VIII—
The Gun and the Peasants

The Battle of One Hundred Regiments did not bring down a cabinet as did the fall of Dienbienphu, nor did it pave the way for withdrawal of the occupation army as did the Tet Offensive. Its impact on Chung-king was uncertain. Still less do we know of its effect on the relationship between Yenan and Moscow. But as far as the Japanese forces were concerned, the offensive produced results which were the opposite of those intended by the Communist high command. The most intense and brutal phase of pacification got under way in the winter of 1940, reached its peak in the first half of 1941, and lasted through the early part of 1943. This was therefore the most difficult period of the war for the CCP. However, the difficulty was tactical, not strategic as in the summer of 1940. The survival of Communist power as such was not at stake. On the contrary, the united front—based on the absence of peace between China and Japan—was rapidly fortified as the world powers realigned themselves along the Axis vs. anti-Axis line in 1941. Germany invaded Soviet Russia in June. The last round of talks between Washington and Tokyo to avoid a conflict ended in a deadlock. Between the Japanese scheme of "southward advance" into southeast Asia to capture the sources of oil, and the American demand that Japan restore the status quo, not of 1937, but virtually of 1931 in China (in the "Hull Note" of November), there was no room for compromise. The United States became an important element in the international scaffolding around the united front.

However, in the context of this study it must be stressed that the "China Incident" was not sufficient by itself to induce the United States to intervene.^[1] America intervened only when it began to view

[1] See Iriye Akira, Across the Pacific: An Inner History of American-East Asian Re -lations (New York: Harcourt, Brace and World, Inc., 1967), pp. 216–222, for the best statement of this judgment.

the China war as a part of the global conflict. In Washington's war plans, Asia took second place to Europe. But that did not matter for the united front, because the Kuomintang came to lean more and more on American support, real or imagined. Then the attack on Pearl Harbor insured that Japan would be defeated by powers other than China sooner or later. Prospects for the protracted war—the precondition for Communist victory over both Japan and the Kuomintang—was excellent. Two major tasks remained for the CCP. One was to prevent the United States from using its new influence in China on behalf of the Kuomintang in the domestic strife. The other was to preserve its own forces and rural bases against the battering assault of the Japanese forces.

In this chapter, I will review the tactical aspects of the war between the Chinese Communist and the Japanese forces in 1941 and 1942. I will arrive at a conclusion about the nature of the Chinese Communist movement as a peasant guerrilla movement, its strength as well as its weakness. The rather diverse inquiry will be directed at the central question: was the support of peasant masses the most decisive factor behind Communist power? It will be shown that the conditions of strategic stalemate, in which the Kuomintang and the Japanese forces were tied down with each other, had important tactical consequences: the availability of wide space which the Japanese army could not hold. Of equal importance was the prowess and tactical excellence of the Communist regular forces which prevented Japanese penetration into the more mountainous bases. The importance of military power as a precondition for political power in China will be demonstrated through two negative examples: the difficulties encountered by the Communist forces in holding the bases in Hopei against the Japanese and in north Kiangsu against native opposition. The power of the peasant masses as such will be shown to be highly ambiguous in reality. At the end, I will re-evaluate the nature of "peasant power" by locating its source in the "semi-feudal" aspect of China.

Even before the strike on Pearl Harbor, the conflict with the United States began to take priority for Japan's military resources, and the China war was subordinated to it. Occupied China became a logistic and military base and a link to Southeast Asia. Japan acquired an interest in holding it quite independent of the original cause of the war. Its policy became openly predatory. An indefinite occupation for exploitation of natural resources and self-sufficiency of the occupation forces became Japan's goal.

In January, 1941, the Army General Staff decided that Japan should hold the then existing line in China with 500,000 troops after the fall of 1941.^[2] The China Expeditionary Forces admitted that security in north China was by far the worst.^[3] North China was singled out as the area to be consolidated in 1941. At that time, the distribution of Japanese forces in China was as follows:^[4]

The distribution of troops per unit of area was as follows:^[5]

Again it was decided to use the forces currently on hand to go all out against the major enemy concentration in north China before the reduction. The twenty-six divisions under Wei Li-huang's command were regarded as a major obstacle in the way of effective pacification in southern Shansi against the Communist forces. An offensive in the Changsha area was also planned. These moves were intended to stem the resurgence of optimism in Chungking as the Anglo–American powers increased their commitment to its side.^[6]

When the central forces in southern Shansi were chosen as a target of attack in early 1941, the wisdom of the plan came under criticism in the North China Area Army's command. The intelligence division maintained that Wei Li-huang's forces were by and large stationary and did not represent a threat to the security of the area. Would it not be better to leave them intact so as to check the Communist forces? The advocates of the campaign conceded that the Communist forces were indeed the major problem. But even so, the Japanese forces could not entirely disregard the presence of twenty-six regular divisions and conduct dispersed anti-guerrilla operations in the adjacent area. Besides, it was maintained, the three Japanese divisions tied down in the holding action against the Kuomintang forces would be freed for anti-Communist war once the former was expelled from southern

[2] Imperial Army General Staff , No. 2, pp. 209–210; Pacification War , No. 1, pp. 453–454.

[3] Ibid. , p. 452.

[4] Ibid .

[5] Ibid. , p. 462.

[6] Ibid .

Shansi. This debate typified the recurrent tactical dilemma which faced the Japanese forces in China. The decision to go ahead with the campaign was upheld in part because of the intended psychological impact on Chungking.^[7]

Preparations for the Chugen^[*] Campaign (the Battle of Chungt'iaoshan) were started in March in extreme secrecy. The surprise was sprung on May 7 with a pincer attack from Honan and the western T'aihang range by six divisions and three brigades. When it was over in the middle of June, the campaign turned out to be one of the most successful in the entire war for the Japanese side. The central forces were annihilated from the area north of the Yellow River.^[8] But the consequences of the campaign were problematical from the Japanese standpoint. On several occasions the Communist forces were seen attacking the fleeing Kuomintang forces or moving into the vacuum created by their retreat.^[9] The most tangible disadvantage created by the campaign for the Communist side was that Yen Hsi-shan, who had shown little interest in active resistance for some time, finally decided that it was futile. In September, he entered into an armistice agreement with the North China Area Army.^[10]

"Darkness before Dawn"

As the Battle of Chungt'iaoshan ended, an important staff conference was held by the North China Area Army to formulate a program for anti-Communist pacification. It was not for this conference to question the feasibility of the anti-Communist war. Its role was strictly instrumental to the over-all strategic design of Japan. Still, in the light of the experiences with the Communist forces in the first three years of the war, some fundamental questions were raised. Could an alien army win over the minds of the Chinese people? Could it enlist the natives in the task of eradicating the Communist forces which were born of China's soil? The intelligence division was impressed by the formidable staying power of the Communist forces. "Our mopping-up operations against the Battle of One Hundred Regiments only managed to scatter the Chinese Communist forces," it maintained, "without accomplishing their destruction. They came to nothing."^[11] No solution was forthcoming. The Japanese forces had only one advantage: "Our superiority is in our military power, their [the Communists'] short-

[7] Ibid. , p. 473.

[8] Ibid. , p. 472.

[9] Ibid. , pp. 476–477. Chungking and Yenan engaged in a propaganda war at the time over the loss of southern Shansi.

[10] See below, pp. 287–288.

[11] Pacification War , No. 1, p. 529.

coming is that their military power is not yet fully built up."^[12] The conference concluded that the Area Army should go all out with a program of long-range armed suppression. It was to be supplemented by mobilization of native cooperation and improved intelligence gathering.^[13]

The staff conference ended formally with a highly optimistic Three Year Plan. This was based on statistical data concerning the degree of Japanese "penetration" into hsien governments. (See Table 12.) It was the judgment of the conference that as of July, 1941, both Japanese and Communist sides had firm control of 10 percent of the occupied area; of the remainder, 60 percent was considered to be a semi-pacified zone in which the Japanese had an upper hand.^[14] The Three Year Plan envisaged that the degree of security attained in Manchuria would be reproduced in north China by the end of 1943. Security of pacified zones was entrusted to Chinese administration while the Japanese forces were to move into the semi-pacified zone in order to convert it into a pacified zone.

In March, 1941, General Hata Shunroku was appointed commander of the China Expeditionary Forces, and in July, General Okamura Yasuji assumed the command of the North China Area Army. The pacification war in north China entered its final stage. The North China Political Affairs Commission proclaimed the second of the so-called "security strengthening campaigns" for two months starting on July 7.^[15] At the same time the so-called "Seigo" (ch'ing-hsiang or "clearing the village") program was initiated in the Shanghai–Nanking–Hangchow delta. One hundred twenty kilometers of high-tension wire was strung around four hsien around Soochow (Ch'angshu, T'aits'ang, Wu, and K'unshan), and a hunt for Communist- and Chungking-affiliated guerrillas was begun by ten battalions of Japanese forces and 18,000 of the Nanking government's forces. By the end of July, 11,000 defectors were reported.^[16]

By far the greatest energy was expended in construction of blockading trenches, either empty or filled with water to make a navigable

[12] Ibid .

[13] Intelligence operations improved considerably after the Battle of One Hundred Regiments. Secret codes of both the Kuomintang and the CCP were broken. With better intelligence, military operations were refined. The so-called t'i-chüeh (pick and uproot) work became common. This meant that a specific target such as a headquarters unit would be pursued.

[14] Ibid. , p. 532.

[15] The first "security strengthening campaign" was in March–April, 1941; the third in November–December, 1941; the fourth in March–May, 1942; and the fifth in October–November, 1942.

[16] Joho^[*] , No. 52, October 15, 1941, pp. 12–16.

Table 12 Japanese Penetration of Hsien Governments in the Occupied Area June 1941*   *Pacification War , No. 1, p. 532. The figures for informer village, pao-chia village, and tax-paying villages in Shantung, Shansi, and Honan, are based on incomplete data. ** There were twenty-five hsien in Hopei, twenty in Shantung, eight in Shansi, five in Honan, two in Su-pei for a total of sity.

canal. The biggest one constructed after the Battle of One Hundred Regiments was the trench running for 500 kilometers along the western side of the Peiping–Hankow railway and separating the Central Hopei and Chi-Lu-Yü Districts from the Peiyüeh and the Chin-Chi-Yü Districts in the T'aihang range. It was guarded by watch towers and constant patrol. The belt of area immediately to the west of the blockade line was the "no man's land." The inhabitants were forcibly removed eastward, and everything that remained was destroyed. The main line was reinforced by shorter lines parallel to it on the western side. In one year, after May, 1941, the shorter line advanced twice by 50 to 100 li into the hills.^[17] Dispersion of Japanese forces on the plain was very thorough. Central and southern Hopei were assigned to the experienced 110th Division. How intense the pacification efforts in Hopei were was indicated by the increase of Japanese outposts and roads connecting them, as reported by the Communist side. The total number of outposts manned by the Japanese side in southern Hopei, exclusive of sentry points on the railways, were:

Also in southern Hopei, 32,000 li of walls and ditches were constructed, in addition to some 9,000 li of new highways, by April of 1942. On the average there was one outpost for every fourteen villages after April, 1942, and in some places one for every three. Construction of walled outposts, ditches, and roads depended on the use of enforced labor. The manning of a good number of outposts also depended on native security troops. Occupation in the plains of north China was clearly going beyond the "points and lines."^[19]

Pacification by means of prolonged occupation was called ts'an-shih ("silk worm eating"), and it was distinguished from the so-called mopping-up. The Japanese maintained constant patrol and met the slightest disturbance with instant and tireless reaction, if only to reassure the informers that the Japanese Army was behind them even though many of these tip-offs were ruses. Otherwise, the Japanese troops observed the comings and goings of Communist agents from the

[17] Growth of one revolutionary base , p. 63.

[18] Ibid .

[19] According to Japanese records, 11,860 kilometers of blockade line and 7,700 fortified posts were built by 1942. Pacification War , No. 2, p. 207.

outposts in the midst of rural areas. They patiently waited until a certain percentage of membership in an underground organization was uncovered before going out to arrest them.^[20] Under such conditions, grain collection and recruitment into the Communist party and the army from three-fifths of southern Hopei came to an end.^[21] The rest of the area paid taxes to both sides with the permission of the CCP. The CCP's membership declined from 40,000 to 21,000 in 1942, while the regular forces of 20,000 were reduced by half. The loss of Party–mass organization–government cadres of ch'ü level or above and military cadres of company level or above was 4,500.^[22]

The Communist bases in the T'aihang range to the west of Hopei were the object of the largest Japanese assault of the "sweep and destroy" type. There lay the Peiyüeh District of the Chin-Ch'a-Chi Border Region (the First through the Fifth Military Sub-districts) and the Chin-Chi-Yü District (which included the T'aihang and the T'aiyüeh Districts) of the Chin-Chi-Lu-Yü Border Region. Contemporary Japanese news releases stated that the Chin-Ch'a-Chi base was "the cancer of north China's security."^[23] The North China Area Army carried out large operations against the Peiyüeh District in the fall of 1939 and 1940. Under the new commander the third campaign was carried out in the fall of 1941.

Whereas the previous campaigns were conducted by one or two armies, the 1941 and 1942 campaigns were directly commanded by the Area Army and used all available forces in the command.^[24] Careful planning based on improved intelligence and large-scale preparations preceded both operations. The 1941 campaign was activated by the order of July 9 and proceeded in two stages. The first stage was from August 14 to September 4, the second from September 4 to October 15. The Japanese forces were divided into blockading and assault units. The units of the First Army, the Mongolian Garrison Army, the 110th Division, and the 21st Division were used for blockading an area stretching for 300 kilometers from west of Peiping to Niangtzukuan and 100 kilometers wide, an area roughly equivalent to Taiwan. Combat units of the assault party consisted of one division, one brigade, one infantry regiment, and a battalion, all of which were outfitted with support units for prolonged independent operations. Since the blockading party advanced into the interior of the Peiyüeh District and engaged in aggressive pursuit, the distinction between

[20] Ibid. , No. 1, p. 527.

[21] Growth of one revolutionary base, p. 84.

[22] Ibid. , p. 85.

[23] Pacification War , No. 1, p. 556.

[24] See Ibid. , pp. 539–565, for the details of this campaign.

blockading and assault parties did not really exist. The Communist side reported that it was attacked by a force totalling 100,000.^[25]

At this time, according to Japanese estimate, the Peiyüeh District under Nieh Jung-chen's command had 30,000 regulars in five military sub-districts.^[26] Each 6,000-man group was a brigade, having graduated from the detachment status by early 1940. In central Hopei, Lü Cheng-ts'ao commanded 13,700 men (including the Hui People's Detachment) in five military sub-districts (the sixth through the tenth). The P'inghsi District of the Chi-Je-Liao (Hopei–Jehol–Liaoning) District had been built up after the initial attempt by Sung Shih-lun failed in the fall of 1938. Hsiao K'e, the vice commander of the 120th Division, had organized five regiments, presumably understrength.

As the campaign commenced the Japanese forces built two additional blockading lines on the northeastern and southwestern end of the Peiyüeh District. The former, a highway connecting Yihsien and Laiyüan through very treacherous mountains, was designed to cut off the Peiyüeh District from the P'inghsi District to the north. The second one, stretching east and west through Niangtzukuan along the Chengting–Taiyuan railway, cut off the Peiyüeh District from the T'aihang District. One of the three attack units secured the Yihsien–Laiyüan line and swept northward toward Peiping. The other two units carried out a pincer operation against the lower reaches of the Hut'uo River in central Hopei in order to drive Lü Cheng-ts'ao's forces westward into the Peiyüeh District. The assault on Hsiao K'e's P'inghsi District failed to produce any result. The assault on Lü Cheng-ts'ao's forces resulted in a reported kill of 570 and wounding of two regimental commanders.^[27]

Then, in the second stage of the campaign, everything was brought to bear on the Peiyüeh District. Among the Communist commanders of military sub-districts here were Yang Ch'eng-wu (the First), who devastated the isolated Japanese outposts in the fall of 1940, and Huang Yung-sheng (the Third). The Japanese side reported contacts with both of their units. Nieh Jung-chen himself led his unit and engaged the Japanese in a battle at Ch'enchang thirty kilometers south of Foup'ing. Both Foup'ing and Ch'enchiayüan, the home of Nieh Jung-chen's headquarters, were taken. There is no comprehensive record of Japanese reports concerning casualties inflicted on the enemy. The 110th Division reported 5,616 bodies counted and 3,769 prisoners as of December 27.^[28] But the Japanese forces failed to inflict a devastating blow on the Communist main force.

[25] Liberated Areas , p. 29.

[26] Pacification War , No. 1, p. 540.

[27] Ibid. , p. 548.

[28] Ibid. , p. 556.

The operations in 1941 and 1942 were distinguished not only by their large scale but also by the fact that the pacification units stayed in the heart of the Communist bases for several months and combed the area back and forth. Metaphors such as "iron wall encirclement" (t'ieh-pi ho-wei ) and "combing suppression" (shu-pi ch'ing-chiao ) began to appear in the Japanese Army's vocabulary to describe the new tactics. A contemporary Communist observer noted that the 1941 campaign was not simply a repetition of the mopping-up of the past in which the Japanese forces came and went in the manner of "butcher's knife."^[29] A major secondary goal of the campaign was to destroy the Communist base facilities and stockpiles of war material. Communist propaganda parodied Okamura's "sanko seisaku" to read "burn all, violate all, kill all."^[30] Actual conduct of the Japanese forces came closer to the parody than to the author's intent. There is no extant Japanese record of secondary destructions. One Communist source, no doubt exaggerated, reports destruction of 150,000 rooms, 58 million chin of grain, and 10,000 livestock in the 1941 operation.^[31] The Communist main force had left the base for the exterior line, but the civilian population remained. In a well-consolidated base like the Peiyüeh District, "separation of bandits from the people" (fei-min fen-li in Chinese) was impossible. Four thousand five hundred perished, according to a Communist source.^[32] The Japanese side reported that it carried out forced resettlement of civilian population from the central area to a camp in Taiyuan. These civilians were treated as "semi-prisoners of war."^[33] The Japanese forces withdrew in three months, leaving behind battalion- or company-sized garrisons in some important positions.

The Communist forces always had an accurate grasp of the movement of the Japanese forces in and around their bases, and they tried to keep the Japanese in the dark as to their own whereabouts. The usual unit of tactical encirclement seemed to have been a military sub-district comprising half a dozen or so hsien . The sub-district commander took personal charge. Nieh Jung-chen's sub-district was covered by a network of field telephones which kept reporting Japanese movements.^[34]

The CCP's victory in the intelligence war depended on organization

[29] Chieh-fang jih-pao , October 11, 1941, p. 3.

[30] It is widely believed that this was the avowed aim of Okamura Yasuji. Actually, his slogan was borrowed from the Manchu forces when they attacked the Ming forces: pu-fen, pu-fan, pu-sha or "don't burn, don't violate, don't kill." See Pacification War , No. 2, p. 117.

[31] Liberated Areas , p. 29.

[32] Ibid .

[33] Pacification War , No. 1, p. 555.

[34] Hsing-huo liao-yüan , VI, 150 ff.

and discipline of the peasant masses. Mobilization of the inhabitants of the central areas in Peiyüeh District was quite impressive. Japanese officers who had been transferred from central China were surprised by the sharp contrast between the Eighth Route Army and the New Fourth Army in this respect.^[35] It appeared to them that most peasants were cooperating with the Communist forces out of fear, but frequently there were courageous patriots. A company of Japanese troops hired a native as a guide in the 1941 campaign. He deliberately tried to lead the company into a trap. Two special service agents hired another guide to approach a Communist-controlled village. As they drew close to the village, the guide suddenly called out to his fellow villagers to arrest the "traitors."^[36]

As soon as a base was surrounded, the main Communist forces on the interior would make an attempt to break out to the exterior temporarily. They observed Mao's dicta: "Running away is the chief means of getting out of passivity and regaining the initiative."^[37] A ring of encirclement might consist of innumerable platoons placed five hundred meters apart. In mountains, this space was sufficient to let the main force get through while small rear guard units carried out daring diversionary moves. When necessary, they willingly perished in blocking Japanese pursuit. The retreating main unit was seldom trapped in the net. During the campaign of May, 1942 against the T'aihang District, however, a company of Japanese guerrillas disguised in Eighth Route Army uniforms succeeded in surprising the headquarters unit near Mat'ien. P'eng Te-huai was wounded while Tso Ch'üan, the chief of staff of the Eighth Route Army, was killed.^[38]

Once the main unit had made an exit to the exterior line, it turned to harassing action. Whenever odds favored the Communist side, it would turn to aggressive action. Smaller Japanese units in the heart of the Communist bases were in constant fear of ambush. However, the Communist forces in north as well as in central China were evidently under orders in 1941 and 1942 to refrain from pitched battles and to return to guerrilla tactics. The overriding goal of the CCP was self-preservation. Costly contacts were forbidden.^[39]

The catechism, "Enemy advances, we retreat," was not by itself a solution when the enemy was prepared to occupy the base. The evasive tactics of the Communist forces enabled the North China Area Army to stretch its manpower to extend the blockade line into the Peiyüeh

[35] Pacification War , No. 1, p. 559.

[36] Ibid .

[37] SW , II, 128.

[38] Pacification War , No. 2, pp. 190–191. See the description of this battle from the Communist side, in Hsing-huo liao-yüan , VII, 222–223.

[39] See, for instance, Ibid. , VI, 189–190.

and the Chin-Chi-Yü Districts. The Japanese forces also attempted to clear and hold relatively flat and populated areas in the mountains. In the T'aihang District, there were 700 outposts in 1941. In the relatively smaller T'aiyüeh Districts, there were 320.^[40] The Chin-Chi-Yü base had shrunk by one-sixth in 1941 and kept shrinking. During the most critical phase, the T'aiyüeh District could claim no one hsien which was completely under Communist control. The twelve Communist hsien governments that remained were all bunched together in Hsinyüan, of which the hsien seat was in Japanese hands.^[41] Hsinyüan itself was designated in November of 1942 as the "Mountain Communist Suppression Experimental District." In this barren mountainous area, the Communist forces needed the tax grain paid by peasants in the Taiyuan basin. But for nearly three years after 1939, tax was not collected. "How can we eat a decent meal? Grain, grain! This became the central topic of discussion," it was reported.^[42]

Of all the Communist bases in the mountains of Shansi Province, the Chin-Sui Border Region seemed to have suffered the worst fate. This was in part attributable to the collaboration of Mongols in the north and Yen Hsi-shan in the south with the Japanese. The Chin-Sui base was swept by the Mongolian Garrison Army in December, 1940, after the Communist offensive. The Communist stronghold around Hsinghsien was taken, forcing Ho Lung's division to flee westward across the Yellow River into Shensi. In January, one company of regular Communist troops defected, a very rare occurrence.^[43] In 1942, the Eighth Sub-district controlled only seventeen villages.^[44] The 358th Brigade, a regular unit of the 120th Division, was so undernourished that 60 percent of its men were nightblind. They had to walk hand in hand with those who retained their sight.^[45] It was reported that " . . . the linkage between the Party Center and the several anti-Japanese bases was seriously restricted; and the Shen-Kan-Ning Border Region was threatened."^[46] In October, Mao dispatched Lin Fen to the Chin-Sui base and demanded a thoroughgoing "mass mobilization."^[47]

The conditions in Shantung Province are difficult to assess for lack of information. An estimated force of some 30,000, made up of Hsü Hsiang-ch'ien's Shantung Column and Ch'en Kuang's 115th Division,

[40] Growth of one revolutionary base , pp. 62–63.

[41] Ibid. , p. 74.

[42] Hsing-huo liao-yüan , VI, 280. As a general rule, the Communist army scrupulously avoided sending armed soldiers into the villages to collect tax grain and recruits. But after 1941 it was not infrequent for the Communist forces to send an armed raiding party down on the plain. This article seems to describe one such incident.

[43] Pacification War , No. 1, p. 429.

[44] Hsing-huo liao-yüan , VI, 79–80.

[45] Ibid. , p. 87.

[46] Ibid. , pp. 79–80.

[47] Ibid .

occupied the mountainous triangular area bounded by Linyi, Yishui, and Mengyin which was in turn bounded by the Tientsin-Pukow, the Lunghai, and the Tsintao–Tsinan railways. A very large pacification campaign, comparable in size to the operations in 1941 and 1942 against Chin-Ch'a-Chi, was conducted against central Shantung at the end of 1941. The immediate military result was about as meager as in other operations.^[48] Shantung and north Kiangsu as Communist base sites were characterized by a trait which was not shared by the bases in the T'aihang range. I will deal with them below in connection with puppet forces.

The situation was very difficult for the CCP. This was reflected in internal politics. In the spring of 1942, after the headquarters unit of the Eighth Route Army had been attacked, P'eng Te-huai went back to Yenan for a while. In December, he delivered a very lengthy report to a cadre conference in the T'aihang District.^[49] Along with a report written by Liu Po-ch'eng, P'eng's close confidant in the T'aihang District, this amounted to a self-criticism by a proponent of the Battle of One Hundred Regiments offensive.^[50]

P'eng Te-huai began his report by defining a "revolutionary base." It came into being when an area possessed its own army, political power, mass organizations, and the Party—all functioning openly and legally. It followed that a revolutionary base had to enjoy greater immunity from military interference by counter-revolutionary forces. But a healthy existence and operation of the four organizations was not enough, P'eng argued, to assure the consolidation of a base. "For instance, during the time of the Central Soviet the above-mentioned four organizations were all strong, but because of Li Te's [i.e., Albert List's] error in military leadership the Central Soviet could not be held, and we had to leave in the end."^[51] P'eng was echoing the thesis of the Tsunyi Resolutions that the defeat in Kiangsi was due solely to tactical error of the leadership.^[52] The reference to the events in Kiangsi was in fact an allusion to his own role as the architect of the 1940 offensive. He criticized "simple militarism" which ignored that "tactics is a part of strategy and must be subordinated to strategy."^[53] P'eng's message to the audience was: the tactical victory of the Battle of One Hundred Regiments led to the difficulty of 1942.

Along with the series of liberalized programs which have been

[48] Pacification War , No. 1, pp. 589–591.

[49] Kuan-yü hua-pei ken-chü-ti kung-tso ti pao-kao (December 18, 1942), pp. 346–409.

[50] See above, p. 194.

[51] Kuan-yü hua-pei ken-chü-ti kung-tso ti pao-kao , p. 348.

[52] Ibid. , p. 349.

[53] Ibid .

described in the previous chapter, the CCP instituted several measures to stave off Japanese encroachment. In November, 1941, the Northern Bureau proposed an "increase in the guerrilla character of the north China bases."^[54] In July, 1942, in addition, a "guerrilla base" was proposed.^[55] These amounted to revisions of the three-fold classification of the war zone, as follows:

The CCP was conceding the deterioration of the once-secure bases without abandoning them altogether. In such bases, according to P'eng Te-huai, "the regular army cannot but accelerate its dispersion even to the squad, platoon, and company level in order to carry on with guerrilla warfare . . . mobile warfare is objectively no longer possible."^[56]

A program of decentralizing government organization had been under way since as early as the Lich'eng Conference of the Northern Bureau in April, 1940. It was decided at that time that the ratio of military to civilian personnel should be two–to–one and that the size of the full time personnel ("divorced from production") in army–government–mass organization should not exceed 3 percent of the base population.^[57] As tax-paying areas shrank in size and production in mountainous bases were disrupted, the constraint became very stringent. In addition, the intensified Japanese pacification made it risky for the Communist regular forces to operate in large units. Decentralization or localization (ti-fang-hua ) was drastically stepped up in 1942. In a directive ordering the program of "picked troops and simplified administration" in September, Mao stated,

Our enormous war apparatus is suited to past conditions. It was then necessary. But things are different now, the base areas have shrunk and may continue to shrink for a period, and undoubtedly we cannot maintain the same enormous war apparatus as before.^[58]

The main line units were reduced in size and absorbed into the infrastructure. A pyramid form of organization was pushed down into the ground, as it were, to make a squat shape concealed beneath the

[54] Ibid. , p. 348.

[55] Ibid. , p. 452.

[56] Ibid. , p. 352.

[57] Growth of one revolutionary base , p. 151.

[58] Selected Works , III, 100.

surface. Full time personnel, civilian as well as military, were not to exceed 1 percent of the base population, and those in excess had to be self-supporting. Hence, the program of localization was accompanied by a large production campaign. The Chin-Chi-Lu-Yü Border Region carried out decentralization three times between early 1942 and January of 1943, with the result that the border region level personnel was reduced from 548 to a little over 100.^[59] In central and southern Hopei, however, the regular units disappeared altogether; shortly after April, 1942, they departed for T'aihang mountain to seek refuge.^[60]

In the second half of 1942, a new four-tier structure replaced the existing three-tier one in military organizations. Between the regional force (ti-fang-chün ) or guerrillas (yu-chi-tui ) and the self-defense corps (tzu-wei-tui ) was added the militia (min-ping ) as follows:

This was based on a directive which demanded, "localize the regular army, mass-ify [ch'ün-chung-hua] the local force."^[62] The intention behind the new organization was not to add an exra tier to the existing organizations. The intention was to substitute the regional force (or guerrillas) for regular forces in areas where the regulars could not operate. In Chin-Ch'a-Chi the following ratio was suggested between the regular and regional forces:^[63]

A suggested size of regional force was a guerrilla unit of 50 men and rifles at the ch'ü level; a guerrilla battalion of 200 men and weapons at the hsien level under the hsien Party organization; and an independent battalion of 2,000 men and weapons at the military sub-district level commanded by the sub-district political cadres.^[64] Thus a sub-district with five hsien with eight ch'ü each would have 5,000 guerrillas. All guerrilla units were required to maintain a command structure

[59] Growth of one revolutionary base , pp. 97–98. The cost of maintaining one soldier for a year is said to be equal to sixteen shih of millet. Ibid. , p. 290.

[60] Hsing-huo liao-yüan , VI, 263; Ibid. , VII, 116.

[61] Amerasia Papers , p. 755; Kung-fei huo-kuo , III, 194.

[62] Hsing-huo liao-yüan , VI, 457.

[63] Kung-jei huo-kuo , III, 194.

[64] Ibid. , p. 195.

strictly independent of the regular army, though they were subordinate to the regular army's command if one happened to be in the same area.

Militia and self-defense corps were called "people's arms" (jen-min wu-chuang ). They were both made up of full-time peasants who were not mobile. Militia was supposed to be based on volunteers. It is my impression that militia did not begin to expand until the worst phase of Japanese pacification was over. Militia was apparently intended to provide a self-supporting reservoir of manpower for the more mobile and professionalized military units. Members of militia took part in village defense with native weapons. Enrollment in the self-defense corps was compulsory for all inhabitants between the ages of 15 and 55. They acted as stretcher-bearers, messengers, and porters. They also took care of "hard wall and clean field" or concealment of perishable property and crop. Only the regular army was fully mobile. The rest remained in the native area when Japanese forces occupied it.

All regular units carried out screening of their troops to demobilize those who were found unfit and to send down others to regional forces. Thus one regiment was reduced to a company.^[65] As the bulk of the regular troops withdrew from Hopei, some were left behind and planted as cadres in the regional forces. Some regular units completely disappeared underground to become regional forces. Such a drastic reduction of regular forces was carried out as early as July, 1941, in central China.^[66] There was considerable reluctance among the regular army's officer corps to disband their units and go down among the peasants.^[67] Such dispersion, the stock-in-trade of the Communist partisans in hard times, was called hua-cheng wei-ling ("turning a whole into nothing") or more colloquially, hua-hsia-ch'ü ("vanish below"). In its most extreme form, an army or a Party unit was required to reduce itself into a "local bandit-style armed organization" as happened in Kwangtung.^[68] The purpose of hua-cheng wei-ling was to conceal the army behind the mass of peasantry. At the same time, the Communist army lost its preponderant leadership position within a Communist base to the Party. The so-called "September One Decision" reversed the existing relationship between the army and the Party–government–mass organization. Leadership was "one dimensionalized" under the Party's hegemony at each level all the way down to hsien and hsiang .^[69]

[65] Hsing-huo liao-yüan , VI, 483.

[66] Ibid. , VII, 118.

[67] Ibid. , VI, 454, 457–458.

[68] Kung-fei huo-kuo , III, 192.

[69] Kuan-yü t'ung-i k'ang-Jih ken-chü-ti tang ti ling-tao chi tiao-cheng k'e-tsu-chih chien kuan-hsi ti chüeh-ting [The decision concerning the Party's leadership over the anti-Japanese bases and adjustment among several organizations], Ibid. , III, 157–164. It is probable that this was part of the Rectification Campaign to tighten up Party control.

As the regular forces disappeared altogether or visited a village only under the cover of the night, the peasants' confidence was shaken. They began to waver. The peasants were left alone to fend for themselves while they were expected to provide grain and recruits to the Communist forces. The relationship of the regular forces to the villages beyond the bases tended to become predatory. As attrition of manpower rose sharply, each force in the four tiers dipped into the tier below to replenish itself. Yet "the majority of the masses are reluctant to become soldiers," it was reported.^[70] They did not have confidence to carry on guerrilla warfare by themselves. " . . . today's masses behind the enemy are enthusiastic about defending their homes and villages but are standoffish toward the slogan of defending the bases. . . . These two slogans are not yet linked up," one cadre complained.^[71] Defense of homes and villages as such had no intrinsic connection with support for the Communist side.

On the contrary, when the puppet government was nearby, it was dangerous to provoke it. Yang Ch'eng-wu put the cruel dilemma this way:

If we only stress concealment, biding of our time . . . we are bound to be divorced from the masses. The morale of the masses cannot be sustained for long either. On the other hand, if we only seek fleeting gratification in careless fighting, we may also invite still more cruel enemy suppression. That will also alienate the masses. . . .^[72]

In areas where the power of Communist and Japanese sides was evenly balanced, the peasants were hapless victims of both. In 1942, as the Communist bases reached their minimum size in north China, systematic use of terrorism could be observed. Village chiefs appointed by the puppet government became the target of assassination. After one or two officials were killed or abducted, no one would take their place.^[73] Or at a mass meeting in a village, a few traitors were executed. Then "those who wavered in the past firmly rose up."^[74]

But for the most part in such areas, the CCP settled for a policy of "white skin, red heart" (pai-p'i hung-hsin ). It allowed the peasants to collaborate with the Japanese. The CCP chose to regard this as infiltration of puppet organizations. Indeed, many puppet governments were infiltrated by Communist party members who even got elected to official posts under the Japanese auspices. They did as they were told

[70] T'ao Hsi-chin, "Mu-ch'ien chan-ch'ü yu-chi hsiao-tsu ti hsiao-neng chi ch'i ling-tao wen-t'i" [The efficacy of guerrilla groups in the current war zone and their leadership problem], Ibid. , p. 201.

[71] Ibid. , p. 199.

[72] Hsing-huo liao-yüan , VII, 119.

[73] Ibid. , p. 323.

[74] Ibid. , p. 211.

by the Japanese, but passed information on to the Communist side, offered concealment for Communist agents, and paid reduced tax to the Communist governments.^[75] The "white skin, red heart" arrangement paralleled the practice of "national salvation by detour" or defection by Kuomintang regional forces. However, authorized open collaboration was confined solely to the civilian population. No Communist regular unit indulged in it.

The two most important elements of popular support for the Communist government were tax grain and enlistment of the peasants in the Communist army. The rate of enlistment and desertion, in particular, can be regarded as an index of mass support or indifference. Desertion afflicted the regional forces, and the Communist forces were no exception. Most of the troop losses during the Long March, for instance, resulted from desertion. According to a rather rare revelation in a Communist source, a regular army unit had lost 16.4 percent of its troops by desertion in one year ending in the fall of 1939—relatively good times for the CCP. The total attrition rate for this unit, according to my calculation, was 30 percent. (See Table 13.)

According to Mao, the tax-paying population, including both those paying tax to the Communist government alone and those paying taxes to both sides, decreased from 100 million in 1940 to 50 million in 1942. During the same period, the Communist army was reduced in size from 500,000 to 300,000.^[76] These figures were revealed during the Rectification Campaign and in a context in which Mao criticized P'eng Te-huai and others for their "conceit" in launching the 1940 offensive.^[77] Hence, the troop and population losses could have been exaggerated. Still, there is little doubt that the Communist side suffered very high attrition during this period. As I have repeatedly shown, the Japanese Army's pacification operations almost always failed in their immediate objective of fixing and annihilating the Communist forces. The number of those reported killed or captured was uniformly small. I am therefore led to conclude that the large loss of Communist troops resulted from desertion.

Why should the peasant soldiers, who rallied to the "defense of homes and villages" almost instinctively, desert their army in such large numbers? The answer seems to lie in the social structure of China's countryside. Recruitment of troops into Chinese armies—both Kuomintang and Communist—was localized. The Kuomintang's war zone was quite often but another name for the satrapy of warlords. Recruitment on the Communist side was even more localized as its

[75] Ibid. , VI, 236; Ibid. , VII, 120.

[76] Selected Works , III, 167–168.

[77] Ibid. , p. 169.

forces de-escalated from mobile to guerrilla warfare. A brigade, the largest operational combat unit, remained in the military sub-district or hovered in its vicinity. Its troops were recruited from the regional force or from the peasants in the sub-district. A regular force unit thus partook of the traits which characterized its immediate social environment. A peasant soldier's daring in defending his native place was matched by his indifference to the fortunes of those in which he was a stranger. When a regular unit was transferred to a place far away from its home base, the new recruits deserted. They always headed home.

The CCP observed two kinds of anti-desertion measures. One was enforced by military units, the other by the border region where they were stationed. One was designed to prevent potential deserters from deserting, the other to turn back actual deserters. The Eighth Route Army placed the main responsibility for desertion-prevention on the political instructor, the company level political cadre.^[78] During the resistance period, the so-called "group of ten" (shih-jen-tsu ) was formed among the soldiers to maintain mutual vigilance against desertion. Upon returning home, a deserter would find that he and

[78] Chungkuo ke-ming-chün ti-shih-pa chi-t'uan-chün cheng-chih kung-tso t'iao-lieh [Political work regulations of the 18th Group Army of the National Revolutionary Army], Military Affairs Journal , April, 1940, p. 128.

his family were objects of intense negative social pressure. All border region governments had a statute dealing with deserters. Penalties were usually light; more effective than penalties was the social pressure generated by "campaign to return to the post" (kui-tui yün-tung ). The deserter would be rounded up, given a pep talk, and escorted back to his unit with fanfare. If a unit was recruited from an area which had subsequently fallen to Japanese control, its troops were subjected to reverse pressure. A soldier's home might be marked by a slip of red paper on the door to show that it was the home of a "Communist bandit." His family and friends were pressured into writing him or otherwise conveying the message that he was wanted back home. It is quite probable that the increase in desertion after 1940 stemmed in good measure from the fact that social pressure which kept a soldier in the unit was reversed. Behind the high rate of desertion in the Communist forces was the parochial outlook of peasants. Mao called it pejoratively the "empiricism" of the petty bourgeoisie in "semifeudal" China,^[79] and he sought to eliminate it through the Rectification Campaign.

The celebrated notion that the Eighth Route Army and the New Fourth Army were made up entirely of volunteers was not true in the sense in which we understand the term. In most ordinary cases, these volunteers "consented" to serve under intense public pressure drummed up by mass organizations "charging" headlong to meet the quota imposed by the border region government. This method was intended to be different from press-ganging, but in practice it often came close to it. At the same time, it is not possible to equate desertion in Chinese armies with desertion as we know it either. In the household of a poor peasant, hired laborer, or even of a middle peasant with a relatively small nuclear family, loss of labor power of a male in his prime often made a critical difference in income.^[80] For the poor, service in the Chinese army often meant destitution. Soldiers were given just enough food to live on and a little pittance besides. The CCP made concerted efforts in all the border regions to put the soldiers' minds at ease so far as their families were concerned. These measures came under the abbreviated heading of yu-k'ang or "special treatment for the families of resistance soldiers." They included granting of tax exemption status, cooperative or substitute ploughing and harvesting of

[79] The Resolution on Some Questions in the History of Our Party, SW , VI, 213. It is my inference that P'eng Te-huai was one of those who were criticized for "empiricist" errors. He had to sit through a forty-day-long criticism session just before the Seventh Party Congress. The Case of Peng Teh-huai , pp. 193–194.

[80] Tinghsien investigation report , p. 34.

fields belonging to the families of servicemen or bereaved families, etc.

In May, 1942, in the wake of the biggest assault on the T'aihang District, the shrinking of the Eighth Route Army headquarter's home base was reported to have stopped.^[81] By then the North China Area Army's manpower was strained to its limit. The defenders and attackers edged each other in bloody and desperate combats. But the line was held on the Communist side. In September, Mao described the situation as "darkness before dawn," and exhorted his men to bear up under the pressure a while longer.^[82] Shrinking of the Communist bases might have gone on longer in central China, but by the end of the year, Japan had suffered two major setbacks in the Pacific. It was defeated in the Battle of Midway in June and decided to withdraw from Guadalcanal late in the year. Operations in the China theater were scuttled to a holding action with a minimum of force. By the summer of 1943, the North China Area Army withdrew the garrisons in outlying areas and reverted to the sweep and destroy type of missions.^[83] It seems that the most critical phase of the war of resistance for the Communist forces was over by the end of 1942, though the tactical situation did not improve immediately.

To ease the pressure on the central bases in north China, the CCP turned to attack on a limited scale by sending out armed work teams (wu-chuang kung-tso-tui or wu-kung-tui ), elite guerrilla units made up of sappers, saboteurs, and counter-intelligence agents into the Japanese-occupied areas.^[84] The Party organizations that co-existed with the puppet and the Japanese forces under the "white skin, red heart" arrangement were ordered to shake off their "conservatism" and to regain the lost initiative.^[85] It was at this time that the T'aihang and the T'aiyüeh Districts carried out the massive rent and interest reduction campaign, which I have described in the previous chapter. The tide was turning.

The force level in the North China Area Army's command hovered between 250,000 and 300,000 after 1940. Of this, units assigned to pacification duty numbered between 132 battalions (172,029 men) in

[81] Growth of one revolutionary base , p. 74. P'eng Te-huai states that the worst phase was over by July, 1942, in Amerasia Papers , p. 814. I must note, however, that all important cadres were withdrawn to Shen-Kan-Ning partly for their safety and partly for the Rectification Campaign. The campaign was carried out at a rather leisurely pace in this sanctuary.

[82] Selected Works , III, 99.

[83] The order to withdraw from the forward areas and to regroup was issued to the China Expeditionary Forces on February 27. Pacification War , No. 2, p. 305. It was implemented in May, Ibid. , p. 345; and was noted by the Communist side, Hsing-huo liao-yüan , VII, 123.

[84] Ibid. , VII, 94.

[85] Growth of one revolutionary base , p. 85.

December, 1941, and 125 battalions (194,483 men) in early 1945.^[86] One can say that there was one battalion of Japanese pacification troops for every four hsien . Of this, a substantial part was devoted to the Kuomintang forces that remained in the occupied areas in force until 1943. One can divide the Chinese forces that assisted the Japanese forces into two groups, according to their equivalency to the Communist counterparts. The hsien security forces and police forces, in which there were 95,000 and 69,000 men respectively at the end of 1941, can be regarded as regional forces. I have already dealt with them in Chapter VI. As for regular armies, the China Expeditionary Forces sought to maintain a 110,000-man force directly under the Nanking government, a 100,000-man force under the North China Political Commission, and 10,000 Mongol troops.^[87]

Actual size of the native regular force in north China, according to Japanese estimate, was 118,000.^[88] This comes very close to a post-war Communist estimate of 117,000.^[89] If one assumes that the size of the Japanese forces devoted solely to anti-Communist operations numbered 150,000, the total regular forces (Japanese and Chinese) would be 268,000. One Japanese estimate of the Communist regulars in early 1941 was 250,000 in north China and 40,000 in Shen-Kan-Ning.^[90] In north China, therefore, there was a rough numerical balance of regular forces on the two sides in the 1941–1942 period.^[91]

Of the total of 437 hsien seats behind the Japanese lines in north China, 10 were held by the Communist forces, the rest being in the hands of the Japanese. Of an estimated total population of a little over 80 million, 22 million or roughly one-fourth lived in the Communist-controlled areas, while 60 million were in the Japanese-occupied areas and guerrilla districts.^[92] The large population size under Japanese control was accounted for by the fact that all urban areas were occupied. In terms of geographical expanse, the Communists controlled roughly six-tenths of north China, mostly in the mountains of Shansi, Shantung, and the Chiaotung Peninsula.^[93]

In Kiangsu and Anhwei Provinces, a part of the 13th Army engaged in pacification efforts against the New Fourth Army and the pockets of the Chungking forces that remained through 1943. In cen-

[86] War History Office, The Defense Board, Daitoa^[*] senso^[*] kokan^[*] senshi , Vol. XLII: Showa^[*] 20-nen no Shina Hakengun [The China Expeditionary Forces in 1945], No. 1, p. 405.

[87] Pacification War , No. 2, pp. 70–71.

[88] Ibid. , p. 71.

[89] Growth of one revolutionary base , p. 80.

[90] Pacification War , No. 1, appendix V.

[91] Chi Wu also agrees on this point. Growth of one revolutionary base , p. 80.

[92] Ibid.

[93] Ibid.

tral China, however, it is impossible to say how much of the Japanese forces were tied down in anti-Communist operations. The New Fourth Army remained understrength until 1944 and had to co-exist with the Japanese forces by means which fell short of open collusion. The Japanese forces, for their part, were not as interested in local security as in strategic deterrence against Chungking's main forces. On the assumption that the Japanese pacification units in Kiangsu and Anhwei roughly matched the New Fourth Army's 40,000, the total Japanese troops engaged in anti-Communist pacification in all of China would have numbered 190,000. This would have amounted to one-quarter to one-third of the total force level of the China Expeditionary Forces of 650,000 to 750,000 after 1941. The rest faced the Kuomintang regular forces throughout the war. Such deployment of Japanese forces guaranteed the survival of Communist power.

Over-all security improved in 1941 and did not deteriorate until 1943. In several localities, mostly on the plains of Hopei and Shantung, the degree of security obtained in Manchuria was in fact reproduced—based on native support. Neither in Kiangsi, nor in north China, nor again in Vietnam did a superior force find it impossible to uproot a well-consolidated Communist base so long as it was willing to disperse itself down to the village level and remain there for several years. This was the precondition for first undoing and then rebuilding a permanent armed camp well integrated with the life of the peasants—as the Communist side had done. But this is only half of the problem. The tactical requirement to clear and hold the countryside for a decade, if need be, transforms the problem into a strategic one, as Mao was well aware, because concurrently anti-Communist forces must rig together an international environment—or a strategic blockade—which holds out politically bleak prospects for the Communists. The Kuomintang managed to do so until the Sian Incident. For Japan, subjugation of the Kuomintang was the necessary precondition for the anti-Communist war, even if the latter took priority. Japan's attempt to isolate China by means of the Tripartite Alliance may be, therefore, regarded as a strategic blockade of colonialist variety.^[*] But it turned out to be as counter-productive as the Kuomintang's hope for realizing national unification by bringing the United States into the picture. In any event, the peasant revolution needed "allies" in quarters beyond the countryside.

[*] Henry Kissinger's trip to Peking to end the war in Vietnam may be regarded as an American counterpart.

The Last "Orthodox" Rural Self-Defense

As the Japanese forces turned inward to consolidate the occupied areas in 1941, the passive phase of the Kuomintang's resistance set in. Having borne the brunt of the invasion for more than three years while waging another war with the Communists, it was exhausted. It decided to hold the ring and pit the two adversaries against each other. The structural weakness of the Chinese polity was not altered by the coming of the war. But unlike its earlier manifestation, regionalism after 1941 worked temporarily to the advantage of Chungking. Following the defection of local armed organizations in 1940, the Kuomintang's regional forces began to enter into open or covert collusion with the Japanese forces in 1941. By the end of 1943, most Kuomintang forces in the occupied areas secretly colluded with the Japanese forces or formally submitted to the Nanking government. The CCP was alarmed and charged that this was "national salvation by detour" (ch'ü-hsien chiu-kuo ), i.e., a deliberate plot by Chungking to preserve its forces on the basis of temporary surrender. Actually the collusion seemed to be the result of fortuitous development. In most instances, according to Japanese records, cooperation was forcibly extracted from a regional force after repeated attacks by the Japanese and Communist forces threatened to decimate it.

About this time there were three pockets of Kuomintang influence in the Japanese-occupied area. In central Shantung, Yü Hsüeh-chung and his contingent remained until 1943.^[94] Han Te-ch'in remained in the Tungt'ai–Hsinghua area east of Lake Kaoyu until he was forced out of Kiangsu altogether in 1943.^[95] In Shansi Province, Yen Hsi-shan maintained a rather passive existence in the southwestern corner surrounded by the Japanese, the Communists, and the central army. As early as February, 1940, a personal letter from General Itagaki Seishiro^[*] , the chief of staff of the China Expeditionary Forces, was delivered to Yen by Su T'i-jen, the Shansi governor, asking Yen to support the government in Nanking. The negotiation, code-named Taihaku kosaku^[*] ("Yen Hsi-shan Operation"), made progress after Wei Li-huang, Yen's actual superior, was driven out of the province in early 1941.^[96] In September Chao Ch'eng-shou, Yen's confidant, signed the Basic Agreement and the Truce Agreement while some Japanese units were making threatening maneuvers at a distance.

[94] Amerasia Papers , p. 398.

[95] Ibid. , pp. 349–350.

[96] Pacification War , No. 1, p. 585.

Yen agreed to join the Nanking government on the basis of the Basic Treaty for Adjusting the Relationship between Japan and China , signed earlier by Wang Ching-wei. With Wang's consent, Yen was to be the vice chairman of the Nanking government and the chairman of its Military Commission. He was to have a force of 300,000, of which 100,000 were to be recruited from Shantung and Hopei. The Shansi Army was to receive 100,000 rifles, some heavier weapons, and a monthly pay of 12 million yuan from the Nanking government. In addition, 50 million yuan was promised as a credit to restore the local currency. By a subsequent administrative agreement, the Shansi Army was assigned to the "occupation district" in Chishan, Hsinchiang, Hotsin, Fushan, Yüehyang (Antse), Hsinyüan, Chiehhsiu, and Hsiaoyi. In addition, it was allowed to collect tax from Fenyang, Wenshui, and Ch'i hsien .^[97] It appears that the Japanese side reneged on some of its promises, which caused Yen Hsi-shan to refrain from formally declaring his allegiance to the Nanking government.

Yen Hsi-shan's collusion with the Japanese is the only case from which a formal agreement is extant, but more or less similar negotiations were carried out by other figures. They included P'ang Pinghsün, the commander of the Hopei–Chahar War Zone, and Generals Wu Hua-wen and Chang Lan-feng, commanders of sizable contingents in Shantung and Honan.^[98] Naturally the CCP had an interest in making exaggerated charges of collaboration. Chu Te states, for instance, that 500,000 troops and sixty or seventy generals colluded with the Japanese.^[99] But, because of its policy of "unification," the Kuomintang was relentless toward disloyal regional leaders. Thus Han Fuch'ü and Shih Yu-san, governors of Shantung and Chahar, were executed as traitors, and after 1943 it would have taken utter political insensitivity to hitch one's fortunes to the sinking ships of Japan and Wang Ching-wei. In most instances, therefore, collusion with the Japanese did not exceed an uneasy temporary truce involving an informal sphere-of-influence agreement.

Those pockets of Kuomintang influence that survived in the occupied area were regional powers in their own right rather than simply subordinate units of the central government. This seems to account for their ability to persist against Communist attacks—until 1943 under

[97] Ibid. , pp. 584–588.

[98] Lyman P. Van Slyke, ed., The Chinese Communist Movement: A Report of the United States War Department, July 1945 (Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press, 1968), pp. 90, 94.

[99] Lun chieh-fang-ch'ü chan-ch'ang , p. 16. See also Chung-Kung chung-yang wei k'ang-chan liu-chou-nien chi-nien hsüan-yen [The CCP Central Committee's manifesto on the sixth anniversary of the resistance] for a list of alleged collaborators.

the Kuomintang's banner and thereafter as Japan's nominal allies. The gradual "puppetization" of Kuomintang-affiliated units in Shantung is shown in the following figures reported in a Communist source.^[100] The figures are not reliable, but the trend indicated is.

The most interesting characteristic of these groups is not that they suffered from questionable political consciousness—as the Communists charged—but rather that they kept their total number relatively constant by taking on whatever color was most expedient. At bottom they seem to have enjoyed the support of the landlord class. As Chungking's fortune declined in the occupied area, the landlords' vested interest in the old order induced them to transcend the political differences between Chiang Kai-shek and Wang Ching-wei. In this sense, they were the last decayed manifestation of rural self-defense on the "orthodox" side.

In the revolutionary Peking opera "Taking Tiger Mountain by Strategy," a detachment of Red Army regulars finds it impossible to take a bandits' lair in a straight military attack. A resort is then made to political "strategy." Such an episode seems to be an integral part of the Communist army's experiences. It may be that the CCP's difficulties in Shantung stemmed from the presence of a series of native guerrilla leaders such as Liu Kuei-t'ang, described earlier. This hypothesis can be confirmed in a case study of north Kiangsu, of which there is sufficient documentary evidence. Here the Communist forces encountered regional and local forces organized along the lines very similar to themselves. The case also points up the special character of central China as the Kuomintang's home.

Liu Shao-ch'i, as I have shown, was dispatched to north Kiangsu to override Hsiang Ying's "line." He formally upheld Mao Tse-tung and condemned Hsiang Ying in connection with the struggle against Wang Ming. According to Liu, Hsiang Ying "refused the valuable lessons of north China, and opposed base construction in central China as altogether impossible."^[101] Yet, in reality, Liu Shao-ch'i's manner of running the Central China Bureau and the New Fourth Army in-

[100] Liberated Areas , p. 90.

[101] Central China Bureau First Plenum , p. 43.

dicated that there were indeed some "special characters" to central China to which he had to accommodate himself. The peculiar traits of central China were summarized by Jao Shu-shih in November of 1942 at the Central China Anti-Traitor Conference:

If I may speak on the situation in central China from the narrow standpoint of anti-traitor work, then I would summarize it by the single phrase, "environment is complex, factional struggle is intense."

In complexity of the environment and intensity of factional struggle, central China exceeds the whole nation. Because central China is the hub of water and land transportation routes, both foreign and domestic, the biggest city of the nation, Shanghai, is located in central China. When we speak of factional organization and activities, then not only does our Party have a long history in Shanghai and the several provinces of central China, the Kuomintang and the Youth Party also have a very long history. The other groups like the Third Party, the National Socialist Party, the Trotskyites, Kuomintang-affiliated Fuhsingshe, the San-Min-Chu-I Youth Corps, the CC Clique—are all equally present. Again, if we speak of feudal organizations and their activities, then Sanpan, the Green and the Red Gangs, the Sword Society, Shenhsientao and other superstitious and sectarian organizations also abound in central China. Still again, if we speak of the spread of local bandits, then everyone knows that the areas around Lakes T'ai, Ch'ao, Kaoyu, and Hungtze and the coastal belt are notorious bandit areas in China. Even today many villages in north Kiangsu and eastern Anhwei have moats, stone fences, walls, and watch towers around them. Many are the houses with iron or wooden fences around them. These suffice to show how violent were the local bandits in these regions in the past. Finally the numerousness of turncoats is also characteristic of central China. As the result of more than ten years of rule by the anti-Communist elements, central China's situation is that secret service is strong everywhere. Since they adopted the "turncoat policy," a great many voluntary surrenders have resulted. For instance, in the Tungt'ai district of central Kiangsu alone, there have been more than 3,000. . . .^[102]

North Kiangsu was not like, for instance, the mountains of Shansi Province with its homogeneous peasant outlook. The three-cornered struggle between the Kuomintang, Japan (plus the Wang Ching-wei faction), and the Communist party added to an already bewildering social and political relationship.

In 1941, the Sixth Detachment of the New Fourth Army, led by P'eng Hsüeh-fen, had been procrastinating near K'aifeng in northern Honan in spite of the directive from the Central China Bureau to move east across the Tientsin–Pukow railway. Finally, it was at-

[102] Hua-chung ch'u-chien pao-wei kung-tso ti chi-pen tsung-chi chi chin-hou ti jen-wu , pp. 21–22.

tacked by a cavalry unit of the Kwangsi Army (the Fifth War Zone) and lost 4,000 men and 2,000 rifles, a "serious loss" second only to the New Fourth Army Incident in the annals of this army.^[103] The detachment moved east and rested briefly in the area of Lake Hungtze. It was designated as the Fourth Division while its commander—P'eng Te-huai's protégé—went on a half-time "study."^[104] In July, one brigade of the division was completely "localized" and lost its brigade designation.^[105]

In October, 1941, after six months of rest, the Fourth Division was ordered to move west again from the Lake Hungtze area to the center of the Huaipei District, still east of the Tientsin–Pukow railway. The division, which must have been no more than a few thousand strong, settled in the area of Ssuhsien, Lingpi, and Suiyü, where Anhwei meets Kiangsu. All three hsien seats and two outposts besides were occupied by the Japanese forces. There were fifteen companies of puppet forces of "extremely weak fighting power" as well. Recruited mostly from "bandits" and "drifters" (liu-min ), they numbered roughly one thousand.^[106] The die-hards in the area, on both Kiangsu and Anhwei side, drew on the strength of the Kwangsi army pressing eastward from across the Tientsin–Pukow railway. The Anhwei governor, Li P'ing-hsien, commanded the forces of Wang Chung-lien; and they were linked up with the forces under Han Te-ch'in in Kiangsu. In 1941, Han's forces on the Kiangsu–Anhwei border area were directed by Wang Kuang-hsia, who headed the First Detachment of the Security Forces.^[107] In the Ssuhsien–Lingpi–Suiyü area, there was one so-called independent regiment. It shared its habitat with the 33rd Division, so-called, of the Anhwei regional forces led by Tuan Hai-chou. Together they numbered little more than 4,000.^[108]

Beneath the independent regiment and Tuan Hai-chou's 33rd Division were a peculiar breed of local leaders whom the Communists chose to call "native die-hards" (t'u-wan ). About one dozen names of "native die-hards" appeared frequently in the Fourth Division's internal documents as a major source of threat to the Communists in the three-hsien area. As late as mid-1943, Teng Tzu-hui, the Division's political commissar, was stating that "it is impossible to eliminate the

[103] Central China Bureau First Plenum , p. 95.

[104] Hung-ch'i p'iao-p'iao , V, 162.

[105] Hsing-huo liao-yüan , VI, 454.

[106] Li Jen-chih, "Ssu-Ling-Sui yu-chi ken-chü-ti shih tsen-yang chien-li ch'i-lai-ti" [How the Ssu-Ling-Sui guerrilla base was built], Fuhsiao , November, 1944, p. 20.

[107] Hung-ch'i p'iao-p'iao , XIII, 74.

[108] Li Jen-chih, "Ssu-Ling-Sui . . . ," p. 20.

native die-hards militarily."^[109] The "native die-hards" turned out to be large landlords who had gathered soldiers around themselves for self-defense and offered their small domains as a sort of satrapy to Kwangsi-affiliated regional leaders.

I have shown in Chapter IV that the Fourth Division had to put to rest seventy or so groups of bandits in the Huaipei District by 1942.^[110] Although what precisely constituted bandits was never defined, they were reported to be another problem for the Communists.

Ssu-Ling-Sui is a notorious bandit area . . . the larger groups number five or six hundred like Chu Shih-lin's while small ones are made up of three to five. Each controls an area, and blocks the road to rob. Each loots at night and tends the field in the day. Each refrains from robbing its own area but concentrates on robbing elsewhere.^[111]

These bandits were natives of the Anhwei–Kiangsu border. The leaders among them possessed property and land. They were so deeply rooted in the locality that they refused to leave. In addition, there were half a dozen or so superstitious and sectarian organizations. It is not clear whether their membership was confined more or less to the poorer peasants. As in north China, these local organizations emerged spontaneously when the Japanese forces began moving up the Yangtze River after the Battle of Hsüchow.^[112] It was an atavistic return to the conditions of the nineteenth century.

As described in the Fourth Division's internal documents, it is almost impossible to differentiate between the "native die-hards," the puppet forces, and bandits. In some sense, they were all of a piece.

Before the war, local bandits in Ssu-Ling-Sui were linked up with the landlords and bad bosses; since the war they have been used by the enemy. Those who did not turn into puppet army became the die-hard forces. Because of this, local bandits, the puppets, and the die-hards have connection with each other. They mutually protect each other. . . .^[113]

Whether a local elite chose to be puppet or die-hard seems to have been decided by accidental factors such as kinship or political connections, local balance of power, etc. Several of them switched sides more than once. It was even discovered that the native die-hards' "political opinion is not necessarily opposed to communism," at least at this

[109] "Teng Tzu-hui t'ung-chih tsai Huaipei kao-kan-hui shang ti fa-yen" [The remarks of comrade Teng Tzu-hui at the Huaipei senior cadre conference], Fuhsiao , June, 1943, p. 9.

[110] See above, p. 133.

[111] Li Jen-chih, "Ssu-Ling-Sui . . . ," p. 31.

[112] Cheng Wei-san, K'ang-Jih chan-cheng yü nung-min yün-tung [The war against Japan and peasant movement] (Huainan District, 1942) (BI), p. 15.

[113] Li Jen-chih, "Ssu-Ling-Sui . . . ," p. 31.

stage when the Fourth Division was hardly in a position to carry out radical land reform.^[114]

Die-hard or bandit, the local elites seem to have been landlords in the area which was noted for high concentration of land in the hands of the rich. "Class distinction was sharp," and there were several fortress-like private homes of big landlords.^[115] The poor and the jobless no doubt made up the bulk of the soldiers in the private armies of the native die-hards and the puppet forces. In this sense, class division was overridden by local cohesion. The local elites terrorized peasant masses as the Fourth Division began to compete for the latter's loyalty. All local chiefs of pao (made up of several yen for the purpose of mutual responsibility) and yen , who controlled the pao-chia (the generic term that stands for the system of mutual responsibility and surveillance) system, were either landlords or related to landlords by blood.^[116] These bosses said at mass meetings, "It's all right to become local bandits or puppets, but we'll make sure to kill the whole family of anyone who helps the Eighth Route."^[117]

It was apparent that the Fourth Division was the stranger and nearly helpless against the concerted opposition of the natives:

The basic principle adopted by the die-hard force in military struggle against us is preservation of its strength, avoiding the powerful, but striking the weak. They do not clash with us in force. They deal with us by relying on the outposts of the enemy and the puppets. They use a high degree of guerrilla tactics and move about day and night. When the situation gets tense, they change place six times a day. The important cadres [kanpu ] move by themselves without escort of troops in order to avoid capture. In encampment of troops, they adopt dispersion and concealment. Their guns are entrusted to the civilians. They demand compensation when [the guns are] lost. When they face an attack, they take the principle of non-resistance and run away. When our forces carry out bandit suppression, they jump (to the exterior line), bore through (each has an olive drab uniform and can masquerade as puppet troop to enter the puppet outpost), or filter away. . . .^[118]

The native die-hards were outwitting the Communists in their own game.

The Fourth Division conducted a careful survey and "investigation" of native opposition. Information as to the background and family connections of puppet officers, for instance, was collected; then political bargains were struck. The puppet forces would be asked to join a "white skin, red heart" arrangement. "Contradictions" between the die-hards, between the die-hards and the puppets, between the bandits

[114] Ibid. , p. 31.

[115] Ibid. , p. 20.

[116] Ibid. , p. 38.

[117] Ibid. , p. 39.

[118] Ibid. , p. 41.

and the die-hards, etc., were studied and exploited. In 1942, the division captured two native die-hards but released them unharmed with a public pronouncement which lectured the need for united resistance. Subsequently, the two returned small favors.^[119]

Our Party and army are yet to attain complete superiority in power in this district. When the object of the united front—the puppets and bandits that surround us—are often aligned against us, we should not dissolve the contradictions among them. If we do, we may accelerate the confrontation between the enemy and ourselves, thus leading us to isolation.^[120]

There was a scale for designating political loyalty of an organization ranging from pro-Japanese "one-face" to pro-Communist "one-face." Most of the CCP's mass organizations at this stage were mild affairs with "two-faces," having some sort of understanding with both the puppet and the die-hard forces.^[121] The Lienchuanghui, a landlord organization, as well as pao-chia , were used on such basis. Teng Tzu-hui warned against the kind of intolerance displayed by the Communists in the early phase of the war, and he counseled that "[we] must use native Communists [t'u-kung ] to deal with native die-hards."^[122]

Mao has stated that it takes three or four years to build a good Communist base.^[123] Indeed, the Fourth Division spent three years, until mid–1944, to gain the upper hand in the area against native opposition. In the meantime, one sees little evidence that the division engaged in the kind of aggressive action undertaken in Chin-Ch'a-Chi against the Japanese forces. Most of the energy of the division was absorbed in the political task of peasant mobilization. With determination and care, it took the old social order apart piece by piece and rebuilt it. At bottom the task was coeval with the making of new men out of often unwilling peasants. Until that was accomplished, the division's military prowess, organizational discipline, and political leadership gave it only a slight edge over native opposition.

The persistence of local opposition to the Communists in the Huaipei area as late as 1943 is quite surprising. This was based on a loose ad hoc coalition of armed landlords under a rather inferior regional leadership. One wonders whether the CCP could have penetrated the area at all had the Kuomintang been in a position to exercise direct leadership over it. This case also confirms my earlier finding that the

[119] "Teng Tzu-hui t'ung-chih . . . ," p. 9.

[120] Li Jen-chih, "Ssu-Ling-Sui . . . ," p. 24.

[121] "Teng Tzu-hui t'ung-chih . . . ," p. 8.

[122] Ibid. , p. 9.

[123] SW , V, 81.

choice of Communist bases was made on strategic grounds.^[124] If social support for Communist rule was absent, that was disregarded. Social support was something to be created by first destroying the old social order.

"Peculiar Revolutionary Character of the Peasants"

The profile of China's peasant masses as revealed in this inquiry is quite baffling. As a psycho-cultural type, they do not seem to be the stuff of which a revolution could be made. Their collective traits were such as to convince the liberals in the May Fourth Movement that slow cultural and educational reforms should precede political changes. As a matter of fact, among the complex of issues which divided Mao Tse-tung and Wang Ming was one that concerned the revolutionary potential of China's peasantry. The Resolution on Some Questions in the History of Our Party , which provided theoretical justification for Mao's political triumph, charges that Wang Ming "erroneously opposed the so-called 'peculiar revolutionary character of the peasants.'"^[125] Unfortunately neither Mao nor Wang Ming has written any discourse specifically on this question. However, what little they revealed of their differing views can be a useful starting point for an independent assessment of the nature of Chinese peasants.

One may recall Wang Ming's charge of 1935 that the revolution in Kiangsi was one-sidedly anti-feudal in orientation. By this criticism he was indicating his dissatisfaction not only with the policy of the Party but also with the nature of the constituency which affected that policy. In his view, the peasants of "half-feudal" China suffered from a very narrow vision. They were extremely susceptible to bribery and blackmail by the counter-revolutionaries and to "economism" and "commandism" by the Communists—to use the current vocabulary. Compelled by circumstances to fall back on the support of the poorer

[124] An interesting attempt was made by Roy Hofheinz, Jr., to see whether there was any correlation between background social factors and geographical location of the Communist bases, in "The Ecology of Chinese Communist Success: Rural Influence Patterns, 1923–45," Doak Barnett, ed., Chinese Communist Politics in Action (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1969), pp. 3–77. Among other things, he has noted that land ownership was more equitable in north China—as Ramon Myers noted later. He concludes that there is no discernible correlation between the two factors. My study should corroborate his to this extent: the Communist bases were chosen by reference to politico-strategic factors which had nothing to do with social indicators. To exaggerate a bit, one might say that "political power grows out of the barrel of a gun" rather than in reaction to "deprivation." See Samuel Huntington's refutation of the "poverty thesis" in Political Order in Changing Societies , pp. 40–41.

[125] SW , IV, 192.

majority in the hinterland, the Party had adjusted its programs to the immediate subjective needs and proclivities of the masses. To pry them loose from the hold of its opponent, the CCP had to resort to the "rule of the gun"^[126] and to land confiscation and redistribution. Struggle against landlordism was a necessary part of the revolution, but Wang Ming seems to have doubted whether it was appreciated by the masses as a means to end "class exploitation" or to gratify "peasant capitalism." Hence, he directed his fight against "localism and conservatism of peasant ideology"^[127] and maintained at the same time that "an anti-imperialist revolutionary movement has much broader motive force than a land revolutionary movement."^[128]

At first sight, Mao's position on the revolutionary potential of the peasants appears to be the exact opposite of Wang Ming's. However, there were significant variations in his stated views over time. He wrote in the style of a radical populist when he was leading the Autumn Harvest Uprising in 1927. In his "Report on An Investigation of The Peasant Movement in Hunan," Mao attributed to the peasants a will to rise up spontaneously "like a mighty storm, like a hurricane" against "all the trammels that bind them."^[129] He gave three points of credit to the urban dwellers and the military while giving seven to the peasants.^[130] In 1930 Mao emphasized the same point by citing an old saying: "A single spark can start a prairie fire." Yet both Li Li-san and Wang Ming were critical of Mao for his excessive trust in the efficacy of the Red Army. By 1945 it seems as though the role of the army had overshadowed that of the peasants in Mao's mind, for he said, "Without a people's army the people have nothing."^[131]

Politics polarizes men, and it would be imprudent to read the stated view of one side in isolation from that of the other. Mao's radical stand on peasant power, for instance, may be better appreciated when one takes into account the fact that those in power in the Party at the time downgraded the peasant movement and therewith its chief spokesman, Mao. A similar internal political situation prevailed during the second united front. It was Wang Ming's contention then that, in an anti-imperialist struggle of the bourgeois–democratic stage, the proletarian leadership must cooperate with the bourgeoisie. It was against this thesis that Mao maintained that the war against Japan was a "peasant war." The Resolution on History formalized this thesis:

[126] Ibid. , p. 195.

[127] Ibid.

[128] Wang Ming hsüan-chi , I, 76.

[129] Selected Works , I, 23–24.

[130] Stuart R. Schram, ed., The Political Thought of Mao Tse-tung (New York: Praeger, 1963), pp. 181–182.

[131] Selected Works , III, 246–247.

"The peasants' fight for land is the basic feature of the anti-imperialist and anti-feudal struggle in China."^[132] Mao never denied the role of the proletarian leadership. The Resolution quotes Mao from "The Single Spark" stating that the revolution in semi-colonial China "will never suffer just because the peasants, through their struggle, become more powerful than the workers."^[133]

Seeing the Chinese revolution from the perspective of the Maoists in the past, we have also accepted their assessment of the revolutionary potential of the peasants. But the Communist cadres in the field who had to maintain daily contacts with the peasants had their own view, free from the considerations of internal politics. Such a view is available in a report made by Cheng Wei-san, the political commissar of the New Fourth Army's Second Division stationed in the Huainan District, at a conference of mass movement cadres some time in 1942.^[134] He was an old veteran who took part in the Autumn Harvest Uprising. His credentials and the content of his report testify to his insight into the strength and weakness of China's peasant masses. Because of its importance, I will quote from the report extensively.

"They love to follow a leader," Cheng Wei-san remarked in noting the "characteristics of the peasants," and went on,

This is quite all right if they are following the Communist Party, but it is bad if they are following a bad leader or a die-hard element. That's why the leadership question for the peasant is very important.

They love to follow a large crowd. If a unit [of the army] has just been founded, it is often like a hive of bees. Dividing up grain during the soviet period was like that. Because of this, when the peasants hold a big meeting it has a great impact on struggle. Similarly, if a mass meeting is held in connection with struggle, they will see what everybody else is doing and put together enough courage to rise up.^[135]

Peasants are prone to magnify to the size of heaven a very trifling matter such as a mouthful [of food] or one egg. That is to say, personal benefit is of utmost importance to the peasants. We must take it seriously.^[136]

To conduct a peasant movement, we must start from economic struggle because it benefits the peasants and can be cashed [tui-hsien ]. Political struggle is next, cultural movement is the most difficult and is a long-range enterprise. . . .

The peasants' consciousness must be gradually raised through struggle. Their consciousness must be experienced through the struggle in their lives. The peasants, who were taught in classes and not through a struggle, are not very effective. . . .^[137]

[132] SW , IV, 190. Emphasis added.

[133] Ibid. , p. 191.

[134] K'ang-Jih chan-cheng yü nung-min yün-tung .

[135] Ibid. , p. 11.

[136] Ibid. , p. 12.

[137] Ibid. , p. 11.

The peasants want cash [tui-hsien ], but they are also easily deceived. The rise of a good many Red Spears and the Big Sword Societies are due to this easy credulity. But once they put their trust in a situation, that trust goes a long way and can turn into a great power.

The peasants not only lack organization and an ability to lead other classes but they are unable to lead themselves. . . . Therefore, if a spontaneous [tzu-fa ch'i-lai ti ] peasant movement is not united with the proletariat and the Communist party, it will either suffer a serious loss or it will be exploited by others.^[138]

Cheng Wei-san's report is valuable not only because of its frankness about the peasants' weaknesses but because it points to a duality in their collective traits. He said.

These good points and their weak points cannot be separated. We must never, never take these characteristics in isolation. The weak points and the progressive nature are closely connected. Whatever progressive nature they may have is also connected with their backwardness. For instance, the peasants' localism (backwardness) is connected with their daring spirit in defending their homes and villages. Their view of private property is also shown in their tenacious and relentless revolutionary character in land revolution. Relying on these traits, what have we created?^[139]

Cheng Wei-san indicates the basis of the differences between Mao and Wang Ming. It seems that each capitalized on different facets of the Chinese peasant. Wang Ming took note of the backward character of the peasants to advance his urban-oriented line, while Mao professed to believe that that was precisely the source of strength for the revolution in the rural areas.

Mao put his trust in what the peasants were capable of becoming in his hands. The stress on the peasants' capacity for growth rather than their fixed being can be seen clearly in the following passage from Kao Kang's report, Examination of Questions Concerning the History of the Party in the Border Region , delivered in November of 1942. Since this report can be regarded as a dress rehearsal of the Party's criticisms of Wang Ming at the Seventh Plenum in 1945, one may assume that the point was made vis-à-vis Wang Ming:

The experiences of armed struggle in China similarly prove that the establishment of revolutionary arms is inseparable from the mutiny of the White army and bandit movement. We always begin with such forces. Then we build the framework of the Party and unite it with the peasants to make

[138] Ibid. , p. 12.

[139] Ibid. , p. 11.

the revolutionary forces. We start from small guerrilla units and turn them into large regular forces. However, the "Left deviation" opportunists still do not understand this point. . . .^[140]

The Japanese Army's contempt for the "Communist bandits" early in the war and its respect for the Eighth Route Army toward the end of it accord with this message.

The strength of Chinese communism as a peasant movement seems to rest on a refinement of some decisively pre-modern traits of China's peasantry. Max Weber made much of this point in his study. He noted the absence of what he called "complete disenchantment of the world" in the Chinese mentality.^[141] By this he meant that magic and superstition had not been exorcised, a condition which he held necessary for development of universalistic rationalism. He traced the continued dominance of traditional and particularistic orientations in the Chinese world view to the magical elements in "Chinese religion." In this way, he explained why modern entrepreneurship did not develop in China. The Chinese Communist movement seems to draw on traditional human relationships, which Weber regarded as China's curse, so to speak, and to turn them to its account. It found the source of organizational cohesion in the intense personal relationship that bound traditional rural self-defense groups, on both "orthodox" and "heterodox" sides, together.

General Ho Lung, the commander of the 120th Division, had an occasion to reminisce about his youthful days to a reporter in 1939. He had raised himself from bandit origin in Hunan. He was apparently an incorrigible ruffian in his boyhood. He found his calling in soldiering for landlords' private armies, and he took part in many a bloody fight. These fights took place between villages based on distinct lineages and were called inter-lineage feuds (hsieh-tou ). Villages organized in para-military formations clashed with one another, inflicting atrocities. Ho Lung said of his soldier-comrades,

Though they were barbarous all right, they also had their merits: they were sincere, spirited, and hard-nosed. If they don't want to talk and fraternize, they'll never talk and fraternize. Once they trust you, then neither death nor earthquake can change [them]. No matter what you bring, an official or

[140] Pien-ch'ü li-shih wen-t'i chien-t'ao (Report to the senior cadre conference, November, 1942) (The Northwestern Bureau) (BI), p. 42. As this report purports to be a review of the Party's history in northern Shensi up to 1935, the target of attack is 'Left' rather than right deviation.

[141] The Religion of China: Confucianism and Taoism (Glencoe, Ill.: The Free Press, 1951), pp. 226–227.

money, you cannot buy them off. And they were so brave—many people sacrificed themselves by following me alone.^[142]

Local self-defense based entirely on lineage was peculiar to southern and central China. Still, it seems that basically identical interpersonal bonds bound a local self-defense group at its best everywhere. When such a bond tied a group of peasants together, they were no longer a sheet of loose sand. They followed their leader in whatever he commanded. Moreover, this relationship could be cultivated and reproduced among otherwise atomized peasant masses. Stilwell noted this fact among the Chinese troops under his command in the China–Burma–India Theater. They were peasants press-ganged and shipped in box cars to his command from the Chungking-controlled areas. He was surprised to see how much they would endure in return for simply decent treatment.^[143]

Chinese communism as a peasant guerrilla movement sought to cultivate this relationship and to institutionalize it at the mass level. It had to be built within the confines of a limited space such as a village or a company, the most important unit of troop indoctrination in the Communist forces. To quote Cheng Wei-san again:

Because the peasants lack organization, they are especially in need of it. We must use old forms, start from small local ones to reach a large district, from near to far, from one home and one village to reach one hsiang , one district. This is inevitable for the initial mobilization of the peasants. . . . From the beginning of the war, our Party in north China mobilized from above to below. This is completely correct.^[144]

The largest operational unit for the regular army was co-extensive with the military sub-district—comprising a few hsien and corresponding in size to what Philip Kuhn calls the "extended multiplex t'uan ." The decentralized organization was suited to prolonged guerrilla warfare, because it was a long-standing tradition.

Similarly the relationship cultivated between individuals rested largely on personal or pre-political attachments. The well-publicized efficacy of "ideological indoctrination" in creating discipline and cohesion among the Communist troops is highly misleading if it is thought to consist entirely of a political message. The message may be "ideological," but the medium is not. It is difficult to find anything overtly political in the injunctions laid down in the resolutions of the

[142] Hung-ch'i p'iao-p'iao , VI, 107.

[143] Stilwell and the American Experience in China , pp. 3, 26, 161–163, 172–173, 416.

[144] K'ang-Jih chan-cheng yü nung-min yün-tung , pp. 11–12.

Kut'ien Conference—the bible of "political training" in the Chu-Mao Group.^[145] The ban against beating of soldiers, care for their daily needs, and the like, were simple requirements of decency between one man and another, though they were sorely lacking in the traditional coolie armies. The catechisms contained in the "Three main rules of discipline and the eight points for attention"—which Mao seemed to have copied from the Taiping Rebels—were designed to create close human bonds between officers and soldiers, and between soldiers and civilians.^[146] The absence of privacy in the social structure in the rural areas also facilitated collective unity based on face-to-face relationships. Amazing effectiveness of anti-traitor work and information control at the village level resulted from the absence of secrets in a peasant collectivity.

The infrastructure of guerrilla warfare had its root in the "feudal" part of China. At the bottom, it was indistinguishable from traditional rural self-defense, "localism," "local banditry," and "warlordism." The accomplishment of the Chinese Communists was in refining this native source of power and combining it with a thoroughly modern organization imposed from above. Thousands upon thousands of separate, isolated, and cellular units were tied to a frame of steel. It seems as though the cells would have gone wherever the frame would take them, e.g., the resistance, the civil war, the Great Leap Forward, etc. This was because of the basically apolitical nature of the cells at the bottom. Their unity presupposed local interest in "defending homes and villages."

Unity of a home is based on an apolitical relationship. The paradigm of the relationship that governs a home is the relationship between the father and the son or between the author and his issue. This relationship is therefore called "authoritarian." It is apolitical because it is based on command rather than on "reason." Its root is in tradition. As such, its parameter is a particular home or a particular village. This sets limits to the unity of one village with another. But patriarchy, ties of blood, and love for one's village are precisely the foundation of nationhood. Thousands of Chinese villages are capable of becoming a nation if they are tied together under one giant father figure who would stress the particularity of the whole collectivity in its relation to other collectivities.

To simplify the picture, one might say that the Chinese Communist movement consists of Mao, the father figure, at the apex and millions of Corporal Lei Fengs, the Chinese Stakhanovite, at the bottom. How

[145] See "On Correcting Mistaken Ideas in the Party," Selected Works , I, 105–106.

[146] Ibid. , IV, 155–156.

far the movement can go is in part a function of its leader. It is also the function of the led. The followers are not after all completely malleable. The Communist movement created its power by cultivating the strength of the tradition. But that strength is connected with weaknesses. The leader is charged with the task of husbanding this energy while trying to change it. This was the reason that Mao demanded "guerrilla warfare" while criticizing "guerrillaism," and demanded "regularization" while criticizing "regular warfare." The contradiction in his position was the reflection of the contradiction between himself and Wang Ming.