1. Garver, J., Chinese-Soviet Relations, 1937–1945, New York: Oxford University Press, 1988.Google Scholar As a supplement, his article, “The origins of the second united front,” is published in The China Quarterly, No. 113 (03 1988), pp. 29–59.Google ScholarShum, K., Chinese Communists' Road to Power (Oxford, 1988).Google ScholarKataoka, T.'s Resistance and Revolution (Berkeley, 1974)Google Scholar, and Benton, G.'s “The ‘Second Wang Ming Line’,” The China Quarterly, No. 61 (03 1975), pp. 61–94CrossRefGoogle Scholar, offer us substantial discussion on this topic. However, their arguments are all either confirmed or challenged by Garver and Shum. This paper will therefore concentrate on the debate with the new results of Garver's and Shum's scholarship.

2. Both authors use substantial CCP documents available in the early 1980s. However, they were unable to use CCP documents released after 1985. This paper is based on this “newer” evidence, about which a research note is attached.

3. Shum, , Road to Power, pp. 103–105, 184.Google Scholar

4. Garver, , Chinese-Soviet Relations, pp. 10–13, 58–62.Google Scholar Garver's most recent article, “The Soviet Union and the Xi'an Incident” (Australian Journal of Chinese Affairs (07 1991), pp. 145–175)Google Scholar, finds some evidence of Stalin's willingness to arm the CCP at the time, therefore, Garver, says, “our estimates of Mao's willingness to antagonize Stalin must be adjusted.”Google Scholar However, his basic interpretations remain unchanged. Garver's new information which made him adjust his argument is very limited, exclusively drawn from Yang Kuisong's book (co-written with Yang Yunrou). As pointed out in the attached research notes, a book published in China will go through more extensive checks than an article. Many important and essential documents quoted in Yang's various articles, from which I quote frequently, are not available in his book.

5. Shum, , Road to Power, p. 105.Google Scholar

6. Garver, , Chinese-Soviet Relations, p. 13.Google Scholar

7. See Kuisong, Yang, “Kangzhan shiqi gongchan guoji, Sulian, yu Zhongguo gongchandang guanxi zhongde jige wenti” (“Several issues in the relations between the Comintern, the USSR and the CCP in the period of the war of resistance”), Dangshi yanjiu (Studies on Party History), No. 6 (1987), pp. 132–149.Google Scholar

8. See “Guanyu gongchanguoji diliuci-diqici daibiao dahui qijian Zhonggong qingkuang de baogao” (“The report on the CCP's work in the period between the sixth and seventh congresses of the Comintern”), 05 1934Google Scholar; “Kang Sheng, Wang Ming Hang tongzhi gei zhongyang zhengzhiju de xin” (“The letter from comrades Kang Sheng and Wang Ming to the Politburo of the CCP”), 16 09 1934Google Scholar; “Zhonggong zhu gongchanguoji daibiaotuan laixin zhaiyao” (“A summary of letters from the CCP's delegation to the Comintern”), 11 1934.Google Scholar These documents have not yet been published, but Yang Kuisong's article in Dangshi yanjiu quotes from them directly.

9. See Qijun, Huang, “Zhonggong zhongyang zai 1935 zhi 1936 nianjian yu gongchan guoji huifu dianxun lianxi de jingguo” (“The process of restoring electronic communication between the Party Centre and the Comintern in 1935–36”), Dangshi yanjiu, No. 2 (1987).Google Scholar

10. Ibid. A telegram signed by Mao, Zhou Enlai, Lin Yuying and others dated 22 July 1936 states that “since 6 July, radio communication with the Comintern has resumed.” (Wenxian he yanjiu, No. 5 (1986), pp. 3–4.)Google Scholar Mao may have received a second telegram from Moscow on the 6th, which reassured him that communication had finally been restored.

11. “Guanyu hongjun beishang kangRi fangzheng de 18 feng dianbao” (“Eighteen pieces of telegrams relating to the Red Army's anti-Japanese strategy of northward movement”), Wenxian he yanjiu, No. 5 (1986), pp. 2–14.Google Scholar

12. Ibid.

13. In late July the Comintern held a special meeting to discuss CCP policy, and its decision was reflected in the Party Centre's cable to Zhang Guotao on 12 August. See Wenxian he yanjiu, No. 5 (1986), pp. 4–5.Google Scholar This will be further discussed later.

14. Garver, , “The origins of the second united front,” pp. 37–43.Google Scholar

15. See Guoji xinwen tongxun (Communist International News Letter), Vol. 15, No. 60, pp. 1488–491Google Scholar, cited in Kuison, Yang's “Wang Ming zai kangri minzhu tongyi zhanxian celue fangzhen xincheng guocheng zhongde zuoyong” (“Wang Ming's role in the formation of the anti-Japanese national united front”), Jindaishi yanjiu, No. 1 (1989), pp. 199–219.Google Scholar

16. Yibing, Li, “Guanyu ‘bi-Chiang kangRi’ fangzhen xingcheng wenti” (“On the issue of the formulation of the ‘pressure Chiang to resist Japan’ policy”), Jindaishi yanjiu, No. 4 (1989), pp. 212–232.Google Scholar Also Kuisong, Yang, “Wang Ming's role.”Google Scholar

17. See Gongchan guoji youguan Zhongguo geming de wenxian ziliao (Comintern Document Collection on Chinese Revolution), Vol. 2, pp. 363–64Google Scholar; Dimitrov wenji (Collected works of Dimitrov), p. 136Google Scholar; quoted in Kuisong, Yang, “Wang Ming's role.”Google Scholar

18. Jiuguo bao, 7 11 1935Google Scholar, cited from Wang Ming xuanji (Selected Works of Wang) (Tokyo, 1974), Vol. 4, pp. 305–313.Google Scholar

19. Kuisong, Yang, “Guanyu 1936 nian guogong liangdang mimi jiechu jinguo de jige wenti” (“Several questions about the GMD-CCP secret contact in 1936”), Jindaishi yanjiu, No. 1 (1990), pp. 244–265.Google Scholar Yang uses the minutes of the Pan-Deng meeting and Wang's and Pan's letters to clarify previous accounts of the GMD-CCP secret contact in 1936.

20. Quoted from Qijun, Huang, Zhonggong dangshi yanjiu, No. 6 (1988), p. 9.Google Scholar

21. Garver quotes Xiang Qing to state that when Chiang's plenipotentiary remained in Moscow in February Stalin was unwilling to see him, because Stalin was suspicious of Chinese schemes to embroil the Soviet Union with Japan (p. 45). But Garver fails to explain why Stalin would order the CCP to unite with Chiang whom Stalin himself could not trust.

22. These two documents are cited by Yibiang, Li, Jindaishi yanjiu, No. 4 (1989), p. 214.Google Scholar

23. Garver states that “the central thrust of Lin's message was that the anti-Japanese front should be expanded. The old slogans ‘down with Chiang Kai-shek’ and ‘oppose Chiang and resist Japan’… should be replaced by ‘unite with Chiang to resist Japan’.”

24. Qijun, Huang, Zhonggong dangshi yanjiu, No. 6 (1988).Google Scholar

25. Ming, Wang, “Wei Zhongguo de kangRi tongyi zhanxian er douzheng” (“Struggle for China's anti-Japanese united front”), Communist International, No. 8 (1936).Google Scholar Cited in Kuisong, Yang's article, “Wang Ming's role.”Google Scholar

26. See Yang Kuisong, ibid.

27. See Jiuguo shibao, 5 06 1936.Google Scholar Cited in ibid.

28. Ibid.

29. For the content of Dimitrov's speech, see Zhonggong dangshi yanjiu, No. 2 (1988), pp. 84–86.Google Scholar This is a document kept in the CCP's Central Archives. Li Liangzhi's article translated and introduced by Shum, (CCP Research NewsletterGoogle Scholar, No. 5) suggests that Wang persisted in advocating the policy of uniting with Chiang and Mao resisted it. Li also mentions Wang's criticisms of Mao at the ECCI meeting in July. But he fails to point out that Dimitrov threw Wang's criticism of Mao back at Wang himself.

30. This directive is also available in the Zhonggong dangshi yanjiu, No. 2 (1988), pp. 86–87.Google Scholar

31. Ibid.pp. 84–85.

32. See Dimitrov's speech on 23 August.

33. For details, see Qijun, Huang, “Wang Jiaxiang 1937 nian qu gongchanguoji de jianyao jinguo” (“A brief account on the process of Wang's trip to the Comintern”), Dangshi yanjiu, No. 6 (1987).Google Scholar Wang Jiaxiang was a strong supporter of Mao, and played a decisive role in Mao's victory over Wang Ming in 1938. Since both Mao's opponents and supporters consisted, by and large, of the “returned students,” or “internationalists” (Garver's term), the old theme of “Mao versus the returned students” needs to be re-defined carefully.

34. Huang Qijun's article (Zhonggong dangshi yanjiu, No. 6 (1988))Google Scholar, points out this fact, but does not document it. Judging from the fact that the documents, such as Moscow's telegram to the CCP and the CCP's report to Moscow during the Xi'an Incident at the end of 1936, are all addressed directly to the CCP Centre or the Comintern, rather than the CCP's Delegation to the Comintern, Huang's point is confirmed.

35. Garver, , “The origins of the second united front,” p. 56.Google Scholar

36. Based on Otto Braun's recollection, Garver believes that in the spring of 1936 the ECCI censured the Wayaobao resolution's call for Chiang's overthrow (ibid. p. 41). Braun was out of the CCP policy-making circle at the time, and the document now proves his recollection wrong.

37. Zhonggong dangshi yanjiu, No. 2 (1988), p. 86.Google Scholar

38. Later, on 24 January 1937, Mao told the Politburo that “when the December resolution [at Wayaobao] proposed the anti-Japanese policy, [we] should have already abandoned the anti-Chiang policy then.” See Li Yibing, , “‘Pressure Chiang to resist Japan’,” p. 217.Google Scholar Li cites from the minutes of the Politburo meeting.

39. Ibid.

40. For the text of the letter, see Tongzhanbu, Zhongyang and Dang'anguan, Zhongyang (eds.), Zhonggong zhongyang kangRi minzhu tongyi zhanxian wenjian xuanbian (Selected Documents of the CCP Centre on the-Anti-Japanese United Front) (Beijing: Dang'an chubanshe, 1985) (hereafter referred to as Xuanbian), Vol. 2, pp. 235–245.Google Scholar

41. For the text, see Xuanbian, pp. 251–52.Google Scholar

42. Ibid. pp. 253–54.

43. Ibid. p. 255.

44. Shum, , Road to Power, pp. 59–60.Google Scholar

45. Ibid. pp. 52, 60–61.

46. For the military resolution, see Dang'angnan, Zhongyang (ed.), Zhonggong zhongyang wenjian xuanji (Selected Documents of the CCP Central Committee) (Beijing: Zhongyang dangxiao chubanshe, 1989–1991) (hereafter Xuanji), Vol. 10, pp. 589–597Google Scholar. Also see Lu, Qiu, “Hongjun dongzheng zhanlue fanzheng di tichu guochen jiqi yanbian” (“The initiation and evolution of the plan of the Red Army's eastern expedition”), Dangshi yanjiu, No. 3 (1986), pp. 31–36.Google Scholar

47. Qijun, Huang, “Restoring electronic communication.”Google Scholar

48. Zhang Hao told Zhang Wentian that Stalin and the Comintern supported the CCP plan to march northwards to reach the border of Outer Mongolia and the Soviet Union. See. Lu, Qiu, “Initiation and evolution.”Google Scholar Also see Baohua, Jiang, “Changzheng zhongde Peng Dehuai tongzhi” (“Comrade Peng Dehuai in Long March,” Zhonggong dangshi ziliao, No. 14 (1985), pp. 121–22.Google Scholar

49. See Xuanji, Vol. 10, pp. 589–597Google Scholar; Qiu Lu, ibid.

50. Ibid.

51. The CCP did issue an appeal for joint action against Japan to Van Xishan prior to the dispatch of the Red Army into Shanxi, but it expected no positive response from Yan, and one of the steps designed at Wayaobao was to eliminate part of Van's strength. Shum takes this obvious propaganda gesture at face value, and he concludes that “the CCP's emphasis was thus clearly on the anti-Japanese struggle” (Road to Power, pp. 61–62).Google Scholar

52. See Xuanbian, pp. 126–136.Google Scholar

53. Ming, Wang, “Zenyang zhunbei kangzhan” (“How to prepare for the resistance war”), Jiuguo shibao, 30 04 1936Google Scholar. Cited in Zhonggong dangshi yanjiu, No. 6 (1988), p. 9.Google Scholar

54. Shum believes that since March 1936, “Wang had definitely committed himself to an alliance with the GMD,” and the CCP at home “was also moving in the same direction” (Road to Power, pp. 65–69).Google Scholar

55. According to Shum and Garver, the 5 May telegram marked the turning-point in the CCP policy from fang-Chiang (opposing Chiang) to bi-Chiang (compelling Chiang to resist Japan). They are both influenced by CCP historiography in the early 1980s. See “The origins of the second united front,” p. 53.Google Scholar

56. Zhou Enlai nianpu, p. 310.Google Scholar

57. See “Zhongyang guanyu liangguang chubing beishang kangRi gei er, si fangmianjun de zhishi” (“The directive to the Second and Fourth Front Army regarding the anti-Japanese northern march of the Liang Guang army”), 18 04 1936, Xuanbian, pp. 145–46.Google Scholar

58. See Xuanbian, pp. 167–170.Google Scholar

59. Ibid. pp. 171–181.

60. Zedong, Mao, “Guanyu quanguo kangRi fang-Chiang xingshi zhi Peng Dehuai dian” (“Telegram to Peng on the nation-wide situation of resisting Japan and opposing Chiang”), 28 07 1936Google Scholar, quoted in Kuisong, Yang, “Several questions,” p. 258Google Scholar. On this date Mao still held to the old slogan of “resist Japan and oppose Chiang.” Garver is of the opinion that the Eastern Expedition was in conflict with Soviet security, which needed to pacify Japan, so that it constituted a major CCP defiance of Moscow's will (Garver, , “The origins of the second united front,” pp. 41–42)Google Scholar. Mao's telegram indicated that the CCP was very sensitive to the USSR's diplomatic needs in late June. But on 30 April, as we have seen, it was Wang Ming in Moscow, not Mao in China, who openly talked about a possible Soviet-Japanese war.

61. For these two telegrams, see Wenxian he yanjiu, No. 5 (1986), pp. 2–3.Google Scholar

62. For the text of this essential document, see Wenxian he yanjiu, No. 5 (1986), pp. 4–5.Google Scholar

63. Ibid. pp. 4–13.

64. Zhou Enlai nianpu, p. 318.Google Scholar

65. Wenxian he yanjiu, No. 5 (1988), p. 6Google Scholar. Also see Zhou Enlai nianpu, pp. 321–22.Google Scholar

66. Wenxian he yanjiu, No. 5 (1988), pp. 7–8.Google Scholar

67. For details of the Red Army's struggle in the north-west and its failure in October–November, see Zhou Enlai nianpu, pp. 325–331Google Scholar; Xiangqian, Xu's memoirs, Lishi de huigu (Looking Back into History) (Beijing: Jiefangjun chubanshe, 1985), Vol. 2, chs. 13 and 14.Google Scholar

68. For the context of this directive, see Xuanbian, Vol. 2, pp. 251–52.Google Scholar

69. Zhou Enlai nianpu, pp. 329–330.Google Scholar

70. Ibid. p. 332.

71. Wenxian he yanjiu, No. 6 (1986), pp. 26–27Google Scholar. In this issue of the magazine, 34 pieces of CCP telegrams regarding the Xi'an Incident are released.

72. Ibid. pp. 27–28.

73. “Zhonggong zhongyang shujichu zhi gongchan guoji zheweihui shujichu dian” (“Telegrams of the CCP to the ECCI), 12–13 12 1936Google Scholar. Cited in Kuisong, Yang, “Guanyu gongchan guoji yu Zhongguo gongchandang ‘lian-Chiang kangRi’ fangzheng de guanxi wenti” (“About the relations between the CCP and the Comintern regarding the policy of ‘uniting with Jiang to resist Japan’”), Zhonggong dangshi yanjiu, No. 4 (1989), pp. 51–59.Google Scholar

74. Zhonggong dangshi yanjiu, No. 6 (1988), pp. 27–28.Google Scholar

75. Zhang cabled Mao on the 17th, asking Moscow's reaction. To get definite information he also put some pressure on Zhou, who cabled Mao on the 18th to urge Mao to inform him immediately when any ECCI telegram was received. Ibid. pp. 28–29.

76. Ibid. Mao used yuanfang (remote side) as a code name for the USSR.

77. For the text of the telegram, see Xuanbian, Vol. 2, pp. 319–320.Google Scholar

78. Cited in Shum, , Road to Power, p. 87.Google Scholar

79. In the ECCI's telegram of 16 December, it is stated that “no matter what his intention is, in reality, Zhang Xueliang's action can only jeopardize the anti-Japanese united front of the various forces of the Chinese people.” It does not say that “the revolt had been engineered by pro-Japanese instigators,” as Shum, 's sources claim (Road to Power, p. 87)Google Scholar. For the text of this telegram, see Zhonggong dangshi yanjiu, No. 3 (1988), p. 78Google Scholar. There are five telegrams from the ECCI to the CCP regarding the Xi'an Incident available in this issue.

80. Ibid. According to Shum's sources, this telegram was in the wrong code, and therefore indecipherable and a correct message arrived on 20 December. Based on newly-available documents, this account is questionable. First, in Zhonggong dangshi yanjiu there is a note to specify that Dimitrov drafted it, but no mention of a “wrong code.” Secondly, if it was re-dispatched, why did it take Moscow so long to do so? Yang Kuisong confirms that the CCP's directive of 19 December was written after the reception of the ECCI's telegram of the 16th. (Zhonggong dangshi yanjiu, No. 4 (1989), p. 57.)Google Scholar In any event, Moscow's position towards the incident was confirmed on the 19th, if not earlier. In the version that Mao sent to Zhou on the 20th, the ECCI's condemnation of Zhang was deliberately omitted and only four conditions were presented. This indicates that the version in Mao's telegram was only for Zhang's consumption, not necessarily the version that Moscow re-dispatched. See Zhou Enlai nianpu, p. 337.Google Scholar

81. Zhou Enlai nianpu, p. 335.Google Scholar

82. Zhonggong danshi yanjiu, No. 6 (1986), pp. 28–29.Google Scholar

83. See my article with Xuying, Guo, “Jiuguohui zai kangzhan shiqi de zhengzhi zhuzhang” (“The political programme of the national salvation during the period of resistance to Japan”), Shanghai shifan daxue xuebao (The Journal of Shanghai Normal University), No. 1 (1986).Google Scholar

84. See Zhou's cable to Mao, on the 18th, Zhonggong dangshi yanjiu, No. 6 (1986), p. 29.Google Scholar

85. For the text of this document, see Xuanbian, pp. 323–24.Google Scholar

86. For the text of this directive to Zhou on the CCP-GMD negotiations on 12 March, see Xuanbian, pp. 427–28.Google Scholar

87. Ibid. pp. 429–431.

88. Ibid. pp. 514–16, 522–23.

89. See Kuisong, Yang, “KangRi zhanzheng baofahou Zhongguo gongchandang duiRi junshi zhanlue fangzhen de yanbian” (“The evolution of the CCP's military strategy after the eruption of the anti-Japanese war”), Jindaishi yanjiu, No. 2 (1988), pp. 105–127.Google Scholar

90. Zhou Enlai nianpu, pp. 370–75.Google Scholar