IWg&£ TrpTH TEP COMMUNISTS AND THE SECOND UNITED FRONT Vrijit : RESISTANCE AND REVOLUTION IN CHINA The Communists and the Second M United Front W By TETSUYA KATAOKA The success of the Chinese Communist revolution is usually accounted for in Maoist terms as the result of a “peasant revolution.” According to the official his- tory of the Communist Party, Mao Tse- tung had developed an effective revolu- tionary strategy in Kiangsi, which the “erring” leadership then in power pre- vented him from implementing. Not until the defeat of the Red Army in 1934, we are told, was the “correctness” of Mao’s line vindicated. The spectacular expan- sion of the Communist forces during the Sino-Japanese War is represented as a demonstration of the effectiveness of “Maoist strategy.” Mr. Kataoka shows that, in reality, the Chinese Communist movement had been rurally oriented as early as 1928, and that the Communists’ flight from Kiangsi to Yenan therefore constituted an indict- ment of “Maoism.” When the Long March ended, Mao’s forces had shrunk to a mere 4,000, so that continuation of the “peasant revolution” was out of the question; for Chiang Kai-shek held the upper hand and was unlikely to stop short of complete destruction of the Com- munists. At last Mao hit upon a formula that ensured final victory. The Communists appealed to public opinion in the cities in order to force Chiang into war against Japan, thereby causing him to abandon BOSTON PUBL1C LIBRARY Digitized by the Internet Archive in 2017 with funding from China-America Digital Academic Library (CADAL) https://archive.org/details/resistancerevoluOOkata THE CENTER FOR CHINESE STUDIES at the University of California, Berkeley, supported by the Ford Foundation, the Institute of International Studies (University of California, Berkeley), and the State of California, is the unifying organization for social science and interdisciplinary research on contemporary China. RECENT PUBLICATIONS Dittmer, Lowell. Liu Shao-ch’i and the Chinese Cultural Revolution: The Politics of Mass Criticism Kim, Ilpyong J. The Politics of Chinese Communism: Kiangsi under the Soviets Larkin, Bruce D. China and Africa, 1949-1970: The Foreign Policy of the People’s Republic of China Moseley, George. The Consolidation of the South China Frontier Rice, Edward E. Mao’s Way Schneider, Laurence A. Ku Chieh-kang and China’s New History: Nationalism and the Quest for Alternative Traditions Van Ness, Peter. Revolution and Chinese Foreign Policy: Peking’s Support for Wars of National Liberation Wakemari, Frederic, Jr. History and Will: Philosophical Perspectives of Mao Tse- tung’s Thought RESISTANCE AND REVOLUTION IN CHINA THE COMMUNISTS AND THE SECOND UNITED FRONT This volume is sponsored by the CENTER FOR CHINESE STUDIES University of California, Berkeley ERRATA (Tetsuya Kataoka, Resistance and Revolution in China: The Communists and the Second United Front) Page 117, line 22, should read that the resistance period was an exception. Page 282, Table 13 notes, line 6, should read Putative combat death = (sick and hospitalized + missing in combat) X Vi TETSUYA KATAOKA Resistance and Revolution in China THE COMMUNISTS AND THE SECOND UNITED FRONT UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA PRESS BERKELEY ■ LOS ANGELES • LONDON University of California Press Berkeley and Los Angeles, California University of California Press, Ltd. London, England Copyright © 1974 by The Regents of the University of California ISBN: 0-520- 02553-9 Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 73-84386 Printed in the United States of America