Chapter 32 Struggle (7)

In early 1929, Mao left Jinggangshan.The reasons are practical rather than philosophical.He wants to open up a better base. The Party Central Committee put pressure on Jinggangshan to take the troops to the south to start a spectacular revolution.At that time, the Kuomintang army was attacking Jinggangshan, and every cold night was a life-and-death battle.Ultra-left mistakes appeared in the land policy, which alienated the Red Army from the masses, and some middle peasants were unwilling to give the Red Army food.At this time, General Peng Dehuai and his team suddenly came to Jinggangshan again.

Peng Dehuai later became a prominent figure in the Chinese revolution, but his arrival with his thousand men was not warmly welcomed as food shortages were exacerbated. Mao decided to march to Jiangxi.There were many reasons why he and Zhu De wanted to enter this verdant, mountainous province.If you can occupy another province, you can get rid of the carping of the Hunan Communist Party.Zhu De has many contacts in the Jiangxi Kuomintang (he has been friends with them for many years).In addition, the army in Jiangxi did not have the money and foreign help to fight the Red Army like the right-wing forces in Changsha and Guangzhou.Peng Dehuai stayed to guard Jinggangshan.

The horrific expedition began in January, with the warriors marching in...files over rugged mountain paths covered in snow and ice.Four thousand soldiers (among them one hundred women, including Zizhen), each brought only half a catty of fried rice, and their cotton-padded clothes full of lice did not keep warm at all.The random emergency hats make them look like... a group of peddlers who scavenge for tatters, without medicines, and even more than two thousand soldiers have no guns, only spears. Mao is now scrawny, ragged, with unkempt hair hanging down his shoulders. After two breaks, the fried rice was all gone.These 4,000 people continued to trek, and some people died of freezing and starvation. If there is no war, more people will starve to death.Of course, few people have the energy to fight if they can't eat a full meal as soon as possible.They finally found the enemy, and on the third night after leaving Jinggangshan, they defeated a garrison of the Kuomintang, and everyone had a hearty meal.

Mao's foray came at a considerable price.He lost dozens of fighters before reaching the warmer south.Several times, Red Army soldiers had to break off tree branches and use them as crutches to support them while walking.At Dayu (famous for its abundance of tungsten), Mao made the benevolent mistake of letting his weary warriors stay in this relatively comfortable "oasis" for too long, and the enemy overtook them, costing them hundreds people. When Mao and Zhu arrived in a small town in Ruijin, Jiangxi, just in time for the Spring Festival.The local garrison is hosting a banquet to celebrate the victory over the "Zhu-Mao Communist Bandit", which is full of festive atmosphere.The red candles on the arched stools and the red paper Spring Festival couplets at the gate of the barracks set off each other.Bottles of wine, chopsticks, cups and cups staggered, and laughter continued.

Suddenly, bullets flew across the road, and the revelers were stunned by the sudden turn of events. The "Zhu Mao Communist Bandit" seized every door. They drove all the garrison troops out of the barracks at gunpoint, and then locked them in a ancestral hall.Later, Zhu recalled with a smile: "We finished the Spring Festival feast for them." Before long, Mao established a base in Ruijin.Since leaving Jinggangshan, he has lost half of his fighters.But he got a chance to implement his "Agrarian Revolutionary War" plan.During the rest of 1929, he gradually turned Gannan into red with his guns.

Every time a village was captured, Mao stamped it with his stamp.He posted slogans promoting communism on the wall, held a mass meeting, explained the origin and purpose of the Red Army, and established the People's Committee (Soviet).Sometimes these committees survive, sometimes they are short-lived. The Ruijin area is not as poor as Jinggangshan, and Mao has more daily supplies than before, food has improved, clothes can be changed, and some medicines can also be obtained. After Zhu Mao's army captured Changting, they seized many sewing machines.They used these machines to make the first Red Army uniforms—dark gray uniforms with leggings and a red star on the hat.

Mao returned to the rice fields and green hills.However, this time was very different from when I was in Hunan in the mid-twenties.He now has a safe base to work from, which was what he lacked during the Autumn Harvest Uprising. The Red Army was not a simple and pure tool of revolution, and Mao was not Napoleon.But the strength of the Red Army is crucial to the revolution, it can guarantee the success of the revolution. If only Li Lisan could wait until the time for revolution was ripe.Around the 1920s, Mao would certainly have done what Li Lisan wanted to do now—lead the Red Army into China's affluent cities.

The expedition did not lessen Shanghai's criticism of Mao.The snowflake-like letters quickly caught up with Mao, all of which were instructions from the extreme left. Li Lisan would still just sit at his desk and give orders.He interpreted the six resolutions according to his needs (as did Mao).Throughout 1929, his directives were: make the city the center;He also ordered Mao and Zhu to leave the army and go to Shanghai to accept criticism. Zhu was furious, while Mao's expression remained unchanged.Both men violated the spirit of Li Lisan's policy, but they complied as much as possible with the letter.In the past year, they have been perfunctory in this way.

Surprisingly, Mao never left the Chinese Communist Party: in 1924 when he was ridiculed as "Hu Hanmin's secretary"; in 1927 when the Fifth Party Congress criticized his land policy; in 1928 When he was ordered to leave Jinggangshan in 1929, he did not resign from the party until 1929, and in one or two subsequent similar situations. The reason why he remained in this circle was because he firmly believed that the Marxist revolution would eventually come.His quick-witted working methods sometimes bordered on opportunism, but his goal was always communism. Furthermore, Mao was not content with establishing a kingdom that included only one or two provinces.China is larger than the whole of Europe.The population of Hunan Province alone in 1920 was equal to the national population at the time of the French Revolution in 1789.For the future of China, in order to achieve the final victory, he needs a real national force.Without the Communist Party, Mao and Zhu could not have built up such an armed force in the early 1930s.

Mao took the local route, but his thinking was not localistic. If Mao had left the Chinese Communist Party in the late 1920s or early 1930s, there would not have been so many people following him.He is seen as a famous figure, but he is only in the middle of the party's power structure. * -------------------------------------- * The Hunan-Jiangxi Boundary Special Committee of the Communist Party of China, elected at the second Maoping Conference, is responsible for party affairs in the Hunan-Jiangxi border areas.Among the nineteen members, Mao ranked fifteenth.