The failures of the CCP in the urban areas and the relative successes of the Red Army (the 28 July attack on Changsha was highly influential), had their effect on the ECCI. The Resolution on the Chinese Question by the Political Secretariat of the ECCI (June 1930) again recommended the CCP to concentrate its efforts on the Red Army and Soviet government but now placed this as a “top priority”.[81] Any idea of immediate insurrection in the towns (as envisaged by Li Lisan) was abandoned. Trotsky’s statement to the 8th Plenum of the ECCI that the Chinese revolution would go forward in form of Soviets or not at all was being proved correct but as the antithesis of what he had intended.[82]
By the early 1930s, most of the cadres of the CCP were corralled in these Soviets which had a high degree of autonomy due to their isolated locations and the lack of an effective central leadership after the dismissal of Li Lisan. There were three Soviet areas in the Wuhan area of central China; the E-Yu-Wan Soviet to the north, the Xiang-Exi Soviet to the west and the largest and most important, the Jiangxi central Soviet, to the south of Wuhan. These soviets existed where the borders of two or more provinces came together, where administrative responsibility was unclear, where the KMT presence was weak or non-existent, in hilly or mountainous areas which were economically backward, considered not important and thus left alone.[83]
An ECCI letter of 16 November 1930 confirmed earlier instructions to concentrate the best forces of the Party into building the Red Army and establishing a Soviet government which, given the defeats in the cities, meant a peasant Soviet. The most important task for the CCP was to muster support for the Red Armies, in particular to recruit fresh troops. When Wang Ming and his allies followed these ECCI instructions they adopted a policy even more destructive than the red unions. Instead of seeking to build Party cells in the factories they transferred working class militants to the Soviet Areas in an attempt to proletarianise the Red Army. Industrial activities were used not to build the labour movement but to act as recruiting drives for the Soviet districts.[84]
The 28 Bolsheviks refused to shoulder any responsibility for the policies they proposed, and passed the buck by accusing Party members of abandoning, especially in the heavy industries, attempts to organise the red unions. In February 1931, the CCP admitted that “now there are no real red unions … They have been wiped out. All work has been abandoned.”[85] 1931 was the year of the Japanese invasion and there was a wave of protest strikes in factories with close ties with Japan, but the Party had to admit: “We have not succeeded in organizing a single anti-imperialist strike.”
For a short period (1932-33) after the Japanese invasion there was increased militancy amongst workers and a small but significant boost to Party membership. However, Wang Ming and his allies threw this opportunity away when they followed ECCI instructions and continued to call on working class militants to leave industry and move to the Soviet Areas.
The Politburo, CC, and Secretariat remained in Shanghai as long as possible but were forced to transfer to the central Soviet, a move that was complete by the spring of 1933. Many of the 28 Bolsheviks and all of the CC were elected to the Central Executive Committee of the new Jiangxi Soviet government.
In 1934 the Young Communist League noted:
Our comrades are unaware of impending struggles in the factories. … As a result of this isolation we not only cannot lead the mass struggles but we cannot even grasp them by the tail![86]
Six years of red unions and Red Army recruitment had been six years of urban impotence. This policy so weakened the CCP in the cities that when the KMT made a series of arrests in March 1934 and again the following year, CCP activity in major cities such as Shanghai virtually ended.[87]
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Saich, The Rise … Op. cit. p440.
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Trotsky, Problems … Op. cit. p71.
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McColl, R. The Oyuwan Soviet Area, J. Asian Studies 27(1)41-60, Nov. 1967.
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Letter of the ECCI received 16 November 1930, Degras, J. Vol 3 p135-140.
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Degras, J, The Communist International, Selected Documents, O.U.P., 1965. Vol 3:168.
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Isaacs, Op. cit p393.
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Sullivan, Op. cit.