Mao: The Unknown Story

Mao set out to lay his hands on some of these men. On their way to the coast they were scheduled to pass near South Hunan. In early August he proposed to the CCP leadership that he launch a peasant uprising in South Hunan, to establish what he called a big Red base, covering “at least five counties.” In fact, Mao had no intention of trying to start such a rising. He had never organized one, nor did he think it could be done. (The earlier peasant violence in Hunan had been carried out under the protection of the then radical government.) The sole purpose of the proposal was to set up his next request, which was for a large contingent of the mutineers to come to his aid on their way to the coast. Failing to realize that this Hunan initiative was only a ruse to angle for the troops, Shanghai approved Mao’s plan.

The leaders of the Hunan “uprising” were scheduled to meet on 15 August at the Russian consulate in Changsha, to launch the action. But Mao did not turn up, although he was on the outskirts of the city. As he was in charge of the mission, the meeting had to be postponed to the following day, when again he failed to show up. He only finally appeared on the 18th, when he moved into the consulate, for the sake of security. To his angry and frustrated comrades, he offered the excuse that he had been conducting “investigations into the peasantry.”

Mao concealed the true reason for his four-day absence — which was to give himself time to see how the mutineers were faring, and whether they would still be passing South Hunan and thus be available to him. If not, he had no intention of going to South Hunan.

The mutineers had got off to a bad start. Within three days of leaving Nanchang, one-third of them had deserted; many others had died drinking dirty water from rice paddies in humid 30-plus centigrade temperatures. The survivors had already lost nearly half their ammunition. The dwindling ranks were struggling just to survive and make it to the coast, and the chances of any making a detour to help him were nil.

So when Mao finally joined his comrades at the Russian consulate, he demanded that the plans for an uprising in South Hunan be canceled, even though it had been his proposal in the first place. Instead, he insisted on attacking just Changsha, the provincial capital, arguing that they should “narrow down the uprising plan.”

The aim of this new plan was exactly the same as before — to lay his hands on some armed men. At this point the only Red forces anywhere near him were outside Changsha. They consisted of three groups: peasant activists with weapons seized from the police; unemployed miners and mine guards from the mine at Anyuan, which had closed down; and one army unit that had been stranded en route to join the Nanchang mutineers. Altogether, the force totaled several thousand. Mao’s point in advocating an attack on Changsha was that these forces would be deployed for action, and he could maneuver to become their boss.

The ploy was successful. Mao’s proposal to go for Changsha was adopted, and he was put in control by being made head of a “Front Committee.” This made him the Party representative on the spot and thus the man with the final say, in the absence of higher authority. Mao had no military training, but he pitched hard for this job by staging a show of enthusiasm for Moscow’s orders in front of the two Russians at the meeting, who called the shots. “The latest Comintern order” about uprisings was so brilliant, Mao said, “it made me jump for joy three hundred times.”

Mao’s next move was to prevent the troops actually going to Changsha, and instead have them muster at a place where he could abduct them. This place had to be far enough away from Changsha that other Party or Russian representatives could not easily reach it. There was no telephone or radio communication with these forces.

On 31 August, Mao left the Russian consulate, saying that he was going to join the troops. But he did not do this. Instead, he made his way to a town called Wenjiashi, 100 km east of Changsha, and there he stayed. On the launch day set for 11 September, Mao was not with any of the troops, but lying low in Wenjiashi. By the 14th, before the troops had got anywhere near Changsha or suffered serious defeats, he had ordered them to abandon the march on Changsha and converge on his location. As a result, the Party organization in Changsha had to abort the whole design on the 15th. The secretary of the Soviet consulate, Maier, referred to the retreat as “most despicable treachery and cowardice.” Moscow called the affair “a joke of an uprising.” It does not seem to have realized that Mao had set the whole thing up solely in order to snare the armed units.