Zhang Guotao

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Zhang Guotao (Simplified Chinese: 张国焘; Traditional Chinese: 張國燾; pinyin: Zhāng Guótāo; Wade-Giles: Chang Kuo-t'ao; 1897 - December 3, 1979) was a founding member and leader of the Communist Party of China (CPC) during the late 1920s and 1930s.

Born in Pingxiang County, Jiangxi Province, Zhang was involved in revolutionary activities during his youth. Zhang studied Marxist thought under Li Dazhao while attending Peking University in 1916. After his active role in the May Fourth Movement in 1919, Zhang became one of the most prominent student leaders and later joined the early organization of the CPC in Oct 1920. At the same time, Mao Zedong was a librarian working at Peking University and was unknown to the public. It is uncertain whether Zhang and Mao became acquainted with each other at that time. Zhang attended the First National Congress of the Communist Party of China in 1921 and was elected a member of the Central Bureau of the CPC in charge of organising the work of Professional revolutionaries. After the congress, Zhang held the position of Director of Secretariat of the China Labor Union and Chief Editor of Labor Weekly, from which he became an expert in labor unions and mobilization. He led several major strikes of railway and textile workers, which gave him great prestige and made him a pioneer of the labor movement in China along with such figures as Liu Shaoqi and Li Lisan.

In 1924 Zhang attended the First National Congress of the Kuomintang during the policy of alliance between the Communists and the Kuomintang and was elected as Substitute Commissioner of Central Executive Committee. This was despite the fact that Zhang had opposed the alliance with Kuomintang in the Third National Congress of the CPC and had been reprimanded. In 1925 in the Fourth National Congress of the CCP, Zhang was elected Commissioner of Central Committee of CPC and Director of Labor & Peasant Work Department. In 1926 Zhang was the General Secretary of Hubei Division of CPC, and in 1927 he was Commissioner of Interim Central Committee of the CPC after the failure of the CPC uprising. Zhang with Li Lisan and Qu Qiubai were the acting leaders of the CPC. At that time Mao only led a small number of troops in Jiangxi and Hunan. In 1928 Zhang was elected as a member of the politburo of the CPC in the Sixth National Congress held in Soviet Union, and then as delegate of the CPC in Comintern. But because of his disagreements with the Soviet Union and Comintern policies on the Chinese revolution, in the 1920's Zhang was taken into custody and punished in order to correct his mistakes. However, due to his fame and popularity in the communist world, he wasn't executed or exiled like other dissidents were at that time.

In 1931 Zhang expressed his repentance and was sent back to China by the Comintern to clean up the mess left by the power struggle between the 28 Bolsheviks, Li Lisan, and other old CPC members. Zhang used his fame and popularity to correct their extremism and appeased the old CPC members. But the damage done by the power struggle was so great that it was too difficult for the CPC to survive in the cities governed by the Kuomintang. Therefore, Zhang and other acting CPC leaders decided to move their groups to bases in the countryside. Zhang was assigned to lead the daily operation of Eryuwan Revolutionary Base at the border of Hubei, Henan, Anhui provinces as General Secretary and chairman of the military committee, and then Vice Chairman of the Interim Central Government of the Chinese Soviet Republic when Mao was the chairman. Possibly influenced by life in Stalin's Soviet Union, Zhang carried out cruel cleansings to persecute dissidents which resulted in his defeat and evacuation in 1932.

In 1932 Zhang led the 4th Red Army into Sichuan and set up another base. Slowly he turned it into a prosperous autonomous region by way of land reform and enlisting the support of locals. However, once the prosperity was in reach, Zhang repeated the Stalinist style purges again, as a result, he and the Red Army lost the popular support, and was driven from the Red base and had to start their part of the Long March. In 1935 Zhang and his troops of more than 80,000 reunited with Mao's 7,000 troops in Sichuan after the Long March. It was Zhang's arrogance due to his superior strength at this time which sowed the seeds of conflict between the two men. It was not long before Mao and Zhang were locked in disagreements over issues of strategy and tactics, causing a split in the Red Army. The main disagreement was the Zhang's insistence on moving southward to establish a new base in the region of Sichuan that are populated by minorities. Mao correctly pointed out the flaws of such move, pointing out the difficulties to establish any communist base in regions where the general populace was hostile, and insisted on moving northward to reach the communist base in Shaanxi. Zhang tried have Mao and his followers arrest and killed if needed, but his plan was foiled by his own staff member Ye Jianying and Yang Shangkun, who fled to Mao's headquarter to inform Mao about Zhang's plot, taking the all of the code books and maps with them. As a result, Mao immeidately moved his troop northward and thus escaped arrest and possible death.

Zhang decided to carry out his plan on his own, with disastrous result: over 75% of his original 80,000 + troops was lost in his adventure. Zhang was forced to admit defeat and retreat to the communist base in Shaanxi, as Mao had predicted. More disastrous than loosing most of his troops, the failure discredited Zhang among his own followers, who turned to Mao. Furthermore, because all of the code books were obtained by Mao, Zhang lost contact with Comintern while Mao was able to establish the link, this coupled with the fact of Zhang's disastrous defeat, discredited Zhang within Comintern, which begun to give greater support for Mao.

Zhang's remaing troops of 21,800 were later annihilated in 1936 by the superior force of more than 100,000 combined troops of warlords Ma Bufang, Ma Hongbin and Ma Zhongying during efforts to cross the Yellow River and conquer Ma's territory. Zhang lost the power and influence to be able to challenge Mao and had to accept his failure.

When Zhang reached the new CPC base at Yanan, he had fallen from power and became an easy target for Mao. Zhang kept the now figurehead position of Chairman of Yanan Frontier Area and was frequently subjected to humiliation by Mao and his allies. Zhang was too proud to ally with Wang Ming, who had recently come back from Moscow and was acting as the Comintern's representative in China. Zhang's popularity in the Comintern might have given him another chance of returning to power if he had allied with Wang. Another reason why Zhang did not ally with Wang was that Wang boasted that it was under his order that five senior CPC leaders (Yu Xiusong, Huang Chao, Li Te and two others—all opponents of Wang) had been arrested, and now worked for warlord Sheng Shicai in Xinjiang under the direction of the CPC. All five were tortured and executed in a prison under the control Sheng Shicai, having been labeled as Trotskyists. However, Sheng Shicai was acting under direction from the CPC under Wang Ming. After that incident, Zhang despised Wang and would never consider supporting him.

Without any supporters, Zhang was purged in 1937 at the Extended Meeting of the Politburo of the Communist Party of China, after which he defected to the Kuomintang in 1938. But without any power, resources, and support, Zhang never held any important positions afterwards and only did research on the CPC for Dai Li. After the defeat of the Kuomintang in 1949 he went into exile in Hong Kong and later in Toronto Canada. There he died in a beadhouse during an unusually cold winter in 1979, having converted to Christianity the year before.

Zhang has written several memoirs on the CPC that provide valuable information on its early history.