803.00/4–1245
Memorandum by Mr. John S. Service
The attached article by Wang Yi-fei37 should, in my opinion, be largely discounted. It is written by a “renegade” Communist now working for the Kuomintang. It is of the same general type as the material on conditions in the Soviet Union which used to emanate from Riga and other centers of “White Russian” activity. An indication of its lack of veracity is the completely false statement in the first paragraph that Chen Shao-yu (Wang Ming) and Chin Pang-hsien (Bo Ku)37a have been imprisoned. Wang Ming has been ill but is still a member of the Politbureau. Bo Ku is the active head of Communist propaganda and was one of the men whom the Communists asked to have included in the San Francisco delegation.
The Chinese Communist Party, like the Russian, has of course gone through a number of internal conflicts. Probably, because of the ups-and-downs of the Chinese Party (cooperation within the Kuomintang, cooperation with the Left Wing of the Kuomintang, a long and desperate civil war, then adoption of a United Front policy), these conflicts have actually been greater than in the Russian Party. But it seems significant that neither I nor any of the other foreign observers who have spent time at Yenan have been able to find any substantiation for these common Kuomintang claims that any important splits or factions exist among the Communists at the present time. To the contrary, all direct evidence indicates that the Party is [Page 374] now strongly united under the leadership of Mao Tse-tung and supports the conclusion (stated to me by many Communist leaders, including Bo Ku) that in the face of the obvious and spectacular rise of the Party under Mao there is no likelihood of change either in leadership or policy. Without exception, Communists agree that the development of events have proved Mao right and that his position has never been stronger.
Furthermore, all Communists refute the suggestion that the Soviet Union can have any disagreement or dissatisfaction with Mao’s successful leadership and his moderate, united front, coalition government policies. Communists also emphatically refute the suggestions: (1) that Moscow may “leave them out on a limb” by a direct deal with Chungking, or (2) that civil war—in which they admit they will seek Russian support—will cause them to abandon their present moderate, united front policy in favor of radical “Soviet” policies and leadership. Their argument here is that experience has proved that their moderate policies have been successful in winning the support of all groups in their areas (except for the wealthiest landlords, who have already gone over to the Japanese) and are therefore the strongest weapon against the Kuomintang. To take the opposite extreme course would reduce them to fighting a peasant revolt (a “Jacquerie”), which by the Marxist books is never successful.
Adequate analysis of the attached article would require detailed consideration of the history of the Communist Party and its recent active self-criticism and reform (to which the author refers). I have extensive notes and Communist published material on these lines but have never had the time to devote to the exhaustive report that would be required.
It should, however, be noted that the conclusions of the article, which are: (1) “factional strife within the Communist Party is now raging with all ferocity”, and (2) the Communist Party will break up when the war turns in our (the Kuomintang’s) favor, seem at complete variance with the obvious fact of continued rapid Communist growth and Kuomintang decline.
- Not printed; it was dated April 25, 1944, entitled “Factional Strife Inside the Chinese Communist Party”, translated from “Party Doctrines Research” by the British Ministry of Information at New Delhi, India, and transmitted to the Department by the Embassy in the Soviet Union in its despatch No. 1622, April 12.↩
- Also known as Po Ku.↩