Chapter 23 Mao Zedong became a "democrat"

In early March 1928, Zhou Lu, Minister of Military Affairs of the Hunan Special Committee of the Communist Party of China and a special commissioner of the Hunan Military Commission, came to Ninggang Long City. At that time, the Ninggang County Committee of the Communist Party of China and the County Workers, Peasants and Soldiers Government had not long been established, and the revolutionary struggle situation in the Jinggangshan area was gradually opening up; in addition, since the Autumn Harvest Uprising, the front committee had lost contact with the higher authorities, and it had been half a year since the central and provincial committees instructions.Therefore, Mao Zedong and the comrades of the former committee were naturally very happy that a special commissioner from the higher-level party committee came.

However, Zhou Lu, the "imperial envoy", turned a blind eye to the excellent situation created by the base area and criticized it. He not only criticized Mao Zedong and the former committee for "acting too right", "burning and killing too little", and not implementing the so-called policy of "making the petty bourgeoisie proletarians, and then forcing them to revolution", but also instructed to "burn, burn, burn, Burn down the houses of all local tyrants and evil gentry! Kill, kill, kill, kill the heads of all local tyrants and evil gentry!"

There are also things that surprised Mao Zedong himself and all the comrades of the former committee. Zhou Lu conveyed the decision of the Hunan Special Committee: cancel the Front Enemy Committee with Mao Zedong as the secretary, and change it to a division committee, with He Tingying as the secretary.The division committee is only responsible for leading the work of the army, and the local party committee is responsible for the local work. Zhou Lu also announced the expulsion of Mao Zedong's party membership, saying that this was a decision made by the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China. He only knew about it after reading the relevant documents of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China.The reason is that Mao Zedong led the Autumn Harvest Uprising to give up attacking Changsha and turn to Jinggangshan, which "completely violates the central strategy" and is "pure military speculation."Now that he was expelled from the party, Mao Zedong was no longer a member of the CCP.Therefore, Zhou Lu assigned Mao Zedong a new position: Commander of the First Division of the Workers' and Peasants' Revolutionary Army.

When the cadres of the Workers' and Peasants' Revolutionary Army heard about it, they were surprised at first, and then they were dissatisfied. Some of them even went to Zhou Lu to "seek an explanation." However, after all, Zhou Lu was a representative sent by the higher-level party committee, and what he conveyed was the spirit of the instructions of the central and provincial committees.Under the conditions of extremely difficult information transmission, even if the spirit of the transmission is wrong, it is difficult to verify and difficult to correct. Mao Zedong had to accept and face this "cruel" decision.

As a representative of the First Congress of the Communist Party of China and one of the founders of the Communist Party of China, Mao Zedong became a "democrat" outside the party in this way. One can imagine his heavy heart. Nearly thirty years later, on September 10, 1956, at the second plenary session of the preparatory meeting of the Eighth National Congress of the Communist Party of China, Mao Zedong talked about this unforgettable past and his mood at that time: "Expulsion from the party" can not be uneasy about a position, Just let me be the teacher.As a division commander, I am not so capable. I have never studied military affairs, because you are a non-Party democrat, so I have no choice but to be a division commander for a while.You say that being expelled from the party is happy for a person, but I don't believe it, and I'm not happy. …The central government expelled me from the party, so I can no longer live the life of the party. I can only be a teacher, and I can't go to the expenditure department meeting.

It was a rather confusing and difficult time for Mao Zedong. Tan Zheng, who worked in the former committee at the time, recalled: "Although the opinions conveyed by Zhou Lu were wrong, what should we do at that time! Mao Zedong is a party member. Would he dare to oppose the central government? This is a matter of discipline.  … Public opposition is not acceptable. It may be difficult to fight." Mao Zedong had no choice but to become a teacher.He Changgong once recalled a passage Mao Zedong said to the troops after he became the division commander: "He said: 'I don't know how to learn about the military. Being a teacher is a bit mysterious. However, a fence with three stakes, a hero with three gangsters, and three cobblers make up a Zhuge Liang. It depends on everyone. We have so many cadres, and everyone is the backbone of the party. After gaining some experience, everyone come to be a staff officer!'”

Fortunately, Mao Zedong had a high prestige. Whether he was the current secretary of the party committee or the commander of the division, the troops followed his command. Even He Tingying, who was the secretary of the division committee, still reported to Mao Zedong in everything, so that Mao Zedong was always in the leading position. During Mao Zedong's tenure as division commander, the troops were ordered to attack southern Hunan. Mao Zedong was "expelled" from the party. Although he was in a bad mood, he did not lose his sense of being a member of the Communist Party, nor did he abandon his responsibility as a leader.

When the troops went to Zhongcun, Lingxian County to rest and stand by, Mao Zedong and He Tingying agreed to conduct a systematic ideological and political education for the troops.He Tingying advocated that Mao Zedong should teach. So, in the Badaqiu board field next to the small shop in Zhongcun, Mao Zedong set up a small blackboard and set up a lecture class. Education is carried out by taking turns to attend lectures and discuss in turn.Many old comrades were deeply impressed by listening to Mao Zedong's lectures at that time. Chen Shiju once recalled: "I remember Chairman Mao sitting on a bench with a small table in front of us. We sat on the straw. Spring in the south comes early, and this day is another sunny day. The sun in spring It made us feel particularly cordial and warm. Gather all the troops at that time to give a political class, and the topic of the lecture, I remember: the characteristics of the Chinese revolution."

Chen Bojun recalled: "During the lecture, Comrade Mao Zedong found a small blackboard and wrote while speaking. The topic of the lecture was: the current political situation and the rise of the workers' and peasants' movement. Comrade Mao deeply analyzed the situation of the Chinese revolution at that time and the revolutionary He explained the great significance of establishing the Jinggangshan Revolutionary Base in easy-to-understand language, and severely criticized the 'Left' and Right-leaning opportunism and wrong lines with hard facts, so that all fighters in the extremely sharp and complicated class struggle, A clear understanding of the revolutionary situation has enhanced the courage to fight and strengthened the confidence of the revolution.”

This is how Mao Zedong continued to do party work even though he lost his party membership. This situation lasted for about a month.It was not until early April that Mao Zedong was ordered to lead his troops to fight in southern Shonan. After seeing the relevant documents of the central government at the special committee of southern Hunan, he knew that Zhou Lu had misrepresented the decision of the central government. The central government did not expel Mao Zedong from the party, but only expelled his " Alternate member of the Central Provisional Political Bureau". Zhou Lu made a huge "joke"!

It turned out that from November 9th to 10th, 1927, Qu Qiubai presided over an enlarged meeting of the Provisional Political Bureau of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China. The decision was heavily criticized.The "Political Disciplinary Resolution" made at the meeting announced the punishment of Mao Zedong: "Peng Gongda, Mao Zedong, Yi Lirong, and Xia Minghan, members of the Hunan Provincial Party Committee, should be revoked from their current membership in the Provincial Party Committee, and Comrade Peng Gongda should be fired as an alternate to the Central Political Bureau. Membership, and stay in the party for half a year for probation. Comrade Mao Zedong was the special commissioner sent by the central government to Hunan to reorganize the provincial party committee to implement the central autumn violence policy after the August 7th emergency meeting. In fact, he was the center of the Hunan provincial party committee and made (made) mistakes , Comrade Mao should bear serious responsibility and should be dismissed as an alternate member of the Central Provisional Political Bureau." The resolution on Mao Zedong's punishment is very clear, that is, to disqualify him from being a member of the Provincial Party Committee and expel an alternate member of the Central Provisional Political Bureau.Special Commissioner Zhou Lu may have seen this resolution, but since he was unable to carry central documents with him when he went to Jinggangshan, his communication was based entirely on memory.However, there was a problem with his memory, which led to the serious mistake of "expulsing" Mao Zedong from the party. When the matter was clarified, Mao Zedong's party membership was immediately restored.Mao Zedong breathed a sigh of relief. Although Zhou Lu was wrong about the punishment of Mao Zedong, Zhou Lu was not wrong about the fact that the Central Committee and the Hunan Provincial Party Committee believed that Mao Zedong had made a serious political mistake. At that time, Mao Zedong led troops to Jinggangshan, opened up a revolutionary base area, and implemented armed separatism. Many comrades in the party did not understand it. The "Left" putschist-ruled Central Committee and the Hunan Provincial Party Committee believed that Mao Zedong had made a serious political mistake. At the second plenary meeting of the Preparatory Meeting of the Eighth National Congress of the Communist Party of China on September 10, 1956, Mao Zedong had such a memory: At that time, he gave me a name called "Gun Boreism" because I said "Guns come out of the gun." regime".They say that political power comes from the barrel of a gun?Marx did not mention it, and there is not such a ready-made sentence in the book, so he said that I made a mistake and called me a "gun-barism".Indeed, Marx did not say that, but when Marx talked about "seizure of political power by armed forces," what I mean is the seizure of political power by armed forces, not that a political power emerges from rifles and machine guns.