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Chinese Trotskyists in Soviet Russia
In the last analysis, all their work was directed toward laying the foundations for subsequent opposition activity in China. The future struggle against Stalinism in China would require great resources and the young Chinese oppositionists did all in their power to lay the basis for it in advance. They paid great attention to the development of their tactical line. The elaboration of the line was the main business of a new meeting of activists which took place in March or April of 1929. [224] It was held in the student accommodation block of the Moscow Artillery School. The meeting consisted of the members of the General Committee, plus Wang Fan-hsi, Fan Wen-hui, Pien Fu-lin, and many other representatives of Chinese Trotskyist groups which, by this time, existed at CUTC, the International Lenin School, the Artillery School, the Military Engineering School, and the Infantry School. [225] The delegates discussed the tasks facing them on their return to China. For many this question assumed an immediate practicality since at the end of the semester they would be finishing their studies and leaving for home. Some indeed, including Wang Fan-hsi, did all in their power to bring forward the date of their departure, so eager were they to return to practical work in China. By a majority of votes the meeting decided to forbid those returning to China to take any steps toward the formation of a new, independent political party, ordering them to conduct their activities within the framework of a secret faction inside the CCP. In the event of their expulsion, they were to work within the already existing opposition organization. (They had in mind the Wo-men-te hua [Our Word] group which had been set up by the former UTC students who had taken part in the demonstration in Red Square on November 7, 1927.) According to Wang Fan-hsi, only one person spoke out against this policy. This was Liu Jen-ching, who declared that he did not want to waste energy working within the Communist Party and that on his return he intended to immediately begin oppositional work outside the CCP. Only time would tell, he said, whether he would cooperate with the ten “milksops” who had returned home before him. [226]
Such an intervention from Liu Jen-ching was not entirely unexpected. He had always played the role of dissident within the Trotskyist organization and the majority already regarded him as a “right-wing liquidationist.” This was because of his particular interpretation of Trotsky’s slogan, proposed in October 1928, for the calling of a Constituent Assembly in China. [227] Liu Jen-ching interpreted this as an appeal for the formation of parliamentary structures whereas the majority, in militant mood, saw in Trotsky’s idea only a tactical manoeuvre to arouse the masses during a period of counter-revolutionary advance and, in the final analysis, as part of the preparation for a new uprising. [228] The meeting also re-elected the General Committee, choosing on this occasion Fan Wen-hui, Pien Fu-lin, and T’an Po-ling (a CUTC student). [229]
While preparing for the struggle in China, the student oppositionists did not neglect the struggle against the Stalinists in the universities. In 1929 they formed a united front at CUTC with all those who were at odds with the university party committee. The concrete problems of the united front tactic were discussed at a third meeting of activists which took place in May or June of 1929. Like the original meeting, this took place in a wood on the outskirts of Moscow. Eleven persons were present, including Fan Wen-hui, Pien Fu-lin, T’an Po.ling, An Fu, Wang Fan-hsi, Li P’ing, Chao Chi, and Liu Yin. There was yet another change of leadership. The leading position on the General Committee was now taken up by Chao Yen-ch’ing, a man who, having been born in 1897, was more experienced than other members and was popular among the students at large. Li P’ing was put in charge of organizational work and Wan Chih-ling (alias Wan Chu-ling, UTC/ CUTC from November 1927) was put in charge of agitation and propaganda. [230] In addition to the General Committee, a new body, the “Struggle Committee,” was established. Its task was to co-ordinate the joint struggle of the Trotskyists and other disaffected elements against the Stalinists in the universities. It was made up of five persons – Liu Yin, Chao Chi, Wang Fan-hsi, Chi Ta-ts’ai, and Tseng Chien-ch’uan (a student at CUTE). The most significant result of the Struggle Committee’s discussions with other student groups came at a general meeting of the university party branch in June 1929 when, in the presence of members of the Chinese delegation to the ECCI (Ch’u Ch’iu-pai and Chang Kuo-t’ao) and of the Khamovnicheskii regional secretary of the Soviet Communist Party, the oppositionists and their allies made fierce and sustained criticisms of the CUTC party leadership. [231] This stormy meeting lasted several days but ended in defeat for the Opposition. It proved impossible to overturn the Stalinist majority in the student body. Not long after this, in mid-August, Wang Fan-hsi, Liu Yin, and Chao Chi left the university and returned to China. With their departure the Struggle Committee ceased to exist. [232] Shortly before this, apparently at the end of July, the membership of the General Committee was increased to five, with the co-option of Hu P’eng-chu (CUTC) and Li Kuang-chi (alias Chung Yung-ts’ang, CUTC). [233] This was not the end of the reorganization. On the contrary, after Wang Fan-hsi, Liu Yin, Chao Chi, and thirteen other activists left the university at practically the same moment [234], the atmosphere within the Chinese Left Opposition began to overheat. A number of activists began to talk of the necessity for a new change in the leadership. As a result, a small group of leading members met in September or October 1929 (there were between five and eight people present) and replaced the five-member General Committee with a new three-member committee consisting of Fu Hsueh-li who became secretary, Li Kuang-chi, and Wan Chih-ling. [235] This committee only functioned for two or three weeks, collapsing in October or early November. A large number of students returning at this time from holidays in the Crimea simply refused to recognize its authority since it had been elected by such a narrow group of activists. It was decided to form a new general committee consisting of the newly elected secretaries of the course committees. The current situation was that Li Kuang-chi was secretary of the first-year course committee, Chia Tsung-chou (at CUTE from September 1927 to June 1928, pseud. Kuznetsov; later at CUTC, pseud. there Stepan Lukich Lugovoi) of the second-year, and Pien Fu-lin of the third-year course committee. [236] However, at the end of December, new elections to the course committees were already being prepared, although in fact only that for the second year went ahead. This resulted in Chia Tsung-chou being replaced by Ch’iu Chih-ch’eng. [237]
These shakeups in the leadership following one after another reflected real political differences emerging among the Chinese oppositionists. The first signs of these differences appeared after the unsuccessful intervention at the ten-day-long party general meeting. The root of the conflict was disagreement over the tactical line to pursue in the struggle against the party committee at CUTC.
The sharpest clash came after a small group of leaders met in autumn 1929 and decided, on the recommendation of Chia Tsung-chou and Li Kuang-chi, to downgrade the struggle against the Stalinists in the party bureau and to break with the united front which had been built up with other disaffected students. An Fu, Li P’ing, Pien Fu-lin, Fan Wen-hui, and Wang Ching-t’ao who resolutely opposed this, in their view, opportunist switch in policy and wanted to continue the anti.bureaucratic struggle, were all absent from the meeting. According to Chia Tsung-chou, by November 1929 a de facto split had taken place in the organization. An Fu and his supporters went so far as to produce a pamphlet which they called Two Tactics directed against the group of “Trotskyist opportunists,” who in their turn accused An Fu of leftism. [238]
The internal dispute had extremely negative consequences for the underground organization whose ranks, however, were still growing in number toward the beginning of 1930. Evidence from a number of sources points to a membership of about eighty around this time. [239] In addition, there were scores of sympathizers and waverers. [240] The Trotskyists accounted for more than 20 per cent of the total number of Chinese students in Moscow. But in conditions of continual feuding, the dangers of disintegration of such a comparatively large organization were acute. To prevent this, Chia Tsung-chou proposed that the internal structures of the Trotskyist faction be strengthened. Until then, the Chinese Left Opposition had been a fairly amorphous body. The only active body within it (apart from the short-lived Struggle Committee) was the General Committee which directed all the work of the membership. There was no real primary organization in the real meaning of the term. [241] On Chia Tsung-chou’s recommendation, a reorganization was carried out in the autumn of 1929. The basic unit of organization within the faction was to be a three-person cell. The leaders of each cell would, in turn, form another layer of cells – in Chia Tsung-chou’s words, “party troikas” – with roughly one for each study circle. These cells would, in tum, be subordinated via the appropriate course committee to the General Committee. [242] This organizational structure only extended to the Trotskyists at CUTC. Oppositionists in other colleges, despite formal links, were practically speaking autonomous. The biggest of the groups outside CUTC at this time consisted of ten to fifteen oppositionists at the Moscow Infantry School led by Lu Yeh-shen. There were also groups of Trotskyists at the Military Engineering and Artillery schools and at the International Lenin School, where, following the departure of Liu Jen-ching, the major role was played by Ma Yuan-sheng. [243] Contacts between these groups and the General Committee were organized by a special body known as the “Secretariat” whose members were Chia Tsung-chou, Li P’ing, and Hu Ch’ung-ku. [244]
But special measures taken to improve the security of the organization by making it more rigorously conspiratorial could only postpone what was to be a tragic denouement. By the time the discussions on reorganization were taking place, the OGPU and the ECCI had at their disposal solid information on the individual membership of the Trotskyist organization at CUTC and were simply waiting for a suitable moment to deal the organization a shattering blow. In the archives of the Chinese delegation to the ECCI, of the Comintern International Control Commission, and of CUTC itself, there are innumerable documents (denunciations, intercepted letters, statements of the university authorities to the OGPU and the ECCI, files of the Chinese ECCI delegates, etc.) which prove incontestably that the destruction of the Chinese Left Opposition on the territory of the USSR was inevitable. Of course, it might not have been as devastating as it turned out to be since the authorities did not possess compromising material on all the members of the organization. But what there was in the dossiers of the secret police and the Comintern was, in the event, enough. What follows is some of this information.
On June 26, 1929, a certain student, belonging to one of the disaffected groups with which the Trotskyists had cultivated close links, wrote to the rector of CUTC, V.J. Veger:
“In our university there are Trotskyists and comrades who are under the influence of Trotskyism. They all have close links with the Trotskyist organization in China and are acting as mouthpieces for the counter-revolution.” [245]
There follows a list of thirty-three surnames. Not all of those named were indeed Trotskyists and it appears that the author of the letter may have been settling a few personal scores. Nevertheless, the majority on the list were correctly identified as Trotskyists and included Wang Fan-hsi, Wang Wen-hui, Wang Hsin-keng, Wang Ching-t’ao, Liu Yin, Chao Chi, Fan Wen-hui, Chi Wai-fang, T’an Po-ling, Kao Heng, Lu Meng-i, Li Ts’ai-lien, Ch’i Shu-kung, and Hsieh Ying. [246] For reasons not fully understood – perhaps it got mislaid in the rectory, or in transit – the letter was passed on to the authorities only after a number of the students mentioned in it had already returned home to China in mid-August. Eventually, copies were sent to the CUTC purge commission, one of whose leading members was Berzin, which began its work on October 20, 1929, and to the OGPU.
At a meeting held on October 1, 1929, the Chinese Commission of the Eastern Secretariat of the ECCI assembled and summarized all the information at its disposal, acquired from its own or other sources, concerning the activities of the Trotskyists at CUTC. It adopted a resolution, the salient points of which were:
The information was indeed correct. Those mentioned were either members or sympathizers of the Trotskyist organization. It is difficult to say whether the authorities at CUTC, in particular Tokin, were aware of this. What is certain is that no serious effort was made to verify the information they received from the Chinese Commission of the ECCI. After only three days Veger and Tokin gave the following report to the Eastern Department of the ECCI and the Chinese delegation to the ECCI:
At a meeting of the Chinese Commission of the Eastern Secretariat of the ECCI which took place on October 1, 1929, it was proved [!] that the following members of CUTC were either members of a Trotskyist organization or sympathizers of the Trotskyists, or had links with Trotskyists or a third party. [There followed a list of names of the persons referred to in the resolution of the Chinese Commission of the ECCI.] Our own investigations at the university confirm the political estimate of the said Chinese Commission. We therefore consider it necessary to immediately remove these persons from the student body and send them to Vladivostok from where they will be deported to China without the secret rendezvous necessary for their continued activity as members of a clandestine party. [250]
The evidence suggests, however, that a decision was taken to hold back from taking action against those mentioned in the resolutions. For the time being they remained at liberty in Moscow and no restrictions were placed on them. The authorities continued to play a waiting game, hoping for more information to emerge. At the end of October, the CUTC secretary Yeshenko informed the OGPU that Hsu Yun-tso (who, as described above, had already been expelled from the Komsomol and CUTC for membership of the Opposition but had been detained within the borders of the USSR) had approached him and in the course of a conversation had, through carelessness, let him see a note received from Ch’i Shu-kung concerning the latter’s opposition activities. [251]
The OGPU and ECCI gathered great quantities of information during the so-called clean-up of the CUTC party organization. At the outset of this operation, which began in October, someone, referred to in the documents as Kirsanov (apparently Kirsanova, the rector of the International Lenin School and a member of the Berzin commission) received a denunciation from a CUTC student considered by the Trotskyists to be one of their closest and most serious allies in the united front against the bureaucracy. This student submitted evidence on eighty-one persons [252], dividing his list into three parts. In the first, which consisted of twelve names, he listed those people whose membership of the Trotskyist organization he could demonstrate from an abundance of documentary evidence at his disposal. The second group consisted of those (thirteen in number) whose membership of the organization could be supported by concrete testimony. (Documents concerning their underground activities were not enough for him.) In the final part of his list, consisting of fifty-six names, were those he suspected of Trotskyism without having clear evidence. Among those he named were the leaders of the Chinese Opposition – An Fu, Pien Fu.lin, Fan Wen-hui, Chi Ta-ts’ai, Hu P’eng-chu, Fu Hsueh-li, Wang Ching-t’ao, Chi Wai-fang, T’an Po-ling, Wan Chih-ling, Chao Yen-ch’ing, Ch’i Shu-kung, Wang Wen-hui, Huang Chu, and many others. This denunciation was sent on to the CCP delegation to the ECCI where Teng Chung-hsia, a member of the delegation, used it to draw up on January 10, 1930, precise instructions to the party purge commission at CUTC:
We must pay particular attention to the growth of Trotskyist groups at CUTC ... we must ask the [O]GPU to supply the college purge commissions [253] with detailed information. Those who, after examination, turn out to be Trotskyists must be expe11ed from the party and the entire membership informed of this so as to provide an example to the masses. Those elements whose membership of the Trotskyist organization is attested by a number of sources, or who are actually leaders of the Trotskyist group, although we as yet have no up-to-date information on this, must be arrested and sent under supervision to a suitable place on Soviet territory. As regards the remainder, suspected of Trotskyism but not considered to have played a major role, we must also raise the question of expelling them and, at a suitable moment, returning them to China, having first supplied the Central Committee with their names and a short biography of each to prevent them clandestinely re-joining our party. [254]
Clearly, sentence had already been pronounced, despite the fact that no proper investigation had yet been carried out. Penalties were doled out according to the classification of the names in the denunciation. Teng Chung-hsia introduced only one elaboration. The same punishment was to be meted out to those who “according to many reports” were Trotskyists but about whom there was no documentary evidence, as to those who were undoubtedly Trotskyists. It was simply a matter of contacting the OGPU who would then make up the deficit in documentation.
The secret agents of the busy-body lecturers at CUTC had also by this time amassed enough information to give them a clear picture of the underground activity of the Trotskyists at the university. A list they compiled around this time, of Trotskyists and of persons “siding with them,” contained seventy-seven names. [255]
The Chinese Left Opposition was living through its last days on Soviet territory. The purge of the party organization at CUTC took on an ever more determined and single-minded character as the commission struggled to flush out all the Trotskyist conspirators. A number of the oppositionists sensed that the net was closing around them and tension within the organization began to rise. Chia Tsung-chou later admitted that some individuals considered the possibility of dissolving the organization and even of volunteering confessions. [256] The first person to crack under the pressure was Chao Yen-ch’ing. According to Chia Tsung-chou, “he seemed to fall ill with persecution fever. He was, in a way, mad. If he heard somebody whispering it seemed to him they were saying, ‘There goes Donbasov the Trotskyist’; and if someone looked at him he became afraid that they were shadowing him in order to kill him. He remained in the organization. Although he wanted to resign, he hesitated to do so. Several times he broke down, crying that there was no way out. He went to see a doctor on a number of occasions.” [257] Finally, on January 21, 1930, he handed in a statement to Ignatov, the newly appointed secretary of the party branch at CUTC. [258] According to Wang Fan-hsi, Chao Yen-ch’ing was under a lot of pressure from his close friend Logov [259] (a certain Fang Ting-chen [260] appears under this pseudonym in the CUTC records), who was a secret agent of the Stalinists within the Trotskyist organization. Hsu Yun-tso and Yao Ping-hui who later escaped from Siberia to China affirm that Wang received this information from either Sung Feng.-ch’un or Hsiao Ch’ang-pin. Chao first confessed to Sheng Yueh who was at that time a member of the party committee. Sheng then arranged a meeting between Chao and Ignatov in the latter’s apartment. [261]
Ignatov handed Chao Yen-ch’ing’s statement to Veger, the rector of CUTC, who sent out several copies – to Stalin, Kaganovich, and Stetskii at the Central Committee, to Yaros1avskii at the Control Commission, and to Bauman and Kogan at the Moscow City Committee. [262] Chao Yen-ch’ing was then interrogated by the CCP delegation to the ECCI and by the OGPU. From his statements and from notes found in one of his exercise books, the authorities were able to confirm, or in many cases discover for the first time, the membership of the underground organization of about sixty persons. [263] Six of these – Wang Fan-hsi, Liu Yin, Chiang Te-fang, Chao Chi, Yuan Fan, and Hsiao Chen-han – had already returned to China. [264] Chao Yen-ch’ing also described how Trotskyism had taken root in the International Lenin School (there he betrayed Ma Yuan-sheng) and in the Moscow Infantry School (where he named Lu Yeh-shen and a certain Li Hsiao-sheng). He unmasked the entire General Committee and all the course committees at CUTC and gave information about the bloc between the Trotskyists and other discontented elements. [265] Having completed his betrayal, this utterly demoralized man took his own life on January 28. [266]
The death of Chao Yen-ch’ing was a profound shock to the members of the Trotskyist organization, all the more so since news soon leaked out about his treachery. In fact, the party committee convened a special general meeting at which Sheng Yueh made a statement about the matter. [267] The aim of the Stalinists in calling the meeting was evidently to terrify the underground oppositionists into confessing. They succeeded in doing so. Soon afterwards, Li P’ing unexpectedly cracked [268] and gave evidence on eighty-eight Trotskyists, sympathizers, and others who were influenced by Trotskyism. He did not omit to mention certain people about whose sympathies he was merely uncertain. [269]
After this the OGPU decided to waste no more time. On February 8 and 10 (and according to some reports, also 13), arrests took place at CUTC. Twenty-five persons were put behind bars, including An Fu, Pien Fu-lin, Wan Chih-ling, T’an Po-ling, Ch’iu Chih-ch’eng, Hu Ch’ung-ku, Li Kuang-chi, Hu P’eng-chu, Fan Wen-hui, Chi Ta-ts’ai, Chia Tsung-chou, and Wang Wen-hui; in other words, practically the entire leadership of the underground organization. In the following three months, another eleven activists of the Chinese Left Opposition followed them to the cellars of the Lubianka, among them Wang Ching-t’ao, Huang Chu, P’an Shu-jen, and Ma Yuan-sheng. [270]
The investigators kept to a punishing schedule. All-night interrogations followed one after the other [271] and by March 8, 1930 they had amassed material on 171 “Chinese Trotskyists in the USSR.” [272] (The figure is so large that we can safely assume that a large part of the evidence was fabricated, which would be entirely in keeping with the methods of the OGPU.) The prisoners, as well as giving evidence about their own group, gave information on Trotskyists in China, naming about seventy persons and giving away a large number of addresses and secret rendezvous. [273]
Immediately after the first arrests, there was a wave of voluntary confessions from those oppositionists who remained at liberty. Activists surrendered to the party purge commissions of CUTC, the International Lenin School, and the Infantry and Artillery schools. (By this time there were no longer any supporters of Trotsky at the Moscow Military Engineering School.) Interestingly, these confessions were not always motivated by fear. Some activists saw them as a manoeuvre to permit them to stay in the party, return to China, and there take up the struggle once more under the slogans of the Opposition. This ruse, however, was quickly uncovered by their interrogators [274], merely exposing them to even more severe punishment.
The Chinese Left Opposition on Soviet territory then ceased to exist, sharing the fate of the Russian Bolshevik-Leninists. On July 20, 1930 a special commission of the International Control Commission made up of Solts (chairman), Angaretis (secretary), Trilisser, Berzin, and Artuzov (the latter three were officials of the OGPU) with Kirsanova present as an observer, met to consider the fate of thirty-six arrested Chinese Trotskyists. They decided to “isolate” twenty-four of them; that is, to send them to concentration camps or into exile. (Another three were later added to this group.) Three individuals, including Chia Tsung-chou and Li Kuang-chi, were sent to work in factories in the Moscow area. The remainder were expelled from the USSR. [275]
The commission also decided to clear up some unfinished business by formally expelling from the party nine persons who for some unknown reasons had not been expelled at the time of the initial purge. [276] In only six days, Angaretis, Artuzov, Berzin, Kirsanova, Solts, and Trilisser (who only met on this one occasion to consider the matter of those arrested) arrived at their predetermined conclusion. [277] On September 13 their colleagues in the OGPU pronounced sentence:
Ch’iu Chih-ch’eng, Li Tz’u-pai, Chao I-fan, Fang Shao-yuan, Fan Wen.hui, Liu Han-p’ing, Hu P’eng-chu, and Liu Ho-sheng each received a sentence of five years in a camp. Chiang Hua-an, Chang Ch’ung-te, Jung Li, and Li Shih-le each received three years. Various terms of imprisonment were handed down to An Fu, T’an Po-ling, Ma Yuan.sheng, Wang Ching-t’ao, Li I-fan, T’ang Yu-chang, and Chiang I-mu. Several persons were sent to Ivanovo, including Wan Chih-ling and Hu Ch’ung-ku. Huang Chu and Chi Ta-ts’ai were sent to Gorkii. [278]
The majority of those former Trotskyists who were not imprisoned were sent to work in various Moscow factories as a punishment. It was intended that they should “learn from the proletariat.” Some were sent back to China. The overwhelming majority were expelled from the party, although a few such as Li P’ing who had “sincerely repented his mistakes” were treated leniently and got away with a reprimand and a severe warning. In Li P’ing’s case, this was in recognition of the fact that he had “helped to unmask the entire Trotskyist organization at CUTC, the military schools, and even in China itself.” [279]
Some former leaders of the Trotskyist organization, in particular Lu Yeh-shen and Fu Hsueh-li, were sent into industry. These, unlike many of their former comrades who were striving to “expiate their guilt through honest work,” banded together with some like-minded people and in the early part of 1931 took the first steps toward relaunching the activities of the Left Opposition. Their base of operations was a Chinese workers’ hostel. [280] But their efforts did not last long. In May 1931 they were arrested with seventeen other oppositionists and sent to the OGPU’s Butyrskii “isolator” (a jail). [281] They were soon convicted and sentenced. [282]
With this event the story of the Chinese Trotskyist movement in the USSR reaches its conclusion. However, as they left the political scene, the Chinese Trotskyists did not disappear completely. Their activities gave a powerful stimulus to the emergence and growth of the Left Opposition in China itself. It is true that their theoretical achievements were meager and that they left no powerful organization as their legacy. But the Chinese oppositionists in Russia exerted enormous influence on the internationalist wing of the Communist movement in China. In this way, they acted as a genuine link between Russian and Chinese Trotskyism.
224. From the Testimony of Vitin, 26; Testimony of a Student, 15.
225. Wang, Shuang-shan hui-i-lu, 102, Testimony of Comrade Nekrasov, 9–?
226. Wang, Shuang-shan hui-i-lu, 102.
227. Leon Trotsky, The Chinese Question after the Sixth Congress, in Leon Trotsky on China (New York: Pathfinder, 1978), 345–97.
228. Wang, Shuang-shan hui-i-lu, 94–95.
229. See Russian Center 505/1/22/7; From the Testimony of Vitin, 26; Testimony of a Student, 15–16; Record of Communications between the Student Donbasov and a Member of the CCP Delegation, Comrade Teng Chung-hsia, 99.
230. Russian Center 505/1/22/90; From the Testimony of Vitin, 26; Testimony of a Student, 17.
231. For a stenographical record of this meeting, see Russian Center 530/1/7071.
232. Ibid., 530/1/56, 64; From the Testimony of Vitin, 26–27, 32–33; Testimony of a Student, 17.
233. See Record of Communication between the Student Donbasov and a Member of the CCP Delegation, Comrade Teng Chung-hsia, 99; From the Testimony of Vitin, 26; Testimony of a Student, 16.
234. They were sent as part of a group of twenty-six who left Moscow in four parties on August 13, 14, 16, and 18. Apart from Wang Fan-hsi, Liu Yin, and Chao Chi, the group included the following Trotskyists – Wang Hsin.keng, Kao Heng, Yeh Yin (also known as Yeh Ying, the wife of Wang Fan.-hsi who was known as Nevskaya while studying on the military-political course at CUTE, October 1927–June 1928, and later, at UTC, had the pseudonym Anna Dunaeva), Li Ts’ai-lien, Lu Meng-i, P’u Te-chih, Hsieh Ying, Huang Lieh-wen, Hsieh Shu-ta, Chiang Te-fang, Chou Ch’i-heng, Chou Ch’ing-ch’ung, and Yuan Fan. See Russian Center 530/1/56; 530/1/64.
235. See Testimony of a Student, 16; Testimony of the Student Lugovoi, 20–21.
236. From the Testimony of Vitin, 27; Testimony of a Student, 17; Testimony of the Student Lugovoi, 21; Record of Communication between the Student Donbasov and a Member of the CCP Delegation, Comrade Teng Chung-hsia, 99.
237. See Testimony of the Student Lugovoi, 22; Russian Center 495/225/1891.
238. See Testimony of the Student Lugovoi, 21; Testimony of a Student, 16–17.
239. From the Testimony of Vitin, 28; Testimony of a Student, 17; V.I. Veger, Documents of the Soviet Communist Party Central Committee Addressed to Kagonovich, Stetskii; Moscow Committee of the Soviet Communist Party, Bauman, Kogan, April 25, 1930. Russian Center 530/1/71.
240. See List of Trotskyists at the Communist University of the Toilers of China, Russian Center 514/1/1010/38; List of Chinese Trotskyists in the USSR, ibid., 514/1/1010/44–56.
241. Interview with Wang Fan-hsi at Leeds, England, July 25, 1992.
242. Testimony of the Student Lugovoi.
243. Record of Communication between the Student Donbasov and a Member of the CCC Delegation, Comrade Teng Chung-hsia, 99; Testimony of the Student Lugovoi, 22; From the Testimony of Vitin, 28; Testimony of Comrade Nekrasov, 9–10; Russian Center 514/1/1010/48, 52, 54; 530/1/62.
244. See Testimony of the Student Lugovoi, 22; Testimony of a Student, 17.
245. Russian Center 514/1/1010/42, 43.
246. Ibid.
247. Refers to the Chinese Revolutionary Party formed at the start of 1928 in Shanghai on the initiative of T’an P’ing-shan and some other former Communists who left the KMT. The party raised liberal democratic slogans.
248. Tokin was at this time secretary of the party committee at CUTC.
249. Resolution of the Chinese Commission of the Eastern Secretariat of the ECCI, March 1, 1929, Russian Center 530/1/48.
250. Letter from Veger and Tokin to the Eastern Department of the ECCI, Russian Center 530/1/56. To be sent to China without a party rendezvous was equivalent to being expelled from the party, with the corresponding loss of the income which went along with the status of a professional Communist revolutionary.
251. Russian Center 530/1/56.
252. I have discovered three versions of this document. The most complete, entitled List of Trotskyists, contains information on eighty-one persons. The other two refer to seventy-nine and sixty-eight persons respectively (the last version has pages missing). The lists tally almost perfectly with each other with only a couple of names not matching up. See Russian Center 514/1/1010/25–35, 77–81, 87–90. The document is not signed. I managed to identify its author by comparing it with other material stored alongside it in the archives. See, for example, Russian Center 495/225/1106, 1891, 2411.
253. Another commission, chaired by Appen, was set up to assist the Berzin commission shortly after the latter commenced work.
254. Teng Chung-hsia, Some Considerations concerning the Party Purge of the College Cell at CUTC, Russian Center 514/1/1010/1. Teng Chung-hsi a evidently used a fourth version of the denunciation referred to above: he speaks of seventy-four Trotskyists and “sympathizers.”
255. See the list of Chinese students at CUTC who, according to the OGPU, were Trotskyists or oppositionists linked with them. Russian Center 514/1/ 1010//57–66.
256. See Testimony of the Student Lugovoi.
257. Ibid., Sheng Yueh describes the condition of Chao Yen-ch’ing at this time in similar terms. See Sheng, Sun Yat-sen University, 175–76.
258. I have been unable to locate the text of the declaration. As to its existence, see Russian Center 530/1/71.
259. Interview with Wang Fan-hsi at Leeds, England, July 25, 1992.
260. Russian Center 530/1/75.
261. Sheng, Sun Yat-sen University, 175.
262. Russian Center 530/1/71.
263. Wang Fan-hsi writes that Chao Yen-ch’ing betrayed between 200 and 300 Chinese Trotskyists (See his Shuang-shan hui-i-lu, 111). This, however, could not be true since there were simply not that many Chinese Trotskyists in the USSR.
264. See Members of the Trotskyist Organization at CUTE (according to Donbasov), Russian Center 514/1/1010/17; List of Trotskyist students at CUTC named by the student Donbasov in his testimony and statements, Ibid., 18; Supplement, Ibid., 80; Record of Communication between the Student Donbasov and a Member of the CCP Delegation, Comrade Teng Chung-hsia, 99.
265. See Supplement, 80; Record of Communication between the Student Donbasov, and a Member of the CCP Delegation, Comrade Teng Chung-hsia, 99.
266. Russian Center 514/1/1010/46.
267. Sheng, Sun Yat-sen University, 176.
268. Ibid., 176–77; Testimony of the Student Lugovoi, 24.
269. See Testimony of a Student, 17–18.
270. See OGPU on the List of Students Arrested at CUTC, Russian Center 514/1/1010/36–37; 530/1/62; List of those arrested by the OGPU on February 8 and 19, 1930, Ibid., 514/1/1010/73–74, Ibid., 495/225/1100.
271. Sheng Yueh later described how some of these interrogations were conducted (during this period he acted as translator for one of the investigators). See Sheng, Sun Yat-sen University, 178–80. On the life of Chinese Trotskyists in Soviet prisons, see the memoirs of Ma Yuan-sheng, Liu Su chi-shih (Notes on life in the USSR) (Peking: Ch’un-chung ch’u-par-she, 1987), 124–44.
272. List of Chinese Trotskyists in the USSR, 44–56.
273. See List of Trotskyist Addresses and Rendezvous in China, Russian Center 514/1/1010/91; List of Trotskyists in China, Ibid.,, 92–97; List of Trotskyists who were former members of the party cell at CUTC, Ibid., 530/1/39; Li, Oppositionists Returned from Moscow, 1; Testimony of the Student Lugovoi, 23.
274. See Ch’u Wei-t’o [Ch’u Ch’iu-pai] and Teng Chung-hsia, Our Views on CUTC, sent to the ECCI, CPSU(b)CC, and CCPCC from the CCP Delegation to the ECCI. Russian Center 530/1/68.
275. Five persons were deported from the USSR, including Pien Fu-Jin and Wang Wen-hui.
276. See Russian Center 505/1/22/2–14; 505/2/23; 514//1/1010/36–37, 530/1/62.
277. See Minutes no. 1 of the meeting of the commission examining the activities of Chinese students at CUTC, concerning the purge relating to the fifth group, June 26, 1930, ibid., 505/1/23.
278. See OGPU on the List of Students Arrested at CUTC, 36–37; Supreme Court of the USSR, Ruling no. 4N–013598/57, Russian Center 495/225/1100; Ibid., 495/225/ 543; 495/225/1106, 1116, 1384, 2045.
279. Characteristics of the CUTC students sent to work in industry, ibid., 530/1/73.
280. The hostel was located at no. 51 Ulitsa Herzena (Herzen Street).
281. See Russian Center 514/1/1014/1, 15.
282. What became of the majority of former members of the Chinese Trotskyist organization active in the USSR is unknown. We do, however, know a few facts about some of them. For example, Ch’iu Chih-ch’eng and Hu P’eng-chu managed to escape from the USSR, in 1933 and 1934 respectively, but sometime between 1937 and 1939 they were arrested by the Sinkiang (Xinjiang) government (apparently, they were then shot). Of those who were subject to repression, fifteen persons were finally rehabilitated on March 8, 1958. Their names were: Liu Ho-sheng, Li Tz’u-pai, Chao I-fan, Liu Han-p’ing, Jung Li, Chiang Hua-an, Chang Ch’ung-te, Li Shih-le, Wang Wen-hui, Li Wei-min, Chin Hung-ti, Ch’en Fang, Ch’eng Ping, and also Ch’iu Chih-ch’eng and Hu P’eng-chu (who were partially rehabilitated). It is unclear which, if any, of them was still alive at the time of their rehabilitation. According to the information in the archives, we can be sure of the survival through it all of less than ten persons, who included Wan Chih-ling and Fan Wen-hui. This was despite the fact that the former was arrested and sentenced three times and the latter twice. In 1955 Fan Wen-hui and his family were finally allowed to leave the USSR for the People’s Republic of China. And in 1956 Wan Chih-ling and several other former Chinese Trotskyists left for the PRC. See Russian Center 495, 225/1018, 1116; Supreme Court of the USSR, Ruling no. 4N–013598, 57.
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