Review of Reference Materials on the History of the European Branches of the Chinese Communist Organization

Review of Reference Materials on the History of the European Branches of the Chinese Communist Organization Chan King-tong (Translated by William L. MacDonald) I. Preface The number of documents concerning the founding of the CCP which are still preserved are not numerous, thus in studying the early history of the CCP we must rely to a fair degree on the memoirs of persons of the time. This is the case with research on the history of domestic and overseas organizations in Europe. Exaggerations and evasions due to glossing over are generally unavoidable in memoirs and with the addition of the low level of education of the interviewer, the inadequacy of preparation of materials in advance, and earlier biases, it is not only hard to determine the truth of the oral materials obtained by the interviewer but also a certain part is misrepresented. Since memoirs must be used as important reference materials, errors in the memoirs which are not detected by the researcher will do great damage to the results of the research. This writer, at the suggestion of Mr. Chen San-jing, discovered that there were traces of revision in the memoirs of Chiang Tse-min in the fifteenth volume of Tian-jin Wen-shi Zi-liao Xuan-ji, in which the section discussing the name and organizational framework of the headquarters of the European branch of the CCP--a very tmportant section--has been deleted . Thus, in comparative research of the edited memoirs of Zhang Shen-fu one discovers that there are many contradictions with Zhang Shen-fu•s memoirs, Yi-da Qian-hou, which are included. This author has sought out the memoirs of some of the people involved, made an indepth exploration of Zhang Shen-fu•s memoir materials, and written a paper, Lun Zhong-song Lu Ou Zong-Zhi-bu de Fa-gi-zu. (A Discussion of the Beginning Groups of the ECCO.) When using memoirs of members of the European branch of the CCP, certain limitations are noted about these materials, and that is the experience of the persons involved. They can only report in detail the activities in which they participated and summarize what they heard at the time. They cannot speak of events in which they did not participate and if forced to do so, will naturally make mistakes. Party members who went through several decades of bitter political struggle and are fortunately still alive, generally are in important positions and if asked to recall the revolutionary activities of the time, their relationship to the party and their contribution to the party, they must tell of it. If they were important cadres or activists at the time, of course, they are very familiar with the subject 59 and this is fairly easy. If they were ordinary party members or negative elements, then they are limited to what they saw and heard and there is naturally no way for them to provide substantive content or valuable materials. The aim of this paper is to introduce memoirs as reference materials for studying the history of the European Branches of the Chinese Communist Organizations (ECCO), and materials which are not within this scope, though written by a member of the ECCO are excepted . Memoirs are divided into four classes on the basis of the status of the person at the time. In short, memoirs of CCP members have more reference value than those of non-CCP individuals, but the content of their materials in terms of depth and breadth are not up to materials of party officials. II. Classification and Value of Memoirs The lack of original files is a difficulty encountered by persons stuaying the history of the CCP. The communist party is a tightly knit organization and scrupulous secrecy is maintained both internally and externally, so that party internal documents, organization , and party member rank are all classified. Examples in the situation of the ECCO are as follows: In the Spring of 1922, when Zhao Shi-yan was preparing to organize the Chinese Communist Youth party in Europe he wrote to Chen Gong-peia three times discussing the matter and at the conclusion instructed Chen Gong-pei: •ror the time being, my activities...