Red Star over China

by Edgar Snow

  “After the forces of our army combined at Chingkangshan there was a reorganization, the famous Fourth Red Army was created, and Chu Teh was made commander, while I became political commissar. More troops arrived at Chingkangshan after uprisings and mutinies in Ho Chien’s army, in the winter of 1928, and out of these emerged the Fifth Red Army, commanded by P’ng Teh-huai.† In addition to P’ng there were Teng P’ing, killed at Tsunyi, Kweichow, during the Long March, Huang Kuo-nu, killed in Kwangsi in 1931, and T’ien Teh-yuan.

  “Conditions on the mountain, with the arrival of so many troops, were becoming very bad. The troops had no winter uniforms, and food was extremely scarce. For months we lived practically on squash. The soldiers shouted a slogan of their own: ‘Down with capitalism, and eat squash!’—for to them capitalism meant landlords and the landlords’ squash. Leaving P’eng Teh-huai at Chingkangshan, Chu Teh broke through the blockade established by the White troops, and in January, 1929, our first sojourn on the embattled mountain ended.

  “The Fourth Army now began a campaign through the south of Kiangsi which rapidly developed successfully. We established a soviet in Tungku, and there met and united with local Red troops. Dividing forces, we continued into Yungting, Shangheng, and Lung Yen, and established soviets in all those counties. The existence of militant mass movements prior to the arrival of the Red Army assured our success, and helped to consolidate soviet power on a stable basis very quickly. The influence of the Red Army now extended, through the agrarian mass movement and partisans, to several other hsien, but the Communists did not fully take power there until later on.

  “Conditions in the Red Army began to improve, both materially and politically, but there were still many bad tendencies. ‘Partisanism,’ for example, was a weakness reflected in lack of discipline, exaggerated ideas of democracy, and looseness of organization. Another tendency that had to be fought was ‘vagabondage’—a disinclination to settle down to the serious tasks of government, a love of movement, change, new experience and incident. There were also remnants of militarism, with some of the commanders maltreating or even beating the men, and discriminating against those they disliked personally, while showing favoritism to others.

  “Many of the weaknesses were overcome after the convening of the Ninth Party Conference of the Fourth Red Army, held in west Fukien [at Ku-t’ien]6 in December, 1929. Ideas for improvements were discussed, many misunderstandings leveled out, and new plans were adopted, which laid the foundations for a high type of ideological leadership in the Red Army. Prior to this the tendencies already described were very serious, and were utilized by a Trotskyist faction in the Party and military leadership to undermine the strength of the movement. A vigorous struggle was now begun against them, and several were deprived of their Party positions and army command. Of these Liu En-k’ang, an army commander, was typical. It was found that they intended to destroy the Red Army by leading it into difficult positions in battles with the enemy, and after several unsuccessful encounters their plans became quite evident. They bitterly attacked our program and everything we advocated. Experience having shown their errors, they were eliminated from responsible positions and after the Fukien Conference lost their influence.

  “This conference prepared the way for the establishment of the soviet power in Kiangsi. The following year was marked with some brilliant successes. Nearly the whole of southern Kiangsi fell to the Red Army. The base of the central soviet regions had been established.

  “On February 7, 1930, an important local Party conference was called in south Kiangsi to discuss the future program of the soviets. It was attended by local representatives from the Party, the army, and the government. Here the question of the land policy was argued at great length, and the struggle against ‘opportunism,’ led by those opposed to redistribution, was overcome. It was resolved to carry out land redistribution and quicken the formation of soviets. Until then the Red Army had formed only local and district soviets. At this conference it was decided to establish the Kiangsi Provincial Soviet Government. To the new program the peasants responded with a warm, enthusiastic support which helped, in the months ahead, to defeat the extermination campaigns of the Kuomintang armies.”

  6

  Growth of the Red Army

  Mao Tse-tung’s account had begun to pass out of the category of “personal history,” and to sublimate itself somehow intangibly in the career of a great movement in which, though he retained a dominant role, you could not see him clearly as a personality. It was no longer “I” but “we”; no longer Mao Tse-tung, but the Red Army; no longer a subjective impression of the experiences of a single life, but an objective record by a bystander concerned with the mutations of collective human destiny as the material of history.

  As his story drew to a close it became more and more necessary for me to interrogate him about himself. What was he doing at that time? What office did he hold then? What was his attitude in this or that situation? And my questioning, generally, evoked such references as there are to himself in this last chapter of the narrative:

  “Gradually the Red Army’s work with the masses improved, discipline strengthened, and a new technique in organization developed. The peasantry everywhere began to volunteer to help the revolution. As early as Chingkangshan the Red Army had imposed three simple rules of discipline upon its fighters, and these were: prompt obedience to orders; no confiscations whatever from the poor peasantry; and prompt delivery directly to the government, for its disposal, of all goods confiscated from the landlords. After the 1928 Conference [second Maoping Conference] emphatic efforts to enlist the support of the peasantry were made, and eight rules were added to the three listed above. These were as follows:

  “1. Replace all doors when you leave a house;*

  “2. Return and roll up the straw matting on which you sleep;

  “3. Be courteous and polite to the people and help them when you can;

  “4. Return all borrowed articles;

  “5. Replace all damaged articles;

  “6. Be honest in all transactions with the peasants;

  “7. Pay for all articles purchased;

  “8. Be sanitary, and, especially, establish latrines a safe distance from people’s houses.

  “The last two rules were added by Lin Piao. These eight points were enforced with better and better success, and today are still the code of the Red soldier, memorized and frequently repeated by him.† Three other duties were taught to the Red Army, as its primary purpose: first, to struggle to the death against the enemy; second, to arm the masses; third, to raise money to support the struggle.

  “Early in 1929 several groups of partisans under Li Wen-lung and Li Shao-tsu were reorganized into the Third Red Army, commanded by Wang Kung-lu, and with Ch’en Yi as political commissar. During the same period, part of Chu Pei-teh’s min-t’uan mutinied and joined the Red Army. They were led to the Communist camp by a Kuomintang commander, Lo P’ing-hui,‡ who was disillusioned about the Kuomintang and wanted to join the Red Army. He is now commander of the Thirty-second Red Army of the Second Front Army. From the Fukien partisans and nucleus of regular Red troops the Twelfth Red Army was created under the command of Wu Chung-hao, with T’an Chen-lin as political commissar. Wu was later killed in battle and replaced by Lo P’ing-hui.

  “It was at this time that the First Army Corps was organized, with Chu Teh as commander and myself as political commissar. It was composed of the Third Army, the Fourth Army commanded by Lin Piao, and the Twelfth Army, under Lo P’ing-hui. Party leadership was vested in a Front Committee, of which I was chairman. There were already more than 10,000 men in the First Army Corps then, organized into ten divisions. Besides this main force, there were many local and independent regiments, Red Guards and partisans.

  “Red tactics, apart from the political basis of the movement, explained much of the successful military development. At Chingkangshan four slogans had been adopted, and these give the clue to the methods of partisan war
fare used, out of which the Red Army grew. The slogans were:

  “1. When the enemy advances, we retreat!

  “2. When the enemy halts and encamps, we trouble them!

  “3. When the enemy seeks to avoid a battle, we attack!

  “4. When the enemy retreats, we pursue!

  “These slogans [of four characters each in Chinese] were at first opposed by many experienced military men, who did not agree with the type of tactics advocated. But much experience proved that the tactics were correct. Whenever the Red Army departed from them, in general, it did not succeed. Our forces were small, exceeded from ten to twenty times by the enemy; our resources and fighting materials were limited, and only by skillfully combining the tactics of maneuvering and guerrilla warfare could we hope to succeed in our struggle against the Kuomintang, fighting from vastly richer and superior bases.

  “The most important single tactic of the Red Army was, and remains, its ability to concentrate its main forces in the attack, and swiftly divide and separate them afterwards. This implied that positional warfare was to be avoided, and every effort made to meet the living forces of the enemy while in movement, and destroy them. On the basis of these tactics the mobility and the swift, powerful ‘short attack’ of the Red Army was developed.*

  “In expanding soviet areas in general the program of the Red Army favored a wavelike or tidal development, rather than an uneven advance, gained by ‘leaps’ or ‘jumps,’ and without deep consolidation in the territories gained. The policy was pragmatic, just as were the tactics already described, and grew out of many years of collective military and political experience. These tactics were severely criticized by Li Li-san, who advocated the concentration of all weapons in the hands of the Red Army, and the absorption of all partisan groups. He wanted attacks rather than consolidation; advances without securing the rear; sensational assaults on big cities, accompanied by uprisings and extremism. The Li Li-san line dominated the Party then—outside soviet areas—and was sufficiently influential to force acceptance, to some extent, in the Red Army, against the judgment of its field command. One result of it was the attack on Changsha and another was the advance on Nanchang. But the Red Army refused to immobilize its partisan groups and open up its rear to the enemy during these adventures.

  “In the autumn of 1929 the Red Army moved into northern Kiangsi, attacking and occupying many cities, and inflicting numerous defeats on Kuomintang armies. When within striking distance of Nanchang the First Army Corps turned sharply west and moved on Changsha. In this drive it met and joined forces with P’eng Teh-huai, who had already occupied Changsha once, but had been forced to withdraw to avoid being surrounded by vastly superior enemy troops. P’eng had been obliged to leave Chingkangshan in April, 1929, and had carried out operations in southern Kiangsi, resulting in greatly increasing his troops. He rejoined Chu Teh and the main forces of the Red Army at Juichin in April, 1930, and after a conference it was decided that P’eng’s Third Army should operate on the Kiangsi-Hunan border, while Chu Teh and I moved into Fukien. It was in June, 1930, that the Third Army and the First Army corps re-established a junction and began the second attack on Changsha. The First and Third Army corps were combined into the First Front Army, with Chu Teh as commander-in-chief and myself as political commissar. Under this leadership we arrived outside the walls of Changsha.

  “The Chinese Workers’ and Peasants’ Revolutionary Committee was organized about this time, and I was elected chairman. The Red Army’s influence in Hunan was widespread, almost as much so as in Kiangsi. My name was known among the Hunanese peasants, for big rewards were offered for my capture, dead or alive, as well as for Chu Teh and other Reds. My land* in Hsiang T’an was confiscated by the Kuomintang. My wife and my sister, as well as the wives of my two brothers, Mao Tse-min and Mao Tse-t’an,† and my own sons were all arrested by Ho Chien [the warlord governor]. My wife (K’ai-hui) and my sister (Tse-hung) were executed.1 The others were later released. The prestige of the Red Army even extended to my own village, in Hsiang T’an, for I heard the tale that the local peasants believed that I would be soon returning to my native home. When one day an airplane passed overhead, they decided it was I. They warned the man who was then tilling my land that I had come back to look over my old farm, to see whether or not any trees had been cut. If so, I would surely demand compensation from Chiang Kai-shek, they said.

  “But the second attack on Changsha proved to be a failure. Great reinforcements had been sent to the city and it was heavily garrisoned; besides, new troops were pouring into Hunan in September to attack the Red Army. Only one important battle occurred during the siege, and in it the Red Army eliminated two brigades of enemy troops. It could not, however, take the city of Changsha, and after a few weeks withdrew to Kiangsi.2

  “This failure helped to destroy the Li Li-san line and saved the Red Army from what would probably have been a catastrophic attack on Wuhan, which Li was demanding. The main tasks of the Red Army then were the recruiting of new troops, the sovietization of new rural areas, and, above all, the consolidation under thorough soviet power of such areas as already had fallen to the Red Army. For such a program the attacks on Changsha were not necessary and had an element of adventure in them. Had the first occupation been undertaken as a temporary action, however, and not with the idea of attempting to hold the city and set up a state power there, its effects might have been considered beneficial, for the reaction produced on the national revolutionary movement was very great. The error was a strategic and tactical one, in attempting to make a base of Changsha while the soviet power was still not consolidated behind it.”

  To interrupt Mao’s narrative for a moment: Li Li-san was a Hunanese and a returned student from France. He divided time in Shanghai and Hankow, where the Communist Party had “underground” headquarters—only after 1930 was the Central Committee transferred to the soviet districts. Li dominated the Chinese Party from 1929 to 1930, when he was removed from the Politburo and sent to Moscow. Like Ch’en Tu-hsiu, Li Li-san lacked faith in the rural soviets, and urged that strong aggressive tactics be adopted against strategic big capitals like Changsha, Wuhan, and Nan-chang. He wanted a “terror” in the villages to demoralize the gentry, a “mighty offensive” by the workers, risings and strikes to paralyze the enemy in his bases, and “flank attacks” in the north, from Outer Mongolia and Manchuria, backed by the U.S.S.R.*

  To continue:

  “But Li Li-san overestimated both the military strength of the Red Army at that time and the revolutionary factors in the national political scene. He believed that the revolution was nearing success and would shortly have power over the entire country. This belief was encouraged by the long and exhausting civil war then proceeding between Feng Yu-hsiang and Chiang Kai-shek, which made the outlook seem highly favorable to Li Li-san. But in the opinion of the Red Army the enemy was making preparations for a great drive against the soviets as soon as the civil war was concluded, and it was no time for possibly disastrous putsch-ism and adventures. This estimate proved to be entirely correct.

  “With the events in Hunan, the Red Army’s return to Kiangsi, and especially after the capture of Kian, ‘Lilisanism’ was overcome in the army; and Li himself, proved to have been in error, soon lost his influence in the Party. There was, however, a critical period in the army before ‘Lilisanism’ was definitely buried. Part of the Third Corps favored following out Li’s line, and demanded the separation of the Third Corps from the rest of the army. P’eng Teh-huai fought vigorously against this tendency, however, and succeeded in maintaining the unity of the forces under his command and their loyalty to the high command. But the Twentieth Army, led by Liu Teh-ch’ao, rose in open revolt, arrested the chairman of the Kiangsi Soviet, arrested many officers and officials, and attacked us politically, on the basis of the Li Li-san line.3 This occurred at Fu T’ien and is known as the Fu T’ien Incident. Fu T’ien being near Kian, then the heart of the soviet districts, the events produced a sen
sation, and to many it must have seemed that the fate of the revolution depended on the outcome of this struggle. However, the revolt was quickly suppressed, due to the loyalty of the Third Army, to the general solidarity of the Party and the Red troops, and to the support of the peasantry. Liu Teh-ch’ao was arrested, and other rebels disarmed and liquidated. Our line was reaffirmed, ‘Lilisanism’ was definitely suppressed, and as a result the soviet movement subsequently scored great gains.

  “But Nanking was now thoroughly aroused to the revolutionary potentialities of the soviets in Kiangsi, and at the end of 1930 began its First Extermination Campaign* against the Red Army. Enemy forces totaling over 100,000 men began an encirclement of the Red areas, penetrating by five routes, under the chief command of Lu Ti-p’ing. Against these troops the Red Army was then able to mobilize a total of about 40,000 men. By skillful use of maneuvering warfare we met and overcame this First Campaign, with great victories. Following out the tactics of swift concentration and swift dispersal, we attacked each unit separately, using our main forces. Admitting the enemy troops deeply into soviet territory, we staged sudden concentrated attacks, in superior numbers, on isolated units of the Kuomintang troops, achieving positions of maneuver in which, momentarily, we could encircle them, thus reversing the general strategic advantage enjoyed by a numerically greatly superior enemy.

  “By January, 1931, this First Campaign had been completely defeated. I believe that this would not have been possible except for three conditions achieved by the Red Army just before its commencement. First, the consolidation of the First and Third Army corps under a centralized command; second, the liquidation of the Li Li-san line; and third, the triumph of the Party over the anti-Bolshevik (Liu Teh-ch’ao) faction and other active counterrevolutionaries within the Red Army and in the soviet districts.