The shibboleth of Democratic Centralism applies to the Chinese as well as to other Communist Parties; in practice this means the high and unqualified concentration of power at the top of the hierarchy following action by the democratic, or mass, element of the party through the Party Council or Congress. In effect, nothing is decided at such elections, since the plebiscites, according to the familiar authoritarian pattern, concern questions to which only one answer is reasonably possible: the answer decided by the party rulers. The free use of meaningless elections characterizes Communist activity in governmental as well as party matters. The voting act gives the impression of concurrence, improves morale, and ceremonializes the approval of the majority for the minority. The purpose which elections serve in democracies—that is, of providing a decision to issues not previously ascertained—appears very rarely in Communist elections, where a near unanimity is constructed to indicate popular support, and contested elections, disunity.
In terms of personnel, the Communist hierarchy has been consistently compliant with world Communist policy as made in Moscow. This is a tribute to the high international unity and uniformity of the ecumenical Communist movement, but raises, in China, problems of intra-national Communist policy. Revolutionary veterans of the party, who fought, suffered, studied, and worked for their cause through ten, fifteen, or twenty years of effort, often find themselves displaced, dictated to, or expelled by the clique of younger men who have lived comfortably in Moscow studying the dialectic mystagogy and acquiring an inside track in Stalinist cliquism.[5] The Chinese Communist Party has been shaken by violent schisms, casting off many once highly-valued leaders.
No sooner does a man become suspect to the ultimate authorities than his previous record, hitherto praised, is re-examined and captious criticism proves that he was a traitor from the beginning, like Trotsky, Bukharin, Chicherin, and Zinoviev. The profound vitality of the Chinese Communist movement as a quasi-religious, self-sacrificial organization is demonstrated by the fact that it has weathered these storms. The terrible hunger for a guidance in life, an insight into the ethical meanings of things, and an absolute which asks nothing but acceptance and obedience—these factors call for courage, humility, abasement, fortitude. They do not favor imagination, individual integrity of thought, or the examination of fact. There has been no indication whatever, despite the wishful thinking of Western liberals, that the mentality of the Chinese Red leaders is one whit different from that of Western Communists. They talk practical democracy, moderation, collaboration with the Kuomintang; they do so because this is the Comintern's China policy, just as they have fought the National Government in the past when the Soviet authorities disliked Chiang more than they did Japan.
Their all-China collaboration is no doubt sincere; but the sincerity is based not on the wish to collaborate, but on what, in their special phrasing, is termed the "objective" analysis of the situation. If the Soviet Union, the chief "proletarian" force in the world, turned against Chiang, the Communist ipso facto would be against collaboration. The war of China against Japan would no longer be a war of "national liberation" but an "inter-imperialist" war in which the true interests of the "working classes" would be against both sides. This provides to Marxians, under the name "science," an absolute, infallible guide to ethics in practical politics, because it presumes to reveal the inescapable long-range meaning of human affairs. The supposition that daily affairs may in fact possess none but short-range meaning, outside of slow, general, nearly impalpable changes in ecology, demography, and genetics, etc., is anathema to the Marxians. A humanism trained to deal directly, pragmatically, and simply with events is as far beyond the Chinese Communists as it is beyond other Marxians.
This orthodoxy, so complete that it enthralls the leadership to Moscow and paralyzes Marxian heretics in the very act of dissidence, reaches throughout the upper levels of the party. This fact does not mean that the Chinese Communist movement is in no wise different from other national Communist movements. The historical basis of the Chinese Communism, ever since Chiang smashed the urban unions in 1927, has been that of an exotic faith imposed upon a native jacquerie, in which the exoticism is unwittingly traditionalist. Peasant revolts of the Chinese past have operated with the counter-ideocratic leverage of a superstition, normally Taoist in derivation. The heads of the Yellow Turbans (ca. 200 A.D.) and the Boxers (ca. 1900) were all magicians; the T'aip'ing (ca. 1850) leader was a Christian in communication with God Himself. These heresies against the all-pervading order of Confucian common sense disappeared after their high-pitched dynamics died down in social readjustment.
Marxism provides an element of faith, devotion, and irrational submission which has operated in past Chinese history. The frugality, honesty, and integrity of the Chinese Red leaders are celebrated by foreign visitors and even by Nationalist officials; such revolutionary virtues seem new in China, whereas they are the twentieth-century manifestation of a common enough phase of Chinese political activity. However, one cannot herefrom conclude that the Chinese Communist movement is destined to disappear with its predecessors, for it has three things which they did not have: an extra-Chinese application, which not only supports it, but proves its concreteness and relative realizability; a modern system of education, and thereby a class of counter-ideologues to compete with the post-Confucian Nationalists; and leaders with revolutionary experience greater than any in the world, not excepting that of the great Soviet leaders themselves. Ancient peasant uprisings revealed a final cleavage between dervish-type organizers and the peasants, once infuriated, who finally sought normalcy. If the Chinese Communist leaders can, through the example of the Soviet Union, or by education, or by dexterous leadership, make Communism into normalcy, they may retain their hold on such sections of the peasantry as their leadership has captured.
Two men stand forth above all others in Chinese Communism. Both would be remarkable individuals in any historical setting. Their partnership has led them to be described by one hyphenated phrase: Chu-Mao: Chu Tê and Mao Tse-tung. Chu Tê, the military genius of Chinese Communism, was born of a gentry family in Szechuan, and attended the Yünnan Military Academy at the time that Chiang was in Japan; he entered the years of his early maturity as an aide to a provincial tuchün. According to Edgar Snow, he was at this time sunk in vice, enjoying wealth, opium-smoking, a harem, and the amenities of a war-lord existence.[6] Chu felt an urge within himself to escape this rut. He abandoned his worthless existence, leaving his harem provided for, and went to the coast, where he could become acquainted with the revolutionary movement. On the way he broke himself of the drug habit. He went to Europe, living in France and Germany, and in the latter country joined the Chinese Communist branch established among the students. He returned in 1926 during the Great Revolution, and served as political officer in the Kuomintang forces. Later he was instrumental in the creation of the Chinese Soviet Republic, and was the prime military leader of the Communist forces in the long civil war. He led the trek to the Northwest, and is esteemed as a military hero of Arthurian proportions. Friendly, candid, interested in specific tasks, he is characteristic of the superb leadership which preserved Communism in China. He is the only Chinese military leader who was not defeated by Chiang, although Chiang pursued him six thousand miles. Major Evans Carlson, the American Marine officer, compares him with Robert E. Lee, U. S. Grant, and Abraham Lincoln—drawing on the best features of each for the purpose.[7]
Mao Tse-tung was born in Hunan in 1893 of a well-to-do farmer family. His autobiography, dictated to Edgar Snow, is a classic of Western literature on China.[8] His history was that of many other restless young Chinese intellectuals, struggling for education amidst turmoil, and adjusting their sense of values to the chaotic early Republic. He was caught up by the Marxism of the literary Renaissance after 1917, served in the Kuomintang during the Great Revolution, and worked as head of the All-China Peasants Union. During the Soviet period, in which he first became a colleague of Chu Tê, he stood forth as the chief political leader. He and Chu between them formed a team to rival Generalissimo Chiang, although Mao shared his political leadership with various others, particularly Chang Kuo-tao. Mao is an expert dialectician, skilled in rationalizing the policies of the Communist International, and keenly critical within the limits of his Marxian orthodoxy. Less genial than Chu Tê, he is nevertheless an inspiring leader. His political skill, in following the lurches and shifts of the Stalin party line while simultaneously leading an enormous Chinese peasant revolt, is monumental. His earlier rivals and colleagues are in most cases dead or forgotten. He survived both ideological and practical ordeals.
A third Communist leader, Chou En-lai, is of importance because he acts as liaison officer between the National Government and the Frontier Area. The Communist quasi-legation in Chungking is maintained as a purchasing and communications office of the Eighteenth Army Corps (formerly Eighth Route Army). Chou, who studied abroad in Japan, France, and Germany, served at the Whampoa academy under Chiang, and in the period of civil war he was one of the chief political officers, twice Chinese Communist delegate to Moscow. He is an old acquaintance of many Kuomintang leaders from Chiang on down, and appears to be one of the most successful diplomats in the world. Despite acrimony from secondary leaders on both sides, Chiang and Mao seek to maintain their alliance against Japan, and Chou is their chief intermediary. At Chungking he is seconded by the alert, brilliant Ch'in Po-k'u, a veteran of Communist political-bureau work.