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Mao ZedongandJiang QingIn Yan’an in the 1940s. (Image source: Public domain)
Yan’anIt was once known as the “Holy Land” of the Chinese Communist Revolution. In 1949, 28 years before the founding of the Communist Party of China, the place where Mao Zedong spent the longest time “engaging in revolution” was in Yan’an, for a total of 13 years (1935-1948).
In Yan’an, Mao officially became the core of the first generation leadership collective of the CCP and ascended to the highest position of power in the CCP – Chairman of the CPC Central Committee, Chairman of the Political Bureau of the CPC, Chairman of the Secretariat of the CPC Central Committee, and Chairman of the Central Revolutionary Military Commission. In Yan’an, Mao was touted as “the greatest theorist and scientist in Chinese history” and a “great leader” with “the highest theoretical cultivation and the greatest theoretical courage.” In Yan’an, “Mao Zedong Thought” was regarded as “Sinicized Marxism-Leninism” and was written into the CCP’s Party Constitution and became the guiding ideology of the CCP. In Yan’an, 45-year-old Mao Zedong married 24-year-old Shanghai actress Jiang Qing. In Yan’an, Mao was sung as the “red sun” and the “great savior of the people.”
However, in the 27 years from 1949 when Mao Zedong entered Beijing to 1976 when Mao died, Mao never returned to Yan’an once. Why is this?
Looking back on the history of the CCP, I think there may be four reasons:
First, how can the “poor mountains and harsh waters” of Yan’an compare with the “gentle and wealthy town” of Hangzhou?
Since ancient times, there has been a saying that “there is heaven above and Suzhou and Hangzhou below.” Hangzhou has beautiful mountains, beautiful water, and even more beautiful people.
After the founding of the Communist Party of China, the place where Mao Zedong visited the most and stayed the longest when he left Beijing was Hangzhou.
At the end of 1953, Mao, as the top leader of the Chinese Communist Party, government and military, visited Hangzhou for the first time. He was immediately attracted by the picturesque landscape and the meticulous service of Hangzhou people, and stayed there for 77 days. After that, Mao went to Hangzhou almost every year, sometimes several times a year, totaling more than 40 times. Mao once said: “Hangzhou is my second hometown.”
Mao visited the mountains and rivers near the West Lake. In 1955, after Mao returned to his residence after climbing the North Peak for the third time, he wrote “Five Laws.” “Looking at the Mountains”: “Three climbs to the North Peak, one can see the sky above Hangzhou. The trees beside the Feifeng Pavilion, and the wind on Taohua Ridge. When it’s hot, I look for a fan, and when it’s cold, I look for a beautiful woman. A fluttering breeze welcomes the evening hawk.”
In Hangzhou, Mao mostly lived in Liuzhuang, the most famous garden in West Lake.
Liu Zhihan, deputy director of the Central Investigation Department, said: “The old man (referring to Mao Zedong) became the emperor in his later years, and each province built a palace. Liuzhuang in the West Lake covers an area of 540 acres. It is a lake within a lake and a garden within a garden. It costs 2,700 a day to burn diesel for light-powered machinery.” yuan. Yugoslav President Tito said that he had traveled to more than 60 countries and had never seen such a luxurious place, so he specially extended his stay for two more days.”
After the founding of the Communist Party of China, Yan’an has been in a state of poverty and backwardness for a long time.
In the summer of 1974, several mainland media reporters visited Yan’an. At that time, the large number of people begging on the streets of Yan’an and the miserable scenes left a heartbreaking impression on them. These beggars beg along the street during the day and sleep under the eaves on both sides of the street at night. One night, the reporter went to the door of the former Liberation Daily and saw more than 50 beggars sleeping on the sidewalks on both sides of the door. Fortunately, it is midsummer. How miserable it would be in the harsh winter!
In 1980, four mainland media reporters went to Yan’an again for interviews. The reporter learned that among the 104 communes in 7 counties in northern Yan’an, 36 communes have basically not lived a good life since the cooperativeization, and have struggled with hunger and cold for more than 20 years.
The reporter interviewed Gao Wenxiu, the representative director of Wangjiawan Administrative Village and member of the commune party committee at that time, who had received Mao Zedong.
The Gao family was having lunch at that time. The children had noodle soup and the adults had bran mixed with bitter vegetables. There was only a little sorghum in one of the pots, and half a bowl of noodles left on the pot table, leaving almost no grain left.
Gao Wenxiu shrank his neck and leaned against the wall of the kang. There was a piece of tattered felt on the kang, and two tattered quilts piled in the corners. Seeing that this old man who had been a member of the CCP for 45 years had such a desolate old age, the reporter was speechless and speechless.
Gao Wenxiu told reporters that he had been hungry for more than ten years. However, Gao recalled that in 1947, “It was good back then, much better than now.”
With Hangzhou’s green water, green mountains, fine wine, delicacies, and beauties, how could Mao think of the hungry and cold people on the loess land beside the Yan River.
Second, Mao was deeply concerned about the idea of ”Northern Shaanxi rescuing the Central Government”
Mao Zedong’s first base for “revolution” was Jinggangshan in Jiangxi. Mao stayed there for 7 years from 1927 to 1934.
On November 7, 1931, under the control of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, the CCP established a “state within a state” – the Chinese Soviet Republic in Ruijin, Jiangxi Province, within the territory of the Republic of China. Mao Zedong was elected Chairman of the Central Executive Committee and People’s Republic of China Committee Chairman. The title “Chairman Mao” was first used at that time.
However, to the Republic of China, the Soviet Republic of China was a rebel regime. For this reason, the Republic of China government launched many encirclement and suppression campaigns against the Chinese Soviet Republic.
On October 17, 1934, the CCP’s fifth counter-encirclement and suppression campaign failed, and the Red Army had to withdraw from Jiangxi and flee westward. The CCP called it the “Long March.”
Under the encirclement and interception of the national army, the Red Army retreated steadily and fled to 11 provinces. The main force of the Red Army dropped from 100,000 at the time of departure to only 8,000.
On October 19, 1935, the Shaanxi-Gansu detachment of the Red Army arrived at Wuqi Town in the Shaanxi-Gansu base area of the Communist Party of China. In October 1936, the Second Red Army and the Fourth Red Army arrived in the Shaanxi-Gansu base area one after another. After more than two years of long journeys full of hardships and heavy attrition, the three main forces of the Red Army finally got together, stopped moving around, and found a foothold in northern Shaanxi.
Who founded the Shaanxi-Gansu base area of the CCP? It was founded in the 1920s and 1930s by Liu Zhidan, Xie Zichang, Gao Gang, Xi Zhongxun and others. Therefore, in the history of the Communist Party of China, there is a saying that “Northern Shaanxi saves the Central Committee.”
After the CCP came to power in 1949, Mao became the general representative of the CCP’s consistently correct line and an extraordinary “great leader.” No matter how much Northern Shaanxi was benevolent to Mao, Mao was unwilling to admit the theory that “Northern Shaanxi saved the Central Committee.” of.
Third, Mao was driven out of Yan’an by the national army.
Mao spent the eight years of the Anti-Japanese War in Yan’an. What did Mao do in these eight years? What Mao was obsessed with was not resisting Japan and saving the nation, but subverting China’s legitimate political power, the Republic of China.
While the soldiers of the national army fought bloody battles on the front line “with every inch of mountains and rivers and every inch of blood,” Mao mainly did four things behind enemy lines:
The first is to launch the Yan’an Rectification Movement, overthrow the opposition within the CCP, and seize the CCP’s supreme power.
The second was to collude with the Japanese invaders and send Pan Hannian to wait in Shanghai and Nanjing to negotiate with the Japanese invaders so that the Japanese invaders would not attack the CCP army. As a result, the two sides were at peace with each other in many places, and even exchanged information. The Japanese army rarely bombed Yan’an. So much so that Yan’an once flourished with singing and dancing, “singing and dancing in the spring of the jade hall, and dancing back to the golden lotus steps.” Mao Zedong, Zhou Enlai, Zhu De and other CCP leaders are regular guests at the dance.
The third is to preserve strength, expand the army and expand territory. In eight years, the CCP’s army increased from more than 20,000 to 1.2 million, and it established base areas with a population of 100 million.
The fourth is to attack the national army. According to Hou Shudong, vice president of the National Defense University of the Communist Party of China, in eight years, the Communist army attacked the Nationalist Army 3,200 times, killing or injuring 143,000 Nationalist troops.
After the Anti-Japanese War ended in 1945, the war-torn Chinese people urgently needed to recuperate. However, the CCP did not think so. Mao Zedong, who had been recuperating in the “mountain” for eight years, felt that he had strength, and began to “go down the mountain to pick peaches”. In order to seize national power, he attacked the National Army, which had been severely weakened in the eight-year war of resistance. Attack.
In 1946, the civil war between the Kuomintang and the Communist Party broke out.
By March 18, 1947, after learning that the National Army was about to raid Yan’an with heavy troops, Mao Zedong was forced to evacuate Yan’an.
Fourth, the CCP’s “Northwestern Gang” was purged
After the Communist Party of China came into power in 1949, Mao Zedong launched one political movement after another to flatten all the hills within the party. Gao Gang, the general leader of the CCP’s “Northwest Gang”, became Mao’s first victim in the infighting among the CCP’s top leaders.
Gao Gang was one of the founders of the CCP’s northern Shaanxi base area. He served successively as political commissar of the Provisional General Headquarters of the Red Army on the Shaanxi-Gansu Border Region, political commissar of the 26th Red Army, director of the Political Department of the 15th Red Army Corps, security commander of the Shaanxi-Gansu-Ningxia Border Region, Secretary of the Northwest Bureau of the CPC Central Committee, etc.
After the founding of the Communist Party of China in 1949, Gao Gangguan became a member of the Political Bureau of the Communist Party of China, Vice Chairman of the Central Government, Vice Chairman of the Central Government Military Commission, Chairman of the State Planning Commission, etc. He was the largest official of the “Northwest Gang” who came out of the northern Shaanxi base area.
From 1953 to 1955, Mao overthrew the first “anti-party group” within the party – the anti-party alliance of Gao Gang and Rao Shushi.
Gao Gang felt that he had made great contributions in the past. He neither opposed the party nor formed an alliance with Rao Shushi, and he was dissatisfied. On February 17, 1954, Gao Gang attempted suicide with a pistol. In early August 1954, Gao Gang tried to commit suicide by electrocution but failed. On August 17, 1954, Gao Gang committed suicide by taking an overdose of sleeping pills.
Gao Gang was forced to death, but Mao would not let him go. In April 1955, the Fifth Plenary Session of the Seventh Central Committee of the Communist Party of China passed a resolution to accuse Gao Gang, who had been dead for eight months, of being “the leader of an anti-Party conspiracy and an unrepentant traitor”, to expel him from the Party, and to revoke all appointments inside and outside the Party. position.
At the Lushan Conference in July 1959, Marshal Peng Dehuai of the Communist Party of China sincerely wrote a letter telling the truth to Mao Zedong, but Mao was furious. Peng Dehuai was labeled by Mao as a “hypocrite, careerist, and conspirator” and the leader of an anti-party group.
Peng Dehuai once served as chairman of the Northwest Military and Political Committee of the Communist Party of China, first secretary of the Northwest Bureau of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China, and commander of the Northwest Military Region. He is also considered a leader of the “Northwest Gang” of the CCP.
At the Tenth Plenary Session of the Eighth Central Committee of the Communist Party of China in September 1962, Vice Premier and Secretary-General Xi Zhongxun was defeated by Mao on charges of “using novels to oppose the Party.”
Xi Zhongxun was criticized by the masses at Northwest Agricultural College in Xianyang, Shaanxi Province in September 1967. (Image source: Public domain)
After 1949, Xi Zhongxun served as the second secretary of the Northwest Bureau of the CPC Central Committee, vice chairman and acting chairman of the Northwest Military and Political Commission, vice chairman of the Northwest Administrative Committee, and political commissar of the First Field Army and Northwest Military Region. After Peng Dehuai, the first secretary of the Northwest Bureau of the CPC Central Committee, was appointed as the commander of the CCP’s “Volunteer Army to Resist U.S. Aggression and Aid Korea” and went to the Korean front, Xi Zhongxun took charge of the overall work of the party, government, and military in the northwest. By 1962, Xi Zhongxun was the largest official in the “Northwest Gang” of the CCP.
What happened to Xi Zhongxun’s “use of novels to oppose the Party”? The “novel” here refers to the novel “Liu Zhidan” written by Li Jiantong, the sister-in-law of Liu Zhidan, the founder of the northern Shaanxi base area. The so-called “using novels to oppose the Party” means that Xi Zhongxun was the “black background” behind the writing and publication of this novel. This novel is considered to have elevated the status of Liu Zhidan, the founder of the Northern Shaanxi Base Area; it praised the overthrown Gao Gang, the founder of the Northern Shaanxi Base Area (for Gao Gang’s overturning the case); it praised the founder of the Northern Shaanxi Base Area, Xi Zhongxun (for Xi Zhongxun’s usurpation of the Party). Seize power and create political capital); praised “Northern Shaanxi to save the Central Government”, etc.
Xi Zhongxun and other northwest officials were overthrown, and their children were also implicated. (Picture source: Internet picture)
In the process of overthrowing Gao Gang, Peng Dehuai, and Xi Zhongxun, Mao also overthrew almost all the senior CCP officials of the “Northwest Gang” related to them. These three people were merged by Mao and dubbed the “Peng, Gao, and Xi anti-Party clique”, and thousands of northwest officials, their families, and children related to them were implicated.
Conclusion
After the founding of the Communist Party of China in 1949, the Communist Party of China established by Mao Zedong was not a free and democratic New China at all. It was a more authoritarian totalitarian state than all authoritarian regimes at home and abroad in ancient and modern times. Mao became a super emperor who was not an emperor. Mao Li’s favorite places in Beijing were all luxurious palaces that could satisfy his desire for power and pleasure to the greatest extent.
The mountains and waters of Yan’an are not green, the people are poor, and there are a large number of high-ranking officials in the northwest whose wives and children were separated and their families were destroyed by Mao’s policies. “After liberation” is not as good as “before liberation”.
If Mao returned to Yan’an, his heart would be irritated when it was hot, and there would be no beautiful women when it was cold. His eyes would be desolate, and he would look back with resentment. What’s the point? It would be better not to go.
Editor in charge: Wen Li
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