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

work had to be done. All documents of the congress were prepared both
in Chinese and Russian. Some of these documents had to be translated
before the congress convened, others had to be translated on the spot,
and many documents had to be revised.
As mentioned above, the delegates were not unanimous in their
assessments of the situation in China or in their ideas about who the
Party leaders should be. Heated debates took place on a number of
issues. Yet disparate as their views were, they were eventually unified
under Bukharin's leadership, or so it appeared on the surface. As
Ch'ing Man-yun recalled, Bukharin made a nine-hour speech at the
congress. In it he discussed at length the international situation, current
conditions in China, and the mistakes committed by the CCP. He
singled out Ch'en Tu-hsiu as the main target for criticism and blamed
him for the failures of the Chinese revolution. He also criticized the
"putschism" of Ch'u Ch'iu-pai after the August 7, 1927, Party conference.
It was in this speech that he made his famous remark that
"armed revolt is a refined art. It is neither as simple nor as easy as
lighting a match." Many other CCP leaders were not immune from
Bukharin's fire. 22
After nearly four weeks (the congress lasted twenty-four days) of
debates and discussions, the congress passed a number of resolutions
and elected a new CC. For the first time in the history of the CCP a
proletarian leadership was established—Ch'u Ch'iu-pai was replaced
as secretary general of the Party by Hsiang Chung-fa, who had risen
from the ranks of the workers. But this Comintern insistence upon
proletarian leadership, based on the dogmatic commitment that the
working class was superior in revolutionary spirit and determination
to any other class, turned out to be yet another of its mistakes in dealing
with the CCP. Hsiang Chung-fa ascended the throne solely because
of his working-class origin. In deciding to turn the helm of a ship that
was sailing in turbulent waters over to a person who had never experienced
a voyage at sea, but who had only plied the Yangtze on
river boats, the congress, under Comintern pressure, truly took a reckless
chance. It was this decision that permitted Li Li-san to wrest the
real power from Hsiang's incompetent leadership and to sail off along
the disastrous Li Li-san line.
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