by Jung Chang
At the beginning of 1943, Wang Ming’s condition took a sharp turn for the worse. Doctors, who now had the Russian surgeon Orlov in their ranks, recommended treatment in the Nationalist area or Russia. Mao refused to let Wang Ming go.
To save his life and get himself to Moscow, Wang Ming knew he had to make Stalin feel that he was politically useful. On 8 January, he dictated a long cable to Vladimirov, addressed to Stalin by name. According to his own account, it detailed Mao’s “many crimes,” which he called “anti-Soviet and anti-Party.” At the end, he “inquired if it was possible to send a plane for me and have me treated in Moscow, where I would also give the Comintern leadership particulars about Mao’s crimes.”
Wang Ming’s message, much watered down by Vladimirov, reached Comintern chief Dimitrov on 1 February. Mao obviously found out that Wang Ming had got a dangerous message out to Russia, as he immediately cabled Dimitrov with counter-accusations against Wang Ming. Still, Dimitrov promised Wang Ming: “We’ll have you flown to Moscow.”
At this point Dr. Jin made another attempt on Wang Ming’s life. On 12 February, right after Dimitrov’s message, Jin prescribed the deadly combination of calomel and soda again. A week later, he prescribed tannic acid as an enema at a strength that would have been fatal. This time, Wang Ming not only did not follow the prescriptions, he kept them carefully.
Mao clearly felt a sense of acute urgency, as he now made a startling move. On 20 March, in total secrecy, he convened the Politburo — minus Wang Ming — and got himself made supreme leader of the Party, becoming chairman of both the Politburo and the Secretariat. The resolution gave Mao absolute power, and actually spelled out: “On all issues … the Chairman has the power to make final decisions.” Wang Ming was dropped from the core group, the Secretariat.
This was the first time Mao became Party No. 1 on paper, as well as in fact. And yet this was a deeply surreptitious affair, which was kept entirely secret from his own Party, and from Moscow — and was to stay secret throughout Mao’s life, probably known to no more than a handful of people.
Wang Ming may have got wind of Mao’s maneuver, as he now, for the first time, exposed the poisoning attempt to the Russians. On 22 March he showed Orlov one of Dr. Jin’s prescriptions, which Vladimirov cabled to Moscow. Moscow wired back immediately, saying that the prescription “causes slow poisoning” and “in grave cases — death.” Wang Ming then showed the prescription to Yenan medical chief Dr. Nelson Fu, and this led to an inquiry, which found beyond doubt that Wang Ming had been poisoned.
But Mao, the ace schemer, turned the inquiry to his advantage. Whilst the inquiry did establish that attempts had been made on Wang Ming’s life, Mao used the fact that it was still sitting as an excuse to stall Wang Ming’s trip.
And for Mao, scapegoats were always to hand — in this case Dr. Jin. On 28 March, Mme Mao “came to see me quite unexpectedly,” Vladimirov noted. “She talked at length about ‘the unreliability of Doctor Jin who [she said] is probably a [Nationalist] agent …’ ”
FIFTY-SIX YEARS LATER, in a drab concrete building in dusty Peking, the only surviving member of the medical panel of fifteen that drew up the official findings in Yenan, Dr. Y, a physically energetic and mentally alert 87-year-old, gave us a tape-recorded interview.
Once the decision was taken to carry out a medical inquiry, Dr. Y was assigned to establish whether Wang Ming had indeed been poisoned. He “stayed with Wang Ming for a month, sleeping in his study,” heating up his urine each day and then dipping a sliver of gold into it and examining it under a microscope. It proved to contain mercury: “He was being poisoned slowly,” Dr. Y reported to his medical superior. But nothing was done for weeks. The medical inquiry finally opened on 30 June, more than three months after the poisoning was exposed. The findings, drawn up on 20 July, stated that Wang Ming had definitely been poisoned by Dr. Jin, and were signed by Jin himself. After his signature, he wrote in brackets: “Will make separate statement about several of the points.” But he never did. In the middle of one meeting, in front of his colleagues, he threw himself at the feet of Wang Ming’s wife, weeping. Dr. Y was present. He told us that Dr. Jin “went down on his knees, begged for forgiveness, saying he was wrong.” “He admitted mistakes. Of course, he wouldn’t admit it was deliberate.” In fact, Dr. Jin had been carrying a pocket medical manual, which stated specifically that it was taboo to use calomel in combination with soda, and he had underlined these words. Dr. Y had actually confronted him on this: “Look, it’s written here: taboo prescription, great harm. You have even underlined it!” Jin was silent.
Far from getting into trouble, however, Jin was protected by being taken to the haunt of the security apparatus, Date Garden, where he lived with the security elite. He continued to be one of the doctors for Mao and other leaders, which would have been inconceivable if Mao had had the slightest doubt about either his competence or his trustworthiness.
The inquiry did not mention Mao, of course, but the Russians had no doubt: “Wang Ming was being poisoned and … Mao Tse-tung and Kang Sheng were involved.”
MAO’S KEY ACCOMPLICE in preventing Wang Ming from making it to Moscow was, once again, Chou En-lai, his liaison in Chongqing. Chiang Kai-shek’s permission was needed for Russian planes to come to Yenan so Mao hypocritically asked Chou to obtain permission from Chiang for a Russian plane to come and collect Wang Ming, while making it clear to Chou that he did not want Wang Ming to leave. Chou duly told the Russians that “the Nationalists would not allow cde. Wang Ming to leave Yenan.” In fact, Lin Biao, who was in Chongqing at the time, told Soviet ambassador Panyushkin that Chou never raised the issue with the Nationalists, because of “instructions” from “Yenan.”
At this very time, Chou got Chiang’s clearance for a Russian plane to bring Mao’s son An-ying back from Russia. An-ying, who had been in Russia since 1937, was now a 21-year-old gung-ho enthusiast at a military academy where he had joined the Soviet Communist Party. He had written three letters to Stalin asking to be assigned to the German front.
As he was not sent to the front, An-ying asked permission to return to China after graduation on 1 May 1943. He was not only Mao’s eldest son, but also the only probable male heir, as Mao’s other son, An-ching, was mentally handicapped. An-ying cabled his father (via Dimitrov), and Mao replied saying that Chiang had cleared the plane trip. An-ying got ready to go home, and asked the head of the International Communist School to look after his brother: “Don’t let him out of your sight … He is an honest person, only he has hearing ailments and his nerves are wrecked.”
On 19 August, a Russian plane left for Yenan to collect Wang Ming, and An-ying was supposed to be on it. But that day he was called in to see Dimitrov. When the plane arrived in Yenan, there was no An-ying on board. This was Moscow saying to Mao that it wanted Wang Ming first before releasing his son.
But Mao held on to Wang Ming. Vladimirov recorded: “doctors were … told to say Wang Ming … couldn’t stand the strain of the flight … [The] crew kept delaying the flight as long as they could, but [Mao] got his way.”
Another Soviet plane came on 20 October and stayed four days, before leaving with some Russian intelligence men — but again not Wang Ming. “On seeing [Dr Orlov],” Vladimirov recorded, “Wang Ming burst into tears … he is … still unable to walk … [his] friends have abandoned him … He is all alone in the full sense of the word …” It was two years now since his health crisis had begun, and a good nineteen months since the start of the poisoning. In those long and agonizing days, his wife looked after him devotedly, presenting a strong calm face to him. But occasionally she would lock the door and try to release her anguish. Her son told us that as a young boy he once caught her rolling and kicking on the earthen floor, muffling her sobbing and screaming with a towel. The son was too young to comprehend, but the traumatic scene was etched into his memory.
In Yenan, Dr. Y said, “many people knew that Wang Ming had been poisoned by mercury, and that someone was t
rying to murder him … Word got around.” And not only among senior officials, but also among ordinary Party members who had connections to medical staff. So many people suspected the truth that Mao felt he had to flush out the undercurrent of suspicion and kill it off. That meant getting the Wang Mings to make a public denial.
On 1 November, a week after the second Russian plane had left, Mao convened a large meeting for senior officials. He himself sat on the platform. Wang Ming was kept away. The star witness was a veteran commander who was trotted out, from detention, to say that over a year before, Mrs. Wang Ming had told him her husband was being poisoned — and had strongly hinted that Mao was responsible. Mrs. Wang Ming then made a vehement denial onstage. On 15 November she wrote to Mao and the Politburo, vowing that she and her husband had not even harbored such a thought, and felt nothing but gratitude to Mao. The poisoning case was formally closed.
MAO HAD DEFIED Stalin’s will to an astonishing degree, as Moscow would not send a plane all the way to Yenan for nothing. Furthermore, strange things happened to the Russians in Yenan around now. Their radio station was wrecked, apparently sabotaged. Their dogs, which they had brought to provide security and an alarm system — as well as protection against wolves — were shot. Mao dared to do all this because he knew he was the victor, and that Stalin needed him and was committed to him. It was during this same period that Stalin told the Americans, on 30 October 1943, he would eventually enter the war against Japan. Russian arms supplies to Mao were greatly stepped up.
When Dimitrov cabled Mao again on 17 November about getting Wang Ming to Russia, Mao did not respond. And when Dimitrov wrote to Wang Ming on 13 December it was in an unmistakably sad tone. After saying that Wang Ming’s daughter, whom the Dimitrovs had adopted, was well, Dimitrov went on resignedly: “As regards your Party matters, try to settle them yourselves. It is not expedient to intervene from here for now.”
But Stalin clearly decided that Mao should be served a warning. Shortly afterwards, on 22 December, he authorized Dimitrov to send a most unusual telegram, in which he told Mao:
Needless to say, after the disbanding of the Comintern, its leaders … can no longer intervene in the internal affairs of the CCP. But … I cannot help offering a few words about my worries caused by the situation in the CCP … I think the policy of curtailing the struggle against the foreign occupiers is politically wrong, and the current action to depart from the national united front is also wrong …
Saying that he had “suspicions” about Mao’s intelligence chief, Kang Sheng, whom he described as “helping the enemy,” Dimitrov told Mao that “the campaign conducted to incriminate” Wang Ming (and Chou En-lai) was “wrong.”
Dimitrov opened the telegram with a very pointed passage about An-ying:
Regarding your son. I have arranged for him to be enrolled in the Military-Political Academy … He is a talented young man, so I have no doubt that you will find in him a reliable and good assistant. He sends his regards.
Dimitrov did not say a word about An-ying’s long-overdue return to China. And mentioning him in one breath with Wang Ming was the clearest possible way of saying to Mao that his own son was a hostage, just as Chiang Kai-shek’s had been.
WHEN VLADIMIROV translated Dimitrov’s cable to him on 2 January 1944, Mao’s immediate reaction was one of defiance. He wrote an answer there and then. It was a blunt, point-by-point retort:
To Comrade Dimitrov,
1. We have not curtailed the anti-Japanese struggle. On the contrary …
2. Our line as regards collaboration with the [Nationalists] remains unchanged …
3. Our relations with Chou En-lai are good. We are not going to cut him off from the Party at all. Chou En-lai has made great progress.
4. Wang Ming has been engaged in various anti-Party activities …
5. I assure you and can guarantee that the Chinese Communist Party loves and highly respects Comrade Stalin and the Soviet Union …
6. … Wang Ming is not trustworthy. He was once arrested in Shanghai. Several people have said that when he was in prison he admitted to being a member of the Communist Party. He was released after this. There has also been talk about his suspicious connections with Mif [purged in Russia] …
Kang Sheng is a trustworthy man …
Mao Tse-tung
Mao was an impulsive man, but he usually held his impulses at bay. He once told staff who commented on his “unruffled calm” and “impeccable self-control”: “It’s not that I am not angry. Sometimes I am so angry I feel my lungs are bursting. But I know I must control myself, and not show anything.”
Mao’s hair-trigger reaction on this occasion was uncharacteristic. The reason he exploded was not that he cared so much for his son, but because this was the first time Moscow tried to blackmail him. But he instantly regretted his eruption. He could not afford to offend Moscow, especially now that the tide had turned against Germany, and Russia was likely to move against Japan soon — and sweep him to power.
Next day, Mao told Vladimirov he “had given much thought” to Dimitrov’s telegram, and asked if his answer had been sent. If not, “he certainly would change its content.”
But the cable had gone off, and over the following days a visibly anxious Mao set out to woo Vladimirov. On 4 January, he invited Vladimirov to an operatic show, and “immediately began speaking of his respect for the Soviet Union … and I. V. Stalin … Mao said he sincerely respected the Chinese comrades who had received education or worked in the USSR …” Next day, Mao called on Vladimirov again: “apparently he understands,” Vladimirov noted, “that the telegram he sent to Dimitrov on January 2 was rude and ill-considered.” On the 6th, Mao threw a dinner for the Russians: “Everything was ceremonious, friendly and … servile.” The following day, Mao came alone to Vladimirov’s place at 9:00 AM — for him, the middle of the night. “Suddenly,” Mao “began to speak of Wang Ming — in an entirely different, almost friendly tone!” At the end, Mao sat down and wrote another telegram to Dimitrov, and asked Vladimirov to “tick it out” at once. “Mao looked perturbed, his gestures betraying tension and nervousness … He looked extremely tired, as if he hadn’t had a minute’s sleep.”
The tone of the second telegram was groveling:
I sincerely thank you for the instructions you gave me. I shall study them thoroughly … and take measures according to them … Regarding inner-Party questions, our policy is aimed at unity. The same policy will be conducted towards Wang Ming … I ask you to rest assured. All your thoughts, all your feelings are close to my heart …
Mao then paid Wang Ming two long visits.
Dimitrov wrote on 25 February saying that he was particularly pleased by Mao’s second (groveling) telegram. This and subsequent missives had a we-can-work-together tone.
On 28 March, Mao asked Vladimirov to send a telegram to his son An-ying. It told him not to think about returning to China. Mao, it said, was “very happy about his successes in his studies.” Mao asked his son “not to worry about his [Mao’s] health. He feels well.” He asked An-ying to convey “warm greetings” to Manuilsky and Dimitrov, who, Mao said, “have assisted … the Chinese revolution. It is to them that Chinese comrades and their children owe their education in [Russia], their upbringing and maintenance.”
This was Mao saying to Moscow: I accept you keeping An-ying as a hostage. With this understanding, An-ying remained in Russia.
Dimitrov meanwhile told Wang Ming to compromise. While protesting that the rift was not his fault, a helpless Wang Ming promised to work with Mao, but asked Moscow to try to restrain him.
The result was a stand-off, but very much in Mao’s favor. Mao was allowed to keep Wang Ming in Yenan, and do what he wanted with him, including vilifying him, so long as he did not kill him. In fact, vilification of Wang Ming was a major activity in the Yenan terror campaign from 1942. Endless indoctrination sessions were held to blacken his name among Party members. At one rally denouncing him in absentia (Mao made su
re that Wang Ming was kept well away from the Party cadres), Wang Ming’s wife managed to get onto the stage and say the accusations were untrue. She asked for Wang Ming to be fetched to clarify the facts. As no one stirred, she threw herself at Mao, sobbing loudly, clinging to his legs and asking him to be just. Mao sat there, unmoved as a stone.
By the end of the campaign, it was established in people’s minds that Wang Ming was Party Enemy No. 1, and he was in no position thereafter to challenge Mao’s supremacy — even though Mao still saw him as a threat, because he remained unbroken. Five years later another attempt was made on his life.
WHILE EMPLOYING poisoning to tackle Wang Ming, in 1943 Mao also turned on Chou En-lai. This was in spite of the fact that Chou had collaborated in quite a bit of Mao’s dirty work, not least in letting Tse-min be killed, and in preventing his old friend Wang Ming from getting out to Moscow for treatment.
Mao, however, wanted more than just slavish deference. He wanted Chou thoroughly scared and broken. The terror campaign in 1942–43 threatened to condemn Chou as the big spy chief. In fact, it was partly to frame Chou that Mao invented the charge that most Communist organizations in Nationalist areas were spies for Chiang, because Chou was in charge of these organizations. In order to have Chou on the spot in Yenan and put him through the terror mill, Mao sent menacing cables ordering him back from Chongqing. One, on 15 June 1943, read: “Don’t linger … to avoid people talking.” And when Chou came back in July the first thing Mao said to his face was a warning: “Don’t leave your heart in the enemy camp!” Chou panicked, and responded with fulsome fawning, singing Mao’s praises at length at his “welcome” party. Then, in November, he bashed himself for five days in front of the Politburo, saying he had “committed extremely big crimes,” been “an accomplice” to Wang Ming, and had “the character of a slave”—for the wrong master, of course. He told larger Party audiences that he and other leaders had been disasters, and that it was Mao who had saved the Party from them. Thoroughly tamed, Chou became a self-abasing slave to Mao for more than three decades, until almost his last breath.