The policies of both Li Lisan and Wang Ming were variations of the same ultra-left Third Period strategy. Li Lisan was an experienced militant while Wang Ming was a self-serving bureaucrat; Li Lisan had the courage to actively participate in carrying out his policies, whereas Wang Ming did it by telephone, telegram or radio. Despite all the name-calling and heat generated, the political policies of the two men were no different in matters of principle or ideology; the differences were who would carry the can for past mistakes and who was the more subservient to Moscow. In the eyes of the ECCI, a major crime of Li Lisan had been his “dangerous spirit” – he had dared to suggest that the Chinese were better placed to understand the local situation in China than those in Moscow.[70]
The appointment of Wang Ming and his adjutant Po Ku (Qin Bangxian) was part of the worldwide trend within the CI to have lap dogs leading the national CPs because, as their authority came from their Moscow links, they were quite prepared to act as tools of Soviet diplomacy. This ‘Bolshevisation’ was a classic Stalinist intervention intended to transform the Party and would have a lasting impact on its politics and internal regime. With Wang Ming’s accession, the CCP was no jot different in principle from the Stalinist Communist Parties of Italy, France, or Spain.
Wang Ming and the 28 Bolsheviks were not to supplement the existing leadership but to replace it. Wang was particularly grovelling; Li Lisan had spoken of China as the weakest link in world imperialism stating that a revolution in China would spark a world-wide class war. Wang’s criticism was that such an analysis made China the “centre of the world, denying the Soviet Union as that centre” and thus was in opposition to Stalin and the theory of “Socialism First in One Country”.[71] Could there be a clearer statement of abject submission to Moscow?
Either directly or through Po Ku (acting General Secretary between 1932 and January 1935), Wang Ming held power within the CCP for four years and, in accord with the analysis of the CI and with its approval, would take the CCP leadership from the cities to the relative safety of rural areas controlled by the Red Army.
Wang possessed all the necessary qualities for a Stalinist policeman, being personally ambitious, strong-willed and intelligent, but also narrow-minded and conformist and with a talent for manoeuvring. His ideological rigidity expressed itself as an absolute intolerance of the slightest stirring of intellectual curiosity or innovation, enforced by a regime of ruthless purges and absolute regimentation.[72]
In January 1931, the CC approved Wang Ming’s document The Struggle for the CCP’s Further Bolshevisation, also known as the Two Lines. This document, which extolled the Comintern’s direct intervention in CCP affairs, was a joint enterprise with Mif and had as a central feature, the replacement of experienced cadres with those loyal to Wang Ming (hence, so much opposition within the Party).[73] Pavel Mif and Wang Ming completely dominated the January plenum so it is interesting that Mao was elected a candidate member of the Politburo, and Zhu De as candidate member of the CC, at that meeting. Mao and Zhu obtained these positions largely because of Stalin’s support. Both had been extensively praised in the Russian press as “heroes” and the Far Eastern Bureau of the ECCI in Shanghai had recommended Mao for membership of the new CC and Chair of the Revolutionary Military Committee.[74]
After the CC meeting, a group drawn from the remnants of the trade union leaderships formed to oppose Wang Ming, calling his policies an extension of the Li Lisan Line. For this action they were expelled from the Party. On 17 January, the leaders of this group met in the International Settlement in Shanghai where it was raided by British police and over 20 executed. After these deaths the CCP “could be said to have lost its last concrete link of any consequence with the urban proletariat.”[75] Rumours persist that Wang Ming informed on the dissident trade unionists to remove a potentially embarrassing opposition, rumours that were strengthened when Wang Ming called for the death penalty for Chen Duxiu after his arrest by the KMT.[76] At that time all manner of vile slanders and provocations against Trotskyists were being put about by the CCP press to rob them of support, create confusion, and provide a cover should a Russian agent kill Chen or Peng.[77]
Within the Party the 28 Bolsheviks implemented what they had learned in Moscow. To ideologically remould the membership and eliminate dissent they began a Rectification Campaign of criticism and self-criticism which bore a striking similarity to the purge meetings at Sun Yat-sen University. This was accompanied by expulsions of dissident Party members. However, the effectiveness of these measures was greatly hampered by the hostility to the new leaders generated by their preoccupation with hierarchy and rank, bossing subordinates around, making others do their chores and refusing to take responsibility for the consequences of their own directives.[78]
In the Party there was considerable bitterness over the manner of the removal of Chen Duxiu, Li Lisan, and the trade union group, and it is reported that opposition to Wang Ming was so strong that as many as a quarter of the members were expelled on the pretext that those who opposed the Comintern’s representative opposed the Party, and those who opposed the Party should be expelled.[79] These expulsions were at the heart of Wang Ming’s ‘Bolshevisation’, after which the Party was as good an example of monolithic centralism as any.[80]
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Lescot, Op. cit.
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Harrison, Op. cit. (Part 1).
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Benton G. Bolshevising China: From Lenin to Stalin to Mao, 1921-1944. Leeds Univ., East Asia Papers No 22, 1996.
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Benton Op. cit.
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Pantsov and Levine, Op. cit. p237-8.
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Schwartz, Op. cit.
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Kagan, R. The Chinese Trotskyist Movement and Ch’en Tu-hsiu, PhD, Univ. of Pennsylvania, p155.
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Peng Pi-lan, The Chinese Revolution, Education for Socialists, SWP, 1972, p13.
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Sullivan, Op. cit.
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Stranahan, Op. cit.
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The Peasant War in China, Rev. Hist., 1990 2(4)23.