V—
Emergence of the New United Front

The Sixth Plenum had ended in a standoff between Mao and Wang Ming. Wang Ming succeeded in extracting verbal concessions from the Party which conformed relatively closely to the Kuomintang's understanding of the united front. But Mao had his way on most of the substantive decisions. After the fall of Wuhan and Canton in late 1939, the CCP proceeded to implement these decisions while the war became stalemated. If the Kuomintang entertained no illusions about the CCP's intentions up to this point, it was nevertheless disturbed when its suspicions were confirmed. Chungking began to take active counter-measures. At the same time, the Communist threat and adverse international circumstances through 1940 placed the Kuomintang's continued resistance in doubt. Mao's vision of the united front as a vehicle for the revolution was put to a test. In this chapter we will delineate the transformation of the united front in the early stage of stalemate.

The purpose of the united front in Mao's scheme was to keep the Kuomintang government in the war as long as necessary in order to build up Communist military power. But how protracted should the war be? In Mao's mind, that depended on how much military force was required for victory over the Kuomintang army in the civil war he anticipated. That force level was one million regular troops. Building an army of one million as the goal of the CCP during the war against Japan was first revealed in the Wayaopao Resolution. "In order to win victory over Japanese imperialism and its running dog Chinese traitors requires several million Red Army [troops] . . . [but]

first increase them to one million," said the Resolution.^[1] The figure of one million regulars, it turned out, was not mentioned idly or for rhetorical flourish. It cropped up from time to time in Party documents throughout the war, indicating that it was part of the firm political line of the Party.

To fathom the significance of this figure, it must be placed in the perspective of the entire history of the second united front beginning with the debacle in Kiangsi and leading up to the end of the Second World War. In the Tsunyi Resolutions and again in a subsequent lecture, Mao professed to believe that the defeat of the Chinese Soviet in Kiangsi was due solely to the tactical military errors of the Party leadership then in power. By this means, he put the blame for the fall of the Kiangsi Soviet on the Internationalists and tried to preserve the legitimacy of the Party's line of the Sixth Congress. But his stand was not based merely on considerations of internal politics. It also reflected his real conviction as to the cause of the CCP's defeat in Kiangsi. That conviction, stripped of partisan rhetoric, was that the defeat was due primarily to the numerical inferiority of the Red Army.

Mao had maintained at Tsunyi that the CCP leadership had an option to wage mobile and guerrilla warfare but did not take the option. The facts were otherwise.^[2] The Red Army was hemmed into an area and was compelled to engage in positional warfare for several reasons. The regular army was mobile and could break out of the encirclement. But the soviet bases were stationary. Without the rest and replenishment provided by the bases, the Red Army could not fight a protracted war. At the same time, the support of the peasant masses for the Red Army depended in the last analysis on the degree of protection provided by it. Thus, when the ring of the Kuomintang's blockade tightened in 1934, the Red Army faced two alternatives equally dangerous to itself. It had to desert the base to preserve itself or defend the base in positional warfare.

Mao laid down as a general proposition that the revolutionary war in China consisted of encirclement and counter-encirclement by the opposing forces. This was because the revolutionary forces were land-bound and could not roam too far afield. The only way out of the predicament in Kiangsi would have been to build several bases comparable to the Central Soviet in strength, and to maintain a

[1] Mao Tse-tung-chi , V, 32.

[2] See Jerome Ch'en's judgment that "if positional warfare was the order of the day, it was a matter of necessity rather than choice for the Red Army," in "Tsunyi Conference," p. 24.

certain ratio in the Red Army's over-all force level to the Kuomintang's.

This strategy would have made the time-consuming encirclement impossible against any one base. Far more reliable assistance than Japan's menace or the Fukien Rebellion would have been forthcoming to attack the blockading forces from the rear. Temporarily-abandoned bases could be recovered before the infrastructure could be completely undone. The CCP did in fact attempt to build several additional bases toward the end of the Kiangsi period, but without much success; and the Red Army, at its height in 1932, never exceeded 300,000 in strength.^[3] Edgar Snow put the relative force level of the Kuomintang and the Communist forces during the Fifth Campaign as 400,000 and 180,000.^[4] The Kuomintang's total strength in regular army troops seemed to have hovered somewhere in the neighborhood of one million from the early 1930s through the early phase of the resistance. This was augmented by regional and irregular forces.^[5] Therefore, the goal of building a Communist army of one million meant having a force roughly equal to the Kuomintang regulars, and enough bases to support this force. This was Mao's distant goal for his next challenge against Chiang Kai-shek.

When the war broke out, the CCP had 30,000 men in the Eighth Route Army. In early 1938, the New Fourth Army was organized in central China with an initial force of 12,000.^[6] Starting from a combined force of about 40,000 men, the Communist forces grew to 160,000 by early 1939.^[7] It was the fact of this rapid buildup of Communist forces and its implications for the future which increasingly alarmed the Kuomintang government after 1939. It could not

[3] This is Mao's reckoning, in Selected Works , 1, 195. See also Hatano, Gendai Shina , p. 319.

[4] Red Star Over China , pp. 184–185. Hatano puts the Red Army's force level in the campaign as between 160,000 and 200,000, in Gendai Shina , p. 323.

[5] One Japanese estimate in early 1939 puts the Kuomintang's total regular force level at 185 divisions of varied quality and strength. If one takes the median figure of 10,000 men per one division, the total manpower comes to 1,850,000. Shina konichigun^[*] no zenbo^[*] [An overview of the anti-Japanese forces in China] (Toyo^[*] kyokai^[*] chosabu^[*] , 1939), pp. 26–39.

[6] Ho Kan-chih, p. 330. Authorized strength was 20,000 in three divisions for the Eighth Route Army and 12,000, an equivalent of one division, in four detachments, for the New Fourth Army. Ho shang-chiang k'ang-chan ch'i-chien chün-shih pao-kao [General Ho's military reports during the war of resistance] (Nanking: Ministry of National Defense, 1945), p. 418.

[7] Pacification War , No. 1, appendix III. This map enumerates 140,000 regulars in north China as of November, 1939. I have added 20,000 to account for the New Fourth Army. The map also shows an estimated total of 600,000 to 700,000 irregular forces in north China alone.

Map 9
The Shen-Kan-Ning (Shensi-Kansu-Ninghsia) Border Region, circa 1944

deal with Communist problems without first dealing with the Japanese forces in one way or another. The war became triangular.

Four alternatives were open to the Kuomintang at this stage. They were not mutually exclusive but could be mixed to produce several varieties of policies. The most desirable course was the one which the Kuomintang seemed to have had in mind since as early as the Third Plenum of its Central Executive Committee in early 1937. This was to combine active resistance with opposition to communism. The Kuomintang's prestige went up enormously as the war began. If it could maintain its leadership over the ground swell of nationalism, the Kuomintang was in a position to turn the misfortune to its advantage by accelerating the policy of centralization and unification. Specifically, there was one set of circumstances under which its partisan interest vis-à-vis the CCP could be made to coincide with the national interest vis-à-vis Japan. The Kuomintang could have turned to the counter-offensive as the Japanese offensive ended. If it could roll back the Japanese forces toward Shanhaikuan, it could also compel the Communist forces out of the strategic interior-line. The Communist forces would have come face-to-face with the Kuomintang forces. Any defiance of the united front on the governments' terms would have constituted casus belli . Then the Communist forces would have had to submit to integration into the government's forces or flee into the interior away from the battle zone. The previous government policy of "internal unification first" would have been vindicated. At this stage of the war, however, rolling back the Japanese to Shanhaikuan was only a hypothetical option. After Pearl Harbor, the Kuomintang would attempt to do so with Allied assistance.

A variation of the first option would have been to maintain the strategic stalemate with the Japanese forces while contesting control of the occupied area with the CCP by sending in the Kuomintang's own guerrilla forces. This would also have enabled the Kuomintang to carry out national unification and resistance simultaneously.

A third alternative would have been to maintain the strategic stalemate with the Japanese forces, to abandon the areas behind Japanese lines to the Communist forces, and to wait for a favorable turn in the international situation. If third-power participation in the war could be realized, either in the Kuomintang's theater of operation or behind the Japanese forces (by the Soviet Union), this option could turn into a counter-offensive. During the holding stage, the Kuomintang would maintain the posture of resistance and let the CCP expand. But if the stalemate lasted too long, it faced an uncertain future.

Last, the Kuomintang could seek a peace with Japan which fell short of total surrender. This option was relatively practical from China's standpoint, until the beginning of the Pacific War. After 1942, the Kuomintang inclined more toward the third or the first alternatives. After the Cairo Conference of 1943, peace with Japan became all but hypothetical. For obvious reasons, the CCP characterized any peace efforts between Chungking and Tokyo as total surrender for China. But this would have been unlikely because Japan lacked the wherewithal to impose such terms. Japan's search for a political solution to the war stemmed precisely from it inability to subdue the Chinese government militarily. The terms of peace in general included anti-Soviet cooperation, Chinese recognition of independence of Manchukuo, and concessions to Japan's rights acquired by conquest.

The real issue confronting the Kuomintang in 1939 and 1940 was the relative risk involved in a partial surrender and protracted stalemate. The Japanese terms of November, 1937, were acceptable to Chungking, and these were moreover negotiable. The Kuomintang could combine strong military pressure on the Japanese forces with a negotiation to achieve conditions acceptable to itself.

After 1939, Chungking seriously explored all of the alternatives outlined above. Which course Chungking would take determined the nature of the united front. Chungking's inclinations depended in turn on the international situation surrounding the war. Between 1939 and 1941, the international situation offered little hope for the Kuomintang. Two facts stood out. Japan took all the major urban centers in north, central, and south China, and stopped its advance. If the Kuomintang expected in August of 1937 that expanding the war from north to central China would invite Anglo-American intervention to protect their colonial interests in the Yangtze valley, that expectation had no more chance of fulfillment in 1939. The cumulative impact of Japan's infringements on American interests in China antagonized Washington, but until the fall of 1940 Washington would merely demand observance of the principle of Open Door without showing any willingness to enforce it. This in turn influenced Britain, which became inclined to salvage her interests in China by accepting Japan's hegemony. In late 1938 it began to look as though Japan could enlist Britain to induce Chungking to abandon further hope for a third power intervention on China's behalf. A new search began in Japan for a political solution of the war.

Even before Prime Minister Konoe's public refusal to deal further with the Kuomintang government, moves were under way to establish regional governments under Japanese auspices. With the establishment of the Temporary Government in Peiping in December, 1937

Japan was clearly reverting to the policy of aggrandizement. Then in March, 1938, the Restoration Government came into existence in Nanking.^[8] The Japanese Army started looking for a suitable figure to unify the two governments in the occupied areas. The Army General Staff opposed any step that might prolong the war. As long as the Kuomintang government maintained its strong existence, a peaceful solution to the war could not be arrived at by setting up rival regimes of dubious character. The General Staff sought to exercise control over the seemingly endless expansion of the war by defining its goals in China in the light of Japan's over-all priorities. Lest its policy of restraint be overturned by the foolhardy, the General Staff succeeded in having it approved in the presence of the Emperor.^[9]The Directions for Adjustment of a New Relationship between Japan and China of November of 1938 were designed to curb any demand on China in excess of Japan's peace terms of January, 1938. However, the dissension in the Japanese government led to a compromise and a non-solution. On November 3, Konoe issued a statement which proclaimed Japan's goal in China to be the establishment of a "New Order" based on cooperation of Japan, China, and Manchukuo. Konoe retracted his earlier refusal to deal with the Kuomintang government, but his condition for Kuomintang participation in the "New Order" was a change in its leadership.^[10] Chiang Kai-shek pointed out in December that the end result of the "New Order" would be to turn China into a second Manchukuo.^[11]

Simultaneously with the development of The Directions for Adjustment of a New Relationship , another set of terms was being negotiated in secret. In February, 1938, Tung Tao-ning, an official of the Chinese Foreign Ministry, paid a secret visit to Japan. He met General Tada Shun, the vice chief of staff, to assess Japan's intentions after the Konoe statement of January. He returned carrying a letter from Colonel Kagesa Sada'aki, the chief of the intelligence section of the General Staff, addressed to Chang Ch'ün and Ho Ying-ch'in. In turn, Kao Tsung-wu of the Chinese Foreign Ministry paid a visit to Tokyo with Chiang Kai-shek's consent.^[12]

In what manner Wang Ching-wei's faction came to take over the

[8] Ibid. , pp. 41–47.

[9] Imperial Army General Staff , No. 1, pp. 575–576; Nihon gaiko^[*] nempyo^[*] , II, 405–407.

[10] Ibid. , p. 401.

[11] Collected Wartime Messages , I, 134–147.

[12] John Hunter Boyle, China and Japan at War, 1937–1945 (Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press, 1972), pp. 166–182; Gerald Bunker, The Peace Conspiracy: Wang Ching-wei and the China War, 1937–1945 (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1972), pp. 68–86.

secret negotiations is not clear. By November 20, ten days before The Directions for Adjustment of a New Relationship was decided, Japanese and Wang Ching-wei's emissaries produced The Record of Discussion between Japan and China . Japanese peace terms as promised in this and the accompanying secret memorandum were more lenient than those set forth in The Directions for Adjustment of a New Relationship . It was Wang Ching-wei's understanding that Japan would withdraw its forces from all of China except Inner Mongolia in two years after the conclusion of the war.^[13] It is not clear why two different sets of peace terms were drawn up by the Japanese. Nor is it possible to know what relationship existed and was anticipated between Chiang Kai-shek and Wang Ching-wei.^[14] The Japanese terms with Wang Ching-wei seemed to have been conditional upon Wang Ching-wei's promise that his rift with Chiang Kai-shek would be accompanied by a revolt in Yünnan and Szechuan Provinces. Wang's hope was to establish a rival regime to Chiang Kai-shek's in areas outside Japanese occupation, thus lessening the impression that it was a puppet government. Wang flew to Hanoi and proclaimed his plan in a telegraphic message, but the anticipated revolt did not come. His understanding, when he committed himself against Chiang Kai-shek, was that Japan would deal with him on the basis of the agreement he had worked out. But without military or political power of his own, he was forced to swallow the harsher terms.^[15]

Japan's new war policy was spelled out in detail in the War Ministry's decision of November 18, Policy for Directing the War after the Fall of 1938 , and its companion, The Plan for Dealing with China after the Fall of 1938 , dated December 6.^[16] These decisions anticipated a new turn in the international situation which might involve Japan in a two-front war with China and the Soviet Union. Inasmuch as the China war could not be quickly concluded, Japan had to face the prospect of a prolonged occupation while increasing its force level against the Soviet Union. At the time, Japan had committed 24 divi-

[13] Nihon gaiko^[*] nempyo^[*] , II, 401–404.

[14] On prima facie evidence the Wang Ching-wei movement was an anti-Chiang movement. Yet the tragedy of Wang Ching-wei was precisely that he never intended to be a puppet. His purpose was to save the republic from total destruction by persuading its leaders to accept peace on reasonable terms. A suspicion lingers that there was more to his estrangement with Chiang than a mere conspiracy. Many questions will remain unsolved until the Kuomintang's archives are opened.

[15] Bunker concludes that this was a Japanese "flimflam," p. 105. See Boyle on this point, pp. 203–204, 207, 213, 221. Later Japan offered Chiang Kai-shek the same terms originally promised Wang. The question for Japan was, Who could deliver peace?

[16] Imperial Army General Staff , No. 1, pp. 571–575.

sions in China against 184 Chinese divisions while having only 11 in Korea, Manchuria, and the homeland.^[17] However, if the occupied China could be consolidated with a minimum of force, Japan was none the worse for having swallowed it. The Imperial Army was to sit tight on the center of China, controlling most of the land and water communication, husbanding and expropriating the bulk of China's natural wealth and population, and wait for an "internal disintegration" of its government or to "at least reduce it to a local power." The General Staff formally abandoned the hope for a quick settlement of the war, but it was still hoping to attain a political settlement on its own terms. "The use of armed power," the December decision stated,

will enter a new phase after the assault on Hankow and Canton. Henceforth, we will guide the building of new China on our own initiative. We must warn especially against haste. For this purpose the restoration of peace and security as the basic work will be the first principle for a considerable period of time, while various other measures will be subordinated to it.

We will continue to carry out our work to eradicate the remaining anti-Japanese forces as before, but it will depend mainly on the management of political strategies based on the stern presence of our army.^[18]

The Japanese areas were divided into pacification zone and combat zone. Roughly, the occupied zone lay to the east of the Yellow River downstream from Paot'ou, the New Yellow River, Luchou, Wuhu and Hangchow. Special emphasis was placed on securing the following areas: northern Hopei; Inner Mongolia west of Paot'ou; Shansi Province north of the Chengting–Taiyuan railway and the Taiyuan basin; the areas along the Tsintao–Tsinan railway in Shantung Province; the Shanghai–Nanking–Hangchow delta; the Tientsin–Pukow railway; the northern sections of the Peiping–Hankow railway and the Tat'ung–P'uchow railway. The rest of the area was combat zone. A minimum force of one army each was stationed in the Hankow and Canton areas mainly for the purpose of deterring a Kuomintang counter-offensive. These strategic combat units were ordered not to expand the occupied area, to avoid small skirmishes, and to preserve their strength. As many combat units as could be spared were to be returned home, to be replaced by units newly outfitted for pacification duty such as independent mixed brigades. Strategic bombing of the interior was to be carried out "persistently," while the blockade was to be tightened to prevent the inflow of arms and strategic material.^[19]

The Fifth Plenum of the Kuomintang met in late January. It took

[17] Ibid. , p. 579.

[18] Ibid. , p. 573.

[19] Ibid. , p. 574.

stock of the new situation on the domestic and international scene and laid down the Party's policy. The Kuomintang bristled with determination to resist Japan and to restrict communism. The Fifth Plenum was in part a response to the CCP's Sixth Plenum; it indicated the kind of united front the Kuomintang had in mind. It rejected the CCP's proposal to permit Communist members to join the Kuomintang and the San-Min-Chu-I Youth Corps on the basis of dual membership. Chiang Kai-shek took the CCP's proposal as an affront and a confirmation of its seditious intention.^[20] Partly in response to the Communist threat and partly in response to wartime conditions, the Kuomintang was proceeding with greater centralization of Party control. The decision of the Extraordinary Congress of the year before to create the post of Tsung-ts'ai (Leader) for Chiang Kai-shek was augmented by the creation of the National Defense Supreme Council, which superseded and fused together Party and army leadership. Chiang Kai-shek, its chairman, had the plenary power to conduct the nation's affairs with executive orders.^[21] Reorganization of the San-Min-Chu-I Youth Corps proceeded under Ch'en Ch'eng's leadership. The Kuomintang took on a facsistic coloration by reorganizing and incorporating the CC Clique and the Lanishe (the Blue Shirts) into the Party under various subterfuges. The Plenum approved the new order of battle, setting up ten war zones, including two guerrilla zones, as follows:

1st War Zone: Wei Li-huang; Honan and part of northern Anhwei

2nd War Zone: Yen Hsi-shan; Shansi and a part of Shensi

3rd War Zone: Ku Chu-t'ung; southern Kiangsu, southern Anhwei, Chekiang, and Fukien

4th War Zone: Chang Fa-k'uei; Kwangtung and Kwangsi

5th War Zone: Li Tsung-jen; western Anhwei, northern Hupeh, and southern Honan

Shantung–Kiangsu (Lu-Su ) War Zone: Yü Hsüeh-chung; northern Kiangsu and Shantung

Hopei–Chahar (Chi-Ch'a ) War Zone: Lu Chung-lin; Hopei and Chahar

8th War Zone: Chu Shao-liang; Kansu, Ninghsia, Ch'inghai, and Suiyüan

9th War Zone: Ch'en Ch'eng; northwestern Kiangsi, southern Hupeh (south of the Yangtze River), and Hunan

10th War Zone: Chiang Ting-wen; Shensi^[22]

[20] Soviet Russia in China , p. 88.

[21] Hatano Ken'ichi, Chugoku^[*] Kokuminto^[*] tsushi^[*] [A survey history of the Kuomintang] (Tokyo: Daito^[*] shuppansha, 1944), pp. 521–522, 543.

[22] Ho shang-chiang . . . pao-kao , pp. 209–211. Lu-Su and Chi-Ch'a were guerrilla zones.

Yen Hsi-shan, Yü Hsüeh-chung (formerly of the Northeastern Army), and Lu Chung-lin (a follower of Feng Yü-hsiang) were ordered to operate partly or wholly behind the Japanese lines. Intended or not, the order of battle had the effect of forcing them to live up to their earlier demand for the united front and resistance.^[23]

At about this time, extensive efforts were being made to centralize and develop the interior provinces of the southwest. When the Japanese assault on Wuhan was anticipated, the projects to build up the provinces of Szechuan, Yünnan, and Kweichou as the base of a protracted war were started. Construction of a motor road to Burma and a railway through Yünnan into French Indochina was started in order to insure the inflow of war material. Another line was opened between Hengyang on the Hankow–Canton line and Kweilin, through Kwangsi Province; it was pushing toward French Indochina. Work on Chengtu–Chungking–Suifu–Kunming–Burma railway was also in progress, as were inter-regional highways.

An important indication of the Kuomintang's intentions concerning the CCP was the adoption of the Measures to Restrict the Activities of Alien Parties , designed to curb the CCP's seditious and expansive activities.^[24] The fact that these and other similar measures were put into effect was never made public, which indicated that the Kuomintang's intentions were limited and that it was not interested in escalating tension with the CCP to a breaking point. The Kuomintang distributed two more documents in February and ordered a tightening up of anti-Communist control in north and central China. Entitled Measures to Dispose of Communist Party Problems and Measures to Defend the Lost Areas against Communist Party Activities respectively, the documents were further implementation of the decision of the Fifth Plenum.^[25] A third paper followed in March, according to Mao.^[26] Still other measures were issued in August and October, according to Hatano.^[27] The Fifth Plenum also instituted the so-called War Area Party and Political Affairs Commission in the areas lost to the Japanese forces. It was intended to be an instrument for contesting these areas with the CCP.^[28] Already in August, 1938, Lu Chung-lin had been appointed the governor of Hopei and proceeded to his post.

These centralizing and anti-Communist measures were being insti-

[23] See the Japanese view that the order of battle was a part of "centralization," in "Kokumin seifu kaiso danko^[*] " [The Kuomin government carries out reorganization], Shina , February, 1939, pp. 221–223.

[24] Selected Works , II, 260.

[25] SW , III, 254.

[26] Selected Works , II, 397.

[27] Joho^[*] , No. 31, December 1, 1940, p. 16. See also Selected Works , II, 397.

[28] Joho , No. 1, September 1, 1939, p. 36; Edgar Snow, The Battle for Asia (New York: Random House, 1941), p. 353.

tuted within the larger framework of a shift in the Kuomintang's strategy. The new strategy was laid down at a military conference in Nanyüeh (Hunan) in late November, shortly after the fall of Wuhan, and Chiang Kai-shek proclaimed it to the Fifth Plenum:

Our present task is to build upon the accomplishments of the first stage, to carry out the plans we have formed for the second stage and to concentrate our efforts upon victory and reconstruction. We are now turning defense into attack, and defeat into victory. . . .^[29]

He was much more explicit than Mao that the fall of Wuhan was a "turning point." The time for "trading space for time" was over. The Fifth Plenum approved Ho Ying-ch'in's military report outlining the decisions of the Nanyüeh conference. The government had decided to replenish the heavy losses incurred in the first stage of the war, and to streamline and expand its armed forces for counter-offensive.^[30] At this point, counter-offensive was a commitment. We will see shortly how it was carried out. But the Kuomintang's over-all intentions were clear. It could not have entertained the hope of pushing the Japanese forces all the way back to Manchuria. It was no doubt counting on further deterioration of Japan–U.S. relations. It was also hoping that Soviet pressure against the Manchurian border—such as the Changkufeng Incident of July, 1938—would draw the Japanese forces away from itself. But in the meantime, the Kuomintang was taking a forward strategy of its own to turn the tide. Chungking was determined to exert military pressure along the entire front against the over-stretched Japanese defense. On this basis it was also dispatching guerrilla forces of its own into the Japanese areas to vie with the Communists.

Wang Ching-wei's rift with the Kuomintang did not trigger a revolt in the southwestern provinces as anticipated. His telegraphic message from Hanoi to Chungking proposing a peaceful solution of the Sino–Japanese relationship was met by a stern rebuff. Three days later, on January 1, the Kuomintang's CEC met in an extraordinary session and expelled Wang Ching-wei from the Party. This act formally freed the Kuomintang from any onus of having liaison with a traitor. But an actual liaison was just beginning. The elation in Tokyo for having won over such a prestigious Chinese leader was short-lived. It was

[29] Opening address to the Fifth CEC Plenum, in Collected Wartime Messages , I, 158. The decision for the counter-offensive was taken at the Nanyüeh conference in late November, 1938. See Ho shang-chiang . . . pao-kao , pp. 209–212, for the decisions of the military conferences in Changsha, Nanyüeh, and Sian.

[30] Ibid.

soon realized that Japan had no choice but to negotiate directly with Chiang Kai-shek, even if it meant sacrificing Wang Ching-wei.

Thus, while blackmailing Chungking with the prospect of setting up a rival regime, Tokyo also sought to induce Chiang Kai-shek to enter into serious peace negotiations. Wang Ching-wei's faction was clearly aware of the double-edged Japanese scheme. Wang pleaded for full confidence and generous treatment which would make for a viable regime in Nanking.^[31] But his followers spurred contacts with Chungking in order to beat the Japanese government in the race for Chungking.^[32] They tried to reunite with the main wing by using their mediatory role as a leverage. Having disowned Wang Ching-wei, the Kuomintang was willing to wait and see what kind of peace terms he could win for himself. If the Japanese terms were agreeable to itself, Chungking could step in to displace Wang Ching-wei. It could prevail on Japan to accept the view that the relationship between Chiang Kai-shek and Wang Ching-wei was a domestic concern of China. By holding out along the anti-Japanese line, the Kuomintang actually retained a better bargaining position. All of its options were open.

The Rally of Internal Opposition against Mao

As soon as Wang Ching-wei defected, the CCP mounted a major campaign to discredit him. It was designed to forestall the possibility that others might follow suit. For the time being, it remained for Wang Ming and other opponents of Mao to play up this danger. Mao remained silent. "Oppose Wang, defend Chiang struggles" were reported in Chungking, Changsha, and Shanghai.^[33] On January 5, a rally was held in Yenan at which Wang Ming delivered the keynote speech. He exposed the long standing pro-Japanese inclinations of Wang Ching-wei and maintained that his defection was but the latest manifestation of an old Japanese plot to split the Chinese.^[34] Quoting profusely from Chiang Kai-shek's own angry reaction to the defection, Wang Ming ranted at anti-Communist elements who secretly sympathized with Wang Ching-wei. They said, "The Chinese resistance is a war on behalf of the Soviet Union";^[35] or "Opposition to Wang [Ching-wei] is necessarily an opposition to Chiang."^[36] Wang Ming in-

[31] New York Times , November, 1939, p. 8.

[32] Chou Fou-hai jih-chi [Diary of Chou Fou-hai] (Hong Kong: Ch'uangk'en ch'u-pan-she, 1955), pp. 73–154, passim .

[33] Joho^[*] , No. 7, December 1, 1939, p. 39.

[34] "Chiu yin-mao ti hsin-hua-yang" [New pattern in the old plot], Guide , VI, 105.

[35] Ibid. , p. 111.

[36] Ibid. , p. 122.

sisted, "Such people insult Chairman Chiang [by implying that he is in] secret agreement with the activities of Wang Ching-wei."^[37] Evidently anti-Communist sentiment in some sectors of the Kuomintang was almost equal to the anti-Japanese sentiment. Wang Ming was trying to prevent the two halves of the Kuomintang from reuniting.

Specifically, Wang Ming's concern was the increased incidence of so-called "friction" between the Kuomintang's regional forces and the Communist forces. Local military clashes began to take place in Hopei Province in the summer of 1938, when the Communist forces expanded eastward from the Second War Zone in Shansi.^[38] Chiang Kaishek called in P'eng Te-huai in February and instructed him to restrain Communist activities in southern Hopei.^[39] But the CCP's Southern Hopei Administrative Office was established in August under Yang Hsiu-feng.^[40] In September, the Hopei–Chahar (guerrilla) War Zone came into existence as the new Hopei governor, Lu Chung-lin, arrived in Nankung and assumed command of Kuomintang guerrillas such as those led by Chang Yin-wu.^[41] Lu sought to enforce Chung-king's order to abolish the Communist government.^[42]

For more than six months, between the end of the Sixth Plenum and June, 1938, Mao maintained silence about Wang Ching-wei's defection, domestic tension, and international developments. He was pushing furiously for implementation of the major decisions passed at the Plenum. I infer that two of these were uppermost in his mind. One was the establishment of a north–south link between the Eighth Route Army and the New Fourth Army. The other was the east–west link between the T'aihang mountain and Shantung. What little Mao did say during this period related exclusively to the development of bases. He wrote the preface to Nieh Jung-chen's book, which introduced the Chin-Ch'a-Chi Border Region. Mao extolled it as a model to be emulated elsewhere. To the leaders of the CCP, Mao's essay had a more pointed message. He seemed to be reminding some of the practitioners of "new warlordism" who "take pride in being given appointments by the Kuomintang" to get on with the task of peasant mobilization and base construction.

The decision to take the Huai River valley in north Kiangsu was Mao's own. It is my inference that this decision was made with a view to an eventual civil war with the Kuomintang. Mao apparently de-

[37] Ibid.

[38] For accounts of these skirmishes, see Johnson, Peasant Nationalism , pp. 120–122.

[39] Ch'ün-chung , No. 8–9, May 25, 1938, p. 240.

[40] Growth of one revolutionary base , p. 49.

[41] Ibid. , p. 37.

[42] Ho Kan-chih, p. 351.

cided when the Japanese advance halted that the CCP must secure north China and prepare to confront the Kuomintang on that footing. As the Japanese commanders also knew, the control of Shantung Province was important, since it guarded the link between north China and Manchuria. The 115th Division was sent there, and efforts were made to establish a lateral link between Shantung and the T'aihang mountain across the plains of Hopei. This east–west link, however, could be easily cut unless the Kuomintang forces' advance into Hopei could be thwarted. Northern Kiangsu and northern Anhwei were situated to protect the soft underbelly of north China.^[43] The importance of the Huai River valley to the CCP was underscored in the course of the Chungking negotiation of 1945 between Chiang Kai-shek and Mao. With American mediation, they redrew the boundaries of their respective forces as a part of futile efforts to avert the civil war. At that time, the Communist forces were in areas far to the south of the Yangtze River. Mao made concessions to withdraw them. The forces in Kwantung, Chekiang, southern Kiangsu, southern Anhwei, central Anhwei, Hunan, Hupeh, and southern Honan were moved north beyond the Lunghai railway and into northern Kiangsu and northern Anhwei. Central China was abandoned, but north Kiangsu and north Anhwei were not.^[44]

As in the case of Hopei and Shantung, north Kiangsu was not assigned to the Communist forces. Subsequent events will show that the Kuomintang tried its utmost to prevent the Eighth Route Army and the New Fourth Army from linking up with each other in north Kiangsu. It could only be taken by military conquest of Kuomintang opposition there. But north Kiangsu was behind the Japanese line. Mao's strategic rationale as applied to north Kiangsu was given by Teng Tzu-hui. Seldom can we find such an explicit statement.

Following the outbreak of the anti-Japanese war, comrade Mao Tse-tung formulated the correct line that our Party and army should expand behind the enemy. This was because . . . only by penetrating deep behind the enemy . . . could we enlarge the political influence of our Party and army . . . again only by developing behind the enemy, by operating our army in areas not ruled by the Kuomintang could we prevent frontal friction with the Kuomintang from arising, and avoid giving any excuse to the die-hard forces to plot for split and surrender . . . [and] attain the good conditions for turning the subsequent stage into a preparation for the socialist revolution.^[45]

[43] Teng Tzu-hui, "Hsin-ssu-chün ti fa-chan . . . ," p. 393.

[44] Selected Works , IV, 61.

[45] Teng Tzu-hui, "Hsin-ssu-chün ti fa-chan . . . ," p. 378.

As might be expected, the Kuomintang assigned the New Fourth Army to operate in an area which was very disadvantageous to it. The area in question was contiguous to the Shanghai–Nanking–Hangchow delta,^[46] the most highly developed areas in China and the Kuomintang's traditional constituency. Except for Mt. Mao, the terrain was flat and unsuitable for guerrilla warfare. Social support for the Communist forces was also absent. The Japanese forces as well as Wang Ching-wei prized the delta and its environs. Behind the New Fourth Army were the central forces of the Third War Zone under Ku Chu-t'ung, to whom the New Fourth Army was subordinate. For these reasons Mao ordered the New Fourth Army to shift most of its forces east toward the Yellow Sea and then across the Yangtze northward into the northern part of Anhwei and Kiangsu.^[47]

For some unknown reason, Hsiang Ying reportedly left the Sixth Plenum before it was over. Chou En-lai was dispatched to Kiangsi in the spring of 1939 to relay the decisions of the Plenum. He seemed to have been instructed to persuade Hsiang Ying to comply with the Party Center's order.^[48] Hsiang Ying reportedly objected to the order. His formal reason was that he could not leave his station in the Third War Zone without authorization from the Kuomintang government.^[49] In a few extant writings of Hsiang Ying from early 1939, one finds him extolling the rich natural endowments of the Chiangnan (south of the Yangtze River) as an advantage for his operation.^[50] He was not alone in showing reluctance to obey the Center's directive. Kao Ching-t'ing, the original commander of the Fourth Detachment of the New Fourth Army (one of the four detachments initially authorized by the Kuomintang), was executed by Teng Tzu-hui for defying the order to move north.^[51] Hsiang Ying's defiance of Mao was connected with the Internationalists' wish to retain a foothold on the Shanghai–Nanking–Hangchow delta, the cradle of the Communist movement.

Teng Tzu-hui, writing in the 1960s, listed other cases of deviation

[46] Ho shang-chiang . . . pao-kao , p. 418.

[47] Teng Tzu-hui, "Hsin-ssu-chün ti fa-chan . . . ," p. 379.

[48] Ibid.; Warren Kuo, "The CCP after the Government Evacuation of Wuhan," Issues and Studies , May, 1969, p. 41. One wonders how effective Chou was in this task. He made a speech at a party given by the New Fourth Army and agreed with Chiang Kai-shek that the war was in the stage of counter-offensive. Shih-lun ts'ung-k'an , No. 3, p. 3.

[49] Warren Kuo, "The CCP after the Government Evacuation of Wuhan," Issues and Studies , May, 1969, p. 42.

[50] "Hsin chieh-tuan-chung wo-men tsai Chiang-nan k'ang-chan ti jen-wu" [Our task in the resistance south of the Yangtze in the new stage], Hsiang Ying chiang-chün yen-lun-chi , pp. 16–17.

[51] Teng Tzu-hui, "Hsin-ssu-chün ti fa-chan . . . ," p. 379–380.

and insubordination committed by Hsiang Ying. "Comrade Hsiang Ying . . . was afraid of violating the Kuomintang's 'conscription statute,' afraid of the Kuomintang's restrictions, and did not dare recruit a large number of new soldiers in the rural areas, nor organize guerrilla forces."^[52] He also showed an inclination to depend on the supplies and pay from the government. That is, he was reluctant to procure them on his own. Under the circumstances, local procurement required confiscation of hoarded weapons and local taxation. Of this Hsiang Ying is quoted as saying,

during the war against Japan the landlord class is revolutionary; our conduct of the united front behind the enemy is precisely to cooperate with the landlord class. Particularly in areas on the periphery of the base we must organize anti-Japanese arms through the landlords. Reduction in rent and interest should be somewhat relaxed also. . . . If we enforce the 30 percent rent and reorganization of local arms, not only will it destroy the local armed forces but it will also have impact on united front work.^[53]

Teng Tzu-hui was honest enough to admit that " . . . if one were to carry out a true reduction in rent and interest, it would be nothing but a severe class struggle."^[54] This was the reason why Hsiang Ying objected to revolutionary mobilization. He felt it was particularly imprudent to carry on class struggle in the lower Yangtze valley.

Chiang Kai-shek is the representative personage of the Kiangsu–Chekiang financial clique, and the landlord class south of the Yangtze have ties of flesh and blood with the Kiangsu–Chekiang financial clique. If we organize the mass movement, expand our forces, confiscate weapons, and collect military pay, not only will we be blamed by Chiang Kai-shek but we are also bound to penalize the Kiangsu–Chekiang financial clique, . . . As a result we may create a split in the united front with Chiang Kai-shek. This will be disadvantageous for the resistance situation as a whole. We will lose a lot for small gains.^[55]

It was probably because of Hsiang Ying's opposition to Mao that the Sixth Plenum decided to establish a new regional bureau called the Central Plains Bureau and to redraw the jurisdictional boundary of the existing South China Bureau and the Southeastern Bureau, of which Hsiang Ying was the head. The Central Plains Bureau was to assume control of areas north of the Yangtze River while the Southeastern Bureau was assigned to handle Chekiang and Fukien Provinces to the south of it. Liu Shao-ch'i was to arrive soon as the new head of the Central Plains Bureau to assume command of the units crossing the Yangtze, while some units of the Eighth Route Army were pushing

[52] Ibid. , p. 382.

[53] Ibid. , p. 392.

[54] Ibid. , p. 390.

[55] Ibid. , p. 387.

southward to link up with the New Fourth Army. The result of all this would be to deprive Hsiang Ying of most of his power.^[56]

It can be shown from the case of the New Fourth Army that the issue between Mao and the Internationalists in early 1939 concerned the growing tension and friction in the united front. This tension was creating a split in the Kuomintang and induced one of its most respected leaders to defect to Japan. Many others who shared Wang Ching-wei's antipathy to communism chose to stay with Chiang Kaishek. How much longer would the Kuomintang stay in the resistance if the CCP kept up its revolutionary activities? How valid was Mao's thesis in "On Protracted War"?

Answers to these questions were not settled entirely on their merits, because they were bound up with internal politics. To settle these issues, the CCP went through a period of very intense, though highly controlled, infighting to see who would control the Party. Nothing that was done in the Party at this time failed to have some impact on the final outcome on the strategic dispute.

The terms of debate on issues related to Party building were set exclusively by the Internationalists until the fall of 1939, when Mao began to work out his own platform based on the concept of "New Democracy." In the meantime, both sides vowed their allegiance to the same concepts and same goals and attempted to outdo the other.^[57] Both sides vowed to build a "bolshevized Chinese Communist Party" and accused the other of failing to do so. The concept, "bolshevized" (pu-erh-se-wei-k'e-hua ), was clearly connected with Wang Ming, the leader of the Returned Student Group. In 1931, during the period of the so-called "Third 'Left' line of Wang Ming," he had published a book entitled Two Lines . He republished the same book in July, 1940 in Yenan under a new title, Struggle for the More Complete Bolshevization Of the Chinese Communist Party , as a weapon in criticizing Mao.^[58]

A whole series of questions related to "bolshevization" were raised and debated in 1939. A most prominent one was, "Is the Communist

[56] Warren Kuo, "The CCP after the Government Evacuation of Wuhan," Issues and Studies , May, 1969, pp. 38, 42.

[57] At the Sixth Plenum Mao tried to set the terms of debate by objecting to the separation of "internationalist content from national form," but "many people" dismissed the objection. Selected Works , III, 67.

[58] Wei Chung-Kung keng-chia pu-erh-se-wei-k'e-hua erh tou-cheng , in Hsiao Tsoliang, ed., Power Relations within the Chinese Communist Movement , II, 499–609. Note that in the preface to the 1940 edition, he affirms that his criticism of Li Li-san was correct, Ibid. , p. 501. His intention was to suggest that Mao's line was a 'Left' deviation.

party's class stand identical with its nationalistic stand?"^[59] Another was, "Are internationalism and revolutionary nationalism compatible with one another?"^[60] This was also put as a question of the relationship between communism and the Three People's Principles of Sun Yat-sen. When the Soviet–German pact was announced and the Chinese Communists were put in the uncomfortable position of explaining it to the public, the question of whether the interest of the Soviet Union is identical with the interests of all mankind was raised.^[61] One cannot dismiss these concepts simply as empty political rhetoric to conceal the power struggle. The basic issue raised in this context was supremacy of Moscow and the Comintern over the Chinese Communist movement. Mao was not quite ready to deny the proposition. However, the fact that the issue was raised at all indicated that the CCP was going through a rebirth.

Naturally, the contest for control of various organizations proceeded simultaneously. Plenty of opportunities were at hand as Party, army, government, and mass organizations were expanding. The manner and speed with which they expanded became an issue. Two important organizational directives were issued by the CCP in the second half of 1939. One was the Central Directive concerning the Party Consolidation of August 25, and the other was the Decision of the Central Committee on the Work of Penetrating the Masses of November 1. It appears that the former was drafted by the Internationalists and the latter by Mao. The Party consolidation directive terminated the first stage of CCP expansion in north China by stating,

Since the beginning of the anti-Japanese war . . . the Chinese Communist Party has greatly developed itself by absorbing numerous good elements into the Party and firming up the basis of a national massive bolshevik party. Because of the very fact that the Party has expanded too rapidly within too short a period, the Party organizations are not fully consolidated and the recruitment of new Party members is fraught with serious errors and shortcomings. In competing for the largest number of new members, the Party organs in certain areas launched the so-called storm membership drives and accepted new members without careful screening of the individual candidates. Hence, many mediocre anti-Japanese elements or temporary fellow travellers have joined the Party, and chances arose for the adversaries, speculators and subversive agents to sneak into the Party. Consequently, the Party organization

[59] Lo Fu, "Lun Kung-ch'an-tang ti chieh-chi li-ch'ang yü min-tsu li-ch'ang ti i-chih" [Identity of the CCP's class stand and national stand], Guide , VIII, 10–28.

[60] Po Ku, "Kuo-chi chu-i yü ke-ming ti min-tsu chu-i" [Internationalism and revolutionary nationalism], Ibid. , IV, 55–67.

[61] Mao Tse-tung, "The Identity of Interests between the Soviet Union and All Mankind," Selected Works , II, 275–284.

has been damaged in its function as a proletarian vanguard, and rendered impotent. . . .^[62]

The substance of the decision was that "further membership recruitment shall in general be suspended" and that retrenchment and consolidation of the already expanded organizations be carried out by weeding out undesirable elements. The directive further demanded unity between the older and new cadres, tightening up of Party security work, and good coordination between secret and open work in all areas.

At this time, many leading Communist cadres were writing on the subject of Party building. Ch'en Yün and Yang Shang-k'un wrote in support of the above directive.^[63] The best known of all was Liu Shao-ch'i's "On the Cultivation of A Communist Party Member." This essay was noteworthy for its attempt to soften the process of weeding out the undesirable. He said, "We do not . . . adopt a mechanical, absolute attitude. We combine irreconcilability and clarity in principle with flexibility in the methods of struggle and with the spirit of patient persuasion . . . . "^[64]

The November directive on mass penetration was in line with Mao's position of March by which he upheld Nieh Jung-chen's efforts in base construction as the model.^[65] The linkage between the organizational struggle and the strategic dispute was indicated by the fact that the Chin-Chi-Lu-Yü Border Region under P'eng Te-huai's control was electing the delegates to the Seventh Party Congress in September.^[66]

"Far Eastern Munich"

Toward the summer of 1939, domestic and world tension rose, and the united front was entering a crisis. Repeated warnings by Chiang Kai-shek to the CCP leaders in private meetings against unauthorized expansion were producing no results. Lu Chung-lin, who was dis-

[62] Decision on Consolidation of the Party , in Warren Kuo, "The CCP Campaign for Consolidation of Party Organization," Issues and Studies , December, 1969, p. 88.

[63] Ch'en Yün, "How to be a Communist Party Member," in Conrad Brandt, et al., eds., A Documentary History of Chinese Communism (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1959), pp. 322–336; Yang Shang-k'un, "Hua-pei tang chien-she-chung ti chi-ke wen-t'i."

[64] Collected Works of Liu Shao-ch'i , I, 208. Judging from his writings, Liu straddled Mao and Wang Ming at this time.

[65] Decision of the Central Committee on the Work of Penetrating the Masses, A Documentary History of Chinese Communism , pp. 346–349.

[66] Growth of one revolutionary base , p. 205.

patched to Hopei to re-establish government authority, had suffered a setback in several clashes with the Communist forces. The government's anti-Communist measures were becoming more stringent. In the summer, a blockade of Shen-Kan-Ning began. Europe appeared to be heading for a major war, and the powers were shifting their positions. Chungking watched the realignment of powers to see how it would affect China's lone resistance. Amid the uncertainty over Chungking's direction, Wang Ching-wei's peace movement suddenly loomed large. Rumors about his contacts with Chungking were rife.

In the spring and summer, Britain's reaction to the crisis in Europe was the focal point of China's concern. Britain wanted to avoid a two-front conflict in Europe and Asia, which would leave her interests in Asia defenseless. While the United States stood on principles and refused to be a junior partner of Japan's New Order, Britain was willing to compromise. It sought to woo Japan away from joining the Axis. Japan let it be known that its interest in the Axis was confined to its anti-Comintern aspect.^[67] Britain probed the possibility of "ceasing all aid to Chiang, recognizing Japan's military and economic predominance on the mainland, assuring her access to raw materials and markets, and trying to win back 'ultimate Chinese independence through cooperation.'"^[68] The French government under Daladier was similarly inclined. As Japan tightened its control over the British settlement in Tientsin in late spring, British ambassador Clark-Kerr was meeting with Chinese leaders. In trying to forestall Britain from siding with Japan, Chiang Kai-shek and K'ung Hsiang-hsi threatened to join with Japan in excluding Britain from China.^[69] Madame Chiang told an American naval attache, "The people would accept peace with Japan if the Generalissimo told them it was the best thing for China."^[70]

In June, Mao broke his silence and spoke out on "The Greatest Danger in the Current Situation." In the opening paragraph, since deleted, he stated that he was replying to those who questioned his essay, "On the Protracted War," and his report to the Sixth Plenum.^[71] He lashed out at the "international capitulators" and their plot to convene a "Pacific international conference" as "a preparatory step for turning China into another Czechoslovakia."^[72] He clearly assessed the situation to be unfavorable for China. But the force of his attack on Wang Ching-wei and other "domestic capitulators" also suggested

[67] Nicholas R. Clifford, Retreat from China: British Policy in the Far East, 1937–1941 (London: Longmans, Green and Co., 1957), p. 100.

[68] Ibid. , p. 99.

[69] Ibid. , pp. 87, 102.

[70] Quoted in Boyle, p. 222.

[71] Mao Tse-tung-chi , VI, 343.

[72] Ibid. , p. 345.

that he was dodging his internal critics by shifting the blame for the friction in the united front from himself to the Kuomintang.

The announcement of the Soviet–German nonaggression pact on August 23 took the world by surprise. This diplomatic coup injected enormous uncertainty and complexity into international relations, as the other powers were jolted in their previous orbit and hesitated in search of new orientations. Two new alignments could be foreseen as the consequence of this pact. One was the union of the Soviet Union, Germany, and Japan. Chiang Kai-shek suspected that an agreement according north China to Japan and northwest China to the Soviet Union was then in existence.^[73] One year later, in fact, Japanese foreign minister Matsuoka (second Konoe cabinet), Hitler, and Stalin conducted discussions concerning the prospect of dividing various parts of the world into "pan-regions."^[74] Matsuoka intended first of all to use such a sphere of influence agreement to fortify Japan's "accomplished fact" in China, and then to compel the United States to desist from further assistance to China. For the time being, Japan and the Soviet Union ended the Nomonhan Incident by signing an armistice in September. The Soviet forces were rapidly transferred to Europe to join Germany in the division of Poland, to the dismay of Chinese public. Also in September, Mao and Wang Ming began to suggest the possibility of a Russo–Japanese nonaggression pact.^[75]

The shock of the Soviet–German pact led to the fall of the Abe cabinet in Tokyo. Japan was isolated for the time being and became receptive to London's solicitation to prevent her from coalescing with Germany. Serious thought was entertained in London for reviving the Anglo–Japanese alliance in view of the United States' unwillingness to live up to the Nine Power Treaty. Japan quickly recomposed herself and allowed herself to be wooed by both the fascist powers as well as by Britain. The British ambassador to Japan, Sir Robert Craigie, advised the Foreign Office to grasp this chance to "recognize Japanese preponderance in a nominally autonomous North China . . . . "^[76] In spite of protests from Chungking,^[77] Britain moved one

[73] Soviet Russia in China , pp. 112–113.

[74] Herbert Feis, The Road to Pearl Harbor: The Coming of the War between the United States and Japan (New York: Atheneum, 1962), pp. 145–147. The "pan-region" idea never materialized. But the Russo–Japanese neutrality pact of April, 1941, recognized Japan's hegemony in Manchuria and Soviet control of Outer Mongolia.

[75] Selected Works , II, 281; Guide , IX, 95–96.

[76] Clifford, p. 129.

[77] Chiang Kai-shek, "Appeal to Britain" (July 29) and "China and the European War" (September 9), Collected Wartime Messages , I, 307–308, 324–328; Clifford, p. 130.

step closer to Japan as the German invasion of Poland began on September 1. On September 8, Craigie requested the resumption of discussion with the Japanese government, terminated earlier. A week later he notified the Japanese foreign minister that Britain would cooperate in an embargo of war-related material into China.^[78] France was willing to follow suit in Indochina.

The war in Europe was most opportune for Japan. A new cabinet came into being with a renewed determination to "solve the China Incident first." The circumstances paralleled those during the First World War when Japan exploited the absence of Western powers in Asia. On September 12, the China Expeditionary Forces were established under General Nihio Chuzo^[*] to unify all the Japanese forces in China. The new command was designed to coordinate all the political and strategic operations in China in order to bring them to bear on the "Chungking operation."^[79]

Mao expressed himself frequently in the fall. In an interview on the day the German invasion began (September 1), he divided the bourgeois countries into three groups. Following the Comintern's line, Britain and France were singled out for harsh criticism for their noninterventionist policy. The Munich compromise was blamed more on their policy than on Germany, which had just signed a nonaggression pact with the Soviet Union. The second bloc was the "German–Italian–Japanese anti-Communist bloc" which was just "smashed" by the Soviet–German pact. The third was led by the United States which also adopted the policy of neutrality.^[80]

Two weeks later, Mao's attitude toward the international situation rapidly hardened to a point where it could be called "leaning to one side," to use a phrase made popular later. He felt that the imperialist war had entered the second stage.^[81] In the first stage, the war was "non-universal" because some of the imperialist nations took a noninterventionist policy.^[82] At this stage, according to Mao, it was still possible to organize an "anti-aggression united front" comprising the capitalist countries and the bourgeoisie in colonies and semi-colonies.^[83] But as the war entered the second stage, the democracies and the bourgeoise deserted the united front and joined the fascists. The united front turned "from complex to simple."^[84] The world, in his view, was

[78] Nihon gaiko^[*] nempyo^[*] , p. 129.

[79] Imperial Army General Staff , No. 1, pp. 613–616.

[80] Selected Works , II, 263–264.

[81] "Ti-erh-tz'u ti-kuo chu-i chan-cheng chiang-yen ti-kang" [Highlight of lecture on the second imperialist war], Mao Tse-tung-chi , VII, 33.

[82] Ibid. , p. 38.

[83] Ibid. , p. 39.

[84] Ibid. , p. 42.

divided into the bourgeois–capitalist–imperialist camp and the socialist camp.^[85]

Mao's sweeping affirmation of loyalty to the cause of the Soviet Union was double-edged. He indicated that his view was challenged.^[86] Were Mao's critics opposing him for lumping together the Anglo–American powers with Germany and Japan—a position considerably more radical than Moscow's? Or were they opposing Mao for writing off the bourgeoisie from the anti-fascist united front?

Mao's implacable ideological stance on the international situation was paralleled by a new militant stand on domestic questions, so much so that one suspects that the former was the cover for the latter. On September 16, he dropped what Hatano Ken'ichi called "the dynamite statement,"^[87] which seems to have caused quite a ripple on the contemporary scene. In an interview with three presses, two of which were Kuomintang-affiliated, Mao blasted the Kuomintang for provoking friction.^[88] His manner departed from the previously established rule in the united front politics. There had been minor friction between the two parties since 1937. But on each occasion the Kuomintang and the CCP Centers chose to regard it outwardly as local in origin and significance; they feigned innocence in the matter and sought to mediate in a settlement after the fact. Neither side ever blamed a "local" incident directly on the central leadership of the adversary. Mao had observed this rule through August when he made known his reaction to the P'ingchiang Incident, in which a rear office of the New Fourth Army was attacked by the Kuomintang.^[89]

In the September interview, he came very close to linking the Measures to Restrict Alien Parties with Chiang Kai-shek in person. He revealed that Chou En-lai had communicated to "Generalissimo Chiang and the National Government demanding the withdrawal" of the measures. He named Chang Yin-wu and Ch'in Ch'i-yung, Kuomintang officials, as the chief "friction-mongers" in north China. He nearly conceded that a state of war existed when he proclaimed: "We will never attack unless we are attacked; if we are attacked we will certainly counter-attack."

Mao announced categorically that the war in China was entering the second stage of its own, that is, the stage of stalemate. This announcement went beyond his judgment at the Sixth Plenum, when he

[85] Ibid. , p. 41.

[86] Ibid. , p. 42.

[87] Joho^[*] , No. 31, December 1, 1940, p. 16.

[88] "Interview with Three Correspondents from the Central News Agency, the Sao Tang Pao and the Hsin Min Pao," Selected Works , II, 269–274.

[89] "The Reactionaries Must Be Punished," Ibid. , pp. 257–260.

stated that the war was entering the "transition to the new stage."^[90] The point apparently was to restrain some hawks, for he said, "The time has not yet arrived for an all-out strategic counter-offensive, and we are now . . . actively preparing for it."^[91]

What sort of deliberations took place among Chungking's leadership in the deteriorating circumstances of September and October cannot be known. Was any doubt voiced as to the wisdom of continued resistance? Or was the Kuomintang adhering firmly to the forward strategy of counter-offensive combined with restriction of communism? Were Mao's militant and seemingly reckless pronouncements based on some knowledge of the Kuomintang's inclinations? One indication of Chungking's attitudes was the action of the fourth session of the National Political Council which met between September 9 and 18. The CCP delegates sponsored a resolution calling for convocation of the national assembly and the adoption of a new constitution, putting an end to the stage of "tutelage" by the Kuomintang. The resolution carried the Council, which was handpicked by the Kuomintang. Chiang Kai-shek spoke approvingly of the proposal in the closing address;^[92] and the Sixth Plenum of the Kuomintang's CEC, meeting in November, set the date of November 12, 1940, for the convocation of the national assembly.^[93] It seems that the Kuomintang was confident of its forward strategy.

This meant tightening up the restriction on Communist expansion in order to make the cost of the united front acceptable to itself. The method of using regional forces to attack Communist forces, while pretending that the government had no part in it, was viable so long as the Kuomintang side was winning. But by September, the forces of Lu Chung-lin and Chang Yin-wu in Hopei were in shambles. Chungking had to choose between acquiescence in the accomplished fact or escalation of pressure. According to P'eng Te-huai, the Kuomintang's anti-communism entered "a new stage having nation-wide and deliberate character" in January, 1939; and after November "military restriction of communism" was combined with "political restriction."^[94]

There were unconfirmed Japanese intelligence reports that the Kuomintang and the CCP were exchanging emissaries in the summer and fall to settle the united front questions.^[95] These meetings, if the

[90] Mao Tse-tung-chi , VI, 189–190.

[91] Selected Works , II, 269–270.

[92] Collected Wartime Messages , I, 329.

[93] Selected Works , II, 416.

[94] P'eng Te-huai, San-nien-lai ti k'ang-chan [Three years of resistance ] (Tung-fang ch'u-pan-she, 1940), p. 10; Joho^[*] , No. 18, May 15, 1940, pp. 49–56.

[95] "Koku-Kyo^[*] kiki no shin dankai" [The new stage in Kuomintang–CCP crisis], Toa^[*] , December 1, 1939, p. 15.

reports are reliable, were an extension of the January and June meetings between Chiang Kai-shek and Communist leaders.^[96] The Kuomintang probably intensified its political pressure on the CCP to stop the unauthorized expansion. It is my inference from subsequent negotiations that the CCP in turn proposed expansion of authorized combat zone by demanding Hopei Province for itself. In addition, it probably asked the government to authorize and pay for three army corps.^[97]

The Chungking government took the most natural course; it took a legal or moral stand. It was the government of China, and it pretended that its authority should be obeyed. As Chiang Kai-shek had told Chou En-lai in June:

The root cause of the Communist problem is not limited to the enclaves of several counties in northern Shensi. It stems from the uncertainty over whether the Communists really and sincerely wish to obey the orders of the central government, to carry out the national laws and statutes, and to behave as a model in the revolution, or whether they want to separate themselves from the over-all state system in a special status to become ordinary practitioners of feudalism.^[98]

If the Kuomintang felt that its legal case was strong, it nevertheless acted as though it was not. The "first anti-Communist high tide," to which these events were leading, was distinguished from the New Fourth Army Incident of early 1941 by the fact that the process of Kuomintang–CCP negotiation which preceded it was not made public. Chungking was in fact treating the united front question as a political one. It used its own military pressure in the field. Following the blockade of Shen-Kan-Ning in the summer, the supply of ammunition to the Eighth Route Army stopped in October.^[99]

There is a presumption that the Soviet Union was mediating between the two parties to maintain the united front, though nothing definite is known. Soviet aid to China was in no mean quantity, ranging in estimate from US$250 million to US$450 million for the entire war.^[100] Moreover, Soviet assistance was stepped up in inverse relation

[96] For the June meeting, see Soviet Russia in China , p. 92.

[97] Selected Works , II, 216.

[98] Kung-fei huo-kuo , III, 613.

[99] San-nien-lai ti k'ang-chan , p. 46. In the summer of 1939, high Kuomintang officials began to make threatening public statements directed at the Communists. For instance, Chang Ch'ün, the vice chairman of the Supreme Defense Council, told Edgar Snow that the local Communist administration was "illegal and that the War Area Party and Political Affairs Commission would eradicate them." The Battle for Asia , p. 353.

[100] Arthur Young offers the smaller figure, p. 441, while Charles B. McLane offers the higher one, pp. 130–131.

to Soviet flirtation with the fascist powers, as though to soften its impact on China.^[101] The Soviet–German pact was preceded by the signing of the Sino-Soviet commercial pact in June.^[102] New Soviet ambassador A. S. Panyushkin arrived in Chungking in August, and foreign presses reported rumors of a Sino–Soviet military alliance though both Chungking and Moscow denied them.^[103] Soviet assistance was again active toward the end of 1940 and in the spring of 1941—about the time of the New Fourth Army Incident and the signing of the Russo–Japanese nonaggression pact.

The aid material travelled the overland route through Sinkiang, after the Japanese blockade of South China Sea was completed. By November, 1939, a railhead was constructed from Aktogai in Outer Mongolia toward Tihua in Sinkiang. From there, an improved motor road stretched southeastward toward Lanchow in Kansu. The border checkpoint between Sinkiang and Kansu was well guarded; Sinkiang was in effect quarantined by Chinese troops. The largest Soviet outpost east of the border was in Lanchow, where 3,500 Soviet troops, technicians, and political cadres were running an airfield, arsenal, gasoline dump, and other installations. Sinkiang itself was undergoing development in Soviet hands. In Hami, there was an aircraft assembly plant.^[104]

The Kuomintang was naturally acutely aware of the implications of Soviet buildup on the northwestern frontier. Chiang Kai-shek maintained in 1956 that Sheng Shih-ts'ai, a Chinese official in Sinkiang, had been a puppet since 1933 and had remained so until 1943 when Chinese pressure forced Soviet influence out of the province.^[105] Outer Mongolia was drifting away from Chinese control, and by 1941 it was a Soviet satellite. The Kuomintang was also aware of the Comintern's instructions to the CCP, since 1934, to expand into Sinkiang and link up with Outer Mongolia.^[106] Soviet diplomacy was no doubt doubleedged. Nonetheless, China appeared quite prepared to accept Soviet aid and pay a price for it. That is, Soviet and Chinese interests simply complemented each other so long as China remained in the war.

Ultimately, united front questions rested on the Kuomintang's decisions about the war itself. When the brief period of hesitation

[101] See McLane's revealing comments, pp. 134, 136.

[102] Soviet Russia in China , p. 89.

[103] See, for instance, New York Times , October 20, 1939, p. 8; Ibid. , October 21, 1939, p. 5.

[104] The North China Area Army, Seihoku Shina ni okeru Soren seiryoku shin-nyu^[*] jokyo^[*] [Conditions of Soviet power penetration into northwest China] (November, 1939).

[105] Soviet Russia in China , pp. 99–101.

[106] Ibid. , p. 100.

and uncertainty during the summer was over, the extent of Chungking's commitment to an offensive strategy in the second stage of the war became apparent. The China Expeditionary Forces reported four major campaigns in 1939. In March, the 11th Army attacked Nanchang. It cut the Chekiang–Kiangsi railway and engaged the Chinese forces along the Hsiushui River. Nanchang fell on March 27. The Chinese forces raised the slogan of "April offensive" on this front. To forestall it, the 11th Army swung northwestward across Hankow toward Ich'ang and Hsiangyang. The Chinese forces, some thirty divisions of the Fifth War Zone command, were routed. Then in September, immediately after the outbreak of the war in Europe, the Chinese forces belonging to the Ninth War Zone and numbering 215,000, challenged the 11th Army in what has since been called in China the First Changsha Campaign. Many of the battles in this campaign were rated by the China Expeditionary Forces as much more intense than those in the Nomonhan Incident. The morale and discipline of the central troops and the "anti-Japanese consciousness" of the middle-echelon cadres impressed the Japanese Army.^[107]

The Chinese forces completed the second stage of reorganization one month ahead of schedule in December, and launched the "winter offensive." It started on December 12 along the entire front, but the assault on the 11th Army around Hankow was the fiercest. Before it ended on January 20, the Japanese forces counted 960 Chinese attacks and 1,340 engagements, with a combined force of 540,000 men. If it had not been for the diversion of the central forces from the Hunan front to the Nanning area to deal with the Japanese landing on the Kwangsi coast, the Chinese forces might have destroyed the 11th Army to win a strategic victory, according to Japanese army history. At no other time throughout eight years of the war did fighting come so close to taking on strategically decisive character as it did in the winter of 1939.^[108]

It may be surmised that Mao's militant attitude toward the Kuomintang's pressure in the summer of 1939 was based on his assessment that the Kuomintang was not likely to surrender in the immediate future, regardless of the CCP's activities. At this point, the Communist forces were not large enough to remain in the war by themselves. Hence, Mao could not quite base his actual policies on the thesis of the Wayaopao Resolution, that the Kuomintang could be forced to stay in the war. So long as the initiative for war or peace (cum civil war) rested with the Kuomintang, the CCP had to be ready for all

[107] Imperial Army General Staff , No. 1, p. 619.

[108] Ibid. , pp. 619–620.

possibilities. On October 4, 1939, Mao gave his earliest hint that there might be some "emergency" involving a split in the united front. He demanded preparations against it so that "the Party and revolution will not suffer unexpected losses."^[109]

On October 10, the Central Committee passed a resolution dealing with the "current situation." The CCP was watching closely the progress of the First Changsha Campaign, the first major risk taken by the Kuomintang forces against Mao's long-standing advice. While the stage of stalemate had arrived, the resolution pointed out, there might yet be farther enemy advance. That is, "if China does not capitulate of its own accord, the enemy may yet launch a large-scale offensive."^[110] Therefore, "the stage of strategic stalemate . . . may yet be destroyed by the enemy and the capitulationists. The danger of the nation's defeat still persists abundantly."^[111]

What sort of major alternatives did the CCP contemplate for itself at this point? Some general outline was suggested in intelligence collected by the Kuomintang and in turn captured by the Japanese forces when Hankow fell.^[112] According to this material, there were three possibilities. First, if China won the war of resistance, the CCP was to proceed immediately to an "October Revolution." It expected to win the civil war; the Kuomintang would have been weakened by then, and the CCP would be strengthened by peasant support in the rural areas. This possibility conformed to Mao's vision at the Loch'uan conference, as reported by Chang Kuo-t'ao. Second, the resistance might end in a compromise between Japan and the Kuomintang government after the fall of Nanking and Hankow. The CCP expected that China would be divided into three parts in this eventuality. The Kuomintang would occupy the southwest; the CCP would remain in the northwest; and Japan would keep Manchuria, north China, and the coastal areas of the southeast. Third, the resistance might still end in a complete failure for China, and the disintegration of Kuomintang government. In this case, the CCP was to go underground completely. The CCP's aim, it was reported, was to work toward the first alternative, but there were strong possibilities that the second one would come to pass. It will be shown later that such alternatives continued to be debated in the CCP.

[109] Selected Works , II, 295.

[110] Mao Tse-tung-chi , VII, 88.

[111] Ibid. , p. 89.

[112] Bureau of Investigation and Statistics, Central Executive Committee of the Kuomintang, Tiao-ch'a chuan-pao , No. 5, August, 1938, pp. 5–10. See also Tada Corps, Kitashina homengun^[*] sanbocho^[*] koen^[*] yoshi^[*] hoka jusanko^[*] [Summary of briefing by the chief of staff of the North China Area Army and thirteen other items] (December 1, 1939), pp. 8–13.

It seems that, in the event of Chungking's surrender, the Comintern expected the Communist forces to move closer to the Soviet border. The conference of the Comintern's Far Eastern Bureau in Tschita in January 1939, of which there is a secondhand report by the Japanese, was the occasion on which the idea of the "northwest route" was presented.^[113] This was a statement of rather broad and long-range goals. The CCP was directed at the conference to expand its bases to five northwestern provinces, that is, Shensi, Kansu, Ninghsia, Ch'ing-hai, and Sinkiang; to secure the recognition of this "soviet" from the Kuomintang government; and to cross the border into the mountainous areas between Inner and Outer Mongolia in order to establish an international route. The Soviet Far Eastern Forces and the forces belonging to the Mongolian Republic were directed to make supporting moves. The substance of this directive echoed the Comintern's instruction to the CCP just prior to the fall of the Central Soviet in 1934. In July, 1936, Chou En-lai confirmed a similar move as one of the CCP's alternatives.^[114]

But in the fall of 1939, such a move was only a remote possibility, since the Kuomintang's morale was high. The most likely "emergency" for the CCP was one which would take place within the framework of the resistance, one in which the Kuomintang would "restrict" the Communists within tolerable limits. Toward the winter of 1939, the CCP appeared to be keeping vigilance but not expecting a dire emergency. Some time in October, 1939, the 359th Brigade of the Communist 120th Division, commanded by Wang Cheng, was transferred to northern Shensi, presumably to the Suite area.^[115] Ho Lung's forces must have left central Hopei about the same time in order to make it back to northwest Shansi by December. Ho Ying-ch'in reported other troop movements into Shen-Kan-Ning without specifying their designation.^[116] There appears to have been a transfer of important cadres to the Shen-Kan-Ning area for their protection also. Chu Te, who had been moving about with the Field Headquarters of the Eighth Route Army, was back in Shen-Kan-Ning by early 1940.^[117]

[113] "Kominterun kyokuto-kyoku^[*] kaigi to Chukyo^[*] Yenan shigatsu kaigi" [Conference of the Comintern's Far Eastern Bureau and the CCP's April conference in Yenan], Joho^[*] , No. 9, January 1, 1940, pp. 97–105.

[114] Snow, Random Notes , pp. 62–63.

[115] Ho Ying-ch'in, List of Unlawful Activities of the Chinese Communists since the Outbreak of the War of Resistance with the Object of Undermining the Very Existence of the Nation , cited in U.S. Senate, Subcommittee to Investigate the Administration of the Internal Security Act and other Internal Security Laws of the Committee on the Judiciary, The Amerasia Papers: A Clue to the Catastrophe of China (hereinafter cited as Amerasia Papers ), 91st Congress, 1st Session (Washintgon, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1970), p. 936.

[116] Ibid.

[117] Hung-ch'i p'iao-p'iao , XI, 65.

The December Incident

The December Incident or the "first anti-Communist high tide" was confined to north China as the "second high tide" was confined to central China, and the "third high tide" to Shen-Kan-Ning. In retrospect, it was more like a carefully staged play than a prelude to a civil war. Both sides exercised extreme political control, and both sides adhered to the rules of the game in the united front. Politics manifested itself in speech, of which plenty poured forth from the Communist side in the form of protest. While striking each other in bloody clashes, both sides treated the incident at the time as "local" in character and refrained from naming a chief culprit. For the Kuomintang's part, this was related to the fact that it had kept secret the process of negotiation which preceded the December Incident. Not having publicized its demand, Chungking could claim innocence in the whole affair. It could also save face if it failed to roll back the CCP. But there is scarcely any doubt that the December Incident was deliberately planned by the Kuomintang to implement its various anti-Communist decisions made since January. Hatano Ken'ichi believed that the latest anti-Communist measure, adopted in October, was directly responsible for the Kuomintang's attack.^[118]

Military clashes took place in three places: southeastern and northwestern Shansi and the Lungtung area of Shen-Kan-Ning. Fighting spread to the Suite area in northeastern Shen-Kan-Ning and lasted until March, 1940. Although the three armed clashes were coordinated by the Kuomintang to coincide with the December 12 start of the winter offensive against the Hankow area, each of the local incidents was the result of mounting friction that had a momentum of its own.

The Kuomintang never made public the nature of the original grant of power to the Shen-Kan-Ning Border Region government. Some sort of autonomy was granted by an executive order, but the central government never formalized it. According to Mark Selden, there was an agreement in the summer of 1937 that the boundaries of the border region were to include twenty-three hsien , though the CCP was not in control of the Suite and Lungtung areas at the time.^[119] The CCP always claimed that the twenty-three hsien rightfully belonged to it. But after 1937, parallel administrations vied with each other for control of the Suite and Lungtung areas. It was never clear whether the contests in the 1939–1940 period stemmed from the Kuomintang government's reneging of its earlier promise or from its attempt to

[118] Joho^[*] , No. 15, April 1, 1940, pp. 45–48.

[119] Yenan Way , pp. 138–139.

retain control of the counties which it had never conceded in the first place.

In addition, the nature of government and administration to be established by the CCP in Shen-Kan-Ning was subject to dispute. As I have noted, the united front amounted to little more than an uneasy ceasefire. Formally, the Shensi–Kansu Soviet was to become a "special region" in the hierarchy of the Chinese government administration, but the central government refused to regard the Shen-Kan-Ning Border Region as a province level government directly accountable to itself; instead, the Communist regime was compelled to deal with the provincial authorities of Shensi as its immediate superior. Boundary disputes and the like were handled at this level, while the central government preferred to take a mediational role. There was a parallel between this relationship and the Sino–Russian relationship via Sheng Shih-ts'ai's puppet regime in Sinkiang, and the Sino–Japanese relationship via Sung Che-yüan's Hopei–Chahar Political Commission prior to 1937. They closely approximated China's tradition of handling intractable barbarians on its frontier. The CCP demanded a right to deal with the central government directly.

The Kuomintang to this date remains rather taciturn about the disposition of its forces around the Shensi–Kansu Soviet after the Sian Incident in 1936. In the aftermath of the Sian Incident, central forces moved into Sian as the mutinous Northeastern and Northwestern Armies were transferred out. It is very likely that the central forces stayed on to maintain a close watch on the Communist base from a distance. In early 1939, the government established the T'ienshui Headquarters in Sian for the same purpose.^[120] The blockade instituted in the summer of 1939 meant a return to conditions which prevailed before 1937. But, except in times of a military clash, the central forces seemed to have stayed well behind the provincial security forces. According to P'eng Te-huai, "peace preservation regiments" were stationed along the lines marked by Yench'uan, Suite, Michih, Hengshan, Tingpien, Yench'ih, Huanhsien, Ch'ingyang, and Ninghsien.^[121] This line encircled roughly the upper half of the Shen-Kan-Ning Border Region. It must be noted that eight out of the nine hsien seats mentioned were among the twenty-three that fell to the CCP's control in early 1940. From such places, Kuomintang officials and security agents fanned out to contend with their CCP counterparts. According to Selden, the clash over the Lungtung area in May of 1939 resulted in

[120] Ho shang-chiang . . . pao-kao ," p. 211.

[121] San-nien-lai ti k'ang-chan , p. 10.

4,639 killed on the Kuomintang side, of which about one-half were public officials.^[122]

Methods of ousting the Kuomintang officials were identical with those used in other areas of north China. Rumors and charges of alleged corruption and the like were broadcast; then the "masses" were mobilized with the backing of the Communist forces to threaten the life of the officials, who were then replaced by Communist appointees. The method, which Mao later characterized as a combination of "justifiability" and "expediency,"^[123] was used in handling the dispute over the Suite area between January and March, 1940, to oust the Kuomintang hierarchy of officials. Many messages were publicly issued to insure the "justifiability" of the enterprise. Outwardly, the messages were polite and humble, but their contents were stiff and uncompromising. On February 19, Hsiao Ching-kuang, the commander of the Eighth Route Army's Rear Echelon Forces, sent a request to Ch'eng Ch'ien, the commander of the T'ienshui Headquarters, asking him to instruct the governor of Shensi Province (Chiang Ting-wen) to remove the head of Anting, a Kuomintang appointee. Hsiao demanded that the situation of "one hsien having two hsien magistrates" be terminated, and he put Ch'eng Ch'ien under notice: "If Shensi Province does not remove [the Kuomintang appointee] of its own accord, then the border region has the right to escort the magistrate out of its borders."^[124]

The Lungtung Incident, the most publicized one which touched off the December Incident, was preceded by similar skirmishes. As had been the custom up to then, the Kuomintang issued no public statements. Then on December 10, two days before the start of the winter offensive, one thousand troops belonging to the Kuomintang's 97th Division and local security forces launched a surprise attack on a battalion of the Communist forces in Ninghsien and wiped them out, according to the CCP's protest message. On December 14, two thousand troops attacked another battalion in Chenyüan and destroyed it. The Communist side named two regular divisions and three regiments as directly involved.^[125] They belonged to the Eighth War Zone under

[122] Yenan Way , p. 119.

[123] "Questions of Tactics in the Present Anti-Japanese United Front," SW , III, 199. This translation is better in this instance than the rather bland one in the Peking edition.

[124] Hsiang-ch'ih chieh-tuan-chung ti hsing-shih yü jen-wu [Situation and mission in the stage of stalemate] (Chin-pu ch'u-pan-she, 1940), p. 90.

[125] Wei Lungtung shih-chien chih chung-yang tien [Telegram to the Center concerning the Lungtung Incident], Ibid. , pp. 80–84. See also Hatano in Joho^[*] , No. 31, December 1, 1940, p. 19; Selected Works , II, 394.

Chu Shao-liang. The fighting lasted for two weeks and covered all of eastern Kansu.

By the time the "first anti-Communist high tide" subsided in March, 1940, the Communists controlled both the Lungtung and the Suite areas. Looking back upon it, the boldness of the CCP with respect to the dispute in Shen-Kan-Ning was striking. The CCP stuck to its demand for twenty-three hsien and managed to get them all. The CCP's margin of safety was small, and it was running risks. The transfer of some Communist units into Shen-Kan-Ning did not compensate for its absolute inferiority in military power against the Kuomintang's regular forces surrounding the base. But the central government did not choose to stand its ground to escalate the tension. Unfortunately, what political considerations restrained its hands in Shen-Kan-Ning cannot be known.

In contrast, the Kuomintang acted with boldness and decisiveness in Shansi Province. There, concessions were made by the CCP. Tension in Shansi had been mounting for some time beween Yen Hsi-shan and the Shansi New Army, Yen's collateral popular force staffed by the Sacrifice League members. The New Army grew up in two places in Shansi Province under what appeared to be separate commands. In the Shangtang district in the southeast, Po I-po and Jung Wu-shang organized the First and the Third Dare–to–Die Columns with "refugee students from Peiping–Tientsin."^[126] Hsü Fan-t'ing organized the Second and the Fourth Dare–to–Die Columns, the Provisional First Division, and the Worker's Defense Brigade in the northwestern corner.^[127] By 1939, the New Army was virtually independent of Yen Hsi-shan; it was operating as a regional force of the Eighth Route Army in all but name. Yen attempted to reassert his control over the New Army in the summer of 1939.^[128] He was reported to have asked for Chungking's assistance in the matter but was met by indifference.^[129] Not to meddle directly in "local friction" was Chungking's posture. One also suspects that it was penalizing Yen Hsi-shan for giving in to the united front with the Communists in 1936.

During the December Incident, the First, Second, and Third Dare–to–Die Columns were singled out for the initial attack. The Second Column, led by Han Chün, was in Hsihsien and Hsiaoyi in the southwest at the time, but it managed to break out and flee northward

[126] Ting Ling, I-erh-chiu-shih yü Chin-Chi-Lu-Yü pien-ch'ü [The 129th Division and the Chin-Chi-Lu-Yü Border Region] (Peking: Hsin-hua shu-tien, 1950), p. 5.

[127] Hung-ch'i p'iao-p'iao , V, 251.

[128] Johnson, Peasant Nationalism , p. 195.

[129] Joho^[*] , No. 31, December 1, 1940, p. 22.

along the Yellow River.^[130] The First and the Third Columns and some regular units of the Eighth Route Army in the southeast were liquidated.^[131] Soon after, Communist party and government organizations in Yangch'eng, Chinch'eng, Fushan, Kaop'ing, Hukuan, and Linch'uan in the southeast were destroyed. In the southeast, 600 people were executed and more than one thousand were arrested.^[132] A similar attack took place in the southwest around Hsinshui.^[133]

There was confusion and mystery as to who attacked whom. Contemporaneously, the CCP never mentioned Yen Hsi-shan's name. It was not until 1944 that the CCP decided to expose Yen's part in the December Incident.^[134] The role played by central forces was mentioned only indirectly. After the war, Mao singled out Chu Huai-p'ing, P'ang Ping-hsün, and Hou Ju-yung as the culprits in the destruction in the southeast.^[135] In view of Yen Hsi-shan's inability to handle the Communist forces in 1936 and again after 1937, it is entirely credible that central forces carried out most of the successful assaults on the Communist forces. Independent observers credited the central forces under Hu Tsung-nan with the greatest role in destroying the New Army. According to Hatano, Hu Tsung-nan's work was like "twisting a baby's arm."^[136]

The political side of the December Incident was intriguing. At the time, some people in the CCP felt that the attack was the beginning of a civil war,^[137] yet the CCP refrained from blaming the incident directly on Chiang Kai-shek, Yen Hsi-shan, or Hu Tsung-nan. It tried strenuously to maintain the fiction that the whole incident was local. On December 12, for instance, P'eng Te-huai indicated this desire in a press conference. He was asked whether Chiang Kai-shek or Ch'eng Ch'ien, the commander of the T'ienshui Headquarters, knew of the various anti-Communist measures. P'eng stated that Wang Ming, representing the CCP, had had a meeting with Chiang Kai-shek and had showed him the Measures to Restrict the Activities of the Alien Parties . Chiang's reply was that he had seen the measure but that it had not been ratified yet.^[138]

[130] Yen Hsi-shan p'i-p'ing [Criticism of Yen Hsi-shan] (Hsin-hua shu-tien, 1944?), p. 4.

[131] Growth of one revolutionary base , p. 42.

[132] Ibid.; Selected Works , II, 393.

[133] Hsiang-ch'ih chieh-tuan  . . . , p. 115. I am hard put to know what Han Chün's unit was doing here in this corner of the province.

[134] Amerasia Papers , pp. 769–770. By 1944 the CCP was ready to abandon the united front. See below, Chap. IX.

[135] In footnotes to SW , III, 254. But see also the passing reference to the central army in Hsiang-ch'ih chieh-tuan  . . . , pp. 115–116.

[136] Joho^[*] , No. 31, December 1, 1940, p. 22.

[137] Selected Works , II, 464.

[138] Hsiang-ch'ih chieh-tuan  . . . , p. 61.

On the eleventh when I met with Commander Ch'eng, I also inquired about the Measures to Dispose of the Communist Party . Commander Ch'eng replied: "I know absolutely nothing." From this it can be seen how seriously widespread are the activities of the hidden Trotskyites and traitors. They are spreading all over the country a document which is not even ratified by Chairman Chiang; they dare to deceive the military commander defending the northwest and make secret military moves.^[139]

The Communist side naturally attacked various anti-Communist measures and acts in public. As long as the Kuomintang leadership refused to be implicated in these measures, and as long as the CCP went along with the fiction, the CCP enjoyed immunity of sorts. Its public attacks sought to save the government's face. Furthermore, the CCP's stance toward the incidents in Shansi and the Lungtung Sub-district was slightly different. It was almost apologetic about the Shansi affair. Protest messages were issued, but none came from the "soldiers and people" who were attacked, as happened in other incidents. In fact, the southeastern part of Shansi under the 129th Division's command ignored the whole thing and remained silent.^[140] On January 1, 1940, Hsü Fan-t'ing collected the remnants of the New Army and reorganized it under the "Northwestern Shansi anti-Japanese defend–Yen strike–the–traitors supreme command."^[141] The proclamation which accompanied the occasion stressed the importance of the anti-Japanese united front and support for Chiang Kai-shek and Yen Hsi-shan, while leveling scathing criticisms at officers of the Old Army at group army, division, and brigade levels. The Japanese Army observed that this was an attempt to weaken Yen's control over his forces by discrediting his immediate subordinates and winning over the officers and men below the middle echelon.^[142] On January 20, the National Defense Council ordered Yen Hsi-shan and Chu Te to arrange a ceasefire, as though Chungking had no part in the December Incident.^[143] The rules of the game in united front politics were being observed by both sides.

Military friction continued in Shen-Kan-Ning and Shansi Province. But a dramatic event in late January suddenly reduced its political significance. Two of Wang Ching-wei's confidants, Kao Tsung-wu and T'ao Hsi-sheng, defected back to Chungking, causing a major setback for Japan. In Hong Kong, the former collaborators released to the press the contents of the agreement which Wang Ching-wei had been forced to accept after delivering himself into Japanese hands.

[139] Ibid.

[140] See, for instance, Hsiang-ch'ih chieh-tuan  . . .

[141] Pacification War , No. 1, p. 212; Ho Kan-chih, p. 353.

[142] Pacification War , No. 1, p. 212.

[143] Ibid.

These were Japan's peace terms. Chiang Kai-shek spurned them in an indignant speech.^[144] The war was on, and so was the united front. The tension in the united front in the fall of 1939 resulted not so much from the anti-Communist measures of the Kuomintang as from the CCP's own uncertainty about Chungking's basic intentions. With that uncertainty gone, friction mattered much less. The remaining Kuomintang influence in north China, it seemed, could be put to simple test of military might. And so in January, the CCP turned its attention to the north–south link between north and central China; an advance unit of the Eighth Route Army, proceeding south from Shantung, met a New Fourth Army unit moving north through Kiangsu.^[145]

On January 28, Mao wrote a directive for the Central Committee concerning the general situation. For him, the danger of a "Far Eastern Munich" was over. Though Japan continued to search for a peaceful solution, Mao was assured that Chungking would not be susceptible to its offers. He noted, "Chiang Kai-shek states that he will carry on the War of Resistance."^[146] He judged that for the time being the Kuomintang's policy was " 'unification against the foreign enemy' in order to attack us."^[147] Thus he pronounced that the "emergencies" which had been threatening were "so far . . . on a limited and local scale."^[148] Immediately Wang Ming delivered a speech, registering his objections to Mao's judgment:

It is necessary to clearly recognize the possibility and the existence of a prospect for improvement in the situation as pointed out by the Party Center. . . . This is absolutely not to say that the danger for reversal in the current situation is no longer serious. On the contrary, what the Party Center pointed out was the dual possibilities for the current situation to reverse as well as improve itself. Under the present circumstances, moreover, the danger for a reversal in the situation . . . is still the main danger.^[149]

This had been the point at issue between them since early 1939 when the Kuomintang's anti-communism came to the fore. Mao was arguing in effect that, since the Kuomintang's anti-communism was an integral part of its resistance efforts, dealing with military friction on the basis of tit for tat would not affect the united front. By a strange turn of events, he found himself defending Chungking's commitment to the war and the durability of the united front.

The manner in which the Communist forces expanded, amid in-

[144] "Wang Ching-wei's Secret Agreement with Japan" (January 23, 1940), Collected Wartime Messages , I, 358–363.

[145] Selected Works , II, 436.

[146] Ibid. , pp. 386–387.

[147] Ibid. , p. 386.

[148] Ibid. ,

[149] Hsiang-ch'ih chieh-tuan  . . . , p. 31.

tense political struggle and limited war, conformed to the strategy and tactics laid down by Mao in the course of his dispute with his internal critics. By way of conclusion, I will summarize their salient points and evaluate them. Mao's cherished slogan, "independence and initiative of the Communist party in the united front," meant in practice that the CCP would take all of the strategic exterior-line in disregard of the Kuomintang's restrictions. But this basic strategy had to be implemented with prudence; it had to be guided by tactical rules which combined political negotiation with a limited use of military power. The end was to create a series of accomplished facts and to secure the government's approval for them. As Mao put it,

At present there are things for which we should secure prior consent from the Kuomintang. . . . There are other things which the Kuomingtang can be told after they have become accomplished facts. . . . There are also things . . . which we shall do without reporting for the time being, knowing that the Kuomintang will not agree. There are still other things which, for the time being, we shall neither do nor report, for they are likely to jeopardize the whole situation. In short, we must not split the united front, but neither should we allow ourselves to be bound hand and foot. . . .^[150]

Each expansion was to be accomplished by following the principles of "self-defense," of "victory," and of "a truce."^[151] Each was to be carried out in an area where the Communist forces held a local military superiority (with the exception of Shen-Kan-Ning). To reverse it, the Kuomintang would have to exercise its military power: hence, the "provocation." If the Kuomintang could not contain the expansion locally, it might have to exert pressure at the top—in secret. Or it might overlook it. Then sooner or later the CCP would come forward of its own accord and ask for a truce to legitimize the accomplished fact. Or the Kuomintang might brandish the ultimate weapon: it could threaten to end the united front. Yet each act of expansion was small and limited. In fact, the CCP was confronting the Kuomintang with a choice between two alternatives on each occasion: to split the united front or swallow a small Communist demand of the moment. Mao's calculus was that the Kuomintang would take the lesser of two evils. He implied furthermore that it would go on doing so until the balance of power shifted in favor of the CCP.

The last proposition must have seemed preposterous to Mao's op-

[150] "The Question of Independence and Initiative within the United Front" (November 5, 1938), Selected Works , II, 216.

[151] "Current Problems of Tactics in the Anti-Japanese United Front" (March 11, 1940), Ibid. , p. 426. This, written by Mao in self-defense against his critics, is a summary of the manner in which he handled the "first anti-Communist high tide."

ponents. They confronted him, I infer, with the question: Does Chiang Kai-shek have the power to reverse the war policy and still carry the Kuomintang and the rest of the nation with him? Mao did not deny that Chiang had had such power; his strategy of piecemeal expansion was designed precisely to prevent Chungking from ending the united front. Yet, at the same time, Mao had to deny it . Thus he elaborated the theory of "united front from below," which he had expounded earlier at Wayaopao. He held that China suffered from many cleavages. The most important divisions were between the "progressive forces," the "middle forces" including warlords (the "regional power groups"), and the "die-hard forces." Because of the contradictions among these political forces, Mao implied, the CCP could manipulate them to maintain a loose coalition that favored the resistance for the time being.^[152] This was the united front over which the CCP was to exercise leadership.

The differences between Mao and Wang Ming stemmed ultimately from their different views of Chinese society and of the Kuomintang. Mao held that "the Kuomintang is a heterogeneous party."^[153] Chou En-lai made the point to John S. Service in 1944:

Chiang Kai-shek is . . . caught between many forces which he cannot master, and against which he can only hope to maintain his position by adroit manipulation.^[154]

Mao was saying that the Kuomintang was incapable of making a daring tactical reversal of the sort which the CCP, a totalitarian movement, made in 1935 and 1936. However, in the sense that the unity of the "united front" under the CCP's leadership presupposed divisions in the Kuomintang, Mao was begging the question. Someone in the CCP retorted that "the anti-Japanese front cannot be divided into the left, middle and right."^[155] In 1939 and 1940, the proposition that the Kuomintang was forced to stay in the war by the united front under the CCP's leadership had a hollow ring. Yet the CCP was making a steady advance toward that goal.

[152] Ibid. , pp. 422, 424.

[153] Ibid. , p. 427; Ibid. , III, 222.

[154] Amerasia Papers , p. 770.

[155] Mao Tse-tung, "Speech at the Enlarged Meeting of the Military Affairs Committee of the Central Committee of the Chinese Communist Party and the Foreign Affairs Conference" (September 11, 1959), Chinese Law and Government , Winter 1968–1969, p. 80.