20 FIGHT RIVALS AND CHIANG—NOT JAPAN
20 打政敌，打蒋介石，不打日本！
(1937–40 AGE 43–46)
1937～1940 年 43～46 岁
ONE MAN who sought to exploit Mao's vulnerability was Chang Kuo-tao. He had met up with Mao in June 1935 during the Long March, with an army 80,000-strong in contrast to Mao's battered 10,000. He also had solid credentials to be the leader of the CCP. Over the next few months, however, Mao had methodically sabotaged his army, and monopolized the route north to link up with the Russians, leaving Kuo-tao to languish on the Tibetan border. By the time Kuo-tao reached Party HQin northern Shaanxi in October 1936, his army had been halved in strength and he had become very much the junior partner. Even so, Mao was bent on further weakening Kuo-tao, because his army was still twice the size of Mao's, and he was still a potential rival.
毛泽东的危机没逃过一个人的眼睛，这就是张国焘。一九三八年四月四日，他逃离延安，不为别的，只为想把毛推下台。
张国焘在长征中与毛会师时，拥有雄兵八万，毛只有残兵一万。但几个月工夫，毛就成功地破坏了他的军队，抢先联系上苏联，被莫斯科首肯为中共领袖。重逢时，张国焘是灰溜溜地来的，军队也只剩下一半。毛仍不放过他，因为他仍然是书记处书记，他的四万军队仍然是毛的一倍。
That month, October 1936, when Mao dispatched the Red Army to try to open the way to the Russian arms supplies near the Outer Mongolia border, he designated Kuo-tao's combat-hardened units to break through the Nationalist force blocking the route. When this operation failed, 21,800 of Kuo-tao's troops—half of his remaining men—were cut off on the far side of the Yellow River. Moscow then floated the idea that the CCP might collect arms in another Soviet-controlled region, Xinjiang. The mission was hopeless, given that it involved crossing more than 1,500 kilometers, through uninhabited desert and territory held by a fierce anti-Communist Muslim army. But Mao jumped at this idea and assigned Kuo-tao's stranded force to this doomed mission. The force was named the Western Contingent.
一九三六年十月红军打到外蒙古边境去接收苏联武器时，毛用张国焘的红四方面军当先锋，要在蒋介石的重重阻兵中杀出一条血路来。失败后，红四方面军的两万一千八百人被隔在黄河彼岸，成为孤军一支。这时莫斯科询问中共可不可能改道去新疆接收武器。这一路长达一千五百公里，大部分是杳无人烟的沙漠，控制在极端反共、凶悍无情的穆斯林马家军手里。毛明知前景毫无希望，但他抓住莫斯科的建议，把这支孤军派去。这就是“西路军”。
Mao managed to make the journey even more futile by issuing a stream of contradictory orders that drove the Contingent from one hellish locale to another, continually plunging it into pitched battles. Its commander recorded bitterly that the tasks assigned him by Yenan were “elusive and changeable.” When the Contingent cabled early in February 1937 from the middle of the desert that it could not hold out much longer, nor go on, and asked for permission to come to Yenan, Mao ordered it to hold on where it was, telling it to “fight to the last person and the last drop of blood.”
毛把这支上不沾天、下不着地的孤军在沙漠里调来调去，向他们发出忽而这样、忽而那样的指示，迫使他们打一场又一场的恶战。指挥员徐向前说，给他们的任务是“飘忽不定，变化多端，并大大超出应有限度”。西路军最后实在无法支撑下去，要求返回延安，毛却命令他们“就地坚持”，一九三七年二月二十二日更电令他们“奋斗到最后一个人，最后一滴血”。
By mid-March the Contingent, once the backbone of Kuo-tao's army, had been all but killed off. Those captured met horrible deaths. After one climactic battle in western Gansu, more than 1,000 were buried alive. Heart-rending photos were taken of a large group of unsuspecting prisoners before they were slaughtered. The 2,000 women were raped, some tortured and killed, others sold in the local slave markets. Of the original 21,800 men and women, only around 400 eventually made it to Xinjiang at the end of April, more dead than alive.
到三月中旬，张国焘手下的这支劲旅几乎全军覆没。被俘的红军遭到残忍杀害。甘肃西部的最后一场血战下来，一千多人被活埋。活埋以前，俘虏们被集中起来照了相。从照片上看，他们还不知道等待他们的是什么命运。两千名女战士被强奸，被凌辱后杀害，被卖身为奴。两万多人中只有四百来人在四月底挣扎到了新疆。苏联飞机运给他们武器、食物和香烟，另外每人一副碗筷。
The extermination of this force allowed Mao to slam the lid on the coffin of Kuo-tao. Mao turned Kuo-tao, who was in Yenan, into the scapegoat, asserting that the Contingent had been following “the Chang Kuo-tao line.” But Moscow refused to support Mao's attempt to get Kuo-tao kicked out of the Politburo. Still, Kuo-tao was denounced in front of his own officers.
Mao not only ended Kuo-tao's political prospects, he ended the lives of the few of the Western Contingent who eventually made it to Yenan. A local official described what happened:
少数逃回陕北的西路军官兵死在自己人手上。当时在延安的司马璐先生目击一个当地干部这样津津有味地“丑表功”：
When they were chased into our [area], we first of all gave them a welcome party and took over their arms. Then we said to them: “Comrades, you have been through a lot. You are transferred to the rear to have a good rest.” We took them in batches into the valleys, and buried all these grandsons of turtles [i.e., bastards] alive.
当四方面军从甘肃被国民党军队追得无路可走到达我们关中苏区的时候，我们首先很客气的接应他们，又举行欢迎会招待他们，然后缴下他们的武器，就对他们说：“同志，你们辛苦了，调你们到后方休息去。”再把他们一批批一批批骗到山沟里，把这些王八龟孙子的四方面军都活埋了。
It was such fun burying them. At first, we said to them with smiles: “Comrades, dig the pits well, we want to bury Nationalist troops alive.” They really worked hard, one spade after another, wiping sweat from their faces … After they finished, we shoved them and kicked them all in. At first, they thought we were joking. But when we began to shovel earth in, they started shouting: “Comrades, we are not Nationalist troops!” We cursed: “Sons of bitches. We don't care whether you are Nationalist troops or not. We want you to die, and you die …”
活埋的时候，那才好玩呢。开始，我们笑嘻嘻地对他们说：“同志，把坑挖好了，我们要活埋国民党军队了。”他们果真起劲的挖，一锹一锹的挖下去，抹抹脸上的汗珠，还笑着说：“再挖深一点，让这些国民党军队躺在里面舒服些。”我们也笑笑，挖好了，我们把他们一个个推進去，踢進去，起初他们还以为咱们开玩笑呢，等到我们提起铁锹填土的时候，才大声呼叫：“同志，我们不是国民党军队呀！”我们骂：“妈的，管你们是不是国民党军队，老子要你死，你就死……”
At this point, the bragger was challenged: “I absolutely refuse to believe this was the order of the Party.”
他正说得得意，听的人愤怒了，大声呵斥他：“同志，如果你们真的这么做，你们就错了……你们太过火了，我相信这绝不是党的命令。”
But the man went on: “What! It was our regimental commander who ordered us to do this. And he said it was the order of Comrade Gao Gang [local Communist leader], who of course was carrying out the order of Chairman Mao. We only recognise Chairman Mao's authority. Whatever Chairman Mao asks us to do, we do.”
讲故事的人大声反驳：“什么，不是党的命令，是我们过火了？难道我个人和他们过不去。我那时是个支队长，咱们团长要我们这么干的，团长说是高岗同志的命令，高岗同志当然又是奉的毛主席的命令。咱们只认得毛主席，毛主席叫咱干啥，咱就干啥。”
西路军一朝覆没，毛泽东就对在延安的张国焘下手，说西路军的失败是“张国焘路线”的结果，在红四方面军干部面前批斗张国焘。毛企图把张国焘赶出政治局，只是因为莫斯科不同意而没有得逞。
Kuo-tao himself was subjected to multiple “torments … masterminded by Mao,” he later wrote. He was thrown out of his house by Mao's secretary so that Mao could take it over, and his orderly was arrested. Mao even tormented Kuo-tao's young son, who was cast as the leading Trotskyist Chang Mu-tao in a school play. Kuo-tao described arriving at the school to find “a group of people were ridiculing my son. Mao Tse-tung was also there, having fun. He cackled maliciously: ‘It fits perfectly to have Chang Kuo-tao's son play the role of Chang Mu-tao.' … I tore away the mask my son was wearing and led him away from the scene. I shouted in anger as I left: ‘Barbarians!… Worse than beasts!' ”*
用张国焘后来的话说：他“受尽了折磨”，是“毛泽东在后面掌舵”。毛的秘书把他撵出他的住宅，让给毛住；他的警卫员被捕。一次，张国焘看见儿子在学校演戏时被派演“托派”张慕陶，“扮成奇形怪状的汉奸样子……等我走到文艺会场的时候，一群人正在捉弄我的儿子，毛泽东也正在那里凑热闹，奸笑着说张国焘的儿子扮演张慕陶，再适合不过。我恰恰走進去，目击这种情形，就将孩子所戴的假面具撕掉，牵着他离开会场，一面走一面高声申斥说：“野蛮、残忍、禽兽不如。””
BY SPRING 1938, Kuo-tao was at the end of his tether. This was right at the moment when Mao's own position was unusually weak, as he was out of line with Moscow's orders to fight Japan. Kuo-tao spotted a chance to join hands with Wang Ming, who represented Moscow's viewpoint. At the time, Wang Ming was in Wuhan, Chiang's temporary capital, with Chou En-lai and Po Ku. On 4 April, in his capacity as chairman of the Red region, Kuo-tao left Yenan for a joint Nationalist–CCP ceremony at the tomb of the mythical Yellow Emperor, outside the base area. After the ceremony he drove off to Xian, and from there he went on to Wuhan to see Wang Ming and his colleagues.
一九三八年春，忍无可忍的张国焘，抓住毛泽东处境不妙的机会，要跟王明等人联起手来倒毛。四月四日，作为陕甘宁边区主席，他离开延安去附近的黄帝陵，跟国民党官员一起祭陵。祭祀完毕，他钻進一辆国民党的汽车，到了西安，随后前往武汉，去找在那里的王明、周恩来、博古。
This was the rarest of rare opportunities, with the majority of the core Party leadership, all in disagreement with Mao, out of Yenan at the same time, and thus out of Mao's clutches. (Xiang Ying, Mao's fiercest critic and the head of the N4A, was near Wuhan.) The content of Kuo-tao's confabulations in Wuhan is one of the CCP's most closely guarded secrets. Almost certainly, Kuo-tao argued for ousting Mao. Yenan later told Moscow that Kuo-tao had “tried to break the unity of the Party” when he was in Wuhan. But he left empty-handed, probably because the Wuhan trio did not believe that Moscow would stand for dumping Mao. Whereas Kuo-tao was desperate, Wang Ming was at the peak of his confidence, and it may have been hard for him to appreciate that Mao's apparent acceptance of majority decisions masked a ferocious determination to claw his way back into control.
项英作为新四军的负责人就在武汉附近。这是一个天赐良机，书记处中不赞成毛的五个人都不在延安，不在毛的控制之下。张国焘到底跟王明等人说了些什么，至今是中共的秘密。根据延安向莫斯科的报告，张国焘在武汉时“企图分裂党的团结”。可以肯定，张国焘力主马上倒毛。但是他未能说动武汉三人，最可能的原因是，这三人认为莫斯科不会同意。张国焘是走投无路，只能挺而走险。但王明正踌躇满志，察觉不到毛其实只是外表服从。
The talks went on for about a week. When Kuo-tao realized that he was getting nowhere, he decided to leave the Party for the Nationalists, which he did on 17 April. The Wuhan trio let him go. He then wrote to his wife, whom he had left behind in Yenan, pregnant, asking her to join him, with their twelve-year-old son. Mao stalled for two months, to make sure that Kuo-tao did no drastic damage, and then allowed them to leave.
张国焘在武汉跟三人谈了一星期，绝望后，他投奔了国民党。他接着给留在延安的怀孕的妻子写信，要她来武汉，把他们十二岁的孩子也带出来。毛拖了两个月，等到确定张国焘没有造成什么危害，才放他们离开了。
These words of Mao's reveal why he maneuvered so relentlessly to avoid entering Sichuan after the Zunyi Conference. They also show that he was prepared to kill huge numbers of fellow-Communist troops for his own ends. When Kuo-tao's wife came to Wuhan, Chou advised her to tell her husband “not to burn his bridges with the Party.” Kuo-tao took notice. He had once been the head of the CCP's Military Department, in charge of planting high-level agents in the Nationalist military, but he never revealed a single name to the Nationalists. In fact, he did little for them, and they were disappointed with him. His thousand-page-plus autobiography conspicuously failed to spill many beans. A sign that he kept his mouth shut was that after he fled the Mainland on the eve of Mao's conquest of China, one of his sons was allowed back to go to university in Canton in the mid-1950s. He outlived Mao and died in an old people's home in Toronto, Canada, in 1979, aged eighty-two, having converted to Christianity the year before.
张国焘的妻子经过武汉时，周恩来要她转告张国焘：“不要对党做得太绝了。”张听从了周的“规劝”。张国焘曾一度担任中共军事部部长，负责在国民党军队里安插间谍，但他一个名字也没透露。他的回忆录千页之长，但没有泄漏多少内幕。可说他为国民党是什么也没干，国民党对他非常失望。中共掌权后，他逃离大陆，后来托人带信想送儿子進广东中山医学院学医，中共爽快地同意了。一九七九年张国焘八十二岁时死在加拿大多伦多的一家老人院里，死前一年，他皈依了基督教。
Kuo-tao's defection to the Nationalists allowed Mao to discredit him in the eyes of his army; he was promptly expelled from the Party. Some of his old followers in Yenan were “extremely dissatisfied,” Nationalist intelligence chief Tai Li reported to Chiang Kai-shek. They met in secret, whereupon Mao's forces “liquidated them all there and then. About 200 were buried alive.”
张国焘投靠了国民党，毛正好名正言顺马上将他开除出党，并在他的旧部面前把他搞臭。据国民党情报头子戴笠给蒋介石的报告，驻在陕北边上的忠实于张的红四方面军官兵不少对此“极表不满”， 他们秘密开会，“讨论应付办法”， 结果被“全部包围，随即秘密悉数解决，当时被活埋者计达二百余人”。
Moscow waited two months before endorsing the expulsion. During this time, something most crucial for Mao happened: Stalin brought the Comintern purge to an end. Piatnitsky and Melnikov, who had implicated Mao as a Japanese spy, were executed (on the same day), along with a host of others connected to China. Mao's dossier remained on file, ready to be resuscitated when Stalin needed it again a decade later. But for now Mao was off the hook.
经过两个月的考虑，莫斯科在六月份批准开除张国焘。这时，斯大林结束了在共产国际的清洗。毛的黑材料继续存档，十年后斯大林还会来翻阅它们。但眼下，毛泽东被“解放”了。
As soon as Mao learned that the Kremlin had approved the expulsion of Kuo-tao, and that he himself was in the clear, he turned to tackle Wang Ming.
毛一得知这些消息，立即着手对付他的下一个政敌王明。
AT THIS POINT Mao had a major ally in Moscow, his old fellow plotter on the Long March, Wang Jia-xiang, the Red Prof. Mao had pushed hard and bombarded Moscow with requests for the Red Prof to go to Russia, ostensibly for medical treatment, ever since radio contact with Moscow had been established in June 1936. The Red Prof arrived there in July 1937, and became the CCP's representative once Wang Ming returned to China. Now, in June 1938, Mao cabled the Red Prof to return. He was in the position to perform a signal service for Mao. Before he left, he saw Comintern leader Dimitrov, and in a conversation about Party unity, Dimitrov said that the CCP needed to solve its problems “under the leadership headed by Mao Tse-tung.” Mao was to use this single expression to reverse his personal fortunes—and Party policy.
毛此时在莫斯科安插的人是王稼祥。两年前，跟莫斯科的电讯联系刚恢复，毛就三番五次给莫斯科打电报，要王稼祥去苏联治伤，实际上是藉此把王派到莫斯科去。王稼祥在王明回国后当上了中共驻共产国际的代表。一九三八年六月，张国焘被扳倒，毛电召王稼祥返国，目的是带回一句共产国际对他的地位表态的话。王离苏之前去见共产国际总书记季米特洛夫，提起党内不团结，套出季米特洛夫一句话：有问题“在领导机关中要在毛泽东为首的领导下解决”。毛利用这句话，消除了威胁，巩固了地位--也改变了中共的抗战政策。
The Red Prof returned to Yenan in late August. Mao immediately had him summon Wang Ming and the others to a Central Committee plenum “to hear the Comintern's instructions.” This was the first time the Central Committee had been convened since before the Long March, well over four years before. Wuhan, the temporary capital, was under fierce attack by the Japanese. Yet Mao recalled the field commanders and top men to Yenan, which was a backwater. Wang Ming objected, saying this was no time for the entire Party leadership to be absent from the nation's capital, and suggested holding the meeting in Wuhan. “I'm not going anywhere!” Mao declared. The Red Prof cabled Wang Ming threateningly: “Obey the Centre, or else.”
王稼祥八月底回到延安，毛叫他电召王明等人回延安开中央全会，“听取共产国际重要指示的传达”。上一次中央全会还是长征以前开的。 四年来，不知道有多少“共产国际重要指示”， 毛从来没有召开全会传达过。当中国面临严重的民族危机、临时首都武汉遭日军進攻的紧急时刻，毛泽东却要开大会，把中共领导从武汉，军事将领从战地统统召回，齐聚远离抗日战场的延安。王明质疑这种做法，建议要开会到武汉去开。毛强硬地宣布：“我就坐镇清凉山，哪里也不去！”王稼祥打电报威胁王明说：服从中央的意见，否则一切后果由你自己负责
Wang Ming came reluctantly, on 15 September. The Red Prof first addressed the Politburo, quoting the remark Dimitrov had made, upon which Mao said that he would deliver the political report at the plenum—thus re-establishing his position as No. 1. Wang Ming offered no resistance. When the plenum opened on the 29th in Yenan's Franciscan cathedral, the Red Prof, seated beneath Lenin's picture on the altar, repeated Dimitrov's words to the larger audience. Thus was planted in the minds of the CCP high command the idea that Moscow had explicitly endorsed Mao as their leader.
王明只好在九月十五日来了。在政治局会议上，王稼祥传达了季米特洛夫的话，毛跟着就把在“七大”上以头号人物作政治报告的身分，从王明那里夺了过来。王明没有抵抗。中央全会二十九日在延安的大教堂召开。主席台上的列宁像下，王稼祥向出席者把季米特洛夫的话又重复了一遍，等于向中共高层宣布莫斯科要毛做他们的领袖。
As a reward to the Red Prof, Mao gave him a slew of key posts, including vice-chairman of the Military Council. Mao also found the 32-year-old bachelor a pretty and coquettish bride, a 23-year-old medical graduate whose father had been an old friend of Mao's. So, having made nominal Party chief Lo Fu a happy man with a petite and vivacious spouse, Mao had spun the “red thread” around another useful heart, locking two vital allies to his belt. Mao enjoyed matchmaking, and was shrewd about the ways of the heart, particularly in sexually inhibited men.
作为对王稼祥的报酬，毛给了他一连串的要职，包括军委副主席。毛还为这个三十二岁的单身汉作媒，女方是三分颜色七分娇媚的医科毕业生，其父是毛早年的朋友。毛在给张闻天当了月老之后，又再抛红绳，拴住又一个有用的人。毛喜欢做媒，也熟知人的心理，特别是性拘束的男人的心理。
Mao now set about discrediting Wang Ming. However, shattering Party unity was something Moscow had specifically vetoed—and Wang Ming could be expected to fight back if attacked to his face. So Mao resorted to his old trick of dragging the meeting out until Wang Ming and other key opponents had left before he set upon them.
打倒王明的進程开始了。由于共产国际明令要团结，毛不敢当面整人，怕王明起而反击。毛故技重施，把会议拖长，拖到王明等人不得不离开，然后让他缺席受“审”。当时蒋介石把战时首都移到重庆，定好十月二十八日召开国民参政会，王明届时将去参加。毛泽东等的就是这一天。
Mao strung the plenum out for almost two months, making it the longest ever, even though it took place in the midst of a national crisis during which not only Wuhan but also the Nationalists' last major port, Canton, fell to the Japanese. Communist bases behind Japanese lines were threatened as well. Urgent pleas came flying in—“Emergency situation here. Please could Peng De-huai return soonest …”—but Mao refused to release the military commanders until he had achieved his goals.
六届六中全会是中共历史上最长的中央全会，开了将近两个月。在这期间，不仅武汉陷落，广州被占，中共在敌后的根据地也受到大举围攻。电报紧急飞来：“此间情况甚紧，望彭德怀会毕速归。”但毛扣住彭和其他军事将领不放。
Chiang Kai-shek moved his capital to Chongqing, further inland, where he was convening a new National Assembly for 28 October which Wang Ming was due to attend. Mao made sure that his plenum was still in session when Wang Ming had to depart for Chongqing—the same ploy he had used in 1929 to lay his hands on Red Fujian.
In order to prolong things, Mao insisted that every Politburo member make two virtually identical speeches—one to the Politburo and one to the plenum. He himself stalled his Political Report for two weeks, during which time participants were kept hanging around. When he finally spoke he was massively long-winded, and what with his habit of sleeping in the morning, he took up no less than three days.
为了拖时间，毛叫每个政治局委员都作了两个大致相同的发言，一个在政治局，一个在全会上。他自己的政治报告拖了两个星期才作，这两个星期中与会者就在那里混时间。毛终于作报告了，内容既长，他上午又要睡觉，报告一作就是三天。
By the end of October, all Mao's most powerful opponents—Chou, Xiang Ying, Po Ku and Wang Ming—had left town. Once they had gone, Mao launched an onslaught on them, and especially on Wang Ming, for “following Chiang Kai-shek's orders,” and even for the bloody purges in the Red areas before the Long March, when Wang Ming was not even there.
十月底以前，毛的主要对手都等不及了，先后离去：周恩来、项英、博古、王明。他们前脚走，毛后脚就攻击他们，特别指责王明“听蒋介石的话”，甚至把长征前苏区肃反的帐也算在王明头上，尽管王明那时人根本就不在苏区。
With his opponents absent, Mao imposed his policy on the plenum: to expand Red bases aggressively, and wage war on Nationalist troops if necessary. This was the first time that Mao spelled out his real intentions. There were many Nationalist troops behind Japanese lines, and they were competing with the Communists for territory. Hitherto, the policy had been to avoid fighting them and make unity with Chiang the priority. Mao had expressed complete agreement while Wang Ming was present, called Chiang Kai-shek a “great leader,” committed himself to placing new Red bases under the central government, and promised to “aim every gun at the Japanese.” He even proclaimed: “The Chinese nation has stood up! The state of being bullied, insulted, invaded and oppressed for 100 years … is over.” These words are almost identical to those he used at the time of the founding of Communist China in 1949, when he said: “the Chinese have stood up.” The 1949 remark is much quoted as—and widely assumed to be—a first. In fact, it was not. Moreover, when Mao originally used the phrase, China, in his words, was “under Mr. Chiang's leadership”!
同时，毛着手改变中共的抗战政策。当时日本侵略军后方不仅有中共的队伍，而且也有国民党军队，同中共争夺地盘。中共的政策迄今是避免打国民党，统一战线高于一切。在王明等人离开之前，毛满口赞同这一政策，他作的政治报告称蒋介石为“伟大的领袖”， 要全民族“诚心诚意的拥护蒋委员长”， 红色根据地都要“集中于中央政府领导之下”， “全国必须是统一于中央的”，“拿每一支枪口瞄准日本侵略者”。毛甚至宣告：“中华民族是站起来了！一百年来受人欺凌，侮辱，侵略，压迫的奴辱地位，是改变过来了。” *
* “中华民族是站起来了！”这句话跟他一九四九年共产党中国成立时宣告的“中国人从此站立起来了！”几乎一样。看来，照毛的话，中华民族并不是一九四九年才站起来的，而是一九三八年。一九三八年的中国，用毛的话来说是“在民族领袖与最高统帅蒋委员长的统一领导下”。
With Wang Ming gone, Mao told the top men that the Generalissimo was their ultimate enemy, and that they must start now preparing to seize power from him. The Red Army must strike Nationalist troops who stood in the way of its expansion. This was a milestone order to the top echelon: Chiang remains your enemy No. 1. You can open fire on Chiang's army.
王明等人一转背，毛就明确告诉中央全会，蒋介石始终是敌人。中共现在就要准备打倒蒋介石，武装夺取政权，要利用日本侵略大张旗鼓地在敌后发展，必要时坚决打国民党军队。这是毛在抗战中第一次明确宣布蒋介石依然是头号敌人，抗战中可以打内战。这是中共抗战政策改变的转折点。
A KEY SUPPORTER of this approach was the future president, Liu Shao-chi, who had been running the underground network in northern China. Liu had spent two long periods in Russia, had met Lenin in 1921, and had had an affair with one of Lenin's closest friends, Larisa Reysner. A man of considerable far-sightedness, Liu shared Mao's hard-nosed strategy for seizing power. Immediately after the plenum, Mao made him Party chief of a large area in east central China where the N4A was operating—and thus the boss over Xiang Ying and the N4A.
毛泽东新的主要支持者是负责中共北方局的刘少奇。刘曾去过苏俄两次，一九二一年见到列宁，还跟列宁的亲密朋友拉丽莎·瑞丝娜(Laisa Reysner)有过一段风流韵事。刘是个有远见的人，明白毛的主张是中共上台的唯一希望。全会开完，毛就派他去新四军活动的华中地区，控制项英率领的新四军。
Mao also had the support of Peng De-huai, the deputy chief of the 8RA, who could see that civil war was inevitable if the Reds were to expand—or even to stay on at all in some places. Zhu De, the 8RA chief, went along. Mao had secured the support of the chiefs of all the Red forces for his policy.
八路军副总指挥彭德怀此时也看出，中共如果要发展，要在占领的地方待下去，不跟国民党开战不行。彭德怀站到了毛这一边。总指挥朱德也赞同毛的战略。
As his strategy directly contravened Stalin's instructions, Mao was afraid that the news might be leaked to Wang Ming, and through him to Moscow. So he ordered his speeches to be kept absolutely secret. To seal the mouths of his audience, Mao produced two cautionary “Resolutions on discipline,” which banned anyone from “revealing secrets” to “anyone else inside or outside the Party.” This meant that participants could not tell their colleagues, even those who had attended the early part of the plenum, that Mao had just ordered civil war against the Nationalists. And no one dared tell Wang Ming the full story about Mao's attacks on him.
毛还有个得力帮手是康生。在苏联时，康生曾是王明的副手，以紧跟王明着称，刚到延安时还带头呼口号：“我们党的天才的领袖王明同志万岁！”但他很快看出毛泽东的厉害远在王明之上，转而投靠毛。毛委派康做中共克格勃的头子，自己的警卫员也由他一手挑选。正是康生为江青担保，使毛得以堵住批评江的人的嘴。在毛、康之间，这是一条有力的纽带。
To weave a blanket of fear, Mao relied on the later infamous security chief Kang Sheng. In Russia, Kang had supervised the purges of hundreds of Chinese, many of whom were tortured, executed, or worked to death in the gulag. He had been Wang Ming's deputy on the CCP delegation to the Comintern, and had followed him closely. When the two first arrived in Yenan, Kang had led the shouting of “Long live our Party's genius leader comrade Wang Ming!” at the security apparatus's training sessions. But Kang had quickly realized Mao was the winner, and switched allegiance. It was now that Kang vouched for Jiang Qing, enabling Mao to marry her, forming a further bond between him and Mao. Mao made him the head of the CCP's KGB, even trusting him to select his personal guards.
It was to this closely controlled Yenan that Wang Ming was ordered to return after the National Assembly session in Chongqing. He was made head of the United Front Department, nominally an important post, but was soon reduced to a figurehead. An eyewitness recalled seeing him in the street, “his head bent, his steps heavy … buried in his own thoughts.”
延安成了软禁王明的地方。毛叫他在国民参政会结束后回来，任命他为统战部部长。这好像是个重要职位，其实实权在毛的人手上。王明时常独自在延安街头踱步，低着头，不发一言，表情若有所思，带着几分惆怅。
But Wang Ming was not openly denounced, as his link with Moscow was strong. So, for the average Party member, he was still one of the leaders—and popular. Many recalled him being “a good orator whose speeches were very lively and rousing. Young people liked him.” Mao was no orator. Wang Ming remained his unfinished business.
毛不敢公开谴责他，因为他同莫斯科的关系很深。对一般干部来说，王明仍是中央领导。许多人对他有好感，记得他“演说的天才，待人接物的态度”。毛缺乏鼓舞人心的演说天分，擅长在众目以外的少数人中运筹帷幄搞阴谋。他跟王明的明争暗斗还远没了结。
FROM 1939, after Mao ordered the Party to adopt an aggressive stance towards the Nationalists, large-scale engagements were fought behind Japanese lines between Communist and Nationalist forces over territory, in which the Communists usually came off best. By January 1940 the 8RA, under Zhu De and Peng, had grown to at least 240,000 (from 46,000 at the beginning of the war). And the N4A, operating under Liu Shao-chi near Shanghai and Nanjing, had tripled, to 30,000. A score of sizable bases sprang up in the Japanese rear. The base of Jinchaji alone, only some 80 km from Peking, expanded to control a population of 25 million. At this point, with the war more than two years old, when realism had replaced initial patriotic ardor, many Red leaders came to admire the brilliance of Mao's cold vision. Peng De-huai described Mao in a speech in February 1940 as “a wise leader with political foresight, who can foresee developments and is good at dealing with them.” And it was in this period that Chou En-lai made a total conversion to Mao.
在毛为打内战开绿灯之后，中共军队放开手来在敌后与国民党争夺地盘，屡占上风。到一九四0年一月，八路军从抗战开始时的四万六千人发展到二十四万人。新四军在刘少奇领导下也翻了三倍，成为三万人。一个个敌后根据地建立起来，晋察冀扩大到二千五百万人口。中共已成长为一支拥有广阔地盘的强大力量。在这时，抗战两年多了，从爱国激情中冷静下来的中共领导们体会到毛泽东的高明。一九四0年二月，彭德怀由衷地赞美毛说：中共“有了富于政治远见，预见事变，并且善于处理事变的中央，有了英明的领袖”。周恩来也心悦诚服地归顺了毛。
Mao had done well for the CCP. But he had to keep Stalin on board. For many months, he concealed the clashes with the Nationalists from Moscow. He only owned up when the fighting had grown conspicuous and serious in June 1939, and then he claimed that it was purely self-defensive, portraying the Nationalists as intent on wiping the Communists off the face of the earth.
中共的壮大得益于毛。但毛还得小心不被斯大林怪罪。他隐瞒了跟国民党军队的武装冲突，只是在火并严重到无法掩饰时才向莫斯科报告，辩解说全是出于自卫，因为国民党一心要把共产党消灭光。
Mao knew how to play to his audience in Moscow. In spring 1939, Stalin had sent his top documentary film-maker, Roman Karmen, to Yenan to film Mao. Mao left a book of Stalin's open in his study when Karmen arrived and then posed for a long take holding a text by Stalin, with a picture of the author prominent on the front cover. He toasted Stalin, saying that the only place abroad he wanted to go was Moscow, to see Stalin. When he bade farewell to Karmen at the entrance to his cave, in the dark, he made a point of asking which way Moscow lay, sighing deeply and then falling into a long silence. “With what warmth Mao talks of comrade Stalin!” Karmen wrote.*
毛知道怎样取悦斯大林。一九三九年春，斯大林最喜欢的导演卡门到延安来拍电影，一進毛的门就看见一本斯大林的著作摊开放在书桌上。毛手捧斯大林的书，作凝神阅读状，让卡门尽情地拍，特别突出封面上的斯大林像。酒会上他为斯大林祝酒，说他朝思暮想只想去一个地方：莫斯科，去见斯大林。在窑洞门口为卡门送别时，毛特地问他莫斯科在什么方向，然后在黑暗中朝那个方向默默伫立，深深地叹息。卡门果真在文章里写道：“毛谈到斯大林同志的时候是多么充满感情啊！”
Most crucially, Mao had his men in Moscow to bolster his position—and to denigrate his foes. He had made sure that the CCP's envoys in Moscow were his allies—first, the Red Prof, then Ren Bi-shi. As he embarked on a course of action towards Chiang that was in defiance of Stalin's orders, he sent a string of additional emissaries, starting with Lin Biao, who went to Russia at the end of 1938 for treatment for bullet wounds. Lin had been shot by Nationalist troops while he was wearing a captured Japanese coat, and was mistaken for a Japanese.
毛总是确保在莫斯科有人为他说话。常驻莫斯科的代表先有王稼祥，后有任弼时。六届六中全会后，他加派使者，第一个是林彪，一九二八年底到苏联去治疗枪伤。林彪受伤是因为他穿着一件缴获的日本军大衣，国民党军队把他当成日本人了。
Lin took with him only documents that Mao wanted Moscow to see, so Stalin was kept in the dark about Mao's machinations and real policies. Lin built Mao up as “the solid, decisive and principled leader of the CCP,” badmouthing Chou as a “swindler” and Zhu De (“the former gendarme”) as “not one of us.”
林彪只带去符合莫斯科精神的全会文件，向苏联人保证，毛是“中共可靠的，有决断力的，有原则的领袖”。毛没算准的是，林也实事求是地说了一些对他不利的话。林还说了别的人的坏话，说周恩来是“骗子”，朱德是“旧警察”，“不是自己人”。
Lin was followed in June 1939 by Mao's brother, Tse-min, ostensibly also for “health” reasons—although, as the Russians observed, he did not spend a single day in the hospital. Tse-min's main task was to undermine Wang Ming, whom he called “a scoundrel,” denouncing him for, amongst other things, exaggerating the strength of the Chinese Red Army in the presence of Stalin—a potentially deadly accusation. Another aim of Mao's was to have Wang Ming's role downgraded at the forthcoming Party congress. Wang Ming was scheduled to deliver the second report, on organization. But Tse-min told Moscow that Wang Ming was not the right person, making the false allegation that he “had never run practical org[anisation]work.” Tse-min also threw mud at other foes of Mao, like Po Ku and Li Wei-han, an old Hunan Communist leader, both of whom he accused of “major crimes,” saying they should be kept out of all leading bodies. He likened Po Ku to “opportunists, Trotskyists and bandits.”
一九三九年六月，毛的大弟泽民也到苏联来“治病”，可苏联人注意到他一次也没去医院看过病。他的任务主要是打击王明，报告莫斯科说王明是个“坏人”，干的坏事之一是在斯大林面前夸张红军的实力。这等于犯了欺君之罪。报告还说博古是“机会主义者、托洛茨基分子、土匪”， 跟早期湖南共产党领导人李维汉二人都有“重大罪行”，应当排斥在一切领导岗位之外。
Mao's third “extra” emissary, Chou En-lai, arrived just as the war in Europe started, checking into the Kremlin hospital on 14 September for an operation on his right arm, which had been badly set after he broke it in a fall from a horse. Chou had just converted to Mao—an unconditional conversion that made him Mao's very faithful servant from then on. He worked assiduously to build up Mao, and told the Russians that the CCP leadership “considered that he [Mao] must be elected GenSec [General Secretary].” He assured Moscow that the CCP's policy remained that “the anti-Japanese war comes above everything else,” and that the Party was committed to “the united front” with Chiang. He detailed the expansion of Red forces and territory, larding his account with a number of exaggerated claims, such as that the 8RA had fought no fewer than 2,689 battles against the Japanese. CCP membership, he stated, had “increased sevenfold [to] 498,000” since the war had started.
毛的第三名使者是周恩来，九月十四日住進了克里姆林宫医院。他倒有病可看，前些时候从马上摔下来折断了右胳膊，没接好，现在来做手术。周这时刚彻底完成了他的忠诚转移，成了毛的忠实仆人。在莫斯科他孜孜不倦地强调毛的重要性，说中共中央认为毛“必须被选为总书记”。他向莫斯科保证中共的政策仍然是“抗战高于一切”，仍然致力于统一战线。他详细报告了中共的发展：党员是抗战开始时的七倍，有四十九万八千人，军队和地盘都大大扩展。他还夸张地说八路军和日本人打了两千六百八十九次大仗。
While using Chou, Mao also made sure he was cut down to size. After visiting Chou in the hospital, Tse-min told the Russians that Chou held “unhealthy” views on relations with the Nationalists, and claimed Chou had opposed shooting the prominent Trotskyist Chang Mu-tao.
Mao was also worried about Otto Braun, Moscow's adviser in China since before the Long March, who had come to Russia with Chou, and might tell the Russians things Mao did not want them to hear. Tse-min made a point of calling Braun's tactics “counter-revolutionary”—an accusation that could well have got Braun shot. Braun, who survived, claims that this was the intention. Chou also weighed in, calling his former friend and close colleague “an enemy of the Chinese revolution.” (Braun described Chou as his “chief prosecutor.”)
李德跟周恩来同行到莫斯科。毛对他不放心，先下手为强，由泽民报告说李德的战略战术是“反革命的”。李德认为这是毛要置他于死地。他把周恩来叫作他的“主审宫”，因为周恩来火上加油，称这个从前的亲密同事是“中国革命的敌人”。
Mao later accused his rivals of “running others down to foreign daddies.” But none of them engaged in anything remotely like the character assassination that Mao practiced.
毛泽东爱说他的政敌“告洋状”，但他们中还没有谁像毛告他们那样向莫斯科告过毛。
*According to a Russian archive source declassified in 2005, Mao told Stalin's envoy Mikoyan on February 3, 1949 that the situation around the Zunyi Conference was “most unfavorable.” The reason Mao gave (which was false) was that Chang Kuo-tao, with an army of 60,000 men, “was on the offensive against us.” “But,” Mao said, “we annihilated over 30,000 of his troops.” (Tikhvinsky 2005, page 65)
*Mao's first celluloid image shown in Moscow seems to have been in 1935, when a news-reel of CCP leaders was screened before the 7th Comintern Congress. Comintern No. 3 Piatnitsky, later executed by Stalin, said he thought Mao looked like a “hooligan.”