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Abstract
This article is an intervention in some controversies concerning the role of the Communist International in and outside China. It seeks to tackle the inappropriate denial of its guidance and aid to the Chinese Revolution. In doing so, this paper makes several arguments. First, it argues that the Communist International provided the Chinese Revolution with valuable guidance, support and assistance. These contributed tremendously to the Communist Party of China’s birth, development, consolidation and maturation and advanced its theoretical self-consciousness. Second, while the Communist International gave its guidance in the sincere hope that the Chinese Revolution would benefit from correct theories and advanced experiences, it absolutised the theoretical conceptions of the classical Marxists and the Russian experience. This led to mistakes or misjudgments that deserve an accurate evaluation. Third, the Communist International was itself conducting theoretical exploration, and was generally able to adjust its own theories and change its strategies. Fourth, for all the Communist International’s guidance, the universal tenets of Marxism had to be integrated with the concrete practice of the Chinese Revolution, and it was the ability of Chinese communists to Sinicise Marxism–Leninism in what amounted to a theoretical revolution under Mao Zedong’s leadership that accounts for the revolution’s ultimate victory.
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No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).
Notes
1 Lenin, “E gong(bu)di qi ci (jinji),” 439.
2 Lenin, “The Collapse of the Second International”, 205–259.
3 Lenin, “Draft Theses on National and Colonial Questions.”
4 Stalin, October Revolution and the National Question.
5 Zhang, “Wei He Yun’an.”
6 From 1923 to 1927, the Communist Party of the Soviet Union convened 122 meetings and passed 738 resolutions – on average, one resolution every two and half days – devoted to Chinese issues. See Li, “Zhong su guanxi de lishi,” 2.
7 Yang Kuisong’s study on financial aid from the Communist International to the Communist Party of China suggests that such assistance was vital for CPC, especially for its early survival and development. See K. Yang, “Gongchan guoji wei zhonggong.”
8 A brief list of such documents includes: Department 1 of the Party History Research Central of CPC Central Committee, Gong chan guoji; Institute of Modern History of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, Gongchan guoji youguan zhongguo; Editorial Committee of the Documents on the History of the International Communist Movement, Guoji gongchan zhuyi yundong; Central Bureau of Translation and Compilation, Guoji gongchan zhuyi yundong; Georgi Dimitrov, Ji mi te luo fu riji xuanbian; and Shen, Su lian lishi dongan xuanbian. In addition, journals such as Zhonggong dangshi yanjiu [Studies of the History of the Communist Party of China], Dang de wenxian [Documents of the Communist Party of China] and Zhonggong dangshi ziliao [Documents of the History of the Communist Party of China] have also published many important historical archives.
9 Cai, “Cai Hesen gei Mao Zedong,” 132.
10 Mao, “Comintern Has Long Ceased.”
11 Mao, “Stalin, Friend of the Chinese People.”
12 Mao, “Dui ‘guanyu ruogan lishi wenti de jueyi,’” 283.
13 Ibid.
14 Liu, “On the Party,” 220.
15 See Sun and Cao, Lie Ning Si.
16 The New Democratic Revolution refers to the bourgeois revolution in China in which the Chinese proletariat took the leading role, with the goal of overthrowing feudalism, imperialism and the bureaucratic capitalist class. It is the transition period towards socialism in China.
17 Mao, “Fulu,” 953.
18 Chuikov, Mission in China, 35–6.
19 Pu, “Account of Important Events.”
20 Zhou, “Guan yu dang,” 178.
21 On 12 April 1927, the new right of the KMT, led by Chiang Kaishek, launched a coup in Shanghai against its own left wing and CPC. In this fatal attack on the CPC Central Committee in Shanghai and its organisations, over 300 people were killed, over 500 were arrested and over 5000 went missing. In July of the same year, the Wang Jingwei group launched another coup in Wuhan with a massacre of CPC members and the revolutionary people, forcing CPC to abandon its legal struggles in cities and turn to the armed struggles and revolution in rural areas.
22 Mao, “Zi zhonguo gongchangdang,” 121.
23 Sha, Mao Zedong sixiang tonglun, 123.
24 Mao, “Gei Qin Bangxian de xin,” 239.
25 Mao, “A Single Spark.”
26 Hu, Collected Works of Hu Qiaomu, 163.
27 Deng, “Gaige shi zhongguo fazhan.”
28 Lenin, “Address to the Second All-Russia Congress.”
29 Zhou, “Guan yu dang,” 179.
30 Jin, Lui Shaoqi Zhuan, 652.
31 Mao, “Oppose Book Worship.”
32 Mao, “The Comintern Has Long Ceased.”
33 Party History Research Centre of the CPC Central Committee, Zhongguo gongchandang lishi, 81–2.
34 Mao, “The Comintern Has Long Ceased.”
35 See S. Yang, Yang Shangkun huiyilu, 27. This was a talk delivered by Mao Zedong at the Second Plenary Session of the Seventh Central Committee of the Communist Party of China on 5 March 1949.
36 Mao, “Dui ‘guanyu ruogan lishi wenti de jueyi,’” 284. For example, Mao Zedong raised this issue on 20 April 1945: ‘Our Party grew from 25 thousand to several hundred thousand, with the majority consisting of peasants and petty bourgeois. Without rectification, our Party would have changed its nature, becoming “proletarian” in name only, while being “petty bourgeois” in actuality’.
37 Liu, “On the Party,” 330–1.
Additional information
Notes on contributors
Enfu Cheng
Enfu Cheng is Chief Professor at the University of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, Director of the Division of Marxism Studies at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, and President of the World Association for Political Economy. He is also joint Editor-in-Chief of two English-language journals, International Critical Thought and World Review of Political Economy.
Jun Yang
Jun Yang is a Professor at the Party School of Shanghai Committee of CPC and Chief Professor at Shanghai Administration Institute.