In order to condemn Mao as a "traitor to communism and counter-revolutionary," Thanasis Spanidis cannot do otherwise then metaphysically separate dialectics from materialism - Part 1

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Within the ideological and political diversity of parties in what is the international communist movement, the KKE attempts to group the more authentic and consistent communist parties apart based on a list of criteria and “seek joint action and cooperation with Communist Parties and communist forces that meet the following criteria”:"...Defend Marxism–Leninism and proletarian internationalism,(…) Fight against opportunism and reformism, rejecting (...) any variation of the strategy of stages.(…) …. seek to research and draw lessons from the problems and mistakes. (of socialist revolution and socialist construction in the past) (...) Condemn the imperialist war and highlight the responsibilities of the bourgeois classes on both sides. (… which include recognizing the capitalist nature of China ….) Establish ties with the working class,(...) seeking to integrate the daily struggle for workers’ and people’s rights into a contemporary revolutionary strategy for workers’–people’s power …. not detach anti-war and anti-fascist struggle from the struggle against capitalism ..."
Formally meeting the “criteria” of a Communist party is no guarantee against the development of opportunism WITHIN that Communist party. Opportunism resulting from petty-bourgeois intellectual laziness, if not noticed and combated, can lead to revisionism. In my article “Opportunism resulting from petty-bourgeois intellectual laziness, if not noticed and combated, can lead to revisionism. CONCRETE example: Thanasis Spanidis “commissioned by the CC of the CP”….”, I wrote about the analysis that Thanasis Spanidis made regarding the Chinese revolution and the construction of socialism .… and regarding the restoration of capitalism “commissioned by the CC of the CP” has been posted on their website and is therefore now a party position: “Der Große Sprung Zurück..”.
My position which I developed in that article was: If this analysis, which Thanasis Spanidis produced “commissioned by the CC of the Communist Party”, now becomes a “party position”, you get the effect of an WRONG conception of the application of Marxism-Leninism “creeping” INTO the Communist Party.
In my article 2-8-2026 Is Thanasis Spanidis (“commissioned by the CC of the KP”) trying to submit the International Communist Movement to his opportunist and subjectivist historical revisionism?, I discussed the analysis that Thanasis Spanidis produced, in which he addresses the International Communist Movement.
Thus, one cannot escape the impression that the analysis Thanasis Spanidis disseminated: “The Rule of Capital in China” is meant to resemble, both in title and execution, an “improved and updated version” of the analysis produced in 2010 by the KKE (The International Role of China) 

Thanasis Spanidis in his “Marxist critique”: “Mao … espoused comprehensive revisionist and opportunist viewpoints” … Mao was a ”traitor to the communist cause and objective servant of the counter-revolution”. Well how Marxist is Thanisis Spanidis? Who is “espousing comprehensive revisionist and opportunist viewpoints”?

On March 29, 2024, the analysis produced "commissioned by the CC of the KP" appeared on the KP website: “Der Große Sprung Zurück - Eine marxistische Kritik an Theorie und Praxis des Maoismus” (The Great Leap Back - A Marxist Critique of Theory and Practice of Maoism).
It is not an "analysis of and critique on Maoism" but an "analysis and critique of the strategy for revolution and the construction of socialism in China," primarily developed by Mao.
And "Marxist critique"...?
Well, I will make clear that there is little "Marxism" in Thanasis Spanidis's analysis, if we consider Marxism as the application of scientific socialism or as dialectical and historical materialism…

Thanasis Spanidis in “introduction” of “Der Große Sprung Zurück - Eine marxistische Kritik an Theorie und Praxis des Maoismus”:

In the chapter "Understanding Class: Conceptual Confusion and Resulting Problems," we also examine Mao's understanding of classes in capitalism: his concept of the people, which does not conceive of the people as an objective group within society, but rather defines its composition based on the political roles of the various classes and strata; and his conception of the bourgeoisie, monopoly capital, so-called "bureaucratic capital," the "national bourgeoisie," and the "comrade bourgeoisie." On the one hand, Mao's conceptual development lacks consistent justification and precision; on the other hand, and relatedly, Mao distinguishes the "national bourgeoisie" from the so-called "comprador bourgeoisie" primarily based on its subjective political positioning. By abandoning a precise analysis of objective social structures here as well, he opens the door to an opportunistic strategy that no longer develops the alliance policy of the working class and the Communist Party based on the objective interests of the classes, thus always including cooperation with the bourgeoisie as a possibility.

In the chapter ”Understanding of classes: Conceptual confusion and resulting problems”, written by Fatima Saidi (also as Thanisis Spanidis “commisioned by de CC of the CP”):

For Mao, the existence of a comprador bourgeoisie (alongside the landed gentry) played a central role in classifying China within the imperialist world system. If a bourgeoisie actually exists in a country, one that primarily follows the directives of the bourgeoisies of other imperialist countries in order to advance its own interests, this naturally allows conclusions to be drawn about the country's position. It is then not a country with developed monopoly capital and political sovereignty, but rather a colony or semi-colony. Similarly, the existence of a broad labor aristocracy reveals something about a country's position in the hierarchy. Therefore, class analysis is closely linked to the analysis of imperialism.
Mao presented his reflections on the social classes of China at that time primarily in texts from 1926, 1933 and 1939.
In some instances, Mao's analysis of society was idealistic and based on the prevailing political dynamics, rather than deriving insights from empirical scientific work, as Marx, Engels, and Lenin did. As already discussed in the philosophy chapter, this resulted in a very vague concept of the people, in which the middle bourgeoisie was seen as part of the people. Thus, when Mao speaks of "the people" and their tasks, it is often unclear which classes he means. This ambiguity contributes to blurring the contradiction between classes and makes Mao's views on class difficult to criticize, since counter-arguments can always be directed to passages where only workers, peasants, and parts of the petty bourgeoisie are defined as part of the people. As late as 1949 (!), Mao himself clearly answered the question "Who are the people?" by stating that the national bourgeoisie is part of the people and part of the ruling dictatorship, together with the peasantry and the working class ¹.

These are not conclusions out of a concrete analysis of the concrete historical situation of the revolution in China and of the elaboration of the strategical documents of Mao, but reflects the pre-estimated subjective IDEAS in the head of Thanasis Spanidis and Fatima Saidi. For ex.: “Mao's analysis of society was idealistic and based on the prevailing political dynamics, rather than deriving insights from empirical scientific work, as Marx, Engels, and Lenin did.”
Thanasis Spanidis (and Fatima Saidi) just extract suiting quotes, or made subjective paraphrases of texts, to which they referred in footnotes, but apparently never studied wholly.
Their footnote:( „Mao Tse-tung: Analyse der Klassen der Gesellschaft, in Ausgewählte Werke Bd. 1, 1926, S.9“) is just referring to one sentence in that text in which Mao is telling who is part of the petty-bourgeoisie.
The class-analysis of Mao , based on study and research (as did Marx, Engels and Lenin) in “ANALYSIS OF THE CLASSES IN CHINESE SOCIETY - March 1926  : 

The landlord class and the comprador class.² In economically backward and semi-colonial China the landlord class and the comprador class are wholly appendages of the international bourgeoisie, depending upon imperialism for their survival and growth. These classes represent the most backward and most reactionary relations of production in China and hinder the development of her productive forces. Their existence is utterly incompatible with the aims of the Chinese revolution. The big landlord and big comprador classes in particular always side with imperialism and constitute an extreme counterrevolutionary group. Their political representatives are the Étatistes³ and the right-wing of the Kuomintang.
The middle bourgeoisie. This class represents the capitalist relations of production in China in town and country. The middle bourgeoisie, by which is meant chiefly the national bourgeoisie,⁴ is inconsistent in its attitude towards the Chinese revolution: they feel the need for revolution and favour the revolutionary movement against imperialism and the warlords when they are smarting under the blows of foreign capital and the oppression of the warlords, but they become suspicious of the revolution when they sense that, with the militant participation of the proletariat at home and the active support of the international proletariat abroad, the revolution is threatening the hope of their class to attain the status of a big bourgeoisie. Politically, they stand for the establishment of a state under the rule of a single class, the national bourgeoisie. A self-styled true disciple of Tai Chi-tao⁵ wrote in the Chen Pao,⁶ Peking, "Raise your left fist to knock down the imperialists and your right to knock down the Communists." These words depict the dilemma and anxiety of this class. It is against interpreting the Kuomintang's Principle of the People's Livelihood according to the theory of class struggle, and it opposes the Kuomintang's alliance with Russia and the admission of Communists⁷ and left-wingers. But its attempt to establish a state under the rule of the national bourgeoisie is quite impracticable, because the present world situation is such that the two major forces, revolution and counter-revolution, are locked in final struggle. Each has hoisted a huge banner: one is the red banner of revolution held aloft by the Third International as the rallying point for all the oppressed classes of the world, the other is the white banner of counterrevolution held aloft by the League of Nations as the rallying point for all the counter-revolutionaries of the world. The intermediate classes are bound to disintegrate quickly, some sections turning left to join the revolution, others turning right to join the counter-revolution; there is no room for them to remain "independent". Therefore the idea cherished by China's middle bourgeoisie of an "independent" revolution in which it would play the primary role is a mere illusion.
The petty bourgeoisie. Included in this category are the owner-peasants,⁸ the master handicraftsmen, the lower levels of the intellectuals--students, primary and secondary school teachers, lower government functionaries, office clerks, small lawyers--and the small traders. Both because of its size and class character, this class deserves very close attention. The owner-peasants and the master handicraftsmen are both engaged in small-scale production. (….)
The semi-proletariat. What is here called the semi-proletariat consists of five categories: (1) the overwhelming majority of the semi-owner peasants,⁹ (2) the poor peasants, (3) the small handicraftsmen, (4) the shop assistants¹⁰ and (5) the pedlars. The overwhelming majority of the semi-owner peasants together with the poor peasants constitute a very large part of the rural masses. The peasant problem is essentially their problem. The semi-owner peasants, the poor peasants and the small handicraftsmen are engaged in production on a still smaller scale than the owner-peasants and the master handicraftsmen. (…)
The proletariat. The modern industrial proletariat numbers about two million. It is not large because China is economically backward. These two million industrial workers are mainly employed in five industries--railways, mining, maritime transport, textiles and shipbuilding--and a great number are enslaved in enterprises owned by foreign capitalists. Though not very numerous, the industrial proletariat represents China's new productive forces, is the most progressive class in modern China and has become the leading force in the revolutionary movement. We can see the important position of the industrial proletariat in the Chinese revolution from the strength it has displayed in the strikes of the last four years, such as the seamen's strikes,¹¹ the railway strike,¹² the strikes in the Kailan and Tsiaotso coal mines,¹³ the Shameen strike¹⁴ and the general strikes in Shanghai and Hong Kong¹⁵ after the May 30th Incident. The first reason why the industrial workers hold this position is their concentration. No other section of the people is so concentrated. The second reason is their low economic status. They have been deprived of all means of production, have nothing left but their hands, have no hope of ever becoming rich and, moreover, are subjected to the most ruthless treatment by the imperialists, the warlords and the bourgeoisie. That is why they are particularly good fighters. The coolies in the cities are also a force meriting attention. They are mostly dockers and rickshaw men, and among them, too, are sewage carters and street cleaners. Possessing nothing but their hands, they are similar in economic status to the industrial workers but are less concentrated and play a less important role in production. There is as yet little modern capitalist farming in China. By rural proletariat we mean farm labourers hired by the year, the month or the day. Having neither land, farm implements nor funds, they can live only by selling their labour power. Of all the workers they work the longest hours, for the lowest wages, under the worst conditions, and with the least security of employment. They are the most hard-pressed people in the villages, and their position in the peasant movement is as important as that of the poor peasants.
Apart from all these, there is the fairly large lumpen-proletariat, made up of peasants who have lost their land and handicraftsmen who cannot get work. They lead the most precarious existence of all. In every part of the country they have their secret societies, which were originally their mutual-aid organizations for political and economic struggle, for instance, the Triad Society in Fukien and Kwangtung, the Society of Brothers in Hunan, Hupeh, Kweichow and Szechuan, the Big Sword Society in Anhwei, Honan and Shantung, the Rational Life Society in Chihli¹⁶ and the three northeastern provinces, and the Green Band in Shanghai and elsewhere¹⁷ One of China's difficult problems is how to handle these people. Brave fighters but apt to be destructive, they can become a revolutionary force if given proper guidance.
To sum up, it can be seen that our enemies are all those in league with imperialism--the warlords, the bureaucrats, the comprador class, the big landlord class and the reactionary section of the intelligentsia attached to them. The leading force in our revolution is the industrial proletariat. Our closest friends are the entire semi-proletariat and petty bourgeoisie. As for the vacillating middle bourgeoisie, their right-wing may become our enemy and their left-wing may become our friend but we must be constantly on our guard and not let them create confusion within our ranks.

Thanasis Spanidis (and Fatima Saidi) subsequently insinuate that this class analysis of Mao would have been “different” in 1939. They HAVE TO suggest this, in order to turn their preconceived position — that Mao adopted an opportunistic stance regarding the role the national bourgeoisie could play — into an “established historical FACT.”
Once again, they base their argument on texts (cited in a footnote: “Mao Tse-tung: ‘Die chinesische Revolution und die kommunistische Partei Chinas’, in ‘Ausgewählte Werke’ Vol. 2, p. 362”) that they evidently have not read in full.
In „THE CHINESE REVOLUTION AND THE CHINESE COMMUNIST PARTY - December 1939“ :

The national bourgeoisie is a class with a dual character.
On the one hand, it is oppressed by imperialism and fettered by feudalism and consequently is in contradiction with both of them. In this respect it constitutes one of the revolutionary forces. In the course of the Chinese revolution it has displayed a certain enthusiasm for fighting imperialism and the governments of bureaucrats and warlords.
But on the other hand, it lacks the courage to oppose imperialism and feudalism thoroughly because it is economically and politically flabby and still has economic ties with imperialism and feudalism. This emerges very clearly when the people's revolutionary forces grow powerful.
It follows from the dual character of the national bourgeoisie that, at certain times and to a certain extent, it can take part in the revolution against imperialism and the governments of bureaucrats and warlords and can become a revolutionary force, but that at other times there is the danger of its following the comprador big bourgeoisie and acting as its accomplice in counter-revolution.
The national bourgeoisie in China, which is mainly the middle bourgeoisie, has never really held political power but has been restricted by the reactionary policies of the big landlord class and big bourgeoisie which are in power, although it followed them in opposing the revolution in the period from 1927 to 1931 (before the September 18th Incident). In the present war, it differs not only from the capitulationists of the big landlord class and big bourgeoisie but also from the big bourgeois die-hards, and so far has been a fairly good any of ours. Therefore, it is absolutely necessary to have a prudent policy towards the national bourgeoisie. (…)
The poor peasants in China, together with the farm labourers, form about 70 per cent of the rural population. They are the broad peasant masses with no land or insufficient land, the semi-proletariat of the countryside, the biggest motive force of the Chinese revolution, the natural and most reliable ally of the proletariat and the main contingent of China's revolutionary forces. Only under the leadership of the proletariat can the poor and middle peasants achieve their liberation, and only by forming a firm alliance with the poor and middle peasants can the proletariat lead the revolution to victory. Otherwise neither is possible. The term "peasantry" refers mainly to the poor and middle peasants (…)
First, the Chinese proletariat is more resolute and thoroughgoing in revolutionary struggle than any other class because it is subjected to a threefold oppression (imperialist, bourgeois and feudal) which is marked by a severity and cruelty seldom found in other countries. Since there is no economic basis for social reformism in colonial and semi-colonial China as there is in Europe, the whole proletariat, with the exception of a few scabs, is most revolutionary.
Secondly, from the moment it appeared on the revolutionary scene, the Chinese proletariat came under the leadership of its own revolutionary party--the Communist Party of China--and became the most politically conscious class in Chinese society.
Thirdly, because the Chinese proletariat by origin is largely made up of bankrupted peasants, it has natural ties with the peasant masses, which facilitates its forming a close alliance with them.
Therefore, in spite of certain unavoidable weaknesses, for instance, its smallness (as compared with the peasantry), its youth (as compared with the proletariat in the capitalist countries) and its low educational level (as compared with the bourgeoisie), the Chinese proletariat is nonetheless the basic motive force of the Chinese revolution. Unless it is led by the proletariat, the Chinese revolution cannot possibly succeed. To take an example from the past, the Revolution of 1911 miscarried because the proletariat did not consciously participate in it and the Communist Party was not yet in existence. More recently, the revolution of 1924-27 achieved great success for a time because the proletariat consciously participated and exercised leadership and the Communist Party was already in existence; it ended in defeat because the big bourgeoisie betrayed its alliance with the proletariat and abandoned the common revolutionary programme, and also because the Chinese proletariat and its political party did not yet have enough revolutionary experience. Now take the present anti-Japanese war--because the proletariat and the Communist Party are exercising leadership in the Anti-Japanese National United Front, the whole nation has been united and the great War of Resistance has been launched and is being resolutely pursued.
The Chinese proletariat should understand that although it is the class with the highest political consciousness and sense of organization, it cannot win victory by its own strength alone. In order to win, it must unite, according to varying circumstances, with all classes and strata that can take part in the revolution, and must organize a revolutionary united front. Among all the classes in Chinese society, the peasantry is a firm ally of the working class, the urban petty bourgeoisie is a reliable ally, and the national bourgeoisie is an ally in certain periods and to a certain extent. This is one of the fundamental laws established by China's modern revolutionary history

In 1953, Mao still maintains the same position regarding the revolutionary role of the working class and the attitude towards the bourgeoisie.
In “COMBAT BOURGEOIS IDEAS IN THE PARTY - August 12, 1953 “ :

On the three occasions when we have co-operated with the bourgeoisie, namely, in the first period of co-operation between the Kuomintang and the Communist Party, in the period of the War of Resistance Against Japan and in the present period, it has been bourgeois ideology that has influenced a number of people in the Party, and they have vacillated. (..)
On whom should we rely? On the working class, or on the bourgeoisie? The resolution of the Second Plenary Session of the Seventh Central Committee made it clear long ago: "We must wholeheartedly rely on the working class." (…)
There are now two united fronts, two alliances. One is the alliance of the working class and the peasants; this is the foundation. The other is the alliance of the working class and the national bourgeoisie. As the peasants are labourers and not exploiters, the alliance of the working class and the peasants is a long-term one. Nevertheless, there are contradictions between the working class and the peasants. We should guide the peasants step by step from individual ownership to collective ownership in accordance with the voluntary principle. In the future there will also be contradictions, between state ownership and collective ownership. These contradictions are all non-antagonistic. On the other hand, the contradictions between the working class and the bourgeoisie are antagonistic. (…)
To ensure the triumph of the cause of socialism, we must exercise collective leadership and oppose decentralism and subjectivism.
At present we must combat subjectivism, not only in the form of rash advance but also in the form of conservatism. In the days of the new-democratic revolution both Right and "Left" subjectivist mistakes occurred. Chen Tu-hsiu and Chang Kuo-tao made Right mistakes and Wang Ming first "Left" mistakes and then Right ones. (…)
In short, we must remain modest, be willing to learn, retain our perseverance and adhere to the system of collective leadership so as to achieve socialist transformation and attain victory for socialism.

Thanasis Spanidis further in “introduction” :

In the chapter on strategy and tactics in Mao's work, the political consequences of his flawed analysis of imperialism and the capitalist classes become clear: the concept of the "New Democratic Revolution," which, instead of a transition to socialism, asserts the supposed necessity of an intermediate stage and, fatally, ascribes a fundamentally progressive and even "revolutionary" role to the "national bourgeoisie" during this phase . Mao's concept of "non-antagonistic contradiction" comes into play: departing from the Marxist analysis of capitalism, Mao simply asserts that the class antagonism between the proletariat and the "national bourgeoisie" can be peacefully resolved with the right approach.
The flip side of this right-wing opportunist position is the concept of the “protracted people’s war”, still advocated by many present-day Maoists, as a seemingly more radical counter-concept to the revolutionary strategy of Marxism-Leninism. In fact, even in Mao's time, this concept already included an overemphasis on the role of the peasantry compared to the working class. While such a conception could ultimately be successful under the conditions of the largely agrarian and semi-colonial China of the 1930s and 40s, as well as against the backdrop of the Second World War and support from the Soviet Union, its application to today's world, in which capitalism has prevailed worldwide and the objective social role of the peasantry tends to decrease ever further, raises even greater questions.(…)
The final chapter on the historical practice of Maoism deals with the international implications of Mao's alleged "developments" of Marxism: His overemphasis on China's national particularities led him to enthusiastically welcome the disastrous decision to dissolve the Comintern in 1943.

“ the concept of the "New Democratic Revolution," which, instead of a transition to socialism, asserts the supposed necessity of an intermediate stage and, fatally, ascribes a fundamentally progressive and even "revolutionary" role to the "national bourgeoisie" during this phase”
Here—based on a few limited paraphrases (not even actual quotes)—Thanasis Spanidis outlines the image he holds in HIS own mind, devoid of any concrete context or analysis of the specific historical situation (in other words, lacking historical materialism: the idea that Mao invented a new concept of revolution—namely "New Democracy"—applicable to colonies and semi-colonies once the socialist October Revolution had become a reality. Within this "intermediate" form, socialism was to be developed, partly through an alliance with the national bourgeoisie.
I will return to this point later, but here Thanasis Spanidis’s views (regarding Mao and “On New Democracy¨) align with those of Wang Ming.¹⁸:

….. though Mao did join the revolutionary movement, his ideology drove him ultimately to the ranks of counterrevolutionaries.
The theoretical roots: in philosophy, political economy, and in the question of revolution and socialist construction, Mao was not simply a false Marxist who concealed his true identity behind a "Marxist" mask, but an outright opponent of Marxism. This is why, though he did penetrate the ranks of the Communist Party by pretending to be a follower of Marxism-Leninism, he ultimately substituted his unscientific and counter-revolutionary Maoism for the profoundly scientific and revolutionary teaching of Marxism-Leninism, and became a traitor to Marxism-Leninism.
The historical roots: Mao's lifestory is not only a long history of anti-Party, anti-Marxist and anti-Leninist, anti-Comintern and anti-Soviet activity, not only a history of right- and "left"-opportunist mistakes in questions of policy in all the periods of the Chinese revolution,. and in many cases a history of grave crimes, but also a long history of ideological kowtowing to imperialism. This is why from a pseudo-Communist carrying the Communist banner he ultimately turned into an outright anticommunist using the Communist Party flag as camouflage.
The social roots: in the anti-imperialist, anti-feudal and socialist revolution Mao mainly represented the interests of the national bourgeoisie (as most clearly expressed in his On New Democracy). His style and method smack of the ways and morals of declasse petty proprietors and lumpenproletarians, and in some cases even of rank feudal landlordism. These are the complex social origins of the anti-proletarian character of his ideas and actions. It was inevitable that he should ultimately betray the interests of the proletariat.

To refute this (deliberate?) deception—both that of Thanasis Spanidis and that of Wang Ming—here are a few excerpts from the text “ON NEW DEMOCRACY - January 1940”  (whereby I advise the reader to read the *entire* text via the link—something Thananis Spanidis & Co. - and Wang Ming neither - apparently never did):

Since the invasion of foreign capitalism and the gradual growth of capitalist elements in Chinese society, the country has changed by degrees into a colonial, semi-colonial and semi-feudal society. China today is colonial in the Japanese-occupied areas and basically semicolonial in the Kuomintang areas, and it is predominantly feudal or semi-feudal in both. Such, then, is the character of present-day Chinese society and the state of affairs in our country. The politics and the economy of this society are predominantly colonial, semi-colonial and semi-feudal, and the predominant culture, reflecting the politics and economy, is also colonial, semi-colonial and semi-feudal. (…)
In the course of its history the Chinese revolution must go through two stages, first, the democratic revolution, and second, the socialist revolution, and by their very nature they are two different revolutionary processes. Here democracy does not belong to the old category — it is not the old democracy, but belongs to the new category — it is New Democracy. (…)
The historical characteristic of the Chinese revolution lies in its division into the two stages, democracy and socialism, the first being no longer democracy in general, but democracy of the Chinese type, a new and special type, namely, New Democracy. How, then, has this historical characteristic come into being? Has it been in existence for the past hundred years, or is it of recent origin?
A brief study of the historical development of China and of the world shows that this characteristic did not emerge immediately after the Opium War, but took shape later, after the first imperialist world war and the October Revolution in Russia. Let us now examine the process of its formation.
Clearly, it follows from the colonial, semi-colonial and semi-feudal character of present-day Chinese society that the Chinese revolution must be divided into two stages. The first step is to change the colonial, semi-colonial and semi-feudal form of society into an independent, democratic society. The second is to carry the revolution forward and build a socialist society. At present the Chinese revolution is taking the first step.(…)
A change, however, occurred in China’s bourgeois-democratic revolution after the outbreak of the first imperialist world war in 1914 and the founding of a socialist state on one-sixth of the globe as a result of the Russian October Revolution of 1917.
Before these events, the Chinese bourgeois-democratic revolution came within the old category of the bourgeois-democratic world revolution, of which it was a part.
Since these events, the Chinese bourgeois-democratic revolution has changed, it has come within the new category of bourgeoisdemocratic revolutions and, as far as the alignment of revolutionary forces is concerned, forms part of the proletarian-socialist world revolution. (…)
Although such a revolution in a colonial and semi-colonial country is still fundamentally bourgeois-democratic in its social character during its first stage or first step, and although its objective mission is to clear the path for the development of capitalism, it is no longer a revolution of the old type led by the bourgeoisie with the aim of establishing a capitalist society and a state under bourgeois dictatorship.
It belongs to the new type of revolution led by the proletariat with the aim, in the first stage, of establishing a new-democratic society and a state under the joint dictatorship of all the revolutionary classes.
Thus this revolution actually serves the purpose of clearing a still wider path for the development of socialism. In the course of its progress, there may be a number of further sub-stages, because of changes on the enemy’s side and within the ranks of our allies, but the fundamental character of the revolution remains unchanged. (….)
This is a time when the economic and political crises of capitalism are dragging the world more and more deeply into the Second World War, when the Soviet Union has reached the period of transition from socialism to communism and is capable of leading and helping the proletariat and oppressed nations of the whole world in their fight against imperialist war and capitalist reaction, when the proletariat of the capitalist countries is preparing to overthrow capitalism and establish socialism, and when the proletariat, the peasantry, the intelligentsia and other sections of the petty bourgeoisie in China have become a mighty independent political force under the leadership of the Chinese Communist Party. Situated as we are in this day and age, should we not make the appraisal that the Chinese revolution has taken on still greater world significance? I think we should. The Chinese revolution has become a very important part of the world revolution.
Although the Chinese revolution in this first stage (with its many sub-stages) is a new type of bourgeois-democratic revolution and is not yet itself a proletarian-socialist revolution in its social character, it has long become a part of the proletarian-socialist world revolution and is now even a very important part and a great ally of this world revolution. The first step or stage in our revolution is definitely not, and cannot be, the establishment of a capitalist society under the dictatorship of the Chinese bourgeoisie, but will result in the establishment of a new-democratic society under the joint dictatorship of all the revolutionary classes of China headed by the Chinese proletariat. The revolution will then be carried forward to the second stage, in which a socialist society will be established in China. This is the fundamental characteristic of the Chinese revolution of today, of the new revolutionary process of the past twenty years (counting from the May 4th Movement of 1919), and its concrete living essence. (…)
Being a bourgeoisie in a colonial and semi-colonial country and oppressed by imperialism, the Chinese national bourgeoisie retains a certain revolutionary quality at certain periods and to a certain degree — even in the era of imperialism — in its opposition to the foreign imperialists and the domestic governments of bureaucrats and warlords (instances of opposition to the latter can be found in the periods of the Revolution of 1911 and the Northern Expedition), and it may ally itself with the proletariat and the petty bourgeoisie against such enemies as it is ready to oppose. In this respect the Chinese bourgeoisie differs from the bourgeoisie of old tsarist Russia. Since tsarist Russia was a military-feudal imperialism which carried on aggression against other countries, the Russian bourgeoisie was entirely lacking in revolutionary quality. There, the task of the proletariat was to oppose the bourgeoisie, not to unite with it. But China’s national bourgeoisie has a revolutionary quality at certain periods and to a certain degree, because China is a colonial and semi-colonial country which is a victim of aggression. Here, the task of the proletariat is to form a united front with the national bourgeoisie against imperialism and the bureaucrat and warlord governments without overlooking its revolutionary quality.
At the same time, however, being a bourgeois class in a colonial and semi-colonial country and so being extremely flabby economically and politically, the Chinese national bourgeoisie also has another quality, namely, a proneness to conciliation with the enemies of the revolution.
Even when it takes part in the revolution, it is unwilling to break with imperialism completely and, moreover, it is closely associated with the exploitation of the rural areas through land rent; thus it is neither willing nor able to overthrow imperialism, and much less the feudal forces, in a thorough way. So neither of the two basic problems or tasks of China’s bourgeois-democratic revolution can be solved or accomplished by the national bourgeoisie. As for China’s big bourgeoisie, which is represented by the Kuomintang, all through the long period from 1927 to 1937 it nestled in the arms of the imperialists and formed an alliance with the feudal forces against the revolutionary people. In 1927 and for some time afterwards, the Chinese national bourgeoisie also followed the counter-revolution. During the present anti-Japanese war, the section of the big bourgeoisie represented by Wang Ching-wei has capitulated to the enemy, which constitutes a fresh betrayal on the part of the big bourgeoisie. In this respect, then, the bourgeoisie in China differs from the earlier bourgeoisie of the European and American countries, and especially of France. When the bourgeoisie in those countries, and especially in France, was still in its revolutionary era, the bourgeois revolution was comparatively thorough, whereas the bourgeoisie in China lacks even this degree of thoroughness.
Possible participation in the revolution on the one hand and proneness to conciliation with the enemies of the revolution on the other — such is the dual character of the Chinese bourgeoisie, it faces both ways. Even the bourgeoisie in European and American history had shared this dual character. When confronted by a formidable enemy, they united with the workers and peasants against him, but when the workers and peasants awakened, they turned round to unite with the enemy against the workers and peasants. This is a general rule applicable to the bourgeoisie everywhere in the world, but the trait is more pronounced in the Chinese bourgeoisie.
In China, it is perfectly clear that whoever can lead the people in overthrowing imperialism and the forces of feudalism can win the people’s confidence, because these two, and especially imperialism, are the mortal enemies of the people. Today, whoever can lead the people in driving out Japanese imperialism and introducing democratic government will be the saviours of the people. History has proved that the Chinese bourgeoisie cannot fulfil this responsibility, which inevitably falls upon the shoulders of the proletariat.
Therefore, the proletariat, the peasantry, the intelligentsia and the other sections of the petty bourgeoisie undoubtedly constitute the basic forces determining China’s fate. These classes, some already awakened and others in the process of awakening, will necessarily become the basic components of the state and governmental structure in the democratic republic of China, with the proletariat as the leading force. The Chinese democratic republic which we desire to establish now must be a democratic republic under the joint dictatorship of all anti-imperialist and anti-feudal people led by the proletariat, that is, a new-democratic republic, a republic of the genuinely revolutionary new Three People’s Principles with their Three Great Policies.
This new-democratic republic will be different from the old European-American form of capitalist republic under bourgeois dictatorship, which is the old democratic form and already out of date.
On the other hand, it will also be different from the socialist republic of the Soviet type under the dictatorship of the proletariat which is already flourishing in the U.S.S.R., and which, moreover, will be established in all the capitalist countries and will undoubtedly become the dominant form of state and governmental structure in all the industrially advanced countries. However, for a certain historical period, this form is not suitable for the revolutions in the colonial and semicolonial countries. During this period, therefore, a third form of state must be adopted in the revolutions of all colonial and semi-colonial countries, namely, the new-democratic republic. This form suits a certain historical period and is therefore transitional; nevertheless, it is a form which is necessary and cannot be dispensed with. (…)
The state system, a joint dictatorship of all the revolutionary classes and the system of government, democratic centralism — these constitute the politics of New Democracy, the republic of New Democracy, the republic of the anti-Japanese united front, the republic of the new Three People’s Principles with their Three Great Policies, the Republic of China in reality as well as in name. Today we have a Republic of China in name but not in reality, and our present task is to create the reality that will fit the name.
Such are the internal political relations which a revolutionary China, a China fighting Japanese aggression, should and must establish without fail; such is the orientation, the only correct orientation, for our present work of national reconstruction.

And to make it clear (including to dogmatists like Thanasis Spanidis) that “New Democracy” was simply a bourgeois-democratic revolution that had to make the transition into a socialist revolution (it was already too late for Wang Ming, who remained in Moscow until the end of his life...), Mao said in 1953:

  REFUTE RIGHT DEVIATIONIST VIEWS THAT DEPART FROM THE GENERAL LINE - June 15, 1953 

[Part of a speech at a meeting of the Political Bureau of the Central Committee of the Chinese Communist Party. Here Comrade Mao Tsetung refuted the Right opportunist views, such as "firmly establish the new-democratic social order", put forward by Liu Shao-chi and others.]
The general line or the general task of the Party for the transition period¹⁹ is basically to accomplish the industrialization of the country and the socialist transformation of agriculture, handicrafts and capitalist industry and commerce in ten to fifteen years, or a little longer. This general line is a beacon illuminating our work in all fields. Do not depart from this general line, otherwise "Left" or Right mistakes will occur.
Some people think the period of transition is too long and give way to impatience. This will lead to "Left" deviationist mistakes. Others have remained where they were after the victory of the democratic revolution. They fail to realize there is a change in the character of the revolution and they go on pushing their "New Democracy" instead of socialist transformation. This will lead to Right deviationist mistakes. Take our agriculture for instance, the socialist road is the only road for it.

Thanasis Spanidis says here above:“... an overemphasis on the role of the peasantry compared to the working class”
This is a preconceived position that he asserts as a proven fact (without actually providing the proof). It is, moreover, an insinuation (if not a lie) —see the remarks above regarding Mao’s class analysis...
And does Thanasis Spanidis also dispute the “divergent understanding of Marxism” held by... Lenin? Out Address To The Second All-Russia Congress Of Communist Organisations Of The Peoples Of The East^{20 - November 22, 1919 :}

The period of the awakening of the East in the contemporary revolution is being succeeded by a period in which all the Eastern peoples will participate in deciding the destiny of the whole world, so as not to be simply objects of the enrichment of others. The peoples of the East are becoming alive to the need for practical action, the need for every nation to take part in shaping the destiny of all mankind.
That is why I think that in the history of the development of the world revolution-which, judging by its beginning, will continue for many years and will demand much effort-that in the revolutionary struggle, in the revolutionary movement you will be called upon to play a big part and to merge with our struggle against international imperialism. Your participation in the international revolution will confront you with a complicated and difficult task, the accomplishment of which will serve as the foundation for our common success, because here the majority of the people for the first time begin to act independently and will be an active factor in the fight to overthrow international imperialism.
Most of the Eastern peoples are in a worse position than the most backward country in Europe-Russia. But in our struggle against feudal survivals and capitalism, we succeeded in uniting the peasants and workers of Russia; and it was because the peasants and workers united against capitalism and feudalism that our victory was so easy. Here contact with the peoples of the East is particularly important, because the majority of the Eastern peoples are typical representatives of the working people - not workers who have passed through the school of capitalist factories, but typical representatives of the working and exploited peasant masses who are victims of medieval oppression. The Russian revolution showed how the proletarians, after defeating capitalism and uniting with the vast diffuse mass of working peasants, rose up victoriously against medieval oppression. Our Soviet Republic must now muster all the awakening peoples of the East and, together with them, wage a struggle against international imperialism.
In this respect you are confronted with a task which has not previously confronted the Communists of the world: relying upon the general theory and practice of communism, you must adapt yourselves to specific conditions such as do not exist in the European countries; you must be able to apply that theory and practice to conditions in which the bulk of the population are peasants, and in which the task is to wage a struggle against medieval survivals and not against capitalism. That is a difficult and specific task, but a very thankful one, because masses that have taken no part in the struggle up to now are being drawn into it, and also because the organisation of communist cells in the East gives you an opportunity to maintain the closest contact with the Third International. You must find specific forms for this alliance of the foremost proletarians of the world with the labouring and exploited masses of the East whose conditions are in many cases medieval. We have accomplished on a small scale in our country what you will do on a big scale and in big countries. And that latter task you will, I hope, perform with success. Thanks to the communist organisations in the East, of which you here are the representatives, you have contact with the advanced revolutionary proletariat. Your task is to continue to ensure that communist propaganda is carried on in every country in a language the people understand.
It is self-evident that final victory can be won only by the proletariat of all the advanced countries of the world, and we, the Russians, are beginning the work which the British, French or German proletariat will consolidate. But we see that they will not be victorious without the aid of the working people of all the oppressed colonial nations, first and foremost, of Eastern nations. We must realise that the transition to communism cannot be accomplished by the vanguard alone. The task is to arouse the working masses to revolutionary activity, to independent action and to organisation, regardless of the level they have reached; to translate the true communist doctrine, which was intended for the Communists of the more advanced countries, into the language of every people; to carry out those practical tasks which must be carried out immediately, and to join the proletarians of other countries in a common struggle.
Such are the problems whose solution you will not find in any communist book, but will find in the common struggle begun by Russia. You will have to tackle that problem and solve it through your own independent experience. In that you will be assisted, on the one hand, by close alliance with the vanguard of the working people of other countries, and, on the other, by ability to find the right approach to the peoples of the East whom you here represent. You will have to base yourselves on the bourgeois nationalism which is awakening, and must awaken, among those peoples, and which has its historical justification. At the same time, you must find your way to the working and exploited masses of every country and tell them in a language they understand that their only hope of emancipation lies in the victory of the international revolution, and that the international proletariat is the only ally of all the hundreds of millions of the working and exploited peoples of the East.

In formulating his view, Thanasis Spanidis does hedge his bets with a qualification: “...could be successful.”
But in principle, he challenges the strategy developed by Mao. Thus, according to Thanasis Spanidis, Mao developed a “non-Marxist” strategy (i.e., one that was “not Marxist-correct”) — a strategy that “might have succeeded” in the context of 1920s and 1930s China but is certainly “no longer applicable today” (a point aimed at the “Maoists”).
Here, he presents his preconceived notions as “historical facts.” In this view, Mao’s errors regarding Marxism led to a flawed revolutionary strategy. This “flawed, opportunistic” strategy supposedly led to the “practice” of “protracted war” wherein his “flawed (or absent) class analysis” resulted in an “excessive emphasis on the role of the peasantry compared to that of the working class.”
To avoid any debate on this matter — specifically, whether this is historically accurate or merely a figment of Thanasis Spanidis’s imagination — he employs an intellectualistic trick of the kind that so infuriated Lenin when used by Kautsky and Vandervelde.
In “The Proletarian Revolution and the Renegade Kautsky”:

“Like Kautsky, Vandervelde is a past master in the art of substituting eclecticism for dialectics. On the one hand it cannot but be admitted, and on the other hand it must be confessed.”

The strategy, “which was in itself wrong”, could "probably have been successful in the specific circumstances at the time", but "the application in today's world raises major question marks". Thanasis Spanidis's accusations against Mao such as "defective class analysis", "lack of knowledge of Marxism", "over-emphasis on the peasants", correspond to the accusations of the so-called "left" cadres in the CCP (in the 1920s and 1930s), such as Wang Ming for example.

Wang Ming in his views on “Fifty Years of the Communist Party of China”:

And in all periods, especially since the thirties, it continuously came to grips in long, intricate and difficult struggles with the anti-Leninist, anti-Comintern, anti-Party, anti-Soviet, and anti-people political “thoughts” and lines of Mao Tse-tung. This and only this enabled the Party to further the Chinese revolution and bring it to victory, as it also enabled the People’s Republic of China to make considerable progress in building socialism with the aid of the Soviet Union.
And yet, the victories scored by Leninist ideas and the Leninist political line over the “thoughts” and line of Mao Tse-tung in different periods of the Chinese revolution are only one side of the picture. The other side consists in crimes committed by Mao in the course of the Chinese revolution. For example, after usurping military power in the Party at the CC CPC Politbureau meeting in Tsunyi in January 1935, Mao did unprecedented damage to the CPC and the Party-led Chinese Red Army. In the early half of the forties, Mao launched a reactionary “campaign for the rectification of the style of work”. This was directed against Marxism-Leninism, the Comintern, and the Soviet Union, and inflicted terrible ideological, theoretical, political and organisational damage on the CPC. At the 2nd Plenum of the Seventh CPC Central Committee in 1949 Mao replaced Leninist ideas and the Leninist line with the ideas and the line of “new democracy”.

It might be instructive for Thanasis Spanidis to study the CONCRETE history of the Chinese Revolution. Several of those "Left" cadres defected to the counter-revolution: they went over to Chiang Kai-shek... (such as Chang Kuo-tao). Wang Ming ultimately simply withdrew from the revolution and the construction of socialism. Although he was a member of the Central Committee, he moved to Moscow for the remainder of his life, where he — perhaps as a precursor to Thanasis Spanidis? — wrote resentful texts against Mao.
Mao’s strategy — which had been labeled "Right-opportunist," "petty-bourgeois," "guerrillalist," and "non-Marxist"— was affirmed as correct and designated the proper line at the 7th Congress of the CCP in 1945.
One of the key figures behind the so-called "Left" policy lines—specifically that of the "third 'Left' line"—was Wang Ming...
 

Out of “The Morning Deluge” by Han Suyin:

Out of Chapter 11 Mao Tsetung and Wang Ming-The Third "Left" Line
It is sometimes said by cynics that Stalin "disliked" Mao Tsetung, and personal hostility is held to be the cause of Russian-conceived policies and directives which plagued the Chinese Revolution for some years. This is hardly tenable. There is a tendency to attribute to well-planned policies what is often blind chance. The esteem in which Mao Tsetung was held by the Comintern in 1930 is undeniable. Not only from reports, which blamed Li Li-san and approved Mao even if not by name, but also from the obituary of March 1930 published about him, in which he was praised high above other lead-ers in the CCP. This could not have happened without Stalin's approval. It is much more likely that after 1930 Stalin lost interest in the Chinese scene, as events in Europe took up most of his attention. The Comintern was to become mainly an instrument of Soviet pol-icy, to safeguard the Soviet Union's strategic security; Russian interests predominated, and all Communist parties in the world were expected to place Russia's welfare above everything else. The "fountainhead of socialism," the first socialist state, brooked no contradiction. The notion that there could be contradictions in social-ism, both between socialist states and parties and within a socialist state itself, would not be evolved before Mao would demonstrate it and thus expand the dialectics of revolution.²¹
The rule of the "returned students" - the twenty-eight Bolsheviks - lasted four long, disastrous years. Not until 1945 would their line definitely be condemned²². In this historical summing up no Russian is mentioned, although the returned students, led by Wang Ming, were accompanied by Pavel Mif, a teacher at the university in Mos-cow where they had studied, and a member of the Comintern. Pavel Mif is said to have maneuvered the student group's gain of power by the strong-arm method described. Once again the CCP follows its tradition of never blaming other than its own members, and Mif is a name forgotten in China.
After the "putsch" of January 1931, the Central Committee was reduced from 30 to 16 members, with alternates. Wang Ming (Chen Shao-yu), Po Ku (Chin Pang-hsien), Chang Wen-tien, and Shen Tse-min dominated the Politburo. The mild, inoffensive and willing Hsiang Chung-fa, personally irreproachable, was made secretary-general as a proletarian cover to the policies of the group.
The net result of the four years which followed was the loss of 90 percent of the Communist Party of China and of the Chinese Red Army; the loss of the base Mao had created and many other small bases in South China; the subjection of millions of peasants to massacres and reprisals; and a headlong flight, monstrously mismanaged, which would, however, turn into an epic: the Long March.
Very clearly, the new leadership set out to pull Mao down. "It slanderously asserted that there was as yet no 'genuine' Red Army and with special emphasis that the main danger... consisted of 'right' opportunists. The new 'left' line was more determined, more theoretical, more domineering.. than the Li Li-san line." This quotation from Mao is a cry from the heart. He could never think of the hecatombs which the returned students' wrong policies gave rise to, the purges, the massacres, and the decimation of the Party and Army without deep emotion.
In February 1931 the intra-Party struggle began; on the theoretical plane first, since the provisional Politburo was in Shanghai, and Mao Tsetung and Chu Teh were far away in the depths of Kiangsi. Wang Ming published a pamphlet, which he appears to have written either in the USSR or on his return to China, called The Two Lines; or The Struggle for the Further Bolshevization of the Communist Party of China. The gist of it was that the Party was not Communist enough, and that this had to be remedied. The main obstacle, as Wang Ming saw it, was "right opportunist" ideas (and ideas always mean people too) in the Party. It was actually a very direct and obvious attack on Mao.

Out of Part 2: chapter 1 The Yenan Period-The Second United Front
In Europe, the rise of Nazi Germany, and the Axis alliance be-tween Germany, Italy, Japan, had led the USSR to the formulation of a united front policy, through the Comintern. This was pro-claimed on August 20, 1935. Wang Ming, who was on the steering committee of the Comintern representing the Chinese Communist Party, reported in August 1935 that there were half a million Party members in China, a patently incorrect statement. He said, "In my opinion, and that of the entire Central Committee of the Communist Party of China, together with the soviet government of China. we should issue a joint appeal to the whole nation. to organize an All-China United People's Government of National Defense." It must also be noted that a resolution adopted on December 20, 1935, by the Central Committee at Wayaopao, indeed used similar phraseology, with Mao Tsetung dissenting. Around this sentence the two-line struggle over the strategy of the united front was to crystallize.
The formula sabotaged Mao's concept of the independence in action of the Red Army, independence of the Red base (and future bases), and initiative and leadership in the war. It encouraged Chiang Kai-shek in his pursuit of his own aims. Wang Ming was reflecting not the interests of the Chinese Revolution, but a tactic of the USSR in its own policies in both Europe and China. For the USSR was trying to win Chiang to at least a neutral posture, so that he would not join the Axis powers. Moscow knew well enough that the influential right-wing, pro-fascist cliques in Chiang's government were urging an Axis alliance. At the same time Chiang was also negotiating a nonaggression pact with the USSR which he hoped would give him leverage against Mao; he would be able either to utilize Comintern influence through Wang Ming to exert pressure on Mao, or to counter Mao's prestige in the CCP. Wang Ming still had a powerful following in the CCP, and all the press and propaganda organs of the Comintern through the world Communist parties were at his disposal. Mao was now described vaguely as a "guerilla leader," always linked with and almost always second to Chu Teh.²³ His brief favor at the Comintern in 1930 had been eclipsed for four years by the presence of Wang Ming.
That the conditions in which a united front would come into being meant survival or extinction for the Communist Party and the Red Army never seemed to have occurred to Wang Ming, nor that the USSR could not be the best judge of the Chinese situation. Wang Ming ignored the experience acquired during the First United Front, which had taught Mao that acceding to Chiang's demands for absolute control of the Red Army meant collective suicide. On no account would Mao allow Chiang to butcher the Communists again; yet Wang Ming's formula of unity for national defense meant precisely relinquishing leadership to Chiang Kai-shek, and this meant the armies as well. (...)
There is no political leadership which does not also imply a force capable to back it, defend it and preserve its power – an army. This basic fact the propounders of a "national defense" united front under Chiang's leadership would not or could not see. Had Stalin seen it? Or was he too engrossed in Russian affairs at the time? Or were his foreign policy advisers so anxious to win over Chiang Kai-shek that they simply ignored the role of the CCP? Or, more than likely, did they believe, after the Long March, that the Mao-led Red Army was a spent force, and put back the Chinese Revolution prospects to very much later, meanwhile opting for Chiang Kai-shek?
Even though Mao seemed the unchallenged leader of the CCP after Tsunyi, he acquired ideological authority only locally; he had not acquired the completely unhampered exercise of power even locally. Factions both in the Party and the Army would remain. Mao has always, like Lenin, regarded intra-Party struggle as a dialectical expression of the class struggle, reflected within the Party. "Peace" within the Party, therefore, is not to be desired; there has never been an entirely monolithic Communist Party, whatever the attempts to make it so. Such monolithism would mean there was no criticism and self-criticism, no ideological education, hence no advance; for ideological struggle is a facet of progress.²⁴
Because of this singular liveliness of the CCP at all times, unity can only be attained by ideological struggle, criticism and self-criticism, and Mao's way of handling his opposition would therefore be radically different from the Russian way. But from Moscow things may have appeared very different. Mao was but the leader of a small "peasant" faction; the Tsunyi conference was ignored; Mao was not even referred to as chairman of the Revolutionary Military Council till the end of 1938.
In the years 1936-1938, the intra-Party struggle on the question of the united front would be bitter and complex; it would become part of Mao's assertion of ideological authority. Within the Party, "closed-doorists" and "capitulationists" (i.e., the "left" and the "right") wrangled on many questions but agreed in attacking Mao's united front thesis. Wang Ming accused Mao of lacking in "proletarian internationalism" because he was not subordinating his view to the Comintern view; he derided Mao as a "chauvinist." But was it indeed not possible to be both a convinced revolutionary and a Chinese patriot? Was it true that only total subordination to Mos-cow's policies would work for the success of the Revolution? Some other Party leaders were plainly frightened of the bold vistas Mao unfurled, the great goal which appeared to them dangerously utopian. The CCP was much too weak, the Red Army too small and miserably ill-equipped; the Kuomintang armies were large; the Red Army would benefit in supplies, equipment and weaponry should it come under Chiang Kai-shek. How could such remnants as they had in hand, in bleak North Shensi, pretend to lead a war against Japan, capture the leadership of the whole country?
"The victory of the Chinese national liberation movement will be part of the victory of world socialism, because to defeat imperialism in China means the destruction of one of its most powerful bases. If China wins its independence, the world revolution will progress very rapidly. If our country is subjugated by the enemy, we shall lose everything. For a people being deprived of its national freedom, the revolutionary task is not immediate socialism but the struggle for independence. We cannot even discuss Communism if we are robbed of a country in which to practice it."²⁵ In a felicitous sentence Mao defined the duty of every Communist to be a patriot and to fight the Japanese. "Can a Communist, who is an internationalist, at the same time be a patriot? We hold that he not only can be but must be.... In wars of national liberation patriotism is applied internationalism."
At the moment, in spite of appearances, Chiang Kai-shek was weak and the CCP was strong. The Long March had been a triumph, Mao insisted. A united front which demanded leadership was already in existence among the people; it was waiting for the Communist Party to lead it, and most of the people believed what the Communist Party said and no longer believed Chiang Kai-shek.
Throughout 1936, the ideological struggle over policy raged within the Party, more or less secretly. Very little of it leaked out save perhaps through Chiang's spies. Mao Tsetung even spoke in praise of some of his adversaries to Edgar Snow, who was present at the Red base at the time.²⁶ This reticence helps to confuse experts; some aver that history has been rewritten because during some years no denunciation of Wang Ming's "ultra-left" line occurred. Many years may elapse before final "historical judgment" is pronounced. (…)
In May 1937 Mao issued a report entitled The Tasks of the CCP in the Period of Resistance to Japan. This document, clearly stating the course of the Chinese Revolution and the responsibility of the CCP to lead it, further developed his ideas on the united front. A concluding speech by Mao, Win the Masses in Their Millions for the Anti-Japanese United Front, was to stress points on which "some comrades expressed different views." In one of the most significant passages, Mao says: "We are exponents of the theory of the transition of the revolution, and not of the Trotskyite theory of 'permanent revolution.' We are for the attainment of socialism by going through all the necessary stages of the democratic republic." Mao's fundamental ideas on the continuing Chinese Revolution were thus penned in the turmoil of these high-tension years of war with Japan and struggle within the Party. Mao also announced the need for "many first-rate cadres" to carry through "our great Revolution which is unprecedented in history."²⁷ If "the leadership consists of a small narrow group and if the Party leaders are petty-minded, short-sighted and incompetent," it would be impossible to carry the Revolution through. Such cadres and leaders "must be free from selfishness To sloth sectarian arrogance. attain this aim, inner-Party democracy is essential. Let us apply democracy give scope to initiative throughout the Party. win the masses in their millions. for the anti-Japanese national united front."
In that same May, while Mao was asserting this thesis, Chang Kuo-tao was to join Wang Ming in issuing speeches and an article circulating the slogan "Victory for all." Disputing Mao's views, Chang argued that it was "dishonest" not to trust Chiang Kai-shek; should there be victory in the Sino-Japanese war, it should be shared by all, including Chiang Kai-shek. Chang Kuo-tao rejected Mao's estimate that the united front was a part of revolutionary strategy, that the real theme and essence was class struggle and consequently the seizure of power by the Communist Party, that leadership not only of the war but also of all the classes rallied in the united front must be in the hands of the Communist Party, to prepare for the postwar era. Chang Kuo-tao now advocated, and found others to advocate, "parliamentarism" merging of the Communist administration and Red Army with the Kuomintang administration and armies, in order to make "one government, one army, one military administration" under Chiang Kai-shek. This represented almost a death wish. Liu Shao-chi, returning to Yenan that summer, also seems to have written a pessimistic report about the outcome of the Revolution, advocating "unity" with Chiang Kai-shek.²⁸
Mao argued that there could not possibly be any "merging" with the one-party dictatorship which was Chiang's government, which gave no freedom or democracy to the people. The "capitulationists" envisioned the resistance to Japan as an alliance between two political parties, whereas Mao saw it as the arousal of the Chinese people and their mobilization in a people's war. The basic discord was, therefore, a question of "world conception or outlook" - to stand for the interests of the masses, or to act as a new power group in a power struggle, practicing compromise and "a sharing of high functions and official posts."
It was all very well for the Moscow press to broadcast articles as if Chiang were the leader of Chinese resistance to Japanese invasion; it was quite understandable that Stalin, anxious about Germany, wanted to assure himself of Chiang's support, and to do nothing to strengthen the hand of the pro-Japanese clique in Chiang's government. Russian policy, pressured by the fear of war on two fronts, might placate Chiang Kai-shek, seek to draw him into a formal anti-Axis stance. But it was very different for a Chinese Communist to do so. If Stalin gave "bad advice" to the CCP, there is, on the Chinese side, silence about it. This is not only a fixed policy, but also the expression of a philosophical concept expressed by Mao -that it was internal causes which were the main factors of change, whereas external causes only set the background; they could be resisted or accepted, and the choice depended on the individuals concerned.
Mao felt free, therefore, to ignore Stalin's "advice"; he knew that Moscow was also negotiating with Japanese-created Manchukuo over the Chinese Eastern Railway. In Lenin's time, through the Karakhan Manifesto, the USSR had formally relinquished all rights to this railway, but the USSR had continued to hold it; in 1929 Li Li-san had called for the "masses" to arise and defend the Soviet Union, embroiled in local conflict with the Chinese troops in Manchuria who had tried to take back the railway. Now in 1937 the USSR was "selling" this very same railway to the Japanese in Manchukuo. In 1945, the USSR would take the railway back; once again they would return it, this time to the People's Republic of China in the early 1950's, and without payment. (….)
Negotiations dragged till September. Wang Ming in Moscow urged acceptance of the Chiang conditions. So did Chang Kuo-tao at sessions of the Central Committee in Yenan.
On July 7, 1937, the Japanese attacked a Chinese contingent at Lu Kuo Chiao bridge near Peking.²⁹ The Chinese troops resisted, and the country was electrified by the bravery of this handful of soldiers. Chiang tarried ten days before announcing an "emergency," but the Japanese attack had its own precipitating effect, both on Chiang's negotiations with Moscow and on the united front discussions with the Communists in Yenan. Between July and September, talks be-tween the two parties became serious; Chiang could no longer dally, though still he would try to get his way. Meanwhile, within the Party, the struggle for the united front policy which would give the CCP the upper hand in the long run became more intense than ever. Mao urged the "capitulationists" once again to remember 1927, Chen Tu-hsiu's submission, the orders to surrender weapons, and the resulting massacres. "Never again. must this be repeated." "It goes without saying that we shall never allow Chiang Kai-shek to lay a finger on the Red Army."
In his military text Problems of Strategy in China's Revolutionary War, written as teaching material for new cadres and Red Army personnel, Mao made a statement crucial to the conduct of the united front. China's revolutionary war, he wrote, had passed through two stages; the first from 1924 to 1927; the second from 1927 to 1937; now the third stage would begin, "the stage of national revolutionary war against Japan. In all three of its stages this revolutionary war has been and will be fought under the leadership of the Chinese This proletariat and its party, the Chinese Communist Party.. war is not only the banner of China's liberation, but also has inter-national revolutionary significance in the new stage [the anti-Japanese war] we shall lead the Chinese Revolution to its completion and exert a profound influence on the revolution in the East and in the whole world."³⁰ These prophetic words were written in December 1936. (….)
After this arduous establishment of a united front in the autumn of 1937, Mao was to be burdened with the return of Wang Ming from Moscow; a Wang Ming who still understood nothing of the Chinese situation but who now, from the ultra-leftist line of 1930-1934, had moved to the right in uncritical praise for the "leader of the resistance to Japan, Chiang Kai-shek." The return of Wang Ming to China is described in Chang Kuo-tao's memoirs. It was a gray, still autumn day. Mao, Chang Kuo-tao and some others were conferring (pleasantly) when the drone of a plane was heard. At first they thought it a Japanese bomber, but the plane was trying to land. They went to the midget airport; out of the aircraft, a Russian one, stepped Wang Ming. Mao had not been told beforehand of Wang Ming's return. Li Teh (Otto Braun) was to depart from Yenan on the same Russian plane some days later.
As soon as Wang Ming returned, he set himself up against Mao, and in December 1937 published A Key to Solving the Present Situation, which proposed a complete merger of the Red forces with the Kuomintang. Thus the struggle within the Party over the united front policies continued, or began all over again, if it had ever stopped. Wang Ming's adherents now re-formed their ranks. They re-called the resolution adopted on December 20, 1935, by the Central Committee (with Mao dissenting) which had used the phrase "a government of national defense"; Wang Ming sought, with his new article and with the prestige of the Comintern behind him, to widen the scope of dissent. The organizational aspect of the two-line struggle, in which key positions would be held by one or the other faction, would explain why, for so long, Mao's authority in Yenan was contested.
On September 29, 1937, in a report, Urgent Tasks Following the Establishment of Kuomintang-Communist Cooperation, Mao took up the question of leadership. He recalled that it was the CCP (through Mao himself) who had called for a united front as far back as 1932. The united front must be extended "to all parties and groups, people in all walks of life and all armed forces.. . a united front of all patriots." On November 12, he again spoke to activists in Yenan. The speech, now entitled The Situation and Tasks in the Anti-Japanese War After the Fall of Shanghai and Taiyuan, was an-other extensive explanation of the situation. He exposed "capitula-tionism" and ridiculed it. "It [the speech] met with immediate opposition from the right opportunists in the Party, and not until the sixth plenary session of the Sixth Central Committee in October 1938 (almost a year after) was the Right deviation basically over-come," is the notice printed as footnote to this report in Mao's Selected Works³¹. This euphemism means the renewed Wang Ming opposition which was stung into open combat by Mao's hard-bitten, effective, and withering prose: "... We have the uneven theoretical level among Communists; the fact that many of our Party members lack the experience of cooperation between the two parties gained during the Northern Expedition; the fact that a large number of Party members are of petty bourgeois origin; the reluctance of some Party members to continue a life of bitter struggle; the tendency to-wards unprincipled accommodation with the Kuomintang in the united front; the emergence of a tendency towards a new type of warlordism in the Eighth Route Army..." "We must sharply pose the problem of who is to lead." Thus Mao Tsetung challenged Wang Ming to a strenuous, prolonged debate, which would only be resolved in 1945.(..)
By October 1938 Chiang Kai-shek was thinking again in terms of an extended truce with Japan. German and British diplomats in China were already functioning as go-betweens. This was the time of Munich in Europe, the appeasement of Hitler by Great Britain and France, the sacrifice of Czechoslovakia. All this faced the USSR with an alarming situation. The prospect of a coalition against Russia, with France, England and Hitler on the western front, Chiang and the Japanese on the eastern front, was unpleasantly near. Moscow's attitude towards Mao changed. Russian news agencies waxed fulsome in praise of the heroic guerillas, immobilizing "vast numbers" of Japanese troops. There would not be, however, military aid from the Soviet Union to the Communist guerillas. All the military aid that came from Russia by an overland route built from 1936 to 1938 went to Chiang Kai-shek's armies. Mao was to make the point that guerilla forces arm themselves chiefly by capturing weapons from the enemy; self-replenishment is one of the abiding principles of guerilla warfare; the Red armies fought the Japanese with Japanese weapons. But the change in Moscow did produce, in the Wang Ming faction, weakening of hostility. The firm ground of the Comintern and Moscow was proving shifting sands.
By the end of 1938 many Party members who had sided with Wang Ming came over to Mao's side; (…)
By the summer of 1938 Chang Kuo-tao had gone over to Chiang Kai-shek, and this also weakened Mao's opponents. (…)
After his return from Russia in late 1937, Wang Ming held several appointments on the Central Committee, in the Politburo, and as one of the seven Communist members of the liaison committee organized under Chou En-lai to deal with united front matters between the Kuomintang and the Communist Party. His wife, Meng Ching-shu, also on the Central Committee, became the president of Yenan Women's University. The liaison offices functioned in Sian, and also in Wuhan till it fell in October 1938; then the committee moved to Chungking along with Chiang's government. This liaison committee had a press section to deal with foreign and Chinese newsmen. Chou En-lai was chief spokesman, but Wang Ming did not refrain from issuing statements and making speeches for the Party, going counter to Central Committee resolutions when he chose.
The ideological struggle was "severe," writes the historian Hu Chiao-mu. Those responsible for "the third left line" became "rightist opportunists," "took independent action against Party rules in their work, issued statements without approval, thought the Communist army was too small . decided the Kuomintang should assume the leadership... denied the Communist Party leadership." They also looked down on guerilla warfare tactics and looked for "speedy victory," contrary to Mao's protracted war; they "believed not in the masses," derided mass education and mobilization. Their slogan, "unity of action. a unified command, unified program, unified administration, unified discipline, unified weapons," was a pro-Chiang Kai-shek line.
Wang Ming failed, the defeats of Chiang became his own defeat; the virulence of his faction faded, though not its long-term, protracted hostility to Mao. Mao Tsetung nailed down the leadership role the Communist Party should play in the war. In October-November 1938, at the sixth plenum of the Sixth Central Committee, he won the majority votes of the Central Committee. His three speeches³² climaxed his ideological victory, the downfall of "left" and "right" factions and the rallying of the Party in unity behind Mao.

Thanasis Spanidis, for instance, also formulates two insinuations in a single sentence: “His overemphasis on China's national particularities led him to enthusiastically welcome the disastrous decision to dissolve the Comintern in 1943.“
Regarding the first insinuation: as for the “Chinese peculiarities,” Lenin ( as you can read in “Address To The Second All-Russia Congress Of Communist Organisations Of The Peoples Of The East”…) already indicates above that these are simply conclusions drawn from a CONCRETE analysis of the CONCRETE historical situation (in China, that is).
Next, about de “disastrous decision to dissolve the Comintern in 1943” as an insinuation as if Mao was guilty about the dissolution somehow …
It was a COLLECTIVE decision!

STATEMENT OF THE PRESIDIUM OF THE ECCI ON THE DISSOLUTION OF THE COMMUNIST INTERNATIONAL - 8 June 1943
World News and Views, xxiii, 25, p. 197, 19 June 1943
[The central committee of the CPGB adopted unanimously a resolution endorsing the proposal, which 'would reinforce national and international unity'. The Czechoslovak central committee said dissolution was in the interests of the broader unity of all forces both domestic and international in the decisive battle against Hitlerism; the Spanish central committee welcomed and approved the proposal. 'The dissolution of the International, which frees us from the obligations arising from its statutes and decisions, will still further reinforce the national character of the Spanish Communist Party and facilitate the unification of all Spanish patriots both within Spain and in emigration and so stimulate the development of all national forces in the struggle to recapture the freedom and independence of Spain.' The KPD said the decision would cut the ground from under the feet of the German fascists, who alleged that Moscow interfered in the affairs of other States; the Italian central committee said the dissolution would remove the misunderstandings and difficulties which still existed among the workers and make it easier for them to unite. The Chinese CP central committee expressed its full agreement; the Comintern had fulfilled its historical mission in protecting Marxism from distortion, in helping progressive forces to unite, in supporting the Soviet Union and fighting fascism, and it had done all in its power to bring about co-operation between the KMT and the CCP; in its organizational form it had now outlived itself. The CCP had received much help from the Comintern in its revolutionary struggle, but the Chinese communists had now for a long time been free to decide independently on its policy and put it into effect.]
At its last meeting on 8 June 1943, the Presidium of the Executive Committee of the Communist International considered the decisions received from its Sections in connection with its proposals of 15 May 1943, on the dissolution of the Communist International, and decided the following:
1. That the proposal on the dissolution of the Communist International has been approved by:
The Communist Party of Australia, Communist Party of Austria, Communist Party of the Argentine, Communist Party of Belgium, Communist Party of Bulgaria, Communist Party of Great Britain, Communist Party of Hungary, Communist Party of Germany, Communist Party of Ireland, Communist Party of Spain, Communist Party of Italy, Communist Party of Canada, the United Socialist Party of Catalonia, the Communist Party of China, the Communist Party of Colombia, the Revolutionary Communist Union of Cuba, the Communist Party of Mexico, the Workers' Party of Poland, the Communist Party of Rumania, the Communist Party of Syria, the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, the Communist Party of Uruguay, the Communist Party of Finland, the Communist Party of France, the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia, the Communist Party of Chile, the Communist Party of Switzerland, the Communist Party of Sweden, the Communist Party of Yugoslavia, the Communist Party of the Union of South Africa, the Communist International of Youth (which is incorporated in the Communist International with the full rights of a Section).
2. That not one of the existing Sections of the Communist International sent in any objection to the proposal of the Presidium of the EC.
In view of all this the Presidium of the Executive Committee of the Communist International declares:
1. That the proposal for the dissolution of the Communist International has been unanimously approved by all Sections able to send in their decisions, including all the most important Sections.
2. It considers that as from the 10th of June, 1943, the Executive Committee of the Communist International, the Presidium and Secretariat of the Executive Committee, as well as the International Control Commission, have been dissolved.
3. It entrusts to a committee composed of Dimitrov (as Chairman), Manuilsky, Ercoli, and Pieck to carry out the actual winding up of the affairs of the organs, apparatus, and property of the Communist International.
(Signed) on behalf of the Presidium of the ECCI
DIMITROV

For Thanasis Spanidis, all of Mao’s “questionable and opportunistic positions” (he even speaks of “counter-revolutionary” ones) can be traced back to a single thing—one specific conception regarding the application of Marxism:

…. Mao's political thought, his understanding of revolutionary strategy and socialist construction, were determined by his conception of dialectics. Philosophical reflections appear again and again in Mao's speeches and writings, and his understanding of contradiction is repeatedly reflected in concrete political measures and orientations.

To develop this analysis, Thanasis Spanidis must introduce a (metaphysical) “separation” within dialectical and historical materialism—namely, separating dialectics from materialism. We will examine this “new” form of Marxist analysis by Thanasis Spanidis in a subsequent article.

1“Who are the people? At the present stage, the people in China are composed of the working class, the peasantry, the urban petty bourgeoisie, and the national bourgeoisie. Under the leadership of the working class and the Communist Party, these classes unite to form their own state and elect their own government; they exercise a dictatorship, an absolute rule over the lackeys of imperialism—over the landed gentry and the bureaucratic bourgeoisie…” – Mao Zedong: On the People’s Democratic Dictatorship,” in Selected Works, Vol. 4, 1949, p. 445

2A comprador, in the original sense of the word, was the Chinese manager or the senior Chinese employee in a foreign commercial establishment. The compradors served foreign economic interests and had close connection with imperialism and foreign capital.

3The Étatistes were a handful of shameless fascist politicians who at that time formed the Chinese Étatiste Youth League, later renamed the Chinese Youth Party. They made counter-revolutionary careers for themselves by opposing the Communist Party and the Soviet Union and received subsidies from the various groups of reactionaries in power and from the imperialists.

4 For further discussion of the role of the national bourgeoisie, see "The Chinese Revolution and the Chinese Communist Party", Chapter 2, Section 4, Selected Works of Mao Tse-tung, Vol. II.

5 Tai Chi-tao joined the Kuomintang in his youth and for a time was Chiang Kai-shek's partner in stock exchange speculation. After Sun Yat-sen's death in 1925 he carried on anti-Communist agitation and prepared the ground ideologically for Chiang Kai-shek's counter-revolutionary coup d'état in 1927. For years he was a faithful running dog to Chiang Kai-shek in the counter-revolution. He committed suicide in February 1949, driven to despair by the imminent doom of Chiang Kai-shek's regime.

6The Chen Pao was the organ of the Association for the Study of Constitutional Government, a political group which supported the rule of the Northern warlords.

7 In 1923 Sun Yat-sen, with the help of the Chinese Communist Party, decided to reorganize the Kuomintang bring about Kuomintang-Communist co-operation and admit members of the Communist Party into the Kuomintang. In January 1924 he convened in Canton the Kuomintang's First National Congress at which he laid down the Three Great Policies--alliance with Russia, co-operation with the Communist Party and assistance to the peasants and workers. Mao Tse-tung, Li Ta-chao, Lin Po-chu, Chu Chiu-pai and other comrades attended the Congress and played an important part in helping the Kuomintang to take the road of revolution. Some of these comrades were elected members, and others alternate members, of the Central Executive Committee of the Kuomintang.

8 By owner-peasants Comrade Mao Tse-tung means the middle peasants.

9 By "the overwhelming majority of the semi-owner peasants", Comrade Mao Tse-tung is here referring to the impoverished peasants who worked partly on their own land and partly on land rented from others.

10 There were several strata of shop assistants in old China. Here Comrade Mao Tse-tung is referring to the largest. There was also the lower stratum of shop assistants who led the life of proletarians.

11 The seamen's strikes were staged by the seamen at Hongkong and by the crews of the Yangtse River steamers early in 1922. The Hongkong seamen held out for eight weeks. After a bitter and bloody struggle, the British imperialist authorities in Hongkong were finally forced to raise wages, lift the ban on the Seamen's Union, release the arrested workers and indemnify the families of the martyrs. The crews of the Yangtze steamers went on strike soon afterwards, carried on the struggle for two weeks and also won victory.

12 Immediately after its founding in 1922-23 the Chinese Communist Party set about organizing the railway worker. In 1922-23 strikes took place under the Party's leadership on all the trunk lines. The best known was the general strike on the Peking-Hankow Railway which began on February 4, 1923. It was a fight for the freedom to organize a general trade union. On February 7 the Northern warlords Wu Pei-fu and Hsiao Yao-nan, who were backed by British imperialism, butchered the strikers. This became known as the February 7th Massacre.

13 The Kailan Coal Mines was an inclusive name for the large contiguous Kaiping and Luanchow coalfields in Hopei Province, then employing over fifty thousand workers. During the Yi Ho Tuan Movement of 1900 the British imperialists seized the Kaiping mines. Subsequently the Chinese organized the Luanchow Coal Mining Company, which was later incorporated into the Kailan Mining Administration. Both coalfields thus came under the exclusive control of British imperialism. The Kailan strike took place in October 1922. The Tsiaotso Coal Mines, situated in Honan Province, are also well known in China. The Tsiaotso strike lasted from July 1 to August 9, 1925.

14 Shameen, a section of the city of Canton, was held on lease by British imperialism. In July 1924 the British imperialists who ruled it issued a new police regulation requiring all Chinese to produce passes with photos on leaving or entering the area. But foreigners were exempt. On July 15 the workers in Shameen went on strike to protest against this preposterous measure, which the British imperialists were finally forced to cancel.

15 Following the May 30th Incident in Shanghai, general strikes broke out on June 1, 1925 in Shanghai and on June 19 in Hong Kong. More than 200,000 workers took part in Shanghai and 250,000 in Hong Kong. The big Hong Kong strike, with the support of the people throughout the country, lasted sixteen months. It was the longest strike in the history of the world labour movement.

16 Chihli was the old name for Hopei Province.

17 The Triad Society, the Society of Brothers, the Big Sword Society, the Rational Life Society and the Green Band were primitive secret organizations among the people. The members were mainly bankrupt peasants, unemployed handicraftsmen and other lumpen-proletarians. In feudal China these elements were often drawn together by come religion or superstition to form organizations of a patriarchal pattern and bearing different names and some possessed arms. Through these organizations the lumpen-proletarians sought to help each other socially and economically, and sometimes fought the bureaucrats and landlords who oppressed them. Of course, such backward organizations could not provide a way out for the peasants and handicraftsmen. Furthermore, they could easily be controlled and utilized by the landlords and local tyrants and, because of this and of their blind destructiveness, come turned into reactionary forces. In his counter-revolutionary coup d'etat of 1927 Chiang Kai-shek made use of them to disrupt the unity of the labouring people and destroy the revolution. As the modern industrial proletariat arose and grew from strength to strength, the peasants, under the leadership of the working class, gradually formed themselves into organizations of an entirely new type, and these primitive, backward societies lost their raison d'etre.

18 IN “The "Cultural Revolution" and the Maoist Bid for Cooperation with Imperialism” by Wang Ming (1971, Moscow), https://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/wang/1971/00002.htm

19 Here "the transition period" refers to the period from the founding of the People's Republic of China to the basic completion of socialist transformation. The general line or the general task of the Party for this transition period was basically to accomplish the industrialization of China and the socialist transformation of agriculture, handicrafts and capitalist industry and commerce over a fairly long period of time. This transition period is different in meaning from the transition period Comrade Mao Tsetung spoke of at the Tenth Plenary Session of the Party's Eighth Central Committee in September 1962 and thereafter, which denotes the entire historical period of transition from capitalism to communism.

20 This Congress was held in Moscow from November 22 to December 3, 1919, on the initiative of the Central Bureau of Communist Organisations of the Peoples of the East at the CC., B.C.P.(B.). On the eve of the Congress, November 21, a preliminary meeting of the Central Committee members with a group of delegates was held with Lenin presiding.The Congress was attended by 71 delegates with the right to vote and by 11 delegates with voice but no vote. On the opening day of the Congress, November 22, Lenin delivered a report on the current situation. The resolution adopted on his report was submitted to the presidium “for concretisation and drafting of the chief theses that should serve as a basis for work in the East”. The Congress heard the report on the work of the Central Bureau of Communist Organisations of the Peoples of the East, reports from the localities, the reports of the Central Moslem War Collegium, Central Moslem Commissariat of the People’s Commissariat of Nationalities; it discussed the national question of the Bashkirs and Tatars and heard reports of sections on state organisation and Party work, on work among women in the East and among the youth, etc. The Congress outlined the tasks of the Party and the government in the East, and elected a new Central Bureau of Communist Organisations of the Peoples of the East

21 This would be fully elaborated in Mao's essay On the Correct Handling of Contradictions Among the People (February 27, 1957).

22 Appendix: Resolution on Certain Questions in the History of Our Party. Selected Works of Mao Tsetung, vol. III, p. 177 (English edition Peking, September 1965).

23 Edgar Snow, in Red Star Over China (1937, first revised and enlarged edition New York 1968), was the first to give a correct perspective on Mao Tsetung's role in the Chinese Revolution. Agnes Smedley devoted most of her writings to Chu Teh.

24 Even at the termination of the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution, the CCP proclaimed that ideological struggle goes on within the party (April 1971).

25 Quoted by Edgar Snow to the author..

26 "Another reason for the Party's] invincibility lies in the extraordinary ability and courage and loyalty of the human material Comrades Chu Teh, Wang Ming. Lo Fu, Chou En-lai, Po Ku, Wang Chia-hsiang. Peng Teh-huai Hsiang Ying. Hsu Hai-tung, Chen Yun, Lin Piao, Chang Kuo-tao" Edgar Snow Red Star Over China (1937, first revised and enlarged edition New York 1968), p. 449. Mao's intense wish for Party unity despite all these ideological struggles is plain in the string of names he uttered.

27 Selected Works of Mao Tsetung, vol. 1, pp. 290-291 (English edition Peking 1965).

28 Chang Kuo-tao, preface, Collected Works of Liu Shao-chi (Hongkong 1969).

29 Also known as Marco Polo bridge.

30 Emphasis not in original.

31 See Selected Works of Mao Tsetung, vol. 11 (English edition Peking 1965).

32 The Role of the Chinese Communist Party in the National War: The Question of Independence and Initiative Within the United Front; and Problems of War and Strategy (November 5 and 6, 1938). Selected Works of Mao Tsetung, vol. 11.