Mao

by Philip Short

19. Schram, 4, pp. 204–5 and 215–16; Nianpu, 1, pp. 370–2.

  20. Nianpu, 1, pp. 371–5, quoting a Central directive of April 14, amplified by subsequent articles by Bo Gu and Zhang Wentian in Hongqi zhoubao (Red Flag Weekly) later that month, and by a Central telegram of May 20.

  21. Ibid., p. 375.

  22. Schram, 4, pp. 217–18 (May 3 1932).

  23. See, for example, Saich, pp. 558–66.

  24. Nianpu, 1, pp. 376–9.

  25. Ibid., p. 379; Schram, 4, p. 244 (July 25 1932).

  26. Nianpu, 1, pp. 379–80.

  27. Ibid., pp. 380–1; Schram, 4, pp. 247–8 (Aug. 15 1932).

  28. Nianpu, 1, pp. 381–4. See also Schram, 4, pp. 249–53 (Aug. 28 and 31), and the order of September 5 (p. 254), stressing the need for mobility and ‘swift operations’.

  29. Schram, 4, pp. 275–7 (Sept. 23) and pp. 280–9 (Sept. 25 and 26 1932); Nianpu, pp. 386–8.

  30. A near contemporary account of this crucial meeting, from which the following account is largely drawn, is given in ZZWX, 8, pp. 528–31. See also Jin Chongji, Mao Zedong zhuan, pp. 296–8; Nianpu, 1, pp. 389–90; and Schram, 4, pp. lix–lx.

  31. Wang Xingjuan, pp. 163–6; Nianpu, 1 p. 391.

  32. Nianpu, 1, pp. 389–90; Jin Chongji, pp. 297–8. There was apparently a continuing groundswell of support for Mao among military cadres at the front, for an order dated October 14, two days after Zhou's appointment, was issued over the names of ‘Commander-in-Chief Zhu De, Chief Political Commissar Mao Zedong and Acting Chief Political Commissar Zhou Enlai’ – designations in flagrant violation of the Ningdu conference decisions, both before and after the Centre's intervention (Schram, 4, pp. lx, 303–7).

  33. Wang Xingjuan, p. 170; Fu Lianzhang, Zai Mao zhuxi jiaodaoxia, Zuojia chubanshe, Beijing, 1959, pp. 6–9.

  34. Zhou was harshly criticised by the rear echelon leaders for his support of Mao (see Ma Qibin et al., Zhongyang geming genjudi shi, pp. 367–8). This caused concern in Shanghai lest the Central Bureau become irremediably split (Nianpu, 1, p. 391).

  35. Wang Xingjuan, pp. 167 and 172.

  36. Ibid., p. 171; Nianpu, 1, pp. 391 and 393–4.

  37. See Saich, pp. 596–602; Nianpu, pp. 393–4 and 398–400; Schram, 4, pp. lxi–iii; Deng Maomao, Deng Xiaoping, My Father, Basic Books, New York, 1995, pp. 211–15.

  38. Nianpu, 1, p. 394.

  39. Ibid., p. 398. Pantsov and Levine, pp. 261–6.

  40. The ‘CC building’, as it was called, has been preserved as part of the Yeping historical site. This description of the living arrangements in 1933 is based on the recollections and memoirs of those who lived and worked there.

  41. Jin Chongji, Mao Zedong zhuan, pp. 333–4.

  42. Wang Xingjuan, pp. 172–3.

  43. Ibid., pp. 114–15; Chen Changfeng, On the Long March with Chairman Mao, Foreign Languages Press, Beijing, 1972, p. 5.

  44. See Schram, 4, pp. 783–960.

  45. Ibid., for instance, pp. 328–9 (Nov. 25 1932), pp. 348–9 (Dec. 28 1932) and pp. 382–3 (April 22 1933).

  46. Ibid., passim. An overview of the economic policies of the Soviet Republic is given in Mao's ‘Report to the Conference on Economic Construction of the 17 Southern Counties’ (pp. 479–90) and his ‘Report … to the Second National Congress’ (pp. 656–713, especially pp. 688–94 and 705–7). See also Lötveit, Trygve, Chinese Communism, 1931–1934, Scandinavian Institute of Asian Studies, London, 1979, pp. 185–209; and Hsu King-yi, Political Mobilization and Economic Extraction: Chinese Communist Agrarian Policies during the Kiangsi Period, Garland Publishing, New York, 1980, pp. 279–305.

  47. Schram, 3, pp. 128–130 (December 1928). In the land reform movement after 1947, a similar system was used until moves towards collectivization eliminated individual land-holding altogether. When, after Mao's death, collectivization was reversed, it led initially to a return to the system used on the Jinggangshan: the amount of land contracted out for farming by each peasant family was directly proportionate to the number of mouths to be fed.

  48. For a discussion of the different communist land policies in the early 1930s, see Hsiao Tso-liang, The Land Revolution in China, 1930–34: A Study of Documents, University of Washington, Seattle, 1969, pp. 3–77; and Schram, 3, pp. xli–iii and 4, pp. xlv–vii.

  49. Schram, 3, pp. 102–6 (Nov. 25 1928).

  50. Mao spent much time from 1930 to 1933 studying these issues, in the process producing a series of rural investigation reports of which the most important were: The Xunwu Investigation, May 1930 (Schram, 3, pp. 296–418); The Xingguo Investigation, October 1930 (pp. 594–655); Investigations in Dongtang and Mukou, November 1930 (pp. 658–66 and 691–3); The Changgang and Caixi Investigations, November 1933 (Schram, 4, pp. 584–640); and the protracted investigation around Ruijin in the spring and summer of 1933 which culminated in the ‘Decision Regarding Certain Questions in the Agrarian Struggle’ of October 10 1933 (4, pp. 550–67).

  51. Thompson, Roger R. (trans.), Mao Zedong: Report from Xunwu, Stanford University Press, 1990, pp. 178–81.

  52. Ibid., pp. 64–5.

  53. The complete text is given in Thompson, pp. 45–217.

  54. Schram, 3, p. 610 (October 1930).

  55. Ibid., p. 436 (June 1930).

  56. This formula first appeared in June 1930 (ibid., p. 445), and was included in the new land law promulgated that August (pp. 503–7).

  57. ZZWX, 7, pp. 355–75 and pp. 500–11; and Hsiao, Land Revolution, pp. 47–77. The Comintern endorsed this policy in a resolution addressed to the CCP CC on July 31 1931 (Pantsov and Levine, pp. 258–9).

  58. The initial decision was announced on February 8 1932 (Schram, 4, p. lxvi) but not acted on until a year later.

  59. Ibid., 4, pp. 546–9 and 550–67 (Oct. 10 1933).

  60. Ibid., p. 437 (June 1933).

  61. Ibid., pp. 425–6, 434 and 507.

  62. Ibid., p. 511.

  63. Ibid., p. 368 (March 15 1933).

  64. Ibid., pp. 394–5 (June 1 1933).

  65. Braun, p. 31; Benton, Mountain Fires, p. 132.

  66. ‘Instruction No. 7 of the State Political Security Bureau’, Summer 1933, in Hsiao, Land Revolution, pp. 231–2; Schram, 4, pp. 427–8 and 471.

  67. Ibid., pp. 369–70; see also Hsiao, Land Revolution, pp. 233–4.

  68. Schram, 4, pp. 368 (March 15) and 378 (April 15 1933).

  69. Ibid., 4, pp. 954–7.

  70. Bodde, Derk, Law in Imperial China, Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA, pp. 11, 517–33 and 541–2.

  71. ‘Emergency Law for the Suppression of Crimes against the Safety of the Republic’, January 31 1931, in Tang, Leang-li, Suppressing Communist-Banditry in China, China United Press, Shanghai, 1934, pp. 111–13. Where the communist law referred to ‘counter-revolutionary intent’, the nationalists employed the equally vague formula, ‘with a view to subverting the Republic’.

  72. Schram, 4, pp. 794–9 (Nov. 1931); 469–78 (Aug. 9) and 533 (Sept. 6 1933). The extremely detailed regulations on the formation of election committees, issued in December 1931, said nothing about how, or by whom, the lists of candidates should be drawn up (ibid., pp. 827–9). In January 1934, Mao stated that, in practice, the work should be done by CCP branch committee staff members. The lists, which were promulgated a few days before the vote was taken, might contain the same number of names as there were deputies to be elected, or a larger number (pp. 591–4, 626–7 and 672–6).

  73. Ibid., p. 533.

  74. Ibid., 2, p. 454 (February 1927).

  75. Professor Thompson translates this phrase as: ‘couples had dates freely in the hills’ (pp. 216–17). The sense of the Chinese is of couples ‘sporting together’, rather than merely meeting (Mao Zedong wenji, Renmin chubanshe, Beijing, 1994, 1, p. 241).

  76. Ibid., 4, pp. 791–4 (Nov. 28 and Dec. 1 1931).

  77. Thompson, pp. 216–17; Schram, 4, p. 616.

  78. Schram, 4, p. 715 (Jan. 27 1934). See also ‘Regulations on Preferential Tr
eatment for the Chinese Workers’ and Peasants’ Red Army’, Nov. 1931, Article 18 (p. 785); and the revised Marriage Law enacted on April 8 1934 (pp. 958–60).

  79. Ibid., p. 698.

  80. Schram, 4, p. 367 (March 5 1933).

  81. Nianpu, 1, p. 403.

  82. Although the Comintern's ability to influence CCP policy weakened after Bo Gu and Zhang Wentian left Shanghai (and was reduced still further in the summer of 1934, when Arthur Ewert returned to Moscow and no replacement was named), the Chinese Party was still bound by Comintern directives and its leaders remained highly dependent on Moscow's support. Shortly after Mao's election to the Politburo, Bo Gu proposed that, in view of his supposed ‘illness’, he be sent to Moscow for medical treatment. In April 1934, the Comintern replied that the journey was too risky. A similar proposal in June was likewise rebuffed. That year, for the first time, Moscow gave public backing for Mao's position in the Chinese Party – publishing two editions of his speeches in Russian and Chinese and a flattering biographical sketch in the monthly journal, Za rubezhom. Wang Ming, as Chinese representative to the Comintern, tried to alert Bo to these developments, of which Mao himself was apparently unaware (Pantsov and Levine, pp. 266–7 and 270–1).

  83. Zhongguo gongchangdang huiyi gaiyao, pp. 134–7; Nianpu, 1, p. 420.

  84. Braun, p. 49.

  85. Saich, p. 1168.

  86. Ibid., pp. 609–22.

  87. Wei, William, Counter-revolution in China, University of Michigan Press, Ann Arbor, 1985, pp. 104–25.

  88. Braun, pp. vii–ix.

  89. Ibid., pp. 266–9; and Saich, pp. 627–35.

  90. He proposed heading towards Zhejiang in January 1934 and towards Hunan in July (Wang Xingjuan, p. 171; SW1, pp. 247–8; Nianpu, 1, p. 432).

  91. Manfred Stern, who had been working with Ewert in Shanghai, suggested a break-out towards north-west Jiangxi (Braun, pp. 63–4); Peng Dehuai wanted to head for Zhejiang (Memoirs, pp. 344–5).

  92. Geng Biao, Reminiscences, China Today Press, Beijing, 1994, pp. 205–7.

  93. See Zhang Wentian's directives of March 20 and June 28 1934, in Hsiao, Land Revolution, pp. 282–90.

  94. Benjamin Yang, From Revolution to Politics, pp. 81–2; Peng Dehuai, pp. 352–8.

  95. The decision to evacuate the base area was taken in May by the ‘Central Secretariat’ (Nianpu, 1, p. 428). This consisted of Bo Gu (Party affairs), Zhang Wentian (government) and Zhou Enlai (military). It appears, however, that Zhang was not party to the initial discussions (see Benton, pp. 13–14 and p. 524, n. 51).

  96. Braun, pp. 49 and 70–1; Nianpu, 1, pp. 426–30. See also Yang, pp. 93–99.

  97. Nianpu, 1, p. 432; Wang Xingjuan, pp. 183–4.

  98. Nianpu, ibid.; see also Chen Changfeng, pp. 19–20.

  99. Chen Changfeng, pp. 20–1; Fu Lianzhang, pp. 29–37.

  100. Fu Lianzhang, p. 31; Braun, p. 71; Nianpu, 1, p. 434; oral sources.

  101. Nianpu, 1, p. 434.

  102. Wang Xingjuan, pp. 194–5; Yang, p. 81.

  103. Nianpu, 1, pp. 429, 433 and 435; Chen Changfeng, p. 20; Tan Nianqing (ed.), Changzheng diyidu, Neibu chuban, Yudu, 1996, pp. 31–2.

  104. Chen Changfeng, pp. 22–3; Salisbury, Long March, p. 15.

  105. Wang Xingjuan, pp. 185–9.

  CHAPTER 10 IN SEARCH OF THE GREY DRAGON

  1. Fest, Joachim C., Hitler, New York, 1974, p. 470.

  2. Mitter, China's War with Japan, pp. 58–60.

  3. Schram, 4, pp. 361–3 (March 3 1933).

  4. Ibid., pp. 206–8 (April 15 1932) and 355–6 (Jan. 17 1933); Nianpu, 1, p. 431.

  5. Tang Leang-li, Suppressing Communist-Banditry, p. v, and China Weekly Review, Feb. 16 1935.

  6. China Weekly Review, Feb 16 and May 4 1935.

  7. Salisbury, Long March, pp. 93–4, 109, 127 and 150. See also Braun, Comintern Agent, p. 92, and Yang, From Revolution to Politics, p. 104.

  8. Yang, pp. 111–12.

  9. Salisbury, pp. 147–50; Nianpu, 1, p. 445.

  10. In her own account. He Zizhen confuses Mao's whereabouts at the time of the baby's birth and at the time she was wounded, two months later. In 1950, she returned to the area in a fruitless search for the child (Wang Xingjuan, He Zizhende lu, pp. 199–200 and 206; Salisbury, pp. 151–3).

  11. Salisbury, pp. 154–6; Yang, p. 126.

  12. Mao Zedong shici duilian jizhu; this translation is adapted from Mao Tse-tung, Nineteen Poems, Foreign Languages Press, Beijing, 1958, p. 16.

  13. Nianpu, 1, pp. 450–2.

  14. In January 1934, it had been renamed the Central Red Army. The First Front Army designation was in official use again by June 1935 (Nianpu, 1, pp. 423 and 459–61).

  15. Salisbury, pp. 160–72 and 178–87. See also Braun, pp. 112–16.

  16. Nie Rongzhen huiyi lu, Beijing, 1983, 1, p. 256.

  17. China Weekly Review, April 13 1935, p. 220. After this admission, the Review went on to predict that Mao, having made a feint to the west, would now head east. Chiang Kai-shek had reached the same conclusion. Mao, of course, did just the opposite.

  18. Wang Tianxi, quoted in Salisbury, p. 165.

  19. China Weekly Review, April 13, pp. 214–15; April 20, p. 247; April 27, pp. 283–4; May 4, p. 318, and May 18 1935, p. 385.

  20. Nianpu, 1, p. 455; Yang, pp. 127–8; Salisbury, pp. 192–5; Peng Dehuai, Memoirs, pp. 366–71; Nie Rongzhen huiyi lu, 1, p. 13. According to Braun (pp. 116–18), Mao's critics included Zhang Wentian.

  21. Braun, p. 116.

  22. Nianpu, 1, p. 455; Braun, p. 118.

  23. Salisbury, pp. 196–200; Braun, pp. 116–17; Snow, Red Star Over China, pp. 225–6.

  24. Nianpu, 1, p. 457; Braun, p. 119; Yang Dezhi [Yang Teh-chih], ‘Forced Crossing of the Tatu River’, and Yang Chengwu, ‘Lightning Attack on Luting Bridge’, in Recalling the Long March, Foreign Languages Press, Beijing, 1978, pp. 79–100.

  25. Snow, p. 224.

  26. Grace Service, quoted in Salisbury, p. 222.

  27. Yang Chengwu, pp. 95–8.

  28. Snow, pp. 229–30.

  29. Both Snow and Otto Braun, who also wrote of men swinging from the chains, ‘hand over hand’ (Braun, p. 119), relied on second-hand accounts. Yang Chengwu, who was there, said the men ‘crept along the chains’ (Recalling the Long March, p. 98). So did surviving eyewitnesses in the town.

  30. Nianpu, 1, p. 457; Salisbury, p. 231.

  31. Nianpu, 1, p. 457.

  32. Braun, p. 120.

  33. Snow, p. 231.

  34. Quoted in Smedley, Great Road, pp. 325–6.

  35. Wang Xingjuan, pp. 204–8; Salisbury, pp. 172–3. She had been wounded at Panxian, on the Yunnan–Guizhou border, at the beginning of April 1935.

  36. Nianpu, 1, p. 458; Yang, p. 140. According to Otto Braun (p. 120), Mao first heard unconfirmed reports of the Fourth Army's whereabouts when he reached Tianquan, at the southern foot of the Jinjiashan. Zhang Guotao knew even less about the First Army's movements (Rise of Chinese Communist Party, 2, pp. 372–3; Salisbury, pp. 232–3 and 239–40).

  37. The account that follows of the reunion and subsequent separation of the First and Fourth Armies, covering the period from June to September, 1935, is drawn principally from the Nianpu, 1, pp. 458–74; Zhang Guotao, 2, pp. 374–428; Braun, pp. 129–39; Nie Rongzjien huiyi lu, passim; Yang, pp. 129–61; Jin Chongji, Mao Zedong zhuan, and Salisbury, pp. 240–82. Where specific references are called for, they are given below.

  38. The official Chinese estimate today is that Mao had 20,000 men at Dawei and that Zhang had 80,000 (see, for instance, Zhongguo gongchandang huiyi gaiyao, p. 156). Both figures appear inflated. Zhang himself put the strength of the Fourth Army at only 45,000 men, and the First Army at 10,000 (2, pp. 379 and 382–3). If Braun is correct in saying that the First Army had about 20,000 men at Huili, the number must have been much smaller two months later. Stuart Schram, in Mao's Road to Power, Vol. 5, M. E. Sharpe, Armonk, 2004, p. xlii, estimates that the First Army had between 7,00
0 and 10,000 men. The likeliest figure, taking into account all the information currently available, is that the two armies’ total strength at Dawei was about 60,000 men. with the Fourth Army outnumbering the First by four or five to one.

  39. China Weekly Review, Oct. 20 1934, p. 256; Schram, Mao's Road to Power, 5, p. lxiii; Zheng Yuyan, ‘Liu Changsheng tongzhi huiyilu’ in Shanghai wenshi ziliao, 10, pp. 68–9; Yang Yunruo and Yang Guisong, Gongchanguoji he Zhongguo geming, Shanghai renmin chubanshe,1988, p. 367.

  40. Yang, p. 141, and Braun, p. 121; see also Zhang Guotao, 2, p. 383.

  41. Nianpu, 1, pp. 458–60; Yang, p. 142.

  42. Nianpu, 1, pp. 460–1; Zhongguo gongchandang huiyi gaiyao, pp. 156–9; Jin Chongji, Mao Zedong zhuan, pp. 355–6; Zhang Guotao, 2, pp. 383–9. The text of the decision approved at Lianghekou is available in ZZWX, 10, pp. 516–7.

  43. The changes were proposed at a Military Commission meeting at Shawo on August 3, and ratified by the Politburo at its meeting there from August 4 to 6 (Nianpu, 1, pp. 464–5; Saich, Rise to Power, pp. 677–85; Zhongguo gongchandang huiyi gaiyao, pp. 164–7). The left column probably contained 45,000 men, the right column about 15,000.

  44. Nianpu, 1, pp. 467–8; Zhongguo gongchandang huiyi gaiyao, pp. 167–70.

  45. Mao interviewed by Edgar Snow in Beijing in 1960 (Red Star over China [rev. edn], Grove Press, New York, 1969, p. 432).

  46. Salisbury, p. 263.

  47. Braun, p. 136.

  48. The troops were so hungry that when they traversed the Tibetan areas of Sichuan the long-standing prohibition against taking food from the population was violated. According to Xie Juezai, who headed the Border Region Council in Yan’an in the 1940s, Mao said later that, although it had been wrong, if they had not stolen Tibetan barley from the villages they passed through the whole Red Army would have perished (Chen Yung-fa, ‘The Blooming Poppy under the Red Sun?, in Saich, Tony and van de Ven, Hans [eds.], New Perspectives on the Chinese Communist Revolution, M. E. Sharpe, Armonk, 1995, p. 275; see also Sun Shuyun, The Long March, HarperCollins, 2006).

  49. Salisbury, pp. 269–70. Chinese prisoners ate grains recovered from horse manure during the famine years in the early 1960s (Bao Ruo-wang [Jean Pasqualini] and Rudolph Chelminski, Prisoner of Mao, Penguin, Harmondsworth, 1976, pp. 241–2).