How the Red Sun Rose: The Origin and Development of the Yan'an Rectification Movement, 1930-1945 9629968223, 9789629968229

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How the Red Sun Rose

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How the Red Sun Rose The Origins and Development of the Yan’an Rectification Movement, 1930–1945

By Gao Hua Translated by Stacy Mosher and Guo Jian

THE CHINESE UNIVERSITY PRESS

How the Red Sun Rose: The Origins and Development of the Yan’an Rectification Movement, 1930–1945   By Gao Hua   Translated by Stacy Mosher and Guo Jian © The Chinese University of Hong Kong 2018 All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from The Chinese University of Hong Kong. ISBN: 978-962-996-822-9 The Chinese University Press The Chinese University of Hong Kong Sha Tin, N.T., Hong Kong Fax: +852 2603 7355 Email: [email protected] Website: www.chineseupress.com Printed in Hong Kong

Contents

Foreword  Joseph W. Esherick  / vii Preface / xv Preface to the Second Printing / xix Acknowledgments / xxi Abbreviations / xxiii

1

The Origins of the Disagreements between Mao and the Central Leadership of the Chinese Communist Party / 1

2

The Expansion of Mao’s Power after the Zunyi Conference and Moscow’s Political Interference / 89

3

Power Struggles and Reorganization of the Party Leadership after Wang Ming’s Return to China / 131

4

Mao’s Great Victory over Wang Ming / 171

5

Seizing the Power of Ideological “Interpretation” / 197

6

The Internal and External Environments of the Chinese Communist Party and Mao’s Advantageous Position on the Eve of the Rectification Movement / 221

7

Revolution Begins at the Top: Mao and Wang Ming Cross Swords / 279

8

The Revolution Shifts Downward: The Launch of the Fullscale Rectification Movement / 319

9

From the “Yan’an Spring” to the Attack on Wang Shiwei / 335

10

The Revolution Deepens: Reconstructing the Apparatus for Propaganda and Cadre Education / 389

11

Forging the “New Man”: From Rectification to Cadre Examination / 419

12

The Revolution Hits Its Peak: The Cadre Examination, Antispy, and Emergency Rescue Campaigns / 471

13

Yan’an and the Base Areas during the Emergency Rescue Campaign / 539

14

Two Steps Forward, One Step Back: The Retreat of the Emergency Rescue Campaign / 627

15

“Long Live Chairman Mao”: The Culmination of the Yan’an Rectification Movement / 661

Postscript / 707 Notes / 719 Bibliography / 773 Index / 797

Foreword Joseph W. Esherick

Gao Hua passed away on December 26, 2012—ironically on the birthday of Mao Zedong, the man he had studied for much of his tragically foreshortened life. News media reported praise of this gentle scholar from colleagues across China, much of which can still be read in the entry on his life on Baidu (China’s combination of Google and Wikipedia). Never mentioned in these reports is the fact that his most important work of scholarship, the book translated here, is banned in China. The Chineselanguage edition of How the Red Sun Rose has been reprinted nineteen times since 2000 and is the press’s best-selling title, but if you are caught carrying a copy into the Chinese mainland, it will be confiscated, and you could find yourself in uncomfortable trouble with the authorities. Such is the history of this monumental study of Mao’s rise to primacy in the Chinese Communist Party (CCP): it is widely known, broadly respected, and officially proscribed. Gao Hua was born in May 1954 in Nanjing, the Yangzi Valley city that had been China’s capital under the Nationalist Party government of Chiang Kai-shek. While Gao was but a small child, his father was branded a “rightist” in one of Mao’s political campaigns, and for the rest of his life, Gao carried the label of “rightist” progeny. At school, when his classmates were called out to join crowds for political celebrations or to welcome foreign visitors, Gao was sent off to confinement in a special room. When the Cultural Revolution erupted in the 1960s, he was similarly excluded, but used the opportunity to read from a closed middle school library tended by a kindly army veteran. When university entrance exams were restored following Mao’s death, Gao was admitted to Nanjing University,

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becoming a member of the celebrated classes of 1977 and 1978, filled with smart and eager students whose education had been interrupted by a decade of revolutionary turmoil. Nanjing University was Gao’s home throughout his academic career. In the 1980s, it had an envied reputation as one of China’s most progressive institutions, and Johns Hopkins University founded a HopkinsNanjing Center with unprecedented personal and academic interactions between Chinese and foreign students. Nanjing University’s history department was known for its strength in twentieth-century history, in part because the archives of the republican national government (1912–49) were housed in the city. Gao began his career studying Nationalist Party history, and his obvious scholarly talent earned him a faculty position at his alma mater. He lived with his family in a cramped apartment that quickly filled with the books and documents that fueled his research. In the 1990s, Gao shifted his focus to Mao Zedong and the history of the Chinese Communist Party. Like so many Chinese intellectuals, Gao was at heart a liberal. He subscribed to the values of the May Fourth movement of 1919: democracy, freedom, independence, social justice, and humanism. The Communist Party also traced its roots to May Fourth, though it stressed the movement’s patriotic agenda. As Gao recognized, the party had departed from the broader May Fourth ideals, becoming increasingly autocratic and intolerant of divergent views. The ultimate expression of this process was the 1966–76 Cultural Revolution, with its cult of Mao and violent suppression of “class enemies” and “incorrect” ideas. Gao dedicated the rest of his life to exploring the origins of Mao’s rise to power and the formulation of the uniquely Chinese campaign style of politics, which stressed mass struggle against deviant ideas and the psychological remolding of cadres, students, and ordinary citizens. He identified the Yan’an Rectification Movement of 1942–44 as the key moment in the development of this campaign style. This book is his exploration of the deep roots and complex evolution of that pivotal moment in modern Chinese history. Yan’an is now enshrined as a “revolutionary holy land,” visited by students and party members as part of the “patriotic education” that all Chinese must receive. It sits in the northern hills of Shaanxi province, where the Long March ended in 1935 and Edgar Snow interviewed Mao Zedong and others for Red Star over China, the book that introduced China’s revolutionary leaders to the world. During the War of Resistance

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against Japan (1937–45), Yan’an was the Communist capital and it was here that Mao rose to preeminence in the party and composed the most important writings of what came to be called Mao Zedong Thought. In Yan’an, too, a “Resolution on Party History” was drafted and adopted, forming the framework for all official party history since that time. Communist Party history is a special discipline in China. Most courses are not taught in ordinary university history departments, but in separate party history departments, often located in a School of Marxism Studies. The documents on which party history is based are kept in the tightly controlled Central Archives, then selected and edited for wider distribution by an organ of the party’s Central Committee, the Central Documents Research Office. Only members of this office and a select number of scholars at the Central Party School have access to the original documents. While this does not ensure absolute uniformity in writings on party history, and there are still lively debates on specific incidents, there are clear limits on what can be published, and the basic standard is conformity with the official resolutions on party history. Gao Hua spent his career outside of this structure. He was a member of a regular history department. His credentials were in Republican Chinese history, not in Communist Party history. Most importantly, he was not a party member and was not committed to the party’s view of history. Accordingly, his research on the Rectification Movement was pursued as an avocation, a private undertaking pursued without state or university funding. He had no access to party archives, nor did he conduct interviews with senior party members who had lived and worked in Yan’an, the sort of personal testimony that was so important to such Western works as David E. Apter’s and Tony Saich’s Revolutionary Discourse in Mao’s Republic.1 Gao used his meagre salary to build his own private collection of research materials and used the Nanjing University library to access published documentary collections, official biographies, memoirs, and other sources to construct the extraordinary work of scholarship presented in this volume. In the end, as we know, the book could not be published in mainland China, but was instead released in Hong Kong. It was not recognized in Gao’s official record for academic promotion. After the demonstrations at Tiananmen Square, Beijing, in 1989, as the state sought to quell intellectual discontent by raising professors’ salaries and providing additional income from grants and royalties, Gao was largely left out, remaining with his family in their small Nanjing flat.

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The book so ably translated here is long and complex—reflecting the tortuous road that Mao traveled to supreme power in the party and, ultimately, in China. The first generation of English-language academic works on Mao focused on his writings, especially the distinctive Chinese version of Marxism-Leninism embodied in Mao Zedong Thought. From Benjamin I. Schwartz’s early work, Chinese Communism and the Rise of Mao, to the lifetime of scholarship by Stuart R. Schram, the concern was the theory and strategy of a peasant-based revolutionary movement in a country that Marx would have judged unready for socialism. 2 How did Mao revise Marxism-Leninism to make it applicable to Chinese conditions—a process conventionally understood as the “Sinification of Marxism?” More recent scholarship includes critical biographies of the entire course of Mao’s life,3 and the contest for power between the Chinese Communists and their Nationalist rivals.4 Gao’s concern is different from all of these. He is explicitly uninterested in Mao’s thought, but very much concerned with Mao’s craft—his tactics of struggle and use of power. He is also far less interested in the Communist Party’s competition with Chiang Kai-shek and the Nationalist Party than in Mao’s struggles with his rivals within the party. The result of this distinctive interpretive focus is a narrative that skips over episodes in China’s revolutionary history that receive far more attention in other studies. Some of this may be inevitable in a book that is already quite long. We get, for example, no account of Mao’s early career, especially his formative involvement in the peasant movement in Hunan or the early years of the revolutionary movement in Jinggangshan. The narrative begins instead in 1930, and concentrates on the bloody elimination of party dissidents in the Futian Incident. The Long March is barely treated beyond the critical party meeting at Zunyi; and the conflict with Zhang Guotao, Mao’s most powerful rival within the party in 1935, is barely mentioned. The Xi’an Incident of December 1936, in which two of Chiang Kai-shek’s generals kidnapped him to force a United Front with the Communists, gets only passing notice, and the entire War of Resistance against Japan is seen only dimly in the background. All of this is understandable given Gao’s central concern with the Rectification Movement as the final resolution of Mao’s long-standing conflict with Wang Ming and other members of the Soviet-trained Internationalist faction in the party. Nor are these omissions of great concern to Gao’s Chinese readers, who are familiar enough with the history to be able to fill

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in the gaps. But they do pose problems for this English-language edition, whose readers may not be all that familiar with the precise chronology or political import of specific events in modern Chinese history, and the translators have made an effort to help with occasional explanatory footnotes. Nonetheless, some readers may find it useful to keep readily at hand a standard text or chronology, to remind themselves of what else was going on as Mao dealt with his rivals in the party. The most common criticism of Gao’s account is that the singleminded focus on Mao’s struggle with his rivals in the party does not do justice to the full range of debates within the party leadership. Some aspects of the critique are particularly objectionable when they come from official party historians with access to the meeting minutes. While claiming that they have seen more complete records that disprove Gao’s account, they also defer to state policies that prevent them from making those records available. This is, of course, an extreme form of the common bureaucratic effort to maintain power through the control of information. Unfortunately, the Chinese state has been unusually successful in recruiting establishment intellectuals into complicity with this effort—providing access, funding, and status in exchange for their cooperation to control the historical record. At the same time, I must confess that I have some sympathy with this critique. The sources allow us no direct insight into Mao’s motivation, and Gao Hua’s account is admittedly based on a degree of speculation from the available documentary and memoir record. I personally am inclined to believe that while struggling for power within the party, Mao also considered the proper calibration of competition and collaboration in the United Front with the Nationalist Party, the tactics and strategy of guerrilla warfare during the War of Resistance against Japan, and the larger international context, especially relations with the Soviet Union and, toward the end of the war, with the United States. Nonetheless, Gao’s more limited focus does provide some very important insights. We gain, for example, a much clearer understanding of the full course of Mao’s struggle with Wang Ming. Wang was a young returned student from Moscow when he rose to prominence in the CCP under Soviet sponsorship in 1931. At that time he promoted an adventurist, urban-oriented leftist line, and the party’s failings in the early 1930s are often attributed to the “Wang Ming Left Line.” Wang soon returned to the Soviet Union where he represented the CCP in the Comintern until

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the outbreak of war with Japan. When he returned to China in December 1937, he came as Moscow’s anointed representative, and a strong supporter of the United Front with Chiang Kai-shek. For a time, this was a real threat to Mao, who regarded Wang’s policy of “everything subordinate to the anti-Japanese resistance” as a rightist error threatening the CCP’s political and military independence. It has never been clear how this leftist suddenly became a “rightist.” Gao Hua provides a convincing account of Wang’s transition from leftist to rightist errors, noting that before his return, Wang Ming often shared Mao’s criticisms of the party’s leftist excesses, though always shifting in concert with Stalin and the Comintern. Mao’s predicament was finding a way to attack Wang Ming without offending Stalin, and he found this in the critique of “dogmatism.” The heart and climax of Gao’s study is his analysis of the Rectification Movement of 1942–44 and the unification of the party under Mao at the Seventh Party Congress in 1945. These are rich and insightful chapters, and include the important suggestion that Mao managed to add a traditional Chinese resonance to Leninist self-criticism by linking it to Confucian self-reflection (fanxing). Cadres were required to go beyond the academic study of the reading materials to link them to their own life experiences. To monitor this process, they were to keep notebooks, record the progress of their studies, and write accounts of their personal awakening to revolution. From these accounts, it was but a small step to self-criticism, and then to public confessions—at first voluntary, but later coerced if necessary. The materials produced by this process eventually found their way into personnel dossiers, and for many provided ammunition for their persecution in future political campaigns. These methods were steadily and systematically developed as the Rectification Movement escalated from a critique of the bookish dogmatism of the Moscow-returned “Internationalist” group, to an attack on the liberalism of young students and intellectuals, and finally the frightening excesses of security chief Kang Sheng’s search for secret agents and traitors who had infiltrated the Communist bases. In theory, it should have been difficult to combine assaults on Marxist dogmatism and bourgeois liberalism in a single campaign. But Mao managed to do that in the Yan’an Rectification Movement. To some degree, this was made possible by his appeal to Chinese models and the notion of the Sinification of Marxism. A Mao-centered Marxism with Chinese characteristics could be used to attack both Marxist book-learning

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imported from the Soviet Union and liberal democratic ideas absorbed in Western-style schools by young people from China’s coastal cities. Of course, it took more than the newly articulated Mao Zedong Thought to carry out this campaign, and Mao relied heavily on Kang Sheng (who had returned from Moscow with Wang Ming, but soon switched his allegiance to Mao) to orchestrate the campaign. Kang brought with him a keen knowledge of the coercive methods of the OGPU and was responsible for the most extreme excesses of Rectification. When, prodded by Moscow, Mao brought the campaign to an end, he apologized and made Kang the scapegoat, removing him from the leadership at the Seventh Party Congress. Of course, as is well known, Kang Sheng was brought back in the 1960s to play a similar role in the Cultural Revolution. Gao Hua’s monumental study of these dramatic and important events is a path-breaking work of politically engaged scholarship. He embarked on this project with the explicit purpose of locating the roots of Mao’s Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution. No one can read this gripping account without seeing the parallels to political campaigns that followed the establishment of the People’s Republic in 1949. To this day, Mao’s portrait hangs over Tiananmen Square, the Sinification of Marxism remains an enduring slogan, and the cult of a single dominant leader still prevails. Whether one can draw a straight line from Rectification Movement in Yan’an to the present remains a question. One of the greatest strengths of Gao Hua’s How the Red Sun Rose is the detailed account of the twists and turns of history that led to Rectification. It is likely that developments after 1945 should also be understood as the product of contingent and unpredictable events. Gao Hua himself was turning to the history of the People’s Republic when his life and his scholarship were so tragically cut short. It remains to a new generation to carry on where he left off. October 20, 2017

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Preface

As winter turned to spring in 1942, a large-scale political movement commenced in Yan’an, the wartime stronghold of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), and soon thereafter in other base areas of the Communist-led anti-Japanese resistance. It was a rectification movement that continued for many years, but because it was centered in Yan’an and most typically played out there, it came to be known as the “Yan’an Rectification Movement.” The Yan’an Rectification Movement was the first Party-wide political movement in the history of the CCP. Closely associated with and directly led by Mao Zedong, the campaign involved internal Party purges and reorganizations in various areas, including: • • • •

Power struggles among the Party leadership and reorganization of the Party’s central power apparatus; Ideological remolding throughout the Party; Examination of the personal histories of cadres and “elimination of counterrevolutionaries”; Creation of a new system.

Among these, the high-level power struggles and the reorganization of leading organs always occupied a central position. The Yan’an Rectification Movement began in early 1942, but its origins can be traced back much earlier. Its first manifestation occurred during the period from the 1935 Zunyi Conference to 1937, when Mao

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used his advantageous position within the CCP leadership to make adjustments to Party policy and to the leading organs. Following the Sixth Plenum of the Sixth CCP Central Committee in 1938, these partial adjustments rapidly evolved into a series of major changes that Mao carried out with respect to the political line, the organizational structure, and ethos of the Party. The Sixth Plenum, which was held in Yan’an, was of decisive significance to Mao. It legitimized his power over the military and the Party, which he had achieved since 1935, and it radically enhanced his status within the Party core. The period from the end of 1938 until the autumn of 1941 was a critical phase during which Mao increased his control over the evolving situation and gradually weakened his opponents within the Party. This process reached a climax during an enlarged Politburo meeting held in September 1941, when Mao emerged victorious in his direct challenge to Wang Ming. It was on the foundation of these years of meticulous preparation that the curtain finally opened on the Yan’an Rectification Movement in early 1942. The movement was a process during which Mao wielded his political power to thoroughly reorganize the top echelons of the Party and to redistribute power so as to establish absolute dominance. At the same time, the movement was a process during which Mao used his own ideas and thinking to thoroughly transform the Party’s “Russified” character and to remold the CCP in his own image. During the Rectification Movement, Mao wielded his creation of ideological remolding, along with methods of examining the personal histories of cadres (shen’gan) and eliminating counterrevolutionaries (sufan), to deal a mortal blow to all remnants of May Fourth liberal democratic thought and blind worship of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) within the Party. This completed the foundation for the work of total Maoization of the Party, while also establishing a set of new Party traditions under Mao’s distinctive personal style. Becoming second nature over time, these concepts and paradigms would change the lives and fates of hundreds of millions of Chinese after 1949. Having emerged from isolation within the Party leadership after years of struggle, Mao further consolidated his political alliance with Liu Shaoqi during the Yan’an Rectification Movement, and with Liu’s full backing Mao forced the Party core to accept his views and his paramount personal authority. The reasons for Mao’s earlier period of isolation were his “heterodox” views, which departed from Moscow’s orthodox theories,

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and his arbitrary temperament. Borne out in practice, Mao’s “heterodox” military strategy greatly facilitated an expansion of Party power, ultimately forcing the pro-Moscow faction within the Party to surrender to Mao at the same time that he rallied the Party’s top military officials around him. Mao’s arbitrary temperament first came to light in 1930 and 1931, when he personally led the suppression of the “AB League.”* This incident caused a major crisis in the Jiangxi Communist Base Area and weakened the strength of the CCP. In the face of a grimly complex and volatile situation after 1935, Mao reined in his domineering tendencies. As his power over the Party grew, after 1941 his arbitrary behavior erupted once again. This time, however, the top leadership of the Party could no longer effectively restrain him. During the Yan’an Rectification Movement, Mao deliberately indulged his arbitrary nature in service to his political objectives. Among the high-level leaders, Mao drew a line to separate friends from enemies and then he created and used every opportunity to attack any dissent. In Yan’an and other base areas, Mao implemented a politics of terror by instigating “rescue campaigns” that were actually purges of the entire cadre corps. Following the Rectification Movement, the ultraleftist policies of examining cadres’ personal histories and eliminating counterrevolutionaries that Mao had implanted in Party organs became second nature and they had a lasting deleterious effect on post-1949 China. The Yan’an Rectification Movement provided Mao with an arena to play out his complex and ingenious political strategy. Daring to shatter the Party’s historical conventions, his methods were profoundly ruthless, and he used his keen assessment of the mindsets of his opponents to subdue his enemies with seamless and masterful proficiency. Mao’s strategic skills resided in his skillful utilization of ancient Chinese political arts as well as his in-depth understanding of OGPU methods.† Due to an intensive drive by Mao, all power became concentrated in the hands of Mao during *

  Translators’ Note (cited hereafter as TN): The “Anti-Bolshevik League” incident is described in detail in Chapter 1. The original Anti-Bolshevik League was an intelligence agency of the Nationalist government, but it was already defunct by the time that Mao led a campaign against it. †   TN: The O(byedinyonnoye) G(osudarstvennoye) P(oliticheskoye) U(pravleniye) (OGPU), or the Joint State Political Directorate, was the secret police in the USSR from 1922 to 1934.

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the Seventh Party Congress in 1945. Mao’s public image also developed around the time of the rectification, and amidst the heady intensification of his personality cult, Mao deliberately revealed himself to be leader of both the Party and the Chinese people. On public occasions and in encounters with all sorts of people, Mao invariably played the role of an enlightened ruler—courteous to the wise, cultivating the educated, and supremely open-minded. His cordial and proper reception of others bred general goodwill among Party members and people from all walks of life in the Kuomintang-controlled areas. In the upper levels of the Party, however, Mao indulged his headstrong, conceited, and arrogant nature. He took revenge against former political opponents for petty grievances and he relentlessly taunted Party colleagues. For a very long time, Mao’s twofaced character prevented outsiders from understanding his true nature. The Yan’an Rectification Movement occurred more than fifty years ago, but to this day a complete picture of the movement cannot be clearly deduced in conventional ideological terms. The purpose of this book is not to refute mainstream judgments about the Yan’an Rectification Movement but rather to attempt a differentiation and analysis by combing through all kinds of related historical materials, whether from the distant or the more recent past. My desire is to conduct new research into the Yan’an Rectification Movement, to brush away the dust of history, and to reveal the movement’s true face, thus providing an alternative to the official historical narrative and interpretation. I must leave it to the reader to judge whether I have attained this goal. Gao Hua 1999

Preface to the Second Printing

Publication of this book by The Chinese University Press in March 2000 received an enthusiastic reception from readers. I offer my sincere and heartfelt thanks to the many readers who have written to me offering encouragement and support during the past two years. The Yan’an Rectification Movement was a major event that affected China’s progress during the twentieth century, but scholarly research on the subject has been rather weak. In this book I have attempted to research and analyze the movement from one perspective, and I humbly welcome corrections from readers. On the occasion of this reprinting, I would especially like to offer my thanks for the guidance provided by a number of venerable scholars. By various means, Chen-Ning Franklin Yang, Wang Yuanhua, Chen Fongching, Wu Jinglian, Wei Zhengtong, Chang Hao, Lin Yu-sheng, Chang Yu-fa, Dong Jian, Wei Liangtao, and others explored certain important questions with me and offered valuable encouragement and approval of my research. Jin Guantao, Liu Qingfeng, Jean Hung, Lu Fang-sang, Chen Yung-fa, Liu Xiaofeng, Xu Jilin, Xiao Gongqin, Zhu Xueqin, He Qinglian, Chen Yan, Ding Xueliang, Xu Youyu, Huang Ying-che, Tang Shaojie, Qian Wenzhong, Chien Yeong-shyang, Liang Kan, Mao Dan, Li Yang, Zhang Wenzhong, Qian Gang, Wu Dongfeng, and others offered positive and helpful suggestions as to how to carry out further research. When the first edition of this book was published, computerized conversion of simplified Chinese characters into traditional characters was not optimal, and multiple rounds of proofreading failed to detect a

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number of textual errors. This edition has been produced to correct these textual errors. Additionally, during the past two years, some new historical materials related to the Yan’an Rectification Movement have appeared, and these will be taken into account in a future revised and enlarged edition. I would like here to express my heartfelt thanks to Yan Yi, Ma Peiwen, Wei Tianzong, and Xue Lin. Following publication of this book, Yan Yi and Ma Peiwen not only carried out in-depth discussions with me about its content and composition but also took the trouble to correct the textual errors. Wei Tianzong also sent me corrections on place names. Professor Xue Lin is a linguistics expert at Nanjing University, and her knowledge of linguistics enlightened my revisions to this book. I would like to offer special thanks to my research student Huang Jun for his assistance with the corrections to the electronic text. Gao Hua May 12, 2002, at home in Nanjing

Acknowledgments

The Chinese University Press would like to thank the Research Centre for Contemporary Chinese Culture of The Chinese University of Hong Kong for granting us gratis English copyright of this edition. The translation of this book was generously supported by The Carter Center, the Open Society Foundations, and several readers and friends of Gao Hua. Without the munificent help of the above parties, the publication of this book is not possible.

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Abbreviations

BRSO

Border Region Security Office

CASC

Central Anti-spy Struggle Committee

CCGSC

Central Committee General Study Committee

CCP

Chinese Communist Party

CMC

Central Military Commission

CPSU

Communist Party of the Soviet Union

OGPU

O(byedinyonnoye) G(osudarstvennoye) P(oliticheskoye) U(pravleniye), or the Joint State Political Directorate

INA

International News Agency

KMT

Kuomintang

PRC

People’s Republic of China

SDP

Socialist Democratic Party

SPSB

State Political Security Bureau

USSR

Union of Soviet Socialist Republics

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1. The Origins of the Disagreements between Mao and the Central Leadership of the Chinese Communist Party

I.  The “Peasants’ Party,” the “Soldiers’ Party,” and Mao’s “Secretarial Dictatorship” The Yan’an Rectification Movement launched in the spring of 1942 to a certain extent represented an eruption of Mao Zedong’s long-term dissatisfaction at that time with the central leadership of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). The Yan’an Rectification Movement had a very long historical evolution, and although a series of measures and arrangements that Mao had proposed after the 1935 Zunyi Conference paved the way for the movement, its roots go back to the era of the Chinese Soviet Areas. During a period of seven or eight years, conflicts and grudges accumulated between Mao and the CCP central leadership, and even though the two sides sometimes cooperated, they mainly coexisted in a state of mutual suspicion and distrust. Political differences occupied a prominent position, but Mao’s personality and work style were also sources of contention and deep ambivalence among the central leadership. Mao’s initial claim to fame was his ascent of Jinggang Mountain in the autumn of 1927. This first armed engagement against the Kuomintang (KMT) rendered Mao a celebrated military leader of the Communist Revolution. For the KMT, Mao was a leader of the troublesome “ZhuMao Red Bandits”;* for the CCP and Moscow, Mao made an outstanding

*

  Translators’ Note (cited hereafter as TN): Referring to the military campaigns by Communist forces led by Mao and prominent military leader Zhu De (1886‒1976).

2  |  HOW THE RED SUN ROSE

contribution to the soviet areas, upon which the CCP depended for its survival. Yet, for a considerable time, Mao’s “heterodox” thinking and conduct were offensive both to Moscow and the central leadership of the CCP. This was displayed at different times and in different ways. The period from 1927 to 1930 was the conception stage. At that time, Moscow and the CCP Central Committee were closely monitoring Mao’s activities in Jiangxi, and although they had misgivings about some of Mao’s positions and they parted ways with him on some policies in the Jiangxi Communist area, they generally acknowledged and respected Mao’s views and his leadership of the Red Army and the base areas. Mao’s main contribution, from the perspective of the Comintern and the CCP Central Committee, was that at the critical juncture following the split between the KMT and the CCP in 1927, he had the courage and intelligence to set up Communist Base Areas and to develop a Party-led Red Army so that within the vast KMT-dominated territory the CCP had a place to establish a foothold and to implement its political program. Mao was elected to the Central Committee in abstentia during the CCP’s Sixth Congress, which was held in Moscow in June 1928. The CCP Central Committee was extremely careful in its handling of Mao’s relations with other key military leaders, generally emphasizing preservation of Mao’s prestige. The famous “September Missive,” drafted under the direction of Zhou Enlai in 1929, supported Mao’s views and helped to restore his leadership of the Fourth Red Army after he had come into conflict with Zhu De over the jurisdiction of the Fourth Red Army’s Front Line Committee and the Military Commission respectively.1 From 1927 to 1930 Mao was best known within the CCP as a military leader; his activities were largely focused on military engagement, of which theory was merely one aspect. The Central Committee held that Mao’s theoretical position remained within the framework drawn up by the Comintern and the Central Committee, and Mao did not ask the Central Committee to alter its urban-centric general line. In practical terms, during this period Mao enjoyed the highest authority in the Jiangxi Soviet Area and in the Red Army, and it was Mao who was mainly responsible for implementing the Central Committee’s directives in the Jiangxi Base Area. Mao interpreted Comintern and Central Committee directives flexibly, based on actual circumstances and his own needs. For that reason, neither Stalin in far-off Moscow nor the

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Central Committee in Shanghai imposed any direct or concrete constraint on Mao’s activities. The Fourth Red Army led by Mao was the single pillar that sustained the armed forces of the base army, the Party, and the soviet regime, and Mao’s position as secretary of the Front Line Committee was the highest position in the Fourth Red Army. Most leaders of Party and government organs in the Jiangxi Soviet Area, as well as a majority of the commanders in the Red Army, had either followed Mao up Jinggang Mountain or were old comrades during the early battles in southern Jiangxi and western Fujian. Although these people gave due respect to the Comintern and the CCP Central Committee, both sentimentally and intellectually they were detached from both. This is why during this period the Comintern and the Central Committee could only exert an influence on the Jiangxi Soviet Area through Mao, and the extent of their influence was largely under Mao’s control. However, beginning in 1930, as the Central Committee gradually shifted the focus of its work to the Jiangxi Soviet Area, it sent cadres who had recently returned from training in Moscow to reinforce operations in the base area, and the relations between Mao and the Central Committee became increasingly ambivalent. The Central Committee had initially stifled its discontent with Mao’s “heterodox” views and behavior for the sake of building the Party and consolidating the Red Army. Now, however, there was a constant trickle of disquieting news from the Jiangxi Soviet, and the Central Committee began to form some negative opinions about Mao.

1.  The Problem of the “Peasants’ Party” The issue of the “Peasants’ Party” was raised in a February 25, 1929, report to the Hunan Provincial Party Committee by Yang Kemin, whom the Party committee had sent to inspect Party operations in the Hunan-Jiangxi Border Region. Yang wrote, “It is basically a peasant region, so there is a pronounced flavor of a peasants’ party.”2 Mao made similar remarks in a report to the CCP Central Committee: “In all border counties, the Party seems to be made up almost entirely of peasants.”3 The extent of the problem was immediately apparent by the dominance of peasants at all levels of the Party’s Jiangxi organization. Second, the peasants in the Party organization included many people

4  |  HOW THE RED SUN ROSE

affiliated with the rural underworld. Yang Kemin’s report4 stated that the 300 to 400 Party members in Ling County included “many members of the Hong Society.”* Third, local Party organizations were very clannish. Since the base areas could only exist in remote villages and the mountainous HunanJiangxi Border Area had an isolated and self-contained natural economy, patriarchal clan organizations were the only source of social cohesion. Thus the Communist Party felt obligated to merge with these clans. Single-surname clans routinely organized into Party branches, and it was common for “Party branch meetings to be essentially clan meetings.” Fourth, because almost all Party members were peasants, they tended to be poorly educated and they were often illiterate, making it “truly difficult to build a fighting Bolshevik party.” The Party encountered extreme difficulties in terms of ideological training, and many Party members and grassroots Party organizations displayed an “entrenched local mentality, conservative thinking, and lack of discipline.” Some of the most basic Party knowledge eluded them, causing Mao to lament: “It is difficult for them to understand that the Communist Party does not distinguish between national and provincial borders; they even have problems understanding that it does not distinguish between counties, regions, and villages.”5 Yang and Mao were basically in agreement in their observation that “mechanized industry is beyond the peasants’ wildest dreams, and they have no conception of imperialism.”6 Although Mao and Yang held similar opinions about the Party’s “peasant character,” they parted ways regarding the nature of the problem and how to deal with it. Whereas Mao Zedong only raised the fact that peasants made up the majority of Party members, Yang Kemin felt that the Party organization in the Border Regions was a “peasants’ party.” Mao thought it was possible to make the peasants into Bolsheviks by imbuing them with folk revolutionary knowledge; Yang, however, felt that given their poor education and their dearth of political knowledge, “it would actually be very difficult to bring about progressive thinking among the peasants.”

*

  TN: The Hong Society was a traditional secret society (a “triad”), typically associated with criminal activity.

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Yang’s observations, reflecting the orthodox views of the Comintern and the CCP Central Committee, held that the danger of becoming a “peasants’ party” could only be surmounted by the Party’s working class. Although in September 1926 Mao expressed the idea that “peasants are the most revolutionary,” from 1927 to 1928 the Comintern and the CCP Central Committee influenced him considerably and he indicated some concern about the Party’s “peasant character.” However, after spending more than a year fighting guerrilla warfare in the Hunan-Jiangxi Border Region and after gaining a deeper understanding of the rural economy and society, Mao’s concerns were gradually dispelled. He felt that the peasants’ ignorance could be addressed through political education, and their limited literacy would prevent them from being influenced by the erroneous ideology of the Second Comintern. The more practical issue was that the Jiangxi Base Area was almost completely devoid of the working class; even if all local artisans and shop assistants were classified as workers, they comprised only a small proportion of the population. For this reason, Mao quickly reversed his criticism of the “peasant character” of the local Party and he devoted himself to the ideological training of peasant Party members. The CCP Central Committee could not criticize Mao’s idea of remolding peasant Party members through political training; first, this was because Mao never denied the role of the working class in leading the revolution, and second, it was because, by the strictest measures of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU), the CCP organization in the soviet areas could not be considered a Communist Party. The only way to face this reality was to depend on ideological immersion to turn the peasant Party members into Bolsheviks. Even so, the Central Committee was uncomfortable about Mao’s flexible interpretation of Marxism; although generally affirming the role of workers in leading the revolution, Mao highlighted the significance of peasants, and he was already showing a tendency to “depart from the classics and to rebel against orthodoxy.”

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2.  The Problem of the “Soldiers’ Party” In October 1927, after Mao led his troops up Jinggang Mountain in the aftermath of the Autumn Harvest Uprising,* the army was the only force existing in the soviet areas. In this tense wartime environment, the Party merged with the Red Army, and the armed forces effectively became an incarnation of the CCP organization. Establishing a Party organization within the Red Army was a major step taken by Mao based on a lesson from the CCP’s failure in the 1927 uprising; it was meant to reinforce Party leadership of the Red Army. Mao believed that one reason for the CCP’s earlier failure was that “our organization utterly failed to win over the rank-and-file soldiers within the Nationalist Army; even Ye Ting’s† section had only one Party branch in each regiment, so the soldiers could not brave the serious test.” In October 1927 Mao established a system of “company branches” in Sanwan, Yongxin County, and in the middle of the month he held a swearing-in ceremony in Ling County for six soldiers who joined the Party. Thereafter, the CCP engaged in a vigorous and systematic expansion within the Red Army. The system of “company branches,” completed with the system of Party representatives that was implemented during the Northern Expedition, imitated the system in the Soviet Union’s Red Army. Beginning in 1929, Party representatives within the Red Army came to be referred to as “political commissars,” and beginning in 1931, company political commissars came to be known by their present titles of “political instructors.” The army was effectively the nursemaid and defender of the local Party. Prior to April 1928, the local Party organization in the Hunan-Jiangxi Border Area was largely dispersed and operations were suspended. In midMay, Mao convened the Border Region’s first representative assembly, in Maoping, Ninggang County, which formally adopted the guiding principle of “the army helping to develop the local Party.” Mao was elected

*

  TN: The Autumn Harvest Uprising was a September 1927 insurrection that took place in Hunan and Jiangxi provinces. Led by Mao Zedong, the Red Army thereafter established a short-lived Hunan Soviet. †   TN: Ye Ting, a regiment commander in the Fourth Army of the National Revolutionary Army, took part in the failed August 1927 Nanchang Uprising, the first major Kuomintang–Communist engagement in the Chinese Civil War.

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secretary of the Border Region’s first Special Committee, and thereafter he simultaneously held the top military and civilian positions in the leadership. Even so, any shift in the army’s main force was cause for an immediate crisis in the local Party. In August 1928, Zhu De complied with the directive of the Hunan Provincial Party Committee to attack Hunan. The resultant “August Failure” caused disarray in the Party and government structure of the Border Area. Once the main armed forces managed to reoccupy the region in September, however, the Party and political leaderships were rapidly reestablished. Given the obvious importance of the armed forces, local Party organizations inevitably became subordinate to the military apparatus. The CCP Central Committee had a conflicting and complicated attitude toward the role of the Red Army in the Party organization of the base area. On the one hand, Party leaders completely supported the establishment of Party organizations within the army and they were profoundly aware that military leadership of the local Party was an inevitable result of the arduous and suboptimal environment. On the other hand, they were deeply concerned about the increasing peasant character of the Red Army and the army’s dominance over local Party branches. Although the CCP Central Committee’s June 4, 1928, “Letter to Zhu De, Mao Zedong, and the Front Line Committee” acknowledged Mao as commander of the Red Army and top Party leader in the HunanJiangxi Border Region, it raised a series of criticisms regarding Party and military operations there. The Central Committee was especially concerned about the rapid upsurge of peasant membership in the Red Army, finding “a profound petty-bourgeois peasant mentality both in state organs and leading Party organs.” The Central Committee told Mao to work to “maximize the number of hired hands and poor peasants and to decrease the number of hooligans” in the Red Army, and it instructed him to “thoroughly remold all levels of the local Party committees and leading organs and to promote more activist worker and peasant elements, especially worker elements, to take part in the leading organs of the Party committees at all levels.” The Central Committee also criticized the soviet regime in the Hunan-Jiangxi Border Region “for being comprised largely of higher-level appointees rather than those elected from among the lower levels.” It ordered Mao to “prohibit the Party branch and the army from appointing the soviet” and to “absolutely forestall the problem of the Party commanding the soviet.”7

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The Central Committee’s directive to imitate the experience of the CPSU by changing the composition of the Red Army and adjusting relations among the Party, the army, and the local soviet was purely wishful thinking. The circumstances of the Communist Party in the HunanJiangxi Border Region in 1928 could hardly have been more different from the situation of the CPSU and the Soviet Red Army in 1917 and 1918. The Border Region troika of a soviet regime, a Red Army comprised of peasants, and a Communist Party organization mainly comprised of peasants and established under the direction of the Red Army was the result of the objective historical environment. This triumvirate, with the army at its core, as an offshoot of the CPSU paradigm, was the basic formation of the Chinese Communist Revolution; at this time, however, it was still in a state of germination and it was not understood by the orthodox CCP Central Committee.

3.  The Problem of Mao Zedong’s “Secretarial Dictatorship” Mao was both the founder of the Hunan-Jiangxi Red Army and the leader of the Party organization in the Hunan-Jiangxi Border Region. Because the army determined the survival of the Communist Party in the Border Region, it was natural for Mao to exercise leadership over both the army and the Party. But the concentration of power in Mao’s hands became increasingly controversial. In a report to upper levels, Du Xiujing, serving as an inspector for the Hunan Provincial Party Committee, pointed out: At present, the operations of the Special Committee of the Border Region are expanding daily. All of the work and the direction are effectively concentrated in the hands of Comrade Zedong, and Comrade Zedong has additional responsibilities as the army’s Party representative. An individual’s energy is limited; how can he handle so much?8 Yang Kaiming, who served for a time as secretary of the Border Region Special Committee, expressed similar feelings: The Special Committee’s business is invariably handled only by the secretary, and dictatorship by the secretary has become a common

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malady in the Border Region. When Zedong was secretary of the Special Committee, the committee was in Zedong’s pocket; later Kaiming served as secretary, and the Special Committee was Kaiming’s one-man show. ... Party members worship their leader and put their faith in heroes while they accord less recognition to the Party organization.9 In connection with Du Xiujing’s and Yang Kaiming’s comments on Mao’s “secretarial dictatorship,” the Central Committee’s June 4, 1928, “Letter to Zhu De, Mao Zedong, and the Front Line Committee” required that Zhu and Mao abolish the Fourth Army’s Party representative system and establish a Political Department system, implying the delegation of Mao’s power as Party representative in the Fourth Red Army. The issue of the parameters of Zhu De’s and Mao’s respective jurisdictions within the Fourth Red Army erupted as a serious dispute in 1929. Although Mao’s major strategies and military tactics and principles were more practical, his manifestly arbitrary temperament made him generally unpopular among army cadres10 and for a time he was forced to leave the Fourth Red Army and focus on regional work. Finally, based on strategic considerations to unify the Fourth Red Army and to develop the Jiangxi Base Area, the Central Committee resolved this leadership crisis by selecting Mao instead of Zhu as supreme commander of the Fourth Red Army. Even so, the Central Committee never abandoned its uneasiness with Mao’s dictatorial ways. Du Xiujing’s and Yang Kaiming’s comments on Mao’s “secretarial dictatorship” did not come out of nowhere; rather, they originated with the Central Committee as a result of the rapid change in the path, guiding principles, and work methods of the CCP during this transitional period. At the time, the Central Committee’s ideas and the Party’s work style were still influenced by the democratized thinking and practices of the Russian Communists during the early stages of the October Revolution, which prompted the Central Committee’s dissatisfaction with the “secretarial dictatorship” in the Jiangxi Base Area, and criticism of “the masses recognizing the individual and not the Party” was obviously aimed at Mao. The Central Committee had no recourse but to reiterate views such as “increasing the leadership power of workers and strictly preventing the trend toward peasant dominance of the Party” and “opposing individual leadership and concentration of power in the Front Line Committee.” Mao was dismissive of such criticism of his “secretarial dictatorship.”

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Following the 1927 “August 7 Conference,” the leading organs of the Central Committee underwent a major reorganization, and at one point Qu Qiubai* recommended that Mao work for the Party Central Committee in Shanghai. But Mao responded that he was “unwilling to live with you [i.e., Qu Qiubai] in high-rise buildings,” and he took the initiative to blaze new trails for the Communist Party in the impoverished rural villages. Mao regularly reported to the Central Committee from the Hunan-Jiangxi Border Region, but the fact that the armchair generals in their “Western-style buildings,” whose qualifications and achievements compared so unfavorably with those of Party founder Chen Duxiu, only increased Mao’s antipathy toward the Central Committee. In sum, from 1927 to 1930 there were no major conflicts between Mao and the Comintern or the CCP Central Committee in terms of the major direction, but disharmony was brewing over the issues of the “peasants’ party,” the “soldiers’ party,” and Mao’s “secretarial dictatorship.” These issues eventually led to a series of new problems that further complicated Mao’s relationship with the Central Committee.

II.  Mao’s Extremist Campaign against the “AB League” and the Response of the Central Committee Among the various contradictions between the Party Central Committee and Mao, the antipathy and suspicions raised by Mao’s campaign against counterrevolutionaries were prominent. This issue was very sensitive, however, and neither Mao nor the Central Committee ever fully clarified their respective responsibility for the campaign. Rather, both Mao and the Central Committee, each for their own reasons, indulged in a great deal of obfuscation that triggered a multitude of hypotheses. The fact is that Mao

*

  TN: Qu Qiubai became de facto leader of the CCP in 1927 after Chen Duxiu was removed due to the collapse of the CCP-KMT collaboration. Qiu went to Moscow in 1928 as a delegate to the Comintern, but, because he disagreed with the Party’s central leadership over the course of the revolution, in 1930 he was dismissed from his position as a delegate to the Comintern as well as from the central leadership. After working as a writer and translator in Shanghai for a time, in 1934 he went to the Central Revolutionary Base Area in Ruijin but he did not join the Red Army on its Long March. He was captured by the KMT in 1934 and executed in June 1935.

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pioneered the CCP’s practice of harsh sufan* campaigns. His leadership of the 1930‒31 campaign to suppress the “AB League” originated from his ultra-Leftist commitment to eliminate counterrevolutionaries as well as his complex personal motivations. Under extremely difficult circumstances, the secretary of the Central Bureau of the soviet area, Xiang Ying, made great efforts to correct Mao’s errors, but the CCP Central Committee took a Leftist approach and placed its full support behind Mao, with the result that following the Fourth Plenum Mao began cooperating with the Sixth Central Committee. It was only when the counterrevolutionary purges worsened that the Central Committee began to adjust its policies and ended its cooperation with Mao. The origins of the sufan campaign in the Jiangxi Soviet Area can be traced back to the Mao-led Party purge in the Hunan-Jiangxi Border Area in September 1928. Aimed at ridding the Party of “opportunists,” this first purge by the CCP created the prototype for combining rectification of the Party with elimination of counterrevolutionaries, targeting in particular intellectuals from landlord and rich-peasant families. A number of documents report that this purge specifically targeted not only traitors and those who had surrendered to the Kuomintang but also intellectuals: “Party membership cards shall be issued to all peasant Party members but not to intellectuals who have joined the Party (which requires approval by the upper levels).”11 “All who have family members working for the Kuomintang reactionaries or who are enlisted as soldiers, who do not follow orders, who are unwilling to take part in the revolution, or who have undesirable social relations shall be purged. Purged Party members will not be announced or notified; they will not be summoned to meetings, but the register of the names of Party members will be updated. There are several ways to deal with Party members who have committed errors: warnings, probation, or expulsion.”12 Whereas the September 1928 purge carried out in the Jinggang Mountain region can be considered relatively small in terms of scale and short in terms of duration, the “Elimination of the AB League” that swept through southwest Jiangxi beginning in February 1930 was a massive and brutal internal Party purge, and it directly led to the outbreak of the Futian Incident that shook the soviet area in December 1930.

*

  TN: A sufan campaign is a purge of ideological heretics.

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1.  Mao’s Campaign against the “AB League” and the Futian Incident Mao’s authority over the Jiangxi Soviet Area took form following the 1929 Gutian Conference.* Two of the most important conditions for Mao to take power were already in place: 1.) the Central Committee’s explicit support provided a legal foundation for Mao’s authority; and 2.) Mao’s outstanding leadership had expanded the base area and had increased its population. In particular, Mao’s erstwhile opponent, Zhu De, had suffered a military setback that diminished his prestige, whereas Mao’s military success provided a practical basis for his authority. Mao’s leadership authority was tangibly reflected in 1930 when he served as both political commissar and Front Line Committee secretary of the First Front Red Army. With an integrated Party leadership structure yet to be established in the soviet areas, Mao’s position as secretary of the Front Line Committee became the top leadership position in the Jiangxi Soviet Area. Even so, Mao was not yet a member of the CCP Central Committee, and some of the Red Army and Party personnel in the soviet area were still able, in the name of the Central Committee, to passively resist Mao’s newly-won power. The period from the late 1920s to the early 1930s marked the beginning of the CCP’s armed revolution, when forces rose up in various areas and the grand objective of rebelling against the Kuomintang allowed conflicts within the revolutionary camp to be temporarily shelved. In the base areas, however, contradictions continued between local cadres and cadres from the outside, between cadres who had studied in the Soviet Union and those who had remained in China, and between cadres who were intellectuals and cadres who were from peasant backgrounds. The only thing binding them together was the authority of the Central Committee, including the authority of the ideological principles provided by the Central Committee. It was the distance between the city-based Central Committee and the rural outback that necessitated that the Central Committee exercise its leadership over the base areas through Mao and, as a result, Mao’s personal insights, intelligence, character, and work style became all the more crucial. Among the military cadres in the Jiangxi Soviet Area, Mao possessed

*

  TN: The Gutian Conference, the first CCP meeting following the Nanchang Uprising, was held in December 1929 in Gutian, Shanghang County, of western Fujian Province.

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the greatest political savvy, had the strongest willpower, and was the most adept at military operations, but he was also prone to arbitrary behavior. When Chen Yi went to Shanghai in July 1929 to report to the Central Committee on the wrangling between Zhu and Mao, the Central Committee expressed its explicit support for Mao. Upon returning to Jiangxi, Chen Yi personally invited Mao to serve as leader. Zhu De and Chen Yi, ever loyal to the Party and submissive to the Central Committee, then mended relations with Mao, allowing for a reconciliation of the divisions and conflicts within the Fourth Red Army. Even so, for various reasons Mao’s differences with the southern Jiangxi Red Army and the Party organization continued to intensify. It was under these circumstances that Mao mounted his great purge of the “AB League.” The direct reason for this incident was that Mao’s newly-established authority in the Jiangxi Soviet Area was challenged by the Li Wenlin‒led Southwest Jiangxi Red Army and Party. Mao could not tolerate organized defiance of his authority right under his nose, even if such opposition came from the Red Army or the local Party organization. In order to defend his authority in the base area, Mao threw off the constraints of Party ethics and did not hesitate to use extreme methods against Party comrades whom he suspected of being part of a dissenting force. What did Mao hope to achieve by using such unusually violent methods to resolve intra-Party disputes? In a word, Mao wanted to become the Lenin of the Jiangxi Soviet Area. Because he was not yet the Lenin of the CCP, however, and because he did not possess lawful authority over the entire Party so as to execute his plan, all he could do was to resort to extreme methods to crush his opponents. How did Mao resolve the enormous conflict between Party ethics and principles and his campaign of terror in the Party and the military? Mao had his ways. He claimed that the Southwest Jiangxi Party and the Red Army led by Li Wenlin had fallen victim to the forces of opportunism and a rich-peasant direction; therefore, a thorough transformation was essential in order to save the revolution. In this way, Mao raised an ideological banner over his repression. Li Wenlin was an intellectual who had helped found the Southwest Jiangxi Party and Red Army. In the desperate situation of the Nationalist Army’s third extermination campaign at Jinggang Mountain in February 1929, Mao and Zhu decided to evacuate to southern Jiangxi and to join forces with Li Wenlin in Donggu, known as “east Jinggang.”

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Initially, Mao, Zhu, and Li had a close relationship, but complications emerged in southwest Jiangxi during the latter half of 1929 and early February 1930. Mao had led the Fourth Red Army in and out of southwest Jiangxi on two occasions in 1929, and in early 1930 he had divided forces with the Fifth Red Army led by Peng Dehuai to carry out guerrilla warfare. Repeatedly reorganized, the Jiangxi Red Army and the Southwest Jiangxi Party organs developed views that differed from those of Mao in a number of areas, and thus relations with Mao became increasingly strained. These differences of opinion mainly focused on two issues: 1.) Land reform. Local forces favored implementing the decision of the Sixth Party Congress to “confiscate the land of despotic gentry” and they opposed Mao’s call to “confiscate all land.” 2.) The jurisdiction and deployment of the manpower in the armed forces and local Party organs. At the end of November 1929, Mao proposed merging the Special Committees of western Jiangxi with the Hunan-Jiangxi Border Region to form a new Western Jiangxi Special Committee. Mao also proposed merging the Second and Fourth Red Regiments, led by Li Wenlin, with Peng Dehuai’s troops to form a Sixth Red Army. But Southwest Jiangxi felt that such a decision should first be approved by the CCP Central Committee and the Jiangxi Provincial Party Committee. In January 1930 Mao also encountered strong local resistance to his appointment of Fourth Red Army cadres Liu Shiqi and Zeng Shan as members of the Western Jiangxi Special Committee, the highest level leadership organ in southwest Jiangxi and the surrounding areas. In order to resolve this conflict with the Red Army and the Party organs in southwest Jiangxi, from February 6 to February 9, 1930, Mao convened a joint conference (eventually known as the “February 7 Conference”) of the Fourth Red Army’s Front Line Committee, the military committees of the Fifth and Sixth Red Armies, the action committees and hub area committees under their jurisdiction, and the Party and Youth League leaders of the soviet. The meeting was held in Pitou Village, Ji’an County, where the Western Jiangxi Special Committee was based. Jiang Hanbo also attended this meeting in his capacity as an inspector for the Jiangxi Provincial Party Committee, and Liu Shiqi and Zeng Shan assisted Mao in organizing the meeting. At the February 7 Conference, Mao, whose leadership of the Fourth Red Army had been restored by the Central Committee only two months earlier, launched a harsh attack, with the help of Liu Shiqi and Zeng Shan,

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on the leaders of the local Red Army and Party organs. This attack planted the seeds for the subsequent campaign against the AB League. Mao and his allies accused the leaders of the Southwest Jiangxi Army and Party of two “serious political errors”: 1.) Mao and his allies criticized the recommendation by local leaders Jiang Hanbo and Li Wenlin to confiscate only the land of the “despotic gentry” as “completely following the direction of the rural bourgeoisie” (rich peasants), and Mao pointed out that “continuing in this way will fundamentally nullify the strategy of the working class winning over the peasants and will take the path of Trotsky and Chen Duxiu, basically abolishing the entire agrarian revolution.” 2.) Mao and his allies accused Jiang Hanbo, Li Wenlin et al. of “using nonpolitical and trivial remarks to incite comrades to oppose the correct line of the Party leader”13—the term “Party leader” here refers to Liu Shiqi, Mao’s appointee as secretary of the Western Jiangxi Special Committee. The February 7 Conference labeled the southwest Jiangxi leaders as “rich-peasant elements,” expelled Jiang Hanbo from the Party, and transferred Li Wenlin from the army to assume secretarial posts in the Southwest Jiangxi Special Committee and soviet. On February 16, the Fourth Red Army Front Line Committee, of which Mao was secretary, issued Notice No. 1, which formally declared the launch of a campaign to “purge landlords and rich peasants”: The landlords and rich peasants who clog all levels of leading Party local organs represent a serious crisis within the Southwest Jiangxi Party. The Party’s policy is completely opportunistic, and, without a thorough purge, it will be impossible to execute the Party’s great political mission and the revolution will basically fail. This joint conference appeals to revolutionary comrades within the Party to rise up and strike down the opportunistic political leadership and to expel landlords and rich peasants from the Party so that the Party can rapidly become a Bolshevik party.14 Issuance of this notice marked the beginning of the Jiangxi Soviet Area’s launch of a two-year campaign to “eliminate the AB League,” which spread like wildfire throughout southwest Jiangxi. The campaign against the AB League underwent two phases—the first from spring 1930 to January 1931, and the second from May 1931 to

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early 1932. The Futian Incident occurred toward the end of the first phase. Prior to this, “striking down opportunistic leadership” had been a concept in intra-Party struggles. Appearing around the time of the 1927 August 7 Conference, this concept was merely a declaration of turning away from Chen Duxiu’s direction and terminating his leadership of the Central Committee. After the August 7 Conference, although the Central Committee increasingly emphasized ideological unity, some traces of the democratic tradition from the period of the Great Revolution still remained within the Party. According to Party ethics and principles at the time, divergent viewpoints could still contend within the Party, but the CCP Central Committee or the Comintern Headquarters in Moscow had the final say in these disputes. It was unheard of for comrades with different viewpoints to suffer physical annihilation. In 1930, however, Mao coupled his call to “strike down opportunistic leadership” with physical annihilation. Turning a concept of intra-party struggle into a concept of fighting the enemy required transition and transformation, and Mao easily found an intermediary link. He declared that opportunistic leaders within the Party were actually landlords, rich peasants, and counterrevolutionaries, and then he seamlessly joined a slogan of struggle against the enemy— “Strike down the Kuomintang, exterminate landlords, rich peasants, and counterrevolutionaries”—with a concept of intra-party struggle—“Strike down opportunistic leaders.” In one stroke, he justified suppression and rationalized annihilation. In spring 1930, news was already spreading within the soviet areas that the Kuomintang’s AB League was engaged in infiltration and sabotage and that its organization was being unearthed, putting the base areas on an unprecedented state of high alert. Under these conditions, Mao could easily use “suppression of counterrevolutionaries” to demand that the Party organization and Soviet Government in the base area support and submit to the policy of suppressing the AB League. Following the February 7 Conference, an atmosphere of revolutionary terror gradually metastasized in the Jiangxi Soviet Area. Under the leadership of Secretary Liu Shiqi, and in compliance with the spirit of Notice No. 1 of the Fourth Red Army Front Line Committee, the Southwest Jiangxi Special Committee launched a propaganda offensive in the form of a “Propaganda Outline for Opposing the Reorganizationist AB League,” which was issued by its West Route Action Committee to all levels of the Party organization on June 25:

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If vacillating and ill-behaving elements are discovered among the masses, they are to be captured and handed over to the Soviet Government for investigation and punishment. Any unfamiliar persons who pass through the Red regions must be rigorously examined, and if there is any cause for suspicion, they are to be arrested and handed over to the Soviet Government. Masses traveling within the Red regions should carry a pass issued by their soviet. ... Worker and peasant masses are to be distinguished only by class without regard to family relations and friendships. Anyone found behaving improperly at home or elsewhere, even if a friend or relative, should be reported to the soviet for arrest and punishment. At the same time, the “Outline” called for “implementing a Red purge in the countryside” and a “Red Terror” to “purge spies hiding under the Red Flag”: At present, all levels of the soviets should intensify elimination of counterrevolutionaries and catch and kill despotic landlords and reactionary rich-peasant elements as a warning, but killing requires proof of actual counterrevolution and wrongful killing is strictly prohibited.15 Although the “Outline” referred to proof being required for killing and it prohibited wrongful killing, once the great door of terror was opened, the situation quickly spun out of control. In July and August 1930, the Campaign to Eliminate the AB League rapidly migrated from the grassroots to the upper-level organs. In August Li Wenlin assumed the post of secretary of the Jiangxi Province Action Committee, which had recently been set up under Li Lisan’s orders to launch an assault on the major cities. Li Wenlin was no less zealous in “attacking the AB League” than the former Special Committee secretary, Liu Shiqi, and perhaps even more so. The Southwest Jiangxi Special Committee first selected the case of Zhu Jiahao, a worker in the Special Committee’s Distribution Department, who was deemed to be “underperforming in his work and misbehaving in speech and action,” as a precedent. “Urgent Notice No. 20: Mobilizing Party Members and the Masses to Thoroughly Eliminate the AB League,” issued by the Special Committee on September 24, 1930, revealed that after

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Zhu Jiahao had been arrested, “the Special Committee had interrogated him” and he initially firmly refused to admit guilt, but later “under harsh interrogation employing both the carrot and the stick, he finally confessed that both the Lenin Youth Corps of the Red Flag Society and the Southwest Jiangxi Government had AB League groups. ... He exposed all the AB League elements that had infiltrated the Party, the Youth League Special Committee, and the Southwest Jiangxi Government and reported on the organizations in each county and region.” This “Urgent Notice” went on to stipulate in detail the fundamental principles for interrogation and execution, which encouraged the extortion of confessions under torture and a policy of “killing without amnesty” all “AB League elements”: The AB League is extremely insidious, cunning, treacherous, and tough; without undergoing the most ruthless beating, its members absolutely will not confess. It is necessary to employ a carrot-andstick approach and to submit them to continuous and unremitting interrogation with harsh punishment in order to detect the origins of their words, to discover clues, and to question them closely, mainly in order to make them confess regarding the AB League organization so that it can be fundamentally annihilated. As soon as an AB League element was found, as the next step the “Urgent Notice” required execution: With respect to leaders, of course, employ extraordinary methods, but be sure to have them executed by the masses at a mass rally. ... AB League members from rich-peasant and petty-bourgeoisie classes and above, as well as hooligans and local riffraff, are to be killed without mercy. ... Workers and peasants who once had a status in the AB League and who are capable and relatively active are to be killed without mercy.16 The Southwest Jiangxi Special Committee rigorously enforced the campaign against the AB League, and by October, among some 30,000 Communist Party members in the region “more than 1,000 were expelled as landlords or rich peasants” (the February 7 Conference required that “representatives of rich-peasant elements within the Party, regardless

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of class or past work performance, must be mercilessly and resolutely expelled from the Party”), and more than 1,000 AB League members were exterminated. 17 One out of every four workers in the Southwest Jiangxi Soviet Government was labeled a member of the AB League, and most of them were killed.18 While the Special Committee was conducting its anti‒AB League campaign with great fanfare, Mao was too busy handling military matters to become directly involved. However, in October his attitude changed. On October 14, 1930, while in the county town of Ji’an, Mao wrote a letter to the CCP Central Committee reporting his views on conditions in the Southwest Jiangxi Party and the measures he was preparing to take. In this letter, Mao further developed his basic view toward the Southwest Jiangxi Party organs that he had expressed during the February 7 Conference, pointing out: “The entire Southwest Jiangxi Party has recently been in a state of major crisis; the entire Party is guided by a rich-peasant direction. ... Many AB League elements have been uncovered in the Special Committee organs of the Party and Youth League, the Southwest Jiangxi Soviet Government, and the Red Army School, and most of the leading organs at all levels are packed with AB League rich peasants.” Mao declared that in order to “remedy this crisis,” he had decided to carry out a campaign to eliminate counterrevolutionaries under the slogan of “attacking the AB League” so as to “fundamentally reform” the Party and Youth League organs of southwest Jiangxi.19 Did Mao truly believe that there were so many members of the “AB League”? The answer is that he half-believed it. Since 1927 the CCP had been struggling to survive under an extremely punishing environment of siege and annihilation. As a self-defensive response, Mao was accustomed to taking the KMT’s anti-Communist actions very seriously, and in the intense struggle between the KMT and the CCP, Mao had developed a psychological predisposition that it was safer to assume that the KMT was active in the Communist zones. In terms of “vigilance,” no other top CCP leaders exceeded Mao. Additionally, even Li Wenlin and the others vigorously attacked the “AB League,” giving Mao no reason to doubt that there were many AB elements. Yet Mao was most definitely a realist; he knew very well that there could not possibly be so many members of the “AB League” in the soviet areas. But since the sluice of terror had already been opened, it made sense for him to seize the opportunity to crush all declared and potential

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opposition. Mao thus delivered his masterstroke: Before suppressing Li Wenlin and other leaders in southwest Jiangxi, he carried out a major AB purge of the units of the First Front Red Army under his own command (the First and Third Army Groups) in November 1930. In October 1930, Mao led the First Front Red Army in storming Ji’an and then he withdrew, and also he urged Peng Dehuai to retreat after taking Changsha. These moves caused resentment within the Red Army and confusion ensued for a time. In order to eliminate the sources of instability, in the latter half of November Mao launched a “rapid rectification,” which involved establishing organizations to eliminate counterrevolutionaries within the divisions, regiments, battalions, companies, and platoons, and to capture and kill Party members within the military who came from landlord or rich-peasant families as well as complainers and malcontents. In less than one month, more than 4,400 of the Red Army’s 40,000-plus men were identified as members of the AB League, including “dozens of [AB] regimental commanders”20 who were put to death. The First Front Red Army’s campaign against the AB League was extremely violent, and any Party member from a prosperous family or with an intellectual background or who had parted ways with Mao at some point in the past was in a precarious situation. At that time, Huang Kecheng was political commissar of the Third Division of the Third Army Group. The Organizational Section chief and Administrative Section chief of the division had been purged as members of the AB League. The Propaganda Section chief, He Ducai, had joined the Communist Party during the Great Revolution, had taken part in the Nanchang Uprising, and after accompanying Zhu De up Jinggang Mountain had rallied the troops at a critical juncture after their commander had defected. But He Ducai had sided with Zhu De in the clash between Mao and Zhu before the Gutian Conference, so Mao considered him untrustworthy and soon transferred him out of the First Army Group; this is how He Ducai came to serve as Propaganda Section chief under Huang Kecheng. He Ducai was friends with Huang Kecheng, and the two “could talk together about anything.” He Ducai felt that Mao was extraordinary and that no one could match his abilities or question the correctness of his political stands, but he also felt that Mao’s organizational principles were misguided: “Mao Zedong puts excessive trust in those who submit to him,

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and he is incapable of unbiased treatment of those who hold different views. He is not as magnanimous and above-board as Commander Zhu.” He Ducai gave the example of some disreputable individuals who had gained Mao’s trust through their submissiveness and who now commanded great authority and committed misdeeds with impunity.21 Inevitably, this highly intelligent and blameless man was soon labeled a member of the AB League and executed. According to Xiao Ke’s memoirs, the campaign against the AB League reached a climax from late November to early December 1930; in Xiao Ke’s own division, “we did nothing but devote our main energy to attacking the AB League,” killing sixty people. Two weeks later, the division decided to execute more than sixty others, but Political Commissar Luo Ronghuan intervened; Xiao Ke rushed to the execution grounds and prevented the execution of more than twenty men, “but more than twenty others had already been killed.”22 If Mao was so unsparing toward the First Front Red Army under his direct command, he showed hardly any mercy toward the southwest Jiangxi local Red Army that had always sung to a different tune. As described above, Li Wenlin approached the campaign against the AB League with great determination, but as indiscriminate killings became increasingly apparent in October 1930, Li began to cool toward the campaign. In early and late October, the Jiangxi Province Action Committee started to impose rectification measures, but it is striking that as Li Wenlin began to have reservations about the fanatical campaign, Mao began turning up the heat. In November 1930 Mao aimed the dagger of his “fundamental reform” at the Jiangxi Province Action Committee and the southwest Jiangxi Red Army under it. This was carried out with even more violence because Li Wenlin had insisted on implementing the line of the Central Committee led by Li Lisan and had opposed withdrawal of the battle plan for attacking Nanchang. In May 1930 Li Wenlin attended the Congress of Chinese Soviet Areas in Shanghai as a representative of southwest Jiangxi. This meeting, convened by Li Lisan, called for concentrating assaults on major cities and aimed for an initial victory in one or more provinces. After Li Wenlin returned to Jiangxi, in early August he convened the Second Plenum of the Southwest Jiangxi Special Committee to implement Li Lisan’s directives. The Second Plenum indirectly criticized Mao’s views and methods; it rescinded its endorsement of Mao’s recommendations as well as Mao’s

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appointment of Liu Shiqi as secretary of the Special Committee, and it recommended that the Central Committee in Shanghai strip Liu Shiqi of his Party membership, thus provoking Mao’s intense resentment. Mao was used to being the Central Committee’s chief representative and manager of the Jiangxi Soviet Area, so how could he tolerate someone opposing him in the name of the Central Committee right under his very nose? At that point Mao was not yet familiar with the phrase the “Lisan Line,” so he judged the Second Plenum to be a conference of “AB League liquidationists”* and he marked all those who attended for obliteration. In October 1930 the First Front Red Army captured Ji’an. Among the Kuomintang’s local archives a document purportedly signed by Li Wenlin’s father who was a landlord was discovered.23 The contents of this document are unknown, but it became the so-called evidence connecting Li Wenlin with the AB League.† Later that month, during the Xiajiang Conference and the Luofang Conference, Li Wenlin openly opposed Mao’s battle tactic of “luring the enemy in deep” and he promoted Li Lisan’s directive to target the major cities. The overall intensification of the conflict with Mao led Mao to label Li Wenlin a leader of the AB League. At the end of November 1930, Li was detained in Huangpi, Ningdu County, and soon thereafter many people who had worked with Li were also arrested. After extracting confessions through torture, on December 3, 1930 the General Front Line Committee of the First Front Red Army sent a letter to the reorganized Jiangxi Province Action Committee. (Following Li Wenlin’s arrest, Mao’s former subordinate, Zeng Shan, had taken over the leadership of the Action Committee. The letter was in fact written by Mao, but mainland scholars have avoided implicating Mao by deleting his name.) The letter identified Duan Liangbi (a member of the Standing Committee of the Action Committee and secretary of the Special Committee of the Southwest Jiangxi Youth League), Li Baifang (secretary general of the Action Committee), and others as members of the AB *

  TN: Li Lisan’s policies fell into disfavor in July 1930 following a series of defeats in attempts by Communist forces to capture the major cities. Li Lisan was then denounced and sent to Moscow for “corrective study.” The term “liquidationism” in Marxist theory refers to ideological liquidation of the revolutionary Party program. †   However, according to an investigative report carried out by the Jishui County Party History Office in 1987, Li Wenlin’s father was only a “relatively-rich landowner who practiced minor exploitation” and he had died in May 1927.

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League, and ordered “the capture of Li Baifang et al. and a rigorous search for clues of counterrevolutionary activities in southwest Jiangxi so that they can be thoroughly extinguished.” In this letter, Mao wrote that the Action Committee “must join with Comrade Li [Shaojiu] to immediately execute its duty of extinguishing counterrevolution without the slightest hesitation,” and must “round up rich peasants, hooligans, and vacillators in every county and district and to slaughter them. In districts where such capturing and killing are not carried out, the Party and government certainly belong to the AB League, and the leaders of those places shall be captured and prosecuted.”24 On December 3 Li Shaojiu proceeded to Futian with Mao’s letter of instructions, and on December 5, Mao sent two Red Army soldiers with a second letter of instructions to Li Shaojiu and the provincial Action Committee. This letter instructed them to use the arrested individuals to “find even more important people.” In order to ensure compliance with the letters of instruction, Mao also sent the secretary of the General Front Line Committee, Gu Bo, to Futian to “assist in the campaign to eliminate counterrevolutionaries.” On the afternoon of December 7, Li Shaojiu, who was then secretary general of the General Political Department of the First Front Red Army as well as chairman of the Counterrevolutionary-Elimination Committee, arrived at the headquarters of the Jiangxi Provincial Soviet Government in Futian to direct the Action Committee’s implementation of the General Front Line Committee’s campaign to eliminate counterrevolutionaries. Li hand-delivered Mao’s letter of instructions to Zeng Shan (chairman of the Jiangxi Provincial Soviet Government) and to Chen Zhengren, and then arrested the eight main leaders of the Action Committee and the Twentieth Red Army: Duan Liangbi, Li Baifang, Jin Wanbang (director of military affairs for the provincial Soviet Government), Zhou Mian (director of the Soviet Government’s Finance Department), Xie Hanchang (director of the Political Department of the Twentieth Red Army), Liu Wanqing, Ren Xinda, and Ma Ming. Li Shaojiu used various forms of torture on these comrades until they were “a mass of wounds,” and “their fingers were broken and their bodies were burned so badly that they could not move,” with some dying on the spot. Whenever torture was employed, Li Shaojiu was always present. According to contemporary records, the tortured comrades “shook the heavens with cries that lingered in one’s ears as every available form of torture was applied.” On December 8, the

24  |  HOW THE RED SUN ROSE

wives of Li Baifang, Ma Ming, and Zhou Mian visited their husbands in detention, but they were then also arrested as members of the AB League. They were similarly tortured, with bamboo strips driven under their fingernails, their genitals burned with incense sticks, and their breasts cut with small knives.25 Enduring this brutal torture, Duan Liangbi revealed that Li Wenlin, Jin Wanbang, Liu Di, Zhou Mian, Ma Ming, Ren Xinda, Cong Yunzhong, Duan Qifeng, and others were “leaders of the AB League,” and he confessed that there were many members of the AB League in the Red Army School. Regarding extraction of these confessions through torture, General Xiao Ke states in his 1982 memoirs, “Even half a century later, one can only sigh in grief. Those of us who experienced this still cannot bear to recall it.”26 During the five days from December 7 to the evening of December 12, Li Shaojiu (who had departed Futian on December 9), chairman of the provincial soviet, Zeng Shan, and secretary general of the General Front Line Committee, Gu Bo (who had arrived on December 8) took charge of rigorously enforcing the elimination of counterrevolutionaries in Futian. Zeng Shan personally interrogated Duan Liangbi and used the elicited information to arrest more than 120 “AB League members,” among whom there were dozens of “key criminals,” and some forty were executed.27 Before he set off for Donggu, Li Shaojiu personally arranged for the execution of twenty-five people. A platoon led by Li Shaojiu escorted the Political Department director of the Twentieth Red Army, Xie Hanchang, out of Futian on December 9, and upon arrival at the headquarters of the Twentieth Army in Donggu on December 10, Li Shaojiu discussed with Commander Liu Tiechao and Commissar Zeng Bingchun how to implement Mao’s two letters of instruction by “finding clues to reach a major breakthrough.” Li Shaojiu, Liu Tiechao, and Zeng Bingchun used extorted confessions from Duan Liangbi and Xie Hanchang to determine that Liu Di, commissar of the 174th Regiment of the Twentieth Army, was a member of the AB League. However, because Liu Di was from his native village, Li Shaojiu did not immediately arrest him, but instead he used a “carrot-and-stick approach” to compel Liu Di to confess. After the Futian Incident, Liu Di wrote a letter to the Central Committee admitting that he had come up with the idea of launching the incident after talking with Li Shaojiu. Liu Di said he knew all along that Li Shaojiu was a person who “usually had incorrect ideas, had a very low proletarian consciousness, and was prone to using

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despicable tricks to stir up discord.” In order to avoid being immediately taken off for interrogation under torture, Liu Di changed to his Changsha dialect and said to Li Shaojiu, “I am Your Honor’s subordinate. ... Now that you have fortuitously arrived, I will do my best to receive political education and acknowledge my errors. I believe Comrade Mao Zedong is not a member of the AB League, nor is the commander, and the only thing I have done is to follow you gentlemen, so what does this have to do with me?” Seeing how Liu Di declared himself, Li Shaojiu let him go.28 The Futian Incident broke out on December 12. After breakfast that morning, Liu Di met in secret with the leader of the detached battalion, Zhang Xing, and the political commissar, Liang Xueyi, to discuss how to deal with Li Shaojiu. They were unanimous in their belief that the arrest by the General Front Line Committee of the First Front Red Army of the AB League was “part of a conspiratorial plot” to attack Party cadres in southwest Jiangxi. In order to foil the plot, they decided to immediately arrest Li Shaojiu, along with the commander of the Twentieth Army, Liu Tiechao, and the others. After their meeting, Liu Di went to the detached battalion to rouse the soldiers, and he then led the entire battalion to surround the headquarters, where they arrested Liu Tiechao and released Xie Hanchang and the others. Li Shaojiu escaped, as did Political Commissar Zeng Bingchun who went into hiding in his home village. That night, Xie Hanchang and Liu Di led the detached battalion of the Twentieth Army to storm Futian, where it surrounded the provincial Action Committee and the provincial Soviet Government and released Duan Liangbi, Li Baifang, and more than seventy other “AB League members.” Central Funding Committee member Yi Ershi (Liu Zuofu) was also captured (however, he was released the next day and was invited to speak at a mass rally). The chairman of the provincial Soviet Government, Zeng Shan, escaped during the chaos and fled to his home village. Gu Bo managed to flee,29 and Gu Bo’s wife, Zeng Biyi, and Chen Zhengren’s wife, Peng Ru, also escaped under cover of night. Thus ended the Futian Incident that shook the Jiangxi Soviet Area. Following the Futian Incident, Xie Hanchang, Liu Di, and others led the Twentieth Red Army to Yongxin, Lianhua, and Angu counties in the Xianggan (Hunan-Jiangxi) Soviet Area west of the Gan River. There they continued the agrarian revolution and established a “Jiangxi Provincial Action Committee” and a “Jiangxi Provincial Soviet Government” in Yongyang, Ji’an County, and adopted four emergency measures:

26  |  HOW THE RED SUN ROSE

1.) They immediately dispatched Duan Liangbi to Shanghai with 100 kilos of gold (in fact, what he delivered to the Central Committee in Shanghai was only “a few kilos”)30 to report to the CCP Central Committee on the “elimination of the AB League” in southwest Jiangxi and on the Futian Incident, and to ask the Central Committee to pass its judgment. 2.) They issued arrest warrants for Zeng Shan, Chen Zhengren, Gu Bo, and Li Shaojiu. The provincial Action Committee held that Zeng Shan could not evade responsibility for colluding with Li Shaojiu in his abusive campaign and that they should be brought to justice. 3.) They won the sympathy and support of Wang Huai, secretary of the West Route Action Committee of the Xianggan Soviet Area of the Southwest Jiangxi Special Committee. (Wang Huai continued to head the Action Committee following a failed attempt on December 9 by Mao’s old subordinate, Chen Zhengren, former Standing Committee member and propaganda head of the provincial Action Committee, to implement the spirit of the letters of the General Front Line Committee by arresting Wang.) Under Wang Huai’s leadership, anti-Mao activities in the soviet area west of the Gan River and by the Twentieth Red Army gained widespread sympathy, and Wang Huai’s view—that the action of the Twentieth Army was not counterrevolutionary but rather a “struggle between the working-class line and the peasant line”—spread rapidly. Decades later, one of the people involved in the Futian Incident, Zeng Shan, vividly recalled that “the thinking of Party members and the masses in the soviet area west of the Gan River was extremely confused, and it even muddied the understanding of some people and Party members east of the Gan River.”31 This indicates the wide-ranging influence of Mao’s extremist activities at that time. 4.) They openly unfurled an anti-Mao banner and attempted to win the support of Zhu De, Peng Dehuai, Huang Gonglüe, and Teng Daiyuan. On their way to the western side of the Gan River, Xie Hanchang and Liu Di put up many “notices to comrades and the masses,” warning of a “crisis in the Party,” accusing Mao of thinking of himself as “Party emperor,” and raising the slogan of “down with Mao Zedong, support Zhu, Peng, and Huang.” On December 20, Xie Hanchang, Li Baifang, Cong Yunzhong, and others in Yongyang wrote a “letter to Zhu De, Peng Dehuai, Huang Gonglüe, and Teng Daiyuan” that denounced Li Shaojiu’s round-up of the AB League and his indiscriminate killing of comrades, while also attacking the General Front Line Committee for siding with Li. The letter enclosed

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a forged “letter from Mao Zedong to Gu Bo,” which was meant to drive a wedge between Mao and Zhu and Peng and Huang. Peng Dehuai probably presented the strongest evidence that the “letter from Mao Zedong to Gu Bo” was forged. Decades later when recalling this matter while writing his prison confession, Peng wrote, “This letter was written by Cong Yunzhong, the leader of the Futian Incident. He regularly practiced Mao’s handwriting style and was able to imitate it passably, but there were some other giveaways—when Comrade Mao Zedong wrote letters, he used Chinese script rather than Roman and Arabic numerals for the year, month, and day.” This forged letter was never made public until it was reproduced in full in a historical work on the Central Soviet Area that was published in 1985: Comrade Gu Bo: In accordance with the shifts in current circumstances and letters from certain parties, our plan must be rapidly implemented. We have decided to capture and kill military Communist Party and local Communist Party members simultaneously, and after the capture and killing to continue with our plan of carrying out the mission in western Jiangxi and the provincial Action Committee within three days. When interrogating Duan [Liangbi], Li [Baifang], Wang [Huai], and other core cadres, it is necessary to focus particularly on compelling them to confess the key complicity of Zhu, Peng, Huang, and Teng in the AB League within the Red Army and their criminal dealings with certain units of the White Army. Deliver their confessions to me for their earliest capture and killing and for the rapid accomplishment of our plan. This letter is top secret, and no one can be told of it except Zeng [Shan], Li [Shaojiu], and Chen [Zhengren]. Mao Zedong.32 Upon hearing of this letter, Zhu De, Peng Dehuai, and Huang Gonglüe had different responses. Zhu was stationed at the headquarters of the First Front Red Army in Huangpi and was not directly commanding any units, so the success of such “wedge-driving” would depend on Peng Dehuai, who controlled the 10,000-strong Third Army Group, and his deputy, Huang Gonglüe. In mid-December 1930, Peng Dehuai received a letter from Xie Hanchang and others as well as the “letter from Mao Zedong to Gu Bo” and he immediately reached the conclusion that this was a “dangerous

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plot to split the Party and the Red Army.” Peng quickly drafted a “brief declaration of less than 200 words” stating that “the Futian Incident was counterrevolutionary in nature” and that the Third Army Group “supports Comrade Mao Zedong and supports the leadership of the General Front Line Committee.” As to Huang Gonglüe’s somewhat more equivocal approach, Peng Dehuai recalled, “As I was saying this [his analysis that the Mao letter to Gu Bo was forged], Huang Gonglüe arrived, and after listening for about ten minutes, he left. After the meeting, I asked Comrade Deng Ping why Gonglüe had come here, and Deng merely replied: ‘Peng is still taking Mao’s side,’ then he left.”33 Due to Peng Dehuai’s interpretation and persuasion, the Third Army Group’s “mood shifted to one of indignation toward the Futian Incident.” Peng led the troops to Xiaobu, about 7.5 kilometers from Huangpi and personally invited Mao to speak at a Third Army Group cadre meeting, where Peng voiced his firm endorsement of Mao. Amidst the tensions following the Futian Incident, the support given by Peng and the Third Army Group of the Red Army was extremely significant in terms of bolstering Mao’s shaky status. Nevertheless, the antiMao sentiment spread by the leaders of the incident had badly damaged Mao’s prestige. In order to counter the attacks against him in southwest Jiangxi, Mao personally stepped forward and without a qualm drafted the December 20, 1930, “Letter of the General Front Line Committee in Response to Accusations.” In this letter, Mao insisted there were grounds for the campaign against the AB League. He stated that testimony by key AB League miscreants within the Red Army “in various ways proved that the provincial Action Committee hosted the Jiangxi Provincial Headquarters of the AB League, headed by Duan Liangbi, Li Baifang, and Xie Hanchang, and that in order to remedy the crisis in the revolution in southwest Jiangxi, the General Front Line Committee dispatched Comrade Li Shaojiu to Futian to seize them.” Mao said there was irrefutable evidence that Duan and the others were leaders of the AB League: “If Duan, Li, Jin, Xie, and so forth are loyal revolutionary comrades, even if they suffer injustices for a time, they will eventually be vindicated, so why would they frame other comrades? Others might offer false testimony, but how could Duan, Li, Jin, and Xie, who are in charge of the provincial Action Committee and the Military Political Department?”34 Mao knew very well that Duan and

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the others had been designated members of the AB League entirely on the basis of confessions extracted through torture, but instead of objecting to this, he claimed that the inability of Duan and the others to tolerate unjust treatment for the sake of the revolution proved that they had something to hide. According to Mao’s logic, if Duan and the others admitted to being leaders of the AB League, this was sufficient to prove that the AB League was a real thing. Mao’s logic became the conventional train of thought for subsequent ultra-Leftist examinations of cadres and campaigns to eliminate counterrevolutionaries, and it was the main ideological source for an endless stream of injustices. Based this thinking, Mao was not wrong to insist on the existence of the AB League, and in doing so he actually was making an enormous contribution to the revolution. He said, “The AB League installed a commander-in-chief and a chain of command within the Red Army, and on five occasions it set dates for insurrections and made insurrection banners. If we had not rigorously stamped it out, the Red Army long ago would have ceased to exist.” Mao declared that the Futian Incident had “revealed its true form as a revolt,” and he called for it to be resolutely suppressed.35 In the name of the Chinese Workers and Peasants Revolutionary Committee, in the latter half of December 1930 Mao drafted a bulletin, in the form of a hexasyllabic poem, on the punitive expedition to Futian: Duan, Xie, Liu, and Li started turning traitor at Futian. They led the Red Army to turn renegade before a formidable foe. They split the revolutionary forces in a monstrous malfeasance. They sabotaged decisive class battles and chaotically created rumors. They attacked the provincial Soviet Government and toppled the regime of workers and peasants. They chased out Chairman Zeng Shan and captured Central Committee members. They embraced Chiang, and opposed the Communist Party and a thorough redistribution of land. They vainly plotted insurrection to sabotage the Red Army legions. They tried to turn the Red Zones into Black Prisons. The AB abolished factions and united all types of scoundrels. They hollered for revolution, but in their hearts they were traitors. They raised the Red Banner in revolt so people could not see through them.

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This is traitor Chiang’s venomous scheme; we must all make it known. This is a pressing struggle; class rebellion is inevitable. Do not panic over the unexpected, but unite all the more. Strike down the counterrevolutionaries; tomorrow brings victory.36 Mao took it for granted that he was the symbol of the Red Army and the Party. He was also the representative of the Central Committee and the Comintern in the base area, so those who opposed him had to be “anti-Bolshevik,” and all those who were killed must have been counterrevolutionaries, so what had he to be ashamed of ? In Mao’s eyes, an exalted goal—extinguishing the AB League to safeguard the revolution—justified using harsh measures. The great terror consolidated the authority of the General Front Line Committee as well as Mao’s personal authority; amidst the great terror, Mao became the Lenin of the Jiangxi Soviet Area.

2.  Xiang Ying’s Four-month Correction of Mao On January 15, 1931, the Central Bureau of the Chinese Soviet Area was established in Xiaobu, Ningdu County, with Xiang Ying as acting secretary. The Politburo of the CCP Central Committee abolished the General Front Line Committee and appointed Mao and Zhu De as members of the Central Bureau. A Central Revolutionary Military Committee was set up under the Central Bureau to take charge of the Red Army in Jiangxi as well as in the rest of China. Xiang Ying was appointed chairman of this committee, with Zhu De and Mao serving as vice chairmen. In terms of Party principles, Xiang Ying had taken over Mao’s position as supreme leader of the Communist Party and army of the Jiangxi Soviet Area. Xiang Ying’s arrival in the soviet area and the establishment of the Central Bureau of the Soviet Area was a major strategic move in terms of the CCP shifting its emphasis to the soviet areas during this transitional period. It represented concrete implementation of related directives from Stalin and the Comintern. In late July 1930, when Stalin received Zhou Enlai in Moscow to listen to his report on the work of the CCP, he ordered that the CCP place the issue of the Red Army at the forefront of China’s revolution. On July 23, the political Secretariat of the Comintern’s Executive Committee issued a “Resolution Regarding the China Issue,”

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which pointed to the establishment of a soviet central government and a combat-ready and politically steadfast Red Army as “the first task under China’s special circumstances at present.”37 In shifting its work focus toward the Jiangxi Soviet Area, the CCP’s most pressing issue was to adjust the relationship between Mao and the Central Committee and to assess Mao’s work in Jiangxi. Zhou Enlai’s remarks during this period indicate that the CCP Central Committee was not entirely satisfied with Mao, but Zhou always used a self-critical tone to discuss such problems. During a meeting of the Provisional Politburo on August 22, 1930, Zhou said, “In the past, we repeatedly criticized the erroneous conservative viewpoints of the peasants, while also opposing a purely guerrilla warfare strategy. In particular, the Central Committee has brought up the error of separatism; in fact, too little attention has been paid to the base area and this is a shortcoming in our work.”38 Having discovered the crux of the problem, the next step was to consolidate the Central Committee’s leadership of the soviet area and the Party’s leadership of the Red Army. At a Politburo meeting on September 29, Zhou Enlai requested that the Central Committee send him to the soviet area. On the following day, at an enlarged meeting of the Central Military Commission (CMC), Zhou again stressed the need for the Party to hold the highest authority within the Red Army. On October 3, 1930, following the Third Plenum of the Sixth Central Committee, the Party’s top inner circle, the three-man Standing Committee of the Central Committee Politburo, was established, consisting of Xiang Zhongfa, Zhou Enlai, and Xu Xigen, with Zhou as the effective leader. This Standing Committee made a preliminary decision to create a Central Bureau of the Soviet Area comprised of Zhou, Xiang Ying, Mao, Yu Fei, Yuan Binghui, Zhu De, and a local cadre, and it dispatched Xiang Ying ahead to Jiangxi. On October 17, the Central Committee Politburo decided to appoint Zhou as secretary of the Central Bureau of the Soviet Area, with Xiang Ying serving as acting secretary pending Zhou’s arrival. The Central Bureau was to be the supreme leadership organ of the Party, military, and government in the soviet area. On October 29, Zhou drafted a directive from the CCP Central Committee to the Front Line Committee of the First and Third Army Groups of the Red Army, notifying Mao: “Pending Xiang Ying’s arrival, the Central Bureau of the Soviet Area will be established with Mao Zedong as acting secretary and Zhu De as commander-in-chief of the First and Third Army Groups

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of the Red Army. All political and military leadership is now concentrated in the Central Bureau.”39 The concrete measures taken by the CCP Central Committee to implement the directives of Stalin and the Comintern were in place by October 1930. In compliance with the Central Committee’s shift toward the soviet area, in September and October Zhou Enlai made even more detailed arrangements: Zhou conducted a military training session in Shanghai to prepare a group of Soviet-trained military cadres to be sent to the soviet area. After attending this session, Zhang Aiping, Huang Huoqing, and other military cadres were sent to Jiangxi. Zhou arranged for Liu Bocheng, Ye Jianying, Fu Zhong, Li Zhuoran, and other Soviet-trained cadres to translate the Red Army Infantry Combat Regulations and the Political Work Regulations of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) into Chinese for delivery to the soviet area. Zhou also took charge of establishing a fixed and more secure secret communications channel from Shanghai to the Jiangxi Soviet Area, and he established a CCP Central Committee Communications Bureau headed by Wu Defeng. He actively prepared for a high-powered confidential radio transceiver between the Comintern Headquarters in Moscow and the Comintern Far Eastern Bureau in Shanghai as well as a wireless radio link between the CCP Central Committee in Shanghai and the Jiangxi Soviet Area. This opened up communication channels between Moscow, Shanghai, and the Jiangxi Soviet Area. It was against this background that at the end of 1930 Xiang Ying took the underground secret transport route to the Jiangxi Soviet Area to serve as the soviet area’s top leader charged with the great task of consolidating the leadership of the CCP Central Committee over the Jiangxi Red Army. Xiang Ying was one of the few top Party leaders with an industrialworker background, and after joining the Party in Wuhan in 1921 he had spent some years in the labor movement. He had taken part in the CCP’s 1928 Sixth National Congress in Moscow, had been a member of the CCP Central Committee since its Fourth Congress in 1925, and had been elected to the Politburo and its Standing Committee during the First Plenum of the Sixth CCP Central Committee. Xiang Ying was a staunch believer in the Marxist-Leninist theories that he had studied in the Soviet

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Union, and he had deep feelings for Stalin and the Soviet Union. His personality and work style were reserved and strict. In late November 1930, Xiang Ying set off from Shanghai, and as soon as he arrived in the Jiangxi Soviet Area he learned about the Futian Incident, targeting the secretary of the General Front Line Committee of the Fourth Red Army, Mao Zedong, that had recently erupted in the Southwest Jiangxi Red Army. The first item of business for the Central Bureau of the Soviet Area under Xiang Ying’s leadership was to deal with the Futian Incident. On January 16, 1931, the Central Bureau issued its “Notice No. 2: Resolution Regarding the Futian Incident,” which expressed “complete agreement with the line of struggle adopted by the General Front Line Committee regarding the Futian Incident,” while watering down the views of Mao and others and advocating a policy of appeasement to mitigate tensions within the soviet area and to avoid a split within the Red Army. The contradictory and ambiguous nature of the resolution was chiefly reflected in its view of the nature of the Futian Incident. Xiang Ying held that “Duan Liangbi and Li Baifang of the Jiangxi Provincial Action Committee, and head of the Political Department of the Twentieth Army, Xie Hanchang, are the key malefactors of the AB League” who launched the Futian Incident as an “anti-Party action” to “split the revolutionary forces” and to “split the Red Army,” and Xiang Ying decided to “expel the leaders of the Futian Incident, Duan Liangbi, Li Baifang, Xie Hanchang, Liu Di, and Jin Wanbang, from the Party.” At the same time, however, Xiang Ying saw the Futian Incident not as a counterrevolutionary insurrection led by the AB League but rather as an “unprincipled factional struggle.” He ordered the Southwest Jiangxi Special Committee and the Party committee of the Twentieth Army to end their mutual attacks and to await an investigation and handling by the Central Bureau. If Xiang Ying consciously adopted a nuanced stance toward the nature of the Futian Incident, his sharp criticism of the expansion of the purge of the AB League was largely directed at Mao. The resolution focused its criticism on “the past flaws and errors in the struggle against the AB League liquidationists” and it enumerated its main manifestations: “The first is a non‒mass line; in many places, the Red Army or the upperlevel organs took over.” “The second is rash actions, fingering others without criteria.” Xiang Ying stressed that thereafter “it is essential to act on the basis of actual facts and circumstances, and by no means should

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there be indiscriminate beating and killing … nor should arrests be made on the basis of loose accusations. … In every conflict, the Party should use educational methods to teach all Party members. Only in this way can the Party follow the Bolshevik path.”40 Xiang Ying’s attitude was closely related to his complicated impression of Mao. Xiang had had some dealings with Mao during the Great Revolution, but prior to his arrival in Jiangxi, his knowledge of the soviet area was based entirely on scattered reports that he had read in Central Committee organs in Shanghai as well as descriptions by Zhou Enlai. In terms of character, Xiang Ying was straight and candid, a very different person from Mao, and upon learning the full details of the Futian Incident, he was unable to hide his displeasure with Mao. At the same time, Xiang was an old Party member, and he knew very well how much Mao had contributed to the Party and the Red Army since 1927 as well as the decisive role and status that Mao enjoyed in the soviet area. As a new arrival, Xiang knew he could not get away with openly criticizing Mao, so he took great pains in his assessment and handling of the Futian Incident both to defend Mao’s reputation and to resolutely curb and correct Mao’s errors. Even so, as Xiang became increasingly familiar with the situation in the Jiangxi Soviet Area, his original assessment of the Futian Incident changed and his criticism of Mao gradually intensified. On February 4, 1931, Xiang Ying, in the name of the Central Bureau of the Soviet Area, sent a letter summoning “West Route Comrades” Wang Huai and Cong Yunzhong, a representative of each Party committee, and other relevant parties (such as Chen Zhengren of the Red Army School, and so forth) to the Central Bureau for “a discussion to reach a final resolution on all matters.” In this letter, Xiang explicitly stated that it was wrong to view the “Second Plenum” as a meeting of the “AB League,” a clear departure from Mao’s position.41 Xiang’s letter showed that he was prepared to deal with the aftermath of the Futian Incident. On February 19, 1931, the Central Bureau of the Soviet Area issued its Notice No. 11, which corrected the views expressed in the January 16 “Resolution” that regarded the Futian Incident as an “anti-Party counterrevolutionary” action led by Duan Liangbi et al.: Based on the history of the Southwest Jiangxi Party’s struggle and the Party’s organizational foundation as well as the objective operational facts of the Futian Incident, the Central Bureau cannot

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reach a subjective conclusion affirming that the Futian Incident was an insurrection by AB League liquidationists, nor does it have facts proving that all of the people leading the Futian Incident were AB League liquidationists or that they consciously and openly formed a United Front with the AB League to oppose the Party and oppose the revolution. This analysis and decision utilizes Marxist-Leninist dialectical materialism and is as correct as steel.42 The notice announced that Li Shaojiu, Duan Liangbi, and three others would be stripped of their Party membership. As for the others, as long as they “testify that they did not join the reactionary organization [the AB League], acknowledge their errors in participating in the Futian Incident, and thoroughly submit to the Party’s decision, they shall be allowed to return once again under the leadership of the Party.” Beginning from February 19, Xiang Ying’s main efforts were focused on securing the return of the Twentieth Army to the east side of the Gan River. Feeling pressure from Xiang and, additionally, as the person at the center of the incident, Mao lay low for a time, forced to wait and see how things developed. He devoted himself body and soul to directing the battle against the encircling Nationalist troops. Xiang first secured the return of the political commissar of the Twentieth Army, Zeng Bingchun, who had gone into hiding in his home village during the Futian Incident, and then put him in charge of persuading and mobilizing Twentieth Army personnel. He also delivered instructions from the Central Bureau notifying the head of the Western Jiangxi Special Committee and the leaders who had taken part in the incident to return to the soviet area for a meeting with the Central Bureau, and he sent cadres to Yongyang to disband the Jiangxi Provincial Action Committee that had been established by Xie Hanchang and the others. Whether or not to attend the meeting of the Central Bureau of the Soviet Area was a crucial issue in terms of the personal safety of those who had led the insurrection. At this point, Xiang Ying’s personal integrity played a decisive role. According to Zeng Shan’s recollections, Xie Hanchang and the others placed great hope in Xiang Ying and “reckoned that Comrade Xiang Ying supported them.” Harboring such a hope, in April 1931 the main leaders of the Futian Incident, Xie Hanchang, Liu Di, and Li Baifang, as well as the secretary of the West Route Action Committee, Wang Huai, complied with the instructions of Xiang Ying and

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the Central Bureau of the Soviet Area and returned to Huangpi, Ningdu County, to attend the Central Bureau meeting and to “acknowledge their errors to the Party and to request education from the Party.” Only Duan Liangbi, who had gone to Shanghai to report on the incident to the CCP Central Committee, was not present. Officers and men of the Twentieth Red Army similarly obeyed the Central Bureau directive to “strive to annihilate the armed forces of the landlords in Taihe and the Gujiang Northern Route, and to retake the masses who had been forced to defect.” But neither they nor Xiang Ying anticipated the fate that awaited them: The CCP Central Committee vetoed Xiang Ying’s assessment and handling of the Futian Incident, and Xie Hanchang, Liu Di, Li Baifang, and many of the Party cadres of the Twentieth Army and southwest Jiangxi ended up being executed.

3.  The Resurgence of the Campaign to Eliminate the AB League: The Central Committee Delegation Denounces Xiang Ying and Supports Mao According to currently available documents, the CCP Central Committee delivered its first response to the Futian Incident on February 13, 1931. The period from November 1930 to January 1931 was a special one in the history of the CCP: the Central Committee in Shanghai was embroiled in an intense internal struggle over the issue of “correcting the errors of the Lisan Line.” Returning from their studies at Moscow’s Sun Yat-sen University, Chen Shaoyu (Wang Ming), Qin Bangxian (Bo Gu), and Wang Jiaxiang, whose status in the Party had been relatively low in the past, called for an urgent meeting to reorganize the Central Committee, which, with Zhou Enlai and Qu Qiubai as its core members, had, in their view, “committed errors of conciliationism” in the struggle with the “Lisan Line.” However, the “Jiangsu Provincial Party Committee Faction” and the “All-China Federation of Trade Unions Faction,” led respectively by He Mengxiong and Luo Zhanglong, which had liaised with Chen Shaoyu et al. in opposing the current Central Committee, made an about-face and opposed Chen’s call to convene the Fourth Plenum of the Sixth Central Committee. These factional disputes brought the Central Committee to the brink of a split. Finally, however, under the personal direction of Comintern representative Pavel Mif (Mikhail Alexandrovich Fortus), who had secretly arrived in Shanghai in mid-December, the Central Committee convened an enlarged Fourth Plenum on January 7, 1931, to enforce Party

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unity. The meeting held a re-election for members of the Politburo, which Chen Shaoyu joined with Mif ’s support, and the Standing Committee of the Central Committee, comprised of Zhou Enlai, Xiang Zhongfa, and Zhang Guotao, retained Xiang as its general secretary, but from then on the Central Committee was effectively controlled by Chen and Zhou. On January 27, the Politburo held a meeting at which it unanimously decided to rescind the Party and Central Committee membership of Luo Zhanglong. This was the beginning of what came to be known in Party history as the “period of dominance by the Wang Ming Left Deviation Line.” Following this meeting, the intra-Party disputes came to an end and the work of the Politburo was back on track. Having resolved the crisis of a Party split, the first order of business for the newly-established Politburo was to discuss the Futian Incident. On February 13, 1931, the Central Committee convened a Politburo meeting, at which the Futian Incident was the main topic of discussion. At this point, certain questions remain: How did the Central Committee learn about the Futian Incident? In January and February 1931 telecommunication links had not yet been established between the Central Committee in Shanghai and the Jiangxi Soviet Area, and it was not until autumn that the Central Committee was able to communicate with the Jiangxi Soviet via Hong Kong. Documents show that following the Futian Incident, the Politburo required that Mao report on what happened; 43 did Mao respond to that request? Following the Futian Incident, Mao did write a “Letter of the General Front Line Committee in Response to Accusations.” Was this letter written for the Central Committee in Shanghai? According to authoritative documents that came to light in the late 1980s, Yi Ershi (Liu Zuofu), the Central Funding Committee member who had been detained during the Futian Incident, was subsequently released by Duan Liangbi, and after collecting some 50 kilos of gold, he hurried back to Shanghai to report to the Central Committee. Other documents reveal that from February to March 1931 Duan Liangbi and two others from the Jiangxi Provincial Youth League Committee went to Shanghai to report on the Futian Incident and they were received by Bo Gu, who then reported to the Standing Committee of the Central Committee. Bo Gu decided that the oral accounts by people from southwest Jiangxi and the documents that the Central Bureau of the Youth League had received from southwest Jiangxi that accused Mao were generally true.44 Although Zhou Enlai did not receive the visitors from

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southwest Jiangxi, one question can basically be settled: By February 13, 1931, Zhou and the others already knew about the Futian Incident, and Zhou had decided to take appropriate organizational measures to deal with what he considered to be a serious matter. Zhou Enlai made two decisions during the February 13 Politburo meeting: first, to immediately send instructions from the Central Committee to Jiangxi to “cease all disputes and unite against the enemy”; and second, to restructure the Central Bureau of the Soviet Area by making Xiang Ying, Ren Bishi, Mao, and Wang Jiaxiang members of its Standing Committee. After this restructuring, Mao’s role as the No. 2 person in the Central Bureau was taken over by Ren Bishi, and Sovieteducated Wang Jiaxiang, who had just joined the Central Committee, became part of the highest leadership organ of the Central Bureau of the Soviet Area.45 On February 15, the Politburo of the Central Committee convened another meeting, at which it was decided that a committee made up of Zhou Enlai, Ren Bishi, and Wang Jiaxiang would look into the nature of the Futian Incident as well as determine how to handle it. On February 20, the Politburo held a special meeting to discuss the views of the threeman committee, represented by Zhou: “The southwest Jiangxi AB League is a counterrevolutionary organization, but there are always vacillators and unsteadfast elements within the Red Army who objectively can be made use of by the AB League.”46 The meeting decided that, based on Zhou’s conclusions, Ren Bishi would draft a letter demanding an end to the disputes in the Jiangxi Soviet Area and calling for all resources to be concentrated against the enemy. A Central Committee delegation would be dispatched to the soviet area with full authority and jurisdiction to deal with the Futian Incident. On February 23, the Central Committee sent a letter drafted by Ren Bishi to the General Front Line Committee of the First Front Red Army, the Jiangxi Provincial Party Committee, and all special committees and all local Party committees: The Futian Incident unfortunately occurred just as the enemy was intensifying its attacks on us and as the Red Army and the masses were engaged in an arduous battle with the enemy; in any event, this worked to the advantage of the enemy while crippling us. The Central Committee has made a special decision to immediately dispatch a delegation to the Central Bureau of the Soviet Area and

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has commissioned the delegation with full authority to investigate and resolve this matter. Prior to the arrival of the Central Committee delegation, all disputes must immediately cease. From the General Front Line Committee to the Jiangxi Provincial Party Committee, all ad-hoc committees and Red Army Party committees down to every local Party branch must unconditionally submit to the unified leadership under the General Front Line Committee and join in ruthless warfare against the enemy.47 This letter, drafted by Ren Bishi on behalf of the Central Committee, overturned two key issues in the original decision of the October 1930 Politburo meeting, dealing a heavy blow to Xiang Ying. First, the letter repudiated the legitimacy of the Central Bureau of the Soviet Area that the Politburo had approved (following the Third Plenum of the Sixth Central Committee) and that had just been set up, and it stripped Xiang Ying of his supreme authority over the Jiangxi Soviet Area. Second, the letter explicitly stipulated that prior to the arrival of the Central Committee delegation, Mao would enjoy the highest authority over all matters in the Jiangxi Soviet Area. It restored the General Front Line Committee of the First Front Red Army and repudiated the legitimacy of the CMC, which, led by Xiang Ying, had just been established in mid-January. (In fact, on January 30, 1931, the post‒Fourth Plenum Politburo had already decided to reorganize a new seven-man CMC, with Zhou Enlai as secretary.) On March 4, the Politburo Standing Committee decided to organize a Central Committee delegation, consisting of Ren Bishi, Wang Jiaxiang, and Gu Zuolin, to set off immediately for the Jiangxi Soviet Area. As the first high-level delegation sent to Jiangxi following the Fourth Plenum, the direct mission of Ren, Wang, and Gu was to represent the Politburo in the handling of the Futian Incident, and it enjoyed explicit and comprehensive authority. For safety’s sake, it was decided that Ren would depart on March 5, followed by Wang on March 7. Regarding the Comintern’s attitude toward the Futian Incident, at present detailed material is still lacking. In spring 1931, the Comintern’s resident organ in China was the Far Eastern Bureau in Shanghai. It was headed by a German, Gerhart Eisler (known in Chinese as Luo Bote), whose status in the Comintern was relatively low, and his views were seldom accepted or taken seriously by the CCP central leadership. As early as spring 1930, differences of opinion between the CCP Central

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Committee and the Far Eastern Bureau on the “rich-peasant” issue and other matters had led Zhou Enlai to make a special trip to Moscow to report to the Comintern. Eisler’s status was boosted in the summer and autumn of 1931 after he reported to Moscow on Li Lisan’s attempt to pull the USSR into China’s Civil War and the Far Eastern Bureau began resisting Li Lisan, but Eisler still lacked authority, so the Comintern dispatched Pavel Mif to China on a secret mission to preside over the Fourth Plenum of the Sixth Central Committee. According to the relevant documents, following Mif ’s arrival in China in December 1930, he spent half a year living incognito in Shanghai, yet to date no material has come to light revealing Mif ’s views on the Futian Incident. Only one or two documents indirectly indicate the Comintern’s attitude toward the Futian Incident. The Chronology of Zhou Enlai (1898‒1949) reveals that the Central Committee Politburo held a meeting in Shanghai on March 27, 1931, and at that meeting Zhou presented the views of the Comintern’s Far Eastern Bureau. The book discloses no details about these views, but I have reached the conclusion, based on Zhou Enlai’s remarks at the Politburo meeting and on the “Central Committee Politburo Resolution on the Futian Incident” published the following day, that the Far Eastern Bureau held the following general views about the Futian Incident: 1.) The Futian Incident was a counterrevolutionary movement; and 2.) The enemy’s power to carry out internal attacks should not be exaggerated. I am able to verify this conclusion based on another document. A Biography of Ren Bishi reveals that following the Politburo’s February 20, 1931, meeting to discuss the Futian Incident, the Comintern’s Far Eastern Bureau took a view different from that of the Politburo and it disagreed with the hastily approved campaign by the General Front Line Committee against the “AB League.” As a result, the letter Ren Bishi drafted on behalf of the Politburo on February 23 contained no statement to the effect that the General Front Line Committee’s campaign against the AB League was “generally correct.” However, by March 27 the Far Eastern Bureau had changed its view, affirming that the Futian Incident was a “counterrevolutionary insurrection and the leadership of the Front Line Committee was correct,” even requiring that the Politburo issue its decision on the Futian Incident jointly with the Far Eastern Bureau.48 This was the “Central Committee Politburo Resolution on the Futian Incident” published the following day.

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No document to date directly verifies who drafted the March 28 resolution, but I feel that it was most likely drafted by Zhou Enlai. Zhou Enlai’s brief within the Politburo was the soviet area and the Red Army, and beginning in January 1931, when Zhou drafted Notice No. 1 of the Fourth Plenum of the Sixth Central Committee, he represented the Central Committee in the drafting of at least seven directives and cables to the Comintern Executive Committee related to the political line and the work of the Party. Without exception, all of the most important documents related to the overall situation were drafted in part or in full by Zhou Enlai. The resolution reflected Zhou’s intensely tendentious but also compromising mindset and his executive style, and it matched the spirit of Zhou’s remarks when discussing the Futian Incident at the Politburo meeting on February 20. The resolution pointed out: “[The Futian Incident] is essentially and undoubtedly a counterrevolutionary action prepared and executed by class enemies and their organ of struggle, the AB League”; “The resolute line of struggle against the class enemy by the General Front Line Committee under Comrade Zedong’s leadership is essentially correct. This kind of resolute line of struggle against enemies of the revolution should be executed at all times.” The resolution also stated, “At the same time, there is a danger that overestimating the strength of counterrevolutionary organizations and their deceitful influence among the masses will weaken our staunch faith that we have in the strength of the masses and in the correct line to vanquish the class enemy.”49 Beginning from February 1931, the Central Committee and Zhou Enlai maintained an unyielding attitude toward the nature of the Futian Incident, and the Central Committee delegation that Ren Bishi led to the soviet area faithfully executed Zhou’s policy, without ever guessing that not long thereafter the Central Committee and Zhou would undergo a complete change of heart regarding the Futian Incident. Specific changes to the policy of eliminating counterrevolutionaries and correcting Mao’s errors on the issue occurred after Zhou arrived in the soviet area at the end of 1931. By then, thousands of Red Army soldiers and local cadres had already been wrongfully executed. In mid-April 1931, the Central Committee delegation led by Ren Bishi, Wang Jiaxiang, and Gu Zuolin, bearing the document from the Fourth Plenum of the Sixth Central Committee, arrived in southern Jiangxi via western Fujian and met with the Central Bureau of the Soviet Area led by Xiang Ying. On March 18, prior to the arrival of the delegation,

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Xiang Ying had convened the first enlarged meeting of the Central Bureau. Xiang had originally called this meeting to reinforce unity and consolidate the authority of his leadership within the soviet area. The main purpose of the meeting was to transmit the Comintern’s October 1930 letter, which had just arrived. Specific issues to be discussed included the Futian Incident and “a review of past work with the First and Third Corps of the Red Army.” When speaking of the Central Bureau’s handling of the Futian Incident, Xiang reiterated: “Using educational methods is correct; we should clearly recognize that not everyone who took part in the Futian Incident was necessarily an AB Clique liquidationist; denying this point is wrong.”50 Yet Xiang Ying’s opinion was immediately overturned once the Central Committee delegation arrived. As soon as Ren, Wang, and Gu took charge, they called another enlarged meeting of the Central Bureau as a “continuation of the first enlarged meeting” to transmit the Fourth Plenum document and the Central Committee’s views regarding the Futian Incident. On April 17, in Qingtang of Ningdu County, Ren Bishi convened this meeting, which was attended by Mao, Xiang, and others. The meeting passed the “Resolution Regarding the Futian Incident” drafted by the Central Committee delegation, and further affirmed the “counterrevolutionary” nature of the incident: “The Futian Incident was led by the AB League as a counterrevolutionary insurrection under the banner of the Lisan Line. More precisely, the Futian Incident was a counterrevolutionary rebellion led by the AB League and with the participation of supporters of the Lisan Line.” The resolution criticized the Central Bureau of the Soviet Area for having been established under the “conciliatory line” of the Third Plenum, and it criticized the Central Bureau under Xiang Ying’s leadership for “a completely wrong line in resolving the Futian Incident”: [Xiang Ying] never pointed out that the Futian Incident was a counterrevolutionary rebellion led by the AB League, but rather he affirmed that the Futian Incident was not a rebellion by the AB League. This completely obscures the counterrevolutionary nature of the Futian Incident. He also stated that the Futian Incident evolved out of unprincipled factional infighting, and this is an even greater error.

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Having overturned Xiang Ying’s analysis and handling of the Futian Incident, the Central Committee delegation established close and friendly cooperation with Mao based on their philosophical unanimity. In May 1931, the Central Committee delegation reestablished the General Front Line Committee of the First Front Red Army, with Mao again serving as secretary. Mao became secretary of the Central Bureau in August, and on October 11, 1931, the Central Bureau notified the CCP Central Committee by cable that Mao had formally replaced Xiang Ying as head of the Central Bureau of the Soviet Area: Xiang Ying’s resolution on the Futian Incident was completely wrong to treat it as a factional struggle, and he does not have the muscle for leadership. As a result, he has lost his credibility; the Central Bureau has decided to name Mao Zedong as acting secretary and requests the Central Committee’s approval.51 In tandem with the restoration of Mao’s leadership was the re-arrest and trial of the main Futian Incident leaders, who had complied with the notification to return to meet with the Central Bureau. An Adjudication Committee led by Zhou Yili (who had established a close relationship with Mao after joining the General Front Line Committee of the First Front Red Army in 1930 as a representative of the Yangtze Bureau) was established under the direct leadership of the Central Bureau of the Soviet Area. The Adjudication Committee’s first step was to “carry out the execution by a firing squad of Li Di, the leader of the Futian Incident,” after which it put Xie Hanchang, Li Baifang, Jin Wanbang, Zhou Mian, Cong Yunzhong, and the others on “public trial” and executed them. Thirty years later, a participant in these “trials,” Zeng Shan, recalled: During the trials, there were no extortions of confessions by torture, and those being tried had complete freedom to speak their views. They did not acknowledge that it was a counterrevolutionary organization, but they affirmed that it opposed the Mao clique.52 Executing the main leaders of the Futian Incident did not mean that the AB League had successfully been eliminated; rather, it signaled an even greater onslaught against the AB League. In July 1931, Political Commissar Zeng Bingchun and Xiao Dapeng, who succeeded Liu Tiechao

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as commanding officer, persuaded the Twentieth Red Army to abandon its guerrilla warfare west of the Gan River and to comply with the Central Bureau’s decision to return to Yudu County, east of the Gan River in the middle of the soviet area. However, what awaited them was not welcoming cheers and fireworks but rather mass arrests and executions. The Central Bureau ordered the disbandment of the Twentieth Army, detained Commander Xiao Dapeng, Political Commissar Zeng Bingchun, and all cadres to the level of deputy platoon leader, while “rank-and-file soldiers were distributed among the Red Army’s Third and Fourth Army Groups.” The majority of the detained cadres of the Twentieth Army were “disposed of ” (executed) as “AB League liquidationists.” At the local levels, “more than 90 percent of the cadres in the Southwest Jiangxi Region were labeled members of the AB League”; “some were wrongfully disposed of and some were taken into custody or suspended from work.”53 Xiang Ying’s firm action brought only a four-month hiatus to the campaign that Mao had launched in 1930, and beginning from April 1931 the campaign spread like wildfire, reaching its climax between May and July. The call to “use a carrot-and-stick approach and hotly pursue and make detailed inquiries,” as laid out in the Central Bureau’s April 17 “Resolution on the Futian Incident,” resulted in an upsurge in the use of torture to extort confessions by alleged members of the AB League. “All AB League cases were uncovered through the oral testimonies of the malefactors. ... Interrogation techniques relied entirely on torture.” Regarding the “carrot-and-stick” approach, the so-called “soft” method was “to use language to trick the suspect into confessing. ... The so-called “hard” method usually involved hanging the person by both arms and then flogging him with an oxtail broom. If he still refused to confess, he would be burned with incense sticks or kerosene, and sometimes his hands would be nailed to a table and bamboo strips would be driven under his fingernails. In all counties, no form of torture was out of bounds. There was the so-called explosion torture (in Wantai), striking land mines,* riding the sedan chair, and flying the airplane (in all counties), sitting on the *

  TN: According to an online source quoting a Red Army veteran, this torture consisted of binding together a victim’s thumbs and then driving a stake between them.

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happy chair, toad drinking water, monkey pulling the halter, and inserting a red-hot gun barrel into the anus (Shengli County). ... In Shengli [County], there were some 120 forms of torture. ...”54 During the campaign, suspects who succumbed to the torture and gave false testimonies or confessions produced an ever-growing number of “AB League liquidationists.” “Anyone who did not take harsh action against the AB League was considered an associate and faced the possibility of arrest.” The campaign apparatus chased after shadows, “publicly making the absurd statement that it was better to wrongfully kill 100 than to allow one to escape,” so that “everyone felt imperiled and was intimidated into silence, and most of the cadres who were promoted or transferred went unwillingly in tears. ... At the height of the campaign, even two people conversing could be suspected of being members of the AB League.”55 Deng Xiaoping, who was in the Central Soviet Area at the time, subsequently commented: “I felt that the methods the General Front Line Committee used against the AB League erred by exceeding organizational bounds. Such methods in fact gave rise to terror within the Party, making comrades afraid to speak out.”56 Yet the friendly and cooperative relationship that the Central Committee delegation established with Mao on the basis of the campaign against the AB League lasted only about seven months; once the contradiction between Mao and Xiang Ying was resolved, new contradictions arose between Mao and the Central Committee delegation. Apart from differences on policy points, ambiguity over Mao’s personal authority and the jurisdiction of the delegation exacerbated tensions. In theory, Mao was the supreme leader of the Party, armed forces, and government in the Jiangxi Soviet Area, while the status of the Central Committee delegation was less clear-cut. In terms of authorization by the CCP Central Committee, Ren Bishi should have been the top man in the Jiangxi Soviet Area, but Mao was acting secretary of the Central Bureau of the Soviet Area, which made him the most powerful man in the soviet area, whether in terms of his power base or in terms of his theoretical jurisdiction; the Central Committee delegation, for all its authority, held only supervisory status. The resultant contradictions brought an end to the honeymoon period for Mao and the post‒Fourth Plenum Central Committee, and beginning in early November 1931 the two sides became embroiled in more than three years of antagonism and conflict.

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III.  Similarities and Differences between Zhou Enlai and Mao Zedong Regarding the Elimination of Counterrevolutionaries in the Soviet Areas There has long been serious confusion in Party history over the “expansion” of the campaign to eliminate counterrevolutionaries in the soviet areas. The conventional explanation is that Wang Ming and the Wang Ming Line bear full blame for the disastrous campaign and that Mao had absolutely nothing to do with it. Furthermore, Mao has been depicted as a hero in the struggle against Wang Ming’s “Left Deviation” Line against counterrevolutionaries. Yet the historical truth is exactly the opposite: It was Mao who was the originator of the extremist policies and practices against counterrevolutionaries in the soviet areas. In fact, regarding the issue of eliminating counterrevolutionaries, in principle there were no differences between Mao and the CCP Central Committee—both affirmed the necessity of such campaigns. However, after Zhou Enlai and others gained a deeper understanding of what actually occurred during the campaigns in the soviet areas, the Central Committee began adjusting its policies regarding eliminating counterrevolutionaries and adopted a series of rectification measures. At the same time, the initial doubts about Mao’s monopoly of power gradually increased and the Central Committee bolstered its vigilance, while resolutely ending the mass physical annihilation that was taking place within the revolutionary camp. After the Central Committee delegation led by Ren Bishi set off for Jiangxi in March 1931, the Central Committee continued to emphasize the “counterrevolutionary nature” of the Futian Incident, while also forestalling what it referred to as a “radicalization” of the campaign against counterrevolutionaries. By the time the Central Committee inspector, Ouyang Qin, who had accompanied Ren Bishi et al. to the Jiangxi Soviet Area, returned to Shanghai in the latter half of July 1931, he had completely accepted the view that the soviet areas were infested with members of the “AB League” and he reported to Zhou Enlai accordingly. After hearing Ouyang’s report, on August 30, 1931 Zhou drafted the “CCP Central Committee Letter of Instruction to the Central Bureau of the Soviet Area and the General Front Line Committee of the Red Army,” which affirmed that the soviet area’s “anti‒AB League struggle is absolutely correct and necessary,” but it also criticized errors

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of “simplification” and “expansion” in the struggle. The letter stressed: “Not every local-landlord remnant or rich-peasant element is necessarily a member of the AB League. ... Not every one of the Party’s executors or supporters of erroneous lines, or every backward peasant, or every member of the Party or masses who has committed erroneous deviations or actions is necessarily a member of the AB League.”57 During the Yan’an Rectification Movement, this letter, with Zhou’s name removed, was harshly criticized as a representative work of the Wang Ming Line; such criticism continued even into the mid-1980s.58 The reason why Mao could never forget this letter was that it played an important role in guiding the first Party congress in the soviet area (also known as the Gannan or South Jiangxi Conference). Ren Bishi and others used the spirit of this letter’s correction of the “rich-peasant line” as the basis for indirect criticism of Mao. As the leader of the Central Committee delegation, Ren Bishi communicated the gist of Zhou Enlai’s letter at the Gannan Conference. However, because Ren had become deeply embroiled in the campaign to eliminate the AB League, he focused on a thorough discussion of land policies rather than on efforts against counterrevolutionaries. Both the “Political Resolution” of the Gannan Conference and the Central Bureau’s December 5, 1931 directive to all levels of the Party organization communicated the CCP Central Committee’s criticism of the “expansion” of the campaign to eliminate counterrevolutionaries in the soviet area and also put forward the slogan “Resolutely oppose the extremely pernicious and extremely erroneous ‘counterrevolutionary-centrism’”; even so, indiscriminate attacks and slaughter in the soviet areas were not effectively stemmed. The mass campaign against counterrevolutionaries did not actually end until Zhou Enlai went to the Jiangxi Soviet Area in late 1931. Because the campaign was inextricably connected to the CCP Central Committee’s line against “Right Deviation” and to internal power struggles in the soviet area, Zhou was obliged to act with great circumspection, avoiding direct confrontation with Mao while also significantly bolstering the authority of the Central Bureau of the Soviet Area. Only in this way was Zhou able to extricate the soviet area from the immense terror of the campaigns to eliminate counterrevolutionaries. Zhou gained an understanding of the disastrous consequences of the campaigns as he traveled from western Fujian to southern Jiangxi in midDecember 1931. At that time, western Fujian was carrying out a campaign

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to “eliminate the Socialist Democratic Party (SDP)” on a formidable scale, equal to that of Jiangxi’s campaign against the “AB League.” The brutality of this campaign and the enormous destruction it inflicted on the West Fujian Soviet Area spurred Zhou to take urgent measures to halt the campaigns against counterrevolutionaries in the soviet area. The campaign to “eliminate the SDP” in western Fujian began in early 1931 and rapidly reached a climax in March. In terms of scale, method, and brutality, the campaign was almost indistinguishable from the campaign against the AB League in southern Jiangxi. Over the course of nearly one year, large numbers of Red Army cadres, local leaders, and ordinary soldiers, officers, and civilians were labeled “SDP elements” in a suppression that victimized some 6,352 people.59 It caused the director of finance of the West Fujian Soviet Government, Fu Bocui, to leave the Communist Party and mount a military defense on May 27, 1931. It also triggered the “Kengkou Mutiny,” which was similar to the Futian Incident. This campaign against counterrevolutionaries drained the vitality of the West Fujian Soviet Area, and the number of Party members dropped from 8,000 to 5,000.60 The CCP Central Committee, CMC secretary Zhou Enlai, Central Committee representative Deng Fa, a western Fujian local leader, Zhang Dingcheng, and Central Committee delegation member Ren Bishi all shouldered different levels of responsibility for the campaign against the SDP in western Fujian. Under the influence of the Comintern’s line against “Right Deviation,” the CCP Central Committee offered the same initial support to the campaign against the SDP in western Fujian as it did to the campaign against the AB League in Jiangxi. Beginning in August 1931, however, while continuing to affirm the correctness of the campaign, the Central Committee shifted its focus to preventing its “radicalization” and “simplification.” On April 4, 1931, following revision by Zhou Enlai, a “Central Committee Resolution Regarding Current Work in Fujian” was issued. The resolution called for the Fujian Provincial Party Committee to “carry out comprehensive and thorough transformation of practical operations in accordance with the Comintern line and the resolution of the Central Committee’s Fourth Plenum.”61 On the same day, based on a report from western Fujian, the Central Committee sent a letter to the Min-YueGan (Fujian-Guangdong-Jiangxi) Special Committee with the following instructions regarding efforts against counterrevolutionaries: “Pervasive White Terror has actively infiltrated the Party organization and the Red

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Army for the purpose of sabotage (western Fujian’s so-called SDP, Jiangxi’s AB League, and other local reorganizationist factions), and from Chiang Kai-shek to Fu Bocui, they have been completely integrated and planned.” The letter required all levels of the Party organization to adopt “the harshest measures to suppress” these groups.62 This April 4 letter from the CCP Central Committee fueled the flames of the campaign against counterrevolutionaries in western Fujian. To date, mainland sources have not revealed who drafted this letter. An analysis of related clues suggests that it most likely was Zhou Enlai. As described above, within the Politburo Zhou was in charge of the soviet areas and military matters, and Zhou invariably drafted Central Committee directives touching on issues related to the soviet areas and military matters. This letter to the Special Committee was sent out on the same day as the Central Committee directive revised by Zhou. Also on that same day, Zhou attended a meeting of the Politburo Standing Committee to discuss problems in the Xiang-E-Gan (Hunan-Hubei-Jiangxi) Border Region Soviet Area. As a leading cadre of the Central Committee, Zhou Enlai bore some responsibility for the “radicalization” and “expansion” of the campaign against counterrevolutionaries in western Fujian. In the summer of 1931 Zhou’s understanding of the campaigns against counterrevolutionaries in the soviet areas underwent an obvious change; while criticizing the “simplification” and “expansion” of the campaign against the AB League, Zhou also raised fairly direct criticism of the problems that had come to light in the campaign against the SDP in western Fujian. In about mid-September 1931, the letter to the Min-Yue-Gan Soviet Area that Zhou had drafted on August 29 reached western Fujian. While affirming “the existence of the SDP in western Fujian and other localities,” the letter also raised a series of questions about the suppression campaign in western Fujian: Since [SDP elements] have been able to extensively infiltrate our Party, Youth League, and Red Army, why, after repeated unearthing and arrests, are their activities still often discovered within our organization? Why do some deceived masses look on without voluntarily surrendering and why are they even afraid to join the Communist Party? These questions very much deserve our attention, but no satisfactory answers to them can be found in any of your documents.63

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Zhou’s new attitude toward the suppression of counterrevolutionaries formed the necessary basis for the urgent rectification that he carried out following his arrival in the soviet areas. Yet, at that time, leaders with nimble visions such as Zhou were extremely rare in the soviet areas. The top leader of the Min-Yue-Gan Party, Deng Fa, lacked Zhou’s cultivation and vision, and his fanatical approach was a direct cause of the disastrous consequences of the campaign in western Fujian. Following the Third Plenum of the Sixth Central Committee, in December 1930 the Central Committee sent its newly-elected member, Deng Fa, to Longyan in western Fujian to serve as secretary of the CCP’s newly-established Min-Yue-Gan Special Committee. Deng was directly subordinate to the leadership of the Central Bureau of the Soviet Area, but since western Fujian was still cut off from southern Jiangxi (it was not until September 1931 that western Fujian could be joined with the Southern Jiangxi Soviet Area into a single unit), Deng effectively held the highest operational authority. After arriving in western Fujian, Deng joined with local cadres Deng Zihui, Zhang Dingcheng, Lin Yizhu, and Luo Shouchun to form a new leadership organ for the Party and the soviet, and he took on full responsibility for operations in the West Fujian Soviet Area. Deng Fa and Xiang Ying were both sent to the soviet areas to strengthen Party operations following the Third Plenum of the Sixth Central Committee. On his way to southwest Jiangxi, Xiang passed through Longyan where he met with Deng. Upon his arrival in southwest Jiangxi, Xiang immediately concentrated on dealing with the aftermath of the Futian Incident and he did not look into operations in western Fujian. Deng and Xiang were among the few CCP leaders with genuine proletarian backgrounds and they both had attained a measure of fame during the early history of the Party. Deng had become deeply familiar with the “dictatorship of the masses” as a leader of the worker pickets during the massive labor strikes in Guangdong and Hong Kong in 1925 and 1926. Upon arriving in western Fujian, Deng initially had difficulty becoming accustomed to the “hooligan phenomenon” and “hooligan work styles” that flourished in the rural base areas. When Deng saw Ministry of Culture cadres in the soviet area sleeping with two women at the same time, his instinctive judgment was that the West Fujian Party and soviet organs had been infiltrated by counterrevolutionaries. This was followed, in early January 1931, by an incident at a rally to commemorate Lenin and German Communists Karl Liebknecht and Rosa Luxemburg. During

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the rally, some officers and men of the Twelfth Red Army (under Luo Binghui as commanding officer and Tan Zhenlin as political commissar), unaware of the difference between the Second and Third International, mistakenly shouted, “Support the Second International” and “Long Live the Socialist Democratic Party!” Without a moment’s hesitation, Deng launched a campaign to “eliminate the SDP.” Although he had been sent to the soviet area as the Central Committee’s representative at the same time as Xiang Ying, Deng lacked Xiang’s capacity for careful analysis and discreet judgment of complex matters. His intense personality and fanatical revolutionary temperament resulted in a steady expansion of the campaign against counterrevolutionaries in western Fujian. The campaign against counterrevolutionaries led by Deng Fa in western Fujian had all the hallmarks of a revolutionary meat grinder, and all alleged SDP members were subjected to torture. The only method for suppressing counterrevolutionaries was execution, and once the machinery of terror was activated, it went into an autopilot frenzy that continued to reach new heights, resulting in the arsonists being incinerated and the killers being butchered. The curtain rose on the West Fujian Soviet Area’s great terror against counterrevolutionaries with the March 2, 1931, execution of Political Commissar Lin Meiting and sixteen others from the 100th Regiment of the Twelfth Red Army. The campaign rapidly engulfed all levels of the Red Army, Party, and Soviet Government as well as the Communist Youth League, Young Pioneers, and Children’s Corps. Most local Red Army cadres from the platoon level upward, half of the thirty-five administrators of the West Fujian Soviet Government,64 Duan Fenfu, and other leaders of the peasant uprising in western Fujian, and the leaders of Yongding, Longyan, and Hangwu counties were all exterminated. Most of the victims were young people in their twenties; the first victim, Lin Meiting, was only 24 years old at the time of his execution. The victims also included a substantial number of members of the Young Pioneers and Children’s Corps, the youngest of whom was only 16 years old.65 A wide variety of crimes, including participating in the SDP’s “ten dime movement,” “smokers’ league,” “girls’ corps,” “love-seeking corps,” and “mess committee,” were all deemed worthy of execution. Party cadres from landlord and rich-peasant families made up a substantial proportion of the victims. This reflected a common characteristic of the campaigns against counterrevolutionaries in the soviet

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areas; Party cadres with such backgrounds were inevitably the first targets of the purges. At the first public trial and execution, held in western Fujian on March 2, 1931, the chairman of the West Fujian CounterrevolutionaryElimination Committee, Lin Yizhu, explicitly stated the three principles for punishing “SDP members,” the most important of which was that those with bad family backgrounds were to be executed on the grounds that “during the struggle, those from landlord and rich-peasant families will inevitably betray the revolution.”66 The unprecedented Red Terror of the campaign against the SDP sent western Fujian’s Party members, cadres, and ordinary people into a blind panic. Many cadres and soldiers were compelled to flee for their lives, with some even crossing the sea to escape death, while even more made their way to Shanghang County’s Gujiao District, which by then was controlled by Fu Bocui. Fu Bocui was the leader of the 1928 Jiaoyang peasant uprising, and he had served as commander of the Fourth Column of the Fourth Red Army and as minister of finance of the West Fujian Soviet Government. Fu had come under criticism by the West Fujian Party organization because his home region of Gujiao had implemented a system of “communal households,” and when he subsequently refused to attend Party meetings or accept a work transfer, the Party put him on probation in October 1930 for having a “third party viewpoint.” After Deng Fa became secretary of the Min-Yue-Gan Special Committee, he announced the revocation of Fu Bocui’s Party membership in February 1931 and he sent the Red Army to attack Gujiao District, compelling Fu to take up armed resistance against the Party. On March 6, 1931, the West Fujian Soviet Government issued Notice No. 23, which declared that Fu Bocui was the leader of the West Fujian “SDP” and Gujiao was the “lair of the SDP.” During the Great Terror, Gujiao District under Fu’s control became a refuge for many Red Army cadres and soldiers fleeing arrest and execution.* *

  After leaving the Communist Party, Fu Bocui at one point accepted an appointment as head of a KMT public security unit in the Shanghang-Longyan-Liancheng Border Area. After the Central Red Army withdrew from the soviet area in October 1934, Fu gave material assistance to the remnants of the Communist guerrilla forces that continued to fight in Jiangxi, Guangdong, and Fujian. In May 1949, Fu and the 3,000-plus troops under his command pledged allegiance to the Communist government. On May 14, 1985, the Fujian Provincial Party Committee issued a notice rehabilitating Fu Bocui, declaring him a “comrade” and also overturning the wrongful labeling of him as a “leader of the SDP.”

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In late spring 1931, the massive Red Terror in western Fujian threatened the Communist Party’s social foundation—the jurisdiction of the West Fujian Soviet Government was filled with a tense and eerie insecurity that seriously disrupted social order in the base area. Fu Bocui’s armed revolt was followed on May 27 by a little-known incident in CCP history, the “Kengkou Mutiny.” The Kengkou Mutiny and its suppression was virtually a carbon copy of the Futian Incident in southwest Jiangxi. At the height of the great purge in western Fujian, accusations were made that the Party secretary of Hangwu County’s Third District (now the towns of Xikou and Taiba in Shanghang County), He Dengnan, the political commissar of the county’s Third Military Brigade, Chen Jinu, and some 200 others were “members of the SDP,” and they were detained in Kengkou and Baisha (the location of the county’s Soviet Government). On May 27, a group of people led by the commander of the county’s Third Military Brigade, Li Zhen, its deputy political commissar, Zhang Chunming, and its deputy commander, Qiu Ziting, abducted the secretary general of the West Fujian Soviet Government, Luo Shouchun, who was on an inspection visit at the time, and they forced him to write a personal order releasing all the detainees. That night, the Third Military Brigade surrounded the Soviet Government Headquarters and released those who had been arrested, while a portion of the troops were dispatched to Baisha under Luo Shouchun’s personal order to secure the release and return of all Third Military Brigade personnel who had been detained there. When news of the Kengkou Mutiny reached the CCP’s Min-YueGan Provincial Party Committee (the Special Committee was renamed the Min-Yue-Gan Provincial Party Committee in May 1931), Party Secretary Deng Fa immediately called it a “counterrevolutionary insurrection,” and the New Twelfth Red Army was sent to attack Hangwu’s Third District. By May 29, most of the troops of the Third Military Brigade had been disarmed and arrested, including those whose release had just been secured two days earlier. On the same day, the Min-Yue-Gan Provincial Party Committee passed a resolution directing that “the arrested SDP members shall be interrogated by various methods to uncover their entire organization and they shall be promptly executed.”67 Li Zhen, He Dengnan, Qiu Ziting, and the majority of the cadres and soldiers of Third Military Brigade were then executed. Although the May 29 crackdown was exceedingly severe, it failed

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to entirely contain the extreme frustration with the campaign against counterrevolutionaries that pervaded the military and the populace of the West Fujian Soviet Area. Similar revolts occurred in Xi’nan and Hugang of Yongding County, but they were thoroughly suppressed. 68 As the Party’s top official in the West Fujian Soviet Government, Deng Fa should be considered directly and preeminently responsible for the extreme behavior that occurred under his jurisdiction. The chairman of the West Fujian Soviet Government, Zhang Dingcheng, took a more temperate approach toward the elimination of counterrevolutionaries than the fanatical Deng Fa, but ultimately he submitted to Deng’s will. Zhang Dingcheng was one of the main founders of the western Fujian Party and soviet regime; he was extremely familiar with the revolutionary history and cadre situation in western Fujian, and he was a representative figure among the local cadres. After Deng Fa arrived in western Fujian, Zhang became his deputy, responsible for keeping Deng apprised of the situation among the local cadres, and he should have done his best to protect those cadres during the campaign against counterrevolutionaries. Until today, however, few such examples have come to light; all that has been discovered are notices to eliminate counterrevolutionaries issued under the name of the chairman of the West Fujian Soviet Government, Zhang Dingcheng. Zhang’s Ruling No. 1 and No. 2, in particular, brought major harm to western Fujian. At the beginning of the campaign against counterrevolutionaries, Zhang Dingcheng’s proclamations stipulated that the main SDP leaders should be detained and dealt with severely, while ordinary members who gave themselves up and disclosed their activities should be merely confined and cautioned. 69 The western Fujian government also promulgated “Regulations for the Surrender of Reactionary Political Offenders,” which explicitly stated that everyone who gave himself up within half a month, regardless of his rank, would be exempt from punishment. Yet these stipulations were not actually followed, and as power to carry out executions was rapidly delegated downward, such policies and regulations became no more than mere scraps of paper. On March 18, 1931, the western Fujian government issued Notice No. 25, which amended the stipulation that required petitioning the government for permission to execute prisoners. The notice explicitly declared that “in cases of urgent need,” an execution can be carried out

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first and then “reported to this government for retroactive authorization.”70 This new stipulation resulted in a rapid proliferation of executions, and all levels of the Party organization in the soviet area, including hospitals, were empowered to arrest and execute “SDP elements” at their own discretion. Under the fanatical mood of the time, alleged “SDP elements” were tortured into confessing and implicating others, regardless of the veracity of the allegations, resulting in a horrific “melon vine” process under which even members of the Young Pioneers and the Children’s Corps were often exposed as “SDP members.” During the year following the March 1931 downward delegation of the executions, the campaign against counterrevolutionaries became the focus of all efforts in western Fujian. The western Fujian government required that within two months all localities were to eliminate SDP members in their midst. Under the push of exhortations from above, all levels of the Party organization regarded massive arrests and speedy executions as signs of revolutionary steadfastness. Even cadres who expressed reservations about the campaign were quickly and rashly executed. Leaders of the Yongding County Party Committee, including Xie Xianqiu, Lu Zhaoxi, and Zeng Mucun, were labeled SDP members and executed for their “hesitant and irresolute attitudes toward the Special Committee’s order to arrest people listed as SDP members.”71 For the sake of self-preservation, all Party organs launched what amounted to a mass competition to kill SDP members. Once people no longer had qualms about bloodshed, killing one person or one hundred people was much the same. When fanaticism was combined with dread, only the killing of more “SDP members” could restore the cadres’ psychic equilibrium. As a result, the wildfire of the campaign burned ever hotter until it raged out of control and it was not extinguished until Zhou Enlai arrived in western Fujian. Zhang Dingcheng’s other responsibility for the disastrous campaign in western Fujian was his failure to impose due restraint on Lin Yizhu, who was in charge of the campaign. Lin Yizhu was a local cadre and one of the leaders of the Min-Yue-Gan Special Committee. During the campaign against counterrevolutionaries, he served as head of the West Fujian Government’s exceedingly powerful Adjudication Department, and the mere sound of his name made people blanch with terror. According to one written source, “when handling major cases [Lin Yizhu] completely ignored Zhang Dingcheng, chairman of the West Fujian Soviet Government.”72

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There is some truth to this, because Lin was under direct orders from Deng Fa and was infamously power-hungry. But as the senior statesman of the West Fujian Party, Zhang Dingcheng should have had some influence and binding power over a local cadre such as Lin Yizhi. It is manifestly illogical to place the entire blame on Deng Fa and Lin Yizhu for the disastrous consequences of the campaign and to absolve Zhang Dingcheng of all responsibility; Zhang enjoyed a secure and authoritative position throughout the campaign, and at its height many victims harbored hopes that Zhang would impose some kind of restraint on Lin Yizhu. After receiving Zhou Enlai’s August 29 letter criticizing expansion of the campaign against counterrevolutionaries, western Fujian’s top leaders quickly demonstrated their ability to rein in Lin Yizhu. Deng Fa and others sold out Lin and the other campaign leaders, sending them to the chopping block; his hands dripping with the blood of innocent people, Lin Yizhu finally reached the end of the campaign’s assembly line. On September 29, the West Fujian Soviet Government issued Notice No. 97, which declared that Lin Yizhu was secretary of the SDP Special Committee in western Fujian, and it labeled Luo Shouchun (secretary general of the West Fujian Government), Zhang Danchuan (director of the government’s Cultural Department), Xiong Binghua (head of the government’s Labor Supervision Department), and six others as core members of the local SDP, and it ordered that all of them be executed. The position Zhang Dingcheng took regarding the campaign against counterrevolutionaries was probably strongly influenced by the campaign to eliminate the “AB League” in southwest Jiangxi. Although at that time communications had not yet been established between western Fujian and southwestern Jiangxi, the two regions had always maintained close relations, and Zhang Dingcheng had become acquainted with Mao as early as 1929. The main leaders of the Twelfth Red Army launching the campaign against the SDP in West Fujian, Tan Zhenlin and Luo Binghui, had initially been sent there by the Fourth Red Army under Mao’s command to support Communist work in West Fujian. When southwest Jiangxi launched its campaign against the AB League, and particularly after the Futian Incident broke out, it was hardly surprising that Zhang Dingcheng’s thinking became “overheated.” Ren Bishi also held indirect responsibility for the disastrous campaign in West Fujian. On March 15, 1931, as West Fujian’s campaign against counterrevolutionaries approached a climax, the Central Committee

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delegation led by Ren Bishi passed through Hugang, Yongding County, on its way to southwest Jiangxi, and Ren communicated the gist of the Fourth Plenum of the Sixth Central Committee to Deng Fa, requiring that West Fujian “concentrate its firepower on the campaign against Right Deviation.” West Fujian had always suffered from excessively Leftist tendencies, and the renewed strike against “Right Deviation” could only push it to greater extremes. Ren Bishi held two completely different attitudes toward Deng Fa and toward Xiang Ying on the other; after arriving in southwest Jiangxi, Ren was displeased with Xiang’s passive attitude toward the campaign against counterrevolutionaries and he dismissed Xiang from his position as secretary of the Central Bureau of the Soviet Area. Deng Fa, in contrast, retained his position as the top official in West Fujian, which encouraged his already Leftist inclinations and sent him ever farther down the road of extremism. Whether or not Mao had any connection with the campaign in West Fujian remains a question for further study. Judging from the timing, however, after Xiang Ying entered southwest Jiangxi, Mao was dismissed as secretary of the Central Bureau of the Soviet Area and very soon thereafter he led the First Front Red Army into battle against the Nationalist forces in the soviet area, so it would appear that Mao had no opportunity to intervene in the campaign in West Fujian. On the other hand, the West Fujian campaign against the SDP was an incident that occurred right under the nose of southwest Jiangxi and shook the entire soviet area, and it could not have possibly escaped Mao’s attention. After April 1931, the Central Committee delegation supported Mao against Xiang, and the campaign against the AB League again surged forward. At that time, the West Fujian campaign against the SDP was on the ascent, lending legitimacy to the attack on the AB League. Mao had no reason to oppose the campaign against the SDP that occurred in tandem with the campaign against the AB League. Mao’s embroilment in the campaign against the AB League in southwest Jiangxi and his negligible involvement in West Fujian’s campaign against the SDP determined the very different attitudes Mao took toward these two incidents. After September and October 1931, the content of the August 30 Central Committee directive that Zhou Enlai had drafted, including its criticism of the extremism of the campaign against the AB League, reached the Jiangxi Soviet Area, and as he began experiencing a cold-

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shoulder from the Central Committee delegation led by Ren Bishi, Mao gradually adjusted his posture in order to shake off any unnecessary blame. In November 1931, while Zhang Dingcheng was in Ruijin for the First National Congress of Workers, Peasants, and Soldiers, he reported to Mao on the elimination of counterrevolutionaries in West Fujian, and Mao instructed him to immediately correct the expansionist errors of the campaign, while also allocating 5,000 silver dollars to cover relief measures. Following the Zunyi Conference, Mao began chipping away at the power of Deng Fa, who enjoyed a relatively close relationship with Zhou Enlai, and during the Yan’an Rectification Movement, Mao once again attacked Deng by resurrecting criticism of the “expansionism” of West Fujian’s campaign against counterrevolutionaries. Regarding West Fujian’s campaign against the SDP, in which he had never been directly involved, Mao took the approach of affirming the necessity to eliminate counterrevolutionaries and he attributed the problems to an expansion of the scope of the campaign. As the person directly responsible for this case, in 1945 Deng Fa explicitly stated: “Looking back on it today, it is difficult to say whether there even was a Socialist Democratic Party in China, much less whether Fu Bocui was a member.”73 Yet Mao was unwilling to directly acknowledge that West Fujian’s campaign against the SDP was unjust. In a speech during the Seventh Party Congress on May 31, 1945, Mao said, “The elimination of counterrevolutionaries has followed an extremely painful road. Counterrevolutionaries should be opposed, but the Party, as yet immature, took the wrong path on this issue and committed errors.”74 While in this instance mentioning the suffering caused by the campaigns to eliminate counterrevolutionaries, Mao did not directly touch on the issue of redress for those unjustly killed in the campaigns against the AB League and the SDP, and in particular he evaded any question of his own responsibility. Even with that, this portion of Mao’s speech remained unpublished for a long time. The main reason that Mao put off redressing the campaign against the SDP was that it was closely related to the campaign against the AB League in southwest Jiangxi. If the alleged SDP members were all rehabilitated, this would inevitably lead to a reversal of the verdicts in the campaign against the AB League and would result in damage to his own prestige. In accordance with the CCP Central Committee’s views on how

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to handle problems left over from history, the Fujian Party organization in 1954 rehabilitated 3,728 individuals who had been wrongfully put to death during the campaign to eliminate counterrevolutionaries in West Fujian and posthumously recognized them as martyrs to the revolutionary cause.75 Regarding the basic question of whether the West Fujian Soviet Area actually had an “SDP,” however, or whether the campaign against the SDP was warranted, the 1931 conclusion was upheld in its entirety. It was not until 1985, nine years after Mao’s death, that this question was finally resolved. On the basis of many investigations and inquiries, the Fujian Provincial Party Committee concluded that the “Socialist Democratic Party” did not exist in western Fujian, and that the campaign to eliminate the SDP there was not merely a problem of an excessive scope but also an out-and-out miscarriage of justice. In 1985, alleged “SDP leader” Fu Bocui was rehabilitated. Likewise, it was not until the 1980s, and with Mao’s historical responsibility expunged, that clarity was brought to bear on the campaign to eliminate the AB League in southwest Jiangxi. Without a doubt, Zhou Enlai should shoulder part of the leadership’s blame for the serious consequences of the campaigns against counterrevolutionaries in the soviet areas. However, Zhou’s attitude toward the issue was markedly different from Mao’s. There are many indications that Zhou’s support of the campaigns arose from his adherence to the Comintern’s rationale of “opposing Right Deviation” rather than from any personal motivation. Mao’s actions, in contrast, strongly suggest that he was using the campaigns to eliminate dissenters. It was because Zhou was acting on principle that he hurriedly issued the Central Committee directive before he gained a thorough understanding of southwest Jiangxi’s campaign against the AB League and the Futian Incident, and thereby he unintentionally supported the Leftist error that had been spreading in the soviet area. Mao, however, initiated the extremist campaign against counterrevolutionaries; Zhou supported it only after Mao launched the campaign. Although Zhou shifted his emphasis to correcting expansion of the campaign to eliminate counterrevolutionaries in August 1931, it took him nearly three months to put the brakes on the out-of-control campaign apparatus following his entry to the Central Soviet Area in December 1931. Mao, in contrast, took little such action. It was because the problems

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caused by the campaigns against counterrevolutionaries in the soviet area were widespread and also involved sensitive issues of errors within the leadership that Zhou cautiously demonstrated his resolve to correct the issues while working for compromises that would preserve Party unity. On December 18, 1931, while en route from Yongding to Changting after having personally observed the disastrous consequences of the campaign against counterrevolutionaries in West Fujian, Zhou Enlai wrote a letter to the CCP Central Committee requesting an immediate and forceful decision to end the malignant campaign. Zhou wrote, “After only three days merely passing through the soviet area, I have witnessed the very serious consequences of West Fujian’s handling of the SDP. ... The problem is very serious at present, and change is extremely difficult.” Zhou wrote that he was determined to “fight this serious problem.”76 On January 7, 1932, Zhou presided over his first meeting as secretary of the Central Bureau of the Soviet Area. The meeting passed a “Resolution Regarding Work on the Problem of the Campaigns to Eliminate Counterrevolutionaries in the Soviet Areas,” which harshly criticized misuse of the criminal law during the “period of the Front Line Committee’s leadership” to commit the serious error of “killing people like child’s play” in the “elimination of the AB League,” and emphasized the need to correct “line errors in the work of eliminating counterrevolutionaries.”77 After receiving Zhou Enlai’s letter, the Central Committee in Shanghai sent a letter of instructions to the Min-Yue-Gan Provincial Party Committee on January 21, 1932, expressing the same views as Zhou on the campaign against counterrevolutionaries, and it ordered that the provincial Party committee under Deng Fa’s leadership immediately carry out an investigation into the “unforgivable” errors committed during the campaign. On February 29, the Central Bureau of the Soviet Area sent a letter to the Min-Yue-Gan Provincial Party Committee and the forthcoming provincial Party congress, again criticizing the “serious errors” committed during “efforts to eliminate counterrevolutionaries” in West Fujian. At the beginning of March, Zhou Enlai sent Ren Bishi to Changting as the Central Bureau’s representative to direct the Second Congress of the Min-Yue-Gan Provincial Party Committee, and he sent Li Kenong to be specifically responsible for redressing the injustices perpetrated in southwest Jiangxi, west Fujian, and in the First Front Red Army. It was due to Zhou Enlai’s painstaking efforts that the massive campaigns to eliminate

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counterrevolutionaries in the Central Soviet Area were finally ended in March 1932. Although Zhou Enlai effectively put the emergency brakes on the campaigns against counterrevolutionaries, he took an extremely circumspect approach to assigning responsibility. In spring 1932, Deng Fa, who had been directly responsible for the disastrous campaign in West Fujian, was transferred to Ruijin to serve as head of the extremely powerful Political Security Bureau of the Chinese Soviet Republic.* After Zhou Enlai took up his position as secretary of the Central Bureau of the Soviet Area, Ren Bishi became his deputy secretary, second only to Zhou in status in the Party. Deng’s and Ren’s errors may have been perceived as “the unfortunate consequences of good intentions”; neither man was improperly motivated to use the campaigns to eliminate dissent, and therefore contradicted neither CCP ethics nor principles. In a situation in which the Party was confronting a formidable enemy, there was nothing to be gained from launching an unnecessary internal Party struggle, and this may have been Zhou Enlai’s consideration when he appointed Deng and Ren to their new positions. The issue was much more complicated where Mao was concerned. Zhou Enlai carefully avoided implicating Mao and instead he carried out a joint criticism of the Soviet Area Central Committee, the West Fujian Provincial Party Committee (previously the Min-Yue-Gan Provincial Party Committee), and the First Front Red Army General Front Line Committee. During the conference of the Central Bureau of the Soviet Area, Zhou harshly criticized these units for the serious errors they had committed during the campaigns to eliminate counterrevolutionaries. In May 1932, the State Political Security Bureau executed Mao’s old adversary Li Wenlin, the former leader of the southwest Jiangxi Party and the local Red Army. On January 25, 1932, Zhou Enlai presided over a meeting of the Central Bureau of the Soviet Area that passed a “Resolution to Discipline Comrade Li Shaojiu for His Past Errors.” Zhou knew that Li Shaojiu was Mao’s long-time subordinate and one of the chief instigators behind the disastrous campaign against counterrevolutionaries in southwest *

  The Chinese Soviet Republic was formally established in Ruijin, Jiangxi Province, in November 1931. Deng Fa was appointed director of the State Political Security Bureau, which was not formally established until Zhou Enlai arrived in Ruijin, in January or February of 1932. The operations system of the State Political Security Bureau was under the direction of Zhou Enlai.

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Jiangxi,* yet he gave Li a mere slap on the wrist in the form of six months’ probation within the Party. None of the documents or rectification meetings over which Zhou presided directly criticized Mao, nor did they implicate Zeng Shan, Chen Zhengren, or the other leaders. In early 1932, when Jiangxi Provincial Party Secretary Chen Zhengren fell ill, the Central Bureau of the Soviet Area appointed Li Fuchun to replace him and Zeng Shan stayed on as chairman of the Jiangxi Provincial Soviet Government. Although Mao’s long-time subordinate Zhou Xing “abetted Li Shaojiu’s errors,” the Jiangxi Provincial Party Committee only punished him with “probation within the Party,”78 and Zhang Dingcheng likewise stayed on after March 1932 as chairman of the Fujian Provincial Soviet Government. Zhou Enlai nevertheless learned something new about Mao, and this knowledge subsequently became a tacit understanding among the core leaders of the CCP Central Committee who relocated to Ruijin. In spring 1932, Zhou Enlai sent his long-time subordinates and special operatives, Li Kenong, Qian Zhuangfei, Hu Di, and Li Yimeng, to work in the Political Security Bureau. Li Kenong, and then Li Yimeng, served as head of the Political Security Bureau’s Operations Department, and Li Kenong, followed by Qian Zhuangfei, served as head of the Security Bureau of the First Front Red Army. From 1932 to 1934, when the so-called Wang Ming Line dominated, the Chinese Soviet Republic’s State Political Security Bureau took on the work of eliminating counterrevolutionaries within the Central Soviet Area, and campaigns against counterrevolutionaries were no longer carried out by Party organs, work-units, or military units. On May 30, 1932, the Political Security Bureau executed Li Wenlin, Zeng Bingchun, Wang Huai, and other ringleaders of the “AB League,” and thereafter another 200-plus “counterrevolutionary elements,”79 but overall “working conditions were relatively calm.”80 The Central Soviet Area launched no more campaigns on a scale as massive as those against the AB League and the SDP. Although the large-scale campaigns against counterrevolutionaries basically ended after 1932, organs of the Central Bureau of the Soviet Area continued intermittent internal struggles against “Right Deviation” and

*

  Prior to the summer of 1933, Li Shaojiu was appointed commander of Tingzhou’s Liancheng District. He was subsequently transferred to northeastern Jiangxi but his position and ultimate situation are unknown.

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“Trotskyites.” The “Workers and Peasants Opera Troupe Incident” that occurred in Ruijin in June 1932 is a classic example. In June 1932, some intellectual Party members in Ruijin’s Red Army School launched a Workers and Peasants Opera Troupe. The troupe’s articles of association included phrases such as “to support the Red Army’s current great victory under the general task of the socialist revolution,” as a result of which the Central Bureau of the Soviet Area quickly accused the troupe of engaging in “Trotskyite” activities. On August 13, Deng Yingchao* represented the Central Bureau in presiding over a mass struggle rally against Trotskyism. At the rally, the Workers and Peasants Opera Troupe was criticized for having smuggled in Trotsky’s “contraband,” due to its use of terms such as “socialism”; these terms were considered Trotskyite formulations because they effectively denied that China’s present revolutionary stage was one of bourgeois democratic revolution. Deng Yingchao went on to state that the absence of the peasant issue from the troupe’s articles of association also reflected notions of the Trotsky‒ Chen Duxiu liquidationist camp. The troupe’s secretary, Zhang Aiping, and others came under harsh criticism during this struggle session. Deng Yingchao accused Zhang Aiping of “demonstrating a lack of enthusiasm in the struggle against the counterrevolutionary Trotsky-Chen liquidationist camp.” “He has not, under the Party’s guidance, deeply acknowledged the seriousness of his errors or deeply exposed and corrected his errors, but rather ... expressed his dissatisfaction with the Central Bureau by notifying the Political Department of the Red Army School of this matter ... attempting to shift the focus of the struggle.” Deng also accused Zhang of “being close to highly suspect individuals (Wei Gongzhi, Wang Guanlan),” whom she cited as “the source of his liberalist error regarding Trotskyism.”81 After this struggle session, the Central Bureau of the Communist Youth League on August 17 issued a stern warning to Zhang Aiping, and in December the Central Bureau of the Soviet Area expelled Wei Gongzhi and others from the Party, while placing Zuo Quan and Zhang Aiping on a one-year probation.82 Zhang, Wang, and Wei were lucky that their “crimes” were dealt with in 1932; if their cases had occurred one year earlier, they would have been doomed. Beginning

*

  TN: Apart from her personal standing in the Party, Deng Yingchao was also Zhou Enlai’s wife.

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from 1932, campaigns against counterrevolutionaries in the Central Soviet Area were carried out in a more lenient fashion. In the E-Yu-Wan (HubeiHenan-Anhui) and Xiang-E-Xi (Western Hunan–Hubei) soviet areas, however, massive campaigns similar to those against the AB League and the SDP were still being carried out, with extremely serious consequences. The E-Yu-Wan Soviet under Zhang Guotao’s leadership and the Xiang-E-Xi Soviet under Xia Xi and He Long were strategic base areas with a high degree of autonomy. Under conditions in which “Heaven was high and the Emperor was far away,” the CCP Central Committee could exercise leadership over these two areas only through Zhang Guotao and Xia Xi, and it did not yet have the authority to simply order everyone around. In addition, Zhang Guotao was a person of particularly fierce ambition. Once the campaign against counterrevolutionaries became a means for him to eliminate dissent and consolidate his power, he was unlikely to give up without a fight. Xia Xi had started out as a radical student in Hunan, and it was due to his reputation as a ruthless killer that he had established himself in the Xiang-E-Xi Soviet. Xia relished campaigns against counterrevolutionaries with the ardor of an opium addict, and extraordinary means were required to make him give up such practices. The ultimate reason why the malignant campaigns against counterrevolutionaries could not be curtailed effectively in places such as the Xiang-E-Xi and E-Yu-Wan soviets (and later the Chuan-Shaan [SichuanShaanxi] Base Area) was the compromising stance taken by the CCP Central Committee. The Central Committee made affirmation of the campaigns against counterrevolutionaries a prerequisite for raising the issue of “expansionism” and “rectification,” and this provided loopholes for Zhang Guotao and others. When Zhang Guotao led his troops out of the encirclement by the Nationalist Army in a massive strategic shift from the E-Yu-Wan Base Area to northern Sichuan after October 1932, the Central Committee was too far away to control him. By 1933, the military situation in the Central Soviet Area was in a constant state of emergency, and breaking through the Nationalist encirclement became the top priority for Bo Gu and Zhou Enlai, making it even more difficult for them to focus on “correcting” Zhang Guotao and the campaign against counterrevolutionaries in Xiang-E-Xi. Far away in Moscow, Wang Ming knew nothing of the complexity and delicacy of the campaigns against counterrevolutionaries in the soviet areas, and the concept of class struggle was his point of departure

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for expounding on the “victorious” struggle to eliminate the AB League in the soviet areas. Wang Ming even felt that the Central Committee’s campaigns against counterrevolutionaries from 1932 onward lacked the determination of the earlier campaigns, and he criticized the Central Bureau of the Soviet Area for its “tendency toward a weaker struggle and weaker vigilance against counterrevolutionary organizations and their activities.”83 In 1930‒31 Wang Ming’s remarks would certainly have aroused a favorable opinion from Mao, but the situation had now changed significantly. Beginning in 1932, Mao no longer occupied a core decisionmaking position in the Central Soviet Area and he no longer had to bear responsibility for its policies, and there was still dissatisfaction within the Party toward campaigns against counterrevolutionaries. Several years later, Mao was able to turn this sentiment against Wang Ming, Bo Gu, and Zhou Enlai as well as Deng Fa, Zhang Guotao, and Xia Xi, while presenting himself as unsullied. Once Mao consolidated his power over both the Party and the military, those who knew better sealed their lips, while the issue of campaigns against counterrevolutionaries ultimately became a big stick for Mao to use against Wang Ming and others.

IV.  Divisions over Land Policies Among all of the divisions between Mao and the CCP Central Committee, the one regarding land policy stands out. At a meeting of the First Soviet Area Party Congress in Ruijin, held November 1‒5, 1931, the Central Committee delegation led by Ren Bishi criticized the stands Mao had taken on land policy, and although Mao was not mentioned by name, this ended the close cooperation Mao had maintained with the delegation for half a year. Mao’s thinking and practice on the land issue underwent many changes from 1927 to 1931. For a time, Mao had instituted a land distribution plan that was even more radical than the land policy of the CCP Central Committee, but in 1930 he began making timely adjustments in terms of a more practical and realistic policy. The evolution of Mao’s thinking on land policy was nevertheless highly complex; even after the changes in his thinking, he maintained a radical attitude toward the issue of rich peasants and his ultra-Leftist tone closely matched that of the Comintern. (Official CCP histories only emphasize Mao’s conflict with and resistance to Comintern and Central Committee land policies. They

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make no mention of the ultra-Leftist stance that Mao once maintained on land and rich-peasant issues.) The “February 7 Land Law” sought realistic results from the agrarian revolution. Mao amended the excessively Leftist content of the previously drafted “Jinggang Mountain Land Law” (December 1928) and the “Xingguo Land Law” (April 1929) to explicitly declare that land would be distributed to all peasants, including landlords and their families. This latter stipulation constituted a major conflict with the stance of the Comintern. The complexity of the issue was due to the fact that although Mao amended certain aspects of the Comintern’s ultra-Leftist policies, he preserved other aspects that conflicted with the more pragmatic CCP Central Committee policies at that time. The February 7 Land Law drafted by Mao put forward the slogan of “confiscating all land,” including that of peasants, whereas the resolution of the Sixth National Party Congress proposed only confiscating the land of despotic gentry and landlords, and it did not call for the confiscation and redistribution of peasant land. One of the reasons that Mao came down so hard on the Party in southwest Jiangxi was that it maintained the position of the Sixth Party Congress regarding only confiscating the land of despotic gentry and landlords. Mao’s position happened to be consistent with that of the Comintern. In August 1930 the Comintern’s Far Eastern Bureau put forward a “Draft Resolution Regarding Land and Peasant Issues in the Chinese Soviet Areas,” which explicitly called for an equal distribution of all land, including land held privately by peasants. Mao’s relatively pragmatic stands on land and peasant issues were often coexistent with and codependent on more radical and ultra-Leftist positions, and his views on the rich peasants fell into this category. In 1929 the Comintern began carrying out a new policy against rich peasants, or kulaks, which quickly spread to China. Mao enthusiastically developed and implemented this policy in the soviet areas. The “Resolution on the Rich-Peasant Issue” that Mao took charge of drafting in June 1930 criticized the error of violating the peasants’ wishes by setting up “model farms,” and it emphasized a farmland distribution principle of “taking from the haves and giving to the have-nots.” But Mao’s policies on the handling of rich peasants were no different from those of the Comintern and they employed even more inflammatory language. Mao f iercely attacked rich peasants for being “even more

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ruthlessly exploitative than landlords,” and he declared that “this class is counterrevolutionary from beginning to end.” Mao also targeted rich middle peasants who did not rent out their land or hire farmhands but cultivated their own fields, referring to them as “type three” rich peasants and calling for them to be treated like “type one” (“semi-landlord”) and “type two” (“capitalistic”) rich peasants for “resolutely assisting the masses in confiscating their land and abolishing their debts.” Regarding the issue of debt, the February 7 Land Law, which had been formulated only four months earlier, stipulated that debts existing between hired hands, peasants, and the indigent remained in effect, but now Mao amended this by proposing the slogan of “abolishing all debts.” Mao felt the slogan of “abolishing usury” was erroneous. Furthermore, having invented the concept of “rich-peasant components within the Party,” Mao regarded all comrades who agreed with the policy of the Sixth Party Congress on “confiscating the land of despotic gentry and landlords” to belong to this category, and he demanded that they be “cleansed” from the ranks of the Party: “Unconditionally expel from the Party all rich peasants and all those following the rich-peasant line.”84 Prior to the Fourth Plenum of the Sixth CCP Central Committee, the Central Committee did not completely agree with Mao’s ultra-Leftist stance on the rich-peasant issue, but following that plenum, in early 1931 the Central Committee’s land policies took a sharp turn to the Left. At that time, the Central Committee accepted the new Comintern line wholesale and altered the original land policies of the Sixth CCP National Congress. In accordance with the Comintern’s newly formulated resolution on China’s land issue, and in the spirit of Wang Ming’s March 1931 “Draft Land Decree,” Ren Bishi on August 21, 1931 oversaw passage of the “Resolution Regarding the Land Issue” by the Central Bureau of the Soviet Area and began implementing a land policy that was even more radical than that of Mao. This resolution gave abstract affirmation to Mao’s land-distribution principle of “taking from the haves and giving to the have-nots,” but it immediately pasted a “non‒class-based” label on it. At the same time, the resolution harshly criticized the policy of distributing land to landlords as “a departure from the standpoint of the agrarian revolution.” It declared that henceforth no land would be distributed to landlords and that only lowgrade farmland would be distributed to rich peasants.85 A letter that Zhou Enlai drafted to the Central Bureau of the Soviet Area and the General Front Line Committee of the First Front Red Army on August 30 criticized the Central Soviet Area for the error of following a “rich-peasant line” (i.e.,

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taking from the haves and giving to the have-nots, and not confiscating surplus farm implements from the rich peasants).86 The First Soviet Area Party Congress, subsequently held in Ruijin, once again indirectly criticized Mao in the spirit of the Central Committee directive drafted by Zhou Enlai. The “Political Resolution” passed by the congress criticized Mao’s land distribution policy of “taking from the haves and giving to the have-nots” as “committing a rich-peasant line error.” The First National Congress of Workers, Peasants, and Soldiers that followed formally passed the “Land Law of the Chinese Soviet Republic” based on Wang Ming’s Draft Land Decree, and a land policy whereby no land was to be distributed to landlords and only poor-quality land was to be distributed to rich peasants began to be implemented in the Central Soviet Area. A “land inspection campaign,” launched in the Central Soviet Area in March 1932, became a Land Investigation Campaign by 1933. The Central Committee charged Mao with leading this campaign, but since he was directing battle operations and then was stripped of his military command at the Ningdu Conference and went on “convalescence leave” for a period of time, he did not actually assume leadership of the Land Investigation Campaign until the spring of 1933. Wang Guanlan was Mao’s right-hand man in the Land Investigation Campaign. Wang had arrived in the soviet area in 1931 after returning to China from the Soviet Union, and soon thereafter he was made chief editor of Red China. However, he was dismissed from that position in the autumn of 1932, after the Central Bureau of the Soviet Area accused him of being a “major Trotskyite,” and he was transferred to the Provisional Central Government to assist Mao in the Land Investigation Campaign. Mao sent Wang to Yeping Town (the seat of the Central Bureau of the Soviet Area and the Provisional Central Government) to carry out investigation and research, and he provided Mao with much vital and concrete statistical data that allowed the campaign to be carried out in a “vivid and dramatic” fashion.87 Stripped of a portion of his authority, Mao adopted a flexible attitude toward the policy of the CCP Central Committee of “distributing no land to landlords, and only low-grade land to rich peasants.” Since he did not openly oppose the policy, the Central Committee accepted some of his suggestions. On June 2, 1933, the Central Bureau of the Soviet Area issued “How to Analyze the Rural Classes,” which had been drafted by Mao. In the three months of July, August, and September following the launch of

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the Land Investigation Campaign focusing on a differentiation of classes, the Central Soviet Area identified more than 13,000 “landlords” or “rich peasants.”88 A considerable number were actually middle peasants or even poor peasants and hired hands who had been improperly classified. Even so, having spent extended periods fighting in the rural areas, Mao was more familiar with rural conditions than Bo Gu, Zhou Enlai, and the others. During the Land Investigation Campaign, Mao took pains to prevent “radical” tendencies. Given the cool reception by the masses, the Central Bureau agreed with Mao’s suggestions to adjust the campaign as long as it adhered to the principle regarding distribution of land to landlords and rich peasants. On October 10, 1933, the Provisional Central Government of the Chinese Soviet Republic formally promulgated Mao’s “How to Analyze the Rural Classes” and the “Resolution Regarding Some Problems in the Land Struggle,” which Mao had been in charge of drafting, and it began correcting some “radical” behavior in the Land Investigation Campaign. For example, following transmission of Mao’s documents, Shengli County corrected its wrongful classification of 941 households in the landlord or rich-peasant categories.89 Mao’s adjustments to the Land Investigation Campaign were quickly reversed, however, as the Central Committee feared that its line would be imperiled. On March 15, 1934, the newly appointed chairman of the People’s Committee, Zhang Wentian, issued “Central Directive No. 1: Regarding the Issue of Continuing the Land Investigation Campaign,” the gist of which was to “resolutely attack the Right Deviation opportunism that halts the Land Investigation Campaign in the name of rectifying past ‘Leftist’ tendencies.” The directive stipulated that “no matter what evidence landlords and rich peasants produce, their verdicts will not be reversed and already reversed verdicts will be nullified. ... Landlords and rich peasants must be prevented from using any clause in the decision to reverse their verdicts. All of their counterrevolutionary activities shall receive the harshest punishment under soviet law.” With implementation of this directive, all of the soviet area’s peasants whose improper classifications had been corrected now found themselves once again labeled as “landlords” and “rich peasants.” Within a little more than twenty days, 890 of the 1,512 households in Shengli County with modified classifications were newly categorized as “reversed-verdict landlords and rich peasants,” and an additional eighty-three households were identified as landlords and rich peasants.90

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Beginning from February 1934, with the deterioration of the military situation in the Central Soviet Area, the Land Investigation Campaign gradually became even more extreme. Individuals classified as landlords or rich peasants were treated harshly; the landlords were all sent to “permanent penal servitude,” and the rich peasants were sent to “temporary penal servitude” and their families were expelled from the soviet area. Droves of peasants fled the Red Terror, with entire villages seeking refuge in the KMT-controlled areas.91 As of July 1934, the situation had “reduced the Soviet Government to a state of anarchy,” compelling People’s Committee Chairman Zhang Wentian to draft an appeal to “oppose petty-bourgeois ultra-Leftism.”92 But it was too late; the CCP Central Committee hurriedly imposed a massive strategic shift and the Land Investigation Campaign was brought to an end. Even so, there was no resolution of the disagreement between Mao and the Central Committee on land policy.

V.  Disagreements over Military Strategy Beginning from November 1931, pressure from the Central Committee forced Mao to demonstrate submission to the Central Committee’s line, but this submission was purely superficial; in the military sphere where Mao enjoyed superior knowledge and skill, he repeatedly expressed open disagreement with the Central Committee’s views. Mao was not a military man, but after long engagement in armed combat he had gradually formed military strategies and tactics for the Red Army to use in battle. The facts bore out that Mao’s tactics were extremely effective in preserving and developing the Red Army’s strength when it was in a disadvantaged position. But Mao’s arbitrary and dictatorial nature gave his handling of others a factional flavor, and for a period of time Mao’s popularity within the Red Army was much lower than that of the more democratic Zhu De.93 The Central Committee’s dissatisfaction with Mao’s military strategy began during the Gannan Conference, when calls were made to correct a problematic tendency in the Red Army toward a “guerrilla warfare tradition” of “narrow empiricism” and “neglect of positional warfare and hand-to-hand combat.” 94 However, the main topic of the Gannan Conference was criticism of Mao’s land policies, and the Central Committee delegation offered only vague criticism of Mao’s military policies. Ren Bishi, Wang Jiaxiang, and the others were typical civilian

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cadres and they were clearly less adept at discussing military strategy, about which they had no experience, than they were at deliberating theory-backed land-policy issues. After Central Committee leader and military specialist Zhou Enlai arrived in the Central Soviet Area along with a succession of cadres who had studied military affairs in the Soviet Union, disagreements between Mao and the Central Committee gradually surfaced, and heated arguments over the attack on Ganzhou brought Mao’s conflict with the Shanghai-based Central Committee close to a boiling point. The decision to attack Ganzhou had been made by the Provisional Politburo far away in Shanghai. On January 9, 1932, the Provisional Politburo passed the “Resolution Regarding Striving for a First Successful Revolution in One or Several Provinces,” which, drafted by Zhang Wentian, called for “capturing several key cities as the beginning of the revolution in one or several provinces.” On that same day, a cable was sent to the Central Bureau of the Soviet Area ordering an “urgent attack on Ganzhou.” Zhou Enlai vacillated over whether to carry out the attack on Ganzhou. He had initially been in favor of the attack, but after arriving in southern Jiangxi and exchanging views with Mao, Zhou accepted Mao’s view and sent a cable to Shanghai stating that under the current circumstances it would be difficult to attack a key city. The Provisional Politburo replied with a cable that maintained its original stance and hence on January 10 Zhou ordered an attack on Ganzhou.95 The attack on Ganzhou ultimately failed, and in mid-March 1932 Zhou Enlai presided over a meeting of the Central Bureau of the Soviet Area to summarize its lessons. At this meeting, Mao proposed concentrating military strength to press northward and to break into northeastern Jiangxi,96 but the meeting adopted the preference of Zhou and the majority for an emphasis on the area around the Gan River. Following this plan, Peng Dehuai led the West Route Army, comprised of the Third Red Army Group, to launch an attack on the west bank of the Gan River in hopes of bridging the soviet areas in Hunan and Jiangxi, while Mao led the East Route Army, comprised of the First and Fifth Army Groups, in a push toward western Fujian. On April 20, Mao’s troops took Chanzhou, a strategic position in southern Fujian and the most significant military victory in the Central Soviet Area in 1932. The victorious battle of Chanzhou temporarily assuaged the displeasure of the Central Bureau of the Soviet Area with Mai. However,

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when Chiang Kai-shek launched his fourth encirclement of the Central Soviet Area in June 1932 and the Central Committee in Shanghai arbitrarily ordered implementation of an “attack line,” disagreements between Mao and the Central Bureau of the Soviet Area over military policy once again intensified, ultimately leading to Mao being stripped of his military authority. Chiang Kai-shek’s fourth encirclement of the Central Soviet Area was a change from his past strategy: He first attacked the Xiang-E-Xi and E-Yu-Wan soviets in order to clear the periphery of the Central Soviet Area, and only then did he focus his attack on the Central Soviet Area. In order to cope with this change in strategy, the Provisional Politburo and the Central Bureau of the Soviet Area in early June 1932 decided to restore the First Front Red Army, which had been disbanded during the Gannan Conference. Zhou Enlai was appointed its general political commissar. Then, in an imitation of the system in the Soviet Union during its civil war, a Labor and Warfare Committee headed by Zhou Enlai was established under the People’s Committee to serve as the highest nominal organ for mobilizing troops and commanding battle operations. In mid-July, Zhou, as the Central Bureau’s representative, rushed to the war front to join Mao, while Ren Bishi served as secretary of the Central Bureau in the rear lines.97 At this time, Mao was concentrating all his efforts on directing battles, but his authority was not explicit and he was only engaged in military actions in his capacity as chairman of the Central Government and as a member of the CMC. For this reason, Zhou Enlai signed his name, along with that of Mao, Zhu De, and Wang Jiaxiang, to a July 25, 1932, cable to the Central Bureau recommending that Mao be made general political commissar of the First Front Red Army, with his authority limited to battle command; power to decide on courses of action was to be retained by Zhou. The Central Bureau rejected this recommendation and insisted that Zhou serve as general political commissar. On July 29, Zhou wrote another letter to the Central Bureau reiterating this recommendation. He wrote that if he were required to take on the position of general political commissar, he would be “directing too many things at once, while the chairman of the Central Government would have nothing to do. Zedong’s experience and strengths demand that they be put to best use while he is supervised to correct his errors.”98 Due to Zhou’s repeated entreaties, on August 8 the Central Bureau finally appointed Mao as general political commissar. Throughout the late 1920s and early 1930s, Mao had gradually formed his own unique military strategy, which was to preserve and expand actual

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strength by never engaging in a war of attrition with the enemy; rather, he concentrated superior military strength on attacking the enemy’s weak spots based on the principle that it was “better to break one finger of the enemy than to injure all ten of them.” In actual practice, Mao’s battle strategy typically involved a mass retreat before an enemy attack, which the Politburo perceived as “Right Deviation opportunism” and “waiting-game” tactics on Mao’s part. On April 4, 1932, Zhang Wentian (Luo Fu) published his famous essay “Vacillating Opportunism in the Chinese Communist Party during the Chinese Revolution’s Struggle for Initial Success in One or Several Provinces,” which, without naming Mao, criticized “a Central Soviet Area comrade’s” battle strategy of “luring the enemy in deep” as having a “pronounced waiting-game flavor” and “using ‘consolidation of the Soviet Base Areas’ as an incantation.”99 Arriving secretly in Shanghai on April 11, Xiang Ying reported to the Politburo Standing Committee on work in the soviet areas. Several Standing Committee members offered harsh criticism: some felt that the leadership of the Central Soviet Area was taking a “populist approach” on basic questions of revolution and had “departed from the Bolshevik line,” while others said that “narrow empiricism” was essentially “opportunism obstructing execution of the line.”100 It was against this background that on April 14 the Central Committee in Shanghai sent a letter to the soviet area criticizing the Central Bureau for “becoming bogged down in conservatism as a result of failing to understand the necessity of active engagement by the Red Army” and ordering “the most resolute and merciless struggle” against Right Deviation. 101 Mao found the Provisional Politburo’s letter highly objectionable and on May 3 he sent a cable to the Central Bureau of the Soviet Area explicitly stating that “the Central Committee’s political assessment and military strategy are completely wrong.”102 Zhou Enlai was invariably respectful and attentive to the CCP Central Committee, however, and after receiving the April 14 letter, he convened a meeting of the Central Bureau of the Soviet Area on May 11, 1932, to express his acceptance of the Central Committee’s criticism, declaring “immediate implementation of a thorough shift in direction” to “thoroughly correct the Central Bureau’s past errors of Right Deviation opportunism.” 103 The Central Committee in Shanghai, in a typical all-or-nothing approach, on May 20 sent another directive to the Central Bureau of the Soviet Area, criticizing Mao by name and designating his military stance as “guerrillaism” and

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an “unadulterated defense line.” The letter declared that the “passive attitude” of “Zedong and other commanders of the unadulterated defense line” presented “an enormous danger,” and it demanded that the Central Bureau “find a persuasive approach to make him [i.e., Mao] agree to an active battle strategy, cause him to promote an active line in the Red Army and among the masses, and make Party and Red Army cadres persuade him of the error and danger of his unadulterated defense line and publicly discuss Zedong’s viewpoints.”104 Two months later, the Central Committee in Shanghai sent another letter to the Central Bureau of the Soviet Area and the Fujian and Jiangxi Provincial Party Committees. The letter continued to criticize the Central Bureau for “failing to promptly adopt an attack strategy” and again pressed the Central Bureau to “carry out a thorough change of direction.”105 Due to repeated urgings from Shanghai, Zhou Enlai was obligated to send in the troops. In early August 1932, Zhou convened a meeting of the Central Bureau in Xingguo, during which it was decided to launch attacks on Le’an and Yihuang as a means of threatening Nanchang and drawing away the KMT forces that were encircling E-Yu-Wan. After storming Le’an and Yihuang, the Red Army on August 24 pressed on to the outskirts of Nanchang, where Zhou and Mao discovered a massive defensive force and thus abandoned plans to attack the city. From late August to late September, Zhou, Mao, and Zhu led divided forces in battles all around the Gan and Fu rivers, for which they were again harshly criticized by the Central Bureau. The Central Bureau insisted that the First Front Red Army should attack Yongping, but Zhou, Mao, Zhu, and Wang Jiaxiang felt that under existing conditions, the Red Army should “be guided by changes in the enemy situation” and avoid “suffering the downside of hasty engagement in battle.” 106 After a dozen exchanges of cables, neither side would concede. On September 29, the Central Bureau cabled Zhou, Mao, Zhu, and Wang and criticized their views for being “a complete departure from principle and an extremely dangerous stance.”107 A Central Bureau meeting was immediately convened on the front line. This meeting, held in October in Ningdu and presided over by Zhou Enlai, is known as the Ningdu Conference. Mao came under intense criticism at the Ningdu Conference and was accused to his face of “disrespecting the Party’s leading body and harboring erroneous organizational concepts.” The main topic of the

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conference was an assessment of the major battles after the attack on Ganzhou, but the issue ultimately focused on criticizing Mao’s attitude toward the Party organization. Closely related to this was the conference’s negation of Mao’s inappropriate military approaches. Ever since the 1931 Gannan Conference, Mao’s arrogance had been a key factor in his strained relations with the Central Bureau of the Soviet Area, and the Central Bureau had used the controversy over military strategy as a pretext for stripping Mao of his military command. On October 12, the CMC issued a general order transferring Mao “temporarily to the Central Government to oversee operations,” and on October 26, the Provisional Central Committee formally appointed Zhou Enlai to the additional post of general political commissar of the First Front Red Army. At the Ningdu Conference, Mao was criticized and censured by Ren Bishi, Xiang Ying, Deng Fa, Gu Zuolin, and most of the other Central Bureau members; only Zhou Enlai took a more temperate approach and defended and exonerated Mao on some issues. The most virulent criticism came from Xiang Ying and Ren Bishi, who was managing the Central Bureau from the Ruijin rear line as acting secretary. Consistent with the Provisional Central Committee’s recent resolutions to accelerate the campaign against “Right Deviation,” in particular the critical letters the Politburo had sent to the Central Bureau on May 20 and July 21, Ren and Xiang stridently censured Mao’s military principle of “drawing the enemy in deep” and his proposal to advance into northeastern Jiangxi as manifestations of a conservative “wait-and-see attitude” that amounted to “waiting for the enemy to attack.”108 Objectively, Zhu De and Wang Jiaxiang, having all along directed battles from the front line with Zhou and Mao and as members with Zhou and Mao of the four-member Supreme War Council, should have shared the Central Bureau’s criticism; for this reason, they did not actively participate in the Ningdu Conference and they merely echoed the views of Ren, Xiang, and the others. As chairman of the front line Supreme War Council and as the Central Bureau representative who held ultimate decision-making power on the front line, Zhou’s views and attitudes were critical. Zhou’s performance at the Ningdu Conference reflected his habitual work style and bearing; he accepted the views of the CCP Central Committee and the Central Bureau of the Soviet Area while also expressing respect for Mao and safeguarding the Party and the Red Army.

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In his remarks, Zhou acknowledged that on the front line, the Supreme War Council “did in fact put an emphasis on preparedness,” and he felt that Ren, Xiang, and the other members of the Central Bureau on the rear lines “were right to focus criticism on the wait-and-see tendency.” At the same time, however, he criticized comrades on the rear lines for their inadequate understanding of the enemy’s tactics of mass assault and he said that their criticism of Mao went too far. Zhou emphasized, “Much of Zedong’s experience is in warfare, and his interest also lies in directing warfare. ... Taking the many suggestions he offers on the front line is beneficial in battle,” and Zhou insisted that Mao be retained on the front line. To this end, Zhou proposed two measures from which the Central Bureau could choose: “One is to give me full responsibility for directing battle, with Zedong remaining on the front line to assist me; the other is for Zedong to take full responsibility for directing battle, and for me to be responsible for supervising execution of the course of action.”109 However, “the majority of the comrades [at the conference] felt that Comrade Mao’s acknowledgment and understanding of his errors were insufficient and that allowing him to direct warfare might easily result in political and operational errors.” Since Mao could not gain the full trust of the Central Bureau, the second of the two measures was unacceptable. The conference therefore passed the first of Zhou’s proposed measures and “approved Comrade Mao’s request for sick leave until he was needed on the front line.”110 Following the Ningdu Conference, Mao was stripped of his military command, but Zhou also came under criticism from Central Bureau members Xiang Ying, Gu Zuolin, and others for his compromising attitude at the conference. On November 12, 1932, Central Bureau members Ren Bishi, Xiang Ying, Gu Zuolin, and Deng Fa on the rear line jointly signed a cable to the Provisional Central Committee reporting on the Ningdu Conference, including their views on Zhou Enlai: “Prior to the conference, Comrade Enlai’s views were not notably different from those of other comrades on the front line, and his report made no mention of active assaults, interpreting the Central Committee’s cables in terms of an emphasis on preparation. ... Regarding criticism of Zedong, Xiang Ying’s remarks were at times excessive, but [Zhou Enlai] made no explicit criticism of Zedong’s errors in his summation and sometimes shielded him; this is more than a matter of a compromising attitude. ... We feel that Enlai’s

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irresoluteness in struggle is his greatest personal weakness; he should make a concerted effort to understand and surmount this weakness.” 111 On the same day, Zhou sent a cable to the Provisional Central Committee in Shanghai to defend his performance at the Ningdu Conference: “I admit that I adopted a conciliatory attitude toward criticism of Comrade Zedong at the conference and that I did not adequately criticize the errors in his organizational concepts. At the same time, I also corrected the excessive criticism of the rear-line comrades toward him.” Nevertheless, “I cannot agree with the views of Comrades Gu and Xiang after the conference that the fight was not fully engaged and that compromise blurred the battle lines”112 Based on available information, Mao did not accept the censure of the Central Bureau of the Soviet Area directed at him during the Ningdu Conference; the Central Bureau stated in a November 26 cable to the Central Committee in Shanghai that Mao “continues to adhere to an emphasis on preparedness.”113 Even so, the Central Committee’s reply to the Central Bureau in November indicates that Mao was pressured into acknowledging his “errors” at the conference: At the conference, Comrade Zedong admitted his errors; we must help Comrade Zedong promptly and thoroughly correct his standpoint and draw him into more active operations.114 Because, to a certain extent, Mao had acknowledged his “errors” and had stepped down from his military command, and Zhou, while conceding Mao had made mistakes, had recommended a tolerant approach, the most important task at hand was to defend the unity of the Central Bureau of the Soviet Area, of which Zhou was the core. In November 1932 the Provisional Central Committee sent a cable to the Central Bureau of the Soviet Area pointing out: “Comrade Enlai’s standpoint during the [Ningdu] Conference was correct, and it was wrong for some comrades to censure Enlai as a compromiser. ... Unity within the leadership is now an utmost priority for defeating the enemy’s encirclement.”115 Following the Gannan Conference’s criticism of Mao’s land policies, and then Zhou Enlai’s correction of Mao’s campaign against counterrevolutionaries, the Ningdu Conference’s criticism of Mao’s military strategies further depleted Mao’s influence in the Central Soviet

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Area. After the end of the Ningdu Conference, Zhou remained secretary of the Central Bureau of the Soviet Area, but while Zhou was on the front line directing military operations, Ren Bishi stood in for him on the rear line. Although there were adjustments after Bo Gu arrived in Ruijin on January 27, 1933, the power structure in the Central Soviet Area that had taken shape after the Ningdu Conference remained basically unchanged. Suffering from the sustained political attack at the Ningdu Conference as well as a serious case of malaria, Mao spent half a year convalescing in Changting Hospital, while Zhou Enlai had Zhang Wentian and Bo Gu repeatedly urge Mao to return to work in Ruijin.116 In March 1933, the Executive Committee of the Comintern sent a cable to Ruijin directing the “utilization of the tactics of luring in deep, divide-andconquer, disintegration, and attrition against the enemy forces,” while at the same time demanding “as conciliatory an approach as possible toward Mao Zedong and exerting comradely influence that will enable him to do responsible work under the leadership of the Party Central Committee or the Central Bureau.”117 The Comintern’s efforts improved Mao’s situation, and in late spring 1933 Mao returned to Ruijin and began taking charge of the Land Investigation Campaign. While attending a Politburo meeting in the first half of June, Mao raised criticism of the Ningdu Conference, feeling he had been unfairly treated the previous year. However, Bo Gu waved off Mao’s complaints and reaffirmed the correctness of the Ningdu Conference, even going so far as to say that the Ningdu Conference was essential to the victory over the fourth encirclement. 118 From then on, Mao was no longer consulted about military affairs in the Central Soviet Area. It was not until October 1933, when Nineteenth Route Army leaders Chen Mingshu, Jiang Guangnai, and Cai Tingkai sent a delegation to the soviet area to negotiate a cease-fire* that Mao was allowed to participate in discussions on crucial military policies.

*

  TN: Chen, Jiang, and Cai were leaders of the Chinese Nineteenth Route Army in Fujian. Dissatisfied with Chiang Kai-shek’s policies, the three negotiated a preliminary truce with the Red Army on October 26, 1933, followed by a rebellion in November and establishment of the Fujian People’s Government. The Chinese Nineteenth Route Army was ultimately overwhelmed by Nationalist forces, and its leaders either fled or returned to the KMT.

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According to Mao’s explanation after 1935, in discussions on whether or not to support the Nineteenth Route Army, Mao recommended that the Red Army launch an attack on the Su-Zhe-Wan-Gan ( Jiangsu-ZhejiangAnhui-Jiangxi) Border Region, focusing on Jiangsu and Zhejiang, in order to draw away the enemy troops encircling Jiangxi. This would allow the Red Army to break through the KMT encirclement of the Central Soviet Area and at the same time support the Fujian People’s Government.119 Bo Gu and the others rejected Mao’s correct views, however, and, as a result, the Central Soviet Area became isolated in its battle against the fifth encirclement and the Red Army was forced to embark on its Long March. Yet Mao’s attitude during the Fujian Incident was actually far more complex than the above explanation suggests. The rejection of Mao’s suggestion to launch a Red Army attack on the Su-Zhe-Wan-Gan Border Region was indeed a major lost opportunity to break through the encirclement. However, rejecting cooperation with the Nineteenth Route Army definitely intensified the military crisis in the Central Soviet Area. Following the Fujian Incident, Mao publicly voiced a firm stand for adopting an isolationist policy toward Chen Mingshu et al. In the government report that he delivered at the Second National Congress of the Chinese Soviet Republic, held from January 24 to 25, 1934, he said: As for Fujian’s so-called People’s Revolutionary Government, one comrade says it has a bit of a revolutionary character and is not completely reactionary, but this viewpoint is erroneous. ... The People’s Revolutionary Government is merely a sinister plot by some members of the ruling class using the sham slogan of “the third road” between communism and reactionary politics to deceive the people.120 If it is claimed that Mao made these remarks to publicly comply with the lien of the Central Committee and that they did not necessarily express his actual thinking, then what was Mao’s attitude in internal discussions? According to recollections by Gong Chu, who once enjoyed close relations with Mao and at one point served as chief of staff for the Gannan Military Region, during meetings at the leadership level to discuss the request by Chen Mingshu, Cai Tingkai, and the others to join forces with the Red Army, Mao proposed dodging the issue by “sending a minor representative to Fujian to first carry out exploratory consultations

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with Li Jishen and others,” and he opposed the suggestion by Zhou Enlai and others to “immediately send a senior official to Fuzhou to engage in formal negotiations.”* Gong Chu’s oral memoirs121 provide only one version, and confirmation of their accuracy must await the discovery of new material.† Mao was not one of the core policy makers at this time, so even if he opposed aiding Chen Mingshu and Cai Tingkai, the final decision must have been made by Bo Gu, Otto Braun, and Zhou Enlai. Analysis of available information indicates that failure to cooperate with the Fujian People’s Government and the loss of the Red Army’s last opportunity were due to the erroneous guidance of the Comintern’s representative in Shanghai as well as the indecision of Bo Gu and Zhou Enlai. Bo Gu had originally been in favor of an alliance with Cai Tingkai and had won Zhou Enlai’s support. Bo and Zhou both felt that this would be a rare opportunity to implement the new policy put forward by the CCP on January 7, 1933, to establish a broad-based national United Front.122 On November 24, 1933, Zhou sent a cable to the CMC in Ruijin, urging a prompt decision as to whether the Third and Fifth Red Army

*

  Regarding Gong Chu and the historical value of his memoir, during an internal chat on July 9, 1984 Yang Shangkun said: “There was someone named Gong Chu who was with Chairman Mao during the Jinggang Mountain period and who was chief of military operations in the Central Soviet Area. During the three years of guerrilla warfare, this person was arrested and then defected, and he led the enemy to capture Chen Yi. Later, Gong Chu wrote a book entitled The Red Army and I that was circulated widely in Taiwan and Hong Kong. The book reveals how he participated in the Red Army and what he did there. I read that book after the country’s founding and asked Chen [Yi] about it. He said Gong Chu’s history was more or less correct and the part before he turned traitor was basically accurate.” †  In The Memoirs of General Gong Chu, published in 1978, Gong Chu corrects some of the narrative in The Red Army and I relating to arguments among the core leadership of the soviet area regarding the Fujian Incident. Gong Chu states that there were errors in his earlier book “caused by memory lapses at the time.” In The Memoirs of General Gong Chu, pp. 513, 515, Mao is changed into the person who “advocated immediately sending a senior official to Fuzhou to carry out formal negotiations.” In my opinion, Gong Chu’s correction should be taken seriously, but the related narrative in his 1954 The Red Army and I can in fact be corroborated by other material. I therefore lean toward accepting the judgment of Gong Chu’s earlier book and hold that thorough clarification of this question rests on the discovery of new material.

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Corps should join in a flank attack against Chiang Kai-shek’s troops as they moved on Fujian.123 Upon obtaining the Central Committee’s approval, Zhou sent Pan Hannian, as the Red Army’s representative, to negotiate and sign a “Preliminary Agreement to Oppose Japan and Chiang” with the Nineteenth Route Army. Bo Gu and Zhou Enlai’s view was not unanimously supported by the CCP’s core leaders,124 and the Comintern and its representative in China as well as the CCP’s Shanghai Bureau played decisive roles in the rejection of Zhou and Bo’s suggestion. On October 25, 1933, the Comintern sent a cable to Ruijin: “For the purpose of battle operations, you should seek a strategy that unites the lower classes. The Kuomintang’s Guangdong faction is using arbitrary and empty anti-Japanese rhetoric as an amulet and is the covert lackey of British imperialism. This masquerade should be exposed.” 125 The cable was very influential in changing the CCP Central Committee’s attitude toward the Fujian Incident. The Comintern representative in Shanghai, Arthur Ewert, the chief military adviser, Manfred Stern (known in Chinese as Fu Leide), and the CCP’s Shanghai Bureau faithfully executed Moscow’s directives. Their unanimous view was that the split between Cai Tingkai and Chiang Kai-shek was just a routine battle between warlords and that the Central Committee should make best possible use of this conflict to consolidate its own status in the Civil War without giving Cai any actual military support.126 Zhou Enlai, Bo Gu, and the others did not immediately across the board accept the views from Shanghai, and the two sides argued over the issue in an endless stream of cables. On October 30, the CCP Central Committee sent a directive to the Fuzhou Center Municipal Party Committee and all comrades in Fujian demanding their opposition to Left Deviation exclusivism, but after receiving the Comintern’s October 25 cable, the Central Committee quickly changed direction and on November 18 it sent another letter to the Fuzhou Party secretary, the content of which was a complete reversal of the previous letter. This letter berated the Nineteenth Route Army for seeking a cease-fire with the CCP as merely “a big, arbitrary propaganda plot.”127 Zhou Enlai and Bo Gu had apparently yielded to Comintern pressure and accepted the views from Shanghai. Zhang Yunyi, who at that time was the CCP’s liaison officer with the Nineteenth Route Army, recalled that before he went to Fuzhou, Bo Gu instructed him that “the objective here is to find a way to bring over

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some troops,” and he never mentioned dispatching troops for coordinated battle operations.128 As for Otto Braun, he claimed that he had a different opinion from that of his immediate superior, Manfred Stern, but he acknowledged that he went ahead and implemented Stern’s plan. The decisive role that the Comintern’s Shanghai representatives played in the dispute among the CCP’s decision-makers regarding the Fujian Incident reflect the CCP’s heavy reliance on Moscow during this period and the weaknesses in the CCP’s organizational structure. In January 1933, Bo Gu arrived in Ruijin, where he met with Zhou Enlai and the others and established the CCP Central Bureau, while the cadres who remained behind in Shanghai, including Sheng Zhongliang and Li Zhusheng, comprised the CCP’s Shanghai Central Bureau. Theoretically, the Central Bureau in Ruijin should have been the CCP Central Committee, but before the Fifth Plenum of the Sixth CCP Central Committee was held in 1934, the Central Bureau in Shanghai routinely acted under the name of the CCP Central Committee, and the Comintern’s chief military adviser in China, Manfred Stern, routinely cabled instructions to Ruijin from Shanghai in the name of the CCP Central Committee. While on the front line, the first cable on military operational planning that Zhou Enlai received from Stern in the name of the CCP Provisional Central Committee was dated April 14, 1933. 129 By the time Otto Braun arrived in Ruijin in September 1933, Stern had sent four cables intervening in the military operations of the soviet areas. 130 Braun’s immediate superior, Stern, who subsequently became famous as “General Kleber” in the Spanish Civil War, did not arrive in Shanghai until spring 1933. Braun later complained that he suffered because of Stern’s error, as if Stern should bear all responsibility for the military failures in the soviet area while Braun evaded his even greater responsibility. As for Mao, the dispute over the Fujian Incident served to improve his situation. During this period, Mao played only a subtle role: He did not hold any positions of power, but given the increasingly tense military situation in the soviet area, his views were taken with growing seriousness and his role was notably stronger than it had been in 1932‒33, foreshadowing his return from the cold within a little more than one year.

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VI.  An Upsurge in Party Power, Wholesale Russianization, and Mao Receives a Cold Shoulder The period between the Gannan Conference in November 1931 and the Communist withdrawal from Jiangxi in October 1934 marked a significant expansion of CCP power. During this period, the authority of the Party’s leading organs was established and consolidated, and control of the armed forces, originally led by Mao, was now in the hands of Bo Gu and Zhang Wentian, civilian cadres with no military experience who had gained the support of Party veterans such as Zhou Enlai. The Central Soviet Area took on a distinctly “Russified” atmosphere, and the soviet area’s founder, Mao Zedong, a veteran Party and military leader, was pushed to the sidelines. In the Jiangxi Soviet Area where Mao had once reigned supreme, the CCP Central Committee swiftly established the Party’s organizational advantage over Mao. In spring 1931, many new cadres were sent to Jiangxi following the earlier arrival of Ren Bishi, Wang Jiaxiang, and Gu Zuolin. A number of them had studied in the Soviet Union, including Liu Bocheng, Ye Jianying, Zhu Rui, Yang Shangkun, Kai Feng (He Kequan), Li Bozhao, Wu Xiuquan, Xiao Jinguang, and Liu Bojian, while veteran cadres, such as Lin Boqu, Dong Biwu, Nie Rongzhen, and Ruan Xiaoxian, were also transferred to Jiangxi to lead the Party, military, political, and Youth League organs. In January 1933, Provisional Central Committee leader Bo Gu arrived in Ruijin, and Zhang Wentian, Liu Shaoqi, Chen Yun, Luo Mai (Li Weihan), Qu Qiubai, and others also arrived at about this time. After meeting with the Central Bureau of the Soviet Area led by Zhou Enlai, the Provisional Central Committee members in June 1933 established the CCP Central Bureau, which in practical terms served as the Central Politburo. The ability of the CCP Central Committee under Bo Gu to seamlessly establish its authority in the Jiangxi Soviet Area required the cooperation and assistance of Zhou Enlai and others. Within the CCP Central Bureau, Zhou Enlai held decisive power; Bo Gu and Zhang Wentian, lacking experience in the soviet area, would have had a hard time maintaining leadership without Zhou’s support. Zhou’s effective alliance with the “Soviet-educated faction” put Mao at a distinct disadvantage within the CCP Central Bureau. The political alliance among veteran cadres, represented by Zhou Enlai and the “Comintern faction,” was reinforced during the Fifth Plenum

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of the Sixth CCP Central Committee. Within the Central Committee Standing Committee, Secretariat members Bo Gu and Zhang Wentian of the Comintern faction and veteran cadres Zhou Enlai and Xiang Ying achieved a balance of power, but Mao remained outside this four-man inner circle. The Fifth Plenum further weakened Mao’s power base. The position Mao had long held as chairman of the Chinese Soviet Government was broken up into two positions: chairman of the Central Executive Committee and chairman of the People’s Committee. With Zhang Wentian serving as chairman of the People’s Committee, Mao’s position as chairman of the government was reduced to little more than nominal status. Mao Zedong had become “Chairman Mao” on November 7, 1931, when he began serving as chairman of the Central Executive Committee of the Provisional Central Government of the Chinese Soviet Republic. In the years that followed, although the People’s Committee was established by the Central Executive Committee, they were essentially two brands of the same organization, and Mao basically served as chairman of the Central Executive Committee. With the Central Committee’s agreement, Mao arranged for some of his former subordinates, such as Deng Zihui, Wang Guanlan, * Gao Zili, and He Shuheng, to serve as members or associate members of the People’s Committee.131 However, Deng Zihui and He Shuheng both faced criticism during the campaign against the “Luo Ming Line” launched by Bo Gu and others, and they were dismissed from their positions as secretary of finance and secretary of worker-peasant inspection respectively. Mao’s long-time subordinate Zhang Dingcheng was dismissed as chairman of the Fujian Provincial Soviet, and Tan Zhenlin was transferred from his position as commander and political commissar of the Fujian Military Region, making Mao a “general without an army.” The CCP Central Committee under Bo Gu focused considerable attention on monitoring Mao’s influence in the military. Upon reaching the Central Soviet Area in early 1933 but before arriving in Ruijin, Bo Gu contacted some senior military cadres to listen to their views on Zhu and

*

  Wang Guanlan arrived in the Central Soviet Area after returning from the USSR in 1931. He had long worked under Mao in a spirit of close friendship, and Mao referred to him as a “truly reformed intellectual.”

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Mao. Gong Chu told Bo Gu that Mao had a talent for leading political struggles and was a brilliant military strategist, but his leadership style had dictatorial tendencies.132 In order to dispel the influence of so-called “guerrillaism” in the Red Army, upon reaching Ruijin Bo Gu directed Zhou Enlai and others to follow the Soviet Union’s Red Army system, and they began to systematically remold the battle drills and military training of the Central Red Army. In the past, although Zhu De had long served as chairman of the CMC, actual power over the armed forces had been held by Vice Chairman Zhou Enlai. However, once Bo Gu arrived in Ruijin, Zhou’s military power faced constraints; on May 8, 1933, Bo Gu and Xiang Ying joined the CMC and Xiang Ying was named acting chairman. Meanwhile, decision-making power over front line military operations was put under the direct control of the Central Bureau in the rear line. Zhou’s influence was further eroded with the arrival of Otto Braun, who took over ultimate decision-making power in the Red Army. Zhou’s loss of military power may have been related to his compromising attitude toward Mao; it occurred at the same time that Xiang Ying, who was particularly indifferent to Mao, was allowed to participate in military decision-making, while Mao was completely pushed off the CMC. At the General Staff Headquarters of the CMC, the general chief of staff and his deputy were Liu Bocheng and Ye Jianying respectively, both of whom were Soviet-trained. Liu and Ye had had almost no contact with Mao prior to 1931, although they had been acquainted with Zhou Enlai for quite a long time. The CCP Central Committee used the superiority of its cadres to establish an ideological, propaganda, and education apparatus within the Central Soviet Area. Before 1931, all of the soviet area’s agitprop had fallen under the jurisdiction of the Mao-led First Front Red Army, with Mao in full control of expression and interpretation. The arrival of the Soviet faction brought an obvious transfer of power. After the Provisional Central Committee was moved to Ruijin in early 1933, the Comintern faction quickly established a series of organs and schools within their sphere of influence to promote and interpret Marxism-Leninism. Zhang Wentian became head of the CCP Central Bureau Propaganda Department (known as the CCP Central Committee Propaganda Department beginning from January 1934) and director of the Central Bureau Party School as well as chairman of the Central Party Newspaper Committee. Sha Kefu took over from Wang Guanlan as editor of Red China, the official newspaper of

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the Chinese Soviet Government. The Comintern faction also established a series of new publications, such as Youth Truth and Soviet Area AntiImperialist Pictorial. Party publications controlled by the Comintern faction played an important role in attacking Mao by innuendo; in the struggle against “Deng, Mao, Xie, and Gu,” the Central Bureau organ Struggle cast aspersions on Mao in an article on his brother entitled “Comrade Mao Zetan’s Three Kingdoms Craze.” Years later, many other such examples motivated Mao to diligently study Marxism-Leninism and then to reclaim the power of interpretation. Under the powerful influence of the Comintern and outside the borders of the Soviet Union, another soviet-style society was beginning to take shape in the Jiangxi Soviet Area. Inside the Central Soviet Area, the CCP established a political, economic, and military mobilization and ideological system that was directly derived from that in Soviet Russia. Within the Central Soviet Area, the supreme position was occupied by the Party’s leading organ, the Politburo of the CCP Central Committee that had evolved from the Central Bureau of the Soviet Area and the CCP Central Bureau. The Party organ for directing military policy, the CMC, was established under the Politburo Standing Committee, and under the CMC the headquarters of the Chinese Workers and Peasants Red Army was established. The CCP Central Committee established its own subsidiary organs: the Central Organization Department, the Central Propaganda Department, the Central Party Affairs Committee, the Central Inspection Committee, as well as the CCP Central Party School (the Marx School of Communism), and the Editorial Department of the Central Committee publication Struggle. The CCP Central Committee also directed the Central Committee of the Communist Youth League. Under the Central Committee of the Communist Youth League there was another organization for leading younger children, the Central Headquarters of the Young Pioneers. The government system was likewise modeled after the Soviet system. The scope of the power of the chairman of the Central Executive Committee and the chairman of the People’s Committee was the same as that in the Soviet Union: The status of the chairman of the Central Executive Committee, Mao Zedong, was equivalent to that of the Soviet Union’s nominal head of state, Mikhail Kalinin, while Zhang Wentian’s position as chairman of the People’s Committee was equivalent to that of Vyacheslav Molotov, chairman of the Soviet Union’s Council of People’s

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Commissars. The structure beneath the People’s Committee likewise blindly imitated that in the Soviet Union, with a redundantly duplicative structure of seventeen People’s Committee Departments and related committees. Under the Central Soviet Area’s jurisdiction, Jiangxi Province, Xiang-Gan Province, Fujian Province, and Min-Yue-Gan Province also established a proportional number of Potemkin organs. During the era of the Chinese Soviet Republic, a densely Russian atmosphere pervaded the Chinese Soviet Areas, and even the names of many organs had a distinctive Russian flavor. The Party education system had a Marx School of Communism; the military ranks had a Communist Youth International Division, a Workers’ Division, and a Red Army University (later renamed the Workers and Peasants Red Army Hao Xishi University, in honor of a Russian vice counsel who had been killed by the KMT while directing the Guangzhou labor strikes). The security apparatus for eliminating counterrevolutionaries consisted of a State Political Security Bureau. The government education apparatus had a Shen Zemin Soviet University, a Gorky Drama School, a Lenin Advanced Normal School, and a Lenin Lower Normal School, as well as a multitude of Lenin Elementary Schools. In the Central Soviet Area there was a “Soviet Area General Alliance against Imperialism” and a “Soviet Union Friendship Association” that claimed 600,000 members. Lenin’s birthday, the anniversary of the October Revolution, International Labor Day, and other international commemorative dates were observed in the soviet area. Some important political gatherings formed presidiums that selected eminent persons from the Comintern and the Soviet Union as “honorary chairmen” (for example, the Second National Soviet Congress held in Ruijin in January 1934 made Stalin, Molotov, Kalinin, Ernst Thälmann, Sen Katayama, and Maxim Gorky honorary chairmen of the congress), and it even sent cables to “the workers and the kolkhoz farmers of the Soviet Union.” In mid-September 1934, the situation in the Central Soviet Area was extremely critical, and Mao, the chairman of the Provisional Government of the Chinese Soviet Republic, was completely excluded from the decision-making core. He “worried day and night about the current political situation,” and after obtaining the Central Committee’s permission, he went on an inspection visit to Yudu County on the southern border of the soviet area.133 There he met his former subordinate from Jinggang Mountain days, Gong Chu, the chief of staff of the Gannan

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Military Region. Mao said, “Comrade Gong, this is no longer a world for us old Jinggang Mountain comrades! The best we can do is to be patient for a while.” After saying this, Mao began to weep.134 All of this reveals the massive political advantage that Bo Gu and the other Soviet-trained leaders loyal to the Comintern line had gained over Mao. Yet, in the absence of a military success, this was an illusory victory for Bo Gu and the others. With no substantial breakthrough against the KMT’s encirclement, Bo Gu’s cohort had built a tower on shifting sand that would eventually crumble during the first storm.

2. The Expansion of Mao’s Power after the Zunyi Conference and Moscow’s Political Interference

I. Mao Gradually Gains Control over the Military and the Party Mao always bragged about his ambition to become the leader of a “Way” that would transform the ideals embraced by Chinese society and the world.1 To what aspects of the specific content of the “Way” was Mao referring that he hoped to realize in the 1930s? As a Chinese Communist Party (CCP) leader who had accepted the basic tenets of communism, it might be expected that the Way to which Mao aspired was not far removed from things such as devoting his energies to ending the chaotic conditions that split his country and creating the kind of fair and just society that were symbolic of the values of communism. Yet such a path would have diverged little from that of the average Communist at that time. The uniqueness of Mao’s Way was that he had already started to nurture certain fragmentary ideas that departed from Moscow’s “orthodox” theories. Having spent years in the countryside leading peasants in revolution, Mao had gained a concrete sense of the serious conflicts between the policies of the CCP Central Committee formed under the direction of the Comintern and their actual practice in China’s social environment. He also sensed that the rejection of the Chinese social environment in Moscow’s theories, as revealed by this conflict, would seriously obstruct the CCP from taking root in Chinese society and would thwart the CCP’s grand plan of replacing the Kuomintang (KMT) as China’s ruling party. In terms of his desire to provide benefits to the society, it was not difficult for a mind as brilliant as Mao’s to come up with a Way; it only

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required a slight enhancement of his intuitive grasp of reality to awaken him to this Way. The difficulty was the need to come up with a basis for achieving this Way; a Way with no basis would be empty, and a basis with no Way would be ignored. Only by melding the Way (thinking and ideas), craft (strategy and means), and power (status and authority) would a virtuous circle emerge from the movement and gradually forge ahead to achieve the ideal. If Mao before 1927 had yet to have a particular sense of the relationship among these three elements, by 1935 an intuitive perception of this relationship was engraved in his heart after enduring many hardships during the establishment of the revolutionary base areas and his rise and fall during the years of inner-Party struggle. The CCP was fortunate in that Mao, this “Bodhisattva” who had been cast into the latrine “until he reeked,” began to “regain his fragrance” in Zunyi.2 Ever determined to “save the little man,” Mao felt duty-bound to set to work immediately following the Zunyi Conference. The eminently practical Mao knew very well that the only basis for achieving his Way in 1935 was the CCP and the army that it led. Yet the Zunyi Conference and the changes in the CCP’s core leadership that continued to occur thereafter gave Mao his first opportunity to express opinions and to make decisions in the CCP’s paramount decision-making and command apparatus, but this was far from having “ultimate decisionmaking power” over the Party and army. Although Mao was dissatisfied with this state of affairs, he had to settle for it at the time. At a critical juncture when the CCP faced danger and crisis, Mao chose to “stop while he was ahead” and he took the initiative to set aside differences within the Party and to devote his full energies against the enemy; this was Mao’s wisdom, and it was what the situation required. In the face of the Nationalist Army’s pursuit and attack in 1935 and 1936, preserving the CCP and its armed forces took precedence over all else. Yet for Mao, there were two parallel battle lines. The first battle line was the external one against the KMT. It goes without saying that “changing the world” meant caging the “dark dragon,”* i.e., the KMT. Before the CCP seized power, the main threat against the CCP’s survival and development was Chiang Kai-shek’s regime. For that

*

  Translators’ Note (cited hereafter as TN): This term comes from Mao’s 1935 poem “Mount Liupan, to the tune of Qing Ping Yue.”

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reason, finding a way to counterattack and conquer the KMT was not only Mao’s preoccupation every waking minute but was also the key political concept and driving force for Mao to unify and control the Party. Compared with this first battle line, the second was less prominent but just as important: the battle line of the inner-Party struggle. Supplanting the Chiang regime without gaining firm control over the CCP and its army obviously would be a complete waste of time. Everyone knows Mao was one of the founders of the Communist Army, but his actual control over the Jiangxi Central Red Army had gradually weakened and finally disappeared as a result of high-level struggles within the Party after 1932. Under the Party’s influence, the top army commanders gradually distanced themselves from Mao, to the point that Mao had only a shadowy influence over the army by the time of the Zunyi Conference. The only common ground binding Mao to the army commanders was their mutual dissatisfaction with the CCP’s military directives after 1934. For this reason, Mao’s main task following his victory at the Zunyi Conference was to recover his lost influence and quickly make use of the political advantage he had gained to take control of the army. In October 1934, the Central Red Army claimed a strength of 100,000, but in actuality it was more like 80,000. By the time the army broke through the KMT encirclement in Jiangxi and made its way to Zunyi, casualties and desertions had further reduced its forces to just over 30,000 troops. The Red Army generals leading this contingent were First Army Group Commander Lin Biao and Third Army Group Commander Peng Dehuai. The Fourth Front Red Army, led by Zhang Guotao, Chen Changhao, and Xu Xiangqian, and the Second Front Red Army, led by He Long, Ren Bishi, and Xiao Ke, were fighting in isolation. The troops led by Lin and Peng were effectively the only forces the CCP Central Committee could rely on at this time, and Lin and Peng were also the key commanders of the military that Mao so urgently wished to control. During the latter stage of the Zunyi Conference after the central organs were reorganized, Mao joined the Standing Committee of the Central Committee, but Zhou Enlai retained command over the Red Army. Mao began using the critical war situation to gradually expand his influence to direct the military. On March 4, 1935, on Zhang Wentian’s recommendation, the Central Military Commission (CMC), under the name of its chairman, Zhu De, and its vice chairmen, Zhou Enlai and Wang Jiaxiang, issued an order establishing the Front Line Headquarters and

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“commissioning Comrade Zhu De as front line commander and Comrade Mao Zedong as front line political commissar.”3 But neither this structure or these appointments altered Zhou Enlai’s status as the ultimate decisionmaker, however Mao effectively began taking on the responsibilities of front line general commander in his capacity as political commissar. Taking on the duties of front line general commander was a crucial step for Mao to gain control of the military, but several days later Mao parted ways with Zhou Enlai, Zhang Wentian, Wang Jiaxiang, and Lin Biao and Nie Rongzhen of the First Army Group over whether or not to attack Daguchang. At an enlarged Politburo meeting convened by Zhang Wentian on March 10, Mao was removed from his new position as front line general commander and was temporarily replaced by Peng Dehuai.4 At this critical juncture, Mao did not shrink about his future, but that same night he sought out Zhou Enlai and convinced him of the reasons for not attacking Daguchang.5 Soon thereafter, using the rationale that direction of day-to-day military matters required a complete concentration of power, Mao got Zhang Wentian to agree to the establishment of a triumvirate, with full power to direct military matters.6 At an enlarged Politburo meeting that Zhang convened near Gouba on March 12, 1935, the idea of a military triumvirate was raised for discussion, and the meeting authorized the establishment of a “triumvirate,” or a “three-man military leadership group,” consisting of Zhou Enlai, Mao Zedong, and Wang Jiaxiang. This formalized Mao’s inclusion in the inner circle of the CMC leadership. Within a matter of two days, Mao wielded his indomitable willpower to recover from his setback, took his victory a step further by volunteering his services in the new “triumvirate” that he had proposed, and then used the Party’s conference process to formalize and legitimize his inclusion among the key military decision-makers at that time. After joining the triumvirate, Mao quickly placed himself in a key policy-making position. From March to May, Mao employed a strategy of moving his troops over long distances and in unpredictable directions, concentrating the movements of the Central Red Army among Guizhou, Yunnan, and Sichuan. During this period, there were both victories and failures. Frequent skirmishes on circuitous routes exhausted the troops and resulted in complaints from the senior commanders of the Red Army. A failed attack that Mao ordered on Huili brought the displeasure with Mao by the Red Army leadership to a crisis point. It was against this background that Lin Biao wrote a letter to the

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triumvirate asking that Mao, Zhou, and Zhu De focus on major matters, and that Peng Dehuai serve as front line commander for a rapid move north to reunite with the Fourth Front Army.7 Lin Biao’s letter came at a time of crisis for the CCP and the Central Red Army, but with no conscious intent to oppose Mao. Up until then, Lin had no personal axe to grind with Mao. His letter arose purely out of his considerations for the future of the Red Army and it expressed the general sentiment within the army at the time. Coincidentally, sentiments of dissatisfaction and suspicion toward Mao’s commanding abilities as reflected in Lin Biao’s letter also existed to varying degrees among others in the Party leadership. In mid-April 1935, not long after becoming head of the Political Department of the Third Army Group, Liu Shaoqi sensed an intense and pervasive dissatisfaction among the troops about “marching around without fighting.” Liu included the troop sentiment with his own views in a cable he sent to the CMC. Before sending the cable, Liu took it to the commander of the Third Army Group, Peng Dehuai, and Political Commissar Yang Shangkun for their signatures; Yang signed it, but Peng felt the content of the cable differed from his own views and therefore he refused to sign it.8 Within the triumvirate, Wang Jiaxiang’s relations with Mao were relatively close, but he too had doubts regarding Mao’s military strategies. Even before the triumvirate was established, Wang had frequently argued with Mao about battle command issues and he had repeatedly asked for a Central Committee meeting to discuss military operations.9 After the triumvirate was formed, Wang objected to Mao’s mobile warfare strategies and he told Zhang Wentian that such running around in circles was not working.10 Lin Biao’s letter and Liu Shaoqi’s cable were danger signals to Mao, and they represented the most serious challenge he faced since the Zunyi Conference. The severity of the situation was such that dissatisfaction toward Mao was spreading not only throughout the First and Third Army Groups, which were the only military strength upon which the CCP Central Committee could rely, but also in the inner circles of the Central Committee. If such discontent were not promptly quelled, Mao almost certainly would once again be stripped of his newly-won military power. Mao quickly moved to beat back the anti-Mao tide led by Lin Biao. Rather than communicating with Lin privately or delivering an explanation to the Central Committee’s core decision-makers, Mao brought the issue out in the open by convincing Zhang Wentian to agree to an enlarged

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Politburo meeting. Mao’s objective was very clear: He wanted to use the enlarged Politburo meeting in the name of the Party to suppress those opinions that were detrimental to him. An enlarged Politburo meeting aimed at labeling Lin Biao and others as “Right deviationists” and “vacillators” was held on the outskirts of Huili on May 12, 1935. The only attendees were Zhang Wentian, Zhou Enlai, Mao, Wang Jiaxiang, Zhu De, and the commanders and political commissars of the First and Third Army Groups: Lin Biao, Nie Rongzhen, Peng Dehuai, and Yang Shangkun. Zhang Wentian was nominally the leader of this meeting, and he used a report outline discussed in advance with Mao and Wang to harshly berate Lin and the others for their Right deviating suspicions about Mao’s military command. What Mao needed most at this moment was a theoretical lexicon, which was a specialty of Zhang Wentian; he did not care what labels were used as long as the wave of dissatisfaction against him was squelched. Perhaps out of worries that the bookish Zhang was no match for warriors such as Lin Biao, Mao ignored his own status as the subject of the controversy and entered into the fray, harshly criticizing Lin and Liu by stating that their letter and cable reflected Right deviating sentiment over the loss of the Central Soviet Area.11 While dismissing Lin Biao as a “kid” who did not know any better, Mao regarded the utterly oblivious Peng Dehuai as the backstage instigator. 12 After using Zhang Wentian as his “spiker” against Lin and Liu, Mao rapidly shifted the focus of the attack to Zhang. Mao could not bear having Zhang serve as the Party’s final arbitrator, and he made full use of this opportunity to attack Zhang’s credibility by insinuating that Zhang had gone to the headquarters of the Third Army Group and had colluded with Peng Dehuai against him.13 The meeting ended with an endorsement of Mao’s military direction, thus Mao emerged the clear victor. In the face of Mao’s senseless attacks, Peng and Zhang took the attitude that “all will become clear over time,” and taking into consideration their formidable foe and the need for internal stability, they made no effort to explain themselves during or after the meeting.14 The Huili Conference was decisive in establishing Mao’s status in the Party and the military. If the Zunyi Conference constituted a political victory that brought Mao into the inner-most core of the Party, the Huili Conference signified Mao’s use of his political victory to gain control of the military, and thereafter Mao was effectively the top leader of the Red Army. Mao used his iron will to put the Red Army’s key generals, Lin Biao and Peng Dehuai, firmly under his control and to place himself in

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an unassailable position in the core leadership. On the eve of the Huili Conference and during the conference, he placed the newly-minted Party leader Zhang Wentian at a disadvantage, making this representative of the Party appear as little more than a figurehead. In fact, Mao used legitimate means to make himself the CCP’s No. 1 leader, and all of this was due to Zhou Enlai’s compromising and concessionary attitude toward Mao. In the days that followed, the Huili Conference also had a complex influence on relationships within the Party’s core leadership, burying Mao’s seeds of suspicion and jealousy against Peng Dehuai and Zhang Wentian. Mao had worked with Peng for a long time; although the two men had very different temperaments and had drifted apart after 1931, there had never been any evident contradiction or conflict between them. But Lin Biao’s letter resulted in Mao regarding Peng as a shrewd operator, and from then on he was always on guard against Peng. After the Huili Conference, Mao had Yang Shangkun transferred out of the Third Army Group and made his old friend Li Fuchun political commissar to keep an eye on Peng Dehuai. Mao did not have a favorable opinion of Zhang Wentian, and it was only due to their mutual desire to topple Bo Gu that they formed a temporary alliance. Because of his inherent prejudice against Zhang Wentian, Mao let Liu Shaoqi off with a mere criticism and he believed what Liu had surmised about Zhang’s collusion with Peng. Liu had no military roots and lacked prestige among the troops, thus Mao did not regard him as having the potential to make waves in the military. In order to extricate himself, Liu quickly shifted the blame to Zhang Wentian, casting a shadow on the nascent political alliance between Mao and Zhang* 15 and providing Mao with a new understanding of the antagonism *

  Mao stubbornly maintained his claim that Zhang Wentian instigated Peng Dehuai and Lin Biao’s opposition against him on the eve of the Huili Conference, and he repeatedly accused Zhang of this at meetings of the core leadership after 1941. Zhang tolerated the humiliation of Mao’s baseless attacks without defending himself. It was not until Mao once again raised the matter during a Politburo meeting in September 1943 that Zhang defended himself in “Notes on the Rectification,” which he presented to Mao to read. Zhang wrote, “It can now be largely ascertained that the claim that I incited Lin and Peng against the triumvirate was a rumor spread by Comrade ×××! (Comrades Lin and Peng have made formal statements on this matter).” The Comrade ××× to whom Zhang is referring is probably Liu Shaoqi. The relationship between Zhang and Liu had been antagonistic since the early 1930s, and there is considerable documentary evidence that Liu Shaoqi used every opportunity to express his displeasure with Zhang. During the Eleventh Plenum of the Eighth Central Committee in 1966 Hu Qiaomu exposed Liu Shaoqi’s propensity for attacking Mao by innuendo in private conversations in Yan’an, but Liu clarified that he was targeting Zhang Wentian, not Mao.

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between Liu and Zhang. Even so, Liu Shaoqi’s cable put Mao on guard, and in order to prevent Liu from fostering influence within the army, after the Huili Conference he was also transferred out of the Third Army Group. In 1935‒36, Mao’s main focus was on the first battle line with the KMT, and through his strenuous efforts, the Red Army obstructed the KMT’s assault on northern Shaanxi, notably improving the CCP’s prospects for survival. Mao’s military success was of enormous significance to his political career. For a rather long time, Mao became known within the Party mainly for his ability as a military commander; people valued him because he was well-versed in China’s traditional art of war and he could apply it flexibly to launch the Communist Base Area and to develop the Communist armed forces. The main reason Mao why was able to reemerge at the Zunyi Conference was that the Communist Army had been repeatedly thwarted and that its command had become overwhelmed with problems; both Party and army were in a state of crisis and the Politburo felt compelled to ask Mao to come forward to see if he could extricate the Party from its perilous situation. Party leaders had never associated Mao’s name with Party leadership, nor had they ever imagined that once Mao attained the position of military commander, he would never step down, or that he would swiftly expand his influence as military commander to the fields of political and Party affairs. From the time that he took on the responsibilities of military leadership, Mao’s role in both the Party and the military grew rapidly until he finally took command of both the Party and the military. This was the result of changes in the CCP leadership during the wartime environment and also the result of Mao’s special status and his unique political resources. At the same time, it was also the result of Mao’s indomitable efforts. The changes in the CCP leadership structure during wartime directly facilitated the ease with which Mao expanded his power in the military to the Party. During the Ruijin period, the CCP imitated the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) system by establishing a tripartite structure of Party, military, and government, with the Party as the core. Within these three systems, Party organs reigned supreme. Although Bo Gu was a bookish type with no understanding of military operations, the CCP Politburo and Secretariat that he headed had the military apparatus entirely under its leadership. Military leaders, such as Zhou Enlai, Zhu De, and Xiang Ying, strictly adhered to Party discipline and requested Bo Gu’s approval before engaging in any major military operations. Although Otto Braun played an extremely important role, he took no part in political

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policy making, and in military matters he likewise issued battle orders only after first reporting to Bo Gu and notifying Zhou Enlai, even though his personal opinion was typically the final one. On the eve of the Long March, with the battle situation constantly changing and increasingly critical, in order to adapt to the major tactical shifts required in wartime, the Party and government apparatus merged with the military, and all power was centralized in the “triumvirate” of Bo Gu, Otto Braun, and Zhou Enlai. The Zunyi Conference eliminated this triumvirate, but in March 1935, due to a suggestion by Mao, a “new triumvirate” of Zhou, Mao, and Wang Jiaxiang was established. This “new triumvirate” differed from the former triumvirate in that the representative of the Party, Zhang Wentian, was not included. The Zunyi Conference had originally decided that Zhou Enlai would represent the Party in military decision-making, with assistance by Mao,16 but between spring and summer of 1935, Zhou and Mao exchanged roles, as Zhou became Mao’s assistant! With Wang Jiaxiang participating little in policy making due to serious injuries, Mao effectively became the CCP’s supreme military commander. Under such strained wartime conditions, the military and the Party melded together, and once Mao settled into the key position in the military command, he was effectively in an advantageous position to take on leadership of the Party as well. As the main founder of the Communist Army and of the CCP’s largest base area, the Central Soviet Area, Mao had an extensive cadre foundation within the Central Red Army. Mao’s special relationship with the army ensured that even if he was thwarted politically, he could still exert a measure of influence over the army. Unlike the majority of Party leaders at the time, Mao was a veteran of the founding of the Party and one of the few delegates to the First Party Congress who still remained active; the duration of his experience in the Party and the depth of his foundation in the military could not be matched by anyone except Zhang Guotao among the 1935‒36 Party leaders. His status and record of service within the Party allowed Mao to put forward opinions on the Party’s overall policies and on non-military matters without being accused of exceeding his authority. It was due to a combination of the above factors that Mao was able to gradually attain the most influential and most powerful position in the leadership of the CCP in 1935 and 1936. While focusing on commanding the army against a formidable foe, Mao continued to be very concerned about the major Party policies.

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Mao did not take undue risks, but he cautiously maneuvered within the boundaries established by Moscow and made great efforts to preserve the stability of the central leadership. At the same time, he quickly seized the opportunity presented by the wartime conditions to skillfully wield his influence and special status to make systematic and cautious adjustments to the Party’s major organs: 1.) In the Party’s inner circle, Mao continued to cooperate with the Party’s “dogmatist faction,” at least nominally, and the structure of the Politburo arising from the Fourth and Fifth Plenums of the Sixth Central Committee remained unchanged (under normal circumstances, major adjustments to the Politburo would require reporting to the Comintern for permission). However, the concrete work of the cadres who had returned to China after studying in Moscow was largely limited to the Party’s propaganda apparatus and technical Party operations, as well as local operational structures. The “dogmatic faction” basically lost all influence over the military, while certain military leaders were absorbed into the Politburo and it became a matter of course for a group of key military cadres to regularly attend Politburo meetings. Mao’s first big move to expand his power in the Party came during a meeting of Party activists on December 27, 1935, when Mao, instead of Zhang Wentian, delivered the report “On Strategies Against Japanese Imperialism,” transmitting the message of the Wayaobao Conference. Additionally, it was Mao who met American journalist Edgar Snow in May 1936. 2.) Mao transferred Deng Fa,17 who had a close relationship with Zhou Enlai and a deep emotional attachment to Moscow, from his position as head of the State Political Security Bureau (SPSB) to other less important work.* He later renamed the Political Security Bureau, which had once been under the direct leadership of the Politburo but no longer existed because of the Long March, calling it the Political Security Bureau of the Front Army and appointing his secretary from the Ruijin period, *

  In the latter half of September 1935, Deng Fa received a new appointment as political commissar of the Shaanxi-Gansu Detachment’s Third Column, comprised of what were originally Central Committee organs and Red Army General Political Department organs. In November, after the numerical designation of the First Front Red Army was restored, Deng Fa was mainly responsible for arranging for the feeding of the Red Army. In April 1936, he was sent to the USSR as a representative of the Central Committee.

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Wang Shoudao, as its leader, and he revived it as an organ under his own direct jurisdiction.* 3.) Mao appointed Wang Shoudao18 to be in charge of the recently revived CCP Central Committee Secretariat and also to lead the CMC’s Confidential Section and the confidential apparatus of the former SPSB, replacing Deng Yingchao. This placed the confidential communications system of the Party, military, and covert operations, which had formerly been the responsibility of Deng Yingchao, under Mao’s unif ied management and close supervision.† 4.) Mao was profoundly aware of how extremely important control over confidential communications with Moscow would be to his political career, and beginning from the end of 1935, Mao directly controlled cable communications with Moscow and did not permit the involvement of any other leaders.19 This ensured his unparalleled advantage in terms of controlling, assessing, and using information. Mao nibbled his way into military and Party power with Zhang Wentian’s cooperation and using Zhang’s status within the Party leadership. The political alliance between Mao and Zhang that arose after the Zunyi Conference gave a cloak of legitimacy to Mao’s expansion of his own power.

*

  When the Long March began, the staff of the SPSB, with the exception of a minority of leaders who followed the top leading bodies, were all merged into the various army groups. The SPSB existed in name only, and its operational remit was significantly reduced. In October 1935, Wang Shoudao was appointed head of the SPSB’s Operations Department, and the original department head, Li Kenong, was transferred to engage in United Front work with the Northwest and Northeast armies. At the end of the year, the SPSB apparatus was formally abolished, and its work was taken over by the Front Army Political Security Bureau †   In October 1934, on the eve of the Long March, the CCP Central Committee Secretariat and the CMC Secretariat were dissolved, and their remaining work was taken up by the CMC’s Confidential Section. After the Central Committee moved to Wayaobao in northern Shaanxi in 1935, the various departments, commissions, and secretariats of the Central Committee were gradually restored, and the sole confidential organ that existed before then—the CMC Confidential Section—was split into three sections: the Central Committee Secretariat Confidential Section, the CMC Confidential Section, and the Central Social Department Confidential Section. (In fact, at the time there was actually no Central Social Department; the Central Social Department Confidential Section referred to here is the confidential apparatus originally managed by the SPSB), and Wang Shoudao was put in charge of all three of these units.

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II. From the Mao‒Zhang Wentian Alliance to the Mao‒Liu Shaoqi Alliance Established on the basis of their opposition to the original Party core “triumvirate,” the political alliance between Mao and Zhang Wentian was formed during and after the Zunyi Conference and thereafter it gradually was consolidated. In order to counter the ultra-Leftist leadership of Bo Gu and others, Mao intensified his contacts with Zhang Wentian beginning in October 1934. Under Mao’s incitement and guidance, Zhang and then Wang Jiaxiang were transformed from endorsers to critics of Central Committee policies, and they became key supporters of Mao’s demands to change the central leadership. At the Zunyi Conference, Mao encouraged Zhang to engage in face-to-face confrontations with Bo Gu and Otto Braun, giving Zhang a key role at the conference. The conference decision that Zhang draft its resolution provided Zhang with a more prominent role in the Party’s inner circle. On about February 5, 1935, the Politburo Standing Committee decided to have Zhang Wentian assume Bo Gu’s responsibilities in the Party, making Zhang the effective general secretary. This was the best arrangement the Party’s inner circle could make under the situation and conditions of the time. Zhang’s profound historical relationship with Moscow and his relatively long tenure as one of the CCP’s main leaders reduced the possibility that Moscow would feel uneasy and suspicious about the changes in the CCP leadership. It also showed the Party as a whole, in particular army and government cadres who had been more involved in Party policies and Party direction in recent years, that there was continuity in the Party line, thus minimizing reverberations from the reorganization within the Party and enhancing the Party’s unity and cohesion at a time of extreme hardship. After Zhang Wentian became the main central leader, in late spring 1935 Mao took over from Zhou Enlai the position of supreme military commander. From then on, Mao and Zhang embarked on a close political partnership, with one devoting his full energies to managing military matters and the other concentrating on Party affairs. Mao and Zhang were very different people in terms of character. Mao was a Party veteran who had been engaged in years of guerrilla warfare in the countryside. He was steeped in the culture of peasant rebellion, and he was marked by a steadiness and prudence borne of great self-confidence as well as a pronounced air of a “leader of mountain outlaws.” Zhang, on the other hand, was a typical Red Professorial-style intellectual. Before

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1935, he had not taken Mao very seriously, even though he did not have any obvious bias against him. But Mao was almost instinctually repelled by Zhang, as well as by others like him, for having been entrusted by Moscow to take over the leadership of the soviet areas based on nothing more than their rote memorization of the Marxist-Leninist doctrine. Mao felt even more antipathy toward Zhang due to his pretensions as a theorist whose steady output placed Mao under enormous psychological pressures. Although Mao had established a strategic alliance with Zhang based on opposition to Bo Gu, Mao never genuinely highly regarded Zhang. Zhang had no foundation in the military, and his political capital originated mostly in Moscow and in his political support of Mao. Therefore, Zhang was the weaker partner in a political alliance that inevitably tilted toward Mao. After the Zunyi Conference, Mao began to focus on covering up the negative aspects of his character, but as soon as his vital interests were threatened, his perverse characteristics, in particular his suspiciousness, jealousy, and wariness, immediately revealed themselves—a prime example was Mao’s performance during the Huili Conference. From Mao’s perspective, the most important result of the Mao-Zhang alliance was that his cooperation with Zhang allied Mao with members of the “dogmatist faction,” such as Bo Gu and Kai Feng, who still held positions of power in the Party organization, and allowed him to wield Party authority to defeat the divisive factionalism of his major rival, Zhang Guotao. During the several years that Mao and Zhang Wentian worked together, Zhang came to understand Mao’s character and he did his best to avoid direct conflict with Mao, repeatedly backing away from Mao’s aggression and relentless taunts.20 Zhang submitted to Mao mainly out of consideration for the CCP cause, but also because of his more generous nature as well as the totally disadvantaged position that he had created for himself. Zhang Wentian’s leadership was of a bookish and intellectual variety, and in a grim wartime environment he could only follow Mao’s lead, even though he was still unwilling to give up his last one or two positions without a fight. In his pursuit of power from the end of 1936 until early 1937, Mao became proficient in a variety of strategies that placed much of the Party’s authority in his own hands. Even so, this provided little release for Mao— Mao faced enormous difficulties in using his Way to change the direction of the CCP line and policies; under pressure from his Party colleagues, he could only stifle his dissatisfaction and grudgingly accept the assessment of the Party’s past political line.

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Formulation of “the Party’s political line is correct” was an insurmountable obstacle to Mao, not only because it came from Moscow but also because it was universally endorsed as the formal conclusion of the Zunyi Conference and it was the foundation of the political alliance between Mao and Zhang.* 21 In January 1935, with both the military crisis and his desire to return to power in a state of urgency, Mao accepted this conclusion for the sake of long-term objectives as well as practical considerations, but by 1937 he was finding it virtually impossible to sustain this conclusion. The reason why this conclusion had to be revised was that it affected Mao’s ability to implement his Way, and therefore affected his ability to open up a new vista for the political future of the Party as well as for his own political future. Without overturning that conclusion, it would be impossible to destroy the foundation of the political legitimacy of the “dogmatist faction,” and Mao would have great difficulty carrying out his plans for reforming the Party or giving status to his new ideas. Yet overturning this conclusion presented enormous difficulties; apart from external obstruction by the Comintern, the greatest obstacle within China came from Mao’s political ally, Zhang Wentian. As the leader of the CCP arising from the Fourth Plenum of the Sixth Central Committee, Zhang almost instinctively associated this assessment with his own political future; asserting that “the Party’s political line is incorrect” would directly undermine his own authority as well as that of other leading cadres and severely shake his status in the Party; for that reason, Zhang strenuously opposed any such formulation. In early 1937, the development of the Party, the political alliance between Mao and Zhang, and Mao’s line of thinking were all in a very delicate process of change. With the emergence of peace on the domestic front and a lifting of the military pressure from the KMT, an opportunity arose to resolve several major issues that could not be addressed during the wartime exigencies. At the same time, the post-Zunyi setup of Mao controlling the army and Zhang Wentian controlling the Party underwent a major change, with Zhang showing that his effectiveness was limited

*

  During the 1943 rectification, Zhang Wentian wrote in his journal, “The Zunyi Conference did not mention the Central Committee’s past errors in its political line but rather affirmed its correctness. … Comrade Mao Zedong could only do this at the time, otherwise it would have been impossible for us to cooperate.”

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to the realms of Party theory, propaganda, and education. Over the course of several years, Mao had established a tacit relationship of mutual cooperation with Zhou Enlai, whereas Bo Gu was content with his new role in the Party’s inner circle and Zhang Guotao’s defeat in the inner-Party struggle was a foregone conclusion. Now Mao was particularly aware of the difficulties Zhang Wentian was causing him. In this new spaciotemporal environment, it was becoming increasingly difficult for Mao to continue opposing his own convictions by accepting the assessment of the past political line that filled him with such revulsion. But Mao was reluctant to reveal his actual thinking before the time was ripe because such a revelation might put him in the awkward position of causing a direct confrontation with Zhang Wentian and other senior cadres. At this crucial juncture in late spring 1937, Liu Shaoqi stepped forward and challenged Zhang Wentian on the issue of the Party’s direction during the past ten years. Liu’s emergence shattered the long-term stalemate that had been oppressing the Party core and ultimately led to a political alliance between Mao and Liu. The turning point in the Mao-Liu alliance occurred due to two letters that Liu wrote to Zhang Wentian on February 20 and March 4, 1937 respectively, expressing his views on the Party’s historical problems. In these two long letters of some 10,000 words each, resembling formal political proposals, Liu boldly breached the Comintern and the Zunyi Conference conclusions that “the Party’s political line is correct” and harshly criticized the CCP’s ultra-Leftist errors before and after 1927, especially since the Fourth Plenum of the Sixth Central Committee. Liu’s letters touched on several taboos within the Central Committee at that time: 1.) Liu Shaoqi held that the main reason for the failure of the Great Revolution was not only “Right deviating Chen Duxiu-ism,” but also “the flip-side of Right deviating opportunism—‘Left deviation’ errors.”22 Using his personal experience as an example, Liu fiercely assailed the “Left deviation” fanaticism that had reached a “shocking” level during the worker and mass movements in Guangzhou and Wuhan.23 Liu strongly disagreed with the resolutions of the Comintern and the Sixth Party Congress on the subject. 2.) Although Liu did not directly declare that the political line the CCP had been following for ten years was wrong, he repeatedly attacked the CCP’s “persistent ‘Left deviation’ errors over the past ten years” and he stressed that these ten years of error had become “a tradition.” In

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particular, Liu focused his attacks on CCP policies toward operations in the KMT-controlled areas, pulling out the rug from under the ten-year political line. 3.) Liu Shaoqi demanded an open internal discussion on the Party’s last ten years and he described in detail his personal experience of being “attacked” for maintaining “correct” stands, focusing his criticism on the Politburo after the Fourth Plenum of the Sixth Central Committee. He hinted that the relevant Central Committee leaders should take responsibility for these errors and he revealed his intention to demand a reorganization of the leading organs of the Central Committee.24 There is no unambiguous historical data at present proving that Liu consulted Mao or was encouraged by Mao before sending his February 20 and March 4 letters to Zhang Wentian. However, analysis of the existing documents does not rule out this possibility. On December 29, 1935, the Standing Committee of the Central Committee sent Liu Shaoqi to serve as the Central Committee’s representative in the North China Bureau. In spring 1936, Liu and his wife, Xie Fei, took the train from Lintong, Shaanxi Province, to Tianjin, where the North China Bureau was located, arriving at the end of March. In February 1937, Liu moved with the North China Bureau to Beiping* and then at the end of April he returned to Yan’an. Although Liu did not return to northern Shaanxi at this time,25 beginning from 1936 he established cable and letter communications with northern Shaanxi while based with the North China Bureau.† The Chronology of Liu Shaoqi (1898‒1969), published in 1996, reveals that Mao sent three cables to Liu, on October 1 and December 2, 1936, and he sent Liu a letter on October 22.26 This would have provided the basic conditions for Mao and Liu to exchange views regarding the overall situation.27

*

  Liu Shaoqi’s March 4, 1937, letter to Zhang Wentian was written in Beiping, and Liu was still in Beiping until March 18. Zhou Enlai wrote to Liu Shaoqi on two occasions from Xi’an, on March 13 and March 18, and he passed the letters along to the Hebei Provincial Party Committee, requesting that Liu et al. take charge of United Front work with the Northeast Army in Beiping and Tianjin. †   When Liu Shaoqi went to Tianjin as the Central Committee’s representative in the North China Bureau, he carried the radio codebook for maintaining contact with northern Shaanxi. Guo Mingqiu, who at that time served as Liu’s cryptographer, recalls that most of the cables she coded for Liu to send to northern Shaanxi were addressed to “Luo Fu (Wentian)” or “Enlai,” and he “sometimes also sent cables directly to Chairman Mao,” using the name Hu Fu (the pseudonym by which Liu Shaoqi had long been known within the Party).

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Regardless of whether or not Mao expressed his support, Liu’s letters to the Central Committee should be considered a major move. The motivation for Liu’s decision to state his political views to Zhang Wentian was based on, first, Liu’s many years of dissatisfaction with Central Committee policies, and, second, the intense resistance by Party Leftists toward the new policies that Liu had encountered while at the North China Bureau.* Another important reason was that in 1937 the Central Committee was in the midst of adjusting its policies, and no one individual had yet established absolute political authority within it. Although Zhang Wentian was the Party leader, his power was limited and most other Party leaders were in charge of particular areas; even though Mao was on the ascendency, he was not unanimously endorsed as the sole leader.28 For this reason, Liu could write letters to Zhang Wentian without the risk of being attacked as an “anti-Party element,” as had so often occurred in the past to those who expressed their views to the Central Committee; rather, there was the possibility of winning Mao’s support. Liu clearly saw that he and Mao were of one mind on many aspects of the Party’s past ten years. Liu’s letters caused an uproar in the core leadership of the Central Committee. The Politburo met on March 23 and April 24 to discuss operational issues in the KMT-controlled areas. Zhang Wentian found Liu Shaoqi’s views completely unacceptable, and some comrades concurred with him, feeling that Liu’s analysis of the failure of the Great Revolution was an attempt to exonerate Chen Duxiu and that he was Chen’s “yesman.” Some others accused Liu of being influenced by Zhang Guotao.29 Most Politburo members felt that Liu had exaggerated the CCP’s Leftist

*

  Liu Shaoqi arrived in Tianjin as a representative of the CCP Central Committee in March 1936 and soon thereafter he also became secretary of the North China Bureau, where he assiduously corrected the bureau’s tendency toward “Leftist exclusionism.” Apart from ideological rectification, Liu’s other rectification work included reorganizing the leadership structure of the bureau, which provoked controversy within the bureau. After Liu took charge, he appointed Peng Zhen (who had worked with Liu in the Tianjin-based Provincial Party Committee in 1928) to replace Ke Qingshi as head of the Organization Department of the North China Bureau, and he appointed Chen Boda as head of its Propaganda Department. This displeased the original leaders of the North China Bureau, including Ke Qingshi. Within the Party, Liu frequently published articles referring to errors of “exclusionism and adventurism,” although Ke Qingshi and the others were not mentioned by name. These moves planted the seeds of long-time ill feelings between Ke and Liu.

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errors during the past ten years. Amidst this censure, only Mao came forward in Liu’s defense, averring that “Liu has no ambition to oppose the Central Committee.” Mao’s attitude encouraged Liu Shaoqi and emboldened him to take a further major step by openly challenging Zhang Wentian at the Central Committee’s White Area Work Conference, which was held in Yan’an from May 17 to June 10, 1937. At one point, this conference was adjourned due to the fierce arguments between Liu and Zhang, and it only resumed after Mao’s somewhat biased mediation. The first stage of the White Area Work Conference, from May 17 to May 26, focused on the intense arguments over Liu Shaoqi’s report “Regarding Party and Mass Work in the White Areas.” The main content of Liu’s report replicated the gist of his March 4 letter to Zhang Wentian, with an emphasis on criticizing the “Leftist” tradition in the Party’s leadership of operations in the KMT-controlled areas. Liu’s report produced intense reverberations, with Zhang Wentian, Bo Gu, Kai Feng, Chen Geng, and others stating that they found it difficult to accept Liu’s views and that his criticism was full of Trotsky-Chen Liquidationist Faction attacks on the Comintern and on the CCP’s arguments.30 During a speech, Ke Qingshi pointed at Liu’s nose and berated him as a “Rightist.”31 Many delegates objected to Liu’s view that operations in the White areas had experienced “almost a 100 percent loss,”* and they disagreed with his overall assessment of White area work, insisting that the “general line” of the Party’s White area operations since the Fourth Plenum of the Sixth Central Committee was “correct.”32

*

  The representatives attending the White Area Work Conference were mainly the heads of the Party organization in Beiping, Tianjin, Hebei, Henan, Shandong, and Suiyuan under the North China Bureau, as well as those from Guangdong—a total of thirty people. Peng Zhen was head of the North China Bureau delegation and he assisted Liu Shaoqi in directing the meeting. The representatives from the North China Bureau included Ke Qingshi, Gao Wenhua (formerly secretary of the Hebei Provincial Party Committee and also formerly secretary of the North China Bureau), Wu De, Li Chang, Li Xuefeng, Li Yu, and Wu Lanfu. According to Li Yu, who in May 1936 was appointed secretary of the Shandong Provincial Party Committee, Liu Shaoqi’s report “gave urgency and prominence to ‘Leftist’ errors.” His reference to the “100 percent loss in the White areas” was “rather excessive,” because “the large number of representatives of Party organizations from the north indicated that losses in the White areas were not 100 percent.” Li Yu’s views were typical of some of the representatives attending the meeting.

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The intensity of the disputes during the conference led the Secretariat of the Central Committee to suspend the meeting. The Politburo held a meeting from June 1‒4 to discuss some basic issues raised during the White Area Work Conference. Bo Gu and Kei Feng denied Liu Shaoqi’s allegations of a tradition of “Left deviation putschism” and “exclusionism” in White area operations, and only Peng Zhen, attending the meeting in a non-voting capacity, expressed support for Liu’s views.33 When the situation became clearly disadvantageous to Liu, Mao extended a helping hand in the nick of time by delivering an important speech in support of Liu at a Politburo meeting held on June 3. Reversing his avoidance of the Liu-Zhang dispute only a short time earlier, Mao explicitly stated that Liu’s report was “fundamentally correct.” He praised Liu for having “abundant experience” in the KMT-controlled areas and stated that Liu’s systematic diagnosis of the Party’s problems in this area was right on target. Mao even praised Liu as “having seldom failed in his life; the Party has few cadres of his experience today, and he understands the dialectics of practical operations.”34 Avoiding the topic of the Party’s political direction during the past ten years, Mao picked up on the opposition faction’s accusations that Liu talked only about faults and not about accomplishments, and Mao first spoke of the CCP’s “great accomplishments.” After discussing the Party’s outstanding traditions, he stressed that within the Party “there still exists a certain wrong tradition,” which, he emphasized, “is a fact that cannot and should not be denied.” Mao thus comprehensively affirmed Liu Shaoqi’s viewpoint and effectively supported Liu in his dispute with Zhang.35 Because Mao’s remarks avoided the sensitive and divisive topic of whether or not the Party had a ten-year history of Leftist errors in its guiding policies toward operations in the White areas, his views were unanimously endorsed, even by Zhang Wentian, and became the main emphasis for the next stage of the White Area Work Conference. The conference resumed on June 6. Zhang Wentian purposely watered down the tendentiousness of Mao’s June 3 remarks and latched onto Mao’s comments that were advantageous to him and that supported his views.36 Based on his understanding of the gist of the June 1‒4 Politburo meetings, Zhang represented the Central Committee in delivering a report on “The Party’s Core Tasks in the White Areas.” Zhang emphasized that “it was impossible to avoid some errors in actual practice” and that the errors the CCP had committed in the KMT-controlled areas “were not the result of any particular political line or political inclination ... but rather were

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strategic errors sometimes committed while leading struggle.” They were “merely piecemeal errors within the overall strategy of leading the masses and in mass work methods, and not errors of the entire leadership.” The Party’s “guiding principle of resolute leadership is entirely correct.” Zhang Wentian firmly rebutted Liu Shaoqi’s criticism of the Central Committee’s opposition to “legalism” in their White area work; he insisted that “the Party’s past struggle against legalism was correct,” and he emphasized that “all past unlawful struggle was necessary and correct, and the main struggle methods of the past could only be unlawful.” Zhang Wentian did not fail to insinuate that Liu Shaoqi was like Russia’s Georgi Plekhanov in “judging the value of the revolutionary struggle on the basis of each victory and success” and that Liu regarded failed struggles as “meaningless” or “jeered at them for being carried out through ‘putschism.’” He criticized Liu Shaoqi for “failing to see that every revolutionary struggle of the revolutionary masses, even if resulting in failure, still had enormous significance.” Zhang also criticized Liu for treating “exclusionism” and “adventurism” as “iron whips” to categorically deny the CCP’s accomplishments in the KMTcontrolled areas, and he emphasized: “Every success or failure must be followed by a detailed study of its experiences and lessons, and simplistic empty labels (such as putschism, adventurism, and opportunism) should not be a substitute for concrete analysis of the most concrete issues.” He said: “There should be an appropriate appraisal of all incorrect thinking, not exaggeration or minimization or arbitrarily ‘putting big hats’ on comrades.”* 37 Zhang Wentian’s report won the unanimous support of all in attendance, and Liu Shaoqi, finding himself at a temporary disadvantage, was compelled to retreat. On June 9 and 10, Liu delivered the concluding report of the conference and expressed his agreement with Zhang Wentian’s report, while also explaining and criticizing his own earlier report: “The report I delivered at the conference emphasized criticism of ‘Left deviation exclusionism and adventurism,’ but it did not negate everything from the past because it was mainly criticizing the erroneous aspects and did not touch on other aspects; it lacked concrete analysis of some issues and was excessively critical in some places.”38 On the eve of China’s full-scale resistance against Japan in June 1937,

*

  TN: The term to “put a big hat” on someone means to stigmatize that person.

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Liu Shaoqi and Zhang Wentian’s debate over assessment of the Party’s most recent ten years and its work in the KMT-controlled areas did not reach any substantive results, and Liu was temporarily frustrated in his attempt to change the assessment of the Party’s ten-year political line through discussion of the Party’s past problems. Even so, this dispute between Liu and Zhang had a profound effect on the CCP; as a brief attack on the “dogmatist faction,” it served as a prelude to the Yan’an Rectification Movement and created the environment for Mao and Liu’s subsequent all-out criticism of the political line of the Fourth Plenum and for their joint effort to unseat Wang Ming. Mao gained rich experience from this controversy, finally realizing that the influence of the Party’s dogmatist faction was not going to be eliminated overnight. Defeating the dogmatist faction would require not only meticulous and in-depth theoretical preparation but also painstaking organizational arrangements. Another result of the Liu-Zhang dispute was the expansion of Liu’s influence and profile within the Party. Although a Party veteran, Liu’s long-term engagement in the White areas and his responsibility for leading the Executive Department of the All-China Federation of Trade Unions during the two-year Jiangxi period had prevented his substantial participation in major military and political policy decisions. Liu’s relationship with key political leaders, such as Zhou Enlai and Zhang Wentian, was also somewhat distant, so for a period of time he had little influence in the Party or the army. The debate with Zhang Wentian highlighted the depth of Liu’s thinking and his theoretical proficiency, and it gave the Party, in particular its senior leaders, a new appreciation of Liu. Mao’s attitude toward the Liu-Zhang dispute was both explicit and subtle. At first, Mao stayed out of the dispute but he made it clear that he sympathized with Liu, hoping that Liu’s views would win acceptance by the leadership of the Central Committee. Later, afraid that Liu would not be able to withstand the enormous pressure from Zhang and the other Party veterans, at the June 3 Politburo meeting Mao delivered a speech expressing crucial support for Liu. When he saw that Liu’s opinions met with widespread opposition, however, Mao decided to take the long view. In this debate, Mao discovered Liu’s outstanding abilities: first, his rich experience in the KMT-controlled areas, and second, his theoretical skills. Liu was even able to offer a scintillating analysis of the ten-year tradition of Leftism and point out that one of its roots was “errors in the mode of thinking and philosophical methodology,” i.e., “formal logic,” as the “root

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of many errors.” This was novel to Mao, but he did not place all his hopes in Liu because the time was not yet ripe. At this point, Mao preferred to serve as the ultimate arbitrator in Party disputes. Because the impasse had been broken and the lid had been lifted off the contradictions, and because Zhang Wentian had been intensely shaken, whereas Mao’s own credibility had been enhanced by the compromising and mediating attitude he had taken in the dispute, his next goal was to join forces with Zhang Wentian. In order to prevent Zhang from resuming his alliance with Wang Ming, who was about to return to China, Mao had to accelerate his plan to “splinter the political organization of the dogmatist faction”; preserving and strengthening his cooperation with Zhang Wentian was therefore both necessary and feasible. With these considerations in mind, after the conclusion of the White Area Work Conference Liu Shaoqi was not immediately promoted to the Central Committee Secretariat (Standing Committee), and on July 28 he was sent to Taiyuan to continue to serve as CCP secretary of the North China Bureau, which had moved to Taiyuan from Beiping. Although Liu Shaoqi had left the hub of power, the Mao-Zhang alliance began to dissolve at this point, and the Mao-Liu political alliance that was to last thirty years was basically cemented due to this dispute. Mao’s alliances with both Liu and Zhang were political, but there were striking differences between them. First, the Mao-Zhang alliance was a provisional union brought about by the extraordinary wartime circumstances in early 1935, when common political objectives led Mao and Zhang to set aside their previous political differences and to join forces. The Mao-Liu alliance was also political, but there was no divergence between their political views, and it was mutual dissatisfaction with the political line and the leadership of the Central Committee that brought the two men together. As early as 1932, Mao and Liu had exchanged views on this matter* and had reached a consensus.

*

  Zhang Qiong, who engaged in secret operations with Liu Shaoqi from autumn 1931 to the end of 1932 and who throughout that time lived with Liu and his wife, recalls that at the end of 1932 Liu wrote a letter to Mao regarding strategic issues in White Area operations and he criticized the CCP Central Committee’s Left deviation errors. Not long thereafter, Mao penned a “very long written reply” to the Central Committee, stating his agreement with the solid viewpoints put forward by Liu.

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Compared with the Mao-Zhang alliance, the Mao-Liu alliance had a deeper ideological foundation.39 Second, Mao and Zhang did not share a long history, whereas Mao and Liu were both natives of Hunan and had worked together closely in 1922. Third, the Mao-Zhang alliance was an equal cooperation between two political figures of similar status, but in 1937 Liu’s status and influence within the Party were greatly inferior to those of Mao and Zhang. For that reason, Mao was the nucleus and Liu was the wingman in the Mao-Liu alliance; it was not a partnership of equals. These characteristics of the Mao-Liu alliance ensured that Mao could count on Liu’s full support in his subsequent challenges to the dogmatist faction. The alliance also indicated that the two-year cooperation, arising from the Fourth Plenum of the Sixth Central Committee, that Mao had maintained was drawing to a close. Yet history seldom proceeds in a straight line. Even amidst the triumphs of 1937, bad news intruded on Mao: The head of the CCP’s delegation to the Comintern, Wang Ming, was about to return to China with new guiding principles from Moscow. Just as Mao was gearing up for adjustments to the CCP’s major direction and policies, he was confronted by his nemesis and was about to face his worst political crisis since 1935.

III. Wang Ming’s Understanding of Mao, 1931‒35 After the Zunyi Conference, Mao gained increasing control over the Communist Army and greatly enhanced his influence within the Central Committee organs. For a long time, however, Mao was unable to expand his power to another component of the central leadership—the Party’s delegation in Moscow. The CCP delegation to the Comintern, led by Politburo member Wang Ming, enjoyed an enormous legal and spiritual advantage and towering prestige within the Party; Mao had no choice but to cooperate with Wang Ming, a man whom he had never met. The Wang Ming‒led delegation, sent to Moscow by the Fourth Plenum of the Sixth Central Committee, consisted of four Politburo members: Wang Ming, who arrived in Moscow on November 7, 1931; Kang Sheng, a Politburo member from the Fifth Plenum who arrived in Moscow in spring 1933; and Chen Yun, also from the Fifth Plenum Politburo, who arrived in Moscow in August 1935. Although the fourth

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member, Chen Yu, with a worker background, was appointed to the Politburo during the Fourth Plenum, he lacked political credibility due to his participation in the “Luo Zhanglong faction”* at the end of 1930. He was sent to work at the Stalingrad Tractor Factory as punishment and did not take part in the actual work of the delegation. Apart from these four Politburo members, the delegation also included Wu Yuzhang, Li Lisan, Lin Yuying, Rao Shushi, and Zhao Yimin, as well as representatives of the Chinese soviet areas, Gao Zili, Teng Daiyuan, and a White area representative, Kong Yuan, who were sent to the USSR in 1933‒35. Members of the Chinese delegation also served as China’s representatives in various Red organizations in Moscow: Huang Yaomian and Rao Shushi served consecutively as representatives of the Chinese Communist Youth League in the Young Communist International, and Lin Yuying served as China’s representative in the Red International of Labor Unions (Profintern). The CCP’s delegation to the Comintern assembled the CCP’s most impressive lineup of leaders outside of the Chinese soviet areas. The period when the Wang Ming‒led delegation was in Moscow was exactly when the CCP’s central leadership organs were moving to the Jiangxi Soviet Area and when the Comintern was fermenting an international United Front against fascism; preserving communications channels with China therefore became one of the delegation’s most important activities. The CCP delegation maintained close contacts with the CCP Central Committee through two main channels: 1.) High-power secret radio transmitters. The CCP delegation used the Comintern’s transceivers and the CCP Central Committee’s underground transceivers in Shanghai, as well as the underground transceiver of the Comintern’s Far Eastern Bureau, to maintain regular secret contacts. Due to the distance involved and the technical limitations, Moscow had no direct radio contact with Ruijin and had to pass messages through its secret transceiver in Shanghai. The Far Eastern Bureau and the Central Committee in Shanghai (including the Shanghai Central Bureau

*

  TN: Luo Zhanglong and others were expelled from the Party in January 1931 after they voiced objections to the Party line around the time of the Fourth Plenum and they began planning for a separate Party organization with its own slate of candidates for the Central Committee.

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established after the Central Committee moved to Jiangxi) each had their own secret radio transceivers, and the cables the Far Eastern Bureau sent to Ruijin had to be translated and transmitted through the underground transceiver of the Central Committee in Shanghai. The delegation lost radio contact with China during the Red Army’s Long March. At the end of 1935, Lin Yuying secretly carried a codebook from the USSR to Shaanxi, after which rudimentary communications between Moscow and China were resumed, and after Liu Changsheng carried another codebook to northern Shaanxi in 1936, radio communications between the Central Committee and the CCP delegation were fully restored. 2.) Secret messages by courier. The CCP delegation made use of CCP members returning to China to transmit important information to Party leaders in China. Hu Yuzhi, a prominent journalist and underground Party member who openly visited the USSR in 1933, was among those who carried messages between the Central Committee and the CCP delegation in Moscow. The Comintern also drew on the assistance of CCP organizations within China to enlist Party members to gather intelligence. These CCP members, under direct instructions from Moscow, sometimes also carried communications between Moscow and the CCP Central Committee in Shanghai.* 40 The CCP delegation in Moscow was an agency of the CCP Central Committee. According to the Party’s organizational principles, the delegation’s main task was to serve as a bridge between Moscow and the CCP by representing the CCP in contacts with the Comintern and transmitting Moscow’s instructions to the CCP. Another responsibility of the delegation was to provide leadership to Party members studying or working in the Soviet Union. From November 1931, when Wang Ming arrived in Moscow, until the end of 1937, when he returned to Yan’an, the activities of the CCP delegation in Moscow mainly focused on the following areas: 1.) Carrying out large-scale propaganda in the Comintern regarding the

*

  The Comintern’s Far East Intelligence Bureau was secretly established in Shanghai in the early 1930s, and for a time it was managed by the famous Soviet spy Richard Sorge. In 1932 and 1933, Sorge was active in Beijing and Nanjing. After Sorge went to Japan, the Far East Intelligence Bureau was run by another foreigner, known in Chinese as Hua Erdun. The KMT uncovered the Far East Intelligence Bureau in the spring of 1935.

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CCP and the Chinese Workers and Peasants Red Army. After Wang Ming arrived in Moscow, in his capacity as a member of the Comintern Executive Committee and head of the CCP delegation, he regularly published articles in the Comintern’s official magazine, Communist International, and in the AllUnion Communist Party (Bolshevik) publication, The Bolshevik, publicizing the CCP’s positions and describing conditions in the Chinese soviet areas. In 1932 Wang Ming appointed Xiao San, in his capacity as a poet, to attend a rally of the International League of Revolutionary Writers held in Kharkov in order to make contact with famous Leftist writers, such as Gorky and Barbusse, and to expand CCP influence. In 1935 Wang Ming sent Wu Yuzhang, Rao Shushi, and others to Paris to establish the CCP newspaper China Salvation Daily (later renamed China Salvation Times). Wang Ming took advantage of his Comintern responsibilities overseeing the Latin American Communist parties to direct the CCP branch within the Communist Party USA and to establish Chinese publications in the United States. 2.) To provide leadership to CCP members in the Soviet Union. In the 1930s there were still many CCP members in the USSR, dispersed among Moscow’s Lenin School and the Chinese Section of the Overseas Workers Publishing House and other organizations. There were also CCP members working in Soviet work-units in the Far East. Because many CCP members in the Soviet Union were also members of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU), the CCP delegation was only able to lead the CCP members in Moscow; those outside of Moscow were largely left to management by the CPSU. 3.) Coordinating with CPSU purges to rigorously eliminate counterrevolutionaries among Moscow’s CCP members. When he was studying at Moscow’s Sun Yat-sen University from 1927 to 1929, Wang Ming covertly collaborated with the university’s president, Pavel Mif, and the Soviet secret police to imprison Chinese students who maintained dissenting views, some of whom were sent to Siberia or the Arctic region for labor reform.41 In the early 1930s, Stalin began a mass suppression of Chinese in the Soviet Union, and many Chinese businessmen in Moscow were arrested, exiled, or executed. The Chinese-owned businesses that had sprung up and flourished after the launch of the “New Economic Policy” immediately vanished, and the situation for Chinese in the USSR deteriorated daily.42 Suppression in the Far East regions was even more brutal, with many anti-Japanese guerrilla fighters who had crossed the Soviet border from Northeast China sent to labor camps as “Japanese

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spies.”43 Following the assassination of Sergei Kirov in 1934, a new purge was launched, as Wang Ming and Kang Sheng remained in lockstep, carrying out similar campaigns among CCP members in Moscow. CCP delegation members Yang Zhihua (Qu Qiubai’s wife), Zeng Yongquan, and Kong Yuan were among those who came under attack.44 4.) Rescuing the West Route Army. In early 1937 the CCP delegation obtained substantial military aid from the Comintern for the West Route Army, which was preparing to enter Xinjiang. The aid included some 50,000 rifles, 100 machine guns, and dozens of cannons. Chen Yun, Teng Daiyuan, Feng Xuan, Duan Zijun, and Li Chuntian escorted this shipment of arms to Alma-Ata (now Almaty in Kazakhstan) and awaited news of the West Route Army, but the mission was a complete failure and eventually was aborted.45 Apart from the above responsibilities, the CCP delegation also engaged in another special task, which was to direct the Manchurian Provincial Party Committee of the CCP. After 1932, with the Japanese occupying the three eastern provinces, the Manchurian Provincial Party Committee no longer had regular contacts with the Central Committee in Shanghai, and therefore it came under the direct leadership of the CCP delegation to the Comintern. Wang Ming and the others repeatedly issued directives to the Manchurian Provincial Party Committee and covertly sent people into northeastern China. On several occasions, the Manchurian Provincial Party Committee and the Anti-Japanese United Forces also sent people to report to the delegation in Moscow. Leadership by the CCP delegation of the Manchurian Provincial Party Committee was an exception under special circumstances—it was much easier for Manchuria to communicate with Moscow than with Shanghai. According to the CCP’s organizational principles, the CCP delegation to Moscow had no power to interfere in domestic Party affairs, but in reality the delegation under Wang Ming’s leadership had genuine influence over Party leaders in China. The reason why Wang Ming was so influential within China was mainly because of his experience with the Comintern and his political superiority at that time within the Party’s domestic leadership. Wang Ming was a Chinese leader who enjoyed Stalin’s trust and who rose to power through the Comintern. In January 1931, under the forcibly imposed arrangements of Comintern delegate and former president of Moscow’s Sun Yat-sen University, Pavel Mif, the Fourth Plenum of the Sixth CCP Central Committee made Wang Ming a Politburo member

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and then sent him to the Soviet Union as head of the CCP delegation to the Comintern. He was soon appointed a member of the Comintern’s Executive Committee and alternate secretary of the Political Secretariat as well as deputy director and then director of the Far Eastern Bureau; as a result, he was generally recognized as a representative of the “Comintern line.” Wang Ming was both a CCP delegate and an embodiment of the Comintern, and he wielded this dual identity when expressing his personal views to the Comintern’s subsidiary branch, the CCP. Wang Ming had allies in China, and when Bo Gu, Wang Jiaxiang, and others became the heroes of the opposition to the “Lisan Line” during the Fourth Plenum of the Sixth Central Committee, they joined Wang Ming in the CCP’s inner circle. Zhang Wentian, who subsequently returned to China, also belonged to Wang Ming and Bo Gu’s political clique. After Wang Ming arrived in the Soviet Union, Bo Gu et al. became the top leaders of the CCP, and their relationship with Wang Ming was a political alliance based on shared interests and purpose and mutual benefit. The Fourth Plenum, which Moscow had single-handedly managed and which it had praised glowingly as “the beginning of Chinese Communist Bolshevism,” became the sole legal basis for Wang Ming, Bo Gu, and their cohort to lead the CCP. Wang Ming became the spiritual leader of those who came to power during the Fourth Plenum, and he had undeniable influence over Bo Gu and the others in China. Was Wang Ming actually running the CCP Central Committee by remote control from Moscow? Based on currently available documents, Wang Ming and the delegation did not directly intervene in specific activities in China, but Wang Ming did sometimes express his personal views to Jiangxi on major policies. From 1931 to 1935, Wang Ming shared the views of the Central Committee on some issues but not on others. Divisions arose between Wang Ming and CCP leaders inside China when Wang seized on new Comintern strategies and policies to make policy suggestions for China, whereas Bo Gu and other domestic leaders insisted on maintaining the existing line and would not agree with his suggested adjustments. While in Moscow, Wang Ming maintained a consistently supportive attitude toward his allies in China, but for a long time he was dismissive and indifferent toward Mao. From his Comintern rostrum, Wang Ming praised the post‒Fourth Plenum Central Committee as “100 percent faithful to the Comintern general line.” Speaking at the Twelfth Plenum of the Comintern Executive Committee on March 31, 1932, Wang Ming declared:

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At this plenum of the Comintern Executive Committee, the CCP delegation has the privilege of joyfully telling all of our fraternal parties: Under the leadership of the Bolshevik Central Committee, our Party has achieved a unity and unanimity unprecedented in the thirteen-year history of its existence.46 Wang Ming’s full support for the CCP Central Committee contrasted sharply with his rejection of Mao. According to recollections by Chen Xiuliang, who had studied with Wang at Sun Yat-sen University, back in 1928 Wang had spread word that “Marxism-Leninism cannot come out of gullies.”47 In October 1932, the Central Bureau of the Soviet Area convened its Ningdu Conference, during which Mao was stripped of his military command and his military stands were criticized for “Right deviation” and “conservatism.” Later, in Shanghai, Bo Gu and Zhang Wentian quickly reported to the Comintern, and just as quickly Wang Ming echoed the views of Bo and Zhang from the Comintern rostrum. Quoting Bo Gu and Zhang Wentian almost word for word, Wang criticized “elements within the Party who express pessimistic, disappointed, and negative sentiments and views regarding the KMT military encirclement and the imperialists’ increasingly pressing and open military intervention in the soviet revolution,” and he expressed firm support for “the Party under the leadership of the Central Committee” in its struggle against “the greatest danger at the present stage—Right deviating tendencies.”48 Wang Ming’s unanimity with Bo Gu gradually changed in 1932, as Wang began to part ways with the Central Committee on a series of major issues. With the agreement of the head of the Comintern’s Far Eastern Bureau, Pavel Mif, Wang Ming sent a cable to the Central Committee, in the name of the Comintern, recommending adjustments to CCP policies on land, rich peasants, industry, and labor, only to be rebuffed by Bo Gu and the others. In March 1932, Wang Ming published an article in which, for the first time, he openly criticized CCP land policies and blamed the Chinese Soviet Areas for “frequently and continuously (even up to three or four times per year) re-dividing land that the basic peasant masses have already distributed,” writing that this was a “tendency that appeared ‘Leftist’ on the face of it, but was in fact extremely pernicious.” Wang Ming further pointed out that “an improper concern for middle peasants” was the “most serious weakness and error” of the Central Committee.49 In January 1933, Wang Ming went a step further in criticizing the Chinese Soviet areas’ policy of confiscating all land from the rich peasants.

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Wang Ming pointed out that adopting this “Leftist” standpoint was blurring the stages of the revolution by “assuming that the bourgeois democratic revolution in the soviet areas has already changed into a socialist revolution.” Wang Ming harshly criticized the Central Soviet Area for severely damaging its economy by prohibiting free trade, and he explicitly demanded a correction of the “Leftist” views behind these policies and the formulation of flexible economic policies that reflected regional differences.50 Bo Gu completely ignored these views in far-off Moscow; contrary to common assumptions, Bo Gu did not slavishly follow Wang Ming on all issues. At the time, Bo Gu was still young and, as the top man in the Central Soviet Area, he faced an increasingly grim situation. He adhered even more steadfastly to the original rigid policies. Zhang Wentian had already questioned Bo Gu’s position in the soviet areas51 and now even Wang Ming was criticizing him, but Bo Gu pushed back. Just as Bo Gu’s rigid stand was piquing Wang Ming’s intense resentment, Wang Ming’s attitude toward Mao was changing from indifferent to impassioned. The shift in Wang Ming’s attitude toward Mao occurred in about 1934. In the immediately preceding years, Wang had completely supported Bo Gu and the others in “criticizing” and “helping” Mao. Wang felt confident about his status within the Party and, lacking a full understanding of Mao’s importance, he did not yet consider him a political rival. At this stage, Wang slighted and ignored Mao, but there is no factual basis for believing that Wang was incessantly scheming in Moscow to harm Mao out of a personal motivation to fend him off. However, beginning from 1934, as Wang became increasingly displeased with Bo Gu, he began to use his Comintern platform to promote Mao’s contributions to the CCP. From the latter half of 1933 to the spring of 1934, Wang Ming made several attempts to visit the Central Soviet Area,* but when the operator of the secret radio transmitter in Shanghai, who was aware of Wang’s

*

  Sheng Yue [Sheng Zhongliang], who served as secretary of the CCP’s Central Bureau in Shanghai from 1934 to 1935, recalls that, from the latter half of 1933 until the spring of 1934, the Comintern sent several cables demanding speedier preparations for a Hong Kong‒Shantou‒western Fujian secret channel that would allow Wang Ming to reach the Central Soviet Area. On two occasions, the Central Bureau sent people to Hong Kong to make the necessary arrangements, but when the operator of Shanghai’s underground radio station was arrested by the KMT, plans for Wang Ming to return to China were ultimately scrapped.

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intention to return to China, was arrested by the KMT, Wang was forced to cancel his plans.52 In order to repair the political damage due to his long-term removal from the arduous struggle in China, Wang extended a helping hand to the criticized and disenfranchised Mao, not only in hopes of expanding his own influence in the Party’s inner circle but also to put himself in the advantageous position of arbiter in the inner-party struggle. It was for these reasons that, beginning in April 1934, Wang Ming made a series of gestures aimed to establish favorable relations with Mao. In a letter to the Politburo on April 20, 1934, Wang Ming and Kang Sheng criticized the Central Committee for “failings too grave to overlook” on a series of major issues, such as the launch of an “anti‒Luo Ming Line” campaign targeting Mao in the soviet areas.* The letter stated: [The Central Committee Politburo] 1.) often levels excessive and exaggerated criticism at flaws and errors as line errors. ... There is not a single major provincial Party committee in the White area or a single mass organization under the direct leadership of the Central Committee that has not been accused of serious or intolerable errors of opportunism, bureaucratism, or double-dealing ... there is absolutely no reason to say that the line of the leading organ is always correct, whereas the lines of all led organs are all incorrect; this kind of excessive and exaggerated criticism does not suit the reality, with inevitably undesirable results ...; 2.) is not always strategic regarding methods of internal Party struggle. For example, some comrades, in essays opposing the Luo Ming Line in the Central Soviet Area objectively attribute all errors to the Luo Ming Line, even political or personal errors that are not necessarily linked to the Luo Ming Line. Objectively, this has not isolated Luo Ming but rather has unnecessarily exacerbated disputes and difficulties in the struggle.53 Although Wang Ming and Kang Sheng did not completely negate the struggle against the Luo Ming Line, this letter brought an end to the yearlong campaign.

*

  TN: This campaign, which was launched in 1933 in Fujian and then spread to Jiangxi, targeted not only Luo Ming but eventually also Mao’s brother, Mao Zetan, as well as Deng Xiaoping, Xie Weijun, Bo Gu, Deng Zihui, and Xiao Jinguang, and directly criticized Mao’s strategies at the time.

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On August 3, 1934, Wang Ming and Kang Sheng wrote a long letter to the Politburo regarding the “Political Resolution” passed by the Fifth Plenum of the Sixth Central Committee on January 18. In their letter, Wang Ming and Kang Sheng pointed out “problems” in the Politburo’s handling of three major issues, including its assessment of the political significance of the campaign against the fifth encirclement, its plan to expand the Red Army to one million troops, and its interpretation of “first gain a victory in one or several provinces,” and they stated that these problems “could easily give rise to incorrect conclusions.”54 What is most ironic is that during the Yan’an Rectification Movement Wang Ming’s criticisms of Bo Gu were not only not acknowledged but also Bo Gu’s problems were attributed to Wang Ming. Wang Ming’s critical views of the Politburo were accepted almost wholesale by Mao at that time, but during the rectification, they were turned into weapons against Wang Ming. Wang Ming and Kang Sheng wrote another letter to the Politburo on September 16, 1934. This was probably the Central Committee’s last longdistance message before its major shift. After transmitting the Comintern’s instructions regarding preparations to convene the Seventh CCP Congress and regarding the problems in the Northwest, Wang Ming mentioned the Comintern’s publication of a collection of essays by Mao: Comrade Mao Zedong’s report [referring to Mao’s report at the Second National Soviet Congress] has been published in Chinese with a silk cover, a gold-printed title, and glazed paper, extremely attractive; no Chinese publishers have such lovely books. Published simultaneously with this report is a collection of three of Comrade Mao Zedong’s essays (we only have three of them here) in a small volume, under the title Economic Construction and the Land Investigation Campaign, which will be extremely useful.55 Subsequently, with the assistance of the CCP delegation, the Comintern also published a book entitled China’s Second National Soviet Congress, which included Mao’s report to the congress. It was translated into Russian, English, German, and Japanese for international distribution. Throughout the 1930s, Wang Ming and Mao were the only CCP leaders who were able to have collections of their writings published in the Soviet Union. On October 10, 1934, soon after Wang Ming and Kang Sheng’s September 16 letter, the CCP Central Committee and the Soviet Govern-

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ment, along with 86,000 Red Army troops, began their withdrawal from the Central Soviet Area. Wang Ming knew in advance of this decision. In May 1934, after the Central Soviet Area’s key strategic military base at Guangchang was captured by the KMT, the Central Committee Secretariat convened a meeting in Ruijin and decided to withdraw its main forces from Jiangxi and to carry out a strategic shift, and it reported this decision to the Comintern for its approval.56 After the Comintern sent a reply cable approving the move, the Central Committee Secretariat set up a “triumvirate” of Bo Gu, Zhou Enlai, and Otto Braun to take charge of all preparations for the strategic shift. When the Red Army embarked on its Long March in early October 1934, telegraph communications between Ruijin and Moscow were terminated and Wang Ming in Moscow did not learn that the Long March had begun until he read a November 14 dispatch by a Japanese news service in Shanghai. Under these circumstances, Wang Ming’s criticism of the CCP Central Committee intensified. In early November 1934, Wang Ming delivered a report on “six battles and the Red Army’s strategy” to all staff of the Chinese Section of Moscow’s Overseas Workers Publishing House, and on November 14 he drafted a letter to the CCP Central Committee (which was never actually sent to the Central Committee because the Long March had already begun). Wang Ming’s report and letter both mentioned the Central Committee’s error of overlooking the “new characteristics” of the domestic situation, in particular its “many errors and weaknesses” on military issues. Wang Ming also criticized the Central Committee’s handling of the Fujian Incident and declared that refusal to assist the Nineteenth Route Army had ultimately resulted in the failure of the Fujian People’s Government, which in turn made it much more difficult for the Red Army to break through Chiang Kai-shek’s encirclement. Against the background of the Red Army’s withdrawal from the Jiangxi Soviet Area, Wang Ming’s criticism of the Central Committee was closely related to the crisis that had already taken shape and it was also a logical development of the divisions that had evolved among Wang, Bo Gu, and the others on a number of issues. It was quite some time before Wang Ming learned of the Zunyi Conference, which was held in January 1935 during the middle of the Long March (it was not until Chen Yun and company arrived in Moscow on August 20, 1935, that Wang learned the details of the conference). Wang expended great efforts to restore radio communications with the Central

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Committee during the Long March. In spring 1935, Wang Ming sent Li Lisan, Duan Zijun, and a Polish radio technician to Alma-Ata in Central Asia, and Li Lisan sent two groups of people with radio codebooks through Xinjiang to locate the Red Army, but they were unsuccessful.57 At that time, Wang Ming did not know that Bo Gu had already fallen and that Mao was again on the ascent, but on major occasions, he continued to express his respect for Mao. Representing the CCP at the Comintern’s Seventh Congress on August 7, 1935, Wang presented a report on the situation of the Chinese Revolution and the Party’s tasks. His report listed thirteen CCP leaders whom he described as “Party leaders and national talent.”* Mao’s was the first name on this list, whereas Bo Gu placed twelfth.58 The evolution of Wang Ming’s understanding of and attitude toward Mao from 1931 to 1935 shows that it was closely related to the widening chasm between Wang and Bo Gu. After 1932, influenced by the adjustments in the Comintern’s policies, Wang Ming’s original ultraLeftist thinking underwent an obvious change, whereas Bo Gu, closed off from information back in China and more rigid in his thinking, continued to adhere to the Comintern’s former policies. With his growing maturity and experience, Wang Ming gained a greater understanding of the complex relationships in the Party’s top leadership. As a result, improving and strengthening relations with Mao in China became one of Wang’s main activities in Moscow in 1934. Wang Ming believed he occupied an irreplaceable position within the Party, and he was prepared to cooperate with Mao and the other leaders.

IV. Mao’s Differences with Moscow on “Opposing Chiang and Resisting Japan” Politburo member Chen Yun left the Long March under orders in March 1935 and arrived in Shanghai in May. After taking some time to recover, Chen met up with Chen Tanqiu, Yang Zhihua, and He Shishan. Through secret arrangements by the Comintern’s Far Eastern Bureau, Chen and the three others then took a Soviet freighter to Vladivostok and arrived

*

  After Wang Ming returned to China in 1937, he revised the original text of this report, and among the CCP leaders included in the “Party leaders and national talent” he added Dong Biwu and Xu Teli, and he moved Bo Gu up from twelfth on the list to fifth.

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in Moscow on August 20, just in time to represent the CCP at the closing ceremony of the Comintern’s Seventh Congress. The representative of the Shanghai Central Bureau in the North, Kong Yuan, and a key Central Bureau cadre and former Central Funding Committee member, Liu Zuofu (nicknamed Chen Gang), had arrived in Moscow prior to Chen Yun. It was from Chen Yun that Wang Ming first learned about the details of the Long March and the Zunyi Conference. From that time onward, Wang and Mao embarked on an intricate and complex relationship that lasted ten years. Mao’s and Wang’s divergent views on the United Front issue always occupied a prominent place and eventually sparked an open conflict between them. Following the September 18, 1931, Mukden Incident, the Central Committee pursued the Comintern’s policy of exclusionism, which called for establishing a lower-level United Front for “armed support of the Soviet Union.” Wang Ming had full responsibility for carrying out this policy. He fully supported this policy from November 1931, when he arrived in the Soviet Union, until the end of 1932. Following adjustments to the Comintern’s policies in 1933, however, Wang Ming’s position on the United Front issue underwent an obvious change, and he was the first person in the CCP leadership to advocate altering the policy and to propose a national United Front to resist Japan. In August and September 1932, Wang Ming attended the Twelfth Plenum of the Comintern Executive Committee, which began to amend some of its former rigid positions in view of the critical situation posed by the rise of fascism in Europe and Asia. It was felt that there was a potential to win over some of the lower-strata masses in the Social Democratic parties and to establish a workers’ United Front. This meeting inspired Wang Ming to gradually ferment the idea of adjusting China’s policies as well. On January 17, 1933, in the name of Mao and Zhu De, Wang Ming drafted the famous “Chinese Soviet Provisional Central Government Workers and Peasants Red Army Revolutionary Military Commission Declaration of Cooperation with All Armies in Joint Resistance against the Japanese Imperialists’ Invasion of North China under Three Conditions.” The declaration stated the CCP’s willingness to cooperate in joint resistance against Japan with all political parties, with the exception of the KMT, that supported the national revolutionary war. On January 26, in the name of the CCP Central Committee, Wang Ming drafted a letter to all Party branches and members in Manchuria.

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This “January 26 Directive” was the first to propose establishing in the Northeast a broad-based United Front against Japan. In spring of 1933, Wang Ming helped guide the CCP’s liaison with warlord Feng Yuxiang.* On October 27, 1933, Wang Ming and Kang Sheng sent a letter reminding the Central Committee to pay close attention to “strategic issues in the national revolutionary war,” appending their draft of the “Concrete Program of the Chinese People’s Battle against Japan.” This document, which called for “an immediate cessation of all civil war,” was signed by 1,779 people, including Song Qingling, and it had an enormous influence inside and outside of China following its publication on April 20, 1934. While the Comintern was preparing for its Seventh Congress in the spring of 1934, the changes in Wang Ming’s thinking gathered steam. The Comintern was stepping up the pace of establishing a United Front against fascism, and this trend had a major influence on Wang. The letters that Wang Ming and Kang Sheng had sent to the Central Committee on April 20, September 16, and November 24, 1934, all pushed for breaking through the exclusionism and changing the excessively Leftist policy of attacking the middle classes. Wang Ming’s November 1934 “New Conditions and New Strategies” formally proposed the slogan of establishing a United Front to resist Japan. In August 1935, the Comintern’s Seventh World Congress called for establishing a broad-based United Front against fascism. In October, following wide-ranging consultations with the CCP delegation in Moscow, Wang Ming drafted the famous “Call to All Compatriots to Resist Japan for National Salvation” (the August 1 Manifesto). It was published in the Paris-based China Salvation Times, expanding the scope of the United Front to all parties within China, including all patriots within the KMT (with the exception of Chiang Kai-shek). At the end of the year, Wang Ming published another article in China Salvation Times, declaring

*

  TN: Dissatisfied with Chiang Kai-shek’s Nationalist government, in 1929 Feng Yuxiang joined fellow warlords Yan Xishan and Li Zongren in an unsuccessful challenge to Chiang’s supremacy. After spending the early 1930s criticizing Chiang’s failure to resist Japan, in May 1933 Feng became commander-in-chief of the Chahar People’s Anti-Japanese Army Alliance, and by July 1933 he had driven Japanese and Manchukuo troops out of Chahar Province. Feng Yuxiang and his allies then established in Zhangjiakou the “Committee for Recovering the Four Provinces of the Northeast,” but Chiang Kai-shek, fearing that the Communists had taken control of the Army Alliance, besieged Zhangjiakou, resulting in Feng’s resignation and retirement in Tai’an of Shandong Province.

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an “alliance with Chiang Kai-shek against Japan,” thus channeling Chiang into the United Front. Regardless, currently available documents indicate that prior to 1935, the CCP Central Committee paid scant attention to Wang Ming’s views on establishing a United Front against Japan. Given the tepid domestic response, Wang Ming felt compelled to enlist comrades returning to China from Moscow to pass on verbal messages to the Party leaders. In autumn 1933, Wang Ming had a talk with Huang Yaomian, the Chinese Communist Youth League delegate to the Youth Comintern, who was about to return to China. Wang said that the Central Committee should make strategic changes and compel Chiang Kai-shek to resist Japan. Wang said that although the KMT was the CCP’s enemy, it was no longer its chief enemy, and given that Japan had already damaged KMT interests as well as the interests of the national bourgeoisie and the British-American faction, the middle and lower classes of the KMT, and even senior military and civilian officials, might agree to join the United Front. Wang further analyzed that the reason why the CCP had not been able to make a breakthrough in the situation was that the Party’s political program was not consistent with the interests of the masses at large, and therefore it could not gain their defense and support.59 Wang Ming’s remarks left a deep impression on Huang Yaomian because his views diverged from those of the head of the Comintern’s Far Eastern Bureau, Pavel Mif. When Huang bid farewell to Mif, Mif told him to tell the Communist leaders back in China to “lead in accordance with the former policies.”60 After returning to Shanghai, Huang Yaomian quickly passed on Wang Ming’s views to Huang Wenjie,* head of the CCP’s Central Bureau in Shanghai, and the Shanghai Bureau communicated these views by radio transmission to the Jiangxi Soviet Area.61 Wang Ming’s suggestion disappeared without a ripple, however, receiving not the slightest response from Bo Gu or the other Party leaders.

*

  Huang Wenjie was the head of the Organization Department from the time that the CCP’s Shanghai Central Bureau was established in the spring of 1933 until April 1934. From October 1934 to February 19, 1935, Huang also took over from Sheng Zhongliang (who had defected to the KMT) as secretary of the Central Bureau. Huang Wenjie was arrested on February 19, 1935; following his release during the Marco Polo Bridge Incident on July 7, 1937, he began working in the CCP’s Yangtze Bureau.

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This shows that beginning in early 1933, in tandem with the policy changes brewing in the Comintern, Wang Ming’s thinking was undergoing a significant change, and that at a time when the situation in China was undergoing extensive changes, he formulated a new political line that diverged from the prevailing theme of fighting the KMT. The core of the new line was that in a situation whereby domestic class relations had changed, the CCP should establish a broad-based national United Front against Japan; it had to modify its past exclusionism and excessively Leftist policies and devote itself to a national salvation movement and, through this campaign, to expand and strengthen itself. Wang Ming’s new thinking came in part from the Comintern, but it was also derived from his personal reflections; his thinking went even further than that of the Comintern, which was a major reason why Bo Gu and the others rejected Wang’s views. While Wang Ming was in Moscow discussing the United Front, far away in the Central Soviet Area Mao had no freedom of speech, which is why there has never been any record of Mao expounding on the United Front issue. After the Red Army arrived in northern Shaanxi on its Long March, Mao, severely weakened and facing a new domestic situation, began devising an urgent escape route just at the time that Zhang Hao (Lin Yuying) slipped into the region incognito bearing the new spirit of the Comintern’s Seventh World Congress and of Wang Ming. Mao’s pondering had reached the same conclusion as Wang Ming, resulting in the convening of the Wayaobao Conference, which sought to establish a United Front against Japan. Yet, although Mao and Wang were in agreement on the need for this United Front, they put an emphasis on very different areas. Mao’s reflections on the national United Front were extremely pragmatic, whereas Wang Ming’s ideas were excessively idealistic. Mao quick ly took up the banner of a national United Front against Japan, but the issue he cared about most was how to use the United Front—first, to alleviate the crisis the Communists faced in northern Shaanxi and to provide for the survival of the Red Army and the Communist Party, and then second, to strive for the significant development of both. After the Wayaobao Conference, Mao decided to immediately establish a White Army Work Committee aimed at bringing about the collapse of the Northeast Army and the Northwest Army that were attacking the Northern Shaanxi Soviet Area. With this classic strategy of Sun Zi, Mao hoped to “subdue the enemy without fighting.”

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Far away in Moscow, Wang Ming set his vision on Nanjing rather than northern Shaanxi. The focus of his United Front was on uniting the CCP and the KMT against Japan, and his main goal was to win over Chiang Kai-shek. It was not until Chen Yun arrived in Moscow on August 20, 1935, that Wang Ming learned that the Red Army had been drastically weakened. Immediately thereafter, from August 15 to August 27 the CCP delegation to the Comintern held a meeting where it was decided that a “United Front against Chiang and resisting Japan” would be changed to a “United Front with Chiang to resist Japan.” At the end of 1935, Wang Ming constantly published essays in the Paris-based China Salvation Times calling for the KMT and the CCP to join forces against Japan. From January 4 to January 9, 1936, China Salvation Times published in serial form Wang Ming’s essay “Is a Third Cooperation between the CCP and the KMT Possible?” formally proposing “forcing Chiang to resist Japan.” It was only after receiving news of Chiang’s December 1935 suppression of Beijing student protests against Japan that Wang had to revert to the slogan of “opposing Chiang and resisting Japan.” Mao’s differences of opinion with Wang Ming on the United Front issue became increasingly apparent beginning in 1935. Mao forcefully advocated making use of the conflict with Chiang to improve the status of the CCP, while Wang Ming emphasized supporting Chiang’s leadership of the national War of Resistance and firmly opposed all local antiChiang movements. In the latter half of 1936, Mao’s conflict with Georgi Dimitrov, chief of the Comintern, and Wang Ming finally erupted due to the “Guangdong-Guangxi incident.” On June 1, 1936, Chen Jitang and Li Zongren * launched the “Guangdong-Guangxi incident” for the purpose of “opposing Chiang and resisting Japan.” Upon hearing this news, CCP leaders quickly expressed

*

  TN: Li Zongren was a prominent Guangxi warlord who in 1929 supported fellow warlords Yan Xishan and Feng Yuxiang in an unsuccessful attempt to form an alternative Central Government. Following defeat by Chiang in the Central Plains War, Li withdrew to Guangxi, but in 1931 he formed an alliance with Chen Jitang, who had become chairman of the government of Guangdong and was commander-in-chief of the KMT’s Southern Front. However, plans to oppose Chiang were aborted in favor of joining forces against Japan.

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their support, calling it a movement with a “progressive and revolutionary character.”62 On June 13, the Central Committee issued a resolution “On the Present Political Situation,”* which proposed establishing an AntiJapanese Allied Army with the Southwest, and with the CCP at its core. The resolution emphasized that “under current circumstances, the War of Resistance against Japan is inseparable from the war against Chiang.”63 At about the same time, Mao was energetically promoting negotiations with the Northeast Army and the Northwest Army that had surrounded northern Shaanxi, and in June the CCP signed a secret cease-fire agreement with Zhang Xueliang and Yang Hucheng.† However, the CCP was less successful in its overtures to the Southwest, which rejected the CCP’s suggestion. In July, Chen Jitang and Li Zongren in Guangdong and Guangxi reached an agreement with Chiang Kai-shek, and the uprising subsided. Even so, the CCP benefited greatly from Mao’s resolution of the crisis in northern Shaanxi without the firing of a single shot. The strategy of a United Front against Japan helped Mao “strike a deal without capital.” Mao’s activities nevertheless incurred criticism from Dimitrov in the Comintern. After the Guangdong-Guangxi incident, the official Soviet newspaper Izvestia published a commentary criticizing the incident as a “Japanese attempt to incite civil war in China to facilitate a new covert attack on northern China.”64 During a meeting of the Comintern Executive Committee Secretariat on July 23 to discuss China issues, Dimitrov made

*

  To date, the original Chinese text of the CCP Central Committee’s June 13, 1936, intra-Party document. “Regarding the Present Political Situation,” has not been made public. The veracity of the following quote can be determined from the “Chinese Soviet People’s Republic Central Government Chinese People’s Red Army Revolutionary Military Commission Declaration for Guangdong and Guangxi to Send Troops North to Resist Japan,” issued by the CCP Central Committee under the names of Mao Zedong and Zhu Ming. This declaration fiercely attacked Chiang Kai-shek for “constantly abetting Japanese imperialism” and expressed the CCP’s wish to “form an alliance with the Guangdong and Guangxi authorities against Japan.” However, unlike internal Party documents, the announcement issued to the outside world does not directly state that this alliance against Japan should have the CCP as its “core.” †   TN: Zhang Xueliang commanded the Northeast Army, and Yang Hucheng commanded the Northwest Army.

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remarks critical of the CCP, saying, “It cannot be said that on the political front, under the complex situation we are encountering in China, that they [the CCP leaders] are completely mature and have made all necessary preparations.” Dimitrov stressed that it was an error to try to resist Japan and to fight Chiang as well, and that the CCP’s alliance with the Southwest against Chiang was “wrong-headed.” He demanded that the CCP adopt a policy of “forcing Chiang to resist Japan” and he sent an open letter to the KMT expressing a desire to join forces with the KMT against Japan. Dimitrov reiterated that at this stage China should give the struggle against Japan priority over all else, and he suggested replacing the slogan of the “Soviet People’s Republic” with the slogan of the “Democratic Republic.”65 Wang Ming supported Dimitrov’s criticism of the CCP, and articles he published in Moscow indirectly criticized his comrades in China for their adherence to the outdated policy of opposing Chiang and resisting Japan: “Why can the CCP not establish a United Front with Chiang Kai-shek?”66 The dispute over the “oppose Chiang and resist Japan” issue raised by the “Guangdong-Guangxi incident” ended with Mao completely accepting the views of Dimitrov and Wang Ming. On August 25, 1936, the CCP Central Committee issued an open letter to the KMT proposing the establishment of a CCP-KMT United Front. On September 1, the Central Committee issued an internal Party notice stating its intention to adopt a policy of “forcing Chiang to resist Japan.” On September 17, the Politburo resolved to replace the slogan of the “Soviet People’s Republic” with the slogan of the “Democratic Republic.” This was Mao’s first contact with Moscow after assuming leadership of the CCP, and it left a deep impression on him. From then on, Mao had his own way of dealing with Moscow: Palatable directives from “abroad” would be followed, while those that were unpalatable would be set aside; if pressure from “abroad” became too great, he would present the appearance of compliance while making whatever changes were necessary to execute the directives in a way that was acceptable to him. His overall intention was to prevent Moscow’s directives from causing undue conflicts with the CCP’s development, or even more, with the consolidation of Mao’s position within the CCP. Based on this strategy, Mao ultimately accepted the policy of “forcing Chiang to resist Japan” and the peaceful resolution of the Xi’an incident.67 The result was that although Moscow

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was dissatisfied with Mao’s transparently feigned compliance,* it forgave him as long as he ultimately implemented the intentions transmitted from “abroad.” Dependent on Moscow, Mao had no choice but to yield to Dimitrov, but Wang Ming was another matter altogether. Prior to 1936, although Mao did not think much of Wang, he had had no direct dealings with him, and his antipathy was mainly directed at Bo Gu and Zhang Wentian. Now Wang Ming was standing behind Dimitrov and parroting every criticism of his comrades in China, and this brought him into confrontation with Mao. In 1936, Mao’s leadership position was not fully established, whereas Wang Ming enjoyed great prestige, both internationally and domestically, so Mao lacked the strength for a direct conflict with Wang. However, Wang’s behavior placed Mao on guard. In order to prevent the expansion of Wang’s influence and the consequent imperilment of his own position, within the core leadership Mao began to express his displeasure with Wang,68 openly stating his feelings to comrades within the Party. Mao already had a foreboding that his real adversary within the Party was Wang Ming.

*

  On August 15, 1936, the Comintern Executive Committee sent a cable to the CCP Central Committee Secretariat instructing the CCP that it “must maintain contact with Zhang Xueliang,” but explicitly opposing the CCP’s plans to absorb Zhang into the Party. After the Xi’an Incident (TN: in which Zhang Xueliang abducted Chiang Kai-shek in Xi’an on December 12, 1936), the Comintern on December 16, 1936, sent a cable to the CCP Central Committee ordering the CCP to “resolutely advocate a peaceful solution of this conflict” and pointing out that “Zhang Xueliang’s action, regardless of its intent, in an objective sense can only harm the formation of the Chinese people’s various powers into a United Front against Japan and can only abet Japan’s encroachment on China.” On January 19, 1937, the Comintern again cabled the CCP Central Committee, criticizing the erroneous policies the CCP had previously adopted toward Chiang Kai-shek and urging the CCP to “thoroughly cast off such erroneous policies.” It also held that as of January 1937, the CCP was still “executing a policy of dividing the KMT rather than cooperating with it.”

3. Power Struggles and Reorganization of the Party Leadership after Wang Ming’s Return to China

I. Disagreements between Mao, Zhou Enlai et al. Regarding Relations with the Kuomintang and the Military Strategy of the Eighth Route Army From May to June 1937, Mao suffered a setback in his use of Liu Shaoqi to launch exploratory attacks on Zhang Wentian, indicating the serious obstacles Mao continued to face on his road to leadership of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). Soon after the conclusion of the White Area Work Conference, the Marco Polo Bridge Incident* brought a drastic change to the domestic terrain. Mao swiftly shelved discussions on the Party’s experience during the ten years of Civil War and focused all its efforts on the current situation. At the outset of the War of Resistance, with the CCP gaining legitimacy and achieving a second round of cooperation with the KMT, Mao was most concerned about two issues: how to manage CCP-KMT relations in a way that the CCP’s strength, especially its military strength, could be developed through the War of Resistance, and; how to unify the Party’s top leadership under the new conditions and to further consolidate his own status within the Party core. However, the situation did not always develop in a way that was advantageous to Mao. Beginning in the latter

*

  Translators’ Note (cited hereafter as TN): The July 7, 1937 Marco Polo (Lugou) Bridge Incident marked the launch of China’s War of Resistance against Japan.

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half of August 1937, a split developed between Mao and Zhou Enlai and others regarding cooperation with the KMT and the military strategy for the Eighth Route Army. This split became evident first during the Luochuan Conference and then in divisions that developed between Mao and Zhou Enlai and the Eighth Route Army Headquarters led by Zhu De and Peng Dehuai. From August 22 to August 25, 1937, the CCP convened an expanded Politburo meeting at Luochuan in northern Shaanxi in order to decide on the political line and military direction for the War of Resistance. A total of twenty-three Party and military leaders attended the conference. For decades, CCP Party historiography has interpreted this conference as “the greatest victory achieved by Mao Zedong Thought,” but the historical fact is that Mao’s views were not unanimously endorsed by the Party leadership at the Luochuan Conference, whereas the positions of Zhou Enlai and the others were universally applauded. The core topics of the Luochuan Conference were: how to evaluate the KMT’s War of Resistance and to settle on a principle for the CCP’s cooperation with the KMT, and; whether the CCP should adopt “mountain guerrilla warfare” or “mobile guerrilla warfare” as its military strategy. Mao* and Zhang Wentian were on one side of the split, whereas Zhou Enlai, Bo Gu, Zhu De, Zhang Guotao, and Peng Dehuai were on the other side. Mao felt that the War of Resistance had not changed the KMT’s reactionary essence and, as a result, the war waged by the KMT was bound to fail. Mao felt that Chiang Kai-shek was waging a half-hearted and unilateral† local war that would inevitably end in failure, and that sooner or later the KMT would surrender to Japan; or, that if a portion of the Nationalist Army continued to fight, it would encounter a devastating attack from Japan, in which case the CCP would play a role in leading the country. For this reason, the CCP should no longer pander to the KMT but rather should maintain its political and military independence and autonomy so that when the situation allowed or required, the CCP could rise up against the KMT.1

*

  The full text of Mao’s speech at the Luochuan Conference has never been revealed.   TN: Unilateral in the sense of being carried out by the government authorities on their own, without the involvement of the general populace.

†

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Only Zhang Wentian expressed unequivocal support for Mao’s stand; Zhou Enlai and the majority of the others at the conference dissented. In his remarks, Zhou Enlai stated that the independence of both the CCP and the Eighth Route Army were only relative; the CCP should not openly resist Nanjing’s orders and, in order to consolidate its status, the CCP should enthusiastically engage in the War of Resistance, abiding by its promise to the KMT to genuinely cooperate in a common effort to reach a total victory. Zhou also disagreed with Mao’s belief that the KMT would inevitably surrender to Japan. Zhou felt that “because Chiang Kai-shek has launched the War of Resistance, he will not engage in halfway appeasement” and that given Chiang’s stubborn temperament and the situation within China and abroad, there was no reason for concern.2 Another controversial issue at the Luochuan Conference focused on what kind of military tactics the CCP should develop for the War of Resistance. As early as August 1, Mao and Zhang Wentian had sent a cable to Zhou and the others proposing that the Communist Army should “in its overall military strategy carry out an independent and autonomous dispersed guerrilla warfare rather than positional or concentrated warfare.”3 On August 4, Mao and Zhang sent another cable to Zhou, Zhu De, and the others, who were then in Yunyang Town of Shanxi Province, again proposing that the Red Army should “carry out flank guerrilla warfare.” Mao emphasized, “Straying from this policy is a sure road to failure.”4 On August 5, Mao and Zhang sent yet another cable to Zhou, Zhu, Bo Gu, Peng Dehuai, and Ren Bishi, stating that “Red Army’s engagement in independent and autonomous guerrilla mobile warfare will pin down the majority of the enemy and exterminate a portion of the enemy.” However, Mao went on to emphasize that the Red Army should only engage in flank warfare, not full frontal attacks.5 At a cadre conference held in Yan’an on August 9, Mao gave a speech in which he said that “the Red Army should practice independent and autonomous command and dispersed guerrilla warfare. ... It is essential that we remain on guard, and we must remain vigilant.” In a cable to Peng Xuefeng* on August 10, Mao specifically directed that in negotiations with the KMT, it was necessary to “adopt a humble attitude. ... Do not conceal weaknesses in the Red Army

*

  TN: Peng Xuefeng (1907‒1944) was an officer in the New Fourth Army.

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that should not be concealed. ... For example, [the Red Army] only knows how to fight guerrilla warfare and not positional warfare; it only knows how to fight in the mountains and not on the plains; it is best suited to independent and autonomous command under a general strategy rather than being fettered by a centralized command of battle tactics.”6 Mao took the long view for the future of the Party and the Red Army and was extremely worried that the Communist forces would suffer excessive losses while fighting Japan. He knew that many senior Party cadres were dazzled by patriotism, but he could not say so directly; he could only repeatedly and constantly make his case to his colleagues and subordinates by all available means. In a speech on August 22, Mao emphasized that the CCP must turn the regular army and the mobile warfare of the Civil War period into a guerrilla army and guerrilla warfare, and that the task of the Eighth Route Army was to disperse its armed forces to mobilize the masses and to establish base areas. As to fighting the Japanese, “When we can win, we should fight, but if we cannot win, we should run.”7 Zhou Enlai disagreed with Mao’s stand that the Eighth Route Army should only engage in guerrilla warfare against the Japanese. He proposed a military strategy of “mobile guerrilla warfare”; “Mobile guerrilla warfare is still the best.”8 Zhou felt that avoiding the Japanese would damage the Party’s reputation and give the impression that the CCP was not making an all-out effort to fight the Japanese. Zhou said, “Even if the Eighth Route Army sustains losses in this kind of mobile warfare, it will be worthwhile because it will prove to the Chinese people that we are putting a real effort into the War of Resistance.”9 Zhu De and Peng Dehuai supported Zhou’s view. Zhu felt that while preserving the Red Army’s independence, they should also submit to the Military Commission in Nanjing on some major battle strategies; this would bring practical benefits to the CCP in terms of money and equipment for the Eighth Route Army. Zhu and Peng further stated that the Communist troops should genuinely cooperate with the Nationalist forces and that the Eighth Route Army should avoid positional warfare but rather should engage in a combination of mobile and guerrilla warfare, i.e., “mobile guerrilla warfare.”10 Finding himself in the minority, Mao was forced to make a temporary retreat. Due to mediation by Zhang Wentian, the Luochuan Conference formulated a compromise to bridge the divide between Mao and Zhou et al. In appraising the KMT’s War of Resistance, Zhang Wentian stated that

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there was a tremendous hidden danger in the war, but if the multitudes of ordinary people could be rallied to support a United Front, ultimate victory could be assured. 11 Zhang’s compromise was unanimously accepted. Although the Luochuan Conference did not arrive at a unified understanding of the military strategy,* it did come up with a compromise: The Eighth Route Army should initially fight shoulder-to-shoulder with the Nationalist forces in Shanxi, but if the front line could not be held, then the Eighth Route Army should disperse throughout the northern region to launch operations in accordance with Mao’s views.12 The split between Mao and Zhou at the Luochuan Conference was temporarily resolved due to compromise by both sides. Although Zhou had reservations about Mao’s negative attitude toward cooperation with the KMT, there were no real conflicts between most of the views held by Mao and Zhou at the conference. Zhou agreed that in terms of CCPKMT relations, it was necessary to break through the KMT’s strictures and insist on the CCP’s leadership of the Red Army. Even so, Zhou’s remarks at the Luochuan Conference made Mao very uneasy; Mao worried that Zhou’s views would eventually influence the generals of the Red Army. But some key organizational measures during the conference also relaxed Mao’s anxieties. On August 23, 1937, a newly reorganized Central Military Commission (CMC) was established, with Mao formally appointed secretary (or “chairman,” as he was actually called), and Zhu De and Zhou Enlai appointed as deputy secretaries (or “vice chairmen”). This effectively made Mao the supreme military leader of the Party. The Luochuan Conference also appointed Zhou as secretary of the Yangtze Coast Committee, giving him responsibility for negotiating with the KMT and leading the Party organization in the KMT-controlled areas, where he would mainly work thereafter. This arrangement was to Mao’s advantage by creating conditions for him to accelerate implementation of his positions within the Eighth Route Army.

*

  Due to mediation by Zhang Wentian, the “Central Committee Resolution Regarding the Current Situation and the Party’s Tasks” passed by the Luochuan Conference did not refer to requiring the Eighth Route Army to adopt “independent and autonomous mountain guerrilla warfare” as its military strategy, which indicates that the dispute at the conference over military strategy was not resolved.

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As soon as the Luochuan Conference concluded, Zhu De and Peng Dehuai led the Eighth Route Army’s 115th, 120th, and 129th Divisions into Shanxi. Just as Mao had feared, under Zhou Enlai’s influence the Front Branch Committee of the CMC (also known as the CMC North China Branch), consisting of Zhu, Peng, and Ren Bishi, raised the slogan of “guerrilla mobile warfare” (the same thing as “mobile guerrilla warfare”). Following the Luochuan Conference, Zhou Enlai arrived in Xi’an on August 29 and prepared to go to Nanjing with Bo Gu and Peng Dehuai in order to continue negotiations with the KMT and to organize the CCP’s Yangtze Coast Committee. Mao sent two urgent cables to Zhou on August 30 and August 31 respectively, telling him not to go to Nanjing but rather to go to Taiyuan to meet with warlord Yan Xishan in order to make arrangements for the Red Army to enter Shanxi. In his memoirs, Zhang Guotao writes that Zhou remained in Shanxi instead of going to Nanjing because he was unhappy with the Luochuan Conference. As a result, Zhang was repeatedly scolded by Mao. This error was due to Zhang Guotao’s ignorance of the secret contacts between Mao and Zhou.13 At a time of extremes with numerous issues to be addressed, Mao seems to have focused on making use of Zhou’s diplomatic and organizational skills, while overlooking the possibility that by remaining in Shanxi, Zhou might exert a complicated influence on the military strategy of the Eighth Route Army. On September 7, 1937, Zhou met with Yan Xishan in Dai County and then moved on to Datong to meet with Fu Zuoyi. He reached agreement with both Yan and Fu on the scope of the Eighth Route Army’s activities and the principles of command and battle relations following entry into Shanxi, with both sides agreeing that the Eighth Route Army would operate on the principle of guerrilla mobile warfare. Zhou took the initiative to propose that the Eighth Route Army’s 115th Division would coordinate with Yan’s troops at Pingxing Pass, where they would await the opportunity for a flank attack on the enemy. Peng expressed the same view during a meeting with Yan. On September 13, Zhou sent a cable to Mao and Zhang Wentian informing them of the negotiations with Yan Xishan and requesting that two divisions of the Eighth Route Army rapidly assemble at Laiyuan, Lingqiu, and Fuping in order to launch guerrilla mobile warfare along the Taihang Mountains.14 The “guerrilla mobile warfare” that Zhou proposed at this time retreated slightly from the original “mobile guerrilla warfare,” thus

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signifying a concession to Mao. Although Zhou had noticeably softened his position, his enthusiasm for cooperating with the KMT still worried Mao, and Mao did not reply to Zhou’s request for two divisions to be sent to Shanxi.* From mid- to late September, Mao sent a number of cables to Zhou, Peng, and the others, repeatedly stressing that the CCP should conserve its strength, “maintain the principle of sticking to the mountain areas and not fighting fierce battles,”15 and avoid direct confrontation with the Japanese Army. He also emphasized maintaining a high level of mobility, “using guerrilla warfare to fight in coordination with friendly forces,”16 while pressing toward the enemy’s rear to create Communist Base Areas as rapidly as possible. On September 17, 1937, Mao sent a cable to Zhu De, Peng Dehuai, and the commanders and vice commanders of all of the divisions of the Eighth Route Army, once again emphasizing: At this time, the Red Army is a detachment and does not play a decisive role. But if deployment is appropriate, it can play a decisive role in supporting an advance into northern China (mainly Shanxi). 17 On September 21, Zhu De, Ren Bishi, Deng Xiaoping, Zuo Quan, and others led the Eighth Route Army Headquarters to Taiyuan. That night, Ren, Deng, and others met with the secretary of the CCP’s North China Bureau and Liu Shaoqi, Peng Zhen, and others to discuss the course of action for the Eighth Route Army. On the same day, Mao sent another cable to Peng, analyzing, in very forceful language, the situation of resistance in northern China and pointing out that regardless of whether Yan Xishan’s decisive engagement with Japan would be successful, “Taiyuan and all of northern China is as precarious as stacked eggs.” Mao complained that some comrades in the Party were confused by the temporary situation and, lacking an in-depth understanding of “this

*

  An analysis in Chronology of Zhou Enlai indicates that the cables Zhou Enlai sent to Mao in mid- and late September 1937 were handled in one of two ways: The cables in which Zhou requested reinforcements for the Eighth Route Army against the Nationalist Army went unanswered; the cables in which Zhou suggested organizing guerrilla warfare and diversions to the hill areas received immediate positive replies from Mao.

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objectively inevitable trend,” they were using the main forces of the Red Army to support friendly forces in standard warfare. Mao warned that this would “inevitably cause the Red Army and Yan Xishan to fall into the disadvantageous situation of coming under attack and being crushed one by one by the enemy.”18 Mao enjoined Peng to “provide an in-depth explanation to individual comrades who held inappropriate views so that our strategy will be united,” and he urged Peng to “take a long view focusing on key goals.” In his cable, Mao repeatedly admonished Peng: Today the Red Army will not play a critical role in a decisive engagement, but there is one game it is good at, and in this game it can definitely play a role—that is, in genuinely independent and autonomous mountain guerrilla warfare (not mobile warfare). In order to create base areas and to mobilize the masses, it is necessary to disperse the troops and not to engage in all-out battle efforts. ... At present, an all-out battle will not bring results.19 Far away in the caves of Yan’an, Mao had absolutely no control over whether or not Zhou and the Red Army generals on the front line carried out his instructions, and he could only rely on a constant stream of cables to state his consistent positions. On September 25, Mao sent an urgent cable to Zhou and the leaders of the North China Bureau, Liu Shaoqi, Yang Shangkun, Zhu Rui, and others, reiterating that “all operations in North China should be based on the sole orientation of guerrilla warfare.”20 On the same day, Mao sent another cable to Zhu De, Ren Bishi, and Zhou Enlai, reminding them not to reveal the actual strength of the Red Army in order to avoid unpredictable dangers: It is undesirable at present to expose the Red Army prematurely, and especially to prematurely dispatch tactical detachments. ... Exposing the Red Army as a target and attracting the enemy’s notice would be detrimental. For the time being, please conceal our army’s strength and conserve its energy, waiting for implementation when the necessary conditions are prepared.21

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In referring to “prematurely dispatching military detachments,” Mao was essentially telling Zhu and Peng not to send Eighth Route Army troops to support the Nationalist Army. In spite of Mao’s endless stream of messages and cables to Zhou, Peng, and the others, urging them to overcome their battle lust and cherish and conserve the less than 30,000-strong Red Army that the CCP had preserved through so many tribulations,22 Zhou, Zhu, and Peng still insisted on supporting the Nationalist Army in battle. Under Zhou’s active planning, on September 23, 1937, the Eighth Route Army Headquarters garrisoned at Wutai Mountain ordered that the army’s 115th Division join the right flank of Yan Xishan’s army and the 120th Division come to the aid of Yan’s left flank at Yanmen Pass. The members of the Standing Committee of the CMC North China Branch, Zhu De, Peng Dehuai, and Ren Bishi, reported this deployment in a cable to Mao on the same day.23 On September 25, 1937, the 115th Division under Lin Biao’s command ambushed the Twenty-first Brigade of Commander Itagaki’s division of the Japanese Army at Pingxing Pass in northeastern Shanxi. With more than 1,000 enemy troops annihilated, it was the first major victory for the Eighth Route Army. This battle, clearly implementing the military strategy of Zhou and the others, supported friendly forces and engaged in “mobile guerrilla warfare,” departing sharply from Mao’s policy of avoiding direct confrontation with the Japanese and practicing “independent, autonomous mountain guerrilla warfare.” However, because the Battle of Pingxing Pass greatly enhanced the prestige of the CCP and the Eighth Route Army, and garnered high praise both inside and outside of China, Mao also expressed approval, even though he had never replied to the CMC North China Branch’s September 23 cable or to the September 24 cable* that Zhou had sent to Mao and Zhang Wentian regarding deployment of troops to fight at Pingxing Pass.24 In CCP Party historiography, the Battle of Pingxing Pass has long been described as an example of a victory due to implementation of *

  But on September 24 Mao sent a cable to Zhou and Zhu De, in which he emphasized that the local Shanxi Party should focus its current efforts on the Wutai Mountain Range and immediately organize local detachments and mass organizations, and that all work should take enemy occupation of Taiyuan as a starting point. Clearly, at that time Mao’s and Zhou’s thinking was completely different.

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Mao’s military strategy. During the North China Forum held in Yan’an in spring 1945, Peng Dehuai was harshly criticized for violating Mao’s military strategy early during the War of Resistance, and Zhu De and Ren Bishi, among others, were forced to carry out “self-criticisms” for the same reason,25 whereas Lin Biao was not at all implicated.26 It was only after the Lin Biao incident in 1971* that Lin’s role was officially juxtaposed with that of Peng Dehuai, but both were denounced as “foot soldiers of the Wang Ming Right deviating capitulationist line.” Even so, official Party historiographies in the 1970s did not openly criticize the Battle of Pingxing Pass because after criticizing the Hundred Regiments Offensive led by Peng Dehuai in 1940,† negating the Battle of Pingxing Pass would have been detrimental to the image of both Mao and the CCP in the War of Resistance. The victory at Pingxing Pass and its extensive political influence highlighted the effectiveness of the “mobile guerrilla warfare” that Zhou, Zhu, and Peng had espoused, and for a time it led Mao to waver slightly with regard to the views he had been maintaining; while tenaciously defending his original advocacy of guerrilla warfare, Mao no longer completely rejected mobile warfare. On September 29, 1937, four days after the Battle of Pingxing Pass, Mao sent a cable to Zhou, Zhu, Peng, and Ren, stating: “Yan [Xishan] will definitely ask for our army’s assistance in battle. To gain more influence over the Shanxi army, we can of course take part if the conditions are definitely favorable.”27 From the time of the victory at Pingxing Pass to mid-October, Mao took a more positive attitude toward Zhou Enlai’s cables recommending that the Eighth Route Army cooperate with the KMT. On October 4, Mao sent a cable to Zhu, Peng, and Ren with the following instructions: “Regarding the troops that the KMT has put under our command, you should adopt an attitude of cherishing and assisting them, and you should not assign them the most dangerous tasks or allow them to lack

*

  TN: Lin Biao and his family died in a plane crash in Mongolia on September 13, 1971, during an attempt to flee China. †   TN: Peng Dehuai led the Hundred Regiments Offensive against Japan in Central China from August 20 to December 5, 1940, in part to demonstrate the CCP’s determination to contribute to the War of Resistance. Peng was accused of launching the battle without Mao’s approval.

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provisions.”28 On the next day, Mao gave a positive response to an October 4 cable that Zhou had sent him suggesting that Wang Zhen’s brigade be transferred back to He Long’s division in order to strengthen the resistance of Yan’s army against a Japanese assault on Xinkou. On October 14, Mao approved Zhou’s October 12 recommendation to deploy Zhang Zongxun’s brigade and the vanguard regiment of Liu Bocheng’s division to intercept the Japanese rear in coordination with the Shanxi Army’s major frontal offensive.29 Prior to October 25, Mao, in a conversation with the British journalist James Bertram, was still saying, “The military tactic the Eighth Route Army is now using is what we call independent, autonomous, guerrilla, and mobile warfare.”30 Mao’s more flexible attitude toward mobile warfare greatly encouraged Zhou, Zhu, and Peng. An October 8, 1937, document by the CMC North China Branch formally announced adoption by the Eighth Route Army of “mobile guerrilla warfare” as its battle strategy.31 This document also implicitly criticized the stand that the War of Resistance was doomed to failure as “fatalistic,” and it advocated that the Eighth Route Army should coordinate with and support those friendly forces defending Taiyuan.32 In the latter half of October, under Zhou Enlai’s active arrangements and Mao’s tacit approval, three divisions of the Eighth Route Army set off to join the Nationalist Army in battle at Xinkou, where Chinese troops inflicted heavy casualties on the Japanese and achieved a significant victory. However, Mao’s tacit consent and tolerance of the Eighth Route Army’s adoption of “mobile warfare” rapidly came to an end after midOctober 1937, when the situation in the War of Resistance in Shanxi took an increasing turn for the worse. Mao quickly reverted to his original position and reiterated the need for guerrilla warfare, and he even began to criticize “a trend toward Right deviating capitulationism.” On October 13, 1937, Mao and Zhang Wentian sent Zhou Enlai a copy of a cable they had sent to Liu Xiao and Pan Hannian, the leaders of the underground Party in Shanghai. In this cable, Mao and Zhang harshly criticized the “peaceful coexistence with the KMT” and the “capitulationist tendency” under which “we only know how to unite with the KMT and compromise with all their demands, and we do not know how to fight their erroneous policies.” On October 17, Mao and Zhang jointly sent a cable to Zhu De, Peng Dehuai, and Ren Bishi and also sent a copy of it to Zhou Enlai: “The CMC North China Branch’s October 8 directive has errors of principle

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and its circulation should be halted.”33 On the same day, Mao and Zhang, in the name of the Central Committee Secretariat, issued a directive that stated for the first time the view that “the danger of capitulationism has become the chief danger within the Party.”34 Although Mao and Zhang did not directly mention any individuals, the texts of the October 13 cable and the Secretariat’s October 17 directive contained implicit warnings to Zhou Enlai.35 Zhou reacted promptly to the messages from Mao and Zhang. After receiving a cable from the Central Committee telling him to “continue cooperating with Yan Xishan, but do not compromise on matters of principle,” he sent a reply cable on October 21 stating that he had “maintained this policy for more than ten days, opposing Right deviation in the Party and the military, and also opposing ‘Left deviation.’” Zhou Enlai’s self-defense seemed to be feeble as the War of Resistance situation deteriorated in Shanxi. On November 18, the Japanese occupied Taiyuan and the Nationalist forces withdrew. With no objective conditions remaining for cooperation with the Nationalist Army, the Eighth Route Army also withdrew, and mobile guerrilla warfare gradually turned into guerrilla warfare. This further convinced Mao that he had been completely correct in his original analysis of the KMT’s War of Resistance and in his insistence on “independent, autonomous, mountain guerrilla warfare.” At a Politburo meeting on December 12, Mao rehashed his old arguments and targeted the CMC North China Branch’s criticism of “fatalism” toward the War of Resistance in its October 8 directive, pointing out that it was wrong to criticize the Central Committee for defeatism.36 Although the criticism of “fatalism” by the CMC Branch was mainly targeting the North China Bureau led by Liu Shaoqi and in fact Mao’s September 21 cable maintained the same view, Mao felt that the CMC Branch’s criticism was aimed at him. What Mao found intolerable was that from November 1937 to February 1938 the Eighth Route Army continued to engage in concentrated combat. In February 1938, the Eighth Route Army under Peng Dehuai joined with Yan Xishan in his “counterattack at Taiyuan,” and it continued using concentrated combat to crush the nine-route attack by the Japanese in southwest Shanxi. Zhou Enlai went even further; on June 15, 1938, Zhou sent a cable from Hankou to Mao, proposing that the Eighth Route Army concentrate its forces near some larger cities so that the Japanese Army would deploy its troops and the Chinese could attack their reinforcements. Although Mao did not completely oppose the

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Eighth Route Army engagement in mobile warfare under advantageous circumstances, his aims were different from those of Zhou and the others. Mao’s response to this cable therefore avoided Zhou’s specific request and enjoined Zhou to formulate concrete battle operations based on “both our and the enemy’s actual current circumstances, rather than being led into rash action by the arguments of others.”37 Their positive attitude toward supporting the KMT in battle intensified Mao’s displeasure with Zhou and Peng, and this was an important reason why years later both became victims during the Rectification Movement. In the three months from August to October 1937, disagreements over whether the Communist forces should support the Nationalist forces in the War of Resistance and over what military strategy the CCP should adopt cast a heavy shadow on the relationship between Mao and Zhou, and especially on the relationship between Mao and Peng. With the exception of Zhang Wentian who sided with Mao, Liu Shaoqi was the only member of the core leadership of the CCP who voiced unequivocal support for Mao.

II. Mao’s Theoretical Offensive and Liu Shaoqi’s Support November 1937 was a period of more worries than happiness for Mao. Although his repeated urging and persuasion led Zhou Enlai and the others to accept some of Mao’s views on military strategy, Zhou and the others remained firmly entrenched in their policy of active cooperation with the KMT. The split between Mao and the others had not yet been resolved when yet another thorny issue arose, which was Wang Ming’s impending return to Yan’an from Moscow. Mao sensed an impending shake-up in the power of the Party’s inner circle. In order to prevent Zhou Enlai from forming an alliance with Wang Ming on the issue of the United Front and at the same time to win more support for his own political position among the top cadres of the Party, Mao decided to take the initiative to attack his opponents. At a meeting of Party activists in Yan’an on November 12, 1937, two days before Wang Ming was to arrive in Dihua (Urumqi), Mao delivered an extremely important report entitled “The Situation and Tasks of the War of Resistance against Japan Following the Fall of Shanghai and Taiyuan.” In this report, Mao further developed the criticism of the KMT’s War of Resistance that he had first made at the Luochuan Conference. He held

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that the fall of Shanghai and Taiyuan had confirmed his prediction that the KMT would be rapidly defeated, and he claimed that the KMT’s “unilateral War of Resistance,” while “revolutionary in character,” was still “doomed to failure.” The War of Resistance had entered a critical and perilous phase, as evidenced by the consistent successes of the Japanese assaults. The portion of Mao’s report that caused the greatest panic among Party cadres was his criticism of “class capitulationism” within the Party. Mao did not hesitate to use the harshest possible terms to denounce opposition to his positions within the Party core as “Right deviating opportunism,” or even more sensationally as “class capitulationism,” which he described as “the reserve force of national capitulationism,” i.e., the objective accomplice of national capitulationism. Mao declared straight out that Right deviating capitulationism was the chief danger the Party faced. He also aimed rare criticism at the Communist Army. As the Party’s supreme leader over the armed forces, Mao could not contain his intense resentment toward Peng Dehuai and the others, and he denounced the “tendency toward neo-warlordism” that he saw manifested in the way that some in the Eighth Route Army felt honored to accept appointments under the KMT. Mao then switched gears by commending the Eighth Route Army for executing a strategy of “independent, autonomous, mountain guerrilla warfare,” even though, after repeatedly remonstrating with Peng Dehuai and the others to change course, Mao knew very well that the Eighth Route Army was actually practicing “mobile guerrilla warfare.” He thus chose a carrot-and-stick tactic, first smacking Peng Dehuai around and then going all out to convince Peng and the others to accept his views. While Mao was fighting this solitary battle, Liu Shaoqi provided him with invaluable support. Liu Shaoqi did not attend the Luochuan Conference, having arrived in Taiyuan on July 28, 1937, to take over as secretary of the North China Bureau, which had just been relocated to Taiyuan. At that stage, Liu was devoting most of his energy to mobilization, mass resistance, and support for Bo Yibo’s contacts with Yan Xishan to establish the New Shanxi Army, and he had few direct contacts with the Eighth Route Army led by Zhu De and Peng Dehuai. Although Liu was not involved in the disputes at the Luochuan Conference, his views on the two major issues were very close to those of Mao.

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Liu supported Mao’s political judgment regarding the KMT and went further in advocating a division of the KMT into Leftist, centrist, and Rightist factions. On September 20, 1937, Liu and Zhou Enlai sent a joint cable to Mao and Zhang Wentian (this cable basically reflected Liu’s viewpoints, and it is not mentioned in the Chronology of Zhou Enlai). The cable proposed that the CCP’s strategy in the Shanxi United Front should be to “consolidate the Leftist faction, ally with the centrist faction, and isolate the Rightist faction,” and that these factions should be classified according to the extent to which “they could accept our views.” 38 Liu’s viewpoint was rather earth-shaking at the time, and it touched on such an important aspect of the Party’s United Front strategy that Mao wrote a comment on Liu’s cable saying, “Cables such as these must be kept strictly confidential.”39 At the outset of the War of Resistance, most CCP leaders felt that the criterion for appraising the KMT depended solely on its attitude toward the war. Although Zhang Wentian’s supplementary report at the Luochuan Conference had mentioned divisions in the KMT between its Leftist, centrist, and Rightist factions, his criterion for these divisions was based on attitudes toward the War of Resistance, and he classified Chiang Kai-shek as a “centrist.”40 Yet Liu Shaoqi’s viewpoint conformed to Mao’s thinking and inspired him to subsequently expound in further detail on this issue. In appraising the KMT and its leadership of the War of Resistance, Liu and Mao both belonged to the “pessimist camp” that was clearly distinguished from the “optimist camp” of Zhou Enlai and the others. Liu Shaoqi also firmly endorsed Mao’s stands on guerrilla warfare and was among the minority within the Party who proposed engaging in guerrilla warfare soon after the War of Resistance erupted. In an August 3, 1937, cable to Zhang Wentian, Liu reported his directives to launch guerrilla warfare in Beiping and Tianjin.41 On September 28, three days after receiving Mao’s cable to the effect that “guerrilla warfare should be the sole orientation for operations throughout northern China,” Liu Shaoqi sent a cable notifying Zhang Wentian of his order to the Party organizations in Beiping and Tianjin to “mobilize large numbers of cadres, comrades, and resistance guerrilla fighters to go down to the countryside and to develop and lead the guerrilla war there.”42 On October 16, before the fall of Taiyuan, Liu issued another text that subsequently became a source of controversy among the Party leadership: “Various Fundamental Policy Issues in the Guerrilla War of Resistance against Japan.”

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Liu also resembled Mao in the great emphasis he placed on developing the Communist armed forces. At a joint meeting of the leaders of the Eighth Route Army and the North China Bureau at Taiyuan on September 21, 1937, Liu proposed “expanding the Eighth Route Army to hundreds of thousands of men and guns.”43 According to speeches made by Yang Shangkun and the secretary of the Military Commission of the North China Bureau, Zhu Rui, at the North China Forum convened in Yan’an in March 1945 on the question of whether the Eighth Route Army should support Yan Xishan’s army in battle, the leaders of the North China Bureau advocated that the Eighth Route Army should engage in scattered guerrilla attacks and in mobilizing the masses because, in any event, Taiyuan was indefensible.44 On November 17, Liu Shaoqi and Yang Shangkun, deputy secretary of the North China Bureau, sent a cable to Mao and Zhang Wentian stating that “expansion of the Red Army needs to be a top priority for the Party and for all Red Army officers and men in North China. ... It is essential to plan for an expansion to 100,000 troops within three months, and to 200,000 troops within half a year.”45 Prior to this, on November 1 Liu Shaoqi had reported to Yan’an that within four months the North China Bureau had established a dozen or so fairly large CCP-led guerrilla forces of 6,000 to 7,000 troops in Shanxi and Hebei,46 after which the local Communist armed forces had rapidly grown to cover almost the entire North China Region with tens of thousands of troops. At a time when Mao was still in the minority and Zhou Enlai’s views held the upper hand within the Party, Liu Shaoqi’s attitude provided significant support to Mao. Yet in terms of issues such as appraising the situation and the Party’s mission, Liu’s views still differed from those of Mao to a certain extent. For example, although Liu proposed launching a guerrilla war in his August 3 cable to Zhang Wentian, his understanding of guerrilla warfare was not identical to Mao’s understanding. Liu believed that the objective of guerrilla warfare was to “respond to the armed struggle against the Japanese” and to assist in “an armed insurrection to recover Beiping and Tianjin.”47 While mobilizing Party members in Beiping and Tianjin to go to the countryside and engage in guerrilla warfare, Liu also instructed them to “reorganize completely open townsmen associations and to merge them with traitor organizations.” 48 Although Liu raised this issue for the sake of the Communist undertaking, his suggestion was ultimately too conspicuous and too easily misconstrued, creating the impression that he lacked principle and that his

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thinking was too far “Right.” Even though Liu emphasized that “guerrilla warfare is the major form of struggle for the people of North China against Japan” in his “Various Fundamental Policy Issues in the Guerrilla War of Resistance against Japan,” he took a different position from that of Mao in his November 17 cable to Mao and Zhang Wentian by proposing that “while striving for victory in the guerrilla war in North China, we should also revert to conventional warfare.”49 Regardless, these differences between Liu and Mao had little bearing on the importance Mao attached to Liu at a time when Mao urgently needed strong support within the Party leadership. In spite of the crucial support from Liu Shaoqi, the situation in the Party leadership was not moving in a direction that was advantageous to Mao, and as the day of Wang Ming’s arrival in Yan’an approached, Mao’s anxieties deepened. Based on his profound understanding of the history of inner-Party struggles and his judgment of the current inner-Party struggle, Mao was convinced that alliances would shift within the Party leadership following Wang’s return and that the comrades whose views differed from his would rally around Wang. Mao had nothing good to say about Wang and he detested him for rising to power on the basis of support from Moscow. Mao was particularly envious of how Wang Ming monopolized communications with Stalin and “ordered people around like the authority of an emperor.” Even more insufferable to Mao was Wang posing as the CCP’s sole theoretician and his monopolistic interpretation of CCP ideology. Mao had no way of knowing what new instructions Wang Ming would be bringing from Moscow, but based on the Comintern’s interventions with the CCP during the past year, it appeared that Moscow and Wang Ming were most concerned about the CCP’s United Front policy with the KMT and their views did not completely accord with those of Mao. At this delicate juncture, Mao was most uneasy about Zhou Enlai, Zhu De, and Bo Gu. From 1931 to 1935, Zhou, Bo Gu, and Zhang Wentian had basically endorsed and executed the Comintern line, and among the three, Mao could only claim full support from Zhang; lacking a military foundation and with his prestige and authority undermined by challenges from Liu Shaoqi, Zhang could only defend his status by continuing to cooperate with Mao. Bo Gu presented less of a danger to Mao; after being unseated at the Zunyi Conference, Bo’s prestige had suffered a significant decline

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and his joining forces with Wang Ming would cause few difficulties without Zhou Enlai’s support. Zhou played the most important role in the core leadership; he had a solid foundation in both the Party and the military, and, like Zhu De and Liu Bocheng, he had constantly wavered between the Comintern and Mao. Although Zhou and the others usually compromised with Mao, after the launch of the War of Resistance Zhou’s views had often diverged from Mao’s, and there was every possibility that he would side with Wang Ming against Mao. November 1937 was the toughest time for Mao. He could only use the time remaining to seek allies and to toss his own theoretical ballast prior to Wang Ming’s return to China. At the same time, he had to control communications with the Comintern and strictly prohibit anyone else’s involvement in hopes of flexibly applying Moscow’s instructions to his own personal advantage. Mao had done everything he could, and now it was time to receive the “immortal descent from the mountain”—Wang Ming.50

III. Compromising and Waiting: The December 1937 Politburo Meeting On November 19, 1937, Wang Ming, Kang Sheng, and Chen Yun accompanied Soviet consultants on a Soviet military transport plane to Yan’an, where they received a warm welcome at the airport from Mao, Zhang Wentian, Zhou Enlai, Zhang Guotao, and other leaders, along with more than 1,000 Yan’an cadres and soldiers. Mao gave a speech in which he referred to Wang Ming and the others as “divine troops sent to us by Marx.”51 Now that the “divine troops” had arrived, its generals would inevitably hand down an “imperial edict.” From September 9 to September 14, the Politburo convened a meeting in Yan’an during which Wang Ming communicated the Comintern’s instructions and also discussed the Party’s direction after the launch of the War of Resistance. In what came to be known as the “December Politburo meeting,” Wang Ming’s position carried the day among the core Party leadership. For a long time, official CCP historiography took a negative stance toward the December Politburo meeting and was vague about much of the content of the meeting. Official Party histories have typically listed this meeting among instances in which “Mao Zedong opposed Wang Ming’s Right deviating capitulationist line,” or they treat it as part of

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the background to the “Sixth Plenum of the Sixth Central Committee.” Official histories thoroughly repudiate Wang Ming’s reports at the meeting, which they criticize for their “systematic capitulationist stand,” and they refuse to acknowledge the Politburo’s unanimous acceptance of Wang Ming’s reports or the series of resolutions passed at the meeting. The Chronological Table of Major Events in CCP History, produced by the CCP Central Committee Party History Research Office in 1987, represents the first reappraisal of Wang Ming’s reports; while continuing to criticize Wang Ming’s “Right deviating capitulationism,” the book acknowledges that Wang’s reports “expressed some correct views in terms of insisting on allying with the KMT in the War of Resistance.”52 This reassessment of Wang Ming’s reports by an authoritative Party history research apparatus claim that the reports mainly arose out of political necessity and they attempted to suggest that the CCP harbored a sincere desire to cooperate with the KMT against Japan at the outset of the War of Resistance. The December Politburo meeting was the first meeting since the January 1934 Fifth Plenum of the Sixth Central Committee that was attended by an absolute majority of the Politburo members; it was also the first meeting since 1931 in which the domestic Party leadership organs met jointly with the Moscow delegation. This meeting was arranged in advance by the CCP Central Committee and was not the result of pressure from Wang Ming. Upon learning in early November 1937 of Wang Ming’s imminent return, Mao anticipated that Wang certainly would be passing along the Comintern’s instructions and that it would be impossible to avoid convening a Politburo meeting. Distasteful as the prospect was to Mao, he sent cables to outlying Politburo members notifying them that they should return to Yan’an for the meeting. Mao sent a cable to Zhou Enlai on November 5, 1937, urging him to return to Yan’an for the meeting,53 and he again referred to Zhou’s return to Yan’an for the meeting in another cable sent to Zhou and others on November 15.54 Xiang Ying, far away in Nanchang, would never have been able to reach Yan’an in time for the meeting if he had not received notice well in advance. The December Politburo meeting was a solemn occasion for the Party’s core leadership and it changed the practice that had developed following the Zunyi Conference of routinely holding enlarged Politburo meetings to include key military cadres. Twelve Politburo members and alternate members attended this meeting: Mao Zedong, Wang Ming, Zhang Wentian, Zhou Enlai, Bo Gu, Kang Sheng, Chen Yun, Peng Dehuai,

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Liu Shaoqi, Xiang Ying, Zhang Guotao, and Kai Feng. Lin Boqu was not a member of the Central Committee or the Politburo, but he also attended the meeting as a Party elder. Four Politburo members or alternate members were absent from the meeting: Zhu De and Ren Bishi remained at the Eighth Route Army Headquarters in Shanxi; Deng Fa was directing the Eighth Route Army’s Dihua (Urumqi) Office; and Wang Jiaxiang remained in Moscow as he was being treated for an illness. Zhang Wentian, who held overall responsibility in the Party, presided over the December Politburo meeting, but Wang Ming played a leading role. On the first day of the meeting, December 9, Wang Ming presented his report “How to Continue to Strive for Victory in the Nationwide War of Resistance.” On the next day, Wang presented a report on the work of the CCP delegation to the Comintern. During the meeting, Wang communicated the Comintern’s instructions, emphasizing that the CCP must quickly change its Civil War strategy and establish a wide-ranging national United Front against Japan. While touching on the CCP’s political policies since the launch of the War of Resistance, Wang implicitly criticized Mao and openly censured Liu Shaoqi by name.* In his report, Wang criticized the Luochuan Conference for not highlighting the principles of “resistance against Japan above all else” and “everything subordinate to the anti-Japanese resistance.” He held that it was wrong to inappropriately emphasize the “unilateral War of Resistance line” and the “across-the-board resistance line,” and to juxtapose the antiJapanese resistance with issues of democracy and the people’s livelihood. Wang said that if the mass movement were to gain legitimacy, it had to register with the KMT government, and that there would be no need to fear KMT restrictions under the conditions of war with Japan. Wang gave the example of the “Ten Guiding Principles of Resisting Japan and Saving the Nation” formulated by the Luochuan Conference, which placed “national unity to resist Japan” in tenth place, and he criticized the Luochuan Conference for failing to recognize the importance of KMTCCP cooperation and putting too much emphasis on independence and autonomy. Wang said that although the Luochuan Conference advocated

*

  Wang Ming’s remarks during the December 1937 Politburo meeting have never been fully disclosed.

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mobilizing the masses, it did not identify any specific means for doing so, and it did not raise the slogan of “everything through a United Front.” Wang Ming criticized the September 25, 1937, “CCP Central Committee Resolution Regarding the Issue of the Communist Party’s Participation in the Government (Draft)” for failing to acknowledge the progress the KMT had made. Wang held that the KMT had undergone a fundamental change, from non-resistance against Japan to resistance against Japan and from containing the CCP to cooperating with the CCP. Wang emphasized that conditions for CCP participation in the government depended on whether or not the government was resisting Japan, and as long as the KMT resisted Japan, the CCP should take part in the government. Wang further held that treating the Revival Society * as a fascist organization was incorrect because the main characteristic of fascism was external aggression, whereas the goal of the Revival Society was to resist Japan. In his report, Wang stated that he disagreed with some of the conclusions Mao had put forward in his November 12, 1937, “The Situation and Tasks of the War of Resistance against Japan Following the Fall of Shanghai and Taiyuan.” Wang felt that the analysis that the Party’s greatest threat before the Marco Polo Bridge Incident was “Left deviation” and that the greatest threat after the incident was “Right deviation” had exaggerated the threat of Right deviation and such thinking was a kind of mechanism.† Wang held that the formulation in Article 19 of the report outline—“Does the Communist Party lead the bourgeoisie, or does the bourgeoisie lead the proletariat? Does the Kuomintang (KMT) absorb the Communist Party, or does the Communist Party absorb

*

  TN: The Revival Society (Fuxingshe) was associated with the Three People’s Principles Enforcement Society (Sanminzhuyi lixingshe), a secret organization popularly referred to as the Blue Shirt Society that Chiang Kai-shek had established in 1932. The Blue Shirt Society, with only several hundred members, was dedicated to unifying China under the KMT. The Revival Society was an external mass organization of the Blue Shirt Society, with an estimated half a million members and it aimed to support Chiang Kai-shek as China’s leader, oppose Japanese aggression, and suppress the Communists. †   TN: The “mechanism” referred to here is in the philosophical sense, whereby natural wholes (principally living things) are regarded as machines or artifacts comprised of parts that lack any intrinsic relationship with one another.

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the Kuomintang?”—was also wrong, because throughout history the proletariat had never led the bourgeoisie and the correct term should be “joint leadership.” Wang opposed pontificating over political power, which would only scare off allies. He also opposed dividing the KMT and other political groups into Leftist, centrist, and Rightist factions, saying they should only be classified as resisting or capitulating to Japan. Wang likewise disagreed with the CCP’s criticism of Zhang Naiqi,* pointing out that although the slogan Zhang Naiqi put forward of “fewer slogans, more suggestions” was not without merit, the CCP should take the approach of holding discussions and making suggestions together with the KMT, and not to make constant political demands for this or that. If it can be said that Wang Ming had misgivings toward Mao but he did not dare to criticize him by name and only referred to the November 12, 1937, outline that Mao had drafted, he showed considerably less courtesy to Liu Shaoqi. In his “Various Fundamental Policies in the Guerrilla War of Resistance against Japan,” Wang criticized Liu by name for making demands that were excessive in both scope and number and he said they did not reflect the core issue of “resisting Japan above all else.” Wang held that for the time being the CCP should emphasize shared values rather than differences in its relations with the KMT.55 During the December Politburo meeting, Wang fully performed his role as Stalin’s spokesman, and his report was basically a “declaration of the imperial edict” that reflected the views of Stalin and Dimitrov regarding the CCP’s present tasks. In early November 1937, just before Wang’s departure for China, Stalin and Dimitrov had summoned Wang, Kang Sheng, Wang Jiaxiang, and Deng Fa for a meeting in Moscow. Out of consideration for the security of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR), Stalin was counting on China to drag Japan into the quagmire of the war so it would have no strength to attack the Soviet Union.56 At a meeting of the Secretariat of the Comintern Executive Committee on * 

TN: In the late 1920s and early 1930s, Zhang Naiqi’s articles supporting the KMT were published in his journal New Review. In 1935, he established the Shanghai Cultural Association for National Salvation. He was arrested by the Nationalist government in November 1936 but was released during the Sino-Japanese War. After the war, he joined Huang Yanpei in establishing the China Democratic National Construction Association and he later became an official in the PRC government. He was labeled a Rightist in 1957 and died in 1977.

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November 14, Dimitrov said that the CCP should abide by the principles of “all things subordinate to the United Front” and “everything through the United Front,” and it should not place undue emphasis on independence and autonomy.57 Stalin felt that the CCP was too weak to serve as the core of the United Front but that Chiang Kai-shek could fulfill that role; the CCP should not provoke or offend Chiang but should put all its efforts into strengthening cooperation with the KMT. Stalin was unfamiliar with Mao and was leery of him,58 and he wondered whether Mao would faithfully implement Moscow’s strategic plans, which was why he was sending his disciple Wang Ming back to China to oversee the CCP’s execution of the new policy of allying with the KMT. Regarding the mission that Wang Ming was undertaking, the Comintern’s general secretary, Dimitrov, had already delivered a clear explanation. When discussing the situation in China during a meeting of the Secretariat of the Comintern Executive Committee on August 10, 1937, Dimitrov was not confident that the CCP would change its policies. He felt that it might be difficult for CCP leaders, who had fought to establish the soviet areas, to execute a different policy. It was thus “imperative to have an energetic new person who can help the CCP Central Committee by arguing for a clear direction in the international situation.”59 In the eyes of Stalin and Dimitrov, Wang Ming was the right man for the job. Assured of his backing from Stalin, Wang Ming remained complacent at the December Politburo meeting, but the warmth with which Mao welcomed* him had disarmed him60 and had insidiously inflated his selfimportance, entrapping him in misapprehension. Wang Ming’s slighting of Mao’s authority in his report instantly destroyed the cordial relations with Mao that he had expended so much effort to forge since 1934. Wang’s belief that Liu Shaoqi had no real power and that he could denigrate Mao by criticizing Liu also had serious repercussions in that it intensified the alliance between Mao and Liu based on their mutual antipathy to Wang.

*

  Li Guangcan, a former West Route Army soldier whom the Eighth Route Army’s Dihua Office had appointed as Wang Ming’s bodyguard in mid-November 1937 and who escorted Wang Ming and the others to Yan’an from Dihua on November 29, recalls that after Wang returned to Yan’an, Mao and the others held a welcoming party for him at Northern Shaanxi Public School, during which Mao spoke with “great enthusiasm and was very excited ... as if slightly inebriated.”

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But all this was yet to come; for the present Wang Ming enjoyed an advantage and the future appeared bright. Almost unanimously, the Politburo endorsed Wang’s report, and even Mao was forced to chime in with his approval. Zhou Enlai supported Wang’s report. In a speech on December 11, Zhou leveled indirect criticism at Mao for remarks he had made regarding the War of Resistance. Zhou said that more progress could have been made in promoting the United Front during the past four months but for the view that “a unilateral war of resistance was doomed to failure.” He said that a unilateral War of Resistance should not be contrasted with a broad-based war and that it was dialectically inconsistent to insist that a unilateral war had to fail before a broad-based war would ensure victory.61 Citing the situation in Shanxi as an example, Zhou held that failure to apply the principle of “the War of Resistance above all else” and undue emphasis on independence and autonomy had created thinking, speech, and actions within the Party and military, as well as at the local levels, that were not conducive to resistance or to the United Front.62 Zhou stated that extending independence and autonomy to all areas would jeopardize the United Front and the CCP should openly point out and correct those errors in the United Front in order to inspire confidence and admiration among its allies.63 Zhou’s speech reflected the views of the majority of Politburo members, putting Mao at a distinct disadvantage. Mao suppressed his anger in order to avoid being isolated and he forced himself to make concessions to Wang and Zhou. In his speech at the meeting, Mao admitted, in accordance with Wang’s criticism, the existence of an “inadequate appraisal of the KMT’s transformation since the launch of the War of Resistance.”64 While expressing agreement with Wang’s stand that the “KMT and CCP should share responsibility and leadership,” Mao did not completely abandon his view, insisting that there still existed a question of “who would absorb whom.”65 Everything that occurred at the December Politburo meeting confirmed Mao’s earlier prediction that some Politburo members would once again rally around Wang Ming after his return to China. Mao had prepared for this in early December by adjusting his stand on the United Front. On December 6, 1937, the eighth day after Wang Ming’s arrival in Yan’an, Mao sent a joint cable with Zhou Enlai and Peng Dehuai to the Eighth Route Army Headquarters, demanding resolute execution of the United Front policy and improved education of the troops regarding the

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United Front. In this cable, Mao especially emphasized that the Eighth Route Army should liaise with Yan Xishan’s army and local administrative organs in order to avoid frictions, and he directed the Eighth Route Army to cease imposing grain and cloth taxes on local citizens and instead to request allocations from the government.66 Even so, Mao’s softened attitude toward the United Front did not reduce the attacks by Wang Ming and the others at the Politburo meeting. Mao was at a temporary disadvantage during the meeting, but although Wang Ming won in terms of the overall response, he did not gain anything else. For a time, Mao and Wang remained evenly matched, with neither enjoying an obvious advantage. The meeting’s declaration that the Secretariat of the Central Committee would be reorganized and that the post of general secretary would be replaced by the collective leadership of the Secretariat effectively put Mao and Wang in a position of sharing ultimate power over the Party. The meeting announced a Politburo consisting of sixteen members and alternate members: Mao Zedong, Wang Ming, Zhang Wentian, Zhou Enlai, Bo Gu, Zhu De, Zhang Guotao, Wang Jiaxiang, Ren Bishi, Peng Dehuai, Xiang Ying, Liu Shaoqi, Kang Sheng, Chen Yun, Deng Fa, and Kai Feng.67 According to Zhang Guotao’s recollections, this name-list had been approved by Stalin and was announced by Wang Ming at the meeting. Mao “appeared uneasy” with the fact that Wang produced the namelist “without prior discussion with anyone else.” But Mao expressed no disagreement, possibly because the list did not actually change the composition of the Politburo and Wang Ming had not introduced any new members. Most of the newly-announced Politburo members had been appointed during the Fourth and Fifth Plenums of the Sixth Central Committee. Guan Xiangying, who had been made an alternate member during the Fifth Plenum, was not included this time. Peng Dehuai and Zhang Hao had joined the Politburo in January 1936, but soon thereafter Zhang Hao was no longer notified to attend Politburo meetings and his position on the Politburo had been terminated after he had fulfilled his mission as Comintern envoy to persuade Zhang Guotao to go north.*

*

  TN: Zhang Hao, a pseudonym for Lin Yuying who was related to Lin Biao, arrived in northern Shaanxi as a Comintern envoy in late 1935 to notify the CCP of the Comintern’s decision that China should form a United Front against Japan. However, the timing of Zhang Hao’s arrival and the exact content of his message remain unclear.

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Mao was still uneasy after Wang Ming produced this name-list and he felt that he had to test him. At the meeting, Mao “spared no effort in terms of praising Wang Ming as the leader of the CCP Central Committee ... and forcefully advocated placing Wang Ming’s name at the top of the list.” Wang also took pains to make it known that he had no intention of “seizing the commander’s seal” by producing the name-list.68 After this probe, Mao knew that Wang had no intention of replacing him and he did not press the matter further. The December Politburo meeting was not a happy one for Mao, but there were still one or two things he could be pleased about, namely the meeting’s decision to terminate the position of general secretary with “overall responsibility” over the Central Committee, which Zhang Wentian effectively held* as well as forcing Zhou Enlai out of the Secretariat of the Central Committee.69 For an extended period of time starting in the mid-1930s, the Secretariat of the Central Committee took on the functions of the Politburo Standing Committee. Established by the Fifth Plenum of the Sixth Central Committee in January 1934 and comprised of Bo Gu, Zhou Enlai, Zhang Wentian, and Xiang Ying, the Secretariat of the Central Committee was the supreme organ of Party power, with Bo Gu holding overall responsibility. The Zunyi Conference reorganized the Secretariat by including Mao and Wang Jiaxiang and terminating Xiang Ying’s position as secretary since he was stationed in Jiangxi. Therefore, the new Secretariat consisted of Zhang Wentian, Mao, Zhou Enlai, Bo Gu, and Wang Jiaxiang, with Zhang Wentian assuming overall charge of the Party as de facto general secretary. This arrangement continued until the December Politburo meeting in 1937. The December Politburo meeting resolved not to have one person in overall charge of the Party, and Zhang Wentian became merely another secretary in what was an obvious demotion. In his temporarily defensive *

  Zhang Wentian published a statement in New China Daily on April 12, 1938, stating that as of December 1937, he no longer held overall responsibility for the CCP Central Committee. This statement was actually drafted in Wuhan by Wang Ming and published in Zhang’s name, which shows that Zhang’s political status had declined following Wang’s return to China. Yet in the subsequent exposure and criticism of Wang Ming’s “assertion of independence” in Wuhan, no one drew attention to this particular incident, apparently in order to cover up the fact that it was also Mao’s desire that Zhang be stripped of his title.

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position, Mao preferred to have the position of general secretary vacant. The meeting also eliminated Zhou Enlai’s long-held position of secretary of the Secretariat,* so the new Secretariat now consisted of Mao, Wang Ming, Zhang Wentian, Chen Yun, and Kang Sheng. Wang and other recent returnees from the Soviet Union made up three of the five members, which ostensibly put Wang at an advantage. Bo Gu and Wang Jiaxiang were relieved of their positions. Zhou Enlai’s departure from the Secretariat of the Central Committee signified an obvious decline in Zhou’s influence in the core leadership. Whether due to a lack of political sensitivity or because he wanted a clear break from the previous line, Wang Ming did not seem to respond to the Secretariat’s loss of Zhou, Bo, and Wang Jiaxiang as chief representatives of that line. Zhou’s drop in status was clearly consistent with Mao’s wishes; Mao resented how Zhou had cozied up to Wang Ming and was more than happy to see a rift develop between Zhou and Wang. The December Politburo meeting dealt a heavy blow to Zhang Wentian. Zhang had been wary of Wang Ming’s return to China, worrying that Wang would take his place as Party general secretary, but the elimination of that position was a loss to both Wang and Zhang. Now the rise in Wang’s status intensified Zhang’s resentment, but Mao just sat out the fight, waiting to reap the spoils. In this respect, the December Politburo meeting can be seen as working to Mao’s advantage. The December Politburo meeting resulted in co-governance by Mao and Wang Ming, as reflected in the Seventh Party Congress preparatory committee and other personnel arrangements that had been decided upon at the meeting. The preparatory committee consisted of twentyfive members, including the sixteen Politburo members and several Party veterans and key military cadres, with Mao serving as the chairman of the committee and Wang Ming as the secretary. Under the preparatory committee, there was a five-member Secretarial Office, comprised of the *

  Zhou’s expulsion from the Secretariat of the Central Committee during the December 1937 Politburo meeting is verified in the Politburo’s December 13, 1937, resolution to prepare for the Seventh Party Congress. That resolution declared the establishment of a twenty-five-member preparatory committee, and although Zhou Enlai’s name was included, he was not listed among the preparatory committee’s Organizational Secretariat, which solely consisted of the five members of the Central Committee Secretariat.

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secretaries of the Secretariat, but Zhou Enlai, Bo Gu, and Xiang Ying were no longer among them.70 The December Politburo meeting was the most serious setback that Mao had experienced since the Zunyi Conference; his authority came under serious attack by Wang Ming and the others, and the Politburo almost unanimously supported Wang’s positions, radically expanding Wang’s influence within the core leadership. Mao was forced to cooperate with Wang in a Mao-Wang system that Mao found intensely objectionable. Within this system, Mao was at a temporary disadvantage, whereas Wang’s position was relatively stable. Although at a temporary disadvantage, Mao was not pessimistic about his prospects and he maintained an iron grip on his control of the military and over communications with Moscow. Mao knew very well that Wang had gained the upper hand because of his role as Moscow’s spokesman and because of the support from Zhou Enlai and the others. Mao believed that Wang and Zhou were united purely by common political views rather than due to factionalism, and that once the situation changed, Zhou and the others would come around to support Mao’s position, Peng Dehuai and the others would also rapidly change to Mao’s side, and the unity between Zhou and Wang would dissolve. The Politburo meeting decided to have Wang Ming lead a delegation to Wuhan for talks with Chiang Kai-shek and to set up a Yangtze Bureau of the Central Committee, and this also suited Mao; Wang Ming’s departure would avoid an uncomfortable “co-leadership” situation in Yan’an. As for Zhang Wentian and the others, Mao was fully confident that Zhang would see no personal benefit in forming a “second attachment” to Wang, and Mao had already made preparations and was just waiting for the two to begin to argue. Wang Ming, for his part, had many reasons to be pleased with the outcome of the December Politburo meeting.* First, his reports had been unanimously endorsed and his Politburo colleagues had given him a warm welcome; second, the Politburo had given top marks to the work of the CCP delegation to the Comintern and had praised the delegation, by which it meant Wang Ming, for “enormous assistance to the Central Committee to establish and develop the new policy of a national United Front in resistance against Japan”;71 third, Wang Ming’s status became

*

  Like other resolutions passed by the December Politburo meeting, this one was long concealed within Party history compilations and was only made public in the 1980s.

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fixed during the meeting, the quality of his political leadership and his solid background in the Comintern having garnered him the political qualifications to “help” Mao as the Party’s No. 2, with his fellow returnees also becoming members of the Secretariat; fourth, the meeting decided to establish a CCP delegation headed by Wang Ming to negotiate with the KMT, which gave Wang an even more active leadership role in China. In the joy of his victory, Wang did not notice the dark clouds slowly gathering over his head, in particular the dissatisfaction that had begun to quietly build up during the December Politburo meeting regarding Wang’s inability to guarantee military aid from the Soviet Union. The CCP had been urgently hoping for Soviet military aid since the Jiangxi period, but the Soviet Union had only made empty promises, causing major disappointments among CCP military leaders. Based on promises made by the advisers to the Comintern military delegation, Manfred Stern (in Shanghai) and Otto Braun, the CCP had expended enormous manpower in 1933 to construct an airfield in Ruijin in preparation for receiving military aircraft from the Soviet Union, but ultimately their hopes were dashed.72 On August 25, 1936, with the situation deteriorating in northern Shaanxi and the Red Army’s finances and foodstuffs nearly exhausted, Mao, Zhang Wentian, Zhou Enlai, and Bo Gu sent an urgent cable to Wang Ming, hoping he could convince the Soviets to provide the Red Army with aircraft and artillery73 so as to capture western Gansu, Ningxia, and Suiyuan, but this aid likewise fell through due to various contingencies. All of these things undermined Wang Ming’s status in the core leadership of the CCP. After the beginning of the War of Resistance against Japan, the Soviet Union began providing massive military aid to the Nationalists, but because of restrictions in the Sino-Soviet Non-aggression Pact, the Soviet Union provided basically no munitions to the Communists. Causing widespread disgust within the CCP leadership was the fact that while a steady stream of Soviet arms flowed to Chongqing along the Alma-Ata– Dihua (Urumqi)–Lanzhou Highway, all Yan’an received were Chinese editions of the works of Stalin and Lenin and a small number of antiaircraft machine guns, medicine, and radio transmitters delivered by Soviet military aircraft. CCP leaders grumbled, “They give books to the proletariat and arms to the bourgeoisie.” One of the issues causing the greatest concern among the CCP leadership during the December Politburo meeting was whether the Soviet Union would provide genuine aid to the CCP. Wang Ming explained

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Stalin’s China policy and said it was unlikely that the Soviets would give aid to Yan’an, an answer that disappointed everyone.74 The resentment toward the Soviet Union could easily be turned on Wang Ming as the CCP representative to the Comintern. Now that Stalin had sent him back to China, what contribution was he actually making to the domestic struggle? Was it not possible that Wang Ming’s ineffectiveness was to blame for the Soviet Union’s refusal to provide the CCP with military aid? Wang Ming’s success at the December Politburo meeting made him confident of his future; he only saw the Politburo members’ support for him but not the fragility of that support. Wang Ming had a general working relationship with most Politburo members, but the relationship lacked historical roots or personal friendship. He forgot that unity built on shared political viewpoints could easily fluctuate due to changes in the situation, interpersonal relationships, and other factors. Promoted to an important position at an early age, Wang Ming was merely an upstart influenced by his Russian education and he was apparently not schooled in the philosophy of the worldly-wise. Relations within the CCP’s core leadership were very delicate after the December Politburo meeting; although Wang Ming’s influence was growing, his support was tenuous and most Politburo members continued to hedge their bets, vacillating between Mao and Wang. Zhou Enlai, Zhu De, and Peng Dehuai had friendly attitudes toward Wang Ming, but they also greatly esteemed Mao; hence, they behaved honorably and did not engage in backroom deals with Wang. Kang Sheng and Chen Yun were Wang’s former colleagues from Moscow. Although Kang had maintained close relations with Wang for years, he proceeded more cautiously after reaching Yan’an, and in fact he was quietly calculating the respective strength of Mao and Wang and preparing his own next move. Even though Chen Yun had a long-standing working relationship with Wang, they could not be considered friends with common goals. There was no evidence that Kang and Chen would continue to support Wang politically. Alternate Politburo member Deng Fa was the Dzerzhinsky of the CCP’s Jiangxi period.* He had already lost a great deal of influence after the Zunyi Conference and he had made many enemies in the Party and

*

  TN: Felix Edmundovich Dzerzhinsky, known as “Iron Felix,” was a Soviet revolutionary and head of the Soviet Cheka, which ruthlessly persecuted counterrevolutionaries.

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the military due to his ferocious campaigns against counterrevolutionaries. Given the defects in his close relationship with Zhou Enlai, he was subtly disposed of in April 1936, when Mao and Zhang Wentian sent him off to the Soviet Union. He was replaced on his sole turf, the State Political Security Bureau (SPSB), by Mao’s former subordinate, Wang Shoudao. Deng Fa became the CCP representative in its Xinjiang Office, far away from the seat of power and he was not even able to make it back for the Politburo meeting. Therefore, he was of no practical use to Wang Ming. Bo Gu had long been Wang Ming’s close comrade-in-arms, and having been engaged in a face-off with Mao for years, he naturally welcomed Wang’s return to China. Yet some of the things Wang said at the December Politburo meeting displeased Bo Gu. In order to demonstrate his consistent rectitude and impartiality, Wang had sharply criticized the January 1934 Fifth Plenum of the Sixth Central Committee,* presided over by Bo Gu.75 This inevitably angered Bo Gu and affected relations between the two men. Wang’s only genuine supporter was Xiang Ying. Xiang had long had doubts about Mao’s character, and on the eve of the Long March he had anticipated that Mao would use the crisis in the Party to seize power.76 In December 1937, Xiang Ying arrived in Yan’an from the south to reunite with his former comrade-in-arms from whom he had been separated for more than three years and to take part in the December Politburo meeting. From Xiang Ying’s perspective, there was no doubt that Wang Ming was a trustworthy leader for the Party and the best person to contend with and constrain Mao. Xiang Ying therefore wholeheartedly endorsed Wang and he was likewise sincere in his satisfaction with the Politburo’s establishment of a Southeast Sub-bureau, of which he served as head. In the Party structure, this sub-bureau was directly subordinate to the Yangtze Bureau, and the New Fourth Army was to be jointly led by Yan’an and the Yangtze Bureau. The December Politburo meeting cast a long shadow between Mao and Wang. After deeply offending Mao, Wang seems not to have realized that Mao regarded him as his top enemy in the Party who had to be

*

  Wang Ming presented a report on the work of the CCP delegation to the Comintern on the afternoon of December 10, 1937. At the end of the meeting, Wang said, “We now consider that the line of the Party Central Committee is generally correct and that its greatest error was in the resolution of the Fifth Plenum.”

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eliminated. While Wang was purring with complacency over his current victory, Mao was preparing for battle and building up his resources behind a smoke-screen of compromise and retreat.

IV. Mao’s Resistance against Wuhan’s “Second Politburo” On December 18, 1937, just four days after the conclusion of the December Politburo meeting, Wang Ming, Zhou Enlai, and Bo Gu led a CCP delegation to Wuhan. On December 23, the delegation held a meeting with the CCP’s Yangtze Bureau and decided to merge the two organizations into a single body. Outside of the Party, this body was to be referred to as the CCP delegation, but within the Party it was known as the Yangtze Bureau. The Yangtze Bureau was the CCP’s largest organization outside of northern Shaanxi, and it included five of the Politburo’s sixteen members: Wang Ming, Zhou Enlai, Bo Gu, Xiang Ying, and Kai Feng, who was transferred there in April 1938. Also engaged in leadership work in the Yangtze Bureau were Party veterans Dong Biwu, Lin Boqu, and Wu Yuzhang (Lin Boqu was soon transferred to serve as representative in the CCP’s Xi’an Office), as well as Ye Jianying, Deng Yingchao, Li Kenong, Wu Kejian, and Liao Huanxing (who had been Wang Ming’s secretary in Moscow). The Yangtze Bureau was the most important organ that the CCP had established in a KMT-controlled area following the split with the KMT in 1927. It was responsible for leading the CCP’s underground organization in southern China as well as the New Fourth Army, and it bore the arduous tasks of negotiating with the KMT and liaising with various sectors of society. The Yangtze Bureau also openly published the CCP’s official New China Daily and the Party publication The Masses.* Given the exceedingly broad scope of the bureau’s operations, its massive influence on the CCP’s overall direction and policies, and the towering reputations of its leaders within the Party, the bureau was often referred to as the “Second Politburo.”

*

  On December 28, 1937, the Secretariat of the CCP Central Committee sent a cable to the Comintern reporting on the December Politburo meeting and on personnel arrangements, and it requested that the Comintern send Wu Yuzhang, Xiao San, and Liao Huanxing, who had published the CCP’s newspaper National Salvation Times in Paris, to China to publish New China Daily.

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Wang Ming and Zhou Enlai were the souls of the Yangtze Bureau. Wang Ming had gained Zhou’s energetic support during the December Politburo meeting, and following the meeting, Wang and Zhou’s influence within the Party increased markedly. After Wang and Zhou arrived in Wuhan, they immediately set to work implementing the Politburo meeting’s policies with respect to strengthening cooperation with the KMT and consolidating the United Front, thus putting them at even greater odds with Mao. Wang Ming and Zhou Enlai emphasized that the CCP should do all in its power to maintain friendly relations with the KMT, engage in “open and honest cooperation,” and “generally adopt a position of assistance.” In particular, on the issue of establishing local political power, the CCP should first of all seek the approval of the Nationalist government, with a view to facilitating “the establishment of a unified national defense government on the foundation of the Nationalist government.” On January 28, 1938, Wang Ming, Zhou Enlai, Bo Gu, Dong Biwu, and Ye Jianying sent a cable* to the Secretariat of the Central Committee in Yan’an, criticizing the unilateral establishment of a Provisional Administrative Committee in the Jin-Cha-Ji (Shanxi-Chahar-Hebei) Border Area without registering with the Nationalist government. They felt this “would have a deleterious effect on nationwide United Front work.”77 On military issues, Wang Ming and Zhou Enlai advocated that the CCP-led armed guerrilla forces should obtain legal status, and they felt that the Communist troops should actively cooperate with the Nationalist Army by transferring the main force of the Eighth Route Army to take part in the war against Japan.78 On January 11, 1938, Zhou Enlai and Ye Jianying sent a cable to Mao, Zhu De, and Peng Dehuai recommending that either Liu Bocheng’s or Lin Biao’s division be transferred across the Yellow River to join in the battle at the western segment of the Long-Hai Railway† as an emergency response to Japan’s invasion of Zhengzhou. Wang and Zhou’s attitude with respect to CCP participation in the government was also different from Mao’s. After the beginning of the

*

  Several years later, this cable faced severe criticism as evidence of “Wang Ming’s capitulationism,” and it was criticized again after the founding of the PRC, with the names of Zhou Enlai and the others deleted. †   TN: The Long-Hai Railway extended from Lanzhou, Gansu Province, to Lianyugang, Jiangsu Province.

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War of Resistance, Mao and Zhang Wentian consistently maintained a cautious and conservative attitude on this subject. The September 25, 1937 CCP Central Committee, “(Draft) Resolution Regarding the Issue of Communist Party Members Participating in the Government” stated that until the KMT changed its one-party dictatorship, the CCP would only blur its class character by taking part in the government. This position, taken by Mao and Zhang, influenced Wang Ming as well. While in Wuhan, on February 2, 1938, Wang Ming issued “Mr. Mao Zedong’s Conversation with Yan’an’s New China News Reporter Mr. Qi Guang,” which reiterated the position that the CCP would not take part in the government. However, Wang Ming did not oppose Communist Party leaders joining the government in their personal capacities. When the Nationalist Government reorganized its Military Commission in January 1938, Chiang Kai-shek invited Zhou Enlai to serve as deputy director of its Political Department. Knowing that the Central Committee would prohibit it, Zhou repeatedly declined, but Chiang persisted. On January 11, Wang Ming, Zhou Enlai, Bo Gu, Dong Biwu, and Ye Jianying sent a cable to the Secretariat of the Central Committee in Yan’an, reporting on the situation and asking that Yan’an consider Zhou’s appointment; in effect, they were asking Yan’an to retract its prohibition against CCP members joining the government. Mao and the others refused to reply to the cable, indicating that Mao maintained his original stand. Wang, Zhou, and Bo sent another cable to the Secretariat on January 21, stating that if Zhou took this position, it would help expand CCP influence, whereas refusing the invitation would lead Chiang and Chen Cheng* to doubt the CCP’s commitment to mutual assistance. Mao again refused to respond to this sincere and well-reasoned cable. With Yan’an refusing to state its position, the Yangtze Bureau decided that Zhou would represent the CCP as deputy director of the Political Department of the KMT Military Commission after the department was established on February 6, 1938. The CCP Central Committee did not formally approve of Zhou taking this position until the Politburo convened a meeting that was held from the end of February to the beginning of March.79 *

  TN: Chen Cheng (1897‒1965), one of Chiang Kai-shek’s top military advisers, had risen in the ranks of the Nationalist Army during the Northern Expedition and in 1931 he was tasked with suppressing the Red Army. After the War of Resistance against Japan, Chen became chief of the General Staff and commander-in-chief of the Navy, and he led attacks on the Communist Base Areas.

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In their joint actions in the Yangtze Bureau, Wang Ming, Zhou Enlai, and the others constituted a serious challenge to Mao’s authority. The Yangtze Bureau not only had a significant influence on overall Party policies, but it also wielded decision-making power on Party organizational issues. By joining forces, Wang and Zhou destroyed the monopoly of power in the Politburo that Mao had enjoyed since the Zunyi Conference and forced Mao to accept the bureau’s views on a number of important issues, notably the convening of a Politburo meeting at the end of February 1938, which Mao was forced to agree to under pressure from Zhou and the others. On February 7, 1938, Wang, Zhou, Bo Gu, Dong Biwu, and Ye Jianying sent a joint cable to the Secretariat of the Central Committee in Yan’an recommending that a Politburo meeting be convened on about February 20 to study “many new and serious issues” that had emerged in CCP-KMT relations.80 The “new and serious issues” referred to anti-Communist sentiments that had emerged within the KMT since January 1938. On January 23, Kang Ze and Liu Jianqun, who represented the KMT in the CCP-KMT Relations Committee, in the presence of Wang and Zhou had criticized the Eighth Route Army’s “non-fighting guerrillas” in North China. Thereafter, comments attacking the CCP appeared in Wuhan’s KMT newspaper. On January 17, the business office and printing factory of New China Daily were sabotaged by unidentified persons. All of these incidents alarmed Wang and Zhou, and they quickly reported to Yan’an on the latest situation in Wuhan and proposed holding a Politburo meeting to discuss how to handle it. However, Mao did not respond to this cable. Lacking the power to directly beat back opinions that differed from his, he typically employed this passive-aggressive approach to express his stand. Waiting in vain for a response from Yan’an, on February 15 Wang, Zhou, and Bo Gu sent another cable to the Secretariat, as well as to Ren Bishi, Kai Feng, Zhu De, and Peng Dehuai, recommending that a Politburo meeting be convened to discuss two issues: the situation in the War of Resistance and preparations for the Seventh Party Congress.81 Wang, Zhou, and Bo seem to have anticipated that Mao would again respond negatively to their suggestion, which was why they also sent the cable to Politburo members outside of the Secretariat, hoping to use the Politburo’s collective power to force Mao to agree to the suggestion by the Yangtze Bureau.

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On February 23, 1938, Wang, Zhou, and Bo sent yet another cable to the Secretariat, proposing a two-day Politburo meeting during which “Wang Ming and Enlai will present proposals resulting from the Yangtze Bureau’s discussions, and then they will immediately return to Wuhan.”82 Faced with persistent pressures from Wang and Zhou, Mao was forced to back down and convene a Politburo meeting. Mao deeply resented the attitude Wang, Zhou, and the others took toward the Politburo meeting. He felt it was a fait accompli that Wang and Zhou had brought about to force his hand. Recalling this incident years later, Mao said, “For the March conference, the Yangtze Bureau first sent a cable stipulating the agenda and deciding that a certain important person should come back to work in the Yangtze Bureau. I was very unhappy with this attitude.”83 This was his subsequent version of events; at the time, Mao could only contain his extreme unwillingness. Under Wang’s and Zhou’s repeated demands, the Politburo held a meeting in Yan’an from February 27 to March 1, 1938, which came to be known as the March Politburo meeting. At this meeting, Mao was thwarted once again and forced to make concessions to Wang, Zhou, and the others. The March Politburo meeting approved Wang and Zhou’s policy to strengthen the United Front with the KMT. Among the eight Politburo members in attendance, Mao, Zhang Wentian, and Ren Bishi expressed reservations regarding Wang Ming’s report, whereas Wang, Zhou, Kai Feng, and Zhang Guotao were largely in agreement, and Kang Sheng’s stand was ambiguous. Zhou played a prominent role in supporting Wang Ming’s views. He proposed that the CCP should make suggestions to Chiang Kai-shek about establishing a military strategy of “mainly mobile warfare, including positional warfare, supplemented by guerrilla warfare,”* and about “organizing new armies.”84 Due to efforts by Wang and Zhou, the March Politburo meeting included accelerated preparations for the Seventh Party Congress among *

  During the Yangtze Bureau period, the emphasis of Wang Ming, Zhou Enlai, and the others on mobile and positional warfare was presented as a recommendation to the KMT. Contrary to the distorted depictions in CCP Party history compilations, they had no intention of forcing this policy on the Eighth Route Army and the New Fourth Army, and in fact Mao himself had raised similar views. On January 13, 1938, Mao said, “Why should we describe guerrilla warfare as supplementary? —Because guerrilla warfare cannot ultimately annihilate the enemy. Therefore, at present, we need to mainly use mobile warfare, supplemented by positional and guerrilla warfare.”

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the Party’s current main tasks. Convening the Seventh Party Congress “in the near future” was one of the most important decisions passed by the December Politburo meeting, and Wang and Zhou attached great importance to making it happen. The March Politburo meeting decided to issue a letter to all Party comrades to assemble for the congress as well as to issue a general nationwide notice; to issue an order to all local Party organizations to prepare for the congress; to establish a committee to prepare a report to the congress; and to task comrades on the Politburo and the Central Committee with drafting the report’s political outline and papers on special topics. With Mao temporarily in a defensive position, holding the Seventh Party Congress undoubtedly further weakened his influence. Of slight consolation to Mao was the fact that the March Politburo meeting did not explicitly state who would draft and deliver the Politburo’s report to the congress. Another strike against Mao during the March Politburo meeting was the veto of Mao’s suggestion that Wang Ming remain in Yan’an and the agreement to send Wang back to Wuhan to continue working with the Yangtze Bureau. Mao stated on March 1, “Under the present circumstances, Wang Ming cannot return to Wuhan.”85 The reasons he expressed openly were considerations for Wang’s safety and the operational needs of the Secretariat of the Central Committee in Yan’an. The reality, however, was that after nearly three months of observation, Mao was fully apprised of the power of the unity between Wang and Zhou. Transferring Wang back to Yan’an would kill two birds with one stone by severing his links with Zhou and leaving him with nothing to do in Yan’an. It appears that Wang was wary of the true intent of Mao’s suggestion,* and at the March 1 meeting, he explicitly stated his wish to continue working in Wuhan.86 The meeting voted on Mao’s suggestion, with five opposing and three agreeing, and ultimately deciding to transfer alternate Politburo member Kai Feng to the Yangtze Bureau and to have Wang return to Yan’an after another month in Wuhan.87 Facing the majority viewpoint, Mao had to temporarily shelve his own plan. The March Politburo meeting strengthened the influence of Wang and Zhou within the Party, especially in terms of setting CCP policies. The meeting unanimously agreed that Wang Ming would draft the meeting’s

*

  During a meeting of the Secretariat of the Central Committee on October 8, 1941, Wang Ming spoke of his desire “not to remain in Yan’an to work” at that time.

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summary.88 The meeting also decided that Wang would represent the Central Committee in drafting a proposal for the KMT’s Provisional National Congress, scheduled for the latter half of March, and that Zhou would draft the military proposals to the KMT. The Secretariat of the Central Committee also finally granted permission for Zhou to serve as deputy director of the Political Department of the Nationalist Government’s Military Commission. Mao never stopped thinking about how to contain the rise of Wang and Zhou within the CCP. On March 21, the Yangtze Bureau sent a cable to Yan’an with the proposal that Wang Ming had drafted for the CCP to present at the KMT’s Provisional National Congress. After days passed without a response from Mao, Wang delivered the proposal to the KMT on March 24. One day later, a cable arrived from the Central Party Secretariat in Yan’an criticizing errors in the letter and demanding the delivery of a letter of congratulations drafted by the Secretariat. Wang, Zhou, and the other leaders of the Yangtze Bureau jointly signed their names to a reply cable sent to Yan’an on April 1, pointing out that the Secretariat’s cable had arrived too late, as the congress had already concluded on April 1. They requested that Yan’an not publish this document, “otherwise it will have an enormously negative political effect inside and outside of the Party.”89 Conflicts arose again between Yan’an and the Yangtze Bureau in June and July 1938. A cable arrived from the Secretariat of the Central Committee stating its disagreement with “Our Opinions on Defending Wuhan and the Third Phase of the War of Resistance,” which Wang, Zhou, Bo, and the others had jointly issued. The Yangtze Bureau sent a reply cable to Yan’an insisting on its stand; with neither side yielding ground, a “cable war” ensued.90 Mao purposely remained in the background of the Yan’an cables to the Yangtze Bureau, and most of the cables were sent in the name of the Secretariat or the Politburo members in Yan’an, with Mao ensuring that his name was listed last among the signatories. Even though Mao was the instigator behind this, pressure from the Yangtze Bureau forced him to dilute his role as Party boss.*

*

  In the first half of 1938, all cables sent to the North China Bureau and the Eighth Route Army listed Mao’s name first, whereas cables sent to the Yangtze Bureau typically listed Mao’s name last.

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Mao’s setback and Wang and Zhou’s success at the March Politburo meeting resulted in the influence of the Yangtze Bureau to spread from southern and central China to the Eighth Route Army and northern China. In the spring of 1938, Peng Dehuai communicated the gist of the December Politburo meeting to the Eighth Route Army. Examining the Party’s past “lack of understanding of the Kuomintang’s fundamental transformation,” Peng held that “mechanically designating a specific period as a mainly Right deviating or a Left deviation stage was improper.”91 Years later, Mao latched on to these words and demanded that Peng admit to executing the “Wang Ming Right deviating capitulationist line” during the early stage of the War of Resistance. Mao also included the report on the December Politburo meeting that Peng had transmitted as “negative internal material” in Since the Sixth Party Congress. In fact, Peng had merely passed along the synopsis drafted by the Central Party Secretariat that Zhang Wentian had given to him, i.e., “The Summary and Gist of the Central Committee Politburo December Meeting,” delivering it verbatim to a meeting of regiment-level cadres of the Eighth Route Army’s 543rd Brigade.92 According to Mao’s logic, Peng Dehuai was following Wang Ming at this stage. The fact was, however, that the army and the local leaders had no idea that there was a “correct Mao Zedong line” in addition to the spirit of the Central Committee. On January 7 and 8, 1938, Mao Zemin (Mao Zedong’s brother) transmitted the gist of the December Politburo meeting to the Lanzhou Office of the Eighth Route Army.93 In April 1938, during the First Party Congress of the Jin-Cha-Ji Border Region, the secretary of the North China Bureau’s Jin-Cha-Ji Sub-bureau, Peng Zhen, delivered a report entitled “Regarding the Situation of China’s War of Resistance and the Guiding Principles for Victory in the War of Resistance,” which emphasized the principles of “thoroughly grasping all operations, everything passing through the United Front, and everything subordinate to the United Front.” In May 1938, Deng Xiaoping criticized the campaign in the Central Shanxi Region to borrow grain from landlords, calling it a Left deviation error of “violating the United Front in the countryside.” Up until July 1938, Peng Dehuai, Yang Shangkun, Peng Zhen, and Deng Xiaoping also conducted a campaign in some parts of northern China against “Left deviation exclusionism” within the Party. During Mao’s resistance to the Yangtze Bureau, Zhang Wentian steadfastly took Mao’s side. Mao also discovered some new allies. One was

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his old friend from the Jiangxi soviet days, Ren Bishi, and the others were Wang Ming’s fellow returnees from the Soviet Union, Kang Sheng and Chen Yun. Closer to Mao than all the others, Liu Shaoqi turned out to be both an ally and a kindred spirit. Liu did not attend the March Politburo meeting, but his views were almost identical to Mao’s. After the March Politburo meeting, Mao urgently called Liu back to Yan’an to enhance his own power within the Politburo. In order to put Liu’s mind at rest, on March 24, 1938, Mao had the Secretariat of the Central Committee issue a new decision on the delegation of responsibilities for leaders of the North China Bureau, which explicitly stipulated that while in Yan’an, Hu Fu (Liu Shaoqi) was still responsible for leading the work of the North China Bureau and that all matters were to be reported directly to him.94 Liu sent a letter to Peng Zhen on July 10, 1938, reminding him to immediately revise his policies. In his letter, Liu warned, “The Kuomintang and Yan Xishan still do not acknowledge the United Front; it is therefore best to say little or nothing about the United Front in documents and propaganda.”95 Mao displayed none of his feelings toward his Politburo colleagues, but he kept an eye on all of them from the chilly depths of his Yan’an cave, anxiously making various preparations and waiting for the right moment to stage his counterattack.

4. Mao’s Great Victory over Wang Ming

I. Mao’s Flank Attack on Wang Ming From Wang Ming’s return to China at the end of November 1937 until the spring of 1938, the consensus reached by Wang, Zhou Enlai, and others regarding the United Front substantially reversed the prevailing atmosphere whereby Mao controlled the core leadership of the Party, and forced Mao to adopt a posture of endorsing the new guiding principle. After the December Politburo meeting, Mao was compelled to downplay the previous emphasis on “independence and autonomy” and to begin voicing support for the United Front. On December 24, 1937, Mao sent a cable to civilian and military officials of all the Border Regions, requiring them to enlarge and consolidate the United Front with the Kuomintang (KMT) “under the slogan of joint responsibility, joint leadership, mutual assistance, and mutual development,” and to “refrain from jeering and mocking” the Allied Party and army. Mao even proposed that the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) should “help the government conscript soldiers” and he wrote that “confiscating the assets of traitors and the disposal of traitors require government approval, and optimally they should be handed over to the government to be dealt with.”1 From January to March 1938, when receiving American UPI journalist George Wang, and in several speeches at conferences in Yan’an, Mao no longer promoted the position he had previously insisted on. Speeches of the kind that Mao gave in early spring 1938 were not subsequently included in the Selected Works of Mao Zedong.

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Even so, it would be a complete and utter fallacy to regard these speeches as evidence that Mao had changed his views and had accepted the position of Wang Ming and the others. Mao never for a moment abandoned his own views; it was only under such troubling circumstances that on public occasions he was forced to adjust his attitude. In private, however, Mao was making painstaking preparations for an attack on his opponents. After the March 1938 Politburo meeting, Mao stepped up preparations for his “bombardment” of Wang and the others. His artillery shells consisted of his “Strategic Issues in the Guerrilla War of Resistance against Japan,” which he completed in May, and his speech on “On Protracted Warfare,” which he delivered in Yan’an from May 26 to June 3. “Strateg ic Issues in the Guerrilla War of Resistance against Japan” was structured as a complete dissertation. In it, Mao targeted the viewpoints within the Party, represented by Wang Ming and Zhou Enlai, that had emphasized mobile warfare since the launch of the War of Resistance, and he expounded in detail on the crucial strategic role of guerrilla warfare in the War of Resistance as well as on the significance of the CCP establishing resistance base areas, thus perfecting his position on guerrilla warfare since the Luochuan Conference.2 “On Protracted Warfare” was the outline for a speech in which Mao indirectly criticized Zhou and the others for their “distrust” and “slighting” of the strategic position of guerrilla warfare during the early years of the War of Resistance. Zhou had previously criticized an isolated emphasis on guerrilla warfare as a “mechanical” viewpoint, and now Mao was singling him out for “not endorsing the Eighth Route Army’s strategic policies.” Mao employed a tone that broached no argument and he treated alternative views within the Party as categorically heterodox. When Mao delivered these two speeches in the spring of 1938, the Japanese Army had already begun its assault on the environs of Wuhan, and the Yangtze Bureau, under the leadership of Wang Ming and Zhou Enlai, was cooperating in a spectacular defense of the city that was launched by the KMT. Mao, however, did not think that the “Madrid of the East” could be held, and he felt that the KMT’s loss of Wuhan was only a matter of time. He believed that this would serve as convincing proof of his judgment that “the KMT’s unilateral War of Resistance was doomed to failure” and this would deal a heavy blow to Wang and Zhou as advocates of such a futile defense. Mao’s speech was so devious that Wang Ming, Bo

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Gu, Xiang Ying, and Kai Feng unanimously decided that New China Daily should not publish it.3 Even more crucially, Mao was increasingly farsighted as evidence mounted that the CCP could only grow stronger through guerrilla warfare and the establishment of base areas. Although Mao was in the minority after the December 1937 Politburo meeting, he did not even slightly loosen his grip on the Eighth Route Army’s eastward advance. On March 24, 1938, Mao and Liu Shaoqi sent a joint cable to Zhu De, Peng Dehuai, and Zhu Rui, enjoining them to “immediately organize guerrilla units under the name of the Eighth Route Army” in order to prepare for the main force of the Eighth Route Army to shift to the North China Region. On the same day, Mao, Zhang Wentian, and Liu Shaoqi sent a cable to the CCP North China Bureau representative, Zhu Rui, ordering him “as quickly as possible” to establish “a number of combat-ready guerrilla units entirely under the leadership of the Party” and to “create the Ji-Jin-Yu (Hebei, Shanxi, Henan) Border Region.”4 Mao also took strict precautions against any interference by Wang Ming and others in the Eighth Route Army; in cables to high-ranking military officers, Mao always listed his name first, showing the immense importance he attached to consolidating his personal influence in the army. Although Wang Ming was at the height of his political power in the spring of 1938, Mao’s quarantine kept Wang from taking any leadership position in the armed forces. Under Mao’s forceful urging, in early 1938 Zhu De, Peng Dehuai, Liu Bocheng, Deng Xiaoping, He Long, and Nie Rongzhen led the Eighth Route Army deep into North China and established Communist Base Areas. Within one year, the Eighth Route Army grew from less than 30,000 men in September of 1937 to 250,000 men in autumn of 1938.5 The increasing vigor of the Communist armed forces led Zhu, Peng, and other Eighth Route Army officers to believe in Mao and to abandon their past views. The return of the senior military officers of the Eighth Route Army to the “correct line” gave Mao some breathing room, but one major obstacle remained: the need to readjust his relationship with Moscow. In Mao’s struggle to seize supreme leadership of the Party, handling relations with Moscow remained the thorniest problem. Wang Ming’s return to China had noticeably increased the Comintern’s influence over the CCP, and Wang’s wielding of the Comintern banner to his own advantage was severely obstructing Mao’s activities. Mao well knew that

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without at least superficial support from Moscow there was almost no possibility that he could attain supreme political power. For this reason, Mao temporarily suppressed his resentment of Moscow and did all he could to display a submissive attitude, and, at the same time, he used all available means to put himself in Moscow’s good graces. The decision of the March Politburo meeting to send Ren Bishi to the Soviet Union objectively facilitated Mao’s tactic of “using foreign troops against a domestic enemy” in his battle against Wang Ming. Ironically, it was Wang who suggested sending Ren Bishi to the Soviet Union. Ren was Wang’s old friend; the two had joined the Politburo together at the Fourth Plenum of the Sixth Central Committee in early 1931, and after Wang returned to China, Ren and other Politburo colleagues had endorsed the Comintern directives passed on by Wang. Wang therefore considered Ren to be a comrade-in-arms with whom he could form an alliance. What he did not know was that the situation was in flux at the upper levels; there were clear signs that by the spring of 1938 Ren was transferring his allegiance to Mao, but Wang remained oblivious and now Wang’s proposal to send Ren to Moscow had Mao clapping his hands in glee. Mao had plenty of reasons to applaud Wang’s suggestion. Ren was one of the CCP veterans who had won the trust of the Comintern; while in the Soviet Union from 1921 to 1923 studying at the Communist University for the Toilers of the East, Ren had attended the First Congress of the Toilers of the Far East* as well as the Comintern’s Third World Congress. At the Fourth Plenum of the Sixth CCP Central Committee in 1931, the head of the Comintern’s Far Eastern Bureau, Pavil Mif, had designated that Ren be appointed to the Politburo. Ren also had a fairly long history with Mao: Years earlier he had participated in the Hunan “Russian Research Association” organized by Mao, and Mao had recommended him for enrollment in Shanghai’s “Foreign Language Study Group” (a cover organization for the CCP) to study Russian, after which he was sent to the Soviet Union to study. Following the Fourth Plenum in the spring of 1931, the Central Committee sent Ren to the Jiangxi Soviet Area, where he consistently supported Mao and attacked Mao’s opponent, Xiang Ying, thus drawing him that much closer to Mao. From summer 1937 to

*

  Translators’ Note (cited hereafter as TN): Referred to in Chinese as the First Congress of Communist Parties and National Revolution Groups of the Far East.

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spring 1938, Ren wavered for a time between Mao and Wang, but he soon made his choice and unequivocally supported all of Mao’s positions. At the March 1938 Politburo meeting, he openly took Mao’s side in opposing Wang go to Wuhan. Given the trust Moscow had in Ren and Ren’s close relations with Mao, Mao regarded him as the best possible choice to be the CCP’s top lobbyist in Moscow. In the latter half of April 1938, at almost the same time that Ren was sent to Moscow, Mao also gave an assignment to Liu Yalou, who was going to Moscow to study at Frunze Military Academy. In order to test Liu and raise his consciousness, Mao had Liu spend three months by his side dealing with his papers. He then made a special request: Liu was to report to Comintern General Secretary Dimitrov about the Party’s past Left deviation errors and the damage they had caused, as well as about the Party’s current national United Front policy against Japan. He was also to deliver copies of Mao’s essays “On Practice,” “On Contradiction,” and “Strategic Issues in China’s Revolutionary War” directly to Pavel Mif and to ask him to pass them on to Stalin.* Liu Yalou was merely a young cadre at the time, but Mao still took pains to put him, not to mention Ren Bishi, to good use.6 Ren Bishi set off from Yan’an on March 5, 1938, and in Xi’an he boarded a transport truck bound for the Soviet Union, transferring at Lanzhou to a Soviet aircraft that took him to Moscow via Dihua. On April 14, 1938, he represented the CCP Central Committee in submitting to the Comintern Presidium the outline report for “The Situation of China’s War of Resistance against Japan and the Chinese Communist Party’s Work and Tasks.” Ren’s outline ingeniously combined Mao’s and Wang Ming’s viewpoints and pandered to Stalin, wasting no time in striking a peg in the Comintern where Mao could hang his banner. In his outline, Ren highly praised Dimitrov’s directives regarding the development China’s United Front, as transmitted by Wang Ming following his return to China. Ren acknowledged that the CCP had originally “had some inadequacies” in its understanding of the United Front, and “had ‘deep prejudices’ against the KMT and ‘some frictions’ with the Nationalist

*

  After Liu Yalou arrived in the Soviet Union, he joined a 1939 Comintern committee to discuss the Otto Braun issue and to “earnestly and reliably carry out the assignment from Mao Zedong.”

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government and army,” but these had “gradually declined since the December Politburo meeting.” Ren said that the CCP “firmly endorsed” Wang Ming’s positions of “resistance against Japan above all” and “everything subordinate to resistance against Japan,” including “democracy and livelihood,” and that “there had been fundamental progress in relations between the CCP and the KMT” following publication of the CCP Central Committee’s December declarations.* 7 The outline report also positively appraised the slogan to “defend Wuhan, Henan, and Shaanxi,” proposed by Wang Ming and Zhou Enlai. Ren emphasized that this was “the most central” of the CCP’s “key tasks” at the present. He also said that the CCP Central Committee would “correct its ‘Leftist’ exclusionist work methods” and it had decided that “within the next half-year it would convene the Seventh National Party Congress.” Yet the purpose of Ren’s visit was not to be a propagandist for Wang Ming. Ren reflected the views of Wang Ming and the others in his outline report because these views had been accepted by the December Politburo meeting and the March Politburo meeting, and they had become the guiding policies of the CCP at this stage, but he lost no opportunity to reflect on Mao’s views as well. The outline stated that “Chiang Kai-shek and some people in the KMT are not willing to cooperate with the CCP on an equal footing, and they intend to weaken the CCP in the course of cooperation.” For that reason, the CCP would “put great efforts into expanding the Eighth Route Army and the New Fourth Army” and it would consolidate the CCP’s absolute leadership over them in order to “prevent the infiltration of negative influences from outside.”8 After delivering his “outline” to the Comintern, for nearly a month Ren Bishi did not receive any response. He made a quick decision to adjust

*

  The December 25, 1937, “CCP Central Committee Declaration on the Current Political Situation,” drafted by Wang Ming, was passed after discussion by the CCP’s Yangtze Bureau and it was issued from Wuhan in the name of the CCP Central Committee. Mao did not oppose it at the time, and he affirmed it in “On the New Phase,” his subsequent political report to the Sixth Plenum of the Sixth Central Committee. Later, however, this declaration was alleged to have been issued by Wang Ming and others behind the back of the Central Committee and it was criticized for many years as a manifestation of the erroneous viewpoints of “Wang Ming Right deviating capitulationism.”

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his strategy by adding some Wang Ming seasoning to the dish he had served up to the Comintern. On May 17, 1938, Ren gave the Comintern Executive Committee a “supplementary explanation” regarding his April 14 report. In this explanation, Ren played up his enthusiasm for Wang Ming and he elaborated on Wang’s views. The “supplementary explanation” emphasized the contribution that Wang had made to perfect the United Front strategy following his return to China. Ren explicitly pointed out that prior to Wang’s return, one of the main causes of the tensions between the CCP and the KMT, apart from factors within the KMT, was the CCP’s “excessive emphasis on independence and autonomy, democracy, and the people’s livelihood.” Ren said that the CCP’s pressing task going forward was to bring the mass organizations into the United Front.9 Although Ren’s “supplementary explanation” provided some affirmation for Wang Ming and his ideas, this was merely a tactic; Ren’s actual objective was to dispel the Comintern’s doubts about Mao so that the Comintern would approve the April 14 outline report as early as possible. Because Ren Bishi’s 1938 reports to the Comintern heaped so much praise on Wang Ming and the December Politburo meeting, they were not made public for decades. Ren Bishi’s strategy garnered instant results, and the April 14 outline report combining Wang’s and Mao’s views, as well as the May 17 “supplemental explanation,” were finally endorsed by the Comintern. On June 11, 1938, the “Resolution of the Presidium of the Comintern Executive Committee Regarding the Report of the CCP Delegation” was passed. For Mao, the most valuable portion of this resolution was the Comintern’s statement that “the political line of the Chinese Communist Party is correct.”10 Mao understood that this referred to the “political line” resulting from the December 1937 Politburo meeting, but he was able to “graft his own branch to the Party stock.” Since his position as Party chief had not changed after the December Politburo meeting, praise of the CCP’s political line could easily be interpreted as an endorsement of Mao’s line. Mao also knew very well that the Comintern took Wang’s side in the dispute with Mao. The Comintern’s June 11 Resolution required the CCP to “honestly,” “sincerely,” and “actively” “use all means” to help the KMT, and it even proposed that the CCP should help the KMT “carry out conscription,” “build new armies,” “develop the national defense industry,” and accomplish a series of other things that the CCP had no desire to do.

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Yet Mao was able to accept these suggestions because early on he had adopted a flexible approach with regard to dealing with the unpalatable directives from Moscow, by either shelving or sidestepping them; in any case, Mao would not be fettered by Moscow. After achieving this initial success, Ren Bishi made a second move in Moscow. Now that he no longer had to promote Wang Ming to the Comintern, Ren began scurrying around to change Wang’s “erroneous influence” on the Comintern by actively lobbying on behalf of Mao in the Lux Building (where the Comintern was headquartered, along with the delegations of the Communist parties from other countries). According to Shi Zhe, who served as Ren’s Russian interpreter at the time, Ren not only personally went to each Communist delegation to promote Mao’s contribution to China’s revolution, he also sent out CCP cadres stationed in Moscow to explain “Mao Zedong’s revolutionary theory” to various foreign delegations.11 Shi Zhe recalls that after submitting his outline report to the Comintern, Ren Bishi wrote yet another report on China’s situation that specifically described Mao’s contribution and that “conclusively stated that ‘only Mao Zedong is the leader of the Chinese Communist Party.’” Shi Zhe’s recollections have no documentary evidence, and it appears that Ren’s political attitude at the time may have led Shi to confuse the “supplementary explanation” that Ren had submitted on May 17 with a report to the Comintern expressly recommending Mao. The only documents available up to the present are the outline report Ren submitted on April 14 and the supplementary explanation of May 17; no other report promoting Mao has materialized. If such a report had in fact existed, Mao certainly would have made it available to the Party leadership during the Yan’an Rectification Movement. Ren Bishi’s activities in Moscow played an important role in creating a deeper impression of Mao within the Comintern, but the Comintern was not yet able to explicitly acknowledge its support of Mao as the supreme leader of the CCP, in a manner that Mao and Ren hoped for. Rather, Moscow expressed intense anxiety over the damage a split between Mao and Wang might cause to the CCP. In a June 11 resolution of the Presidium of the Comintern Executive Committee regarding the CCP delegation, Moscow urged the CCP leadership to be particularly on guard: “Japanese spies and KMT anti-Communist elements will use all possible schemes and intrigues … to create divisions and disorder among CCP leading comrades

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… in order to sabotage the collective work of the CCP leadership.”12 For this reason, Ren had to remain in Moscow to continue his public relations work on behalf of Mao. Not long thereafter, Ren’s unfinished mission was unexpectedly completed by someone else in Moscow. This was Wang Jiaxiang, originally a member of Wang Ming’s team, who had changed to Mao’s camp.

II. Dimitrov’s “Verbal Message” Supporting Mao as Leader of the Chinese Communist Party In the course of Mao’s persistent struggle for supreme leadership of the CCP, at different historical stages and depending on his personal political views and positions, he skillfully deployed various strategies to attract and win over many members of the opposing team in the Party leadership and to turn them into allies. Wang Jiaxiang was a key member of Wang Ming’s faction whom fairly early Mao was able to bring over to his side. In August 1938, Wang returned to Yan’an from Moscow with an important verbal message from Comintern General Secretary Georgi Dimitrov “acknowledging” Mao as CCP leader: “The [CCP’s] leading organs need to solve their problems under Mao Zedong’s leadership; the leading organs require a cohesive atmosphere.”13 It is impossible for an outsider to appreciate the enormous impact this message from Moscow had on the CCP when it was transmitted by Wang Jiaxiang in the intensely pro-Soviet atmosphere of 1938. It was virtually Moscow’s seal of approval for Mao as CCP leader. Thereafter, everything was settled; although Mao did not immediately become general secretary of the CCP Central Committee, he was the de facto supreme leader of the Party. As for Wang Ming, once he was cold-shouldered by Moscow, he lost his political latitude and began a rapid downward spiral that ended with Mao kicking him into the “dustbin of history.” Mao’s ability to win Dimitrov’s support cannot be separated from Wang Jiaxiang’s active efforts in Moscow. Wang Jiaxiang had arrived in the Soviet Union in late June 1937 after being secretly transported from Shanghai by steamer to be treated for wounds incurred during the Civil War.14 Whether Wang might have had some special mission in addition to medical treatment only became clear some fifty years later. In a commemorative essay in 1985, Party General Secretary Hu Yaobang wrote that Wang Jiaxiang was “dispatched by the Central Committee” to the Soviet Union “to explain the situation of the Chinese Revolution to the

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Comintern leaders, including his personal views of the CCP leaders.” 15 Shi Zhe, who worked with the Comintern in the 1930s, said that Wang Jiaxiang arrived in Moscow “bearing a big responsibility.”16 This involves a crucial question: Who authorized Wang to go to the Soviet Union to relay to the Comintern his “personal” views about the Party leaders? When Wang set off for the Soviet Union in early December 1936, the Politburo members in the Central Committee’s Bao’an location consisted of Mao, Zhang Wentian, Zhang Guotao, Zhou Enlai, and Bo Gu. Zhang Guotao, who had just arrived in Bao’an, was disheartened after being criticized for “establishing a second Central Committee,”17 and Zhou Enlai and Bo Gu were busy negotiating with the Northwest and Northeast armies. That left Mao and Zhang Wentian, and it is highly unlikely that Zhang Wentian would have sent Wang Jiaxiang to Moscow to relay his personal views of the Party leadership. The only possible answer is that Mao prompted Wang to go to the Comintern in an effort to change the leadership of the CCP, and it was only Mao who would have done such a thing. Wang Jiaxiang spent one year in the Soviet Union. Following Wang Jiaxiang’s arrival, Wang Ming began preparing to return to China, and beginning in November 1937, Wang Jiaxiang took over from Wang Ming as head of the CCP delegation to the Comintern, a position he retained until Ren Bishi took over when he arrived in Moscow in March 1938. According to Wang Jiaxiang’s own account, Comintern General Secretary Dimitrov had an important talk with both him and Ren Bishi in July 1938, just before Wang Jiaxiang returned to Yan’an. There is no written record of this conversation, and therefore there is no way of verifying exactly when and where Dimitrov met with Wang and Ren. Wang states that Dimitrov made the following comments: “Mao Zedong should be supported as leader of the Chinese Communist Party. … He is a leader forged in actual battle. … Wang Ming and the others should no longer vie for leadership.”18 One of the former Soviet experts on China, A. Titov, has denied the veracity of these comments by Dimitrov to Wang Jiaxiang. In “The Struggle between the Two Lines on the Question of the Chinese Communist Party’s National United Front against Japan (1937‒1939),” Titov states that Dimitrov’s “directive” transmitted by Wang Jiaxiang was in fact a “machination” between Mao and Wang. Titov writes: The Comintern had no such intention [of deciding that Mao would lead the CCP]. Wang Jiaxiang was sent to Moscow in early 1937 as

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a secret emissary of Mao Zedong. In order to carry out the mission entrusted to him by Mao, Wang personally engaged in talks with a certain Comintern operative [a reference to Dimitrov]. It was mentioned that it seemed the CCP Central Committee felt it must choose Mao as Party general secretary. But the Comintern Executive Committee did not make any recommendation and it felt that this question should be decided by the CCP’s Seventh Party Congress.19 Without any historical materials to verify Titov’s claim that Wang Jiaxiang’s message was bogus, my inclination is to accept that “Dimitrov told Wang Jiaxiang that he supported Mao as leader of the CCP.” Many doubts remain regarding this “verbal message.” For example, the “Resolution Regarding the Report of the CCP Delegation,” passed by the Comintern on June 11, did not include an appraisal of the CCP leaders, so why would Dimitrov personally make an explicit declaration on this sensitive issue to Wang Jiaxiang in July? Why would the Comintern have no formal written record of this meeting? There are many indications that Dimitrov’s remarks to Wang Jiaxiang were largely his own personal views, but Dimitrov’s views seem to have received Stalin’s tacit approval. Dimitrov would hardly have dared to express an opinion on such an important subject without passing it by Stalin. In 1938 the Soviet Union was in the midst of its great purge, and Wang Ming’s backstage supporter and mentor, Pavel Mif, had been designated an “enemy of the people” and executed. It is quite possible that Dimitrov took this opportunity to demonstrate his “revolutionary sense of principle” by dismissing Wang Ming, or that a habitual “class struggle” mentality led him to express a lack of political trust in Wang Ming. Dimitrov was on good terms with Wang Ming, and Wang Ming had entrusted his only daughter to Dimitrov’s care before he returned to Yan’an. But in the great bloody terror of 1938, it would be quite reasonable for Dimitrov to be fed up with living in terror under someone else’s thumb and enduring Stalin’s constant insults, and to admire Mao’s revolutionary achievements. It would also not be strange for Stalin to have latched on to Mao in 1938. Stalin knew Mao was the de facto supreme leader of the CCP, and he had sent Wang Ming back to China the previous year to “help” Mao rather than to unseat him. Stalin expressed indifference toward Wang Ming once Mif fell into disrepute, but he had no intention of purging Wang; a variety of sources indicate that Stalin had been, and remained, very solicitous toward Wang for decades.

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What Wang Jiaxiang brought back to Yan’an was Dimitrov’s “verbal message,” but Xiang Qing, a Peking University expert on the Comintern’s relationship with the Chinese Revolution, has asserted, without providing supporting historical documentation, that Wang returned to China with an “important document stating the Comintern’s organizational support of Comrade Mao Zedong as leader of the CCP.” 20 Professor Xiang’s assertion is completely wrong. Both Wang Jiaxiang and his widow, Zhu Zhongli, have said that Wang brought only Dimitrov’s “verbal message” or “opinion” from Moscow. If the Comintern had genuinely issued a document endorsing Mao as CCP leader, would Mao have set it aside in 1938, the year when he most needed Moscow’s support? The fact is that immediately after Wang Jiaxiang returned to Yan’an in August 1938, Mao decided to convene a Central Committee meeting for Wang to transmit the Comintern’s directives to the Politburo (as general secretary, Dimitrov was the embodiment of the Comintern). Mao could not wait to convene this meeting, and if the Comintern had provided a written opinion, Mao certainly would have published it within a set parameter and would not have kept it secret. No document collections published in China to date contain such a document. This indicates that the Comintern did not issue a formal document acknowledging Mao as leader of the CCP in July 1938. When Wang Jiaxiang returned to Yan’an in August 1938, he did in fact bring a Comintern document, but not the one in Professor Xiang Qing’s fictional account; rather, it was the “Resolution Regarding the Report of the CCP Delegation,” which the Presidium of the Comintern Executive Committee had passed on June 11, 1938. The “verbal message” from Dimitrov that Wang Jiaxiang brought back to Yan’an was decisively significant to Mao, indicating that he had finally obtained Moscow’s endorsement. With his status thus reinforced, the next step was to launch a full-scale attack on Wang Ming to consolidate his position as leader of the CCP.

III. A Dual Strategy: The Sixth Plenum of the Sixth Central Committee and Mao’s “On the New Phase” The Sixth Plenum of the Sixth Central Committee was an extremely important meeting in the history of the Chinese Communist Party. When Mao delivered a speech regarding the election of the Central Committee at the Seventh Party Congress on June 10, 1945, he put the Sixth Plenum

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on par with the Zunyi Conference, describing them both as “two crucial meetings” and emphasizing, “The Sixth Plenum decided China’s fate.”21 The convening of the Sixth Plenum was closely related to Wang Jiaxiang’s return to China. In the first half of July 1938, Wang traveled by Soviet military aircraft through Xinjiang to Lanzhou, and then by land to Yan’an, arriving in late August. As soon as he reached Yan’an, Wang delivered Dimitrov’s “verbal message” to Mao. Mao felt this was the time to convene an important Party meeting. Yet what kind of meeting should be called was a vexing question for Mao. The December 1937 Politburo meeting and the March 1938 Politburo meeting had both passed resolutions to convene the Seventh Party Congress in the near future. Now Wang had returned with Dimitrov’s verbal endorsement of Mao as Party leader, and cooperation between the CCP and the KMT was progressing smoothly, making it relatively easy for Party representatives to go to Yan’an, so the time was ripe for the congress. Even so, Mao did not want to convene the Seventh Party Congress at this time because it would not eliminate Wang Ming and his influence. Mao clearly understood that Moscow had no intention of unseating Wang and that he had to operate within the parameters drawn by Moscow. The message Wang Jiaxiang had brought back from Dimitrov, while referring to Mao as the head of the Party leadership organs, also emphasized that CCP leaders should strengthen their unity; they were not to “waste time arguing about problems from the ten-year Civil War,” and they should be “particularly discreet” in summing up the experiences of those ten years. In particular, the Comintern warned CCP leaders to remain vigilant about a plot by the Japanese invaders to sow discord among them.22 In other words, the time had not yet come to play the Comintern card in order to isolate and attack Wang Ming. With Wang Ming still highly influential in autumn 1938, Mao could not be assured of winning unanimous support to become the Party’s paramount leader once and for all if he were to convene the Seventh Party Congress at that time. It was with this consideration in mind that Mao instead decided to convene the Sixth Plenum of the Sixth Central Committee. Mao made painstaking preparations to ensure that this plenum would serve his own purposes. In August and September Mao focused on drafting the political report for the plenum—the first time in Mao’s seventeen years of participating in the CCP that he presented a political report to the Central Committee. Mao also sent a cable to the Yangtze Bureau notifying

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Wang Ming, Zhou Enlai, Bo Gu, and Xiang Ying to come to Yan’an for transmission of the Comintern’s directive. Mao knew the importance of controlling information and he kept Wang Ming and the others completely in the dark about the content of Dimitrov’s “verbal message” until they arrived in Yan’an.23 On September 10, 1938, Mao, with a big smile, stood at the front of the welcoming committee that greeted Wang Ming, Zhou Enlai, Bo Gu, and Xu Deli on their return to Yan’an. Shortly before this, in the presence of a handful of people Mao had mocked Wang Ming, without mentioning his name, as “a rouged and powdered woman delivered unwanted to someone’s door” (referring to the concessions that Wang and the others were making to curry favor with the KMT).24 In the ranks of the welcoming party, however, Mao appeared enthusiastic and sincere, as if reuniting with a close comrade-in-arms after a long separation. On September 14, 1938, the Politburo held a meeting during which Wang Jiaxiang transmitted the Comintern’s resolution on Ren Bishi’s report as well as the verbal message from Dimitrov. The Politburo met again on September 26 to set the agenda for the Sixth Plenum. At this meeting, Mao wielded his newly-won political power to carry out a major reorganization of the Party structure. The meeting decided to replace the Yangtze Bureau with a South China Bureau headed by Zhou Enlai, effectively eliminating Wang Ming’s position as secretary of the Yangtze Bureau. The Southeast China Sub-bureau was upgraded to the Southeast China Bureau, directly subordinate to the Yan’an leadership and with Xiang Ying as secretary. The North China Bureau was retained and a new Central Plains Bureau was established, with Liu Shaoqi serving as secretary of both.25 The enlarged Sixth Plenum of the Sixth Central Committee was formally convened in Yan’an in markedly solemn fashion on September 29, 1938. Twelve Politburo members attended, with only three absent: Ren Bishi, who was in Moscow, Deng Fa, who was in Dihua, and Kai Feng, who had stayed in Wuhan in charge of the CCP delegation there. Former Politburo member Zhang Guotao had already left the Party and taken refuge with the KMT. The plenum’s Presidium consisted of the twelve Politburo members, with Li Fuchun as secretary general. The plenum continued for thirty-nine days, the longest meeting the Central Committee had held up to that time. Seventeen people, nearly one-third of all those in attendance, presented reports or gave speeches.

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Mao served as the guiding spirit of the plenum. Wang Jiaxiang began the meeting with his report on the Comintern’s directive. From October 12 to October 14, Mao represented the Politburo in presenting a political report entitled “On the New Phase.” This report was not included in its entirety in the subsequent compilation of Secret Party Documents Since the Sixth Party Congress or in the Selected Works of Mao Zedong. Why was Mao unwilling to include the full text of “On the New Phase” in his Selected Works?* Why did Mao want this document to slide into obscurity? Put simply, “On the New Phase” included many views identical to those of Wang Ming, but official CCP historiography states that during the Sixth Plenum Mao “thoroughly repudiated Wang Ming’s Right deviating capitulationist line.” Mao’s speech and actions during the Sixth Plenum displayed his chimerical, contradictory, and back-tracking political character in concentrated form. For the sake of political expediency and to consolidate his personal power, Mao could sincerely avow his acceptance of his opponent’s political views and then in an instant turn hostile and say exactly the opposite, as if he were a different person altogether. In his political report “On the New Phase,” Mao used almost the same language as Wang Ming had used to state that “the launch and continuation of the War of Resistance would be inconceivable without the Kuomintang,” and he praised the KMT as “having two great leaders in Mr. Sun Yat-sen and then Mr. Chiang Kai-shek.”26 He also commended the “unprecedented unity against Japan” that China had achieved “under the unified leadership of the national leader and supreme commander, [National Military] Council Chairman Chiang” since the launch of the War of Resistance. Mao emphasized that in the War of Resistance and the formation of the national United Front against Japan, “the Kuomintang occupies leading and backbone status,” and, apparently forgetting what he had repeatedly said since the Luochuan Conference about the “unilateral War of Resistance” being “doomed to failure,” he spoke of the KMT’s “promising future.” Mao criticized the “significant number of people who

*

  The portion included in vol. 2 of Mao’s Selected Works is entitled “The Role of the Chinese Communist Party in the National War,” and even this portion was radically edited. The words “in the United Front, independence must not surpass unity but must be subordinate to unity” were deleted.

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still maintain an incorrect view of the KMT and who are doubtful about the KMT’s future.” He earnestly appealed for the Party to “unanimously and sincerely endorse Council Chairman Chiang.”27 In order to demonstrate both his and the Party’s sincerity in terms of improving relations with the KMT, Mao proposed that CCP members be allowed to openly join the KMT while retaining their CCP membership. Mao also said that the CCP would take the initiative to provide the authorities with a list of CCP members who joined the KMT. He assured the KMT that the CCP would not organize Party branches within the KMT’s armed forces nor would it attempt to recruit KMT members into the CCP.28 Mao’s most astonishing move occurred on the opening day of the plenum, September 29, when he wrote a personal letter to Chiang Kai-shek. In this letter, Mao expressed his “boundless admiration” for Chiang, whose “prodigious moral virtues” were “the object of veneration throughout China.”29 Mao’s letter was passed directly to Chiang in Wuhan by Zhou Enlai on October 4, but it has never been included in the Selected Works of Mao Zedong, the Selected Letters of Mao Zedong, or in any other official Party compilation. The Chronology of Zhou Enlai (1898‒1949), published in March 1990, makes the first mention of this matter, but the full text of this letter has yet to be published.* 30 Since the eve of the War of Resistance, Mao had emphasized the need for the CCP to maintain a high degree of independence and autonomy within the United Front against Japan, and he had maintained this political stand even more insistently following the July 7 Marco Polo Bridge Incident. Mao took a softer stand on this issue following the December 1937 Politburo meeting. But his original intention never changed, so why did Mao make this 180-degree turn-around at the Sixth Plenum? Could Mao’s thinking have actually changed? The answer is no. All of what Mao said was against his convictions and was part of a meticulously plotted strategy aimed at coping with both Stalin and with divergent views within the CCP, as well as disarming Chiang Kai-shek at a time when Mao was in a complicated and delicate situation.

*

  Chronology of Zhou Enlai reveals that in a meeting with Chiang Kai-shek on October 4, 1938, Zhou Enlai handed him not only the letter from Mao but also a letter from Wang Ming.

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“On the New Phase” was a gift that Mao presented to Stalin. Mao knew that Stalin attached great importance to China’s United Front against Japan, and the Comintern’s June 11 resolution on Ren Bishi’s report repeatedly reiterated this point. Given that Moscow had effectively acknowledged Mao as leader of the CCP, it was essential to adopt a submissive attitude toward Stalin. Mao went even further by demonstrating his sincerity about CCP-KMT cooperation through his proposal that CCP members could join the KMT, which would make it impossible for Stalin or anyone else to criticize Mao for a lack of good faith. Mao had no difficulty leaping from one extreme to the other; as long as he retained a firm grip on the Party leadership, he was willing to say all kinds of good things about the KMT. Mao’s report was also aimed at keeping Chiang Kai-shek off guard, but here Mao met his match. Just as Mao had no faith whatsoever in the KMT, Chiang Kai-shek did not believe anything the CCP said, and he immediately saw through Mao’s ploy. On the day he accepted Mao’s letter from Zhou Enlai, he wrote in his journal: The wording of this handwritten letter from Mao Zedong, starting with “the long-term cooperation between the two parties” and ending with “the national United Front of the Chinese people,” is completely different from the tone the CCP has taken all along, and it makes me suspicious. ... I therefore know that this is a plot by the CCP for a second large-scale infiltration of our party. Given our painful experience from 1924 to 1927, we will not be taken in again.31 At a meeting with Zhou Enlai on December 6, 1938, Chiang responded to the following four suggestions in Mao’s letter: 1.) an end to interparty fighting; 2.) the CCP could join the KMT in part or, under the right circumstances, in whole; 3.) the CCP would abolish all of its youth organizations and would allow its members to join the KMT’s Three People’s Principles Youth Corps; and 4.) all of the above could retain their CCP membership. Chiang said that dual party membership was unacceptable and he proposed that since the CCP had implemented the Three Principles of the People, the best thing would be to merge the two parties. If this was not possible, some CCP members could join the KMT, but without dual party membership. Zhou Enlai rejected Chiang’s suggestions and said that CCP members could only join the KMT under dual membership.32

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Mao tested Chiang with his pseudo-genuine attitude, and Chiang responded with an attitude that was neither hard nor soft. Both men knew the score and they were aware that the two parties could never return to the cooperative relationship of 1924‒27. Mao never took the possibility seriously and had merely made the suggestion for the sake of others. He dangled his baited hook, and when Chiang did not bite, Mao reeled it in. During the weeks of the Sixth Plenum, Mao constantly scurried in every direction in an effort to deal with the internal and external situations. He had to put on a good show for the KMT and Moscow on the one hand, but even more urgently he had to use his hard-won endorsement from Dimitrov to quickly consolidate his status within the Party on the other. Mao knew how fickle Moscow’s support could be: Hadn’t Chen Duxiu, Qu Qiubai, and Li Lisan all been put in place by Moscow, and ultimately also been discarded by Moscow? His top priority was to quickly spin the situation to turn his sole leadership of the Party into an unshakable reality, so that even if Moscow subsequently regretted its endorsement of Mao, it would be powerless to unseat him. Mao first had to reveal his own stand and muster enough comrades to isolate Wang Ming. However, in 1938 this was not easy for Mao to manage. His report “On the New Phase” was still echoing in the ears of the plenum’s attendees, and since Mao’s own words had already disappeared into the vast ocean of Wang Ming’s theories, most attendees could see no difference between Mao and Wang. Furthermore, Wang, Bo Gu, and the others were all in Yan’an, and if Mao showed his hand in their presence and contradicted what he had said in “On the New Phase,” he would lose all credibility. Mao finally came up with a brilliant plan. On September 30, Mao sent Zhou Enlai back to Wuhan on the pretext of delivering his letter to Chiang Kai-shek. In early October, Zhou and Kai Feng sent a cable recommending that Wang Ming and the others join them in Wuhan as soon as possible to attend a session of the People’s Political Council.33 Mao took advantage of the opportunity to send Wang Ming and Bo Gu to Chongqing in late October (by this time, the KMT’s main organs had moved from Wuhan to Chongqing). Without Wang, Zhou, Bo, and Kai in Yan’an, Mao could do what he liked; he no longer had to sneak around and he could bare his heart and reveal his true thinking at the plenum. At the closing ceremony of the Sixth Plenum on November 5‒6, 1938, with Wang, Zhou, Bo, and the others absent, Mao delivered a key speech in which he assailed Wang Ming and Zhou Enlai without naming them.

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Mao’s prestige had skyrocketed during the Sixth Plenum due to Dimitrov’s “verbal message,” and many leaders, including Wang Ming, had expressed support and praise for him. Mao put this advantageous atmosphere to use by suddenly turning the spearhead of his criticism toward Wang Ming and the others. Apparently forgetting what he had said earlier in his speech “On the New Phase” about strengthening the United Front, he now minced no words to oppose the slogan of “Everything through the United Front.”34 Less than one month earlier, Mao had endorsed Chiang Kai-shek before these same senior Party cadres, but now he was assailing the KMT’s “capitulationism.” Mao’s sleight of hand at the closing of the Sixth Plenum was a complete success, with not one of the senior cadres in attendance raising any objections. At this point, Mao could see that he had basically achieved dominance over the CCP; his “power” had taken shape, his “authority” was immediately apparent, and even if some in the Party still held dissenting views, with Mao in power all they could do was remain quiet. Mao also pulled Liu Shaoqi into the closing ceremony, commending him for saying that “Everything through the United Front” was effectively “Everything through Yan Xishan” and “Everything through the Kuomintang.” Mao criticized the policy as Right deviating capitulationism that overlooked the Party’s policy of independence and autonomy. Mao proposed adopting a flexible strategy toward the KMT by “acting first and reporting later,” “reporting first and then acting,” “neither acting nor reporting,” or “acting but not reporting,” with the ultimate objective being to strengthen the Communist armed forces and to establish the foundation for a future victory. Mao was finally able to express what he had been holding back for so long. By using the absence of Wang Ming et al. to openly express his own views, Mao gained a major victory over Wang Ming. Even so, Wang Ming’s views were not formally criticized during the Sixth Plenum and the Sixth Plenum’s political resolution still included many of Wang’s views. On November 6, 1938, the CCP Central Committee passed the political resolution that Wang Ming had drafted for the Sixth Plenum. This resolution approved the slogan of “Everything for the sake of the national United Front against Japan, and the national United Front against Japan above all else.” It also declared that the best organizational form of cooperation between the CCP and the KMT would be for CCP members to join the KMT and the Three People’s Principles Youth Corps, and the CCP was willing to submit a list of its members to the

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KMT. The resolution reiterated that the CCP “would not establish secret Communist organizations within the Kuomintang and the Kuomintang armed forces.” However, the resolution did not fully reflect Mao’s closing remarks about opposing “Right deviating capitulationism,” but rather it followed the gist of Mao’s report “On the New Phase.” The resolution also absorbed the spirit of Wang Ming’s October 20 report, stating that all levels of the Party organization should avoid both Left and Right deviation in the United Front and uphold the Party’s political and organizational independence, and they should not label comrades in the Party as Leftists or Rightists.35 The resolution also formally declared complete agreement with the Politburo’s “political line and concrete operations” since the Fifth Plenum.”* Although Mao had strongly disapproved of this conclusion, he was obliged to grudgingly accept it. Mao greatly strengthened his position during the Sixth Plenum, but the plenum’s political resolution showed that Mao was still restrained by opposing views within the Party and he still had to identify a weapon that would effectively and permanently subdue his political enemies. Mao ultimately found this weapon: It was the “Sinification of Marxism.”

IV. Mao’s Neologism: “The Sinification of Marxism” The “Sinification of Marxism” was something that had been brewing in Mao’s mind for a long time. Its purpose was to completely overthrow Wang Ming and the rest of the Party’s Soviet faction, to root out entrenched Stalin worship within the CCP, and ultimately to establish Mao as both leader and “guru” of the Party and to give the Sixth Plenum a slogan with major strategic significance. Through the slogan on the “Sinification of Marxism,” Mao found an interpretive basis for his “heterodox” views that pulled together his fundamental positions and attitudes toward the Chinese Communist Movement to form the theoretical core of Maoism. On the dais of the Sixth Plenum in October 1938, Mao first proposed the concept of the “Sinification of Marxism”:

*

  In his political report, “On the New Phase,” Mao stated that “the Zunyi Conference corrected the serious errors of principle of a Left deviation opportunistic nature committed during the five struggles against ‘encirclement and annihilation,’” but he also stated that “at the time this error was not a Party line error.”

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The history of thousands of years of our great nation has its own laws of development, has its national characteristics, and has its many treasures. ... Communist Party members are Marxist internationalists, but Marxism must be achieved through a national form. ... Speaking of Marxism without Chinese characteristics is merely an abstract and hollow Marxism. The Sinification of Marxism thus gives Chinese characteristics to its every manifestation; that is, applying it in accordance with Chinese characteristics. This is an issue requiring immediate attention and resolve by the entire Party. Foreign jargon must be cast aside, the hollow and abstract tone must be reduced, and dogmatism must be put to rest and be replaced by the fresh and lively Chinese style that China’s people love.36 Mao’s comments followed a tight, concise, and comprehensive logic; at a stage in the war when nationalism was surging, the comments were in complete accord with the mentality of CCP cadres and members and were enormously legitimizing and inspiring. Many Party leaders who attended the Sixth Plenum did not fully understand that with these comments Mao was effectively marking a major change in CCP strategy and ideology. They did not detect that Mao’s remarks on the Sinification of Marxism concealed his intention to launch an imminent attack on the Party’s Soviet faction. For now, they eagerly listened to Mao’s novel discourse filled with national pride. Mao’s new concept of the Sinification of Marxism was not a whimsical product but a summation and sublimation of ideas that had been accumulating for a long time. The essence of Mao’s concept was to assimilate and apply Marxism-Leninism’s class struggle, violent revolution, and the organizational structure of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU), and to merge them with the great legacies of Chinese history—the traditions of peasant revolt and “attaining the mandate of Heaven on horseback”—to transform them into a modern peasant revolution led by the Communist Party with the fundamental objective of overthrowing Kuomintang rule. Although the Chinese facsimile of Russian revolutionary theory and experience played an important role in Mao’s transformation of China’s traditional legacy into a modern peasant revolutionary war, there were frequent incompatibilities between Russian theory and experience and Mao’s concepts and actions. The slogan on the “Sinification of Marxism” poured the vitality of nationalism into

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the Chinese Communist Movement, not only providing a legitimizing interpretation for Mao’s viewpoints but also creating vast space for Mao to move freely. Even more, it was conducive to changing the prevalent view of the CCP as the product of a foreign concept and to helping the Party take root in Chinese society. Mao never avoided the topic of his historical mission to save the Chinese people and to give China a new lease on life, nor did he ever doubt the superiority of his intellect and abilities. This intense confidence in his unique role, combined with his indomitable will, gave Mao the ability to “force history ahead in accordance with his ideals.”37 As Mao gradually gained de facto control of the CCP beginning in 1935, he urgently had to create a plausible theoretical system of interpretation to defend himself. At the same time, deeply familiar with Chinese tradition, Mao knew that his desire to assume the Party’s supreme leadership could not be fulfilled merely through military prowess; it required him to become a “guru” who could provide spiritual resources to the Party’s extensive following. In other words, he was effectively a “prince” but not yet a “teacher,” and he sorely felt this shortfall. How to create a theoretical system of a “teacher” and then combine it with the power of a “prince” therefore became a quandary that preoccupied Mao for a long time. The announcement of the “Sinification of Marxism” not only indicated the initial success of Mao’s interpretive framework but also signaled that he had made some major progress in his effort to establish his status as a “guru.” Mao’s formal proposal of the “Sinification of Marxism” in October 1938 mainly arose from his long-term thinking, but documents indicate that Mao’s ability to put forward this proposal was also influenced by Liang Shuming. Mao and Liang had come to know each other in Beijing during the May Fourth era. Neither had gone overseas to study or had been educated in China’s standard universities, and both were autodidact intellectuals. These two old friends, so utterly different in their political thinking and personal characteristics, engaged in six deep discussions in the caves of Yan’an in January 1938.38 Liang Shuming, a major proponent of Chinese culture, embraced both ancient and modern ideas, and throughout his life he wavered between the academic and political worlds as he attempted to meld democracy, science, and China’s innate culture in a way that would be beneficial to society. Mao by no means put Chinese culture above all else, having accepted a great deal of Leninist and Stalinist thought and being

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the de facto leader of the Chinese Communist Movement and the CCP. But Mao did have a special affection for Chinese history and culture, however these feelings were completely subject to practical needs. Liang minced no words in telling Mao of his doubts about the necessity for the Chinese Communist Movement. He felt that China’s Communist Revolution had been triggered externally rather than domestically. The CCP did not understand how the particular structure of Chinese society differed from Europe’s medieval and modern societies and because it had imported foreign methods for application in China, this had rendered CCP efforts over the past ten years ineffectual and reliant on the armed forces to sustain its existence. Liang felt that it was the CCP’s renunciation of domestic conflict and proposal of a united resistance against Japan in line with popular demand that had given the CCP prestige that was higher than that of the other parties since the beginning of the War of Resistance. Liang hoped that from then on the CCP would “acknowledge the old China while building the new China” and would “no longer rely on the military to preserve its existence.”39 Mao accepted Liang’s words with a smile of gratitude and praised them as “very moving.” Although Liang had basically denied the necessity of the existence of the CCP, his views accorded with Mao’s in a number of areas. Mao had early on developed objections to the wholesale Russianization of the CCP, and he felt that only through reliance on its armed forces could he save the Party. As to Liang’s views on the special attributes of Chinese society, Mao did not dismiss them out of hand and he “acknowledged them to a considerable degree.” What he disagreed with was Liang’s undue emphasis on China’s special features and its overlooking of what China had in common with other countries in the world, i.e., that all societies had classes, class oppression, and class struggle.40 Mao expressed his endorsement of Liang’s book Rural Construction Theory in that it shunned the usual superficial upper-class constitutional movement and took the transformation of society at the grassroots level, the countryside, as its point of departure.41 Due to ideological limitations, Mao could not completely endorse Liang’s viewpoints. But the conversation between the two men contained many points of agreement in terms of thinking and concepts. Mao and Liang were both intensely conscious of Chinese history and culture, and both were deeply Chinese in spirit and temperament. But ultimately Mao was not a purely thinking type. When Liang met with Mao in January

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1938, he was treated with respect and courtesy. It was not until fifteen years later that Liang experienced Mao’s ferocious side—but that is another story. At the time Mao proposed the Sinification of Marxism in 1938, the only person within the Party who was genuinely able to see through Mao’s motives was Wang Ming. On October 20, 1938, following his presentation of the “Work Report of the Communist Party Delegates to the People’s Political Council” during the first stage of the plenum, Wang responded to a request from some plenum attendees by delivering a long speech on “The Present Situation in the War of Resistance and How to Persist in a Protracted War and Ultimately Achieve Victory.” In his speech, Wang endorsed Mao’s views, but he also worried about possible deviations arising through the Sinification of Marxism. Wang proposed that attention should be paid to the following five issues during the Sinification process: 1.) the study of Marxism; 2.) not debasing or straining interpretations; 3.) not allowing a Confucian middle-of-the-road mentality and hairsplitting to replace materialist dialectics; 4.) not allowing ancient Chinese culture and teachings to distort Marxism-Leninism; and 5.) not misconstruing “nationalization” as neglecting the study and application of international experience.42 Wang Ming’s views, embodying a pro-Moscow standard, expressed the wariness and concern of the Party’s Soviet faction regarding the possibility that Mao would use this slogan to deviate from orthodox Marxism-Leninism. Viewed from another perspective, it can be seen that the slogan on the “Sinification of Marxism” had a dual effect on the CCP. By putting forward this concept, Mao greatly facilitated the growth of the CCP, but by following the slogan, he allowed some negative aspects of Chinese tradition to infiltrate the CCP and to cause long-term problems for the Party. When the CCP was first established, it lacked theoretical preparation and thereafter it always suffered from an entrenched neglect of theory. Beginning in 1927, the CCP had spent a long period fighting in remote rural border regions and its class composition underwent a major change, with a preponderance of peasant Party members giving rise to rural militaristic characteristics. The proposal for the Sinification of Marxism formally opened the door to massive infiltration by traditional Chinese elements so that the CCP, already profoundly influenced by the tradition of peasant uprisings, would manifest an even more strikingly peasant character. This dual effect of the Sinification of Marxism would be

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fully borne out in the Party’s subsequent history as well as in the history of China after 1949. However, back in Yan’an during the autumn of 1938 Mao seized control of the situation by grasping the banner of the Sinification of Marxism. Moscow’s “endorsement” had already greatly elevated Mao’s prestige, and with this “mandate of Heaven” he grasped the armed forces in one hand and the banner of the Sinification of Marxism in the other to justify his cause. By comparison, Wang Ming and the others had fallen into an inescapable dilemma.

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5. Seizing the Power of Ideological “Interpretation”

I. What Did Mao Learn from Stalin’s History of the CPSU? Four years of concerted efforts from 1935 to 1938, with many complications and temporary setbacks along the way, finally brought Mao on a triumphant march toward realizing his political ideals. By the end of 1938, Mao had control of the Party and the Communist armed forces firmly within his grasp, but one matter continued to rankle him—he had yet to seize the power of ideological interpretation. The power of interpretation—the power to define terminology— is one of the greatest powers available to human beings. Within the Communist Party, the power of interpretation was especially important; whoever was empowered to interpret the classic texts of MarxismLeninism controlled the Party’s consciousness. In other words, control over the military and the Party had to be sustained through the power of ideological interpretation. The importance of interpretation lay not only in the content and the meaning of words and expressions, but even more importantly in integrating these terms with reality, and in the role these terms and concepts played in social existence. Under the long-term management by the Soviet faction, Russified concepts had shrouded the Party in a special spiritual climate and a richly pro-Soviet atmosphere that seriously hindered innovation. In this environment, Wang Ming, Zhang Wentian, and the others in the Soviet faction not only rose to the top but also complacently presented themselves as the bearers of the Holy Grail and lorded themselves over others as the great masters and defenders of the faith, dismissing all innovative thinking as heterodoxy to be eliminated

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at first instance. For quite a long time, Mao could do nothing but stew in his indignation while those who supported Moscow’s orthodoxy treated his ideas as “parochial empiricism” that “departed from the classics and rebelled against orthodoxy,” and they regarded Mao as a mere layman forever barred from the inner sanctum of Marxism-Leninism. His self-respect battered, Mao resolved to express himself with an authoritativeness that would silence his political opponents. Back in 1910, while still a student at Dongshan Primary School in Xiangxiang County, Hunan Province, he expressed his resolve in a poem entitled “Chant of the Frog”: Squatting like a tiger in the pond, Nurturing my spirit beneath the green poplar, If I don’t first greet the spring, Which insect dares to chirp!1 As soon as Mao embarked on his great enterprise, he found the apparatus of the Party’s spiritual guidance even more intolerable. Aspiring to the role of a “guru” and gifted in management, Mao understood his own and his opponents’ aptitudes well enough to know where his disadvantages lay—he had read less of the Marxist and Leninist classics than those who had studied abroad. But Mao was confident that his profound understanding and intuitive grasp of Chinese history and cultural traditions, combined with some key concepts of Marxism-Leninism, would be of far greater practical value than the armchair strategizing of pedants who had swallowed foreign teachings without truly digesting them. In Mao’s view, those in the Soviet faction were “sourceless like an autumn flood and rootless like duckweed” with “minds full of emptiness,” and they relied purely on their training in Moscow to gain control of Party ideology and consequently control of the Party and its armed forces. Mao was taking the opposite route: through willpower, intelligence, and ability he had gained control of the Party and the military, and ultimately he would capture the ideological battlefield as well. In October 1938, after reading a number of books by Marx and Lenin as well as their Stalinist interpretations in Mark Mitin’s and Arnold Aizenberg’s textbooks on dialectical materialism and historical materialism,2 Mao launched a Party-wide “Study Movement” from the rostrum of the Sixth Plenum of the Sixth Central Committee.

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To study what? In a word, to study Marxism combined with China’s reality—Mao’s new concept as well as his attitude and work method. At the time, there was no formal concept of “Mao Zedong Thought,” nor was it convenient, under Stalin’s remote observation, to call attention to Mao’s new contribution. Furthermore, it was difficult for Mao to reveal all of his actual thinking. He found that he was unable to speak his mind. Yet, after everything he had already experienced, all of this was really nothing for him. At the end of 1938, a report from Ren Bishi, newly arrived from Moscow, gave Mao important revelations that helped him resolve this quandary. Ren reported to Yan’an that Moscow had just published Stalin’s History of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU), and he recommended that the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) Central Committee immediately have it translated.3 Upon reading the History several months later, Mao grasped it like a treasure and quickly issued an appeal to Yan’an cadres at all levels: Study the History and become students of Stalin! Mao put an extremely high value on Stalin’s History; Guo Huaruo, who was Mao’s military affairs secretary at the time, recalls Mao stating at one cadre meeting: “The History of the CPSU is a great book; I have read it ten times already, and I advise all of you to read it numerous times as well.”4 From 1930 until the end of the 1950s, on at least ten occasions Mao called on the entire Party to study Stalin’s History of the CPSU. At a cadre conference in Yan’an on May 19, 1941, Mao gave his famous speech “Reform Our Study,” in which he recommended “using the History of the CPSU as core material” to study Marxism-Leninism, with everything else being “supplementary material”: The History of the CPSU is the finest synthesis and summary of the worldwide Communist Movement during the past century. It is a classic combination of theory and practice, and it is the only comprehensive model existing in the world.5 In 1942 Mao referred to this book as “the encyclopedia of MarxismLeninism,” and he included it in Rectification Literature and then in Essential Texts for Cadres. From 1949 to 1956, the History was a required political text in all of China’s tertiary institutions, and it was not until the early 1960s that its prestige was overtaken by the Selected Works of Mao Zedong. Was Mao’s esteem for Stalin’s History merely a tactic or was it sincere?

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Mao deeply resented Stalin and he was extensively engaged in producing ammunition to use against Wang Ming, so why would he venerate a major work by Wang Ming’s spiritual guru? At first glance, it seems inexplicable that these political opponents, Mao and Wang Ming, would be in agreement in their praise of Stalin’s History. Mao was present at a Yan’an mobilization meeting held by the Central Committee’s Department of Cadre Education on May 20, 1939, when Wang Ming delivered the main report, entitled “The Importance of Studying the History of the CPSU.”6 Wang Ming’s partiality for the History was understandable, but what about Mao’s? Mao’s high evaluation of the History was definitely intended to pander to Stalin, but even more importantly, the History provided Mao with a great deal of experience and strategy that he desperately needed to launch a power struggle within the Party. All of this material served Mao’s political objectives and provided him with ammunition to seize the power of ideological interpretation within the CCP. The History, the full title of which is History of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (Bolsheviks), Short Course, was compiled under Stalin’s orders for the purpose of thoroughly obliterating political dissent and consolidating his dictatorial status. Following Stalin’s personal revision and examination, the book was officially published at the height of the great purge in 1938. Given his direct participation and meticulous organization of the drafting and publication of this book, Stalin agreed to have it published under his own name.7 Mao immediately discovered the enormous value of this book as a sample of Stalinism. Mao greatly admired Stalin’s flexible approach to Marxism. Just as in the History Stalin demonstrated his talent for selectively applying Marxist principles to meet his political needs, Mao focused only on the Marxist theories of class struggle and the dictatorship of the proletariat. In their popularization of Marxism, both Mao and Stalin were masters of the first order. Stalin’s strength was in breaking down Marxism into several concepts, whereas Mao’s skill was in simplifying Marxism and, especially, inserting Chinese folk idioms and slang into Marxism. Stalin invented the slogan of “Cadres deciding everything,” whereas Mao’s celebrated dictums included “Political power grows out of the barrel of a gun” and “To rebel is justified!” Mao reaped considerable benefit from the History’s concise, sequential narrative. He soon used the summary remarks in the History as the basis for his report “The Twelve Points of Bolshevization,” delivered at a high-level cadre conference for the Central Committee’s Northwest Bureau.

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The History arbitrarily edited history in order to preserve Stalin’s image of infallibility, and this also suited Mao’s political needs to rewrite the history of the CCP with himself at the center. The History depicts the history of the CPSU as a life-and-death struggle between the correct lines and the erroneous lines, and in particular it highlights Stalin’s personal role. The book mentions Stalin’s and Lenin’s names more than 650 times, and quotations and citations from Stalin’s and Lenin’s works take up one-quarter of the text, totaling around 100 pages. All of this was especially interesting and inspiring to Mao, who regarded himself as the manifestation of the Party’s correct line. Under Mao’s personal direction from 1943 to 1945, Ren Bishi and Hu Qiaomu used the History as a blueprint, and the struggle between the two lines in the CCP as the guiding principle, to compose the first historical summary text produced by the CCP, a Chinese version of the History of the CPSU with Mao Zedong at its center—the “Resolution on Certain Issues in the History of Our Party.” In this “Resolution,” only Mao represented the CCP’s correct line (Liu Shaoqi was added as a representative of the correct line in the August 1945 revision), whereas all other Party leaders were either Left or Right, and the Party’s broader membership served as mere foils to highlight the greatness of the Party’s top leader. Using Stalin’s personal volition as the sole criterion for judging right and wrong, the History of the CPSU did its utmost to vilify and belittle the rest of the CPSU leaders, and this was well-suited to Mao’s selfaggrandizement and arbitrary temperament. The History categorically labeled all Party veterans whose views diverged from those of Stalin as “opportunists,” “enemies of the people,” “turncoats,” “traitors,” “spies,” and “back-stabbers,” and it created the theoretical basis for Stalin’s mass murder of Old Bolsheviks and his implementation of social terrorism. During the War of Resistance against Japan, Mao was at the preliminary phase in his plan to achieve national dominance, and the success of the revolution depended on a concerted effort by the entire Party, so he could only selectively emulate Stalin’s experience of repression within the Party. But Mao learned what he needed from Stalin’s History, and it was not before long that he began using terms such as “opportunist,” “empiricist,” and “dogmatist” against other leaders within the Party. Under pressure from Mao, the vast majority of Party leaders accepted these accusations, either willingly or unwillingly, for the sake of Party unity; Mao had them gripped by their “pigtails” and he could dispose of them at will, whereas he remained in an unassailable position.

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Mao found what he needed in the History: revolutionary strategies and tactics with the leader at the center, serving as an axis from which radiated specific channels for strengthening the Party’s ideology and development, and principles and methods for launching inner-Party struggle. From this book, Mao gained a thorough understanding of the special qualities required to be a leader in the mold of Stalin: ruling the Party with an iron fist and using ideology in service to this rule. Mao was hardly a novice in this regard and now, with the History as a foundation, Mao had even greater confidence. If it can be said that the History enriched Mao’s revolutionary tactics and strategic thinking in terms of political utility, then Stalin’s philosophical shar p-shooters, Mark Mitin and Pavel Yudin, were instrumental in making Maoism into a philosophy. Among the CCP leaders, Mao was the least fettered by MarxismLeninism and the most free and flexible in his thinking. In his youth, Mao had been deeply influenced by traditional Chinese philosophy, attaching particular importance to the Theory of Mind developed by NeoConfucians Lu Jiuyuan and Wang Shouren. It is because Mao maintained communications with traditional Chinese philosophy that he frequently came up with new thinking and concepts that diverged from Moscow’s orthodoxy. But in the early 1930s, Mao’s original viewpoints were met with a negative reception from the Party’s Soviet faction. Ambitious and proud, Mao was not content to be a mere “practitioner”; he wanted to join the pantheon of Marxist-Leninist theorists. As a Party member, Mao could not establish a new holy writ and he was obligated to rely on Marxist texts in order to make his views more systematic and theoretical. From 1937 to 1939 Mao in Yan’an thirstily scrutinized the Marxist philosophical courses on dialectical materialism that Bo Gu, Shen Zhiyuan, and others had translated from Russian. Yet almost everything Mao studied was part of an annotated catechism-style “hermeneutics” of Stalin’s works provided by the CPSU’s official philosophers at that time—Mitin, Yudin, Ivan Shirokov et al.8 This inevitably resulted in mutual contradictions. On the one hand, given Mao’s active pandering, his vivid thinking became intangibly squeezed into the dogmatic framework of Mitin, Yudin et al., and Stalin’s linear and arbitrary thought process had a huge influence on Mao. Mao’s maxims, such as “Two sides to everything” and “Infinite divisibility,” were adopted as universally applicable and fundamental truths. On the other hand, since Mao’s study of Mitin, Yudin, and Shirokov resulted from

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external pressures rather than from a personal inclination, and because Mao’s free will could not be completely restrained by Stalinist “scriptures,” Mao’s thinking frequently ventured “out of bounds,” leaping from Stalin’s incantations into the great beyond. It was at this stage that Mao wrote his most important philosophical treatises, “On Practice” and “On Contradiction.” In short, while holding fast to the purpose of “serving my interests,” Mao may have been inspired by these urtexts to expand upon them and to give a foreign inflection to a Chinese tune, or even to blatantly slight the urtexts and write his own new tune. Therefore, innovation and discovery coexisted with rigid conservatism, the two supplementing each other to become a distinguishing feature of Maoism. In the process, Maoism began to take on a Marxist exterior, with Mitin, Yudin, and Shirokov providing the scaffolding for the initial construction of Maoism as a philosophy. The relationship between Maoism and Stalinism is complicated; regarding the two as either completely equivalent or completely separate is contrary to fact. Yet in terms of the “Study Movement” that Mao carried out in Yan’an from 1939 to 1941, irrefutable evidence connects Maoism and Stalinism by countless threads. In Stalin’s inner sanctum, Mao discovered not only a weapon for attacking Wang Ming and other opponents but also a coagulant to systematize his own theories. Through his painstaking manipulation, Mao was able to use Stalin to attack Wang Ming and also to perfect his own ideological system. Once Stalin became useful to Mao, his dogmatism also became palatable. In fact, Mao’s grafting skills reached a high degree of proficiency and fecundity. In this respect, as Stalin’s student Mao actually surpassed his teacher.

II. “Undermining the Foundation and Sanding the Soil”: The Advancement of Chen Boda, Hu Qiaomu et al. After putting a great deal of effort into politics and theory, Mao won the status of the Party’s chief Marxist theoretician as a result of his 1940 essay “The Politics and Culture of New Democracy” (later renamed “On New Democracy”). Now was the time for Mao to carry out his plan that had been brewing for so long, which was to gradually weaken the control Wang Ming and others held over the Theoretical and Propaganda Departments of the CCP. A brief review of the rise of Wang Ming and others within the CCP reveals that this group built their fame on ideological grounds. First of

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all, by becoming well-versed in the works of Marx, Lenin, and Stalin, they raised themselves in the estimation of the Comintern and distinguished themselves from the others studying in the Soviet Union. They then leveraged their support from Moscow to be groomed for leadership of the CCP, using ideology to forge and consolidate their status in the core leadership of the Party. Since ideology was the only sphere in which people such as Wang Ming, Bo Gu, and Zhang Wentian enjoyed a genuine advantage, and was the only position from which they could hold the fort, the long-term monopoly of the Party’s Theoretical and Propaganda Departments by Wang Ming and the others in the Soviet faction was hardly surprising. Although Wang Ming, Zhang Wentian, and the others suffered a political decline following the Sixth Plenum of the Sixth Central Committee, they did not lose power overnight; the Soviet faction and its close allies retained control of the CCP’s main Ideological Departments right into the early 1940s: • • • • • • • •

CCP Central Committee Propaganda Department: Director Zhang Wentian, deputy director Kai Feng; CCP Central Committee Cadre Education Department: Director Zhang Wentian; CCP Central Committee Party Newspaper Committee: Chairman Bo Gu; CCP Central Committee Party School Committee: Chairman Wang Ming; CCP Central Committee Party School: Director Deng Fa; Central Marxism-Leninism Institute: Director Zhang Wentian; Women’s University of China: Director Wang Ming; CCP Central Committee official publication Liberation Weekly: Chief editor Zhang Wentian.9

All along Mao was quite tolerant of the control that Wang Ming, Zhang Wentian et al. maintained over the Party’s Ideological Departments. As a master strategist, Mao knew how to differentiate the relative importance of real power versus that of spiritual direction. From 1935 to 1938, Mao let nature take its course, while he also made a conscious effort not to express any objection to Zhang Wentian’s leadership of the Party’s ideological work. Mao’s most pressing task was to lure the Soviet faction out of the leadership core so that he could first consolidate his own power

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over the military and then seize control of the Party. Mao knew that once he controlled the military and the Party, he was guaranteed success in seizing the power of ideological interpretation. The Sixth Plenum in 1938 finally fulfilled Mao’s wish to become leader of the Party; Zhang Wentian was formally stripped of his official title as the person with overall responsibility for the Party and instead he was put in charge of the theoretical propaganda and education work of the Party. Not long thereafter, Mao summoned Wang Ming back to Yan’an. In order to put Wang under his personal supervision and keep him from enjoying any real power, Mao had Wang fill the largely ceremonial post of head of the Central Committee United Front Department and additionally he appointed him to a number of culture- and propaganda-related posts. On the surface, it appeared that the Soviet faction had gained greater influence in the Party’s ideological domain following the Sixth Plenum. Mao dealt with this complex situation through a well-thoughtout strategy of pulling Zhang Wentian closer while alienating him from Wang Ming. At the same time, he “undermined the foundations and sanded the soil” in the departments that Zhang headed, promoting young theoreticians with shallow roots in the Party in preparation for eventually replacing Zhang Wentian and the other members of the Soviet faction. With his influence in the Party’s core leadership in obvious decline following the Sixth Plenum, Zhang Wentian devoted his full energies to the ideological sphere. This was just when Mao called for a Party-wide “Study Movement.” Under Zhang Wentian’s direction, Yan’an compiled, translated, and edited a ten-volume Marx-Engels series of books as well as twelve volumes of the Selected Works of Lenin. Yan’an’s young intellectuals drank up these classics, and the study of Marxist-Leninist theory was suddenly all the rage. Ironically, the launch of this “Study Movement” gave a new lease on life to Wang Ming, who had been somewhat lost and constrained after the Sixth Plenum, passing his days in the caves of Yan’an’s Women’s University of China and the Central Committee United Front Department. Wang Ming seemed to feel that the opportunity had again arrived for him to display his acumen in Marxism-Leninism, and he went about giving talks that were heartily welcomed by the young intellectuals in Yan’an’s various organs and schools. It was hardly surprising that Wang Ming remained in the limelight. Following the Sixth Plenum, Wang Ming was still a member of the Secretariat and the Politburo. Even more importantly, Mao’s political report to the Sixth Plenum, “On the New Phase,” included many of

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Wang’s political views. In order to demonstrate loyalty to Stalin and expand CCP influence in domestic political life, Mao adapted to the circumstances and, even more than Wang Ming, he actively promoted strengthening the United Front with the KMT. The Sixth Plenum’s political resolution had been drafted by Wang Ming for the Politburo. After the Sixth Plenum, Wang Ming felt a loss of political power but he did not feel any sense of being ideologically thwarted. Mao had no choice but to let Wang Ming and the others enjoy the limelight for a time. From the CCP’s standpoint, what would the “Study Movement” study if not Marxism-Leninism? Mao could only watch one volume after another of the Marxist-Leninist works being translated and published in Yan’an as his resentment of Zhang Wentian grew. From Mao’s standpoint, Zhang Wentian remained entrenched in his old errors while adding new ones as well, and he was an irremediable dogmatist. After the “Study Movement” was launched, Zhang failed to apply his specialist theoretical knowledge to play up Mao’s new contribution, while he also failed to raise his dissatisfaction with Wang Ming to the level of theoretical criticism. Even worse, Zhang singlehandedly brought about a surge in the study of Marxist-Leninist works in Yan’an, and the accompanying blather and armchair strategizing provided a platform for Wang Ming and the others. All this must have been aimed at sidetracking the “Study Movement” for the purpose of allowing Zhang Wentian, Wang Ming, and the other “Party bosses” and members of the “academic clique” to continue to monopolize the Party’s cultural and propaganda positions. The fact is that Mao had greatly expanded the space he occupied in Party ideology since 1938, and Zhang Wentian, while controlling the Party’s theoretical and propaganda work, had taken the initiative to cede the most important power to Mao: Zhang’s assistant at the time, Wu Liping (also known as Wu Liangping), recalls that after the Sixth Plenum, the Central Committee stipulated that any important articles published in Yan’an’s Liberation Weekly or The Communist had to be first vetted by Mao,10 and all of Mao’s speeches and essays appeared on the most prominent pages of these publications. However, Mao expected more than this from the Ideological Departments; his ultimate aim was to change the atmosphere within the CCP. He wanted to take over the ideological sphere—not merely to control it, but to totally occupy it. Publishing Mao’s essays as headline articles, or giving Mao the power to vet other articles, did not allow him to

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immediately change the atmosphere of pandering to Russia that had long been a fixed feature of the Party. What Mao wanted was to break down the quarantine between himself and the atmosphere that Zhang and the others had built up. This quarantine allowed the creation of endless amounts of pedantic and long-winded Party-speak and allowed the Soviet faction to leisurely manipulate the Party’s entire belief system. In the face of this enormous intellectual rampart, Mao’s new concepts and new literary style could never become popular, much less replace what was currently in use. Mao had a profound understanding of Zhang’s personality and behavior. Although deep down, among the Moscow dogmatists Mao considered Zhang no different from Wang Ming, Zhang had parted ways with Wang some time earlier and had been acting on Mao’s advice over the years. Suddenly striking out at Zhang would send inevitable shock waves throughout the highest echelons of the Party without benefiting Mao in any way. For that reason, Mao could only continue making use of Zhang while trying to think of a better plan to replace him in the future. On March 22, 1939, at Mao’s suggestion the CCP Central Committee decided to hive off the Publishing Section (Liberation Publishing House) from the Party Newspaper Committee and to set up a Central Publication and Distribution Department in charge of political vetting and management of Party publications in Yan’an and the other base areas. Li Fuchun, at that time deputy director of the Organization Department of the Central Committee, would simultaneously serve as head of this department. Li Fuchun was Mao’s old friend, so appointing Li to this position represented an important step to erode Zhang Wentian’s authority. Li Fuchun had long been engaged in Party work, however, and Marxist-Leninist theory was not his strong point. The main function of the Central Publication and Distribution Department that Li led was to “intercept” pernicious thoughts. Li’s political loyalties were entirely with Mao, but given his lack of familiarity with theory, he was not of immediate help in terms of promoting Mao’s contributions. Mao appears to have anticipated this “disconnect” from the outset, but he revealed no anxiety or worry. The young theoreticians he had pulled into his orbit, Chen Boda, Ai Siqi, Hu Qiaomu, He Sijing, and He Ganzhi, did not yet have the practical experience for immediate advancement to leadership positions in the Cultural and Propaganda Departments. Mao had the discernment to discover that the “scholars” (xiucai) who would eventually become the backbone of his theoretical team would be made up of two kinds of people: the first group, exemplified by Chen Boda,

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had studied in the Soviet Union but had no historical relationship with Wang Ming, Bo Gu et al.; the second group consisted of activists from Shanghai’s Left-wing cultural movement, such as Ai Siqi, Hu Qiaomu, and He Ganzhi. What the two groups had in common was a lack of battle experience in the soviet areas and little status within the Party. Among these young scholars, Mao particularly appreciated and valued Chen Boda and Hu Qiaomu. Having proven most helpful to Mao, Chen and Hu had earned Mao’s trust and had become part of his inner circle, with Chen appointed secretary of the Politburo in 1939 and Hu appointed Mao’s personal political secretary in 1941, giving them each important roles on the political stage of the CCP. Chen Boda’s greatest value to Mao was his theoretical enrichment of Mao’s “Sinification of Marxism,” which contributed substantially to perfecting Mao’s new theory. What attracted Mao was the way Chen’s writings gave a Chinese flavor to communism. During the 1930s, in major cities, for instance Beiping and Shanghai, Marxist philosophers, economists, and literary theorists, such as Li Da, Chen Hansheng, Wang Ya’nan, and Hu Feng, were actively engaged in translating and interpreting Marxist works and they attracted a large youth following. Unlike Li Da and the others, however, Chen Boda did not engage in standard translations and introductions; his writings had an obvious originality. A student of the great historian Wu Chengshi,* Chen early on had utilized Marxist theory to explain the basic concepts of Chinese philosophy, staking out his own course among the Leftist theoreticians. In his 1933 pamphlet, “On Tan Sitong,”† Chen explained Tan Sitong’s thinking in terms of the Marxist principle of dialectical materialism and he proposed that it “contains rudimentary materialism and traces of imperfect dialectics.”‡ 11 Chen even proposed that Chinese Marxists should become successors to China’s great philosophies,12 in effect drawing close to the notion of the Sinification of Marxism. This was undoubtedly a rare and surprising concept in the early 1930s. *

  Translators’ Note (cited hereafter as TN): Wu Chengshi (1884‒1939) was a famous classicist, paleographer, and educator who took the perspective of historical materialism. †   TN: Tan Sitong (1865‒1898) was a late Qing politician, thinker, and reformist who was executed after the failure of the Hundred Days of Reform. ‡   TN: This quote is translated from the Chinese.

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The tendency toward a nationalized form of communism as expressed in Chen Boda’s writings was further reflected in the “New Enlightenment Movement” that he helped to launch. * The “New Enlightenment Movement” was an ideological and cultural movement aimed at promoting Marxism, carried out from September 1936 to the summer of 1937 by Chen Boda, Ai Siqi, Zhou Yang, He Ganzhi, Hu Qiaomu, and other Leftists in Beiping, Shanghai, and other major cities to counter the KMT’s promotion of the “National Revival Movement.” Chen considered the “New Philosophy” (i.e., Marxist philosophy) highly significant to China, but he sharply criticized the serious inadequacies of China’s Leftist cultural movement. He felt the Leftists should engage in self-criticism because they were “unable to use dialectics to explain China’s actual life” nor could they engage in in-depth, systematic analysis and criticism of China’s traditional thought.13 As a result, the KMT was still able to use China’s traditional thought as a powerful tool to defend its rule, and even the Japanese imperialists were using traditional Chinese thinking to dupe the Chinese people. Chen emphasized that China’s modern culture should draw on the positive aspects of traditional Chinese thought, while also drawing on the great cultural traditions and accomplishments of the outside world, integrating the dialectics of Chinese traditional philosophy with the advanced foreign cultures under a Marxist framework.14 Chen Boda’s scholarship and self-cultivation in classical Chinese philosophy and his unique views on the nationalization of communism were eventually discovered by Mao. In terms of the nationalization of communism, Mao and Chen were in virtual agreement. As soon as he met Chen, Mao’s only regret was that he had not known him earlier. For a while they exchanged letters on the thinking of Confucius, Mencius, and Mozi.15 At this time, Mao had an urgent desire for theoretical and systematic reinforcement of his concept of the Sinification of Marxism, but he lacked the necessary help. Chen’s appearance filled this yawning vacancy. In spring 1939, a year and a half after Chen’s arrival in Yan’an, Mao released him from his post at the Marxism-Leninism Institute and

*

  Chen Boda published “Philosophy’s National Defense Mobilization: Self-criticism of the New Philosophers and their Suggestions for a New Enlightenment Movement” on September 10, 1936, in the Shanghai Left-wing publication Reading Life, vol. 4, no. 9. He published “On the New Enlightenment Movement” on October 1 in New Century, vol. 1, no. 2. These two essays by Chen formally launched discussion of the New Enlightenment Movement.

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promoted him to deputy secretary general of the Chairman’s Office of the Central Military Commission (CMC), which made him Mao’s chief theoretical aide. Once Chen stepped into the power hub, his character was quickly poisoned by the power-hungry atmosphere.* In this “Sinicized” environment, Chen rapidly degenerated from a simple teacher to an ambition-blinded power-monger.16 Unlike Chen Boda, with whom Mao became familiar due to his theoretical scholarship, Hu Qiaomu was employed as Mao’s political secretary based on his writing skills and succinct style. Hu had been a backbone in Shanghai’s CCP-led Leftist cultural movement in the 1930s. Remaining behind the scenes for a long time, he was much less well known than Zhou Yang, Ai Siqi, and Chen Boda. After Hu arrived in Yan’an in autumn 1937, the Organization Department of the Central Committee largely ignored him and assigned him to a position far from Yan’an, as an assistant to Feng Wenbin at the Anwubao (Anwu Fortress) Young Cadre Training Course in Jingyang County, Shaanxi Province.† There he served as deputy director of the training course and as propaganda head of the Northwest Youth Resistance Alliance (which replaced the disbanded Communist Youth League as the CCP organization that led the youth movement).17 These two years in Anwubao were a political loss for Hu Qiaomu, giving him almost no opportunities for contact with Mao. Most of the cadres in the Young Cadre Training Course had experienced the Long March as Red Army soldiers, and they had little in common with Hu in terms of temperament or interests. In May 1938, the Central Committee decided to establish the Central Youth Committee to replace the Central Youth Department, and it appointed Chen Yun secretary and Feng Wenbin deputy secretary. Hu Qiaomu was then absorbed into the Central Youth

*

  In a 1940 Yan’an discussion on “national form,” Chen Boda grossly exaggerated the errors of Wang Shiwei, an intellectual whose thinking differed from his, and he implied that Wang was a dissident. In conversations with friends, Chen said, “The most important thing is to follow someone, and to follow him to the letter.” †   Ostensibly established by the Northwest Youth National Salvation Association but actually led by the CCP Central Committee Youth Department (the Central Youth Committee), the Young Cadre Training Course, originally set up in Yunyang Township, Jingyang County, Shaanxi Province, was moved to Anwubao, north of Yunyang, in January 1938, and came to be known as the Anwubao Youth Training Course.

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Committee* 18 and he established a close working relationship with Chen Yun. After spinning his wheels in Anwubao for two years,19 in July 1939 Hu was finally sent back to Yan’an. By then, Chen Boda had become Mao’s political secretary and Hu was still an unknown, but with Chen Yun’s support, Hu gradually had an opportunity to distinguish himself. On April 16, 1939, China Youth resumed publication in Yan’an, and due to his involvement in editing the magazine, Hu gradually attracted Mao’s attention. In May 1940, the “Zedong Young Cadre School” was formally established on the foundation of the Anwubao Young Cadre Training Course, with Chen Yun as director and Hu Qiaomu as the person actually in charge, giving him even more opportunities to have contacts with Mao. In 1941 Hu Qiaomu was formally transferred to Yangjialing to serve as Mao’s political secretary as well as a secretary of the Politburo. Mainly engaged in copy-editing Mao’s speeches, Hu quickly became Mao’s indispensable right-hand man. As a new arrival at the power center, he was extremely circumspect and he kept a low profile until the height of the Rectification Movement in 1942, when Mao sent him to the Central Propaganda Department to replace Kai Feng as acting head, 20 thus overnight turning Hu Qiaomu into one of Yan’an’s notables. Although they arrived in Yan’an along with Hu Qiaomu in 1937, Ai Siqi, He Ganzhi, and Wang Xuewen had many fewer political prospects than either Hu Qiaomu or Chen Boda. Qi, He, and Wang had established sterling reputations in Shanghai’s Leftist cultural circles in the 1930s and they enjoyed Mao’s warm hospitality during their first few years in Yan’an. They were given teaching jobs at Northern Shaanxi Public School, the Central Party School, and the Marxism-Leninism Institute, with monthly allowances of 20 yuan as well as personal bodyguards.21 Mao frequently went to them for advice on philosophical and theoretical issues. For a period, Mao particularly valued Ai Siqi, frequently corresponding with him and inviting him to his cave for late-night chats. Over time, however, Mao’s interest in Ai and the others waned. Mao appreciated Ai’s layman’s version of Marxism, but it lacked depth and still employed Russian-style dogmatism as a conceptual tool, so that “popularization” was little more than “textbookization.” He Ganzhi, valued by Mao as a prolific writer,

*

  The Central Committee Youth Committee was comprised of Chen Yun, Feng Wenbin, Li Chang, Liu Guang, Hu Qiaomu, Gao Langshan, Huang Hua, and Song Yiping.

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was offered a position as Mao’s personal theoretical secretary, but he was too bookish and he declined Mao’s offer in favor of concentrating on his writing.22 In any case, He Ganzhi’s writing was too slapdash, so Mao respected his wishes and did not insist on drawing him in. Wang Xuewen was the most qualified in terms of in-depth scholarship of revolutionary history and theory, but he was too pedantic as both a writer and as a person,* and his pronounced dogmatic tone made him unsuited for Mao’s retinue.23 Although Mao was somewhat disappointed with Ai, He, and Wang, at the time he did not demand perfection from them, and he actively assimilated the most useful aspects of their writings. For example, in the November 1936 pamphlet China’s Past, Present, and Future (later renamed China in Transition), He Ganzhi stated that China was a “half-colonial, halffeudal society,” and that China’s present stage of revolution was that of a “New Democratic Revolution.” Although this had originated with the Comintern, the expression was succinct and clear, and it obviously inspired some aspects of Mao’s subsequent “On New Democracy.” Mao used the strong points and rejected the shortcomings of these theoreticians who had emerged from the garrets of Shanghai with no training in the Soviet Union, and beginning from 1938, each was appointed to leading positions in Yan’an’s Cultural and Propaganda Departments. Ai was first appointed chairman of the Association of Border Area Cultural Circles, and after the Marxism-Leninism Institute was established, he became head of the institute’s Philosophy Department. He became secretary general of the Propaganda Department’s Cultural Work Committee in 1939, and was appointed chief editor of the newly established publication, Chinese Culture, in 1940. He Ganzhi was appointed to the Central Cultural Work Committee and Wang Xuewen was appointed deputy director and dean of studies of the Marxism-Leninism Institute in autumn 1938. From 1939 to 1941, Mao used the strategy of “undermining the foundation and sanding the soil” to gradually consolidate his influence and infiltrate the Theoretical, Propaganda, and Education Departments controlled by the CCP Soviet faction. Having enlisted Chen Boda and Hu Qiaomu as his wingmen, Mao now wanted to push the “Study Movement” into deeper territory and to create ammunition for a direct challenge *

  Liu Xuewei recalls that Wang Xuewen used Leontiev’s Political Economy as a textbook at the Marxism-Leninism Institute, that he “spoke very cautiously, and his arguments and key points largely followed that book.” Although Liu Xuewei found Wang Xuewen’s classes “scintillating,” some of his classmates “dozed off.”

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to Wang Ming and the others in the form of a discussion of the Party’s historical problems.

III. “Lobbing a Stone”: Mao Compiles a “Party Book” By late 1940, Mao could no longer tolerate the twisted academic atmosphere that filled Yan’an’s organizations and he decided to change the direction of the “Study Movement.” Mao’s strategy was to “Shoot a man by first shooting his horse, and to capture bandits by first catching their boss.” Temporarily ignoring the Party’s mid- and lower-level cadres, he first released the Party’s senior cadres from pure book-study and drew them into discussions on the sensitive topic of the Party’s history from 1927 to 1937, in that way fanning the wild fire toward Wang Ming and Zhang Wentian. Mao was playing with fire. In 1938, a Comintern directive to the CCP had explicitly warned the leadership to be discreet in its discussions of the Party’s past in order to avoid unnecessary conflicts that would affect Party unity. Although this Comintern directive was still fresh in his ears, Mao completely disregarded it. During the following three years, Mao had consolidated his power base and he wanted to venture further by testing the response of other leaders. In December 1940 Mao formally stated a number of viewpoints that he had kept buried in his heart for years. At a Politburo meeting on December 4, for the first time Mao criticized the policies of the late soviet-area period as ultra-Leftist line errors, which implied that the “Zunyi Conference resolution required amendment.” This immediately provoked arguments at the meeting, with Zhang Wentian and others disagreeing that any line errors had been committed during the late sovietarea period.24 Facing opposition from Zhang and others, Mao adjusted his language. On December 25, in an internal Party directive later published as “On Policy,” for the first time Mao declared that the CCP had committed errors of Left deviation opportunism during the later period of the soviet movement, citing eleven specific aspects of such errors. Mao was releasing a trial balloon, using the relatively general and ambiguous concept of the “later period of the soviet movement” without explicitly stating that this stage was the time between the 1931 Fourth Plenum of the Sixth Central Committee and the 1935 Zunyi Conference. Likewise, he used “Left deviation opportunistic errors” in place of a formal judgment of “Left deviation opportunistic line errors.” Mao’s choice of this time to state his views was based on his accurate

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assessment that splits had arisen among his political opponents. Mao clearly perceived that the person in the Party leadership who most tenaciously maintained his evaluation of the original political line was not Wang Ming but rather the person who had long cooperated with Mao and who in 1940 still maintained close relations with him—Zhang Wentian. Wang Ming, for his part, had already stated in November 1940 that the CCP had committed serious errors during the later stage of the soviet period.25 Although Wang was merely reiterating views he had made known in Moscow in 1933‒34, he brought them up at this time purely for the purpose of clarifying his relationship with his former colleagues, Bo Gu and Zhang Wentian. Mao observed that Wang Ming, Bo Gu, and Zhang Wentian were engaged in mutual recriminations and vying to avoid blame, but he expressed not the slightest appreciation or support for Wang Ming; ultimately, it was Wang Ming, the spiritual leader of the Soviet faction who had risen to fame through the International Communist Movement, who presented a threat to Mao, and not Wang’s erstwhile friend Zhang Wentian, who had taken Mao’s side on a number of major issues. Now the situation had changed, with Wang Ming frequently making overtures to Mao and elevating him from “the great statesman and strategist of the Chinese Revolution” to “the great theoretician.”26 Only Zhang Wentian tenaciously resisted Mao’s efforts to revise the historical verdicts, and this forced Mao to change his strategy. Mao used the half-year from winter 1940 to June 1941 to painstakingly prepare a “stone” to lob at Wang Ming and the rest of the Soviet faction. This was a collection entitled Secret Party Documents since the Sixth National Party Congress. Secret Party Documents* was a collection of historical documents related

*

  Secret Party Documents since the Sixth National Party Congress was published in two editions, full and selections. The edition of selections consists of eighty-six documents in two volumes and was published by the Yan’an New China Printing House. In December 1941, 500 copies of the full edition of Secret Party Documents were printed and distributed to a minority of units under the Central Committee and the Central Military Commission but not to individuals. Copies of the edition of selections were distributed to high-level cadres, with their serial numbers recorded. When the CCP Central Committee withdrew from Yan’an under attack by the Nationalist Army in 1947, only several copies of the full edition were retained by the Secretariat of the Central Committee, and the remainder was destroyed. The Secretariat made some adjustments and additions to the volume, then reprinted it twice, in 1952 and 1980, for internal distribution.

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to the CCP’s past, and their meticulous compilation and presentation had been strongly influenced by Stalin’s History of the CPSU. The book was divided into two volumes, with Volume 1 completed in June 1941 and the entire collection finalized in December 1941.27 Secret Party Documents included 519 documents of all kinds, totaling 2.8 million words and spanning the time period from the Sixth Party Congress in June 1928 to November 1941. An outstanding characteristic of this collection was its tendentiousness. With the help of Hu Qiaomu and Wang Shoudao, Mao arranged these historical materials according to the pattern of the “two lines” within the CCP. The book established Mao as the representative of the Party’s correct line, while Wang Ming, Bo Gu et al. represented the incorrect line. The book included fifty-five of Mao’s essays, speeches, and reports, comprising 10 percent of the word count. Mao was very careful in his selection of documents drafted by Wang Ming, Bo Gu, and Zhang Wentian, choosing to include some as “negative examples.” Mao did not forget Zhou Enlai’s support for Wang Ming at the outset of the War of Resistance, so Secret Party Documents offered up Zhou as Wang’s sidekick. The book included the full text of the June 15, 1938, document, “Our Views on Defending Wuhan and the Third Stage of the War of Resistance,” which was jointly signed by Zhou, Wang Ming, and Bo Gu, using it as evidence of how Zhou compromised and chimed in on the “incorrect line.” By way of contrast, Secret Party Documents highlighted Liu Shaoqi’s political advance, with the inclusion of four of his essays in the section on the “correct line,” but the section included only one essay with Zhou Enlai as the sole author. Mao used this to show the Party’s senior cadres that only Liu Shaoqi was a true supporter of Mao’s “correct line.” In order to demonstrate his consistent correctness, Mao was extremely attentive to the selection of his own writings to be included in Secret Party Documents, taking pains to edit out any words that might damage his image. He removed words showing his support for the Party’s political line from 1931 to 1935, and he carefully edited some essays he had written in the early and mid-1930s. He selected only a small portion of the report he had delivered to the Second National Soviet Congress in January 1934 (on how only the soviets could save China) and he included it in Secret Party Documents under the new titles of “Our Economic Policy” and “Care about the Lives of the Masses, Pay Attention to Work Methods.” Mao carried out even more heavy-handed editing of “On the New Phase,” only retaining

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certain portions on the “Sinification of Marxism” and “independence and autonomy,” which he included in the book under the title “The Chinese Communist Party’s Position in the National War of Resistance.” There is compelling evidence that in the process of compiling Secret Party Documents, Mao edited the dates of certain documents to suit his political purposes. The book included the “Political Resolution of the First Party Congress of the Central Soviet Area,” passed under Ren Bishi. This document was originally composed from November 1 to 5, 1931, but in Secret Party Documents28 its date was changed to March 1931.* This unusual modification conceals the historical reality of how from April to October 1931, the Central Committee delegation led by Ren Bishi supported Mao and joined with him to oppose Xiang Ying. The reason Mao selected this “Resolution” for inclusion is that it criticized the land policy Mao had advocated, “taking from the haves and giving to the have-nots,” which revealed from the opposing side that deep policy divisions existed between Mao and the Central Committee following the Fourth Plenum of the Sixth Central Committee. Changing the date of the resolution to March 1931 emphasized that the delegation that the Central Committee had sent to Jiangxi after the Fourth Plenum had immediately opposed Mao’s *

  From March 18 to 21, 1931, Xiang Ying convened an enlarged meeting of the Central Bureau of the Soviet Area in his capacity as the bureau’s secretary, but he declared the meeting adjourned without a resolution, pending instructions from the CCP Central Committee. On April 17, Ren Bishi and the rest of the Central Committee delegation arrived in Ningdu County to meet with Xiang Ying, Mao, and the others, and the Central Bureau held a one-day meeting as a continuation of the previous enlarged meeting. This meeting produced five documents: 1.) a resolution to accept a letter from the Comintern and the Resolution of the Fourth Plenum; 2.) the “Resolution on the Land Issue”; 3.) the “Resolution on the Work Summary of the First and Third Army Groups”; 4.) the “Resolution Regarding the Futian Incident”; and 5.) the “Resolution Regarding the Work of the Communist Youth League.” It did not include the “Political Resolution of the First Party Congress of the Central Soviet Area.” This congress was convened from November 1 to November 5, 1931, and its political resolution was drafted by Wang Jiaxiang. Mao edited the resolution and included only Part 1 in Secret Party Documents, omitting Parts 2 and 3, because the second part of the resolution, “A Review of Past Work in the Central Soviet Area,” made explicit reference to the “Soviet Area Party Congress completely agreeing with the Central Committee’s September directive.” If this content had been included in Secret Party Documents, it would have been impossible to change the date of the “Political Resolution of the First Party Congress of the Central Soviet Area” to March 1931.

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correct stand and that Mao had been subjected to the Central Committee’s wrongful suppression for an extended period. Mao’s inclusion of this document in Secret Party Documents also served to warn Ren Bishi that he, too, had once verged on the incorrect line. Mao’s reason for compiling Secret Party Documents was to prepare material for the Seventh Party Congress, 29 and this project was fully supported by Ren Bishi. After reaching Moscow in March 1938, Ren spent two years at Comintern Headquarters before returning to Yan’an on March 26, 1940. After returning to China, he immediately joined the core of Party power, the Secretariat of the Central Committee (the equivalent of the Politburo Standing Committee), and in July and August of that year he was appointed general secretary of the Central Committee in charge of the Secretariat’s daily operations, thereby becoming Mao’s most important aide. Ren Bishi was an idealistic Communist. Beginning in the late 1930s, he came to increasingly admire Mao’s intelligence and perspicacity, feeling that Mao was the only person within the Party capable of holding leadership responsibilities and believing that the CCP could only achieve success with Mao as the helmsman. For this reason, Ren early on made his choice between Mao and Wang Ming, and during the difficult period for Mao in early spring 1938, Ren expressed his unequivocal support for Mao at the March Politburo meeting, thus winning Mao’s trust. There were topics Ren Bishi wished to avoid as well. Although Ren had joined forces with Mao against Xiang Ying from April to October 1931, once he began implementing the policies of the post‒Fourth Plenum Politburo, he had labeled Mao a “parochial empiricist.” He had long felt guilty about the damage he had caused to Mao in the early 1930s, and in recent years he had taken the initiative to draw close to Mao and to obtain his forgiveness. After arriving in Moscow in March 1938, Ren put his heart and soul into raising Mao’s profile with the Comintern, with striking results. After returning to Yan’an, Ren even more energetically assisted Mao, always with a view to the Party’s long-term interests and seeing Mao’s actions in the best light. The fact that Ren supported Mao in order to defend Party interests does not imply that he appreciated everything Mao did. Ren was an honest and upright man who had difficulty accepting some of Mao’s excesses,30 but he turned a blind eye to them due to various complex factors. As head of the Central Party delegation that had been sent to the Jiangxi Soviet Area after the Fourth Plenum, Ren could not possibly have forgotten the

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date of the First Party Congress that he directed in the soviet area. It was Ren’s compromising attitude that gave Mao the nerve to brazenly change the date of this meeting. Mao’s counterattacks against Wang Ming from the end of 1940 through the first half of 1941 brought him to the eve of a decisive battle. While speeding up his compilation of Secret Party Documents, Mao repeatedly disclosed his critical views of the political line of the previous Central Committee in documents that he drafted for the Central Committee in order to influence his colleagues in preparation for his final showdown with Wang Ming and the others. Under the name of the Central Committee, in January 1941 Mao ordered the organization of a high-level cadre study group with 120 members, including more than forty key cadres. The group started out by discussing issues in the Party’s past experience, tightening the encirclement around Wang Ming and the others. Upon observing that the Soviet faction kept quiet and that the faction’s backer, Stalin, likewise did not make any move, Mao rapidly moved the battlefield from past issues to the present. This time Mao did not make a distinction between Wang Ming and Zhang Wentian; rather he aimed to immediately unmask these “master theorists.” Mao decided to thoroughly destroy the foundation upon which Wang Ming and the others had relied for their power—their titles as Marxist theoreticians and keepers of the Holy Grail. Face to face with Wang Ming and the others, Mao launched a new round of attacks on Wang on May 19, 1941. In his report “Reform Our Study,” he demanded that the “Study Movement” launched in 1938 undergo a thorough change of direction, “abolishing isolated, static methods of studying Marxism-Leninism” and replacing them with study of the current synthesized Marxism-Leninism: Stalin’s History of the CPSU and Sinified Marxism. In this new challenge launched against Wang Ming, Mao created whole groups of metaphorical and challenging neologisms—“Hellenization,”* “Greek and foreign tales,”† “dogma,” and “gramophones.”‡ Although these expressions had targets, Mao did not explicitly state what they were. This

*

  TN: Referring to worship of the foreign.   TN: Picking up useless smatterings of foreign knowledge. ‡   TN: People who merely parroted foreign notions and had no ideas of their own. †

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made it even easier, between the terms and the reality, to trigger suspicions and associations that would shake the sacred status of the old lexicon of Wang Ming et al. and would allow Mao to use this lexical transformation to sweep away all obstacles to seize the power of ideological interpretation. Then, in June 1941, Mao completed the first volume of Secret Party Documents, which immediately became a stone for Mao to lob at Wang Ming and the others. Two years later, in a speech at an October 1943 enlarged Politburo meeting, Mao recalled the enormous impact of publication of Secret Party Documents: The Party book was compiled in June 1941, and as soon as it was published many comrades laid down their arms, making it possible to convene the September conference, which was when everyone admitted their errors.31 The phrase “many comrades laid down their arms” was no doubt related to the enormous spiritual assault Secret Party Documents dealt to the Party’s core leadership, but Mao had painstakingly plotted a series of activities to accompany publication of the book, which also devastated resistance by the majority of Politburo members. In the face of Mao’s attack, the Politburo had no option but to surrender. Starting in spring 1941, Mao made a series of major moves. In the name of the Central Committee, on March 26 Mao issued the “Resolution Regarding the Question of Restructuring Publications,” which in one fell swoop leveled the final opinion bastions of Wang Ming, Zhang Wentian, and the others. The “Resolution” stated that owing to “technical limitations” and an “urgent need to publish” certain books and pamphlets, publication of three magazines, Chinese Women, Chinese Youth, and Chinese Workers, would be suspended.32 In order to appear “impartial,” Mao included Hu Qiaomu’s Chinese Youth along with the other two magazines, which were under the direction of Wang Ming, Bo Gu, and Deng Fa. Wang and the others knew very well what Mao was really up to, but there was nothing they could say. On September 1, 1941, Mao followed a similar pattern by announcing the abolition of China Women’s College, of which Wang Ming was director, and he merged it with Northern Shaanxi Public School and Zedong Young Cadre School to form Yan’an University. This ingeniously stripped Wang Ming of the last position that gave him any public profile. While incessantly scheming against the empty-handed Wang Ming,

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Mao was even more anxious about the well-armed Eighth Route Army generals. In order to prevent the Eighth Route Army under Peng Dehuai from developing an itch for “autonomy” and “decentralization” out on the front line and to strike at any attempt at “a general in the field using his own discretion,” on July 1, 1941, Mao charged Wang Jiaxiang and Wang Ruofei with drafting a “Resolution on Enhancing Party Character” in the name of the Central Committee. This document indirectly warned Peng Dehuai and the various base area leaders, as well as the South China Bureau under Zhou Enlai, that they must follow orders from Yan’an in all things and should not “strike out on their own politically” or “establish independent fiefdoms.” Mao also threatened them with Zhang Guotao’s “historical lesson of bringing disgrace and ruin on himself.” Mao had a clear understanding of the psychology of these senior cadres, who had offered themselves for so long to the revolutionary cause and who treasured their own revolutionary histories, and he kept them tight in his grip in the name of the Party and the revolution. Everything was prepared, and the advent of a massive Party Rectification Movement was at hand.

6. The Internal and External Environments of the Chinese Communist Party and Mao’s Advantageous Position on the Eve of the Rectification Movement

I. The Social Ecology of Yan’an in the Early 1940s In the years after the Central Committee of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) followed the Red Army’s Long March to northern Shaanxi in October 1935, the Party established a highly organized society in Yan’an. By the early 1940s, Yan’an had a population of 37,000–38,000,* of whom 7,000 were city residents living in the southern portion of the city, whereas the rest were cadres of the CCP Central Committee and the various organs and schools of the Border Region, who were scattered throughout Yan’an and its environs.1 The two groups constituting the population in Yan’an had been fully mobilized and organized under Central Committee planning and in accordance with the experience of the Ruijin era. In the Border Region and in Yan’an City, the CCP established a vertical structure of Party and

*

  According to the Xie Juezai riji ( Journals of Xie Juezai), in September 1938 Xie was informed by Yan’an mayor Gao Langting that there were more than 6,000 residents in Yan’an City, and more than 20,000 students, cadres, and soldiers. In 1939 many young people continued to arrive in Yan’an from outside, but beginning from the end of 1939, the number of such arrivals dropped sharply, and by the early 1940s, the number of students and cadres in Yan’an numbered around 30,000. According to Hu Qiaomu, some 40,000 comrades went to Yan’an after the outbreak of the War of Resistance. I believe that this number includes cadres working in the various counties of the Border Region. The number of cadres in Yan’an is typically estimated at around 30,000.

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government organs and mass organizations so that Party decrees could be transmitted from the Central Committee, the Border Region Party Committee (the Northwest Bureau and the Border Region Government) straight down to the city, district, and township Party organizations, and then all the way to the village Party branches. The Border Region Selfdefense Corps had grassroots organizations in every district, township, and village, and in addition to agricultural production, these units assumed public security tasks, such as inspecting travel permits and arresting suspicious individuals. Yan’an’s 30,000-plus cadres were even more highly organized. Although living in the environs of Yan’an and the Border Region, these cadres in various organs and schools created their own systems and had almost no contacts with the ordinary residents of Yan’an. They constituted a distinct Communist cadre community. First, the Communist cadre community was distinguished by the fact that most were CCP members with a distinctive ideological flavor, and second by virtue of the fact that they were all “public servants.” Each had his or her own “mess unit” and was immersed in military communism as a way of life. The ideological environment in Yan’an was closely related to the character of the CCP and the changes in Yan’an since the War of Resistance. The CCP was originally a political and military community brought together by ideology, and ideology was the fundamental impetus that sustained its existence and development. Beginning in 1937, large numbers of educated young people went to Yan’an for ideological reasons. In order to settle and train them, the CCP established a dozen schools of various kinds, the number and scale of which greatly surpassed that during the Ruijin era. In the early 1940s, Yan’an became virtually a college town, with all kinds of schools serving as bases for drilling and disseminating CCP ideology, and playing a key role in Yan’an’s political life. Yan’an had the Marxism-Leninism Institute, Central Party School, Northern Shaanxi Public School, Anti-Japanese Resistance Military and Political College, China Women’s College, Lu Xun Fine Arts Institute, Zedong Young Cadres School, Central Organization Department Training Course, Central Staff Committee Training Course, Northwest Public School (Zaoyuan Training Course), Natural Science Institute, National Minority Institute, Military Academy, Artillery School, Military Commission Confidential

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School, Northwest Institute of Public Administration, Romanization Cadre School, and so forth. These schools were completely different from the “standard schools” in the Kuomintang (KMT)-controlled areas. They had relatively short class periods and the curricula mainly consisted of ideological training; for that reason, the large number of schools intensified the ideological ambience in Yan’an. The cadre community in Yan’an relied on a rationing system in which the respective organs or schools were responsible for equal distribution of basic living needs.* The Nationalist government had provided financial outlays to the Communist armed forces during the early years of the War of Resistance,2 but when CCP-KMT relations broke down in 1939, the Border Region came under the KMT military blockade and the Nationalist government’s financial support of the Communist forces became irregular. By 1940 it was completely cut off. This caused extreme hardship in terms of acquiring material provisions in the Border Region and in Yan’an. The 1.5 million residents of the border region had the onerous burden of supporting nearly 100,000 Communist troops and cadres. In order to alleviate food supply pressures, the Anti-Japanese Resistance Military and Political College and Northern Shaanxi Public School moved to northern China. In an effort to thoroughly resolve the material hardships, the CCP launched a production campaign in 1939 and an even larger production campaign in 1940, while at the same time each organ and work-unit began operating various kinds of economic entities to resolve the problems of internal material provisions. As a special wartime measure to resolve livelihood issues, the CCP used the term “special goods” to “cultivate certain goods ... even developing internal markets for some goods.”† 3 Beginning in 1939, life in Yan’an was very hard materially, but the intellectual and cultural life was very rich, and once the young intellectuals *

  In 1938, living conditions in Yan’an’s various organs and schools were reasonably good; cadres in the Central Organization Department ate one serving of white rice and two servings of flour products per week, with millet served on other days, and they were able to eat meat two or three times per week. †   Translators’ Note (cited hereafter as TN): The term “special goods” may refer to opium production. See, for example, Chen Yung-fa, “The Blooming Poppy under the Red Sun: The Yan’an Way and the Opium Trade,” in Alan Lawrance (ed.), China Since 1919—Revolution and Reform: A Sourcebook (London: Routledge, 2004), pp. 98ff.

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arrived in Yan’an, they quickly found themselves in a sea of Red theory. The CCP ran many publications in Yan’an, including New China Daily (expanded in 1941 to become Liberation Daily), Liberation Weekly, The Communist, Eighth Route Army Military and Political Affairs Magazine, Chinese Youth, Chinese Women, The Chinese Worker, Chinese Culture, and so forth. Yan’an’s largest publication unit, Liberation Publishing House, also produced a Marx-Engels series of books and various other theoretical and political propaganda works. When Xiao San* returned to Yan’an from the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) in 1939, he set up a club, which rapidly led to the spread of ballroom dancing, dancing parties, Peking Opera evenings, choruses, and performances of Cao Yu’s plays Sunrise and Thunderstorm, which imparted a lively and cheerful atmosphere to the Spartan revolutionary conditions in the area. Apart from occasional Japanese air raids, Yan’an seemed far removed from wartime conditions. In the everyday lives of Yan’an’s “public servants,” veteran cadres occupied an extremely important position. Most of these “veteran cadres” were in fact only in their late 20s or early 30s, and having typically experienced the Long March, they were now in charge of leading the Party’s various organs and schools. Beginning in 1941, Yan’an transferred many senior cadres from various base areas to Yan’an to engage in rectification study, with the additional intention of stockpiling and maintaining a senior cadre corps. In order to look after the veteran cadres responsible for leadership duties, the CCP Central Committee set up a special Central Healthcare Committee to provide them with better material and medical services. Yan’an’s two main hospitals, the Border Region Hospital and the Central Hospital, served different constituents, with the Central Hospital mainly serving leading cadres and their families and occasional ordinary cadres referred by the Party organization. The health of veteran cadres was also served by Guanghua Farm, which had been established in Yan’an in 1940. This farm raised Dutch milk cows brought in from the North China Base Area so that the veteran cadres could enjoy fresh milk every day. As the emergency atmosphere in Yan’an during the early war years changed to one of everyday life, internal relations among Yan’an’s “public servants” also gradually changed. In addition to many conflicts

*

  TN: Born Xiao Kexin, 1896‒1983, a poet and translator.

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between veteran cadres and new cadres, malicious rumor-mongering was rampant, even among the veteran cadres. Relations among Yan’an’s young intellectuals were comparatively closer, although the atmosphere was already very different from that in 1937‒38.4 Beginning in 1940, more than 30,000 “public servants” were settled in Yan’an, and the Party completely took care of them in terms of ideology, operations, and livelihood. By then, Yan’an’s communications with the “rear areas” (i.e., the outside world) were cut off, and unless dispatched or dismissed by the Party organization, Yan’an cadres were unable to return to the KMT-controlled areas or to any other region on their own accord; an individual who left such a highly organized society basically lost everything. As the CCP’s supreme leader, Mao had reason to be satisfied with the new society established in Yan’an. Nothing in Yan’an was unfamiliar to Mao; the first stages of such a society had already been formed in Ruijin, Jiangxi Province, back in the early 1930s. But the territory and population back then were much smaller and it was besieged by a wartime environment, added to which Mao was not the true master of that society and therefore he could take no real pleasure from it. With the passage of time, the CCP could no longer be compared with what it had been previously, and Mao was now the supreme leader of the Party, so how could he not be pleased? In Bao’an several years earlier, Ding Ling had used the term “minor imperial court” in Mao’s presence to describe her impression of the Northern Shaanxi Soviet Area, and Mao had found this description “very interesting.”5 Now, of course, Mao would not mind Chiang Kai-shek saying the Border Region was some kind of “state within a state” or a “feudal separatist state”; in fact, Mao wanted to create a “state within a state” in the Border Region and eventually to seize control over all of China.

II. Dealings with Chiang Kai-shek and Stalin In spring and summer 1941, Mao was basically prepared for his attack on the Comintern faction and he began turning his attention outward, toward the KMT regime in Chongqing as well as to far-off Moscow. Before deciding on his final course of action, Mao had to consider how Chiang Kai-shek and Stalin might react. In China’s history of dynastic successions, stories such as that of

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King Goujian of Yue,* who endured years of self-imposed hardship to build up his resolve to avenge humiliation, were replayed numerous times. Mao’s strategy toward Chiang Kai-shek during the early stages of the War of Resistance is the most successful example of this. In autumn 1937, with an army of less than 30,000, Mao temporarily adopted a posture of compromise with Chiang and gained an opportunity to build up his army and consolidate internally. The impending Yan’an Rectification Movement would be a major move by Mao to make use of the cooperative situation between the CCP and KMT to accelerate putting his things in order; Mao wanted to take this opportunity to start by cleaning up his own backyard. Relations between Mao and Chiang during the eight years of the War of Resistance can be divided into two stages. The period from 1937 to 1940 can be considered the stage of CCP compromise with the KMT, whereas after 1940 this compromise shifted to the CCP standing up to the KMT as an equal. From 1937 to 1940, in order to develop the CCP’s military might, Mao did not vie with Chiang for a nominal title; rather, he feigned sympathy, allowing the CCP to rapidly develop its own power, especially in the Eighth Route Army, during those two or three years. Once the CCP had attained real strength, Mao was no longer willing to continue playing the role of King Goujian; he wanted to vie with Chiang and allow two “suns” to appear in China at the same time. In the caves of Yan’an in 1943, Mao told the KMT’s liaison officer, Xu Fuguan (known at that time as Xu Foguan), “After another five to eight years, let’s see who captures the prize!”6 “The sky cannot have two suns, nor can men have two sovereigns.”† It was no easy matter to make Chiang Kai-shek acknowledge the two “suns” for China; at the very least, Mao had to first become the “sun” of the CCP before he could contend with the KMT’s “sun.” Mao made untiring efforts to reach this goal following the Zunyi Conference, and by 1941 conditions were greatly in his favor. *

  TN: Goujian (r. 496‒465 BC) ruled the kingdom of Yue at the end of the Spring and Autumn Period. With the Yue defeat by the Kingdom of Wu, Goujian was forced to serve King Fuchai of Wu for three years. After returning to Yue, Goujian prepared to defeat Wu by appointing skilled advisers to help him build up the kingdom while also depriving himself of comforts to remind himself of his humiliating living conditions under Wu. Goujian eventually conquered Wu in 473 BC. Notably, after Fuchai committed suicide, Goujian killed all of Fuchai’s scholars so there would be no one left to embark on a similar scheme of revenge. †   TN: From The Works of Mencius, “Wan Zhang I,” quoting Confucius.

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In terms of the environment outside of northern Shaanxi, the Communist forces were basically in a deadlock with the Japanese forces. Following the Hundred Regiments Offensive in August 1940, the Eighth Route Army was not involved in any similarly game-changing battles with the Japanese, and this allowed Mao to transfer a large number of cadres to Yan’an for study. In addition, the Japanese Army was situated quite far from the CCP’s hinterland base in the Shaan-Gan-Ning Border Region and Mao could use this peace to intensify his rectification of the inner workings of the Party. Mao maintained a constant state of high alert toward the KMT,* 7 yet he felt quite sure that Chiang Kai-shek would not ignore pressure from the USSR, the United States, and Great Britain and risk an attack on the ShaanGan-Ning Border Region. Mao could also rely on Communist agents† lying *

  When conflict between the CCP and KMT intensified beginning in 1939, Mao paid close attention to the possibility of anti-Communist attacks by the KMT, and he regularly reminded leading CCP cadres to prepare for the worst-case scenario of a split between the KMT and CCP. †   During the War of Resistance, CCP intelligence work was divided into three independent but interrelated apparatuses: 1.) the Central Social Department, with Kang Sheng at its core; 2.) the CCP South China Bureau’s Enemy Rear Area Committee (also known as the Wu Kejian Intelligence Apparatus), with Zhou Enlai, Li Kenong, and Wu Kejian at its core; and 3.) the Shanghai and Hong Kong intelligence apparatus (the South China Intelligence Bureau), with Pan Hannian at its core. Kang Sheng was the actual coordinator of these three apparatuses, but Zhou Enlai, as the Party’s top leader in the KMT-controlled areas for an extended period of time, also shouldered heavy responsibilities for Party intelligence work. On September 18, 1940, the CCP Central Committee issued its “Notice Regarding the Development of Operations in Cities in the Enemy Rear Area,” which declared the establishment of the Central Enemy Rear Area Work Committee headed by Zhou Enlai and with the assistance of Kang Sheng. Zhou Enlai and Li Kenong established and developed many extremely important strategic intelligence links in all of the KMT’s important organs and local power groups. In early 1938, Zhou Enlai and Dong Biwu dispatched Xiong Xianghui to infiltrate Hu Zongnan’s troops. Xiong gradually won Hu’s trust and became his confidential secretary, sending many top-secret intelligence reports to Yan’an. Beginning in 1938 CCP member Wang Chaobei (father-in-law of Lin Jie, who was a member of the Central Cultural Revolution Group during the early stages of the Cultural Revolution) and his subordinates engaged in intelligence work in Xi’an and provided Yan’an with large amounts of political and military intelligence. Wang Chaobei was arrested in 1962 as a “hidden traitor” and incarcerated in Qincheng Prison; he was released at the end of the Cultural Revolution. Shen Anna, who was part of Wu Kejian’s apparatus, infiltrated the KMT’s Central Party Committee Confidential Office in 1938 and used her aptitude with shorthand to gather large amounts of intelligence, including the confidential contents of the KMT Central Committee plenums and meetings of its Central Committee Standing Committee and the Supreme National Defense Committee during this period.

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low within the KMT’s Party, government, military, and spy organs to alert him in advance of any move by Chiang.8 Mao reckoned that Chiang had no way of becoming involved in the CCP’s internal conflicts, and although he would be pleased by any factional fighting within the CCP, he would remain detached from it. Mao had strong insights into Chiang’s thinking, and in this case his estimation was accurate. Although the KMT was well aware of the CCP’s internal conflicts in the early 1940s, it maintained the position of an onlooker throughout the Yan’an Rectification Movement. As the CCP’s long-time opponent, since the late 1920s Chiang Kai-shek had attached great importance to spying on the CCP. The main channel of KMT intelligence consisted of CCP members who had surrendered to the KMT. After Gu Shunzhang and Xiang Zhongfa defected,* the KMT in 1932 began adjusting its policy of suppressing the CCP by combining physical elimination of CCP members with coercing “self-reflection” and surrender. Statistics from the KMT’s Investigation Section of the Central Organization Department (the intelligence organization known as the Zhongtong) show that from July 1933 to July 1934, the KMT captured 4,505 CCP members, among whom 4,209 surrendered. In the early 1930s, more than 24,000 CCP members were arrested by the KMT or had surrendered to the KMT, and 30,000 sympathizers went through a process of “self-renewal.”9 On June 26, 1934, the KMT arrested the secretary of the CCP’s Shanghai Central Bureau, Li Zhusheng, who promptly surrendered. In October of that year, Li’s successor, Sheng Zhongliang, was also arrested and he took refuge with the KMT. From arrested CCP cadres such as Li Zhusheng and Sheng Zhongliang, Chiang Kai-shek learned of the intense struggles going on within the CCP between the Soviet faction and the veteran cadres. CCP turncoats, such as Li Shiqun and Ding Mocun, also made large amounts of

*

  TN: Gu Shunzhang (1903‒34) became an active member of the underground Communist Movement in 1927. After being identified and arrested by the KMT in 1931, he defected, resulting in the execution of thousands of Communists during the next three months. Chiang Kai-shek ordered that Gu be executed in 1934. Xiang Zhongfa (1880‒1931) was general secretary of the CCP when the KMT arrested him in Shanghai as a result of Gu Shunzhang’s intelligence. Xiang revealed all that he knew to the KMT, but thereafter Chiang ordered that he be executed.

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such information available to the public through their publications, such as Society News and Contemporary History.* After the beginning of the War of Resistance, Chiang Kai-shek’s most important source of internal CCP intelligence was former senior CCP leader Zhang Guotao, who sought refuge with the KMT in 1938. Through Zhang, Chiang gained a thorough understanding of the divisions between Mao and Wang Ming, Zhou Enlai, and the others. Another of Chiang’s channels of intelligence on the CCP was the observer the KMT sent to Yan’an. After the CCP and KMT began cooperating in 1937, Chiang dispatched a KMT liaison organ and a liaison adviser to the CCP capital in Yan’an. Under strict control by CCP intelligence and counter-espionage organs, the KMT observer in Yan’an could not gain access to important CCP secret information, but he could still use his proximity to glean a certain amount of strategic information about the CCP. Xu Fuguan, who in the late 1950s became known in Taiwan, Hong Kong, and overseas as a “contemporary neo-Confucian,” was stationed in Yan’an as the KMT’s liaison adviser for nearly one year in 1943. While in Yan’an, Xu was in contact with Mao, Zhu De, Liu Shaoqi, Ye Jianying, and others, and he was deeply impressed by the CCP’s efforts to work for the betterment of China.10 After returning to Chongqing in late October 1943, in a conversation with senior officers in Chiang’s personal retinue and senior members of the Bureau of Military Investigation and Statistics (Juntong) Xu spoke of “the absurd and presumptuous situation during my time in Yan’an,” and he advised, “Anything less than armed force will be inadequate to resolve [the CCP issue]; any other method will be a complete waste of time. But the prognosis is not favorable if the *

  The founders of Society News were former CCP members Li Shiqun and Ding Mocun who surrendered to the KMT. Li Shiqun had joined the Party during the period of the Great Revolution and had been trained by the Soviet Joint State Political Directorate in 1927 and 1928, working in the special operations of the CCP Central Committee after returning to China. Arrested by the KMT in 1932, he quickly changed loyalties, becoming an intelligence agent in Shanghai for the Investigation Section of the KMT Central Organization Department. Under orders from Chen Lifu, Li Shiqun and others soon began editing Society News published by Xinxing Publishing House at Tongchunfang on Baike Road in Shanghai’s International Settlement. Behind the scenes, Investigation Section also operated Contemporary History, published by Shanghai’s Haitian Publishing House in 1933.

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armed forces are used under the present political conditions.” Xu Fuguan wrote up his impressions of Yan’an in a report to Chiang Kai-shek and He Yingqin, and Chiang took them very seriously. Chiang wrote comments on Xu’s report and ordered the report be printed in pamphlet form for distribution among a small number of senior intelligence officers.11 Although Chiang had a good understanding of the conflicts within the CCP, he had no choice but to maintain a detached attitude and watch from afar. He knew very well that he had no way of influencing CCP policies. He could only rejoice after the CCP’s internal purges and hope that the CCP would be torn asunder by the conflict between Mao and Wang Ming et al. Mao was well aware of Chiang’s attitude, and although he frequently sent cables to Zhou Enlai in Chongqing regarding dealings with Chiang, by 1941 Chiang was not his major focus. What concerned Mao more was the attitude of Stalin in distant Moscow. Beginning in February 1940, after the CCP delegate to the Comintern, Ren Bishi, departed from Moscow for Yan’an, the CCP had no real representative in Moscow, and the CCP delegation to the Comintern no longer existed. As a result, contacts between Moscow and the CCP depended on cable transmissions and the USSR’s Representative Offices in Chongqing and Yan’an. During this period, the USSR had five channels to gather intelligence regarding the CCP: 1.) The Soviet embassy in Chongqing and the TASS Editorial Office in Shanghai. During the War of Resistance, the Soviet Union’s collection of intelligence on China targeted not only Japanese military aggression and various developments in the KMT but also developments in the CCP, especially its contacts with the United States. In 1942 Soviet intelligence organs joined with the Second Division of Chongqing’s Military Operations Department to establish a “Sino-Soviet Intelligence Cooperation Office.” The Soviets sent over several dozen technical personnel who were mainly responsible for collecting intelligence in the Japanese-occupied areas. The Soviets maintained close contacts with the CCP’s South China Bureau and the underground Party in Shanghai through their ambassador, Lieutenant General Alexander Panyushkin (known as Pan Youxin in Chinese) of the State Political Directorate (OGPU)—the Soviet secret police—and military attaché Nikolay Roschin (known in Chinese as Luo Shen). The Soviets also published a Chinese-

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language magazine in Shanghai, Time, overseen by a veteran intelligence officer, Vladimir Rogoff,* mainly for collecting intelligence on Japan but also for gaining an understanding of CCP activities through Liu Xiao, Liu Changsheng, and Pan Hannian.† 2.) The Soviet diplomatic and military delegation in Lanzhou. After the beginning of the War of Resistance, Lanzhou became an important transport hub for the Soviets to send material aid to China. The Soviet Air Force constructed an airfield at Lanzhou, for which an administrative organ was established, and this organ maintained close contacts with the CCP Office in Lanzhou. The CCP passed intelligence on its internal situation to the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU) through the Eighth Route Army’s Office in Lanzhou.12 Among the files that the CPSU Central Committee transferred to the CCP in 1956 were the minutes of the meetings of the Northwest Bureau and the South China Bureau.13 Peter (Pyotr) Vladimirov (known in Chinese as Sun Ping), who later became a Soviet observer in Yan’an, was deputy delegate to the Soviet Military Representative Office in Lanzhou from 1938 to 1940. 3.) The Soviet consulate in Dihua.‡ Beginning in 1934, the Soviet Union engaged in large-scale expansion into Xinjiang through the warlord Sheng Shicai and posted many political, economic, and military advisers throughout the province. The Soviet Red Army’s “Eighth Red Regiment” was stationed in Hami for an extended period. In an effort to exert long-term control, Stalin invited Sheng Shicai to join the CPSU but he did not allow him to join the CCP.14 Soviet intelligence agencies in Xinjiang engaged in a wide range of activities, including the collection of intelligence on CCP activities in Xinjiang as well as

*

  Vladimir Rogoff arrived in China at the beginning of the War of Resistance and carried out intelligence work in Shanghai. In August 1941 he founded Time in Shanghai, and in November of the same year he founded Soviet Literature and Art, which absorbed some of the CCP underground operatives as editors, including Jiang Chunfang. Rogoff attended the founding ceremony of the People’s Republic of China on October 1, 1949, in his capacity as a correspondent for TASS. †   TN: Liu Xiao, secretary of the Jiangsu Provisional Committee, had been sent by Mao in 1937 to rebuild the Party in Shanghai, with the assistance of Liu Changsheng. Pan Hannian was a CCP intelligence officer who at this time was involved in United Front negotiations with the KMT. ‡   TN: Now known as Urumqi.

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intelligence on the inner workings of the CCP Central Committee. 4.) The Soviet Liaison Group in Yan’an. Beginning from 1939, the Soviet Union maintained liaison officers in Yan’an. From May 1942 onward, Peter Vladimirov, in his capacity as Comintern liaison officer, Soviet military intelligence officer, and TASS correspondent, served as head of the liaison group. This liaison group was in fact an intelligence organ sent to Yan’an by Stalin, and it consisted of five or six persons, including a radio cryptographer and a doctor. 5.) The Soviet Union’s secret intelligence network was established in various major cities of North and Northeast China. CCP members in the intelligence network were dispatched from Yan’an, but they generally had no direct contact with the CCP and mainly collected intelligence on Japanese military operations for the Soviet Union. Although the Soviet Union actively collected intelligence through the above organizations in China, as the European war intensified in 1940 and the outbreak of war between the Soviet Union and Germany appeared imminent, Stalin began to focus on the war in Europe and on domestic war preparations in the Soviet Union. As leader of the International Communist Movement, Stalin was generally sanguine about the changes in the CCP beginning in the mid1930s, i.e., Mao’s rise and gradual control of the Party. In particular, beginning in 1938 the CCP’s positions and viewpoints were largely supported by Moscow. Stalin was naturally familiar with Wang Ming, but he was even more aware that he had purged Wang’s mentor, the former head of the Comintern Far Eastern Bureau, Pavel Mif, so he was not prepared to extend a helping hand to Wang Ming. As long as Mao maintained the same viewpoints as Moscow on issues involving Soviet interests, Stalin was unwilling to say anything to Yan’an. Beginning in 1941, however, the situation changed; Stalin discovered that Mao, now firmly in control of the CCP, was paying mere lip service to Moscow’s directives touching on major issues of defending and supporting the Soviet Union. Mao adopted various tactics, such as delay, evasion, or saying one thing while meaning another, to refuse to dispatch the Eighth Route Army in an assault on the Japanese armed forces stationed in North China and along the Chinese-Mongolian border. Fragmentary information indicates that from early 1941 to 1943, Moscow sent numerous cables to Mao and the CCP Central Committee demanding that the CCP coordinate with the Soviet Army to prevent a

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Japanese incursion into the Soviet Union. Moscow specifically requested that Mao dispatch the Eighth Route Army to sabotage railways in northern China and to launch attacks on the Japanese Army as a means of reducing Japanese military pressure on the Soviet Union.15 Mao gave no firm reply to Stalin’s demands, but he employed various stalling tactics. Stalin had in fact underestimated Mao; why would he be willing to engage in such fruitless actions against a formidable enemy? Regardless of Moscow’s grand talk of “internationalism,” Mao refused to take the bait. Stalin had finally discovered that Mao was a “nationalist,” but by then it was too late because Mao already had the CCP firmly in his grasp. No matter how intense its displeasure with Mao “going his own way” in Yan’an, Moscow could not do anything about it. Mao knew he had offended Stalin, but he did not burn his bridges. Mao realized the CCP could not do without Soviet support and that he could not afford to act on impulse. Although Mao refused to compromise his personal views on basic issues involving the Communist armed forces and his personal authority, on lesser issues Mao never lost an opportunity to make overtures to Stalin and to work for favorable opinions by Stalin. On April 13, 1941, the Soviet Union and Japan signed the SovietJapanese Neutrality Pact, which was detrimental to Chinese interests and aroused intense unease both within and outside of the Chinese government.* Three days later, the CCP formally expressed its views through the New China News Agency, commending the pact as “yet another great victory for Soviet diplomatic policy.” It also accepted the pact’s pretext of “mutual non-aggression regarding Manchukuo and Outer Mongolia,” declaring that the Soviet move “was beneficial to the fight for liberation throughout China.” This action by the CCP “caused erstwhile youthful sympathizers of the CCP to break down in sobs of anguish.”16

*

  On April 14, 1941, the Nationalist government’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs issued a statement on the “Soviet-Japanese Neutrality Agreement,” declaring that the Chinese territories in the three northeastern provinces and Outer Mongolia absolutely refused to recognize any agreement between third parties that violated China’s territorial and administrative integrity. Shen Junru, Wang Zaoshi, and other intellectuals wanted to publish a statement in the newspaper expressing their regret over the Neutrality Agreement, but they gave up after being persuaded by Zhou Enlai. However, suspicion of the Soviet Union in the intellectual community was not genuinely resolved.

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In June 1941, underground CCP member Yan Baohang, * who engaged in international intelligence work under Zhou Enlai (operating in Chongqing in his capacity as leader of the Northeast National Salvation Federation), gained access to top-secret information that Hitler’s Germany was planning an attack on the Soviet Union. Zhou Enlai immediately cabled this intelligence to Yan’an, and Mao rapidly informed Stalin.17 Stalin subsequently sent a cable to Mao expressing his thanks.18 In addition to promptly reporting to Stalin on the war situation in China, Mao attached great importance to maintaining friendly relations with operatives in the Soviet Union’s Chongqing Office. Following Mao’s instructions, Zhou Enlai regularly met with Panyushkin, Roschin, and Vasily Chuikov† to exchange views on the domestic political situation. (When reporting to Moscow on China’s political situation, Soviet diplomats who were stationed in Chongqing were required to maintain a “class standpoint.” On one occasion when the Soviet embassy in Chongqing reported to Moscow on public criticism of the CCP, it was harshly criticized by the Soviet Foreign Ministry.)19 Mao himself regularly engaged in long conversations with Vladimirov in Yan’an, hoping to win the Soviet representative’s understanding and sympathy toward his ideas and also to use Vladimirov to pass information on to Stalin that was advantageous to himself.20 All of Mao’s friendly posturing toward Stalin had one single objective, which was to use Stalin’s prestige to reinforce his own position within the CCP Central Committee and to catch Stalin off guard when he [Mao] launched his attack on the Soviet faction. The outbreak of war between Germany and the Soviet Union on June 22, 1941, gave Mao an opportunity to make his move. Mired in battle,

*

  Yan Baohang served as director of the General Office of the PRC Ministry of Foreign Affairs in the 1950s, and his son Yan Mingfu served for many years as Russian interpreter for Mao, Liu Shaoqi, and other leaders. In the 1980s Yan Mingfu was promoted to alternate secretary of the Central Party Secretariat and director of the Central United Front Department. He was dismissed in 1989 because of the June 4th Incident and thereafter became director of the China Charity Federation. During the Cultural Revolution, Yan Baohang and his son were incarcerated in Qincheng Prison as “Soviet revisionist agents,” and Yan Baohang died in custody. †   TN: Military adviser to Chiang Kai-shek. According to Chuikov’s memoirs, after he arrived in Chongqing at the end of 1940, he had secret contacts with Zhou Enlai and Ye Jianying.

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Stalin had no time to look eastward—Moscow was too far away to impose its authority, and even if Stalin’s informants in Yan’an had their eyes focused on Mao, there was nothing they could do. Mao was about to take action, maintaining relations with the formidable yet distant Stalin while attacking his stand-ins close at hand. He rooted out Stalin’s disciples within the CCP while continuing to worship at Stalin’s shrine.

III. Mao’s Staunchest Allies: Liu Shaoqi and His Cohort Mao’s basic strategy in launching an inner-Party struggle was always to round up a group of people to attack the main enemy, using them as tools to implement his own views. Launching the Yan’an Rectification Movement was Mao’s first large-scale drill for this battle strategy, and his most stalwart allies and accomplices were Liu Shaoqi and his cohort. The alliance between Mao and Liu, built on the foundation of opposition to Zhang Wentian in late spring 1937, was further strengthened in the following year. In an effort to consolidate his power, in March 1938 Mao purposefully recalled Liu Shaoqi, who had come under criticism from Wang Ming during the December Politburo meeting. After returning to Yan’an, Liu became Mao’s right-hand man, and during Mao’s battle with the Yangtze Bureau in the first half of 1938, Liu showed his true colors by taking Mao’s side. Liu could not hide his intense resentment of Wang Ming and he regularly attacked Wang by name in the presence of Central Committee personnel. Wang Shoudao, then head of the Secretariat of the Central Committee, recalled that prior to the Sixth Plenum of the Sixth Central Committee, Liu said to him, “Our North China Bureau has not only become a base for anti-Japanese resistance but also a base for supporting Comrade Mao Zedong in his struggle against Wang Ming’s Right deviating opportunism.”* 21 After the Sixth Plenum, Liu’s attitude toward Wang intensified. He seemed to have completely forgotten the Sixth Plenum’s resolution stating, “Politburo members are not allowed to engage in words or actions that sabotage the prestige of the Politburo and other members.”22 In addition to frequently recounting what he had

*

  This description of Liu Shaoqi by Wang Shoudao may be somewhat exaggerated; although Liu was dissatisfied with Wang Ming, the concept of “Wang Ming Right deviating opportunism” had not yet been invented.

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suffered in the presence of his subordinates, Liu frequently aimed veiled attacks at Wang Ming as a “swindler wearing the mantle of MarxismLeninism, a fly-by-night snake-oil peddler.”23 Mao clearly perceived Liu’s irreconcilable hostility to Wang, and in the latter half of September he rewarded Liu with an appointment as secretary of both the North China Bureau and the Central Plains Bureau. For a short period of time, Liu Shaoqi shifted the focus of his work from the North China Bureau to Central China. On January 28, 1939, Liu arrived in Zhugou Township, Queshan County, Henan Province, and rapidly established the Central Plains Bureau as a leading organ to concretely implement Mao’s major strategy of opening up Central China. Mao dispatched Liu to Central China first of all because he trusted Liu, and Liu and Mao shared the same views on a series of major issues that had caused controversy within the Party. Liu actively supported Mao with respect to accelerating the development of the Communist armed forces. According to archival sources, from spring to mid-November 1938, Liu, on his own or together with Mao and Zhang Wentian, sent more than 100 cables and letters directing the creation of base areas in various strategic regions.24 After arriving in Zhugou, in late November 1939 Liu moved the Central Plains Bureau to eastern Anhui, wholeheartedly “rallying manpower” to open up eastern Anhui and the northern Jiangsu base areas. Liu also proposed that the Eighth Route Army in Shandong should send a unit south, and the New Fourth Army should send a unit north; one year later, the two units joined forces in northern Jiangsu to expand the CCP’s strength in Central China. With Yan’an’s permission, Liu also actively arranged for Japanese collaborators to defect. In December 1941, Liu personally dispatched a New Fourth Army intelligence officer, Feng Shaobai,* to secretly go to Japanese-occupied Shanghai25 to contact *

  Feng Shaobai [Feng Long] was a section chief of the General Staff Office of the New Fourth Army at the time. Liu Shaoqi selected Feng to carry out this important strategic assignment because Feng’s uncle, Shao Shijun (grandson of Qing dynasty official Sheng Xuanhuai), was director of taxation under the Wang Jingwei puppet government and he was a close associate of senior officials in the government. From December 1941 to August 1945, Feng Shaobai repeatedly went to Shanghai and Nanjing, and apart from attempting to obtain material and monetary assistance, he made secret contacts with senior officials in Wang’s government in an effort to convince collaborationists Zhou Fohai and Chen Gongbo to defect. On March 10, 1943, Chen Gongbo met with Feng Shaobai and gave him a codebook, entrusting Shao Shijun to establish radio (continued on next page)

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collaborationists Li Shijun, Zhou Fohai, and Chen Gongbo, and this action produced positive results. Soon thereafter, due to Pan Hannian’s concrete planning, Liu opened up underground channels for the movement of material provisions and personnel between northern Jiangsu and Shanghai, Nanjing, and Zhenjiang. Mao’s other objective in putting Liu Shaoqi in charge of the Central Plains Bureau was to use Liu to curb Xiang Ying and to weaken the latter’s authority. Mao had long been apprehensive of Xiang, but Xiang’s heroic revolutionary history and the immense prestige he enjoyed within the Party for persisting with three years of guerrilla warfare in Jiangxi made it impossible for Mao to make a move against him for a time. In late September 1938, when announcing the establishment of the Central Plains Bureau, the CCP Central Committee decided to elevate the Southeast China Sub-bureau led by Xiang Ying to the status of a bureau, with Xiang continuing to serve as secretary. The expanded Politburo meeting held from July 3 to August 25, 1939, particularly commended the Southeast Bureau under Xiang Ying, signifying Mao’s concessions to Xiang. 26 But Mao would not stand idly by as Xiang Ying expanded his power base; while obliged to go along with the majority of Politburo members in expressing satisfaction with Xiang’s work, Mao openly engaged in activities targeting Xiang, and the establishment of the Central Plains Bureau was a major move by Mao to check Xiang’s influence. The scope of operations by the Central Plains Bureau included the vast territory north of the Yangtze River and south of the Long-Hai Railway, which originally was under the shared jurisdiction of the Yangtze Bureau and the Southeast China Sub-bureau. Putting it under the operational scope of Liu Shaoqi clearly undermined Xiang Ying’s authority. Soon after Liu Shaoqi was assigned to the Central Plains Bureau, he and Xiang Ying had differences of opinion over deployment of the New Fourth Army, and Mao stood firmly on Liu’s side. Mao knew that Liu had scarcely set foot in an army camp prior to 1939 and that his qualifications and prestige were no match for Xiang Ying’s rich military experience and record of Party service. In the summer of 1940, in order to

contact with the New Fourth Army. Because Zhou Fohai had earlier linked up with KMT intelligence chief, Dai Li, CCP efforts to incite Zhou to rebel ultimately failed. In August 1945, CCP underground operatives took Shao Shijun to Huaiyin, and some of his assets (hundreds of gold ingots) were safely passed on to the underground Party.

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expand his influence in the New Fourth Army and to support Liu Shaoqi, Mao mediated in a conflict between Xiang Ying and New Fourth Army commander Ye Ting in order to appoint Rao Shushi, a close confederate of Liu Shaoqi, and his own former subordinate Zeng Shan as deputy secretaries of the Southeast Bureau (which previously had not had any deputy secretaries). In November 1940, Mao made a closed-door decision to strip Xiang Ying of his position and to merge the Southeast Bureau with the Central Plains Bureau to become the Central China Bureau, with Liu Shaoqi as secretary. Anticipating Xiang Ying’s negative reaction, Mao did not immediately formalize this decision. On December 31, the Secretariat of the Central Committee decided that “the Shandong Sub-bureau should be returned to the jurisdiction of the Central Plains Bureau, and the Central Plains Bureau should exercise unified leadership over Shandong and Central China.”27 This decision effectively reduced the Southeast China Bureau to an empty shell existing in name only. Several days later, the Wannan (Southern Anhui) Incident* broke out, and on January 9, Liu Shaoqi sent a cable to Yan’an recommending that the CCP declare that Xiang Ying had been dismissed from his position. Mao sent a reply cable on January 10 saying it was not necessary to raise the issue of removing Xiang from office at that time.28 In the months that followed, Liu presided over the exposure of the “errors” by Xiang Ying and others in Central China. Meanwhile, on January 27, 1941, Yan’an announced the merger of the Southeast Bureau and the Central Plains Bureau into the Central China Bureau, with Liu Shaoqi as secretary and Rao Shushi as deputy secretary. Mao supported Liu for his own political purposes, and Liu repaid him by increasing his criticism of Wang Ming. Mao and Liu were a perfect team, with Liu becoming the “cannon” in Mao’s chess game to capture Wang Ming’s pawn. On November 6, 1938, at the closing ceremony of the Sixth Plenum of the Sixth Central Committee, Mao mentioned Liu by name, saying, “Comrade Shaoqi said it right. ... If ‘everything going through’ [the United Front] means going through Chiang Kai-shek and Yan Xishan, that is unilateral subordination.”

*

  TN: In January 1941 open conflict erupted between Nationalist troops and the Communist New Fourth Army in southern Anhui, resulting in the effective dissolution of the Second United Front.

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In April 1939, Liu Shaoqi left Zhugou Township to attend the expanded Politburo meeting in Yan’an, and from August 7 to 12, Liu delivered a speech entitled “On the Self-Cultivation of Communists” at the Marxism-Leninism Institute. The speech’s veiled attacks on Wang Ming and the others immediately won Mao’s approval. Mao said the speech “encouraged righteousness and opposed villainy,” and he ordered that it be published in the official Central Committee weekly Liberation.29 With Mao’s encouragement, Liu’s attitude toward Wang Ming became increasingly virulent. In his capacity as political commissar of the New Fourth Army and secretary of the Central China Bureau, in July 1941 Liu coordinated with Mao at Yancheng to launch another attack on the Comintern faction. On July 2, Liu delivered a speech “On Struggle within the Party.” On July 13, Liu sent a letter to Song Liang (Sun Yefang)* containing veiled attacks on Wang Ming et al. Liu catered to the preference among Party cadres to ease up on the inner-Party struggle by blaming Wang Ming and the others for creating conflict and for “using the name and form of Bolshevism to engage in opportunism within the Party,” what he referred to as an “addiction to fighting.” Liu also openly criticized Xiang Ying and the others who had been killed in the Wannan Incident for “relying on their troops and guns to assert and declare their independence from the Party.” Mao greatly appreciated Liu Shaoqi’s boldness, and with Mao’s tacit support, a group of Liu’s subordinates, most of them originally cadres in the North China Bureau, began to rise within the Party. Liu originally did not have a personal coterie within the Party, but during his time as secretary of the North China Bureau from 1936 to 1937, he gradually developed a cohort. Beginning in 1938, as Liu’s status rose his former subordinate and head of the Organization Department of the North China Bureau, Peng Zhen, took up the post of secretary of the Jin-ChaJi (Shanxi-Chahar-Hebei) Border Region (later elevated to the Jin-Cha-Ji Sub-bureau) under the jurisdiction of the North China Bureau, now led by Yang Shangkun. Former North China Bureau personnel Liu Lantao, Huang Jing, Lin Feng, An Ziwen, Yao Yilin, Hu Xikui, Lin Tie, Liu Ren, Li Baohua, Li Dazhang, Song Yiping, and Liu Xiwu were appointed to leading

*

  TN: Sun Yefang (1908–83) was a pioneering economist specializing in the rural economy.

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positions in Jin-Cha-Ji, Taihang, Jin-Sui (Shanxi-Suiyuan), and other base areas. In this way, a contingent emerged within the Party with Liu Shaoqi at its core and Peng Zhen as its mainstay. Liu stood firmly on Mao’s side with respect to a series of major issues, but in the early 1940s his support for Mao was not completely without reservations, and he maintained his own views on some key issues. Liu was the first within the CCP to acknowledge and promote Mao’s contributions, but for a period of time he regarded Mao as merely an outstanding leader of the Party and he did not yet refer to him as the “Great Leader.” Liu knew that Mao had written a series of treatises, but in 1941 he asserted that “no great work has yet emerged” within the CCP.30 This remark by Liu was poles apart from his relentless promotion of the Mao personality cult that began in 1943. Liu also had subtle differences with Mao over criticism of “dogmatism.” Unlike Mao, Liu did not regard dogmatism as the No. 1 enemy. He noted a tendency within the Party to “emphasize selfimprovement through actual struggle” and to “oppose specialized theoretical research.” Liu explicitly stated that it was “completely wrong” to criticize comrades immersed in the study of Marxist-Leninist theory as an “academic clique.” Liu even spoke out on how “right up to the present,” the CCP had “failed to surmount the weakness of its lack of theory.”31 Liu’s arguments were clearly incompatible with Mao’s views that the Soviet-schooled theorists were “blockheads,” with intellects less than those of “pigs or dogs.” Liu and Mao also parted ways over their attitudes toward “internationalism” and preserving the actual strength of the CCP. After war broke out between Germany and the Soviet Union, on July 12, 1941 Liu Shaoqi and Chen Yi sent a cable to Mao saying that “if Japan attacks the Soviet Union, we should appeal for the entire nation to launch a counterattack on the Japanese invaders. Even if the KMT does not actively engage in a counterattack, our Eighth Route and New Fourth armies must launch their own attack, and some strongholds in the enemy rear area may be abandoned in order to hold the Japanese forces.” Mao sent a return cable to Liu Shaoqi on July 18 saying, “The slogan of counterattack is right ... but a large-scale action by the Eighth Route and the New Fourth armies is still not appropriate. ... A major move would certainly sap vitality, which would benefit neither the Soviets nor us.”32

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Although Liu Shaoqi still had some reservations toward Mao in 1941—there were differences between the two regarding how to criticize the Soviet faction, and Liu’s views were less seasoned than Mao’s regarding preserving actual Party power—they were united in their political objectives. Mao let some of Liu’s less palatable utterances slide because when Mao was most in need of assistance, there was no one in the Party other than Liu who spoke his language. With a little adjustment by Mao, Liu’s criticism of empiricism could become a weapon to attack Zhou Enlai and the others. This is why these differences did not in any way affect the Mao-Liu political alliance. Consequently, when Liu entrusted the New Fourth Army and the Central China Bureau to Rao Shushi in March 1942 and he returned to Yan’an at the end of that year, he became Mao’s key aide in leading the Rectification Movement. Liu soon joined the Secretariat of the Central Committee as an alternate Politburo member, and his status was second only to that of Mao in the CCP.

IV. Mao’s “Unsheathed Sword”: Kang Sheng It might be said that Liu Shaoqi was the first to take Mao’s side in his struggle against Wang Ming because Liu and Mao held the same views on a series of major issues and they formed a political alliance on the basis of their mutual opposition to Wang Ming. The relationship between Mao and Kang Sheng was of an entirely different order. Kang Sheng* was a person who trimmed his sails to the wind. By virtue of selling out Wang Ming, facilitating Mao’s marriage to Jiang Qing, and having experience with the Soviet secret police, Kang Sheng gained Mao’s trust and became a sword in his hand. Mao did not have a long history with Kang Sheng; in fact, Mao had never laid eyes on him before Kang Sheng accompanied Wang Ming and the others to Yan’an in November 1937. Having enjoyed a close relationship with Wang Ming, Kang Sheng did not immediately win Mao’s trust; it took about half a year for their intimacy to develop. Kang Sheng first gained a reputation within the Party under the alias Zhao Rong. He joined the CCP in 1925 while studying at Shanghai

*

  TN: Born Zhang Zongke (1898–1975).

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University, and he joined Zhou Enlai and Gu Shunzhang in leading three armed insurrections in Shanghai in 1926 and 1927. After the CCP central organ secretly relocated to Shanghai in October 1927, Kang Sheng worked in the Central Organization Department and the Organization Department of the Jiangsu Provincial Party Committee. In January 1931, the Fourth Plenum of the Sixth Central Committee appointed him head of the Organization Department of the Central Committee. Back in the early 1930s, Kang Sheng had become known in the CCP as an expert in eliminating counterrevolutionaries. After Gu Shunzhang defected in April 1931, the Central Committee’s special operations apparatus was reorganized. In September, some of the leading cadres who remained in Shanghai formed a six-man Provisional Central Committee Politburo that included Kang Sheng, and at that point special operations of the Central Committee were put under the direct leadership of a Central Special Operations Committee comprised of Chen Yun, Kang Sheng, and Pan Hannian. The designation of Kang Sheng as one of the leaders of the Central Committee special operatives was related to his experience in heading “dog-catching teams”* during the three Shanghai insurrections. After Chen Yun was transferred to the post of Party secretary of the All- China Federation of Trade Unions, Kang Sheng became the top leader of Central Committee special operations. From the end of 1931 until July 1933, Kang Sheng’s main activities in Shanghai involved suppressing Communist turncoats and matching wits with secret agents from the KMT’s Central Organization Investigation Department. The Red Team (as in Red Terror) led by Kang Sheng shook Shanghai after it assassinated KMT Shanghai secret agent Shi Jimei (aka Ma Shaowu) as well as a number of Communist defectors. Members of the Red Team included Wang Shiying, Xiang Yunian (the father of Xiang Nan, who in the 1980s was Party secretary of Fujian Province), Kuang Hui’an, and Li Shiying. Subsequently, in the 1950s and 1960s Wang Shiying served as governor of Shanxi Province, and Li Shiying served as head of the Shanghai Public Security Bureau, deputy chief procurator of the Supreme People’s Procuratorate, and vice governor of Jiangsu Province. As the situation in Shanghai deteriorated, Kang Sheng could not

*

  TN: A term used for organizations responsible for punishing turncoats.

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maintain his foothold there, and in the summer of 1933 he went to Moscow to assist Wang Ming as deputy head of the CCP delegation to the Comintern. During his four years in the Soviet Union, Kang Sheng vigorously promoted Wang Ming while at the same time gaining firsthand experience with the USSR’s oppressive secret police, the OGPU. He engaged in repeated campaigns to “eliminate Trotskyites” among the Chinese Communists studying in Russia33 and was one of the very few “professionals” in the CCP to have been so thoroughly influenced by the OGPU. During the Comintern’s Seventh World Congress, held in August 1935, Kang Sheng was appointed as an alternate member of the Comintern Central Executive Committee. Kang Sheng’s pre-1937 curriculum vitae indicates that he had no working or personal relationship with Mao. For that reason, following Kang’s arrival in Yan’an, for a time Mao maintained only a routine working relationship with him while he carefully observed his performance. At the December Politburo meeting, Kang Sheng, Wang Ming, and Chen Yun were all inducted into the Secretariat of the Central Committee and they began taking part in core policy decisions, but Kang Sheng’s extended time abroad rendered him unfamiliar with the domestic struggle, and he had a limited say in the Secretariat. His specific assignment was the Central Committee Workers Committee and the Enemy Area Work Committee. Mao knew Kang Sheng was a veteran intelligence operative and expert in eliminating counterrevolutionaries; he wanted to make use of his special talents, but his appointment of Kang to a workers’ committee in the Shaan-Gan-Ning Border Area, where there were virtually no industrial workers, was clearly an empty posting. As yet unsure about Kang Sheng, Mao opted to give him one solid and one empty position to test him. Arriving in Yan’an at the age of 39, Kang Sheng initially believed that Wang Ming had Moscow’s backing and that his status was secure. In early 1938, Kang continued with the practice that he had established in Moscow of closely following and flattering Wang Ming. Sima Lu, who was in Yan’an at the time, recalls that when Kang Sheng accompanied Wang Ming to the Enemy Area Cadre Training Course in Zaoyuan, where Wang was to give a talk to cadres who were receiving training there, Kang Sheng “led us in yelling out ‘Long live our Party’s gifted leader, Comrade Wang Ming!’”34 The episode that Sima Lu recalls must have occurred sometime between late February and early March 1938, after Wang Ming had returned from Wuhan to attend the March Politburo meeting. By the time

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Wang Ming returned to Yan’an a second time in August 1938, the terrain within the Party had already undergone a major shift, and Kang Sheng would not have under any circumstances cried out, “Long live Comrade Wang Ming!’” Kang Sheng had worked in the upper reaches of the CCP for many years, and he was an experienced observer of its political vicissitudes. After a period of careful speculation and close observation, he discovered that although Mao was at a temporary disadvantage within the Politburo, he was still a dominant force in all things in Yan’an. Compared with Mao, Wang Ming had no solid foundation in the Party or in the military, and Kang Sheng believed that Wang was no real match for Mao and that Mao would doubtless become leader of the Party. After a period of contemplation and calculation, Kang decided to hand over his former superior Wang Ming as an introductory gift in exchange for Mao’s trust and deployment. Kang Sheng cautiously made his first overture to Mao at the March 1938 Politburo meeting, expressing his support for Mao’s proposal that Wang Ming remain in Yan’an. Although Mao, Kang Sheng, and Ren Bishi failed to win majority support for this recommendation at the meeting, Kang had achieved his objective of testing the waters; Kang had lent a helping hand when Mao was in the minority and in that way he had won Mao’s initial trust. Kang Sheng saw instant results from casting his vote in Mao’s favor at the March Politburo meeting. One month later, he was appointed director of the Central Party School and he was able to leave the desolate workers’ committee. Kang Sheng intensified his contacts with Mao in the half-year between the March Politburo meeting and the Sixth Plenum of the Sixth Central Committee. Kang joined with Mao, Zhang Wentian, Liu Shaoqi, and Chen Yun, sometimes in the name of the Secretariat of the Central Committee and sometimes under their joint signatures, to continuously criticize the Yangtze Bureau headed by Wang Ming. Kang Sheng was already distancing himself from Wang Ming in an increasingly overt manner. Although gradually winning favor with Mao, for a time Kang still had no real power. It was not long, however, before Kang threw his full support behind Mao’s marriage to Jiang Qing, and in that way he gained Mao’s complete trust. This marked a major turning point in Kang Sheng’s political career.

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In February 1939, Mao formally appointed Kang Sheng director of the Central Committee’s Social Department and Intelligence Department, and vice chair of the Enemy Area Work Committee, making him the top official in intelligence and political security. By releasing Ruijin-era Political Security Bureau head Deng Fa from the head of the Central Party School and having Kang Sheng take over this crucial position, Mao demonstrated his trust in Kang, while at the same time diluting Zhou Enlai’s authority over intelligence work (Zhou was chairman of the Enemy Area Work Committee at the time). Having been taken under Mao’s wing, Kang Sheng rapidly became the man of the moment in Yan’an. Presenting himself as the CCP version of “Bloody” Felix Dzerzhinsky (the first leader of the Cheka, the Soviet State Security Force charged with “eliminating counterrevolutionaries” following the October Revolution), Kang Sheng quickly divided Yan’an’s security apparatus into classified departments and then built them up. The Social Department began to covertly establish intelligence networks within all of Yan’an’s organizations and schools and it recruited reliable Party members to provide covert intelligence-gathering. In 1939, the Social Department built on the foundation of Yan’an’s Staff Training Course to create a secret academy for the training of intelligence operatives and anticounterrevolutionary specialists. It was known to the outside world as Northwest Public School, and Kang Sheng was its de facto director. Kang Sheng was obviously extremely important to Mao; for a person as suspicious and capricious as Mao, ever jealous and wary of his subordinates, the long-term trust he accorded to Kang Sheng, with whom he shared no personal history and who claimed no meritorious military service or experience on the Long March, was exceptional. The main reason was that Mao’s relationship with Kang was completely different from that between Mao and the other CCP leaders. The relationship between Mao and such people as Liu Shaoqi and Ren Bishi was one of political alliance, whereas Kang Sheng was more like Mao’s henchman. Kang’s absolute fealty and personal bondage to Mao clearly distinguished him from the other Politburo members. Kang Sheng’s blandishments and pandering to Mao facilitated his understanding of certain painful topics and his sharing of his master’s cares and burdens. Kang Sheng also showed no hesitation in carrying out his master’s will in defiance of other Party veterans. He was in fact the indispensable sword in his master’s hand. After several years of tempering, by 1941 Kang Sheng had steeled

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himself to become Mao’s Lavrentiy Beria (the Soviet Union’s secret service head following the execution of Nikolai Yezhov). Kang Sheng cut an imposing figure at the time, usually seen in a Russian-style leather jacket and knee-length leather boots, with a foreign-breed dog on a leash. Always accompanied by at least four bodyguards and aides,35 he was the most terror-inspiring figure in Yan’an. He was like a vicious dog awaiting his master’s command to rip out the enemy’s throat.

V. Mao’s “Stewards”: Ren Bishi, Chen Yun, and Li Fuchun The Rectification Movement as conceived by Mao included the dual content of “destruction” and “construction.” On the one hand, Mao wanted to use inner-Party struggle to wipe out his political rivals, while, on the other hand, he wanted to create a new Party tradition built around his personal philosophy, organically combining these two outcomes to consolidate his leadership status. This formidable mission could not be accomplished merely through a handful of people, such as Liu Shaoqi, Kang Sheng, Chen Boda, and Hu Qiaomu. Mao required the assistance of other cadres and operational organs as well. They needed to wield the power of certain organizations to resolutely carry out Mao’s intentions, and to create a system and to train new people to support and cooperate with Mao’s actions. In the early 1940s, Ren Bishi, Chen Yun, Li Fuchun, and the Secretariat and the Organization Department of the Central Committee under their command, effectively played the role of Mao’s “stewards.” The CCP was a highly organized political Party modeled after the CPSU, and in theory the central Party organs were the Supreme Headquarters leading the entire Party. Beginning in 1927, the CCP gradually moved toward the rural areas, and long, hard military battles noticeably strengthened the role of the military in the Party. But during the Ruijin era, dominated by the Soviet faction, the authority of the central organs and leaders could not be challenged. After the beginning of the Long March, the CCP leadership system underwent a profound change: The Party and government systems were completely merged with the army, breaking the supremacy of the Party organs. Yet with the end of the Long March and the arrival of the Yan’an era, the Party organs that had been abolished for a time due to the objective wartime situation were gradually restored, and

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after the beginning of the War of Resistance in particular, the power of the CCP developed rapidly and the various Party organs became tasked with increasingly heavy operational responsibilities in order to adapt to the new situation. New Party organs were established, once again highlighting the role of Party organs controlled by the Soviet faction. Mao maintained a state of high alert regarding the renewed power of the Party organs controlled by the Soviet faction. He was unwilling to excessively provoke Zhang Wentian and the others, and he nominally maintained the status quo in terms of the structure of the central organs; at the same time, he made resolute use of his advantageous position in the Party leadership core to partially restructure the major Party organs. The Secretariat and the Organization Department of the Central Committee were the main targets of Mao’s restructuring strategy. Beginning in 1935, the Secretariat of the Central Committee was the most important organ in the CCP structure outside of the military. During the Ruijin era, the Secretariat consisted of only a small number of staff persons, with Deng Yingchao in charge as secretary. Its main work was to send and receive documents and cables (including radio communications with the Comintern and with the Central Bureau in Shanghai), as well as to take care of keeping the minutes of meetings and other secretarial tasks. Because military battles were the first priority in the soviet areas, the Secretariat mainly focused on the work of the Central Military Commission (CMC). As chairman of the Chinese Soviet Republic Central Executive Committee, Mao had only one staff person responsible for accepting and dispatching communications, and none of the other CCP leaders had any specialized secretarial organs at their service. After the Zunyi Conference, Mao joined the CMC and the Central Committee Standing Committee (the Secretariat), * and the Central Committee Secretariat was partially restored and began to take on greater prominence. In June 1935, Mao had Wang Shoudao (who had served as Mao’s secretary for a time during the Ruijin period) assume the secretarial

*

  TN: There are two different Chinese terms that translate as “Secretariat”—shujichu and mishuchu. A shujichu is responsible for the day-to-day operations of a Party organ and it is at a higher level than a mishuchu, which is responsible for clerical and coordination work. The translators have chosen to allow the context to imply which kind of “Secretariat” is being referred to in any given instance.

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work for the Lianghekou meeting.* Thereafter, Mao appointed Wang as head of the Secretariat and leader of the CMC’s Confidential Section. By transferring Deng Fa and Li Kenong to other work in September, Mao terminated Deng Fa’s role as director of the Political Security Bureau and Li’s role as head of the Operations Department of the Political Security Bureau. Mao changed the name of the State Political Security Bureau (which was under the direct authority of the Politburo) to the Front Army Political Security Bureau, and he made Wang Shoudao the head of this bureau. At the time, the Secretariat of the Central Committee was not only in charge of confidential communications but also responsible for political security work as well. These measures put Mao in firm control of the confidential communications apparatus of the Party and army as well as of intelligence aimed at eliminating counterrevolutionaries. Wang Shoudao remained in charge of the Secretariat from 1937 to 1939. He faithfully performed his responsibilities as Mao’s executive secretary, and in addition to managing the receipt and dispatch of letters, cables, and communications with all parties, as well as the daily living needs of Mao and the other Politburo members in Yan’an, Wang personally took charge of the minutes for Politburo meetings. When Wang Ming flew back to China and convened the December 1937 Politburo meeting, Wang Shoudao took the minutes for the meeting. Although Mao was at a disadvantage at this meeting, his power base was not seriously shaken. When the meeting ended, Mao ordered that Wang Shoudao collect and look after all the notebooks of those who had attended the meeting. In reality, the notebooks were never returned to their owners.† 36 *

  TN: The Politburo meeting in Lianghekou, Sichuan Province, during the Long March highlighted the rivalry and tactical disagreements between Mao and Zhang Guotao. During this meeting, the Politburo approved Mao’s proposal to establish a base area in the Sichuan-Shaanxi-Gansu Border Region, as opposed to establishing one in the Sichuan-Gansu-Xikang Region as proposed by Zhang. †   The Third Plenum of the Seventh Central Committee, convened in Beijing on June 9, 1950, passed the “Resolution Regarding Comrade Wang Ming,” which enjoined Wang to write a self-criticism of all his past errors. On August 17 of that year, Wang Ming wrote a letter to Mao and to the Secretariat of the Central Committee requesting access to his old notebooks and related materials. Wang raised the point that “when the December 1937 meeting was adjourned, the Chairman had Comrade Wang Shoudao collect the notebooks of all comrades and they were not allowed to take them away. My notebook was also collected and subsequently it was not returned to me.”

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Loyal and devoted as Wang Shoudao was to Mao, the new and complicated situation made it difficult to adapt the work of the Secretariat to the new environment and the new requirements. After the beginning of the War of Resistance, the Secretariat’s function of overseeing political security work was put under the Border Region Security Office and then under the Central Committee Social Department, thus diminishing the role of the Secretariat. From then on, the Secretariat largely maintained the status quo. In order to strengthen the Secretariat’s function as Mao’s eyes and ears and as a pivotal organ, in 1939 Mao transferred his old friend Li Fuchun, at that time deputy director of the Organization Department of the Central Committee, to head the Secretariat, with Wang Shoudao as his assistant. In this way, Li Fuchun was effectively in charge of the Secretariat before Ren Bishi took over in May 1940. Mao also seized the opportunity to reorganize another important central organ—the Organization Department of the Central Committee. Bo Gu had served as director of the Organization Department from 1935 to 1937, but the work of the department had basically been suspended during this period. This is because in the wartime environment, cadre deployment was generally controlled by the CMC, and after the Red Army arrived in northern Shaanxi, there were very few outsiders; those who congregated in northern Shaanxi were all Red Army officers and men who had experienced the Long March, so the Organization Department had no targets for routine tasks, such as political background checks on cadres. For this reason, Bo Gu’s main position was in the Secretariat of the Central Committee rather than in the Organization Department that he headed. When large numbers of outsiders began arriving in Yan’an following the Marco Polo Bridge Incident in July 1937, the Organization Department suddenly had to carry out background checks and deploy a massive number of cadres. After years of dormancy, the Organization Department was transformed overnight into one of Yan’an’s busiest and most heavily tasked departments. It was just at this time that Chen Yun returned to Yan’an with Wang Ming and Kang Sheng, and Bo Gu went to the Yangtze Bureau. Mao handed the Organization Bureau over to Chen Yun and appointed Li Fuchun deputy director to help Chen with the department’s operations. Chen Yun, born Liao Chenyun, enjoyed a reputation equal to that of Xiang Ying for a period of time as one of the very few senior CCP leaders from a worker background. Chen Yun arrived in the Central Soviet Area in

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early 1933, and during the Fifth Plenum of the Sixth Central Committee in January 1934 he was elected to the Politburo as well as being appointed director of the White Area Work Department. In February 1935, during the Long March, Zhang Wentian entrusted Chen Yun to leave the Red Army to secretly travel to Shanghai to prepare for the revival of the Shanghai Party organization and to establish contact channels with the Comintern. After arriving in Shanghai, Chen Yun made contact with the head of the Central Bureau in Shanghai, Pu Huaren, and from Pu he learned that the Shanghai organization had been obliterated by the KMT and that the Comintern’s Far East Intelligence Bureau had withdrawn its personnel from Shanghai. Chen Yun concluded that the time was not right for restoring CCP activities in Shanghai. It was just at this time that Pu Huaren, through special channels, received a notice from the CCP delegation in Moscow asking the Party to send a group from China to the Soviet Union to take part in the Seventh World Congress. With Song Qingling’s assistance, in about July Chen Yun, Yang Zhihua, Chen Tanqiu, and others traveled by sea to Vladivostok. While in the Soviet Union, Chen Yun was the main member of the CCP delegation to the Comintern from 1935 to 1937, but unlike Wang Ming and Kang Sheng, who had already been in Moscow for a long time without returning to China, in the spring of 1937 Chen was assigned by the CCP delegation to leave Moscow for Xinjiang ahead of the others. There he organized rescue efforts for the remnants of the West Route Army entering Xinjiang and he personally received West Route Army General Li Xiannian and his troops at Xingxingxia (Xingxing Gorge). Chen’s trip to Xinjiang in the spring of 1937 won him widespread respect among the Communist Army generals. After returning to Yan’an, Chen Yun continued to serve as a Politburo member and he also joined the Secretariat, but his main posting was with the Organization Department. For a short time after arriving in Yan’an, Chen, like the majority of Politburo members, supported the Comintern policy transmitted by Wang Ming regarding strengthening the CCP-KMT United Front. But Chen made a relatively early March 1938 turnaround. During the confrontations between Mao and the Yangtze Bureau from March to August 1938, Chen joined with the other members of the Secretariat to resolutely take Mao’s side, and he became Mao’s new ally. The main work of the Organization Department led by Chen Yun and Li Fuchun was to carry out strict political background checks of the various people who had arrived in Yan’an since the outbreak of the War of

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Resistance and to arrange work assignments for these people in accordance with the outcome of the vetting. Chen and Li served as Mao’s custodians in the area of organization and personnel affairs. After the Marco Polo Bridge Incident, many CCP members were released from KMT prisons and, along with many young students, they made their way to Yan’an. This became a source of mixed feelings among Party leaders. The positive aspect was that the flood of people to Yan’an showed that the Party’s undertaking was flourishing, and the Party urgently needed a large group of young cadres as it faced a major transition. The negative aspect was in not knowing whether those arriving in Yan’an included KMT spies and intriguers. In order to ensure the political reliability of the new arrivals, the Central Committee decided to carry out strict political vetting of all of them, and this became the most important task of the Organization Department. From the end of 1937 to the end of 1938, the Organization Department had a Cadre Section headed by Wang Heshou, a local Operations Section headed by Liu Xiwu, and a Secretariat with Deng Jie serving as secretary general. Among these three organs, the Cadre Section was mainly responsible for the political background checks and the work assignments for those cadres arriving in Yan’an. The Organization Department carried out the background checks in four stages: 1.) The Nanjing Office of the Eighth Route Army carried out a preliminary screening of individuals who had recently been released from prison and of young student volunteers who wanted to go to Yan’an. From August to October 1937, Zhou Enlai, Ye Jianying, and Li Kenong submitted a name-list to the KMT authorities to negotiate the release of more than 100 CCP cadres incarcerated in Nanjing’s KMT Military Prison and Suzhou Reformatory. Some of the first released prisoners, Huang Wenjie, Liu Shunyuan, Liu Ningyi, Wang Heshou, Fang Yi, and Xia Zhixu, became members of a cadre-vetting committee at the Nanjing Office to examine the backgrounds of each person applying to go to Yan’an.37 The process for former prisoners was for each person to write a report on his or her behavior in prison and also to report to the vetting committee on the behavior of other released prisoners. Based on an applicant’s written report, oral recounting, and evidence from others, the vetting committee would handle the cases in one of several ways: persons who were found to have remained steadfast in prison were sent to Yan’an or retained for

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operations in the KMT-controlled areas; those whose behavior in prison was somewhat problematic and required further investigation were also sent to Yan’an; those who had performed poorly in prison or had turned traitor were asked to leave a contact address and were mobilized to “go home and take part in the resistance.”38After undergoing the vetting group’s selection process, more than 700 of the 1,000-plus released prisoners were recommended to be sent to Yan’an. The political vetting of young students applying to go to Yan’an was relatively simple and relaxed. Students with a letter of introduction from an underground CCP organization or a peripheral organization were generally permitted to go to Yan’an after undergoing political vetting by the Nanjing Office of the Eighth Route Army. 2.) After the Eighth Route Army Office in Xi’an received the “appraisal form” sent from the Nanjing Office’s vetting committee, it would conduct a face-to-face interview with the bearer of the letter of introduction and then review the case. The applicants were then assembled and sent to Yunyang Township, Jingyang County, near Xi’an, to undergo further examination. In exceptional cases, some individuals were sent directly from Xi’an to Yan’an. 3.) The Organization Department established a reception center (or checkpoint) in Yunyang Township that was responsible for a third and rigorous vetting of individuals going to Yan’an. The leaders of the investigation group included Feng Wenbin, Wang Guanlan, Liu Jiwu, and Hu Qiaomu as well as Wang Heshou, who had just been transferred from the Nanjing Office of the Eighth Route Army. The investigation in Yunyang Township focused on interrogating former prisoners regarding whether they had written “statements of repentance” while imprisoned by the KMT. Huang Yaomian, originally a CCP delegate to the Young Communist International, underwent the following rigorous examination in Yunyang Township in December 1937: The person who spoke with me was Liu Jiwu. He asked me, “Did you write a ‘statement of repentance?” I replied truthfully, “Yes. But I did not betray the organization. I merely stated that I would no longer engage in politics, but I did not support the KMT. At the time, many leaders defected, surrendered, and then were released, but I was believed to be persisting with a Communist Party standpoint, so I was handed over to the Military Law Enforcement Office and

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given the top sentence of ten years in prison.” After our conversation, Liu Jiwu said, “Write up a report!” One week later, he conveyed his opinions based on my report and then asked me if there was anything I wanted to add or anything that was untruthful, saying the most important issue was honesty and he hoped I would take note of that. Finally, he wanted to know the current situation about some others who had been released at that time. A week later he called me in for a third talk. He said they had decided to send me to Yan’an to resolve my issues. At the time, I was somewhat hesitant, and I said, “I would rather you just give me a termination fee, and I will return to Guangdong.” He said, “No, you are going to Yan’an!”39 People examined in Yunyang Township typically experienced one of three arrangements. Most released prisoners with “no problems” or “not very serious problems” were sent to Yan’an for the next stage of examination and to await work assignments. Those with relatively serious historical problems were given enough money to make their way back to their native places or to the rear area to join the resistance. Some young students remained in Yunyang for the Youth Cadre Training Course (which was soon moved to Anwubao) to undergo political vetting and political training. The people at the Yunyang Reception Center responsible for the background checks, Feng Wenbin and Hu Qiaomu, were also in charge of Yunyang’s Youth Cadre Training Center. Individuals who passed the background checks in Yunyang Township had two possible ways of proceeding to Yan’an: Individuals with a relatively prominent social profile or who were older could travel by truck, whereas the others made their way on foot. It was more than 400 kilometers from Yunyang Township to Yan’an, and walking there took nine to ten days. 4.) After arriving in Yan’an, the Organization Department would quickly send someone to talk with them and carry out another round of one-on-one examinations. This was the fourth stage of the political vetting. By this time, the Organization Department had received the applicants’ files from the Yunyang Township checkpoint and had a basic understanding of the new arrivals’ political backgrounds, so the Organization Department would arrange work for them based on the files and their special abilities. It was only at this stage that a person had truly arrived in Yan’an.

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Sima Lu* and Huang Yaomian were each treated differently by the Organization Department in Yan’an, reflecting that their respective original revolutionary qualifications were not a crucial factor in deciding their political futures; that winning the Party’s trust was entirely dependent on one’s behavior while incarcerated by the KMT. In the eyes of the Organization Department, although Sima Lu was a new comrade who had not long been involved in the revolution, he came from a good background and his political affiliation was unambiguous. Sima Lu came from an impoverished peasant family in Hai’an County of northern Jiangsu. Following the failure of the Great Revolution in 1927, Sima’s father had been killed as a “bandit accomplice”† by the local landlord-organized civil corps. After crawling through the underclass mire for several years, in 1935 Sima Lu joined a peripheral CCP organization in Shanghai and then the Communist Youth League. In early 1937, the Party sent him to Zhenjiang for underground operations in the “Jiangsu Private Circulating Library,” of which the Nationalist Jiangsu Governor, Chen Guofu, was a backstage supporter. Sima Lu was arrested in late April 1937, but since his identity was not exposed, he was released on bail after just over one month in prison. He then returned to Shanghai and joined the CCP. After the August 13 Battle of Songhu, Sima Lu passed the political vetting in Xi’an and Yunyang Township and proceeded to Yan’an. Ill upon arrival, he received several months of medical treatment at the Border Area Hospital, and then he was personally received by Chen Yun in Yan’an’s Organization Department in March 1938. Chen Yun asked Sima Lu two questions: First, had he joined the KMT while in Zhenjiang, and second, had he written a “statement of repentance” after his arrest? Upon receiving satisfactory answers and carefully examining the written reports, Chen Yun personally assigned *

  Sima Lu was an early participant in the CCP. He was escorted out of Yan’an in June 1939 as a suspected “Trotskyite,” but his Party membership was restored the following year. In 1942 he left the CCP to join the China Democracy League, and in 1949 he proceeded to Hong Kong, where he founded the semi-monthly Prospect. Over time, he became one of Hong Kong’s most widely acknowledged experts on the history of the CCP; his works include Essential Documents of CCP Party History (Hong Kong: Zilian chubanshe, 1973–85). Sima Lu moved to the United States in the 1980s and at the time of publication was living in New York. †   TN: Meaning associated with the Communists.

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Sima Lu to Yan’an’s most secretive organization—the Enemy Area Work Committee in Zaoyuan, where he was to report to Kang Sheng’s assistant, Zeng Xisheng (at that time secretary general of the committee).40 Compared with Sima Lu, Huang Yaomian was an old comrade who had joined the CCP in 1928 and had served in senior Party positions. Yet, because he had written a “statement of repentance” in prison, he lost the Party’s trust forever. Upon his arrival in Yan’an, Huang was not received by Chen Yun but rather by an ordinary functionary in the Organization Department. Huang recalled the following exchange with the functionary: “After reading your file, we find that you surrendered to the enemy. This is a political blot on your history. The question of your Party membership will be resolved later. For now we are assigning you a job as a translator for the New China News Agency.” I asked him, “When you mention resolving the question of my Party membership, do you mean restoring it or allowing me to rejoin?” He replied, “Rejoin.” I thought to myself that rejoining would deprive me of ten years of seniority. Having a political blemish on my record after spending three or four years in prison—I would be involved in Party work but I knew what that implied. Huang Yaomian tried to defend himself: “I can’t accept what you say about my record being blemished. Viewing it as an isolated incident, you would be right in your appraisal, but viewed in the context of the overall situation, where just about everyone in the central bureaus of the Shanghai Party and Youth League became grief-stricken and gave themselves up, and only I was sentenced to ten years in prison, is this not treating me just as the traitor Li Yifan said. ... ‘The KMT will punish you as a Communist under military law, and in the future the Communist Party will treat you like a traitor’?” The Organization Department functionary replied: “I didn’t say you were a traitor, only that you surrendered to the enemy. We are engaged in a War of Resistance against Japan now and

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we cannot carry out a further investigation, so we will leave things as they stand for now. Go to work.”41 Huang Yaomian’s settlement arrangements belonged to the Organization Department’s first type of work assignment: Personnel with special skills, even if they had historical problems, could be assigned work once they had been satisfactorily investigated. Huang knew English and Russian and had done translation work in Moscow, so assigning him to the New China News Agency could be called a good professional fit. Another type of assignment for new arrivals was to send them to the Anti-Japanese Military and Political College, North Shaanxi Public School, or the Central Party School, and then assign them a specific job after a period of political study and further examination. Hui Yuyu, who after the founding of the PRC had a long tenure as governor of Jiangsu Province, arrived in Yan’an in the winter of 1937 with a letter of introduction from the Wuhan Office of the Eighth Route Army. Hui had been a Party leader in Jiangsu’s Haizhou Prefecture from 1928 until he was arrested in Shanghai in 1930. He remained in a KMT prison until his release in 1937. Fellow inmates in Yan’an testified that while in prison, Hui never gave himself up or defected, so after one round of vetting, he was assigned to the Anti-Japanese Military and Political College in April 1938 and was informed that he could rejoin the Party, which he did in that same year. With the encouragement of other comrades, Hui wrote a letter to Chen Yun, who had been his superior in the Jiangsu Provincial Party Committee, and asked him to certify his Party membership from 1928 to 1930. Chen received Hui and they engaged in a detailed conversation, after which Chen confirmed that Hui’s Party membership began in 1928. Not long thereafter, Hui was assigned a posting at the Wannan (Southern Anhui) New Fourth Army Headquarters.42 The third type of assignment, aimed at those with particularly problematic political records that could not be immediately clarified but who historically had had Leftist inclinations, was to advise them to go back to the KMT-controlled areas and resume their activities there. The cadre examination system created by Chen Yun and Li Fuchun was like a sturdy dam blocking a river with multiple filters that to the greatest extent possible kept “dubious” individuals out of Yan’an. Problematic individuals who were allowed to remain in Yan’an remained entirely under the control of the organization. Under Chen and Li’s

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management, the various operations of the Organization Department were conducted in a methodical and orderly fashion and they were coordinated closely with the bodies that Kang Sheng ran to eliminate counterrevolutionaries. In 1938 and 1939, however, the cadre examination and work assignment operations of the Organization Department were carried out with a measure of flexibility, leaving a positive impression on many people who went to Yan’an. For example, when Huang Yaomian encountered a cold shoulder and prejudice in Yan’an and decided to return to the KMT-controlled areas, Li Fuchun sincerely urged him to remain in Yan’an. Suffering from depression in his job at the New China News Agency, Huang became bedridden in the spring of 1938, but his superior, an old friend from his Moscow days, Xu Bing (Xing Xiping), was indifferent to Huang’s plight due to his “historical problems,” showing no interest in Huang’s living and working conditions and even sending him back to the Organization Department. Feeling lost, Huang was compelled to write a letter to an old friend, Zhou Yang, asking for help, and Zhou saw to it that Huang was allowed to “sponge off ” of the Border Region’s Literature and Art Society. The disheartened Huang soon thereafter applied to the Organization Department to engage in cultural work in the KMT-controlled areas, and he was quickly given permission. Just as Huang was preparing to set out, he came across the department’s deputy director, Li Fuchun. Li had been Huang’s superior in 1929 when he was working with the Jiangsu Provincial Party Committee, and he urged Huang to remain, as a result of which Huang changed his mind and stayed in Yan’an. Nevertheless, Huang continued to receive cold receptions in negotiations with the Organization Department, and he began to wonder how Li Fuchun could have been unaware that he was in Yan’an. “Who sent that functionary to talk with me?” Huang finally decided that he “did not have to stay in Yan’an to be a revolutionary,” and in a fit of pique he departed.43 Huang’s angry departure from Yan’an, because of the cold shoulder and bias he received from the Organization Department, was due to his self-respect and sense of dignity, which were incompatible with the Party’s stringent examination system and left him unable to withstand the Party’s “test.” In fact, the CCP’s rigorous vetting was applied to all cadres from the KMT-controlled areas, not only to Huang; even relatively senior cadres who had never been arrested had to jump through similar hoops, as demonstrated by the examination that Yang Zilie and Wang Shiying experienced in Yan’an.

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Yang Zilie was Zhang Guotao’s wife and a member of the Party since its founding in 1921. She had been involved in Party-led revolutionary activities since the early 1920s and was not only a leader of the Communist Women’s Movement but also had gone to Moscow on two occasions for advanced studies. In spring 1931, Zhang Guotao was sent to the E-YuWan (Hubei-Henan-Anhui) Base Area, while the Central Committee kept Yang Zilie in Shanghai to carry out underground operations. When the KMT destroyed the CCP Shanghai organization in 1934, Yang lost contact with the organization for a time and took refuge in her home village. She then returned to Shanghai to study midwifery, and after the CCP and KMT began cooperating, she obtained a letter of introduction from the Nanjing Office of the Eighth Route Army and she made her way to Yan’an with her son. Yang’s first and most urgent request was to have her Party membership restored. However, even though Yang was a Party veteran and her husband was at that time a Politburo member and acting chairman of the Border Region Government, the Organization Department insisted on investigating her and everything she had done during the time that she had lost contact with the Party, and also testing her through her work. Yang was assigned a job as a political instructor in the Border Region Government and was also tasked with working as an obstetrician in the Border Region’s Central Hospital. Although Yang was diligent and enthusiastic in her work and was given a high appraisal by Hospital Director Fu Lianzhang, her Party membership was not restored. At the time, Cai Chang was working with her husband, Li Fuchun, in the Organization Department and she was involved in investigating Yang’s time away from the Party. Although Cai had known Yang for more than ten years and was familiar with her personal history, even she was unable to resolve the issue.44 Yang’s Party membership was never restored, right up to the time in June 1938 when Mao gave her permission to leave Yan’an with her son and to join Zhang Guotao in Wuhan. If it can be said that Yang was unable to regain the Party’s trust after losing contact while carrying out underground work, giving Wang Shiying a cold shoulder was an example of the Party’s traditional deep-rooted bias and suspicion against comrades who engaged in the underground struggle in the KMT-controlled areas. Wang Shiying was a key member of CCP special operations in the 1930s, and he engaged in political security and counter-espionage

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work for an extended period under Kang Sheng before Kang went to the Soviet Union. After the CCP’s Provisional Central Bureau in Shanghai was sabotaged on two occasions by the KMT in 1935, Wang led the Provisional Central Bureau to Tianjin and continued carrying out covert operations. Starting in 1936, Wang served as deputy director of the Liaison Department of the CCP’s North China Bureau (also known as the CCP North China Liaison Department), and Liu Shaoqi, secretary of the North China Bureau, sent him to represent the CCP in secret contacts with Li Zongren and Yan Xishan.* He also took charge of covert operations in his capacity as a representative in the Red Army Office in Taiyuan, and he made a major contribution in terms of opening up the situation for the CCP and expanding its lebensraum. Beginning in 1937, Wang represented the CCP in Taiyuan and southeast Shanxi, negotiating and dealing with Yan Xishan while also collecting intelligence on Yan Xishan until he returned to Yan’an in early 1938. Wang was a senior CCP cadre who had never been captured by the KMT, and he had maintained radio contact with Yan’an since 1936. It might have been expected that he would enjoy a warm reception upon his return from the front. The reality, however, was that Wang stayed at the hostel “without anyone asking after me for days, and when I sought out the organization, no one paid any attention to me.”45 What had happened in Yan’an that a cadre as important as Wang Shiying was ignored? Wang arrived in Yan’an just as its top leaders were in a delicate period of flux. From the end of 1937 to the beginning of 1938, the opinions Wang Ming had brought back from Moscow dominated the Politburo, and Mao was forced to adopt a defensive posture. Even so, the return of Wang Ming and the others had not really shaken the political structure in Yan’an; all of the past systems were still operating methodically, and the work of the Organization Department under Chen Yun and Li Fuchun carried on nonstop. Perhaps Mao was too busy and had lost track of Wang Shiying for a while. But there is no way to explain as “business as usual” the arrest of Wang Shiying’s subordinates who had returned to Yan’an with him. In spring 1938, one subordinate, Xiao Ming, was arrested as a traitor, and

*

  TN: Like Yan Xishan, Li Zongren was a warlord who became a general in the Nationalist Army.

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another, Liu Yajie, was expelled from the base area. Old friends in Yan’an suddenly began avoiding Wang’s wife, Li Guoyi. There was in fact just one reason why Wang Shiying received a cold shoulder in Yan’an: The Party had begun to suspect him. Even though Wang was a key Communist special operations cadre who had never lost contact with the organization, he had never, like special operation cadres Li Kenong and Chen Geng, gone to the Central Soviet Area nor had he experienced battle or the Long March. The mentality among the senior leaders in Yan’an at that time was that only those who had experienced the Long March were trustworthy, and everyone else was held with a measure of reserve. Wang was kept in a deep freeze for four months, but when all was said and done, he was not an everyday White-area cadre, and the CCP needed people with his kind of intelligence and United Front experience. Furthermore, investigations had not discovered any problems with Wang’s behavior. Mao finally received him and listened to his work report; with Mao’s intervention, Wang enrolled in the Marxism-Leninism Institute and then two months later he was sent to Shanxi to serve as head of the Eighth Route Army’s Office in the Second War Zone. Jia Tuofu’s situation was similar to that of Wang Shiying. He was the only Party veteran from the Northwest Region who had taken part in the Long March, and he had served as secretary of the Shaanxi Provincial Party Committee from 1937 to 1939. But after being transferred to Yan’an, he was demoted to secretary and member of the Northwest Work Committee. The real reason was that the Central Committee received information that led it to have suspicions about Jia’s arrest in 1931 and thus to place him under covert investigation. On October 9, 1941, Mao sent a letter to Jia Tuofu: “You know that the suspicions against you were warranted and proper, but we have now decided to nullify the political suspicions against you and restore our full trust in you.”46 Jia was subsequently appointed secretary general and Standing Committee member of the Northwest Bureau. In the early 1940s, the work of the Organization Department of the Central Committee began a systematic trajectory. Cadres in organs under the jurisdiction of the Central Committee were supervised by the Organization Department and the cadre divisions of the various directly subordinate units; military cadres were placed under the jurisdiction of the General Political Department of the CMC; and Border Region cadres

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were managed by the Border Region Party Committee Organization Department and subsequently by the Northwest Bureau’s Organization Department. The scope of the role of the Organization Department of the Central Committee was further expanded during the period from the end of 1938 to the eve of the Rectification Movement: In addition to the original cadre divisions, local operational divisions, and the Secretariat, additionally there was a Communications Work Department (merged with the Central Publication and Circulation Department in 1940) and a General Affairs Department. The CCP Central Committee also decided that the Organization Department would manage the Party Work Committee of the Central Committee through its cadre division. Staffing of the Organization Department increased from less than twenty staff persons to more than sixty. Wielding the organization’s power to screen and deploy cadres, Chen Yun and Li Fuchun sought to ensure that each of Yan’an’s Party cadres had a role to play. Chen Yun gave a talk for Yan’an cadres entitled “How to Be a Communist Party Member,” in which he both required new and old Party members to be faithful to the line and discipline of the Party. The Organization Department became a rear base about which Mao had no need to worry. Like the Organization Department, the Secretariat of the Central Committee underwent enormous changes under Ren Bishi’s leadership. In May and June 1940, the Politburo appointed Ren as secretary general of the Seventh Party Congress Preparatory Committee, making him de facto secretary general of the CCP Central Committee (Ren was not formally appointed secretary general of the Central Committee until September 1941). Building on the foundation of the Secretariat of the Central Committee, in September 1941 Ren formally established the Central Committee’s pivotal mechanism—the General Office of the Secretariat of the Central Committee, with three divisions: the Secretariat, security, and general affairs (administrative). Ren was director of the General Office of the Secretariat of the Central Committee, and Li Fuchun was vice director in charge of operations, effectively taking on the responsibilities of director. In addition to being responsible for support duties, such as the handling of confidential documents and telegrams, document drafting, and liaison with various local offices, the General Office also provided basic services for Mao and other leaders. Ren personally established a system of large, medium, and small canteens for cadres, effectively grounding the existing rank-differentiation system within the Party in terms of material

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distribution and making it more explicit and fixed. The mess system in Yan’an was actually already fairly established by 1937. From 1937 to 1938, the mess standard for ordinary soldiers in Yan’an was 5 fen per person per day, whereas that for ordinary cadres was 7 fen. The mess standard for staff of Zaoyuan’s Central Enemy Area Work Committee (subsequently the Social Department) was 15 fen, the highest standard for ordinary cadres in Yan’an at the time. The mess standard for regiment-level military cadres and departmental-level cadres in the Border Regions was one dish and one soup, whereas that for division-level military and central organ departmental cadres was two dishes and one soup. Politburo members received four dishes and one soup. Determining the different levels of material compensation given to different personnel was a rather complicated issue. Ren Bishi was involved in this concrete planning and he personally decided which people qualified for the small canteen. Wang Ruofei, having served as Central Committee general secretary during the Chen Duxiu era, suffered long-term rejection within the Party. In the early 1940s, as head of the Central Party Affairs Research Group (nominally in charge of Party work in the various base areas, but in reality a policy research unit), his political status was fairly low, so he was classified in the medium canteen grade. In order to ensure supplies for the small canteens and other material needs for the senior cadres, Ren created supply channels from the various base areas and the KMT-controlled areas to transfer goods to Yan’an.* 47 The establishment of a supply system for Yan’an’s senior cadres was of major significance for the organizational system that was forming with Mao at its hub. The system functioned not only to ensure provisions for the Party’s senior cadres under conditions of material deficiency, but even more to directly

*

  Shi Zhe recalls that in order to satisfy Jiang Qing’s demands to wear leather jackets and trousers made from the hides of the renowned Tan sheep of Ningxia, the Secretariat of the Central Committee utilized fieldwork by the Security Department, at considerable risk, to purchase the leather in Ningxia, which at the time was under the rule of warlord Ma Hongkui. When Jiang Qing demanded an herbal medicine made from donkey-hide gelatin (TN: used for a variety of conditions, including bleeding, dizziness, insomnia, and a dry cough), the Secretariat used connections to purchase it in Shandong and then transport it via Hong Kong to the CCP’s Chongqing Office and from there to Yan’an.

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attack the haughty and aloof self-image of the Party’s petty-bourgeois intellectuals (Wang Ming’s most enthusiastic audience) on the sensitive question of “value” and “acknowledgment.” It marked the end of the Party’s historical era of romantic egalitarianism and the beginning of a new era placing an emphasis on rank. By 1941, relations among Ren Bishi, Chen Yun, Li Fuchun, and Mao were completely settled, and the departments they led became critical positions providing political support for Mao. At this time in Yan’an, Ren was second only to Mao as general secretary of the Central Committee Secretariat; Chen Yun, in his capacity as Politburo member and secretary of the Secretariat, led the Central Committee’s Organization Department, Youth Work Committee, and the Zedong Young Cadre School; and Li Fuchun, although not a Politburo member, held power that actually greatly exceeded that of many Politburo members. As Mao’s old friend, Li’s positions as Central Committee deputy general secretary, Central Committee General Office deputy director, and Central Committee Organization Department deputy director made him one of Mao’s few intimates in Yan’an. In the battle about to take place between Mao and Wang Ming, Ren, Chen, and Li would faithfully perform their duties as Mao’s allies and throw their full support behind him.

VI. Fostering Regional Power: The Rise of Gao Gang As Mao amassed the various Party powers and launched attacks on the Comintern faction represented by Wang Ming, he focused on Gao Gang, another key person to bring on board as representative of the Northern Shaanxi Red Army. Just before and during the Rectification Movement, Gao Gang rose swiftly from a local Party and military leader to a Party VIP through painstaking fostering and promotion by Mao. Mao’s fixation on Gao was the result of his own needs, combined with Gao’s particular strengths. Among the northern Shaanxi cadres, only Gao Gang satisfied all of Mao’s requirements, and this made him the object of Mao’s assiduous grooming. When the Central Red Army first arrived in northern Shaanxi in October 1935, Mao urgently needed the support of the northern Shaanxi Party and Red Army to help the CCP Central Committee gain a foothold

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there. Gao Gang was the mainstay of one of the larger branches of the Northern Shaanxi Red Army—Liu Zhidan’s unit. Liu Zhidan had widespread influence in the Northern Shaanxi Region, and when he was killed in action in the 1936 “Eastern Campaign,” Gao became the main leader of Liu’s unit. In order to demonstrate solidarity between the Central Red Army and the local Northern Shaanxi Red Army, Mao had to choose a representative person from the local Red Army and make appropriate arrangements that would strengthen the Central Army’s rear area, and Gao Gang satisfied these conditions. Gao Gang’s experience with inner-Party struggle was a main factor behind his appointment by Mao. Due to historical factors and the wartime environment, the Party organization in northern Shaanxi was fragmented and had eluded unification for an extended period. This led to longstanding barriers and disagreements among local cadres. In February 1935, the two CCP organizations in northern Shaanxi, the Northern Shaanxi Special Committee and the Shaanxi-Gansu Border Region Special Committee, convened a joint conference to establish the CCP Northwest Work Committee and the Northwest Revolutionary Military Committee to exercise unified leadership over the northern Shaanxi and ShaanxiGansu Border Base Areas and their Red armies. Liu Zhidan of the ShaanxiGansu Border Area was named chairman of the Northwest Military Committee, with Gao Gang as vice chairman. The battlefront General Headquarters established under the Military Committee had Liu Zhidan as its commander- in-chief and Gao Gang as its political commissar.48 In July 1935, a former member of the League of Left-wing Writers, Zhu Lizhi, in his capacity as the Shanghai Central Bureau’s delegate to North China, was dispatched by the North China Bureau to northern Shaanxi, where he initially relied on a group of cadres led by Guo Hongtao. This group was originally under the jurisdiction of the Northern Shaanxi Special Committee. In August, Shanghai Central Bureau representative Nie Hongjun arrived in northern Shaanxi and formed a “Shanghai Bureau and North China Bureau Delegation to the Northern Shaanxi Soviet Area,” with Zhu Lizhi as secretary, and this became the Party’s supreme leadership organ in northern Shaanxi. In mid-September, Xu Haidong and Cheng Zihua led the Twenty-fifth Red Army’s Long March to northern Shaanxi, and Cheng also joined the delegation led by Zhu Lizhi. Zhu Lizhi reorganized the CCP’s Northwest Work Committee and the Northwest Military Committee, appointed Nie Hong jun chairman of the Military

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Committee, and established the CCP Shaan-Gan-Jin (Shaanxi-Gansu-Shanxi) Provincial Party Committee, with himself as secretary and Guo Hongtao as deputy secretary. Liu Zhidan and Gao Gang were excluded by Zhu and Guo at this time, but they were not completely stripped of their power; Liu was deputy commander-in-chief and chief of staff of the Fifteenth Red Army Group comprised of the Twentieth-fifth Red Army and Northern Shaanxi’s Twenty-sixth and Twenty-seventh Armies, and Gao Gang was head of the Political Department. However, Liu and Gao soon became embroiled in a frenzied campaign against counterrevolutionaries. From September to October 1935, Zhu Lizhi, in his capacity as a representative of the Central Committee, ordered Northwest Security Bureau head Dai Jiying and others to launch a campaign to eliminate counterrevolutionaries in the Fifteenth Red Army Group, and Liu Zhidan and Gao Gang were among those who were arrested. After hearing a report by Cheng Zihua, Guo Hongtao, and Nie Hongjun on November 3, 1935, Mao, Zhang Wentian, and Bo Gu ordered that the handling of Liu Zhidan, Gao Gang, Xi Zhongxun, and the others was to be suspended, and they immediately gave Wang Shoudao a free hand in dealing with the case. Following a review by a five-person committee formed by the Bo Gu–led Central Party Affairs Committee that was charged with the task of investigating the campaign to eliminate counterrevolutionaries in northern Shaanxi, Liu Zhidan, Gao Gang, Xi Zhongxun, Ma Wenrui, and the others were rehabilitated, and Party discipline was imposed on Nie Hongjun and Dai Jiying, the officials directly responsible for the campaign. Having been attacked by the “erroneous line” of the “old Central Committee” and then being rescued by Mao, Gao Gang very naturally accepted Mao’s criticism of the political line of the previous central leadership and became an ace spiker for Mao in his attacks on Wang Ming and the others. Another reason why Mao put Gao Gang in a key position was Gao’s temperament as a rural intellectual. In the 1930s and 1940s, most of the Party leaders surrounding Mao had been educated in the Soviet Union or in China’s major cities. The personalities and personal styles of these people were typically incompatible with those of Mao, who came from the rural areas and had never left China, whereas Gao Gang had many affinities with Mao. Born Gao Shuoqing, Gao Gang was a native of Yulin County, Shaanxi Province, and he had graduated from a junior normal school. After the failure of the Great Revolution in 1927, he joined with

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the leader of the CCP’s Shaanxi underground provincial Party committee, Jia Tuofu, and North China Bureau representative Kong Yuan (Chen Tiezheng) in long-term military operations and he led the local troops in northern Shaanxi. Among the comparatively poorly educated military cadres of northern Shaanxi, Gao Gang and Liu Zhidan had a reasonable proficiency in theory and policy. Gao Gang had not studied overseas nor had he ever gone to Shanghai, Beiping, Nanjing, or other major Chinese cities, and he had no connections with the Soviet faction. Gao Gang had helped Liu Zhidan take control in an environment of extreme hardship, and through repeated defeats and victories they had always maintained a Red Army force of several hundred men along with a base area, which proved that Gao was a strategic thinker rather than a “dogmatist.” In terms of personality, Gao Gang had the eloquence and rationality of a minor intellectual, combined with the cunning and vulgarity of a peasant proletarian. He was particularly scornful of intellectual cadres engaged in non-military work, and unlike many leading cadres who respected and attached importance to intellectuals, Gao’s attitude toward intellectuals was extremely irreverent. All this gave Mao a feeling of affinity with Gao and created Mao’s favorable impression of him. Through Mao’s cultivation, by the eve of the War of Resistance in 1937 Gao Gang had gradually come to the fore of the northern Shaanxi cadre corps. On May 1, 1937, Gao was appointed to the CCP’s ShaanGan-Ning Special Committee Standing Committee (in January 1938, the Shaan-Gan-Ning Special Zone Government assumed the name of the Shaan-Gan-Ning Border Region Government, and the Special Committee likewise changed its name to the Border Region Party Committee). In September, the CCP Central Committee appointed Gao Gang and six others to the Presidium of the Shaan-Gan-Ning Border Region Government. In October 1938, Gao Gang took part in the Sixth Plenum of the Sixth Central Committee as representative of the northern Shaanxi Party organization. This was the first time Gao attended an important Party conference, indicating his rising political status. The curtain had just closed on the Sixth Plenum when Gao formally replaced Guo Hongtao as Party secretary of the Shaan-Gan-Ning Border Region. This was a very important position, equivalent to being a secretary of a Central Bureau. Party veteran Wang Ruofei fell from power and spent several years under Gao Gang as propaganda chief of the Border Region Party Committee.

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Mao supported Gao Gang’s work by intentionally transferring Gao’s political enemies, Guo Hongtao and Zhu Lizhi, out of the Border Region. In order to establish a footing in northern Shaanxi, Mao had not meddled in the leadership of the northern Shaanxi Party from November 1935 onward. In addition to his positions as secretary of the Shaan-Gan-Ning Provincial Party Committee and of the Border Region Party Committee, Guo Hongtao had also served as deputy director of the Central Committee Organization Department until October 1938. In November 1938, Mao sent Guo Hongtao to Shandong to serve as secretary of the Party’s Shandong Sub-bureau and then one year later he transferred him back to Yan’an. Beginning in 1938, Zhu Lizhi served as deputy secretary of the Central Plains Bureau in charge of opening up the E-Yu (HubeiHenan) Border Base Area, and also as political commissar of the New Fourth Army’s E-Yu Forward Thrust Column, enjoying equal fame with commanding officer Li Xiannian. From this point onward, Zhu Lizhi formed a close working and personal relationship with Li Xiannian, Chen Shaomin, and Tao Zhu. But Mao did not like to see Zhu making such an important contribution to the expansion of the Party’s influence, and in 1940 Zhu was recalled to Yan’an. Two years later, Zhu Lizhi became the first sacrificial victim of Mao and Gao. During the war years, gaining status within the Party mainly depended on contributing to armed warfare, and the opportunity to lead armed warfare depended on whether one had gained Mao’s trust. Mao could grant that opportunity or not, or he could even grant the opportunity and then withdraw it. Zhu Lizhi’s situation fell into the latter category, whereas the situations of Jia Tuofu and Kong Yuan were of the former type. Jia Tuofu had been Gao Gang’s former superior officer. He had gone to the Ruijin Central Soviet Area in 1934 to attend the Second National Soviet Congress, and for a time he had served as Chen Yun’s assistant (equivalent to deputy director) as secretary of the Central White Area Work Department and he had joined the Central Red Army’s Long March to northern Shaanxi. Although Jia Tuofu was a veteran of the Party’s Northwest Region, Mao never appointed him to a military posting and for a long time after arriving in Yan’an his status was lower than that of Gao Gang. Kong Yuan had also originally been Gao Gang’s superior. Before accompanying Chen Yun to the Soviet Union in the summer of 1935, Kong had long led the Party’s North China Bureau, and it was he who had

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sent Zhu Lizhi to northern Shaanxi. Yet Kong had never held a military leadership posting in a strategic region and his status in the Party likewise remained lower than that of Gao Gang. Mao’s attitude toward Gao Gang was of an entirely different order. In 1938, Mao appointed Gao commander of the Shaan-Gan-Ning Security Headquarters that led the local army in northern Shaanxi. As Mao’s trust in Gao Gang deepened, he appointed him political commissar of the Eighth Route Army Reserve Corps in June 1939. The Eighth Route Army Reserve Corps, under commanding officer Xiao Jinguang, consisted of three brigades and two garrison (security) commands (Wang Zhen’s 359th Brigade was under the command of the Eighth Route Army Reserve Corps), and it was the only major military force defending the Border Region. For Mao to appoint someone with whom he did not share a long history to such an important position demonstrated his special trust in Gao Gang. With Mao’s support and attention, Gao Gang’s position in the Border Region and military ranks rapidly grew. On July 11, 1940, the Politburo elevated the Shaan-Gan-Ning Border Region Party Committee to the Shaan-Gan-Ning Border Region Central Bureau, with Gao Gang serving as secretary. On May 13, 1941, the Secretariat of the Central Committee combined the Border Region Central Bureau and the Central Committee’s Northwest Work Committee to form the Northwest Central Bureau, with Gao Gang as secretary. By now, Gao Gang’s status within the Party was higher than that of Party veteran and Shaan-Gan-Ning Border Region Government chairman Lin Boqu, and it was equivalent to that of Zhou Enlai, Liu Shaoqi, and other bureau secretaries. The establishment of Gao Gang’s status in the Border Region Party and army accelerated the formation of a local northwestern cadre system, with Gao at its center. Cadres who had established close contact with Gao Gang through historical and working relationships, such as Xi Zhongxun, Ma Wenrui, Liu Jingfan (the younger brother of Liu Zhidan), Zhang Xiushan, Zhang Bangying, and Wang Shitai, took important positions in the Border Region Party and Government structure, whereas cadres who had been in conflict with Gao Gang in the past were excluded. Yan Hongyan, one of the earliest participants and leaders in the CCP’s armed struggle in the Northwest, had repeatedly reported to the relevant departments in Yan’an about the old matter of Gao Gang having fled

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at a crucial juncture in the Battle of Linzhen Town in June 1932;* 49 as a result, he came under attack by Gao. Yan Hongyan was transferred on two occasions—in 1938 and 1940 for in-service study at the Marxism-Leninism Institute and the Institute of Military and Political Studies of the Eighth Route Army Reserve Corps. Mao, Liu Shaoqi, and other Party leaders knew very well that Yan’s report on this blemish in Gao Gang’s record was entirely factual, but their confidence in Gao remained unchanged. This was typical of Mao’s handling of others; “historical problems” could be considered major or minor, depending entirely on who the person was and what political line he followed. “Little flaws” could be brushed off as long as a person’s record on major matters was unblemished and as long as he could be politically useful to Mao, but a person who did not share Mao’s political standpoint could be cast aside even if he had no historical problems. The fickleness of Mao’s favor was amply demonstrated during the Gao Gang Incident more than ten years later, when Mao brought up the old matter that Yan Hongyan had reported about Gao and he had Yan expose Gao’s “anti-Party conspiracy” at a Central Committee meeting.50 But that is another story. Gao Gang was immeasurably indebted to Mao for his interventions; he well knew that without Mao’s help he would have stood no chance of becoming leader of the Party Border Region. In order to consolidate his status as “King of the Northwest” and further develop his Party career, Gao had no choice but to throw his full support behind Mao. The quickwitted Gao figured out for himself that Mao’s No. 1 enemy in the Party was Wang Ming and that he had to make Mao aware of his own views regarding Wang. In the summer of 1941, the Politburo appointed Wang Ming to supervise the leadership of the Northwest Bureau, and Wang spent a short period of time looking into operations in the bureau and in *

  Linzhen Town was a small mountainous town situated 40 kilometers southwest of Yan’an County. In executing the order of the Shaanxi Provincial Party Committee to attack Hancheng, on June 3, 1962 Liu Zhidan led three Shaanxi and Gansu guerrilla detachments to Linzhen Town. At a critical point in the battle, Gao Gang, as political commissar of the third detachment’s Second Brigade, led about a dozen men in retreat, resulting in the “undoing of all previous efforts and turning victory into failure.” After the battle, the Party committee of the detachment decided to strip Gao Gang of his Party membership and ordered his arrest. Gao then returned to his detachment, and Liu Zhidan disciplined him with criticism and “probation within the Party.”

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the Border Region Government. The Journals of Xie Juezai record that on August 24, 1941, Wang Ming asked the Border Region Government about food supply issues.51 Although Gao Gang was superficially courteous to Wang Ming, he bad-mouthed Wang in Mao’s presence, saying, “Here we thought Soviet aircrafts would bring us good things, but it turns out they brought us disaster.”52 Gao Gang used these words to express his loyalty to Mao. Mao easily perceived what was going on in Gao’s mind, and he used his position, power, and prestige to keep a tight grip on Gao, intending to use him as a cannon against Wang Ming and Bo Gu. Mao was certain that in an assault on Wang Ming and the others, Gao Gang would always answer his call.

VII. Readjusting Relations with Mao: The Awkward Position of the Military The armed forces were in a very delicate position as Mao launched the Rectification Movement. On the one hand, the army was the source of power upon which Mao relied most heavily; on the other hand, certain key military cadres were the targets of the purge. The awkward position of the armed forces put military leaders in a predicament such that there was no right move for them to make, and they finally made the difficult decision to readjust and adapt their relationship with Mao. For a long time after the CCP began to have its own army in the late 1920s there had been a delicate balance of dual powers within the military. The first power can be tentatively referred to as the “Red Military Specialist Faction,” the leader of which was Zhou Enlai. Zhou’s cohort was comprised of three types of military cadres: 1.) those who had returned to China in the late 1920s or early 1930s following studies at Soviet military academies and who had been assigned to the Central Soviet Area and other soviet areas by Zhou Enlai, then head of the Central Committee’s Military Affairs Department; 2.) graduates of the Whampoa Military Academy, who, upon being discharged after participation in the Nanchang Uprising, were assigned to the soviet areas by Zhou Enlai; and 3.) military cadres who had worked closely with or under Zhou Enlai after he arrived in the Central Soviet Area at the end of 1931. The second power clique within the Communist military can be called the “Jinggang Mountain Faction,” and the leader was Mao. It was comprised of four types of military cadres: 1.) those who had followed Mao up Jinggang

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Mountain, including peasant soldiers who had taken part in the Autumn Harvest Uprising and remnants of the Wuhan Nationalist Government Guard Regiment; 2.) southern Jiangxi and western Fujian Red Army troops who had rallied around Mao from 1928 to 1931; 3.) the remnants of participants in the Nanchang Uprising who had followed Zhu De and Chen Yi up Jinggang Mountain; and 4.) Peng Dehuai’s troops that had gone to Jinggang Mountain following the Pingjiang Uprising* in July 1928. Each of the two Communist military factions, represented by Zhou and Mao, had their own special traits. The “Red Military Specialist Faction” had a relatively loose internal cohesion and its factional hue was rather pale. Zhou Enlai’s personal attraction and revolutionary history were the main forces holding this group of military cadres together. Because many cadres in the Red Military Specialist Faction had studied in the Soviet Union, they tended to have rather deep feelings for the Soviet Union and the Comintern. Internal relations in the “Jinggang Mountain Faction” were more complex; Mao was undeniably and deservedly the leader of this faction, but his arbitrary nature resulted in repeated conflicts with Zhu De and Chen Yi and, for a time, Zhu and Chen had clamped down on Mao’s authority. Beginning in 1929, Mao used various means to consolidate his leadership position within the Jinggang Mountain Faction and to rally around him a group of military cadres, but many personal grudges remained. After Zhou Enlai arrived in the Central Soviet Area, military cadres who were resentful of Mao congregated around Zhou, isolating Mao for a time. After Zhou Enlai arrived in Ruijin, he took pains to mediate between these two military factions and to gradually unite them in the harsh wartime environment. Zhou Enlai, Zhu De, and Liu Bocheng used every opportunity to improve relations with Mao, and minor barriers among senior and mid-level military cadres were removed. Zhou very purposefully used the Party’s authority to strengthen cohesion within the armed forces, and the army maintained a high level of unity under Zhou’s leadership. After the Zunyi Conference, practical considerations led Mao to perceive the extreme importance of wielding Party authority to maintain the unity of the armed forces, as a result of which such

*

  TN: Peng Dehuai rebelled against the Kuomintang on July 28, 1928, beginning his career as a military leader in the Red Army from his base in Pingjiang.

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unity continued. From 1935 to 1936, Mao cooperated closely with Zhang Wentian, Zhou Enlai, and Bo Gu, and he used the authority of the Central Committee to handle and finally resolve the split with Zhang Guotao.* In spring 1937, following the final defeat of the West Route Army, unification of the Communist armed forces was basically complete. Ironically, the Communist armed forces united while Mao, as chairman of the CMC, exercised his weakest personal control over the army. Mao lost control of the Eighth Route Army for a period of time after autumn 1937, and he was too far away to exercise any real authority over the New Fourth Army, which under Xiang Ying’s command answered to the Yangtze Bureau led by Wang Ming and Zhou Enlai in spite of superficial compliance with Mao. All this engendered Mao’s intense resentment against the military leaders. Mao’s resentment was not limited to the performance of the military leaders after the War of Resistance; it was also interwoven with historical conflicts. Mao was a person with extremely strong self-respect and he was intensely vindictive; it was only the practical exigencies of the present that allowed him to tolerate past offenses. Precious few among Communist Army cadres had genuinely gained Mao’s trust. The high-ranking military officer Mao trusted the most was Lin Biao. Lin won Mao’s special trust during the conflict between Mao and Zhu De in 1929, when Lin criticized Zhu and actively supported Mao. Mao acted like a father to Lin and never called on him to account for his failings. When, after the Zunyi Conference, Lin felt that Mao was exhausting the troops in pointless meanderings across the Chi River and he wrote a letter to the Central Committee asking that Peng Dehuai replace Mao as army commander, Mao did not blame Lin but directed his fury at the utterly innocent Peng. Mao valued Lin’s bravery and skill in battle and his

*

  TN: After Zhang Guotao led the Fourth Front Red Army to set up a base area in Sichuan in 1932, his army reunited with Mao’s army in 1935 during the Long March. However, Mao and Zhang disagreed over strategy, with Zhang wanting to move south to establish a new base in the Sichuan minority area, whereas Mao wanted to move north to the Communist base in Shaanxi. Zhang struck out on his own, only to suffer a crushing defeat and retreat to the Communist base in Shaanxi. Zhang’s remaining troops were annihilated in 1936 in an effort to conquer the territory held by warlords across the Yellow River, and Zhang lost all remaining hope of challenging Mao. Zhang was purged at an enlarged Politburo meeting in 1937 and he defected to the KMT in 1938.

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outstanding record of service, and Mao’s reliance on and protection of Lin exceeded that accorded to any other senior military officer. On Mao’s orders, Lin went to the Soviet Union for medical treatment in June 1938 and he did not return to Yan’an until February 8, 1942. When Lin returned, to the astonishment of others present Mao personally received him; Mao had not extended a similar courtesy to Zhou Enlai and Zhu De when they returned to Yan’an in 1940. On February 17, 1942, the Central Committee hosted a grand welcome-home celebration for Lin Biao, with some 1,000 people in attendance. In his speech, Lin quoted Comintern head Georgi Dimitrov: “Dimitrov says that the CPSU is as great as it is today because it has rallied around Comrade Stalin, and the Chinese Party should rally around Comrade Mao Zedong to build a great Chinese Party and a Great New Democratic China.” At the welcoming reception, Lin also expressed his firm support for the Rectification Movement, and he called for the entire Party to pledge its loyalty to Mao: “Our political thought should oppose subjectivism and factionalism, as called for recently by Comrade Mao Zedong. A resolute and thorough transformation is required to construct a Party with a proletarian standpoint and the methods of materialism. ... We must be faithful to our people, faithful to our Party, faithful to our leader.”53 For a young military leader such as Lin to be given such an ostentatious reception and for him to quote the Comintern leader to promote Mao reveals the closeness of the relationship between Mao and Lin and shows that Lin had already been briefed on Mao’s line. From the end of 1942 until July 1943, Mao ordered Lin to represent him at several meetings with Chiang Kai-shek in Xi’an and Chongqing, and then he had Lin return to Yan’an to convalesce in preparation for the anticipated decisive duel with Chiang over control of China. Mao had a love-hate relationship with Peng Dehuai. Peng was one of the senior military officers who had devoted the greatest effort to seizing political power for the CCP, but he was a blunt man with no patience for fawning. Mao admired his courage and military skill as well as his unwavering loyalty to the Party, but he detested his “disobedience,” pride, and independent mindset, and he saw him as a rebel at heart. Beginning in 1937, Mao had Peng serve as deputy commander-in-chief of the Eighth Route Army, but from December 1937 to March 1938, when the Eighth Route Army dispatched troops to Shanxi and northern China, Peng sent several cables to the Yangtze Bureau that was under Wang Ming requesting instructions and reporting on progress. To Mao, it was obvious that Peng

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was looking for another patron within the Party so he could stand up to Mao. In fact, Mao largely misunderstood Peng. When the sending of Eighth Route Army troops to Shanxi at the end of 1937 involved relations with Yan Xishan and the KMT, it was well within the bounds of normal operations for Peng to request instructions and guidance from the Yangtze Bureau, which at that time was overseeing the Party’s United Front work and CCP-KMT relations. Mao nevertheless decided that Peng was a threat and potentially insubordinate, and this landed Peng in hot water during the Rectification Movement. The “Father of the Red Army,” Zhu De, was in a very uncomfortable position in the Communist Army; in Mao’s eyes, the outstandingly popular Zhu was a person of no significance. Zhu had lost out to Mao in a conflict over democratization of the military in 1929, and ever since then Zhu had been cast into the shadow of Mao’s glory and had very little influence over major policies. Zhu had an honest, sincere, and amiable nature, and although he objected to Mao’s monopolization of power and arbitrary actions, he consistently bowed to Mao for the sake of preserving the image of “Zhu-Mao” solidarity and Party interests, and he never openly opposed Mao. Zhu De maintained good working and personal relationships with Zhou Enlai and Peng Dehuai, and he also demonstrated goodwill toward Wang Ming, Bo Gu, and the others in the new generation of the Party leadership. After Wang Ming returned to China, Zhu De nurtured hopes of strengthening the Central Committee’s collective leadership, but then Dimitrov verbally endorsed Mao as CCP leader. Zhu expressed support for Mao, but at the same time he tactfully advised him, in hopes that Mao would heed well-intentioned criticism. On September 26, 1938, at the Politburo meeting called to hear Wang Jiaxiang relay Dimitrov’s verbal message, Zhu said, “Comrades in the Party must carry out proper selfcriticism, and Party members must maintain faith in the Party leader. For this reason, leading comrades should be willing to accept criticism. The leader should hear the good things people say about him, but also the bad things people say.”54 Zhu De used this roundabout way to express his delicate approach toward Mao. When Zhu returned to Yan’an from the Eighth Route Army Headquarters in Taihang Mountain in May 1940, he was cut off from all influence over the army on the war front. Zhu presented no obstacle to Mao, but Mao remained wary of him. Although Zhu De still enjoyed high esteem as a symbol of the CCP and commanderin-chief of the Eighth Route Army, all CCP political and military power was held by Mao.

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Mao had an on-again-off-again relationship with Liu Bocheng, Nie Rongzhen, and Zhu Rui, and treated each of them differently. Liu, Nie, and Zhu had all spent time overseas, and all three were senior military officers with rather close and long-standing relationships with Zhou Enlai, making them members of Zhou’s Red Military Specialist Faction. After successively arriving in the Central Soviet Area in the early 1930s, they had taken on the heavy responsibility of defending the soviet area under Zhou’s leadership and they exercised little influence over Party policy. Although not closely affiliated with Mao, Liu and Nie had no conflict with him during the Ruijin years. After the Zunyi Conference, Liu Bocheng treated Mao with great respect, while at the same time maintaining his own personal dignity. After the beginning of the War of Resistance, Liu, Nie, and Zhu were entrusted with the crucial task of opening up several strategic areas, and all three made significant headway. Among the three, Mao was closest to Nie, and he kept his distance from Liu and Zhu. After the War of Resistance, Nie sought to execute Mao’s directives and he made great strides in rallying the troops and expanding the Party’s influence, which won him Mao’s admiration. Mao’s feelings toward Liu were the result of many historical factors. During the Ruijin years, Liu advocated shaping the Communist troops into a regular army modeled after the Soviet Red Army and for a long time he served as chief of the General Staff of the Red Army. At the Ningdu Conference, Liu endorsed the views of the Central Bureau of the Soviet Area. Coupled with Liu’s stern Red Army demeanor, Mao became estranged from him. Zhu Rui was an alternative Central Committee member elected at the Fifth Plenum of the Sixth Central Committee, and during the Ruijin years he was an outstanding “Red commander.” At the outset of the War of Resistance, Mao appointed him secretary of the Shandong Sub-bureau, but Mao was always uneasy about this graduate of Moscow’s Krasin Artillery School, and he soon sent his former subordinate, Luo Ronghuan, to Shandong. There were many complicated reasons for the long-term inability of the Communist forces in Shandong to implement unified command and to expand territorially, but Mao decided that responsibility for Shandong’s less-than-impressive situation rested chiefly with the “dogmatist” Zhu Rui. Mao admired and trusted He Long, who in his youth had been a hero among the “forest outlaws,” but he had no previous history with Mao. In Mao’s eyes, He Long was a classical-mode warrior with no interest in

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books; moreover, He Long had stood firmly on Mao’s side against Zhang Guotao, and he had expressed ample respect for Mao’s new authority. He Long was thus spared being a target of the Rectification Movement. Mao’s attitude toward the former commander-in-chief of the Fourth Front Red Army, Xu Xiangqian, was rather complex. After the Fourth Front Red Army was defeated, Mao had Xu remain in Yan’an and he put the army’s former senior military officers under the 129th Division commanded by Liu Bocheng and Deng Xiaoping, making Xu Xiangqian only a deputy division commander. In 1939, Mao ordered Xu, as commander of the Eighth Route Army’s First Advance Column, to lead a contingent of 100-plus men into Shandong, but one year later he recalled Xu to Yan’an. After Xu returned to Yan’an, Mao appointed him deputy commander of the reserve unit. Apart from attending occasional meetings, Xu was basically in retirement; he remained under observation by Mao. On the eve of the Rectification Movement, Party and military cadre Ye Jianying, referred to by the deferential term “adviser,” had a delicate status in the Party’s top leadership. Ye was one of the CCP’s few soldier statesmen, and he had studied in the Soviet Union. During the 1929 Zhongdong Railway Incident, * Ye Jianying and Liu Bocheng worked together under the Soviet Union’s Far East Army Commander Vasily Blyukher. After entering the Central Soviet Area in 1931, Ye spent a long time working under Zhou Enlai’s leadership at the Red Army’s General Staff Headquarters, which made him a member of the Red Military Specialist Faction. After the Long March, Ye assisted Zhou Enlai in developing United Front plans for the Northwest Army and the Northeast Army, and subsequently he became a key member of the Yangtze Bureau and the South China Bureau, basically separated from the military system until he returned to Yan’an in 1942 and resumed participation in the CMC. Although not in active military service and having no personal cohort, Ye had a history of studying in the Soviet Union and of working with Wang Ming and Zhou Enlai. For this reason, both the “dogmatist” and “empiricist” labels were attached to him. Because Ye was not a policy maker and because he had extended a helping hand to Mao in the struggle *

  TN: An armed conflict broke out between the Soviet Union and China when warlord Zhang Xueliang seized the Zhongdong Railway (the Chinese Eastern Railway) in Manchuria in July 1929. The Chinese authorities ultimately agreed to restore joint Soviet-Chinese administration of the railway.

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between Mao and Zhang Guotao during the Long March, he attracted a measure of attention during the Rectification Movement, but he was not subjected to the most lashing gales of criticism. The military officer Mao trusted the least was Xiang Ying, and Xiang’s death shortly after the 1941 Wannan Incident* eliminated Mao’s greatest obstacle in the military. Mao nevertheless continued to nurse a grievance against the New Fourth Army’s acting commander, Chen Yi, unable to forget how Chen had cooperated with Zhu De to oppose him in 1929. Mao had to see Chen adopt a new understanding of that incident, and for that reason, Chen became a target of the Yan’an Rectification Movement. All this shows that both historical factors and Mao’s personal sentiments played a major role in the complex conflicts between Mao and the Party’s senior military officers during the early 1940s. These conflicts were closely intertwined with Mao’s conflicts with Wang Ming and Zhou Enlai. In an effort to resolve all of these conflicts at once, Mao ingeniously wielded his dual status as leader of both the Party and the military to put himself in an unassailable position. In the presence of senior military officers, Mao typically presented himself as the leader of the Party, exhorting them to remember at all times that “our principle is that the Party commands the gun, and that the gun must by no means be allowed to command the Party.” Essentially, he was reminding military leaders that they could not defy his personal authority and they must unconditionally remain submissive to him. After the beginning of the War of Resistance, Mao continued to use the CCP’s traditional methods of directing military affairs, but he imbued them with a new content. Mao appointed loyal senior Party cadres to serve as the political commissars of several major strategic base areas; Deng Xiaoping assisted Liu Bocheng at Taihang Mountain, and Liu Shaoqi’s former subordinate, Peng Zhen, assisted Nie Rongzhen at Jin-Cha-Ji, while Liu Shaoqi and Rao Shushi assisted and monitored Chen Yi in Central China. All of these were major strategic arrangements aimed at consolidating Mao’s military leadership. On even more occasions, Mao presented himself as a spokesman for the military. He warned the top Party leaders that “anyone with guns can

*

  TN: Xiang was assassinated by a member of his own staff, Liu Houzong, who then surrendered to the Nationalists.

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in fact create a Party” and that “everything in Yan’an came about through the barrel of a gun,”55 and he publicly humiliated people such as Wang Ming and Bo Gu who controlled neither guns nor troops. Mao used the army as his backup to force the Comintern faction to hand over power and to make Wang Ming et al. gradually retreat without a fight. Mao’s second face suited military interests and facilitated the expansion of military influence in the Party, so Mao was able to win the support of the Communist armed forces for the Rectification Movement, even though some key military leaders were targeted. That is why the only way forward for top military leaders was to calmly await the impending storm of the Rectification Movement and to quickly adjust their relations with Mao and place their full support behind him as the supreme leader of the Party.

7. Revolution Begins at the Top: Mao and Wang Ming Cross Swords

I. The Comintern Faction Reaches the End of the Road The “verbal message” from Cominter n head Georg i Dimitrov communicated by Wang Jiaxiang in September 1938 hit the Party’s top leadership like a magnitude 7 earthquake. Dimitrov’s endorsement of Mao as Chinese Communist Party (CCP) leader was an enormous blow to Wang Ming, and the Party’s core leadership underwent a radical division and reconstitution. Although Mao had not formally assumed the position of Party general secretary, he now moved forward with full confidence and yielded to no one as he seized all Party and military authority. The Wang Ming camp, already showing signs of division, disintegrated completely under Mao’s divide-and-conquer tactics, and as Wang Ming and the others lost the will to fight, their political power withered. Mao’s top political rival, Wang Ming, had been effectively caged in by Mao since returning to Yan’an from Chongqing at the end of 1938. Wang had been able to maintain his political glamor for only one year after returning to China from Moscow, and the enthusiasm and joy with which he had been welcomed upon his arrival in Yan’an had long since dissipated. Now Wang could only go along with Mao’s arrangements, putting in a largely ceremonial appearance at major events as his political authority crumbled. Under Mao’s control, Wang’s loss of political power occurred step by step. After the Sixth Plenum of the Sixth Central Committee, Wang

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remained a member of the Secretariat and of the Politburo, and he was newly appointed director of the Central Committee United Front Department. In early 1941, after returning to Yan’an from Chongqing, Wang was appointed chairman of the Central Committee’s South China Work Committee, the Northeast China Work Committee, and the Central Party School Committee, and he was also secretary of the Central Committee’s Women’s Work Committee and director of China Women’s College. On the face of it, Wang held many key positions, yet most of them were mere sinecures. The Politburo and Secretariat were under Mao’s complete control beginning from 1939, whereby Mao decided on the timing and agenda of the meetings, and no others could intervene. As to the United Front Department, it was thoroughly sidelined in Yan’an. The department had three divisions: the Cadre Division, the Friendly Forces Division, and the Parties Division, but all major policies regarding the United Front with the Kuomintang (KMT) were personally controlled by Mao; Zhou Enlai only assisted in executing Mao’s directives, and Wang Ming played an extremely limited role in the decision-making process. In Yan’an, the United Front Department consisted of only Wang Ming and deputy directors Ke Qingshi and Nan Hanchen (deputy director of the United Front Department from September 1939 to early 1941, before being transferred to the Border Region Government in February 1941 to serve as director of the Finance Department), along with a handful of staff persons. Apart from occasionally coordinating with Yan’an’s Communications Office to receive visiting notables from the KMTcontrolled areas, the main work of the United Front Department was to lead Yan’an’s China Women’s College; leaders of the United Front Department, from Wang Ming and Ke Qingshi to Cadre Division head Xu Yixin, all held positions at the college. Originally the Central Committee United Front Department was also responsible for directing the work of the United Front Department of the Border Region Party Committee, but in 1939 Wang Guanlan, then deputy secretary of the Border Region Party Committee and head of its United Front Department, disputed Wang Ming’s view that the Border Region was also a United Front zone. Mao had the final word, deciding to establish a new Border Region United Front Committee with Wang Guanlan as chairman, and he declared that from then on the committee would assume leadership of all United Front issues in the Border Region, and would request instructions from the Central

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Committee on major issues. This stripped the Wang Ming–led Central Committee United Front Department of its last shred of authority.1 The Central Committee’s South China Work Committee and Northeast China Work Committee were even hollower organs. The South China Work Committee was established at the end of 1939, originally to strengthen the leadership of the underground Party in the KMT-controlled areas, but in reality most of the work relating to the Party in southern China was directed by the CCP South China Bureau in Chongqing. During the War of Resistance, Yan’an had very little direct contact with the Northeast, and especially after the failure of the Anti-Japanese Amalgamated Army of the Northeast,* CCP operations in the Northeast were almost completely suspended. In 1942, the Central Committee Organization Department selected 177 cadres with northeastern origins to launch renewed efforts in the Northeast. Most of the Party members engaged in underground operations in the Northeast were working for the Soviet Union’s intelligence apparatus and had only occasional cable communications with Yan’an. But in Manchukuo, tightly controlled by the Japanese Army, it was very difficult for the Yan’an underground Party members to operate, and most of the covert organizations were uncovered by the Japanese. For this reason, establishment of the Central Committee Northeast Work Committee was basically meaningless. Mao’s appointment of Wang Ming as chairman of the Central Party School Work Committee was an ingenious move on his part meant to provoke conflict between Wang Ming and Zhang Wentian, while Mao sat on the sidelines and waited to reap the benefits. Wang Ming’s only genuine work positions were with the Central Committee Women’s Committee and China Women’s College, and they were clearly meant to humiliate him. Mao showed not the slightest sympathy for Wang Ming in his decline, but rather he weighed in with further attacks. The Central Committee Women’s Committee led by Wang Ming had six Standing Committee

*

  Translators’ Note (cited hereafter as TN): The Amalgamated Army, formed in 1934, combined anti-Japanese guerrilla units established by the CCP following the Japanese occupation of Manchuria in 1931. The army was gradually worn down by the Japanese pacification campaign, and remnants of the army retreated to the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) and were incorporated into the Soviet Red Army in 1945.

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members, including Wang’s wife, Meng Qingshu. Two Standing Committee members, Cai Chang and Shuai Mengqi, frequently disagreed with Wang on work issues. Once a star on the international and domestic political stages, by early 1941 Wang Ming was obliged to preside over a Women’s Committee conference on child care. China Women’s College, of which Wang was director, was also under all kinds of constraints, and Wang encountered many difficulties in resolving issues, such as recruitment of students and staff and student placements. On February 13, 1941, Wang Ming wrote to Chen Yun regarding the placement of college graduates, suggesting that the Central Committee Organization Department should reduce the percentage of Women’s College graduates transferred to work unrelated to their studies and hoping that all female students arriving in Yan’an would be sent to study at China Women’s College. The next day, Chen Yun wrote back to Wang Ming stating that “we submit to the decisions passed by the majority of comrades in the Secretariat of the Central Committee.” In his letter, Chen said, “China Women’s College is our Party’s school, and all of its students should be assigned work by the Organization Department following the general intentions of the Central Committee,” implying that Wang Ming was regarding China Women’s College as his personal turf. Chen Yun made his views explicit: “Women are part of the Party’s work. I work for the Party, and my only duty and requirement is to ‘treat everyone equally.’”2 In June 1941 Wang Ming was dismissed from his position as secretary of the Central Committee Women’s Committee and was succeeded by Cai Chang. On September 1, China Women’s College, which had been established just two years earlier with great fanfare both in China and abroad, was merged with Yan’an University. Once Cai Chang took charge, she called in the committee’s female cadres who had studied at China Women’s College for a meeting in the conference room of the Communications Department of the Border Region Government “to determine what erroneous things Wang Ming had said while director of China Women’s College.”3 Under Cai Chang’s leadership, the Women’s Committee began to criticize the errors of “subjectivism and formalism” that Wang Ming had committed while leading the committee. Mao’s most diabolical measure against Wang Ming was to sever his communications channels with Moscow. Mao monopolized control over the communications apparatus with Stalin, and no one else could touch it. Shi Zhe reveals that in February 1940, while Ren Bishi was in Moscow,

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the Comintern’s Confidential Section passed him two confidential codes, which Zhou Enlai carried back to Yan’an in March. In November of that year, a new communications system between Yan’an and Moscow was formally launched “with excellent results and accurate and precise communications,” but “only Chairman Mao was authorized to use it.” The organization that controlled this top secret communications apparatus was known externally as the “Rural Work Department” or the “Rural Work Committee.” It was set up at Xiaobiangou near the Central Security Unit, and it was headed by Wu Defeng, with Shuai Mengqi as deputy. In order to avoid attention, Mao appointed Wang Guanlan chairman of the Central Committee Rural Work Committee, but Wang did not have any actual involvement in it, and Wu Defeng was the person actually in charge. Even Wu Defeng, director of the Central Committee Confidential Bureau, did not have any knowledge of the content of Mao’s communications with Stalin. Involvement in translating the cables was limited to Shi Zhe and one or two other staff persons in the Central Committee Social Department. The most highly confidential cables were translated by Ren Bishi and sent directly to Mao, bypassing Shi Zhe. Under Mao’s airtight blockade, Wang Ming, a member of the Comintern Executive Committee and Presidium and an alternative member of its Political Secretariat, could only learn of messages from the Comintern through Mao’s verbal transmission. And it was purely a matter of Mao’s personal wishes whether or not to communicate a Comintern cable to the Politburo, or whether to communicate all or only part of a cable, or to certain individuals or to all of the Politburo members. In order to guard against Wang Ming contacting the Soviets or other outsiders, Mao strictly controlled Wang Ming’s travel to Chongqing to attend the People’s Political Council. It was only after obtaining Zhou Enlai’s support that Wang was able to attend the Fourth Session of the First People’s Political Council in Chongqing held in September 1939,4 but thereafter Wang did not again return to Chongqing. For a period of time after the Sixth Plenum, there were no signs of Wang Ming’s political setback, but as Mao employed his various measures in succession, Wang gradually came to a full understanding of Mao’s intentions while remaining helpless to speak or act against them. In about late spring 1939, when Mao, accompanied by Jiang Qing and two bodyguards, tooled around the streets in Yan’an’s only passenger car— an ambulance for front line soldiers of the Eighth Route Army for which

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overseas Chinese had donated funds—all anyone saw of Wang Ming was a solitary figure “often strolling the streets on his own, without a bodyguard, his head bowed, saying nothing, as if divining some profound meaning from the sound of his own plodding footsteps.”5 Wang Ming was not resigned to his political decline. In 1939 he began adjusting his attitude toward Mao, attempting overtures that might improve his situation and result in a political resurgence. In 1940 Wang published two articles that fawningly promoted Mao’s “enormous contributions to developing Marxist-Leninist theory,” and he even bestowed new titles on Mao: “the Great Statesman and Strategist of the Chinese Revolution” and “the Great Theoretician.” Wang believed his words and actions would at least assuage Mao’s intense hostility toward him and ease and improve their relations. Wang Ming’s clumsy behavior, devoid of willpower and self-respect, reduced his already low standing in Mao’s eyes. The complacent Mao not only completely failed to appreciate Wang’s gestures, but he regarded Wang as a political zombie who could be toyed with at will. Wang Ming’s abject flattery of Mao initially produced a slight improvement in his situation in 1940. That year, a former First Front Red Army cadre, Huang Huoqing, went to Yan’an from Xinjiang (where he had gone after joining the West Route Army), and when receiving him, Mao told him to be sure to visit Wang Ming.6 In March of that year, Wang Ming in Yan’an republished his 1931 work The Struggle to Make the CCP Even More Bolshevik, hoping to prove his historical status in the Party. Wang also put his familiarity with the Marxist-Leninist classics to use in lectures at various organs and schools in Yan’an. “Comrade Wang Ming” was a respected name among Yan’an intellectuals, honored at almost the same level as “Chairman Mao.” The articulate Wang Ming produced clear, well-ordered lectures and he delivered them fluently for hours at a time without referring to notes. Upon finishing a talk, “He would sum it up from beginning to end in full outline form ... and it was no different from what was written in the notes.” His speeches were often interrupted by dozens of rounds of applause. Wang Ming’s eloquence and “theoretical proficiency” were widely revered by young intellectuals in Yan’an, and he was referred to as a “genius” and “the embodiment of MarxismLeninism.”7 This flushed away the effect of Wang Ming’s promotion of Mao and made Mao hate Wang Ming all the more. In contrast to the despondent Wang Ming, for Bo Gu the years from

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1937 to 1940 were relatively worry-free, mainly because Bo Gu was far from Yan’an, spending long periods of time carrying out United Front work with Zhou Enlai in Nanjing, Wuhan, and Chongqing. After the Sixth Plenum, Wang Ming was recalled to Yan’an, but Bo Gu remained in Chongqing as a member of the South China Bureau’s Standing Committee and director of its Organization Department. Under Zhou Enlai’s leadership, the South China Bureau in Chongqing maintained the atmosphere of mutual coordination and respect of the Yangtze Bureau years,* and there was none of the “secretarial dictatorship” that pervaded Yan’an and the other base areas. Living and working in an atmosphere so different from that in Yan’an,8 Bo Gu temporarily forgot the clouds on his own political horizon. Bo Gu’s carefree days ended in November 1940. At that time, KMTCCP relations had become strained over the northern deployment of the New Fourth Army. Mao anticipated a complete break with the KMT, and on November 3 Mao and the Secretariat of the Central Committee sent a cable to Zhou Enlai and the South China Bureau ordering the immediate return of Bo Gu and Kai Feng to Yan’an. After Bo Gu returned to Yan’an, he resumed his position as chairman of the Central Committee’s Party Newspaper Committee, and in May 1941 he was put in charge of the New China News Agency and Liberation Daily. From then on, Mao gradually drew Bo Gu under his direct control. Bo Gu had been dealing with Mao for years and he understood Mao’s leadership style of ordering everyone around as soon as he had authority to do so. Although Bo Gu found Mao’s power less intolerable than Wang Ming did, it was still difficult to tolerate. Bo Gu thus had a dual reaction to his situation: On the one hand, he knew he did not have the strength to resist Mao, so after returning to Yan’an he quickly shed his mental armor, gave up all hope, and let Mao do as he pleased. On the other hand, he still had some hope that Moscow would intervene, and under the close watch of Mao and Kang Sheng, he maintained intermittent contact with Soviet intelligence agents in Yan’an

*

  In a conversation in 1984, Deng Yingchao acknowledged the above facts from another perspective. She said, “At that time, the democratic centralism of the Yangtze Bureau was imperfect; work was assigned with clear boundaries, and everyone managed everyone else’s work.” In other words, the Yangtze Bureau did not have any single leader in charge of everything.

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and covertly passed along his views on Party problems. In his book The Yan’an Diaries, the Comintern representative in Yan’an at that time, Peter Vladimirov, describes Bo Gu’s nerve-rattling evasion of Kang Sheng’s intelligence apparatus to meet with Soviet operatives. 9 Vladimirov’s account has been indirectly corroborated by Shi Zhe, who recalls Vladimirov telling him more than once that “Bo Gu was very helpful to him and helped him understand the cause and effect of many complex issues in the Comintern, in China, and in the Party.”10 Formerly the No. 3 person in the Comintern faction, Zhang Wentian enjoyed notably better situation than Wang Ming and Bo Gu due to his long-term cooperation with Mao. Beginning in 1940, however, Zhang’s position in the core leadership took a precarious turn. Zhang had lost his status as Mao’s top collaborator back in 1937 when Mao formed his political alliance with Liu Shaoqi, and he lost his position of overall responsibility for the Party during the December 1937 Politburo meeting. After the Sixth Plenum, Mao formally replaced Zhang as the convener of meetings of the Central Committee Secretariat. However, while Liu Shaoqi was away from Yan’an from 1939 to 1940, Mao made a concerted effort to alienate Zhang Wentian from Wang Ming, as a result of which Zhang was effectively the No. 2 leader in Yan’an during that time. Even so, this was only temporary, and Zhang’s role ended when Ren Bishi returned to Yan’an. Although Zhang was still a Politburo member and secretary of the Central Committee, the scope of his work was limited to Party Ideological Departments in Yan’an. Mao began to “wrinkle his nose” at Zhang, and Shi Zhe recounts that Mao criticized Zhang’s “sloppy” work style in the early 1940s.11 Zhou Enlai returned to China from the Soviet Union in March 1940, and during a Politburo meeting he passed on Comintern leader Dmitry Manuilsky’s assessment of the CCP leaders, including Manuilsky’s assessment of Zhang Wentian as the CCP’s most outstanding Marxist theoretician. This enraged Mao, who sneered, “What theoretician? All that Zhang Wentian brought back from the Soviet Union was a gunnysack full of dogma!”12 Beginning in the spring of 1941, Mao became increasingly aggressive toward Zhang and nitpicked at his work. After drafting some directives on cadre education, Zhang submitted them to Mao, and once they were passed by the Central Committee, he issued them in the name of the Secretariat, only to have Mao reverse his position and reprimand him. Mao

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constantly made cutting remarks and berated Zhang as a “know-nothing,” but the offended Zhang had nowhere to turn.13 During this period, Zhang was still leading Yan’an’s Marxism-Leninism Institute and other cultural and propaganda units, and although he spent little time at the institute, he left a deep impression on the students. One collection of reminiscences describes Zhang as “a tall, thin man … wearing a Lenin cap ... a red glass mosaic medallion of Marx, Lenin, Engels, and Stalin gleaming on his breast.”14 Zhang Wentian’s students could never have imagined that their revered teacher, who had endured so many hardships with Mao, would soon be cast aside. Ostensibly, the most prominent member of the Comintern faction from 1938 to 1941 was Wang Jiaxiang. In order to show his gratitude for the “verbal message” from Dimitrov that Wang had brought back from Moscow, Mao immediately conferred on him the titles of vice chairman of the Central Military Commission (CMC) and head of the General Political Department of the Eighth Route Army. This was the first and last time that any member of the Comintern faction was appointed to the CMC after the Long March; Mao made sure that Wang Ming, Bo Gu, and Zhang Wentian were excluded. The appointment of Wang Jiaxiang as vice chairman made him nominally the Communist Army’s fourth top leader after Mao, Zhu De, and Zhou Enlai, and was indicative of Mao’s particular gratitude and trust of Wang. Wang Jiaxiang’s appointment was no more than a reward for services rendered, however, and it did not involve any genuine military power. The fact that Wang had never commanded troops and had no power base in the military put Mao at ease, but nonetheless he retained a trump card. Wang’s responsibilities on the CMC were mainly focused on political education in the Eighth Route Army, and he had no say in any matters relating to the army’s senior cadres. Mao only utilized Wang when he needed the Party’s power to quell what he considered to be separatist tendencies within the military. On July 1, 1941, under Mao’s direct suggestion and guidance, Wang Jiaxiang worked with Wang Ruofei to draft the “Resolution Regarding Enhancing Party Discipline,” which targeted Peng Dehuai and other military leaders. In this respect, CMC vice chairman Wang Jiaxiang was no more than a senior aide to Mao. Wang Jiaxiang’s advantageous political situation came to an end in 1942, and thereafter he began to experience a precipitous decline. At Mao’s

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suggestion, in September 1941 Ren Bishi began establishing research units for policy and international issues in the Secretariat of the Central Committee. Mao had a special purpose behind the establishment of these research organizations. His intention was to assign a group of senior Party cadres to these organizations while freezing and effectively terminating their previous postings and at the same time severing their relations with people inside and outside of the Party. In the process of “research,” these veteran cadres were then lured into gradually reflecting on their own “line errors.” Wang Jiaxiang was apparently aware of Mao’s scheme, and although Mao personally mobilized him to head the International Issues Research Office and he attended the Research Office’s inaugural meeting, Wang showed not the slightest interest in this three-man organization, and its work soon ground to a halt.15 Another key member of the Comintern faction, Kai Feng (He Kequan), enjoyed an encouraging turn of events in 1941. As an alternative Politburo member, Kai Feng had voiced his support for Bo Gu during the Zunyi Conference, but he took the initiative to align with Mao after the Long March. After working with Wang Ming and Zhou Enlai in key positions in the Yangtze Bureau and the South China Bureau from 1938 to 1940, on Mao’s orders in November 1940 Kai Feng returned to Yan’an with Bo Gu. Mao had carefully considered Kai Feng’s work arrangements with the aim of splitting the Comintern faction and rewarding Kai Feng for not actively participating in Wang Ming’s “assertion of independence”* in the Yangtze Bureau. At the end of 1941, Mao appointed Kai Feng to replace Zhang Wentian as acting head of the Central Committee Propaganda Department (where Kai Feng had previously been deputy director). Mao thus killed two birds with one stone, dismissing Zhang from the Propaganda Department and earning Kai Feng’s gratitude, while at the same time he avoided appointing Kai Feng to more important work. Under enormous pressure from Mao and his divide-and-conquer tactics, the Comintern faction disintegrated and was utterly routed. In order to maintain their positions within the Party, Wang Ming and the others stabbed each other in the back while seeking Mao’s approval.

*

  Documentary sources indicate that while working in Wuhan in 1938, Kai Feng did not agree with Wang Ming’s antagonism toward Yan’an, even though cables from the Yangtze Bureau to Yan’an always included Kai Feng’s name.

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On November 20, 1940, Wang Ming published his essay “On Several Fundamental Issues of Marxist-Leninist Decision-Making Strategy” in issue no. 12 of The Communist. This article praised Mao’s revolutionary strategy and thinking but criticized Bo Gu. Without naming Bo Gu specifically, Wang criticized the Party’s errors under Bo Gu’s leadership in the 1930s: “In the latter stage of the soviet revolution, we were unable to utilize the many factional, military, and political contradictions and conflicts of the reactionary ruling class to develop the soviet revolution.” Admittedly, this was not the first time that Wang Ming had expressed such views; he had said something similar back in 1934. But by again raising these criticisms in 1940, at a time when Bo Gu was under such enormous pressure from Mao, Wang Ming was obviously attempting to draw a line between himself and Bo Gu and to eliminate any further association with him. Mao gave only tacit approval to Wang’s words because prior to this he had not had a sufficient grasp of the situation to publicly criticize the errors of the later soviet period. Wang Ming’s attack on Bo Gu made it clear to Mao that the Comintern faction was on the verge of disintegration. Unlike Wang Ming’s diligent attempts to cozy up to Mao, Wang Jiaxiang believed the services he had already rendered were sufficient to qualify him as the Chairman’s man. Beginning in 1938 Wang Jiaxiang had sedulously distanced himself from Wang Ming, Bo Gu, and Zhang Wentian and he had denied any connection with Wang Ming, cutting off virtually all personal contact with him and other members of the Comintern faction. After returning to Yan’an from Moscow, Wang Jiaxiang married the Politburo’s medical doctor, Zhu Zhongli, who was the daughter of Zhu Jianfan, an old friend of Mao and former headmaster of Changsha’s Zhounan Girls’ School. This provided an additional channel for contact with Mao. Wang Jiaxiang also used the temporary transfer of staff at China Women’s College and other side issues to “boycott” Wang Ming’s “errors” and to clearly establish his own standpoint and loyalties.16 For all his gentlemanly demeanor and apparent indifference to fame and wealth, Zhang Wentian in fact had long parted company with Wang Ming and Bo Gu. Zhang had a long-standing grudge against Bo Gu from the early years of the Ruijin era, when Bo Gu had publicly criticized the “red tape” of the People’s Committee managed by Zhang. Bo Gu had also sidelined Zhang in late spring 1934 by sending him on an inspection tour of several counties in Fujian and Jiangxi and not letting him take part in the supreme policy-making “triumvirate.” Bo Gu and Zhang

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Wentian therefore had had a serious split* even before the Long March.17 Zhang Wentian was even more resentful of Wang Ming. After Wang Ming returned to China, he attacked Zhang by spreading the rumor that “while Zhang Wentian was Party branch secretary at Moscow’s Sun Yatsen University, all of the cadres in the Party branch were Trotskyites.” This ensured that when Mao went on the attack against Wang Ming and the others, Zhang Wentian only looked after his own interests and made no effort to help Wang Ming and Bo Gu. Within the original Comintern faction, the person harboring the greatest desire for unity was Bo Gu. After the Zunyi Conference, Bo Gu changed his previous overbearing and aggressive attitude and demonstrated goodwill and respect to all of his colleagues. As Mao’s power rapidly surged, Bo Gu naively hoped that the original members of the Comintern faction would reunite and impose some checks and balances on Mao. Bo Gu eagerly hoped for Wang Ming’s early return to China in 1937, believing that he could lead this mission. When Bo Gu went to Nanjing in September 1937 as the CCP representative in negotiations with the KMT, he was anxious for news of Wang Ming in the Soviet Union and he made discreet inquiries. On October 21, Bo Gu sent a cable to Zhang Wentian reporting that the Soviet Union’s Youth League’s Pravda had published an essay by Wang Ming and had asked Yan’an to inform him as soon as they received Wang Ming’s essay in order to “facilitate translation.”18 Once Wang Ming returned to China, however, his performance disappointed Bo Gu. Although Bo Gu had gotten along well enough with Wang Ming at the Wuhan Yangtze Bureau, as soon as any past problems were brought up, Wang Ming would act indifferent, suggesting that past problems had nothing to do with him and that he had always done the right thing. Bo Gu became thoroughly disillusioned with his former colleague and hoped to continue working in Chongqing for as long as possible. He had a presentiment that his old friend was preparing to offer him up to Mao as a sacrificial lamb.

*

  In his journals during the Yan’an Rectification, Zhang Wentian wrote that after the Fifth Plenum of the Sixth Central Committee, sending him to take charge of the People’s Committee was a brilliant tactic on the part of Bo Gu to kill two birds with one stone: “On the one hand, it elbowed me out of the Central Committee, while on the other hand, it could elbow Comrade Mao Zedong out of the Central Government.”

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Mao easily perceived the deep-seated wishful thinking and selfpreservation at work within the Comintern faction, and he took full advantage of their grudges and conflicts by treating them each differently and destroying them one by one so that each was left in an isolated and disadvantaged position. Just when Wang Ming et al. were congratulating themselves on having improved relations with Mao, Mao drew them into the encirclement he had prepared and waited for the chance to annihilate them in one fell swoop.

II. Zhou Enlai’s Dilemma Not long after the closing ceremony of the Sixth Plenum of the Sixth Central Committee in November 1938, Zhou Enlai perceived that Mao had already won Moscow’s endorsement and he thus began adjusting his relations with Mao. His most critical move was to rapidly distance himself from Wang Ming, with whom he had previously been closely allied. In June 1939 Zhou Enlai left Chongqing for Yan’an in preparation for attending the Politburo meeting that was to be convened from July to August to discuss CCP-KMT relations. On July 7, Chongqing’s New China Daily commemorated the second anniversary of the War of Resistance by publishing articles by CCP leaders. Essays by Mao, Zhou Enlai, Zhang Wentian, Wang Jiaxiang, Liu Shaoqi, Bo Gu, Kai Feng, Dong Biwu, Wu Yuzhang, Ye Jianying, Deng Yingchao, and others were all published, but there were no essays by Wang Ming. This was not a simple oversight. Although Zhou was not in Chongqing at the time, the Propaganda Department of the South China Bureau headed by Kai Feng, who was directly responsible for New China Daily, would have had no reason or authority to refuse an article by Wang Ming unless under direct or indirect orders from a key leader. In the latter half of August 1939, Zhou Enlai left Yan’an to receive treatment for an arm injury, passing through Lanzhou and Dihua and arriving in Moscow in mid-September. In addition to receiving medical treatment, Zhou’s main mission during his half-year in the Soviet Union was to report to the Comintern on the War of Resistance and CCP work. Zhou drafted a “Memorandum on China Issues,” which was tens of thousands of characters in length, and he had it distributed to all members of the Comintern Executive Committee in January 1940. In February 1940, the Executive Committee Presidium passed a resolution on the CCP

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delegation’s report and affirmed the correctness of the political line of the CCP. Dimitrov personally passed this resolution on to Zhou Enlai. Zhou’s report to the Comintern did not directly mention the split between Mao and Wang Ming, but it highlighted Mao’s role in the CCP. Zhou understood the sympathy Comintern leaders had for Wang Ming, so rather than criticize Wang in a formal setting, he attacked him in private conversation. During conversations with Zhou, Dimitrov inquired into Wang Ming’s performance after returning to China and about his relations with Mao; Zhou replied that relations were suboptimal and that at one point Wang Ming had run off to Wuhan, planning to organize his own group.19 Thus, with the flick of his finger, Zhou obliterated his close cooperation with Wang Ming in Wuhan. When Dimitrov expressed worries that the CCP had departed from its focus on the working classes in favor of the rural areas, Zhou replied that it was altogether possible to “proletarianize” the rural areas through the CCP’s long-term engagement and under Mao’s leadership.20 Zhou’s words made him appear to be the explicator of Mao’s policies, and with this attitude he indicated to the Comintern his personal support for Mao’s positions. Another of Zhou’s important activities in Moscow was to take part in the Comintern Control Commission’s investigation of Otto Braun. After seven years in China, in late August 1938 Braun took the same flight as Zhou Enlai to Moscow. At the CCP’s suggestion, the Comintern launched an investigation into Braun in December of that year; the participants in the investigation included Zhou Enlai, Mao Zemin, Liu Yalou, and Comintern Control Commission chairman Wilhelm Florin. Braun recalls that in his remarks, Zhou Enlai criticized Braun’s attitude toward the 1934 Fujian Incident and his battle strategy of “short, sudden assaults.” However, Zhou was “extremely circumspect” regarding the question of Braun’s performance in relation to the Red Army’s “passive defense” strategy. Braun believed this was because this issue implicated Zhou’s own military position during the Civil War.21 The Comintern finally decided to transfer Braun to operations unrelated to China without disciplining him. Beginning in 1940, Braun was transferred to Moscow’s Foreign Literature Press to work on German translations of Soviet literature and Lenin’s works. Braun subsequently spent a long time teaching in Krasnogorsk, and he was finally allowed to return to the Soviet-occupied “German Democratic Republic” in 1949. Although Zhou Enlai had distanced himself from Wang Ming and

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nimbly changed allegiances, Mao was still unhappy with him. Mao’s resentment was rooted in the past as well as in the present, but beginning in 1938 his resentment was mainly focused on Zhou’s moderate stance toward the KMT and his tolerant attitude toward Xiang Ying. As mentioned earlier, Mao’s major theoretical disagreement with Wang Ming was about how to assess the KMT’s War of Resistance as well as what policy the CCP should follow with respect to the KMT during the War of Resistance. The Sixth Plenum of the Sixth Central Committee had endorsed Mao’s political line of reconciling the Comintern’s spirit of reinforcing the United Front with Mao’s vigorous development of CCP power, but there was still a great deal of elasticity in terms of how to deal with relations between the two. It is difficult to see any major shift in CCP policies toward the KMT in the formal documents passed by the Sixth Plenum. These policies were basically contingent on a flexible response by the top CCP leaders to the rapidly changing situation. Since Mao had greatly reinforced his status during the Sixth Plenum, ultimate Party decision-making power was concentrated in his hands, and this gave rise to an awkward situation: In accordance with the spirit of the Sixth Plenum, Zhou Enlai, who was in charge of hands-on negotiations with the KMT, had to continue emphasizing cooperation between the CCP and KMT, but Mao had the power to interpret the Sixth Plenum, and his interpretation stated that the Sixth Plenum’s line was to beat back that “Right deviating capitulationism” that “compromised” with the KMT. Zhou Enlai did not attend the entire Sixth Plenum; after completing his report on United Front work on September 30, 1938, Zhou left Yan’an for Wuhan on October 1. Zhou’s understanding of the spirit of the plenum was based on the basic guiding principles passed during a Politburo meeting held in the latter half of September. This was effectively a preparatory meeting for the plenum, and its main content consisted of a discussion of Mao’s political report, “On the New Phase,” which he was to deliver at the Sixth Plenum. It was based on this Politburo meeting and the spirit of Mao’s report that Zhou continued to emphasize support for Chiang Kai-shek in the War of Resistance and the strengthening of CCP-KMT cooperation. Yet not all of the measures Zhou took to implement the spirit of the Sixth Plenum found favor with Mao. In Mao’s eyes, many of the ways in which Zhou handled CCP-KMT relations reeked of “Right deviating capitulationism.” In Mao’s ledger, the training course Zhou ran for the KMT was stamped as a serious “error.”

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At the Nanyue Military Conference held from November 25 to 28, 1938, with Chiang Kai-shek presiding, Zhou Enlai and Ye Jianying reached an agreement with the KMT that the CCP would conduct training sessions for KMT cadres to engage in guerrilla warfare in the Southwest. This idea had originated with the CCP; Zhu De, arriving in Wuhan with Zhou Enlai on October 22, had formally proposed it in a face-to-face meeting with Chiang, and Chiang had agreed to it and asked the CCP to provide the instructors. Zhou thereupon took responsibility for lecturing on international issues, with Ye Jianying serving as assistant dean and more than thirty Communist instructors, staff, and troops taking part in the training work. Mao abhorred this kind of “service work.” Although Zhou ultimately gained Mao’s consent, Mao felt it had been forced upon him as a fait accompli and he instinctively objected to it. Zhou’s errors of this kind peaked at the end of 1938. In a December 12 cable that Zhou, Ye Jianying, and others sent to Liao Chengzhi and copied to Mao and Zhang Wentian, they seemed to have forgotten the divide-and-conquer strategy that Mao had adopted toward the KMT, and they proposed that the CCP should adopt the “bearing of a great party” to reconcile the conflicts among the various KMT factions.22 Zhou’s attitude of “putting the War of Resistance above all else” continued to develop throughout 1939 and 1940. His cable communications with Mao on United Front issues largely emphasized allying against the common enemy.23 As conflict between the two parties suddenly began to heat up in October 1940 over the issue of moving the New Fourth Army northward, Zhou and Mao took radically different approaches. In contrast to Mao, who anxiously proposed “preparing to split with Chiang,” Zhou and Bo Gu repeatedly recommended that the Central Committee make the necessary compromises and approach the possibility of a CCP-KMT split with caution.24 The different approaches of Mao and Zhou toward relations with the KMT did not involve a substantive divergence along political lines. Mao’s hard line and Zhou’s steadiness both originated in their shared objective of safeguarding CCP interests. The facts show that in the process of formulating guiding principles toward the KMT during the War of Resistance, Mao attached great importance to, and frequently adopted, Zhou’s recommendation to be outwardly yielding but inwardly firm and to leave room to maneuver; the complementarity between Mao and Zhou effectively safeguarded the Party’s interests. Although Zhou played

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a crucial neutralizing role in Mao’s decision-making, it fixed him as an “accommodationist” in Mao’s eyes. Another irritant was Zhou’s attitude toward Xiang Ying. The December 1937 Politburo meeting decided that the New Fourth Army would be under the dual leadership of the Central Committee and the Yangtze Bureau and that in terms of Party relations, the Yangtze Bureau would take direct leadership of the Southeast China Sub-bureau. This resulted in a fairly close working relationship between Wang Ming, Zhou Enlai, and Xiang Ying. Mao had never been favorably inclined toward Xiang Ying; apart from the profound conflict that arose between the two in Jiangxi in the early 1930s, Xiang Ying’s deepening relationship with Wang Ming after Wang’s return to China increased Mao’s distrust. In spring 1939, Xiang Ying ordered Yang Fan, secretary of the New Fourth Army Headquarters and formerly secretary of the CCP’s Federation of Left-wing Playwrights in Shanghai, to write up a report on Jiang Qing’s activities while she worked as an actress in Shanghai. The report, signed by Xiang Ying and cabled to Yan’an, explicitly stated that Mao should not marry Jiang Qing.25 This made Mao detest Xiang Ying even more. Beginning in 1937, Mao was worried that Xiang Ying’s command of the New Fourth Army would strengthen his status within the Party, and therefore Mao openly gave Xiang Ying a cold shoulder and excluded him, both passively and actively obstructing Xiang’s work-related requests. While organizing the New Fourth Army in spring and summer of 1938, Xiang Ying repeatedly sent cables to Mao requesting deployment of capable military cadres to the south. In his cables and letters, Xiang Ying stated that with so many cadres concentrated in Yan’an, “a large group should be sent to the south.” Xiang also suggested that the Central Committee should send Liu Shaoqi and Chen Yun to work in the south. In his cables, Xiang Ying suggested, “Leading comrades of the Central Committee should take turns making inspection tours of the south,” emphasizing that so doing would “strengthen leadership of the entire country, which is truly essential.” To the hypersensitive Mao, Xiang Ying seemed to be insinuating that Mao was entrenched in Yan’an and never went out to inspect the front lines. Mao responded to Xiang Ying’s suggestions in a vague and perfunctory manner by sending Zhou Zikun, Yuan Guoping, Li Yimeng, and a few other senior military and political cadres and several dozen regiment and company-level cadres. In his cabled replies to Xiang Ying, Mao took a dismissive tone, saying, “If you do not

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need them where you are, hand them over to the Yangtze Bureau. Do you need this group of cadres or not?” He made no effort to conceal how fed up he was with Xiang Ying.26 For a period of time, however, Mao was cowed by the great prestige Xiang enjoyed in the Party and the military as well as by his Communist Puritanism (Xiang was one of the few officers who refused special privileges, sharing the same living standards, joys, and hardships as ordinary soldiers), and Mao could only work against him in various ways behind his back. Once his political status was strengthened in 1939, Mao began repeatedly criticizing Xiang Ying and he took measures to strip him of his authority. Zhou Enlai was well aware of Mao’s narrowmindedness and of the disputes between Mao and Xiang, and although he echoed some of Mao’s criticisms, he tried to protect Xiang’s reputation and extend a helping hand to Xiang at a crucial juncture. In August 1939, the Politburo held a series of meetings in Yan’an to hear Zhou Enlai’s political reports on the United Front issue and on the work of the Party and army in the south. Xiang Ying did not attend these meetings, but Zhang Dingcheng attended as representative of the Southeast China Bureau and the New Fourth Army. When Zhou Enlai spoke of the New Fourth Army, he praised Xiang Ying’s leadership role. It was Zhou rather than Mao who gave the concluding speech on August 25, and Zhou once again pointed out Xiang Ying’s many accomplishments as leader of the Southeast China Bureau.27 One year later, on June 17, 1940, when Zhou Enlai convened a meeting of the Southeast China Bureau’s Standing Committee to discuss the work of the New Fourth Army, Zhou again voiced his approval of the army’s execution of the Central Committee’s policy of “developing toward the north, waging war in the east, and strengthening its hold on the south.” Prior to this, while issuing directives to the Southeast China Bureau on May Fourth, Mao had criticized the New Fourth Army for its inadequate development. Feeling this was unjust, Xiang Ying on May 9 and May 12 had sent cables to Yan’an expressing his agreement with the Central Committee’s line, policies, and strategies, but hoping that the Central Committee would be more specific about the nature of his errors and publicly declare the revocation of his posting. Although Zhou Enlai’s June 17 remarks to the Southeast Bureau Standing Committee included some tactful criticism of Xiang Ying and pointed out that the New Fourth Army had not taken advantage of opportunities for bolder development, he emphasized that “in the past year, the work of the Southeast Bureau

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under Xiang Ying’s leadership has been correct.” Zhou also told the head of the New Fourth Army’s Political Department, Yuan Guoping, and the Southeast Bureau’s deputy secretary, Rao Shushi, that the Central Committee would retain Xiang Ying as secretary of the Southeast Bureau.28 While attending a Politburo meeting in Yan’an on August 4, 1940, Zhou Enlai criticized the New Fourth Army’s failure to actively implement the Central Committee’s policy to develop northward and to maintain the Party’s viewpoints in negotiations with the KMT. But at the same time he once again proposed retaining Xiang Ying as secretary of the Southeast Bureau. These declarations by Zhou had great significance. In 1940 Mao was relying on cables from Yan’an to the New Fourth Army in the distant south to implement specific directives. Accustomed to allowing enough leeway to appear like a prophet no matter what occurred, Mao was contradictory and capricious in his cables to Xiang Ying. He wanted Xiang to prepare as quickly as possible for a move to the north but he also wanted to procrastinate in order to support Yan’an’s negotiations with the KMT. Mao suddenly predicted that the main KMT forces would soon launch an attack and he demanded that the troops in southern Anhui immediately be shifted in batches; then just as suddenly he ordered that Xiang Ying apply to Chongqing for funding, food, and ammunition “and wait another month or two.”29 Xiang Ying was never able to reach a final determination of when or by what route the New Fourth Army was to proceed to the north. Yet Mao only looked at the results and not at the process, and no matter what Xiang Ying did, Mao in Yan’an nitpicked and criticized it in every possible way. Most Politburo members took their cue from Mao and joined in on bashing Xiang Ying. The environment within which the New Fourth Army operated south of the Yangtze was completely different from that of the Eighth Route Army in the north. The KMT had powerful armed forces in the south, putting major constraints on the New Fourth Army’s activities and development. Additionally, Xiang Ying’s leadership did in fact have its deficiencies, and he had quite a few qualms regarding the KMT. All this seriously weakened his status within the Party. In mid-November 1940, Yan’an decided to establish a Central China General Headquarters for the New Fourth Army and the Eighth Route Army, and he ordered Xiang Ying back to Yan’an to attend the Seventh National Party Congress once he had made arrangements for moving his troops. At this moment when Xiang Ying’s status was most imperiled,

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only Zhou Enlai was able to make allowances for Xiang’s dilemma. He emphasized Xiang’s leadership role over the Southeast Bureau and the New Fourth Army and he did his utmost to defend Xiang’s credibility within the New Fourth Army. Zhou Enlai’s steady approach to relations with the KMT and his goodwill and lenience toward Xiang Ying were not missed by Mao, who waited for an opportune moment to make his displeasure known. On January 5, 1939, without warning Mao made an overt move to cripple Zhou Enlai’s authority. Concealing himself behind the name of the Secretariat of the Central Committee in Yan’an, Mao sent a cable to Zhou Enlai in Chongqing capriciously changing the Politburo’s September 26, 1938, decision regarding the establishment of the South China Bureau. He proposed that the Central Bureau (i.e., the South China Bureau) resulting from the merger of the southern and southwestern provinces should instead be called the Southwest Bureau.30 This decision, if ultimately accepted, would have greatly reduced the status of the South China Bureau as the largest detached CCP agency outside of Yan’an for leading the Party in southern China, putting it on a par with relatively low-level detached agencies, such as the North China Bureau (under Yang Shangkun) and the Central Plains Bureau (under Liu Shaoqi). Zhou Enlai responded immediately on January 7, along with the other two Politburo members in Chongqing, Bo Gu and Kai Feng, by sending a reply cable to the Secretariat of the Central Committee that emphasized that the newly established Central Bureau “would be better named the South China Bureau.” It was only under the masterful insistence by Zhou Enlai, Bo Gu, and Kai Feng that Mao finally backed down, and in a January 13 cable he agreed to retain the name of the South China Bureau.31 Mao was also equivocal regarding the work of the South China Bureau under the direct leadership of Zhou Enlai. In a speech during a Politburo meeting on August 24, 1939, Mao praised the work in the south as “well done, with achievements in all of the provinces” and he pointed out, “This is the result of Enlai’s leadership.” But Mao then quickly went on to sharply criticize the Party in the south as “not solid,” “its mass movements lacking depth,” and “its United Front insufficiently developed in the middle classes.”32 Zhou quickly responded to Mao’s criticisms in his concluding comments at the meeting on that day. He acknowledged that the South China Bureau had done little to strengthen the Party and to use lawful opportunities to engage in mass work, and he criticized himself for

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“excessive emphasis on uniting with Chiang” in United Front work and “inadequate solidarity with the middle classes.” 33 In strong contrast to Zhou Enlai’s caution and efforts to establish harmonious relations with Mao, Mao frequently made it clear to Zhou that their relationship was not as it had once been. Although Zhou telephoned Mao from Ganquan on the night before he, Ren Bishi, and Cai Chang had arrived in Yan’an from Moscow on March 26, 1940, when they reached Yan’an Mao was still asleep, and “only Li Fuchun came to receive them, and he came mainly to meet his wife, Cai Chang.”34 Two years later, Mao personally went to receive Lin Biao on his return to Yan’an from Moscow, even though Lin’s status was much lower than that of Zhou Enlai. On this occasion, Mao was not asleep, and he led Lin by the hand to the cave where he lived in Yangjialing.35 The relative intimacy and remoteness Mao accorded to Lin and Zhou respectively was readily apparent. Even though Mao purposely slighted Zhou Enlai, Zhou showed care and consideration for Mao in every respect. When Zhou and the others set out from Moscow in late February 1940, the Comintern prepared two large crates of Western foodstuffs, cigarettes, and liquor for them to consume en route, but on the way Zhou proposed changing to Chinese food, and he carried the two crates of Western delicacies all the way back to Yan’an. After returning to Yan’an, Zhou personally examined the contents and ordered that it all be presented to Mao and Jiang Qing.36 Mao undoubtedly understood the extent of Zhou’s attentiveness, but his attitude toward Zhou never exceeded what was required of professional considerations. This left Zhou feeling he had a curse over his head, and until the day he died he never dared to cease making efforts. Beginning in 1938, Mao accurately made use of Zhou Enlai’s personality traits, and by applying a give-and-take attitude toward Zhou, he succeeded in breaking Zhou’s alliance with Wang Ming and reestablishing his own relations with Zhou. Zhou Enlai was someone Mao simply could not do without; Zhou’s sterling reputation, extraordinary abilities, and devotion to the Communist cause made him irreplaceable. Even more importantly, Mao understood that Zhou had no desire to become the top leader of the Party and therefore he posed no threat. Zhou was not a member of the Wang Ming clique, but he had a deep relationship with the Soviet Union and the Comintern, which made him the most appropriate choice to represent Mao in contacts with Stalin. All of this led Mao to continue to appoint Zhou to important positions. However, Mao was not

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someone who easily forgot the past, and Zhou’s uniting with Wang Ming on two occasions, from 1931 to 1935 and from 1937 to 1938, to isolate Mao remained deeply etched in Mao’s memory. The refined and noble manner that Zhou exuded was likewise incompatible with Mao’s “king of the outlaws” style. This is why Mao regularly took the opportunity to cut Zhou down to size and he promoted Liu Shaoqi as the CCP’s No. 2 leader, making Liu a tool to provide a check and balance on Zhou and ensuring that Zhou could not again sideline Mao should a sudden change occur in the Party’s internal situation. Mao needed Zhou Enlai’s talent and loyalty in order to take control of China; Zhou, for his part, found through his long-term working relationship that Mao possessed the aggressiveness he lacked to be a “sovereign,” and he believed that this aggressiveness would enable Mao to unify China under his rule. For this reason, the uniquely resourceful and agile Zhou quickly adapted to cooperating with Mao. Mao held the dominant position in this relationship, and Zhou settled for the role of assistant to the sovereign. Because Mao and Zhou each valued the other’s opinion, both acted with restraint, and this allowed their cooperation to endure in spite of occasional upsets. It was only from the late 1930s to the early 1940s, when the cooperation between Mao and Zhou was first being established, that Mao still had too much unvented resentment against Zhou and therefore made a point of placing Zhou in limbo, and, as a result, it took a long time for Zhou to find a firm footing within the Party’s core leadership. For seven years, Mao single-handedly inflicted this chronic psychological abuse on Zhou until the break occasioned by the 1945 Seventh National Party Congress. At an impasse and unable to defend himself during this long period of torment, Zhou paid a heavy price for his past “failings.”

III. An Early Victory: The Enlarged Politburo Meeting of September 1941 Beginning from the Sixth Plenum, Mao sought to politically demolish the Comintern faction of Wang Ming, Bu Gu et al., with deliberate blows that split up the faction and enclosed its members in an ever-smaller circle, ultimately gaining an absolute advantage over them. After three years of meticulous plotting and painstaking preparations, Mao convened an expanded Politburo meeting in September 1941 to formally issue his challenge to Wang Ming and the others.

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Mao’s move to throw down the gauntlet to Wang Ming et al. occurred during an enlarged Politburo meeting held in Yan’an from September 10 to October 22, 1941. According to the minutes recorded by Hu Qiaomu, this meeting was “actually was held for only five days, on September 10, 11, 12, and 29, and October 22.” The participants were Politburo members Mao, Ren Bishi, Wang Ming, Bo Gu, Kang Sheng, Chen Yun, Zhang Wentian, Wang Jiaxiang, Zhu De, Deng Fa, and Kai Feng, whereas Zhou Enlai, Peng Dehuai, and Liu Shaoqi were absent. In order to ensure that he enjoyed an overwhelming advantage during the meeting, Mao authorized the attendance of his supporters, Li Fuchun, Gao Gang, Chen Boda, and Peng Zhen, as well as Yang Shangkun, Luo Mai (Li Weihan), Lin Boqu, Wang Ruofei, and Ye Jianying. Mao assigned Wang Shoudao and Hu Qiaomu the task of taking the minutes. The enlarged Politburo meeting was held under conditions of strict secrecy, and for a long time it was difficult for outsiders to gain any knowledge of its proceedings. It was not until the mid-1980s, in order to beat back an attack on Mao by Wang Ming37 that the CCP’s Party History Research Department selectively disclosed certain documents from this meeting. And it was not until the 1994 publication of Hu Qiaomu Remembers Mao Zedong that the outside world gained a rudimentary understanding of the actual circumstances of this historically celebrated meeting. The objective that Mao set for this meeting was both specific and explicit: to reinterpret CCP history from 1931 to 1935, to fundamentally delegitimize the Comintern faction, and to force Wang Ming and Bo Gu to step down. Mao delivered the keynote speech at the meeting on September 10, 1941. Using the danger posed to the Party by “subjectivism” as the breakthrough point, Mao quickly segued to the topic of the “Left deviation opportunism during the latter stage of the soviet era.” He harshly criticized the subjectivism of the period as bogus Marxism, even though it referred to itself as the “Comintern line” and it was cloaked in the garb of Marxism. Mao dismissed the Central Soviet Area’s opposition to “Deng, Mao, Xie, and Gu” as “pointing at the chicken to scold the dog,” and he said that “the later period of the soviet movement and the spirit of the Fifth Plenum ... showed more thorough Left deviation than the ‘Left deviation’ line of Li Lisan.” In order to prevent Wang Ming and the others from using Moscow as a shield, Mao pulled the rug out from under them by claiming that members of the Comintern faction were not disciples of

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Stalinist orthodoxy but rather disciples of Bukharin and Zinoviev.* Mao said one of the sources of such subjectivism was “foreign traditions and the influence of past Comintern figures such as Bukharin and Zinoviev.” Thus in one stroke Mao grouped Wang Ming and the others with the “enemies of the people” exterminated by Stalin and he labeled them “fake Marxists.” Although Mao focused his attacks on the Comintern faction, he did not forget to pull in Zhou Enlai; he criticized the Central Bureau of the Soviet Area under Zhou’s leadership, and its May 11, 1932, “Resolution on Leading and Participating in a Week-long Campaign to Oppose the Imperialist Attack on the Soviet Union and the Division of China, and to Expand the National Revolutionary War” as “a completely subjectivist thing” (at that time, Bo Gu and Zhang Wentian were still in Shanghai, and the secretary of the Central Bureau of the Soviet Area was Zhou Enlai).38 Mao’s active instigation of discussions of the Party’s historical issues in September 1941 was the result of meticulous planning and constant testing under conditions that the majority of the core leaders were unlikely to oppose. At the January 1935 Zunyi Conference, Mao was too involved in seizing military power to tangle over problems in the Party’s political line. After Mao gained a preliminary foothold in June 1937, he supported Liu Shaoqi’s challenge to Zhang Wentian to broach the subject of appraising the Party’s past political lines, and it was only the intense opposition of the majority that forced Mao to back down. Mao tried to raise discussion of the Party’s historical issues again in 1938, but he was prevented by an explicit order of the Comintern. Unwilling to give up, Mao floated another trial balloon. In his October political report “On the New Phase,” Mao intentionally used ambiguous language to avoid directly evaluating the Party’s political line from 1931 to 1935, and he even repeated the “Zunyi Conference resolution,” reaffirming that the Party’s errors corrected by the Zunyi Conference “were not actually errors in the Party’s general line but rather the execution of serious errors of principle in the battle strategy of the general line and warfare methods.” At the same time, however, Mao declared that this error had a “Left deviation opportunistic tendency,” foreshadowing his subsequent overturning of the original conclusion.

*

  TN: Zinoviev and Bukharin were both one-time allies of Stalin who ultimately took positions against him and were among the sixteen Old Bolsheviks whose show trials and executions marked the start of the Great Terror.

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Mao mounted another attack at a Politburo meeting on December 4, 1940, proposing a summary of the policy errors of the later stage of the soviet movement. Mao said the Zunyi Conference resolution required amendments: The resolution only stated that there were military errors at that time, but it did not state anything about line errors when in fact there were indeed line errors. But Mao was once again opposed by Zhang Wentian and the others and he was forced to compromise; the directive he drafted for the Central Committee on December 25 regarding the current political situation and policies did not mention the formal concept of “line errors.” More than half a year later, the situation took a major turn in Mao’s favor. With war breaking out between Germany and the Soviet Union on June 22, 1941, Mao no longer worried about his rear line. Mao’s compilation of Secret Party Documents since the Sixth National Party Congress had been distributed to all Politburo members and other leading cadres. Mao’s control over the Party organization, military, and security apparatus had become impregnable, and he no longer had to act against his convictions by echoing the general opinion. He could charge forward without looking back. Mao was a brilliant strategist; he knew very well that launching an inner-Party struggle was like going to war and it required focusing on the military tactic of taking the enemy by surprise. Mao had to have a good reason for waging battle, and even more he had to disguise his lust for power that lay behind it. At the September Politburo meeting, Mao temporarily obscured his intention of purging the Comintern faction by saying, “We need to implement educational reform and thoroughly smash the old ways ... and make the History of the CPSU the focus of our studies. ...” Among the examples of “sectarianism” that he enumerated, first and foremost was “leading cadres above all” (“in Yan’an, only leading cadres matter”) and “elbowing out non-Party cadres” (“many scientists and writers are looked down upon”). Mao was obviously crusading against the sectarianism of Wang Ming and the others, but he intentionally camouflaged it by stretching the boundaries of “sectarianism” as far as possible. Mao then announced that he wanted to “carry out a struggle against the two lines of subjectivism and sectarianism.”39 For all of Mao’s high-sounding language, everyone at the meeting knew very well what he was referring to as “subjectivism” and “sectarianism.” As Mao’s prime political opponent, Wang Ming thoroughly understood Mao’s intentions, but his lips were sealed by both himself

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and by Mao. Years earlier, Wang had criticized the “Leftist errors of the later soviet period,” and now Mao was merely reiterating his censure, so Wang had no reason whatsoever to raise any objections. Consequently, when Mao attacked the “Left deviation opportunism of the later soviet period,” Wang recognized the ill omen concealed within (in Communist argot, there was a substantive difference between a “Leftist error” and “Left deviation opportunism”), but he was helpless against it. Wang expressed his endorsement of Mao’s report and acknowledged the errors of the later soviet period as line errors. Wang said he “was in disagreement with” Bo Gu’s and Zhang Wentian’s policies in the Central Soviet Area and with the Fifth Plenum’s proposal of “a decisive battle between the two roads of the soviet and the colony.” Wang emphasized that he had opposed Bo Gu’s errors while in Moscow and that Bo should be considered “the main person responsible for the errors of the later soviet period.”40 In his remarks, Wang produced an unexpected revelation against Bo Gu: When the Provisional Politburo was established in September 1931, an agreement had been reached that since the leaders of the Provisional Central Committee, Bo Gu and Zhang Wentian, were not members of the Central Committee, they were to surrender their power in places where there were many Politburo members.41 But in fact, Bo Gu and Zhang Wentian did not formally communicate this agreement when they arrived in the Central Soviet Area. What Wang Ming said was basically factual, but he himself bore some responsibility for it because he did not send a cable from Moscow addressing the issue. Furthermore, this revelation by Wang Ming also implicated Zhou Enlai, Chen Yun, and Kang Sheng, because when the Provisional Politburo was established, Zhou Enlai was still in Shanghai, and Chen Yun and Kang Sheng were both members of the Provisional Politburo, so all of them were likely to have been aware of this matter. There is no evidence that Zhou Enlai raised this issue with Bo Gu and Zhang Wentian when they arrived in the soviet area and they merged with the Central Bureau of the Soviet Area to establish the CCP Central Bureau. Of course, Bo Gu, Zhang Wentian, and Zhou Enlai could easily defend themselves by saying that what was established in the Central Soviet Area in 1933 was merely a CCP Central Bureau, and that another CCP Central Bureau also existed in Shanghai at that time. Finally, the Politburo name-list drawn up at the Fifth Plenum of the Sixth Central Committee in January 1934 had been approved by the Comintern. With Bo Gu already in difficulties, Wang Ming’s words undoubtedly made things

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worse for him, and also further complicated the matter. Indeed, as far as Wang Ming was concerned, there was no concept of “friendship,” and he was ready to turn against others if it meant he could protect himself. Bo Gu had the status of a defendant at the meeting, and as “everyone gangs up on a man who is down,” no one extended a helping hand to him. Amidst the chorus of criticism, Bo Gu spoke up twice to criticize himself. He acknowledged that he had “absolutely no practical experience and what I learned in the Soviet Union was the philosophical dogma of Deborin.* I transported some of the dogma of Soviet socialist construction and some of the experience of the Western European parties to China.” Bo Gu also responded to Wang Ming’s “exposure” without defending himself, and he even acknowledged that the Provisional Central Committee entering the Central Soviet Area without handing over power “did indeed look suspiciously like usurping authority,” but he also felt that the Comintern and the CCP delegation in Moscow bore some responsibility for this.42 Finally, Bo Gu said he had the courage to study his past errors, and he hoped that everyone would help him gradually surmount them.43 Among all the members of the Comintern faction, Zhang Wentian’s performance at the meeting stood out. He was one of the main targets of criticism, with Mao repeatedly taking aim at him in his speech on September 10; Zhang was the weakest member of the Comintern faction, so Mao went first for the low-hanging fruit. Mao stridently attacked Zhang’s leadership of the cadre study movement as “antithetical to practical and realistic Marxism.” Mao derided Zhang by saying, “Theorists divorced from reality should be stripped of their ‘theorist’ credentials.”44 Zhang was the first to capitulate in the face of Mao’s sarcasm and mockery. Apart from expressing his endorsement of Mao’s report, he did not hesitate to criticize himself, saying, “In the past, the Comintern took a group of us cadres who had never done any practical work and promoted us to the central organs, causing a great loss to the Party’s undertaking,” which, he said, “now had to be made up for.” Zhang spoke again on September 29, and on this occasion he pulled Wang Ming down with him. Following Bo Gu’s example, Zhang acknowledged that the Provisional Central Committee’s arrival in the soviet area “did in fact have the nature of usurpation,” but he quickly emphasized that Wang Ming was also involved in this because

*

  Abram Deborin was a philosopher of the Bukharin faction.

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“the Fifth Plenum’s name-list was also authorized by the Comintern, and how could Wang Ming not have done anything about it?”45 In his remarks during that day’s meeting, Zhang changed his formerly entrenched attitude of “the central political line is correct” and declared his agreement with Mao’s appraisal of the nature of the Party line during the later soviet period, acknowledging that “the line at that time was erroneous.” He took the initiative to say, “I am one of the main people responsible and should acknowledge my errors, and I should especially take even more responsibility for publicizing erroneous policies.”46 It appears that Zhang’s confession was both sincere and forced upon him by the enormous pressure from Mao. On the one hand, during the long period he had spent working with Mao, Zhang had gained a deep understanding of Mao’s character, and he understood that once Mao took action, he would use all available means and would not give up until he had achieved his goals. On the other hand, it cannot be ruled out that Zhang’s major turn-around was closely related to his deeper understanding of Mao. Mao’s political and military skills had deeply impressed Zhang, and it could be that Zhang was convinced by Mao and that both internal and external factors eventually led him to admit defeat in the hopes of being extricated sooner rather than later. Alternative Politburo members, such as Wang Jiaxiang, Kai Feng, and Deng Fa, while knowing that Mao would sooner or later square the accounts on past issues, still could not help feeling shaken by Mao’s harsh accusations because Mao’s negation of the 1934 Fifth Plenum directly threatened their status since they had been elected at that plenum as alternative Politburo members. Among the three of them, Wang Jiaxiang had already shifted his allegiance to Mao, and because he cooperated with Mao, his negation of the “Leftist errors of the ‘triumvirate’” became the foundation for his rise in the Party ranks, with Mao’s energetic support, beginning in 1938. It was therefore impossible for Wang to become a defender of the “errors of the later soviet period.” During the September 10 session, Wang Jiaxiang criticized himself: “My practical work experience was inadequate, and furthermore, although I studied some Leninist and Stalinist theory in Moscow, I studied even more of the mechanical theories of Deborin and Bukharin. Learning those things did more harm than good.”47 Kai Feng may have been under the greatest psychological pressures of all of them during the September Politburo meeting. Recalling his

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opposition to Mao at the Zunyi Conference was enough to make Kai Feng tremble with fear. In the tense atmosphere of the meeting, Kai Feng had no choice but to criticize himself. Deng Fa was not a member of the Comintern faction nor was he one of Mao’s “close comrades-in-arms.” Having no real power at this time, he also delivered a self-criticism at the meeting. As each leader of the Comintern faction and Deng Fa carried out a self-criticism in turn, each of the other Politburo members made speeches and, in addition to endorsing Mao’s report, they took the initiative to criticize themselves. Mao had planned for this meeting not only to solve the problem presented by the Comintern faction but also to result in even those who were currently in Mao’s camp to confess their past “errors.” This was the only way to show that Mao was the only person within the CCP who was correct, and it was also the only way for Mao’s supreme status within the Party to be established. On September 12, Mao’s key ally, Ren Bishi, delivered a self-criticism acknowledging that in the past he had “opposed so-called ‘parochial empiricism’ as erroneous,” and that even though he had “absolutely no military knowledge,” he had objected to Mao’s correct stand at the Nanxiong Conference that it was acceptable to engage in a battle within the Central Soviet Area.48 On September 11 and 29, Chen Yun and Kang Sheng also delivered self-criticisms of their respective errors regarding operations in the KMT-controlled areas. Chen Yun stated that Comrade Liu Shaoqi had represented the correct line for operations in the KMTcontrolled areas during the past ten years. He said that some cadre assignments were inappropriate and that Comrade Liu Shaoqi’s status should be raised.49 As Wang Ming’s former assistant, Kang Sheng criticized Wang Ming for sharing the same thinking as Bo Gu and in particular he pointed out that Wang Ming had also committed errors after returning to China. Regarding his own errors, Kang Sheng said it now appeared that Liu Shaoqi was correct and that his previous opposition to Liu as an opportunist arose from his own subjectivity as well as from his acceptance of the Comintern’s criticism of Liu. Kang Sheng went on to say that the erroneous subjectivist line had made a mess of operations in the KMTcontrolled areas and that if at the time the Central Committee had been led by Liu Shaoqi, the situation would have been very different.50 That Chen Yun and Kang Sheng upheld Liu Shaoqi as representative of the Party’s correct line in the KMT-controlled areas presented no

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conflict with Mao’s strategic objectives. Although Mao wanted to be the one wearing the halo of “sole infallibility,” he had long planned to install Liu as the Party’s No. 2 leader. Mao was also taking into consideration CCP work in the KMT-controlled areas at this time, so he accepted the formulation that “Liu Shaoqi represented the correct line for operations in the KMT-controlled areas.” All of the leaders attending the September Politburo meeting made preliminary self-criticisms of their past errors, taking the first major step toward “political consciousness.” They seemed to need no instructions from Mao regarding the next step—almost all of them rapidly and naturally made the leap on their own, as each in turn began to extol Mao to his face. Wang Jiaxiang said, “Chairman Mao represents dialectical materialism, and Comrade Liu Shaoqi represents dialectical materialism in the White areas.”51 Chen Yun said, “Chairman Mao is the banner of the Chinese Revolution.” Luo Mai said, “Chairman Mao created the model and exemplar for Marxists.” Ye Jianying said, “Chairman Mao proceeds from practice to theory; that is what we should emulate.”52 Someone suggested to Mao, “Write more treatises to educate the entire Party.”53 Among all these words of praise for Mao, only Ren Bishi adopted a lower key: “Our Party’s Chairman Mao and Comrade Liu Shaoqi operate according to actual circumstances, so they are less prone to subjectivism.”54 The self-criticisms and declarations by the participants gave Mao the overwhelming superiority he had hoped for, but it still was not enough. Well-versed in the Communist Party’s philosophy of struggle, Mao understood that if he did not keep an eye on Wang Ming, Wang could still stir up trouble after the meeting adjourned, and it was only by setting the ringleader Wang aflame that Mao could truly cut off the route of escape for the Comintern faction. As noted earlier, Bo Gu and Zhang Wentian were the main targets of criticism at the September Politburo meeting, and there was hardly any direct mention of Wang Ming. Mao twice sought out Wang Ming during this time with the intention of persuading him to admit his “errors.”55 Mao did not explicitly mention Wang’s “errors of the later soviet period,” and he focused his criticism on Wang’s “errors” after returning to China. Mao stated there were errors in Wang’s report at the December 1937 meeting as well as in his work during the Wuhan period, and he emphasized that Wang had committed political errors of principle as well as the organizational error of asserting his independence. Mao’s conversations

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with Wang did not have the desired effect, however, and the two remained deadlocked until early October, when a fortuitous incident triggered an actual counterattack against Mao by Wang. On October 4, 1941, Mao passed Wang Ming a cable that Dimitrov had sent to the CCP Central Committee inquiring about the War of Resistance situation. Mao suggested that Wang first think things over and then they could discuss how to respond to the Comintern. In this cable, Dimitrov raised fifteen questions for the CCP to respond to, including what measures the CCP was prepared to adopt, given the German fascists’ continued assault on the Soviet Union, to attack the Japanese Army so that Japan would be unable to attack the Soviet Union on a second battlefront. Another question was what standpoint the CCP was taking regarding rallying a national United Front against Japan.56 Wang Ming regarded this cable as a gift from heaven, believing the opportunity had arrived for a counterattack. On the evening of October 7, Mao, together with Ren Bishi and Wang Jiaxiang, arrived at Wang Ming’s residence to discuss how to reply to Dimitrov’s cable. In conversation with Mao, Wang Ming gave his own views regarding the question Dimitrov had raised regarding the CCP’s United Front policy: “Our Party is isolated, fighting on two fronts against Japan and Chiang with no allies and with the KMT and CCP in opposition. Why is this? The Party’s direction is too Leftist, and so is the theory of New Democracy.” He also said, “Our Party’s golden era was the Wuhan period at the outset of the War of Resistance. The policies prior to the December 1937 Politburo meeting and after the October 1938 Sixth Plenum of the Sixth Central Committee have all been wrong.”57 At a Central Committee Secretariat work conference held at Yang jialing on October 8, Wang Ming delivered a lengthy speech elaborating on his views on the Party’s present policies. Wang focused his comments on three issues: 1.) He criticized the “excessive Leftism” and “obstruction of the United Front” due to some localized policies of the CCP (i.e., Mao). Wang said, “Elimination of local power-holders has been excessive, and measures against landlords have been too extreme,” and, “From now on, class struggle should take a new form that does not place the Party on the front line of the struggle but brings out the masses, with the Party acting as arbitrator and hence with room to maneuver.” Wang suggested that with both China and the Soviet Union facing extraordinary difficulties, the CCP should improve relations not only with the national

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bourgeoisie but also with the KMT, which he considered “both necessary and possible.” 2.) He raised objections to Mao’s “On New Democracy.”* He stated, “During the present United Front period, both the CCP and the KMT must avoid fighting on two battlefronts, and we should distinguish between fighting imperialism and fighting feudalism. Mixing them and dealing with them at the same time is inappropriate.” Wang pointed out: “New Democracy is only the objective of our struggle; the main thing now is to unite against Japan.” 3.) He refuted the accusations Mao raised against the Yangtze Bureau at the December 1937 Politburo meeting. He said that the Yangtze Bureau’s line was correct, and that there were only “errors on certain issues,” such as “an inadequate emphasis on a fighting spirit” and “the objective formation of semi-autonomy” (referring to relations with Yan’an), but he quickly emphasized, “When I was working in Wuhan, we stressed independence” (referring to relations with the KMT). 58 Wang Ming’s speech on October 8 was his last stand. The Comintern had been devastated by the ravages of Stalin’s great purge in 1938, and the execution of Wang Ming’s mentor Pavel Mif in connection with the Bukharin case had left Wang with no shelter from the storm. Out of practical considerations, the Comintern had more or less abandoned Wang Ming; Dimitrov had not been in direct contact with Wang Ming for more than three years (or there might have been contact, but Mao had withheld the cables). Studying and weighing the situation, the pitiful Wang was compelled to bow to Mao. Just as Wang Ming was enduring this enormous pressure from Mao all on his own, Dimitrov’s cable arrived like a shot of adrenaline that brought Wang back to life. Staking everything, he challenged Mao to one last fight. Mao crushed Wang’s counterattack on the spot. Responding to his criticism, Mao said, “Wang Ming thinks we are too Leftist, but on the contrary we think Wang Ming’s viewpoints are too Rightist.” He said, “Comrade Wang Ming committed many errors during the Wuhan period, and we have been waiting a long time for him to gradually understand

*

  TN: In his 1940 essay, Mao defined the current Chinese Revolution as a pre-socialist revolution of the masses against imperialism, feudalism, and bureaucratic capitalism under the leadership of the proletariat via the CCP. The “new” democracy was a CCPcontrolled democracy, as compared to the “old” and “bourgeois” democracy.

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this and until now we have not reported this to the Comintern. In a conversation with him several days ago we pointed out his errors during the Wuhan period: 1.) his appraisal of the situation was overly optimistic; 2.) in handling KMT-CCP relations, he did not maintain independence and a fighting spirit; 3.) in military strategy, he abetted opposition to the Luochuan Conference’s guiding principle of autonomous mountain guerrilla warfare; 4.) in terms of Party organization, the relationship between the Yangtze Bureau and the Central Committee was abnormal; there were often cables sent in his name to the Central Committee and the Front Line Headquarters [referring to the General Headquarters of the Eighth Route Army]. Some contained directives, and many documents were issued in the name of the Central Committee without the Central Committee’s approval. All of these things were extremely improper. Now that Comrade Wang Ming has expressed his views, everyone can discuss them.”59 Mao’s rapid counterattack effectively forestalled any further effort to reconstitute the Comintern faction. The participants at that evening’s meeting, Ren Bishi, Kang Sheng, Zhang Wentian, Chen Yun, Wang Jiaxiang, and Kai Feng, declared their stands in succession, all of them criticizing Wang Ming and endorsing Mao. Wang Jiaxiang and Ren Bishi even bore witness to critical evaluations of Wang Ming by Dimitrov and Manuilsky.* Ren recalled Dimitrov saying to him, “Wang Ming lacks work experience,” and “Wang Ming is rather shifty.” 60 Zhang Wentian interposed that China Salvation Times (the Paris-based Chinese-language magazine run by the CCP delegation to the Comintern led by Wang Ming) had publicized Wang Ming as a brilliant leader.61 When the meeting adjourned, Mao decided to suspend discussion of the errors of the later soviet period and “prepare for the Politburo to discuss the political issues Wang Ming has raised,” hoping Wang Ming would provide an explanation at the Politburo meeting for the errors of the Wuhan period and the current political problems. Mao made a point of stating, “Wang Ming’s political and organizational errors during the Wuhan period were errors of principle, not line errors.”62 Hu Qiaomu describes how, after the October 8 meeting of the

*

  TN: Dmitri Manuilsky (1883–1959) was a key Bolshevik at that time, and along with Dimitrov he was a member of the Presidium of the Comintern Executive Committee.

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Secretariat, Mao immediately wrote a “relatively detailed speech outline” in preparation for the Politburo meeting scheduled for October 12. This outline further developed the points he had raised at the October 8 meeting, holding that Wang Ming’s main errors were his compromising tendencies regarding the United Front. Among his other errors: • •

•

Regarding the Sino-Japanese War: maintaining blind optimism; Regarding military matters: prattling on about five unifications and seven unifications while opposing “autonomous guerrilla warfare”* and ignoring the Central Committee’s views on developing guerrilla warfare in the Yangtze drainage areas; Regarding relations within the Party: insisting on going to Wuhan and effectively turning the Yangtze Bureau into the Central Committee, opposing Yan’an in the name of the Secretariat, and giving orders to Yan’an and northern China; refusing to print the pamphlet “On Protracted Warfare”; being unwilling to return for the Sixth Plenum, and wanting to return to Wuhan after arriving in Xi’an, creating an “autonomous situation.”

Hu Qiaomu writes that Mao’s outline also pointed out that Wang Ming was “right in some areas,” but Hu does not specify which ones.63 Mao’s rebuttal of Wang Ming at the October 8 Secretariat work conference and the overwhelming advantage Mao gained during this meeting left Wang feeling unspeakably isolated, and he could only make a complete withdrawal. On October 12, 1941, Wang Ming declared that he was ill and could not attend the Politburo meeting. Since the scheduled meeting could not be held, Mao was unable to deliver the “outline” he had prepared (the various points in this “outline” subsequently became the final appraisal of the Yangtze Bureau in Party historiography). At a work conference of the Secretariat of the Central Committee held on the following day, Ren Bishi reported that Li Fuchun had been present at Wang Ming’s medical consultation, and the doctors had wanted Wang to rest for three months. Wang proposed that during his three-month sick leave,

*

  Referring to the policy of cooperation with the KMT proposed by Wang Ming during the December Politburo meeting and the March Politburo meeting, i.e., unified command, organization, armaments, discipline, battle plans, and battle operations.

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he would only attend Politburo meetings and not attend any Secretariat meetings (in fact, from this time onward, Wang attended neither Politburo nor Secretariat meetings). Wang also put forward two suggestions: 1.) Regarding his work during the Wuhan period, he “agreed with Chairman Mao’s October 8 conclusion”; 2.) Regarding his views on the current situation, he asked Politburo comrades to come to his home and talk with him, and then to carry out discussions in the Politburo, and he would read the minutes after he recovered.64 For a long time, Party historiography attributed Wang Ming’s absence from the Politburo meetings to “malingering.”65 In Wang Ming’s book Fifty Years of the CCP, published thirty years later, Wang writes that he suffered gastric bleeding on October 8, and that on October 9, Mao sent his private secretary, Ye Zilong, to “pull him out of his sickbed to attend a meeting.”* Beginning on October 10, Wang was too sick to leave his bed. Li Fuchun took him to Yan’an’s Central Hospital on October 14. Wang writes that Mao “forcibly” admitted him to the hospital for treatment in order to “get rid” of him.66 Wang Ming’s request for sick leave removed Mao’s greatest stumbling block. At the Secretariat work conference on October 13, Mao expressed a more moderate attitude toward Wang’s performance. He asked Ren Bishi to tell Wang that “his work during the Wuhan period followed the correct line. There were some errors on certain issues; these are our views, and if he has other views, we can talk about them after he recovers.”67 Yet, on that same day, Mao reversed his previous decision to discontinue discussion of the “errors of the later soviet period” and he resumed discussion of historical issues. Mao said the main person responsible for the errors of the later soviet period was Comrade Bo Gu, with Zhang Wentian committing second-class errors. Wang Ming nominally corrected the Lisan Line during the Fourth Plenum, but subsequently failed to surmount the Lisan Line in actual operations.68 The meeting finally decided to establish a “Committee

*

  According to Party history materials, such as Chronology of Mao Zedong, consulted by this author, neither the Politburo nor the Secretariat convened a meeting on October 9. The truthfulness of Wang Ming’s account cannot be ruled out, however, because the Chronology of Mao Zedong is selective. For example, Mao’s speech at the Politburo meeting on October 22, 1941, is not recorded in the Chronology, and the heading is empty for that date.

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to Square the Accounts of History,” comprised of Ren Bishi, Kang Sheng, Wang Jiaxiang, Peng Zhen, and headed by Mao, once again shifting the attention of the Party’s top leaders to past issues.69 The task of this committee was not complicated: It was to rewrite the history of the CCP in accordance with Mao’s intentions. Of course, Mao knew the significance of this work; without needing anyone’s help, he set about single-handedly establishing a framework for rewriting Party history. Historical materials that have come to light in recent years show that during this period Mao wrote two systematic criticisms of “Left deviation”: One, referred to as the “Nine Essays,” totaled more than 50,000 words, but to date it has not been published in its entirety; the other was the nearly 20,000-word “Draft Summary of Problems with the Central Committee’s Leadership Line Since the Fourth Plenum,” which served as the conclusion for the September Politburo meeting. The “Nine Essays” was Mao’s critique of nine documents issued by the CCP Central Committee from September 1931 to May 1932. It used sneering invective to harshly censure Bo Gu, Zhang Wentian, Zhou Enlai, and other Party leaders at that time. The initial title was “Regarding Major Documents Relating to the Bo Gu Line,” but it was later changed to “Regarding Some Major Documents Relating to the Left Deviation Opportunistic Line,” and then the title was changed again to “A Critique of the Central Committee Line from September 1931 to January 1935.”70 Hu Qiaomu, who read the “Nine Essays,” commented that “its wording was pungent, caustic, even somewhat sarcastic”; it was a “product of wrath” and “a venting of long pent-up feelings, with a considerable amount of excessively biting language.”71 In the “Nine Essays,” Mao stated some important viewpoints, such as that the Provisional Central Committee established in autumn 1931 was illegal and that Liu Shaoqi was the “proper leader” of operations in the KMT-controlled areas; the essay frequently cited Liu’s opinions. After completing the essay, Mao only sent it to his closest intimates at that time, Liu Shaoqi and Ren Bishi, and he did not circulate it among other leaders.72 This can be considered Mao “laying down the line” for Liu and Ren. As Mao’s secretary, Hu Qiaomu was “an exception” in having read the nine essays.73 The “Nine Essays” was discovered in Beijing’s Central Archives in the spring of 1964. Mao circulated the very aggressive manuscript to Liu Shaoqi, Zhou Enlai, Deng Xiaoping, Peng Zhen, Kang Sheng, Chen Boda, and Chen Yi, together with a memo, “Please give your opinions in

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preparation for revision.” Mao also circulated the document to Xie Fuzhi, Li Jingquan, and Tao Zhu on January 2, 1965, asking for their opinions to facilitate his “revision.” In the memo included with the January 2 circulation, Mao wrote that he would edit out Zhou Enlai’s name “because the Premier has always been much more right than wrong.” Mao said, “This IVessay was not published before and is not suitable for publication now; whether it should be published in the future (decades later) will be left for future comrades to decide.”74 After revising the “Nine Essays,” on May 12, 1965, Mao changed the title to “Refuting the Third Left Deviation Line (Critique of the Central Line from September 1931 to January 1935),” with “some additional content.” Hu Qiaomu discloses that Mao’s 1965 revision retained its “aggressiveness and braggadocio.” At this time, Mao suddenly changed his mind and prepared to publish the essay. He explained, “With the passage of time, the factor of the excessively sharp tone being detrimental to unity no longer exists; reading this essay will not put cadres into a towering rage and make them forbid comrades from correcting their errors and thereby sabotage the Party’s policies of ‘learning from past mistakes and curing the ill.’”75 Yet, a short time later, Mao changed his mind once again and gave up the idea of making the essay public—probably because in spring 1965 Mao was already fomenting the Cultural Revolution and was unwilling to burnish Liu Shaoqi’s image with this essay. Mao pulled out the “Nine Essays” again in June 1974 and excised content praising Liu Shaoqi, “planning to print it and distribute it to Central Committee members, but finally only giving it to some Politburo members.”76 This was when Mao was once again unhappy with Zhou Enlai and was targeting him with a campaign to “criticize Lin Biao and Confucius.” Mao apparently intended to use this essay as ammunition against Zhou. One month before his death, in August 1976, Mao’s interest in this essay was revived once again, and he “asked someone to read it to him.”77 By this time, Liu Shaoqi, Zhou Enlai, Wang Ming, Zheng Wentian, and Peng Dehuai were no longer alive, and Deng Xiaoping had once again been unseated by Mao. Mao’s “enemies” had all been eradicated and his renewed interest in this essay in the twilight of his life may have stemmed from his particular love for his most heartfelt works, but he no longer considered publishing it. Unlike the “Nine Essays,” Mao’s “Draft Summary” had a more formal writing style and a stronger theoretical tone. The gist of the “Draft Summary” was to explicitly designate the three years and four

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months between the “September 18 Incident” (the Manchurian Incident of 1931) and the Zunyi Conference as the period during which the Central Committee was dominated by a “Left Deviation Line.” This was a change from Mao’s December 1940 designation of the Fifth Plenum of the Sixth Central Committee in 1934 as the starting point of the “Leftist error of the later soviet period.” With this unusual modification, Mao was able to hang Wang Ming on the hook of that “Leftist error,” and while writing the “Draft Summary,” he revised it to include Wang Ming’s name instead of only Bo Gu’s name. Mao wrote: The line led by Comrade Wang Ming and Comrade Bo Gu committed serious errors of principle in regard to ideology, politics, the military, and the Party organization. The great achievement of drawing together every kind of error made it the most complete form of an erroneous line.78 Mao conducted a detailed analysis of this “erroneous line” and the enormous danger it presented to the Communist Revolution in terms of ideology, politics, the military, and the Party organization. In particular, he pointed out that before the Long March, the central leadership had become a “triumvirate” and a dictatorship under a foreign consultant, depriving Politburo members of the right to participate in military and state affairs and even largely suspending the work of the Politburo. One of the most “insidious manifestations” of this “erroneous line” was its “willful constraint of Comrade Liu Shaoqi (a very good and very experienced leader of the masses as well as a Politburo member) and its promotion of two new Party members (Bo Gu and Zhang Wentian).”79 Another conspicuous feature of the “Draft Summary” was its appraisal of the Fourth Plenum of the Sixth Central Committee. Unlike traditional Party historiography, Mao’s “Draft Summary” does not refer to the Fourth Plenum as “the starting point of a Left deviation opportunistic line”; rather, Mao writes: After collecting detailed material and carrying out detailed discussions, the Central Committee Politburo unanimously held that during the Fourth Plenum and the period following it, the Central Committee’s leadership line, while having some flaws and errors, was basically correct.80

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In the “Draft Summary,” Mao enumerated the “successes of the Fourth Plenum.” The plenum “opposed the erroneous Li Lisan Line and Luo Zhanglong’s anti-Party activities,” restored the Comintern’s confidence in the CCP, renounced plans for urban insurrections and attacks on major cities, resolved the controversy over the Futian Incident, and contributed to smashing the second and third “encirclements.” Mao pointed out that all these deserved affirmation because “they are the main and fundamental aspects of the Fourth Plenum.”81 Why did Mao affirm the Fourth Plenum, which he subsequently so vehemently condemned? A combination of two factors suggests the following conclusions. First of all, the Central Committee delegation that the Fourth Plenum sent to Jiangxi gave its full support to Mao during the period from April to October 1931. Following Xiang Ying’s reversal of the verdict on the Futian Incident, it was with the full support of the Central Committee and Ren Bishi that it was once again designated a counterrevolutionary incident, and this was a major boost to Mao’s credibility. Second, several Politburo members most closely aligned with Mao, such as Ren Bishi and Liu Shaoqi, were elected during the Fourth Plenum (Ren as a Politburo member and Liu as an alternate Politburo member), and Chen Yun and Kang Sheng were elected to the Central Committee during the Fourth Plenum. Negating the Fourth Plenum would inevitably affect them and might be detrimental to Ren and Liu’s cooperation with Mao. Whether or not Mao took the Comintern factor into account is immaterial. The Fourth and Fifth Plenums were both convened with the approval of the Comintern, and since Mao was able to negate the Fifth Plenum, there was no reason for him to worry that negating the Fourth Plenum would incur the Comintern’s displeasure. Yet ultimately, it would be necessary for Mao to thoroughly negate the Fourth Plenum in order to strip the cloak of “legitimacy” from Wang Ming and the rest of the Comintern faction. When he should go public with this depended on changes in the situation within the Party, especially on further shifts in the attitudes of the majority of Politburo members. Now Mao’s old opponent Xiang Ying was dead, and as long as Ren Bishi cooperated, no one would dare to implicate Mao in the past campaign to eliminate Jiangxi’s “AB League,” while Mao could accuse Wang Ming and Bo Gu of “enlarging the campaign to eliminate counterrevolutionaries.”

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The time was not yet ripe, however, and Mao would have to keep waiting. Although Mao did not thoroughly negate the Fourth Plenum at the September 1941 Politburo meeting, some of his most important objectives were realized. Mao demolished Wang Ming and the Comintern faction with one fell swoop and he was now in full control of the Politburo and the Secretariat of the Central Committee. Mao also succeeded in laying the foundation for rewriting the history of the CCP. In autumn 1941, at Mao’s suggestion, the Politburo announced the establishment of several organs: the “Central Inspection Commission for Party and NonParty Cadres,” headed by Kang Sheng, the “Central High-Level Study Group,” led by Mao, and the “Committee to Reexamine Wrongfully Attacked Cadres,” headed by Chen Yun, with the latter two organizations established on September 26. The first two of these organizations became Mao’s most critical tools to lead the Rectification Movement. The outcome of the September 1941 Politburo meeting revealed that the Comintern had basically lost control of the CCP, and the Comintern faction that had once played such a major role in the political life of the CCP had disintegrated. Wang Ming effectively withdrew from the core leadership of the Party and he never again played any role in major Party policies. Mao’s next step was to advance on the crest of victory by completely eliminating the influence of Wang Ming and the rest of the Comintern faction, thoroughly discrediting Wang and Bo Gu and utterly transforming the CCP.

8. The Revolution Shifts Downward: The Launch of the Full-scale Rectification Movement

I. Mobilizing a “Revolution of Thought”: What Did Mao Really Want? After Mao achieved his decisive victory over Wang Ming at the enlarged Politburo meeting in September 1941, he proceeded with a series of key measures at the Central Committee level to extend his success, while at the same time beginning to adjust his strategy and actively prepare to bring the revolution against Wang Ming and Bo Gu down to the mid- and lower levels of the Party. After months of preparation, Mao officially mounted the stage. At the opening ceremony of Yan’an’s Central Party School on February 1, 1942, Mao delivered a speech mobilizing the entire Party in a campaign to “Rectify the Styles of Our Party, Study, and Writing” (with the title in Selected Works of Mao Zedong as “Rectify the Party’s Style of Work”). Mao then delivered two speeches on “Opposing Party Boilerplate” at a conference of cadres of the Propaganda Department of the Central Committee on February 8 and 9. Thereafter, he personally oversaw and formulated several Central Committee resolutions on rectification study; these were issued in the name of the Central Propaganda Department on April 3 as the “Decisions Regarding the Yan’an Discussion on the Central Committee Resolutions and Comrade Mao Zedong’s Remarks on the Rectification of the Three Work Styles,” which formally called upon the entire Party to engage in a “revolution of thought.” Neither the speeches Mao delivered in February nor the decisions he drafted on mobilizing the Rectification Movement directly named Wang Ming or Bo Gu; they only called for opposing “subjectivism” and

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“dogmatism.” In his speech “Reform Our Study,” delivered a year earlier in May 1941 in the presence of Wang Ming and the others, Mao had angrily derided the Soviet faction as gramophones for “Hellenization,” and he had accused them of using dogmatism to poison young minds, “teaching kids of 17 or 18 to gnaw on Das Kapital or Against Dühring.”* 1 Now Mao’s speeches on the Three Rectifications and Opposing Party Boilerplate delivered to Party intellectuals chilling irony and burning satire. He enumerated the Eight Cardinal Sins of worshipping Russia in Party literary and propaganda styles, and even belittled the Soviet faction as “more idiotic than pigs”: They do not know how to till the fields, practice a trade, fight a battle, or manage affairs ... all you need is to read 3,000 to 5,000 characters and learn some foreign words and walk around with a book in your hand, and others will feed you millet, and you can sit over your book with your head bobbing complacently. The book cannot walk away, and you can open and close it as you wish. This is the easiest thing in the world, much easier than a cook laboring over his pots, not to mention killing a pig. When you want to kill a pig, the pig runs away, and when you kill it, it squeals. You put your book on the table and it will not run off or scream, and you can do what you like with it. ... Those who treat Marxism as religious dogma are such a kind of childishly ignorant people. These people need to be told truthfully, “Your dogma is useless,” or to put it more crudely, “It isn’t worth shit.” We can see that dog shit can be used as fertilizer, and human shit can be used to feed a dog, but dogma cannot fertilize a field or fatten up a dog, so what use is it?2 These remarks by Mao, resembling the satirical Qing novel What Source?† fully reveal Mao’s characteristic sarcasm and uninhibited hauteur. *

  In his May 1941 speech “Reform our Study,” Mao stated that “teaching kids of 17 or 18 to gnaw on Das Kapital or Against Dühring” was among the worst manifestations of dogmatism. This famous saying spread throughout Yan’an, and no one any longer dared to study classic works, such as Das Kapital. Beginning in 1949, this sentence was deleted from the Selected Works of Mao Zedong. †   Translators’ Note (cited hereafter as TN): A nineteenth-century satire by Zhang Nanzhuang. The title pokes fun at pedantic quotations and allusions in formal literary writing.

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By mounting the stage and delivering a speech targeting “dogma worth less than dog shit,” Mao demonstrated his determination to launch an all-out Rectification Movement, and his imperial edict to the entire Party made him the supreme leader of this movement. Mao had already been generally acknowledged as the Party leader for quite some time, and he was accustomed to this role. He had no interest in face-to-face contact with ordinary Party members as he had in 1936‒38; now was the time for “establishing court rites.” Mao had to select a spokesperson who would demonstrate Mao’s majesty and mystery by communicating to all Party organs and schools in Yan’an the directives Mao wanted to be publicized. The man Mao selected as this spokesperson was Kang Sheng. Kang Sheng transmitted Mao’s remarks on the Three Rectifications to more than 2,200 cadres in Yan’an’s Eighth Route Army Auditorium on February 21, 1942. Furthermore, Kang gave a “profound and vivid description” of theorists and intellectuals, saying, “At present, so-called intellectuals are in fact the most ignorant; workers and peasants, on the other hand, have a little knowledge.”3 On March 7, at the same venue, Kang Sheng delivered Mao’s “Opposing Party Boilerplate” to more than 3,000 cadres, and then on April 18 he delivered a lengthy mobilization speech to cadres in organs under the direct jurisdiction of the Central Committee and the Central Military Commission (CMC). At these mass lectures, Kang Sheng vigorously played up Mao’s criticism of dogma and taunting of intellectuals, and Mao’s new concept of intellectuals “actually being the most ignorant” spread rapidly among Yan’an’s 20,000 cadres. The question is why Mao chose Wang Ming’s one-time deputy Kang Sheng, over Ren Bishi or some other ally, as his personal spokesperson. Mao valued Kang Sheng’s absolute submission and the deterrent effect of his diabolical image. Kang Sheng had dared to turn against Wang Ming at the earliest opportunity without leaving him any possibility of retreat; such was the trust that Kang placed in Mao. Kang also shared more affinities with Mao than Mao’s other allies. Mao was not altogether optimistic regarding the likelihood of transforming the thinking of all Party cadres and he wanted to use Kang’s special abilities to facilitate such a transformation. The coercive power of Kang Sheng’s name would enhance perception and awareness of Mao’s power and prestige during the ideological remolding of Yan’an’s cadres. As a “campaign for study and education in Marxism,” the Rectification Movement should have been led by the Propaganda Department of the Central Committee as part of its responsibility for the Party’s cultural

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and propaganda work. Yet as the “base camp of dogma,” the Propaganda Department was itself a key target of the movement. The latter stage of the September 1941 Politburo meeting had decided to set up an Education Committee headed by Zhang Wentian, director of the Propaganda Department, to take responsibility for reforming the education of Party cadres. But Zhang Wentian was very tactful and effectively left the core leadership after the Politburo meeting, so this Education Committee withered away without ever having done anything. In order to “avoid obstructing Chairman Mao’s guiding principles for the Rectification Movement,” Zhang went into self-imposed exile: On January 26, 1942, he led a “Yan’an Rural Work Investigation Team” to the villages of northern Shaanxi and northwestern Shanxi, and subsequently his position in the Propaganda Department was filled by another member of the Comintern faction, alternate Politburo member Kai Feng. Kai Feng seemed to have forgotten that he too had been a target of the Rectification Movement, as evidenced by his essay “How to Smash Dogmatic Learning,” published in Liberation Daily. In this brief essay that repeatedly mentioned “Comrade Mao Zedong” and “Chairman Mao,” Kai Feng coached his Yan’an readers that “in the past, our study methods were too deeply influenced by dogmatism and by a way of thinking entrenched in formal logic.” Kai Feng attempted to win Mao’s trust with his “strenuous efforts” and by staying in “lockstep,” and in that way preserving his position in the ranks of the revolutionary leaders.4 In spite of Kai Feng’s efforts to publicize Mao’s rectification directives and his self-flagellating criticism of the Propaganda Department for failing to make implementation of Mao’s rectification speeches the core mission of current propaganda and education work,5 Mao soon sent his personal secretary, Hu Qiaomu,6 who was not even a member of the Central Committee, much less a Politburo member, to “temporarily” relieve Kai Feng.* In this way, Mao was able to reorganize *

  Kai Feng was very active at the outset of the Rectification Movement in the first half of 1942; he was even the main organizer of the Yan’an Forum on Literature and Art in May. But rather than give Kai Feng a free hand to rectify the literary and arts community, Mao personally took control of that task and designated Hu Qiaomu as his assistant. At the inaugural meeting of the Central Committee General Study Committee (CCGSC) on June 2, Mao announced, “Because Comrade Kai Feng is very busy with his work, Kang Sheng will take over responsibility for the editorial board of the CCGSC publication Study.” Not long thereafter Mao ordered Hu Qiaomu to formally replace Kai Feng as acting director of the Central Committee Propaganda Department.

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the Propaganda Department of the Central Committee and bring it under his full personal control. As winter turned to spring in 1942, a dense fog shrouded Yan’an, and most mid- and lower-level cadres had no idea about the actual intention of the Rectification Movement that was developing before their eyes, and they believed that it was a new phase in the “Study Movement” of 1939‒40. After hearing the speeches delivered by Kang Sheng, all Yan’an’s Party organs and schools set up rectification leadership organs and basically suspended everyday operations. Long accustomed to complying with directions from above, the cadres enthusiastically followed instructions to formulate study plans for each person to engage in intensive readings of the assigned materials night and day. For a period of time, Yan’an seemed to replicate the scenario several years earlier of an enormous school for the study of Marxist-Leninist theory. Why did Mao pull in so many people and bring the revolution to the middle and lower levels of the Party? If all he cared about was seizing the position as the Party’s supreme leader, he had basically achieved that goal during the Sixth Plenum in 1938 and he had gained complete control of the Politburo at the September 1941 Politburo meeting. What need was there to forcibly pull ordinary Party members with no knowledge of upper-level power struggles into the contention that had become manifest at the upper levels? Was there any logical foothold for choosing the most arduous stage of the War of Resistance to suspend routine operations in Yan’an and to shift everyone into political study mode? No one outside of the Party’s core leadership, from the majority of leaders in the base areas to the mid- and lower-level cadres in Yan’an, had any idea what potion was brewing in Mao’s calabash. However, Mao was not worried about them being unable to keep up with him for the time being; as the revolution’s grand strategist, Mao knew what course the movement would take, and all he needed was for cadres at various levels to go along with his thinking and follow in his footsteps. Mao’s fundamental objective in bringing the upper-level revolution to the middle and lower levels was to destroy the foundation that Wang Ming and the others enjoyed in the Party, and, through a Party-wide purge of the Russified Marxism-Leninism of Wang Ming and the others, to establish the exalted status of his own “new interpretation.” For years, Wang Ming had established widespread influence in the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) as the Chinese representative of Russian-style communism,

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with the Stalinist banner as his mantle. A major characteristic of this brand of communism was a pervasive atmosphere within the Party of indiscriminately emulating the classics of Marxism and Leninism and blindly worshipping the Soviet Union. In this atmosphere, Wang Ming and his cohorts were like fish in water, not only winning the cooperation and support of the veteran cadre faction represented by Zhou Enlai but, in Wang Ming’s case, also the esteem of the entire Party. Although Wang Ming had now withdrawn from the core leadership, he had yet to formally surrender. If Mao did not take this opportunity to smash the Party’s entrenched Soviet-worshipping complex and eradicate the roots that Russified Marxism-Leninism had planted in China by thoroughly discrediting Wang Ming and the others, the danger would remain that the slightest sign of trouble might allow Wang Ming to wield the Soviet Union’s support to stage a comeback in the Party’s leadership and to be embraced by the entire Party. At the same time, Mao wanted to use his “new interpretation” to fill the ideological vacuum left by Wang Ming’s departure, and then to use his own thinking to thoroughly remold the CCP and transform the worship previously directed to Wang Ming into worship of himself and his thinking. This transformation process could not be accomplished within a short period of time, however; it would require centralizing the Party for a considerable length of time in order to carry out an ideological remolding project to eliminate the old to make way for the new. It is nevertheless possible that Mao purposely exaggerated the actual influence of Wang Ming and the others in the Party. The truth is that Wang Ming’s influence was largely concentrated in the upper levels of the Party and among the intellectuals, and he had almost no influence in the military or among mid- and lower-level cadres. Whether during the Red Army period or during the War of Resistance, the principal body of the Party was the armed forces, and Red Army officers and men knew only of Zhu De and Mao and they knew nothing of Wang Ming and Bo Gu.* 7 Although it is true that an atmosphere of Soviet-worship existed in the Communist Army in the 1930s and the early 1940s and that military

*

  During the Ruijin period, Luo Ruiqing, who served as head of the Political Security Bureau of the First Red Army Group, was a mid-level military cadre, but he had never heard of Wang Ming.

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cadres who had studied in the Soviet Union were highly esteemed for a period of time, there was a high rate of illiteracy in the military, even among officers, and some Party cadres had “never even heard of MarxismLeninism.”8 Although the CCP had provided a small number of senior military and Party cadres with short periods of basic education in Marxism and Leninism, the emphasis was on “quality over quantity,” and cadres learned just a smattering of these teachings, certainly not enough to amount to “dogmatism.” Clearly it was not the tradition of dogmatism that occupied a dominant position in the Party or the military, but rather experience—the tradition of pragmatism. Mao had a deeper purpose in mind in insisting on a Rectification Movement against dogmatism within a Party and military basically comprised of peasants, and its results were predictable. Besmirching military and Party cadres who had studied in the Soviet Union could serve as a channel to vent Mao’s fury for a time, but the serious consequences in terms of enhancing a mood of disdaining theory and despising intellectuals became deeply rooted in Party theory and practice. Mao’s actions were not a matter of creating trouble out of nothing or making a mountain out of a molehill but they were in fact a major strategy resulting from careful consideration. In 1941 and 1942, all of Mao’s excitement centered on one matter, which was how to construct a new Party tradition with his own thinking at its core and then to infuse it into the Party organism. In this sense, the Rectification Movement was actually a revolution against the classics of Marxism and Leninism. Using the two wings of acculturation and coercion and the basic method of simplified interpretations of Russianstyle Marxism-Leninism, it took the core content of Stalinism and Mao’s theoretical innovations and blended them with the moral self-cultivation of the Chinese Confucian tradition to form the fundamental principles of Mao’s revolution of thought. Mao’s revolution of thought included four major principles: 1.) Establishing a standpoint of “practicality first,” it firmly cast aside all theory with no direct role in the actual objectives of the revolution and it dismissed as “dogma” all Marxist and Leninist classics that did not facilitate the CCP’s seizure of state power. Thoroughly eradicating blind faith in the Marxist-Leninist classics, it focused its attacks on the Party tradition of venerating these classics and the vehicles of that tradition— specifically, Party intellectuals who had studied in the Soviet Union and those who had been educated abroad or through “standard” education

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within China. Ultimately, under Mao’s careful guidance a new prevailing fashion was formed within the Party: Being well-read was wrong-headed, and ignorance of the classics was commendable. 2.) Vigorously purg ing the influence of “May Fourth”‒style notions of freedom, democracy, and individual liberation among Party intellectuals, it established a new concept of “the leader and the collective above all, and the individual as negligible.” In order to focus attacks on Russian-style Marxism-Leninism, for a brief time Mao drew on the support of the liberal intellectuals in the Party to encircle and suppress the Soviet faction, but once he was through using them, Mao immediately reinstated the disarmed Comintern faction members to join with him in suppressing the remnants of the “May Fourth” influence in the Party. 3.) It systematically theorized the concept of “peasants as the principal force of the Chinese Revolution” and weaved it through all of the Party’s ideological activities. 4.) Merging the Song-Ming Neo-Confucian concept of applying force internally with the Communist Party’s theory of inner-Party struggle, it employed ideological persuasion and coercion to forge an ideal Communist “New Man” who combined loyalty and obedience with a fighting spirit, and on this foundation it built the basic form for the construction of Party ideology and organization. Mao’s revolution of thought contained both old and original elements, combining Leninism, Stalinism, and Chinese tradition. Beginning in 1942, Mao became proficient in alternating the use of education and the use of coercion so that the four principles of his revolution of thought would penetrate the entire process of the Rectification Movement. As the Rectification Movement progressed, Mao’s “new interpretation” rapidly replaced the Russian-style “old adages” to become the new CCP tradition.

II. Freezing Out the Politburo: Establishment of the Central Committee General Study Committee After the September 1941 Politburo meeting, the Central High-Level Study Group that Mao had called for gradually became Yan’an’s most powerful organization; the study group quickly took over many of the functions of the Politburo and the Secretariat of the Central Committee. Only several members of the Politburo and the Secretariat routinely appeared in public

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in Yan’an, including Mao, Kang Sheng, Ren Bishi, and Chen Yun. Others were either hospitalized (Wang Ming) or took the initiative to resign and quietly depart for the countryside (Zhang Wentian). After a period of activity at the outset of the Rectification Movement, Wang Jiaxiang and Kai Feng also quickly became silent and faded into the woodwork. Bo Gu and Deng Fa became “problematic people.” Zhou Enlai, far away in Chongqing, and Peng Dehuai, holding fast at the Eighth Route Army’s Taihang Mountain Headquarters, were not affected for the time being, but for several months they remained almost totally ignorant of the changes occurring in Yan’an’s top leadership until Mao sent a cable to Zhou on February 21, 1942, briefing him on the gist of the conclusions reached in discussions of the Party’s political line during the September 1941 Politburo meeting.9 Among the Politburo members based outside of Yan’an, probably only Liu Shaoqi was fully apprised of the changes taking place in Yan’an, and he kept pace with Yan’an by also arranging a Rectification Movement in Yancheng in northern Jiangsu Province. With the Politburo and the Secretariat effectively existing in name only, Mao created the Central Committee General Study Committee (CCGSC) to serve as the provisional supreme power organ for the Rectification Movement under his leadership as well as for the rest of the work of the Party. The CCGSC was established on June 2, 1942, with Mao as chairman and Kang Sheng as vice chairman. The CCGSC set up a Secretariat, with Kang Sheng as secretary general and Li Fuchun as his deputy. The CCGSC had jurisdiction over five branch study committees: •

•

• • •

The Central Committee Apparatus (organs under the direct jurisdiction of the Central Committee Branch Study Committee, led by Kang Sheng and Li Fuchun; The CMC Apparatus (organs under the direct jurisdiction of the CMC Branch Study Committee), led by Chen Yun and Wang Jiaxiang; The Shaan-Gan-Ning Border Area Branch Study Committee, led by Ren Bishi and Gao Gang; The Central Committee Cultural Committee Branch Study Committee, led by Zhou Yang; The Central Party School Branch Study Committee, led by Peng Zhen.

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The establishment of the CCGSC represented a further shift in power following the establishment of the Central High-Level Study Group. The CCGSC had all of the characteristics of a supreme organ of power: Its Secretariat was Mao’s Administrative Office, like the Qing Ministry of Defense at the time of the Manchu court, and many of the functions of the Politburo and the Secretariat were taken over by the CCGSC, even though the former were not officially disbanded. Under Mao’s control, the CCGSC had sweeping powers. It had the power to establish organs, and beginning in 1942 it established Party Standing Committees in all of Yan’an’s branch study committees. The CCGSC was also empowered to issue orders to Yan’an and other base areas to suspend political and operational work and instead to study the rectification documents. The CCGSC had the power to decide upon who could be members of high-level study groups in the various localities and it could differentiate between which cadres could or could not become members. The inspection teams and inspection officers dispatched by the CCGSC enjoyed considerable authority and could go to any major organ or school to inspect the progress of the campaign and listen to reports by the leaders of the various work-units. The CCGSC convened three meetings during the first two weeks of June 1942; the key measures decided at these meetings indicate the principal role that the CCGSC played in the Rectification Movement and the strategy Mao used in leading the campaign: 1.) Arranging for selective reviews of the rectification notebooks of senior cadres: From March to April 1942, Mao personally selected twenty-two documents that cadres were required to read, and he ordered that all cadres participating in high-level study groups must follow the spirit of these documents by keeping rectification notes that incorporated their personal thinking and their past experiences. At its first meeting on June 2, the CCGSC decided that it was authorized to collect and read the notebooks kept by all senior cadres taking part in the Central High-Level Study Group, and Kang Sheng drafted the list of personnel whose notebooks would be read first.10 At its second meeting on June 7, the CCGSC announced who would be responsible for inspecting the notebooks and the scope of their duties:

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•

• • • •

The four schools and the Yan’an branch of the All-China Literary Resistance Association—Kai Feng, Hu Qiaomu, and Jiang Nanxiang* The Party School—Mao and Peng Zhen The CMC—Wang Jiaxiang, Chen Yun, and Chen Zijian Central Committee organs—Kang Sheng, Li Fuchun, Yang Shangkun, Chen Zenggu, and Cao Yi’ou The Border Region apparatus—Ren Bishi, Kang Sheng, Shi Zhe, and Liao Luyan11

This name-list indicates how keen Mao was to understand the actual attitudes of senior cadres toward the Rectification Movement that he had launched. Mao was particularly concerned about the thinking of students at the Central Party School. This is because beginning in 1941 a large number of senior cadres from Yan’an and elsewhere had been sent to the Central Party School for training, making the school a collection point for high-level cadres, and Mao urgently hoped to gain access to their “living thoughts.” 2.) Using blending and comingling to isolate members of the Comintern faction from among the Central High-level Study Group’s ten sub-groups: Most members of the Comintern faction were key cadres, and some were even members of the Politburo or the Central Committee; whether in terms of their qualifications or the objectives of the campaign, they should have been included in the Central High-level Study Group. In order to guard against these “problematic individuals” “ganging together” in the Central High-level Study Group, Mao made careful organizational arrangements. The CCGSC scattered members of the Comintern faction among different sub-groups, many of which had relatively low-level cadres from Mao’s camp serving as deputy heads to monitor the proceedings and to prevent undesirable outcomes. On June 7, 1942, the CCGSC announced the reorganization of the Central High-level Study Group into ten subgroups with the following heads and deputy heads:12

*

  The “four schools” refer to the Lu Xun Institute and other non-Party Schools.

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Sub-group No. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10

Head Mao Zedong Zhu De Ren Bishi Wang Jiaxiang Kai Feng Chen Yun Bo Gu Deng Fa Li Fuchun Kang Sheng

Deputy Heads Gao Gang, Xie Juezai Peng Zhen, Wu Yuzhang Yang Shangkun, Xu Teli He Long, Tao Zhu Lin Boqu, Fang Qiang Luo Mai, Cai Chang Xu Xiangqian, Lu Dingyi Chen Zhengren, Shi Zhe Ye Jianying, Hu Qiaomu Tan Zheng, Xiao Jinguang

With the exception of Li Fuchun, the heads of all ten sub-groups were Politburo members, but there were several sub-groups in which the deputy heads who were not Politburo members had more authority than the heads. For example, Bo Gu was head of Sub-group 7, but in actual practice the sub-group was led by Mao’s ally Lu Dingyi. Deng Fa’s situation in Sub-group 8 was similar, given that deputy head Chen Zhengren was Mao’s former subordinate from the Jiangxi era and that Mao enhanced Chen’s power by appointing Shi Zhe, the Central Committee Social Department staff person, as the other deputy head. Mao was not entirely at ease even with the noble and revered Zhu De, and although he did not vigorously attack him, he considered him “unstable” and therefore appointed the more trustworthy Peng Zhen as deputy head. 3.) “Luring the snake from its den,” feeling out and ranking: After Mao’s rectification remarks were transmitted, all of Yan’an’s bureaucratic organs and schools put up wall newspapers and bulletin boards criticizing the Three Styles (of Party work, study, and writing), and several of the wall newspapers and bulletin boards contained sharp comments that shook Yan’an society. In order to “collect more material,” the second meeting of the CCGSC, held on June 7, 1942, arranged for a further “airing of views”: “Leaders must be adept at encouraging everyone to speak out and must keep the debate going so people will reveal their thinking and then calmly draw conclusions.”13 The CCGSC’s third meeting on June 15 made more concrete demands: In order to develop debate on ideology and work, all organs and schools that have produced wall newspapers should publish all the

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articles, whether positive or negative, accurate or inaccurate, and should not impose restrictions.14 The CCGSC closely monitored the rectification progress in all of Yan’an’s work-units and energetically guided the rectification along the lines planned by Mao. The CCGSC required branch study committees to “feel out and rank” people and to “intensify rectification as necessary” in all subordinate work-units. As for “which organs or schools deserved special attention, leave this for comrades of the CCGSC and branch study committees to settle through discussion.”15 The CCGSC was Mao’s most important mechanism to lead the Rectification Movement, and its status and function resembled the Central Cultural Revolution Small Group during the Cultural Revolution more than twenty years later. Mao was commander of the CCGSC and the decision-maker for all major policy decisions. The CCGSC operated under Mao’s direct orders and was answerable only to him. Kang Sheng was the second most powerful person within the CCGSC and, as vice chair and secretary general, he followed Mao’s decrees to the letter; his role was similar to Jiang Qing’s role during the Cultural Revolution but with a far more illustrious status. After returning to Yan’an at the end of 1942, Liu Shaoqi also served as vice chair of the CCGSC for a period of time. His name was listed before Kang Sheng’s, but Liu seemed reluctant to take on a public role, so people typically overlooked him in favor of Kang Sheng. Oher important positions on the power pyramid of the CCGSC were held by Li Fuchun, Peng Zhen, and Lu Dingyi. Kang Sheng’s power expanded further after the September 1941 Politburo meeting: With partial control over the Party as well as intelligence and cadre-vetting authority in hand, he became the second most powerful person in Yan’an. After the full-scale launch of the Rectification Movement, Kang Sheng also became the communicator of Mao’s “imperial edicts” as well as Mao’s liaison person with the CCGSC. Within the Party, Kang Sheng was head of the Central Committee’s Social Department, Intelligence Department, and Enemy Area Work Committee. In leading the Rectification Movement, Kang Sheng was not only vice chair and secretary general of the CCGSC but also chairman of the Party and Non-Party Cadre-Vetting Committee. Kang replaced Kai Feng as editor of Study, the CCGSC’s official publication for guiding the Rectification Movement. With Kang Sheng wielding this scepter of prodigious power,

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his name was juxtaposed with Mao’s in an April 5, 1942, Liberation Daily editorial that called on the entire Party to “carefully study the speeches of Comrades Mao Zedong and Kang Sheng” in order to “understand the Three Rectifications.” Mao intentionally relied on Kang Sheng, and among the “twentytwo documents” that Mao personally designated as essential reading for the Rectification Movement, two were reports written by Kang Sheng. Mao referred to both Kang Sheng and Liu Shaoqi as representatives of the “correct line of Marxism-Leninism,” thus greatly enhancing Kang’s status. Confident of Mao’s backing, Kang pulled his wife Cao Yi’ou into the CCGSC and had her carry out spot-checks of the cadres’ notebooks. Kang’s treachery bred insecurity among most of Yan’an’s Politburo members, who both loathed and feared him, and many senior cadres avoided him like the plague. In June 1942 Kang Sheng suggested to Mao that the political secretaries of each Politburo member should be allowed to assist him in his investigation and research work for the Rectification Movement. Mao knew right away what Kang meant by “investigation and research,” which was in fact just what Mao wanted and this required no expression beyond their mutual tacit understanding. With the “consent of the Party Central Committee,” Kang then formally requested that Hu Qiaomu (Mao’s political secretary), Huang Hua (Zhu De’s political secretary), Liao Luyan (Wang Ming’s political secretary), Shi Zhe (Ren Bishi’s political secretary), Wang Heshou (Chen Yun’s political secretary), Tao Zhu (Wang Jiaxiang’s political secretary), and Kuang Yaming (Kang Sheng’s political secretary) become his assistants, and he required them to report to him and the CCGSC on “the progress of rectification study.”16 This was just when the top Party leadership was in a serious state of flux; the various Politburo members had different relationships with Mao, and likewise Mao’s attitude toward each of them varied greatly. The results of Kang Shang’s work therefore also varied. The political secretaries of Politburo members who were close to Mao pleaded their own work pressures and shelved the tasks Kang Sheng handed over to them, ultimately simply ignoring them; only Ren Bishi’s secretary, Shi Zhe, and Wang Ming’s secretary, Liao Luyan, regularly reported to Kang Sheng.17 Shi Zhe at that time was also Mao’s Russian interpreter and an operative in the Social Department, and most of his contacts with Kang Sheng were work-related. But there was something peculiar about the frequency of Liao Luyan’s contacts with Kang. Given that Wang Ming had been away

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from work after being hospitalized in October 1941, what exactly did Liao have to report? He could only have been informing Kang about Wang Ming’s everyday living situation and about Wang Ming’s conversations with his wife. In January 1943, Wang Ming had a conversation with Liao Luyan in which he related three incidents in which the CCP had opposed the “Moscow clique.” Liao took notes on what Wang said and quickly reported it to Mao.18 Naturally, Liao was repaid for his loyalty to Mao: After the founding of the PRC, Liao served for a long time as the State Council’s Minister of Agriculture as well as deputy director and deputy Party secretary of the Central Committee Rural Work Department. He was also elected an alternative member of the Central Committee during the Eighth Party Congress in 1956. He never came under attack for his long service as Wang Ming’s secretary. The other key members of the CCGSC, including Li Fuchun, Peng Zhen, and Lu Dingyi, likewise enjoyed considerable power. Once the Rectification Movement began, Li Fuchun, at that time deputy director of the Secretariat of the Central Committee and of the Organization Department of the Central Committee, was quickly appointed deputy general secretary of the CCGSC and head of the Apparatus Branch Study Committee of the Central Committee, in charge of purging and rectifying the central organs. As one of the cadres upon whom Mao relied the most, during the Rectification Movement Li Fuchun became almost as powerful as Kang Sheng. It was probably at Mao’s instigation that Li, during the CCGSC’s second meeting held on June 7, 1942, proposed the establishment of a CCGSC Secretariat to be headed by Kang Sheng. Li also nominated Yang Shangkun (of the North China Bureau who had recently returned to Yan’an from Taihang Mountain) and Ke Qingshi (deputy director of the United Front Work Department) as members of the Standing Committee of the Apparatus Branch Study Committee of the Central Committee.19 Chen Yun led the Apparatus Branch Study Committee and was also responsible for vetting the qualifications of cadres selected for training at the Central Party School, whereas Peng Zhen had overall responsibility for the Central Party School, which trained and vetted senior Party cadres. Lu Dingyi had previously come under serious attack from Bo Gu and the others in the Comintern faction, but Mao quickly took Lu under his wing after he was transferred to Yan’an in 1941 from his previous position as deputy director of the Political Department of the Eighth Route Army and director of its Propaganda Department. Mao knew how to use the abilities

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of his subordinates to his best advantage, and the position he assigned to Lu Dingyi was out of the ordinary, placing him above Bo Gu as media chief supervising New China News Agency and Liberation Daily. Sometime after the CCGSC was established in June 1942 Ren Bishi’s status underwent a subtle change: He was appointed to lead rectification work in the Northwest China Bureau but, unlike Kang Sheng, he did not become a vice chair of the CCGSC. The change in Ren’s political standing reflected the complexity of the infighting within the core leadership of the Party. Ren was a relatively forthright man and that unavoidably made him a hindrance at the crucial juncture when the Rectification Movement began. It may be that Mao temporarily shunted him aside and excluded him from certain highly confidential matters in order to give him time to “achieve enlightenment.” As spring turned to summer in 1942, the tempest of Mao’s longdesired Rectification Movement finally shifted to the various organs and schools in Yan’an. Mao’s able assistants, Kang Sheng and Li Fuchun, girded themselves for battle, and the formal process of reconstructing the Chinese Communist Party began.

9. From the “Yan’an Spring” to the Attack on Wang Shiwei

I. Using Liberalism to Attack Dogmatism: Mao and the Unleashing of Yan’an’s Discourse on “Liberalism” In the chill of early spring 1942, Mao’s speech on rectifying the three work styles was like a spring breeze warming the hearts of Yan’an’s intellectual cadres. Party organs and schools put up wall newspapers and began responding to Mao’s appeal with fierce attacks on subjectivism, dogmatism, and factionalism. It was at this time that Mao made the major move of clearing out the “base camp of dogmatism”1—Yan’an’s Central Research Institute. The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) had established the Central Research Institute as an “Institute of Red Professors” to foster the abilities of senior theoretical cadres. Its forerunner was the MarxismLeninism Institute, a legacy of the Comintern faction that had been established on May 5, 1938, with Zhang Wentian as its long-time director and Wang Xuewen, one of the CCP’s first Marxist economists and a disciple of the Japanese Marxist economist Hajime Kawakami, as its deputy director. Zhang Wentian and Wang Xuewen were among a tiny minority within the CCP who had a grasp of foreign languages and a mastery of Marxist theory, but Mao had a poor opinion of the MarxismLeninism Institute under Zhang and Wang’s leadership due to its dense ambience of theoretical study. Wang Xuewen’s years of study in Japan and his familiarity with Japan led to his transfer in May 1940 to the

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General Political Department as head of the Enemy Area Operations Section. Although Wang retained his title as the institute’s deputy director, Zhang Wentian effectively lost a key assistant. In May 1941, the MarxismLeninism Institute was renamed the Marxism-Leninism Research Institute, and then in July 1941 it was renamed the Central Research Institute. Mao’s objective in these name changes was to dilute the CCP’s image as a prototype Marxist-Leninist party and to highlight the CCP’s nationalist flavor as well to establish the public opinion and psychological groundwork for destroying once and for all Stalin’s spiritual colonization of the CCP at the earliest opportunity. In January 1942, Propaganda Department head and Central Research Institute director Zhang Wentian went to the countryside on his own initiative to carry out a social survey. Just before setting out, Zhang gave a speech at the institute. “In a solemn tone of voice saying that Comrade Mao Zedong’s attitude and methods toward study had always been very solid and down-to-earth, connecting theory closely to reality, and were a model for the whole Party,” and he called on everyone to “conscientiously” learn from Mao. Zhang then quickly changed the subject and began to denigrate himself, saying, “There’s nothing worth learning from me, I am completely lacking in all practicality.”2 There is no doubt that Zhang’s words were reported in full to Mao and that Zhang was communicating an admission of total defeat to Mao. After Zhang left Yan’an, acting Propaganda Department head Kai Feng, already guilty by association, was ordered to lead the rectification in the Propaganda Department, but he tactfully avoided inquiring into the rectification at the Central Research Institute. With Mao’s support, Luo Mai (Li Weihan) assumed authority over the Central Research Institute in his capacity as deputy director of the Central Propaganda Department. Luo was a Party veteran and a friend of Mao from his youth, but he had offended Mao at one point by attaching himself to the Comintern faction. In 1935 Luo began weighing the situation and he actively courted Mao; during the September 1941 Politburo meeting, he engaged in a “profound self-criticism” of all his errors, earning Mao’s forgiveness to a certain extent. In 1942, Mao sent Luo to oversee the Rectification Movement at the Central Research Institute as a means of further testing him in the teeth of the political struggle. Luo tacitly understood this, and on March 16, 1942, in Liberation Daily he published an article entitled “We Must Expose and Criticize

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Dogmatism in Cadre Education,” targeting Zhang Wentian’s leadership of propaganda and cadre education by criticizing Party cadre education since 1938 for creating an atmosphere of “closing out the world while focusing on Marxist and Leninist works.” Luo knew very well that Mao was watching everything he did. He also knew that Mao had sent Chen Boda to the Central Research Institute to “snoop” and then to report to Mao on everything that occurred at the institute. Mao had a clear objective in sending Luo to the Central Research Institute: to “lift the lid” off the Institute, smash the arrogant “theoretical authority” of those who had studied in the Soviet Union, Japan, or the West, and then turn the spearhead of struggle toward the “godfathers of dogmatism”—Institute Director Zhang Wentian, Wang Ming, and Bo Gu. It was no coincidence that Mao selected the institute as the focal unit for purging the Comintern faction. Beginning in 1938, Zhang had personally recruited the CCP’s most prominent scholars and theorists to the institute: The heads of the institute’s Research Section, such as Zhang Ruxin and Wang Sihua, had studied overseas and had joined the Party back in the late 1920s or early 1930s. Most of the senior researchers had been celebrated Left-wing cultural figures during the 1930s, and some had translations to their credit. Their political status was not very high, however, because they had joined the Party more recently and had never studied in the Soviet Union. Determined to win a complete psychological victory over the institute’s Marxist theoreticians, Mao alternately applied two tactics: He publicly humiliated them politically and personally, and then he provoked discontent among the young intellectuals and directed their fury against the Comintern faction. Mao’s intense self-consciousness about having been educated at Changsha’s No. 1 Normal School made him deeply distrustful of so-called “major intellectuals.” He always suspected that the Party’s theoreticians did not truly endorse him and that they even denied the notion of “dogmatism” in the Party; it was quite possible for them to deny the “threat of dogmatism” by pointing out that the vast majority of Party members had never read the works of Marx or Lenin. Mao knew it was not enough to deal with these “Red Professors” by the “civilized method” of tangled argument; the most effective method was to thoroughly denigrate them and berate them to their faces in order to destroy their scholarly dignity and to leave them no place to hide.

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Mao had his own ways of dealing with the “Red Professors,” the most potent being to peel away the title of “theoretician” that had brought them such pride and to denigrate them as “broken-down gramophones.” Under Mao’s orders, a Liberation Daily editorial ridiculed the “Red Professors” who depended on their proficiency with Marxism-Leninism, saying they believed that “whoever was best at memorization was the best theoretician,” which in fact was “an enormous joke.” The editorial harshly warned them that they must remove their (theoretician) hat, and then it lectured them in an authoritative tone that broached no argument: The ability to quote Marxist-Leninist aphorisms does not make someone a theoretician; only those who are able to use the spirit and methods of Marxism-Leninism to resolve practical problems can be considered theoreticians.3 In order to knock the wind out of the sails of the “Red Professors,” Mao’s right-hand man, Hu Qiaomu, published an article in Liberation Daily comparing them to “garbage.” This was far too offensive, so Hu let the “garbage” off more lightly by calling them “broken-down gramophones” (“because they lack the ability to completely memorize everything they see and hear”), and he declared that such people were “numerous” in the CCP.4 Mao’s relentless offensive turned out to be quite effective and the “Red Professors” of the Central Research Institute, terrorized into submission one after another, quickly expressed their support for the campaign against dogmatism. Mao was nevertheless suspicious of their overnight conversion because these “theoreticians” had never associated themselves with “dogmatism,” but they eagerly called for everyone else to “chop off the tails” of subjectivism, sectarianism, and the Party boilerplate, as if this had nothing to do with them. Mao and Hu expressed great outrage at those “theoreticians” who could bend with the wind without so much as a blush, and in Liberation Daily Mao and Hu sarcastically wrote, “The more and louder they speak, the more ridiculous they sound. No matter how lovely the coffer, the minute they touch it, it turns to stone.”5 In fact, these “Red Professors” had already been pitifully reduced overnight from peacocks to sparrows. Their dignity battered, they declared that the Marxist and Leninist works to which they had devoted their lives were “more useless than shit.”6 These erstwhile theoreticians made a painstaking effort to understand Mao’s “new interpretation” and had

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already expressed their respectful submission to Mao; the only thing they did not do was thoroughly humiliate themselves, and what prevented them from doing so was their sense of personal dignity; yet what Mao wanted was precisely for them to strip themselves of their personal independence and honor. On March 9, 1942, Liberation Daily published one of the strangest pieces of writing in the history of Chinese discourse, an editorial entitled “Dogma and Trousers,” composed by Hu Qiaomu and revised by Mao. This editorial inaugurated a new style of CCP propaganda language through its bold application of vulgarity to political struggle. Through “Dogma and Trousers,”7 Mao and Hu ordered the “Red Professors” to “drop their trousers,” the reason being that “the problem occurred in their nether regions” and their trousers “concealed a tail, and they must drop their trousers in order for it to be seen.” Since each person’s tail “was of a different size,” “the knives required to cut them off were also of different sizes, and the amount of blood would likewise vary,” so it was necessary for them to pull down their trousers before there could be talk of cutting off their tails. “When dogma comes out of trousers, this is the organic relationship between dogma and trousers, and whoever wants to earnestly and sincerely oppose dogmatism must first have the determination and courage to pull down his trousers.”8 Yet Mao held out little hope that the “great masters of subjectivism and dogmatism” would be willing to “pull down their trousers,” so he decided to take the major step of mobilizing educated youths to help the “Red Professors” and veteran cadres “pull down their trousers.” Mao presented himself as a guardian of educated young people, repeatedly publishing remarks expressing sympathy for them and gradually drawing the young intellectuals in Yan’an into his trench warfare. The most provoking content of Mao’s remarks was his interpretation of “sectarianism.”* At an enlarged Politburo meeting on September 10, 1941, Mao explained “sectarianism” was mainly an obsession with cadre status that excluded and discriminated against intellectuals, rather than what he subsequently routinely referred to as the “Wang Ming, Bo Gu sectarian clique.” Mao said:

*

  Translators’ Note (cited hereafter as TN): The Chinese term zongpaizhuyi can also be translated as “factionalism.”

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Sectarianism now exists as well. In Yan’an, the leading cadres enjoy prestige, while scientists and literary scholars are looked down upon. Sectarianism is the practice of pushing aside those who are not cadres, a kind of exclusivism and cliquishness.9 Continuing Mao’s tone, a Liberation Daily editorial on February 2, 1942, criticized sectarianism for “slighting, alienating, and offering little support and help to comrades within the Party and having little understanding and concern for cadres outside the Party. It also makes implementation of the three-three system* less firm and thorough.”10 For a period of time, Mao seemed to be encouraging young intellectuals in Yan’an to “oppose bureaucratism.” In mid- and late March, Mao’s remarks took a more “enlightened” turn, with Liberation Daily publishing a series of editorials opposing sectarianism. The newspaper’s March 14 editorial, entitled “Leap Out of the Self-Constructed Prisoner’s Cage,” attacked the “isolationist” errors of some Party members and declared that the problem of relations between Party and non-Party members was a matter of the Party’s very survival as well as the success or failure of the revolution. On March 19, the newspaper published an editorial entitled “Promote Democratic Work Styles,” which again criticized the sectarian and parochial attitudes of some Party members and called on Party members to be “extremely open-minded” and to “listen attentively to divergent views.” In the “(Draft) Decision Regarding Relations between Party Members and People Outside of the Party” that Mao drafted for the CCP Central Committee, he wrote: Anyone outside of the Party who wishes to cooperate with the Party has a right to criticize the Party and its members. Apart from hostile attacks to sabotage unity in the War of Resistance, the Party organization should listen attentively and open-mindedly to all wellintentioned criticism, whether written, spoken, or in any other form. Appropriate criticism should be accepted, and if the criticism is unwarranted, it should be heard in its entirety, and upon careful

*

  TN: During the War of Resistance, the base areas were meant to implement a democratic political system comprised of one-third Party members, one-third Leftist non-Party intellectuals, and one-third intermediate elements.

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consideration a fair and well-intentioned explanation may follow. It is absolutely unacceptable to cover up errors or to reject the criticism of persons outside of the Party or to misconstrue well-intentioned criticism as an attack and to create the phenomenon of non-Party members keeping silent regarding the Party’s faults. In cases where Party members or cadres violate government decrees or Party policies, apart from having the right to file a complaint with a court or an administrative organ, non-Party members can also register their accusations with a Party committee at any level, including the Central Committee. New China Daily, Liberation Daily, and other publications in the resistance base areas should draw on the comments of non-Party members so that all opponents of fascism and Japanese imperialism have an opportunity to express themselves in our Party’s newspapers, and they should do their best to recruit non-Party members into their editorial committees to improve the quality of newspapers and other publications. Staff persons at Party newspapers must learn the means and methods of encouraging non-Party members to write articles and reports. The subjective and sectarian attitudes of certain staff persons at Party newspapers must be criticized.11 How well Mao expressed these sentiments! And did he not say something very similar fifteen years later, in the spring of 1957? Yet a careful reading shows that Mao retained some reservations in this document by creating a dichotomy between “well-intentioned criticism” and “hostile attacks to sabotage unity in the War of Resistance.” The determination of into which of these categories any particular criticism fell was naturally left to the interpretive authority of the leading Party organs and their leaders. Be that as it may, the gist of this document that Mao wrote in March 1942 and subsequently shelved was to provoke the airing of views. A gentle breeze of “liberalism” wafted from Mao’s cave in March 1942, and one of Mao’s regular guests was a non-Party member, the writer Xiao Jun. In a conversation late one night, Mao even told Xiao Jun of his own rejection and attacks by Party members. 12 This incident suggests the actual intention of Mao’s March 1942 agitation for “liberalism.” Yet the publisher of Liberation Daily, Bo Gu, was not yet fully aware of Mao’s

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plans. Perceiving that Mao was swinging the broad ax of his criticism toward the Party newspaper he led, Bo Gu quickly began following Mao’s tune. With his tacit agreement, Ding Ling published a series of critical articles by Party members and non-Party members in Liberation Daily’s cultural column to demonstrate improvements in Party publications. On March 9, 1942, the day that the editorial “Dogma and Trousers” was printed, Liberation Daily published Ding Ling’s “Thoughts on International Working Women’s Day.” Soon thereafter, the cultural column of Liberation Daily, edited by Ding Ling and Chen Qixia, published a series of essays that caused a sensation throughout Yan’an: Wang Shiwei’s “Wild Lilies,”* Xiao Jun’s “On ‘Love’ and ‘Patience’ toward Comrades,”13 which Mao personally polished and revised,† Ai Qing’s “Understand and Respect Writers,” and Luo Feng’s “It is Still the Era of Essays.” What all these essays had in common was that they provided a literary form to concretely explain and elucidate Mao’s criticism of

*

  Li Xin, at that time editor of the arts column of Liberation Daily, recalls that Wang Shiwei’s “Wild Lilies” was read and approved for publication by Ding Ling. Bo Gu was too busy with other matters to check and approve the article, and after it was published, he went to the Editorial Department to ask who Wang Shiwei was and how the article came to be published, after which he warned that the second part of the article “must not be published.” On March 23, the second half of “Wild Lilies” was published in Liberation Daily, and Bo Gu again went to the Editorial Department to inquire into the matter. Editor Chen Qixia explained that the text had been sent to Bo Gu for examination, but Bo Gu explained that he had been too busy to read it and to take responsibility for the matter. †   Although Mao personally revised and polished Xiao Jun’s essay “On ‘Love’ and ‘Patience’ toward Comrades,” he did not care for Xiao Jun’s humanistic tone. On April 8, 1942, when Yan’an was already caught up in criticizing Wang Shiwei, it was because of the special circumstances of Xiao Jun’s essay, known only to insiders, that Liberation Daily made an exception and published it. Mao originally intended to use Xiao Jun’s forthright character for his own political ends, but after discovering that Xiao Jun was too stubborn and difficult to control, he turned against him. Literature and Art, no. 2 (1958) collected Mao’s polished version of Xiao Jun’s “On ‘Love’ and ‘Patience’ toward Comrades,” along with Wang Shiwei’s “Wild Lilies” and Ding Ling’s “Thoughts on International Working Women’s Day,” into a “Special Re-Criticism Issue,” republishing them as examples of the “great poisonous weeds” by the Rightists. Mao took personal charge of this republication, and he penned a very long editorial note for the republication under the ironic title, “With Pleasure, Sharing These Brilliant Pieces.”

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sectarianism at the enlarged Politburo meeting on September 10, 1941: “In Yan’an, it is the leading cadres who enjoy prestige, whereas everyone looks down on scientists and writers,” even though they were not aware of Mao’s comment at that time. Mao’s “rabble-rousing” had finally let the genie out of the bottle. Ding Ling and the others pointedly criticized Yan’an’s pervasive phenomenon of “leading cadres above all.” In their tortuous fashion, these essays also expressed the disappointment young intellectuals generally felt about their “new life” in Yan’an: The leaders of grassroots units showed little grasp of policy and culture, were servile to their superiors and imperious to their subordinates, and constantly imposed political labels on others to quell discontent among ordinary Party members. The authors of these essays demanded increased democracy within the Party and a new spirit of fraternity and equality based on “comradely love” among the revolutionary ranks. The most influential of the essays published in the cultural column of Liberation Daily was “Wild Lilies,” penned by Wang Shiwei, a special research fellow in the Literature and Arts Research Section of the Central Research Institute.

II. An Appeal for a Humane and Democratic Socialism: The Significance of Wang Shiwei’s Comments Wang Shiwei had been influenced by the democratic and scientific spirit of the May Fourth Movement. Filled with the ideals of utopian social transformation, he turned to Marxism and became a notable representative of the generation of Leftist intellectuals who invested themselves in the Communist Movement. Wang joined the CCP in 1926 while taking humanities courses in preparation to attend Peking University at the age of 20, but he withdrew from Party activities one year later after the Party branch secretary criticized him over a love affair. In 1926, Wang began publishing works in literary journals in Beijing and Shanghai, and he lived in Shanghai for an extended period beginning from 1929; while there he published a collection of stories and five volumes of literary translations. In October 1937 Wang arrived in Yan’an, where he first joined the Lu Xun Institute and then was personally selected by Zhang Wentian to become a translator at the Marxism-Leninism Institute, where he translated classics by Marx and Lenin and wrote interpretative works totaling one million characters over the course of several years. Wang was a frank and

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upright man, and his objections to the scheming and bullying of Chen Boda and other leaders of the Translation Section resulted in troubled relations, but he greatly esteemed Zhang Wentian, Wang Xuewen, and Fan Wenlan (originally the head of the Chinese History Research Section of the Marxism-Leninism Institute, and then, in August 1941, appointed deputy director of the Central Research Institute). When the institute was renamed the Central Research Institute, Wang became a special research fellow in the Chinese Literature and Arts Research Section under Ouyang Shan, and he enjoyed the benefits of a mid-level cadre. Inspired by Mao’s appeals for rectification of the three work styles, in February 1942 36-year-old Wang Shiwei began publishing a series of essays in Grain Rain magazine, Liberation Daily, and the Central Research Institute’s wall newspaper, Arrow and Target. In addition to “Wild Lilies,” these essays included “Politicians and Artists,” “My Criticism of Comrade Luo Mai’s Remarks at a Rectification Inspection Mobilization Meeting,” and “A Couple of Random Thoughts,” among others. In terms of content, Wang Shiwei’s essays were similar to those by Ding Ling, Xiao Jun, Ai Qing, and others, but they were more pointed and critical. Wang Shiwei boldly exposed the dark side of the “new life” in Yan’an, accurately reflecting the gradual shattering of the ideals of young intellectuals and their consequent depression and disappointment as well as expressing serious concern over the increasingly hierarchical and bureaucratic tendencies behind the revolutionary slogans. Inspired by Edgar Snow’s Red Star Over China and Fan Changjiang’s The Northwestern Part of China and Scenes on the Frontier, thousands of young intellectuals had arrived in Yan’an from all over China in 1937 and 1938, their hearts full of reverence for the CCP and with hopes for a new life. Their arrival answered the CCP’s urgent need to enlist new blood, so they enjoyed a warm reception from the Party leadership, and the long-isolated Red Army veterans also enthusiastically welcomed the educated youths who brought news from the outside world. For a time, Yan’an rang with laughter and cheer and it seemed to have become a utopia for the young. The young intellectuals sensed an atmosphere completely different from that in the Kuomintang (KMT)-controlled regions, and most exciting to them was the pervasive spirit of camaraderie and equality. Young women from small towns in particular sensed they were able to “cast off their chains and feel especially liberated.” A popular song of the time captured their experience:

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The glacier thaws in spring / nature returns to life / the world’s suppressed women / cry out in freedom on International Women’s Day. ... From now on / we must smash our cages!14 Mao’s leadership authority had not yet taken its ultimate shape, so at the time the protocols of CCP political life were still vague. Mao, Wang Ming, Zhang Wentian, Zhu De, and other Party leaders wore simple clothes and spoke casually, and they were unaccompanied by retinues as they made their rounds of the various schools to deliver speeches. Aside from the continued use of “Chairman Mao,” young people could address other Party leaders as “Comrade Wang Ming,” “Comrade Luo Fu,” * “Comrade Enlai,” or “Comrade Bo Gu,” without adding titles such as “secretary” or “director.” The young scholars who congregated in Yan’an’s various schools engaged in animated discussions about basic MarxistLeninist knowledge and the speeches by Party leaders. “They boundlessly worshipped the people who had walked the Long March in straw shoes and who knew how to weave straw shoes”; “Within their contingents they were innocent, artless, and pious, and they loved their leaders with their whole being and they were filled with veneration for the martyrs.” In order to demonstrate that they had cut themselves off from the old society, many even changed their names. The hard material existence did not weaken the passion of these young intellectuals; rather, in this new egalitarian environment they experienced a sublime spiritual purification that allowed them to identify even more intensely with the CCP’s political goals. Also at the time, relations between men and women in Yan’an were fairly relaxed. Taking the cue from the Russian Communist revolutionary Alexandra Kollontai, sexual desire was considered “as natural as thirst,” and with some key cadres taking the lead in “thoroughly breaking with tradition,” those in the lower ranks followed suit with “guerrilla movements” † and “revolutionary romantic attachments” 15 becoming symbols of their new lives and enriching the idealistic atmosphere. Yet, as CCP-KMT relations deteriorated after 1939, Yan’an became

*

  TN: Zhang Wentian’s nickname.   A “Guerrilla movement” was an analogy for the changeability of a romantic object being like guerrilla warfare with no fixed boundaries and in a constant state of flux. This continued to be all the rage in Yan’an throughout 1937 and 1938.

†

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largely cut off from the outside world, and within this closed environment, its social ambience and spiritual life underwent a major change: 1.) Mao purposely utilized the Stalinist “anti-Trotskyism” that Wang Ming and Kang Sheng brought back from Moscow for his own purposes and set Kang Sheng loose to engage in “spiritual terrorism” against Trotskyism. There were reports of young intellectuals disappearing without warning. As the shadow of the anti-Trotskyist purges expanded, the personality cult of Mao gradually heated up, and free discussions at Yan’an’s schools gradually turned into praise of Mao’s talks. The initiative of young intellectuals slowly dissipated under the growing sense of a need to atone for one’s errors and the increasingly depressing atmosphere. 2.) A system of hierarchy steadily developed, and conflicts surfaced between new and veteran cadres. Under Ren Bishi’s supervision, a system of large, medium, and small canteens was formally established, dance parties became an important aspect of life for senior cadres, and security measures for leading cadres became regularized. All units were led by veterans of the Long March, and the thinking and living habits of intellectuals started to come under harsh criticism. Special terms for criticizing intellectuals, such as “petty-bourgeois vacillation” and “pettybourgeois sentiment,” became increasingly prevalent in print and in the words of leading cadres, shrouding young intellectuals in despondency. 3.) Romantic attachments came under increasing restrictions. The concept of sex as a natural human need was clearly incompatible with the hierarchical system, and such “fads,” ending in 1939, were replaced by a marriage system based on cadre ranking and requiring the leaders’ mediation and approval. By 1941, Yan’an’s young intellectuals, once the masters of utopia, suddenly discovered that they had fallen to the lowest rungs of an ordered system of hierarchy. The disappointment and indignation of Yan’an’s young intellectuals are readily apparent in a conversation, recorded by Wang Shiwei, between two young women: “Every time you turn around, someone is accused of petty-bourgeois egalitarianism, but in fact he himself is a bit elitist. He is always looking after his own privileges. As for the comrades below him, he could not care less whether their health is good or bad or if they are sick or dying!”

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“Huh! All crows are black; our Comrade ××× is just as bad!” “They say all the right things about class solidarity, but it is pure rubbish! They even do not seem to have normal human sympathy. You always see them smiling, but it is just on the surface. If you go even slightly against their wishes, they glare and put on their leading cadre airs to scold you.” “The junior cadres are as bad as the senior cadres. Our section head is always bowing and scraping to his superiors but he turns his nose up at us. Several times when a comrade has been sick, he has not even spared him a glance, but when a hawk snatched his little chick, what a fuss he raised! From then on, whenever he saw a hawk, he would start yelling and throwing clots of dirt at it—selfish fellow!” “I have changed jobs three or four times in the last two years, and among all those leading cadres, section heads, and directors, precious few have shown any real caring toward ordinary cadres.” Corresponding to this, Wang Shiwei also provided future generations with a realistic depiction of a “new class” arising with the “sloughing off ” of the revolution: Our officers and men shed their blood battling on the resistance front lines. “Every minute saw one of our beloved comrades fall into a pool of blood.” In the Central Committee auditorium in Yan’an, dance parties go on till dawn. “Music like birdsongs in the bowers of spring, whirling with dainty footsteps.” “Sick comrades are not given even a spoonful of noodle soup, and young students are fed only two bowls of congee a day.” “Perfectly healthy VIPs have completely unnecessary and unreasonable ‘enjoyments’. … There are multiple grades of food and clothing.” 16 Fanatically idealistic, Wang was indignant about these things and found them difficult to swallow. He seemed nostalgic about the idealismfueled days of 1937 and 1938, yet he still believed in Marxism and knew that “communism is not egalitarianism.” Wang declared that he was of the “cadre uniform, small canteen class, so there are no sour grapes here”; his frank criticism was not for the sake of personal benefit. He even offered

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a tolerant understanding of Yan’an’s hierarchical system, holding that “special treatment to meet the health needs of persons with important responsibilities is reasonable and necessary, and treatment can be based on the heaviness of the responsibility.” It was only that at present, “during the arduous process of revolution ... when many people have lost their most treasured health,” in order to “produce genuine iron-clad unity... those with greater responsibility should demonstrate a willingness to share the joys and sorrows of their subordinates (this is a national virtue that really should be carried on in spirit).” Wang Shiwei was really too much of a bookworm. When all is said and done, he had not personally experienced the “modern peasant revolutionary struggle” of 1927 to 1937, and he could not know that the demands he made would be impossible to impose on senior cadres who had started out as peasants. Although the CCP did not yet rule all of China, over time it had gained control of some fairly stable base areas, and some people were no longer capable of “sharing the joys and sorrows” of the masses and “eating from the same pot of pumpkin stew.” In general, discrepancies in material perks were not all that conspicuous in Yan’an in the 1940s and they largely consisted of a mess system of large, medium, and small canteens, coupled with uniforms classified by black twill, gray plain cloth, and homespun cloth. These differences cannot even be mentioned in the same breath as the supply system for senior cadres put in place after 1949. Why, then, did Wang Shiwei feel that “VIPs” were like an “alien species”? What really alienated Wang Shiwei and the other young intellectuals was the system of cadre privilege connected to rank and the strong social ambience of “senior cadres above all” that arose from it. The families of key Yan’an cadres typically were allotted nannies to look after their children and bodyguards to protect the cadres, as well as servants or functionaries to see to their daily needs (fetching water for the leading cadres to wash themselves, putting tooth powder on the toothbrush, and so on). Some bodyguards also functioned as servants, and the cadres also had cooks and grooms.* In the limited parameters of *

  Mao Zedong did not like to use the terms chuishiyuan (kitchen staff ) and siyangyuan (stockman) that Liu Bocheng introduced from the Soviet Red Army regulations, and he preferred to use the more “typical Chinese” terms of huofu (mess cook) and mafu (groom).

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Yan’an, it was common to observe bodyguards waiting at the gates of schools and Party organs to escort the spouses of leading cadres home for the weekend. Even children knew that the ambulance that tootled around the streets of Yan’an, paid for with donations from overseas Chinese to serve front line soldiers of the Eighth Route Army, was “Chairman Mao’s car.” It was also an open secret that Mao’s quarters at Yangjialing and Zaoyuan were tightly secured and that no one could approach them without an explicit invitation. In spring 1942, Mao sent Li Zhuoran to the home of playwright Sai Ke to invite him over for a chat, but Sai Ke refused to go “where there were armed sentries,” and it was not until Mao ordered his sentries to withdraw that Sai Ke went with Deng Fa to see Mao.* 17 In the eyes of Wang Shiwei and other young intellectuals, all these things were powerful evidence of a crumbling revolutionary morality and they gave rise to an intense indignation and feelings of discrimination. Most shockingly daring of all was that Wang Shiwei proceeded from an attack on the mess halls and the grades of clothing to an analysis of the ideological and historical roots of the hierarchical system. In so doing, the bookish Wang Shiwei issued a direct or indirect challenge to Mao, who had authority over both the army and the Party’s repressive apparatus. The “holy land of the revolution” that Wang saw was not an immaculate Communist temple; under the sunlight of Yan’an there were only dense shadows and people who “indirectly abetted darkness” or even “directly created darkness.” One piece of evidence was the defense of the hierarchical system as “carrying on a national virtue,” and the originator of this “nationalist” discourse was none other than Mao. Wang was a very astute intellectual who had personally experienced Yan’an’s gradual “Sinification of Marxism” since the Sixth Plenum of the Sixth Central Committee in 1938, and he sensed the resultant profound change in the social ambience. He could not forget the discussions about “national form” that had occurred among Yan’an’s theoreticians in 1940, and with the development of these discussions and under the cover of “national form,” certain values of China’s traditional political culture in all their grandiosity

*

  According to Du Zhongshi, who during the early period of the War of Resistance went to Yan’an as a representative of Sichuan’s local power-holder Yang Sen, when he went to see Mao in early summer 1938, he saw sentries stationed outside of Mao’s living quarters and those sentries also carried out a body search of him.

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had been incorporated into CCP theory and practice. Ultimately, Wang drew his own conclusion: The old traditions of Chinese despotism had seriously eroded the organism of the CCP so that in Yan’an “the filth and foulness of old China had infected us and spread its germs as a contagious disease.” These old traditions, combined with the “inevitable” features of Russian Marxism, resulted in the theoretical foundation for a hierarchical system with Chinese characteristics. Wang then asked, are we to allow an “understanding” and “respect” for “national conditions” to serve as a pretext for accommodating and catering to China’s backward traditions? Was the existence of the “dark side” so inevitable that it must be welcomed and protected? Wang then turned his pen to criticize Mao’s famous dictum, “the sky won’t fall”: After the “theory” of “inevitability” comes a “theory” of “national form” referred to as “the sky won’t fall.” It is true, the sky will not fall. But won’t our work and our undertakings suffer even if “the sky does not fall”? On this level, the “great masters” seem to have applied their brains very little or not at all. Starting in the 1940s, Mao became increasingly fond of saying “the sky won’t fall.” When the situation was tense and the CCP was in dire straits, Mao liked to say: “The sky won’t fall”; upon hearing of discontent inside and outside of the Party, Mao was even fonder of saying: “If someone has opinions, let them speak out; the sky won’t fall!” “Speak out and fart as you need to, the sky won’t fall!” “I advise comrades to brace themselves; the world will keep spinning and the sky won’t fall!” Full of fervor and zeal, Wang Shiwei wrote: After recognizing this inevitability, we must take a fighting Bolshevik initiative to prevent the darkness and slow its growth. ... Considering the present, utterly abolishing all of the darkness in our camp is impossible, but reducing the darkness to an absolute minimum is not only possible, but also essential. Wang went on to warn, “If this ‘inevitability’ ‘inevitably’ continues to develop, the sky— the sky of the revolutionary cause—will ‘inevitably’ fall. We should not be complacent.”

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Wang’s “sensationalizing” prediction in 1942 finally came true fortynine years later in the “socialist motherland,” the Soviet Union, along with Eastern Europe and Mongolia, even ceased to exist. Wang hoped to alert Mao to prevent future trouble, but he was disappointed: The “great masters” put no emphasis on this point [preventing the growth of darkness], but merely pointed out its “inevitability” and went to sleep. … In fact, they did not merely sleep. Under the pretext of “inevitability,” the “great masters” also became more lax about themselves. Whereas Mao and the other leaders may not have felt anxious, Wang Shiwei burned with anxiety. In order to prevent the “revolutionary sky from falling down,” he offered a prescription to the entire Party: Restore the glory of the Communist ideal and build a new kind of egalitarianism on the foundation of a revolutionary morality so as to ensure an everlasting force to the Communist Revolution. Wang recalled with boundless passion the revolutionary martyr Li Fen, who sacrificed herself for her ideals, and he hoped that his recollections would reawaken the idealism that had gone dormant in others and the martyr’s blood would cleanse the revolutionary ranks of their incipient attachment to autocracy. Wang also hoped that the pure and sacred glow of the early Communists would restore the withered pride, self-respect, and self-confidence of the revolutionaries. Wang dreamed that within the International Communist Movement, the CCP could first of all practice the humanistic standards of caring for, respecting, and valuing others, and that the spirit of liberty, equality, and fraternity would become the conscious principle of the “New Society.”* 18 Wang extolled the “purity, sensitivity, passion, and courage” of youth, and he appealed to the leaders *

  Wang Shiwei already had some understanding of the problem of Stalinism and privately told some people, “Stalin is not a lovable character,” “Stalin has a violent personality,” “The Soviet Union’s case of treason against Zinoviev is suspect,” and “Who knows how much evil Stalin committed during the Soviet Union’s Party purges?” At public events, Wang used Mao’s attack against “Hellenization” to strike back against those who cited the Soviet Union’s special supply system to defend the same system in Yan’an and he told those people to “shut up.”

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not to detest and abandon Yan’an’s youth because of their complaints about the lack of “love and warmth.” Wang said plaintively, “Yan’an’s young people have already experienced enough,” and if they are attacked again (for example, a young man is on the verge of a mental breakdown after being criticized and attacked by the leaders of his work-unit for the essays he posted on wall newspapers), this world will become “too bleak and lonely.” Wang even “surrealistically” created “a dream of youth,” as described by Mushanokōji Saneatsu,* holding that all human beings have a capacity for love and sympathy: My rationality and conscience call me to always address them in the gentlest tone of voice as “comrade cook” (although addressing someone this way in Yan’an sounds rather sarcastic because even without opposing egalitarianism, there is no possibility of “a mess cook vainly hoping to live like a ‘leading cadre’”).19 In his attacks on the false image of peace and prosperity in Yan’an and his analysis of the ideological and historical roots of the hierarchical system and then his prescription for “democracy” and “fraternity,” Wang’s tone was much too strident for Yan’an’s leaders. Not only that, it sounded too much like Trotsky’s “degenerated workers’ state.”† They were not wrong to feel this way; Wang Shiwei’s thinking was fundamentally incompatible with Mao’s “Sinified Marxism.” The equality and fraternity espoused by Wang Shiwei were opposite to the concept of “the leader above all” built on a foundation of political utilitarianism. Wang Shiwei’s humanistic thought inevitably evoked lifting up the subjective human spirit, whereas the first condition for establishing the concept of “the leader above all” was to cripple or even eliminate human autonomy and to make the individual just “a cog in the wheel.” In 1942 Mao was wholeheartedly pursuing the realization of the “grand”

*

  TN: Mushanokōji Saneatsu (1885–1976) was a Japanese novelist, playwright, poet, artist, and philosopher who promoted humanism as an alternative to naturalism. †   TN: Trotsky used the term “degenerated workers’ state” to describe a state where the working class has succeeded in seizing power from the bourgeoisie and the means of production have been socialized but power has then been usurped by an undemocratic and unaccountable bureaucracy.

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objective of making all Party members into “the Party’s (i.e., Mao’s) docile instruments,” and allowing Wang’s “rabble-rousing” discourse to spread would seriously undermine Mao’s efforts. For this reason, Wang and his thinking became obstacles that Mao felt compelled to eliminate. Wang Shiwei’s appeals for equality and attacks on Yan’an’s hierarchical system also directly impinged on the interests of Mao and other veteran cadres who enjoyed special privileges in the system. As for the tone of disillusionment toward the revolution that permeated Wang’s writings, from Mao’s perspective this could erode and imperil Mao’s great enterprise of competing for state power. Beginning in 1927, the peasants who had been the principals of the “modern peasant revolutionary war” became the major force of the Communist Revolution. Although the influence of Russian Marxism had added many new elements to this twentieth-century Chinese peasant revolution, the model of the “peasant revolt” in Chinese history still had an enormous influence on the CCP’s armed revolution. From the perspective of many of the peasants who had taken part in this revolution, the significance of “competing for state power” was to “gain a spot in ruling the country and the privileges that came with it,” especially after Mao took control of the Communist Army in the mid-1930s. The Russian Communist factor in this peasant revolution was gradually replaced by Mao’s personal brand of national communism. Steeped in the tradition of peasant revolt, Mao put a great emphasis on using the peasants’ sentiments, behavior, and aspirations to serve his great enterprise of gaining state power. Within the scope of Marxist-Leninist terminology, Mao changed concepts and introduced much of the vocabulary and behavior of China’s traditional peasant revolts to make the Communist Army in the mold of the Soviet Red Army but with a pronounced flavor of China’s traditional peasant insurrections. Yan’an’s hierarchical system was a similar hybrid of old and new as a method of distribution of military communism adapted to a wartime environment as well as a way of carrying out the traditional principle of “bestowing reward according to merit.” Once this system was established, it was generally welcomed and honored by the army’s senior officers, most of whom came from peasant backgrounds, and it was even “accepted with pleasure” by senior civilian cadres who had received a Russian-style education because it mixed in elements of the Stalinist rank system. Now Wang Shiwei was impudently attacking what they regarded as a progenitor of the redistribution of power and wealth that would be

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carried out after the success of the revolution, so how could these senior cadres not be indignant? Consequently, when certain senior military officers reviled Wang Shiwei for being “anti-Party,” Soviet-educated senior civilian cadres likewise denounced him both verbally and in writing as an “opponent of Leninism.” Mao’s attitude toward the hierarchical system was much more complex and flexible than that of some of the other “warriors”; it would change depending on whether the system contributed to the great enterprise of uniting China under his rule and consolidating his power. Essentially, Mao was the greatest defender of the CCP’s hierarchical system, but when he had yet to achieve the pinnacle of power or felt that his power was threatened, Mao typically became the daring vanguard of opposition to “bureaucratism.” It was only at this time that Mao would release some of the nihilism in his mind and put on the face of a protector of the “little man,” inciting the lower ranks to “oppose privilege” in service to his own political objectives. Once these objectives were achieved or the situation had changed, Mao could quickly change tacks, selecting a few scapegoats and criticizing “liberalism” and “anarchism” and then rounding up the whole gang of duped masses and intellectuals. This became Mao’s time-tested stratagem, but the first time he tried it was in 1942. Wang Shiwei was different from the typical Leftist in that he not only persisted with the May Fourth ideals of freedom and democracy, but he was also intensely influenced by the humanistic thought of the young Marx, the socialist democratic ideology of the Second Comintern, and some of the views of Stalin’s opponent, Trotsky. As a part of modern Euro-American civilization, the humanist ideology of the young Marx and the ideological tradition of socialist democracy never became embedded in twentieth-century China due to the chaos of war as well as due to national and cultural factors; only during the May Fourth era and during the 1930s and 1940s did it arouse the interest of a handful of intellectuals like a flash in a pan. Ideologically, it was completely unrelated to the CCP that had been established based on instructions of the Third International, especially following the KMT’s slaughter of the Communists in 1927. As the stage of the classical Communist Revolution reached its end in CCP history, socialist democratic thought had practically no influence on the CCP. Wang Shiwei was an exception in that his social democratic views mainly came from his reading of the works of Marx and other socialist democratic thinkers, and from the independent thinking he engaged in based on these readings.

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Wang Shiwei’s thinking was clearly sympathetic to some Trotskyite viewpoints. Wang had had some contact with the Trotskyites in the early 1930s, and he translated part of Trotsky’s autobiography and Lenin’s will, which had been suppressed by Stalin, so he had some understanding of the complexity and ruthlessness of the struggles inside the Soviet Communist Party (CPSU). Wang arrived in Yan’an in 1937, but the “heretical” thinking had not been completely eliminated from his mind, and the scenario Trotsky had described of the “bureaucratization of the workers’ state,” along with the ominous news that made its way to Yan’an of the “great treason trials” in Moscow in 1937 and 1938, upset and shocked Wang, and forced him to consciously or unconsciously take up the staff of “degeneration theory” in evaluating everything happening in Yan’an. What he saw and heard in Yan’an completely coincided with the image of “degeneracy” in his mind.

III. The Wind Shifts: Mao Attacks Wang Shiwei Wang Shiwei’s “Wild Lilies” and other items posted in the Central Research Institute wall newspaper, Arrow and Target, caused an immediate sensation in Yan’an, and other schools and Party organs began publishing similar wall newspapers. In late March and early April 1942, these included: • • • • •

Northwest China Bureau: Northwest Wind; Yan’an Natural Science Institute: Rectification, Sunflower, and Words from the Heart; National Minority Institute: Pull-down Daily (as in “pull down your trousers”); Central Hospital: Microscope (in the planning stage); Yan’an Student Convalescent Hospital:* Rectification.

These wall newspapers, along with the more long-standing Central Youth League Committee’s Light Cavalry, constituted the finest flowering of Yan’an’s wall newspapers.

*

  “Student Convalescent Hospital” was a code name for the Cadre Convalescent Hospital, just as the Central Party’s School’s code name was the Sun Yat-sen Library, and the Confidential Communications Office was known as the Central Agricultural Commission.

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At the same time, there was an upsurge of opposition to bureaucracy and demands for democracy in schools and Party organs: At the Central Research Institute, 95 percent of the staff supported Wang Shiwei’s viewpoints, and the institute’s leaders, Luo Mai and Zhang Ruxin, became targets of criticism. Overwhelming support for democracy also emerged at Yan’an University. At a Party plenum on March 26, participants accused “certain leading comrades” of “handling issues with a subjectively arbitrary attitude, lacking a democratic spirit, and using pretexts such as ‘respecting the organization’ and ‘respecting the credibility of the leaders’ to stifle democracy, giving rise to the phenomenon of some comrades not daring or not being willing to speak out.” The plenum “shattered the past atmosphere of everyone recoiling and not daring to speak out, and gave full rein to democracy,” and some even suggested a squaring of accounts to “reach a conclusion regarding who was responsible.” Party branch representatives were unanimous: The prestige of the leaders is founded on their work and on their correct knowledge and standpoints. If it is established on the foundation of others not daring to speak their minds, that is extremely dangerous.20 Some veteran Party intellectuals who had not yet shed their forthrightness and sincerity were also galvanized for a time by the surging atmosphere of airing views. The deputy director of the Central Research Institute, Fan Wenlan, had joined the Party in the early 1930s and had been arrested in 1934. He rejoined the Party after arriving in Yan’an in 1939. He posted an essay on the institute’s wall newspaper Arrow and Target, appealing for “the arrow of democracy to shoot down the pernicious atmosphere.”21 The director of the Natural Sciences Institute, Xu Teli, had experienced inner-Party struggle in the Central Soviet Area, so his language was much more veiled as he argued against assigning blame, but even he could not completely hold back, encouraging young people to “boldly speak out and engage in genuine discussion.”22 The schools, where classes had been suspended or were about to be suspended for rectification activities, and the Party organs that had already transitioned into rectification mode experienced various degrees of upheaval, with young intellectuals demanding “exposure” and cutting off the “tails” of the leaders. How did Mao respond at this time? Did he

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embrace it or show an “emperor’s enraged countenance”? Hu Qiaomu recalls that after Mao read Wang Shiwei’s “Wild Lilies” serialized in Liberation Daily, he angrily “pounded on the newspaper on his desk” and demanded, “Who is in charge here, Wang Shiwei or Marx?” He then telephoned Liberation Daily and “demanded that the newspaper engage in an in-depth self-criticism.”23 Sensing that the situation was not going in his favor and worried that he was losing control over the movement, Mao rapidly changed his original strategy of using “liberalism” to attack dogmatism. After going in person to the Central Research Institute to read the Arrow and Target wall newspaper, he called a meeting of senior cadres and decided to make Wang Shiwei the whipping boy in a crackdown on “liberalism.”* 24 At a symposium for an editorial revamping of Liberation Daily on March 31, 1942, Mao released a counterattack trial balloon, issuing a stern warning to Yan’an’s young intellectuals regarding “standpoint,” “the notion of absolute equality,” and “sneering underhanded attacks”: Some people are speaking from an incorrect standpoint, which is the notion of absolute equality and the means of sneering underhanded attacks. Some people have recently demanded absolute equality, but this is an illusion that can never be realized. It is true that our operational system has many flaws and should be reformed, but if absolute equality is demanded, this will not be possible now or in the future. We should reject the thinking of petty-bourgeois utopian socialism. ... Sneering and underhanded attacks are corrosive, and that is not conducive to unity.25 Mao’s warning was prominently published in the April 2 issue of Liberation Daily, but in spring 1942, most of Yan’an’s young intellectuals had not yet learned to observe political trends from a newspaper and they simply put Mao’s warning out of their minds and continued as before, “agitating” for democracy. This was not the first time that they

*

  At this senior cadre conference convened by Mao in early April 1942, the cultural community was represented only by Zhou Yang and Ding Ling. The agenda of the meeting was to criticize Wang Shiwei’s “Wild Lilies,” and speeches by Cao Yi’ou (Kang Sheng’s wife), He Long, and others harshly criticized Ding Ling. In his summary of the meeting, Mao distinguished between Ding Ling and Wang Shiwei, saying the Ding Ling’s essays contained suggestions as well as criticism, whereas Wang Shiwei was a Trotskyite.

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had ignored the political signals Mao was sending; just before the Central Research Institute convened its rectification mobilization meeting on March 18, Liberation Daily had published essays by Luo Mai and Zhang Ruxin,* indirectly communicating Mao’s protective attitude toward them, but at the time Wang Shiwei and the majority of cadres at the institute payed no attention. If it can be said that this earlier instance of negligence happened to coincide with Mao’s plans to “set the prairies ablaze” and that Mao did not greatly object to seeing his erstwhile political rival Luo Mai “roasted” for a while by the masses, once Mao changed his mind and began to regard Wang Shiwei as his No. 1 enemy, further attacks on Luo Mai became tantamount to rebellion and only stoked Mao’s determination to extinguish the trend toward liberalism. On April 3, 1942, the day after Liberation Daily published Mao’s warning, the Propaganda Department of the Central Committee formally issued its famous “April 3 Decision” (“Decision Regarding Discussion in Yan’an of the Central Committee Decision and Comrade Mao Zedong’s Remarks on Rectifying the Three Incorrect Work Styles”). This decision fell under Mao’s “direct leadership” 26 and was formulated especially to “rectify” the trend toward “liberalism” that had emerged during rectification at the Central Research Institute. The decision explicitly declared that rectification must be carried out under the leadership of the heads of each department’s leading organs and that the masses were not to hold elections to organize inspection committees to lead the rectification. During the examination period, not only the work of the leaders was to be inspected but also the work of those below and on all sides; each person was required to reflect on his or her own past.27 Promulgation of the “April 3 Decision” brought the short-lived Yan’an Spring to a close and also signaled the impending unveiling of the cadre examination campaign that had been secretly brewing since October 1941 (with the establishment of the Party and Non-Party Cadre Investigation Committee headed by Kang Sheng). The Rectification Movement was about to shift into a grim phase of cadre purges and elimination of counterrevolutionaries.

*

  On March 16, 1942, Liberation Daily published Luo Mai’s essay attacking Zhang Wentian by innuendo, “We Must Expose and Criticize Dogmatism in Cadre Education,” and on March 17 it published Zhang Ruxin’s indirect attack on Wang Ming and Bo Gu, “Expose and Criticize Deborinism and Launch a Struggle against Subjectivism.”

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On April 5, Liberation Daily published an editorial drafted by Hu Qiaomu entitled “Rectification of the Three Incorrect Work Styles Must Be Carried Out Properly,” which denounced the emergence of “improper methods” in the Rectification Movement thus far, and reiterated Mao’s March 31 warning, indirectly criticizing Wang Shiwei for “speaking out from an incorrect standpoint” and censuring Wang and others for “erroneous viewpoints and methods that are not only unhelpful but also detrimental” to the Rectification Movement.28 On April 13, the editorial committee of Yan’an’s first wall newspaper, the Central Youth League Committee’s Light Cavalry, founded in April 1941, made a preliminary self-criticism on the pages of Liberation Daily after several young members of the committee who were close to Hu Qiaomu caught wind of the shift in the movement. The self-criticism by the Light Cavalry editorial committee happened to perfectly suit Mao’s objective. Mao knew very well that Yan’an’s young intellectuals generally sympathized with Wang Shiwei’s views and that it would be impossible for him to attack all of them as counterrevolutionaries. He planned to simply “kill one to warn one hundred” and thereby seal their lips, and then to reform their thinking and make them completely submissive to his views. Mao was therefore happy to let the Light Cavalry editorial committee off with an admission of error, which also served to “give face” to the Central Youth Committee’s secretary, Chen Yun. On April 23, Liberation Daily published the formal “self-criticism” by the members of the Light Cavalry editorial committee, in which they declared themselves to be “a group of politically naive young comrades” and admitted that their comments had “fomented alienation among comrades” and had “engendered the negative result of reducing cohesion in the organization.”29 In this way, Light Cavalry was able to extricate itself.* 30 Unaware of the shift in the winds, Wang Shiwei continued to deliver

*

  According to Li Rui, who participated in the Light Cavalry wall newspaper, Light Cavalry did not have an editorial committee, and when Hu Qiaomu’s views of Light Cavalry became known (Hu charged Light Cavalry member Tong Dalin with examining and criticizing the wall newspaper’s erroneous editorial policies), Xu Liqun wrote up a lengthy examination and criticism of Light Cavalry’s “errors.” Hu Qiaomu had Tong Dalin condense the text and then send it to Mao. Mao added the title “Our SelfCriticism” and published it in Liberation Daily on April 23, 1942. Although the Light Cavalry self-criticism stated, “We are determined to thoroughly remold the second year of Light Cavalry,” in fact Light Cavalry completely ceased publication.

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emotionally charged speeches at the Central Research Institute. He had no idea that Mao had chosen him to burn on the pyre as the “chicken killed to scare the monkeys.” Having temporarily retreated under the pressure of enormous criticism, Luo Mai followed Mao’s plan for a counterattack and took to the fore on April 7, 1942. Experienced in inner-Party struggle and familiar with Mao’s character, Luo Mai demonstrated his loyalty by associating the “liberalism” that had emerged at the Central Research Institute with Wang Ming and Zhang Wentian,* 31 and then he methodically and strategically arranged a struggle session against Wang Shiwei at the Central Research Institute. Institute cadres who had originally supported and sympathized with Wang Shiwei saw the storm approaching, and terrified out of their minds they changed sides for the sake of self-preservation, some tearfully confessing that their standpoints had been insufficiently stable and that they had been duped and misled, while others indignantly accused Wang of being consistently “anti-Party” and “anti-leader.” Some even acted as if they were “irreconcilable” with Wang and demanded that he be severely punished. Amidst this mass hysteria, Wang’s crimes were steadily upgraded until by June 1942 he was wearing three caps: anti-Party element (soon promoted to “ringleader of an anti-Party clique”), Trotskyite bandit, and KMT spy. Amidst the sustained terror, in early June Wang Shiwei suddenly burst forth from his bookworm’s delusion and announced his resignation from the Party, thinking that in this way he could extricate himself. This was a serious mistake, however; Luo Mai was not in any way prepared to allow Wang to resign from the Party and instead he insisted on expelling him. Whether or not Wang admitted his “errors” was irrelevant;

*

  At a Senior Cadre Symposium that Mao convened on April 6, 1942, Luo Mai delivered a speech in which he attributed the “bias” that had emerged in the rectification of the Central Research Institute to “the dogmatic education of the past.” One year later, Zhang Wentian also carried out a self-criticism on the Wang Shiwei issue, writing in his Rectification Notebook that due to “a slackening in the fight against all kinds of erroneous thought, after the Rectification Movement began, reactionary thinking like Wang Shiwei’s attracted sympathy from the vast majority of the people in the institute. ... I wanted to create a new style of learning and a new Party work style in the Marxism-Leninism Institute, but the result was the development of dogmatism, liberalism, and Party boilerplate. This kind of study, Party, and literary style was welcomed by petty-bourgeois intellectuals and secret agents.”

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his final destination had already been arranged by his superiors, and as a rare specimen of a “villain,” what awaited him was prison. Even tearfully retracting his resignation, confessing to heinous crimes, and kowtowing before the Central Organization Department were to no avail. * 32 Beginning from November 1942, Wang was placed in isolation and lost all personal liberties. On April 1, 1943, Kang Sheng ordered that Wang be formally arrested, and the next day he was sent to the prison of the Central Committee Social Department, † 33 where he became one of the living dead; apart from being hauled out to denounce himself before journalists from foreign countries or from KMT-occupied areas,‡ 34 Wang’s day-to-day “work” consisted of writing self-criticisms, until he was beheaded on Kang Sheng’s orders in Xing County, Shanxi Province, on July 1, 1947. From Mao’s point of view, purging Wang Shiwei and ordering

*

  Wen Jize, who worked in the Party branch of the Central Research Institute at that time, wrote a “struggle diary” describing the mass criticism rally against Wang Shiwei, which was published in Liberation Daily on June 28 and 29, 1942. Beginning from 1979, Wen Jize engaged in appeals to redress the injustice against Wang Shiwei, and due to efforts by Wen and others, Wang Shiwei was thoroughly (though posthumously) rehabilitated on February 7, 1991. †   Ling Yun, employed in the Central Social Department, a participant in the interrogation of Wang Shiwei, and in the 1980s minister of State Security, states that in early November 1942 Kang Sheng sent a cable to Zhou Enlai in Chongqing and demanded that Zhou provide material showing that Wang and the others were “Trotskyite bandits,” but Zhou’s reply did not provide Kang Sheng with any such material. ‡   New People’s News journalist Zhao Chaogou was part of a tour group of Chinese and foreign reporters who visited Yan’an from May to July 1944. After returning to Chongqing, he wrote “One Month in Yan’an,” in which he recorded what he had seen of Wang Shiwei’s situation. Zhao wrote that Wang Shiwei told Chinese and foreign reporters that he was “convalescing” and “his expression while talking appeared to be a complete performance. ... When he spoke of his past ‘errors,’ his expression became frightfully serious and sometimes harsh.” In addition, Ling Yun states that Wang Shiwei met with reporters on orders of the Party Central Committee. Wang Shiwei was accompanied by cadres from the Social Department of the Central Committee when he met with the reporters and, at the time, “Wang Shiwei was still considering the big picture.” It was only after returning that Wang “lay on his bed, burning with anger, clenching his fists and expressing extreme resentment, saying that admitting to being a Trotskyite in the presence of others was a ‘self-sacrifice forced upon him.’”

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a denunciation campaign against him in Yan’an was essential and irreversible. In early June 1942, at the height of the anti-Wang campaign, Li Youran, a writer who was friends with Wang Shiwei and who was also familiar with Xiao Jun, begged Xiao Jun to take advantage of his good relations with Mao to intercede on Wang’s behalf. However, when Xiao spoke with Mao, he was met with a point-blank refusal, and Mao warned Xiao not to become involved in the matter.35 Wang had shocked Mao in the spring of 1942 by rising from the bottle like an evil genie. Mao had counted on Yan’an’s Wang Shiweis, large and small, to “light up the tails” of Wang Ming, Bo Gu, and their ilk, never guessing that the fire Wang Shiwei and the others lit would spread like a wild fire consuming everything in its path or that they would dare to direct their spearheads at the cornerstone of the new order—the hierarchical system. Such a rebellion was intolerable. Mao had not long been enjoying the benefits of the hierarchical system at that point, and he increasingly believed that it was a key safeguard for establishing the new order. While raising peasant “consciousness” to form a vast and formidable army of conquest, the two most effective weapons for expanding and consolidating the revolutionary force were “class struggle” and “reward according to merit,” but only the “class struggle” banner was openly displayed, whereas the other was applied internally. By challenging the hierarchical system and vilifying and satirizing it as the filth of old China, Wang Shiwei caused a slackening of popular sentiment; his intentions were unclear, but given that they caused young intellectuals to regard the revolution as meaningless, they could only be considered as an attempt to destroy the revolution. Based on this logic, Mao made a radical about-face, and disregarding the attacks he himself had directed at Yan’an’s “leading cadres above all” phenomena and his energetic encouragement of young intellectuals to “lop off big tails,” he harshly condemned Wang Shiwei’s “absolute egalitarianism” and “petty-bourgeois utopian socialism.” Mao also discovered that using liberalism to oppose dogmatism was a perilous political game that required even more careful control and that it should not be employed until absolutely required; otherwise it could easily come back to bite him. Wang Ming and the others were in obvious decline by spring 1942, and although Mao considered the Comintern faction his top enemy in the Party, he no longer needed people like Wang Shiwei to encircle and annihilate Wang Ming. Of course, what was done was done, and there was no point in panicking. He simply took the opportunity and

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let his actions be guided by the circumstances, launching a simultaneous “battle on two front lines,” cooking up liberalism and dogmatism in the same pot and transforming the denunciation of Wang Shiwei into a campaign to purge “heterodoxy.” By “snatching victory from defeat,” Mao dropped the curtain on the Yan’an Spring. The drums and gongs of the campaign to examine cadres and eliminate counterrevolutionaries were already sounding. Finally, at the height of the cadre examination campaign in May 1943, Mao completely closed down the Central Research Institute and sent off all the “Red Professors” to be interrogated at the Central Party School. In short, Wang Shiwei could not escape his fate, and most of Yan’an’s young intellectuals were fated to experience the revolutionary storm at the chopping blocks prepared for them on the public square of revolution in order to achieve transformation through complete remolding. Of course, Wang Shiwei was the unluckiest of them all, and while every revolution has its scapegoats, Wang Shiwei’s destruction as part of a meticulously designed strategy is particularly distressing. Mao chose to make him the whipping boy of struggle in spite of his limited social renown, while purposely letting off the famous writer Ding Ling, even though her thinking was the same as Wang’s. This decision was based on strategic considerations: If Mao had decided to attack Ding Ling, the author of the popular Sophie’s Diary, who had come to northern Shaanxi at the end of 1936, it would have sent major shockwaves throughout the cultural, academic, and student communities in the KMT-controlled regions, whereas purging Wang Shiwei would be like a passing rain that put a temporary damper on things but then disappeared without a trace, and it would not weaken the centripetal pull toward Yan’an among Leftist cultural figures and young students in the KMT-controlled areas. Although the utilitarianism of Mao’s political behavior was on full display in the Wang Shiwei case, the worldly-wise could hardly fault his shrewdness. Mao’s strategy was in fact successful: Although the KMT authorities published pamphlets about the Wang Shiwei incident and Wang’s fate aroused concern among some cultural figures in the KMT-controlled areas, ultimately his fame was not great enough. The serious corruption in the KMT-controlled areas led many people to dismiss the KMT’s response to the incident as the same old “anti-Communist clichés,” and ultimately Wang’s tragedy became buried in the dustbin of history.

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IV. Why Did Mao Seek to Muzzle Yan’an’s Writers and Artists? The Wang Shiwei incident and its enormous reverberations in the spring of 1942 put Mao on high alert. Wang’s supporters and most loyal audiences were educated people who had made their way to Yan’an, and, among them, writers and artists comprised a substantial proportion. Mao clearly perceived that the Wang Shiwei case was not an isolated or fortuitous incident and that Wang’s words reflected the discontent within Yan’an’s cultural community and represented the views, attitudes, and standpoints of these intellectuals. The situation brought to mind the problems that had existed within Yan’an’s cultural community for years, and Mao decided there existed an undercurrent of rebellion. Were there actually signs of rebellion in Yan’an’s literary and arts community? Mao clearly overestimated the danger. From 1937 to 1941, Yan’an’s cultural community had shared the Party’s thinking and concerns and had consciously submitted to the CCP’s political requirements, vigorously publicizing the Party lines, guiding principles, and policies. Through rhymes and sk its performed on the streets, woodblock prints, posters, cantatas, novels, and plays, Yan’an’s arts community enthusiastically extolled the War of Resistance, the Eighth Route Army, and the New Fourth Army, and expressed its fervent love for Yan’an and the rear base areas, while criticizing and attacking the Kuomintang according to the specifications of CCP propaganda. With the support of the Party organization, some writers sent their works to Left-wing literary publications published in the KMT-controlled areas, and the CCP’s official newspaper in the KMT areas, New China Daily, frequently published short stories and poetry by Yan’an’s writers. Such works drew even more young people to the CCP and to Yan’an. Yan’an’s cultural community also showed great respect for Mao. As once titular director of Yan’an’s Lu Xun Institute, on many occasions Mao delivered speeches there, and in his contacts with the institute’s teachers and students Mao’s posture of modesty left a universally positive impression on the cultural community. In spring 1938, a youth transferring to the southern New Fourth Army from Wuhan compiled his notes on Mao’s speeches at the institute into an article entitled “Mao Zedong on Lu Xun” and sent it under the pen name “Da Mo” to July magazine, published by Hu Feng in Wuhan. Publication of this article added the feature of

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a “revolutionary literary theorist” to Mao’s identity as leader of the CCP.36 In a conversation at the end of 1939 with the head of the Drama Department of the Lu Xun Institute, Zhang Geng, Mao mentioned that Yan’an’s cultural life was not active enough and he suggested enriching it with a performance of Cao Yu’s play Sunrise.37 Soon thereafter Hu Qiaomu extended attention to performances of Cao Yu’s Thunderstorm, Gogol’s The Government Inspector, and other Chinese and foreign dramas, which were generally welcomed by Mao and Yan’an’s cadres and intellectuals.38 Yan’an’s writers and artists never guessed that just two years later Mao would embark on an about-face and criticize all that had been carried out under his direction as “alienation from the masses,” “exclusionist enhancement,” and “incorrigible displays of petty- bourgeois sentiment.” Yan’an’s artists and writers devoted all their energies to promoting the CCP’s political line, but Mao, as a politician, was not really satisfied. His acute sense picked up a nascent separatist tendency of neo-authoritarian opposition, which could be summed up as the natural unruliness and disrespect for authority among writers and artists. If this “unruliness and disrespect for authority” referred to writers and artists putting themselves at the service of the Party’s political objectives while still preserving a measure of personal independence and their aesthetic habits, linguistic characteristics, and lifestyles as well as the uninhibitedness of their ilk, that was more or less the case. During this period, although writers and artists respected Mao, they did not regard him as the sole CCP leader, and in particular they did not regard him as a theoretical authority on cultural issues who could guide their creative work. Quite a few of them had not yet cultivated the habit of showing respect to Party leaders of cultural affairs. Some of them had reached a level of considerable accomplishment before arriving in Yan’an; they had a healthy sense of self-esteem, liked doing things in their own way, and they paid not the slightest attention to the “leading comrade of literary and arts circles,” Zhou Yang, often responding sarcastically to his airs of leadership. Many of the writers and artists who had arrived in Yan’an from all parts of China were colored by their original circles. Thus Yan’an had a “Lu Xun Institute faction” led by Zhou Yang and a “Literary Resistance Association faction” led by Ding Ling. After Zhou Yang became deputy director and effective manager of the Lu Xun Institute in 1939, he

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gradually drew He Qifang, Zhou Libo, Chen Huangmei, Sha Kefu, Sha Ting, Liu Baiyu, Lin Mohan, He Jingzhi, and a few others into his orbit. The Yan’an branch of the All-China Literary Resistance Association was established in May 1939 with Zhang Wentian’s approval; its main members included Ding Ling, Xiao Jun, Shu Qun, Ai Qing, Bai Lang, and Luo Feng, among others. The two groups were mutually exclusive and as incompatible as fire and water, and they regularly engaged in written debates. From June 17 to 19, 1941, Zhou Yang published an essay entitled “Informal Discussions on Literature and Life” in Liberation Daily, taking a tone of leadership in criticizing some of Yan’an’s writers: “They get writer’s block and blame it on not having meat to eat.” On August 1, Xiao Jun, Ai Qing, Shu Qun, Luo Feng, and Bai Lang obtained Mao’s permission to publish an essay in the Literary Resistance Association’s flagship publication, Literature and Art Monthly (after the essay had been rejected by Liberation Daily), in which they denounced Zhou Yang for “having his own small canteen where he regularly has meat to eat,” but then belittling others for clamoring for the same right to eat meat as leading cadres. Xiao Jun indignantly wrote, “No one came to Yan’an to eat meat but rather for revolution, just as Zhou Yang did not come to Yan’an merely to be [Lu Xun] Institute director, to eat in a small canteen, and to have a horse to ride.”39 Behind this wrangling there was in fact a divergence of creative thinking. The “Lu Xun Institute faction,” led by Zhou Yang, advocated “extolling the light,” whereas the Literary Resistance Association faction advocated “exposing the darkness.” 40 These disputes within Yan’an’s cultural circles suggest that Yan’an’s writers and artists were still living in their Shanghai garrets; in a word, Yan’an’s cultural figures continued along their old trajectories, and under the gradual formation of Mao’s “new order,” the self-created universe of the writers and artists seemed like a kind of utopia. In fact, the “unruliness” of Yan’an’s cultural community” was not intended to be resistance to Mao’s “new order” but to be a spark produced by the incompatibility of the twilight glow of the 1930s’ Leftist cultural movement with the rising sun of Maoism. The “Red 1930s” was a worldwide phenomenon: The rise of fascism and doubts about the systems in the West had produced disillusionment and a deep spiritual crisis that impelled some Western intellectuals to put their hopes for humanity’s future in the Soviet Communist experiment being carried out by Stalin. Thus, from the early 1930s until 1939, before

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the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) joined in the partitioning of Poland, many prominent intellectuals veered left, the largest share being writers who were the most emotional and the most sensitive to changes in political and social life. Unlike European and American writers who did not begin their Leftward shift until the 1930s, Chinese writers had begun moving Left in the latter half of the 1920s. Because the environment for Chinese intellectuals was even worse than that for Western writers, Left-wing writers generally used literature as an instrument of participation in social transformation and they endowed literature with an enormous role in social criticism. As products of China’s perilous political and social environments, Leftist literature, represented by the works of Lu Xun, carried on the May Fourth literary tradition of focusing on social reality and confronting human life, while at the same time absorbing the profound humanistic vision of Russian literature and demonstrating a strong inclination toward social criticism and radicalism. Another characteristic of China’s Leftist literature was that Leftist writers, unlike their European and American counterparts, very seldom expressed a personal vision of society; rather, they formed close-knit groups through which they expressed their literary and political views. Under the increasingly Stalinized cultural policies and leadership methods of the CPSU, beginning in 1928 the CCP invested a great deal of energy in organizing a “proletarian literature” movement centered in Shanghai, and in February 1930 it led the establishment of the Chinese League of Leftwing Writers. The collectivization of culture could be especially useful to give shape to rising trends and to attract followers, but it could also easily trigger squabbling and conflict among writers and artists. Although Qu Qiubai, Lu Xun, Hu Feng, Feng Xuefeng, and Zhou Yang all relied on league backing to rally large numbers of young intellectuals and to strengthen the ranks of Leftist literature, this also planted the seeds of long-term disputes among China’s cultural figures. In the early and mid-1930s, the intensification of domestic unrest caused by the Japanese imperialist invasion, along with the widespread dissemination of Russian-style Marxist literary theory, led to a flourishing of Chinese Leftist literature. Writers such as Jiang Guangchi, Rou Shi, Ye Zi, Xiao Jun, and Xiao Hong rapidly rose to prominence, and the intense social consciousness expressed in their works resonated pervasively among intellectuals living in society’s lower reaches. Their impoverished living

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conditions and discontent with social reality under KMT rule propelled large groups of young people into the ranks of Leftist literature and spurred them to use literature to protest against society. In major cities such as Shanghai and Beiping, poetry, fiction, and drama containing social criticism became a fashionable way for educated young people and students to display their “revolutionary spirit” and personal values in the 1930s. A few friends could collect 100 or 200 yuan to publish their own literary magazine, and by gathering a few works into a pamphlet, a poet or writer would be born. Although the KMT authorities had issued a “Book Inspection Regulation,” the main targets of censorship were a handful of prominent writers, such as Lu Xun, Hu Feng, Mao Dun, and Ding Ling, and the regulation had virtually no effect on average writers active in Shanghai’s foreign concessions or in other major cities. For all of the above reasons, Leftist writers in the 1930s were as common as carp in a river, and literary youth were even more numerous. Of course, there were vast differences in quality and influence. Having a work published in one of Lu Xun’s or Ba Jin’s publications or having it critiqued by Hu Feng, Zhou Yang, or some other revolutionary theorist would cause a writer’s reputation and influence to skyrocket. Even so, the most honored writers remained a small minority and most writers published their creative works and translations in relative obscurity, unknown to anyone outside of their own circles. To all of these famous or not yet famous Leftist writers and artists, social reality under KMT rule was stifling and even unbearable, in contrast to the “glorious universe” of Moscow as presented in Soviet novels and existing in their own minds. It was Leftist literature’s intensely critical mentality and longing for a new society that ultimately drew so many Leftist writers and artists to Yan’an— the Moscow of China. The Leftist writers and artists who arrived in Yan’an were no strangers to an idealistic and utopian “New Village” lifestyle; apart from spiritual contacts through books, some Leftist writers had personally experienced this way of life in the 1930s. The writer Bi Ye, for example, born in poverty but an ardent lover of literature, arrived penniless in the ancient capital of Beiping in the early 1930s, and with eleven other young people in a similar condition they formed a commune temporarily housed in the Chaozhou Guild Hall. These young people spent their time writing, auditing classes at Peking University, or reading in the library, and although poor, they managed to survive by pooling their food and clothing. In their

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minds, Yan’an was a utopia just like the Soviet Union that they venerated and over which the “radiance of the red star shined on the spires of the Kremlin”; in that land, permeated with the principles of social justice, people were free to breathe.41 That is why many Leftist writers, “upon entering Yan’an’s borders, prostrated themselves and kissed the earth.”42 The poet Ke Zhongping even compared Yan’an to the paradise in Dante’s Divine Comedy.43 Apart from a small number of relatively famous individuals, the vast majority of writers and artists who went to Yan’an from 1937 to 1939 were ordinary Leftist intellectual youths, and only a minority had studied in universities. In Yan’an they could set aside their cares and enjoy freedom to breathe and create, and for a time the CCP, mindful of the need to bolster its ranks, cultivated their goodwill. Using a mixture of sincerity and bogus flattery, Mao lavished praise on the accomplishments of Yan’an’s writers and artists, and even became “friends” with some of them. Such an environment was intoxicating to these artists and writers. These individual and transparent young people uttered not the slightest complaints about the material shortages and hardships in what they regarded as the Moscow of China, as revealed by this Russian anthem that circulated among them: People proudly address each other as comrade, That most honorable of all titles. Wherever one is thus addressed is home, Whether one is black, white, brown, yellow, or red.44 However, this honeymoon period between Mao and the cultural community of Yan’an lasted only two years. As Mao’s political status gradually solidified and Yan’an’s hierarchical system took shape, conflicts between Mao and the Red Army veterans on the one hand, and the newlyarrived Leftist artists and writers on the other, became increasingly overt. Yan’an’s writers and artists gradually became disgusted by the thinking and lifestyles of some veteran cadres and military men, and many young intellectuals discovered that their erstwhile heroes had no culture or understanding of Marxist-Leninist theory, uttering constant profanities while posturing as leading cadres. At this point, young intellectuals took up their pens and began criticizing the dark side of life in Yan’an. The resentment of Mao and the Red Army veterans toward Yan’an’s

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writers and artists mainly centered on their “lack of organization and discipline” and their unruly and uninhibited natures. When Ding Ling criticized Yan’an’s bureaucratism in her famous short story “In the Hospital,” published in 1940 in Grain Rain, the flagship publication of the Yan’an branch of the All-China Literary Resistance Association, Mao said nothing, but he began keeping an eye on her. On February 17, 1942, Mao, Wang Jiaxiang, and other leaders viewed an exhibition of satirical drawings by Hua Junwu and others. Mao praised the exhibition, but when he invited Hua Junwu for a chat, he told Hua to “beware of one-sidedness” in his caricatures. Mao used the example of a cartoon Hua had published in Liberation Daily about tree plantings, saying, “You shouldn’t make the sweeping statement that all of the trees planted along the Yan River have withered and died. You should say that the trees along a certain stretch of the river were not planted well.”45 If it can be said that Mao’s dissatisfaction with Yan’an’s writers and artists was largely political, the resentment of some veteran cadres stemmed from their deep-rooted distrust and bias against intellectuals. Many veteran Red Army cadres had never been to a city and for a long time they had lived in an environment that feared intellectuals.* 46 At the outset of the War of Resistance, the initial encounters with intellectuals, and their new terminology, thinking, and living habits, were refreshing, but it did not take long for alienation to set in, along with the fear that these urban people who had seen the wider world looked down on them. The notion that “people different from me cannot share my feelings” was revived, and the veterans retreated into their shells of distrust and fear of intellectuals. With his aspirations to national power, Mao naturally had a different attitude toward intellectuals than certain more short-sighted veteran army cadres. (It should be pointed out that most senior military officers, such as Zhu De, Peng Dehuai, Liu Bocheng, Deng Xiaoping, Nie Rongzhen,

*

  Educated cadres were referred to pejoratively as “white legs.” The greatest amount of hatred and indiscriminant killing of intellectuals occurred in the Fourth Front Red Army under Zhang Guotao and in the E-Yu-Wan and Northern Sichuan Base Areas. Many former Fourth Front Red Army cadres who entered Yan’an’s Central Party School in 1937 were in fact literate, but they absolutely insisted that they were illiterate, fearing that they would be exposed and criticized for knowing how to read and write.

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Luo Ronghuan, Ye Jianying, Chen Yi, Xu Xiangqian, and Guan Xiangying, valued and respected intellectuals. Guan Xiangying, although from a worker background, was so addicted to Lu Xun’s works that he was nicknamed “Little Lu Xun.” It was only a few senior military officers and some mid- or lower-ranking cadres who harbored more narrow-minded biases toward intellectuals. Mao needed intellectuals while he also feared his inability to control them, and for that reason Mao’s attitude vacillated for a time. He dangled bait in front of them and sometimes encouraged and consoled them, but in the depths of his heart he despised those writers and artists with their word-mongering and fiddling. He especially detested those who were supercilious, insolent, and wild-mannered, and he sometimes indulged in attacking them by innuendo. As the intellectuals found it difficult to change their ways, beginning in 1942 Mao became increasingly disgusted with them. Shi Zhe recalls a time when walking with Mao from Yang jialing to the Yan River that they encountered a writer with his walking stick dancing in the air. Upon spotting Mao, the writer greeted him but continued waving around his walking stick, even when reaching a donkey team carrying a load of salt. In a fury, Mao said to Shi Zhe, “This is hooligan behavior that disregards everyone else. ... Just because he knows how to write, he looks down on ordinary people and lords it over others ... arrogant bastard!”47 At that time, only a few intellectuals in Yan’an had the habit of using walking sticks, among them Xiao Jun and Sai Ke. They probably had no idea that Mao, who treated them as “intimates,” would be so indignant at their rash and impetuous natures and would even curse them as “hooligans” in Shi Zhe’s presence. What made things worse was that Mao’s disgust with Yan’an’s cultural community coincided with his resentment of Zhang Wentian, further complicating the conflict. Succeeding Qu Qiubai, Zhang Wentian was one of a tiny minority of top CCP leaders with special expertise in the areas of art and literature. Zhang had engaged in literary creation in his youth and had achieved a much higher level of literary accomplishment and artistic connoisseurship than other CCP leaders. Zhang had been the CCP’s top culture and propaganda official since the War of Resistance and on many occasions he had spoken for the CCP Central Committee on literary and artistic matters, but his viewpoints in this area diverged from those of Mao on a number of major issues. First, on the issue of the nature of the New Culture: Zhang Wentian’s

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talk “The New Cultural Movement of the Chinese People Since the War of Resistance and Its Future Tasks” (also known as “Cultural Policy”), delivered from January 5 to 7, 1940, four days ahead of Mao’s talk on the same topic, expounded in detail on the nature of the New Culture, holding that it should be “national, democratic, scientific, and belong to the broad masses.”48 Here Zhang listed “democratic” as a stand-alone term to indicate the importance he accorded to the democratic nature of the New Culture. Yet Mao was much more ambiguous on this issue in his January 9 talk, entitled “The Politics and Culture of New Democracy” (later renamed “On New Democracy”). Mao pointed out, “National, scientific, and mass culture, that is, the culture of the national masses against imperialism and feudalism, is the culture of New Democracy and is the New Culture of the Chinese people. ... This culture of New Democracy belongs to the broad masses and is therefore also democratic.” There is no way of knowing whether Mao’s conflating of “belonging to the broad masses” with “democratic” was a matter of negligence or specific intent, but “mass character” is obviously no substitute for “democratic” because “the broad masses” could be implicated with autocracy and ignorance, while they could also be associated with democracy and science. By substituting “democratic” with “belonging to the broad masses,” Mao blurred the democratic nature of the New Culture. Second, on the question of “mass orientation” and “Sinification”: Zhang Wentian had touched on this question in a preliminary way back in November 1937. In January 1940, Zhang targeted the tendency in Yan’an’s cultural circles to solely emphasize popularization. He explicitly pointed out, “Popularization does not mean distorting and vulgarizing the New Culture,” and he emphasized, “In any case, the various forms of modern literature and art are more advanced than China’s old forms of literature and art.”49 Zhang’s remarks were a rebuff against the surging revival of old traditions under Mao’s encouragement. Third, regarding the question of what attitude to take toward intellectuals: It is most ironic that Zhang Wentian and others, whom Mao labeled as “adopting a sectarian ultra-Leftist attitude toward intellectuals,” demonstrated a full understanding and respect for the work methods, characters, and lifestyles of writers and artists, and he had more moderate attitudes toward them than Mao did. The “Directive Regarding Cultural Practitioners and Cultural Groups in the Resistance Base Areas,” which Zhang Wentian drafted for the Central Committee Propaganda Department and the Central Committee Cultural Work

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Committee on October 10, 1940, required “correcting the backward mentality of some comrades in the Party in slighting, detesting, and being suspicious of cultural professionals.” He pointed out, “The love and need for writing is a characteristic of cultured people. ... The greatest need and encouragement for cultured people is publication of their works.” For this reason, “We should use all spiritual and material means to ensure the necessary conditions for people in the cultural community to write. ... We should guarantee in practical terms their full freedom to write.” Zhang then proposed that in order to “guarantee that people in the cultural community have enough freedom for research and time for their writing ... (cultural) groups do not need to involve their members in rigorous organizational activities or many meetings.” As for criticism of writers, “We should adopt a principled, critical, but also magnanimous standpoint, strictly avoiding political slogans and biased and narrow-minded formulas to censure writers, and in particular we should not adopt sneering or abusive attitudes.”50 These rather enlightened suggestions by Zhang were rooted in the influence that the May Fourth New Culture Movement had had on him, as well as in his experience in leading the Leftist cultural movement in Shanghai in the early 1930s. Zhang was more familiar than Mao was with the development of the New Culture Movement since the May Fourth Movement. Although Zhang could not thoroughly cast off the influence of the anti-intellectual traditions that had long existed within the CCP, in terms of attitude toward intellectuals, Zhang, Bo Gu, and the others, were much more tolerant than Mao and had much less of a parochial peasant attitude.* 51 It was due to protection by Zhang Wentian and Bo Gu that the famous May Fourth‒era poet Gao Changhong, who went to Yan’an in November 1941, escaped being arrested by the Central Committee Social Department in 1943.52 During the Rectification

*

  People such as Ding Ling and Shu Qun who worked with Bo Gu at Yan’an’s Liberation Daily recall that Bo Gu was cordial to his subordinates, and when the newspaper’s cultural column came under criticism from Yangjialing, Bo Gu typically took the blame and did not censure his staff. When Ding Ling faced a virulent attack from He Long, Cao Yi’ou, and others at the senior cadre symposium that Mao had convened to criticize Wang Shiwei in early April 1942, Bo Gu moved quietly toward Ding Ling, sat down beside her, and comforted her with kind words. Forty years later, when Ding Ling wrote about those times, she could not keep from expressing her deep gratitude toward Bo Gu. Bo Gu also protected Chen Qixia, editor of the Supplement Section of Liberation Daily.

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Movement, Zhang Wentian’s views on Party policies regarding literature and art and intellectuals were severely attacked as “liberalism” by Mao.53 If it can be said that before 1941 Mao was too busy dealing with the situation inside and outside of the Party and with enhancing his own political status to spend time on cultural issues, and therefore he could still tolerate Zhang Wentian’s viewpoints that differed from his own, once his hands were freed in 1942, he could no longer allow Zhang to keep carping on these issues. That is why the eruption of the Wang Shiwei incident was the perfect breakthrough point for Mao’s purge of Yan’an’s cultural community. Mao decided to use this “negative example” to expand the battle lines, round up all of Yan’an writers and artists, and once and for all resolve all the issues in literature and art circles before ultimately establishing his position as supremo of the cultural community.

V. The Yan’an Forum on Literature and Art and the Shaping of Mao’s Notion of “Party Culture” Within the CCP, Mao was generally acknowledged as a top-notch polymath. Unmatched in the Party for his rich knowledge of traditional Chinese culture, he was not only exceedingly well- versed in and fond of Tang and Song poetry, the most ancient collection of prose and poetry Zhaoming wenxuan, classical novels such as Dream of the Red Chamber, Water Margin, and Legend of the Three Kingdoms, and an assortment of unofficial histories and anecdotes, but he was also addicted to Lu Xun’s essays. Yet, apart from those by Lu Xun, Mao had read few New Literature works since the May Fourth Movement, partly out of lack of interest and partly because he had spent a long time in the army with few opportunities to read. He was even less familiar with foreign literature. Mao’s “proletarian theory of literature and art” had two sources. One was the writings of Lenin and Stalin on the topics of literature and art that his assistants had prepared for him, and the second was a summary prepared for him by Zhou Yang and Hu Qiaomu based on background materials related to Shanghai’s CCP-led Leftist cultural movement of the 1930s. Mao’s main consultants on cultural issues were two new friends, Zhou Yang and Hu Qiaomu, rather than his old acquaintance Feng Xuefeng. Unlike Zhang Wentian, Bo Gu, and Yang Shangkun, Mao had had no contact whatsoever with Shanghai’s Leftist literature and art circles before 1937. At the end of 1933, Feng Xuefeng, who had a close relationship with

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Lu Xun and had once been secretary of the Cultural Works Committee of the Propaganda Department of the Central Committee, arrived in Ruijin from Shanghai. Mao arranged to see him, and the two had a celebrated conversation regarding Lu Xun.54 However, the end of 1933 to October 1934 was a time of Mao’s greatest political frustrations and he showed no interest in Shanghai’s Leftist writers, except to ask Feng about Lu Xun’s situation. Mao had little contact with Feng, who by then was deputy director of Marxist Communist University, much less can it be said that the two established a strong personal relationship. During this period, the elder statesman for CCP cultural work and education minister of the Chinese Soviet Republic, Qu Qiubai, had occasional contact with Mao, but both were sidelined at that time and were not in a happy frame of mind; besides, they were not very compatible in terms of temperament, so they spent little time discussing literature and art. After the Zunyi Conference, facing strenuous military duties and a rapidly changing situation, Mao likewise had no time to devote to cultural issues. After the Long March, Mao, Zhang Wentian, and the other leaders decided to make use of Feng Xuefeng by sending him on a secret mission to Shanghai. At that point, the CCP’s survival took precedence over all else, and cultural work was not yet on the agenda. Therefore, in early April 1936, Mao, Zhang Wentian, and Zhou Enlai entrusted Feng Xuefeng to carry a radio transceiver and operational funds to Shanghai. Just before he departed, Zhou and Zhang assigned Feng the task of setting up the radio transceiver in Shanghai and making contact with Shen Junru and other leaders of Shanghai’s National Salvation Association, reviving the CCP’s Shanghai operations and intelligence apparatus. His secondary task was to “have a hand in” Leftist cultural activities.55 Feng arrived in Shanghai on April 25, 1936, and in accordance with Zhang Wentian’s instructions, he stayed at Lu Xun’s home. Upon his arrival in Shanghai, Feng took the special precaution of not establishing contact with the CCP Cultural Committee apparatus, headed by Zhou Yang and Hu Qiaomu (Feng believed the northern Shaanxi claim that the CCP underground organization in Shanghai had been completely sabotaged by the KMT). His conversations with Lu Xun and Hu Feng resulted in proposal of the slogan “mass literature of the national revolutionary struggle,” but soon thereafter a major argument broke out between Lu Xun and Zhou Yang over their two different slogans. Ultimately, Feng Xuefeng was a writer. Although he undertook this great mission to Shanghai, his real interest was in his past leadership of

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the Leftist cultural movement. After leading and organizing the CCP’s Provisional Work Committee in Shanghai in December 1936, Feng gave his organizational and intelligence duties to Pan Hannian while he focused his energies on the cultural community. After returning to northern Shaanxi and reporting to Mao and the other leaders in January 1937, Feng returned to Shanghai and handed over his work with the Provisional Work Committee to Liu Xiao, in accordance with orders from Yan’an. This brought an end to Feng’s role as a “representative of the Central Committee.” Yet Feng’s estrangement from Zhou Yang and his close relations with Lu Xun and Hu Feng bred deep resentment among Zhou Yang and other Yan’an leaders. Zhou felt that Feng had unjustly given him a cold shoulder and consequently he refused to meet with him.* 56 Following the July 1937 Marco Polo Bridge Incident, Zhou Yang, Ai Siqi, He Ganzhi, and Wang Xuewen were designated for transfer to Yan’an, and soon thereafter Zhou was appointed director of the Border Region’s Department of Education as well as deputy director (and effective manager) of the Lu Xun Institute of Art and Literature, providing him with a working relationship with Mao. It was just at this time that Feng Xuefeng became embroiled in a serious dispute with Bo Gu, who was the leader of the CCP delegation in Nanjing, and in a fit of anger he put in a request with Pan Hannian that he take a leave of absence. Feng returned to his native place in Yiwu, Zhejiang Province, in December 1937 and for two years he lost contact with the CCP, until he finally restored contact with the Southeast China Bureau in the latter half of 1939. This had serious consequences for Feng, planting seeds of dislike and revulsion in Mao just as Zhou Yang in Yan’an was gradually deepening his relationship with Mao and impressing Mao with his abilities. Zhou Yang, born Zhou Qiying, was a translator of Russian and Soviet literature who had risen to prominence in Shanghai’s Leftist cultural circles in the mid-1930s. After the leaders of Shanghai’s Leftist cultural movement, Qu Qiubai and Feng Xuefeng, made their way to

*

  As late as 1979, Zhou Yang was still upset with Feng Xuefeng for not making connections with him and instead going to stay with Lu Xun after being sent to Shanghai in April 1936. Fifty years later, another leader of Shanghai’s CCP Provisional Cultural Committee, Xia Yan, also expressed strong resentment of Feng Xuefeng’s actions at the time.

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the Jiangxi Central Base Area in 1933, Zhou Yang became leader of the League of Left-wing Writers and head of the CCP’s Cultural Committee. In February 1935, Zhou Yang evaded the KMT’s devastating roundup of the Shanghai Central Bureau and, together with Xia Yan and Hu Qiaomu, he organized the CCP’s Provisional Cultural Committee that united more than 100 writers and artists who were CCP members. At the time, however, the Provisional Cultural Committee had no contact with the CCP Central Committee, the members of which were still on the Long March. During the early stages of the League of Left-wing Writers, Zhou Yang had translated several volumes of Soviet literature and music, and he had translated and edited a Fortieth Anniversary Festschrift on the Works of Gorky. Additionally, with Zhou Libo he had translated a novel about the life of university students in the Soviet Union. But he did not publish any original work of his own and he was ridiculed by Lu Xun as a “nominal man of letters.” Even so, Zhou Yang’s political leanings and love of Russian literature gave him a deep familiarity with the nineteenthcentury literary theories of Vissarion Belinsky, Nikolay Dobrolyubov, and Nikolay Chernyshevsky, as well as with CPSU cultural policies and literary and art theory of the Japanese Communist Party. In 1937 Shanghai’s Life Bookstore published Zhou Yang’s famous translation of Anna Karenina, and he also wrote some essays on Soviet socialist realism. As a result, by the time he reached Yan’an he had gained a reputation not only as a translator but also as a “literary and art theorist.” Zhou Yang’s status was taken seriously in Yan’an, which, beginning from 1937, had plenty of writers, poets, and artists but only a smattering of “literary and art theorists.” Combined with his political status as the leader of the CCP’s Shanghai Provisional Cultural Committee, this quickly led to his appointment to key postings. From 1937 to 1940, Zhou worked closely with Mao on directives related to cultural work and he regularly published interpretive essays in Liberation Weekly and New China Daily.* 57 His skill at footnoting Mao’s arguments with quotes by Lenin and

*

  For example, Zhou Yang published an essay entitled “The New Reality and the New Literary Tasks” in the June 8, 1938, issue of Liberation Weekly, which early on proposed that writers should gear their writing toward changes in the living environment and focus on the problems of popularization and mass appeal in literature and art. Zhou Yang’s views were completely in accord with those of Mao.

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Chernyshevsky gradually won Mao’s trust, and before 1942 he had already become Mao’s chief spokesperson on cultural matters. As Zhou Yang sought to establish himself with Mao, his erstwhile friend Hu Qiaomu also played an important role. When Hu was active in Shanghai from 1935 to 1937, he was conspicuously active behind the scenes of the League of Left-wing Writers and the League of Left-wing Social Scientists. Although he did not pen any influential works, beginning in 1935 he was a key member of the Shanghai Provisional Cultural Committee led by Zhou Yang and the two formed a close relationship. Hu was involved in the clash between Zhou Yang and Feng Xuefeng in 1936 and 1937. However, although he took Zhou’s side, he surfaced little during the “two slogans debate” and therefore attracted minimal attention. Even though Hu arrived in northern Shaanxi several months before Zhou in July 1937, he remained in youth training classes in Anwubao for quite some time during which his profile receded, in sharp contrast to Zhou Yang’s increasing popularity in Yan’an. By the time Hu was appointed Mao’s political secretary in February 1941, however, the situation had changed dramatically, and Hu’s status rapidly outstripped Zhou’s. Given his deep familiarity with the history of Shanghai’s Leftist cultural movement in the 1930s, Hu became one of Mao’s main consultants on cultural issues ( Jiang Qing played a similar role), and Hu’s views on the conflicts within the League of Left-wing Writers and other such matters naturally influenced Mao. When Hu Qiaomu was recalled to Yan’an in 1939, he had an opportunity for regular contacts with Zhou Yang. At this time, Hu seldom published articles under his own name, while Zhou was painstakingly researching how to use Lenin’s and Stalin’s discussions on cultural issues to construct a theory of literature and art for Mao. Zhou concentrated his efforts on translating Nikolay Chernyshevsky’s Life and Aesthetics, attempting to prise out a tenet of “literature and art in the service of politics” from this revolutionary Russian cultural theorist. Yet Zhou’s greatest contribution to Mao was undoubtedly his meticulous compilation of quotes on literature and art by Marx, Lenin, Stalin, and Lu Xun.58 Another great service Zhou Yang and Hu Qiaomu rendered to Mao was their explanation of the “two slogans debate.” Mao knew something of the matter from when Feng Xuefeng reported it to the Central Committee in January 1937. After Zhou Yang, Ai Siqi, Wang Xuewen, and others began arriving in Yan’an beginning in September 1937, Mao

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gained more detailed background on the viewpoints of each side from the perspective of the “National Defense Literature Faction.” In May 1938, Mao had an exhaustive discussion with Xu Maoyong, a key member of the National Defense Literature Faction. From Chen Boda he gained a third viewpoint, in addition to those from the Zhou Yang and the Lu Xun‒ Feng Xuefeng factions. Between the antagonistic viewpoints of Zhou Yang and Lu Xun, Mao was inclined toward Lu Xun’s “mass literature of the national revolutionary war,” and he had less admiration for “national defense literature,” which bore Wang Ming’s name, but this was only one aspect of the issue. Ultimately, Mao was not a man of letters and he had no intention of becoming mired in this pointless literary squabble. What Mao cared about was that the slogan of “national defense literature” would be conducive to bringing about an anti-Japanese United Front among writers and artists, and the members of the “national defense literature faction” at the time were helping Mao construct his own cultural system. Lu Xun, who had proposed the slogan “mass literature of the national revolutionary war,” was now dead, and Feng Xuefeng had disregarded organizational discipline to go roaming on his own for two years. Although Hu Feng was very active in the KMT-controlled areas, he was not a Party member and his political affiliations were murky. Feeling no need to abandon Zhou Yang for the sake of the departed Lu Xun, Mao declared that one slogan was not better than the other, and both were revolutionary. 59 Privately, Mao told Zhou Yang that the Lu Xun slogan was not entirely immune from cliché60 and thus he expressed his sympathy for Zhou. Mao’s attitude toward Lu Xun was one of political utilitarianism. From the perspective of a reader, Mao admired Lu Xun’s profound knowledge and penetrating analysis of Chinese history and society and the characteristics of the Chinese people, and he appreciated Lu Xun’s merciless exposure and attacks on the various superficial efforts by Leftist writers and artists in the 1930s. But in reading Lu Xun’s work, Mao was more prone to take the perspective of the leader of the CCP, and from this perspective Lu Xun came off as less lovable. Lu Xun’s scorn toward his characters and the unruliness of the elites spoke to Mao’s psychological world, but Mao saw no need to develop this spirit in Yan’an. As for Lu Xun’s essays attacking the evils of the times and exposing villainy, Mao explicitly declared that they had no place in the Communist-controlled areas. In view of the limitations of Lu Xun’s value to Mao, Mao urgently had to revise Lu Xun and his legacy into a form that suited his own

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political requirements. On the one hand, Mao used Lu Xun’s attacks on the “insane delusions” of Leftist writers and artists; on the other hand, he created a narrative of Lu Xun “submitting to the CCP leadership” in order to prevent the cultural community from quoting Lu Xun to resist Yan’an’s new order. It was on this basis that Mao favored Zhou Yang, on whom Lu Xun had heaped such scorn but who was so attentive to Mao’s words. His grudge against Lu Xun and his fear that someone would help Lu Xun oppose him made Zhou Yang more than ready to mold a new Maoist image of Lu Xun. Zhou Yang’s narrow partisanship had made him many enemies in Shanghai’s Leftist cultural circles, but in the new environment of Yan’an he could fiercely attack the “petty-bourgeois attitudes” of artists and writers. With Mao’s discerning attention and Hu Qiaomu’s furtive assistance, Zhou Yang metamorphosed into the most authoritative interpreter of the Mao version of Lu Xun and the “leading comrade” in Yan’an’s cultural circles. In spring 1942, with Hu Qiaomu’s assistance Mao called a group of artists and writers to his living quarters for one-to-one private chats. The writers and artists whom Mao summoned included members of the Zhou Yang faction, such as Chen Huangmei, He Qifang, and Liu Baiyu, as well as people such as Xiao Jun and Ai Qing who were being suppressed at the time. After this “investigation and research,” Mao believed the time had come to make public his now fully developed positions on literature and art. On May 2, 1942, May delivered a speech at the formal launch of the Yan’an Forum on Literature and Art with more than 100 participants. On May 23, he then delivered a summary speech that became known as “Talks at the Yan’an Forum on Literature and Art,” which was published in revised form in Liberation Daily on October 19, 1943. This speech symbolized the formal shape of Mao’s views on “Party culture.” Mao’s “Party culture” views drew from Stalin and shared origins with the intense political utilitarianism and anti-aestheticism of Zhdanovism.* *

  TN: Andrei Zhdanov (1896‒1948) created a new philosophy of artistic creation in the Soviet Union that he intended to be applicable to the entire world. He reduced all of culture to symbols corresponding to simple moral values, and he sought to eliminate foreign influences from Soviet art, suggesting that the world was split into two opposing camps: the “imperialistic” camp led by the United States and the “democratic” camp led by the Soviet Union.

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As a “Party culture” position with Chinese characteristics, Mao’s literary and artistic thought was even more political than the Russian-style “Party culture,” and it revealed an even stronger anti-intellectualism. The Maoist “Party culture” included five core concepts: 1.) Literature and art are tools of political struggle; the supreme objective and most important task of revolutionary literature and art is to use their various forms in service to the Party’s political goals. More specifically, the fundamental orientation of CCP literature and art is a “worker-peasant-soldier orientation,” and this orientation is the creative principles and contents of literature and art. “Creative freedom” is a sham slogan of the bourgeoisie, and revolutionary artists and writers should gladly make themselves the “gears and screws” of the revolution. 2.) Compared with workers, peasants, and soldiers, intellectuals are the most ignorant and filthy, and the subjective consciousness of writers and artists is sheer nonsense of bourgeois individualism. For that reason, intellectuals must accept endless remolding by the proletariat. 3.) Humanism and the theory of human nature represent the concentrated embodiment of bourgeois literary and artistic viewpoints, and revolutionary artists and writers must resolutely fight and thoroughly break with them. They must not depict workers, peasants, and soldiers in any non‒class-conscious manifestation outside of resistance and struggle. 4.) Lu Xun’s era of the essay had passed, and exposing darkness in the revolutionary ranks is strictly forbidden. 5.) It opposed Western trends of literary and artistic forms left over from the May Fourth New Culture Movement. Whether or not writers and artists use a “national form” is not merely a specific question of literary or artistic expression but also a major matter of political standpoint and worldview. These five points included every sphere of literature and art, from creative subject and function to subject matter and form, constituting a rigorous system of Party culture. On the surface, the emphasis of Maoist Party culture on the social and political functions of literature and art was in some respects similar to the Chinese literary tradition of “writing as a vehicle of the Way.” But “writing as a vehicle of the Way” did not imply abolishing the aesthetic function of literature and art and turning it into an exam-style composition and boilerplate. Here Mao extended “writing as a vehicle of the Way” to its extreme, while at the same time he

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assimilated the scornful anti-intellectualism of the Qing scholar Yan Yuan* and combined it with Stalinism to ultimately establish an official cultural line with an intense national flavor. In a word, the essence of Maoist cultural thought regarded literature and art as a political propaganda tool, and it regarded artists and writers as “combatants” in service to the Party’s core work as a means of atonement (for the “original sin” of being intellectuals). Mao greatly valued how writers and artists responded to his “Talks.” As soon as the forum ended, Zhou Yang took on the new mission of promoting and explaining the Maoist Party vision on literature and art, and from this point onward, Yan’an’s cultural atmosphere underwent a fundamental change. In tandem with this change, a cultural control apparatus of the CCP was quickly established with Zhou Yang at its core, turning him into a whip-cracking slave-driver. The CCP’s administrative and ideological control of writers and artists became even tighter after 1942; all of the cultural publications and groups in Yan’an and in the other base areas came under the jurisdiction of the Propaganda Departments of the Party committees and the leading government cultural organs under Zhou Yang’s leadership. Peer publications no longer existed, and all artists and writers were absorbed into the various administrative organizations. Only Xiao Jun resisted fettering by an increasingly bureaucratic system, and in December 1943 he went into self-imposed exile in a village in Yan’an County, where he tilled virgin soil with his wife and children. When Xiao Jun and his family returned after half a year of virtually Stone Age existence, he nevertheless was channeled into the administrative system.61 As with the Soviet Union’s Writers’ Association, the Lu Xun Institute led by Zhou Yang and the Border Region Association of Writers and Artists took on many political functions unrelated to literature and art. Beginning in 1942, Yan’an’s Lu Xun Institute began a close collaboration with the Central Committee Social Department under Kang Sheng’s leadership and with the leading groups for examining cadres and eliminating counterrevolutionaries in various work-units to dig out

*

  TN: Yan Yuan (1635‒1704) founded the practical school of Confucianism, rejecting the abstract metaphysics of the Neo-Confucian school that had been popular in China during the previous six centuries.

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“secret agents” in Yan’an’s cultural circles. As a result, most artists and writers came under suspicion as spies and were targeted for “emergency rescue.” In 1943, almost all artists and writers were gathered into the Third Department of the Central Party School, where in succession they underwent rigorous political vetting. For Zhou Yang, coordinating with the Social Department to purge the cultural community was a political task that took precedence over all else, but raising his status in Mao’s eyes depended on his organizing the production of literary and artistic works that embodied the Maoist vision of Party culture. To that end, Zhou Yang temporarily transferred several writers from the Central Party School and the Lu Xun Institute to live in a “writers’ colony”* in Qiaoergou in hopes that they would be able to create suitable literary works. There were four main types of writers whom Zhou Yang selected for this “writers’ utopia”: •

•

•

•

*

Writers of relative ideological “purity” who were likely to soon create works conforming to Mao’s vision of Party culture, such as Zhou Erfu and Yang Shuo; Non-Party writers who had not yet been completely ideologically remolded, but who had special talent and who might produce the kind of literary works the Party so desperately needed, such as Sai Ke and his wife, and Ai Qing and his wife; Several major writers with strong qualifications who had not yet been suitably placed, such as Xiao San, who had gone to Yan’an from the Soviet Union; Some relatively influential non-Party writers from the KMTcontrolled areas who might return to Chongqing, such as Gao Changhong.†

  Yan’an’s “writers’ colony” was under the leadership of the Central Committee’s Northwest Bureau, with specific responsibility assigned to the Propaganda Department of the Northwest Bureau. However, Zhou Yang, as a member of the Northwest Bureau, was effectively in charge of the “writers’ colony.” †   During the “emergency rescue campaign,” Gao Changhong was falsely accused by Kang Sheng of being involved in the Youth Party because he had offered critical opinions directly to the CCP Central Committee and he even wanted to criticize Stalin. He was fortunate enough to be protected by Zhang Wentian and Bo Gu and therefore he escaped imprisonment, but he quickly disappeared from public life.

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Aside from Gao Changhong,62 most of the writers at the “writers’ colony” felt deeply grateful for being protected from the travails of the purges, and some of them met Zhou Yang’s expectations by creating the first batch of literary works that embodied the Maoist vision of Party culture. This helped Zhou Yang enhance his status and raise his reputation in Mao’s eyes. After the Yan’an Forum on Literature and Art, Mao and Hu Qiaomu intensified their interference in Chongqing’s Leftist cultural circles that were under the leadership of Zhou Enlai. After the outbreak of the War of Resistance, Zhou Enlai had rallied many artists and writers in Wuhan and Chongqing, including members of Zhou Yang’s apparatus, such as Xia Yan and Tian Han, as well as Lu Xun’s close confederate Hu Feng and unaffiliated writers, such as Lao She and Ba Jin. Zhou Enlai was very respectful to non-Communist writers, such as Lao She, and he did not interfere in the creative activities of the consistently Left-leaning Hu Feng, even providing him with financial assistance when he faced difficulties.* 63 The supplements of New China Daily frequently carried articles on literature and art theory by Hu Feng and other writers in his circle, and prior to 1942 none of this had provoked any censure from Yan’an. However, the situation changed radically in 1943. Once Mao and Hu Qiaomu gained complete control of Yan’an’s cultural and propaganda organs, they began to extend their reach to New China Daily, which was under Zhou Enlai’s leadership. Yan’an was greatly displeased with articles by Qiao Guanhua and Shu Wu that were written in Hu Feng’s “subjective militant” style and were published in New China Daily and other Party-affiliated publications. Yan’an criticized New China Daily for “publishing many pretentious but manifoldly erroneous things, such as ×× on national form, ××× on life-force, and ××× on profundity.”64 Clearly, in Mao’s and Hu Qiaomu’s eyes, New China Daily and the other publications were using their operational environment as a pretext for encouraging emotional life and for emphasizing the writers’ subjective consciousness, effectively promoting a “bourgeois” cultural stand utterly antagonistic to Mao’s vision of Party culture.

*

  In 1943 Hu Feng returned to Chongqing from Guilin, and in order to re-register July magazine for continued publication, he requested financial aid from Zhou Enlai. Zhou immediately agreed and wrote Hu a check for 30,000 yuan. In spring 1945, Hu Feng began formal publication of Hope magazine.

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In order to thoroughly rectify New China Daily’s liberalist tendencies, in 1944 and 1945, Mao and Hu Qiaomu sent several key “remolded” subordinates of Zhou Yang, including Lin Mohan, He Qifang, Liu Baiyu, Zhou Erfu, and Yuan Shuipai, from Yan’an to Chongqing to promote Mao’s “Talks at the Yan’an Forum on Literature and Art” and to convince Chongqing’s Leftist artists and writers of the necessity for intellectuals to strengthen their ideological remolding. Apart from a few writers such as Guo Moruo, however, the vast majority in Chongqing’s cultural circles responded to the testimony by He Qifang and the others with silence; only Hu Feng openly expressed a measure of doubt and reservation, whereas Feng Xuefeng found the preaching utterly unacceptable.* 65 What Hu Feng and Feng Xuefeng did not know was that Yan’an was keeping a close eye on their responses to the Maoist vision of Party culture and it had established a “record of achievements and errors” about them and other writers in the KMT-controlled areas to be used in a future squaring of accounts.† 66

*

  On March 18‒19, 1944, Hu Feng participated in a symposium, directed by Feng Naichao, of the Chongqing leftist writers and artists to study the works of Mao Zedong. In his speech, Hu Feng emphasized that the task of leftist writers in the KMT-controlled areas was to fight the KMT’s “reactionary policies” and “reactionary literature and art,” and not to “foster worker-peasant-soldier writers.” Hu Feng did not touch on ideological remolding. Soon thereafter, He Qifang introduced Yan’an’s ideological remolding campaign to Chongqing’s leftist writers, arousing strong antipathy from among the participants. “After the meeting, someone said, ‘So quick! As soon as he was remolded, he ran over here to remold us!’ Even Feng Xuefeng indignantly said, ‘Damn it! Where was he when we were making revolution?’” †   After He Qifang and the others returned to Yan’an, they reported to Mao on their transmission of his “Talks” in Chongqing. Hu Feng’s treatise “Placing Oneself in the Struggle for Democracy” was long considered “evidence” of his crime of opposing Mao’s “Talks.” In it he indirectly criticized the tendency to debase “ideological remolding” into a “devotee’s repentance.” In 1948 the CCP in Hong Kong organized the first mass criticism of Hu Feng. In 1945‒1946, Feng Xuefeng published “On the Power of Art and Other Matters,” “On the Democratic Revolution’s Literary and Art Activities,” and “Extraneous Matters,” his first series of essays that systematically attacked the uproar over cultural mechanisms and formalism. Feng incisively pointed out, “The study or evaluation of specific works using abstract algebraic terms such as ‘political nature’ and ‘artistic quality’ is absolute nonsense. If people are directed to create in this way, it is even worse.” At the time, Feng’s views were regarded as “opposing Mao Zedong.” He Qifang’s essay “Regarding Realism,” (continued on next page)

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If Leftist writers in Chongqing and other rear areas were troubled by the pressures they felt from the Maoist vision of Party culture beginning from 1942, ultimately it was only pressure. They did not lose all their creative freedom like the writers and artists in Yan’an who faced a stark choice between following Wang Shiwei’s path to self-destruction or imitating He Qifang’s abandonment of the old self and pursuit of “regeneration.” After recovering from their initial shock, one by one Yan’an’s artists and writers embarked on a thorough remolding. Ding Ling was probably the first of Yan’an’s writers to extricate herself. After Mao personally convened a political study session for senior cadres on the Wang Shiwei and Ding Ling problem in early April 1942, Ding Ling made a 180-degree about-face. At a criticism symposium on Wang Shiwei’s thought convened by the Central Research Institute on June 11, Ding Ling condemned Wang Shiwei as “despicable, petty, capricious, complex, and shady,” and she called for “opposing all petty-bourgeois sentimentality, humanism, and unprincipled, abstract, and self-regarded feelings of ‘justice’ toward Wang Shiwei.” At the same time, she reproached herself for her “bad essay,” “Thoughts on International Working Women’s Day,” and she urged all readers who sympathized with her situation to instead study Party documents.67 Ding Ling made a point of casting off any affiliation with Wang Shiwei during a memorial rally for Lu Xun on October 19, 1942, when she was also extremely rude to Xiao Jun, who had loyally spoken up for Wang Shiwei. She claimed that the CCP had friends all over the world and that losing Xiao Jun was a drop in the ocean.68 In fact, Ding Ling’s “Bolshevik warrior pose” concealed profound suffering. Several decades later, she confessed that “Thoughts on International Working Women’s Day” had brought her decades of persecution and misfortune, as a result of which she did not dare write what she pleased for fear of “again bringing trouble on myself and suffering to my descendants.”69 However, Ding Ling was perfectly happy to accept Hu Qiaomu and Zhou Yang’s serialized in Liberation Daily on June 10 and June 11, 1946, attacked Feng Xuefeng’s attitude toward Mao’s “Talks.” Feng’s attitude toward the “Talks” directly affected his political future after 1949. On December 31, 1954, Mao sent Feng’s poems and his political fables “Fire” and “Hell” to Liu Shaoqi, Zhou Enlai, Zhu De, Chen Yun, Deng Xiaoping, Peng Zhen, Chen Boda, and Hu Qiaomu to read, apparently indicating his strong disapproval of Feng. On August 27, 1957, Feng Xuefeng was formally declared a “Rightist” and “an anti-Party element” that was to last the next thirty years.

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directions in 1942; she thus created a series of works conforming to their explanation of Mao’s vision of Party culture* 70 and for a time she became one of “Mao Zedong’s cultural warriors.” The weak and accommodating Ding Ling could not know that a little more than ten years later, she too would fall into an abyss of misery almost as profound as that of Wang Shiwei. The difference was that Ding Ling was not executed; she was sent to the Great Northern Wilderness, and after the beginning of the Cultural Revolution, she was incarcerated in Qincheng Prison.

*

  For example, Ding Ling’s work Sunshine on the Sanggan River was directly “guided” by Hu Qiaomu. In June 1948, Ding Ling made a copy of the newly completed manuscript and delivered it in person to Hu Qiaomu, who had already moved to Xibaipo Village in Hebei’s Pingshan County, and she asked him to read and evaluate it. In July 1948, after Hu Qiaomu, Xiao San, Ai Siqi, and others had read the manuscript, they unanimously proclaimed it “the first and best book depicting class struggle in China’s villages.” Hu Qiaomu immediately sent it to Mao, and Mao felt that it was well written and that it could be published with only a few edits. Hu then sent a cable to Ding Ling, who was in Dalian preparing to visit the Soviet Union and Hungary, and told her what edits were suggested. Ding Ling revised the manuscript accordingly. Sunshine on the Sanggan River was quickly published in September 1948 with the direct facilitation of the Party Central Committee, and Ding Ling was able to take the novel with her when she left Harbin for the Soviet Union on November 9, 1948.

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10. The Revolution Deepens: Reconstructing the Apparatus for Propaganda and Cadre Education

I. Reconstructing the “Party Mouthpiece”: Rectification of Yan’an’s Liberation Daily The Ideological Propaganda Departments have always occupied a crucial position in the CCP’s political and organizational structures. The importance of ideological propaganda resides not only in the theoretical and moral groundwork it establishes for Party operations through its interpretation of all Party political and military affairs but also in its utilization by the leadership as a powerful tool against internal political opponents. That is why, beginning from the late 1930s, Mao fought for control of the Party’s Ideological Propaganda Departments. Because publications held a special status in the propaganda apparatus, Mao focused his greatest attention on Party publications at that time and for a considerable period of time thereafter. In 1941 and 1942, Mao relied on a strong Party organ, the Central High-Level Study Group, which had complete jurisdiction over Party public opinion, and he ultimately placed it under his absolute control. The revamping of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) Central Committee’s official newspaper, Liberation Daily, was a key component in Mao’s strategy. Mao’s restructuring of Liberation Daily was a meticulously plotted battle aimed a prompting a comprehensive rectification of work styles, and it marked the completion of a process in which Mao took personal control of public opinion tools. Following the Sixth Plenum of the Sixth Central Committee in 1938, although Mao played a decisive role in formulating Party cultural and propaganda policies, his control of the Cultural and

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Propaganda Departments was not yet absolute; some members of the Comintern faction continued to manage operations in the Propaganda Departments, imposing certain constraints on Mao, as a result of which Mao was hostile to the propaganda apparatus. First, Mao was exceedingly distrustful of the Central Committee Party Newspaper Committee headed by Bo Gu. This committee had a long history in the Party, and its main responsibility was to represent the leadership of the Politburo in supervising the issuance of all Party publications. Beginning in the early 1930s, leadership of this committee had been held by Zhang Wentian. Bo Gu took over from Zhang in 1938, but because Bo Gu was still working in the South China Bureau in Chongqing, Zhang Wentian continued to effectively control the committee until Bo Gu returned to Yan’an in November 1940 and took over actual responsibility for the committee. Beginning from the Sixth Plenum, publications in Yan’an began highlighting Mao’s words and actions, yet they went no further. Under Zhang Wentian’s and Bo Gu’s arrangements, Mao was merely a relatively prominent Politburo member, and the principle of collective leadership continued to be reflected in the publication of a large number of theoretical essays by Zhang Wentian, Wang Ming, Kai Feng, and others. This orientation prevented the general membership of the Party from losing their admiration for Wang Ming and the other leaders or from becoming overly familiar with Mao. Although this situation infuriated Mao, for the time being he could do nothing about it; Mao was not yet in a position to make others sing his praises, but he was determined to roll away the boulders of obstruction that Zhang Wentian and Bo Gu had constructed. Another target of Mao’s displeasure was New China Daily under Wang Ming and Zhou Enlai’s leadership. New China Daily began publication as a Party organ in Wuhan on January 11, 1938, and thereafter it followed the CCP delegation to Chongqing. It was the only major Communist publication that was not under Mao’s direct control, and for a rather long period of time it effectively played the role of the official organ of the CCP Central Committee. In 1938 no one in the CCP would openly question the status of this newspaper, and even in Yan’an its status was tacitly acknowledged. On April 2, 1938, the Yangtze Bureau, in the name of the CCP Central Committee, issued a directive requiring all local Party committees and Party branches to subscribe to New China Daily and for central Party leaders to discuss the newspaper’s editorials and essays during meetings.1 In terms of know-how, New China Daily indisputably

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occupied the top position among Party publications; most of its reporters and editors were prominent members of the CCP’s cultural elite. Wang Ming and Zhou Enlai even hired Lu Yi, who took a neutral stand between the CCP and the Kuomintang (KMT), to work for New China Daily. Compared with the broadsheet New China Daily, Yan’an’s semi-weekly version, New China Times, was a mere tabloid that did not qualify as a Central Committee organ. When Wang Ming issued instructions that New China Daily should not publish Mao’s “On Protracted Warfare” in early July 1938, Mao became enraged, and even though Wang Ming and Zhou Enlai soon thereafter ordered New Masses Books in the Yangtze Bureau to publish On Protracted Warfare as a stand-alone volume, this did nothing to assuage Mao’s grudge against Wang and Zhou. On May 17, 1939, seizing on Zhou Enlai’s agreement with the KMT’s suggestion to suspend publication of New China Daily and to join the KMT in publishing a newspaper called United Edition, Mao severely criticized Zhou: “Your failure to solicit the views of the Secretariat of the Central Committee before agreeing to suspend publication constitutes a major political oversight.”* 2 In Mao’s eyes, New China Daily had not only become a tool for Wang Ming and Zhou Enlai to establish a rival power base, but it was also a mouthpiece through which the “Second Politburo” could direct the Party and represent the CCP to the outside world, and this was intolerable.† In spite of Mao’s intense *

  On May 3 and 4, 1939, Chongqing suffered an aerial bombardment by Japanese planes, during which one dozen Newspaper Offices were destroyed. The KMT authorities used the evacuation as a pretext for ordering a shutdown of all of Chongqing’s publications and for them to join together to produce United Edition. In order to maintain the general United Front situation, Zhou Enlai persuaded those on the New China Daily staff who held opposing views to accept the KMT order regarding publication of United Edition. Meanwhile, Zhou told KMT propaganda chief, Ye Chucang, that as soon as there was a place to settle, New China Daily would resume publication. Even so, this matter was seriously criticized by Mao. †   On December 12, 1938, Wang Ming passed through Xi’an en route from Chongqing to Yan’an. On December 19 he sent letters to New China Daily chief editor Pan Zinian and to Wu Kejian and Hua Gang expressing his concern for the newspaper. In addition, Kai Feng, representing the South China Bureau in leading New China Daily, also wrote to Wang Ming on December 15, 1938 and on February 14, 1939, reporting on the situation at New China Daily. While in Chongqing to take part in the People’s Political Council from September to October 1939, Wang Ming delivered several talks to the staff at New China Daily. On September 29, at the South China Bureau in Chongqing, Wang delivered a speech entitled “The Present Situation Inside and (continued on next page)

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resentment of New China Daily, he still had no means of controlling the only Party newspaper published in a KMT-controlled area. At the same time, Mao believed that if he could change Zhou Enlai’s thinking and bring about a change in New China Daily’s political and ideological positions, there would be reason for the newspaper to continue to exist. But the paper’s status as the CCP’s sole Party organ had to change. Mao’s rectification of CCP news organs moved forward due to a series of measures in the spring of 1941. The first step was for Mao to suggest a temporary shutdown and merger of most of Yan’an’s Party periodicals on the pretext of “technical limitations.” Financial difficulties were indeed a fact, but that was not Mao’s main concern; publications that were disbanded were not restored after the economic situation improved. The result of the mergers was that publications edited by Zhang Wentian, such as Liberation Weekly and The Communist, were shut down for good.* The Party Newspaper Committee existed in name only, as there were virtually no Party newspaper organs left to manage. Mao’s second step was to declare the merger of Yan’an’s New China Times with New China News Agency’s internal publication, Today’s News, on May 15, 1941, and on the next day to formally launch a CCP Central Committee broadsheet, Liberation Daily. Mao notified the entire Party that thereafter, “all Party policies would be disseminated nationwide through Liberation Daily and New China News Agency.”3

Outside of China and the Party’s Tasks.” The speech was then published under the title “The Present Situation Inside and Outside of China and the Accomplishments of the Fourth People’s Political Council Plenum,” Liberation Weekly, no. 89 (November 7, 1939), with a note that it had been “presented at a staff meeting of New China Daily on September 20,” but with the portion on “the Party’s tasks” completely edited out (Liberation Weekly intentionally changed the date of Wang Ming’s talk to confuse the KMT). The aforementioned circumstances reveal that in 1938 Wang Ming still had a degree of influence in the South China Bureau and at New China Daily, and Yan’an was unwilling for Wang Ming to express his views to the entire Party. *   On March 26, 1941, the CCP Central Committee issued the “Decision Regarding the Problem of Rectifying Publications,” which decided to suspend publication of China Women, China Youth, and China Worker as of April 1941 and then to resume publication four months later. On June 15, 1941, it announced that the Central Committee’s political theory publication, Liberation Weekly, would cease publication, and in August 1941 it announced that The Communist would also cease publication. Neither of these magazines subsequently ever resumed publication.

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The establishment of Liberation Daily was a major advance in Mao’s attempt to unify CCP propaganda and media organs. Mao lavished a massive amount of attention on Liberation Daily and personally composed the newspaper’s “inaugural introduction,” yet it was not long before Mao was greatly disappointed with the performance of Liberation Daily. He discovered that the newspaper’s discourse did not substantially differ from that of the terminated publications. Mao’s selection of Bo Gu as the newspaper’s publisher and as the person in charge of New China News Agency, although a demotion, was still a consolation to this former director of the Party Newspaper Committee. Mao did not believe that Bo Gu would dare to defy his decrees under his very nose, and he was sure that Liberation Daily would faithfully carry out his will. But things did not progress as smoothly as Mao had hoped; Bo Gu successfully teamed up with the newspaper’s chief editor, Yang Song, who was another member of the Comintern faction, to make Liberation Daily into a Chinese version of the Soviet Union’s Pravda. Soon after the launch of Liberation Daily, war broke out between Germany and the Soviet Union, and given the concern of Yan’an Party members about this matter, Bo Gu and Yang Song ensured that the newspaper would give prominent coverage to the war and to the Soviet Red Army’s resistance to the German invaders, with news, editorials, and essays on international topics occupying a preponderance of the frontpage stories. Conversely, reporting on the CCP and its troops, as well as the Shaan-Gan-Ning Border Region, decreased for a time and such stories were placed in less-conspicuous positions. Mao was enraged that Liberation Daily made direct use of foreign news service dispatches, believing that “publishing whatever came in, without rewriting” and dumping it into the newspaper would cause readers to lose Party perspectives on major international and domestic events and would turn the newspaper into a “propagandist” for others.4 The scant publicity Liberation Daily gave to Mao’s personal activities and the Rectification Movement was also a source of intense dissatisfaction to Mao. After the newspaper’s launch, Mao demanded, in the baldest of terms, that Yang Song should prominently publicize Mao in the newspaper. He told Yang Song, “When speaking of Chinese history, talk more of the present and less of the old times, and in particular give more publicity to how the Party averted a crisis after the Zunyi Conference, and let everyone know how the correct line led to the victory of the revolution.”5 Under

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Bo Gu and Yang Song’s leadership, however, Liberation Daily turned a deaf ear to Mao’s demands and did not give his activities any special status. The newspaper covered Mao’s February 1 Central Party School speech on “Rectification of the Three Work Styles” in three columns in the lowerright corner of page three, which Mao regarded as a serious affront to his prestige. As a result, Mao felt that publicity for the Rectification Movement in Liberation Daily under Bo Gu lacked both breadth and depth. Mao found it even more intolerable that Liberation Daily regularly published “stinking and wordy” articles by Zhang Wentian, Wu Liangping, and others on Marxism-Leninism and on promoting the Soviet Union. The inaugural issue of Liberation Daily, on May 16, 1941, published Ge Baoquan’s translation of Soviet writer Ilya Ehrenburg’s essay “Another France.” Apart from publishing their own articles in the newspaper, Zhang Wentian and the others also pressed cadres at the Marxism-Leninism Institute to translate lengthy articles from Soviet theoretical journals and then to publish them in Liberation Daily, filling the already limited space on the newspaper’s pages with “foreign boilerplate” and making it even more “boring and insipid” and “repulsive in appearance” (Liberation Daily published only two sheets from May 16 to September 15, 1941). All of this fueled Mao’s determination to purge Liberation Daily, and he repeatedly lambasted it, saying that since it was a Chinese newspaper in a Communist Base Area, it should mainly be devoted to promoting CCP policies and the activities of the Eighth Route Army, New Fourth Army, and the Border Regions and base areas.6 Based on Mao’s proposal, the CCP Central Committee decided to revamp Liberation Daily as part of the Yan’an Rectification Movement. Mao’s purge of Liberation Daily began in earnest in February 1942. He personally sent Lu Dingyi to work at the newspaper, and in the course of temporarily maintaining the newspaper’s leadership ranks, Lu became the effective manager of Liberation Daily, overriding Bo Gu. On March 16, 1942, the Propaganda Department issued a “Notice Regarding the Improvement of Party Newspapers,” requiring Party organizations in all localities “to examine and reform the newspapers in accordance with Comrade Mao Zedong’s appeal to rectify the three incorrect work styles.” On March 31, 1942, Mao personally presided over a symposium to revamp Liberation Daily, encouraging the seventy-plus attendees to criticize the newspaper’s defects. On April 1, Liberation Daily published a “note to readers” declaring that “starting today, the newspaper’s layout will be

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thoroughly reformed” so that “Liberation Daily can become a genuinely militant Party organ.” Thereafter, Liberation Daily was under Mao’s complete and direct control. Some of Mao’s criticisms of Liberation Daily were consistent with the facts, but because Mao’s point of departure was consolidation of his personal control over the newspaper, much of his criticism was exaggerated and focused on only one area while ignoring others. Mao’s criticisms of the newspaper’s use of foreign news wires, for example, were unjust. As the flames of World War II engulfed the globe, Liberation Daily’s prominent coverage of the Soviet-German war and the war of the Anglo-American allies against fascism was consistent with the readers’ demands as well as the responsibility of any serious newspaper with a patriotic standpoint during the War of Resistance. The newspaper’s moderate coverage of Mao’s personal activities was consistent with Mao’s status within the Party at the time. From the perspective of Party principles, Mao was still a member of the Politburo and the Secretariat but he was not a bona fide “general secretary,” and at least superficially he endorsed the principle of collective leadership rather than leadership by any one individual. There was even good reason for the amount of “foreign boilerplate” that appeared on the pages of Liberation Daily. Mao had lit this fire himself at the Sixth Plenum when he had called for the launch of a Party-wide campaign to study Marxism-Leninism, which also provided the Comintern faction with objective encouragement to “pack articles with quotations.” Zhang Wentian and the others simply finagled the opportunity to parade their erudition while in the process of following Mao’s orders. The fact was that under increasing political pressure, Bo Gu and Yang Song managed Liberation Daily with great caution and trepidation. Yang Song in particular went to excessive lengths to demonstrate his loyalty and dedication, in mortal fear of incurring Mao’s displeasure, to the point that his already dim political future became even more imperiled. Yang Song, born Wu Shaoyi in Huang’an (now Dawu) County, Hubei Province, also wrote under the pen names Wu Ping, Vassily, and Ge Li. He was a veteran Party member, but he had no previous working relationship with Mao. After enrolling in Moscow’s Sun Yat-sen University in January 1927, he worked for a long time with the CCP’s delegation to the Comintern and formed a close relationship with Wang Ming. From 1931 to 1933, Yang was transferred to Vladivostok at the eastern edge of the Soviet

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Union to head up the China Division of the Pan-Pacific Workers Union, where he engaged in the education of overseas Chinese laborers and in the collection of intelligence related to Japan. In late summer 1933, Yang was transferred to the Far East Department of Moscow’s Red International of Labor Unions. Under Wang Ming’s orders, on several occasions in 1934 and 1935 Yang Song had furtively entered the Japanese-occupied Northeast at great personal risk, and he represented the Comintern in transmitting directives to the CCP-led Allied resistance forces in the Northeast and in harmonizing internal relations within the alliance. Yang had also repeatedly protected cadres in the Northeast Allied forces who were sent to the Soviet Union to undergo investigation and who were about to be sentenced or exiled. By helping them avoid persecution by Kang Sheng, he had made an enemy of Kang Sheng and he had been disciplined with a Party warning.7 After extended periods engaged in secret operations in the harsh environment of the northeastern underground, Yang contracted a serious case of tuberculosis. He made his way to Yan’an in February 1938 and began carrying out theoretical propaganda work under Zhang Wentian, serving as secretary general of the Propaganda Department of the Central Committee and as Propaganda Section head, lecturing on “the history of the modern Chinese revolutionary movement” at the MarxismLeninism Institute. Following the establishment of Liberation Daily, Bo Gu and Yang Song expected the newspaper would attain the widespread influence and prestige of Pravda, Ta Kung Pao, and New China Daily. Yang studied the pattern of editorials in Pravda and Ta Kung Pao, and, at Bo Gu’s request, he wrote a daily editorial. Even after such burdensome writing responsibilities and the poor work environment caused Yang to suffer a relapse of tuberculosis, he continued working as assiduously as ever. Although Bo Gu and Yang Song had their doubts about the intentions of Mao’s Rectification Movement, they did not dare slight it in their newspaper work.* 8 Yang became even more cautious, parsing every word

*

  Ding Ling recalled that while in charge of Liberation Daily, Bo Gu gave her the impression that he was “extremely circumspect,” and that he had once admonished her not to make the cultural column of Liberation Daily into mere “filler” or “snacks,” but also not to make it into another Light Cavalry. Li Xin said that Bo Gu emphasized that “liberalism cannot exist in a newspaper,” and that “a newspaper cannot assert its independence, even in a single word.”

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and sentence of every editorial and news article late into the night.* 9 After the Politburo began its September 1941 meeting, Liberation Daily remained in lockstep with Mao, repeatedly publishing editorials and essays opposing dogmatism and subjectivism. On September 2, Liberation Daily published an editorial entitled “Oppose Dogmatism in Our Study”; on September 16 it published an essay by Mao’s political secretary, Hu Qiaomu, entitled “Why We Must Declare a Resolute and Merciless War on Subjectivism”; on October 14, it published Ai Siqi’s “The Source of Subjectivism,” which stated that subjectivism came in two basic forms, bookish dogmatism and parochial empiricism, thus officially revealing the two intended targets of Mao’s purges in the Rectification Movement. Although Liberation Daily was devoted heart and soul to promoting the Rectification Movement, Bo Gu and Yang Song were simply wasting their energy. Under Mao’s orders, Lu Dingyi took over management of the newspaper in February 1942, and as soon as he arrived at the Newspaper Headquarters in Qingliang Mountain, he made an example of Yang Song. Lu and his cohort criticized the newspaper’s daily editorials as perfunctory and a waste of effort, and Yang Fangzhi and others even denounced Yang Song for “slipshod work.”† 10 Lu Dingyi and the others were not dealing with matters of substance but were simply using the editorials as the breakthrough point for a reorganization of Liberation Daily. It goes without saying that Bo Gu and Yang Song were no match for Mao’s henchman Lu Dingyi, and Lu’s opinions were ultimately adopted, with Liberation Daily

*

  After Mao’s “Reform our Study” speech in May 1941, Yang Song had a presentiment of doom, and he told his former colleague Zhang Zhongshi, “I can still say a thing or two about foreign matters, but I am really not at all familiar with the domestic situation. From now on, I am determined to reform, otherwise I will be of no use at all to the Party.” †   Yang Fangzhi, aka Wu Min, was released from a KMT prison after the War of Resistance erupted in 1937, whereupon he helped found New China Daily, serving as a member of the newspaper’s first editorial board. He clearly knew that from its founding until early 1941 New China Daily had a tradition of publishing a daily editorial, and it was only after the “Wannan Incident” in 1941, when relations between the CCP and the KMT broke down, that the newspaper decided to no longer publish daily editorials. After Yang Fangzhi was transferred to Yan’an’s Liberation Daily, however, he quickly took Lu Dingyi’s side and became one of the main opponents of publishing daily editorials.

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quickly abolishing its practice of publishing daily editorials. On August 15, 1942, Lu Dingyi officially replaced Yang Song as chief editor of Liberation Daily, and soon thereafter, on November 23, 1942, the despondent Yang died of illness.

II. Lu Dingyi, Hu Qiaomu, and the Establishment of Maoist Principles of “Journalism” Bo Gu remained the publisher of the revamped Liberation Daily but largely in name only; although he was still in charge of some specific matters, real power resided with the newspaper’s chief editor, Lu Dingyi, and the acting director of the Central Propaganda Department, Hu Qiaomu. Under Lu and Hu’s leadership, Liberation Daily vigorously implemented Mao’s directives, and everything from content to layout underwent a major revamping, and fundamental principles were established to construct a Maoist framework of “journalism.” The most notable feature of Mao’s journalism was to regard political utility as the essence of journalism and to deny journalism any standpoint that transcended class. Mao had been intensely interested in journalism in his youth, and while working in the Peking University library he had listened to a speech by a great journalist of the early Republican era, Shao Piaoping. He had also taken part in Peking University’s student journalism society, establishing a journal called Xiangjiang Review as well as serving as the main contributor to a publication of the KMT’s Propaganda Department, Political Week, during the period of the Great Revolution. Although he benefited from the “free press” trends under the May Fourth Movement, Mao never accepted the notion of liberal journalism. Even though he had always enjoyed reading politically neutral newspapers, such as Ta Kung Pao and Shun Pao, he had always drawn a clear distinction between his reading habits and what he demanded of CCP news and propaganda work in terms of political utility: Mao wanted to know all the openly published news and the internal news, but ordinary cadres and citizens only had to know what the Party wanted them to know. Mao’s political utilitarianism was first reflected in the pages of Yan’an’s Liberation Daily, as interpreted by Lu Dingyi and Hu Qiaomu. It was built around five core principles containing a series of mutually interrelated concepts: 1.) The principle of “Party spirit first.” Mao, Lu Dingyi, and Hu Qiaomu held that every newspaper was a

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tool of political struggle for a specific class, and there was no newspaper in the world with objective reporting that transcended class, so the newspapers run by the CCP should indisputably reflect the Party’s political line. Because the CCP represented historical progress and the fundamental interests of the people, Party organs should not only be the “Party’s textbooks” but also the “people’s textbooks.” In order not to disappoint the people—Hu Qiaomu said, “The people’s hope is to read textbooks”— the CCP should operate its Party organs like Stalin’s consummate History of the CPSU, so that people can “read them for a lifetime.”11 To this end, Party newspapers “must be able to carry out the Party’s standpoint and viewpoint from beginning to end, in every treatise, every news report, and every piece of information.”12 Every single commentary, news item, and photograph must be selected and handled on the basis of whether or not it conformed to the Party’s interests and standards, and the Party’s standpoint must be used in judging all things. A Party newspaper should not be a pure news organ that published “all available news” but rather a propaganda tool whose goal was to achieve the Party’s tasks. Ensuring the quality of a Party newspaper required placing it under the absolute leadership of the leading organs of the Party. 2.) The principle of opposing “sham truth.” Lu Dingyi and others proposed the famous slogan: “Combine respect for facts with a revolutionary standpoint.”13 Although Lu was literally emphasizing that news must be completely truthful, the “facts” were to be marshaled under a “revolutionary standpoint.” Lu consequently introduced Lenin’s viewpoint of “two kinds of truth”: One kind was the so-called “essential truth,” i.e., facts representing the direction of historical progress; even though it might be in a nascent state, it was essentially true. Conversely, “sham truth” only reflected a thing’s “semblance” and “false impression” rather than a thing’s essence, and consequently it could not be true. Reporting a recent occurrence by “magnifying an exceptional phenomenon into a general phenomenon” would give rise to the error of “objectivism” and “liberalism,” and the “truth” of the proletariat was completely antagonistic to “objectivism” and “liberalism.”14 3.) “The speed of the news must be weighed against the Party’s interests.” “Grabbing news” was an evil manifestation of “bourgeois journalism.” A proper “proletarian journalistic vision” made the speed of publishing news serve the needs of the Party: “Fast if it should be, slow

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if it should be,” and “some items were published after being suppressed for a while, while others were suppressed without being published.” In short, everything must follow the orders of the Party’s leading organs and the supreme leader, and no newspaper or reporter should be allowed the slightest “independence” or “liberalism.” 4.) The principle of utilizing newspapers to direct campaigns. The Party’s leading organs must be adept at “using” newspapers,15 and especially must learn to utilize newspapers to direct political campaigns. From a campaign’s launch until its climax, reporting must be focused to reach a propagandistic scale, allowing it to educate the cadres and the masses and to intimidate and attack the enemy. 5.) The principle of news confidentiality and access to classified reading. Before the War of Resistance, Red China, and then under its new name, New China Times, began transcribing telegraphic news dispatches from the KMT’s Central News Agency. Some of these dispatches were published in the newspaper, and some were compiled and published as Reference News, which printed fifty to sixty copies each day for circulation to the CCP Central Committee and some department heads. After Liberation Daily was reorganized, it began formally publishing Reference News for leading cadres, with a slightly expanded distribution. The guiding concept behind publishing Reference News lay in a more explicit principle of news confidentiality and classified access to reading materials. Because the masses were divided into Left, center, and Right, Party cadres likewise were differentiated into Left, center, and Right. Given these differences, “absolute egalitarianism” in the right to know had to be opposed. The political consciousness and theoretical proficiency of mid- and low-level cadres were insufficient to inure them to the “toxins” spread by foreign and domestic news reports, and for that reason only a minority of time-tested senior cadres were qualified to be informed of certain pieces of important news and information. The higher the ranking, the fewer the restrictions on reading material. As for ordinary members of the public, ensuring their ideological and political purity made it unnecessary for them to be aware of any news outside of what was published in Party newspapers. Of course, there were differences between Party members and the masses, and ordinary Party members were given a little more information than ordinary people. This special privilege was mainly demonstrated through internal Party reading materials and through hearing reports

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communicated to them by their superiors. The privilege enjoyed by ordinary Party members could hardly compare with that of senior cadres, however; there was an immeasurable difference between the two in terms of the amount of information within their “right” to know. In fact, the basic standpoints of Mao’s journalism did not diverge substantially from those of Wang Ming and Bo Gu, which likewise were rooted in the journalistic theories of Lenin and Stalin. Mao merely put a greater emphasis on Party character than Wang Ming and Bo Gu, and he was more Stalinist—perhaps even more Stalinist than Stalin. It could be that Bo Gu was slightly more influenced by the May Fourth Movement than Mao was. Back in his native Wuxi and Shanghai in 1925 and 1926, Bo Gu edited an influential political magazine, Wuxi Review. 16 In May 1941, Bo Gu recruited the Border Region’s most famous female writer, Ding Ling, join Liberation Daily and he gave her a free hand in managing the newspaper’s cultural column. It was due to Bo Gu’s tolerance that Ding Ling was able to publish a series of critical essays by Wang Shiwei, Xiao Jun, Luo Feng, Ai Qing, and herself before Liberation Daily was reorganized and these exposé-type articles were thoroughly obliterated in order to satisfy Mao’s demand for “uniformity of opinion.” To a certain extent, Mao’s successful monopoly over the news even outstripped that of Stalin. Within the tightly controlled publication environment of the Soviet Union, a few “samizdat” publications managed to circulate criticism of the Soviet bureaucracy, but not a single example of exposé-type writing survived in Yan’an from 1942 and thereafter, and during the “emergency rescue” campaign Yan’an ferreted out “secret agents” who were “writing false news.”17 Under Lu Dingyi and Hu Qiaomu’s leadership, the revamped Liberation Daily underwent a major transformation and became a bona fide “Party organ.” The newspaper’s layout completely reversed its original emphasis on international news and gave the Border Region top priority, followed by the remainder of the liberated areas, then China generally, with international news being accorded the lowest priority. Publication of international news came under even stricter control, with news items completely rewritten and a total ban on the publication of unaltered external news items. Liberation Daily was both a “Party organ” and the personal mouthpiece of the man who controlled the Party, Mao Zedong. Beginning from April 1942, the newspaper complied with Mao’s directives by

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publishing speeches and articles revised by Mao, typically long after Mao had actually delivered the speeches. For example, Mao’s spent a full eighteen months revising the text of his speech to the Yan’an Forum on Literature and Art before it was finally published in Liberation Daily on October 19, 1943. As a propaganda tool under Mao’s tight control, Liberation Daily faithfully executed Mao’s intention to use it to guide the Rectification Movement. After Lu Dingyi was brought in, he followed Mao’s orders to focus on the newspaper’s new “Study” supplement, which soon became the weathervane for the movement. Launched on May 13, 1942, “Study” published twenty-four issues over the next eight months, with various articles focusing on how to study documents, how to develop group discussions, and how to write introspective journals. As the Rectification Movement reached the stage of cadre ideological introspection, “Study” published a series of soul-searching essays by cadres to serve as examples. When the Rectification Movement shifted to the stage of examining cadres’ histories and eliminating counterrevolutionaries in early 1943, “Study” had fulfilled its mission, and it ceased publication on January 16, 1943. Liberation Daily also initiated the new model of the CCP using publications to purge “heterodox” intellectuals. In June 1942, the newspaper devoted two entire spreads to articles criticizing Wang Shiwei, with Fan Wenlan, Zhang Ruxin, Luo Mai, Wen Jize, Li Bozhao, Chen Dao, and Cai Tianxin contributing to the denunciations, and Chen Boda altered Wang Shiwei’s name to mean “smelling of shit.” Providing no space for Wang Shiwei to defend himself, the newspaper became the main battlefront in the lopsided encirclement and suppression campaign against Wang. On June 20, 1942, Liberation Daily published a lengthy summary essay entitled “Regarding Wang Shiwei’s Views on Literature and Art and Our Views on Literature and Art” under the byline of “Yan’an Writers and Artists,” finally sweeping Wang into the ranks of the “reactionaries.” Liberation Daily was devoted to carrying out Mao’s intentions and it fully performed the role of the mouthpiece of the Party and its leader. Even so, it was inevitable that this seasoned horse should stumble at some point. For a short time after April 10, 1942, the newspaper forgot the principle of “opposing sham truth,” and at the height of the Rectification Movement it published two news items on the suicides of a Central Party School male student and a Yan’an University female student. Mao seized

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on these “errors” to harshly criticize Liberation Daily for “not yet being close enough to the Central Committee” and for “not yet being a genuine organ of the Party Central Committee.” He observed that “some news, such as the suicide of Party School students, should not be published,” and he said that several of the newspaper’s editorials were also in error. Mao reiterated, “From now on, whenever there are major issues, whether on news items or editorials, they must be discussed with the Central Committee.”* 18 The thinking of the newspaper’s editors was simpler than Mao’s; when they heard of frequent suicides among Yan’an cadres and students, they felt that publishing articles on one or two selected cases did no harm, not realizing that they had stumbled into the serious political error of “exposing the dark side.” After Mao’s outburst, the newspaper no longer reported anything negative about Yan’an.

III. Deng Fa’s Demotion and the Third Reorganization of the Central Party School Following the enlarged Politburo meeting in September 1941, Mao struck out in every direction in an all-out offensive against Wang Ming, Bo Gu, Zhang Wentian, and the other members of the Comintern faction. The process involved first recapturing the leadership of the Ideological Propaganda Departments and the various schools that the Comintern faction had long controlled and then launching full-scale purges of individuals in the Party and military who had studied in the Soviet Union, and to use his own ideology to thoroughly remold the Party. Reorganization of the Central Party School was a major strategic move combining battles on two fronts to achieve his objective. The Central Party School was a cadre education institution where the Party carried out basic training in Marxism for mid- and highranking cadres. It was established in Ruijin in March 1933 as the Marxist Communist School. Due to the wartime environment, its set-up was very basic, and its courses were brief, typically lasting from two to six months. Study was suspended during the Long March, but the school was restored

*

  Lu Dingyi communicated Mao’s critical views of the revamped Liberation Daily at the twenty-second editorial board meeting of Liberation Daily and New China News Agency on September 5, 1942.

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soon thereafter in November 1935, and it was relocated to Wayaobao and renamed the CCP Central Party School. Although Dong Biwu led the school’s day-to-day operations beginning from 1933, Zhang Wentian, as the top official responsible for ideological matters and as director of the former Marxist Communist School, had pervasive influence at the Central Party School, so the school’s teaching arrangements and class content were always under Zhang’s direct or indirect control. When Dong Biwu was appointed acting chairman of the Shaan-Gan-Ning Border Region Government in May 1937, Li Weihan (Luo Mai) took over as director of the Central Party School. Following the March 1938 Politburo meeting, the directorship was transferred to Kang Sheng. Although Kang Sheng held the post for only half a year, the tense and secretive atmosphere he created left a deep impression on the cadres who studied there at the time. 19 Following the Sixth Plenum of the Sixth Central Committee in November 1938, the position of director of the Central Party School remained unoccupied, with Chen Yun managing the school’s affairs in his capacity as head of the Organization Department of the Central Committee, until Deng Fa was finally appointed director at the end of 1939. The appointment of Deng Fa, an alternate Politburo member and former head of the Political Security Bureau, to the position of director of the Central Party School reflected his declining status in the core leadership. After the Zunyi Conference, Mao rapidly drifted away from Deng Fa, who was a close confederate of Zhou Enlai and Bo Gu. Once the Red Army arrived in northern Shaanxi at the end of its Long March in October 1935, Mao demoted Deng to head of the Food Supplies Department of the Northwest Office of the Chinese Soviet Government, and then, in June 1936, sent him to Moscow on the pretext of reporting to the Comintern. After Deng returned to China in September 1937, Mao did not allow him to return to Yan’an but rather had him stay in Dihua in the relatively lowly position of CCP representative in Xinjiang and head of the Xinjiang Office of the Eighth Route Army. At a crucial juncture when the CCP was engaging in a strategic shift to enhance its military strength, tying Deng Fa down in Dihua, far from the political center, deprived him of any opportunity to contribute his talents to the Eighth Route Army and the New Fourth Army. At the end of 1939, Deng was ordered back to Yan’an, where he became director of the Central Party School and in early 1941 he was appointed secretary of the CCP Central Committee Workers Committee. Ironically, Mao had originally intended these two postings to

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be sinecures for Kang Sheng so he could observe him for a time following his return from the Soviet Union. Once Kang Sheng had gained Mao’s trust and was appointed head of the Central Committee Social Department, these positions were left for Deng Fa, once the powerful head of the CCP’s “Cheka,” but now in decline. During this period, Zhang Wentian invited Deng to the Marxism-Leninism Institute to speak on security work in the former soviet areas for an institute-wide lecture on the “Ten-year Soviet Movement.”20 Deng Fa was one of the few prominent CCP leaders with a worker background, having participated in the 1922 seamen’s strike in Hong Kong and having organized the mass strikes in Hong Kong and Guangdong in 1925. He was distinguished by the puritanical idealism of the early Communists and the fanatical worship of the Soviet Union. Stripped of his authority over intelligence work and the elimination of counterrevolutionaries, and with his influence among the Party leadership on the wane, Deng’s fanaticism abated considerably beginning in 1935 and he gradually began to recognize the complexity of political life in the Party’s upper reaches. While living in the Soviet Union from 1936 to 1937, Deng had been part of the CCP’s delegation to the Comintern led by Wang Ming and he had had a fair amount of work contact with Wang. After returning to Yan’an, Deng respectfully acknowledged Mao, but he did not fawn on him or flatter him, and his contacts with Mao were limited to routine work matters. Not long after Deng Fa became director of the Central Party School, disagreements with Mao developed over the school’s curriculum. It had been one year since Mao proposed the slogan of the Sinification of Marxism, and the Party’s Cultural and Propaganda Departments were undergoing rapid change. In February 1940, the Secretariat of the Central Committee had stipulated that the teaching principles of the Central Party School should be “from few to many, from shallow to deep, from China to overseas, from concrete to abstract,” 21 yet Zhang Wentian still controlled the Party’s culture and propaganda and Deng’s own changing circumstances had not yet diminished his respect for Moscow fundamentalism. Although the curriculum of the Central Party School had changed substantially, it was still the key venue for the theoretical education of Party cadres, and its students, especially those in advanced classes, still had to study political economy, historical materialism, dialectical materialism, the history of modern world revolutions, and so

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on. Although the course topics had been repeatedly simplified, Mao was still dissatisfied because these classes inevitably gave “Red Professors,” who had studied in the Soviet Union or Japan, an opportunity to “parade their learning.” Another source of Mao’s unutterable wrath was Deng Fa’s inadequate emphasis on studying Mao’s works. Mao believed that the “Red Professors” looked down on his writings. Although the Central Party School organized students to study and discuss Mao’s treatises, in Mao’s opinion this was purely perfunctory. Most infuriating but unavoidable was that The History of the CPSU, which Mao so admired and which he had designated as required reading for cadres, was inevitably taught by those “Red Professors,” with their fluency in Russian and familiarity with the Soviet Union. Consequently, Mao regarded the Central Party School as a fortress dominated by woolly-headed doctrinarians. Mao originally attached only limited importance to the Central Party School, which, along with other cultural and propaganda units, came up very light on Mao’s political scale when balanced against the army. For someone like Mao who believed in the “omnipotence of the barrel of the gun,” control of the armed forces was the starting point of his every consideration. The celebrated dictum that “an army is all you need to make a party” was the most typical reflection of Mao’s thinking on the relationship between the military and the Party. Consequently, beginning from 1935 Mao intentionally allowed the Comintern faction to continue to control the CCP’s cultural and propaganda battlefields as political compensation for yielding military power. But as Mao’s power continuously increased and was consolidated, he was no longer content with merely leading the army now that he had basically gained control over the Party and was trying to remold it in accordance with his will; the Central Party School and other such units that Mao had largely disregarded in the past assumed a new importance. Mao had not only the time but also the energy to intervene in the Central Party School’s “dogmatic pedagogy.” Of course, Mao cared about more than only the school’s “pedagogical reforms”; the main reason for his intense interest in the Central Party School was based on another more practical consideration. According to the original decision of the CCP Central Committee, the Seventh Party Congress would be held in Yan’an in 1940, and representatives from the various base areas and the KMT-controlled areas were gradually making their way to Yan’an. Mao was nevertheless unwilling to convene the Party

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congress without absolute victory in hand, so he forced the Politburo to accept his suggestion of postponing the congress. Rather than sending the delegates back to their places of origin, however, Mao wanted to make use of this rare opportunity to examine and sort out the delegates one by one. Arranging for the Party congress delegates to enroll for study at the Central Party School was the best excuse Mao could come up with to keep the delegates in Yan’an, and the school was also the best place for these delegates to settle. Under these circumstances, the Central Party School faced a heavy responsibility—having to carry out its own reorganization while also being entrusted by Mao with a special task. Deng Fa was clearly not up to this great mission; Mao could not rest easy with either his attitude toward Mao or his relations with Wang Ming and the other members of the Comintern faction. Deng was still a member of the Politburo, however, and Mao did not yet have sufficient reason to remove him from his position as director of the school. Mao therefore once again used his “sanding the soil” method, keeping Deng in place while transferring Peng Zhen to serve as the school’s dean and allowing Peng to take effective control of the school while making Deng into a mere figurehead. Peng Zhen, then secretary of the Jin-Cha-Ji Sub-bureau, was transferred to Yan’an from northern China in the first half of 1941. Mao carried out his first reorganization of the Central Party School in December of that year. While Deng Fa stayed on as director, a five-man management committee, established within the Central Committee, substantially diluted Deng’s leadership power. In addition to Deng Fa, the management committee members included Mao’s major aides, Peng Zhen and Lu Dingyi, as well as Wang Heshou from the Organization Department of the Central Committee and Hu Yaobang from the General Political Department of the Central Military Commission (CMC).22 Less than three months after the f irst reorganization of the Central Party School, there was a full-scale launch of the Rectification Movement in Yan’an, and some 300 to 400 senior cadres of Yan’an’s various organizations and schools assembled at the Central Party School for a period of time. In order to implement Mao’s rectification plan, the Politburo, on February 28, 1942, issued its “New Decision Regarding the Party School’s Organization and Education Policies,” which declared a second reorganization of the school. This time Mao himself stepped in, appointing Peng Zhen, whose status was far lower than that of Deng Fa,

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to take charge of the Rectification Movement at the school. Mao once again employed the strategy of pulling the rug out from under Deng Fa and further diluting the leadership of the Central Party School by declaring that the school would now come under the direct leadership of the Secretariat of the Central Committee, with Mao in charge of its political guidance, Ren Bishi responsible for guiding its organization, and its everyday work handled by a management committee made up of Deng Fa, Peng Zhen, and Lin Biao; the Party School management committee that had been established in December 1941 was abolished.23 Following this reorganization, although Deng Fa remained director of the school, his authority was almost completely stripped away and he was only in charge of meetings on academic affairs. Peng Zhen, in contrast, was in charge of the more powerful political education meetings and, along with Lu Dingyi, he was the editor of Study, the publication guiding the Rectification Movement. As for Lin Biao, although he was put in charge of the school’s meetings on military affairs, he did not assume a formal position at the school and he proceeded to Chongqing to represent Mao in talks with Chiang Kai-shek, remaining with the CCP delegation in Chongqing until he returned to Yan’an in July 1943. After this second reorganization, Deng Fa, who had personally attended to all of the Central Party School’s matters, big and small, was nothing more than a figurehead. Available documents indicate that Deng offered no resistance to Mao but quietly accepted this humiliating arrangement, and furthermore on public occasions he expressed his general support for Mao’s rectification program.* 24 Still, he was completely excluded from the Rectification leadership core under Peng Zhen, and the academic affairs meetings that he led were hollow exercises, given that the Central Committee had ordered that the Central Party School scrap all its

*

  On February 1, 1942, Deng Fa presided over the school’s opening ceremony at the Central Party School. It was at this meeting that Mao delivered his famous speech, “Rectify the Styles of Our Study, Party, and Writing.” Before Mao delivered this report, in his opening remarks Deng Fa proposed making the surmounting of dogmatism and subjectivism the new guiding principle of Party School education. After the Rectification Movement was launched, Deng Fa regularly cited his own experience in speaking of “the necessity for intellectuals to be integrated with the workers and peasants.”

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existing courses.* 25 In this way, Deng Fa, an alternative Politburo member and director of the Central Party School, whom the school’s kitchen and janitorial staff addressed as “Brother Deng,” was left with nothing to do. Apart from inquiring into the school’s vegetable production and expansion of its pigsties,† 26 he had no alternative but to focus his attention on Yan’an’s Central Committee Workers Committee. Deng Fa’s days as titular head of the Central Party School ended in March 1943 when he was dismissed from his position as director and sent off to serve as nominal secretary of the Mass Movement Work Committee, a unit under the Central Organization Committee‡ headed by Liu Shaoqi. Mao personally took over as director of the Central Party School, with Peng Zhen and Lin Biao serving as deputy directors. Lin Biao’s appointment as the school’s deputy director had great symbolic significance; Mao wanted to make use of Lin’s military status to shake up the Party organs and senior cadres, but Lin seemed to have no interest in this posting. Although there is no doubt that he fully supported Mao, he was unwilling to make frequent public appearances or to punish others with his own hand. Mao was tolerant of Lin’s sluggishness and allowed him to keep his title as deputy director without actually spending any time at the school, and he put Peng Zhen in charge of day-to-day management. At this point, the Central Party School completed its third reorganization.

*

  The CCP Central Party Politburo, on February 28, 1942, issued its “New Decision Regarding the Organization and Education Policies of Party Schools,” which explicitly stipulated that the Central Party School “suspend all of its past courses and within the year teach and study the Party line.” †   After the CCP’s situation improved, Deng Fa, Xiang Ying, and Peng Dehuai were among the minority of senior leaders who retained the puritanical work ethic and living habits of early communism. After Deng Fa returned to Yan’an from Xinjiang at the end of 1939, he discovered that some people had begun pursuing the enjoyments of life. This infuriated Deng, who shouted, “Our Party is a Party of the working class, but now a small number of people have forgotten their origins.” ‡   Translators’ Note (cited hereafter as TN): See Chapter 13 regarding the establishment of this committee.

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IV. Peng Zhen and the Thorough Maoification of the Central Party School Why did Mao choose Peng Zhen, a long-time underground “professional urban revolutionary” in the KMT-controlled areas who was not a member of the Central Committee and had not taken part in the Long March, to take on management of the Central Party School and oversee the vital work of investigating long-time cadres, many of whom were veterans of the Long March? One answer suffices: Peng Zhen was Liu Shaoqi’s top lieutenant within the Party and Mao wanted to draw on Liu’s support by using Peng Zhen to purge any dissent within the Central Party School and to consolidate his own supreme status within the Party. The other question is why Peng Zhen toiled around the clock to carry out Mao’s rectification of the Central Party School. Here again one answer suffices: Liu Shaoqi and Peng Zhen wanted to use Mao’s power and the rare opportunity of the Rectification Movement to purge their political opponents in the Central Party School and to establish a foundation for Liu Shaoqi as “representative of the correct line in the KMT-controlled areas.” This is the full story behind Mao’s use of Peng Zhen and Peng’s bolstering of Mao’s authority. After Peng Zhen was transferred to the Central Party School, he immediately shunted aside Deng Fa and assumed all the main authority for himself, and then he adopted a series of measures to thoroughly implement Mao’s rectification plan in a way that fundamentally altered the appearance and character of the school. In order to adapt the Central Party School to the needs of large-scale cadre re-education, Peng Zhen imported Yan’an’s hierarchical structure indiscriminately into the school and made it into a bureaucratic apparatus. From the outset, the school had maintained the practice of retaining cadres’ rank upon admission, but the relative brevity of the school terms before 1942 meant there was no obvious difference in the political treatment accorded to students of the advanced classes as opposed to those in the intermediate and primary classes, and the school’s management structure was also quite capable and efficient. But as delegates arrived in Yan’an for the Seventh Party Congress and were admitted to the school along with senior and mid-ranking cadres from Yan’an’s various organs and schools, the original management structure was unable to adapt to the new situation. Senior cadres were being educated and investigated while

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holding positions of power in particular areas or departments, and leading these cadres to accept examination and investigation without unduly affecting their morale became a pressing problem. In order to resolve this quandary, Peng Zhen worked out a two-part system: first, regularizing and systematizing the arrangement of classes according to rank by establishing different classes for congress delegates, brigade- and prefectural-level cadres, regimental- and county-level cadres, and so on, so that “criticism and self-criticism” was carried out among cadres of the same rank; and second, establishing a policy of special privileges for senior cadres that expressly allowed the wives of Central Committee and brigade- and prefectural-level cadres to accompany them to the Central Party School if they so wished, thereby exempting family members from the vetting process.27 Likewise, senior cadres who had servants were allowed to bring their servants to attend to them at the school.28 This two-part system was accompanied by a new vertical management structure of headquarters, departments, subordinate Educational and Secretarial Sections, and Party branches, and it deployed full-time political cadres (organizational and educational officers responsible for liaison work assigned to each Party branch by the departmental, organizational, and Educational Sections), forming a tight organizational network. The Party School’s structure rapidly expanded under this transformation; during the school’s heyday from early 1944 to summer 1945, there were more than 6,000 people on campus, of which one-half were staff.29 As the structure expanded, the school’s bureaucratic atmosphere intensified, reversing the previous egalitarian relationship among students and between students and the school’s supervisory cadres. Another major change that the Central Party School underwent after Peng Zhen took charge was a thorough elimination of the tradition of instruction in the Marxist-Leninist fundamentals, which was replaced by studying the works of Mao, Liu Shaoqi, and Kang Sheng and selections from Stalin’s works, including The History of the CPSU, as well as closely integrating this “study” with inner-Party struggle. According to the “Plan for the Central Party School” that the Central Committee formulated at the end of 1941, after its first reorganization the school still had to teach the newly-compiled fundamental texts of Marxism-Leninism as well as modern revolutionary Chinese history and world history. This plan clearly stipulated the study time for students at the Central Party School, extending it from the original half or full year to two years.30 Yet when

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the Politburo issued its “New Decision Regarding the Party School’s Organization and Education Policies” on February 28, 1942, Mao declared that the Party School would suspend all its past coursework and would no longer impose a rigid study term on the students. The length of the Party School’s term clearly had to serve Mao’s political objectives; when Mao wanted to attack Zhang Wentian and the others, he repeatedly assailed the triviality and wastefulness of Yan’an’s cadre education system, but when he wanted to use the Party School for his own utilitarian ends, he insisted on sending large batches of cadres to assemble for extended periods at the Party School and he would not release them until their brains were thoroughly scrubbed. Peng Zhen quickly caught on to Mao’s intentions and skillfully geared the Central Party School’s “study” toward suspicion and attacks on Wang Ming, Bo Gu, and the other members of the Comintern faction, tying this “upward-directed” criticism into exposure and criticism of the cadres themselves, with the result that students were trapped in a cycle of study, criticism, and examination for three to four years. Under Mao’s general strategy, Peng Zhen turned the Central Party School into a grand arena for political struggle. The third and arguably greatest change that the Central Party School experienced under Peng Zhen was Peng’s close coordination with the Central Committee’s Social Department and Organization Department to make the Central Party School the major CCP hub for cadre investigation and examination over a period of two or three years. Turning a Party-founded military and political affairs school into a temporary intake center for the investigation and examination of “problematic” cadres had a precedent prior to 1942. On March 31, 1937, the Politburo issued its “Decision Regarding Comrade Zhang Guotao’s Errors.” Around that time, a batch of Fourth Front Red Army senior cadres was sent to “study” at the Anti-Japanese Military and Political College, where three sections were organized especially for them.31 Xu Shiyou, Wang Jian’an, and other prominent senior military officers were sent there to “expose and criticize Guotao-ism.” Unable to bear being implicated in the case, at one point Xu, Wang, and the others discussed leading their fellow Fourth Front Red Army cadres back to the E-YuWan (Hubei-Henan-Anhui) or Chuan-Shaan (Sichuan-Shaanxi) Border Area to engage in guerrilla warfare, but someone informed on them and a trial panel headed by Dong Biwu sentenced them to imprisonment. After weighing the pros and cons, Mao took a conciliatory approach and

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ultimately released Xu and the other imprisoned senior military officers, thereby putting an end to the use of the Anti-Japanese Military and Political College as a holding and examination center for “problematic cadres.” The infiltration of the Central Committee Social Department into the Central Party School to carry out political intelligence work also began before 1942, but prior to the Rectification Movement, its activities at the Party School were extremely secretive. After the War of Resistance broke out, the Central Party School was known outside as the “Sun Yatsen Library,” and “enemy area work training courses” run by the Social Department under Kang Sheng’s leadership turned graduates into the eyes and ears of the Social Department to secretly infiltrate the Sun Yatsen Library. Spies in each of the Party School Departments were required to regularly report back to the Social Department on their underground scouting activities within the Central Party School.32 The close cooperation between the Central Party School and the Organization Department of the Central Committee was completely open. The CCP Central Committee stipulated that cadres from the military or Border Region apparatuses could not be admitted to the Central Party School unless their political qualifications were vetted by the General Political Department of the CMC and the Northwest China Bureau, and then by the Organization Department; and Party, government, and military cadres from organs directly under the Central Committee and those coming to Yan’an from the outer regions all had to undergo vetting by the Central Organization Department. Cadres were assigned work by the Organization Department after completing their studies at the Central Party School.33 In 1942, the Central Committee Social Department, under the leadership of Kang Sheng, entered the Central Party School and closely coordinated with the Party School under the leadership of Peng Zhen and the Organization Department under Chen Yun and Li Fuchun to form an “iron triangle” completely loyal to Mao. As a center for the “ideological remolding” of senior cadres, the Central Party School set strict requirements for admission, including investigation, examination, and approval by the Organization Department of the Central Committee. The Central Party School was also a center for investigation and examination; students who were approved for admittance by the Organization Department had to undergo another round of political examination at

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the school and they could not be transferred out during the study term except under special circumstances. The Central Committee Social Department coordinated the school’s political work, and anyone identified as “problematic” in the course of the vetting was placed in isolation at the school for further investigation or, in serious cases, would be sent to the Social Department. For this reason, apart from the senior cadres who were closely affiliated with Mao and some ordinary mid- and lower-level cadres, students at the Central Party School consisted of two types of cadres: One type consisted of cadres who did not have a record of serious political problems, but at various times or to varying degrees had associated with the Comintern faction or with the “empiricists.” The other type consisted of cadres whose political histories were “suspect.” For example, on August 16, 1943 the Secretariat of the Central Committee sent a cable to Deng Xiaoping to pass on to comrades in the Taihang Sub-bureau, requiring that “400 to 500 cadres with good training prospects” and “cadres whose errors were difficult to handle” be sent to Yan’an to study.34 Because cadres were admitted to the Central Party School under a variety of circumstances, the school adopted special arrangements for grouping students into classes: The school had some courses arranged according to the cadres’ ranking, and other courses in accordance with the cadres’ “political reliability.” Beginning in 1943, the number of cadres admitted to the Central Party School increased dramatically, and many of those who were admitted were so-called “problematic” cadres. Under Peng Zhen’s direction, such cadres were concentrated in the following units: Central Party School Department 3: Most of its members were former intellectual cadres at the Central Research Institute who had been dismissed and then amalgamated into the Central Party School; Central Party School Department 6: Most of its members were cadres and young intellectuals from the KMT-controlled areas. These two departments were key units for the Social Department’s in-depth activities at the Party School, and they were also the units where “spies” and “turncoats” were most often unearthed. The most important work of students in these two departments was to “issue debriefings of their problems” (i.e., to confess). Under Peng Zhen’s direction, the leadership ranks of the Central Party School drew on the support of the security and organization forces to “smash the old and establish the new” within the school, breaking down blind faith in the Comintern faction and the “empiricists” and establishing adoration and submission to Mao and Liu Shaoqi. Beginning

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in spring 1942, the Central Party School was drenched in an atmosphere of worshipping Mao and Liu, and for a period during 1945, the school’s name was even changed to the “CCP Central Mao Zedong Party School.”35 On May 14 and 16, 1942, Liberation Daily published two editorials by Peng Zhen: “Understanding the Spirit and Essence of the Twentytwo Documents” and “How to Study the Twenty-two Documents,” which elaborated on the purposes of Mao’s Rectification Movement and emphasized that every CCP member had to resolve issues of stands, viewpoints, and methods, and to use the Rectification Movement to “reflect on one’s work, thinking, and past activities.” Peng Zhen, in particular, demanded that Party School students repeatedly and intensively read all of Liu Shaoqi’s essays collected in “The Twenty-two Documents” in order to increase their familiarity with Liu. During the time that Peng Zhen was the main leader at the Central Party School, he maintained an extremely close relationship with Mao. When the school’s phase of “rectifying the study style” ended in July 1942, the four topics the school formulated for the cadre exams were submitted for Mao’s personal approval before being fixed. Peng Zhen reported promptly to Mao on all controversies, no matter how small, that arose during the movement; Mao was even informed of trivialities, such as a certain military student expressing dissatisfaction with married cadres being allowed conjugal visits every Saturday.36 Mao also regularly went to see Peng Zhen at the school to inquire about the situation there and to meet with the school’s cadres.* 37 Peng Zhen’s loyalty, eff iciency, and capability earned Mao’s commendation, whereas, in comparison, a member of Mao’s own clique, Zhang Dingcheng, was merely the head of the school’s Department 2, and another, Jiang Hua, was just an ordinary student. Mao’s trust gave an enormous boost to Peng Zhen’s confidence and drive. In December 1943, at the height of the campaign to uncover spies and “emergency rescues,” when the school shifted to “studying” line errors, Peng Zhen resurrected old scores and took the lead in criticizing the 1928 Shunzhi Provincial Party Committee and the 1935 North China Bureau, explicitly criticizing Ke

*

  In winter 1943, Mao’s former subordinate from the Jinggang Mountain days, Jiang Hua, returned to Yan’an, and under orders from Liu Shaoqi began studying at the Central Party School. Mao received him at Peng Zhen’s home.

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Qingshi and Gao Wenhua, but in fact aiming his attack through insinuation at Zhou Enlai, who at the end of 1928 had represented the Politburo in handling the matter of the Shunzhi Provincial Party Committee,* while appointing Liu Shaoqi the representative of the correct line in the White areas. Establishing Liu Shaoqi’s authority undoubtedly served to establish Peng’s authority as well, since if Liu was the embodiment of the “correct line,” then Peng Zhen, as Liu’s right-hand man, naturally also occupied the correct line. In this way, Peng prepared the theoretical basis for his own ascent into the core of the Party leadership. The Rectification Movement at the Central Party School provided the perfect opportunity for Peng Zhen to reinforce his status within the CCP. In July 1943, a former subordinate of Liu and Peng from the North China Bureau, An Ziwen, was transferred to the Central Party School as deputy head of Department 2 and assistant to Zhang Dingcheng, but An Ziwen was in fact Peng’s most valuable aide. Peng and An carefully observed and sniffed out cadres at the school who were “loyal to the correct line.” When Chen Yun was removed from his seven-year tenure in the Central Organization Department in 1944, Peng Zhen was immediately promoted to fill the vacancy. With Mao’s support and tacit consent, Peng Zhen and An Ziwen made use of preparations for the Seventh Party Congress to bring over a group of Liu Shaoqi’s subordinates in the North China Bureau, either to serve as Central Committee members and alternative members or to be entrusted with leadership positions in key Party, Administrative, or Military Departments. In this way, Liu Shaoqi’s coterie became one of the main bastions of power within the CCP. During the Yan’an Rectification Movement, the bureaucratized management structure that the Central Party School initiated, its anti-

*

  TN: Shunzhi was a region encompassing the present Hebei Province, Beijing, and Tianjin. When the CCP’s local organization was seriously sabotaged by the KMT, resulting in massive arrests and the deaths of CCP members from November 1926 to January 1928, the CCP Central Committee established a Shunzhi Provincial Party Committee in August 1927, which was tasked with resurrecting the local Party organization under the direction of the Central Committee. Eventually leaders of the Shunzhi Provincial Party Committee were accused of errors, and the committee held an enlarged meeting in late December 1928 attended by Liu Shaoqi, Zhou Enlai, and others, which resulted in the Party committee being reorganized to strengthen its leadership capacity in the north.

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intellectualism and downplaying of theoretical knowledge, and its employment of the muscle of political security to launch ideological struggles and organizational purges constituted important components of the new Maoist legacy that was taking shape. The experience of the Central Party School in the Rectification Movement gradually spread to Party schools in other base areas to become a basic form of inner-Party struggle. Its fundamental spirit was further developed and perfected beginning in 1949, and after certain revisions and additions, it became the traditional method for the CCP to carry out continuous and ceaseless political campaigns in Party organs, Cultural and Propaganda Departments, and tertiary educational institutions, right up until the end of the 1970s. To some extent, the bureaucratized management structure that the Central Party School created during the Yan’an period remains the foundation of the management systems of Chinese tertiary institutions today. The years from 1942 to 1945 marked a crucial period of turmoil and major reorganization in the history of the CCP, during which Mao, Liu Shaoqi, and Peng Zhen offered one another mutual support and cooperation to turn the Central Party School inside out. Mao and Peng’s method of using the Central Party School to purge dissent in fact was almost indistinguishable from Stalin’s use of Moscow’s Institute of Red Professors in 1929 and 1930 to purge Bukharin and other so-called “Right deviating opportunists.” The difference was that Stalin’s purge of the Institute of Red Professors lasted less than two years, whereas Mao’s rectification of the Central Party School lasted three-and-a-half years, making it the “eye of the rectification storm.”

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11. Forging the “New Man”: From Rectification to Cadre Examination

I. Starting with Transformation through Education: Hearing Reports, Studying Documents At its outset in the spring of 1942, the Rectification Movement mainly called on Party cadres to study a series of documents assigned by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) Central Committee. Beginning the Rectification Movement with the study of documents reflected the originality of Mao’s methods in launching inner-Party struggle. First, unlike the policy of large-scale physical extermination that Stalin had carried out in the 1930s, the Rectification Movement that Mao led did not rely only on violent repression; Mao was more adept than Stalin at alternating between the application of educational transformation and coercion. The diversity of Mao’s methods of inner-Party struggle was largely due to vast differences between Mao’s political objectives in the 1940s and those of Stalin. Stalin, as the power-holder of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU), abusively wielded violence to consolidate his dictatorial status, whereas Mao’s chief political objective was to thoroughly overthrow the Soviet faction and firmly establish his leadership status within the CCP, and then proceed to replace the Kuomintang (KMT) as China’s ruling party after the War of Resistance, making himself China’s top leader. With the CCP not yet China’s governing party, achieving this end required that Mao limit inner-Party struggle within set boundaries and attract followers mainly on the basis of his own political line and principles and his personal style and bearing.

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Second, transformation through education was a time-honored Confucian tradition that could be manipulated in a way that others could accept and relate to. Mao believed that combining certain Confucian concepts and methods with some Leninist content would largely achieve a transformative objective and avoid the use of purely violent methods that might destroy the Party. At the enlarged Politburo meeting held from September to October 1941, Mao had gained an overwhelming advantage over Wang Ming and the others. But without the necessary psychological preparation within the Party, Mao would have great difficulties making everyone aware of the splits within the top leadership of the Party. In order to thoroughly destroy the base of the Comintern faction and its influence within the Party, it was also essential to thoroughly discredit them politically; only if a large-scale struggle were to be launched in the Party’s upper, middle, and lower levels would the Party ideology be transformed to the point of eliminating all barriers so as to accept the notion of “Wang Ming as an opportunist.” It was with these considerations in mind that Mao launched ideological remolding throughout the Party, and studying Mao’s writings, and related documents that were vetted and compiled by Mao, was the central task during the initial stage of the Rectification Movement. The documents that the Central Committee ordered that everyone in the Party read during the Rectification Movement came to be known as the “Twenty-two Documents.” But the “Decision Regarding Discussions in Yan’an of the Central Committee’s Decisions and Comrade Mao Zedong’s Talk on Rectification of the Three Work Styles,” issued by the Central Propaganda Department on April 3, 1942, had designated only eighteen documents as essential reading, and only two of the documents were works by Stalin. So it could be that Mao felt that this arrangement showed an excessive bias. On April 16, the Propaganda Department of the Central Committee added four more documents, one by Comintern head Georgi Dimitrov and the three other by Stalin and Lenin, to make up the final roster of “Twenty-two Documents.” The documents occupying the most important position, and listed first and second among the twenty-two documents, were Mao’s “Rectify the Styles of Our Study, Party, and Writing” and “Against Party Boilerplate.” The document listed third on the list was Kang Sheng’s “On Opposing Subjectivism and Factionalism” and “Castigating Party Boilerplate,” talks delivered at two cadre meetings in Yan’an.

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As Mao’s staunchest supporter in launching the Rectification Movement, from the outset Kang Sheng played an extremely important role. At two mass reporting meetings on February 21 and March 7, 1942, Kang gave full rein to Mao’s taunting and sarcastic attitude toward the Comintern faction and intellectuals, effectively publicizing Mao’s novel concept that intellectuals “are in fact the most ignorant.” In addition to Kang Sheng, Mao’s other allies in Yan’an also took action in the spring of 1942. Politburo members Chen Yun and Ren Bishi, as well as rising political stars such as Peng Zhen, Li Fuchun, Lu Dingyi, and Hu Qiaomu, expounded on Mao’s ideas in essays published in Liberation Daily, or they delivered talks on studying the “Twenty-two Documents” at the Central Party School. Alternate Politburo member and acting Propaganda Department head Kai Feng made up for his past offenses by energetically cheering on Kang Sheng and the others. Theoreticians, such as Chen Boda, Ai Siqi, Zhang Ruxin, and He Sijing, toiled even more energetically to publish essays in Liberation Daily. The theoretical atmosphere suddenly became as dense as the air before a storm, and the propaganda downpour that followed earnestly launched the ideological remolding of cadres in Yan’an. Compared with the large-scale purges and struggles during the later stages of the Rectification Movement, the assignment of documents for cadres to study at the movement’s outset was relatively relaxed. Although Mao’s delivery of his speech and Kang Sheng’s transmission of it were followed by a period of “liberalization,” it was short-lived, and the directing of attacks toward higher levels rapidly shifted to a new target. In the latter half of March, Mao suddenly slammed on the brakes and arranged his meticulous “counterattack” against Wang Shiwei. The Propaganda Department’s “April 3 Decision” implemented Mao’s strategic plan more concretely, explicitly emphasizing expansion of the movement to mid- and lower-level cadres who became targets of rectification just like those in the upper levels.1 This document also specified a five-month period for studying the documents. On April 18, Kang Sheng delivered a mobilization speech on studying the “April 3 Decision” to a mass rally of cadres in organs directly subordinate to the Central Committee and the Central Military Commission (CMC). At this rally of some 2,000 cadres, Kang Sheng required that every Party organ establish a study subcommittee to lead the movement in each work-unit.2 The Secretariat of the Central Committee and the Shaan-Gan-Ning Border Region apparatus

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each convened mobilization meetings to study the documents on April 20 and 21, and the head of the Secretariat of the Central Committee, Wang Shoudao, and the leader of Border Region operations, Ren Bishi, delivered mobilization speeches similar to the speech by Kang Sheng.3 In this way, a mass movement to study the “Twenty-two Documents” rapidly spread throughout all work-units. The study of the “Twenty-two Documents” consisted of three phases: 1.) Skimming phase During this phase, all twenty-two documents were to be skimmed through once, after which notes were to be recorded in a notebook and a preliminary discussion was to commence. 2.) Intensive reading phase During this phase, cadres divided the documents into types and read them repeatedly, and they then completed four tasks: studying all the documents attentively, carefully considering each document’s spirit and essence, recording their reading notes in a notebook, and asking questions and engaging in both informal and formal discussions.4 3.) Testing phase From June to August 1942, all of Yan’an’s work-units entered the testing phase for the study of the documents. The Central Party School conducted the first round of examinations from June 23 to July 4, with the four exam questions vetted and revised by Mao.5 The exam topics were: 1.) What is dogmatism in the Party’s study style? What is the most serious manifestation you have seen of such dogmatism? Have you committed the error of dogmatism in your study or work? If so, where was it manifested and how much of it have you corrected? 2.) What is empiricism in the Party’s study style? What is the most serious manifestation you have seen of it? Have you committed the error of empiricism in your study or work? If so, where was it manifested and how much of it have you corrected? 3.) After hearing or reading Comrade Mao Zedong’s talk “Reform our Study” and the Central Committee’s “Decision Regarding Yan’an’s Cadre Schools” and “Decision Regarding the Education of Cadres On Duty,” what is the result of your reflections on your past education and study within the Party? What opinions do you have? How will you reform your own study or work? 4.) After receiving the Central Committee’s “Decision Regarding Investigation and Study,” how will you use it as the basis for examining and reforming or preparing to reform your work?6

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The Central Party School stipulated that during the examination period, the school was to be closed and no guests were allowed to visit except on Sundays. Students who were poorly educated and functionally illiterate were allowed to take the exam orally and more concretely to have their answers written down by an instructor. This was the first time in the history of the CCP that the Party’s central organs mobilized and organized so many administrative resources in the form of large groups of cadres suspending their daily operations to engage in the study of documents on such a scale (the Party had arranged political study for Party members in the past, but the brief time period involved made it completely different from the study of documents during the Yan’an Rectification Movement). Mao used the newly-established study committees to form the core of the Party organization at each level, and based on the strength of the efficient and powerful organizational measures of the study committees, Mao forced his series of new concepts into the brains of all Party members and launched a preliminary attack on the self-consciousness of Party intellectuals, thereby establishing psychological conditions for further ideological remolding.

II. Lining Up and Feeling Out: The Directive to Write Self-reflection Journals Mao kept a close eye on the study movement regarding the “Twenty-two Documents” and he was especially interested in the response of senior cadres and intellectuals. In order to quickly grasp the thinking process of cadres at all levels, in late spring 1942 Mao decided to order all cadres participating in the Rectification Movement to keep self-criticism reflection journals, and he set up a system to collect and selectively review these journals. The use of personal self-criticism journals to gain an understanding of the “living thoughts” of cadres was another of Mao’s innovations, and it shows that Mao was not completely optimistic about Partywide acceptance of his views. Mao was well aware that since he was unable to accurately and precisely express his actual thinking, it was quite possible that the Party could be thrown into ideological chaos. His greatest difficulty resided in his inability to openly criticize Stalin and the Comintern, and, conversely, his need to maintain a positive attitude toward them. Likewise, Mao could not yet make public the true situation

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of struggle within the core leadership of the Party or reveal splits in the leadership through the use of explicit language to directly criticize Wang Ming, Bo Gu, and the others; rather, he had to maintain a superficial leadership solidarity. In the face of this complex situation, Mao could only proceed cautiously and under no circumstances could he engage in rash tactics against Yan’an cadres; the best available option was to “attack with words”—subduing without battle. Requiring cadres to keep self-reflection journals and then collecting and reading them was an effective channel for carrying out such attacks. For Mao, there were two advantages to establishing a system to collect and review the self-reflection journals: First, it allowed him to observe how much acceptance his new concepts were gaining within the Party and to act accordingly; second, he could look for heterodox thinking in these journals and choose classic examples to launch attacks, thereby intimidating others as part of a carrot-and-stick approach that would address the drawbacks of the gentler ideological remolding while also instilling awe for the new authority throughout the Party. Encouraging cadres to engage in ideological introspection and having them keep self-criticism notebooks was indeed a form of pressure on Yan’an cadres, but it remained within the boundaries of their psychological endurance. “Self-reflection” was hardly a new term to Party members; in his 1939 talk “On the Self-cultivation of a Communist,” Liu Shaoqi quoted Confucius to encourage Party members to engage in “self-examination thrice daily” and to strengthen “exercise of the Party spirit,” and many Party members were already acting accordingly. Party elder Wu Yuzhang recalled “suddenly feeling that our current rectification work was the self-cultivation to which China’s ancient sages referred as ‘subduing the self and returning to propriety,’ ‘rectifying the heart in sincerity,’ and ‘sincerity of thought allowing no self-deception’ (from The Golden Mean). Although the old thinking is guilty of philosophical idealism, its strict selfexamination and behavioral probity is valuable.”7 Given that there was no obvious conflict between the Leninist concept of the “New Man” and the introspection and self-cultivation of Chinese philosophy, there was no great difficulty in convincing the majority of Party members to accept such ideological remolding, which involved both new and old elements and blended Leninism with Chinese tradition. Once Mao had established his guiding principle, the next issue to deal with was how to combine the study of documents with ideological

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self-examination to direct the present campaign. On March 9, 1942, following Mao’s meticulous revision, Hu Qiaomu’s editorial “Dogma and Trousers” was published in Liberation Daily. It was this editorial that first proposed “pulling down trousers and chopping off tails,” i.e., as the Party was undergoing ideological introspection, every Party member was to measure him/herself against Mao’s instructions, engage in courageous self-analysis, and bid farewell to the old self. Following publication of this editorial, the Propaganda Department’s “April 3 Decision” more explicitly proposed that cadres taking part in rectification should “each engage in in-depth consideration and reflection on his own work and thinking.” At a joint mobilization rally for organs directly subordinate to the Central Committee and the CMC on April 18, Kang Sheng reiterated the need to “utilize the documents to engage in self-reflection,” and he specifically directed cadres to keep self-reflection notebooks: “The content should be mainly what you have learned from reading [the documents], and your self-reflections.” For the first time, Kang Sheng also declared, “Study committees are empowered to collect and read the notebooks of every comrade.”8 Mao personally stepped forward to offer support to Kang Sheng in carrying out his own intentions, and at a senior cadre meeting called by the Central Committee General Study Committee (CCGSC) two days later, he employed tough language to mobilize the entire Party, from top to bottom, to “keep journals”: The decision of the Propaganda Department calls for keeping notebooks, and Party members have the duty to obey the Party’s decision. The decision stipulates keeping notebooks, so they must be kept. If you say you do not want to keep a notebook, it will not work; as a Party member, you are obligated by iron discipline to do so. The hoop on the head of Monkey King Sun Wukong is golden, and the discipline of Lenin’s Communist Party is iron. It is even more powerful and harder than Sun Wukong’s Golden Hoop; it is in the books. ... Our incantations include a sentence called “keeping notebooks,” and all of us must keep them, even me: I have to write a little bit, too. ... Whether you are a civilian or in the military, male or female, a new cadre or a veteran, a student or an official, you have to keep a notebook. Leading cadres, team leaders, and group leaders must all keep them, with no exceptions, and they must also examine

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the notebooks. ... Right now some comrades who committed errors are keeping notebooks, and that is a very good phenomenon; it would be wrong for those who have erred to pretend that they are above it. Those who have rendered meritorious service must also keep notebooks. ... Someone might say, I have made such a huge contribution, why should I keep a notebook? That will not do. No matter how great your contribution, you have to keep a notebook.9 At a meeting of the CCGSC on April 20, Mao even quoted Kang Sheng’s speech from two days earlier: At a mobilization rally two days ago, Comrade Kang Sheng spoke of criticism and self-criticism: Criticism is criticizing others, and selfcriticism is criticizing yourself. Criticism is for everyone, but selfcriticism is mainly for leaders to criticize themselves.10 Mao said that he too also had to keep a notebook, but in fact that was just a pretense. What Mao referred to as “repeatedly studying one’s thinking, one’s past and one’s current work, and engaging in genuine introspection” 11 was only meant for other leaders and ordinary Party members and cadres. As expected, the Central Party School’s May 1 plan for studying the “Twenty-two Documents” stipulated that students participating in rectification study must “integrate reflections on their own thinking with their related work” and it explicitly declared that all levels in the structure of the school’s leadership were authorized to “examine the notebooks and notes at any time.” After about a month of trials and preparations, by the latter half of May 1942 Mao felt that the time was ripe to shift from studying the “Twenty-two Documents” to using them to engage in ideological introspection. Liberation Daily published the editorial “We Must Keep Selfreflection Notebooks” on May 23, and from then on, the Rectification Movement entered its ideological introspection phase, while the system for collecting and reviewing the cadres’ notebooks spread quickly throughout Party organs and schools. There was no obvious resistance or opposition to mobilizing cadres to keep notebooks and to establish a system to check the notebooks. Even so, Mao did not let down his guard. He understood very well that engaging in self-reflection of one’s thinking and past actions was quite a

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different matter from reading documents, and many cadres were prone to sidestepping major issues and to dwell on trivia, and they were unwilling to carry out a thorough negation of their actions. In order to lead cadres to engage in more in-depth self-criticism, it was essential to quickly present some self-reflection notebooks to serve as models. Beginning in June 1942, Liberation Daily published some introspective essays that could be grouped in four main categories: 1.) Introspection, with the declaration of the political stands of those central leaders who had committed errors of “empiricism.” “Empiricism” was a political label that during the Rectification Movement Mao imposed on central leaders such as Zhou Enlai and Peng Dehuai. “Empiricists” were targets of Mao’s rectification because at some point they had given political support to the Soviet faction, or if not explicitly supporting the faction, at some point they had had differences of opinion with Mao and therefore they were grouped with the “dogmatists.” However, the majority of the “empiricists” had long histories as revolutionaries and had deep roots in the Party, so they occupied only the second level of rectification. Mao’s strategy toward them was to cause divisions between them and Wang Ming, Bo Gu et al. and to bring them over to his side. As long as an “empiricist” publicly admitted his “error,” even if the “admission” or “introspection” was purely superficial, Mao would generally let it pass. The self-reflection by Party elder and Central Committee deputy general secretary Wang Ruofei provided a model for leading cadres who were empiricists. On June 27, 1942, Liberation Daily published an article by Wang Ruofei entitled “The First Display of an Impure Party Spirit Is a Sloppy and Opinionated Work Style,” which used Mao’s standpoint as the basis for self-examination: It was something like the description of Tao Yuanming:* “loving to read without settling on an exact understanding” and “emptying the wine glass at every opportunity.” With this kind of careless and unruly temperament, I often failed to carefully consider how to handle a problem. Although I was always anxiously immersed

*

  Translators’ Note (cited hereafter as TN): Tao Yuanming (365–427) was a poet, with a special love of wine, during the Six Dynasties period.

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in my work, I still fell into a directionless routine, resulting in my work suffering insidiously. Strictly speaking, this shows a lack of the sincere, responsible, practical, and realistic attitude that a Communist Party member should have toward the revolution. 12 In reality, Wang Ruofei’s self-reflection was not “in-depth.” Not only did he fail to make a serious self-criticism of his past actions but he also failed to aim his criticism at Wang Ming, Bo Gu, and the other members of the Soviet faction. Furthermore, Wang even made a point of playing up his achievements: In the past, what I understood as the Party spirit put an emphasis on its organizational aspects, holding that the Party had an organized relationship with the whole, the individual, and the Party, that an individual Party member should unconditionally submit to the decisions of the Party organization in every word and deed, and that as long as one pushed on with Party work without caring for fame or status, and without seeking the limelight or placing personal interests against those of the Party, one already had a Party spirit and could rest assured.13 From this passage it is really difficult to judge whether Wang Ruofei’s “understanding of the Party spirit” constituted a shortcoming or a virtue. Although Wang’s self-reflection only examined his “sloppy and opinionated” work style, Mao still welcomed it. Wang was a senior statesman in the Party who had long been sidelined by Moscow and the Comintern faction because he had had a close relationship with Chen Duxiu while serving as CCP secretary general from 1926 to 1927. Furthermore, Wang Ruofei did not have a close relationship with Zhou Enlai. After the beginning of the War of Resistance, he gained Mao’s tolerance and became a key cadre at the secondary level next to Mao’s inner circle. Wang was usually very respectful toward Mao, and now that he had published a self-reflection in the newspaper and had publicly expressed his political support and loyalty toward Mao, how could Mao nitpick over the performance of a veteran comrade who enjoyed such high prestige within the Party? Here and now, what Mao required was for the leading cadres of the Central Government to express their political

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stands in the way Wang Ruofei did. Even more importantly, the value of a leading Central Government cadre such as Wang setting an example by responding to Mao’s call to carry out a self-examination could not be overestimated; how could other cadres now fail to follow suit? 2.) Introspection by high-level civilian cadres who had committed errors of “dogmatism.” For a group of senior civilian cadres educated in the Soviet Union, Japan, Europe, or the United States and then working in the Central Committee Propaganda Department, the Central Research Institute, or other parts of the cultural and propaganda apparatus, it was not difficult to understand the true intentions of the Yan’an Rectification Movement. Following transmission of Mao’s speeches and publication of the Liberation Daily editorial “Dogma and Trousers,” they quickly realized that they were the main targets of this campaign. They were presented with a choice between two roads: either to refuse to engage in self-reflection and ultimately abandon the Party that was the source of all meaning in their lives; or to abide by the Party’s request, take a complete leave of their pasts and remold themselves, and substitute Mao’s ideas for the Russian-style Marxist-Leninist concepts that they had regarded as sacred. Accustomed to automatically submitting to orders from above, the civilian cadres selected the second road with hardly a further thought. Yet this was not a smooth and even road; they first had to bitterly denounce their grievously sinful pasts and then to express their absolute belief in Mao’s “greatness.” On August 23, 1942, Liberation Daily published an introspective essay by Wang Sihua entitled “My Dogmatism during the Past Twenty Years,” which can be considered the gold standard for self-reflection among “dogmatic” senior civilian cadres. The head of the Chinese Economic Research Section of the Central Research Institute, Wang Sihua, had been a famous Leftist sociologist in the 1930s who had also studied the Marxist political economy in Germany. He fully comprehended Mao’s intentions in launching the Rectification Movement, and in his essay he adopted an attitude of totally repudiating his theoretical research activities during the past twenty years: Everything that I studied and researched at the university and overseas was either England’s Adam Smith and David Ricardo or

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France’s Quesnay and Jean-Baptiste Say.*... Everything I learned was foreign, and what I myself taught naturally was also foreign. This not only saved effort, but was welcomed by my students, because among university students there was generally a perverse lack of interest in China issues, while they gave themselves over to learning foreign things from their teachers. This perverse mentality among students and this opportunistic attitude among teachers is pervasive in China’s universities. Who knows how many young people have been harmed by such a transmigrative education! It harmed me in my youth, and now I use it to harm other youth!14 Wang Sihua’s criticism of malpractices in China’s modern educational system were to some extent consistent with the historical reality. The problem was that Wang Sihua was not really interested in a serious analysis of these malpractices; rather he was pandering to a certain political trend. For that reason, he did not hesitate to oversimplify some very complex phenomena in order to provide Mao’s thesis with some distinctive annotations: When I accepted Marxist economics thirteen years ago, I imported it to China with uncritical acceptance. ... My approach to Marxist economics was subjectivist. With this attitude, I only wanted to understand Greece and not China. ... I treated all things Marxist as immutable, universally applicable dogmas.15 Wang then used a series of disparaging terms to criticize himself. He acknowledged that teaching students to “gnaw on Engels’s Anti-Dühring was pandering to their vauntingly overambitious and peculiar mentality.”16

*

  TN: Adam Smith (1723‒90) was a pioneer of political economy and he laid the foundations for the classical free-market economic theory. David Ricardo (1772‒1823) was another influential British classical economist who developed the theory of competitive advantage, advocating that a country should concentrate its resources on its internationally most competitive industries. Francois Quesnay (1694‒1774) was a French economist of the Physiocratic School, which held that the wealth of nations was derived from land agriculture and land development. Jean-Baptiste Say (1767‒1832) was a liberal French economist and businessman who argued in favor of competition, free trade, and the lifting of restraints on business.

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After arriving in Yan’an, he “could not but talk of the relevance of Marxism to China under the prevailing slogan of the Sinification of Marxism,” but this was only “window-dressing”; he still “only wished to turn cartwheels over Das Kapital.”17 Wang castigated himself for “indulging in verbosity,” “being dishonest and finessing,” “only knowing how to recite dogma,” and “making a joke of Marxism-Leninism.” While denouncing himself both orally and in writing, Wang did his utmost to extol Mao’s contribution to the development of Marxism-Leninism. He said, “In order to thoroughly obliterate dogma ‘more worthless than shit,’” and to “thoroughly root out my inveterately incorrect ways of thinking,” he had decided to “turn to practical work, not only practical research, and to actually become a practical worker.”18 Wang Sihua’s introspection created a model of self-criticism for dogmatic senior civilian cadres. Fan Wenlan, Wang Ziye, and others followed this same pattern of self-reflection. Deputy director of the Central Research Institute and historian Fan Wenlan expressed deep regret for the liberal ideological trend represented by Wang Shiwei that had inundated the Central Research Institute during its previous phase. Fan denounced himself for “singing the praises of democracy and neglecting centralism, giving rise to a ‘leadership’ that let things go adrift,” and he professed this to be an “unforgettably painful experience” for which he felt “guilty to the depths of his conscience.”19 Wang Ziye, a member of the Central Political Research Section and the International Policy Research Section, criticized himself for “indulgence in verbosity” and, in particular, lacking an “upright work style.” He was aggrieved by his propensity for “half-baked” grandiose pronouncements that “relied on pure assumptions,” which he now regarded as “absurd to the extreme.”20 Under the enormous pressure of Mao’s inducements to introspection, many senior civilian cadres engaged in self-criticism, and either orally or in writing they denounced dogmatic texts as “more useless than shit.” Intellectuals who had previously translated the works of Marx and Lenin bore the brunt of was criticism of their enthusiastic dissemination of dogma. The head of the International Issues Research Section of the Central Research Institute, Ke Bainian, was a veteran Party member who had gained fame in the late 1920s as a Red sociologist, and he had translated Methodology and Economics and other Marxist theoretical

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works.21 Ke Bainian did not publish a self-denunciation in Liberation Daily at the outset of the Rectification Movement, as a result of which he was attacked as a “dogmatist” whose crime was his translation of dogmatic texts. This was deeply upsetting to Ke and he vowed never again to engage in translation work. In spring 1943, in line with the changing situation (dogmatism had already been thoroughly discredited, and the Soviet Union had gained an advantage in the war against Germany), Mao felt it necessary to revive CCP translations of Marxist-Leninist works. But when Mao solicited Ke Bainian’s views on the subject, Ke firmly stated that he would never again do any more translations.22 Ke subsequently shifted into the CCP foreign affairs apparatus led by Zhou Enlai to engage in international United Front work, and he never returned to the Party Department for translating Marxist-Leninist works. The result of Mao’s campaign against “dogmatism” was all too clear, and in spring 1945, in a private conversation Xie Juezai sighed, “Since the campaign against dogmatism, some people want nothing more to do with books.”23 3.) Introspection by senior military cadres with “empiricist” inclinations. Having no involvement whatsoever in the political life of the upper levels of the Party, senior military cadres could not be major targets of the Rectification Movement. Yet with the entire Party engaged in the movement, military cadres could not remain completely excluded from it, and they were likewise expected to “raise their awareness.” The content of this raised awareness differed, however, depending on the cadre’s military apparatus. In general, cadres from the Fourth Front Red Army had to examine the standpoints and attitudes they had taken during Zhang Guotao’s attempt to “establish an alternative Central Committee,” whereas cadres from the First Front Red Army merely had to reflect on their work methods and modes of thinking. The self-reflection by Cao Lihuai serves as an example. Cao Lihuai was a former subordinate from Mao’s Jinggang Mountain days. His “self-criticism” focused on four major shortcomings: 1.) in his day-to-day work, he tended to be perfunctory in solving and handling problems; 2.) he cared too much about saving face; 3.) his self-cultivation in theory and knowledge was substandard; and 4.) he lacked the ability to sum up his own experience. Cao said he had a “pronounced tendency toward subjectivism and empiricism.” What is interesting is that this senior military officer with “empiricist” tendencies devoted half of his “self-criticism” to extolling Mao, with even

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greater sincerity and ardor than the “dogmatists.” Cao directly juxtaposed Mao and Lenin and pronounced Mao’s works to be “living MarxismLeninism,” implying that other works were “dead Marxism-Leninism”: [Mao’s works] tell us how to use dialectical materialistic methods to identify, analyze, and solve problems. These works proceed from objective reality, and they are the most correct, scientific, and revolutionary testament to objective reality.24 Cao Lihuai went even further by combining his praise of Mao with condemnation of the Comintern faction: [Mao’s] policies, with their high degree of Bolshevik principles, rich experience in revolutionary struggle, and rich revolutionary content are not something that subjectivist dogmatists can achieve.25 4.) Introspection by Party elders with strong revolutionary histories but not holding any real power. Living in Yan’an in the 1940s there were several revolutionary veterans of noble character and high prestige who enjoyed the love and respect of the entire Party: Lin Boqu, Wu Yuzhang, Xie Juezai, and Xu Teli. Several others, such as Zhang Shushi, were in their 60s, but according to the custom of the times, they did not yet qualify as “revolutionary elders.” Among the “four revolutionary elders,” only Lin Boqu was engaged in actual work as chairman of the Border Region; the others held only nominal titles and had no actual leadership power in any departments. When the Rectification Movement was first launched, Wu Yuzhang and the others enthusiastically took action, and their self-reflections provided the most persuasive testament to the “legitimacy” of Mao’s Rectification Movement and the need for intellectuals to thoroughly remold themselves. Wu Yuzhang wrote: The worst custom of China’s old society was for people with a smattering of intelligence and knowledge to become intellectuals and to remove themselves from engaging in production. The result was that the young became hooligans and the old became politicians, and they all became toxins to society, whereas the broad masses engaged in production work were ignorant and oppressed.

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... If we refuse to deceive ourselves and others about whether we pettybourgeois intellectuals have fulfilled our responsibilities toward our country and our people, I am afraid that few of us can engage in such introspection without shame. On reflection, I myself feel that I have no special talent or physical prowess, and that I have always “indulged in verbosity” and “cajoled the public with claptrap,” the residual toxins of Party boilerplate running deep. How can I escape blame for “gaining fame by deception”? Although I have engaged in revolution for more than forty years, my only consolation is my persevering quest for progress; in other respects, I have been sorely lacking!26 Wu Yuzhang’s self-reflection genuinely mirrored the shared mentality among some of Yan’an’s revolutionary elders: Li Liuru had taken part in the 1911 Xinhai Revolution in his youth and was a celebrated educator in Hunan around the time of the May Fourth Movement. Mao became acquainted with Li at an early age, and Li joined the CCP in the 1920s. During the Yan’an era, he served as secretary general of the Chairman’s Office of the CMC. In 1942, 55-year-old Li Liuru said to his old friend Xie Juezai, “I used to think I was good enough and that my standpoint was solid, but since the Rectification Movement, I have realized that my political standards are too low and that I have ‘joined the Party in terms of organization but not in terms of thinking’” (this was one of Mao’s famous dictums during the Rectification Movement). Xie Juezai said he shared Li Liuru’s feelings,27 and he not only engaged in a self-reflection but also published a pseudonymous short commentary in Liberation Daily attacking dogmatism. Xie Juezai pointed out that dogmatism, “if merely displayed on top of a desk, more useless than shit and unable to fertilize a field or feed a dog, is like dog shit that exists for itself and has nothing to do with humans. But if used to deal with the revolution, it could do a lot of harm and bring the revolution to ruin.”28 These four types of cadre self-reflections provided the Party with different frames of reference to develop ideological introspection. Mao, Kang Sheng, Peng Zhen, Li Fuchun, Hu Qiaomu, and Lu Dingli energetically promoted these self-reflections in newspapers, and combined with the implementation of organizational measures, these reflections dealt a psychological blow to Yan’an’s cadres, especially those with “dogmatic” backgrounds who were left feeling inferior and exposed. This opened the door for the crucial phase in Mao’s plan for ideological

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remolding: squaring accounts from the past. The next step was for all Party members to select the political labels that fit them and to write their own self-reflections, following the models that had been published in the newspapers.

III. In the Run-up to Investigation: Mobilizing Completion of “Mini-broadcast Questionnaires” In late autumn 1942, all of Yan’an’s Party organs and schools complied with the arrangements of the CCGSC and channeled the Rectification Movement in the direction of cadre self-examination. As cadres and Party members began writing up their introspection notebooks, the direction of the campaign suddenly changed; on December 6, 1942, the CCGSC issued a “Notice Regarding the Elimination of Yan’an’s ‘Mini-broadcasts,’” and each work-unit rapidly launched a struggle against liberalism focusing on opposing “grapevines.” The term “mini-broadcast,” like “pulling down trousers and chopping off tails,” was a political neologism created during the Yan’an period. As opposed to the “big broadcasts” of Party propaganda, these “minibroadcasts,” or more colloquially, the “grapevine,” referred to private discussions among comrades regarding the Party’s political and personnel relations. These “mini-broadcasts,” which the CCSGC classified as “extremely pernicious to the Party,” came in five main types: 1.) Leaking secret information related to the political, military, Party, organizational, economic, education, counter-espionage, or intelligence operations of the Party; 2.) disseminating views on the international or domestic wartime situation that were not in line with the Party’s propaganda requirements; for example, pessimistic views regarding the war between the Soviet Union and Germany or the Sino-Japanese War; 3.) Debate or doubts regarding the objectives of the Rectification Movement, “disseminating slanderous claims that the Rectification Movement is attacking certain people”; 4.) Attacking Party leaders, “arbitrarily slandering or spreading rumors to defame comrades in the Party”; 5.) Expressing sympathy for “Trotskyite propaganda on counterrevolutionary humanism and the degenerate workers’ state” and “‘broadcasting’ anti-Party thought on behalf of counterrevolutionaries.”29

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So who were the people most likely to disseminate these counterrevolutionary “mini-broadcasts” and “in fact become intelligence agents in service to the enemy”? The notice of the CCGSC suggested that all study committees be on the lookout for the following targets: 1.) People who displayed a pronounced liberalism and disgust with the principles, organizational discipline, and confidential work system of the Party; 2.) People who “valued sentimental relationships and friendships.” Such people failed to distinguish between the enemy and us. In their private relationships, such people would “talk about everything under the sun” and would even “allow anti-Party elements to be their friends.” Yet such people could “be duplicitous and secretive toward the Party organization, and they could even listen to counterrevolutionary speeches without reporting them to the Party”; 3.) People who “liked to slink around and gossip about people’s personal lives.”30 People who manifested the above behavior were the campaign’s main targets, but the CCSGC did not want to limit the purges to those three types; there were all too many people among the general Party members who for reasons of shared history, occupation, place of origin, or personality “valued sentimental relationships and friendships” and, according to the logic of the CCGSC, all such people had the potential of becoming “intelligence agents in service to the enemy.” The notice therefore ordered: Every Party member must engage in deep introspection regarding himself and strict criticism of others. Everyone must investigate whether he or another has committed a “mini-broadcast” error by leaking any kind of secrets, broadcasting any kind of information, concealing anything from the Party, or hearing information detrimental to the Party without reporting it. Every Party member must sincerely and candidly report to the Party on these questions.31 How were they to be candid? The CCSGC created a new method, requiring each cadre to fill out a “mini-broadcast form.” The CCSGC stipulated that in accordance with the spirit of the notice and the specific circumstances of the work-unit, each Party organ and school was to “make a ‘mini-broadcast’ questionnaire and to distribute it” to every comrade in order to investigate whether the staff in that work-unit had broadcast

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anything outside, and what had been broadcast internally or externally to any staff. After these questionnaires were processed and studied, the results were to be reported to the CCGSC.32 This was the first time that this kind of all-encompassing administrative order had been used in the Party’s political life to mobilize and force all Party members to report on their own words and actions. Even though prior to this all of Yan’an’s Party members and cadres had been keeping introspective notebooks in accordance with the arrangements of the CCGSC, most of the content related to ideological awareness. This deeper penetration into the sphere of private life, private words and actions, and personal contacts among Party members reflected the extremely coercive aspect of Mao’s “ideological remolding.” Although the notice was full of ideological argot, such as “Party principles,” “Party discipline,” and “Party cohesion,” investigating the private words and actions of Party members was quite a different matter from requiring Party members to reflect on their thinking, and its legitimacy was highly suspect. Anticipating a negative reaction from Party members regarding filling out the “mini-broadcast forms,” the CCGSC promptly put forward the slogan of “opposing liberalism.” At the end of 1942, all Party organs and schools arranged for new study of Mao’s 1937 speech “Against Liberalism” in connection with the filling out of the “mini-broadcast forms.” Rather than saying that this speech by Mao was on liberalism, it would be more appropriate to say that Mao was expounding on his ideal philosophy of life for Party members. In this speech, Mao set aside the definition of the term “liberalism” and gave it a new interpretation. He equated “liberalism” with the general customs of China’s traditional interpersonal relations. The so-called liberalism that Mao opposed, apart from its deviation from the Party line in terms of political thinking, mainly referred to the phenomenon of “sacrificing principle to goodwill” among Party members—in other words, the problem of “valuing sentimental relationships and friendships” within the CCP. Resurrecting this old speech by Mao and connecting “liberalism” that “objectively helped the enemy” with the ongoing elimination of “mini-broadcasts” provided a theoretical basis for opposing the “mini-broadcasts.” After the CCGSC handed down its notice on “mini-broadcasts” on December 6, Yan’an’s propaganda media quickly followed up with attacks on liberalism. On January 19, 1943, Liberation Daily published Chen Boda’s essay “Use Dialectics to Oppose Liberalism—Commemorating

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the Nineteenth Anniversary of Lenin’s Death during the Rectification Movement.” In addition to mobilizing the filling out of “mini-broadcast forms,” all of Yan’an’s Party organs and schools organized “study sessions” and “discussion sessions” focusing on liberalism. As a pilot site for the campaign against “mini-broadcasts,” on November 20 the Shaan-Gan-Ning Border Region Normal School had already arranged a “mass discussion session” against liberalism. This nineteen-day session was conducted in three phases: During the first phase, the school’s leadership apparatus collected “material evidence of liberalist errors”; during the second phase, teachers and students were mobilized to engage in mutual criticism; during the third phase, the focus of the struggle shifted to individuals and incidents involving “especially serious liberalism and obdurately erroneous thought.”33 On December 6, the day that the CCGSC issued its notice to eliminate “mini-broadcasts,” the CCP Central Data Room (i.e., the data group of the Central Political Research Section) issued to every staff member an examination paper, which required each of them to answer the following questions: 1.) Up to now, is there anything you are keeping secret from the Party? Are there any areas in which you are dissatisfied with the Party? 2.) How do you evaluate your self-criticism? Have you been frank in your criticism of other comrades? Have other comrades raised any criticisms of you? What did you acknowledge and what was your attitude? Are you guilty of liberalism? Do you have any shortcomings that should be brought to light?34 These test questions were completely different from the ones used at the Central Party School half a year earlier regarding the style of study. In obeying orders by completing the “mini-broadcast investigation forms” and spilling out their guts over their errors of liberalism, Yan’an’s cadres were becoming increasingly confused by the change of direction in the Rectification Movement.

IV. Preparing for a Shift in the Focus of the Movement: Mao’s and Kang Sheng’s Activities behind the Scenes The Rectification Movement opposed subjectivism and began with cadres undergoing rectification of study and Party work styles, but in December the campaign took an obvious change of direction. The CCGSC on

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December 6 issued a notice for the elimination of “mini-broadcasts,” emphasizing that Party members and cadres were required to make thorough “debriefings” of all their personal words, actions, and daily interactions with others, and the notice wielded the Party’s organizational resources to carry out large-scale investigations of “snoopers.” This was totally irrelevant to the criticism of “subjectivism” and the “Party boilerplate,” and it was much more like the investigations the security organs had carried out during the campaigns against counterrevolutionaries. Although the CCGSC launched another investigation against the “Party boilerplate” on December 18, 1942 and Yan’an’s newspapers continued to issue propaganda on rectification of the three work styles, in actuality the study movement focusing on educational transformation had rapidly shifted to examining cadres’ personal histories and rooting out spies. The people responsible for this new trajectory were none other than Mao and his right-hand man Kang Sheng. In order to facilitate this shift in focus, with Kang Sheng’s help Mao embarked on lengthy and painstaking preparations in the spring of 1942. The incident that sparked Mao’s campaign to investigate cadres’ histories and to eliminate spies was publication of Wang Shiwei’s “Wild Lilies.” Although the Central Committee had already established an “Investigation Committee for Party and Non-Party Cadres” following the enlarged Politburo meeting in September–October 1941, it appears that this committee did not immediately commence formal operations. Publication of “Wild Lilies” in the spring of 1942 and the sympathetic response in intellectual circles attracted Mao’s attention and deep antipathy; the intense humanism and objection to special privilege in Wang Shiwei’s article, along with various actions by Yan’an’s writers and artists indicating scorn of the leadership’s authority, led Mao to feel that liberalism and humanism posed an enormous threat to his political objectives and personal authority. Mao had always been well aware of the limitations of a soft approach to ideological remolding, and his appointment of Kang Sheng as his personal spokesman and second in command of the Rectification Movement already implied the punitive nature of the campaign; now the open challenge posed by Wang Shiwei and Yan’an’s intellectuals led Mao to believe that if he wanted to unify the thinking of the entire Party and establish his leadership status, he must wield both pen (educational transformation) and sword (suppressive control). It was at this time that Mao developed the idea of using the Wang Shiwei incident as a breakthrough point to extinguish

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liberalism within the Party while at the same time purging Wang Ming and the rest of the Comintern faction. In April 1942 Yan’an’s Liberation Daily began publishing articles criticizing Wang Shiwei, but at that point the language was not very harsh and on two occasions Mao had his secretary Hu Qiaomu communicate to Wang that he hoped Wang would “correct his erroneous standpoint.”35 Within the top leadership, however, a decision had already been made to adopt tough measures against Yan’an’s liberalist trend. In early April, the Politburo convened a meeting to hear a report by Kang Sheng, head of the Social Department, on the KMT’s response to the situation in Yan’an. Kang Sheng made no mention of the response in the rear area to “Wild Lilies,” but he stated that the enemy was making use of the Central Youth Committee’s Light Cavalry wall newspaper. Kang said, “KMT agents praise Light Cavalry as the only dissenting voice under Yan’an’s autocracy.”36 The intelligence Kang Sheng provided aroused a strong reaction at the meeting, with one “leading comrade” enumerating the crimes of Yan’an’s “secret agents”: In the midst of our criticism and self-criticism work, secret agents are taking advantage of liberalism within the Party to intentionally exaggerate the Party’s shortcomings and errors and to disseminate ideological toxins, to oppose the leadership of the schools and Party organs, and to produce essays, wall newspapers, and mini-broadcasts to unite less- steadfast Party members against the Party.37 Who was the “leading comrade” who made these remarks at the meeting? Only ten Politburo members were in Yan’an in April 1942: Mao, Kang Sheng, Ren Bishi, Chen Yun, Wang Ming, Bo Gu, Zhu De, Kai Feng, Wang Jiaxiang, and Deng Fa. Wang Ming had been hospitalized with an illness and was unable to attend the meeting. At that time, “Central Committee leading comrades” who regularly attended Politburo meetings in a nonvoting capacity included Peng Zhen, Li Fuchun, Lu Dingyi, Hu Qiaomu, and He Long. Among these people, the most likely to have made the comments about “secret agents” were Ren Bishi, Peng Zhen, Li Fuchun, Kai Feng, or He Long. The significance of these remarks was that the “leading comrade” not only presupposed that “secret agents” were active within the Party but also specifically described their characteristics and the methods of sabotage that they employed.

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In the eyes of this “leading comrade,” the “secret agents” had the following basic characteristics: 1.) They intentionally exaggerated the Party’s shortcomings and errors; 2.) They disseminated ideological toxins; 3.) They opposed the leadership of the schools and the Party organs. The anti-Party activities carried out by the “secret agents” mainly took three forms: 1.) Writing essays; 2.) Putting up wall newspapers; 3.) Engaging in “mini-broadcasts.” This atlas of skullduggery provided by the “leading comrade of the Central Committee” indicates that by mid-April 1942, Yan’an’s leaders had already earmarked Party intellectuals who expressed critical views as “secret agents,” and whether or not Wang Shiwei acknowledged his errors, he had been labeled a “KMT agent” and “spy,” and his fate was sealed. After listening to Kang Sheng’s report and remarks by others at the meeting, Mao made his own pronouncement: Carry out an appraisal of cadres in study and investigation work, and carry out vetting of their ideology and organizational ideas. Any counterrevolutionaries identified in the course of the vetting must be eliminated in order to strengthen the organization.38 According to material available to date, this is the first time Mao arranged for the examination of cadres and the elimination of spies. It occurred in mid-April 1942. On April 20, Mao delivered a talk at a meeting of the CCGSG in which he vehemently attacked liberalism and compared it to “the preQin hundred schools of thought,” enumerating various manifestations of “ideological confusion and disunity of ideology and action” in Yan’an: This person sees the problem one way, that person sees it another way; this person regards Marxism-Leninism this way, that person regards it that way. An incident is regarded by this person as black and by that person as white. Everyone has his own version, a hundred viewpoints among a hundred people. That is pretty much the way it is in Yan’an, and liberalist thinking is very pronounced.39

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Mao stated that the Rectification Movement had to “unify thinking” and to “unify action,” and any price was worth paying to achieve this end: If a battle is fought and Yan’an is lost, there will be howling chaos; the “hundred schools of thought” will all come out and that will be disastrous. A glorious future is unlikely to arrive, and if it does, it will be impossible to grasp. ... In short, we need to do this, even if it results in chaos and ruin.40 In his speech, Mao explicitly expressed his determination to purge the Party of liberalism; by now he was giving liberalism precedence over subjectivism as the chief target for elimination. After declaring that everyone must “keep notebooks,” Mao also assigned a new task to the leading cadres of the schools and Party organs in attendance, requiring that they carry out a political ranking of all Party members in Yan’an: Cadres must be separated into activists, ordinary, and backward elements, and special attention must be paid to those with ideological problems or who lack a Party spirit.41 Mao’s April 20 speech did not directly refer to Wang Shiwei or the examination of cadre histories, but his emphasis on opposing liberal heterodoxy and “paying special attention” to problematic individuals effectively represented a coded mobilization of the campaign to examine cadre histories and eliminate spies. Once Mao’s remarks in mid-April and April 20 gave the green light to this campaign, Kang Sheng and his Central Committee Social Department sprang into action. Kang Sheng’s intelligence apparatus had already produced notable results in “gathering and scrutinizing data”; there was no material relating to politics, military matters, economics, culture, and class relations that escaped its notice. At the end of November 1941, Kang Sheng’s political secretary, Kuang Yaming,* had written up a description of

*

  Kuang Yaming joined the CCP in 1926. In 1929 the CCP Special Ops Red Team mistakenly identified Kuang as a traitor and shot him, but the bullet passed through his neck and he survived. In 1941 he was appointed deputy director of the Central Committee Social Department’s Room 4 (Political Research).

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the department’s “highly scientific” “investigation and research” methods. This included how it collected data, “every little bit of every aspect, from every angle and by every method”; how it “was ever attentive, acting according to circumstances, adept at adapting to the environment and at approaching people, adept at selecting targets and at flexibly utilizing survey items to attain the objective of survey work”; and how it “grasped, analyzed, and utilized data, but without being fettered by data.”42 Now it was time to make use of this whole set of experiences of the Social Department. At the end of April or the beginning of May, Kang Sheng announced to the Social Department that Wang Shiwei’s “Wild Lilies” had been published in Hong Kong newspapers.43 Soon thereafter, Kang formally declared that Wang was a Trotskyite and a Revival Society member,* moonlighting as a secret agent.44 Kang avoided mentioning the basis for his political verdict, but it is obvious that the key evidence was publication of “Wild Lilies” in Hong Kong newspapers. Another piece of evidence was a statement that Wang Shiwei had written and submitted to the Organization Department of the Central Committee in 1940 about his past contacts with Trotskyites. It was highly subjective to suggest on the basis of the material Wang himself wrote that he was a Trotskyite, but at least some shreds of evidence could be claimed. However, the accusation that Wang was a member of the Revival Society was a complete fabrication, a classic example of “not being fettered by data” and a gross misuse of imagination. Possibly the only evidence Kang Sheng could produce was the publication of Wang’s article in Hong Kong newspapers. What is puzzling is why Kang Sheng was so bent on “selecting” Wang Shiwei as a “target of investigation” and creating a case against him as a “secret agent,” while intentionally letting off the wall newspaper Light Cavalry, which had received just as much acclaim from the KMT. One important reason was that the cadres involved with Light Cavalry all belonged to the Central Youth Committee, which was under the leadership of Chen Yun, Mao’s close ally and, along with Kang Sheng, a member of Mao’s inner circle, a factor that was bound to give Kang Sheng pause. Wang Shiwei, on the other hand, was a subordinate of Zhang Wentian, and ferreting him out put Zhang in an embarrassing position by showing the common

*

  TN: The Revival Society (Fuxingshe) was a semi-fascist organization under the KMT (and therefore an unlikely bedfellow of Trotskyism).

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origins of dogmatism and liberalism as the dual cancerous scourges of the revolution. The second reason was that Wang Shiwei’s liberal heterodoxy was even more classic, serious, and in accordance with the “secret agent” criteria of the “leading comrade.” Once Kang Sheng had passed his political verdict against Wang Shiwei, it was only a matter of time and process before Wang was formally labeled a “secret agent.” On June 6, 1942, under Kang Sheng’s direction, the head of the Central Research Institute, Luo Mai, took advantage of a temporary adjournment of the denunciation campaign against Wang Shiwei to publicly proclaim him a Trotskyite.45 Mao greatly appreciated the coordinated efforts between the Central Committee Social Department and the Central Research Institute in ferreting out Wang Shiwei. At a meeting on June 19, Mao voiced his full approval and provided further guidance on how to expand the campaign to examine cadre backgrounds and to eliminate spies: The present study movement has already discovered Wang Shiwei’s Trotskyite problem in the Central Research Institute. He was methodically carrying out Trotskyist activities, and he had communicated with more than twenty people. At least half of the cadres in organs directly subordinate to the Central Committee, the CMC, and the Border Region are intellectuals. We have to uncover the bad eggs and rescue the good people. The miscreants we are looking for are Trotskyites, KMT agents, and Japanese agents. ... All organs must engage in calm observation, and planned arrangements should be made for this work.46 This was the first time that Mao elaborated on the rather fuzzy category of “secret agents,” but he was more explicit in demarcating the focus and objectives of examining cadre histories and eliminating spies: 1.) Individuals closely associated with “problematic individuals” were focal targets for investigation; 2.) Most of the “bad eggs” were concentrated among the intellectuals; 3.) It was possible that “good people” had been pulled over by the “bad eggs,” and it was therefore necessary to use the examination of cadre histories to undertake an “urgent rescue” of these people; 4.) The examination of cadre histories and elimination of spies should be carried out in secret in order to avoid alerting the enemy.

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The Social Department energetically implemented the spirit of Mao’s June 19 speech, focusing its “investigation and research” on Wang Shiwei’s social connections and intellectuals. As might be expected, more “enemy situations” were unearthed: From July to August 1942, the Central Political Research Section ferreted out Cheng Quan (Chen Chuangang) and Wang Li (Wang Ruqi); from September to October, the Central Research Institute launched denunciations and struggles against Pan Fang (Pan Huitian) and Zong Zheng (Guo Zhenyi). These were two married couples (Pan Fang, deputy director of the Russian Literature Research Section of the Central Research Institute and his wife, Zong Zheng; and Cheng Quan, a staff member of the Central Political Research Section, and his wife, Wang Li, who worked in the Central Women’s Commission), and all four were ultimately swept up in the “Wang Shiwei Five-member AntiParty Clique,”47 whether because they were Wang’s neighbors and had had frequent contact with him, because they had been acquainted with him in the past, or because they were sympathetic to Wang’s thinking.* As one wave subsided, another rose. At the same time that the “Wang Shiwei Five-member Anti-Party Clique” was exposed, the Central Party School spread news of the discovery of two “Party School Wang Shiweis”—Li Guohua and Wu Xiru. Formerly a member of the Standing Committee of the Party branch of the Marxism-Leninism Institute, Li Guohua was a Red Army cadre who had studied in the Soviet Union. Wu Xiru had been a Party representative in General Ye Ting’s regiment during the Great Revolution. He joined Shanghai’s Chinese League of Left-wing Writers in 1933, and in winter 1934 he switched over to the Central Committee’s “special ops.” In 1938, the Yangtze Bureau’s leaders, Wang Ming and Zhou Enlai, sent Wu Xiru, together with Ye Jianying, to the Nanyue Military Training Course to lecture KMT army officers on guerrilla warfare. Thereafter, he headed the CCP Office in Guilin and then was transferred to the New Fourth Army. He was taken prisoner during the Wannan Incident, but subsequently he escaped to Yan’an, where he became head of the Whampoa [Military Academy] Alumni Association that had been established there in 1940. Now he had been declared a KMT

*

  Cheng Quan in February 1942 wrote to Ren Bishi, proposing that the rectification should be aimed not only at work styles but also at “personal styles.” The content of his letter is similar to that of Wang Shiwei’s “Wild Lilies.”

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spy. The news sent shock waves throughout Yan’an’s limited boundaries and created an atmosphere of fear and dread. By September, the secret campaign to examine cadre histories had made great progress, with the exposure of “espionage” cases providing “powerful” evidence for Mao’s theses that Trotskyites, and KMT and Japanese agents, were hiding within the Party, and that liberalism was the soil that nurtured the enemy. This was very encouraging to Mao and impelled him to adjust his strategy by accelerating a shift in the focus of the Rectification Movement to examine cadre histories and to eliminate spies. In his opening remarks to a senior cadre conference of the Northwest China Bureau on October 19, 1942, Mao reiterated his emphasis on examining cadre backgrounds and eliminating secret agents, expanding and partially publicizing the previously secret campaign as he appealed to the conference’s participants: “Each of our schools and Party organs must pay close attention to screening out elements like Wang Shiwei with objective, meticulous, and long-term investigations.”48 Mao harshly castigated all levels of the leadership for ideological slackness and the loss of a fighting spirit and class vigilance: “In the past, we actually adopted a liberal approach of ignoring them!”49 Mao spent two entire days delivering a lengthy lecture, “Regarding Stalin’s Twelve Points of Bolshevization,” to the senior cadre conference of the Northwest China Bureau on November 21 and 23. In his speech, Mao attacked what he called two erroneous tendencies at that time—“asserting independence from the leadership, and liberalism.” Mao denounced “some counterrevolutionary spies and Trotskyites who used their Party membership” to carry out anti-Party activities, and he said, “Wu Xiru is just that kind of person.”50 He also formally announced: The Rectification Movement should not only clarify the difference between proletarian and non-proletarian (half-hearted) thought but also the difference between being revolutionary and counterrevolutionary (totally disloyal), and it should be mindful of the struggle against espionage.51 Mao’s new interpretation of the Rectification Movement’s objectives clearly shows that his equal stress on educational transformation and suppression in April 1942 was quickly becoming a full-scale shift

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from educational transformation to suppression (February and March represented the campaign’s mobilization and “airing of views” stage). In short order, the original intersecting struggle on two battlefronts—the public campaign to rectify incorrect work styles by studying the “Twentytwo Documents,” and the covert examination of cadre histories and antiespionage activities—converged into a frenzy of investigating and ferreting out spies. Mao’s view of the objective of the Rectification Movement as distinguishing between Party members who were half-hearted and those who were totally disloyal was unlikely to meet with opposition from Party leaders and senior cadres. But how to go about this, and what methods to use to investigate the great mass of cadres, were thorny problems that awaited a solution. After Mao’s secret launch of the campaign to examine cadre backgrounds and eliminate secret agents, only a test run had been carried out within the limited scope of several key work-units selected by the Central Committee Social Department, while the vast majority of Party organs and schools had a very poor understanding of how to carry out such a campaign. The priority now was to enhance a consciousness of counterrevolutionary struggle among the leaders of all work-units. On December 6, 1942, the day that the CCGSC issued its notice to eliminate “mini-broadcasts,” Kang Sheng, in his dual capacity as second in command of the CCGSC that was leading the Rectification Movement and head of the Central Committee Social Department that was masterminding the campaign to examine cadre backgrounds and eliminate secret agents, delivered a speech on the cadre vetting and spy purge campaign to the senior cadre conference in the Northwest China Bureau. Kang Sheng first painted a terrifying picture of secret agents running amok in the Party: Yan’an and the Border Region had already been heavily infiltrated by enemy agents who were lying low in Party organs and schools, especially in Party economic and cultural units, resulting in an endless stream of sabotage and conspiracy during the past year. Kang Sheng then denounced the “apathy toward counterrevolution and liberal tendencies,” warning leading cadres that the enemy might be concealed among them and that they had to increase their vigilance and not abet evil through tolerance.52 Peng Zhen, the leader of the Central Party School, which was one of the test-run work-units, picked up from where Kang Sheng left off by delivering, at the senior cadre conference of the Northwest China

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Bureau on January 4, 1943, another speech on the purges. Peng Zhen used the details of the “Wu Xiru secret agent case” to “describe the actual experience of fighting counterrevolutionaries and to enlighten the participating cadres with specific methods used in the elimination of spies.”53 Kang Sheng’s and Peng Zhen’s talks provided vivid explanations of Mao’s call to distinguish between “half-hearted” and “totally disloyal” Party members, and they played a key role in promoting the campaign to examine cadre histories and eliminate spies throughout the entire Party. Unwilling to be seen falling behind Kang Sheng and Peng Zhen, the secretary of the Northwest China Bureau, Gao Gang, energetically responded to Mao’s appeal in his summing up at the senior cadre conference on January 13 and 14, 1943, formally pronouncing the antiespionage campaign to be one of the bureau’s key tasks. Gao Gang encouraged cadres at all levels to “screen out the back-stabbers in the cadre ranks through in-depth rectification study and vetting,” and he directed all levels of the leadership to “maintain a tight grip on the vetting and anti-spy operations in your departments,” rather than merely relying on the Border Region’s Security Bureau and Organization Department: “All cadres must learn how to fight against counterrevolutionaries.”54 The senior cadre conference finally decided to carry out a re-registration of Party members and also to designate the proportion of individuals to be purged at 10 percent of all Party members, including spies and other unfit Party members.55 Thus, under the painstaking leadership of Mao, Kang Sheng, and others, what had started out as a secret campaign to examine cadre histories and eliminate secret agents for the purpose of attacking liberal heterodoxy and its adherents within the Party developed into a general purge of Party members. The scope of this campaign expanded from the original targets to all Party cadres in Yan’an, and mobilizing cadres to complete the “mini-broadcast questionnaires” became the prelude and breakthrough point for a full-scale campaign.

V. Baring One’s Heart to the Party: The Debriefing of Personal Histories Kang Sheng’s speech at the senior cadre conference of the Northwest China Bureau and the CCGSC’s notice to eliminate “mini-broadcasts,”

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both occurring on December 6, 1942, served as signposts of the Rectification Movement’s transition to the stage of examining cadre histories and eliminating spies. Initially, the examination of cadre histories was carried out covertly, with the Central Committee Social Department and the Border Area Security Bureau joining with the leaders of Party organs and schools to carry out back-to-back scouting missions on dubious individuals, whereas in public the campaign proceeded with a call by the senior cadre conference of the Northwest China Bureau on January 4, 1943 to rectify incorrect work styles. The general impression was that the Rectification Movement had entered the phase of rectifying writing styles (opposing the Party boilerplate), and some work-units were even asking cadres to complete the “mini-broadcast questionnaires,” while also mobilizing them to seek out the “pernicious vestiges of the Party boilerplate.” In early 1943, however, the study and inspection activities against the Party boilerplate quickly drew to a close, and the cover was lifted off of the theme of examining cadre backgrounds and eliminating spies. As the pace of cadre examinations picked up after completing the “mini-broadcast questionnaires,” the CCGSC launched a “candor campaign,” ordering every Party member and cadre to provide detailed written debriefings* of their personal histories. On June 6, 1943, Mao sent a cable to Peng Dehuai in Taihang, passing on the specifics of Yan’an’s experience and methods in the Rectification Movement: 1.) On keeping introspection notebooks, Mao told Peng to have cadres carry out self-examinations based on Dimitrov’s four criteria for cadres,† with each cadre keeping an introspection notebook. 2.) On the writing of intellectual autobiographies (sixiang zizhuan), Mao directed that these should be “written repeatedly until they were written well.” 3.) On the “candor campaign” and completion of the “minibroadcast forms,” Mao wanted Peng to “mobilize the filling out of the

*

  TN: The Chinese term jiaodai is also a term used for “confession.”   TN: These four criteria were absolute devotion to the cause, close contact with the people, ability to independently find one’s bearings, and discipline. Georgi Dimitrov, “The Seventh World Congress of the Communist International,” in Selected Articles and Speeches (English ed.) (London: Lawrence and Wishart, 1951), pp. 138‒39.

†

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‘mini-broadcast’ forms and social relationship forms, and on these forms he wanted each person to write down everything he/she normally did that was political in nature and that should not be divulged in the ‘minibroadcasts,’ as well as the various social relationships in his personal history.” 4.) On the examination of cadres’ personal histories, Mao directed that after the above three steps were carried out, “the examination of the cadres’ personal histories should be carried out” (mainly to screen out hidden spies). Mao told Peng Dehuai, “If the results are good, our Party will be set for the next one hundred years.”56 The core intention of Mao’s cable was to bring the examination of cadres’ personal histories to an unprecedented level. According to the CCP’s organizational principles, anyone applying to join the Party had to provide a detailed curriculum vitae for vetting, and non-Party members had to go through a similar process in order to be allowed to work in Economic, Educational, or Cultural Departments in the Communist Base Areas. It was also routine for the CCP to require cadres to periodically update their curricula vitae, and during the cadre background checks in 1940, all Yan’an Party members and cadres had to re-submit their personal histories to the Party organization. There was therefore nothing particularly new or innovative about requiring Party members and cadres to provide written curricula vitae to the Party organization. However, the matter took on a deeper significance at this particular time and place. Mao undertook this major operation to examine the cadre histories more deeply in order to impose tighter ideological and organizational control over the entire Party. First of all, the personal historical data provided by Party members could be immediately used for examination and criticism of the cadres’ past actions. Analyzing this historical data allowed the Social Department and the heads of Party organs and schools to rapidly sort out suspicious individuals. Second, from a long-term strategic perspective, this would facilitate the establishment of Mao’s absolute authority in the minds of every Party member. At the outset of the Rectification Movement, Hu Qiaomu followed Mao’s intentions by proposing the slogan “Pulling down trousers and chopping off tails,” but at that time the main targets were Wang Ming, Bo Gu, Zhang Wentian, and other “dogmatists,” along with some intellectuals who had studied in the Soviet Union, and it had nothing to do

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with middle- and lower-ranking Party members. As the situation changed, Mao became aware of the potential for extending application of the slogan to the entire Party. Requiring Party members to report to the Party on all the details in their personal histories, no matter how small, as well as “every instance of letting the Party down,” represented concrete implementation of “pulling down trousers and chopping off tails.” This process increased transparency among Party members, while at the same time it gradually depleted the self-consciousness of Party members, so that Mao became the ultimate conscience and moral arbiter of the Party and he occupied the dominant position in the spiritual world of Party members. Because of the enormous emphasis and expectations that Mao placed on briefing the Party on the cadres’ personal histories, the examination process that each unit carried out in 1943 involved very detailed and strict stipulations about the personal histories that the cadres were to provide, including nearly every aspect of his history and present reality. According to the requirements of the Central Organization Department, cadres debriefings of their personal histories existed in two main forms: 1.) filling out a curriculum vitae form; and 2.) writing a detailed autobiography. The main focus was on the latter. An autobiography conforming to the requirements typically consisted of five types of content: 1.) The individual’s general situation, including age, family background, professional aptitude, spouse’s name, political status, and so forth; 2.) The individual’s educational background, experience prior to participating in the revolution, and experience, awards, and punishment since participating in the revolution. This was the core portion of the autobiography. It had to be narrated chronologically by year and by month without any omissions, and it had to provide the names and work-units of individuals who could bear witness to each stage; 3.) The individual’s family situation and social relations. The autobiography had to give full details on the individual’s class background, his family’s economic resources, the names, professions, and political attitudes of all family members, and the individual’s relationship with all family members. The writer also had to describe his relations with classmates, teachers, and colleagues, along with their names, professions, social status, and political status. 4.) The individual’s revolutionary awareness and ideolog ical

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development. In this portion, the writer had to provide a detailed description of his motivations for participating in the revolution and his views on major international and domestic issues at the time. In particular, he/she had to provide details on how he/she joined the Party: who had recommended him/her for membership and when and where, and whether review and approval procedures had been carried out. The individual also had to provide details about whether he/she had ever been taken prisoner, arrested, or discharged from military service due to an injury, along with the reasons for such incidents and the names of witnesses. 5.) Examination of a Party spirit. The writer was to follow the spirit of the Rectification Movement documents by reflecting on his every word and action since joining the revolution, including his work performance and work style as well as his attitude toward superiors and subordinates. According to the general conventions of the Party Organization and the Cadre Supervisory Departments, an autobiography that contained all of the above elements attained the required standard; whether in terms of the degree of detail or in the breadth and depth of the background covered, it enabled the Party organization to gain a complete and thorough understanding of the cadre’s personal situation. In other words, once a Party member had provided the Party with such an autobiography, there would be no more personal secrets and everything would be completely transparent. Yet the situation was not really that simple, and Mao had even higher expectations for the cadre debriefings, requiring that they be “repeatedly rewritten until they were written well.” The Organization Department had already imposed strict requirements that the cadre autobiographies disclose every detail; why was Mao still not satisfied? What was his standard for an autobiography being “written well”? An analysis of available documents indicates that Mao had two main reasons for requiring cadres to repeatedly rewrite their autobiographies: 1.) Rewriting their autobiographies put enormous pressure on cadres and destroyed the “bourgeois and petty-bourgeois mentality” of Party members. There was in fact no explicit standard for a satisfactory autobiography other than an even more meticulous, wide-ranging, and indepth personal debriefing. The crucial point in making cadres repeatedly rewrite their autobiographies was to further negate the self and show even more reverence to the Party and all levels of its leadership, because final determination of whether the autobiography was satisfactory, apart from whether it conformed to the requirements of the Rectification Movement

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documents, depended on the attitude taken by the heads of each Party organ and school. 2.) It was possible to identify suspect individuals by discovering loopholes and conflicts between different versions of the autobiographies, and by comparing and analyzing them in conjunction with the individual’s actual performance, his introspective notebooks, his “mini-broadcast questionnaires,” and other data. Viewed in this way, cadre debriefings of their personal histories became very significant indeed. On the one hand, the process forced cadres to engage with Mao’s new concepts, tested and enhanced their Party spirit, and provided the Party organization with a lasting, comprehensive, and thorough grasp of everything about a cadre; on the other hand, the debriefings could also be used to uncover enemies. As the focal link in the process of examining cadre backgrounds, the individual debriefings of personal histories ultimately became the anvil on which the “New Man” was to be forged.

VI. “Pulling Down Trousers and Chopping Off Tails”: Cleansing the Soul under Two Kinds of Pressure From keeping introspective notebooks to completing the “mini-broadcast questionnaires” to repeatedly rewriting their autobiographies, Yan’an’s Party members and cadres faced increasing ideological and psychological pressures. This series of measures imposed by Mao was not only foreign to new Party members who had joined since 1937 but it even left Party veterans at a loss because it was totally different from the earlier methods of examining cadre histories and eliminating counterrevolutionaries. The novelty of Mao’s approach was in its melding of theoretical inculcation with brute intimidation, which, when accompanied by powerful organizational measures, imposed a formidable force on Party members in general and on intellectuals in particular. The repeated shock waves caused them to slough off the “old self ” and to replace it with an entire new spirit. Regarding Mao’s ideological remolding technique, Xie Juezai presented a very vivid and appropriate analysis, citing Wang Yangming’s*

*

  TN: Wang Yangming (1472‒1529) was a Ming dynasty Neo-Confucian philosopher, official, general, and educator.

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deathbed quote, “My mind has nothing left but holy emptiness”; it required Party members to comply with Mao’s instructions and thoroughly purge all distractions from their hearts.57 Xie wrote that the remolding of the self was a “complete transformation,” and he likened the process to “cooking raw flesh into meat.” The five months of study was the “parboiling,” whereas the “long-term ideological education and operational practice (the April 3 Decision) is the slow steaming. Mere parboiling is not enough; lengthy steaming is needed until perfection in attained!” Xie Juezai used poetic imagery to describe the trick to being reborn and remolded: Parboil and then slow steam, Both require great skill. Don’t stubbornly resist the heat Like Sun Wukong in the cauldron.* Do not be like a steak on a grill, With the outside burned and the inside raw. Parboiling is brief and steaming slow, Perfection made with pure blue flame aglow.58 The combination of “parboiling” and “steaming” put Party members in something like an ideological pressure cooker. One source of pressure was self-imposed. After carefully reading every word and sentence of the “Twenty-two Documents” and repeatedly examining oneself in comparison, one’s self-consciousness began to fracture. As the “excavation of true intent” proceeded, those undergoing study sessions typically experienced a sense of guilt, and intellectuals experienced even greater feelings of inadequacy and shame. They began to believe that apart from having read some books that Mao called more useless than “dog shit,” they were of no value to the Party or the people;

*

  TN: In the classic novel Journey to the West, after the Monkey King Sun Wukong defeats the Army of Heaven’s 100,000 soldiers, the Heavenly forces capture Sun Wukong and stuff him into Lord Taishang laojun’s eight-way trigram cauldron. But after cooking for forty-nine days, the cauldron explodes and Sun Wukong jumps out, stronger than ever.

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even worse, objectively they were even harmful to the revolution, a cardinal sin! This kind of self-imposed pressure was like a mountain weighing on their backs and caused many educated Party members to lose all of their self-respect, self-confidence, and sense of pride. The second kind of pressure was collective. The Party openly called on Party members to expose others while criticizing themselves, and, as a result, each person had to accept exposure and criticism from others, presented as the collective and the organization helping and showing concern for comrades. The Political Department of the Dadu Regiment stationed in eastern Gansu broke new ground by launching a “pamphlet campaign” that encouraged each person to prepare a pamphlet, on the cover of which was written, “Please offer suggestions to help a comrade,” and then to go door-to-door asking people to give their critical opinions.59 One student at the Central Party School asked more than thirty people in his Party branch to relate their opinions of him.60 This group assistance came in both friendly and hostile forms, usually alternating between the two. In general, leading comrades and core members of rectification committees personally went to people’s homes and with passionate sincerity and the best of intentions guided people to reflect on their thinking and their personal histories. This typically moved the target individual to reveal all of his “bad thoughts.” But if the target remained unmoved or refused to engage in in-depth introspection, the Party organization would treat him as a sick person requiring treatment and would immediately take the next step, which was to arrange a small group criticism meeting, during which all of the target’s colleagues, including past acquaintances and former schoolmates, would engage in face-toface exposure and “comradely denunciation.” They would first “help” the target correct his attitude and then criticize his “wrongful words and actions” by shouting and finger-pointing until he was isolated and helpless to defend him/herself, and finally the target would thoroughly “surrender to the proletariat.” Under the dual pressures of the self and the collective, the individual spirit was intensely shaken and assaulted, as if in a protracted mental purgatory. During the Rectification Movement’s stage of examining cadres’ personal histories, cadres generally lost their appetites and suffered from insomnia. Many became wan and suffered “relapses of old ailments.”61 In some cases, people were so stressed and apprehensive that during the day they suffered from embarrassing episodes of wet dreams.62 In order

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to produce self-reflection that the Party would find acceptable, the vast majority of cadres composed their materials over and over again, afraid of not criticizing themselves harshly enough or of failing to dig up sufficient past misdeeds. One student at the Central Party School criticized his own “mini-broadcasts” and wrote out more than 800 instances for the Party to investigate.63 The introspection materials of most students in the Party School’s Second Department were “revised three to five times,” with some making eight revisions before finalizing their materials, and a minority carried out as many as thirteen revisions.64 Compared with worker and peasant cadres, intellectual cadres faced even greater pressures. A student in the Party School’s Third Department, Liu Baiyu, said that “during that unbearable time,” he “never ceased to be afraid and went sleepless all night,” “suffering all kinds of delusions” until under the concrete guidance of the department’s deputy head, Zhang Ruxin, he wrote up biographical data totaling “hundreds of thousands of words.” Liu recalled: The attacks I suffered during the campaign to examine cadres’ personal histories brought me crashing back to earth from my ivory tower. This foundation brought me the most profound benefit and a genuine self-revolution in the spiritual realm, using comparison with the spirit of the Rectification Movement documents to rewrite my autobiography; this led intellectuals to objectively understand the world and was excellent treatment for our particular ailment. At that time, Comrade Zhang Ruxin was deputy director of the Party School’s Third Department, and he was responsible for examining my record. I dissected my life in detail from the day I was born and finally came to know myself anew. I wrote a draft that I felt was quite good, but Comrade Zhang Ruxin found it unacceptable, sternly pointing out where it was incorrect, while at the same time patiently and trustingly conversing with me, whereupon I rewrote it once again from beginning to end. This one still did not pass, so I wrote a third draft, and this time Comrade Zhang Ruxin nodded his head in approval.65 Liu Baiyu’s reminiscences provide a true-to-life depiction of mental purgatory. Although he does not explain why his first two drafts failed to pass muster nor does he relate in detail how Zhang Ruxin guided him to abandon his “old self,” from the above excerpt we can catch a glimpse of

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the rigor of the examinations of cadres’ personal histories. As to whether such soul-destroying rigor produced the results Mao hoped for, the answer is affirmative. Liu Baiyu recounts that after this baptism of fire, “under the Party’s fervent caring and powerful impetus,” he was like a small boat that “finally floated toward the shore of truth.”66 Ding Ling experienced a similar spiritual transformation. At one point during the Rectification Movement, while serving as head of the Rectification Committee of the Yan’an Literary Resistance Association, Ding Ling wrote two volumes of study notes,* one entitled “Rebirth and Remolding” and the other entitled “Repentance and Thorough Reform.” In 1950, Ding Ling described her spiritual journey at that time in a rather controlled and yet suggestive manner: In Northern Shaanxi I experienced a great deal of painful self-struggle. It was there that I began to know myself, to squarely face the person I truly was, and to rectify and reform myself. ... It was there as well that I gained so much happiness. ... I progressed from ignorance to understanding, from impulsiveness to serenity, from instability to security, from fragility to strength, from heavy-heartedness to ease. ... It was not an easy path to travel. ... Anyone who has traveled this path knows its ruggedness and its smoothness. ...67 It goes without saying that being “saved” and reaching the “shore of truth” was not easy for anyone, regardless of whether you were Liu Baiyu or Ding Ling. It exacted a price, and this price was “expressing every instance in which you had let the Party down,”68 offering up to the Party a heart of absolute sincerity and loyalty and finally burying the “old self ” and moving on to a new life.

VII. “Salvation”: Birth of the New Man Whether the average Party member or cadre could be “saved”—that is, win the Party’s genuine trust and complete acceptance—depended first and foremost on the individual Party member’s attitude toward the Party,

*

  Ding Ling’s two notebooks from the Rectification Movement were subsequently lost.

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and the most important indication of this attitude was whether he (or she) opened the door of his heart and revealed everything to the Party. In other words, the only way for an ordinary Party member to escape isolation, dejection, and despair was to show repentance to the Party. As far as the individual was concerned, once the quest for “salvation” became a compulsion, it imparted a thread of joy to the coercive quality of the candid introspection. Many cadres, for the sake of winning the Party’s good opinion, suddenly became unusually energetic and proactive, even embellishing their personal secrets in a masochistic fashion. At one point, Yan’an experienced an upsurge in mass repentances, which reached unprecedented levels of disclosure and self-flagellation. Zhu Ming, a student in the Central Party’s School’s Third Department, presents a classic example.69 Zhu Ming came from one of the “exploiting classes.” After arriving in Yan’an in 1938, she joined the CCP and was assigned a job with a cultural work-unit. She subsequently enrolled in China Women’s College, where Wang Ming was the director. She was then transferred to the Central Research Institute before being sent to “study” at the key unit for examining cadre histories and eliminating spies—the Central Party School’s Third Department. Zhu Ming’s self-reflection was notable for its candor, depth, and range. 1.) First, Zhu Ming admitted straight out that she disagreed with the Party on a series of major political issues. She admitted sympathizing with Chiang Kai-shek and the KMT, looking with hostility upon the New Class and upon the CCP, and being suspicious of Chairman Mao. Zhu Ming said: Looking back, before the Northern Expedition we lived under a warlord in Anhui, suffering extortion and intimidation, especially women and girls who stayed at home, afraid to show our faces. ... When Chiang Kai-shek’s troops arrived in Nanjing, we were happy because our existing assets were protected and Chiang Kai-shek also liberated Anhui’s property. ... Our sense of threat was also relieved. Zhu Ming then goes on to reflect on her views of the Civil War: I had my doubts about who was attacking whom during the tenyear Civil War. The books said Chiang Kai-shek was determined to exterminate the Communist Party, but I also heard of the Communist

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Party “creating disturbances” and trying to take over the government and not allowing Chiang Kai-shek to unify the country and revive the nation, and that was why they were at war. At the time, I felt that fighting was right, because the Communist Party was not obeying the law and was preventing Chiang Kai-shek from unifying the country, and without unification, how could the people be rejuvenated? So the war was necessary. Zhu Ming was even frank about her original suspicions about Mao as leader of the Chinese people: Comrade Mao Zedong is the leader of the Chinese people—when I first heard about this, I was suspicious because I had always thought of Chiang Kai-shek as the leader of the Chinese people. Chiang was ruling China and leading the resistance against Japan, and the Communist Party was also engaged in the resistance under his leadership, so how could Chairman Mao be the leader of the Chinese people? About all I could say was that he was the leader of the people in the Border Region because I felt that the people in the vast rear area still acknowledged Chiang Kai-shek as their leader. Zhu Ming expressed intense antipathy toward the CCP’s claim that Chiang Kai-shek was engaged in a “sham resistance”: What was the point of saying that Chiang Kai-shek was resisting Japan just to eliminate dissent rather than for the sake of the Chinese people? In this atmosphere, I felt obliged to say it along with everyone else, but in my heart I felt that although Chiang Kai-shek wanted to eliminate dissent while engaged in resistance against Japan, he was also doing it for the Chinese people. I remember on “8-13,”* I was in Shanghai and I personally witnessed Chinese fighter jets battling Japanese fighter jets, and at night I could hear Chinese fighter jets bombing Japanese warships. I also saw wounded soldiers returning from the front. How could I say that Chiang Kai-shek was not

*

  TN: That is, the “Second Battle of Shanghai,” when Japanese troops invaded Shanghai, on August 13, 1937.

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resisting Japan? ... In the past, I heard people say that the Communist Party represented the Chinese people and I felt disgusted. I felt that the Communist Party was internationalist and therefore could not represent any one nation, whereas it was Chiang Kai-shek who represented the nation and who wanted to rejuvenate the nation. 2.) Another characteristic of Zhu Ming’s self-reflection was using herself as a negative example and insisting on her own errors to prove the close relationship between Wang Ming’s “Right deviating capitulationism” and the inveterate flaws of intellectuals. Zhu Ming was influenced by Wang Ming while studying at China Women’s College. The college put particular emphasis on United Front work and educating students on CCP-KMT cooperation, and Zhu Ming reflected on this in conjunction with her own thinking. She criticized her attitude toward Mao while indirectly criticizing the “leading comrade” of China Women’s College: Reading Chairman Mao’s “Report on an Investigation of the Peasant Movement in Hunan” several years ago, there was a sentence about “rolling around in the ivory-inlaid beds of the young ladies and young wives of the local tyrants and evil gentry” that I found disgusting. I thought, if you want to fight local tyrants and redistribute their land, then go ahead, but why violate the young ladies? This shows my susceptibility to a class standpoint. ... I felt disgust toward Chairman Mao’s document. But how did I feel about Chiang Kai-shek’s works? Here in passing I reflect on my capitulationism at China Women’s College. Every year on the anniversary of “7-7,”* after Chiang Kai-shek would deliver his declaration, China Women’s College would discuss it in conjunction with current affairs. Sometimes the comrade in charge would help us by pointing out where the declaration was relatively progressive: “For example, in talking about unity, although he mentions it, there are no specifics, so he is not progressive enough.” As for me, I always hoped to find some “progressive” things in the declaration because I did not

*

  TN: Referring to the Marco Polo Bridge Incident on July 7, 1937.

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want the KMT and the CCP to be at odds, and the comrade in charge sometimes said, “Our Party’s War of Resistance is developed, but with respect to the KMT, as long as they cooperate with us against Japan, there is a future. When they are not doing well, we can help out. For example, we helped them mobilize forces to defend Wuhan.” I found this very acceptable; I always hoped the Communist Party could help the KMT, and in this way the two parties would not be divided and the United Front would continue. My main thought, when I thought of the revolution, was that I was afraid of hardship; I wanted to continue my bourgeois lifestyle, but I also supported the cause of the proletariat, so how was I to reconcile this conflict? This led me to think of the United Front work, and that is why I did not want a split between the KMT and the CCP; for myself, I hoped that long-term cooperation between the CCP and the KMT would also resolve my conflicts about the long term. In terms of my family, I likewise did not wish for a split between the KMT and the CCP. ... In terms of the future of our country and our people, I also did not wish for a split between the KMT and the CCP because I placed all my hopes in the KMT. 3.) Zhu Ming admitted honestly that because her thinking had long been in conflict with that of the Party, she ultimately reached the point of resisting the Party politically and organizationally. She admitted feigning compliance with the Party and “invariably utilizing legal formalities to surmount the organization.” Zhu Ming admitted her admiration for Zhou Enlai and Lin Boqu and said that she wished to be a “special Party member” and go to the rear areas to carry out United Front work, “riding in cars and living in hotels,” as a result of which she was always evading concrete work on the pretext of requesting study: For example, when I was at The Masses Publishing House, the accountant had to go to the hospital to have a baby. The branch secretary talked to me about taking over for her; I was not happy about this but I had no choice because I was a candidate for Party membership, and because the Party branch secretary had talked to me, I reluctantly agreed. As a result, while at work I would be twiddling my thumbs and thinking about the United Front, never having dreamed of doing this work.

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Why was she uncomfortable with concrete work? Zhu Ming admitted that she was weary of life in Yan’an: “In Yan’an, it is always calm and tranquil ... and I do not feel any class affection.” After her several requests to accompany Lin Boqu to Chongqing to engage in United Front work were rejected, her tenacious efforts managed to remove the various obstacles, resulting in her eventual transfer from her work-unit in the name of “requesting study.” She first enrolled in Russian classes at Yan’an University and then she transferred to the Central Research Institute, where she “wished to join the International Issues Research Section and prepare to become a diplomat. ... It never occurred to me that I needed to submit to the organization.” 4.) Zhu Ming excavated the roots of her thinking in her “exploiting class” origins, feeling that “being at odds with the Party in all things” was closely related to her class. As for the serious influence of her class origins, Zhu Ming reflected separately on her “family education and social education”: My family was part of the exploiting class for one hundred years, only gradually declining at the outset of the Republican era. ... My maternal grandfather was originally a Qing scholar whose family had also been part of the exploiting classes as propertied scholars for about a century. ... My mother and aunts all knew some feudal arts, rising early to practice calligraphy and copying classical texts like the Taoist Ling Fei Jing, and they knew some classical music such as “High Mountain and Running River” and “Sycamore Leaves Dancing in the Autumn Breeze.” I was raised in such an environment, learning to recite Tang poetry at the age of 3 and reading Dream of the Red Chamber at the age of 12. ... I remember when I listened to these stories as a child, they never involved workers or peasants—they were always extolling the ruling classes. Even foreign stories were always about princes and princesses, fantastic tales about flying ships and glass slippers. In order to “show that class struggle is not limited to armed struggle,” Zhu Ming itemized the “class education” her family had given her in terms of basic life necessities: You had to eat slowly and quietly, otherwise you would be scolded for acting like a hungry ghost that had never eaten before. ... You

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had to speak softly and slowly. Girls in particular had to be gentle and reserved, simpering but never parting their lips to laugh out loud, otherwise they would be accused of excessive boldness. ... We could not even walk casually or stand freely; instead we had to act in accordance with instructions. For example, we had to walk sedately, never looking all around, and we had to take one step after another, with an upright posture, and when standing we had to be ramrod straight, otherwise we would be scolded for looking like a “pretty girl of humble birth” who resembled a “morning glory clinging to a wall.” A maiden from a good family was like a plum blossom or a peony, upright and graceful. Zhu Ming then used her personal experience to denounce the evils of a bourgeois education, saying that its core “fostered a self-centered, individualistic heroism, whether in the sciences or in the arts”: What kind of education did I receive in bourgeois schools? . . . Because I was a girl, my family wanted me to learn some literature and art, so I have loved literature since my earliest years. Comrade Stalin says that writers are the engineers of the human soul. That refers to writers of the proletarian class. But the bourgeoisie also has engineers who engrave the soul, and my soul was engraved by them. I love works by the impressionist school that reflect nature: how bright the moon is shining, how fragrant the flowers. ... But I do not like Lu Xun’s works. ... I like the works of the old Russian era, such as Tolstoy and Turgenev, not the new socialist stuff. For example, I love Anna Karenina and I can relate to it, but I am not interested in How the Steel was Tempered or Virgin Soil Upturned.* Pigs and buffalos bore me. As for music, since arriving in Yan’an I seldom sing because I like “Mountains in the Mist” and that sort of thing, and I am not interested in songs about laborers. ... Speaking of paintings, I love the bourgeois type, but with respect to the woodcuts recommended by Lu Xun, I have bought them but I do not like them. I like classical paintings; I adore the Mona Lisa, for example.

*

 TN: How the Steel was Tempered is a socialist realist novel by Nikolai Ostrovsky; Virgin Soil Upturned is a 1935 novel by Mikhail Sholokhov.

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5.) Zhu Ming imposed a string of political labels on herself, using selfreproach and self-flagellation to express her determination to “liberate herself from her former class.” Zhu Ming’s self-reflection was full of self-castigating terms, for example, persisting in holding a big landlord, big bourgeois political standpoint, “taking Chiang Kai-shek’s side and speaking up on behalf of big landlords,” “having not the slightest working class sentiment,” “at odds with the Party politically, ideologically, and organizationally,” “having feelings for the KMT,” hoping to “stand above the masses of people,” “always wanting to be special,” coming to Yan’an out of individualistic heroism, and so on. Zhu Ming even belittled herself for the “exploiting class” origins that she regretted carrying in her blood. In order to express her ideological transformation, Zhu Ming extolled the legitimacy of the “bloodline theory”: Today I understand why the Party values cadres from the proletarian class and the descendants of revolutionaries and the orphans of martyrs; not only has their thinking been transformed, but even their blood has become clean, so why should the Party not cherish them? Finally, Zhu Ming stated that she would henceforth be perfectly content to be an “ox of the proletariat.” * Zhu Ming’s self-reflection provided Yan’an’s cadres with a model for their introspection. Perhaps it contained a certain amount of truth, but the traces of artificial cutting and polishing are too obvious; it is simply a standard “encyclopedia of counterrevolution.” It contained virtually every manifestation of the negative bourgeois intellectual traits that Mao wanted to criticize, and it provided plenty of evidence of Mao’s judgment against intellectuals: 1.) The thinking and behavior of intellectual Party members from exploiting-class families bore the obvious marks of the reactionary class. Even if they had joined the Party in an organizational sense, they had not joined it ideologically or emotionally.

*

  TN: Zhu Ming, born Wang Junbi in 1919, married Lin Boqu in May 1945. Following Lin’s death in 1960, she was identified as the author of an anonymous letter about Jiang Qing. She killed herself in 1961.

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2.) Intellectual Party members who had received systematic bourgeois educations and had not yet been remolded would be at odds with the Party and the revolution with respect to all issues. 3.) The ideological antagonism between intellectual Party members and the Party could very easily develop into organizational opposition. 4.) Bourgeois and petty-bourgeois intellectuals were the social foundation of the opportunistic errors within the Party. 5.) The bourgeois worldview of intellectual Party members could only be transformed through sustained and arduous remolding. The question is whether all of the congenital bad traits of intellectuals could actually be concentrated in Zhu Ming. The thinking Zhu revealed in her introspection suggests that she was not only an unreformed intellectual but also an irredeemable counterrevolutionary. But that begs the question of why someone with so many reactionary thoughts would go to Yan’an in the first place. There are many indications that Zhu Ming’s self-reflection was written under the guidance of the leadership. In order to provide Mao with specific and distinctive evidence for his judgments, some “engineers of the human spirit” must have meticulously designed and refined Zhu’s self-reflection to bring it into full conformity with Mao’s requirements. This kind of planning and refinement was pervasive during the candor campaign. Under the accelerated training by Kang Sheng and others, members of the cadre examination committees of many work-units had already learned the art of “political elicitation,” and they ingeniously utilized the cadres’ keen desire to extricate themselves by using a carrotand-stick approach, inducing their targets to up the ante and to criticize themselves from ever higher planes of principle until they believed that they could demonstrate their loyalty to the Party only by self-abasement and condemnation. Under such enormous pressures, the targets could only make inferences based on the logic of their guides to depict themselves as extremely reactionary, despicable, and in fundamental disagreement with the Party, in the hopes of satisfying the “caring” and “cherishing” of the leaders. Reaching a state of mental collapse, the targeted cadres would progress from “I will give you what you want” to proactively confessing their misdeeds, and then moving into a heightened state of effulgence, until ultimately the external and internal pressures combined miraculously and led the cadre to joyfully slough off his old self. That is why Zhu Ming’s self-reflection was not only the handiwork of a skilled craftsman

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of ideological remolding but also the product of Zhu Ming’s complex psychological transformation. Confessing everything to the Party symbolized the targeted cadre’s first step across the threshold to the proletariat, and consolidating this achievement and preventing a reversion to the old thought patterns had to take a certain form: This was the requirement that the target expose his repulsive thinking in public and accept criticism from his comrades. Carrying out a formality of candor was an extremely important segment in the process of ideological remolding. A solemn and ceremonial display of candor played an important role in reinforcing the authority of the Party organization, enhancing Party cohesion, and educating the target and other Party members. Under normal circumstances, the Party branch or Party group would call a meeting at which the target would read out his written confession and accept the challenges and criticisms from all Party members in attendance. Everyone was expected to actively participate in such meetings in order to demonstrate the strength of his Party spirit and the height of his consciousness; it was better to speak rashly rather than to give evidence of “petty-bourgeois sentimentality.” The target had to take out a notebook and humbly write down every criticism offered by his comrades, and under no circumstance was he allowed to defend himself. If someone was eager to explain and emphasize all kinds of objective factors, everyone would join to accuse him of a bad attitude and a lack of candor, as a result of which that Party member would have to rewrite the confession until he finally produced one that the leaders and participants all found acceptable. Every member of every Party branch or group had to undergo this process. The organizer of the meeting, having earned the trust of the upper levels, was responsible for the final appraisal of each individual. His personal authority was fully reflected in this process, with all of the participants clustering around him like lesser lights and adopting his views as their own. His own confession was inevitably accepted the first time around. The leaders of the Party branches and groups were also responsible for discovering and fostering model cases of candor; once an individual’s self-reflection was considered to have representative significance, the leader would recommend this Party member to present his confession to the next higher level and through his testimony even more people would be led to the road to candor, while at the same time revealing to the higher levels that this Party branch had achieved results in its campaign.

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Through this process, the New Man was finally born, and the Party’s political appraisal of each Party member gave the individual a new sense of belonging—for the rest of his life, body and soul, he belonged to the Party. From then on, this world had one less individualist or petty- bourgeois element (“half-hearted”) and one more proletarian revolutionary warrior (“whole-hearted”). Once an individual won the organization’s aff irmation and acceptance, it was “like crossing the boundary from yin to yang”; in both spirit and appearance he suddenly took on a new persona, and his listlessness was swept away. Some described this feeling as like “passing through the black night into the dawn,” or “seeing the red glow of daybreak.”70 To begin with, the New People forged from the candor and cadre examination campaigns already had a special temperament. The vast majority of them in fact had firmly memorized Mao’s main concepts and had learned how to use these concepts to observe the world and to guide their own words and actions. Manifesting this in action meant thoroughly forsaking any display of bourgeois humanism and sentimentality; nothing that was lacking Party character was spoken, listened to, or done, and obedience to the orders and directives of the leader, the organization, and one’s superiors was absolute. At the same time, however, as such New People were being produced, an associated species of conventional, indolent, and muddleheaded robots also began to emerge among the revolutionary ranks. In order to submit to the requirements of practical survival and political development, many Party members in the base areas learned to conceal their true thoughts and to go along with the directives from above. Interpersonal relations in the base area also underwent a profound change: the original “comradely” relationships based on shared political ideals were gradually transformed into relations of personal bondage, with coldness, suspicion, and mutual wariness gradually replacing the former affection and honesty among comrades.* 71 The Party became filled with people who said one thing

*

  In the process of establishing Mao’s new authority and the formation of a rank system, interpersonal relations in the base areas underwent a subtle change, and restraints were imposed on warmth and friendship. Zeng San, head of the Secretariat of the Central Committee, discussed this as early as 1939, (continued on next page)

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and meant another, who advanced through opportunism, who trimmed their sails to the wind, and who played up to the powerful. Given that the human character cannot be entirely transformed through brute force or sermonizing, a general phenomenon of dual personalities began to emerge among Party members around the time of the Rectification Movement. Undoubtedly, the alternate use of educational transformation and force to forge a New Man was one of Mao’s “great” inventions. Compared with Stalin’s purges and elimination of counterrevolutionaries, the candor and cadre examination campaigns in Mao’s China were unprecedented in terms of the depth and range of their effect on the human spirit. But on closer inspection, we discover that apart from a mechanical application of certain Leninist or Stalinist concepts and methods, the operational methods and practices of this movement bore pronounced traces of the Chinese teaching of “inner sageliness.” The candid confessions and self-

holding that “it is not completely correct to say that personal sentiment is not allowed apart from the relations among comrades. What can be said is that personal feelings are secondary and cannot surpass or equal the interests of the Party. It cannot be said that personal feelings must be completely done away with, which violates human feelings. Such a trend could develop into callousness.” It was very difficult for Party members who had arrived in Yan’an after engaging in underground struggle in the KMTcontrolled areas and for intellectuals arriving from outside to become accustomed to the “anti-humanistic” atmosphere in the base areas. In the KMT-controlled areas, relations between comrades were very close, but now in the “home base,” things were different. For that reason, the feeling that “Yan’an lacked friendly affection among comrades” was shared by many (Ding Ling, Wang Shiwei, Xiao Jun, and Zhu Ming). After arriving in Yan’an, a senior Party cadre, Wang Shiying, strongly felt that “relations between people were increasingly difficult.” He told Liu Shaoqi that after returning to Yan’an, he felt he had picked up some bad habits, reluctantly doing or saying things against his true feelings. He felt less pure than when he had engaged in underground work. Liu Shaoqi said Wang had not picked up bad habits but rather good ones. He told him, “What is good and what is bad takes the work and interests of the Party as a point of departure. Boasting and flattery are not good, but if it helps your work, you should engage in it.” This revolutionary “boasting and flattery” developed gradually, together with the strict cadre-ranking system, and became a fundamental feature of a certain kind of new political culture, to the point that Xia Yan, who had long been involved in operations in the KMT-controlled areas and had never been to a base area, had a hard time becoming used to others addressing him as “Senior Cadre” or to having revolutionary writer Ma Hanbing report to him with a salute.

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dissections by cadres were different approaches producing the same results as the Song and Ming Neo-Confucian concepts of “studying natural phenomena to attain knowledge” and the integration of man with nature. The two approaches merely used different lexical and analytical systems, and the Communists’ methods were more coercive.

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12. The Revolution Hits Its Peak: The Cadre Examination, Anti-spy, and Emergency Rescue Campaigns

I. Kang Sheng’s Apparatus and Yan’an’s Post-1937 “Elimination of Trotskyites” The Yan’an Rectification Movement’s “emergency rescue campaign” is a classic example in pre-1949 Chinese history of introducing largescale violence into the Party’s political life and using coercive methods to investigate the thinking and past actions of Party members. This campaign did not appear out of nowhere, however; the logic and operational methods of the emergency rescue campaign underwent a process of historical evolution and showed its first glimmerings back in the Jiangxi years. To a certain extent, the covert purges of “Trotskyites” in Yan’an and other Communist Base Areas beginning in 1937 were harbingers and test runs for the emergency rescues yet to come. Yet in CCP historiography there exists a series of legends established on a foundation of rewritten history: that Wang Ming was the main culprit behind the expansion of the campaigns against counterrevolutionaries during the Jiangxi period as well as the chief plotter behind the campaigns to eliminate Trotskyites beginning in 1937. Chinese Communist Party (CCP) historiographies are vague about the actual relationship between Wang Ming and the anti-Trotskyite campaigns; apart from exposing some instances of Wang Ming enforcing campaigns against Trotskyites in Moscow, they maintain tight secrecy over similar campaigns in Yan’an and other base areas, apparently reluctant to expend ink on anything more than a cursory mention of the involvement of Kang Sheng, who was the

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actual leader of these campaigns in Yan’an. In CCP historiographies, Mao, the supreme ruler in Yan’an, becomes an outsider with absolutely no involvement in the Trotskyite purges. Earlier chapters of this book describe Mao’s and Wang Ming’s relationship with the campaigns against counterrevolutionaries during the Jiangxi period, which requires no repeating here. Although Mao was not the originator of the campaign against Trotskyites, it must be pointed out that the role he played was similar to that during the Jiangxi campaigns against counterrevolutionaries. Mao rapidly made use of Moscow’s antiTrotskyite stance to serve his own needs and political objectives. Mao’s actions far surpassed those of Wang Ming and had an unhealthy influence on the Party by providing a dangerous opening for the introduction of large-scale violence in the Party’s political life. Mao’s specific responsibility for the campaign against Trotskyites is manifested in two respects: 1.) Mao offered no resistance to the antiTrotskyite stance that Wang Ming and Kang Sheng brought back from Moscow, but rather he grafted the slogan of “eliminating Trotskyites” to serve his own political objectives; 2.) Mao supported Kang Sheng and gave him a free hand in carrying out the campaign against Trotskyites in Yan’an. The actual originator of the campaign against Trotskyites was Stalin. Wang Ming was one of the main people who introduced this campaign into China* and he cannot evade responsibility for the campaign against Trotskyites within the CCP. In 1927, Stalin began using the “elimination of the opposition (Trotskyites)” as a reason for the massive purges and suppression of what he deemed open and potential political rivals within the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU) and then throughout the Soviet Union. Beginning in 1937, these purges and crackdowns evolved into horrific slaughter. The time that Wang Ming and Kang Sheng spent in Moscow coincided with the gradual intensification of these antiTrotskyite purges. Wang and Kang arrived in Dihua (now Urumqi), *

  The first purge of Trotskyites in the CCP occurred in 1929. On October 5, the Politburo passed the “Central Committee Resolution Regarding Opposing Opportunism and Trotskyite Oppositionists within the Party,” drafted by Zhou Enlai. The resolution warned Chen Duxiu and others that they must take an initiative to submit to the Central Committee resolution and to cease all dissemination of Trotskyite positions. On November 5, 1929, the CCP Central Committee declared that Chen and three others had been expelled from the Party.

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Xinjiang, in the latter half of October 1937, just when the terror of the Soviet campaigns reached their peak. In the latter half of December 1937, Sheng Shicai arrested the Soviet faction’s Xinjiang operatives, Yu Xiusong and Zhou Dawen, on charges of being “Trotskyites” and “plotters of the insurrection.” Yu and Zhou had opposed Wang Ming while studying at Moscow’s Sun Yat-sen University, and after arriving in Dihua, Wang Ming spread remarks that Yu and Zhou were suspected of being Trotskyites, so Wang Ming and Kang Sheng cannot escape blame for their arrest. Yu Xiusong was escorted to the Soviet Union by Soviet troops on June 25, 1938, and soon thereafter he was executed by the O(byedinyonnoye) G(osudarstvennoye) P(oliticheskoye) U(pravleniye), or the Joint State Political Directorate (OGPU). In spring 1938, Li Te and Huang Chao, who had been key cadres in the Fourth Front Red Army and had withdrawn to Xinjiang after taking part in the West Route Army, were secretly executed in Dihua. The story behind Li’s and Huang’s execution is complicated because Wang Ming and Kang Sheng had no personal grudges against them; rather, both Li and Huang had extremely strained relations with Mao after joining Zhang Guotao. Did Wang Ming and Kang Sheng put pressure on Deng Fa, then head of the Dihua Office of the Eighth Route Army, to deal with Li and Huang as a way of gaining Mao’s favor, or did Deng Fa kill the two men after receiving a cable from Yan’an? By the end of November 1937, Wang Ming and Kang Sheng had already arrived in Yan’an, so what role did Deng Fa have in the killing of Li and Huang? The person most likely to know the particulars was Chen Yun, who at that time served as the CCP’s representative in Dihua, but Chen Yun was tight-lipped about this episode for the remaining decades of his life. Mao’s attitude toward the anti-Trotskyite position that Wang Ming brought back from Moscow was delicate. Originally Mao had been flexible on the subject of allowing Chen Duxiu to rejoin the CCP, but after Wang Ming opposed it, Mao did not insist. Mao had never been all that interested in having Chen Duxiu rejoin the Party, and since, based on orders from Stalin, Wang Ming opposed it, Mao felt no need to lock horns with Moscow over such a trifling matter. Wang Ming also criticized Zhang Wentian for coming under the influence of the Trotskyites while studying in Moscow and this made Mao even less likely to oppose a campaign against Trotskyites. By attacking Zhang Wentian, Wang Ming did what Mao had wanted but found inconvenient; the split in the Comintern faction that Mao desired came to fruition, so what could he say against

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it? Mao quickly took up the slogan of “eliminating Trotskyites” at the beginning of 1938, and his speeches and essays never lacked mention of the “crimes of the Japanese imperialists and the Trotskyite traitors.” Mao’s enthusiasm for eliminating Trotskyites did not stop with routine appeals. Unlike Wang Ming, who beginning in 1938 merely talked about eliminating Trotskyites, Mao immediately linked the elimination of Trotskyites to regular operations against counterrevolutionaries and spies. He had always been meticulous about maintaining the confidentiality of campaigns against counterrevolutionaries in the military and government, but this time, under his very nose, Kang Sheng was using the Social Department to carry out secret investigations and secret arrests among people arriving in Yan’an, thereby creating a series of horrific incidents. The campaign against Trotskyites in Yan’an that began in 1937 mainly targeted three groups of people: 1.) New arrivals suspected to have been in contact with Trotskyite organizations in China. In March 1938, the Border Region Security Office (BRSO) secretly arrested a student at Northern Shaanxi Public School, Zhang Xing, and two young women who had accompanied Zhang Xing to Yan’an. Acting on “intelligence,” the BRSO determined that Zhang was secretary of the Trotskyite faction’s Shanxi branch (Zhang’s public identity was commander of Yan Xishan’s Shanxi army). One of the young women was Xiang Ying’s ex-wife, who had then married a Kuomintang (KMT) “spy”; the other young woman was the wife of the head of the military police corps under Hu Zongnan.* In about June 1938, after months of interrogation, Zhang Xing quoted Zhang Mutao† as saying that Kang Sheng had joined the Trotskyite faction after being arrested by the KMT in 1930. After the interrogator Chen Husheng reported this to Zhou Xing, head of the BRSO, in accordance with regulations Zhang Xing was quickly and secretly executed, and his suede gloves and expensive fur coat soon appeared in the courtyard outside of Zhou Xing’s cave. The two young

*

  Translators’ Note (cited hereafter as TN): Hu Zongnan (1896–1962) was a general in the Nationalist Army who, along with Chen Cheng and Tang Enbo, was one of Chiang Kai-shek’s most trusted generals during the War of Resistance against Japan. †   TN: Zhang Mutao (1902‒41) joined the CCP and took part in the revolution but was criticized as a Trotskyite. He was captured by the KMT in January 1941 and executed soon thereafter.

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women arrested with Zhang Xing subsequently disappeared and were never heard of again. Soon thereafter, Yan Xishan sent a cable to the BRSO asking after Zhang Xing but the reply was that there was no such person in Yan’an. The person responsible for the Zhang Xing case, Investigation Section head Chen Husheng, was soon thrown into prison and would have been executed if not for the intervention of Teng Daiyuan* and others. Even then, he remained in prison for a long time. In February 1944, Xie Juezai, who was then Party and Youth League secretary of the Border Region Council and a leader of the Border Region Judicature, asked to examine Chen Husheng’s case file. He concluded that Chen’s crime “showed no suspicion of counterrevolution and that it was inappropriate for him to be incarcerated for so long due to certain misgivings.”1 What Xie referred to in his diary as “certain misgivings” was that Chen had offended Kang Sheng. Chen was imprisoned for seven years before being released in June 1944.† Beginning in 1937, the secret execution of suspected Trotskyites such as Zhang Xing was by no means exceptional. Sima Lu recalls that in early 1938 several people suspected of being Trotskyites were arrested and then disappeared. They included Zhang Baoping, who had been imprisoned with Wen Jize in Suzhou’s Jiangsu Province Military Prison in 1935 and who had been hospitalized in the Border Region Hospital; a Leftist youth from Zhenjiang named Li Ming; and an actress with the Border Region Theatrical Company, Lin Ping. 2 Tao Jingsun’s‡ son Tao Fangzi revealed that Tao Jingsun’s two younger sisters arrived in Yan’an in 1937 and that “Kang Sheng labeled one of them, Tao Kaisun, a counterrevolutionary and she was secretly executed in 1939.”3 Kang Sheng believed that the Party in Guangxi had been sabotaged

*

  TN: Teng Daiyuan (1904‒74) was a CCP military leader.   According to one unwritten view within the Communist Party, anyone who was arrested by the enemy, even if he did not change sides, was under suspicion and had to undergo strict investigation. For that reason, Kang Sheng never admitted that he too had been arrested, and up to the 1980s his wife, Cao Yi’ou, had backed up his story. However, Lu Fudan, a 1931 Provisional Politburo member who defected to the KMT, said that Kang Sheng was arrested in Shanghai in 1930 and he had betrayed his comrades. Lu Fudan spent a long time in prison after the People’s Republic of China (PRC) was founded, and he was secretly executed under orders from Kang Sheng in 1969. ‡   Tao Jingsun was a member of the League of Left-wing Writers in the 1930s, but in 1937, under orders from Pan Hannian, he joined the Chinese Cultural Association under Wang Jingwei’s government in Nanjing. †

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by Trotskyites, and thus he locked up a group of Yan’an cadres who came from there, including the secretary of the Guangxi Party Committee, Chen An (Chen subsequently served as vice chairman of the People’s Congress of the Guangxi Autonomous Region in the 1980s) and Liu Yisheng (who in the 1980s served as secretary general of the Guangxi Autonomous Region Party Committee). Chen An was held for two-and-a-half years.4 2.) People who had studied or worked in the Soviet Union. Gu Shunping, a native of Shanghai, arrived in northern Shaanxi via Mongolia in the company of Zhang Hao. He was subsequently designated a major criminal and secretly detained, with his feet in shackles, for a long time in the same prison as Chen Husheng. One night Gu sawed through his shackles, but his attempt to escape failed when Chen Husheng informed on him.5 It is unclear what happened to Gu Shunping after that; most likely he was secretly executed following his failed attempt to escape. 3.) Former West Route Army cadres who were never involved with Trotskyites but had a “Trotskyite counterrevolutionary” label imposed on them. Chen Husheng revealed that beginning from 1938 some former West Route Army cadres who were investigated upon their arrival in Yan’an were secretly executed by Kang Sheng and his security apparatus.6 These cadres who had undergone so many hardships to reach Yan’an suffered the same tragic fate as Li Te and Huang Chao because they had worked with Zhang Guotao. Is Chen Husheng’s claim factual? If it is false, why has no one come forward to clarify the matter? If it is true, how many West Route Army cadres were secretly executed in Yan’an? This remains unclear to the present day. Former leaders of the West Route Army, such as Xu Xiangqian and Li Xiannian, never revisited the issue and took their knowledge of this matter to their graves.* 7 Until now, there is no primary documentary evidence indicating whether the secret execution of West Route Army cadres occurred due *

  Even after the Cultural Revolution, Li Xiannian declined to speak about the history of the West Route Army, and not until the early 1990s did he speak of certain matters to his biographers. After Xu Xiangqian died, the magazine Annals of Chinese Descendants published a 1982 conversation between Xu and Liao Gailong and others, in which Xu clarified some facts regarding the West Route Army. Xu admitted that in the past he had written articles that were not entirely consistent with the historical facts in order to meet the requirements of the Central Committee. However, the published conversation did not touch on the execution of West Route Army cadres in Yan’an.

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to Kang Sheng’s own initiative or if Kang Sheng was following orders, but analysis of various circumstances indicates that in 1938 Kang Sheng would not have dared to move against Red Army cadres without explicit orders. Former West Route Army senior commanders in Yan’an, such as Xu Xiangqian, Chen Changhao, Zhang Qinqiu, and Li Xiannian, remained under pressure beginning in 1937; Mao was not willing to allow them to exercise any leadership in the strategic battle areas. In 1939 Mao appointed Xu Xiangqian commander of the First Column of the Eighth Route Army and told him to lead a squad of troops to southern Hebei and Shandong. Just one year later, Xu was recalled to Yan’an by Mao on the pretext to take part in the Seventh Party Congress. Chen Changhao went to the Soviet Union before 1939 and Zhang Qinqiu was made dean of China Women’s College. Li Xiannian was somewhat more fortunate; Mao sent him emptyhanded to the Hubei-Henan Region, giving him a chance to rack up some major accomplishments.* Under these circumstances, Xu Xiangqian and the others were in no position to protect their former subordinates. The evil of the campaign to eliminate Trotskyites was especially reflected in its inhuman interrogation methods. Kang Sheng systematically incorporated the experience of the Soviet OGPU into the crude wartime interrogation methods of the early Red Army to extort confessions through torture, which was a deep-rooted tradition in interrogation work. The CCP’s crude wartime interrogation methods were shaped by the CCP’s protracted existence in a brutal wartime environment. From the perspective of the Chinese Communist Revolution, the use of Red Terror methods to efficiently deal with hostile elements was justified at a time when the Party faced an enormous crisis of survival. However, interrogation methods relying on torture and oral confessions could easily give rise to cases of injustice, with the subject of the interrogation typically saying whatever was necessary to escape torture, and some unscrupulous leaders of the anti-counterrevolutionary apparatus purposely using false testimonies to gain unearned credit. As a result, over a protracted period

*

  TN: In January 1939, Li Xiannian went to the Hubei-Henan Region as commander of the Hubei-Henan Independent Guerrilla Group, the Hubei-Henan Independent Guerrilla Detachment, and the Hubei-Henan Forward Column of the New Fourth Army, and he established the Anti-Japanese Base Area of the Hubei-Henan Border Region.

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fratricidal tragedies unavoidably occurred in the revolutionary ranks. After Zhou Enlai arrived in Ruijin in 1932, he largely corrected the extremist behavior of the frenzied campaigns against counterrevolutionaries that the security apparatus had engaged in under Mao’s influence and redirected the spearhead of the campaign toward external enemies.8 However, the concern of Zhou and others regarding Mao’s reaction may have made them excessively acquiescent: They neither directly criticized Mao’s errors in the campaigns against counterrevolutionaries nor did they establish a relatively systematic and satisfactory interrogation system. As a result, once Kang Sheng took over the Social Department, the crude wartime interrogation methods not only flourished anew but were rapidly blended with the “advanced experiences” of the Soviet OGPU. They were even gradually normalized as the product of the combined experiences of the Chinese and international revolutions, becoming in the process the basic method for CCP interrogation work. The conventional methods of Kang Sheng’s apparatus in interrogating suspects involved torture, entrapment, or inducement. Torture included beating, the torture rack, and electric shocks. For Kang Sheng, however, routine extortion of confessions through torture may not have satisfied his sadistic mentality; he required more sophisticated cruelty to fill his spiritual vacuum. Under Kang Sheng’s leadership, Yan’an’s campaign to eliminate Trotskyites became even more horrific. Shi Zhe, a former operative in the Social Department while also serving as Ren Bishi’s political secretary, reveals that in 1940 and 1941, he and Chen Yu toured Yan’an’s Liushudian Peace Hospital, during which they were led by a head nurse to a large parlor where they discovered the corpse of a man around 30 years of age who was immersed in formaldehyde. The head nurse explained, “The hospital uses this for dissection; we originally had three corpses. They were all counterrevolutionaries, and so Kang Sheng authorized disposing of them in this way. We do not know their names or anything about them.” Shi Zhe and Chen Yu were astonished and asked if the individuals were still alive when they had arrived at the hospital. The head nurse replied, “Of course. They were sent here on the pretext of treatment and then they were disposed of.”9 Comparatively, placing strange clothing on prisoners or giving them strange haircuts was a small matter. This practice was outlined in a notice issued by the Shaan-Gan-Ning Border Region High Court on October 27, 1937: “In order to prevent prisoners from escaping and to make them more

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easily identifiable, prisoners are ordered to wear shirts that are half-red and half-blue and to grow their hair on the right and left sides, while shaving off all their hair on the front, back, and top of their heads.”10 This system was suspended in 1939 for some criminals but it continued to be carried out among political prisoners. The former head of the Investigation Section of the BRSO, Chen Husheng, who was secretly imprisoned for offending Kang Sheng, had to wear a buttoned jacket that was half black and half red, with the dividing line running down the middle of the back, and there was “a ‘road’ that was neither narrow nor wide” that ran through his hair. He also spent “five years and four months” wearing shackles on his hands and legs, and then spent another one year and seven months in prison after the shackles were removed. At the same time as the 1939 secret campaign was taking place against Trotskyites, Kang Sheng managed to manufacture three famous fake cases: 1.) The Qian Weiren case. Qian Weiren was head of the Border Region Highway Bureau and at one point he had been in charge of negotiating with local KMT officials regarding road repairs along the border. For no apparent reason, Kang Sheng slandered him as a “hidden traitor” and used his wife in the investigation against him. Qian spent seven years in prison in Yan’an. 2.) The Wang Zunji case. Wang Zunji, 19 years old, was the niece of an infamous traitor, Wang Kemin, as a result of which Kang Sheng baselessly accused her of being a Japanese and KMT spy. Wang was arrested in 1939 and finally “confessed” after three days and three nights of round-the-clock interrogation. 3.) The Li Ning case. Li Ning had been a member of the underground Party in the Northeast and had made her way to Yan’an before 1938. She was arrested and imprisoned because she “walked like a Japanese woman” and “owned a Japanese-style blouse.” It is not known what subsequently became of her.11 At the time, Kang Sheng made these cases semi-public as evidence of his “achievements” in counter-espionage, in stark contrast to the secrecy that shrouded the campaign to eliminate Trotskyites. Yan’an’s campaign to eliminate Trotskyites was carried out under conditions of extreme secrecy by the Central Committee Social Department under Kang Sheng’s leadership, and the Central Committee Organization Department, responsible for investigating and managing cadres, had only

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limited access to details of the process. Documents indicate that the director of the Central Organization Department at that time, Chen Yun, took a cautious approach to the issue and was known to have protected some comrades accused of being Trotskyites. Ding Xiu, who had been part of the southern propaganda team of the Beiping-Tianjin Alumni Association (and after 1949 served as deputy Party secretary of Anshan City), was recalled to Yan’an with his wife in autumn 1938 on suspicion of having a Trotskyite affiliation. Chen Yun saw to it that the investigation was completed within two weeks, and he personally informed Ding and his wife that they had been cleared. If Chen Yun had not inquired into the matter and had it cleared up quickly but rather had passed it on to the Social Department, one dreads the thought of what fate Ding and his wife would have met.12 Cautious as Chen Yun may have been, there was no one in the CCP except for Mao who could put the brakes on the runaway carriage of the campaign against Trotskyites; at best, others could only undertake some corrective work. Yan’an’s campaign to eliminate Trotskyites set a negative example for the other base areas. From August to October 1939, Shandong’s Huxi Region (also known as the Su-Lu-Yu Border Region), under the direction of Huxi Military and Administrative Commission chairman, Wang Fengwu, Hubian Prefectural Party Committee Organization Department head, Wang Xuren, and Su-Lu-Yu Border Region Party secretary, Bai Ziming, launched a frenzied campaign to eliminate Trotskyites, resulting in the random slaughter of some 300 key Party, political, and military cadres. The execution methods included stabbing with daggers or bayonets, hacking with sabers, group executions by firing squads, fatal beatings, mass live burials, attacks by dogs, and the crushing of skulls with mallets.13 Hundreds of Party members and cadres locked up during the campaign were tortured by seventy-two methods, which included beatings, torture racks, chili water, electric shocks, branding on the face with burning incense, and so on.14 During this “Red Terror,” local Party and administrative organs began to disintegrate. It was only after the political commissar of the 115th Division of the Eighth Route Army, Luo Ronghuan, rushed to Huxi in November of 1939 that the slaughter was finally brought to a halt, saving the lives of Guo Yingqiu (governor of Yunnan Province from 1953 to 1957) and others who faced imminent death.

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After news of the Huxi Incident reached Yan’an, in early 1940 Chen Yun convened a briefing on the incident for the Central Committee Organization Department. The meeting was attended by Kang Sheng, Li Fuchun, Wang Heshou, and the former secretary of the Shandong Subbureau, Guo Hongtao. Chen Yun delivered the keynote speech on the incident, finding that the error of the Huxi campaign against the Trotskyites lay in the subjective exaggeration of the strength of the Trotskyite faction by local Party and military leaders, coupled with labeling everyone with an unsatisfactory work record as a Trotskyite and arbitrarily arresting people on the basis of nothing more than oral testimony, allowing the treacherous Wang Xuren an opportunity to carry out his murderous scheme. After the meeting, a “(Draft) Central Committee Decision Regarding Errors in Huxi’s Efforts to Eliminate Spies” was drafted in accordance with Chen Yun’s views and it was issued to all base areas following approval by the Central Committee.15 This document played a positive role in curbing the extremist aspects of the campaign against Trotskyites, but it still maintained that the campaign was correct, that Huxi actually had “seven genuine Trotskyites,” and that the error was merely in magnifying the issue. Because of this basic judgment, deadly campaigns against Trotskyites continued to be carried out in southern Shandong and Binhai (in northern Jiangsu) from 1940 to 1942. Although Luo Ronghuan did all in his power to intervene and he did manage to save more than 100 lives, Shandong’s anti-Trotskyite campaign did not completely end until April 1942, when Liu Shaoqi, on his way to Yan’an, conducted an inspection. After the founding of the PRC in 1949, victims of Huxi’s anti-Trotskyite campaign once again encountered difficulties during the 1955 campaign to examine cadre histories and to eliminate counterrevolutionaries, and for decades the families of the “seven genuine Trotskyites” who had been killed continued to suffer prejudicial treatment.16 A thorough rehabilitation of the victims of the Huxi campaign did not occur until the end of 1983,* forty-three years after the tragedy had occurred.

*

  In December 1983, the CCP Central Committee transmitted the Shandong Provincial Party Committee’s “Report on Opinions on How to Dispose of Problems Left Over from the Huxi ‘Elimination of Trotskyites Incident,’” which pointed out that the campaign against Trotskyites in Huxi had been a major case of injustice rather than merely an error of expanded scope and that it required a thorough redressing.

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While the campaign against Trotskyites spread like wildfire in far-off Shandong, it continued under the utmost secrecy back in Yan’an, its point of origin. People began to mysteriously disappear from various schools and Party organs, and rumors began to spread that the missing people were Trotskyites. Everyone’s nerves were on edge, and in this tense atmosphere Yan’an cadres and Party members all contracted “Trotskyphobia,” the mere mention of the name was enough to make faces blanch in terror at the thought of being implicated. People became more vigilant in their words and actions and avoided establishing friendships for fear of having their names written in the “doomsday book” of the security bureaus. In this increasingly tense atmosphere, the image of Kang Sheng’s apparatus grew ever more awe-inspiring. People began to regard the Zaoyuan base of the Social Department with trepidation, increasingly aware that the Social Department was Yan’an’s most powerful organ and that the political fate of every individual rested in its hands.

II. The 1940 Cadre Examinations and the Establishment of the Cadre Dossier System As the campaign to eliminate Trotskyites continued in secret within Yan’an’s various organs and schools in early 1940, a new and public round of “cadre examinations” got underway, with the usual active participation of the Social Department. Routine political vetting of cadres was already an established CCP policy, but there was a special background to the 1940 examinations of the personal records of cadres: The main intent this time was to carry out political filtering of new Party members who had joined the Party during the major development phase of the Party in 1938 and 1939. As noted earlier, cadre examinations began during the ten-year Civil War when the KMT and CCP were in a state of deep antagonism. A high degree of vigilance against the KMT and other domestic parties and factions led the CCP to always attach great importance to purging their ranks, even at the risk of wrongfully persecuting or killing their own. When the War of Resistance broke out in 1937 and the CCP acquired legal status, many young people arrived in Yan’an and many Party members who had lost contact returned to the fold. The CCP’s organization departments, with the cooperation of the Social Department, had already carried out strict background checks on each person entering Yan’an. In

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other words, only individuals who had undergone an investigation could be assigned to work in the Party’s various organs, schools, and departments. During the early stage of the War of Resistance, the CCP developed an increasing sense of urgency about enlarging the ranks of Party members as it sought to play a greater role in wartime domestic politics and to mount a future challenge to the KMT as China’s ruling party. After the ten-year Civil War ended, the CCP had fewer than 30,000 members, the vast majority of whom were soldiers. It was clear that the size of the Party was far from commensurate with its role as the second major party on the domestic political stage. The head of the Organization Department of the Central Committee at that time, Chen Yun, forcefully advocated vying with the KMT for intellectuals, believing that “whoever grabs the intellectuals will grab the country” and “otherwise it will be too late for regret.”17 To this end, the CCP Central Committee issued a “Decision Regarding Greatly Increasing Party Membership” on March 5, 1938, and over the next year and a half, masses of young intellectuals arriving in Yan’an and other base areas were absorbed into the Party. Recruitment reached the point whereby some departments and regions, in order to meet targets handed down by the upper levels, repeatedly mobilized and persuaded young intellectuals to join the Communist Party, leading to what was referred to as an error of “press-ganging” in recruitment work. Once the membership recruitment drive was basically completed, the Central Committee reverted to its previous strict criteria for joining the Party. On August 25, 1939, the Central Committee issued a “Decision Regarding Consolidating the Party,” which called for top-down methods to investigate Party members and cadres of all ranks, but which explicitly stated that this investigation “should not become a general Party purge.” There was no real contradiction in the CCP’s suspension of its opendoor policy after eighteen months; in order to grow, the CCP had to “recruit every gentleman alive” (in Chen Yun’s words), but out of practical considerations, it believed that strict background checks were essential to strengthen the Party. From the perspective of Mao and other leaders, the Party had to recruit all available talent, and if this allowed some dubious individuals to infiltrate the Party, there was no need to fear—the CCP had a brilliant plan for dealing with this eventuality, and its magic weapon was the cadre examination system. During the major recruitment drive in 1939, the backgrounds of new Party members and cadres engaged in operations in the KMT-controlled

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areas were already being vetted. During this period, the Social Department used its secret network in the Party’s various organs and schools to carry out investigations of all kinds of people, including intellectuals. Although these investigations produced results, such inquiries also had obvious limitations. First, given that the investigations were carried out in secret, they could not easily obtain the cooperation of the Party organization at various levels, thus limiting the depth and extent of the inquiries. Second, the Social Department had limited staffing and could not cope with the confidential investigations of tens of thousands of cadres; material piled up in the Social Department for lengthy periods before it could be reviewed. In view of the above circumstances, in 1940 the Central Committee decided to launch a formal cadre background examination program. The objective of this examination program was twofold: 1.) to discover the strengths and merits of cadres and to provide them with more “appropriate training, employment, promotion, and deployment”; and 2.) “to discover dissenters who had infiltrated the Party in order to purge them from the Party and to consolidate the Party ranks.”18 It was not long before the Social Department’s original vertical investigation system was transformed into a system whereby social departments at each level came under the dual leadership of the Party committee at its level and the Central Committee Social Department. During this cadre examination exercise, the Organization Department of the Central Committee and the Organization (or Cadre) Sections of each Party committee at every level took center stage, with the Central Committee Social Department coordinating operations behind the scenes. The most important achievement of the 1940 cadre examinations was the preliminary establishment of the Party cadre dossier file management system. During the Civil War, the CCP’s management of the personal dossiers of Party members was irregular, and the wartime environment and the perils of underground struggle made it very difficult to effectively preserve the files. When the Central Red Army overcame great hardships and peril to arrive in northern Shaanxi in October 1935, it brought with it only about 25 kilos of top-secret core Party and military documents and telegrams.19 For security reasons, the personal dossiers of cadres were all destroyed on the eve of the Long March. The establishment and gradual normalization of a file management

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system for the personal dossiers of cadres began during the early years of the War of Resistance. After a vast number of young intellectuals and Party members who lost contact made their way to Yan’an after the 1937 Marco Polo Bridge Incident and the CCP established a comparatively stable base in the Shaan-Gan-Ning Border Region, the Cadre Section of the Organization Department gradually mapped out a file management system for cadre dossiers. After Sima Lu underwent a period of background checks in early 1938 and was interviewed by Organization Department head Chen Yun, the department told him to report for duty at the Enemy Area Work Committee Office in Zaoyuan. A functionary of the Organization Department gave Sima Lu a letter to hand over to the head of the Zaoyuan Office, Zeng Xisheng. On his way there, Sima took a look at the letter and found that it included a letter of introduction as well as the Organization Department’s appraisal of him, containing the following remarks: Has organizational ability and experience with struggle, but has a pronounced individualistic heroism, a strong personality and pride, lacks a proper attitude toward manual labor, and has inadequate engagement in organizational life.20 During this period, the CCP’s organizational and cadre work was still at a stage of recovery and rebuilding, and many procedures were incomplete. Subsequently, the organization departments’ “appraisals” of the cadres were usually not handed over by the cadre in question, and if they were, a wax seal was affixed to the envelope to prevent unauthorized perusal. During the early Yan’an period, cadre dossiers included the following types of information: 1.) a curriculum vitae (CV) completed by the cadre; 2.) an Organization Department appraisal or conclusion regarding the cadre’s CV; 3.) an appraisal by the Party organization of the cadre’s department regarding his political thinking and various aspects of his performance; 3.) supporting documentation related to the cadre’s CV. The cadres’ personal dossiers were managed by the cadre departments of the various organs and schools, and the personal dossiers of the leading cadres were managed by the organization department at the next higher level. After the cadre examination process began, the operational method still required that the cadre report on his/her own history, after which the

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vetting personnel would look for anything that aroused suspicion. As Party members repeatedly filled in the various CV forms in accordance with the Party’s requirements, problems quickly came to light. In June 1940, Yan’an’s Marxism-Leninism Institute found that among the 298 CVs completed by Party members who had joined since the War of Resistance, only 103, or 33 percent, were consistent, whereas “the other 67 percent required repeated education and explanation by the Party members until they were able to correct and complete their own histories.”21 Inconsistencies arose mainly under two conditions: 1.) Many new Party members who worried that they would suffer biases due to landlord or rich peasant backgrounds changed their family backgrounds to poor peasant, middle peasant, or “declining pettybourgeoisie.” 2.) Some veteran Party members who had lost contact with the organization while working in the KMT-controlled areas were terrified of raising the organization’s suspicions, so upon arrival in Yan’an they did not write record the details of their activities, and this erroneous or incomplete information continued to be replicated in the more recent vetting. The above circumstances were widespread in the various work-units of Yan’an and naturally were taken very seriously by the Organization Department. In March 1940, Chen Yun published an article entitled “Party Members Must Be Loyal to the Party.” The Organization Department required all levels of the Party organization to strengthen cadre examinations and education and to carry out repeated persuasion, education, and elicitation to relieve Party members of their “fears” and “suspicions” of the examination process and to help them understand that it would be “beneficial to both the Party and to themselves.” As long as Party members corrected the false items on the previous forms, their past actions would not come under suspicion; rather, the Party would consider this to be a sign of their political progress. At the same time, the Organization Department required the comrades carrying out the cadre examinations to strengthen their analysis and investigation of the information that the cadres had recorded on their CV forms. Given the pervasive inconsistencies between the earlier and later versions of the cadres’ CVs, the Organization Department formed several basic views: The first form that a cadre completed was not necessarily complete and truthful, and some cadres would not reveal their entire histories to the

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Party in one go. For that reason, it was necessary to use various means to collect personal information. The first way was to require the cadre to provide the names of people who could confirm his personal history. This included several segments: 1.) identifying witnesses in the cadre’s own documents; 2.) identifying witnesses from testimonials provided by the cadre; 3.) identifying new witnesses in the course of conversations; 4.) locating witnesses from the same time, place, or incident; 5.) cross-referencing material from other people’s files. Even when witnesses existed, they could not be completely trusted, for several reasons: 1.) The witnesses might have had secret ties with the person being investigated, and they may have agreed to protect or flatter one another. For example, it was common for witnesses to testify that a certain person was a “very staunch proletarian warrior,” when in fact both had betrayed their comrades in prison. 2.) Some witnesses did not dare to provide evidence about an investigation target out of fear of being implicated in wrongdoing. After repeated and painstaking persuasion and urging and after the cadre’s various investigation materials were completed, the next step was concrete analysis and assessment of the materials. This stage included several steps: 1.) First, studying the Party organization’s introductory materials regarding the cadre. These materials typically consisted of the organization’s basic evaluation of the cadre and its suggestions of those issues that required focused inquiries. 2.) Investigating the materials the cadre had written, starting with the materials he had written most recently. This included finding questionable points in them, namely points that the organization’s introductory materials suggested required further investigation, and then using them for verification. Doubtful and unclear issues were then sought in the various written materials. 3.) Examining the substantiating evidence provided by others, which also required several steps: first, confirming the reliability of the witness, then identifying major issues the Party organization had raised in the witness’s own file, and finally finding information in the witness’s materials that cast doubts on the information provided by the cadre under examination.

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After repeated comparisons and study of these materials, it was possible to ascertain the nature of the cadre’s problem. The next step was to refer the issue to a Cadre Section case conference for individual study and to reach a conclusion or appraisal of the cadre. One further process preceded the conclusion, which was for the Cadre Section to have an individual conversation with the cadre under examination. The purpose of this conversation was to further verify the materials or to discover whether the cadre had omitted anything on the various forms. For this reason, the investigators would not interrupt the interviewee and would do their best to discover problems in the cadre’s own remarks. After all of this was completed, one reached the stage of a formal conclusion. Conclusions typically consisted of two parts: 1.) A conclusion regarding examination of the historical data. This was typically a collective product of the Cadre Section meeting and it could be reported to the subject of the investigation. Optimally, a definite conclusion was to be reached on issues that had been clarified regarding the cadre’s history. However, if some issues had not yet been clarified or if supporting evidence was incomplete, a definite conclusion could not be reached. If witnesses and evidence were lacking regarding certain portions of the cadre’s history but the rest of his history was adequately supported, a general conclusion could be reached regarding the portions of his history that had supporting evidence or that had already been verified by the Party organization. However, a written note had to be included stating that a certain portion of the history still could not be confirmed. In the case of cadres with serious problems for which witnesses and evidence were not readily available, all of these issues were raised and retained, and a temporary general conclusion was reached while awaiting a later further investigation. 2.) An evaluation of the cadre’s performance in his work-unit. This evaluation was discussed and formulated during a meeting of the Party member’s Party branch, and the subject of the evaluation was allowed to attend the meeting in a non-voting capacity to express his own views. The Party organization of the cadre’s work-unit would combine this evaluation with the investigation of the cadre’s history to evaluate the cadre’s work performance. The Party organization usually did not disclose the evaluation to the subject. The evaluation usually included the subject’s

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political thinking, his cultivation of a Party spirit, and his personality, aptitude, and work experience and abilities as well as recommendations regarding development of his future work. Investigation of the cadre could be brought to an end at this stage, and the documents generated during the process would then become part of his personal dossier. Thereafter, the file would accompany the cadre like a shadow, following him wherever he was transferred. Content would be added to the dossier during subsequent cadre examinations or political campaigns, and the Party organization would also submit subsequent observations and opinions to this file. The dossier would decide the cadre’s political future—whether he could be promoted to important positions, not promoted, or “controlled.” The cadre dossier thus became a permanent instrument for deciding a cadre’s fate. Although it belonged to the cadre, it was also completely independent of him (a cadre usually was unware of what his superiors had written in his file about him), but the two remained interdependent until the cadre ultimately departed this life. Even then, the cadre’s personal dossier did not die with him but it was placed in a file cabinet, where it could continue to play a role in political investigations against the cadre’s spouse, children, friends, and relatives. Although the examinations of cadres were undertaken with great fanfare in Party schools and organs, the Social Department’s secret investigations continued their methodical progression. As previously described, beginning in 1939 the Social Department intensified its secret investigation work in Yan’an’s organs and schools, and the targets of the investigations included the following categories of people: Those arriving in Yan’an after being released from KMT prisons; Those arriving in Yan’an with ambiguous letters of recommendation; Those whose appearance did not match their stated age; Those who were constantly exchanging hearsay; Those with political or financial issues that might be used by the enemy. How did the Social Department learn about the backgrounds of these cadres? Clearly this would have been impossible without assistance and suggestions from the organization departments. Although the Social Department had a network of secret intelligence officers answerable only to it in all organs and schools, regulations at the time forbade workers within a work-unit from asking about one another’s backgrounds (it was

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possible that some comrades would be sent to KMT-controlled areas); as a result, the various levels of the organization departments provided the main channel for the Social Department to obtain information on the cadres. On September 20, 1940, the Social Department issued its “Directive on the Elimination of Spies,” which required Yan’an Party organs and schools to identify suspicious individuals during the cadre examinations and to forward their files to the Social Department.22 In accordance with this directive, the Social Department collected the files of a large group of suspect individuals, whereas the files of those who were not sufficiently suspect to be reported to the Social Department came under the charge of the organization departments of the various work-units. From 1940 to the first half of 1941, the Social Department worked with the organization departments of the various organs and schools as well as the security committees to closely analyze the case files of suspect individuals and to launch secret investigations against them. Nevertheless, there was not much factual basis for determining whether someone was suspect; suspicions against most targets were based on what they had written on the various forms, and the problems reflected on these forms primarily involved “exploiting class” origins, complicated social relationships, or past membership in the Kuomintang, the Three Principles of the People Youth League, or the Revival Society. The majority of people designated as “suspect” at the time were students at Northern Shaanxi Public School or the Central Party School, and aside from a minority who had applied to go to Yan’an from the KMTcontrolled areas (Northern Shaanxi Public School had solicited applicants through newspapers in the KMT-controlled areas), the vast majority had gone to Yan’an with recommendations from the Party organizations in the various localities or from the offices of the Eighth Route Army or the New Fourth Army, and some were veteran cadres with a long record of service to the Party. Their provision of factual information on the various forms constituted the single basis for classifying them as “suspect” and turning them into targets of long-term investigations for years at a time. Non-Party members were not allowed to join the Party nor could they be assigned to the front lines where there was an urgent need for cadres. The deputy head of the Political Section of China Women’s College, Lin Na, was dismissed from her position by the school board, headed by Wang Ming, at the height of the cadre examinations in autumn 1940, and she was transferred to the Dean’s Office under Zhang Qinqiu, with

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no clear statement regarding her position or duties. The real reason for Lin Na’s dismissal was that her husband had come under investigation and, as a result, the Party suspected her as well. Lin Na and her husband had both studied in the Soviet Union and they had been ordered back to China after the beginning of the War of Resistance. However, just before their departure, Lin’s husband was arrested by the Soviet OGPU and Lin Na returned alone to Yan’an, where she was assigned a position at China Women’s College. The cadre examination process at China Women’s College was the responsibility of the head of the Political Section, Meng Qingshu (Wang Ming’s wife) and the head of the Political Section’s Cadre Division, Ye Qun, but it was the Social Department that had decided to open a case file on Lin Na. Ye Qun repeatedly spoke with Lin Na and applied various kinds of pressure to get her to make a “candid debriefing,” sometimes “slapping the table and glaring,” and sometimes “giving the appearance of pitying Lin Na.” Each of these conversations ended with Lin Na in tears (in fact, at this time Ye Qun was also being investigated for issues in her past as well). Eventually, the Organization Department joined in the investigation, and after repeated study and obtaining the “agreement of the leading comrades of the Central Committee,” it finally reached the conclusion that Lin Na had “no problems.”23 The famous writer Xiao Jun was among the “suspect individuals” investigated by the Social Department. After arriving in Yan’an, for a long time Xiao Jun was not assigned to any work and he settled in the Lanjiaping Guest House with nothing to do. Xiao Jun had an uninhibited personality that made it difficult for him to adapt to the strict discipline and tidy hierarchy in Yan’an. With no assigned work, Xiao Jun regularly went to the Lu Xun Institute at Qiaoergou to chat with friends; his conversations inevitably included grousing about life in Yan’an. One time, the head of the Central Cultural Committee, Ai Siqi, was ordered to speak with Xiao Jun, and the following unpleasant conversation led Xiao Jun to “draw his dagger.” Xiao Jun’s words and actions alarmed the upper levels, and “some leading comrades” demanded that the Social Department quickly reach an unequivocal conclusion about whether or not Xiao Jun was a “friend or enemy,” while some others demanded that the Social Department quickly settle the issue once and for all.24 The files of many suspect individuals such as Xiao Jun awaited classification by the Social Department. This was an onerous task, and the number of staff in the department’s Security Section handling these

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investigations was limited. One Security Section operative, Chen Long (who later became deputy minister of Public Security after the founding of the PRC), had served in the Northeast Allied Army of Resistance and had studied in the Soviet Union. He was an educated and cultured man who had reservations about the simplistic methods of classifying “suspect individuals.” After securing the agreement of Security Section head Wang Jinxiang (who also became a deputy minister of Public Security after the founding of the PRC), Chen and Wang together visited Kang Sheng to recommend changing the methods for determining whether someone was a “suspected counterrevolutionary.” This was just before the Secretariat of the Central Committee issued its “Decision Regarding Investigation and Research,” and Kang Sheng accepted the suggestion by Chen and Wang and treated attaching great importance to investigation and research as his own achievement. It was against this background that the Social Department issued its “Central Committee Social Department Directive Regarding the Clearing of the Cases of Suspect Counterrevolutionaries” on April 10, 1941. The document stated that the reason why localities had “accumulated a considerable number of cases of suspect counterrevolutionaries without conscientiously investigating them” was that “investigation work in the localities is weak.” Another reason was that “some comrades involved in eliminating spies are young and inexperienced and they have subjectively exaggerated the cases, creating so-called suspect individuals through strained interpretations, conjectures, and shadow-chasing.” The document required that when existing cases were reevaluated, it was essential that “detailed research” and “discreet investigation” be carried out to distinguish genuine suspected counterrevolutionaries from subjectively trumped-up cases and to “clearly distinguish between counterrevolutionary problems and problems such as errors within the Party, poor ideology, or organizational relations, and ambiguities in personal histories.”25 By spring and summer 1941, the Social Department was fully engaged in sorting out suspect cases, and one of its major tasks was to quickly reach a conclusion regarding Xiao Jun. By this time, Chen Long had been promoted to head of the Social Department’s Security Section, and he sent a young cadre from the section, Mu Fengyun, to pass himself off as a cadre from another base area and to stay in the Lanjiaping Guest House near Xiao Jun’s cave so he could observe Xiao Jun from close quarters. After a period of observation, Mu Fengyun discovered that Xiao

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Jun loved Peking Opera, and it happened that Mu knew how to play a kind of stringed instrument used in those operas, so he took the opportunity to befriend Xiao Jun while accompanying him in singing opera. Xiao Jun was a guileless man and “within a few days he was baring his heart to Mu Fengyun.” After Mu reported all that he had learned about Xiao Jun’s thinking to Chen Long and the leaders of the Social Department, they were no longer suspicious of Xiao Jun’s politics.26 In July 1941 Mao Zedong engaged in a friendly conversation with Xiao Jun. Of course, Xiao Jun had no idea that the Social Department had already carried out such a painstaking investigation and screening of him. As one of Yan’an’s most famous residents, the central leadership was particularly attentive to Xiao Jun, so the Social Department’s vetting proceeded smoothly. In the case of other “suspect individuals” who had already been assigned to work-units, however, the process was not nearly as straightforward. The reactions of Yan’an Party organs and schools to the Social Department’s decision to reevaluate the cases of all suspect individuals were not uniform; some cooperated, whereas others used various pretexts to shift responsibility, or they even felt that it was perfectly acceptable to have suspect individuals among them and that there was “no need to clarify” the cases.27 The painstaking efforts by Chen Long and Wang Jinxiang resulted in another document issued in the name of the Central Social Department on August 2, 1941: the No. 2 “Central Committee Social Department Directive Regarding Clearing the Cases of Suspect Individuals.” The document analyzed the reasons for the tardiness of various work-units in clearing their cases. These included: “1.) confusing cases of individual problems in the organization that had not yet been thoroughly investigated or resolved with cases of actual suspected counterrevolutionaries; 2.) confusing normal and complicated social relationships with cases of actual suspected counterrevolutionaries; 3.) confusing poor appearances or tendencies with cases of actual suspected counterrevolutionaries; 4.) confusing routine complaints and grumbling with intentional sabotage; and 5.) confusing criticism arising from a sense of justice with malicious political slander. ... In short ... confusing appearance with essence, possibility with reality, conjecture and strained interpretations with concrete facts; failing to distinguish between the internal and the external and between the different kinds of cases, and, as a result, creating a batch of so-called suspect individuals. ...”28

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The following views can be based on the two documents issued by the Social Department in April and August 1941: 1.) The Social Department actually had a group of well-educated cadres with a high proficiency in political policy. Their extensive grasp of various kinds of information gave them a broad perspective, and some of them objected to excessively Leftist methods of examining cadres’ personal histories. For example, Chen Long forcefully advocated eliminating suspicion about Xiao Jun. Under the relatively normal conditions within the Party, these cadres were able to submit dissenting views to the upperlevel organs based on their professional perspectives. 2.) Under normal circumstances, Kang Sheng, head of the Social Department, was unable to cause too much trouble. In a relatively normal atmosphere, Kang Sheng would accept suggestions from his subordinates regarding the discreet handling of different types of contradictions, even if it was mainly to his own benefit to record the accomplishments of his subordinates in his personal record of merits. 3.) There were shortcomings in both documents. For example, the document of April 1941 stated that “genuine counterrevolutionary suspects must be strictly distinguished from counterrevolutionary suspects created from subjectively strained interpretations and rumors,” even though people in the latter category were not any longer to be considered “counterrevolutionary suspects.” Some of the terms and phrasing in the documents were too vague to prevent excessively Leftist tendencies from influencing the rectification in actual practice. Compared with the cadre examination campaigns that occurred later, the cadre examinations of 1940 were relatively mild and reliable; most importantly, their methods were not tainted with coercion. Although the Social Department permeated the process, it did not directly control it and it even played a kind of neutralizing role during this period. Guided by the Social Department, a screening of suspects in spring and summer of 1941 extricated some of the cadres. The 1940 cadre examinations basically followed the principle of “examining a cadre’s personal data that were mainly based on his own reporting.” They did not employ tactics such as extracting confessions through torture or round-the-clock interrogations. The organization departments did not start out with the assumption that the cadre under investigation was a secret agent, and in conversations with the target cadres, investigative personnel took an amiable approach rather than that of a “judge trying a case.” At that time, there was still an

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emphasis on remaining courteous when interviewing new comrades and allowing them to speak casually and without restraints “to ensure that the person called in for an interview did not become upset and would be willing to talk freely.” An even more important reason why the 1940 cadre examinations did not lead to serious incidents was that during this period political life within the Party was relatively normal, and the Organization Department head in charge of the cadre examinations, Chen Yun, and the Central Committee secretary in charge of Yan’an’s cultural and propaganda work, Zhang Wentian, took a relatively discreet, practical, and realistic approach to investigating cadre problems. Chen Yun and Zhang Wentian were quite enlightened and open-minded in their handling of intellectuals. Chen Yun proposed that the CCP should not only “recruit all the gentlemen alive” but should also “accept talent from all quarters,” and he advocated trusting and promoting young intellectuals. He was also involved in drafting, or representing the Central Committee in drafting, several resolutions regarding the recruitment of intellectuals into the Party. Similarly, Zhang Wentian stressed that the CCP should respect the special work habits and lifestyles of intellectuals. Chen Yun felt it was necessary to examine the cadres’ personal histories but that this should be done discreetly. Chen’s and Zhang’s views were inconsistent with those of Mao, but in 1940 Mao was not yet able to decide everything in Yan’an. Under Chen and Zhang’s influence, the 1940 cadre examinations, aiming chiefly at intellectuals, did not employ the methods of a political campaign or impose a quota specifying a certain percentage of those investigated had to be classified as “traitors” or “spies.” Although the 1940 cadre examinations included some excessively Leftist elements, to a great extent their appraisal of the cadres’ historical problems took into consideration the factor that “cadres [were] living in China’s complex society,” and for that reason, they generally arrived at more or less objective political conclusions and evaluations. Ding Ling, for example, was placed under house arrest in Nanjing by the KMT authorities from 1933 to 1936, so she arrived in Yan’an with the cloud of being a “capitulator” hanging over her head. When Kang Sheng became head of the Central Party School in early 1938, he publicly declared at a school rally that Ding Ling was “not our comrade.” The school did not allow Ding Ling to study and placed her under severe political pressure. But the 1940 cadre examinations reached a formal conclusion about this stage in Ding Ling’s history and explicitly declared

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that she should be regarded as a loyal member of the Communist Party.29 Returning to the example of Wang Shiwei, Wang had been in contact with Trotskyites before his arrival in Yan’an, and during the 1940 cadre examinations he took the initiative to discuss this issue with the Organization Department. Thereafter, Wang was still allowed to work at the Marxism-Leninism Institute and he still retained his Party membership. When the political situation within the Party deteriorated, however, the 1940 conclusions relating to Ding Ling and Wang Shiwei were subsequently overturned (in 1957 and 1942, respectively). The 1940 cadre examinations basically ended during the first half of 1941, but only eighteen months later, in early 1943, a new round of cadre examinations was launched on a much larger scale, qualifying it as a “cadre examination campaign.” Since few new people went to Yan’an after the 1940 cadre examinations, why did so many have to be dragged into another round of vetting? The basic reason is that beginning from 1942, the climate within the Party underwent a profound change, accompanied by the habitual thinking resulting from the CCP’s long-term struggle with the KMT, which was that KMT spies were everywhere, that no cadre examination could possibly be sufficiently thorough to prevent some spies from slipping through, that the only way to deal with this was to continuously carry out cadre examinations and regular, ruthless internal purges, and that the Communist Party was strengthened by such continuous struggles with external and internal enemies. This habitual thinking had long been characteristic of the Party; it faced certain restraints when political life in the Party was relatively normal, but once the Party’s internal environment experienced a major change, ultra-Leftist assessments of the enemy situation quickly came to the fore and obliterated the original policy of relatively reliable cadre examinations. When the 1942 Rectification Movement first began, the flood of criticisms of the current policy toward Yan’an intellectuals greatly alarmed Mao, resulting in redeployment of the magic weapons of cadre examinations and elimination of counterrevolutionaries. Kang Sheng tossed aside the Social Department’s documents of April and August 1941, replayed the ultra-Leftist errors enumerated in the documents, and then made them even worse. People who had been exonerated in 1941 found themselves once again on the grill, with their problems classified as many times more serious—from a “suspected spy” to a “secret agent,” and most of them were secretly arrested in April 1943. The reason for this

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development was the deterioration in the Party’s internal climate, and this climate was mainly due to Mao’s contribution, although Kang Sheng added fuel to the fire.

III. “The Rectification Movement Must Shift to Cadre Examinations, and the Cadre Examinations Must Shift to a Campaign against Spies (Counterrevolutionaries)” The relationship between the Rectif ication Movement, the cadre examination campaign, and the emergency rescue campaign is a major issue that cannot be avoided in research on the history on the Yan’an Rectification Movement. Kang Sheng famously said, “The Rectification Movement must shift to cadre examinations, and cadre examinations must shift to a campaign against spies (counterrevolutionaries).” 30 Did Kang Sheng deliberately distort Mao’s arrangements for the Rectification Movement, or did he in fact correctly understand and interpret Mao’s intentions? In other words, did Kang Sheng on his own initiative lead the Rectification Movement into the cadre examination and emergency rescue (elimination of spies and counterrevolutionaries) phases, or was this the result of Mao and Kang Sheng’s joint planning and leadership? Beginning in the 1980s, mainland Chinese historians (including Party historians) spent a brief period of time exploring the relationship between the emergency rescue campaign and the Rectification Movement. The dominant view was that rectification and the examination of cadres were a correct and sagacious policy decision by Mao, but that the emergency rescue campaign was a distortion arising during the latter stage of the Rectification Movement and that it was a campaign that Kang Sheng undertook without authorization and that he deliberately deviated from Mao’s arrangements in order to sabotage the Rectification Movement. Furthermore, as soon as it erupted, Mao quick ly put an end to it. Therefore, the emergency rescue campaign had nothing to do with the rectification and cadre examination campaigns, and cannot be considered part of the rectification process; in short, according to these scholars, the Yan’an Rectification Movement and the emergency rescue campaign were two entirely different matters.31 The most authoritative expression of this view was made by a member of the Secretariat of the CCP Central Committee and head of the Propaganda Department of the Central Committee, Deng Liqun (a

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member of the Central Political Research Section in 1942). In an interview with Party Documents on December 10, 1991, Deng Liqun stated that the emergency rescue campaign was carried out for only “ten days or so,” after which a “screening” was quickly carried out and “not a single comrade was treated unjustly”; “all conclusions were in conformity with reality,” and “they resulted in sincerity and unity without any barriers among comrades.”32 Obviously, in Deng Liqun’s thinking, a ten-day emergency rescue campaign could not be considered part of the Yan’an Rectification Movement and could not even be mentioned in the same breath. Instead, it could only be touched upon “in light of the historical developments” and in terms of its positive results because “if not for the emergency rescue campaign, there probably would not have been the Nine Guiding Principles” (a reference to the nine guiding principles for examining cadres’ personal histories that Mao had proposed on August 15, 1943).33 In my opinion, forcibly severing the emergency rescue campaign from the Rectification Movement is a serious violation of the historical facts. Deng Liqun’s views deserve further discussion: The emergency rescue campaign lasted more than “ten days or so,” and the targets of the attack did not all produce “conclusions in conformity with the reality.” As to the effects of the rectification, cadre examination, and emergency rescue campaigns on Party unity, there are differing opinions. Although there is no need to discuss them here, the conclusion that the emergency rescue campaign was “a misfortune with a positive outcome” is most inappropriate, just as it is completely unacceptable to use the worldwide United Front against fascism to affirm the virtues of fascism or to regard the Great Cultural Revolution as positive because it led to the reform and opening in the 1980s. There is nothing especially complicated about the relationship between the Rectification Movement and the cadre examination and emergency rescue campaigns. The reason why some people wish to evade or distort this historical fact is due to pure political necessity. Put simply, in an effort to protect the image of Mao and other leaders, they intentionally draw a distinction between Mao et al. and Kang Sheng, leaving Kang to play the role of the devil and to bear all of the historical responsibility. “The Rectification Movement must shift to cadre examinations, and cadre examinations must shift to a campaign to eliminate counterrevolutionaries” was Kang Sheng’s accurate and objective understanding and description of the connection between the rectification,

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cadre examination, and rescue campaigns that Mao had personally launched. The rectification apparatus that Mao set in motion had an internal logic that moved rapidly along a trajectory of rectification, cadre examinations, and emergency rescues, and Mao held the leading decisionmaking position throughout this process. Mao was the overall strategist for the Yan’an Rectification Movement, and his objectives in launching the movement and the basic strategy for carrying out his intentions were internal reasons to gradually escalate the movement. Mao’s basic goals in launching the Rectification Movement— to thoroughly eliminate the influence of the Comintern faction in the CCP; to expose the “empiricists” represented by Zhou Enlai and to win them over to his side; and to use his own thinking to remold the central leadership and thereby establish his status as the Party’s absolute ruler— originally faced the enormously dangerous potential of splitting the Party. In order to prevent the Rectification Movement from bringing about such a crisis and to ensure that the major restructuring of the Party remained firmly within his control, Mao proceeded with great caution, moving ahead steadily and striking sure blows rather than making any rash moves. His basic strategy combined circumspect use of both didactic and suppressive methods. Mao’s alternation of didactic and suppressive methods did not originate in 1942; back in September 1941, when Mao decided to lay his cards on the table with Wang Ming, he used this same strategy in the Party’s high-level political life. On the one hand, during the enlarged Politburo meeting, Mao took the initiative to provoke disputes and to lure the Wang Ming clique into disintegration under the pretext of “countering subjectivism”; on the other hand, Mao put pressure on Wang Ming by repeatedly demonstrating his power to single-handedly control the Central Security Unit.34 Beginning in 1942, Kang Sheng intensified surveillance and control over Wang Ming and Bo Gu, basically cutting off Comintern faction contacts with key Party cadres and Soviet delegates in Yan’an.35 With regard to the unveiling of the large-scale Party Rectification Movement in February 1942, initially (in February to March) Mao mainly used his didactic methods (mobilizing study of the rectification documents and ideological self-reflection), but once he began his counterattack against Wang Shiwei at the end of March, his suppressive tactics began to constitute a much larger share of the Rectification Movement. Under

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Mao’s personal leadership, and with the help of Kang Sheng, Peng Zhen, Li Fuchun, and others, there began an intermingling of the didactic and suppressive methods, whereby they supplemented and promoted each other and thoroughly permeated the rectification process right up until the Seventh National Party Congress, which convened in 1945. The share of the Rectification Movement that used didactic rather than suppressive tactics was flexible and elastic. The timing and rhythm of their interactions changed in accordance with Mao’s will and the momentum of the movement, but they were also influenced by the external environment. After the senior cadre conference of the Northwest China Bureau in November 1942, during which Mao proposed drawing a clear line of distinction between being “wholehearted” (proletarian) and “disloyal” (counterrevolutionary) and he downgraded the use of didactic tactics in favor of suppressive tactics, from December 1942 to the end of 1943 the Rectification Movement began to display its most suppressive forces. Mao, Kang Sheng, Liu Shaoqi (who had arrived in Yan’an at the end of 1942), and Peng Zhen allowed their actions to be guided by those changes that occurred in the course of the Rectification Movement. They first launched a “candor campaign” and the cadre examination campaign, and then they proceeded to conduct a nearly one-year emergency rescue campaign in Yan’an and all the other base areas (in some work-units and localities, the emergency rescue campaign and its follow-up continued until 1945). Following pressure from Moscow, however, and passive resistance from most of the Party’s core leadership, Mao weighed the situation and decided to terminate the emergency rescue campaign, shifting the Rectification Movement into a didactic phase of studying the history of the CCP’s “two-line struggle.” Alternating the use of didactic and suppressive tactics ultimately allowed Mao to achieve his fixed objectives. The Seventh Party Congress in 1945 formally established Mao’s leadership status and resolved to make Mao Zedong Thought the guiding ideology of the CCP. At this point, Mao shelved the use of didactic and suppressive tactics within the Party and the CCP focused its full attention on toppling the KMT regime. In the process of using didactic and suppressive tactics to reconstruct the CCP, Mao enjoyed a relationship of mutual support, coordination, and reliance with Kang Sheng. Kang Sheng applied his loyalty and “creative” efforts to wholeheartedly assist Mao to achieve his political ends, while Mao bestowed special trust in Kang Sheng and enhanced and expanded

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his influence within the Party. The close cooperation between Mao and Kang arose not only from their mutual esteem but also from their shared views on many major issues. Mao’s appreciation and trust in Kang Sheng greatly exceeded that in his relations with other Party leaders at that time and, as a result, at the critical juncture when Kang Sheng abided by Mao’s will in leading all the major battles in the rectification, examination, and rescue campaigns, Mao also actively supported Kang Sheng and created an environment conducive to his efforts: 1.) In spring 1942, Mao abandoned the more popular Ren Bishi and appointed Kang Sheng vice chairman of the Central Committee General Study Committee (CCGSC), giving him overall charge of the daily operations of the Rectification Movement. With Mao’s support, the Social Department of the Central Committee led by Kang Sheng took full responsibility for the cadre examinations in all of Yan’an’s main workunits, radically expanding the power of Kang Sheng’s apparatus. Kang Sheng’s especially appointed personnel infiltrated all of Yan’an’s central organs and schools, and all the key work-units in the Border Region. 2.) Mao was in complete harmony with Kang Sheng regarding how to deal with the Wang Shiwei issue and he entirely approved of the measures Kang Sheng took in handling Wang Shiwei. Mao fully supported and attached great importance to the pilot cadre examinations and anti-spy operations that began in the summer and autumn 1942. 3.) There is plentiful evidence indicating that Mao helped formulate the Central Committee Propaganda Department’s second “April 3 Decision,” issued on April 3, 1943. This decision emphasized the necessary connection between the rectif ication, examination, and counterespionage campaigns, and fully reflected Mao’s views on eliminating counterrevolutionaries—it was better to believe that intriguers and special agents did indeed exist rather than to believe that they did not exist; and the early stage of the campaign should attack Right deviating liberalism and boldly cast suspicion in order to achieve shock and awe; any errors could be corrected during a later stage. Kang Sheng’s actions in early April 1943 were entirely consistent with Mao’s views regarding eliminating counterrevolutionaries. Beginning in April, Mao gave Kang Sheng a free hand and he did not intervene in any way, allowing the emergency rescue campaign to spread like wildfire. 4.) As the emergency rescue campaign reached a climax beginning in July 1943, Mao was mindful of protecting Kang Sheng. Although the “Nine

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Guiding Principles for Examining Cadres” were issued on August 15, there was no emphasis on implementation. As a result, after the Nine Guiding Principles were issued, the emergency rescue campaign actually expanded in scope. 5.) It was only when Comintern head Georgi Dimitrov’s cable intervened in the matter in late December 1943 that Mao finally applied the brakes to the emergency rescue campaign. Although other senior Party officials expressed their displeasure with Kang Sheng, Mao actively protected him, and even when Mao apologized to injured Party members, Kang Sheng was sufficiently confident of Mao’s backing that he refused to undergo a self-criticism. Of course, from Kang Sheng’s perspective, he had no reason to admit any errors because Mao had never said that the Rectification Movement or the cadre examinations were wrong, so if Kang refused to share the blame, there was nothing Mao could do about it. As a matter of fact, Mao and Kang both knew the score, and neither of them wanted to acknowledge their tacit collaboration. 6.) Beginning in 1945, the emergency rescue component of the Rectification Movement became one of Mao’s major taboos, whereby he prohibited any publications from touching on the history of the emergency rescue campaign, and even when Kang Sheng fell out of political favor in the early 1950s, Mao did not allow any mention of Kang’s errors* during the emergency rescue campaign.36 When Mao heard that Chen Yi had criticized the emergency rescue campaign of the 1940s during a top-level central leaders’ meeting in Huairen Hall in February 1967, he flew into a rage, not only placing Chen Yi in political limbo but also banishing the entire Politburo.

*

  In August 1955, the CCP Central Committee, in its “Directive Regarding the Thorough Elimination of Covert Counterrevolutionaries,” declared that the “Nine Guiding Principles” that the Central Committee drew up for the Yan’an cadre examination campaign were completely correct. The cadre examination campaign screened out many counterrevolutionaries and bad elements and cleansed the revolutionary ranks; in organizational terms, it thus ensured victory in the War of Resistance and the third domestic Revolutionary War. “This should be fully appraised as an enormous achievement.” Regarding the emergency rescue campaign, the directive only pointed out that “it was biased, and its results committed errors of extorting confessions through torture,” but it emphasized that these errors were corrected during the reexamination.

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All of the above shows that Kang Sheng was not the instigator of what he described as “the Rectification Movement shifting to cadre examinations, and cadre examinations shifting to the elimination of counterrevolutionaries,” but rather it was the shared brainchild of Mao and Kang Sheng and the objective process by which the Rectification Movement developed. The so-called objective process refers not only to the progressive development and irreversibility of the rectification, examination, and rescue campaigns, but it is also a factual depiction of how the campaigns developed. Lin Feng, who at the time was secretary of the CCP’s Jin-Sui Sub-bureau, specifically described this in the conclusion he drew from the Rectification Movement and the cadre examinations: The three stages of the Rectification Movement in the Jin-Sui Region each had their own special characteristics: The first stage was mainly a rectification and study campaign of inner-Party struggle mainly aimed at opposing subjectivism. ... The second stage was a struggle against secret agents, representing a shift from inner-Party struggles to struggles against external enemies. The third stage began as another Rectification Movement [i.e., “line study”] but it converged with the struggle against both internal and external opponents.” 37 It should be pointed out that during the process when Mao utilized both didactic and suppressive tactics to thoroughly remold the Party, apart from the key role played by Kang Sheng, to a greater or lesser extent other leaders also played their own special roles. Separating the rectification and examination campaigns from the emergency rescue campaign and placing all historical responsibility on Kang Sheng’s shoulders is a fabrication that departs from the historical facts.

IV. Mao’s Purge Complex: From Elimination of the “AB League” and the “Trotskyites” to the Emergency Rescue Campaign From the Jiangxi period to the Yan’an period, all of the Party’s internal purges in which Mao was directly involved—the elimination of the “AB League,” the elimination of the “Trotskyites,” and the emergency rescue campaign—were carried out in the name of eliminating “infiltration by KMT intriguers,” “counterrevolutionaries,” and “traitors and Trotskyite bandits.” Yet, in the latter stage of each of these campaigns, Party leaders discovered that the actual result of dragging so many people into these struggles was very different from the original intents: The vast majority

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of the “enemies” who were discovered and suppressed were actually their comrades. Therefore, a round of screening and restitution was then undertaken (but in order to protect the “sagacious” image of the leaders, a batch of “problematic individuals” was retained and deprived of extrication). It was never long, however, before a new round of struggle against counterrevolutionaries began to brew. ... This became a regular phenomenon throughout the period when Mao remained in power. The basic reasons for the vicious circle leading to brutal campaigns against counterrevolutionaries were 1.) Mao’s exaggerated estimation of the enemy situation within the Party, which rendered the ultra-Leftist mentality against counterrevolutionaries a permanent mindset; and 2.) Mao’s misrepresentations regarding elimination of counterrevolutionaries due to his personal motivations. Mao’s ultra-Leftist mentality regarding counterrevolutionaries represented the CCP’s extreme reaction against the KMT’s policy of butchering Communists as well as the product of Mao’s personal overestimation of the KMT’s spying activities. In its fight for survival beginning in 1927, the CCP spent a protracted period of time in an extremely brutal environment, cut off from the rest of China and with the Nationalist enemy closing in for the kill. The CCP and Mao adopted a selfdefense mechanism of taking the KMT’s anti-Communist activities very seriously, and Mao was particularly alarmed by KMT tactics of sending agents to sabotage the Communist-controlled areas and using a “surrender policy” to coerce the Communists to act as special agents. In the intense conflict between the KMT and CCP, Mao’s mindset was that it was safer to assume that the KMT was indeed active, as opposed to not being active, in the CCP-controlled areas. No one in the top CCP leadership could match Mao’s vigilance. Quite apart from people like Wang Ming who had never controlled troops or counter-espionage organs, even the founder of the CCP’s intelligence and anti-counterrevolutionary apparatus, Zhou Enlai, did not hold Mao’s extreme appraisal of the “enemy situation.” Because of the CCP’s hyper-vigilance against the “enemy situation” and its adoption of strict cadre-vetting and countermeasures, the Jiangxi and Shaan-Gan-Ning Border Areas did in fact frustrate quite a few acts of sabotage that the KMT had aimed at the CCP. However, in general, KMT sabotage was mainly carried out in the KMT-controlled areas. In the Communist-controlled areas, the organizational cohesion of the CCP and its comprehensive and thorough social controls made infiltration by the

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KMT all but impossible, and the danger posed to the CCP by KMT agents was much less than the self-inflicted harm wrought by the Party’s own campaigns against counterrevolutionaries. However, using the campaigns against counterrevolutionaries to serve his own political ends was also a major component of Mao’s utilitarian political strategy. In his long-term struggle to gain control over the Communist armed forces and then to assume supreme leadership of the Party, the extremely self-confident Mao completely rejected any dissenting views within the Party, and he was especially vigilant against any conduct that challenged his personal authority. In order to attack dissent within the Party and to consolidate his power, Mao became adept within his own sphere of control at “riding the coattails of others” by skillfully using slogans and laws from Moscow, or manufacturing his own allegations to label oppositionist factions and potential opponents as “counterrevolutionaries.” In the process of suppressing the “AB League,” Mao invented the concept of “raising the Red Flag in revolt” to attack people within the Party who dared to challenge his authority. During the War of Resistance, Mao declined to interfere in Kang Sheng’s manufactured case against the “Red Flag party,” in which a large group of Party members were accused of being “secret agents” carrying out the KMT’s “Red Flag policy” of infiltrating the Party ranks. After the Cultural Revolution erupted in 1966, Mao created the concept of “waving the Red Flag to oppose the Red Flag,” in which many Party veterans and cadres were imprisoned as “traitors” and “spies” and the spearhead of the struggle was directed at the entire Party and the entire population. Although Mao’s methods against counterrevolutionaries varied greatly, as opposed to Stalin’s methods that consistently resorted to slaughtering his Party comrades, the two were amazingly similar in their use of campaigns against counterrevolutionaries as a means of eliminating political opponents. Mao’s use of campaigns against counterrevolutionaries to attack dissenting views within the Party was manifested in different manners during various historical periods; the CCP environment at the time and the relative strength of Mao’s own status were deciding factors in determining Mao’s stance on eliminating counterrevolutionaries, and accordingly different methods were employed during the different campaigns. Before Mao gained control of the Party leadership, his methods against counterrevolutionaries were rather direct and brutal. After he gained control of the Party, in order to protect his image as a wise and

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just leader he took a more cautious approach in dealing with opposition within the Party. He typically preferred the technique of releasing and then pulling in the leash, consisting mainly of intimidation supplemented by suppression, and he excelled at backstage manipulation. Once his personal status was thoroughly consolidated, however, Mao’s ruthless and tyrannical attitude reemerged, and he became increasingly inclined toward using campaigns against counterrevolutionaries as an intimidation tactic to resolve problems within the Party. 1.) The early years of the soviet movement (1930–31) During this period, the Jiangxi Communist base was an extremely harsh environment; not only was Mao’s personal status in the Party not yet established but his leadership status in the base area was even opposed by some Party members. Situated in a remote mountain area, Mao enjoyed ample autonomy from the Central Committee in far-off Shanghai and in order to impose his personal control over Jiangxi’s Red Army, Mao gave free rein to his “wild side” (“tiger energy”) and his “king of the hill” temperament. This resulted in Mao’s direct involvement in the senseless and tragic killing of thousands of Red Army soldiers and local Party members in southern Jiangxi.* 38 2.) The Yan’an period (1937–41) After the War of Resistance broke out, renewed cooperation between the CCP and KMT greatly improved the environment for the *

  The Jiangxi Soviet Area’s campaign to eliminate the “AB League” occurred in two phases: Phase 1: from the 1930 “February 7 Conference” to January 1931; Phase 2: from April 1931 to early 1932. During the first phase, Mao and the General Front Committee of the First Front Red Army under his leadership played a leading role. According to preliminary figures, 4,500 soldiers and officers were killed in the First Front Red Army, and as of October 1930, the Southwest Jiangxi Special Committee had exterminated more than 1,000 “AB League elements.” This figure does not include local Party members and government officials who were subsequently killed. The second phase of the campaign in the Jiangxi Soviet Area was managed by the Central Committee delegation led by Ren Bishi and the General Front Committee of the First Front Red Army led by Mao. The main targets were cadres in the southwest Jiangxi Red Army, who had taken part in the Futian Incident, as well as local government cadres. There is no consensus on the number of people killed. If the number killed in the western Fujian campaign against the “Socialist Democratic Party” (SDP) is included, the number of military officers, soldiers, Party members, and ordinary people killed in the campaigns against counterrevolutionaries exceeded 10,000.

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CCP. Mao also gained an advantage within the CCP and energetically sought to gain complete control of the Party leadership. It was just at this juncture, however, that Moscow regained influence over the CCP. In this new situation and constrained by various circumstances, Mao began to restrain his wilder side and became mindful of presenting himself with the bearing of a Party leader; he generally employed more roundabout and tortuous methods to divide and dispel divergent views within the Party’s core leadership. In the inner-Party struggle, he mainly resorted to political strategizing and he was less prone to violent shock tactics. However, Mao never lost his vigilance resulting from the long-term armed confrontation with the KMT as well as his wariness of social-democratic thinking both inside and outside of the Party. Although Mao no longer could directly deploy campaigns against counterrevolutionaries in political disputes within the Party leadership, and likewise he could not repeat the mass suppression used against the “AB League,” he continued to use campaigns against counterrevolutionaries and against imagined enemies in the Party’s middle and lower ranks. This was mainly manifested beginning in 1937 when Mao gave Kang Sheng and his security apparatus a free hand in cracking down on the “Trotskyites” in Yan’an and the other base areas. The brutal and bloody years of the campaign to eliminate Trotskyites were no less intense than the campaign against the “AB League”; it was merely on a smaller scale and carried out much more covertly. 3.) The Rectification Movement (1942–45) With the strengthening and consolidation of Mao’s leadership status within the CCP, his former attitudes reappeared and he once again wielded his magic weapon of carrying out campaigns against counterrevolutionaries. Facing massive discontent among Party intellectuals and the spread of social-democratic thinking, Mao quickly decided to channel campaigns against “counterrevolutionaries,” “spies,” and “traitors” into a rectification trajectory to bring about complete submission of the entire Party to his newly-won authority. Mao purposely let the tiger out of the cage, supporting and indulging Kang Sheng’s transformation of the covert campaign against a handful of suspected counterrevolutionaries into an overt and Party-wide campaign resulting in countless cases of injustice. Of course, Mao, now the Party leader, knew very well that there could not possibly be a substantial number of Trotskyites or KMT or Japanese agents among the Yan’an cadres and Party members, so the ultimate objective of launching the Party-wide

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campaign against counterrevolutionaries was mainly to instill adoration and reverence toward Mao in the hearts of all Party members. To that end, he declared a policy of “no executions and few arrests” that prevented the rectification and cadre examination campaigns of 1942 to 1945 from becoming as ruthless as the earlier campaign against the “AB League.” Over time, the CCP policy of eliminating counterrevolutionaries that took shape in the wartime environment, with its assumption of a counterrevolutionary presence and Mao’s abuse of power and his intentionally misleading approach for personal ends, caused the CCP leadership and senior and mid-level cadres to generally develop the habit of viewing everything from a class-struggle perspective: Class enemies could be “KMT agents” or “saboteurs,” or they could be anyone whose views differed from the prevailing opinions. Due to this deep-seated ideological foundation, each time Mao launched a new campaign against counterrevolutionaries, the Party organization and the general Party membership sprang into action, and regardless of whether or not irrefutable evidence existed, they would root out a batch of counterrevolutionaries and leave the talking for the later stage of the campaign. No consideration was given to the harm that such methods inflicted on the Party and its membership. As the initiator of the ultraLeftist policies against counterrevolutionaries, Mao became highly proficient at using these methods against his imagined enemies. Although Mao’s manipulation took different forms in the campaigns against the “AB League,” the Trotskyites, and the emergency rescue campaign, all such campaigns derived from an ultra-Leftist attitude whose goal was to eliminate counterrevolutionaries, and the fundamental spirit behind such campaigns never changed substantially. Only Mao’s role changed, from the forefront during some periods to receding into the background during others, making it difficult to perceive Mao’s actual intentions and the decisive role that he played in each of these campaigns.

V. The Relationship among Mao, the Central Committee General Study Committee, and the Central Committee Social Department Once the Rectification Movement was launched, the organizational structure of the Party’s central leadership underwent certain changes. Although Mao continued to issue directives in the name of the Central

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Committee, Politburo, or Secretariat of the Central Committee in contacts with the strategic base areas and with the South China Bureau in Chongqing, the CCSGC superseded most of the authority of the Politburo and the Secretariat in Yan’an. The terms of reference of most of the Central Committee’s ministries and commissions were considerably reduced, limited to only maintaining routine operations. Under Mao’s meticulous planning, the CCGSC effectively became the Party’s supreme policy and power organ, above both the Politburo and the Secretariat. Although Mao had full control over the Politburo and the Secretariat by 1942, he still considered these two organs a hindrance, so he created an organization that answered to him alone. Even so, the CCGSC was not a fixed entity; it was merely a provisional body that Mao had installed as a cover for imposing his one-man rule on the Party, and during the rectification period, it would sometime emerge and sometime disappear without a trace, entirely in accordance with Mao’s will. The CCGSC was at its most invincible in 1942, when its inner circle consisted of just two people, Mao and Kang Sheng, and with Kang completely subservient to Mao. The CCGSC’s key sections were the branch study committees under Mao’s and Kang’s direct leadership, which played key roles in executing Mao’s intentions during the early stage of the Rectification Movement. At the same time, the Central Committee Social Department, long shrouded in a veil of mystery, appeared from behind the scenes to occupy center stage. The direct and ostensible reason for the Social Department to come out of hiding was that the various branch study committees were finding it difficult to handle the overload of cadre examination work, and they urgently requested support from the Social Department. After the Rectification Movement entered its cadre examination stage, the branch study committees under the Central Committee and the Central Military Commission (CMC) experienced a sharp increase in their workload. The self-reflection notebooks, “mini-broadcast forms,” and curricula vitae of the “target groups” submitted by grassroots work-units began to pile up, with vast amounts of written material requiring compilation and verification. The branch study committees were also responsible for individual interviews with suspects and for investigating, interrogating, and surveilling specific individuals. Having experienced the campaigns against counterrevolutionaries during the Jiangxi period, the leaders of these various branch study committees were not strangers to such

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“special operations” work, and once they started, they were generally adept at it. However, the situation was now different from that during the Jiangxi years, and some special investigations could no longer be handled independently by the branch study committees. First of all, the investigation targets were numerous and overlapping, covering almost all of Yan’an’s organs and schools, and it would have been all but impossible to carry out the investigations without the Social Department’s coordination. Second, the demands of the investigations had also increased, and some items were relatively specialized—for example, offsite investigations via radio or mail—and this led many leaders of the branch study committees to feel a deep need for coordination with the Social Department. Sometimes enhancing the productivity of interrogation work also required guidance by specialized organs. Third, as the campaign developed, it became overwhelming; some branch study committee cadres involved in investigating others soon became suspects themselves and they were placed in detention and “control.” All of this caused a general shortage of manpower in the branch study committees, which then turned to the CCGSC for urgent assistance. It was against this background that Mao and Kang Sheng brought the Party organ specializing in intelligence and the elimination of counterrevolutionaries—the Social Department— into the core position of leading the cadre examination campaign. Thus, although the branch study committees were ostensibly in charge of Yan’an’s rectification and cadre examination campaigns, it was the Social Department that controlled and managed everything from behind the scenes. There was an even deeper reason for the Social Department, under Mao’s deployment, to rapidly intervene in the developing cadre examination campaign—this was the department’s absolute submission and loyalty to Mao under Kang Sheng’s leadership, which made it a resource under Mao’s complete control. The previous incarnation of the Social Department was the State Public Security Bureau (SPSB) established in Ruijin in November 1931. This bureau was comprised of former members of the Shanghai CCP Central Committee’s Special Operations Department and former Red Army cadres from the Central Soviet Area. Deng Fa served as head of the bureau for a long time, and his deputies were Li Kenong, Pan Hannian, and Li Yimeng, former key special operation cadres in Shanghai with long-

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standing relationships with Zhou Enlai.* 39 From 1932 until before the Zunyi Conference in 1935, Zhou Enlai had a controlling influence over the SPSB. Under deliberate arrangements by Zhou, Bo Gu, and Zhang Wentian, cadres close to Mao who had taken part in the campaign against the “AB League,” such as Zeng Shan, Chen Zhengren, and Gu Bo, were sent to work in local Party or government departments or in the armed forces, as a result of which Mao had no influence over the Party’s anticounterrevolutionary apparatus beginning in 1932. It should be pointed out that during the Jiangxi period Zhou Enlai was still in direct charge of the Party’s confidential intelligence departments. His wife, Deng Yingchao, assumed the Party’s most confidential work, i.e., secret cable communications with Moscow. Due to the complicated wartime environment, there was considerable overlap and duplication between the Party’s secret intelligence and counter-espionage work and the elimination of counterrevolutionaries. Before the Long March, the Central Committee (or the Central Bureau of the Soviet Area) Secretariat and the CMC Secretariat were generally assigned responsibility for Party and military confidential communications, whereas the SPSB was in charge of eliminating counterrevolutionaries and gathering intelligence. On the eve of the Long March, however, due to the requirements of military operations, the Party’s entire confidential intelligence apparatus was concentrated in the Confidential Section of the CMC, and the Central Secretariat effectively suspended operations, retaining only a handful of staff. Meanwhile, Central Secretariat head Deng Yingchao and Liu Ying (subsequently Zhang Wentian’s wife) were not transferred to the “cadre recuperation unit” like other female cadres during the Long March; instead, they accompanied the key departments, headed by Bo Gu, Otto Braun, and Zhou Enlai, mainly to carry out secretarial work, such as taking the minutes at meetings. Mao was extremely unhappy with Zhou Enlai’s single-handed control of the organs responsible for confidential and intelligence work and operations against counterrevolutionaries, and after the January

*

  In autumn 1932, Li Yimeng was appointed executive director of the SPSB, and Li Kenong was transferred to the front to serve as head of the Security Bureau of the First Front Army.

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1935 Zunyi Conference, he began to nibble away at Zhou’s turf. In June 1935, Mao sent his own secretary, Wang Shoudao, to take over the CMC’s Confidential Section, and soon thereafter he sent Wang Shoudao to take over leadership of the SPSB from Deng Fa. Although the enlarged Politburo meeting in Wayaobao at the end of 1935 announced the restoration of the Central Secretariat and various ministries and commissions of the Central Committee and former SPSB cadre Zhang Wenbin was appointed head of the Secretariat, Zhang Wenbin was soon transferred to United Front work, and actual control of the Secretariat was in the hands of deputy secretary Wang Shoudao. After the CCP Central Committee arrived in northern Shaanxi, the allocation of responsibilities among the departments handing intelligence and operations against counterrevolutionaries was gradually normalized. On the foundation of the original SPSB, a Front Army Security Bureau was established, later renamed the Northwest Government Security Bureau, with Zhou Xing as its head but still under Wang Shoudao’s control. The CMC’s Confidential Section was split into three sections to form the Central Secretariat Confidential Section, the CMC Confidential Section, and the Front Army Security Bureau (that is, the Northwest Government Security Bureau) Confidential Section. The Central Secretariat Confidential Section was responsible for confidential cables relating to Party business; the CMC Confidential Section was responsible for confidential cables relating to military matters; and the Security Bureau Confidential Section was responsible for the cables of the intelligence apparatus and for managing secret cable communications. Nominally, the CCP had established a tripartite confidential intelligence apparatus, yet in actuality all power over confidential and intelligence operations was concentrated in Mao’s hands. This is because all three branches came under Wang Shoudao’s leadership, and Wang was completely submissive to Mao and enjoyed Mao’s trust. In order to thoroughly control the Party’s confidential and intelligence organs, Mao also sent his former subordinate, Zeng San, to the Central Secretariat Confidential Section to coordinate with Wang Shoudao on developing the section’s operations. At this time, Deng Yingchao was in Beiping being treated for an illness and she was completely removed from the confidential and intelligence apparatus. Wang Shoudao’s control of the Party’s confidential, intelligence, and anti-counterrevolutionary work changed once Kang Sheng returned to Yan’an in November 1937. After carefully testing and establishing

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Kang Sheng’s loyalty, intelligence experience, and work abilities, in September 1938 Mao appointed him head of the newly-established Central Committee Social Department and Intelligence Department (the Social Department was formally established in February 1939, but it had already been operational before that). However, Mao did not grant Kang Sheng full power over the Party’s intelligence, confidential, and anti-counterrevolutionary operations, however; Kang Sheng was only responsible for the elimination of counterrevolutionaries and counterespionage work, as well as for some intelligence work (one-half year after the Intelligence Department was established in 1939, Mao disbanded it), while the Party’s confidential matters, international communications, and other such intelligence work were still handled by Mao’s former subordinates, Wang Shoudao and Wang Guanlan. In an effort to gain more power and become the top person in the Party’s intelligence and security departments, as well as to occupy an even more important position in the Party, beginning in 1938 Kang Sheng placed his full support behind Mao’s handling of Wang Ming and the rest of the Comintern faction, and he also did his utmost to strengthen the Social Department’s internal structure. He made the Social Department the Party’s foremost department, bringing together a large number of professional personnel to form an intelligence network with dense coverage throughout the country. Under Kang Sheng’s management, the Social Department strengthened its organizational structure to resemble the Soviet OGPU and it became a bona fide intelligence and counter-espionage agency. The Social Department had five bureaus under it: the First Bureau, in charge of Party organization and personnel; the Second Bureau, in charge of intelligence; the Third Bureau, in charge of counter-espionage; the Fourth Bureau, in charge of intelligence analysis; and the Fifth Bureau, in charge of training agents. The Social Department also had two subsidiary departments: the Security Department and the Operations Department. Additionally, it operated Northwest Public School for training special agents to be sent to the KMT-controlled areas and cadres to carry out intelligence work and operations against counterrevolutionaries in the base areas. The Social Department apparatus had a group of highly experienced intelligence experts: Li Qiang (born Zeng Peihong, and formerly a member of the Special Operations of the Central Committee who was appointed vice director of the Military Work Bureau and of the CMC’s Third Bureau.

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Li Qiang was a veteran telecommunications expert whose work overlapped with that of the Social Department), Xu Jianguo, Zeng Xisheng, Zou Dapeng, Feng Xuan, Li Shiying, Luo Qingchang, Huang Chibo, and Yang Qiqing. They were appointed to leadership roles in various departments and offices. A small number of educated young cadres with special foreign language and telecommunications skills, such as Fu Hao, were also absorbed into the various bureaus, giving the Social Department a reputation as a work-unit that pooled Yan’an’s specialized talent. Under Kang Sheng’s leadership, the Social Department extended its feelers throughout Yan’an’s extensive intelligence network. It had special agents and secret networks in all of Yan’an’s key Party and administrative departments and education apparatuses, and the special agents directed “stringers” who engaged in the collection of intelligence and investigative work. The secret intelligence officers under the Social Department’s direct leadership and management generally had legitimate identities for their public activities; they could be the heads of work- units or students at the Party schools. The Social Department also established comprehensive surveillance over Yan’an’s social situation, sending operatives to post offices, hostels, restaurants, transportation services, and supply cooperatives to collect intelligence. Yan’an’s famous Northwest Hostel was operated by the Social Department under the management of department cadres Wang Jinxiang and Qu Rixin. The Social Department attached enormous importance to maintaining surveillance over visitors from outside. The agency responsible for receiving external guests, the Yan’an Public Relations Office, was nominally part of the structure of the Border Region Government, but the Border Region Government had no power over the Yan’an Public Relations Office, which was actually subordinate to the Social Department. With Mao’s approval, the Social Department expanded its operational network to the Secretariat of the Central Committee and the CMC Secretariat (operations of these two organs were merged during the Yan’an period). Just as the functionaries at Stalin’s side were all OGPU operatives, the functionaries at Mao’s side were operatives of the Social Department; not only was Mao’s private secretary, Ye Zilong, a Social Department operative but even Mao’s wife, Jiang Qing, was under the Social Department in terms of organizational relations.40 This shows that during this period Mao put his complete political trust in the Social Department under Kang Sheng’s leadership.

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Mao was very happy with the changes that occurred in the Social Department under Kang Sheng, whose relentless work ethic and absolute loyalty made a deep impression on him. In order to further weaken Zhou Enlai’s influence over the CCP’s apparatus for intelligence work and elimination of counterrevolutionaries, and to establish his own absolute authority within these departments while also gaining a crystal clear understanding of the history, thinking, and performance of cadres in the confidential and intelligence apparatus, Mao decided to give Kang Sheng even freer rein. On April 4, 1942, the Secretariat of the Central Committee issued the “Central Committee Notice Regarding the Establishment of the Confidential Bureau,” which announced that the original tripartite confidential bureaus of the Secretariat of the Central Committee, the CMC, and the Central Social Department would be combined into a Central Confidential Bureau, with Kang Sheng as director.41 Kang Sheng had finally realized his dream of controlling the Party’s confidential and intelligence apparatus. He was now the actual leader of the Party apparatus for intelligence and anti-counterrevolutionary work, and he also occupied a position of influence, second only to Mao, in the Party’s core leadership. Kang Sheng held the following positions in 1942: • • • • • •

Member of the CCP Central Committee Politburo and Secretariat of the Central Committee; Vice chairman of the CCSGC; Chairman of the Central Investigation Committee for Party and Non-Party Cadres; Director of the Central Committee Social Department; Director of the Central Committee Intelligence Department (established in October 1941); and Director of the Central Confidential Bureau (established on April 4, 1942).

After attaining the position of director of the Central Confidential Bureau, Kang Sheng repaid Mao’s trust by carrying out a rigorous purge of the original Central Secretariat Confidential Section and the CMC Confidential Section, expelling a number of experienced cadres from the confidential apparatus and reducing the original staff of the three

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Confidential Sections from 200 to only 99 in the newly merged bureau.42 With staffing reduced by half just as the work load was increasing sharply, cadres in the Central Confidential Bureau (renamed the Central Confidential Section on April 18, 1942) were overwhelmed, yet Mao hailed 1943 as a “major transition year.” Although Kang Sheng held several positions simultaneously and directly managed the Party’s confidential, intelligence, counter-espionage, and anti-counterrevolutionary work, the Social Department remained the genuine core department of the secret-service apparatus. Because Social Department cadres had comprehensive technical skills and rich experience, they quickly replaced the original cadres in the merged unit to become the backbone of all key divisions. Kang Sheng assigned the new task of cadre rectification and examination to Social Department cadres. In this way, the power of Kang Sheng’s apparatus expanded rapidly beginning in 1942 and the nature of its work also underwent a major change. With Mao’s support and interest, just as the CCP Central Committee’s various departments and ministries were shriveling away, the Social Department was the only one to experience major growth, and it became the core organization upon which Mao depended for leading the rectification and cadre examination campaigns. The Social Department typically became involved in these campaigns through the following methods: 1.) The Social Department would conceal itself within the CCGSC and the branch study committees of the various organs and then launch activities in the name of these study committees. As director of the Social Department and vice chairman of the CCGSC, Kang Sheng greatly facilitated the Social Department’s infiltration operations. Even more often, the relationship between the CCGSC and the Social Department was like two signs hung over the same agency: They were almost indistinguishable from each other. The CCGSC’s name was only invoked in announcements regarding overall arrangements for the Rectification Movement. 2.) The Social Department had a close relationship with the study committees of the Central Committee Organization Department, the Central Party School, and other major departments, and it sent cadres to directly lead those units. Kang Sheng and Organization Department head Chen Yun were both leaders of the Ce Special Operations of the Central Committee when it was reorganized following the Gu Shunzhang

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incident. * The two of them had worked together in Moscow for an extended period from 1935 to 1937, returning to Yan’an together on the same flight in November 1937. Chen Yun and Kang Sheng were among the handful of Party leaders whom Mao relied upon during the Rectification Movement. As the special agency responsible for cadre management and vetting, the Organization Department had close professional ties with the Social Department: The Organization Department was responsible for selecting cadres for the Social Department, and when the Social Department was investigating target suspects, it routinely asked the Organization Department to provide relevant background material, so the two departments always worked closely together. Although Peng Zhen had no historical working relationship with Kang Sheng, the two became very close at the outset of the Rectification Movement. The Social Department sent people deep into the various departments of the Central Party School to coordinate the cadre examinations, and once the Central Party School “unearthed” target “counterrevolutionaries,” most of them were sent to the Social Department for detention. The Social Department also directed the cadre examination work of the Northwest Institute of Public Administration, which imprisoned cadres from the border area apparatus. Although the Social Department was extensively and profoundly involved in the inner-Party struggle, it never went beyond the scope of Mao’s control. This is because in 1940 the Social Department’s practice of dispatching agents to various work-units had been abolished and replaced by the newly-established security committees, with the Party organization in each work-unit and the Social Department sharing responsibility for looking into suspect individuals. This changed the Social Department’s original Soviet OGPU-style system of vertical intelligence and investigative operations. While expanding Kang Sheng’s authority once the Rectification Movement was launched, Mao also took special measures to prevent Kang Sheng’s power from developing to the point that he would become a threat to Mao’s own status. First, Mao did not allow Kang Sheng to participate in cable communications between himself and Stalin or the Comintern; instead, he specifically assigned Ren Bishi responsibility for this work. The Central Rural Affairs Committee (Rural Work Department) led by Wang Guanlan,

*

  TN: See Chapter 6.

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Wu Defeng (i.e., Wu Chongbao), and Shuai Mengqi fell under the direct leadership of Mao and Ren Bishi. No other Party leaders could inquire into Mao’s secret cable communications with Moscow. Kang Sheng and the Social Department were only responsible for external security of topsecret telegraphic communications and for the political vetting of the staff in that system. Mao’s Russian translator, Shi Zhe, belonged to the Social Department apparatus, but as Ren Bishi’s secretary and as translator of the cables between Mao and Stalin, Shi maintained only a routine working relationship with Kang Sheng and under no circumstances did he reveal to Kang the content of the cables between Mao and Stalin. Kang Sheng constantly made overtures to Shi Zhe because of the latter’s special status. Second, Mao kept Kang Sheng in line by arranging for individuals outside of Kang Sheng’s circle to serve as Kang’s assistants. Due to historical factors, for a long time Zhou Enlai had assumed leadership responsibility for the Party’s intelligence work. Although Mao shifted a portion of Zhou’s leadership in this area to Kang Sheng beginning in 1938, Zhou’s rapid shift of allegiance in the conflict between Mao and Wang Ming, coupled with his rich experience in intelligence work and the advantages offered by his engagement in United Front work, led Mao to assign Zhou leadership over political and military intelligence in the KMT-controlled areas as well as international intelligence work targeting Britain and the United States. At the same time, Mao retained a large number of intelligence cadres closely affiliated with Zhou Enlai within the Social Department, and two of Zhou’s former subordinates, Li Kenong and Pan Hannian, with Mao’s consent, continued to serve as deputy directors of the Social Department. When Li Kenong returned to Yan’an from Chongqing in March 1941, Mao used Kang Sheng to keep Li in tow, constrained his political advancement, and did not let him in on the top secrets of the core leadership in the struggle between Mao and the Wang Ming faction. At the same time, however, Mao made use of Li’s rich experience as an intelligence expert by appointing him Kang Sheng’s top deputy in the Social Department. Although Mao’s arrangement did not intentionally target Kang Sheng, from Kang’s perspective Mao’s appointment of a long-time Zhou Enlai subordinate as his deputy implied the imposition of a certain constraint. Mao also assigned some of his own long-time subordinates to key tasks within Kang’s Social Department apparatus; for example, Mao assigned Zeng San long-term responsibility for the Party’s important confidential matters, and even after the Central

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Confidential Bureau apparatus came under Kang Sheng’s leadership, Zeng San was still not someone Kang Sheng could take for granted. By teaming up intelligence cadres with different backgrounds with different backers in the Social Department, Mao made it all but impossible for Kang Sheng to engage in empire-building. Third, although having Kang Sheng take charge of the CMC’s intelligence work, Mao limited Kang’s ability to develop his own power base within the military’s intelligence and security departments. In about 1942, Mao was exceedingly displeased with the military, and in particular with Peng Dehuai, and for that reason he intentionally allowed Kang Sheng into what Mao had always maintained was his exclusive domain— the military intelligence apparatus—in order to blunt the “arrogance” of Peng Dehuai and the other top military officers. Yet Mao very calculatingly prevented the Social Department from establishing a vertical structure in the Eighth Route Army; instead, he stipulated that the Party committees and army leadership of each major strategic base area should have its own social department. The relationship of the Central Committee Social Department with the security departments of the various base areas and with the Eighth Route Army and the New Fourth Army was limited to professional direction. This not only prevented conflict between the special operations departments of the military and those of the Party but it also avoided the risk of the Kang Sheng apparatus becoming too powerful. Fourth, Mao intentionally granted the BRSO a degree of autonomy, giving rise to a mutually constraining relationship between the BRSO and the Social Department. The BRSO was Yan’an’s publicly acknowledged security-management agency. It was nominally subordinate to the Border Region Government, but the actual higher authorities in the BRSO were the Central Committee’s Northwest China Bureau and the Social Department. The previous incarnation of the BRSO was the Front Army Security Bureau that had been established in 1935. In 1936, it was renamed the Northwest Government Security Bureau, with Mao’s longtime subordinate and active participant in the campaign against the “AB League,” Zhou Xing, as its head. In 1937 the bureau once again changed its name, this time to the BRSO, and it became one of the main agencies protecting the CCP Central Committee, with Zhou Xing remaining as its head. The BRSO carried out the same functions as the Social Department before the latter was established, and the staff of the Social Department and the Intelligence Department were basically drawn from the BRSO,

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making it the mother organization of the Social Department. However, due to an overlap in the subordinate bodies and different work allocations, the BRSO began to fall under Gao Gang’s influence and gradually formed its own operational scope and cadre contingent, and thus it was no longer simply a subordinate agency of the Social Department. The BRSO in fact became another security apparatus that was second only to the Social Department, and Kang Sheng did not have complete control over it. In sum, Kang Sheng and the Social Department were mere pawns on Mao’s chessboard. When Mao needed Kang Sheng’s support to defeat political opponents and to achieve his strategic objectives, he “released the tiger” and conferred on Kang Sheng and his agency enormous power, expanding the Social Department’s functions to include both external and internal authority and making it into a supreme agency above all other departments and subordinate only to Mao. Yet even during the Social Department’s heyday from 1942 to 1943, Mao kept a card up his sleeve and made sure that Kang Sheng understood who was boss.

VI. An “Experimental Field” Produces the Zhang Keqin Case In the summer of 1942, when under Mao’s direction of the leading rectification bodies in all of Yan’an’s key work-units began secretly shifting the campaign’s focus to an examination of the cadres’ personal histories, more than anything Mao sought the discovery of “secret agents” engaged in underground sabotage. Mao needed these spies as direct and ample justification for the shift to the cadre examination campaign; in addition, Mao’s ultra-Leftist approach toward eliminating counterrevolutionaries— that it was better to believe they existed than that they did not—led him to believe that Yan’an was in fact riddled with secret agents. On June 19, 1942, Mao delivered a major speech to a restricted audience on the topic of cadre examinations. Taking advantage of the Wang Shiwei case, Mao explicitly directed that measures be taken to discover Trotskyites, KMT agents, and Japanese spies within the cadre ranks. Mao hinted that intellectuals should be the main focus of the investigations and he stipulated the strategies and methods to be employed: “Make a distinction in the cases of good people and comrades who have committed errors; every organ needs to calmly observe and analyze the situation and put plans in place to carry out this work.”

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Yet the cadre examination campaign showed no obvious results following Mao’s June 19 speech. It could be that Mao’s directive to “make a distinction in the cases of good people and comrades who have committed errors” did some good; however, apart from a handful of cases, such as the Wu Xiru “spy case” in the Central Party School and the “Wang Shiwei, Cheng Quan, Pan Fang, Wang Li, and Zong Zheng Anti-Party Clique,” nothing noteworthy emerged for some time. The failure of the majority of Yan’an’s Party organs and schools to root out secret agents was intensely displeasing to Mao. In his opening address to a senior cadre conference of the Northwest China Bureau on October 19, Mao criticized the apathetic liberal attitude toward sabotage by enemy agents. In an effort to enlarge the scope of the investigations, in November Mao directed that examinations focus not only on distinguishing between revolutionaries and diehard counterrevolutionaries but also on separating proletariats from half-hearted non-proletariats. Kang Sheng readily picked up on Mao’s anxiety and wrath, and after “calm observation and analysis” and “putting a plan into place,” he quickly offered Mao a model espionage case—that of Zhang Keqin. The “Zhang Keqin Counterrevolutionary Secret Agent Case” was an exotic floral shrub cultivated by Kang Sheng. After unearthing the “Wang Shiwei Anti-Party Clique,” in September 1942 Kang Sheng launched an “experimental field” for cadre examinations in the intelligence academy directly under his Social Department—Northwest Public School. Established in the rear gullies of Zaoyuan, Northwest Public School was an outgrowth of the Social Department’s Security Cadre Training School. It usually enrolled about 300 students at a time, but in 1943 the school had more than 500 students. The deputy director of both the Social Department and the Intelligence Department, Li Kenong, was the school’s director, and the deputy director was Li Yimin, head of the Social Department’s First Bureau. The school’s other leaders included Wang Dongxing (head of the Social Department’s Second Office), Mao Cheng (a woman who served as secretary general of the Central Social Department during the Yan’an era), and Wu De (who was transferred to Northwest Public School in 1942 to be responsible for covert surveillance over Li Yimin).43 Under Kang Sheng’s direction, normal intelligence training at Northwest Public School was suspended in late summer 1942, and the school became the site of a pilot program for the secret cadre examination campaign.

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Zhang Keqin, born Fan Dawei, had studied at Northern Shaanxi Public School and thereafter he was selected as a candidate for intelligence investigations and transferred to Northwest Public School for training. Zhang Keqin’s circumstances seemed to make him a natural choice for Kang Sheng to select as a model spy case, conforming all too well to the basic characteristics of a “secret agent” according to Kang Sheng’s subjective criteria in the espionage world. Let us for the moment stand in Kang Sheng’s shoes while creating a political and historical curriculum vitae for Zhang Keqin: Name: Zhang Keqin Sex: Male Age: 19 Political status: CCP member Family status: Independent professional Personal status: Student When did he begin participating in the revolution? When did he join the Party? Zhang joined the National Liberation Vanguard in Xi’an in October 1936, and after the beginning of the War of Resistance, the Xi’an Office of the Eighth Route Army sent him to engage in underground work in Lanzhou, where he joined the Party. After the KMT authorities became suspicious of him in June 1939, the Party’s Gansu Work Committee and Party representative Lin Boqu recommended that he be transferred to Yan’an. Main social relationships and political features: His father, Fan Zhiyi, had been arrested by the KMT in 1939 and turned traitor. His wife, Zhu Fanglan, had been arrested by the KMT in 1939 and betrayed the Party. Observations by the Party organization about Zhang’s recent performance: 1.) During the 1942 Rectification Movement, the Yan’an Health and Medications Agency received a KMT publication, Central Weekly, sent to Zhang Keqin by a person named Li Ju in Chongqing. Zhang claimed that Li Ju might be a secret agent who was involved with his wife. 2.) The newspaper of Xi’an’s Three Principles of the People Youth League once published the names of Communist Party members

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who had surrendered to the KMT, and Zhang Keqin’s name topped the list. 3.) Yan’an’s Lu Xun Academy of Arts sent a report alleging that Zhang Keqin was a secret agent. This personal dossier was in fact very damaging to Zhang, and there was no way that Zhang could talk his way out of the many doubts raised on his CV because, according to Kang Sheng’s logic: 1.) Zhang was 19 years old and a petty-bourgeois intellectual, and counterrevolutionary spies were most easily bred from among young intellectuals. 2.) Zhang came from a KMT-controlled area, the CCP organizations in such areas had long been infiltrated by KMT spies, and KMT espionage organizations had all along been sending spies to Yan’an. 3.) Zhang’s family background and social relations were complicated; both his father and his wife had betrayed the Party. Zhang was sure to have come under the ideological influence of his reactionary family members and it was likely that he had already betrayed the Party. 4.) Zhang had worked in communications with Chongqing, and the person who sent him the magazine was a secret agent. 5.) Xi’an’s Three Principles of the People Youth League newspaper had published the news about Zhang Keqin’s surrender to the KMT, and although quite a number of people might have shared the same name, it could not be ruled out that the individual in question was the Zhang Keqin in Yan’an. 6.) An outside work-unit sent a report exposing him, and regardless of whether or not the allegations were true, the fact that they were made indicated that there was a problem. Why was it that Zhang Keqin was exposed rather than someone else? Additionally, the person making the allegation had arrived in Yan’an together with Zhang Keqin. Following the above six inferences, Zhang was assumed guilty, and the next step was to get him to confess and to verify these assumptions. In line with Mao’s secret directive for the cadre examination campaign to have “a plan in place,” and under the direct leadership of Kang Sheng and Li Kenong, in November 1942 the leading members of Northwest Public School’s Cadre Examination Leading Group, Li Yimin, Wu De, Wang Dongxing, Wang Taojiang, and Mao Cheng, began interrogating Zhang Keqin in the cave that served as Wang Dongxing’s office.

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The first question they posed to Zhang was: “How did you get to Yan’an?” Zhang recounted in detail the process by which he had reached Yan’an. The second question was: “What was the purpose of your coming to Yan’an?” Zhang stated that he had been recommended, through normal organizational procedures of the Lanzhou Party organization, to study revolutionary theory in Yan’an. The third question finally introduced the main theme, with the interrogators getting straight to the point: “Someone has exposed you as a secret agent working in Yan’an.” Zhang was shocked by this statement, but he quickly regained his composure and firmly denied the accusation while maintaining his innocence. The interrogators began to make flank attacks on Zhang, shifting the focus to Zhang’s family relationships and cross-examining Zhang about the relationship between his father (a physician) and his patients. The interrogators pursued this issue further by insisting that Zhang should acknowledge that his father had a special political relationship with KMT officials. At this point, with the interrogators lacking irrefutable evidence that Zhang’s father had betrayed the Party and Zhang unaware of reports of his father betraying the Party following his arrival in Yan’an, the two sides reached a stalemate. Night fell, and after they had already burned one candle, Li Yimin and most of the other interrogators were in favor of suspending the interrogation and meeting to consider their next step. However, Wang Dongxing cited his experience with campaigns against counterrevolutionaries in the Western Jiangxi Central Soviet Area and he insisted on continuing with a crash interrogation. At that, Li Yimin, Wu De, Wang Dongxing, and the others split into two groups and interrogated Zhang in shifts. However, “as dawn was about to break on the third day and the candles had all been used up, Zhang had still not confessed.” At this point, Li Yimin suggested taking a rest and he telephoned Li Kenong. But Li Kenong criticized Li Yimin, pointing out that the critical moment had arrived and the interrogation should continue. He therefore proceeded to provide them with a box of new candles. In this way, the interrogation continued until five o’clock in the morning of the third day, at which point Zhang Keqin could endure it no longer and expressed a willingness to confess. After three days and three nights of round-the-clock interrogations, Zhang Keqin was on the verge of a mental breakdown. As soon as

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he surrendered, he entered a new stage, which was characterized by close cooperation with his interrogators; in other words, whatever the interrogators wanted, Zhang gave them; his initiative and active cooperation were in stark contrast to his stubborn resistance during the previous days. The positive change in Zhang Keqin overjoyed the leaders of the Central Social Department. Under Kang Sheng and Li Kenong’s instructions, Li Yimin, Wang Dongxing, and the others in no time finished the “packaging” of the Zhang Keqin case. On the next day, they convened a rally of students and teachers at Northwest Public School, with invitations extended to representatives of all of Yan’an’s organs, schools, and groups. Zhang Keqin was told to present himself as an example to the assembly, and he seems to have had a certain talent for performance: “With tears streaming down his face, he spoke of how he had joined a fake Communist Party in Gansu and how he had been sent to Yan’an to engage in espionage activities.” Of course, Zhang Keqin was just a manipulated puppet put on display, and the actual directors of this real-life drama were the top men in the Social Department because Zhang’s story met all of the requirements of the upper leadership. In making an example of himself, Zhang not only confessed to joining an espionage organization, but he also exposed his confederates—Zhang named more than one dozen other “secret agents,” which naturally included the friend who had gone to Yan’an with Zhang from Lanzhou and who had exposed him as a spy. Finally, Zhang’s best offer was the description of the process of his ideological transformation, expressing heartfelt gratitude to the Party for rushing to his rescue and his commitment to thoroughly remold himself and to make a fresh start.44 This is how a particular yet also universal “secret agent” prototype made a vivid appearance on Yan’an’s political stage in a performance that reflected the Party’s great appeal as well as its policy of allowing spies to make a fresh start. The “Zhang Keqin Special Agent Case” sounded an alarm bell for Yan’an cadres and the entire Party: KMT agents had infiltrated all of the Party’s essential organs and “Keqins” of all stripes were living among them. The Zhang Keqin case also made the entire Party aware of the political unreliability of intellectual cadres from the KMT-controlled areas. Almost the entire Party organization in the KMTcontrolled areas had been infiltrated and turned into a “Red Flag party,” carrying out the “Red Flag policies” of the KMT.

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The other major significance of the Zhang Keqin case for Kang Sheng and his backers was that it provided specific work methods and experience for Yan’an and other base areas to launch full-scale campaigns against spies and agents. The breaking of the Zhang Keqin case amply illustrated the effectiveness of assuming a suspect’s guilt and then using all available methods to obtain a confession to verify this assumption. The use of entrapment, inducement, and extortion, supplemented by psychological probation, could overcome even the most obstinate resistance. The breaking of the Zhang Keqin case also encapsulated the successful experience of struggle with the enemy: If case officers rid themselves of Right deviating thinking, took a clear and steadfast position on eliminating counterrevolutionaries, and tirelessly waged non-stop battles (wearing down people in shifts), even the most cunning enemy would ultimately surrender. Viewed in this way, the Zhang Keqin case was immensely valuable to Kang Sheng and his backer. It created a climate for attacking the Zhou Enlai–led underground Party in the KMT-controlled areas, while also providing vivid and direct evidence for Mao’s assertion of the need to “fight Right deviating apathy” and to “launch a struggle against secret agents.” Prevailing against Zhang Keqin was not merely a major accomplishment in the struggle against spies, but it also created a universally applicable set of work methods and struggle experiences. It also provided a model for expanding the struggle against secret agents, while at the same time tempering the Party’s security cadres on the front line of the struggle against the enemy. Before long, Kang Sheng announced that the Henan Party was actually a “Red Flag party” led by KMT agents, and that the Party in the Sichuan and Yunnan rear areas had also been sabotaged by the KMT’s “Red Flag policy.” All of Yan’an’s organs, schools, and groups were soon embroiled in public criticism and denunciation of their own “Keqins.”

VII. The Full-scale Launch of the Emergency Rescue Campaign and Liu Shaoqi’s Leadership of the “Anti-spy” Campaign What was Mao’s reaction to the fake “Zhang Keqin Secret Agent Case” that Kang Sheng had concocted? Shi Zhe recalls that Mao and other Party leaders circulated Zhang’s confession, but he does not state Mao’s views on the subject, saying only that Kang Sheng “had some influence” on Mao.45

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As mentioned above, Mao had no reason to reject this latest of Kang Sheng’s achievements, and it was through Mao’s encouragement (Shi Zhe claims that with regard Kang Sheng’s work, “the Party Central Committee, Chairman Mao, and other leading comrades preferred not to say much”)46 that the scope of Yan’an’s cadre examination campaign rapidly expanded beginning in 1943. Kang Sheng was well aware of the value of the Zhang Keqin case in terms of justifying expansion of the cadre examination campaign, and he expounded on the case as follows: [This case] gives us a new understanding of the Kuomintang’s espionage policies and compels us to reassess the Party organization in the rear areas. We have a new understanding of the number of secret agents in Yan’an and hence the problem of our Right deviating thinking.47 Kang Sheng’s analysis of the Zhang Keqin case represented a realization of Mao’s directives regarding the campaign to examine cadres and eliminate spies. Consequently, when the CCP Central Committee directed Kang Sheng to “pull together the experience of examining cadres’ personal histories” in the latter half of January 1943, Kang managed to rapidly create a set of experiences that conformed to Mao’s intentions. At a Politburo meeting on March 16, 1943, Mao explicitly stated that the goal of the Rectification Movement was to purge not only pettybourgeois thinking but also “counterrevolutionaries.” Mao said that the KMT was implementing an espionage policy against the Party and that it was difficult to distinguish among the many soldiers, students, and Party members that the Party had recruited.48 Kang Sheng, for his part, in a work report he delivered to the Politburo on March 20 relayed two points. First, he stated that the KMT had been implementing a pervasive policy of espionage and intrigue against the CCP since the War of Resistance and this plot had recently been exposed during the cadre examination campaign. Second, he suggested that the Party should make cadre examinations a top priority for 1943 and that Yan’an’s experience in this area should be written up in a document to inform the entire country.49 Kang Sheng’s report on the cadre examination campaign at this Politburo meeting was extremely significant because it indicated the great importance that Mao placed on the campaign as well as his strong

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support for Kang Sheng. The nature of this Politburo meeting was unlike any of the previous meetings because it was the first time that Mao presided as chairman of the Politburo and of the Secretariat of the Central Committee. At this March 20 Politburo meeting, Mao finally realized his dream of ultimate decision-making power* in the Party’s core leadership.50 Although at this time we still do not have access to materials indicating Mao’s response to Kang Sheng’s report at the meeting, there is no doubt that Kang Sheng received Mao’s approval, encouragement, and praise. An inkling about Mao’s attitude can be discerned from Liu Shaoqi’s response to Kang Sheng’s report. Liu arrived in Yan’an at the end of 1942 after an arduous journey from the New Fourth Army Base Area in northern Jiangsu. Liu made his first official appearance at the New Year’s celebration at Yan’an’s newly completed central auditorium on January 1, 1943, and soon thereafter, in his capacity as a key Party leader, he delivered a report on his work experience in Central China at a Northwest China Bureau senior cadre conference. These events demonstrate Liu’s rising status in the core leadership of the CCP. Arriving in Yan’an at the very moment when the cadre examination campaign was beginning to intensify, the cautious Liu maintained an attitude of quiet observation without daring to become too deeply involved. At the March 20 Politburo meeting, however, Liu Shaoqi acted boldly. At that meeting, Liu, Mao, and Ren Bishi represented the Secretariat of the Central Committee and Liu was the sole vice chairman of the CMC (no reference was made in 1943 and 1944 to the vice chairmanship positions held by Zhou Enlai, Zhu De, Peng Dehuai, and Wang Jiaxiang), with Mao formally promoting Liu to the second-highest position in the CCP’s central leadership. On that day, Liu sent a cable to Chen Yi and Rao Shushi at the Central China Bureau “regarding the issue of being on guard against KMT spies.” Liu ordered that the New Fourth Army and *

  Hu Qiaomu claims that the “Decision Regarding the Restructuring and Downsizing of the Central Organization,” passed by the March 20, 1943, Politburo meeting conferred the Secretariat chairman with “final decision-making power” over the convening of meetings, that is, decision-making power over the daily operations of the Secretariat. The Politburo decided major policies, but there was no provision for any individual to have ultimate decision-making power. Nevertheless, in fact Mao made no distinction between these powers and he used his dual chairmanship to wield “ultimate decision-making power” with deference to no one else.

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the Central China Base Area imitate Yan’an by rapidly developing their examinations of the private histories of cadres. He pointed out, “Recently, in the process of Yan’an’s Rectification Movement and its comprehensive screening of cadre thinking and their histories, many KMT and Japanese spies have been discovered. ... The KMT’s main method of fighting us today is their use of secret agents.”51 From Liu Shaoqi’s cable, it is obvious that the March 20 Politburo meeting formally approved Kang Sheng’s report and that the Politburo endorsed the experience of the cadre examination campaign and was in the process of expanding it to the entire Party as a major Central Committee policy. I can verify this conclusion from the March 1943 “Central Committee Directive Regarding Continuing the Development of the Rectification Movement,”52 which came to light in 1984. This Central Committee directive, which passed through Mao’s hands, was clearly not meant to be a public document; its diction and strategy for inner-Party struggle make it clear that it was an internal Party document given to the head cadres of leading organs at all levels. The document explicitly states that the Japanese invaders and the KMT had “dispatched many hidden traitors to infiltrate our Party” and therefore it was essential to “gradually eliminate” and “engage in a struggle against hidden traitors.” The document criticizes a pronounced liberal tendency within the Party and emphasizes that “the main problem for the struggle within the Party at present is liberal leniency rather than radical excessiveness, so we must focus on opposing the former rather than the latter ... because if we prematurely propose preventing radical struggle, this will certainly make it impossible to correct erroneous thinking and eliminate hidden traitors ... and there is a danger that hidden traitors will take advantage of appeals against radicalism to conceal their traitorous appearance.” Should a struggle against liberalism be launched immediately with great fanfare? No. Although a struggle against liberalism had been ongoing since the end of 1942 in conjunction with the filling out of the “minibroadcast forms,” the situation had since changed. The anti-liberalism campaign at this time mainly targeted “Right deviating sentimentality” among Party cadres for the purpose of unearthing even more “hidden traitors.” For this reason, “the timing of a call to oppose liberalism in the entire Party should not be premature; if such a call is made too early, it

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will interfere with the exposure of both erroneous thinking and hidden traitors.” For this reason, the Central Committee directive elaborated on the problem of the Party surmounting liberal tendencies while ordering that no Party-wide appeal against liberalism be made for the time being: “First allow liberal tendencies to be fully exposed.” 53 Now that the objective of the struggle against hidden traitors had been determined and the plan of “luring the snake from its den” was in place, the next step was to methodically execute this plan in the campaign against hidden traitors. After the March 20 Politburo meeting, Yan’an’s cadre examination campaign suddenly intensified and began a trajectory of struggling against “secret agents.” Hu Gongmian arrived in Yan’an just in time to provide a pretext for escalating the campaign. Hu Gongmian was a Communist Party member who had surrendered to the Kuomintang, but his thinking remained Leftist and he sympathized with the CCP. KMT General Hu Zongnan employed Hu Gongmian as a senior staff officer after the War of Resistance, and in accordance with a schedule fixed well in advance, in early April 1943 he sent Hu Gongmian to Yan’an as the leader of a delegation to negotiate with the CCP. This should have been a routine contact between the two sides, but Hu Gongmian’s arrival precipitated a massive round-up in Yan’an on April 1. Kang Sheng’s order for the arrests seemed justified: Hu Gongmian arrived just at the time when Chiang Kai-shek was supposedly planning an armed attack on Yan’an, so it was essential to take the initiative to prevent “secret agents” in the Border Region from “liaising” with Hu. How many people were arrested in Yan’an on the night of April 1? At the end of the 1980s, related published materials all claim that about 200 people were arrested. Figures provided by Shi Zhe,54 however, indicate that more than 460 cadres were arrested in Yan’an and the border areas because at the same time that the round-up took place in Yan’an, arrests also took place in other cities and towns in the Border Region, as follows: Yan’an (in the Border Region apparatus): 260 arrests Yan’an (organs directly under the CCP Central Committee): 100 arrests Suide Prefecture: 100 arrests Guanzhong Region: Unknown number of arrests The vast majority of these arrests were made in secret and without adequate evidence. As Kang Sheng put it concisely, “If we had all the information, why would we need to interrogate?” and “Make the arrests first and then get the details. It is because we do not have all the

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information that we lock people up and interrogate them. Interrogation is for clarification.” Since suspecting someone required no conclusive evidence and relied purely on the subjective judgment of the security apparatus, determining the list of persons to be arrested required little information and was up to Kang Sheng. As a security officer who had participated in the mass roundup, Shi Zhe recalls in detail how Kang Sheng drew up the arrest list at the end of March 1943: “Kang Sheng held a name-list and talked to us while marking it: This one was Revival Society, that one was CC,* a traitor, a turncoat, or a Japanese agent. ...”55 On April 3, 1943, the third day after the mass round-up in Yan’an, the CCP Central Committee issued a “Decision Regarding Continuing the Development of the Rectification Movement,” also referred to as the “Second April 3 Decision,” aimed at expanding the cadre examination and counter-espionage campaigns. This was the first major document affecting the overall situation that Mao issued after acquiring “ultimate decision-making power” in his dual role as chairman of both the Politburo and the Secretariat of the Central Committee. This decision formally stated that the objective of the Rectification Movement was “to purge counterrevolutionaries concealed within the Party.” It called on all levels of the Party organization to “make a huge push for democracy,” to expose evildoers, to be boldly suspicious and free of restraint, and not to let the campaign become cold and lifeless. The document also contained several sentences calling for “attention to appropriateness” in the campaign. This kind of expression was typical of Mao’s style; at first glance, it seemed allencompassing—opposing Rightism and preventing Leftism—but its actual emphasis was on the former and the term “appropriateness” was pure window-dressing. A meeting of the Secretariat of the Central Committee over which Mao presided on April 5 decided to appeal for secret agents and intriguers to give themselves up.56 In a letter in reply to Kai Feng on April 22, Mao agreed to compile and publish educational materials on eliminating traitors. In particular, he emphasized, “There is still time to allow liberalism to expose itself.”57 At an April 28 Politburo meeting, Mao again focused on the campaign against spies.58

*

  TN: The “CC apparatus” refers to a KMT faction led by the brothers Chen Guofu and Chen Lifu.

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The Second April 3 Decision rapidly pushed Yan’an’s anti-spy campaign toward its climax and effectively became the bugle call for mobilizing the “emergency rescue” campaign. It was just at this time that Liu Shaoqi, under top-secret circumstances, became a core leader of the campaign. It has long been a complicated and confusing issue to determine what role Liu Shaoqi played in Yan’an’s cadre examination and antispy campaigns; this question was never touched upon even when Liu underwent mass criticism during the Cultural Revolution. After Liu Shaoqi was rehabilitated in 1980, many works remembering and studying Liu Shaoqi began to appear, but virtually none of them mentioned Liu’s relationship with the cadre examination and anti-spy campaigns. A Biography of Liu Shaoqi was published with official approval in October 1998. In its discussion of the “erroneous expansion” of Yan’an’s cadre examination campaign, the book devotes only one sentence to Liu Shaoqi’s role at this time: “Of course, he also bore a certain leadership responsibility,”59 but the book provides no specific details. This has resulted in people being aware that Kang Sheng played a “sabotaging” role in the Yan’an Rectification Movement but having little understanding of the roles Liu Shaoqi and other leaders played in the movement. The historical truth, however, is that during the Rectification Movement Liu Shaoqi not only maintained close working contact with Kang Sheng but he was also the main leader in charge of the cadre examination and anti-spy campaigns. Vladimirov’s Yan’an Diary reveals that when Liu spoke to Vladimirov on March 28, he revealed some dissatisfaction with Kang Sheng and a degree of sympathy for Wang Ming, but beginning from April 8, Liu’s attitude suddenly changed and he began playing up to Kang Sheng.60 After the Secretariat of the Central Committee was reorganized on March 20, 1943, Yan’an’s anti-spy struggle became one of the main tasks of the Party’s core leadership. As the second in command in the Secretariat, Liu Shaoqi participated in all of the Secretariat meetings in which counter-espionage work was studied and arranged. On April 5, the Secretariat held a meeting during which it was decided to call on all those who had “stumbled” in Yan’an and in the Border Region to “give themselves up” to the Party.61 Ten days later, the Secretariat called another meeting that passed a resolution to screen out Yan’an’s secret agents and to launch counter-espionage education. At another meeting on April 24, the Secretariat decided to carry out a special counter-espionage education

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program in May, June, and July, and it declared the revival of the CCGSC, with Kang Sheng in charge of its daily operations. A Politburo meeting on April 28 discussed the struggle against spies within the Party and decided to set up a committee under the Central Committee for that purpose, headed by Liu Shaoqi and including Kang Sheng, Peng Zhen, and Gao Gang.62 From then on, Liu was the top leader of Yan’an’s anti-spy campaign (with Mao concealed behind him), and Kang Sheng, who had previously led this work, became Liu’s subordinate. In the anti-spy and “emergency rescue” campaigns that followed immediately thereafter, Kang Sheng led the assault, and on all occasions he repeatedly took to the stage, whereas Liu Shaoqi generally did not make public appearances. So what was Liu Shaoqi doing? As the main leader of Yan’an’s anti-spy campaign, in fact Liu was the formulator and planner of the policies and strategies for the cadre examination and antispy campaigns, but he was largely invisible at the various mobilization and “candor” rallies. Liu Shaoqi attended a Secretariat meeting on May 16, 1943, during which it was decided that investigation of hidden traitors would be carried out in three stages of three months each, with April 1 as the beginning of the first stage. On May 21, the Politburo called a meeting to discuss a cable from Georgi Dimitrov regarding the disbanding of the Comintern (Moscow planned to formally announce this on May 22). The meeting also discussed anti-spy operations and stipulated its basic principles, such as, “Leading cadres take charge; make your own move; investigate and study; distinguish right from wrong and the degree of seriousness; and fight to win back those who have stumbled.”63 Liu Shaoqi demonstrated his skills with theory and policy analysis during the cadre examination and anti-spy campaigns. In his “Report of Views Regarding Several Issues in the Cadre Examination Campaign,” delivered in Yan’an in July 1943,64 Liu addressed the cadres’ misgivings regarding the cadre examination and anti-spy campaigns, and he provided an authoritative explanation of the significance of the cadre examinations and the “screening out [of] hidden traitors.” He pointed out that the cadre examination and anti-spy campaigns were continuations of the Rectification Movement, and they were a concrete application of the spirit of the actual operations of the Rectification Movement. Liu also explicitly stipulated that the task of cadre examinations was to “screen out hidden traitors, win back those who have stumbled, and train cadres.”65

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As leader of the anti-spy campaign, Liu not only played an important role in formulating policy but he also wielded enormous power in terms of directing cadre examination and counter-espionage efforts in the Central China Base Area and in deploying cadres for examination work. After returning to Yan’an, Liu Shaoqi frequently sent cables to the Central China Bureau regarding strategies for developing the anti-spy campaign. A cable that Liu sent to Chen Yi and Rao Shushi on June 29, 1943 stated that “the Party in the rear area has been almost completely sabotaged by the Kuomintang,” and it told them to give tit for tat, “using methods like persuasion, enticement, and threats” to get the captured enemies set for release to “work for us and carry out intelligence for us.” “When it comes to applying the methods of forcing and coercing surrender, however, the targets must be carefully selected,” Liu directed. “Select those whom we can detain indefinitely or execute secretly if they are unwilling to surrender and work for us. Do not use coercive methods on everyone; make more use of persuasion and enticement, or use the threat of exposing their personal secrets and so on.” Liu Shaoqi felt that “the struggle against secret agents is an extremely high-level and meticulous science requiring detailed study and learning,” and “it is essential for all loyal Party members to learn how to struggle against secret agents,” otherwise “it is certain and beyond any doubt that we will fail.”66 At the April 5, 1943, Secretariat meeting during which it was decided to mobilize “those who had stumbled” to “turn themselves in” to the Party, another important decision was made: Liu Shaoqi was entrusted with dispatching rectification study groups to northwestern and southeastern Shanxi and to the Jin-Cha-Ji Border Area to guide and assist the rectification and cadre examination campaigns in those regions. The Secretariat met again on August 9 and decided that Liu Shaoqi would select and dispatch cadres to the North and Central China Base Areas to assist with the Rectification Movement. By then, the Rectification Movement had entered its cadre-vetting and counter-espionage phases, and guiding the rectification meant guiding the cadre examination, anti-spy, and “emergency rescue” campaigns. After this meeting, the cadre examination envoys sent by Liu Shaoqi arrived in the various base areas and disseminated information about Yan’an’s experience with the campaigns, fueling the shift of the local campaigns into an ultra-Leftist direction. Liu Shaoqi took a leading position in the cadre examination and antispy campaigns, but he remained behind the scenes and people only knew

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that he was vice chairman of the CCGSC, without knowing that he was also chairman of a covert organization called the Central Anti-spy Struggle Committee (CASC). The extremely powerful CCGSC had effectively replaced the Politburo and the Secretariat beginning in the summer of 1942 to become the Party’s top organ under Mao’s single-handed control. However, the reorganization of the Secretariat on March 20, 1943, nominally restored the Party’s structure, and the CCGSC suspended operations, only to be revived again on April 24. At almost the same time, on April 28, the CASC was established with Liu Shaoqi as its head. What difference was there between the functions and responsibilities of these two bodies? In reality, beginning in the spring of 1943 the work of the CCGSC and the CASC was identical— to lead the cadre examination and anti-spy campaigns. The only difference was that the CASC was strictly secret, whereas the CCGSC was a publicly acknowledged body. In addition, the CCGSC had branch study committees in each Party organ, school, and military apparatus, and CCGSC head Kang Sheng was also head of the Central Committee Social Department, which worked in complete harmony with the CCGSC. The CCGSC was thus known to those outside, whereas the CASC, the supreme policy-making organ for the Yan’an cadre examination and anti-spy campaigns, remained unknown to outsiders. That is the reason that after arriving in Yan’an, Liu Shaoqi appeared in public only as vice chairman of the CCGSC. Liu Shaoqi did not actually become vice chairman of the CCGSC until October 5, 1943. At the Secretariat meeting held on that day, it was decided that Mao would be chairman of the CCGSC, with Liu Shaoqi and Kang Sheng as vice chairmen and Hu Qiaomu as secretary general. At that time, the function of the CCGSC also changed; it was effectively Mao’s inner circle, established for the enlarged Politburo meeting that was being convened for the purpose of exposing and criticizing Wang Ming. Its main task was to help with the line struggle Mao had launched in the Party’s upper levels by providing Mao with theoretical interpretations and by coordinating the operations that Mao and others were carrying out against Wang Ming, Bo Gu, and Zhou Enlai.* As for leading the cadre examination

*

  In fact, Mao Zedong, Liu Shaoqi, and Kang Sheng teamed up to savagely attack Wang Ming, Bo Gu, and Zhou Enlai at the enlarged Politburo meetings held from October 1943 to April 1944.

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and anti-spy campaigns, this was basically undertaken by the CASC. Since the main leaders of both groups were Liu Shaoqi and Kang Sheng, there was considerable overlap between the work of these two bodies. A schematic diagram of the operational scope of the CCGSC and the CASC from October 1943 is the following: CCGSC

CASC

(Mao Zedong, Liu Shaoqi, Kang Sheng) (Liu Shaoqi, Kang Sheng, Peng Zhen, Gao Gang)

Led Yan’an’s senior cadres in rectifying lines

Directed cadre examination and antispy campaigns anti-spy in organs and schools in Yan’an and the the base areas border areas (through the branch study committees)

Directed cadre examination and anti-spy campaigns in base areas (through the general study committees)

Within the CCP, Liu Shaoqi had a reputation for steadiness and dedication to his work. For quite a long time, his advocacy of covertness and retreat in operations in the KMT-controlled areas led to accusations that he was “Right deviating.” Why did Liu exhibit such an obviously Leftist attitude toward cadre-vetting and counter-espionage issues so soon after returning to Yan’an in 1943 and why did he remain largely silent when ultra-Leftist forces ran amok during the surge in Yan’an’s frenzied cadre examination, anti-spy, and emergency rescue campaigns in late spring and early summer of 1943? I believe that Liu Shaoqi’s Leftist posture at this time was closely related to the sharp rise in his status within the Party in 1943. Shortly after arriving in Yan’an, Liu realized that Mao was the initiator of the Leftist cadre-vetting and counter-espionage policies. Yet Mao and Liu were in agreement in both their stands and their personal interests in terms of opposing Wang Ming. In addition, Mao actively promoted Liu Shaoqi, resulting in his leap in status from alternate Politburo member to second in power in the entire Party. Under these circumstances, whether intentionally or against his personal convictions, Liu could only fully

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cooperate with Mao. Second, Liu had maintained a close relationship with his long-time subordinate Peng Zhen, who had been appointed to key positions by Mao after returning to Yan’an and who played a particularly starring role in the cadre examination and anti-spy campaigns. After Liu Shaoqi arrived in Yan’an, Peng Zhen achieved great success in the Central Party School’s cadre examination and anti-spy campaigns, the experience of which was passed on to all of Yan’an’s Party organs and schools, and Liu could hardly take a stand that opposed Peng Zhen. Third, although Liu Shaoqi had a reputation for caution and steadiness, he was also someone with a penchant for display and a particular fondness for expressing his views on certain theoretical and policy issues. In this respect, Liu’s key role in the cadre examination and anti-spy campaigns gave him a chance to shine, and he had no reason to reject this opportunity to expand his influence in the Party.67 The cadre examination and anti-spy campaigns launched in 1943 were extremely significant for Liu Shaoqi. The March 20 Secretariat meeting marked his formal entry into the Party’s cadre and organizational apparatus through the establishment of the Central Organization Committee, with Liu as secretary, which provided centralized leadership of the Central Committee Organization Department (including the Central Party Affairs Committee), the United Front Department, the Mass Work Committee, the Overseas Work Committee, and the Central Political Research Office (i.e., the Central Research Bureau). At this point, Liu Shaoqi replaced Chen Yun (who in 1944 was transferred to lead Party financial operations) as head of the Party’s organizational apparatus. During the cadre examination and anti-spy campaigns, with Peng Zhen’s vigorous assistance Liu Shaoqi became conversant with all other power blocs within the Party, and his influence and dominance extended beyond the North China Bureau and the New Fourth Army to the entire Party. During this time, Liu Shaoqi made direct inquiries regarding the cadrevetting work in the Central Party School’s First Department, and the head of the First Department, Gu Dacun, repeatedly reported to Liu on this work. Peng Zhen became formal head of the Central Committee Organization Department in 1944, signifying the consolidation and strengthening of Liu Shaoqi’s influence within the central organization and cadre apparatus. Although Liu Shaoqi was at the policy-making level in the cadre examination and anti-spy campaigns, he was still clearly distinguishable

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from Kang Sheng. Kang was merely a vassal to Mao, whereas Liu was Mao’s most important ally at the time. Liu disdained doing the kind of dirty work at which Kang Sheng excelled, his interest being limited to the policy-making and strategizing aspects of the campaigns. He did not mount the stage with loud appeals to arrest “secret agents,” nor did he personally interrogate “agents” and “turncoats” in the manner of Kang Sheng. According to some accounts, at one point Liu Shaoqi questioned the excessive tactics used at the height of the campaigns, 68 but only retrospectively. In spring and summer 1943, Liu raised no such doubts but instead he enthusiastically engaged in discussions and arrangements about launching the cadre examination and anti-spy campaigns. Now that Liu had entered the core leadership, like Mao as a top Party leader he hid behind Kang Sheng. From his position behind the scenes he closely followed and directed the new round of purges that first engulfed Yan’an and then the entire Party.

13. Yan’an and the Base Areas during the Emergency Rescue Campaign

I. The Strategies and Methods of the Emergency Rescue Campaign The emergency rescue campaign was built on the foundation of the cadre examination and anti-spy campaigns and overlapped with them, but its methods and strategies had both similarities and differences from the other two campaigns. All three campaigns involved the presupposition that the majority of cadres who were intellectuals or who had worked in the Kuomintang (KMT)-controlled areas were problematic, and that most of them would not be thoroughly candid with the Party unless they were compelled to do so. It was therefore necessary to study the information they had provided about themselves as a basis for more in-depth inquiries, from which questions could be raised and evidence obtained. The emergency rescue campaign, however, went further than the other two campaigns by employing violence and intimidation during the evidencecollection process. At the outset of the cadre examination campaign, everyone was required to provide their personal histories through a process called “writing an autobiography.” All intellectuals who went to Yan’an from KMT-controlled areas had to repeatedly revise their autobiographies and submit them to the leading organs for further investigation, as well as to fill out monthly forms to debrief their superiors on their activities. Kang Sheng instructed Social Department operatives to adopt “struggle tactics” and ordered them to discover problems in the “autobiographies” of the cadres undergoing examination:

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If you compare the autobiographies they wrote upon first arriving in the Border Region with those they wrote during the Rectification Movement and then during the self-reflection, contradictions will abound. Those who are afraid of making a mistake or of being subjected to struggle retain an outline and use it to reproduce one hundred autobiographies without an error. But if you have someone sit down in front of you and write an autobiography right there while the outline is at home, there will be loopholes in what is written.1 Under Kang Sheng’s specific directions, searching for suspicious points in the autobiographies became a fundamental strategy in the cadre examination campaign and it was employed pervasively in all workunits. In accordance with this strategy, investigative personnel compelled suspects to rewrite their autobiographies and submit monthly forms numerous times, and any contradictions were pursued with “10,000 whys,” which the target would find impossible to answer. The examination targets were also compelled to expose their colleagues so that anyone associated with them was likewise drawn into the net. This was referred to as the “rat strategy”—driving someone to a breaking point and compelling him to attack others. Discovering “enemies” through the materials submitted by the cadres under examination was undoubtedly effective, but it also had a drawback, which was the amount of time and effort required as well as its relatively limited scale. In order to address this, Kang Sheng adopted another strategy, which was to surreptitiously arrange for special operatives to intentionally disseminate “reactionary speeches” among suspect persons in each work-unit as a means of fishing for counterrevolutionaries. The results were rather negligible, however, because in the tense atmosphere of the cadre examination and anti-spy campaigns, the vast majority of cadres were all very discreet in what they said and did, and their heightened vigilance made them less susceptible to fishing expeditions. On April 3, 1943, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) Central Committee issued its Second April 3 Decision, which formally appealed to all comrades to speak out boldly in the Rectification Movement, to criticize one another and also to use the “great democracy” method to expose and criticize errors by the leadership. The actual intention was to “lure the snake from out of its den” and to “make the enemy expose himself.” In compliance with the Second April 3 Decision, all of Yan’an’s organs

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and schools convened “democratic scrutiny rallies,” and even Liu Shaoqi and other leading central cadres personally attended a democracy rally held at the Central Party School.2 Inspired by the Central Committee’s decision, some cadres forgot the lessons of the Wang Shiwei incident that had occurred only one year earlier and made impassioned and stirring speeches fiercely criticizing the leadership’s “bureaucratism,” “stifling of democracy,” and “privileged mentality.” Most of those mounting the podium were intellectual cadres, and some even burst into tears as they stumbled into the trap that had been laid for them to be labeled “counterrevolutionaries” and “secret agents.” Although some counterrevolutionaries and secret agents were caught through the examination of the autobiographies and the “democracy rallies,” the numbers still fell far short of expectations. At this point, mass movements became useful; all organs and schools enhanced their vigilance toward enemies and opposed Right deviating apathy, engaging in competitions to root out secret agents. Higher-level departments, either explicitly or implicitly, directed their subordinate cadre examination groups to be suspicious of all persons from exploiting class backgrounds and of intellectuals who had arrived in Yan’an after the War of Resistance. Any comrades who had been arrested by the KMT or who had worked in the KMT-controlled areas became the focus of the investigations, and people who regularly expressed discontent were even more suspect. Eventually a quota of “enemies” was demanded from each work-unit. The Central Secretariat secretly formulated an anti-spy strategy, directing the staging of candor rallies to “give shape to the candor campaign and to create mass pressures and mass investigation campaigns,” holding that in so doing, “it will be possible to eliminate secret agents and all sorts of politically problematic individuals.” The Central Committee likewise had specific arrangements for convening candor rallies: First, “all organs, schools, and villages must organize self-defense corps to undertake sentry duty and curfews, prohibit free entry and exit, and stipulate strict rules for daily life.” Second, “discreet and meticulous preparations must be made before the candor rallies; in addition to investigating the files of all the suspects and drawing up a list of suspects, activists must be mobilized to covertly keep watch over the suspects, taking note of their daily speech and actions and observing their behavior at the rally. When they reach extreme panic and vacillation, seize the moment to persuade and urge them to be candid about themselves and about others.”3 Under the detailed guidance of

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the upper-level organs, and using mass movement methods “relying on throats, fists, and the bluster of the masses,” many “counterrevolutionaries” and “secret agents” were finally unearthed. However, these miscreants merely acknowledged their shortcomings and errors and they refused to admit to being “counterrevolutionaries” or “secret agents.” The next required step was to “attack the heart” in order to compel the targets to admit to being “secret agents.” This was the most difficult stage of the entire process. The questioners required the targets of the investigation to answer a multitude of strange questions: “You’re always spreading reactionary comments and colluding with people dissatisfied with the Party. You must make an honest debriefing of the specific act of sabotage that the Kuomintang sent you to Yan’an to perform.” “During the mass round-up by the Kuomintang, other comrades were arrested and martyred; why were only you spared?” “You studied at a church school, which means you must have joined a British espionage agency!” “Your uncle fled to Beiping from the Northeast in 1936 and stayed in your home. He was a Japanese spy, and based on his recommendation you joined a Japanese espionage agency as an intelligence officer. How much information have you provided to the Japanese while in Yan’an?” “You say you took the train from Shanghai to Xi’an. You must have been sent by the Kuomintang; how could you have taken the train without a letter of introduction from the KMT?” This was a classic question posed to many investigation targets during the cadre examination, anti-spy, and emergency rescue campaigns. During a struggle rally in the auditorium of Suide Normal School, one suspect was asked, “How could you have taken a train from Shanghai to Beiping without espionage connections?”4 “Your father is currently in Beiping and has some money, he must be a traitor! What is your relationship with him?”5 “Your family has plenty of food and clothing; what are you doing in Yan’an?” 6 “You have been working energetically all along just to gain the organization’s trust and to lie low for a while; otherwise, why would you have abandoned your formal studies in the KMT-controlled area to suffer hardship in the Border Region?”7 “Your accomplice has already confessed to the Party that he is a spy

Yan’an and the Base Areas during the Emergency Rescue Campaign | 543

and he has exposed you as a spy as well. Why do you persist in your error and refuse to be rescued by the Party?” No one was up to answering such preposterous questions coming one after another. Most members of the Cadre Examination Leading Groups came from families that had lived in the mountain hinterlands for generations; they had never been to a major city, nor had they ever seen a train. For them, it was simply inconceivable that there were people anywhere in the world with the luxury of thinking beyond their next meal or who would seek refuge with the Party for the sake of so-called “beliefs.” They therefore relied on “strong-arm tactics” to pry open the lips of their targets. Method No. 1: Exhaustion; round-the-clock interrogation The investigation target was interrogated for days and nights without sleeping, while the interrogators worked in shifts and used the target’s exhaustion and mental breakdown to obtain a confession. Li Rui recounts that he was held for investigation by the Border Region Security Office (BRSO) from April 1943 to June 1944, and at one point he “went five days and nights without being permitted to sleep or even to take a nap (sentries armed with pistols guarded and threatened me day and night).” He recalled another detainee being interrogated non-stop for fifteen days and nights: “During the interrogation, one usually had to spend long periods standing (causing the legs to swell) or sitting on a low stool; sometimes one was handcuffed for varying lengths of time.”8 Method No. 2: Trussing, hanging, and beating to obtain a confession through torture Shi Zhe discloses that in May and June 1943, the Social Department discussed and drafted “Interrogation Regulations.” Its meetings focused on whether or not to use torture, giving rise to two sharply opposing opinions. Kang Sheng insisted on the use of torture, saying, “How can we interrogate without torture?”9 Consequently, obtaining confessions through torture became the main method of investigation. A pervasive method of torture was to hang the interrogation target from a beam and to flog, beat, and kick him. Statistics from a county in central Shaanxi reveal twenty-four types of physical torture that were used. The minutes of an enlarged county Party committee meeting in Yan’an Prefecture record that the county Party secretary and the district Party secretary both personally took part in beating the interrogation targets; the county Party secretary beat seventeen people, and a total of ninety-one people

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were beaten by county and district leaders, while twenty-nine people were locked up privately by county Party committee leaders.10 Common torture methods used by the Security Office included the torture rack, flogging, extended periods in handcuffs, or being tied to a crossbeam and whipped; Security Office head “Zhou Xing personally beat people in this way.”11 Method No. 3: Food deprivation Li Rui recalls that the BRSO had a special prison cell for incarcerating “die-hard elements.” “Each person was given only half a bowl of rice, with some people going hungry for more than a month.”12 Method No. 4: Fake executions Fake executions were a common method of struggle and torture during the cadre examination, anti-spy, and emergency rescue campaigns. If, after rounds of torture and beating, the interrogation target refused to confess, the cadres in charge of the investigation organ would consider using a fake execution as a last-ditch effort to extort a confession. Fake executions typically took place on moonless, windy nights. The suspect would be trussed up and escorted to a secluded area, and then several shots would be fired around him, causing him to suffer immense psychological and physical harm; some even became mentally deranged for extended periods. Zhang Weizhen, former secretary of the underground Party in Henan Province, was subjected to a fake execution while under investigation at the Central Party School. These various forms of punishment and physical torment were subsequently glossed over with the euphemistic expression “extort, confess, believe” (bi, gong, xin). Such interrogations typically involved the simultaneous infliction of physical and psychological torment. Psychological torture consisted of unceasing and repeated “persuasion” directed at the interrogation target in the form of threats and inducements to lead him into a pre-arranged trap. If psychological pressures were not effective, they would be supplemented by physical torture, such as trussing and beating or being led out for a fake execution. Some people emerged from years in custody as “gray-haired youths.”13 Many people took years to recover from the trauma of this dual kind of torture. One interrogation target was trussed up for forty-eight hours before the ropes were finally loosened. By then, his hands were purple and the flesh on his wrists had begun to rot, leaving scars that remained visible even after 1949.14 There were four holding places for detaining the interrogation targets

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in the Yan’an area: the Social Department’s detention center, Northwest Public School, the Shaan-Gan-Ning Security Office, and Northwest Institute of Public Administration. The Social Department detention center in the rear gullies of Zaoyuan held major criminals. Wang Shiwei was sent there on April 2, 1943, and was held there until he was transferred to Xing County in northwestern Shanxi Province in March 1947. Northwest Public School was also situated in the rear gullies of Zaoyuan, not far from the Social Department detention center. The Social Department specifically used Northwest Public School for holding individuals undergoing interrogation. From 1942 to 1944, it held a total of more than 500 individuals with relatively “serious” problems, among whom 480 were labeled secret agents, turncoats, or Japanese spies. The Shaan-Gan-Ning Security Office was the publicly-acknowledged organ of suppression, and after the Rectification Movement began, it held 500‒600 unearthed “spies” of various kinds. At the height of the emergency rescue campaign, “layer upon layer and row upon row of caves in Fenghuang (Phoenix) Mountain,” where the Security Office was located, “were packed with people, so new caves had to be dug. Brick beds that originally slept four now slept five or six,” and they were “so crowded that people could not even roll over.”15 Northwest Institute of Public Administration was a temporary concentration camp where the Northwest Bureau and the border area apparatus detained ordinary suspects. It held a total of 908 interrogation targets, chiefly consisting of three types of people: beginning from April 1942, Border Region cadres with peasant and worker backgrounds who had “confessed” during the secret cadre examinations; cadres from outside who were suspected of being “secret agents”; and educated cadres from the Border Region’s lower-level government offices and banks who had been sent over during the emergency rescue campaign. Yu Guangyuan* and Chen Chuping (formerly a student at Nanjing Central University and labeled a “suspected spy,” who subsequently became Deng Yingchao’s

*

  Translators’ Note (cited hereafter as TN): Yu Guangyuan (1915‒2013) studied at Tsinghua University before going to Yan’an to join the CCP in 1937. He eventually gained renown as an economist who helped Deng Xiaoping launch the market reforms in the late 1970s.

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secretary) were held and interrogated there, and also took part in cultivating virgin land.16 The majority of people caught up in the emergency rescue campaign were held in isolation for investigation in their own work-units. They were deprived of their personal freedoms and forbidden from returning home or corresponding with others. Under the dual pressures of the psychological and physical torment imposed by Kang Sheng and the cadre examination groups of each workunit, large numbers of “secret agents” were created, as people “exposed” one another, and even married couples accused each other of being spies. In all of Yan’an’s work-units and schools, Japanese and KMT spies and “turncoats” mounted the platform to confess. Some were cultivated as models of “candor” and were paraded all over on horseback, with large red flowers on their breasts, to provide testimony. Beginning from the summer and autumn of 1943, the entrances to Yan’an’s organs and schools were shuttered and guarded by sentries, and people suspended contacts with one another. “No one dared to take notice of anyone else” (in Wang Defen’s words), and in the sizable city of Yan’an, nothing could be done without a letter of introduction. At night, silence reigned supreme; not a sound was heard as Yan’an sank into terror and isolation.

II. The Emergency Rescue Campaign in Organs Directly under the Central Committee Yan’an’s cadre examination campaign moved toward its climax beginning on April 3, 1943. The secretive “queuing up” and “feeling out” originally carried out on Party members and cadres by the Rectification Movement Leading Groups in each work-unit had developed into a public appeal for cadres to “be candid” with the Party. At this time, the formal slogan was cadre examination, countering spies and candor; the term “emergency rescue” was not yet used, but in the essence, content, and methods of “struggle,” the campaign was identical to the “emergency rescue” campaign that followed. In February 1943, Du Zhengyuan, head of the Communications Section of the Henan Provincial Party Committee who two years earlier had withdrawn to Yan’an with more than 100 cadres in compliance with Central Committee instructions, was sent to the Organization Department for investigation in isolation (by this time, Chen Yun was not involved in the work of the Organization Department, and Peng Zhen was the

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department’s acting director). The investigating personnel tricked Du by saying that Wang Zhijie (whom the Central Committee had appointed Henan’s provincial Party secretary in early 1942), Guo Xiaotang (head of the Henan Provincial Party Committee’s Propaganda Department), Zhang Weizhen (former provincial Party secretary), and Wei Gongzhi (head of the provincial Party committee’s Organization Department) were all “secret agents,” “and you, the head of the Communications Section, are not a secret agent?” Du Zhengyuan had never before been arrested and he did not know how to clear himself. The interrogators dangled a rope in front of his face and said, “If you do not confess, we’ll strangle you.” Under pressure, Du confessed that he was a Japanese and KMT spy. His interrogators then made him say who had recruited him, where he had worked, who else was a spy, and who his contacts were. While coercing Du Zhengyuan, the cadre investigators of the Organization Department pressured him to name the leaders of the Henan Provincial Party Committee as “secret agents,” but in fact neither the Organization Department nor the Social Department made any move against Wang Zhijie and the others at that time. In March 1943, the Central Committee notified Wang Zhijie, Wei Gongzhi, and Guo Xiaotang that they were to report to the Central Party School for rectification study and at the same time to help the Central Committee investigate Henan’s cadres. At the time, Wang Zhijie et al. had not the slightest idea that the relevant departments, under Kang Sheng’s logic, had already determined that they were “secret agents and that Du Zhengyuan had been captured specifically in order to squeeze out a confession that implicated Wang and the others as spies.17 In spring 1943, the cadre examination and anti-spy campaigns made major progress; the packaging of the Zhang Keqin case was completed, and the capture of Du Zhengyuan was revealing a preliminary glimpse of the Henan “Red Flag party case.” Yan’an convened a series of candor mobilization meetings from April 9 to 12. Kang Sheng single-handedly directed the proceedings on April 12, 18 hauling the key player in the “Zhang Keqin counterrevolutionary secret agent case” to the auditorium of the Eighth Route Army to make a formal appearance at an anti-spy candor rally with one thousand people in attendance. Kang delivered a mobilization speech at the rally, saying he had been very busy that month, attending meetings by day and catching devils by night. When he said the word “devil,” he pointed at the four people standing on his right, the first of whom was Zhang Keqin. By this time, Zhang had been

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made into a “candor model” and had been taken to all of Yan’an’s organs and schools to “bear witness.” Under Kang Sheng’s direct orders, each organ and school brought their candor campaigns to a climax through rallies, meetings, “advisory sessions,” struggle sessions, and accusation meetings that pressured Yan’an Party members and cadres to come clean, and by July 9, 450 of them had already done so. This greatly encouraged Kang Sheng, who delivered a talk on the “Emergency Rescue for Those Who Have Stumbled” at a cadre conference for organs directly under the Central Committee, held in Yan’an’s central auditorium on July 15, 1943. Kang Sheng announced that more than 200 people had been arrested in Yan’an, revealing the names of Du Zhengyuan and some others, and saying that “Du Zhengyuan, who sabotaged the Henan Party,” was an “enemy spy and KMT agent.” In his report, Kang Sheng represented the “Communist Party Central Committee” in calling on all hidden traitors and secret agents “in service to the enemy” to quickly come clean. Kang also explained the meaning of “emergency rescue”: “In the natural world, those who lose their footing are mainly rescued by outsiders, but those who lose their political footing, when it comes time for an emergency rescue, they must mainly rely on themselves.” At this meeting, Peng Zhen likewise delivered a speech on a similar theme, opening up the sluice of terror and suppression. Zhu De also attended the meeting, but in marked contrast to Kang Sheng and Peng Zhen, his brief remarks emphasized protecting cadres. Because Zhu De was only a symbolic leader in Yan’an and he had no real power, his speech failed to temper the harsh atmosphere of the meeting, and twelve people who had been domesticated by the Kang Sheng apparatus mounted the podium to bare their souls. The atmosphere was fearsome, with “an oppressive isolation” that made participants “blanche with fear, at their wits’ end.”19 Thereafter, on August 15, the Central Committee published its “Decision Regarding the Examination of Cadres’ Personal Histories,” which started out by declaring, “It should be no wonder that there are so many spies,” and that “spying is a universal problem.” The tone and language of the document was consistent with Mao’s habitual style. In this way, under Mao and Kang Sheng’s leadership, the “emergency rescue” and “spy elimination” struggle campaigns spread rapidly throughout the Shaan-Gan-Ning Border Region, and organs directly under the Central Committee became the main focus of the campaign. Organs under the CCP Central Committee came within the scope

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of the leadership of Ren Bishi and Li Fuchun. After Ren Bishi returned to Yan’an from the Soviet Union in 1940, he took charge of the Party organization and organs under the Central Committee. After Chen Yun went on convalescent leave in March 1943, the Organization Department came under the control of Peng Zhen. Once the Yan’an Rectification Movement began, the de facto leader of the rectification and cadre examination campaigns in organs under the Central Committee was Lu Fuchun, deputy director of the Organization Department and head of the Central Committee General Office, with the assistance of the head secretary of the Central Committee General Office, Wang Shoudao. As the Central Committee member with responsibility for Party organization and organs directly under the Central Committee, Ren Bishi also kept track of the campaign that was being carried out in these organs. Available documents reveal that after the Rectification Movement moved into its cadre examination and emergency rescue stages, Ren Bishi’s attitude was relatively calm. When delivering mobilization talks to organs under the Central Committee, he made only general appeals without any personal input. Ren had been through many power struggles within the Party since the late 1920s, and his rich experience was coupled with a personal style of fairness. Beginning from 1942, Ren focused his efforts on leading the Northwest Bureau, so leadership of the cadre examination and emergency rescue campaigns in the organs directly under the Central Committee was effectively delegated to the deputy head of the Central General Study Committee (CCSGC), Kang Sheng, and Mao’s long-time confederate, Li Fuchun. Kang Sheng and Li Fuchun selected as their main target Ke Qingshi, who would later gain fame in the Party, but who at that time was deputy director of the Central Committee’s United Front Department and former deputy director of China Women’s College. The matter was ostensibly prompted by the posting of a slogan on the outer wall of the central auditorium exposing Ke Qingshi as a scoundrel. The underground Party in Beiping, which Ke had led in the 1930s had been sabotaged by the Kuomintang, and because Ke was in Suiyuan at the time, he had escaped arrest, but this brought him under suspicion as a traitor. The fact was, however, that the antipathy toward Ke Qingshi arose from more complicated factors. Only two sources are currently available on the purge of Ke Qingshi in Yan’an: the brief accounts in Wang Ming’s Fifty Years of the CCP and

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Shi Zhe’s Mountains and Valleys: The Memoirs of Shi Zhe. Ke Qingshi closely followed Mao from the late 1950s until the early 1960s, and he was one of the very few people aware of Mao’s plan to unseat Liu Shaoqi. Consequently, Ke Qingshi came under criticism after the Cultural Revolution and the details of his persecution in Yan’an were obliterated. The purge of Ke Qingshi during the emergency rescue campaign occurred during the latter half of 1943, with Li Fuchun as the backstage director. According to Wang Ming’s and Shi Zhe’s accounts, the organs under the direct jurisdiction of the Central Committee held a series of mass struggle rallies against Ke Qingshi and his wife in the central auditorium. Li Fuchun was in charge of the rallies and he ordered Ke to confess what he had done wrong (neither Wang Ming nor Shi Zhe state what Ke and his wife were being forced to confess). One struggle rally lasted from the afternoon straight through to midnight. When Ke refused to admit to any wrongdoing, Li Fuchun declared that Ke was a counterrevolutionary and he had him trussed up. At the height of the purge, Ke’s wife could no longer bear the situation and she drowned herself in a well. Although Ke Qingshi was never imprisoned in the Social Department, he remained under close surveillance and house arrest.20 Ke Qingshi had long been engaged in underground operations in the KMT-controlled areas, and there was no reason for ill feelings between him and Li Fuchun. But Li was clearly acting under orders, so who was actually directing the struggle against Ke Qingshi from behind the scenes? The conclusion one arrives at is that Kang Sheng and Liu Shaoqi were directing the purge, with the tacit consent of Mao. Ke Qingshi had a history of antagonism with Liu Shaoqi. Ke was the former head of the North China Bureau’s Organization Department. When Liu Shaoqi arrived in Tianjin to serve as secretary of the North China Bureau in March 1936, he carried out a major reorganization and appointed his former subordinate Peng Zhen to replace Ke Qingshi as head of the Organization Department. He also launched a criticism campaign within the Party against the “Leftist exclusivist errors” of Ke Qingshi and others. In 1939, Ke was appointed deputy director of the Central Committee United Front Department, making him assistant to department director Wang Ming. This provided justification for attacking Ke Qingshi for carrying out Wang Ming’s “Leftist exclusivism” in the North China Bureau as well as for carrying out Wang Ming’s “Right

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deviating capitulationism” during the War of Resistance; although it was not yet possible to directly attack Wing Ming at this stage, purging Ke Qingshi laid the groundwork for unseating Wang Ming. Kang Sheng knew the history of ill-will between Ke Qingshi and Liu Shaoqi. Kang began cozying up to Liu Shaoqi in 1941, and when Liu became the Party’s second in command in March 1943, Kang Sheng intensified his advances. It was with this objective in mind that Kang rejected the views of Yang Shangkun,* Wang Heshou, and Kai Feng, and insisted on struggling Ke Qingshi.21 In this way, under Kang Sheng’s guidance, Li Fuchun’s denunciation of Ke Qingshi became a kind of tributary gift to earn the favor of Mao and Liu Shaoqi. According to Wang Ming, the day after Ke Qingshi was struggled, Mao had Liu Shaoqi carry a message to him: The reason we are opposing you is that you became acquainted with Wang Ming in the 1920s and in 1930, under Wang Ming’s leadership, you took part in the campaign against the Lisan Line, and beginning in 1939, you were Wang Ming’s assistant when he was director of the Central Committee’s United Front Department. The Rectification Movement has been building momentum for some time now, but you have not said a single word against Wang Ming.22 I believe that Wang Ming’s recollection of this matter is basically consistent with the facts. Before the Yan’an Rectification Movement and during its early stages, Wang Ming and Ke Qingshi had been working together long enough to have established a good personal relationship, and they had grown to particularly appreciate each other by 1943, when Ke became the scapegoat for the struggle against Wang. Ke Qingshi had visited Wang Ming while he was on sick leave and he had had private conversations with him, expressing sympathy and concern for Wang’s circumstances. Wang Ming never forgot the friendship Ke Qingshi showed toward him during this time, and after Wang went to live in Moscow and learned of Ke’s death in 1965, he composed a poem expressing his cherished memories of Ke.

*

  Yang Shangkun and others felt that relying on only one slogan to judge Ke Qingshi was problematic, and that the evidence was inadequate.

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How Ke Qingshi finally extricated himself after the emergency rescue campaign has not been revealed in any currently accessible documents. There are many signs that Ke was rescued by Mao. Mao was well aware of the old grievance between Ke and Liu Shaoqi, and when Ke was on the verge of despair, Mao extended his hand, thereby winning Ke’s undying devotion. After the Yan’an Rectification Movement, Ke’s status gradually rose within the Party and his relationship with Mao became closer. In 1948 Ke became Party secretary of the first major city that the CCP occupied in northern China, Shijiazhuang, and Bo Yibo subsequently nominated him to join the North Central China Bureau, even though Liu Shaoqi felt Ke was not an appropriate choice.23 Ke continued to rise in the Party bureaucracy during the 1950s, routinely slighting Liu Shaoqi and Zhou Enlai, and he became a major foil that Mao used against Liu. Beginning on March 20, 1943, the Central Mass Work Committee came under the leadership of the Central Organization Committee, of which Liu Shaoqi was secretary. Deng Fa was secretary of the Central Mass Work Committee, the jurisdiction of which included the Central Women’s Committee, the Central Labor Movement Committee, and the Central Youth Committee. During the emergency rescue campaign, the Central Women’s Committee and the Central Labor Movement Committee took an ultra-Leftist stance and made a succession of “breakthroughs.” The Central Youth Committee had only four actual staff persons, of whom two had been “rescued,” but it suffered repeated criticism from the upper levels. Jiang Nanxiang, who worked with the Central Youth Committee at the time, found that “if we did not engage in overbearing coercion and suppression, yelling and shouting, we not only lagged behind considerably in the emergency rescue campaign that was raging to its climax, but we were actually considered to be slackers in the struggle against secret agents and to be lacking in moral indignation against spies,” because the head of the Central Mass Work Committee, Deng Fa, cited Mao’s “Investigation Report on the Hunan Peasant Movement” and said that the anti-spy and emergency rescue campaigns were “terrific.”24 Another purged key cadre in an organ directly under the Central Committee was the secretary general of the Organization Department, Wu Jingtian. After the emergency rescue campaign was launched, Wu was struggled and imprisoned on the grounds that as a student in Beiping, he had studied foreign languages under an Italian missionary, who made him an “Italian secret agent.”25

Yan’an and the Base Areas during the Emergency Rescue Campaign | 553

Ordinary cadres were even more likely to come under attack during the campaign. Cao Ying, who at that time worked in the Central Committee Secretariat, recalls that the Central Women’s Committee led by Cai Chang had a female comrade surnamed Yu, only in her teens, who was believed to have been a member of a “Red Flag party.” Her “emergency rescue” involved a mass rally in Yangjialing auditorium, “held from that night straight through to the next morning, demanding that she admit to participating in a ‘Red Flag party.’ The participants at the rally constantly shouted slogans, and some harangued her.” The rally’s leader threatened, “If you are not candid, your punishment will be worse,” but Yu still “absolutely refused to admit such participation.” Wu Yuzhang, who was sick at the time, heard of the matter and went to the rally with a walking stick. Upon witnessing the proceedings, the venerable Wu broke down in tears and urged, “Xiao Yu, just admit to it.” Finally Yu was forced to confess to having taken part in a “Red Flag party and to being a secret agent sent to Yan’an to commit sabotage.”26 At the height of the campaign to unearth “Red Flag parties,” the “December 9 Movement” of 1935 was also suspected of being a product of the Kuomintang’s “Red Flag policy,” and this notion still prevailed in the first half of 1944, with some work-units “using it as a means for examining the cadres’ personal histories.”27 The General Office of the Secretariat of the Central Committee Ge was a Confidential Department specifically devoted to serving Mao and the Central Committee Secretariat. It had around sixty staff persons, and these staff persons had undergone stringent background checks at the time of their transfer. Even so, a dozen of them were labeled “secret agents” during the emergency rescue campaign. Mi Jiafan, a communications operative, had gone to Yan’an as a delegate of the Hubei underground Party for the Seventh Party Congress, but he was temporarily transferred to the Secretariat after the congress was postponed. When someone accused Mi of being a spy, the Secretariat staged an “emergency rescue” over the course of several days, during which the participants asked him all kinds of questions, such as, “You worked in the White area, you were surrounded by spies and traitors, so you must have turned traitor and become a secret agent.” Mi Jiafan justifiably refuted these accusations and refused to admit to any wrongdoing. Finally, late one night, the Social Department sent a horse cart to place him in detention at Northwest Public School.28 During the onslaught of the emergency rescue campaign, not even

554  |  HOW THE RED SUN ROSE

staff persons working alongside Mao were immune. Jiang Qing considered two functionaries who worked closely with Mao, Luo Haizhang and Gou Xinglu, to be “scoundrels,” so they were sent to Northwest Public School to undergo “emergency rescue.”29 Mao did not intervene on their behalf. The Social Department was the authoritative organ in Yan’an’s emergency rescue campaign, yet its own operatives also came under attack in the cadre examination and emergency rescue campaigns. Hai Yu, the wife of the Chen Long, who was head of the Public Order Division of the Social Department, was a student at China Women’s College. In order to facilitate their marriage, the Social Department in August 1941 had carried out a stringent vetting of Hai Yu and then transferred her from China Women’s College to the Social Department, and Chen and Hai married with the permission of the Social Department on November 7, 1942. Soon after their marriage, however, Hai Yu was suspected of having a “Red Flag party” problem (she had been a member of the Henan underground Party) and she was sent to Northwest Public School for interrogation. Chen Long was not allowed to see Hai Yu for more than one year. It was only with the help of a key cadre in the Social Department, Chen Gang (son-in-law of He Shuheng),* that in 1944 Hai Yu was finally released from investigation. Chen Gang also protected a female cadre from the department’s Confidential Section, Shen Yu, who because she managed the section’s wall newspaper was accused of sharing the views in Wang Shiwei’s “Wild Lilies.” Shen was sent to Northwest Public School for investigation, and it was only due to Chen Gang’s intervention that she was finally extricated.30 Once the Rectification Movement was launched, the Central Committee’s directly-controlled organ, Liberation Daily, came under the effective management of Lu Dingyi. Although Bo Gu held the position of director, the scope of his responsibilities was radically reduced, and because he was in a precarious position he proceeded with great caution during the emergency rescue campaign. Liberation Daily did not unearth any “secret agents” at the outset of the campaign, and this was deeply displeasing to Kang Sheng, who publicly criticized Bo Gu: “Qingliang

*

  TN: He Shuheng (1876‒1935) was a classmate of Mao at Hunan Normal School and he had served with Mao as a leader of the Chinese Workers’ and Peasants’ Democratic Government in the Central Revolutionary Base in the early 1930s.

Yan’an and the Base Areas during the Emergency Rescue Campaign | 555

Mountain [the location of Liberation Daily] is packed with spies, and you cannot catch a single one?” Under Kang Sheng’s threats and intimidation, Bo Gu felt compelled to send someone to Northwest Public School to “study and learn from experience,” and after that person returned, he followed suit at Liberation Daily. Ultimately, 95 percent of Liberation Daily’s staff were “rescued” as “secret agents” (according to Wen Jize’s account, some 70 percent of the nearly 200-strong combined staff of Liberation Daily and New China News Agency were forced to admit to being spies). Deputy Chief Editor Yu Guangsheng energetically carried out Kang Sheng’s directive and placed all of his efforts into “unearthing secret agents” at the newspaper. On the eve of the emergency rescue campaign, Ai Siqi, who had taken over Ding Ling’s job, also fell under suspicion and was dismissed from the study committee. In the Supplements Section, Shu Qun, Bai Lang, Chen Qixia, and Li Xin were all regarded as targets of suspicion. The secretary of the Supplements Section, Wen Jize, had been an active participant in the public criticism of Wang Shiwei, but because his uncle was a KMT major-general, he was now accused of being a KMT secret agent.31 At this time, Li Rui was domestic news editor of Liberation Daily. His college classmate was arrested for being a Trotskyite and he was unable to endure the torture, so the man admitted to being a spy and he fingered Li Rui as his “controller.” Li was arrested during the Border Region’s first major round-up in April 1943, and he was held at the BRSO as a “major criminal” from April 1943 to June 1944.32 In addition to Liberation Daily’s editors and reporters, its printing factory staff also underwent “emergency rescue,” and a General Affairs Section head slit his own throat while being interrogated under torture. Bo Gu was all too familiar with the Red Terror methods Mao and Kang Sheng were employing, having been suspicious of Mao’s actions during the campaign against the “AB League” in Jiangxi Province back in 1931. In March 1942, Wang Zhen and He Long launched an attack on Bo Gu after Liberation Daily published Ding Ling’s “Thoughts on International Women’s Day” and Wang Shiwei’s “Wild Lilies”; Wang Zhen and He Long had personally gone to Bo Gu’s cave in Qingliang Mountain to criticize him, and they had also castigated him during high-level Party meetings. By 1943 and 1944, Bo Gu’s standing in the Party was even more fragile, and just as “everyone pounds on a broken drum,” Bo Gu was now treated as a target of criticism and with derision by all senior cadres. This rendered

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him incapable of reining in extremist behavior during the emergency rescue campaign at Liberation Daily. All work-units directly under the Central Committee came under attack during the emergency rescue campaign. Some 90 percent of the Central Hospital’s doctors, nurses, and general staff came under suspicion, and even the famous doctor George Hatem (an American known in Chinese as Ma Haide) and his wife Sophie were “rescued.” The questions posed to Hatem included, “A foreigner abandons a life of material affluence to come to Shanghai from the United States, and then moves from Shanghai to Yan’an—what is behind this?” Because Hatem’s medical skills were desperately needed in the Border Region, he was treated with relative courtesy and he only had to “submit a candid debriefing” rather than being locked up.33

III. The Emergency Rescue Campaign in Organs Directly under the Central Military Commission Organs under the direct jurisdiction of the Central Military Commission (CMC) also came under intense attack during the emergency rescue campaign. The CMC, located in Wangjiaping, was Mao’s most important apparatus for commanding the Eighth Route Army and the New Fourth Army. Mao also used the CMC’s communications apparatus to collect intelligence on the situation in all the base areas and in the KMT-controlled areas. By early 1943, CMC vice chairman Wang Jiaxiang had stepped aside, and Ye Jianying, who had become CMC chief of staff in February 1941, found his authority limited to battle planning, military intelligence gathering, and other specialized work, and he had very little influence over the cadre examination campaign or other political work. Effective leadership of the cadre examination and emergency rescue campaigns in the CMC apparatus was in the hands of Kang Sheng. Soon after the launch of the cadre examination and emergency rescue campaigns, the head of the CMC Secretariat and Political Department, Tao Zhu, was “unearthed” as a spy. Tao Zhu was selected as a whipping boy because he had been imprisoned by the KMT in Nanjing’s Central Military Prison from 1933 to 1937. Tao Zhu was also Wang Jiaxiang’s political secretary at the time that he came under suspicion, so attacking Tao was also an implicit attack on Wang Jiaxiang.

Yan’an and the Base Areas during the Emergency Rescue Campaign | 557

Tao Zhu was infuriated at being put under investigation in isolation, and when Social Department cadre Li Yimin went to visit him, Tao Zhu “went on a rampage of cursing.”34 Tao was arrested after he visited Ke Qingshi in his cave. Their shared experiences during the emergency rescue campaign forged a strong emotional bond between the two men. Ke and Tao had extensive experience working in the KMT-controlled areas, and their relations with Liu Shaoqi were rather chilly. Given Liu’s decisionmaking power in the cadre examination campaign, it is highly possible that he was involved in the investigation of Ke and Tao. After Mao extended a helping hand to Ke and Tao, they pledged their undying loyalty to Mao, and both were appointed to important positions after 1949, heading up the illustrious East China and South China bureaus respectively in the early 1960s. At one point in 1953, Tao Zhu became implicated in the senior leadership’s internal criticism of Liu Shaoqi (the “Gao Gang Incident”), but Mao’s protection kept him from being labeled a member of the “GaoRao Anti-Party Clique” and he continued to serve in important positions. When Ke Qingshi died in 1965, Tao Zhu was distraught and wept at home. In late spring 1966, Mao brought Tao Zhu into the Central Committee, hoping to use Tao’s grudge against Liu Shaoqi to his own ends, and then he promoted Tao Zhu to the fourth most powerful position in the CCP during the Eleventh Plenum of the Eighth Central Committee. However, Tao Zhu disappointed Mao by tempering his attacks against Liu Shaoqi, and when he refused to change his approach even after several reminders, Mao finally abandoned him. Ke Qingshi died before he could become embroiled in the Cultural Revolution, but he gave his full support to Jiang Qing when she began plotting against Liu Shaoqi in Shanghai during the early 1960s. This is how Mao used Ke Qingshi and Tao Zhu as pawns against Liu Shaoqi after they were purged in Yan’an in 1943. During the emergency rescue campaign, work-units under the CMC came under such heavy attacks that everyday operations ground to a virtual standstill for a period of time. There were three departments under the CMC General Staff Headquarters: the First Department, responsible for commanding battle operations and headed by Wu Xiuquan; the Second Department, responsible for intelligence collection and analysis and headed by Cao Xiangren; and the Third Department, in charge of communications, mainly cable contacts between Yan’an and the various base areas, and headed by Wang Zheng, who joined the Red Army after

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the Ningdu Uprising.* Due to the top-secret nature of the work undertaken by these three departments, all of their staff had already undergone strict background checks; they were required to cut off all communications with their families and they could only leave their offices in the company of colleagues.35 Even so, many “special agents” were ferreted out during the emergency rescue campaign. To date, detailed information on the cadre examination and emergency rescue campaigns in the CMC’s First Department is limited to piecemeal accounts about the persecution of Zhou Qiuye and others. Zhou, who carried out survey and map work in the First Department (he later served as Chinese ambassador to Czechoslovakia in the 1970s and 1980s), was subjected to round-the-clock interrogations and torture during the cadre examination campaign. Wu Xiuquan additionally disclosed that the First Department’s political assistant, Zhang Chichang, was locked up because he had mobilized military rebellions in the KMT-controlled areas, and that the people responsible for guarding and interrogating him “deliberately tormented him by over-salting his food and refusing to give him water.” Zhang was driven to hang himself, but luckily he was discovered in time to be saved from death.36 In the Second Department, as in all other work-units under the CMC, the cadre examination and emergency rescue campaigns were led by the CCGSC and its branch directly under the CMC, and the de facto leader was Kang Sheng. Hu Yaobang, at that time only 29 years old and head of the General Political Department’s Organization Section, was a member of the Rectification Movement Leading Group of the organs directly under the CMC and he helped lead the cadre examination and anti-spy campaigns in the Second Department. Beginning in December 1942, a succession of spies and traitors was discovered inside the Second Department. Among the individuals arrested during the mass round-up on April 1, 1943 were four from the Second Department. Kang Sheng quickly sent them back to the Second Department to serve as “candor models.” Hu Yaobang presided over a candor rally at the Second Department on about April 15, calling on everyone to heighten their vigilance and “sniff out, provide surveillance,

*

  TN: Some 20,000 KMT soldiers defected to the Red Army during the Ningdu Uprising in December 1931.

Yan’an and the Base Areas during the Emergency Rescue Campaign | 559

and gather evidence against spies,” while also reminding people not to wrongfully accuse the innocent.37 Soon after the rally, the Second Department received reports from informants totaling more than 100,000 words. The department also devised a set of methods to persuade people to come clean: friendly advice, advice from friends and relatives, gentle advice, written advice, firm advice, and so on—even discovering a “Thunder God cleaves bean curd” method of first collectively attacking wavering individuals and then going after the diehards.38 By the first half of May, ten people from the Second Department had confessed, and the campaign rapidly moved toward a climax. With the masses fully mobilized, Hu Yaobang become more inclined toward restoring calm, and on May 5 he drew up four tactical boundaries: 1.) beating and haranguing were strictly prohibited; 2.) no one could be tied up without permission of the committee; 3.) confessions could not be extracted through torture without sufficient evidence; 4.) strict precautions were to be taken against suicide. The Social Department attached immense importance to the campaign in the Second Department,39 and Kang Sheng sent Li Kenong to personally oversee and lead it, ordering that the candor campaign be taken further to rescue those who had stumbled and fallen in with secret agents. Li Kenong promised that the Party would ensure a promising future to those who confessed. Under these conditions, Hu Yaobang arranged a new round of the candor campaign, while also seizing the opportunity to emphasize policy. He suggested limiting the number of times people could inform on others as well as replacing the oral reports with written reports, and he stated that persons giving themselves up should “stick to the facts.” “Those who have been treated unjustly should speak out without fear; the leaders of the cadre examination campaign should provide redress and defense to the wrongfully accused.”40 This reveals an essential difference between Hu Yaobang and the cadres who used the cadre examination and anti-spy campaigns to deliberately persecute others. The CMC’s Third Department had the greatest number of staff, approaching 1,000, the majority of whom were young intellectuals who had gone to Yan’an after the beginning of the War of Resistance. During the cadre examination and anti-spy campaigns, 170 of the 200 people in the Third Department’s Telecommunications School were taken into custody and struggled. Soon thereafter, most of the staff in the department’s various sections were labeled “turncoats” and “secret agents,” and since the Third Department was “packed with spies,” cable contacts between

560  |  HOW THE RED SUN ROSE

Yan’an Headquarters and the various base areas became difficult to maintain. Given the extreme importance of the work handled by the Third Department, when Wang Zheng led Third Department staff to pay their New Year’s respects to Mao on January 1, 1944, Mao apologized to those who had come under investigation and exonerated them before those in other departments. The predecessor to the Chinese People’s Anti-Japanese Military and Political University (known as Kangda) was the Chinese Workers and Peasants Red Army School during the Ruijin period, which changed its name in June 1936 to the Chinese People’s Anti-Japanese Red Army University (known as Hongda) before acquiring its new name in spring 1937. After the full-scale War of Resistance broke out, Mao repeatedly directed Kangda to admit revolutionary youth from all over China by posting recruitment advertisements on telephone poles from Yan’an to Xi’an.41 Inspired by the CCP, large numbers of young intellectuals arrived in Yan’an and began studying at Kangda, resulting in the school’s non-stop growth. Due to a food shortage in the Border Region, in June 1939 the Politburo decided to move the main Kangda campus to southeast Shanxi. But in spring 1943 Yan’an ordered that the school return to the ShaanGan-Ning Border Region. It was relocated in Suide, where its two branch campuses merged with the Yan’an Military Academy. Xu Xiangqian was named Kangda’s president, Li Jingquan its political commissar, and He Changgong and Peng Shaohui its vice presidents. By this time, the school had more than 6,000 students. The rectification and cadre examination campaigns at Kangda began in August 1943. During the early stages, under the leadership of the Kangda General Study Committee, of which Xu Xiangqian was secretary, everything progressed smoothly. Xu spoke to the committee members under his leadership about the lessons of the excessive expansion of the Campaign against Counterrevolutionaries in the Fourth Front Red Army and reminded everyone to maintain clear thinking.42 The situation deteriorated rapidly, however, after the Central Social Department sent a rectification and cadre examination work group led by Huang Zhiyong to Kangda. From mid-October to late December 1943, a “full-scale breakthrough” competition to dig deep for “counterrevolutionaries” and “secret agents” was launched throughout the school. Xu Xiangqian provides a detailed description of Kangda’s “emergency rescue” campaign in a memoir he wrote in his later years:

Yan’an and the Base Areas during the Emergency Rescue Campaign | 561

In the ensuing two months, Kangda’s Rectification Movement descended into chaos. There were numerous achievements, such as “impromptu confessions,” “exemplary confessions,” “group persuasions,” “five-minute persuasions,” “individual chats,” “rally reports,” “plucking radishes” (those who were red on the outside but white on the inside)—everything that could be imagined. Even more ridiculous was the so-called “face-off.” When a rally was held, they would bring people in groups to stand on the stage, while those in the audience would stare in their faces. If a person’s face did not change color, that meant he had no problems; the rest were suspect and had to undergo investigation. They staged massive “extort, confess, believe” operations and “round-the-clock interrogations”... it was appalling.43 Once Yan’an’s Social Department work group arrived at the Kangda campus, Xu Xiangqian was effectively sidelined, and by the latter half of October there was nothing for him to do but to return to Yan’an. Xu Xiangqian had experienced long-term ruthless infighting in the Party and he was always on guard against ultra-Leftist tendencies. After returning to Yan’an, he continued to inquire about the progress of the campaign at Kangda, but he had no means of directly resisting the campaign led by Mao and Kang Sheng.44 In contrast to Xu Xiangqian, other Kangda leaders took a much less-measured approach. Wei Junyi was in Suide at the time and he heard one of Kangda’s vice presidents explain the principles of the school’s anti-espionage campaign. This deputy director said, “Some say they oppose ‘extort, confess, believe,’ so we’ll turn it around: First we’ll ‘believe,’ then we’ll ‘confess’ to you what we believe, and if you still won’t admit to it, we’ll ‘extort’!” Wei Junyi said this vice president later “lost his entire family during the Cultural Revolution. … I wonder if he ever thought back on what he himself had said in 1943.”45 Under the ultra-Leftist assault, 602 of Kangda’s 1,052 cadres at the platoon-leader level or above (57.2 percent) “came clean” or were identified as “suspects” or “secret agents.” Among the 496 people receiving training as cadres, 373, or 75.2 percent, were designated as “suspects.”46 The Joint Defense Command of the Shaan-Gan-Ning and Jin-Sui Border Regions, headed by He Long, was in charge of defending Yan’an. The CCP’s only artillery regiment, which was under the Joint Defense Command, was of little use because the Eighth Route Army engaged

562  |  HOW THE RED SUN ROSE

almost entirely in guerrilla warfare, so all along it had been situated in Nanniwan, where its troops engaged in cultivating virgin land. It was largely cut off from everyone else, and many of its cadres knew very little about the situation in Yan’an. The cadres of the artillery regiment were generally well educated, and some had even studied in the Soviet Union. Its training battalion alone included nearly 200 intellectuals. During the emergency rescue campaign, 90 percent of the artillery regiment troops were labeled secret agents, and in one exemplary company, all of the cadres were labeled as spies. The standard for determining if someone was a “secret agent” was very simple: Any educated person who had come from a KMT-controlled area was either a Japanese spy or a KMT spy, and former members of the underground Party were members of a “Red Flag party” or were “fake Party members” or “turncoats.” The father of artillery regiment staff officer Xu Zhao was the financial officer for a coal mine in a KMT-controlled area, and that was all it took to label Xu a “secret agent.”47

IV. The Emergency Rescue Campaign in the Northwest Bureau and the Border Region Apparatus The rectification and cadre examination and emergency rescue campaigns in the Shaan-Gan-Ning Border Region were carried out in two tranches: The campaigns within the scope of the Northwest Bureau and the Border Region were led by Gao Gang, whereas the campaigns in the Border Region Government apparatus were led by Li Weihan. Although the Central Secretariat had designated Ren Bishi as the Central Committee’s representative to lead the Northwest Bureau, it was Kang Sheng who wielded actual power in the campaigns. The Northwest Bureau held candor and emergency rescue rallies in July 1943, and a batch of Zhang Keqin‒type “secret agents” were lined up on the stage to issue their confessions. As with the organs directly under the Central Committee, most of the targets of the “emergency rescue” in the Northwest Bureau apparatus had been members of the underground Party in the KMT-controlled areas or were young intellectuals from those areas. The Northwest Bureau’s Mass Movement Department had a dozen or so cadres, most of whom had been members of the underground Communist Party in the northwestern provinces and all of whom

Yan’an and the Base Areas during the Emergency Rescue Campaign | 563

were well educated. In 1941, the Party branch of the Mass Movement Department published a wall newspaper, edited by Chen Yuanfang, called Northwest Wind, which criticized some of Yan’an’s negative phenomena. That wall newspaper was closed down immediately after the Wang Shiwei incident in spring 1942. Gao Gang criticized Northwest Wind for betraying a “petty-bourgeois sentimentality” and “venting dissatisfaction,” and Chen Yuanfang was soon transferred to the Jingbian County Party Committee to serve on its Standing Committee and as head of its United Front Department. In April 1943, Chen Yuanfang was suddenly sent a notice to return to the Northwest Bureau, “and before he had put down his satchel, he was told to attend a criticism meeting” at which he was ordered to make a debriefing on the Northwest Wind matter. Northwest Wind was criticized for being an “anti-Party” publication, similar to Light Cavalry, and Chen was subjected to “ceaseless struggle.” He was designated a model case of “incorrigible stubbornness” in 1943 and was subjected to a fake execution before finally being locked up in the Border Region Security Office. All of the cadres in the Northwest Bureau’s Mass Movement Department were eventually labeled “KMT agents” or “traitors.”48 The famous scholar Yu Guangyuan was at this time carrying out research in the Northwest Issues Research Office of the Northwest Bureau’s Fourth Bureau. He was likewise labeled a “suspected spy” during the emergency rescue campaign and sent to a “special class” at the Institute of Public Administration to undergo investigation.49 Most of the instructors at the Northwest Bureau Party School were young intellectuals, and many were labeled “secret agents” during the campaigns. Zhang Xuan, formerly secretary of the Chengdu Municipal Party Committee, was made an instructor at the Party School upon arriving in Yan’an, but after being accused of being a “KMT agent,” he was locked up in the BRSO. In tandem with the emergency rescue campaign in the Northwest Bureau apparatus, the campaign in the organs of the Border Region Government likewise moved toward a climax. Designating Li Weihan as the leader of the rectification and cadre examination campaigns in the Shaan-Gan-Ning Border Region Government organs was a subtle move by Mao. Li was a Party veteran and he had known Mao well during the May Fourth era. However, the two had not been in close contact since 1927. Li had become alienated from Mao in 1933 and 1934, when he enthusiastically executed the policy of Bo Gu and the others to attack the

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“Luo Ming Line” and “Deng, Mao, Xie, and Gu.”* In the mid-to-late 1930s, Li Weihan’s attitude changed, and he began to make overtures to Mao. In particular, while in charge of the Central Research Institute in 1942, Li actively complied with Mao’s arrangements for criticizing Wang Shiwei, and his relations with Mao again grew close; All the same, Mao kept Li under observation. After Li Weihan was transferred to the Border Region Government in September 1942, Kang Sheng prohibited him from reading Central Committee cables, and although the chairman of the Border Region Government, Lin Boqu, ignored Kang Sheng’s order and directed that cables sent and received by the Central Committee be delivered to Li to read,50 Li would have been well aware of the implications of Kang Sheng’s prohibition. Li expressed no negative reaction to the signal that Kang Sheng sent, and indeed he showed an even more positive attitude in implementing the instructions of Mao and the CCGSC. In late May 1943, Li Weihan took charge of a candor mobilization meeting in the Border Region auditorium, during which several model Zhang Keqin‒types confessed. After the meeting, all work-units under the Border Region Government carried out round-the-clock interrogations of investigation targets, the extortion “differing only in terms of degree.” At least three rounds of interrogation shifts were carried out by the Secretariat of the Border Region Government, one session of which was devoted to struggling Ou Tangliang, who was accused of taking part in the Hunan “Red Flag party.” Ou Tangliang had once been secretary to the Central Women’s Committee secretary Cai Chang and had then been made Lin Boqu’s secretary. The methods employed in her interrogation included “even trussing her up, suspending, and beating her.”51 In a second round of interrogations, a suspected Trotskyite “was driven to a mental breakdown.” The third round of non-stop interrogations targeted suspected turncoats. The climax of the emergency rescue campaign in the Border Region Government was the forcing of a confession from Zhang Shushi, a former member of the Party’s Sichuan provincial work committee, who was nearly 60 years old. Li Weihan personally presided over this meeting,

*

  TN: In February 1933, a campaign against the “opportunistic Luo Ming Line” began in Fujian and spread to Jiangxi. The main representatives of the line were said to be Luo Ming, Mao’s brother Mao Zetan, Deng Xiaoping, Xie Weijun, and Gu Bo. They and others were criticized and dismissed for their errors.

Yan’an and the Base Areas during the Emergency Rescue Campaign | 565

which was held in the Border Region Government conference room with “twenty to thirty people taking part.” At the meeting, Li declared that frank debriefings should be made of whatever problems existed, but no one spoke. Li stood up and said, “Some old comrades have been in Yan’an for some time now, but they have not given debriefings of their problems.” Still not a peep was heard in the conference room. At this point, Zhang Shushi asked, “Is this comment aimed at me?” Li Weihan shouted, “It’s aimed at you—tonight a fire will be lit on your head!” Zhang Shushi said indignantly, “What proof do you have? Bring out your evidence. I have done nothing wrong and I am not taking part in this meeting.” He then walked out.52 Zhang Shushi was originally a member of the KMT’s Leftist faction, and he was among the twenty-five members of the revolutionary committee established after the Nanchang Uprising. He had joined the Communist Party in 1933 and engaged in intelligence work in Shanghai. Along with Zou Fengping and others, Zhang withdrew from Sichuan to Yan’an in 1940 and served first as deputy director of the Northwest Bureau’s United Front Department and then as head of the Border Region Government’s Legal Office. Under these circumstances, it was not surprising that Zhang was accused of being a member of a “Red Flag party,” and he was lucky that the chairman of the Border Region Government, Lin Boqu, was a magnanimous and upright man. Lin consoled Zhang in various ways that ultimately helped him to weather the crisis. In the case of Ou Tangliang’s tribulations, the normally eventempered Lin Boqu was driven to pound the table in anger until he finally managed to protect Ou. Although at this time Lin Boqu was chairman of the Border Region Government and nominally the head of the Border Region branch study committee, Li Weihan wielded actual power in leading the campaign. Lin Boqu was circumspect in his dealings, and kindly and sincere toward others. Furthermore, he enjoyed great prestige in the Border Region. In Mao’s eyes, honest and kindly old men such as Lin were inclined to please everyone and therefore unsuited to lead the purges.* 53 Li Weihan was

*

  In 1947, under the influence of the ultra-Leftist land reforms carried out by Kang Sheng in Jinsui, the land reform campaign in the Shaan-Gan-Ning Border Region experienced chaotic and arbitrary criticism and denunciation that caused panic among ordinary people. In order to protect his subordinates, Lin Boqu took responsibility by referring to himself as a “Mr. Please-All” who had failed to help erring comrades.

566  |  HOW THE RED SUN ROSE

therefore sent to the Border Region to lend assistance while remaining under close observation. At the height of the emergency rescue campaign in 1943, many young people in the Border Region apparatus who had come to Yan’an from the KMT-controlled areas due to introductions from Lin Boqu were labeled “suspected spies” and “Red Flag party” members (Lin Boqu had served as the CCP’s representative in Xi’an and had made several trips to Chongqing as a delegate to the People’s Political Council). While offering consolation to these young people, Lin was largely powerless and could only advise them, “Do not speak against your conscience. Be truthful.”54 Beginning from September 1943, cadres in the Border Region Government apparatus who came under suspicion were transferred to the Central Party School’s Third Department to undergo further investigation. During the emergency rescue campaign, “news of victories poured in” from the Border Region’s various organs, with “secret agents” reportedly unearthed in its Research Office, court, finance bureau, and education bureau. Essayist Wu Boxiao, at that time head of the education bureau’s Secondary-School Education Section, was labeled a “Kuomintang CC secret agent.” * The president of the Border Region bank, Huang Yaguang, became known far and wide as the “spymaster” of the Border Region. While carrying out his pilot project of internal cadre examinations and elimination of secret agents in the latter half of 1942, Kang Sheng had selected Huang Yaguang to serve as an example of a “KMT agent” and had him secretly arrested and imprisoned. After the emergency rescue campaign was launched, he pulled Huang out and forced him to accuse his so-called confederates, all of whom were then sent to the BRSO. At the Yan’an Youth Theater, headed by the famous playwright Sai Ke, not only cadres but even service staff came under attack. A cart-driver for the theater who was accused of being a “secret agent” was trussed up, suspended from a rafter, and “beaten to death.”55 The Yan’an Nursery School was Yan’an’s only nursery school looking after the children of cadres and martyrs to the cause, but even its staff could not escape the emergency rescue campaign. Li Weihan acknowledged that excessive tactics such as non-stop interrogations were carried out at the nursery.

*

  TN: The “CC apparatus” refers to a KMT faction led by the brothers Chen Guofu and Chen Lifu.

Yan’an and the Base Areas during the Emergency Rescue Campaign | 567

Intense cadre examination and emergency rescue campaigns were also carried out in Yan’an County as well as in other counties under the jurisdiction of the Border Region Government. In April 1943, Kang Sheng sent his wife, Cao Yi’ou, at that time head of the Central Propaganda Department’s Cadre Section, to serve as a member of the Yan’an County Party Committee and head of its Propaganda Department. The purpose of sending Cao down to the countryside was to create a case study of anti-spy campaigns among the masses and to prove the legitimacy of the rectification, cadre examination, and anti-spy campaigns launched by Mao and Kang Sheng. When Cao Yi’ou arrived in Yan’an County, she quickly rounded up all the “suspect individuals” for rectification study classes. Using the slogans of “opposing Right deviating apathetic thinking” and “enhancing vigilance of antagonistic struggle,” in one breath she slapped the labels of “secret agent” and “traitor” on Xu Ping, head of the Yan’an County Propaganda Department, Tan Feng, head of the county government Third (Education) Section, Huang Liu, head of Panlong District’s Propaganda Section, and Yang Zhigong, secretary of the county Party committee Propaganda Department. Cao then proceeded to launch a “candor campaign” and used the “melon vine” tactic to designate a large number of district and village cadres as well as primary school teachers as “secret agents.” Under enormous pressure to become trapped into confessing, the propaganda chief of Chuankou District, Lan Linbin, was forced to admit to being a “triple agent” serving the Kuomintang, Japan, and Italy. The reason Lan could make the preposterous claim of being a secret agent for Italy was that her husband, Wu Jingtian (former secretary general of the Central Committee Organization Department) had by then been designated an “Italian spy.” Another female cadre, Mudan District propaganda head Su Ping, refused to confess to being a secret agent, so Cao Yi’ou accused her of using “honey trap” methods to lure peasant cadres to become secret agents, and Cao ordered that she be sent to prison.56 On July 7, 1943, Yan’an County held a mass-style anti-spy candor rally attended by Jia Tuofu as a representative of the Northwest Bureau. A succession of male and female cadres coached by Cao ascended the stage and admitted to organizing hit squads targeting Party cadres. Cao then appealed to all those who had stumbled to seize the chance to come clean, declaring that the Party’s policy was to show leniency to those who confessed and severity to those who denied their guilt.57 The rally

568  |  HOW THE RED SUN ROSE

continued for nearly a day, ending with a speech by Hu Qiaomu on the evils of the KMT’s “secret agent policy.”58 Four thousand people attended an anti-spy mobilization meeting in Panlong on September 4, with Gao Gang delivering a rousing speech against secret agents, followed by twenty-three people taking the stage to confess their misdeeds. All of these people had been given a personal audience with Gao Gang two days earlier, during which Gao had “taken an oath” guaranteeing that they would not be executed for their confessions.59 Finally, the rally presented the “white-haired elderly mother” of a confessed secret agent, who “hobbled onto the podium with her little bound feet and tearfully thanked the CCP for the mercy it had shown her son.”60 The mass-style anti-spy and emergency rescue campaigns that Cao Yi’ou carried out in Yan’an County provided vividly powerful evidence: 1.) All types of secret agents using various methods had completely infiltrated the Border Region; not only the cities, but even many villages had spies, and the enemy situation greatly exceeded prior estimates. The secret agents were engaged in diverse types of sabotage, such as spreading rumors, sowing discord between local and outside cadres, collecting intelligence, recruiting cadres, and organizing hit squads to assassinate cadres. It was therefore essential to launch mass-style campaigns against traitors and secret agents.61 2.) Most of the secret agents were cadres of the culture and education apparatus, primary school teachers, and, in particular, intellectuals from other localities. The propaganda heads of almost all of the county’s districts were “secret agents,” so intellectuals became the focus of the investigations. 3.) Implementing a policy of leniency to those who confessed and severity to those who denied guilt would cause secret agents to break ranks, and those who confessed could serve as models for unearthing even more secret agents. 4.) Using “candor rallies” to make confessed secret agents take the stage and bear witness would inflame the hatred of the local people against the KMT’s secret agent policy and greatly enhance local vigilance in the struggle against the enemy. In the past, the Border Region’s self-defense force (the people’s militia) had no perceptual awareness about eliminating traitors; now they knew that secret agents and traitors were all around them, and this had raised their guard; in Mudan District alone, thirty-two suspects had been discovered during travel permit inspections over the course of two weeks, and all had been handed over to the government.62

Yan’an and the Base Areas during the Emergency Rescue Campaign | 569

Cao Yi’ou’s experience added impetus to the campaign, and other counties in the Border Region followed Yan’an County’s example by launching anti-spy and emergency rescue campaigns among the masses. The emergency rescue campaign in Suide Prefecture rapidly identified a large number of intellectuals as secret agents. Yang Shu (who served as propaganda chief for the Beijing Municipal Party Committee in the 1950s and 1960s) and his wife, Wei Junyi, were editors of the prefectural Party committee’s War of Resistance Daily at the time, and they were quickly plucked out as “suspected secret agents.” Yang Shu had been an underground Party member in Sichuan, and because the Sichuan Party had by then been labeled “counterfeit,” Yang was sent to a rectification class to debrief the Party on his misdeeds. He had also risen before dawn every day to brave the winter winds to labor along the Wuding River. Wei Junyi fell under suspicion because of her husband, and even though she had a one-year-old baby, she was forced to move from the cave where the family had been living in a drafty hovel. Wei was greatly distressed at having to wear “tattered clothes and worn-out shoes that no one else wanted anymore.” Thinking about how she had been reduced to this after her idealistic devotion to the revolution, she secretly composed a poem: I trudge through the courtyard in tattered clothes Porous as the silk gauze of yore. Ten intrepid years reduced to nothing, A truthful pen but a laughingstock. How I regret becoming literate! Better that I’d learned to spin. Moonlight trickles through the cracks; I wonder what year this is.63 Suide Normal School became a model work-unit for the most impressive “victory” in the emergency rescue campaign. In September 1943, a denunciation and confession rally was held at the school for nine consecutive days, with “more than 280 people voluntarily coming clean and more than 190 exposed.” “A 14-year-old girl, Liu Jinmei, only a little taller than a table, walked on the stage” and confessed to having been a member of the Revival Society. A 16-year-old boy named Ma Fengchen, carrying a big bag of rocks, confessed that he was “the head of a team directed by a spy agency to collect stones to use for killing people.” Wei

570  |  HOW THE RED SUN ROSE

Junyi, who attended the rally at Suide Normal School, subsequently recalled that a student named Bai Guoxi confessed that “he had written obscene graffiti on a toilet wall at the instigation of a spy agency.” “Another student said that his ‘secret agent sabotage’ was to use a foot basin to fetch cooked rice and vegetables.” Suide Normal School’s leading rectification group also uncovered a “secret agent honey trap”; “it was said that girl students had accepted the slogan ‘Our post is the enemy’s bed’ and that they were divided up by class for three different types of activity.”64 The school ultimately dug up 230 “secret agents,” representing 73 percent of the people there. The higher-ups designated Suide Normal School’s experience in combatting secret agents for an article in the prefectural Party committee’s Enemy Resistance News. Editor Wei Junyi and other staff members had a female student named Liu Guoxiu write her confession as an article, which was published under the title “My Degenerate Past.” Once this article was published, “other contributed articles became increasingly eager and unusual. Secondary-school students acting as secret agents ‘developed’ into primary-school students, 12, 11, or 10 years old, and even a little 6-year-old secret agent was discovered!”65 The emergency rescue campaign in Longdong Prefecture was even more ferocious. The prefectural Party committee leader Li Jingbo publicly stated that since the KMT had begun implementing Partytainted education in 1935, any intellectuals arriving in the Border Region thereafter were problematic.66 Liu Xiao (who eventually retired as deputy director of the Liaoning Province Planning Commission) was sent to the Prefectural Headquarters in Qingyang to carry out financial operations beginning in 1942. During the emergency rescue campaign, he was labeled a KMT spy and sent to the prefectural commissioner’s Security Office, where he endured ten days and nights of non-stop interrogation (the interrogators changed shifts every two hours) and intimidation by a fake execution until he finally vomited blood. During the rectification study classes held in Longdong Prefecture, the head of Huachi County, Han Jie, previously honored as a model county head, found his interrogation under torture so unbearable that he finally used his belt to hang himself from a tree by the toilets. A female teacher detained in Quzi County attempted suicide by swallowing thumbtacks. Some young cadres despaired to the point that they prepared to become monks or nuns.67

Yan’an and the Base Areas during the Emergency Rescue Campaign | 571

As to the number of people victimized during the anti-spy and emergency rescue campaigns in the Northwest China Bureau and Border Region apparatus, Li Weihan claimed there were only 300 to 400 people working in the Border Region Government, with more than 100 people subjected to “emergency rescue,” and “among those, 20 to 30 people came under greater suspicion and were sent to the Security Office, while some 50 who came under lesser suspicion were sent to the Institute of Public Administration (a temporary investigative organ).” In the early 1990s, some historical materials claimed that a total of 2,463 “secret agents” were unearthed during emergency rescue campaigns in Yan’an’s various counties,68 and that 99 percent of the educated cadres who went to Longdong Prefecture from other places were “rescued” as “people who had stumbled.”69 During this period, there were 50 to 60 suicides in Yan’an alone. As to the number of people “rescued” in the Northwest Bureau apparatus, no official figures have been disclosed to date.70

V. The Emergency Rescue Campaign at the Central Party School The Central Party School was a key unit in the emergency rescue campaign. Peng Zhen assumed overall responsibility of the school and reported regularly to Mao; it can be said that Mao directed all of Peng Zhen’s activities at the Central Party School. Peng Zhen enjoyed Mao’s trust and respect from 1941 onward and he was entrusted with important tasks even though he was not a member of the Central Committee. After Liu Shaoqi arrived in Yan’an at the end of 1942, his former subordinate Peng Zhen rose to even greater prominence within the Party. As a leader of the cadre examination campaign, Peng Zhen was second only to Liu Shaoqi and Kang Sheng in terms of the power he wielded in Yan’an. The Central Party School initially had only a First Department and a Second Department. The school’s First Department, located in Xiaobiangou, contained most of the cadres who had come to Yan’an as delegates to the Seventh Party Congress, as well as cadres of prefectural or military adjutant general rank. Huang Huoqing was originally the department head, but in February 1942 he became the school’s secretary general and Gu Dacun took over from him as director of the First Department, with Liu Zhiming as his deputy director. The Second Department, located in Wang jiaping, consisted of students who were mid-to-upper-level cadres and military cadres of regimental rank. The

572  |  HOW THE RED SUN ROSE

department’s director was Zhang Dingcheng, with Sun Zhiyuan and An Ziwen serving as deputy directors. On May 4, 1943, the Central Committee decided to merge the Central Research Institute into the Party School to become its Third Department, located in Lanjiaping. Its students were mostly educated cadres who had come to Yan’an in the early years of the War of Resistance; the department’s director was Guo Shushen, and its deputy directors were Zhang Ruxin and Yan Dakai. The Party School’s Fourth Department, formed through a merger with the Military and Political Institute, was headed by Zhang Qilong and Zhang Bangying, with Cheng Shicai and Yang Shangkui serving as deputy directors. The Fifth and Sixth departments were originally the Northwest Bureau Party School, which was merged with the Central Party School in early 1944. Most of its students were county- and district-level cadres of the Border Region, or intellectuals from the KMT-controlled areas. Bai Dongcai was director of the Fifth Department, with Qiang Xiaochu and Chao Zhefu serving as deputy directors; Ma Guorui was director of the Sixth Department, with Gu Yunting as deputy director. The Central Party School’s First Department contained a large number of senior cadres who had joined the Party in the 1920s or during the Red Army era. They included Zhu Rui (secretary of the Party’s Shandong Sub-bureau), Bo Yibo, Kong Yuan, Luo Ruiqing, Shao Shiping, Ding Ling, Yan Hongyan, Chen Qihan, Chen Yu, Chen Geng, Song Shilun, Wang Shusheng, Liu Jingfan, Li Peizhi (Wang Ruofei’s wife), Chen Xilian, Ma Wenrui, Han Xianchu, Shu Tong, Chen Zaidao, Wulanfu (Ulanfu), and Cai Shufan. The Party School leaders adopted a policy of differential treatment toward the veteran cadres in the First Department. Veterans of Jinggang Mountain or the Long March were generally not regarded as targets for “emergency rescue,” but they still had to undergo investigation and enhancement of their “line-struggle consciousness.” Li Bozhao was one of the founders of the Red Army’s literary and artistic propaganda work. She and her husband, Yang Shangkun, had both been sent to study in the Soviet Union in the late 1920s, and Li Bozhao had led the Red Army’s agitprop work for a long time after entering the Central Soviet Area in 1931. During the Long March, Li had been assigned to Zhang Guotao’s Fourth Front Red Army to lead its propaganda work. Failing to comprehend the disputes and splits in the Party’s upper levels, Li wrote songs such as “Going Down South” and “Whose Fault” after Mao

Yan’an and the Base Areas during the Emergency Rescue Campaign | 573

broke ranks with Zhang Guotao. In preparation for the Yan’an Forum on Literature and Art in 1942, Mao consulted Li Bozhao on the literature and art situation in the base areas and the Eighth Route Army, and at that point Li made a “sincere self-criticism” and “explained and clarified some circumstances.” During the cadre examination campaign in the First Department, Li Bozhao also carried out a “sincere self-criticism” in her Party branch and handed over autobiographical materials totaling “80,000 words,” in which she engaged in thorough introspection regarding her thinking and past activities.71 Zhu Rui had also studied in the Soviet Union, and during the Ruijin period he had served as political commissar of the Fifth Red Army Group. He became an alternate Central Committee member during the Fifth Plenum of the Sixth Central Committee, and in February 1944 he was transferred from his position as secretary of the Shandong Subbureau to study in the Party School’s First Department. During the cadre examination campaign, Zhu Rui wrote a detailed autobiography and “A Brief Summary of Thoughts during Rectification Study,” in which he repeatedly discussed why he had been “promoted by dogmatists.” Zhu Rui felt that “apart from having the markings of someone who had studied in the Soviet Union and having certain work abilities and having done a great deal of work,” his “thinking methods were dogmatic, which rather suited their tastes.” While at the Party School, Zhu Rui also sent a letter to Liu Shaoqi, in which he wrote, “This round of introspection surpasses any in the past by tenfold or 100-fold. It has mercilessly jolted the longaccumulating root ball of subjectivism in my thinking methods.”72 It was only natural that Li Bozhao and Zhu Rui, with their backgrounds of study in the Soviet Union, would come under attack during a Rectification Movement that focused on opposing dogmatism, but when all was said and done, they had served for years in the Red Army, so the investigation to which they were subjected was relatively mild. In comparison, veteran cadres who had worked in the KMT-controlled areas did not get off so easily, and many were labeled “suspected secret agents” during the cadre examination and emergency rescue campaigns. Zou Fengping is a notable example. Zou Fengping was originally secretary of the Sichuan Province Work Committee. A veteran cadre of the Great Revolution, he had been injured when he was arrested as an underground operative, and a back fracture left him unable to stand upright. While in Chengdu in 1938, Zou Fengping

574  |  HOW THE RED SUN ROSE

arranged to see Chen Yeping, who had come from Kunming hoping to go to Yan’an, and he assigned Chen to Yibin to carry out underground work (Chen Yeping later served as deputy director of the Central Committee Organization Department in the 1960s and 1980s). After the head of the Sichuan Provincial Party Committee, Luo Shiwen, was arrested in 1940, Party cadres in western Sichuan scattered, with Zou Fengping and Zhang Shushi moving to Yan’an, where Zou began studying in the Central Party School’s First Department. During the cadre examination but just before the emergency rescue campaign, Zou came under criticism as a “secret agent.” His new wife succumbed to pressure and falsely incriminated him as a spy, and then went to live with someone else.* Plunged into hopelessness and rage, Zou killed himself.73 Zeng Danru, who had once headed the Women’s Department of the Sichuan Provincial Party Committee, also killed herself in despair during the emergency rescue campaign after suffering torture under false accusations of being a secret agent and a turncoat. During the “vicious circle of extort, confess, believe”74 in the Central Party School First Department’s cadre examination and emergency rescue campaigns, more than 100 veteran cadres were accused of past suspicious political activities, and with Peng Zhen’s permission, these people were assigned to the Second Department in two groups for further investigation. Ding Ling was regarded as a cadre whose issues had not yet been clarified, so judgment was suspended, and in the summer of 1944 she was transferred to the Border Region Writers’ Association. Kong Yuan (Chen Tiezheng), a veteran Party member and head of the South China Bureau’s Organization Department, and Qian Ying, leader of the CCP’s Southwest Work Committee and secretary of the Central and Western

*

  Zou Fengping’s wife at the time, Gan Tang, born Kan Siying, was involved with the Central Committee’s Special Operations Section in 1928, and her elder brother, Kan Junmin, who later changed his name to Liu Ding, was a famous munitions expert in the CCP. Beginning in 1949, Gan Tang was secretary of the Chongqing Municipal Women’s Committee and deputy chief judge and deputy secretary of the Party group of Sichuan Province High Court. When the Long March reached Zunyi in 1935, Gan Tang was sent into the surrounding areas and, like other dispersed Red Army soldiers, she organized a guerrilla force. She was taken prisoner in 1936. She came under severe attack during the Yan’an Rectification Movement. Her last years were desolate; she died of untreated illness in 1971.

Yan’an and the Base Areas during the Emergency Rescue Campaign | 575

Hubei Regional Party Committee, were both falsely accused of being “turncoats,” “secret agents,” and members of a “Red Flag party,” and they underwent rounds of criticism at rallies and in small meetings.75 Henan Provincial Party Committee leaders, such as Wang Zhijie and Guo Xiaotang, were also publicly framed as secret agents and they were rounded up in the Central Party School’s First Department. Kang Sheng personally sat in on a denunciation rally during which Wang and Guo were forced to confess that “the Henan Party was a Red Flag party, and they were secret agents and turncoats.” As soon as the rally began, Guo Xiaotang and others were pulled onto the stage. When Guo refused to admit to the charges, Wang Zhijie was brought to the stage and ordered to confess within five minutes. When Wang tried to reason with them, saying, “The Henan Party carried out the line of the Party Central Committee,” the rally chairman prevented Wang from speaking and declared Wang and Guo expelled from the Party. The two men were then tied up and taken to the Central Party School’s confinement center in Liushuwan. (After China’s victory in the War of Resistance, Wang Zhijie’s Party membership was restored and he was transferred to the Taihang Base Area to work. Guo Xiaotang’s Party membership was not restored until 1950. Soon after the Cultural Revolution began in 1966, the Henan Provincial Party Committee expelled Guo, and he was first on a list of people criticized in Henan Daily as “traitors” and “secret agents,” among other things.) Former Henan provincial Party secretary Zhang Weizhen was subjected to roundthe-clock interrogations, exhaustion tactics, and a fake execution, and he was ultimately designated a secret agent.76 Among the Henan Provincial Party Committee cadres investigated in the Central Party School’s First Department, the case of Ye Jianying’s former wife, Wei Gongzhi, stands out. One of the Party’s few female intellectual cadres, Wei had taken part in the Guangzhou Uprising, had studied in the Soviet Union, and had joined the Long March, but she had come under attack and had been expelled from the Party during the Ruijin period as a “suspected Trotskyite.” After the beginning of the War of Resistance, Wei was sent to work in Henan, and the provincial Party committee had selected her as its representative to the Seventh Party Congress, which is what brought Wei to Yan’an in April 1940. Using the pretext of taking part in rectification study and helping the Party examine Henan cadres, the upper-level organization had Wei and others transferred to the Central Party School for what was actually an investigation of their

576  |  HOW THE RED SUN ROSE

records. Wei soon found herself labeled a “secret agent” and she was place in isolation for investigation. Unable to withstand the persecution, Wei stabbed herself in the neck with a scissors. In spite of a massive loss of blood, her life was spared.77 Bo Yibo, who that year was recruited to the First Department as head of its Party branch, in his later years recorded his recollections of the horrors he witnessed during the emergency rescue campaign: One unforgettable incident continues to invade my mind years later. ... At that time, my mother had come with me to Yan’an, and I settled her in a cave dwelling in a deep ravine. One day when I went to visit her, she said, “I don’t like living here. Every night I hear wailing and howling—I don’t know what is going on.” I went deeper into the ravine and found at least six or seven caves holding more than 100 people, many of whom had gone insane. I asked what had happened to them, and some laughed while others wept. ... Finally a guard was compelled to tell me: They were intellectuals who had undergone “emergency rescue” after coming to Yan’an to study! 78 Bo Yibo’s memoirs do not specify which organ was overseeing the ravine in which those 100 people were imprisoned, but he explicitly records that the Central Party School had caves for imprisoning cadres. Bo Yibo discovered that “the cave dwellings at the southwest corner of the Central Party School imprisoned another 150 cadres who had been ‘rescued’ during the ‘emergency rescue campaign,’” among them Wu Jingtian and Song Weizheng. One of the people investigated at the time was the famous historian Lü Zhenyu, who with his wife had accompanied Liu Shaoqi from Central China to Yan’an at the end of 1942. After reaching Yan’an, Lü was no longer a party to confidential matters and he was assigned research work. Upon entering the Central Party School’s First Department, he quickly became embroiled in a case against Trotskyites. During the emergency rescue campaign, a man name Wang and his wife, who had previously been acquainted with Lü, were induced to report that Lü was a Trotskyite, and after repeated interrogations, Wang’s wife finally confessed. The interrogators then followed up with Wang himself, but he categorically denied it and stated that his wife had never even met Lü Zhenyu. Under continued relentless pressure, however, Wang too was finally forced to

Yan’an and the Base Areas during the Emergency Rescue Campaign | 577

finger Lü as a “Trotskyite.” Wang soon withdrew his confession, but Lü was nevertheless placed under investigation. Lü wrote out his personal history in detail and categorically denied that he was a Trotskyite. He remained implicated in the matter for nearly a year, preventing him from carrying out his plan to write A Concise History of China.79 The head of the First Department, Gu Dacun, was an experienced Party veteran from Guangdong Province. After the Red Army left for the Long March, he continued to engage in guerrilla warfare in the highlands of northern Guangdong. He arrived in Yan’an after the start of the War of Resistance; enjoying the trust of Mao, Liu Shaoqi, and Peng Zhen, he was given the important task of heading up the investigation of senior cadres. In the Central Party School’s First Department, Gu acted with boldness, resolve, and speed to label a large number of cadres as “secret agents,” “turncoats,” and “suspected spies,” causing considerable resentment among the cadres. Tao Zhu’s wife, Zeng Zhi, was a student in the First Department at that time, and Gu Dacun believed there were suspicious parts to her record. Unable to immediately clarify them, he delayed reaching a conclusion on the credibility of Zeng’s personal debriefing and he “suspended judgment” on her. Zeng Zhi and Tao Zhu greatly resented this, and Tao criticized Gu to his face, demanding to know why Zeng’s case, relying purely on Gu’s subjective judgment, remained open for two years without evidence. In 1954, Gu Dacun gave a speech at the Fourth Plenum of the Seventh Central Committee, during which he criticized himself for the harm he had caused to some cadres while leading the Rectification Movement in the Central Party School’s First Department.80 The experience nevertheless cast a lingering shadow over relations between Gu and Tao Zhu. In the 1950s and 1960s, while serving as the top leader in Guangdong, Tao Zhu subjected Gu Dacun, then vice governor of Guangdong Province, to repeated suppression and attack, and he finally designated him an “anti-Party regionalist.”81 An Ziwen claimed that the Central Party School’s Second Department learned from the experience of the First Department and “did not engage in an emergency rescue campaign.”82 The fact is that although the Second Department did not carry out a large-scale campaign, it did continue carrying out strict investigations of cadres; the temperature of struggle was simply milder. Nearly all of Yan’an’s most famous intellectuals were concentrated in the Third Department; apart from the intellectual cadres in the Central

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Research Institute, the writers and artists who belonged to the Yan’an branch of the All-China Literary and Art Circles Resistance Association (most of whom had come from KMT-controlled deep rear territories and North China Base Areas) were sent to the Central Party School once the cadre examinations began and were assigned to the Third Department (the Yan’an branch of the Resistance Association, which had once had a dynamic presence in the Border Region, withered away in spring 1943). From 1943 to 1945, intellectual Party members undergoing investigation in the Third Department included Fan Wenlan, Chen Xuezhao (who joined the Party in 1945), Yu Heiding, Ma Jia, Wu Boxiao, Zhou Erfu, Bai Lang, Luo Feng, Fang Ji, Feng Lanrui, Zeng Ke, Liu Baiyu, Ouyang Shan, Cao Ming, Ye Huosheng, Chen Boer, Jin Ziguang, Chen Ming, and Liu Xuewei. The intellectual Party cadres in the Third Department were grouped into seven Party branches, which followed the school’s arrangements by engaging in an intense struggle to reveal their past activities and examine their thinking. Bai Lang was a famous exiled writer from the Northeast. After arriving in Yan’an, she worked with her husband, Luo Feng, in the Yan’an’s Resistance Association and was then transferred to the Supplements Department of Liberation Daily. Luo Feng had offended Mao and Zhou Enlai with his essay “It Is Still the Era of the Essay,” and although not yet publicly criticized, he had been placed in the register of disreputable people. During the cadre examination and emergency rescue campaigns, Bai Lang came under enormous pressure, first at Liberation Daily and then in the Third Department. During a year and a half of persecution, “Bai Lang became muddle-headed and apathetic, and hardly said a word all day.”83 Fang Ji, who would later gain fame for an essay eulogizing Mao’s arrival in Chongqing for negotiations with the KMT, came under attack during the emergency rescue campaign. Wu Boxiao, on the other hand, was even designated an “anti-Party element.” Wu had studied at the Whampoa Military Academy, and when word spread in the KMTcontrolled areas that he had been persecuted to death, a memorial ceremony was held for him in Xi’an. On July 3, 1944, Wu published an article entitled “I Reject the Shameless Memorial Ceremony” in Liberation Daily, describing himself as “living happily and creating” in Yan’an and “never undergoing a purge.”84

Yan’an and the Base Areas during the Emergency Rescue Campaign | 579

In July and August 1943, several famous writers who were not Party members and who had settled in the “writers’ colony” in the Northwest Bureau, including Sai Ke and Ai Qing, as well as others who had gone to Yan’an from the base areas in northern China, such as Yang Shuo and Zhou Erfu, were notified that they should report to the Central Party School’s Third Department. Subsequently, Sai Ke’s wife, Wei An, and Ai Qing’s wife, Feng Sha, were also summoned to the Third Department. In March 1944, Xiao Jun and his wife, Wang Defen, who had returned from their self-imposed exile in Yan’an County’s Chuankou District, were also sent to the Third Department. The original principle that non-Party members could not enter the Central Party School was broken at this time. The couples were divided into several groups, and in addition to being prevented from participating in Party activities, they were subjected to the same investigations of their personal histories and they participated in study to transform their thinking. Sai Ke was a man of wit and talent, an outstanding stage actor, playwright, and poet who had gained overnight fame in Shanghai for playing the lead role in The Father’s Return, by the Japanese playwright Kikuchi Kan. Just before the War of Resistance began, he had written the play 30 Million Refugees as well as the popular song “Save Our Nation,” and after arriving in Yan’an, he had written “Song of February,” so he should have been considered an asset to the Party. However, strolling around Yan’an carrying a walking stick, Sai Ke had an intense personality and an utter intolerance for evil and he never fawned upon anyone. Some leaders regarded him as an unreformed madman, and he was never assigned any important tasks in Yan’an. It was inevitable that he would be placed under investigation in the Central Party School’s Third Department. Gao Changhong’s situation was an exception. Gao had engaged in a war of words with Lu Xun in 1926 and he was the leader of the Sturm und Drang Society in the 1920s.* Gao arrived in Yan’an in November 1941, having traveled there on foot after being recommended by Wang Shiying, head of the Eighth Route Army’s Office in the second war zone, and he was received with welcome and respect. Beginning in 1942, however, Gao faded from view. During the emergency rescue campaign, because Gao

*

  TN: A literary group founded in Shanghai in 1926.

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had “directly criticized the Central Committee and even had criticized Stalin,” Kang Sheng labeled him a member of the Chinese Youth Party* and “wanted to persecute him”; it was only due to protection by Bo Gu and Zhang Wentian that he escaped disaster. Gao Changhong was probably the only exception at that time in that he was never sent to the Third Department.† 85 The cadre examination and emergency rescue campaigns and subsequent reexamination of cases in the Third Department lasted more than one year, and even while under investigation, intellectuals in the Third Department did not neglect their work in coordination with the existing political tasks. In 1944, Chen Boer from the Third Department and Yao Zhongming from the Fourth Department wrote a play entitled Comrade, You’re Traveling the Wrong Road, attacking “Wang Ming Right deviating capitulationism.” The play was performed in Yan’an, where the leadership praised its importance. In 1944 all of the Party School Departments except for the Third Department received orders from the Central Committee to shift to studying “the two lines.” The higher-ups stipulated that “persons whose problems have yet to be cleared up” could not join in studying the “Party’s line.” Consequently, Ding Ling, in the First Department, was not allowed to join in “line study” with the other students.86 The Third Department, as a unit for those with serious problems, was entered into the register of disrepute in its entirety. Those intellectuals with their “complicated histories,” “complicated thinking,” and “arrogance and conceit” were relegated to “pulling down trousers and lopping off tails,” providing detailed debriefings of their histories and reflecting on their errors. In the eyes of some of those in Yan’an’s highest reaches, the intellectuals of the Third Department were a group of “aliens” who did not deserve to study “the history of struggle between the two lines.” In summer 1944, a group of Chinese and foreign reporters visited Yan’an and, in admiration of the reputation of the Central Party School, *

  TN: The largest political party after the KMT and the CCP in the 1930s and 1940s, the Chinese Youth Party opposed both the Nationalist dictatorship and the Communists, and it demanded constitutional rule for China. †   In August 1945, Mao arranged to see Gao Zhanghong and sought his views on the direction of his future work. When Gao said he wanted to go to the United States to observe the economy, Mao flew into a rage and immediately drove him out, with the two “parting on bad terms.”

Yan’an and the Base Areas during the Emergency Rescue Campaign | 581

they repeatedly requested an opportunity to visit it during their tour. When their request was tactfully denied, one journalist sighed with a quote from The Analects:* “The Master’s walls are fathoms high, and I cannot gain admittance through the gate.”87 Under Peng Zhen’s direct leadership, the Central Party School took the lead in the emergency rescue campaign, resulting in massive injustices. This period of history has been meticulously covered up, and as late as the 1980s and 1990s people continued to gloss over its errors. On July 26, 1986, former Central Party School secretary general Huang Huoqing, Guo Shushen, and others published an article entitled “Looking Back at the Rectification Movement at Yan’an’s Central Party School,” which managed to devote not a single word to the tragedy of that school’s “emergency rescue” campaign.88 In 1995 Huang Huoqing published a memoir entitled The Experience of an Ordinary Communist Party Member, which mentions the “very great influence” of the “magnification of the campaign against secret agents” that “wounded the feelings of many comrades,” but then it immediately emphasizes that the Party School’s errors were “promptly corrected,” and it makes no mention of the details of the “emergency rescue” campaign.89 In distinct contrast to Huang Huoqing is Bo Yibo, who in 1996 justly pointed out, “The Central Party School was one of the major disaster zones of the ‘emergency rescue campaign.’” Bo Yibo is the only CCP leader to have criticized the campaign at the Central Party School.

VI. The Emergency Rescue Campaign at Yan’an’s Natural Science Institute Yan’an Natural Science Institute was Yan’an’s sole industrial technology school. It was established in May 1939 as the Natural Science Research Institute, but in January 1940 it was changed from a research unit to a technical school, with an Undergraduate Section established in September 1940 to provide classes in biology, physics, chemistry, geology, and mining. It subsequently changed its course offerings to mechanics, chemical

*

  TN: The full quote from the Analects of Confucius goes, “The Master’s walls are fathoms high. Unless one gains admittance through the gate, one cannot see the magnificence of the ancestral temples or the sumptuousness of the buildings.”

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engineering, and agriculture, with an attached tutoring school for students 12 to 13 years old. It had a total of more than 600 students and teachers. The Central Committee appointed a famous Yan’an educator, Xu Teli, as director of Yan’an Natural Science Institute in December 1940. After the Rectification Movement transitioned into the cadre examination campaign, Xu Teli was transferred back to the Propaganda Department, where he took charge of writing teaching materials for cadre education. The Northwest Bureau sent a former Central Committee Organization Department cadre, Chen Bocun,* to take over management of Yan’an Natural Science Institute, and the institute’s cadre examination, anti-spy, and emergency rescue campaigns came under the direct leadership of the Northwest Bureau. Yan’an Natural Science Institute was one of the major disaster zones of the cadre examination and emergency rescue campaigns. Many of its teachers and students were young intellectual Party members who had gone to Yan’an from the KMT-controlled areas, and they rapidly came under heavy attack once the campaigns gained momentum. Most of the undergraduate students and teachers were labeled “secret agents,” including instructor Wu Heng (who served as deputy director of the Chinese Academy of Sciences beginning in 1976). A generous and kindly man, known in Yan’an as the “dear old grandpa of the revolution,” Xu Teli was extremely uncomfortable with the emergency rescue campaign in Yan’an Natural Science Institute. Although some veteran Party cadres knew that Xu had been Mao’s teacher at Changsha No. 1 Normal School, Xu never spoke of it, and when others asked him about it, he denied it. From the perspective of Mao’s “line struggle,” Xu’s “line struggle sensitivity” was meagre. Before the Rectification Movement, Xu delivered a talk at the Marxism-Leninism Institute appealing to cadres to study philosophy. Xu said, “In our Party, there are only two people who are generally knowledgeable about Marxist philosophy. One is Runzhi [Mao’s style name], and the other is Luo Fu [Zhang Wentian].”90 There was nothing wrong with praising Mao, of course, but mentioning Zhang Wentian in the same breath as Mao was *

  Chen Bocun was declared a member of the “Gao-Rao Anti-Party Alliance” in 1954, but he was exonerated after the Cultural Revolution.

Yan’an and the Base Areas during the Emergency Rescue Campaign | 583

strictly taboo. It was obvious that a kindly old man like Xu was utterly unsuitable for leading the cadre examination campaign, and that is why he was transferred. While the security apparatus was going around campus arresting people at the height of the campaign, Xu was sent back to the Propaganda Department, and although he was not formally dismissed from his position as institute director, he was not allowed to inquire into the campaign there. He nevertheless walked the 10 or 20 kilometers to the institute nearly every day. Once, while on his way to the Natural Science Institute, Xu Teli chanced upon a group of security officers leading away a pregnant young woman bound with ropes. Xu wordlessly took off his jacket and draped it over the woman. For that act of kindness, he was criticized for “sympathizing with a counterrevolutionary.”91 For all his prestige in Yan’an, the 67-year-old Xu Teli, hard as he tried, was unable to protect the teachers and students at Yan’an Natural Science Institute. The cadre examination and emergency rescue campaigns raged on according to their own logic, and as summer arrived, the emergency rescue campaign penetrated the tutoring school for secondary-school students, “rescuing” more than thirty “secret agents” among these adolescents. In autumn 1943, the Natural Science Institute was merged with Yan’an University, and its Secondary-School Division was likewise merged with that of Yan’an University. By the end of 1943, the SecondarySchool Section of Yan’an University had also unearthed more than thirty “secret agents,” nabbing a total of more than seventy young students. Yan’an University’s Secondary-School Section had more than 200 students divided into five classes, the majority of whom were dependents of Communist martyrs or cadres; there were also some “young Eighth Route Army troops” transferred from the army. Eventually, one-third of these young students were labeled “secret agents.”92 One victim of the emergency rescue campaign who was held out as a classic “secret agent” was Peng Erning (Qian Jiaji), who also came from Yan’an Natural Science Institute. Peng was labeled a “moonlighting secret agent” and a “double agent” (i.e., serving both Japan and the KMT), and was secretly arrested, along with the head of the Border Region Bank, Huang Yaguang, and others, by the Kang Sheng apparatus in 1942. After the Rectification Movement transitioned into the cadre examination and emergency rescue campaigns, Kang Sheng hauled out Peng as conclusive

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proof that “secret agents were everywhere” in Yan’an.* To a great extent, Peng Erning’s imprisonment was an independent action by Kang Sheng and his apparatus and it was beyond the control of Yan’an Natural Science Institute. Peng Erning came from an aristocratic family: his father, Qian Laisu, was a member of Sun Yat-sen’s Alliance Society and had served as military adviser with the rank of major-general in the Second War Zone during the War of Resistance.† Peng Erning graduated with a degree in Chinese from Beiping’s China University in 1939, and in 1940 he eventually made his way to Yan’an, at which time he was sent to study at Yan’an Natural Science Institute. At the outset of the Rectification Movement, Peng was a non-Party member on the Standing Committee of the institute’s Rectification Committee.93 After Peng drew a sunflower for the masthead of the institute’s wall newspaper, Kang Sheng claimed that the drawing expressed Peng’s “yearning for Japanese imperialism” and Kang had him secretly arrested, eventually designating him a “secret agent for Japan and the KMT.” The main reason why Peng Erning met with disaster was that Kang Sheng was extremely suspicious of his personal background. Peng Erning came from Japanese-occupied Beiping. His family background was complicated, and he had arrived in Yan’an without a letter of introduction from the North China Bureau. From the perspective of a security apparatus suspicious of everything, Peng was definitely a “problematic person.” Kang Sheng was an ultra-Leftist who even managed to find fault with people whose personal histories were unambiguous, not to mention someone like Peng Erning who raised so many red flags. Peng’s arrival in 1940 from Beiping was an additional strike against him. Following the outbreak of the War of Resistance, from 1937 to 1938 quite a few young people fled northern China and sought refuge in Yan’an, and although *

  Before retiring with the status of a veteran cadre, Peng Erning was director and deputy Party secretary of Northwest Forestry Institute. While recalling the Yan’an Natural Science Institute in a 1987 essay commemorating Xu Teli, he discussed the “Yan’an spirit” as well as scientific research and educational activities at the institute, but he made no mention of what had happened to him, possibly out of a reluctance to touch on lasting psychic wounds. †   TN: The Eighteenth Group Army, or Eighth Route Army, was assigned to the Second War Zone in northern Shanxi Province under Yan Xishan’s command.

Yan’an and the Base Areas during the Emergency Rescue Campaign | 585

these people also had to undergo background checks, most were handled by Organization Departments rather than security organs and the majority were cleared. Beginning in 1939, however, young people arriving from northern China were regarded with increasing suspicion, and many were locked up and dealt with as Trotskyites, so it was inevitable that Peng would run into trouble. After Peng Erning was arrested, his father, Qian Laisu, was also implicated, as was his younger sister, Qian Jiamei, and her husband, Sun Jingyuan. Qian Laisu secretly arrived in Yan’an with his daughter and sonin-law in March 1943, just as the Rectification Movement shifted to the cadre examination and anti-spy campaigns, and he was unaware that his son had already been arrested. Disgruntled with Chiang Kai-shek, Qian had obtained a letter of introduction from Wang Shiying, head of the Eighth Route Army’s Office in the Second War Zone, having no idea of the atmosphere of “sharpened vigilance” that he would encounter. After arriving in Yan’an, Qian was courteously welcomed and given housing in Yan’an’s Communications Office, while his daughter and son-in-law were sent to Yan’an University for background checks. Qian Laisu had always admired Mao and Zhu De and he longed to meet them, but he never got the chance. Unlike in 1937 and 1938 when Mao was obliged for political reasons to make friends wherever he could, he now had no interest in people like Qian, who had been thwarted and deprived of all their influence. In particular, given that his son had been designated a “double agent,” a meeting with Mao was out of the question. Qian had traveled so far to Yan’an, and now with Mao so close at hand, he still could not see him. It was not before long that Qian received the bad news that his daughter and son-in-law had both been placed in isolation for investigation at Yan’an University as suspected “secret agents.” After devoting himself heart and soul to the CCP, Qian Laisu had fallen into a truly hopeless situation. His son, daughter, and son-in-law had all become “secret agents” plotting against the revolution, and although he himself had not yet been arrested, being kept at the Communications Office all the time was not far from being arrested and detained. It was just at this time that Wang Shiying was ordered to have a talk with Qian and advise him to “explain everything.” Qian retorted, “It was you who recommended I come to Yan’an, and now you are calling me a secret agent? What are you really after?” After this conversation, Qian Laisu went on a hunger strike as a means of protest.

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On the surface, it appeared that Qian was being forced to make a confession because his son, daughter, and son-in-law had been labeled “secret agents.” At a deeper level, however, Yan’an’s top leadership was also deeply suspicious of Qian. The head of Yan’an’s Communications Office at that time, Jin Cheng, subsequently revealed that “a comrade in the central leadership who was in charge of the rectification and cadre examination campaigns suspected that the elderly Mr. Qian Laisu had connections with the Japanese imperialists.” Who was that comrade? It was certainly not Kang Sheng or Jin Cheng would have named him outright. In my analysis, the “comrade in the central leadership” was probably Peng Zhen or Ren Bishi. Throughout the rectification and cadre examination campaigns, after Kang Sheng Peng Zhen was the most active individual. Peng had worked in northern China for a long time and he was familiar with the “enemy situation” and the political situation there. According to a certain cadre examination logic, Qian raised many red flags: He had been active in the Northeast Army for a long time during the Zhang Xueliang era, and it would have been difficult for him to have had no involvement with the Japanese. Then, after the Mukden Incident of September 18, 1931, Qian had lived in Beiping as a person who had lost all influence; Beiping society became complicated after the Mukden Incident, and many of the thwarted politicians and military officials of the former Beiyang regime established relations with the Japanese occupiers. After the beginning of the War of Resistance, Qian Laisu had gone to Shanxi to work with senior commanders in Yan Xishan’s army in the Second War Zone. Qian had had no previous contact with the CCP, yet here he was in Yan’an, and his genuine intentions came under deep suspicion. Which “leading comrade” besides Peng Zhen was so familiar with the situation in northern China and so likely to have a say such in things? I mention Ren Bishi only as a general conjecture. Ren was the Central Committee member who had been delegated by Mao to lead the work of the Northwest Bureau, and he was very influential in the cadre examination and emergency rescue campaigns carried out in the Shaan-Gan-Ning Border Region apparatus and in the Northwest Bureau apparatus. At this stage in particular, he regularly inquired after specific cases. Even so, I believe the person directly responsible for Qian Laisu’s case was most probably Peng Zhen.

Yan’an and the Base Areas during the Emergency Rescue Campaign | 587

VII. The Emergency Rescue Campaign at the Lu Xun Academy of Arts (Yan’an University) Yan’an’s Lu Xun Academy of Arts (Lu Xun Academy) was established in April 1938, originally offering courses in drama, music, and the fine arts, and then expanding to also include literature. The academy’s nominal directors were first Mao and then Party elder Wu Yuzhang, but actual operations were handled by the deputy director, Zhou Yang. As head both of the Border Region Education Department and Lu Xun Academy, Zhou Yang was a force to contend with in Yan’an’s artistic, education, and propaganda circles. At the outset of the Rectification Movement, the Central Committee’s Cultural Committee apparatus formed a branch study committee headed by Zhou Yang, and in accordance with the arrangements of the CCGSC, Zhou led the academy’s staff and students in the 1942 campaign against Wang Shiwei. When the Rectification Movement transitioned to its cadre examination stage, Zhou Yang energetically screened out suspicious elements, and by the time of the mass round-up on April 1, 1943, he had already ferreted out twenty-nine suspected major spies and had handed them over to the Border Region security unit for investigation and interrogation.94 On March 16, 1943, the Standing Committee of the Northwest Bureau decided to merge Lu Xun Academy, the Romanization Cadre School, the National Minorities Institute, and the Natural Science Institute into Yan’an University. The merged school was located on the Lu Xun Academy campus in Qiaoergou, and Wu Yuzhang continued on as director, with Zhou Yang likewise continuing on as deputy director. This meeting of the Standing Committee also decided “to assign work to those who had no political problems but who are not qualified for study; to retain for further study those who are suited to continue studying; and to retain for rectification those who have political problems.”95 The merger of Lu Xun Academy and the other schools with Yan’an University increased the university’s head-count to more than 1,600 people. In order to avoid confusion that might affect the rectification and cadre examination campaigns, the Northwest Bureau’s Standing Committee declared that the original supervisory jurisdictions of the various schools would be preserved; rectification of Yan’an Natural Science Institute remained under the direct leadership of the Northwest Bureau, whereas

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Zhou Yang led the rectification at Lu Xun Academy and the other schools under the leadership of the Propaganda Bureau. Although the March 16 meeting proposed “retaining for further study those who are suited to continue to study,” this was impossible under the prevailing circumstances. Following the mass round-up on April 1, 1943, a candor campaign was comprehensively launched. On May 18, Zhou Yang convened the first university-wide candor mobilization rally at the merged university and he ordered that each of Yan’an University’s four institutes prepare their own candor rallies. After several days, all four institutes had discovered suspected secret agents, with the most substantial results found at Lu Xun Academy under Zhou Yang’s direct leadership, where twelve individuals with various problems were ferreted out.96 Lu Xun Academy’s candor rally was convened on schedule on May 21, with Accounting Office head Cao Guanghua and several others mounting the stage to confess. The atmosphere at the rally was tense, lasting thirteen hours before finally adjourning at 11 o’clock that night. Zhou Yang required that each institute use the people who had already confessed as models for a three-day crash candor campaign in which the institutes competed with one another in terms of both confessions and accusations.97 During that three-day crash candor campaign led by Zhou Yang, the teachers and the students of Lu Xun Academy established many advisory groups, which, in accordance with the organization’s arrangements, had heart-to-heart talks with the suspects, “urging them in the morning, at noon, and in the depths of night; urging them today, tomorrow, and the day after, or even keeping them awake all night.” Under this intensive persuasion offensive, twenty-three people confessed to their misdeeds during the crash candor campaign, which when added to the twenty-five who had already confessed made a total of fifty-two people at Lu Xun Academy who admitted to being “secret agents.”98 It should be pointed out that before the emergency rescue campaign was formally launched in July 1943, the candor campaign at Lu Xun Academy had been fairly mild, with no one being trussed up and hung from the rafters or subjected to other such violent methods. Beginning in July, however, the situation changed dramatically. “Mass anti-spy struggle spread like wildfire in the form of rallies, meetings, individual counseling, group counseling, and other types of struggle that the masses created themselves,”99 and violence rapidly permeated Lu Xun Academy and the other institutes, with frequent reports of people committing suicide.

Yan’an and the Base Areas during the Emergency Rescue Campaign | 589

At that time, Yan’an had several famous writers who were not Party members, including Sai Ke (Chen Ningqiu) and his wife, Ai Qing and his wife, and Gao Changhong. Because they had attained nationwide fame before arriving in Yan’an, they enjoyed preferential treatment for a time. Sai Ke and the others were settled in the Northwest Bureau’s “writers’ colony” in Qiaoergou, where they enjoyed the privilege of separate cave dwellings and they were permitted to engage in creative activities. Zhou Erfu and Yang Shuo (not yet a Party member in 1943), who had arrived in Yan’an from the base area in northern China, were also allowed to live in the “writers’ colony” so they could “reflect in literary form the life of the Eighth Route Army and of ordinary people in combat.” However, “what seemed to be a haven of peace” in Qiaoergou soon came under attack during the emergency rescue campaign. In the tumult of the emergency rescue campaign, “the political atmosphere became increasingly tense” at Lu Xun Academy below the dwellings of Sai Ke, Zhou Erfu, and Gao Changhong. One artist at the academy and his family self-immolated because they could not bear the persecution.100 An instructor at the academy, the woodblock artist Yan Han, personally witnessed a youth under interrogation bursting out of the room where he was being held and leaping off a cliff while screaming, “I’m innocent!”—his anguished cries echoing throughout the ravine.101 Living in caves on the side of the mountain, Sai Ke and the others could easily see what was happening below them, “groups of cadres being arrested, the voices of people being forced into confessions” and the “earthshaking sounds of shouted slogans” carrying up the mountain. Sai Ke, who had planned to write a play at the writers’ colony, found it impossible to complete it. Sai Ke’s inability to write his play during the tempest of class struggle only demonstrated his ideological inferiority; a true proletarian revolutionary cultural warrior would have cried out, “Let the tempest of the revolution come, and come down harder!” At the height of the emergency rescue campaign, the leading comrade of the revolutionary cultural battlefront, Zhou Yang, never for a moment forgot the mission he had undertaken. Busy as he was unearthing “secret agents,” he kept thinking of how art and literature could be used in service to the current political situation. Under Zhou Yang’s direct leadership, Lu Xun Academy quickly managed to produce a play called Emergency Rescue of the Lost. This play was written by Zhou Libo, Chen Huangmei, and Yuan Wenshu,

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and it was directed by Shui Hua. “The plot involved a secret agent leading another person to infiltrate Yan’an, where they carried out sabotage.” In order to make the play as realistic as possible, special arrangements were made for a person currently under investigation, Luo Wen, to play the part of the secret agent, described euphemistically as “playing the role himself with more genuine understanding.” Later, when the political winds shifted, Zhou Yang ordered rehearsal of the play to cease, but Luo Wen continued to be interrogated at night by the cadre examination group of the Drama Department at Lu Xun Academy.102 The scale of Yan’an University was further enlarged in May 1944 due to a merger with Northwest Institute of Public Administration. The institute had been established in July 1940 for the purpose of training administrative cadres for the Border Region, but in October 1942 the Northwest Bureau turned the institute into a holding center for suspects to undergo introspection in the cadre examination campaign. Wang Ziyi was sent to serve as the institute’s deputy director in November 1942, and soon thereafter suspect individuals were discovered among the institute’s administrators and instructors. The security organs formally arrested institute director Wang Zhongyan on April 17, 1943, and thirty-two “secret agents” were ferreted out by the end of that month.103 However, Northwest Institute of Public Administration was more than a temporary detention camp for suspects from the Border Region’s various work-units; it also underwent a harsh purge. By May 1944, 440 of the 1,877 instructors and students at Yan’an University had been screened out as suspects.104

VIII. The Emergency Rescue Campaign in the Jin-Cha-Ji, JinSui, and Taihang Base Areas The Jin-Cha-Ji Base Area, also known as the North China (Huabei) Base Area, was the first strategic base area developed by the CCP after the start of the War of Resistance. In spring 1941, the base area’s Party secretary, Peng Zhen, was ordered back to Yan’an, and Nie Rongzhen became the top leader of the region’s unified Party, government, and military apparatus. In August 1943, Nie was summoned to Yan’an for the Seventh Party Congress, and the deputy secretary of the Jin-Cha-Ji Sub-bureau and political commissar of the military region, Cheng Zihua, took over as top leader. The full-scale launch of the Rectification Movement in 1942 occurred

Yan’an and the Base Areas during the Emergency Rescue Campaign | 591

at the worst possible time for the Jin-Cha-Ji Base Area. In the harsh wartime environment of the Japanese invaders’ impregnable encirclement and annihilation campaigns, the Rectification Movement could be carried out only intermittently and was basically limited to “education by positive example” through the study of documents. It was only after the wartime situation eased up in 1944 that a full-scale Rectification Movement could begin in the base area. The rectification and cadre examination campaigns in the North China Base Area were carried out under Cheng Zihua’s direction. The main method was for upper-level leading cadres to study the rectification documents on the job and to carry out criticism and self-criticism, and then to round up cadres with “problems” for further study and to undergo investigation in the Party School. Jin-Cha-Ji Daily publisher and chief editor Deng Tuo was transferred to the sub-bureau Party School for study in the summer of 1944, and after a short period of studying documents, the Rectification Movement quickly transitioned into its cadre examination stage. Under this tense atmosphere, Deng Tuo and his wife, Ding Yilan, “hardly saw each other,” even though they were studying at the same Party School. The investigation of Deng Tuo mainly centered on his having twice been arrested. Prior to the War of Resistance, Deng had engaged in resistance work in Henan and now that the notion of the Henan underground Party being a “Red Plag party” had spread from Yan’an to Jin-Cha-Ji, Deng inevitably fell under suspicion. Profoundly distressed at being investigated due to this undeserved allegation, Deng Tuo wrote his wife a long poem in which he conveyed his disillusionment.105 Trotskyites were the main focus of investigation during the Rectif ication Movement and cadre examination campaign. Wang Renzhong, at that time a member of the Standing Committee of the Southern Hebei Party Committee, secretary of the fourth sub-district, and political commissar of the military sub-district, was suspected of being a Trotskyite, as was military region chief of staff Wang Yunrui. Wang Renzhong was an intellectual cadre who had been sent to southern Hebei from Yan’an in 1938, and he had served as deputy director and then director of the regional Party committee’s Propaganda Department before attaining his current position. While Wang Renzhong was undergoing investigation, the secretary of the Ji-Lu-Yu Sub-bureau (also known as the Pingyuan Sub-bureau), Huang Jing, recommended transferring Wang Renzhong to serve as head of the sub-bureau’s Propaganda Department,

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but permission was denied. After Wang Renzhong was recalled to Yan’an, he had to undergo further investigation to clear him of his alleged “problems” before he was allowed to return to southern Hebei.106 Most of the suspected Trotskyites were intellectual cadres who typically had engaged in resistance work or in military rebellion mobilization work in the KMT-controlled areas prior to their arrival in the CCP Base Areas. The Communist Party organization in the KMTcontrolled areas had been seriously sabotaged during the Civil War, and Communist Party members who lost contact with the organization joined various Left-wing organizations. Some continued their activities as Communist Party members and recruited other Leftist young people into the Party. Most such people were subsequently labeled Trotskyites and became targets of the purges. At the outset of the War of Resistance, Communist Party members engaging in military rebellion mobilization within the Nationalist Army either withdrew to the Communist Base Areas with rebel troops or returned to the base areas due to setbacks in their work; these people were also frequently regarded as Trotskyites. They were purged mainly because the Party considered them politically untrustworthy; calling them Trotskyites was just a convenient label. The vast majority of the victims of such purges had absolutely no connection with Trotskyites as a group or with Trotskyism as an ideology. Jin-Cha-Ji’s campaigns to “eliminate Trotskyites” and “ferret out spies” were carried out in secret in 1938, with Xiong Dazheng and Li Xiaochu the first victims. Xiong Dazheng had been a junior faculty member in physics at Tsinghua University before the War of Resistance, and the head of the College of Science, Ye Qisun, had recommended him for overseas study in Germany, but the outbreak of the war had derailed that plan. Xiong arrived in the Central Hebei Base Area in the summer of 1938 with special responsibility to secretly purchase munitions, medicine, and communications equipment from Tianjin. In spring 1939, having by then become head of the Central Hebei Military Region Supplies Department, Xiong was secretly arrested by the Jin-Cha-Ji Military Region’s Spy Elimination Department and executed as a “traitor” and a “KMT agent.” Nearly 100 other intellectual cadres who had gone to central Hebei from Beiping or Tianjin were subsequently tied to Xiong and arrested (although most were subsequently released). The injustice against Xiong Dazheng was not redressed until the Hebei Provincial Party Committee posthumously rehabilitated him in 1986.107

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Lü Zhengcao, a former officer of the Northeast Army, secretly joined the Communist Party just before the War of Resistance; his sponsor was Li Xiaochu, who had infiltrated the Northeast Army for the North China Bureau. After the 1937 Marco Polo Bridge Incident, Lü Zhengcao led the Northeast Army’s 691st Regiment to defend northern China and to open up the Central Hebei Resistance Base Area. Mao recognized Lü’s outstandingly meritorious service and he was elected an alternative member of the Central Committee at the Seventh Party Congress, but the man who sponsored Lü’s Party membership, Li Xiaochu, met with a tragic fate. Li had parted with Lü Zhengcao and was carrying out local work in April 1938 when he was transferred to the Jin-Chai-Ji Military Region west of the Beiping-Hankou Railway to undergo investigation as a suspected Trotskyite, and he was eventually executed. Lü Zhengcao, by then leader of the Central Hebei Military Region, was not given advance notice of Li Xiaochu’s investigation and execution. It was not until 1985 that the Hebei Provincial Party Committee reexamined Li Xiaochu’s case and exonerated him as a victim of injustice.108 The CCP has always attached great importance to its army. When the Eighth Route Army headed north at the outset of the War of Resistance, Red Army veterans became the backbone for uniting and reforming the armed forces formerly led by the Communist Party’s local organization and for establishing Communist Base Areas. In this process, however, only Red Army cadres who had embarked on the Long March were considered politically trustworthy, while other cadres, although assigned work, were observed and ranked politically. Once they gained their footing, the new authorities began investigating local army leaders and put most of them in deputy positions. The locally-based Lü Zhengcao continued to be trusted and was appointed commander of the Central Hebei Military Region, in part because he had made an enormous contribution to the opening up of the territory. In addition, he was very respectful to the JinCha-Ji leaders, and Nie Rongzhen was a just and fair-minded man; as a result, Lü Zhengcao seldom came under attack during inner-Party power struggles. Even so, Lü Zhengcao’s smooth political course did not extend to cadres under him enjoying similar treatment; after the base area was established in central Hebei, Lü Zhengcao’s former subordinates quickly became targets of investigation. In mid-August 1938, the Jin-Cha-Ji Military Region sent Lü’s troops to Anping for training and consolidation, and the military region’s Political Department set about dealing with socalled Trotskyite cases, sending most of the cadres under Lü Zhengcao to

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Yan’an for investigation. Only those who were subsequently cleared were allowed to return to work in central Hebei. As to how many of his cadres were detained in Yan’an and how many were allowed to return to central Henan, Lü Zhengcao provides no details in his memoirs.109 Situated on the opposite side of the Yellow River, the Jin-Sui Base Area served as a protective screen for the Shaan-Gan-Ning Border Region and Yan’an, and it provided the only conduit between Yan’an and North China, Shandong, and Central China. Jin-Sui was under the jurisdiction of the Eighth Route Army led by He Long and Guan Xiangying, and He Long was the top Party leader there. In 1942, He Long was recalled to Yan’an to serve as commander of the Shaan-Gan-Ning and Jin-Sui Joint Defense Force, while the secretary of the Jin-Sui Sub-bureau, Guan Xiangying, also returned to Yan’an on sick leave; Lin Feng then took over as secretary of the sub-bureau and as chairman of its Rectification General Study Committee. The year 1942 was extremely hard for the Jin-Sui Base Area: The Japanese encirclement had rapidly shrunk the base area to several counties or portions of counties, with a total population of less than one million. Due to its proximity to the Shaan-Gan-Ning Border Region, the base area was heavily influenced by Yan’an, and even under these harsh wartime conditions, it followed Yan’an’s example by mounting a vigorous “emergency rescue” campaign. On March 19, 1943, the Northwestern Shanxi Party Committee issued a “Directive Regarding Cadre Examination in Coordination with Rectification and Study,” which comprehensively extended the experience of Yan’an by requiring cadres to write intellectual autobiographies. During a rectification symposium at the Northwestern Shanxi Administrative Office in May, Wu Xinyu called on all leading cadres to sincerely and candidly engage in self-reflection. At about this same time, army and government cadres throughout the Jin-Sui Base Area began to assemble for rectification study. The majority of leading Party, military, and government cadres at the regional level or above in western Suiyuan gathered in Pianguan for rectification. 110 The rectification and cadre examination in the Jin-Sui Base Area entered its “emergency rescue” phase in September. Military cadres held a struggle rally against secret agents at Shenfu County’s Cailin Village, as did Border Region‒level civilian cadres at Yangjiagou, with a total of 1,274 cadres attending these meetings. A large number of “suspected secret agents” was ferreted out in November.111 In December, each district under

Yan’an and the Base Areas during the Emergency Rescue Campaign | 595

the Jin-Sui Military Region established a “rectification team” to engage in group examinations of cadres. Jin-Sui Sub-bureau secretary Lin Feng stated that the campaign drew the participation of “5,000 cadres, 3,000 soldiers, and 25,000 civilians, for a total of 33,000.”112 At the height of the emergency rescue campaign, each department “regularly reported the proportion of secret agents identified, with the spies ferreted out in some work-units constituting 20 to 30 percent of their total personnel.”113 Mu Xin, who eventually became chief editor of Guangming Daily before the Cultural Revolution, worked for War of Resistance Daily in the Jin-Sui Base Area at that time. Because he served as a special correspondent for the International News Agency (INA) under Fan Chang jiang and as its station chief in northwestern Shanxi, he was falsely accused of being a secret agent. Zhou Enlai had a good understanding of Mu Xin’s situation, since the International News Agency was under his direct leadership, and Fan Changjiang had obtained Zhou’s approval before hiring Mu Xin. After Zhou Enlai returned to Yan’an from Chongqing in September 1943, he anticipated that Mu Xin would come under suspicion for working for the INA and he took the initiative to entrust the commander of the JinSui Military Region’s Eighth District, Han Jun, with a message to the JinSui Sub-bureau and to Liao Jingdan, publisher of War of Resistance Daily, testifying on Mu Xin’s behalf. However, Zhou Enlai’s status in the Central Committee was not firm at that time, so the Jin-Sui Sub-bureau gave little weight to his testimony and Mu Xin was still subjected to a public denunciation and he was removed from his leadership position at the newspaper.114 Mu’s experience during the emergency rescue campaign left a profound impression on him. He said he “personally witnessed the serious damage that ‘extort, confess, believe’ caused to the Party’s undertakings, and personally experienced the enormous harm of ‘extort, confess, believe,’” and the lessons he took from this remained engraved in his heart throughout the ensuing decades.115 As in the other base areas, the key unit for Jin-Sui’s emergency rescue campaign was the sub-bureau’s Party School, yet the basic circumstances of the campaign there remain unclear to outsiders to the present day. Jin-Sui cadre Zhang Jian was harshly attacked during this campaign, destroying his faith in the CCP, and after defecting to the Kuomintang in 1945, he wrote about the emergency rescue campaign at the Jin-Sui Subbureau Party School. I have verified Zhang’s account with documents that were made public in mainland China after the Cultural Revolution, and

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conclude that it is basically accurate and can serve as collateral evidence for understanding the emergency rescue campaign in the Jin-Sui Base Area.* 116 Zhang Jian’s essay, “How the CCP Rectified Incorrect Work Styles,” describes what he experienced during the rectification and emergency rescue campaigns at the Jin-Sui Sub-bureau Party School as well as what he knew of the attacks suffered by several prominent personages in the base area. His narrative can be summarized as follows: 1.) The number of cadres “rescued” at the Jin-Sui Sub-bureau Party School. After the Rectification Movement was launched, most of the cadres sent to the Jin-Sui Sub-bureau Party School to study and to undergo examination were of the military battalion rank or the civilian county level or above, and the vast majority were seasoned grassroots operatives. Zhang Jian writes the Rectification Movement at the JinSui Sub-bureau Party School began in October 1943 and “shifted from ideological problems to political problems” (it has been confirmed that the Jin-Sui Rectification Movement entered its “emergency rescue” phase after September 1943). “At that time, there were 200 to 300 people at the Party School, more than seventy of whom had been forced to admit to being special agents for Japan, the KMT, or Yan [Xishan], and more than thirty of whom had refused to admit, or only partially admitted, to being secret agents. Overall, the number of cadres rescued at the Party School comprised 60 to 70 percent of the total. There was nothing astonishing about this figure; at that time, there was a normal school in northwestern Shanxi where 99 percent had been purged as secret agents, earning it the nickname of ‘secret agent school’!” 2.) The cadres “rescued” at the Jin-Sui Sub-bureau Party School were by and large unjustly accused. “After three or four months of persecution during which they had the label of secret agent foisted on them, many people were driven to

*

  Although little was known in the KMT-controlled areas about the “emergency rescue campaign,” tales about Yan’an occasionally circulated among the street stalls and there was mention of the campaign. From today’s perspective, what was recorded at the time was generally factual. For example, Jin Dongping, who was part of a group of Chinese and foreign journalists who visited Yan’an in the summer of 1944, described “non-stop interrogations” in his book Seen and Heard in Yan’an. Jin referred to the tactic as “investigation through exhaustion,” in which “people they considered ‘problematic’ were interrogated in shifts, night and day, day and night, without ceasing. ...”

Yan’an and the Base Areas during the Emergency Rescue Campaign | 597

kill themselves with knives or by jumping off cliffs or into rivers” (Zhang Jian does not provide specific numbers). “At that time, a reporter for northwest Shanxi’s War of Resistance Daily who was accused of being a secret agent felt he had no choice but to leap from a cliff about 20 meters high. Unfortunately, he was only severely injured, and after being carried back, he was forced to confess to being a ‘special agent who sacrificed his own life to sabotage the CCP’s political influence.’” “Concrete evidence subsequently proved that the rescued cadres had been falsely and unjustly accused. ... Their so-called ‘frank confessions’ were fabrications that had been coerced from them. For that reason, some people said ‘the candor campaign was a nonsense campaign.’” 3.) Zhang Jian’s own experience with “emergency rescue.” Zhang Jian writes that from the time the Rectification Movement ended, he “never dared mention or even recall” what he had personally experienced at that time “because the mention of it is so distressing that it brings me to tears!” He goes on: I left my family to work for the Communist Party at the age of 14, and I was faithful, passionate, and energetic. When the Rectification Movement began, I was a group leader for the Communist Party. Right away I was put under observation, and then the head of the Party School told me I had political problems and had to confess, and he used soft talk like “candor is honorable” and “after coming clean, you will have a future” to persuade me, and he also used harsh terms like “killing” and “imprisonment” to threaten me. Afraid of giving them a pretext for emergency rescue, I repressed my feelings and forced myself to go on as if nothing had happened. After I had been under such observation for two months, misfortune struck in December; at a mass rally, they demanded that I immediately admit to being a secret agent. ... Their pretext was that my elder brother was in the Second War Zone and from his youth he had been a member of the KMT, and since I was on good terms with my brother, I too must be a secret agent. I naturally refused to acknowledge this completely baseless reasoning, and as a result, more than twenty of them took turns talking to me round-the-clock; after one finished, he would take a rest and then another would take over; meanwhile, I went for four days and three nights without a minute’s rest and for two days and two

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nights without food or even a cigarette! Most painful of all occurred in the evening of the 8th, when they made me their class enemy and beat and harangued me, some using leather belts and others using wooden poles or fists, and during the cold December weather they removed all of my clothes except for a pair of shorts and they left me freezing in the courtyard for 40 minutes. When I refused to go outside, they yanked out a great swath of my hair! By the 9th, I was suffering from apoplexy and loss of memory, and my body could not take it any longer, so I had no choice but to accede to their accusations and admit to being a secret agent. I hoped that would be the end of it, but it only caused me permanent harm: They said it was not enough to admit to being a secret agent; they wanted me to reveal my associates. I was not a secret agent in the first place and I did not have any associates; when I could no longer barely even think straight, the more I said, the less credible it sounded. The result was that it went from my being a secret agent to my brother being a secret agent and my sister-in-law being a secret agent, and even my mother being a half secret agent. ... I did not know what a secret agent was or who were associates, nor could I continue to frame others; finally, all I could do was completely overturn my own confession. ... During the emergency rescue campaign, there were many other punishments and methods. One punishment was to deprive the rescue target of food, and then when he was ravenous, to give him some meat that was heavily seasoned with salt and chilies so that he would be dying of thirst when he finished, but then they refused to give you water unless you admitted to being a secret agent and revealed your associates. This may not sound bad, but in fact it was the cruelest of all torments! Another rescue method was to arrange for gunners and thugs.* Most of the gunners were intellectuals who had joined the Party before the War of Resistance, whereas the thugs were all workers and peasants. There were also persuaders and commando units applying a constant carrot-and-stick rotation, non-stop and simultaneous. ... During the War of Resistance

*

  TN: “Gunners” carried out psychological torment, whereas “thugs” engaged in physical torture.

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I had experienced many battles and had had all kinds of contacts with the enemy and all sorts of ups and downs without my feelings being wounded. But this experience of emergency rescue cut me to the quick! ... I was a loyal and active Party member who had never violated a single directive or bungled any of my work, but I ended up paying the price by being purged as a secret agent! 4.) The experience of Zhang Wen’ang, Lei Renmin, and others during the emergency rescue campaign. Zhang Wen’ang had been a prefectural commissioner in Shanxi under Yan Xishan. Following the Northwest Shanxi Incident in 1939,* he went to the base area and became head of the Jin-Sui Border Region High Court and deputy commander of the General Headquarters of the Shanxi New Army. When the Rectification Movement shifted to the emergency rescue campaign in October 1943, Zhang was accused of being a “secret agent,” “capitulator,” and “passive element.” “He suffered almost every kind of unbearable treatment,” including having people spit in his face, and after the campaign ended, he remained under observation. Lei Renmin, who after the founding of the PRC became vice minister of Foreign Trade, was accused of being a “KMT agent.” His wife, who had studied in Japan, was purged as a “Japanese agent.” This was followed by Lei’s persecution. Zhang Junxuan and Liang Yingyong, who had also arrived in the base area after the Northwest Shanxi Incident and had taken positions as leading cadres, were likewise purged as agents of the KMT, Japan, or Yan Xishan. 5.) Criticizing the CCP’s policy toward intellectuals. At the beginning of the War of Resistance, Zhang Jian recounts that his contacts with the CCP led him to feel that “the Communist Party was good, so I did not hesitate to join the Party.” After suffering harsh attacks during the Rectification Movement, Zhang became disillusioned and after his eight years of experience in the Party he concluded that only “barely literate young workers or peasants” were put in important positions,

*

  TN: An open clash occurred between Nationalist and Communist troops in northwest Shanxi in December 1939 in what is known as the Northwest Shanxi Incident.

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whereas “young people with intellectual backgrounds, especially those who had graduated from secondary school or university, had no future in the Communist Party; they would only be despised and attacked.”* Zhang Jian wrote, “We also thought that workers and peasants who constitute the majority of China’s people should be liberated, but intellectuals should not be kicked out. However, once inside the Communist Party, I saw that the worker and peasant elements were overbearing and insufferably arrogant, and I regretted that my widowed mother had sent me to school!”117 6.) Unjust treatment led him to question the precept of “truth in the hands of the Communist Party.” After years of education by the Party, Zhang Jian had long accepted the precept that “truth is in the hands of the Communist Party,” but his experience during the emergency rescue campaign shook his faith. He wrote, “If they had the truth firmly in hand, why did people who had joined since the War of Resistance have to be placed under observation and suspicion? Why were the masses opposing it and why was the morale of the cadres wavering?”118 In the Jin-Sui Base Area, only a few cadres like Zhang Jian went over to the KMT side because they “could not stand the test”; the vast majority of purged cadres, in spite of the enormous pain and pressure they suffered, maintained their faith in the Party and awaited a future day when they would be vindicated of the accusations against them. Some work-units in the Jin-Sui Base Area were reportedly better about carrying out the rectification and cadre examination campaigns. From winter 1943 to autumn 1944, in Jiaocheng County’s Guangtou Village, which was completely cut off due to encirclement by Japanese strongholds, Jin-Sui’s Eighth District conducted three rectification classes with more than 300 participants. According to reports, the rectification and cadre examination campaigns in the Eighth District consisted of *

  During the “emergency rescue” campaign, Jiang Nanxiang discovered that most of the intellectuals who had gone to Yan’an after the start of the War of Resistance were either “rescued” or suspected, and that cadres from worker and peasant backgrounds generally looked down on those with intellectual backgrounds, as a result of which Jiang developed the view that “only some worker and peasant comrades who had had no contact with intellectual traditions were considered safe and dependable comrades.” Jiang Nanxiang’s views were in fact the same as those of Zhang Jian. More than twenty years later, even more people held similar views.

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“mainly studying rectification documents” and they “mainly adopted mild methods” leading “comrades who still had undisclosed problems in their political histories to voluntarily brief the Party on their problems.” Cadres who had been brought in for examination “were free to move about without being kept under observation, but they were required to abide by the work and rest schedule, and the system for applying for leave.” Luo Guibo, who held a leading position in the Eighth District at the time, said that during the cadre examination period, “with their consent, comrades who had made good debriefings” spoke at two rallies “in order to enlighten and help other comrades, and the results were very good.”119 This allowed the Eighth District to avoid phenomena of cadres fleeing, defecting, or committing suicide.120 The curtain fell on Jin-Sui’s emergency rescue campaign in 1944. In August, the Central Committee Secretariat cabled a directive to Lin Feng and the others to reexamine the emergency rescue cases. At this point, the Jin-Sui Sub-bureau reexamined and rehabilitated comrades who had been wrongly labeled as “secret agents.” To date, the full details of the emergency rescue campaign in the Jin-Sui Base Area have not been completely disclosed. He Long and Lin Feng remained leaders of the Jin-Sui Base Area for a long time. He Long was a career soldier who worshiped Mao’s abilities, but his theoretical and educational attainments were far inferior to those of Zhu De, Liu Bocheng, Nie Rongzhen, and Chen Yi, thus making him more susceptible to ultra-Leftist ideological trends. After He Long was recalled to Yan’an, Lin Feng effectively became Jin-Sui’s top leader. Lin had a long-standing relationship with Liu Shaoqi (when Liu arrived in Tianjin in spring 1936 to serve as secretary of the North China Bureau, Lin Feng was his secretary) and he enjoyed Liu’s trust. Beginning in 1943, when Liu Shaoqi joined the core leadership of Yan’an’s cadre examination and anti-spy campaigns and his status in the Party rose accordingly, the Jin-Sui Sub-bureau under Lin Feng’s leadership was able to set aside Zhou Enlai’s testimony on behalf of Mu Xin and subject Mu to denunciation, but it never shelved Liu Shaoqi’s views in a similar way. Furthermore, Jin-Sui was in close proximity to the Shaan-Gan-Ning Border Region, so any trend in Yan’an would not only be followed but would even be intensified in Jin-Sui. Kang Sheng himself led the land reform in Jin-Sui beginning in 1945, causing a very negative effect on the territory, with extremist incidents of indiscriminant beating and killing. During Jin-Sui’s land reform campaign, some supporters of

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democratic reform who had cooperated with the CCP for many years were publicly denounced, and some even died in the process. On September 21, 1947, under Kang Sheng’s direction, Xing County convened a public denunciation rally against Liu Shaobai, vice chairman of the Border Region Provisional Council. Liu Shaobai had become a covert Party member based on an introduction from Wang Ruofei, and his daughter Liu Yaxiong and son-in-law Chen Yuandao were prominent CCP members. Chen had become a martyr to the cause at the hands of the KMT in 1933. Liu Shaobai’s younger daughter, Liu Jingxiong, was married to An Ziwen, making her a member of a revolutionary family. Even so, Liu Shaobai was recalled to the countryside to undergo a mass denunciation. On September 26, a denunciation rally was organized against Border Region Provisional Council member Niu Youlan in Caijiaya, Xing County. Niu Youlan had contributed generously to the War of Resistance and had given his full support to the Eighth Route Army; his son, Niu Yinguan, was a veteran Party member in Jin-Sui. At this denunciation rally, however, Niu Youlan’s nose was pierced with an iron ring, and Niu Yinguan was ordered to lead his father around the streets like an ox (the literal meaning of the family’s surname), after which Niu Youlan was struggled to death. At the height of the land reform campaign, the head of the Jin-Sui Border Region High Court, Sun Liangchen, was also beaten to death after higher-ups authorized that he be recalled to his home village to undergo denunciation.121 The Taihang Base Area was also affected by the anti-spy and emergency rescue campaigns. Consisting of Taihang, Taiyue, and southern Hebei, the Taihang Base Area was also known as the Jin-Ji-Yu (Shanxi, Hebei, Henan) Region. The Eighth Route Army Headquarters and the CCP’s North China Bureau were based there during the War of Resistance. After Peng Dehuai, Yang Shangkun, and Liu Bocheng were transferred to Yan’an, the Taihang Base Area’s top leader was Deng Xiaoping, with Li Dazhang, Li Xuefeng, and Li Jingyu also holding leadership positions. Under the leadership of the North China Bureau’s acting secretary, Peng Dehuai, the North China Bureau Party School held a rectification study session in early 1943, and senior-grade cadres of the district and prefectural Party committees of Taihang, Taiyue, southern Hebei, and Jin-Ji-Yu assembled at the Party School to study the rectification documents and to sum up the work in each district. After Peng Dehuai was recalled to Yan’an in October 1943, the North China Bureau Party School conducted another rectification study session. By this time, the “emergency

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rescue campaign” had spread from Yan’an to Taihang, and the Party School had established a Rectification and Cadre Examination Committee that designated a number of leading cadres as “secret agents.” At the same time, cadre examination and emergency rescue campaigns were launched in Taihang (where the North China Bureau was based), with district Party secretary Li Xuefeng (the Taihang District Party Committee was established after the Taihang Sub-bureau was abolished in winter 1943) responsible for running the campaign. The first phase of the Rectification Movement in Taihang District mainly consisted of studying rectification documents, but then at a later stage it shifted to cadre examinations. According to related documents, not long after the Taihang District Party School launched its second session of rectification study, a problem arose of “vying to be the first to launch cadre examinations,” which escalated into a “candor campaign” and “resulted in the error of extort, confess, believe.” During the campaign, someone falsely accused the vice chairman of the Border Region Government, Rong Zihe, of being the leader of a KMT underground organization, and Li Xuefeng’s wife, Zhai Ying, was also accused of being a “secret agent.” At one point, the Party School’s methods “influenced the Rectification Movement throughout the district.” Fortunately, Liu Xuefeng and the others “rectified the deviation” in a timely manner before major harm was done. There were also instances of struggle against secret agents getting out of hand in Taihang and Taiyue: In the Taihang Military Region there was a misconception that there were counterrevolutionary branches in the 129th Division Headquarters, communications group, training group, reconnaissance group, print shop, and Production Department. During rallies in departments directly under the [Eighth Route Army] Headquarters, there were instances of arbitrarily forcing people to confess to being involved with secret agents and believing that all telecommunications personnel must be secret agents, that all factories under the Munitions Department must be controlled by secret agents, and that there existed an overall counterrevolutionary organization. Someone confessed that the previous July, secret agents in the Jin-Ji-Yu Border Region had held a meeting attended by fortythree high-level operatives. On November 5, 1943, Mao sent a cable to the North China Bureau for transmission to the Party committees of Taihang, Taiyue, and southern

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Hebei, saying: “According to comrades Peng [Dehuai] and Luo [Ruiqing], many people have been captured and killed in a number of places during the struggle against secret agents in Taihang and Taiyue districts.” Mao demanded “immediate investigation into this phenomenon” and “an immediate end to the killing; within one year, a policy against killing must be implemented and no organs will be permitted to kill any secret agents. Any future killings must obtain approval from the Central Committee.” Mao further directed that the number of secret agents arrested “should not exceed 5 percent of the total number of local secret agents (only five out of every 100 people can be arrested), and once they have confessed, they must be immediately released.”122 This cable from Mao brought instant results and ended the extremist behavior during the anti-spy campaign in Taihang and Taiyue.

IX. The Emergency Rescue Campaign in the Central China Base Area The Central China Base Area included northern, central, and southern Jiangsu, the regions north and south of the Huai River, and the HubeiHenan Border Area, and it was under the control of the New Fourth Army. After the 1941 Wannan Incident, Liu Shaoqi was formally appointed secretary of the Central China Bureau and political commissar of the New Fourth Army, making him the top leader in the Central China Base Area. When Liu Shaoqi went to Yan’an in March 1942, he recommended that his former subordinate Rao Shushi serve as acting secretary and political commissar. After returning to Yan’an, Liu continued to issue frequent directives to Central China on major issues. In October 1943, Rao Shushi convened a senior cadre conference in Huanghuatang, Xuyi County, where the New Fourth Army was based, and he launched an attack on Chen Yi due to his long-term poor relations with Mao. Chen was then recalled to Yan’an, and the rectification and cadre examination campaigns in Central China and the New Fourth Army were basically led by Rao Shushi. The Central China Base Area had special characteristics that distinguished it from northern China. First, at the outset of the War of Resistance, the Nationalist Army withdrew en masse from northern China, which left the North China Base Area under much less pressure than Central China from Nationalist troops. Hundreds of thousands of Nationalist troops were assembled in Central China, where the New

Yan’an and the Base Areas during the Emergency Rescue Campaign | 605

Fourth Army was located, and the respective territories of the two armies interlocked like pieces in a jigsaw puzzle. This put the base area under enormous pressure from both the Japanese invaders and the Nationalist Army, especially the armies of the Guangxi warlords. Second, due to the base area’s proximity to major cities, such as Shanghai, Nanjing, and Hangzhou, many intellectuals sought refuge with the New Fourth Army, and the proportion of educated cadres was much greater than that in northern China’s Eighth Route Army. After the Central China Base Area’s Rectification Movement shifted to the cadre examination stage in 1943, two types of people bore the brunt as the major targets of investigation. The first type consisted of intellectual cadres who had previously engaged in underground work in the KMT-controlled areas, as well as young intellectuals who had joined the New Fourth Army after the beginning of the War of Resistance. The second type consisted of people who at the outset of the War of Resistance had engaged in United Front work among the Guangxi warlord armies or in the portions of Jiangsu and Anhui under their control, or Communist Party members who had served in official positions under the KMT-CCP coalition government.* During the rectification and cadre examination campaigns, the situation varied greatly in different parts of the base area and among different divisions of the New Fourth Army. The campaigns were most intense in Huainan and Huaibei, the regions south and north of the Huai River. In accordance with directives from Yan’an, all base areas came under unified leadership in 1943, and Tan Zhenlin became the top leader of Huainan and the New Fourth Army’s Second Division (as Huainan’s district Party secretary and political commissar of the Second Division). Tan Zhenlin was a former subordinate of Mao from Jinggang Mountain days, and he consistently took Mao’s side in the “struggle between the two lines.” He joined in the criticism of Chen Yi at the senior cadre conference in Huanghuatang in 1943. Tan’s work style was always bold and resolute, and he implemented Yan’an’s arrangements for rectification and cadre examination work with both speed and vigor.

*

  In 1938 and 1939, the CCP Anhui Work Committee dispatched Communist Party members to take positions in local governments jointly run with the KMT in some parts of the Jiangsu-Anhui Region.

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After the Rectification Movement shifted to its cadre examination stage, Yan’an’s Central Committee Secretariat sent a secret cable to the Central China Bureau ordering that the Army Headquarters and the Second Division carry out a “general campaign to screen out secret agents (publicly referred to as examination of the cadres’ personal histories) in order to make a breakthrough and then to push forward elsewhere in Central China.” Soon thereafter, a large number of educated cadres in the Second Division were labeled secret agents. While the Central China Bureau was convening meetings, the commander of the Third Division, Huang Kecheng, asked Tan Zhenlin about the “emergency rescue” campaign in the Second Division, and Tan told Huang that there were “more than one hundred” secret agents in every regiment of the division. Among them, an educated female cadre from Shanghai in the regiment’s Political Department had confessed to being a “secret agent” and had also turned in her schoolmate, the wife of Second Division Commander Zeng Xisheng.123 Commander Huang Kecheng of the Third Division was a steady, cool-headed, and educated man who early on had experienced the campaign against the “AB League” in the soviet base area, so he maintained a fairly cautious attitude toward the emergency rescue campaign. After the campaign began, the Army Headquarters received a cable from Yan’an stating that someone there had exposed Yang Fan as a “secret agent.” Yang Fan was the head of the security unit of the Political Department of the Third Division. The headquarters ordered that Huang Kecheng immediately arrest Yang and bring him in. Rather than arresting Yang, however, Huang told Yang to go to the Army Headquarters for a meeting. When he reached the New Fourth Army Headquarters, Yang was detained for a year and a half before being released at the end of 1944 after his case was reexamined. In April and May 1943, Huang Kecheng recommended to the Central China Bureau and the New Fourth Army Headquarters that they learn from the campaign against the “AB League” and not carry out an “emergency rescue” campaign that might harm innocent people. Huang felt it was inadvisable to carry out such a campaign while confronting formidable enemies, not to mention that the Party’s previous campaigns against counterrevolutionaries had always erred in terms of excess. Huang’s recommendation was rejected on all fronts, however, and under orders from above Huang had no choice but to carry out the emergency

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rescue campaign. To be on the safe side, however, Huang first sent some cadres to training courses as he experimented with a small-scale “emergency rescue” in the Third Division’s Seventh Regiment. Huang found that under interrogation, cadres would quickly confess to anything, and he immediately realized that “something was amiss, and it looked like the old problems would take some time to solve.” Huang ordered that the emergency rescue campaign be suspended and he released all those who had been arrested and promptly notified all Party committees in northern Jiangsu and the Third Division that they should not conduct emergency rescue campaigns.124 Huang Kecheng was a longtime comrade-in-arms of Second Division Commander Zeng Xisheng, and in 1928 and 1929 the two had shared the difficult experience of restoring their lost connections with the Party. During a Central China Bureau meeting, Huang saw that Zeng was deeply worried that his wife was accused of being a secret agent; with the help of Second Division Political Commissar Tan Zhenlin, Huang personally went to talk with the female Political Department cadre who had made the accusation. When confessing to being a secret agent, the cadre had gone into vivid detail, but under Huang Kecheng’s careful crossexamination, she finally admitted that everything she had said was a lie, and that she had only admitted to being a secret agent under pressure and in order to get through the ordeal. In this way, Zeng Xisheng’s wife was finally cleared of suspicion. Whereas the “emergency rescue campaign” in Huainan focused on the army, the cases of injustice resulting from the emergency rescue campaign in Huaibei fell mostly on civilian cadres. Huaibei was under the jurisdiction of the New Fourth Army’s Fourth Division, where Commander Peng Xuefeng had suffered a heavy defeat in a surprise attack by Nationalist Commander Tang Enbo in spring 1941. Thereafter, Yan’an and the Central China Bureau transferred Deng Zihui, head of the Political Department of the New Fourth Army to the Fourth Division and unified the Huaibei region under Deng’s leadership by appointing him the political commissar of the Fourth Division and secretary of the Su-Wan ( Jiangsu-Anhui) Border Region’s Military Political Committee—effectively making him Party secretary of the Huaibei Region. Yan’an’s experience with the emergency rescue campaign spread to Huaibei in late spring of 1943, and it was not before long that the region experienced serious injustices against alleged “secret agents” in Huaibei Secondary School and Siyang County.

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In the latter half of August 1943, a female student at Huaibei Secondary School who was found to have stolen 50 yuan (in Border Region currency) tried to evade blame by concocting a story that a “secret agent” who was a fellow student had made her do it. Under pressure from the school administration, the young thief fabricated an organization called the Progressive Youth State-building Team, after which the school’s leaders interrogated under torture all the teachers and students, with the result that 42 out of the 220 people at the school were found to be “secret agents.” After the matter was reported to the Border Region Public Security Bureau, instead of clearing things up the Public Security Bureau employed the method of “extort, confess, believe” to increase the number of secret agents to fifty-six, including half of the school’s teachers and administrators. Ultimately, under directions from Deng Zihui and Peng Xuefeng, the case was overturned on July 17, 1944, and the relevant personnel were dealt with on a case-by-case basis.125 The “Siyang Incident” occurred from October 1943 to February 1944. In this county with a population of less than 100,000, “Three People’s Principle Youth League County Committees” were unearthed on four different occasions. Within only five months, interrogations led to the identification of more than 1,400 people as members of the Youth League, and more than 150 people from all walks of life and localities were arrested, including Party members, administrators, soldiers, and civilians. The case progressed further in February 1944, when the Siyang County Party Committee arranged a mass round-up of military cadres. The entire case was a product of confessions extracted under torture, with the accusations based entirely on oral testimonies and subjective conjectures and without a scrap of credible testimony or material evidence. Under Deng Zihui’s direction, the third and fourth batches of people arrested had their cases overturned in March 1944 (those in the first and second batches remained under investigation). Deng Zihui also represented the regional Party committee in apologizing to those who had been unjustly accused, and the Huaibei Regional Party Committee announced that the Siyang County Party Committee would be reorganized, with its secretary, county head, and head of its Public Security Bureau all dismissed and disciplined.126 The New Fourth Army’s Fifth Division was stationed far from the headquarters in the E-Yu (Hubei-Henan) Border Area, and Yan’an and the Central China Bureau began to lose confidence in the political reliability

Yan’an and the Base Areas during the Emergency Rescue Campaign | 609

of Division Commander Li Xiannian. Believing the division to have been infiltrated by hidden traitors, the bureau sent Zheng Weisan to the E-Yu Border Area as its representative. Zheng Weisan, a graduate of Class A of Wuhan Industrial School, had served as a leader of the Hong’an and Huang-Ma uprisings in 1928* and he had helped establish the E-Yu-Wan Base Area. After the beginning of the War of Resistance, Zheng served as political commissar of the New Fourth Army’s Second Division. He was not only a time-tested revolutionary but also an upright, honest, and prudent man. After arriving in the E-Yu Border Area, Zheng did not declare that the Central Committee had sent two cables appointing him Party secretary of the border area and political commissar of the Fifth Division, and he stated that he “only was acting in his capacity as representative of the Central China Bureau.” Zheng even privately warned Li Xiannian, “You need to learn from the killing of Gao Jingting!”† After carrying out an investigation, Zheng proved that there was absolutely no basis for saying that “hidden traitors had infiltrated the Fifth Division,” and Yan’an gradually dispelled its “suspicions and misapprehensions” toward the Fifth Division. Zheng Weisan and Li Xiannian played important roles in preventing development of the ultra-Leftist aspects of the cadre examination campaign. The Border Region Party Committee received many cables from Yan’an reporting on experiences during the emergency rescue campaign and naming so-and-so as a secret agent, but Zheng Weisan and the other leaders drew on the lessons of the abusive campaigns against counterrevolutionaries during the Civil War and never carried out an emergency rescue campaign in the division or the border area; “Only in investigations in Huanggang did any errors occur.”127 Although the cadre examination and emergency rescue campaigns in the Central China Base Area and the New Fourth Army were on a smaller scale than those in Yan’an, the base area’s proximity to the KMT-controlled areas rendered its Party purges intense and brutal. For years, the base

*

  TN: Peasant uprisings occurred in Huanggang and Macheng in Huanggang County (formerly Hong’an), Hubei Province, following the KMT’s purge of Communist Party members in 1927. †   TN: Gao Jingting was a leader of the Red Army’s Three-Year War in E-Yu-Wan (1934‒38). Embroiled in a power struggle within the New Fourth Army and accused of corruption and various political offenses, he was executed in June 1939.

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area and army had been carrying out routine operations to root out and eliminate traitors, secret agents, and “Trotskyites,” but in the past they had been conducted in secret by the security apparatus, and outsiders typically knew nothing about the broadened scope of such campaigns. Before the emergency rescue campaign, from 1939 to 1942 three young Party members, Dai Jikang, Zha Huaqun, and Wei Yan’an, had been executed in Huaibei and Huainan as “Trotskyites” and “hidden spies.” Dai Jikang was born in 1918 to a peasant family in Ba County, Sichuan Province. He went to Shanghai in 1934, joined the Shanhai Engineering Group founded by Tao Xingzhi, and then joined the CCP in autumn 1935. After the beginning of the War of Resistance, with the Party’s permission Dai used his social connections to secure a job in the government of Si County in northeast Anhui, where he carried out United Front work. His formal position was deputy director of the Political Indoctrination Office, with responsibility for providing political instruction to the first detachment of the Anhui Sixth Guerrilla Column of the local Nationalist Army. Dai was killed near Si County’s Yangcheng Town (now in Jiangsu Province’s Sihong County) in November 1939 on accusations of being a Trotskyite. Before being executed, he cried out “Long live the Chinese Communist Party!” He was only 21 years old.* Zha Huaqun was executed as a Trotskyite and hidden spy in the winter of 1942. Zha was a Communist Party member carrying out United Front work in the Su-Wan Border Area. At the end of 1938, the E-Yu-Wan Regional Party Committee granted Zha permission to serve as the head of Shipai District in Anhui’s Huaining County, where the KMT and the CCP were working together. After KMT-CCP relations broke down in 1939, Zha withdrew to the base area and was assigned a position as aidede-camp and strategic adviser to the Fourth Brigade of the New Fourth Army’s Second Division. Before Zha’s execution, the head of the Second Division’s Political Department, Zhang Jinfu, voiced his disagreement, but to no avail. Decades later, Zhang Jinfu publicly disclosed that “the higher-ups were determined to execute” Zha.128 After Zhang Jinfu became political commissar of the Fourth Brigade, Yu Lu, head of the Propaganda

*

  In 1981, the Central Organization Department reexamined Dai’s case and affirmed that injustice had been done in the “Dai Jikang Trotskyite case”; Dai was posthumously rehabilitated and exonerated.

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Section of the brigade’s Political Department, was suspected of being a Trotskyite, but Zhang was able to protect him. Zha Huaqun was finally rehabilitated by the Anhui Provincial Party Committee in the early 1980s. Wei Yan’an was Party branch secretary of the Guangxi Student Army, and he carried out United Front and mass work among the Su-Wan-Gui troops under the one-way leadership of Zhang Jinfu, who at that time was a member of the Standing Committee of the E-Yu-Wan Regional Party Committee and head of the Mass Movement Department. Wei was transferred to the New Fourth Army in 1940. After studying for half a year at the fourth branch campus of the Anti-Japanese Military and Political College, he was made company leader under the Eleventh Brigade of the New Fourth Army’s Fourth Division. Wounded in action, he was then promoted to the position of deputy political instructor for the battalion, but in 1941 he was executed on the groundless suspicion of being a Trotskyite. Wei Yan’an was rehabilitated in December 1981.

X. Shandong, the Only Base Area Where There Was No Emergency Rescue Campaign While the emergency rescue campaign swept through Yan’an and the various base areas, the Shandong Base Area continued with its original arrangements for rectification and cadre examination campaigns, and did not round up any “secret agents” in the local army, government, or Party School. The main reason why the Shandong Base Area did not launch an emergency rescue campaign was that the top leader of the unified Party, administrative, and military apparatus, Luo Ronghuan, opposed such a campaign, and Luo’s decision was closely related to the particular circumstances of the Rectification Movement in Shandong. Unlike in the other base areas, the main problem that the Rectification Movement had to resolve in the Shandong Base Area was divisions among the leaders of the Shandong Sub-bureau. Of all the base areas, only Shandong adjusted its leadership structure and changed its firstin-command during the Rectification Movement. This personnel change resulted in Luo Ronghuan replacing Zhu Rui as secretary of the Shandong Sub-bureau and becoming the top leader of the Shandong Base Area. Luo Ronghuan entered Shandong in March 1939, leading the main regiment and the Division Headquarters of the Eighth Route Army’s 115th

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Division. For a long time before 1943, Luo’s status within the Party had been lower than that of Zhu Rui. Luo and Zhu were old acquaintances, and during the Jiangxi era Zhu Rui, who had studied at an artillery academy in the Soviet Union, was appointed by Bo Gu and Zhou Enlai to key positions. After working with the Central Committee in Shanghai for two years, in early 1932 27-year-old Zhu Rui was sent to the Central Soviet Area, and soon thereafter he was appointed to the key position of political commissar of the Fifth Red Army Corps. At that time, Yang Shangkun was in a position similar to that of Zhu Rui, having been appointed political commissar of the Third Red Army Group shortly after arriving in the Central Soviet Area. Cadres who had studied in the Soviet Union, especially those who had studied military affairs, were particularly valued during this period and were usually appointed to the most important military leadership positions. Zhu Rui was made an alternate member of the Central Committee at the Fifth Plenum of the Sixth Central Committee in early 1934, and soon thereafter, at the Second Soviet Congress, he was elected an executive member of the Provisional Central Government of the Chinese Soviet Republic. When the “troika” comprised of Otto Braun, Bo Gu, and Zhou Enlai urgently deployed cadres just prior to the Long March, Zhu Rui, who was regarded as a “Red Army commander with both literary and martial abilities,” was made head of the Political Department of the Red Army’s main force, the First Red Army Group, and his deputy was Luo Ronghuan. Beginning from 1937, Zhu Rui was transferred out of the military to serve as secretary of the Military Commission of the North China Bureau, after which he served as the North China Bureau’s representative in Taihang, head of the Bureau’s Organization Department, and in other such key positions that mainly involved United Front work with local power-holders. In June 1939, Zhu Rui was ordered to accompany Xu Xiangqian in leading a small army of 100-plus men from southern Hebei to Shandong, and he became political commissar of the Eighth Route Army First Column commanded by Xu. Soon thereafter, the secretary of the CCP’s Shandong Sub-bureau, Guo Hongtao, was ordered back to Yan’an, and Zhu Rui was appointed as his replacement. At the time when Zhu Rui entered Shandong, the CCP had two military forces there; one was the Eighth Route Army’s 115th Division, led by Luo Ronghuan, and the other was the Eighth Route Army’s Shandong Column, established by the leader of the Shandong Party, Li Yu, and Zhang Jingwu, who had been transferred to Shandong from

Yan’an and the Base Areas during the Emergency Rescue Campaign | 613

Yan’an. The Taihang Eighth Route Army Headquarters gave Xu Xiangqian and Zhu Rui nominal jurisdiction over the Eighth Route Army’s First Column, unifying command of the 115th Division’s Shandong Column and the Communist troops in northern Jiangsu. However, these orders by the Eighth Route Army Headquarters were never implemented or executed. In May 1940, the Eighth Route Army’s First Column had its numerical designation revoked, and in June, Xu Xiangqian was ordered back to Yan’an for the forthcoming Seventh Party Congress. Zhu Rui was effectively deprived of his military position and from then on he no longer assumed any military command. As the situation rapidly changed, it was common for upper-level organs to withdraw their orders; even so, there was something peculiar about the revocation of the numerical designation of the Eighth Route Army’s First Column. At the outset of the War of Resistance, most of the leaders of the Yan’an Military Commission were behind enemy lines in northern China, and the Eighth Route Army Headquarters in Taihang actually played a pivotal role in commanding the War of Resistance in the rear areas; in the Party’s organizational system, its Shandong Sub-bureau also came under the leadership of the North China Bureau. For a period of time, the Eighth Route Army Headquarters in Taihang had even greater influence than Yan’an over northern China and Shandong. The typical situation was that Taihang would issue direct orders and then report them to Yan’an. For example, the 115th Division entered Shandong under orders from Zhu De and Peng Dehuai in the Eighth Route Army Headquarters in accordance with a directive from Mao in Yan’an. Of course, Yan’an always maintained authority over the forces in northern China and Shandong, and Mao could issue direct orders to the army and to the local Party organization. The command and leadership that the Taihang Eighth Route Army Headquarters and the North China Bureau exercised over the northern China and Shandong Rear Base Areas began to change with the recall to Yan’an of Eighth Route Army Commander-in-Chief Zhu De and North China Bureau Secretary Yang Shangkun. From then on, the role that Yan’an played in directing the areas behind the enemy’s rear lines became increasingly pronounced, and it was against this backdrop that the revocation of the numerical designation of the Eighth Route Army First Column occurred. Following revocation of the numerical designation of the Eighth Route Army First Column, Zhu Rui’s main responsibility was to lead the

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Shandong Sub-bureau. Military affairs took precedence in wartime, and Party organs had to follow the army’s movements, so the most appropriate arrangement was unified leadership. Nie Rongzhen took responsibility for all Party, government, and military operations in the Jin-Cha-Ji Base Area after sub-bureau secretary Peng Zhen returned to Yan’an in the spring of 1941. In Taihang, Yang Shangkun’s position as North China Bureau secretary was taken over first by Peng Dehuai and then by Deng Xiaoping. Nie, Peng, and Deng were all military commanders who also held leading positions in the Party, as result of which operations developed smoothly in Jin-Cha-Ji and Taihang. In major strategic areas where the two positions were split, disputes frequently occurred. In Shandong, a long-term split between the leadership of the Party and the leadership of the armed forces led to separate turfs, and with the leaders of each taking different positions, differences of opinion were inevitable. Shandong also had its own specific problems: The integrated command of the 115th Division and the Eighth Route Army’s Shandong Column had long remained unresolved, and the wartime environment put the Shandong Column and the 115th Division in different war zones, effectively resulting in two leadership centers for the War of Resistance in Shandong. Yan’an had already taken note of the unintegrated Shandong leadership, and it made an effort to change this situation beginning in 1941, but the directives from Yan’an were also somewhat ambiguous. In August 1941, the Central Committee and the Military Commission stipulated that the Shandong Sub-bureau was to serve as the unified leadership organ for Shandong’s Party, government, military, and civilians, with Zhu Rui as secretary. The Shandong Column was placed under the command of the 115th Division’s senior officer, and the Military and Political Affairs Committees of the Shandong Column and the 115th Division were consolidated into the Shandong Military and Political Affairs Committee, with Luo Ronghuan as secretary. On the face of it, Zhu Rui seemed to be a leader of the 115th Division and the Shandong Column, but he was not a member of the Shandong Military and Political Affairs Committee under Luo Ronghuan as secretary. Consequently, the bifurcated leadership in Shandong continued from 1941 on, and the 115th Division and the Shandong Column were not integrated. Zhu Rui’s golden period in Shandong was from 1939 to 1940. Beginning in 1941, the invading Japanese forces used ruthless methods of

Yan’an and the Base Areas during the Emergency Rescue Campaign | 615

“pulling in the fishing net” and “impregnable encirclement” in frequent attacks that caused the population of the Shandong Base Area to plummet from 12 million to 7.3 million. Many military and civilian resistance fighters were killed by the Japanese, and the victims included Zhu Rui’s wife, Chen Ruoke (a member of the Shandong Sub-bureau’s Women’s Committee), and the couple’s newborn son. The heavy losses suffered in the base area exacerbated conflicts within the leading organs. As early as September and October 1940, disputes developed between the leaders of the Shandong Sub-bureau and the 115th Division Headquarters over questions such as military strategy and issues related to the War of Resistance and combining the forces of the Shandong Column and the 115th Division. Beginning in April 1941, Luo Ronghuan expressed opinions regarding certain policy decisions by the sub-bureau, but his views were not taken seriously. As the situation worsened in 1942, Luo sent a cable to the North China Bureau and the Central Committee recommending that the sub-bureau convene an enlarged meeting and requesting that the Central Committee send Liu Shaoqi to reach a conclusion on operations in Shandong and to clarify objectives moving forward.129 Mao agreed to Luo Ronghuan’s request, and because Liu Shaoqi was returning to Yan’an at that time, Mao sent a cable to Liu and told him to pass through Shandong on his way to take a look at the situation and to make some decisions regarding resolving the disputes within the leading organs.130 Although only an alternate member of the Politburo at the time, Liu Shaoqi held crucial positions, such as secretary of the Central China Bureau and political commissar of the New Fourth Army, and Mao relied heavily on him. In April 1942, Liu Shaoqi arrived at the location where the Shandong Sub-bureau and the 115th Division were located; after four months there, he came to the following conclusion: The crux of the problem in Shandong was that the main leading comrades of the Shandong Sub-bureau had committed errors on a series of major issues. To whom was Liu Shaoqi referring? Zhu Rui. First, Liu criticized Zhu for ineffective execution of the Party’s principle of independence, lack of a strategic vision, and excessive caution and indecisiveness in the struggle against diehards (the “KMT diehard faction”), resulting in the loss of many “decisive opportunities.” Second, Zhu had seriously neglected mobilization of the masses and had been unable to carry out extensive reductions in rent and interest. Third, Zhu was guilty of subjectivism, formalism (just

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going through the motions), and employing empty pontification and Party boilerplate. Fourth, he had committed serious errors in terms of the policy of eliminating spies. Liu Shaoqi said that if Zhu did not reform, he would have a banner delivered to him inscribed with the word “opportunism.”131 Liu Shaoqi arrived to direct operations just when the situation was at its worst in the Shandong Base Area. From Mao’s standpoint, Liu’s criticisms were basically consistent with the reality; Luo Ronghuan had raised some of these issues with Zhu Rui in the past, and as head of the Shandong Sub-bureau Zhu could hardly absolve himself of blame. The main thing Zhu Rui was criticized for was his excessive enthusiasm for the “resistance self-defense corps” of the intermediate or third force.* These troops were assembled by the “Society of Comrades of the Shandong Kuomintang Resistance,” an organization established with Zhu Rui’s support. Zhu Rui had actively helped them expand their ranks by providing them with funding and weapons that allowed them to become an organization and an army on an equal footing with the CCP and the Eighth Route Army in the Shandong Base Area. Luo Ronghuan and Jiang Hua (head of the Political Department of the Shandong Column and first secretary of Zhejiang Province for an extended period after 1949) had raised this issue with Zhu Rui, but Zhu had ignored them. Likewise, it can be said that Zhu Rui had not thoroughly grasped Mao’s strategic thinking regarding the United Front in 1940, and he had breached a major taboo on the key issue of the Party’s political authority. Yet based on a literal reading, Zhu Rui does not seem to have erred, because in the early stages of the War of Resistance in the specific context of the Shandong region, the CCP Central Committee had proposed joining with the KMT forces to establish an anti-Japanese base area in Shandong, and Zhu Rui’s support of the “resistance self-defense corps” was closely related to the directive to “establish a joint base area.” Zhu’s failure to carry out across-the-board reductions of rent was indeed a fact, and from Mao and Liu’s standpoint it was a major error on Zhu’s part. Yet, if he had complied with peasant demands and had allowed “the masses to liberate themselves,” this probably would have imperiled

*

  TN: Referring to political groups maintaining their independence from both the KMT and CCP.

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the national resistance United Front at a time when the Japanese Army was attacking with unprecedented ruthlessness.* Although a seasoned cadre who had occupied senior leadership positions, Zhu Rui retained a bookish quality. He liked to deliver rousing speeches and he was always saying things like “from the world to Shandong.”132 Even in promoting reforms to the marriage system in the base areas, he had delivered a mobilization speech that lasted several hours. From the way things were viewed at that time, this constituted indulgence in exaggeration, hollow rhetoric, and Party boilerplate. Although the campaign against “Trotskyites” had been curbed in some parts of the Shandong Base Area, it had not been thoroughly uprooted and it subsequently became intermingled with the campaign against “spies.” There were deeper reasons for this that could not be blamed solely on Zhu Rui. But as sub-bureau secretary, Zhu bore leadership responsibility. (Where errors had occurred in the campaigns against Trotskyites in North and Central China, however, leading comrades had not come under criticism.) Zhu Rui’s once gleaming star faded, and he was ordered back to Yan’an in August 1943. In March 1943, the Central Military Commission had formally appointed Luo Ronghuan commanding officer and political commissar of the Shandong Military Region, and political commissar and acting commander of the 115th Division, making him joint commander of the 115th Division and the Shandong Column. Once Zhu Rui returned to Yan’an, Luo Ronghuan was immediately appointed secretary of the Shandong Sub-bureau, effectively giving him unified leadership over the Party, government, and military in Shandong.

*

  Readers familiar with the modern history of Shandong will remember that several years thereafter, the land reform movement under Kang Sheng’s direct leadership in Shandong’s Bohai Prefecture carried the banner of “liberating ourselves,” with extremely negative consequences. (TN: During the War of Resistance, the CCP-KMT United Front involved policy concessions on both sides, including a compromise in which the Communist suspended radical land reform in favor of more moderate methods of rent and interest reductions [jianzu jianxi, or “double reductions”] and tax reforms in areas under Communist control. Such measures appealed, in particular, to poor peasants and tenant farmers; although richer peasants accepted the tax reforms, they found the “double reduction” more objectionable, and implementation of the directive encountered resistance.)

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Yan’an had long intended to restructure the leadership of the Shandong Base Area. The possibility had been considered when Liu Shaoqi went to Shandong in 1942, and once Liu returned to Yan’an, Mao decided on a restructuring and he “repeatedly consulted” with Peng Dehuai in Taihang on the issue.133 Now with the change in Zhu Rui’s posting and the establishment of a new unified organizational system, success was assured. The rise in Luo Ronghuan’s status and Zhu Rui’s fall from power were part of Mao’s overall rectification strategy. Mao wanted more than to only resolve the issues of the central leadership’s line and a reallocation of power; he also set his sights on exposing and criticizing the lines taken by the top leaders of the major regions and on restructuring the organization. After Liu Shaoqi left Shandong for Yan’an, the Shandong Sub-bureau on October 1, 1942, wrote up a “Four-year Work Summary” that was critical of the sub-bureau’s “errors” in executing the United Front policy, the “double reduction” policy, and other errors. This report reflected Liu Shaoqi’s specific views on Shandong’s operations. Liu originally intended for Luo Ronghuan to deliver this report, feeling that Zhu Rui, as one of the people responsible, would be inappropriate. However, Zhu, “with a lack of self-awareness” (in Liu’s words), took the initiative to pick up on Liu’s remarks and he asked to deliver the report, and Liu could only agree.* 134 From Luo Ronghuan’s perspective, he had differences of opinion with Zhu, but Zhu’s fall from power had nothing to do with Luo personally. Zhu’s transfer from Shandong resulted from a confluence of various complex factors. By this time, his early studies in the Soviet Union, his appointment to key positions during the Ruijin period, and his subsequent actions had all become negative factors and had relegated him to the ranks of the “dogmatists.” Furthermore, during the early years of the War of Resistance, the repeated loss of “decisive opportunities” in Shandong’s operations implicated him in “Wang Ming’s Right deviating capitulationism.” Even more crucially, Zhu Rui was not an early follower of Mao, and arriving in Ruijin at the nadir of Mao’s political career, he was unable to establish a personal relationship with Mao. By the time of the Rectification Movement, Zhu Rui was nearly 40 years old and he qualified

*

  Liu Shaoqi said these quoted words to Wang Li in Hunan in 1961. During the Rectification Movement, Wang Li was secretary of the General Study Committee of the Shandong Sub-bureau.

Yan’an and the Base Areas during the Emergency Rescue Campaign | 619

as an “old comrade.” Yet according to Party custom at the time, he could not yet be considered a Party elder. Comrades who had joined the Party during the Great Revolution and who had studied in the Soviet Union for brief periods and then had served in key positions were censured for various errors (dogmatism, empiricism, or both) during the Rectification Movement, but their rich revolutionary histories and enormous personal prestige had melded with the Party’s cause, obligating Mao to carefully consider how to deal with their errors, and they typically continued to be appointed to key positions after being criticized. Zhu Rui, however, clearly did not belong to this class of senior statesmen. After returning to Yan’an, Zhu was sent to the Central Party School’s First Department for rectification study. Others in a similar situation were typically provided with new work opportunities after a period of study, but Zhu Rui spent two years at the Central Party School, and it was not until after the Seventh Party Congress that he was appointed acting director of Yan’an Artillery School. (He declined a suggestion by the Central Committee that he serve as deputy chief of staff of the Military Commission, and he asked to take charge of artillery operations.) With Zhu Rui’s transfer, Luo Ronghuan assumed operations in Shandong just as the Rectification Movement was shifting to its cadre examination and anti-espionage stages, thus confronting Luo with the pressing issue of how to carry out the campaigns. After the Party-wide Rectification Movement was launched in 1942, the Shandong Sub-bureau under Zhu Rui had issued a notice arranging for territory-wide study of the rectification documents and inspection work. Due to frequent battles, however, and also because Liu Shaoqi was busy investigating divisions within the leadership while in Shandong, the Rectification Movement had not yet really taken hold there, and it was not until the war hostilities calmed down in 1944 and 1945 that a large-scale Rectification Movement was carried out in the Shandong Base Area. As noted earlier, the Rectification Movement in Shandong mainly consisted of resolving differences among the upper-level leadership and making adjustments to the leadership structure. In fact, once Luo Ronghuan became secretary, the Shandong Sub-bureau completed this task. However, the Rectification Movement was not only meant to expose and criticize the leadership’s line and to resolve the question of whom to support or oppose; it also included carrying out general ideological revolution, fostering a “new man,” and examining cadres and eliminating

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spies in the middle and lower ranks. It was on these key issues that Luo Ronghuan’s cautious and steady leadership style came to the fore. After the Rectification Movement entered its cadre examination phase, Kang Sheng’s pamphlet “Emergency Rescue of Those Who Have Stumbled” was sent to Shandong but Luo Ronghuan explicitly opposed an emergency rescue campaign in Shandong, and he ordered the Sub-bureau General Office “not to distribute [the pamphlet] to the lower levels.”135 Although distribution of Kang Sheng’s pamphlet was halted, Yan’an ordered the launch of an emergency rescue campaign and dispatched cadres to all the base areas to spread the “emergency rescue” experience. The special envoy sent to Shandong was Shu Tong, who had been appointed secretary general and Standing Committee member of the Shandong Sub-bureau and vice chairman of the General Study Committee of the Shandong Sub-bureau. Shu arrived from Yan’an in September 1944 specifically to take charge of the cadre examination campaign. Shu Tong’s arrival in Shandong did not shake or change Luo Ronghuan’s status; as the executor of the “correct line,” Luo had been given responsibility for Shandong’s overall operations and he chaired the General Study Committee that served as Shandong’s leading rectification organ. Even so, he was not in a position to directly oppose a directive from Yana’an, so he agreed to select several pilot work-units where Yan’an’s experience could be used to guide the campaign. There was nothing profound about Yan’an’s experience; it consisted of utilizing the strategy of holding “democratic scrutiny rallies,” “luring the snake from its den,” letting enemies expose themselves and eventually rounding them up for annihilation” that had been used in all of Yan’an’s organs and schools, especially the Central Party School and the Central Research Institute. This strategy originated with the Second April 3 Decision in 1943, which stated that in order to cause hidden spies to fully expose their anti-Party aspects, “continuing on from the first phase of the Rectification Movement there must be massive promotion of democracy and an open appeal for all comrades engaged in rectification to boldly speak out and criticize one another, encouragement of all study units to publish wall newspapers and to write essays criticizing leaders and work, and in general (except under special circumstances) no restraints are to be imposed.” Shu Tong came to Shandong with the mission of promoting this experience in accordance with Yan’an’s arrangements for “the whole country (all base areas) to have secret agents exposed through democratic scrutiny.”136

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On public occasions, however, a high-sounding explanation was given for convening “democratic scrutiny rallies”: The promotion of democracy would make the upper levels aware of the circumstances at the lower levels and help the leaders improve their shortcomings. As to the Party’s secret strategy, this was not openly revealed, and the vast majority of Party members and cadres who took part in the “democratic scrutiny rallies” had no idea that the actual objective of these rallies was to “catch fish,” i.e., to use the rallies to give “hidden spies” the false impression of opportunities so they would leap out and expose their “anti-Party” aspects.137 Under Shu Tong’s influence, the Shandong Sub-bureau issued its “General Summary Regarding the Rectification and Cadre Examination Campaigns and Directives Going Forward” (also known as the “Dual October 13 Directive”) on October 13, 1944. This document indirectly criticized certain viewpoints regularly expressed by Luo Ronghuan: A “Supplementary Directive” stated that many comrades in Shandong have “an inadequate understanding of the global and mass character of secret agents and put a one-sided emphasis on the special characteristics of Shandong. For instance, some say that Shandong has few cadres from other places, making it difficult for KMT agents to infiltrate, that there are no problems in the armed forces, that most of our cadres have been undergoing long-term tests in the struggle to eliminate spies, etc. ...”138 Targeting this situation, the “Supplementary Directive” proposed “vigorous democratization,” and then at an appropriate juncture shifting to a comprehensive introspection and a candor campaign.139 As it happened, massive speaking out quickly occurred in the pilot units—the Provincial Wartime Executive Committee (an organ of the provincial government), the Sub-bureau General Office, The Masses Daily (the sub-bureau’s official newspaper), the Military Region Special Operations Group, and the Military Region Health Department. The upper-level leadership encouraged everyone to “let it all out and fart as you need to” (using Mao’s famous phrase), and such “direct mass democracy” ultimately netted many fish, as Party members and cadres used wall newspapers, speeches, and cartoons to directly criticize the upper-level leadership. Targets bearing the brunt of the criticism included Li Yu, a sub-bureau Standing Committee member and chairman of the Provincial Wartime Executive Committee, for his “bureaucratism,” and Chen Yi, the sub-bureau’s deputy director of propaganda and publisher of The Masses Daily, for a “privileged lifestyle” (Chen was attacked for having a horse at

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his personal disposal as well as for a predilection for chili peppers). For a period of time, various forms of liberated expression “gushed forth like waters through a breached dam.”140 The most famous in this group was Wang Ruowang, who at that time was working in the Shandong Subbureau apparatus. Wang was very active during this period of democratic scrutiny, voicing his endorsement of Luo Ronghuan but highly critical of Li Yu, whom he considered to have “eight major blind spots” and “an incorrect line and policies.”141 The original purpose of democratic scrutiny was to “lure the snake from its den.” Wang Ruowang popped out, but only to encounter the barrel of a gun. Referred to as “the Wang Shiwei of Shandong,” he was accused of having his own ideological system and of inciting others to oppose the Party. Shu Tong and the others within the Shandong Subbureau had already decided to label Wang as a “secret agent,” and Yan’an agreed to that designation after it received a cable reporting on the situation.142 Just as Wang Ruowang was about to meet his doom, Luo Ronghuan stepped forward and said that Wang’s problem was one of thinking and of work style, and that he was neither a secret agent nor an enemy. Luo’s declaration saved Wang Ruowang, but in a private conversation with Wang, while not completely refuting his remarks, Luo criticized him for his high-handedness and arrogance and said that his negation of Shandong’s situation was ideologically biased. Luo Ronghuan had his own views on the “democratic scrutiny rallies.” He felt that promoting democracy and “setting a fire that singed the leading comrades had merit,” but he resolutely opposed using them as a “fishing expeditions.”143 Luo Ronghuan believed that Shandong’s situation was unique and that comrades had already been thoroughly tested in the complicated environment of struggle with the enemy; any comrade who was a “secret agent” would have run off long ago, so there was simply no need to promote democracy as a means of exposing the enemy within. Since “democratic scrutiny rallies” were already being held, it was necessary to make it clear that the objective was to scrutinize and “improve leaders, not to expose secret agents and enemies.”144 As the Shandong Sub-bureau began its “democratic scrutiny,” Shandong’s strategic districts engaged in similar activities in pilot workunits. In Jiaodong District, a leading cadre sent from Yan’an to lead cadre examinations at the district Party School used the “fishing” method to

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label a group of cadres as “secret agents” and then to subject them to nonstop interrogations to obtain confessions. Some comrades confessed under torture that “secret agents” possessed more firearms than an entire military sub-district. After hearing a report from Jiaodong District’s Party secretary, Lin Hao, Luo Ronghuan issued an explicit directive for the district to terminate the pilot campaign and to burn all the records it had generated.145 Luo Ronghuan also criticized the campaign carried out in the Military Region’s Health Department and ordered an end to a democratic rally that had been going on for six days. Soon thereafter, the Japanese Army launched a “sweep operation” during which Health Department cadres who had been under suspicion heroically acquitted themselves without a single defection, powerfully validating Luo Ronghuan’s judgment. Luo Ronghuan refused to use “democratic scrutiny rallies” to “expose the enemy” and he boycotted Yan’an’s directive to conduct an “emergency rescue” campaign. Although Shu Tong insisted that the Rectification Movement had to continue with cadre examination and the rooting out of secret agents, Luo Ronghuan was still the top man in the Shandong Base Area and he would only agree to rectification and cadre examinations. As of October 1944, some 5,000 Shandong cadres took part in an introspection and candor campaign, but under Luo Ronghuan’s leadership there were almost no instances of “round-the-clock interrogations” and “extort, confess, believe,” and not a single person was killed. 146 On December 21, 1944, under his own name Luo Ronghuan issued “Views on the Cadre Examination Issue” und to the entire region, and at the same time he submitted it to the CCP Central Committee and Mao. Luo said that the Rectification Movement should not be mixed in with the cadre examinations, and that “the tendency toward crash attacks” and “rash mobilization of candor and the serious incidence of extort, confess, believe” should be avoided. Luo felt that the proper way to carry out the Rectification Movement was to “start with the leadership, and to end with scrutiny of the leadership.”147 On March 15, 1945, under Luo’s direction, the Shandong Sub-bureau sent a cable to Yan’an, entitled “An Examination of Democratic Scrutiny,” which affirmed that rectification must include cadre examinations but the cable also examined at length the shortcomings of “democratic scrutiny.” Luo said, “There were errors in our arrangement and execution of the sub-bureau’s ‘Dual October 13th Directive’ in each work-unit. This was mainly manifested in the promotion of democracy, with an emphasis on the objectives of cadre examinations and exposure,

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which resulted in extremist tendencies and even the adoption of improper mobilization methods that fomented erroneous tendencies among the masses. As a result, promoting democracy became exposure, and problems discovered during the cadre examination were magnified.”148 As the ultra-Leftist tempest swept through the Party, Luo Ronghuan dared to maintain his personal views and nimbly dealt with the problems laid bare in Shandong’s rectification and cadre examination campaigns. “Disruptive” cadres were not labeled as secret agents and Yan’an’s emergency rescue campaign was not replicated in Shandong. This unusual restraint made Shandong unique among the base areas. Why did Luo Ronghuan dare to resist the order from Yan’an to carry out an emergency rescue campaign? First of all, the painful lessons of Huxi’s campaign against Trotskyites had left a profound impression on Luo and had made him cautious. Luo had personally dealt with the aftermath of the Huxi incident and he knew very well the enormous harm it had caused to the Shandong Base Area. The new cadre investigation campaign was on an even larger scale, and Luo felt that if he followed Yan’an’s directive to carry out Shandong’s cadre examination campaign by using “emergency rescue” and “democratic scrutiny rallies” to expose the enemy, this would seriously undermine the base area. 149 Second, one portion of Yan’an’s Second April 3 Decision provided Luo with grounds to resist an emergency rescue campaign. That decision stated that “the situation in the enemy rear areas is very different from that in Yan’an; subjective planning is often suspended by changes in objective circumstances. Therefore, the Yan’an experience should be flexibly applied, with an emphasis on creating a new experience, altering plans in accordance with the changing situation, and adopting approaches adapted to the circumstances.” Luo Ronghuan grasped at these sentences to repeatedly emphasize Shandong’s special circumstances, which prevented a mechanical imitation of Yan’an’s experiences. Third, Luo Ronghuan was a thoughtful, upright, and well-educated man (in his youth he had studied at Qingdao University). He was a classic example of the idealistic and pure Communist Party member who once existed in CCP history. Luo had his own understanding of “revolution” and “rectification,” and for that reason he could not tolerate schemes and intrigues being carried out in the name of the revolution within his jurisdiction. Finally, Luo had spent many wartime years in Shandong and he enjoyed high prestige among the cadres and masses in the base area; Shu Tong was simply no match for him.

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Mao was well aware of everything that was occurring in far-off Shandong, yet he not only tolerated Luo Ronghuan’s “insubordination” but he even praised the Rectification Movement carried out in Shandong. Why was this? Mao understood Luo Ronghuan’s history and personality very well. Luo was the only person still alive who had joined Mao in the Autumn Harvest Uprising, then followed him up Jinggang Mountain, and had continued to follow him through repeated adversities. He had joined his fate with Mao’s throughout the years of inner-Party struggle and now he was a senior Party cadre.150 Mao knew that Luo was a circumspect man who avoided fanfare and limelight and who was devoid of personal ambition, and his views and arrangements regarding the Rectification Movement in Shandong arose from considerations about the overall local situation rather than from any “insubordination” intent. Commemorating the CCP’s twenty-third anniversary on July 1, 1944, Luo published an essay entitled “Learn from the Thinking of Comrade Mao Zedong,” which explicitly endorsed Mao’s line and positions, and in the midst of Mao’s struggle with Wang Ming and the others Luo demonstrated that he took Mao’s side. Mao took note of all of this. In Mao’s view, Luo Ronghuan was a cadre upon whom he could completely rely. Mao also appreciated Luo’s distinguished service to the Party in Shandong: After Luo took charge of operations in Shandong, the Communist forces there grew appreciably and their territory expanded continuously. By the eve of China’s victory in the War of Resistance in 1945, the Eighth Route Army controlled nearly all of Shandong’s strategic strongholds and communications lines. This empowered the CCP with a critical strategic initiative and provided ample guarantees for storming and capturing territory from the northeast to south of the Yangtze, contributing to the ultimate victory of the Communist forces over the KMT. Decades later, Mao continued to recall Luo’s contributions to the Communist Revolution, saying that putting Luo in place had saved the situation in Shandong and that Luo’s successful operations in a key region had been a decisive factor in the success of the Chinese Revolution.151 There was another compelling reason for Mao to accept the reality in Shandong: While Luo Ronghuan was boycotting the emergency rescue campaign in Shandong from the end of 1944 to the beginning of 1945, the campaign had already ended in Yan’an. Since Shandong had not kept up with Yan’an in developing its emergency rescue campaign, once a

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“reexamination” of wrongful cases began in Yan’an and the other base areas, Mao could hardly insist on Shandong “making up for lost time.” In an effort to distance himself from the errors of the emergency rescue campaign, on May 13, 1944 Mao issued, in the name of the Central Committee, a “Directive to All Localities Regarding Opposing the Leftist Errors in the Struggle against Spies,” which briefed the entire Party on Shandong’s rectification experience. During an intimate discussion in 1963, Mao likewise mentioned Luo Ronghuan’s correct handling of the Rectification Movement by “beginning with the leaders and ending with scrutinizing the leaders,” and refusing to carry out an “emergency rescue” campaign.152 For all of the above reasons, the Shandong Base Area became a “special zone” that was unique in terms of not carrying out an emergency rescue campaign. Although the CCP had a rigorous system of organizational discipline, Mao’s application of these laws and regulations to control the Party varied greatly according to the particular circumstances. That is why Mao did not call Luo Ronghuan to account for “going his own way” during the Rectification Movement but rather trusted and respected him all the more.

14. Two Steps Forward, One Step Back: The Retreat of the Emergency Rescue Campaign

I. Why did the Emergency Rescue Campaign Intensify Following Re-issuance of the “Nine Guiding Principles of Cadre Examination”? As the cadre examination campaign gradually shifted to an anti-spy and emergency rescue mode in the spring and summer of 1943, more than 30,000 Party, government, and military cadres in Yan’an became involved, and the number of “secret agents,” “turncoats,” and “hidden traitors” snowballed. Everyone felt at risk, and an atmosphere of desolation and desperation permeated the Party’s various organs and schools as people waited in terror to see where the campaign would turn next and what changes it would bring to the fate of each individual. In a memo to Kang Sheng on July 1, Mao brought up the problem of the “two lines in anti-spy work.” According to Mao, the correct line was “leading cadres are responsible; everyone takes action; leading backbone cadres and the broad masses join together; general appeals are combined with a specific direction; investigate and study; clearly distinguish right from wrong and the trivial from the serious; fight to win back those who have stumbled; train cadres; and educate the masses.” The wrong line was “extort, confess, believe.”1 This was the first expression of what came to be known as the “Nine Guiding Principles of Cadre Examination.” For a long time, this directive was considered powerful evidence of Mao’s opposition to the ultra-Leftist tendencies of the cadre examination and anti-spy campaigns. However Yan’an’s “emergency rescue campaign” actually progressed further and reached its climax after this directive.

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At the height of the emergency rescue campaign, Kang Sheng lifted the prohibition against killing by proposing that criminals should be tried and executed in the name of the Border Region Government. At this critical juncture, Lin Boqu immediately reported this new development to Mao, who vetoed Kang Sheng’s suggestion, averting the impending tragedy of a massacre within the ranks.2 On July 30, 1943, Mao ordered a halt to the “emergency rescue campaign for those who have stumbled.”3 On August 15, 1943, the Central Committee General Study Committee (CCSGC) issued a directive to the entire Party and to all organs and schools in Yan’an requiring systematic education regarding the nature of the Kuomintang (KMT), resolving that “in the half-month from August 16 to August 31, all work-units without exception will devote their main resources to carrying out such education,” and declaring that the “emergency rescue campaign” had come to an end. On the same day, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) Central Committee once again drew up a “Decision Regarding the Examination of Cadres,” which reiterated Mao’s guiding principles regarding cadre examination and the elimination of hidden spies. This was the first Party-wide promulgation of the “Nine Guiding Principles of Cadre Examination.” The decision asserted that personnel involved in this cadre examination and in “the next stage of cadre examination” should “not refer to it as the elimination of counterrevolutionaries,” and it described the practice of “extort, confess, believe” as a “subjectivist guiding principle and method.” Also on that day, Mao wrote instructions on Kang Sheng’s report on the Suide anti-spy rally, stating that “in the struggle against secret agents” it was essential to maintain a policy of “kill none and arrest few.” It would appear from this that Yan’an’s emergency rescue campaign had come to an end because Mao issued multiple instructions and criticized the practice of “extort, confess, believe.” In reality, however, Yan’an’s emergency rescue campaign did not wind down at all but rather it actually intensified following the August 15 decision and there was a new upsurge in the anti-spy and candor campaigns. By this time it had been renamed a “self-rescue” campaign, but its content and essential nature were identical to the emergency rescue campaign. On September 21 and 22, Yan’an’s Liberation Daily published in serial form reports entitled “Yan’an County Launches Anti-spy Campaign” and “Suide Normal School Youths Who Stumbled Repent and Denounce the Evil Acts of the KMT Espionage

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Agencies,” informing the wider society of the confessions by an alleged participant in the Revival Society—a 14-year-old girl named Liu Jinmei, and a “leader” of a secret agent assassination organization called the responsible person from the “Stone Team,” 16-year-old boy named Mao Fengchen. On October 6, Yan’an City convened a five-day rally against traitors and spies in the Border Region Council Hall,4 during which the emergency rescue campaign’s raging conflagration burned with wild abandon. Could it be that Mao had lost control over Yan’an? Did Mao’s words no longer carry their former weight? Had Kang Sheng become so foolhardy as to disregard Mao? All of these questions must be answered in the negative. Mao never for a moment lost his authority; he was merely using certain methods to make superficial criticism of “excessive” behavior during the emergency rescue campaign while in fact he continued to push the campaign even further. In early 1943, Mao moved into a tightly secured and secretive organ— the Central Committee Social Department in Zaoyuan. The Social Department ran a small grocery store near Zaoyuan’s main passageway, Xiaobiangou, and used it to carry out surveillance on the comings and goings of “suspicious persons.” Living in Zaoyuan, Mao had even more convenient and frequent contact with Kang Sheng. The first thing he did upon getting out of bed was to listen to Kang Sheng’s reports on the cadre examination and emergency rescue campaigns.5 Although Mao repeatedly read reports from the Communications Office on Qian Laisu’s case—the Communications Office was waiting for Mao to give the word so Qian could be released—and these reports provided the full details of Qian’s anxiety and terror as well as his repeated assertions that he was not a traitor or a secret agent, but Mao never took a clear stand and he left Qian hanging for a very long time. It would be natural to ask whether Mao criticized the practice of “extort, confess, believe”? Had he, in specific conversations with some leading cadres, even gone so far as to call for an emphasis on investigation and research and a prohibition against physical torture? Why did he say one thing and do something else? Mao’s hidden meaning was in fact very difficult for the average person to discern. Many leading cadres only noticed Mao’s criticism of excessive behavior and ignored the deeper meaning behind these scattered words and phrases. Mao’s emphasis was not on rectifying errors but on pushing the campaign further.

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Mao’s strategy was fully reflected in the document that many cadres felt was intended to rectify deviant behavior, the “Decision Regarding the Examination of Cadres” issued by the CCP Central Committee on August 15, 1943. The “August 15 Decision” to “kill none and arrest few” was an important policy proposal arising from the lessons Mao had learned from the ultra-Leftist campaigns, such as that against the “AB League.” Mao naturally knew his real motivation for doing what he did back then, but now his identity and status were different and Yan’an’s situation could not be compared to that of Jiangxi in former days. The objective conditions at present did not allow for a reenactment of the campaign against the AB League, so Mao astutely declared his policy to “kill none and arrest few.” Even so, the basic premise of this policy was still an affirmation that many secret agents had infiltrated the ranks; the document emphasized that “secret agents are a worldwide problem among the masses” and it was necessary to understand this basic fact in order to adopt the correct policies. The policy to “kill none and arrest few” did not mean that the direction of the campaign was wrong; instead, it aimed at pushing the campaign to a deeper level. Mao explained that “to kill none” meant making secret agents dare to confess, and “to arrest few” meant that the security apparatus should deal with only a minority of the cases, whereas the Party organs and schools should handle the majority of the cases on their own. Mao specifically stipulated the scale of arrests: 80 percent of problematic individuals should be treated as ordinary suspects and should be held at Party organs and schools for investigation; 10 percent of problematic individuals should be sent to introspection organs, such as Northwest Public School or the Institute of Public Administration; and the remaining 10 percent should be sent to the prison apparatus of the Social Department and the Security Office. Mao stipulated that the three types of people could be switched around, i.e., ordinary suspects found to have serious problems could be upgraded to the first or second levels. Conversely, secret agents who made full and frank confessions could be downgraded to the second or third levels. As for the investigation and detention of those held in various workunits, Mao took great pains to provide specific instructions. For the time being, all problematic individuals were forbidden from leaving the area and Yan’an implemented a travel permit system. Mao further called for “martial law to be put into effect at appropriate times.”6

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Shrewd, attentive micromanager that he was,* 7 could Mao possibly have been unaware of the ultra-Leftist fanaticism that occurred during the cadre examination and emergency rescue campaigns? Of course he knew, and he knew it very well. The August 15 Decision stated that excessively Leftist behavior was bound to occur during the cadre examination campaign, along with errors from “extort, confess, believe” (on both an individual and a mass scale), and people would be falsely accused of wrongdoings or of crimes more serious than they had actually committed. Knowing full well that restraints were being breached, Mao did not put a stop to it but rather he maintained a laissez-faire attitude. The August 15 Decision stated that correction of Leftist errors should not be undertaken either too early or too late. Since the campaign had already deviated into making errors, why was it not immediately halted? Mao had his own logic: “Regarding excessively Leftist tendencies, corrections either too early or too late are equally bad. Corrections too early lead to shooting at random and hinder the launch of the campaign, whereas corrections too late result in errors and sap our resources. It is therefore essential to pay close attention and maintain the principle of a timely correction.”8 It was exactly this Maoist logic that led the cadre examination and emergency rescue campaigns to engage in extremist behavior because no one knew the “right time” to take corrective actions, and the wild horse of the emergency rescue campaign could only be reined in by Mao. If he did not take explicit measures to halt it, no one else would dare or have the authority to do so. Mao was bent on expanding the cadre examination campaign and he carefully planned every specific method and measure. He said the correct line for the campaign was for “cadres to take action on their own,” so the heads of Party organs and schools personally interrogated and beat suspects. He said to rely on the power of the masses to examine cadres, so work-units launched mass rallies, creating the momentum for horrific dictatorship of the masses. Mao called for “investigation and research” and the drafting of separate name-lists of those with and without problems. In the case of “problematic individuals,” their everyday words and deeds

*

  Shi Zhe’s memoirs include vivid descriptions of Mao’s meticulousness. At one point, he writes that just before General Hu Zongnan stormed Yan’an, Mao personally supervised Shi Zhe’s destruction of all cable communications with Moscow and poked among the ashes with a stick to satisfy himself that every trace had been destroyed. Xiao San, who had frequent dealings with Mao in Yan’an, also found Mao very detailoriented.

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were to be examined along with the personal histories they had submitted, and they were to be “advised” and “questioned.” Each work-unit pitched in with round-the-clock interrogations, alternating with psychological warfare. Mao claimed that “the greater the secret agent, the more useful the transformation,” and he commended the fact that “within the last few months, Yan’an has won over a large number of secret agents who have quickly reformed to serve our Party, facilitating our investigation work.” Work-units responded by using “secret agents” who had “come clean” to inform against other secret agents, exposing spies in clusters. Mao came up with the idea of “focusing attention on turning counterrevolutionary secret agents into revolutionary spy-ferreting cadres.” 9 According to the CCP’s logic, “counterrevolutionary spies” and “revolutionary spyferreting cadres” should have been two completely separate concepts. It was difficult to determine whether Mao was giving instructions to “fight fire with fire” or intimating that “it does not matter if he is a scoundrel, as long as he is our scoundrel.” The semantics were ambiguous and hard to pin down; as a result, Cheng Quan and the others at the Central Research Institute who were accused of being “major secret agents” were held at the Central Committee Social Department and turned into “revolutionary spy-ferreting cadres.” Mao’s piecemeal criticism of “extort, confess, believe” beginning from August 1943 concealed a profound mystery. He presented a varied appearance, sometimes making a passing reference to “extort, confess, believe” as not being good, and then in the next instant saying “If you are not guilty of anything, you have nothing to fear from being investigated,” and “pure gold does not fear smelting.”* 10 Mao’s call to “pay attention to the correct policy of cadre examination” was just empty words; all he really cared about was how to thoroughly investigate and purge all Party cadres. His single objective was to use shock and awe to create a harsh atmosphere within the Party that would thoroughly root out all individualized and independent thinking and that would make the Party utterly submissive to a single and supreme authority—his own. It should be said that Mao achieved his aim. Decades later, cadres who had experienced the examination campaign said that what gave them the greatest “education,” tempered them, and what genuinely touched their

*

  Mao said something similar to Wang Shiying during the “emergency rescue” campaign. At that time, Wang had been falsely accused of being a “secret agent.”

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souls were the cadre examination and emergency rescue campaigns rather than the previous study stage of the Rectification Movement.

II. The Reaction of Top Cadres to the Emergency Rescue Campaign Mao and Kang Sheng led Yan’an’s emergency rescue, cadre examination, and anti-spy campaigns in the name of the Central Committee Secretariat and the CCGSC. Mao already had the Politburo under his complete control and he could convene an enlarged Politburo meeting whenever he wanted to. At this time, the Politburo effectively existed in name only, with most of its members under criticism and distributed among various highlevel study groups for rectification; under pressure from Mao, most of the leading Party cadres found it difficult to voice opposing views. After the main target of the Rectification Movement, Wang Ming, was admitted to the hospital for treatment in October 1941, he was not relieved of his positions as Politburo member, secretary of the Secretariat, and head of the Central United Front Department, but he no longer performed any real function. Beginning in spring 1943, Mao decided to take personal charge of the Chongqing Office, with Ren Bishi taking over the Xi’an Office. This left Yan’an’s Central United Front Department with practically nothing to do, and Wang Ming was besieged from all sides. In November 1943, the CCGSC and the General Office of the Central Committee convened a rally to expose and criticize Wang Ming’s errors. When Wang Ming’s wife, Meng Qingshu, mounted the platform to defend her husband, the atmosphere at the rally turned against Mao. Enraged, Mao criticized the rally as in “thoroughly bad taste” and he ordered an end to the kind of struggle rally where the targets of criticism were allowed on the stage to defend themselves.11 Wang Ming had nowhere to vent his dissatisfaction and “blues”; he feared that if people from the Soviet Union visited him, it would incur the envy and hatred of Mao and Kang Sheng, but he could not control his desire to see such people and he “wept his heart out” before a Soviet doctor who came to visit him in the hospital.* 12 Bo Gu was thoroughly disgusted with the rectification, cadre

*

  Vladimirov writes that it was only after obtaining Mao’s permission that Dr. Andrei Orlov visited Wang Ming in the hospital on October 28, 1943, and it was on this day that Wang Ming wept in the presence of the Soviet doctor.

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examination, and emergency rescue campaigns, but he had no one to complain to. He used work as a pretext for seeking out the Soviet delegate in Yan’an and berating Mao. Bo Gu knew very well the devastating power of Kang Sheng’s intelligence apparatus, and when talking with the Soviet representative, he would frequently go outside to look around and make sure no one was eavesdropping before daring to go back in to resume the conversation.13 The Party elders with the greatest prestige in Yan’an, Lin Boqu, Xu Teli, Wu Yuzhang, and Xie Juezai, were not targets of the Rectification Movement. They were all Mao’s long-time friends—Xu Teli and Xie Juezai from back in his Changsha days, and Lin Boqu and Wu Yuzhang had worked with him in Guangzhou and Wuhan when the KMT and the CCP were still cooperating and all three had served together as members of the KMT’s Central Executive Committee. During the Ruijin period, Lin Boqu had served as head of the State Economics Department and the Finance Department and he was on good terms with Mao, who at that time was chairman of the Central Executive Committee of the Chinese Soviet Republic. After the Rectification Movement shifted to the cadre examination and emergency rescue campaigns, Lin Boqu and the other Party elders looked on in shock as day by day, more and more of their comrades were attacked as secret agents and traitors, and the Party organization in the KMT-controlled areas was vilified as a “Red Flag party.” But their reactions varied in accordance with their different characters and the depth of their experience with inner-Party struggle. Lin Boqu was the only one of the elders who held an actual leadership position. He had petitioned Mao repeatedly regarding the Qian Laisu case, but Mao had not taken a clear stand. As a long-time political operative, Lin knew very well that the full-scale launch of this campaign could only have been undertaken with Mao’s permission, and for that reason he took a very cautious approach. Lin consoled comrades who had doubts about the campaign by saying that it was not surprising that the practice of “extort, confess, believe” had emerged at the height of the campaign, and that a reexamination would be carried out at a later stage. He also said that “many young intellectuals underwent investigation by the CCP’s Chongqing and Xi’an Offices before being recommended to Yan’an, and he had never heard of any of the rear area Party organizations going bad, so he knew how things stood on this question.”14 Xu Teli had long been engaged in education work and he had a

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forthright and sincere character. At one point he had challenged the leader of the campaigns at the Natural Science Institute, Chen Bocun, on what evidence he had for arresting so many students and teachers.15 Ignoring the fact that he had already been sidelined, Xu Teli said indignantly, “I am the director of the institute and I am responsible, so why do you not let me take charge!”16 Xu personally went to visit teachers and students in the caves where they were imprisoned, and when others advised him to be careful, he again said: “I am the director of the institute, and I need to protect my human resources.”17 Xie Juezai was at this time vice chairman and Party secretary of the Border Region Assembly, and when the emergency rescue campaign began in July 1943, he initially had a positive impression of it. He wrote in his journal on July 31, “I pity rather than hate some of the young people who have lost their way while living in a reactionary environment. ... Life or death is determined in a matter of a second, the line between revolution and counterrevolution is blurred, and that is how they lost their footing.” Xie Juezai continued, “We have learned a great deal from the current struggle against secret agents. ... Without this campaign, it would be difficult for our young Party members as well as for long-time Party members to understand class struggle.”18 However, Xie soon discovered problems in the emergency rescue campaign, saying, “Some people have been persecuted to death in the anti-spy struggle; there is no way to investigate their cases now, though there might have been no major secret agents among them at all.”19 Xie Juezai’s doubts regarding the emergency rescue campaign were related to his experience with brutal inner-Party struggle. He had personally witnessed brutal internecine killing in the Red Army in the Western Hunan and Hubei Soviet Areas in 1932. At that time, Xie had been included on the name-list of counterrevolutionaries to be disposed of, but he had the good fortune to instead be taken prisoner by the KMT. (The KMT battalion commander who captured him happened to believe in karma and he released Xie, who referred to himself as a teacher, along with other Red Army soldiers.) Ten years later, the CCP was once again embroiled in ultra-Leftist fanaticism, and the magnanimous Xie said, “It is reasonable to say that treating counterrevolutionaries with leniency is cruel to the revolutionaries, and we have used and misused this saying in the past with tragic consequences.”20 He therefore did all in his power to protect the cadres within his own work-unit. However, because Xie had

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been in charge of the CCP’s Lanzhou Office from 1937 to 1938, he was in a fix now that Kang Sheng had decided that the Gansu Work Committee was a “Red Flag party.” Assured of his powerful backing, Kang Sheng did not care at all about Xie Juezai and his once promising prospects, and he openly criticized him as “an old Right deviationist.” At the height of the emergency rescue campaign, Kang Sheng turned up at the cave where Xie worked and began arrogantly berating him: “According to ×××’s debriefing [referring to Zhang Keqin], his father was an old secret agent. It looks like the Lanzhou underground Party was full of secret agents and was a ‘Red Flag party.’ As the Party’s representative in the Lanzhou Office, you were really out of touch.” When Xie Juezai unequivocally disagreed with Kang Sheng to his face, Kang criticized him for “sheltering an espionage organization.” In a fit of pique, Xie “refused to attend meetings or study sessions, and he just stayed home and slept.”21 As the flames of the emergency rescue campaign engulfed the Party, Xie Juezai could only console himself by saying, “There will always be individuals who suffer injustices. We can only strive for classes not suffering injustices.”22 Wu Yuzhang’s situation was somewhat special among the Party leaders. At that time, Wu was nominally director of Yan’an University, but actual authority was held by deputy director Zhou Yang. Wu was only involved in researching and promoting the New Writing (the Latinization of Chinese characters) and he did not make specific inquiries into the cadre examination, anti-spy, or emergency rescue campaigns that were being carried out at the university. Perhaps because he had worked with Wang Ming in Moscow, or because he lacked the experience of living in the soviet areas during the 1930s, Wu seemed to be anxious about the fierce campaigns. At one point during the emergency rescue campaign, he gripped his walking stick and with tears in his eyes he advised a young cadre accused of being a “secret agent” to make a frank confession to the Party. In his autobiography, he also expressed his support of the emergency rescue campaign: During the Rectification Movement, everyone wrote intellectual autobiographies, and there were calls for a candor campaign. Quite a few secret agents whom the KMT sent into our Party, our Border Region, and our army specifically to engage in sabotage were discovered; this was never foreseen during the early stage of the Rectification Movement. Our Party’s magnanimous policy has

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been to appeal to young people entrapped by KMT special agents to turn over a new leaf, and many secret agents have responded to the Party’s appeal by doing so and they are willing to do their utmost against the secret agents. As for the minority of diehards bent on counterrevolution, they have been arrested. This was not anticipated by the anti-Communist elements and it is a genuine example of “faring worse for all their scheming.”23 Although the Party elders expressed their doubts and dissatisfaction about the emergency rescue campaign, they did not offer advice to Mao on the matter. Lin Boqu believed that once the campaign reached its climax, cooler thinking would prevail.24 The elders preferred to wait for Mao to rectify the errors rather than to risk offending him. Zhu De, who was commander-in-chief of the Eighth Route Army but had no genuine governing authority, understood very well what Mao and Kang Sheng were doing, but he also knew it was useless to say anything and he felt he had no choice but to wait in silent anxiety. Chen Yun was at this time a Politburo member and head of the Central Committee’s Organization Department. Given that the Organization Department was the supreme body in the cadre-vetting and management apparatus, Chen should have had a direct role in the cadre examination and emergency rescue campaigns. But Mao prevented Chen from engaging in or being informed about the campaigns; the openly stated rationale was that “Chairman Mao was concerned about Comrade Chen Yun’s health and had him move to Zaoyuan to recuperate.” The fact was, however, that Mao and Kang Sheng were unhappy with Chen’s leadership of the Organization Department, and Kang had even said, “There are so many scoundrels out there; what have you in the Organization Department done about them?” Kang criticized the Organization Department as “Rightist and too lenient in its investigations, allowing secret agents to penetrate our Party.”25 Another reason for having Chen Yun “recuperate” was his lack of enthusiasm for the emergency rescue campaign. Chen’s secretary at the time recalls that Chen “basically disagreed with conducting the ‘emergency rescue’ campaign,” feeling that the “enemy situation” had been exaggerated. He also dismissed the “Red Flag party” concept as inconsistent with the facts. Chen Yun felt that in its handling of many young intellectuals and veteran cadres, the emergency rescue campaign violated the Central Committee’s stipulations

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on how to carry out the Rectification Movement. It was because of Chen Yun’s attitude that Mao did not want him to be involved in the cadre examination and anti-spy campaigns; rather, he “had Chen Yun come to live near him on sick leave.” The period from March 1943, when Chen Yun moved to Zaoyuan, until March 1944, when he left for a position in the Northwest Finance and Economics Office, was exactly the time during which the cadre examination, anti-spy, and emergency campaigns were launched and then brought to a close. During that year, Chen Yun was effectively sidelined; he was not a party to any policy decisions and he “was kept ignorant of many matters.”26 Peng Zhen filled in for Chen as head of the Organization Department, and after Chen was transferred to the Northwest Finance and Economics Office, Peng was formally appointed head of the Organization Department. When Lin Biao returned to Yan’an with Zhou Enlai and the others from Chongqing in July 1943, Mao took pains to look after him and he urged him to rest. Although nominally deputy director of the Central Party School, Lin Biao did not concern himself with the school’s concrete operations (at that time, there was no urgent work in Yan’an apart from the Rectification Movement and the cadre examination campaign). While in Yan’an, Lin Biao kept a distance from Kang Sheng, and likewise he had nothing to do with the cadre examination and emergency rescue campaigns. As chief of staff of the Central Military Commission (CMC), Ye Jianying at one point reported to the leaders of the Central Committee that serious problems had emerged in the emergency rescue campaign in organs under the direct authority of the CMC. He unequivocally stated that Yan’an could not possibly have so many secret agents and that the campaign should not be carried out in such a way. However, in Kang Sheng’s eyes, even Ye was suspect. Kang frequently slandered Ye in Mao’s presence because of his long experience in the KMT-controlled areas and because of his wide social connections, and he persecuted a number of Ye’s Yan’an-based family members during the emergency rescue campaign. Ye’s former wife, Wei Gongzhi, was labeled a secret agent of the “Henan Red Flag party,” and her incarceration from autumn 1943 until spring 1945 led to a physical and mental breakdown.27 Although Ye Jianying was not put in isolation or under investigation, on two occasions he was excluded from enlarged Politburo meetings that discussed the Party line during the Civil War period. A Soviet observer in Yan’an subsequently divulged that Ye Jianying loathed Kang Sheng.

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Key military officers Liu Bocheng, Nie Rongzhen, and Chen Yi were recalled to Yan’an during this period to engage in introspection about their “errors” during the Civil War and the early years of the War of Resistance. Although they were all unhappy with the extremist actions carried out during the cadre examination and emergency rescue campaigns, their status made it difficult for them to speak out. Apart from a few key cadres who actively participated in Kang Sheng’s emergency rescue campaign, most of the Party leaders expressed displeasure with the excesses of the campaign. In private conversations, Chen Yun, Wang Ruofei, and others questioned the campaign, but they never expressed their views to Mao’s face. In the beleaguered atmosphere of the times, such doubts and disgruntlement were scattered, and no one dared to formally bring up the problems in important meetings. Furthermore, some key cadres, including Central Committee members, had already broken off communications and only saw one another at public functions, where everyone was extremely careful about what they said.28 The only senior leaders who formally voiced their doubts to Mao and Kang Sheng about the emergency rescue campaign were Zhou Enlai, Ren Bishi, Zhang Wentian, and Gao Gang. Zhou Enlai returned to Yan’an on July 16, 1943, to prepare for a line review in the central core leadership. Immediately upon his return, Zhou discovered that the underground Party under his direct leadership in the KMT-controlled areas was accused of being a “Red Flag party” run by KMT agents. This placed enormous pressure on Zhou; Kang Sheng even suspected Zhou himself, saying that Zhou and the others “were in daily contact with the KMT in the White areas and were unreliable.”29 Zhou wrote testimonials for former subordinates incarcerated by Kang Sheng’s apparatus and various work-units, while, at the same time, in conversations with Li Weihan and others, Zhou explicitly stated that there was no such thing as a “Red Flag party” and that there was nothing ambiguous about the underground Party in the KMT-controlled areas. At this stage, Zhou’s status in the Party was very weak and he was personally under suspicion, but he continued to offer advice directly to Mao and to voice his opinions about the campaign. Ren Bishi and Zhang Wentian also expressed their doubts to Mao. Ren Bishi was part of the leadership core at this time, but he was an upstanding man who did not always go along with Mao’s way of doing

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things. Although Ren was something of an impediment to him, Mao tolerated him in hopes of making use of Ren’s status as a veteran cadre to break up the alliance among Wang Ming, Zhou Enlai, and the others. In late autumn 1943, Ren informed Mao on two occasions of serious abuses in the emergency rescue campaign and demanded that they be corrected. Unlike Ren Bishi who remained in the core leadership, Zhang Wentian had already fallen from power and was being subjected to criticism and struggle. Yet Zhang told Kang Sheng straight out of his doubts regarding the outcome of the emergency rescue campaign and he informed Kang in no uncertain terms that everything published in the Social Department’s Experience in Counter-Espionage was bogus.30 In contrast to other senior cadres who played it safe for their self-preservation, Zhang Wentian remained true to his bookish character and did not consider the personal costs of his comments. Originally Gao Gang was an active participant in the rectification and emergency rescue campaigns, but he sensed problems as the emergency rescue campaign proceeded. Shi Zhe discloses that at one point Gao told Mao that the campaign’s “methods are too extreme.”31 Among the next lower rank of leading cadres, there were also some who used various means to inform Mao and the Central Committee of their doubts and objections to the emergency rescue campaign. Among them, the most courageous and insightful were the former head of the Eighth Route Army’s Second War Zone Office, Wang Shiying, and the head of the Social Department’s Public Security Office, Chen Long. After the Rectification Movement was launched in 1942, Wang Shiying was transferred back to Yan’an—first to Wangjiaping to work in the CMC branch study group and then to the Central Party School for rectification study. After rectification shifted to the cadre examination phase, Wang joined the cadre examination group at the Party School. However, he soon developed doubts about the campaign as comrades who had engaged in secret operations in the KMT-controlled areas under his leadership were exposed as “secret agents.” While examining the case files on “secret agents” investigated at the Party School, Wang discovered accusations that were inconsistent with the facts. He openly expressed his doubts during Party branch meetings, and he wrote a “Report Regarding a Request for the Central Committee to Rectify the Problem of Excessive Leftism in the Emergency Rescue Campaign for Those Who Have Stumbled,” which he submitted to Mao, Liu Shaoqi, and Kang Sheng. In

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this report, Wang Shiying explicitly stated that the campaign had become excessively “Leftist,” and he asked the Central Committee to correct this error, pledging his own Party membership and his life in appealing on behalf of Qian Laisu, Bai Tian (who later became a famous writer under the name of Wei Wei), and four others who had been labeled “secret agents” or “suspected secret agents.” Qian Laisu, whom Wang Shiying had personally recommended to Yan’an, had been under suspicion for a long time and was unable to clear his name, while two of the others had admitted to being “secret agents” due to the non-stop interrogation. Wang Shiying’s petition drew an extreme reaction from Kang Sheng, who that very same night wrote back to Wang criticizing him for “subjectivism” and “naivety.” In the CCGSC, Kang Sheng criticized Wang to his face as a “major liberal trying to be a hero” and threatened him by asking, “How many heads do you have?”32 A campaign was soon launched against Wang Shiying, and at a 1,000–cadre conference at the Central Party School, someone openly accused Wang and Kong Yuan of being “major secret agents.”33 Although Wang became caught up in the emergency rescue campaign, Mao had been in contact with him and he was satisfied with the United Front and intelligence work he had carried out in Shanxi. As a result, Wang Shiying got off relatively lightly for petitioning against the emergency rescue campaign. Wang subsequently referred to this matter in his autobiography: “Although someone raised this issue [referring to the accusation that Wang was a “secret agent”], no one ever opened fire on me, which shows that the central leadership cared about me and looked after me, and it also understood me very well.”34 Around the time that Wang Shiying petitioned against the emergency rescue campaign, some operatives in the Social Department, which was leading the campaign, also expressed their doubts. The head of the Public Security Office, Chen Long, told his direct superior, Kang Sheng, that there were things that he did not understand about the campaign. The Public Security Office of the Social Department was required to write a report every week and to send it to five to seven people, including Mao, Liu Shaoqi, Zhu De, Ren Bishi, and Kang Sheng. Chen Long and Social Department operative Gan Lu used these reports to indirectly express their doubts to Mao and the others about the campaign. The detailed statistics reported by Chen Long and the others concretely reflected the progress of the campaign in each work-unit, including the proportion of intriguers and secret agents, the number of suicides and deaths, and the number of

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people incarcerated. The reports concluded that more than 50 percent of the cadres in all of Yan’an’s work-units had been “rescued.”* After the data compiled by Chen Long and the others were reported according to standard procedures, a seven-day city-wide emergency rescue rally that the CCGSC had planned, involving all of Yan’an’s Party, government, military, and educational organs, was cancelled on the third day.35 Of course, cancelling the city-wide rally did not mean that the campaign had cooled down or that Chen Long and his colleagues had actually influenced Mao’s policies; the various organs and schools continued the emergency rescue rally internally and unearthed more “secret agents” and “hidden traitors” than ever before. As leading Party cadres in Yan’an expressed their displeasure with the extremism of the emergency rescue campaign through various channels, Mao could not have been unaware of their views, but it was not their objections that concerned him; the result Mao was aiming for was that even if top Party cadres were full of resentment, the vast majority would not dare to express it to him. Mao used the cadre investigation, anti-spy, and emergency rescue campaigns to achieve the objective that he had been diligently pursuing all these years, which was to impose complete psychological control over all colleagues who had dared to argue with him in the past.

III. Dimitrov’s December 22, 1943 Cable and Suspension of the Emergency Rescue Campaign Did the blunt advice that Zhou Enlai and Ren Bishi gave to Mao reverse the extremism of the emergency rescue and cadre examination campaigns actually do any good? Did Mao immediately accept their views and order a suspension of the campaigns? Contrary to general expectations, Mao did not immediately correct the errors; the obstinate Mao would only take such action when he himself recognized the need. Only he could decide the appropriate time for action, regardless of what anyone else said. Mao saw no problems with the campaigns; hadn’t he come up with the “kill none and arrest few” principle and made a pronouncement

*

  It would appear that what Chen Long et al. reported referred to the early stage of the campaign, from July to August 1943, because thereafter nearly all intellectual cadres who had gone to Yan’an from outside were subjected to varying degrees of “emergency rescue.”

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against the practice of “extort, confess, believe”? So what was the harm of continuing? It might be a bit too Leftist or result in an occasional injustice, but it was not killing anyone, and what did a few days in jail matter? If the cadres were not stirred up a little, how could they change from being disloyal (“double-hearted”) or “half-hearted” to becoming “whole-hearted”? Of course, Mao gave full consideration to the views of people such as Ren Bishi and Zhou Enlai because in his heart he knew that Yan’an could not possibly have so many secret agents and he had to find a way to rein in the current situation. Just at this time, Mao received a secret cable from Comintern head Georgi Dimitrov in Moscow. This cable touched on a series of important issues and objectively facilitated Mao’s putting the brakes on the emergency rescue campaign. The full text of Dimitrov’s cable read as follows: December 22, 1943 Mao Zedong (personal) 1. Regarding your son. I have arranged for him to study at the Military Institute, and after graduation he will have a strong grounding in Marxism-Leninism and modern military affairs. This young man is very capable, and I believe you will make him into a dependable and able assistant. He sends you his deepest respects. 2. Regarding political issues. It goes without saying that following the disbanding of the Comintern, none of its former leaders can intervene in the internal affairs of the various national Communist parties. In consideration of personal friendship, however, I feel compelled to tell you of my worries regarding the internal situation of the Chinese Communist Party. You know that beginning in 1935, I have been obliged to regularly and closely inquire into matters in China. I feel that the policy of shrinking back from resistance against the foreign invaders and the obvious deviation from the national United Front policy are political errors and that adoption of such policies at a time when the Chinese people are engaged in a national war of resistance creates the danger of isolating the Party from the masses and of leading to an intensification of the Civil War. This can only be of benefit to the foreign invaders and their representatives in the KMT. I feel that launching a campaign against Zhou Enlai and Wang Ming, accusing them of carrying out the national United

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Front recommended by the Comintern and saying they are causing divisions in the Party, is a political error. People such as Zhou Enlai and Wang Ming should not be removed from the Party but should remain in the Party, and by all means be put to use for the Party. Another matter causing me concern is that some Party cadres have unhealthy feelings toward the Soviet Union. I also have misgivings about the role played by Kang Sheng. The proper internal Party measures for eliminating hostile elements within the Party and for uniting the Party have been distorted beyond recognition by Kang Sheng and his apparatus. This can only spread feelings of mutual suspicion and give rise to furious indignation among ordinary Party members and the masses and assist the enemy in bringing about the collapse of the Party. Back in August, we received completely reliable information from Chongqing that the KMT had decided to send intriguers to infiltrate Yan’an and incite discord between you and Wang Ming and other public figures in the Party and to provoke hostile feelings against all people who have lived and studied in Moscow. I promptly gave you advance warning regarding the KMT’s ruse. The KMT’s secret intention is to cause the Communist Party to collapse from within, after which it will be easily destroyed. I have absolutely no doubt that everything Kang Sheng is doing is helping these intriguers increase their influence. Please forgive me for this comradely frankness. I have the deepest respect for you, and I firmly believe that you, as the generally acknowledged leader of the Party, can clearly see the way things truly are. It is only on this one issue that I wish to be so frank with you. Please reply to me through the same method with which I have sent you this letter. Tightly gripping your hand, Dimitrov36 This cable from Dimitrov was a serious matter; the dissolution of the Comintern in May 1943 had left Mao completely unfettered. In fact, when Mao decided to show his hand to the Comintern faction, he did not take much account of Moscow. But there was another side to the issue: The Comintern had disbanded but the Soviet Union and the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU) had not, and now Moscow knew all about the most recent wrangling within the Party leadership in Yan’an. Stalin

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had used indirect means, via Dimitrov, to issue a warning to Mao and he was paying particularly close attention to the political fates of Wang Ming and Zhou Enlai; he seemed to be casting aspersions on Mao’s personal character. Dimitrov’s cable mentioned Kang Sheng in particular and cast doubts on his behavior, and this also constituted a serious blow to Mao. After receiving Dimitrov’s cable, Mao immediately made careful arrangements,* 37 and, apart from repeatedly baring his heart to the Soviet Union’s representative in Yan’an, emphasizing the importance of the *

  After receiving Dimitrov’s December 22 cable, Mao was in an agitated state for some time, and on January 2, 1944, he sent Dimitrov a reply cable through the Soviet observer in Yan’an. Mao stated that the CCP had never weakened in its fight against Japan and its policy of cooperation with the KMT had not changed. In response to Dimitrov’s concern for Zhou Enlai and Wang Ming, Mao wrote, “Our relationship with Zhou Enlai is good, and we have absolutely no plans to expel him from the Party. Zhou has already made considerable progress.” As for Wang Ming, Mao could not conceal the resentment in his heart, and he wrote in his cable, “Wang Ming has all along been engaged in all kinds of anti-Party activities. ... In my view, Wang Ming is unreliable.” Mao gave two examples: First, Wang Ming had been arrested by the KMT, and while in prison he had acknowledged his identity as a Party member, only to be released thereafter. In Yan’an Diary, Vladimirov also mentioned his strong sense that Mao loathed Wang Ming. In his November 29, 1943 diary entry, Vladimirov wrote that the new accusation against Wang Ming was that of a “KMT conspirator and counterrevolutionary,” and that piece of evidence was that Wang Ming had been arrested and then released by the KMT. Second, the relationship between Wang Ming and Pavil Mif was suspect. However, Mao expressed complete trust in Kang Sheng. He told Dimitrov, “Kang Sheng is a trustworthy person.” One day later, Mao regretted that the cable he had sent might be misconstrued by its distant recipient, so he sought out Vladimirov and asked if the cable had already been sent, telling the Soviet observer that it might have been inappropriate. Mao then immediately launched a public relations offensive against Soviet personnel in Yan’an. Vladimirov records that on January 4, Mao and Jiang Qing invited him to attend a Peking Opera with them, and Mao “Immediately began speaking of his respect for the Soviet Union, the CPSU, and Stalin,” as well as his esteem for Chinese comrades who had studied in the Soviet Union and how indebted he was to Dimitrov. On January 6, Mao, Liu, and Zhou invited Vladimirov and other Soviet personnel for a friendly chat over dinner. On January 7, on his own Mao went to visit Vladimirov and again spoke of “how deeply he respected the experience of comrades Stalin and Dimitrov.” During the conversation, Mao spoke of Wang Ming in an “entirely different, almost friendly, tone” that caught Vladimirov completely off guard: “At first I didn’t realize he was speaking of Wang Ming.” Mao asked Vladimirov to send another cable to Dimitrov in which he stated that the policy of unity and cohesion should also be applied to Wang Ming.

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Rectification Movement and his own just and honorable conduct, he also sent Ren Bishi and Zhou Enlai to speak with the Soviet representative and used them to clear up the “rumors” that Mao was carrying out purges. Mao also intensified his “enticement” and “pressuring” of Wang Ming, forcing Wang to admit his errors so that Moscow would have nothing more to say. Mao came up with a flawless method: Moscow had demanded an end to inner-Party struggle, so Mao called an upper-level meeting during which he forced all of his colleagues to undergo self-criticism and selfreflection. He then presented the self-criticisms by Zhou Enlai, Wang Ming, and the others as established facts to keep Moscow silent. Moscow had criticized Kang Sheng’s campaigns against traitors and secret agents as an enemy plot to divide and sabotage the Party, but this was pure nonsense; Yan’an’s purges were carried out entirely under Mao’s direction. Moscow’s loathing of Kang Sheng proved Kang’s undivided loyalty to Mao, so Mao disregarded Moscow’s warning and continued to rely heavily on Kang Sheng. Even so, it seemed improper to continue with the extremist methods of the emergency rescue and anti-spy campaigns after receiving Dimitrov’s cable. Moscow had unequivocally stated its objections, and by now the war between Germany and the Soviet Union had taken a turn in Moscow’s favor, meaning the CCP would be relying on Stalin’s support in the future, so Moscow’s views could not be completely ignored. Furthermore, the gradual spread of complaints within the Party would eventually damage Mao’s personal prestige, added to which the campaigns had basically achieved their purpose of shock and awe; in short, this was an “appropriate time” to adjust his political tactics. It was against this backdrop that the Central Committee Secretariat called a work meeting on December 22, 1943, to hear and discuss Kang Sheng’s report on the struggle against secret agents. In his remarks, Ren Bishi said the claim that 80 percent of new intellectual cadres were secret agents should be negated; 80 to 90 percent of the new intellectual cadres were good people, and a reexamination of their cases should commence forthwith. Mao accepted Ren Bishi’s suggestion and agreed to a case review and “screening,” or reexamination.38 After this meeting, Yan’an’s emergency rescue campaign began to wind down, but Mao maintained tight control over this process and did not allow the campaign to end abruptly lest questions be raised regarding its legitimacy. In early 1944,

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Yan’an’s various work-units received a “Cadre Campaign Advanced Model Report Group” from Suide County. This group, comprised of teachers and students from Suide Normal School, stayed at a hostel rented by the Communications Office under the Social Department, and its members went out each day to the various organs and schools to deliver personal testimonial-style reports. One girl of 12 or 13 described how she had been sent to Yan’an by a KMT espionage agent specifically to lure revolutionary cadres into a “honey trap” Although Mao was already preparing to “rectify deviation,” he allowed the farcical emergency rescue and candor campaigns to continue. In February 1944, Yan’an’s newspapers published the “anti-spy experience” of the pure-minded “campaign hero,” Ji Zhishou; his unaffected, thoroughly unsophisticated language vividly demonstrated the effects of the mass anti-spy campaign that Mao had launched: Secret agents are like a bun that has a peculiar color and does not rise when you steam it, or like a bun that has lost its stuffing. These people carry their consciences on their backs. ... They want to kill the cadres who serve the people by leading our production, turning everyone into a hive without a queen bee. Now that the secret agent bad seeds have come to the Border Region, we have to rake them up or dig them out with a hoe. If the root is too big to dig out, we will ask the government to bring its pickaxe to dig it out; it will surely be dug out by the root before we finish. You have to pay close attention to identify a secret agent. It is like looking at eyeglasses and seeing if they are made of frosted glass or stone. If you cannot tell by yourself, go to the government and ask a cadre to look at it, and he will be able to tell. I hope that from now on, everyone will keep a close eye out and question everyone of unknown origin who comes here selling glasses, old clothes, shoes or medicine, and barefoot doctors, fortune tellers, onion and garlic peddlers, or those hauling charcoal on a donkey. We have to keep a close lookout for people who sabotage our cultivation of virgin land or go around badmouthing, and if you see a problem, you should report it to the government.39 Obviously the emergency rescue campaign could not have been a mistake since it had raised awareness among the Border Region’s masses regarding struggle against the enemy.

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The handling of Qian Laisu’s case also reflected Mao’s complicated attitude in terms of defending the emergency rescue campaign. Held under house arrest at the Communications Office ever since the campaign was launched, Qian was thoroughly despondent and had repeatedly expressed his regret for ever having come to Yan’an. Attempts by Lin Boqu and others to rescue him had proven fruitless and he could only wait for Mao’s final pronouncement. On February 8, 1944, Mao wrote a memo on a report regarding Qian Laisu submitted by Jin Cheng, head of the Communications Office: Comrade Jin Cheng: Qian Zheng [i.e., Qian Laisu] should be given special treatment. It is possible that he is not a traitor, and there are still doubts whether his son-in-law is a secret agent. If not, they should be rehabilitated.40 Although Mao said Qian should be given preferential treatment, he did not state unequivocally that Qian and his son-in-law were not traitors or secret agents. His ambiguous phrasing prepared the groundwork for retaining the results of the emergency rescue campaign.

IV: The “Screening” of Cases: Behind Mao’s “Apology” In about spring and summer 1944, as the emergency rescue campaign entered its reexamination stage, the cadre examination groups of each Party organ and school were converted into “screening committees,” and the cadres who originally directed the cadre examination and emergency rescue campaigns were then put in charge of the screening work. “Screening” was different from “rehabilitation.” If the cadre examination verdicts were found to contain inaccuracies, they had to be corrected; this was called “screening out.” “Rehabilitation” meant the retraction of erroneous verdicts and the restoration of the reputations of victims of injustice. The corrective work carried out on Yan’an’s cadre examination and emergency rescue campaigns, as its name indicated, was of the former rather than of the latter type. The screening was not a uniform correction but rather it divided the examination targets into six categories. The book Hu Qiaomu Remembers Mao Zedong, published in 1994, discloses that from 1943 to 1944, Yan’an purged a total of 15,000 “secret agents,”41 grouped in the following categories:

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The first type was professional secret agents. They were instigated by certain spy agencies or secret agents to carry out espionage work (lying low for extended periods was also a kind of undercover work), and there was conclusive proof. … But these professional secret agents were a tiny minority, making up only 10 percent of all those who confessed and they included both those who volunteered and those who were coerced, both leaders and followers. … The second type was turncoats. Among these were people who had sabotaged the Party organization or who had captured or killed people. Some had surrendered and written anti-Communist documents but had committed no other misdeeds; some had been forced to accept an assignment from the enemy but upon their return they had neither carried it out nor reported it; some had committed misdeeds during the Civil War but had turned neutral or switched sides during the War of Resistance, and so on. … These also comprised a minority of those who came clean. … The third type had problems of Party affiliation. They had at some point joined the KMT, the Three People’s Principle Youth League, or some other party or faction. They had not reported this when joining our Party, but they were not secret agents. There was a large number of this type. … The fourth type consisted of people who had been used and hoodwinked by secret agents. Some were unconsciously used and hoodwinked by secret agents under the enemy’s Red Flag policy; some became the tools of secret agents due to their divided loyalties or youthful ignorance. … The fifth type was those who committed errors within the Party. They were guilty of falsifying their curricula vitae or their time in the Party, maintaining contact with scoundrels, leaking confidential information, protecting friends or relatives, political errors, corruption or degeneracy, and the like, and during the candor campaign they were wrongfully suspected of being secret agents. … The sixth type was those who during the cadre examination campaign had been wrongfully treated or had been slandered by secret agents.

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… Although there were few such people, they did exist and some of them had even been arrested.42 According to the above categorizations, most of the cadres who had been investigated had problems of some kind; only a small portion of the cases had been thoroughly mishandled and these were placed in the last category to show that the achievements of the cadre examination and emergency rescue campaigns were enormous and their shortcomings were merely secondary. According to the above standards, the Central Committee maintained its original judgment regarding the KMT’s socalled “Red Flag policy.” Clearly Mao and the others had not accepted Zhou Enlai’s defense that these were false accusations, and the CCP’s underground organizations in the KMT-controlled areas, especially in the Southwest Regions, remained under a political cloud. The Central Committee also stipulated how to deal with these six categories: Regarding secret agents and turncoats who have come clean. If the evidence is irrefutable, adopt the policy of no killing and of uniting in resistance against Japan; if conclusive evidence is lacking, do not pursue it further so as to avoid an antagonistic deadlock which will make it difficult to win them over and to avoid a cunning plot by the enemy to frame comrades. Where there is irrefutable proof of hidden saboteurs. Continue to carry out the policy of magnanimity. Place an emphasis on leniency, supplemented by repression; emphasize persuasion, supplemented by punishment, so as to provide a way out for those willing to start anew to expiate their crimes through good work. Regarding major suspects who cannot be conclusively investigated within a short time. Do not rush into a resolution so as to avoid the problematic practice of extort, confess, believe. It is permissible to purposely let up for a time or to temporarily reach a conclusion based on what they say and then carry out follow-up research and a secret investigation. Regarding those with problems of Party affiliation. Those who have been entrapped or those who have committed errors within

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the Party. After sorting out the problems, rehabilitate all of them, remove the label of secret agent, and reach an appropriate conclusion according to the circumstances. Toward those whose cases have been mishandled or who have been framed by secret agents: Once the investigation is concluded they should be immediately rehabilitated.43 There are many specious and self-contradictory points in the above stipulations; if there is no conclusive evidence, why not immediately free the person? Why speak of “winning the person over”? On what grounds? As for so-called “framing by secret agents,” a large amount of the informing and exposure occurred under the practice of “extort, confess believe,” which forced the targets of investigation to accuse others; how, then, could both the accusers and the accused be considered “secret agents”? Furthermore, to “carry out follow-up research and secret investigation” against “major suspects who cannot be conclusively investigated within a short time” is to only superficially “let up for a time, or temporarily reach a conclusion based on what they say.” The deeper meaning implied by the screening policy was fully displayed in the “apologies” Mao made to the cadres investigated in Yan’an. The intense dissatisfaction that the screening triggered among Yan’an’s cadres regarding the cadre examination and emergency rescue campaigns became an open secret from spring 1944 to spring 1945. Under the circumstances, Mao “doffed his hat” and “apologized” to Yan’an cadres at the Institute of Public Administration, the Central Party School, the Border Region Government Offices, and other venues. Mao avoided any mention of the emergency rescue campaign being a mistake, saying only that the campaign had gotten out of hand, causing some comrades to be wronged. On New Year’s Day 1944, the head of the Third Department of the CMC, Wang Zheng, paid his respects to Mao, bringing along a group of cadres who had been investigated and recently freed but whose cases had yet to be concluded (the CMC’s Third Department was responsible for telecommunications between Yan’an and the other base areas, and because of the importance of this work, these cadres were the first to be extricated). The cadres stood in a dense mass in front of Mao’s home, hoping for some kind of explanation. Mao made some half-serious remarks about intending to prepare a bath for the comrades but dropping in too much potassium permanganate and injuring their delicate skins.

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Although Mao saluted and expressed his “apologies,” his words seemed to implicitly criticize the cadres for being obsessive and taking the Party’s investigations too much to heart. Mao’s ambiguous attitude naturally affected screening work in the various work-units. After three months of reexamination, only 800 cadres in Yan’an had been screened, just one-quarter of those who had “come clean.” In the organs directly under the Central Committee, the Border Region Government, the Central Committee Social Department, the Border Region Security Office (BRSO), the Central Party School, Yan’an University, and the Joint Headquarters of the Shaan-Gan-Ning and JinSui Border Areas, eight months of screening resulted in 60 out of 487 people being confirmed as “secret agents” and another 41 being labeled as “turncoats,” comprising more than one-fifth of those screened. At the Social Department, where the screening was managed directly by Kang Sheng, six of the twenty-seven people screened were designated “professional secret agents” (in the terminology of the times, “secret agents” were divided into “professionals” and “amateurs”) and two were designated as “turncoats,” comprising 30 percent of those screened. In the BRSO headed by Zhou Xing, thirty-six of the ninety-six people screened were found to be “secret agents” and two were found to be “turncoats,” comprising 40 percent of the total.44 The determination of such a high proportion of “secret agents” and “turncoats” during the screening process was clearly intended to prove that the cadre examination, candor, and emergency rescue campaigns had been thoroughly justified. As a key unit in the emergency rescue campaign, the Central Party School did not completely shift into the screening phase until September 1944. The Party secretary of the First Department’s sixth branch, Zhu Rui, formed a small group, with Bo Yibo, Ni Zhiliang, and others, to assist with the screening work in the special branch where a relatively large number of problematic people were concentrated. Zhu Rui and the others sympathized with Wei Gongzhi, holding that her suicide attempt and her request to withdraw from the Party during the emergency rescue campaign were due to mental derangement, and they “closed her case with a ‘no-problem’ conclusion.” Yet Zhu Rui and the others were criticized for this conclusion by the leaders of the Party School’s First Department, who accused them of “speaking in Wei’s defense and not taking a principled stand.” Zhu Rui and the others had to carry out a great deal of follow-up work before they were finally able to resolve the issue of Wei Gongzhi’s

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verdict.45 This incident shows that the screening of the victims of the emergency rescue campaign was often a tortuous process and that it was far from easy for anyone who had been “rescued” to completely clear his name. The drawn-out nature of the screening and reexamination processes caused resentment among Yan’an cadres, but an even more important factor to pacify and ameliorate this discontent was the sudden change in the international situation in 1945, which objectively required resolution of the large backlog of problems related to the cadre examination and emergency rescue campaigns. Against this backdrop, the pace of the screening and reexaminations began to pick up, and the screening work was basically completed in all of Yan’an’s work-units by spring 1945, with conclusions reached regarding 2,475 individuals.* 46 This number may refer only to the “major culprits” locked up in Yan’an’s main introspection organs because, according to Hu Qiaomu, a total of 15,000 people had been labeled “secret agents” in Yan’an. Even when a conclusion was reached on an investigation target, it did not mean that his problems were over. Four other grades of verdicts could be pronounced, depending on the circumstances: • • • •

The problem was cleared up, and a verdict could be reached; A partial verdict could be reached on the main questions being investigated; The verdict retained items for further investigation, meaning there were still questions that remained to be dealt with; Verification was not possible, and no verdict could be reached.

Among the conclusions reached on these 2,475 investigation targets, 30 percent were found to have political problems of Party affiliation, with turncoats, secret agents, or people who had surrendered to the *

  From 1943 to 1945, Yan’an had 30,000 Party and non-Party cadres. Most of those who came under attack during the emergency rescue campaign were young educated cadres who had arrived in Yan’an after the launch of the War of Resistance against Japan. Also targeted was a considerable number of veteran cadres who had led the underground Party in the KMT-controlled areas, as well as many who had studied in the Soviet Union. According to Hu Qiaomu’s figures, some 15,000 cadres were subjected to “emergency rescue.”

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enemy comprising 10 percent of each; errors committed within the Party comprised around 40 percent; those who had been wrongly accused made up 26 percent; and questions remained regarding about 4 percent who were not granted a verdict.47 No one dared to decide how to handle this last group of cases, but ultimately Mao spoke up, his general idea being that the Northeast would soon be liberated and would require a large number of cadres, so these people should be sent to the front line to render their own verdicts; if they were true Communists, they would stay in the Party, and if they were with the KMT, they would run back to the KMT—what did it matter? Although Mao said this, Yan’an did not release people such as Wang Shiwei whose nature had been “determined,” nor were cadres lacking a verdict assigned to work-units in accordance with the Party’s organizational procedures; rather, they remained under investigation and control in the Social Department. Although these cadres did not run off to the KMT, they continued to suffer political suspicion and bias. The “doubtful points” and “loose ends” remained in their dossiers long after 1949, causing them infinite misfortunes as they wasted the best years of their lives in an endless succession of investigations and purges. Peng Erning (Qian Laisu’s son), carrying the heavy baggage of a “suspected secret agent,” was targeted in every cadre examination campaign after 1949. It was not until Kang Sheng was finally exposed and posthumously purged in 1980 that Peng was thoroughly rehabilitated. In the 1980s, an unnamed female cadre who had been accused of being a “double agent” for both Japan and the KMT recalled with great pain how she had spent fourteen years under investigation: “The first seven years occurred right after I joined the revolution and I was investigated. That was the flower of my youth, when I was only 19 years old. The second seven years came in the prime of my life, when I could do good work, but that was lost to Kang Sheng’s reactionary bloodline theory and the subjectivism of extort, confess, believe.”48 Zhang Keqin, whom Kang Sheng had meticulously groomed into a model of candor, was again hauled out by Kang at the height of the emergency rescue campaign so he could brag that he had turned a counterrevolutionary secret agent into someone who served the revolution. Kang Sheng kept his grip on Zhang even during the 1945 screening process, when he refused to grant Zhang a verdict in hopes of retaining him as an example that proved the validity of the emergency

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rescue campaign. In November 1945, Zhang Keqin was transferred to the Northeast with some cadres from the Social Department and he experienced severe trials. The head of the Social Department’s Third Office, Chen Long, looked after him by making him section chief in the Bei’an City Public Security Bureau, but his “problem” was never resolved. In November 1949, Zhang accompanied Chen Long from Harbin to Beijing, and, in accordance with the Central Committee Organization Department’s recommendation, he went to the Northwest Bureau to clear up the problems in his personal history. Finally, in April 1950, “with the authorization of the relevant department under the Central Committee, an institutional conclusion was reached that there were no problems in his history,” and Zhang Keqin’s Party membership was restored. This occurred just as Kang Sheng fell out of political favor and withdrew from public life. Zhang Keqin went on to become Party secretary of Lanzhou University, but he was pulled into every political campaign. In 1986, while a member of the Standing Committee of the Gansu Province Political Consultative Council, Zhang recalled with great sorrow, “This is the fiftieth anniversary of my joining the revolution and I have spent half of those years being politically victimized. ... When the ‘emergency rescue’ began in 1943, I was labeled a ‘secret agent.’ After the victory of the War of Resistance, I went to the Northeast wearing that label. ... In 1959 I was labeled a ‘Right deviating opportunist.’ During the Cultural Revolution Kang Sheng named me again, and I spent five and a half years in prison.” Xie Juezai’s journal records the activities of another Yan’an cadre named Cai Ziwei who was the principal of a secondary school in the Border Region in September 1938, but after that nothing more was heard of him. Cai Ziwei was incarcerated for a long time without anyone knowing what had happened to him, but in the 1980s he was appointed to the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference. The last batch of people screened in Yan’an after the Japanese surrendered in August 1945 consisted of 500 to 600 major suspects locked up in the BRSO. At that time, the CCP Central Committee wanted to send a large number of cadres to the Northeast, so it urged the Social Department and the Security Office to focus on screening work; on November 9, 1945, the Social Department’s leading cadres, Chen Gang and Chen Long, led more than 200 cadres on foot to the Northeast. Chen Gang, a native of Sichuan, was the alias taken by Liu Zuofu, the Central

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Funding Committee member captured during the Futian Incident.* After returning to Shanghai from Jiangxi, he spent a long time as leader of the Central Committee Communications Bureau, and in 1932 he had married He Shishan, the daughter of He Shuheng.† Liu Zuofu secretly went to the Soviet Union with Kong Yuan in 1935, and He Shishan followed him shortly thereafter. Liu and his wife returned to Yan’an at the end of 1937, and in the spring of 1938 Liu helped establish the “Enemy Area Work Committee” and he ran eight training courses for cadres undertaking confidential operations. By then Liu Zuofu had already changed his name to Chen Gang and he was put in charge of personnel matters in the Central Committee’s Social Department. He attended the Seventh Party Congress in 1945 and became deputy director of the Social Department in December 1948. Beginning in 1956, Chen served as Party secretary of Sichuan Province, and he was promoted to secretary of the Southwest Bureau Secretariat in 1963. Half of the cadres whom Chen Gang took to the Northeast in 1945 had been placed under “emergency rescue” but had not been screened or provided with a verdict. Many did not have their cases reexamined until after the People’s Republic of China was established. Finally, the Security Office decided that suspects who remained in Yan’an to be screened would be allowed to screen themselves; they wrote up their own verdicts and submitted them to the Security Office’s Third Section for approval, after which they signed the final conclusion. The screening of most of the people still in custody was basically completed in the first half of 1946. Compared with those who had received verdicts or who were sent to the Northeast, the 100-plus people who remained incarcerated in the Security Office were most unfortunate. This group, which included Wang Shiwei, became the sacrificial victims of the emergency rescue campaign. When the Nationalist Army attacked Yan’an in spring 1947, the Security Departments escorted these “criminals” to Shanxi’s Lin County, and with Kang Sheng’s authorization, they were executed on the banks of the Yellow River.49

*

  Translators’ notes (cited hereafter as TN): See Chapter 1.   TN: As stated in Chapter 1, He Shuheng had been secretary of Worker-Peasant Inspection but was dismissed during the campaign against the Luo Ming Line. †

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Apart from Wang Shiwei, none of the names of those who were executed were retained (of course, the Security Office had detailed information on all of them). Around the same time, in Shanxi’s Jin-Sui Base Area under He Long’s jurisdiction, another group of investigated individuals was also executed, among them Lin Keyi, who had been honored as one of the “five patriotic youths.” Prior to his arrest, Lin Keyi was head of the Publication and Distribution Department of War of Resistance Daily in Jin-Sui. He had joined the underground Party in 1936 while studying at Xi’an Normal School, and “he performed well while engaged in secret operations and resistance work in Lanzhou, Xi’an, and other places. In the struggle against the reactionary KMT authorities, his viewpoint was steadfast, and he was courageous and tenacious.” Lin went to Yan’an in September 1939, working with the Central Youth Committee, the Central Publishing and Distribution Department, and other units, and he was sent to northwestern Shanxi in the winter of 1940. After the beginning of Yan’an’s emergency rescue campaign, someone who had been interrogated under torture identified Lin Keyi as a secret agent, and the Central Committee Social Department sent this report to War of Resistance Daily in Jin-Sui. Li was isolated as a “suspected secret agent” and then transferred to JinSui Public Security Bureau Headquarters for investigation. “In 1947, when Hu Zongnan attacked Yan’an, a leader ordered some of those among the unsettled cases [referring to people imprisoned during the Rectification Movement] to be executed,” and Lin Keyi was one of them. He was only 29 years old, and this injustice against him was not rectified until the Third Plenum of the Eleventh Central Committee.* 50 Shi Zhe discloses that four foreign nationals were also executed in Shanxi in 1947. The foreigners were delivered under escort from the JinCha-Ji Border Region to Yan’an via northwestern Shanxi in early 1944. Three were Russian and one was from Yugoslavia, and they had been passing through the Communist Base Area hoping to make their way to Southeast Asia or Australia to work. Kang Sheng handed the foreigners over to the BRSO, where they remained in custody until they were transferred with other “criminals” to Yongping, Shanxi Province, in early

*

  TN: The Third Plenum of the Eleventh Central Committee, held in December 1978, launched the reform and opening policy.

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1947. While passing through Yongping on his way to take part in land reform in Shanxi Province, Kang Sheng ordered a secret execution of the foreigners, after which their bodies were dumped in an abandoned well. The remains were subsequently discovered by KMT General Hu Zongnan, creating an uproar. Peng Dehuai, Zhou Enlai, and Lu Dingyi all expressed their deep disapproval (Zhou and Lu were with Mao the entire time while battling through northern Shaanxi, so Mao must have known about the incident), as a result of which Security Office head Zhou Xing took the fall for Kang Sheng: “There was no choice but to take responsibility and to be subjected to criticism and struggle.”51 Apart from those who were either executed or released, a third type of person was taken alive into the custody of the Social Department or the Security Department but never heard of again. Among these individuals who mysteriously disappeared was a young woman named Wang Zunji, who had arrived in Yan’an in 1939 at the age of 19. Shi Zhe describes Wang as “beautiful in appearance, with an elegant bearing.” Wang Zunji was taken into custody because she was the niece of a notorious traitor, Wang Kemin,* but repeated investigations found nothing against her. Shi Zhe, who handled the case, recommended releasing Wang “under certain conditions,”52 but Kang Sheng and his wife, Cao Yi’ou, firmly opposed this for reasons that Shi Zhe considered “inexplicable.”† The cadre examination, candor, anti-spy, and emergency rescue campaigns that were unveiled in 1942 finally drew to a close with the secret execution of Wang Shiwei, Lin Keyi, and others in 1947. In March 1945, Jiang Nanxiang gave Liu Shaoqi a “Written Opinion Regarding

*

  TN: Wang Kemin was chairman of the collaborationist Provisional Government from 1937 to 1940, and chairman of the North China Political Council from 1940 to 1945. Following Japan’s surrender, the government of the Republic of China arrested Wang for treason, but he committed suicide in December 1945 before the conclusion of his trial. †   Wang Zunji subsequently married Jin Shuwang, who had also been held for investigation by the BRSO. Wang Zunji joined the Party in 1951 and later served as office head in the Geology Department of the Chinese Academy of Sciences. Her husband, Jin Shuwang, served as vice chairman of the Committee for State Arrangements. During the Cultural Revolution, Wang Zunji once again came under attack. By then she was 91 years old and living in Beijing (telephone interview with Wang Zunji’s daughter, Jin Jiaman, May 27, 2010).

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the Emergency Rescue Campaign” in which he carried out a fairly evenhanded criticism of the disaster (referring to the campaign as “not worth the cost”). Yet Liu Shaoqi was inextricably tied to this campaign, with his main subordinate, Peng Zhen, one of its main leaders, and for this reason, Liu neither dared nor wished to say anything about a campaign that Mao had personally managed, with Kang Sheng as his front man. Instead, Jiang’s “Written Opinion” was deemed “erroneous,” and Jiang himself was subjected to criticism within the Party. From then on, the history of the emergency rescue campaign was thoroughly buried, and anyone who experienced it knew enough to keep his lips sealed. All that anyone learned from books, publications, or reports was of the “great Rectification Movement,” and it took nearly forty years, until after Mao and Kang Sheng were both dead, for the inside story of the emergency rescue campaign to come to light in the early 1980s.

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15. “Long Live Chairman Mao”: The Culmination of the Yan’an Rectification Movement

I. The Emergence and Revision of “Maoism” The Sixth Plenum of the Sixth Central Committee in October 1938 made Mao the top man in the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and established his status in the Party’s core leadership, but his title as “theorist” was not fixed until several years later. Articles extolling Mao’s contribution to Marxism-Leninism began appearing in Liberation Weekly, China Culture, and other publications in 1940, and Chen Boda, Ai Siqi, He Peiyuan, Zhang Ruxin, and others began praising his “profound and agile expounding on the innate logic of the Chinese Revolution based on dialectical materialism,” allowing an integration of Marxist-Leninist theory with China’s specific revolutionary practices and historical reality.1 Chen Boda, Ai Siqi, and He Peiyuan were Mao’s “ghost writers” at the time, and Chen and He were actually Mao’s secretaries. The fact that these xiucai (elite scholars) took the lead in promoting Mao’s theoretical contributions was not lost on the Party’s top leadership. For the Party leaders, it was a novel idea to establish Mao as a theorist. Mao had long been recognized for his skillful military leadership, and since the Long March his political leadership was also accepted in the Party and among the people. The title of theorist, however, was still mainly associated with Zhang Wentian and Wang Ming, especially because Zhang Wentian, the former main Party leader, was still in charge of the Central Committee’s propaganda work and the Marxism-Leninism Institute. For this reason, upon returning to Yan’an from Moscow in 1940,

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Zhou Enlai automatically passed along the Comintern’s evaluation of Zhang Wentian to Mao and the other leaders, only to receive a knucklerapping from Mao who roared, “What theorist! All he brought back was a gunnysack full of dogma!”* If Zhang Wentian could not be considered a “theorist,” Wang Ming was in no better position to claim the title; nor Zhou Enlai could not be called a “theorist,” much less Kang Sheng, Ren Bishi, or Chen Yun. In Mao’s eyes, the only person in the leadership apart from himself who could claim the vision of a theorist was Liu Shaoqi. Liu Shaoqi seemed to enter a “theory-gushing phase” beginning in 1941. He delivered all kinds of talks at the Party School of the Central China Bureau in Yancheng, not only on “strategic and tactical issues of the Chinese Revolution” but also on the Party’s empiricist tradition of playing down theory. Liu even imitated Mao by discussing abstract topics such as “the individual’s class character,” “why a person commits errors,” and “human virtues and vices” from a philosophical standpoint. From Mao’s perspective at that time, most of Liu Shaoqi’s viewpoints, although acceptable, were not without problems. For example, on June 3, 1941, Liu Shaoqi gave a speech at the Yancheng Council on “What We are Doing in the Enemy Rear Areas?” and while on his way back to Yan’an on October 10, 1942, he delivered a speech to the North China Bureau Party School on “Strategic and Tactical Issues of the Chinese Revolution,” both of which sidestepped Mao’s “New Democracy Theory” while calling on the CCP to maintain the Three Principles of the People. In his talk on “The Individual’s Class Character,” Liu expounded on the concept of “the Party character of the feudalist class.”2 Mao disagreed with all of these viewpoints and, as a result, even though Liu possessed theoretical proficiency, only Mao could claim to be the actual theoretician in the Party. Mao reached the peak of his power within the Party at the beginning of 1942. Yan’an held a “Zedong Day” on February 8, during which Xu Teli and Xiao San delivered reports on Mao’s life to an audience of more than 1,000. Playing up Mao’s status as a theorist became all but inevitable, and when Zhang Ruxin, a lecturer on Marxism-Leninism who had studied in the Soviet Union and was a former subordinate of Zhang Wentian, stepped forward to energetically promote this idea, he attracted special notice.

*

  Translators’ Note (cited hereafter as TN): See Chapter 7.

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Zhang Ruxin, born Zhang Shu’an, had studied at Moscow’s Sun Yatsen University in the late 1920s. Formerly a member of the Kuomintang’s Leftist faction, he later switched to the CCP camp. After returning to China in the early 1930s, he went to the Central Soviet Area in Jiangxi and then joined the Long March to Yan’an, where he spent many years teaching Marxist-Leninist theory at the Marxism-Leninism Institute under Zhang Wentian’s leadership. Zhang Ruxin had a keen political intuition, and as early as February 1941 he wrote an essay proposing the concept of “Comrade Mao Zedong’s Thought,” but it did not attract much attention (the title of his essay was “Bolshevik Educator”). Essays about Bolshevism were ubiquitous at the time, and it was difficult to discern a literary nugget amidst Zhang’s generic twaddle, but one person did take notice. At the end of December 1941, Zhang Ruxin was transferred to Mao’s side as his reading secretary. On “Zedong Day,” February 8, 1942, Zhang delivered a talk on “How to Learn from Mao Zedong,” and he provided his first explication of “Maoism” in Liberation Daily on February 18. Zhang obviously could not have proposed this concept without authorization, since Lu Dingyi and Bo Gu would have had to first submit the essay to Mao and Ren Bishi for examination and approval before publishing it in Liberation Daily. As soon as it appeared in print, the concept of “Maoism” spread rapidly. On July 1, 1941, Deng Tuo published an editorial in the Jin-ChaJi Sub-bureau’s official newspaper, Jin-Cha-Ji Daily, entitled “Remember July 1: The Whole Party Should Study and Master Maoism.” After thorough consideration, however, Mao felt that the term “Maoism” was inappropriate, and in a reply to Kai Feng on April 22, 1943, he professed that his thinking was not yet mature and this was not the time to promote it: “There are only some portions suitable for promotion (for example, among the rectification documents).”3 In Mao’s view, “Maoism” might have seemed somewhat offensive because Stalin himself only referred to “Leninism-Stalinism” and had not dared to propose the concept of “Stalinism”; Mao seemed worried that this might invite displeasure from Moscow. Furthermore, while the suffix “-ism” sounded and appeared to be good, there was nothing innovative about it and this may have been a further reason for shelving the term. At this point, Wang Jiaxiang seems to have detected a subtle impasse on the question of “Maoism.” On July 5, 1943, he took the initiative to propose and explain the concept of “Mao Zedong Thought.” As the

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Rectification Movement proceeded, Wang came under pressure as one of the Party’s original leaders and he showed no interest in the International Issues Research Office that he oversaw, never giving responses to requests or reports submitted to him by his subordinates. It was at this time that he took pen in hand and began writing about “Mao Zedong Thought,” offering Mao tribute in an obvious appeal for lenient treatment. However, Wang Jiaxiang was a representative figure of the “erroneous line,” and it was too much to hope that he could avoid profound self-criticism and slink away merely because he had come up with the notion of “Mao Zedong Thought.” Only a representative of the Party’s correct line was qualified to sum up Mao’s theoretical contributions. This role naturally fell to the Party’s No. 2, the representative of the “correct line in the White areas”—Liu Shaoqi. Zhang Ruxin, Deng Tuo, and Wang Jiaxiang all lacked the qualifications, record of service, and status, and only Liu was up to this important task. Liu Shaoqi published an article entitled “Purge Menshevik Thought from the Party” in Liberation Daily on July 6, 1943, and he then delivered the “Report on Amending the Party Constitution” (later becoming famous as “On the Party”) at the Seventh Party Congress. In this report, Liu mentioned Mao’s name 105 times, comprehensively expounding on Mao’s theoretical contributions to Marxism-Leninism and formally stating that the CCP’s ideological foundation was “the product of integrating Marxism-Leninism with the practice of the Chinese Revolution—Mao Zedong Thought.” From this time forward, Liu Shaoqi became the originator and copyright-holder of the concept of Mao Zedong Thought. More than twenty years later, when Liu was forsaken by Mao and came under ruthless criticism, he felt terribly wronged, protesting that he had been the one who had proposed “Mao Zedong Thought” and had appealed for it to be accepted as the guiding principle of the People.

II. High Praise of Mao by Liu Shaoqi and Others For a fairly lengthy period of history, including the time of the Great Revolution and the era of the Jiangxi Soviet, the CCP had no tradition of extolling Party leaders, and eulogizing or praising Party leaders on a massive scale did not begin until the early 1940s. This precedent originated with Mao’s fellow members on the Central Committee, who took the

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initiative to ardently praise their colleague and rapidly raise him to the status of a supreme deity over the central collective leadership. The first of the Central Committee leaders who stepped forward to adulate Mao was Wang Ming. In May 1940, Wang Ming published his essay “Learn from Mao Zedong,” which comprehensively extolled Mao’s “revolutionary will” and “extraordinary revolutionary courage and resourcefulness.” Yet Mao saw through the intentions of Wang Ming’s sycophancy and did not let up in the slightest in his preparations to purge him. Wang’s calculated action came to naught, and his toadying not only missed the mark but made Mao despise him all the more. Praise of Mao by key CCP leaders reached a new height in 1942, and nearly every Party and military leader in Yan’an and the various regions joined in the eulogistic chorus. Liu Shaoqi wrote: Over the past twenty-two years, our Party has been caught up in three successive nationwide revolutionary wars and has undergone all kinds of rigorous trials. ... Especially worth mentioning is that the long and complicated revolutionary struggle of these twenty-two years has finally led our Party, our proletariat, and our revolutionary people to find their leader, Comrade Mao Zedong. Our Comrade Mao Zedong is a staunch and great revolutionary who during these twenty-two years has been tested by all manner of arduous and complex revolutionary struggle. He is completely proficient in Marxist-Leninist strategy and military tactics and is infinitely devoted to the Chinese working class and the liberation and unity of the Chinese people.4 Zhu De said: The Chinese Communist Party combines the universal truths of Marxism-Leninism with the concrete practices of the Chinese Revolution. It has absorbed the synthesized precious experience of the workers’ movements of other countries, while inheriting the fine legacy accumulated over China’s thousands of years of history. It has tempered and enriched itself during the three stages of the Great Revolution, the agrarian revolution, and the War of Resistance against Japan, and during this incomparably intense tempering, it

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has Sinicized Marxism-Leninism and has led its historical legacy to evolve into something befitting society’s practical needs. This brilliant achievement is embodied in our Party having a great leader, Comrade Mao Zedong, and a Party Central Committee led by Comrade Mao Zedong. 5 Peng Dehuai wrote: During the War of Resistance, the great theoretical contributions by Comrade Mao Zedong included the Theory of Protracted Warfare and the Theory of New Democracy; “On New Democracy” is a brilliant masterpiece. ... Comrade Mao Zedong’s “On New Democracy” is not to be confused with the old Three Principles of the People or purely rhetorical socialism; it is Marxism-Leninism properly stated in the specific context of China’s current environment and historical phase to become the guiding principle of the current stage of China’s Revolution. 6 Chen Yi effusively wrote about what he had learned from reading Mao’s “On New Democracy”: This is the best solution to the old and new disputes regarding problems in China’s academic thinking and social practices during the past hundred years. This is at once a new achievement in MarxismLeninism and a classic work of Marxism-Leninism. It gloriously represents the Chinese Communist Party and the Chinese people on the theoretical battlefront. He went on: For this reason, over the past twenty-one years the Chinese Communist Party has become a tested Bolshevik party; its members and cadres, its leadership core, the Party’s Central Committee, and its leader, Comrade Mao Zedong, are all time-tested and war-seasoned and they have basically embarked on the road to Bolshevization and they can adapt to all environments of struggle and master all orientations of struggle.

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Chen Yi also highly appraised Liu Shaoqi: “Many of Comrade Liu Shaoqi’s treatises on the Party represent the Party’s outstanding work in this area.”7 In his report “Learn from Comrade Mao Zedong’s Thought,” Luo Ronghuan offered the following praise: Comrade Mao Zedong’s leadership of the Chinese Communist Party and of the people’s revolution is not something he took upon himself; he achieved this by representing the Party’s correct and victorious orientation and becoming inseparably integrated with the Party’s overall vision. ... Comrade Mao Zedong’s Thought is Marxist-Leninist thought. It has developed its nationalist aspects. ... Comrade Mao Zedong’s Thought “comes from the masses and goes to the masses”; he has therefore grasped the fundamental spirit of Marxism-Leninism and the spirit of seeking truth from facts; this is what dogmatism cannot comprehend.8 Apart from Liu Shaoqi and other Party and military leaders, Mao’s close friends in Yan’an also enthusiastically joined in the chorus of praise. In his July 15, 1943, speech “Emergency Rescue of Those Who Have Stumbled,” Kang Sheng appealed for Mao’s revolutionary spirit to purge all counterrevolutionaries: All loyal Communist Party members must learn from Comrade Mao Zedong’s Thought, theory, and practice, and engage in the struggle between proletarian and non-proletarian thought with a resolute revolutionary spirit; use Comrade Mao Zedong’s correct line to oppose all open and hidden capitulationism within the Party, and with a resolute revolutionary spirit carry out the struggle between revolution and counterrevolution! 9 Lu Dingyi said: If we had not maintained Comrade Mao Zedong’s strategy of protracted warfare against the Japanese invaders but rather had advocated a rapidly decisive war; and if in relation to the big bourgeoisie and the anti-Communist factions we had engaged in either struggle with no alliance or alliance with no struggle, the

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circumstances of the War of Resistance would now be dreadful to contemplate. Not only that, but in Comrade Mao Zedong’s four works and in the many decisions and directives of the Central Committee we can see that our Party’s Central Committee has in fact grasped dialectical materialism as a mode of thought and is already capable of applying Marxism-Leninism to actual practice.10 Former representative figures of the Comintern faction vied to be the first to sing Mao’s praises, in this way hoping to show their loyalty to Mao. Wang Jiaxiang was the first to come up with the term “Mao Zedong Thought”: Throughout the process of the Chinese people’s liberation—past, present, and future—the correct line is Comrade Mao Zedong’s Thought, which is the path Comrade Mao Zedong has pointed to in his writings and in actual practice. Mao Zedong Thought is China’s Marxism-Leninism, China’s Bolshevism, and China’s communism.11 Bo Gu wrote: We have defensive strength; we have 800,000 Party members, we have more than 500,000 army troops under the leadership of the Party, we have fortified base areas, we have twenty-two years of struggle experience, we have the support of the Chinese people, we have countless battle-seasoned cadres, and, finally, and of particular importance, we have our Party’s leader and helmsman of the Chinese Revolution, Comrade Mao Zedong. His orientation is the orientation of our entire Party and of all of China’s people. In the midst of utmost difficulties and hardships, he has invariably led the Party and the people to victory and glory. We have all the conditions necessary for victory. Military threats are not enough to subdue the Communist Party, and the sowing of dissension is not enough to fragment the Communist Party; rather, we have become even more closely united around the Central Committee headed by Comrade Mao Zedong, and under Mao Zedong’s banner we battle and gain victory.12 In Mao’s books, Deng Fa was an empiricist and he and Mao had not been close for a long time. Yet in 1943 Deng also wrote an essay paying tribute to Mao:

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Young people! Are we taking the road of China’s Destiny or of Mao Zedong’s New Democracy? I believe that all hot-blooded youth with a concept of nationhood and a national conscience for the sake of their ideals, their characters, and preservation of pure conscience will refuse to take the road of China’s Destiny under the darkness of fascist rule. I believe that China’s youth will choose the road of Mao Zedong’s New Democracy, which will lead China to independence, freedom, and democracy.13 Yan’an’s theoreticians were duty-bound to sing Mao’s praises. Ai Siqi wrote: Chinese Communists integrate the universal truths of MarxismLeninism with the concrete practices of the Chinese Revolution. This integration process is based on the specific circumstances of Chinese society and the struggle experiences of China’s vast worker and peasant masses. ... All of these facts and thoughts are inseparable from the name of Comrade Mao Zedong, leader of the Chinese Communist Party. As of today, iron fact has proven: Only the dialectical materialism that Comrade Mao Zedong developed and concretized according to China’s actual circumstances is the scientific philosophy that can bring China’s Destiny to a glorious future, and it alone is the people’s revolutionary philosophy.14 Some of Yan’an’s Party elders, such as Wu Yuzhang, Xu Teli, and Xie Juezai, also venerated Mao in poems and essays. Xu Teli wrote: Most people outside of the soviet area consider Zhu and Mao to be heroes, monsters, or celestials, but the masses of the soviet area consider them to be honest men. In terms of those in charge of the Central Government and the Central Bureau, they are also honest men. I once heard the masses of Jiangxi sing a peasant song that contained the line “The good men Zhu De and Mao Zedong.” Another time, when I attended a mass rally in Ruijin, someone in the assembly hall said, “Commander Zhu and Mao Zedong are honest men, and those in the Central Government are all honest people.” The understanding of the masses is very accurate. ... Now I will draw a conclusion: Chairman Mao’s work style is Lenin’s work style.

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Lenin’s work style is a combination of Russia’s revolutionary spirit and America’s practical spirit.15 Wu Yuzhang hailed Mao as leader of the CCP: “I feel that our Party having this leader is like the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU) having Comrade Stalin: With such a brilliant helmsman, the revolution is assured of victory.”16 Amidst all this praise for Mao, Zhou Enlai’s speech at a reception at Yan’an’s General Office of the Central Committee welcoming him back from Chongqing in July 1943 was especially conspicuous. Offering a paean to Mao in his presence, Zhou said, “The work that our Party has done in the past three years is greater and more accomplished than that achieved over the past twenty years. ... This has been accomplished through the unification of the entire Party under Comrade Mao Zedong’s leadership!” Zhou continued in an impassioned tone: There is nothing clearer from the developments over these three years than that all who opposed or doubted Comrade Mao Zedong’s leadership or views in the past have now been proven utterly wrong. The twenty-two-year history of our Party proves that throughout this entire historical period, only Comrade Mao Zedong’s views have consistently developed into a Sinicized Marxist-Leninist line, which is the line of Chinese communism. Comrade Mao Zedong’s orientation is the orientation of the Chinese Communist Party. Comrade Mao Zedong’s line is the line of Chinese Bolshevism.17 Zhou Enlai’s praise had greater significance than that of the others. Zhou had been the Party’s main leader during several historical periods, and by avowing himself thoroughly convinced by Mao, he became a model for other veteran cadres. Now that even Zhou had expressed his loyalty to Mao, who in the Party would refuse to bow to him? After the Yan’an Rectification Movement was launched, Mao spiritual superiority over his erstwhile Party colleagues was completely established, and the former equal footing and casual chats were gone for good. Senior leaders were unable to see Mao whenever they wanted to; unless Mao summoned them, they had to telephone to request instructions or write a report submitted in accordance with procedures. Mao began to

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demonstrate his supreme status by consciously pulling away from his former colleagues. Amidst the chorus of praise, Mao’s quiet distancing of himself from former colleagues quickly produced results; when the American journalist Theodore H. White visited Yan’an in October 1944, he observed that when Mao gave a speech, senior leaders focused on writing down everything in their notebooks, like a group of respectful primaryschool students listening to their teacher’s lecture. Zhou Enlai “held his little pad very high in the air, sitting there in the front row before Mao, and with a tiny extra bit of flourish, he conspicuously wrote notes on the great lecture by the Chairman for all others to see his respect for the Master Teacher.”18

III. Smashing the “Two Factions”: The Purge of Wang Ming, Bo Gu, Zhou Enlai, Peng Dehuai, and Others Beginning in 1942, it became increasingly common for the Party’s senior cadres to eulogize Mao. Whether it was Yan’an’s leading cadres or the military leaders of the various strategic areas, they would follow the practice of writing essays promoting Mao on every major day of commemoration. From Mao’s perspective, however, this did not necessarily mean that the CCP leadership had become submissive to him. It was all well and good to write essays or to deliver speeches praising Mao, but that did not mean that every one of the Party’s leaders was truly expressing what was in his heart. It was only in combination with the actual situation—that is, through examination and introspection regarding the history of each leading cadre, especially in terms of their attitudes toward Mao—followed by negation of the “self ” that true submission to Mao could be demonstrated. This required a thorough discussion of the Party’s history—“line study”—to clarify what was Mao’s “correct line” and what were the “incorrect lines,” and then to rank each leading cadre according to his individual situation. This was the only way to truly remove the ideological armor of the leading cadres and to deprive them of their last defenses so they would unreservedly follow Mao’s orders, not only in their actions but also in their hearts and minds. Mao’s establishment of his authority through discussion of the Party’s historical problems began with the enlarged Politburo meeting

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in September 1941, which was suspended in October when Wang Ming expressed objections. Soon thereafter, Mao formally incited opposition to dogmatism throughout the Party, along the way adding in criticism of Wang Shiwei and convening the Yan’an Forum on Literature and Art to purge writers and artists, and proceeding non-stop to the cadre examination and anti-spy campaigns, followed in March 1943 by the reorganization of the Central Committee Secretariat and Mao being officially appointed chairman of the Politburo and of the Central Committee Secretariat. By then, Mao’s main political opponents, the “dogmatist faction,” were long vanquished. Yet there was still a need for further struggle in the upper ranks because the bulk of the leading cadres, apart from Wang Ming, Bo Gu, and Zhang Wentian, had not yet been touched. It was for these reasons that Mao ordered the convening of an enlarged Politburo meeting from September 1943 to April 1944 to implement and realize his intention to purge the Party’s upper ranks. This meeting, called the Central Committee Politburo Rectification Conference, was attended not only by Politburo members but also by all of Yan’an’s leading military and political cadres as well as the leaders of some major regions. They included the following Politburo members and alternate members: Mao, Liu Shaoqi, Ren Bishi, Zhu De, Zhou Enlai, Chen Yun, Kang Sheng, Peng Dehuai, Zhang Wentian, Bo Gu, and Deng Fa; as well as leaders of organs directly under the Central Committee and Central Military Commission, of the Northwest Bureau, and of major regions: Peng Zhen, Li Fuchun, Yang Shangkun, Lin Boqu, Wu Yuzhang, Gao Gang, Wang Ruofei, Li Weihan, Ye Jianying, Liu Bocheng, Nie Rongzhen, He Long, Lin Biao, Luo Ruiqing, Lu Dingyi, Chen Boda, Xiao Xiangrong, and Hu Qiaomu. Mao made his purpose clear from the outset, declaring that he wanted to strike down the “two factions”: the “dogmatist faction” and the “empiricist faction.” Mao first attacked Wang Ming and Bo Gu and then took aim at Zhou Enlai. The incision point was 1938, when the Yangtze Bureau committed its “line error” of “neo–Chen Duxiuism” and “class capitulationism,” followed by the Central Committee’s “Left deviation opportunistic line error” before the Zunyi Conference. In November 1943, the Central Auditorium in Yang jialing buzzed with excitement. Here, in coordination with the ongoing Politburo Rectif ication Conference, the Central Committee General Study Committee (CCGSC), under the direction of Kang Sheng and Li Fuchun,

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was holding an “anti-Rightist rally,” attended by all personnel of organs directly under the Central Committee and delegates in Yan’an for the Seventh Party Congress, to denounce Wang Ming and Bo Gu. On November 1, 1943, the rally compelled Li Guohua, who had worked with the CCP delegation to the Comintern, to expose the errors Wang Ming had committed in the Comintern.19 Li Guohua had been labeled a “secret agent” during the “emergency rescue” campaign, and this was his opportunity to “expiate his crime through good works.” Speaking at the rally on November 2, Wang Ming’s wife, Meng Qingshu, insisted that the “August 1 Manifesto”* had been drafted by Wang Ming.20 She said, “Today someone at the meeting claimed that the ‘August 1 Manifesto’ was written by Kang Sheng. I want to ask if Kang Sheng dares to acknowledge writing it.” Meng went on: “I want to ask all of you, shouldn’t Communist Party members have some sense of shame?” Kang Sheng refused to respond to Meng’s questioning. Also attending the rally, Gao Zili (whose alias while working for the Comintern was Zhou Hesen) stood up and testified, but his statement was interrupted by the chanting of slogans.21 Meng Qingshu became agitated, and with tears streaming down her face, she demanded that Mao, sitting below the podium, take a stand on behalf of justice. Mao’s expression was stern, and “he didn’t move a muscle.” Sitting beside him, Zhang Wentian’s wife Liu Ying immediately drew the conclusion that Mao was determined to denounce Wang Ming.22 Meng Qingshu’s speech at the rally created a great deal of confusion, and this complete departure from the exposure and criticism of Wang Ming infuriated Mao. In front of everyone, he reprimanded the rally’s convener, Li Fuchun, and criticizing the rally for being in “thoroughly bad taste” and “lacking all educational value,” he ordered it adjourned.23 From then on, neither Wang Ming nor Meng Qingshu was allowed to plead their case at the rally. The complications arising during the “anti-Rightist rally” at Yang jialing had not the slightest effect on Mao’s criticism of Wang Ming and Bo Gu. As far as Mao was concerned, it was enough to end the rally and deprive Wang Ming and the others of the opportunity to defend themselves in public; there was no harm in continuing with small-

*

  TN: The CCP delegation to the Comintern issued the August 1 Manifesto in August 1935, calling on the Chinese to unite against Japan.

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scale denunciation meetings. Under Mao’s emphatic assaults during the Politburo Rectification Conference, almost all leading cadres, apart from Mao and Liu Shaoqi and a few of their close confederates, including Kang Sheng, Li Fuchun, Gao Gang, and Peng Zhen, were forced to accept the labels Mao applied to them as “dogmatists” or “empiricists” and then to engage in self-denunciations. It was not diff icult to distinguish between “dogmatists” and “empiricists.” During the Politburo Rectification Conference, on October 6, 1943 Mao bluntly stated that the current Central Committee had its foundations in the Wang Ming–Bo Gu era, during which “a big faction set out to usurp the Party,” and that apart from himself and Liu Shaoqi, everyone else supported Wang Ming and Bo Gu’s line. Mao warned, “Don’t be like the Carp Demon in Journey to the West, spitting just a tiny bit after each hit”24—meaning that Zhou Enlai and the others should not think they could escape. In this way, all leading cadres with a relatively long acquaintance with Wang Ming and Bo Gu and who had assumed important positions after returning to Yan’an, such as Zhang Wentian, Wang Jiaxiang, Kai Feng, and Yang Shangkun, belonged to the “dogmatist faction,” and those who had cooperated with Wang Ming and Bo Gu, such as Zhou Enlai, Ren Bishi, Peng Dehuai, Deng Fa, Li Weihan, and Ye Jianying, belonged to the “empiricist faction.” Some leading cadres, such as Liu Bocheng, qualified for both factions. The net cast by Mao was wide enough to catch nearly all of the Party’s leading cadres. By then, Wang Ming and Bo Gu had become objects of general derision. The tense atmosphere of struggle made Wang Jiaxiang and Kai Feng so ill that they were unable to attend the meetings, and Kai Feng’s wife “died of mental derangement because she could not bear the entrapment, incitement, and round-the-clock interrogations.”25 Wang Ming stopped attending all Central Committee meetings in October 1941, leaving Bo Gu to accept the criticism on his own. Bo Gu engaged in two rounds of self-criticism and self-flagellation, still without earning Mao’s forgiveness. Mao vented the hatred in his heart with harsh words and stern looks, baselessly accusing Wang Ming and Bo Gu of “usurping leadership of the Party.” At one point, Bo Gu came under such extreme mental pressure that he prepared for the worst. Wang Ming subsequently recalled that Bo Gu was threatened with execution if he did not carry out a selfcriticism, and after spending all night weeping, he was forced into writing

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a confession. What Wang Ming wrote remains to be verified, given that Bo Gu died long ago.* 26 Zhang Wentian’s situation was somewhat better than Bo Gu’s. Zhang had already begun to criticize his own “errors” during the enlarged Politburo meeting in September 1941, and although still a Politburo member, he had no genuine leadership responsibilities beginning in 1943 and only managed the political materials room and compiled reference materials on the situation in China and abroad. After the Politburo Rectification Conference began in September 1943, Zhang personally delivered to Mao his self-criticism “introspection notes,” totaling 40,000 words, for which he was “commended.” At this meeting, Zhang bolstered his self-criticism by thoroughly negating himself in every respect in order to demonstrate his resolve to “follow the truth.” This was the first time Zhou Enlai had attended a high-level selfcriticism meeting where people were criticized by name. After returning to Yan’an in the summer of 1943, Zhou asked for the minutes of the September 1941 Politburo meeting, and only then did he understand the details of what had happened during that meeting. From September 1943 to spring 1944, Zhou wrote a great deal of introspective material—he naturally knew that as a key Party leader during several periods, he could not avoid being implicated. Since he understood the situation early on, there was nothing left for him to do but to write an introspection and selfcriticism. While reporting on the past three years of operations in the rear areas at the Politburo meeting on September 1, 1943, Zhou took the opportunity to pay tribute to Liu Shaoqi. Zhou said that rash mobilization at the risk of exposure during the period of the White area operations was the wrong line to take and Comrade Liu Shaoqi had been correct.27 Zhou repeatedly criticized himself and expressed his profound regret for his “empiricist” errors, but he was still harshly criticized by Mao, Liu Shaoqi, and others at the meeting. In the tense and high-pressured atmosphere, Zhou Enlai still carefully maintained one or two positions—he bore *

  Although Bo Gu carried out a self-criticism at the Politburo Rectification Conference, Mao did not let him off, and in a cable to all Central Committee bureaus and sub-bureaus, Mao lashed out at both Wang Ming and Bo Gu without addressing them as “comrade,” saying, “Now, apart from Wang Ming and Bo Gu, all leading comrades are in solidarity.” This indicates Bo Gu’s perilous situation at the time.

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up under the pressure of the other attendees to defend the Sixth Party Congress held in Moscow in 1928. At these meetings, Mao always pitched in with attacks on the socalled “two factional cliques,” while Liu Shaoqi and Kang Sheng worked in close coordination to cheer Mao on. At the meetings on October 24 and 25, Liu gave a detailed narrative of the line struggle since the War of Resistance between the Party’s correct line, represented by Mao, and the capitulationist line, represented by Wang Ming.28 Kang Sheng berated Bo Gu to his face and attacked Wuhan’s New China Daily, led by Wang Ming, Zhou Enlai, and Bo Gu, as a Kuomintang (KMT) newspaper.29 Mao sensationally declared that the Wang Ming–Bo Gu faction was continuing its sabotage to the present and, asserting that the Party was in danger of splitting, he coerced the cadres in attendance to support him. Mao decided to formally declare Wang Ming’s and Bo Gu’s errors to all senior Party cadres on December 28, 1943 and to have these judgments transmitted to the lower levels to unify the Party’s awareness. On that day, the Politburo cabled a directive to all Central Committee bureaus, sub-bureaus, and regional Party committees requiring study of the opportunistic line errors of the Wang Ming–Bo Gu faction. In this cable, Mao told the senior Party cadres that during the Civil War period, the Wang Ming–Bo Gu faction’s Left deviation opportunistic line had resulted in “a total loss in the White areas, and a 90 percent loss in the soviet areas and the Red Army. During the War of Resistance (1938), this faction’s Right deviating opportunism (capitulationism) brought about the defeat of Xiang Ying and losses in central and northern China during the period of his influence. Wang Ming’s main errors were: 1.) advocating rapid victory and opposing protracted warfare; 2.) blind faith in the KMT and opposition to maintaining independence and holding the initiative in the United Front; 3.) advocating mobile warfare and opposing guerrilla warfare; 4.) causing Wuhan to effectively become a second Center and encouraging an assertion of independence within the Party, sabotaging Party discipline.”30 Mao sent this cable during the Politburo Rectification Conference in hopes that an attack from both above and below would force the capitulation of all of the central-level leading cadres. Mao’s attacks on Wang Ming and Bo Gu reached their peak in November and December 1943. During this period, various arguments were already circulating that Wang Ming and the others were “hidden traitors” in service to the KMT, that Wang Ming was carrying out the

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KMT’s policy of “sabotaging” the CCP, and that Wang had experienced various suspicious episodes in his past, such as being arrested and then released by the KMT. It was only after receiving Dimitrov’s cable that Mao gave the appearance of letting up on Wang Ming. The tense and high-pressured Politburo Rectification Conference held from September 1943 to April 1944 basically achieved Mao’s objective, and beginning with Zhou Enlai, each of the key leading cadres in turn carried out self-criticisms and introspection. Peng Dehuai was the only exception. Peng Dehuai arrived in Yan’an under orders in early October 1943, nearly six years after he had been sent to Shanxi and northern China at the outset of the War of Resistance. After arriving in Yan’an, Peng attended the Politburo Rectification Conference convened by Mao. Although carrying out a self-criticism, Peng stubbornly refused to follow the example of the other senior cadres by engaging in what he considered unwarranted self-flagellation. Mao noticed this and remembered it. Mao had always harbored ill-feelings toward Peng Dehuai, viewing his outspokenness, magnanimity, and self-respect as an affront, and now he decided to focus his sights on Peng. Peng Dehuai was in fact different from the average senior Communist military commander: his concerns went far beyond the scope of military battles and they touched on a broad range of topics, from politics and economics to education and women’s issues. He had shared his views on major strategic issues with Mao on numerous occasions and had the general bearing of a soldier-statesman. On December 18, 1942, Peng sent a cable to Mao on the struggle between the CCP and KMT and on operational issues in the base areas, stating that the KMT had a long-term historical influence and a certain social foundation and that the CCP’s struggle with the KMT was likely to continue for a long time after the war. The Chinese people’s postwar political tendency would be toward “autonomy and liberty” and “peaceful nation-building,” and the party that satisfied this aspiration would emerge victorious.31 On February 8, 1943, Peng delivered remarks at a senior cadre conference of the North China Bureau’s Taihang Sub-bureau, stating that democratic education in China’s present context meant education in opposing feudalism, and that the shared slogan of the democratic revolutions was “liberty, equality, and fraternity.” Peng felt that the CCP should establish a perfect system in which people could engage with each other in mutual affection, mutual respect, mutual assistance, and the Golden Rule, and in which liberty,

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equality, and fraternity were enshrined by law. For now, it was necessary to carry out basic education on liberty, equality, and fraternity and to instill a scientific spirit opposed to feudalism and superstition.32 After returning to Yan’an, on May 4, 1944 Peng again wrote to Mao, expressing his views on financial issues in the Border Regions, holding that Yan’an “lacked clear-cut direction in this respect.” He also wrote an essay “On PubliclyOwned Shops,” hoping that with Mao’s revisions it could be “published as an editorial.”33 Many such instances caused Mao considerable vexation; in Mao’s eyes, Peng’s words and actions showed that he did not know his place and that he had thoughts of usurping power, something that Mao found oppressive. Mao therefore sent Peng a cable on June 6, 1943, unequivocally expressing his disagreement with Peng’s remarks on democratic education and criticizing Peng’s words as “proceeding from the definition of democracy, liberty, equality, and fraternity rather than from the political requirements of the present anti-Japanese struggle.”34 Mao passed Peng’s essay “On Publicly-Owned Shops” for discussion to Jia Tuofu, Gao Gang, He Long, and Chen Yun, and they concluded that “implementing the policy in Peng’s essay seemed impossible.”35 The essay ultimately was never published. Even so, dealing with this distinguished warrior was a thorny problem for Mao. Mao wanted to be able to rely on Peng Dehuai as he sought to attain state power, but he also wanted to dilute Peng’s enormous influence within the military ranks, puncture his arrogance, and establish his own absolute authority within the military. To that end, Mao utilized a North China regional and military work symposium, held intermittently from February 1 to July 25, 1945, to subject Peng Dehuai to struggle on forty-three days. At the outset of the work symposium, Bo Yibo was elected chairman, and while delivering a report on the seven-year War of Resistance in northern China, Peng Dehuai carried out a self-criticism of his speech on “democracy, liberty, equality, and fraternity,” which had drawn Mao’s criticism after being published in the northern China edition of New China Daily in April 1943. Peng said his original viewpoint was basically erroneous, and he also “carried out a rigorous self-criticism” on other shortcomings in his work in northern China. Peng reviewed the three stages in the way he had regarded Mao: elder brother, teacher, and leader. He said he had early on recognized Mao as the leader of the Chinese people and the developer of Marxism-Leninism, and from then on he

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wanted to learn from Mao.36 Even though Peng expressed his submission to Mao, Mao was not prepared to let him off. Criticism of Peng Dehuai escalated beginning in March 1945, and Mao intentionally enlarged the conference in order to attack Peng’s prestige. Mao had Kang Sheng, Li Fuchun, and one dozen other leaders from central organs and major regions attend the work symposium so that criticism and censure of Peng exceeded the scope of northern China and became a general purge. Criticism of Peng Dehuai was all-encompassing, from attacking his leadership of the Pingjiang Uprising* as a “speculation on revolution” for purposes of “share-holding,” to denouncing his support of Wang Ming and Bo Gu during the Civil War. Kang Sheng and the others focused their attacks on the “mobile warfare” policy established by the North China Branch Military Council under Peng’s leadership from 1937 to 1938, accusing Peng of executing Wang Ming’s “Right deviating capitulationist line.” Kang Sheng claimed that Peng had gone behind the back of the Central Committee to launch the “Hundred Regiments Offensive,” which “exposed our military strength and caused the North China Base Area to come under enormous pressure from the Japanese Army, greatly shrinking the base area.” Obviously, without Mao’s backing Kang Sheng would never have dared to attack such a popular and outstanding military leader as Peng Dehuai, and in particular he would not have criticized the “Hundred Regiments Offensive” that Peng had led. In fact, Kang Sheng’s criticism of this battle originated with Mao. Mao often contradicted himself and reversed his position. On July 22, 1940, the Eighth Route Army Headquarters sent down an order in the names of Zhu De, Peng Dehuai, and Zuo Quan to prepare for battle and to report to the Central Military Commission in Yan’an. The first shots were fired on August 20, and upon learning of the victory, Mao expressed himself pleased beyond expectations, sending a cable to Peng Dehuai stating, “The Hundred Regiments Offensive was really exciting! Can we organize one or two more battles like that?”37 On December 22, 1940, Mao sent a cable to Peng urging him “not to publicize the end of the Hundred Regiments Offensive,”† because the CCP wanted to use the “prestige” of the battle

*

  TN: See Chapter 6.   TN: The battle ended on December 5, 1940.

†

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against Chiang Kai-shek’s new upsurge of anti-communism.38 Yet Mao was ever mercurial, and when the main leaders of the Eighth Route Army returned to Yan’an at the end of 1943, during talks with military leaders Mao began to express dissatisfaction with the Hundred Regiments Offensive that Peng Dehuai had led. Mao complained that propaganda about the battle “exposed our strength, leading the invading Japanese forces to reappraise our strength and causing the enemy to concentrate its strength against us. It also led Chiang Kai-shek to be more wary of us.”39 Mao resurrected the subject in 1945 but only to expand the scope of the attack on Peng Dehuai’s reputation. The strug gle against Peng Dehuai during the North China symposium was purposeful, premeditated, and organized; Peng’s history and achievements since joining the Communist Revolution were almost entirely negated and Peng was accused of “consistently opposing Chairman Mao” (one piece of evidence being that Peng’s speeches and essays seldom quoted Mao). Peng’s personal character was also savagely vilified, and his image as one of the most plain-living and frugal of the senior military cadres was dismissed as “hypocritical.” Peng’s original name, Peng Dehua (sounding like “get China”), was also construed as a sign of his ambition to vie with Mao for control of the country.40 Supported by Mao and Liu Shaoqi, many of those attending the symposium joined in denouncing Peng, one of the most enthusiastic being Luo Ruiqing. Peng rejected the accusations and criticism heaped upon him, saying, “Comrade Mao Zedong is 99.9 percent correct; is it possible that he is not even 0.1 percent wrong?” In a speech during the Seventh Party Congress, Peng carried out a self-criticism regarding the “shortcomings” and “errors” in his leadership of the Eighth Route Army, but Mao still did not let him off. In chats with Shi Zhe, Mao said Peng’s self-criticism was “grudging”—Mao understood Peng Dehuai very well and he knew that Peng only engaged in a self-criticism for the sake of Party unity. Mao once summed up his dissatisfaction with Peng: “That man is perversely self-willed and arrogant.”41 In fact, all of the criticism against Peng was due to the fact that, unlike other leaders, he did not take his cues from the situation and grovel in terror before Mao, and Mao could not bear for the Communist Army to have a commander-in-chief with such enormous dignity and prestige. It was parochialism and jealousy that made Mao continue his struggle against Peng Dehuai after the Seventh Party Congress and right up to the eve of the Japanese surrender, at which

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point major changes in the domestic situation obliged the CCP to unite its forces against external enemies, thus bringing this internal battle to an end. Having punctured Peng’s arrogance and damaged his reputation among leading military cadres, Mao now faced a new situation in which he was obligated to reinstate Peng to his previous status,42 baffling some of those who had actively participated in denouncing Peng: “Who would have guessed that Peng Dehuai would rise again?” On Mao’s roster of cadres to purge, Chen Yi was another senior leader requiring a “supplementary lesson.” Chen returned to Yan’an from the Central China Base Area in March 1944, the first time since 1934 that he had been reunited with his former comrades.* Even so, he came under enormous psychological pressures. In October 1943, New Fourth Army Political Commissar Rao Shushi launched a struggle among the New Fourth Army leaders, accusing Chen Yi of consistently opposing Mao during the Red Army’s early years. Rao Shushi was a trusted colleague of Liu Shaoqi, having known him since 1929 when Rao, as Manchuria’s provincial Youth League secretary, accompanied Liu to Harbin to direct the labor movement. In his deployment of cadres, Liu Shaoqi put heavy emphasis on personal relationships, and as his status within the Party grew beginning from 1938, he brought along a circle of former and trusted comrades, whom he promoted and appointed to important positions. Before he was ordered back to Yan’an in 1942, Liu appointed Rao Shushi to take over his positions as secretary of the Central China Bureau and political commissar of the New Fourth Army. Rao had spent much of the 1930s working with the Comintern, and he could not compare with Chen Yi in terms of either record of service or contribution to the Party. It naturally did not escape Mao’s notice that Liu was relying on Rao Shushi, a civilian cadre, to rein in Chen Yi and others in the New Fourth Army, and Mao was only too happy to have Liu use Rao to attack Chen Yi, who had crossed him many years in the past. Secure in the knowledge of his backing, Rao took an overbearing attitude toward Chen Yi; Rao clearly would not have dared to launch a denunciation of Chen Yi without either the overt or tacit approval of Liu and Mao. Mao very obviously shielded Rao in his conflict with Chen and explicitly told Chen Yi that he did not want to hear about his dispute with Rao.

*

  TN: Chen Yi was unable to take part in the Long March because of a serious injury.

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In fact, Mao was waiting for Chen Yi to take the initiative to undergo a self-criticism and bow his head in apology for the error of replacing Mao as secretary of the Front Committee at the Seventh Party Congress of the Fourth Red Army in 1929. Chen Yi had already paid a heavy price for this error; he had been cold-shouldered by Mao beginning in 1929. During the campaign to eliminate the “AB League” in 1930 and 1931, Chen had a premonition that he was going to be targeted by Li Shaojiu, Mao’s trusted follower and leader of the First Front Red Army’s campaign against counterrevolutionaries. Chen was in fact taken into custody soon thereafter and was beaten in order to make him admit to being a member of the AB League. But while passing through the area, Mao learned of this and rescued Chen. It was not until Mao later handed over some gold confiscated from “local tyrants” to Chen for safe-keeping that Chen realized he no longer needed to fear for his life.43 The rebuff of Chen still did not noticeably improve after Zhou Enlai went to the Central Soviet Area in early 1932. In order to placate Mao, Zhou did not allow Chen to return to the First Front Red Army, thus Chen only served as commander of the Jiangxi Military Region, leaving him far removed from the First and Third Red Army groups and also estranged from Mao. Now, ten years later, Chen understood the reasons behind Mao’s coldness. Finding it difficult to hold back his feelings, he repeatedly told key leading cadres the inside story of the earlier strife within the Red Army and he admitted his responsibility. Chen was a forthright man, and after ten years away he felt that Mao was in fact wiser than the other central leaders and he submitted himself completely to Mao’s leadership of the Party. Chen also worked hard to reveal Mao’s contributions to the Communist Revolution, and while far away in the New Fourth Army Headquarters in Yancheng in 1942, he published an essay fervently extolling Mao’s originality as not only highly significant to the Chinese people but even serving as an example to other countries. In the course of helping to draft the military affairs report for the Seventh Party Congress after returning to Yan’an, Chen proposed the concept of the “Mao Zedong School of Military Thought” and he criticized the errors of some key military leaders during the Red Army era. When the Presidium of the Seventh Plenum of the Sixth Central Committee discussed Chen Yi’s draft of the “Report on Army Building” in March 1945, some of the military leaders mentioned in Chen’s report “shed tears or sobbed.”44 Mao’s attitude toward Chen Yi was different from his attitude toward

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Peng Dehuai. In contrast to the aloof Peng, Chen displayed reverence and submission to Mao. Mao considered Chen Yi to be a frank person and Peng to be deep and subtle. As a result, Chen was not subjected to any other forms of mass struggle apart from his self-criticism. Even so, Mao did not entirely trust Chen Yi, and in Chen’s conflict with Rao Shushi, Mao intentionally forced Chen to yield to Rao. After the end of the Seventh Party Congress, Chen Yi remained in Yan’an, “playing go every day.” When Bo Yibo went to visit Chen and asked him why he had not immediately returned to the New Fourth Army, Chen replied, “They will not let me go.”45 “They” were Mao and Liu Shaoqi, who insisted that Chen declare submission to Rao Shushi before they would allow him return to Central China, and Chen simply could not do that. When news arrived of the Japanese surrender in August 1945, Chen Yi expressed a willingness to go to the Northeast and he also said that he would have “nothing to do and would serve no purpose” in East China. But Mao and Liu withheld their permission. Mao ordered Chen to go to Central China to serve as deputy secretary of the Central China Bureau, where he would still be subordinate to Rao Shushi. This move by Mao not only intentionally pitted Chen and Rao against each other but also further implied Mao’s suspicion of Chen. The result was that beginning in 1949, the chairmen of the military and administrative commissions of all of the military regions were the commanders of those military regions, with the one exception of the East China Region, where the chairman was Rao Shushi. Around the time of the Seventh Party Congress, Mao also engineered a series of symposia in each revolutionary base area and army to discuss historical problems. The sole aim of these symposia was to investigate who had opposed and who had supported Mao in the past. Some former Party and military leaders, such as Deng Fa, Zhu Rui, and Yang Shangkun, were denounced by the participants at some of these symposia. Under the tense atmosphere of the times, some high-ranking Red Army military officers who had rendered outstanding service were labeled “empiricists” or “dogmatists” and were censured and cold-shouldered. Mao’s purge of the ranks and rebuilding of authority was a triumph. Now that Mao had brought about the complete psychological subjugation of Party and military leaders, his prerequisite for “transforming the central leadership”—declaring that the Party’s political line prior to the Zunyi Conference was Left deviation opportunism—was accepted by the Party leaders. The Party and military leaders carried out self-criticisms in

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succession, and the next step was to hold a formal meeting to put this all in writing in a Party document. To that end, Mao finally decided to convene a preparatory meeting for the Seventh Party Congress—the Seventh Plenum of the Sixth Central Committee.

IV. Revising the “Resolution on Party History”: Constructing a Party History Centering on Mao The Politburo Rectification Conference that convened from September 1943 to spring 1944 had resolved problems in the Party leadership, and in accordance with Mao’s wishes, the “two factions” had been thoroughly annihilated. Now Mao continued his well-thought-out strategy by ordering the Seventh Plenum of the Sixth Central Committee to be held in May 1944. This plenum occurred six years after the previous one. There had been no regularly scheduled Party meetings since Mao had taken control of the Central Committee at the Sixth Plenum; when to call or adjourn meetings was strictly up to him. Now Mao had called for the holding of a plenum, and once the Seventh Plenum was convened, it lasted eleven months. Mao planned to resolve two issues at this nearly year-long Seventh Plenum: First, in the name of the plenum, to formally pass a resolution exposing and criticizing the previous lines and to establish his own historical status and the “errors” of his opponents in the form of a Central Committee document; and second, to rebuild the Party leadership structure. Once these two missions were accomplished, the time would be ripe to convene the Seventh Party Congress. As early as the September 1941 Politburo meeting, Mao took charge of drafting a “Draft Summary of Problems with the Leadership Line of the Central Committee since the Fourth Plenum.” This summary criticized the errors of the earlier Central Committee and called the erroneous line prior to the Zunyi Conference as a “Left deviation opportunistic line of the later period of the soviet movement,” but it did not negate the Fourth Plenum of the Sixth Central Committee and held that the Fourth Plenum’s line was basically correct. The reason why Mao drew such a conclusion at that time was that after the post–Fourth Plenum Central Committee and the delegation that it sent to the Jiangxi Soviet Area arrived in Jiangxi, they had fully supported Mao’s suppression of the Futian Incident and had

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appointed Mao secretary of the soviet area’s Central Bureau in place of Xiang Ying, who had advocated a more subdued resolution of the Futian Incident. If he negated the Fourth Plenum, it would be impossible to explain why the actions that the Central Committee delegation led by Ren Bishi were correct. For this reason, Mao’s Draft Summary in autumn 1941 designated the outset of the erroneous line as September 20, 1931, which marked the Central Committee’s issuance of a document opposing the aggression of Japanese imperialism. His reasoning was that this document overlooked the changes in domestic class relations occasioned by the Japanese invasion and the blind emphasis on opposing the capitalist class. Yet an even more important reason was that at the Gannan (South Jiangxi) Conference in November 1931, the Central Committee delegation led by Ren Bishi had criticized Mao’s position on land policy. Three years passed in a flash, and now that Mao had the Central Committee firmly under control, he had even greater authority to rewrite Party history according to his own will. In Mao’s eyes, this was imperative. Even before Mao, people in the CCP had used the writing of Party history to carry out inner-Party struggles and had even used it as a means of realizing their political objectives of reorganizing the Central Committee and inserting themselves into the core leadership. A classic example occurred in Shanghai in 1930, when Wang Ming secretly wrote a pamphlet criticizing Li Lisan, entitled The Two Lines (also known as The Struggle to Make the CCP More Bolshevized). Wang Ming and Bo Gu used this pamphlet as their guiding principle in convening the Fourth Plenum of the Sixth Central Committee with the support of the Comintern. It also made Wang Ming the representative of the “correct line” and allowed him to join the Politburo without the intermediate step of becoming a Central Committee member. Although there were a number of similarities between Wang Ming’s and Mao’s editing of Party history to carry out a political struggle, careful study shows that there were also obvious differences between the two. First of all, Wang Ming’s pamphlet was an individual action. At the time he wrote The Two Lines, Wang Ming was merely a functionary on the CCP Central Committee, and the pamphlet expressed only his own views and those of the others who had studied in the Soviet Union regarding internal Party disputes. Although the Central Committee subsequently accepted Wang’s views, his pamphlet was not adopted by a Central Committee plenum or transmitted to the lower levels as a formal Party verdict.

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Second, the focus of Wang Ming’s pamphlet was his personal criticism of the Lisan Line and it was not a summing up of the Party’s entire history. Likewise, although Zhang Wentian lectured on “The History of China’s Modern Revolutionary Movement” (also known as “The History of the Chinese Revolutionary Movement and the History of the CCP”) at Yan’an’s Marxism-Leninism Institute beginning from 1938, his course covered only up until the split between the KMT and CCP in 1927 and it touched on very little about the Party’s post-1927 history. It short, prior to the 1940s the CCP had no model Party history that had been adopted by the Central Committee nor did it have any formal document that comprehensively summarized the experiences and lessons of the Party’s history. Perhaps inspired by Wang Ming’s pamphlet, or out of an intense need to feel “fully legitimized,” after the Zunyi Conference Mao had put great emphasis on expressing his own viewpoints in Party resolutions. The “Resolution of the Zunyi Conference,” although drafted by Zhang Wentian, mainly reflected Mao’s views, and although affirming the Party’s political line, Mao in fact also negated key aspects of that political line. In order to thoroughly subvert the political legitimacy of the earlier Central Committee, in 1941 Mao painstakingly compiled Party Documents since the Sixth Party Congress. He then comprehensively criticized the earlier Central Committee’s political line at the September enlarged Politburo meeting, and after the meeting he personally wrote a “Draft Conclusion,” which expressed enormous enthusiasm for a resolution to revise the Party’s history. But Mao knew that revising the Party’s history was a major matter, and there was much he needed to do in order to render his own arguments irrefutable and to convince the Party leaders to genuinely accept them. The key problem was that the “Draft Conclusion” of the September enlarged Politburo meeting was only a preliminary summary of the struggles in the Party’s upper leadership, and there had been no discussions on the Party’s historical problems at the regional levels. Summarizing the Party’s history at the regional levels before focusing on the central level could establish a foundation for a conclusion regarding the central level. Prompted by Mao, Ren Bishi convened a senior cadre conference in the Northwest Bureau from October 19, 1942, to January 14, 1943. This three-month conference was attended not only by cadres involved in operations in the Northwest but also by almost every senior cadre in Yan’an at the time, including the heads of all major organs, military

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units, and schools as well as delegates to the Seventh Party Congress. Starting with Mao, central leaders including Liu Shaoqi, Ren Bishi, Kang Sheng, Chen Yun, Peng Zhen, Gao Gang, and Li Fuchun presented major speeches. Apart from mobilizing an effort to separate the loyal (“one heart”) from the disloyal (“two hearts”), arranging for the cadre examination campaign, and discussing financial and economic issues in the Border Region, the conference included a thorough discussion of the correctness of the Party’s line in the Northwest Region, with a focus on reaching a new verdict on the “excessive expansion of the campaign against counterrevolutionaries” in northern Shaanxi in 1935. Under Ren Bishi and Gao Gang’s leadership, the senior cadre conference carried out a face-to-face struggle against Zhu Lizhi, who had been sent to the Northwest from the North China Bureau, and Guo Hongtao, former Party secretary of the Border Reg ion. On November 17 and 18, 1942, Gao Gang delivered “A Thorough Discussion of the Historical Problems of the Border Region Party,” in which he comprehensively exposed and criticized the “Left deviation opportunistic line” of Zhu Lizhi and Guo Hongtao. In his speech, Gao also criticized the “main leaders of the Twenty-fifth Red Army who carried the influence of Zhang Guotao’s erroneous line on counterrevolutionary purges into northern Shaanxi.”46 The conference decided: 1.) To revise the Central Party Affairs Committee’s 1935 decision regarding examination of the campaign against counterrevolutionaries in northern Shaanxi following the Central Red Army’s arrival there in 1935. The original decision, although rehabilitating Liu Zhidan and Gao Gang, had still criticized their Right deviating errors. This decision was now declared to contain errors, and those originally bearing the chief blame for the errors, Dai Jiying (head of the Shaan-Gan Border Region Political Security Bureau) and Nie Hongjun, were expanded to include Zhu Lizhi and Guo Hongtao, whereas Gao Gang was given with the title of the representative of the “correct line.” 2.) To discipline former Shaan-Gan regional leaders Zhu Lizhi and Guo Hongtao as representatives of the “erroneous line.” This new decision was of major significance to Mao in his subsequent formal decision on Party history: 1.) It initiated a new approach and a new method for summarizing Party history by adopting a bifurcation of the struggle between a “correct line” and an “erroneous line” as the guiding principle.

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2.) It situated historical problems in the Northwest in the framework of a line struggle within the Party as a whole. In other words, the line struggle in the Party’s history of the Northwest was generally a microcosm of the line struggle within the Party; the struggle between the two lines existed not only within the central leadership but also within the regions. The erroneous line of the central leadership endangered the revolutionary undertakings at the local levels, while local representatives were the deputies and the base of the erroneous line of the central leadership. Mao delivered his speech “The Twelve Points of Bolshevization” on November 1, 1942, in which he expressed his satisfaction with the conclusions that the conference had reached on historical issues. When discussing the Party’s historical problems, Mao spoke of two main issues: 1.) the erroneous line (Mao had yet to refer to it as the “Wang Ming line”) had resulted in a 90 percent operational loss in the soviet areas and a 100 percent operational loss in the KMT-controlled areas; 2.) the conclusions about the Northwest and about the Party were generally “of the same nature.”47 Mao’s remarks set the tone for the subsequent “Resolution on Party History,” while also indicating that he was making the resolution on the Northwest a test case for a resolution on the entire Party. In accordance with the gist of Mao’s comments, Ren Bishi in January 1943 delivered a summary report entitled “Explanation of Two Points in the Central Committee’s Decision on a Renewed Investigation into the Problems of the Campaign against Counterrevolutionaries in Northern Shaanxi and a Thorough Discussion of the Lessons of History,” which established several important lines of action for applying the criticism of Zhu Lizhi and Guo Hongtao to the subsequent criticism of Wang Ming and Bo Gu in the Party’s “Resolution on Party History.” Ren Bishi stated: 1.) Northern Shaanxi epitomized the erroneous line that governed the entire Party during the period from the September 19, 1931 Mukden Incident to the Zunyi Conference. 2.) Zhu Lizhi and Guo Hongtao were of “debased character”; “their Party spirit was execrable, and upon arriving in the Northern Shaanxi Region, they assumed an air of strutting imperial envoys, craving leadership; they were the kind of political careerists who aimed to usurp leadership and lord over the Party, government, and the military of northern Shaanxi (including the Shaan-Gan border and northern Shaanxi).” At this point, turning this judgment into an accusation against Wang Ming

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and Bo Gu merely required replacing Zhu Lizhi and Guo Hongtao’s names with those of Wang and Bo and replacing northern Shaanxi with the entire Party. Indeed, the subsequent denunciation of Wang Ming, Bo Gu, and Zhang Wentian employed a virtually identical tone. 3.) The “Left deviation opportunistic” line brought about a 90 percent operational loss in the soviet areas and a 100 percent operational loss in the KMT-controlled areas. 4.) The outcome of the line struggle would play a decisive role in the success or failure of the revolution; an erroneous line could bring about national, Party, and individual demise.48 On June 25, 1943, the CCP Central Committee’s Northwest Bureau issued its “Decision Regarding the Senior Cadre Conference’s Thorough Discussion of the Historical Problems of the Party in the Border Region,” which approved the gist of the conference’s November 1942 discussion and the speech that Gao Gang had delivered on this issue. It required all cadres and Party members at all levels in the Border Region to “carry out in-depth study and discussion of Comrade Gao Gang’s speech as a key document for rectifying the three incorrect work styles.”49 This reveals that the conclusion on historical problems in the Northwest was in fact Mao’s first step before issuing a formal conclusion regarding the entire Party. Its basic line of thought was identical to that in the subsequent “Resolution on Party History”; the only difference was that the 1945 “Resolution on Party History” took a more theoretical form and its logic and exposition were tighter. After the September 1943 Politburo Rectification Conference and the beginning of the November Politburo meeting, further development of the line struggle in the Party’s upper levels led Mao to place even greater importance on drafting a resolution on Party history. Ren Bishi had already gained rich experience in leading a summary of the Party’s history in the Northwest, and he saw things exactly the same way as Mao. Mao therefore put Ren in charge of the group assigned to write a resolution on the history of the entire Party. In order to demonstrate Mao’s just and honorable character and to allow “erring” comrades to “sincerely submit” to criticizing themselves, Mao made a point of drawing representatives of the “erroneous line,” such as Zhang Wentian and Bo Gu, into the drafting of the “Resolution on Party History.” Under Mao’s direction, the “Preparatory Committee for the Resolution on the Party’s Historical Problems” was established on May 10, 1944, and the Seventh

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Plenum of the Sixth Central Committee passed the “Resolution on Party History” on April 20, 1945. The Second Session of the First Plenum of the Seventh Central Committee passed a revised version of the “Resolution on Party History” on August 9, 1945. Mao “labored painstakingly” on this document (in his own words), revising it seven times. Mao had now completely negated the Fourth Plenum of the Sixth Central Committee and had designated this plenum as the origin of the erroneous line. He could safely ignore the support the central delegation and the Central Committee had given him on the Futian Incident; he was able to skirt the entire incident and thoroughly repudiate the delegation consisting of Ren Bishi, Wang Jiaxiang, and Gu Zuolin. In this “Resolution,” Mao launched an all-out punitive expedition against the “dogmatist faction” led by Wang Ming and Bo Gu.* At the same time, he castigated the “empiricist faction” led by Zhou Enlai; without naming names, he criticized the compromise, support, and endorsement that Zhou and the others had given to Wang Ming and the imperilment that this had brought to Mao’s own correct line. Another crucial question in the new Party history centered on how to portray the “correct line” in the KMT-controlled areas, represented by Liu Shaoqi. It was obvious that affirming the correctness of Liu’s strategies and policies in the White areas required establishing an antithesis through the wholesale negation of the operations in the White areas by the former central leaders during the 1930s. In spring 1937, Liu had issued an open challenge to Zhang Wentian that appraised the Party’s problems during the previous ten years, including its work in the KMT-controlled areas. But in this instance, intense opposition from Zhang Wentian and others engaged in White area operations frustrated Liu’s attack. Now, years later, Liu’s status within the Party had risen with Mao’s support, and Kang Sheng, ever on the outlook for shifts in the political winds and discovering that Liu Shaoqi’s “political stock” had gained in value, quickly adjusted his relationship with Liu. Kang Sheng had attacked Liu’s views on White area operations as “Right deviating opportunism” in the early 1930s, but at

*

  The “Resolution on Party History,” passed in 1945, did not name Wang Ming or Bo Gu. On August 19, 1950, Mao directed a new revision of the “Resolution” that referred to Wang Ming and Bo Gu by name, and this was included as an appendix to vol. 2 of the Selected Works of Mao Zedong, as a result of which it was long believed that Wang and Bo were publicly criticized by name in the 1945 “Resolution.”

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the enlarged Politburo meeting in September 1941 he made a 180-degree turnaround and carried out a self-criticism on his previous words and actions that had opposed Liu Shaoqi. Kang said his opposition to Liu at that time was wrong and had been influenced by the Comintern. As one of the leaders of Party operations in the KMT-controlled areas, Kang Sheng used his “self-criticism” as the first step in establishing Liu Shaoqi as the representative of the “correct line” in White area operations. Mao needed Liu’s efforts and assistance at this time, so he fully supported the expanded promotion of Liu. By 1944, it was commonplace to refer to Liu Shaoqi as the representative of the Party’s “correct line” in White area operations and, as a result, the framework of the new Party history was basically built on Mao representing the “correct line” in soviet area operations and Liu representing the “correct line” in White area operations. In this new analytical system, Mao’s contribution applied to the overall situation and thus held first place on the Party’s honor roll, whereas Liu’s contribution, mainly focusing on the KMT-controlled areas, took second place. Even so, Liu’s prestige within the Party could not compare with Mao’s, and he even faded in comparison with leaders such as Zhou Enlai who had long been members of the Party’s core leadership. Making Liu the representative of the Party’s correct line in the KMT-controlled areas first required making cadres involved in White area operations agree with the view that “losses in White area operations were 100 percent,” and that was no easy task. Due to demand by Wang Shiying and other comrades long engaged in White area operations, a White Area Operations Summing-up Meeting was convened in Yan’an by Kang Sheng after the Seventh Party Congress in 1945. The purpose of this meeting was to reach a consensus on White area operations during the 1930s, and participants included Kang Sheng, Huang Huoqing (representing the Central Organization Department), Pan Hannian, Wang Shiying, Wang Xuewen, and about ten others. Kang Sheng delivered the keynote speech emphasizing that many traitors and secret agents had emerged in the White area operations, causing the Party to suffer significant losses, and on that basis he completely negated the Party’s White area operations in the 1930s. However, Kang Sheng’s remarks were refuted on the spot by Wang Shiying, who enumerated in detail the accomplishments in terms of intelligence gathering and other undercover work carried out since 1932 by the Central Military Commission (under the Central Bureau in Shanghai), the Central

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Committee Special Operatives, and other organs, proving that Party work in the KMT-controlled areas had not been a failure. Wang Shiying’s speech drew enthusiastic applause from the attendees, but it infuriated Kang Sheng who withdrew from the meeting before it adjourned.50 Wang Shiying was not aware at this time that Kang Sheng’s negation of White area operations was meant to highlight Liu Shaoqi and was part of Mao’s overall strategy. He also did not know that making Liu stand out required a complete negation of Party operations in the White areas in the 1930s. Although Wang was under Liu’s leadership in 1936 and had a close working and personal relationship with Liu,* he did not really understand “the political life of the Party’s upper ranks”; he simply expressed his objections to Kang Sheng’s opinions from the perspective of his own work and viewpoints—but of course that would not change the Party’s appraisal. After the White Area Operations Summing-up Meeting concluded, Mao called in Wang Shiying, and while not directly mentioning Wang’s opinions, he expressed the view that White area operations were a component of the revolution.51 Not long thereafter, on August 9, 1945, in the newly revised “Resolution on Party History” Liu Shaoqi was formally designated the representative of the correct line in the KMT-controlled areas, providing a rational basis for establishing him as the Party’s secondin-command. In this way, a system of Party history was established, with Mao as its hub and with the struggle between the two lines within the Party serving as its warp and weft. Just as Stalin’s global prestige was at an all-time high following the Soviet Union’s defeat of Germany in May 1945, Mao struck down Stalin’s representatives in the CCP. He now had to proceed with the utmost caution to avoid enraging Stalin. Shi Zhe recalls that Mao had spent a great deal of time and energy “remolding and fostering” Peter Vladimirov (known in Chinese as Sun Ping) beginning in 1943: “Chairman Mao drew Sun Ping close with the aim of conveying our views to the Comintern and to Stalin through Sun,” attempting to “turn him into our friend and have him disseminate our viewpoints” (judging by Vladimirov’s Yan’an Diaries, Vladimirov was

*

  Decades later, in 1968, Kang Sheng, Jiang Qing, and others had Wang Shiying tortured to death in Qincheng Prison in connection with the “Liu Shaoqi treason case.”

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fully aware of Mao’s intentions). From summer 1944 until the eve of the Seventh Party Congress, Mao had talks with Vladimirov every week or two, “each lasting three to four hours.” Mao called on Vladimirov again after the Seventh Party Congress to explain what had occurred (Vladimirov had attended the congress) and “have him follow an outline in reporting back to Moscow.” The three main points were that “the congress was united,” that its line had “won the endorsement of the entire Party,” and that “the congress unanimously endorsed Mao Zedong and Liu Shaoqi as first and second in command.”52 All this showed that Mao had achieved real finesse in maneuvering among the various political factions. In order to avoid Stalin’s suspicion, Mao modified his appraisal of several historical issues related to the Central Committee that he had originally intended to thoroughly negate in the “Resolution on Party History.” First, regarding the Sixth Party Congress: The CCP’s Sixth Party Congress, held in Moscow in 1928, marked Zhou Enlai’s insertion into the core leadership and he effectively became the CCP’s top leader. The harsh criticism Zhou faced from participants at the Politburo Rectification Conference from autumn 1943 to spring 1944 was related to this, and most of the attendees called for the Sixth Party Congress to be repudiated. Mao allowed this criticism to continue for a time—the Sixth Party Congress had been convened under the direction of Nikolai Bukharin, who had since been executed under orders from Stalin, so negating the Sixth Party Congress would not offend Stalin (attributing the CCP’s “opportunistic” thinking to the Deborin School had become a popular view in Yan’an, since Deborin was a Soviet theorist closely associated with Bukharin). Zhou Enlai resisted the negation of the Sixth Party Congress, however, and quoted Stalin’s opinions regarding the Chinese Revolution at that time, stressing that the congress had made an undeniable contribution by focusing on the Red Army and armed revolution. After some consideration, Mao decided to basically affirm the Sixth Party Congress. After all, Stalin had received Zhou Enlai several times during that congress and had shown great interest in its proceedings, so rashly negating the congress was sure to arouse Stalin’s suspicions. Therefore, on numerous occasions Mao highlighted his own qualifications as a Party veteran and lectured Wang Ming, Bo Gu, and the others by declaring that he was one of the few current Central Committee members who had been elected during the Sixth Party Congress.

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Second, on the question of the legitimacy of the Fourth and Fifth plenums of the Sixth Central Committee: Beginning from autumn 1943, as the pitch rose in the criticism by Mao, Liu Shaoqi, and Kang Sheng of Wang Ming, Bo Gu, and Zhou Enlai, a view emerged within the Party leadership that Wang and Bo were hidden traitors sent expressly to sabotage the CCP and it appeared that the arrest of Wang and Bo was imminent. During the Politburo Rectification Conference, Mao characteristically denounced Wang Ming, Bo Gu, and their backer, the Comintern’s former Far Eastern Bureau chief, Pavel Mif, who had been executed by Stalin. In this atmosphere, the Fourth Plenum of the Sixth Central Committee, which Mif had single-handedly planned and convened, and the Fifth Plenum, convened in the Jiangxi Soviet Area by Bo Gu and Zhou Enlai, came to be regarded as illegal meetings aimed at usurping Party power. However, after careful consideration following Dimitrov’s December 22, 1943, cable, Mao decided to treat Wang Ming and Bo Gu as internal Party issues (rather than as hidden traitors) and he acknowledged the legitimacy of the Fourth and Fifth plenums. Stalin’s execution of Mif did not mean Mao could take the opportunity to declare the Fourth and Fifth Plenums as illegal. Designating as enemies people such as Wang Ming who had worked for years in the Soviet Union and had fairly close dealings with Stalin would be taking things too far, especially at a time when the CCP still required Stalin’s support. Under Mao’s painstaking direction, the “Resolution on Party History” was satisfactorily completed. From then on, it became the “magic incantation” that Mao clung to in keeping his Party colleagues under control, and it served Mao in every political struggle after 1949. It was not until Liu Shaoqi was unseated in 1966 that the “Resolution” was removed from the Selected Works of Mao Zedong. Completion of the “Resolution on Party History” was a sign of Mao’s advance toward victory; Mao had painlessly turned his absolute political advantage into a new model for Party history. While speeding up his revision of the “Resolution,” Mao was also busily restructuring the central organs. One of the key tasks in rebuilding the structure of the central leadership was to reorganize the Central Committee Secretariat. During the Yan’an Rectification Movement, Mao had adopted extraordinary measures to freeze some of the powers of the Politburo and the Secretariat. In the absence of Zhou Enlai and the others Mao also implemented a

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major restructuring of the Central Secretariat in March 1943, and among those in the Secretariat during the December 1937 Politburo meeting and the Sixth Plenum of the Sixth Central Committee, only Mao continued to hold a position. Adding in the newly-appointed Liu Shaoqi and Ren Bishi, the Central Committee Secretariat now had only three members. Although most Party leaders did not dare to speak out for the time being, it would be difficult to rein them in for long. It seemed especially inappropriate to eject Zhou Enlai from the top leadership after he had returned to Yan’an, had carried out a comprehensive self-criticism of his past mistakes, and had declared his wholehearted endorsement of Mao. The restructuring of the Central Committee Secretariat was also related to the winding up of the rectification and cadre examination campaigns. The CCGSC, which for a time had taken on many of the functions of the Politburo and the Secretariat, had now served its purpose, and the case-screening phase of the Rectification Movement objectively required a resumption of normal operations in the day-to-day leadership structure. Finally, as victory in the War of Resistance neared, the CCP faced a new and complicated situation, and Mao had to consider the issue of improving the central leadership structure. As the CCP rapidly grew in power during the War of Resistance and faced a future victory in the war against Japan, it was entering a new era. The new environment and circumstances required that the Party be united, top to bottom, against the outside world. The Central Committee structure in 1943 was obviously unsuited to the impending situation and the new tasks that the Party now faced. It was due to these factors that the Seventh Plenum of the Sixth Central Committee opened in May 1944 with the announcement that a Presidium, comprised of Mao, Liu Shaoqi, Zhou Enlai, Zhu De, and Ren Bishi, would act in the capacity of the Politburo and the Secretariat. This five-man Presidium was in fact the CCP’s new leadership core resulting from the Yan’an Rectification Movement, and it would become the new Central Committee Secretariat formed at the upcoming Seventh Party Congress. In this five-man leadership structure: Mao Zedong was the leader who directed the overall situation; Liu Shaoqi was the Party’s second most powerful person after Mao; Zhou Enlai ranked third; Zhu De was commander-in-chief of the Red Army and the Eighth Route Army, and his

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duties in the Central Committee Secretariat were largely symbolic; Ren Bishi, after joining the core leadership in 1940, had placed his full support behind Mao and became one of the three members of the Secretariat in 1943; he would retain his position in the new Central Committee Secretariat. The objective that the Yan’an Rectification Movement was meant to achieve in reorganizing the top core leadership of the Party had now largely been accomplished; the next step was for the Seventh Party Congress to elect the members of the new Central Committee.

V. The Seventh Party Congress and Public Self-criticisms by Bo Gu, Zhang Wentian, and Others The Seventh Party Congress was held in April 1945 in the central auditorium in Yang jialing. It was held under the strictest of secrecy; at the end of each session, the notebooks of all the delegates were collected, assigned serial numbers, and handed over to the General Office of the Central Committee for safekeeping. The only foreign nationals present were the Soviet observer in Yan’an, Peter Vladimirov, and a representative of the Japanese Communist Party, Okano Susumu (Nosaka Sanzo), who attended only portions of the congress. The Seventh Party Congress can be counted among Mao’s victories; his erstwhile political opponents and a group of key Party and military cadres ascended the podium and in succession admitted their errors and carried out self-criticisms before the Party and Mao. Mao’s instigation of these veteran revolutionaries among the Party leaders apologizing before the entire Party had a very practical significance: Their self-criticisms proved Mao’s correctness, while with their own words they eliminated or diluted their once pervasive influence in the Party and established Mao’s absolute authority. This gave Mao the initiative in criticism, allowing him to bring errant cadres to heel by reading out the “incantations.” Finally, it was a way of showing Stalin that everything Mao did was just and honorable, that the criticized cadres had submitted to his authority, and that Mao deserved the title of leader of the CCP. Wang Ming would have been the main person making a self-criticism, but he was not able to attend the entire congress due to illness. He had intended to request sick leave, but Mao personally persuaded him to attend the opening ceremony. Wang Ming was carried to the auditorium on a

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stretcher as a demonstration of the entire Party’s unprecedented unity under Mao’s leadership.53 On the eve of the congress’s opening ceremony, on April 20, 1945, with the “help” of Mao, Liu Shaoqi, Zhu De, Zhou Enlai, and Ren Bishi, Wang Ming submitted a lengthy written self-criticism to the Presidium of the Seventh Plenum of the Sixth Central Committee, in which he expressed his acceptance of the criticism against him in the “Resolution on Party History” and he professed his willingness to assiduously study Mao Zedong Thought and submit to Mao’s leadership. Wang Ming subsequently asserted that his self-criticism had been coerced upon him. He said that comrades who visited him advised him to write a self-criticism for several reasons: The Comintern had been dissolved, so there was no organization to which he could appeal. … If he refused to acknowledge the Seventh Plenum’s “Resolution,” the Seventh Party Congress could pass a similar resolution, and if he then refused to submit to it, he would be expelled from the Party and subjected to struggle, which would be even worse for him. ...54 It is obvious that Wang Ming admitted his “errors” purely out of a mentality that “Where there’s life, there’s hope.” Bo Gu was the main member of the “dogmatist clique” making a selfcriticism before the congress. On May 3, 1945, Bo Gu delivered a lengthy selfcriticism during which he tearfully negated and castigated himself (during the earlier Seventh Plenum, Bo Gu had not yet “seen the light”). In his speech to the assembly, Bo Gu cited his errors, stupidity, and the injury he had caused to the revolution as a testimony to Mao’s greatness and correctness. Zhang Wentian made his self-criticism on May 2, prior to Bo Gu’s self-criticism, having no hope of escape as a core member of the “dogmatist faction.” Zhang’s self-criticism repudiated his actions through the use of comparison and contrast, with his errors on one side and Mao’s correctness on the other, and he used nearly every available pejorative to criticize his own stupidity, arrogance, superficiality, and indiscriminant adoption of foreign ways. Zhang said that he would henceforth “with an earnest and circumspect attitude learn from Comrade Mao Zedong’s thinking and work style in actual practice.” Zhang Wentian’s self-criticism was a prototype of the “new me” vanquishing the “old me” in the revolution of the innermost soul, and it epitomized the integration of self-denunciation with praise of Mao. He first described himself as someone incapable of revolution who spoiled

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things, a petty-bourgeois element who consistently harmed the revolution, and someone unqualified for leadership who had only become part of the Central Committee’s leading organs after being “promoted beyond his abilities.” Zhang said: First of all, this Rectification Movement made me aware that I had been self-important in the past, and that my opinionated and arrogant attitude had obstructed me from sincerely learning from Comrade Mao Zedong’s thinking and work style. ... The acute and profound criticism of my past dogmatism, Left deviation opportunism, sectarianism, and other errors put my arrogance into remission. I must first thank Comrade Mao Zedong and Comrade Liu Shaoqi for helping me. ... For the sake of the truth, I have been obliged to strip away the cloak of sham “face” and “dignity” and lay bare all of my ugliness; I have been obliged to tear down the scaffolding of “status” and the “official title” that had me dangling in mid-air, and I have been hurtled back to earth. ... In this way, my proletarian soul has gained an advantage in the fight. He went on: [Mao is an exemplar in all things.] His thoughts and emotions are the people’s thoughts and emotions; his pain, joy, and anger are the people’s pain, joy, and anger. ... So intimately is he integrated with the people that it is impossible to distinguish him from the people or the people from him. ... This is a truly great character! ... Before this great character, we feel genuine pride and honor ... while at the same time sensing our own insignificance! Zhang Wentian said that he was a person of inveterately bad thinking and work style: “If you take me on faith, you may fall into error.” Zhang implored Mao to continue “helping” and “remolding” him, and he said he could never do enough to atone for his crimes.55 After Bo Gu and Zhang Wentian, other leading cadres designated as members of the “dogmatist faction,” such as Yang Shangkun and Zhu Rui, also gave speeches in which they repented their errors. As a representative of the “empiricist faction,” in his opening address and in his April 30 speech “On the United Front” Zhou Enlai criticized

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his own “errors,” and Peng Dehuai, Liu Bocheng, and Ye Jianying also carried out self-criticisms on errors in operations under their leadership. In his speech to the assembly on April 30, Peng Dehuai, like the other senior leaders, combined his self-criticism with praise of Mao. He said the achievements of the eight-year War of Resistance in northern China were inseparable from Mao’s correct line and the Central Committee’s many specific directives and stipulations, and they were also inseparable from Zhu De’s name, while also reliant on the long-term struggle of the Party in northern China and Liu Shaoqi’s correct leadership of the North China Bureau.56 The public self-criticisms that the Party leaders carried out at the Seventh Party Congress were all carefully arranged. All of those making self-criticisms were either members of the “dogmatist faction” who had studied in the Soviet Union or veteran cadres grouped in the “empiricist” camp. None of Mao’s trusted followers were among them. Kang Sheng was a focus of the delegates’ attention during the Seventh Party Congress. Some of the delegates had been targeted in the cadre examination or emergency rescue campaigns, and now that their cases had been screened and the Party had admitted to errors in the emergency rescue campaign, they keenly hoped that Kang Sheng would carry out a self-criticism at the congress. Their hopes were dashed, however, because everything Kang Sheng did had been authorized by Mao; Kang Sheng did not consider that he had done anything wrong, and Mao likewise did not want Kang Sheng to come under censure during the congress. The original plan was for Kang Sheng to deliver a report on the cadre examination campaign and the struggle against secret agents, but Mao and Liu Shaoqi subsequently canceled Kang Sheng’s report on the pretext that the Seventh Party Congress should resolve the Party’s tasks in the present struggle, and thus they had Kang Sheng simply deliver a speech to the assembly. At the sixth session of the congress on May 2, Kang Sheng delivered a speech on his understanding of Mao’s political report and the lessons drawn from more than two years of anti-spy work, uttering not a single word of self-criticism. This caused intense resentment among the participants, so Mao and Liu arranged for Gu Dacun, an active participant and leader of the cadre examination at the Central Party School and head of the school’s First Department, to deliver a featured speech. In his speech at the tenth session of the congress on May 11, Gu

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used the lessons learned from the Guangdong Party’s armed struggle as an opportunity to speak on the necessity of the cadre examination campaign. Gu emphasized that cadre examination was extremely important and that errors and shortcomings were unavoidable, but these errors followed the correct line and had been rectified so there was no need to belabor the point. Gu said the political vigilance of Border Region civilians raised during the emergency rescue campaign had foiled the Kuomintang’s secret agent tactics, showing that the Party had gained a great victory. In his speech, Gu cited the KMT’s sabotage of the CCP’s Southern Work Committee and Northern Guangdong Party Committee (after being uncovered by the KMT in 1944, the deputy Party secretary of the Southern Work Committee, Zhang Wenbin, was arrested and executed, and the committee’s leader, Tu Zhennong, defected following his arrest) to emphasize the need to increase vigilance against the KMT’s spying tactics. He criticized comrades who had withdrawn to Yan’an from the rear areas for not being able to deal properly with the Party’s vetting. He said some comrades were expressing indignation with the cadre examination campaign simply because they themselves had come under attack during the campaign. Gu Dacun criticized these people for roping in comrades dissatisfied with the campaign, shielding suspects and going about cursing the campaign with foul language, forever begrudging the minor irritation their feelings had suffered instead of reserving their loathing for the KMT’s secret agent tactics or thinking about the martyred colleagues. “As for the sabotage of the Southern Work Committee and the Northern Guangdong Party Committee, when and where have we heard of anyone in the rear area mention this painful lesson so that our comrades will learn from it and will be on guard against the Kuomintang’s spying tactics? Never!”57 Gu Dacun may not have known it at the time, but his remarks were damaging to Zhou Enlai because the Party in the rear areas was under Zhou Enlai’s leadership, and the Southern Work Committee, as an organ subordinate to the South China Bureau, was under Zhou Enlai’s direct leadership. Criticizing the Party in the rear area for failing to attach importance to the anti-spy struggle was therefore a criticism of Zhou Enlai, and it was not at all consistent with the facts. At the height of the emergency rescue campaign, Zhou Enlai had taken the initiative to provide testimony and defense for comrades who had withdrawn to Yan’an from the rear areas and were now under attack and suspicion. According to Gu Dacun’s logic, Zhou Enlai’s conduct should be considered “shielding

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suspects” and “roping in comrades who were dissatisfied with the campaign.” Although Gu Dacun was a veteran Party member, he did not understand the “high-level political life in the Party.” During the Seventh Party Congress, he said what Mao, Liu Shaoqi, Kang Sheng, and Peng Zhen wanted to say but felt unable to express, and he fully expressed the viewpoints of Mao, Liu, Kang, and Peng regarding the emergency rescue campaign, objectively shielding Kang Sheng and the others. As a result, Kang Sheng could get away with enjoying the self-humiliation that other leaders of his stature suffered during the congress, and as resentful of Kang Sheng as the others might have been, there was nothing they could do about it. Cadres in Liu Shaoqi’s apparatus were also protected during the Seventh Party Congress. Peng Zhen had injured many cadres and caused great dissatisfaction within the Party during the rectification and cadre examination campaigns at the Central Party School, but Peng and his cohort had all been drawn under the great banner of Liu Shaoqi’s correct line in the KMT-controlled areas, and their prestige could only be enhanced rather than come under attack like the “dogmatic” and “empiricist” elements.

VI. Mao’s Victory and the Party’s New Leadership Core The CCP’s Seventh Party Congress was the organizational embodiment and confirmation of Mao’s victory after many years of effort and struggle. At the Seventh Party Congress, the entire Party formally accepted Mao Zedong Thought as the CCP’s guiding ideology and course of action, and Mao became the Party’s undisputed supreme leader. His erstwhile political opponents capitulated to Mao before the entire Party, and Mao thoroughly remolded the Party according to his own preferences. The Central Committee elected by the Seventh Party Congress and the Politburo elected by the First Plenum of the Seventh Central Committee concretely reflected the Party’s new configuration under Mao’s dominance. Kai Feng, formerly a member of the “dogmatist faction” and an alternate Politburo member, had actively cozied up to Mao in the late 1930s and had even been an enthusiastic participant in the Rectification Movement, but he ultimately found himself called to account for his opposition to Mao during the Zunyi Conference and he was not included on the new Central Committee.

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Deng Fa, formerly a member of the “empiricist faction,” an alternate Politburo member, and head of the Political Security Bureau during the Ruijin era, had made too many enemies while leading the campaign against counterrevolutionaries in Jiangxi, and in the late 1930s he had gradually fallen from power. He had developed a closer relationship with Wang Ming after going to the Soviet Union in 1936, and he had made veiled criticisms of Mao while he was the CCP representative in Xinjiang. Now he too found himself dropped from the Central Committee line-up. The majority of regional leaders were elected to the new Central Committee, Zhu Rui, former alternative Central Committee member closely allied with Bo Gu who had enjoyed an illustrious status during the early years of the War of Resistance and had at one point served as secretary of the Shandong Sub-bureau, was not included, nor was Yang Shangkun, former alternate Central Committee member and North China Bureau secretary. Wang Jiaxiang, a former member of the “dogmatist faction” and an alternate Politburo member, was nearly consumed by the anti-dogmatist conflagration set by Mao. It was only because Mao put in a word on Wang’s behalf that he was finally elected an alternate Central Committee member. Wang Ming and Bo Gu were retained on the Central Committee as emblems of the “erroneous line,” but they ranked last and second-to-last among the thirty-three members. The new Politburo over which Mao assumed leadership also took note of both history and the present reality. The Seventh Politburo retained only one former dogmatist faction member, Zhang Wentian, as a reward for splitting from the Wang Ming clique relatively early and showing long-term cooperation and submissiveness toward Mao. Previous Politburo members Zhou Enlai and Chen Yun retained their original positions. Peng Dehuai, who was made a Politburo member via a by-election during the Wayaobao Conference at the end of 1935, remained on the Politburo as a representative of the armed forces and as a demonstration of Mao’s fairness and magnanimity toward “those who have learned from past mistakes and have been cured of their infirmities.” Ren Bishi’s election to the Politburo was a matter of course, and he became the fifth member of the Central Committee Secretariat after Mao, Liu Shaoqi, Zhou Enlai, and Zhu De. The composition of the new Politburo also reflected Liu Shaoqi’s

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rapid rise in power as his long-time subordinate, Peng Zhen, leapfrogged over the Central Committee to join the Politburo. The process of the reallocation of power at the Seventh Party Congress greatly enhanced Liu Shaoqi discretionary power within the Party apparatus. This was mainly manifested in the fact that with Mao’s support, a group of Liu’s former subordinates were able to join the Central Committee in spite of the previous limitations placed on their advancement due to their having been imprisoned by the KMT. A group of CCP cadres who had been released from KMT prisons and “reformatories” in Beijing, Tianjin, and other places gradually made their way to Yan’an in November 1943. Although they had been approved by Mao and Zhang Wentian after their release from prison in 1937,* the issue of their past imprisonment came up again during the cadre examination campaign and in the vetting for the Seventh Party Congress. Previously, the Organization Department of the Central Committee under Chen Yun had tended to regard former prisoners as having problems in their political histories that restricted their employment as cadres (vetting for the Seventh Party Congress began in 1940). This discretion now fell to Mao, and he personally received Bo Yibo and the others and inquired into their circumstances. He ultimately came up with arrangements that were advantageous to them. In addition, Chen Yun was formally replaced by Peng Zhen as head of the Organization Department. This no doubt had to do with the fact that Mao knew what Bo Yibo had been through, but also with the fact that Bo Yibo, An Ziwen, Lin Feng, and the others were Liu Shaoqi’s valued subordinates and had made outstanding contributions to recruitment in the armed forces while leading military operations in the northern rear area after the outbreak of the War of Resistance. Mao’s break with normal practice by demonstrating full trust in cadres in Liu Shaoqi’s apparatus and his appointment of them to key positions in the Party was his way of repaying Liu for his support. When the Seventh Party Congress was still in session in 1945, Chen Geng and some other delegates repeatedly suggested that it was inappropriate to make Bo Yibo and the

*

  TN: These individuals, as part of Liu Shaoqi’s power base, were persecuted during the Cultural Revolution in the “61 traitors” case for renouncing communism (under authorization of the Party’s central leadership) as a condition for being released from a KMT prison in 1936.

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others alternate Central Committee members due to their previous imprisonment (Bo’s name was included as an alternate member on the list that was being drawn up). When Chen Geng presented his views to Liu Shaoqi and Zhou Enlai, Mao spoke up and flipped around this view by saying it was inappropriate for Bo Yibo to be an alternate member because he was actually qualified to be a full member. As a result, the Seventh Party Congress elected Bo Yibo and An Ziwen as full members of the Central Committee.58 As a representative of the Party and military in Northwest China, Gao Gang, like Peng Zhen, was allowed to leapfrog over the Central Committee and become a member of the Politburo. Gao Gang was still in Mao’s good graces at this time and he was considered his trusted lieutenant. Kang Sheng was already a Politburo member and he retained his position during the First Plenum of the Seventh Central Committee. At a time of momentous change, the CCP urgently required unity against the outside, but the task of internal rectification had already been completed. Kang Sheng’s long-term position as head of the Central Committee Social Department was taken over by Li Kenong, whereas Kang Sheng became a nominal Politburo member and immediately became “unemployed.” For the time being, Mao did not want to make use of Kang Sheng, so Kang asked to go to Shanxi, after which he proceeded to Shandong’s Bohai Region, carrying out ultra-Leftist land reform in both places. The convening of the Seventh Party Congress and the establishment of the new core leadership signif ied that the CCP had achieved unprecedented unity under Mao’s leadership, and Mao claimed that the dogmatist and empiricist factions had been completely obliterated. After years of hard effort and struggle by the entire Party, the Communist Revolution finally achieved success in 1949. However, old labels that disappeared for a time were liable to flicker back to life years later and to linger over the heads of Mao’s colleagues, at which time Kang Sheng was once again unleashed. Beginning in the latter half of the 1950s, Mao began chanting his incantation again: Zhou Enlai was criticized in 1958, and at the 1959 Lushan Conference old scores were settled once again when the two favorite labels of the Yan’an Rectification Movement were resurrected to denounce Peng Dehuai and Zhang Wentian and to criticize Zhu De. When the Cultural Revolution broke out in 1966, Mao struck down people whom he had promoted during the Rectification Movement, including Liu

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Shaoqi, Peng Zhen, and Lu Dingyi. They suffered lingering deaths with no strength to fight back—but the blame was not all due to Mao: Hadn’t all of them either directly or indirectly created the instruments of their own destruction? Was it not Liu Shaoqi who had promoted Mao to the status of a god and had allowed him to attain unchecked and absolute power over the entire Party? But any realization of this irony arrived too late for Liu Shaoqi and his fellow victims and it only confirmed Mao’s favorite saying: “He who moves a boulder risks crushing his own foot.”

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Postscript

The gestation and writing of this book have been a long process. I began thinking about writing it in the early 1980s, but my interest in the Yan’an Rectification Movement began decades earlier. The first time I came across the term “Yan’an Rectification Wind” was in the spring of 1966, just before the outbreak of the Cultural Revolution. I remember a scholar of the older generation once telling me that the dark reality of Old China had caused China’s youth to mature earlier than the young people of Europe and America. I would say this is true not only of Old China but also of New China during the Mao era. China’s endless political struggles and their pervasive social influence unfortunately led me to take a premature interest in matters that should not have concerned me. I began my elementary education in Nanjing in 1961. This was a time when political consciousness was developing abnormally. In early 1963, I became interested in Reference News,* to which my mother subscribed, and I regularly secretly perused it. It was also at this time that I developed the habit of reading the Jiangsu Party newspaper, New China Daily. Yet I understood little about social conditions at that time—it could be said that my head was filled with nothing but stories of Lei Feng, revolutionary martyrs, Vietnam, and the Long March of the Red Army.

*

  Translators’ Note (cited hereafter as TN): Cankao xiaoxi is a New China News daily summary of foreign news, which at that time was limited to internal circulation among cadres.

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The situation changed toward the end of 1963, however, when I began to pay closer attention to reports in Reference News and regular newspapers regarding the debates between the Chinese and Soviet communist parties. Sometime in late spring 1964, I read in People’s Daily that Soviet Party Secretary Mikhail Suslov had delivered an “anti-China report” at the February plenum of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU). This was the first time I had read any criticism of Mao, the Great Leap Forward, and the People’s Communes, and it came as an enormous shock (this report left a profound impression on me and I saved that copy of People’s Daily for a long time). I began pondering certain phrases in Suslov’s report: Mao was a “Left deviation adventurist,” “semi-Trotskyite,” “volitionist,” and so on (in the 1970s, I learned from internal publications that Suslov was an entrenched dogmatist. Recently published Russian documents reveal that in 1964 reformists within the CPSU were using the war of words with the Chinese Communist Party [CCP] to weaken the position of the Stalinists in the USSR, thus curbing the momentum of a conservative revival for a time; it was against this background that the conservative Suslov delivered this report at the CPSU plenum). I did not fully understand these phrases at the time. I associated them with my daily life, and the period of hunger several years earlier when I had accompanied my mother to a labor reform farm in the Nanjing suburbs to visit my father, who had been sent down to the countryside for manual labor as a “Rightist.” I passed the entrance exam to Nanjing Foreign Language School in the summer of 1963 but I was rejected because I did not pass the political vetting and this had caused me to develop doubts about current political policies. Even in primary school there was talk about a “class line,” and I came under increasing pressure due to problems in my family background. As the Great Cultural Revolution approached, I responded to my school’s appeal by reading the four volumes of Mao’s Selected Works. In particular, I repeatedly read the “Resolution Regarding Certain Historical Problems” and Mao’s “Reform Our Study” and “Against Party Boilerplate.” That is how I became acquainted with the phrase “Rectification Movement.” Around the time that the Cultural Revolution erupted, I discovered from my daily reading of New China Daily that Peng Zhen’s name was omitted from a mass welcoming rally held for an Albanian Party and government delegation that visited Beijing in early May 1966. Thereafter, on my primary school’s athletic field, some offspring of cadres (my school was

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near the residential compounds of the Logistics Department of the Nanjing Military Region and New China Daily) used red-and-white-striped rods to beat a 30-something art instructor surnamed Yu who had “bad class origins,” while the school’s principal and Party secretary pretended not to notice. The Red Terror in the latter half of August 1966 marked me for life. My family came under attack, and one day I accidentally overheard my father telling my mother that he was unlikely to avoid trouble and that if he did not flee he might well be beaten to death. My father finally ran off to seek shelter among the simple and honest people in his home village in Shandong Province, and soon thereafter, all around our home my father’s work-unit posted warrants for his arrest. How much I witnessed of the carnage of the Cultural Revolution! It did not take long for members of the faction in power, who during the early stages of the Cultural Revolution had directed the seizing and struggling of “dead tigers,” to be pulled off their horses: the “Four Fellows” (Zhou Yang among them), “Peng-Luo-Lu-Yang” and “Liu-DengTao” were toppled like dominos into the “rubbish heap of history,” “one crown after another tumbling to the ground.” That was when I picked up on name-ranking in the newspapers. I personally witnessed the public denunciation of the First Party Secretary of Jiangsu Province, Jiang Weiqing, on the athletic field of Nanjing University in early 1967, just half a year after my school’s principal had been talking of nothing but “Commissar Jiang.” Not long thereafter, I went to the office building of the provincial Party committee to see an exhibition on “the decadent life of the revisionist overlord” and I was completely overwhelmed by the Party secretary’s spacious office, with its washroom, lounge, and ballroom with subdued lighting in its ceiling partitions and its floors covered with teak imported from Burma. My family background disqualified me from participating in this revolution and the education I had received at home and the spiritual nourishment I had received from all kinds of books kept me from admiring the violent actions of those who inflicted torment on others in the name of the revolution. Before the Cultural Revolution, my family had a library card for the reading room in a district cultural center, so I had read many works on Chinese and foreign literature and history. I still remember how during the terror of August 1966, I snatched away a dozen books that my mother was preparing to burn, including Yang Jiang’s translation of Lesage’s Gil Blas, Fan Wenlan’s Concise Chinese History, Alexander Pushkin’s

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Selected Poems and Three Hundred Tang Poems. Rescued from the flames, these books warmed me and served as clusters of light at the end of a long, dark tunnel. The light of hope was dim and flickering in the tempest of the Cultural Revolution. In early 1967, I saw a poster on the wall of Changjiang Road General Store near my home, proclaiming “Extraordinary Good News.” On it was emblazoned a recent quote by Marshal Ye Jianying: “Our Great Leader is exceptionally healthy; doctors say Chairman Mao may live to 150.” When I read this, it was as if an explosion went off in my head. Although I had my doubts, my first thought was that I was doomed to live my entire life in the Mao era. I ran off to find my best friend He Jun (he now lives in Boston) and told him this news. We both felt it was impossible for Chairman Mao to live to 150 because this violated accepted scientific knowledge. From then on, I began harboring secret doubts about Mao. I knew that in China Mao had the last say in everything. Even someone like Liu Shaoqi, who had been evaluated so highly in the “Resolution on Party History,” who had appeared next to Mao in the ubiquitous official portraits of China’s leaders before the Cultural Revolution, and who had received such a rapturous reception when visiting Southeast Asia with his wife, had been struck down the moment he fell out of favor with Mao. I also saw things closer to home. A sister and brother who attended my school lived with their parents in a broken-down shed in a nearby alleyway. Their father was a “former counterrevolutionary,” whereas their mother was an ordinary working woman. Crumbling under the constant humiliation and prejudice the family suffered, the mother lost control and ripped up a portrait of Chairman Mao while shouting “reactionary slogans.” As a result, she was executed during Nanjing’s “One Strike and Three Antis” campaign in 1970. On the day of her public trial, all of the students at our secondary school were taken to the side of the road to watch her pass by in the execution motorcade—this was called “being educated.” Her son and daughter were made to stand with all the other students and personally witness their mother, bound hand and foot, being taken to the execution ground. After the motorcade passed by, the vice chairman of the school’s Revolutionary Committee required every class in the school to break up into group discussions, whereupon the students declared their endorsement of “suppressing counterrevolutionaries.” All of this made me develop opinions regarding Mao. I knew I could not express these opinions to anyone, not even to my own parents, and that I had to bury them deep in my heart.

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During those suffocating, dreary, and hopeless years, my childhood friend He Jun was practically the only person to whom I could bare my heart (and even then we were cautious and never spoke of Mao). Yet a beam of light remained in my heart. Near my home was the rear liaison office of a certain secondary school that had been forced to relocate to the countryside. The school’s books had been left behind and stored in a large warehouse in the rear liaison office, where an old gentleman surnamed Jiang kept watch over them (a native of Shandong, he had been conscripted into the Nationalist Army but had switched sides after being captured by the People’s Liberation Army). To this day, I remain deeply indebted to this old gentleman, who allowed me to enter the warehouse once a week to borrow a knapsack full of books, which I would return the following week in exchange for more. It was there that I glanced through the 1958 “Re-Criticism” special issue of Literature and Art, and I read for the first time Wang Shiwei’s “Wild Lilies” and Ding Ling’s “Thoughts on International Women’s Day.” During those years, I borrowed many Chinese and foreign works on literature and history. I still remember reading Montesquieu’s Persian Letters, Romain Rolland’s Jean-Christophe, Walt Whitman’s Leaves of Grass, Ye Shengtao’s Ni Huanzhi, and Lao She’s Rickshaw Boy. After the Nanjing Library partially reopened in 1971, I spent my free time there, reading The Complete Works of Lu Xun from beginning to end. These works sustained my faith in humanism. China’s political situation became even more perilous in the mid-1970s. The younger brother of a friend, enraged by Jiang Qing’s highhandedness, leapt to his death from the upper story of his family’s home in 1975. My home was under constant scrutiny by an elderly lady from the Neighborhood Committee; if any visitor entered our home, she would be standing at our doorway nosing about. One summer evening in 1976, my friend He Jun and I were sitting on the sidewalk on Changjiang Road when I recited a quote from Lu Xun: “The fire is raging underground, and the magma is roiling. ...”* (At the end of August 1995, He Jun and I spent half a day sitting in a small garden along New York’s Fifth Avenue, sharing our recollections of the past, and this summer

*

  TN: This quote comes from the Foreword to Wild Grass: “A fire is raging underground; once the molten lava gushes forth, it will burn away all the wild grass and trees, leaving nothing to decay.”

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evening chat on Changjiang Road was one of the things we talked about.) During the Cultural Revolution, I read many of Mao’s internal speeches and material on “the struggle between the two roads.” These writings mixed truth with falsehood, and some were packed with distortions and lies, yet they aroused my intense interest. A combination of everything that had occurred and had been revealed during the Cultural Revolution and my own life experiences caused me to develop a growing desire to explore the history of the Chinese Communist Revolution. In this process, I took note of the Yan’an Rectification Movement. Although it had occurred decades earlier, I had a faint sense that it was somehow related to everything that was occurring in the present. Had I not constantly seen on big-character posters and in various Cultural Revolution materials words by Mao and other “central leaders” to the effect that “So-and-so is the most evil; during the Ningdu Conference he wanted to execute me,” “During the War of Resistance, Liu Shaoqi colluded with Wang Ming to oppose Chairman Mao’s policy of maintaining autonomy and taking the initiative,” “During the Yan’an cadre examination campaign, so-and-so was found to have surrendered to the enemy, so limitations were placed on his employment,” “While in the Soviet Union, Wang Ming used the alias Mama Abramovich to viciously attack the Great Leader Chairman Mao,” and so on. During those years, although I had been “born in the new society and raised under the Red Flag,” I always had to fill out countless forms, from primary school through secondary school and at my work-unit, providing the same old information in the spaces for “political status” and “social relations.” Everyone around me filled in the same forms. The personnel manager at my work-unit, who came from an old liberated area, said this was the Party’s cadre-vetting tradition, which had started during the Yan’an Rectification Movement and then became common practice. But what was this Yan’an Rectification Movement? With this question in mind, I entered Nanjing University in autumn of 1978 as a history major. China’s tertiary education began experiencing a series of major changes in 1979, and the reverberations of the Ideological Emancipation Movement that I experienced during those years stirred even more reflections. In the classroom, I again heard an instructor speak of the Yan’an Rectification Movement and I read material discussing the “emergency rescue campaign,” yet everything upheld a basic interpretation: The Yan’an Rectification Movement was a great Marxist education campaign. In that same year, I also read Zhou Yang’s famous essay “Three Great Ideological Emancipation

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Movements,” which put the Yan’an Rectification Movement on par with the May Fourth Movement and the Ideological Emancipation Movement of the late 1970s. During my years of study at the university, I knew that although the errors of Mao’s last years had been criticized, his ultra-Leftist policies were still deeply entrenched and had permeated deep into the minds of contemporary Chinese to become a kind of reflexive thinking. They manifested themselves in the study of China’s modern history and Party history, which took the form of taboo-infested official scholarship and a prevailing fashion in research consisting of composing footnotes for certain authorities. Of course, I completely understood the conflicts and bottled-up anguish of the elder generation of scholars; they had either been intimidated into submission by the past ultra-Leftism or had been too deeply marked by the ideological drilling during their youth in The History of the CPSU and Thirty Years of the Chinese Communist Party to make a leap out of the patterns of the bureaucratic academic system. Yet I could not forget the spiritual memories of past years. Liu Zhiji* wrote that dealing with history required a historian’s talent, knowledge, and judgment, and the most important was to write down the unvar-nished truth that took all sources into account. To this day, I still clearly remember how agitated I became when listening to a lecture in 1979 on Sima Qian’s “Letter to Ren An,” and I also often recall Mr. Fan Wenlan’s admonition on the slow progress of historiography: “Willingly spending ten years on a cold wooden bench, writing essays without a single empty word.” All of this impelled me to leap from the fetters of the rigid dogma and devote all my efforts to maximize my subjective consciousness and to let my thinking become truly free. From then on, I began to nurture the aspiration of writing a historical work that would truthfully depict the Yan’an Rectification Movement, and I began gathering the necessary materials. Because the Yan’an Rectification Movement was a special signifier in mainstream discourse, an extremely limited amount of historical material about it was accessible to the public, and this made research very difficult. But starting in the 1980s, China began to publish some historical materials related to the Yan’an Rectification Movement; apart from a small number of archival files and documentary collections, quite a few memoirs facilitated

*

  TN: A Chinese historian, born in Jiangsu during the Tang Dynasty, and author of Shitong (Generality of Historiography).

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my research, while also raising new problems about how to analyze, differentiate, and interpret these materials. It can be said that my long experience living in mainland China and my extensive reading of related historical materials enhanced my sensitivity when reading these materials, and I was gradually able to judge what was hidden behind the words. After many years of studying and learning from the materials I had accumulated, the rough contours of the Yan’an Rectification Movement began to form in my mind and I discovered organic linkages scattered among the various fragmentary sources. I took up my pen in mid-August 1991, and I completed two-thirds of an initial draft by 1992. My writing slowed down in 1993; I sensed the need for further reflection on the issues on which I was expounding and also to collect and read a wider range of materials. From summer 1995 to autumn 1996, I had the opportunity to serve as a visiting scholar at Johns Hopkins University’s School of Advanced International Studies in Washington DC. My topic of study in the United States was unrelated to the Yan’an Rectification Movement, but I took advantage of my time in Washington to spend one month working in the Library of Congress. Regrettably, although the Chinese holdings in the Library of Congress were very rich, they contained almost nothing about the Yan’an Rectification Movement. After returning to China in October 1996, I resumed my writing, and I completed the book in the summer of 1998. I spent another half-year revising the book three times and I completed the final version at the end of 1998. After submitting the manuscript in early 1999, during the proofreading and editing stages I gained access to some new material that allowed me to further substantiate certain portions of the book, and the manuscript was ready for publication in late spring 1999. My intention in writing this book was always to seek the truth, and throughout the writing process I adhered to the research method of drawing conclusions based on facts. I felt the most important thing was first to trace the origins and development of the Yan’an Rectification Movement in a clear narrative because decades of ideological hermeneutics had obscured the entire movement. I devoted enormous efforts to this end, gathering every scrap of information from both important and obscure sources, then sorting it out and repeatedly studying and gaining an understanding of it so I could pull it all together. This work took up the greatest amount of my time and effort.

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I am not opposed to carrying out a rigorous theoretical analysis of the Yan’an Rectification Movement as a major phenomenon, and I feel that such work is extremely important, but I also worry that excessive interpretation might obstruct the readers’ own judgment. Mr. Chen Yinke* once said, “See the big picture while handling the details,” and “Observe the ocean in a drop of water.” Consequently, I wrote this book from a positivist perspective using an analytical discourse method. This is also related to my personal preference for case studies in historical research. In the seven years I spent writing this book, I always deeply regretted not being able to get my hands on more important primary sources. As everyone knows, apart from a small amount of published material, the vast majority of archival material related to the Central Committee Politburo, Secretariat, Social Department, and Organization Department during the Yan’an Rectification Movement has not been made accessible to the public even to the present day. In 1992, I saw a speech by a senior official at the Central Archives who had said that in view of the profound historical lessons of the tremendous changes in the former Soviet Union and Eastern Europe, we should enhance our understanding of the importance of archival work. He pointed out that the handling of the Party’s archival files is closely related to the future fate of Chinese socialism. I can understand this leader’s viewpoint, but from the perspective of academic research, I feel infinite regret at being deprived of access to these invaluable historical materials. As this was a personal project, during the last decade or so I purchased a large number of books and other written materials with my limited salary, and I never applied for any state, provincial, or university social-science research funding for work on this topic. It is therefore another regret of mine that I was unable to track down and interview people who had participated in the Yan’an Rectification Movement. If I had been able to carry out such work, it would have greatly enriched the content of this book. Yet another regret is that I did not have an opportunity to go to Moscow to search out related material. Moscow opened its historical archives in the 1990s, and documents and records related to contacts between the CPSU and the CCP in the 1940s were made public. In recent years, Dr. Shen Zhihua of the Chinese Historical Association has put a

*

  TN: Chen Yinke (1890–1969) was an internationally renowned Chinese historian.

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great deal of effort into gathering these historical materials, and he has passed some of these materials on to researchers in Beijing (however, Dr. Shen told me that there were very few historical materials on contacts between the CPSU and the CCP during the Yan’an Rectification Movement). I deeply regret that I lost contact with Dr. Shen when he went to the United States. Years bent over my desk making daily mental journeys to the historical events of those years naturally led me to develop a certain understanding of the Yan’an Rectification Movement and the people involved. The vast majority of my understandings and feelings in this regard have been incorporated into the narrative of this book. Nevertheless, there are several points I wish to clarify here: 1.) I am not of an age to have experienced the era in which the CCP launched its revolution. In my careful reading of history from the perspective of the twentieth century, observing how the Communist Revolution rolled out with full force beginning in the 1920s has given me a profoundly sympathetic understanding of the revolution. I regard it as a product of the Chinese people’s liberation and social transformation in the twentieth century, and I feel that in historical terms it has immense positive value and significance. 2.) Viewed from the perspective of the Chinese Communist Revolution seizing power and overturning Kuomintang rule, the Yan’an Rectification Movement was enormously helpful to the success of the revolution, but certain concepts and norms of the Rectification Movement subsequently had a negative impact on China’s development and progress. A confluence of ultra-Leftist thinking and politics of intrigue ultimately led to a series of excessively Leftist political campaigns in the ideological realm after the founding of the People’s Republic of China (PRC), culminating in the disastrous Cultural Revolution, which makes the Rectification Movement a prime example of a single factor resulting in both success and failure. Fortunately, since the Third Plenum of the Eleventh Central Committee China has gradually emerged from that past ultra-Leftist line of pervasive suspicion and ruthless struggle, but it will take long-term efforts to clear away the old thinking habits. My hope is that a recurrence of the past ultra-Leftist line-drawing and politics of intrigue will never again occur, and that hereafter China will embark on a trajectory of democracy and rule of law for the welfare of our country and our people.

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3.) This book covers a rather wide scope and touches on many famous people in modern Chinese history. I have treated all of the people in this book as historical figures and tried not to cast them either as heroes or villains, subjectively striving for objectivity and even-handedness and “neither overstating virtue nor concealing evil.” Of course, no research is completely free of the writer’s own values and concerns. When Chen Hengzhe* wrote, “If we only state that a certain person from a certain country conquered a certain place in a certain year ... what is the point in that?” She was also addressing the issue of the researcher’s values and concerns. It is simply that these values and concerns should not impair the neutrality and objectivity of the narrative. If the narrative of this book contains any value orientation, it is that to this day I still profoundly approve of the new values since the May Fourth Movement: democracy, freedom, independence, social justice, and humanitarianism. In the years that I spent writing this book, I received invaluable support and encouragement from friends, and as this book is about to be published, I wish to extend my heartfelt thanks to them. Professor Xu Jilin at Shanghai Normal University has followed the progress of my research with interest for many years, and he made many excellent suggestions regarding publication of this book. In my contacts with Professor Xu, his profound learning and outstanding knowledge of twentieth-century Chinese history was of enormous benefit. From the bottom of my heart I thank Professor Jin Guantao and Professor Liu Qingfeng at The Chinese University of Hong Kong’s Institute of Chinese Studies. They enthusiastically assisted publication of this book, and in the process of finalizing the manuscript, they provided enlightening suggestions and opinions that played an important role in reinforcing the academic standards in this book. I also express my indebtedness to my colleague at Nanjing University, History Professor Yan Shi’an, and to my good friend now living in the United States, Mr. He Jun. Their friendship and support has encouraged me throughout this time. I have had many enjoyable discussions on CCP history in the 1930s and 1940s with Professor Philip A. Kuhn of Harvard University’s East

*

  TN: Chen Hengzhe (1893–1976) was a writer and the first famale university professor in China.

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Asian Languages and Civilizations Department as well as with Anthony J. Kane, executive director of the Nanjing Program Office of the School of Advanced International Studies at Johns Hopkins University. Their support and encouragement gave an impetus to my writing. Throughout the years I spent writing this book, I benefited from the attention and assistance of my former students Scott Kennedy, Jeff Zuckerberg, and Felix Lin, and my research assistant Guo Xunche was especially helpful not only in typing up the text but also in sharing my enjoyment of discussions. I here express my deep gratitude to them all. I also offer my thanks to the writers and editors whose texts are quoted in this book with detailed citations. I would have been unable to complete this book without the foundation of the material that they provided. I would like to express my deepest gratitude to this book’s editor, Dr. Zheng Huixin. Dr. Zheng has many research assignments of his own, yet he found time to handle many trivial details connected with this book. His generous support was of great help in publishing this book. In late summer 1998, I had the opportunity to serve as a visiting fellow at The Chinese University of Hong Kong’s Institute of Chinese Studies, where I benefited from the enthusiastic reception and assistance of Ms. Jean Hung at the Universities Service Centre. The rich holdings of this historical data center allowed me to supplement my research with some new materials, for which I here thank both Ms. Hung and the centre. The staff in the reference room of Nanjing University’s History Department has provided me with a great deal of assistance over the years regarding books and other materials, and I express my deep gratitude for their friendship, goodwill, and dedication to their work. Finally, I want to offer my profound gratitude to my wife, Liu Shaohong, and my son, Gao Xin. My wife took on the burden of many of the household duties outside her working hours, allowing me to devote single-hearted efforts to my research, and she also typed up part of the manuscript. For many years, the writing of this book prevented me from accompanying my wife and son on outings, nor was I able to regularly help my son with his homework. It would have been impossible for me to bring this book to completion without their support, help, and understanding. Gao Hua June 1999, Nanjing University

Notes

Foreword 1. 2.

3. 4.

David E. Apter and Tony Saich, Revolutionary Discourse in Mao’s Republic (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1994). Benjamin I. Schwartz, Chinese Communism and the Rise of Mao (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1961); Stuart R. Schram, Mao Tse-tung (Baltimore: Penguin, 1967); Stuart R. Schram, The Political Thought of Mao Tse-tung (New York: Praeger, 1969); Stuart R. Schram et al., Mao’s Road to Power: Revolutionary Writings 1912–1949 (Armonk, NY: M.E. Sharpe, 1992-), 7 vols. so far. Alexander Pantsov and Steven I. Levine, Mao: The Real Story (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2012); Philip Short, Mao: A Life (New York: Henry Holt, 2000). Here the literature is too voluminous to list, but useful representative studies would include James P. Harrison, The Long March to Power: A History of the Chinese Communist Party, 1921–72 (New York: Praeger Publishers, 1972); Tony Saich and Benjamin Yang, eds., The Rise to Power of the Chinese Communist Party: Documents and Analysis (Armonk, NY: M.E. Sharpe, 1996); Tony Saich and Hans J. van de Ven, eds., New Perspectives on the Chinese Communist Revolution (Armonk, NY: M.E. Sharpe, 1995).

Chapter 1 1. 2.

3.

CCP Central Documents Research Office (ed.), Zhou Enlai nianpu (1898‒1949) (Chronolog y of Zhou Enlai [1898‒1949]) (Beijing: Zhong yang wenxian chubanshe, 1990), p. 169 (hereafter cited as Chronology of Zhou Enlai). “Yang Kemin’s Summary Report on Conditions in the Hunan-Jiangxi Border Region” (February 25, 1929), in Jiangxi Provincial Archives (ed.), Jinggangshan geming genjudi shiliao xuanbian (Selected Historical Materials from the Jinggang Mountain Revolutionary Base Area) (Nanchang: Jiangxi renmin chubanshe, 1986), p. 136. Mao Zedong, “The Struggle in the Jinggang Mountain,” in Mao Zedong xuanji (Selected Works of Mao Zedong) (Beijing: Renmin chubanshe, 1951), vol. 1, p. 82.

7 2 0   |   N otes  

4. 5. 6. 7.

8.

9. 10. 11.

12. 13.

14. 15. 16. 17. 18. 19.

20.

21.

“Yang Kemin’s Summary Report on Conditions in the Hunan-Jiangxi Border Region,” p. 134. Mao Zedong, “The Struggle in the Jinggang Mountain,” p. 79. “Yang Kemin’s Summary Report on Conditions in the Hunan-Jiangxi Border Region,” p. 136. “Central Committee Letter to Zhu De, Mao Zedong, and the Front Line Committee” ( June 4, 1928), in Central Archives (ed.), Zhonggong zhongyang wenjian xuanji (Selected Documents of the CCP Central Committee) (Beijing: Zhonggong zhongyang dangxiao chubanshe, 1989), vol. 4, pp. 248, 253, 256, 250, 252. Du Xiujing, “Report to the CCP Hunan Provincial Party Committee” (1928), in Jiangxi Provincial Archives (ed.), Jinggangshan genjudi shiliao xuanbian (Selected Historical Materials from the Jinggang Mountain Revolutionary Base Area) (Nanchang: Jiangxi renmin chubanshe, 1983), p. 20. “Yang Kemin’s Summary Report on Conditions in the Hunan-Jiangxi Border Region,” pp. 132, 136. See Gong Chu jiangjun huiyilu (The Memoirs of General Gong Chu) (Hong Kong: Mingbao yuekanshe, 1978), pp. 171, 205‒7, 348, 357. Liu Keyou, “Remembering the Ninggang County Party Organization,” in Yu Boliu and Xia Daohan (eds.), Jinggangshan geming genjudi yanjiu (Research on the Jinggang Mountain Revolutionary Base Area) (Nanchang: Jiangxi renmin chubanshe, 1987), p. 308. Zhu Kaijuan, “Construction of the Ninggang Region Village Government and Party,” in Yu Boliu and Xia Daohan (eds.), Research on the Jinggang Mountain Revolutionary Base Area, p. 307. “Front Line Committee Resolution to Expel Jiang Hanbo from the Party” (April 4, 1930), in Jiangxi Provincial Archives (ed.), Zhongyang geming genjudi shiliao xuanbian (Selected Historical Materials from the Central Revolutionary Base Area) (Nanchang: Jiangxi renmin chubanshe, 1983), vol. 1, pp. 576‒77. “Front Line Committee Notice No. 1” (February 16, 1930), in Jiangxi Provincial Archives (ed.), Selected Historical Materials from the Central Revolutionary Base Area, vol. 2, p. 173. Jiangxi Provincial Archives (ed.), Selected Historical Materials from the Central Revolutionary Base Area, vol. 3, pp. 634‒35. Ibid., pp. 646, 648‒49. Jiangxi Provincial Archives (ed.), Selected Historical Materials from the Central Revolutionary Base Area, vol. 1, pp. 626, 631. Jiangxi Provincial Archives (ed.), Selected Historical Materials from the Central Revolutionary Base Area, vol. 3, p. 110. CCP Central Documents Research Office (ed.), Mao Zedong nianpu 1893‒1949 (Chronolog y of Mao Zedong 1893‒1949) (Beijing: Zhong yang wenxian chubanshe, 1993), vol. 1, p. 319 (hereafter cited as Chronology of Mao Zedong). See also Dai Xiangqing and Luo Huilan, AB tuan yu Futian shibian shimo (The Complete Story of the AB League and the Futian Incident) (Zhengzhou: Henan renmin chubanshe, 1994), p. 90. Mao Zedong, “A Letter of Reply from the General Front Committee” (December 20, 1930), in Political Work Teaching and Research Office of the Chinese PLA National Defense University (ed.), Zhonggong dangshi jiaoxue cankao ziliao (CCP Party History Teaching Reference Materials) (Beijing: Zhongguo renmin jiefangjun zhengzhixue yinxing, 1985), vol. 14, p. 634. Huang Kecheng, Huang Kecheng zishu (An Autobiography of Huang Kecheng) (Beijing: Renmin chubanshe, 1994), pp. 100‒101.

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22. “Xiao Ke on the Campaign to Eliminate Counterrevolutionaries during the Early Stages of the Central Soviet Area,” Dangshi yanjiu ziliao (Party History Research Materials), no. 5 (1982). 23. The Memoirs of General Gong Chu, p. 353. See “Investigation into the Wrongful Killing of Li Wenlin,” Jiangxi dangshi ziliao ( Jiangxi Party History Materials) (Nanchang), no. 1 (1987), p. 326. 24. Quoted in Dai Xiangqing and Luo Huilan, The Complete Story of the AB League and the Futian Incident, p. 98. 25. “Provincial Action Committee Urgent Notice No. 9” (December 15, 1930), in Dai Xiangqing and Luo Huilan, The Complete Story of the AB League and the Futian Incident, p. 105. 26. “Xiao Ke on the Campaign to Eliminate Counterrevolutionaries during the Early Stages of the Central Soviet Area.” 27. Zeng Shan, “Declaration of the ‘Futian Emergency’” ( January 14, 1931), in Dai Xiangqing and Luo Huilan, The Complete Story of the AB League and the Futian Incident, pp. 105‒6. 28. Liu Di, “Letter to the CCP Central Committee” ( January 11, 1931), in Dai Xiangqing and Luo Huilan, The Complete Story of the AB League and the Futian Incident, pp. 107‒8. 29. Zeng Shan, “Recollections on the History of the Revolutionary Struggle during the Jiangxi Soviet Period” ( June 12, 1959), in Chen Yi et al., Huiyi zhongyang suqu (Recollections of the Central Soviet Area) (Nanchang: Jiangxi renmin chubanshe, 1981), pp. 21‒23. 30. See Zhang Guotao, Wode huiyi (My Memoirs) (Beijing: Xiandai shiliao biankanshe, 1980), vol. 2, p. 484. See also He Chengming, “Chen Gang,” in Zhonggong dangshi renwu zhuan (Biographies of Personages in CCP Party History) (Xi’an: Shaanxi renmin chubanshe, 1987), vol. 34, p. 21. 31. Zeng Shan, “Recollections on the History of the Revolutionary Struggle during the Jiangxi Soviet Period” ( June 12, 1959), pp. 21‒23. 32. See Dai Xiangqing, Zhongyang geming genjudi yanjiu (Research on the Central Revolutionary Base Area) (Nanchang: Jiangxi renmin chubanshe, 1985), p. 252. 33. Peng Dehuai, Peng Dehuai zishu (An Autobiography of Peng Dehuai) (Beijing: Renmin chubanshe, 1981), p. 166. 34. Mao Zedong, “Letter of the General Front Line Committee in Response to Accusations” (December 20, 1930), in Chinese People’s Liberation Army Political Institute (ed.), CCP Party History Teaching Reference Materials, vol. 14, p. 634. 35. Ibid. 36. Huang Kecheng, An Autobiography of Huang Kecheng, p. 85. 37. Chronology of Zhou Enlai, p. 183. 38. Ibid., p. 185. 39. Ibid., p. 192. 40. “Central Bureau of the Soviet Area Notice No. 2: Resolution Regarding the Futian Incident” ( January 16, 1931), in Chinese People’s Liberation Army Political Institute (ed.), CCP Party History Teaching Reference Materials, vol. 14, pp. 639‒42. 41. In his “General Front Line Committee Letter in Response to Accusations,” Mao emphasized: “The Second Plenum opposed the February 2 Conference; the dismissal of Liu Shiqi represented opposing the February 2 Conference and opposing Mao Zedong.” 42. Quoted in Dai Xiangqing, Zhongyang geming genjudi shigao (Historical Sketches of the Central Revolutionary Base Area) (Shanghai: Shanghai renmin chubanshe, 1986), p. 311.

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43. 44. 45. 46. 47. 48. 49. 50. 51. 52. 53. 54. 55. 56. 57. 58. 59. 60.

61. 62. 63. 64. 65. 66.

See Zhang Guotao, My Memoirs, vol. 2, p. 486. Ibid., vol. 2, p. 484. Chronology of Zhou Enlai, pp. 203‒4. Ibid., p. 205. Central Archives (ed.), Zhonggong zhongyang wenjian xuanji (Selected Documents of the CCP Central Committee) (Beijing: Zhonggong zhongyang dangxiao chubanshe, 1991), vol. 7, p. 141; see also Chronology of Zhou Enlai, p. 205. CCP Central Documents Research Office (ed.), Ren Bishi zhuan (A Biography of Ren Bishi) (Beijing: Zhongyang wenxian chubanshe, 1994), p. 209. CCP Central Committee Secretariat (ed.), Liuda yilai: Dangnei mimi wenjian (Secret Party Documents Since the Sixth National Party Congress) (Beijing: Renmin chubanshe, 1980), vol. 1, p. 126. See also Chronology of Zhou Enlai, p. 208. Party History Research Materials, no. 6 (1990). “Cable of the Central Bureau of the Soviet Area to the Provisional CCP Central Committee” (October 11, 1931), quoted in CCP Central Documents Research Office (ed.), A Biography of Ren Bishi, p. 212. Zeng Shan, “Recollections on the History of the Revolutionary Struggle left during the Jiangxi Soviet Period” ( June 12, 1959), pp. 21‒23. “Xiao Ke on the Campaign to Eliminate Counterrevolutionaries during the Early Stages of the Central Soviet Area.” “Jiangxi Soviet Area CCP Provincial Party Committee Work Summary Report” (May 1932), in Jiangxi Provincial Archives (ed.), Selected Historical Materials from the Central Revolutionary Base Area, vol. 1, pp. 477‒78, 480. “Jiangxi Soviet Area CCP Provincial Party Committee Work Summary Report” (May 1932). Deng Xiaoping, “Seventh Army Work Report” (April 29, 1931), Dangde wenxian (Party Documents), no. 3 (1989). Chronology of Zhou Enlai, p. 212. See Kong Yongsong, Lin Taiyi, and Dai Jinsheng, Zhonggong geming genjudi shiyao (Essential History of the Central Revolutionary Base Area) (Nanchang: Jiangxi renmin chubanshe, 1985), pp. 258‒59. “Rectification of the Unjust West Fujian ‘Campaign to Eliminate the Socialist Democratic Party,’” Dangshi tongxun (Party History Bulletin), no. 5 (1986). “Letter of the CCP Central Bureau of the Soviet Area to the Min-Yue-Gan Provincial Party Committee and Transmitted to the Provincial Party Congress” (February 19, 1932), quoted in Jiang Boying, Min xi geming genjudi (History of the West Fujian Revolutionary Base Area) (Fuzhou: Fujian renmin chubanshe, 1988), p. 196. Chronology of Zhou Enlai, p. 209. “Central Committee Letter to the Min-Yue-Gan Special Committee—The Current Situation and Tasks in Min-Yue-Gan” (April 4, 1931), quoted in Jiang Boying, History of the West Fujian Revolutionary Base Area, p. 193. “Central Committee Letter to the Min-Yue-Gan Soviet Area Provincial Party Committee” (August 29, 1931), in Central Archives (ed.), Selected Documents of the CCP Central Committee, vol. 7, p. 349. See Jiang Boying, History of the West Fujian Revolutionary Base Area, p. 194. Hangwu County Committee to Eliminate Counterrevolutionaries, “Revolutionary Court” ( June 1, 1931), quoted in Jiang Boying, History of the West Fujian Revolutionary Base Area, p. 194. “Resolution of the West Fujian Special Committee of the Communist Youth League Regarding Operations to Eliminate the Socialist Democratic Party” (April

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67. 68. 69. 70. 71.

72. 73. 74.

75. 76. 77. 78. 79. 80. 81.

82.

83. 84.

6, 1931), quoted in Jiang Boying, History of the West Fujian Revolutionary Base Area, pp. 191, 193. “Resolution of the CCP Min-Yue-Gan Provincial Party Committee Regarding the Hangwu Third Military Brigade Mutiny” (May 29, 1931), quoted in Jiang Boying, History of the West Fujian Revolutionary Base Area, p. 197. Ibid. “West Fujian Soviet Government Notice No. 20” (Ruling No. 2, February 21, 1931), quoted in Jiang Boying, History of the West Fujian Revolutionary Base Area, p. 188. “West Fujian Soviet Government Ruling No. 25” (Ruling No. 4, March 18, 1931), quoted in Jiang Boying, History of the West Fujian Revolutionary Base Area, p. 191. See “Resolution of the First Enlarged Conference of the CCP Min-Yue-Gan Special Committee Standing Committee” (February 27, 1931), in Jiangxi Provincial Archives (ed.), Selected Historical Materials from the Central Revolutionary Base Area, vol. 2, p. 286. Jiang Boying, History of the West Fujian Revolutionary Base Area, p. 194. “Record of Comrade Deng Fa’s Speech at the West Fujian Party History Seminar” (February 23, 1945), in Jiang Boying, History of the West Fujian Revolutionary Base Area, p. 189. See CCP Central Party History Research Office No. 1, “Zhongguo gongchandang lishi, shang juan” ruogan wenti shuoming (Explanation of Certain Problems in The History of the Chinese Communist Party, Vol. 1) (Beijing: Zhonggong dangshi chubanshe, 1991), p. 121. “Rectification of the Unjust West Fujian ‘Campaign to Eliminate the Socialist Democratic Party.’” “Wu Hao [Zhou Enlai]’s Letter from the Central Region” (December 18, 1931), in Zhou Enlai shuxin xuanji (Selected Letters of Zhou Enlai) (Beijing: Zhongyang wenxian chubanshe, 1988), pp. 76‒77. Central Archives (ed.), Zhonggong zhongyang wenjian xuanji (Selected Documents of the CCP Central Committee) (Beijing: Zhonggong zhongyang dangxiao chubanshe, 1991), vol. 8, p. 18. “Summary Work Report of the Jiangxi Soviet Area Provincial Party Committee” (May 1932), in Jiangxi Provincial Archives (ed.), Selected Historical Materials from the Central Revolutionary Base Area, vol. 1, p. 481. Hongse Zhonghua (Red China), November 7, 1932. Li Yimeng, Mohu de yingping: Li Yimeng huiyilu (Through a Blurred Telescreen: The Memoirs of Li Yimeng) (Beijing: Renmin chubanshe, 1992), p. 159. Deng Yingchao, “Concentrate Firepower on Counterrevolutionary Trotskyism and its Degenerate Liberalism,” Dangde jianshe (Party Construction), no. 5 (October 25, 1932), quoted in Cao Boyi, Jiangxi suwei zhijian li jiqi bengkui (1931‒1934) (The Establishment and Collapse of the Jiangxi Soviet [1931‒1934]) (Taipei: Guoli zhengzhi daxue dongya yanjiusuo, 1969), pp. 438‒41. “Resolution of the Central Bureau Regarding Expelling Deng Huayu, Wei Gongzhi, and Luo Xinran from the Party and Disciplining Comrades Zuo Quan and Zhang Aiping” (December 11, 1932), Party Construction, no. 6 (December 30, 1932), quoted in Cao Boyi, The Establishment and Collapse of the Jiangxi Soviet (1931‒1934). Wang Ming, “Revolution, Struggle, and Armed Intervention, and the Tasks of the Chinese Communist Party” (December 1933), in Wang Ming yanlun xuanji (Selected Speeches of Wang Ming) (Beijing: Renmin chubanshe, 1982), p. 364. “The Rich-Peasant Issue—The June 1930 Resolution of a Joint Meeting of the

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Front Line Committee and the West Fujian Special Committee,” in Jiangxi Provincial Archives (ed.), Selected Historical Materials from the Central Revolutionary Base Area, vol. 2, pp. 398‒99, 400, 402, 404, 410, 413. 85. “Soviet Area Central Committee Resolution Regarding the Land Issue” (August 21, 1931), in Jiangxi Provincial Archives (ed.), Selected Historical Materials from the Central Revolutionary Base Area, vol. 2, pp. 445, 448. 86. “Central Committee Directive to the Central Bureau of the Soviet Area and the Red Army General Front Line Committee—Regarding Problems Existing in the Central Soviet Area and Future Core Tasks” (August 30, 1931), in Central Archives (ed.), Selected Documents of the CCP Central Committee, vol. 7, pp. 357, 361. 87. See Cao Xiaogan, Jiangxi suqu: Hongjun xi cuan huiyi (Recollections of the Jiangxi Soviet Area and the Red Army’s Scurry Westward) (Taipei: Zhonggong yanjiu zazhishe, 1970), p. 103. 88. Mao Zedong, “Preliminary Summary of the Land Investigation Campaign,” Douzheng (Struggle), no. 24 (August 29, 1933). 89. Wang Guanlan, “Continue to Develop the Land Investigation Campaign and Mercilessly Suppress the Counterattack by Landlords and Rich Peasants,” Red China, March 20, 1934. 90. Gao Zili, “Continue the Preliminary Inspection of the Land Investigation Campaign,” Red China, May 7, 1934. 91. “People’s Committee’s Directive to the Wantai County Soviet Presidium on the Fleeing of the Masses From Wantai,” Red China, April 10, 1934. 92. See Cheng Zhongyuan, Zhang Wentian zhuan (A Biography of Zhang Wentian) (Beijing: Dangdai Zhongguo chubanshe, 1993), pp. 178‒79. 93. The Memoirs of General Gong Chu, pp. 207, 357. See also Huang Kecheng, An Autobiography of Huang Kecheng, pp. 100‒101. 94. Chronology of Mao Zedong, vol. 1, p. 359. 95. Chronology of Zhou Enlai, pp. 216‒17. 96. Peng Dehuai, An Autobiography of Peng Dehuai, pp. 175‒76; see also Chronology of Zhou Enlai, p. 218. 97. Chronology of Zhou Enlai, p. 223. 98. Ibid., pp. 223‒24. 99. CCP Central Committee Secretariat (ed.), Secret Party Documents Since the Sixth National Party Congress, vol. 1, p. 216. 100. See CCP Central Documents Research Office (ed.), Mao Zedong zhuan 1893‒1949 (A Biography of Mao Zedong 1893‒1949) (Beijing: Zhongyang wenxian chubanshe, 1996), p. 290. 101. Chronology of Zhou Enlai, p. 209. 102. Chronology of Mao Zedong, vol. 1, p. 379. 103. Ibid.; see also Chronology of Zhou Enlai, p. 220. 104. The CCP Central Committee’s May 20, 1932, directive to the Central Bureau of the Soviet Area was first collected in a pamphlet entitled “The Struggle to Achieve the Revolution’s Initial Victory in One or Several Provinces and to Oppose Opportunistic Vacillation” and it was published by the Central Bureau of the Soviet Area on July 1, 1932. It is included in CCP Central Committee Secretariat (ed.), Secret Party Documents Since the Sixth National Party Congress, published in November 1941, as well as in Central Archives (ed.), Selected Documents of the CCP Central Committee, vol. 8. However, the criticism of Mao in the cable does not appear in any of these publications. Analysis indicates that when it became necessary to publish the pamphlet in July 1932, the Central Bureau of the Soviet Area edited out the cable’s content relating to Mao. The cable’s text cited here

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that criticizes Mao is from Kong Yongsong, Lin Taiyi, and Dai Jinsheng, Essential History of the Central Revolutionary Base Area, p. 305, but this book does not cite the original source of the text. 105. Chronology of Zhou Enlai, p. 223. 106. Ibid., p. 228. 107. Ibid., p. 230. 108. “Briefing on the Ningdu Conference of the Central Bureau of the Soviet Area” (October 21, 1932), in Central Archives (ed.), Selected Documents of the CCP Central Committee, vol. 8, p. 530. 109. Chronology of Zhou Enlai, p. 231. 110. “Briefing on the Ningdu Conference of the Central Bureau of the Soviet Area” (October 21, 1932), p. 530. 111. Chronology of Zhou Enlai, pp. 233‒34. See also CCP Central Documents Research Office (ed.), A Biography of Ren Bishi, p. 245. 112. Chronology of Zhou Enlai, p. 233. See also CCP Central Documents Research Office (ed.), A Biography of Ren Bishi, p. 244. 113. Chronology of Mao Zedong, vol. 1, p. 391. 114. Chronology of Zhou Enlai, p. 234. 115. Ibid. 116. Ibid., p. 245. 117. “Cable of the Executive Committee of the Comintern to the Chinese Communist Party Central Committee” (March 1933), Zhonggong dangshi yanjiu (CCP Party History Research), no. 2 (1988); see also Chronology of Mao Zedong, vol. 1, p. 398. 118. Chronology of Mao Zedong, vol. 1, p. 403. 119. See Mao Zedong, “Problems of Strategy in China’s Revolutionary War,” in Mao Zedong xuanji (Selected Works of Mao Zedong), vol. 1, p. 236. 120. Red China, August 1, 1934. 121. Gong Chu, Wo yu hong jun (The Red Army and I) (Hong Kong: Nanfeng chubanshe, 1954), p. 364. See Yang Shangkun, “Speech at a Work Symposium on Compiling Materials on Military and Party History” ( July 9, 1984). Yang revised the text of this speech, and with Yang’s personal permission it was published in Dangshi tongxun, no. 11(1984). 122. See Li De [Otto Braun], Zhongguo jishi (1932‒1939) (China Chronicle [1932‒1939]) (Beijing: Xiandai shiliao biankanshe, 1980), pp. 84, 85; see also Gong Chu, The Red Army and I, p. 364. 123. Chronology of Zhou Enlai, p. 254. 124. See Li De, China Chronicle (1932–1939), p. 85. 125. Quoted in Fang Changming, “Explanation of the Strategy of the Comintern and Our Party Toward the Fujian Incident,” Dangshi ziliao yu yanjiu (Fujian) (Party History Materials and Research [Fujian]), no. 3 (1983). 126. See Li De, China Chronicle, pp. 85‒86. 127. Fujian Provincial Archives (ed.), Fujian shibian dang’an ziliao (Archival Material on the Fujian Incident) (Fuzhou: Fujian renmin chubanshe, 1984), pp. 120‒21, 133. 128. See Zhang Yunyi, “A Major Loss,” in Fujian Provincial Archives (ed.), Archival Material on the Futian Incident, p. 226. 129. Chronology of Zhou Enlai, p. 245. 130. Ibid., pp. 245‒46, 249‒51. 131. See Zhao Laiqun, “Mao Zedong and Wang Guanlan,” Party Documents, no. 6 (1996). 132. Gong Chu, The Red Army and I, pp. 356‒57. 133. Chronology of Mao Zedong, vol. 1, p. 433. 134. See Gong Chu jiangjun huiyilu, p. 550.

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Chapter 2 1. 2.

3. 4.

5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11. 12. 13. 14. 15. 16.

17. 18.

19.

20.

21.

See Liang Shuming, “Recalling My First Visit to Yan’an,” in Wode nuli yu fansheng (My Efforts and Reflections) (Nanning: Lijiang chubanshe, 1987), p. 319. “Mao Zedong’s Remarks While Receiving Sasaki Kouzou, Kuroda Hisao, and Other Members of Japan’s Socialist Party” ( July 10, 1964), in Mao Zedong lun dang de lishi (Mao Zedong on the History of the Party) (Nanjing: Nanjing daxue yinxing, n.d.), p. 4. CCP Central Documents Research Office (ed.), Mao Zedong nianpu 1893‒1949 (Chronolog y of Mao Zedong 1893‒1949) (Beijing: Zhong yang wenxian chubanshe, 1993) (cited hereafter as Chronology of Mao Zedong), vol. 1, p. 450. Zhang Wentian, “My Ideological Self-Criticism” ( June 28, 1969) and “Some Material Regarding the Counterrevolutionary Lin Biao” (March 28, 1972), quoted in Cheng Zhongyuan, Zhang Wentian zhuan (A Biography of Zhang Wentian) (Beijing: Dangdai Zhongguo chubanshe, 1993), p. 218. CCP Central Documents Research Office (ed.), Zhou Enlai nianpu (1898‒1949) (Chronolog y of Zhou Enlai [1898‒1949]) (Beijing: Zhong yang wenxian chubanshe, 1990) (cited hereafter as Chronology of Zhou Enlai), p. 277. Zhang Wentian, “Notes on the 1943 Yan’an Rectification,” quoted in Cheng Zhongyuan, A Biography of Zhang Wentian, p. 219. Peng Dehuai, Peng Dehuai zishu (An Autobiography of Peng Dehuai) (Beijing: Renmin chubanshe, 1981), p. 198. Ibid., p. 198. See Cheng Zhongyuan, A Biography of Zhang Wentian, p. 218. Zhang Wentian, “Notes on the 1943 Yan’an Rectification,” p. 221. Peng Dehuai, An Autobiography of Peng Dehuai, p. 199. See also Chronology of Mao Zedong, vol. 1, p. 455. Peng Dehuai, An Autobiography of Peng Dehuai, p. 199. Zhang Wentian, “Notes on the 1943 Yan’an Rectification,” p. 232. Peng Dehuai, An Autobiography of Peng Dehuai, p. 199. See also Cheng Zhongyuan, A Biography of Zhang Wentian, p. 223. See Cheng Zhongyuan, A Biography of Zhang Wentian p. 233. See Chen Yun, “Zunyi Politburo Expanded Transmission Outline” (February or March 1935), in CCP Central Party History Material Compilation Committee and Central Archives (eds.), Zunyi huiyi wenxian (Documents of the Zunyi Conference) (Beijing: Renmin chubanshe, 1985), p. 42. See Chronology of Zhou Enlai, pp. 293, 306. Fei Yundong and Yu Guihua, Zhonggong mishu gongzuo jianshi (1921‒1949) (A Short History of the Work of the CCP Secretariat [1921‒1949]) (Shenyang: Liaoning renmin chubanshe, 1992), pp. 186‒87, 204; see also Wang Shoudao huiyilu (The Memoirs of Wang Shoudao) (Beijing: Jiefangjun chubanshe, 1988), p. 197. See Zhang Guotao, Wode huiyi (My Memoirs) (Beijing: Xiandai shiliao biankanshe, 1980), vol. 3, p. 345. See also Shi Zhe, Zai lishi juren shenbian: Shi Zhe huiyilu (In the Company of History’s Giants: The Memoirs of Shi Zhe) (Beijing: Zhongyang wenxian chubanshe, 1991), p. 203. See Zhang Guotao, My Memoirs, vol. 3, p. 332. Mao’s scornful attitude toward Luo Fu (Zhang Wentian) was completely open by the late 1950s; a representative text is the August 2, 1959, “Letter to Zhang Wentian.” Mao continued to criticize him through the early 1970s. “From the Fujian Incident to the Zunyi Conference” (December 16, 1943), Wenxian he yanjiu (Documents and Research), no. 1 (1985).

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22. See Liu Shaoqi, “A Letter to the Central Committee Regarding Past Work in the White Areas” (March 4, 1937), in Central Archives (ed.), Zhonggong zhongyang wenjian xuanji (Selected Documents of the CCP Central Committee) (Beijing: Zhonggong zhongyang dangxiao chubanshe, 1991), vol. 11, p. 802. 23. See Liu Shaoqi, “Regarding One Problem in the Historical Lessons Learned from the Great Revolution” (February 20, 1937), Dangshi yanjiu ziliao (Party History Research Materials), no. 5 (1980). 24. Liu Shaoqi, “A Letter to the Central Committee Regarding Past Work in the White Areas,” pp. 805‒7. 25. Chronology of Zhou Enlai, pp. 358‒59. 26. See CCP Central Documents Research Office (ed.), Liu Shaoqi nianpu (1898–1969) (Chronology of Liu Shaoqi [1898‒1969)] (Beijing: Zhongyang wenxian chubanshe, 1996) (cited hereafter as Chronology of Liu Shaoqi), vol. 1, pp. 160, 169, 163 27. See Guo Mingqiu, “Comrade Shaoqi in the North China Bureau,” in Huainian Liu Shaoqi tongzhi (In Cherished Memory of Comrade Liu Shaoqi) (Changsha: Hunan renmin chubanshe, 1980), p. 185. 28. Liu Shaoqi’s March 4, 1937, letter to Zhang Wentian made no mention of Mao. Liu wrote, “Our country does not yet have a Stalin, and anyone who wants to become China’s Stalin will fail miserably.” See Central Archives (ed.), Selected Documents of the CCP Central Committee, vol. 11, p. 817. This reveals that Mao’s authority was not yet universally acknowledged by the Party leadership, including Liu Shaoqi. 29. Zhang Guotao, My Memoirs, vol. 3, p. 375. 30. See Warren Kuo [Guo Hualun], Zhonggong shilun (Analytical History of the Chinese Communist Party) (Taipei: Guoli zhengzhi daxue, Zhonghua minguo guoji guanxi yanjiusuo, 1971), vol. 3, p. 189; see also CCP Central Documents Research Office (ed.), Liu Shaoqi zhuan (A Biography of Liu Shaoqi) (Beijing: Zhongyang wenxian chubanshe, 1998), vol. 1, pp. 258‒59. 31. In “In Cherished Memory of Comrade Shaoqi,” which Yang Shangkun finalized in 1987, Ke Qingshi is not mentioned by name, but Yang’s reference to “that persistently ‘Left’ deviating opportunist roader” is clearly Ke. See Huainian Liu Shaoqi (Cherishing the Memory of Liu Shaoqi) (Beijing: Zhongyang wenxian chubanshe, 1988), p. 5. 32. See Li Yu, “The White Area Work Congress Held in Yan’an on the Eve of the War of Resistance,” in Geming huiyilu (Memoirs of the Revolution), supplement (1) (Beijing: Renmin chubanshe, 1981), pp. 42–43; see also Chen Shaochou, “Notes on the Party’s White Area Work Conference,” in CCP Central Documents Research Office (ed.), Wenxian he yanjiu 1987 (Documents and Research 1987) (Beijing: Dang’an chubanshe, 1991), p. 295. 33. CCP Shanxi Provincial Party History Research Office, Peng Zhen shengping dashi nianbiao (Timeline of Significant Events in Peng Zhen’s Life) (Beijing: Zhonggong dangshi chubanshe, 1995), p. 8. 34. CCP Central Documents Research Office (ed.), A Biography of Liu Shaoqi, p. 26. 35. Chronology of Liu Shaoqi, p. 183; see also Cheng Zhongyuan, A Biography of Zhang Wentian, p. 372. 36. See Cheng Zhongyuan, A Biography of Zhang Wentian, p. 371. 37. Zhang Wentian, “The Party’s Core Tasks in the White Areas” ( June 6, 1937), in Central Archives (ed.), Selected Documents of the CCP Central Committee, vol. 11, pp. 234‒36, 238‒39, 261, 263. 38. Chen Shaochou, “Notes on the Party’s White Area Work Conference,” p. 298. See also Chronology of Liu Shaoqi, p. 183. 39. See Zhang Qiong, “Fragments of Comrade Liu Shaoqi’s Revolutionary Activities

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40.

41.

42. 43. 44.

45. 46. 47. 48. 49. 50. 51. 52. 53. 54. 55.

in Shanghai,” in Dangshi ziliao congkan (Party History Material Collection), 2nd ed. (Shanghai: Shanghai renmin chubanshe, 1980), pp. 48, 47. See Xia Yan, Lanxun jiu meng lu (Lazily Seeking Old Dreams) (Beijing: Shenghuo dushu xinzhi sanlian shudian, 1985), p. 279. See also Yu Sheng, “The Mysterious ‘Case of a Westerner’ that Caused a Sensation,” in Gemingshi ziliao (Revolutionary History Materials), no. 3 (Beijing: Wenshi ziliao chubanshe, 1981), pp. 156‒64. See Zhuang Dongxiao, “Moscow’s Sun Yat-sen University and Wang Ming,” in Guangdong wenshi ziliao (Guangdong Literary and Historical Documents), no. 33 (Guangzhou: Guangdong renmin chubanshe, 1981); Chen Xiuliang, “The Battles at Moscow’s Sun Yat-sen University,” in Memoirs of the Revolution, supplement (1); Jiang Zemin, “Remembering My Time at Moscow’s Sun Yat-sen University,” in Revolutionary History Materials, no. 17 (Beijing: Wenshi ziliao chubanshe, 1987). For material on the exile or labor reform of Chinese students studying in the Soviet Union, see Ma Yuansheng, Lü Su jishi (Chronicle of Soviet Travels) (Beijing: Qunzhong chubanshe, 1987); Tang Youzhang, as told to Liu Puqing, Geming yu liufang (Revolution and Exile) (Changsha: Hunan renmin chubanshe, 1988); Yao Gen, Yige chaoshengzhe diqiutu jingli (From Pilgrimage to Prison) (Beijing: Qunzhong chubanshe, 1995). Radio Moscow, January 3, 1993, 23:20 Chinese broadcast. See Yao Gen, From Pilgrimage to Prison, p. 315. See Kong Yuan, “In Cherished Memory of My Esteemed Comrade Jiaxiang,” in Huiyi Wang Jiaxiang (Remembering Wang Jiaxiang) (Beijing: Renmin chubanshe, 1985), p. 98; see also Jian Xianren, “Chronicle of Thirty-eight Years in the Soviet Union,” in Revolutionary History Materials, no. 15 (Beijing: Zhongguo wenshi chubanshe, 1986), p. 139. Huang Huoqing, Yige pingfan gongchan dangyuan de jingli (The Experiences of an Ordinary Communist Party Member) (Beijing: Renmin chubanshe, 1995), pp. 142‒43. See Wang Ming, “China’s Present Political Situation and China’s Current Main Tasks,” in Wang Ming yanlun xuanji (Selected Speeches of Wang Ming) (Beijing: Renmin chubanshe, 1982), p. 312. Chen Xiuliang, “The Battles at Moscow’s Sun Yat-sen University,” p. 56. Wang Ming, “Revolution, Struggle, and Armed Intervention and the Tasks of the Chinese Communist Party” (December 1933), in Selected Speeches of Wang Ming, pp. 361, 364. Ibid. Wang Ming, “Economic Policies in the Chinese Soviet Areas,” quoted in Zhou Guoquan et al., Wang Ming pingzhuan (A Critical Biography of Wang Ming) (Hefei: Anhui renmin chubanshe, 1989), pp. 222‒23. Cheng Zhongyuan, A Biography of Zhang Wentian, pp. 168‒70. See Sheng Yue, Mosike zhongshan daxue yu Zhongguo geming (Moscow’s Sun Yatsen University and the Chinese Revolution) (Beijing: Xiandai shiliao biankanshe, 1980), p. 269. “Wang Ming and Kang Sheng’s Letter to the CCP Central Committee Political Bureau” (April 20, 1934), quoted in Zhou Guoquan et al., A Critical Biography of Wang Ming, pp. 226‒27. Ibid., pp. 255‒57. “Wang Ming and Kang Sheng’s Letter to the CCP Central Committee Political Bureau” (September 16, 1934), quoted in Xiang Qing, Gongchan guoji he Zhongguo geming guanxi shigao (Historical Manuscripts on Relations between the Comintern and the Chinese Revolution) (Beijing: Beijing daxue chubanshe, 1988), p. 184.

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56. Chronology of Zhou Enlai, p. 262. 57. See Tang Chunliang, Li Lisan zhuan (A Biography of Li Lisan) (Harbin: Heilongjiang renmin chubanshe, 1984), p. 115. 58. See Wang Ming, “On Problems of the United Front Against Imperialism” (August 7, 1935), in Selected Speeches of Wang Ming, p. 449. See Chen Shaoyu (Wang Ming) jiuguo yanlun xuanji (A Selection of National Salvation Speeches by Chen Shaoyu [Wang Ming]) (Hankou: Zhongguo chubanshe, 1938). 59. Huang Yaomian, Dong dang: Wo suo jingli de bange shiji (Upheaval: My Experience of Half a Century) (Shanghai: Shanghai wenyi chubanshe, 1987), pp. 219‒20, 243, 221. 60. Ibid. 61. Ibid., p. 244. 62. “Central Committee Directive to the Second and Fourth Front Armies Regarding Guangdong and Guangxi Sending Troops North to Resist Japan” (May 18, 1936), in Central Archives (ed.), Zhonggong zhongyang wenjian xuanji (Selected Documents of the CCP Central Committee) (Beijing: Zhonggong zhongyang dangxiao chubanshe, 1991), vol. 10, p. 25. 63. The text quoted here is from K. Kukushkin ( of the Far East Institute of the USSR Academy of Sciences), “The Communist International and the Chinese Communist Party’s United Front Strategy against Japan,” in Gongchan guoji he Zhongguo geming: Sulian xuezhe lunwen xuanyi (The Communist International and the Chinese Revolution: A Selection of Translated Treatises by Soviet Scholars), trans. Xu Zhengming et al. (Chengdu: Sichuan renmin chubanshe, 1987), p. 332. See also Central Archives (ed.), Selected Documents of the CCP Central Committee (internal circulation edition) (Beijing: Zhonggong zhongyang dangxiao chubanshe, 1985), vol. 10, pp. 30‒31. 64. A. Kantorovich, “Smoke or Provocation?” Izvestia (USSR), June 10, 1936, quoted in Xiang Qing, Gongchan guoji yu Zhongguo geming guanxi lunwenji (Essays on Relations Between the Comintern and the Chinese Revolution) (Shanghai: Shanghai renmin chubanshe, 1985), p. 191. 65. See A. Titov, “The Struggle Between the Two Lines on the Question of the Chinese Communist Party’s National United Front against Japan,” in The Communist International and the Chinese Revolution: A Selection of Translated Treatises by Soviet Scholars, pp. 370‒72, and Kukushkin, “The Communist International and the Chinese Communist Party’s United Front Strategy against Japan,” pp. 334‒35. 66. Wang Ming, “Fight for an Independent, Free, and Happy China” (Written in Commemoration of the Fifteenth Anniversary of the Founding of the CCP and the First Anniversary of Implementation of the CCP’s New Policies, also entitled “On the New China”); see Communist gongchan guoji (Communist International) (Chinese edition), vol. 7, nos. 4‒5 (August 1936). 67. See “Communist International Executive Secretariat Cable to the CCP Central Committee Secretariat ” (August 15, 1936), Zhonggong dangshi yanjiu (CCP Party History Research), no. 2 (1988) and no. 3 (1988). 68. Edgar Snow, Red Star Over China (London: Random House, 1979), p. 505.

Chapter 3 1.

All that is available about Mao’s remarks at this conference is a document entitled “For the Mobilization of All the Nation’s Forces for Victory in the War of Resistance,” included in vol. 2 of Mao Zedong xuanji (Selected Works of Mao Zedong) (Beijing: Renmin chubanshe, 1951). Mao provided this text to the

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2.

3. 4. 5. 6.

7. 8.

9.

Central Propaganda Bureau in August 1937 for propaganda purposes. The main content of what he provided was “The Chinese Communist Party’s Ten-Point Program for Resisting Japan and Saving the Nation.” According to CCP Central Documents Research Office (ed.), Mao Zedong nianpu 1893‒1949 (Chronology of Mao Zedong 1893‒1949) (Beijing: Zhongyang wenxian chubanshe, 1993) (cited hereafter as Chronology of Mao Zedong), vol. 2, p. 12 and Cheng Zhongyuan, Zhang Wentian zhuan (A Biography of Zhang Wentian) (Beijing: Dangdai Zhongguo chubanshe, 1993), on August 9, 1937, Mao expanded the “eight-point program” proposed in his original “On the Ways, Means, and Future of Opposing the Assault by Japanese Imperialism,” to ten points. But Otto Braun said that the “Ten-Point Program” had been drafted by Wang Ming in Moscow and approved and issued by the Secretariat of the Comintern Executive Committee. The source of this quote from Mao’s speech at the Luochuan Conference is Li De [Otto Braun], Zhongguo jishi (1932‒1939) (China Chronicle [1932‒1939]) (Beijing: Xiandai shiliao biankanshe, 1980), pp. 288‒89. Braun claims he was told of the dispute at the Luochuan Conference by Bo Gu, who had attended the conference. In addition to containing the “Ten-Point Program,” the propaganda synopsis that Mao drafted also contained portions that he had composed, which constituted the introductory remarks and the conclusions of his “For the Mobilization of All the Nation’s Forces for Victory in the War of Resistance.” In the introduction and summary, Mao merged the parts he had added to the Ten-Point Program, which included his criticism of the KMT’s “policy of resistance by the government on its own.” See also Central Archives (ed.), Zhonggong zhongyang wenjian xuanji (Selected Documents of the CCP Central Committee) (Beijing: Zhonggong zhongyang dangxiao chubanshe, 1991), vol. 11, p. 330 fn; and Zhang Guotao, Wode huiyi (My Memoirs) (Beijing: Xiandai shiliao biankanshe, 1980), vol. 3, p. 387. See Zhang Guotao, My Memoirs, vol. 3, p. 389. See also A. Titov, “The Struggle between the Two Lines on the Question of the Chinese Communist Party’s National United Front Against Japan (1937‒1939),” Yuandong wenti (Far Eastern Affairs) (USSR), no. 3 (1981), quoted in Gongchan guoji yu Zhongguo geming: Sulian xuezhe lunwen xuanyi (The Communist International and the Chinese Revolution: A Selection of Translated Treatises by Soviet Scholars), trans. Xu Zhengming et al. (Chengdu: Sichuan renmin chubanshe, 1987), p. 350. Chronology of Mao Zedong, vol. 2, p. 8. Ibid., vol. 2, p. 9. Ibid. Quoted in Gong Xiguang, “Zhu De and the Problems of ‘Mobile Guerrilla Warfare’ during the Early Period of the Anti-Japanese War in North China,” Dangde wenxian (Party Documents), no. 6 (1996). See also Chronology of Mao Zedong, vol. 2, p. 12. Chronology of Mao Zedong, vol. 2, p. 15; See also Zhang Guotao, My Memoirs, vol. 2, p. 387. See CCP Central Documents Research Office (ed.), Zhou Enlai nianpu (1898‒1949) (Chronolog y of Zhou Enlai [1898‒1949]) (Beijing: Zhong yang wenxian chubanshe, 1990) (cited hereafter as Chronology of Zhou Enlai), p. 378. See also “Record of Zhou Enlai’s Remarks at the Meeting of the CCP Central Committee Politburo” (August 22, 1937), quoted in CCP Central Documents Research Office (ed.), Zhou Enlai zhuan (1898‒1949) (A Biography of Zhou Enlai [1898‒1949]) (Beijing: Zhongyang wenxian chubanshe, 1990), p. 371. See Zhang Guotao, My Memoirs, vol. 3, p. 390; and Titov, “The Struggle Between the Two Lines on the Question of the Chinese Communist Party’s National United Front Against Japan,” p. 350.

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10. Li De, China Chronicle, p. 290. 11. Ibid. See also Cheng Zhongyuan, A Biography of Zhang Wentian, p. 390. 12. See Central Archives (ed.), Selected Documents of the CCP Central Committee, vol. 11, pp. 325‒26. 13. See Zhang Guotao, My Memoirs, vol. 3, p. 409. 14. Chronology of Zhou Enlai, p. 381. 15. “September 12, 1937, Mao Zedong to Peng Dehuai,” in Central Archives (ed.), Selected Documents of the CCP Central Committee, vol. 11, p. 337. 16. “September 16, 1937, Mao Zedong to Lin Biao et al.,” in Central Archives (ed.), Selected Documents of the CCP Central Committee, vol. 11, p. 338. 17. “September 17, 1937, Mao Zedong to Zhu De, Peng Dehuai et al.,” in Mao Zedong junshi wenxian (Selected Military Texts of Mao Zedong) (Beijing: Zhanshi chubanshe, 1981), p. 83. 18. See Central Archives (ed.), Selected Documents of the CCP Central Committee, vol. 11, p. 339. 19. “Directive Regarding the Principle of Independent and Autonomous Mountain Guerrilla Warfare” (September 21, 1937, Mao Zedong to Peng Dehuai), in Central Archives (ed.), Selected Documents of the CCP Central Committee, vol. 11, pp. 339‒40. 20. “Directive that Operations in Northern China Should Follow Guerrilla Warfare as the Sole Orientation” (September 25, 1937, Mao Zedong to Zhou Enlai, Liu Shaoqi, Yang Shangkun et al., in Central Archives (ed.), Selected Documents of the CCP Central Committee, vol. 11, p. 353. 21. See Central Archives (ed.), Selected Documents of the CCP Central Committee, vol. 11, p. 351. 22. For decades, the KMT and CCP have virulently criticized each other for passivity in the War of Resistance and have emphasized their sole efforts to sustain the war and for credit in the victory over the Japanese. The KMT side claims that on September 26, 1937, Mao issued the following directive to the Eighth Route Army: “The Sino-Japanese War of Resistance is an excellent opportunity for our Party to develop; our Party’s fundamental policy is seven parts of development, two parts of coping, and one part of resisting Japan.” See Furuya Keiji, Jiang zongtong milu (President Chiang’s Secret Record) (Taipei: Zhongyang ribao she, 1977), no. 11, p. 117. Writings from the former Soviet Union provide a similar version: A former senior liaison officer with the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU) Central Committee, O.B. Rakhmanin, writing under the pseudonym of O. Borisov, reveals that during the early stage of the War of Resistance, Mao wanted the CCP and the Eighth Route Army to “use one part of their strength to fight Japan, two parts of their strength to fight the Kuomintang, and seven parts of their strength to develop themselves.” See Oleg B. Borisov and Boris T. Koloskov, Su-Zhong guanxi (1945‒1980) (Soviet-Sino Relations [1945‒1980]), trans. Xiao Dongchuan and Tan Shiyi (Beijing: Sanlian shudian, 1982), p. 100. Mainland China has never acknowledged the veracity of these quotes from Taiwan and the USSR, but it has also never formally denied them. In April 1976, the Gang of Four’s Shanghai writing group, in an effort to discredit Zhou Enlai, published under the pseudonym Shi Feng a pamphlet entitled Fandui Wang Ming touxiangzhuyi luxian de douzheng (The Struggle to Oppose Wang Ming’s Capitulationist Line), for the first time publishing the gist of Mao’s September 21, 1937 cable, but without quotation marks and with Mao’s most distinctive remarks deleted. See Shi Feng, Fandui Wang Ming touxiangzhuyi luxian de douzheng (The Struggle to Oppose Wang Ming’s Capitulationist Line) (Shanghai: Shanghai renmin chubanshe, 1976), p. 24. Because this pamphlet was the first to reveal Mao’s cable, it quickly

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23. 24. 25. 26. 27. 28. 29. 30. 31.

32. 33. 34. 35. 36. 37. 38. 39. 40. 41. 42. 43. 44. 45. 46.

attracted notice in the Soviet Union, where it was felt that Mao’s cable backed up the criticism the USSR had been making since the 1960s regarding Mao’s passive approach during the War of Resistance. See Titov, “The Struggle Between the Two Lines on the Question of the Chinese Communist Party’s National United Front against Japan,” p. 351. CCP Central Documents Research Office (ed.), Ren Bishi zhuan (A Biography of Ren Bishi) (Beijing: Zhongyang wenxian chubanshe, 1994), pp. 407‒8. See Chronology of Zhou Enlai, p. 383; Chronology of Mao Zedong, vol. 2, p. 23. Gong Xiguang, “Zhu De and the Problems of ‘Mobile Guerrilla Warfare’ during the Early Period of the Anti-Japanese War in North China.” Ibid.; see also CCP Central Documents Research Office (ed.), A Biography of Ren Bishi, p. 401. CCP Central Documents Research Office (ed.), Zhu De zhuan (A Biography of Zhu De) (Beijing: Zhongyang wenxian chubanshe, 1993), p. 413. The cable from Mao quoted here is omitted in Chronology of Mao Zedong, vol. 2, pp. 25‒26. Chronology of Mao Zedong, vol. 2, p. 27. Chronology of Zhou Enlai, pp. 385‒86. Chronology of Mao Zedong, vol. 2, p. 34. See CCP Central Documents Research Office (ed.), Zhu De nianpu (Chronology of Zhu De) (Beijing: Renmin chubanshe, 1986), p. 173; see also Peng Dehuai, Peng Dehuai zishu (The Autobiography of Peng Dehuai) (Beijing: Renmin chubanshe, 1981), pp. 222‒23. Gong Xiguang, “Zhu De and the Problems of ‘Mobile Guerrilla Warfare’ during the Early Period of the Anti-Japanese War in North China.” Chronology of Mao Zedong, vol. 2, p. 31. See Central Archives (ed.), Selected Documents of the CCP Central Committee, vol. 11, pp. 365, 372. Ibid. Gong Xiguang, “Zhu De and the Problems of ‘Mobile Guerrilla Warfare’ during the Early Period of the Anti-Japanese War in North China.” Chronology of Mao Zedong, vol. 2, p. 78. CCP Central Documents Research Office (ed.), Liu Shaoqi nianpu (1898‒1969) (Chronology of Liu Shaoqi [1898‒1969]) (Beijing: Zhongyang wenxian chubanshe, 1996) (cited hereafter as Chronology of Liu Shaoqi), vol. 1, p. 189. See CCP Central Documents Research Office (ed.), Wenxian he yanjiu 1986 (Documents and Research 1986) (Beijing: Renmin chubanshe, 1988), pp. 192, 193. Cheng Zhongyuan, A Biography of Zhang Wentian, p. 389. Liu Shaoqi, “Report to the Central Committee on Issuing Instructions to All Localities” (August 3, 1937), in CCP Central Documents Research Office (ed.), Documents and Research 1986, p. 191; see also Chronology of Liu Shaoqi, p. 183. “Liu Shaoqi’s Cable to Luo Fu” (September 25, 1937), in CCP Central Documents Research Office (ed.), Documents and Research 1986, p. 194; see also Chronology of Liu Shaoqi, p. 190. Chronology of Liu Shaoqi, p. 190. Gong Xiguang, “Zhu De and the Problems of ‘Mobile Guerrilla Warfare’ during the Early Period of the Anti-Japanese War in North China.” “Liu Shaoqi and Yang Shangkun’s Cable to Mao Zedong and Luo Fu” (November 17, 1937), in CCP Central Documents Research Office (ed.), Documents and Research 1986, p. 198; see also Chronology of Liu Shaoqi, p. 199. See Ma Qibin et al., “Liu Shaoqi and the Creation of the Northern China AntiJapanese Resistance Base Area,” in CCP Central Documents Research Office (ed.),

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47. 48. 49. 50. 51. 52. 53. 54. 55.

56.

57. 58.

59. 60. 61. 62. 63. 64. 65.

Documents and Research 1986, p. 291. But in Chronology of Liu Shaoqi, p. 196, this figure is given as “several thousand.” Chronology of Liu Shaoqi, pp. 186, 191. Ibid. See CCP Central Documents Research Office (ed.), Documents and Research 1986, pp. 191, 197. In Chronology of Liu Shaoqi, p. 199, this sentence is deleted. He Song, “When Wang Ming Returned to Yan’an,” in Lu Ping, Shenghuo zai Yan’an (Life in Yan’an) (Xi’an: Xinhuashe, 1938), p. 57. Liu Jiadong (Chen Yun’s secretary during the Yan’an period), Chen Yun zai Yan’an (Chen Yun in Yan’an) (Beijing: Zhongyang wenxian chubanshe, 1995), p. 1. See CCP Central Committee Party History Research Office, Zhonggong dangshi dashi nianbiao (Chronological Table of Major Events in CCP Party History) (Beijing: Renmin chubanshe, 1987), p. 128. “Mao Zedong’s Cable to Zhou Enlai, Zhu De, Peng Dehuai, and Ren Bishi” (November 5, 1937), in CCP Central Documents Research Office (ed.), A Biography of Zhou Enlai, p. 391. See Central Archives (ed.), Selected Documents of the CCP Central Committee, vol. 11, p. 394. CCP Central Committee Secretariat (ed.), Liuda yilai: Dangnei mimi wenjian (Secret Party Documents Since the Sixth National Party Congress) (Beijing: Renmin chubanshe, 1980), includes an outline of his December 9 report, “How to Continue to Strive for Victory during the Nationwide War of Resistance,” but he also gave an oral report during the meeting. Several authoritative works have revealed some of the content of Wang’s oral report: “Record of Wang Ming’s Speech at the CCP Central Committee Politburo Meeting” (December 9, 1937); see Chronology of Zhou Enlai, p. 393, and CCP Central Documents Research Office (ed.), A Biography of Zhou Enlai, p. 392; also CCP Central Documents Research Office (ed.), Mao Zedong zhuan (1893‒1949) (A Biography of Mao Zedong [1893‒1949]) (Beijing: Zhongyang wenxian chubanshe, 1996), pp. 506‒7. See Wang Jiaxiang, “My Curriculum Vitae” (May 1968), quoted in Xu Zehao, “Wang Jiaxiang’s Contribution to the Sixth Plenum of the Sixth Central Committee,” in CCP Central Documents Research Office (ed.), Documents and Research 1986, p. 435. CCP Central Documents Research Office (ed.), A Biography of Mao Zedong, p. 505. Vasily Chuikov (Soviet military attaché to China in 1940 and Chiang Kai-shek’s chief Soviet military adviser), Zai Hua shiming: Yige junshi guwen de biji (Mission to China: Journal of a Military Adviser), trans. Wan Chengcai (Beijing: Xinhua chubanshe, 1980), pp. 34‒36. “Dimitrov’s Speech at the Comintern Executive Committee Secretariat Meeting to Discuss the China Issue” (August 10, 1937), Zhonggong dangshi yanjiu (CCP Party History Research), no. 3 (1988). See Cao Zhongbin and Dai Maolin, Wang Ming zhuan (A Biography of Wang Ming) (Changchun: Jilin wenshi chubanshe, 1991), p. 287. See Jue Shi, “Zhou Enlai and the Yangtze Bureau during the Early Stage of the War of Resistance,” CCP Party History Research, no. 2 (1998). Chronology of Zhou Enlai, p. 393. See Jue Shi, “Zhou Enlai and the Yangtze Bureau during the Early Stage of the War of Resistance.” CCP Central Documents Research Office (ed.), A Biography of Mao Zedong, p. 507. As noted, the full text of Mao’s speech at the December Politburo meeting has yet to be published, although portions of his remarks have appeared in

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66. 67.

68. 69. 70.

71. 72. 73. 74. 75. 76. 77. 78. 79. 80. 81. 82. 83. 84. 85.

86. 87. 88. 89. 90.

authoritative publications. The material referenced here comes from Ma Qibin (former vice director of the Central Documents Research Office), “Wang Ming’s Capitulationist Line Errors during the Early Stage of the War of Resistance,” in Dangshi ziliao congkan (Party History Material Collection) (Shanghai: Shanghai renmin chubanshe), no. 1 (1981); and CCP Central Documents Research Office (ed.), A Biography of Mao Zedong, p. 508. See “Mao Zedong, Zhou Enlai, and Peng Dehuai’s Cable to Zhu De, Ren Bishi, and Deng Xiaoping” (December 6, 1937), in Central Archives (ed.), Selected Documents of the CCP Central Committee, vol. 11, pp. 400‒401. See Wang Jianying (ed.), Zhongguo gongchandang zuzhishi ziliao huibian: Lingdao jigou yange he chengyuan minglu (Compilation of Chinese Communist Party Organization Historical Materials: The Evolution of Leading Organs and Directory of Members) (Beijing: Hongqi chubanshe, 1983), p. 296. See Zhang Guotao, My Memoirs, vol. 3, pp. 424‒25. See Central Archives (ed.), Selected Documents of the CCP Central Committee, vol. 11, pp. 406‒7. See “Central Committee Politburo Resolution Regarding Preparation for Convening the Seventh Party Congress” (passed on December 13, 1937), in Central Archives (ed.), Selected Documents of the CCP Central Committee, vol. 11, pp. 405‒6. See Central Archives (ed.), Selected Documents of the CCP Central Committee, vol. 11, p. 402. Li De, China Chronicle, p. 86. Chronology of Zhou Enlai, p. 318. See Zhang Guotao, My Memoirs, vol. 3, pp. 418, 420. See Zhou Guoquan et al., Wang Ming pingzhuan (A Critical Biography of Wang Ming) (Hefei: Anhui renmin chubanshe, 1989), p. 303. Li De, China Chronicle, pp. 117‒18. Chronology of Zhou Enlai, pp. 398, 402. Ibid., p. 399. Ibid., pp. 399, 401, 406. Ibid., pp. 401‒3. Ibid., p. 404. See Jue Shi, “Zhou Enlai and the Yangtze Bureau during the Early Stage of the War of Resistance.” Ibid. See Chronology of Mao Zedong, vol. 2, p. 45; see also Gong Xiguang, “Zhu De and the Problems of ‘Mobile Guerrilla Warfare’ during the Early Period of the AntiJapanese War in North China.” See Liao Xinwen, “Organizational Changes in the Yangtze Central Bureau during the Early Stage of the War of Resistance against Japan and How Wang Ming Became Secretary,” in CCP Central Documents Research Office (ed.), Documents and Research 1987 (Beijing: Dang’an chubanshe, 1991), p. 285. See Zhou Guoquan et al., A Critical Biography of Wang Ming, p. 340. See Liao Xinwen, “Organizational Changes in the Yangtze Central Bureau during the Early Stage of the War of Resistance against Japan and How Wang Ming Became Secretary.” Ibid. See Jue Shi, “Zhou Enlai and the Yangtze Bureau during the Early Stage of the War of Resistance.” Chronology of Zhou Enlai, pp. 414‒16.

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91. See Peng Dehuai, “The Present Situation in the War of Resistance and the Guiding Policy for Victory in the War of Resistance: The Summary and Gist of the Central Committee Politburo’s December Meeting” (Spring 1938), in CCP Central Committee Secretariat (ed.), Secret Party Documents since the Sixth National Party Congress, vol. 1, pp. 916, 919‒20. 92. Peng Dehuai, The Autobiography of Peng Dehuai, p. 226. 93. Xie Juezai riji (Journals of Xie Juezai) (Beijing: Renmin chubanshe, 1984), vol. 1, p. 204. 94. See Central Archives (ed.), Selected Documents of the CCP Central Committee, vol. 11, p. 477. 95. See Warren Kuo [Guo Hualun], Zhonggong shilun (Analytical History of the Chinese Communist Party) (Taipei: Guoli zhengzhi daxue, Zhonghua minguo guoji guanxi yanjiusuo, 1971), vol. 3, p. 365.

Chapter 4 1.

“Cable from Mao Zedong, Xiao Jinguang, and Tan Zheng to the Military and Political Leaders of all Border Regions” (December 14, 1937), in Central Archives (ed.), Zhonggong zhongyang wenjian xuanji (Selected Documents of the CCP Central Committee) (Beijing: Zhonggong zhongyang dangxiao chubanshe, 1991), vol. 11, pp. 408‒9. 2. Mao’s “Strategic Issues in the Guerrilla War of Resistance against Japan” was originally published as the seventh chapter in his KangRi youji zhanzheng de yiban wenti (General Problems of Strategy in the Guerrilla War against Japan) (N.p.: Jiefangshe, 1938). It had been first published in the May 30, 1938, weekly issue of Jiefang (Liberation), no. 14. When it was included in vol. 2 of Mao Zedong xuanji (Selected Works of Mao Zedong) in 1952, Mao made some textual changes. 3. Wang Ming, Zhonggong wushinian (Fifty Years of the CCP) (Beijing: Xiandai shiliao biankanshe, 1981), p. 192. 4. See Central Archives (ed.), Selected Documents of the CCP Central Committee, vol. 11, pp. 475‒80. 5. Peng Dehuai, Peng Dehuai zishu (The Autobiography of Peng Dehuai) (Beijing: Renmin chubanshe, 1981), p. 229. 6. See Yang Wanqing and Qi Chunyuan, Liu Yalou jiangjun zhuan (A Biography of General Liu Yalou) (Beijing: Zhonggong dangshi chubanshe, 1995), pp. 175‒76. 7. See Shi Feng, Fandui Wang Ming touxiangzhuyi luxian de douzheng (The Struggle against the Wang Ming Capitulationist Line) (Shanghai: Shanghai renmin chubanshe, 1976), p. 34. 8. Because the two reports that Ren Bishi submitted to the Comintern contained a great deal of praise for Wang Ming and the December Politburo meeting, they were not published until 1986, when they were included in Central Committee United Front Work Department and Central Archives (eds.), Zhonggong zhongyang kangRi minzu tongyi zhanxian wenjian xuanbian (Selected Documents of the CCP Central Committee’s National United Front against Japan), ed. Tong Xiaopeng et al. (Beijing: Dang’an chubanshe, 1986), vol. 2, pp. 104‒5, 110‒11, 113, 122. 9. Central Committee United Front Work Department and Central Archives (eds.), Selected Documents of the CCP Central Committee’s National United Front against Japan. 10. “Resolution [of the Presidium of the Executive Committee of the Communist International] Regarding the Report of the CCP Delegation” ( June 1938), in Central Committee United Front Work Department and Central Archives (eds.), Selected Documents of the CCP Central Committee’s National United Front against Japan, vol. 2, p. 863.

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11. “Shi Zhe’s Memoirs” (November 1978), in Zhonggong dangshi renwu zhuan (Biographies of Personages in CCP Party History) (Xi’an: Shaanxi renmin chubanshe, 1983), vol. 8, p. 46. 12. “Resolution [of the Presidium of the Executive Committee of the Communist International] Regarding the Report of the CCP Delegation” ( June 1938), vol. 2, p. 863. 13. Wang Jiaxiang, “The [Communist] International’s Directive” (September 1938), in CCP Central Documents Research Office (ed.), Wenxian he yanjiu 1986 (Documents and Research 1986) (Beijing: Renmin chubanshe, 1988), pp. 70‒71. 14. The claim by late Professor Xiang Qing of Peking University’s International Politics Department that Wang Jiaxiang arrived in the Soviet Union from Xinjiang in the spring of 1937 is incorrect. See Xiang Qing, Gongchan guoji yu Zhongguo geming guanxi lunwenji (Essays on the Relationship between the Comintern and the Chinese Revolution) (Shanghai: Shanghai renmin chubanshe, 1985), p. 389. See also Zheng Yuzhi, “Wang Jiaxiang’s Time in Shanghai While Recovering from Wounds,” in Huiyi Wang Jiaxiang (Remembering Wang Jiaxiang) (Beijing: Renmin chubanshe, 1985), pp. 78‒81. Zheng Yuzhi was the wife of writer Zhou Wen, and both Zheng and Zhou served in the underground Communist Party. Wang Jiaxiang secretly stayed with them during the three months he spent in Shanghai while waiting for a Soviet steamer to take him to the Soviet Union. 15. Hu Yaobang, “In Heartfelt Commemoration of Comrade Wang Jiaxiang,” in Remembering Wang Jiaxiang, p. 2. 16. Shi Zhe, “Loyal and Devoted, Open and Aboveboard: Remembering Comrade Wang Jiaxiang,” in Remembering Wang Jiaxiang, p. 83. 17. Zhang Guotao, Wode huiyi (My Memoirs) (Beijing: Xiandai shiliao biankanshe, 1980), vol. 3, p. 329. 18. Wang Jiaxiang [posthumous], “Remembering the Struggle between Comrade Mao Zedong and Wang Ming’s Opportunistic Road,” Renmin ribao (People’s Daily), December 27, 1979. 19. A. Titov, “The Struggle Between the Two Lines on the Question of the Chinese Communist Party’s National United Front against Japan (1937‒1939),” quoted in Gongchan guoji yu Zhongguo geming: Sulian xuezhe lunwen xuanyi (The Communist International and the Chinese Revolution: A Selection of Translated Treatises by Soviet Scholars), trans. Xu Zhengming et al. (Chengdu: Sichuan renmin chubanshe, 1987), pp. 356‒57. 20. See Xiang Qing, Essays on the Relationship between the Comintern and the Chinese Revolution, pp. 391‒92. 21. “Mao Zedong’s Speech at the Seventh Party Congress Election of Alternate Central Committee Members” ( June 10, 1945), in CCP Central Documents Research Office (ed.), Documents and Research 1986, pp. 20‒21. 22. Wang Jiaxiang, “The [Communist] International’s Directive” (September 1938), pp. 70‒71. 23. See Zhu Zhongli (Wang Jiaxiang’s widow), Liming yu wanxia (Dawn and Dusk) (Beijing: Jiefangjun chubanshe, 1986), pp. 287‒88. 24. Ibid. See also Xiao Jinguang, “Submitting to the Truth, Insisting on the Truth: Remembering Comrade Wang Jiaxiang,” in Remembering Wang Jiaxiang, p. 12. 25. See CCP Central Documents Research Office (ed.), Zhou Enlai nianpu (1898‒1949) (Chronolog y of Zhou Enlai [1898‒1949]) (Beijing: Zhong yang wenxian chubanshe, 1990) (cited hereafter as Chronology of Zhou Enlai), p. 419. 26. Mao Zedong, “On the New Phase” (October 12‒14, 1938), in Central Archives (ed.), Selected Documents of the CCP Central Committee, vol. 11, p. 595.

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27. Ibid., pp. 560, 595‒96, 606, 629. 28. Ibid. 29. “Mao Zedong’s September 19, 1938, Handwritten Letter to Chiang Kai-shek,” in Institute of Modern History, Academia Sinica (ed.), Kangzhan jianguo shi yantaohui lunwenji (Essays from the Symposium on the History of the War of Resistance and the Founding of the State) (Taipei: Jindaishi yanjiusuo, Zhongyang yanjiuyuan, 1985), vol. 2, pp. 694‒95. 30. Chronology of Zhou Enlai, p. 420. 31. Chiang Kai-shek, Sulian zai Zhongguo (Soviet Russia in China) (Taipei: Liming wenhua shiye gufen youxian gongsi, 1982), p. 71; see also Keiji Furuya, Jiang zongtong milu (President Chiang’s Secret Record) (Taipei: Zhongyang ribao she, 1977), no. 12, p. 74. 32. See Chronology of Zhou Enlai, pp. 427, 420. 33. Ibid. 34. CCP Central Documents Research Office (ed.), Mao Zedong nianpu 1893‒1949 (Chronolog y of Mao Zedong 1893‒1949) (Beijing: Zhong yang wenxian chubanshe, 1993), vol. 2, p. 94. 35. “Political Resolution of the Expanded Plenum of the Sixth Central Committee” (November 6, 1938), in Central Archives (ed.), Selected Documents of the CCP Central Committee, vol. 11, pp. 755, 753‒54, 758. 36. Mao Zedong, “On the New Phase” (October 12‒14, 1938), vol. 11, pp. 658‒59. 37. See Theodore White [Bai Xiude], Tansuo lishi (In Search of History), trans. Ma Qinghuai and Fang Sheng (Beijing: Shenghuo dushu xinzhi sanlian shudian, 1987), p. 177. 38. Liang Shuming, “What I am Striving For” (1941), in Wode nuli yu fansheng (My Efforts and Introspection) (Nanning: Lijiang chubanshe, 1987), pp. 144‒45, 138, 147‒48, 154. 39. Ibid. 40. Ibid. 41. See Liang Shuming, “Remembering My First Visit to Yan’an,” in My Efforts and Introspection, pp. 317‒19. 42. Wang Ming, “The Present Situation in the War of Resistance and How to Persist in a Protracted War and Ultimately Achieve Victory” (October 20, 1938), in Wang Ming yanlun xuanji (Selected Speeches of Wang Ming) (Beijing: Renmin chubanshe, 1982), pp. 637‒38.

Chapter 5 1. 2.

3.

4.

Quoted in Chen Jin, Mao Zedong de wenhua xingge (Mao Zedong’s Cultural Character) (Beijing: Zhongguo qingnian chubanshe, 1991), p. 325. See CCP Central Documents Research Office (ed.), Mao Zedong zhexue pizhu ji (Collected Philosophical Annotations and Comments by Mao Zedong) (Beijing: Zhongyang wenxian chubanshe, 1988). This book includes Mao’s annotations on eleven volumes of philosophical works, including nine that he had read during the early stages of the War of Resistance against Japan. See Zhonggong dangshi renwu zhuan (Biographies of Personages in CCP Party History) (Xi’an: Shaanxi renmin chubanshe, 1983), vol. 8, p. 48. See also CCP Central Documents Research Office (ed.), Ren Bishi zhuan (A Biography of Ren Bishi) (Beijing: Zhongyang wenxian chubanshe, 1994), p. 436. Guo Huaruo, “Fragments from Working at Chairman Mao’s Side,” in Yang Chungui (ed.), Mao Zedong de zhexue huodong: Huiyi yu pingshu (Mao Zedong’s

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5.

6. 7.

8. 9.

10.

11. 12. 13.

14. 15. 16. 17.

Philosophical Activities: Recollections and Commentary) (Beijing: Zhongguo zhongyang dangxiao keyan bangongshi, 1985), p. 157. Mao’s May 19, 1941 speech was published in Jiefang ribao (Liberation Daily) on March 27, 1942, with revisions and additions. It was included in vol. 3 of Mao Zedong xuanji (Selected Works of Mao Zedong) (Beijing: Renmin chubanshe, 1953), with additional edits. The 1953 version gives the vague date of May 1941 for the speech, changes the title of History of the CPSU to the History of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (Bolsheviks), Short Course, and it deletes Mao’s remarks on “all other helpful material.” See Zhengfeng wenxian: Ding zhengben (Rectification Documents: Revised Version) (Shanghai: Xinhua shudian, 1950), p. 56. Xin Zhonghua bao (New China Daily) (Yan’an), May 26, 1939. The former director of the Military History Institute of the USSR Ministry of Defense, Dmitri A. Volkogonov, used the Soviet Central Archives to present a detailed account of the background and process of Stalin’s direction of the composition of the History of the CPSU. See Dmitri A. Volkogonov, Shengli yu beiju: Sidalin zhengzhi xiaoxiang (Triumph and Tragedy: A Political Portrait of Stalin), trans. Su Qun (Beijing: Shijie zhishi chubanshe, 1990), vol. 2, p. 576. Guo Huaruo, “Fragments from Working at Chairman Mao’s Side,” p. 56. See Wang Jianying (ed.), Zhongguo gongchandang zuzhishi ziliao huibian: Lingdao jigou yange he chengyuan minglu (Compilation of Chinese Communist Party Organization Historical Materials: The Evolution of Leading Organs and a Directory of Members) (Beijing: Hongqi chubanshe, 1983), pp. 331‒34. See Wu Liping, “The Full Story of the Publication of ‘On the Cultivation of Communist Party Members,’” in Huainian Liu Shaoqi (In Cherished Memory of Comrade Liu Shaoqi) (Changsha: Hunan renmin chubanshe, 1980), p. 291. In Mao Zedong shuxin xuanji (Selected Letters of Mao Zedong) (Beijing: Renmin chubanshe, 1984), pp. 144–51, it can be seen that the CCP Central Committee had already formed such a system. In early 1939, Zhang Wentian wrote a letter to Mao asking him to vet Chen Boda’s “On the Philosophical Thought of Confucius.” After vetting the article, on February 20 and February 22 Mao wrote to Zhang Wentian about possible edits. Raymond Wylie, The Emergence of Maoism: Mao Tse-tung, Ch’en Pota, and the Search for Chinese Theory 1935‒1945 (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1980), p. 15. Ibid., pp. 26‒27. See Wylie, The Emergence of Maoism, pp. 30‒31; see also He Ganzhi, “The History of Modern China’s Enlightenment Movement,” in He Ganzhi wenji (Collected Works of He Ganzhi) (Beijing: Zhongguo renmin daxue chubanshe, 1989), pp. 401‒2. Wylie, The Emergence of Maoism, pp. 30‒31; see also He Ganzhi, “The History of Modern China’s Enlightenment Movement.” See “Mao Zedong’s Letter to Chen Boda” (February 1, 1939), in Selected Letters of Mao Zedong, pp. 140‒42. Dai Qing, Liang Shuming, Wang Shiwei, Chu Anping (Liang Shuming, Wang Shiwei, and Chu Anping) (Nanjing: Jiangsu wenyi chubanshe, 1989), pp. 69ff. See also Yu Guangyuan, “Initial Acquaintance with Chen Boda,” Dushu (Reading), no. 6 (1998). Regarding Hu Qiaowu’s activities at the Anwubao Youth Training Course, see Communist Youth League Central Youth Movement Historical Research Office and Communist Youth League Shaanxi Provincial Committee Youth Movement Historical Office (eds.), Anwu gubao de zhongsheng: Anwu qing xunban shiliao ji (The Bells of the Ancient Anwu Fortress: Historical Materials on the Anwu Youth Training Course) (Beijing: Zhongyang dangshi ziliao chubanshe, 1987), pp. 2, 28, 240, 247.

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18. See “Feng Wenbin’s Letter to Huang Hua and Song Yiping” (May 16, 1938), in Communist Youth League Central Youth Movement Historical Research Office and Communist Youth League Shaanxi Provincial Committee Youth Movement Historical Research Office (eds.), The Bells of the Ancient Anwu Fortress, pp. 23‒24. 19. Hu Qiaomu’s own account is that he returned to Yan’an in August 1938, but according to Communist Youth League Central Youth Movement Historical Research Office and Communist Youth League Shaanxi Provincial Committee Youth Movement Historical Research Office (eds.), The Bells of the Ancient Anwu Fortress, Hu returned to Yan’an in July 1939, indicating a memory lapse on Hu’s part. See also Hu Qiaomu, Hu Qiaomu huiyi Mao Zedong (Hu Qiaomu Remembers Mao Zedong) (Beijing: Renmin chubanshe, 1994), p. 27. 20. See Hu Qiaomu, “The Tian Jiaying I Knew,” in Dong Bian, Tan Deshan, and Zeng Zi (eds.), Mao Zedong he tade mishu Tian Jianying (Mao Zedong and his Secretary Tian Jiaying) (Beijing: Zhongyang wenxian chubanshe, 1989), p. 121. 21. See Cheng Fangwu, “Preface,” in Collected Works of He Ganzhi, p. 3. 22. Hu Hua and Liu Lian (He Ganzhi’s widow), “He Ganzhi,” in Zhonggong zhongyang renwu zhuan (Biographies of Personages in CCP Party History) (Xi’an: Shaanxi renmin chubanshe, 1985), vol. 21, p. 266. 23. See Xue Hua, “Recollections of Attending Lectures in the Third Class of the Yan’an Marxism-Leninism Institute,” in Wu Jiemin (ed.), Yan’an MaLie xueyuan huiyilu (Recollections of the Yan’an Marxism-Leninism Institute) (Beijing: Zhongguo shehui kexue chubanshe, 1991), p. 124. 24. See CCP Central Documents Research Office (ed.), Mao Zedong nianpu 1893‒1949 (Chronology of Mao Zedong [1893‒1949]) (Beijing: Zhongyang wenxian chubanshe, 1993), vol. 2, pp. 235‒36. 25. Wang Ming, “On Several Fundamental Principles of Marxism-Leninism for Deciding Strategy,” originally published in Gongchandangren (The Communist), no. 12 (1940), quoted in Cai Shangsi (ed.), Zhongguo xiandai sixiangshi ziliao jianbian (Concise Historical Materials on the History of China’s Modern Thought) (Hangzhou: Zhejiang renmin chubanshe, 1983), vol. 4, p. 488. 26. Wang Ming, “Learn from Mao Zedong,” Xin Zhonghua bao (Yan’an) (New China Daily [Yan’an]), May 7, 1940. 27. See Pei Shuying, “Certain ‘Circumstances Regarding Secret Party Documents,’” Dangde wenxian (Party Documents), no. 1 (1989). 28. Secret Party Documents since the Sixth Party Congress, vol. 1, p. 129. See Central Archives (ed.), Zhonggong zhongyang wenjian xuanji (Selected Documents of the CCP Central Committee) (Beijing: Zhonggong zhongyang dangxiao chubanshe, 1991), vol. 7, p. 451. 29. Hu Qiaomu, Hu Qiaomu Remembers Mao Zedong, p. 176. 30. Wang Ming, Zhonggong wushinian (Fifty Years of the CCP) (Beijing: Xiandai shiliao biankanshe, 1981), p. 54. 31. Pang Xianzhi (in charge of Mao Zedong’s library from 1950 to 1966), “Regarding Several Issues in Compiling and Editing Party Documents,” Wenxian he yanjiu (Documents and Research), no. 3 (1987). 32. “Central Committee Resolution Regarding the Question of Restructuring Publications” (March 26, 1941), in Central Youth Movement Historical Research Office and Central Archives (eds.), Zhonggong zhongyang qingnian yundong wenjian xuanbian (1921 nian 7 yue‒1949 nian 9 yue) (Selected Documents of the CCP Central Youth Movement [July 1921‒September 1949]) (Beijing: Zhongguo qingnian chubanshe, 1988), p. 539.

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Chapter 6 1. 2. 3.

4. 5. 6.

7. 8.

9.

10. 11. 12. 13. 14.

See Xie Juezai riji ( Journals of Xie Juezai) (Beijing: Renmin chubanshe, 1984), vol. 1, pp. 273–274; and Hu Qiaomu, Hu Qiaomu huiyi Mao Zedong (Hu Qiaomu Remembers Mao Zedong) (Beijing: Renmin chubanshe, 1994), p. 279. See Liu Jiadong, Chen Yun zai Yan’an (Chen Yun in Yan’an) (Beijing: Zhongyang wenxian chubanshe, 1995), p. 71. Journals of Xie Juezai, vol. 2, p. 734. See also Peter Vladimirov, Yan’an riji (Yan’an Diary), trans. Zhou Xin (Taipei: Lianjing chuban shiye gongsi, 1976), pp. 111, 155‒56, and Zhou Weiren, Jia Tuofu zhuan (A Biography of Jia Tuofu) (Beijing: Zhonggong dangshi chubanshe, 1993), p. 77. See Wang Huide, “Recollections of the Past,” in Wu Jiemin (ed.), Yan’an MaLie xueyuan huiyilu (Recollections of the Yan’an Marxism-Leninism Institute) (Beijing: Zhongguo shehui kexue chubanshe, 1991), p. 76. Li Rui, “Remembering Ding Ling,” in Li Rui, Zhiyan: Li Rui liushinian de youyu si (Straight Talk: Li Rui’s Sixty Years of Worrying and Thinking) (Beijing: Jinri Zhongguo chubanshe, 1998), p. 368. See Tang Zong’s diary, November 1, 1943, in Ministry of Public Security Archives (ed.), Zai Jiang Jieshi shenbian banian: Shicong shigaoji muliao Tang Zong riji (Eight Years at Chiang Kai-shek’s Side: The Diary of Tang Zong, Senior Aide in Chiang’s Personal Retinue) (Beijing: Qunzhong chubanshe, 1991), p. 389. See CCP Central Documents Research Office (ed.), Zhou Enlai nianpu (1898‒1949) (Chronolog y of Zhou Enlai [1898‒1949]) (Beijing: Zhong yang wenxian chubanshe, 1990) (cited hereafter as Chronology of Zhou Enlai), pp. 472, 474. See Chronology of Zhou Enlai, pp. 467‒68; Xiong Xianghui, Dixia shiernian yu Zhou Enlai (Twelve Years Underground with Zhou Enlai) (Beijing: Zhonggong zhongyang dangxiao chubanshe, 1991), pp. 22‒23, 25; Wang Chaobei, as told to Shi Ning, Laizi mimi zhanxian de baogao (Report from the Secret Battle Front) (Tianjin: Baihua wenyi chubanshe, 1997), pp. 19‒20, 47, 70‒77; Xue Yu, “Zhou Enlai and the Party’s Covert Front Line,” Zhonggong dangshi yanjiu (CCP Party History Research), no. 1(1998). Chinese Kuomintang Central Organization Department Investigation Section (ed.), “The Chinese Communist Party in Perspective” (February 21, 1946), in Wu Xiangxiang (ed.), Zhongguo xiandai shiliao congshu (Chinese Contemporary Historical Materials) (Taipei: Wenxing shudian, 1962), vol. 3, p. 1; see also Warren Kuo [Guo Hualun], Zhonggong shilun (Analytical History of the Chinese Communist Party) (Taipei: Guoli zhengzhi daxue, Zhonghua minguo guoji guanxi yanjiusuo, 1971), vol. 2, p. 260. Xu Fuguan, “Liu Shaoqi’s Rehabilitation and Humanity’s Conscience” (March 4, 1980), in Xu Fuguan zawen xuji (Further Collected Essays by Xu Fuguan) (Taipei: Shibao wenhua chuban youxian gongsi, 1986), p. 218. See Tang Zong’s diary, November 1, 1943, in Ministry of Public Security Archives (ed.), Eight Years at Chiang Kai-shek’s Side, pp. 388 and 386fn 1. See Wu Xiuquan (head of the Lanzhou Office of the Eighth Route Army at that time), Huiyi yu huainian (Remembrance and Commemoration) (Beijing: Zhonggong zhongyang dangxiao chubanshe, 1991), p. 168. Pei Tong (former deputy director of the Central Archives), “Recollections of Going to the Soviet Union in 1956 to Receive Files,” Dangde wenxian (Party Documents), no. 5 (1989). For a conversation between Tang Zong and Sheng Shicai on December 19, 1944, see Ministry of Public Security Archives (ed.), Eight Years at Chiang Kai-shek’s Side, p. 478.

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15. Vladimirov, Yan’an Diary, pp. 55, 72; see also Shi Zhe, Zai lishi juren shenbian: Shi Zhe huiyilu (In the Company of History’s Giants: The Memoirs of Shi Zhe) (Beijing: Zhongyang wenxian chubanshe, 1991), pp. 213‒15. 16. See Ministry of Public Security Archives (ed.), Eight years at Chiang Kai-shek’s Side, p. 203. 17. See Chronology of Zhou Enlai, p. 507. 18. See Xue Yu, “Zhou Enlai and the Party’s Covert Front Line.” 19. See Vasily Chuikov, Zai Hua shiming: Yige junshi guwen de biji (Mission to China: Journal of a Military Adviser), trans. Wan Chengcai (Beijing: Xinhua chubanshe, 1980), pp. 49‒50; and Chronology of Zhou Enlai, pp. 473‒85. See also Andrei Mefodievich Ledovskii, “My Diplomatic Career in China, 1942‒1952,” Jindaishi he xiandaishi (Modern History and Contemporary History) (Russia), no. 6 (1993); “Notes of a Diplomat,” Yuandong wenti (Far Eastern Affairs) (Russia), no. 1 (1991). 20. See Shi Zhe, In the Company of History’s Giants, p. 220. 21. See Wang Shoudao, “Standing Firmly on the Correct Line,” in Huainian Liu Shaoqi tongzhi (In Cherished Memory of Comrade Liu Shaoqi) (Changsha: Hunan renmin chubanshe, 1980), p. 6. 22. “Resolution of the Expanded Plenum of the CCP Sixth Central Committee Regarding Central Committee Rules and Discipline” (November 6, 1938), in Central Archives (ed.), Zhonggong zhongyang wenjian xuanji (Selected Documents of the CCP Central Committee) (Beijing: Zhonggong zhongyang dangxiao chubanshe, 1991), vol. 11, p. 763. 23. See Wang Shoudao huiyilu (The Memoirs of Wang Shoudao) (Beijing: Jiefangjun chubanshe, 1988), p. 206. 24. See Ma Qibin and Chen Shaochou, “Liu Shaoqi and the Creation of the Northern China Anti-Japanese Resistance Base Area,” Wenxian he yanjiu (Documents and Research), no. 5 (1986). 25. CCP Central Documents Research Office (ed.), Liu Shaoqi nianpu (1898‒1969) (Chronology of Liu Shaoqi [1898‒1969]) (Beijing: Zhongyang wenxian chubanshe, 1996) (cited hereafter as Chronology of Liu Shaoqi), p. 385. See Feng Shaobai, “Recollections of Four Trips to Enemy Territory during the War of Resistance to Carry Out Reconnaissance and Incite Rebellion,” in Dangshi ziliao congkan (Party History Material Collection) (Shanghai: Shanghai renmin chubanshe, 1980), no. 2, pp. 54–63. See also Shi Yan, “Regarding Comrade Feng Shaobai’s Incitement of Zhou Fohai to Defect and its Results,” in Party History Material Collection (Shanghai: Shanghai renmin chubanshe, 1981), no. 3, pp. 133–38. 26. Chronology of Zhou Enlai, pp. 446–48. 27. Chronology of Liu Shaoqi, p. 324. 28. Ibid. 29. Wu Liping, “The Whole Story of ‘On the Self-Cultivation of Communists,’” in In Cherished Memory of Comrade Liu Shaoqi, pp. 271–72. 30. This quote by Liu Shaoqi is found in the internal publication of the CCP Central China Bureau, Zhenli (Truth), no. 1(October 10, 1942). In the early 1960s, Liu amended the text of the article and excised this sentence. See Liu Shaoqi, “To Comrade Song Liang,” in Liu Shaoqi xuanji (Selected Works of Liu Shaoqi) (Beijing: Renmin chubanshe, 1981), vol. 1, pp. 218–20. 31. Liu Shaoqi, “To Comrade Song Liang.” 32. Chronology of Liu Shaoqi, p. 362. 33. See Zhong Kan, Kang Sheng pingzhuan (A Critical Biography of Kang Sheng) (Beijing: Hongqi chubanshe, 1982), pp. 47–51, 57–60. 34. Sima Lu, Douzheng shibanian (Eighteen Years of Struggle) (Hong Kong: Zilian chubanshe, abridged ed., 1967), p. 72.

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35. Sima Lu, Douzheng shibanian (Eighteen Years of Struggle) (Hong Kong: Yazhou chubanshe, unabridged ed., 1952), pp. 69, 74. 36. See Wang Ming, Zhonggong wushinian (Fifty Years of the CCP) (Beijing: Xiandai shiliao biankanshe, 1981), p. 156. 37. See Liu Shunyuan, “Fragmentary Recollections of the Eighth Route Army’s Nanjing Office,” in Kangzhan chuqi de balujun zhu Nanjing banshichu (The Eighth Route Army’s Nanjing Office during the Early Stage of the War of Resistance) (Nanjing: Nanjing daxue chubanshe, 1987), p. 69. 38. Liu Dingyi, “The Situation of the Eight Route Army Office Negotiations in 1937 with the Kuomintang Over the Release of Prisoners,” in The Eighth Route Army’s Nanjing Office during the Early Stage of the War of Resistance, pp. 71, 78. 39. Huang Yaomian, Dong dang: Wo suo jingli de bange shiji (Upheaval: My Experience over Half a Century) (Shanghai: Shanghai wenyi chubanshe, 1987), p. 433. 40. Sima Lu, Eighteen Years of Struggle, abridged ed., p. 69. 41. Huang Yaomian, Upheaval: My Experience of Half a Century, pp. 435–36. 42. Hui Yuyu, as told to Yu Heizi, Pengyou ren (Friends) (Nanjing: Jiangsu renmin chubanshe, 1995), pp. 95–99. 43. Huang Yaomian, Upheaval: My Experience of Half a Century, pp. 441–42. 44. Mian Zhi, “Lessons from the Sacred Revolutionary Places,” in Wu Jiemin (ed.), Recollections of the Yan’an Marxism-Leninism Institute, pp. 146–47; see also Yang Zilie, Zhang Guotao furen huiyilu (The Memoirs of Mrs. Zhang Guotao) (original title Wangshi ruyan [The Fading Mists of Yesterday]) (Hong Kong: Zilian chubanshe, 1970), pp. 344–45. 45. Duan Jianguo and Jia Minxiu (verified by Luo Qingchang), Wang Shiying zhuanqi (The Legend of Wang Shiying) (Taiyuan: Shanxi renmin chubanshe, 1992), p. 147. This book underwent checking and verification by Luo Qingchang, the director of the Investigation Department of the CCP Central Committee. He Ruoyuan, former head of the Intelligence History Research Office of the Ministry of State Security, and the current head, Xie Jianhua, did a great deal of work examining and approving the text, and the entire book was authorized by the Ministry of State Security. 46. Zhou Weiren, A Biography of Jia Tuofu, p. 72. 47. See Shi Zhe, In the Company of History’s Giants, p. 169. 48. Lei Yunfeng (ed.), Shaan-Gan-Ning bianqu dashi jishu (Chronicle of the Shaan-GanNing Border Region) (Xi’an: Sanqin chubanshe, 1990), pp. 50–51. 49. See Bi Xing and He Anhua, Yan Hongyan zhuanlüe (A Brief Biography of Yan Hongyan) (Chengdu: Sichuan renmin chubanshe, 1987), pp. 59–60, 110, 112–13. 50. Ibid. 51. Journals of Xie Juezai, vol. 1, p. 335. 52. See Shi Zhe, In the Company of History’s Giants, p. 166. 53. Jiefang ribao (Liberation Daily), February 18, 1942. 54. See CCP Central Documents Research Office (ed.), Zhu De nianpu (Chronology of Zhu De) (Beijing: Renmin chubanshe, 1986), p. 198. 55. Mao Zedong, “Problems of War and Strategy” (November 6, 1938), in Mao Zedong xuanji (Selected Works of Mao Zedong) (Beijing: Renmin chubanshe, 1952), vol. 2, p. 511.

Chapter 7 1.

See Zhao Laiqun, “Mao Zedong and Wang Guanlan,” Dangde wenxian (Party Documents), no. 6 (1996).

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2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8.

9.

10. 11. 12. 13. 14. 15. 16. 17. 18.

19. 20. 21. 22. 23.

See Liu Jiadong, Chen Yun zai Yan’an (Chen Yun in Yan’an) (Beijing: Zhongyang wenxian chubanshe, 1995), pp. 138–39. Mian Zhi, “Lessons from the Sacred Revolutionary Places,” in Wu Jiemin (ed.), Yan’an MaLie xueyuan huiyilu (Recollections of the Yan’an Marxism-Leninism Institute) (Beijing: Zhongguo shehui kexue chubanshe, 1991), p. 148. See CCP Central Documents Research Office (ed.), Zhou Enlai nianpu (1898‒1949) (Chronolog y of Zhou Enlai [1898‒1949]) (Beijing: Zhong yang wenxian chubanshe, 1990) (cited hereafter as Chronology of Zhou Enlai), p. 446. See Sima Lu, Douzheng shibanian (Eighteen Years of Struggle) (Hong Kong: Zilian chubanshe, abridged ed., 1967), p. 88. See Huang Huoqing, Yige pingfan gongchan dangyuan de jingli (The Experiences of an Ordinary Communist Party Member) (Beijing: Renmin chubanshe, 1995), p. 158. See Wu Jiemin (ed.), Recollections of the Yan’an Marxism-Leninism Institute, p. 112; Liu Jiadong, Chen Yun in Yan’an, p. 130; Sima Lu, Eighteen Years of Struggle, abridged ed., p. 73. See History Information Collection and Writing Committee of the CCP Hubei Provincial Party and the Writing Committee of the Wuhan Municipal Party Committee (eds.), Kangzhan chuqi Zhonggong zhongyang chang jiang ju (The CCP Central Committee Yangtze Bureau at the Beginning of the War of Resistance) (Beijing: Zhonggong dangshi chubanshe, 1991), p. 473. Peter Vladimirov, Yan’an riji (Yan’an Diary), trans. Zhou Xin (Taipei: Lianjing chuban shiye gongsi, 1976), pp. 125, 136–37. TN: In the English edition, Peter Vladimirov, The Vladimirov Diaries; Yenan China, 1942–1945 [Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1975]), see, for example, p. 127. Shi Zhe, Zai lishi juren shenbian: Shi Zhe huiyilu (In the Company of History’s Giants: The Memoirs of Shi Zhe) (Beijing: Zhongyang wenxian chubanshe, 1991), p. 219. Ibid., p. 179. Ibid., pp. 219, 179. See Cheng Zhongyuan, Zhang Wentian zhuan (A Biography of Zhang Wentian) (Beijing: Dangdai Zhongguo chubanshe, 1993), pp. 480–81. Jiang Wei, “Unforgettable Days,” in Wu Jiemin (ed.), Recollections of the Yan’an Marxism-Leninism Institute, p. 102. Shi Zhe, In the Company of History’s Giants, p. 165. See Zhu Zhongli, Liming yu wanxia (Dawn and Dusk) (Beijing: Jiefang jun chubanshe, 1986), p. 326. See Zhang Wentian, “From the Fujian Incident to the Zunyi Conference” (December 16, 1943), Wenxian he yanjiu (Documents and Research), no. 1(1985). See CCP Nanjing Municipal Party Committee History Office and Eighth Route Army Nanjing Office Memorial Hall Series, Kangzhan chuqi de balujun zhu Nanjing banshichu (The Eighth Route Army’s Nanjing Office during the Early Stage of the War of Resistance) (Nanjing: Nanjing daxue chubanshe, 1987), p. 29. Shi Zhe, In the Company of History’s Giants, p. 141. See Chronology of Zhou Enlai, p. 452; Zhou Enlai, “Research on the Party’s Sixth National Congress,” in Zhou Enlai xuanji (Selected Works of Zhou Enlai) (Beijing: Renmin chubanshe, 1980), vol. 1, pp. 178–79. Li De [Otto Braun], Zhongguo jishi (1932‒1939) (China Chronicle [1932‒1939]) (Beijing: Xiandai shiliao biankanshe, 1980), pp. 359–60. Chronology of Zhou Enlai, p. 428. Ibid., pp. 447, 465.

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24. Ibid., pp. 472–475, 479. 25. See Zhang Zhongtian, Gongheguo diyi yuan’an (The First Unjust Case of the Republic) (Beijing: Huayi chubanshe, 1989), pp. 18–20. 26. CCP Central Documents Research Office (ed.), Mao Zedong nianpu 1893‒1949 (Chronology of Mao Zedong 1893‒1949) (Beijing: Zhongyang wenxian chubanshe, 1993) (cited hereafter as Chronology of Mao Zedong) does not refer to Mao’s March 18 cable to Xiang Ying. That cable and Xiang Ying’s May 14, 1938, letter to the CCP Central Committee are included in Kangzhan chuqi de Zhonggong zhongyang Changjiangju (CCP Central Committee Yangtze Bureau at the Beginning of the War of Resistance (Wuhan: Hubei renmin chubanshe, 1991),pp. 181, 236. 27. For many years CCP party historiography claimed that Mao delivered the summary at this Politburo meeting. See CCP Central Committee Party History Research Office, Zhonggong dangshi dashi nianbiao (Chronological Table of Major Events in CCP Party History) (Beijing: Renmin chubanshe, 1987). It was not until publication of CCP Central Documents Research Office (ed.), Zhou Enlai zhuan (1898‒1949) (A Biography of Zhou Enlai [1898‒1949]) (Beijing: Zhongyang wenxian chubanshe, 1990) and the Chronology of Zhou Enlai in the late 1980s and early 1990s that the historical facts were revealed. 28. See Chronology of Zhou Enlai, pp. 457–58. 29. See Wang Fuyi, Xiang Ying zhuan (A Biography of Xiang Ying) (Beijing: Zhonggong dangshi chubanshe, 1995), pp. 435–39. 30. “Minutes of Central Committee Secretariat Meetings,” in Nanfangju dangshi ziliao: Dangde jianshe (South China Bureau Party History Documents: The Construction of the Party) (Chongqing: Chongqing chubanshe, 1990), p. 3. 31. Chronology of Mao Zedong, vol. 2, pp. 102–3. 32. See Chronology of Zhou Enlai, p. 448. 33. Ibid. 34. Shi Zhe, In the Company of History’s Giants, pp. 331–32. 35. Ibid., p. 154. 36. Ibid. 37. Wang Ming, Zhonggong wushinian (Fifty Years of the CCP) (Beijing: Xiandai shiliao biankanshe, 1981), was published for internal circulation with controlled distribution, but its contents were somewhat widely disseminated. 38. Mao Zedong, “Oppose Subjectivism and Sectarianism” (September 10, 1941), Documents and Research, no. 1 (1985); see also Mao Zedong wenji (Collected Works of Mao Zedong) (Beijing: Renmin chubanshe, 1993), vol. 2, pp. 372–75. 39. Ibid. 40. See Hu Qiaomu, Hu Qiaomu huiyi Mao Zedong (Hu Qiaomu Remembers Mao Zedong) (Beijing: Renmin chubanshe, 1994), p. 199; see also CCP Central Documents Research Office (ed.), Ren Bishi zhuan (A Biography of Ren Bishi) (Beijing: Zhongyang wenxian chubanshe, 1994), pp. 470–71; Central Archives Party History Document Research Office, “Wang Ming during the Yan’an Rectification : A Rebuttal to Wang Ming’s Fifty Years of the CCP,” Dangshi tongxun (Party History Bulletin), no. 7 (1984). 41. Moscow Contemporary History Documentary Research Center Archives, Catalogue No. 495, Index No. 74, File No. 333, quoted in Yang Kuisong, “Mao Zedong’s Launch of the Yan’an Rectification, Up Front and Behind the Scenes,” Jindaishi yanjiu (Modern History Research), no. 4 (1998), pp. 14–15. 42. Ibid. 43. See “Hu Qiaomu Remembers the Yan’an Rectification,” Part 1, Party Documents, no. 1(1994), pp. 37–48.

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44. Mao Zedong, “Oppose Subjectivism and Sectarianism” (September 10, 1941); see also Collected Works of Mao Zedong, vol. 2, pp. 372–75. 45. Moscow Contemporary History Documentary Research Center Archives, Catalogue No. 495, Index No. 74, File No. 333, quoted in Yang Kuisong, “Mao Zedong’s Launch of the Yan’an Rectification, Up Front and Behind the Scenes.” 46. See Hu Qiaomu, Hu Qiaomu Remembers Mao Zedong, p. 195; see also Cheng Zhongyuan, A Biography of Zhang Wentian, pp. 481–83. 47. See Xu Zehao, Wang Jiaxiang zhuan (A Biography of Wang Jiaxiang) (Beijing: Dangdai Zhongguo chubanshe, 1996), p. 361. See also Hu Qiaomu, Hu Qiaomu Remembers Mao Zedong, p. 196. 48. CCP Central Documents Research Office (ed.), A Biography of Ren Bishi, p. 470; see also Hu Qiaomu, Hu Qiaomu Remembers Mao Zedong, p. 197. 49. Hu Qiaomu, Hu Qiaomu Remembers Mao Zedong, p. 197. 50. See Yang Kuisong, “Mao Zedong’s Launch of the Yan’an Rectification, Up Front and Behind the Scenes,” p. 15; see also Hu Qiaomu, Hu Qiaomu Remembers Mao Zedong, p. 198. 51. Wang Jiaxiang xuanji (Selected Works of Wang Jiaxiang) (Beijing: Renmin chubanshe, 1989), p. 326. 52. See Xu Zehao, A Biography of Wang Jiaxiang, p. 361. 53. See Hua Shijun and Hu Yumin, Yan’an zhengfeng shimo (The Full Story of the Yan’an Rectification) (Shanghai: Shanghai renmin chubanshe, 1985), p. 16. 54. Hu Qiaomu, Hu Qiaomu Remembers Mao Zedong, p. 198. 55. Chronology of Mao Zedong, vol. 2, p. 330. 56. Wang Ming, Fifty Years of the CCP, p. 37; see also CCP Central Documents Research Office (ed.), A Biography of Ren Bishi, p. 472. 57. Hu Qiaomu, Hu Qiaomu Remembers Mao Zedong, pp. 199–200. 58. See Hu Qiaomu, Hu Qiaomu Remembers Mao Zedong, p. 200; see also Chronology of Mao Zedong, vol. 2, pp. 330–31; Zhou Guoquan and Guo Dehong (eds.), Wang Ming nianpu (Chronology of Wang Ming) (Hefei: Anhui renmin chubanshe, 1991), p. 142; Central Archives Party History Documentary Research Office, “Wang Ming during the Yan’an Rectification: A Rebuttal to Wang Ming’s Fifty Years of the CCP.” 59. Hu Qiaomu, Hu Qiaomu Remembers Mao Zedong, pp. 200–201. 60. CCP Central Documents Research Office (ed.), A Biography of Ren Bishi, p. 474. 61. Ibid. 62. Chronology of Mao Zedong, vol. 2, p. 331. 63. Hu Qiaomu, Hu Qiaomu Remembers Mao Zedong, pp. 201–2. 64. CCP Central Documents Research Office (ed.), A Biography of Ren Bishi, p. 475. 65. See Hua Shijun and Hu Yumin, The Full Story of the Yan’an Rectification, p. 50. 66. Wang Ming, Fifty Years of the CCP, pp. 38, 39. 67. Chronology of Mao Zedong, vol. 2, p. 332. 68. Hu Qiaomu, Hu Qiaomu Remembers Mao Zedong, p. 223. 69. Chronology of Mao Zedong, vol. 2, p. 333. 70. Hu Qiaomu, Hu Qiaomu Remembers Mao Zedong, pp. 213, 214. 71. Ibid. 72. See Hu Qiaomu, Hu Qiaomu Remembers Mao Zedong, p. 213; see also CCP Central Documents Research Office (ed.), A Biography of Ren Bishi, p. 477. 73. Hu Qiaomu, Hu Qiaomu Remembers Mao Zedong, p. 213. 74. Jianguo yilai Mao Zedong wengao (Manuscripts of Mao Zedong since the Founding of the State) (Beijing: Zhongyang wenxian chubanshe, 1996), vol. 11, pp. 49–51. 75. Hu Qiaomu, Hu Qiaomu Remembers Mao Zedong, pp. 214–15.

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76. 77. 78. 79. 80. 81.

Ibid. Ibid., p. 215. Ibid., p. 266. Ibid., p. 229. Ibid., p. 224. Ibid., pp. 224–25.

Chapter 8 1.

2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11. 12. 13. 14. 15. 16. 17. 18. 19.

For the original text, see Border Region General Study Group (ed.), Zhengdun sanfeng ershierge wenjian (Twenty-two Documents for the Three Rectifications) (Yan’an, 1942), pp. 4‒5; see also Wang Huide, “Recollections of the Past,” in Wu Jiemin (ed.), Yan’an MaLie xueyuan huiyilu (Recollections of the Yan’an MarxismLeninism Institute) (Beijing: Zhongguo shehui kexue chubanshe, 1991), pp. 79‒81. This content was deleted from Mao’s Selected Works, and the title was changed to “Rectify the Party’s Style of Work.” For the original text, see Border Region General Study Group (ed.), Twenty-two Documents for the Three Rectifications. Jiefang ribao (Liberation Daily), February 22, 1942. Liberation Daily, June 11, 1942. “CCP Central Committee Documents Regarding the Yan’an Rectification Movement,” Wenxian he yanjiu (Documents and Research), no. 9 (1984). See Hu Qiaomu, “The Tian Jiaying I Knew,” in Dong Bian, Tan Deshan, and Zeng Zi (eds.), Wo suo zhidao de Tian Jiaying (The Tian Jiaying Whom I Knew) (Beijing: Zhongyang wenxian chubanshe, 1989), p. 121. See Diandian, Feidan de niandai (Extraordinary Era) (Shanghai: Shanghai wenyi chubanshe, 1987), p. 85. Li Weihan, “Remembering the Central Party School,” in Huiyi yu yanjiu (Memory and Research) (Beijing: Zhonggong dangshi ziliao chubanshe, 1986), vol. 1, p. 391. “Mao Zedong’s Cables Regarding the Yan’an Rectification Movement.” “The CCP Central Committee’s Cables Regarding the Yan’an Rectification Movement,” Documents and Research, no. 9 (1984). Ibid. Ibid. Ibid. Ibid. Ibid. Shi Zhe, Zai lishi juren shenbian: Shi Zhe huiyilu (In the Company of History’s Giants: The Memoirs of Shi Zhe) (Beijing: Zhongyang wenxian chubanshe, 1991), pp. 245‒46. Ibid. Wang Ming, Zhonggong wushinian (Fifty Years of the CCP) (Beijing: Xiandai shiliao biankanshe, 1981), p. 138. “The CCP Central Committee’s Cables Regarding the Yan’an Rectification Movement.”

Chapter 9 1.

Shi Zhe, Zai lishi juren shenbian: Shi Zhe huiyilu (In the Company of History’s Giants: The Memoirs of Shi Zhe) (Beijing: Zhongyang wenxian chubanshe, 1991), p. 246. Chen Ming (Ding Ling’s husband) once studied at the precursor of the Central Research Institute, the Marxism-Leninism Institute. His memoirs state

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that the institute was once criticized as the “base camp of dogmatism. See Chen Ming, “Recollections and Cherished Memories,” in Wu Jiemin (ed.), Yan’an MaLie xueyuan huiyilu (Recollections of the Yan’an Marxism-Leninism Institute) (Beijing: Zhongguo shehui kexue chubanshe, 1991), pp. 314–15. 2. Jiang Wei, “Unforgettable Days,” in Wu Jiemin (ed.), Recollections of the Yan’an Marxism-Leninism Institute, p. 103. 3. See the editorial “Rectify the Styles of our Study, Party, and Writing,” Jiefang ribao (Liberation Daily), February 2, 1942. This important editorial was published in coordination with Mao’s speech of the same title delivered at the Central Party School the previous day, and it is quite possible that it underwent revision by Mao himself. 4. See the editorial “Dogma and Trousers,” Liberation Daily, March 9, 1942. This editorial was drafted by Hu Qiaomu and revised by Mao, and it can be considered to have been co-authored by the two of them. It is included in Hu Qiaomu wenji (Collected Works of Hu Qiaomu) (Beijing: Renmin chubanshe, May 1992), vol. 1. In his preface to this volume, Hu Qiaomu makes a point of stating that the vast majority of the commentaries he wrote in the 1940s and 1950s were personally revised by Mao. 5. “Dogma and Trousers,” Liberation Daily, March 9, 1942; see also Collected Works of Hu Qiaomu, vol. 1, p. 48. 6. See Wang Sihua (head of the Chinese Economy Research Office of the Central Research Institute), “My Dogmatism during the Last Twenty Years,” in Periodicals Historical Research Office, Institute of Journalism, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences (ed.), Yan’an wencui (Yan’an Essays) (Beijing: Beijing chubanshe, 1984), vol. 1, p. 152. 7. A research fellow at the Institute of Modern History of Taiwan’s Academia Sinica, Chen Yongfa, writes in his book Yan’an de yinying (In the Shadow of Yan’an), “Among the currently available documents, it can be seen that the earliest use of the phrase ‘pull down their trousers and cut off their tails’ was in the April 1943 Summing up of the Rectification of Incorrect Work-Styles in the Shaan-Gan-Ning Border Region.” This is incorrect. The phrase “pull down their trousers and cut off their tails” first appeared in the March 9, 1942, Liberation Daily editorial “Dogma and Trousers” and thereafter it spread rapidly to become the most frequently used phrase during the Rectification Movement. The originators of this phrase can now be confirmed to have been Hu Qiaomu and Mao. See Chen Yongfa, In the Shadow of Yan’an (Taipei: Jindai yanjiu, Zhongyang yanjiuyuan, 1990), p. 317fn. 1. 8. “Dogma and Trousers,” Liberation Daily, March 9, 1942; see also Collected Works of Hu Qiaomu, vol. 1, p. 48. 9. Mao Zedong, “Oppose Subjectivism and Factionalism” (September 10, 1941, Wenxian he yanjiu (Documents and Research), no. 1(1985). 10. “Rectify the Work Styles of Our Study, Party, and Culture,” Liberation Daily, February 2, 1942. 11. “(Draft) Decision Regarding Relations between Party Members and People Outside of the Party,” drafted by Mao, remained a piece of paper in his drawer; it was never published at that time or in the decades thereafter, apparently because of the Wang Shiwei incident. Yan’an Rectification Movement Editorial Committee (ed.), Yan’an zhengfeng yundong jishi (Chronicle of the Yan’an Rectification Movement) (Beijing: Qiushi chubanshe, 1982), p. 87 states that this decision was not subsequently issued, but it does not provide any explanation. The above quote comes from Mao Zedong xinwen gongzuo wenxuan (Selected Journalistic Works by Mao Zedong) (Beijing: Xinhua chubanshe, 1983), p. 94. This text was subsequently

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12. 13.

14. 15. 16. 17. 18. 19. 20. 21. 22. 23. 24.

25. 26. 27. 28. 29.

included in Mao Zedong wenji (Collected Works of Mao Zedong) (Beijing: Renmin chubanshe, 1993), vol. 2. Wang Defen (wife of Xiao Jun), “Xiao Jun in Yan’an,” Xin wenxue shiliao (Historical Materials on New Literature), no. 4 (1987); see also Zhang Yumao, Xiao Jun zhuan (A Biography of Xiao Jun) (Chongqing: Chongqing chubanshe, 1992), pp. 233–34. See Li Xin, “‘Wild Lilies,’ Yan’an Rectification, and ‘Re-criticism,’” Historical Materials on New Literature, no. 4 (1995), pp. 69–70. See also Wang Defen, “Rest in Peace, My Husband Xiao Jun,” Historical Materials on New Literature, no. 2 (1989), p. 114. After Wang Defen married Xiao Jun in 1938, she accompanied him to Yan’an in June 1940. Unbeknownst to the couple, Mao actually did not like Xiao Jun. Wen Bai, “The Golden Age: Outside of the Eight Hours in the Marxism-Leninism Institute,” in Wu Jiemin (ed.), Recollections of the Yan’an Marxism-Leninism Institute, p. 189. Song Zhenting, “Truth is Simple, History is Relentless: A Few Words on the Republication of the Epic Poem ‘Yu Lihe,’” in Yan Weibing, Hungui jiangnan (The Spirit Returns to the South) (Shanghai: Shanghai wenyi chubanshe, 1987), p. 3. Wang Shiwei, “Wild Lilies,” Liberation Daily, March 13, 1942. Huang Yu’e, Yan’an siguai (Yan’an’s Four Monstrosities) (Beijing: Zhongguo qingnian chubanshe, 1998), p. 124. See Du Zhongshi, Fengyu suiyue (Tumultuous Times) (Hong Kong: Tiandi tushu youxian gongsi, 1993), pp. 38–39. See Wen Jize, “Struggle Diary,” in Wen Jize et al., Wang Shiwei yuan’an pingfan jishi (Record of the Rehabilitation of Wang Shiwei’s Unjust Case) (Beijing: Qunzhong chubanshe, 1993), pp. 188, 192. Wang Shiwei, “Wild Lilies.” See Yan’an Rectification Movement Editorial Committee (ed.), Chronicle of the Yan’an Rectification Movement, p. 83. Li Weihan, Huiyi yu yanjiu (Memory and Research) (Beijing: Zhonggong dangshi ziliao chubanshe, 1986), vol. 2, p. 485. See Yan’an Rectification Movement Editorial Committee (ed.), Chronicle of the Yan’an Rectification Movement, p. 89. See Hu Qiaomu, Hu Qiaomu huiyi Mao Zedong (Hu Qiaomu Remembers Mao Zedong) (Beijing: Renmin chubanshe, 1994), p. 449. See Ding Ling, “The Whole Story of the Yan’an Forum on Literature and Art,” in Ai Ke’en (ed.), Yan’an wenyi huiyilu (Recollections of Yan’an Literature and Art) (Beijing: Zhongguo shehui kexue chubanshe, 1992), p. 62. According to Dai Qing, in 1943 He Long “berated the author of ‘Thoughts on International Working Women’s Day’ as a ‘stinking whore’”; see Dai Qing, Liang Shuming, Wang Shiwei, Chu Anping (Liang Shuming, Wang Shiwei, and Chu Anping) (Nanjing: Jiangsu wenyi chubanshe, 1989), p. 102. Mao Zedong, “Speech at the Liberation Daily Editorial Revamping Symposium,” in Selected Journalistic Works by Mao Zedong, p. 91. In Li Weihan’s words. See Li Weihan, Memory and Research, vol. 2, p. 486. Central Archives (ed.), Zhonggong zhongyang wenjian xuanji (Selected Documents of the CCP Central Committee) (internal circulation ed.) (Beijing: Zhonggong zhongyang dangxiao chubanshe, 1987), vol. 13, pp. 364‒66. “The Rectification of the Three Incorrect Work Styles Must Be Carried Out Properly,” Liberation Daily, editorial, April 5, 1942, in Collected Works of Hu Qiaomu, vol. 1, p. 157. Light Cavalry Editorial Committee, “Our Self-Criticism,” in Periodicals Historical Research Office, Institute of Journalism, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences (ed.), Yan’an Essays, vol. 1, p. 57.

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30. See Song Xiaomeng, “Li Rui and Yan’an’s Light Cavalry,” Lingnan wenhua shibao (Lingnan Cultural Times) (Guangzhou), September 10, 1998. 31. See Li Weihan, Memory and Research, vol. 2, p. 486. Zhang Wentian’s self-criticism is quoted in Tang Tianren, “Regarding the Yan’an Literary and Art Movement’s ‘Party Work Broadcast’ Draft,” Historical Materials on New Literature, no. 2 (1991), p. 187. 32. See Wen Jize et al., Record of the Rehabilitation of Wang Shiwei’s Unjust Case, p. 7. 33. Ling Yun, “Wang Shiwei’s Last Fifty Months” (May 1993), in Wen Jize et al., Record of the Rehabilitation of Wang Shiwei’s Unjust Case, p. 74. 34. See Zhao Chaogou, “One Month in Yan’an,” in Wang Kezhi (ed.), Yan’an neimu (Behind the Scenes in Yan’an) (Shanghai: Jingwei shudian, 1946), pp. 51, 52. See Ling Yun, “Wang Shiwei’s Last Fifty Months” (May 1993), p. 78. 35. For Xiao Jun’s conversations with Zhang Yumao, see Zhang Yumao, “Mr. Xiao Jun as I Knew Him,” Historical Materials on New Literature, no. 2 (1989), pp. 139‒40. 36. Hu Feng, “Some Recollections,” in Hu Feng wannian zuopin xuan (Selected Works of Hu Feng’s Later Years) (Nanning: Lijiang chubanshe, 1987), pp. 81‒82. 37. Ai Ke’en, “‘Talks at the Yan’an Forum on Literature and Art’ and the Yan’an Literature and Art Movement,” in Ai Ke’en (ed.), Recollections of Yan’an Literature and Art, pp. 408‒9. 38. Ibid. 39. Zhang Yumao, A Biography of Xiao Jun, pp. 230‒31. 40. See Zhou Yang, “Conversations with Zhao Haosheng on Historical Achievements and Errors,” in Ai Ke’en (ed.), Recollections of Yan’an Literature and Art, pp. 35, 38. 41. Bi Ye, “The Flowers and Fruit of Life,” Historical Materials of New Literature, no. 2 (1992), pp. 54‒63. 42. See Zhou Yang, “Conversations with Zhao Haosheng on Historical Achievements and Errors,” in Ai Ke’en (ed.), Recollections of Yan’an Literature and Art, p. 36. 43. See Wang Lin, Kuangbiao shiren, Ke Zhongping zhuan (The Story of the Sturm und Drang Poet Ke Zhongping) (Beijing: Zhongguo wenlian chubanshe, 1992), p. 416. 44. Wei Junyi, Sitong lu (A Record of Painful Thoughts) (Beijing: Shiyue wenyi chubanshe, 1998), pp. 5‒6. 45. See Yan’an Rectification Movement Editorial Committee (ed.), Chronicle of the Yan’an Rectification Movement, p. 67; Hua Junwu, “Yan’an’s Caricature Movement,” in Sun Xinyuan and Shang Dequan (eds.), Yan’an suiyue: Yan’an shiqi geming meishu huiyilu (Yan’an Days: Memories of the Revolutionary Art of the Yan’an Period) (Xi’an: Shaanxi renmin meishu chubanshe, 1985), pp. 137‒38. 46. See Cheng Fangwu Biographical Compilation Group (ed.), Cheng Fangwu zhuan (A Biography of Cheng Fangwu) (Beijing: Zhonggong zhongyang dangxiao chubanshe, 1988), p. 111. See Huang Huoqing, Yige pingfan gongchan dangyuan de jingli (The Experiences of an Ordinary Communist Party Member) (Beijing: Renmin chubanshe, 1995), p. 126. 47. Shi Zhe, In the Company of History’s Giants, p. 237. 48. Zhang Wentian, “The New Culture of the Chinese People Since the War of Resistance and its Future Tasks,” in Zhang Wentian xuanji (Selected Works of Zhang Wentian) (Beijing: Renmin chubanshe, 1985), pp. 252‒54. 49. Quoted in Cheng Zhongyuan, Zhang Wentian lungao (Theoretical Manuscripts by Zhang Wentian) (Nanjing: Hehai daxue chubanshe, 1990), pp. 346‒47, 349. 50. Selected Works of Zhang Wentian, pp. 290‒93. 51. See Ding Ling, “The Whole Story of the Yan’an Forum on Literature and Art,” in Ai Ke’en (ed.), Recollections of Yan’an Literature and Art, p. 62. See also Chen Gonghuai, “A Biographical Sketch of Chen Qixia,” Historical Materials on New Literature, no. 3 (1989), p. 181.

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52. Yan Xing, “A Biographical Sketch of Gao Changhong,” Historical Materials on New Literature, no. 4 (1990), p. 198. 53. “Regarding Yan’an’s Recommendation of Work Experience to Literary and Art Professionals,” Party work broadcast, April 22, 1943, Historical Materials on New Literature, no. 2(1991), pp. 188, 138. 54. Feng Xiaxiong (Feng Xuefeng’s son), “Feng Xuefeng: A Dauntless Writer,” in Bai Ziyan and Yuan Shaofa, eds., Huiyi Xuefeng (Recalling Xuefeng) (Beijing: Zhongguo wenshi chubanshe, 1986), pp. 12‒13. 55. Two mutually corroborating sources exist on these historical facts. One is the confession that Feng Xuefeng wrote during the Cultural Revolution: “Regarding the Actions of Zhou Yang and Others in 1936 and Lu Xun’s Proposal of the Slogan of ‘Mass Literature of the National Revolutionary Struggle.’” The other is Zhang Wentian’s “Notes on the 1943 Yan’an Rectification Movement.” See Xuefeng wenji (Xuefeng’s Collected Works) (Beijing: Renmin wenxue chubanshe, 1985), vol. 4, pp. 506‒7; and Cheng Zhongyuan, Theoretical Manuscripts by Zhang Wentian, pp. 492‒93. 56. See “A Talk by Zhou Yang on Modern Literature,” Historical Materials on New Literature, no. 1(1990), p. 125. See Xia Yan, Lanxun jiu menglu (Lazily Seeking Old Dreams) (Beijing: Shenghuo dushu xinzhi sanlian shudian, 1985), pp. 313‒15. 57. See Zhou Yang wenji (Collected Works of Zhou Yang) (Beijing: Renmin wenxue chubanshe, 1984), vol. 1, pp. 246‒47, 251. 58. Zhou Yang’s translation of Chernyshevsky’s treatise Life and Aesthetics was published in 1942 by Yan’an’s New China Books, and some of the content of Zhou Yang’s anthology Makesizhuyi yu wenyi (Marxism and Art) began to be published in serial form in 1942, with formal publication by Yan’an’s Liberation Publishing House in 1945. 59. See Xu Maoyong, “My Contacts with Chairman Mao,” in Xu Maoyong huiyilu (The Memoirs of Xu Maoyong) (Beijing: Renmin wenxue chubanshe, 1982), pp. 103‒4. 60. “A Talk by Zhou Yang on Modern Literature,” Historical Materials on New Literature, no. 1 (1990), p. 124. 61. Zhang Yumao, A Biography of Xiao Jun, pp. 241‒46. 62. See Yan Xing, “A Biographical Sketch of Gao Changhong,” Historical Materials on New Literature, no. 4 (1990), p. 198. 63. See Hu Feng, “Return to Chongqing” (Part 2), Historical Materials on New Literature, no. 1(1989), p. 34. See also Hu Feng, “Replies to Questions Regarding July and Hope,” in Selected Works of Hu Feng’s Later Years, p. 122. 64. See Institute of Journalism, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences (ed.), Zhongguo gongchandang xinwen gongzuo wenjian huibian (Compilation of Chinese Communist Party Journalism Work Documents) (Beijing: Xinhua chubanshe, 1980), vol. 1, p. 89. On December 16, 1943, Dong Biwu wrote in his “Cable to Zhou Enlai and the Propaganda Department of the Central Committee Regarding the Investigation of the Problem of Errors in New China Daily, The Masses, and Central Plains” that he had “in accordance with the instructions of the Central Propaganda Department carried out further investigation regarding [Qiao Guanhua’s] viewpoints.” See Zhonghua ernü (Sons and Daughters of China), no. 2 (1992); see also Institute of Journalism, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences (ed.), Compilation of Chinese Communist Party Journalism Work Documents, vol. 1, pp. 139‒40. 65. See Hu Feng, “Back to Chongqing” (Part 2), Historical Materials on New Literature, no. 1 (1989), p. 35. See also Li Hui, Hu Feng jituan yuan’an shimo (The Entire Story of the Unjust Case of the Hu Feng Clique) (Beijing: Renmin ribao chubanshe, 1989), pp. 50‒52.

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66. See Chen Yong, “Regarding Several Matters in Xuefeng’s Literary and Artistic Thought,” in Bai Ziyan and Yuan Shaofa, eds., Recalling Xuefeng, p. 216. See Jianguo yilai Mao Zedong wengao (Manuscripts of Mao Zedong since the Founding of the State) (Beijing: Zhongyang wenxian chubanshe, 1990), vol. 4, p. 644. 67. Ding Ling, “The Cultural Community Should Take a Stand and Engage in Introspection Regarding Wang Shiwei” ( June 11, 1942), in Ding Ling jiwai wenxuan (Selected Anthology of Ding Ling’s Uncollected Writings) (Beijing: Renmin wenxue chubanshe, 1983), pp. 134‒37. 68. See Wang Defen, “Rest in Peace, My Husband Xiao Jun,” p. 108. 69. “Ding Ling’s Diary” (October 8, 1978), Historical Materials on New Literature, no. 3 (1990), p. 15. 70. See Gong Mingde, “Changes in the Versions of Sunshine on the Sanggan River,” Historical Materials on New Literature, no. 1(1991), pp. 121‒22.

Chapter 10 1.

“CCP Central Committee Directive to the Local Party Regarding the Issuance of Party Newspapers” (April 2, 1938), Qunzhong (The Masses), vol. 1, no. 22. 2. See Institute of Journalism, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences (ed.), Zhongguo gongchandang xinwen gongzuo wenjian huibian (Compilation of Chinese Communist Party Journalism Work Documents) (Beijing: Xinhua chubanshe, 1980); see also Han Xinru, Xinhua ribao shi 1938‒1947 (A History of New China Daily 1938‒1947) (Beijing: Zhongguo zhanwang chubanshe, 1987), vol. 1, pp. 92‒94. 3. Mao Zedong, “Notice Regarding Publication of Liberation Daily and Improving the Work of New China News Agency” (May 15, 1941), in Mao Zedong xinwen gongzuo wenxian (Selected Journalistic Works by Mao Zedong) (Beijing: Xinhua chubanshe, 1983), p. 54. 4. See “Synopsis of The History of Liberation Daily,” in Institute of Journalism, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences (ed.), Xinwen yanjiu ziliao ( Journalism Research Materials), no. 17 (Beijing: Zhongguo shehui kexue chubanshe, 1983), p. 12. See also Hu Qiaomu, Hu Qiaomu huiyi Mao Zedong (Hu Qiaomu Remembers Mao Zedong) (Beijing: Renmin chubanshe, 1994), p. 449. 5. Du Qing (widow of Yang Song), “Remembering Comrade Yang Song,” Zhonggong dangshi renwu zhuan (Biographies of Personages in CCP Party History) (Xi’an: Shaanxi renmin chubanshe, 1985), vol. 25, p. 192. 6. See “Synopsis of The History of Liberation Daily,” p. 13. 7. Li Fanwu, “Remembering Comrade Yang Song,” Biographies of Personages in CCP Party History, vol. 25, p. 187. 8. See Ding Ling, “The Whole Story of the Yan’an Forum on Literature and Art,” in Ai Ke’en (ed.), Yan’an wenyi huiyilu (Recollections of Yan’an Literature and Art) (Beijing: Zhongguo shehui kexue chubanshe, 1992), p. 57; Li Xin, “Ding Ling and Yan’an’s Liberation Daily Cultural Column,” Xin wenxue shiliao (Historical Materials on New Literature), no. 4 (1944), p. 59. 9. See Zhang Zhongshi, “Mourning Comrade Yang Song,” Liberation Daily, November 27, 1942. 10. See Yang Fangzhi, “The Revamping of Liberation Daily and the Yan’an Rectification Movement,” in Institute of Journalism, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences (ed.), Journalism Research Materials, no. 18 (1983), p. 3. 11. Hu Qiaomu, “Newspapers are the People’s Textbooks,” Liberation Daily, January 26, 1943. In the early 1990s, Hu renamed this essay “Newspapers are Textbooks” and he included it in the Collected Works of Hu Qiaomu. He gave no explanation

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12. 13. 14. 15. 16. 17.

18. 19.

20. 21.

22. 23. 24. 25. 26. 27. 28. 29. 30. 31.

for this change of title. See Hu Qiaomu wenji (Collected Works of Hu Qiaomu) (Beijing: Renmin chubanshe, 1994), vol. 3, p. 303. “To the Reader,” Liberation Daily, April 1, 1942. Lu Dingyi, “Our Basic Viewpoint on Journalism,” Liberation Daily, September 1, 1943. See “To Party Newspaper Reporters and Correspondents,” Liberation Daily, November 17, 1942. Mao Zedong, “Speech at the Liberation Daily Reorganization Symposium” (March 31, 1942), in Selected Journalistic Works by Mao Zedong, p. 90. See “Qin Bangxian and Wuxi Review,” Jiangsu chuban shizhi ( Jiangsu Publishing History Journal), no. 3 (1991). In his essay “Our Basic Viewpoint on Journalism,” Lu Dingyi claimed that secret agents in the Border Regions constantly wrote false news with the intention of diminishing Liberation Daily’s credibility and that they had been “discovered.” See Liberation Daily, September 1, 1943. See “Synopsis of The History of Liberation Daily,” p. 18. Song Ping, “Comrade Zhang Wentian’s Contribution to Cadre Theoretical Education—Rereading Central Committee Directives Regarding Running Party Schools,” in Wu Jiemin (ed.), Yan’an MaLie xueyuan huiyilu (Recollections of the Yan’an Marxism-Leninism Institute) (Beijing: Zhongguo shehui kexue chubanshe, 1991), p. 38. Xue Wei, “Recollections of Attending Lectures at the Yan’an Marxism-Leninism Institute,” in Wu Jiemin (ed.), Recollections of the Yan’an Marxism-Leninism Institute, p. 123. “Central Committee Directive Regarding Running Party Schools” (February 15, 1940), in Wang Zhongqing (ed.), Dangxiao jiaoyu lishi gaishu (1927‒1947) (Historical Overview of Party School Education [1927‒1947]) (Beijing: Zhonggong zhongyang dangxiao chubanshe, 1992), p. 212. Wang Zhongqing (ed.), Historical Overview of Party School Education (1927‒1947), pp. 126, 255. Ibid. See Zhonggong dangshi renwu zhuan (Biographies of Personages in CCP Party History) (Xi’an: Shaanxi renmin chubanshe, 1980), vol. 1, p. 363. See Wang Zhongqing (ed.), Historical Overview of Party School Education (1927‒1947), p. 255. Biographies of Personages in CCP Party History, vol. 1, p. 364. See Sima Lu, Douzheng shibanian (Eighteen Years of Struggle) (Hong Kong: Zilian chubanshe, abridged ed., 1967), p. 74. “CCP Central Committee’s Regulations Regarding the Admission of Students to the Central Party School and Transfer Issues” (March 11, 1942), in Wang Zhongqing (ed.), Historical Overview of Party School Education (1927‒1947), p. 260. Peng Zhen, “Central Party School Plan” (1941), in Wang Zhongqing (ed.), Historical Overview of Party School Education (1927‒1947), p. 124. Wang Zhongqing (ed.), Historical Overview of Party School Education (1927‒1947), pp. 165, 127. Ibid. Li Xiannian Biographical Compilation Committee and Zhu Yu (eds.), Li Xiannian zhuan 1909‒1949 (A Biography of Li Xiannian 1909‒1949) (Beijing: Zhongyang wenxian chubanshe, 1999), pp. 310‒11; see also Cheng Fangwu Biographical Compilation Group (ed.), Cheng Fangwu zhuan (A Biography of Cheng Fangwu) (Beijing: Zhonggong zhongyang dangxiao chubanshe, 1988), p. 112.

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32. Sima Lu, Eighteen Years of Struggle, p. 77. 33. “CCP Central Committee’s Regulations Regarding the Admission of Students to the Central Party School and Transfer Issues” (March 11, 1942), pp. 256‒57. 34. Wang Zhongqing (ed.), Historical Overview of Party School Education (1927‒1947), p. 158. 35. See Lu Hong, Li Bozhao zhuan (A Biography of Li Bozhao) (Beijing: Jiefangjun chubanshe, 1989), p. 417. 36. Wang Zhongqing (ed.), Historical Overview of Party School Education (1927‒1947), pp. 77‒78; see also Yan’an zhongyang dangxiao de zhengfeng xuexi: Vol 1 (The Yan’an Central Party School’s Rectification Study) (Beijing: Zhonggong zhongyang dangxiao chubanshe, 1988), p. 92. 37. See Jiang Hua, Zhuiyi yu sikao: Jiang Hua huiyilu (Recollections and Reflections: The Memoirs of Jiang Hua) (Hangzhou: Zhejiang renmin chubanshe, 1991), p. 204.

Chapter 11 1.

2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11. 12. 13. 14. 15. 16. 17. 18. 19. 20.

See “CCP Central Propaganda Department Decision Regarding Discussions in Yan’an on the Central Committee Decision and Comrade Mao Zedong’s Talk on Rectification of the Three Work Styles” (April 3, 1942), in Central Archives (ed.), Zhonggong zhongyang wenjian xuanji (Selected Documents of the CCP Central Committee) (Beijing: Zhonggong zhongyang dangxiao chubanshe, 1991), vol. 13, pp. 364‒65. Yan’an Rectification Movement Editorial Committee (ed.), Yan’an zhengfeng yundong jishi (Chronicle of the Yan’an Rectification Movement) (Beijing: Qiushi chubanshe, 1982), pp. 107, 111‒12. Ibid. The four readings and study of the documents were first proposed by Wang Shoudao; see Yan’an Rectification Movement Editorial Committee (ed.), Chronicle of the Yan’an Rectification Movement, p. 111. Wang Zhongqing (ed.), Dangxiao jiaoyu lishi gaishu (1927‒1947) (Historical Overview of Party School Education [1927‒1947]) (Beijing: Zhonggong zhongyang dangxiao chubanshe, 1992), pp. 77, 78. Ibid. Wu Yuzhang wenji (Collected Works of Wu Yuzhang) (Chongqing: Chongqing chubanshe, 1987), vol. 1, p. 240. Yan’an Rectification Movement Editorial Committee (ed.), Chronicle of the Yan’an Rectification Movement, p. 107. Mao Zedong, “Regarding Rectification of the Three Work Styles” (April 20, 1942), Dangde wenxian (Party Documents), no. 2 (1992). Ibid. Ibid. Jiefang ribao (Liberation Daily), June 27, 1942. Ibid. Liberation Daily, August 23, 1942. Ibid. Ibid. Ibid. Ibid. Liberation Daily, June 1, 1942. Ibid.

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21. See Ping Xin [Zhao Yiping] (ed.), Shenghuo quanguo zong shumu (Life National Bibliography) (Shanghai: Shenghuo shudian bianyin, 1935), p. 72. 22. See Shi Zhe, Zai lishi juren shenbian: Shi Zhe huiyilu (In the Company of History’s Giants: The Memoirs of Shi Zhe) (Beijing: Zhongyang wenxian chubanshe, 1991), p. 247. 23. Xie Juezai riji ( Journals of Xie Juezai) (Beijing: Renmin chubanshe, 1984), vol. 2, p. 791. 24. Liberation Daily, July 13, 1942. 25. Ibid. 26. Wu Yuzhang, “Commemorate the Fifth Anniversary of the War of Resistance Through Ideological Revolution” ( July 7, 1942), in Collected Works of Wu Yuzhang, vol. 1, p. 241. 27. Journals of Xie Juezai, vol. 1, p. 456. 28. Huan Nan (Xie Juezai), “Perception and Reason,” Liberation Daily, August 10, 1942. 29. “Central General Study Committee Notice Regarding Purging Yan’an’s ‘MiniBroadcasts,’” in Central Archives (ed.), Selected Documents of the CCP Central Committee, vol. 13, pp. 468‒70. 30. Ibid. 31. Ibid. 32. Ibid. 33. Yan’an Rectification Movement Editorial Committee (ed.), Chronicle of the Yan’an Rectification Movement, pp. 337, 338. 34. Ibid. 35. See Li Yan, “Several Lessons from the Experience of the Rectification Movement at the Central Research Institute,” in Yan’an zhongyang yanjiuyuan huiyilu (Reminiscences of the Yan’an Central Research Institute) (Beijing: Zhongguo shehui kexue chubanshe and Changsha: Hunan renmin chubanshe, 1984), p. 19. 36. See Wang Xiuxin, “Review of the Yan’an ‘Emergency Rescue Campaign,’” Party Documents, no. 3 (1990). Wang Xiuxin had been a researcher in the CCP Central Party History Research Section, and in this article, he made use of previously undisclosed remarks by Mao in 1942. 37. Ibid. 38. Ibid. 39. Mao Zedong, “Regarding Rectification of the Three Work Styles” (April 20, 1942). 40. Ibid. 41. Ibid. 42. Kuang Yaming, “On the Nature and Function of Investigation and Research Work,” Liberation Daily, November 19, 1941. See Luo Qingchang, “Profoundly Cherishing the Memory of the Undercover Battle Line of Veteran Comrade Kuang Yaming,” and Ding Yingru (Kuang Yaming’s wife), “In Eternal Cherished Memory,” in Essays in Memory of Kuang Yaming Compilation Group (ed.), Kuang Yaming jinian wenji (Essays in Memory of Kuang Yaming) (Nanjing: Nanjing daxue chubanshe, 1997), pp. 10‒11, 97. However, Shi Zhe notes that although Kuang was Kang Sheng’s political secretary, Kang did not trust him and did not allow him to handle important documents. See Shi Zhe, Feng yu gu: Shi Zhe huiyilu (Mountains and Valleys: The Memoirs of Shi Zhe) (Beijing: Hongqi chubanshe, 1992), pp. 216‒17. 43. Song Jinshou, “Regarding the Wang Shiwei Problem,” Dangshi tongxun (Party History Bulletin), no. 8 (1984). 44. Ibid.

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45. Li Weihan, Huiyi yu yanjiu (Memory and Research) (Beijing: Zhonggong dangshi ziliao chubanshe, 1986), vol. 2, p. 492. 46. See Wang Xiuxin, “Review of the Yan’an ‘Emergency Rescue Campaign.” 47. Song Jinshou, “Regarding the Wang Shiwei Problem.” 48. See Wang Xiuxin, “Review of the Yan’an ‘Emergency Rescue Campaign’”; see also Yan’an Rectification Movement Editorial Committee (ed.), Chronicle of the Yan’an Rectification Movement, p. 298. 49. Ibid. 50. Mao Zedong, “Regarding Stalin’s Twelve Points of Bolshevization” (November 21, 1942), in Mao Zedong lun dang de lishi (Mao Zedong on the History of the Party) (Nanjing: Nanjing daxue yinxing, n.d.), pp. 116‒17. 51. See Wang Xiuxin, “Review of the Yan’an ‘Emergency Rescue Campaign’”; see also Yan’an Rectification Movement Editorial Committee (ed.), Chronicle of the Yan’an Rectification Movement, p. 298. 52. Hua Shijun and Hu Yumin, Yan’an zhengfeng shimo (The Full Story of the Yan’an Rectification) (Shanghai: Shanghai renmin chubanshe, 1985), p. 66; see also Chen Yongfa, Yan’an de yinying (In the Shadow of Yan’an) (Taipei: Jindai yanjiusuo, Zhongyang yanjiuyuan, 1990), p. 60. 53. Yan’an Rectification Movement Editorial Committee (ed.), Chronicle of the Yan’an Rectification Movement, p. 346; see also Journals of Xie Juezai, vol. 1, p. 377. 54. See Chen Yongfa, In the Shadow of Yan’an, p. 60. 55. Yan’an Rectification Movement Editorial Committee (ed.), Chronicle of the Yan’an Rectification Movement, p. 302. 56. See Mao’s June 6, 1943 cable to Peng Dehuai, in Wenxian he yanjiu (Documents and Research), no. 8 (1984). 57. Huan Nan (Xie Juezai), “Holy Emptiness in this Heart,” Liberation Daily, July 3, 1942. 58. Huan Nan (Xie Juezai), “Boiling and Steaming,” Liberation Daily, June 23, 1942. 59. During the War of Resistance, each unit of the Eighth Route Army stationed in the Shaan-Gan-Ning Border Region had a code name, such as “Unity,” “Australia,” and so forth. See Yan’an Rectification Movement Editorial Committee (ed.), Chronicle of the Yan’an Rectification Movement, p. 352. 60. Yan’an zhongyang dangxiao de zhengfeng xuexi: Vol. 1 (The Yan’an Central Party School’s Rectification Study) (Beijing: Zhonggong zhongyang dangxiao chubanshe, 1988), p. 101. 61. “Summary of the Rectification Study of the Central Party School Second Department” (September 17, 1944), in Yan’an zhongyang dangxiao de zhengfeng xuexi: Vol. 2 (The Yan’an Central Party School’s Rectification Study) (Beijing: Zhonggong zhongyang dangxiao chubanshe, 1989), pp. 278‒79. 62. Ibid. 63. The Yan’an Central Party School’s Rectification Study, vol. 2, p. 140. 64. “Summary of the Rectification Study of the Central Party School Second Department” (September 17, 1944). 65. Liu Baiyu, “The Turning Point in My Life,” in The Yan’an Central Party School’s Rectification Study, vol. 1, pp. 134‒36. 66. Ibid. 67. See Chen Ming, “Ding Ling in Yan’an: She Was Not a Representative Figure Calling for Exposing the Darkness,” Xin wenxue shiliao (Historical Materials on New Literature), no. 2(1993), pp. 35‒36. 68. See Mao’s June 6, 1943 cable to Peng Dehuai, Documents and Research, no. 8(1984.) 69. Zhu Ming, “Liberated From My Original Class,” in The Yan’an Central Party School’s Rectification Study, vol. 1, pp. 255‒81.

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70. “Liu Baiyu, “The Turning Point in My Life,” p. 136. 71. See Journals of Xie Juezai, vol. 1, pp. 284‒85. See Duan Jianguo and Jia Minxiu, Wang Shiying zhuanqi (The Legend of Wang Shiying) (Taiyuan: Shanxi renmin chubanshe, 1992), pp. 244‒45. See Xia Yan, Lanxun jiu menglu (Lazily Seeking Old Dreams) (Beijing: Shenghuo dushu xinzhi sanlian shudian, 1985), pp. 621‒22, 640.

Chapter 12 1. 2. 3. 4.

5. 6. 7. 8.

9.

10.

11. 12. 13.

Xie Juezai riji ( Journals of Xie Juezai) (Beijing: Renmin chubanshe, 1984), vol. 1, p. 575. Sima Lu, Douzheng shibanian (Eighteen Years of Struggle) (Hong Kong: Yazhou chubanshe, unabridged ed., 1952), pp. 52, 56, 60‒62. Tao Fangzi, “Recalling My Father,” in Tao Yingsun and Tao Naihuang, “A Biographical Sketch of Tao Jingsun,” Xin wenxue shiliao (Historical Materials on New Literature), no. 4 (1992), pp. 167, 162. “Some Veteran Comrades in Guangxi Discuss the Collection of Party History Materials,” in CCP Central Committee Party History Compilation Committee and CCP Central Party History Research Office (eds.), Dangshi ziliao tongxun (1981) (Party History Materials Bulletin [1981]) (Beijing: Zhonggong zhongyang dangshi chubanshe, 1982), p. 133. Chen Fusheng [Chen Husheng]. Sanci bei kaichu dang ji de ren: Yige lao hong jun de zishu (Thrice Expelled from the Party: The Autobiography of a Red Army Veteran) (Beijing: Wenhua yishu chubanshe, 1992), pp. 35, 28 Ibid. Liao Gailong, “Before His Death, Marshal Xu Xiangqian’s Heartfelt Words,” Yanhuang Chunqiu (Annals of Chinese Descendants) no. 1 (1993). Li Yimeng recalls that from 1932 to 1934, the work of the State Political Security Bureau (SPSB) in Ruijin was “relatively steady,” and that campaigns such as those against the “AB League” and the “Socialist Democratic Party” were things of the past. Li Yimeng, Mohu de yingping: Li Yimeng huiyilu (Through a Blurred Telescreen: The Memoirs of Li Yimeng) (Beijing: Renmin chubanshe, 1992), p. 159. Shi Qiulang (Shi Zhe’s daughter), “Some of the Edited-out Material from ‘The Kang Sheng I Knew,’” Annals of Chinese Descendants, no. 6 (1992). Shi Zhe’s article “The Kang Sheng I Knew” was published in Annals of Chinese Descendants, no. 5 (1992), but with large portions of the negative material edited out. After Shi Qiulang objected, the journal published portions of the edited-out material in issue no. 6 of the same year. See also Shi Zhe, Feng yu gu: Shi Zhe huiyilu (Mountains and Valleys: The Memoirs of Shi Zhe) (Beijing: Hongqi chubanshe, 1992), p. 215. Yang Yonghua and Fang Keqin, Shaan-Gan-Ning bianqu fazhi shigao (Historical Narrative on the Shaan-Gan-Ning Border Area Legal System) (Beijing: Falü chubanshe, 1987), Susong yuzheng pian (chapter on Litigation and Prison Administration), pp. 247–48. Zhong Kan, Kang Sheng pingzhuan (A Critical Biography of Kang Sheng) (Beijing: Hongqi chubanshe, 1982), pp. 77–78; see also Shi Zhe, Mountains and Valleys, p. 216. Liu Jiadong, Chen Yun zai Yan’an (Chen Yun in Yan’an) (Beijing: Zhongyang wenxian chubanshe, 1995), pp. 111–12. “The Huxi ‘Elimination of Trotskyites Incident’” (Investigation Report by the CCP Jining Municipal Party Committee Historical Material Compilation and Research Committee), in CCP Central Party History Research Office (ed.), Zhonggong dangshi ziliao (CCP Party History Materials) (Beijing: Zhonggong

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14. 15. 16. 17. 18.

19. 20. 21.

22. 23.

24. 25. 26. 27. 28. 29. 30. 31.

32. 33. 34. 35. 36.

dangshi ziliao chubanshe, 1989), no. 32, pp. 212–24; see also Guo Yingqiu, Wangshi manyi (Recollections of Past Events) (Beijing: Zhongguo renmin daxue chubanshe, 1986), pp. 101–5. Ibid. Liu Jiadong, Chen Yun in Yan’an, pp. 115–17. Guo Yingqiu, Recollections of Past Events, pp. 109–15. Liu Jiadong, Chen Yun in Yan’an, pp. 30, 94. See the Central Committee Organization Department’s August 14, 1940, summary of the experience of cadre investigations, cited in CCP Central Party History Research Office (ed.), Zhonggong dangshi dashi nianbiao shuoming (Explanation of the Chronicle of Important Events in the History of the CCP) (Beijing: Zhongyang dangxiao chubanshe, 1983), pp. 100–101. Fei Yundong (ed.), Zhonggong baomi gongzuo jianshi (1921‒1949) (A Short History of the CCP’s Secret Work [1921–1949]) (Beijing: Jincheng chubanshe, 1994), p. 100. Sima Lu, Eighteen Years of Struggle, unabridged ed., p. 68. Ma Hong, “Some Experiences in the Cadre Examination Work at the MarxismLeninism Institute,” in Wu Jiemin (ed.), Yan’an MaLie xueyuan huiyilu (Recollections of the Yan’an Marxism-Leninism Institute) (Beijing: Zhongguo shehui kexue chubanshe, 1991), p. 47. See Xiu Lairong, Chen Long zhuan: Zhongguo yinbi zhanxian de zhuoyue zhihui yuan (A Biography of Chen Long: Outstanding Commander of China’s Covert Battlefront) (Beijing: Qunzhong chubanshe, 1995), p. 92. See Xie Yan, Zhang Qinqiu de yisheng (The Life of Zhang Qinqiu) (Beijing: Zhongguo fangzhi chubanshe, 1995), pp. 184–86. After the founding of the PRC, Lin Na worked in a special steel mill in Qiqihar, Heilongjiang Province. During the Cultural Revolution, Kang Sheng and Ye Qun publicly targeted Lin Na and she was ultimately persecuted to death. See Xiu Lairong, A Biography of Chen Long, pp. 113–14. Ibid. Ibid., p. 95. Ibid., pp. 117–18. Ibid., p. 97. Wu Jiemin (ed.), Recollections of the Yan’an Marxism-Leninism Institute, p. 286. Shi Zhe, Zai lishi juren shenbian: Shi Zhe huiyilu (In the Company of History’s Giants: The Memoirs of Shi Zhe) (Beijing: Zhongyang wenxian chubanshe, 1991), p. 249. See “The Yan’an Rectification Movement and the Cadre Examination Campaign were Two Different Types of Campaigns,” in Liao Gailong (ed.), Zhonggong dangshi wenzhai niankan (1986) (CCP Party History Digest Annual [1986]) (Beijing: Zhonggong dangshi ziliao chubanshe, 1988), pp. 337–38. Deng Liqun, “Remembering the Yan’an Rectification Movement,” Dangde wenxian (Party Documents), no. 2 (1992). Ibid. See Wang Ming, Zhonggong wushinian (Fifty Years of the CCP) (Beijing: Xiandai shiliao biankanshe, 1981), pp. 160, 11. See Peter Vladimirov, Yan’an riji (Yan’an Diary), trans. Zhou Xin (Taipei: Lianjing chuban shiye gongsi, 1976), p. 124. See He Jin, “A Preliminary Inquiry into the Yan’an Emergency Rescue Campaign,” cited in China Contemporary History Association (ed.), Zhongguo xiandaishi lunwen zhaibian (China Contemporary History Digest) (Zhengzhou: Henan renmin chubanshe, 1984), p. 358.

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37. “Comrade Lin Feng’s Conclusion at the Sub-bureau Senior Cadre Conference Regarding the Rectification Movement and Cadre Examinations” ( July 7, 1944), quoted in Warren Kuo [Guo Hualun], Zhonggong shilun (Analytical History of the Chinese Communist Party) (Taipei: Guoli zhengzhi daxue, Zhonghua minguo guoji guanxi yanjiusuo, 1971), vol. 4, p. 414. 38. Sources: 1.) Mao Zedong, “Letter of the General Front Committee in Reply to Accusations” (December 20, 1930), in Political Work Teaching and Research Office of the Chinese PLA National Defense University (ed.), Zhonggong dangshi jiaoxue cankao ziliao (CCP Party History Teaching Reference Materials) (Beijing: Zhongguo renmin jiefang jun guofang daxue, 1989), vol. 14, pp. 634–37; 2.) “Xiao Ke on the Campaign to Eliminate Counterrevolutionaries during the Early Stages of the Central Soviet Area,” Dangshi yanjiu ziliao (Party History Research Materials), no. 5 (1982); 3.) “Work Summary Report of the Jiangxi Soviet Area Provincial Party Committee” (May 1932), in Jiangxi Provincial Archives (ed.), Zhonggong geming genjudi shiliao xuanbian (Selected Historical Materials from the Central Revolutionary Base Area) (Nanchang: Jiangxi Renmin chubanshe, 1983), vol. 1, pp. 477‒78, 480; 4.) “Minutes of the Southwest Jiangxi Conference: Regarding Organizational Issues,” in Jiangxi Provincial Archives (ed.), Selected Historical Materials from the Central Revolutionary Base Area, vol. 1, p. 631; 5.) On September 23, 1981, Liao Gailong stated: “At that time, the First Front Red Army in the soviet area numbered only 30,000 to 40,000 men; the two campaigns to eliminate counterrevolutionaries affected more than 6,000, of whom one-half were killed; that is to say, one out of every ten Red Army soldiers was killed, and most of those killed were cadres.” On December 10, 1980, Liao Gailong quoted Mao: “Chairman Mao said: ‘We killed 4,500 men, but we saved 40,000 Red Army soldiers.’” Quoted in CCP Central Committee Party History Compilation Committee and CCP Central Party History Research Office (eds.), Dangshi ziliao tongxun 1981 (Party History Materials Bulletin [1981]), pp. 89, 144; 6.) Warren Kuo [Guo Hualun], Analytical History of the Chinese Communist Party, vol. 2, p. 262; and 7.) “Redress of the Unjust Western Fujian ‘Campaign to Eliminate the Socialist Democratic Party,’” Dangshi tongxun (Party History Bulletin), no. 5 (1986). 39. See Li Yimeng, Through a Blurred Telescreen, p. 147. 40. See Wang Li, Xianchang lishi: Wenhua dageming jishi (History on the Scene: A Record of the Great Cultural Revolution) (Hong Kong: Oxford University Press, 1992), p. 26. 41. Central Committee Secretariat, “Central Committee Notice Regarding the Establishment of the Central Confidential Bureau,” cited in Fei Yundong and Yu Guihua, Zhonggong mishu gongzuo jianshi (1921‒1949) (A Short History of CCP Secretariat Work [1921–1949]) (Shenyang: Liaoning renmin chubanshe, 1992), pp. 206, 209. One of the authors of this book is an associate research fellow at the Central Archives, and the volume quotes a number of valuable archival materials, including many disclosed for the first time. Prior to publication, opinions were also solicited from veteran officials engaged in the Central Committee’s confidential work, Wang Shoudao and Tong Xiaopeng. 42. Secretariat of the Central Committee, “Central Committee Notice Regarding the Establishment of the Central Confidential Bureau,” pp. 206, 209. 43. Li Yimin, Li Yimin huiyilu (The Memoirs of Li Yimin) (Changsha: Hunan renmin chubanshe, 1986), pp. 112–15. 44. Ibid. 45. See Shi Zhe, Mountains and Valleys, pp. 202–3. 46. Ibid.

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47. Wang Suyuan, “The Whole Story of the ‘Emergency Rescue Campaign’ in the Shaan-Gan-Ning Border Area,” in CCP Central Party History Research Office (ed.), Zhonggong dangshi ziliao (CCP Party History Materials) (Beijing: Zhongyang dangshi chubanshe, 1991), no. 37, p. 210. 48. Hu Qiaomu, Hu Qiaomu huiyi Mao Zedong (Hu Qiaomu Remembers Mao Zedong) (Beijing: Renmin chubanshe, 1994), p. 276; see also CCP Central Documents Research Office (ed.), Mao Zedong nianpu 1893‒1949 (Chronology of Mao Zedong [1893‒1949]) (Beijing: Zhongyang wenxian chubanshe, 1993) (cited hereafter as Chronology of Mao Zedong), vol. 2, but it does not reflect this remark by Mao. 49. See Wang Xiuxin, “Commentary on Yan’an’s ‘Emergency Rescue Campaign,’” Party Documents, no. 3 (1990). 50. See Hu Qiaomu, Hu Qiaomu Remembers Mao Zedong, p. 273. 51. Wang Xiuxin, “Commentary on the Yan’an ‘Emergency Rescue Campaign,’” p. 72, mentions that Liu Shaoqi’s cable to Chen Yi and Rao Shushi was sent on March 20, 1943, but CCP Central Documents Research Office (ed.), Liu Shaoqi nianpu (1898‒1969) (Chronology of Liu Shaoqi [1898‒1969]) (Beijing: Zhongyang wenxian chubanshe, 1996) (cited hereafter as Chronology of Liu Shaoqi), vol. 1, pp. 160, 169, 163, 425 refers to this cable being sent on June 29. Liu Shufa (ed.), Chen Yi nianpu (Chronology of Chen Yi) (Beijing: Renmin chubanshe, 1995), vol. 1, p. 405 has no record of receipt of this cable on June 29 or 30, but it mentions “receipt of several Central Committee cables” on March 21,1943, among which one contains opinions on the release of Han Deqin, but the contents of the other cables are not stated. Further verification has found that the record relating to March 21, 1943, originated in an identically phrased record in the Shenyang Military Region Journals of the Lai Chuanzhu Editorial Leading Group, Lai Chuanzhu riji ( Journals of Lai Chuanzhu) (Beijing: Renmin chubanshe, 1989), p. 441, but the entries for June 29 and June 30, 1943 in the Journals of Lai Chuanzhu do not record receipt of any cables from Yan’an. (Lai Chuanzhu was at that time chief of staff of the New Fourth Army, in charge of the telecommunications apparatus of the Army Headquarters and the Central China Bureau). 52. “Central Committee Directive Regarding Continuing the Development of the Rectification Movement” (March 1943), Wenxian he yanjiu (Documents and Research), no. 9 (1984). Documents and Research explains that the document “was not dated, it did not state the issuing organ, and it is uncertain whether it was formally issued, and the current dating is the judgment of the editors of Zhonggong zhongyang wenjian huibian (Compilation of CCP Central Committee Documents).” At the same time, it is noted that this document has “revision notations by Comrade Mao Zedong.” 53. “Central Committee Directive Regarding Continuing the Development of the Rectification Movement” (March 1943), 54. Shi Zhe, Mountains and Valleys, p. 6. At the April 28, 1942, Politburo meeting, Mao also said: “Since this year, 400 special agents have been arrested.” See Hu Qiaomu, Hu Qiaomu Remembers Mao Zedong, p. 276. 55. Shi Zhe, Mountains and Valleys, p. 196. 56. Chronology of Mao Zedong, vol. 2, pp. 433, 434. 57. Ibid. 58. Hu Qiaomu, Hu Qiaomu Remembers Mao Zedong, p. 276. Chronology of Mao Zedong, vol. 2, does not report any remarks by Mao at this Politburo meeting regarding the anti-traitor campaign. 59. CCP Central Documents Research Office (ed.), Liu Shaoqi zhuan (A Biography of Liu Shaoqi) (Beijing: Zhongyang wenxian chubanshe, 1998), vol. 1, p. 495.

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60. See Vladimirov, Yan’an Diary, pp. 122–25. (TN: In the English edition of The Vladimirov Diaries: Yenan, China, 1942–45 [Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1975], see, for instance, p. 111.) 61. Chronology of Liu Shaoqi, vol. 1, pp. 419–21. 62. Ibid. 63. Ibid. 64. Chronology of Liu Shaoqi records no specific date, place, or audience for this report, and only a small portion of its content is provided. 65. Chronology of Liu Shaoqi, vol. 1, p. 429. See also Yan’an Rectification Movement Editorial Committee (ed.), Yan’an zhengfeng yundong jishi (Chronicle of the Yan’an Rectification Movement) (Beijing: Qiushi chubanshe, 1982), p. 419. 66. Liu Shaoqi, “Directive on Counter-espionage Policies and Methods” ( June 29, 1943), in Political Work Teaching and Research Office of the Chinese PLA National Defense University (ed.), CCP Party History Teaching Reference Materials, vol. 17, p. 379. This is probably not the same as Liu Shaoqi’s March 20 cable. It is possible that because this cable was classified as top secret, it is not recorded in Shenyang Military Region Journals of the Lai Chuanzhu Editorial Leading Group, Journals of Lai Chuanzhu. 67. According to A Biography of Liu Shaoqi, Liu carried out a self-criticism during the 1954 Fourth Plenum of the Seventh CCP Central Committee, in particular regarding “some problems that occurred during the 1943 cadre examination campaign,” but his biography does not refer to the specific content of Liu’s selfcriticism. See CCP Central Documents Research Office (ed.), A Biography of Liu Shaoqi, vol. 2, p. 755. 68. Hua Shijun and Hu Yumin, Yan’an zhengfeng shimo (The Full Story of the Yan’an Rectification) (Shanghai: Shanghai renmin chubanshe, 1985), p. 69.

Chapter 13 1. 2. 3.

4. 5. 6. 7. 8.

Shi Zhe, Feng yu gu: Shi Zhe huiyilu (Mountains and Valleys: The Memoirs of Shi Zhe) (Beijing: Hongqi chubanshe, 1992), p. 202. Zhang Dingcheng, “The Rectification Movement at the Yan’an Central Party School,” in Xinghuo liaoyuan (A Spark Can Start a Prairie Fire) (Beijing: Renmin wenxue chubanshe, 1962), vol. 6, p. 8. Central Committee Secretariat, “Directive Launching the Central China Campaign against Secret Agents” (November 15, 1943), in Political Work Teaching and Research Office of the Chinese PLA National Defense University (ed.), Zhonggong dangshi jiaoxue cankao ziliao (CCP Party History Teaching Reference Materials) (Beijing: Zhongguo renmin jiefangjun guofang daxue, 1989), vol. 17, p. 385. See also Jiang Nanxiang, “Written Opinions Regarding the Emergency Rescue Campaign” (March 1945), Zhonggong dangshi yanjiu (CCP Party History Research), no. 4 (1988). Wei Junyi, Sitong lu (A Record of Painful Thoughts) (Beijing: Shiyue wenyi chubanshe, 1998), pp. 12, 13. Ibid. Li Rui, Zhiyan: Li Rui liushinian de youyu si (Straight Talk: Li Rui’s Sixty Years of Worrying and Thinking) (Beijing: Jinri Zhongguo chubanshe, 1998), p. 48. Liu Xiao, “The Best of Times,” in Wu Jiemin (ed.), Yan’an MaLie xueyuan huiyilu (Recollections of the Yan’an Marxism-Leninism Institute) (Beijing: Zhongguo shehui kexue chubanshe, 1991), p. 257. Li Rui, Straight Talk, p. 45.

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9. Shi Zhe, Mountains and Valleys: The Memoirs of Shi Zhe, pp. 200–201. 10. Wang Suyuan, “The Whole Story of the Shaan-Gan-Ning Border Region ‘Emergency Rescue Campaign,’” in CCP Central Party History Research Office (ed.), Zhonggong dangshi ziliao (CCP Party History Materials) (Beijing: Zhonggong dangshi ziliao chubanshe, 1996), no. 37, pp. 215‒18. 11. Li Rui, Straight Talk, p. 45. 12. Ibid., pp. 45–46. 13. Ibid. 14. Wang Suyuan, “The Whole Story of the Shaan-Gan-Ning Border Region ‘Emergency Rescue Campaign.’” 15. Ibid. 16. Yu Guangyuan, Wenge zhong de wo (Myself during the Cultural Revolution) (Shanghai: Shanghai yuandong chubanshe, 1995), p. 53. 17. Zhang Wenjie, “The Historical Truth of the Henan Party Organization Being Framed by Kang Sheng as a ‘Red Flag Party,’” Henan dangshi tongxun (Henan Party Newsletter), no. 1, quoted in Liao Gailong (ed.), Zhonggong dangshi wenzhai niankan (1985) (CCP Party History Digest Annual [1985]) (Beijing: Zhonggong dangshi ziliao chubanshe, 1987), pp. 344–45. 18. Chen Yongfa, Yan’an de yinying (In the Shadow of Yan’an) (Taipei: Jindai yanjiusuo, Zhongyang yanjiuyuan, 1990), p. 135. 19. Kang Sheng, “Emergency Rescue for Those Who Have Stumbled” ( July 15, 1943), in Political Work Teaching and Research Office of the Chinese PLA National Defense University (ed.), CCP Party History Teaching Reference Materials, vol. 17, pp. 380‒84; see also Shi Zhe, “The Kang Sheng I Knew,” in Shi Zhe, Mountains and Valleys: The Memoirs of Shi Zhe, p. 197. 20. Wang Ming, Zhonggong wushinian (Fifty Years of the CCP) (Beijing: Xiandai shiliao biankanshe, 1981), p. 148; Shi Zhe, Mountains and Valleys: The Memoirs of Shi Zhe, pp. 2‒3. 21. See Liu Jiadong, Chen Yun zai Yan’an (Chen Yun in Yan’an) (Beijing: Zhongyang wenxian chubanshe, 1995), p. 113. 22. Wang Ming, Fifty Years of the CCP, pp. 148‒49. 23. See Bo Yibo, Qishinian fendou yu sikao, shang juan: Zhanzheng suiyue (Seventy Years of Struggle and Reflection, Vol. 1: The War Years) (Beijing: Zhonggong dangshi chubanshe, 1996), p. 463. 24. Central Committee Secretariat, “Directive Launching the Central China Campaign Against Secret Agents” (November 15, 1943); see also Jiang Nanxiang, “Written Opinions Regarding the Emergency Rescue Campaign” (March 1945). 25. Li Yimin, Li Yimin huiyilu (The Memoirs of Li Yimin) (Changsha: Hunan renmin chubanshe, 1986), p. 117; CCP Central Party History Research Office (ed.), CCP Party History Materials, no. 37, p. 216. 26. Cao Ying, “Taking Part in the Rectification Movement and the Seventh Party Congress in Yan’an,” in CCP Central Party History Research Office (ed.), CCP Party History Materials, no. 58 (Beijing: Zhonggong dangshi chubanshe, 1996), pp. 9‒10. 27. Central Committee Secretariat, “Directive Launching the Central China Campaign Against Secret Agents” (November 15, 1943); see also Jiang Nanxiang, “Written Opinions Regarding the Emergency Rescue Campaign” (March 1945). 28. Cao Ying, “Taking Part in the Rectification Movement and the Seventh Party Congress in Yan’an.” 29. See Xiu Lairong, Chen Long zhuan (A Biography of Chen Long) (Beijing: Qunzhong chubanshe, 1995), pp. 194, 128; He Chengming, “Chen Gong,” in

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30. 31.

32. 33. 34. 35. 36. 37. 38. 39. 40. 41. 42. 43. 44. 45. 46. 47. 48. 49. 50.

51. 52. 53. 54.

Zhonggong dangshi renwu zhuan (Biographies of Personages in CCP Party History) (Xi’an: Shaanxi renmin chubanshe, 1987), vol. 34, p. 219. See Xiu Lairong, A Biography of Chen Long, pp. 194, 128; He Chengming, “Chen Gong,” vol. 34, p. 219. Bainian chao (Hundred Year Tide), no. 1(1997), p. 33; see also Li Rui, Straight Talk, pp. 44‒45; Wen Jize, Di yige pingfan de “youpai”: Wen Jize zishu (The First Rehabilitated “Rightist”: The Autobiography of Wen Jize) (Beijing: Zhongguo qingnian chubanshe, 1999), pp. 161, 175‒77. Li Rui, “Life and Literature at Qingliang Mountain,” in Li Rui wangshi zayi (Li Rui’s Trivial Recollections of Past Events) (Nanjing: Jiangsu renmin chubanshe, 1995), p. 46. See also Li Rui, Straight Talk, p. 44. Zhou Sen, Ma Haide (Ma Haide) (Beijing: Sanlian chubanshe, 1982), pp. 25‒26. Li Yimin, “Fragmentary Recollections of Participating in the Yan’an ‘Emergency Rescue Campaign,’” in Gemingshi ziliao (Revolutionary History Materials) (Beijing: Wenshi ziliao chubanshe, 1981), no. 3, p. 37. Wu Jiemin (ed.), Recollections of the Yan’an Marxism-Leninism Institute, p. 171. Wu Xiuquan, Huiyi yu huainian (Remembrance and Commemoration) (Beijing: Zhonggong zhongyang dangxiao chubanshe, 1991), pp. 195‒96. Chen Yongfa, In the Shadow of Yan’an, pp. 230, 241‒42. Ibid. Ibid. Ibid., p. 241. Li Zhimin, Geming ronglu (The Crucible of the Revolution) (Beijing: Zhonggong dangshi ziliao chubanshe, 1986), p. 241. Biographies of Modern Chinese Personages Series Editorial Office, Xu Xiangqian zhuan (A Biography of Xu Xiangqian) (Beijing: Dangdai Zhongguo chubanshe, 1992), p. 399. Ibid., p. 346; see also Li Zhimin, The Crucible of the Revolution, pp. 130‒31. Biographies of Modern Chinese Personages Series Editorial Office, A Biography of Xu Xiangqian, p. 400. Wei Junyi, A Record of Painful Thoughts, p. 18. Biographies of Modern Chinese Personages Series Editorial Office, A Biography of Xu Xiangqian, pp. 399‒400. Guo Huaruo, “The Organization of the Chinese Army’s First Artillery School,” in CCP Central Party History Research Office (ed.), CCP Party History Materials (Beijing: Zhonggong dangshi chubanshe, 1992), no. 41, pp. 134‒35. Wang Suyuan, “The Whole Story of the Shaan-Gan-Ning Border Region ‘Emergency Rescue Campaign.’” Yu Guangyuan, Myself during the Cultural Revolution, p. 48. Dong Chunfang et al., “Exerting the Utmost Effort for Construction: Fragmentary Recollections of Comrade Lin Boqu in the Shaan-Gan-Ning Border Region,” in Huainian Lin Boqu tongzhi (In Cherished Memory of Comrade Lin Boqu) (Changsha: Hunan renmin chubanshe, 1986), p. 125. Biography of the Lin Boqu Compilation Group (ed.), Lin Boqu zhuan (A Biography of Lin Boqu) (Beijing: Hongqi chubanshe, 1986), p. 286. Chen Yongqing, “In Remembrance of the 100th Anniversary of Comrade Lin Boqu’s Birth,” in In Cherished Memory of Comrade Lin Boqu, p. 136. See Li Jingfan, “Remembering Comrade Lin Boqu in the Shaan-Gan-Ning Border Region,” in In Cherished Memory of Comrade Lin Boqu, p. 118. Biography of the Lin Boqu Compilation Group (ed.), A Biography of Lin Boqu, p. 137.

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55. Wang Suyuan, “The Whole Story of the Shaan-Gan-Ning Border Region ‘Emergency Rescue Campaign.’” 56. Chen Yongfa, In the Shadow of Yan’an, pp. 282‒83. 57. Ibid., p. 279. 58. Ibid. 59. Ibid., p. 288. 60. Ibid., p. 252. 61. Ibid. 62. Ibid., pp. 287‒88. 63. Wei Junyi, A Record of Painful Thoughts, p. 18. 64. Ibid., p. 8. 65. Ibid. 66. Central Committee Secretariat, “Directive Launching the Central China Campaign Against Secret Agents” (November 15, 1943); see also Jiang Nanxiang, “Written Opinions Regarding the Emergency Rescue Campaign” (March 1945). 67. Liu Xiao, “The Best of Times,” pp. 257‒58. 68. Wang Suyuan, “The Whole Story of the Shaan-Gan-Ning Border Region ‘Emergency Rescue Campaign.’” 69. Liu Xiao, “The Best of Times,” p. 257. 70. Wang Suyuan, “The Whole Story of the Shaan-Gan-Ning Border Region ‘Emergency Rescue Campaign.’” 71. Li Bozhao wenji (Collected Works of Li Bozhao) (Beijing: Zhongguo huaqiao chubanshe, 1989), pp. 120‒21. 72. Zheng Jianying, Zhu Rui zhuan (A Biography of Zhu Rui) (Beijing: Zhongyang wenxian chubanshe, 1994), pp. 296, 298. 73. See Guo Chen, Jinguo liechuan: Hong yi fangmian jun sanshiwei changzheng nü hong jun shengping shiji (Distaff Biographies: The Life Stories of Thirty Female Soldiers in the First Front Red Army Who Participated in the Long March) (Beijing: Nongcun duwu chubanshe, 1986), p. 157. 74. Zhang Pinghua, “Enthusiastically Participate in Rectification Study,” see Yan’an zhongyang dangxiao de zhengfeng xuexi, Vol. 1 (The Yan’an Central Party School’s Rectification Study) (Beijing: Zhonggong zhongyang dangxiao chubanshe, 1988), p. 47. 75. Kong Yuan, “An Outstanding Female Revolutionary: Remembering My Comradein-Arms, Comrade Qian Ying,” in Shuai Mengqi (ed.), Yi Qian Ying (Remembering Qian Ying) (Beijing: Jiefangjun chubanshe, 1986), p. 21. 76. Zhang Wenjie, “The Historical Truth of the Henan Party Organization Framed by Kang Sheng as a ‘Red Flag Party.’” 77. Guo Chen, Distaff Biographies: The Life Stories of Thirty Female Soldiers in the First Front Red Army Who Participated in the Long March, p. 148. 78. See Bo Yibo, Seventy Years of Struggle and Reflection, Vol. 1: The War Years, p. 362. 79. Liu Maolin and Ye Guisheng, Lü Zhenyu pingzhuan (A Critical Biography of Lü Zhenyu) (Beijing: Shehui kexue wenxian chubanshe, 1990), p. 125. 80. Yang Li, Daice de hong meigui: Gu Dacun chen yuanlu (Thorned Rose: The Gross Injustice Against Gu Dacun) (Guangzhou: Zhonggong Guangdong shengwei dangshi yanjiushi, 1997), pp. 51, 31. 81. Ibid. 82. Chen Yeping and Han Jincao (eds.), An Ziwen zhuanlüe (A Short Biography of An Ziwen) (Taiyuan: Shanxi renmin chubanshe, 1985), p. 46. 83. Wang Liang, “Record of the Injustice against Luo Feng and Bai Lang,” Xin wenxue shiliao (Historical Materials on New Literature), no. 2 (1995), p. 176.

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84. Wei Junyi, A Record of Painful Thoughts, p. 19; see also Jiefang ribao (Liberation Daily), July 3, 1944. 85. See Yan Xing, “The ‘Atrophy’ of Gao Changhong’s Last Years,” Historical Materials on New Literature, no. 4 (1996). 86. See Chen Ming, “Ding Ling in Yan’an: She Was Not a Representative Figure Calling for Exposing the Darkness,” Historical Materials on New Literature, no. 2 (1993). 87. Jin Dongping, Yan’an jianwen lu (Seen and Heard in Yan’an) (Chongqing: Minzu shudian, 1945), p. 120. 88. Huang Huoqing, Yige pingfan gongchan dangyuan de jingli (The Experiences of an Ordinary Communist Party Member) (Beijing: Renmin chubanshe, 1995), pp. 260‒76, 163‒64. 89. Ibid. 90. Jiang Wei, “Unforgettable Days,” in Wu Jiemin (ed.), Recollections of the Yan’an Marxism-Leninism Institute, p. 10. 91. Xu Gan, “Lasting and Evergreen Memories: Eternally Engraved Memories of the Personal Example and Verbal Instructions of My Father, Xu Lao,” in Wang Yunfeng (ed.), Xu Teli zai Yan’an (Xu Teli in Yan’an) (Xi’an: Shaanxi jiaoyu chubanshe, 1991), p. 118. 92. Jiang Zulin, “Rouge River Bank,” Historical Materials on New Literature, no. 4 (1993), pp. 78‒79. 93. Historical Materials on the Yan’an Natural Science Institute Editorial Committee, Yan’an ziran xueyuan kexueyuan shiliao (Historical Materials on the Yan’an Natural Science Institute) (Beijing: Zhonggong dangshi ziliao chubanshe, Beijing gongye xueyuan chubanshe, 1986), p. 119. 94. Chen Yongfa, In the Shadow of Yan’an, p. 194. 95. “CCP Central Committee Northwest Bureau Standing Committee Meeting Resolution Regarding the Issue of Staff Reductions at Yan’an University, the Natural Science Institute, etc.” (Meeting Minutes), in Historical Materials on the Yan’an Natural Science Institute, pp. 28–29. 96. Chen Yongfa, In the Shadow of Yan’an, pp. 196, 201, 204‒5. 97. Ibid. 98. Ibid., pp. 196, 201, 204‒5. 99. Historical Materials on the Yan’an Natural Science Institute Editorial Committee, Historical Materials on the Yan’an Natural Science Institute, p. 179. 100. Wei Junyi, A Record of Painful Thoughts, p. 15. 101. Sun Zhiyuan, Ganxie ku’nan: Yan Han zhuan (Thank You, Hardship: A Biography of Yan Han) (Beijing: Renmin wenxue chubanshe, 1997), p. 242. 102. Luo Wen, “In the Yan’an Era, He Was Always Pondering and Probing,” in Wang Meng and Yuan Ying (eds.), Yi Zhou Yang (Remembering Zhou Yang) (Huhehot: Neimenggu renmin chubanshe, 1998), pp. 66‒67. 103. Chen Yongfa, In the Shadow of Yan’an, pp. 223‒24. 104. “The General Situation at Yan’an University” ( June 1994), in Historical Materials on the Yan’an Natural Science Institute Editorial Committee, Historical Materials on the Yan’an Natural Science Institute, p. 179. 105. Wang Bisheng, Deng Tuo pingzhuan (A Critical Biography of Deng Tuo) (Beijing: Qunzhong chubanshe, 1986), pp. 107, 95. 106. Song Renqiong huiyilu (The Memoirs of Song Renqiong) (Beijing: Jiefang jun chubanshe, 1994), p. 498. 107. Lü Zhengcao huiyilu (The Memoirs of Lü Zhengcao) (Beijing: Jiefang jun chubanshe, 1988), pp. 180, 101, 157.

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108. Ibid. 109. Ibid. 110. Jin-Sui geming genjudi dashiji (Chronicle of the Jin-Sui Revolutionary Base Area) (Taiyuan: Shanxi renmin chubanshe, 1989), pp. 221, 231. 111. Ibid. 112. “Comrade Lin Feng’s Conclusion at the Sub-bureau Senior Cadre Conference Regarding the Rectification and Cadre Examination Campaigns, July 1944 (Internal Party Document: This Document Should Be Studied Together with Comrade Kang Sheng’s Speech, and Should Be Studied in Relation to Reality and Using the Document as a Basis),” cited in Warren Kuo [Guo Hualun], Zhonggong shilun (Analytical History of the Chinese Communist Party) (Taipei: Guoli zhengzhi daxue, Zhonghua minguo guoji guanxi yanjiusuo, 1971), vol. 4, p. 414. 113. Zhang Jiafu (then deputy Party secretary of the CCP Jin-Sui Sub-bureau), “Fading Memories of the Gengshen Year” (Part 2), Zhonggong dangshi ziliao (Party History Materials) (Beijing: Zhonggong dangshi ziliao chubanshe, 1983), no. 8, pp. 251‒52. 114. Mu Xin, “No. 6813, Qincheng Prison,” Zhonghua ernü (Children of China), no. 10 (1998). 115. Mu Xin, Jiehou changyi (Long Memories of the Disaster) (Hong Kong: Xinmin chubanshe, 1997), p. 132. 116. See Jin Dongping, Seen and Heard in Yan’an, p. 128. 117. During the Cultural Revolution, when Peking University professor Ji Xianlin was denounced, he regretted ever having been educated. See Ji Xianlin, Niupeng zayi (Ox Pen Memories) (Beijing: Zhonggong dangshi chubanshe, 1998), p. 100. (TN: Ji Xianlin’s book has since been published in English: Ji Xianlin, The Cowshed: Memories of the Chinese Cultural Revolution, trans. Chenxin Jiang [New York: New York Review of Books, 2016].) 118. See Zhonggong xianxing (The CCP’s Present Situation) (N.p.: Aiguo chubanshe, 1946), pp. 25‒33. 119. Luo Guibo, Geming huiyilu (Reminiscences of the Revolution) (Beijing: Zhongguo dang’an chubanshe, 1997), pp. 184, 235. 120. Ibid. 121. Chronicle of the Jin-sui Revolutionary Base Area, pp. 359‒60. 122. Taihang geming genjudi shigao, 1937‒1949 (Taihang Revolutionary Base Area Historical Manuscripts, 1937‒1949) (Taiyuan: Shanxi renmin chubanshe, 1987), p. 201. See also Li Xuefeng, Li Xuefeng huiyilu: shang, Taihang shinian (The Memoirs of Li Xuefeng: Vol. 1, Ten Years in Taihang) (Beijing: Zhonggong dangshi chubanshe, 1998), p. 204; “Central Committee Directive to All Regions Regarding Leftist Errors in the Struggle against Spies” (May 13, 1944), in the Political Work Teaching and Research Office of the Chinese PLA National Defense University (ed.), CCP Party History Teaching Reference Materials, vol. 17 p. 389; “Mao Zedong’s November 5, 1943, Cable to the North China Bureau and Transmitted to the Party Committees of Taihang, Taiyue, Ji’nan, and Other Districts,” Wenxian he yanjiu (Documents and Research), no. 8 (1984), pp. 7‒8. 123. Central Committee Secretariat, “Directive Launching the Central China Campaign Against Secret Agents” (November 15, 1943); see also Huang Kecheng, Huang Kecheng huiyilu (The Memoirs of Huang Kecheng) (Beijing: Jiefang jun chubanshe, 1989), pp. 300‒301, 299. 124. Ibid. 125. “Decision [of the Huaibei Regional Party Committee] Regarding the Errors of the Second Huaibei Secondary School Anti–Secret Agent Case and Ways to Deal with the Aftermath,” stated, “The main duty of the school is to educate and remold

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young people using the spirit of new democracy education, and to unite them around the Party. … The school must never become a court of law, and extracting confessions by torture, or binding, hanging up, and beating people is absolutely impermissible.” See Biography of Deng Zihui Editorial Board, Deng Zihui zhuan (A Biography of Deng Zihui) (Beijing: Renmin chubanshe, 1996), p. 295. 126. Deng Zihui, “My Autobiography,” in Gemingshi ziliao (Revolutionary History Materials) (Beijing: Wenshi ziliao chubanshe, 1982), no. 8, pp. 13‒14; see also Biography of Deng Zihui Editorial Board, A Biography of Deng Zihui, p. 297. 127. Li Xiannian Biographical Compilation Committee and Zhu Yu (eds.), Li Xiannian zhuan (1909‒1949) (A Biography of Li Xiannian [1909‒1949]) (Beijing: Zhongyang wenxian chubanshe, 1999), pp. 487‒88, 504, 481; see also E-Yu bianqu gemingshi bianjibu (ed.), Xin sijun diwushi kangRi zhanzheng shigao (Historical Manuscripts of the New Fourth Army’s Fifth Division in the War of Resistance against Japan) (Wuhan: Hubei renmin chubanshe, 1989), p. 213. 128. Zhang Jinfu, Huainian ji (A Collection of Cherished Memories) (Beijing: Zhonggong zhongyang dangxiao chubanshe, 1994), p. 221. 129. Biographies of Modern Chinese Personages Series Editorial Office (ed.), Luo Ronghuan zhuan (A Biography of Luo Ronghuan) (Beijing: Dangdai Zhongguo chubanshe, 1991), p. 261. 130. CCP Central Documents Research Office (ed.), Liu Shaoqi nianpu (1898‒1969) (Chronology of Liu Shaoqi [1898‒1969]) (Beijing: Zhongyang wenxian chubanshe, 1996), vol. 1, p. 392. 131. Wang Li, Xianchang lishi: Wenhua dageming jishi (History on the Scene: A Record of the Great Cultural Revolution) (Hong Kong: Oxford University Press, 1992), p. 128; see also Xiao Hua, “Four Unforgettable Months: Remembering Comrade Shaoqi in Shandong,” in CCP Shandong Province Party History Data Collection and Research Committee (ed.), Shandong kangRi genjudi (The Shandong AntiJapanese Resistance Base Area) (Beijing: Zhongyang dangshi ziliao chubanshe, 1989), pp. 246‒59. 132. Wang Li, “Mao Zedong on the Rectification and Cadre Examination Campaigns and the Zunyi Conference: Explaining Several Problems in the Autobiography of Wang Ruowang,” in Wang Li, History on the Scene: A Record of the Great Cultural Revolution, p. 128. 133. Biographies of Modern Chinese Personages Series Editorial Office (ed.), A Biography of Luo Ronghuan, p. 285. 134. Wang Li, “Mao Zedong on the Rectification and Cadre Examination Campaigns and the Zunyi Conference: Explaining Several Problems in the Autobiography of Wang Ruowang,” p. 128. 135. Li Weimin and Pan Tianjia, Luo Ronghuan zai Shandong (Luo Ronghuan in Shandong) (Beijing: Renmin chubanshe, 1986), p. 311. 136. Wang Li, “Mao Zedong on the Rectification and Cadre Examination Campaigns and the Zunyi Conference: Explaining Several Problems in the Autobiography of Wang Ruowang,” p. 124. 137. Li Weimin and Pan Tianjia, Luo Ronghuan in Shandong, p. 311. 138. Biographies of Modern Chinese Personages Series Editorial Office (ed.), A Biography of Luo Ronghuan, p. 349. 139. Li Weimin and Pan Tianjia, Luo Ronghuan in Shandong, p. 312. 140. Ibid., p. 313. 141. Ibid. This book does not refer to Wang Ruowang or Li Yu by name, but it does refer to Wang’s criticism of Li. See also Biographies of Modern Chinese Personages Series Editorial Office (ed.), A Biography of Luo Ronghuan, p. 351. This

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latter book mentions the criticism of Li Yu, but omits the criticism of Wang Ruowang. 142. Wang Li, “Mao Zedong on the Rectification and Cadre Examination Campaigns and the Zunyi Conference: Explaining Several Problems in the Autobiography of Wang Ruowang,” p. 133. 143. Li Weimin and Pan Tianjia, Luo Ronghuan in Shandong, p. 312. 144. Wang Li, “Mao Zedong on the Rectification and Cadre Examination Campaigns and the Zunyi Conference: Explaining Several Problems in the Autobiography of Wang Ruowang,” p. 124. 145. Li Weimin and Pan Tianjia, Luo Ronghuan in Shandong, pp. 317, 308‒9. 146. Ibid. 147. Ibid., p. 318. 148. Ibid. 149. Wang Li, “Mao Zedong on the Rectification and Cadre Examination Campaigns and the Zunyi Conference: Explaining Several Problems in the Autobiography of Wang Ruowang,” p. 124. 150. Ibid., p. 93. Wang Li recalls Mao saying to him and Kang Sheng in December 1963, “If I fall, Luo Ronghuan will fall with me.” 151. Ibid., p. 94. 152. Ibid.

Chapter 14 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11. 12. 13.

Mao Zedong, “The Two Lines of Anti-traitor Work” ( July 1, 1943), Wenxian he yanjiu (Documents and Research), no. 4 (1984). Biography of the Lin Boqu Compilation Group, Li Boqu zhuan (A Biography of Lin Boqu) (Beijing: Hongqi chubanshe, 1986), pp. 286–87. Liu Jiadong, Chen Yun zai Yan’an (Chen Yun in Yan’an) (Beijing: Zhongyang wenxian chubanshe, 1995), p. 114. Xie Juezai riji ( Journals of Xie Juezai) (Beijing: Renmin chubanshe, 1984), vol. 1, p. 543. Jin Cheng, Yan’an jiaojichu huiyilu (Reminiscences of the Yan’an Communications Office) (Beijing: Zhongguo qingnian chubanshe, 1986), p. 187. Central Archives (ed.), Zhonggong zhongyang wenjian xuanji (Selected Documents of the CCP Central Committee) (Beijing: Zhonggong zhongyang dangxiao chubanshe, 1992), vol. 14, pp. 89‒96. See Shi Zhe, Zai lishi juren shenbian: Shi Zhe huiyilu (In the Company of History’s Giants: The Memoirs of Shi Zhe) (Beijing: Zhongyang wenxian chubanshe, 1991), pp. 201–2; Journals of Xie Juezai, vol. 2, p. 681. Central Archives (ed.), Selected Documents of the CCP Central Committee, vol. 14, pp. 89‒96. Ibid. See Duan Jianguo and Jia Minxiu (verified by Luo Qingchang), Wang Shiying zhuanqi (The Legend of Wang Shiying) (Taiyuan: Shanxi renmin chubanshe, 1992), p. 193. Wang Ming, Zhonggong wushinian (Fifty Years of the CCP) (Beijing: Xiandai shiliao biankanshe, 1981), p. 148. Peter Vladimirov, Yan’an riji (Yan’an Diary), trans. Zhou Xin (Taipei: Lianjing chuban shiye gongsi, 1976), pp. 108, 164. (TN: The Vladimirov Diaries [New York: Doubleday, 1975], p. 163.) Vladimirov, Yan’an Diary, p. 137.

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14. Biography of the Lin Boqu Compilation Group, A Biography of Lin Boqu, p. 138. 15. Wang Zhongqing (ed.), Xu Teli zai Yan’an (Xu Teli in Yan’an) (Xi’an: Shaanxi jiaoyu chubanshe, 1991), p. 45. 16. Ibid., p. 118. 17. Ibid., p. 139. 18. Journals of Xie Juezai, vol. 1, p. 521. 19. Ibid., p. 603. 20. Ibid., p. 694. 21. Biography of the Xie Juezai Editorial Group (ed.), Xie Juezai zhuan (A Biography of Xie Juezai) (Beijing: Renmin chubanshe, 1984), pp. 292–93. 22. Journals of Xie Juezai, vol. 1, p. 708. 23. Wu Yuzhang, “My Intellectual Autobiography” (1943), in CCP Sichuan Provincial Party Committee Party History Work Committee, Biography of the Wu Yuzhang Editorial Committee (ed.), Wu Yuzhang wenji (Collected Works of Wu Yuzhang) (Chongqing: Chongqing chubanshe, 1987), vol. 2, p. 1138. 24. Biography of the Lin Boqu Compilation Group, A Biography of Lin Boqu, p. 137. 25. Liu Jiadong, Chen Yun in Yan’an, pp. 30, 112, 114. 26. Ibid., p. 114. 27. Ren Zhibin, “In Memory of a Good Daughter of the Party: Comrade Wei Gongzhi,” in CCP Henan Province Party History Work Committee (ed.), Huainian Wei Gongzhi (In Cherished Memory of Wei Gongzhi) (Zhengzhou: Henan renmin chubanshe, 1986), p. 20. 28. Vladimirov, Yan’an Diary, pp. 186–87. 29. Nie Rongzhen huiyilu (The Memoirs of Nie Rongzhen) (Beijing: Jiefang jun chubanshe, 1984), vol. 2, p. 562. 30. Liu Ying, Zai lishi de jiliu zhong: Liu Ying huiyilu (In the Torrents of History: The Memoirs of Liu Ying) (Beijing: Zhonggong dangshi chubanshe, 1992), pp. 127–28. 31. Shi Zhe, Feng yu gu: Shi Zhe huiyilu (Mountains and Valleys: The Memoirs of Shi Zhe) (Beijing: Hongqi chubanshe, 1992), p. 157. 32. Duan Jianguo and Jia Minxiu, The Legend of Wang Shiying, pp. 191–92. 33. Ibid., p. 192. 34. Ibid., p. 193. 35. Xiu Lairong, Chen Long zhuan (A Biography of Chen Long) (Beijing: Qunzhong chubanshe, 1995), pp. 148–49. 36. Originally published in Gongchan guoji yu Zhongguo geming (Wenjian ziliao ji) (The Communist International and the Chinese Revolution [A Collection of Documents]) (Moscow, 1986), pp. 295–96, quoted in Modern Chinese History Institute, Academy of Social Sciences, Guowai Zhongguo jindaishi yanjiu (Overseas Research on Modern Chinese History), trans. Zheng Hou’an (Beijing: Zhongguo shehui kexue chubanshe, 1989), vol. 13, pp. 2–3. 37. See Vladimirov, Yan’an Diary, pp. 190, 185‒86, 199‒200, 202‒5. (TN: The Vladimirov Diaries [Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1975], pp. 190–94.) See “Mao Zedong’s Cable to Dimitrov transmitted by Vladimirov” ( January 3, 1944), and “Mao Zedong’s Cable to Dimitrov transmitted by Vladimirov and an Explanation of the Circumstances,” quoted in Yang Kuisong, “Mao Zedong’s Launch of the Yan’an Rectification, Up Front and Behind the Scenes,” Jindaishi yanjiu (Modern History Research), no. 4 (1998), pp. 51–54. 38. Hu Qiaomu, Hu Qiaomu huiyi Mao Zedong (Hu Qiaomu Remembers Mao Zedong) (Beijing: Renmin chubanshe, 1994), pp. 278–80. 39. Journals of Xie Juezai, vol. 1, p. 580. 40. Jin Cheng, Reminiscences of the Yan’an Communications Office, p. 186.

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41. Hu Qiaomu, Hu Qiaomu Remembers Mao Zedong, p. 280. 42. See “Central Committee Directive Concerning Analyses of the Six Categories of People Who Made Their Confessions,” in Political Work Teaching and Research Office of the Chinese PLA National Defense University (ed.), Zhonggong dangshi jiaoxue cankao ziliao (CCP Party History Teaching Reference Materials) (Beijing: Zhongguo renmin jiefang jun guofang daxue, 1989), vol. 17, p. 387. See also CCP Central Documents Research Office (ed.), Liu Shaoqi nianpu (1898‒1969) (Chronology of Liu Shaoqi [1898‒1969]) (Beijing: Zhongyang wenxian chubanshe, 1996), vol. 1, p. 435; and Wang Suyuan, “The Complete Story of the ‘Emergency Rescue Campaign’ in the Shaan-Gan-Ning Border Area,” in CCP Central Party History Research Office (ed.), Zhonggong dangshi ziliao (CCP Party History Materials) (Beijing: Zhongyang dangshi chubanshe, 1991), no. 37, p. 225. 43. See Wang Suyuan, “The Complete Story of the ‘Emergency Rescue Campaign’ in the Shaan-Gan-Ning Border Area,” pp. 225–26. 44. Ibid. 45. Zheng Jianying, Zhu Rui zhuan (A Biography of Zhu Rui) (Beijing: Zhongyang wenxian chubanshe, 1994), p. 294. 46. See Wang Suyuan, “The Complete Story of the ‘Emergency Rescue Campaign’ in the Shaan-Gan-Ning Border Area,” p. 228. 47. Ibid., pp. 228, 221. 48. Ibid. 49. See Zhong Kan, Kang Sheng pingzhuan (A Critical Biography of Kang Sheng) (Beijing: Hongqi chubanshe, 1982), p. 95. 50. See Wang Suyuan, “The Complete Story of the ‘Emergency Rescue Campaign’ in the Shaan-Gan-Ning Border Area,” p. 223. 51. Shi Zhe, Mountains and Valleys, pp. 217, 216. 52. Ibid., p. 216. Shi Zhe says that it is not known what subsequently happened to Wang Zunji, but this is not true. Zhong Kan’s A Critical Biography of Kang Sheng (p. 78) states that Wang Zunji was detained in Yan’an from 1939 to 1946, implying that she was released in 1946, but there is no indication of what happened to her thereafter.

Chapter 15 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6.

He Peiyuan, “On the Characteristics of Philosophy and the Sinification of New Philosophy,” Zhongguo wenhua (Chinese Culture) vol. 3, nos. 2/3 (August 20, 1941); He Peiyuan, “On the Particularity of China,” Chinese Culture, inaugural issue. CCP Central Documents Research Office (ed.), Liu Shaoqi nianpu (1898‒1969) (Chronology of Liu Shaoqi [1898‒1969]) (Beijing: Zhongyang wenxian chubanshe, 1996) (cited hereafter as Chronology of Liu Shaoqi), vol. 1, pp. 357–58. CCP Central Documents Research Office (ed.), Mao Zedong nianpu 1893‒1949 (Chronolog y of Mao Zedong 1893‒1949) (Beijing: Zhong yang wenxian chubanshe, 1993), vol. 2, pp. 434–35. Liu Shaoqi, “Purge Menshevikism in the Party,” in Mao Zedong xuanji (Selected Works of Mao Zedong) (N.p.: Suzhong chubanshe, 1945), vol. 1 (the article is in place of a preface to “On Mao Zedong Thought”), p. 1. Zhu De, “Impressions on the Twenty-second Anniversary of ‘July 1,’” in Selected Works of Mao Zedong, vol. 1 (the article is in place of a preface to “On Mao Zedong Thought”), p. 1. Peng Dehuai, “Democratic Politics and the 3-3 System Regime,” in Selected Works of Mao Zedong, vol. 1 (the article is in place of a preface to “On Mao Zedong Thought”), pp. 14–15.

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7. 8. 9. 10. 11. 12. 13. 14. 15. 16.

17. 18.

19. 20. 21. 22. 23. 24. 25. 26. 27. 28. 29.

Chen Yi, “A Great Twenty-One Years,” in Selected Works of Mao Zedong, vol. 1 (the article is in place of a preface to “On Mao Zedong Thought”), pp. 18, 12, 11. See Selected Works of Mao Zedong, vol. 1 (the article is in place of a preface to “On Mao Zedong Thought”), p. 22. See also Wenxian he yanjiu (Documents and Research), no. 5 (1986), p. 321. Selected Works of Mao Zedong, vol. 1 (the article is in place of a preface to “On Mao Zedong Thought”), p. 19. Lu Dingyi, “Why the Rectification Movement is the Party’s Ideological Revolution,” in Selected Works of Mao Zedong, vol. 1 (the article is in place of a preface to “On Mao Zedong Thought”), p. 13. Wang Jiaxiang, “The CCP and the Road to the Chinese People’s Liberation,” in Selected Works of Mao Zedong, vol. 1 (the article is in place of a preface to “On Mao Zedong Thought”), p. 5. Bo Gu, “Under Mao Zedong’s Banner, Fight to Protect the Chinese Communist Party!” in Selected Works of Mao Zedong, vol. 1 (the article is in place of a preface to “On Mao Zedong Thought”), p. 20. Deng Fa, “Who Cherishes Youth? Who Harms Youth?” in Selected Works of Mao Zedong, vol. 1 (the article is in place of a preface to “On Mao Zedong Thought”), p. 17. Ai Siqi, “The Stultifying Philosophy of China’s Destiny,” in Selected Works of Mao Zedong, vol. 1 (the article is in place of a preface to “On Mao Zedong Thought”), p. 21. Xu Teli, “Chairman Mao’s Pragmatic Spirit,” in Selected Works of Mao Zedong, vol. 1 (the article is in place of a preface to “On Mao Zedong Thought”), p. 5. Wu Yuzhang, “My Intellectual Autobiography,” in CCP Sichuan Provincial Party Committee Party History Work Committee Biography of the Wu Yuzhang Editorial Committee (ed.), Wu Yuzhang wenji (Collected Works of Wu Yuzhang) (Chongqing: Chongqing chubanshe, 1987), vol. 2, pp. 1337–38. Zhou Enlai, “Speech at the Yan’an Welcoming Reception,” in Selected Works of Mao Zedong, vol. 1 (the article is in place of a preface to “On Mao Zedong Thought”), pp. 17–18. Bai Xiude [Theodore H. White], Tansuo lishi (In Search of History), trans. Ma Qinghuai and Fang Sheng (Beijing: Shenghuo dushu xinzhi sanlian shudian, 1987), p. 163 (TN: Theodore H. White, In Search of History [New York: Harper & Row, 1978], p. 186). Xie Juezai riji ( Journals of Xie Juezai) (Beijing: Renmin chubanshe, 1984), vol. 1, p. 550. Ibid. Wang Ming, Zhonggong wushinian (Fifty Years of the CCP) (Beijing: Xiandai shiliao biankanshe, 1981), pp. 146–47. Liu Ying, Zai lishi de jiliu zhong: Liu Ying huiyilu (In the Torrents of History: The Memoirs of Liu Ying) (Beijing: Zhonggong dangshi chubanshe, 1992), p. 128. Wang Ming, Fifty Years of the CCP, p. 148. Hu Qiaomu, Hu Qiaomu huiyi Mao Zedong (Hu Qiaomu Remembers Mao Zedong) (Beijing: Renmin chubanshe, 1994), pp. 289, 290. Liu Ying, In the Torrents of History, p. 128. See Wang Ming, Fifty Years of the CCP, p. 149. See also Li Zhiying, Bo Gu zhuan (A Biography of Bo Gu) (Beijing: Dangdai Zhongguo chubanshe, 1994), p. 453. Chronology of Liu Shaoqi, vol. 1, p. 430. Ibid., p. 433. Hu Qiaomu, Hu Qiaomu Remembers Mao Zedong, p. 286.

N otes   |   7 7 1

30. “Central Committee Directive Regarding Learning From the Essay ‘Oppose Opportunism in the United Front’” (December 28, 1943), in Central Archives (ed.), Zhonggong zhongyang wenjian xuanji (Selected Documents of the CCP Central Committee) (Beijing: Zhonggong zhongyang dangxiao chubanshe, 1992), vol. 14, pp. 142‒43. 31. Wang Yan (ed.), Peng Dehuai nianpu (Chronology of Peng Dehuai) (Beijing: Renmin chubanshe, 1998), p. 275. 32. Ibid., pp. 280–81. 33. Ibid., pp. 289–90. 34. Ibid., p. 281. 35. Ibid., p. 290. 36. Ibid., p. 295. 37. Peng Dehuai zishu (The Autobiography of Peng Dehuai) (Beijing: Renmin chubanshe, 1981), p. 238. 38. Chinese People’s Revolution Military Museum, Baituan dazhan lishi wenxian ziliao xuanbian (Selected Historical Documentary Material on the Hundred Regiments Offensive) (Beijing: Jiefangjun chubanshe, 1991), p. 14. 39. Nie Rongzhen, Nie Rongzhen huiyilu (The Memoirs of Nie Rongzhen) (Beijing: Jiefang jun chubanshe, 1984), p. 507. See also Bo Yibo, “Recollections of Two or Three Things About Comrade Chen Yi” ( June 30, 1988), in Bo Yibo, Lingxiu, yuanshuai, zhanyou (Leader, Marshal, Comrade-in-Arms) (Beijing: Zhonggong zhongyang dangxiao chubanshe, 1992), pp. 139–40. 40. See Bo Yibo, Leader, Marshal, Comrade-in-Arms, pp. 368–69. 41. Shi Zhe, Zai lishi juren shenbian: Shi Zhe huiyilu (In the Company of History’s Giants: The Memoirs of Shi Zhe) (Beijing: Zhongyang wenxian chubanshe, 1991), pp. 269–70. 42. See Bo Yibo, Qishinian fendou yu sikao, shang juan: Zhanzheng suiyue (Seventy Years of Struggle and Reflection, Vol. 1: The War Years) (Beijing: Zhonggong dangshi chubanshe, 1996), p. 367. 43. Nie Rongzhen, The Memoirs of Nie Rongzhen, pp. 560–64. 44. Biographies of Modern Chinese Personages Series Editorial Board (ed.), Chen Yi zhuan (A Biography of Chen Yi) (Beijing: Dangdai Zhongguo chubanshe, 1991), p. 323. 45. Bo Yibo, Leader, Marshal, Comrade-in-Arms, p. 141. 46. Gao Gang, “A Thorough Discussion of the Historical Problems of the Border Region Party” (November 17, 18, 1942), in Warren Kuo [Guo Hualun], Zhonggong shilun (Analytical History of the Chinese Communist Party) (Taipei: Guoli zhengzhi daxue, Zhonghua minguo guoji guanxi yanjiusuo, 1971), vol. 3, p. 96. 47. Mao Zedong, “Twelve Points of Bolshevization,” in Mao Zedong lun dang de lishi (Mao Zedong on the History of the Party) (Nanjing: Nanjing daxue yinxing, n.d.), pp. 36–37. 48. Ren Bishi, “Explanation of Two Points in the Central Committee’s Decision on a Renewed Investigation into the Problems of the Campaign against Counterrevolutionaries in Northern Shaanxi and a Thorough Discussion of the Lessons of History” (N.p.: Chinese People’s Liberation Army First Artillery School Political Education Room, October 1980). 49. Kuo, Analytical History of the Chinese Communist Party, vol. 3, p. 120. 50. Duan Jianguo and Jia Minxiu (verified by Luo Qingchang), Wang Shiying zhuanqi (The Legend of Wang Shiying) (Taiyuan: Shanxi renmin chubanshe, 1992), p. 200. 51. Ibid., p. 201. 52. Shi Zhe, In the Company of History’s Giants, pp. 220–22.

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53. Wang Ming, Fifty Years of the CCP, pp. 170–71, 157. 54. Ibid. 55. Zhang Wentian, “Speech at the Seventh National Congress of the Chinese Communist Party,” in CCP Central Party History Research Office (ed.), Zhonggong dangshi ziliao (CCP Party History Materials) (Beijing: Zhonggong dangshi chubanshe, 1995), no. 53, pp. 15–16, 8–9. 56. Wang Yan (ed.), Chronology of Peng Dehuai, p. 297. 57. See Yang Li, Daice de hong meigui: Gu Dacun chen yuanlu (Thorned Rose: The Gross Injustice against Gu Dacun) (Guangzhou: Zhonggong Guangdong shengwei dangshi yanjiushi, 1997), pp. 32–34. 58. See Bo Yibo, Leader, Marshal, Comrade-in-Arms, p. 375.

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Zhu Zhongli. Dawn and Dusk (Liming yu wanxia). Beijing: Jiefangjun chubanshe, 1986. Zhu Jingming. A Biography of Li Da (Li Da zhuanji). Wuhan: Hubei renmin chubanshe, 1986.

IV. Newspapers and Periodicals Annals of Chinese Descendants (Yanhuang chunqiu). Beijing: China Yanhuang Chunqiu Cultural Research Association. CCP Party History Research (Zhonggong dangshi yanjiu). Beijing: CCP Central Party History Research Office. China Social Sciences Quarterly (Zhongguo shehui kexue jikan). Hong Kong: Hong Kong Social Sciences Press. The Communist (Gongchandang ren). 1939–1941. Documents and Research (Wenxian he yanjiu). Beijing: CCP Central Documents Research Office. Historical Materials on New Literature (Xin wenxue shiliao). Beijing: Renmin wenxue chubanshe. Hundred Year Tide (Bainianchao). Beijing: Chinese Society of History of the Communist Party of China. Liberation Daily ( Jiefang ribao). 1941–1945. Liberation Weekly ( Jiefang zhoukan). 1937–1941. Modern China Historical Research (Dangdai Zhongguo yanjiu). Beijing: Dangdai Zhongguoshi yanjiusuo. Modern Chinese History (Zhongguo xiandai shi). Beijing: Renmin University of China Information Center for the Social Sciences. Modern Chinese History Studies ( Jindaishi yanjiu). Beijing: Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, Institute of Modern History. New China Digest (Xinhua wenzhai). Beijing: Renmin chubanshe. New China Times (Xinhua ribao). 1938–1945. Party Documents (Dangde wenxian). Beijing: Zhonggong zhongyang wenxian yanjiushi and Zhongyang dang’anguan. Party History Bulletin (Dangshi tongxun). Beijing: Zhonggong zhongyang dangshi yanjiushi. Party History Research (Dangshi yanjiu). Beijing: Zhonggong zhongyang dangxiao. Party History Research Materials (Dangshi yanjiu ziliao). Beijing: Zhongguo geming bowuguan dangshi yanjiushi. Twenty-first Century (Ershiyi shiji). Hong Kong: Institute of Chinese Studies, The Chinese University of Hong Kong.

V. English-language Materials Apter, David E. and Tony Saich. Revolutionary Discourse in Mao’s Republic. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1994. Bryon, John and Robert Pack. The Claws of the Dragon: Kang Sheng, the Evil Genius behind Mao and his Legacy of Terror in People’s China. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1992. Faligot, Roger and Rémi Kauffer. The Chinese Secret Service, trans. Christine Donougher. London: Headline, 1989. Selden, Mark. The Yenan Way in Revolutionary China. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1971. Snow, Edgar. Red Star over China. London: Random House, 1979. Wylie, Raymond F. The Emergence of Maoism: Mao Tse-tung, Ch’en Po-ta, and the Search for Chinese History, 1935–1945. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1980.

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Index

Ai Qing 艾青 , 342, 344, 366, 380, 383, 401, 579, 589 Ai Siqi 艾思奇 , 207–12, 376, 378, 387n, 397, 421, 491, 555, 661, 669 An Ziwen 安子文 , 239, 416, 572, 577, 602, 703–4 Anti-spy Struggle Committee (of the CCP Central Committee) 中 共中央反內奸鬥爭委員會 , 535–36 Anwubao Youth Training Course 安吳堡 青訓班 , 210–11, 253, 738n17 “April 3 Decision”「四三決定」, 358, 421, 425, 454, 501 “August 1 Manifesto”〈八一宣言〉, 124, 673 Autumn Harvest Uprising 秋收暴動 , 6, 271, 625 Bai Lang 白朗 , 366, 555, 578 Bai Dongcai 白楝材 , 572 Bai Tian (Wei Wei) 白天（魏巍）, 641 baring one’s heart to the Party 交心 , 448 Bi Ye 碧野 , 368 Blyukher, Vasily 加倫 , 276 Bo Gu (Qin Bangxian) 博古（秦邦 憲）, 36–37, 64–65, 69, 78–85,

88, 95–97, 100–101, 103, 106–7, 116–22, 125–26, 130, 132–33, 136, 147, 149, 155–59, 161–65, 180, 184, 188, 202, 204, 208, 214–15, 219, 249, 265, 270, 272, 274, 278, 284–91, 294, 298, 301, 302, 304–5, 307–8, 313–14, 316–19, 324, 327, 330, 333–34, 337, 339, 341–42, 345, 358n, 362, 373–74, 376, 383n, 390, 393–98, 401, 403–4, 412, 424, 427–28, 440, 450, 499, 511, 535, 554–55, 563, 580, 612, 633–34, 663, 668, 671–76, 679, 685, 688–90, 693–94, 696–98, 702, 730n1 Bo Yibo 薄一波 , 144, 552, 572, 576, 581, 652, 678, 683, 703–4 Bolshevik 布爾什維克 , 4–5, 15, 34, 73, 114, 117, 201, 302n, 311n, 350, 433, 666 Braun, Otto (Li De) 李德（奧托．布勞 恩）, 80, 82, 85, 96–97, 100, 121, 159, 175n, 292, 511, 612, 730n1 cadre examination campaign 審幹運 動 , 358, 363, 467–68, 489, 494, 496–97, 500, 502n, 508, 510, 516,

7 9 8   |   I ndex  

520–21, 523, 527–30, 532–40, 542, 544, 546–47, 549, 554–60, 562–63, 567, 571, 573–74, 578, 580, 582–83, 585–87, 590–91, 600–1, 603–5, 609, 611, 620–21, 624, 627, 629, 631, 633–34, 636–39, 642, 648–51, 653–54, 658, 672, 687, 695, 699–701, 703, 712, 760n67 Cai Chang 蔡暢 , 258, 282, 299, 330, 553, 564 Cai Shufan 蔡樹藩 , 572 Cai Ziwei 蔡子偉 , 655 campaign to eliminate counterrevolutionaries 肅反 , 10–11, 19, 23, 29, 46–49, 51, 54–62, 64–65, 77, 161, 265, 317, 363, 439, 471–72, 474, 478, 481, 497–98, 504–9, 524, 560, 606, 609, 682, 688, 702, 758n38 campaign to eliminate the AB League「肅 AB 團」, 11, 15, 17, 47–48, 56, 58–60, 64–65, 317, 506n, 507–8, 682 campaign to eliminate the Socialist Democratic Party「肅社會民 主黨」 （肅社黨）, 47–48, 51–52, 56–59, 62, 506n campaign to eliminate Trotskyites「肅 托」, 243, 471–74, 477–82, 507–8, 592, 617, 624 candor campaign 坦白運動 , 449, 465, 467–68, 500, 541, 548, 559, 567, 588, 597, 603, 621, 623, 628, 636, 647, 649, 652, 658 Cao Lihuai 曹里懷 , 432–33 Cao Xiangren 曹祥仁 , 557 Cao Ying 曹瑛 , 553 Cao Yi’ou 曹軼歐 , 329, 332, 357n, 373n, 475n, 567, 568, 569, 658 CCP Central Bureau 中共中央局 , 82–83, 85–86, 304 CCP Central Committee General Office

中共中央辦公廳 , 263, 549, 633, 696 CCP Central Committee Political Bureau (Politburo) 中共中央政治局 , 30–32, 38, 40, 86, 119, 169, 242, 316, 515, 672, 715 Central China Bureau (of the CCP Central Committee) 中共中央 中原局 , 238–39, 241, 528, 534, 552, 604, 606–9, 615, 662, 681, 683, 741n30, 759n51 Central Committee General Study Committee 中央總學委 , 322n, 327, 425, 501, 549, 628, 672 Central Committee Secretariat 中共中 央書記處 , 中共中央秘書處 , 84, 99, 107, 110, 121, 130n, 142, 155–57, 163–65, 167–68, 170, 214, 217, 235, 238, 241, 243–44, 247–49, 261–63, 268, 282, 285–86, 288, 298, 309, 312, 318, 326, 333, 391, 405, 408, 414, 421–22, 467n, 492, 509, 514–15, 528, 531–32, 553, 601, 606, 633, 646, 672, 694–96, 702 Central Healthcare Committee 中央保 健委員會 , 224 Central Party School 中共中央黨校 , ix, 86, 204, 211, 222, 244–45, 256, 280–81, 319, 327, 329, 333, 363, 370n, 383, 394, 402–417, 421–23, 426, 438, 445, 447, 455–56, 458, 490, 495, 516–17, 521, 537, 544, 547, 566, 572, 574–81, 619–20, 638, 640–41, 651–52, 699, 701, 747n3 Central Soviet Area 中央蘇區 , 27, 45, 59, 61–62, 64–65, 67–73, 78–79, 80n, 83–87, 97, 118–19, 121, 126, 216, 249, 260, 267, 270–71, 275–76, 301, 304–5, 356, 510, 524, 572, 612, 663, 682

I ndex   |   7 9 9

Central Youth Committee 中央青委 , 210, 211n, 359, 440, 443, 552, 657 Chen An 陳岸 , 476 Chen Bocun 陳伯村 , 582, 635 Chen Boda 陳伯達 , 105n, 207–12, 246, 301, 314, 337, 344, 379, 386n, 402, 421, 437, 661, 672, 738n10 Chen Boer 陳波兒 , 578, 580 Chen Changhao 陳昌浩 , 91, 477 Chen Duxiu 陳獨秀 , 10, 15–16, 63, 103, 105, 188, 162, 428, 472–73, 672 Chen Fusheng (Chen Husheng) 陳復生 （陳湖生）, 474–76, 479 Chen Geng 陳賡 , 106, 260, 572, 703–4 Chen Huangmei 陳荒煤 , 366, 380, 589 Chen Jitang 陳濟棠 , 127–28 Chen Long 陳龍 , 492–94, 554, 640–42, 655 Chen Ming 陳明 , 578, 746n1 Chen Qihan 陳奇涵 , 572 Chen Qixia 陳企霞 , 342, 373n, 555 Chen Shaomin 陳少敏 , 267 Chen Tanqiu 陳潭秋 , 122, 250 Chen Xilian 陳錫聯 , 572 Chen Yi 陳沂 , 621 Chen Yi 陳毅 , 13, 80, 240, 271, 277, 314, 371, 502, 528, 534, 601, 604–5, 639, 666–67, 681–83, 759n51 Chen Yu 陳郁 , 112, 478, 572 Chen Yuandao 陳原道 , 602 Chen Yuanfang 陳元方 , 563 Chen Yun 陳雲 , 83, 111, 115, 121–23, 127, 148–49, 155, 157, 160, 170, 210–11, 242–44, 246, 249–50, 254–56, 259, 261, 263, 267, 282, 295, 301, 304, 307–8, 311, 317–18, 327, 329–30, 332–33, 359, 386, 404, 413, 416, 421, 440, 443, 473, 480–81, 483, 485–86, 495, 516–17, 537, 546, 549, 637–39, 662, 672, 678, 687, 702–3

Chen Zaidao 陳再道 , 572 Chen Zhengren 陳正人 , 23, 25–26, 34, 62, 330, 511 Cheng Quan (Chen Chuan’gang) 成全 （陳傳綱）, 445, 521, 632 Cheng Zihua 程子華 , 264–65, 590, 591 Chiang Kai-shek 蔣介石 , vii, x, xii, 49, 72, 78n, 81, 90, 121, 124–25, 127–29, 130n, 132–33, 145, 151n, 153, 158, 164, 166, 176, 185–89, 225–30, 234n, 238, 273, 293–94, 408, 458–60, 464, 474n, 530, 585, 680, 733n58 China Women’s College 中國女子大學 , 219, 222, 280–282, 289, 458, 460, 477, 490–91, 549, 554 Chinese Communist Party (CCP) 中共 （中國共產黨）, vii–viii, xv, 1, 73, 89, 131, 171, 177–80, 182, 199, 221, 279, 323, 334–35, 389, 419, 471, 610, 628, 643, 661, 665–67, 669–70, 708 Chuikov, Vasily 崔可夫 , 234 class struggle 階級鬥爭 , 64, 181, 191, 193, 200, 309, 362, 387n, 462, 508, 589, 635 Communist International (Comintern) 共產國際 , xi–xii, 2–3, 5, 10, 16, 30, 32, 36, 39–42, 48, 59, 65–67, 78, 80–89, 98, 102–3, 106, 111–18, 120–28, 130n, 147–50, 152–53, 155, 158–62, 173–85, 187, 204, 212–13, 216–17, 225, 230, 232, 239, 243, 247, 250, 263, 271, 273, 278–79, 283, 286–93, 299–311, 317–18, 322, 326, 329, 333, 335–37, 354, 362, 390, 393, 395–96, 403–7, 412, 414, 420–21, 423, 428, 433, 440, 473, 499, 502, 513, 517, 533, 643–44, 662, 668, 673, 681, 685, 691–92, 694, 697, 730n1, 735n8

8 0 0   |   I ndex  

Comrade, You’re Traveling the Wrong Road 《同志，你走錯了路！》, 580 Dai Jikang 戴季康 , 610 Dai Jiying 戴季英 , 265, 687 December 9th Movement 一 九運動 , 553 December Politburo Meeting (1937) 十 月政治局會議 , 148–50, 152–54, 156–63, 167, 169, 171, 173, 176–77, 183, 186, 235, 243, 248, 286, 295, 308–310, 312n, 695, 733n65, 735n8 “democratic scrutiny rallies” 民主大會 , 541, 620, 621, 622–24 Deng Fa 鄧發 , 48, 50–54, 56–58, 60–61, 65, 75–76, 98, 150, 152, 155, 160–61, 184, 204, 219, 245, 248, 301, 306–7, 327, 330, 349, 404–10, 440, 473, 510, 512, 552, 668, 672, 674, 683, 702 Deng Jie 鄧潔 , 251 Deng Liqun 鄧力群 , 497–98 Deng Tuo 鄧拓 , 591, 663–64 Deng Xiaoping 鄧小平 , 45, 119n, 137, 169, 173, 276–77, 314–15, 370, 386n, 414, 545n, 564, 602, 614 Deng Yingchao 鄧穎超 , 63, 99, 162, 247, 285n, 291, 511–12, 545 Deng Zihui 鄧子恢 , 50, 84, 119n, 607–8 Dimitrov, Georgi 季米特洛夫 , 127–30, 152–53, 175, 179–84, 188–89, 273–74, 279, 287, 292, 309–11, 420, 449, 502, 533, 643–46, 677, 694 Ding Ling 丁玲 , 225, 342–44, 357n, 363, 365–66, 368, 370, 373n, 386–87, 396n, 401, 457, 468n, 495–496, 555, 572, 574, 580, 711 Ding Mocun 丁默邨 , 228–29 Ding Xiu 丁秀 , 480 Dong Biwu 董必武 , 83, 122n, 162–65, 227n, 291, 404, 412, 750n64

Du Xiujing 杜修經 , 8–9 Du Zhengyuan 杜徵遠 , 546–48 Duan Liangbi 段良弼 , 22–26, 28, 33–37 Eighth Route Army 八路軍 , 131–37, 139–44, 146, 150, 153–55, 163, 165–66, 168–69, 172–73, 176, 220, 224, 226–27, 231–33, 236, 251–52, 256, 258, 260, 268–69, 272–74, 276, 283, 287, 297, 311, 321, 327, 333, 349, 364, 394, 404, 473, 477, 480, 490, 519, 522, 547, 556, 561, 573, 579, 583–85, 589, 593–94, 602–3, 605, 611–14, 616, 625, 637, 640, 679, 680, 695, 731n22, 755n59 emergency rescue campaign 搶救運動 , 383n, 471, 497–98, 500–3, 508, 526, Chapter 13, Chapter 14, 699–701, 712 fake execution 假槍斃 , 302, 544, 563, 570, 575 Fan Wenlan 范文瀾 , 344, 356, 402, 431, 578, 709, 713 Fang Ji 方紀 , 578 Fang Yi 方毅 , 251 “February 7 Land Law”〈 七土地法〉, 66–67 Feng Lanrui 馮蘭瑞 , 578 Feng Shaobai 馮少白 , 236 Feng Wenbin 馮文彬 , 210–11 , 252–53 Feng Xuan 馮鉉 , 115, 514 Feng Xuefeng 馮雪峰 , 367, 374–76, 378–79, 385–86, 750n55 Fifth Plenum of the Sixth Central Committee (of the CCP) 中共 六屆五中全會 , 82–84, 111, 120, 149, 155–56, 161, 190, 250, 275, 290n, 301, 304, 306, 316–17, 573, 612, 694 First Front Red Army 紅一方面軍 , 12, 20–23, 25, 27, 38–39, 43, 57,

I ndex   |   8 0 1

60–61, 67, 72, 74–75, 85, 98n, 284, 432, 506n, 682, 758n38 First Plenum of the Seventh Central Committee (of the CCP) 中共七 屆一中全會 , 690, 701, 704 Fourth Front Red Army 紅四方面軍 , 91, 93, 272n, 276, 370n, 412, 432, 473, 560, 572 Fourth Plenum of the Sixth Central Committee (of the CCP) 中共 六屆四中全會 , 11, 36, 39–42, 45, 48, 57, 67, 102–4, 106, 109, 111–12, 115–16, 174, 213, 216–17, 242, 313–14, 316–18, 684–85, 690, 694 Fu Bocui 傅伯翠 , 48–49, 52–53, 58–59 Fu Lianzhang 傅連暲 , 258 Futian Incident 富田事變 , x, 11, 16, 24–29, 33–44, 46, 48, 50, 53, 56, 59, 216n, 317, 506n, 656, 684–85, 690 Gao Changhong 高長虹 , 373, 383–84, 579–80, 589 Gao Gang 高崗 , 263–70, 301, 327, 330, 448, 520, 536, 557, 562–563, 568, 639–40, 672, 674, 678, 687, 689, 704 Gao Jingting 敬亭 , 609 Gao Wenhua 高文華 , 106n, 416 Gao Zili 高自立 , 84, 112, 673 Ge Baoquan 戈寶權 , 394 “Going Down South”〈南下歌〉, 572 Gong Chu 龔楚 , 79–80, 85, 87 Gu Bo 古柏 , 23–28, 511, 564n Gu Dacun 古大存 , 537, 571, 577, 699–701 Gu Shunping 顧順平 , 476 Gu Shunzhang 顧順章 , 228, 242, 516 Gu Zuolin 顧作霖 , 39, 41, 75–76, 83, 690 Guan Xiangying 關向應 , 155, 371, 594 Guanghua Farm 光華農場 , 224 Guo Hongtao 郭洪濤 , 264–67, 481, 612, 687–89

Guo Huaruo 郭化若 , 199 Guo Moruo 郭沫若 , 385 Guo Shushen 郭述申 , 572, 581 Guo Xiaotang 郭嘵棠 , 547, 575 Guo Yingqiu 郭影秋 , 480 Gutian Conference 古田會議 , 12, 20 “half-hearted”「半條心」, 446–48, 467, 521, 643 Han Xianchu 韓先楚 , 572 Hatem, George (Ma Haide) 馬海德 , 556 He Changgong 何長工 , 560 He Ganzhi 何幹之 , 207–9, 211–12, 376 He Jingzhi 賀敬之 , 366 He Kequan (Kai Feng) 何克全（凱豐）, 83, 101, 106, 150, 162, 165–67, 173, 184, 188, 204, 211, 285, 288, 291, 298, 301, 306–7, 311, 322, 327, 329–31, 336, 390–91, 421, 440, 531, 551, 663, 674, 701 He Long 賀龍 , 64, 91, 141, 173, 275–76, 330, 357n, 373, 440, 555, 561, 594, 601, 657, 672, 678, 748n24 He Peiyuan 和培元 , 661 He Qifang 何其芳 , 366, 380, 385–86 He Shishan 何實山 , 122, 656 He Shuheng 何叔衡 , 84, 554, 656 He Sijing 何思敬 , 207, 421 History of the CPSU (History of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (Bolsheviks), Short Course) 《聯共黨史》, 199–202, 215, 218, 303, 399, 406, 411, 713, 738n5 Hu Di 胡底 , 62 Hu Feng 胡風 , 208, 364, 367–68, 375–76, 379, 384–85 Hu Gongmian 胡公冕 , 530 Hu Qiaomu 胡喬木 , 95n, 201, 207–12, 215, 219, 221n, 246, 252–53, 301, 311–12, 314–15, 322, 329–30, 332, 338–39, 357, 359, 365, 374–75, 377–78, 380, 384–87, 397–99, 401, 421, 425, 434, 440, 450,

8 0 2   |   I ndex  

528n, 535, 568, 653, 672, 739n19, 747n4, 747n7 Hu Xikui 胡錫奎 , 239 Hu Yaobang 胡耀邦 , 179, 407, 558, 559 Hu Yuzhi 胡愈之 , 113 Hu Zongnan 胡宗南 , 227n, 474, 530, 631n, 657, 658 Hua Junwu 華君武 , 370 Huang Chao 黃超 , 473, 476 Huang Chibo 黃赤波 , 514 Huang Gonglüe 黃公略 , 26–28 Huang Huoqing 黃火青 , 32, 284, 571, 581, 691 Huang Jing 黃敬 , 239, 591 Huang Kecheng 黃克誠 , 20, 606–7 Huang Wenjie 黃文傑 , 125, 251 Huang Yaguang 黃亞光 , 566, 583 Huang Yaomian 黃藥眠 , 112, 125, 252, 254–57 Hui Yuyu 惠浴宇 , 256 Huili Conference 會理會議 , 94–96, 101 Hundred Regiments Offensive 百團大 戰 , 140, 227, 679–80 ideology 意識形態 , 5, 147, 191, 198, 202, 204, 206, 222, 225, 316, 326, 330, 354, 403, 420, 441, 492, 500, 592, 701 Jia Tuofu 賈拓夫 , 260, 266–67, 567, 678 Jiang Guangchi 蔣光赤 , 367 Jiang Hanbo 江漢波 , 14–15 Jiang Hua 江華 , 415, 616 Jiang Nanxiang 蔣南翔 , 329, 552, 600n, 658 Jiang Qing 江青 , 241, 244, 262n, 283, 295, 331, 378, 464n, 514, 554, 557, 645n, 692n, 711 Jin Cheng 金城 , 586, 648 Jin Wanbang 金萬邦 , 23–24, 33, 43 Jin Ziguang 金紫光 , 578 Jin-Cha-Ji Sub-bureau (of the CCP

Central Committee) 中共中央 晉察冀分局 , 169, 239, 407, 590 Jinggang Mountain 井岡山 1, 3, 6, 11, 13, 20, 80n, 87–88, 271, 415n, 432, 572, 605, 625 Jinggang Mountain Faction 井岡山派 , 270–71 “Jinggang Mountain Land Law”〈井岡山 土地法〉, 66 Kang Sheng 康生 , xii–xiii, 111, 115, 119–20, 124, 148–49, 152, 155, 157, 160, 166, 170, 227n, 241–46, 249–50, 255, 257, 259, 285–86, 301, 304, 307, 311, 314, 317–18, 321–23, 327–34, 346, 357–58, 361, 382–83, 396, 404–5, 411, 413, 420–21, 425–26, 434, 439–44, 447–48, 465, 471–72, 473–79, 481–82, 492, 494–503, 505, 507, 509–10, 512–23, 525–33, 535–36, 538–40, 543, 546–51, 554–56, 558–59, 562, 564–67, 571, 575, 580, 583–84, 586, 601–2, 617n, 620, 627–29, 633–34, 636–41, 644–46, 652, 654–59, 662, 667, 672–74, 676, 679, 687, 690–92, 694, 699, 701, 704, 754n42, 757n23, 767n150 Ke Bainian 柯柏年 , 431–432 Ke Qingshi 柯慶施 , 105n, 106, 280, 333, 549–52, 557, 727n31 Ke Zhongping 柯仲平 , 369 “kill none and arrest few”「一個不殺， 大部不捉」, 628, 630, 642 Kollontai, Alexandra 柯侖泰 , 345 Kong Yuan (Chen Tiezheng) 孔原（陳鐵 錚）, 112, 115, 123, 266–67, 572, 574, 641, 656 Kuang Hui’an 鄺惠安 , 242 Kuang Yaming 匡亞明 , 332, 442, 754n42 Kuomintang (KMT) 國民黨 xviii, 1, 6n,

I ndex   |   8 0 3

11–12, 16, 22, 81, 89, 151–52, 169–71, 185, 189–91, 223, 271n, 280, 344, 364, 391, 419, 490, 527, 530, 534, 539, 542, 549, 553, 566–67, 595, 616, 628, 663, 676, 700, 716, 731n22 Labor Movement Committee (of the CCP Central Committee) 中央 職工運動委員會 , 552 Lan Linbin 藍琳彬 , 567 land investigation campaign 查田運動 , 68–70, 78, 120 Lei Renmin 雷任民 , 599 Li Baifang 李白芳 , 22–26, 28, 33, 35–36, 43 Li Baohua 李葆華 , 239 Li Bozhao 李伯釗 , 83, 402, 572–73 Li Dazhang 李大章 , 239, 602 Li Fuchun 李富春 , 62, 95, 184, 207, 246, 249–50, 256–59, 261, 263, 299, 301, 312–13, 327, 329–31, 333–34, 413, 421, 434, 440, 481, 500, 549–51, 672–74, 679, 687 Li Guohua 李國華 , 445, 673 Li Jingquan 李井泉 , 315, 560 Li Jingyu 李菁玉 , 602 Li Kenong 李克農 , 60, 62, 99n, 162, 227n, 248, 251, 260, 510–11, 518, 521, 523–25, 559, 704 Li Lisan 李立三 , 17, 21–22, 40, 112, 122, 188, 301, 317, 685 Li Liuru 李六如 , 434 Li Peizhi 李培芝 , 572 Li Qiang 李強 , 513–14 Li Rui 李銳 , 359n, 543–44, 555 Li Shaojiu 李韶九 , 23–26, 28, 35, 61, 62, 682 Li Shiqun 李士群 , 228–29 Li Shiying 李士英 , 242, 514 Li Te 李特 , 473, 476 Li Weihan (Luo Mai) 李維漢（羅邁）,

83, 301, 308, 330, 336, 344, 356, 360, 402, 404, 444, 562–66, 571, 639, 672, 674 Li Wenlin 李文林 , 13–15, 17, 19–22, 24, 61–62 Li Xiannian 李先念 , 250, 267, 476–77, 609 Li Xiaochu 李曉初 , 592–93 Li Xuefeng 李雪峰 , 106n, 602–3 Li Yimeng 李一氓 , 62, 295, 510, 511n, 756n8 Li Yimin 李逸民 , 521, 523–25, 557 Li Yu 黎玉 , 106n, 612, 621–22, 766n141 Li Zhusheng 李竹聲 , 82, 228 Li Zongren 李宗仁 , 124n, 127–28, 259 Liang Shuming 梁漱溟 , 192 Liao Huanxing 廖煥星 , 162 Liao Jingdan 廖井丹 , 595 Liao Luyan 廖魯言 , 332–33 Light Cavalry《輕騎隊》, 355, 359, 396n, 440, 443, 563 Lin Biao 林彪 , 91–95, 139–40, 155, 163, 272–73, 299, 315, 408–9, 638, 672 Lin Boqu 林伯渠 , 83, 150, 162, 268, 301, 330, 433, 461–62, 464n, 522, 564–66, 628, 634, 637, 648, 672 Lin Feng 林楓 , 239, 503, 594–95, 601, 703 Lin Hao 林浩 , 623 Lin Keyi 藺克義 , 657–58 Lin Meiting 林梅汀 , 51 Lin Mohan 林默涵 , 366, 385 Lin Na 林納 , 490–91, 757n23 Lin Tie 林鐵 , 239 Lin Yizhu 林一株 , 50, 52, 55–56 Lin Yuying (Zhang Hao) 林毓英 （張浩）, 112–13, 126, 155, 476 Liu Baiyu 劉白羽 , 366, 380, 385, 456–57, 578 Liu Bocheng 劉伯承 , 32, 83, 85, 141, 148, 163, 173, 271, 275–77, 348n, 370, 601–2, 639, 672, 674, 699

8 0 4   |   I ndex  

Liu Changsheng 劉長勝 , 113, 231 Liu Di 劉敵 , 24–26, 33, 35–36 Liu Jingfan 劉景範 , 268, 572 Liu Jingxiong 劉競雄 , 602 Liu Jiwu 劉輯武 , 252, 253 Liu Lantao 劉瀾濤 , 239 Liu Ningyi 劉寧一 , 251 Liu Ren 劉仁 , 239 Liu Shaobai 劉少白 , 602 Liu Shaoqi 劉少奇 , xvi, 83, 93, 95–96, 103–10, 131, 137–38, 142–47, 150, 152–53, 155, 170, 173, 184, 189, 201, 215, 229, 234n, 235–41, 244–45, 259, 268–69, 277, 286, 291, 295, 298, 300–2, 307–8, 314–17, 327, 331–32, 386n, 409–11, 414–17, 424, 468n, 481, 500, 528–29, 532–38, 541, 550–52, 557, 571, 573, 576–77, 601, 604, 615–16, 618–19, 640–41, 658–59, 662, 664–65, 667, 672, 674–76, 680–81, 683, 687, 690–95, 697–99, 701–5, 710, 712, 727n28, 759n51 Liu Shiqi 劉士奇 , 14–17, 22, 721n41 Liu Shunyuan 劉順元 , 251 Liu Xiao 劉嘵 , 141, 231, 376, 570 Liu Xiwu 劉錫五 , 239, 251 Liu Xuewei 劉雪葦 , 212n, 578 Liu Yaxiong 劉亞雄 , 602 Liu Ying 劉英 , 511, 673 Liu Zhidan 劉志丹 , 264–66, 268, 269n, 687 Lu Dingyi 陸定一 , 330–31, 333–34, 394, 397–99, 401–2, 403n, 407–8, 421, 440, 554, 658, 663, 667, 672, 705, 752n17 Lu Xun 魯迅 , 367–68, 371, 374–76, 377, 379–81, 384, 386, 463, 579, 711, 75n55 Lu Yi 陸詒 , 391 Lü Zhengcao 呂正操 , 593–94 Lü Zhenyu 呂振羽 , 576 Luo Binghui 羅炳輝 , 51, 56

Luo Feng 羅烽 , 342, 366, 401, 578 Luo Guibo 羅貴波 , 601 Rogoff, Vladimir 羅果夫 , 231 Luo Ming Line 羅明路線 , 84, 119, 564, 656n Luo Qingchang 羅青長 , 514, 742n45 Luo Ronghuan 羅榮桓 , 21, 275, 371, 480–81, 611–12, 614–26, 667 Luo Ruiqing 羅瑞卿 , 324, 572, 672, 680 Luo Shen 羅申 , 230 Luo Shouchun 羅壽春 , 50, 53, 56 Luo Zhanglong 羅章龍 , 36–37, 112, 317 Luochuan Conference 洛川會議 , 132–36, 143–45, 150, 185, 311, 730n1 Ma Guorui 馬國瑞 , 572 Ma Jia 馬加 , 578 Ma Wenrui 馬文瑞 , 265, 268, 572 Mao Cheng 毛誠 , 521, 523 Mao Dun 茅盾 , 368 Mao Zedong 毛澤東（毛）, vii–viii, xv, 1, 4, 6n, 7, 9, 20, 25–28, 31, 33, 43, 78, 83–84, 86, 92, 102n, 120, 128n, 148–49, 155, 169, 175n, 178–82, 187, 201, 235, 273, 290n, 319, 322, 330, 332, 336, 348n, 358, 364, 385n, 387, 394, 401, 420, 422, 459, 493, 535n, 536, 625, 643, 663, 665–70, 680, 682, 693, 695, 697–98, 759n52 Mao Zedong Thought 毛澤東思想 , ix– x, xiii, 132, 199, 500, 663–64, 668, 697, 701 Mao Zemin 毛澤民 , 169, 292 Mao Zetan 毛澤覃 , 119n, 564n Maoism 毛澤東主義 , 190, 202–3, 366, 663 March Politburo Meeting (1938) 三月政 治局會議 , 166–70, 172, 174–76, 183, 217, 243–44, 312n, 404 Marco Polo (Lugou) Bridge Incident ( July 7, 1937) 七七事變 , 125n, 131,

I ndex   |   8 0 5

151, 186, 249, 251, 376, 460n, 485, 593 Marxism-Leninism 馬列主義 , x, 85–86, 117, 191, 194, 198–99, 205–6, 218, 323–26, 338, 394–95, 411, 431, 433, 441, 643, 661–62, 664–68, 678, 686 Mass Movement Work Committee (of the CCP Central Committee) 中 央民運工作委員會 , 409, 537, 552 May Fourth New Culture Movement 五四新文化運動 , viii, 343, 373–74, 381, 398, 401, 434, 563, 713, 717 Meng Qingshu 孟慶澍 , 282, 491, 633, 673 mess unit 伙食單位 , 222 Mif, Pavel 米夫 , 36, 40, 114, 115, 117, 125, 174–75, 181, 232, 310, 645n, 694 Military Commission (Nationalist, in Nanjing) 南京軍事委員會 , 134, 164, 168 mini-broadcast form (or questionnaire) 小廣播表 , 436–38, 448–50, 453, 509, 529 Mitin, Mark 米丁 , 198, 202–3 Molotov, Vyacheslav 莫洛托夫 , 86–87 moonlighting secret agent 兼差特務 , 443, 547, 583 Mu Fengyun 慕豐韻 , 492–93 Mu Xin 穆欣 , 595, 601 Mukden Incident (September 18, 1931) 九一八事變 , 123, 316, 586, 688 Nanyue Military Training Course 南嶽 訓練班 , 445 nationalism 民族主義 , 191 New Democracy 新民主主義 , 203, 212, 309–10, 372, 662, 666, 669, 766n125 New Fourth Army 新四軍 , 133n,

161–62, 166n, 176, 236–39, 241, 256, 267, 272, 277, 285, 294–98, 364, 394, 404, 445, 477n, 490, 519, 528, 537, 556, 604–11, 615, 681–83, 759n51 Nie Rongzhen 聶榮臻 , 83, 92, 94, 173, 275, 277, 370, 590, 593, 601, 614, 639, 672 Nie Hongjun 聶洪鈞 , 264–65, 687 “Nine Essays”〈九篇文章〉, 314–15 “nine guiding principles for examining cadres’ personal histories”「審幹 九條方針」, 498 Ningdu Conference 寧都會議 , 68, 74–78, 117, 275, 712 Ningdu Uprising 寧都暴動 , 558 Niu Yinguan 牛蔭冠 , 602 Niu Youlan 牛友蘭 , 602 North China Bureau (of the CCP Central Committee) 中共中央北方局 , 104–5, 106n, 110, 137–38, 142, 144, 146, 168n, 169–70, 173, 184, 235–37, 239, 259, 264, 266–67, 298, 333, 415–16, 537, 550, 584, 593, 601–3, 612–15, 662, 677, 687, 699, 702 Northeast Allied Army of Resistance 東 北抗聯 , 492 Northeast China Work Committee (of the CCP Central Committee) 中 央東北工作委員會（東委）, 280–81 Northern Shaanxi Public School 陝北公 學 , 153n, 211, 219, 222–23, 474, 490, 522 Northwest Bureau senior cadre conference 西北局高幹會議 , 446–500, 521, 528, 686–87, 689 Northwest Finance and Economics Office 西北財經辦事處 , 638 Northwest Institute of Public Administration 西北行政學院 , 223, 517, 545, 563, 571, 590, 630

8 0 6   |   I ndex  

Northwest Public School 西北公學 , 222, 245, 513, 521–23, 525, 545, 553–55, 630 Northwest Wind《西北風》, 355, 563 OGPU (Obyedinyonnoye Gosudarstvennoye Politicheskoye Upravleniye), or Joint State Political Directorate (Soviet Secret Police) 格伯 烏 , xiii, xvii, 229–230, 243, 473, 477–78, 491, 513–14, 517 “one heart,” whole-hearted, loyal「一條 心」, 467, 500, 643, 687 Organization Department (of the CCP Central Committee) 中共中央 組織部（中組部）, 86, 125n, 207, 210, 223n, 242, 246–47, 249–61, 263, 267, 281–82, 285, 333, 361, 404, 407, 412–13, 416, 443, 448, 451–52, 479–81, 483–86, 491, 495–96, 516–17, 537, 546–47, 549, 552, 567, 574, 582, 610n, 637–38, 655, 691, 703, 715 Ouyang Shan 歐陽山 , 344, 578 Pan Fang (Pan Huitian) 潘芳（潘蕙田）, 445, 521 Pan Hannian 潘漢年 , 81, 141, 227n, 231, 237, 242, 376, 475n, 510, 518, 691 Pan Youxin 潘友新 , 230 Party book 黨書 , 219 Party emperor 黨皇帝 , 26 Party Newspaper Committee (of the CCP Central Committee) 中共 中央黨報委員會 , 85, 204, 207, 285, 390, 392–93 peasants’ party 農民黨 , 3–5, 10 peasant revolution 農民革命 , 191, 353 Peng Dehuai 彭德懷 , 14, 20, 26–28, 71, 91, 93–95, 132–34, 136–37, 139, 140–42, 144, 149, 154–55, 158, 160, 163, 165, 169, 173, 220, 271–74, 287, 301, 315, 327, 370,

409n, 427, 499–50, 519, 528, 602, 613–14, 618, 658, 666, 672, 674, 677–81, 683, 699, 702, 704 Peng Erning 彭而寧 , 583–85, 654 Peng Shaohui 彭紹輝 , 560 Peng Xuefeng 彭雪楓 , 133, 607–8 Peng Zhen 彭真 , 105n, 106n, 107, 137, 169–70, 239–40, 277, 301, 314, 327, 329–31, 333, 386n, 407–17, 421, 434, 440, 447–48, 500, 517, 533, 536–37, 546, 548–50, 571, 574, 577, 581, 586, 590, 614, 638, 639, 672, 674, 687, 701, 703–5, 708 Pingxing Pass, Battle of 平型關戰鬥 , 139–40 “power from the barrel of a gun”「槍桿 子裏面出政權」, 200 power of interpretation (ideological) 意 識形態的解釋權 , 86, 197 press-ganging 拉伕主義 , 483 proletarian literature 普羅文學 , 367 Propaganda Department (of the CCP Central Committee) 中共中央 宣傳部（中宣部）, 85–86, 105n, 203–4, 207, 211–12, 288, 291, 319, 321–23, 333, 336, 358, 372, 375, 382, 383n, 389–90, 394, 396, 398, 403, 405, 417, 420–21, 425, 429, 497, 501, 567, 582–83, 591, 750n64 Pu Huaren 浦化人 , 250 “pulling down trousers and chopping off tails”「脫褲子，割尾巴」, 425, 435, 450–51 Qian Laisu 錢來蘇 , 584–86, 629, 634, 641, 648, 654 Qian Zhuangfei 錢壯飛 , 62 Qiang Xiaochu 強曉初 , 572 Qiao Guanhua 喬冠華 , 384, 750n64 Qu Qiubai 瞿秋白 , 10, 36, 83, 115, 188, 367, 371, 375–76

I ndex   |   8 0 7

Qu Tangliang 區棠亮 , 564–65 Rao Shushi 饒漱石 , 112, 114, 238, 241, 277, 297, 528, 534, 604, 681, 683, 759n51 Red Army 中央紅軍 , 2–3, 6–8, 10n, 12–15, 20 23, 27–34, 38, 41–42, 44, 48–49, 51–52, 61, 63, 70, 73–75, 78n, 79–81, 85, 91–94, 96–97, 98n, 113, 120–22, 126–27, 128n, 133–35, 136–39, 146, 159, 164n, 210, 221, 249–50, 259, 263–64, 266–67, 271n, 274–76, 292, 324, 344, 369–70, 404, 445, 477, 484, 506, 510, 557, 558n, 572–73, 574n, 577, 593, 609n, 612, 635, 676, 681–83, 687, 693, 695, 707, 758n38 Red Army University 紅軍大學 , 87, 560 Red Flag party「紅旗黨」, 505, 525, 547, 553–54, 562, 564–66, 575, 634, 636–39 Red Military Specialist Faction 紅色軍事 專家派 , 270–71, 275–76 Ren Bishi 任弼時 , 38–42, 45–48, 56–58, 60–61, 67, 70, 72, 75–76, 78, 83, 91, 133, 136–41, 150, 155, 165–66, 170, 174–78, 180, 184, 187, 199, 201, 216–17, 230, 244–46, 249, 261–63, 282–83, 286, 288, 299, 301, 308–9, 311–14, 317, 321, 327, 329–30, 332, 334, 346, 408, 421–22, 440, 445n, 478, 501, 506n, 517–18, 528, 549, 562, 586, 633, 639–43, 662–63, 672, 674, 685–90, 695–97, 702, 735n Rong Zihe 戎子和 , 603 round-the-clock interrogation 車輪戰 , 479, 494, 524, 543, 558, 561, 564, 575, 623, 632, 674 Ruijin era 瑞金時期 , 221–22, 246–47, 289, 702

Sai Ke 塞克 , 349, 371, 383, 566, 579, 589 Second April 3 Decision 第 個「四三決 定」, 501, 531–32, 540, 620, 624 Second Front Red Army 紅 方面軍 , 14, 91 Secret Party Documents since the Sixth National Party Congress《六大以 來：黨內秘密文件》, 185, 214, 303, 724n104 secretarial dictatorship 書記獨裁 , 8–9, 10, 285 “September Missive”〈九月來信〉, 2 Seventh National Congress of the CCP 中共七大 , xii, 58, 176, 297, 300, 500, 656, 664, 696 Seventh Plenum of the Sixth Central Committee (of the CCP) 中共六 屆七中全會 , 682, 684, 695, 697 Sha Kefu 沙可夫 , 85, 366 Sha Ting 沙汀 , 366 Shandong Sub-bureau (of the CCP Central Committee) 中共中央 山東分局 , 238, 267, 275, 481, 572–73, 611–23, 702 Shanghai Central Bureau (of the CCP) 中 共上海中央局, 82, 112, 118n, 123, 125, 228, 247, 250, 264, 377, 691 Shanghai University 上海大學 , 241–42 Shao Shiping 邵式平 , 572 Shen Zhiyuan 沈志遠 , 202 Sheng Shicai 盛世才 , 231, 473, 740n14 Sheng Zhongliang 盛忠亮 , 82, 118n, 125, 228 Shi Zhe 師哲 , 178, 180, 262n, 282–83, 286, 329–30, 332, 371, 478, 518, 526–27, 531, 543, 550, 631n, 640, 657–58, 680, 692, 754n42, 756n9 Shu Qun 舒群 , 366, 373n, 555 Shu Tong 舒同 , 572, 620–24 Shu Wu 舒蕪 , 384 Shuai Mengqi 帥孟奇 , 282–83, 518 Shui Hua 水華 , 590 Sima Lu 司馬璐 , 243, 254–55, 475, 485

8 0 8   |   I ndex  

Sinification of Marxism 馬克思主義 的中國化 , x, xii–xiii, 190–92, 194–95, 208–9, 216, 349, 405, 431 Sixth National Congress of the CCP 中 共六大 , 32, 66–67, 215 Sixth Plenum of the Sixth Central Committee (of the CCP) 中共六 屆六中全會 , xvi, 176n, 182–86, 188–91, 198, 204–6, 235, 238, 244, 266, 279, 283, 285–86, 291, 293, 300, 309, 312, 323, 349, 389–90, 395, 404, 661, 684, 695 Social Department (of the CCP Central Committee) 中共中央社會 部（中社部）, 99n, 227n, 245, 249, 262, 283, 330–32, 361, 373, 382–83, 405, 412–14, 440, 442–45, 447, 449–50, 474, 478–80, 482, 484, 489–91, 493–94, 496, 501, 509–10, 513–21, 525, 535, 539, 543, 545, 547, 550, 553–54, 557, 559–61, 629–30, 632, 640–41, 647, 652, 654–58, 704, 715 soldiers’ party 軍黨 , 6, 10 Song Shilun 宋時輪 , 572 Song Yiping 宋一平 , 211n, 239 South China Bureau (of the CCP Central Committee) 中共中央南方局 , 184, 220, 227n, 230–31, 276, 281, 285, 288, 291, 298, 390, 391n, 392n, 509, 557, 574, 700 South China Work Committee (of the CCP Central Committee) 中 央南方工作委員會（南委）, 280–81, 700 Southeast China Bureau (of the CCP Central Committee) 中共中央 東南局 , 184, 237–38, 296–98, 376 Southeast China Sub-bureau (of the CCP Central Committee) 中共中央 東南分局 , 161, 184, 237, 295

soviet movement 蘇維埃運動 , 213, 301, 303, 405, 506, 684 Soviet Red Army 蘇聯紅軍 , 8, 231, 275, 281, 348, 353, 393 Stalin, Joseph 斯大林 , xii, 2, 30, 32–33, 87, 112, 115, 147, 152–53, 155, 159, 160, 175, 181, 186, 190, 199, 200–4, 206, 215, 218, 225, 230–35, 273, 282–83, 287, 299, 302, 310, 336, 351n, 354–55, 366, 374, 378, 380, 383n, 399, 401, 411, 417, 419–20, 423, 446, 463, 468, 472–73, 505, 514, 517–18, 580, 644, 645n, 646, 663, 670, 692–94, 696, 727n28, 738n7, State Political Security Bureau 國家政治 保衛局 , 61–62, 87, 98, 161, 245, 248, 756n8 Sun Yat-sen University, Moscow 莫斯科 中山大學 , 36, 114–15, 117, 290, 395, 473, 663 Taihang Sub-bureau (of the CCP Central Committee) 中共中央太行分 局 , 414, 603, 677 Tan Zhenlin 譚震林 , 51, 56, 84, 605–7 Tao Zhu 陶鑄 , 267, 315, 330, 332, 556–57, 577 “Ten Guiding Principles” (of Resisting Japan and Saving the Nation)〈十 大綱領〉, 150 Teng Daiyuan 滕代遠 , 26, 112, 115, 475 “the two roads”「兩條路線」, 304, 712 Third Plenum of the Sixth Central Committee (of the CCP) 中共六 屆三中全會 , 31, 39, 42, 50 “Thoughts on International Women’s Day”〈三八節有感〉, 342, 386, 555, 711, 748n24 Three Principles of the People 三民主 義 , 187, 662, 666 “two factions” (dogmatist and empiricist) 「兩個宗派」, 671–72, 684

I ndex   |   8 0 9

“two hearts” (disloyal, of a different mind)「兩條心」, 446–48, 500, 643, 687 Ulanfu (Ulanhu, Wu Lanfu) 烏蘭夫 , 106n, 572 unified (Party, administrative and military apparatus) 一元化 , 590, 605, 607, 611, 614, 617–18 united front 統一戰線 , x–xii, 35, 99n, 104n, 112, 123–29, 130n, 135, 143, 145, 147, 150–51, 153–55, 158, 163, 166, 169–71, 175, 177, 185–87, 189–90, 206, 231n, 238, 250, 260, 274, 276, 280, 285, 293–94, 296, 298–99, 309–10, 312, 379, 391n, 432, 460–62, 498, 512, 518, 605, 610–12, 616–18, 641, 643, 676 United Front Department (of the CCP Central Committee) 中共中央 統戰部 , 205, 234n, 280–81, 333, 537, 549–51, 563, 565, 633 upsurge in Party power 黨權高漲 , 83 Vladimirov, Peter (Sun Ping) 弗拉基 米洛夫 , 231–32, 234, 286, 532, 633n, 645n, 692–93, 696 Wang Defen 王德芬 , 546, 579, 748n12 Wang Dongxing 汪東興 , 521, 523–24, 525 Wang Guanlan 王觀瀾 , 63, 68, 84, 85, 252, 280, 283, 513, 517 Wang Heshou 王鶴壽 , 251–52, 332, 407, 481, 551 Wang Jiaxiang 王稼祥 , 36, 38–39, 41, 70, 72, 74–75, 83, 91–94, 97, 100, 116, 150, 152, 155–57, 179–85, 216n, 220, 274, 279, 287–89, 291, 301, 306, 308–9, 311, 314, 327, 329–30, 332, 370, 440, 528, 556, 663–64, 668, 674, 690, 702, 736n14

Wang Jinxiang 汪金祥 , 492–93, 514 Wang Li (Wang Ruqi) 王里（王汝琪）, 445, 521, 618 Wang Ming (Chen Shaoyu) 王明（陳紹 禹）, x–xii, xvi, 36–37, 46–47, 62, 64–65, 67–68, 110–27, 129–30, 140, 143, 147–85, 186n, 188–90, 194–95, 197, 200, 203–8, 213–15, 217–19, 229–30, 232, 235–36, 238–39, 241, 243–44, 248–50, 259, 263, 265, 269–70, 272–74, 276–93, 295, 299–313, 315–21, 323–24, 327, 332–33, 337, 339, 345–46, 358n, 360, 362, 379, 390–91, 392n, 395–96, 401, 403, 405, 407, 412, 420, 424, 427–28, 440, 445, 450, 458, 460, 471–74, 490–91, 504, 513, 518, 532, 535–36, 549–51, 580, 618, 625, 633, 636, 640, 643–46, 661–62, 665, 672–77, 679, 685–86, 688–90, 693–94, 696–97, 702, 712, 730n1, 735n8 Wang Renzhong 王任重 , 591–92 Wang Ruofei 王若飛 , 220, 262, 266, 287, 301, 427–29, 572, 602, 639, 672 Wang Ruowang 王若望 , 622 Wang Shitai 王世泰 , 268 Wang Shiwei 王實味 , 210n, 342–44, 346, 347–64, 373n, 374, 386–87, 401–2, 421, 431, 439–46, 468n, 496, 499, 501, 520–21, 541, 545, 554–55, 563–64, 587, 622, 654, 656–58, 672, 711, 747n11 Wang Shiying 王世英 , 242, 257–60, 468n, 579, 585, 632n, 640–41, 691–92 Wang Shoudao 王首道 , 99, 161, 215, 235, 247–49, 265, 301, 422, 512–13, 549, 753n4, 758n41 Wang Shusheng 王樹聲 , 572 Wang Sihua 王思華 , 337, 429–30, 431 Wang Xuewen 王學文 , 211–12, 335, 344, 376, 378, 691

8 1 0   |   I ndex  

Wang Zhen 王震 , 141, 268, 555 Wang Zheng 王錚 , 557, 560, 651 Wang Zhijie 王志傑 , 547, 575 Wang Zhongyan 王仲言 , 590 Wang Ziyi 王子宜 , 590 Wang Zunji 王遵伋 , 479, 658, 769n52 Wayaobao Conference 瓦窰堡會議 , 98, 126, 702 Wei Gongzhi 危拱之 , 63, 547, 575, 638, 652 Wei Junyi 韋君宜 , 561, 569–70 Wei Yan’an 韋延安 , 610–11 Wen Jize 溫濟澤 , 361n, 402, 475, 555 wholesale Russianization 全盤俄化 , 193 Whose Fault《誰的罪過》, 572 Women’s Committee (of the CCP Central Committee) 中央婦委 , 280–82, 552–53, 564 writing autobiographies 寫自傳 , 449, 452–53, 539, 636 Wu Boxiao 吳伯簫 , 566, 578 Wu Chengshi 吳承仕 , 208 Wu De 吳德 , 106n, 521, 523–24 Wu Defeng 吳德峰 , 32, 283, 518 Wu Heng 武衡 , 582 Wu Jingtian 武競天 , 552, 567, 576 Wu Kejian 吳克堅 , 162, 227n, 391n Wu Liangping (Wu Liping) 吳亮平（吳 黎平）, 206, 394 Wu Xiru 吳奚如 , 445–46, 448, 521 Wu Xiuquan 伍修權 , 83, 557–58 Wu Yuzhang 吳玉章 , 112, 114, 162, 291, 330, 424, 433–34, 553, 587, 634, 636, 669, 670, 672 Xi Zhongxun 習仲勛 , 265, 268 Xia Xi 夏曦 , 64–65 Xia Yan 夏衍 , 376n, 377, 384, 468n Xiang Ying 項英 , 11, 30–36, 38–42 Xiang Yunian 項與年 , 242 Xiang Zhongfa 向忠發 , 31, 37, 228 Xiao Jinguang 簫勁光 , 83, 119n, 268, 330 Xiao Jun 簫軍 , 341–42, 344, 362, 366–67,

371, 380, 382, 386, 401, 468n, 491–94, 579, 749n35 Xiao Ke 簫克 , 21, 24, 91 Xiao San 簫三 , 114, 162n, 224, 383, 387n, 631n, 662 Xiao Xiangrong 簫向榮 , 672 Xie Hanchang 謝漢昌 , 23–28, 33, 35–36, 43 Xie Juezai 謝覺哉 , 330, 432–34, 453–54, 475, 634–36, 655, 669 Xiong Dazheng 熊大縝 , 592 Xu Bing (Xing Xiping) 徐冰（邢西萍）, 257 Xu Fuguan 徐復觀 , 226, 229–30 Xu Jianguo 許建國 , 514 Xu Maoyong 徐懋庸 , 379 Xu Shiyou 許世友 , 412 Xu Teli 徐特立 , 122n, 330, 356, 433, 582–84, 634–35, 662, 669 Xu Xiangqian 徐向前 , 91, 276, 330, 371, 476–77, 560–61, 612–13 Xu Yixin 徐一新（徐以新）, 280 Yan Han 彥涵 , 589 Yan Hongyan 閻紅彥 , 268–69, 572 Yan Xishan 閻錫山 , 124n, 127n, 136–39, 142, 144, 146, 155, 170, 189, 238, 259, 274, 474–75, 584n, 586, 599 Yan’an Central Research Institute 延安 中央研究院 , 335–38, 343–44, 355–58, 360–61, 363, 386, 414, 429, 431, 444–45, 458, 462, 564, 572, 577–78, 620, 632, 746n1 Yan’an Lu Xun Academy of Arts 延安魯 藝 , 523, 587–90 Yan’an Marxism-Leninism Institute 延 安馬列學院 , 209, 211–12, 222, 239, 260, 269, 287, 336, 343–44, 360n, 394, 405, 445, 486, 496, 582, 661, 663, 686 Yan’an Natural Science Institute 延安 自然科學研究院 , 222, 355–56, 581–84, 587, 635

I ndex   |   8 1 1

Yan’an Romanization Cadre School 延安 新文字幹部學校 , 223, 587 Yan’an Security Office (Border Region Security Office) 延安保安處（邊 區保安處）, 249, 474, 543–44, 563, 652 Yan’an University 延安大學 , 219, 282, 356, 402, 462, 583, 585, 587–88, 590, 636, 652 Yang Fan 揚帆 , 295, 606 Yang Kemin 楊克敏 , 3–4 Yang Qiqing 楊奇清 , 514 Yang Shangkui 楊尚奎 , 572 Yang Shangkun 楊尚昆 , 80, 83, 93–95, 138, 146, 169, 239, 298, 301, 329, 330, 333, 374, 551, 572, 602, 612–14, 672, 674, 683, 698, 702, 727n31 Yang Shu 楊述 , 569 Yang Shuo 楊朔 , 383, 579, 589 Yang Song 楊松 , 393–98 Yang Zhihua 楊之華 , 115, 122, 250 Yang Zilie 楊子烈 , 257–58 Yangtze Bureau (of the CCP Central Committee) 中共中央長江局 , 43, 125n, 158, 161–69, 172, 176n, 183–84, 235, 237, 244, 249–50, 272–74, 276, 285, 288, 290, 295–96, 310–12, 390–91, 445, 672 Yao Yilin 姚依林 , 239 Yao Zhongming 姚仲明 , 580 Ye Jianying 葉劍英 , 32, 83, 85, 162–65, 229, 234, 251, 276, 291, 294, 301, 308, 330, 371, 445, 556, 575, 638, 672, 674, 699, 710 Ye Qun 葉群 , 491, 757n23 Ye Ting 葉挺 , 6, 238, 445 Ye Zilong 葉子龍 , 313, 514 Yu Guangsheng 余光生 , 555 Yu Guangyuan 于光遠 , 545, 563 Yu Heiding 于黑丁 , 578 Yu Xiusong 俞秀松 , 473 Yuan Shuipai 袁水拍 , 385

Yudin, Pavel 尤金 , 202–3 Zedong Young Cadre School 澤東青年 幹部學校 , 211, 219, 222, 263 Zeng Bingchun 曾炳春 , 24–25, 35, 43–44, 62 Zeng Biyi 曾碧漪 , 25 Zeng San 曾三 , 467, 512, 518–19 Zeng Shan 曾山 , 14, 22–26, 29, 35, 43, 62, 238, 511 Zeng Xisheng 曾希聖 , 255, 485, 514, 607 Zha Huaqun 查化群 , 610–11 Zhang Aiping 張愛萍 , 32, 63 Zhang Bangying 張邦英 , 268, 572 Zhang Dingcheng 張鼎丞 , 48, 50, 54–56, 58, 62, 84, 296, 415–16, 572 Zhang Geng 張庚 , 365 Zhang Guotao 張國燾 , x, 37, 64–65, 91, 97, 101, 103, 136, 148, 150, 155, 166, 180, 184, 220, 229, 248n, 258, 272, 276–77, 370, 412, 432, 473, 476, 572–73, 687 Zhang Jian 張鑒 , 595–97, 599–600 Zhang Jinfu 張勁夫 , 610–11, Zhang Jingwu 張經武 , 612 Zhang Keqin 張克勤 , 521–27, 547, 562, 564, 636, 654–55 Zhang Mutao 張慕陶 , 474 Zhang Qilong 張啟龍 , 572 Zhang Qinqiu 張琴秋 , 477, 490 Zhang Ruxin 張如心 , 337, 356, 358, 402, 421, 456, 572, 661–64 Zhang Shushi 張曙時 , 433, 564–65, 574 Zhang Weizhen 張維楨 , 544, 547, 575 Zhang Wenbin 張文彬 , 512, 700 Zhang Wentian (Luo Fu) 張聞天（洛 甫）, 69–71, 73, 78, 83–86, 91–95, 97–110, 116–18, 130–36, 139, 141, 143, 145–50, 156–59, 161, 164, 166, 169, 173, 180, 197, 204–7, 213–15, 218–19, 235–36, 244, 247, 250, 265, 272, 281, 286–91, 294, 301–5, 308, 311, 313–14, 316,

8 1 2   |   I ndex  

322, 327, 335–37, 343–45, 358n, 360, 366, 371–75, 383n, 390, 392, 394–96, 403–5, 412, 443, 450, 473, 495, 511, 580, 582, 639–40, 661–63, 672–75, 686, 689–90, 696–98, 702–4, 726n20, 727n28, 738n10, 749n31 Zhang Xing 張醒 , 25, 474–75 Zhang Xiushan 張秀山 , 268 Zhao Yimin 趙毅敏 , 112 Zheng Weisan 鄭位三 , 609 Zhou Dawen 周達文 , 473 Zhou Enlai 周恩來 , 2, 30–32, 34, 36–41, 46–49, 55–69, 71–78, 80–85, 91–92, 94–98, 100, 103, 104n, 109, 121, 132–38, 140–43, 145–49, 154–66, 171–72, 176, 180, 184, 186–88, 220, 227n, 209–30, 233n, 234, 241–42, 245, 251, 268, 270–80, 283, 285–88, 291, 292–302, 304, 314–15, 324, 327, 361n, 375, 384, 386, 390–92, 404, 416, 427–28, 432, 445, 461, 472n, 478, 499, 504, 511, 515, 518, 526, 528, 535, 552, 578, 595, 601, 612, 638–40, 642–46, 650, 658, 662, 670–72, 674–77, 682, 690–91, 693–95, 697–98, 700, 702, 704 Zhou Erfu 周而復 , 383, 385, 578–79, 589 Zhou Libo 周立波 , 366, 377, 589 Zhou Mian 周冕 , 23–24, 43 Zhou Qiuye 周秋野 , 558 Zhou Xing 周興 , 62, 474, 512, 519, 544, 652, 658 Zhou Yang 周揚 , 209–10, 257, 327, 357n, 365, 366–68, 374–80, 382–86, 587–90, 636, 709, 712, 750n55 Zhu De 朱德 , 1n, 2, 7, 9, 12–13, 20, 26–27, 30–31, 72, 75, 85, 91–94, 96, 123, 132–41, 144, 147–48, 150, 155, 160, 163, 165, 173, 229, 271–74, 277, 287, 294, 301, 324, 330, 332, 345, 370, 386, 440, 528,

548, 585, 601, 637, 641, 665, 669, 672, 679, 695, 697, 699, 702, 704, 720 Zhu Lizhi 朱理治 , 264–65, 267–68, 687–89 Zhu Ming 朱明 , 128, 458–66, 468n Zhu Rui 朱瑞 , 83, 138, 146, 173, 275, 572–73, 611–19, 652, 683, 698, 702 Zong Zheng (Guo Zhenyi) 宗錚（郭箴 一）, 445, 521 Zou Dapeng 鄒大鵬 , 514 Zou Fengping 鄒鳳平 , 565, 573–74 Zunyi Conference 遵義會議 , xv, 1, 58, 90–91, 93–94, 96–97, 99–103, 111, 121, 123, 147, 149, 156, 158, 160, 165, 183, 190n, 213, 226, 247, 271–72, 275, 288, 290, 302–3, 307, 316, 375, 393, 404, 511–12, 672, 683–84, 686, 688, 701 Zuo Quan 左權 , 63, 137, 679