The Rise of the Second Chinese Revolution¶
Core Argument¶
Chapter Digest: The Rise of the Second Chinese Revolution¶
This chapter dissects the catastrophic subordination of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) to the Kuomintang (KMT) during the 1920s, a strategic error rooted in Stalin’s stagist theory. Stalin held that China’s ‘national bourgeoisie’, embodied by the KMT, must lead a democratic revolution against feudalism and imperialism before any transition to socialism. This compelled the CCP to sacrifice its independence, entering a ‘bloc within’ the KMT and restraining peasant land seizures to preserve bourgeois unity. The consequences were devastating.
On 20 March 1926, Chiang Kai-shek staged a coup in Canton, surrounding Soviet advisors, arresting CCP workers, and raiding trade unions. Stalin and the Executive Committee of the Communist International (ECCI) minimised the event, instructing the CCP to support Chiang’s dictatorship and the Northern Expedition. The ECCI imposed draconian restrictions: the CCP could not criticise Sun Yat-sen’s principles, had to hand over membership lists, and could not control more than one-third of higher KMT committees. The CCP was reduced to a left-wing within a bourgeois party, acting as a brake on the revolution. Landlords attacked peasant associations, yet Communists blamed individual officials rather than the landlord system.
The 7th Plenum of the ECCI (November–December 1926) effectively endorsed this renunciation of independent criticism. Guided by a Soviet Politburo resolution, it ordered the CCP to shift right. Martynov drafted a manifesto claiming China was heading towards a multi-class state, ignoring that state power rests on armed men. On land, it called for nationalisation but excluded the lands of KMT leaders and NRA officers. Stalin banned the formation of Soviets, insisting the CCP use the NRA apparatus instead. The Plenum warned abstractly that the bourgeoisie were trying to smash the revolution but failed to name them—Stalin declared Chiang loyal. Chen Duxiu bowed to ECCI discipline, pledging unity with the KMT and the elimination of ‘left naivete’.
The chapter contrasts this with the Russian Revolution of 1917, where the proletariat and peasant soldiers spontaneously created Soviets, destroying the army as a counter-revolutionary force and mobilising the masses for insurrection. In China, the Communists hid class contradictions from the masses, especially Shanghai workers, leaving them unwarned and unprepared. They became first Chiang’s pawns and then his victims. Chiang concluded the mass movement could be halted only by decapitation. The CCP allowed an historic opportunity to slip, paying dearly for its subservience to a bankrupt stagist orthodoxy.