1 I am indebted to Mr. Wu Mo-feng, Director of the Fourth Section of the Investigation Bureau of the Ministry of Justice for permitting me to use the Library, to Mr. Ch'en Ch'iang, Liaison Officer for the Library, and to the Librarian, Mr. Lin, who brought the Chung-yang T'ung-hsin and many other interesting items to my attention. Dr. T. K. Tong, Librarian of the Chinese Section of the East Asian Library of Columbia University, kindly corrected my translation, clarified obscure passages, and gave me bibliographic and biographical assistance. I am much indebted to him, though responsibility for accuracy of translation is my own. Most of this research was conducted while I was on a Fulbright Fellowship in Formosa, and I wish to express my appreciation to the U.S. Educational Foundation in the Republic of China as well as to the East Asian Institute of Columbia University for their assistance. The collection of the Central Newsletter in the Library of the Ministry of Justice is classified as Class 052.1/809, No. 2777, Vol. 1. The following numbers are preserved: 2 (08 23, 1927),Google Scholar 3 (August 30), 4 (September 12), 5 (September 20), 6 (September 30), 7 (October 30), 13 (November 30 [I do not understand this large gap in numbering during one month]), 14 (undated, but documents from November and December, 1927). [Beginning with this issue the cover title is Chung-yang Cheng-chih T'ung-hsün (Central Political Newsletter], 16 (undated, but contents date from late 10 to 12 31, 1927). I was privileged to use this Library in 1962 in connection with a study of the Nationalist Northern Expedition of 1926–28, and had parts of the Central Newsletter copied and checked.Google Scholar

2Hung-se Wu-t'ai (Red Stage) (Hong Kong: 1941), p. 160.Google Scholar

3 Anything in brackets has been added. In several places xx or … appear in the Chinese text and are preserved in the translation. I have used quotation marks only around those passages so designated in the original. Other quotations not designated as such by the Chinese marking system are treated as indirect quotations. Occasionally Li Li-san and Chang Kuo-t'ao referred to themselves by name, in a Chinese manner, but I have substituted “I.” Page numbers of the original text are given in bold figures in square brackets in this translation.Google Scholar

4Central Newsletter, No. 7, 10 30, 1927, pp. 24–42.Google Scholar

5 Zigon=“Kumanine.” See Sokolsky, George, The Tinder Box of Asia (New York: Doubleday & Doran, 1932), p. 340.Google Scholar

6 The text here is unclear.Google Scholar

7Central Newsletter, No. 7, 10 30, 1927, pp. 52–59.Google Scholar

8Central Newsletter, No. 7, 10 30, 1927, pp. 48–51.Google Scholar

9Central Newsletter, No. 7, 10 30, 1927, pp. 43–47.Google Scholar

10Central Newsletter, No. 7, 10 30, 1927, pp. 13–23.Google Scholar

11 Original text unclear.Google Scholar

12 Unfortunately, I do not have a copy of this.Google Scholar

13Central Newsletter, No. 13, 10 30, 1927, pp. 63–72.Google Scholar

14 It is not clear from the Chinese text whether nine or ten persons are listed. The representative of International and Youth International might be the same person, though two seems more likely. Yet V. Lominadze, the new Comintern representative, had, according to Conrad Brandt, Stalin's Failure in China, 1924–1927 (Cambridge: Harvard Un. Press, 1958), p. 214Google Scholar, note 96, recently been appointed Secretary of the Youth International. Brandt makes him the “new chief of the Soviet mission,” replacing Borodin (p. 147). (Information apparently based upon interviews with Chang Kuo-t'ao, who certainly had known the “new representative of International.”) North, Robert C., Moscow and Chinese Communists (Palo Alto: Stanford Un. Press, 1953),Google Scholar p. 110, identifies two agents sent by Stalin at this time as Besso Lominadse and Heinz Neumann. Lominadse, he says, “carried instructions for an uprising soon to take place at Nanchang.” (Based on an interview with M. N. Roy.) Roy left Hankow in late July or early August, according to North, Robert C. and Eudin, Xenia J., M. N. Roy's Mission to China (Berkeley: Un. of California Press, 1963), p. 126. It is not known whether he attended this meeting on 07 26, 1927. Chang Kuo-t'ao does not list him, although he does refer to him later in the letter.Google Scholar

15 This is a reference to the beginning of the Sung dynasty when troops in revolt forced their commander, Chao Kuang-yin, to assume the yellow mantle as Emperor of a new dynasty.Google Scholar

16 An English version of this passage is found in Xenia Joukoff, Eudin and North, Robert C., Soviet Russia and the East, 1920–27: a documentary survey (Palo Alto: Stanford Univ. Press, 1957), p. 375.Google Scholar

17Central Newsletter, No. 13, 10 30, 1927, p. 73.Google Scholar

18Central Newsletter, No. 13, 10 30, 1927, pp 36–41.Google Scholar From this interesting Resolution which criticises the execution of several Communist inspired revolts in August and September 1927, and orders disciplinary measures against several Communist leaders, including Mao Tse-tung, I present only the verdicts handed down in connection with the Nanchang Revolt. The entire text of this Resolution is available in Ming Chih [Ch'en Ch'i-t'ien]: Fan-O yü fan-Kung (opposing Russia and opposing the Communists), 4th ed. (Shanghai: 05 1929), pp. 351–360.Google Scholar In Columbia University Library. For another partial translation see The China Quarterly, No. 2, 04–06 1960, pp. 32–33.Google Scholar