Brothers in Arms (130 page)

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Authors: Odd Arne Westad

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CPSU and, in particular, about Comrade Khrushchev's speech at the closed session regarding the cult of personality. Mao Zedong responded that because of his illness he had found it necessary to put off the meeting with me. Mao Zedong said that the members of the CCP [Chinese Communist Party] delegation who had attended the Twentieth Congress had told him something about the work of the congress and had brought one copy of Comrade Khrushchev's speech regarding the cult of personality. That speech has already been translated into Chinese and he had managed to become acquainted with it.
During a conversation about I. V. Stalin's mistakes Mao Zedong noted that Stalin's line on the China question, though it had basically been correct, in certain periods he, Stalin, had made serious mistakes. In his speeches in 1926 Stalin had exaggerated the revolutionary capabilities of the Guomindang, had spoken about the Guomindang as the main revolutionary force in China. In 1926 Stalin had given the Chinese Communists an instruction about the orientation to the Guomindang, having viewed it as a united front of the revolutionary forces of China. Stalin said that it is necessary to depend on the Guomindang, to follow after that party, i.e., he spoke directly about the subordination of the Communist Party of China to the Guomindang. This was a great mistake which had held back the independent work of the Communist Party of China on the mobilization of the masses and on attracting them to the side of the Communist Party.
Through the Comintern, Mao Zedong continued, Stalin, having become after the death of V. I. Lenin the de facto leader of the Comintern, gave to the CC CCP a great number of incorrect directives. These mistaken and incorrect directives resulted from the fact that Stalin did not take into account the opinion of the CCP. At that time Wang Ming,
12
being a Comintern worker, met frequently with Stalin and tendentiously had informed him about the situation in the CCP. Stalin, evidently, considered Wang Ming the single exponent of the opinion of the CC CCP.
Wang Ming and Li Lisan,
13
who represented the CCP in the Comintern, tried to concentrate the whole leadership of the CCP in their own hands. They tried to present all the Communists who criticized the mistakes of Wang Ming and Li Lisan as opportunists. Mao Zedong said they called me a right opportunist and a narrow empiricist. As an example of how the Comintern acted incorrectly in relation to the Communist Party of China, Mao Zedong introduced the following.
Under the pretext that the Third Plenum of the CC CCP, while considering the coup-plotting errors of Li Lisan, had not carried the successive criticism of these mistakes to
12
Wang Ming (Chen Shaoyi), rival of Mao Zedong in the 1930s, lived in the Soviet Union after 1955.
13
Li Lisan, head of the CCP in the late 1920s, lived in the Soviet Union from 1931 to 1945, deputy head of the All-China Federation of Labor after 1949, deputy director of the CCP CC Industrial and Communications Work Department. Died during the Cultural Revolution.

 

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its conclusion and allegedly so as to correct the mistakes of the Third Plenum of the CC CCP, the Comintern after three to four months had sent to China two of its own workers [Pavel] Mif and Wang Ming charged with the task of conducting the Fourth Plenum of the CCP. Nonetheless the decisions of the Fourth Plenum of the CC CCP made under the pressure of Mif and Wang Ming were in fact more ultra-leftist that Li Lisan's line. In them it was stated that it is necessary to move into the large cities, to take control of them, and not to conduct the struggle in rural regions. In the decisions of the Fourth Plenum of the CC CCP there was permitted such, for example, a deviation that in the Soviet regions of China which were blockaded by the Guomindang even the petty trading bourgeoisie was liquidated and all kinds of internal trade was stopped. As a result of this policy the Chinese Red Army, which in 1929 was comprised of 300,000 fighters, was reduced by 1934-1935 to 25,000, and the territory which made up the Soviet regions of China was reduced by 99 percent. CCP organizations in the cities were routed by the Guomindang and the number of Communists was reduced from 300,000 to 26,000 people. The Soviet regions were totally isolated from the remaining part of the country and remained without any products, even without salt. All this caused serious discontent among the population of the Soviet regions.
As a result of the ultra-leftist policy of Wang Ming, the more or less large regions which remained under CCP leadership were mostly in North China (the provinces of Shaanxi, Gansu, [and] Ningxia), to which Wang Ming's power did not extend. Wang Ming, backed by the Comintern, essentially managed it so that the 8th and 4th armies removed themselves from subordination to the CC CCP.
Wang Ming and his successors saw the Guomindang as the "young power," which absorbs all the best and will be able to gain a victory over Japan. They spoke against the independent and autonomous policy of the Communist Party in the united front, against the strengthening of the armed forces of the CCP and revolutionary bases, and against the unification of all strata of the population around the policy of the CCP. Wang Ming's supporters tried to replace the genuinely revolutionary program of the CCP, which consisted of ten points, with their own six-point program, the author of which was Wang Ming, although this was, in the essence of the matter, a capitulationist program. In conducting this whole program Wang Ming, backed by the Comintern and in Stalin's name, spoke as the main authority.
Wang Ming's supporters, taking advantage of the fact that they had captured a majority in the Southern Bureau of the CC CCP in Wuhan, gave incorrect directives to the army and to the local authorities.
So, for example, once, to our surprise, said Mao Zedong, even in Yanan the slogans of the CCP which were posted on the walls of the houses were replaced, on Wang Ming's order, with slogans "about a stable union with the Guomindang,"
etc.
As a result of the serious ideological struggle and the great explanatory work following the Seventh Congress of the Communist Party, especially in the last four years, the

 

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majority of Communists who made left or right errors acknowledged their guilt. Wang Ming at the Seventh Congress also wrote a letter with acknowledgment of his mistakes, however he then once again returned to his old positions. All of the former activity of Wang Ming, Mao Zedong said, which was carried out under the direct leadership of the Comintern and Stalin, inflicted a serious loss to the Chinese Revolution.
Characterizing the Comintern's activity overall, Mao Zedong noted that while Lenin was alive he had played the most prominent role in bringing together the forces of the Communist movement, in the creation and consolidation of the Communist parties in various countries, in the fight with the opportunists from the Second International. But that had been a short period in the activity of the Comintern. Consequently, to the Comintern came "officials" like [Grigorii] Zinoviev, [Nikolai] Bukharin, [Losif] Piatnitskii, and others, who, as far as China was concerned, trusted Wang Ming more than the CC CCP. In the last period of the Comintern's work, especially when Dimitrov worked there, certain movements were noticed, since Dimitrov depended on us and trusted the CC CCP, rather than Wang Ming. However, in this period as well, not just a few mistakes were made by the Comintern, for example, the dissolution of the Polish Communist Party and others. In this way, said Mao Zedong, it is possible to discern three periods in the activity of the Comintern, of which the second, longest period brought the biggest loss to the Chinese Revolution. Moreover, unfortunately, precisely in this period the Comintern dealt most of all with the East. We can say directly, commented Mao Zedong, that the defeat of the Chinese Revolution at that time was, right along with other reasons, also the result of the incorrect, mistaken actions of the Comintern. Therefore, speaking openly, noted Mao Zedong, we were satisfied when we found out about the dissolution of the Comintern.
In the last period, continued Mao Zedong, Stalin also incorrectly evaluated the situation in China and the possibilities for the development of the revolution. He continued to believe more in the power of the Guomindang than of the Communist Party. In 1945 he insisted on peace with Jiang Jieshi's supporters, on a united front with the Guomindang and the creation in China of a "democratic republic." In particular, in August 1945 the CC CCP received a secret telegram, for some reason in the name of the "VKP (b)" (in fact from Stalin), in which it was insisted that Mao Zedong travel to Chongqing for negotiations with Jiang Jieshi. The CC CCP was against this journey, since a provocation from Jiang Jieshi's side was expected. However, said Mao Zedong, I was required to go since Stalin had insisted on this. In 1947, when the armed struggle against the forces of Jiang Jieshi was at its height, when our forces were on the brink of victory, Stalin insisted that peace be made with Jiang Jieshi, since he doubted the forces of the Chinese Revolution. This lack of belief remained in Stalin even during the first stages of the formation of the PRC, i.e., already after the victory of the revolution. It is possible that Stalin' s lack of trust and suspiciousness were caused by the Yugoslavian events, particularly since at that time, said Mao Zedong with a certain disappointment, many conversations took

 

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