Mao: The Unknown Story

Born in 1883, Wang was ten years Mao’s senior. Charismatic, and an eloquent orator, he also had film-star good looks. He had played an active part in Republican activities against the Manchus, and when the Revolution broke out in October 1911 was in prison under a life sentence for his repeated attempts to assassinate high officials of the Manchu court, including the regent. Released as the dynasty collapsed, he became one of the leaders of the Nationalist Party. He was with Sun Yat-sen in Sun’s last days, and was a witness to his will, which was a strong credential to succeed him. Most important, he had the blessing of Borodin, the top Russian adviser. With about 1,000 agents in the Nationalist base, Moscow was now the master of Canton, which had taken on the air of a Soviet city, decked out with red flags and slogans. Cars raced by with Russian faces inside and Chinese bodyguards on the running-boards. Soviet cargo ships dotted the Pearl River. Behind closed doors, commissars sat around red-cloth-covered tables under the gaze of Lenin, interrogating “troublemakers” and conducting trials.

The moment Sun died, Mao dispatched his brother Tse-min to Canton to reconnoiter his chances. Tse-tan, his other brother, followed. By June it was clear that Wang was the new Nationalist chief, and Mao began to spruce up his credentials by establishing grassroots Party branches in his area. Most were for the Nationalists, not the Communists. Having been shunted out of the CCP leadership, Mao was now trying his luck with the Nationalists.

At the top of the Nationalists’ program was “anti-imperialism.” The Party had made its main task the defense of China’s interests against foreign powers, so this became the theme of Mao’s activity, even though it was far removed from peasants’ lives. Not surprisingly, the reaction was indifference. One of his co-workers recorded in his diary of 29 July: “Only one comrade turned up, and the others didn’t come. So the meeting didn’t happen.” A few days later: “The meeting failed to take place because few comrades came.” One night, he and Mao had to walk from place to place to get people together, so the meeting started very late, and did not finish until 1:15 AM. Mao said he was going home, “as he was suffering from neurasthenia, and had talked too much today. He said he wouldn’t be able to sleep here … We walked for about 2 or 3 li [1–1.5 km] and just couldn’t walk further. We were absolutely exhausted, and so spent the night at Tang Brook.”

Mao did not organisze any peasant action in the style of poor versus rich. This was partly because he thought it was pointless. He had told Borodin and some other Communists before, on 18 January 1924:

If we carry out struggles against big landlords, we are bound to fail. [In some areas, some Communists] organised the illiterate peasants first, then led them in struggles against relatively rich and big landlords. What was the result? Our organisations were immediately broken, banned, and these peasants not only did not regard us as fighting for their interests, they hated us, saying that if we hadn’t organised them, there would not have been disasters, or misfortune.

Therefore, until we are confident that our grassroots branches in the countryside are strong … we cannot adopt the policy of taking drastic steps against relatively rich landowners.

Mao was being pragmatic. A Communist called Wang Hsien-tsung in Mao’s area was organizing poor peasants to improve their lot at the time when Mao was in Shaoshan. He was accused of being a bandit, and was arrested, tortured and beheaded by the local police.

Mao prudently decided to steer clear of any such dangerous and futile activities, but the Hunan authorities still viewed him with suspicion, as he had the reputation of being a major radical. That summer there was a drought and, as had often happened in the past, poor peasants used force to stop the rich shipping grain out for sale in the towns and cities. Mao was suspected of stirring things up. In the provincial capital there had also been large “anti-imperialist” demonstrations, following an incident in Shanghai on 30 May when British police killed ten protesters in the British Settlement. Although Mao played no role in the Changsha demonstrations, and was living quietly at home, miles away, he was still assumed to be an instigator, and this notion crops up in an early appearance in US government records. The US consulate in Changsha forwarded to Washington a report by the president of Yale-in-China about “Bolshevistic disturbances” in Changsha on 15 June, saying that the Hunan governor had “received a list of twenty leaders of agitation, including Mao Tse-tung, known to be the leading Communist propagandist here.” Mao was a name, even to an (unusually well-informed) American.