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COMMENTS ON THOMAS KAMPEN'S •cHANGES IN THE LEADERSHIP OF THE CHINESE COMMUNIST PARTY DURING AND AFTER THE LONG MARCH,• REPUBLICAN CHINA XII, 2 (April, 1987) Jerome Chen We are grateful to Benjamin Yang (China Quarterly, no. 106) and Thomas Kampen for bringing the recently available information on the Long March and Zunyi to our notice. Ultimately our gratitude must go to the industry and candor of our colleagues in the People's Republic . Industry seems to be inexhaustible; candor, I am not so sure. Although we know much more about the party history than we did 20 or 30 years ago, there is so much more still we should know but do not. In China last November, for instance, I was pretty reliably told that the major speeches of the Zunyi Conference would be published this spring. Now it is May and I have no means of ascertaining whether they are indeed published. Who can tell what the party history will be like 20 years hence. Based on what we know now, there was a crisis (or a series of crises) of the new party leadership from the beginning of the Long March. It deepened after the crossing of the Xiang. To deal with it by asking only what, where, and when without delving into how and why, one must at least pose the questions: Who were the major contenders and how did they perform to merit the position? Who were the king makers and how did they choose? Having discredited and failed to defend themselves, the leaders hand picked by the International must make way for those who had enough influence, authority, and proven ability in the party and especially among the military to hold the movement together and lead it through the dire situation facing it. Near at hand was Mao; far away but too powerful to be neglected was Zhang Guotao. Both were senior and prominent leaders of soviets whose authority depended more on indigenous support than on Moscow. Particularly Zhang Guotao. His importance was enhanced by the decision taken at Zunyi to move the 1st Front Army towards his 4th Front Army. The meaning of this Mao, Zhang, and the king makers were fully aware and watched closely before they finally made up their minds as to whom the supreme leadership should belong. If this consideration of theirs sounds plausible, the changes in leadership at Zunyi had to be temporary and subtly informal, pending the union of the two Front Armies. Although these and later changes in leadership were vastly different from the earlier ones--the fall of Chen Duxiu, Qu Qiubai, and Li Lisan--the authority of the International was neither to be or should be ignored in spite of the fact that the radio communications with Moscow had been broken just before the Long March, not to be restored until after it. Due respect to the International caused Zunyi to avoid a debate on the 49 political line adopted at the 6th Congress. Later it was used to constrain Zhang Guotao. I have dealt and shall deal more fully with these points elsewhere. However, to omit them may induce us to oversimplify the process of the leadership changes, especially the informality of it, in 1935. Kampen lists five Politburo conferences--Tongdao (11 or 12 December 1934), Liping (18 December 1934), Zunyi (15-17 January 1935), Jimingsansheng (c.5 February 1935), and Yaxi (c.l1 March 1935). He seems to be unaware of the one held at Houchang on 1 January.[!] The •Investigation Report• which Kampen cites does not explicitly say that a Politburo meeting was actually convened at the village Jimingsanshen (not Jiming). It is conceivable that such a meeting did take place to divide the functions of the members of the Standing Committee.[2) Zhang Wentian appeared to be a weak Secretary of the party when he replaced Qin Bangxian. •At Daguxinchang, Luo Fu called a meeting of the Centre of more than 20 people everyday.•[J] This practice, though democratic, was clumsy under the circumstances and showed an indecisiveness on his part. so after the Yaxi meeting and at the four crossings of the Chishui, the second triumvirate was formed to...

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