Gregor Benton, Two Purged Leaders of Early Chinese Communism (Peng Shuzhi and Chen Duxiu)

8/10/2019 Gregor Benton, Two Purged Leaders of Early Chinese Communism (Peng Shuzhi and Chen Duxiu)

1/13

Two Purged Leaders of Early Chinese CommunismMmoirs de Peng Shuzhi. L'Envol du communisme en Chine by Claude Cadart; ChengYingxiang; Peng Shuzhi; Chen Duxiu. Founder of the Chinese Communist Party by Lee FeigonReview by: Gregor BentonThe China Quarterly, No. 102 (Jun., 1985), pp. 317-328Published by: Cambridge University Presson behalf of the School of Oriental and African StudiesStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/653851.

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2/13

Review

Article

Two

Purged

Leaders of

Early

Chinese

Communism

Memoirs

de

Peng

Shuzhi.

L'Envol

du communismeen Chine.

By

Claude

Cadart and

Cheng

Yingxiang. [Paris:

Gallimard,

1983.

490

pp.

FF95.00.]

Chen

Duxiu. Founder

of

the Chinese Communist

Party. By

LEE

FEIGON.

[Princeton:

Princeton

University

Press,

1983. 279

pp.

$33.00.]

In

December

1952

Trotskyism

in

China

was

wiped

out for a

generation

when two to three hundred of its adherents were seized in a nationwide

police

raid.

Earlier,

a handful of its leaders

had

slipped

abroad,

hoping

to

co-ordinate work

in

China from

safe

places beyond

the

Party's

reach. For

years they

had

no news of

their

jailed

comrades; then,

in

June

1979,

12

survivors

stepped unexpectedly

into freedom.

Trotskyism

in

China was never the

heresy

that

it

became

in

Stalin's

Russia,

and

anti-Trotskyism

in its

most virulent form was a

foreign

transplant

that did

not

take

in

the Chinese Communist

Party (CCP).

This,

Wang

Fanxi

explains,

was

mainly

because the real threat to the

Party's

China-based leaders came not from the

Trotsky-Chen

faction,

but

from Moscow's well-connected

Wang Ming

clique.'

On rare

occasions

the

CCP leaders even warmed a little to

the

Trotskyists,

though

mostly

they

treated

them

as

enemies.

Since

Deng Xiaoping's

return

to

power, Party

historians

have

begun

to

reassess

Trotskyism,

and have

partly

rehabilitated some of

its

supporters.

In

Mao's

days Trotskyism

was

classified as

counter-revolutionary ;

now

it is

simply wrong.

This new tolerance

even survived a

brief attack

during

1983's

spiritual pollution

campaign.

On 8

November 1983

Beijing

Radio,

reporting

on a

Nanning

conference,

listed

Trotskyism

among

the

pollutions

to

be cleaned

away,

but this

reference was

omitted

from a

repeat

broadcast the

next

day.

The most visible

result of this

reassessment

has been

the

rehabilitation

of Chen

Duxiu,

who

founded

both the

official

Party

and

(in

1931)

its

Trotskyist

offshoot. The

restoration

of Chen

to his

proper

place

in

Party

history

is of

course

part

of a

wider

trend to

recognize

the

strengths

as

well

as the

weaknesses of

leaders who

ended their

careers

in

political

disgrace,

but it could

hardly

have

happened

but for

the softer

line on

Trotskyism.

Chen's

rehabilitation

has been the

work

mainly

of

younger

historians,

particularly

at

Anhui

University

and

Shanghai

Normal

University,

though

these

have

enjoyed

the

support

of

some

Party

veterans

like Xiao

Ke

(who

said in

1981 that

unless

we

conscientiously

research

Chen

Duxiu,

the

future

Party

history

that we

write

will

be

one-sided ).2

Starting

in

1979,

a fresh

version of

Chen's

political

biography

was

released

episode

by

episode

to

the

Chinese

public.

First,

his

role

in

the

May

Fourth

1.

Wang

Fan-hsi,

Chinese

Revolutionary,

Memoirs,

1919-1949,

trans.

by Gregor

Benton

(Oxford:

Oxford

University

Press,

1980),

pp.

111-12.

2. Quoted in Jin Zhao, Chen Duxiu pingfande qianqianhouhou ( Before and after the

rehabilitation of

Chen

Duxiu ),

Zhongbao

yuekan,

No. 7

(1983),

pp.

34-35.

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3/13

The

China

Quarterly

Movement and

in

founding

the CCP was

officially acknowledged.

Then

Xiang Qing

and others wrote that Chen's

right opportunism

was

mainly the result of Comintern meddling,3 and some historians even

defended his controversial stand on the Chinese Eastern

Railway

incident

of

1929,

when he

disputed

the Central Committee's

slogan

of armed

defence of the

Soviet Union. 4

Finally,

a

study

showed

up Wang Ming

and

Kang

Sheng's charge

that

in

1938 Chen Duxiu

took

money

from the

Japanese

as a

groundless

slander.5

One reason

for this new view of

Trotskyism

is that

Deng's government

has loosened

intellectual controls

more

generally

in

China and

encouraged

scholars to seek truth from

the

facts,

including

the truth

about

Party

history. But there is also a special reason why Deng and other returnees

in

the

leadership

are now

prepared

to

be

fair to

Chen Duxiu.

In

1938

Kang

Sheng, just

back from Moscow where

he

was

trained

by Wang Ming

and

the

NKVD,

wrote

alleging

that Chen was

in

the

pay

of

Japan,

and so

started the main

anti-Trotskyist campaign

in

China.

Kang

later switched

his

allegiance

to Mao and was the

Maoists'

chief

inquisitor during

the

Cultural Revolution. When

Kang

died

in

December 1975 he was

among

those most hated

by

Deng's group,

which

expelled

him

posthumously

from the

Party.

When the time came to

expose Kang's frame-ups,

consistency required that his first great frame-up (that of 1938) also be

exposed.

In the

new,

more liberal climate even Chen's

Trotskyism

is no

longer

entirely

taboo,

and

some

scholars can

now

consider it

objectively.6

Many

books and

articles

on Chen

have

been

published

in

China

in recent

years,

and

memoirs

by

Chinese

Trotskyists

have

appeared

in the

Chinese

press,

including

a

neibu

edition

of the memoirs

of

Wang

Fanxi,7

which is

greatly

admired

in some

Chinese academic circles.8

Many foreign

writings

sympathetic

to

Trotskyism

have

recently appeared

in

Chinese

trans-

lation.9

Still,

Chen's rehabilitation is

unlikely

ever to extend to his

Trotskyist

period;

for

that the

resistance

of senior

officials

is

too

great.

This

explains

the

cancelling

of the

planned

conference

on

Chen

Duxiu at

Anqing

in

1980-81

and the

non-appearance

of the

promised

Chen Duxiu

3.

Xiang

Qing,

Guanyu gongchanguoji

he

Zhongguo

wenti

( On

the Comintern

and

China ),

Xinhua

yuebao

(New

China

Monthly),

No. 4

(1980),

pp.

75-79.

4.

Wang

Fan-hsi,

Chinese

Revolutionary,

p.

122;

and Jin

Zhao,

Before and

after.

5.

Kang

Sheng,

Chanchu

Rikou zhentan

minzu

gongdide

Tuoluociji

feibang

( Root

out

the

Trotskyists,

who

are

spies

for

Japan

and

public

enemies

of

the

nation ), Jiefang

zhoukan(LiberationWeekly),Nos. 29 and 30 (28 Januaryand 8 February1938, respectively);

and Sun

Qiming,

Chen Duxiu

shifou

Hanjian

wentide tantao

( On

whether Chen Duxiu

was a

traitor ),

Anhui daxue xuebao

(Anhui

University

Journal),

No.

2,

1980.

6.

E.g.,

Jiang

Qi

and Shou

Shangwen,

Ruhe

quanmian

pingjia

Tuoluocijide

yisheng

( How

to

make

a rounded

assessment

of

Trotsky's

life ),

Shijie yanjiu

dongtai,

and

Jiang

Qi

and

Zhang

Yueming,

Tuoluosiji

'buduan

geming

lun'

pingxi

( Trotsky's

'theory

of

permanent

revolution' ),

ibid. No.

11

(1980);

both

reprinted

in

Shiyue pinglun

(October

Review) (Hong

Kong),

Nos.

8/9

(1983),

pp.

57-59

and 63-65.

7.

Wang

Fanxi,

Shuang

Shan

huiyilu

(Shang

Shan's Memoirs) (Xiandai

shiliao

biankan

she, 1980).

Outside

China,

Wang's

memoirs

have also

appeared

in

Japanese

and German.

8. Lee

Feigon,

book

review,

Theory

and

Society,

No. 2

(1983), pp.

259-65.

9.

Among

them:

Ernest

Mandel,

From Stalinism

to

Eurocommunism;

Pierre

Frank,

History of the FourthInternational; saac Deutscher, Stalin;and PerryAnderson, Considera-

tions

on Western

Marxism.



4/13

Two

Purged

Leaders

of

Early

Chinese Communism

yanjiu.'0 Trotskyism

remains a

suspect ideology

in

China,

and

was

handled

gingerly

even

by

dissidents like

Wang

Xizhe,

Chen Fu and

Shi

Huasheng who were attracted by its theses on socialist democracy.

In

the west too

literature

by

or

about

Chinese

Trotskyists

is

now

growing.

Two

recent

additions to

it

are

the

memoirs of

Peng

Shuzhi

(P'eng

Shu-tse)

and

Lee

Feigon's

book on

Chen

Duxiu.'2

Peng

and Chen were

closely

linked

in

both

the

Party

and the

opposition,

and shared

a

jail

in

the 1930s. But

in

jail

they quarrelled,13

and

they

differed

greatly

in

politics

and even

more

so

in

character.

Peng

Shuzhi was born into a small landlord

family

in

1895 and

died

in

American exile

in

1983,

shortly

after

his

book came out.

Publicly

his

death

was ignored in China, though Cankao xiaoxi printed an AFP despatch

on it.

L'Envol

du communisme

en

Chine,

published

in

co-operation

with

France's Centre National

de

la Recherche

Scientifique,

is the first

of

three

volumes

of memoirs

spoken by Peng

to his

daughter Cheng Yingxiang

and

her

husband Claude

Cadart,

checked

by

them

against

written

records,

and

put

into

polished

French. It describes his

childhood,

his

adolescence,

his

stay

in

Russia,

and

events

in

Party

history up

to 1925.

The

later

volumes

will

cover the

years

1925

to

1927,

and

the

story

of

the Chinese

Left

Opposition.

Peng

grew up

in an isolated

valley

in one of the

poorer

parts

of Hunan's

Wuling

Mountains,

made famous

by

the writer Shen

Congwen.

Through

lineage

ties

he

received

a

higher schooling

in

Changsha,

and at the

age

of

25

he

went

to

Moscow,

sponsored by

the friend of

a

friend. This

man,

an

influential

Hunan

radical,

was

(so

we are

told)

bowled over

by

the

astonishing young Peng. (Modesty

is

not

among Peng's qualities. My

memoirs,

he

says, represent

a contribution

of

exceptional

interest

...,

a

unique

contribution of its

sort

to

the

history

of

present-day

China.

..

. )

En

route to

Moscow

in

early

1921

Peng spent

several

weeks

among

Chinese Red

Beards

newly

recruited

to

the Soviet

Red

Army,

and tried to

teach them some

Marxism.

In

Moscow

began

a

life

of

study

and intense

political

engagement.

In

November

1923

Chiang

Kai-shek,

then

in

the

Soviet

capital,

threw a

party

for

Peng

and six other

Chinese.

Peng

writes

that the

Communist Shen

Xuanlu danced

portentously

over crossed

swords

and

Chiang

shouted

Long

live the

world

revolution,

long

live

the

Comintern. Seven

years

later,

all but

Peng

of

Chiang's

seven

guests

were

dead,

shot on

Chinese streets or in

Chiang's prisons.14

Peng's

role in

the

early

communist

movement

was

not

unimportant.

After his return from

Moscow

in

1924 he

became one

of its main

leaders

for a

while,

editing Xiangdao

and

Xin

qingnian.

Then,

in

1927,

he and

10.

Jin

Zhao,

Before

and after.

11.

See

Shiyue

pinglun,

Nos.

8/9 (1983),

pp.

54-56.

12.

Claude

Cadart

and

Cheng

Yingxiang,

Memoires de

Peng

Shuzhi. L'Envol du

communisme

en

Chine

(Paris:

Gallimard,

1983);

and

Lee

Feigon,

Chen Duxiu.

Founder

of

the

Chinese Communist

Party (Princeton:

Princeton

University

Press,

1983).

See also Le

Trotskysme

et la

Chine

des

ann6es

trente,

Cahiers Leon

Trotsky,

No. 15

(September

1983).

In

1982

and

1983

Vols. 3 and 1 of

Peng

Shuzhi,

Xuanji

(Selected

Works),

were

published

in

Hong

Kong

by

Shiyue

chubanshe.

13. Wang Fan-hsi, Chinese Revolutionary,p. 208.

14.

Memoires

de

Peng

Shuzhi,

pp.

338-39.

319



5/13

320

The China

Quarterly

Chen Duxiu

were made

Stalin's

scapegoats

for

the defeat of

the revolution

and,

after

they

went

over to

Trotsky

in

1929,

were

vilified as traitors.

In

time Peng's name was dropped entirely from Party histories, though

Chen's

was

kept

on

as a

handy

bugbear.

There are

various minor

errors

in

Peng's

book

-

Thalheimer is

confused

with

Thalmann,

Anti-Diihring

is

attributed to

Marx,

Yang

Hansheng

is

mistaken for

Yang

Xianzhen

-

that

are

apparently

mere

slips

of

memory

and can be

disregarded.

More

serious are the

several

issues on which

Peng's

testimony

clashes head-on

with that

of other

veterans.

Though

Peng's publisher

advertises him

as a

batisseur of the

CCP,15

it

was

only

in

Moscow

that he

joined

the

Party,

some time after

its First

Congress in China.

Peng

dismisses this

Congress

in which he took no

part

as of small

event,

claiming

that the main

work had

been done earlier

by

the

socialist and

communist

groups

with

which he himself

was linked. But

his role

even

in

these

groups

was minimal.

He did not

join

the Socialist

League

set

up by

He

Minfan

in

his

native Hunan but

proceeded

straight

to

Shanghai,

Moscow-bound. In

Shanghai,

like others in

the Russian-

language

class,

he

joined

the Socialist

League

in

mid

1920,

but was

only

a

nominal

member: he

spoke

no

Shanghainese

and

in

any

case would

soon

be off

abroad.

In Russia he was

among

the first few let into the

CCP's new Moscow

branch,

control

of which became a

prize

and the

object

of

scheming by

some

Chinese students.

He claims that

during

his

stay

in

Moscow he was

secretary

of

the CCP

group

there,

but this

claim is

questionable.

One

source

suggests

that

not

Peng

but Luo

Yinong

held this

important

post.16

Peng depicts

himself then as a wise

keeper

of

the

Party gate,

and

says

that

among

those he

sponsored

for

membership

were Liu

Shaoqi

and Ye

Ting,

two of the

Party's

later heroes. But

Peng's

fellow

student Xiao

Jingguang

recalls that Liu

joined

the

Party

in

the winter of

1921,

at the same time

as

Peng,

and

not

(as

Peng

claims)

with Ren

Bishi,

who

joined

in

1922.

Moreover,

we know from another source

that

Luo

Yinong

was

among

those who officiated over Liu

Shaoqi's zhuandang,

or transfer into

Party

membership. Zhuandang

required

two

sponsors

whose

recommendation

was then

put

before a branch

plenum.17 Probably

several

people

entered

the

Party

at

more or less the same

time,

sponsoring

one another

in

order

to meet formal

Party requirements,

and

Peng's

claim

to

glory

here is

dubious. As for Ye

Ting,

mainland sources record that he

only

went to

15. Peng's wife Chen Bilan even wrote that Peng joined the CCP in the autumn of 1920

(before

it was

founded).

See her introduction to

P'eng

Shu-tse,

The Chinese Communist

Party

in

Power,

ed.

by

Leslie Evans

(New

York: Monad

Press,

1980),

p.

16.

16.

Zheng

Chaolin,

Yiben

gei

ziji

tuzhimofende

huiyilu

( A

self-whitewashing

memoir ),

Pt

1,

Zhongbao

yuekan,

No.

4

(1984), pp.

47-48.

A

mainland source

says

that Liu

Shaoqi

was the first Moscow

ganshizhang

or executive chief

-

a

term

that it

equates

with

secretary

-

and that after Liu returned

to

China

in

1922,

responsibility

for the

Moscow

branch was

temporarily

taken over for a short

period by Peng

Shuzhi and

Luo

Yinong (Qin

Yanshi

et

al.,

Liu

Bojian,

in

Hu Hua

(ed.),

Zhonggong

dangshi

renwu zhuan

(Chinese

Communist

Party Biographies)(Xi'an:

Shaanxi renmin

chubanshe,

1982),

Vol.

4,

p.

263).

17. Xiao

Jingguang,

FuSu xuexi

qianhou

( Before

and

after

going

to the Soviet Union

to

study ),

in

Zhongguo

renmin

zhengzhi xieshangyi quanguo weiyuanhui,

wenshi

ziliao

yanjiu weiyuanhui (eds.), Gemingshi ziliao (Materials on the History of the Revolution),No.

3

(Beijing:

Wenshi

ziliao

chubanshe,

1981),

p.

14.



6/13

Two

Purged

Leaders

of

Early

Chinese Communism

Russia

in

the

autumn of 1924

(by

when

Peng

was

back in China

-

he left

in

July

1924)

and did not

join

the

Party

until 1925.18

But

according

to an

independent source,19Ye was already in Russia in the summer of 1924.

Still,

its

author

doubts

Peng's

claim

to

have

recruited Ye

into the

Party,

since recruitment

of

Kuomintang

members

usually

took some months.

Peng enjoyed

his

years

in

Moscow and

stayed

on

longer

than most

Chinese,

who

quickly rejoined

the

fight

at

home. The

longer

he

stayed,

the

more connections he

acquired. Peng

calls

these thin cow

years

that

required

a

special

sacrifice,

but his sacrifice cannot

compare

with

that

of

Communists like Liu

Shaoqi

who

went back

to

risk

their

skins

and

share

the

workers' hard life.

Peng

had

various

privileges

in

Moscow;

some he

renounced, others (including his salary) he kept. He says that the CCP's

right

turn in 1923

outraged

him,

but

going

back to correct

it

interested

him

less

at

first than

travelling

in

Germany

and

France,

which he was about to

do

when the

Party

called

him home

in

1924. He also claims that

he

and

others

in

Moscow

were so shocked

by

the

Party's

new line of

organic

collaboration

with the

Kuomintang

that

they pledged

unanimously

not

to

follow

it,

but this is

unlikely.

True,

sectarianism flourished

in the

hothouse

world of Moscow

student

politics,

and

many

an

apprentice

Party

boss must have balked at

the

thought

of

yielding

even

a

little

power

to outsiders. But working with or joining bourgeois parties was by then

such

a routine Comintern tactic

that the

proposal

can

hardly

have been

the

surprise

that

Peng

now

says

it was.

Besides,

there is no evidence that

any

decision

to

abandon

entry

was taken

at the

1925

Fourth

Congress,

though

Peng

calls this

Congress

a

victory

for

what

he claims was his

campaign

to

redefine

the

[Party's]

strategy

on bases

completely

inde-

pendent

of those of the

Kuomintang.

In

fact

the record

suggests

that

Peng's position

after the

Congress

was not as

he now

claims.

Far from

opposing

the

policy

of

entry,

he

argued

in

February

1925

that it was the

duty of workers to join the Kuomintang, for how else could they truly

lead the

national

revolutionary

movement? 20

After his arrival

in

Shanghai

in mid 1924

began

the

period

Peng

calls

straightening

out the

Party.

It

was doubtless this

chapter

that led

Peng's

publisher

to bill him

as the

theoretician-strategist

of the Second Chinese

18.

Liu

Shaoqi tongzhi

shengping

huodong

nianbiao,

1898-1969

(A

Chronicle

of

the

Activities

of

ComradeLiu

Shaoqi,

1898-1969)

(Zhongguo geming bowuguan,

April

1980), p.

1;

Xiao

Jingguang,

Yi

zaoqi

fuSu xuexi

shide

Shaoqi

tongzhi

( Memories

of

Comrade

Shaoqi's early study in the Soviet Union ), in HuainianLiu Shaoqi tongzhi(In commemora-

tion

of

Comrade

Liu

Shaoqi) (Changsha:

Hunan

renmin

chubanshe,

1980),

pp.

77-88;

Gao

Jun and Fan

Yinzheng,

Ren

Bishi,

Chinese

Communist

Party

Biographies,

Vol. 8

(1983),

p.

7;

Liu

Yiyu

and

Liu

Jingchun,

Luo

Yinong,

ibid.

p.

80;

Huang

Houheng,

Zhenjingchuxian

baixibunao

( Keep

calm in times

of

danger,

be

indomitable ),

in

Huiyi

Ye

Ting

(In

Memory

of

Ye

Ting) (Beijing:

Renmin

chubanshe,

1981),

p.

34 and Ye

Qinhe,

Fengyu

choumou

yu xiongying

( Amid

storms

to

raise

a

great

falcon ),

ibid.

p.

140;

and

Zhongshan

daxue

Ye

Ting

bianxie

zu,

Ye

Ting

(Shaoguan:

Guangdong

renmin

chubanshe,

1979), pp.

14-15.

19.

Quoted

by Wang

Fanxi in a letter to me.

20.

Peng

Shuzhi,

letter of 2

February

1925,

in

Zhongyang

dangshi

ziliao

zhengji

weiyuanhui, Zhongyang

dangshi yanjiuhui

(eds.), Zhonggong dangshi

ziliao

(Materials

on

Chinese CommunistParty History), Vol. 3 (Zhongyang dangxiao chubanshe); quoted in

Zheng

Chaolin,

Self-whitewashing,

Pt

1,

p.

49.

321



7/13

322

The China

Quarterly

Revolution.

At heart

Peng's

view of

Party

affairs

in

those

years

is

quite

simple.

He holds that

because of

the Stalin triumvirate's

meddling,

the

correct line of the Second Congress was overthrown and an opposite,

wrong

line was forced

on the

Party

at its

Hangzhou

Plenum and

its Third

Congress

of 1923

-

thanks to

which

it

became

mired

in

Menshevism. 21

Thus the

scene is set

for the

Bolshevik

Peng

to save the

Party

from

its

Menshevik

floundering.

The truth

is more

mundane. None

of the Chinese

Communists

of

the

time

knew much

Marxism,

and

most

faithfully

observed

the directives

of

the

Comintern,

to which

they

sincerely

looked

for

guidance.

In 1923 the

Comintern issued two

directives on

CCP-Kuomintang

relations.

The

first,

dated 12 January 1923, stressed the weakness of the workers' movement

and

thus the need

for

co-operation

between

the two

parties

(though

it

warned

against

liquidating

the

Party's political

and

organizational

independence).

The

second,

dated

May

1923,

said for

the

first time that

hegemony

in

the national

revolution

belongs properly

to the

workers'

party.22

Chen

Duxiu

wrote some

articles

in the

spirit

of the first

direc-

tive;

Peng,

in

Moscow,

got

the

corrected

line sooner

and

subsequently

conveyed

it to the

Party.

The

January

directive

calling

for

co-operation

with the

Kuomintang

did

not come out of the blue: the Dutch Communist Henk Sneevliet (Maring)

had recommended

a similar

policy

to the

Chinese

Communists

in 1922.

Negotiations

with

Sun

Yat-sen on

the issue

were carried

out

by

the

Soviet

diplomat

Adolph

Joffe.

Neither Sneevliet

nor

Joffe

were

Stalinists:

on

the

contrary,

Joffe

became

a

leading

Trotskyist

and

Sneevliet

an

oppositionist

and

at

one

point

an

ally

of

Trotsky

(though

the two

engaged

in

long

polemics

and

finally

broke).

Sneevliet

was

no creature of

the

Comintern

but

a

strong-willed,

independent-minded

revolutionary

and

an

early

leader

of

the left

wing

of

the

Indische

Sociaal-Democratische

Vereeniging

in the Netherlands Indies. In 1916 Sneevliet and his comrade Adolph

Baars

had

turned

their

attention

to

the nationalist Sarekat

Islam

and

influenced

many

of its

younger

leaders,

and

in

July

1920 Sneevliet

had

won

the

approval

of the

Second

Congress

of the

Comintern

for his

policy

of

co-operation

with Sarekat

Islam.

His views

on what

tactic to

pursue

in

China

can

best be

seen

as

a

projection

of

his

experience

with

Sarekat

Islam;

it is

far

too

simple

to attribute

the

line of collaboration

with

the

Kuomintang

to

Stalin's

Menshevism. 23

In

any

case,

the

Manifesto

of the Third

Congress

does

not

entirely

bear

21.

Les

Evans and

Russell

Block

(eds.),

Leon

Trotsky

on

China,

introduced

by

P'eng

Shu-tse

(New

York:

Monad

Press,

1976),

pp.

39-40.

22.

Zhongguo

shehui

kexueyuan

jindaishi

yanjiusuo

fanyishi

(eds.)

Gongchanguoji

youguan

Zhongguo

gemingde

wenxian

ziliao

(Documentary

Materials

of

the

Comintern

Relating

to

the Chinese

Revolution)

(Beijing:

Zhongguo

shehui

kexue

chubanshe, 1981),

pp.

76-77

and

78-79.

Liu

Qifa

and

Qian Feng,

Diyici

guogong

hezuode

celue

wenti

( On

the

tactics

of the

first

co-operation

between

the

Guomindang

and the Chinese

Communist

Party ),

Jiang

Han

luntan,

No.

4

(1981),

make

a

similar

connection

between

changes

in

Comintern

and

CCP

policy

in the

years

1924-25.

23. See

Harry

Albert

Poeze,

Tan

Malaka,

Strijder

voor

Indonesii's

Vrijheid.

Levensloop

van 1897 tot 1945, The Hague: B. V. de Nederlandsche Boek- en Steen-drukkerijv/h H. L.

Smits,

1976,

pp.

114-117,

for

details

of

Sneevliet's

activities

in Sarekat

Islam.



8/13

Two

Purged

Leaders of

Early

Chinese

Communism

out

Peng's

contention

that the

CCP had become Menshevik

because

of

the new

turn.

True,

it

allowed that the

Kuomintang

should be the

central

force of the national revolution and should assume its leadership, but

its main

point

is to criticize the

Kuomintang,

and it describes

the

CCP's

central

task as to lead the workers and

peasants

into

joining

the

national

revolution. 24

By

the time

Peng published

his

memoirs,

he was one of

perhaps

only

three survivors of the 1925 Fourth

Congress,

the others

being

Li

Weihan

and

Zheng

Chaolin.

Zheng

was

not

only

also

a

Trotskyist (though

within

Trotskyism

he and

Peng

were often at

odds)

but had

been

Peng's

fellow

student for a while

in

Moscow.

In

1952

Zheng disappeared

for

27

years

into a communist jail (having already spent seven years in a Kuomintang

one),

but since

his

release

in

1979

Chinese historians have

occasionally

consulted

him

about the

Party's early years.

In

1983

Zheng published

a

note25 that

puts

Peng's

role at the Fourth

Congress

in

a

different

light

and

throws doubt

on

Peng's

contention

that he

put

the

Party

back onto

the Bolshevik road

in

1925 and thus

preserved

it

for a

while from

Russian

meddling. Zheng's

note

suggests

that

the new line on

proletarian

hegemony,

far from

being Peng's personal

achievement,

was

a

Comintern instruction known to all Chinese students in

Moscow. The

Comintern,

shy

about

publicly

manipulating

its Chinese section,

got

the

CCP's Moscow branch

to

sponsor

the new

line,

which

Peng

was

chosen

to

represent

in

China. Even

so,

at the

Fourth

Congress

it

was not

Peng

but

Voitinski who

drafted

the

key

resolution on it.26

Zheng's theory

is

supported

by

a recent

study

which

shows that

the

CCP,

with

Voitinski's

help,

took the

first

step

toward

raising

its own

banner as

early

as

May

1924

-

while

Peng

was still in

Russia.27

In

June 1981

Zheng

Chaolin

discussed this and

other

points

in a

private

letter to

a friend

that

came into

Peng's

hands.

Peng replied

at

length

to

Zheng's

criticisms, and on 8

February

1982

Zheng

answered,

whereupon

the

exchange

ended. In

early

1984

Peng's

rebuttal,

and

part

of

Zheng's

counter-rebuttal,

were

published

in

Hong Kong.28

Peng's

contribution

dwells at

length

on

Zheng's charge

that

Voitinski

was the

true

source of

the new

proletarian

line,

for

if

Zheng

was

right

on

this

point,

much of

Peng's

claim to

glory

would

evaporate.

To

support

his

case,

Peng flatly

denies that Voitinski

even

attended the Fourth

Congress,

let

alone

wrote

24.

Conrad

Brandt,

B. Schwartz and

J. K.

Fairbank

(eds.),

A

Documentary

History

of

Chinese Communism New York: Atheneum, 1967), pp. 71-72.

25.

Zheng

Chaolin,

Guanyu

Muluhuosika

(Mlokhoska)

dimingde

shuoming ( On

the

place-name

Mlokhoska ),

Dangshi

yanjiu

ziliao

(Research

Materials

on

Party

History),

No.

3

(1983).

See also

Zheng

Chaolin,

Self-whitewashing,

Pt

1,

p.

50.

26.

Li

Weihan

interviewed in

Beijing

ribao

(Beijing

Daily),

14

July

1980;

according

to

Fu

Shangwen,

Zhonggong

'Sida'

tichu

wuchanjieji

ingdaoquan

wenti

tantao

( On

the

raising

of

the

issue

of

proletarian

hegemony

at the

Fourth

Congress

of

the

Chinese

Communist

Party ),

Lishi

jiaoxue,

No.

12

(1983),

Peng

participated

in

drafting

the

Congress

resolution

(quoted

in

Zhen

Yan,

Dui

ruogan

zhengyixing

lishi

wentide

tantao

( On

some

historical

controversies ),

unpublished

manuscript).

27.

Liu

Qifa

and

Qian

Feng,

On the

tactics.

28.

Peng

Shuzhi,

Dui

Zheng

Chaolin

xugou

gushide

jielu

( Exposing

Zheng

Chaolin's

fantastic stories ) and Zheng Chaolin, Peng Shuzhi biyanxiashuo ( Peng Shuzhi's blind

ramblings ),

Zhongbao

yuekan,

No.

1

(1984), pp.

62-71.

323



9/13


10/13

Two

Purged

Leaders of

Early

Chinese

Communism

while

teaching

at a

Party university

one

hot

day

in

1921,

and

cocking

a

snook at

his

outraged

boss.

Peng's

aim

is

to

show

Mao in a

bad

light;

readers will judge for themselves whether he achieves it.

The

Trotskyist Zheng

Chaolin

has

called

Peng

a

Wang

Ming

before

Wang Ming, 34

and

the

analogy

is

apt, though

it

should not be stretched

too far. Like

Wang, Peng

started his

communist career not

in

China but

in

Moscow,

where

apparently

he

and

Luo

Yinong

were the

only

Chinese

members of

the Russian

Party;

when

he

returned to China

in

1924

he drew

great

strength

from this

Russian

link,

just

as

Wang Ming

did

in

the

1930s. Of the students who went back around the

same

time

as

Peng,

many

stepped

into

leading posts

in the

Party's

national

and

provincial

bodies, just like Wang Ming's Returned Students (the Twenty-eight

Bolsheviks )

in

1930.

The

Comintern,

said

Zheng

Chaolin,

.

appointed

Peng

Shuzhi

our

leader,

and

gave

us a

theory

and a

line

to take

back.35 Just

as

Wang

was

co-opted

straight

onto the

Politburo

in

1930

without ever

having

faced

election,

so

Peng

shot

straight

into the

leadership

in

1924.

If

Wang

was

the

protege

of

Mif,

Peng

too had

his

patron

in

the

person

of

Grigori

Voitinski,

who

planted

him

in

Shanghai

to

push

through

the

Comintern's

directive.

Given

Wang Ming's

Moscow

training,

his

specialities naturally

in-

cluded

anti-Trotskyism, though

back in China this issue had little

resonance or

relevance.

Even here the likeness

holds,

if

only just: though

Peng

in time

became

a

Trotskyist, Zheng

Chaolin

recalls that when at the

Fourth

Congress

Voitinski

proposed

a denunciation of

the Russian Left

Opposition,

in

a

quiet

hall,

it was

Peng

who rose to second

it.36

Peng

denies

this

story

and even denies

that

any

such resolution was

put

to the

Congress.

But the text of a

Fourth

Congress

resolution

denouncing

Trotskyism

was

published

in

a

recent

Party

series,37

and another series

carries

the

text

of

a

letter

dated 2

February

1925

to the

CCP's Moscow

branch

listing among Congress

items A

Report

on

the International

Communist Movement

by

the

Representative

of the

ECCI and a

Report

on

Leninism and

Trotskyism.

The author of

this letter was ...

Peng

Shuzhi.38

Wang Ming's

best-known

speciality

was

Bolshevization :

the

im-

position

on the

Party

of iron

discipline,

extreme

centralism,

and

unconditional obedience of

the

sort that

Wang

drank

in

at the

Comintern.

Peng

too was

this

kind of

Bolshevizer.

Indeed,

Bolshevization

34.

Zheng

Chaolin,

Self-whitewashing,

Pt

1,

p.

49

and

Wang

Fanxi,

Shuang

Shan

huiyilu

(Shuang

Shan's

Memoirs)

(Hong

Kong:

Zhouji

hang,

1977),

p.

266.

35.

Zheng

Chaolin,

Self-whitewashing,

Pt

1,

p.

50.

36.

Zheng

Chaolin,

Peng

Shuzhi,

p.

70. See also

Zheng

Chaolin,

Self-whitewashing,

Pt 2. The resolution on

Trotskyism

is

also

noted

in

Zhongguo geming

bowuguan dangshi

chenlie

yanjiubu,

Zhonggong

dangshi

zhuyao shijianjianjie

(Important

Events

in the

History of

the

Chinese Communist

Party)

(Chengdu:

Sichuan renmin

chubanshe,

1982),

p.

62.

37.

Zhongguo jiefangjun zhengzhi

xueyuan shijiao yanshi

(eds.),

Zhonggong

dangshi

cankao

ziliao

(Reference

Materials

on

the

History

of

the

Chinese

Communist

Party),

Vol.

3,

p.

180.

38.

Zhongyang dangshi

ziliao

zhengji

weiyuanhui,

Zhongyang dangshi

yanjiuhui

(eds.),

Zhonggong dangshi ziliao (Materials on Chinese Communist Party History), Vol. 3

(Zhongyang

dangxiao

chubanshe).

325



11/13

326

The

China

Quarterly

reached China in not

one

wave but

two:

in

1925 with

Peng,

and

again

in

1930

with

Wang. According

to Cai

Hesen,

it

was

Peng

who

brought

the

regime of bureaucratic centralism to the Party; according to Zhang

Guotao,

Wang

Ming simply

carried on where

Peng

left

off.39

Still,

as

a

revolutionary Peng

was

braver,

more

independent

and

more

principled

than

Wang.

As Moscow's

man,

his rise

in

China

stopped

short

of

general secretary,

unlike

Wang,

who was the

Party's highest-flying

helicopter

ever. And as a

Party

chief,

Peng's

backer

Voitinski was less

arbitrary,

inflexible and autocratic than

Mif.

Moreover,

though

in

1924

the Comintern

was

already

in

the habit

of

infiltrating

its

supporters

into

the

leadership

of national

parties,

its

tactic was to

supplement

and

not

yet

to

supplant

national leaders, and it was not yet wholly converted into a

machine

for

forcing

Moscow's views on the world communist

movement.

It

is

no

surprise

that

Peng,

often

the victim

of

gross

slanders,

put

so

much

vituperative energy

into

writing

himself back

into the

history

from

which

he was

wrongfully

struck out.

He was well

placed

to enrich our

understanding

of the

Party's

early

years.

But his obsession

with

magnify-

ing

his

own

role

and

belittling

that

of

others

stands between

him and

the

truth often

enough

to make

his

record

of these events worthless

in

parts

and

everywhere

dubious.

It is

necessary

to

say

this

because memoirs

by

veterans of

Peng's

generation

are

exceedingly

rare,

and

Peng's

will be

widely

read and

quoted.

Already

scholars

writing

in

French

publications

of

various

political persuasions

have

praised

Peng's

book as a valuable

resource,

apparently

without

noting

its flaws.40

Lee

Feigon's

book,

the

first full

study

of

Chen

Duxiu,

is one

of the few

works

to

analyse

his

Trotskyist

writings,

and

a

sturdy

though by

no

means

uncritical defence

of

him.

Feigon's great

merit

is to

methodically strip

away

the

layers

of

right

and

left-wing political prejudice

that have

gathered

around Chen.

The

man thus

bared

is

of

quite

another

cut than

Peng:

bolder,

less

rigid,

more

open-minded,

and more

given

to self-

criticism

and self-doubt.

Feigon's

book

is

primarily

intellectual

history

but

displays

a keen

sociological

sense of how

material

and ideal interests

combine

to set the course

of

politics,

and

usefully

scotches some

well-worn

myths

about Chen:

that

he

once

visted

France;

that he

ignored

the

peasantry ;

that he

became

a

Trotskyist only

as

a

desperate

reaction

to his

expulsion

from

the

Party;

and that

he was

merely

a westernized

in-

tellectual.

Feigon

subjects

to

telling

criticism

the thesis

that Chen

was an un-

thinking believer

in western solutions

to

China's

problems.

That a

person

of Chen's

towering presence,

immense breadth

and indelible

influence

lacked

roots

in China's culture

is

indeed

implausible,

and

Feigon

shows

that

Chen

was first and foremost

a Chinese

patriot

for

whom

democracy

was

a

way

of

restoring

life

and

strength

to the Chinese

people.

Torn

39.

Cai

Hesen,

Jihuizhuyi

shi

( A history

of

opportunism ),

reprinted

in

Gongfei

huoguo

shiliao huibian

(Historical

Materials

on the Communist

Bandits'

Ruining

of

China),

4 Vols.

(Taibei, 1961),

Vol.

1,

pp.

604-605;

and

Zhang

Guotao,

'Wode

huiyi (My

Memoirs),

3

Vols.

(Hong

Kong:

Mingbao

yuekan

chubanshe,

1973),

Vol.

2,

pp.

408-410.

40. See Jie

Ya,

'Gongchanzhuyi

zai

Zhongguode

faren'

-

Faguo

baokan

dui

Peng

Shuzhihuiyiludepingjia ( 'Communism takes off in China' - Reviews in French periodicals

of

Peng

Shuzhi's

memoirs ), Shiyue

pinglun,

No.

1

(1984),

pp.

44-45.



12/13

327

between

tradition and the

wish for radical

change,

Chen was

a

complex

character

whose

private

and

public

selves were often at odds. This

fiery

revolutionary was a scholar of Buddhism, Sanskrit and the etymology of

Chinese

characters. This

scourge

of the

Chinese

family

wrote

beautiful

calligraphy

for his ancestral

temple.

This

feminist had

sex with several

hundred

prostitutes

and lived

openly

with his

sister-in-law while

getting

his wife

pregnant.

Of the

many epithets

Chen

attracted,

the

one he liked

best was

an

oppositionist

for life

to

any

established

authority. 41

Another view is that

he

was

communism's first

great

dissident,

and

in

this

there

is

much truth.

For Chen

as

for

today's

generation

of

April

Fifth,

pure democracy

was

an indispensable part of the socialist society, and at the end of his life it

was to this his intellectual first

love that he returned.42It is

easy

to see

why

interest

in

Chen soared

among

scholars emboldened

by

the

post-Mao

talk

of the need for

democracy

in

China.

Democracy

ran a

poor

course in

the Chinese

revolution,

and even

anti-

Stalinists like

Peng

Shuzhi were not free

from Bolshevik

contempt

for

it. But Chen

Duxiu,

having

found traditional

strategies

for

social

change

wanting,

fixed once

for

all

on

socialism with

democracy

as the

appropriate

remedy

for

China's ills.

Feigon

shows

that

though

Chen

got

his

in-

spiration

for the

Party

from the Bolsheviks, his idea of it was

quite

different from

theirs. He believed

(like

Lunacharski)

that

revolution is the

work

of

saints,

and

opposed

creating

a

strong

Party

chief.

He

even

let

non-Marxists and anarchists

join

the

Party.

Different

points

of

view

vied

rather

freely

under his

leadership,

and

though

the

outcome of this

contest

was settled

largely

in

Moscow,

it

was some time

before the

CCP was

transformed

wholly along

Russian

lines.43

Though

Peng

and

others

brought

authoritarian

habits into the

Party,

it was

not until

1927,

when

Chen was

sacked as

Party

leader,

that these

habits

became

general.

Feigon's

book is

painstakingly

researched,

though

a

few small errors

have

crept

into it.

Yi

Ding

is the

pen-name

not of

Wang

Fanxi but of Lou

Guohua;

the

photograph

of

Chen Duxiu in

traditional

garb

was

taken

not at

Beijing University

in

the

late 1910s but

in

the

spring

of

1937;

and the author

occasionally misspells

Chinese

words.

Feigon's

main

fault is that

he

sometimes

pushes

a

good

idea

too

far.

Though

it

may

be true that

Chen

Duxiu was

rooted

in

a

tradition

of

elite

dissent,

Feigon's

claim

that

the

Trotskyists

stayed

in

the cities

after 1927

because

they

were

unequipped by

outlook or

breeding

to

organize

the

peasants

is

doubtful.

If

outlook

and

breeding

decided

strategy,

few

Communists

of

any stripe

would

have

gone

into

the

villages,

and few

Trotskyists

would

have

gone

into

factories or

city

slums.

Also

unconvincing

are

the

theses that

the

aggression

of

Mao's Cultural

Revolution

was

in

part

inspired by

Chen's cultural

iconoclasm,

and that

41.

Wang

Fanxi,

Chen

Duxiu,

Father

of Chinese

Communism in

Gregor

Benton

(ed.),

Wild

Lilies.

Poisonous Weeds.

Dissident Voices

from

People's

China

(London:

Pluto

Press,

1982),

p.

167.

42.

Ibid.

pp.

157-67.

43. On this point, see also Mao Zedong sixiang wansui(Long Live Mao Zedong Thought)

(1969),

p.

160.



13/13

328

The China

Quarterly

the CCP's

obscurantist

political

vocabulary may

be

rooted

in

Chen's

use of a

special language

. . .

to communicate

political

and social

concerns among ... the elite. May Fourth can be more plausibly linked

to the

post-Mao

cultural

reconstruction;

and the obvious

source of the

CCP's ruinous

jargon

is Soviet

Marxism.

Now that

the

black-out

on Chinese

Trotskyism

has been

partly

lifted,

we see a

complex, original political

movement

in

some

ways scarcely

less

diverse

than the

Party

from which it

sprang.

Until

recently

it

was

only

outside

China

that studies on

Chinese

Trotskyism

could be

published;

now Chinese scholars too are

making

their contribution to our

knowledge

of it.

Apart

from the intrinsic interest of this movement as a failed

experiment in urban revolution in the land of peasant revolution, its

importance

for scholars is

that it shared both

personnel

and concerns with

the official

Party.

The

biographical history

of Chinese Communism

cannot

stop

short of its

Trotskyist

offshoot,

as Chinese historians are now

starting

to

see.

Moreover,

the

study

of

Chinese

Trotskyism

will throw

light

from

many

interesting

new

angles

on familiar

questions

of the

Chinese revolution.

GREGORBENTON

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Gregor Benton, Two Purged Leaders of Early Chinese Communism (Peng Shuzhi and Chen Duxiu)

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