Chapter 37 Wang Jingwei’s split the CCP lead to the CCP’s defeat 1927

Journalist: “Did you attend the 5th Congress of the Communist Party?” Mao: “Yes, I attended. The 5th Congress of the Communist Party was held in Wuhan from late April to early May 1927. There were 82 delegates in attendance, representing a total of 57,967 party members nationwide.

Representatives from the Communist International, including Lozovsky and Borodin, were present, and Wang Jingwei attended as well. The congress criticized my mistakes, but I was still elected as an alternate member of the Central Committee. Chen Duxiu was reelected as General Secretary, but he was criticized for being right-leaning and had lost his actual power.”

Journalist: “Oh, Wang Jingwei also attended the Communist Party’s 5th Congress. Didn’t he later split the Communists as well?”

Mao: “Yes, shortly after Chiang Kai-shek killed Communist Party members in Shanghai, Wang Jingwei announced the ‘split from the Communists’ on July 15 in Wuhan.

At the time of Wang Jingwei’s split, I felt desolate and didn’t know what to do. One day, I climbed to the top of Huanghe Tower by the Yangtze River. Huanghe Tower is a place that poets throughout history have enjoyed visiting and writing poems about. The Tang Dynasty poet Cui Hao wrote, ‘People of the past have ridden the Yellow Crane away, leaving this place with an empty Yellow Crane Tower. The Yellow Crane has gone and will not return, and the white clouds drift on for thousands of years.’ Later, ‘Yellow Crane’ became a metaphor for something that has gone and will not return. It seemed to reflect my achievements within the Kuomintang, which were about to become nothing. On the day I climbed the tower, it was misty and rainy, and I pondered my own future: ‘Pouring wine, my heart surges with waves.’

I wanted to maintain a relationship with Wang Jingwei, so I lied and claimed that the peasant association mobs were controlled by the Elders’ Brotherhood Society, using them as scapegoats. On June 13, Wang Jingwei told other leaders, ‘According to the report from Comrade Mao Zedong, we only just learned that the peasant associations are controlled by the Elders’ Brotherhood Society. They don’t know what the Kuomintang is or what the Communist Party is. They only know how to engage in acts of murder and arson.’ But my ploy didn’t work, and Wang Jingwei still decided to sever ties with the Communist Party, blaming all rural violence on the Communist Party. I could only leave Wuhan.”

Journalist: “Oh, so you lied about the Elders’ Brotherhood Society being responsible for the violence to absolve yourself of blame?”

Mao: “Yes, but I couldn’t fool Wang Jingwei. For the first time in my life, I felt in danger. Two years ago, when they came to arrest me in Shaoshan, it was a close call, but I rode in a sedan chair to Changsha and managed to evade capture. Now, things were different. On July 4, one of Chen Duxiu’s sons was beheaded. After a series of armed Communist uprisings and killings, the Communist Party was being targeted everywhere. If someone accused you of being a Communist, you could be arrested and executed.”