Under ECCI direction, the CCP planned a large-scale programme of peasant uprisings for the autumn harvest time when the class struggle would normally be most acute in the rural districts. The term ‘uprising’ was a complete misnomer. There were no uprisings, armed detachments made a military assault on a town and then invited support from local workers and peasants (those familiar with subsequent Maoist guerrilla activities in Latin America and elsewhere will recognise the tactic).
It was agreed that conditions were not ripe for a nationwide insurrection so the uprisings were limited to the four provinces of Hupeh, Hunan, Jiangxi, and Kwangtung, with particular emphasis on Hunan, where the peasant movement was considered the most radical.[5] Unfortunately, Hunan had been subject to a particularly vicious cleansing and the peasant associations, previously the most radical and effectively organised in the country, had been smashed by white terror. Such armed uprisings as did occur were often initiated by cadres who had been hiding out in the hills and countryside, and generally resulted in their deaths and the deaths of many peasants, for no gain.
However, there were immediate and serious obstacles in the way of such a change in perspective. Events in Shanghai had had a debilitating effect on Party members, workers and peasants generally. CCP members had been mis-educated for years into accepting opportunist methods and perspectives, and were now expected to make a sudden and abrupt volte-face and lead armed insurrections. The CCP would discover, too late, that its own personnel were not up to the task of engineering insurrection.[6] CCP members themselves had been continuously dampening the revolutionary sentiment of the masses and Communists were widely distrusted as opponents of peasant seizure of the land. This distrust surfaced when orders to begin the uprisings arrived, and the support promised by the peasant associations evaporated.
Attempting uprisings in such unsuitable conditions would only weaken the Party and increase its isolation from the masses. However, the CC believed, like so many ultra-lefts before and since, that they were administering a shock treatment that would immediately correct the opportunism of the past.
The first uprising under the new policy took place on 1 August 1927 at Nanchang, capital of Jiangxi province, about 250 km (160 miles) south-west of Wuhan, under the overall direction of Lominadze but with Ch’u Ch’iu-pai and Li Lisan in command on the ground. The attack was a purely military affair by a force of up to 20,000 soldiers drawn predominantly from mutinous KMT units, many of which had been commanded by Communist officers. The town was taken easily as the garrison was heavily outnumbered.[7]
Once taken, the town was placed under a Revolutionary Committee of twenty-five members which included both KMT and Communists. The nonsense of an uprising against the KMT made under the KMT banner was demonstrated by the inclusion on the Committee of the General (Chang Fah-kwei) who at that very moment was rushing to crush the uprising.[8] The town was evacuated by 5 August to avoid any serious engagement with KMT troops.
What was quite clear was that no uprising occurred either in Nanchang or in the surrounding areas despite the CCP announcing that “Agrarian reform shall be carried out.” Only estates of more than three hectares (about eight acres) which did not belong to the families of NRA officers were to be seized, meaning it was unlikely that many local landlords were affected.[9] But the lack of support amongst the peasants had deeper roots – the track record of the CCP.
During the remaining months of 1927 the Communists were to stage two more equally unsuccessful insurrections: an ineffective attack on Changsha (Mao Zedong arrived too late to participate) and an attack made by the remnants from the Nanchang uprising on the treaty port of Swatow (Shantou) which was defeated.[10] During this period the Communist Party continued to march under the blue and white banner of the Left KMT, further mis-educating CCP members in the principles and organisation of a Leninist party. Worst, it presented to the peasant masses the appearance that the fighting was limited to a fight between the left and right of the KMT.[11]
In all areas the uprisings were defeated after a day or two of ‘success’. The uprisings were little short of fiascos, a series of military mis-adventures with little or no peasant support. The few CCP military forces that remained after the defeat of the Second Chinese Revolution were being destroyed by blind adventurism. When it became clear that these putsches had failed to spark a revolution, responsibility was pinned not on Stalin, the ECCI or its agents or even Ch’u Ch’iu-pai, but on Tan Pingshan who was denounced and expelled for promoting illusions in the Left KMT.[12] On 19 September 1927, the Politburo of the CCP finally announced: “uprisings can under no circumstances take place under the Kuomintang banner”, and formally laid to rest the stinking corpse that had been the bloc within.
Otto Braun describes how individuals and small groups of rank and file troops who survived these adventures fled to isolated rural areas such the Chingkan mountains on the border between Hunan and Jiangxi, often taking up a semi-bandit existence in order to stay alive.[13]
-
Hsiao Tso-Liang, Chinese Communism and the Canton Soviet of 1927, The China Quarterly. 1967 No 30 p49-78.
-
Hofheinz, Op. cit.
-
Guillermaz, J. The Nanchang Uprising, The China Quarterly, No. 11, 1962, p160-168.
-
Schwartz, B. Chinese Communism and the Rise of Mao. Harper Torchbooks 1967 p92.
-
Guillermaz, Op. cit.
-
North, R. Moscow and the Chinese Communists, Stanford Univ. Press, 1963.
-
Hofheinz, Op. cit.
-
North, Moscow … Op. cit. p113 et seq.
-
Braun, O. A Communist Agent in China 1932-1939, C. Hurst & Co., 1982.