When Wang Ming returned to China in November 1937, his importance was demonstrated by his being airlifted to Yenan. Wang was accompanied by two other Politburo members, Kang Sheng and Chen Yun, and these three made a substantial difference to the Politburo. With support from Zhou Enlai, these three were in a majority against Mao, Zhang Wentian, and Rem Bishi. Wang was a member of the Presidium of the Comintern and had received personal instructions from Stalin. When he addressed meetings his “speech resembled that of an imperial envoy transmitting an imperial decree.”[34]
Despite there being no obvious or major political, policy or strategic differences between Mao and Wang whatever topic was discussed at the Politburo the meeting ended in heated deadlock. It was agreed that the Comintern should adjudicate. The ECCI appreciated that the major element in the disagreements was the jockeying for leadership of the CCP between Wang and Mao. Dimitrov pulled no punches:
You must tell everyone that it is necessary to support Mao Zedong as the leader of the CCP. He has been tempered in practical struggle. Such persons as Wang Ming should no longer fight for the leadership.[35]
To get him out of the way, Wang Ming was assigned to liaise with the KMT. In this role he continued to push an extreme version of the Popular Front; e.g. that any struggle for democratic reforms should have prior KMT approval. When in December, 1937, the KMT decreed the death penalty for workers who went on strike or even agitated for strikes while the war was in progress, Wang Ming told an interviewer that the CCP was “fully satisfied” with the Kuomintang’s conduct of the war. From 1937-45 “The Communists opposed strikes as detrimental to the war effort, and undertook no independent organization of labour (or the peasants) in Kuomintang administered areas.”[36]
In February 1938, Mao spelled out the CCP’s perspective in answer to the question: “Will the CCP-KMT co-operation last long?” He replied:
The CCP has never wanted to break away from the KMT. In the past 10 years of split both parties and the people have suffered enough. This painful experience will serve to reinforce our co-operation, the aims of which are joint resistance at the present and joint reconstruction in the future.[37]
On 2 July 1938, Mao explained to a visiting student delegation, his view of China after victory over Japan; a free and equal democratic nation with agriculture, industry, and commerce jointly operated by the state and the people. Workers would benefit from an 8-hour day and peasants would own their land. The bourgeoisie would have complete freedom of speech, publication, meeting and association. Such a nation would not be a socialist state, nor its government a Soviet government, but a state and a government that practised democracy under the principle of respecting private ownership. To achieve this goal the CCP desired to unite with the KMT and other revolutionary parties and factions as well as with the people of the entire nation.[38] What reformist, social democratic politician has not painted the same picture?
At the 6th (enlarged) plenum of the CC of October 1938 Mao presented his analysis of the then current situation in China in The New Stage.[39] The tone of his report is represented by the sub-heading The Kuomintang Has a Brilliant Future and, let it be noted, also “a glorious history”! Chiang is referred to as a “great leader” waging a courageous war of resistance: “In its 50-year history the KMT whenever it encountered a great revolutionary struggle always transformed itself into an alliance of national revolution.” The massacres of 1927 and the subsequent extermination campaigns are air-brushed from history.
Pierre Rousset, a spokesperson for the former Ligue Communiste Révolutionnaire and a founding member of the Nouveau Parti Anticapitaliste, has claimed that during the Sino-Japanese war, the CCP made “major efforts” to reforge its links with the urban working class, and cites the work led by Liu Shaoqi as proof.[40] In fact, Mao’s speeches at the October 1938 plenum polemicised against the proposals of Liu Shaoqi that greater emphasis be placed on mobilising the urban workers. His alternative was that the “fulcrum of Party activity” must lie “in the front zones and in the enemy’s hinterland.”[41] It is quite true that there was considerable underground work by the CCP within KMT areas but there are no records of substantial or effective work in the factories.
Belden, who was present at the time, reported conversations with local CCP leaders in the liberated areas:
There was little or no connection between the Central Committee of the party and its underground workers, but messengers and orderlies were dispatched to the large towns to post slogans, distribute handbills and spread the word as best they could. General instructions were for workers, students and farmers to unite, to evacuate the cities immediately and to help organize guerrilla warfare… Their nuclei among the workers in Chiang’s areas was almost nil.[42]
It is true that as the CCP took on the mantle of the party of national resistance its support amongst university students grew. During 1947 and 1948 the KMT regime launched a campaign against the universities and middle schools in an effort to root out any traces of Communism. Thousands of students were beaten up, arrested, imprisoned and tortured. So deep was the hostility these moves engendered that many non-socialist democrats and intellectuals saw their only hope of ending the civil war was to support the CCP. However, the emphasis of the CCP was not to encourage the students to link their demands with those of the workers but for them to leave the cities and travel to the liberated areas to help administer the Border Regions’ Authority. In one month alone, October 1948, over 4,500 students are said to have moved to the Communist areas.[43]
To justify the united front and bloc of four classes, Mao’s writings of 1937-40 developed the idea that the Russian Revolution was qualitatively different from the Chinese because the Russian bourgeoisie, although military-feudal, had carried out imperialist aggression against other countries and so entirely lacked any revolutionary quality. The Chinese bourgeoisie was the victim of imperialist aggression and so retained some revolutionary quality.[44] Mao’s views were coloured by the needs of the moment so, for example, the successes of the Northern Expedition were described as due to Chiang Kai-shek’s brilliance, not mass peasant mobilisation. Mao did realise that the relative weakness of the Chinese bourgeoisie meant the democratic revolution would have to be carried forward on the backs of the urban workers and peasants, but instead of following Lenin and recognising that this opened the way to a socialist revolution, he intended that the peasants and workers of China would act in the service of the bourgeoisie and stop the revolution half-way. Mao not only closed his eyes to the lessons of history, he re-wrote history to match his own class-collaborationist perspective.
The ECCI had determined that Mao was the most suitable leader for the CCP both because of his military abilities and skills and for his natural inclination towards an alliance with the KMT. In 1939 the Moscow publishing house Ogiz-Izogiz produced a monograph which was a shortened version of Edgar Snow’s Red Star Over China, with all the critical comments on Mao removed. At the same time a brochure entitled Mao Zedong and Zhu De: Leaders of the Chinese People appeared describing Mao as a model leader of the Chinese Communists.[45] In early 1940 Dimitrov made a series of comments on the membership of the Politburo. Mao is described as “truly the most outstanding political figure in the CCP. He knows China better than the other CCP leaders, knows the people, correctly interprets political events and basically frames problems correctly.”[46]
The KMT was fighting a progressive war, representing an oppressed semi-colonial country against Japanese imperialism. The progressive nature of the war was not negated by the fact that the struggle was led by Chiang Kai-shek, hangman of the Chinese Revolution. Surely it was the duty of all revolutionists to support him? Were the Stalinists not right, then, in making a united front with Chiang Kai-shek and the Kuomintang?
It was the duty of revolutionists to support China’s struggle by all means possible, including agreements of a strictly practical nature with Chiang Kai-shek and the Kuomintang – but not to abandon their own programme, to dissolve themselves in a People’s Front, to relinquish the right to criticise and condemn the Kuomintang’s conduct of the war. The Stalinists, spurning the Leninist United Front tactic, did just this latter, thereby aiding and becoming party to the betrayal of China’s struggle. The Bolsheviks under Lenin’s leadership ‘supported’ Kerensky against the white Russian General Kornilov, while simultaneously preparing to overthrow Kerensky and establish workers’ power. The Chinese Stalinists, however, accorded Chiang Kai-shek unconditional political support, thereby betraying the revolution and the national struggle which was indissolubly bound up with it.
Just as in 1925-1927, KMT-CCP unity meant the political subordination of the Communists to the KMT, so in 1937 it was directed against any signs of revolutionary activity. Wang Ming wrote:
The Chinese people … will judge of the degree of determination and readiness of the KMT … to undertake the armed struggle against the Japanese aggressors, by (the KMT’s) attitude to Japanese agents and national traitors and, in particular, to the Japano-Trotskyist-fascist agents. The government and peoples of the U.S.S.R. are setting us an example of how to … purge the state, military and party apparatus of these vipers.[47]
On 25 September 1937, the 8th Route Army ambushed and defeated two Japanese divisions at Pingxingguan in eastern Shanxi, a much needed victory in time of general defeat. Because of this and the supply of arms and munitions from the USSR, the Nationalist government agreed through 1938, 1939 and 1940, to provide the 8th Route Army with a cash subsidy (on the basis of a strength of 45,000) and a small supply of ammunition.[48]
However, the KMT was demonstrating not its ability to defend China, but its complete rottenness. The key battle to defend Wuhan and hold the Yangtse valley, began in June 1938 and ended at the end of October with the victory of the Imperial Japanese Army. This was the longest, largest and most significant battle of the Second Sino-Japanese War, and one of the largest battles in all of history. More than one million NRA troops under Chiang Kai-shek‘s personal command gathered to defend Wuhan. However, corruption was so rampant at the top of the NRA that Japanese General Iwane Matsui could boast to the New York Times correspondent that for $80,000 in silver dollars he had bought safe passage and landing for his troops. The key defences for Wuhan were the forts at Matow, which fell almost without a fight because the commander was in a brothel in a town several miles away. All supplies to treat wounded soldiers had been sold to privateers, and wounded Chinese soldiers were left to crawl as best they could – the Japanese army took no prisoners.[49] The loss of Wuhan was the loss of the most important transport hub of inland China, and the only remaining major military and economic centre.
As the war continued, units of the Red Army (8th Route Army) infiltrated behind the Japanese lines and advanced into the northern provinces of Hopei (Hebei), Chahar (Inner Mongolia), and Shanxi. The Japanese army usually sent no more than advance scouts into the villages, the sight of which caused the KMT troops to flee. The local villagers freed from KMT domination and not under direct Japanese control, spontaneously formed their own militias and elected underground administrations, which were nuclei of anti-imperialist resistance. When the 8th Route Army arrived it inherited these organisations. The militia units were soon co-ordinated and integrated into the anti-Japanese resistance. The local government organisations were also co-ordinated through the CCP but, given the general chaos that existed, retained a high degree of autonomy.[50]
By 1939 the CCP had set up six liberated zones in regions far from Japanese garrisons which tended to confine their activities to control over the economically important areas. Each zone extended over many thousands of square kilometres, with a total population of as many as 20 million. In January 1939, a conference of 500 delegates from these zones declared themselves the Shanxi-Hopei-Shantung-Honan Border Government. This became the pattern, wherever Communist forces won control they set up a border region government. Based on the three-thirds principle (see Section 8.5) representatives were elected by secret universal ballot, but the presence of the 8th Route Army was decisive in all important decision-making. The mass of peasants, observed the new government to be the first which had not acted against the people and welcomed its policies on rents and interest rates. They were ready to grant it their support.
To the delight of the poor and middle peasants, the lands and properties of those considered to be traitors were seized and shared out. In this way some 15% of agricultural land was redistributed. Rents were cut, eviction of tenants was prohibited, and a three-year moratorium imposed on all debts. The grain tax which had fallen most heavily on the poor peasants was reformed so that the richer the peasant the more he paid. Initially about one quarter of the poorest peasants were made exempt, but as the demands of the war increased so did the burden of the tax. The maximum legal interest rate was reduced to 10% annually. Payments were rigorously enforced, but there was a degree of laxity regarding the enforcement of rates which remained well above the 10% target. To prevent Japan from using the area’s resources, wheat was grown instead of cotton and, after an initial dislocation this change had the beneficial effect of increasing the food supply. It was significant that, despite the land and tax reforms, numerous wealthy citizens (merchants and landlords) who had fled at the approach of the People’s Red Army, now returned. Communist Party policy was, it appears, acceptable to them.[51]
Despite having a common enemy in the Imperial Japanese Army, tension was always present between the Communist and Nationalist forces. This grew with the relative success of the Communists in establishing extensive areas of control, initially within the limits set by the KMT but gradually extending outwards. As Chiang manoeuvred his armies to fight the Japanese, vast areas adjoining those controlled by the Communists were stripped of troops and the Red Army moved in, displaced KMT officials and established new local government bodies. In this way the Shen-Kan-Ning administrative area expanded considerably. The New 4th Army operated across Japanese lines in the provinces of Anhwei and Kiangsu outside areas previously agreed with the KMT and in close proximity to some of the most reactionary generals in the NRA.
In January 1940, the puppet government of Wang Jingwei was launched in Nanjing and simultaneously both the KMT and Japanese began to prioritise the cleaning up of their hinterlands.[52] In January 1941, Mao accepted Chiang’s request to send 10,000 troops from the 4th Army across the Yangtse river. They were surrounded and attacked by more than 80,000 KMT troops. Some 5,000-6,000 Communist troops were killed or wounded compared to 20,000 on the Nationalist side. This was known as the Southern Anhwei Incident.[53] From this time onwards the Nationalists spent as much or more of their resources on attacking Communists as fighting the Japanese army. American Intelligence analysis made at the time claims that with the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbour (7 December 1941), the best of the Nationalist forces were re-allocated to blockade Communist areas because Chiang realised that the US and Britain could be left to defeat Japan.[54]
-
Kampen, T. Mao Zedong, Zhou Enlai and the Evolution of the Chinese Communist Leadership, Nordic Institute of Asian Studies, 2000, p86-93.
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Pantsov, A. & Levine, S. Mao, Simon & Schuster, 2012, p323.
-
Epstein, I. My China Eye, Long River Press, 2000.
-
Shum Kui Kwong, Op. cit.
-
Mao Zedong, Talks with Messrs K’o Lo-man, Ya-Te, Fu Lu-te and Lei K’o-nan, CW Vol 6 Part 1, 2 July 1938, w.m.org.
-
Mao Zedong The New Stage, October 1938, www.marxists.org.
-
Rousset, P. The Maoist Project Tested in the Struggle for Power, International Institute for Research and Education Number 3.
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Braun, Op. cit. p235.
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Belden J, China Shakes the World, Gollancz. 1951, p51 and 398.
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Ibid, p406.
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Mao Zedong, On New Democracy, January 1940, www.marxist.org.
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Pantsov, A. How Stalin Helped Mao Zedong … Issues & Studies, 2005, 41(3)181-207.
-
Ibid.
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Wang Ming, Communist International, Vol.14, No.10, Oct. 1937.
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North, R. Moscow and the Chinese Communists, Stanford Univ. Press, 1963, p189/190.
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Li Fu-jen, After the Fall of Wuhan, January 1939, MIA.
-
Belden, Op. cit. p71-78.
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Rosinger, L. Politics and Strategy of China’s Mobile War, Pacific Affairs, 1939, 12(3)263-277.
-
Braun, Op. cit. p17.
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North, Op. cit. p189/190.
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Ibid p204.