11 HOPES AND DISAPPOINTMENTS

In the early and mid-1920s, Canton under the liberal rule of the Guomindang was as striking as Shanghai, though in an entirely different way. “In the south …… the atmosphere was different,” wrote Sergei Dalin. “Workers' unions, the communist party, and the Socialist Youth League all functioned legally.”¹ The air smelled of revolution. Meetings, assemblies, and demonstrations were going on constantly. “Political life was in full swing,” recalled another emissary of the Kremlin, Vera Vishniakova-Akimova. “All the open places on walls and columns were plastered with placards and handbills, flags were hung from poles fastened above the heads of the passersby, narrow strips of material covered with slogans were stretched across the streets.”² The revolutionary upsurge was particularly noticeable during the preparations for the First Congress of the Guomindang. “People were busy with preparation for the Congress,” wrote Zhang Guotao, “and there were even more banquets than usual. The situation was somewhat like that in a large family when some great festive occasion is about to be celebrated.”³ The old city with its more than two-thousand-year history seemed to have been reborn.

Situated on the left bank of the wide Pearl River, whose waters were stained with red silt, some ninety miles upriver from the British colony of Hong Kong, Canton was rightly considered the capital of South China. It was large, populous, and bustling. Life seethed along its twisting commercial streets, its noisy markets, and in its smoky port. Unlike Shanghai, however, it had almost no modern industry. There were just several dozen small-scale silk-weaving plants and a multitude of primitive handicraft shops in which all kinds of items were produced, from mother-of-pearl ornaments to lacquerware statues.

The city was christened Canton by French travelers in the eighteenth century, according to their transliteration of the South Chinese pronunciation of the provincial name, Guangdong. The name stuck. There were far fewer foreigners in Canton than in Shanghai. Beginning in 1842 only one foreign concession existed in Canton, a joint Anglo-French concession consisting of the tiny island of Shamian, on White Goose Bay where the Pearl River divides into two arms. Separated from the main part of town by a strait barely twelve feet wide, this district is still distinguished by its elegant Western architecture, and its symmetrically laid out streets and squares, heavily shaded by gardens and parks. It provided a sharp contrast to the other—Chinese—Canton, flooded by sunlight, diverse, and crowded. A contemporary observer wrote, “Canton is like an enormous market, lively, mobile, which never closes even at night. As in all Chinese cities from time immemorial, the streets were very narrow, two or three meters wide. One was struck by the almost complete absence of signs in English …… The streets were always noisy, Chinese music was heard everywhere, and on the quay, which was the main street of Canton, there were many painted ladies.”⁴

In the early 1920s more than half a million people lived in Canton, no fewer than two hundred thousand on boats in the water, the so-called sampans, meaning literally “three boards.” Hundreds of sampans in rows three to four deep were lined up along the shore. An eyewitness recalled, “They all looked very poor …… Whole families took shelter in them, and little kids craned their tiny heads in our direction with interest. The young ones were fastened by the leg with a rope or wore on their backs a peculiar life belt—a dry log.”⁵

In mid-January 1924, Mao returned to Canton as a delegate to the Guomindang congress. He went straight to Wenminglu (Civilization Street) in the city center, where this most important forum was scheduled to open on January 20. Mao had a few days to look around. Downtown Canton presented quite a spectacle. The narrow and filthy streets that ran alongside the broad and well-lighted Wenminglu were filled with homeless beggars, coolies, and petty merchants. Late at night when the city quieted down, they spread mats on the sidewalks and lay down to sleep. Some improvised shelters out of crates; others slept on the stoops of houses. There were many such destitute people in other cities in South China, including Changsha. One can hardly suppose that any of them, even had they known about the Guomindang congress, would have expected it to effect any change in their lives. The revolutionary atmosphere that permeated public opinion was alien to the urban slums.

Wandering the streets Mao could not help but notice these things. His conviction grew that “[n]o Bourgeois Revolution is possible in China. All anti-foreign movements were (are) carried on by those who have empty stomach but not Bourgeoisie.”⁶ He had mentioned this at the Third Congress of the party, and from then on the thought had not left him alone. He supported the alliance with the Guomindang, but he understood its limits and its tactical flexibility. Sometimes he was carried away by the developing cooperation with the nationalists, but such periods alternated with doubts and disappointments. The firm conviction that only a dictatorship of the proletariat could save China never left him.

When he arrived in Canton, there were more than 11,000 members of the Guomindang from Guangdong, Jiangxi, Hunan, and Hubei. (Figures were unavailable for the rest of the country.) Canton had the largest number, 8,218 members; Jiangxi more than 2,000, mostly in Shanghai; there were roughly 500 in Hubei, about 500 in Hunan, and more than 300 in Hankou.⁷ Meanwhile, the CCP had only slightly more than 100 members. In other words, even if one supposes that by the Unification Congress of the Guomindang most communists had already joined the GMD, which was actually not so, the Communist Party would still seem like a small, local branch of the Guomindang, less than 1 percent of the party of Sun Yat-sen.

But the communists were extremely active both inside and outside the hall where the congress took place from January 20 to January 30. Of the 165 of the 198 delegates actually present, 23 were members of the CCP, or almost 14 percent. Among them were such well-known communists as Chen Duxiu, Li Lisan, Lin Boqu, Li Weihan, and Xia Xi, and even the leftist Zhang Guotao. Li Dazhao, Tan Pingshan, and Mao Zedong were the most active of all. Communists were represented in all the organs of the congress about which we have information.⁸

Judging by the composition of the presidium and the commissions, the balance of forces between rightists and leftists (including communists) was roughly equal. A fierce battle resolved the question of communist membership in the Guomindang. At a banquet on the opening day of the congress, the right-wing Guomindang member Mao Zuquan declared, “If the communists accept our program, they should leave their own party.” In the commission on rules, a right-wing delegate named He Shizhen proposed unsuccessfully that Guomindang members be prohibited from belonging to other parties. Finally, in debates on the party rules, Fang Ruilin and Feng Ziyou, fervid anticommunists, advocated excluding members of other parties from membership in the Guomindang. Li Dazhao replied with the following, obviously hypocritical, words:

[I]n our country …… only the Guomindang can become a great and mass revolutionary party and achieve the task of freeing the nation, establishing people's power, and asserting the people's livelihood …… We enter this party in order to make our own contribution to this enterprise and thereby to the cause of the national revolution …… That we are entering the party is proof that we accept its program …… Look at the newly worked out program of this party, and you will see there is not an iota of communism in it.⁹

At the same time, Li Dazhao did not hide the fact that in the united front the Communist Party, as a section of the Comintern, would act as an autonomous force. But he claimed this was even an advantage for the Guomindang since the CCP could serve as the connecting link between the party of Sun Yat-sen and the world revolutionary movement. A delegate from Tianjin disputed Li Dazhao, but the right wing was in the minority.¹⁰ Many delegates openly opposed the right, including old comrades in arms of Sun Yat-sen like Liao Zhongkai, Wang Jingwei, and Hu Hanmin.¹¹ Liao Zhongkai said, “The time has come to understand that only in unity with other revolutionary parties can we victoriously conclude the revolution.”¹²

Sun Yat-sen's position was decisive. During the congress, he pursued a policy of transforming the Guomindang. He attempted to apply the experience of Soviet Russia and the Russian Communist Party and spoke in favor of accepting communists into the Guomindang.¹³ Consequently, the overwhelming majority favored admitting communists into the Guomindang, stressing only that they observe intraparty discipline. Ten communists were chosen for the Central Executive Committee (CEC) of the GMD, which consisted of forty-one individuals (twenty-four members and seventeen candidate members).

Li Dazhao, Tan Pingshan, and another communist, Yu Shude, representing the Beijing organization, became full members of the CEC. Tan even became a member of the highest organ of the party—the Standing Committee (Politburo). He headed one of the key departments of the CEC—the Organizational Department. Mao and six other communists were chosen as candidate members of the Central Executive Committee. Among these persons who, like Mao, had no voting rights on the CEC were Lin Boqu and Zhang Guotao, whom we have already met, and the still young but extraordinarily active journalist Qu Qiubai. At this time the twenty-four-year-old was just beginning to impress Chinese public opinion. His success was considerably facilitated by the trust the ECCI reposed in him. (Qu had worked in Moscow as a correspondent for the popular Beijing newspaper Chenbao [Morning news] for more than two years from January 1921 through the spring of 1923.) Comintern officials took note of this clever young Chinese who joined the CCP in Moscow in the spring of 1922 and was soon assigned to help Chen Duxiu and Liu Renjing in connection with the Fourth Comintern Congress. Chen took to him, selected Qu as a delegate to the Third Congress of the party, and appointed him chief editor of New Youth and of the newly established party organ, the journal Qianfeng (Vanguard). In the summer of 1923, Qu, along with Zhang Tailei, served as secretary to Maring.¹⁴ When Mikhail Borodin arrived in China in late August 1923, Qu became one of his interpreters and assistants.ⁿ⁹

The formation of a united front based on admission of communists to the Guomindang was the most important outcome of the First All-China Congress of the Guomindang, which issued a new manifesto on this occasion. Many communists, Mao included, were extremely satisfied with these results. They were energized as a result of the successful development of the united front. Borodin explained to his Chinese comrades that “the creation of Guomindang organizations, the larger the better, is the chief task of communists.”¹⁵

Soviet money, which flowed into the CCP in an ever-increasing stream, facilitated the acceptance of Borodin's directives. Having yielded to Kremlin pressure during the meeting at West Lake, the Chinese communists quickly adapted to these circumstances. They accepted the unequal relationship with Moscow, and they were very active regarding the financial side of their ties with the Comintern. The lessons in cynicism taught by Maring had not been in vain. After West Lake the Chinese communists were not at all shy about asking Soviet and Comintern officials for more and more money. According to Maring's data, at most one-tenth of the members of the party paid membership dues at a time when a majority of the communists worked only for the party.¹⁶

“We have already started the anti-imperialist work according to your instruction,” Chen Duxiu wrote in English in early November 1924 to the Soviet ambassador in Beijing, Lev Karakhan, “but we have not received the necessary fund which you promised to pay. Our budget for Shanghai is $600. Please let us know as soon as possible. With communist greetings. T. S. Chen,ⁿ¹⁰ Secretary of E[xecutive] C[ommittee] CCP.”

“Dear Comrade,” echoed Li Dazhao in a letter in English to this same Karakhan:

The local [CCP] committee in Kalgan [Zhangjiakou] asks the Northern Committee to give the monthly living expenses for Comrades Tian-Ten-Sou, Ma-Je-Liang and Fu-En-Tsu who are working in Pa-to [Baotou] for the newspaper, the “Si-pe-min-bao.” The Northern Committee considers that the funds for those three comrades whom were sent for military work were supported since a long time from your side. Therefore, please, you arrange and give an answer to their demand. With comrade[ly] greetings. The Northern Committee of the CCP. Secretary: T. C. Li.¹⁷

Many more examples could be cited. The result of such parasitism was that until the mid-1930s, the CCP was able to function only by relying on the Kremlin's help to the tune of 30,000 U.S. dollars a month.¹⁸ Soviet financial support was truly all-encompassing and detailed down to the penny. It is evident that Comintern agents and the Soviet embassy were even paying for the office help of party organizations who were working for wages.

The Young Communists did not lag behind the party. (At the beginning of 1925, the Socialist Youth League had been renamed the Chinese Communist Youth League.) “To step up our work, [the league] needs appropriate financial support,” Ren Bishi, secretary of the CCYL, who had studied in Russia in the early 1920s, wrote in Russian on February 2, 1926, to Soviet ambassador Karakhan. “We have already accumulated debts of about 500 Chinese dollars that need to be repaid as soon as possible …… It is desirable that you provide us material assistance monthly as well as on this one-time basis.”¹⁹

Wholly dependent upon Soviet financial support, the leaders of the CCP were unable to stand up to the Soviet emissary Mikhail Borodin. For example, in a conversation with Borodin in January 1924, during the Guomindang congress, all the communists present expressed “full unanimity” that the time was not ripe for radical agrarian revolution.²⁰

Mao, who returned to Shanghai from Canton in mid-February, supported this “rightist” course. On February 25, 1924, he and several other Guomindang activists established a Shanghai Bureau of the GMD in the French Concession, at No. 44 Huanlong Street, not far from where Sun Yat-sen lived. After receiving a substantial bribe, the local French police inspector promised to give the Guomindang advance warning of any possible actions the French authorities might take against them.²¹ In addition to acting as secretary for the Communist Party, Mao also began working in the Shanghai Bureau of the GMD. At its first session he was chosen as secretary of the Organizational Department, and soon he began to perform the duties of head of the record-keeping office. Soon he joined the staff of the standing committee of the bureau as a candidate member.²² There was more than enough work for him. In March, as a representative of the CCP Central Executive Committee, he took part in a plenum of the CEC of the Socialist Youth League. Here he met the Communist Youth International representative Sergei Dalin, who later wrote that what struck him was Mao's unbridled optimism with regard to the Guomindang. Not sharing Mao's enthusiasm, Dalin reported to Voitinsky right after the plenum,

You will hear such things from Mao, the secretary of the C[E]C (none other than Maring's protégé), such things that will make your hair stand on end. For example, the idea that the Guomindang is a proletarian party and should be admitted into the Comintern as one of its sections. On the peasant question, he says that the class line should be discarded, that there's nothing we can do with the poor peasants and that we must link up with the landlords and the officials (shenshi), etc. This guy was the party's representative in the Youth League and he tried insistently but unsuccessfully to push this point of view at the plenum of the League. I sent a letter to the C[E]C of the party requesting that they appoint a new representative.²³

Dalin was upset over nothing; at that time almost all the leaders of the CCP under Borodin's influence entertained pretty much the same notions. In February 1924, the CCP Central Executive Committee even approved a special “Resolution on the National Movement,” which posited the expansion of the Guomindang and rectification of its “political errors” as the communists' main tasks as well as expansion of the Guomindang's mass base by attracting workers, peasants, and representatives of the urban middle classes into its ranks. The CCP itself should transition to an illegal position within the Guomindang and secretly prepare to take over the leadership.

The ECCI reacted sharply to this “deviation” and undertook to correct it. In April 1924, the Comintern dispatched Voitinsky to China to explain to the CCP leadership that working inside the Guomindang was “a means, not an end” toward strengthening the Communist Party and preparing it for the subsequent battle for power in the country outside of the Guomindang and against the Guomindang.²⁴ The May 1924 enlarged plenum of the CCP Central Executive Committee that Voitinsky arranged and attended repudiated the CEC's February resolution.²⁵

After this directive the leaders of the party veered off in a completely different direction. On July 13, 1924, Chen Duxiu wrote to Voitinsky, who had already returned to Moscow:

As regards the current situation in the Guomindang, we find there only rightists and anti-communists; if there is a small number of leftists, then they are our own comrades. Sun Yat-sen and several other leaders are centrists, not leftists …… Thus, supporting the Guomindang now only means supporting the Guomindang rightists, since all the organs of the party are in their hands …… You must promptly send a telegram to Comrade Borodin requesting that he give a report on the actual situation; we expect that a new Comintern policy will be developed on that basis. In our opinion, support [of the Guomindang] should not be shown in the previous form, and we must act selectively. That means that we should not support the Guomindang without any conditions or limitations, but support only certain aspects of its activity that are in the hands of leftists; otherwise we will be aiding our enemies and buying ourselves opposition.²⁶

Then, on June 21, Chen Duxiu and Mao Zedong, at their own peril and on their own initiative, distributed a secret circular to lower-level party organizations that said:

At present only a few Guomindang leaders, such as Sun Yat-sen and Liao Zhongkai, have not yet made up their mind to separate from us, but they also certainly do not wish to offend the right-wing elements …… For the sake of uniting the revolutionary forces, we must absolutely not allow any separatist words or actions to emerge on our side, and we must try our best to be tolerant and cooperate with them. Nevertheless, considering the Guomindang's revolutionary mission, we cannot tolerate the non-revolutionary rightist policies without correcting them …… We must strive to win or maintain in our own hands “the real power of leading all organizations of workers, peasants, students, and citizens.”²⁷

Thus the enthusiasm of CCP leaders for organizational work in the Guomindang lasted just a few months and did not exert any serious influence on the GMD. Certain that the Comintern, in the person of Voitinsky, was supporting them, they began to torpedo Borodin's instructions, insisting on the need to “cast off Canton now” in order gradually to prepare a “general uprising of workers, peasants, and soldiers.” This mood was expressed most sharply by Mao's friend Cai Hesen.²⁸

Again the ECCI hastened to intervene. Moscow was extremely interested in maintaining the anti-imperialist united front after having invested so much effort and money in establishing it. In 1923 the USSR had begun supplying Sun Yat-sen with weapons, military supplies, and money. In 1924, some twenty Soviet military advisers worked in Canton, many helping the Guomindang organize a military academy to train officers for a new “party army.” The Soviet government transferred 900,000 rubles to Sun Yat-sen for this academy, which officially opened on June 16.²⁹ The Whampoa Academy, as it became known in Chinese history, became an important source of cadres for the Guomindang National Revolutionary Army. Sun Yat-sen appointed Chiang Kai-shek its commandant and Liao Zhongkai as commissar of the academy. The youthful communist Zhou Enlai, who had just returned from France, was appointed head of the Political Department. Only twenty-six, Zhou was already well known as an activist in the May Fourth Movement, a student leader in Tianjin, the founder in 1919 of the patriotic Juewu (Awakening) society, and one of the organizers of the European branch of the CCP in 1922–23. The tall and well-built young man with European-looking features impressed everyone as a steady and serious worker. He was very well educated, knew Japanese and three European languages (French, German, and English), and was modest but very dignified. He was immediately recognizable as an outstanding person.

From May to July 1924 the group of Soviet advisers was headed by Pavel Pavlov, who died in a tragic accident. In October a new chief military adviser arrived as his replacement, Vasilii Bliukher, an important commander and future marshal of the Soviet Union. He and Sun Yat-sen began to consider plans for military campaigns aimed at uniting all of China under Guomindang rule. He remained in Canton until July 1925, when he returned to the Soviet Union for medical treatment.³⁰ Naturally Moscow did not wish to encourage the CCP's excessive “leftism.” In November 1924 Voitinsky was sent back to China to cool the ardor of Chen Duxiu and his comrades. With this goal in mind, the Fourth Congress of the CCP assembled in Shanghai.

By this time serious contradictions between the communists and the followers of Sun Yat-sen had surfaced. They were especially deep-seated in Shanghai, and the Communist Party CEC, which was again located there, was well aware of them. Mao reacted to the change of circumstances in a particularly sharp way. Difficult work inside the Guomindang had quickly exhausted him. By May he felt unwell, both physically and spiritually. By July the “friction” with the Guomindang intensified to such a degree that his nerves were shot, and he resigned from the post of secretary of the Organizational Department.³¹ At that time, according to the reminiscences of the communist Peng Shuzhi, “He looked in pretty bad shape. His thinness seemed to make his body even longer than it actually was. He was pale, and his complexion had an unhealthy, greenish tinge. I was afraid that he had contracted tuberculosis, as so many of our comrades had done.”³²

Throughout the spring and into the early summer he lived in dirty and smoky Zhabei in the residence of the CCP Central Executive Committee. In early June, Kaihui, her mother, and their two children came to Shanghai. Xiang Jingyu who served as CEC property manager allotted Mao and his family a separate wing, but it was still crowded. Ultimately, they had to move and, fortunately, it was to a much better place, in a quiet lane in the International Settlement. Kaihui did all she could to help her beloved husband in his work. During the evenings she found time to teach in a workers' night school.³³ In Shanghai for the first time, she could not refrain from some innocent temptations. The luxurious city offered an endless number of attractive services; however, all she wanted was the pleasure of having a photograph taken with her children. This black-and-white photo has survived. Kaihui looks calm though a bit sad. Anqing is seated on her knees, quite small, with a funny tuft of hair on his head, and Anying is standing next to her, a sturdy lad with chubby cheeks and a decisive gaze. There is a strong resemblance to his father.

Meanwhile, by mid-autumn Mao's condition had become unbearable. He began to suffer from attacks of neurasthenia. On October 10, the national holiday, at a meeting organized by the Shanghai bureau, two Guomindang rightists initiated a brawl, throwing punches at the leftists. The incident deepened the gulf between the communists and the followers of Sun Yat-sen.³⁴ Moreover, the flow of financial support from Canton ceased. The result was that the work of the bureau came to a halt. At the end of December Mao requested medical leave of the CCP Central Executive Committee. Chen Duxiu agreed and Mao and his family finally left unloved Shanghai for Changsha. From there they headed straight to his mother-in-law's home in Bancang, and then in early February proceeded to Shaoshan. He, Kaihui, and the children were accompanied on their journey home by Zemin, who two months earlier had left Anyuan for Changsha because of an attack of appendicitis. Not long after, their younger brother Zetan and his young wife, Zhao Xiangui, joined them in Shaoshan.³⁵

Mao spent seven full months at home. How tired he was with the irritating daily chatter about the united front, diplomatic negotiations with the “bourgeois nationalists,” and political games and squabbles. His initial euphoria had passed, followed by depression. It was not by chance that he didn't remain in Shanghai even for the Fourth Congress of the CCP, which took place just two weeks after his departure, on January 11–22, 1925. He was, after all, the secretary of the CEC and the number-two man in the party. Yet, he dropped everything and ran off.

Evidently, he was simply not up to bearing responsibility for the “ruinous” policy. The constant interference by Moscow may have irritated him, too. We know he was noted for excessive impulsiveness. He would have derived little pleasure from sitting at the congress and listening to the “wise” Voitinsky brainwash Chen Duxiu yet again. So he requested “leave.” This was hardly the action of a careerist.

The Fourth Congress took place under Voitinsky's leadership. The flexible Chen again had to submit and correct his “errors.” The position of the “leftists” was subjected to sharp criticism, yet very few of the twenty delegates, who represented 994 members of the party, dared to utter any protest. Those who expressed disagreement were quickly labeled as agents of “Trotskyism,” since the battle with Trotsky was coming into style in the Comintern.³⁶ Mao was not reelected to the new CEC. Qu Qiubai, who was considered Borodin's “right-hand man,” was elected in Mao's place. Qu was also placed in the exclusive Central Bureau of the CEC, along with Chen Duxiu, Zhang Guotao, Cai Hesen, and Peng Shuzhi, one of the former leaders of the Moscow branch of the CCP.³⁷ Peng now headed the Propaganda Department of the CEC. Qu Qiubai also founded the new party organ, the weekly newspaper Rexue ribao (Hot blood). Both the Propaganda Department and the newspaper did everything they could to push Moscow's policy.

But these changes as yet affected Mao very little. He was enjoying peace and quiet in the bosom of his family. Of course, because of his active nature he couldn't simply sit still with his arms folded. For many years now he had been accustomed to being an organizer. At first it was not easy for him to overcome his intellectual's contempt for his neighbors, who had been tilling the soil since time immemorial. He had left the village many years ago and had long thought of his fellow countrymen as “stupid and detestable people.”³⁸ Marxism had taught him to respect urban workers, the “liberators of mankind,” not destitute peasants. Working among the peasants held no attraction for Mao. “Until we are sure that we have a strong cell in the countryside and until we have conducted agitation for a long period of time,” said Mao during the First Congress of the Guomindang, “we cannot resolve to take a radical step against the wealthier landowners. In China generally [class] differentiation has not yet reached a point where we can initiate such a struggle.”³⁹ Moreover, one should not forget that Mao himself was a landowner—though by no means a large one—who ever since he had left home lived to a significant degree on the labor of farmworkers and renters.ⁿ¹¹ His mother-in-law also had a bit of land, in Bancang, a little town in Changsha district. Of course, as a communist he should have had sympathy for the village poor, and as someone who had come from this milieu he could not fail to understand peasant problems. Still, it was harder for him to associate with the downtrodden and ignorant peasants than with the workers who had tasted city life. Just like the first peasant agitator Peng Pai, whom the peasants themselves had initially taken for a madman,⁴⁰ Mao had to experience everything himself.

With the help of a distant relative, Mao Fuxuan, who was apparently able to convince his fellow countrymen that Yichang's eldest son had his head screwed on right, Mao finally succeeded in making contact with his neighbors. He began to explain Marxist political economy and Bolshevik strategy to them in simple and accessible terms. He met with them at his home or in secluded places such as family ancestral temples that were scattered about the neighboring hills. That most of the peasants in the vicinity belonged to his clan was a great help to him. (Even now more than 60 percent of the inhabitants of Shaoshan are surnamed Mao.)⁴¹ As much as they could, his wife, Kaihui; his youngest brother, Zetan; his sisters-in-law Shulan and Xiangui; as well as middle brother Zemin (who, however, did not linger long in the village) helped Mao with his work. In May 1925, Zemin was ordered by the Xiang District Committee to return to Changsha, and in July he was sent to Canton for a short-term course in the Peasant Movement Training Institute that had been set up at the end of July 1924 by the Guomindang CEC, at the suggestion of the CCP. The institute trained agitators and organizers for the peasant unions.

According to Mao Zedong, he and his comrades succeeded in establishing more than twenty peasant unions in the region in the spring of 1925.⁴² That was certainly an impressive result. Until then there had been only one peasant union in the Xiangtan district, organized in February 1925. Then, in July, a peasants' night school was established in Shaoshanchong, in which Kaihui taught Chinese and arithmetic. Shulan was the first to sign up, after which both sisters-in-law succeeded in winning over several more people. They went from house to house declaiming the following:

A peasant's life is hard

We will not give our grain to the landlord

We work all year round

Yet the grain bin is empty.⁴³

Such simple forms of agitation worked better than any party resolutions. Around the same time Zetan organized another night school for peasants in a small neighboring village. In mid-July, Mao established a CCP cell in Shaoshanchong and put Mao Fuxuan at the head of it. He also established a small Young Communist group.⁴⁴ Unexpectedly, working with peasants attracted him. He acquired new experience that would turn out to be invaluable in the near future. Although he did not begin to have greater respect for the ignorant, illiterate rural toilers, he became convinced that the revolution could succeed only by relying upon the countless unfortunate peasantry.

¹ Dalin, Kitaiskie memuary, 1921–1927 (Chinese Memoirs, 1921–1927), 89.

² V. V. Vishniakova-Akimova, Two Years in Revolutionary China, 1925–1927, trans. Steven I. Levine (Cambridge, MA: East Asian Research Center, Harvard University, 1971), 191.

³ Chang, The Rise of the Chinese Communist Party, vol. 1, 328.

⁴ Dalin, Kitaiskie memuary, 1921–1927 (Chinese Memoirs, 1921–1927), 86.

⁵ Vishniakova-Akimova, Two Years in Revolutionary China, 177–78.

⁶ Quoted from Saich, The Origins of the First United Front in China, vol. 2, 580.

⁷ “Guomindang yi da dangwu baogao xuanzai” (Selected Reports on Party Affairs Delivered at the First Congress of the Guomindang), Gemingshi ziliao (Materials on revolutionary history), Shanghai, no. 2 (1986): 29–30.

⁸ For more details, see M. F. Yuriev, Revoliutsiia 1925–1927 gg. v Kitae (The Revolution of 1925–1927 in China) (Moscow: Nauka, 1968), 17–28.

⁹ Li Dazhao, Li Dazhao wenji (Works of Li Dazhao), vol. 2 (Beijing: Renmin chubanshe, 1984), 704.

¹⁰ See Cherepanov, Zapiski voennogo sovetnika v Kitae (Notes of a Military Adviser in China), 99.

¹¹ See Zheng Canhui, “Zhongguo guomindang di yi ci quanguo daibiao dahui” (First All-China Congress of the Chinese Guomindang), Gemingshi ziliao (Materials on revolutionary history), Shanghai, no. 1 (1986): 119–20; Schram, Mao's Road to Power, vol. 2, 202–3.

¹² Quoted from Cherepanov, Notes of a Military Adviser in China, 103.

¹³ See Sun Yat-sen, Zhongshan quanji (Complete Works of [Sun] Yat-sen), vol. 2 (Shanghai: Liangyou tushu yinshua gongsi, 1931), 1171–73.

¹⁴ See Pantsov and Levine, Chinese Comintern Activists: An Analytic Biographic Dictionary (manuscript), 266; Ch'ü Chiu-pai, “My Confessions,” in Dun J. Li, ed., The Road to Communism: China Since 1912 (New York: Van Nostrand Reinhold, 1969), 159–67. See also Qu Qiubai, Superfluous Words, trans. and commentary by Jamie Greenbaum (Canberra: Pandanus, 2006).

¹⁵ Titarenko, VKP(b), Komintern i Kitai: Dokumenty (The CPSU, the Comintern and China: Documents), vol. 1, 446.

¹⁶ See Saich, The Origins of the First United Front in China, vol. 2, 611.

¹⁷ Alexander V. Pantsov's private archives.

¹⁸ See Yang Kuisong, “Obshchaia kharakteristika otnoshenii mezhdu VKP(b) (KPSS), Kominternom i KPK do 1949 goda” (The General Nature of the Relation Between the AUCP(b) [the CPSU], the Comintern, and the CCP to 1949), 104; see also Chang, The Rise of the Chinese Communist Party, vol. 1, 408. Alexander V. Pantsov's private archives.

¹⁹ Alexander V. Pantsov's private archives; Pan Zuofu (A. V. Pantsov), “Xin faxian de Li Dazhao, Chen Duxiu, Ren Bishi xinjian” (Newly Discovered Letters of Li Dazhao, Chen Duxiu, and Ren Bishi), Bainian chao (Century tides), no. 1 (2005): 31–34.

²⁰ Titarenko, VKP(b), Komintern i Kitai: Dokumenty (The CPSU, the Comintern and China: Documents), vol. 1, 425.

²¹ See Hans Van den Ven, From Friend to Comrade: The Founding of the Chinese Communist Party, 1920–1927 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1991), 150.

²² See Wu, Mao Zedong guanghui licheng dituji (Atlas of Mao Zedong's Glorious Historical Path), 32; Pang, Mao Zedong nianpu, 1893–1949 (Chronological Biography of Mao Zedong, 1893–1949), vol. 1, 123; Titarenko, VKP(b), Komintern i Kitai: Dokumenty (The CPSU, the Comintern and China: Documents), vol. 1, 483–84.

²³ Dalin, Kitaiskie memuary, 1921–1927 (Chinese Memoirs, 1921–1927), 165.

²⁴ Ibid. For more details, see V. I. Glunin, Kommunisticheskaia partiia Kitaia nakanune i vo vremia natsional'noi revoliutsii 1925–1927 gg. (The Communist Party of China on the Eve of and During the 1925–1927 National Revolution), vol. 1 (Moscow: IDV AN SSSR, 1975), 148–54.

²⁵ See Gongchandang zai Guomindang neide gongzuo wenti yijue'an (Declaration on the Question of the Work of the Communist Party inside the Guomindang), Dangbao (Party paper), no. 3 (1924): 1–3; Zhongguo gongchandang di sici quanguo daibiaodahui yijue'an ji xuanyan (Resolutions and Declarations of the Fourth All-China Congress of the CCP) (n.p., 1925), 25.

²⁶ Titarenko, VKP(b), Komintern i Kitai: Dokumenty (The CPSU, the Comintern and China: Documents), vol. 1, 458–59.

²⁷ Schram, Mao's Road to Power, vol. 2, 215–17.

²⁸ See Titarenko, VKP(b), Komintern i Kitai: Dokumenty (The CPSU, the Comintern and China: Documents), vol. 1, 328.

²⁹ See Sladkovskii, Noveishaia istoriia Kitaia, 1919–1927 (Contemporary History of China, 1917–1927), 159.

³⁰ See A. I. Kartunova, ed., V. K. Bliukher v Kitae, 1924–1927 gg.: Novye dokumenty glavnogo voennogo sovetnika (V. K. Bliukher in China, 1924–1927: New Documents on the Chief Military Adviser) (Moscow: Natalis, 2003), 15.

³¹ See Pang, Mao Zedong nianpu, 1893–1949 (Chronological Biography of Mao Zedong, 1893–1949), vol. 1, 128.

³² Quoted from Short, Mao, 149.

³³ See Pang, Mao Zedong nianpu, 1893–1949 (Chronological Biography of Mao Zedong, 1893–1949), vol. 1, 127; Ma, Hongse diyi jiazu (The First Red Family), 29; Wu, Mao Zedong guanghui licheng dituji (Atlas of Mao Zedong's Glorious Historical Path), 32.

³⁴ See Titarenko, VKP(b), Komintern i Kitai: Dokumenty (The CPSU, the Comintern and China: Documents), vol. 1, 483–84. See also Chang, The Rise of the Chinese Communist Party, vol. 1, 378.

³⁵ See Mao Zemin, “Avtobiografiia” (Autobiography), 124; Ma, Hongse diyi jiazu (The First Red Family), 259; Li, Moi otets Mao Tszedun (My Father Mao Zedong), 109, 120; Pang, Mao Zedong nianpu, 1893–1949 (Chronological Biography of Mao Zedong, 1893–1949), vol. 1, 131.

³⁶ Titarenko, VKP(b), Komintern i Kitai: Dokumenty (The CPSU, the Comintern and China: Documents), vol. 1, 520.

³⁷ See Pang, Mao Zedong nianpu, 1893–1949 (Chronological Biography of Mao Zedong, 1893–1949), vol. 1, 131.

³⁸ Quoted from Short, Mao, 152.

³⁹ Titarenko, VKP(b), Komintern i Kitai: Dokumenty (The CPSU, the Comintern and China: Documents), vol. 1, 425.

⁴⁰ See Peng, Zapiski Peng Paia (Notes of Peng Pai), 13.

⁴¹ See McDonald, The Urban Origins of Rural Revolution, 224.

⁴² Snow, Red Star Over China, 157.

⁴³ Quoted from Ma, Hongse diyi jiazu (The First Red Family), 259.

⁴⁴ See Pang, Mao Zedong nianpu, 1893–1949 (Chronological Biography of Mao Zedong, 1893–1949), vol. 1, 133; McDonald, The Urban Origins of Rural Revolution, 225; Liu Renzhong, “Mao Zetan,” in Hu Hua, ed., Zhonggongdang shi renwu zhuan (Biographies of Persons in the History of the CCP), vol. 3 (Xian: Shaanxi renmin chubanshe, 1981), 290.

ⁿ⁹ An entire company of Chinese communists who knew Russian served Borodin. Working with Qu were Zhang Tailei and his wife, and graduates of Moscow’s Communist University of the Toilers of the East: Li Zhongwu (a nephew of Liang Qichao), Huang Ping, Fu Daqing, and Bu Shiji.

ⁿ¹⁰ In these years, it was customary for Chinese intellectuals to sign their names using the Latin alphabet in the Western fashion, using only initials for their personal names and placing these before their family names. They employed the transliteration system then in use, the so-called Wade-Giles system named after its creators, the British professors Thomas Francis Wade (1818–1895) and Herbert Allen Giles (1845–1935). It is substantially different from the system adopted by the UN in the early 1970s. In the Wade-Giles system, T. S. Chen means Tu-siu Chen, T. C. Li is Ta-chao Li, and T. T. Mao is Tse-tung Mao.

ⁿ¹¹ It will be recalled that Mao’s father owned 22 mu, or about 3.5 acres of land. After his death the land was inherited by his three sons.