic revolution. The new-democratic revolution is the necessary preparation and inevitable stage for the socialist revolution, and socialism is the development direction and inevitable result of the new-democratic revolution. The two of them are closely connected and will happen one after another – this is the characteristic of China’s socialist movement. In modern and contemporary Chinese history, the CPC is the spreader and practitioner of socialist ideology, as well as the leader of the new-democratic revolution, of the preliminary building of a new-democratic society, and of the socialist revolution and construction. The rooting and innovative development of scientific socialism in China and the brewing, formation and extensive practice of the socialist movement in China are closely connected with the birth and growth of the CPC. The history of the CPC is a history of the formation and development of scientific socialist ideology and the socialist movement in China, a history in which the CPC leads the Chinese people in striving to realize socialism, and an important component of modern and contemporary Chinese history. Therefore, only by combining the four histories can I give a clear account of this historical period. In reflecting this striking historical period full of successes and reverses in modern and contemporary Chinese history, I have done my best to stick to the principles of respecting history, seeking truth from facts and thinking independently, and taking the view that practice is the sole criterion for testing truth, adopts an attitude of being responsible to history, to the people and to his own conscience. For those purposes: First, I tried to refer to as many theoretical writings and historical materials as possible when writing this book. In more than two years from October 647

Socialism in China

2008, I isolated myself from worldly interference in a small room at the National Library of China, where I consulted and read related literature and undertook in-depth research. I read 30-40 million words of related books, theses and historical materials, photocopied millions of words, and wrote around one million words of detailed notes and excerpts. I also visited the sites of historic events and the places where historic figures engaged in major actions, and old revolutionary base areas in Shanghai, Zhejiang, Jiangxi, Fujian, Shaanxi, Ningxia, Gansu, Sichuan, Anhui, Hebei and other provinces. During the day I conducted on-site investigations, and at night I talked to local elders and experts or collated my notes. I collected plenty of first-hand material. As I had lived and worked in Guangdong, Hunan and Shanxi provinces before, I also learnt of and collected extensive material on their histories. All the above laid a solid foundation for my writing of this book. Second, on the basis of my own thinking and understanding during these many years, I tried to acquire some fresh ideas from the works and materials I consulted. All comments on the major figures, thoughts and events in the book reflect my own views. I tried not to echo the views of others, nor said anything that might mislead the reader or that will not stand the test of time. Third, I devoted myself wholeheartedly to writing this book. During the nine months from October 2008 to June 2009, I concentrated fully on reading books and periodicals and collecting materials in the National Library of China, the Sun Yat-sen Library of Guangdong Province and other places, and devised an outline for the book. I wrote the first draft between July 2009 and May 2010, and revised it three times after seeking out the opinions of over 30 veteran statesmen, senior experts specializing in the above-mentioned four histories, and descendants of revolutionaries and ideologists. For all my strenuous efforts, I know that the book still cannot fully serve my original intentions and purposes, owing to my insufficient range of knowledge and literary ability, and the limited historical materials to which I have had access. I hope very much that my readers will offer their comments on or criticisms of the book. I must thank all those veteran revolutionaries, experts and friends from various places who have encouraged and helped me in writing this book. I really appreciate their valuable materials and opinions. 648

Afterword

I also want to extend my gratitude to the leaders and staff of the National Library of China and Sun Yat-sen Library of Guangdong Province, who created a good reading and writing environment for me and provided me with excellent services, such as looking up books and materials and typing out my manuscripts. I must also thank the National Library of China and National Museum of China for providing the historic pictures used in the book. I also want to acknowledge the consideration and support I have received from the leaders of Guangdong Provincial Press and Publication Bureau, Guangdong Provincial Publishing Group, and Guangdong Education Publishing House. I am grateful to editor Huang Hongli and all proofreaders for their hard work, and to Shen Shaojun, a Class I Painter with the China National Academy of Painting, for his beautiful design of the book cover.

Yu Youjun At the National Library of China, Beijing December 26, 2010

649

This book is the result of a co-publication agreement between Guangdong Education Publishing House Co.,Ltd.(China) and Paths International Ltd (UK) -----------------------------------------------------------Title: Socialism in China (1919-1965) Author: Dr. Yu Youjun ISBN: 978-1-84464-443-8 Ebook ISBN: 978-1-84464-444-5 Copyright © 2015 by Paths International Ltd, UK and by Guangdong Education Publishing House Co.,Ltd., China All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, translated, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publisher. The copyright to this title is owned by Guangdong Education Publishing House Co.,Ltd., China. This book is made available internationally through an exclusive arrangement with Paths international Ltd of the United Kingdom and is only permitted for sale outside China.

Paths International Ltd PO Box 4083 Reading United Kingdom RG8 8ZN www.pathsinternational.com Published in United Kingdom