The ABC’s of Communism Bolshevism 2011

Jason W. Smith, Ph.D.

 

Chapter 14: Bolshevism Spreads to China - Lessons of 1927

We need to examine the initial Bolshevik experience in China for several reasons: (1) one reason is that the failure in China, on the first go-around, was deeply rooted in a failure to understand the nature of the underlying psychological imprinting of many people; (2) another is that the failure in China first time out of the box had much to do with the Moscow Politburo’s ignorance of Chinese conditions (especially those in Shanghai, as we shall see); (3) not the least reason for directing our attention on this first attempt of the Bolsheviks to take state power in China is that in the end, what was achieved, has allowed China to become the center of the World Socialist Stage today.

There are two critical phases to this experience. The first is the period in which Bolshevism came to China by the invitation of Chinese Marxists. Lenin sent agents who were inclined to intervene along the lines laid down by their chief (who as we have seen created the Third International {COMINTERN or Communist International} in 1919.) The second is the phase when an indigenous Chinese Communist leadership struck out on its own path following the failure of 1927. For our purposes we shall concentrate upon the first phase.

The Leninists in Moscow turned their attention to China soon after the October 1917, seizure of power but did not dispatch agents until early in 1921. It is from that point we shall begin.

- And, to properly understand this initial experience it is necessary to pull data from three separate lines of investigation and a multitude of sources of information in order to sort out what really happened in the earliest phases of the Chinese proletarian revolution.  (1) One of these are the documents left behind by the Bolshevik leaders in Moscow and their chosen instrument, the Comintern, and its agents in Russia and China; (2) another is that body of knowledge about the early history of Chinese capitalism (including its legal and illegal components), and finally, (3) we want to study the corpus of data about the history of foreign imperialism in China, especially Japanese imperialism as it impacted China in the first three decades of the 20th century.

 When it is all said and done what is most amazing is that the Russian Bolsheviks almost pulled it off.  That is, they almost succeeded in China in 1921-27 as they had only a decade earlier in the Czarist Empire. Considering that the Bolshevik bosses started with no indigenous Chinese expertise, and were working in one of the great five known areas of origin of global civilization, with a long and distinguished autochthonous sociocultural evolutionary tradition of its own, the fact that they did almost succeed, after only a few years of direct intervention, is in and of itself a testament to the power of their ideas - the truth’s of Marxist and Leninist analysis. - And, also to the quality of the Bolshevik leaders and their agents. But, their ultimate failure, in this first round, is also reflective of a weakness in their theory, in the one critical area: superstructural analysis, as we shall see.

Although the Chinese revolution failed in its first phase, the experience in its entirety laid the basis for the success of the Chinese Revolution twenty years later. This is because the Chinese Bolsheviks who survived the bloodletting of 1927 came to understand the weakness in the General Theory of Historical Materialism (the applied anthropology if you will) of their time. They corrected it in practice, and to a degree in theory as well, under the leadership of Mao Tse-tung. His eventual success was a truly historic achievement which was, in no small part, the result of building upon the experience of the daring role played by the Bolshevik chiefs in Moscow, from the beginning, which in this case was 1921. Mao’s corrections were in the area of the theory of ideology (the theory of the superstructure.)

It is this additional and equally important reason (the then extant theoretical weakness) which requires us to review the spread of Bolshevism to China in this book (where we have not the space to deal with each and every important and relevant historical event). How devastating their cognitive failure sometimes turned out. Especially, in China, in the years 1924-1927. We can see that theoretical weakness more clearly now because we now understand so much more about the “ideological” component of Marx’s theory of the tri-partite model of culture: technology, social organization and ideology (forces of production, relations of production, superstructure, respectively) arranged in the traditional schematic way, and with interchangeable terms, as:

 [Ideology] = superstructure

 [Technology and Social Organization] = base (mode of production)

What do we know specifically, now, that we did not know in the early 20^th century? How have we acquired this new knowledge?

To answer the last question first, we acquired this knowledge as a product of practice in the struggle to traverse the transitional period between epochs that began in 1917. We have the documents and the historical accounts we need.

Furthermore, and with regard to experience, this explication of real world events is the reason I began this series of papers, monographs and books, with my own autobiography (“Idaho Smith’s” Search for the Foundation!” 2003, Jason W. Smith, Writers Press, Boise.) That is to say my own ethnographic fieldwork in contemporary cultural settings has allowed me a unique perspective on the documents that constitute the history of the struggle of Bolshevism in the last century. That field experience has served me well as a solid rock foundation from which to project the principle of basal sadistic-selfish mental template imprinting of people who must find themselves as the Hegelian subjects of the contemporary world struggles, and to do so methodically in each and every one of the events of the past, the present, and speculatively into the future. Sadism and selfishness are the two ends of the broad spectrum of behavior inculcated into all those born into Servitude Epoch societies - it is the primary mental template of the Servitude Epoch.

It is no accident that practices such as those arising at the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq occurred. Under Sadam or under the subsequent US management. For, sadism is one of two competing mental templates in societies that have advanced into the Second Transitional Period (between Capitalism and Communism).

The new template of altruism of the modern communist variety (emerging on a new and vastly superior technological basis rather than that of the primitive communist variety of Bands and Tribes) is emerging but is still the inferior template and will be so until (1) STAR TREK type technology is on the horizon and (2) working class governments are firmly in the saddle and not in danger of capitalist imperialist attack.

We know today that the superstructure or ideological component of culture is not simply a mirror reflecting the material conditions in which people live. It never was. In Chapter One of Volume One of Capital Marx points out that the “fetishism of commodities” makes, to paraphrase, ‘the material conditions of life appear as social relations between things.’ He knew the ideological component was complex and required deep scientific insight in order to understand it properly - it’s not simply a reflective mirror. As with all things, the answer to what makes them tick lies deep within those very same things, as Niels Bohr once remarked. Thus, the methodology. Which is to say we must look deep into the key factors influencing history. In this case along the three lines of inquiry listed above.

The mode of production (the relationship between technology and social organization) of any society will determine the type of ideology that can occur (the kind of idea system that is possible.) Within Servitude Epoch societies, the primary mental template will always have two poles as opposite sides on a broad-spectrum – think analogously of the electromagnetic spectrum with gamma-x rays on one (left) side and radio on the other (right) side – in sociocultural evolution we have a primary mental template also existing as a spectrum with two opposite poles: one (right) side is simple selfishness/self-centeredness, and on the other (left) side, outright sadism.

In the Second Transitional Period the former template is retreating; the coming primary “communist” mental template is advancing. The latter also has two poles (with its opposite poles being those of “liberal social consciousness” and “pure altruism.”)

However, there is a universal basal imprinting of all people, regardless of class, in a given sociocultural “epoch” in the ideological template of that Epoch or Period. When there are such dramatically competing templates we can expect to see widespread schizophrenia (because of the bi-polar nature of society and the competing templates.)

To date, we have seen two templates and two periods with competing templates: (1) that of the first egalitarian “epoch” (the altruism of primitive communism) (2) that of slavery, feudalism and capitalism – which is to say the sadism and selfishness of the “servitude” epoch; and (3) the period of the Chiefdom Stages with both of these templates in competition; and (4) the current period of the Socialist Stages with the template of the Servitude Epoch coexisting with the new mental template of the as yet, never before seen, Stage of Communism. Note, that in each of the transitional periods there are two competing mental templates - that of the formerly extant stage and that of the stage to come.

During the recent 500^th Anniversary celebrations of Colon’s “discovery” of the Americas several books appeared commemorating the occasion and some of them describe the contrast between the Spanish ronin freebooters and their ideology on the one hand and the people of the Bahamas and theirs. For example, the Spanish ronin enjoyed spit-roasting (barbequing) the Indians as they stole from them and the Bahamians couldn’t comprehend such behavior. That is, the sadism of the Servitude Epoch vs. the altruism of the First Egalitarian Epoch.

Mental imprinting colors the way people behave in the most profound underlying causal way. In the early 20^th century we saw that the underlying basal imprinting of sadism and selfishness of the Servitude Epoch (composed of the Stages of Slavery, Feudalism and Capitalism) led to the treason of the 2^nd international. - And, to other surprises within the Bolshevik Party in Russia (as confronted in Georgia and dealt with by Stalin and Dzerzhinsky,) and a few years later to the trap sprung by the decisive sector in the Chinese bourgeoisie: the gangsters of Shanghai known as “the Green Gang.”

Had the Bolshevik theoreticians in Moscow known of this decisive underlying long-lasting mental imprinting of people in selfishness and sadism (which cannot go away until many generations have come and gone in the period of transition from epoch to epoch, and the material conditions of life have changed to support the second egalitarian epoch) then they would have anticipated such events as the treason of the Second International, the anti-Party course in Georgia taken among some Bolsheviks, and the trap sprung by the Green Gang – examples chosen only because we have discussed them in the text - (and not to mention a myriad of other conflicts resolved unfavorably for our side.)

Also, we cannot discount the fact of insufficient knowledge about the specifics of Chinese conditions - which also led to the bushwhacking in Shanghai. The Bolsheviks understood the specifics of Russian society but were woefully ignorant of those of then contemporary China. Understanding those specifics in Russia, and the correct application of Marxist theory, brought them success in Russia. Not understanding the specifics of Chinese society, even with an almost correct application of Marxist theory (a theory at that time weak in the area of “ideology”), was insufficient, first time around, to bring success in China.

Now let us begin with a review of what the Bolsheviks did do in China, and why. How they allowed themselves to be the loser in “class alliance” rather than the winner, in the first go-around with the Chinese capitalist classes.

Lenin finds Capitalism in China is Indigenous but Distorted

 By Feudalism and Imperialism

China’s capitalist stage begins in the late 1700's with the full scale introduction of machinofacture and its five diagnostic elements in several key soon-to-be industrial cities. Much of this invention work was done much earlier and in China not elsewhere. For example, blast furnaces existed in China perhaps two thousand years before they were invented in Liege in AD 1500 in the West. – And, steam engines were invented in China centuries before a Chinese model arrived in France in the 1700’s.

However, China is a vast country compared to the city-state polities of Western Europe. The mass of producers were fully domesticated serfs and most of the GNP came from peasant farmers under the heel of the feudal boot of the Master and Mistress classes and their eunuch bureaucracy administrating the Empire. For capitalism’s productive potential to be released the national social structural situation would have to be changed, just as it had had to be changed in Europe and North America.

In the event, a role was played by the Chinese bourgeoisie, in league with British opium traffickers, similar, structurally, to the role played by Oliver Cromwell and his capitalist farmers during the English Revolution. In China we know the rise of the Chinese bourgeoisie as the Taiping Rebellion (1850 - 1860) which swept out of the south from Canton (now Guangzhou) northward, eventually taking at least half the country under its aegis and permanently undermining the imperial feudal order. Eventually, the Chinese bourgeoisie, in league with imperialists from many countries, brought down the imperial regime. In the succeeding interregnum there were many generals with their local power bases that filled the vacuum left by the collapse of imperial feudal authority. Behind these generals in key industrial centers were not only the financial capitalists but their gangster allies.

Lenin concluded the perversion of national capitalist development by existing feudalism and invading imperialism, kept capitalism from developing in China, anywhere near as fully as Marx and Engels would have required. Therefore, for a working class revolution leading to Socialism as a Stage in that country to occur, there should be at first, at least the minimal capitalist system in existence. It barely was.

In other words, in 1922, the Russian Bolshevik Politburo looked at China, much as the social democrats of Western Europe had looked at the Russians in the pre-1917 period – the latter often thinking Russia simply to backward to launch a successful proletarian revolution – or, perhaps one should say “not to primitive to launch such a revolution but far too primitive in capital development to carry it through to conclusion.” Leninists responding that indeed they would start the conflagration and expect Europe to join in as soon as possible.

Now the Bolsheviks were looking at China as far too primitive to embark upon a socialist course but not too primitive in technological development to embark upon a stage of fulfilling capitalism’s promise. – And, a friendly capitalist government in the East would be a de facto buffer against the imperialist encirclement in the same way or even better than the way, Germany now acted as a buffer to the hostile European capitalist states in the west (the north guarded by Old Man Perpetual Winter and the south by the Himalayas (leaving only the Islamic crackpots to be liquidated which they were by 1939.)   So capitalism in China was definitely there and had been in germinal form for millennia. But, it was not the predominate economic formation - machinofacture was still a tiny percentile of the Gross National Product, and far from sufficient by itself to finance a general bourgeois takeover of the entire country. (What went unrecognized was that criminal elements of the capitalist class in China did have the financial resources, should they wish to use them, to finance a bourgeois takeover of the entire country.)

Lenin and the Bolsheviks recognized that China would continue to be converted into a colony of such imperialist powers as the USA, Japan, and the UK, if something wasn’t done to bolster the Chinese bourgeoisie and petty-bourgeoisie, precisely because Chinese technical backwardness was ten times as bad as Russia’s before the onset of the First World War.

The Working Class Factor

Lenin created the Communist International or Third International by direct personal order beginning in January, 1919, assembling the delegates from foreign communists available in the SovietRepublic, adding those that had managed to make their way to Moscow by the beginning of March of 1919, when the founding convention was actually held. In charge of its Secret Department he placed Joseph Stalin (continuing to show confidence in Stalin, who he had earlier placed in charge of the Secret Department of the Russian Party.) By 1920 the Comintern was establishing operations in many countries and on every continent on Earth.

For the Comintern, the failure of the proletarian revolution to take hold in Europe was unfortunate, but not the end of the world. In the East, there was also the possibility that something might be fomented that would lead toward proletarian revolution somewhere down the road. In the meantime, perhaps a more amenable series of buffers, between global imperialist encirclement and the Soviet Regime, could be established in the Far East. Especially, in China, Indochina, and Indonesia.

In China some intellectuals had watched the Boshevik experience closely. Among these was Ch’en Tu-hsiu, Dean of the College of Letters of PekingUniversity. Working for him on May 4, 1919, was young Mao Tse-tung.

The date is important for it marks the beginning of the modern revolt of Chinese intellectuals, and those they could gather around them, against foreign imperialism. In this case they were revolting against the carving up of China, by the capitalist imperialists at Versailles (the victors of World War I conference dividing up the spoils of war), where Japan was handed much of China (mostly the part held previously by Germany.) The May 4^th Movement as it became known, featured Chen and others influenced by Boshevism playing important roles.

When the news, that Lenin was calling for a World Global Headquarters of proletarian revolution, reached China, it was natural that Chen and others, who considered themselves Marxists, would be among the first to establish contact with Russia’s new bosses. Which is exactly what they did.

Following the 1919 founding of the Comintern, where Chinese delegates formally established contact, and its Second Congress in the Fall of 1920 where relations deepened between the two, the Comintern sent Gregor N. Voitinsky, Hendricus Maring, and S.A. Dalin to China. Under their tutelage, in 1921, the first Congress of the Communist Party of China (featuring some 11 Chinese delegates representing some 60 members) was held in the middle of a hot and steamy July, in Shanghai. One could hardly imagine that within five years the Chinese Communist Party would be one of the two most important and largest political organizations in the nation.

The delegates discovered they were being observed and quickly changed the location of their Shanghai conference. This was a most important penetration of their activities and would have long and far reaching consequences. For they were being observed by agents of their soon-to-be most deadly enemy, Big-eared Du, chief of the Shanghai Green Gang.

The Capitalist Factor

As history would have it the key "open" capitalist political organization emerging was the KMT Party of Dr. Sun Yat-sen. At the same time the key "secret" capitalist political organization was that of the Green Gang of Du Yuesheng (or Big-Eared Du.) Both organizations had branches in a variety of Chinese cities and overseas Chinese communities. For Sun, it would be Canton that would be his most important base; for Du it would be Shanghai. Perhaps the most important feature of this fact of Chinese reality is that the Bolshevik leaders appear to have been ignorant, altogether, of the latter.

While we should not be too critical of the Bolshevik bosses in Moscow for this failure, (since Big-eared Du’s role in China’s politics paralleled that of Meyer Lansky in the USA, and during Lansky’s tenure the true significance of his role in North American politics was unknown to all but a few, and hardly any American communists) we should point out that this inability of the Bolsheviks to see Chinese bourgeois reality for what it was, was one decisive factor leading them into a trap.

(I have discussed Lansky at length in Volume 1, “The Buccaneer” of my autobiographical series “Idaho Smith’s Search for the Foundation, 2003, Jason W. Smith, Writers Press, Boise 330pp. [This book is available in University libraries from Boise State to Harvard or from Foundation Press It is only in recent years that the role of the Lansky organization has become the focus of scholarly attention let alone political attention.)

Sun’s biggest problem all along had been the fact he believed in the bourgeois way of life; in the capitalist system, and in the then existing system of land-tenure in China. Fundamentally, he just wanted to democratize the system, more-or-less along US lines of 1781 (where only rich White Males were considered part of the “democracy”) as he understood them, minus all the social egalitarianism of Gringolandia which was so abhorrent to the wealthy Chinese classes. As a consequence Sun had been unable to attract anyone other than bourgeois youth and foreign expatriate Chinese contributors for his KMT party. The Communists from Moscow understood this well, and spent huge amounts of time trying to convince him of the necessity of broadening his appeal to the Chinese masses. They never fully succeeded.

Big eared Du’s concern with the communists was with what they had accomplished in Russia, and the possibility that they could do the same thing in China. Du was not only the boss of drug trafficking in China but also the boss of much of organized labor in Shanghai, the owner of countless maquiladoras, and he didn’t want competition from local communists. Du used his unions to squeeze working people and to “shake down” other capitalists. He quickly became the strongest anti-communist in China. His story is far beyond the scope of this book but it is critical because one of his most important protégés was the thug Chiang Kai-shek. (Those of you interested in Du and the Chinese Green Gang are referred to a most compelling and inclusive review of his activities in The Soong Dynasty, 1985, Sterling Seagrave, Harper and Row, New York, 532 pp.)

The Decision to Intervene

The Soviet foreign policy victory at Rapallo, Italy, (April, 1922), was the great triumph of Soviet diplomacy in the West – And as we have seen, Lenin’s diplomats managed to split the capitalist encirclement they had hitherto confronted in Europe, by  allying with capitalist Germany against the other capitalist powers. There was an equivalent 1922 diplomatic initiative in China. Shortly after Rakovsky’s success at Rapallo, Italy, the Politburo sent Adolph Joffe (one of Trotsky’s strongest partisans, and the Soviet’s first Ambassador to Weimar Germany) to Peking as Soviet Russia’s new would-be Ambassador to China.

The regime in Peking was a military one. It was certainly not anything approaching pro-Bolshevik. But, as had been the case with the German Weimar government, both Governments could have much to gain from cooperation; not the least of which favored the Chinese official government, and whoever occupied Peking was the “Official” Chinese government. The new Russian government had renounced all claims to the territorial privileges and advantages of the Czarist regime in China as well as any claims that might have been forthcoming from the Versailles settlements.

So, on the one hand, the Bolshevik bosses wanted an official government to government relationship between Moscow and Peking in 1922, that would have a “Rapallo” type of effect in the East, with regard to the world imperialist encirclement of the Bolshevik Revolution. However, unlike Germany, where the Weimar government was relatively strong the Chinese military regime in Peking was far from stable. How reliable would an agreement with this or any of the succeeding military regimes in Peking going to be? - And, what about proletarian revolution in China? That was the other hand.

Lenin calculated, in 1922, that China had barely entered the capitalist stage. Further, he maintained that China’s capitalism such as it was, was so much under the control and influence of imperialism that it existed in a distorted form. This primitive capitalist deformation needed time to (a) develop its own inherent productive forces, which meant first of all (b) that it had to escape imperialism’s control (meaning by that time primarily Japanese, US, and UK capitalist investment and military occupation) Overall, in 1922, China was perhaps ten percent as industrialized as Russia had been on the eve of the World War (i.e., 1914.) Accordingly, he had sent Joffe to China. Subsequently, (after Lenin’s May 25^th stroke) the Politburo was to change Joffe’s assignment.

Plot Point

After much debate the Bolshevik Political Bureau (this matter was far too important to be left to the Comintern, as Seagrave points out) decided in the spring of 1922, given the shaky condition of the Peking regime, and the possibility of jump-starting a progressive bourgeois national independent government, to order Joffe south to Shanghai, to confer with Sun about China’s future. This moment marks the plot point in the transformation of Soviet policy with regard to China. For, as the importance of a nationally independent Chinese Government, as a friendly treaty partner on the eastern frontier of the Soviet Republic, took paramount importance in the thinking of Lenin and associates, so the matter was de facto removed from the status it had previously held (China as one more important country with a Communist Party founded and moving in accordance with a rather boiler-plate plan to gradually work over the working classes to something quite different. In other words, Stalin’s cookie-cutter model of adding new friendly Republics to the World Socialist Stage was being set aside in favor of a new policy of bolstering a friendly bourgeois government in this particular case.)

In short, the spread of Bolshevism to China now became a matter of survival foreign policy for the SovietRepublic as opposed to the simple organization of international class war. From this moment on the objective of the Bolshevik leaders from Lenin on down was to implement a Rapallo type of relationship with a bourgeois democratic regime in China. Proletarian revolution was definitely on the back-burner.

However, in China, this was not a popular policy in much of the Party, and the decision to use Comintern agents and CPC cadre to make the new strategy work inevitably meant that many workers and peasants thought that victory in the coming struggle would mean a rapid move into communism. This is the first source of confusion about the First Chinese Revolution culminating in 1927 in defeat – i. e., what were its objectives? Well, whatever objectives any others may have had Lenin’s objective and that of the Bolshevik Politburo had changed and now focused on creating a new democratic bourgeois nationally independent regime for China.

In January of 1923, Joffe and Sun reached, with difficulty, an agreement which proposed they jointly carry out a program designed to operationalize Lenin’s idea of achieving a bourgeois democratic regime in China. As we have seen, Lenin believed a national bourgeois democracy was achievable, and would be a longer-term solution to the problem of a Chinese buffer against world imperialism than any agreement with Peking. Such an agreement with Sun, in other words, had prospects for permanency, as opposed to the short term advantages of a relationship with whatever military short-lived regime happened to be in Peking. Furthermore, Sun understood these objectives of Lenin’s and why he wanted China secure from imperialism, with its own national army and a new alliance with the SovietRepublic. Sun realized Lenin thought the productive forces of capitalism would generate a stronger and stronger proletarian base upon which the newly formed Chinese Communist Party could build; given the time it would take to build a minimal industrial base in China, it would take many years before any of Sun’s capitalist supporters would have to worry about proletarian revolution of the Soviet type. Rather, in China there would be communists with an eye toward revolution some years down the road when conditions were finally ripe.

You should note this technological backwardness of China was understood by Lenin and the Politburo. It was Chinese backwardness which made Lenin et. al. settle on the idea of a bourgeois national democratic regime in Peking as the best to be hoped for in the years 1922 to 1927. This was the same technological backwardness so severely handicapping socialist construction in the Soviet Union in those years and in an even more severe form would continue to plague the development of China’s road in the Socialist Stage, constantly, after the success of Mao in 1949. But, we are getting way ahead of ourselves.

The terms of the Soviet-Sun agreement involved building a loyal (National Revolutionary) Army for Sun and his KMT Party. The Politburo wanted to involve the Chinese Communist Party (then only a year and a half old) with a key role in building this NRA, if for no other reason than that would be the only way they could be sure the instrument they had in mind to democratize China could be successfully crafted. – And, of course, to put the CPC in a historical position where it could begin to build a working class base and then, some day, do what the Bolsheviks had done in Russia.

The Soviet-Sun Agreement was conditional: if Sun could re-establish himself somewhere, as a boss, then the Bolsheviks would carry out their part - which would be to send shipments of weapons and military specialist trainers to build Sun an Army which could bourgeoisify the entire nation, securing simultaneously its freedom from international oppression by capitalist imperialism of the Japanese, American, and British varieties. Sun did his part in Canton (now Guangzhou); as a result the Politburo in Moscow decided to fulfill their obligation under the Sun-Joffe Agreement.

Soviet assistance was formalized when Lenin dispatched Mikhail Borodin to Canton, subordinating command of the incoming Bolshevik contingent of military advisors (and their equipment) to his command. (For a full account of Borodin and his mission I recommend Borodin: Stalin’s Man in China, 1981, Dan N. Jacobs, Harvard University Press, Cambridge, 369 pp.)

Trotsky vs. Stalin IV: China

Trotsky’s biographer, Isaac Deutscher, refers to the idea that Stalin failed and Trotsky would have succeeded in China as “vulgar Trotskyism.” A more authoritative source (in matters regarding Trotsky) than Deutscher would be hard to find, and, for that reason we have to take him seriously when he points out that in the two most important years of Russian Bolshevik direct involvement in China (1926-1927) Trotsky had little or nothing to say about the course the Chinese Revolution was following. In fact, on this subject Deutscher finds him silent {See pages 321-332 in The Prophet Unarmed, 1959, Isaac Deutscher, Oxford University Press, London, 490pp.) It was Trotsky's strong supporter – the Austrian psychiatrist Adolph Joffe - who had negotiated the Soviet-Sun Agreement. It was Lenin and the Politburo that directed Joffe to proceed as he did. Stalin’s involvement was after the fact, and then only due to his being in charge of the Secret Departments of both the Soviet Party and the Comintern (a responsibility handed to him by Lenin), thus he inherited responsibility for the implementation of the policy.

Nevertheless, for better or for worse, the primary credit and the primary blame, if it is to fall anywhere, must fall on Stalin, for the reason that he was in charge of operations and for that reason alone. - And, secondarily it must fall on the Bolshevik Party’s highest leadership, collectively, for failing to achieve intelligence superiority. It is not the case that Stalin was the champion of one pole of thought on China policy and Trotsky another. As true as that may have been in other areas of dispute within the Russian Party’s Politburo, it had never been so over China (when Trotsky was in the politburo and later when he was not.) No, the reasons for the eventual failure, of the first go-around, in China, lie elsewhere.

There was an opposite pole with regard to Soviet and Comintern policy in China, but it was in China. The opposition to the Bolshevik Politburo policy was led by the CPC founder and chairman Chen Tu-hsiu who preferred a much more classic “Leninist” policy of independence from other class forces and parties. In other words, a policy mirroring that of Lenin and the Bolsheviks, in Russia, prior to October, 1917. Ironically, Chen wanted to proletarianize China immediately; Lenin wanted bourgeois democracy first, for China.

 With regard to the path being followed by Borodin in China, it was Lenin who dispatched him. It was a Leninist policy he was instructed to carry out, which might briefly be said to be ‘to act to bring about a national bourgeois democratic regime in China, wherein the Chinese Communist Party would play a leading role, positioning itself for an eventual seizure of power, at an appropriate time, somewhere down the road, when the objective conditions for proletarian revolution and government had been established’.

 Borodin was familiar with Stalin, who was the boss of both the Russian Party’s international secret programs as well as the secret programs implemented through the COMINTERN. As a matter of fact Stalin and Borodin had voted together in Party meetings, at crucial times, in the early 1900's, before Borodin had emigrated to Chicago, and, of course, before he had returned to Russia after October, 1917, to volunteer his services to the cause. Stalin, being the de facto organizational leader of the Party in 1923 (at least as far as its secret activities went internationally) must, presumably, have found his prior friendship with Borodin as an enabling factor for all concerned.

In summary, the China policy of the Bolsheviks was determined by Lenin, formulated by a key Trotskyist, and the entire Politburo concurred. Stalin had much of the organizational responsibility for the policy, because of his job as head of the Secret Departments of both the Party and the Comintern.

Inside Snapshot

April 17, 1922

"They've decided." Joseph Stalin remarked to his aide and fellow Politburo member Vyacheslav Molotov.

"So, it's to be Sun Yat-sen for sure?"

"Apparently. Lenin convinced all of us in the Politburo of his position. Lenin asked why you weren’t there and I said you were super busy which you are. I just wanted you to know he missed you. Anyway, there doesn't appear to be a downside, no matter how the Chinese war goes we should be able to get at least as much as we got at Rapallo. So he thinks."

"What do you think Koba?"

"Ahh yes, but it's not up to me to think - only to do or die. Perhaps we can pull it off. At the least, maybe we will add a thousand kilometers of depth to our eastern buffer. Anyway, the Boss says it’s to be Borodin in charge. So let's get Mikhail back from England.

"He's still in that London lock-up."

"Well, let's get him out."

"That's not going to be easy. Rakovsky says the Tory's are trying to make an example out of him. An example of us.

"Buy him out or shoot him out, but I want him here before the end of the month.”

"Yes Koba."

Lenin’s Analysis to the Politburo

  Vladimir Illych Ulyanov (V. I. Lenin) had become convinced that China was far too primitive in economic development to pursue even the limited Socialist course that the Bolsheviks were following in Russia. Accordingly, what was needed was a strong and vibrant bourgeois democratic regime in China, independent of US, UK and Japanese imperialism, acting as a willing de facto buffer in the East against the global imperialist encirclement of the Soviet Republic soon to be the Soviet Union.

 Meanwhile, stuck in Peking as Lenin’s envoy to an inevitably temporary military regime, which acted as the "official" government of China, was Adolph Joffe, himself a brilliant psychiatrist and one of Trotsky's original intellectual mentors, now representing the Leninist Politburo in China. Lenin wanted Joffe ordered south to Shanghai to confer with democratic leader Sun Yat-sen, about a new treaty of alliance between his forces in China and the new Soviet Government. The Politburo had concurred, and after Joffe and Sun had, with difficulty, negotiated an agreement (soon to be a formal treaty of alliance), Stalin, in charge of both the Russian Communist Party’s international secret programs and those of the Third International (the COMINTERN), was handed the responsibility for implementing the China program. Specifically, the Russians agreed to build a modern army for Sun, similar in structure to the Red Army that had just won the Civil War in the Russian Empire and defeated all of the capitalist countries too, simultaneously.

This agreement was conditional. First Sun was to re-establish himself somewhere as a boss. Then the Soviets would begin their part – namely sending men and materiel to build Sun an army to conquer the nation. Lenin had chosen Michael Borodin to head up the project.

 Borodin had been a Bolshevik from the early days. In fact, he and Stalin had voted together in those early days during critical meetings of the Bolshevik leadership. Borodin had emigrated to Chicago after the 1905 Revolution failed and returned to Russia, from the United States, after the success of the October 1917 Revolution to volunteer his services to the cause once again. Lenin had urged him to join the communist secret service and he had done so. Currently he was incarcerated in Great Britain where he had been given several missions and most recently had succeeded in welding some of the disparate British communist groups together into one unified Communist Party of Great Britain and had been accordingly rewarded by Scotland Yard with a prison cot and board for an indefinite period of time.

Stalin had just ordered Molotov to secure his release by extraordinary means.

Inside Snapshot

Inside Wadsworth Prison

Wadsworth was newer then - the late spring of 1922. American visitor Michael Borodin was speaking to his cell mate.

"What a shit hole. I thought US joints were bad. CookCounty doesn't look so bad after this."

"Christ Yank this is the best prison in Britain."

About this time the warder showed up with breakfast and an attorney visiting notice.

"Prisoner Borodin, your Consul is here to see you. You can talk to him or have breakfast. Either or. Which is it to be?

"The Consul please James..."

"As you wish.”

James left the breakfast and pocketed the tip. Palmed to him by the American, or Russian, or whatever he was, as if he hadn't even noticed it. Borodin, being an Old Bolshevik with considerable experience with police and jails, had earlier, and quickly, placed his guards in his hip pocket.

"My friend, to me its still fucking cold in this place.. and it’s nearly summer! Eat my breakfast while I’m gone.”

Breaking Out

"You're leaving tonight. Are you ready?"

Speaking was Soviet diplomat, Christian Rakovsky, the magician of Rapallo, already Lenin’s choice to be the eventual Ambassador of the SovietRepublic to Great Britain. Acting in the meantime as head of the Soviet trade delegation in London.

"Of course I'm ready. But, I thought I was to wait here for now?" Borodin responded interrogatorily

"The Boss wants you back now. I flew here direct from Genoa for this."

"Which Boss?"

"Comrade Stalin. Acting on the personal orders of Lenin on behalf of the entire Politburo.”

"They must have something new for me... something urgent."

"You go aboard the Karl Marx tonight - it's a freighter loading at the quay... really, just waiting for you. We pulled it over from Hamburg yesterday..."

"You're friend the guard has been paid. The judge was paid for the order - it's real. At least until he denies it - which will be tomorrow... when it's discovered, you’re missing. Two Bobby's are coming with me to get you and take you to the ship and I have paid them already, and will pay them much more the minute the Karl Marx is out of British waters. You're going home my friend!"

Inside Snapshot

Michael Borodin Takes a Tiger by the Tail

May 16, 1922 Moscow

The Staraya street office complex housed Politburo member Joseph V. Stalin, the Party’s General Secretary and, one of the three Triumvirs of the Red Army, as well as Commissar (Minister) of Nationalities and Commissar (Minister) of the Workers and Peasants Inspectorate (a super secret police operation), not to mention his job as chief of Soviet Party and Comintern intelligence.

Stalin’s main office was simple. Nothing on the walls but portraits of Karl Marx and Frederick Engels behind and above his chair. That chair placed at the center of a long executive table-like desk. Appended was an even longer desk for those in conference, intersecting at a right angle to form a “T.” On Stalin’s right another desk supported a bank of telephones; to his left a door led to a small army of secretaries and librarians immediately outside and available at an instants notice. Stalin’s main Kremlin office was a ceremonial duplicate. Always in Red Army uniform Stalin had a holstered “Bolo” (.30 cal. Mauser pistol popular with Bolshevik officers and NCO’s thus the term Bolo), under his military jacket and a Tommy Gun under his desk just in case.

Entering, the recent fugitive and secret agent Michael Borodin accompanied by a Civil War Hero; moments later entered Red Army General Vasily K. Blyukher. Greeting them at the door was a pacing Joseph Stalin.

“It’s good to be out of jail walking around is it not Mikhail” Stalin bear-hugged his old friend, Mikhail Borodin.

“Thank you for getting me out so fast. I was expecting to spend another winter in that hell hole. Yes, Koba it’s wonderful to taste life when you get out. Nothing like the first few days of freedom after you’ve been locked up.”

“Don’t I know it. Seven times for me! Anyway, your back, and you can thank Lenin, he ordered your return, and he is waiting to see both of you next. You know Vasily Konstantinovich (Blyukher) do you not Mikhail?" Inquired Stalin of his old friend and now secret service agent Michael Borodin

"Of course my friend" the two men gave big Russian Bear Hugs to each other. "It's been many years but I have been following your military career - what great services you have provided the international working class movement!"

"As have you Mikhail... we are all doing our parts."

"So, Comrades why did you bring me home so fast and what am I to do now?"

"China." Responded the Boss, directly, simply, quietly. As if one word said it all. - And, in this case it did. Stalin walked to the map his colleague Vyacheslav Molotov had just had installed at the center of the room. Stain pointed at China and then at Canton (Guangzhou).

“It’s an honor. But, Koba, let me ask, why was I chosen?

"You're the man...because first of all, you are one of our very best agents and, secondly, you speak English. Dr. Sun speaks English. This is such a tricky cross-class alliance that absolute understanding between us, is essential every step of the way, and speaking a common language we consider to be essential.

“- And, Blyukher here is going to run this new National Liberation Chinese Army for you. I want you two to work out your plan, show it to me, get everything your going to need on your TO&E and give it to me. Comrade Frunze as always, will be absolutely wonderful in providing the needed materiel. Ships will be made available when the time comes, and it will take awhile to put all this equipment together. In the meantime you have many books and documents to study and I have assigned a team of Chinese language experts to school both of you in that language.

“You Mikhail will circumvent Hong Kong - the Limeys are looking for you after that de facto escape from Wadsworth.” Pointing at the respectively relevant points of his discourse on the map he continued, “You will go by train to Vladivostock and then Harbin, where one of our freighters with Japanese registration will take you to Shanghai. Then we will have a tramp steamer take you straight up the Pearl River. Just to be sure that the Brits don’t get the idea of forcing the steamer into Hong Kong harbour for some reason I will see to it that this steamer is carrying a lot of “suspect” sheep – believe me they won’t want those possibly diseased animals anywhere near their harbour.

“Vasily will be going in with the first ships flying the hammer and sickle. They will be carrying all the weaponry. We think this will present the best face to the Chinese – the General showing up with his men and machines – in force.

“These are your next briefing papers. Of course, there will be many more but I have tried to see that you read them in a logically sequential way. Tactically, when the time comes, to begin with, operationally, upon arrival, I want you to go in quietly and directly to Dr. Sun. Then even more quietly meet with Chen Tu-hsiu our Party leader in China and his men, who will be in Canton (Guangzhou),  to greet you and, of course, to take their proper places. You will have about two weeks before our naval expeditionary force arrives. In short, you are to go directly to Sun Yet-sen and take things in hand. Do you understand?

"Yes sir. Where is all of this headed Koba. Obviously we are not just securing a province for a revolutionary government. Is it to be a military conquest of the rest of China out of Canton?"

"Yes, more-or-less. You two have read the briefing from the Politburo and you tell me. Remember that our Politburo is united on this question as they have been on no other since Rapallo. Lenin himself is the architect. My point is that if I were in your position I would not try to change the policy in any fundamental way - just implement it. That's what I am doing and that's what I expect you two to do.

"Questions?"

“No Sir,” replied Borodin and quickly the thought was echoed by the deed of salute and clicked heels as General Blyukher concurred with his political colleague.

"Now, the boss is waiting.”   

The Boss in His Prime

May 16, 1922

Unlike Stalin, whose desk was always in perfect order, Lenin alternated his habits – one day everything in perfect order and more often leaving his papers and books every-which-way while he was working. This day it was the former. Lenin was a genius who understood the importance of the image he presented to his most important lieutenants. He stood up and walked around his workplace as Stalin entered with Borodin and Blyukher in tow.

Only two men were allowed immediate “unannounced” access to Lenin on their own initiative: Stalin and Trotsky. These two being the other highest military chiefs (triumvirs) since November of 1918.

“Comrades,” Lenin visibly pleased to see his old friends shook hands with each and gestured for them to sit as he in turn regained his chair behind the now famous desk in his Kremlin office, “have a seat.” Lenin continued, “We just concluded the 11^th Congress and thankfully it went much better than last year’s Congress. I think we finally have restored discipline in our own ranks and it wasn’t easy. So, I know what it must have been like in London. The important thing Comrades is we are on the march once again. Mikhael you have heard about Rapallo days ago. Now we want you to do the same thing in China, only a few months from now.

“Anyway, thank you so much Mikhail for your work in England. I think the British situation is finally under control, thanks to you, and we can hope to have a powerful force at the disposal of our cause as a result. I want to talk to you about the Council’s – what I am reading is confusing. But first, now, I have to talk to you about China and I must impose upon you once again. Comrade Stalin has briefed both of you I take it.”

“Yes he has” replied Borodin for both of them.

Stalin nodded in acknowledgement and excused himself.

“I want you to listen to what I have to say and then ask whatever questions you may have.

“As I see it – and the Politburo concurs – the Chinese situation has suddenly become more than a question of organizing proletarian revolution as soon as possible. To begin with, proletarian revolution in China is not possible now. Nor in the immediately foreseeable future. China is at best ten percent as industrialized today in 1922 as we were in Russia in 1914.- And, we were by far the weakest link in the capitalist chain of countries then. There is no useful purpose to be served by trying to impose artificially a proletarian government on a nation barely into the capitalist stage and overwhelmingly composed of peasants in one or another kind of servitude and completely uneducated.

“Furthermore, as you know, our first task is to preserve ourselves – the SovietRepublic – as the first international working class national base in the history of the world, and we are surrounded by enemies – all of whom would like to see us six feet underground.  We have broken the imperialist encirclement in the West – at least for the moment. - And, I think we have a good chance of breaking it up in the East. There are bourgeois forces of a progressive nature in China and they are best represented by Dr. Sun Yat-sen who had the guts to seize the moment in 1911 and declare a revolutionary democratic republic – bourgeois to be sure – but nevertheless sufficiently progressive to stand against the imperialist rapists of that sorry country.

“Mikhail in your long sojourn in the United States did you have the opportunity to study its history?”

“Yes Sir. I mean, yes comrade Lenin I did.”

“I did also when I was in London. I tried to perfect my English by reading American history books. It’s a very impressive history. It has important lessons for us and now especially for you, in that the similarities between emerging capitalism today in China in 1922 and emerging capitalism in the USA, especially after their revolutionary war victory in 1781, are striking and instructive. Remember in 1781 the American revolutionaries were our equivalent – that is, the most progressive force in the world of their time. What the Chinese bourgeoisie must do now is very similar to what the Americans did at that time. – And you should note the fact China is at least a century and one half, technologically, behind the Americans - this limits what they can do.

“What we absolutely must have is a secure far eastern frontier in every sense if we are to have any hope of defeating the capitalist cabal in the West on a permanent basis.

“Our 1920 failure to liberate Europe is coming back to haunt us as the capitalist oligarchies of Europe impose outright police state rule of the rich over the poor – bragging about it - in country after country in east Europe, and now this crackpot Mussolini in Italy. We can’t expect Rapallo to last forever. I do believe we can survive and expand the scope of the revolution if we can secure our eastern frontiers against a Chinese, Japanese, Korean or American attack, so we can focus all our efforts on the one, western, front.

“Again, directly to the point, is that we must have security in the Far East. If we can achieve security via a bourgeois democratic regime in China which will have to depend on us because all of the capitalist countries have evolved into their imperialist phase, then that is what we must build. You can see, now that the Americans are imperialists too, even they are not at all likely to share the democratic impulses of George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Thomas Paine, or Sun Yat-sen. Not any longer.

“I think this Chinese force with Sun Yat-sen at the helm is by far good enough for now. As capitalist industry is given a chance to develop outside the control of imperialism in China, then Chinese workers will find their opportunity soon enough. Anyway, that’s the best we can do for China now. It is absolutely the thing we must do to preserve the SovietRepublic, by presenting the imperialist encirclement with a buffer, through which they must first break, to get to us. That is the program we are implementing in a nutshell.”

“Comrade Lenin,” interjected Blyukher, “am I to understand that we are to put proletarian revolution on the back-burner for now, and if so, how will that be received by the Chinese Party?”

“I met with the Chinese Party founder and now leader, Chen, and his associates at the first and second Comintern Congresses here in Moscow, Vasily, and I believe they are committed to international application of the principles of democratic centralism within the Comintern and its constituent parties. I want you Mikhail to explain all of this to them again – go over their history with us - when you confer with Dr. Sun and our Party leaders in Canton (Guangzhou). Convince them, as no one can better than you, of the importance of accepting our logic and the resulting program upon which we have already agreed. Not an easy task perhaps. But these are not easy times. Naturally, they are eager to do there, what we have done here, but the backwardness of China technologically makes it far more likely that they can be successful with regards to proletarian revolution if they first have a really decent-sized industrial working class in China – one educated and responsible. Do you think you can do that comrade Borodin?”

“Yes, Comrade Lenin, I can do that.”

“That’s your answer Vasily. Now you two must work together, like a hand in a glove. We have built the Chinese Party, we must now build a Chinese Army to do the job, and put it at the head of a united front of progressive bourgeois forces and our own communist inclining Chinese workers. Do you think you can do that Vasily?”

“Yes sir, I can. I will carry out your policy and your orders to the letter.”

“Comrade Stalin is in charge of the secret departments of both our Party and the Comintern as you know and he will provide you with everything you need. I have given him a veritable blank check to see that whatever you need is provided. You can rely on Koba. He has never failed me yet, Vasily.”

“Yes sir. I know that. We see eye to eye on everything and we always have.”

“Yes, even on Lvov and Warsaw. I remember that very well. In the end Koba was right and we wrong. But that is in the past.”

Neither Borodin nor Blyukher wanted to venture into that mine field and they sat dumb. Waiting for their chief to continue.

“No comment? I don’t blame you. It’s a serious sore spot still. No need to tear the scab off that wound. Do either of you have any more questions for me?

“No? Then good luck, and as we say good bye until we meet again – in victory!”

What neither the Chief nor these lieutenants knew was that in only a few days Lenin would have the first of a series of disabling strokes. In reality he had only eighteen months to live.

Walking Along the MoscowRiver

“It’s inspirational to serve a leader like Lenin – every time I see him I am so impressed. He is both a professorial genius and a man of action,” spoke Vasily Blyukher.

“- And, he does carry himself impeccably,” chimed in Borodin. “By the way, what is all this about you and Trotsky? I was on a mission in Mexico when the Warsaw battle took place and I have only heard rumors. They don’t make much sense.”

“It’s simple really. Trotsky didn’t pay attention to his job. Do you know he didn’t even know how many men he was sending under that aristocratic bastard Tuckhachevsky?”

“Really?” Borodin asked.

“Then that fool Gai Gaia who they put in charge of the 2^nd Red Cavalry Army…”

“They  meaning who?”

“Trotsky and Tuckhachevsky – they’re both bourgeoisified aristocrats and like two peas in a pod. Anyway, Gaia was to turn south just as he was due north of Warsaw and support the main infantry and artillery attack of Tuckhachevsky against Warsaw in the East. Gaia missed his left turn and the moron ended up in Germany! He had to surrender to internment because his rear was by then completely occupied by Polish and German troops. Then Tuckhachevsky left his left flank completely unprotected – well, you don’t have to be a military genius to see the opportunity there and Pilsudski’s generals grasped the moment and drove a stunning attack into Tuckhchevsky’s left flank.

“Well, then Trotsky is crying for help – in Moscow the whole time – and that bastard Tuckhachevsky wasn’t there either!”

“Well where the hell was he?”

“In fucking Minsk!”

“That’s three hundred miles away!”

“No shit!

“Anyway Trotsky tells Koba, who has been doing his job running the southern pincer against Lvov with Voroshilov and Buddeny just fine, to transfer the Konarmia to Tuckhachevsky and Koba told him to go fuck himself! You know how Koba can swear when he wants to. Koba says he wasn’t going to throw good after bad and suggested that Trotsky do his job; go to Warsaw and put order into that fucking mess he had made. Well “the Mouth” goes to Lenin and bitches, and moans, and cries and Lenin not knowing the details like Koba knows them, orders him to obey Trotsky and Stalin told him, politely, no!”

“He told Lenin no?”

“Yeah. It shocked me too. But, Koba was right. Anyway, those two are friends going back to the beginning and they talked it out - eventually Koba acquiesced and sent Budenny to help Tuckhachevsky but Koba was right as usual and Budenny found the situation hopeless and was barely able to extricate the Konarmia. You know the rest. That was the end of our hope to link up with West European workers. All thanks to that big mouth cocksucker Trotsky. Anyway I hate talking about it. My blood pressure goes up twenty points every time I think about that mother fucker.”

“I’m sorry Vasily, I didn’t realize… You know when I came back in late 1917 Lenin told me, when I asked him why he had brought Trotsky into our ranks after all the years of nothing but trouble with this guy, that Trotsky got back just a few months before our seizure and he was confronted with either Trotsky as an inevitable “spoiler” in the Petrograd Soviet, or the possibility Leon would see it to his advantage to buckle-under on a few points – emphasize the key point upon which we agreed namely turning this thing into a proletarian revolution at the earliest possible moment – and Trotsky did see it to his advantage in the end, to come into a ready built, powerful, well-funded operation such as Lenin could offer him, and with a position in the leadership. It worked out, the boss said, and afterwards Trotsky had shown tremendous ability. – And, Illych said the world had rather accidentally gotten the impression that Leon was one of our supreme leaders, so Trotsky was getting a lot of attention, and his verbal ability and energy was turning that attention to our advantage. At that time we had no idea, Illych said, that Trotsky would turn his attention to military affairs and even less so that he would be brilliant at it.

“Anyway, changing the topic to here and now, I'm confident I can handle the political strategy. How do you feel about creating a new Army?”

Blyukher responded to his old friend optimistically.

"Of course, we can do it. But, we have to do it the way we did it here. Our way. Fuck anything else! Thank God Koba is running this operation and not that asshole Trotsky.

“Whatever you may think about Trotsky’s brilliance most of us Old Bolsheviks that won the war, think he was nothing but trouble, constantly making the wrong decisions, and always in our way with his god damned Czarist officers – 75,000 of the mother fuckers before it was all over and a pain in the ass all the way along. Anyway, we know what to do and the Chinese have to watch and listen and learn. Did you know they still play staged battles?”

"No. What's a staged battle?"

"You won't fucking believe this. Both sides get all dressed up and assume their battle stations... then they select a few fighters to march out and fight a few selected by the other side..."

"A kind of David and Goliath setting eh...?"

"Yes, except that they never really accomplish anything.This can go on indefinitely. So, the first time they get going on us that way, or on Dr. Sun, we put our shock troops together and kick the shit out of them!

“All this is fine with me. But, frankly, by now I was hoping we would be in Germany, Italy, France, England just about anywhere with some industry and workers... not this Chinese shit hole at Canton," remarked the Red Army general and Chinese National Revolutionary Army (to be) new boss Vasily Konstantinovich Blyukher.

"Vasily, you know as well as I do that we have to secure our frontiers against the imperialist encirclement. They are all around us. Now, we have fractured that encirclement; run it through if you will, with the sword of our Rapallo Treaty. I think we can do as much with Dr. Sun in China. As you heard so does Lenin.

“He knows we can't socialize China immediately. According to him China is only ten percent as industrialized as our homeland before the World War. We barely had enough workers and industry to win in Russia. Success for us in China, as Lenin points out, is much simpler in one sense because all we are trying to do is to help the indigenous bourgeois forces establish a half-assed kind of democracy amongst themselves with a little more participation than they are currently willing to accept on the part of common people. I can make them accept that by argument and logic. Eventually their common-sense will show them we know the best way to proceed.

"Anyway, we better get to work, Vasily. There’s still a mountain of things to do."

"I know. By the way, Mikhail, I was told to pick a name the Chinese can say easily enough. A contraction of the first syllable of each of my two children's names gives me Ga and Len for Galen. So that’s my new name General Galen."

“I heard Trotsky said your name was General something or other,” changing his mind about what he had been about to laughingly say (General Asshole.)

“That cocksucker should have been shot after Warsaw.”

“You heard the boss. No point in tearing that scab off now. I’m sorry I should keep my mouth shut.”

- And, in this way Soviet Red Army General Blyukher became the first foreign (Soviet) military advisor posted to serve Sun Yat-sen in the liberation of the largest nation on Earth. - And, the first real commander of the Chinese NRA (National Revolutionary Army) was, accordingly, General Galen.

 Jumping Off

"I've approved your plans without change. I did add some available munitions I think will be useful to you." So spoke the “other Boss."

"That's a lot of weaponry...a lot of money," remarked Blyukher, reviewing the Top Secret accordion file and its index.

“Initially, two hundred and seventeen light and medium tanks – fifty four heavy tanks, our manufacture all – seventy five planes of various types, our manufacture also thanks to our friend comrade Trotsky – ten thousand artillery pieces, everything from mortars to howitzers and heavy field pieces – half a million rifles and seven hundred million rounds to go with them, and several ships full of a variety of small arms of all types. In addition I have allocated ten thousand mines of various types and about ten thousand tons of dynamite. We have acquired from the Germans some new anti-tank weaponry – rocket weapons – no one knows how well this stuff works so you will be the first to experiment with all that shit.

"Being loaded as we speak are twenty four freighters; countless to follow." added Stalin

"That’s even more money..." commented Borodin.

"One hundred million US dollars from our foreign reserves for now, and more as needed." Again Stalin finishing the topic.

"You're lucky, we had it available - the weapons anyway - building the Red Army down and building up our pitiful industry with that manpower has left us with some pretty big Army Navy Surplus depots. You might as well use it.

"The tanks and the planes will impress the shit out of the Chinese, boss", Bluykher, coolly expounding his thoughts on the matter; unresponsive to the comment about ‘our friend.’ “It will take days to offload and deploy all that stuff.”

"Yes, I think all this modern armament being offloaded from Soviet ships will win over many persons for you - sincere and opportunist. Comrades, just the very long time it takes to offload and deploy will impress all observers I can assure you.”

"Sincere or not boss - we need a lot of cannon fodder for the serious kind of war we're going to be fighting - none of this "staged battle" bullshit!"

"Comrades I have another meeting. Have you any questions?"

"No sir."

"Then get to it and good luck."

Borodin was a very intelligent man and knew his friend Koba had purposely provoked General Blyukher with his comment “our friend Trotsky.” Borodin noted how sophisticated Koba had become in the intervening years since they had last worked together “…which was after all before 1905”, he thought to himself. “A man can change and learn a lot in eighteen years…” Instead of making slanderous or snide comments about Trotsky whom everyone knew Koba hated too, Stalin had given him the back-hand compliment about aviation, in which Trotsky had indeed been the Soviet pioneer – at least in the Politburo – in such a way as to do exactly what Lenin said they were not to do – open up that wound again, with one of the generals most likely to be provoked. Blyukher, like most of the Red Army Old Bolshevik officers, had a “hard on” for Trotsky whom he, and they, had always despised. But it had all come to a head after Trotsky “fucked-up” as the other boss (Stalin) said “…the entire European campaign upon which we had depended so much.” Meaning, of course, the Polish-German campaign of summer 1920, where Trotsky’s hand-picked generals Tuckhachevsky and Gaia had performed like amateurs.

Borodin Acts to Make Sun Yat-sen China’s President

As I have said, when Sun succeeded in satisfying Moscow’s first condition, by regaining his base in Canton (Guangzhou), the Bolshevik’s decided to begin satisfying his first condition. Namely, that they establish an army for him that could conquer the North. Lenin sent Mikhail Borodin as the top Bolshevik boss to carry out the policy. Borodin had only recently returned from carrying out a successful and difficult mission in Great Britain, where he had been incarcerated for several months.

Borodin circumvented the British colony of Hong Kong and arrived in Canton on October 6, 1923, aboard a steamer carrying 200 sheep killed in a storm. He went directly to Sun, and we have both Borodin’s record of this meeting and that of Sun. - And, to make this long story short, we know that Borodin went about stiffening the defenses of Canton.

The city of Canton was only nominally Sun’s; actually it was in the hands of occupying thug troops of surrounding warlords. Borodin using Chinese communist cadre (only 540 strong, but street smart) established the first loyal “Palace Guard” for Sun’s “revolutionary government.”

Five weeks later (November 15, 1923) Sun fled Canton when confronted with the oncoming troops of the two warlords who had helped him take tentative control of the city not much earlier. Borodin stayed and defended the city on his own. But by this time Borodin had some of the toughest Bolshevik military men with him, including General Galen (Vasily Konstantinovich Blyukher, a hero Red general of the Russian Civil War.) The Russian Bolsheviks under Galen, and their Chinese cadre, attacked the oncoming warlord troops and wiped them out.

A few miles downstream from Canton’s main docks is Whampoa Island. Here Borodin proceeded to establish the military academy that would provide the officers for the Soviet style army the Russians promised to create for Sun. Here, one hundred million (1920’s) dollars worth of Soviet arms would be funneled to Sun in 1924 and 1925.The KMT (Sun’s Party was known by these initials) would have an army built along Red Army lines with political officers and indoctrination at its core.

Borodin had a great deal of difficulty getting Sun to agree to the minimal preparatory measures the Russians considered necessary to build the objective conditions for a successful campaign to the North. Almost every idea which the Bolshevik advisors presented as essential was resisted by Sun and his capitalist advisors. These conditions included everything from an eight hour day for workers to land reform for peasants. Yet somehow Borodin managed to get enough concessions along these lines that mass recruitment became possible - which is to say recruitment from the masses of workers and poor peasants for the “cannon fodder” that would be necessary for the coming civil war the KMT and its advisors were planning.

- And along the way they had to suppress uprisings of the local bourgeoisie who were extraordinarily reactionary to begin with, and frightened to death of the emerging Bolshevik controlled army Sun was creating.

As successful as Borodin was in this regard he failed to notice that Whampoa was being taken over by the sons of the bourgeoisie from many parts of the country. No less a bourgeois agent than Chiang Kai-shek was made Commandant of Whampoa Military Academy. Since they didn’t see that they certainly couldn’t see that not only were these boys bourgeois to the core but they were hand-picked by Big-eared Du and his closest confidants in Shanghai! In the end, this error on Borodin’s part would seal the defeat of the Northern Expedition and Sun’s and Lenin’s hopes for a truly national democratic bourgeois government. Although by the time that came about both of these men would be dead. Lenin dying in January, 1924 and Sun dying in December, 1924, only a little over a year after Borodin’s October, 1923, arrival.

 However, having said this, I should also say it is unlikely that anyone could have done a better job than Borodin. As long as these fatal gaps in knowledge existed among every Politburo member in Moscow, what else could have happened?

The Green Gang

As we have seen, there was a rather secretive side to Chinese capitalism much as there was in the United States. In the US it was Meyer Lansky who emerged in the 1920's as the de facto chief of so-called “organized crime.” In China, it was Big-eared Du. Of course, both countries had their flamboyant gangsters; persons to whom the press referred constantly. But these men would always serve simply to distract attention from the real bosses.

Big-eared Du was one of China’s richest men by the time Borodin arrived in Canton. He shook down everyone with money in Shanghai (and elsewhere), controlled most of the labor unions, and was involved in every racket that men can imagine, and some women too (for example two of the three Soong sisters were his close collaborators.) Prostitution and opium were his monopolies in South China. Of these various rackets, drugs were the biggest - every bit of opium in Shanghai - and every shipment of opium, heroin, and other opiate derivatives that left Shanghai was controlled by Big-eared Du and his Green Gang cartel.

One of Big-eared Du’s protégé’s was a young gangster with a long rap sheet himself, named Chiang Kai-shek. Chiang was an early member of Du’s Green Gang and as such he was part of the most powerful secret criminal society in China.

Du was not a “light person”, but the type of vicious sadist that rises to the top in societies of the Servitude Epoch. (The sort of person the USA rulers liked to put in charge everywhere they could after 1945.) Yet, for a “light” view perhaps of the Green Gang at play I might recommend the opening scenes from Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom! Where a relatively sophisticated archaeologist almost succumbs to a dinner joke, (where Lao is the name for Du.)

Du got Chiang out of the street action that had given him his rap sheet in extortion, contract murder and bank robbing. Du covered up much of Chiang’s police record with the usual hand-outs of money. He had decided to use Chiang for greater things. Namely, to be a “General” somewhere, and as it turned out, a general for Sun Yat-sen, in the new army being created by Du’s most deadly enemies - the Russian Bolsheviks and their Chinese agents.

First Chiang was taken from “the street” and given a high paying “cover job” as a broker-dealer on the Shanghai stock exchange. There he made himself useful handling the money of the Green Gang and its clients, swindling others, and was able to earn sufficient rewards to live the way he wished.

Then Du dispatched Chiang to Japan, where he was indoctrinated in the philosophy and methodology of Japan’s fascist military elite and ruling cliques, and most importantly facilitated the movement of heroin from China to the USA via Hawaii. Chiang was well prepared by the time Du dispatched him to serve Sun.

In Sun’s service Chiang quickly stage-managed some dramatic deeds on his new “chief’s” behalf. These activities fooled Sun and set Chiang up to be Sun’s delegate to Soviet Russia.

Chiang left Canton for Moscow in August, 1923. Ostensibly Chiang was to hurry the Russians into sending the promised assistance. In reality the decision had already been made in the Politburo to send Borodin, so Chiang’s visit would be irrelevant in that regard. However, it was Chiang who had wanted to go to Moscow, and he had talked Sun into sending him. Chiang was operating under Big-eared Du’s orders to find out as much as possible, straight from the horse’s mouth, so to speak, about what the Russians intended to do in China, and to make an assessment as to whether they could do much at all. If they could, how much and how soon?

Chiang was only in Moscow for three months but he carried out his mission admirably and fooled the Bolshevik leaders too, including Trotksy, Kamenev, Radek, Chicherin and Zinoviev (Lenin was too ill to meet or speak with him. Stalin too busy.) Chiang returned to Shanghai and gave a full report to Big-eared Du. Du then made his most important move in the “chess for keeps” game he was playing. He arranged for Chiang to be made Commandant of the Whampoa Military Academy. Du also arranged to supply virtually all of the cadets that his Bolshevik enemies were going to train for him. Boys whose families had been life long members of the Green Gang and who also had sworn a secret loyalty to that master criminal society. The die was cast.

1923

China, At Last!

History records the night of 23 October 1923, as having one of the worst storms on record immediately adjacent to Pearl River China. Michael Borodin was sick as a dog as were some two hundred odd sheep. Borodin survived his nightmare at sea - the sheep did not. At the Canton docks the dead sheep were taken off first so as to be rapidly prepared as food. As instructed, Borodin quietly found his way to the headquarters of Chinese KMT Party leader Sun Yat-sen.

Sun was awakened when Borodin arrived and immediately descended to the waiting room where the Russo-American waited sipping tea. Borodin stood and saluted. Dr. Sun then extended his right hand in friendship. Sun took his hand in the most Western way and by address indicated the two should relax and speak in English.

“Comrade Borodin, it is indeed an honor. I hope your trip was not too uncomfortable. We all feared for your life frankly, when we heard you were coming in the middle of the typhoon.”

“Mr. President, it was a terrifying experience and several times I was rather sure that my promise to Comrade Lenin would end up at the bottom of the sea along with me but history has seen me through it and now it is up to us to serve her as well as we can.”

“May I ask how is Vladimir Lenin? We hear he is very ill and may not recover.”

“He is very ill and I don’t know what the recovery looks like. But the Soviet Republic – now the Union of Republics is more appropriate - although the exact form has not yet been worked out – is very strong and getting stronger by the day, month and year. You have no need to fear on that ground. The government and most importantly the Party and its leadership are unified as never before, each man and woman within it committed to making our agreement work. I personally watched the loading of over a dozen ships with war materiel before leaving Vladivostok. Over one hundred ships will be employed initially. Not only are we in the process of delivering everything we agreed upon but much more besides. You will have the most advanced armaments in the world delivered at the Canton docks beginning within a matter of days Dr. Sun.

“Aeroplanes and tanks?” The Chinese leader was specific.

“Absolutely. Seventy five Aeroplanes of our own manufacture. These are the most advanced warplanes in the world thanks to Comrade Trotsky and about 275 light medium and heavy tanks also of our own manufacture. All we shall need is aviation gasoline and regular gasoline and diesel fuel for the tanks and the trucks accompanying them and this army can march. If we can get that fuel here fine – if not we will buy it abroad and import it. First, however, we need to discuss this army and its training, for everything shall depend in the end on the quality and dedication of your individual fighting man. Just as it did in Russia during the civil war. This is going to be our biggest challenge. Yours and mine.

“Yes, of course. – And, the most difficult. You know nothing like what we propose has been expected of individual fighters in this country for a long time.

“But let me suggest that first we take you to your quarters so you can get some rest. There will plenty of time for all of this once you have begun to recover from your very arduous journey.”

This time Borodin did not argue. Michael Borodin was truly exhausted. Fifteen thousand miles by rail and ship and not one mile of it without its own peculiar discomforts.  – And, the typhoon has just about finished him off – it had taken close to his last reserves of physical not to mention emotional strength; then his sleep, while traversing the Pearl River, had been fitful at best.

Sun indicated that he should follow a small army of apparently female servants who led the way, rising, shaking hands and noting that they could begin again the next day once Borodin had recovered sufficiently to begin again. The first audience was completed. The mission of a lifetime, not to mention of history, had begun.

Building Sun Yat-sen a Government

The first Chinese city Europeans entered upon discovery of the sea route around Cape Good Hope of South Africa was Canton, and they didn't get this far until 1518. In other words, at the same time Spanish ronin were embarking upon their Conquest of Mexico, these Portuguese free-booters had finally arrived at the Great Asian Capital of Canton, from which they had been de facto excluded for well over a thousand years.

Excluded by distance and ignorance; e.g., how far away is it and how do we get there? Both factors being key allies in the permanent wall built against Europe by the Islamic Regimes of the Near East and South Asia. However, as the Europeans were soon to find out, the Asian's had no interest in them and their shoddy goods. At least other than the few things on which they did have a tight hold, such as White slaves and English Wool, not to mention a few serviceable firearms of the sidearm magnitude. Consequently, Portuguese sailors had nearly been hanged en masse in Calicut when they arrived their with glass trading beads!

The Chinese learned that the Europeans had access to cash. More all the time, as they had acquired the New World almost by default, and were busy stealing the gold and silver from Mexico and soon Peru. So, despite their insulting "trade goods" as cargo the Spanish, Portuguese, and within a century the British, would learn that gold and silver would pay their way into China's imperial markets any time.

With time the foreigners would find a way to acquire silver (opium trafficking) without having to run a balance of payments deficit in the European capitals of incipient capital (we are still in the Feudal Stage; at the time of entering Canton the Europeans were still two and a half centuries from official industrial machinery centered manufacture – machinofacture - in private hands - i.e., capitalism – the date: 1765.)

1923 witnessed another beachhead being made in Canton. This time by the communists, with Michael Borodin at the point, being the first to arrive. Within days he was joined by General Galen and his staff, when the Soviet freighters began showing up at Canton's docks. Tanks and planes rolled off these ships. Quite possibly the first time that Cantonese had ever seen such weapons! As we have seen Borodin had gone directly to Sun.

Lay of the Land

Borodin awoke rather late. Exhaustion had literally knocked him out for nearly nine hours. As he swung his legs to the side of the luxurious double king-sized bed he saw the servants were awaiting him with warm water, towels, food, drink and he reacted accordingly letting them lead the way. Actually he had never seen anything like this. No one spoke. Not them, not he, and as the curtains were slowly drawn to allow his eyes to adjust to the daytime of Canton, Borodin was compelled by curiosity to stand and walk to them. A set of doors opened by still more, silent, obsequious servants, this man-of-the-world realized that this was the “Chinese way” and he continued along his own silent line of inquiry.

To himself he remarked “what a beautiful day and what a way to welcome it. I see what the Chinese bourgeoisie likes and what they fear to lose.” Always the Marxist.

- And, it was a beautiful if extraordinarily “bright” day. “Nothing like this since Mexico,” Borodin continued to remark to himself. For North American, Russian, English cultural prejudices were deeply ingrained and always featured sunlight subdued as it was north of the New England and Old England, St. Petersburg and Moscow latitudinal parallel, separating them from everything to the “brighter” south.

The terrace unfolding for him featured several chairs around a table and the servants were already placing foods on the plates in front of him. One plate at a time. He sat and hungrily took in what must have seemed a mountain of food to the slight men women eagerly serving him. One girl giggled as he swallowed an egg, a pork chop, and a bowl of Chinese spiced rice, then turned for something more, as if that had been an appetizer. That was more food than she would have consumed in a week.

About this time as he would later recall in 1927 when briefing his new supreme boss, Joseph Stalin, (Lenin having died in January of 1924) a military officer appeared in full western garb. He saluted saying,

“Comrade Borodin, Dr. Sun invites you to meet with him as soon as it is convenient.”

“Please tell Dr. Sun, I will be with him in just a few minutes.”

The officer departed and Borodin continued his feast.

*****

Always one step ahead of the situation Borodin had adopted Joseph Stalin’s habit of wearing a military uniform. Accordingly, after a much needed bath and toilet, he allowed his body servants to dress him with the clothes he had instructed them to prepare. In this tunic with matching overalls and highly polished Prussian style military boots he proceeded to meet Dr. Sun, as what he was; political officer of General rank in the Red Army of the Soviet Republic. It was a uniform Borodin would assume for the rest of his career in China. In appearance he fit right in. Would reality come to reflect appearance? Borodin wondered.

Sun spoke as Borodin entered and seemed more agitated than the previous evening.

“Your leader, Comrade Lenin, has asked me to speak to you as I would to him.”

“Yes sir, that is correct. Not that I could in any way speak as well as he on anything but he has asked me to speak frankly to you, in his name, and to see that we implement immediately the agreement. I am prepared to do so and of course to listen and follow you in this matter. You are, after all, the President of China.”

“Not yet. Not really. In fact, I am here, as I am sure your agents have told you, due to fortuitous historical circumstance. I was able to convince these two low-life thugs who call themselves “generals” to give me Canton only because they believe, because I have told them so, that you Russians are going to give us the weapons they want. That is the naked and sad fact. They have no commitment to the Three People’s Principles, or anything else except their own personal enrichment. But this “deal” has gotten us this far. This is the stark and unadorned truth. You do understand me?”

“Yes sir. I do understand. – And, we can begin today to make a new reality the situation in Canton. Believe me when I tell you I know exactly what to do and how to do it. Everything we shall need is now on the way – it’s on the water and I know you will be impressed. In the meantime I have asked our Party to provide me with a battalion of troops to replace these guards you have at the moment. It’s what we might call a real Palace Guard because it will have only one task. Securing you, your family and advisors and your government.”

“Thank God! You do understand the situation. – And you are already taking the essential steps. Thank God. Perhaps the Three People’s Principles can now begin their historic task at taking command of a new Chinese nation.”

“You can count on it. As the American’s say – ‘you can take it to the bank.’”

“You are an American of sorts as well are you not?”

“Yes sir. I guess you could say that. I spent twelve years in the United States. Mostly as a school teacher in Chicago. I considered myself an American then and if it had not been for Lenin I would still be there teaching. – And, organizing unions.”

“You were a Leninist before emigrating to Chicago?”

“Yes sir. I joined the Bolshevik Party in 1903. I participated in the 1905 Revolution in Russia. Mostly in St. Petersburg, now Petrograd. The Czarist regime crushed our revolution and I ran for my life. I met my wife also running and we decided to go the United States and try and build a new life. We did and as I said we taught school and tried to make a contribution helping poor working people organize unions in their own self defense. Then Lenin brought the revolution to Russia. As soon as we saw what was happening she understood I had to go back. She stayed there. She works for us now but she made it possible – by working and sending me money – to get me home – to Petrograd. You know the rest.”

“They told me Lenin had sent you on other missions: Italy, Mexico, Great Britain and now sent you to me.”

“Yes sir. That’s all true. But let me ask you about what you have done. Lenin told me that ‘you had the guts to seize the moment and declare an independent republic when the opportunity arose.’ He admires that tremendously.”

“He does?”

“Yes sir. He does. He told me that exactly when we first spoke about our – that is the Soviet Union’s new - China policy.”

“When can you establish this new palace guard?”

“Perhaps tomorrow. I have to meet with our Party leaders next. Chen Tu-hsiu to be specific. But I have already ordered over five hundred fighters from our base in Shanghai to Canton. They might be here already because the order was issued from Harbin only days ago as I boarded the freighter that took me to Shanghai and there I met with some of them. I am not sure, they were not sure, just how many days it will take by train from Shanghai but the moment they arrive we will put them into place – quietly at first – I don’t want these war lord “allies” of yours to become alarmed before Galen arrives. By the way Galen is the name of our best hero civil war general whose real name is Vasily Konstantinovich Blyukher.”

“So, it is to be Blyukher. I am glad to hear that. He was never defeated in your civil war as I understand it.”

“That’s right. Never defeated in the Civil War. Instrumental in the revolution in his home province. Dedicated in his very soul to the success of our historic world cause.”

I can’t tell you how happy I am to hear all of this. It’s what I had hoped for… dreamed of, actually. But really, until now I was afraid all would prove to be an illusion. It’s been a very long and very difficult struggle.”

“Yes sir, I know it has. I want you to know that you have my word that we will perform everything we have promised. Sir, I want you to trust me to the bitter end.”

Chen Tu-hsiu

“Comrade Borodin it is an honor. Where to begin? Your trip? Your meeting with Dr. Sun? You tell us?”

“Comrade Chen. I bring you salutations from Vladimir Illych Lenin and the entire leadership of the Communist International of Working People. But I suspect you already know all of this. What we must do is get down to business. Let me ask you, have our troops arrived from Shanghai?

“Yes comrade they have. – And we have supplemented their number as only about three hundred are here at the moment, more coming as I understand it, as per your order. So we have about 540 men at your disposal?

“No Women?”

“No sir. This is China and our first volunteers turned out to be men.”

“I want you to see that from this moment on that our women comrades are as important to our military success as are our men. This is critically important. Women were as important to the success of our Red Army in Russia as were the male recruits. It is important that we establish in practice our principles. You understand I am sure.”

“Now that you say it so clearly I do. Frankly until now that had escaped me.”

“Next, how secure are we going to be from the warlord bastards that Sun used to get into power in Canton in the first place. That is the next most important thing.”

“This is the most important problem you have to face?”

“NO, that we have to face. I am just an advisor. This is your revolution. You have to come to believe this and put it into practice otherwise we are just pissing into the wind.”

“Excuse me?”

“An American expression I poorly translated. But the point is that you are the ones in charge. I am here to help YOU win. We in the Soviet Union are not here to impose anything! You must lead. If you don’t lead then how would we be any different from the imperialists imposing foreign rule. Comrade Lenin was quite explicit about this. I want to call this meeting to a halt until you and your comrades in the leadership of our fraternal party here in China have had time to discuss what I have said.

“I will assume that once you do we can proceed to the next phase which is how I can help you recruit, train and lead your own workers and poor farmers, women as well as men, in the coming struggle to liberate China. – And, frankly, I am still quite tired from my rather exhausting trip. Come to me when you are ready and we will proceed.”

Borodin rose, bowed as he had been taught and excused himself. The first meeting between the new foreign representative of international communism and the leader of China’s Communist Party was over.

Chen Tu-hsiu II: Paying the Piper

Borodin had been tired and perhaps that was the reason he brought the initial meeting to such a quick conclusion. Retreating to his quarters in Dr. Sun’s temporary mansion in Canton for much needed toilet and sleep. Yet, he knew from the beginning that he must establish the politically correct relationship with China’s Party even if it were only to last for a short period of time in real world practice. China’s communists had to take their place at the helm, even if only in training.

About this I have spent many hours contemplating. After 1991 I had the opportunity to gain limited access to the archives of Joseph Stalin, the Comintern and indeed, before that (1965), to those of the Chinese Party. I knew exactly what information I was looking for and of course this made the matter relatively simple.

Once the information began to become available the things I discovered made me see something at which I could not help but marvel, as the years passed and I became further acquainted with the supportive documents; this man Borodin was a real genius – the perfect foreign agent. In later years it made me wonder how he had acted earlier in Italy, Mexico and indeed in the United States. Was he that good then? Or, were these learning experiences?  I knew how he had performed in London when the splits between all the forces asking for accreditation to the Third International had been involved, so I had never doubted Lenin’s wisdom in selecting Borodin for China. But it was not until I fully internalized all the documents that came to my attention in later years, that I truly came to appreciate a genius at work.

What Borodin did on this issue of feminism in China was a stroke of genius. As was his insistence that the Chinese take the leadership in the formation of policy; albeit a policy already determined for them, although about this determination they did not need to know. Quite the opposite. The true mark of a professional agent for our cause – for the Comintern. Making Michael Borodin, in my humble opinion, one of the “firsts” of the truly “greats” in our service. Now let us move on.

“This Comrade Chen is the initial Order of Battle (OB) plan for Canton. This is a military term we use to describe the arrangement of military units on one, our, side and those of the enemy on the other side. This initial plan was developed by General Blyukher whose name here will be Galen. A name he says will be easier for Chinese to say than Vasily Konstantinovich Blyukher.”

“I see.”

“Galen will be here soon, but the first phase of this OB is the next page, and is simply establishing a Palace Guard as he has named it. The idea being that the President’s physical security is our first task. The question to be asked simultaneously is can we use President Sun’s existing home as the headquarters for the Revolution? Can it be secured for him as a home. We think both needs to be combined for the moment especially now that the actual number of troops at our initial disposal is only about 540 Chinese.

“Yes, for now President Sun’s home is quite adequate. He chose it I suspect precisely because it was defendable. Let me introduce you to Comrade Xi.”

“Comrade”

“Esteemed Comrade.”

Chen continued, “Comrade Xi is a dock worker and the head of our Party organization in Canton. He can answer your questions far better than I.”

“Do you agree Comrade Xi that this home of Dr. Sun’s can be defended and expanded simultaneously to serve as Government headquarters?”

“Yes, for now. But not for long. It is only a matter of time until Canton is attacked by superior forces to ours and when will we be getting more forces from the rest of China and also from your country? Finally, we must quickly recruit several battalions of fighters here in Canton. I have been working on that. But even when we have them, which we will within a few days, Canton is by its very nature a difficult city to defend. My own thinking is that we should move the Government and its headquarters including Dr. Sun to Whampoa Island, which you will have passed on your way to the Canton docks. It’s a small island just a few kilometers from city center but safely in the middle of the River.”

“I see. Alright. When General Galen arrives you can work that out with him. For now we have to secure Sun where he is, and I want you to get your men into position as quickly as possible, even if they are without modern weapons. Weapons will be arriving with Galen on the first ships along with uniforms. Can you get this done today.

“Yes sir.”

“Excellent.

“Now when can we expect these gangsters to attack us – the one’s who gave Canton to Sun I mean.”

“Soon. As soon as they find out that the guns are going to us, and not to them, they will attack.”

“That’s what I thought. Alright. Now what we are going to do? All of you and me that is, are to prepare a battle strategy to attack them first. We will strike at the first opportunity, once Galen arrives. This means to get your military recruitment underway explaining as you go, to your men that they will have salaries, uniforms, guns and everything else they need as soon as the Soviet ships arrive in Harbor. Can you recruit with these words and with promises?”

“Yes sir. I have already been doing that. What I need is money now. That will convince them we are serious.”

“I brought money. In various currencies. Mostly US dollars as we thought that would be a universal currency in Canton. How much do you need?

“We have five hundred forty dedicated fighters who need money only for food and shelter and their families. For them that is very little – in total ten thousand dollars for two weeks.”

Borodin reached into his briefcase and produced the cash. He noticed as he did so, and as he handed it to Xi, the man exhibited a noticeable facial expression of relief and gratitude. The Russian comrades were going to be as good as their word. Everything would be just fine. In fact, wonderful. – And, the fact that Borodin did not hesitate to treat him as the man in charge of the fighters and proved it with cash was the icing on that cake.

“Now, you have things to do and I have to speak at length about political matters with Comrade Chen.”

Xi gave his best salute and turned and left with his hands shaking. He had never in his life had so much money in those hands at one time. This was very real!

Galen Arrives

What everyone would remember was not the huge ship that sailed into the harbor because the Cantonese were relatively sophisticated in this regard, although the ship arriving was of original Battleship Czarist Class, but the flag. The crimson red flag with the gold hammer and sickle. – And, aboard Soviet Marines, in full dress uniform and heavily armed, at the side.

Shoreside, cannon were fired in salute and the arriving ship was followed immediately by more, one after the other, apparently no end in sight. In fact, this was the first and most elaborate Russian naval presentation since before the World War! – And, indeed, as planned, it had the effect. The people of Canton continued to arrive until over one hundred thousand had gathered shore side backing up into the back alleys and streets leading to the docks.

The Northern Expedition: June, 1926 - April, 1927

The death of Sun left the question of succession open for resolution. As is often the case in such matters there was a lengthy struggle. Big-eared Du’s candidate was, of course, the Commandant of the Whampoa Military Academy and Du would successfully eliminate Chiang’s rivals by bribery and assassination, as 1925 and 1926 unfolded. Which is to say, when bribery failed Du specialized in the surgical removal of trouble making obstacles at the right time and place (in a fashion similar to the way in which US gangsters would serve their “legal” bourgeois allies in the US in years to come, as in JFK, RFK, MLK. etc.)

A marriage was arranged for Chiang Kai-shek. The many times married, and always accompanied Chiang, married the sister of Sun’s wife. (May Ling Soong, would become his accomplice in the theft of countless billions of dollars from the Chinese people and his US patrons). This marriage was facilitated by the third Soong sister who had married extremely well and would be one of China’s greatest financial wheeler-dealers. (Sun’s wife, the remaining Soong sister would become one of Mao’s closest allies.)

- And, while Chiangs accession to the top spot in the KMT, the NRA (National Revolutionary Army), and as anointed successor to Sun Yat-sen was occurring, the final touches were being put on the Du plot to trap and destroy the Communists. After they had trained and led the NRA to victory, putting all of south China, north to Shanghai and Wuhan, under Chiang’s control.

Reviewing the course of the Northern Expedition in detail is beyond the scope of this book. Suffice it to say that the Communists did their job, with Soviet pilots flying “recon” for the advancing Northwestern Front under the Bolshevik General Galen. Communist cadre roused the peasants and workers along the way so that they were always greeting this advancing front as liberators, carrying out their own reforms and revenge as Galen’s army moved on.

Chiang took a slow, and never radical, route to the northeast.

Eventually Galen’s Front reached and took the tri-city industrial area of Wuhan where Galen (Blyukher) established a Left KMT Government.

Before they ever left Canton, Chiang had arranged massacres of Bolshevik workers and cadre in that city. As usual Chiang managed to patch things up with Borodin, blaming the actions on “right wingers” in his coalition. Borodin didn’t believe him but he went along with the “patching up” because it was Party policy, and Comintern policy, to make this cross-class alliance and military campaign work at virtually any cost.

It had always been a toss-up as to who would betray who the first. Borodin and Chiang knew they would eventually settle with each other, but both had reasons to wait until Wuhan and Shanghai were taken - they were each jockeying for the best position from which to betray the other. What Borodin didn’t know was the nature, extent and planning of the Green Gang and its cadre inside his army! Nor the extent of the greed of many who should have sided with the Bolsheviks, in the cities - a form of the mental template of selfishness and sadism, which the Bolsheviks did not yet recognize - thus, could not avoid.

The struggle for Shanghai became a replay of the exact same types of ambushes, betrayals and massacres by the Green Gang against Bolshevized workers that had occurred earlier in Canton. Again and again, from February through April of 1927, Chinese Bolsheviks kept getting caught unawares, unprepared and consequently slaughtered. Again and again, Chiang managed to play the innocent. Again and again, the Russian Bolsheviks let him get away with it.

All this time Chinese Party founder and chairman Chen, had been against the alliance and against the Comintern policy. But Chen had buckled under, each and every time, to the imposition of international democratic centralist discipline. Chen had preferred a typical “Leninist” policy of “separation” from other political tendencies - from the beginning. A policy much similar, in other words, to the Bolshevik attitude toward everyone else in Russia, before October, 1917. But the Moscow Politburo was unified in its “alliance” strategy for China, which after all had been initiated by Lenin himself. A tragic irony in many ways.

Crisis in China Begins in 1927

Meanwhile the final phase of the Northern Expedition in China was underway. Galen was near the tri-city of Wuhan. Chiang Kai-shek was about to enter Shanghai. Michael Borodin, however, was very worried. For, it was becoming increasingly clear that the right wing of the KMT forces wanted to get rid of their Communist Party allies now that victory was in sight and Borodin was unsure of the measures being taken to prevent that from happening. Indeed to beat the KMT rightists to the punch with a coup of his own. The key to Borodin and Galen’s strategy was the establishment of a Left KMT government at Wuhan which was a classic working class concentration of the Petrograd type. The idea being that this government could call on the mass of workers if necessary to protect it along with, of course, Galen’s army.

Ideological Lessons of 1927: Bolsheviks Growing Up

Finally, in April, 1927, Du and Chiang carried out their joint Green Gang-NRA final attack and massacre of Shanghai workers and their Communist leaders. Chiang finally came out into the open as China’s fascist dictator moving against communists nation-wide in a blood bath that featured many tens of thousands of men, women, and children, peasants and workers, murdered. (Including Mao’s wife and her unborn child.) A price was placed on Borodin’s head and that of all the Bolshevik advisors, the Chinese Communist Party outlawed, and Chiang declared dictator. Galen’s Chinese “front men” in Wuhan were suborned and the Left KMT Government collapsed; bought by Du and his bags of money from Shanghai.

In the event, the Chinese bourgeoisie, thanks to their gangster component, had done-in the Communists before the Communists could do them in. (A later replay would be Hitler’s successful attack on the USSR, which beat Stalin to the punch with nearly disastrous consequences for World Socialism.)

Big-eared Du was made a “general” in the “new” NRA (now, without communists) as part of the gigantic reward to which he treated himself. Presumably feeding five thousand communists and their families into the boiler furnaces of Shanghai’s weeks-long running locomotive engines was a bonus of intensely exciting sadistic sexual pleasure. (The template of altruism of Shanghai workers was confronting the template of sadism of the Shanghai capitalists.)

Now, as the new head of the Opium Suppression Bureau, Du also gave himself a complete and legal monopoly on the drug business in all of China. – And he took command of all of China’s legal trade unions! As a key de facto Minister in the new Regime Du would continue making mountains of money until forced to flee the mainland for Taiwan in 1949. Interesting, is it not, that Harry Truman later estimated Chiang Kai-shek and his gang (Du et. al.) to have stolen more in four years from 1945-1949 from the dumb gringos than they had made in all their previous years “work” with the Japs put together.

The fact that Truman would admit to his own stupidity in this regard is a fascinating comment on US imperialism of that moment, in and of itself. Think how powerful Wall Street must have been then to write-off 22+ billion dollars as if it was nothing. – And, this was when a billion was a billion (long before the 500% Nixon devaluation of 1971, accomplished by taking the US off the gold standard internationally, to finance the Vietnam War). The US imperialists certainly are not in that position any more. Now, all of the money they need to finance overseas aggression has to be borrowed!

More importantly Du taught both the Russian Bolsheviks and their Chinese cadre something new about the nature of underlying human imprinting which Mao and Stalin at least eventually internalized and never forgot. Neither would be quite so naïve in the future – especially, now that they realized naiveté was a very relative thing and that they themselves had been played for naïve fools by the biggest of the “big boys.” (If you want to play with the big boys you have to learn to play hard.) Another reason I think Mao found his future wife Jiang Qing fascinating, for she had been inside the pleasure dens of the Green Gang and knew all their secrets.

In the meantime, Borodin, Galen and the rest of the Russian Bolshevik cadre still alive and some Chinese too (including Sun’s wife), fled China for the Soviet Union across China’s northern frontiers. Elsewhere the other, surviving Chinese communists holed-up in “base areas” in different parts of China. The most important of these base areas would be the Hunan-Jiangxi mountainous region where Mao would create China’s first Red Republic. Another story for another time.

Mao’s Famous Wife

With one final comment about Jiang Qing, Mao’s eventual fourth, final and famous wife, who had been an AMW (actress, model, “whatever” – less generously the “w” would stand for “whore”) for the Green Gang. She gave up her popular film career (acting under the name Lan Ping) to join the communists in Yenan (she had secretly joined the CPC in Shanghai in 1933 at the age of 19) where she became the Chairman’s “wife.” She was able to provide Mao with much inside information about the sadistic pleasures of Du, Chiang, and the Madams’ Soong and their hangers-on, once he was in Yenan and she joined him in 1939. These ladies (two of the Madame Soongs) by the way used toilet paper that cost a $1000 per square in the 1920’s),

Learning, Little by Little

Little by little the Bolsheviks and their foreign allies were learning. They were learning the true nature of their enemies and, of course, that implied what had to be done. Done in general strategic terms and done specifically, in each of these cases. The Chinese experience, in short, taught the Bolshevik bosses, and all of us as well, that the underlying nature of human imprinting is the predominate mental template of the Epoch in which we live – which in this case was more than just selfishness, and came in the form of a finely developed sense of sadistic social relations and personal indulgences. Something one should not forget in dealing with the bourgeoisie – or for that matter anyone else not thoroughly understood as to motivation. The best practical reason for relying on workers, especially when guns are involved, is precisely because they are the most predisposed to our cause – or, at least, should be. As the Workers Party, we owe it to our class to establish internal security procedures to be sure that what could be is and what should be will be.