Chapter 38 Struggle (13)

In January 1934, Mao came to Ruijin to attend the Second National Congress of the Chinese Soviet.He was the chairman of the Soviet government, and despite his name, he had to preside over the opening of the conference.The synagogue was filled with a thousand delegates and was decorated with red and green banners.He saw a slogan: "Only the Soviet can save China." A salute and a series of firecrackers kicked off the conference. Mao gave a short, unintelligible speech.All resolutions of the General Assembly have been determined at the Central Meeting held in advance.During the central meeting, Mao was either absent or had difficulty playing any role.

At this time, the fifth "encirclement and suppression campaign" had already begun, but Mao could only be a bystander.The plan for this "encirclement and suppression" was formulated by the Germans.Eager to wipe out the Communist Party, Chiang Kai-shek turned to Hitler for help, and two German generals, von Sigert and von Falkenhausen, became Chiang's military advisers. The Chinese Communist Party, under the control of the 28 Bolsheviks, was equally eager to turn to foreigners, and this counter-campaign was under the direct command of a German Communist, Otto Braun, the Comintern's final gift to the Chinese revolution.

This congress was clouded by Wang Ming's blind optimism, because the few battles Braun commanded at the time were not too bad.Mao had no choice but to retain his doubts about battlefield warfare.He presided over the meeting like a phoenix with only hair, and no one was surprised that the meeting dismissed him as chairman.But it was too cruel for him not to be elected to the government (People's Committee) which he has been in charge of for three years. Chiang began to realize the "encirclement and suppression" goals that had plagued him for three years.Keeping the enemy out of the country can easily turn into a nightmare once the enemy has entered the gate.Because Braun regards the territory as more important than the army, the result is bound to be a catastrophe.It just happened like this, which exposes the stupidity of "positional warfare".

The spring of 1934 did not bring joy to Ruijin. General von Sigert built pillboxes and connected them with roads.This tactic worked because the CCP also chose to hold its own troops in defensive positions.This deprived the communist army, which was too weak and poorly equipped, of the opportunity to find the enemy's weak points and attack them flexibly, while the Kuomintang army was able to effectively impose an economic blockade on the trapped and undersupplied Red Army. By August, only six of the seventy counties controlled by the CCP remained, and even Changting fell into the hands of the Kuomintang, and many Red Army generals died in battle.

Mao could do nothing about it, and remained silent all day long.He is under "house arrest" as people in the West say. Since midsummer in 1934, he hid in a thatched house on a hill in Yudu (west of Ruijin). One night, an officer under Zhu De came to chat with Mao.He brought wine and chicken.It couldn't have been a better meal in those hard times.They were well served. Mao sat with him on a wicker chair in the yard, sipping wine.When the topic touched on the nostalgic past, Mao sighed to the old subordinate: "Oh, it is no longer the world of comrades in Jinggangshan."

Mao tried to get back to his books. He scribbled notes, he wrote poems about forgetting his emotions in the mountains and rivers, and he taught his guards how to read.However, hearing what happened outside the mountain, he couldn't calm down.Once again he fell ill at the turn of bad luck. He had a fever of 105 degrees Fahrenheit, and this bout of malaria was nearly as severe as the one in 1929 (though Bogut called Mao's illness a "diplomatic disease").From August until the end of September, he was bedridden.When the malaria worsened and acute intestinal spasms followed, he must have wondered if he would ever recover.

Bad luck is with you all summer. Doctor Fu came to Yudu with a medicine box.One day, Fu stewed a chicken for Mao.Mao refused to eat—this patient who asked very little, always said that he was fine with a nurse and did not need a doctor to accompany him. He refused to eat chicken.A professional habit made him happy to accept the chicken sent by the officer, rather than the chicken prepared for him by Dr. Fu.He asked Dr. Fu to eat the chicken. Mao stiffened from the doctor's bed.When he left Yudu at the end of September, he found that the outside world was too chaotic.However, this chaos also presents him with opportunities.

Chiang Kai-shek, who won the fifth "encirclement and suppression" handily, seemed to feel that he had saved China from the "communist catastrophe."The Communist Party decided to abandon Jiangxi. Mao felt that doing so was an act of "panicking", but it was Bogu and Braun's decision.The rest of the Red Army began to march northwest, hoping to join the Soviet area led by He Long in Hunan. The twenty-eight Bolsheviks were embarrassed by this crushing defeat, so Mao quietly returned to the military council formed to direct the retreat.This is a small twist.At least Mao should be blamed less than almost all of his colleagues.

The Red Army is like a boat lost its rudder in the rough sea.A procession of 100,000 people (and several hundred women) marched aimlessly, many of whom must have realized they were going to die.Many people are waiting for an opportunity to desert. This is how the Long March begins! Two weeks later, Moscow radioed instructions telling the CCP to evacuate Jiangxi. Mao brought three days' worth of dry food for everyone, and a horse, a trophy from fighting the Kuomintang, plus an umbrella and a bundle of books. In the eyes of his colleagues, it was Mao's trademark to carry a briefcase. The small bag usually contained documents and maps, but this time he did not bring it.This is very strange.People around him believed that this showed that Mao was still pessimistic.He might have kept that bag with him if he knew he was going to take power soon.