IV

From the Long March to the United Front, 1934–1937

The Long March, a frantic flight by the Chinese Communists from otherwise certain destruction by the Nationalists, brought about a reversal of power relationships within the Chinese Communist Party. The serious losses suffered by the party and the Red Army during the first two and a half months of the march created a situation in which Mao Tse-tung was able to lead a revolt against the Internationalist-dominated leadership. Mao assumed chairmanship of the Revolutionary Military Committee, which gave him a voice in the formulation of party policy. Henceforth, although his power was clearly limited, Mao would exert an ever more powerful influence on the direction and development of the Chinese Communist movement.

Long March—The First Six Hundred Miles

On October 14, 1934, the first contingents of the Central Soviet area force set out on what ultimately became known as the Long March, a trek which in meandering fashion covered some 6,000 miles and took just over one year to complete. The first leg of the journey, a succession of forced marches from Yütu, Kiangsi, to Tsunyi, Kweichow, was fateful to the further development of the Communist movement and to the career of Mao Tse-tung.

The Communists, organized into a large central column flanked by mobile fighting units, broke through the Nationalist encirclement of the Central Soviet area and marched southward through Hsinfeng and across the Kiangsi border into northern Kwangtung province. On the first leg they were led by Chťin Pang-hsien, Chou En-lai, and Li Teh. Mao accompanied the Central leadership but did not contribute to its decisions. Their immediate objective was to consolidate the existing forces of the Red Army scattered by the encirclement campaigns. Before setting out from Yiitu they radioed both Ho Lung and Chang Kuo-t’ao of their plan.¹ Ho was operating with a small force of 6,000 men in the mountains of northwestern Hunan, where he had been driven during the first phase of the fifth encirclement campaign; he was instructed to carry out a diversionary attack on Nationalist forces in the T’aoyuan area to prevent enemy forces there from taking up the pursuit of the fleeing central column. After this, Ho was to effect a link-up with the central column in the mountains of southwestern Hunan. Chang Kuo-t’ao, who had suff’ered a fate similar to that of Ho during the fifth campaign, had set up a soviet in T’ungchiang in northern Szech’uan. He was also alerted to the general plan and instructed to prepare to move his 30,000-man force (the Fourth Army) toward the central column.

The general objective of permanently unifying all the fighting forces of the Red Army was never accomplished on the Long March. It would not be until June 1935 that the Red Army forces would be joined and then only briefly and partially. Ho Lung’s forces remained embattled in western Hunan until November 1935, and were not involved in the Long March, strictly speaking.

Nor was the objective of establishing a soviet in the mountainous region of western Hunan fulfilled, although that was evidently the reason most of the heavy equipment, printing presses, arsenal, mint machinery, supplies, and large radio transmitter were brought along. Burdened with heavy equipment, the central column was a cumbersome, lumbering force constantly worried by Nationalist troops from all sides. Under continuous fire, the Communists edged their way westward across northern Kwangtung, roughly following the Kwangtung-Hunan-Kiangsi border. On November 16 they slipped over into southern Hunan to take Linwu and on the 25th trudged over the Yun Gan pass into northeast Kwangsi. Their plan was to cross the Hsiang River, scale the Hsiyen Mountains, and then march northward to join the forces of Ho Lung that were moving south.

The Nationalists were alert to this maneuver and prevented the merger by setting up blocking movements all along the route of march. Striking the Communist forces as they attempted to cross the Hsiang River, Nationalist units wiped out, in Liu Po-ch’eng’s words, “more than half our troops.”² When the Communists had crossed the Hsiyen Mountains and taken T’ungkao, they found another huge concentration of Nationalist forces blocking the planned route north. For the time being, abandoning all thought of joining forces with Ho Lung, they swung westward into Kweichow, occupying Liping on December 14.

At Liping on the following day, the leadership convened an emergency meeting to decide what to do next. Counsel was divided: some urged renewed efforts to join Ho in western Hunan, advocating a march to the east; others wanted to join forces with the Fourth Army forces of Chang Kuo-t’ao and Hsü Hsiang-ch’ien, and therefore supported a march to the north; still others advocated the establishment of a new base in Yunnan and a march to the west. After lengthy discussion, elements of each one of these proposals were combined in a plan designed to permit the exhausted forces of the Red Army to avoid combat and recoup spent energies. It was decided to move into northern Kweichow, where, if possible, they would establish a base and from there attempt to join up with both Ho Lung and Chang Kuo-t’ao. Therefore, the central column set out from Liping in a northwesterly direction, taking, without a shot, the small town of Tsunyi on January 5, 1935.

Only 30,000 of the 100,000 who had started out on the Long March on October 14 were with the central column (the First Front Army) when it arrived at Tsunyi. In the short space of less than three months 70 percent of the fighting forces had been lost! Under constant attack from Nationalist and allied provincial forces, the slow-moving central column had fared badly. As losses mounted, thought turned increasingly to simple survival, resulting in the abandonment of the greater part of the heavy equipment carried along, including the large transmitter which had been used to send communications to the Comintern;³ presumably the reception of signals from the Comintern remained possible. Tsunyi offered a brief respite from battle, there being no enemy troops close by, but also the opportunity for several strongly dissatisfied leaders, including Mao Tse-tung, to challenge the party leadership.

The Tsunyi Conference

The day after their arrival at Tsunyi the leadership convened a conference whose agenda was to be simply a discussion of the current situation and the next move for the Red Army. Under the strident criticisms of P’eng Teh-huai, Mao Tse-tung, and especially Liu Shao-ch’i, the conference agenda was broadened into an accusation session which covered the entire range of party policies since the Fourth Plenum of January 1931. Following Chou En-lai’s military report, P’eng opened the criticism by deploring the plan to evacuate all the heavy equipment with the Red Army. He complained that this slowed down the Red Army’s movement and made it easy prey for pursuing Nationalist forces. Mao then condemned what he called the purely static defensive tactics employed during the fifth encirclement campaign, arguing once again in favor of the principle of engaging the enemy in the open areas where there were no blockhouses and where the Red Army could maneuver. It was Liu Shao-ch’i, however, who broadened the criticism by impugning the correctness, not only of the party’s military policies, but also of its political line since the Fourth Plenum.

In the heated criticism—self-criticism—which followed, Ch’in Panghsien, Chou En-lai, and Li Teh (Albert List) came under heavy verbal attack from party leaders. After prolonged discussion, Chou En-lai accepted criticism of his mistakes and Liu Po-ch’eng, who had opposed Mao’s policies consistently since 1931, altered his position to support Mao, marking a significant shift of party leadership opinion in favor of the policies of Mao Tse-tung.

It would be an overstatement to say that Mao, Liu, and P’eng were acting in unison at this point. Mao did not yet command a faction in the Central Committee, but the Tsunyi conference provided the basis for just such a future development. At the conference Mao skillfully managed to exploit general dissatisfaction within the party for his own gain.

Helping him, possibly unintentionally, Chang Wen-t’ien suggested a compromise, which was reluctantly accepted by the leadership. In the interests of party unity Chang suggested that the conference, in its final resolution, state agreement with the party’s political line since the Fourth Plenum, but register sharp disapproval of the military policies employed during the fifth encirclement campaign and the westward flight. Blame, he said, should be placed upon the principal party leaders, the chairman of the Revolutionary Military Committee, and the Comintern advisor. This meant Ch’in Pang-hsien, Chou En-lai, and Li Teh (Albert List), respectively.

The final resolution of the Tsunyi conference carried the subtitle “A Review of the Errors in the Military Line of Comrades Po Ku (Ch’in Pang-hsien), Chou En-lai, and List.” Reflecting the compromise suggested by Chang Wen-t’ien, it approved the party’s political line, but denounced the party leadership for the military policies carried out during the fifth encirclement campaign and the subsequent withdrawal maneuvers of the Red Army. Rejecting the tactic of “fast and close strike,” the resolution adopted Mao’s point of view, stating that the party “should have adopted the principle of offensive (positive) defense so as to change the overall defense into regional attacks and to turn the fighting from inner to outer circles to bring about a change for the better.”⁴

The resolution condemning Ch’in, Chou, and Li Teh resulted in a major reorganization of the top party leadership and a setback for the Internationalist group. Ch’in was removed from the post of secretary general of the party and appointed director of the General Political Department of the Red Army, a powerless post into which Mao had once been shunted. Chang Wen-t’ien replaced Ch’in as secretary general, possibly because he was a member of the Internationalist group sympathetic to Mao. More importantly, the appointment of an Internationalist indicated that the relations between the Comintern and the Chinese Communist Party were not in question. Chou En-lai was dropped from chairman to vice-chairman of the Revolutionary Military Committee. Mao Tse-tung assumed the chairmanship of the Revolutionary Military Committee and was elected to the Politburo and also to the Politburo Standing Committee, replacing Hsiang Ying, who was still in Juichin commanding the rearguard action in the Central Soviet area.

Chance once again played a role in determining Mao Tse-tung’s fortunes. On the westward flight one of the heavy items discarded was the long-range transmitter used to contact Moscow. Its loss meant that Moscow had no immediate knowledge of the Tsunyi meeting and therefore could not affect its outcome. However, one of the decisions of the conference was to send Ch’en Yiin to Moscow to obtain Comintern approval of its proceedings.

A fine but important distinction must be made here concerning Mao’s victory. The fact that Mao advanced in the party’s hierarchy at the expense of the Internationalist or Moscow group did not mean that he opposed Moscow—nor vice versa. At Tsunyi, though the struggle was waged in policy terms, the issue was only incidentally policy. The real issue was party power. It was: who would lead the Communist party of China? It was not: should the Chinese party oppose Moscow? (In the fifties, this would become precisely the question, but such was not the case in 1935.) No leader—least of all Mao Tse-tung—could have survived in the Communist movement in flagrant opposition to the headquarters of the international revolution and still have claimed to be a part of that revolution. In the Chinese party alone, not to speak of the other Communist parties of the world, the list of those who had tried to take such a stand and failed included Ch’en Tu-hsiu, Ch’ü Ch’iu-pai, and Li Li-san. None survived Moscow’s opposition. This speaks both of the difficulty of maintaining an international organization and of the ultimate power of the Comintern in deposing opponents in national parties. There is little reason to suppose that Mao could have survived, even if he had gained complete control of the party at Tsunyi, which he had not.

It would be over two decades before Mao could build a position strong enough to act independently of Moscow in broader policy matters. To speak of Mao’s rise to power in opposition to Moscow at this time, in my view, is to project the present into the past; I speak here, of course, not of Mao’s personal wishes, which probably were at variance with many of the directives and broad policy decisions emanating from Moscow. No doubt. Communist party members the world over had similar feelings. That is beside the point. To have openly sought to build a position in a Communist party on the basis of open opposition to Moscow would have been political suicide and Mao was anything but a fool. On the contrary, regardless of his personal feelings, he submitted to “party discipline” concerning policy matters.

Long March—Phase Two: The Conflict with Chang Kuo-t’ao

On January 15, after the close of the Tsunyi conference, the forces of the central column, now designated as the First Front Army, set out in a northwesterly direction, hoping to enter southern Szech’uan by way of northern Kweichow. Their objective was to join forces with Chang Kuo-t’ao’s Fourth Front Army in northern Szech’uan. Engaged in continual combat along the way, the First Army discovered upon reaching Tucheng on the Ch’ih Sui River that the route into Szech’uan was blocked by a large concentration of Nationalist forces. The First Army was forced back by the KMT into an area bounded by the Ch’ih Sui and Wu rivers in northern Kweichow. Tsunyi was located in the center of this area and, by the end of February, the First Army again found itself at Tsunyi, but this time with Nationalist and allied provincial forces slowly closing in on its position.

Nationalist strategy was to prevent the scattered forces of the Communists from merging and to attack their groupings separately. Chiang Kai-shek also sought to involve as many as possible of the provincial warlords in the “Communist encirclement campaigns,” for it gave him an excellent opportunity to secure the loyalty of these forces, many of which were as yet uncommitted, or loyal in name only, to the Nationalist Government. With Chiang in general command of operations, tactical headquarters were set up in northern Szech’uan at Kuangyuan under Hu Tsung-nan, who directed operations against the Fourth Front Army, and in southern Kweichow at Kweiyang under Hsüeh Yüeh, who directed operations against the First Front Army. By early April, the encirclement of the First Front Army in the Ch’ih Sui and Wu rivers area had begun; in the north the Fourth Front Army had managed to elude an attempt by Nationalist forces to destroy it at the Chia Ling River near Kuangyuan.

The First Front Army, using feinting maneuvers, quick marches, and other deceptive ploys, moved quickly to the southwest after perceiving the move to encircle it in northern Kweichow. Feigning an attack on Lungli to the southeast of Kweiyang, it sped across the P’ei P’an River through Hsingyi and, on April 24, crossed into the province of Yunnan. By this tactic the First Front Army evaded the Nationalist attempt to encircle and destroy it in Kweichow, but it was prevented from carrying out its plan to sweep through the relatively easy terrain of the western Szech’uan basin to north Szech’uan. Instead, it was forced to swing farther westward across northeast Yunnan, turning northward into the difficult mountainous terrain of western Szech’uan. Completing the crossing of the Chin Sha River by the first week in May, the dwindling forces of the First Front Army crossed the Tatu River and scaled the Chiaching Mountains, reaching the city of Maokung on the 16th of June. Fewer than 10,000 of the 100,000 who had begun the trip eight months before survived the march to Maokung.

The Fourth Front Army, meanwhile, was 80,000 strong in the T’ungkiang area of northern Szech’uan. Receiving telegraphic instructions from the party leadership at Tsunyi of the plan to join forces in Northern Szech’uan, the Fourth Army set out in a westward direction from T’ungkiang.⁵ After fighting through an attempted encirclement by forces under the command of Hu Tsung-nan in the Kuangyuan area, it crossed the Chia Ling River on March 20, a month-long operation which required the building of boats and floating bridges. After crossing the river, the Fourth Front Army moved slowly westward, engaging in incessant battle and suffering 10,000 casualties. Still, when the Fourth Front Army reached Maokung in early June, it had a complement of some 70,000 men, compared to the 10,000 men of the “beggar army,” which was the descriptive term applied to the First Front Army by Fourth Front Army personnel.

After joining forces in the Maokung area, the leaders of the First and Fourth Front Armies held a conference at nearby Lianghok’ou, a meeting which marked the beginning of a three-year struggle between Chang Kuo-t’ao and the leaders of the former Central Soviet area. Although taking varied forms, the struggle was one of contrasting political philosophies, a conflict between Communist right and left wings. At bottom, the issues resembled those which manifested themselves at the Sixth Congress of the party in 1928, the right wing believing that the victorious revolution was only a distant chimerical illusion, and the left wing asserting the possibility of immediate success of armed revolution based on the power of soviets. These elemental differences determined basic attitudes toward all political problems. At the Sixth Congress, it will be recalled that Chang and Bukharin, representatives of the right wing, had argued for extended cooperation with the Chinese bourgeoisie instead of immediate revolution, in opposition to Stalin, who had supported guerrilla action and establishment of soviets in China. The principal difference between 1928 and 1935, of course, was that armed revolution could no longer be disavowed. The question of soviets, however, was another matter and, although the situation had changed since 1928, at Lianghok’ou Chang continued to argue along lines similar to those of 1928.

The contending groups at Lianghok’ou were the leaders of the First and Fourth Front Armies.⁶ Both groups vied for control over the Red Army, the basis of political power in the Chinese Communist movement. The effect of the struggle between First and Fourth Front Army groups was to smooth over the conffict between Mao and the Internationalists within the First Front Army, who united in the face of Chang’s challenge. Chang Kuo-t’ao argued that no revolutionary situation existed, Mao argued that the revolution was on an upward swing. Chang condemned the party’s political line as being in error since 1928, particularly in the decision to establish soviets in China! Mao and the Internationahsts sharply disagreed. Chang found the soviet system “unsuitable” for China, asserting that the form of government which the Communists established should be acceptable to the local people of the area. Mao countered by saying that soviets were the only acceptable form of government. When the question of the Communists’ next move arose, Chang proposed to establish a base (but not a soviet) on the Szech’uan-Sik’ang border. Mao urged that all forces continue northward to Liu Chih-tan’s soviet base in Shensi, a proposal which was agreed upon by the majority of the leadership.

At this point, Chang called into question the Tsunyi conference, arguing that the party reorganization which had taken place there was invalid because it was not done by a party congress nor accepted by the Comintern. Mao’s rejoinder was that it was valid under wartime conditions and that the Comintern’s approval was forthcoming. In order to forestall further argument on the Tsunyi reorganization, about which Chang was technically correct, it was proposed to enlarge the Central Committee by co-opting eight members of the Fourth Front Army. This quieted Chang but pointed up the fact that, far from achieving the unification of Communist forces, the conference at Lianghok’ou resulted in only a temporizing compromise which soon broke down.

While the Communist leadership conferred and their troops rested, the Nationalists continued pursuit. Having failed to prevent the linkup of the First and Fourth Armies, although successfully blocking Ho Lung from joining them, the Nationalists now deployed to bottle them up in northern Szech’uan. The northern Nationalist force under Hu Tsung-nan had shifted to Sungp’an to the west of Kuangyuan, in order to block Communist movement northward into Shensi and Kansu. Nationalist forces in the southern sector under Hsüeh Yüeh had also redeployed, trailing along behind the First Front Army and retaking towns along its route of march. By the end of July these forces, which were made up primarily of Szech’uanese troops with Nationalist advisors, had reached Maokung and were on the heels of the Communists.

The mounting Nationalist pressure forced the Communists to stop on August 5 to decide upon an escape plan. The emergency conference was held at Maoerhkai in northern Szech’uan, where conflict again erupted between Chang Kuo-t’ao and Mao Tse-tung. Once more Chang proposed to construct a base in western Szech’uan from which the Communists would be able to expand into the Ch’engtu plain. Chang’s proposal was rejected by both Chang Wen-t’ien and Mao Tse-tung, who, along with the majority of the Central Committee, decided to continue toward Shensi, where they could join forces with Liu Chih-tan and open up direct contact with the Soviet Union. To have accepted Chang’s proposal would have meant marching directly into the face of Nationalist troops advancing from the south under Hsüeh Yüeh.

At Maoerhkai a further reorganization of the Revolutionary Military Committee took place, as well as changes in the command and composition of the armed forces. Mao remained chairman of the Revolutionary Military Committee, with Chou En-lai and Chang Kuo-t’ao vice-chairmen. The military command structure saw Chu Teh as commander-in-chief, Chang Kuo-t’ao as Red Army political commissar (a post recreated earlier at Maokung), P’eng Teh-huai as commander of the First Front Army, and Hsü Hsiang-ch’ien as commander of the Fourth Front Army. Finally, the Red Army’s forces were realigned into two columns and some attempt to balance them politically was made. The “right column,” under Mao and the Internationalists, consisted of the 1^st and 3^rd regiments of the First Front Army, and the 4^th and 30^th regiments of the Fourth Front Army. The “left column,” under Chu Teh and Chang Kuo-t’ao, was composed of the 9^th and 31^st regiments of the Fourth Front Army and the 5^th and 9^th regiments of the First Front Army.⁷

It took eighteen days at Maoerhkai for the Communists to accomplish this reorganization and in the interim Nationalist forces drew ever nearer. The forces of Hsüh Yüeh were closing in from the south, and those of Hu Tsung-nan stood squarely in the path of a move into Shensi. In this situation, while part of the. “right column” (the 4^th and 30^th regiments of the Fourth Front Army under Ch’en Ch’ang-hao) was engaged in battle with the forces of Hu Tsung-nan (a battle in which several thousand troops were lost), the remainder (the 1^st and 3^rd regiments of the First Front Army), about 6,000 men, including Mao, Chou, the Internationalists, P’eng, and Lin Piao, surreptitiously slipped through the resulting gap in Nationalist lines leaving the rest of the Communist forces behind!

Those left behind were astounded and enraged at what they felt was Mao’s perfidy. Chang thereafter refused to run the gauntlet of Nationalist forces, despite repeated orders to do so from the central leadership, which had already safely broken through. Instead, he led the remainder of the Communist forces, about 60,000 troops, in the direction he had originally advocated—southward, avoiding the forces of Hsüeh Yüeh and setting up a parallel and separate central committee in western Szech’uan, where he had originally intended to establish himself. On Chang’s central committee besides the eight Fourth Front Army members elected at Lianghok’ou were Chu Teh, Ch’en Ch’ang-hao, Liu Po-ch’eng, Li Cho-jan, Ho Chang-kung, and Shao Shih-ping, of those First Front Army units left behind. From early September 1935 until the summer of 1936, therefore, two central committees functioned in China.

Mao’s small force, redesignated the “Worker-Peasant Red Army’s Shensi-Kansu Guerrilla Contingent,” continued on the Long March. Struggling through the Min Mountains, they reached Hatapu in southern Kansu in early September and, after several encounters with enemy troops, reached Wu Chi in northern Shensi on October 19, 1935. The Guerrilla Contingent arrived in northern Shensi with only 2,000 men and joined the 7,000 men of the Red 15th Corps commanded by Hsu Hai-tung, which itself had recently been formed by a merger of the 25^th, 26^th, and 27^th regiments.

Arriving in northern Shensi, Mao’s group found itself in the middle of a bloody factional struggle between a “central” faction, sent by the central leadership before it had started on the Long March, and a local faction. The central faction, led by Chu Li-chih and Kuo Hung-tao, had opposed and carried out a violent “counter-revolutionary” campaign against local Communist leaders and their supporters. When Mao’s Guerrilla Contingent arrived, Liu Chih-tan and Kao Kang, the local leaders, had already been incarcerated and marked for execution. Attempting to bring about a semblance of unity, the party’s central leadership, which had arrived with Mao, curtailed the counterrevolutionary campaign and quietly transferred Chu Li-chih and Kuo Hung-tao elsewhere. They criticized their subordinates for carrying out an erroneous policy, and released Kao Kang, Liu Chih-tan, and their supporters. Although providing a temporary solution, Kao Kang registered public dissatisfaction with the party solution, claiming that Chu and Kuo should have been punished for their misdeeds.⁸

Organizational Reconstitution of the Communist System

On the Long March, a natural tendency was for decision making increasingly to become concentrated in the military organization, rather than in the state or even party structure. State and party structures were largely irrelevant to the tasks facing the Communists while on the run and, as a consequence, fell into disuse. When the Guerrilla Contingent arrived in northern Shensi, it was decided to restore the central state and party organizations and begin to relegate the military organization to its former status. At Wayaopao the first important steps were taken toward the attainment of this objective.⁹

First, the Shensi-Kansu Guerrilla Contingent was abohshed and redesignated the ist and 3^rd corps of the First Front Army. The command structure of the Red Army forces in northern Shensi, thus, was: Lin Piao, commander of the First Corps; Yang Shang-k’un, political commissar; Hsü Hai-tung, commander of the 15^th Corps; Liu Chih-tan, political commissar. In the Revolutionary Military Committee, Mao retained the chairmanship he had gained at Tsunyi, Chou En-lai remained as vice-chairman, Yeh Chien-ying became chief of staff’, and Li Fu-ch’un assumed the directorship of the General Political Department. Chang Kuo-t’ao, who was absent, was now excluded from the Revolutionary Military Committee entirely. The Internationalist group was also adversely aff’ected by the Wayaopao reorganization. Mao and his supporters gained a firm grip on the military apparatus, excluding leaders of the Internationalist group from important positions in the Revolutionary Military Committee.

Reorganization of the party and state apparatuses was a different matter and the product of formal compromises among the Mao, Internationalist, and Chang groups, although many of those named to top party and state posts were not present to assume them, leaving real power to those who were on hand. The Executive Committee of the Central Soviet Government was composed of Mao as chairman and Hsiang Ying and Chang Kuo-t’ao as vice-chairmen. Neither Hsiang Ying nor Chang Kuo-t’ao was present to assume these posts, giving Mao sole effective control over this arm of the state apparatus. In the Council of People’s Commissars, Ch’in Pang-hsien replaced Chang Wen-t’ien as chairman, Hsieh Chueh-tsai was secretary general and Wang Chia-hsiang was foreign minister. Although Wang was in the Soviet Union receiving treatment for battlefield injuries, the Internationalist group held firm control over this organ of state.

The party Central Committee was headed, as at Tsunyi, by Chang Wen-t’ien. Mao, as chairman of the Revolutionary Military Committee, was a member as were Lo Mai, director of the Organization Department; Liu Shao-ch’i, secretary of the Trade Union Movement Committee; Chou En-lai, secretary of the Committee for Work Among White Troops; Wu Liang-ping, director of the Propaganda Department; Ts’ai Ch’ang, director of the Women’s Department; Tu Cheng-nung, chief secretary of the Central Committee, and Chang Hao (Lin Yu-ying), deputy secretary. The balance of formal power in the Central Committee lay with the Internationalist group, but if it can be asserted that Mao, Chou, and Liu constituted Mao’s group at this time, together they comprised a powerful voice in the Central Committee.

By December 1935, Mao Tse-tung had effectively achieved control of the central organs of both the military apparatus and the Soviet government, while the Internationalist group held a commanding position in the Council of People’s Commissars and the party Central Committee, on the surface a relatively even balance of power. Mao’s command of the central military apparatus, however, proved decisive in the subsequent internal struggles.

International United Front

While the Chinese Communists were being pursued and decimated in the Chinese hinterland, Moscow made a major foreign policy démarche. As the threats of Germany and Japan grew, Moscow had reversed its isolationist policy of 1928 and from late 1933 onward sought to mobilize opposition to the expansionist powers. The effort to mobilize opposition included activities which led to recognition by the United States (November 1933), entrance into the League of Nations (September 1934), the conclusion of defense pacts with France and Czechoslovakia (May 1935), and, later, the extension of military aid to the republican side in the Spanish civil war (August 1936) and to the Chinese Nationalists (August 1937). As a key part of this broad effort, at the Seventh World Congress of the Comintern, held from July 25 through August 20, 1935, the world’s Communist parties were called upon to unite with non-Communist parties against the forces of “fascism and militarism.”

The new united front policy consisted primarily of three elements. First, the Communists called for the creation of anti-fascist “fronts” in Europe and anti-imperialist “fronts” in Asia. Second, Moscow proclaimed the willingness of the Communists to participate in all popular front governments. Dimitrov, general secretary of the Comintern, in his keynote speech to the congress, stated bluntly the role which Communists hoped to play:

If we Communists are asked whether we advocate the united front only in the fight for partial demands, or whether we are prepared to share the responsibility even when it will be a question of forming a government on the basis of the united front, then we say with a full sense of our responsibility: Yes, we recognize that a situation may arise in which the formation of a government of the proletarian united front, or of an anti-fascist People’s Front, will become not only possible but necessary in the interests of the proletariat.¹⁰

To justify such a marked doctrinal change, it was claimed that Communist participation in a bourgeois government would transform it into a “democracy of a new type,” purging capitalism of its fascist contents. Third, in all such cases. Communists would amend their social and economic policies to make them compatible with “new democracy.”

Wang Ming, the CCP’s representative on the ECCI, delivered the major speech outlining the policy to be adopted in the colonial and semi-colonial areas. Amplifying the points made by Dimitrov, Wang stated that the united anti-imperialist front in Asia would also lead to a period of “new democracy” following the inclusion of Communists in governments. In the case of China, Wang urged that the central committee of the CCP and the Soviet government issue a joint appeal

to all the peoples, to all parties, groups, troops, mass organizations, and to all prominent political and social leaders to organize together with us an All-China People’s Government of National Defense.¹¹

In a plain and obvious attempt to come to terms with the Kuomintang without saying so outright, Wang Ming further listed four concessions which the Chinese Communists would make in return for a united front against the Japanese. They would agree: first, to cease the struggle against the Nationalists; second, to rename and broaden the Soviet government to include non-Communist groups; third, to subordinate the Red Army to the Nationalist Government; and fourth, to amend their economic policies. Specifically he announced a relaxation of the hitherto stringent political and economic policies, including curtailment of the policy of confiscating the land of the small landowners.

The CCP and the United Front

The Comintern’s policies eventually were carried out to the letter by the Chinese Communists, although in the beginning there was a delay in communication and a difi’erence of opinion among the party leadership. It would take approximately two years and the outbreak of the Sino-Japanese war to bring about the Comintern’s desired policy of a united front in China, but there can be no doubt about the origin of the policy—it was not devised by the Chinese Communists in Shensi, but by the Comintern in Moscow.

The Chinese Communists on the Long March were unaware of Moscow’s policy turnabout. Only in October, after their arrival in northern Shensi, did they learn of the momentous change promulgated at the Comintern’s Seventh World Congress. At that time, however, they were still ignorant of the specific role which they were to play in the new policy. It was not until December 1935, when Chang Hao (Lin Yu-ying) arrived at the northern Shensi base from Moscow, that the party central leadership received specific instructions.

On the 25th of December the central leadership convened a Politburo conference at Wayaopao to discuss the new policy. The “resolution on the current political situation and the party’s tasks” marked the first formal CCP proclamation on the new united front policy, but it masked the sharp division within the party leadership over the advisability of adopting the new policy in the specific form called for by Moscow. At issue was not the united front; on this there was apparently full agreement, although Mao Tse-tung, in his report to the conference “On Tactics against Japanese Imperiahsm,” suggested that there were differences over this question as well.¹² The sharp disagreement concerned the political forces to be included in the united front. Some advocated the Comintern line of a full united front including, and subordinate to, Chiang Kai-shek. Wang Ming and Chang Kuo-t’ao, who were not present at the Wayaopao conference, later became the principal spokesmen for this view. Others, led by Mao Tse-tung, advocated a united front without Chiang Kai-shek. Mao’s position was couched in terms of his evaluation of the national bourgeoisie as a camp of traitors led by their chieftain, Chiang Kai-shek. He asserted that the national bourgeoisie would vacillate under pressure and “when the national crisis reaches a crucial point, splits will occur in the Kuomintang camp.”¹³

The final resolution of the Wayaopao conference reflected Mao’s position; it called for a united front without Chiang Kai-shek. Undoubtedly, this was because Mao commanded the support of the majority of the party delegates who attended the conference. Those aspects of the Comintern’s policy which were consistent with his position were included in the final resolution; those which were not were omitted. The major omission, however, constituted a fundamental revision of the entire policy. Consistent with Mao’s position were the establishment of an anti-Japanese united front, a joint proposal for a government of national defense, the renaming of the Soviet Workers’ and Peasants’ Republic to the Soviet People’s Republic, and the relaxation of social and economic policies to attract broader popular support. All of these were points made by Wang Ming at the Seventh Comintern Congress and in subsequent articles.¹⁴

Omitted from the resolution was the proposal to establish a united front with Chiang Kai-shek and the Kuomintang, a union Moscow intended. In fact, Chiang was specifically excluded from the united front, which the Communists themselves proposed to lead! The Wayaopao resolution, therefore, clearly contravened the main thrust of the Seventh Comintern Congress, which, although not explicitly, had implicitly called for just such an alliance. Based on Mao’s belief that the Kuomintang would split under the impact of the Japanese invasion, the Wayaopao resolution read:

The party’s strategic line is to rally and organize all revolutionary forces of the whole Chinese nation to oppose the presently superior enemies—Japanese imperialists and traitor Chiang Kai-shek. All persons, all factions and all armed units, so long as they are opposed to Japanese imperialists and traitor Chiang Kai-shek, should unite. . . . The Communists should seek to obtain their right to leadership of the anti-Japanese front.¹⁵

In the resolution Mao attempted to strike a middle position among the policy options available. (His own position deviated from the Comintern’s at this time, but later he swung round to the Comintern’s view after the internal party conflict with Chang Kuo-t’ao was resolved.) Referring to divergent views within the party, the resolution stated that the party must struggle against “left exclusionism” (which meant no united front at all), as well as “right opportunism” (the subordination of everything for collaboration with Chiang Kai-shek). By this definition of terms Mao by implication labeled the Comintern’s policy as “right opportunism” and assumed a centrist position himself.

How to explain Mao’s position? Given the nearly total destruction of the Chinese Communist forces at this time, Mao was not merely delivering a gratuitous insult to Moscow. The party’s and his own fortunes were low enough. Defiantly opposing Moscow, the only source of succor, was obviously not the reason for his position. Therefore, although Mao was in command of the leadership, the grouping of forces in the party as a whole must have been such as to force him to adopt the position he did. What were these forces? We must revert to the spectrum of opinion in the party, and, again, to the right and left wings.¹⁶ The extreme left wing position is clear enough—no compromise. It was the right wing position that posed a danger for Mao. The fundamental predilection of the right wing was its willingness to cooperate with the bourgeoisie in the belief that the victory of the revolution was a distant possibility, not a short-run likelihood. As long as the Comintern pursued a policy of non-cooperation with the bourgeoisie and continued an armed struggle against it (a policy it had been following since 1928), there was no possibility that a right wing leader could ever ascend to the party leadership. A left wing policy ensured the future of the left wing leader. But now the Comintern was swinging from a left to a right wing policy! Therefore, party leaders who had advocated policies of cooperation with the bourgeoisie could expect to advance in the party hierarchy. Such a leader was Chang Kuo-t’ao.

The problem for Mao Tse-tung, therefore, was to preempt the policy field from Chang Kuo-t’ao and thereby prevent him from making a bid for the party leadership on the basis of the new policy line. Fortunately for Mao, Chang Kuo-t’ao was isolated from the party center, both physically and in terms of party support. Mao already had a substantial grip on the reins of power in the party, but the danger was no less because of this. Chang still commanded considerable support in the party, had his own central committee, and a sizable armed force. There was also an ever enlarging group which was willing to come to terms with non-Communist elements against Japan. If Mao had merely echoed the Comintern’s new policy at Wayaopao, he would have found himself swinging over to a position which Chang had advocated all along and deserting some of his own relatively hard-line leftist supporters. For purely internal political reasons, Mao could not respond too quickly to the new line. As soon as Chang Kuo-t’ao’s political fate had been sealed, however, Mao could and would shift quickly to the Comintern’s line. Until that time (August 1936), Mao moved extremely cautiously toward acceptance of the Comintern line.

Mao’s first step toward the full implementation of the Comintern’s line was the issuance in May, after Red Army troops had suffered a severe defeat in western Shansi, of a declaration in which the Communists announced a troop withdrawal and expressed a willingness “to negotiate a ceasefire within a month with all forces that are currently attacking the anti-Japanese Red Army.”¹⁷ The withdrawal ostensibly was to demonstrate the Red Army’s “sincerity to the Nanking government.” But words were not enough to offset the fact that the Communists were in serious difficulty, their forces badly depleted. The following month Nationalist troops attacked Wayaopao, forcing evacuation of the central leadership to Paoan, where it remained until January 1937.

June 1936, however, was a critical month in the inner party struggle. At this time, Mao initiated a plan which ultimately led to Chang Kuo-t’ao’s political defeat in the party. Sometime in June (the exact date is unknown) Chang Kuo-t’ao received a radio message from Chang Hao at central headquarters. Chang Hao, claiming Comintern authorization, proposed to mediate the dispute between Chang Kuo-t’ao and Mao Tse-tung. Essentially his proposal was that both the central leadership at Paoan and Chang’s central committee should dissolve and reestablish as northwestern and southwestern “bureaus.” Later, when their armed forces were joined, the bureau leaders would merge to establish a new central leadership. In the meantime, both bureaus should cooperate in making independent thrusts into Ninghsia and Kansu, striving eventually to open contact with the Soviet Union through Sinkiang.¹⁸

Chang Kuo-t’ao accepted this proposal, dissolved his central committee, established a southwest bureau, and began to discuss military operations with his comrades. Chang wanted to remain with all his forces in Sikang until a new joint policy could be worked out. Chu Teh and Jen Pi-shih, political commissar of Ho Lung’s Second Army, disagreed, urging that Chang set out to join forces with the others in northern Shensi.¹⁹ Finally, Chang gave in and his Fourth and Ho Lung’s Second Armies set out to join Mao’s First Army. By the end of October 1936, after numerous battles, Chang’s troops made contact with advance units of the First Army at Huining, Ninghsia.

At this point Chang discovered to his astonishment and rage that Mao’s committee had not dissolved at all, but had continued to function as the central leadership of the party! Outmaneuvered, he thereupon reorganized his forces into the Western Route Army and radioed the central leadership, informing them of his decision to move through the Kansu corridor to open up direct communication with the Soviet Union as originally proposed by Chang Hao the previous June.

When Chang Kuo-t’ao dissolved his central committee, Mao knew that his party opponent was sufficiently weakened for Mao to proceed to broaden his own policy position. The following month, on August 25, the central leadership at Paoan issued a “message to the Kuomintang.” In it for the first time, the Chinese Communists referred to Chiang Kai-shek as “generalissimo” and recognized the “absolute necessity” of concentrating all forces under the direction of a central authority, as the Kuomintang had advocated in its own message a few days before, following its Fifth Congress.²⁰ Ignoring this message, Chiang Kai-shek proceeded to set up a National Defense Council without the Communists and began preparations to convene a National Assembly which would unify Chinese forces against Japan.²¹ In effect, Chiang had beaten the Communists at their own game. Each side had sought to establish a united front excluding the other and the KMT had succeeded. It was they who formed and controlled the united front, not the Communists.

With no possibility of leading the anti-Japanese struggle and with the distinct probability that it would be excluded from the Nationalist-led united front altogether, the Communist central leadership moved quickly to make a place for itself in the Nationalist camp. On September 17, the party Politburo adopted the “Resolution on the New Situation of the Anti-Japanese National Salvation Movement and the Democratic Republic.” The Communists asserted that the best means of achieving the anti-Japanese united front was to establish a “democratic republic,” of which they, of course, would be a part. Though wishing to be a part of the democratic republic which they proposed, and to elect representatives to parliament, the Communists were determined to retain control over their own territory and armed forces.

In the process of the struggle for establishing the anti-Japanese national united front and realizing the democratic republic, the strength of the Soviet and Red Army should never be weakened. The National Defense Government and allied anti-Japanese armed forces in the anti-Japanese national united front represent but a political and military agreement reached by the Soviet and Red Army with other regimes and armed forces on a certain program. This does not mean that they will merge with other regimes and armed forces. They may be placed under the unified command of the National Defense Government and allied anti-Japanese armed forces, but the independence of the Soviet and Red Army in their organization and leadership shall not be abolished.²²

In effect, of the two remaining points of the policy announced by the Comintern at the Seventh Congress—Communist willingness to enter into united front governments (which would transform them into “new democratic” governments), and to subordinate their military forces to these governments—the Chinese Communists had now completely agreed to the first, but were not yet committed to the second, although they hinted at this possibility.

Turning Point at Sian

In early November after he had organized the Western Route Army, Chang Kuo-t’ao took his forces across the Yellow River and northwest along the Kansu corridor in an attempt to establish a link with the Soviet Union in Sinkiang. Attacked at Kulang, Kansu, by Moslem forces under General Ma Pu-fang, Chang’s forces engaged in a series of firefights and were in danger of being wiped out. In an emergency meeting with Mao Tse-tung at T’unghsin, Ninghsia, in mid-November, Chang entreated Mao to send rescue forces to his beleaguered troops. He believed that a small force would tip the balance in favor of the Communists and, once the Nationalist forces were eliminated from the area, the corridor to Sinkiang could be opened up. Mao refused and Chang’s forces suffered a serious defeat.²³ Chang returned to Paoan in early December 1936, a beaten man, the basis of his political power severely weakened. By his inaction, Mao had effectively eliminated the military power of a serious right wing rival.

Meanwhile, the Nationalists brought mounting pressure on the Paoan base and by late November the encirclement of the area was nearing completion. The Japanese increased pressure of their own by attacking Suiyuan, forcing another division of Nationalist armies to meet the threat of a Japanese thrust through Inner Mongolia. Ignoring a Communist plea for a ceasefire issued on December 1, Chiang flew to Sian on the 4^th of December to make the final arrangements for the extermination of the Communists at Paoan and to assess the danger created by the Japanese move. Chiang’s presence was necessary at Sian for Chang Hsüeh-liang, commander of the Nationalist forces assigned to the Paoan operation, had succumbed to Communist blandishments and would not attack them as Chiang had ordered. After persuasion failed to win Chang over, Chiang had no recourse but to relieve him of command. On the 10^th of December, Chiang appointed Chiang Ting-wen in Chang Hsüeh-hang’s place, but at dawn on the 12^th Chang’s men took Chiang Kai-shek captive, holding him for two weeks in what has subsequently been termed the “Sian incident.”

News that Chiang had been placed under arrest at Sian and that the Chinese Communists were calling for his execution as a national traitor stunned Moscow. At one stroke, efforts to build a unified opposition to Japan around Chiang Kai-shek were threatened with complete failure. At that very moment secret talks were under way between the Soviet Union and the Nationalist Government concerning aid to the Nationalists, talks which had taken a favorable turn just before the Sian incident occurred. Chiang’s death would have ended all hopes of an agreement between the Soviet Union and the Kuomintang and of building a unified resistance to Japan, which was Moscow’s primary purpose. Therefore, from the 14^th of December onward both Pravda and Izvestia carried articles condemning the seizure, demanding a peaceful settlement of the “incident” and proclaiming that there could be national unity only under Chiang Kai-shek. A telegram to this effect was also sent to the Chinese Communists.

Pandemonium reigned in the Chinese Communist camp when they learned the news of Chiang’s arrest. Here was a golden opportunity to settle old scores with the man they had called the “butcher of China.” Moreover, it was decidedly in their interests to eliminate him, for they were threatened with exclusion from the united front which Chiang was slowly building. His death would disorganize the Nationahsts, possibly even split them, and give the Communists new life and an opportunity to gain control over the resistance movement. A good prima facie case could certainly have been made that Chiang had refused to lead the people against the Japanese and that the CCP had always espoused resistance to civil war.

This was clearly the attitude of Mao Tse-tung, who had moved slowly toward the Comintern’s position during the course of the previous year. Now that the opportunity to take the initiative had arisen, Mao reverted to the position he had espoused at Wayaopao—formation of a united front without Chiang Kai-shek. At a mass meeting in Paoan, Mao led cries for the public trial and execution of Chiang Kai-shek as a national traitor. All along Mao had argued that under sufficient pressure the Nationalists would split and, indeed, after Chiang’s capture, they had split. One faction demanded that a punitive expedition be sent to rescue Chiang, the other that such a step would only ensure the Generalissimo’s death. Mao therefore urged the Chinese Communist leadership to capitalize on this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.

The telegram from Moscow threw a damper on Mao’s plans. Although it was in the interests of the Chinese Communists to eliminate Chiang Kai-shek, his death would have ruined Moscow’s attempt to build general Chinese resistance to Japan. A split in the Nationalist camp would only weaken the available forces; some would probably come to terms with the Japanese. Therefore, the telegram contained the order for the Chinese Communists to bring about a “peaceful settlement” of the incident and ensure that no harm befell Chiang Kai-shek.

The majority of the party leadership, in particular the Internationalist group, accepted the order without hesitation and, notwithstanding Mao Tse-tung’s violent opposition to this decision—opposition which included vituperative denunciations and foot-stomping—the Communists did indeed play an important role in bringing about a peaceful settlement of the incident.²⁴ The settlement paved the way for the establishment of a united front of precisely the nature proposed by the Soviet Union in 1935 and led to the conclusion of a Soviet Union-Na-tionalist nonaggression treaty, which was signed the following August.

These developments were not immediately obvious after the settlement of the Sian incident. When released, Chiang publicly asserted that nothing had changed, but he quietly called off the projected offensive against the Communists and reassigned the assembled forces elsewhere. With the withdrawal of military pressure, the Communists, in January, moved their headquarters from Paoan to Yenan, where it remained until 1949. Immediately after their arrival, they published a statement containing the points which Chiang allegedly agreed to at Sian. Although the Nationalists made no formal reply, in February 1937 both parties issued separate statements containing the proposals for cessation of the civil war and joint efforts to make the concessions offered at Wayaopao and more. In addition to joining in a united front government, recognizing the Soviet government as a “special region” of the National government, and putting into effect more lenient economic and social policies, the Communists now proclaimed their willingness to redesignate their armed forces as units of the Nationalist army and accept “guidance” from the Central government on military matters! Every offer made by Wang Ming at the Seventh Comintern Congress in 1935, had now been made by the Communists at Yenan. This is how matters stood between the Chinese Communists and the KMT until the Japanese embarked on the full-scale attempt to subjugate China on July 7, 1937.

Continuation of the Internal Struggle

Within the Communist party the power struggle continued. In March the final defeat of the Western Route Army triggered an upsurge in the struggle between Mao and Chang Kuo-t’ao, and the May party conference saw the renewal of conflict between Mao and the Internationalists. When news of the defeat of the Western Route Army arrived at Yenan, Mao and his followers immediately initiated a party-wide propaganda campaign condemning “Chang Kuo-t’ao’s erroneous right-opportunist line.” The Maoists attempted to follow up the propaganda campaign with a move to oust Chang Kuo-t’ao at the enlarged Politburo conference of April, but failed. The conference turned into a fierce mutual recrimination session but with no result, indicating that Chang’s influence within the leadership, if not his actual political-military power, was still quite high. The conference stalemate thus deferred the final act in the struggle between Mao and Chang Kuo-t’ao.²⁵

In May (3 to 20), the party convened a conference to reaffirm the pledges made to the Kuomintang in February. Mao’s report was one of two principal items on the agenda. The other item was a report by Liu Shao-ch’i which provoked a heated controversy. Mao, who this time had gathered around himself a substantial group of leaders, renewed the struggle against the Internationalist group. The attempt to discredit the Internationalists came in the form of Liu’s report on the party’s activity during the 1927–1937 decade and was an undisguised attempt to undermine the leadership position of the Internationalists by heaping the blame for past setbacks upon their shoulders.

At Tsunyi, Liu had denounced the Internationalists for their blunders since the Fourth Plenum. Backed by Mao Tse-tung, Liu resumed that attack. The response by the Internationalists, Chang Wen-t’ien, Ch’in Pang-hsien, Ho Kai-feng, Chen Keng, and others, was vitriolic. They countered that Liu’s interpretation was a distortion not only of the party’s correct leadership, but also of the Comintern’s rule, and labeled Liu’s views nothing more than Trotskyite-Ch’en Tu-hsiu “cliche.” The shouting match which followed forced the Politburo to declare a recess and in a private extraordinary session Liu was severely reprimanded and his report stricken from the record. When the conference reconvened Chang Wen-t’ien delivered a substitute report containing a more positive view of the party’s past leaders, which was passed without incident.

After the conference ended, Liu was demoted from secretary of the North China Party Bureau to a minor post in the central organization department. Since he was a member of Mao’s group, however, he was shortly promoted director of the central cadres administration, after which his fortunes took a marked turn for the better. Chang Kuo-t’ao played only a minor role in the conference. After making a short comment at the opening of the conference, he walked out and refused to participate.²⁶

The lesson which Mao Tse-tung learned from the conference was that the Internationalists could not be defeated by frontal attack. When the opportunity to strike against his internal party opponents again arose, Mao strove to divide his opposition before attempting to conquer. His next opportunity was not long in coming, occurring in the early days of all-out war against Japan.