Sun Yat-sen University in Moscow and the Chinese Revolution - KU ...

students and the entire petty bourgeoisie" mentioned in article sixteen ?
Any action of a student might be included under this vague term since
no examples or concrete explanations were offered. Articles seventeen
and twenty-six were to insure conformity in the student body and to
insure that all the students would supervise each other. Everyone supervised
the actions of his comrades and was in turn supervised by all the
other students. Many showed eagerness in reporting others so that they
might put themselves on good terms with the authorities. In this way
an atmosphere of everybody for himself was created. Under this rule of
terror even the few silent students who minded their own business
found it difficult to keep out of trouble. By means of article eighteen
even those individuals who remained silent might be stigmatized for
"conceiving treachery within themselves." This article denied even the
right to silence. Under the above articles one might, on the one hand,
get into trouble by making one petty remark, while on the other hand,
anyone with a mouth was forced to open it and utter something, even
though he had no desire to speak.
As one can see from the above articles, A Concrete Guide to the
Wor\ of Training was carefully conceived and precisely phrased in
order to guarantee complete authoritarian control by the leaders of the
Moscow branch of the CCP. However, in spite of these dictatorial
rules, the Moscow branch at Sun Yat-sen University and its leaders did
not endure. The Communist students at the university finally reached
the limit of their tolerance and revolted. They held a series of meetings
in which the policies of Jen and the Moscow branch were denounced.
These meetings alerted the Russian administrators to the severe damage
done by the Moscow branch of the CCP.
These meetings were held on four consecutive days in the summer
of 1926, and Karl Radek attended every one of them. The issues apparently
were dramatized for him for the first time at these meetings, and
at the last one he delivered a four-hour speech which condemned the
orientation and activities of the leaders of the Moscow branch. He concluded
his speech by proclaiming the dissolution of the Moscow branch.
All CCP members at the university attended this meeting, about which
a classmate of mine later recalled:
Although Radek's proposal was not brought up for an official vote, yet it was
still considered as adopted without opposition. Thereafter, the Communist stu-
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