Personal Networks, Group Dynamics, and Local Party Politics: Luo Yinong and the Moscow Faction in the CCP, 1920–1927

ABSTRACT

Based on newly available sources, this article explores the ‘Moscow faction’ (or ‘Moscow returnees’) in the Chinese Communist Party of the 1920s by focusing on the professional revolutionary path of one leading returnee, Luo Yinong. It provides a new perspective on the problems faced by the Moscow returnees, such as Luo, who combined party-building with efforts to instil Bolshevik (Leninist) norms into local party organisations, as well as in the minds and political practice of would-be Communist revolutionaries. By tracing the formation of Luo’s networks and their management of CCP work in Shanghai, the article illuminates the dynamic relationship between the Moscow-trained cadres and their local Communist organisations. Contrary to the common perception of events in this period, the new archival evidence shows that the Moscow returnees ultimately failed to transform the CCP into a centralised organisation.

KEYWORDS:

• Luo Yinong
• Moscow faction
• Moscow returnees
• CCP
• networks
• China
• communism
• Leninism

Acknowledgements

Many thanks to David Brophy, Steven I. Levine, and the anonymous reviewers for their invaluable comments on this article. An earlier version of this paper was presented at the panel on ‘Leadership and Localities: Chinese Transnational Radicalism and Revolution in the Republican Period’ at the American Historical Association Annual Meeting in New York in January 2020. I am very thankful to Marilyn A. Levine for providing helpful comments as discussant for the panel.

Disclosure Statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Archives Consulted

Russian State Archive of Social and Political History. (RGASPI).

Shanghai Municipal Police. (SMP). Files.

Transcripts of Interviews. Shanghai Academy of Social Science (SASS). No. 3 (22 February 1957); No. 9 (14 March 1957); No. 18 (13 March 1957); No. 30 (11 May 1957).

Notes

¹ In his study of factionalism in the CCP during the Cultural Revolution, Andrew Nathan (1973, 66) suggests that ‘factions may simply be conceived as ways of co-ordinating the efforts of like-minded colleagues to achieve goals in which they believe’. This description also largely applies to the factions active in the pre-1927 CCP. For observations on the Moscow faction by a contemporary witness in the Party, see Zheng (1998a, 234; 1998b, 53, 65, 163). Zhang Guotao (1897–1979), who was then a top CCP leader, also implied in his memoir that returned cadres, including Luo Yinong, belonged to the same camp (Chang, 1971, 411). The topic of Luo Yinong and the CCP’s Moscow faction was still mentioned by the representatives at the CCP Sixth Congress (June–July 1928) when discussing the Party’s organisational issues. Some representatives criticised the Moscow faction as ‘a small organisation of petit-bourgeois feudal thought’ (xiao zichanjieji de fengjian sixiang ji xiaozuzhi) (ZDZ, 2015, 674–675).

² Besides Luo, other prominent figures in this group included Liu Shaoqi, Ren Bishi, Xiao Jinguang (1903–1989), Peng Shuzhi, Yuan Dushi, Bu Shiqi, Wang Yifei, Xie Wenjin (1894–1927), Cao Jinghua, and Jiang Guangci (1901–1931). According to Ren’s biography, these Chinese students entered KUTV on 3 August 1921 (ZZW, 1998, 33; 2004b, 40). According to other works based on Russian sources, 26 Chinese students, including Luo, were enrolled on 1 August 1921. By the end of 1921, there were 35 or 36 Chinese students studying at KUTV (Pantsov, 2000, 167; Spichak, 2012, 44).

³ On 27 July, Luo Yinong, Wang Ruofei, and Wang Yifei formed a new executive committee of the CCP’s Moscow branch. Luo assumed the role of secretary of this committee (Ma & Jiang, 1991, 57).

⁴ The organisation’s evaluation of Luo was that he was ‘extremely loyal to the group and both his words and activities were able to bolshevise’ (Ma & Jiang, 1991, 59; Zheng, 1998b, 50).

⁵ According to Zhu Kejing’s (Luo’s classmate in Moscow) weekly reports in the KUTV archives, on 14 March, Luo Yinong had a conversation with Zhu regarding his work after returning China (Zhao & Kang, 2006, 24). Another source from the CCP Central Archives indicates that Luo left Moscow on the afternoon of 12 March and arrived in Vladivostok on 29 March (Ma & Jiang, 1991, 59).

⁶ Yuan Dashi was the secretary of the Anyuan Local Committee of the Youth League (Anyuan tuan diwei); Bu Shiqi had been a member of the executive committee of the Youth League and was an acting director of the political department of Whampoa Military Academy; Wu Fang worked in Jiangsu Province as the secretary of the Pukou Local Committee of the CCP (Zhonggong pukou diwei).

⁷ The organisational resolution of the Second Congress of the CCP in 1922 put forward that the Party should have a spirit of centralisation and iron discipline, but this was not fully put into practice (ZDG, 1989a, 91, 380).

⁸ The departmental committees of the Shanghai Communist Party at the time included Yangshupu, Yinxianggang, Xiaoshadu, Caojiadu, Pudong, Zhabei, Nanshi, and the French Concession (ZSZ, 1991, 3–4, 44–45, 67–68).

⁹ Chen Yannian and Chen Qiaonian were born in Anhui; Peng Zexiang, Wang Zekai, and Ren Bishi were from Hunan.

¹⁰ When the Party constitution was revised at the Fourth Congress, it stated that ‘a branch must be established as long as there are three or more members in the countryside, factories, railways, mines, barracks, schools, and the vicinity’ (ZDG, 1989a, 376, 384).

Additional information

Funding

I would like to acknowledge the support of the National Library of Australia Asia Study Grant.