Mao

by Philip Short

  10. Ch'en Kung-po (Chen Gongbo), The Communist Movement in China, Octagon, New York, 1966, p. 102. Ishikawa, using a Chinese translation of documents from the Russian archives, gives a slightly different version (pp. 257–63).

  11. Saich, Rise to Power, p. 16; Ch'en Kung-po, p. 82.

  12. Ibid., p. 105; see also p. 102.

  13. Saich, Origins, 1, pp. 12–21.

  14. Ishikawa, Formation, pp. 261–3.

  15. Ch'en Kung-po, p. 102; see also p. 105.

  16. Ishikawa, p. 253.

  17. Saich, Origins, 1, pp. 73–7.

  18. According to Ishikawa, the CCP's operating expenses in 1922 came to 17,000 yuan, or Chinese silver dollars (9,300 US dollars at that time), of which all but 1000 yuan was provided by the Comintern (Formation, p. 237). By the early 1930s, Comintern subsidies to the Chinese Party reached 30,000 US dollars a month (Pantsov and Levine, pp. 116 & 135–6).

  19. On the first day, ‘the Congress listened to reports concerning the activities of the local small groups’ (Saich, Rise to Power, p. 14). Only the reports of the Beijing and Canton groups have survived (Ibid., pp. 19–27).

  20. Ibid., p. 14; Zhang Guotao, 1, p. 141.

  21. Nianpu, 1, p. 85.

  22. Zhang Guotao, l, p. 140.

  23. See Saich, Origins, 1, pp. 64–7.

  24. Siao Yu, Mao Tse-tung and I, p. 256.

  25. Nianpu, 1, p. 87.

  26. Ibid., p. 88.

  27. Ch'en Kung-po, pp. 102–3; Saich, Rise to Power, pp. 27–8.

  28. Saich, p. 77, n. 22.

  29. This account is of the 1922 rally (Minguo ribao, Nov, 15 1922, reprinted in Wieger, Leon, Chine Moderne, vol. 3: ‘Remous et Ecume’, Xianxian, 1922, pp. 433–4). It corresponds closely to Mao's description in Snow, Red Star over China, pp. 180–1, the only significant difference being that Mao dates the episode, wrongly, to 1920. A description of the 1921 rally, which had an identical format and was also broken up by the police, is given in the Nianpu (1, p. 89).

  30. Li Rui, pp. 170–3; Nianpu, 1, p. 86; Schram, Mao's Road, 2, pp. 88–92 and 93–8.

  31. Schram, 2 pp. 91 and 97; see also pp. 156 and 162–3 (April 10 1923).

  32. Nianpu, 1, p. 87.

  33. He Minfan was deeply shocked when, one particularly hot day, Mao ‘went about his teaching duties and visited his colleagues, wearing nothing but a towel around his waist, in other words virtually naked, walking about our dignified establishment as though it were the most natural thing in the world.’ When He remonstrated with him, Mao allegedly retorted: ‘How can you make such a fuss about such a small thing? What would be so scandalous even if I were naked? Think yourself lucky I'm wearing a towel.’ Although both He himself and Peng Shuzhi, who related the incident in his memoirs, had a strong bias against Mao, the story has the ring of truth (Cadart and Cheng, pp. 159–60).

  34. Ch'en Kung-po, p. 103.

  35. Chesneaux, Jean, The Chinese Labour Movement: 1919–27, Stanford University Press, 1968, pp. 41–7.

  36. Wieger, Chine Moderne, vol. 4: L'Outre d'Eole, Xianxian, 1923, pp. 434–7.

  37. Li Rui, pp. 192–4; Shaffer, Lynda, Mao and the Workers: The Hunan Labour Movement, 1920–23, M. E. Sharpe, Armonk, 1982, pp. 45–9.

  38. Li Rui, p. 195; Perry, pp. 28–9 & 49–52; Nianpu, 1, p. 86; Saich, Origins, 1, pp. 70–2; Schram, 2, p. 176 (July 1 1923). See also Li Rui, p. 197; Shaffer, pp. 44–5 & 85. Pang's Workingmen's Association had not yet established a presence at Anyuan. However, the rival Mechanics’ Union, a smaller group founded in November 1920, had set up a branch among the railway workers there in September 1921. The railway workers were better educated than the miners and it was their group, the Mechanics’ Union, which hosted Mao's second visit to Anyuan in December.

  39. Li Rui, p. 197.

  40. Schram, 2, pp. 100–1 (Nov. 21 1921).

  41. Li Rui, p. 197; Nianpu, 1, p. 90.

  42. Wieger, 4, pp. 441–3; Shaffer, pp. 54–6; Li Rui, p. 197; McDonald, Urban Origins, pp. 164–5; NCH, Feb. 25 1922, p. 512.

  43. Shaffer, pp. 56–7; NCH, April 29 1922, p. 299.

  44. Nianpu, 1, pp. 92–3.

  45. NCH, Feb. 25 1922, p. 512.

  46. NCH, April 29 1922, p. 299.

  47. Perry, pp. 51–63; Nianpu, 1, pp. 91, 93, 95 & 98; Shaffer, pp. 57–61 & 71–89; Li Rui, pp. 184–7 & 199–206; McDonald, pp. 166–8. In late April, Mao went to the Shuikoushan lead and zinc mines; in May with Yang Kaihui to Anyuan; and ‘in early summer’ to Yuezhou.

  48. Pantsov and Levine, p. 112.

  49. Saich, Rise to Power, pp. 27–8; Nianpu, 1, pp. 94–5.

  50. McDonald, pp. 172–8; Li Rui, pp. 229–38. See also Shaffer, p. 91; Chesneaux, pp. 190–1; and Schram, 2, pp. 122–4 (Sept. 8 and 10 1922).

  51. Schram, 2, pp. 125–6 (Sept. 12 1922). Changsha labour groups unleashed a barrage of appeals, including one, apparently not written by Mao, which urged the workers to ‘overthrow the evil and violence of the warlords’ and ‘smash these bone-crushing, marrow-sucking robbers’ (Hunan jinbainian dashi jishu, Hunan renmin chubanshe, Changsha, 1979, pp. 493–4, translation in McDonald, p. 177).

  52. Li Rui, p. 234; McDonald, p. 175.

  53. Shaffer, p. 91. The following account is taken from Perry, pp. 63–9; Shaffer, pp. 88–98; McDonald, pp. 169–72; and Li Rui, pp. 206–10.

  54. McDonald, p. 177; Li Rui, pp. 238–9.

  55. Shaffer, pp. 109–43; McDonald, pp. 180–6; Li Rui, pp. 213–29. Unless otherwise indicated, the account that follows is drawn from these three sources.

  56. Hunan jinbainian dashi jishu (pp. 496–504) says the workers started petitioning for a wage increase in May 1922, and that notices were posted that it would come into effect on June 1. In fact the workers were using the old lunar calendar, under which ‘the first day of the sixth month’ was July 24 (NCH, Nov. 4 1922, p. 288).

  57. Schram, 2, pp. 117–19 (Sept. 5 1922).

  58. Shaffer (pp. 116–17) and McDonald (p. 181) claim that the magistrate overruled the increase soon after it was enforced. It was not until October 4, ‘the fourteenth day of the eighth month’, that he issued a notice formally rescinding the increase (NCH, Nov. 1922, p. 288). The aim of the strike then became to get this notice withdrawn (Schram, 2, pp. 129–31, Oct. 24 1922).

  59. Schram, 2, p. 127 (Oct. 6 1922).

  60. See NCH, Jan. 14 1922, p. 83.

  61. Ibid., Nov. 4 1922, p. 288.

  62. Ibid., Nov. 11 1922, p. 370.

  63. Ibid.

  64. Nianpu, 1, p. 103.

  65. McDonald, pp, 186–7; Li Rui, pp. 255–9.

  66. Nianpu, 1, pp. 103–4. McDonald, p. 188; Pantsov and Levine, p. 110. See also Li Rui, pp. 259–61.

  67. Schram, 2, pp. 132–40. See also Li Rui, pp. 263–5.

  68. Shaffer, pp. 164–92; McDonald pp. 188–91; Li Rui, pp. 239–44.

  69. Zhang Guotao, 1 pp. 271–3. See also Saich, Origins, 1, pp. 148–9.

  70. See Schram, 2, pp. 141–4 (Dec. 14 1922). The Dagongbao, in an article which Li Rui says was written by Mao's ally, the editor-in-chief, Long Jiangong, implicitly accused Mao of using the workers for ‘ideological experiments’ (Li Rui, pp. 248–53), a charge which Mao angrily rebutted.

  71. Saich, Origins, 1, pp. 121–32 and 149; Zhang Guotao, 1, pp. 273–7; Chesneaux, pp. 191–2. See also Saich, Rise to Power, p. 35.

  72. Schram, 2, pp. 111–16 (July 1922).

  73. Wilbur, C. Martin, and How, Julie Lien-ying, Missionaries of Revolution: Soviet Advisers and Nationalist China, 1920–1927, Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA, 1989, pp. 54–7 and 60–3; Saich, Origins, 1, pp. 126–9.

  74. Chesneaux, pp. 206–10; Saich, Origins, 1, pp. 151–4; McDonald, pp. 195–7; Zhang Guotao, 1, pp. 277–91.

  75. Chesneaux, pp. 212–19.

  76. Schram, 2, pp. 147–54.

  77. McDonald, pp. 171–2 (Mao Zemin); Nianpu, 1, p. 111 and Li Rui, p. 244 (Mao Zetan). Perry, pp. 10, 78 & 105.

  78. McDonald, p. 201.

 
79. Ibid., pp. 202–5. Despite the assertions of McDonald (p. 205) and Li Rui (p. 270), it appears that no arrest warrant was issued for Mao (see Hunan jinbainian dashi jishu, pp. 516–20).

  80. Nianpu, 1, pp. 109–10 and 113.

  81. Saich, Origins, l, pp. 79–85.

  82. Pantsov, Alexander, The Bolsheviks and the Chinese Revolution, 1919–1927, University of Hawai'i Press, Honolulu, 2000, pp. 54–5.

  83. Saich, Origins, 1, pp. 256–7. Those who approved the resolution are not listed by name, but Mao was the only ‘comrade from Changsha’ then in Shanghai. The Nianpu (1, p. 93) says he returned from there during ‘the second 10 days of April’.

  84. Saich, Rise to Power, pp. 34–8. See also Saich, Origins, 1, p. 90, n. 21 and Pantsov, Bolsheviks, p. 55. The question of an alliance of revolutionary forces was discussed at the Socialist Youth League's first Congress held in Canton in May, and in June the Central Committee issued a statement characterising the GMD as ‘relatively revolutionary and democratic’ and proposing a joint conference to establish ‘a democratic united front’ against the warlords.

  85. Saich, Rise to Power, pp. 38–40.

  86. Ibid., pp. 43 and 49.

  87. History of the CCP, Chronology, p. 14.

  88. Snow, pp. 184–5. The Nianpu quotes Mao's explanation to Snow without comment (1, p. 96n); it lists no other activities by him between July 5 and August 7. Given that Mao had been in Shanghai only three months earlier, and certainly knew the address of Chen Duxiu's home, it is hard to take his story at face value (Nianpu, 1, p. 109 and Schram, 2, p. 155; Zhang Guotao, 1, p. 296). His old flame, Tao Yi, was then studying at Nanjing, which he passed on his way to Shanghai. A year earlier he had also stopped there for a few days on his way back from the First Congress. It is not known whether he saw Tao Yi on those occasions.

  89. Zhang Guotao, 1, p. 247.

  90. ‘Instructions to a Representative of the ECCI in South China’ (August 1922), in Pantsov, Alexander, and Benton, Gregor, ‘Did Trotsky Oppose Entering the Guomindang “From the First”?’ (Republican China, XIX, 2, pp. 61–3). The directive, from Karl Radek, instructs the communists merely to ‘set up groups of supporters inside the Guomindang’; the ‘bloc within’ formula, as the CCP eventually adopted it, may in fact have come from Sneevliet himself. See also Saich, Origins, 1, p. 117 (vigorous opposition); Ibid., p. 338 (Sun Yat-sen himself); Ibid., pp. 119–20 (Xiangdao zhoubao); Wilbur and How, pp. 54–7 (Adolf Joffe). Joffe arrived in China in August 1922.

  91. Unknown to the Chinese, the Comintern itself was ambivalent about policy for China. In December 1922, three months after the Hangzhou Central Committee meeting, the Fourth Comintern Congress approved a new resolution proposed by Radek, the ‘Supplement to the General Theses on the Eastern Question’, which was much more sceptical about the benefits of a CCP-GMD alliance. It urged the Chinese communists to ‘devote their main attention to the organization of the working masses, to the creation of trade unions and of a strong communist mass party’, called for caution in dealing with Sun Yat-sen because of his reliance on unreliable warlords, and insisted that China would be unified not by military means but by ‘a revolutionary victory of the popular masses’ – all of which would have been much more congenial to the CCP leadership than the directive Sneevliet brought back in August. But by then the united front was already a reality (Pantsov, Bolsheviks, pp. 51–2).

  92. ‘Chen Duxiu's Report to the Third Party Congress’ (June 1923), in Saich, Origins, 2, pp. 572–3; see also p. 612. There were two major splits in the summer and autumn of 1922: Zhang Guotao formed what was termed a factional ‘small group’ (ibid., 2, pp. 115–16; Zhang Guotao, 1, pp. 250–2; Cai Hesen, ‘Zhongguo gongchandangde fazhan [tigang]’, in Zhonggong dangshi baogao xuanbian, Zhonggong zhongyang dangxiao chubanshe, Beijing, 1982, p. 43); and the Canton Party committee rejected the decision of the Hangzhou plenum on co-operation with the GMD, leading in November to the resignation of Chen Gongbo and the expulsion of Tan Zhitang (Cai Hesen, p. 69; Ch'en Kung-po, pp. 10–12; Zhang Guotao, 1, p. 249).

  93. Saich, Origins, 2, p. 611 (June 20 1923). Earlier he had written to Bukharin that the Chinese movement was ‘very weak and a little artificial’ (Ibid., 2, p. 476, March 21 1923). On Joffe, see NCH Feb 3 1923, p. 289.

  94. Saich, Origins, 2, p. 577. Sneevliet also reported to the Comintern the same month that ‘Hunan has the best organisation’ (ibid., p. 617). In a note to Zinoviev in November 1922 (ibid., pp. 344–5), he had described Hunan as having the best Party committee and the best Youth League branch (with 230 members, compared with 110 in Shanghai, 40 in Canton, 20 in Jinan and 15 in Anhui).

  95. Ibid., 1, p. 449.

  96. Ibid., 2, p. 642 (forty delegates); 2, p. 573 (420 members). See also ibid., 1, pp. 175–86 and 2, pp. 565–6; Zhang Guotao, pp. 296–316; and Van den Ven, From Friend to Comrade, pp. 122–6.

  97. This point is contentious. Sneevliet reported that the vote was carried by 21 to 16, and ‘among these 16 [opposition] votes were [the] six from Hunan’; he then identified the Hunan ‘representative’ as Mao (Saich, Origins, 2, p. 616). Zhang Guotao recalled in his memoirs that he, Cai and Mao were Sneevliet's principal opponents (1, p. 308); Mao (and Cai Hesen) submitted to the majority decision, Zhang wrote, only after the vote had been taken (p. 311). Stuart Schram relies on Sneevliet's note of Mao's remark, ‘we should not be afraid of joining [the Guomindang]’, to argue that Mao supported the Comintern line (Mao's Road, 2, pp. xxix–xxx). But the question of ‘joining’ had already been settled at Hangzhou in August 1922; the debate at the Third Congress was over the conditions and consequences of doing so, and here Mao had strong reservations.

  98. Schram, 2, pp. 157–61; Saich, Origins, 2, pp. 448–9, 580 and 590; and Zhang Guotao, 1, pp. 308–9.

  99. Saich, Origins, 2, p. 590.

  100. Ibid., 2, p. 616; Zhang Guotao, 1, p. 310; Pantsov, Bolsheviks, pp. 60–1 and 66–9; Saich, Rise to Power, pp. 76–9.

  101. Nianpu, 1, p. 114; Saich, Origins, 2, pp. 642–3.

  102. Saich, Origins, 2, pp. 539–40 and 643. Pantsov and Levine, p. 124 (‘personnel matters’) and Saich, p. 576 (‘Chen Duxiu could no longer complain’).

  103. Sneevliet told Zinoviev in June 1923 that ‘the only comrade who is able to analyse reality in a Marxist fashion’ was Qu Qiubai, a 23-year-old journalist who had just returned to China after spending two years in Moscow. Qu was elected a Central Committee alternate at the Third Congress (Saich, Origins, 2, p. 615).

  104. Nianpu, 1, p. 115.

  105. Sneevliet (Saich, Origins, 2, p. 659) and the Nianpu (1, p. 115) both indicate that Mao was a GMD member by June 25 1923. See also Li Yongtai, Mao Zedong yu da geming, Sichuan renmin chubanshe, Chengdu, 1991.

  106. Saich, Origins, 2, pp. 657–61, 678, 690 and 696; Nianpu, 1, p. 115.

  107. Schram, 2, pp. 178–82 (July 11 1923).

  108. Saich, Origins, 2, pp. 554–5, 679 and 695–8; Nianpu, 1, p. 116. The Guomindang at that time had no organisation outside the south.

  109. Nianpu, 1, p. 118. The Hunan GMD network Mao built was so strongly pro-CCP that a later GMD historian spoke of its existence as a ‘communist plot’ (cited in McDonald, p. 138).

  110. McDonald, pp. 53–8.

  111. Hobart, City of the Long Sand, pp. 237–8.

  112. McDonald, p. 58.

  113. Schram, 2, pp. 192–4 (Sept. 28 1923).

  114. Hobart, ibid.

  115. McDonald, pp. 58–9; Schram, 2, pp. 183–5 (Aug. 15 1923); and ibid., p. 194. The choice of Shishan may have been an allusion to the name Shi san yazi (‘Third son of stone’), which had been given to Mao by his family after his mother made him bow, as a small boy, before a supposedly miraculous rock on a nearby mountain in order to win the protection of the spirits. He was the ‘third son’ because two elder brothers had died in infancy. See Roux, le Singe et le Tigre, Larousse, Paris, 2009, pp. 36 & 903, n. 39.

  116. Mao informed the GMD's General Affairs Department that he and Xia Xi had begun
discussing how to establish a provincial Party organisation at the end of September, and that a secret preparatory organ for the Changsha branch would be created ‘within the next few days’ (Schram, 2 p. 193, Sept. 28 1923; see also Saich, Rise to Power, p. 85). According to the Nianpu, the Anyuan, Changsha and Ningxiang branches were founded between mid-September and December, 1923. Pantsov and Levine (p. 129) write that by the end of the year there were 500 GMD members in Hunan, but that figure seems too high.

  117. The CPC CC's Directive no. 13, announcing that the GMD Congress would be held in January, was dated December 25. It is not known on what day Mao left Changsha, but he set out from Shanghai for Canton on January 2 1924 (Nianpu, 1, pp. 119–20).

  118. Schram, 2, pp. 195–6 (Dec. 1923). One senior Party historian is convinced that this poem was in fact written to Tao Yi. I know of no evidence to support that. It is more plausible – although again there is no evidence for it – that the ‘bitter feelings’ to which Mao alludes were caused by Kaihui's jealousy, either of Tao Yi or another woman.

  119. Wilbur and How, pp. 87–92; Holybnychy, Lydia, Michael Borodin and the Chinese Revolution, 1923–25, Columbia University Press, New York, 1979, pp. 212–19; Cadart and Cheng, p. 335 (treated royally) and p. 340 (Counsellor Bao).

  120. Nianpu, 1, p. 121; McDonald, p. 137. According to Wilbur and How (p. 97) and other sources, provincial delegations in general comprised three members named by Sun and three members elected from the local branches. The Hunan delegation was apparently larger because it included men like Lin Boqu, who was already working in Canton as deputy head of the Guomindang's General Affairs Department (Lo Jialun et al. [compilers], Geming wenxian, vol. 8, Taibei, 1953, pp. 1100–3).