Chapter 15 sail north

In the summer of 1921, Mao Zedong went north by boat.This trip was the culmination of his 10 months of organizing activities in Changsha.As a preparatory stage, the first was the establishment of the Marxist and Russian Research Association to absorb talented people, then the division of the Xinmin Society, and then the emergence of the Socialist Youth League with firm beliefs.Now, an important new step has arrived. In the preceding months, Mao Zedong had received many instructions from prominent Marxists in small communist organizations in several provinces with contacts in Shanghai and Beijing.He had secretly traveled to the port city of Shanghai in September 1920 to attend a planning meeting.

Now, Mao Zedong returned to Shanghai as one of the two leading Marxists in Hunan to attend the first congress of the Communist Party of China.Two representatives from Hunan are teachers, and there are 11 other representatives from five other provinces and Japan. The site of the First National Congress of the Communist Party of China - No. 106 Wangzhi Road, Shanghai (now No. 76 Xingye Road). From July 23 to early August, 1921, Mao Zedong attended the conference as a representative of Hunan Province and participated in the establishment of the Communist Party of China. Coincidentally, Mao Zedong happened to be in the same cabin as Xiao Yu on the boat to Hankou.As friends, they argued until late at night, when Mao Zedong was studying "Introduction to the Capitalist System".Can Strong Friendships Overcome Judgment?It seems more that a large number of pre-Marxist habits of thought remained in Mao Zedong's mind. *

* It is also strange that Mao Zedong and He Shuheng's trip to Shanghai made some radicals in Changsha feel "very sudden"—has there ever been a dispute over the selection of Hunan representatives? Thirteen representatives sweated profusely and came to the French Concession in Shanghai to live in the reserved rooms at Bowen Girls' School (the school is on summer vacation).Most of them are young -- the average age is 26 -- and none of them are workers or farmers.Almost all of them were born higher than Mao Zedong. The meeting was held in mid-July in a gray-red house with a black-painted gate on Wangzhi Road.The house, with its plain exterior and no windows on the ground floor, was the residence of the elder brother of a Shanghai representative.All the delegates - including two Russian envoys from the Comintern - sat around a living room table with teacups and papers.

Mao Zedong was 27 years old at the time.He spoke cautiously, and there was a circle of black halo under his eyelids.As a representative, he wears a homespun gown like a Taoist priest from the Hunan countryside. Some people remember that Mao Zedong kept shrugging his shoulders when he spoke.His combative nature makes an impression. "He smiles and lays a trap to lure the other into the bait, causing the party with whom he is arguing to inadvertently contradict himself. Then he bursts into laughter."33 people. Mao Zedong was often unkempt. "You could scrape a handful of dust off his neck and body,"34 a colleague recalled.At restaurants, he used his sleeve to wipe up food and wine spilled on the table.He often wears his shoes without socks, or with his socks hanging on his shoes (a habit he has maintained for decades).

It's been an exciting week for Mao, who has longed for the congress.When he started the Hunan Autonomy Movement, he wrote: "No matter what there is a 'theory', without a 'movement' to follow, the purpose of this theory cannot be realized." [35] Now he believes this Such a movement should be Bolshevik, and he was sitting at the same table with two Bolshevik comrades, Marin of the Comintern and Nikolsky, secretary of the Far Eastern Secretariat. Although the 13 representatives who participated in the meeting had different considerations, they were all greatly inspired by the victory of the Bolshevik Revolution.Such a conference would not have been possible in 1921 without Russian influence and assistance.

However, the situation in Changsha is different from that of the whole of China, let alone Moscow.Does the idea put forward by the party core coincide with the plan of Mao Zedong, a local politician? There are signs that the issue of Hunan delegates seems to have become the focus of the meeting.The meeting determined that Mao Zedong's partner He Shuheng was not a complete Marxist and was not qualified to act as a representative.Mao Zedong didn't want to hurt the self-esteem of the fellow in Hunan, so he found an excuse to let He return to Changsha, saying that Changsha had urgent matters that He needed to deal with personally. *

* The author's information comes from Zhang Guotao's "My Memories".In fact, He Shuheng has always attended the meeting as a representative of the "big one".Bao Huiseng said: "I remember that during the meeting, He Shuheng sat with Chairman Mao, opposite me."——Annotation The atmosphere of the meeting was low, and the delegates did not feel that they were witnessing a major historical event.Hot weather makes people tired.Some delegates felt dizzy, while many more were conflicted.Mao Zedong was by no means an active figure in this rambling meeting (of which he said surprisingly little in later years).

Can it be said that the first National Congress of the Communist Party of China was anticlimactic?To some extent it was true that neither Professor Li Dazhao (who was still in Beijing at the time) nor Professor Chen Duxiu (who was in Guangzhou at the time) were present. In any case, these representatives are not a tried and true group of shared beliefs.One of the representatives did not live in the girls' school but in the luxurious Oriental Hotel, and spent a lot of time and energy shopping with his beautiful wife. The 13 representatives are also not fully autonomous.The size and timing of the meeting were basically determined by the Comintern and the absence of Li Dazhao and Chen Duxiu.

The views expressed by the delegates around the living room table did not quite agree with Mao Zedong's thinking, which particularly displeased Mao Zedong. Two routes are forming.The line of the Communist International prevailed, backed by the talented Zhang Guotao (whose hometown was on the other side of Shaoshan): organize the urban workers, overthrow capitalism, establish a dictatorship of the proletariat, and do not compete with Sun Yat-sen. National Kuomintang contacts. Those who disagree with this line are the progressives.They believed that a period of popular education was needed, that the number of urban workers in China was too small to overthrow capitalism, and that Sun Yat-sen could be partnered with in the cause against imperialism and warlords.

What was Mao Zedong thinking at the time?Who acts as the organizational leader?Take a gentle approach or a drastic one?Mao Zedong was not ignorant of these two factions.So why didn't he take a firm stand on either side? The reason is simple, he had a complicated state of mind at the time, and he was clueless.The Russian model was his new passion, but it was shaky because of the deep roots of his pre-existing beliefs.In the process of countering anarchism in Changsha, he believed in Russian-style socialism more, and stepped up the establishment of a political party with enthusiasm.But in Shanghai, his newly formed creed seems to be faltering.

Do the comrades in Hunan—out of the 57 communists in the country, 16 in Changsha—understand the spirit of Moscow?Does this new perspective work in Shaoshan?Mao Zedong did not fully understand Russian Bolshevism at the time. One day, a suspicious visitor was found at the venue.French Concession detectives were already investigating the meeting.The delegates decided to move to a scenic spot not far south of Shanghai, so the meeting continued on a chartered pleasure boat at Nanhu Lake. Xiao Yu was returning to France via Shanghai.The strange thing is that he arrived at Nanhu by a train with Mao Zedong (Xiao said it was Mao's suggestion).All the conference delegates traveled on this train, but did not sit together.Mao and Xiao chatted and shared a room when they arrived at Nanhu.After putting away his luggage, Mao still urged Xiao to attend the meeting. The meeting continued on the cruise ship, a comfortable and gorgeous 16-meter long boat floating on the water.The representatives tasted the fish in Nanhu Lake, decided to formally establish the Communist Party of China, join the Communist International, and report to the headquarters in Moscow every month. Mao Zedong returned to the hotel very late that night.He opened the mosquito net and climbed into the double bed to sleep with Xiao Yu. He was sweating from the heat but didn't take a shower. "Most of the representatives are good." Mao Zedong said to Xiao in the tone of conversation among Changsha fellow villagers.He seemed to be thinking about the wider world he was about to enter. "Some are also well-educated and understand Japanese and English." [36] Mao Zedong predicted to Xiao Yu: "If we work hard, the Communist Party may rule China in another 30 to 50 years." [37] This kind of prophecy was just empty talk at the time, and Xiao Yu was not deeply impressed at the time. , he worried that authoritarianism would follow. The next morning, Mao Zedong did not go to the meeting.He got up late, it was his habit.After he got up, he and Xiao Yu went to Hangzhou to visit the city.They spent the whole day among the gardens, hills and temples near the West Lake. However, they argued, Xiao Yu was envious of the magnificence of the mountains and rivers, Mao Zedong interrupted him and said: "This is the place where crimes are born, how many people use their money to do shameful deeds." They only stayed in Hangzhou for one night. Mao Zedong returned to Changsha shortly thereafter to serve as secretary of the Xiang District Committee of the fledgling Communist Party.Since then, he has never seen Xiao Yu again. Mao Zedong, who emerged from a lonely mountain village, is now able to assume the responsibility of an international revolutionary doctrine named after the Russian Revolution that shook the world.He placed himself in an agitated encounter with Western thought, which in part constituted the initial stages of his claim to a knowledge of social change.Anarchist ideas had strongly influenced him in 1919.In this age of ideological formation, learning from others' strong points was of great value to him in cultivating his iron-willed personality.Indeed, in 1917-1918 he seems to have been a liberal individualist.Yet in the years after the outbreak of World War I, after the founding of the Communist Party of China in Shanghai in 1921, he began to move away from a top-down approach of intensely individualistic agitation and eventually shifted to relying on revolution from below.