by Edgar Snow
Steps were taken at once to carry out the eight points. All orders for war against the Reds were canceled. More than four hundred political prisoners in Sianfu were released. Censorship of the press was removed, and all suppression of patriotic (anti-Japanese) organizations was lifted. Hundreds of students were freed to work among the populace, building united-front organizations in every class. They toured into the villages also, where they began to train and arm the farmers, politically and militarily. In the army the political workers conducted an unprecedented anti-Japanese campaign. Mass meetings were summoned almost daily.
But news of those happenings was suppressed outside the provinces of the Northwest. Editors who dared publish anything emanating from Sian, as even the highly respectable Ta Kung Pao pointed out, were threatened with instant arrest. Meanwhile Nanking’s propaganda machine threw out a smokescreen that further confused an already befuddled public. Dumfounded by the news, the government at Nanking first called a meeting of the Standing Committee (of the Central Executive Committee and the Central Political Council) of the Kuomintang, which promptly pronounced Chang Hsueh-liang a rebel, dismissed him from his posts, and demanded the release of the Generalissimo, failing which punitive operations would begin.
For three days few people knew whether Chiang Kai-shek was dead or alive—except the Associated Press, which flatly announced that Chang Hsueh-liang had described over the radio how and why he had killed him. Few people knew exactly what the rebels planned to do. Nanking cut all communications with the Northwest, and its papers and manifestoes were burned by the censors.
Hundreds of words were deleted from my own dispatches. I made several attempts to send out the eight demands of the Northwest—which might have helped a little to clarify the enigma for Western readers—but the censors let out not a word. Many of the foreign correspondents were themselves completely ignorant of recent happenings in the Northwest. While real news and facts were rigorously suppressed, the Kuomintang and its adherents released to the world some puerile lies which made China appear much more of a madhouse than it really was: The rebels had nailed the chief of police to the city gates; the Reds had occupied Sian, were looting the city and flying Red banners on the walls; Chang Hsueh-liang had been assassinated by his own men. Almost daily it was stated by Nanking that riots were taking place in Sian. The Reds were abducting young boys and girls. Women were being “communized.” The entire Tungpei and Hsipei armies had turned bandit. There was looting everywhere. Chang Hsueh-liang was demanding $80,000,000 ransom for the Generalissimo.*
Many of the wildest rumors circulated had their origin also with the Japanese press in China, and even with high Japanese officials. The Japanese were especially fertile with imaginary “eyewitness” reports of the “Red menace” in Sian. The Japanese also discovered Soviet Russian intrigue behind the coup. But they met their masters in propaganda in Moscow’s press. Izvestia and Pravda went so far in their official disclaimers of responsibility, denunciations of Chang Hsueh-liang, and hosannas to Chiang Kai-shek that they invented a story showing that the Sian affair was jointly inspired by the former Chinese premier, Wang Ching-wei, and “the Japanese imperialists”—a libel so antipodal to the facts that even the most reactionary press in China had not dared to suggest it, out of fear of ridicule. “Prevarication is permissible, gentlemen,” it was Lenin who once exclaimed, “but within limits!”
After the first week of Chiang’s captivity Nanking’s efforts to cork up the facts proved inadequate. Leaks occurred, and then big gaps. The eight-point program was widely published in the surreptitious press, and the public began to realize that the Northwest did not mean to make civil war, but to stop it. Sentiment slowly began to change from fear for the safety of an individual militarist into fear for the safety of the state. Civil war now could not save Chiang, but it might ruin China.
Intrigue for seizure of power had begun in Nanking with the news of Chiang’s capture. Ambitious War Minister Ho Ying-ch’in, closely affiliated with the pro-Japanese “political-science clique” of the Kuomintang, then in high office at Nanking—and against whom the eight-point program was primarily directed—was hot for a “punitive expedition.” In this General Ho was fully supported by the pro-Fascist Whampoa clique, the Blueshirts, the Wang Ching-wei (out-of-office) faction, the Western Hills group, the “C.C.” faction,† and Nanking’s German and Italian advisers. Their enemies said that they all saw in the situation an opportunity to seize power, relegating the liberal, pro-American, pro-British, pro-Russian, and united-front groups in the Kuomintang to political nonentity. General Ho mobilized twenty Nanking divisions and moved them toward the Honan-Shensi border. He sent squadrons of airplanes roaring over Sianfu, and made tentative thrusts at the rebels’ lines with his infantry. Some of the Nanking planes (anti-Japanese “fiftieth-birthday gifts” to the Generalissimo) experimentally bombed Weinan and Huahsien, inside the Shensi border, and reportedly killed a number of factory workers.
The big question now became this: whether Chiang Kai-shek could, even from his seat of captivity in Sian, still muster enough support in Nanking to prevent the outbreak of an exhausting war which was likely to mean his own political, if not physical, demise. In Nanking and Shanghai his brothers-in-law—T. V. Soong, chairman of the Central Bank of China, and H. H. Kung, acting premier—and Mme. Chiang rallied Chiang’s personal followers and worked frantically to prevent the more reactionary elements in Nanking from initiating an offensive in the name of an “anti-Communist punitive expedition.”
Meanwhile, swift changes of heart were taking place in Sian. Soon after his capture the Generalissimo had begun to realize that perhaps his worst “betrayers” were not in Sian but in Nanking. Contemplating this situation, Chiang Kai-shek must have decided that he did not choose to be the martyr over whose dead body General Ho Ying-ch’in or anybody else would climb to dictatorial power.
3
Chiang, Chang, and the Reds
China was no parliamentary democracy, but was ruled by party or individual dictators. Very often in politics it reverted to feudal practice. With the press completely stifled, and the populace disfranchised, there was but one effective way to censure Nanking, or alter its policies. That was by armed insurrection or armed demonstration, or what the Chinese call ping chien—“military persuasion”—a recognized tactic in Chinese political maneuver. Chang Hsueh-liang probably chose the most humane and direct method conceivable by which to achieve his purpose when he used direct action upon the head of the dictatorship. It cost a minimum loss of life, and a minimum of bloodshed. It was a feudal method, but the Marshal was dealing with a personality whose role in semifeudal politics he intuitively understood. Because the objective result of Chang’s action was to unite China to confront a national peril, most Chinese I knew came to regard Chang as a patriot.
Was Chiang Kai-shek’s life ever really in serious danger?
It appears that it was. Not from the Young Marshal, and not from the Reds. From Yang Hu-ch’eng, possibly. But most certainly from the radical younger officers of the Northeastern and Northwestern armies, from the discontented and mutinous soldiery, and from the organized and arming masses, all of whom demanded a voice in the disposal of the Premier. Resolutions passed by the young officers called for a mass trial of “Traitor” Chiang and all his staff. The mood of the army decidedly favored the Generalissimo’s immolation. Curiously enough, it fell to the lot of the Communists to persuade them that his life should be saved.
Communist policy throughout the Sian Incident was never clearly explained. Many people assumed that the Communists, in triumphant revenge for the decade of relentless war which Chiang Kai-shek had waged against them, would now demand his death. Many believed that they would use this opportunity to coalesce with the Tungpei and Hsipei armies, greatly enlarge their base, and challenge Nanking in a great new struggle for power. Instead, they not only urged a peaceful settlement, and the release of Chiang Kai-shek, but also his return to leadership in Nanki
ng. Even Mme. Chiang wrote that, “quite contrary to outside beliefs, they [the Reds] were not interested in detaining the Generalissimo.” But why not? Economically, politically, militarily, in every way, they really needed internal peace.1
“The victory of the Chinese national liberation movement,” said Mao Tse-tung, “will be part of the victory of world socialism, because to defeat imperialism in China means the destruction of one of its most powerful bases. If China wins its independence, the world revolution will progress very rapidly. If our country is subjugated by the enemy, we shall lose everything. For a people being deprived of its national freedom, the revolutionary task is not immediate socialism, but the struggle for independence. We cannot even discuss communism if we are robbed of a country in which to practice it.”*
Thus it was fundamentally on this thesis that the Communists based their united-front proposals to the Kuomintang, even before the capture of the Generalissimo. In that crisis they recognized an opportunity to demonstrate the sincerity of their offer. If they had nothing to do with the arrest of Chiang Kai-shek, they had much to do with its denouement.2
Immediately after hearing of the event, the Soviet Government and the Communist Party called a joint meeting, at which it was decided to support the eight-point program and to participate in the United Anti-Japanese Council. Soon afterwards they issued a circular telegram † expressing the belief that “the Sian leaders acted with patriotic sincerity and zeal, wishing speedily to formulate a national policy of immediate resistance to Japan.” The telegram strongly condemned Ho Ying-ch’in’s punitive expedition, declaring that “if civil war is launched, the whole nation will be plunged into complete chaos, the Japanese robbers, taking advantage of this, will invade our nation, and enslavement will be our fate.” To secure a peaceful settlement, the Reds urged that negotiations be opened on the basis of no war, and the summoning of a peace conference of all parties, at which would be discussed the program of united national resistance to Japan. This telegram clearly indicated the policy followed out by the Red delegates whom Marshal Chang summoned to Sian.
Shortly after his arrival, the head of the Communist delegation, Chou En-lai, went to see Chiang Kai-shek.* One could easily imagine the effect of this meeting on the Generalissimo. Still physically weak and psychologically deeply shaken by his experiences, Chiang was said to have turned pale with apprehension when Chou En-lai—his former political attache for whose head he had once offered $80,000—entered the room and gave him a friendly greeting. He must have at once concluded that the Red Army had entered Sian, and that he was to be turned over to it as captive. Such a fear also troubled the comely head of Mme. Chiang Kai-shek, who said that she “felt the objective [if Chiang were removed from Sian] would be somewhere behind Red lines.”
But the Generalissimo was relieved of this apprehension by Chou and the Marshal, both of whom acknowledged him as commander-in-chief and sat down to explain the attitude of the Communists toward the national crisis. At first frigidly silent, Chiang gradually thawed as he listened, for the first time during his decade of war against the Communists, to their proposals for ending civil war.3
By December 20, general agreement “in principle” seemed to have already been reached. The following excerpts from the statement issued to the foreign press by Marshal Chang Hsueh-liang on the 19th indicated that he, at least, regarded the settlement as virtually complete:
“The Generalissimo’s prolonged stay here is not of our doing. As soon as Mr. Donald† arrived last Monday, and the Generalissimo had somewhat recovered from his natural indignation, and his reluctance to talk, he calmly enough discussed the problem confronting us all, and by Tuesday had agreed in principle with the points we had in view … and in accordance with the will of the late Dr. Sun Yat-sen.
“I therefore telegraphed, welcoming anyone to come from Nanking to hear the Generalissimo’s views, and arrange with him for the necessary safeguards to prevent the development of civil warfare. The Generalissimo naturally vigorously demanded that he be released to proceed to Nanking, but while I personally had full confidence that the Generalissimo would carry out his promises, it was impossible to risk his being persuaded after his arrival at Nanking to continue with the warfare. … He acquiesced in the view, however, and ever since then he has been waiting in vain, as have we, for someone to arrive from Nanking competent to deal with the matter [i.e., to offer adequate guarantees], so that the Generalissimo can return to the capital.
“That is all. It is a strange thing that there has been this delay. Had someone come, he could have returned some days ago. …
“CHANG HSUEH-LIANG.”*
But serious trouble was developing in the ranks of the radical younger officers of the Tungpei Army. They had acquired strong direct voice in the affairs of Chang’s military council, and their views were important. Infected by the temper of the strong mass movement now spreading throughout the Northwest, they were at first fiercely opposed to the release of Chiang Kai-shek before Nanking began to carry out the eight-point program. The majority, in fact, insisted upon giving Chiang a “popular trial” for his life, before an enormous mass meeting which they planned to call.
The possibility of this public humiliation had also occurred to Chiang. No one knew any better than he the potentialities of the movement that had been set afoot in the Northwest, for a similar rising had almost overwhelmed him in 1927. Chiang’s whole career had been a struggle against the intervention in his well-ordered chain of events of that disturbing imperative which he called “the mob.” Talk of the “popular trial” was even on the lips of the sentries around him; Chiang wrote of listening through the doorway to the conversation of his jailers, in which his fate was discussed: “When I heard [the words] ‘the people’s verdict,’ I realized that it was a malicious plot to kill me by using the mob as their excuse.”
Chiang Kai-shek may have been saved from further humiliation only by the Communists’ opposition to any such plan. Even before Chou’s talk with Chiang, the Communists had begun to state that they had received enough assurances from him (aside from assurances to be inferred from the objective situation) to believe that if released he would be obliged to stop civil war, and in general to carry out the whole “united-front” program. But to do so Chiang’s position had to be preserved and he must return to Nanking with his prestige intact. If he were submitted to the indignity of a “people’s trial,” civil war would inevitably develop, the decade of stalemate in the Red-Kuomintang war would be very much prolonged, and hopes of achieving an anti-Japanese national front would become remote indeed. From such a prospect no party could hope to benefit, only China could suffer, and only Japan gain. So, at least, the Reds explained their policy to me.4
By December 22 several envoys and negotiators from the Central Government had arrived in Sian, including T. V. Soong, chairman of the National Economic Council (and Chiang’s brother-in-law), the Minister of Interior, the Vice-Minister of War, the president of the Military Advisory Council, the chief aide-de-camp of the Generalissimo—as well as assorted members of the General Staff, who had been “detained” with Chiang Kai-shek. Most of them took some part in the parleys with Chang Hsueh-liang, Yang Hu-ch’eng, Chou En-lai, and high commanders of the Tungpei Army.
The substantial meaning of the eight demands to those who supported them was, in correct order of importance, as follows: (1) cessation of civil war and cooperation between the Kuomintang and the Communists in (2) a definite policy of armed resistance against any further Japanese aggression; (3) dismissal of certain “pro-Japanese” officials in Nanking, and the adoption of an active diplomacy for creating closer relations (alliances, if possible) with Great Britain, America, and Soviet Russia; (4) reorganization of the Tungpei and Hsipei armies on an equal footing (politically and militarily) with Nanking’s forces; (5) greater political freedom for the people; and (6) the creation of some sort of democratic political structure at Nanking.
Those seemed to be the main points
of agreement between Chiang Kai-shek and Chang Hsueh-liang before they left Sian. Chiang also made a personal guarantee that there would be no more civil war. It is certain that Chiang Kai-shek was quite honest in saying that he signed no document, and there is no evidence to support any claims that he did. But although Nanking and the Generalissimo still had their “face,” subsequent events were to show that the Young Marshal had not lost his entirely in vain.
The arrival of Mme. Chiang on the 22nd no doubt hastened the termination of the interviews, and (as in her lively account of her three days in Sian she made abundantly clear) her own importunity and scolding of Chang Hsueh-liang speeded up the Generalissimo’s release. Just as her husband compared himself with Jesus Christ on the Cross, so also Mme. Chiang recognized herself in a Biblical role, quoting, “Jehovah will now do a new thing, and that is, he will make a woman protect a man.” On the 25th, when Mme. Chiang was wistfully wondering if “Santa Claus would pass by Sian,” old St. Nick appeared in the person of Chang Hsueh-liang, who announced that he had won all the arguments with his officers. He would that day fly them back to Nanking. And he did.
Finally, there was that last and flabbergasting gesture of face-saving. Marshal Chang Hsueh-liang, flying in his own plane, went with the Generalissimo to the capital to await punishment!
4
“Point Counter Point”
During the next three months most of the political involutions created at Sian were completely unraveled, and in the end the scene was radically altered. Great conquests were made and victories won. Great losses and retreats were recorded too. But the duels fought were like those in a Chinese theater betweeen two warriors of old. They fling out bloodcurdling yells, viciously slashing the air but never actually touching each other. In the end, after the loser has acknowledged his demise by languidly draping himself on the floor for a moment, he pulls himself together and stalks from the stage under his own locomotion, a dignified walking corpse.