by Edgar Snow
“My own living conditions in Peking were quite miserable, and in contrast the beauty of the old capital was a vivid and living compensation. I stayed in a place called San Yen-ching [“Three-Eyes Well”], in a little room which held seven other people. When we were all packed fast on the k’ang there was scarcely room enough for any of us to breathe. I used to have to warn people on each side of me when I wanted to turn over. But in the parks and the old palace grounds I saw the early northern spring, I saw the white plum blossoms flower while the ice still held solid over Pei Hai [“the North Sea”].† I saw the willows over Pei Hai with the ice crystals hanging from them and remembered the description of the scene by the T’ang poet Chen Chang, who wrote about Pei Hai’s winter-jeweled trees looking ‘like ten thousand peach trees blossoming.’ The innumerable trees of Peking aroused my wonder and admiration.
“Early in 1919 I went to Shanghai with the students bound for France. I had a ticket only to Tientsin, and I did not know how I was to get any farther. But, as the Chinese proverb says, ‘Heaven will not delay a traveler,’ and a fortunate loan of ten yuan from a fellow student, who had got some money from the Auguste Comte School in Peking, enabled me to buy a ticket as far as P’u-k’ou. On the way to Nanking I stopped at Ch’u Fu and visited Confucius’ grave. I saw the small stream where Confucius’ disciples bathed their feet and the little town where the sage lived as a child. He is supposed to have planted a famous tree near the historic temple dedicated to him, and I saw that. I also stopped by the river where Yen Hui, one of Confucius’ famous disciples, had once lived, and I saw the birthplace of Mencius. On this trip I climbed T’ai Shan, the sacred mountain of Shantung, where General Feng Yu-hsiang retired and wrote his patriotic scrolls.
“But when I reached P’u-k’ou I was again without a copper, and without a ticket. Nobody had any money to lend me; I did not know how I was to get out of town. But the worst of the tragedy happened when a thief stole my only pair of shoes! Ai-ya! What was I to do? But again, ‘Heaven will not delay a traveler,’ and I had a very good piece of luck. Outside the railway station I met an old friend from Hunan, and he proved to be my ‘good angel.’ He lent me money for a pair of shoes, and enough to buy a ticket to Shanghai. Thus I safely completed my journey—keeping an eye on my new shoes. At Shanghai I found that a good sum had been raised to help send the students to France, and an allowance had been provided to help me return to Hunan. I saw my friends off on the steamer and then set out for Changsha.
“During my first trip to the North, as I remember it, I made these excursions:
“I walked around the lake of T’ung Ting, and I circled the wall of Paotingfu. I walked on the ice of the Gulf of Pei Hai. I walked around the wall of Hsuchou, famous in the San Kuo [Three Kingdoms], and around Nanking’s wall, also famous in history. Finally I climbed T’ai Shan and visited Confucius’ grave. These seemed to me then achievements worth adding to my adventures and walking tours in Hunan.
“When I returned to Changsha I took a more direct role in politics. After the May Fourth Movement* I had devoted most of my time to student political activities, and I was editor of the Hsiang River Review, the Hunan students’ paper, which had a great influence on the student movement in South China. In Changsha I helped found the Wen-hua Shu-hui [Cultural Book Society], an association for study of modern cultural and political tendencies. This society, and more especially the Hsin-min Hsueh-hui, were violently opposed to Chang Ching-yao, then tuchun of Hunan, and a vicious character. We led a general student strike against Chang, demanding his removal, and sent delegations to Peking and the Southwest, where Sun Yat-sen was then active, to agitate against him. In retaliation for the students’ opposition, Chang Ching-yao suppressed the Hsiang River Review.
“After this I went to Peking, to represent the New People’s Study Society and organize an antimilitarist movement there. The society broadened its fight against Chang Ching-yao into a general antimilitarist agitation, and I became head of a news agency to promote this work. In Hunan the movement was rewarded with some success. Chang Ching-yao was overthrown by T’an Yen-k’ai, and a new regime was established in Changsha. About this time the society began to divide into two groups, a right and left wing—the left wing insisting on a program of far-reaching social and economic and political changes.
“I went to Shanghai for the second time in 1919. There once more I saw Ch’en Tu-hsiu.* I had first met him in Peking, when I was at Peking National University, and he had influenced me perhaps more than anyone else. I also met Hu Shih at that time, having called on him to try to win his support for the Hunanese students’ struggle. In Shanghai I discussed with Ch’en Tu-hsiu our plans for a League for Reconstruction of Hunan. Then I returned to Changsha and began to organize it. I took a place as a teacher there, meanwhile continuing my activity in the New People’s Study Society. The society had a program then for the ‘independence’ of Hunan, meaning, really, autonomy. Disgusted with the Northern Government, and believing that Hunan could modernize more rapidly if freed from connections with Peking, our group agitated for separation. I was then a strong supporter of America’s Monroe Doctrine and the Open Door.
“T’an Yen-k’ai was driven out of Hunan by a militarist called Chao Heng-t’i, who utilized the ‘Hunan independence’ movement for his own ends. He pretended to support it, advocating the idea of a United Autonomous States of China, but as soon as he got power he suppressed the democratic movement with great energy. Our group had demanded equal rights for men and women, and representative government, and in general approval of a platform for a bourgeois democracy. We openly advocated these reforms in our paper, the New Hunan. We led an attack on the provincial parliament, the majority of whose members were landlords and gentry appointed by the militarists. This struggle ended in our pulling down the scrolls and banners, which were full of nonsensical and extravagant phrases.
“The attack on the parliament was considered a big incident in Hunan, and frightened the rulers. However, when Chao Heng-t’i seized control he betrayed all the ideas he had supported, and especially he violently suppressed all demands for democracy. Our society therefore turned the struggle against him. I remember an episode in 1920, when the Hsin-min Hsueh-hui organized a demonstration to celebrate the third anniversary of the Russian October Revolution. It was suppressed by the police. Some of the demonstrators had attempted to raise the Red flag at that meeting, but were prohibited from doing so by the police. The demonstrators pointed out that, according to Article 12 of the Constitution, the people had the right to assemble, organize, and speak, but the police were not impressed. They replied that they were not there to be taught the Constitution, but to carry out the orders of the governor, Chao Heng-t’i. From this time on I became more and more convinced that only mass political power, secured through mass action, could guarantee the realization of dynamic reforms.*
“In the winter of 1920 I organized workers politically for the first time, and began to be guided in this by the influence of Marxist theory and the history of the Russian Revolution. During my second visit to Peking I had read much about the events in Russia, and had eagerly sought out what little Communist literature was then available in Chinese. Three books especially deeply carved my mind, and built up in me a faith in Marxism, from which, once I had accepted it as the correct interpretation of history, I did not afterwards waver. These books were the Communist Manifesto, translated by Ch’en Wang-tao and the first Marxist book ever published in Chinese; Class Struggle, by Kautsky; and a History of Socialism, by Kirkup. By the summer of 1920 I had become, in theory and to some extent in action, a Marxist, and from this time on I considered myself a Marxist. In the same year I married Yang K’ai-hui.”†
4
The Nationalist Period
Mao was now a Marxist but not a Communist, because as yet there did not exist in China an organized Communist Party. As early as 1919 Ch’en Tu-hsiu had established contact with the Comintern through Russians living in Peking, as h
ad Li Ta-chao. It was not until the spring of 1920 that Gregori Voitinsky, an authorized representative of the Communist International, reached Peking, in the company of Yang Ming-chai, a member of the Russian Communist Party who acted as his interpreter. They conferred with Li Ta-chao and probably also met members of Li’s Society for the Study of Marxist Theory. In the same year the energetic and persuasive Jahn Henricus Sneevliet,1 a Dutch agent of the Third International—Ti-san Kuo-chi, in Chinese—came to Shanghai for talks with Ch’en Tu-hsiu, who was conferring with serious Chinese Marxists there. It was Ch’en who, in May, 1920, summoned a conference that organized a nuclear Communist group. Some members of it became (with Li Ta-chao’s group in Peking, another group set up in Canton by Ch’en, groups in Shantung and Hupeh, and Mao’s group in Hunan) conveners of a Shanghai conference the following year that (with the help of Voitinsky) summoned the first Chinese Communist Party congress.
When one remembered, in 1937, that the Chinese Communist Party was still an adolescent in years, its achievements could be regarded as not inconsiderable. It was the strongest Communist Party in the world, outside of Russia, and the only one, with the same exception, that could boast an army of its own.
Another night, and Mao carried on his narrative:
“In May of 1921 I went to Shanghai to attend the founding meeting of the Communist Party. In its organization the leading roles were played by Ch’en Tu-hsiu and Li Ta-chao, both of whom were among the most brilliant intellectual leaders of China. Under Li Ta-chao, as assistant librarian at Peking National University, I had rapidly developed toward Marxism, and Ch’en Tu-hsiu had been instrumental in my interests in that direction too. I had discussed with Ch’en, on my second visit to Shanghai, the Marxist books that I had read, and Ch’en’s own assertions of belief had deeply impressed me at what was probably a critical period of my life.
“There was only one other Hunanese* at that historic meeting [the First National Congress of the Party] in Shanghai. Others present were Chang Kuo-t’ao, now vice-chairman of the Red Army military council; Pao Hui-sheng; and Chou Fu-hai.2 Altogether there were twelve of us. In Shanghai [those elected to] the Central Committee of the Party included Ch’en Tu-hsiu, Chang Kuo-t’ao, Ch’en Kung-po, Shih Tseng-tung (now a Nanking official), Sun Yuan-lu, Li Han-chun (killed† in Wuhan in 1927), Li Ta,+ and Li Sun (later executed). The following October the first provincial branch of the Party was organized in Hunan and I became a member of it. Organizations were also established in other provinces and cities. Members in Hupeh included Tung Pl-wu‡ (now chairman of the Communist Party School in Pao An), Hsu Pai-hao, and Shih Yang (executed in 1923). In the Shensi Party were Kao Chung-yu (Kao Kang‡) and some famous student leaders. In [the Party branch of] Peking were Li Ta-chao (executed, with nineteen other Peking Communists, in 1927), Teng Chung-hsia (executed by Chiang Kai-shek in 1934), Lo Chung-lun, Liu Jen-ching (now a Trotskyite), and others. In Canton were Lin Po-chu (Lin Tsu-han), now Commissioner of Finance in the Soviet Government, and P’eng P’ai‡ (executed in 1929). Wang Chun-mei and Teng En-ming were among the founders of the Shantung branch.
“Meanwhile, in France, a Chinese Communist Party§ had been organized by many of the worker-students there, and its founding was almost simultaneous with the beginning of the organization in China. Among the founders of the Party [CYL] there were Chou En-lai, Li Li-san, and Hsiang Ching-wu, the wife of Ts’ai Ho-sen. Lo Man (Li Wei-han) and Ts’ai Ho-sen were also founders of the French branch. A Chinese Party was organized in Germany, but this was somewhat later; among its members were Kao Yu-han, Chu Teh (now commander-in-chief of the Red Army), and Chang Sheng-fu (now a professor at Tsinghua University). In Moscow the founders of the branch were Ch’u Ch’iu-pai* and others, and in Japan there was Chou Fu-hai.
“In May, 1922, the Hunan Party, of which I was then secretary, † had already organized more than twenty trade unions among miners, railway workers, municipal employees, printers, and workers in the government mint. A vigorous labor movement began that winter. The work of the Communist Party was then concentrated mainly on students and workers, and very little was done among the peasants. Most of the big mines were organized, and virtually all the students. There were numerous struggles on both the students’ and workers’ fronts. In the winter of 1922, Chao Heng-t’i, civil governor of Hunan, ordered the execution of two Hunanese workers, Huang Ai and Pang Yuan-ch’ing, and as a result a widespread agitation began against him. Huang Ai, one of the two workers killed, was a leader of the right-wing labor movement, which had its base in the industrial-school students and was opposed to us, but we supported them in this case, and in many other struggles. Anarchists were also influential in the trade unions, which were then organized into an All-Hunan Labor Syndicate. But we compromised and through negotiation prevented many hasty and useless actions by them.
“I was sent to Shanghai to help organize the movement against Chao Heng-t’i. The Second Congress of the Party was convened in Shanghai that winter [1922], and I intended to attend. However, I forgot the name of the place where it was to be held, could not find any comrades, and missed it. I returned to Hunan and vigorously pushed the work among the labor unions. That spring there were many strikes for better wages and better treatment and recognition of the labor unions. Most of these were successful. On May 1, a general strike was called in Hunan, and this marked the achievement of unprecedented strength in the labor movement of China.
“The Third Congress of the Communist Party was held in Canton in [May] 1923 and the historic decision was reached to enter the Kuomintang, cooperate with it, and create a united front against the northern militarists.3 I went to Shanghai and worked in the Central Committee of the Party. Next spring [1924] I went to Canton and attended the First National Congress of the Kuomintang. In March, I returned to Shanghai and combined my work in the executive bureau [Central Committee] of the Communist Party with membership in the executive bureau [Central Executive Committee] of the Kuomintang of Shanghai. The other members of this bureau then were Wang Ching-wei* (later premier at Nanking) and Hu Han-min, with whom I worked in coordinating the measures of the Communist Party and the Kuomintang. That summer the Whampoa Military Academy was set up. Galin became its adviser, other Soviet advisers arrived from Russia, and the Kuomintang-Communist Party entente began to assume the proportions of a nationwide revolutionary movement. The following winter I returned to Hunan for a rest4—I had become ill in Shanghai—but while in Hunan I organized the nucleus of the great peasant movement of that province.
“Formerly I had not fully realized the degree of class struggle among the peasantry, but after the May 30th Incident [1925],† and during the great wave of political activity which followed it, the Hunanese peasantry became very militant. I left my home, where I had been resting, and began a rural organizational campaign. In a few months we had formed more than twenty peasant unions, and had aroused the wrath of the landlords, who demanded my arrest. Chao Heng-t’i sent troops after me, and I fled to Canton. I reached there just at the time the Whampoa students had defeated Yang Hsi-ming, the Yunnan militarist, and Lu Tsung-wai, the Kwangsi militarist, and an air of great optimism pervaded the city and the Kuomintang. Chiang Kai-shek had been made commander of the First Army and Wang Ching-wei chairman of the government, following the death of Sun Yat-sen in Peking.
“I became editor of the Political Weekly, a publication of the propaganda department of the Kuomintang [headed by Wang Ching-wei]. It later played a very active role in attacking and discrediting the right wing of the Kuomintang, led by T’ai Chi-t’ao. I was also put in charge of training organizers for the peasant movement [the Peasant Movement Training Institute‡], and established a course for this purpose which was attended by representatives from twenty-one different provinces, and included students from Inner Mongolia. Not long after my arrival in Canton I became chief of the agit-prop department of the Kuomintang, and candidate for the Central Committee. Lin Tsu-han was then chief of the peasant department of
the Kuomintang, and T’an P’ing-shan, another Communist, was chief of the workers’ department.
“I was writing more and more, and assuming special responsibilities in peasant work in the Communist Party. On the basis of my study and of my work in organizing the Hunan peasants, I wrote two pamphlets, one called Analysis of Classes in Chinese Society and the other called The Class Basis of Chao Heng-t’i, and the Tasks Before Us.5 Ch’en Tu-hsiu opposed the opinions expressed in the first one, which advocated a radical land policy and vigorous organization of the peasantry, under the Communist Party, and he refused it publication in the Communist central organs. It was later published in Chung-kuo Nung-min [The Chinese Peasant], of Canton, and in the magazine Chung-kuo Ch’ing-nien [Chinese Youth]. The second thesis was published as a pamphlet in Hunan. I began to disagree with Ch’en’s Right-opportunist policy about this time, and we gradually drew further apart, although the struggle between us did not come to a climax until 1927.
“I continued to work in the Kuomintang in Canton until about the time Chiang Kai-shek attempted his first coup d’état there in March, 1926. After the reconciliation of left- and right-wing Kuomintang and the reaffirmation of Kuomintang-Communist solidarity, I went to Shanghai, in the spring of 1926. The Second Congress of the Kuomintang was held in May of that year, under the leadership of Chiang Kai-shek.* In Shanghai I directed the Peasant Department of the Communist Party, and from there was sent to Hunan, as inspector of the peasant movement [for both the Kuomintang and the Communist Party].† Meanwhile, under the united front of the Kuomintang and the Communist Party, the historic Northern Expedition began in the autumn of 1926.
“In Hunan I inspected peasant organization and political conditions in five hsien—Changsha, Li Ling, Hsiang T’an, Hung Shan and Hsiang Hsiang—and made my report [Report on an Investigation into the Peasant Movement in Hunan6] to the Central Committee, urging the adoption of a new line in the peasant movement. Early next spring, when I reached Wuhan, an interprovincial meeting of peasants was held, and I attended it and discussed the proposals of my thesis, which carried recommendations for a widespread redistribution of land. At this meeting were P’eng P’ai, Fang Chih-min,* and two Russian Communists, Jolk [York?] and Volen, among others. A resolution was passed adopting my proposal for submission to the Fifth Congress of the Communist Party. The Central Committee, however, rejected it.