Revolution in China and Tasks of the Comintern

Stalin’s speech at the 10th Session of the 8th Plenum of the Executive Committee of the Communist International on May 24, 1927. It was first published in the 10th issue of Bolshevik magazine on May 31,1927. The Chinese translation is included in Vol. 9 of the Complete Works of Stalin.

The 8th Plenum of the Executive Committee of the Communist International was held in an extremely complex and increasingly serious political situation.

At that time, the Chinese revolution went into crisis and the Soviet Union also faced difficulties in its diplomacy. The opposition faction led by Trotsky and Zinoviev within the C.P.S.U. (B) took the opportunity to attack the Central Committee of the C.P.S.U. (B) led by Stalin, especially on the issue of Chinese revolution, attacking the lines and policies adopted by the Communist International and the Central Committee of the C.P.S.U. (B). In April and May 1927, the opposition put forward three written proposals about the Chinese revolution, which were handed over to the Executive Committee of the Communist International.

In order to save the Chinese revolution and answer Trotsky’s criticisms, Stalin delivered a famous speech “Revolution in China and Tasks of the Comintern” at the Tenth Session of the Eighth Plenum, sharply criticized Trotsky’s and Zinoviev’s mistaken views on the Chinese revolution, elaborated the Communist International’s line on the Chinese revolution, analyzed the nature of the Chinese revolution, and analyzed the position of the revolutionary Wuhan nationalist government, the question of establishing Workers’ and Peasants’ Soviets in China, and other relevant issues.

The speech begins with the critique of the incessant factional speeches and allegations of the opposition alliance, i.e., Trotsky and Zinoviev, pointing out that the opposition faction grossly violated the October 16, 1926 resolution, distorted the position of the Central Committee of the C.P.S.U. (B) and the Communist International on question of China, the opposition claimed that the C.P.S.U. (B) and the Communist International continued to uphold a policy of “supporting” the national bourgeoisie in China. Stalin pointed out that when the Chinese revolution was still the revolution of the all-national united front, the C.P.S.U. Central Committee and the Comintern did not uphold the policy of supporting the Chinese national bourgeoisie, but advocated and implemented the policy of utilizing the national bourgeoisie; and when the revolution in China was transformed to an agrarian-peasant revolution, and when the national bourgeoisie began to desert the revolution, the C.P.S.U. Central Committee and the Comintern later replaced that policy by a policy of armed struggle against the national bourgeoisie.

On the significance and nature of the Chinese revolution. Stalin argued that the Trotsky led opposition argued that the Chinese feudal survivals and the entire warlord bureaucratic superstructure were not the main targets of the current Chinese revolution, but were secondary, insignificant and only worthy of the power in quotation marks. For Trotsky, the Chinese revolution had a national bourgeois character, and the principal reason for the Chinese national revolution is the dependence of China’s state-customs on the imperialist countries. For Trotsky, the Chinese revolution mainly targeted the disadvantageous customs status determined by the imperialist domination. Stalin criticized this view from the following five aspects: Firstly, feudal survivals, with their entire militarist bureaucratic superstructure, are the principal form of oppression in China and the main factor stimulating the agrarian-peasant revolution, and the survivals of feudalism in the Chinese countryside and the entire militarist-bureaucratic superstructure resting on them constitute the basis on which the present agrarian-peasant revolution has arisen; secondly, imperialism, with all its financial and military might, is the force in China that supports, inspires, fosters and preserves the feudal survivals, together with their entire bureaucratic-militarist superstructure; thirdly, agrarian-peasant revolution is the basis and content of the bourgeois-democratic revolution; fourthly, bourgeois democratic revolution is a combination of the struggle against the survivals of feudalism and the struggle against imperialism; fifth, the opposition faction led by Trotsky ignores the role of the peasantry and does not understand its role in the bourgeois-democratic revolution, and from this principal error stem all the other errors of the Trotsky led opposition, and stem its confusion in its theses on the Chinese question.

About the Wuhan government. First of all, Stalin pointed out that the present Wuhan government is not the revolutionary democratic dictatorship of the proletariat and the peasants, but with the further development of the revolution and the victory, it has the opportunity to develop into such an organ. Second, Stalin criticized Trotsky’s erroneous view that the Wuhan government was practically nothing, and was not the center of the revolutionary movement. Stalin pointed out that the Wuhan government is the center of Chinese revolution, and the Wuhan Kuomintang must be supported and the Communists must participate in this Kuomintang and in its revolutionary government, provided that the leading role of the proletariat and its party is ensured both inside and outside the Kuomintang. Finally, Stalin criticized Zinoviev’s erroneous view that Kuomintang in Wuhan was similar to the Kemalist government of the 1920 period in Turkey, and pointed out that the then Kemalist government was a government which fought against the workers and peasants, a government in which there was not, and could not be, any place for Communists.

About the establishment of workers’ and peasants’ Soviets in China. The opposition faction led by Trotsky proposed the immediate creation of Workers’, Peasants’ and Soldiers’ Soviets in China, as the centers of leadership and organization of the revolutionary movement. But Stalin made it clear that he was against this proposition. Firstly, based on the current situation of China, the existence of the Wuhan faction of Kuomintang as the center of the revolutionary movement, and the instructions of the former two drafts of the Second Congress of the Communist International, it is inappropriate for China to immediately establish workers’ and peasants’ Soviets ; secondly, only as organs of an uprising, only as organs of a new power, can Workers’ and Peasants’ Soviets become centers of the revolutionary movement, and failing this, Soviets of workers’ deputies would become a fallacy, would be an appendage of the existing power; thirdly, Trotsky confused the bourgeois-democratic revolution with a proletarian revolution, forgetting that the bourgeois-democratic revolution in China is only in its initial stage of development, and the Left faction of the Kuomintang in Wuhan could still play revolutionary role in the struggle, the Wuhan government can be an organ of revolt against feudal survivals and imperialism in China. Stalin pointed out that there is no possibility of a peaceful transition from the bourgeois democratic revolution to the proletarian revolution, and the Kuomintang can not be utilized as the form of state organization of the dictatorship of the proletariat. Stalin said that Soviets of workers’ and peasants’ deputies will have to be set up in China during the period of transition from the bourgeois-democratic revolution to the proletarian revolution, and to this end, it is necessary first to enable the agrarian movement to develop throughout China, strengthen Wuhan, help Wuhan to achieve victory over the counter-revolution, broadly develop peasant associations, workers’ trade unions and other revolutionary organizations in various regions, and enable the Chinese Communist Party to strengthen its influence among the peasantry and in the army. Under certain conditions and for a certain period, Marxists can take part and co-operate with the revolutionary bourgeoisie in a common revolutionary-democratic party, or co-operate in one common revolutionary-democratic government.

Two lines on the issue of the Chinese revolution. Stalin pointed out that the line of the Comintern is: Feudal survivals, and the bureaucratic-militarist superstructure which rests upon them and which receives every support from the imperialists of all countries, are the basic fact of Chinese life today; China at the present moment is passing through an agrarian-peasant revolution directed both against the feudal survivals and against imperialism; the agrarian-peasant revolution constitutes the basis and content of the bourgeois-democratic revolution in China; the Kuomintang in Wuhan and the Wuhan government are the center of the bourgeois-democratic revolutionary movement; Communists must participate in the Wuhan Kuomintang and in the Wuhan government, and utilize this participation to facilitate the proletariat’s role of hegemon in the Chinese bourgeois-democratic revolution; during the transition period from the bourgeois revolution to the proletarian revolution, it is necessary to set up Soviets of workers’, peasants’ and soldiers’ deputies. The line of Trotsky and Zinoviev is as follows: Feudal survivals do not exist at all in China; there does appear to be an agrarian-peasant revolution in China at this moment; Chinese revolution is a revolution for the customs independence of China; the Wuhan Kuomintang and the Wuhan government are either a “fiction” (Trotsky), or Kemalism (Zinoviev); the Soviets must immediately be established.

The analysis of the significance and nature of the Chinese revolution in the speech had a positive impact on the correct understanding of the development stage of the Chinese revolution by the Communist Party of China and the attention paid to the problems of peasants. However, Stalin’s speech overestimated the revolution of Wuhan government controlled by Wang Jingwei faction of the KMT, and underestimated the possibility of its rebellious revolution, which also contributed to the development of Chen Duxiu’s right opportunism objectively.