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The Otto Braun Memoirs and Mao's Rise to Power

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  17 February 2009

Dieter Heinzig
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Extract

One of the crucial problems in the history of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) which must still be considered as unsolved is the question of how Mao Tse-tung managed to seize the leadership of the Party. Mao's rise to power has for a long time been linked with the mysterious Enlarged Session of the Politburo which took place in January 1935, and has come to be known as the Tsunyi Conference. Despite the fact that it is shrouded in an aura of secrecy, the Conference is assumed to have been the turning point in Mao's Party career.

Type
Research Article
Information
The China Quarterly , Volume 46 , June 1971 , pp. 274 - 288
Copyright
Copyright © The China Quarterly 1971

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References

1. Ch'en, Jerome, “Resolutions of the Tsunyi Conference,” in The China Quarterly, No. 40 (10–12 1969), pp. 1et seq.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

2. Ch'u, Kung, Wo yü hung-chün (I and the Red Army) (Hongkong, 1954)Google Scholar; Hua-lun, Kuo in Fei-ch'ing yüeh-pao (Chinese Communist Affairs Monthly), Vol. X, Nos. 5 et seq.Google Scholar, English translation in Kuo, Warren, Analytical History of Chinese Communist Party, Vol. II (Taipei, 1968), pp. 528Google Scholaret seq., and in Kuo, Warren in Issues & Studies, Vol. IV, No. 4, pp. 35Google Scholaret seq.; Wales, Nym (ed), Red Dust, Autobiographies of Chinese Communists (Stanford, Cal., 1952), pp. 62et seq., esp. p. 67.Google Scholar

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4. In his communication to the author Braun explicitly pointed out that he “participated in the Conference from beginning to end.”

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25. Snow, Edgar, Red Star over China (New York, 1961), p. 185.Google Scholar

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31. Cf. Hu, Chi-hsi in The China Quarterly, No. 43 (07–09 1970), p. 42.Google Scholar

32. With reference to this and the following see Braun, Otto in Horizont, No. 26, p. 32Google Scholar, and No. 28, p. 32.

33. We are here entirely dependent on reports of those who were there at the time since, after the Ningtu Conference, Mao was no longer able to publish his military theories, see Hu, Chi-hsi, in The China Quarterly, No. 43 (07–09 1970), p. 39.Google Scholar

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35. Ibid.Cf. Ch'en Jan's report in Kuo, Warren, Analytical History, Vol. II, pp. 440et seq.Google Scholar

36. Otto Braun has since confirmed to the author that he used Hua Fu as his literary pseudonym. He disclosed further that other articles written by him, which had been published in 1937–38 in Yenan, had appeared under the name of his translator; in one case only had the publisher given, by mistake, his Chinese name Li Teh.

37. For a condensed account of Braun's articles see Hu, Chi-hsi in The China Quarterly, No. 43 (07–09 1970).Google Scholar

38. Cf. Hu, Chi-hsi, The China Quarterly, No. 43, p. 42.Google Scholar

39. Braun, Otto in Horizont, No. 30, p. 32.Google Scholar

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42. Communication from Otto Braun to the author. After further consulting his archives, Braun corrected in his communication the statements in his Memoirs according to which Mao was not accepted into the Politburo nor into the Secretariat at the Fifth Plenum (cf. Braun, Otto in Horizont, No. 29, p. 32).Google Scholar

43. Hsiao, Tso-liang, Power Relations, pp. 280–81Google Scholar; Kuo, Warren, Analytical History, Vol. II, p. 569.Google Scholar

44. Braun, Otto in Horizont, No. 29, p. 32.Google Scholar

45. Ibid.

46. Braun, Otto in Horizont, No. 31, p. 32.Google Scholar

47. Communication from Otto Braun to the author. Cf. Rue, , Mao Tse-tung in Opposition, pp. 9–10.Google Scholar

48. Communication from Otto Braun to the author.

49. Braun, Otto in Horizont, No. 30, p. 32.Google Scholar

50. Ibid.

51. Ibid.

52. Ibid.

53. Ibid.Cf., Wales, Nym (ed.). Red Dust, p. 67.Google Scholar

54. Braun, Otto in Horizont, No. 30, p. 32.Google Scholar Edgar Snow states, without refer ence to sources, in his new enlarged German language edition of Red Star over China that Otto Braun, Chou En-lai and Yeh Chien-ying planned the break through, see Snow, Edgar, Roter Stern über China (Frankfurt, 1970), p. 238.Google Scholar

55. Communication from Otto Braun to the author.

56. See, for this and the following, Braun, Otto in Horizont, No. 31, p. 32.Google Scholar

57. See the attempts at reconstruction made by Ch'en, Jerome in The China Quarterly, No. 40 (09–12 1969), pp. 18–19Google Scholar, and Kuo, Warren in Issues & Studies, Vol. IV, No. 4, p. 44.Google Scholar

58. See the excellent arguments put forward in The China Quarterly, No. 43 (07–09 1970).Google Scholar See also MacFarquhar, Roderick's comment in The China Quarterly, No. 41 (01–03 1970), p. 113CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Kuo, Warren, Analytical History, Vol. II, p. 601Google Scholar; Hsiao-ch'ien, Ts'ai, in Chung-kung yen-chiu, Vol. III, No. 10, p. 81.Google Scholar

59. See The China Quarterly, No. 42 (04–06 1970), pp. 132–133.Google Scholar

60. Kuo-t'ao, Chang, “Wo ti hui-i” (“My Memoirs”), in Ming pao (yüeh-k'an) (Hong Kong), No. 48 (12 1969), p. 85.Google Scholar

61. See Kuo, Warren, in Issues & Studies, Vol. IV, No. 4, p. 47.Google Scholar

62. See Ch'en, Jerome, in The China Quarterly, No. 40 (07–12 1969), p. 1.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

63. Communication from Otto Braun to the author.

64. See Kuo, Warren, in Issues & Studies, Vol. IV, No. 4, p. 47.Google Scholar

65. Snow, , Roter Stern, p. 238.Google Scholar

66. Hu, Chi-hsi, in The China Quarterly, No. 43 (07–09 1970), pp. 42–43.Google Scholar

67. Snow, , Roter Stern, p. 238.Google Scholar

68. Communication from Otto Braun to the author.