After the United Front: Wang Jingwei and the Left Guomindang

After the United Front: Wang Jingwei and the Left Guomindang By Ke-wen Wang Nearly three decades ago an author described Wang Jingwei (1883-1944) as a "romantic radical. III Two major monographs and numerous articles later th~t title remains the only ambitious attempt at summing up the colorful yet puzzling career of this leading revolutionary in Republican China. The present study does not intend to dispute that title or to offer a new one. What is suggested here is rather a closer look at the evolution of Wang's thought and actions during one of the most "radical" stages of his life. Through an examination of the interactions between his ideological stance and the political environment of the time, one may be able to assess the validity of that title a little more. The stage under study was the years immediately following the collapse of the first United Front between the Guomindang (GMD) and the Chinese Commimist Party (CCP). From 1927 to 1930 Wang led a movement which called itself the "Left Guomindang" and challenged the conservative leadership of the newly-established Nanjing government. The movement demanded both a revival of the radical GMD platform of the United Front period and the restoration of Wang and his followers, who had been the GMD leadership under the United Front, to their rightful place at the top of the Party hierarchy. The emergence of the Left GMD movement coincided with the organization of a personal faction under Wang. In fact this "Wang Faction" contributed significantly to the development of a Left GMD ideology and helped direct the Left GMD movement to become a viable intra-party opposition. Yet the Left GMD cannot be equated to the "Wang Faction". It represented a dissension within the Party and the Chinese revolution that was more complex and far-reaching than the appeal of the faction itself. A study of Wang's role in the Left GMD movement, therefore, may also shed light on the interplay of ideological formulations and factional politics in the GMD of the 1920's. WANG JINGWEI AND THE UNITED FRONT Initially suspicious of the idea of a United Front, according to some sources, Wang gave his support to the alliance in 1923 out of respect for his long-time leader Sun Yatsen.2 Once he had become a supporter, however, his support was enthusiastic and firm. During 1924-27 when the labels of "leftist" and "rightist" were used by the CCP and the Comintern to identify GMD leaders with reference to their attitude toward the United Front, Wang was always considered a "leftist".3 His political discourse of this period centered around one single theme: anti-imperialism. This he said was the most important goal of China's "National Revolution" and the basis for an alliance of "all the oppressed classes" under the leadership of the GMD. Nevertheless, his explications of the GMD platform showed an unmistakable socialist influence. In one of his first public speeches on the new directions of the Reorganized GMD in 1924, Wang gave a Leninist interpretation of the causes of imperialism and praised Soviet Russia as the model for China's reconstruction. While displaying a preference forthe "gradual implementation" of socialism, he suggested that Lenin's effort at , "establishing the nation's socio-economic organizations on a fair basis" was precisely what Sun Yatsen's Principle of People's Livelihood was trying to accomplish in China.4 The Principle of People's Livelihood, Wang further suggested, was a form of "state socialism". None of its socialist programs could be implemented, therefore, without C\ popularly controlled state. This logic allowed him to direct his attack not on capitalism but on "international imperialism" and its instrument in China, the warlords, who had usurped the Chinese state. An anti-militarist, anti-imperialist "political revolution" was thus the first step toward the realization of Sun's ideals.5 The confrontation between the rich and the poor in China was necessarily postponed. 2 To a great extent this view represented the mainstream GMD position in the early days of the United Front and was shared by the CCP at that time. When the policy of United Front became increasingly...