by Jung Chang
It was at this moment that Mao arrived — in time to play the benign arbiter. He ordered arrests and executions to be suspended, and released Chih-tan and his comrades at the end of November. The purge against them was ruled to have been “a serious error.” Two scapegoats were reprimanded.
Mao thus managed both to sabotage the local Red leadership and to present himself as the man who saved them. This put him in a position to take over their base. Thanks to the purge, Chih-tan and his comrades were already sufficiently intimidated by the time Mao turned up (Chih-tan could barely walk after being heavily shackled), and Mao was able to exclude them from decision-making positions and from key military jobs without prompting major resistance. Chih-tan, the founder of the base, was given a lowly post as commander of a detachment titled “the 28th Army,” which was really just a bunch of new recruits, onto whom Mao foisted a trusted man of his own as commissar, and therefore Chih-tan’s boss. Chih-tan did not demur; he endorsed Mao’s authority publicly, and asked his comrades who had been victimized to put the interests of the revolution before their personal sufferings.
Mao did not want to be seen to be purging Chih-tan, as he meant to exploit his name to lend legitimacy and prestige to his own rule. But nor did he intend to retain him — because he was a local. Mao was going to be involved in extorting food, money, soldiers and laborers out of the population, as the CCP had done in other bases before; and, as in the case of virtually all other Red bases, he knew that these policies were sure to meet resistance from local leaders, who might well lead a popular uprising against the Party. Mao had a different method for dealing with Chih-tan from those he used against other potential threats.
AS SOON AS he settled down, Mao went ahead with his project of trying to open a passage to a Russian-controlled border where he could pick up supplies, and especially arms. His plan involved crossing the Yellow River into the much richer province of Shanxi to the east, to acquire new manpower and provisions, even possibly to build a base, before turning north towards Russian-controlled Outer Mongolia.
The expedition began in February 1936. It garnered some spoils and recruits, but was rapidly driven back west of the Yellow River by Chiang’s troops, without getting anywhere near the Mongolian border. During this brief operation Chih-tan met his death, at the age of thirty-three. According to history books, he died in combat, but the overwhelming evidence points to murder.
Chih-tan was shot on 14 April 1936, at a place called Sanjiao, a ferry town on the Yellow River. The official account claimed that an enemy machine-gun that had engaged an advancing Red Army unit put a round in his heart. Chih-tan was not with the assaulting unit, nor caught in cross-fire. He was about 200 meters away, up a small hill from which he was observing through a telescope. The machine-gun that reportedly killed him was firing in a totally different direction, and if the official story is to be believed, it suddenly swiveled round and loosed a single burst that miraculously hit Chih-tan in the heart — at 200 meters. This machine-gun seems to have had a sniper’s accuracy.
Only two people were with Chih-tan when he was hit. One was the Political Security man in his unit, whose name was Pei, a star of the Chinese KGB. On the Long March, he had been given the crucial job of watching over the porters carrying the assets of the regime’s bank. The other man present was a bodyguard. After Chih-tan was shot, Pei sent the bodyguard to “fetch a doctor,” according to his own account, leaving himself the only man around when Chih-tan “completely stopped breathing.” There seems little doubt that Chih-tan was killed by Pei.
The sequence of events surrounding Chih-tan’s death strongly suggests that it was choreographed by Mao. A week before, Mao cabled Chih-tan that the 28th Army unit, “from now on comes directly under this HQ.” There was no discernible reason for this order — except, of course, that this way whatever happened to Chih-tan from then on would not be reported through the normal chain of command, but directly to Mao. Two days after that, Mao appointed Chih-tan to the Military Council, from which he had previously been excluded. This amounted to Chih-tan’s elevation to a major military position. If he died now, he would have the status of a hero and his men would be kept happy. Finally, on the 13th, it was Mao himself who ordered Chih-tan to go to Sanjiao, where he was killed the very next day.
When Chih-tan was buried, his widow was kept away from the interment. “You are not well,” Chou En-lai told her, “and seeing him will make you sadder.” This was an order. Seven years were to pass before she was allowed to have him exhumed, by which time the corpse had decomposed. The coffin was opened, at her request, when Chih-tan was given a public burial in a special shrine. Mao wrote an inscription, calling Chih-tan’s death “a surprise.” This was at a time when Mao particularly needed to ensure that there would not be any trouble in the base, and he was using the dead Chih-tan to lend himself authority.
Chih-tan was the only top leader of a Red base ever to die at the front. In addition, his former left-and right-hand commanders both fell dead in quick succession within weeks of him being killed — Yang Qi in March, and Yang Sen at the beginning of May. Within a few months of Mao arriving, all three top Shaanxi commanders were killed — a fate that befell none of the commanders from any other Red Army unit.
With the deaths of Chih-tan and these two top colleagues, any serious potential danger of rebellion against Mao’s rule over the base was removed. Thereafter, although there were small-scale revolts among the locals, there was no uprising big enough to threaten Mao’s regime.
As with the Long March, the Reds pretended that the goal was to fight the Japanese, and called it the “Anti-Japanese Vanguard,” with slogans like “Going east to fight Japan.” But this was pure propaganda. Mao’s force did not even try to get near the Japanese.
16. CHIANG KAI-SHEK KIDNAPPED (1935–36 AGE 41–42)
WHEN MAO arrived in the northwest at the end of the Long March in October 1935, his aim, other than sheer survival, was to open up a passage to the border of a Russian-controlled territory so as to receive the arms and other supplies that would enable him to expand. Chiang Kai-shek wanted the Reds kept penned in their corral. The man he assigned to the task was the former warlord of Manchuria, Chang Hsueh-liang, “the Young Marshal,” who had his HQ in the city of Xian, the capital of Shaanxi province. Mao was in the same province, some 300 km to the north.
There were two Russian-controlled territories through which arms could be delivered: Xinjiang, over 1,000 km to the west-northwest, and Outer Mongolia, more than 500 km due north. The Young Marshal’s vast army of some 300,000 was stationed in the provinces giving access to both of these.
The Young Marshal’s American pilot, Royal Leonard, has left a description of a worldly man: “My first impression … was that here was the president of a Rotary Club: rotund, prosperous, with an easy, affable manner … We were friends in five minutes …” After inheriting Manchuria when his warlord father (“the Old Marshal”) was assassinated in June 1928, the Young Marshal placed his domain under Chiang’s central government, while remaining its chief until Japan invaded it in 1931. He then retreated into China proper with 200,000 troops, and was subsequently given various important posts by Chiang. He had an apparently intimate relationship with Chiang and his wife. Thirteen years the Generalissimo’s junior, he was fond of saying that Chiang was “like a daddy to me.”
But behind the Generalissimo’s back, the Young Marshal plotted to supplant him. Having governed a land larger than France and England together, it irked him to be Chiang’s subordinate. He aspired to rule all of China. To this end, he had earlier made approaches to the Russians and had tried to visit the Soviet Union when he was in Europe in 1933, but the Russians were very wary and turned him down. Only four years earlier, in 1929, Stalin had invaded Manchuria and fought a brief war against him after he had seized the Russian-controlled railway in Manchuria. Moreover, the Young Marshal had expressed admiration for fascism, and was friendly with Mussolini and his family. In August 1935 a stateme
nt put out from Moscow under the name of the CCP called him “scum” and a “traitor.”
But once he was appointed Mao’s warden later that year, Moscow performed a U-turn. The Young Marshal had become worth courting. He could make the CCP’s life easier and, more importantly, help them link up with Russian supplies. Within weeks of Mao arriving in the northwest, Russian diplomats were deep in talks with the Young Marshal.
He traveled to Shanghai and Nanjing, the capital, to meet the Russians in secret. To cover his tracks, he wove a camouflage of frivolity. He had a reputation as a playboy, and happily played up this image. One day, his American pilot recalled, the Young Marshal got him to “fly the plane in a vertical bank, one wing in the street, past the windows of the Park Hotel where his friends lived. We passed within ten feet of the façade, the noise of the motor rattling the panes like castanets.” This flamboyant show was staged outside the hotel room where one of the Young Marshal’s girlfriends was staying. “Perhaps this will make you smile,” the Young Marshal, aged ninety-one in 1993, chuckled to us. “At that time, Tai Li [Chiang’s intelligence chief] tried everything he could to find out my whereabouts, and he thought I went to have a good time with my girlfriends. But in fact, I was doing deals …”
The Young Marshal made clear to the Russians that he was ready to form an alliance with the Chinese Reds and engage in “decisive struggle against the Japanese”—i.e., declare war on Japan, which Chiang had not done. In return, he wanted Moscow to back him to replace Chiang as the head of the country.
This package contained extremely attractive features for Stalin, including the one thing the Kremlin boss most wanted — for China to wage all-out war against Japan. Japan had been encroaching on China since 1931, and had been nibbling away ever since. After annexing Manchuria, Tokyo set up another puppet regime in part of northern China in November 1935, but Chiang had been avoiding all-out war. Stalin was anxious that Tokyo might turn north and attack the Soviet Union.
Stalin’s goal was to use China to steer Tokyo away from the Soviet Union by dragging the Japanese into the vast interior of China and bogging them down there. Moscow worked hard to fan sentiment in China for such an all-out war with Japan, while keeping its own agenda under wraps. It took a hand in major student demonstrations; and its many agents, particularly Mme Sun Yat-sen, Chiang Kai-shek’s sister-in-law, formed pressure groups to lobby Nanjing for action.
Chiang did not want to surrender to Japan, but nor did he want to declare war. He thought that China had no realistic chance of winning, and that taking on Tokyo would lead to his country’s destruction. He opted for a very unusual limbo — neither surrendering nor fighting a full-scale war. He was able to hang on in this state thanks to China’s size, and the fact that the Japanese were only encroaching gradually. Chiang may even have harbored the hope that Japan would soon turn on Russia and leave the rest of China alone.
The Young Marshal’s proposal suited Stalin, but Stalin did not trust him. Nor did he believe that the former Manchurian warlord was capable of holding China together to fight such a war. If China lapsed into internecine strife, it would facilitate the Japanese conquest — and, a fortiori, redouble the Japanese threat to the Soviet Union.
Moscow was too canny to reject the Young Marshal’s offer outright. The Russians led him on, deluding him that they were considering it — so that he would help the Chinese Reds. Russian diplomats told him to establish direct contact with the CCP in secret. The first talks between a CCP negotiator and the Young Marshal took place on 20 January 1936.
WHILE THE RUSSIANS were merely stringing the Young Marshal along, Mao was happy to support him to replace Chiang, and wanted a real alliance with him. This was an ideal scenario for Mao. As the Young Marshal would be dependent on the Soviet Union, the CCP would have a pivotal role, and Mao might even become the power behind the throne for the whole of China. He instructed his negotiator, Li Ke-nong, to propose an anti-Chiang alliance with the Young Marshal, and to promise to back him as head of a new national government in place of Chiang. The negotiator was told to “hint” that the offer had Moscow’s authorization, by suggesting that funds and arms would be no problem.
The Young Marshal naturally wanted to have Mao’s promises nailed down by the Russians themselves. And it seemed this was very much on the cards when a scheme was soon put to him to get a senior envoy of his to Moscow. In January, a certain “Pastor Dong” arrived at the Young Marshal’s HQ from Shanghai. Dong, who had once been a pastor at St. Peter’s in Shanghai in the 1920s, was a Communist intelligence operative. The lapsed Pastor told the Young Marshal that Mao’s sons were secretly in his care in Shanghai, and that there was a plan to send them to Russia, to the special school for the children of foreign Communist leaders run by the Comintern. He proposed that the Young Marshal assign an envoy to accompany them there.
Mao had three sons by his second wife, Kai-hui, who had been executed by the Nationalists in 1930. After their mother’s death, the boys had been taken to Shanghai and looked after by the Communist underground.
The children had been having a tough time. The youngest, An-long, died at the age of four soon after he came to Shanghai. The other two, An-ying and Anching, had to live a secret life, unable to go to school or to make friends outside the Dong family, where there was constant tension. Dong had deposited them with his ex-wife, whose life was thrown into danger and upheaval by their arrival, and who had no particular affection for these boys anyway. Sometimes they would run away and live as street urchins. Years later, watching a film about an orphan in Shanghai, An-ying became very emotional and told his wife that his brother and he had led a similar life, sleeping on the pavements and scavenging through rubbish dumps for food and cigarette stubs. During all these years, Mao had never sent a word to them.
Moscow now decided to bring Mao’s sons to Russia, where they could be looked after and put through school. As in the case of Chiang Kai-shek’s son when Chiang was rising to the top, the aim was also to keep the boys as hostages. Stalin was personally involved with this decision. Mao had no objection.
Moscow’s offer to the Young Marshal to have an envoy of his escort the boys to Soviet Russia thus killed two birds with one stone. This way, the Young Marshal would guarantee the boys’ safety during the journey and look after all the logistics, as well as footing the considerable bill for an entourage, which included a nanny. And, most important, the Young Marshal would see the invitation to send an envoy as a sign that Moscow was seriously interested in doing a deal, which could not be done under Chiang Kai-shek’s surveillance in China.
The Young Marshal was delighted, and quickly made all the arrangements. His representative and the boys sailed from China for Marseille on 26 June. Moscow had told the Young Marshal they could collect their Russian visas in Paris.
THAT JUNE, two provinces in southern China, Guangdong and Guangxi, formed an alliance and rebelled against Chiang’s government. Mao tried to persuade the Young Marshal to seize this opportunity to do likewise and turn the northwest into a breakaway state in alliance with the Reds. His aim, he told his Politburo, was to create an entity “like Outer Mongolia”—i.e., a Russian satellite.
But the Young Marshal was not keen. He wanted to run the whole of China, not just part of it. And Moscow was downright hostile to the plan. At this time, in late June, the CCP’s radio links with Moscow were reestablished after a gap of twenty months. In the first telegram to the Comintern after the break, Mao requested endorsement for a breakaway northwest state. The plan was sent to Stalin, who was not pleased. He wanted a united China that would drag the Japanese into an all-out war, not a dismembered China.
Within days of Mao sending his telegram, the rebellion by Guangdong and Guangxi collapsed, ignominiously, not least because popular opinion was vehemently against any separatist movement. Stalin was confirmed in his belief that Chiang was the only person who could hold China together. On 15 August Moscow sent the CCP a milestone order, telling them to stop treatin
g Chiang as an enemy, and count him as an ally. “It is incorrect to treat Chiang Kai-shek the same as the Japanese … You must work for the cessation of hostilities between the Red Army and Chiang Kai-shek’s army, and for an agreement … to struggle jointly against the Japanese …”; “everything must be subordinated to the anti-Japanese cause.” Stalin now wanted the CCP to support Chiang as the head of an undivided China, at least for the time being.
Moscow brusquely ordered the CCP to enter serious negotiations with Chiang for an alliance. Mao had to accede, and talks about a “United Front” began in September between the CCP and Chiang’s representatives. Chiang had initiated the rapprochement. At the time the Long March ended, he had made overtures to Moscow, but the Russians told him he had to talk “directly with the Chinese [CP],” as a way of promoting the CCP.
Both Moscow and Mao kept the Young Marshal in the dark about this policy shift, and continued to mislead him on the issue that most concerned him — replacing Chiang. When the Young Marshal told Soviet ambassador Bogomolov in late July that he “hoped” that his “bloc with the [CCP], directed against Chiang Kai-shek and the Japanese, would be supported by the USSR,” the ambassador said absolutely nothing to suggest that Moscow was dead set against this notion. For his part, Mao encouraged the Young Marshal to go on thinking that Moscow might back him.