Alexander Pantsov Archive | ETOL Main Page
Chinese Trotskyists in Soviet Russia
Changes in the study programs took place gradually and many general points of theory continued to be taught in the spirit of the ideas of Lenin and Trotsky (though, to be sure, without references to the latter’s contributions to their development). The changes that took place related especially to the areas of revolutionary tactics and the construction of socialism in the USSR. There were also special topics in the program dedicated to criticising Trotsky’s theoretical and practical “mistakes” in relation to both the Russian and the international workers’ movement. [85] The “Stalinization” of the university also found expression in the introduction of a special course in Leninism (at CUTE in 1924 and at UTC in 1926) based on Stalin’s books The foundations of Leninism and Problems of Leninism. At UTC this course was taken by second-year students and was clearly taken very seriously by the university authorities. The chief lecturer was Pavel Mif himself and rated by the number of hours spent on it (104 per semester), it was ranked third, after party-building (146 hours) and political economy (106 hours). [86] In addition, there were seminars on Leninism organised in a lecture group. [87]
An ongoing problem in the teaching process was the lack of suitable material in Oriental languages and above all in Chinese. CUTE only really started to get to grips with the question of “Easternising” social and economic studies at the end of 1927. [88] Eastern topics formed only 35 per cent of the general history course in 1935 (in previous years it had been as low as 10 per cent). [89] The situation was no better at UTC, where the authorities only began to address the question of “Sinicization” of the study program (even such an issue had to be approached “in stages”) in March 1928. This is partly explicable by the undeveloped state of Marxist scholarship on Eastern affairs at this time, but the result was that students learned more Western history than Chinese, which gave the majority a tendency toward dogmatism.
There was, in truth, very little modern political, economic, and philosophical literature available in the Chinese language at this time, which fact obviously exacerbated the problem of organizing effective tuition for the Chinese revolutionaries. As a result, the schools turned to preparing their own textbooks and other literature. In 1921, the first rector of CUTE, G.I. Broido, directed that lecture materials should be translated into Chinese. [90] UTC/CUTC followed suit. The resulting translations of lectures and course summaries were diffused by various means, being duplicated, printed on wall newspapers, or simply circulated in manuscript. In 1925, a group of students wrote and published a special handbook/guide to translating lecture materials on political economy. It became the practice to publish extracts from this material in the Moscow based Chinese-language daily newspaper Ch’ien-chin pao (Forward) which had a print run from 3,000 to 6,000. [91]
The ongoing task of translating the works of Marx, Engels, and Lenin and the documents of the Comintern and the Bolshevik party continued alongside the above work. At the outset, students prepared short summaries and expositions of Lenin’s views, passing on later to the systematic translation of his writings. [92] These were printed and published either by the typographical departments of CUTE and UTC/CUTC, or by the “Chinese Worker” publishing house which was, in reality, a department of Gosizdat, the state publisher. Many works were published during the 1920s, including the Manifesto of the Communist Party, Capital (first volume only), The Origins of the Family, Private Property and the State, Socialism, Utopian and Scientific, Dialectics of Nature, Plekhanov’s Foundations of Marxism, Economic Teaching of Karl Marx by Kautsky, and Luxembourg’s The Accumulation of Capital and Introduction to Political Economy. The following works by Lenin were also published: State and Revolution, Imperialism, Highest Stage of Capitalism, Two Tactics of Social Democracy in the Democratic Revolution, Left Wing Communism, an Infantile Disorder, The Proletarian Revolution and the Renegade Kautsky, The Agrarian Program of Russian Social Democracy in the First Russian Revolution 1905–7, Karl Marx, The History of the Question of Dictatorship, Marxism and Insurrection, On the Organisational Principles of the Bolshevik Party, The War in China, The Chinese Revolution, The Awakening of Asia, Backward Europe and Advanced Asia, The Three Sources and Constituent Parts of Marxism, The Immediate Tasks of Soviet Power, and A Great Beginning, as well as several articles on the agrarian question and his speech to the second congress of the Comintern. Handbooks of quotations from Lenin were also issued, for example, Lenin on the Soviets and Lenin on the Revolution in the East. A collection of articles by Lenin and Stalin on the national and colonial question was also published. The collected Resolutions of the Second Comintern Congress (editor A.A. Shiik [93]) and other programmatic documents of the Comintern and the party were published. The collection China and Chinese Youth is of interest because of its editor, Ho Chi Minh. The following works by Stalin were published: The Foundations of Leninism, On the Opposition, On Leninism, Questions and Answers, Report of the Central Committee to the Fourteenth Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (Bolshevik), On the Social-Democratic Tendency within Our Party, Discussion with the Students of Sun Yat-sen University, and The Revolution in China and the Tasks of the Comintern. UTC also published two readers on Leninism and a number of works by Bukharin, including some on China.
At this time some works by oppositionists were still being published, such as On the Anniversary of the Death of Sun Yat-sen by Leon Trotsky, The History of the Revolutionary Movement in China by Karl Radek, and Sun Yat-sen, 1866–1925, also by Radek. A Textbook of European History was produced by Prigozhin and Gingorn, and a book, Lectures on the History and Development of Social Forms by A.P. Zhakov, who were all teachers at UTC.
To acquaint Chinese students with the basic documents of the Comintern, the Soviet Communist Party, and the CCP, and to educate them about international affairs and the problems of economic construction in the USSR – in other words, to indoctrinate them with a Stalinist outlook – UTC produced a Chinese-language magazine called Kuo-chi p’ing-lun (International Review). Its contents were broadly similar to those of the Comintern organ Inprecor. Later, CUTC published the weekly Mei-chou yao-lan (Weekly Cradle) and Kung-ch’an tsa-chih which featured works by Chinese Communist leaders and articles about life at CUTC.
CUTE and UTC/CUTC did not simply have a teaching role, they also carried out a considerable amount of research work, undertaken by both staff and students. In 1922–23, a social science research bureau, actually a department of the All-Union Research Association for Oriental Studies, was established at CUTE. In spring of 1924, a bureau of Oriental studies and colonial politics was established under the sponsorship of CUTE, and set itself the task of assembling a library of Orientalist material, intended to be used mainly as a teaching aid. By 1926, despite the book famine, they had collected 5,000 volumes. The bureau obtained all the latest Orientalist publications, including Western ones, and had subscriptions to 123 periodicals (82 magazines and 41 newspapers). [94] Chinese students were allowed to use the library under supervision of bureau staff members. In 1926, the bureau helped publish an economic atlas of China, detailing its exploitation by the imperialist powers.
One method of involving students in research was the so-called newspaper circle, which originated at CUTE. In 1927, there were five of these groups operating (not all of them made up of Chinese students). The students, taking as their starting point concrete material originating from China, would put together press bulletins, commentaries, diagrams, and maps. [95] In January 1925, the “Scientific Research Group of CUTE” was founded and attempted to draw into its work not only lecturers and historians but also students. Student representatives were co-opted onto its governing body. The statement of aims of this group talked about the necessity of assembling and developing material for assessment, possible translation and publication. [96]
In November 1927, on the basis of this research group, the Scientific Research Association for the Study of National and Colonial Problems was founded. It operated for two years within CUTE [97] and played a major role in the teaching process of the university. Its tasks included the development of Marxist-Leninist work on Eastern social and economic questions, and also the training of teachers and research workers for Eastern Communist universities. It was divided into two departments, one with responsibility for the Soviet Far East and the other for overseas territories. In 1929, the latter produced a countrywide course on Sinkiang (Xinjiang) which was given not only at CUTE but also in other institutes. [98]
As regards research work at UTC, shortly after the foundation of the university, a China research bureau was established. Its stated aims were to compile a dictionary of modern terminology and to digest two new major works on Chinese history (one of which was to be written by the well-known Chinese reformer Liang Ch’i-ch’ao) as well as producing press reviews, and so on. [99] In February 1926, the Agitprop Department of the Soviet Communist Party’s Central Committee decided to set up a scientific research institute on China, based at the university. [100] Subsequent delays meant that finally, on January 1, 1928, the China research bureau was relaunched as the Scientific Research Institute for Chinese Studies. [101] A significant proportion of the Chinese students took part in the work of the bureau and at any time could receive individual tuition from staff members who included M. Volin (first director of the institute), S.A Dalin (in 1927, director of the China research bureau), Pavel A Mif (who succeeded M. Volin as director), M.G. Andreev, M.M. Kazanin, G.S. Kara-Mursa, and G.B. Ehrenburg. Ch’u Ch’iu-pai was one of the “active members” of the institute and Wang Jo-fei, Teng Chung-hsia, and Chang Kuo-t’ao from time to time took part in its work. [102]
Soviet specialists from the Scientific Research Institute for Chinese Studies and UTC/CUTC worked together on the complex problem of Chinese writing reform. [103] A group of university staff, headed by I.M. Oshanin and assisted by students, undertook the standardisation of modern social, economic, and political terminology in the Chinese language. [104] One of the institute’s most prominent workers, V.S. Kolokolov, oversaw the publication of a Chinese-Russian dictionary, which, though published in 1927, is still considered one of the best of its kind in the field.
The primary aim of the education process was, of course, to develop and improve the party-political work of the Chinese students, to solidify their conviction of the correctness of the political choice they had made, and their devotion to the Communist party (that is, in the first place, to its leaders). Until the summer of 1926, this side of things was controlled by the Moscow Committee of the CCP and the Chinese Komsomol, whose leaders, like many adherents of Communism in China, held radical views about party organisation and the training of party militants. The period in which the leaders of these committees held sway became known as the “Rafaelovshina” after the pseudonym of Jen Chuo-hsuan, Moscow secretary of the CCP in 1925–26. [105] It was also referred to as the Moscow Regionovshina. [106] As the prominent Chinese economist Sun Yeh-fang recalled in 1941: “Jen Chuo-hsuan thought that theoretical work was for party leaders only.” [107] In a pamphlet written by the Rafaelites, A Concrete Policy for the Work of Training the Chinese Communist Branch and the Chinese Socialist Youth Corps in Moscow [108], an effective ban on Chinese students spending time on theoretical work was defended. Chinese students taking their first steps toward a study of socialism were not allowed to study the Russian language. Concerning the inner-party regime, the pamphlet had this to say:
“We should destroy family, local, and national concepts ... Destroy unity based on sentiment – sentimental unity is petty bourgeois unity – we will build our unity on Party interests ... We must employ in our work for the Party the same kind of interest we have in love and literature – love and literature are the foundations of romanticism.” [109]
This declaration is strikingly similar to that of Bakunin and Nechaev in The Revolutionary Catechism:
“A revolutionary is a doomed man – he had no interests of his own, no business, no feelings, attachments, property, not even a name ... all tender, feminine feelings of homeland, friendship, love, and gratitude must be displaced in him by a single cold passion for revolutionary work ... the nature of a true revolutionary excludes all romanticism, sentimentality, enthusiasm, and passion.” [110]
After the rout of the Rafaelovshina in spring of 1926 [111], the leadership of party work among the Chinese students passed into the hands of Soviet Communists.
Party work from this time on mainly took the form of open meetings and discussion groups on current political issues in which practically all the students took part. The discussions, which were guided by the party leadership, took in international affairs, problems of building socialism in the USSR, and Comintern and Soviet Communist Party resolutions, as well as issues facing their own universities. The practice of criticism and self-criticism was encouraged within the universities and each student was obliged to maintain an individual diary, a Register of Group Work, which contained records of their academic progress and, in addition, critical comments on themselves and other students. [112] It is not difficult to imagine what this developed into in practice. The diaries have been preserved in the archives and are full of denunciations of fellow students. As Stalin’s supporters strengthened their grip on UTC/CUTC and CUTE, the practice of informing on one’s fellows was elevated to the status of party policy and became particularly prevalent.
In sum, we can say that the ideological training given to Chinese students in the USSR had a contradictory character. On the one hand, it enabled them to make the transition from intuitive patriotism and revolutionary feeling to conscious anti-imperialism. And for many it awakened an interest in theory which was never extinguished. On the other hand, during their long stay in the USSR, they were heavily influenced by Soviet Communists, who did everything in their power to mould them in their own image. And it was precisely at that time, when Chinese students were being educated in large numbers in the Soviet Union, that Russian radical Marxism began to undergo a profound evolution. The Stalinists who now controlled the international schools set about indoctrinating their wards with great zeal. In doing so, however, they came up against very real opposition, especially from those Chinese students who, despite the dramatic circumstances, never lost their capacity for independent thought (although, it must be said, their differences remained entirely within the framework of Communist doctrine).
Strange as it may seem, documentary evidence supports the view that the formation of the Chinese Left Opposition was triggered by the activities of Soviet Stalinists who, as remarked earlier, insisted on drawing Chinese students at international schools into their struggle against the Trotskyist-Zinovievist minority in the Soviet Communist Party. Until then, there were no supporters of the Opposition among the Chinese at UTC or CUTE for the simple reason that they knew nothing about the debate within the Soviet party. This is how Meng Ch’ing-shu (alias Meng Ching-shu, UTC, 1927–29) recalls the start of the anti-Trotskyist campaign at UTC:
Previously at Sun Yat-sen University there had been no open struggle against the Trotskyists as it had until then been an affair internal to the Soviet Communist Party. But in 1926, Sun Yat-sen University booked a hall at CUTE for a meeting to celebrate the fifteenth anniversary of October 10 (the outbreak of the Hsin-hai revolution). When Radek began to speak from the platform, Berman, a teacher from CUTE, and others began to shout slogans, “Down with Radek” “Down with Trotsky”, “We’re on the side of Leninism”, “Long live the Central Committee,” etc.
The following day Radek called a meeting of the rectorate at UTC. The participants were Radek himself, the pro-rector Mif, director of studies Agor, party secretary Ignatov, and student union president Golubev (Ch’en Shao-yu, Wang Ming). Radek tried to get the meeting to send a letter to CUTE protesting about the “obstruction” of the UTC memorial meeting and the “insult” to its rector. But Mif, Agor and Ignatov voted against. When Radek asked for Golubev’s opinion Ignatov intervened, saying, “As a party member, you should be with us.” (Ch’en) Shao-yu replied that he had not yet looked into the matter and therefore would not vote. Ignatov was pleased with this response and after the meeting described to Shao-yu the struggle against the Trotskyists in great detail. He explained that previously it had been the policy not to bring this matter out into the open at UTC but that the Central Committee had decided to spread the struggle to the university in the near future. A few days later, an enlarged meeting of the party committee was convened to discuss the struggle against Trotskyism at UTC.
At that time all the students knew about Trotsky and the Trotskyists was what was contained in the history course on the Soviet Communist Party (Meng has in mind Trotsky’s line in the pre-February period, his evaluation of October, etc.) We knew nothing of their activities in 1924–26. Therefore, after the party committee meeting, a general meeting of all Communists and young Communists at the university was called. Party secretary Ignatov addressed the gathering, delivering a lecture on Trotskyism. In this way the intense struggle against Trotskyism at the university began. [113]
The Stalinists employed the same methods as in their campaign among the broader party masses. The international schools were plunged into a constant round of meetings and worked up into an atmosphere of hysteria. Teachers who held oppositional views were subjected to public humiliation. Most worked at UTC where Radek was rector. Apart from him, there were about ten oppositionists on the staff, including (on the evidence of the archives) Gingorn, Dalin, Dorofeev, A.P. and M.P. Zhakov, Mazunin, Polyakov, Prigozhin, and Bella Epstein. [114] The majority were social scientists and worked in the departments of History of the Development of Social Forms, History of the Chinese Revolutionary Movement, and General History of the West. The most prominent was M.P. Zhakov, leader of the Opposition in the Khamovnicheskii district of Moscow where UTC was situated. [115] At CUTE, Trotsky’s supporters included the military studies teacher Dreitser and the researcher Zurabov. [116]
Judging from the recollections of Meng Ch’ing-shu, the Stalinists clearly expected the Chinese students to play the role of extras in the struggle against the Opposition. The students were expected to criticise Trotsky and his followers merely on the say-so of his irreconcilable enemies. Reading Opposition material was forbidden and the students were constantly reminded of the necessity to observe strict discipline and subordinate themselves to the leadership. In these circumstances, naturally enough, a large proportion of the students decided to toe the Comintern line. But others fell prey to doubts and wavering and felt an increasing desire to examine for themselves the Opposition’s documents and get to the root of the questions raised by Trotsky, Zinoviev, and Radek. Naturally they turned to their teachers in the first instance, and to the party committee and the China research bureau. But the supporters of Stalin and Bukharin who dominated these organisations were unlikely to be helpful. They refused to let the students have Opposition documents. (In fact, they themselves quite often did not possess and, in some cases, had never seen such documents.) If a student gave any hint of disagreement with the Comintern line, the teacher was quite likely to accuse him of being under the influence of the ‘Trotskyists’. [117] The most persistently curious students began to make approaches to the oppositionists among the teaching staff. Until April 1927, however, it has to be said that their interest in Trotskyist ideas remained purely academic.
The situation was changed radically by Chiang Kai-shek’s coup of April 12, 1927. This came as an earthquake to the young Chinese Communists. Naturally, events in their homeland were close to their hearts and the shock was intensified by the fact that right up to the moment of the “betrayal” by the leadership of the National Revolutionary Army (NRA), none of them were prepared for it (neither indeed, were the majority of the Soviet party’s Central Committee). The trauma experienced by many is expressed in this letter to the Central Committee from the oppositionists V. Kasparova and G. Shklovskii: “Relying on the confident and reassuring tone of Pravda, many of us considered the predictions of the Opposition on the impending and inevitable betrayal of the Chinese revolution by Chiang Kai-shek to be unfounded and alarmist. For this reason Chiang’s coup and the treason of the national bourgeoisie has shaken the party to its very foundations.” [118] The doubts which had been welling up in the critically-thinking section of the Chinese student body, developed into outright rejection of the Stalino-Bukharinist line on China. “I first began to waver ideologically at CUTC [119] in April or May 1927 – at the time of the report on China by Cde. (Comrade) Martinov of the ECCI and on the occasion of Chiang Kai-shek’s betrayal,” Ch’i Shu-kung (also known as Chi Shu-kung and Chi Pu-kung), one of the first Chinese oppositionists, later revealed under interrogation.
I thought that Comrade Martinov was wrong to oppose the arming of the workers and peasants at the time of the Hong Kong strike in 1925–26. [120] This view was shared by two other students in the fourth group, Elizarov and Yurev. Since the Trotskyist Prigozhin had spoken out against Martinov at a meeting, we, that is, I, Nekrasov, Elizarov and Yurev, approached Prigozhin for clarification. We also approached other Trotskyists, Zhakov and Gingorn. All were teachers at CUTC. Prigozhin began to supply us with Trotskyist documents and literature, clandestine leaflets, and so on, which we read, and in this way our Trotskyist ideology was formed. [121]
The two UTC students referred to, Elizarov and Yurev, were, respectively, Chiang Ching-kuo (the son of Chiang Kai-shek) [122] and a certain Hsu Yun-tso, All three students were members of the Komsomol at the time and many documents attest to the depth of their feelings about the tragedy which had befallen the Communist movement in China. As summer and autumn approached, a number of other students came round to the Opposition, including Wang Wen-hui, Wang Chih-hao, Wen Yueh, Li Kuang-ya, Lin Ai-min, Lu Yuan (alias Shou Shih, I Pai, Lu I-yüan), Liu Jen-shou, Liang Kan-ch’iao, Hsii Cheng-an, Hsiao Ch’ang-pin (alias Chih Ch’i), Feng Ch’iang, Huang Chu, Chu Huai-te, Ch’en Ch’i, and Yang Hua.po. Strangely enough, the Opposition also attracted a KMT member, Teng I-sheng. Oppositional sentiments were also expressed, though not so actively as in the case of the above named students, by Kao Heng (alias Kuan Yu), Ke Ch’ung-e, Sung Feng-ch’un, Feng Yu-hsiang’s son Feng Hung-kuo, Tseng Hung-i, and also, apparently, by Pei Yün-feng and Tung Ju-ch’eng (alias Tung Tzu-ch’eng or Tung Chien-p’ing) [123], Ou Chiu-hsien, Tu Ch’ing-ch’i (alias Tu Wei-chih), Ch’en Yuan-tao, and Tung I-hsiang could be classed as waverers. Meng Ch’ing-shu also recalls that one of the “openly Trotskyist” students at UTC went under the name of Roy (according to UTC documents, a student called Kuo Shou-hua went under this name). As regards students from other colleges, the most prominent was the veteran CCP member Liu Jen-ching (who studied at the International Lenin School under the pseudonym Lenskii). Another, Wang P’ing-i (studied at CUTE and UTC under the pseudonyms Ozolin and Elizavetin), worked with the anti-Stalinist oppositionists within the Soviet Communist Party and later became one of the leaders of the Trotskyist movement in China itself. [124] According to some sources, Kuo Miao-ken, a student on the military-political course at CUTE, expressed sympathy with the views of the Opposition. Other who showed some sympathy to the Opposition were Lo Han (CUTE, UTC) [125], and the CUTE student Tuan Tzu-liang. [126]
Published histories of Chinese Trotskyism and memoirs of those who took part in these events invariably list among the original supporters of Trotsky in Moscow those who subsequently became leaders of the Trotskyist movement in China itself – people such as Ou Fang, Chang Te (alias Chang Wei), Shih Tang, Ch’en I-mou, and Li Hsüeh-lei. [127] These names, however, appear in none of the contemporary documents that I have been able to locate in the archives of the Moscow international schools, including personal notes made by the students themselves. It is most probable that the above names were pseudonyms, adopted by activists from UTC only on their return to active political work in China. The biographies of a number of UTC militants such as Wang Chih-hao, Li Kuang-ya, Lin Ai-min, Feng Ch’iang, Chu Huai-te, and Yang Hua-po fit more or less with what we know of the aforementioned Trotskyist leaders.
As is evident, the first Chinese supporters of the Opposition were few in number; in August 1927 at UTC, for example, including sympathisers and waverers, they numbered just over thirty or 10 percent of the student body. [128] Of these, around fifteen were more or less known as such at UTC. At least that was the figure (“I personally knew of fifteen”) mentioned at a meeting by M. Szhukar, a teacher at UTC. [129] The most active oppositionists appear to have been Feng Ch’iang, Chu Huai-te, Liang Kan-ch’iao, and Lu Yuan. The last mentioned, judging from his personal file and educational record, was one of the most sophisticated Marxists among the students. Before his arrival in Moscow (with the first group of students on November 23, 1925), he had studied Marxist and Bolshevik literature for three years at Shanghai University, an institution set up in October 1922 by the CCP. [130] It was him that Sheng Yueh had in mind when he recalled a certain Trotskyist at UTC by the name of Lu Yen [131] who was “the most well-versed in theory amongst the Trotskyists of Sun Yat-sen University.” [132] Another five of the oppositionists had studied at Chinese universities before arriving in the USSR – Feng Ch’iang and Sung Feng-ch’un at Peking University; Wang Chih-hao at Peking Pedagogical University; Ke Ch’ung-e at a university in Tientsin; and Ch’en Ch’i, who completed part of a university course. [133]
A number of oppositionists held leading posts in the UTC Komsomol which bears witness to their having enjoyed a certain authority among their fellow students. Chu Huai-te, for example, was secretary of the second year Komsomol committee until November 1927. [134] Huang Chu and Ch’en Ch’i also held Komsomol posts. [135]
So what was the nature of the oppositional work carried out by these young Chinese followers of Trotsky? To begin with, they busied themselves with translating and diffusing documents: the Appeal of the United Opposition, open letters from Trotsky and Zinoviev addressed to the Politburo and the ECCI, and their articles on the Chinese revolution. But in this first period, they were not so concerned to make propaganda among their fellow students as to influence the leadership of the CCP. The literature they translated was dispatched to its Central Committee. [136] They restricted themselves to ideological struggle and made no attempt to set up their own organisation (either inside or outside the party). “It was simply a group of like-minded individuals,” recalled Ch’i Shu-kung. [137]
Naturally they combined their propaganda work with some agitation among the students, using wall newspapers and posters (Chiang Ching-kuo was a particularly active fly-poster) [138], intervening at party and Komsomol meetings and speaking in class to defend, insofar as they were permitted, the platform of the Opposition. They began to intensively canvass individual support, using the Chinese question as the main issue, since this was the terrain on which they were most confident and the question which troubled ordinary students the most. But they also raised other questions, such as the growing bureaucratization of the party-state apparatus in the USSR, and they spoke of the necessity to struggle for reform of the party and against “Stalin’s White Guard regime.” They called for a change in the Stalino-Bukharinist line in the countryside toward the peasantry and in the cities toward the working class. They also raised other international issues. [139]
Judging from the documents that have survived, they did not develop political or theoretical positions of their own, but simply popularised the conceptions of the Trotskyite-Zinovievite Opposition. We can judge the intensity of their work from the denunciations which from time to time found their way to the UTC party committee – the work of ever vigilant student-Stalinists. “Our oppositionists not only carry on their work among us but also among the KMT,” reads one of these:
Last week Comrades Ogarev (Lu Yuan) and Lastochkin (Liang Kan.ch’iao) tried to win over Ch’iu (?), Te(?), and Ying(?) on the train to Moscow. Comrade Ogarev said: “Comrade Radek is right on the Chinese question and the Comintern has made tactical mistakes.” The students were sympathetic to his point of view and Lastochkin told them if they had any concrete questions, he could pass them on to Radek. At a meeting of the CCP fraction of the university KMT committee, Comrade Platonov (Li Yueh-t’ing) stated that Ogarev recently tried to win him over and said “if you want to read Opposition documents, I can let you have some.” [140]
In another statement made to a party investigatory committee, it is related how “in a discussion with A. Zhakov in a seminar, all supported his opponent Pogorelov (Ch’in Pang-hsien), except for Leonidov (Lin Ai-min). Comrade Leonidov declared that ‘the CCP had done nothing to prevent Chiang Kai-shek’s treachery, and the mistakes of the CCP had allowed Chiang to disarm the Shanghai workers’.” [141]
The author of another such document alleged that:
Polevoi (Teng I-sheng) carried out oppositional agitation and propaganda among the masses at the Hotel Passade. He said that the Chinese comrades do not understand the question of the Chinese revolution; that Russia is a dictatorship under Stalin and the dictatorship of the proletariat no longer exists (this took place in November 1927). He said the present line of the Chinese revolution demanded a different policy and when the other comrades confronted him, he himself admitted that he was an oppositionist. [142]
In all their activities, the young Chinese internationalists could rely on the support of Russian adherents of the Trotsky-Zinoviev bloc, primarily their own instructors at UTC who, right up to the start of the arrests and exiling of Opposition supporters, regularly invited them to meetings and arranged for them to meet the leaders of the movement. Ch’i Shu-kung recalls how Prigozhin took him, Chiang Ching-kuo, and Hsu Yun-tso to the apartment of Vuiovich (apparently Vuio Vuiovich), while Zhakov managed to arrange for him to meet with Trotsky himself at the State Concessions Committee building. He recalls that they discussed the prospects for the Chinese revolution [143], but unfortunately no detailed record of the meeting survives.
Working together with supporters of the Opposition among their teachers, the most determined supporters of the Chinese Left Opposition made preparations for the celebrations to mark the tenth anniversary of the October revolution. On the morning of November 7, they took part in a parallel, unofficial Trotskyist demonstration in Red Square.
Ten or eleven students took part – Wang Chih-hao, Teng I-Cheng, Li Kuang-ya, Lin Ai.-min, Lu Yuan, Liang Kan-ch’iao, Hsu Cheng-an, Feng Ch’iang, Chu-Huai.te, Yang Hua-po, and according to some reports Hsiao Ch’ang-pin. [144] It is difficult to recreate in detail the confused events of that day. The documents that have survived in the archives (Minutes of the Sun Yat-sen University party committee, November 9, 1927, no. 9; Extracts from the minutes of the Khamovnicheskii presidium RKK (District Control Commission), November 22, 1927, no. 46; and Minutes of the University Directorate, November 10, 1927, no. 4) are rather contradictory in character. Nevertheless, it is possible to get a general impression of the fundamental facts. The affair seems to have taken place as follows. A day or two before the demonstration the students named above, assisted by the UTC teacher Bella Epstein, constructed a red banner with the slogan “Long live the leaders of the world revolution, Zinoviev, Radek, Preobrazhenskii. [145] There were probably other placards prepared in advance and taken by the oppositionists to Red Square. As they came alongside the mausoleum, the students, to the astonishment of the other marchers, unfurled their banner and began to shout slogans in support of the leaders of the Opposition. Their demonstration lasted only a few minutes as supporters of the Stalinist majority in the party marching with the university contingent moved swiftly to “restore order.” The oppositionists were forced to retreat and they returned home. However, none were arrested at this time. [146]
This public demonstration by Chinese oppositionists, despite its brief duration, made a deep impression on many of these present in Red Square that morning. Attention was drawn to the fact that among the Chinese, whose revolutionary movement was followed with avid interest not only in the Soviet Union but the world over, there were also opponents of Stalin, prepared to openly declare their solidarity with the joint Left Opposition within the Soviet party. The famous American historian Louis Fisher, present that day in Red Square as correspondent for The Nation, wrote many years later about the group of Chinese oppositionists demonstrating in front of Lenin’s mausoleum. [147] Another American, Vincent Sheean, who arrived in Red Square after the break-up of the Trotskyist demonstration, wrote of the rumours which swept Moscow following the events. He could not bring himself to believe one of the more, to him, fantastic of these rumours, that “a woman member of the Chinese Communist delegation carrying red flags inscribed with orthodox slogans, suddenly stepped forward in front of Stalin and the other members of the Central Committee and unfurled a banner emblazoned with the slogan ‘Long Live Trotsky’.” [148]
The following day the party committee at UTC called two meetings in rapid succession. At the first, it decided it was “necessary” to remove Chu Huai-te from his post as second-year Komsomol secretary “in view of his political unsoundness”; the committee simultaneously decided “it was necessary to relieve of their duties” other oppositionists who had been members of course committees (who, exactly, it was not stated). [149] At the second meeting, the “anti-party activity of a group of comrades during the demonstration” was examined. Judging from the minutes, the first meeting passed off fairly calmly. Chu Huai-te was not present and the committee members, being like-minded people, found no reason to disagree among themselves. The second meeting, however, was stormy. Feng Ch’iang and Liang Kan-ch’iao were invited to attend as representatives [150] (the minutes refer to them as “ring-leaders”) of the oppositionists who took part in the counter-demonstration. Accusations were hurled at them, describing their actions as “anti-Soviet” and charging them with using “fascist” methods against “those comrades who were attempting to restore order within the contingent”. They were also variously accused of maintaining links with right-wing KMT members, of factionalism, and of attempting to “wreck” the party. [151] Naturally these accusations provoked an indignant response. We can judge the temperature of the meeting from the following extracts from the minutes:
Comrade Miller [152]: I don’t know all the oppositionists – only the leaders; Varskii (Feng Ch’iang), Lastochkin (Liang Kan-ch’iao), Ogarev (Lu Yuan). On the demonstration I was walking among the oppositionists when Comrade Volk [153] approached us and linked arms with Lastochkin and myself. As we were passing Lenin’s mausoleum, the oppositionists unfurled their flags and Lastochkin tried to join them but Comrade Volk would not let him go. The oppositionists began to shout “Down with the fascist Central Committee,” “Long live the Opposition,” and “Long live Trotskyism.” I began to shout “Long live the Leninist Central Committee.” Ogarev was carrying a flag and began to attack Comrade Volk with the flagpole. Then Okunev (Chu Huai-te), Latyshev (Hsu Cheng-an) and Polevoi (Teng I-sheng) got together and tried to throw Comrade Volk out of the demonstration. (At this point Lastochkin is shouting incessantly.)
Comrade Sedyakin [154]: If Comrade Lastochkin cannot conduct himself as befits a party member, then the party committee will be obliged to ask him to withdraw from the meeting.
Comrade Brandler [155]: In his statement Comrade Varskii says that Comrade Pogulyayev [156] searched him at gunpoint. This is a lie; he does not possess a revolver. (Lastochkin shouts.)
Comrade Sedyakin: I am putting to the vote a motion I have received to exclude Comrade Lastochkin from the meeting. (The motion was carried unanimously and Lastochkin, with a cry of indignation, left the meeting).
Comrade Golubev [157]: We should note that this fight was not a fight between comrades. Why did this clash take place precisely on the tenth anniversary of October in the presence of all the international delegations?
Comrade Proletariev [158]: We allowed five minutes at the party committee meeting for an explanation, but the Opposition comrades want to talk for longer and accuse the party of silencing them. On the day of the demonstration Ogarev came up to Doronin [159] and declared, “You are celebrating the tenth anniversary of October. It’s a great celebration but it’s not our celebration.” The CCP sent you here to study Leninism and the history of the Russian revolution, nothing was said about studying Trotskyism. We’ve no use for Trotskyism in China.
Comrade Varskii: This is all lies! I cannot explain in five minutes ...
Comrade Mif: We need to talk about the circumstances the university finds itself in. Oppositional sentiment is growing within the university, not decreasing. The reason for this lies in the defeat of the Chinese revolution. Our students come increasingly from petty-bourgeois backgrounds and oppositional sentiments come naturally to them. All are recent recruits to the party – for example, Comrade Mikhailov [160], who joined in 1926 [161] – Komsomolists as well – perhaps these latter joined the Komsomol under orders from reactionary organisations. They welcomed the defeat of the Chinese revolution – gambled on it. We are not going to educate them here just so they can take Trotskyist ideas back to China instead of Leninism.
Comrade Mikhailov: I am being lumped together with the oppositionists and I object to this since it’s wrong to compare real oppositionists with waverers.
Comrade Varskii: The “facts” referred to in the resolution are simply not believable; for example, on links with the right wing of the KMT, there are no such links. The October revolution was not just a Russian but an international revolution and we must salute all the leaders of this revolution. No one shouted the slogan “Down with the fascist Central Committee.” The party of Lenin is united and the Central Committee of the party is united. The CCP has made mistakes as has the Soviet Communist Party. We need to correct these mistakes. Members of the party should not shut their eyes. [162]
After a “discussion” of this nature and without even hearing out the point of view of the oppositionists (the five minutes allowed to Feng Ch’iang was clearly insufficient), the committee decided unanimously to expel from the party Bella Epstein, Liang Kan-ch’iao, Feng Ch’iang, Wang Chih-hao and Chu Huai-te and to propose to the Komsomol that they expel Lu Yuan, Li Kuang-ya, Yang Hua-po, Lin Ai-min and Chu Huai-te. [163]
No decision was taken regarding Hsiao Ch’ang-pin; the fact that he denied holding oppositional views at the meeting gained him the support of committee members Berman and Li Pen-i. For some inexplicable reason, no one paid any attention to the question of Hsu Cheng-an. As regards Teng I-sheng, since he was not a member of the party, the committee had no direct power to impose sanctions on him. It solved this problem by taking a decision to purge the university of so-called “right Kuomintang elements” [164], starting with those who had links with the Opposition. The bureau also took the opportunity to warn all remaining oppositionists that any attempt on their part to renew factional activities would be suppressed in the most resolute manner. It was decided that it was necessary to hold discussions at party general meetings and study circles on the struggle against Trotskyism and, in addition, to “look into the question” of organising under the auspices of the bureau of Leninism special consultations on a long-term basis for all those interested in these problems.
The resolution of the party committee received the assent of the party membership that same day, or at the latest at the next general meeting of the party at UTC. Altogether, 137 people voted on the resolution to expel the oppositionists with only 6 voting against (and these 6 were among those being expelled). [165] At some point on November 9 or 10, at a meeting of the Komsomol committee at UTC and at a subsequent general meeting of the Komsomol, the five oppositionists named by the party committee were expelled from the youth organisation.
On November 10, the university directorate met and decided to send back to China Feng Ch’iang, Liang Kan-ch’iao, Chu Huai-te, Wang Chih.hao, Li Kuang-ya, Yang Hua-po, Lu Yuan, and Lin Ai-min, as well as Teng I-sheng. [166] On November 16, Pravda published an article on the “smashing” of the Trotskyist Opposition at UTC. [167] It had been written by one of the lecturers at the university, possibly by Mif himself. (The article was signed Aleksandr, Mif’s real name being Mikhail Alexsandravich Fortus). On November 22 the decision to expel Fang Ch’iang, Wang Chih-.hao, and Liang Kan-ch’iao from the party came up for review in front of the presidium of the Khamovnicheskii district control commission of the Soviet Communist Party. (The question of Chu Huai-te was set aside because of his non-appearance before the presidium; whether it was reviewed at a later date we do not know.) Strange as it may seem, the presidium did not agree with the decision of the UTC party organisation and, having examined the evidence, decided to change the sentences on Fang Ch’iang, Wang Chih-hao, and Liang Kan-ch’iao from expulsion to a severe reprimand and a warning. [168] This, however, in no way affected the decision of the university directorate to send the students home. And on the very same day as the presidium hearing (November 22), Feng Ch’iang, Wang Chih-hao, Liang Kan-ch’iao, Yang Hua-po, Lin Ai-min, Chu Huai-te, Lu Yuan, and Li Kuang-ya received their travel documents for China. For some unknown reason, it took until December 25 to assemble Teng I-sheng’s documents. [169]
A few days before their departure for China, three or four of the students, including Liang Kan-ch’iao, met with Trotsky in the offices of the State Concessions Committee. As Liang Kan-ch’aio recounted to Wang Fan-hsi, the main question discussed was the future of the Opposition in China. Seeking to gain Trotsky’s approval, Liang said, “Don’t worry. As soon as we get back to China we will immediately set up a mass party of at least half a million members.” But Trotsky smiled and replied, “The revolution has just suffered a defeat. Today we must take things one step at a time. And if each of you,” and here he pointed at each of the assembled Chinese, “gathers around himself five or six workers and educates them, this in itself will be a big achievement.” (According to Wang Fan-hsi, he remembers Liang Kan-ch’aio’s account of this meeting extremely clearly.) [170]
On the evening of November 23, the first group of expelled students left UTC. They were bid farewell by Bella Epstein who, as described in an informer’s statement delivered to the university party committee the following day, ran toward them when they were already sitting in the car and shouted, “You have suffered because of your struggle. That is the true path to victory. Our ideas will rise again and we will meet again soon under different circumstances.” [171]
But they were not to meet again. The students were sent to Vladivostok, from where, having overcome the many difficulties and obstacles placed in their way by the Soviet bureaucratic machine [172], they finally left for China in February or March of 1928. As to Epstein’s fate, we can only guess. Most likely she, like the majority of oppositionist teachers and researchers at UTC and CUTE, died in the Stalinist mincing machine.
With the departure to China of the most active of Trotsky’s supporters, the first phase of the history of the Chinese Left Opposition in the USSR – that of open struggle against Stalinism – came to a close. A new period would now begin – of intense underground work.
85. Ibid., 530/1/4.
86. Ibid., 530/1/30/124; 532/1/10/3.
87. Ibid., 530/1/16.
88. Timofeeva, “CUTE, 1926–38,” 30.
89. Ibid., 40.
90. See G. Broido, The Communist University of the Toilers of the East, Zhizn’ Natsional’nostei, January 26, 1921.
91. Some translators, on graduating from UTC and returning home, published translations of the lectures under their own names. One of these was Han Liang-hsien for whose work the famous KMT activist Hu Han-min wrote an introduction. See Sheng, Sun Yat-sen University, 56.
92. See Timofeeva, CUTE, 1921–25, 54.
93. Andrei Aleksandrovich Shiik (1891–1978), alias Andre Shik, a learned Africanist, teacher at CUTE, and senior research fellow at the International Agrarian Institute, later became prominent as a statesman in the Hungarian People’s Republic.
94. See Timofeeva, CUTE, 1926–38, 35.
95. See Pod Znamenem Ilyicha, April 26, 1924; Revolyutsionnyi Vostok (Revolutionary East), 1927, no. 1:134.
96. See Timofeeva, CUTE, 1921–25, 54.
97. At the end of 1929 the Scientific Research Association for the Study of National and Colonial Problems was detached from CUTE and reorganised as a wider social organisation. From that time, CUTE was managed by this Association.
98. See Timofeeva, CUTE, 1926–38, 35–38.
99. See Efimov, Episodes in the History of the Communist University of the Toilers of China, 175.
100. See Russian Center 530/1/9.
101. See V.N. Nikiforov, Sovetskie Istoriki o Problemakh Kitaya (Soviet historians on problems of China) (Moscow: Nauka Press, 1970), 127.
102. See Russian Center 530/1/28.
103. One of those who began to study the question of reforming the Chinese script, at UTC and at the China Institute, was Wu Yu-chang. After finishing university in 1930, he worked as an instructor at a Soviet party school for Chinese workers in Vladivostok and became a member of a regional committee on the Romanization of the Chinese script. He was head of the Chinese section of the movement for the liquidation of illiteracy. Around this time he produced a textbook and a dictionary using a Romanized script based on the Peking dialect. In 1931, he took part (with Lin Po-ch’u and Liu Ch’ang-sheng) in the first conference on the Romanization of the Chinese script. From 1955 until his death in 1966, Wu Yu-chang was chairman of the committee for the reform of the Chinese script under the PRC State Council.
104. Sheng, Sun Yat-sen University, 4; Russian Center 530/1/29.
105. Jen Chuo-hsuan worked and studied in France in the early 1920s. He joined the Chinese Communist movement in 1922 and the French Communist Party in 1923. In 1925–26, he was a student first at CUTE and then at Sun Yat-sen University, and secretary of the Moscow Branch of the CCP. At the end of 1927, a year after his return to China, he was arrested in Hunan by the KMT and sentenced to be shot. The execution was botched and he was only wounded. A local peasant woman saved his life by taking him to hospital. Scarcely had his wounds been dressed when he was recaptured. This time he capitulated and betrayed a number of his former comrades to the KMT. In the 1930s and 1940s, he published a number of works under the pseudonym Yeh Ch’ing sharply criticising the CCP leadership from the standpoint of classical Marxism. As a result, he was accused by the Stalinists and Maoists of belonging to the Trotskyist movement with which, in fact, he had no links.
106. Such terminology was used, in particular, at the Sixth Congress of the CCP. See Stenograficheskii Otchet Shestogo S’ezda Kommunisticheskoi Partii Kitaya (Stenographical record of the Sixth Congress of the CCP, vol. 4 (Moscow: Institut po Kitayu Press, 1930), 27.
107. Letter from Comrade Sung Liang [Sun Yeh-fang] to Comrade [Liu] Shao-ch’i, in Liu Shao-Ch’i, Lun Tang (On the Party) (Talien: Ta-chung shu-tien, 1947), 345.
108. For a full text of the document translated into English, see C. Martin Wilbur and Julie Lien-ying How, Missionaries of Revolution: Soviet Advisers and Nationalist China, 1920–1927 (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1989), 527–29.
109. Ibid., 527.
110. Cited in Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, The Alliance Between the Social Democrats and the International Brotherhood of Workers (Thesis and Documents Published by Decision of the Hague Conference of the International), in Marx and Engels, Collected Works (Russian edition) 18:415, 416.
111. See Russian Center 530/V42; Sun Yeh-fang, On the Moscow Branch of the CCP, Chung-kung Tang-shih tzu-liao (Materials on the History of the CCP) (Peking), 1982, no. 1:180–83.
112. Russian Center 530/V5–8.
113. Meng, Vospominaniya o Wang Mine, 66–67
114. See Russian Center 530/1/28; 530/2’29, 40; 514/1/1012’2–11; Chiang Ching-kuo, My Days in Soviet Russia (Taipei: 1963), 8.
115. UTC was situated at no. 16 Volkhonka Street.
116. See Testimony of Comrade Nekrasov, Russian Center 514/1/1012’3, 4–5.
117. See Testimony of a Student, Ibid.,, 12.
118. Letter from V. Kasparova and G. Shklovskii to the Central Committee and Central Executive Committee of the Soviet Communist Party, Ibid., 17/71/88/ 34.
119. More precisely, Sun Yat-sen University of the Toilers of China.
120. This refers to the Hong Kong-Canton strike.
121. Testimony of Comrade N. Nekrasov, 2.
122. The fate of Chiang Ching-kuo (pseudonym Nikolai Vladimirovich Elizarov), the son of Chiang Kai-shek, is rather interesting. He enrolled at Sun Yat-sen University as part of the first intake of Chinese students on November 23, 1925. In December the same year he joined the Chinese Komsomol and the following year the Russian Komsomol. Before officially finishing university, he was transferred in February 1927 to a military school in Moscow and then, in December (or, according to some reports, at the end of August) 1927, he was sent to the Military-Political Academy (VPAT) in Leningrad. There he became, in February 1930, a candidate member of the Soviet Communist Party. After finishing at VPAT at the end of June 1930, he was sent to work in industry for two years, first as a metal worker in the Dynamo factory in Moscow, and then, from May to November 1931, as chairman of the October Revolution collective farm in the village of Korovino in the Moscow oblast. This period of industrial work was evidently punishment for the anti-communism of his father and his own short-term enthusiasm for the ideas of the Opposition. From November 1931 until October 1934 he worked as an assistant departmental manager at the Urals Machine Factory in Sverdlovsk, and then, until spring 1937, was deputy editor of the factory newspaper, For Heavy Mechanical Engineering. In December 1936, he was promoted from candidate to full member of the Soviet Communist Party by the principal typographical organization of the factory; this decision was, however, not ratified by the oblast committee. Then, until May 1937, he was deputy manager of the organization department of the Sverdlovsk city Soviet, after which he was sent back to China. Stalin intended to use him as a means of influencing Chiang Kai-shek during a period in which a new united front was being formed between the CCP and the KMT. (According to some reports, Chiang Ching-kuo himself explained his departure to friends at the Urals Machine Factory by saying he had been given a “special assignment” to influence his father, who had been following an “unstable policy” on the eve of the outbreak of war with Japan.) On his return home, however, Chiang Ching-kuo became one of Chiang Kai-shek’s closest and most trusted associates. In February 1941, the Leninskii regional committee of the Sverdlovsk party organization expelled him for “loss of contact with the party organization over a period of three and a half years.” For further information on his residence in the USSR, see Russian Center 514/1/312/12–21, 31–35, 38–43; 514/1/1010/4–7; 530/1/1_4, 20, 34, 42. The Tolmachev Military-Political Academy Archives; Pasok KPSS (The Party Archives of the Sverdlovsk Oblast Committee) 10/4/1695/2–6; 153/5/120/1–5, 12–14; 161/6/322/1–6.
123. On August 5, 1927, Pei Yun-feng, Kao Heng, Tung Ju-ch’eng, Hsu Yun-tso, and Ch’i Shu-kung were sent to CUTE and on the military political courses as translators. See Russian Center 530/1/42171; Testimony of Comrade Nekrasov, 3, 4.
124. See Wu K’un-jung, The Left Opposition Faction in the Chinese Communist Party, Part 1), Issues and Studies 10, no. 6 (March 1974); 80.
125. See Russian Center 495/225/327, 2411; 505/1/22/10; 514/1/1031/13–14; 530/1/ 16, 34, 56, 62; 530/2/26, 41, 42; Testimony of Comrade Nekrasov, 3, 4; Wang, Shuang-shan hui-i-lu, 63, 80, 145; Cheng Ch’ao-lin hui-i-lu, 290; Meng, Vospominaniya o Wang Mine, 68; Pravda, November 16, 1927.
126. Interview with Wang Fan-hsi at Leeds, England, July 25, 1992.
127. See, for example, Wang, Shuang-shan hui-i-lu, 64, 80; Cheng Ch’ao-lin hui-lu, 290; Liu Jen-ching, On Trotskyists in China, Chung-kung Tang-shih tzu.liao, 1982, no. 1:248; Ming Yuan, The Rise and Fall of the Group of Liquidationists, She-hui hsin-wen (Social News) 3, no. 23 (1933): 323.
128. Calculated from Russian Center 530/1/42.
129. Ibid., 530/2–32. That in summer 1927 there were no less than fifteen oppositionists at the university was also mentioned at one of the meetings of the UTC party committee. Ibid., 530/2/26.
130. Ibid., 495/327.
131. No such person as Lu Yeng figures in the register of students at UTC.
132. Sheng, Sun Yat-sen University, 166.
133. See Russian Center 495/225/1532, 1816, 2129, 2185, 2226.
134. Ibid., 530/2/26.
135. Ibid., 530/2/41.
136. See Testimony of Comrade Nekrasov, 2.
137. Ibid., 3.
138. Conversation between Comrades Kotelnikov and Khabarov, Russian Center 514’1/1031/13.
139. See Testimony of Comrade Nekrasov, 4–5.
140. Russian Center 530/1/37.
141. Ibid., 530/2/29.
142. Ibid., 530/2/41.
143. See Statement of Nekrasov to the Purge Commission, Ibid., 495/225/362; Conversation between Comrades Kotelnikov and Khabarov, November 21, 1936, Ibid., 495/225/1036/12–13.
144. See Minutes no. 9 of the Soviet Communist Party branch bureau at UTC, November 9, 1927. Ibid., 530/2/26.
145. One of the documents referred to states that the Opposition banner had written on it, “Long live the leaders of the world revolution: Zinoviev, Radek, Preobrazhenskii, etc.” (Russian Center 530/2/26). Naturally, the word “etc.” would never appear on a banner. Most probably, Trotsky’s name appeared alongside those of the other “leaders”.
146. Russian Center 530/2/24, 26.
147. Louis Fisher, Men and Politics: An Autobiography (New York: Puell, Sloan and Pearce, 1941), 88.
148. Vincent Sheean, A Personal History (Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, Doran & Co., 1935), 284.
149. See Minutes no. 8 of the Soviet Communist Party branch bureau at UTC, November 9, 1927. Russian Center 530/2/26.
150. Apart from these, Hsiao Ch’ang-pin was also present at the meeting.
152. Miller was the pseudonym of Hu Chien-san, a UTC student and member of the party cell bureau.
153. Ya.I. Volk was a teacher at UTC.
154. S.M. Sedyakin was at this time secretary of the party cell bureau at UTC.
155. Brandler was the pseudonym of Ho Shang-chih, a UTC student and member of the party cell bureau.
156. Pogulyayev was secretary of UTC from 1925 to 1928.
157. Golubev, i.e., Ch’en Shao-yü (Wang Ming), was at this time a member of the party cell bureau at UTC.
158. Yevgennii Proletariev was a pseudonym of Pu Shih-ch’i, a translator and teacher at UTC and a candidate member of the party cell bureau.
159. Doronin was the pseudonym of the UTC student P’an Wen-yu.
160. Mikhailov was the pseudonym of Hsiao Ch’ang-pin.
161. In fact, Hsiao Ch’ang-pin joined the CCP in December 1925. See Russian Center 495/225/1963.
163. Chu Huai-te was a member of both the Party and the Komsomol simultaneously.
164. In reality, of course, there were no real right KMT members left at UTC. This was merely a political label which the administration applied from time to time to those KMT members who remained at the university after the July coup carried out by Wang Ching-wei in China.
165. See Russian Center 530/V16; Pravda, November 16, 1927.
166. See Minutes no. 4 of a Meeting of the UTC Management, November 10, 1927. Russian Center, 530/1.
167. Pravda, November 16, 1927.
168. See Extracts from Minutes no. 46 of a Meeting of the Presidium of the Khamovnicheskii District Committee, November 22, 1927. Russian Center 530/2/24.
169. Ibid., 530/1/42/52, 53, 55, 59, 70.
170. Interview with Wang Fan-hsi at Leeds, England, August 4, 1992. On the meeting between Trotsky and Liang Kan-ch’aio, see also Pu Ch’ing-ch’üan, The Birth and Death of the Chinese Trotskyists, in Ch’en Tu-hsia p’ing-lun hetian-pien (Collection of critical articles on Ch’en Tu-hsiu), vol. 2 (Chengchow: Ho-nan jen-min ch’u-pan-shen, 1982), 388.
171. Russian Center 495/225/327.
172. On this, see the letter sent from Vladivostok by Lu Yuan to Ch’en Ch’i and Wen Yueh. Ibid., 530/1/57.
Alexander Pantsov Archive | ETOL Main Page
Last updated: 13 October 2019