Chapter 4 At the Shawo meeting, Mao Zedong accused Zhang Guotao: "You are holding a military governor's meeting."

Zhang Guotao's journey of meritorious service was not completely without "rewards". At least he saw the loss of the army on the one hand after the Long March, the fact that the soldiers and guns on the one hand were not as good as those on the four sides, and he saw that he had a lot of money because of his fat and strong soldiers. identity of. Back at the headquarters of the Fourth Front Army in Zagunao (now Li County, Sichuan), Zhang Guotao's confidence doubled. He felt that he was qualified to raise organizational issues with the Central Committee. On July 1, Zhang Guotao called Zhu, Zhou, Mao, Wang, and Luo Fu, proposing that "our army should solve the organizational problem of unified command quickly."

Immediately, the dispute over the strategic policy of going north and going south turned into a power struggle. Chen Changhao and Zhang Guotao cooperated closely, you call for me, I ask for it for you, and they sang double reeds to each other. On July 6, Zhang Guotao disclosed his request for "organizational issues" for the first time to Li Fuchun, the head of the Central Condolences Group and deputy director of the General Political Department who was condolences in the Fourth Front Army. "Xu (Qianqian) is the deputy commander, Chen ( Chang Hao) is the general political commissar, and the Central Military Commission has a standing committee to decide strategic issues."

On July 18, Chen Changhao called Zhu De, blatantly threatening Zhang Guotao as the chairman of the Military Commission, and threatened that if the military leadership was not concentrated in this way, "the enemy would not be able to be defeated smoothly." Zhang Guotao's ambition to demand power and reorganize the Military Commission aroused the righteous indignation of the vast majority of comrades in the Politburo.In contrast, Mao Zedong was much more magnanimous: "We must not make concessions in principle in going north, but Zhang Guotao has four armies under his command. If we want to unite him in going north to fight against Japan, we should have certain arrangements for his duties. .”

On July 18, the Political Bureau of the Central Committee held a meeting of the Standing Committee in Luhua to discuss organizational issues.At the meeting, Zhou Enlai took the overall situation into consideration and offered to cede the post of general political commissar of the Red Army. Zhang Wentian was afraid that Zhou Enlai would be wronged, so he fought to cede the post of general secretary himself. At the critical moment, Mao Zedong made a final decision and gave Zhang Guotao the post of general political commissar. At that time, many people didn't quite understand Mao Zedong's decision-making. Even Zhang Guotao felt that the position of the general political commissar of the Red Army during the war was much more valuable than the position of the general secretary of the Party Central Committee.He was proud of himself, thinking he had taken advantage of it.Later, Zhang Guotao established a separate "central government" as the general political commissar of the Red Army. After Mao Zedong put on him the hat of a pseudo-central government and separatism, people really realized the strategy contained in Mao Zedong's move.

Peng Dehuai said in his self-report: "At that time, Zhang Guotao didn't want the general secretary. He said, you should be the general secretary. Now it's a war. If he gave up the general secretary at that time, he would call a meeting in the name of the general secretary. After the establishment of the puppet Central, it becomes legal." Despite this, on the "organizational issue", the central government made major concessions to Zhang Guotao. On July 18, the Central Military Commission issued an order: the commander-in-chief and the chief political commissar of the Chinese Workers' and Peasants' Red Army were Zhu De and Zhang Guotao respectively.

On July 21, the Military Commission decided to organize the former enemy general headquarters, with Xu Xiangqian, the chief of the Fourth Army, as the commander-in-chief, Chen Changhao as the political commissar, and Ye Jianying as the chief of staff.The General Headquarters of the Fourth Front Army and the General Headquarters of the Front Enemy. At this time, Zhang Guotao already had the command of the Red Army.But let's not forget that the Red Army also has an important principle of army building, that is, "the party commands the gun." As long as Zhang Guotao cannot control the Politburo for a day, he will not command the Red Army in a full sense.

In the Politburo, Zhang Guotao was well aware of his situation: "We are alone and we are alone." In order to reverse this passive situation, when Mao Zedong and the central leaders marched to Maoergai, Zhang Guotao suddenly proposed to hold a Politburo meeting to solve the "political line" issue. At the request of Zhang Guotao, on August 4, another "Shawo meeting" was held in Shawo near Maoergai. At the meeting, Zhang Guotao submitted a list of nine people to the Politburo, all of whom were cadres of the Fourth Front Army, with the goal of adding them to the Politburo.At that time, the Political Bureau of the Central Committee had a total of 8 members. Ren Bishi was not there, but there were actually 7 members of the Politburo on duty. Zhang Guotao proposed to add 9 members at once.The purpose is to reorganize the Politburo, control the Politburo, make his forces form a majority in the Politburo, fight against the veteran Mao Zedong, and then revise the central government's "Northward Advance" plan.

1. For more than a month since the Fourth Army joined forces, Mao Zedong has been trying his best to avoid confrontation with Zhang Guotao for the sake of the internal unity of the Red Army. .But after the "9-person plan" was thrown out, Mao Zedong angrily condemned Zhang Guotao and said: "You are holding a meeting of the military governors." Even so, Mao Zedong persuaded other leading comrades in the central government to make concessions to Zhang Guotao in order to win and unite the Fourth Front Army to go north together.The meeting decided to add Chen Changhao and Zhou Chunquan as members of the Politburo, and Chen Changhao also served as the director of the General Political Department of the Red Army.

In addition, some comrades working in the Fourth Front Army were added as members and alternate members of the Central Committee. Under the criticism and education of Mao Zedong and most of the comrades present at the meeting, Zhang Guotao was once again forced to agree with the central government's strategic policy of going north to establish the Sichuan-Shaanxi-Gansu base area.The "Resolution of the Central Committee on the Political Situation and Tasks after the Convergence of the First and Fourth Front Armies" passed at the meeting highlighted issues such as strengthening the unity of the First and Fourth Front Armies, strengthening the Party's absolute leadership, and improving the prestige of the Party Central Committee in the Red Army.