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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 17 February 2009
In January 1935 the harassed, decimated main forces of the Chinese Communist movement paused in the course of their epic Long March from Kiangsi to rest and regroup at Tsunyi in the hills of northern Kweichow. During their brief occupation of this remote, provincial town the top political and military leaders present held a conference which has come to be regarded as the major turning point in the history of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). At the time, however, no such significance was attached to the stop-over in Tsunyi and, indeed, the very fact that an important political meeting was convened there was not revealed for some years after.
1 The Maoist interpretation of history was succintly formulated in the Central Committee's “Resolution on Some Questions in the History of Our Party,” adopted in 1945 following the Cheng-feng Movement for ideological purification. All subsequent historical writings have conformed to this interpretation, although many have elaborated on it and added new details. Since the outbreak of the Cultural Revolution in 1966, there have been sporadic references in Red Guard media to the need to revise the 1945 History Resolution, or even to delete it from Mao's Selected Works, owing to its high praise for Liu Shao-ch'i's leadership in the so-called White Areas (i.e., those under Kuomintang control) during the Revolutionary Civil War. Thus far, nothing has come of these calls for revision, perhaps because their foremost proponents included the subsequently disgraced ultra-Leftists, Wang Li and Kuan Feng. In any event, revision to eliminate the references to Liu Shao-ch'i would not affect the Resolution's interpretation of Mao's rise to power in Kiangsi and the Long March.
2 See excerpts from the second in a series of articles entitled “Thoroughly Criticise and Repudiate China's Khrushchev,” published originally in Chieh-fang-chün Pao and released by the New China News Agency (NCNA) on 23 09 1967Google Scholar.
3 The use of the term “myth” in this study is not intended to be pejorative but seeks to convey the idea of a political legend, a saga containing elements both of historical fact and of fictional elaboration and distortion. In this sense “myth” involves an objectification of individual and collective wishes which are personified in a “leader” believed able to fulfil them. As Ruth Benedict has pointed out: “Myth, like secular folklore, is an articulate vehicle of a people's wishful thinking. Secular heroes portray the ideal of the culture, and myth remodels the universe to its dominants desire … Man in all his mythologies has expressed his discomfort at a mechanistic universe and his pleasure in substituting a world that is humanly motivated and directed,” Thus in secular mythology, the experiences and achievements of a people are often seen as “the outcome of human acts of the culture hero.” See Benedict, Ruth, “Myth,” Encyclopedia of the Social Sciences, Vol. II New York: Macmillan, 1949, p. 181Google Scholar.
4 See Friedrich, Carl J., Man and His Government: An Empirical Theory of Politics, New York: McGraw-Hill, 1963, pp. 233–241, passimGoogle Scholar.
5 As Dahl, Robert has observed: “When the influence of a leader is clothed with legitimacy it is usually referred to as authority. Authority, then, is a special kind of influence, legitimate influence.” Dahl, Robert, Modern Political Analysis, Englewood Cliffs: Prentice-Hall, 1963, p. 19Google Scholar. For further discussion of the relation-ship between legitimacy and authority see Kim, Young C., “Authority: Some Conceptual and Empirical Notes,” Western Political Quarterly, Vol. 19, No. 2 (06 1966), pp. 223–228CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
6 Pye points out that the Chinese notion of authority tends to be total and undivided. “The expectation seems to be that authority should be monopolistic, diffuse, and capable of handling a wide range of matters without interference.” He also notes that traditionally “government and family” in China have “conspired together to insure that young Chinese were overwhelmingly impressed with the sacredness of authority.” Pye, Lucian W., The Authority Crisis in Chinese Politics, Chicago: University of Chicago Center for Policy Study, 1967, pp. 16, 19Google Scholar.
7 On the Comintern's “retreat” from China after 1930 see McLane, Charles B.,Soviet Policy and the Chinese Communists, 1931–1946, New York: Columbia University Press, 1958, pp. 9–13Google Scholar.
8 Sen, Kang [Sheng, K'ang], “The Organizational Advance of the C.P. in Kuomintang China,” International Press Correspondence [Inprecor], 13: 4 (29 12 1933), p. 1309Google Scholar.
9 “Chung-kung Chung-yang Kuan-yü Fa-chan Tang Ti Tsu-chih Chüeh-i-an” (Resolution of the CCP Central in Regard to Expanding the Party Organization), n.p., n.d. (passed 5 March 1931), p1. [Bureau of Investigation Collection.] Similar figures had been presented by Chou En-lai at the Third Plenum in September 1930.
10 Thus, Mao and Chu Teh delayed by nearly three months responding to Li Li-san's order of 3 April 1930 to redeploy their Red Army units northward immediately to attack Kiukiang; Mao ignored repeated and pressing invitations to attend a conference of delegates from the Soviet areas held at Shanghai in May 1930; and afterward he refused to implement the agrarian policy adopted by that conference although this led him into serious factional strife with pro-Li Li-san elements in control of the Southwest Kiangsi Provincial CCP Committee. See Tso-liang, Hsiao, Power Relations Within the Chinese Communist Movement, 1930–34, Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1961, pp. 14–17, 21, 106–107Google Scholar; also Schwartz, Benjamin, Chinese Communism and the Rise of Mao, Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1952, p. 181Google Scholar.
11 Leang-li, Tang, Suppressing Communist-Banditry in China, Shanghai: China United Press, 1934, p. 71Google Scholar.
12 Snow, Edgar, Red Star Over China, New York: Random House, 1938, p. 183Google Scholar.
13 Ang, Li (Pseud.?), Hung-se Wu-t'ai (The Red Stage), Ch'u-chiang, Kwangtung: Sheng-li Ch'u-pan-she, 1942, p. 156Google Scholar. In contrast with many obviously exaggerated observations in Li's embittered account, this assessment seems entirely plausible. In January 1934, Mao told the Second All-China Soviet Congress that in the single case of the anti-Japanese strike of textile workers in West Shanghai in 1932 the Soviet Government had provided $16,000 (Chinese currency). See text in Brandt, Conrad, Schwartz, Benjamin, and Fairbank, John K., A Documentary History of Chinese Communism, Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1952, p. 228CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
14 According to Kai-shek, Chiang, “… after the Mukden Incident Moscow repeatedly expressed to [the KMT] Government its desire to resume diplomatic relations.” Chung-cheng, Chiang, Soviet Russia In China, New York: Farrar, Straus, and Cudahy, Inc., 1957, p. 69Google Scholar.
15 For a more detailed content analysis of Comintern publications relating to theChinese Soviets and Mao's role in the Communist movement see McLane, , op. cit., pp. 21–22, 29–33Google Scholar. This is not to say that the Comintern abandoned its concern that the CCP develop a stronger proletarian orientation or that it shared to the same degree Mao's emphasis on a rural-based revolutionary strategy.
16 Quoted in Smedley, Agnes, The Great Road, New York: Monthly Review Press, 1956, p. 294Google Scholar.
17 For example, see Ming's, Wang speech before the Seventh Comintern Congress on 7 August 1935 in Inprecor, 15:60 (11 11 1935), p. 1491Google Scholar; Pin, Shee, “A Heroic Trek,” The Communist International, Vol. 13, Special Number (02 1936), p. 144Google Scholar; Mif, Pavel, Heroic China, New York: Workers Library Publisher, 01 1937, p. 69Google Scholar.
18 Thus, in June 1937, a detailed survey of the past decade of CCP history by Lo Fu mentioned the errors of Ch'en Tu-hsiu and Li Li-san but acknowledged none by the 1931–34 leadership. Fu, Lo (Wen-t'ien, Chang), Kuan-yü Shih-nien Lai Ti Chung-kuo Kung-ch'an-tang (Concerning the CCP of the Last Ten Years), n.p.: Chen-li Ch'u-pan She, 1938, pp. 7, 12Google Scholar. A similar rendition of previous intra-Party deviations, omitting any hint of “Left” errors in the Kiangsi period, was presented in a series of lectures by Chang Hao in the spring of 1937 at the anti-Japanese University in Yenan. Hao, Chang(Yü-ying, Lin), Chung-kuo Kung-ch'an-tang Ti Ts'elueh Lu-hsien (The Tactical Line of the CCP), n.p., n.d., p. 9Google Scholar. Likewise, a secret CCP cadre training handbook in use at the time, while dealing in detail with matters of intra-Party discipline and struggle, omitted any mention of opportunist deviations in the Kiangsi years. Tang Ti Chien-she (Party Reconstruction), n.p.: reprint dated July 1938, pp. 37, 40, 44.
19 During lengthy interviews with Edgar Snow in the summer of 1936 Mao freely acknowledged the sins of Tu-hsiu, Ch'en and Li-san, Li, but said nothing about a dominant “Left” line after 1931Google Scholar: nor did any of Snow's other informants.(Red Star Over China, pp. 162–163, 178–183.) Interestingly, Mao's disagreement with Chang Kuo-t'ao in mid-1935 was not hidden from Snow in 1936, although Chang was not formally “tried” and disciplined for his offences until the spring of 1937. See Random Notes on Red China (1936–1945), Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1957, p. 78Google Scholar. It is possible that Mao, in his military lectures of December 1936, referred to a “Left” opportunism of 1932 (not 1931), but the authenticity of this assertion attributed to him is open to question because of the lack of any pre-Cheng-feng period text for reference, plus the fact that subsequent statements either ignored or contradicted such a view. See Mao-Tse-tung, , Chung-kuo Ko-ming Chan-cheng Ti Chan-lü Wen-t'i (Strategic Problems of China's Revolutionary War), n.p.: Pa-lu-chün Chun-cheng Tsa-chih She, 1943, pp. 12, 21Google Scholar. Later revised editions of this work date the period of “Left” errors as beginning in 1931 (Mao, , Selected Works, I, pp. 190, 201, 203Google Scholar). Mao's philosophical lectures “On Practice” and “On Contradiction” delivered in the summer of 1937 did not specifically refer to deviations in the Kiangsi period, although the latter work vaguely mentioned “mistakes of adventurism” in the CCP after 1927 which had been rectified since 1935.” (Mao, , Selected Works, Vol. II, pp. 31, 40Google Scholar.) The only deviationists identified were Ch'en Tu-hsiu and Chang Kuo-t'ao. Moreover, the authenticity of available texts of the documents is open to serious question. See Cohen, Arthur A., The Communism of Mao Tse-tung, Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1964, pp. 23–27Google Scholar.
20 Tse-tung, Mao, The New Stage, Chungking: New China Information Committee, n.d. [probably 1939], p. 72Google Scholar. The Chinese text appeared in Chieh-fang (Liberation), No. 57 (25 11 1938), pp. 3–34Google Scholar.
21 To be sure, Mao's editors now claim that he criticised the Fourth Plenum in his final statement at the Sixth Plenum in November 1938. (Mao, , Selected Works, Vol. II, pp. 273–274, 276Google Scholar.) It is worth noting that this is the earliest specific criticism of the Fourth session to be found even in Mao's revised Selected Works. However, the authenticity of the document in which this criticism appears is open to serious question. Although the Sixth Plenum received detailed coverage in contemporaneous open and secret Party journals, no part of Mao's concluding speech appears to have been published until after 1950.
22 Kung-ch'an Chu-i Yü Kung-ch'an-tang (Communism and the Communist Party) edited by the CCP Central Propaganda Bureau, n.p., n.d. [probably 1939], p. 198Google Scholar.
23 Tse-tung, Mao, “Fa-k'an-t'zu” (Foreword), Kung-ch'an-tang Jen (The Communist), No. 1 (10 1939), p. 8Google Scholar.
24 Thus, while in the original version of his “Foreword”to The Communist (ibid.), Mao declared that the “Left” opportunism of Li Li-san and that of “another time” (unspecified but likely referring to the period of the Fifth Encirclement Campaign) had been “thoroughly conquered at two historic conferences, the Party's Fourth Plenum and its Tsunyi Conference,” this approving reference to the Fourth Plenum—placing it on a par historically with the Tsunyi meeting—was deleted in the revised edition of the text published in 1952. (Mao Tse-tung Hsüan-chi, Vol. II, p. 602Google Scholar.) This change was necessary to bring the article into line with the official Maoist interpretation laid down in the Central Committee's resolution on Party history in 1945. To have shown Mao as crediting the Fourth Plenum with effectively combating “Left” opportunism would have undermined the Maoist contention that the January 1931 meeting had ushered in the “third Left line.”
25 Mao Tse-tung Hsüan-chi, Vol. III, pp. 965–966Google Scholar; Mao, , Selected Works, Vol. IV. p. 182Google Scholar.
26 Originally published at Shanghai in February 1931 under the title Liang-t'iao Lu-hsien (The Two Lines), this booklet was substantially enlarged and republished in March 1932 and March 1940 under a new title. See Shao-yü, Ch'en ( Ming, Wang), Wel Chung-kung Keng-chia Pu-erh-se-wei-k'e-hua Erh Tou-cheng (Struggle for the Further Bolshevisation of the Chinese Communist Party), third edition (Yenan: Chieh-fang She, 1940), 218 pagesGoogle Scholar. Many of the criticisms later raised against this treatise applied only to the enlarged second or third editions of it, rather than that of 1931.
27 The term “Returned Students” is not used in official CCP analyses to denote the “Leftists” allegedly led by Wang Ming and Po Ku—the only leaders ever identified. Similarly, the term “twenty-eight Bolsheviks” has no official standing in Communist literature, having been popularised initially in anti-Communist writings of the late 1930s and early 1940s.
28 By 1938 or 1939 Wang Ming, despite his early Comintern backing, had slipped from a position of real power in the Party hierarchy and was consigned to the demeaning task of supervising the Yenan Girls' School. As noted above, his political demise appears to have resulted not from the Kiangsi “errors” later trumpeted in the Cheng-feng campaign, but from his ardent advocacy of co-operation with the KMT in the early United Front period (an idea apparently not uncongenial to Stalin for several years thereafter).
