Mao Zedong and the Communists at Yanan 1936-45

The Long March 1934-5

• What began as a rout ended as a legend. After a year's desperate marching, the Communists reached sanctuary in Yanan in Shaanxi province.
• Outstanding characteristics:
  • The journey took a year, from October 1934 to October 1935.
  • NOT A MARCH, THEY WERE RUNNING FOR THEIR LIVES FROM THE NRA (PROPAGANDA BTW)
  • The distance covered was 6250 miles, at an average of 17 miles per day.
  • The march crossed 11 provinces, 18 mountain ranges, and 24 rivers.
  • The marchers fought 15 pitched battles and almost daily skirmishes against GMD forces.
  • Of the 100,000 who set out, scarcely 20,000 survived to reach Yanan.
• Mao defined it as: 'a manifesto, an agitation corps, a seeding machine'.
  • It announces the bankruptcy of the encirclement attempted by the imperialists and Chiang Kaishek.
  • It declares to 200 million people of 11 provinces that only the road of the Red Army leads to their liberation.
• The march created a brotherhood among survivors; all leaders of the Chinese People's Republic from 1949 until the mid-1990s were veterans of the Long March.
  • Including Mao Zedong, Zhu De, Zhou Enlai, Lin Biao, Liu Shaoqi, and Deng Xiaoping.

The Zunyi meeting 1935

• Mao Zedong emerged from the march with the greatest prestige.
• A crucial party gathering was held at Zunyi in Guizhou province in early 1935.
• Mao successfully exposed the urban Reds as being out of touch.
• His principal charge: they had abandoned successful guerrilla tactics in the countryside for pitched battles in urban areas.
• The majority supported Mao, marking the end of the pro-Moscow urban element's influence.
• There was a dispute over the route:
  • Zhang Guotao, a rival, urged marchers to divert westwards to be closer to Russian protection.
  • Mao, backed by Zhu De, insisted the northern route be maintained.
  • Zhang broke away, but the western route failed, and he rejoined Mao's contingent.
• This vindication of Mao's judgement increased his standing, and he arrived at Yanan as the leading figure in the party.

Assessing the Long March

• The reality: at the time, it was widely seen as a defeat for the Communists.
• They had been driven out of their southern base and lost four-fifths of their number.
• In 1935, the Nationalists seemed on the point of unshakeable control of China.
• Chiang Kaishek and the GMD had been recognized by Western powers and the Soviet Union as the legitimate government.
• The Communists appeared to be a broken force.

The Xian Incident 1936

• Background: 1931 Japanese invasion and occupation of Manchuria.
• Chiang's response was low-key and defensive; strategy of 'trading space to buy time'.
• This unambitious policy frustrated many Nationalists.
  • In 1933, it took Chiang over a year to suppress a rising among his troops at Fujian protesting his failure to confront the Japanese.
  • In 1935, Chiang agreed to withdraw GMD forces from Beijing.
  • This led to the 9 December Movement, with student protests in Beijing, Shanghai, and Wu Han.
• Mutiny at Xian:
  • December 1936: Chiang visited Xian to berate GMD forces for their slowness in crushing Communists.
  • He was seized by troops under General Zhang Xueliang.
  • Zhang had been persuaded by the CCP to commit to the anti-Japanese struggle.
  • Chiang was handed over to Zhou Enlai.
• Outcome: Communists offered to spare Chiang's life if he would:
  • Cease all attempts to suppress the CCP.
  • Recognise the CCP as a legitimate party.
  • Lead a new united front against the Japanese invader.
• Chiang gave in and sanctioned the second GMD-CCP United Front in December 1936.
• The CCP won a major propaganda victory and gained a temporary respite to develop the Yanan Soviet.

The Communists at Yanan 1935-45

• Yanan attracted Communist sympathisers from all over China.
• Caves were dug into the loess hillsides for accommodation.
• The Yanan Communists grew their own food.
• In 1935-6, the international Red Cross was dealing with a famine in other parts of China that accounted for 30 million deaths.
• The Yanan Soviet provided security, welfare, schools, and hospitals.
• The CCP raised up to 40% of its income from growing and selling opium.

Mao's political ideas

• At Yanan, Mao gave practical form to his belief that China's revolution must come from the peasants.
• This was heresy to the Comintern, which believed China lacked an established proletariat.
• Mao rejected this, believing the peasant rising would fulfill the dialectical imperative.
• For Mao, 'proletarian' described an attitude, not a social class.
• He made Marxism fit the Chinese situation, not the Chinese situation fit Marxism.
• Mao tightened his political grip by the use of informers and secret police.

Communist control in the countryside

• Tactics: Once Reds seized a region, landowners were driven out or shot.
• The area was declared 'liberated'.
• Land was immediately reallocated to the peasants, making them supporters of the CCP.
• The CCP's Land Law (first drawn up at Jiangxi in 1932):
  • Confiscate all property from gentry and landlords.
  • Distribute land to tenant farmers, poor peasants, and unemployed farm labourers.
  • Relatives of Red soldiers will receive land.

The Role of the Red Army

• Mao urged the CCP to consolidate as a military force.
• The Red Army was the party's major political weapon, a means to spread the word.
• The Red Army was instructed to aid and comfort the people, unlike warlord armies.
• Mao laid down a code of conduct:
  • Be courteous and help out when you can.
  • Return all borrowed articles.
  • Pay for all articles purchased.
  • Be honest in all transactions with the peasants.
  • Don't take liberties with women.
  • Don't kill prisoners of war.
• In 1940, Mao published On New Democracy, defining the revolution as a national movement, not a class movement.
• The land confiscation programme was modified: only landlords who collaborated with the Japanese had property seized.
• The CCP also forced down excessive rents and prohibited usury.
• CCP membership grew from 40,000 in 1937 to one million by 1945.
• However, Mao's regime was fiercely authoritarian; villages that did not conform faced harsh penalties like crop confiscation and ruinous taxes.

The 'Rectification of Conduct' Campaign 1942-4

• The brand of Communism at Yanan was fundamentally oppressive.
• Mao held the notion of 'revolutionary correctness', fearing revolution would be betrayed from within.
• In 1942, he launched the campaign to fight wrong thinking.
• Party members were to engage in public self-criticism and study prescribed texts, including Mao's writings.
• Chief organiser: Kang Sheng, Mao's head of security.
• Kang asserted that 70% of the party was infected by revisionist ideas.
• He ordered the arrest of 1,000 CCP members, many of whom were imprisoned and tortured.
• Peter Vladimirov, a Russian Comintern agent, described the cruel method of psychological coercion and stifling atmosphere.
• Sixty Communist Party officials committed suicide rather than face public humiliation.
• Notable victims: Wang Shiwei and Ding Ling.
  • Wang Shiwei published an article critical of CCP members living comfortable lives.
  • Mao attacked Wang as representing the intellectual class he despised.
  • Ding Ling, a feminist, was shocked by the party's hypocrisy on female equality.
  • She broke under pressure, withdrew her criticisms, and abandoned Wang Shiwei.
  • Wang was subjected to a show trial and refused to retract.
  • He earned a life sentence and was executed in 1947 on Mao's personal order.
• Consequences:
  • Mao had rid himself of opposition.
  • He had triumphed over the pro-Moscow wing of the party.
  • Mao began to move towards cult status.
  • Chinese Communism was now Maoism.

Mao and the Soviet Union During the Yanan Years

• Throughout 1935-45, Mao received little help from the Soviet Union.
• Stalin's primary aim was make the Chinese Communists conform to his notions of Marxist revolution.
• Stalin gave his main backing in the 1930s to Chiang Kaishek, believing the CCP was weaker.
• Stalin's hope: GMD resistance to Japan would prevent Japanese expansionism towards Russia.
• This was resolved in 1941 with the signing of a Russo-Japanese non-aggression pact.