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

eceived from Jui-chin. 14 Upon receiving these messages from Jui-chin,
List invariably wrote out a reply on the spot, which we then transmitted
to Jui-chin using the Shanghai bureau's underground transmitter.
In the summer of 1933, the Shanghai bureau of the CC received
orders from the Comintern, assigning this young German military
representative to Jui-chin, where he could make his advice available
on the spot and thus avoid the misunderstandings and misjudgments
inherent in being in Shanghai, remote from the battles. The Shanghai
bureau promptly arranged a safe route for him. Its department which
handled the network of underground communications beyond Shanghai
supplied escorts who saw to it that List got safely to Jui-chin. In
Shanghai he had known Ch'in Pang-hsien and other members of the
CC; and when he arrived at Jui-chin, he worked with the CC. When
the controversy between Ch'in and Mao occurred, he stood on Ch'in's
side in opposition to Mao. But Mao had the stubborn temperament
characteristic of the Hunanese, and he would not bow to Ch'in and
his supporters. So Ch'in Pang-hsien, confident of Comintern support,
sent a message to the Comintern in his capacity as secretary general of
the CC, in which he outlined the main points of the controversy. This
message to the Comintern was sent to the Shanghai bureau, and we
transmitted it to the Comintern on the bureau's underground radio.
After reading the text of the message and before it was transmitted
to Moscow, another colleague and I in the Shanghai bureau discussed
it with a newly arrived Russian who was the senior military representative
in China from the Comintern. This senior military representative
had been a brigade commander during the civil war that followed the
October Revolution in Russia and had had practical experience in
guerrilla warfare. He was a very learned man in the field of military
affairs. At our meeting we handed him a copy of Ch'in's message and
asked him to express his personal opinion of it. He said that it was
unwise for the German military representative in Jui-chin to involve
himself in the controversy by standing on Ch'in Pang-hsien's side, for
his position should be strictly objective and his work should reconcile
the diverse opinions of both sides. He thought that Mao Tse-tung's
views on military affairs should be respected on account of Mao's
military experience and his encyclopedic knowledge of the geography
of the area, and that political issues should not be allowed to interfere
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