4 Chinese Communism and the Comintern

It is possible to divide the history of Sino-Russian relations from 1923 to 1937 roughly into three periods. The first, from 1923 to 1927, was a period of triple alliance between the Soviet Union and the Nationalist revolutionaries, consisting of strange bedfellows aligned under the banners of the Kuomintang and the Communist parties, and aiming at the overthrow by revolution of the then extant government of China, and the restoration of China's complete sovereignty. That enterprise ended with the triumph of the right-wing Kuomintang, the founding of the National Government at Nanking, the latter's compromise with the colonial power, and the severance of Sino-Russian relations.

From 1927 to 1933 there was a period of isolation of Russia from (Nationalist) China, and its complete insulation against Russian influence. This era closed when Moscow resumed diplomatic relations with Nanking late in 1933. The third period began with a lukewarm Nanking-Moscow rapprochement, embarrassed considerably by the continued heavy civil war between Nanking and the Chinese Communists. It was to end dramatically early in 1937, when a partial reconciliation was effected between the Communists and the Kuomintang, with new possibilities opened up for Sino-Russian cooperation.

The three periods of Sino-Russian relationship mentioned above accurately reflected also the changes in the character of the Comintern and its stages of transition. It is impossible here to enter into the complex causes, domestic and international, which brought about those changes, both in the Soviet Union and in the Comintern, but it is pertinent to see how in the main they had affected, and were affected by, the Chinese Revolution.

The 1927 crisis of the Chinese Revolution coincided with a crisis in Russia, and in the Comintern, expressed in the struggle between Trotskyism and Stalinism for theoretical and practical control of Russia. Had Stalin been able to advance his slogan, "socialism in one country"much earlier than 1924, had the issue been fought out and had he been able to dominate the Comintern before then, quite possibly the "intervention"in China might never have begun. Such a speculation in any case was idle now. When Stalin did develop his fight, the line in China had already been cast. The active military, political, financial, and intellectual collaboration given to the Chinese Nationalist Revolution was until 1926 under the direction chiefly of Zinoviev, who was chairman of the Communist International. Then from early 1926 onward Stalin became chiefly responsible for the affairs and policies of the Comintern as well as the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, and it was nowhere disputed that he had tightened his grasp on both organizations ever since.

Thus it was Stalin who led the Comintern that gave the Chinese Communists their tactical line and "directives"in 1926 and during the catastrophe of the spring of 1927. During those fateful months, in which disaster gathered above the heads of the Chinese Communists, Stalin's line was subjected to continuous bombardment from the Opposition, dominated by Trotsky, Zinoviev, and Kamenev. While he was Comintern chairman, Zinoviev had fully supported the line of Communist cooperation with the Kuomintang, but he violently attacked this same line as carried out by Stalin. Particularly after Chiang Kai-shek's first "treachery"——the abortive attempt at a coup d'êtat in Canton in 1926——Zinoviev predicted an inevitable counterrevolution in which the national bourgeoisie would compromise with imperialism and "betray the masses."

At least a year before Chiang Kai-shek's second and successful coup d'êtat, Zinoviev began demanding the separation of the Communists from the Kuomintang, "the party of the national bourgeoisie, "which he now considered incapable of carrying out the two main tasks of the revolution——anti-imperialism, i.e. the overthrow of foreign domination of China, and "antifeudalism, "or the destruction of the landlord-gentry rule in rural China. Just as early, Trotsky began urging the formation of soviets and an independent Chinese Red Army. The Opposition in general foretold the failure of the "bourgeois-democratic"revolution——all they hoped for in this period——if Stalin's line was continued.

Stalin defended himself, after the debacle, by ridiculing as non-Marxist the Trotskyist contentions that the tactical line of the Comintern had been the main cause of the failure. "Comrade Kamenev, "declared Stalin, "said that the policy of the Communist International was responsible for the defeat of the Chinese Revolution, and that we 'bred Cavaignacs in China.' …… How can it be asserted that the tactics of a party can abolish or reverse the relation of class forces? What are we to say of people who forget the relation of class forces in time of revolution, and who try to explain everything by the tactics of a party? Only one thing can be said of such people——that they have abandoned Marxism."

Trotsky required no help from me in framing appropriate replies to Stalin's self-exculpations, but as his wit had not prevented the earlier destruction of Communist regimes in Hungary and Bavaria, nor the general defeat of the Comintern's hopes throughout the East, so it did not save the Chinese Communists from a catastrophe which all but destroyed the Party. Only Stalin won——that is, he drove Trotsky from the temple——and consequently Stalin dominated future activities of the Comintern in China——which for a time were practically nil. Russian organs in China were closed, Russian Communists were killed or driven from the country, the flow of financial, military, and political help from Russia dwindled. The Chinese Communist Party was thrown into great confusion, and for a time its interior leadership lost contact with the Comintern. The rural soviet movement and (Mao's) Chinese Red Army began spontaneously, and they did not, in fact, get much applause from Russia till after the Sixth Congress, when the Communist International gave its postnatal sanction.^[2]

After 1927 it became impossible for Russia to have any direct physical connection with the Chinese Red areas, which had no seaport and were entirely surrounded by a ring of hostile troops. Whereas in the past there had been scores of Comintern workers in China, there were now two or three, often almost isolated from society as a whole, seldom able to risk a stay of more than a few months. Whereas a large flow of Russian gold and arms had formerly gone to Chiang Kai-shek's Nationalists, now a trickle reached the Reds. And whereas the whole Soviet Union had backed the Great Revolution of 1925-27, the Chinese Communist movement was now aided only by a Comintern which could no longer command the vast resources of the "base of the world revolution, "but had to limp along as a kind of poor stepchild which might be officially disinherited whenever it did anything malaprop.

Actual financial help given to the Chinese Reds by Moscow or the Comintern during this decade seemed to have been amazingly small. When Mr. and Mrs. Hilaire Noulens were arrested in Shanghai in 1932 and convicted in Nanking as chief Far Eastern agents of the Comintern, police evidence showed that total outpayments for the whole Orient (not just China) had not at most exceeded the equivalent of about U.S. $15, 000 per month. That was a trifle compared with the vast sums poured into China to support Japanese and Nazi-Fascist propaganda. It was rather pitiful also in contrast, for example, with America's $50, 000, 000 Wheat Loan to Nanking in 1933——the proceeds of which were of decisive value to Chiang Kai-shek's civil war against the Reds, according to reports of foreign military observers.

America, England, Germany, and Italy sold Nanking great quantities of airplanes, tanks, guns, and munitions, but of course sold none to the Reds. The American Army released officers to train the Chinese air force, which demolished towns in Red China, and Italian and German instructors actually led some of the most destructive bombing expeditions themselves——as happened on a larger scale in Spain. To Chiang Kai-shek's aid Germany sent Von Seeckt, and after him Von Falkenhausen, with a staff of Prussian officers who improved Nanking's technique of annihilation. It seemed that Chiang Kai-shek was propped up for nearly ten years by more important aid than any foreign power gave to the Reds.

Probably the Chinese Reds fought with less material foreign help than any army in modern Chinese history.