Civil War in Nationalist China/Chapter 5
V. BREAKUP OF THE WUHAN GOVERNMENT
20. Land—the Crucial Question
We have seen in the previous pages with what a brave front the Central Committee of the Kuomintang began their campaign against Chiang Kai Shek. According to the logic of political struggle, it was necessary for the Wuhan Government to turn to the left, to base itself more squarely and consciously upon the labor and peasant movement in China and internationally. This it did—in words and gestures. But when the crucial test of action came, it hesitated, swung about in mid-air for a while, and then swerved sharply to the right, turning its guns against the mass movement of the people in a manner hardly to be distinguished from that of Chiang Kai Shek.
The crucial question was the land. In Hunan Province the peasants had organized five million strong. They controlled absolutely the village governments of most of central and southern Hunan. They therefore proceeded to the next step in the revolution, the solution of the land problem upon which their very lives depend. They abolished rents, drove out the resisting landlords, and divided the public lands among those who worked them.
21. Betrayal of the Generals
In the Nationalist Armies, even as in those of the Northern militarists, the officers were recruited largely from the families of landlords or rich industrialists and merchants, connected with landholding or with exploitation of cheap labor in the cities. With the beginning of the expropriation of the landlords, a great cry went up from them to their relatives in the Army for help. The cry was not in vain. A majority of the officers of the Army turned against the peasant movement. In Changsha, center of the movement, they suddenly descended upon the trade unions and peasant unions, slaughtered the leaders and the armed defense corps, and closed their offices.
This occurred towards the end of May. Early in June, the Nationalist Government sent a delegation to Feng Yu-hsiang, the leader of the strongest armed forces on the side of Wuhan. Feng pronounced against the solution of the land question; and further proceeded to a conference with Chiang Kai Shek, with whom he issued a joint public statement. General Tang Shen-shih, the Buddhist, a native of Hunan (Changsha), also pronounced against the peasants. Under the pressure of the military, the Central Committee majority, shrinking in fear from a struggle against the military forces nominally under their control, began to surrender to the reactionary tendency. The Wuhan Government, organizing center of the Chinese revolution, was in deepest crisis.
The trade unions, meeting in Congress at this period (June) pledged their 2,800,000 members to solid support of the Government if it would unhesitatingly support the solution of the land question. The peasant unions, with ten millions members and hundreds of thousands under arms, pledged its undivided support. The Communist Party threw its weight onto the side of solution of the land question. But the Central Committee majority crumbled under the military pressure.
For the left wing there could be no question of supporting further the Wuhan Government after it turned definitely against the peasant movement. By this act it had transformed itself from the organizing center, into the "hangman" of the revolution. The Communists withdrew from the Government. Such well-known figures as Mme. Sun Yat-sen, Eugene Chen, Teng Yen-ta, and others, resigned from the Government. Those who remained began negotiations for reconciliation with Chiang Kai Shek.
22. Perspectives
The Chinese revolution has received a serious check, a serious defeat, as a result of the betrayal of the generals and the collapse of Wuhan. Is this defeat a permanent one? Does it mean the elimination of the workers and peasants as the main forces in the Chinese revolution? Will the Chinese revolution from now on become purely a bourgeois movement, ending in the establishment of a unified bourgeois China with workers and peasants suppressed?
The defeat of the revolution is certainly but temporary and partial. None of the problems of the revolution have been solved, and the masses of China are in motion. Nothing can stop the movement of these 400 million people, except the solution of their life problems, which are the problems of the revolution.
It is impossible for the workers and peasants to be eliminated from the nationalist movement. The bourgeoisie of China is too weak to fight against the workers and peasants, and at the same time fight against the Northern militarists and foreign imperialists. It is also divided, because a large section of the city middle classes go along with the mass movement. It must make peace with one or the other: If it makes peace with the militarists and imperialists, then it abandons the national revolution altogether; if it makes peace with the workers and peasants, then it must proceed to solve the land question and improve the conditions of the workers.
Only under the condition, therefore, of the working class playing the leading role, and the peasantry furnishing the main driving force and the city petty-bourgeoisie supplementing this combination with its technical and political aid, is it possible for the Chinese revolution to move forward now to the establisment of a firmly united China proceeding to solve its social and economic problems and holding its own against foreign aggression. And this necessity of revolutionary solution for the problems of existence of hundreds of millions is the guarantee that the Chinese workers and peasants will rise again and again if necessary; and that there is no peace for China until these problems have been solved.
It is in the interests of all workers in America to help the Chinese masses in this most difficult struggle. This means first of all, to understand their problems, to establish close connection with them and their organizations, to exert all efforts to prevent the Government of the United States from using its power to crush the Chinese revolution, and to work in all ways for assisting the Chinese trade unions and peasant unions.
To the ruling classes of America we must say: "Hands off the Chinese Revolution."
To the American workers, the word is: "Solidarity with the Chinese workers and peasants." Solidarity with the Chinese revolution, as a most important step toward the world revolution."
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