Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-dzt6s Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-26T05:30:10.932Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

On the Nature of Mao Tse-tung's ‘Deviation’ in 1927

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  17 February 2009

Stuart R. Schram
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

The second half of 1927 is one of the most obscure periods in the history of the Chinese Communist Party. From a large and well-organised force openly playing a major role in the political and military affairs of the country, the Chinese Communist Party rapidly found itself reduced to a few small remnants fighting for their existence. As a result, the printed sources available for future historians were drastically reduced. The Communists cut their output of publications both for lack of the means to produce them, and because it was no longer prudent to reveal even as much about their plans as they had done before. The Nationalist authorities further decimated this scanty output by confiscation and repression. So much of what has been written about this period is based on verbal testimony or secondary sources, and cannot be regarded as altogether reliable.

Type
Chinese Military Affairs
Information
The China Quarterly , Volume 18 , June 1964 , pp. 55 - 66
Copyright
Copyright © The China Quarterly 1964

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

1Wittfogel, K. A., “The Legend of ‘Maoism’,” part II, The China Quarterly, No. 2.Google Scholar

2p. 24.Google Scholar

3Inprecor, 1927, pp. 1072–1076. The capitalised words appear in this form in the original.Google Scholar

4Stalin, J., “Zametki na Sovremennye Temy” (“Notes on Contemporary Themes”), Pravda, 07 28, 1927. The translation cited below is taken from Stalin, Works, IX, p. 366, but in this case the text proves to have been reprinted, without tampering, from the original source in the 1948 Russian edition, and accurately translated in the English edition.Google Scholar

5 This article was originally written in Hong Kong, where I did not have access to the Soviet newspapers of the twenties. Miss Anna Seliverstoff, Research Assistant in the Soviet and Chinese Section of the Centre d'Etude des Relations Internationales of the Fondation Nationale des Sciences Politiques in Paris, was kind enough to aid me at that time by supplying a memorandum on the contents of Pravda for the period July–September 1927. More recently, in preparing the article for publication, I have made a further careful examination of these issues myself.Google Scholar

6Chung-yang T'ung-hsin (Central Newsletter) No. 3, 08 30, 1927, pp. 42–43Google Scholar. In rebutting the letter from Hunan the Central Committee published only the end of paragraph 3 and the beginning of paragraph 4. The above translation includes the whole of the available portion of paragraph 3; some details have been omitted from paragraph 4. In the Central Newsletter, this letter was attributed simply to the Hunan Provincial Committee. Although the letter is not signed by Mao, it seems extremely probable that he wrote it. The author speaks in the first person singular, and refers to the fact that he has recently left Hupei for Hunan. This corresponds perfectly with known facts about Mao's movements since he had left the Wuhan area some time after the Central Committee meeting of August 7, 1927, and would therefore have been in Hunan only about 10 days on August 20. As Mao was not only the emissary of the Central Committee, but also a member of the Hunan Provincial Committee, he could have written in its name. Moreover, the letter expounds a viewpoint which, as indicated below, is precisely that which Mao claims to have been his at the time of the Autumn Harvest Uprising. Apart from this circumstantial evidence, the style alone strongly suggests that it was written by Mao. Even in the unlikely event that he did not write it, there can be little doubt that it reflected his position. For the resolution of November, 1927, condemning him states that following his arrival in Hunan in August he was “the heart of the Provincial Committee.” Central News-letter, No. 13, 1927, p. 41.Google Scholar

7Edgar, Snow, Red Star over China (London: Gollancz, 1936), p. 163.Google Scholar

8Central Newsletter, No. 2, pp. 1–3 and 18–31.Google Scholar

9No. 3, pp. 38–41, and No. 5, pp. 10–12. As late as September 8, Pravda spoke of eliminating only “the class of the large landowners.”Google Scholar

10Central Newsletter, No. 6, pp. 1–2.Google Scholar

11No. 13, November 30, 1927, passim, especially the resolution on the present situation and the Party's tasks, pp. 7–27.Google Scholar

12Central Newsletter, No. 3, p. 41.Google Scholar

13No. 30, 07 3, 1928. (Beginning with No. 14, the name of this periodical was changed to Chung-yang Cheng-chih T'ung-hsun (Central Political Newsletter); for the sake of simplicity, I mention it by its original name throughout.)Google Scholar

14Schwartz, Benjamin I., Chinese Communism and the Rise of Mao (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1958) pp. 100–103.Google Scholar

15 In my opinion, Hsiao Tso-liang has exaggerated the reticence of Moscow on this occasion. According to him, the Comintern instructions were that the uprising “must not be staged if it was not certain to succeed.” As I interpret the texts cited by Professor Hsiao, the orders were rather that the action should not be undertaken if it did not have a reasonable chance of succeeding. See Hsiao, , The China Quarterly, No. 15, p. 161. (Also see the documents translated by C. Martin Wilbur in “The Ashes of Defeat,” pp. 46 and 52—Ed.)Google Scholar

16Central Newsletter, No. 13, 10 30, 1927, pp. 63–73. (See below the complete text of Changa Kuo-t'ao's apologia, translated by C. Martin Wilbur on p. 45.—Ed.)Google Scholar

17“Zadachi Kitajskoj Revoljutsii” (“The Tasks of the Chinese Revolution”), Pravda, 09 30, 1927.Google Scholar

18 For criticism of Yeh, Ho and the Nanchang uprising in general, see Central Newsletter, No. 7, passim. The report by Li Li-san referred to above appears on pp. 24–42. (For complete texts of all these materials, see “The Ashes of Defeat,” by C. Martin Wilbur, pp. 3–54—Ed.) On the general problem of the respective role of the revolutionary army and of the masses in arms, see No. 13, pp. 1–27, and No. 16, pp. 81–88; the latter text, addressed to Chu Te, contains criticisms of Mao.Google Scholar

19 See my article, “The ‘Military Deviation’ of Mao Tse-tung,” Problems of Communism, XIII, No. 1, 01–2 1964, pp. 49–56Google Scholar, and, for a more extended treatment, the introduction to my book, The Political Thought of Mao Tse-tung (New York: Praeger, and London: Pall Mall, 1963).Google Scholar

20Central Newsletter, No. 5, p. 13.Google Scholar

21No. 16, pp. 81–88.Google Scholar

22Hsuan Chi, 1947 edition, supplement, p. 63. For a longer extract see The Political Thought of Mao Tse-tung, Text 5 B. These details have, of course, been deleted from the current Selected Works version of this text.Google Scholar

23Chung-kuo Kung-ch'an-tang Hung-chün Ti-szu-chün Ti-i-tz'u Tai-piao Ta-hui Chüeh-i-an (Hong Kong: 1949), p. 14; The Political Thought of Mao Tse-tung, text 5 D. In the current version, Mao admits to the presence only of “a very large proportion” of rural vagrants.Google Scholar