Publishing information: Robert J. Alexander, International Trotskyism 1929-1985: A Documented Analysis of the Movement. Copyright 1991, Duke University Press. Posted with permission. All rights reserved. This material may be saved or photocopied for personal use but may not be otherwise reproduced, stored or transmitted by any medium without explicit permission. Any alteration to or republication of this material is expressly forbidden. Please direct permissions inquiries to: Permissions Officer, Box 90660, Durham, NC 27708, USA; or fax 919.688.3524.
Transcribed: Johannes Schneider for the ETOL February, 2001
The various Chinese Trotskyist factions were in contact with Leon Trotsky. This seems to have been particularly the case with the October Society and the Proletarian faction. The former apparently sought to turn Trotsky against Ch’en Tu-hsiu but Trotsky, although recognizing the fact that Ch’en had in the beginning gone along with the CCP alliance with the Kuomintang, knew that he had sought an end to that alliance and had come around completely to Trotsky’s own view of the policy of the Comintern in China [43].
The Chinese Trotskyists themselves recognized that their division into several competing factions weakened their overall influence, so by the summer of 1930 they were already negotiating the possibility of unity. They formed a Negotiating Council for Unification for this purpose. However, as Joseph Miller quoted Wang Fanxi as saying, “the negotiations took a very long time. Each group expressed different opinions at every meeting of the council.” [44]
Finally, on January 8, 1931, Trotsky addressed a letter entitled “To the Chinese Left Opposition,” urging the various factions to unite. He said that “To begin with, I will say that in studying the new documents I finally became convinced that there is no difference in principle at all among the various groups that had entered on the road to unification. There are nuances in tactics, which in the future, depending on the course of events, could develop into differences. However, there are no grounds for assuming that these differences of opinion will necessarily coincide with the lines of the former groupings.”
Trotsky ended this letter with an appeal to his Chinese supporters. He wrote: ”Dear friends, fuse your organizations and your press definitively, this very day! We must not drag out the preparations for the unification a long time because in that way, without wanting to, we can create artificial differences.” [45]
Trotsky’s appeal to his followers brought rather quick results. On May 1, 1931 the unification conference of the Chinese Trotskyists opened and the proceedings continued for three days. The meeting was attended by seventeen delegates and four observers claiming to represent 483 members in all. There were six representatives of Our Words, five of the Proletarian Faction, four from the October Group and two from the Militant Group [46].
The conference established the Communist League of China and adopted Trotsky’s document “The Political Situation in China and the Task of the Bolshevik-Leninist Opposition” as its “programmatic base.” It also elected a Central Committee, with Ch’en Tu-hsiu as its secretary general. The other members of the Central Committee were P’eng Shu-tse, Wang Fanxi, Song Fengchun, Chen Yimou, Song Jingxiu, Zhang Jiu, Zheng Chaolin, Liu Hanyi, and Pu Yifan [47].
Although most of the Chinese Trotskyists were unified in the Communist League, some did not go along with this unification. Some of them seem to have dropped out of political activities, including Ma Yufu and Liu Yin (of the Struggle Society). Liang Ganqiao of the Our Words group sometime later joined the Kuomintang. Liu Renjing, although not joining the Communist League, continued to consider and proclaim himself a Trotskyist and was to play a subsequent role in the history of Chinese Trotskyism [48].
The membership of the Communist League was concentrated almost exclusively in the cities. There is no indication that the Chinese Trotskyists had any influence in, or even contact with, the Chinese Soviet Republic which scattered Stalinist guerrilla groups were trying to establish in various parts of southern China. E. H. Carr has noted that “ Trotsky ridiculed the idea that ‘Chinese peasants, without the participation of the industrial centres and without the leadership of the communist party, had created a Soviet government. ’ “ [49]
About three weeks after the establishment of the Communist League officials in Shanghai cracked down on the new Trotskyist organization. Two-thirds of the members of its Central Committee were arrested. P’eng, Ch’en, and Song Jingxiu were the only Central Committee members still out of jail, and they had to remain deeply in the underground. This persecution frightened off some of the members of the organization [50].
National events soon changed Chinese politics and the situation of the Trotskyists, however. On September 18, 1931, the Japanese launched their campaign to take over the Chinese province of Manchuria, and they followed this in January 1932 by a military attack on Shanghai.
Soon after these events the Trotskyists began publishing an apparently clandestine periodical, Spark. It carried articles by Chinese Trotskyist leaders and publications of Trotsky himself. Spark urged that the Communist parties force the USSR and the international Communist movement to support China in its struggle against the Japanese. In Chinese internal politics Spark urged mobilization of the urban workers and linkage of the CCP’S rural soviets with the urban labor movement. It also urged the unification of the Chinese Communist ranks. Joseph Miller has noted that “this was the basic program for the anti-Japanese resistance promulgated by the Communist League, and they took this program into the schools and the factories, where they agitated to develop a broad-based democratic movement.“ [51]
The Communist League also began publishing an “open” periodical, Warm Tide, which was said to have “gained wide influence among general readers, including members of the Chinese Communist Party.” This influence was the result of increasing disillusionment of CCP members with the policies of the party’s Stalinist leadership [52]. The Trotskyists also began issuing a magazine, The Moving Force, designed particularly to appeal to intellectuals and students. In addition, they put out Chinese translations of works of Marx, Lenin and Trotsky, including parts of Trotsky’s autobiography [53].
The position of the Communist League in the face of Japanese aggression got a favorable response among workers and intellectuals. Ch’en Pi-lan has written that “our agitation and propaganda work had great influence among the students and working masses, and we met with an especially broad response among the lower levels of the party cadres.” [54] Ch’en Pi-lan added that “many rank-and-file cadres who read the documents of Trotsky and the anti-Japanese articles and criticisms of Stalin’s policies published in Warm Tide got in touch with us. After discussing with P’eng Shu-tse, they joined the Trotskyist movement. Several dozen important industrial party cells came over to us, including the postal, power-plant and textile workers. These cells totaled half the membership of the Chinese Communist Party in Shanghai. The Left Opposition was thus able to lead the workers movement in Shanghai in several important strikes that met with relative success. The Trotskyist movement simultaneously made fresh headway in Peking, Wuhan, Nanking, Kwangtung, and Hong Kong.” [55]
But this period of success of the Communist League was to be short-lived. Joseph Miller has pointed out that the Trotskyists, who were operating semiclandestinely in Shanghai and other major cities (in contrast to the Stalinist cadres who had largely joined their rural guerrilla forces), were particularly vulnerable to the persecution of the Chiang Kaishek regime.
On October 15, 1932, Kuomintang government police raided a meeting of the Central Committee of the League, arresting P’eng Shu-tse, who was presiding, and the four others in attendance. A few hours later, Ch’en Tu-hsiu was also arrested. On the days that followed most leading cadres of the group in Shanghai, as well as many in other cities, were arrested and jailed by the Nationalist government authorities [56].
Most of the Trotskyist leaders who had been picked up were taken to Nanking, the Nationalist capital. The press kept track of what was happening to them and a number of leading intellectuals demanded that the League leaders be given a public trial in a civil court rather than being subject to an “in camara” military tribunal, which might well condemn them to death before the public could be made aware. As a consequence of this campaign the trial of Chen, P’eng and others began in Nanking on April 14, 1933.
The Trotskyists were accused of “(1) dissemination of seditious propaganda, and (2) formation of organizations having for their object the endangering of the Republic....” After a trial lasting a week Chen and P’eng were sentenced to thirteen years in jail and fifteen years deprivation of civil rights. A higher court later changed the sentence to eight years’ imprisonment. They were actually to remain in jail until the Japanese attack on Nanking [57].
In spite of the elimination of the top Trotskyist leaders by the Nationalist government, the Communist League continued to maintain some activity. Spark continued to appear and several pamphlets also were published between 1932 and 1934. Apparently the principal organizer of this Trotskyist activity was Chen Qichang, who operated in Shanghai [58]. In 1934 he was joined by Wang Fanxi, arrested in October 1932 but released in an amnesty late in 1934 [59].
A number of new people joined the Trotskyist ranks during this period, particularly in Shanghai. Two foreigners were of particular importance. One was Frank Glass, a South African, already a Trotskyist who came to China as a journalist. He was largely responsible for financing the Trotskyist publications, contributing about $100 a month out of his salary of $400.
The other important foreigner was Harold Isaacs, an American journalist, who in 1932 had established close contacts with the Communist Party and began to publish an English-language periodical, China Forum, which served for some time as a mouthpiece for the CCP. By late 1933 or early 1934 Isaacs had become disillusioned with the Stalinists and attracted to the Trotskyists, perhaps through the person of Frank Glass. In any case, he decided to close down China Forum and to turn over its printing establishment to the Trotskyists. Isaacs moved to Peking to work on his book The Tragedy of the Chinese Revolution, taking Trotskyist Liu Renjing with him as his research assistant and translator [60].
For some time Liu Renjing, who had had a long-standing personal and political feud with Chen Tu-hsiu, was able to gain control of the Trotskyist leadership and to use it to attack his old adversary. He had recruited a number of new people at the University of Peking and early in 1935 was able, with their help, to establish a new Provisional Central Committee. That body promptly condemned the alleged “opportunism” of Ch’en, and called upon him to ”recognize his errors.”
However, Trotsky soon intervened in the situation. When he was visited in Norway by Harold Isaacs, who came to consult Trotsky about his book on the Chinese revolution, Trotsky expressed to Isaacs his support for Ch’en, and in fact won Isaacs over to his point of view.
Apparently, Isaacs passed this word back to Frank Glass who took the lead in bringing together the supporters of Ch’en and those of Liu Renjing, who in the meanwhile had been jailed by the KMT police along with most of the other Provisional Central Committee members. The result was that still another Provisional Central Committee was established in Shanghai at the end of 1936 consisting of members of both groups. Its authority was formally recognized by Ch’en Tu-hsiu, who still remained in prison [61]
By early 1936 the Communist League had begun to publish another journal, Struggle, which by the end of the year had a circulation of two or three hundred. The League had also once again acquired local groups in Peking, Kwangsi, Chekiang and in Hong Kong, where it began to publish a journal, Star.
This renewed activity brought renewed persecution. In May 1937 Wang Fanxi was arrested once again and was kept in prison in Nanking until shortly before the Japanese took that city in November 1937. Frank Glass’s home was also carefully watched and people who visited him were arrested from time to time [62].
Ch’en Tu-hsiu and P’eng Shu-tse were released from jail in Nanking in August 1937 after the outbreak of the Sino-Japanese War. By that time they had developed basic disagreements. As Joseph Miller has noted, “Ch’en had developed fundamental differences with some of the tenets of Trotskyism concerning the nature of the Soviet Union, the notion of the dictatorship of the proletariat, and democracy. He and P’eng had exchanged views on these issues while in prison, with P’eng maintaining what might be termed an ‘orthodox’ Trotskyist position.” [63]
Subsequent to their release from prison Ch’en went to Wuhan. When he was visited there in November by Wang Fanxi he suggested that the Trotskyists not try to revive their organization but rather work with the “third party,” a group of small political organizations which were barely tolerated by the Kuomintang regime but were opposed to both the Nationalists and the Communists [64].
P’eng, on the other hand, returned to Shanghai where according to his wife, Ch’en Pi-lan, there were only about a dozen Trotskyists left. She noted that “to begin swimming in the current of the anti-imperialist struggle, P’eng called a provisional conference of all the remaining comrades, including those newly released from prison. A resolution was passed at the conference supporting the armed struggle being waged by the Kuomintang government against Japanese imperialism; accompanying this was a criticism from the political point of view of the government’s reactionary policies.”
Ch’en Pi-lan added that “a provisional central committee was elected and authorization given to publish a clandestine party journal, The Struggle. Shortly after this meeting a number of small regional groups were again established. Owing to the favorable objective situation, the Trotskyist organization was soon expanding in areas such as Shanghai, Peking, Canton, Hong Kong, and the provinces of Kwangsi and Chekiang.” [65]
In August 1939 the Trotskyists were able to get out an open periodical, Moving Onward, of which Ch’en Pi-lan said that “its influence was quite considerable. The periodical carried criticisms of the Kuomintang’s passivity in the War of Resistance and of Stalin’s signing the infamous German-Soviet pact.” She noted too that they were able to translate and publish Trotsky’s History of the Russian Revolution as well as his pamphlet The Moscow Trials, and some pamphlets by P’eng [66].
However, shortly before the conversion of the Sino-Japanese War into the Pacific War as a consequence of the attack on Pearl Harbor there was a serious split in the Chinese Trotskyist movement. The question at issue was the attitude to be adopted toward the war, and three positions emerged in this controversy.
Ch’en Pi-lan has explained that “one tendency, headed by Ch’en Tu-hsiu, viewed the war as a struggle between democratic countries and the fascist Axis. He therefore argued for abandoning the policy of ‘defeatism’ in democratic countries like England and France. In addition, in view of the tragedy of the Moscow trials and the Hitler-Stalin pact, he reached the conclusion that the Soviet Union was no longer a workers’ state and consequently should not be supported.” [67]
Virtually exactly opposite of Ch’en’s position was that of Wang Fanxi and Chang Ch’ao-lin. Although favoring the struggle against the Japanese invaders while continuing political opposition to the Kuomintang regime) as long as it continued to be merely a Sino-Japanese conflict, they maintained that the situation would be different if that war became part of a wider struggle.
Wang argued that “if the American Army intervened in the war and became the main opponent of Japanese imperialism, then the war would change its character and become a war between Japan and the United States, with China as a junior partner on the American side.” Therefore he claimed, “if we really meant to continue our revolutionary struggle during the war, not in words but in deeds, we should prepare ourselves to adopt. . .a position of ‘revolutionary defeatism’ ” [68].
The third faction was headed by P’eng Shu-tse. He based his argument against both “Ch’en’s opportunism and Wang’s ultraleft sectarianism” [69] on a letter which Trotsky had written to the Mexican Trotskyist Diego Rivera on September 23, 1937, soon after the beginning of the Sino-Japanese War. Trotsky had written that “the duty of all the workers’ organizations of China was to participate actively and in the front lines of the present war against Japan, without abandoning, for a single moment, their own program and independent activity. ... China is a semi-colonial country which Japan is transforming, under our very eyes, into a colonial country. Japan’s struggle is imperialist and reactionary. China’s struggle is emancipatory and progressive.”
Trotsky had added that “Japan and China are not in the same historical plane. The victory of Japan will signify the enslavement of China, the end of her economic and social development, and the terrible strengthening of Japanese imperialism The victory of China will signify, on the contrary, the social revolution in Japan and the free development, that is to say unhindered by external oppression, of the class struggle in China.” [70]
P’eng’s wife has noted that “P’eng defended Trotsky’s fundamental position on the Second World War and the Sino-Japanese War, including the possibility of war breaking out between Japan and the U.S. ” [71]
This factional struggle came to a head at the Second National Convention of the Communist League in July 1941. The political resolution adopted there, entitled “Our Attitudes and Policies Toward the German-Soviet War and Coming United States-Japanese War,” reflected the position of the P’eng group. The resolution claimed that “all advanced capitalist countries and backward countries, including the Soviet Union will become embroiled in the imminent imperialist war. . . . The destinies of China’s anti-Japanese war and the Soviet Union’s anti-German war have now been tied together” It argued against “defeatism.”
Joseph Miller has summed up other portions of this resolution: “the League demanded the ‘complete freedom’ to speak, publish, associate, lead strikes, take up arms to fight Japan, and promote their political program among the members of all parties, except for those of traitors. They also demanded the institution of an eight-hour work day, the establishment of peasant associations in the villages, and the confiscation of land. Concerning their relationship to the CCP, the League recognized that it must continue to criticize the party politically, but as far as the anti-Japanese war and the defense of the Soviet Union were concerned, it was necessary to cooperate in actual activities. The resolution also contained points concerning the organization of guerrilla units, agitation among the Japanese soldiers .... ” [72]
Ch’en Pi-lan noted that “P’eng’s resolution was adopted by an overwhelming majority. No one supported Ch’en’s position, and Wang’s was backed by only a few members. ” [73]
Ch’en Tu-hsiu seems to have withdrawn from all further participation in the Trotskyist movement after this Second Convention. He died on May 27, 1942 [74]. The faction led by Wang Fanxi and Cheng Ch’ao-lin first tried to continue the controversy within the Communist League, then began its own periodical Internationalist, and finally established their own organization, the Communist League of China (Internationalists) [75].
Right after the Japanese attack upon Pearl Harbor Japanese troops occupied the International Settlement area of Shanghai, where the Trotskyists had had their headquarters. A number of leading elements in the Communist League were arrested by the Japanese, although P’eng Shu-tse was not among them, and contact between the League headquarters and local groups was broken. For practical purposes the Communist League as a functioning organization did not exist from December 1941 until the defeat of the Japanese.
Ch’en Pi-lan has described the difficulties the Trotskyists faced in this period: “Despite the perilous situation, P’eng managed to bring together a group of young comrades. Using a pseudonym he gained an appointment as a professor of Chinese history, Western history and philosophy in two universities. In his classes, of course, he could not use Marxist terminology. Nevertheless, he oriented his lectures along Marxist lines and influenced a number of leftist students. Some of them wanted to meet him after his lectures and thus we welcomed a group of young people to our home, regardless of their political backgrounds.”
She went on: “We discussed various problems with these students, later converting even those who had come under Stalinist influence to our positions. These youths were to become the foundation of our movement in the postwar period.” [76]
With the surrender of the Japanese and the return of most Chinese cities to the control of the Chiang Kai-shek government the Nationalists substantially reduced the degree of political oppression, allowing more freedom of organization and expression than in the past. Ch’en Pi-lan has noted that “taking advantage of the opening, our organization once more moved actively forward”.
The Communist League began publishing two magazines, Seeking the Truth, edited by P’eng Shu-tse, which Ch’en Pi-lan has said “was the most attractive magazine in the postwar period,” adding that it was “openly propagating Trotskyist ideas.” The other publication was edited by Ch’en Pi-lan and was first called Young and Women, but was then changed to New Voice. It became the official organ of the League.
Ch’en Pi-lan has claimed that “the two periodicals had a nationwide circulation reaching all the important cities until they ceased publication at the end of 1948 upon our leaving Shanghai. Their influence was considerable among the intellectuals, students and young workers. In addition they made it possible for branches of our movement, disrupted by the war, to renew contacts and to reach out to individuals who had become isolated.”
Branches of the League were reestablished in Shanghai, Canton, Hong Kong “and other cities,” and P’eng held a weekly seminar in Shanghai which was attended regularly by over one hundred people. The League also conducted “regular cadre schools.” By the time of its Third National Convention in August 1948 the League claimed 350 members [77].
The Third National Convention of the Communist League adopted a new political program. It also adopted a new name for the organization, the Chinese Revolutionary Communist Party, and approved a new party constitution and “a resolution on organizational principles. ” [78]
The rebirth and modest growth of the Revolutionary Communist Party (RCP) took place against the background of the civil war between the Chiang Kai-shek government and the Communist Party forces, which had been raging intermittently since the end of World War II. Soon after the Third National Convention of the RCP took place, the Communists launched what proved to be their final offensive against the Kuomintang.
During the civil war the Trotskyists took the position that “both the KMT and the CCP should unconditionally stop the war.” Many years later, this slogan was criticized in retrospect by the Chinese Trotskyists, because it “objectively equated the KMT and the CCP” which was “a tactical mistake. ” [79]
Before the launching of the last Communist offensive, while the Communists and Kuomintang were still engaged in negotiations about the possibility of forming a coalition regime, the Trotskyists issued an appeal to the workers and peasants about the situation
The outstanding feature of the present situation is that while the peasant armies are scoring unprecedented victories and while the bourgeois regime is engulfed by unprecedented bankruptcy, the Chinese working class is lacking a powerful party armed with the correct program and able to provide the workers with revolutionary leadership.
To the Chinese working class, we Trotskyists point out that in the absence of a powerful proletarian party the peasant army has fallen into the hands of conciliators. It is being used by the top bureaucracy of the Stalinist party as a means of striking a bargain with the bourgeoisie in the establishment of a “coalition government.” Once it begins playing the role of guardian of a “coalition government,” the peasant army will of necessity be used by the bourgeoisie and by the conciliators as a weapon against the workers.
The RCP put forward the “correct” positions to be maintained by workers in both Kuomintang and Communist-controlled areas. In the former, “we must expose the Kuomintang’s entire policy of oppression and its ‘peace maneuver’. ... Our slogans must especially emphasize demands for the release of all political prisoners, for the abrogation of all ‘emergency’ and martial laws....” It concluded that “In this area our general slogan is ‘Down with the Kuomintang government: For a National Assembly chosen by universal, equal, direct and secret suffrage!’ ”
The RCP maintained that “we must pay particular attention to systematic agitation and propaganda in the Stalinist-controlled area. Above all, we must point out to the masses that the so-called ‘people’s government’ under the auspices of the Stalinist party is in essence a military bureaucratic dictatorship propped up with guns. In the final analysis the power of the Communist Party hears a bourgeois character, basing itself primarily on the petty-bourgeois peasantry. Power of this kind is quite unstable.”
Finally, the RCP admitted that “we Trotskyists understand that in the first stage of the Stalinist dictatorship we will be isolated temporarily from the broad masses. What is more, we know that we are threatened with physical annihilation.” [80]
It was in view of their likely treatment by the triumphant Stalinists that the RCP Executive Committee held an emergency meeting in December 1948, as the Communist armies were approaching the Yangtze River area of central China. At that meeting it was decided that the Political Bureau of the party would be transferred to Hong Kong, that a Provisional Committee in Shanghai would attempt to maintain contact with party groups in various parts of the country, and that members of the RCP would try whenever possible to enter the CCP and its Communist Youth League and the “mass organizations” established under Stalinist aegis, “in order to better support all progressive measures undertaken by the CCP.”
Ch’en Pi-lan has noted that “of the five comrades on the Political Bureau, Chin was already in Hong Kong; I K’uan, who was not willing to leave Shanghai, was soon arrested by the CCP regime along with many other comrades none of whom have been heard from since; P’eng Shu-tse, Liu Chia-Liang and I set out for Hong Kong, where we arrived at the end of 1948.” [81]
During the first few years of the Communist regime the Chinese Trotskyists led a highly precarious existence before being completely obliterated as an organized group. As early as August 1949 according to an appeal by underground Trotskyists in January 1953, “most members of the Kiangsu-Chekiang Emergency Committee of our Party and several other responsible comrades were arrested, but were later instructed to cease political activity and released.” At about the same time, Trotskyists were arrested on a large scale in Wenchow (Chekiang Province) and Shunsan (Kwangtung Province). “Some were shot on the false charge of being ‘Kuomintang agents’ “. In 1950 there was a further roundup of Trotskyists in Kwangsi Province. The appeal noted that “the fate of dozens of arrested comrades is not yet known to this day.”
Then, “from December 1952 to January 1953, wholesale arrests of Trotskyists were staged throughout the country, from Peking to Canton, and from Shanghai to Chungking. ... Such a simultaneous action on a national scale clearly indicates that it was by no means a ‘local incident,’ but a planned action conducted directly by the supreme authority of the CP. “ [82]
The dissident Trotskyists, led by Wang Fanxi and Cheng Chiao-lin, continued to function after 1941 as a separate organization from the Communist League. They used the name Communist League (Internationalists). Once the war was over they entered into at least epistolary contact with the Fourth International and the Socialist Workers Party of the United States.
The Wang-Cheng group continued to maintain the position which had brought them to split from the CCP. Thus, in suggesting to the Fourth International the position which it ought to adopt with regard to “anti-imperialist wars,” the Communist League (Internationalists) wrote that “if the war were carried on as a war between a colonial country on the one side, and an imperialist power on the other, then it is progressive; but if the war were, or finally became interlocked with, a war between two imperialist powers ... then it has lost the progressive meaning which it had originally. “ [83]
The Communist League (Internationalists) continued to be highly critical of the rival Chinese Trotskyists. Thus, in a “discussion document” issued in November 1947 they wrote that “our tactical divergences at the present stage are centered on the question of the civil war now being waged between the Kuomintang and the Chinese Stalinists.” It claimed that the P’eng group “in reality . . . took the side of the Kuomintang.”
The Communist League (Internationalists) document continued, “We reject and oppose this bankrupt position of theirs. We maintain that the Kuomintang and the Chinese Communist Party represent different class forces in Chinese society. The former represents the landlords and bourgeoisie, while the latter represents mainly the poor peasants. . . . As a peasant war, the civil war has a progressive character on the side of the peasants; but, as a peasant war only, the civil war is devoid of any perspective, and is even doomed to failure, because of its Stalinist domination. ” [84]
In the immediate post-World War II period the dissident Trotskyists, like their rivals, were able to establish organizations in various parts of the country, including Shanghai, Peking, Kwangsi, and Hangchow. In April 1949, only a few weeks before the Communists captured Shanghai, the group held a convention in which they changed their name to Internationalist Workers Party.
It was decided that Wang Fanxi and one other member of the leadership of the new party should go to Hong Kong in view of the proximity of Stalinist capture of Shanghai. For at least a while other members of the group continued to be clandestinely active even after the Stalinist victory. They established a new underground journal, Marxist Youth, which flourished modestly for a while. [85]
One of those who stayed behind in Shanghai was Cheng Ch’ao-lin, who had shared top leadership in the Internationalist Workers Party with Wang. There were at least some overtures made to him by onetime friends in high posts in the Stalinist regime to get him to give up his Trotskyist allegiance, but these failed. Finally, on December 22, 1952, at the time of the general roundup of Trotskyists throughout the country, Cheng and his wife Wu Ching-iu were arrested. Cheng was kept in jail until after the death of Mao Tse-tung, being released only on June 5, 1979. His wife, who had been freed in 1947 but had rejoined her husband in a prison camp fifteen years later, was also released with him. [86]
The Internationalist Workers Party was dissolved ”in the 1950s.” [87]
With the triumph of the Stalinists in China the Chinese Trotskyist movement existed principally in exile. P'eng Shu-tse and Ch'en Pi-lan, when they moved to Hong Kong late in 1948, established the RCP's publication there. They also brought out in Chinese Harold Isaac's Tragedy of the Chinese Revolution. However, as a consequence of Communist victory in China in 1948-49 the British authorities in Hong Kong, anxious to maintain good relations with the forces which dominated China, began to persecute the Trotskyists.
About a dozen of the refugee Chinese Trotskyists were arrested and deported by the Hong Kong authorities. The police also began to search for P'eng and Ch'en who, to evade capture, kept changing their residence. Finally, as a consequence of this persecution, they and a fellow Political Bureau member, Liu Chia-liang, fled to Vietnam.
The Chinese Trotskyist leaders were not safe in Vietnam either. A few months after arriving there a group of Vietnamese Trotskyists, accompanied by Liu Chia-liang, accepted an invitation to a "conference" in a part of the country controlled by the Stalinist Vietminh. There they were arrested, and Liu Chia-liang died shortly after in a Vietminh jail. Since they felt that Liu's fate would soon be theirs as well, P'eng Shu-tse and Ch'en Pi-lan fled once more, this time to Paris.[88]
In 1952 the handful of Chinese Trotskyists still left in Hong Kong established a Provisional National Committee (PNC) to take the place of the party's elected Central Committee. The only surviving members of that Central Committee, P'eng and Ch'en, by then resident in France, recognized the PNC as the legitimate directing body of the Revolutionary Communist Party in 1954.[89]
Joseph Miller has noted that "activities in Hong Kong were minimal; an irregular journal ... was published, along with pamphlets discussing major events in China and the world. Since the major trade unions in Hong Kong and Kowloon were under Maoist control, there was little, if any, activity by the Trotskyists in this arena. Basically this was a period of retrenchment, a period of holding actions, which might allow the remnants of the movement to take advantage of any change in conditions."[90]
In spite of the obliteration of the Trotskyist movement inside China, and the extremely limited membership and activity of the group in Hong Kong, P'eng Shu-tse and Ch'en Pi-lan continued not only to be very active Trotskyists but also influential figures in the world Trotskyist movement. Joseph Miller has noted that as soon as they arrived in Paris in mid-1951 they "began full participation in the work of the Fourth lnternational."[91]
P'eng almost immediately came into conflict with the European Trotskyists, led by Michel Pablo, who at that time dominated the International. He strongly disagreed with Pablo's move in suspending the majority of the members of the Central Committee of the French Section. At about the same time Pablo refused to circulate a criticism by P'eng of a draft resolution on China which the International Secretariat had sent out for discussion. Meanwhile, because of P'eng's position on these and other issues, Pablo prevented P'eng from participating in the work of the International Secretariat of which he was presumably a member.
Early in 1953 P'eng received an appeal from five Chinese Trotskyists who had succeeded in avoiding arrest for aid and publicity about the mass arrests of Trotskyists carried out by the Maoist regime in December 1952 and January 1953. P'eng asked Pablo to publish this and although (according to P'eng) "apparently Pablo consented to his request, in practice he put this appeal away in his office drawer. The only reason was that he was afraid that once this appeal was published his propaganda idealizing the Mao regime would be frustrated and his lies accusing the Chinese Trotskyists of 'refusing to go among the masses and being sectarian' would also be exposed."[92]
As a consequence of these disagreements, when the International Committee of the Fourth International was set up under the aegis of the Socialist Workers Party of the U.S., P'eng and the Chinese Revolutionary Communist Party became part of it. A statement issued in January 1954 in the name of the National Central Committee of the RCP said that Pablo and his supporters "evidently abandoned the fundamental position of orthodox Trotskyism. ... This revisionist deviation has become more clearly revealed when applied to all important problems."[93]
In subsequent years P'eng became one of the principal people in the International Committee seeking to bring the two factions of world Trotskyism back together again. He was the principal proponent within the IC of the "First Parity Commission" which functioned in 1954-55.[94]
From time to time P'eng acted as his party's spokesman with regard to events within China itself. He strongly opposed the Great Leap Forward started in 1958 and "criticized some members of the Fourth International for what he felt were naive views toward the commune movement."[95]
P'eng and the RCP also strongly denounced the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution. A resolution of the Provisional National Committee of the RCP on February 28, 1967, argued that "Mao's purpose is to reestablish his personal dictatorship and to cut short any reform measures," and argued in favor of "critical support" for the opponents of Mao, headed by Liu Shao-chi and Deng Tsiao-ping, because Mao's victory "will block all reformist roads, revive adventurism, and intensify the frenzied cult of the personality and personal dictatorship." This position was in contrast to the "neutral" stance taken by the United Secretariat of the Fourth International toward the Cultural Revolution.[96]
Liz Cheung has noted the participation of the Chinese Trotskyists in the controversy in the United Secretariat in the 1970s. She has said that "after 1970, when there was a polemic in the FT on the Latin American guerrilla warfare strategy, the RCP stood against the strategy and was in the LTT"[97] (Leninist Trotskyist Tendency).
Joseph Miller has summed up the role of P'eng Shu-tse and Ch'en Pi-lan in the 1950s and 1960s thus: "It is clear ... that P'eng's involvement at the center of the Trotskyist movement has meant a continued visibility for the Chinese perspective. In the years under consideration ... the role played by P'eng and his wife ... within the Fourth International has been substantial. ... Certainly, in a period when the Trotskyists in Xiahgang [Hong Kong] were at their lowest ebb, these activities at the center by two of the earliest members of the cep and the Chinese Left Opposition were crucial to the maintenance of the RCP."[98]
P'eng was a member of the International Executive Committee and Secretariat of the United Secretariat from 1963 until 1979 when, because of his age, he was designated a "consultative member" of the IEC. He died in 11983.[99]
The resurgence of an open and rather dynamic, albeit small Trotskyist movement at least on the periphery of China, in Hong Kong, was the result of the student movement of the 1960s, which was so important also in the history of Trotskyism in the United States, France, Australia and several other countries. Liz Cheung of October Review has noted some of the specifically Chinese factors which contributed to the revival of Trotskyism in Hong Kong: "The change came after 1970 with the discrediting of the CCP due to the Cultural Revolution and the Lin Biao Incident, and the gradual rise of social movement in Hong Kong."[100]
After student demonstrations in 1969 a group of youths in Hong Kong established early in 1970 a periodical, Seventies Biweekly, which "represented a radical tendency within the over-all youth movement."[101] Trotskyism was only one of the radical ideologies in which those associated with the Seventies Biweekly were interested. However, some of the older Trotskyites, most notably Wang Fanxi, established contact with them, and he even contributed articles to the magazine.
It wasn't until 1972, when a few of the Hong Kong youths made an extensive trip to France, that a definite Trotskyist tendency began to develop within the new radical youth movement of Hong Kong. Those young people looked up P'eng Shao-tse and had long conversations with him, and he was able to recruit a few of them to the movement, which they joined upon their return to Hong Kong.[102]
The RCP at first did not favor its new recruits abandoning the Seventies Biweekly group. However, in May 1973 two of the returnees did so and established a Trotskyist youth group, the Revolutionary Internationalist League. This organization in 1974 took the name Socialist League, and in 1975 changed its name once again, to Revolutionary Marxist League. It published a periodical, Combat Bulletin, and was led principally by Wu Zhongxian. It was aligned with the International Majority Tendency of the United Secretariat.[103]
Liz Cheung has written about this group that "the Revolutionary Marxist League ... was connected with the majority in the United Secretariat. Its leader, C. C. Wu, had been in the RCP for a short time and he later withdrew from the RCP and formed the RML and began recruiting new members. The two organizations remain separated up to today. Each has dozens of members and operates with H.K. as base."[104] Like the RCP, the RML was "part of the Fourth Intemational"[105] (United Secretariat).
In September 1973 Li Huaiming led another group of young people in breaking away from the Seventies Biweekly, this time with the support of the Revolutionary Communist Party. They formed a group which called itself the International Young Socialist Alliance and changed its name in 1974 to Young Socialist Group. It published a periodical first called Left Bank and then renamed New Thought.
Meanwhile, the Revolutionary Communist Party had launched an "open" periodical, October Review. It also organized its own youth group, the Revolutionary Communist Youth, which worked largely through the Young Socialist Group. The youth group published a periodical called Young Militants.
October Review, which by the early 1980s was carrying several pages in English in each issue although the periodical was mainly written in Chinese, followed what might be called an orthodox USEC line. It frequently carried articles by Ernest Mandel and other United Secretariat leaders, maintained the traditional position that the Soviet Union, the Peoples Republic of China and other Stalinist-controlled regimes were "workers states," and called for "political revolution" in them, particularly in China. It supported Polish Solidarity as the beginning of such a revolution. It was highly critical of the Chinese regime both in its Maoist and post-Maoist phases. The monthly periodical carried extensive news not only about China and Hong Kong but about movements and events in many parts of the world.
The Tienanmen Square "incident" in Peking on April 5, 1976, when a more or less spontaneous demonstration that took place in commemoration of Chou En-lai, who had recently died, was attacked by "security" forces of the government, provoked a united front "forum" in Hong Kong. This took place on May 16, and the participants included not only the pro-Trotskyist organizations of the colony but a variety of other radical groups as well. The only elements which did not participate were the Maoists.[106]
As a consequence of the resurgence of Trotskyist activity in Hong Kong the Revolutionary Communist Party held its Fourth Convention in April 1977. It was attended by sixteen voting delegates as well as observers from the Revolutionary Communist League of Japan and the Socialist Workers Party of Australia.[107]
This convention adopted a number of basic resolutions. Most important of these was the Political Resolution, which covered a wide range of issues. It condemned the Chinese Communist government's foreign policy, saying that "for more than twenty years, the fundamental principle behind China's foreign relations with imperialist and capitalist countries has always been that of 'peaceful coexistence'. Its relations with other workers' states has never been consistent; at different times there have been different evaluations and different attitudes. In all of this, China's foreign policy has violated the basic principles of Marxism-Leninism and has departed from the revolutionary standpoint of proletarianism."
The resolution called for "a proletarian internationalist revolutionary policy." This involved "support and aid the revolutionary movements of all workers and laboring masses," "make public all diplomatic treatises and other documents," and that "all workers' states should, on a voluntary and equal basis, establish a Socialist Federation at the first step towards a World Socialist Federation."
The 1977 political resolution also adopted the orthodox Trotskyist position in analyzing the Chinese Stalinist regime. It argued that "China's bureaucratic caste has already become an indestructible social layer, holding tightly to political and economic power. ... In order to remove this obstacle, a complete political revolution must be carried out, with the proletariat leading all the laboring masses in the overthrow of the CCP's bureaucratic regime and the establishment of a true proletarian democracy."
This "proletarian democracy" was defined in terms of "fundamental democratic rights of the worker-peasant masses." These were detailed as being "personal, speech, press, assembly and association, bearing of arms, strikes, demonstration, residence, migration, travel, education, choice of work, and creation."[108]
The death of Mao Tse-tung and subsequent arrest of "the Gang of Four," and the ascendancy of Deng Tsiao-ping, provoked an "opening" in the Chinese Stalinist regime. To some degree at least, the situation made possible an investigation and discussion of many ideas and theories which previously had been completely taboo. Among these was Trotskyism.
Joseph Miller noted in 1982 that "regardless of the differences between the Trotskyists and the current leadership in China, an official internal discussion of Trotskyism has apparently been going on since 1979. This discussion seems to include academics who have special expertise in the question and access to pertinent documents, a few old recanted Trotskyists ... and high-level party leaders. ..."[109]
The present author has encountered one small piece of evidence of this new curiosity about Trotskyism in post-Mao China. This is the fact that in the early 1980s there was legally published in China a translation of our study of Trotskyism in Latin America.
Also perhaps reflecting a somewhat altered view of Trotskyism on the part of the CCP leadership in the post-Mao period was an assurance given to a delegation of the Hong Kong Federation of Students which visited Peking in July 1983 to learn about the Chinese Communists' plans for Hong Kong once the colony had reverted to Chinese sovereignty in 1997. According to the communique issued by the delegation upon its return the Communist officials had assured them that "the rightists, the Trotskyists and all religious personalities would be allowed to run in elections, and that "the Kuomintang, the Trotskyists and anyone with particular political background will not have their activities restricted" In Hong Kong after 1997, "if they do not engage in sabotage."[111] [Missing end-quote and erroneous capitalisation in original]
The ideas of Trotskyism apparently had some influence upon the opposition movement, the Chinese Democracy Movement (CDM), which arose after the death of Mao Tse-tung. Both the October Review of the RCP and Combat Bulletin of the dissident Trotskyist group in Hong Kong carried much information on the CDM and expressed support for it.[112]
Liz Cheung has commented with regard to this that "there are also some Trotskyist publications in H. K. being circulated in China through unofficial channels. It is hard to say if the democracy movement was inspired by Trotskyism, but there are striking similarities between their analysis of the bureaucracy, proposition of multiparty system and democratication, etc., with Trotskyist ideas. However, it is still difficult to say if the movement has come to the conclusion of political revolution. As you may know already, the movement was suppressed in April 1981 and the main leaders arrested, though there are reportedly clandestine activities still going on."[113]
Another RCP leader, Lee Sze, has said that Wang Sizhe, leader of one of the three major tendencies within the Democracy Movement, "has said that he agrees with Leon Trotsky's views on the development of bureaucracy, although he does not agree with Trotsky's theory of permanent revolution."
Lee Sze was paraphrased as saying in an interview early in 1984 that "because many of the young Democracy Movement activists are the children of middle-ranking or high-ranking cadres in the Chinese Communist Party they had access to a wider range of theoretical works than others might. Because of their family connections they could even read some of Trotsky's works since the Chinese Communist Party has published books and articles about Trotsky and the Fourth International in recent years for internal reference by high-ranking party members."[114]
In defending the dissidents in the Peoples Republic the Chinese Trotskyists in Hong Kong defined their own positions and ideas. This was the case in an editorial in October Review of November 1979 in defense of Wei Jingsheng, a leader of the CDM who was being prosecuted by the Chinese government and who had challenged not only the Chinese regime but Marxism itself. The periodical had already published a number of Wei's writings.
The editorial in October Review said that Wei's conviction for "counter revolutionary propaganda" the month before indicated that "the CCP-drafted Constitution is not only entirely useless, empty writing, but is also an irony of the autocratic dictatorship."
The editorial even defended the right of Wei Jingsheng to criticize Marxism and socialism. It argued that "if Marxism cannot withstand criticism and opposition, it only shows that it is not the truth. We are firmly convinced that Marxism and socialism represent the truth, and are absolutely unafraid of criticism and opposition by the people because it does not represent the truth, and it is extremely weak."[115]
Understandably as the orientation of the People's Republic changed drastically following the death of Mao Tse-tung, the Hong Kong Trotskyists followed very closely and extensively commented on these developments. In an interview with two representatives of the Intercontinental Press early in 1984, Lee Sze of the RCP and Mr. Lueng of the RML both indicated their view of what was occurring.
Both men expressed reservations on the market orientation which underlay much of the policy of the Deng Tsaio-ping regime. Lueng summed up their preoccupations by saying that "although it is too early to tell, the convergence of capital accumulation by the peasants, the restoration of investment income to former capitalists, and the foreign investment and loans could be an impetus to capitalist influence in China."[116]
Both Hong Kong Trotskyists stressed that the relative freedom for dissidents to protest and organize between 1978 and 1981 was a function of Deng Tsiao-ping's efforts to get complete control of the Peking regime. They agreed that once he had gotten such control his administration cracked down substantially. However, Lee Sze observed that this repression was not as great as during the earlier period. He commented that "although the Chinese people and workers have no officially recognized democratic rights and have no access to publications to publicize the exchange of their views, people in general are more open in expressing their views."[117]
Both Hong Kong Trotskyist groups were critical of the foreign policy of the regime under Deng Tsiao-ping. Both parties strongly opposed the Chinese invasion of Vietnam in 1979, seeing it as an effort to curry favor with the United States.[118]
When the agreement between China and Great Britain for the return of Hong Kong to Chinese control was announced late in 1984, the two Trotskyist groups in Hong Kong issued a joint statement on the accord. That document expressed regret that the Chinese had not insisted on immediate return of the colony to China, but rather had agreed to the transfer as of July 1, 1997, when the "leases" of the mainland part of the colony expired. The statement observed that "this is not only a recognition of the unequal treaty which leased the New Territories, but is also in practice recognition of the legality of British rule of Hong Kong based on the unequal treaties. This is a serious political mistake."
The Trotskyists ended their statement with two sets of "appeals," to "the people of China," and "to the Hong Kong people" respectively. The first of these sets was "A. Oppose all articles of the Sino-British Joint Declaration and the Annexes that violate the principle of sovereignty and that break the interests of the Chinese (including Hong Kong) people. B. Demand that the Chinese government assist the Hong Kong people to convene a generally elected, full-powered General Assembly, recover sovereignty as soon as possible, and practice democratic self-rule of the Hong Kong people. C. Compel the Chinese government to at once carry out radical democratic changes, abolish one-party dictatorship and bureaucratic privileges, practice socialist democracy and legal system, and return the government to the people."
The "appeals" to the people of Hong Kong were:
A. Organize and take the initiative to convene a generally elected and full-powered Hong Kong General Assembly, end colonial rule, and democratically elect a self-rule government. B. Actively start the discussion on the drafting of a Basic Law, strive for the democratic enactment of the Basic Law by the Hong Kong people, and realize the democratic rule of Hong Kong by the Hong Kong people. C. Be closely concerned with the political, economic and social developments in China, join forces with the people in the mainland, and struggle together for the practice of socialist democracy in China.[119]
Its position on the Chinese Revolution was one of the first things which differentiated International Trotskyism from Stalinism. Similarly, Chinese Trotskyism was one of the first national sections to be established. It was organized by some of the major founders of the Chinese Communist Party and at its inception was able to rally substantial support among the remnants of that party which survived the decimation of the CCP ranks by Chiang Kai-shek's regime in 1927-28.
Although decimated, the Trotskyist movement in China was able to survive the persecution of the Nationalist regime and even of the Japanese occupation forces between 1941-1945. It was completely obliterated by the Stalinist-Maoist government which came to power in 1949, surviving thereafter only in exile in Hong Kong and Paris.
This situation began to change only marginally after the Great Cultural Revolution, and particularly after the death of Mao. As P'eng Shu-tse has noted, China is the only Stalinist-controlled country in which a Trotskyist movement exists within a few miles, in a territory the population of which is ethnically and emotionally the same as that of that country. However, the possibility of Trotskyism taking root again in China seems at best very remote.
[43] Joseph Thomas Miller: “The Politics of Chinese Trotskyism: The Role of a Permanent Opposition in Communism,” University of Illinois PhD. dissertation, Urbana, 1979, page 169; see also Damien Durand: “La Naissance de l’Opposition de gauche chinoise,” Cahiers Leon Trotsky, Grenoble, September 1983, #15, pages 22-24; English translation: “The Birth of the Chinese Left Opposition”, Revolutionary History, Volume 2, No 4, Spring 1990
[44] Joseph Thomas Miller: “The Politics of Chinese Trotskyism: The Role of a Permanent Opposition in Communism,” University of Illinois PhD. dissertation, Urbana, 1979, page 169
[45] Joseph Thomas Miller: “The Politics of Chinese Trotskyism: The Role of a Permanent Opposition in Communism,” University of Illinois PhD. dissertation, Urbana, 1979, page 171; see also Leon Trotsky: Writings of Leon Trotsky (1930-1931), Pathfinder Press, New York, 1973, pages 124-132
[46] Damien Durand: “La Naissance de l’Opposition de gauche chinoise,” Cahiers Leon Trotsky, Grenoble, September 1983, #15, page 25; English translation: “The Birth of the Chinese Left Opposition”, Revolutionary History, Volume 2, No 4, Spring 1990
[47] Joseph Thomas Miller: “The Politics of Chinese Trotskyism: The Role of a Permanent Opposition in Communism,” University of Illinois PhD. dissertation, Urbana, 1979, page 172
[48] Joseph Thomas Miller: “The Politics of Chinese Trotskyism: The Role of a Permanent Opposition in Communism,” University of Illinois PhD. dissertation, Urbana, 1979, page 173
[49] E.H. Carr: Twilight of the Comintern: 1930-1935, Pantheon Books, New York, 1982, page 326
[50] Joseph Thomas Miller: “The Politics of Chinese Trotskyism: The Role of a Permanent Opposition in Communism,” University of Illinois PhD. dissertation, Urbana, 1979, page 175
[51] Joseph Thomas Miller: “The Politics of Chinese Trotskyism: The Role of a Permanent Opposition in Communism,” University of Illinois PhD. dissertation, Urbana, 1979, page 177
[52] Joseph Thomas Miller: “The Politics of Chinese Trotskyism: The Role of a Permanent Opposition in Communism,” University of Illinois PhD. dissertation, Urbana, 1979, pages 177-178
[53] P’eng Shu-tse: The Chinese Communist Party in Power, Monad Press, New York, 1980, page 34
[54] P’eng Shu-tse: The Chinese Communist Party in Power, Monad Press, New York, 1980, page 33
[55] P’eng Shu-tse: The Chinese Communist Party in Power, Monad Press, New York, 1980, pages 33-34
[56] Joseph Thomas Miller: “The Politics of Chinese Trotskyism: The Role of a Permanent Opposition in Communism,” University of Illinois PhD. dissertation, Urbana, 1979, pages 180-181
[57] Joseph Thomas Miller: “The Politics of Chinese Trotskyism: The Role of a Permanent Opposition in Communism,” University of Illinois PhD. dissertation, Urbana, 1979, pages 182-183; see also P’eng Shu-tse: The Chinese Communist Party in Power, Monad Press, New York, 1980, page 38
[58] Joseph Thomas Miller: “The Politics of Chinese Trotskyism: The Role of a Permanent Opposition in Communism,” University of Illinois PhD. dissertation, Urbana, 1979, page 183
[59] Joseph Thomas Miller: “The Politics of Chinese Trotskyism: The Role of a Permanent Opposition in Communism,” University of Illinois PhD. dissertation, Urbana, 1979, page 184
[60] Joseph Thomas Miller: “The Politics of Chinese Trotskyism: The Role of a Permanent Opposition in Communism,” University of Illinois PhD. dissertation, Urbana, 1979, pages 183-187
[61] Pierre Broué: “ Chen Duxiu et la IVe Internationale de 1938 a 1942,” Cahiers Leon Trotsky, Grenoble, September 1983, #15, pages 29-31; English translation: “Chen Duxiu and the Fourth International, 1937-1942”, Revolutionary History, Volume 2, No 4, Spring 1990
[62] Joseph Thomas Miller: “The Politics of Chinese Trotskyism: The Role of a Permanent Opposition in Communism,” University of Illinois PhD. dissertation, Urbana, 1979, pages 183-187
[63] Joseph Thomas Miller: “The Politics of Chinese Trotskyism: The Role of a Permanent Opposition in Communism,” University of Illinois PhD. dissertation, Urbana, 1979, pages 189-190
[64] Joseph Thomas Miller: “The Politics of Chinese Trotskyism: The Role of a Permanent Opposition in Communism,” University of Illinois PhD. dissertation, Urbana, 1979, page 192
[65] P’eng Shu-tse: The Chinese Communist Party in Power, Monad Press, New York, 1980, page 37
[66] P’eng Shu-tse: The Chinese Communist Party in Power, Monad Press, New York, 1980, page 38
[67] P’eng Shu-tse: The Chinese Communist Party in Power, Monad Press, New York, 1980, page 38
[68] Quoted in Miller Joseph Thomas Miller: “The Politics of Chinese Trotskyism: The Role of a Permanent Opposition in Communism,” University of Illinois PhD. dissertation, Urbana, 1979, page 197
[69] P’eng Shu-tse: The Chinese Communist Party in Power, Monad Press, New York, 1980, page 39
[70] Joseph Thomas Miller: “The Politics of Chinese Trotskyism: The Role of a Permanent Opposition in Communism,” University of Illinois PhD. dissertation, Urbana, 1979, pages 199-200
[71] P’eng Shu-tse: The Chinese Communist Party in Power, Monad Press, New York, 1980, page 39
[72] Joseph Thomas Miller: “The Politics of Chinese Trotskyism: The Role of a Permanent Opposition in Communism,” University of Illinois PhD. dissertation, Urbana, 1979, page 201
[73] P’eng Shu-tse: The Chinese Communist Party in Power, Monad Press, New York, 1980, page 39
[74] For Chen’s articles during his last years, see Pierre Broué: “ Chen Duxiu et la IVe Internationale de 1938 a 1942,” Cahiers Leon Trotsky, Grenoble, September 1983, #15, pages 35-39; English translation: “Chen Duxiu and the Fourth International, 1937-1942”, Revolutionary History, Volume 2, No 4, Spring 1990
[75] New International, New York, March, 1948, page 92
[76] P’eng Shu-tse: The Chinese Communist Party in Power, Monad Press, New York, 1980, page 39
[77] P’eng Shu-tse: The Chinese Communist Party in Power, Monad Press, New York, 1980, page 40
[78] Joseph Thomas Miller: “The Politics of Chinese Trotskyism: The Role of a Permanent Opposition in Communism,” University of Illinois PhD. dissertation, Urbana, 1979, pages 205-206
[79] Orbituary of P’eng Shu-tse, in October Review, Hong Kong, December 1983, page 50
[80] The Militant, New York, May 9, 1949
[81] P’eng Shu-tse: The Chinese Communist Party in Power, Monad Press, New York, 1980, page 41
[82] “Appeal from Chinese Trotskyists”, The Militant, New York, October 19, 1953
[83] New International, New York, October 1947, pages 253-254
[84] New International, New York, March, 1948, pages 90-91
[85] Joseph Thomas Miller: “The Politics of Chinese Trotskyism: The Role of a Permanent Opposition in Communism,” University of Illinois PhD. dissertation, Urbana, 1979, page 207
[86] Intercontinental Press, New York, October 1, 1979, pages 926-927
[87] Joseph Thomas Miller: “The Politics of Chinese Trotskyism: The Role of a Permanent Opposition in Communism,” University of Illinois PhD. dissertation, Urbana, 1979, page 237
[88] Peng, op. cit., pages 41Ñ43
[89] Peng, op. cit., pages 41Ñ43 Miller, op. cit., page 224
[90] Joseph T. Miller: ÔTrotskyism in China: Its Origins and Contemporary Program,” paper at Asian Stodies Association, Monash Univer-- siry, 1982, page 5
[91] Miller dissertation, op. cit., page 227
[92] The Struggle to Reunify the Fourth Interna-tional (1934Ñ1963), Volume I: The First Parity Commission and Peng Shu-tseÕs Pabloism Reviewed,” Socialisr Workers Party, New York, 1977, pages 27 Ñ28
[93] The Militant, New York, February 1, 1954
[94] See documents in The Struggle to Reunify the Fourth International, etc., op. cit.
[95] Miller dissertation, op. cit., page 233
[96] Ibid., page 234
[97] Letter to author from Liz Cheung, August 31, 1983
[98] Miller dissertation, op. cit., page 233
[99] Obituary of PÕeng Shu-tse, October Review, Hong Kong, December 1983, page 49
[100] Letter to author from Liz Cheung, August 35,1983
[101] Miller dissertation, op. cit., page 236
[102] Ibid., page 237
[103] Ibid., page 240
[104] Letter to author from Liz Cheung, August 31, 1983
[105] Intercontinental Press, New York, April 30, 1984, page 239
[106] Miller dissertation, op. cit., pages 236Ñ244
[107] Ibid., page 245
[108] Joseph T. Miller: “Trotskyism in China, etc.,”
[109] Ibid., page 13 iso The author has obtained a copy of this translation
[111] October Review, Hong Kong, September 1983, page 73
[112] Joseph T. Miller: “Trotskyism in China, etc.,” op. cit., page 12
[113] Letter to author from Liz Cheung, August 35, 1983
[114] Intercontinental Press, New York, April 30, 1984, page 241
[115] Joseph T. Miller: “Trotskyism in China, etc.,” op. cit., pages 12Ñ13 -
[116] Intercontinental Press, New York, April 30, 1984, page 239
[117] Ibid., page 240
[118] Ibid., page 245
[119] Intercontinental Press, New York, December 10, 1984, page 743
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