Red Star over China

by Edgar Snow

  * Hsiao San (Emi Siao). See Bibliography.

  † Liang Ch’i-ch’ao, a talented essayist at the end of the Manchu Dynasty, was the leader of a reform movement which resulted in his exile. K’ang Yu-wei and he were the “intellectual godfathers” of the first revolution, in 1911.

  * The poem evidently referred to the spring festival and tremendous rejoicing in Japan following the Treaty of Portsmouth and the end of the Russo-Japanese War.

  † Yao and Shun were semilegendary first emperors (3,000–2,205 B.C.? credited with forming Chinese society in the Wei and Yellow River valleys, and taming the floods (with dikes, canals); Ch’in Shih Huang Ti (259镃221 B.C.) unified the empire and completed the Great Wall; Han Wu Ti solidified the foundations of the Han Dynasty, which followed Ch’in and lasted (including the later Han) 426 years.

  * The T’ung Meng Hui, a revolutionary secret society, was founded by Dr. Sun Yat-sen and was the forerunner of the Kuomintang. Most of its members were exiles in Japan, where they carried on a vigorous “brush-war” (war by writing brushes, or pens) against Liang Ch’i-ch’ao and Kang Yu-wei, leaders of the “reformed monarchist” party.

  * An absurd coalition, since K’ang and Liang were monarchists at that time, and Sun Yat-sen was antimonarchist.

  † An act perhaps more anti-Confucian than anti-Manchu. Some orthodox Confucianists held that man should not interfere with nature, including growth of hair and fingernails.

  ‡ In 1911, the start of the revolution that overthrew the Manchu Dynasty.

  * Han-jen means the ethnical descendants of “men of Han,” referring to the long-lived Han Dynasty (206 B.C.–220 A.D.). Europeans derived the name “China” and “Chinese” from the Ch’in Dynasty which immediately preceded the Han. China was known to Han-jen as Chung-kuo, the “Central Realm,” also translated as “Middle Kingdom.” In official terminology all its inhabitants, including non-Han peoples, were called Chung-kuo-jen, or “Central-Realm People.” Thus the Manchu were Chung-kuo-jen (China-men) but not Han-jen.

  † A tutu was a military governor.

  * T’ang Sheng-chih later became commander of the Nationalist armies of the Wuhan Government of Wang Ching-wei (see BN) in 1927. He betrayed both Wang and the Reds and began the “peasant massacre” of Hunan.

  † Yuan Shih-k’ai, army chief of staff to the Manchu rulers, forced their abdication in 1911. Sun Yat-sen, regarded as “father of the Republic,” returned to China and was elected president by his followers in a ceremony at Nanking. Yuan held military control throughout most of the country, however. To avoid a conflict, Sun resigned when Yuan Shih-k’ai agreed to a constitutional convention and formation of a parliament. Yuan continued to rule as a military dictator, and in 1915 proclaimed himself emperor, whereupon his warlord supporters deserted him. The proclamation was rescinded after a few months, Yuan died, and the Republic (if not constitutional government) survived, to enter a period of provincial warlordism and national division.

  * The gifted fourth emperor of the Manchu, or Ch’ing, Dynasty, who took the throne in 1736.

  * The reference is to a line in a poem by Li T’ai-po.

  * Li Li-san later became responsible for the CCP “Li Li-san line,” which Mao Tse-tung bitterly opposed. Further on Mao tells of Li’s struggle with the Red Army, and of its results. See also BN.

  * The Hsin-min Hsueh-hui, New People’s Study Society.

  * See BN.

  † Hsiao San (Emi Siao), brother of Hsiao Yu (Saio Yu). See Bibliography.

  ‡ Other members included Liu Shao-ch’i, Jen Pi-shih, Li Fu-ch’un, Wang Jo-fei, T’eng Tai-yuan, Li Wei-han, Hsiao Ching-kuang, and at least one woman, Ts’ai Chang, the sister of Ts’ai Ho-sen. All of these achieved high rank in the CCP. Mao’s favorite professor and future father-in-law, Yang Ch’ang-chi, and Hsu T’eh-li, Mao’s teacher at the First Normal School, were patrons.

  § In Tientsin it was the Chueh-wu Shih, or “Awakening Society,” which led in organization of radical youth. Chou En-lai was one of the founders. Others included Teng Ying-ch’ao (Mme. Chou En-lai); Ma Chun, who was executed in Peking in 1927; and Sun Hsiao-ch’ing, who later became secretary of the Canton Committee of the Kuomintang.

  * The ex-bandit who became military dictator of Manchuria. Marshal Chang held power in Peking before the arrival of the Nationalists there. He was killed by the Japanese in 1928. His son, Chang Hsueh-liang, known as the “Young Marshal,” succeeded him.

  * See BN.

  † Pei Hai and the other “seas” were artificial lakes in the former Forbidden City.

  * Considered the beginning of the “Second Revolution,” and of modern Chinese nationalism.

  * Ch’en Tu-hsui was born in Anhui, in 1879, became a noted scholar and essayist, and for years headed the department of literature at Peking National University—“cradle of the literary renaissance.” His New Youth magazine began the movement for adoption of the pai-hua, or vernacular Chinese, as the national language to replace the “dead” wen-yen, or Classical language. With Li Ta-chao, he was a chief promoter of Marxist study in China and a pioneer organizer of the Chinese Communist Party. See BN.

  * In October, 1920, Mao organized a Socialist Youth Corps branch in Changsha, in which he worked with Lin Tsu-han to set up craft unions in Hunan.

  † Mao made no further reference to his life with Yang K’ai-hui, except to mention her execution. She was a student at Peking National University and later became a youth leader during the Great Revolution, and one of the most active women Communists. Their marriage had been celebrated as an “ideal romance” among radical youths in Hunan.

  * Ho Shu-heng, Mao’s old friend and co-founder of the New People’s Study Society; he was executed in 1935 by the Kuomintang.

  † Those here noted as “killed” or “executed” were liquidated by warlord regimes if before 1927, and by Nationalist generals if after March, 1927.

  ‡ See BN.

  § Meaning the Communist Youth League, which began as the Socialist Youth Corps (Society, League). Other members included Teng Ying-ch’ao and Li Fu-ch’un and his wife, Ts’ai Ch’ang. See BN.

  * See BN.

  † Mao was also a leading member of the provincial KMT. Following his agreement with Adolf Joffe for a two-party alliance. Sun Yat-sen had begun a secret purge of anti-Communist elements in the KMT. In Hunan, Sun authorized his old colleague Lin Tsu-han, together with Mao Tse-tung and Hsia Hsi, to reorganize the Party. By January, 1923, they had turned the Hunan KMT into a radical tool of the left.

  * See BN.

  † Communist and Nationalist cadres in 1925 organized the first Shanghai Federation of Trade Unions, which led to the May 30 demonstration, with demands for an end to extraterritoriality and a return of the Shanghai International Settlement to Chinese sovereignty. British Settlement police fired on the demonstrators and killed several, which provoked a boycott of British goods. Leading organizers were Liu Shao-ch’i and Ch’en Yun. See BN.

  ‡ In 1925 Mao was director of the Peasant Movement Training Institute, succeeding P’eng P’ai (see BN), who had set it up in Canton in 1924. His brother, Mao Tse-min (see BN), was one of his students, who included a large percentage of Hunanese, probably recruited by Mao’s provincial Party committee. Their publication was Chung-kuo Nung-min (The Chinese Peasant).

  * Mao attended the Second KMT Congress and was re-elected an alternate to the CEC. Communist membership in the Kuomintang CEC at that time was still about one-third of the total.

  † Since its inception, the Peasant Department of the Kuomintang had been headed by Communists, of whom Mao was the last of fie. Mao was first chief of the CCP Peasant Department (May-October, 1926), formec at this time.

  * See BN.

  † So did Stalin. Mao was not present during the terminal sessions of the Fifth Congress, when a resolution was passed to limit land confiscation only to great landlords who were also “enemies of the people,” in line with Stalin’s directives.

  ‡ About thirty-three
hectares, or nearly a hundred times the available cultivable land per farmer.

  * Mao supported (and probably initiated) the Hunan Peasants’ Union resolutions demanding confiscation of all large land holdings.

  * Ch’u Ch’iu-pai was here chosen general secretary of the Politburo, replacing Ch’en Tu-hsiu, who was accused of “rightism” and dropped from the Politburo.

  * Miners who had been organized by Mao, Liu Shao-ch’i and Ch’en Yun. In forming a peasants’ and workers’ army, and soldiers’ soviets and people’s councils, Mao acted independently of the Central Committee and was reprimanded. By the time he had set up his first soldiers’ soviets the CMT line had changed again. In November of 1927 the Central Committee expelled Mao from the Politburo for “rightism.” All the basic work he did in Chingkangshan that winter was “illegal,” although Mao was not aware of it for some months. He was reinstated in June, 1928.

  * See BN.

  † Mao was reprimanded three times by the Central Committee and three times expelled by it. See Chang Kuo-t’ao, BN.

  * In the same month a “soviet” was established by P’eng P’ai in Hailufeng, but it was quickly destroyed.

  † Here Mao Tse-tung and Chu Teh formed an alliance with Lin Piao, Ch’en Yi, Hsiao K’e, Ho Chang-kung, T’an Chen-lin, Chang Wen-ping, Hsia Hsi, and others, which held together against all pressure from Comintern-backed Politburo leader Li Li-san and, later on, the Moscow-educated returned students called the “Twenty-eight Bolsheviks.” See Chapter 6 and BN.

  * See BN.

  † See Part Nine, Chapter 1.

  * One of Chang’s recruits was Yang Ch’eng-wu, whom the author met in north Shensi in 1936. For both, see BN.

  † See BN.

  * This order is not so enigmatic as it sounds. The wooden doors of a Chinese house are easily detachable, and are often taken down at night, put across wooden blocks, and used for an improvised bed.

  † They were also sung daily in a Red Army song.

  ‡ See BN.

  * For details see Lin Piao, BN.

  * The rent from which Mao had used earlier for the peasant movement in Hunan.

  † See BN.

  * Briefly to supplement this quite inadequate account of Li, see note 3 to this chapter and Li Li-san, BN.

  * This campaign is described in interesting detail by Yang Chien in The Communist Situation in China (Nanking, 1931).

  * There was considerable confusion, in many accounts written of the anti-Red wars, concerning the number of major expeditions sent against the soviet districts. Some writers totaled up as many as eight “extermination” or “annihilation” drives, but several of these big mobilizations by Nanking were purely defensive. Red Army commanders spoke of only five main anti-Red campaigns. These were, with the approximate number of Nanking troops directly involved in each, as follows: First, December, 1930, to January, 1931, 100,000; Second, May to June, 1931, 200,000; Third, July to October, 1931, 300,000; Fourth, April to October, 1933, 250,000; Fifth, October, 1933, to October, 1934, 400,000 (over 900,000 troops were mobilized against the three main soviet districts). No major expedition was launched by Nanking during 1932, when Chiang Kai-shek was using approximately 500,000 troops in defensive positions around the Red districts. It was, on the contrary, a year of big Red offensives. Evidently Nanking’s defensive operations in 1932, which were, of course, propagandized as “anti-Red campaigns,” were misunderstood by many writers as major expeditions.

  * In this account Mao made no reference to the important meeting of the Central Committee held at Tsunyi, which elected him to the leadership. For further comment on the Fifth Campaign and Tsunyi, see note 3 to this chapter and Li Teh in BN.

  * An expression used by the Reds, meaning main combat forces.

  * See BN.

  * An Account of the Long March, First Army Corps (Yu Wang Pao, August, 1936).

  * See BN.

  * Literally the bridge “made fast” by Liu.

  * Su, the first Chinese character used in transliterating the word “soviet,” is a common family name, and wei-ai, suffixed to it, might easily seem like a given name.

  † See BN.

  * Jen Pi-shih was Ho Lung’s political commissar.

  † See BN.

  ‡ Vegetable crops in the rarefied air of the Tibetan highlands attain five to ten times “normal” size during the brief growing season.

  * An Account of the Long March...

  * Of which li Hsueh-feng was a member. See BN.

  * Dr. Ingram was killed a few years later by Chinese bandits, but not Red bandits.

  * Dr. A. Stampar, The North-western Provinces and Their Possibilities of Development, published privately by the National Economic Council (Nanking, July, 1934).

  * This was a conservative estimate, since it included no mention of the chief illegal military taxation in both Kansu and Shensi, for many years the opium revenue.

  * Mao Tse-tung et al.

  * Order of Instruction, Land Commission (Wayapao, Shensi), January 28, 1936.

  * Tu-hao, which actually means “local rascals,” was the Reds’ term for landowners who also derived a large part of their income from lending money and buying and selling mortgages.

  * Domestic animals were far more costly than land. See Part Seven, Chapter 2.

  * The Marriage Law of the Chinese Soviet Republic (reprinted in Pao An, July, 1936).

  * Outline for Cooperative Development, Department of National Economy (Wayapao, Shensi, November, 1935), p. 4.

  * “Concerning Soviet Monetary Policy,” Tangti Kungtso [party Work], No. 12 (Pao An, 1936).

  * Then about the size of Austria.

  † At that time this soviet area was probably receiving little or no financial aid from Russia, with which it had no direct geographical connection.

  * Approximate translation of T’a ma-ti, one of the commonest oaths in China. Lu Hsun wrote a delightful satirical essay on this subject. See Edgar Snow, Living China (New York, 1935).

  * Mao Tse-tung, Red China …, p. 26.

  * The price quoted in the Red districts was 800 catties—about half a ton—for $1 silver. See Mao Tse-min, “Economic Construction in the Kansu and Shensi Soviet Districts,” Tou Tsung [Struggle] (Pao An, Shensi), April 24, 1936.

  †Ibid.

  ‡Ibid.

  * See BN.

  * Of which Nieh Ho-t’ing was chief of staff and Hsiao Hua was deputy political commissar of the army’s Second Division. See BN.

  * See BN.

  * “Questioned as to the source of the Reds’ munitions, Generalissimo Chiang admitted that most of them had been taken from defeated government troops” (in an interview with the North China Daily News, October 9, 1934).

  * At this point in my travels I was joined by Huang Hua (Wang Ju-mei), a Yenching University student whom I had asked to come to assist me. See BN.

  * About 2,600 to 3,300 tons.

  * Ssu-ma Kuang was an outstanding historian (1019’86).

  * Compradors were Chinese who served as middlemen between Western and native businessmen.

  * Mao’s Yu-chi Chan-cheng (Guerrilla Warfare), published in Wayapao, Shensi, in 1935, was out of print.

  * P’eng Teh-huai estimated that the min-t’uan numbered at least 3.000,000 men (in addition to China’s huge regular army of 2,000,000 men).