Chapter 9 "Going up the mountain" is not impulsive

Mao Zedong's decision to lead the team to Jinggangshan was not his impulse. Perhaps there was a certain accidental factor in choosing Jinggangshan, which was related to the fact that the Autumn Harvest Uprising he led happened to happen on the border of Hunan and Jiangxi. But when he had to "go up the mountain" and persist in fighting, he thought of becoming the "revolutionary king of the mountain". It already exists. After the Kuomintang rightists led by Chiang Kai-shek launched a counter-revolutionary coup on April 12, 1927, on May 21, with the connivance and support of the Kuomintang rightists, reactionary military officer Xu Kexiang also launched a counter-revolutionary coup in Changsha, the capital of Hunan Province, to destroy trade unions and peasant associations. , massacred the Communists and the masses of workers and peasants.Because this day is the horse day of the telegraph rhyme code, it is called the "horse day incident" in history.

The "Ma Ri Incident" dealt a heavy blow to the Communists and workers and peasants in Hunan. Hunan, where the worker and peasant movement was vigorous and the revolutionary struggle was in full swing, suddenly became white terror, and blood flowed everywhere.Some people fell under the butcher knife of the Kuomintang reactionaries, including many important leaders and outstanding party members of the Communist Party; Mao Zedong, who lived in Wuhan and was working in the Party Central Committee, received many comrades from Hunan. He was from Hunan and was particularly concerned about the workers’ and peasants’ movement in Hunan. In 1926, he conducted a survey of the peasants’ movement in rural Hunan and wrote The "Investigation Report on the Peasant Movement in Hunan" was published.This time, he naturally paid special attention to the "Ma Ri Incident" in Hunan.Soon after the incident, Mao Zedong called a meeting of comrades from Hunan in Wuhan to analyze the situation in Hunan and study how to persist in the revolutionary struggle under difficult circumstances.

It's a day in June. At this meeting, Mao Zedong called on the comrades from Hunan to return to their original posts, "up in the mountains, down in the lake, and take up guns to defend the revolution." This is the first time the concept of "going up the mountain" was put forward in the Communist Party. On July 4, the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China held an enlarged meeting of the Standing Committee in Wuhan to discuss how the Hunan Provincial Farmers' Association and peasant self-defense forces should deal with the enemy's search and massacre.

Facing the butcher's knife held high by the enemy: Chen Duxiu proposed: "When the Kuomintang armies recruit troops, members of the peasant associations and their own armed forces can be recruited to join"; There is nothing we can do about it.” On July 15, the Wang Jingwei Group of the Kuomintang, which was still pretending to "crusade" against Chiang Kai-shek, also tore off its disguise, held a "split-communist" meeting, and publicly announced that it would part ways with the Communist Party.Subsequently, there were large-scale arrests and massacres of Communists and revolutionary masses.

Blood is once again alerting and educating the Chinese Communists! In the face of blood and butcher knives, Mao Zedong's "going up the mountain" thought further developed. On July 20, the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China and the Peasant Department of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China issued the document "Central Announcement Nongzi No. 9 - The General Strategy of the Current Peasant Movement", which clearly stated that when peasant armed forces "exist in the name of law" or "normal Dispersion, secret training, and concentration at any time in case of war" and other forms are impossible, "you can 'go up the mountain'".Since Mao Zedong presided over the work of the Peasant Department of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China at that time, the strategy of "going up the mountain" proposed in this document on the general strategy of the peasant movement naturally reflected Mao Zedong's ideas.

On August 1, according to the decision of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China, Zhou Enlai, He Long, Ye Ting, Zhu De and others led the Nanchang Uprising and fired the first shot of armed resistance against the Kuomintang reactionaries. On August 7, the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China held an emergency meeting to correct Chen Duxiu's right-leaning capitulationist mistakes and determine the general policy of the agrarian revolution and armed resistance to the Kuomintang reactionaries.At this meeting, Mao Zedong uttered the original version of the famous statement that "political power grows out of the barrel of a gun": "You must know that political power is obtained from the barrel of a gun."

Although it is clear that a gun is needed to seize power, everyone has their own opinions on how to act. After the troops of the Nanchang Uprising won the victory in capturing Nanchang, they marched southward, intending to go to Guangdong to rebuild the base of the Northern Expedition. The Hunan Provincial Committee of the Communist Party of China, with Xia Xi as its secretary, advocated organizing a divisional army in Hunan. However, this army should follow the troops of the Nanchang Uprising and go to Guangdong. However, Mao Zedong had some considerations about pulling the armed forces "up the mountain".

Just two days after the August 7th meeting, the Political Bureau of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China held a meeting to study the Hunan issue and decided to reorganize the Hunan Provincial Committee of the Communist Party of China.Mao Zedong said something like this at the meeting: "You should not only see Guangdong, Hunan is also very important. Hunan's mass organizations are larger than Guangdong, and what is lacking is armed forces. Now it is a period of riots, and armed forces are even more needed. Not long ago, I drafted a plan approved by the Standing Committee to form an armed division in southern Hunan, occupy five or six counties, form a unified political foundation, and develop the agrarian revolution in the whole province. Even if it fails, you should not go to Guangdong but go up the mountain.”

Mao Zedong clearly proposed the retreat after the failure of the uprising-up the mountain. Mao Zedong had long thought about going up the mountain to make friends in the green forest.At the August 7th meeting, he proposed to resign as a member of the Politburo on the grounds that "he is now working as a bandit".He also said this about bandit work: "The problem of banditry is a very big problem. Therefore, there are a lot of banditry in the sect party. We should have a strategy. Some comrades think that we can only use them. This is Zhongshan (referring to Sun Yat-sen—the quoter Note) method, we should not do this. Only if we carry out the agrarian revolution, then we must be able to lead them. We should (should) treat them as our own brothers and not as guests.”

Because Mao Zedong had his unique views on the "bandit issue", he not only did not fear or despise the so-called "bandits", but also intended to make friends in the green forest, and even believed with full confidence: "Only if we carry out the agrarian revolution, we must be able to lead the way." Their." Thus, at the Anyuan Military Conference, Mao Zedong paid attention to Wang Xinya's report that there were two "falling grass" peasant armed forces in Jinggangshan; There is a long speech; there is a letter written by Mao Zedong to Yuan Wencai on his own initiative during the reorganization in Sanwan.

Finally, there was Mao Zedong's wise move to lead the team to Jinggangshan.