The Chinese Revolution

for study and research The Chinese Revolution Pierre Rousset Part II: The Maoist Project Tested in the Struggle for Power Folk artist, Scenes of struggle and victory International Institute for Research and Education Number 3 Chapter 4 1932-1936 Victory in defeat: revolution and protracted warfare Between 1934 and 1936, the But the Long March was not just various Red Army groups left their bases a physical, military and moral trial; it in southern and central China, heading was also a tough political test for the for the Shaanxi Soviet Area, where they Communist Party. Its apparatus was arrived one by one.1 The perilous, heroic weakened by violent factional conflicts. and truly epic journey became known as The very existence of the CCP was at the Long March. The price of this survival stake in several ways. operation was high. On the eve of the "The Long March," Harrison great trek, total Red Army forces were Salisbury notes in a paraphrase of estimated at 300 000; only 30 000 general Qin Xinghan, "was not just guns ultimately came together in and bullets; it was three battles in one - northwestern China. the battle with Chiang and his regional The 86 000-strong First Front warlords, the battle against nature and Army left the Ji-angxi base area on the elements, and key of keys, the October 16, 1934, together with the CCP battle within the Communist Party, the central leadership. It was to travel 10 battle of leader against leader and policy 000 kilometers and overcome many against policy."3 trying moments: repeated engagements Mao emerged from it all at the with the Guomindang troops, the head of the CCP. Before 1935, one could hostility of non-Chinese peoples, refer to a Maoist faction inside the CCP, fearsome natural obstacles and the much as people had talked about the eroding morale of its own fighters. In "Zhu-Mao Army"4 in the days of the fact, one of the most difficult tests for Jingganshan and Jiangxi in the late the Red Army was dealing with the 1920s. After 1935, one is compelled to demoralization of soldiers who had been recog-nize the existence of a Maoist hounded from their native province, cut party leadership, a team that is still off from their family and village, thrust challenged by some but whose scope into provinces whose language and cus- goes far beyond that of a mere regional toms were alien, and set on what faction. seemed, for a long time, a haphazard quest for a more sheltered base area. 1932-1935: Mao's demise and comeback Only 4000 of them, including Mao Zedong, reached Wuqi, North Shaanxi2, Mao Zedong's comeback is one of the last stops on the way to particularly noticeable because he had Yan'an, the new "red capital," on October lost most of his power by the eve of the 19, 1935. great exodus, in 1934. His downhill slide had begun in 1932, when first Zhou Enlai, then Bo Gu and Luo Fu (Zhang 1 See map of the Long March in Volume l,NSR Wentian), two of the "28 Bolsheviks" n°2,p. 15. faction's main representatives, arrived in 2 The figures above are those of Harrison E. his Soviet Republic, with the backing of Salisbury, The Long March, London/Sydney: Pan 5 Books, 1986, p. 23. For propaganda reasons, the Otto Braun , the "military adviser" sent Communist Party had inflated the figures of the First Front Army, dubbed "The Army of 100 000." 3 Salisbury, p. 91. General Qin Xinghan, when But the rolls of the Red Army give the following interviewed by Salisbury, was assigned to the figures, including enrollment in progress: 19 880 Military History Museum. for the First Army Group, 17 805 for the Third, 12 4 Zhu De was one of the main leaders of the Red 168 for the Fifth, 10922 for the Eighth, 11 538 for Army Group since the early heroic days of the the Ninth, 4695 for the Military Commission Jingganshan. The two men were so closely Column, 9853 for the Central Column. See associated in popular imagery that some believed Salisbury p. 31 and footnote 7, p. 353. they were a single person: Zhu Mao. When comparing the figures on departure and 5 Otto Braun, probably a German, used the party arrival, account must be taken of the fact that name of Li De and the pen name of Hua Fu. He thousands of recruits were added during the Long arrived in Jiangxi in spring 1933 and became in March itself. Losses include those killed, wounded practice the main leader of the region. He and not transportable, deserters, etc. participated in the Long March, even after losing by Moscow. enabled Mao to reassert his leadership. Mao's formal position remained In December 1934, during the quite high during that period. He had conference of Tong-dao (a town near the lost his post as an alternate member of border of Hunan and Guizhou), he was the Political Bureau (PB) in 1927 after reinstated into the central military the failure of the Autumn Harvest commission, from which he had been Uprising. But he regained it in 1931 and expelled in 1932. A week later, on became a full member of the PB in 1934. December 18, Mao bolstered his position Nevertheless, his authority was during an enlarged meeting of the undermined and his associates Political Bureau held in Liping, the threatened; he was becoming thriving seat of a county in southeastern increasingly isolated. Maoist conceptions Guizhou.6 By mid-January 1935, Mao on strategy were subjected to syste- asserted his preeminence over Otto matic criticism during a violent Braun and Bo Gu at another enlarged controversy over military affairs. meeting of the PB, held in Zunyi, an Leadership was in the hands of the urban center of the same province. troika of Otto Braun, Bo Gu and Zhou Mao succeeded in consolidating Enlai. his political power throughout 1935, By 1934, Mao's position seemed despite a grave military setback suffered as desperate as it had seemed strong in under his newly-acquired command, 1932. Most of the red generals sided immediately after the Zunyi conference. with Zhou Enlai or Otto Braun. When the The incident occurred in late January, as Long March began, the PB assigned the Red Army attempted to cross the cadres of the Maoist faction to take Yangtze river at Qinggangpo, and came charge of the rear; few of them survived close to total disaster. In the event, Mao the "mop-up" operations launched by the seems to have committed one of the white armies in the red zone now very mistakes against which he had emptied of its main defenses. often warned: engaging in battle without To break out of the enemy ring, sufficient information on enemy forces.7 the Red Army had to smash through four Maoist historiography has piously lines of bunkers. It managed to cross forgotten this nearly fatal blunder. This the first three with relative ease, thanks defeat, and the subsequent retreat and to secret compromises with local many exhausting forced marches, warlords. But it paid very dearly its fostered disquieting complaints among passage through the fourth line, on the the commanders of the Red Army: even river Xiang. The Communists were Lin Biao, then a young general who had slowed down by long columns of porters supported Mao during the dog days of and could not escape beyond the reach 1932 to 1934, gave voice to this of the white armies. Their losses (both discontent.8 casualties and desertions) soon rose to Despite this failure, the quality of 50 000; by January 1935, the First Army Mao's command at a time when the only numbered 30 000. relationship of forces was particularly These events undermined the unfavorable, compelled recognition. The authority of Otto Braun—in title a mere Red Army, now numbering only 20 000, "adviser," in fact the party's main was forced to face a new encircling politico-military leader— among the maneuver. Chiang Kai-shek had cadres of the Red Army. This context assembled between 500 00 and 750 000 troops and blockaded all escape routes. But Mao took advantage of the the proconsular powers he wielded for a time, and contradictions among the various remained in China until 1939, at which point he left warlords, used the extraordinary speed of for the Soviet Union. It seems that friends advised his own troops, and carried out a not to return to base too fast: this is how he escaped multiplicity of diversionary maneuvers to the fiercest period of the purges, in which many Stalinists who knew too much lost their lives. He retired in East-Berlin and wrote his memoirs, "Von 6 See Salisbury, pp. 109-113 Schanghai bis Janan", Horizont (East-Berlin), 7 Idem, pp. 145-153 n°23-38,1969. He died in 1974. 8 Idem, pp. 188-192 deceive his enemies, break out of their Army: north, as advocated by Mao, into net and achieve the reputedly impossible Han country10, to be able to regain the feat of seizing the Luding bridge: in late initiative when the opportunity would May 1935, with only 12 000 to 13 000 arise (the war with Japan...); or ever people left, he again escaped extermi- further west, into Tibetan lands, as nation by successfully crossing the Dadu argued by Zhang Guotao, to get closer river. to the Soviet borders, at the risk of Mao's Red Army was now isolation from "useful" China? sheltered from White attacks for a while.

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