Red Star over China (90 page)

^*
The Communists were already “officially” at war with Japan, the Soviet Government having declared such a war in a proclamation issued in Kiangsi in April, 1932. See
Red China: President Mao Tse-tung Reports
…, p. 6.

^*
Not really a “Chinese colony” but a neighbor over whom China claimed suzerainty before her defeat by Japan in 1895.

^†
In answer to a later question, in another interview, Mao Tse-tung made the following statement concerning Outer Mongolia:

“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.” See Appendices, Further Interviews with Mao Tse-tung, “On the Comintern, China, and Outer Mongolia.”

^*
Discussed in several proclamations issued to the Kuomintang in 1935 and 1936 by the Soviet Government and the Red Army. See
Part Eleven
,
Chapter 6
.

^*
See BN.

^*
Emphasis added.

^*
See BN.

^*
Tung Pi-wu was director of this Party school. (Li Wei-han and K'ang Sheng were to succeed him in that post.) Hsieh Fu-chih was one of the cadets. See BN.

^*
One of them was Lo Jui-ch'ing. See BN.

^*
See BN.

^*
See BN.

^*
See BN.

^*
A
hsien
roughly corresponds to a U.S. county. It was the smallest territorial unit under the central government, and was ruled by a magistrate.

^†
About 2.5 acres, or one hectare.

^*
One
tan
is a
picul,
or 133⅓ pounds,

^†
Two and two-thirds miles.

^*
Mao used the Chinese term
yuan,
which was often translated as “Chinese dollars”; 3,000 yuan in cash in 1900 was an impressive sum in rural China.

^†
Mao used all these political terms humorously in his explanations, laughing as he recalled such incidents.

^*
Literally, to “knock head.” To strike one's head to the floor or earth was expected of son to father and subject to emperor, in token of filial obedience.

^*
By Chung Kuang-ying, who advocated many democratic reforms, including parliamentary government and modern methods of education and communications. His book had a wide influence when published in 1898, the year of the ill-fated Hundred Days Reform.

^*
The same society to which Ho Lung belonged.

^*
Literally “Let's eat at the Big House,” that is, at the landlord's granary.

^*
Hsiao San (Emi Siao). See Bibliography.

^†
Liang Ch'i-ch'ao, a talented essayist at the end of the Manchu Dynasty, was the leader of a reform movement which resulted in his exile. K'ang Yu-wei and he were the “intellectual godfathers” of the first revolution, in 1911.

^*
The poem evidently referred to the spring festival and tremendous rejoicing in Japan following the Treaty of Portsmouth and the end of the Russo-Japanese War.

^†
Yao and Shun were semilegendary first emperors (3,000–2,205
B.C.
? credited with forming Chinese society in the Wei and Yellow River valleys, and taming the floods (with dikes, canals); Ch'in Shih Huang Ti (259镃221
B.C.
) unified the empire and completed the Great Wall; Han Wu Ti solidified the foundations of the Han Dynasty, which followed Ch'in and lasted (including the later Han) 426 years.

^*
The T'ung Meng Hui, a revolutionary secret society, was founded by Dr. Sun Yat-sen and was the forerunner of the Kuomintang. Most of its members were exiles in Japan, where they carried on a vigorous “brush-war” (war by writing brushes, or pens) against Liang Ch'i-ch'ao and Kang Yu-wei, leaders of the “reformed monarchist” party.

^*
An absurd coalition, since K'ang and Liang were monarchists at that time, and Sun Yat-sen was antimonarchist.

^†
An act perhaps more anti-Confucian than anti-Manchu. Some orthodox Confucianists held that man should not interfere with nature, including growth of hair and fingernails.

^‡
In 1911, the start of the revolution that overthrew the Manchu Dynasty.

^*
Han-jen
means the ethnical descendants of “men of Han,” referring to the long-lived Han Dynasty (206
B.C
.–220
A.D.
). Europeans derived the name “China” and “Chinese” from the Ch'in Dynasty which immediately preceded the Han. China was known to
Han-jen
as Chung-kuo, the “Central Realm,” also translated as “Middle Kingdom.” In official terminology all its inhabitants, including non-Han peoples, were called
Chung-kuo-jen,
or “Central-Realm People.” Thus the Manchu were
Chung-kuo-jen
(China-men) but not
Han-jen.

^†
A
tutu
was a military governor.

^*
T'ang Sheng-chih later became commander of the Nationalist armies of the Wuhan Government of Wang Ching-wei (see BN) in 1927. He betrayed both Wang and the Reds and began the “peasant massacre” of Hunan.

^†
Yuan Shih-k'ai, army chief of staff to the Manchu rulers, forced their abdication in 1911. Sun Yat-sen, regarded as “father of the Republic,” returned to China and was elected president by his followers in a ceremony at Nanking. Yuan held military control throughout most of the country, however. To avoid a conflict, Sun resigned when Yuan Shih-k'ai agreed to a constitutional convention and formation of a parliament. Yuan continued to rule as a military dictator, and in 1915 proclaimed himself emperor, whereupon his warlord supporters deserted him. The proclamation was rescinded after a few months, Yuan died, and the Republic (if not constitutional government) survived, to enter a period of provincial warlordism and national division.

^*
The gifted fourth emperor of the Manchu, or Ch'ing, Dynasty, who took the throne in 1736.

^*
The reference is to a line in a poem by Li T'ai-po.

^*
Li Li-san later became responsible for the CCP “Li Li-san line,” which Mao Tse-tung bitterly opposed. Further on Mao tells of Li's struggle with the Red Army, and of its results. See also BN.

^*
The Hsin-min Hsueh-hui, New People's Study Society.

^*
See BN.

^†
Hsiao San (Emi Siao), brother of Hsiao Yu (Saio Yu). See Bibliography.

^‡
Other members included Liu Shao-ch'i, Jen Pi-shih, Li Fu-ch'un, Wang Jo-fei, T'eng Tai-yuan, Li Wei-han, Hsiao Ching-kuang, and at least one woman, Ts'ai Chang, the sister of Ts'ai Ho-sen. All of these achieved high rank in the CCP. Mao's favorite professor and future father-in-law, Yang Ch'ang-chi, and Hsu T'eh-li, Mao's teacher at the First Normal School, were patrons.

^§
In Tientsin it was the Chueh-wu Shih, or “Awakening Society,” which led in organization of radical youth. Chou En-lai was one of the founders. Others included Teng Ying-ch'ao (Mme. Chou En-lai); Ma Chun, who was executed in Peking in 1927; and Sun Hsiao-ch'ing, who later became secretary of the Canton Committee of the Kuomintang.

^*
The ex-bandit who became military dictator of Manchuria. Marshal Chang held power in Peking before the arrival of the Nationalists there. He was killed by the Japanese in 1928. His son, Chang Hsueh-liang, known as the “Young Marshal,” succeeded him.

^*
See BN.

^†
Pei Hai and the other “seas” were artificial lakes in the former Forbidden City.

^*
Considered the beginning of the “Second Revolution,” and of modern Chinese nationalism.

^*
Ch'en Tu-hsui was born in Anhui, in 1879, became a noted scholar and essayist, and for years headed the department of literature at Peking National University—“cradle of the literary renaissance.” His
New Youth
magazine began the movement for adoption of the
pai-hua,
or vernacular Chinese, as the national language to replace the “dead”
wen-yen,
or Classical language. With Li Ta-chao, he was a chief promoter of Marxist study in China and a pioneer organizer of the Chinese Communist Party. See BN.

^*
In October, 1920, Mao organized a Socialist Youth Corps branch in Changsha, in which he worked with Lin Tsu-han to set up craft unions in Hunan.

^†
Mao made no further reference to his life with Yang K'ai-hui, except to mention her execution. She was a student at Peking National University and later became a youth leader during the Great Revolution, and one of the most active women Communists. Their marriage had been celebrated as an “ideal romance” among radical youths in Hunan.

^*
Ho Shu-heng, Mao's old friend and co-founder of the New People's Study Society; he was executed in 1935 by the Kuomintang.

^†
Those here noted as “killed” or “executed” were liquidated by warlord regimes if before 1927, and by Nationalist generals if after March, 1927.

^‡
See BN.

^§
Meaning the Communist Youth League, which began as the Socialist Youth Corps (Society, League). Other members included Teng Ying-ch'ao and Li Fu-ch'un and his wife, Ts'ai Ch'ang. See BN.

^*
See BN.

^†
Mao was also a leading member of the provincial KMT. Following his agreement with Adolf Joffe for a two-party alliance. Sun Yat-sen had begun a secret purge of anti-Communist elements in the KMT. In Hunan, Sun authorized his old colleague Lin Tsu-han, together with Mao Tse-tung and Hsia Hsi, to reorganize the Party. By January, 1923, they had turned the Hunan KMT into a radical tool of the left.

^*
See BN.

^†
Communist and Nationalist cadres in 1925 organized the first Shanghai Federation of Trade Unions, which led to the May 30 demonstration, with demands for an end to extraterritoriality and a return of the Shanghai International Settlement to Chinese sovereignty. British Settlement police fired on the demonstrators and killed several, which provoked a boycott of British goods. Leading organizers were Liu Shao-ch'i and Ch'en Yun. See BN.

^‡
In 1925 Mao was director of the Peasant Movement Training Institute, succeeding P'eng P'ai (see BN), who had set it up in Canton in 1924. His brother, Mao Tse-min (see BN), was one of his students, who included a large percentage of Hunanese, probably recruited by Mao's provincial Party committee. Their publication was
Chung-kuo Nung-min (The Chinese Peasant).

^*
Mao attended the Second KMT Congress and was re-elected an alternate to the CEC. Communist membership in the Kuomintang CEC at that time was still about one-third of the total.

^†
Since its inception, the Peasant Department of the Kuomintang had been headed by Communists, of whom Mao was the last of fie. Mao was first chief of the CCP Peasant Department (May-October, 1926), formec at this time.

^*
See BN.

^†
So did Stalin. Mao was not present during the terminal sessions of the Fifth Congress, when a resolution was passed to limit land confiscation only to great landlords who were also “enemies of the people,” in line with Stalin's directives.

^‡
About thirty-three hectares, or nearly a hundred times the available cultivable land per farmer.

^*
Mao supported (and probably initiated) the Hunan Peasants' Union resolutions demanding confiscation of all large land holdings.

^*
Ch'u Ch'iu-pai was here chosen general secretary of the Politburo, replacing Ch'en Tu-hsiu, who was accused of “rightism” and dropped from the Politburo.

^*
Miners who had been organized by Mao, Liu Shao-ch'i and Ch'en Yun. In forming a peasants' and workers' army, and soldiers' soviets and people's councils, Mao acted independently of the Central Committee and was reprimanded. By the time he had set up his first soldiers' soviets the CMT line had changed again. In November of 1927 the Central Committee expelled Mao from the Politburo for “rightism.” All the basic work he did in Chingkangshan that winter was “illegal,” although Mao was not aware of it for some months. He was reinstated in June, 1928.

^*
See BN.

^†
Mao was reprimanded three times by the Central Committee and three times expelled by it. See Chang Kuo-t'ao, BN.

^*
In the same month a “soviet” was established by P'eng P'ai in Hailufeng, but it was quickly destroyed.

^†
Here Mao Tse-tung and Chu Teh formed an alliance with Lin Piao, Ch'en Yi, Hsiao K'e, Ho Chang-kung, T'an Chen-lin, Chang Wen-ping, Hsia Hsi, and others, which held together against all pressure from Comintern-backed Politburo leader Li Li-san and, later on, the Moscow-educated returned students called the “Twenty-eight Bolsheviks.” See
Chapter 6
and BN.

^*
See BN.