Wang Ming’s “Left” Dogmatism

In January 1931, the Fourth Plenary Session of the Sixth Central Committee was convened by the Central Committee of the CPC, and with the support of Pavel Mif, who was then the Vice-Minister of the Oriental Department of the Communist International, Wang Ming entered the Political Bureau of the Central Committee through the reorganization of the Central Committee of the Communist Party, and then the left-leaning dogmatists, represented by Wang Ming, began to dominate the CPC Central Committee, which lasted for four years until the Zunyi Conference in January 1935.

Wang Ming's “Left” dogmatism mechanically copied Marxism-Leninism, mechanically followed the instructions of the Communist International and the experience of the Soviet Union from his subjective desire to guide the Chinese revolution. This tendency’s main mistakes were as follows:

(1) On the nature of revolution and the issue of United Front, they confused the boundary between democratic revolution and socialist revolution, juxtaposed anti-imperialism and anti-feudalism with anti-bourgeoisie, regarded the national bourgeoisie as the most dangerous enemy of Chinese revolution, and blindly excluded and attacked the intermediate forces.

(2) On the issue of the revolutionary road, they advocated continuing to take the city as the center, regarded the preparation of strike and armed uprising by the General League of Urban Workers as the most important task of the Communist Party of China and instructed the Red Army in the base areas to adopt "active offensive strategy" to cooperate with the attack on the central cities.

(3) On the issue of the agrarian revolution, they proposed to resolutely crack down on the rich peasants and the proposition that "landlords do not divide the land, and the rich peasants divide the bad land"; on the issue of military struggle, they implemented adventurism in attack, conservatism in defense, and escapism in retreat.

(4) On the issue of inner-Party struggle and organization, they carried out sectarianism and the policy of "cruel struggle and merciless attack", especially the extensive anti-counterinsurgency struggle, which resulted in the massacre of a large number of leading cadres and soldiers.

Compared with the previous two “Left” errors, his “Left” error was "more resolute, more theoretical, more vigorous and more complete in form."

The greatest and the most significant consequence of this was that the Red Army was defeated in the fifth anti-encirclement and suppression campaign and had to withdraw from the southern base areas and decide to carry out the Long March as a strategic shift. This serious error resulted in 90% loss of the Red Army and its base areas and almost 100% loss of the Party's strength in the KMT-ruled white areas.

In the early and middle 1930s, there were many reasons for the repeated emergence of serious “Left” mistakes in the CPC. Apart from the fact that there had always been a strong “Left” sentiment in the Party except after the August 7th meeting, which had never been seriously purged, and the wrong intervention and blind command of the Comintern in the internal affairs of the Communist Party of China, the main reason lied in the Party's insufficient grasp of the Marxist theory, low theoretical level and insufficient practical-political experience, as well as its ignorance in respect to China's historical and social conditions, the characteristics of the Chinese revolution and the laws of the Chinese revolution. And still a mature understanding in respect to achieving unity between Marxism-Leninist theory and the practice of Chinese revolution, that is, the Party was not good at comprehensively and correctly integrating Marxism-Leninism with China’s reality.