Jung Chang - Mao - The Unknown Story

Although there is no doubt that the notice was a plant, Chou’s name and authority were undermined. Mao was thus able to exploit this vulnerability. His strategy was not to try to unseat Chou, which would have been unrealistic, but to get Chou to back him to sideline Zhu De and regain control of the army.

In early March, Mao was invited to a crisis meeting 125 km west of Ruijin, outside the city of Ganzhou, which the Red Army had been trying in vain to capture. The minute the invitation arrived Mao hurried off, even though it was raining hard. Gui-yuan tried to get him to wait until it stopped, but he insisted on leaving at once, and was drenched in an instant. He raced on horseback through the night, and when he got to the meeting weighed straight in to criticize the military command. Most other leaders were in no mood to listen to a lecture from him, and no one suggested he should be reinstated as head of the army.

But now that Mao was back with the army, he hung on there, and started to put his scheme into action. The Reds soon had to call off the siege of Ganzhou, and the majority agreed they should fight their way westwards to link up with another Red pocket on the Jiangxi — Hunan border. Mao, however, insisted they should go in the opposite direction. As he dug his heels in, it fell to Chou En-lai, as Party chief, to make a decision. Chou opted to endorse both plans, but to send only one-third of the army in the direction favored by the majority, while dispatching the greater part of the army with Mao in the direction Mao wanted. Chou thus allowed Mao to snatch back control of two-thirds of the army, against the wishes of most of the leadership.

The most likely explanation for this extraordinary decision is that Chou felt it was better, probably vital, to placate Mao. He knew that Mao had threatened to frame both Peng De-huai and Zhu De (plus another Party leader who had opposed Mao, Xiang Ying) with accusations of being “AB.” Mao had not batted an eyelid about slaughtering tens of thousands of loyal Reds who had stood in his way. Mao, in fact, was quite capable of having planted the recantation notice himself. He had displayed a penchant for manipulating the press; for example, creating the rumor of his own death. And why did the fake recantation come right at the time when Chou had just supplanted Mao as the No. 1 in the Red state? Chou could not afford to make an enemy out of Mao.

Chou’s fear of Mao dated from now and was never to leave him. Mao was repeatedly to dangle the planted recantation over Chou, right up to Chou’s death more than four decades later.

Mao had told Chou and the military leadership that he wanted to go northeast. After he set off, he suddenly changed route and led his two-thirds of the army to the southeast coast, only informing Chou when he was well on the way, making it impossible for Chou to say no. Later Mao’s colleagues condemned the excursion as an interruption that had “delayed our plans.”

In making this detour, Mao had the collaboration of his old accomplice Lin Biao, the man who had ganged up with him before to sabotage Zhu De. Lin was the core commander of the force assigned to Mao. On 20 April this force took the prosperous city of Zhangzhou, very near the coast, which was feebly defended and which Mao had targeted for personal reasons.

One was to gain prestige in the wider world, as Zhangzhou was well connected internationally. Very much with newspaper coverage in mind, Mao entered the city on a white horse, looking uncharacteristically smart in a Sun Yat-sen suit and topee. The army marched in four columns, with bugles blowing. Mao sent his colleagues press cuttings that he collected about himself, reporting his exploits in terms like: “Red Army in Zhangzhou; whole coast shaken; over 100,000 flee”; “28 foreign gunboats gathering in Amoy.” Mao was well aware that the higher his profile, the more obliging Moscow would be. Indeed, when his exasperated colleagues moved to oust him later that year, Moscow restrained them, citing this very reason. As their representative in Shanghai, the German Arthur Ewert, reassured the Russians, he had immediately stressed to Ruijin that “Mao Tse-tung is already a high-profile leader … And so … we have protested against Mao’s removal …”

But the key reason for Mao to go to Zhangzhou was to amass a private fortune. A large number of crates marked with huge characters, “To be delivered to Mao Tse-tung personally,” went back to Jiangxi. They filled a whole truck, and when the road ran out they were carried by porters. They were said to contain books Mao had bought or looted, and some did. But many contained gold, silver and jewels. They were secretly carried to the top of a mountain by porters, and stored inside a cave by two trusted bodyguards, supervised by Mao’s brother Tse-min. The entrance was sealed, and only these few knew about the haul. The Party leadership was kept in the dark. Mao had bought himself insurance in case he fell out with the Party — and with Moscow.

WHILE MAO HAD been lingering in Zhangzhou, in May 1932 Chiang Kai-shek was gearing up for another “annihilation expedition,” his fourth, deploying half a million troops. The setting up of the Red state had convinced him that the Communists were not going to unite with him against Japan. On 28 January that year, Japan had attacked Shanghai, China’s key commercial and industrial city, 1,000 km from Manchuria. This time, Chinese troops fought back, taking tremendous casualties. As Japan’s military objectives in the Shanghai area at this stage were limited, the League of Nations was able to broker a ceasefire. Throughout the crisis, which lasted till late April, the Reds worked single-mindedly to expand their own territory. After the crisis subsided, Chiang resuscitated his policy of “Domestic Stability First,” and geared up to attack the Red bases again.

When they received this intelligence, the CCP leadership cabled Mao to bring the army back to the Red base without delay. Mao replied that he did not believe Chiang would “launch an offensive like the third expedition last year,” and told the Party its “assessment and military strategy are utterly wrong.” He refused to leave Zhangzhou until nearly a month had elapsed and Chiang’s intention was made public — and Mao proven wrong.

On 29 May he had to return to Red Jiangxi. Thanks to Mao having led them into an isolated cul-de-sac, the tens of thousands of troops with him had to march back over 300 km, in searing heat, and a large number fell ill and died. En route, they had to fight an extra enemy — the Cantonese, who had previously avoided fighting the Reds. The Cantonese had adopted an independent position vis-à-vis Chiang — indeed, had been hatching a plot against him. But Mao’s foray into Zhangzhou had alarmed them: it was only about 80 km from their own province, and the proximity of the danger goaded them into action. Near a town called Water Mouth, the Red Army had to fight one of its few really tough battles, suffering unusually high casualties. The Red soldiers who fought most impressively were some recent mutineers from the Nationalist army, who went into battle stripped to the waist and brandishing giant knives. †

In spite of causing all these unnecessary casualties and hardships for the Red Army, not only was Mao not reprimanded, he went on the offensive by demanding that he be given the highest post in the army, that of chief political commissar. Mao can only have been encouraged by Moscow’s unbelievably indulgent attitude towards him. While Mao was dallying in Zhangzhou, the Party leadership, Chou included, had collectively cabled Moscow, calling Mao’s actions “hundred percentage right opportunism” and “absolutely contrary to instructions of the C.I. [Comintern].” But Moscow’s response was that they must at all costs keep Mao on board, and maintain his profile and status. It was clear that Moscow regarded Mao as indispensable, and the Kremlin consistently showed a regard for him that it did not bestow on any other leader. If it came to a showdown, Moscow would most likely take Mao’s side.