Sheng and I are in essential agreement that between mid-1935 and late 1936 repeated interventions by the Comintern induced changes in CCP policy which brought it successively closer to a united front with Chiang Kai-shek. We disagree about whether there were significant discrepancies between CCP and Comintern line on this issue at specific points. I argue there were. Sheng argues there were not. The Comintern did not itself adopt a true policy of a united front with Chiang until late 1936, Sheng implies. The Comintern's policy of a united front with Chiang evolved slowly, and as it inched towards this goal it communicated the ideas to Mao who adopted them fully and promptly. “Mao was amenable to Stalin's advice,” Sheng says; he was “sensitive and responsive” to Comintern directives. Any discrepancies between Comintern and CCP lines were differences emphasis, not of substance, according to Sheng. I, on the other hand, argue that Mao's policy was consistently more anti-Chiang than the Comintern's.

As is well known, the Great Leap Forward (GLF) of 1958–59 was the most intense mobilizational phase in the history of the People's Republic of China and the most concentrated expression of the Utopian Maoist developmental model. Yet the adoption of an alternative development strategy to the Stalinist model by decentralization did not bring about material abundance; it led directly to an economic depression from which the country did not recover until 1965. Therefore, the “leap” is worthy of more scholarly attention than it has received. Of particular interest is the role played by the provinces in the policy-making process, the bureaucratic behaviour of the provincial authorities, the way policies were implemented, and the environmental constraints and how they affected policy-making.

In my view, the fundamental disagreement between Garver and me i, the estimation of the nature of the CCP-Moscow relationship, personalized in the relations between Mao and Stalin. Garver believe, that Stalin regarded Mao as a “dissident communist” who frustrated Stalin's intention to sacrifice the CCP's revolutionary interest; in order to meet the need for Soviet security. In the decade after 1935, Garver continues to argue in his comment, Mao “repeatedly deviate[d] from Comintern line and ultimately emancipate[d] the CCP from Moscow's control.” Therefore, Stalin had good reason to distrust Mao. If the CCP-Moscow radio communication had not been disrupted, Stalin could have prevented Mao from launching a successful coup at the Zunyi Conference, Garver says in his China Quarterly article. After finding some evidence of Stalin's willingness to supply the CCP with weapons, Garver states that “our estimates of Mao's willingness to antagonize Stalin must be adjusted.” To Garver, the Mao-Stalin relations were utilitarian in nature, just like those between Stalin and Chiang Kai-shek – they were all each other's “fishes.” Given the discrepancy between the Soviet security need and the CCP's revolutionary interests, Garver's depiction of the relationship between Mao and Stalin leaves the impression that they were adversaries, rather than comrades.

During the National Salvation Movement of the mid-1930s, the Shanghai Party forged its most workable alliance not with members of the proletariat but with progressives from the city's middle and upper classes. Making use of multi-class patriotism, Party leaders established a co-operative relationship with members of the elite that became a crucial part of Chinese Communist Party (CCP) resistance work against Japan. In many cases, the relationship continued into the post-war years and contributed significantly to the CCP's easy takeover of the city in May 1949.

Personnel changes in the party and government in communist systems are typically politicized and personalistic. Changes occur as the result of natural death, political error or consolidation of personal power from the top. Cadres able to manoeuver around the vagaries of politics enjoy de facto lifelong tenure. In 1978, the experience in the People's Republic of China (PRC) was no different in that regard: lifelong tenure, barring political error, had existed since the consolidation of power in the 1950s. Purge had been the dominant form of exit from office in the PRC. And because purge had not meant physical liquidation in the Chinese case, veteran revolutionaries had survived and reappeared to dominate the Party and government bureaucracies for decades.

From 1949 until 1986 the Kuomintang (KMT) ruled Taiwan and adjoining island territories (Republic of China or ROC on Taiwan) without organized political opposition. This party was led by two powerful leaders, a father and son: Chiang Kai-shek served as party chairman and the government's president until March 1978, and then Chiang Ching-kuo held both positions until his death in January 1988.

The formation of the anti-Japanese national united front between the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and the Guomindang (GMD), and Moscow's role in it, has attracted much historical inquiry. Our knowledge about it is enriched with the appearance of John Garver's and Kui-Kuong Shum's recent works. However, there are some important issues raised by them worth further discussion, and some factual evidence which needs more study.