Mao: The Unknown Story

The terms Japan offered on China did not begin to match Stalin’s expectations. Tokyo would agree only to “a Russian sphere of influence in Outer Mongolia and Xinjiang,” which was hardly alluring to Stalin, as these two places were already in his pocket. Japan also considered “recognising and accepting the three northwestern provinces (Shaanxi, Gansu, and Ningxia) remaining a Chinese Communist base”—on condition that Russia agreed to “restrain the anti-Japanese activities of the Chinese Communists.” But this idea was again not nearly enough for Stalin, as the CCP was already occupying a much larger territory than these three provinces.

Moscow’s failure to strike a deal with Tokyo meant that Stalin’s priority remained staving off the possibility of a Japanese attack on Russia — and that meant Mao could not have his all-out war on Chiang yet. Stalin wanted a united China which could continue to bog down the Japanese. When Stalin dispatched General Chuikov as his new military adviser to Chongqing at this time, Chuikov asked why he was being sent “to Chiang Kai-shek, not the Chinese Red Army.” Stalin answered: “Your job is firmly to tie the hands of the Japanese aggressor in China.”

So the Kremlin line to Mao was: hold your fire. An order went off to him on 25 November: “for the time being, play for time, manoeuvre, and bargain with Chiang Kai-shek in every possible way over removing your forces from Central China … It is essential you do not initiate military action [i.e., against Chiang] …” But Moscow did authorize Mao to fight back if attacked: “However, if Chiang Kai-shek … attacks [you], you must strike with all your might … In this case, the responsibility for the split and civil war will fall entirely on Chiang …”

This left Mao with one hope: that Chiang would fire the first shot. But as deadlines for the N4A to move north came and went, Mao reached the conclusion that “Chiang launching a big assault is not a possibility …”

Having failed to provoke Chiang into firing the first shot, Mao now set up a situation in which Chiang’s finger would be forced to pull the trigger.

Mao’s remarks about the Polish model and a Soviet-Japanese pact did not go down well in Moscow. They were too unvarnished, and a harsh reproof ensued. “The provocative essence of this statement must be unmasked,” Comintern chief Dimitrov cabled Mao. “We urgently request that Mao Tse-tung and other Chinese comrades refrain from giving interviews to foreign correspondents like the interview with Edgar Snow, as this is being used for provocative purposes.” Mao kept his mouth shut in public, and Snow was barred from Red-held China until the Sino-Soviet split, in 1960.

The new system was highly effective. The Japanese could not even locate the radios, much less break the codes.

Mao’s deal does not seem to have extended to actual military cooperation in the field, though the Russian GRU chief in Yenan reported one occasion when Communist troops attacked Nationalist forces in Shandong in summer 1943 “in coordination with Japanese troops.”

Chuikov’s other role, which he did not mention in his memoirs, was to give Moscow an expert assessment of whether the Chinese Reds could take power after Japan was defeated.

22. DEATH TRAP FOR HIS OWN MEN (1940–41 AGE 46–47)

THE POLITICAL commissar of the New 4th Army, the Red Army based in east central China, was an old nemesis of Mao’s, Xiang Ying. A decade before, Mao had tried to have him eliminated when he opposed Mao’s torturing and killing in the AB purge. And Xiang Ying had warned against taking Mao along on the Long March, predicting that he would scheme to seize power. He had remained outspoken about Mao, sometimes even mocking him.

Xiang Ying’s HQ of about 1,000 staff and 8,000 escort troops was situated in a picturesque place called Cloud Peak, near perhaps the most strangely beautiful mountain in China, Huangshan, the Yellow Mountain, where, before one’s astonished eyes, the clouds run, dance, storm and melt at dazzling speed around Gothic-looking rocks. By December 1940, Xiang Ying’s group was the only part of the N4A south of the Yangtze, as Mao had sent 90 percent of the N4A north of the river, and put them under a separate headquarters run by his ally Liu Shao-chi.

That month, Mao set Xiang Ying’s group up to be killed by the Nationalist army, in the hope that the massacre would persuade Stalin to let him off the leash against Chiang. Months before, in July, the Generalissimo had ordered the N4A to move to northern China, an order Mao had defied. In December, however, Mao told Xiang to decamp, and cross to the north of the Yangtze.

There were two routes Xiang could take. The shortest ran due north (the North Route). The second would take him southeast, and then over the Yangtze much farther downstream (the East Route). On 10 December the Generalissimo designated the North Route, and Mao confirmed it to Xiang on the 29th.