The Cambridge History of China. Vol. 13: Republican China 1912-1949, Part 2
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CREATION OF RURAL SOVIETS I9I
or so Soviets probably had 300 counties under various degrees of
Communist control or influence. The guerrilla bands that did not create
Soviets, such as those led by K'uang Chi-hsun in Szechwan between July
and October 1929, vanished into oblivion.
86
The
rich
peasant problem
The Soviets set out to confiscate land and mobilize the poor peasants, a
task usually allocated to revolutionary committees or village and district
Soviets, which were initially dominated by immigrant intellectuals from
cities and towns.
87
This fact implied that a passive role was played by the
politically inexperienced peasants and that party
cells
tended to overshadow
the administrative organizations.
88
A period of six months was normally
needed for the peasants to break through their passivity and scepticism,
and thus involve themselves first in economic problems such as grain
scarcity and taxation and then political matters such as the class struggle.
89
Once the wall of passivity was pulled down, the land revolution helped
release the long pent-up hatred of the poor against the rich and inspired
them to participate more actively in military and political work. To reach
through to this peasant activism was the very essence of the land
revolution. It is nonetheless an irony that the intellectual thinking of the
CCP at that time paid scant attention to this process of politicization and
activization of the poor peasants. All the while the party's attention and
eulogies went to the urban proletariat, which was bogged down in
economic struggles for more money and better working conditions, both
issues of limited political significance.
The land policy of the CCP fell victim to the wrangling for power
between Stalin and Bukharin. Based on Lenin's attitude towards the kulaks
and the Russian experience that the kulaks exploited the masses even more
cruelly and savagely than had the landlords, the CI instructed the CCP
on
20
June
1929
to radicalize its policy toward rich
peasants.
Consequently,
the Kiangsi soviet in February 1930 adopted a land law that stipulated
the confiscation of all communal, landlords' and rich peasants' land; and
the conference of the soviet areas held in May
1930
(without Mao Tse-tung)
86
Hu Hua, Cbung-kuo bsin-min-cbu cbu-i ko-ming-sbib ts'ait-k'ao t^u-liao (Historical materials on the
Chinese new democratic revolution); hereafter
Materials,
230. Estimates of the size, population
and strength of
the
red armies vary widely. Indeed, even the concept of' Communist occupation'
requires stringent definition, as Hofheinz has pointed out (n. 79 above). Although K'uang lost
his Szechwan soviet, his guerrilla activities continued in the border region between Szechwan,
Hupei and Hunan, as frequently reported in the
Sbib-pao
(The eastern times) of Shanghai.
" About the structure and functions of the soviet governments, see Lotveit,
Communism
and Kim,
Politics.
** Mao's report of
2;
November 1929 in MTTC 2.51-2.
*• Po-ku (Ch'in Pang-hsien) related this experience to Snow,
Random
notes,
19.
Cambridge Histories Online © Cambridge University Press, 2008
I92 THE COMMUNIST MOVEMENT I927-I937
advocated
the
confiscation
of
that part
of
rich peasants' land which was
rented
out to
others
to
farm.
90
Down
at the
soviet level
the
rich peasants presented
a
tough practical
problem. When their vital interests were threatened, they obstructed
the
work
of
land redistribution. Trade between the base areas and the nearby
towns was
in
their hands and they could stop this with dire consequences
to the Communists. This experience was reflected
in
the Ching-kang-shan
land law of December 1928.
91
Later the land law of Hsing-kuo, April 1929,
adopted a milder attitude toward rich peasants.
92
Probably due to the same
considerations,
the
rich peasants
of
the O-Yii-Wan soviet retained their
land
up to
1931. Neither the Hsiang-o-hsi nor Hsiang-kan soviet pursued
a rigorous policy towards rich peasants.
93
When the 28 Bolsheviks took power at the party centre, the rich peasant
issue sharpened. Mao's way
of
curbing the influence
of
the rich peasants
by taking away their 'surplus land'
{ch'ou-to pu-shao)
in
the
first land
redistribution
and by
taking away their 'good land'
(ch'ou-feipu-sbou)
in
the second redistribution,
94
without violating
the
principle
of
equality,
came under fire
at
the fourth plenum
in
January i93i.
9S
He
was directed
to change
his
policy
by the
centre's letter dated
1
September 1931.
To
be sure, the rich peasant question formed an important link in the centre's
class line which was deemed essential to mobilizing the poor masses. What
the centre wanted was
to
give only poor land
to the
rich peasants while
no compensation was
to be
considered
for the
landlords. Theoretically,
Mao
did not
regard
all
rich peasants
as
exploiters. They could
be
semi-landlords
or
semi-capitalists, but they could also be merely potential
exploiters.
96
The 28 Bolsheviks,
on the
other hand, defined rich peasants
as those
who
' before
the
revolution, rented
a
part
of
their land, loaned
money
at
usurious rates
of
interest, and usually hired labour'. They were
90
On
the CI
directive,
see
Hung-se wen-bsien, 324-7
and
Thornton, Comintern,
87-91.
This
and
other
directives
of
the CI,
contrary
to
Thornton's impression,
are
couched
in
vague terms.
The
kulak
problem, this particular instruction says, could
be
relegated
to
a
secondary position when
the
war against imperialists
and
reactionaries became embittered.
It was
probably
on
this qualification
that
Li
Li-san reversed
his
land policy
in
the
summer
of
1930. For
texts
of
these laws
see
Wang
Chien-min, Draft history, 2.357-61.
But
it
would
be
wrong
to say
that
Li
Li-san's land
law of
May
1930
represented
a
sharp turn towards
a
radical policy against
the
rich peasants.
As it
did
not insist upon
the
liquidation
of
the
kulaks,
it
stood
to
the
right
of
the CI
instructions.
91
MTTC 2-67-9
an
^ ^
so
47
SLn
^
j6-
92
Ibid.
2.73-5
ant
'
'79-84.
93
Wang Chien-min, Draft history, 2.191-2
and
245-8; HHLY 2.99-100.
M
Ho
Kan-chih, Cbung-kuo bsien-tai ko-ming sbib (History
of
the
modern Chinese revolution), 1.143.
The Chinese edition
of
this book
is
far
superior
to its
English translation published
in
i960.
55
Hung-se aen-bsien,
236.
96
Resolution no. 2 adopted by the Joint Meeting of the Front Committee and the Western Fukien
Special Committee, June 1930 in Hsiao Tso-Uang,
The
land revolution
in
China,
ipjo-1^4: a
study
of documents, 153—J.
Cambridge Histories Online © Cambridge University Press, 2008
CREATION OF RURAL SOVIETS 193
thus plainly exploiters.
97
To treat them leniently was to blur the class line
or to abandon class struggle altogether.
98
The difference between taking away a part of the ' good land' of
a
rich
peasant and giving him only 'poor land' might seem trivial. Certain facts,
however, should
be
borne
in
mind. First, the expansion
of
soviet areas
to include cities and towns and the growth of
a
trading system under the
soviet government or in the form of cooperatives drastically reduced the
mercantile function of the rich peasants, whose interests could be impaired
for the sake of mobilizing the masses. Second, the rich peasants, making
use
of
clan associations
to
conceal their actual land holdings, prevented
the land revolution from being carried
out
thoroughly. This became
evident during the land investigation campaign of
1933.
Third, they leased
land from the orphaned or the widowed, the aged or the young, because
they had more able-bodied men
in
their families, more farming animals,
more tools,
and
more liquid capital. Fourth,
by
falsifying their class
category, they could infiltrate and take control of the poor peasants' corps,
cooperatives and other mass organizations
to
make the land revolution
and mass mobilization
in
some places
a
farce.
99
Therefore from
1931
onward, the land laws of the newly established Soviet Republic of China
accepted the class line of the 28 Bolsheviks by distributing only poor land
to rich peasants while confiscating their surplus tools, livestock
and
houses.
100
To
what extent this
new
anti-kulak line was implemented
cannot be ascertained.
In
O-Yii-Wan, Chang Kuo-t'ao accepted this line
and seems
to
have pushed the policy
of
the First Congress of the Soviet
Republic (held
in
November 1931) with vigour.
101
After the transfer
of
his soviet to north Szechwan in 1933, Chang and his comrades intensified
their drive against rich peasants. Elsewhere, the new line was carried out
only half-heartedly.
102
It was to
accelerate
the
struggle against rich
peasants that the land investigation campaign was launched.
97
Centre's letter, 10 January 1952
in
Wang Chien-min, Draft history, 2.508.
88
Hsiao Tso-liang, hand revolution, 49.
*> MTTC 2.166-7; Wang Chien-min, Draft history, 2.508.
100
MTTC 2.259—62; Ts'ao Po-i, Soviet, 192—3 and 495; Hsiao Tso-liang, hand revolution, JJ. Land
transactions, however, were allowed
in
Wang Ming's 'Two lines'
(Hsuan-ebi,
3.61). According
to the land policy of the First Congress of the Soviet Republic, landlords and rich peasants were
not permitted
to
purchase land. Slightly later, notice no. 2 issued by the Central Revolutionary
Military Commission gave rich peasants the right
to
buy
or
sell land but they were not allowed
to do
it
in
a
monopolistic fashion. The questions are: who was actually buying and selling land
in the soviet areas and who had the money
to
buy? See MTTC 2.262.
101
Ming-poo
40.98; Wang Chien-min, Draft
history,
2.245.
102
For experiences
in
Hsiang-o-hsi
and
Hsiang-kan, see Wang Chien-min, Draft history, 2.245
in<
^
249-51;
HHhY 2.99.
Cambridge Histories Online © Cambridge University Press, 2008
194
THE
COMMUNIST MOVEMENT 1927-1937
The land
investigation
Precisely
who was
responsible
for
launching this campaign
is not
easy
to
say.
For a
work
of
this magnitude
and
importance
it is
inconceivable that
the party centre
had no
part
in the
decision,
and
without involving
the
entire structure
of
the soviet government
it is
doubtful that
the
decision
could
be
implemented.
The
party centre
in
1933
was
firmly
in the
hands
of the
28
Bolsheviks,
and yet no one is
sure
to
what extent
the
influence
of the centre reached down
to the
grass roots.
On the
other hand, before
1934
Mao was
still
the
dominant figure
in the
government with
his
prestige riding high among
the
masses.
In all
probability,
the
campaign
began
as a
joint effort using
the
authority
of the
party
and the
prestige
of Mao,
a
combination
of
the class line
and
mass line.
103
In the
first phase
of the campaign, between June
and
September 1933,
it
was obvious that
Mao
was
responsible. Then
in
October
the
party centre stepped
in to
announce
its new
policy, which interrupted,
and for a
time suspended
the
movement till
the
convocation
of the
Second Congress
of the
Soviet
Republic held
in
January-February 1934. Thereafter Chang Wen-t'ien,
as
the chairman
of
the People's Commissariat, took
it
over.
104
The military situation at the end of the fourth KMT encirclement, when
the campaign began,
was
favourable
to the CCP,
although food
had
become
a
serious problem. Since March 1933a series
of
measures had been
taken
to
counteract the KMT blockade
-
such as setting
up a
Food Board
(Liang-shih t'iao-chieh chii), investigating
the
supply
of
foodstuff
in the
counties,
and the
prohibition
of
cornering grain
by
merchants.
105
Because
they were otherwise preoccupied,
the
soviet government also encouraged
the masses
to
help officials and cadres farm their shares
of
land.
106
Finally,
the land investigation campaign was decreed.
I07
Its
main purpose was
not
to redistribute land again, unless
the
masses demanded
it;
rather
it was
to investigate the class background
of
as
many people
as
possible without
affecting production.
108
It was
hoped that
in
this
way the
hidden
counter-revolutionaries and feudal elements could
be
ferreted
out and at
the same time
the
enthusiasm
of
the masses could
be
heightened
in
order
to consolidate
the
defence
of
the soviet area against
the
forthcoming fifth
encirclement. Take
the
poor peasants' corps,
for
instance.
In
some places
'03 Warren
Kuo,
History, 2.409—12; Ts'ao Po-i, Soviet, 203—5; Lotveit, 154—84.
104
For
instance,
al] the
directives
on
the
land investigation were
now
issued
by
Chang Wen-t'ien.
I0
» Directive
of
the
Central People's Commissariat,
4
March
1933
in
MTTC 3.195-6
and
3.195-6.
106
Directive of the Central Executive Committee, 14 April 1933, MTTC 3.207-8.
107
Directive of the Central People's Commissariat, 1 June 1933, MTTC 3.223?.
108
MTTC
3.254.
Cambridge Histories Online © Cambridge University Press, 2008
CREATION OF RURAL SOVIETS 195
they existed
in
name only and
in
other places they had not even been
organized until after the campaign was in progress.
I09
Class categorization was obviously
a
vital
but
complex problem,
especially when
it
came to deciding who were the kulaks and who were
the rich middle peasants. According to Mao's definition, given on 29 June
1933.
The rich peasant as a rule owns land. But some rich peasants own only part of
their land and rent the remainder. Others have no land of their own at all and
rent
all
their land. The rich peasant generally has rather more and better
instruments of production and more liquid capital than the average and
is
engaged
in labour
himself,
but always relies on exploitation for part or even the major
part of
his
income.
His
main form of exploitation
is the
hiring of labour (long-term
labourers). In addition, he may lease part of his land and practise exploitation
through land rent, or
may
lend money or engage in industry and
commerce.
Most
rich peasants also engage in the administration of
communal
land. A person who
owns a fair amount of good land, farms some of
it
himself without hiring labour,
but exploits other peasants by means of land rent, loan interest or in other ways,
shall also be treated
as a
rich peasant. Rich peasants regularly practise exploitation
and may derive most of their income from this source.
110
One can imagine that such
a
complex definition was difficult to apply.
Indeed, the second resolution of the party centre on 8 August 1933 noted
the confusion caused
by
this definition."
1
Subsequently the People's
Commissariat took it upon itself to discuss some of the problems arising
from the land struggle.
A
rich peasant was redefined
as
one whose
exploitative income amounted to more than 15 per cent of the total. With
this
new
definition there
was the
need
for a
reinvestigation
and
re-categorization. In Sheng-li county alone, 1,512 households out of 3,125
were changed from landlords or rich peasants to middle or poor peasants;
the investigation of class background thus dwindled into a calculation of
class background. The situation became an unholy chaos.
112
If Mao's statistics are to be trusted, the campaign up to September 1933
had succeeded in recovering 307,539 piculs of land (land was measured
by its yield
in
some parts
of
Kiangsi) and confiscated property worth
¥606,916.
He
also reported that
in
some counties production
had
increased by 15-20 per cent from 1932 to
1933.
II3
To put these figures
in their proper perspective, note that the soviet government floated
a
public
loan of Y3 million in July
1933,
issued Yio million of currency in 1933-34,
1M
MTTC }.22j and 257;
Tou-cbeng,
24 May 1934; Wang Kuan-Ian in HHLY 2.211.
110
Mao, .W1.138.
111
Ts'ao Po-i, Soviet, 211-12.
112
Tou-cbeng,
26 May 1934; Chang Wen-t'ien's directive in Red China, 15 Match 1934.
113
Red China, Second Soviet Congress Supplement, 26 January 1934.
Cambridge Histories Online © Cambridge University Press, 2008
I96 THE COMMUNIST MOVEMENT I927-I937
and borrowed 600,000 piculs of grain from the people in July
1933.
114
As
an economic measure, the land investigation campaign cannot be described
as a seminal success.
When it was resumed in January 1934, the aims of the campaign were
no longer principally economic, not even for the food supply to the Red
Army, but political. It became
a
campaign against counter-revolutionaries,
a red terror against landlords and rich peasants.
115
As such, it was pursued
till the collapse of the central soviet.
The Red Army
The struggle in the border area, as Mao put it, 'is exclusively military'.
116
But since the failure of the Autumn Harvest uprisings followed by the
reorganization of his troops at San-wan on his way to Ching-kang-shan,
Mao,
like the other creators of border areas, had under his command
former KMT officers and men who had radical intellectuals as their
political officers. At Ching-kang-shan these mercenaries were joined with
riff-raff (or the lumpen-proletariat, yu-min fen-t^u), who were excellent
fighters but totally unruly and unaware of the political purposes of the
revolution. The poor peasants looked on, reluctant to take part in
whatever they were doing.
117
In April 1928, Chu Teh and his followers came; they too were former
KMT troops. In fact, mutinies of KMT armies seem to have been an
important source of recruitment for the Red Army in 1928 and 1929. In
the first place, the KMT armies were poorly paid and inhumanly treated
by their officers and, second, the jealousies and rivalries among KMT
officers could often be exploited by the Communists.
118
In July 1928 two
KMT officers, P'eng Te-huai and Huang Kung-lueh, brought their troops
over to Mao and a year later there were the mutinies of Lo Ping-hui's
army in Kian and K'uang Chi-hsun's in Szechwan.
119
By 1930, however,
the peasants showed their readiness to join and some of them were even
promoted to officers.
120
This was probably why among the middle-ranking
officers of the Fourth Front Army very few could read and write.
121
In
114
Ts'ao Po-i, Soviet, 360 and 368; Red China, 26 July 1934.
115
Chang Wen-t'ien's article in Red China, 25 June 1934; Hsiao Tso-liang, hand
revolution,
285.
116
Mao, SW 1.80.
117
Mao's report, 25 October 1928 in Ml IC 2.37; Lo Jung-huan in HHLY i, pt. 1, 139—40; HCPP
1-57-9-
118
HHLY 1, pt. 2, 465-70.
• •»
Fang Ch'iang in HHLY 1, pt. 2, 431-6: HCPP 10.186: Snow, Red star, 273; Agnes Smedley,
Tie great
road:
tie life and times of Chu Teb, 270.
"° HCPP 1.57-9.
121
Ch'en Hsi-lien in HCPP 3.90.
Cambridge Histories Online © Cambridge University Press, 2008
CREATION OF RURAL SOVIETS 197
the spring
of
1934
the
class composition
of
the First Front Army showed
30
per
cent workers
and 68 per
cent peasants,
the
majority
of
whom
(no
less than
77 per
cent) came from
the
central soviet
itself,
while
KMT
deserters
and
mutineers accounted
for
no
more than
4
per
cent.
122
To make the Red Annies different from those of warlords and
the
KMT,
political training
had
first priority. Many of the erroneous tendencies listed
in
the
Ku-t'ien resolutions
of
December
1929
drafted
by
Mao
can be
summed
up
as
a
lack
of
discipline,
an
unawareness
of
the
political goals
of the revolution,
and
an ignorance of the tasks of the Red Army
—
combat,
financing
itself, and
mass mobilization. Political training required that
the
Red Army
set up a
dual system
of
organization
to
take charge
of
strategic
command
and
political work.
By
a
curious coincidence,
at
the
very time
when
the Red
Army introduced
its
soldiers' committees (shih-ping
wei-juan-bui),
Chiang Kai-shek abolished political commissars
in his
army.
The soldiers' committees ensured
a
measure
of
democracy
in the Red
Army
so
that
the men
would
not be
treated like animals
by
their
superiors.
123
There were also political officers whose duties were
not
clearly defined; hence their functions were
not
firmly delineated till
the
Ku-t'ien conference. Their main
job was
to
help
the Red
Army mobilize
the masses
and set up new
regimes.
124
In
addition
to
these,
the
party
representatives
{tang tai-piao)
organized
a
cell
in
each squad
and
a
branch
in each company,
for at
Mao's insistence
the
optimum ratio between party
and non-party members
in
the
army
had
to be
one
to
three.
In
fact,
the
ratio
in
1934 was
28 per
cent
to
72.
I2S
The
command
and
political systems
were separate, with independent revenues
and
a
similar ranking system;
they
had
well-developed channels
of
communication between them.
Within
the
political system,
the
General Political Department, established
in February
1931,
controlled both
the
political officers
and the
party
representatives
(now
called political delegates,
cbeng-chih wet-yuan)
of
various ranks,
but a
party representative
of a
given rank always took
precedence over
a
political officer
of
the
same rank.
126
In
neither
of
the
two systems were salary differences instituted. Everyone
in the
army,
regardless
of
his
rank, received
the
same
pay
and
shared
the
same style
of life.
127
In
battle
and
in
keeping
law and
order,
the
army
was
assisted
by
the Red
Guards
and
peasant self-defence forces.
128
An
army
so
trained
naturally differed considerably from
the
other troops
in
China
of
the same
'" Ti-erb-t^u km-nei ka-ming
cban-tbeng
sbib-cb'i sbib-sbib lun-tfung (Discourses
on the
history
of
the
second revolutionary
war
period),
63-4.
123
Lo
Jung-huan
in
HHLY
1, pt.
1,
139-40.
IM
The
Ku-t'ien resolutions
in
MTTC 2.123-4.
115
Lo
Jung-huan,
ibid.
140.
'">
MTTC
2.124 and
253-4.
•»
Mao,
SW
1.81.
"*
Ibid.
85-6.
Cambridge Histories Online © Cambridge University Press, 2008
I98 THE COMMUNIST MOVEMENT I927-I937
period. Apart from
the
Fu-t'ien incident
of
December 1930, when
a Red
Army unit mutinied
and was
suppressed with many hundreds
of
executions,
the Red
Army
had not
fought
an
internecine battle; seldom
did
it
feel
the
need
to
quell peasant hostility towards
it.
With
the
party
wielding
all the
ideological authority
and
political officers holding
the
purse strings,
the Red
Army was always dominated
by the
party.
It
was
a politicized army supported
by the
masses.
The mass line permeated the Red Army, which was repeatedly reminded
of
the
three disciplines
and the
eight points
of
attention worked
out by
Mao
and his
colleagues,
so
that soldiers would
not
alienate
the
masses
for whom they fought. They propagandized
and
protected
the
people,
and also helped
in
productive work. Cementing their relations with
the
people this
way,
they could
be
sure
of
reliable information
on
enemy
movements,
and in
defeat they could depend
on
the people
to
hide them
in safety. This mutual dependence became more important after
the
evacuation
of
the First Front Army
on the
Long March
in
October
1934
when only small guerrilla bands were left behind
to
harass
the KMT
armies.
129
According
to
various estimates, the Red Army became better organized
under
Li
Li-san's leadership, and had some 50,000 men
in
1930. This was
to grow
to
over 100,000
in
1931, 200,000
in
1932,
and
500,000
in 1933.
The two most significant reorganizations came before and after Li Li-san's
adventure
in 1930.
Before
the
summer
of
that year,
the
army
was
reorganized into army corps
and,
after that,
the
front armies came into
existence.
In
spite
of
regrouping
in
July-August 1935,
the
front armies
continued
in
this way till their reorganization into the Eight Route Army
of three divisions
of
1937 and
the
New Fourth Army
in
1938.
130
THE SEARCH FOR A STRATEGY
Created
at the low ebb of the
revolution
in
1927,
the Red
Army
was
considered
an
important instrument
for
the CCP's seizing power, even
for
hastening the arrival
of
the revolutionary ' high tide' expected
in the
near
future.
But
nowhere
in
the political resolutions
of
the Sixth Congress
of
1928 was
it
stated that military struggle had now become the central form
of struggle and the army the deciding factor
of
victory. The next upsurge
was believed
to
depend on a host
of
external and internal factors, perhaps
even more important than
the
army.
129
HHL.Y
1,
pt.
1,
309—10 and 2.145-8; Smedley, Great
road,
237.
130
Tang Leang-li, Suppressing communist bandits in China, 99-100; Hollington Tong, Chiang Tsung-fung
cbuan
(A
biography
of
President Chiang), 1.203.
Cambridge Histories Online © Cambridge University Press, 2008
THE SEARCH FOR A STRATEGY 199
Stalin's coinage of'the revolutionary tide', vague as it was, had a leftist
bias built into it. To admit the ebbing of the tide without in the same
breath asserting
it
would rise again, in the context of a strong prejudice
against right opportunism, would be tantamount to ' liquidationism'.
In
the spirit of the resolutions of
the
Sixth Congress, the tide would rise next
when
the
labour movement increased
its
scope
and
intensity,
the
imperialists threatened
to
disturb the peace
of
the Pacific, the ruling
cliques in China engaged themselves in more ferocious fighting, and the
guerrilla
war
conducted
by the Red
Army spread further.
131
The
resolutions repeatedly stressed
the
unevenness
of the
revolutionary
situation
in
China, which would condition the tide
to
rise unevenly
in
different areas and different sectors
of
society. As long as
it
remained
uneven,
a
nationwide revolutionary situation did not exist. As to when
the tide would rise and the upsurge inundate a part or the entirety of the
country, no one could tell with precision.
The .Li Li-san line
In the second half of 1929 frequent civil wars, worsened intra-party feuds
in the KMT, and the Wall Street crash gave the CI reasons for describing
the Chinese national crisis
as
'deepening' and
to
blame the CCP
for
'lagging behind the growth of mass discontent'.
132
It
may be
a
mistake
to interpret this as the CI's call to action;
133
nonetheless it did encourage
Li Li-san to shake off his earlier pessimism and to assess the situation with
over-optimism. He went on to design his military strategy, which formed
the kernel of the so-called Li Li-san line. By early summer 1930, the CI
adjudged the high tide in China 'an undeniable fact', though still uneven:
' The direction of recent events is such that if the revolutionary situation
cannot embrace the entire territory of China, at least it will cover several
important provinces in the very near future.' Under such circumstances
the CCP should prepare for the imminence of a war of liberation and the
most deadly error would be a right-opportunist tendency.
134
Thus radicalized by the ambiguous directives of the CI, Li began
to
exploit the deteriorating economic depression abroad and military disorder
at home. Heartened,
Li
Li-san went even
as far as to
assert that the
outcome of a revolution was not decided by the political forces involved
in
it but by
the tasks
to be
accomplished. Therefore
the
bourgeois
131
Himg-se
wen-bsien,
152-} and 166.
IM
ECCI
to
CCP, either
26
October 1929 {Hung-se wen-bsien, 334 and 340)
or
alternatively late
December 1929.
133
Brandt
et al.
Documentary history,
180.
134
ECCI
to
CCP,
23
July 1930
(or in
June 1930), Hung-se wen-bsien, 346-55.
Cambridge Histories Online © Cambridge University Press, 2008
2OO THE COMMUNIST MOVEMENT I927-I937
revolution in China could be led by the proletariat. As soon as the
proletariat took power and introduced its leadership, the transition to the
socialist stage of the revolution could begin. ' There is no need to wait
for the conquest of the whole country before the transition. To do so
is to commit rightist deviation.'
135
In the vitally important resolution on
the new revolutionary high tide and preliminary victory in one or more
provinces adopted by the CCP Politburo in n June 1930, the call for a
preliminary victory did not mean a prolonged war to defend the CCP's
occupation of one or more provinces. To seize power in one or more
'important provinces', including key administrative or industrial cities,
except in the north-east and south-west, would inevitably threaten the
security of the central government and trigger a death duel between the
government and the rebellion till one of the belligerents was destroyed.
136
Hence a durable local regime was unlikely; hence the unevenness of the
situation would be quickly made even. This is then not a question of Li
Li-san's denial of the unevenness; to him the question was how soon the
unevenness could be transmuted into evenness. After all, the CI's letter
of June or July 1930 did refer to a decisive war in the nearest future and
a swifter transition from the bourgeois to socialist revolution in China
than had occurred in Russia.
137
The vagueness of the CI's assessment of
the situation and its policy proposals on the one hand reflected a lack of
clear thinking on the part of the CI and on the other allowed Li Li-san
ample room for his own interpretation.
138
To be sure, Li had refrained from giving military instructions to the
soviet leaders for several months after his assumption of power in the
summer of 1928.
139
This was perhaps because at the beginning of his
leadership he was touched by a streak of pessimism about the future of
the revolution. He did not begin to develop his military strategy until
the second half of 1929.
140
Insisting on urban leadership and dismissing
the idea of depending on the Red Army alone for victory as '
a
serious
error',
141
Li thought that the key to a preliminary victory in one or more
provinces (a goal agreed upon at the Sixth Congress) lay in the workers'
us
Li
Li-san, Fan-fo (Anti-Trotsky),
9; see
also Mao's comment
on
this
in HC
3.982.
136
Wang Chien-min, Draft history, 2.42-51; Hsiao Tso-liang, Power relations,
11S.
137
Himg-se wen-bsien,
355 and 358. The
date
of
this letter
is
given vaguely
as
June
1930 (see
A.
M.
Grigoriev's article
in L. P.
Oeliusin,
ed.
Komintern
i
vostok, 334-5). These different dates
do
not
help
to
decide whether
the
letter
was a
response
to the
CCP's strategic plan before
or
after
the
momentous Politburo meeting
on 11
June
1930.
138
See for
instance, Kuusinen's report
at the 10th
plenum
of
ECCI,
and L.
Magyar's article
in
International Press Correspondence,
5.40 (20
August 1929)
and 10.18 (10
April 1930), respectively.
139
Kiangsu Provincial Committee's comments
on
the centre's work
in
Cbtmg-kimg
ti
ebeng-cbib hatg-tso,
1.166-7.
•« Mao, SW 3.998.
141
Hiag-cb'i
(Red flag), 29 March 1930;
Cbung-jang
t'ung-bsin,
15 (8 November 1928).
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