Chapter 3 Retreat is not in line with the spirit of the Central Committee

The troops marched towards Pingxiang along the winding mountain road. Mao Zedong was walking with the team, and he did not feel relaxed because the former committee adopted his proposal and the troops were retreating.As an alternate member of the Political Bureau of the Central Committee, especially as a special commissioner sent by the Central Committee to lead the Autumn Harvest Uprising on the border between Hunan and Jiangxi, Mao Zedong knew very well that stopping the attack on Changsha and leading his troops to retreat was not in line with the spirit of the Central Committee.Yu Sadu is a military commander. He should know that attacking a big city with a weak brigade of a thousand people is tantamount to hitting a stone with a pebble. The reason why he insisted on continuing to attack at the front committee meeting and got the support of some people is that Because this met the requirements of the Central Committee and the Hunan Provincial Committee for the Autumn Harvest Uprising, and it also catered to the mentality of some comrades eager to avenge the Kuomintang reactionaries and win the revolution as soon as possible.Thinking of this, Mao Zedong couldn't help asking himself again: Is it wrong to give up the offensive and retreat?

Mao Zedong thought of the August 7th meeting he attended not long ago. The August 7th meeting was an emergency meeting held by the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China in an extraordinary period.At that time, the party was facing a severe situation: on April 12, Chiang Kai-shek launched a counter-revolutionary coup in Shanghai, and hundreds of Communist Party members and revolutionary masses fell in a pool of blood.Immediately afterwards, Chiang Kai-shek established the Nanjing "National Government" on April 18 representing the interests of imperialism, big landlords, and the big bourgeoisie. The commander-in-chief of the Northern Expedition during the KMT-CPC cooperation period publicly parted ways with the Communist Party, workers and peasants.

The "Commander-in-Chief" took the lead, and new warlords from all over the world echoed each other. On April 15, the massacre of communists and worker activists occurred in Guangzhou; on May 17, Xia Douyin's department in Wuhan rebelled; on May 21, Xu Kexiang's department in Changsha created the "Ma Ri Incident"; The "National Government" in Wuhan announced the "separation of the Communist Party" and openly betrayed the revolution. The Kuomintang and the Communist Party, which had worked hand in hand to carry out the national revolution together, completely broke up, and the great revolution failed.

If the breakup between the Kuomintang and the Communist Party was just a matter of political opinion, it would not be surprising.But the Kuomintang reactionaries believed that they controlled the army, which made the breakup full of blood. In just a few months, there was white terror everywhere, counterattacks and reckless calculations everywhere, and countless Communist Party members and workers and peasants died tragically under the butcher's knife. Zhao Shiyan, Chen Yannian, Xiang Jingyu, Xia Minghan, Guo Liang... the Communist Party members were outraged by this, and the workers and peasants were saddened by it.

However, the performance of the central leadership of the Communist Party disappointed the whole party.The right-leaning capitulationism represented by General Secretary Chen Duxiu handed over the leadership of the national revolution, and when the Kuomintang reactionaries showed their ugly faces, they blindly compromised and compromised. On June 30, just as the Kuomintang reactionaries were pressing harder and harder, the Political Bureau of the Communist Party Central Committee held an enlarged meeting in Wuchang to discuss the cooperation between the Kuomintang and the Communist Party.

Chen Duxiu proposed a resolution on the relationship between the Kuomintang and the Communist Party, with 11 items in total. During the discussion at the meeting, some comrades present at the meeting expressed strong dissatisfaction with the resolution of giving up leadership and surrendering to the Kuomintang reactionaries.On behalf of the Central Committee of the Communist Youth League, Ren Bishi, the youthful secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Youth League, put forward a written opinion criticizing this resolution, and handed it to Chen Duxiu face to face. Chen Duxiu hurriedly read the submission, and was furious: "Who told you to do this thing?" He tore the submission to pieces, threw it on the ground, and stomped on it angrily.

Seeing that the general secretary was angry, Ren Bishi hurriedly asked for an explanation. "Don't say anything!" Chen Duxiu brutally refused. Seeing this situation, it is inconvenient for other comrades to say anything.Because of Chen Duxiu's paternalistic style, the resolution on Article 11 was passed in a vague way. The Party Central Committee once again lost the opportunity to lead the whole party to fight against the Kuomintang reactionaries! The weak retreat of Chen Duxiu's right-leaning capitulationism not only failed to "move" the Kuomintang reactionaries, but fueled their reactionary arrogance, which finally led to the failure of the Great Revolution.

In the face of the grim situation, for the survival of the party itself, but also to save the revolution.Thus, there was the August 1st Nanchang Uprising led by the party; there was the central emergency meeting known as the August 7th meeting in history. On August 7, 1927, the central emergency meeting was held in an apartment-style house at No. 41, Yuan Sanjiao Street, Hankou City, and the venue was selected in a room upstairs.In the dangerous environment, in order not to attract attention, more than 20 participants were brought in and out one by one by internal traffic. Although the meeting was only held for one day, it took 6 days for the participants to enter and leave. time.

Attending the meeting were members of the Central Committee, alternate members of the Central Committee, supervisory members, representatives of the Communist Youth League, representatives of Shanghai, Hunan, and Hubei, and representatives of the Military Commission: Qu Qiubai, Zhang Tailei, Deng Zhongxia, Ren Bishi, Su Zhaozheng, Gu Shunzhang, Luo Yinong, Chen Qiaonian, Cai Hesen, Li Zhenying, Lu Chen, Mao Zedong , Yang Pao'an, Wang Hebo, Li Zifen, Yang Shannan, Lu Dingyi, Peng Gongda, Zheng Chaolin, Wang Yifei, Luo Mai, and Deng Xiaoping, Secretary-General of the Central Committee.In addition, Comintern representative Rominaz and two other Russians also attended the meeting.

Chen Duxiu was in Wuhan at the time, but he did not attend the meeting.Because his capitulationist line was opposed by some comrades in the party and dissatisfied by the Communist International, he had already lost his leadership in the Party Central Committee before the meeting. He went to Moscow to "discuss the question of the Chinese revolution" with the Comintern. The meeting had three items on the agenda: a report by Luo Minnazi, the representative of the Communist International; a report by Qu Qiubai on behalf of the Standing Committee of the Political Bureau of the Central Committee; and the election of the interim Political Bureau of the Central Committee.

The report by Rominaz was very long, and it took almost a whole morning together with the translation.This report criticized Chen Duxiu's right-leaning capitulationism, aiming to reverse the "misguidance" of the Chinese Communist Party.The content of this report was discussed at the meeting, and then slightly revised, and it was issued as the "Message to All Party Members" at the Eighth Seventh Meeting of the Communist Party of China, thus ending the leadership of the entire party by Chen Duxiu's line. Qu Qiubai's report analyzed the situation and tasks at that time, and thus proposed that the party's strategy was an independent struggle of the workers and peasants.Under Qu Qiubai's proposal, the meeting discussed and approved the "Recent Resolution on the Workers' Movement", "Resolution on the Recent Peasant Movement", and "Resolution on Party Organization Issues". These three resolutions became the new party policy. The meeting elected the Provisional Political Bureau of the Central Committee, with 9 official members: Su Zhaozheng, Xiang Zhongfa, Qu Qiubai, Luo Yinong, Gu Shunzhang, Wang Hebo, Luo Mai, Peng Pai, Ren Bishi; 7 alternate members: Deng Zhongxia, Zhou Enlai, Mao Zedong, Peng Gongda, Zhang Tailei, Zhang Guotao , Li Lisan.Qu Qiubai replaced Chen Duxiu as the leader. The August 7th Conference corrected and ended Chen Duxiu's right-wing capitulationism, and determined the general policy of carrying out the agrarian revolution and armed resistance to the rule of the Kuomintang reactionaries. According to this general policy, the party put forward the task of struggle and the strategy of struggle, one of the important ones is to stage riots and armed resistance. The "Recent Peasant Movement Resolution" stated: "The most important task of the Communist Party at present is to prepare for a general peasant uprising in as large a region as possible in a systematic and planned manner." The "Recent Labor Movement Resolution" requires: "The working class should always be ready to lead and participate in armed insurrection. Based on the victory of the rural peasants, overthrow the counter-revolutionary regime and establish a revolutionary civilian civil rights city government." To this end, the central government formulated the "Outline on Farmers' Autumn Harvest Riots in the Four Provinces of Hunan, Hubei, Guangdong and Jiangxi". The new decision of the central government also reflects a mood within the Communist Party.Li Weihan, who was one of the five members of the Standing Committee of the Central Committee at the time, later recalled: "The party encountered a serious white terror environment for the first time. A large number of comrades and revolutionary masses were arrested and killed by the enemy. Many unsteady elements and opportunists ran away. , a rebellious rebellion. At that time, the advertisements in the newspapers often published rows of statements of quitting the Communist Party. The comrades who stayed in the party at that time saw that the revolution was ruined by Chen Duxiu’s capitulationism, and that the Kuomintang reactionaries were massacring the Communist Party every day. People and the revolutionary masses generally have a feeling of resentment and a desperate spirit.” It was under such circumstances that in order to implement the resolutions of the party's August 7th meeting and to repay the blood debt to the Kuomintang reactionaries, Mao Zedong, as a special commissioner of the Central Committee, returned to Hunan to lead the Autumn Harvest Rebellion. The Hunan Provincial Committee of the Communist Party of China is full of confidence in launching the Autumn Harvest Riot and has high hopes. The goal of the riot was very clear: "resolutely seize the whole of Hunan, carry out the agrarian revolution, and establish the power of the Soviets of Workers, Peasants and Soldiers." To this end, the provincial capital Changsha must first be seized. On September 8, the Hunan Provincial Committee of the Communist Party of China issued an order to the local party organizations and riot teams regarding the seizure of Changsha, demanding that "everywhere mobilize quickly and join forces in Changsha on the 16th day of the Gregorian calendar to seize the provincial capital and build the Hunan Branch of the Chinese Revolutionary Committee." ". However, the riots held on September 9 failed to achieve the above-mentioned expected goals.Not only failed to capture Changsha, the provincial capital, but the occupied Liling and Liuyang counties were quickly lost, and in the end they had to retreat. Thinking of these, Mao Zedong's heart is very heavy.He knew that the current retreat was neither an instruction from the Provincial Party Committee nor in line with the spirit of the Central Committee.He also remembered a passage in the "Resolution on the Political Tasks and Tactics of the Communist Party of China" issued by the Central Committee after the August 7th Conference: "Since a riot has been decided, this plan must not be abandoned halfway, and the riot must be guided to the end. Therefore, we should resolutely and never turn back our heroic actions. We must always start from our own side and immediately take an offensive situation. We should remember: adopting a defensive strategy and a vacillating and hesitant attitude at an emergency will inevitably lead to riots and defeat." Obviously, to stop attacking Changsha and retreat to Pingxiang now is to change the plan of the riot.But does this mean that you waver and hesitate?Will continuing to attack lead to riots and defeat, or retreating in time will lead to riots and defeat? Mao Zedong was still sorting out his thoughts.