Mao: The Unknown Story

AT THIS POINT Mao had a major ally in Moscow, his old fellow plotter on the Long March, Wang Jia-xiang, the Red Prof. Mao had pushed hard and bombarded Moscow with requests for the Red Prof to go to Russia, ostensibly for medical treatment, ever since radio contact with Moscow had been established in June 1936. The Red Prof arrived there in July 1937, and became the CCP’s representative once Wang Ming returned to China. Now, in June 1938, Mao cabled the Red Prof to return. He was in the position to perform a signal service for Mao. Before he left, he saw Comintern leader Dimitrov, and in a conversation about Party unity, Dimitrov said that the CCP needed to solve its problems “under the leadership headed by Mao Tse-tung.” Mao was to use this single expression to reverse his personal fortunes — and Party policy.

The Red Prof returned to Yenan in late August. Mao immediately had him summon Wang Ming and the others to a Central Committee plenum “to hear the Comintern’s instructions.” This was the first time the Central Committee had been convened since before the Long March, well over four years before. Wuhan, the temporary capital, was under fierce attack by the Japanese. Yet Mao recalled the field commanders and top men to Yenan, which was a backwater. Wang Ming objected, saying this was no time for the entire Party leadership to be absent from the nation’s capital, and suggested holding the meeting in Wuhan. “I’m not going anywhere!” Mao declared. The Red Prof cabled Wang Ming threateningly: “Obey the Centre, or else.”

Wang Ming came reluctantly, on 15 September. The Red Prof first addressed the Politburo, quoting the remark Dimitrov had made, upon which Mao said that he would deliver the political report at the plenum — thus re-establishing his position as No. 1. Wang Ming offered no resistance. When the plenum opened on the 29th in Yenan’s Franciscan cathedral, the Red Prof, seated beneath Lenin’s picture on the altar, repeated Dimitrov’s words to the larger audience. Thus was planted in the minds of the CCP high command the idea that Moscow had explicitly endorsed Mao as their leader.

As a reward to the Red Prof, Mao gave him a slew of key posts, including vice-chairman of the Military Council. Mao also found the 32-year-old bachelor a pretty and coquettish bride, a 23-year-old medical graduate whose father had been an old friend of Mao’s. So, having made nominal Party chief Lo Fu a happy man with a petite and vivacious spouse, Mao had spun the “red thread” around another useful heart, locking two vital allies to his belt. Mao enjoyed matchmaking, and was shrewd about the ways of the heart, particularly in sexually inhibited men.

Mao now set about discrediting Wang Ming. However, shattering Party unity was something Moscow had specifically vetoed — and Wang Ming could be expected to fight back if attacked to his face. So Mao resorted to his old trick of dragging the meeting out until Wang Ming and other key opponents had left before he set upon them.

Mao strung the plenum out for almost two months, making it the longest ever, even though it took place in the midst of a national crisis during which not only Wuhan but also the Nationalists’ last major port, Canton, fell to the Japanese. Communist bases behind Japanese lines were threatened as well. Urgent pleas came flying in—“Emergency situation here. Please could Peng De-huai return soonest …”—but Mao refused to release the military commanders until he had achieved his goals.

Chiang Kai-shek moved his capital to Chongqing, further inland, where he was convening a new National Assembly for 28 October which Wang Ming was due to attend. Mao made sure that his plenum was still in session when Wang Ming had to depart for Chongqing — the same ploy he had used in 1929 to lay his hands on Red Fujian.

In order to prolong things, Mao insisted that every Politburo member make two virtually identical speeches — one to the Politburo and one to the plenum. He himself stalled his Political Report for two weeks, during which time participants were kept hanging around. When he finally spoke he was massively long-winded, and what with his habit of sleeping in the morning, he took up no less than three days.

By the end of October, all Mao’s most powerful opponents — Chou, Xiang Ying, Po Ku and Wang Ming — had left town. Once they had gone, Mao launched an onslaught on them, and especially on Wang Ming, for “following Chiang Kai-shek’s orders,” and even for the bloody purges in the Red areas before the Long March, when Wang Ming was not even there.