Chapter 17 Dimitrov's message confiscated Wang Ming's Shangfang sword

Mao Zedong was shocked by Wang Ming's speech. At the Wayaobao meeting in December 1935, Mao Zedong reminded the whole party that closed-doorism is the main danger within the party, but we must also be alert to the emergence of right-leaning capitulationism. At the party's national conference in May 1937, Mao Zedong once again reminded the whole party: "The resurrection of Chen Duxiu's tailism cannot be tolerated. The face of the party, sacrificing the interests of workers and peasants to meet the requirements of bourgeois reformism, will inevitably lead the revolution to failure.”

After the formation of the second Kuomintang-Communist cooperation, some members of the Communist Party lacked understanding of the nature of the Kuomintang, and were fooled by the Kuomintang in the process of brewing cooperation.For example, He Ming, the leader of the Fujian-Guangdong border guerrillas, led his troops to accept the Kuomintang's reorganization. Without any precautions, nearly a thousand guerrilla commanders were surrounded and disarmed by the Kuomintang troops.Mao Zedong named and criticized this right-leaning capitulationist behavior, calling this phenomenon "the danger of He Ming", and drew the attention of the whole party.

Mao Zedong, who has rich experience in united front work, especially emphasized the principle of independence in the united front.At the Luochuan meeting, he said that doing united front work is like swimming in the sea. You must let go of your courage and keep yourself from drowning.When Communist Party members do united front work, they must be like "making money", with a square inside and a circle outside. They must be principled and have the flexibility to adapt to various conditions determined by the principle.The whole party must maintain relative independence politically, ideologically and organizationally in the united front.

By November, Shanghai and Taiyuan fell one after another, and large areas of the country were lost. The situation of the national war of resistance was severe.At the meeting of activists of the Yan'an Party, Mao Zedong promptly proposed to oppose national capitulationism, and at the same time oppose class-to-class capitulationism within the party, strive to shift from a one-sided war of resistance to a full-scale war of resistance, and figure out who leads whom in the national united front problems, showing a high degree of class vigilance. As soon as Mao Zedong's words fell, Wang Ming, who had just returned to China for 10 days, rejected all his strategic propositions to guard against the Kuomintang at the December meeting.

What worried Mao even more was the change in attitude of the leaders of the Yan'an Communist Party. Since early 1935, Wang Ming, who was watching the wind and steering the rudder, has done a lot of propaganda work on the United Front policy with the change of the policy of the Communist International. Regarding the policy and strategy of the Anti-Japanese National United Front, some articles by Wang Ming have also been published. It is an important document for the study of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China.This is the most commendable experience in Wang Ming's life, and it is also one of the important reasons why Mao Zedong compared him to a "fairy".At this time, Wang Ming appeared in Yan'an as an "imperial envoy", using the signs of the Communist International and Stalin to convey instructions, citing scriptures, and speaking quite provocatively, and the slogan "Anti-Japanese War is Above All" was not insignificant. If the calculation is wrong, if the Kuomintang and the Communist Party can really achieve "joint leadership and joint responsibility", it will be a good thing for the weak and weak Communist Party at this time.

In this way, most of the leaders in Yan'an have reviewed their lack of strategy in the past, and even pointed out that they "raised independence too high" and "exaggerated the danger to the right" in the past, and believed that Wang Ming's views on many issues were "very good." Zhang Wentian even stated: Mao Zedong and I are responsible for these mistakes. What Wang Ming brought back was the opinion of Moscow, and Mao Zedong naturally could not clearly resist it.Regarding the united front, he said that "peace is the most important thing at present."However, from the perspective of the protracted war and the preservation of the army, he emphasized the relativity of accepting Chiang Kai-shek's unified command and the necessity of insisting on independent mountain guerrilla warfare.

Later, Mao Zedong said: At the December meeting, "I was isolated. At that time, I admitted everything else. It was just protracted warfare, guerrilla warfare, and independence and self-reliance under the principle of the united front. I persisted to the end." Li Weihan's memoirs also proved that after Wang Ming returned to China, "for about half a year, Mao Zedong was in a minority or even an isolated position." After the December meeting, Wang Ming led the CCP delegation to Wuhan and issued an impassioned declaration on the current situation. He tried his best to express his sincerity of cooperation to Chiang Kai-shek, but was coldly received by Chiang Kai-shek's Kuomintang.

Mao Zedong once vividly described that Wang Ming was "dressed up and sent to the door", and Chiang Kai-shek was "slapped in the face and driven out of the door." Under such circumstances, the leaders of the Communist Party of China gradually came to their senses. After the Politburo meeting in March 1938, as chairman of the Central Military Commission, Mao Zedong issued instructions to frontline leaders based on his own ideas. During March and April, Mao Zedong successively called Zhu De and Peng Dehuai on strategic issues, and pointed out to Wang Ming's "seven unifications": "Jiang's order is a double entendre. On the one hand, it contains the positive meaning of strategic needs, and on the other hand, it inevitably does not include malicious intentions." Therefore, the specific disposal should depend on the situation, but you can't tie your hands and feet.

Therefore, after Wang Ming returned to China, although the rightist capitulationism influenced Xiang Ying, the leader of the New Fourth Army to a certain extent, interfered with the development of guerrilla warfare behind enemy lines in central China, and affected the rapid development and growth of the New Fourth Army, but the guerrilla warfare behind enemy lines of the Eighth Route Army achieved great success under the correct guidance of Mao Zedong. significant progress.By October 1938, the Eighth Route Army had expanded like a snowball, growing from 320,000 troops to more than 150,000 people, and opened up anti-Japanese base areas such as Shanxi-Chahar-Hebei, Shanxi Northwest, Shanxi-Hebei-Henan, Shanxi Southwest, Hebei-Shandong-Henan, and Shandong. , The guerrilla area has also expanded.This shows that Mao Zedong's policy is correct.

However, the emergence of two voices in the party leadership caused uneasiness among many people and greatly affected the CCP's struggle against the enemy. Mao Zedong believed that this situation could not be allowed to continue.But to untie the bell, one needs to tie the bell. Wang Ming appeared as a representative of the Communist International. Many comrades in the party are still superstitious about the International. political line and strategic approach. After the Politburo meeting in December, Mao Zedong specifically instructed the Secretariat to report the meeting and decisions to the Communist International Secretariat in a timely manner, expressing respect for the Communist International.

After the Politburo meeting in March, Mao Zedong sent Ren Bishi to Moscow to report to the Communist International the situation within the CCP and the situation of China's anti-Japanese struggle.After Ren arrived in Moscow, on behalf of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China, he submitted the outline of the written report "The Situation of China's Anti-Japanese Struggle and the Work and Tasks of the Communist Party of China" to the Comintern, and at the same time made a detailed and comprehensive oral report. After listening to the report, Stalin and Dimitrov, the leader of the Communist International, affirmed the strategy and policy of the CCP since the War of Resistance, and gave instructions: "Zhu, Mao and others led the Eighth Route Army to implement the party's new policy. The political line is correct, and the CCP has truly applied Marxism-Leninism under complicated circumstances and difficult conditions.” Soon, Wang Jiaxiang will return to China.Dimitrov asked Wang Jiaxiang to tell all members of the Chinese Communist Party that the leader of the Chinese Communist Party is Mao Zedong. He also asked him to tell Wang Ming that Wang Ming lacked practical work experience and should not strive to be a leader. Before Wang Jiaxiang left, Dimitrov specifically asked: "In China, the anti-Japanese united front is the key to the Chinese people's war of resistance, and the unity of the CCP is the key to the united front. The victory of the united front depends on the unity of the party and the leadership. unity." In September, Wang Jiaxiang, who returned to China, truthfully reported these spirits to the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China. The instructions of the Communist International and Dimitrov's "farewell message" confiscated Wang Ming's Shangfang sword. At the same time, people gradually realized from the different developments of the Eighth Route Army and the New Fourth Army that right-leaning capitulationism can only help others.Therefore, at the Sixth Plenary Session of the Sixth Central Committee held from September to November, Wang Ming's erroneous ideas were fully criticized. At the meeting, Mao Zedong made a report, emphasizing the issue of adhering to the united front and maintaining the independence of the party.He said: "Only by upholding the national united front can we overcome difficulties, defeat the enemy, and build a new China. There is no doubt about it. But at the same time, we must insist on the ideological, political and organizational independence of any party that joins the united front." Sex.” In the War of Resistance Against Japan, the interests of class struggle must be subordinated to the interests of the War of Resistance Against Japan, but the existence of classes and class struggle is a fact, and it would be wrong to deny this fact. "If the so-called 'everything goes through' means going through Chiang Kai-shek and Yan Xishan, that is just one-sided obedience, and it doesn't matter 'going through the united front'." Mao Zedong also emphasized: "For long-term cooperation, it is necessary for all parties in the united front to practice mutual assistance and mutual accommodation, but it should be positive, not negative." "It is not necessary to sacrifice the necessary rights of parties and classes for cooperation and unity, but to On the contrary, insisting on a certain limit of rights of parties and classes is conducive to cooperation, and only then can there be so-called cooperation. Otherwise, cooperation will be turned into unity, and the united front will inevitably be sacrificed.” Mao Zedong pointed out that in the united front, we should According to different situations, the countermeasures of "play first and then cut", "cut first and then play", "cut but not play", and "not cut and not play" are adopted respectively. With regard to the strategic policy, Mao Zedong pointed out that in the war of resistance against Japan as a whole, regular warfare was the main thing, and guerrilla warfare was supplementary, because only regular warfare could resolve the final fate of the war.But it is also impossible to defeat Japan without the broadest and most persistent guerrilla warfare.Therefore, although guerrilla warfare occupies an auxiliary position in the war as a whole, it actually occupies an extremely important strategic position. Since then, the chaotic situation brought about by Wang Ming's return to China ended, and the strategic policy of guerrilla warfare began to comprehensively guide the people's anti-Japanese armed forces in North and Central China, showing their prowess in the vast battlefield behind enemy lines.