Mao: The Unknown Story

I learnt many more things, and gradually I came to understand him. Not just him, but human nature in all people. Anyone who has no physical handicap must have two attributes. One is sex drive, and the other is the emotional need for love. My attitude was to let him be, and let it be.

Kai-hui was by no means a conventional Chinese wife bound by tradition to endure her husband’s misconduct. In fact she was a feminist, and later wrote an essay on women’s rights: “Women are human beings, just as men are … Sisters! We must fight for the equality of men and women, and must absolutely not allow people to treat us as an accessory.”

AT THE TIME OF Mao’s second marriage, Moscow was stepping up its efforts to foment subversion in China. It began secretly training a Chinese army in Siberia, and explored armed intervention in China, as it had just attempted, unsuccessfully, in Poland. Simultaneously, it was building up one of its largest intelligence networks anywhere in the world, with a KGB station already established in Shanghai, and numerous agents, both civilian and military (GRU), in other key cities, including Canton, and, of course, Peking.

On 3 June 1921, new top-level Moscow representatives arrived, both under pseudonyms — a Russian military intelligence man called Nikolsky and a Dutchman called Maring, who had been an agitator in the Dutch East Indies. These two agents told the CCP members in Shanghai to call a congress to formalize the Party. Letters went out to seven regions where contacts had been established, asking each to send two delegates and enclosing 200 yuan to each place to cover travel to Shanghai. One lot of invitations and money came to Mao in Changsha. Two hundred yuan was the equivalent of nearly two years’ salary from his teaching job, and far more than the trip could require. It was Mao’s first known cash payment from Moscow.

He chose as his co-delegate a 45-year-old friend called Ho Shu-heng. They left quite secretively on the evening of 29 June in a small steamboat, under a stormy sky, declining the offers of friends to see them off. Although there was no law against Communist activities, they had reason to keep their heads down, as what they were engaged in was a conspiracy — collusion to establish an organization set up with foreign funding, with the aim of seizing power by illegal means.

The CCP’s 1st Congress opened in Shanghai on 23 July 1921, attended by 13 people — all journalists, students or teachers — representing a total of 57 Communists, mostly in similar occupations. Not one was a worker. Neither of the Party’s two most prestigious members, Professors Li Ta-chao and Chen Tu-hsiu, was present, even though the latter had been designated the Party chief. The two Moscow emissaries ran the show.

Maring, tall and mustachioed, made the opening speech in English, translated by one of the delegates. Participants seemed to recall its length — several hours — more than its content. Long speeches were rare in China at the time. Nikolsky was remembered as the one who made the short speech.

The presence of the foreigners, and the control they exercised, at once became an issue. The chair was allotted to one Chang Kuo-tao (later Mao’s major challenger), because he had been to Russia and had links with the foreigners. One delegate recalled that Kuo-tao at one point proposed canceling the resolution of the previous evening. “I confronted him: how is it that a resolution passed by the meeting could be canceled just like that? He said it was the view of the Russian representatives. I was extremely angry … ‘So we don’t need to have meetings, we just have orders from the Russians.’ ” The protest was in vain. Another delegate suggested that before they went along with the Russian plans they should investigate whether Bolshevism actually worked, and proposed sending one mission to Russia and one to Germany — a proposal that alarmed Moscow’s men, and was duly rejected.

Mao spoke little and made little impact. Compared with delegates from the larger cities, he was something of a provincial, clad in a traditional cotton gown and black cotton shoes, rather than a European-style suit, the attire of many young progressives. He did not strive to impress, and was content mainly to listen.

The meeting had started in a house in the French Settlement, and the police in these enclaves, known as “Concessions,” were vigilant about Communist activities. On the evening of 30 July a stranger barged in, and Maring, smelling a police spy, ordered the delegates to leave. The Chinese participants adjourned to a small town outside Shanghai called Jiaxing, on a lake strewn with water chestnuts. Moscow’s men stayed away from this final session for fear of attracting attention.