Mao: The Unknown Story

by Jung Chang

  Mao met this second deadline with silence. He wanted to goad the Generalissimo into resorting to force, so that an all-out civil war could start and, as Mao told Chou, “the Soviet Union would step in.” Again Chiang took no action. Mao knew the Generalissimo’s weak spots. He wrote to Chou on 3 November: “What Chiang fears most is civil war, and the Soviet Union. So we can bully him on this.”

  On 7 November 1940, the anniversary of the Bolshevik Revolution, Mao appealed to Moscow with his most overtly bellicose proposition yet. Signed by himself, the cable was addressed to Dimitrov and Manuilsky, Mao’s main backer in the Comintern. Copies were sent to Stalin and defense minister Semyon Timoshenko. Mao’s plan was to dispatch 150,000 soldiers “to deliver a blow” at Chiang’s rear. He called this a “preventive counter-offensive,” i.e., he would fire the first shot.

  Mao was asking Moscow to endorse his starting a full-scale civil war, in the thick of the Sino-Japanese War. The reason he felt able to venture this far now was his perception that the latest developments might cause Stalin to favor a strike at Chiang. The Kremlin was considering joining the Tripartite Pact of which Japan was a member, together with Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy. If Mao struck now, in effect forming a pincer attack with Japan on Chiang, Chiang might well collapse. If Mao contributed to the defeat of Chiang, this would greatly strengthen Stalin’s hand at the negotiating table with Tokyo.

  Mao’s entreaty to Moscow to allow him to enter this unholy de facto alliance with Japan arrived as Soviet foreign minister Molotov was about to set off for Berlin, where one of his goals was to get Hitler to help Moscow muscle in as a major interested party in the Sino-Japanese War. Molotov’s agenda stated: “Discuss the necessity of reaching an honorable [sic] peace for China (Chiang Kai-shek), in which the USSR may with the participation of G[ermany] and I[taly] be ready to take on mediation … (Manchukuo stays for J[apan]).” Molotov then told the Führer: “[We] must find a compromise exit from the situation prevailing between China and Japan … in this regard the USSR and Germany could play an important role.” But the Führer was not interested.

  The terms Japan offered on China did not begin to match Stalin’s expectations. Tokyo would agree only to “a Russian sphere of influence in Outer Mongolia and Xinjiang,” which was hardly alluring to Stalin, as these two places were already in his pocket. Japan also considered “recognising and accepting the three northwestern provinces (Shaanxi, Gansu, and Ningxia) remaining a Chinese Communist base”—on condition that Russia agreed to “restrain the anti-Japanese activities of the Chinese Communists.” But this idea was again not nearly enough for Stalin, as the CCP was already occupying a much larger territory than these three provinces.

  Moscow’s failure to strike a deal with Tokyo meant that Stalin’s priority remained staving off the possibility of a Japanese attack on Russia — and that meant Mao could not have his all-out war on Chiang yet. Stalin wanted a united China which could continue to bog down the Japanese. When Stalin dispatched General Chuikov as his new military adviser to Chongqing at this time, Chuikov asked why he was being sent “to Chiang Kai-shek, not the Chinese Red Army.” Stalin answered: “Your job is firmly to tie the hands of the Japanese aggressor in China.”

  So the Kremlin line to Mao was: hold your fire. An order went off to him on 25 November: “for the time being, play for time, manoeuvre, and bargain with Chiang Kai-shek in every possible way over removing your forces from Central China … It is essential you do not initiate military action [i.e., against Chiang] …” But Moscow did authorize Mao to fight back if attacked: “However, if Chiang Kai-shek … attacks [you], you must strike with all your might … In this case, the responsibility for the split and civil war will fall entirely on Chiang …”

  This left Mao with one hope: that Chiang would fire the first shot. But as deadlines for the N4A to move north came and went, Mao reached the conclusion that “Chiang launching a big assault is not a possibility …”

  Having failed to provoke Chiang into firing the first shot, Mao now set up a situation in which Chiang’s finger would be forced to pull the trigger.

  Mao’s remarks about the Polish model and a Soviet-Japanese pact did not go down well in Moscow. They were too unvarnished, and a harsh reproof ensued. “The provocative essence of this statement must be unmasked,” Comintern chief Dimitrov cabled Mao. “We urgently request that Mao Tse-tung and other Chinese comrades refrain from giving interviews to foreign correspondents like the interview with Edgar Snow, as this is being used for provocative purposes.” Mao kept his mouth shut in public, and Snow was barred from Red-held China until the Sino-Soviet split, in 1960.

  The new system was highly effective. The Japanese could not even locate the radios, much less break the codes.

  Mao’s deal does not seem to have extended to actual military cooperation in the field, though the Russian GRU chief in Yenan reported one occasion when Communist troops attacked Nationalist forces in Shandong in summer 1943 “in coordination with Japanese troops.”

  Chuikov’s other role, which he did not mention in his memoirs, was to give Moscow an expert assessment of whether the Chinese Reds could take power after Japan was defeated.

  22. DEATH TRAP FOR HIS OWN MEN (1940–41 AGE 46–47)

  THE POLITICAL commissar of the New 4th Army, the Red Army based in east central China, was an old nemesis of Mao’s, Xiang Ying. A decade before, Mao had tried to have him eliminated when he opposed Mao’s torturing and killing in the AB purge. And Xiang Ying had warned against taking Mao along on the Long March, predicting that he would scheme to seize power. He had remained outspoken about Mao, sometimes even mocking him.

  Xiang Ying’s HQ of about 1,000 staff and 8,000 escort troops was situated in a picturesque place called Cloud Peak, near perhaps the most strangely beautiful mountain in China, Huangshan, the Yellow Mountain, where, before one’s astonished eyes, the clouds run, dance, storm and melt at dazzling speed around Gothic-looking rocks. By December 1940, Xiang Ying’s group was the only part of the N4A south of the Yangtze, as Mao had sent 90 percent of the N4A north of the river, and put them under a separate headquarters run by his ally Liu Shao-chi.

  That month, Mao set Xiang Ying’s group up to be killed by the Nationalist army, in the hope that the massacre would persuade Stalin to let him off the leash against Chiang. Months before, in July, the Generalissimo had ordered the N4A to move to northern China, an order Mao had defied. In December, however, Mao told Xiang to decamp, and cross to the north of the Yangtze.

  There were two routes Xiang could take. The shortest ran due north (the North Route). The second would take him southeast, and then over the Yangtze much farther downstream (the East Route). On 10 December the Generalissimo designated the North Route, and Mao confirmed it to Xiang on the 29th.

  The next day, Mao suddenly told Xiang to take the East Route, the one the Generalissimo had vetoed, but did not tell Chiang this, so Chiang thought the Reds would take the route agreed. On 3 January 1941 a cable arrived at Xiang’s HQ from the Generalissimo himself, specifying the itinerary and adding: “I have ordered all the armies along the way to ensure your safety.”

  Xiang replied at once, saying he would not be taking the route Chiang had designated, and asking to have the East Route cleared instead. But this crucial message never got to Chiang — thanks to Mao. Mao had banned all Communist commanders from communicating with the Generalissimo direct, and had ordered all contacts channeled through himself. Xiang sent the message via Mao, and Mao did not send it on. So Xiang set off in wintry chill and rain on the night of 4 January 1941 along Mao’s chosen East Route not knowing that Chiang had never seen his cable.

  Xiang and his troops walked right into a much larger Nationalist force, who had not been told that Xiang’s unit was coming, much less that it was only passing through, and thought this was an attack. Fighting broke out on the 6th. That day the local Nationalist commander, General Ku, gave orders to “exterminate” the Reds.

  Xiang sent fran
tic telegrams to Yenan pleading for Mao to tell the Nationalists to hold their fire. But Mao did nothing. When Liu Shao-chi, who was with the main N4A force north of the Yangtze, wired Yenan on the 9th about the situation, Mao pretended ignorance, claiming that the last he had heard from Xiang was on the 5th, and “after that we do not know anything.”

  During the most critical period of bloody fighting, the four days from 6 to 9 January, Mao claimed he received no communication. During those days, Xiang’s radio operators were sending out repeated, desperate SOS messages, and Liu Shao-chi had no problem receiving them. It is hard to believe that Mao’s communications had conveniently “broken down” just for the four days when the N4A HQ was being massacred. And even if there was some glitch, this cannot explain how Mao did nothing — for days — to resume contact. Mao had a history of using “radio trouble” as an excuse to suppress information (after the kidnapping of Chiang Kai-shek in 1936, Mao had claimed he was unable to receive a vital message from Moscow). For Mao, the greater the bloodshed, the greater his excuse to turn on Chiang; and he was sacrificing someone he was glad to get rid of anyway, Xiang Ying.

  After Liu brought up the subject of the N4A’s plight on the 9th, Mao’s radio miraculously started functioning again. From that day, urgent pleas from N4A HQ began to be recorded. On the 10th the HQ entreated Mao: “on the brink of doom …” “Please could you quickly make representations to Chiang and Ku to call off the encirclement. Otherwise the entire force will be wiped out.” Mao sat still.

  That same day, Xiang Ying again tried to cable Chiang, again via Mao. That plea too was withheld from the Generalissimo, as Mao revealed to his liaison Chou (on the 13th): “I did not send it on to you … This cable must absolutely not be passed on.”

  On the evening of the 11th Chou was attending a reception in Chongqing to celebrate the third anniversary of the CCP’s New China Daily when a message arrived from Mao. Chou announced to the assembled throng that N4A HQ had been surrounded and attacked. But even now the telegram Mao sent was not an order to act; it was merely “for your information.”

  It was only the next day that Mao finally instructed Chou to “make serious representations to have the encirclement called off.” But the level of crisis was carefully toned down (“they say they can still hold out for seven days” was a distortion of much more desperate reports days before). Chou did not make any serious protest until the 13th. By that time Chiang had stopped the killing on his own initiative, on the 12th.

  On 13 January, after the massacre had ended, Mao suddenly came to life, telling Chou to crank up a PR campaign for a righteous all-out war against Chiang. “Once the decision is made,” Mao said, “we will strike all the way to Sichuan [Chiang’s base].”

  “Now it is a matter of a total split … of how to overthrow Chiang.”

  AS HIS ARMY was no match for Chiang’s, Mao could not possibly achieve these goals without Stalin’s intervention. Chou saw the Russian ambassador on 15 January to impress on him that the Reds needed bailing out. He was given the cold shoulder. In his classified memoirs, Panyushkin recorded his suspicion that Mao had set Xiang Ying up — and that Chou had been lying.

  Mao, meanwhile, appealed directly to Moscow for all-out war against Chiang, with what a Russian intelligence source calls “one hysterical telegram after another,” claiming that Chiang’s plan was to wipe out first the N4A, then the 8RA, and then “crush the CCP.”

  “There is a danger our army will be completely annihilated,” Mao told Moscow.

  “Danger of civil war,” noted Comintern chief Dimitrov in his diary the day this cable arrived, 16 January, calling the N4A “our troops.” Moscow did not believe Mao’s claim that Chiang was about to try to “annihilate” the CCP, and told Mao so. Mao responded with another alarmist cable, specifically asking that it go “to cde. [comrade] Stalin so that he could weigh the situation in China, and see whether he could not give us concrete military help soon.” “Help” meant direct intervention, not just arms and aid. This importuning seems to have annoyed Stalin. At a ceremony for the anniversary of Lenin’s death on 21 January, he talked disparagingly about the N4A’s nominal commander, Ye Ting, whom the Russians had once considered sending to the gulag, calling him “an undisciplined partisan.” “Need to check whether he did not provoke this incident. We, too, had a number of good partisans whom we were obliged to shoot because of their lack of discipline.” Dimitrov told Mao again more firmly than before: “Don’t take the initiative to break …”

  Writing to Stalin, Dimitrov pinned the responsibility on Mao personally: “the Chinese comrades … are thoughtlessly pursuing the split; we have decided … to draw C[omrade] Mao Tse-tung’s attention to his incorrect position …” On 13 February, Stalin endorsed Dimitrov’s order to the CCP, marked for Mao personally. It was peremptory: “We consider that a split is not unavoidable. You should not strive for a split. On the contrary, you should … do everything possible … to prevent civil war erupting. Please reconsider your current position on this issue …” A cable from Mao that same day toed Moscow’s line, but vibrated with determination to get Chiang: “the split,” Mao insisted, “is inevitable in the future.”

  Mao had seen Moscow’s decision coming days before. It had greatly depressed him, and led him to write a most unusual letter to his sons in Russia (to whom he very seldom wrote) on 31 January:

  My sons An-ying and An-ching:

  … Seeing what progress you have made, I am very happy. An-ying writes well, the Chinese characters are not bad at all, and you have aspiration for achievements: all this is very good. I have only one thing to suggest to you both: while you are young, study natural science more, and talk less politics. Politics needs to be talked about, but at the moment you should set your mind on studying natural science … Only science is real learning, and will have boundless use in the future …

  Compared with his previous few rather dry and note-like letters to his sons, this one was long and intimate, even wistful. It reeked of fatigue. What was most extraordinary and absolutely unique was that Mao told his children to avoid politics!

  MAO MIGHT HAVE failed to provoke full-scale war against Chiang, but he had won a number of far from negligible victories. Not the least gratifying was the death of his most outspoken critic. Xiang Ying had escaped after Chiang ordered the Nationalist army to stop fighting, but in the small hours of 14 March, while asleep in a mountain cave, he was shot dead by his aide-de-camp, who had turned against the Communists some time before. The aide took the gold and valuables Xiang Ying had in his pockets and gave himself up to the Nationalists.

  Two months before Xiang Ying died, when he had just broken out of the death trap, Mao wrote a fierce condemnation of him to senior Party officials, insinuating that Xiang was “an enemy agent.” (Even today, Xiang Ying is still often blamed, along with Chiang Kai-shek, for the deaths of the N4A men and women.)

  Getting rid of Xiang Ying was only one of Mao’s gains. Another was that the N4A was allowed to stay where it was. Chiang was desperate to avoid a total civil war in the middle of the war against Japan. The Russians now put tremendous heat on the Generalissimo not to impede — much less roll back — Red expansion. General Chuikov made an explicit link between Chiang agreeing to fall into line and the continuation of Russian aid to the Nationalists. The Russian ambassador noted how Chiang was beside himself with anger. He “received my statement very nervously,” wrote Panyushkin. “He paced up and down the study and … I had to repeat my question three times.”

  Chiang was also highly vulnerable to pressure from America, which was his only hope of freeing himself from dependence on the Russians for arms. US president Franklin Roosevelt, whose overriding concern was (like Stalin’s) to get China to do as much fighting against Japan as possible and bog Japan down, had no leverage with the Communists, so he put all the pressure on Chiang, linking the issue of aiding his government with an end to civil conflict — in effect, regardless of who was causing it. In the wake of the N
4A incident, US media announced that Washington was discussing withholding a US$50 million loan because of the civil strife. This news came just when American aid could have played a big role, as the air route over the Himalayas, known as “the Hump,” opened on 25 January.

  Roosevelt leaned heavily for information about China on a private network that included Edgar Snow, largely bypassing the State Department, which he distrusted. His chief private informant on China was a Marine officer called Evans Carlson, who filed starry-eyed reports to the White House lauding the Reds, which Roosevelt recycled uncritically to members of his inner circle, one of whom told him that Carlson’s version of events was corroborated by Snow’s Red Star. Carlson was in Chongqing at the time of the N4A Incident, and immediately after it he returned to Washington to convey the Reds’ version to Roosevelt in person.

  Britain did not count as far as aid was concerned, but Chiang aspired to be close to the AngloUS bloc, and so was susceptible to British pressure. Britain’s prime minister Winston Churchill disliked Chiang, regarding him as militarily useless, and a potential menace to British interests in China. The British ambassador, Clark Kerr, told Chiang that in the event of civil war Britain would not support him, regardless of who started the fighting. In the period covering the N4A Incident, his advice to London heavily favored the Communists. He openly said that Chou En-lai was worth all the Nationalists rolled into one.