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

the main blame falling on Ch'en Shao-yu. There is evidence in all this
of the deep-rooted dispute between the CCP under Mao Tse-tung and
the CPSU. The remarkable independence of Mao Tse-tung as evidenced
in the build-up of his power in the CCP has long been a worry
to the Russian Communists, dating from as early as 1931. It often occurs
to me to wonder whether relations between China and Russia would be
as they are today if Ch'en Shao-yu or some other prominent members
of the 28 Bolsheviks were still in power in Communist China.
In any event, the struggle between Mao and the remnants of the 28
Bolsheviks was not laid to rest in 1945 when Mao formally proclaimed
their past waywardness and his own correctness. Ch'en remained on
the Politburo. At the Eighth CCP Congress in 1956, however, Ch'en
Shao-yu and his supporters were again castigated as Right opportunists,
and this time indications are that Ch'en was utterly defeated. After
the Eighth Congress, he vanished from the Politburo, holding only
the lowest position on the CC.
Yet while Mao's differences with the remnants of the 28 Bolsheviks
were set to rest by the time of the Eighth CCP Congress, they, and
others who had studied in the USSR, apparently continued to be something
of a thorn in his flesh, for they came under attack during the
Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution and during the prelude to it.
On these latter occasions, however, there was a noticeable difference
in the way Mao treated them as compared to his treatment of them
in earlier battles. This time, there seems to have been no need to keep
any of them in even nominal positions of importance. Chang Went'ien,
Ch'en Shao-yu, Wang Chia-hsiang, Yang Shang-K'uen, Ch'en
Ch'ang-hao, and Chang Ch'in-ch'iu, who married Ch'en Ch'ang-hao
after Shen Tse-min's death, were the last of the 28 Bolsheviks left in
mainland China in the mid 1960s. Some of them, such as Ch'en
Ch'ang-hao, had lived politically secluded lives for years. But all of
them have reportedly lost whatever official positions they had. One is
tempted to speculate that Mao no longer feels the need to make even
a gesture of approval to Chinese Communists who have been identified
with Russian Communist policies. Indeed, indications are that the
Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution seeks, among other things, to
thoroughly discredit all such Party members.
Thus, it is not just the tag end of the 28 Bolsheviks whom Mao has
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