China's Revolutionary and National
Reconstruction Movement
In the middle of the 19th century when Western European powers wee knocking at China's front door along her eastern seaboard, Czarist Russia was making inroads into China's Sinkiang, Mongolia and Manchuria. These powers acquired leased territories and concessions, and then under the protection of consular jurisdiction and controlled tariff rates, proceeded to extend their economic and political tentacles into the interior of the country by virtue of their concessions to build and administer railways and to operate shipping both along the coast and on China's inland rivers. Had China been partitioned in the years immediately following 1895,* Czarist Russia would have obtained an area north of the Yellow River which constitutes nearly 40 per cent of the entire Chinese territory. But from 1900,** the United States stood opposed to the partition of China by advocating the Open Door Policy. This made it possible for China to retain a nominal independence. Czarist Russia and Japan, however, did not relax in their territorial encroachments in the vast region stretching from Manchuria to Sinkiang. After her defeat in the Russo-Japanese war of 1904, Czarist Russia reached an understanding with Japan whereby their respective spheres of influence in this region were delineated.
* The Sino-Japanese War of 1895.
** The Boxer Rebellion
It was for the purpose of saving China from being partitioned that Dr .Sun Yat-sen began to work for a national revolution. He sought to free China from the oppression of
colonial powers, to abolish the unequal treaties and to build up China as a free and independent nation. Though the Revolution of 1911 resulted in the overthrow of the Manchu dynasty and the establishment of the Republic, the creative task of revolution and national reconstruction remained to be achieved. Remnants of the Manchu regime and northern war lords led by Yuan Shih-kai persisted in their attempts to restore the monarchy and to overthrow the new Republic. In this they were able to secure help from some foreign powers which enjoyed special political and economic rights in China. The Japanese militarists were particularly active in inciting the Chinese war lords to set up regional regimes to pave the way for their interference in China�s domestic affairs for the eventual carving up of the country. The young Republic found it impossible to develop her national industries because both her sovereign rights and administrative authority had been impaired. Even her agriculture and handicraft industry were on the decline. Democracy, so-called, became a mere excuse for unscrupulous politicians and ambitious gentry to scramble for selfish gains. The people at large, with their rights and liberties unprotected, sank deeper in poverty.
Soviet Russia�s First Profession of
Friendship Toward China
Toward the end of World War I, revolution broke out in Russia. The world was soon to be startled by the successful Bolshevik Coup d?amp;eacute;tat led by Lenin, by the formation of a government of workers, farmers and soldiers and by the sudden powerful response to the call of Marxist Communism.
After the war, various Western colonial powers again turned their eyes toward China in the hope of restoring their special rights, which had suffered a temporary recession during the period of fighting. Soviet Russia alone expressed friendliness for China. In his report to the Fifth Soviet Congress on July 4, 1914, G. V. Chicherin Soviet Russia�s
Commissar of foreign affairs, stated that the Soviet Government would discontinue the Czarist regime�s various forms of aggression in Manchuria, relinquish Russia�s extraterritorial rights in China and Mongolia, renounce Russia�s financial imposition on the Chinese people under various pretexts, withdraw troops formerly stationed in Russian consulates in China and return to China the Russian portions of the various Indemnity Funds. Leo Karakhan�s declaration of July 15, 1919, was based on Chicherin�s report. It said among other things: �The Soviet Government returns to the Chinese people without demanding any kind of compensation, the Chinese Eastern Railway, as well as all the mining concessions, forestry, gold mines, and all the other things which were seized from them by the government of Czars, that of Kerensky, and the brigands Horvat, Semenoff, Kolchak, the Russian ex-generals, merchants and capitalists.?
This was the first instance of Soviet Russia�s �smiling diplomacy?in the Far East as a stratagem in her scheme of World Revolution. This declaration, when there appeared no reason to doubt its validity, struck us in the Orient as the noblest declaration in the annals of international relationship in our dealings with the West. It naturally led the Chinese people to believe that the Russian Revolution had marked the end of an old rapacious imperialist regime characterized by aggression and totalitarianism and the establishment of a new regime of equality and good will. Soviet Russia was, in fact, the first foreign power to renounce voluntarily her unequal treaties with China which had bound our country for almost a century. This declaration had an immediate effect on China, and Soviet Russia was able to gain widespread Chinese good will from this timely move. It should be recalled, however, that the Chinese (Peiyang) Government in Peking* id not receive the Karakhan Declaration until March 1920 and it was not until the autumn of 1922 that Moscow sent Adolf
Joffe to China to conduct negotiations for implementing the declaration. In September 1923 Karakhan was sent to China to resume negotiations in which the Russian delegates repeatedly went back on their promises. The most conspicuous instance was their denial that there had been any mention in the Karakhan Declaration of an intention to return the Chinese Eastern Railway to China without compensation. The Sino-Soviet agreement for the settlement of disputes then pending was not signed until Ma6 31, 1924, after protracted negotiations. This agreement provided the first pattern of �peaceful coexistence?between China and Soviet Russia which was to be repeated in subsequent years.
* Peking was then the capital.
The Creation of a China Branch
of the Communist International
Moscow's China policy was a double-faced one. On the one hand, the Soviet Foreign Office carried on diplomatic negotiations with the Chinese Government. On the other, the Communist International proceeded to set up a Chinese Communist Party.
Earlier, in the spring of 1920, Gregori Voitinsky, chief of the Eastern division of the Communist International, Arrived in China to arrange with Li Ta-chao and Chen Tu-hsiu for the formation of the Chinese Communist party. In 1921 Moscow sent a Dutchman named G. Maring, also known as Sneevliet, to take charge of the organization of the Chinese Communist Party. At the time the Chinese Communist Party was little more than an association of intellectuals who had accepted Karl Marx�s dogmas, who felt friendly toward Soviet Russia and who sought to develop their party organization by means of labor movement.
The Chinese Communist �United Front?#060
As early as 1912, while Lenin was in exile in Brussels, the Socialist People�s Daily published an article by Dr.
Sun Yat-sen entitled �China�s Second Step,?setting forth the goal of China�s revolution and reconstruction. Thereupon Lenin published his �Democracy and Narodism in China.? He compared China�s National Revolution to Russia�s Narodic movement and said that �in Asia there still exists a bourgeoisie capable of representing sincere, militant, consistent democracy.?The Second Congress of the Communist International held in July 1920, formulated the twenty-one articles governing the adherence of national Communist parties to the Communist International Article 8 directed the Communists in various countries �to expel Imperialism from the colonies?and to �carry on agitations among the armed forces of the Imperialist countries to oppose oppressions of the colonies.?At the same Congress Lenin came up with his �Outline of the Colonial Problem,?which laid down the Communist basic stratagem in all national revolutionary movements. This mandate was largely responsible for their choosing China�s National Revolution as a target for the Chinese Communist Party.
* Lenin's Selected Works, vol. IV, p. 307.
At their Second national Congress, held in August 1922, the Chinese Communists decided to form a United Front with Kuomintang. They issued a manifesto which said in part as follows:
Out of consideration for the immediate benefit of workers and poor farmers, the Chinese Communist party is to lead the workers and have them help the democratic revolutionary movement so as to form a democratic United Front with the poor farmers and the petty bourgeoisie.
The workers in this democratic United Front, however, must not become an appendage to the petty bourgeoisie. . . . Therefore, the workers should constantly bear in mind that they constitute an independent class, should develop their own organization and combat capabilities, and together with poor farmers prepare to establish a Soviet form of government for the purpose of achieving complete liberation.
Once democracy succeeds, the now immature bourgeois class will grow rapidly and assume a position in opposition to the proletariat. For this reason, the proletariat must work against the bourgeoisie and join with the poor farmers in setting up a dictatorship of the proletariat.
This was to say that the Chinese Communist party, though cooperating with Kuomintang as a United Front, and directing its members to join Kuomintang for participation in the revolution, was to retain its independent identity secretly to prevent China�s National Revolution from becoming a success by taking advantage of a farmers?revolution to seize power and establish a �dictatorship of the proletariat.?
Dr. Sun�s Aim In Alignment With Russia
To carry out this sinister plot Moscow sent Maring on a special trip to see Dr. Sun in Kweilin in 1921 with a proposal for cooperation between Kuomintang and the Russian Communist Party.
For the sake of winning Dr. Sun�s consent, Maring assured him that instead of practicing Communism Soviet Russia had adopted the New Economic Policy. Dr. Sun in his telegram to Liao Chung-kai* said: �Russia�s economic conditions as yet do not provide the necessary conditions for Communism. That is why I was quite surprised when I first heard of Communism being practiced in Russia. I have since learned with gratification from Maring that there is not much difference between Russia�s New Economic Policy and our Program of Industrialization.?
* A member of Kumintang.
Owing to Chen Chiun-ming�s** revolt, Dr. Sun left Canton for Shanghai on June 16, 1922. In December Joffe arrived in Shanghai to see him. The question of cooperation between the Russian Communist Party and Kuomintang was discussed. On January 26, 1923, they issued a joint statement, and the basis
of Dr. Sun�s policy of alignment with Russia was given in the very first paragraph as follows:
�Dr. Sun holds that the Communistic order or even the Soviet system cannot actually be introduced into China, because there do not exist here the conditions for the successful establishment of either Communism or Sovietism. This view is entirely shared by Mr. Joffe, who is further of the opinion that China�s paramount and most pressing problem is to achieve national unification and to attain full national independence, and regarding this task, he has assured Dr. Sun that china has the warmest sympathy of the Russian people and can count on the support of Russia.?
** A war lord in Kwangtung province.
Dr. Sun�s telegram to Liao Chung-kai following his talks with Maring and his joint statement with Joffe clearly represented his considered views on the questions of cooperation between Kuomintang and the Russian Communist Party. First, Dr. Sun regarded Communism as something which could not be carried out in China. Secondly, China�s pressing need was to achieve national unification and to attain full independence. Soviet Russia�s aid to Kuomintang was meant to help it in its tackling this stupendous task. And Kuomintang�s cooperation with the Russian Communist Party was precisely for the same purpose of ensuring successful completion of this task.
The Sun-Joffe joint statement was the basis of the first phase of Sino-Russian �peaceful coexistence,?and of the peaceful cooperation of Kuomintang with the Chinese Communist party. Dr. Sun followed it up with a manifesto of Kuomintang and went ahead with plans for its reorganization. As a result of revolts by Chen Chiun-ming and Shen Hung-ying,* the Kuomintang party fell into a state of disorganization and its members, though totaling some 300,000 were inadequately trained.
* A regional war lord in Kwantung.
For this reason Dr. Sun asked me to go to Moscow to study
its postrevolution party system, and its political and military organizations for our reference.
My Observations on the Russian Trip
Upon Dr. Sun�s instructions I arranged a meeting in Shanghai on August 5, 1923, with Maring to discuss the composition, etc. of the mission to Russia. [Etc.]
( pages 12 - 19 )
Dr. Sun�s Trip to Peking and His Death
On November 10, 1924, Dr. Sun issued a statement on his proposed trip to Peking, in which he announced two things, namely, the �abolition of the unequal treaties?and �the convocation of a national people�s conference.?He reminded the nation that only a revolutionary force which was identified with the interests of the people could put an end to warlordism supported by the Imperialist powers, and bring about China�s
independence, freedom and unification. On account of his opposition to Imperialism and his avowed intention to exterminate warlordism, his impending trip to Peking, center of the northern war lords?sphere of influence, would naturally earn the support of the whole nation as well as the enmity of the war lords. Members of our Party all tried to persuade him not to undertake the trip in view of the attendant danger. Nevertheless he set out on his journey on November 12.
The next day, when his ship passed by Whampoa, he disembarked and stayed overnight. He inspected the Military Academy and saw cadets of the first class building defense works at the Yutsu Fort across the Pearl River. On the way back to the Academy he said to me: �I am going to Peking. Whether I can come back is not yet certain. Anyway, I am going there to carry on our struggle. Having seen the spirit of this Academy, I know it can carry on my revolutionary task. Even if I should die, my conscience will be at peace.?
Before Dr. Sun�s departure, Borodin forwarded to him Moscow�s invitation for him to go to Russia. He asked me for my view and I told him I was against it. My main reason was that we were cooperating with Russia for the sake of achieving independence and freedom for our country. If he should visit Russia, the Communists could spread rumors to confuse the people and this would cause a serious obstacle to our Nation Revolution. He never again mentioned the subject to me.
Following Dr. Sun�s departure for the North, the Communists stepped up their disruptive efforts within our Party. Their intention to create dissension among cadets in the Military Academy and eventually to seize control of the Academy itself became clearer than ever. On January 25, 1925, Michael Borodin and others sponsored a Young Servicemen�s Club to draw into it dual-party elements in the Academy and in various armed units. They even spread a rumor that I, too, had
joined the Communist organization. Led by Chen Cheng,* officers and cadets in the Academy and in the armed forces who were loyal to the Three People�s principles and to our Party found they could no longer endure such organized oppression and formed a rival group named Society for the Study of Sun Yat-senism.
* Chen Cheng is now [1957] China's vice-president.
At the time of Dr. Sun�s death I was away leading our Party�s armed forces against Chen Chin-ming�s rebel troops in Kwangtung�s East River region where we had already captured Chaochow and Meihsien. When I returned to Canton on April 5 I discovered that the Yunnanese and Kwangsi troops were plotting a revolt against the Party because of its policy of aligning with Russia and the admission of Chinese Communists into our Party. I hurried to Chaochow and Meihsien to bring my troops back to Canton, and on June 13 I succeeded in putting down the revolt of Yang Hsi-ming and Liu Chen-kwan, and in recovering Canton itself. On June 15, the General headquarters in Canton was expanded to become the national Government, and the Party forces were renamed the national Revolutionary Forces. Thenceforth Canton and the unified province of Kwangtung became the base of our national Revolution.
( pages 34 - 36 )