1. Donili, William F., “Transfer of legitimacy in the Chinese Communist Party: origins of the Maoist myth,” in Lewis, John W. (ed.), Party Leadership and Revolutionary Power in China (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1970), pp. 69–87.Google Scholar

2. Tse-tung, Mao, Selected Works, Vol. IV (New York: International Publishers, 1956), pp. 189–94.Google Scholar The Returned Students were also criticized for having “dealt excessively severe blows at comrades who had committed mistakes along Li Lisan's line,” a view also challenged by Dorrill, . Mao Tse-tung and the Chinese Communist Movement, 1927–1935, unpublished Ph.D. dissertation, Harvard University.Google Scholar

3. Taken over by supporters of the Russian Returned Students in 1931–32, the Jiangsu Provincial Committee ran Party operations in Shanghai through eight district committees. In addition, four special committees for outlying counties, six central county committees and the Nanjing Party organization were under its jurisdiction. According to KMT sources, prominent members of the Jiangsu committee in this period were: Tong, Shi, Lin, Zhao, Guotong, Zhang, and Li, Xiao (secretaries), Meinong, Li and Yousong, Zhang (propaganda), Guoqian, Zhang, Zhiyun, Zhang, Bengen, Zhou, Fusheng, Xu, and Guichang, Su (organization), Pinghui, Yuan (youth), Yiqing, Li (trade unions) and Xianqiang, Xu, Ming, Shu, Chengwei, Bao, Jiero, Luo, Tanqiu, Chen, Jidi, Gao, Jiang, Huang, Lisan, Zhao and, possibly, Xuefeng, Feng, Dixin, Xu, Dengxian, Luo, Geng, Cheng, and Qiang, Li, Chien-min, Wang, Zhongguo gpngchandang shigao (Draft History of the CCP) (Taipei: China Publishers House, 1966), Vol. 2, p. 152.Google ScholarKuo, Warren, Analytical History of the Chinese Communist Party (Taipei: Institute of International Relations, 1968), Vol. 2, pp. 315–25.Google Scholar

4. The Jiangsu committee was directly subordinate to the “provisional” Central Committee which operated in Shanghai from the Fourth Plenum in January 1931 to early 1933 under the control of the Returned Students, especially Zhang Wentian (Luo Fu) and Qin Bangxian (Bo Gu). After the Central Committee's move to Jiangxi, the Party established the “Central Bureau for ‘White’ Areas” in Shanghai. Although none of the Jiangsu Party members listed above was a Returned Student, they generally abided by the Students' political line.

5. “Bolshevization” became official policy in the CCP at the November 1927 Politburo meeting, preceding the arrival in China of the pro-Stalinist Returned Students. Tso-Liang, Hsiao, Chinese Communism in 1927, City vs. Countryside (Hong Kong: Chinese University of Hong Kong, 1970), p. 102.Google Scholar In 1932–33, the “Right” in Shanghai was led by Luo Zhanglong.

6. The committee also reportedly criticized decisions of the CCP's 1928 Sixth Congress in Moscow. Trotsky, Leon, Problems of the Chinese Revolution (New York: Paragon, 1962), pp. 216–27.Google Scholar Also, “Wen Yucheng tongzhi baogao (“A report by comrade Wen Yucheng”), 15 January 1929, Bureau of Investigation Archives, Taiwan (hereafter BIA).

7. See, Xigen, Xu; “Fu baogao sanban”Google Scholar (“An appended report on three Issues”) (no date), BIA. For Central Committee criticism of the Jiangsu committee, see “Guanyu dangnei xuanchuanpai bie wenti jueyian” (“Resolution on the intra-party propaganda faction and other problems”), 19 01 1929, BIA.Google Scholar

8. Described in Kuo, , Analytical History, pp. 58–62Google Scholar and Thornton, Richard C., The Comintern and the Chinese Communists, 1928–31 (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1969), pp. 67–74.Google Scholar In 1929 members of the Jiangsu committee also proposed a “Seventh Party Congress” to reverse “illegal” decisions by the CC. Liu Fangche, “Yu Jiangsu shengwei daibiao tanhua jingguo baogao” (“Discussion with a representative of the Jiangsu Provincial Committee”), 19 January 1929, BIA. For Li Lisan's position, see the special issue on the “Jiangsu problem” in the central publication, Dang de shenghuo (Party Life), 19 02 1929.Google Scholar Peng Shuzhi was one of the many Chinese Trotskyists in the Jiangsu committee, while Chen Duxiu reportedly used the Jiangsu organization as a political base to attack Li Lisan in late 1929 and to form his Trotskyist splinter group. Rue, John, Mao Tse-tung in Opposition (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1966), p. 167.Google Scholar

9. He, secretary of the Jiangsu committee peasant bureau, and head of the Central Shanghai (huzhong) and Eastern Shanghai (hudong) district committees, emphasized his experiences in “practical work” (shiji gongzuo) when opposing both Li Lisan and later the Russian Returned Students. In this way, He considered himself a spokesman for the Party's front-line cadres. See, “He Mengxiong yijianshu” (“A statement of views of He Meng-xiong”) in Tso-Liang, Hsiao, Power Relations Within the Chinese Communist Movement, 1930–34, Vol. II, The Chinese Documents (hereafter Documents) (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1967), pp. 112–19.Google Scholar

10. He's supporters in Shanghai included Yang Guohua (trade union leader), Sun Zhengyi (railway union leader), Chen Yu (seaman's union leader), and Liu Junshan. Yueh Sheng, a member of the Russian Returned Students, notes that during their initial formation in Moscow, the Returned Students were opposed by a group of Jiangsu-Zhejiang Party members. Yueh, Sheng, Sun Yat-sen University in Moscow and the Chinese Revolution (Lawrence, Kansas: Center for East Asian Studies, 1971), p. 210.Google Scholar

11. In the meantime Wang Ming had returned to the Soviet Union in September 1931. Besides Luo Zhanglong, “rightists” expelled from the Jiangsu committee included Liu Junshan, Zeng Mengbing and Wu Guozhi, and Shanghai district committeemen Lu Tiehcheng, Qian Qingan and Cai Bozhen.

12. This was also true in the Peiping, Tianjin, and Manchurian Party organizations. Ming, Wang, “Wei zhonggong geng jia Buersaiweikehua er douzheng”Google Scholar (“Struggle for the more complete Bolshevization of the Chinese Communist Party”), in Tso-Liang, Hsiao, Documents, pp. 584–90.Google Scholar

13. After April 1927 the Shanghai Party was substantially rebuilt to a membership of around 3,000, but by 1931–32, the disasterous effects of Li Lisan's urban insurrections reduced total membership to around 500. Harrison, James P.. The Long March to Power (New York: Praeger, 1972), p. 202.Google Scholar By 1933, however, Shanghai Party membership had reportedly grown again to over 3,000. See discussion below.

14. This rebuilding programme was outlined in “Muqian zhengzhi xingshi yu zhongguo gongchandang de zhongxin ren wu” (“The current political situation and the central tasks of the CCP”) Tso-Liang, Hsiao, Documents, pp. 293–94Google Scholar, and, in the Returned Student-controlled organ Dang de jianshe (Party Construction), Nos. 1–12, 01 1931–03 1933.Google Scholar

15. Liening shenghuo was issued from early 1932 to February 1934 and dealt almost exclusively with the CCP in Shanghai. All articles were signed pseudonymously, BIA.

16. Serious problems of internal command and control antedated Li Lisan's leadership. In December 1927, for instance, the Canton Commune was carried out without the knowledge of the Party leadership in Shanghai. Tso-Liang, Hsiao, Chinese Communism in 1927, p. 138.Google Scholar

17. Liening shenghuo, No. 4, 13 06 1932.Google Scholar

18. Ibid. No. 6, 8 July 1932. Trotskyjsts in Shanghai published two journals and remained active after Chen Duxiu's arrest in October 1932.

19. Hongqi (Red Flag), No. 34, 1 04 1932.Google Scholar A related problem was the failure of central decisions and documents even to reach the district committees and branches. Dang de jianshe, No. 3, 15 02 1931.Google Scholar

20. Liening shenghuo, No. 6, 8 07 1932.Google Scholar Such criticism was, of course, influenced by partisan considerations as Li Lisan was blamed for the insufficiency of cadre education in Bolshevik principles, even though the Party constitution issued by the Sixth Congress contained a full translation of “Bolshevik Party Rules.”

21. Ibid. No. 7, 23 July 1932.

22. Like He Mengxiong, Returned Students leaders blamed Li Lisan for excessive centralization of power which they described as a “patriarchal system” (jiazhang zhidu), a term later used in the CCP's criticism of Mao Zedong following his death in September 1976. Dang de jianshe, No. 2, 5 02 1931.Google Scholar But even after Li's dismissal in late 1930, Liening shenghuo complained that at various levels of the Party, important political discussion and decisions were monopolized “by a few members who met individually rather than holding meetings. ”Liening shenghuo, No. 20, 20 02 1933.Google Scholar

23. Dang de jianshe No. 2, 5 02 1931.Google Scholar

24. Liening shenghuo, No. 11, 11 1932.Google Scholar Similar goals were announced in 1927–28. Ristaine, Marcia R., “Communist strategy by 1928: the mobilization of discontent,” The China Quarterly, No. 84 (12 1980), p. 704.Google Scholar

25. Liening shenghuo (Supplement), 19 09 1933.Google Scholar

26. CC, “Guanyu changye zhibu de xianzhuang yu muqian dang de renwu de jueyi” (“Decision on conditions in factory branches and the Party's present responsibilities”), reprinted in Liening shenghuo, No. 20, 20 02 1933.Google Scholar

27. Ibid. No. 10, 17 September 1932. Demonstrations against Japanese imperialism and a boycott of Japanese goods began in Shanghai in late 1931 and intensified after the January 1932 attack on the city.

28. CC, “Guanyu nianguan douzheng de jueyi” (“Decision on the year-end struggle”), reprinted in ibid. December 1932.

29. Ibid. No. 14, 5 January 1933. This policy was also designed to win the allegiance of branch and district personnel who had supported He Mengxiong and Chen Duxiu, but who had also opposed Li Lisan's interventionist and overbearing leadership.

30. Ibid. No. 9, 22 August 1932. Under Li Lisan's leadership branch personnel reportedly ignored central decisions completely, or, they abided rigidly by central directives without attempting to adapt policy to local conditions. The effort noted here to spur “discussion” of Party policy at the branch level and to reduce higher-level interference in the Party's lower echelons was pushed by the Returned Students, and was also evident in the later 1942–44 Rectification. See “Report of the Propaganda Bureau of the Central Committee on the Cheng Feng Reform Movement,” in Compton, Boyd, Mao's China: Party Reform Documents, 1942–44 (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1966), p. 2.Google Scholar

31. Problems with the upward flow of information in the CCP were evidently common in the “white areas,” as reports from branch, district, and city committees often failed to reach provincial and central party organizations. See Douzheng (Struggle), No. 40, 21 04 1933.Google Scholar

32. ECCI, “Problems in changing branch work,” reprinted in Dang dejianshe, No. 5, 18 04 1931.Google Scholar Emphasis on rebuilding branches was a constant theme in Party materials from the late 1920s through the 1942–44 Rectification. See CC, Second Plenum, “Zuzhi wenti jueyian” (“Decisions on Party organizational problems”), June 1929, BIA. CCP branches that did exist were said to be concentrated in small industries.

33. Yueh, Sheng, Sun Yat-sen UniversityGoogle Scholar, states that “the KMT was unsuccessful in infiltrating CCP organization at the provincial level or higher. But KMT agents were quite successful in Shanghai at infiltrating CCP organization below the level of the Provincial Committee…”, p. 245.

34. Xianfeng (Vanguard), No. 10, 10 02 1933.Google Scholar

35. Ibid. These criticisms of branch cadres were also highly partisan since opposition to the Returned Students' takeover of the Jiangsu party was greatest at the lower echelons.

36. Liening shenghuo, No. 20, 20 02 1933.Google Scholar Overall, the Returned Students wanted a greater reliance on formal institutional methods in the Party to counteract the effects of Li Lisan's highly personal leadership. Thus they called for a “rational distribution of authority” in branches to reverse the tendency of one leader to make all the decisions. Dang dejianshe, No. 1,25 01 1931, and No. 7, 28 11 1931Google Scholar; also, Douzheng, No. 18, 15 07 1932.Google Scholar

37. “28 January 1932” (“yierba”) was the date of the Japanese attack on Shanghai and was used by the city's communist organization in a recruitment drive which reportedly netted 3,000 new members in that same year though two-thirds soon left the Party. Chien-min, Wang, Draft History, p. 152.Google Scholar

38. Douzheng, No. 25, 18 09 1932.Google Scholar Similar goals were stated in the 1942–44 Rectification after the leadership detected poor planning and shoddy organization at the Party's lower echelons. Compton, Mao's China, p. xlviii.Google Scholar

39. Douzheng, No. 8, 20 03 1932.Google Scholar In 1943 Mao shared the same concerns about excessive central interference. See, “Some questions concerning methods of leadership,” Selected Works, Vol. Ill (Peking: Foreign Language Press, 1967), p. 120.Google Scholar

40. Compared to previous Party leaders, especially Chen Duxiu, the Returned Students were more systematic in their approach to cadre training. See CC, “Zhongyang guanyu ganbu wenti de jueyi” (“Resolution on the problems of cadres”), 27 08 1931, BIA.Google Scholar

41. This view of the Jiangsu leadership on political opportunities for the CCP in Shanghai was not an altogether unrealistic one. According to Harrison: “The number of strikes [many of which were in Shanghai] supposedly increased to one million in 1932 and went up sharply again in 1933 but there was little sign of any effective Communist role in this activity.” Harrison, , Long March to Power, p. 221.Google ScholarHongqi zhoubao also noted that in August 1931 there were 26 independent worker actions in Shanghai, half of which were strikes. No. 23, 20 November 1931. Major strikes in the city also occurred at the General Edison Co. (1930) and the British-American Co. (1933).

42. Although much of this criticism was a repetition of the current Comintern line, specifically of attacks on Nikolai Bukharin who was accused of holding “pessimistic” views of the international working class and denying that internal contradictions within capitalism would lead to world revolution, the specificity of the criticisms in Liening shenghuo and Dang de jlanshe indicate that such problems existed among cadres, especially those in the underground. McKenzie, Kermit, Comintern and World Revolution, 1928–43 (New York: Columbia University Press, 1964), p. 123.Google Scholar In Fujian, Luo Ming was accused of the same heresy in his “conservative” approach to peasant mobilization.

43. Liening shenghuo, No. 10, 17 09 1932.Google Scholar

44. Ibid. No. 2,2 May 1932. This criticism reflected the “forward and offensive line” of the Returned Students which ordered cadres into the streets to provoke mass political action, a tactic later criticized in the 1945 “Resolution.”

45. Ibid. No. 14, 5 January 1933, and No. 10, 17 September 1932.

46. Liening shenghuo, No. 8, 3 08 1932.Google Scholar

47. Ibid. No. 18, 5 February 1933. Cadres were also criticized for monopolizing strike preparations and “casting workers aside.” Dang de jianshe, No. 10, 20 06 1932.Google Scholar

48. Liening shenghuo, No. 34, 16 02 1934, No. 27, 10 04 1933, and No. 8, 3 08 1932.Google Scholar Similar concerns were expressed by Enlai, Zhou in “On the work in Wuhan,” 09 1930. Selected Works of Zhou Enlai, Vol. I (Beijing: Foreign Languages Press, 1981), p. 152.Google Scholar

49. Liening shenghuo, No. 9, 22 08 1932.Google Scholar

50. Ibid. Cadres were also accused of not using “common speech” (putonghua) in talking with workers. For a similar line of criticism by Mao in 1942–44, see “In opposition to Party formalism,” Compton, , Mao's China, p. 49Google Scholar and “Talks at the Yenan forum on literature and art,” Selected Works, Vol. III, p. 79.Google Scholar

51. The Returned Students were especially critical of cadre failure to do the “dirty work” at the factory level, including participation in production. Hongqi, No. 50, 10 1932Google Scholar; and Dang de jianshe, No. 10, 20 06 1932.Google Scholar

52. Liening shenghuo, No. 31, 29 12 1933.Google Scholar The Returned Students voiced concern about arbitrary treatment of workers by communist organizers, a practice which, they believed, led the masses to equate the CCP with the KMT. Hongqi, No. 27, 17 12 1931, and No. 29, 01 1932.Google Scholar Note the parallel with Mao's fear of cadre isolation from the masses in his later Rectification speech, “Get organized.” Selected Works, Vol. III, p. 158.Google Scholar

53. Liening shenghuo, No. 15, 15 01 1933.Google Scholar

54. Ibid. No. 32, 5 January 1934.

55. Ibid. No. 29, October 1933.

56. Ibid. Here Liening shenghuo took the same position as Zhang Wentian who urged Party leaders to “try to understand conditions at lower levels.” Zhang also called on cadres to “investigate to see if the Party reflects the conditions of the masses” and argued that “the Party must change its politics if they contradict the masses.” Similarly, Zhang criticized the Party leader who “thinks that the method he has decided upon is the best under heaven and that the masses must rely on his orders.” Fu, Luo, “On the new method of leadership, I,” Douzheng (Soviet Areas' edition). No. 2, 4 02 1933.Google Scholar For an analysis of Zhang's impact on Mao's theory of leadership and the “mass line,” see Kim, Ilpyong, The Politics of Chinese Communism (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1973).Google Scholar

57. Liening shenghuo, No. 20, 20 02 1933.Google Scholar

58. Ibid. No. 3, 5 June 1932.

59. Ibid. No. 2, 2 May 1932.

60. Ibid.

61. The leadership also attempted to break the economic dependency of cadres on the Party. New members were to retain their jobs on joining the CCP and were told not to expect economic benefits from Party membership. Ibid. No. 4, 13 June 1932.

62. According to John Rue, Chen Duxiu had called for internal democracy in the Party and greater freedom for the individual cadre – policies which not only provided opportunity for political opposition against the Returned Students but which were probably suicidal in the Shanghai underground. In 1942–44, Mao pursued a line of criticism similar to Jiangsu leaders in his attacks on “individual firstism.” See Zedong, Mao, “Reform in learning, the Party and literature,”Google ScholarCompton, , Mao's China, pp. 23–25.Google Scholar

63. Zhang Wentian wrote a major statement on self-criticism while still in Shanghai in 1932. Douzheng, No. 17, 5 07 1932.Google Scholar Also, see Dittmer, Lowell, “The structural evolution of ‘criticism and self-criticism,’” The China Quarterly, No. 56, 10–12 1973.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

64. Indeed, the Returned Students pushed their ideological struggle against the right to the lowest levels of the Party. This strategy was designed to break up the tight personal ties among cadres which had hampered the extension of Returned Student control to the lower level, but which also provided cadres' protection from KMT police.

65. See the “confession” by Sun Mingchun who, although accused of Trotskyism, emphasized his “errors” in practical work. Liening shenghuo, No. 9, 22 08 1932.Google Scholar

66. Ibid. No. 2, 2 May 1932.

67. Thus, the Returned Students encouraged lower echelon Party members to raise “disparate views toward upper levels.” Douzheng, No. 8, 1932.Google Scholar Other proposals called for lower-level cadres to “increase Party discussion and debate” especially at the branch level. Liening shenghuo, No. 17, 27 06 1933.Google Scholar This position was similar to Liu Shaoqi's in his “Training of the Communist Party member” (1939)Google Scholar where he supported criticism of the Party's “higher echelons” from lower Party ranks. Compton, , Mao's China, p. 143.Google Scholar

68. Dang de jianshe, No. 11, 24 01 1933.Google Scholar

69. Liening shenghuo, No. 16, 21 01 1933.Google Scholar More theoretical education in the Party was mandated by the Sixth Party Congress but it was the Returned Students who especially emphasized doctrine. In partisan terms, this gave them leverage over both the He Mengxiong and Mao Zedong groups, who emphasized their practical experience as the basis of legitimacy in the Party. However, some of the Returned Students, especially Zhang Wentian, wanted to strike a balance between theory and practice. Although stressing theory as a guide to action, something which Mao had also done at the Gutian Conference in 1930, Zhang cautioned against excessively doctrinaire methods. In 1933 Zhang castigated higher-level cadres who while writing Party reports filled with abstract superficial phrases, such as the “two-line struggle,” ignored concrete and realistic appraisals of the Party's problems. Other contributors to Returned Student journals also stressed that cadres should “study lessons from each struggle” and “understand experiences.” Hongqi, No. 30, 02 1932.Google Scholar Also, Wylie, Raymond F., The Emergence of Maoism (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1980), p. 253.Google Scholar

70. Because of their poor training in theory, cadres were reportedly unable even to recognize Trotskyist publications. Liening shenghuo, No. 34, 16 02 1934.Google Scholar

71. Ibid. (Supplement), 19 September 1933. Hongqi, 12 1932Google Scholar, also ordered each Party cell to establish study groups. And, while stress was given to increasing the rank-and-file's knowledge of basic Marxist-Leninist theory, excessive education in the doctrine was to be avoided because of the “low cultural level” of most Party members. Liening shenghuo, No. 13, 12 1932.Google Scholar

72. This is not to suggest that the Jiangsu leadership, and their Returned Students superiors, avoided extensive purges. Throughout the 1932–34 period, the Students called for “clearing out bad elements among cadres.” Hongqi, 12 1932.Google Scholar But consistent with decisions of the Sixth Party Congress, and in reaction to Li Lisan's harsh treatment of political opponents, the Students combined their threats of “punishment for offending cadres” with opportunities for political reform. According to Shen Zemin: “For those comrades who have been influenced [by wrong ideas], we can push them to correct their thought and we must wait for them to repent. For those who refuse to change, we will deal with them.” Hongqi, No. 28, 01 1932.Google Scholar Warnings were also issued against using force, instead of self-criticism, to change Party member attitudes. Dang dejianshe, No. 4, 8 03 1931Google Scholar and No. 10, 20 June 1932. And, Jiangsu leaders indicated a similarly conciliatory tone by declaring: “The faults in work style of many Party members derive from their lack of education, rather than any mistake on their part.” Liening shenghuo, No. 6. 8 07 1932.Google Scholar

73. The limited effectiveness of these methods was, however, recognized as Party leaders noted that continued support for Chen Duxiu and Luo Zhanglong was often more a function of “friendship” and old “feudal” ties based on “village and/or provincial association” (tongxiang) rather than ideology. Liening shenghuo, No. 3, 5 06 1932.Google Scholar

74. Ibid. No. 34, 16 February 1934. Illiteracy among branch-level cadres was a serious problem in the Shanghai Party. Ibid. No. 7, 23 July 1932.

75. However, there was no mention in Liening shenghuo of arming the masses for uprisings, a charge made against the Returned Students by China's current leadership. See discussion below.

76. It was noted that secret work by the Party in villages was so bad that “the gentry know more about Party work than do our own members.” Dang de jianshe, No. 10, 20 06 1932.Google Scholar

77. Liening shenghuo, No. 14, 5 01 1933Google Scholar, and No. 33, 20 January 1934. Also, Hongqi, No. 27, 17 12 1931.Google Scholar

78. Liening shenghuo, No. 14, 5 01 1933.Google Scholar Zhang Wentian also warned that: “There is too much reliance on the Party and too much reliance on secret work.” Hongqi, No. 30, 02 1932.Google Scholar On the other hand, the Returned Students criticized He Mengxiong supporters, particularly Wang Fengfei, for breaking the Party's “iron law of secrecy” and “advocating open debate.” Dang de jianshe, No. 4, 03 1931.Google Scholar It appears the Returned Students wanted more political discussion by front-line cadres, but tighter discipline within the Party leadership.

79. This strategy reflected the Comintern's 12th Plenum Resolution in September 1932 ordering stepped up work in factories, and the decision of the CCP's Fifth Plenum in January 1934 calling for greater involvement in strikes. All work among labour was made exceedingly difficult by the Nationalist Government's strict prohibition against organizing strikes enacted in the March 1928 Law of Expediency.

80. Liening shenghuo, No. 4, 13 06 1932Google Scholar; and Shihua (True Words), 30 04 1932.Google Scholar Chinese Communist Party contact with labour was severely undermined by the KMT's arrest of Party organizers following Gu Shunzhang's defection in 1931. Ang, Li, Hongse wutai(Red Stage) (Beijing: Shengli chubanshe, 1946), pp. 115–16.Google Scholar

81. See the Second Plenum's “Decisions on Party organizational problems” for Li Lisan's narrow strategy. In the late 1920s red unions were described as having “a very strong influence in Shanghai.” Fu-an, Fang, Chinese Labour (Shanghai: Kelly and Walsh, 1931 ), p. 79.Google Scholar

82. Liening shenghuo, No. 4, 13 06 1932Google Scholar; and Hu, Zhong (possibly Liu Shaoqi), “Should our Party urge workers to oppose the shutdown of Yongan's two unions…?” Hongqi, No. 30, 02 1932.Google Scholar This strategy represented a return to the policies approved at the Sixth Party Congress. Hammond, “The tragedy of the Chinese yellow unions,” p. 9. While the article cited here may have been penned by Liu Shaoqi, this policy line was generally supported in both Liening shenghuo and other Returned Student-controlled publications. But contemporary Party historiography in China claims that Wang Ming and his supporters opposed “legal work” (hefa) in the “yellow unions.” Hongqi, 16 04 1980.Google Scholar

83. Hu, Zhong “Criticize the policy of ‘leaving the yellow unions,’” Hongqi, No. 28, 18 01 1932.Google Scholar Returned Student strategy was to set up “small groups” (xiaozu) in the “yellow unions.” There were reportedly 400 members of such groups in 1932.

84. Liening shenghuo, No. 10, 17 09 1932Google Scholar, and No. 17, 27 January 1933. Throughout the 1932–34 period, unemployment increased dramatically in Shanghai under the impact of the world depression. Cotton textile mills were particularly hard hit and became a target of CCP organizing efforts. Bergère, Marie-Claire, “The other China: Shanghai from 1919 to 1949” in Howe, Christopher (ed.), Shanghai: Revolution and Development in an Asian Metropolis (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1981), p. 19.Google Scholar

85. Liening shenghuo, No. 9, 22 08 1932Google Scholar, and No. 16, 21 January 1933. In both provincial and central Party journals, local cadres were criticized for organizing only the most advanced and culturally sophisticated workers, and ignoring the illiterate, unemployed, and women workers because of their “backwardness.” Hongqi, No. 25, 11 1931.Google Scholar However, communist labour organizers were warned not to use “leftist” methods to “artifically elevate the struggle of the unemployed to a higher [political] level.” Liening shenghuo, No. 10, 17 09 1932.Google Scholar

86. Liening shenghuo. No. 10, 17 09 1932.Google Scholar

87. Liening shenghuo noted that lack of interest in the workers' basic economic demands led to a situation in which “strikes which were often self-starting and not under communist leadership even where we have branches and unions.” Liening shenghuo, No. 7, 23 07 1932.Google Scholar Such criticisms reflected the Returned Students' “forward and offensive line” and Comintern policy enunciated in 1929, but similar complaints had been voiced earlier by He Menxiong.

88. Ibid. No. 34, 16 February 1934. Cadres were also criticized for ignoring local issues and focusing solely on promoting “national uprisings”-an accusation that Mao would make against the Returned Students in 1945. Dang de jianshe, No. 5, 18 04 1931.Google Scholar

89. Liening shenghuo, No. 31, 29 12 1933.Google Scholar This was part of the Returned Students plan to reduce the number of cadres at the Party's upper levels by sending them down for “education in the factories.” Ibid. No. 20, 20 February 1933; and Dang de jianshe, No. 3, 15 02 1931.Google Scholar

90. Liening shenghuo, No. 2, 2 05 1932.Google Scholar In the mid 1930s Party district committees in Shanghai published newspapers such as Qianxian (Front Line) in East Shanghai, Huzhong zhoubao (Central Shanghai Weekly); and Fanan gongbao (Fanan Workers Paper).

91. To achieve this, the Party ordered that newspaper articles were not to be written by members of the League of Left Wing writers because of their lack of experience in the factories. Hongqi, No. 31, 11 03 1932Google Scholar; and Douzheng, No. 23, 19 08 1932.Google Scholar

92. Liening shenghuo, No. 2, 2 05 1932.Google Scholar Intensified recruitment of workers was mandated by the January 1931 Fourth Plenum, but by April 1931 Party Construction listed total worker membership in the CCP at only 1,000 to 2,000.

93. This included workers who were not necessarily members of Red Unions or even pro-communist. Liening shenghuo, No. 17, 27 06 1933.Google Scholar

94. Douzheng, No. 23, 18 08 1932.Google Scholar This number is much larger than the figure of 500 quoted by Kang Sheng in December 1933, but is close to the figure of 3,000 he cited for the entire Jiangsu provincial organization. International Press Correspondence, 29 12 1933, p. 1309.Google Scholar An “August 18th recruitment” (1933)Google Scholar reportedly increased the Party's size outside Soviet areas by 25%, with 94 new CCP branches formed, many in textile mills. Douzheng, No. 31, 18 11 1932.Google Scholar

95. Other major groups in the Shanghai Party included “street workers 10%,” “city employees 5%,” and “students 3%.” Ibid. No. 23, August 1932.

96. CC, “Decision on the present situation of factory branches…”, Liening shenghuo, No. 20, 20 02 1933.Google Scholar My emphasis.

97. Ibid. No. 12, November 1932. Cadres were also able to break down the workers' parochialism by expanding strikes beyond one shop.

98. Ibid. No. 5, 24 June 1932. These meetings appear similar to the local council of delegates elected by the peasants in the 1947–48 Land Reform campaign, where cadres also faced mass criticism. Teiwes, Frederick C., “The origins of rectification: inner-Party purges and education before liberation.” The China Quarterly, No. 65 (03 1976), p. 36.Google Scholar

99. CC, “Decision on the year-end struggle,” Liening shenghuo, No. 13, 12 1932Google Scholar, and No. 3, 5 June 1932. There was also an attempt to develop representative bodies to channel the workers' demands. Hongqi, No. 50, 10 1932.Google Scholar The introduction of similar institutions iri the rural Soviets is analysed in Lötveit, Trygve, Chinese Communism: 1931–1934 (Stockholm: Institute of Asian Studies, 1973).Google Scholar

100. The Returned Students also pushed the propaganda line of defending the Soviet Union, which undoubtedly had little appeal to Shanghai's working population. But, contrary to criticism of the Returned Students in contemporary Chinese Party historiography, they did not push this line at the expense of a more resonant anti-Japanese appeal. Lishijiaoxue (Historical Education), No. 5, 1982.Google Scholar

101. Liening shenghuo, No. 25, 26 03 1933Google Scholar, and No. 13, December 1932. A good example was the 1932 strike against the foreign-owned Shanghai telephone system. Ibid. No. 4, 13 June 1932. In 1930 more than one-third of the cotton mills in China were foreign-owned, almost exclusively by Japanese. Fu-an, Fang, Chinese Labour, p. 11.Google Scholar

102. Ibid. No. 2 (Supplement), 20 September 1933. Cadres were exhorted to “look beyond the superficial aspect [of the small merchants' petty bourgeois production] and understand how their struggle can be exploited for Party purposes.” This position seemingly contradicts the view in contemporary China that the Returned Students' “class line” led them to ignore tactical alliances with anti-Japanese “middle groups” (zhongjian jieceng). Zhongguo xiandai shi (Contemporary Chinese History), No. 2, 1982.Google Scholar

103. CC, “Decision on the year-end struggle,” Liening shenghuo, No. 3, 5 06 1932.Google Scholar However, some cadres in Jiangsu reportedly refused to work among peasants because of their “backwardness.”

104. For example, the CCP tried to get dock workers to disrupt supply shipments to KMT forces. Ibid. No. 34, 16 February 1934.

105. Hongqi, No. 4, 6 04 1931.Google Scholar This “supportive” role for the urban Party was clearly stated by the Returned Students in “The resolution on the struggle to win victory first in one or more provinces,” 9 January 1932 cited in Kuo, , Analytical History, p. 396.Google Scholar

106. Liening shenghuo, No. 34, 16 02 1934Google Scholar; Douzheng, No. 11, 30 04 1932.Google Scholar

107. Liening shenghuo, No. 8, 3 08 1932.Google Scholar Other cadres, however, refused to leave their families for the Soviet areas. Red Flag, No. 28, 18 01 1932.Google Scholar

108. Over 1,000 Party members were reportedly arrested. Wang, Draft History, p. 152.Google Scholar

109. Renmin ribao (People's Daily) 27 08 1979Google Scholar; Gongren ribao (Workers Daily), 4 02 1981Google Scholar; and Contemporary Chinese History, No. 3, 1982.Google Scholar Many other leaders involved in the white areas and in the guerrilla base areas have also been praised.

110. Contemporary Chinese History, No. 4, 1980Google Scholar, and, No. 1, 1982; and Historical Education, No. 5, 1982.Google Scholar

111. Specifically, they accused the Returned Students of (1) recklessly arming the masses for uprisings; (2) ignoring “legal” methods of work in “yellow unions”; (3) ignoring tactical alliances with “middle” groups; (4) provoking strikers to suicidal armed clashes with the police; and (5) focusing solely on a “united front from below” while failing to take advantage of divisions within the KMT (a charge the Returned Students had made against the “right” in 1932).Google ScholarShehui kexue (Social Science), No. 2 (1980)Google Scholar, and Contemporary Chinese History, No. 2 (1982).Google Scholar