n 5=b< e q y : e aC S S O O tDp (2) i o f n)m e 2 w RR Ri i o s S '2) g e e a K yea + eb 3 C S iz A S H R A COMINTERN AGENT IN CHINA 1932-1939 Otto Braun Translated from the German by Jeanne Moore Introduction by Dick Wilson The only foreigner to take part in the Long March, Otto Braun was a Comintern agent of German nationality who spent the years 1932-39 asa military adviser to the Chinese Communist Party. His memoirs, one of the few inside reports we have on the CCP and the Red Army during these critical years, are an invaluable historical source, providing many insights into the political and military developments of this period and a wealth of factual data. His book is one of the half- dozen memoirs of the Chinese Revolution that must be regarded as basic in the field. Braun began his mission in Shanghai, where the Central Committee had its secret headquarters. In early 1933 he moved with the Central Committee to the Red Army’s headquarters in Kiangsi, where he remained until the beginning of the Long March in October 1934. He continued to serve as mili- tary adviser in Yenan until 1939, when he fell out with Mao Tse-tung and was recalled to Moscow. Braun provides new information on many key issues of the period, notably Mao’s policies toward the Fukien Rebellion and the Sian Incident, the break in radio com- munication with Moscow during 1934-6, the strategy of the Long March, and the Tsunyi Conference of 1935, at which Mao became the party’s undisputed leader. psCARDEP Digitized by the Internet Archive in 2022 with funding from Kahle/Austin Foundation https://archive.org/details/cominternagentinOOOObrau A COMINTERN AGENT IN CHINA 1932 — 1939 |HT Hw . mS DSSFYey+sts e A late portrait of Otto Braun (1900 — 74). OTTO BRAUN A Comintern Agent in China 1932-1939 TRANSLATED FROM THE GERMAN BY JEANNE MOORE WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY DICK WILSON Stanford University Press Stanford, California 1982 . Stanford University Press Stanford, California This translation © Jeanne Moore 1982 Introduction © Dick Wilson 1982 Originating publisher: C. Hurst & Co., London Printed in Great Britain ISBN 0-8047-1138-0 LC 81-85452 First published in German in 1975 as Chinesische Aufzeichnungen (1932 — 1939) © Dietz Verlag Berlin (GDR) 1973 CONTENTS Introduction by Dick Wilson page vii Abbreviations and Terms xill 1. Shanghai, 1932 — 1933 1 2. In the Central Soviet Area, 1933 — 1934 3. On the Long March, 1934 — 1935 4. Shen-Kan-Ning, 1935 — 1937 5. The First Years of the Anti-Japanese War, 1937-1939 Epilogue Appendix Index of Persons Index of Places SHATFORD LIBRARY NOV 2008 4570 E. Colorado Biva. Pasadena, CA 91106 PEATES A late portrait of Otto Braun frontispiece between pages 180 and 181 Sun Yat-sen Members of the newly-formed CCP leadership, 1931 Leaders of the Chinese Red Army in Kiangsi, 1931 Wang Ming and other leading members of the ECCI, 1935 The mountain range on the Kwangtung-Hunan borders crossed by the Central Army Group. Hanging bridge, West Yunnan Typical rock caves, Shensi General view of Yenan Units of the 8th Field Army approaching Yenan Students of the K’ang-ta hoeing fallow land The Author giving tacting instruction in the K’ang-ta The Author in Yenan, 1939 MAPS China: Administrative organisation at the beginning of the 1930s t= 9 The major Soviet areas before and after the fourth campaign of Chiang Kai-shek 1932 — 3 32 The Author’s route from Shanghai to Jui-chin (with the Central Soviet area after the stand of Spring 1933) 44 The Central Soviet Area at the time of the Long March, October 1934 82 The Long March showing earlier and later Marches 128-9 Revolutionary bases of the 8th Field Army, 1938-9, in the hinterland of the Japanese occupying forces 246 V1