? FIRST and SECOND NATIONAL CONGRESSES of the CHINESE SOVIET REPUBLIC, 1931 and 1934 by Derek John Waller, B*Sc.(Econ.), M.A.(In
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? FIRST AND SECOND NATIONAL CONGRESSES OF THE CHINESE SOVIET REPUBLIC, 1931 AND 1934 By Derek John Waller, B*Sc.(Econ.), M.A.(Indiana) Thesis submitted for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy to the University of London, September 1968* ProQuest Number: 10731658 All rights reserved INFORMATION TO ALL USERS The quality of this reproduction is dependent upon the quality of the copy submitted. In the unlikely event that the author did not send a com plete manuscript and there are missing pages, these will be noted. Also, if material had to be removed, a note will indicate the deletion. uest ProQuest 10731658 Published by ProQuest LLC(2017). Copyright of the Dissertation is held by the Author. All rights reserved. This work is protected against unauthorized copying under Title 17, United States C ode Microform Edition © ProQuest LLC. ProQuest LLC. 789 East Eisenhower Parkway P.O. Box 1346 Ann Arbor, Ml 48106- 1346 2 ABSTRACT The early 1930fs, or "Kiangsi soviet" period in the history of the Chinese Communist Party (COP), is one of the most obscure in the entire development of the communist movement* The major significance of the two National Congresses of 1931 and 1934 is that using them as a focal-point for analysis provides new information on the inter-related themes of political processes and power-relations during this period* In 1930, the COP leader Li Li-san attempted to convene the First Congress. The attempt proved abortive when Li fell from power in November 1930* The "Returned Student groupn, as the new Party leadership, continued to press for a Congress in order to assert their authority over that of Mao Tse-tung in the soviet areas. Many of the new leaders moved to the soviet areas from Shanghai prior to the First Congress of November 1931> but although they were successful- in gaining control of the COP organisation in the soviet areas, the Congress, and the governmental apparatus produced by it, remained under the control of the Maoists. Mao did little during 1931 to provide an efficient governmental administrative apparatus for the soviet areas, preferring to use military organisations, a situation which was rectified by the "Returned Students" after the First Congress. By 1933? they had asserted their dominance over Mao in the military sphere, and by the summer of that year, they had sufficiently eroded his influence in the governmental sphere to permit them to convene the Second Congress of January 1934, which formalised their authority in the government. The "Returned Student group" then controlled all three power structures in the soviet areas - Party, army and government. Mao and his followers, in order to retain some Influence, publicly agreed with what they considered to be the incorrect policies of the "Returned Student" leaders* In spite of a lack of success in mobilising the support of the local population, the establishment of a formal government of the Chinese Soviet Republic institutionalised the shift of COP operations from the cities to the countryside, and in addition, created a potential national government, which was a victory for the communists in their drive to represent an "alternative way" to that of the Kuomintang. 4 ACKNOWLEDGEMENT S I have to thank the Research and Publications Committee of the Hoover Institution on War, Revolution and Peace, Stanford University, for a grant during the summer of 1965? which first enabled me to gain acquaintance with the Ch'en Ch'eng collection of documents* The library staff of the Hoover Institution, in particular Mr. David Tseng, were always unfailingly helpful* The following year, the Universities1 China Committee in London were kind enough to finance a research visit to United States' libraries and institutions. For courtesies extended during this visit, I must express my thanks to Dr. Donald W. Klein and Mrs. Anne B. Clark of the East Asian Research Centre, Harvard University, who were most generous in allowing me to use the material they had assembled towards their study of Chinese communist leaders. I am also grateful for similar assistance from Professor Howard L* Boorman, formerly Director of the Research Project on Men and Politics in Modern China, Columbia University. To Mr. William Dorrill of the Research Analysis Corporation, McLean, Virginia, who has worked extensively on the "ICiangsi soviet" period, I am indebted for the time he spent in discussing my research, and for permitting me to view a section of his unpublished manuscript. Help in supplying books and microfilms came from Mr. Eric Grinstead of the Department of Oriental Printed Books and Manuscripts of the British Museum, and from Mr. John Lust of the Library of the 5 School of Oriental and African Studies. In addition, I must thank Mr. W. Brugger, Mr. M. Yahuda, and Mr. Tang Hsiang for assistance in translation. (Responsibility for any errors, however, remains my own.) Finally, for help rendered at various stages in my research, I should like to express my gratitude to Dr. Dennis J. Doolin, Mr. Roy Hoffheinz, Professor John W. Lewis, Professor P. J. Yatikiotis, and last, but by no means least, to my supervisor, Professor Stuart R, Schram. 6 ABBREVIATIONS cc Central Committee GCP Chinese Communist Party CEO Central Executive Committee CPC Council of People!s Commissars CPSU Communist Party of the Soviet Union ECCI Executive Committee of the Communist HCJP Hung Ch*i Jih-pao (Red Plag Daily) HSGH Hung-se Chung-hua (Red China) KMT Kuomintang EMC Revolutionary Military Council 7 [TABLE OF CONTENTS Page ABSTRACT............................................... 2 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS........................ 4 ABBREVIATIONS.................................. 6 INTRODUCTION......................................... 8 Chapter I THE LI LI-SAN PERIOD.......................... 27 Progress towards a Central Government II THE EIRST NATIONAL SOVIET CONGRESS............ 82 Laws and Resolutions of the Congress Creation of a Soviet Government Summary III THE SECOND NATIONAL SOVIET CONGRESS........... 171 Preparations for the Second Congress The Election Campaign Proceedings of the Congress Analysis of the New Government Summary IV CONCLUSION............ „...................... 316 APPENDIX............................................... 324 SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY.................................. 344 INTRODUCTION 9 Up until 1927, the official Stalinist line for the Chinese Communist Party (COP) was based on the aim of infiltrating and controlling Chiang Kai-shek!s Kuomintang (KMT), and thereby accomplishing the bourgeois-democratic revolution in China. The anti-communist coup launched by Chiang Kai-shek in April 1927 ended all possibility of achieving this aim. The policy had failed partially because Stalin did not control the KMT army, and partially because of the policy of the Communist International (Comintern) itself, whose agent Borodin had organised the KMT. on a democratic-centralist basis, thus making it well-nigh invulnerable to communist infiltration.-*- Stalin however, largely because of his domestic conflict with Trotsky, refused to acknowledge the incorrectness of his policies, and while attacking the right wing of the KMT, adopted a conciliatory attitude towards its left faction in Wuhan. It is at this time, mid 1927, after the break with the KMT Left in July, that Stalin first moots the possibility of soviets in China. The term “soviet11 was borrowed directly from Russian experience and referred to the kind of representative council of workers, peasants and soldiers first set up at the time of the 1905 revolution ^ 1 Democratic centralism refers to the election of all leading Party organs, the submission of the minority to the majority, and the binding force of decisions of higher Party organs on lower Party organs. 2 Bravda, July 28, 1927; quoted in Robert C. North, Moscow and Chinese Communists, (Second Etdn., Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1965), p. 109* 10 and later repeated in 1917. In China it later came to refer more generally to any territorial area controlled by the CCP. China had become a pawn in the Trotsky-Stalin conflict, and in mid-1927, with Trotsky claiming that Chiang*s coup d ’etat had ended the revolutionary situation, Stalin postulated the reverse assumption that the revolutionary wave was just climbing towards its crest. In order to demonstrate the truth of this assertion, he needed revolutionary victories in China, and therefore sent an agent, Bominadze, who organised the short-lived and unsuccessful Hanchang Uprising of August 1, 1927. As was becoming customary in the international communist movement, Stalin blamed the leaders of the local communist parties for his own errors. The August 7, 1927 Emergency Conference of the CCP marked the dismissal of its long-time leader Ch’en Tu- hsiu and the rise of Gh1^ Ch’iu-pai. The Conference confirmed the new Comintern line of increased reliance on the peasantry (although not to the abandonment of the urban proletariat) and called for further armed uprisings in the light of the postulated ’’rising revolutionary wave”.-*- It is now time to examine briefly the actions of Mao during the year, as the development of his activities was later to become the mainstream of the movement. In line with the call for further I Conrad Brandt, Benjamin Schwartz and J, K. Pairbank, A Documentary History of Chinese Communism. (Cambridge, Mass: Harvard University Press, 1952), pp. 97-102, 118-123. (Hence forth referred to as Documentary History). See also Benjamin Schwartz, Chinese Communism and the Rise of Mao. (Cambridge, Mass: Harvard University Press, 1964), pp. 93-96. 11 armed revolts issued by the new CCP leader Ch’ii Ch’iu-pai, Mao was sent to Hunan to organise the Autumn Harvest Uprisings of August and September* These sporadic risings ended in failure and Mao was dismissed from the Politburo* During the Uprisings, Mao had prematurely adopted the policy of organising soviets which, although as has been mentioned, had been tentatively mooted by Stalin as a slogan as early as July, was not actually authorised by the Comintern as a policy until the end of September 1 9 2 7 .1 In spite of repeated failures, the November 9 Plenum of the CCP Central Committee found no shift in the Comintern line.