19 RED MOLE TRIGGERS CHINA–JAPAN WAR
19 红色代理人引发中日全面战争
(1937–38 AGE 43–44)
1937～1938 年 43～44 岁
ON 7 JULY 1937, fighting broke out between Chinese and Japanese troops at a place just outside Peking called the Marco Polo Bridge. By the end of the month the Japanese had occupied the two main cities in northern China, Peking and Tianjin. Chiang did not declare war. He did not want a full-scale war—not yet, anyway. And neither did the Japanese.
一九三七年七月七日，卢沟桥事变爆发。月底，日本侵占了华北的两大主要城市：北平和天津。蒋介石没有对日宣战，他还不想打一场全面战争。实行蚕食政策的日本在这时也没有计划把战火引向华北以外的中国内地。
At this point Japan did not aim to extend the fighting beyond northern China. Yet, within a matter of weeks, all-out war had broken out 1,000 km to the south, in Shanghai, a place where neither Chiang nor Japan wished, or planned, to have a war. Japan had only some 3,000 marines stationed near Shanghai, under the 1932 truce agreement. Tokyo's plan until mid-August remained: “Army to North China only.” It added specifically: “There is no need to send the Army to Shanghai.”
可是，几个星期的工夫，中日全面战争就在一千公里以南的上海打响了。这既不是蒋介石的意思，也不是日本人的意思。这时在上海的驻兵情况是：根据“一.二八”停战协定，中方只驻有“保安队”， 日本约有三千海军陆战队。日本在八月中的计划仍是“陆军仅派至华北”，“勿须陆军出兵上海”。
The well-informed New York Times correspondent H. Abend wrote afterwards:
《纽约时报》 (New York times)驻华记者阿本德(Hallett Abend)事后写道：
It was a commonplace … to declare that the Japanese attacked Shanghai. Nothing was further from their intentions or from the truth. The Japanese did not want and did not expect hostilities in the Yangtse Valley. They … had so small a force there even as late as August 13th … that they were nearly pushed into the river on the 18th and 19th.
“当时记者报导时都说是日本人進攻上海，事实完全相反。日本人不想、也没有估计到，在长江下游会有敌对行动。……对在上海打仗，他们几乎完全没有准备，迟至八月十三日，他们在这里的部队还如此之小，十八、九日的时候差点被扫進江里去了。”
ABEND REALIZED that there were “clever plans to upset the Japanese scheme for confining the hostilities entirely to North China.” He was right about there being “clever plans”—he was only wrong about one thing: the plans were not Chiang's (as Abend thought), but almost certainly Stalin's.
阿本德看出来，“有那么一个精明的计划要打乱日本把战火局限在华北的企图”。他说对了，是有这么一个“精明的计划”，但他没猜到这是谁的计划，他以为是蒋介石的，其实是斯大林的。
Japan's swift occupation of northern China in July posed a very direct danger to Stalin. Tokyo's huge armies were now in a position to turn north and attack Russia anywhere along a border many thousands of kilometers long. The year before, Stalin had publicly identified Japan as the principal menace. Now, we believe, he activated a long-term Communist agent in the heart of the Nationalist army, and detonated a full-scale war in Shanghai, which drew the Japanese inextricably into the vast heartland of China—and away from Russia.
对斯大林来说，日本迅速占领全华北是对他的空前威胁。日本大军现在完全可能北進，沿着几千公里的边境线進攻苏联。斯大林已经宣布日本是苏联的头号敌人。现在，他起用了一个长期潜伏在国民党高层的红色代理人，在上海引发中日全面战争，把日本拖進广大的中国腹地，离苏联远远的。
The “sleeper” now wakened was a general called Zhang Zhi-zhong (whom we shall refer to as ZZZ), commander of the Shanghai–Nanjing garrison. In 1925 he had been a teacher at Whampoa, the Russian-funded and Russian-staffed military academy near Canton. From the day of its founding, Moscow made a determined effort to plant high-level agents in the Nationalist military. In his memoirs, ZZZ acknowledged that: “In summer 1925 I was completely in sympathy with the Communist Party, and … was called ‘red teacher,' ‘red regiment commander' … I wanted to join the CCP, and told Mr. Chou En-lai.” Chou told him to stay in the Nationalists and collaborate “covertly” with the CCP. During the mid-1930s, ZZZ kept in close contact with the Soviet embassy.
这个代理人就是张治中将军。他成为红色代理人要追溯到一九二五年，他在苏联援建的黄埔军校当教官时。黄埔军校一建立，莫斯科就致力于在那里安插自己人。张治中在回忆录里说，那时他“完全同情共产党这一边”， 被视为“红色教官”、“红色团长””。他向周恩来提出参加共产党，周在“请示组织后”告诉他，要他留在国民党内，“稍待适当时机”，说“中共保证今后一定暗中支持你，使你的工作好做。”三十年代中，张治中跟苏联使馆，特别是武官雷邦，保持着密切的秘密联系。
At the time of the Marco Polo Bridge clash, ZZZ held the pivotal job of chief of the Shanghai–Nanjing garrison. He tried to talk Chiang into launching a “first strike” against Japan—not in northern China, where the fighting was, but 1,000 kilometers to the south, in Shanghai, where the small Japanese garrison was not involved in any military action at this stage. Chiang did not reply to this proposal, even though ZZZ repeated it many times. Shanghai was the industrial and financial heart of China, an international metropolis, and Chiang did not want to see it turned into a battleground. Moreover, it was very close to his capital, Nanjing. He had even transferred troops and artillery away from the Shanghai area, to give Japan no excuse for war there.
卢沟桥事变后，正在青岛养病的京沪国防区负责长官张治中，马上返回南京，就任京沪警备司令官要职。这时他开始竭力劝蒋介石在远离华北的上海主动发起大战：“先发制敌”，“先下手为强”。蒋介石没有答应。上海是中国的工业和金融中心，蒋不想“破坏上海”。而且上海旁边就是首都南京，蒋介石不想轻易放弃。当时蒋已经把军队从上海周围调走，以便不给日本人藉口在这里开战。七月底，日本占领平津后，张治中又打电报要求“首先发动”，列举了四种日本调兵来上海的征候，作为首先发动”的前提。蒋介石的答覆是：在有这些征候的情况下，可以先发制人，但什么时候发动，“时机应待命令。”
At the end of July, right after the Japanese occupied Peking and Tianjin, ZZZ cabled Chiang again, arguing strongly for “taking the initiative” to start a war. After ZZZ said he would only do so if the Japanese showed unmistakable signs of attacking Shanghai, Chiang gave his conditional consent, stressing: “You must wait for orders about when this should happen.”
But on 9 August, at Shanghai airport, an army unit hand-picked by ZZZ killed a Japanese marine lieutenant and a private. A Chinese prisoner under sentence of death was then dressed in Chinese uniform and shot dead at the airport gate, to make it seem that the Japanese had fired first. The Japanese gave every sign of wishing to defuse the incident, but ZZZ still bombarded Chiang with requests to launch an offensive, which Chiang vetoed. On the morning of the 13th, the Generalissimo told ZZZ not to launch a war “on impulse,” but to “study and discuss” all the angles again, and then submit his plan. ZZZ pressed the next day: “This army is determined to start the offensive against the enemy at 5:00 PM today. Here is the plan …” On the 14th, Chinese planes bombed the Japanese flagship Izumo, as well as troops and navy planes on the ground, and ZZZ ordered a general offensive. But Chiang stopped him: “You must not attack this evening. Wait for order.”
八月九日，经张治中一手挑选的派驻上海虹桥机场的部队，打死日本海军陆战队官兵各一人，然后给一个中国死囚犯穿上中方制服，把他打死在机场大门口，以造成日本人先开火的假象。日本人的表现是希望大事化小，小事化了，但张治中以“上海的形势突然告急”为理由，率大批军队在十二日清晨占领上海，定于十三日拂晓向上海日军发起攻击。蒋介石两次去电叫他“不得進攻”，要张“再研讨”攻击计划，“不可徒凭一时之愤兴”。张十四日电蒋：“本军决于本日午后五时，对敌开始攻击。” 但张午后三时就提前下达了总攻击命令。四时，炮兵、步兵一齐進攻。*
* 同一天，中国飞机轰炸了日本军舰。据现有材料，蒋介石没有下轰炸的命令。蒋五时后来电说：“今晚不可進攻。另候后命。”张治中只得服从。他选择了另一条路把蒋逼上梁山。
When no order arrived, ZZZ outflanked Chiang by issuing a press release next day, claiming, falsely, that Japanese warships had shelled Shanghai and that Japanese troops had started attacking the Chinese. With anti-Japanese feeling running high, Chiang was put on the spot. The following day, 16 August, he finally gave the order: “General assault for dawn tomorrow.”
十五日，他越过蒋直接向报界发表声明。他先称日本“侵沪舰队突以重炮轰击闸北，继以步兵越界袭我”， 再说他决心反击，“洗雪国耻收复失地”。在高涨的抗日情绪下，一直不愿在上海跟日本人大打的蒋介石不得不于第二天下令：“预定明拂晓全线总攻击。”
But after one day's fighting, Chiang ordered a halt, on the 18th. ZZZ simply ignored the order and expanded his offensives. All-out war became unstoppable as large Japanese reinforcements began to arrive on 22 August.
但蒋介石实在是不愿意打，十八日，他又传令停攻。张治中不予理睬，十九日继续進攻。二十二日，大批日本增援部队到来，全面战争终于不可避免。
The Japanese inflicted tremendous casualties. In Shanghai, 73 of China's 180 divisions—and the best one-third—over 400,000 men, were thrown in, and all but wiped out. The conflict here consumed virtually all of China's nascent air force (which Chiang so treasured that he had not sent a single plane to the northern front), and the main warships. It significantly weakened the military force Chiang had been painstakingly building up since the early 1930s. The Japanese suffered much fewer, though still heavy, casualties: about 40,000.
蒋介石被拉進来后，下定决心大打。全国一百八十个师中最精锐的七十三个被投進战场，四十多万人几乎打光。这场战役重创了蒋最看重的年轻的空军，摧毁了大部分的主力舰只。蒋介石从三十年代初辛辛苦苦建立起来的现代武装被大大削弱。日本方面的伤亡也有大约四万人
Once Chiang was forced into all-out war, Stalin moved with alacrity to bolster Chiang's capability to sustain a war. He signed a non-aggression treaty with Nanjing on 21 August, and started to supply Chiang with weapons. China could not manufacture any weapons except rifles. Stalin advanced Chiang US$250 million for arms purchases from Russia, which included some 1,000 planes, plus tanks and artillery, and committed a sizable Soviet air force contingent.* Moscow sent hundreds of military advisers, headed for a time by the Chinese-speaking General Vasili Chuikov, later of Stalingrad fame. For the next four years, Russia was not only China's main supplier of arms, but virtually its only source of heavy weapons, artillery and planes.
一旦中日全面开战，斯大林立刻大规模援蒋，以保证蒋能打下去。苏联跟南京政府签订了互不侵犯条约，开始向中国提供武器。中国当时只能制造步枪一类的轻武器。莫斯科给蒋两亿五千万美金的贷款买苏联军火，包括坦克、大炮和一千来架飞机。还派了一支飞行队，* 数百名军事顾问，领队的是后来在斯大林格勒战役中出了名的崔可夫将军(Vasili Chuikov)。在往后的四年里，苏联是中国的主要军火来源。
* 从一九三七年十二月到一九三九年底，两千多名苏联飞行员在中国执行战斗任务，击毁一千来架日本飞机，甚至轰炸了日本占领的台湾。
Moscow was exhilarated by the turn of events, as the Soviet foreign minister, Maksim Litvinov, admitted to French vice-premier Léon Blum. According to Blum, Litvinov told him that “he [Litvinov] and the Soviet Union were perfectly delighted that Japan had attacked China [adding] that the Soviet Union hoped that war between China and Japan would continue just as long as possible …” Both of the Russians who dealt with ZZZ, the military attaché Lepin and Ambassador Bogomolov, were immediately recalled and executed.
中日全面战争使莫斯科欣喜若狂。外交部长李维诺夫(Maksim Litvinov)当即对法国副总理布拉姆(Leon Blum)说，他和苏联“都对日本向中国开战感到开心极了，苏联希望中日战争打得越久越好。”
ZZZ was quickly forced to resign, in September, by an angry, frustrated and undoubtedly suspicious Chiang. But the Generalissimo continued to employ him. When the Nationalists fled to Taiwan in 1949, ZZZ stayed with the Communists, as did super-mole Shao Li-tzu.
为了保护这位贡献巨大的红色代理人，斯大林把和张治中直接联系的苏联大使鲍格莫洛夫与武官雷邦随即召回国，处死灭口。愤怒、无奈的蒋介石当然怀疑张的真实身分，开战后不久就逼他辞了职。但蒋介石为了自身的利益像对待邵力子一样继续使用他。一九四九年蒋逃往台湾时，这两位都留在大陆。
The outbreak of full-scale war between Japan and China brought Mao immediate benefits. Chiang Kai-shek finally acceded to the Communists' key demand, which he had till now refused to consider—that the Red Army could keep its autonomy. Mao thus kept control of his own army, even though it was supposed to be part of the armed forces of the central government. Though Chiang was supreme commander of the Chinese army, he could not give orders to the Red Army, and had to couch his commands in the form of “requests.” In addition, the CCP was now, in effect, legitimized. Communist prisoners were released and the CCP was allowed to open offices in key cities, and to publish its own papers in Nationalist areas.
中日全面战争的爆发立即给毛泽东带来了好处：蒋介石答应了他迄今为止在谈判中始终坚决拒绝的条件，即让红军成立独立的指挥部。虽然名义上红军受蒋介石统一指挥，但蒋不能发号施令，只能提“要求”。中共现在合法化了，可以在国民党地区开设办事处，出版报纸，政治犯也被释放。
And yet this was just the beginning of Mao's gains from the Sino-Japanese War, which lasted eight years and took some 20 million Chinese lives. It ended up weakening Chiang's state enormously, and enabling Mao to emerge in possession of a giant army of 1.3 million. At the beginning of the war, the ratio of Chiang's army to Mao's was 60:1; at the end, it was 3:1.
持续八年、夺去两千万中国人生命的日本侵华战争，带给毛征服中国的机会：蒋介石的政权被极大削弱，毛占领了大片土地，建立起一支一百三十万人的大军。抗战开始时，国共军队的比例是六十比一，结束时是三比一。
HAVING MASTERMINDED the detonation of all-out war between China and Japan, Stalin ordered the Chinese Red Army to get actively involved, telling the CCP in no uncertain terms that it must cooperate properly with the Nationalists, and not do anything to give Chiang the slightest excuse not to fight Japan.
全面战争打响之后，斯大林命令中共积极参战，严厉告诉中共不跟国民党认真合作不行，不能给蒋介石任何藉口不抗日。
At this time, the Chinese Red Army had some 60,000 regular troops. Of these, 46,000 were in the northwest Red region, with Yenan as its capital. These were now renamed “the 8th Route Army” (8RA), led by Zhu De, with Peng De-huai as his deputy. Ten thousand were in the Eastern Yangtze valley in the heartland of China. These were guerrillas who had been left behind by the Long March, and they now became the “New 4th Army” (N4A). Xiang Ying, the head of the stay-behinds (and Mao's old nemesis, who had argued vigorously against Mao being taken along on the Long March), became the head of the N4A.
在西北的四万六千红军编成“八路军”三个师，朱德任总司令，彭德怀是副总司令。在华中的一万余长征时留下的人，编成“新四军”由项英领导。八月下旬，八路军开始东渡黄河，向几百公里外的山西前线挺進。将士们满怀热情要打日本，大多数中共领导人也想积极抗日。
From late August, the three divisions that made up the 8RA began to cross the Yellow River towards the front, which lay several hundred kilometers to the east, in Shanxi province. Red Army commanders as well as soldiers were very keen to fight the Japanese. So were most of the CCP leaders.
But not Mao. Mao did not regard the Sino-Japanese War as a conflict in which all Chinese would fight together against Japan. He did not see himself as on the same side as Chiang at all. Years later, he was to say to his inner circle that he had regarded the war as a three-sided affair. “Chiang, Japan and us—Three Kingdoms,” he said, evoking the period in Chinese history known as the Three Warring Kingdoms. The war was to him an opportunity to have Chiang destroyed by the Japanese. In later years he more than once thanked the Japanese for “lending a big hand.” When after the war some Japanese visitors apologized to him for Japan having invaded China, he told them: “I would rather thank the Japanese warlords.” Without them occupying much of China, “we would still be in the mountains today.” He meant every word.
但毛泽东不这样想。他不把中日战争看作是中国抗击日本，而是三国逐鹿，如他多年后在政治局常委会上所说：“蒋、日、俄，三国志。”日本侵略是借日本的力量打垮蒋介石的大好机会。他多次感谢日本人“帮了我们一把”。
Mao had no strategy to drive the Japanese out of China without Chiang. Nor could he dream that the CCP could cope with the Japanese occupying army once Chiang was defeated. All his hopes hinged on Stalin. Mao had made his calculation clear in an interview with Edgar Snow in 1936, saying that Soviet Russia cannot ignore events in the Far East. It cannot remain passive. Will it complacently watch Japan conquer all China and make of it a strategic base from which to attack the USSR? Or will it help the Chinese people …? We think Russia will choose the latter course.
毛并没有幻想反共的日本在打垮蒋介石后会放过他，也没有办法独自对付强大的日本，他寄希望的是第四者：苏联。一九三六年毛曾对斯诺说，苏联“不能对远东的事态漠不关心，采取消极的态度”，“它会坐视日本征服全中国，把中国变成進攻苏联的战略基地呢，还是会帮助中国人民反对日本侵略者，赢得独立，与苏联人民建立友好的关系呢？我们认为苏联是会选择后一条道路的。”
Mao's basic plan for the Sino-Japanese War, therefore, was to preserve his forces and expand the sphere of the Chinese Reds, while waiting for Stalin to act. So when the Japanese pushed deeper into the interior from northern China as well as from the Shanghai area, Mao got Chiang to agree that the Red Army would not be put into any battles, and would operate only as auxiliaries to government troops. Mao did not want the Red Army to fight the invaders at all. He ordered Red commanders to wait for Japanese troops to defeat the Nationalists, and then, as the Japanese swept on, to seize territories behind the Japanese lines. The Japanese could not garrison the vast areas of China they conquered—which were eventually much larger than Japan itself. They could only control the railways and the big cities, leaving the smaller towns and the countryside up for grabs. Mao also ordered his men to round up defeated Nationalist troops in order to expand the Red ranks. His plan was to ride on the coat-tails of the Japanese to expand Red territory.
在整个抗日战争中，毛泽东的战略就是把苏联军队拉進中国，为他打江山。在这一天到来前，他保存扩大中共军队的地盘。开战后，毛坚持红军不参加正面战场的战斗，只在侧面做游击队协助，蒋介石同意了。其实毛连侧面袭击也不想做，他命令指挥官们等日本军队击溃国民党军继续往前推進时，在日军后方占领土地。日军无法守卫他们攻取的，远远超过日本本土面积的地域，他们只能控制铁道线和大城市，小城镇和广大乡村就任毛抢夺了。不仅占地，毛还命令他的部队大力收编溃散的国民党军队，“及时抓一把”。总之，毛的主意是乘日本人前進的东风扩军占地，“让日本多占地，才爱国，否则变成爱蒋介石的国了。”
He bombarded his military commanders with telegrams such as: “Focus on creating base areas … Not on fighting battles …” And when the Japanese were sweeping across the province of Shanxi, he ordered: “Set up our territory in the whole of Shanxi province.” He said years later that his attitude had been: “The more land Japan took, the better.”
毛不断给指挥官们发电报说，要“以创造根据地为主”，“而不是以集中打仗为主”。日军席卷过山西时，毛下令：“在山西全省创立我们的根据地。”
Mao's approach met with resistance from his own commanders, who were keen to fight the Japanese. On 25 September the Red Army had its first engagement with the Japanese, when a unit under Lin Biao ambushed the tail end of a Japanese transport convoy at the pass of Pingxingguan, in northeast Shanxi, near the Great Wall. Although this was a minor clash—and against a non-combat unit, which, according to Lin, was mainly asleep—it was the first time Communists had killed any Japanese (outside Manchuria). If Mao had had his way, this fight would not have happened at all. According to a report Lin Biao wrote in 1941 in Russia (where he was receiving treatment for bullet wounds), Mao had repeatedly refused to authorize the action: “When battles started between the Japanese army and the Nationalist army, I more than once asked the CC [Central Committee: i.e., Mao] for a decision to organise a powerful strike against the Japanese. I never received an answer, and I ended up giving battle near Pingxingguan on my own initiative.”
毛的政策引起中共将领的抵制，他们想打日本。九月二十五日，八路军打响了它抗战的第一枪。林彪指挥的部队在山西东北部平型关，打了一场埋伏战，伏击日本一支运输队的尾巴。虽然这是场小仗，打的也不是战斗部队，而且据林彪说大部分敌人在睡觉，这毕竟是共产党军队首次(在东北以外)击毙日本人。要是依了毛，平型关之战根本打不起来。林彪一九四一年在苏联治疗枪伤时向共产国际报告说：“在日本军队跟国民党军队开战时，我不止一次请求中央同意出击日军。但没有接到任何答覆，我只好自作主张打了平型关那一仗。
Mao was furious about Pingxingguan. This fighting, he said, was “helping Chiang Kai-shek,” and had done nothing to advance his goal—which was to establish Red territory. But for propaganda purposes, Mao had Pingxingguan inflated out of all proportion in an effort to demonstrate that the CCP was more committed to fighting the Japanese than the Nationalists were. One reason the Communists kept citing it was because it was, literally, the only “battle” they had with the Japanese for years,* one that killed a couple of hundred Japanese at the very most.
毛反对打这一仗。打是“帮了蒋介石的忙”，无助于扩张共产党的地盘。但公开地，为了宣传，毛把平型关之战夸张成一场巨大的胜利，证明共产党比国民党更热衷抗日。“平型关”成了家喻户晓的名字。虽然平型关打死的日本人最多不过一两百，但这是中共在抗战前期几年中打的唯一一次稍具规模的仗。林彪三年后报告共产国际说：中共“直到今天还在用这场战斗做宣传，我们所有的文章里都只有这场战斗好提”。
The Red Army had a few other small successes, as minor players in collaboration with Nationalist troops. But all the time, Mao was urging them to stop fighting the Japanese and concentrate on taking over territory. By mid-November, the first new Communist base in the Japanese rear was formed, near Peking, called Jinchaji, with a population of some 12 million, making it many times larger than the Yenan base. This and other huge Red territories “created the condition for our victory” in conquering China, Mao told a Japanese visitor years later.
八路军还打了几场小胜仗，都是做国民党部队的帮手。这过程中，毛不断掣肘，要八路军集中精力占领地盘。十一月中旬，第一块日军后方的根据地成立了，叫晋察冀，有一千二百万人口，远多于陕甘宁。后来日本人就侵略中国向毛道歉时，毛说：日本的侵略使中共“建立了许多抗日根据地，为解放战争的胜利创造了条件。所以日本军阀、垄断资本干了件好事，如果要感谢的话，我宁愿感谢日本军阀。”
STALIN, HOWEVER, wanted the Chinese Reds to fight Japan, and to get his policy enforced he flew his most loyal Chinese acolyte to Yenan in a special plane in November 1937. This was Wang Ming, who had been working for years in the Comintern as the CCP representative. Just before he left, Stalin called him in and laid down the line: “The main thing now is the war [i.e., to fight Japan] … when that is over we will face the question of how to fight each other [i.e., Reds fighting Chiang].”
斯大林为了贯彻要中共打日本的政策，一九三七年十一月，用飞机把中共驻共产国际的代表王明送回延安。临走前，斯大林召见他说：“现在的中心是抗日，抗战结束后我们再来打内战。”
Most CCP leaders agreed with Stalin's line. When the Politburo met in December for the first time after Wang Ming's return, Wang Ming became the champion of the “fight Japan first” policy. The Politburo decided that the Red Army must take orders from the national military HQ, of which Chiang was the head and the CCP a part. Mao argued against this. But faced with a clear order from Stalin, he had to accept.
大多数中共领导人跟斯大林意见一致。在十二月政治局会议上，王明成了“先打日本”这一政策的代表。会议决定八路军一定要跟蒋介石合作，接受有中共参加的国民政府最高军事当局的统一领导。毛要八路军不接受蒋介石指挥，但他知道王明代表的是斯大林的意见，不敢一味坚持。
Mao's colleagues showed their disapproval of his agenda by making a decision that would oust Mao from his No. 1 position. Moscow had told the CCP to convene a congress, which was long overdue (the last had been in 1928). The person the Politburo chose to deliver the political report at the congress, which by strict Communist protocol devolved on the Party No. 1, was not Mao but Wang Ming. This was the Party leadership saying they wanted Wang Ming to be the future chief.
中共领导们知道毛的真实想法，不愿继续由他做领袖。莫斯科这时要中共开第七次党代表大会，因为距“六大”已有十年。政治局会议推选在未来“七大”上作政治报告的人，不是毛，而是王明。共产国际的规矩是党的第一号人物作政治报告，这等于说众人心目中的领袖是王明，不是毛。
Although Mao was de facto leader of the Party, and was recognized by Moscow as such, his position was not formalized, most unusually for the ritual-obsessed Communist world. The Party chief was still nominally Lo Fu. Nor did Mao command the kind of unchallengeable awe that Stalin did.
虽然毛这时是中共实质上的领袖，莫斯科也认可他，但他的身分还没有正式固定下来，还没有个第一把手的名称。在中共高层人物中，毛也不具备无可争议的权威。毛的盟友刘少奇当时说：“我们还没有中国的斯大林，任何人想作斯大林，结果是画虎不成。”
Mao had also lost control of the core decision-making group, the Secretariat. For the first time since the break with the Nationalists in 1927, all of its nine members had come together in one place, and five of them did not support Mao. The leader of the majority opposition was Wang Ming. Xiang Ying, head of the N4A, had long been an outspoken opponent of Mao. Chang Kuo-tao, the man Mao had so massively sabotaged on the Long March, hated Mao. And Chou En-lai and Po Ku both backed Wang Ming. Chou was in favor of fighting Japan actively, and gladly went along with the majority. Mao was in the minority.*
毛还失去了对中共核心“书记处”的控制。王明回国，项英出山，书记处如今九个成员都到齐了，其中五个站在毛的对立面。为首的是王明，其他人中，项英讨厌毛，张国焘仇恨毛，博古跟周恩来也因为希望打日本而支持王明代表的政策。另外三人是张闻天、陈云、康生。
Wang Ming had Moscow's authority, and the credentials of having been the Party's representative there, of having met Stalin, and of having hobnobbed with international Communist leaders. Fluent in Russian, and wise to the Kremlin's ways, he was also ambitious and ruthless. During the great purge in Russia, he had sent many Chinese Communists to prison or death. Though baby-faced, short and fleshy, this super-confident 33-year-old posed an acute threat to Mao.
说一口流利俄文的王明见过斯大林，与各国共产党领袖都是朋友，在克里姆林宫的场面上混得很熟--更不用说他野心勃勃，也是一个无毒不丈夫的人物。在苏联的大清洗中，他曾把许多在苏联的中共党员送進监狱，甚至送上刑场。虽然他长了张娃娃脸，矮矮胖胖，但这个三十三岁的年轻人气宇轩昂，充满自信，自知他的话具有莫斯科的权威。他对毛构成了极大的威胁
Mao would often hark back with great bitterness to that December 1937 when Wang Ming prevailed. This stands in stark contrast to the fact that not once in his long life did he mention another event that took place at exactly the same time—a huge massacre in Nanjing, in which an estimated up to 300,000 Chinese civilians and prisoners of war were slaughtered by the Japanese. Mao never made any comment, then or later, about this, the single biggest human tragedy of the Sino-Japanese War for his fellow countrymen.
此后几十年，毛念念不忘一九三七年十二月，不时念叨王明如何回国夺了他的权。与此成鲜明对照的是，他一次也没提过当时发生的另一件事：“南京大屠杀”。据有人估计被杀的中国平民和被俘的军人高达三十万。毛泽东从来没有对他的同胞在日军手里惨遭杀害表示过任何愤怒。
After Nanjing fell on 13 December, Chiang Kai-shek established his temporary capital farther inland, at Wuhan on the Yangtze. Wang Ming went there as CCP liaison on 18 December, with Chou and Po Ku as his deputies. They formed a good working relationship with Chiang. Red Army commanders were going there too, to liaise with the Nationalists. Mao was marginalized in Yenan. He referred resentfully to his peripheral position as “house-sitting,” although this complaint masked a critical reality: he used this time and the fact that the others were deeply involved in the war, to build up Yenan as his fiefdom.
南京是十二月十三日失陷的。蒋介石把长江重镇武汉作为临时首都。十八日，王明赶去那里做中共代表，周恩来和博古做他的副手。他们跟蒋介石建立了良好的工作关系。中共军队指挥员也到那里去跟国民党联络会商，一时间武汉取代延安成了中共的中心。毛后来耿耿于怀地把他当时在延安的地位叫做“留守处”。其实，毛并没有坐在那里发呆，他乘机做了件大事，把延安建成他的一统天下。
From Yenan Mao waged an unrelenting struggle to prevent the Red Army from acting on the plans made in the national HQ headed by Chiang. When Zhu De wired on 19 February 1938 to say that the 8RA HQ was moving east in line with the general plan, Mao tried to turn the army back, by claiming that the Japanese were about to attack Yenan. In fact, Japan never attempted to attack Yenan, apart from occasional bombing.
毛一个劲儿地给中共将领发电报，阻止他们遵从以蒋介石为首的军事委员会的指挥，哪怕中共将领们也在军事委员会内，也参加决策。一九三八年二月，朱德来电说八路军总部将根据决策东移至山西东南。毛要他把部队带回来，声称日本人要進攻延安。事实上，日本从来没有考虑过打延安，只偶尔轰炸过几次。
Zhu declined to turn back, saying that Mao was probably falling for a ruse whose purpose was precisely to entice the 8RA away from the front. Mao persisted, showering Zhu with telegrams ordering him and Peng back to Yenan: “In particular, you two must return.” Zhu and Peng replied with a definitive “No” on 7 March and continued east with their troops.
日本人要的是有经济价值、能够养战的地方。朱德婉言拒绝返回，说毛情报里的日军动作“是佯动，用来引诱八路军西渡黄河，回师陕北”， 言外之意是毛上了日本人的当。毛坚持要朱德和彭德怀回延安，三月三日的一封电报特别说：“尤其你们二人必须回来”。朱、彭回电婉转而坚定地说“不”，带军东去。
To stop Mao from constantly issuing orders that countermanded agreed strategy, the Politburo met again at the end of February. Wang Ming had demanded the meeting for this purpose—and to sort out another urgent matter. In January, under Mao's aegis and without Chiang Kai-shek's consent, the new Red territory of Jinchaji had been publicly proclaimed as a Red base. This had triggered off a wave of anti-communism in the country, with many asking: “What are we fighting the Japanese for? After Japan is defeated all we will get is a Communist takeover!” Wang Ming and his group in Wuhan were extremely unhappy about this in-your-face act by Mao.
为了制止毛的这类命令，政治局在二月底再次碰头。开会还有个原因。一月，根据毛的指示，晋察冀根据地政府未经蒋介石许可，公开宣告成立。这在国民党地区引起轩然大波，人们问：抗战有什么意思？“抗战胜利后还不是共产党的天下？” 王明和在武汉的中共领导人都对毛十分气愤，认为毛这样做太咄咄逼人，太刺激国民党。
Once again the majority of the Politburo sided with Wang Ming (and confirmed that he would deliver the political report at the forthcoming Party congress). The summary of the meeting, written by Wang Ming, said that the Red Army must be subject to “the supreme commander,” i.e., Chiang Kai-shek, with “completely unified command … unified discipline, unified war plans and unified operations.” Any new Red bases “must obtain the consent and authorisation of … the Nationalist government beforehand.” Wang Ming also said, most ominously for Mao, that: “Today, only the Japanese Fascists … and their running-dogs … and the Trotskyists are attempting to overthrow the Nationalists …”
政治局会议上，大多数人支持王明，再次确认他在即将召开的“七大”上作政治报告。政治局决议说要抗日就必须要“统一纪律”、“统一作战计划”、“统一作战行动”， 中共军队必须“受最高统帅及军事委员会的统一指挥”。决议还说：“今天，只有日本法西斯军阀及其走狗汉奸托派等才企图打倒国民党。”
These were Moscow's words, and the charge was potentially deadly. So Mao pretended that he accepted the “fight Japan first” policy. He told Red commanders that they could take orders from the national HQ, and promised not to “interfere” in the future.
这些话是莫斯科的口径，也是致命的罪名。毛很清楚他是不可能指望斯大林对他开恩的，于是他聪明地表示接受“先打日本”的政策，发电报给八路军指挥宫，说他对他们的行动将“不加干涉”。
Mao was so nervous that he had been taking steps to prevent Moscow learning his real position. At the end of the December 1937 Politburo meeting, he had had all the participants' notes confiscated under the pretense of “safe-keeping,” so that no one could cite him if they decided to report him. When a new envoy was sent to Moscow, Mao engineered for an ally of his, Ren Bi-shi, to get the job. Ren told the Russians that Mao's policy was no different from Moscow's.
同时，毛采取措施防止莫斯科发现他的真实立场。十二月政治局会议结束时，他曾派人以安全为名，收去了所有与会者的笔记，使万一有人要向莫斯科告状也没有白纸黑字作证。当中共要派人去苏联时，毛的人任弼时得到这份差事。任弼时告诉共产国际，毛的抗战政策跟他们没有区别。
In late January 1938 an emissary from the Soviet General Staff, V. V. Andrianov, had secretly visited Yenan—the highest-ranking Russian ever to do so. He had brought the huge sum of US$3 million (equivalent to roughly US$40 million today) for the specific purpose of building up the Red Army to fight the Japanese. Stalin had said he wanted the Chinese Red Army to have “not three but thirty divisions.” Moscow was ready to bankroll this huge expansion—for fighting Japan.*
苏军总参谋部安德利亚诺夫(V.V.Andrianov)这时秘密前来延安，带给毛一大笔钱：三百万美金，相当于今天的差不多美金四千万。* 钱是用来发展红军打日本的，斯大林说红军应当“不是三个师而是三十个师”。毛宣称他的打算正是集中大部队“打运动战”。说他努力要跟国民党合作，只是国民党不愿意。为了表示抗日的热情，毛甚至声称日本人不经打，比国民党还容易打。
* 王明还在莫斯科时，对共产国际说毛“不断给我打电报说他们急需钱，要你们继续每月寄钱”。
Andrianov asked Mao what his plans were for the war. Mao gave him a detailed, but false, account, saying that he intended to concentrate large contingents to strike the Japanese through “mobile warfare,” and claiming that the Nationalists were spurning his efforts to cooperate with them. He even tried to demonstrate his enthusiasm by suggesting that the Japanese—whom he portrayed as ineffective and suffering from low morale—were an easier foe to fight than the Nationalists.
This was a most precarious time for Mao. He could not have failed to register that Moscow had noticeably scaled down public praise of him in the previous year, and had criticized the CCP in a key text on the anniversary of the Bolshevik Revolution.
毛不得不向斯大林积极表态。他不会看不出，一年来莫斯科明显地降低了对他的赞颂，在庆祝“十月革命”的重要讲话里公开批评了他领导下的中共。
His complicity in the kidnapping of Chiang was bound to make Stalin suspect him. Indeed, Stalin had been nursing suspicions that Mao might be “a Japanese agent.” Comintern officials who had had dealings with Mao were arrested and interrogated under torture. Comintern intelligence chief Osip Piatnitsky was one of them,† and in April 1938, he named Mao as a conspirator in an alleged “Bukharin group.” Bukharin, the former head of the Comintern, was alleged to have spied for Japan.
自西安事变以来，斯大林就怀疑毛是“日本奸细”。共产国际内跟毛打过交道的人大都被抓了起来。在毛的黑材料里，有一份说曾在中国活动的苏联高级间谍马尼科夫(Boris Melnikov)是他的发展人。斯大林在克里姆林宫亲自审问马尼科夫。被捕的共产国际情报负责人皮亚尔涅斯基(Osip Piatnitsky)，在供词中称毛是“布哈林集团”成员。布哈林是共产国际前总书记，罪名之一是为日本人搞情报。
The dossier on Mao included a denunciation of him as “the leader of Trotskyism in the inmost depths of the CCP”—a doubly menacing accusation, as Chinese Trotskyists were deemed to be Japanese spies. Moscow's former top agent in China, Boris Melnikov, was accused of having recruited Mao and then gone over to the Japanese, along with other top CCP leaders. Stalin had Melnikov brought to the Kremlin for a face-to-face debriefing, and Melnikov's execution was delayed for eight months while he was grilled about the CCP. It was during this period that a huge number of former Soviet agents in China were executed on the charge of being Japanese spies.
毛还被指控为“中共核心”内“托派”领袖”。中国“托派”对斯大林来说都是日本特务。马尼科夫和皮亚尔涅斯基，以及一大群在中国工作过的苏联情报人员，后来都被枪毙。
Mao's fate was in the balance.
毛的前途危机四伏。
*From December 1937 to the end of 1939 more than 2,000 Russian pilots flew combat missions, destroying about 1,000 Japanese planes, and even bombing Japanese-occupied Taiwan.
*Confirmed by Lin Biao himself in his report for the Russians of February 1941. The CCP “to this day exploits this battle for agitational [propaganda] purposes. In all our documents this is the only important battle cited …”
*The other three members of the Secretariat were Lo Fu, Chen Yun and Kang Sheng.
*When Wang Ming was still in Moscow, he told the Comintern that Mao “wired me repeatedly that they need money terribly [and] asked that you continue to send money every month.”
†Piatnitsky was arrested on 7 July 1937, the day the Marco Polo Bridge incident occurred, leading to Japan's attack on northern China and threat to Russia. The first recorded interrogation of him is dated 11 November 1937; that same day Stalin saw Wang Ming before the latter left for Yenan to press the CCP and Mao to fight Japan. These were unmistakable indications that the arrest of Piatnitsky had to do with the war with Japan, the CCP—and Mao.