Welcome to episode 130 of the People’s History of Ideas Podcast.

We’ve spent the last few episodes talking about different aspects of the 1929 Sino-Soviet War. This episode, I want to talk about the framework that the Comintern and, following the Comintern, some of the Chinese Communist leadership developed for thinking about the war in the context of their larger revolutionary project.

One of the key concepts informing how the Communist leadership understood the prospects for revolution in China in 1929 was the idea that the global revolutionary movement was entering a period of renewed revolutionary prospects, and that soon China itself would experience much more favorable prospects for revolution than had existed after the revolutionary tide had temporarily ebbed.

As we discussed back in episode 102, this idea about the bright near future prospects for world revolution had first been put forward by the Soviet leader Nikolai Bukharin in his capacity as general secretary of the executive committee of the Communist International. He had first put forward this idea at the 7th plenum of the executive committee of the Comintern at the end of 1926, and it became the general line of the Comintern at the 6th Congress of the Comintern in the summer of 1928. (And, as we discussed over the course of a few episodes, when the 6th Congress of the Chinese Communist Party took place in Moscow just prior to the Comintern Congress that took place there in 1928, this line was also adopted by the Chinese Party.)

The label that Bukharin gave to this new period in the development of the world revolutionary movement was the ‘Third Period.’ Bukharin had defined the first period as the time of revolutionary crisis and possibility that followed World War One and which saw attempted revolutions in many places, although only really successful in the former Russian Empire (and arguably you could count Outer Mongolia as well, although that revolution depended overwhelmingly on aid from the Soviet army). The second period then set in around 1922 or so, and Bukharin described it as being characterized by the partial stability of the capitalist economy (with this stability implying bad conditions for making revolution). But now Bukharin believed that bright revolutionary prospects lay in the near future, in this new ‘Third Period,’ and it was the job of all of the Communists around the world to be ready to jump on the opportunities when they arose.

Even though Bukharin himself was soon pushed aside from leadership in the Comintern and in Soviet domestic politics, the aggressive ‘Third Period’ orientation of the Comintern remained the line until the Popular Front orientation was adopted in 1934. So even though the policy originated with Bukharin, it is popularly associated more with Stalin, who enthusiastically adopted it, even as he pushed Bukharin aside because of Bukharin’s rightist orientation in Soviet domestic politics, where he opposed the rapid industrialization and collectivization of the late 1920s in favor of continuing with some version of the New Economic Policy of 1921-1928. It is also because of this conception of Bukharin as a ‘rightist’ that it is easy to forget his association with the formulation of the ‘Third Period’ Comintern policies.

Globally, the Third Period is a time when you see Communists doing some incredibly audacious things, as well as committing some actions which most observers in retrospect consider to have been colossal errors. On the more positive side of the balance sheet, in the United States, for instance, this is when the Communists made their heroic efforts at organizing the Share Croppers Union in Alabama, a story that some listeners might be familiar with from Robin Kelley’s Hammer and Hoe book, or from the oral history book that Theodore Rosengarten wrote based on the life of Ned Cobb, a former member of the Share Croppers Union, titled All God’s Dangers.

But like I said, there were also some pretty big mess ups during the Third Period. The biggest of these, in my opinion, was what is known as the ‘social fascism’ line, which was the policy pursued in Germany which considered the Social Democrats as the main enemy of the working class rather than the Nazis. To be sure, this line did not come only from the Soviet Union, it was also rooted in deep divisions inside the working class. In Germany the antagonism between the Communist Party and the Social Democratic Party reflected social tensions between skilled workers with stable jobs and good pay who comprised the base of the Social Democrats, and workers whose existence was more precarious, who gravitated to the Communists. In the precarious economy of post-World War One Germany, and then especially after the Great Depression began toward the end of 1929, there was a constant effort by the Social Democrats to shore up and secure the position of the skilled and employed workers, even at the expense of the worse off sections of the working class. And it had been the Social Democrats who carried out the brutal repression of the revolutionary workers’ uprisings in 1919 and the early 1920s (and who sanctioned the extrajudicial murder of Communist leaders by proto-fascist gangs, as in the case of Rosa Luxemburg and Karl Liebknecht). So there was a strong social basis for the Comintern’s policy, it wasn’t only imposed by Moscow (and probably couldn’t have been pursued so aggressively for so long if it didn’t have a material basis in German society).

But, this policy led to a serious underestimation of the fascist threat and even sometimes resulted in tactical collaborations between the Communists and the Nazis. The slogan that the Communists adopted, “After Hitler, Us,” may have been technically true as far as eastern Germany went, but I don’t think that what happened between 1933 and 1945 is really what they had in mind when they created that slogan.

One of the great ironies of global Maoism is that, on the whole, the Maoists outside of China have tended to be great admirers of the ‘Third Period.’ And this makes sense, because of all the energy and heroic action that happened at this time. There is a revolutionary spirit to the time that I think resonates very much with the spirit of the revolutionary upsurge of the late 1960s and early 1970s that really saw Maoism blossom as a revolutionary trend around the world. But the ‘Third Period’ was replaced by the idea of a Popular Front in 1934, which was a sort of belated recognition by the Comintern that some sort of broader alliance (or at least action in parallel) with the Social Democrats, or at least with a substantial portion of the social base who the Social Democrats represented politically, and with others, might have resulted in preventing Hitler’s rise in Germany. In Europe, this was too little too late, and in much of the world the Popular Front policies pursued by Communist Parties resulted in those parties liquidating core aspects of a Communist identity. But in China, the way in which this policy was pursued, which involved the Communists working to unite with the Guomindang (and the Guomindang’s social base) against the Japanese invasion even as the Guomindang was trying to kill the Communists, ended up being the much more successful overall policy for the Chinese Revolution. There is a weird thing that happened during the War of Resistance against Japan in China where Chiang Kai-shek was formally the commander of all the Chinese armed forces, including even the Communist armed forces, but in fact he often tried to kill the Communists instead of fighting the Japanese even then. It’s a really interesting history. Anyways, it was precisely during this period, when the Chinese Communist Party was pursuing policies much more in line with those of the Popular Front than of the ‘Third Period,’ that the Communists really laid the basis for their victory later on in the civil war with the Guomindang that happened after the end of World War Two.

But we will get to that in the future. Now that I’ve had a chance to share a few ‘big picture’ thoughts on the ‘Third Period’ and the Popular Front, let’s get back to China and begin our examination of how this concept of the ‘Third Period’ was articulated and understood in China’s specific context.

Now, it’s worth noting that, as one would expect, the Chinese Communists were as a rule pretty stoked about the idea of a coming high tide of revolution. This was what they wanted, after all. And there was a real tension between this subjective desire to carry through a revolution and being able to make an objective assessment about what the conditions were for making revolution at any given moment.

For example, just before the 6th Party Congress in Moscow in 1928, several Chinese Communist Party leaders had a meeting with Stalin. In this meeting, Li Lisan said to Stalin: “There are still struggles of the workers and peasants in China, so the revolution is still at high tide.” To which Stalin responded, “Even in low tide, there could be a few errant waves.” Li Lisan, as we will see later on, is someone who is definitely associated with very optimistic appraisals of what is possible in any given situation, and he is going to become the main figure associated with the Chinese Communist Party’s policies during the first part of the ‘Third Period.’ But as this exchange between Li Lisan and Stalin also shows, the Chinese Communists were reliant on the Soviets at this time for assessments of how favorable or unfavorable the objective situation actually was for revolution. (At least, the Party Center was. As we have seen in past episodes, Mao was confident enough to make his own assessments of the objective situation independent of Moscow or Shanghai.)

Anyways, it wasn’t too long after the 6th Congress before word arrived from Moscow that there were signs that the objective situation was changing. On February 8, 1929, the Executive Committee of the Comintern sent the Central Committee of the Chinese party a letter which emphasized once again that there would soon be a new revolutionary outbreak, and that the party needed to get its act together and be ready for it. Here’s an excerpt from that letter which shows how the ECCI put it:

“[T]here is no doubt that the basic problems of the bourgeois-democratic revolution in China are not only not solved, but are wholly insoluble by the Chinese bourgeoisie and [Guomindang] Government… The basic contradictions are not being overcome; they are growing more acute, and this is bound to stimulate the process of ripening of a new general revolutionary crisis, broader and deeper than the earlier one... It is essential to prepare the party and the masses, in particular the proletarian masses, for the forthcoming struggle to overthrow the feudal-bourgeois bloc, to establish the revolutionary-democratic dictatorship of the proletariat and peasantry. If the communist party does not succeed in consolidating its own ranks in good time, in strengthening its influence over the industrial proletariat, reinforcing the leadership of the peasants' struggle by the organized proletariat, then when the revolutionary crisis breaks, it will not be able adequately to exploit the objectively revolutionary situation and ensure the victory of the revolution. Over the past year the Chinese Communist Party was not able adequately to adapt its revolutionary work to the changing objective conditions, and this is still its greatest weakness. It was born and grew up in conditions of a revolutionary mass offensive… and open legal work. It was not prepared for underground work in conditions of atrocious terror. Thus the blows of the counter-revolution shook the party severely and produced a state of disorganization which has still to be overcome and which presents great difficulties. The unusually great weight of the intelligentsia in the active party cadres does not make this task any easier... The first and basic task in the present period is to strengthen the illegal communist party, to reinforce its organizations and its authority and its dominant influence—the importance of which was at first underestimated by the legalists, who at first put on the brakes and then resisted and rejected this line. The right danger is the more serious for the Chinese revolutionary movement as the ruling [Guomindang] party is doing all it can to attract into its orbit large masses of the petty bourgeoisie and also the working class. With this end in view, while continuing its bloody repression of communists, it is proposing certain social reforms (shorter working day, profit sharing, etc.)... in the attempt to create the illusion that some so-called 'left-wing' [Guomindang] leaders wish to fight the reactionary feudalists and warlords, to defend the cause of national freedom against the imperialists, etc.”

So this February 8, 1929 letter was a kind of ‘get ready guys’ message from the Comintern Executive to the Chinese Central Committee, letting them know that the situation was ripening up, and they needed to get their organization leveled up in order to be able to deal with it when it came.

The next letter from the ECCI to the Central Committee came on October 26, and in this letter the ECCI indicated that there had been a decisive favorable turn in the objective situation. (Bear in mind that letter came towards the end of the Soviet armed forces’ October offensive up the Songhua River in Manchuria that we discussed in episode 127.)

So let’s look at some salient excerpts from this letter from the ECCI:

“Recent events in China compel us, without waiting for reports from you on the activities and policy of the party in the present circumstances, to give our appraisal of the situation now being created in China, and our preliminary proposals on the most important tasks of the communist party.”

Basically, the Comintern is saying, we aren’t totally sure what you guys have been up to, but some important stuff is going down, so we are going to tell you what we think you should do now.

Continuing with the letter:

“1. China has entered a phase of deep national crisis, reflected in (a) a new outbreak of internecine wars between military cliques, behind whom stand the imperialist Powers, among whom contradictions are growing more acute;”

This refers to the outbreak of the Central Plains War, which we’ve discussed a few times now, most recently in episode 128. As we noted in episodes 111 and 113, Mao Zedong also considered the new war between Chiang Kai-shek and other militarists as a favorable development for the revolution and had proposed taking advantage of that war by taking over large areas of Fujian and Jiangxi provinces.

Continuing with the letter:

“(b) the formation—as a rival to the [Nanjing Guomindang]—of the 'party for [Guomindang] reorganization'”

This refers to another important element of the infighting going on among the militarists and inside the Guomindang itself. The left-wing of the Guomindang had reemerged as a significant political force by late 1929 and, with the development of the Central Plains War, had developed an alliance with warlords like Feng Yuxiang in opposition to Chiang Kai-shek. While Wang Jingwei remained the overall leader of the Guomindang Left, the main ideologue of the Reorganization Comrades Association was Chen Gongbo. We met Chen all the way back in episode 18 when he was one of the founding members of the Communist Party. Instead of sticking with the party, he went and studied at Columbia University, and when he came back to China he became a close associate of Wang Jingwei and a major figure on the Guomindang Left.

Continuing with the letter:

“(c) the aggravation of this situation by the anti-Soviet adventure and the consequent sharpening of all contradictions;”

This of course refers to the Sino-Soviet war.

And this list of reasons why the objective situation is getting better for revolution continues:

“(d) the failure of all efforts to attract substantial foreign capital investments and to have the unequal treaties reviewed; (e) the obvious collapse of all the [Guomindang’s] internal policies, which have failed to suppress the revolutionary mass movement (despite the unparalleled white terror)... (f) depression in a number of industries, while at the same time the role of foreign capital in the country's economic life is growing; (g) the prolongation and deepening of the agrarian crisis, from which there is no escape within the framework of the present bourgeois-landlord regime; (h) the general worsening of the position of the working class and the basic peasant masses, already intolerable; (i) the rise of a new wave of the workers' movement, advance signals of a new revolutionary upsurge; (j) the revival of the peasant movement, in particular of the guerrilla movement.”

The letter continues for a few more paragraphs about the way in which the objective situation is becoming more favorable. And then it turns to the subjective factor, the state of affairs in the Communist Party:

“[T]he ideological and political influence of the CCP and the level of working-class organization lag behind the growth of mass discontent, the mounting revolutionary energy, and the spontaneous movement. Few of the red trade unions are mass organizations, while the influence of the yellow [Guomindang] unions is still great… The communist party is far from having rallied to its side the revolutionary cadres of the industrial workers; still less has it accomplished the task of winning the majority of the working class, or, what is of cardinal importance at the present moment, winning the leadership of the spontaneous economic and political struggles of the proletariat. The party has not yet become the pioneer, organizer, and leader of the directly revolutionary struggle of the broad masses.

“In the communist party itself there are serious vacillations about basic questions of its tactics and policy (the liquidationist group of Chen [Duxiu], the tendency in favour of a bloc with the 'reorganizers' and the yellow trade union bureaucrats, the tendency to deny the necessity of supporting and leading the peasant war), which prevent it from taking the lead of the independent mass struggle in the new conditions of the approaching revolutionary surge.

“This lagging behind of the party's influence on the working masses, of the level of organization in the revolutionary trade union movement and the party itself, in the rear of the growing spontaneous struggle of the working class, is the most serious danger for the entire future development of the revolutionary struggle in China.”

I want to talk about what they are calling Chen Duxiu’s liquidationist group in an episode in the near future, probably next episode, because he represents a counter-point to the dominant optimism about revolution in the Communist leadership, and also he expressed opposition to the Soviets in the war in Manchuria. I think we will get to that next episode.

But let’s wrap up this episode by seeing what the tasks are that the ECCI calls on the Chinese Communists to take up in order to meet the needs of the situation:

“(a)… exploit to the utmost the fighting which has already begun and use it to develop further the independent revolutionary mass movement... and to expose the counter-revolutionary role of all [Guomindang] groups. The party's cardinal topical slogans in its mass agitation must be 'turn the wars of the warlords into class war, civil war'; and 'overthrow the government of the landlord-bourgeois bloc'. . .;

“(b) at the same time the fight to win mass influence, the fight for proletarian hegemony, must be intensified, and directed in the first place against the so-called 'reorganizers', who are trying to exploit the mass discontent and at the present moment represent the chief danger to the further development of the revolutionary movement... It is especially important to demonstrate to the masses their servility to imperialism, particularly evident in their rabid and truly fascist campaign against the USSR in connexion with the conflict over the Chinese Eastern Railway... It is obvious that any kind of bloc with the 'reorganizers' cannot be tolerated. If such blocs were permitted, they would mean the subordination of the independent movement of the proletariat to the leadership of the counter-revolutionary national reformist bourgeoisie and would unquestionably lead to the defeat of the revolutionary movement. Now more than ever before we must concentrate on the independent struggle of the workers and peasants under the leadership of our party;

“(c) particular attention must be paid to the strike movement. As the industrial and political struggles merge, every effort must be made to develop political strikes, designed to lead up to a general political strike...;

“(d) the party must pay more attention to the fight to win the leadership of the anti-imperialist movement against all the imperialist Powers, particularly the United States… In connexion with the conflict in Manchuria it is necessary to organize a campaign under the slogan of defence of the USSR, exposing all sections of the [Guomindang], including the 'reorganizers', as agents of imperialism;

“(e) reinforce and expand the partisan movement, particularly in Manchuria, in the areas where Mao [Zedong] and [He Long] are active. Repel decisively those tendencies in the party which underestimate the revolutionary significance of the peasant struggle, in particular the guerrilla movement. Pay more attention to work among the soldiers. Try to the utmost to arm the worker and peasant detachments at the cost of the warlords' troops… Occupy the areas evacuated by the militarists and consolidate your position there. Where the revolutionary mass struggle of the peasants is growing, try to form Soviet centres; you must be there. Where Soviet power is established, you must set actively about confiscating the land of the big landowners, arming the peasants, and organizing Soviets. Try to co-ordinate the scattered actions of the worker and peasant armies…”

The call, in this final point here, for the Communists to expand the partisan movement in Manchuria basically amounts to the ECCI saying, hey, wouldn’t it be nice if you guys could expand your guerrilla warfare from thousands of miles away to where we are fighting a war right now? The areas of operations of the Communist armed forces of any size were about as far from Manchuria as you can get.

Anyways, these two letters from the ECCI to the Chinese Communist Party Central Committee that we looked at in this episode are commonly read as expressing a rising pressure from Moscow on the Chinese Communists to adopt a more aggressive overall posture, in line with the global orientation of the Comintern ‘Third Period.’ While I think that is accurate, there is an overemphasis in some of the literature on Moscow’s pressure campaign and less emphasis on the enthusiastic Chinese reception, with the Chinese Communist leadership coming off more as bureaucrats who were harried by their Moscow superiors, rather than as the enthusiasts for revolutionary action that they were. As we will see in future episodes, this assessment coming from Moscow that the situation for revolution in China was just fine was warmly received by most of the Chinese Communist leadership.

Until then, be well.