Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-j824f Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-18T05:22:36.595Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

The Otto Braun Memoirs and Mao's Rise to Power

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  17 February 2009

Dieter Heinzig
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

One of the crucial problems in the history of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) which must still be considered as unsolved is the question of how Mao Tse-tung managed to seize the leadership of the Party. Mao's rise to power has for a long time been linked with the mysterious Enlarged Session of the Politburo which took place in January 1935, and has come to be known as the Tsunyi Conference. Despite the fact that it is shrouded in an aura of secrecy, the Conference is assumed to have been the turning point in Mao's Party career.

Type
Research Article
Information
The China Quarterly , Volume 46 , June 1971 , pp. 274 - 288
Copyright
Copyright © The China Quarterly 1971

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

1. Ch'en, Jerome, “Resolutions of the Tsunyi Conference,” in The China Quarterly, No. 40 (10–12 1969), pp. 1et seq.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

2. Ch'u, Kung, Wo yü hung-chün (I and the Red Army) (Hongkong, 1954)Google Scholar; Hua-lun, Kuo in Fei-ch'ing yüeh-pao (Chinese Communist Affairs Monthly), Vol. X, Nos. 5 et seq.Google Scholar, English translation in Kuo, Warren, Analytical History of Chinese Communist Party, Vol. II (Taipei, 1968), pp. 528Google Scholaret seq., and in Kuo, Warren in Issues & Studies, Vol. IV, No. 4, pp. 35Google Scholaret seq.; Wales, Nym (ed), Red Dust, Autobiographies of Chinese Communists (Stanford, Cal., 1952), pp. 62et seq., esp. p. 67.Google Scholar

3. Braun, Otto, “Von Schanghai bis länan,” in Horizont (East Berlin), 1969, Nos. 23–38.Google Scholar

4. In his communication to the author Braun explicitly pointed out that he “participated in the Conference from beginning to end.”

5. Braun, Otto, “In wessen Namen spricht Mao Tse-tung?” in Neues Deutsch land (East Berlin), 27 05 1964.Google Scholar

6. Kuan-yü jo-kan li-shih wen-t'i ti chüeh-i, in Mao Tse-tung hsüan-chi (Collected Works of Mao Tse-tung), Vol. III (Peking, 1953), pp. 975Google Scholaret seq., esp. p. 978; cf. also Rue, John E., Mao Tse-tung in Opposition (Stanford, Cal., 1966), p. 9.Google Scholar

7. Komintern i Vostok (Comintern and the East) (Moscow, 1969), pp. 242et seq.Google Scholar

8. Mif's real name, the year of his death (1937) and other items of his biography were revealed for the first time by the Soviets only recently, see Grigor'ev, A. M., “Pavel Mif,” in Vidnye sovetskie kommunisty – uchastniki kitaiskoi revolyutsii (Eminent Soviet Communists as Participants in the Chinese Revolution) (Moscow, 1970).Google Scholar

9. This information has only recently become available through a new source, see Thornton, Richard C, The Comintern and the Chinese Communists (Seattle; London, 1969), p. 213et seq.Google Scholar

10. Chien-min, Wang, Chung-kuo kung-ch'an-tang shih-kao (An Outline History of the CCP), Vol. II (Taipei, 1965), p. 100Google Scholar; Hsiao, Tso-liang, Power Relations within the Chinese Communist Movement, 1930–1934 (Seattle, 1961), pp. 13, 23, 125, 128, 320, 343.Google Scholar

11. So far two attempts have been made to compile a complete list, cf. Chien-min, Wang, An Outline History of the CCP, Vol. II, p. 100Google Scholar, and Kuo, Warren, Analytical History of the Chinese Communist Party, Vol. II, p. 234.Google Scholar

12. In this article the name Wang Ming, as being more generally known, is used henceforth.

13. Cf., for this and the following Rue, , Mao Tse-tung in Opposition, p. 206et seq., pp. 211–12Google Scholar; Hsiao, Tso-liang, Power Relations, p. 150Google Scholaret seq.; Kuo, Warren, Analytical History, Vol. II, p. 382.Google Scholar

14. Communication from Otto Braun to the author.

15. Vladimirov, O. and Ryazantsev, V., Stranitsy politicheskoi biografa Mao Tsze-duna (Pages of Mao Tse-tung's Political Biography) (Moscow, 1969), p. 35.Google Scholar

16. Hsiao, Tso-liang, Power Relations, p. 150.Google Scholar

17. Communication from Otto Braun to the author.

18. Kuo, Warren, Analytical History, Vol. II, p. 382.Google Scholar

19. Hsiao, Tso-liang, Power Relations, p. 173Google Scholar; Kuo, Warren, Analytical History, Vol. II, p. 380.Google Scholar

20. Cf. Schwarz, Henry, “The Nature of Leadership: The Chinese Communists: 1930–1945,” in World Politics, Vol. XXII, No. 4 (07 1970), p. 562.Google Scholar

21. See Schram, Stuart, Mao Tse-tung (Hannondsworth; Baltimore; Ringwood, 1966), p. 155Google Scholar; Hsiao-ch'ien, Ts'ai, “Hung-chün hsi ts'uan hui-i” (“Recollection of the Red Army's Flight to the West”), in Chung-kung yen-chiu, (Chinese Communist Research) Vol. II, No. 7 (07 1969), p. 89Google Scholar; Hsiao, Tso-liang, Power Relations, p. 210Google Scholar; Rue, , Mao Tse-tung in Opposition, p. 251Google Scholar; Kuo, Warren, Analytical History, Vol. II, p. 440Google Scholar; Boorman, Howard L. and Howard, Richard C. (eds.), Bibliographical Dictionary of Republican China, Vol. I, p. 395Google Scholar, and Vol. III, p. 10, give 1932 as well as May 1933 as the date for Chou's nomination; Vladimirov, and Ryazantsev, , Mao Tse-tung's Political Biography, p. 35.Google Scholar According to Ch'eo Jan, Mao was pushed out of his post as Political Commissar of the Red Army by Chou in January 1931, the time of the creation of the Central Bureau; cf. Kuo, Warren, Analytical History, Vol. II, p. 267.Google Scholar

22. Hsiao, Tso-liang, Power Relations, pp. 151–152.Google Scholar

23. Braun, Otto in Horizont, No. 27, p. 32.Google Scholar This also contains new information about the much disputed date of the CC's move to Kiangsi, see Schram, Stuart, Mao Tse-tung, p. 154.Google Scholar

24. Communication from Otto Braun to the author.

25. Snow, Edgar, Red Star over China (New York, 1961), p. 185.Google Scholar

26. Hung-se chung-hua, No. 2 (18 12 1931)Google Scholar, No. 78 (11 May 1933), No. 148 (12 February 1933), as quoted by Hu, Chi-hsi, “Hua Fu, The Fifth Campaign of Encirclement and the Tsunyi Conference,” in The China Quarterly, No. 43 (07–09 1970), p. 42Google Scholar; Kuo, Warren, Analytical History, Vol. II, pp. 350, 380, 567.Google Scholar

27. Braun, Otto in Horizont, No. 29, p. 32.Google Scholar

28. Boorman, and Howard, (Eds.) Biographical Dictionary, Vol. I, p. 394.Google Scholar

29. Kuo, Warren, Analytical History, Vol. II, p. 435.Google Scholar

30. Communication from Otto Braun to the author.

31. Cf. Hu, Chi-hsi in The China Quarterly, No. 43 (07–09 1970), p. 42.Google Scholar

32. With reference to this and the following see Braun, Otto in Horizont, No. 26, p. 32Google Scholar, and No. 28, p. 32.

33. We are here entirely dependent on reports of those who were there at the time since, after the Ningtu Conference, Mao was no longer able to publish his military theories, see Hu, Chi-hsi, in The China Quarterly, No. 43 (07–09 1970), p. 39.Google Scholar

34. See Schram, Stuart, Mao Tse-tung, p. 156.Google Scholar

35. Ibid.Cf. Ch'en Jan's report in Kuo, Warren, Analytical History, Vol. II, pp. 440et seq.Google Scholar

36. Otto Braun has since confirmed to the author that he used Hua Fu as his literary pseudonym. He disclosed further that other articles written by him, which had been published in 1937–38 in Yenan, had appeared under the name of his translator; in one case only had the publisher given, by mistake, his Chinese name Li Teh.

37. For a condensed account of Braun's articles see Hu, Chi-hsi in The China Quarterly, No. 43 (07–09 1970).Google Scholar

38. Cf. Hu, Chi-hsi, The China Quarterly, No. 43, p. 42.Google Scholar

39. Braun, Otto in Horizont, No. 30, p. 32.Google Scholar

40. Chien-min, Wang, An Outline History of the CCP, Vol. II, p. 520.Google Scholar

41. Kuo, Warren, Analytical History, Vol. II, p. 565.Google Scholar

42. Communication from Otto Braun to the author. After further consulting his archives, Braun corrected in his communication the statements in his Memoirs according to which Mao was not accepted into the Politburo nor into the Secretariat at the Fifth Plenum (cf. Braun, Otto in Horizont, No. 29, p. 32).Google Scholar

43. Hsiao, Tso-liang, Power Relations, pp. 280–81Google Scholar; Kuo, Warren, Analytical History, Vol. II, p. 569.Google Scholar

44. Braun, Otto in Horizont, No. 29, p. 32.Google Scholar

45. Ibid.

46. Braun, Otto in Horizont, No. 31, p. 32.Google Scholar

47. Communication from Otto Braun to the author. Cf. Rue, , Mao Tse-tung in Opposition, pp. 9–10.Google Scholar

48. Communication from Otto Braun to the author.

49. Braun, Otto in Horizont, No. 30, p. 32.Google Scholar

50. Ibid.

51. Ibid.

52. Ibid.

53. Ibid.Cf., Wales, Nym (ed.). Red Dust, p. 67.Google Scholar

54. Braun, Otto in Horizont, No. 30, p. 32.Google Scholar Edgar Snow states, without refer ence to sources, in his new enlarged German language edition of Red Star over China that Otto Braun, Chou En-lai and Yeh Chien-ying planned the break through, see Snow, Edgar, Roter Stern über China (Frankfurt, 1970), p. 238.Google Scholar

55. Communication from Otto Braun to the author.

56. See, for this and the following, Braun, Otto in Horizont, No. 31, p. 32.Google Scholar

57. See the attempts at reconstruction made by Ch'en, Jerome in The China Quarterly, No. 40 (09–12 1969), pp. 18–19Google Scholar, and Kuo, Warren in Issues & Studies, Vol. IV, No. 4, p. 44.Google Scholar

58. See the excellent arguments put forward in The China Quarterly, No. 43 (07–09 1970).Google Scholar See also MacFarquhar, Roderick's comment in The China Quarterly, No. 41 (01–03 1970), p. 113CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Kuo, Warren, Analytical History, Vol. II, p. 601Google Scholar; Hsiao-ch'ien, Ts'ai, in Chung-kung yen-chiu, Vol. III, No. 10, p. 81.Google Scholar

59. See The China Quarterly, No. 42 (04–06 1970), pp. 132–133.Google Scholar

60. Kuo-t'ao, Chang, “Wo ti hui-i” (“My Memoirs”), in Ming pao (yüeh-k'an) (Hong Kong), No. 48 (12 1969), p. 85.Google Scholar

61. See Kuo, Warren, in Issues & Studies, Vol. IV, No. 4, p. 47.Google Scholar

62. See Ch'en, Jerome, in The China Quarterly, No. 40 (07–12 1969), p. 1.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

63. Communication from Otto Braun to the author.

64. See Kuo, Warren, in Issues & Studies, Vol. IV, No. 4, p. 47.Google Scholar

65. Snow, , Roter Stern, p. 238.Google Scholar

66. Hu, Chi-hsi, in The China Quarterly, No. 43 (07–09 1970), pp. 42–43.Google Scholar

67. Snow, , Roter Stern, p. 238.Google Scholar

68. Communication from Otto Braun to the author.