Mao: The Unknown Story

Even though Mao had broken all the rules, Shanghai endorsed him. Mao was insubordinate, but a winner. His ambition demonstrated the kind of lust for power essential to conquer China, especially when the Communist forces numbered mere thousands, up against millions on the Nationalist side.

There were two added factors that came into play in Mao’s favor at this moment. Two thousand kilometers north of his location the Russians controlled the Chinese Eastern Railway in Manchuria, which cut 1,500 km through northeast China from Siberia to Vladivostok. Along with this, Moscow had inherited from the Tsars by far the largest foreign concession in China, occupying well over 1,000 square kilometers. Communist Russia had initially promised to give up its extraterritorial privileges, but it never kept its promise, and the Chinese seized the railway in summer 1929.

Moscow formed a Special Far East Army, headed by its former chief military adviser to Chiang Kai-shek, Marshal Blyukher, and prepared to invade Manchuria. Stalin also mooted organizing an uprising in Manchuria to occupy Harbin, the major city in northern Manchuria, “and establish a revolutionary government.” With characteristic brutality, Stalin listed one aim, almost casually, in brackets, as: “(massacre the landowners …).” In November Russian troops invaded, moving 125 km into Manchuria.

Moscow wanted the Chinese Communists to create some diversionary military pressure. It ordered the CCP to “mobilise the whole Party and the population to be ready to defend the Soviet Union with arms.” It was in this context of protecting Russia’s state interests that Mao’s drive assumed urgent importance. Chou’s letter reinstating Mao enjoined: “your first and foremost task is to develop your guerrilla area … and expand the Red Army …” On 9 October the Soviet Politburo, with Stalin present, named “the regions of Mao Tse-tung” (no mention of Zhu) as the key area for expanding partisan warfare in connection with the Manchuria railway crisis.

Moscow had another pressing reason to single out Mao, and this was to do with Trotsky, Stalin’s bête noire, whom he had just exiled. Trotsky had a small, but dedicated, following in China, and Professor Chen Tu-hsiu, the former head of the CCP, cast as the scapegoat by Moscow two years before, was showing signs of tilting towards Trotskyism. Chen also spoke out against the CCP supporting Russia over the railway — a stance, he said, that “only makes people assume that we dance to the tune of roubles.”

Stalin was worried that Chen might throw his considerable prestige behind the Trotskyists. Moscow’s agents in Shanghai were concerned that Mao, to whom Chen had once been a mentor, might side with him.

For all these reasons, the Russians backed Mao, and promoted him with zeal in their media. During the critical months of the Manchuria crisis there were no fewer than four items about Mao in the Soviet Party’s key organ, Pravda, which was soon describing him as the “leader” (yozhd—the same word as used for Stalin). No other Chinese Communist was ever so lavishly acclaimed — not even Mao’s nominal superiors, like the Party general secretary.

When Chou’s instructions to reinstate Mao reached them, Zhu De and his colleagues bowed to Shanghai’s edict, and forwarded the letter to Mao. At the time, Mao was staying in a picturesque village some distance away, in an elegant two-story villa with a palm tree in the courtyard. He had been taking his ease, consuming plenty of milk (a rarity for the Chinese), as well as a kilo of beef stewed into soup every day, with a whole chicken on top. He would describe how fit he was, applying his characteristic yardstick: “I can eat a lot and shit a lot.”

The letter elated Mao. Far from earning him a reprimand, his violation of Party rules and sabotage of his colleagues had brought him only reward. In triumph, he lingered in the village for over a month, waiting for the pressure from Shanghai to pile on Zhu De to kowtow.

At the time, Mao had his wife, Gui-yuan, staying with him, as well as a couple of acolytes. He did not talk politics with the women, preferring to relax with them. After dinner the two couples would walk to a little bridge to enjoy the twilight over a brook lush with water-grass. When darkness fell, peasants would light pine torches at the water’s edge. Shoals of fish would converge on the beacons, and the peasants would catch them with nets, or even bare-handed. Fish heads were Mao’s favorite morsel, and were said to enhance the brain. During the day he sat by his window reading English out loud in his heavy Hunan accent, to the amusement of his friends. This stumbling performance, without really striving to progress, was a kind of relaxation for Mao.