Red Star over China (65 page)

2
. In Mao's earlier interview with me (July 16, 1936) he had proposed a “united front” with “all anti-Japanese forces,” but not specifically a coalition with the Kuomintang Government itself. The “immediate” cause of the change was doubtless the decision of the Central Committee based on newly received interpretations of the proceedings of the Seventh Congress of the Comintern.

3
. When I left the Red areas I sent back my camera and some film to Lu Ting-yi, as promised—by hand of the courier, Wang Lin—on condition that Lu would supply me with newsworthy photographs from time to time. The only picture he ever got to me was an enlargement of what he considered his masterpiece, some Shensi apple blossoms.

Part Twelve: White World Again

Chapter 1: A Preface to Mutiny

1
. Wang later headed a Japanese puppet government. See BN.

Chapter 3: Chiang, Chang, and the Reds

1
. The limitations and purposes of this kind of coalition regime were set forth by Mao Tse-tung in
The New Democracy
(Yenan, 1938).

2
. Although the Communists had “nothing to do” with the actual physical seizure of Chiang, personnel in their liaison group in Sian at the time probably had prior (though perhaps very brief) knowledge of the plan. Captain Sun Ming-chiu, the young Tungpei officer whose troops “arrested” Chiang, was under strong Communist influence. As noted earlier, Chang Hsueh-liang had CCP CC members in his own headquarters and Wang Ping-nan (see BN)
was personal secretary to General Yang Hu-ch'eng, whose troops participated in the “arrest.”

The Communist delegation sent from Pao An to Sian to negotiate immediately after the incident included, besides Chou En-lai (then vice-chairman of the Revolutionary Military Committee): Yeh Chien-ying, chief of staff of the “Anti-Japanese Red Army,” and Po Ku, “Minister of Foreign Affairs” of the Communist provisional government. After this book was published I was told by Po Ku (in 1938) that Chou En-lai was the only one of their delegation who saw the Generalissimo in Sian. Po Ku said that in Chou's single brief interview no agreement was signed and Chiang merely expressed sentiments in favor of ending the civil war, which Chou interpreted as a moral commitment. Shortly afterwards, to their disappointment, the Young Marshal released the Generalissimo without informing Chou or the other Communists. According to Po Ku they had hoped that the Generalissimo would remain in Sian long enough at least to reach concrete terms of a truce agreement on the basis of which to restore a united front of national resistance. Further evidence concerning the incident (referred to in
RNORC,
pp. 1–15) indicates that the Communists in Yenan debated a public trial for Chiang Kai-shek. Any such intention was certainly abandoned after a message reached the Communists directly from Stalin, in which he threatened publicly to disown the CCP unless they demanded Chiang's release unharmed, a message which was said to have greatly annoyed Mao. I know of nothing, however, to support the view that Mao Tse-tung ever demanded the “execution” of the Generalissimo, a view attributed to me without foundation by Stuart Schram in
Mao Tse-tung,
p. 199.

3
. See
RNORC.

4
. While this account seemed plausible to me on the basis of information available at the time, I now believe that the idea of a “popular trial” may have been debated by the Communists, who repudiated it for reasons mentioned in note 2 above.

Chapter 4: “Point Counter Point”

1
. Chiang Kai-shek never forgave Chang Hsueh-liang and never freed him. Thirty years later Chang was still Chiang Kai-shek's personal prisoner on Taiwan.

2
. For documentation of the official Communist position throughout the Sian affair, see SW, Vol. I, pp. 255ff.

Chapter 6: Red Horizons

1
. Report to the Communist Party (Yenan, April 10, 1937). See SW, Vol. I. Mao's frank declaration should have destroyed all notions that he sought to establish anything less than all-out proletarian (Communist-led) power. Not many months later, in an interview with me, Mao even more categorically derided any deviation from that 100 per cent Communist aim. (See Appendices, Further Interviews with Mao Tse-tung, p. 447.)

Abbreviations used in these pages include:

BDRC
Biographical Dictionary of Republican China

CC Central Committee (of the Chinese Communist Party)

CCP Chinese Communist Party

CEC Central Executive Committee

CMT Communist Party International, Comintern

CPG Chinese People's Government

CPR Chinese People's Republic

CPPCC Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference

CPSU Communist Party of the Soviet Union

CYL Communist Youth League

FLP Foreign Languages Press

GPCR Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution

KMT Kuomintang

NEP New Economic Plan (U.S.S.R.)

NPC National People's Congress

Orgburo Organizational Bureau of the CCP CC

PB Politburo of the Chinese Communist Party Central Committee

PLA People's Liberation Army

PRC People's Republic of China

SC State Council of the National People's Congress

SW
Selected Works of Mao Tse-tung

SYC Socialist Youth Corps

References to the author's own books are abbreviated as follows:

JTTB Journey to the Beginning

RNORC Random Notes on Red China

RSOC Red Star Over China

TOSOTR The Other Side of the River

Owing to space limitations the text of my interviews with Mao Tse-tung in 1936 was not included in its entirety in the original edition of
Red Star Over China,
although most of it was published in the
Shanghai Evening Post & Mercury,
February 3, 4, 5, 1937. The following extracts may be of contemporary interest. (Italics added.)

Pao An, July 23,1936

On the Comintern, China, and Outer Mongolia

S
NOW
: In actual practice, if the Chinese revolution were victorious, would the economic and political relationship between Soviet China and Soviet Russia be maintained within the Third International or a similar organization, or would there probably be some kind of actual merger of governments? Would the Chinese Soviet Government be comparable in its relation to Moscow to the present government of Outer Mongolia?

M
AO
T
SE-TUNG
: I assume this is a purely hypothetical question. As I have told you, the Red Army is not now seeking the hegemony of power, but a united China against Japanese imperialism.

The Third International is an organization in which the vanguard of the world proletariat brings together its collective experience for the benefit of all revolutionary peoples throughout the world. It is not an administrative organization nor has it any political power beyond that of an advisory capacity. Structurally it is not very different from the Second International, though in content it is vastly different. But just as no one would say that in a country where the cabinet is organized by the Social Democrats the Second International
is dictator, so it is ridiculous to say that the Third International is dictator in countries where there are Communist parties.

In the U.S.S.R. the Communist Party is in power, yet even there the Third International does not rule nor does it have any direct political power over the people at all. Similarly, it can be said that although the Communist Party of China is a member of the Comintern, still this in no sense means that Soviet China is ruled by Moscow or by the Comintern. We are certainly not fighting for an emancipated China in order to turn the country over to Moscow!

The Chinese Communist Party is only one party in China, and in its victory it will have to speak for the whole nation. It cannot speak for the Russian people or rule for the Third International, but only in the interests of the Chinese masses. Only where the interests of the Chinese masses coincide with the interests of the Russian masses can it be said to be “obeying the will” of Moscow. But of course this basis of common benefit will be tremendously broadened, once the masses of China are in democratic power and socially and economically emancipated, like their brothers in Russia.

When soviet governments have been established in many countries, the problem of an international union of soviets may arise, and it will be interesting to see how it will be solved. But today I cannot suggest the formula; it is a problem which has not been and cannot be solved in advance. In the world today, with increasingly close economic and cultural intimacies between different states and peoples, such a union would seem to be highly desirable,
if achieved on a voluntary basis.

Clearly, however, the last point is of utmost importance; such a world union could be successful only if every nation had the right to enter or leave the union according to the will of its people, and with its sovereignty intact, and certainly never at the “command” of Moscow.
No Communist ever thought otherwise, and the myth of “world domination from Moscow” is an invention of the Fascists and counterrevolutionaries.

The relationship between Outer Mongolia and the Soviet Union, now and in the past, has always been based on the principle of complete equality. When the People's Revolution has been victorious in China, the Outer Mongolian republic will automatically become a part of the Chinese federation, at its own will. The Mohammedan and Tibetan peoples, likewise, will form autonomous republics attached to the China federation. The unequal treatment of national minorities, as practiced by the Kuomintang, can have no part in the Chinese program, nor can it be part of the program of any democratic republic.

On China as the “Key”

S
NOW
: With the achievement of victory of a Red movement in China, do you think that revolution would occur quickly in other Asiatic or semicolonial countries, such as Korea, Indochina, the Philippines, and India? Is China at present the “key” to world revolution?

M
AO
: The Chinese revolution is a key factor in the world situation. …
When the Chinese revolution comes into full power the masses of many colonial countries will follow the example of China and win a similar victory of their own. But I emphasize again that the seizure of power is not our (immediate) aim. We want to stop civil war, create a people's democratic government with the Kuomintang and other parties, and fight for our independence against Japan.

Pao An, July 19,1936

On Land Distribution

S
NOW
: What is the foremost internal task of the revolution, after the struggle against Japanese imperialism?

M
AO
: The Chinese revolution, being of bourgeois-democratic character, has as its primary task the readjustment of the land problem—the realization of agrarian reform. Some idea of the urgency of rural reform may be secured by referring to figures on the distribution of land in China today. During the Nationalist Revolution I was secretary of the Peasant Committee [department] of the Kuomintang and had charge of collecting statistics for areas throughout twenty-one provinces.

Our investigation showed astonishing inequalities. About 70 per cent of the whole rural population was made up of poor peasants, tenants or part-tenants, and of agricultural workers. About 20 per cent was made up of middle peasants tilling their own land. Usurers and landlords were about 10 per cent of the population. Included in the 10 per cent also were rich peasants, exploiters like the militarists, tax collectors, and so forth.

The 10 per cent of the rich peasants, landlords, and usurers together owned about 70 per cent of the cultivated land. From 12 to 15 per cent was in the hands of middle peasants. The 70 per cent of the poor peasants, tenants and part-tenants, and agricultural workers, owned only from 10 to 15 per cent of the total cultivated land. … The revolution is caused chiefly by two oppressions—the imperialists and that 10 per cent of landlords and Chinese exploiters. So we may say that in our new demands for democracy, land reform, and war against imperialism we
are opposed by less than 10 per cent of the population.
And really not 10 per cent, but probably only about 5 per cent, for not more than that many Chinese will turn traitor to join with Japan in subjugating their own people under the device of the joint “Anti-Red Pact.”

S
NOW
: Other things in the soviet program having been postponed in the interest of the united front, is it not possible to delay land redistribution also?

M
AO
: Without confiscating the estates of the landlords, without meeting the main democratic demand of the peasantry, it is impossible to lay the broad mass basis for a successful revolutionary struggle for national liberation.
In order to win the support of the peasants for the national cause it is necessary to satisfy their demand for land. …

On Education and Latinized Chinese

S
NOW
: Could you give me a brief statement of policy concerning … illiteracy?

M
AO
: … As for the problem of illiteracy, this is not a difficult task for a people's government which really wants to raise the economic and cultural standard of the masses. …

In Kiangsi our Society for the Liquidation of Illiteracy, under the leadership of the Commissioner of Education, has had astonishing successes. It built up in every village groups led by young students, Young Communists and Young Vanguards, to teach people how to read and write. These mass-education schools, hundreds of them, were created by the organized peasantry themselves, and instructed by the enthusiastic Red youths, who freely gave their time and energy to this task, without pay. After three or four years the majority of the peasants in our soviet districts in Kiangsi knew several hundred Chinese characters and could read simple texts, lectures, and our newspapers and other publications.