The first thing to say is that in China, at the beginning of the proletarian revolution, many people, including Stalin, were not optimistic about the Chinese Communist Party, but they were even more optimistic about the Chinese Kuomintang.
Many people, including early CCP leaders such as Chen Duxiu, had a huge question at the beginning: Can the Chinese Communist Party seize power? Can China's Red Regime Exist? Why does it exist?
Stalin was not optimistic about the Chinese Communist Party, so who was he optimistic about? He was first optimistic about Wu Peifu. Because although Wu Peifu was a Beiyang warlord, he also made a revolutionary gesture, and he put forward the idea of eradicating imperialism and many other revolutions.
Later, Stalin was optimistic about the Kuomintang. At that time, the Kuomintang was a friendly party of the Third International, and when the Third International held its congress, the representative sent by China to the congress was Chiang Kai-shek.
Stalin believed that Chiang Kai-shek was the Jacobin of the Chinese revolution and the Robespierre of the Chinese revolution. Later, it was discovered that his judgment of Chiang Kai-shek had been wrong.
Sun Yat-sen was also not optimistic about the Chinese Communist Party. He believes that the Chinese Communist Party cannot become a big deal. It's an interesting thing.
Sun Yat-sen was born in 1866 and Mao Zedong was born in 1893. Sun is 27 years older than Mao.
Mao Zedong at the founding ceremony
Mao Zedong knew Sun Yat-sen when he was 18 years old. It was 1911, he was admitted to the Xiangxiang Provincial Middle School in Changsha, and for the first time in his life, he saw a newspaper, which was the "Minli Bao" edited by Yu You, which published a message: The Guangzhou Uprising failed, and the 72 martyrs of Huanghuagang bravely rebelled. After seeing this news, Mao Zedong was so excited that he wrote an article and posted it on the wall of the school, in which he published his first political opinion: recall Sun Yat-sen from Japan to become the president of the new government, with Kang Youwei as premier and Liang Qichao as foreign minister.
Both Kang and Liang were Mao's idols, and many of Liang Qichao's articles Mao Zedong could recite. The extent of Sun Yat-sen's influence on Mao Zedong is evident here.
Sun Yat-sen knew that Mao Zedong was 13 years later. It was in 1924 that Sun Yat-sen wanted to reorganize the Kuomintang and to change the organizational system of the Kuomintang in its entirety. He reformulated the party constitution in accordance with the Soviet model of party building, convened the first national congress, and put forward the three major policies of "uniting with Russia, uniting with the Communist Party, and supporting peasants and workers." At the Kuomintang Congress, Communists joined the Kuomintang in their personal capacity, and two of them were young Communists who impressed the elders of the Kuomintang, one named Mao Zedong and the other named Li Lisan. Sun Yat-sen admired Mao Zedong and personally nominated him to be elected as a member of the Kuomintang Constitution Review Committee and an alternate executive member of the Kuomintang Central Committee. Wang Jingwei, the executive committee member of the Kuomintang Central Committee, also admired Mao Zedong and nominated Mao Zedong to serve as the kuomintang propaganda minister, who was concurrently held by himself, as acting propaganda director. At that time, the salary was 120 oceans per month, which was equivalent to the salary of a university professor. Unfortunately, the Kuomintang's funds were also very tight, Mao Zedong was a "provincial and ministerial cadre", and he was often owed wages, and Mao Zedong's family often spent their days in debt, and their lives were quite poor.
Sun Yat-sen
What was the condition of Chiang Kai-shek at that time? Chiang Kai-shek's status was very low at the time. On January 20, 1924, the First National Congress of the Kuomintang opened in Guangzhou, attended by 165 delegates and 6 members of the Provisional Central Executive Committee of the Kuomintang. The delegates took their seats on the opposite seat, and on the 39th seat sat Hunan deputy Mao Zedong. Chiang Kai-shek also sat in the venue. He was not a delegate, but an observer.
Sun Yat-sen's admiration for Mao Zedong does not mean that he agrees with the Communist Party's ideas. From the beginning, Sun Yat-sen did not believe at all that the Red regime could exist in China. Sun Yat-sen signed a declaration with the Russian ambassador to China in 1923. This Russian ambassador was called Yuefei. The name of this declaration is the "Sun Wenyue Fei Joint Declaration". The first clause of the manifesto is that Dr. Sun Believes that the communist order, and even the Soviet system, cannot actually be introduced into China, because there are no conditions for the successful establishment of communism or the Soviet system here. Yue Feijun fully agreed with this view and further believed that the most important and urgent issue in China at present is the realization of national reunification and full national independence.
At that time, YueFei was both the Russian ambassador to China and the representative of the Comintern in China. Both believed that there were no conditions for the establishment of Soviet power in China.
Why didn't Sun Yat-sen believe it? Half out of belief in the Three People's Principles, half out of concern about the newly formed Chinese Communist Party at the time. He was worried that the young people in the Communist Party were very energetic and very driven, and that if there was the support of Soviet Russia, there would be unpredictable consequences and an impact on the implementation of the Three People's Principles in China. He was reluctant from heart to get Soviet Russia to support the Communist Party. In the end, it is more considerable of partisan interests.
The Soviet Union also did not want to support the Communist Party, but also out of their own national interests. Here's an episode. In April 1920, a Russian named Vyshinsky came to China, who was also a representative of the Communist International. His mission in China was to help form the Chinese Communist Party. Before coming, the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Russia instructed him: Our general policy in the Far East is based on the conflict of interests of Japan, the United States and China, and we must take all means to aggravate this conflict. To put it bluntly, he came to help form the Communist Party of China in order to organize a diversionary force to prevent imperialist aggression against the Soviet Union or to endanger the interests of the Soviet Union and to ensure the security of the Soviet Union's Far Eastern borders, so it was necessary to find a political force in China that could form an alliance with the Soviet Union. The focus of its preparedness is on Japan.
Stalin
The Soviet Union also had a layer of interest considerations, mainly the Middle East Railway. In the Sino-Japanese War, the Great Qing Dynasty was defeated, and Japan invaded and seized a large number of interests in China, becoming the main threat to China. The Qing government thought of a trick: to use yi to control yi. The introduction of Russians to balance the Japanese. Li Hongzhang signed the Sino-Russian Secret Treaty with Russia, according to which the Russians built a railway from Russia to Suifenhe to Dalian. Through this railway, the Russians also gained a lot of benefits.
After the October Revolution in Russia, the emerging Soviet government renounced all rights seized in China through unequal treaties, including the Middle East Railway. But it did not actually fulfill. Especially after Stalin came to power, from the perspective of national interests, he did not want to abandon the Middle East railway.
So the Soviet government thought of taking a remedy, that is, to reach another agreement through the Chinese authorities to maintain the status quo of the Middle East railway. The first person Stalin thought of was Wu Peifu, but Wu Peifu had a cold attitude. Yue Fei also wrote a letter to Wu Peifu, in which he said: General Wu has left a particularly good impression on Moscow and proposes further close cooperation between the two sides. Although this Wu Peifu was a big warlord, he was not ambiguous in his national interests and did not relax on the middle east railway issue and the Outer Mongolia issue. Yue Fei touched a nose of ash before deciding to go south to contact Sun Yat-sen and press the north to the south. In exchange for Sun Yat-sen's trust and commitment to the Middle East Railway and the Outer Mongolia Issue, there was the Sun Wenyue Flying Joint Declaration.
It can be seen that whether Yue Fei or Vyshinsky came to China to help the Kuomintang or the Communist Party, they all played the Chinese revolution as a card to safeguard the interests of Soviet Russia.
With the above background in mind, it is not difficult to understand articles 3 and 4 of the Declaration: The two sides believe that the Middle East railway dispute should be resolved in an understanding manner and the current railway management law should be resolved with the actual interests and rights of both sides; the Soviet Russia stated that it had no intention of separating Outer Mongolia from China, and Sun Yat-sen said that the Soviet Red Army did not have to withdraw from Outer Mongolia at once.
Sun Yat-sen's greatest concern is the first one. This is a concession from Yue Fei. Yue Fei's main interest is in the third and fourth articles, which are Sun Yat-sen's concessions. Each side makes a concession and takes what it needs.
Don't underestimate this Declaration. This is a very important document. Without this document, there would have been no kuomintang transformation, kuomintang-communist cooperation, and the three major policies of "united Russia and the communist party to help peasants and workers," and there would have been no establishment of the Whampoa Military Academy and the Northern Expedition.
Through this "Declaration", Sun Yat-sen stipulated that the direction of the Chinese revolution was a bourgeois democratic revolution; it was also through this "Declaration" that the Soviet Union shifted the focus of its work from the center of the world revolution to the center of Soviet interests. The Soviet Union achieved the idea of exchanging communist ideology (support for the Kuomintang, not support for the development of communism in China) in exchange for national interests. Sun Yat-sen also exchanged the Soviet Russia's promise of not supporting the development of communism in China in exchange for protecting Soviet Interests in China. Although this interest is not justified.
It is clear at this point that Sun Yat-sen did not believe that the Red regime could exist in China, nor did Stalin believe that the Chinese Communists could seize power in China.
Stalin's quote is always quoted to confirm his support for the Chinese Communist Party. This sentence says: "Armed revolution against armed counter-revolution is one of the characteristics of the Chinese revolution and one of the advantages of the Chinese revolution."
In fact, this sentence was said to the Chinese Kuomintang. It was in 1926, and the Communists did not yet control any of the armed forces. Armed revolution refers to the Northern Expedition under Chiang Kai-shek. He also said this sentence inspired by a Kuomintang man. This Kuomintang member was named Shao Lizi. Spoke on November 30, 1926. The Communist International held its seventh meeting in Moscow, attended by Shao Lizi, the sympathetic party of the Communist International, the Chinese Nationalist Party, and was invited to speak at the congress. Shao Lizi was very excited, shouted into the microphone: "Under the leadership of the Communist International, we will certainly accomplish our historical tasks", and then said a very important sentence: "We firmly believe that without armament, there can be no victory of the revolution, and the situation in China has particularly proved this experience." ”
This sentence touched Stalin. On the same day, Stalin attended the meeting of the Chinese Committee of the International Executive Committee and delivered a speech entitled "On the Future of the Chinese Revolution", and he was inspired by Shao Lizi to say the following sentence: "In China, it is the armed revolution that opposes the armed counter-revolution. This is one of the characteristics and advantages of the Chinese revolution. This is also the special significance of the Chinese revolutionary army. ”
Got it? The "armed revolution" that Stalin spoke of was the Kuomintang's Northern Expedition, not the Workers' and Peasants' Red Army. The "armed counter-revolution" was not the Kuomintang, but the Beiyang warlords. Not a single word speaks of the Chinese Communist Party.
But this does not prevent us Communists from taking Stalin's words as the theoretical basis for the armed seizure of power.
Deep in Stalin's heart, he always placed the hope of the success of the Chinese revolution on the Kuomintang and Chiang Kai-shek. He identified Chiang Kai-shek as the Jacobins of the Chinese revolution. He envisioned that Robespierre of China would lead China's gradual transition to socialism.
Stalin believed that the Chinese Communist Party was weak and could only remain within the Kuomintang, otherwise it could not exist independently.
What is not known is that Stalin also sent a photograph of himself signed to Chiang Kai-shek. He regretted it for a long time.
Sun Yat-sen did not believe it, Stalin did not believe it, but later the notorious Trotsky believed that the Red regime in China could exist. History is so delicate.
Trotsky's revolutionary qualifications were very old. The leader of the Soviet Revolution was Trotsky, not "one of the leaders." At the time of the October Revolution in Russia, Trotsky was chairman of the Military Commission of the Petersburg Revolutionary Committee, and his position was very high. After the October Revolution, he served as the People's Commissar of the Army and Navy and the Chairman of the Revolutionary Military Commission, and was known as the "Father of the Red Army". Trotsky eventually had major disagreements with Stalin and split off from the Third International to engage in the Fourth International.
Trotsky
Trotsky was the first to warn of Chiang Kai-shek's counter-revolutionary features, saying that Chiang Kai-shek was a "Bonapartist figure." Bonaparte of the French Revolution was a French emperor who appropriated the fruits of the Revolution for himself and engaged in dictatorship. This view is very wise and ahead of its time, and in this matter it is much wiser than Stalin's.
When Chiang Kai-shek visited the Soviet Union, he very much wanted to visit Trotsky, but Trotsky always avoided seeing him. Later, I couldn't do it, so I met. When Chiang saw Trotsky, he was very excited and said a whole bunch of words about how great the revolution in the Far East was, full of very left revolutionary rhetoric. After listening patiently, Trotsky solemnly admonished Chiang Kai-shek: "If you do not grasp the economy, politics, popular propaganda, army, and conquest by force, there will be great problems in the future, and you will follow the old path of warlords." A scoop of cold water was poured down, and Chiang Kai-shek turned back discouraged.
Chiang Kai-shek
No matter how many big mistakes Trotsky made, he was very accurate in looking at people. After Chiang Kai-shek betrayed the revolution, he also proposed to be wary of Wang Jingwei in Wuhan.
But Trotsky was not accurate in the stage of the Chinese revolution, and he believed that the Chinese revolution did not have the stage of democratic revolution and should enter socialism directly, otherwise it would not succeed. This is the limit of his history.
Trotsky particularly underestimated the role of the peasantry in the Chinese revolution, taking the view that only the rise of the workers' movement could bring about the rise of the peasant movement; at the low ebb of the revolutionary movement of the urban proletariat, the Red regime could not exist in the backward countryside.
Is this view familiar to that of our Party leaders? At least after Chen Duxiu left the party, he admired Trotsky to the ground.
Chen Duxiu
Trotsky opposed the first democratic revolution in China, denied the united front, denied the revolutionary nature of the peasantry and the role of the rural base areas. He did not believe at all that the Chinese Communists could seize power by relying on the rural base areas.
At first Trotsky was right, but later when Stalin gradually corrected his mistakes and changed his views on the Chinese revolution, Trotsky went against him. He sees only the counter-revolution very precisely, but he looks very closely at the real revolution.
Sun Yat-sen, Stalin, and Trotsky all believed that the Red regime in China could not exist independently, still less could it win victory.
Only Mao Zedong shi answered this question with astonishing, and so to speak, genius.
In October 1928, a year after leading the Autumn Harvest Uprising troops to Jinggangshan, Mao Zedong wrote "Why China's Red Regime Can Exist". This is a very weighty article, and it is also very convincing. He profoundly revealed the answers to these questions: Why is there a great possibility of revolution in China? Why is it possible to do it? Why did it succeed?
Mao Zedong analyzed five reasons:
First, in the economically backward semi-colonial China indirectly ruled by imperialism, there has always been a long period of division and war between the white regimes, and this situation has created a condition in which a small or several small red areas under the leadership of the Communist Party can take place and persist in the midst of the encirclement of the white regime.
The second is that in these small areas they have been influenced by the democratic revolution, have had revolutionary organizations and experiences, such as the broad trade unions and peasant associations, waged economic and political struggles, created the division of the peasantry, and have had the Red Army trained in the revolution.
Third, the revolutionary situation throughout the country is developing continuously.
The fourth is the existence of a formal Red Army of considerable strength.
Fifth, the communist party organization has the strength and policies to be infallible.
Such a profound analysis, at that time in China, Mao Zedong was the only one in the country, he was a lonely and advanced wise man. It took a long process, painful repetition and countless bloody sacrifices to make more people accept this theory and judgment. It is conceivable that if the media propaganda at that time had been as developed as it is now, could Mao Zedong's theory have been rapidly popularized, and would the Chinese revolution have been able to take a fewer detours? History cannot make us make such assumptions; it has its own logic of development.
What is historical self-awareness? The first is a clear understanding and grasp of the law, followed by the active creation and opening up of prospects. Perhaps Mao Zedong was a "historical self-conscious" of China's independence at that time.
It is in this sense that we can say that China produced a Mao Zedong. Deng Xiaoping said: "Without Chairman Mao, at least we Chinese people will have to grope in the dark for a longer time." "This is not a praise, but a historical truth.