Qu Qiubai’s “Left” Putschism

In the early stage of the second Civil Revolutionary War, that is, from November 1927 to April 1928, the first “Left” putschist movement error, represented by Qu Qiubai, occurred in the Party.

In the summer of 1927, after the failure of the Great Revolution, the acute disease of the revolution of the small bourgeoisie, which was caused by the brutal massacre of Chiang Kaishek’s KMT and the anger at Chen Duxiu's opportunism on the right, was reflected in the Communist Party of China, which made the “Left” deviation of the Party develop rapidly.

On August 7, 1927, Qu Qiubai chaired an emergency meeting of the Central Committee in Hankou, that is, the August 7th Meeting, which ended the rule of Chen Duxiu's right opportunism in the Central Committee and determined the general policy of the agrarian revolution and armed resistance to the reactionary rule of the KMT. After the meeting, Qu Qiubai served as the Standing Committee of the Provisional Political Bureau of the Central Committee and presided over the work of the Central Committee. Around this time, he also played an important role in deciding or directing the Nanchang Uprising, the Autumn Harvest Uprising, the Guangzhou Uprising and other armed uprisings in other areas.

However, influenced by the “Left” putschism in the Party at that time, Qu Qiubai chaired the enlarged meeting of the Provisional Political Bureau of the Central Committee in November 1927, and adopted the “Resolution on the Present Situation of China and the Tasks of the Communist Party”, which made the “Left” putschist movement occupy a dominant position in the leading organs of the Party Central Committee.

First of all, in terms of the nature of revolution, he thought that the Chinese revolution was the so-called "permanent revolution" and that "the revolution was bound to take a sharp turn and enter the socialist revolution immediately after the task of solving the civil rights revolution", which confused the boundaries between the democratic revolution and the socialist revolution.

Secondly, on the estimation of the situation of Chinese revolution, he thought that the situation of Chinese revolution was so-called "constantly rising", then denied the failure of the 1927 revolution, and did not admit that the revolution had entered a low ebb. Therefore, instead of organizing an orderly retreat, Party members and the masses were ordered to organize an armed uprising in the cities without any hope of victory, regardless of the enemy's strength and the mass sentiment after the failure of the revolution. Finally, the strike policy of sectarianism was carried out organizationally and some responsible comrades who participated in the three uprisings were improperly punished.

Qu Qiubai's “Left” putschist movement caused numerous losses in Party’s practical work, and at the beginning, it was criticized and resisted by Mao Zedong and many comrades working in the White Area, and by April 1928, this “Left” putschist movement error occurred. The Party’s practical work then basically ended throughout the country.

The Sixth National Congress of the Party held in Moscow, the Soviet Union, in June of the same year, carefully analyzed the nature, tasks and situation of the Chinese revolution, criticized Chen Duxiu's right-leaning mistakes, and focused on criticizing Qu Qiubai's "left-leaning" errors, and correctly summarized the lessons of the first "left-leaning" errors within the Party.