Read a Mao anthology a day: Why did the Red Regime in China exist in 817? — Reading

Why did China's Red regime exist?

(October 5, 1928)

This was part of a resolution written by Mao Zedong for the Second Congress of the Communist Party of China on the Border between Xianggan and Gansu, originally entitled "Political Issues and the Tasks of the Border Party."

A domestic political situation

At present, the rule of the new warlords of the Kuomintang is still the rule of the urban comprador class and the rural gentry class, surrendering to imperialism externally, replacing the old warlords with new warlords at home, and the economic exploitation and political oppression of the workers' and peasants' class are even more severe than before. From the bourgeois-democratic revolution in Guangdong to the usurpation of leadership by the comprador gentry class halfway through the road and the immediate turn to the counter-revolutionary road, the workers, peasants, and civilians throughout the country, as well as the bourgeoisie, remain under the rule of the counter-revolution and have not been liberated in the slightest political and economic way.

The new Kuomintang warlord Jiang Guifeng Yan's four factions, before they were laid in Beijing and Tianjin, had a temporary unity with Zhang Zuolin. After the fall of Beijing and Tianjin, this unity was immediately dissolved and became a situation of fierce struggle within the four factions, and the two factions of Jiang Gui were brewing a war. The contradictions and struggles of the various warlord factions in China reflect the contradictions and struggles of the imperialist countries. Therefore, as long as the situation of imperialism dividing China exists in various countries, the warlords of all factions cannot compromise under any circumstances, and all compromises are temporary. Today's temporary compromise, that is, brewing tomorrow's bigger war.

China desperately needs a bourgeois-democratic revolution, which can only be completed under the leadership of the proletariat. The revolution of 1926 to 1927, which developed from Guangdong to the Yangtze River, was seized by the comprador gentry class because the proletariat did not resolutely exercise its leadership, replacing the revolution with counter-revolution. The bourgeois-democratic revolution suffered a temporary defeat. The Chinese proletariat and peasantry suffered a great blow in this defeat, as did the Chinese bourgeoisie (the non-comprador gentry). But in recent months, organized urban strikes and rural uprisings by the workers' and peasants' class under the leadership of the Communist Party have developed throughout the north and south. Soldiers in the warlord army were brewing with great uneasiness due to hunger and cold. At the same time, at the instigation of Wang Jingwei and Chen Gongbo, the bourgeoisie also developed a considerable reformist movement in various parts of the coastal areas and along the river. The development of this movement is a new fact.

The content of the democratic revolution in China, in accordance with the instructions of the International and the Central Committee, includes the overthrow of imperialism and its instrumental warlords in China, the completion of the national revolution, and the implementation of the agrarian revolution, the abolition of the feudal exploitation of the peasants by the gentry class. This actual revolutionary movement, after the Jinan massacre in May 1928, was developing day by day.

II. Reasons for the Occurrence and Existence of the Red Regime in China

Within a country, in the encirclement of the white regime, there is a small or several small areas of the red regime that have existed for a long time, which has never been done in the countries of the world. This miracle happens for a unique reason. And its existence and development must also have considerable conditions.

First, it cannot occur in any imperialist country or in any colony directly ruled by imperialism, but must be in economically backward and semi-colonial China, which is indirectly ruled by imperialism. For this strange phenomenon must be accompanied by another strange phenomenon, that is, the war between the white regimes. Since the first year of the Republic of China, the old and new warlords of all factions supported by imperialism and the domestic comprador gentry class have been engaged in continuous wars against each other, which is one of the characteristics of semi-colonial China. Not only does not a single country in the imperialist countries of the whole world have this phenomenon, but even in the colonies under the direct rule of imperialism, there is no such phenomenon, and only in countries such as China, which is indirectly ruled by imperialism. This phenomenon arises for two reasons, namely, the local agrarian economy (not a unified capitalist economy) and the imperialist policy of dividing the spheres of influence into separate and exploitative forces. Because of the protracted divisions and wars between the white regimes, conditions were given for a small or several small areas of red under the leadership of the Communist Party to take place and persist in the middle of the encirclement of the white regime. The division of the Border between Xianggan and Gansu is a small piece in the middle of these many small pieces. In times of difficulty and crisis, some comrades often doubt the existence of such a red regime and become pessimistic. This is the reason why it is not found out that this red regime so occurred and existed correctly. We only need to know that the divisions and wars of the white regime in China are continuing, then there is no doubt that the red regime has occurred, existed, and is developing day by day.

Second, the place where the Red regime in China first occurred and could exist for a long time was not the place that had not been affected by the democratic revolution, such as Sichuan, Guizhou, Yunnan and the northern provinces, but the place where the masses of workers, peasants, and soldiers rose up greatly in the course of the bourgeois democratic revolutions of 1926 and 1927, such as Hunan, Guangdong, Hubei, Jiangxi and other provinces. In many parts of these provinces there have been extensive trade unions and peasant associations, and there have been many economic and political struggles of the workers and peasants against the landlords and gentry and the bourgeoisie. Therefore, Guangzhou produced three days of urban people's power, and Hailufeng, Xiangdong, Xiangnan, Xianggan border, Hubei Huang'an and other places have been divided by peasants. As for the Red Army at the present moment, it is also divided from the National Revolutionary Army, which has undergone democratic political training and the influence of the workers and peasants. Those armies that have not undergone democratic political training and have not received the influence of workers and peasants, such as the armies of Yan Xishan and Zhang Zuolin, must not at this time differentiate into elements that can create the Red Army.

Thirdly, the long-term existence of popular power in small localities depends on the condition of the development of the revolutionary situation throughout the country. If the situation of the national revolution is advancing, the long-term existence of small red areas is not only without doubt, but necessarily necessarily as one of the many forces that have gained power over the whole country. The long-term existence of small red areas would not have been possible if the revolutionary situation in the whole country had not continued to move forward and there had been a relatively long pause. The present situation of the Chinese revolution continues to develop in accordance with the continuing division and war between the domestic comprador gentry and the international bourgeoisie. Therefore, not only is there no doubt about the long-term existence of small red areas, but these red areas will continue to develop and are getting closer and closer to the acquisition of national power.

Fourthly, the existence of a formal Red Army of considerable strength is a necessary condition for the existence of a Red regime. If there were only local Red Guards and no formal Red Army, they could only deal with door-to-door regiments, not formal White armies. Therefore, although there are very good masses of workers and peasants, without formal arming of considerable strength, it is absolutely impossible to create a situation of division, still less can it create a long-term and increasingly developing situation of division. Therefore, the idea of "armed division of the workers and peasants" is an important idea that the Communist Party and the masses of workers and peasants in the areas must fully possess. Fifth, in addition to the above conditions for the long-term existence and development of the Red regime, there must be an important condition, that is, the strength of the Communist Party organization and the infallibility of its policies.

The division of the Xianggan border and the defeat in August

Divisions and wars among warlords weakened the white regime's dominance. Thus, the small local red regime was able to emerge at the right time. But wars between warlords are not non-stop. Whenever there is a temporary stability of the white power between a province or provinces, the ruling class of that province or the ruling class of several provinces must unite with all their strength to eliminate the red power. Where the conditions necessary for the establishment and maintenance of a Red regime are not yet complete, there is a danger of being overthrown by the enemy. This is true of the fact that many red regimes that arose before April of this year, such as Guangzhou, Hailufeng, the Xianggan border, Shonan, Liling, and Huang'an, were successively destroyed by the white regime. After April, when the border between Xianggan and Gansu was divided, at a time when the ruling forces in the south were temporarily stabilized, the troops sent by the two provinces of Xianggan and Gansu to "attack and suppress" had more than eight or nine regiments at any time, and as many as eighteen regiments. However, we have been fighting the enemy for four months with less than four regiments of troops, expanding the areas we have divided day by day, deepening the agrarian revolution day by day, spreading the organization of popular power day by day, and growing stronger day by day with the Red Army and the Red Guards, because the policy of the Communist Party (the local party and the army party) on the border of Xianggan and Gansu is correct. At that time, the policy of the Party's Special Committee and the Central Military Commission was: to resolutely struggle against the enemy, create political power in the middle of the Luoxiao Mountains, and oppose desertionism; to go deep into the agrarian revolution in the divided areas; the army party to help the development of the local party, and the regular army to help the development of the local armed forces; to concentrate the Red Army camera to deal with the current enemy, to oppose the division of troops, and to avoid being broken by the enemy; and to expand the areas to adopt a wave-like policy of advancement and to oppose the policy of adventurous advance. Because of the appropriateness of these tactics and the favorable terrain for the struggle, the offensive armies of the two provinces of Xianggan and Gansu were not identical, and there were various victories in the four months from April to July. Although we are several times larger than our enemies, not only can we not destroy this division, but we cannot prevent the expansion of this division, and the influence of this division on the two provinces of Xianggan and Gansu is increasing day by day. The defeat in August was entirely due to the fact that some comrades did not understand that it was the time when the ruling class was temporarily stable, but instead adopted the strategy of the political rupture of the ruling class, and divided the troops and ventured forward, resulting in the defeat of the border and Shonan. Comrade Du Xiujing, a deputy of the Hunan Provincial CPC Committee, did not perceive the environment at that time, disregarded the resolutions of the joint meeting of the Special Committee, the Central Military Commission, and the Yongxin County CPC Committee, and only formally carried out the orders of the Hunan Provincial CPC Committee and echoed the opinion that the Twenty-ninth Regiment of the Red Army evaded the struggle and wanted to return to his hometown. This situation of failure was saved by the steps taken by the Special Committee and the Central Military Commission to correct mistakes after September.

Iv. The situation of the division of the border between Xiang and Gansu occupies the position of the three provinces of Xiang'e and Gansu

The significance of the armed division of workers and peasants on the border of Xianggan and Gansu centered on Ninggang is by no means limited to a few border counties, and this division is of great significance in the process of the workers' and peasants' rebellion in the three provinces of Xiang'e, Hubei and Gansu seizing power in the three provinces. So that the influence of the border agrarian revolution and the people's power extends far beyond the lower reaches of the two provinces and even in Hubei; so that the Red Army can increase its number and quality day by day from the struggle, and be able to carry out its necessary mission in the general insurrection in the three provinces in the future; so that the number and quality of the local armed forces in the counties, namely the Red Guards and the workers' and peasants' insurrection units, can be increased and improved, and at this time they can fight against door-to-door regiments and small troops, and can preserve border power in the future; so that local workers can gradually reduce their dependence on the help of the working personnel in the Red Army and be able to stand on their own feet completely independently. The use of border personnel as the work of the border can further supply the red army with the working personnel and the personnel who expand the divided areas -- these are the extremely important tasks of the border party in the development of the uprising in the three provinces of Xiang' E, Hubei and Gansu.

V. Economic issues

Surrounded on all sides by the white forces, the lack of daily necessities and cash for the military and civilians became a great problem. For the past year, the areas divided by the border regime have been very scarce and expensive at all times because of the enemy's tight seals, and daily necessities such as salt, cloth, and medicinal materials have aroused uneasiness in the lives of the workers, peasants, petty-bourgeois masses, and the masses of soldiers of the Red Army, sometimes to the extreme. The Red Army wants to fight a war on the one hand, and on the other hand it has to raise salaries. Every day, in addition to the five cents of food, they feel deficient, undernourished, sick, and even more miserable in hospital wounded soldiers. This difficulty is of course inevitable until the general power of the whole country has been acquired, but it is urgently necessary for the comparative solution of this difficulty to make life a little better, especially if the red army's supplies make it more sufficient. If the Border Party fails to have an appropriate solution to the economic problem, it will encounter great difficulties in dividing up the territory under conditions that there is still a relatively long period of stability in the enemy's forces. The considerable solution of this economic problem deserves the attention of every Party member.

VI. The question of military base areas

Another task of the Border Party is the consolidation of the two military bases of Wujing and Jiulong. The Wujing Mountains, which border the four counties of Yongxin, Ninggang, and Suichuan, and the JiulongShan District at the junction of the four counties of Yongxin, Ninggang, Chaling, and Lianhua, are two places with superior terrain, especially the five wells of the big and small areas that are supported by the people and have extremely dangerous terrain, which are not only important military base areas at this time on the border, but will also remain important military base areas in the future of the development of the uprisings in the three provinces of Xiang'e, E, and Gansu. The methods of consolidating this base area are: first, the construction of complete fortifications; second, the stockpiling of sufficient grain; and third, the construction of better Red Army hospitals. Doing these three things well is what the Border Party should strive for.

【Notes】

[1] Mao Zedong here refers to the national bourgeoisie. In his December 1935 treatise On tactics against Japanese Imperialism and December 1939's The Chinese Revolution and the Communist Party of China, Mao Zedong gave a detailed explanation of the difference between the comprador big bourgeoisie and the national bourgeoisie.

[2] The Chiang faction refers to the Chiang Kai-shek faction. The Gui faction refers to the Guangxi warlords Li Zongren and Bai Chongxi. Feng Pai refers to the Feng Yuxiang Faction. The Yan faction refers to the Shanxi warlord Yan Xishan faction. They fought jointly against Zhang Zuolin, capturing Beijing and Tianjin in June 1928.

[3] Zhang Zuolin (1875-1928), a native of Haicheng, Liaoning, was the leader of the Feng clan warlords. After Wu Peifu was defeated in the Second Zhifeng War in 1924, Zhang Zuolin became one of the most powerful warlords in the north. In 1926, he joined forces with Wu Peifu to enter Beijing. In June 1928, he returned from Beijing to the northeast and was killed on the way by the Japanese imperialists who had always used him as a tool.

[4] After the Jinan Massacre in May 1928 and Chiang Kai-shek's open compromise with Japan, some of the national bourgeoisie that had followed Chiang Kai-shek to participate in the counter-revolutionary coup of 1927 began to gradually form the opposition of Chiang Kai-shek's regime because of their own interests, and they were not satisfied with the counter-revolutionary rule of the big landlords and big bourgeoisie of Chiang Kai-shek's regime, and also opposed the people's democratic revolution led by the proletariat. They launched a reformist movement, fantasizing about finding another path conducive to the development of Chinese capitalism in addition to the two paths of revolution and counter-revolution. At that time, politicians such as Wang Jingwei and Chen Gongbo, who were vying for power and profit with Chiang Kai-shek, carried out speculative activities in this movement and formed the so-called "reorganization faction" in the Kuomintang.

[5] In 1928, Chiang Kai-shek, with the support of British and American imperialism, went north to attack Zhang Zuolin. In order to prevent the Development of Anglo-American forces to the north, Japanese imperialism sent troops to Shandong, invaded and occupied Jinan, Qingdao and Jiaoji Roads, and cut off the Jinpu Railway. On May 3, the Japanese invading army carried out a massacre in Jinan, killing thousands of Chinese soldiers and civilians in the past ten days before and after this. The massacre became known as the "Jinan Massacre."

[6] The Red regime in China is organizationally identical to the Soviet power in the Soviet Union. The Soviets, the Council of Deputies, is a political system created by the Russian working class during the 1905 Revolution. Lenin, on the basis of Marxist principles, drew the following conclusion from the experience of the Paris Commune and the Russian Revolution of 1905 that the Soviets were the best form of organization of the revolutionary government of the workers and peasants, the most appropriate form of state power in the transitional period from capitalism to socialism. The October Socialist Revolution in Russia in 1917, under the leadership of the Bolshevik Party, established for the first time a socialist Soviet republic under the dictatorship of the proletariat in the world. In China, after the defeat of the revolution in 1927, the People's Revolutionary Uprisings of the People in Various Places led by the Communist Party of China, represented by Mao Zedong, were organized by the Congress as the organizational form of the workers' and peasants' power. However, at this time the Chinese revolution was still in the stage of the democratic revolution, and the nature of this political power, which was the anti-imperialist and anti-feudal dictatorship of the workers and peasants under the leadership of the proletariat, was different from the nature of the dictatorship of the proletariat in the Soviet Union.

[7] During the Second World War, many colonies in the East, which originally belonged to the imperialist rule of Britain, the United States, France and the Netherlands, were occupied by the Japanese imperialists, where the workers, peasants, urban petty-bourgeois masses and national bourgeois elements, under the leadership of the Communist Party, took advantage of the contradictions between British, American, French and Dutch imperialism and Japanese imperialism to organize a broad united front against fascist aggression, establish anti-Japanese base areas, and wage an arduous anti-Japanese guerrilla war. The political situation before the Second World War has begun to change. At the end of the Second World War, Japanese imperialism was expelled, and the British, American, French, and Dutch imperialists tried to continue their colonial rule, but the colonial peoples had already tempered a fairly powerful armed force in the War of Resistance Against Japan, and they were unwilling to live as usual; and because of the strength of the Soviet Union, because all imperialist countries except the United States were overthrown or weakened in the war, and even more because of the victory of the Chinese revolution, the imperialist front was broken in China. Thus the whole imperialist system has been greatly shaken in the world. In this way, it will be possible for the people of the colonies in the East, at least some of them, to be in the same way as China to persist for a long time in revolutionary base areas and revolutionary regimes of different sizes, to persist for a long time in a revolutionary war in which the countryside surrounds the cities, and thus to gradually advance to the victory of the cities and the whole territory of the colonies. In the light of this new situation, Mao's observations on this question under colonial conditions under direct imperialist rule in 1928 have changed.

[8] This refers to the counterattack against the counter-revolutionary forces that initially broke out by the people in various localities under the leadership of the Communist Party after Chiang Kai-shek and Wang Jingwei successively rebelled against the revolution in 1927. In Guangzhou, on December 11, 1927, workers and revolutionary soldiers, with the cooperation of a part of the peasants on the outskirts of the city, revolted to establish people's power that lasted for three days. The peasants of Haifeng, Lufeng and other places on the eastern coast of Guangdong Province held uprisings in May and September 1927, and all of them established revolutionary regimes; the revolutionary regimes established in the uprisings held in October of that year persisted until March 1928. In the eastern part of Hunan Province, in September 1927, the rebellious peasants occupied the areas of Liuyang, Pingjiang, Liling and Zhuzhou, and the peasants of Liling established a rural revolutionary regime in February and March 1928. The rebellious peasants of Huang'an (present-day Hong'an) and Macheng in northeastern Hubei Province occupied the county seat of Huang'an in November 1927 and established a revolutionary regime for more than 20 days. In southern Hunan Province, in January 1928, the rebellious peasants in Yizhang, Chenxian, Leiyang, Yongxing, Zixing and other counties established a revolutionary regime for three months. For the revolutionary struggle on the border of Xianggan and Gansu, see this volume of The Struggle at Jinggangshan.

[9] The Red Guards are armed organizations of the masses in the revolutionary base areas and are not separated from production.

[10] See note [16] of the Report on the Investigation of the Peasant Movement in Hunan in this volume.

[11] The Luoxiao Mountains are large mountain ranges on the border of Jiangxi and Hunan Provinces, and Jinggang Mountain is located in the middle of the Luoxiao Mountains.

[12] In April 1928, the army led by Mao Zedong and the army led by Zhu De met at Jinggangshan and merged into the Fourth Army of the Workers' and Peasants' Revolutionary Army (renamed the Fourth Army of the Red Army in June). In April and May, the Fourth Army defeated the second and third "advances" of the Kuomintang army in Jiangxi at Wudou River in Suichuan, At Caoshi Pass in Yongxin, and Yongxincheng. On June 23, the Red Fourth Army defeated the fourth "advance" of the enemy army in Jiangxi in the qixiling and Longyuankou areas at the junction of Ninggang and Yongxin. After suffering many defeats, the Kuomintang troops in Jiangxi united with the Kuomintang reactionaries in Hunan and mobilized the strength of four divisions to launch the first "meeting suppression" against Jinggangshan. In July, the enemy troops who "will suppress" successively invaded and occupied the counties of Ninggang, Yongxin, and Lianhua. The Red Fourth Army attacked the enemy army in Hunan with the strength of two regiments, and dealt with the enemy army in Jiangxi with the strength of one regiment, and at the same time mobilized the broad masses to surround and attack the enemy everywhere. As a result, the enemy forces in Hunan retreated to Chaling in a hurry, and the enemy forces in Jiangxi were also besieged in the Yongxin area.

[13] Mao Zedong's reference here to the petty bourgeoisie refers to craftsmen other than peasants, small businessmen, various freelancers and intellectuals of petty-bourgeois origin. This social component in China is mainly in the towns, but also in the countryside. See this volume, "Analysis of the Classes of Chinese Society," and the second volume of this book, "The Chinese Revolution and the Chinese Communist Party."

[14] The Big and Small Wujing Mountains refer to the Jinggang Mountains between the four counties of Yongxin, Ninggang, Suichuan in the western part of Jiangxi and The four counties of Shuxian In the eastern part of Hunan, and there are large wells, small wells, upper wells, middle wells, and lower wells on the Jinggang Mountains.