The Long March. Sun Shuyun

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СКАЧАТЬ the way back to Ruijin, I thought a lot about Soldier Huang and what he had said. He spoke plainly, simply and honestly, with no self-glorification and no apology. He was too much the peasant through and through, open about his weaknesses, wavering and doubts, quite impervious to the propaganda that has permeated our lives. He came across as a real person, unlike all the characters in the Long March books, who are perfect, but less believable. After all, Huang was only 14 when he started out, just a boy. In that deadly first battle, in the test of fire and blood at such a young age, he did not cry out for his mother and father, he did not run away. He held on to his gun, and did so to the very end of the Long March. Whatever fears and doubts he might have had, they were only natural. He was human after all, and a fighter.

      What I did not understand was, if Huang could see it was pointless for him and his comrades to be stuck in the trenches, how could the commanders of the Red Army have failed to recognize this? Why did they insist on trench warfare instead of Mao's proven guerrilla tactics? Did it not occur to them to adopt another strategy, or was Braun, the Red Army's Comintern adviser, simply too dogmatic, regardless of the situation on the ground?

      I was glad I had someone to ask these questions. I met up with another Huang, a young academic who had been examining the Red Army in Jiangxi. I had read his published articles on the Fifth Campaign and was impressed. As a distinguished Chinese historian said, far too many of his colleagues had made the study of history more like propaganda than academic research. Their task for the past fifty years has been to praise the glorious achievements of the Party, eulogize Mao, and write the history of the Communist Party from his works. They have not always been like that – but sometimes they were not appreciated, and some were suppressed or tortured. After a while, they became so cautious they lost their independence of mind. Now things are changing slowly and a young generation of historians has broken away from the old restraints and is studying history as it should be – and Huang is one of them. He was in Ruijin for field research. I told him about Soldier Huang and he told me it was merely a coincidence they were both Huangs. ‘In Jiangxi, there are many Huang families. Perhaps he and I had one ancestor 500 years ago.’

      We decided to have a quick bowl of noodles and then go to Shazhou Village over the lunch hour. It was just outside Ruijin and was the seat of the Party and Headquarters of the Red Army immediately before the Long March. Set in a lush landscape of green hills and ancient trees, it looked timeless except for a couple of souvenir shops selling Red Music, portraits of Mao, Mao stamps, three dozen books on Mao's talents in military affairs, poetry, leadership, interpersonal relations and calligraphy, and a DVD about his life; there were also beautiful girls in Red Army uniforms offering their services as guides.

      In the centre of the village stood the imposing old clan shrine, and next to it was a long row of what had once been the lofty mansions of rich clan members. The placards outside announced their erstwhile occupants: the Politbureau, the National Executive Committee, various government departments, and the residences of all the senior leaders, including Mao's at the head of the village, sheltered by a huge camphor tree.

      The village was crammed with people, like a country fair. Ruijin has always been regarded as the holy place of the Chinese Revolution. Lately, Party officials have got into the habit of combining tourism with visiting revolutionary sites. Ruijin was a popular choice: to see where the Long March started, to sit under the tree where the senior leaders had debated issues of life and death, to bathe in the eulogies of the masses for the Party, at least in revolutionary songs – the good fortune of so many historical figures of the Chinese Communist Party might rub off on the visitors, whose goal was to climb higher within the Party themselves.

      With a group of officials from Beijing, Young Huang and I squeezed into Mao's bedroom, bare and basic, with a bed and a mosquito net, a desk and a chair. Over the desk was a photo of Mao, which the guide said was the only picture of him taken in Ruijin, something I found hard to believe. Mao was gaunt, slightly blank and expressionless. ‘What do you notice?’ the guide asked. ‘It does not look like Mao,’ a plump man replied. ‘Why not?’ ‘I'm not sure, perhaps he does not look his usual confident self.’ ‘You are right,’ she smiled condescendingly. ‘You are very observant. May you go high in your position.’ The man beamed, and the guide continued, ‘When he was in Ruijin, he was out of favour. They had pushed Mao aside and allowed the young and arrogant German called Otto Braun to command the Red Army. Braun was blessed by the Comintern, so he had supreme power; but he was hopeless. That was why the Red Army failed in the Fifth Campaign and had to leave Jiangxi.’

      Braun was not popular with the Chinese. A true Bavarian with deep blue eyes and an air of solemnity, he did not speak a word of Chinese, and had little knowledge of China. He drank coffee, not tea; he ate bread rather than rice, even though he had to make it himself; he preferred sausages to stir-fries. However, he did have military experience. He fought in World War I, and then joined the German Communist Party. Arrested and imprisoned in 1920, he escaped to the Soviet Union eight years later and studied at the Frunze Military Academy in Moscow. But he angered Mao by dismissing his ideas at their first meeting. How could this ignorant, despotic barbarian tell him how to lead his people? Mao was furious. They disagreed on just about everything, except for their love of nicotine and women. It was not just Mao who was unhappy. Liu Buocheng, the Chief of Staff, was also trained in the Frunze Academy, and was a much more experienced commander. He irritated his young boss when he dared to disagree. ‘You seem to be no better than an ordinary staff officer,’ Braun told him. ‘You wasted your time in the Soviet Union.’¹¹

      However, the Chinese treated Braun with reverence; they even called him Tai Shanghung, ‘the supreme emperor’. After all, he was Stalin's envoy, and Moscow's support was paramount for the Chinese Communists – ideologically, politically, financially and militarily. Zhou Enlai, the powerful mandarin of the Communist Party, faced the delicate task of finding a woman robust enough to please Braun. In the end, he came up with a peasant girl, who obliged because she was told it was her ‘revolutionary duty’. So sitting in the house specially built for him, nicknamed the Lone House, with the help of a translator and two packs of cigarettes a day specially brought in from the Nationalist-controlled areas, Braun read the telegrams from the field, and then drew up battle plans for the Red Army. His master plan combined defence and attack: trenches arranged as bulwarks against the blockhouses, and troop detachments behind and on the wings to engage the enemy in ‘short, sharp blows’.

      I was curious to know what happened to Braun's Lone House. The guide told me it was torn down long ago. ‘It was not worth keeping, the trouble he brought us. Had he not come, had Mao been in control, the Red Army would not have had to go on the Long March!’ she said in annoyance. Then she took the crowd to another holy spot, the well which Mao helped the villagers to dig, a story we all know from our primary school textbooks. They all wanted to pay their respects, to drink the water, and be as lucky as Mao.

      Watching the crowd disperse, Young Huang had a look of disdain on his face. ‘How can they be so irresponsible and ignorant?’ he said angrily. ‘All this superstitious crap. This is the 21st century! And all the blame on Braun. It wasn't his fault really, although he did make a lot of mistakes. He was only 34. He must have thought he was another Napoleon. He gave orders and expected to be obeyed. He even told them where to put the cannons, using maps that weren't any good, and he lost his temper when they corrected him. But as things stood, there was little he could have done to turn the tide. He was not to blame for the Red Army's failures. He did not insist on trench warfare as people are always told, but guerrilla tactics and mobile attacks couldn't work any more. We were trapped, like flies in a spider's web.’

      ‘The Red Army was stuck in the trenches for a long time.’ I told him Soldier Huang's story. I had questioned him in detail about his experiences in the trenches. The story I knew was that the Red Army won the first four campaigns because of Mao and his guidance, and lost the fifth because of Braun and had to go on the Long March. It seemed logical, and it had gone virtually unchallenged. I accepted it. It occurred СКАЧАТЬ