Red Star over China (91 page)

^†
See
Part Nine
,
Chapter 1
.

^*
One of Chang's recruits was Yang Ch'eng-wu, whom the author met in north Shensi in 1936. For both, see BN.

^†
See BN.

^*
This order is not so enigmatic as it sounds. The wooden doors of a Chinese house are easily detachable, and are often taken down at night, put across wooden blocks, and used for an improvised bed.

^†
They were also sung daily in a Red Army song.

^‡
See BN.

^*
For details see Lin Piao, BN.

^*
The rent from which Mao had used earlier for the peasant movement in Hunan.

^†
See BN.

^*
Briefly to supplement this quite inadequate account of Li, see note 3 to this chapter and Li Li-san, BN.

^*
This campaign is described in interesting detail by Yang Chien in
The Communist Situation in China
(Nanking, 1931).

^*
There was considerable confusion, in many accounts written of the anti-Red wars, concerning the number of major expeditions sent against the soviet districts. Some writers totaled up as many as eight “extermination” or “annihilation” drives, but several of these big mobilizations by Nanking were purely defensive. Red Army commanders spoke of only five main anti-Red campaigns. These were, with the approximate number of Nanking troops directly involved in each, as follows: First, December, 1930, to January, 1931, 100,000; Second, May to June, 1931, 200,000; Third, July to October, 1931, 300,000; Fourth, April to October, 1933, 250,000; Fifth, October, 1933, to October, 1934, 400,000 (over 900,000 troops were
mobilized
against the three main soviet districts). No major expedition was launched by Nanking during 1932, when Chiang Kai-shek was using approximately 500,000 troops in defensive positions around the Red districts. It was, on the contrary, a year of big Red offensives. Evidently Nanking's defensive operations in 1932, which were, of course, propagandized as “anti-Red campaigns,” were misunderstood by many writers as major expeditions.

^*
In this account Mao made no reference to the important meeting of the Central Committee held at Tsunyi, which elected him to the leadership. For further comment on the Fifth Campaign and Tsunyi, see note 3 to this chapter and Li Teh in BN.

^*
An expression used by the Reds, meaning main combat forces.

^*
See BN.

^*
An Account of the Long March,
First Army Corps (Yu Wang Pao, August, 1936).

^*
See BN.

^*
Literally the bridge “made fast” by Liu.

^*
Su
, the first Chinese character used in transliterating the word “soviet,” is a common family name, and
wei-ai,
suffixed to it, might easily seem like a given name.

^†
See BN.

^*
Jen Pi-shih was Ho Lung's political commissar.

^†
See BN.

^‡
Vegetable crops in the rarefied air of the Tibetan highlands attain five to ten times “normal” size during the brief growing season.

^*
An Account of the Long March...

^*
Of which li Hsueh-feng was a member. See BN.

^*
Dr. Ingram was killed a few years later by Chinese bandits, but
not
Red bandits.

^*
Dr. A. Stampar,
The North-western Provinces and Their Possibilities of Development,
published privately by the National Economic Council (Nanking, July, 1934).

^*
This was a conservative estimate, since it included no mention of the chief illegal military taxation in both Kansu and Shensi, for many years the opium revenue.

^*
Mao Tse-tung
et al.

^*
Order of Instruction,
Land Commission (Wayapao, Shensi), January 28, 1936.

^*
Tu-hao,
which actually means “local rascals,” was the Reds' term for landowners who also derived a large part of their income from lending money and buying and selling mortgages.

^*
Domestic animals were far more costly than land. See
Part Seven
,
Chapter 2
.

^*
The Marriage Law of the Chinese Soviet Republic
(reprinted in Pao An, July, 1936).

^*
Outline for Cooperative Development,
Department of National Economy (Wayapao, Shensi, November, 1935), p. 4.

^*
“Concerning Soviet Monetary Policy,”
Tangti Kungtso [party Work],
No. 12 (Pao An, 1936).

^*
Then about the size of Austria.

^†
At that time this soviet area was probably receiving little or no financial aid from Russia, with which it had no direct geographical connection.

^*
Approximate translation of
T'a ma-ti,
one of the commonest oaths in China. Lu Hsun wrote a delightful satirical essay on this subject. See Edgar Snow,
Living China
(New York, 1935).

^*
Mao Tse-tung,
Red China
…, p. 26.

^*
The price quoted in the Red districts was 800 catties—about half a ton—for $1 silver. See Mao Tse-min, “Economic Construction in the Kansu and Shensi Soviet Districts,”
Tou Tsung [Struggle]
(Pao An, Shensi), April 24, 1936.

^†
Ibid.

^‡
Ibid.

^*
See BN.

^*
Of which Nieh Ho-t'ing was chief of staff and Hsiao Hua was deputy political commissar of the army's Second Division. See BN.

^*
See BN.

^*
“Questioned as to the source of the Reds' munitions, Generalissimo Chiang admitted that most of them had been taken from defeated government troops” (in an interview with the
North China Daily News,
October 9, 1934).

^*
At this point in my travels I was joined by Huang Hua (Wang Ju-mei), a Yenching University student whom I had asked to come to assist me. See BN.

^*
About 2,600 to 3,300 tons.

^*
Ssu-ma Kuang was an outstanding historian (1019'86).

^*
Compradors were Chinese who served as middlemen between Western and native businessmen.

^*
Mao's
Yu-chi Chan-cheng (Guerrilla Warfare),
published in Wayapao, Shensi, in 1935, was out of print.

^*
P'eng Teh-huai estimated that the
min-t'uan
numbered at least 3.000,000 men (in addition to China's huge regular army of 2,000,000 men).

^*
See BN.

^*
The Shanghai War, or “Incident,” occurred in January, 1932. Display of photographs of these non-Communist but anti-Japanese generals reflected the united-front policy of the CCP adopted in 1935.

^*
Here Wang Shuo-tao, chief of the political department of the Fifteenth Army Corps, told me something of his personal history. See BN.

^*
It is an interesting character, written
, and deriving from an ancient form
, in which one clearly sees its evolution from the original ideograph.

^*
Ma Chung-ying was the fifth Ma, but had now been eliminated from an active role by tribal politics and international intrigue. Sven Hedin gives an interesting account of him in
The Flight of “Big Horse”
(New York, 1936).

^†
These are the Han (Chinese), Man (Manchu), Meng (Mongol), Hui (Mohammedan), and Tsang (Tibetan).

^*
Hsin-hsin chiao,
literally, “new-new faith.”

^*
Ninghsia Kung Pao
(Ninghsia city, December, 1934).

^†
Liu Hsiao, “A Survey of Yu Wang Hsien,”
Tang-ti Kung-Tso
(Pao An), August 3, 1936. This was a Communist and certainly not disinterested source, but the picture in general was supported by studies included in the Stampar report for the League of Nations, to which earlier reference was made.

^‡
The Japanese were later forced to abandon both their mission and their airfield. In 1937 the Mas pledged their loyalty to the Central Government.

^†
Company Discussion Materials:
“The Mohammedan Problem,” p. 2, First Army Corps, Pol. Dept., June 2, 1936.

^*
Traditionally, Chinese age count begins at conception, and everyone becomes one year older on New Year's Day.

^*
Child slavery had been abolished by Kuomintang law, but the mandate was seldom enforced even in areas where the law was known; elsewhere child slavery was still common.

^*
Teng Hsiao-p'ing was his deputy political commissar. For both, see BN.

^*
Chou En-lai.

^*
Li Hsien-nien was then also with Chu Teh.

^*
Literally, “Sunday Temple.”

^*
See BN.

^*
See BN.

^*
Here I do not speak of the peasant masses as a whole, but of a Communist vanguard. But even among the sovietized peasantry, attitudes were in striking contrast with those described, for example, in Arthur H. Smith's
Chinese Characteristics
(N.Y., 1894).

^*
See BN.

^†
“International Press Correspondence,” organ of the Third, or Communist, International (Comintern), published in Moscow.

^*
Foreign Minister Hirota's “Three-Point” demands, served on the Nanking Government.

^*
The full text of this interview appeared in
The China Weekly Review
(Shanghai), November 14 and 21, 1936.

^*
See especially
Part One
,
Chapter 3
.

^*
Written for the
New York Sun, circa
October 25, 1936.

^*
Published in Sianfu, January 2, 1937, by the Northwest Military Council.

^†
A speech reported by the
Hsiking Min Pao
(Sianfu), December 17, 1936.

^‡
Warlords who had capitulated to Japanese demands two decades earlier.

^*
According to a letter reporting details of the battle written to me by Dr. Ma Hai-teh. He was then with the Red Army. See BN.

^*
See BN.

^*
Part of an interview with Sun Ming-chiu by James Bertram, who was acting for me as correspondent in Sianfu for the
London Daily Herald.

^*
See Chiang's diary.

^*
Seven of the above eight points corresponded exactly to the program of “national salvation” advocated in a circular telegram issued by the Communist Party and the Soviet Government on December 1, 1936.

^*
Mme. Chiang Kai-shek, deploring such rumors, wrote that “no question of money or increased power or position was at any time brought up.”

^†
The two “C's” were Ch'en Li-fu and Ch'en Kuo-fu, brothers who controlled the Kuomintang Party apparatus.

^*
In his interview with me at Pao An. Italics mine.

^†
“Proposal for the Convention of a Peace Conference,” Pao An, December 19, 1936.

^*
In his own account Chiang does not mention having talked to Chou En-lai.