# Civil War in Nationalist China/Chapter 1

I. THE SPLIT IN THE NATIONALIST MOVEMENT
1. The International Delegation
The International Workers' Delegation was composed of Tom Mann, Chairman of the National Minority Movement of England and one of the oldest leaders of British Trade Unions; Jacques Doriot, member of the French Parliament, elected by the workers of Paris; myself representing the Trade Union Educational League of America; and Sydor Stoler, who acted as secretary and translator to the Delegation.
The Delegation entered China from the extreme south, at Canton, on February 17, 1927. After spending three weeks there we proceeded northward on the southern stub of the Canton-Hankow railroad to Shiu Chow. From there we proceeded by boat up the North River to Namyung, where we walked across the mountains thru Meiling Pass into the province of Kiangsi. At the city of Nananfu we again took boats on the Chikiang to the city of Kanchow. From there we went by boat northward down the Kankiang traversing the entire province of Kiangsi to the Yangtsekiang; proceeding up that great river to the Wuhan cities. This trip through the interior of China covered a period of twenty-five days during which we visited one or two days in about a dozen towns and cities, including, besides those named, Kianfu, Changshuki, Nanchang, and Kiukiang. After three weeks in Wuhan we made a five-day trip on the railway, southwest to the center of Hunan province, stopping at 28 cities including the great cities of Yochow and Changsha. Thus it will be seen we came in direct contact with all sections of the Chinese people in more than 40 cities and towns in the Nationalist territory, including the former capital and birth place of Nationalism, Canton; the first base of Chiang Kai Shek in his open split with the Kuomintang, Nanchang; and the center of the peasant movement which caused the split in the Kuomintang, Changsha.
​This trip extended through the months of February, March, April, May and June. This was the period which began with the reorganization of the Kuomintang Nationalist government, the split by Chiang Kai Shek and the establishment of the Nanking government, and ended with the breakup of the reorganized National government of Wuhan. It was a time of civil war in almost every city and town which the Delegation visited. A tremendous regrouping of class forces was occurring in the Chinese Revolution.
2. First Glimpses of the Developing Split
Upon our arrival in Canton we were immediately received by the Kuomintang government of the province. Upon the invitation of this body a joint reception committee was formed which consisted of representatives of all public bodies of Canton, including the government, the Kuomintang, the Communist Party, all sections of the trade union movement, the peasant union, the student union, the Revolutionary Army and the merchants associations. This committee was a complete united front of all elements comprising the Nationalist movement in its broadest sense.
The visit of the Delegation was made the occasion for tremendous demonstrations everywhere; mass meetings, banquets, gatherings of all kinds were organized. But behind the appearance of unity which was created by these demonstrations, we quickly found that desperate struggle was being carried on. Within the united front of the Nationalist movement the regrouping of forces was proceeding at feverish pace.
A few days after our arrival we heard news of a recent clash culminating in an armed struggle, between the Railroad Workers' Union and the body known as the Canton Mechanics Union, which had occurred only two weeks before our arrival. Strangely enough both these bodies, which had only emerged from a fight in which they had been shedding one another's blood, were represented on our reception committee. We were entertained by both organizations, held mass meetings with them, and long interviews ​with their leaders. Gradually we learned all the details which showed to us the class forces represented by each side. Because this fight forecast so much of what occurred in the following months, I will give some details of what we learned about it and about the organizations involved.
The Canton Mechanics Union is one of the older labor organizations in China. It claims a history since 1905 when it was organized along the lines of the old Chinese Guilds, comprising workers and employers alike. In the old days it conducted struggles only against the British in Hongkong. In 1922–23, at the time when the trade union movement proper was organizing itself in the All-China Labor Federation, this Canton Mechanics Union partially reformed itself into a trade union in a modern sense. It retained, however, much of the old guild character, including the complete absence of rank and file control. Its officers are self-perpetuating. It has continued to maintain close relations with the employers. In all of the internal struggles within the Kuomintang it has been openly or secretly aligned with the right wing. At the time when Chen Chiung Ming split with Sun Yat Sen and drove him out of Canton, this Union maintained an attitude of benevolent neutrality in the open while actually assisting the counter-revolution. During the rising of the so-called "paper tigers" or merchants' volunteers in 1925 this union played a very ambiguous role. Since the rise of Chiang Kai Shek as the leader of the right wing in the Kuomintang (the Chung Shen Cruiser incident of March 20th, 1926) the Mechanics Union has been closely connected with Chiang Kai Shek and with his chief lieutenant in Canton, General Li Chi-sen.
For some months before the fight, the provincial government, acting in the name of Chiang Kai Shek, had been bringing pressure to bear upon the trade unions in the All-China Labor Federation. Particularly it had been moving toward the disarmament and dispersement of the armed labor pickets. But while they were disarming the bona fide trade unionists, they were arming the right wingers of the Canton Mechanics Union and inciting them to disruptive activities against the real trade unions. Toward ​the end of January, the Mechanics Union put forward a claim to control the railroad shops and terminals, demanding that the members of the railway workers' union (an industrial organization) should give up these positions to the members of the Mechanics Union. Upon the refusal of the railway union to accept this demand, the Mechanics Union sent its armed troops to the railroad terminal to take possession of it. They were supported by a company of soldiers from the troops of General Li Chi-sen. The Railway Workers Union defended itself. The peasants self-defense corps of the surrounding district also came to their assistance to the number of several thousand. A pitched battle took place in which the railroad workers assisted by the peasants came out victorious.
We also found the same struggle going on inside of every mass organization. This was particularly true of the army. Within the army there was established at the end of 1925, a political department for the purpose of educating the soldiers in the principles of the Kuomintang, and also for carrying on mass propaganda among the population of the new territories being occupied by the nationalist armies. The workers in this political department had in the course of their work developed into quite a solid left wing, against the compromising and reactionary policies of the right wing. It was this department which arranged great mass demonstrations for us at the Whampoo Political-Military Academy. It was quite evident to us that these demonstrations, at which the soldiers and cadets sang the International and shouted such slogans as "Long Live the World Revolution," were not at all to the taste of the staff officers of the army present in Canton. During our presence in Canton, however, these higher officers merely smiled and smiled and spoke fair words. But five weeks after our departure from Canton they arrested most of the workers of the political department and blew out their brains.
3. Counter-Revolution in Kanchow
After leaving Canton we plunged into an atmosphere of even more active civil war. For us this atmosphere crystallized itself around the name of Kanchow, the third ​largest city of Kiangsi province. Days before reaching there we began to hear of events which had spread terror throughout the trade union and peasant movement of the south. At Nananfu on March 16th we had a conference with the leaders of the trade unions and peasant unions. They told us: "The countryside is in terror; the Kuominchun (revolutionary army) has turned against the people. At Kanchow, the Second Division has assassinated the secretary of the General Trade Union and occupied the union offices; the leaders are all in hiding and communication with the city is cut off."
When we had arrived at Canton weeks before we had sent telegrams of greetings to the Nationalist government at Wuhan and to the General Staff of the Revolutionary Army, of which Chiang Kai Shek was chief. It was somewhat ironical that two days after we received the first news of the Kanchow murder, which was committed by order of Chiang Kai Shek, we received a telegram from this renegade dated Kiukiang, March 18th, which read: "I acknowledge with pleasure receipt of your telegram and express my hearty welcome for your coming visit." Signed: Chiang Kai Shek.
We immediately prepared for a thorough investigation of the situation at Kanchow. We sent a telegram to that city addressed to the Magistrate, the Kuomintang and the Trade Unions, announcing our coming and requesting that we should meet with the leaders of all the people's organizations there. As we came down the river towards Kanchow in our boats we saw a large delegation waiting our arrival with banners, music and fireworks. But we had been learning lessons in our short visit to China and we remained upon our boats, requesting a small delegation to visit us before we disembarked. The delegation came; it brought to us the cards of those awaiting us on the wharf; our translator read the cards to us; one after another they were, merchants unions, Chamber of Commerce, bankers' associations, women's culture clubs, magistrates—everything except trade unions or peasant unions. We expressed our surprise at the absence of those organizations in which we naturally had an especial interest and which had been ​in the foreground of all our previous visits. After much questioning on our part we were finally informed that the trade unions had been "temporarily closed." Upon our insisting upon a detailed explanation they finally told us that the trade unions had been suppressed on account of extravagant wage demands which they said went as high as 500 per cent increase, and on account of a conflict between the trade union leaders and the Women's Emancipation League. The murder of Chen Chang-Shu, trade union secretary, they explained was caused by his threat to kill the magistrate. We endeavored during long conversation to obtain from them any word of regret at the situation existing there; they seemed rather exultant than otherwise, and in answer to a dirct question as to whether they did not consider the situation extremely harmful to the revolution, they only answered: "Since the death of Chen there has been order and quiet in the city."
We closed the interview with the refusal to accept their proffered hospitality. On another boat, meanwhile, there had quietly arrived a delegation of Trade Unionists, seven in number, who gave us in full the real story of events. It is very interesting to note the personnel of this first delegation of Kanchow trade unionists who came to us. The seven members were the Executive Committee of the Bank Clerks' Union. To us this was a sort of symbol of the complete unification of all the proletarian elements at Kanchow which had been established under the lea leadership of the dead Chen. Where else in the world can one imagine the Bank Clerks' Union playing a leading role in a civil war, where the propertyless are united on one side against the bloc of all other classes opposing them?
They told us about how a few weeks before, Chiang Kai Shek had dispatched to Kanchow a new garrison, composed of troops newly-recruited from deserters of the Northern armies, the Second Division, headed by a Kuomintang Commissar, named Li-pin. On the evening of March 6th, Li-pin had appeared with a company of soldiers at a trade union meeting being addressed by Chen and placed him under arrest in the name of Marshal Chiang Kai Shek. When the workers, fearing danger, wished to accompany ​Chen to the Magistrate's office they were turned back with the threat of machine gun fire. Chen was unarmed.
The next morning when the workers came to the Magistrate they were given the body of Chen completely riddled with bullets, eighteen of which were still in his body. They found all trade union premises occupied by troops.
The claim that the unions had been demanding wage increases up to 500 per cent was categorically denied by the union leaders; all demands had been carefully adjusted to the economic possibilities of each trade, the very highest demand being for 50 per cent increase (that is, an increase from approximately 14 cents a day, the former wage, to 22 cents a day). The grievance against Chen on the part of the Women's Emancipation League, we learned, consisted in that after this League (a small group of wives and daughters of rich merchants) had refused admittance to a group of trade unionists at a public dramatic entertainment, they had found next day same obscene writing on the wall of the girls' school, and they had blamed this upon Chen. It it rather interesting to note, that when we talked later to the leaders of this Women's League, they justified the murder of Chen on the grounds of this grievance. The entire story as told to us by the Bank Clerks' leaders was later verified by a meeting of the entire trade union executive which met with us on our boat.
I have gone into such great detail in describing the Kanchow situation because it contains in embryo one whole phase of the deep going split that was tearing the Kuomintang into two separate warring bodies throughout China.
4. The Split in the Army
But if it was the Army which had launched the counter-revolution in Kanchow, it was also the Army which played a very active role in changing the situation back again. In the Army, also, the split of the revolutionary forces had penetrated; and troops were active on both sides of the struggle.
​A few hours after we met the trade unionists, we were visited by another delegation, this time three workers of the Political Department of the Army, coming from a regiment newly-arrived in Kanchow. In a few brief words they spoke of arriving two days before, their regret that the Army should be in conflict with the trade unions and peasant unions, their failure to get in touch with the Union leaders because of the latter's fear of the military since the murder of Chen, and their willingness to do anything in their power to change the situation. "But we can do nothing alone," they said; "We must have contact and cooperation with the trade unions."
This was the least difficulty, in our eyes, as we quickly told them; we arranged at once a meeting between the Army representatives and the trade unionists. This occurred the next morning, and to the two groups we proposed that a mass meeting be called by the Army, at which the trade union leaders should also speak, to welcome the International Workers Delegation. This meeting could be made the occasion for open mobilization of the revolutionary population and overthrow of the counter-revolutionary officials of the city. This plan was agreed upon without discussion; all those present rushed away to make preparations, and three hours later the meeting was held.
At one o'clock in the afternoon (17 hours after our arrival in Kanchow) we left our boats to be greeted, not by the bankers and merchants associations who had murdered Chen, but by the trade unionists and the new Army division. With banners flying, brass bands playing, fire crackers popping, we marched to the field where the meeting was to be held. Nobody was sure that the meeting would not end in a pitched battle for control of the city.
At one side of the field, against a wall, was erected the speaking platform. On the wall was hung a large portrait of Sun Yat Sen, flanked on either side by pictures of Marx and Lenin. Below was a paper banner inscribed with revolutionary slogans—ending, as all such banners end now in China, with the slogan of "Long Live the World Revolution."
SOU CHEU GING
Chairman. All-China Labor Federation Chairman. Chinese Seamen's Union Chairman, Hongkong Strike Committee and China's first Minister of Labor.
Letter from Pang Chek-min, Chief of Kuomintang Oversea's Department, recommending Browder to the Chinese in America as one who "has given a great deal of help to the Kuomintang and the Nationalist Government."
Chinese crowds are very emotional; this meeting was the most enthusiastic one I have ever participated in. Out from their hiding came the people's leaders; spoke with us from the platform; and from the meeting, the crowds with their leaders went into the city to re-establish revolutionary order. They were successful without a serious struggle.
Next morning, after 36 hours in Kanchow, our boats resumed their journey down the Kankiang. But we left behind us a different city from that we had found. Counter-revolution had for the time been overcome. Two weeks later, we received a despatch at Hankow, telling of the arrest, trial, and public execution of the murderer of Chen.
In my memory these experiences stand out vividly, not only because of their dramatic quality, but because they contained in a simple, concrete situation, a picture of the condition of a great land of 482 million people. Kanchow was a picture of China.
5. An Idyllic Interlude
Ten hours from Kanchow we stopped for the night at the village of Liangko. All quiet, peaceful. We strolled thru the streets, towards the school on the hillside pointed out to us as the Kuomintang headquarters. At the school we found the secretary of Kuomintang, the school master, surrounded by 40 or 50 young boys who live there.
​While Doriot and I were talking to the teacher, I noticed that the shy, timid youngsters who had been so quiet on our entrance were making quite a noise in the next room. I looked thru the door. There was Tom Mann, the 71-year-old dean of our Delegation, in the center of a regular riot; two boys of about eight years were perched on his shoulders, and he was leading the rest in a song. He was singing a nursery rhyme in English:
"London's burning! London's burning! "Look yonder, look yonder! "Fire, fire! Fire, fire! "Pour on water, pour on water!"
With shining eyes and joyous faces the boys were joining in the song, especially the line "Fire, fire," which they had quickly caught. Tom Mann had made 40 fast friends who will never forget him, I’m sure. The ice was broken, and we were all at home.
A Chinese supper in this big family, eaten with chopsticks, and then a game of football (the school was possessed of an old English pigskin which had seen better days) in which Doriot won excessive admiration for the energy with which he kicked the ball high in the air and clear off the field. A walk around the fields in the dusk, and we returned to meet a delegation of trade union leaders who came to talk with us. The boys disappeared. We thought they had gone to bed.
At ten o'clock we prepared to return to our boat for the night. But we had to wait. Something was being prepared outside. Finally we started. There in the football field was the whole school, with lanterns and illuminations, drums and bugles, drawn up in military formation to escort us thru the dark city streets to the river. We made a glorious procession, and I'm sure the International Delegates were just as pleased, right down to the bottom of their hearts, as were the boys who had arranged the "demonstration."
6. Civil War in Kiangsi Province
For three weeks we had been cut off from all connection with the larger world—no newspaper, nothing but an ​occasional laconic telegram which only deepened the feeling of isolation. Every day the atmosphere of civil war intensified. More desperate struggles were occurring all about us; where open struggle was not occurring, the tension was almost worse than violent battle. What was going on in Hankow, Shanghai, Canton? What were the foreign powers doing? What was coming out of this chaos of wild struggle?
Down the river, the main highway for a province of 25 million population, we came to the city of Kianfu. An ancient sprawling city of three-quarters of a million people, Kianfu seems at first sight to be a piece of ancient China preserved unchanged from the days when Britons still went about in undressed skins and wielded stone clubs. Only some electric lights gave a modern touch. The only modern industrial workers in the city are the 19 men who run the electric light plant; otherwise, the economic structure of the city seems at first inspection to come unchanged thru the thousands of years. Had the revolution penetrated Kianfu?
It had, with a vengeance! In spite of the fact that in the entire city there were only 19 workers in modern industry (workers in the electric light plant) yet this city was entirely under the control of the left wing of the Kuomintang, having a Communist magistrate and protected by an army garrison of which the officers were all left wingers of the Kuomintang or Communists. The mass organization basis for this left government consisted of the trade unions of coolies and artisans (handicraft workers) and the peasant unions. This was the only spot we found in China which was completely left wing. Everywhere else control was either in the hands of the right wing or of a combination of left wing and wavering centrist elements. I emphasize this situation in Kianfu because it is the best concrete instance that I know of to illustrate the revolutionary role of those sections of the proletariat (coolies and artisans) who have as yet been affected by modern industry only in a negative way. Kianfu was a revolutionary oasis in a desert of counter-revolution in the province, so far as governmental power was concerned. ​But from this point on we were again immersed in civil war. At Changshu-ki we found the trade unions existing in a semi-legal condition, the city being under the control of the chief bankers. Here we received our first direct news from the center of revolutionary developments, the Wuhan cities. This was in the form of copy of a manifesto issued by the Hupeh provincial trade union on March 15th, publicly denouncing Chiang Kai Shek as a counter-revolutionist.
Nanchang, our next stop, is a great city, capital of Kiangsi province. Here we had trouble getting contact with the trade unions because actual fighting had been going on around their offices. We found soldiers guarding the trade union premises. Upon reaching the officers in charge we learned that these soldiers were part of the "left wing army." They were protecting the trade unions from the assaults of the "right wing army" and from hired hooligans. The government was completely in the hands of the tools of Chiang Kai Shek. The army garrison was sharply divided into two almost equal divisions; one supported Chiang Kai Shek, the other supporting the left. Between these two armies existed a state of armed truce.
The city Kuomintang, based upon direct contact with the party membership, had elected a complete left wing leadership. This body directed the revolutionary struggle. The provincial Kuomintang, personal appointees of Chiang Kai Shek, controlled the government and directed the counter-revolution. At the moment of our arrival the leaders of the city Kuomintang were directing the struggle from secret headquarters; a printers' strike was being broken by armed force on the part of the reactionaries; the city was under martial law.
We received here the first news of the meeting of the central Kuomintang held in Hankow on March 11th. We learned of the reorganization of the government, the removal of Chiang Kai Shek from his positions of civil and party power, and entrance of the Communists into the government.
The people of Nanchang were seething with revolt against the right wing government. They were only ​awaiting the signal to sweep them out of power. In spite of the martial law and prohibition of all meetings, the city Kuomintang and the left wing army immediately arranged a mass demonstration for the International Workers' Delegation. This was held, the big meeting being followed by a procession through the streets of the city, to the slogan of "Down with the reactionary provincial government," and "Down with Chiang Kai Shek."
Kiukiang was our next stop. This city is located at the junction of the Kan River with the Yangtse. Here is located a British concession, the administration of which had just been taken over by the Nationalist government a week before our arrival. On the broad waters of the river we saw the gray gunboats and cruisers of Britain, United States, and Japan, sullenly threatening the Chinese revolution.
The trade unions and city Kuomintang of Kiukiang had just been burying their dead, killed in a pitched battle with the reactionaries a week before our arrival. Here as elsewhere under civil war conditions we had the experience of the actual street fighting being suspended during our visit while the leaders of both sides talked to us. The tactic of the right wing was always to prevent us from getting information, and to endeavor to occupy all of our time with formalities, banquets, and entertainments. The left wing forces always came to us with complete and systematic reports about the number of workers organized in each occupation and industry, the scales of wages, the conditions of the peasants, and their unions, the exact status of the international struggle in the Kuomintang, etc. At Kiukiang we had a symbol of the class forces operating on each side, during a meeting in which leaders from right and left were present with us. The secretary of the general trade unions was giving us a long, detailed report of the working and living conditions of the people; the personal representative of Chiang Kai Shek, a fat bourgeois army officer, partially under the influence of strong liquor, set back in his chair and went to sleep during the interview. His contribution, later, to the work of the International Delegation was to present us with a bas​ket of fruit and a propaganda speech to the effect that "China needs a strong man and the only strong man is Chiang Kai Shek."
We learned later that a week after we left Kiangsi province, the people had swept Chiang Kai Shek's agents from power and forced them all to flee to Shanghai.