Mao

by Philip Short

  51. The following account is drawn from NCH, May 10 1919, pp. 348–9; Chow Tse-tung, pp. 111–15; and Dirlik, Anarchism, pp. 148–9. Westerners in China had grave misgivings about Japan's ambitions, which they saw as a threat to their own interests (NCH, May 17, pp. 418–9).

  52. McDonald, Urban Origins, p. 97.

  53. 30,000 demonstrated in Jinan; 20,000 in Shanghai; ‘more than 5,000’ in Nanjing; 4,000 in Hangzhou (NCH, May 17 1919, pp. 413–14; Chow Tse-tung, p. 130). According to a Russian account (Deliusin, Lev, ed., Dvizhenie 4 maia 1919 goda v Kitae: Dokumenty i materialy, Izdatelstvo Nauka, Moscow, 1969, p. 107), ‘several thousand’ people demonstrated at Changsha.

  54. McDonald, pp. 97–103, and Li Rui, pp. 103–4. See also NCH, May 17 1919, pp. 415–7; May 24, p. 507.

  55. NCH, June 28 1919, p. 837. See also NCH, June 21, p. 765.

  56. Pantsov and Levine, p. 71.

  57. Siao, Emi, Mao Tse-tung: His Childhood and Youth, pp. 69–70.

  58. Mao barely mentions either problem in the Xiang River Review. A year later, he would write that movements like the boycott were ‘only expedient measures in response to the current situation’, and that China's real needs went ‘way beyond’ such conjunctural concerns (Schram, 1, p. 611, Nov. 1920).

  59. McDonald, pp. 103–4; Li Rui, pp. 104–5.

  60. Schram, 1, pp. 318–20 (July 14 1919).

  61. Ibid., pp. 378–89 (July 21, 28 and Aug. 4 1919).

  62. Chow Tse-tung, pp. 178–82; McDonald, p. 105.

  63. Li Rui, p. xxix.

  64. Xin chao, vol. 2, no. 4, p. 849 (May 1 1920); See Schram, Stuart R., The Political Thought of Mao Tse-tung, Pall Mall Press, London, 1963, p. 104.

  65. Schram, Mao's Road, 1, p. 372 (‘moving inexorably eastward’ and ‘whether or not to retain the nation’); p. 319 (‘oppression’); pp. 379–80 (‘classes of the wise and ignorant’).

  66. Ibid., pp. 234–5: ‘Where the river emerges from the Tong pass, because Mount Hua is an obstacle to it, the force of the rushing water is much greater … Great power faces great obstacles, and great obstacles face great powers.’

  67. Ibid., p. 367 (July 21 1919). See also pp. 357–66 (July 21); pp. 334, 337–8 and 343 (July 14).

  68. Ibid., p. 392 (July 28 1919).

  69. Li Rui, pp. 125–6.

  70. McDonald, p. 106.

  71. Schram, I, pp. 396–8 (July 30 1919).

  72. Ibid., p. 377 (July 21 1919).

  73. Li Rui, p. 116.

  74. Schram, 1, p. 479 (Jan. 19 1920); see also McDonald, p. 106.

  75. Schram, 1, p. 418 (Sept. 1919); see also pp. 414–15 (Sept. 5).

  76. Ibid., p. 383 (July 28 1919).

  77. Ibid., pp. 421–49 (Nov. 16–28 1919), esp. pp. 421–2 (‘darkness of the social system’); pp. 434–8 (‘shattered jade’ and ‘act of courage’).

  78. Ibid., p. 428 (Nov. 21 1919).

  79. Ibid., pp. 611–12 (Nov. 1920).

  80. McDonald, pp. 108–9; NCH, Dec. 20 1919; Li Rui, p. 127.

  81. NCH, Oct. 25, pp. 215–16.

  82. Ibid., Oct. 4 1919.

  83. Ibid., Nov. 22 1919, pp. 482–3.

  84. McDonald, pp. 110–12; Li Rui, pp. 127–9.

  85. Snow, p. 179; Schram, 1, p. 457 (Dec. 24 1919).

  86. Schram, 1, pp. 457–9, 463–5 and 469–71 (Dec. 24 and 31 1919, Jan. 4 1920).

  87. Ibid., pp. 457–90 and 496–7 (Dec. 24 1919 to Feb. 28 1920).

  88. McDonald, pp. 112–13.

  89. Mao initially planned to leave at the end of February (Schram, 1, p. 4 94, Feb. 19 1920), then put it off until March and finally set out in April.

  90. NCH, May 29 1919, p. 509, and June 12, p. 649 (Wu Peifu's departure); June 19, p. 708 (million dollars); June 26, p. 774 (munitions dump and ‘greatest day of rejoicing’).

  91. Schram, 1, pp. 407–13 (Sept. 1 1919).

  92. Meisner, Maurice, Li Ta-chao and the Origins of Chinese Marxism, Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA, 1967, pp. 90–5 and 280, n. 2. Dirlik suggests that the first part of the article, although dated May 1919, was not published until September (Origins of Communism, p. 47), in which case Mao could not have read it until after the founding of the ‘Problem Study Society’.

  93. Ibid., pp. 432–3 (Nov. 21 1919).

  94. Ibid., pp. 453–4 (Dec. 1 1919).

  95. Chow, pp. 209–14. The: ‘Karakhan Declaration’, setting out this policy, was issued on July 25 1919, and published in Soviet newspapers three weeks later. But it was not officially confirmed in Beijing until March 21 1920.

  96. Snow, p. 181, and Schram, 1, pp. 493–518 passim. Ibid., p. 506, March 14 1920 (‘number-one civilised country’); p. 494, Feb. 19 1920 (talked to Li Dazhao); p. 518, June 7 1920 (to learn Russian); pp. 504–7 (deeply ambivalent … ‘our craving for it’) and pp. 494, 506–7 and 518 (resolved his dilemma).

  97. According to Luo Zhanglong, a mimeographed translation circulated at Beijing University before the published version became available and it was this text that Mao saw (Ishikawa, p. 54). He left Beijing on April 11 and reached Shanghai on May 5 (Nianpu, 1, p. 57).

  98. Snow, pp. 180 and 182–3.

  99. History of the Chinese Communist Party: A Chronology of Events (1919–1990), Party History Research Centre, Foreign Languages Press, Beijing, 1991, pp. 6–7. The timing of the formation of the different provincial communist groups in 1920 and 1921 has been the source of endless scholarly debate both within China and outside. Their existence was secret, the few contemporary Chinese, Russian and Japanese documents are often contradictory and the memoir literature is not always reliable. Ishikawa argues persuasively that after the formation of the Beijing ‘Marxist Study Society’ in March 1920, a ‘Socialist Study Society’ of the same type was founded in Shanghai in May and provided the core of the ‘communist group’ which Chen Duxiu and Li Hanjun created a month later. Communist groups were formed in Beijing by Li Dazhao and Zhang Guotao in October, and in Canton by Tan Pingshan and Wuhan by Dong Biwu in November. In Beijing and Shanghai, the ‘communist groups’ included a majority of anarchists, who, at that time, were also considered socialists. In Canton a violent dispute broke out between the communist and anarchist members which ended only when the anarchists left and the group was refounded in March 1921 with a purely communist membership. A Socialist Youth League, intended to serve as a more broadly based united front organization, was launched after a meeting of progressive groups held in Beijing on August 17 1920, with branches opening there and in Shanghai the same month, and in Tianjin and Canton in November (Ishikawa, pp. 151–215).

  100. Schram, 1, pp. 450–6 (Dec. 1 1919). See also pp. 458–500 (March 5 1920).

  101. Luk, pp. 30–1. See also Chow Tse-tung, pp. 190–1 and Schram, 1, p. 518 (June 7 1920). Mao's friends, Deng Zhongxia and Luo Zhanglong, participated in the ‘Morning Garden’ community, founded by Beijing University students in the autumn of 1919. It collapsed early in 1920 (see Schram, 1, p. 494, Feb. 19 1920).

  102. Ibid., p. 494 and p. 506 (March 14 1920); Womack, Brantly, The Foundations of Mao Zedong's Political Thought, 1917–35, University Press of Hawaii, Honolulu, 1982, pp. 25–6; Li Rui, pp. 170–1.

  103. Schram, 1, p. 519, June 7 1920.

  104. Snow, p. 181.

  105. Schram, 1, p. 505 (March 14 1920).

  106. Ibid., pp. 518–9 (June 7 1920).

  107. Ibid., p. 505.

  108. Schram, 1, pp. 534–5, July 31 1920; pp. 583–7, Oct. 22 1920 and pp. 589–91, Nov. 10 1920; and Womack, p. 25.

  109. Snow, pp. 178–9.

  110. Schram, 1, p. 501 (March 12 1920).

  111. Ibid., pp. 510–11 (April 1 1920) and 523 (June 11). For Peng Huang's role see p. 503 (March 12).

  112. Ibid., pp. 526–30 (June 23 1920).

  113. lbid., p. 543 (Sept. 3 1920); Nianpu, l, p. 82.

  114. McDonald, Angus W., Jnr, ‘Mao Tse-tung and the Hunan Self-government Movement’, CQ, 68, April 1976, pp. 753–4.

  115. Schram, 1, pp. 543–
53, Sept, 3, 5 and 6–7, and p. 580, Oct. 10 1920.

  116. McDonald, pp. 754–5; Schram, 1, pp. 559 (Sept. 27), 565–71 (Oct. 5–6); pp. 573–4 (Oct. 8 1920).

  117. Schram, 1, p. 572 (Oct. 7 1920) and 577–8 (Oct 10 1920); McDonald, p. 765.

  118. McDonald, p. 765; NCH, Oct. 23 1920, p. 223.

  119. NCH, Nov. 6 1920, pp. 387–8.

  120. Schram, 1, pp. 544 (Sept. 3), 546 (Sept. 5), 556 (Sept. 26), 558 (Sept. 27), 561–2 (Sept. 30), 572 (Oct. 7) and 578 (Oct. 10).

  121. McDonald, pp. 765–6; Li Rui, p. 144.

  122. Li Rui, pp. 145–6; McCord, pp. 301–2; McDonald, p. 767.

  123. Schram, 1, p. 562 (Sept. 30 1920).

  124. Ibid., p. 595 (Nov. 25 1920).

  125. Ibid., pp. 608 and 610 (November 1920).

  126. Schram, 1, pp. 491–2, Feb. 19 1920 (‘dedicated group’); pp. 505–6, March 14 1920 (common goals); 2, p. 26, Winter 1920 (‘vain glory’); 1, p. 612, Nov 1920 (‘political stage’); p. 524, May 16 1920 (‘overthrow and sweep away’) and p. 556, Sept. 20 1920 (an ‘ism’ required).

  127. Ibid., 1, p. 600 (Nov. 25 1920).

  128. Ibid., 2, p. 29, Winter 1920 (‘sixteen members’); pp. 5–14, Dec. 1 1920 (Montargis). Li Rui says fourteen members attended (pp. 149–50).

  129. Schram, 2, p. 7 (Dec. 1 1920).

  130. Van de Ven, Hans J, From Friend to Comrade: The Founding of the Chinese Communist Party, 1920–27, University of California Press, 1991, pp. 21 & 59.

  131. Schram, 1, pp. 554–5, Sept, 23 1920. The Society's Executive Director was Jiang Jihuan, a liberal Hunanese politician who had been the first governor of Changsha after the 1911 Revolution and later served as the province's finance minister. Jiang helped to finance the Cultural Book Society.

  132. Peng Shuzhi says there were sixteen Hunanese students (Cadart and Cheng, L'Envol du Communisme en Chine, p. 196), but some of these, like Liu Shaoqi, were in Shanghai already.

  133. Cadart and Cheng, pp. 153–62. He Minfan's role is contentious. He contributed to the Cultural Book Society in November 1920 and January 1921 (Schram, 2, pp. 49 and 58), and in March 1921 played a leading role in the China-Korea Mutual Aid Society of Changsha, which Mao and others set up to support the Korean struggle for independence from Japan (Nianpu, 1, p. 82). Peng Shuzhi, who detested Mao, described He Minfan as Chen Duxiu's main interlocutor in Changsha. However, Zhang Guotao (Chang Kuo-t'ao), an equally hostile source, says Chen wrote directly to Mao to encourage him to establish the Changsha group (The Rise of the Chinese Communist Party, University Press of Kansas, KC, 1971, vol, 1 p. 129). Since Mao had been in contact with Chen since 1918, had spent time working with him in Shanghai and was well known as a New Youth contributor and as editor of the Xiang River Review, this seems much more likely. Chen may, however, as Peng claims, have asked He Minfan to recruit students to go to Russia. The Russia Study Society, the Wang Fuzhi Society and the Wang Fuzhi Academy were all closely linked.

  134. Schram, 1, p. 594, Nov. 21 1920. In November, Chen sent Mao copies of the Youth League's regulations. On December 2 Mao told one of his former students, Zhang Wenliang, that Chen would come to Changsha later that month to inaugurate the League, but in the event the visit did not take place (Ishikawa, p. 192).

  135. Schram, 2, p. 9 (Dec. 1 1920). Hans Van de Ven gives a totally different translation of this passage (p. 52).

  136. Schram, 2, pp. 62 and 68 (Jan. 1–2 1921).

  137. Ibid., pp. 8–11 (Dec. 1 1920).

  138. Ibid., pp. 59–71 (Jan. 1–2 1921).

  139. Nianpu, l, pp. 73, 75 and 79. There has been much debate over whether a Changsha ‘communist group’, separate from the Youth League and the Marxist Study Circle, was ever formally constituted. Chen wrote to Mao in November 1920 proposing that he establish such a group, but the evidence for its existence comes mainly from memoirs (Zhang Guotao, 1, pp. 130–1; Cadart and Cheng, pp. 155–6), and from the fact that Mao and He Shuheng attended the First Congress in July 1921 as Hunan representatives. However, two delegates from Jinan took part in the Congress even though that province had no formally constituted ‘communist group’, so the same could have been true of Hunan (Ishikawa, pp. 192–4; see also Nianpu, p. 86; Saich, Rise to Power, p. 14). Perhaps the most one can say is that Mao and He Shuheng regarded themselves as representing the Hunan ‘communist group’, whether or not such a body had been formally established.

  140. Saich, pp. 11–13.

  141. Schram, 2, pp. 35–6 (Jan. 21 1921).

  142. Snow, p. 178.

  143. Li Rui, p. 134.

  144. Nianpu, p. 67 and 76.

  145. Dirlik, Anarchism, p. 120 and Scalapino and Yu, pp. 37–8 (Six Noes Society); Schram, 2, p. 20 (New People's Study Society).

  146. Schram, 1, pp. 64 (June 25 1915), 256 and 263–4 (Winter 1917).

  147. Snow, p. 181.

  148. Siao Yu, p. 51.

  149. Schram, 1, pp. 445–6 (Nov. 28 1919).

  150. Ibid., p. 491; Schram, Mao's Road to Power, 2, p. 25 n. 22; Siao Yu, pp. 52–3. See also Pantsov and Levine, who write that their affair started in the autumn of 1919 and ended in the late summer of 1920 (p. 77). Schram suggests that they parted because of ‘ideological differences’ as Tao Yi did not approve of communism. But while that was certainly true later in her life, in January 1921 Tao Yi voted in favour of the New People's Study Society adopting bolshevism as its guiding philosophy. Moreover in the summer of 1920 Mao still had strong reservations about communism. It appears therefore that they split for other, probably more personal reasons. They apparently remained close, which subsequently became a cause for jealousy on the part of Yang Kaihui.

  151. Li Rui, p. 164.

  152. Pantsov and Levine, pp. 96–7.

  153. Schram, 1, pp. 608–9 (Nov. 26 1920).

  154. Ibid., pp. 443–4 (Nov. 27 1919).

  155. Nianpu, 1, p. 88.

  CHAPTER 5 THE COMINTERN TAKES CHARGE

  1. Zhang Guotao, Rise of the Chinese Communist Party, 1, p. 139.

  2. Saich, Tony, The Origins of the First United Front in China: The Role of Sneevliet (Alias Maring), E. J. Brill, Leiden, 1991, 1, pp. 31–3.

  3. By far the best description of the city in the 1920s is to be found in Harriet Sergeant's splendid book, Shanghai (Crown Publishers, New York, 1990).

  4. The notice actually stated: ‘The gardens are reserved for the foreign community’. Several sentences lower down, it added: ‘Dogs and bicycles are not admitted.’

  5. Saich, Origins, 1, p. 35.

  6. Ibid., 1, pp. xxv, 21, 254 and 263–5.

  7. Ibid., 1, pp. 43–7 and 52; Dirlik, Origins of Chinese Communism, pp. 191–5; Saich, Rise to Power, p. 25. Ishikawa, Formation, pp. 88–94. Peng Shuzhi quotes a detailed account by Li Dazhao of a visit to Beijing by a Russian emissary named V. L. Khokhlovkin (Hohonovkine in French, transcribed from the Chinese, Hehenuofujin), who had grown up in Harbin and was a fluent Chinese speaker (Cadart and Cheng, L'Envol du Communisme en Chine, pp. 162–5). Ishikawa (pp. 121–2) questions the dating of the visit on the basis of a report by the Eastern People's Section of the Siberian Bureau, of which Khokhlovkin headed the Chinese division, stating that he was sent to Shanghai to take money and instructions to Voitinsky that autumn (Problemy Dal'nego Vostoka, Moscow, No. 5, 2014, pp. 97–111). However, the Eastern People's Section was not established until August 1920, and the fact that Khokhlovkin travelled to Shanghai later that year does not preclude an earlier visit on behalf of the Far Eastern Bureau, to which Voitinsky belonged. There is independent confirmation that in January 1920 Li and Chen Duxiu discussed the possibility of establishing a communist party (Dirlik, pp. 195 and 293, n. 14). Other Russian envoys active in China that year included: Titov, a graduate of the Eastern Institute in Vladivostok (reportedly a specialist in Japanese affairs), and B. I. Serebryakov, who later became an expert on Korean communism, both of whom accompanied Voitinsky to Shanghai; A. A. Ivanov and Sergei A. Polevoi, two Russian teachers at Beijing University (Polevoi later fled
to the United States after being accused of embezzling Comintern funds); and V. D. Vilensky-Sibiryakov, Voitinsky's immediate superior in Vladivostok, who visited Beijing in the summer. Voitinsky's cover in China was as a journalist for the Far Eastern Republic's Dalta News Agency (later part of Rosta, the forerunner of Tass). Dalta's Beijing correspondent, A. E. Khodorov, and M. L. Goorman, one of the editors of the radical Russian-language newspaper in Shanghai, Shankhaiskaya Zhizn, also acted on the Comintern's behalf. K. A Stoyanovich and L. A Perlin worked as Dalta correspondents in Canton, where they helped Tan Pingshan to launch the Guangdong ‘communist group’ in November. Another Russian, Mamayev, was in contact with Chinese radicals in Wuhan, and yet another agent, named only as ‘Grin’, arranged for a Socialist Youth League delegation to go to Russia. Three others were described as ‘secret envoys’ but while they supported the revolutionary cause their links with the Bolshevik movement are unclear. N. G. Burtman was said to have visited China from late 1919 to January 1920: he claimed to have been in contact with Li Dazhao, and when the Eastern People's Section was established in Irkutsk in August 1920, he became its Chairman. M. Popov visited Shanghai four times between 1918 and 1920; and A. P. Agaryov, a Menshevik, was in Shanghai in 1920. The convoluted saga of Russian interactions with the Datongdang and other self-proclaimed communist movements, which involved Vilensky-Sibiryakov, Polevoi, Stoyanovsky and perhaps others, is related by Ishikawa in Formation, pp. 123–50 & 225–6.

  8. Zhang Guotao, 1, pp. 137 and 139.

  9. Nianpu, 1, p. 85; Li Rui, Early Revolutionary Activities, p. 166; Zhang Guotao, 1, pp. 136–51; Saich, Origins, 1, pp. 60–9; Van de Ven, From Friend to Comrade, pp. 85–90. Ishikawa, Formation, pp. 227–63. Bao Huiseng wrote later that each delegate received 100 yuan for travelling expenses (the equivalent of eight months’ wages for a worker at that time), and a further 50 yuan for the return journey (Ishikawa, Formation, pp. 237 & 411 n. 46). There has been much argument about the number of delegates to the Congress. Mao told Edgar Snow there were 12, and this has since become the official version in China. Other participants remember there being 13, plus Sneevliet and Nikolsky. Zhang Guotao wrote later that He Shuheng returned to Changsha before the Congress opened, but there is no evidence to support this and other participants have described He as being present. The confusion appears to have arisen because Chen Gongbo did not attend the final session, having decided to return to Canton following the police raid on July 31. The complete list of Chinese participants was: Mao Zedong and He Shuheng from Hunan; Dong Biwu and Chen Tanqiu from Hubei; Bao Huiseng and Chen Gongbo from Canton; Zhang Guotao and Liu Renjing from Beijing; Deng Enming and Wang Jinmei from Jinan; Li Hanjun and Li Da from Shanghai; and Zhou Fohai from Tokyo.